Site: zorpia From: Brinda Date: Dec 04, 2016 Here is my email (brindkhalil@hotmail.com) am Brinda by name, contact me with my email (brindkhalil@hotmail.com) so that i can send my photo also tell you about myself. From: Brinda Khalil Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2016 12:40:22 +0000 Subject: Here is about myself also with my photo Hello Dearest, Thanks very much for your response to my mail. How is everything going over there? Hopefully you are doing well today. as I told you in my mail, my name is Brinda Khalil. a 23 year old girl. I'm (from Sudan in Africa) But presently residing in a living church missionary in Senegal as a result of civil war that was fought in my country four years ago. I'm average in size about 5.7 ft tall and 57 kg weight. I'm very beautiful and like challenges. My picture is attached for you to see me My father's name was late Dr. Zakchariah Khalil, and my mother's name was late Mrs Flora Khalil. I had only one brother who is late also his name was Kingsley. He died the same day my parents died in the incidence of war. My late father was the personal assistant to then vice president of Sudan john Ga-rang (DENG Z INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY COMPANY PLC), in south Sudan.), my country which was destroyed during the war. When my parents died together with our only son, I managed to find my way to the coast of Africa (Senegal) through the red-cross rescue ship but it was not easy for me. Presently, I live in a missionary here to get sustained for my dear life. here is too tough and hard on me and I'm planning to seek for a better future. Listen carefully, before the death of my late father, he deposited some amount of money in some banks in my name as the next of kin/inheritance. the amount in question is ($m5.750 Million US Dollars). that is in the bank, which I'm planning to claim. This is the more reason why I contacted you to seek your assistance. But before we continue I would like you to prove to me that you are a reliable person in whom I can place my confidence on and entrust my inheritance to, really I don't know you in person but hope so much that we will discover ourselves as we go on. If you are a trustworthy person, then, I would like you to help me transfer the money to your personal account, pending my arrival to meet with you and plan together how to invest the money in any business you know that will be nice for us. Then, when the money is transferred to you, you shall send me some money from it to enable me clear myself from this camp and prepare my travel to meet you. You shall take 20% of the money for your kind assistance Important note; please do not disclose this my plan with you to any other person (it is my secret. I don't want to lose this money to wicked people. here is to hard and there is hunger too. we only feed once a day unless one receives a personal help from else where The only person who shows concerns is Reverend pastor Joshua dawba , the reverend minister in charge of the missionary, Here in the missionary. I use his computer to communicate you. And in case you would like to hear my voice you call me with his telephone. The number is +221770750840 if you call tell him that you want to speak with me Brinda Khalil and he will send for me to come and answer your call or you ask him the right time to speak with me because I'm not living with him, I'm living in the female hostel. Please send me your full contact details. 1 Your name ............................. 2 Your phone number.......................... 3 Your country ...................... 4 Your age............. so that i can use it to write a letter of nomination to the bank so that when you contact the bank, they will know of a truth that you are coming on my behalf God bless you Best Regard Ms. Yours Brinda Khalil From: Brinda Khalil Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2016 09:15:05 +0000 Subject: PLEASE CONTACT THE BANK FOR THE TRANSFER Hello Dear I thank you ones again for reaching me. I hope you are keeping fine today, as for me, i am looking fine over here. I appreciate your acceptance to assist me to my request as regards to the money and this has made me to informed the bank in a mail about you, i introduced you to them .I see you as a very nice person whom i can lean upon for love and support for life; I see you as very responsible, competent and mature enough to assist me to direct my life to a positive direction in life. Please i have not told anyone except you about the existence of this money and i will like you to please keep it secret to other people because since it is (money), i feel all interest will be on it. Remember i trust you honey that is why i am giving you all this information!. I have informed the bank about my plans to take and transfer this money and the only thing they told me is to bring a foreign partner , who will stand on my behalf as a trustee to this money due to my refugee status and the laws of this country. I have to use this chance to let you know about it, i would like to use this chance get you introduced to the bank as my partner and the person who will be standing on my behalf as regards to this money.In this regards i will like you to contact the bank immediately with their contact information below; please tell them that you are my foreign partner and you want to know the possibilities of assisting me transfer my (5.750 million USA dollars) Five million seven hundred and fifty thousand USA dollars) deposited by my late father of which i am the next of kin/beneficiary, to your account in your country. Here is the bank contact, Below is the information: THE ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND INTERNATIONAL The name of the transfer officer, Mr. Ross McEwan Telephone: +447966274007 Email (inforoyalbanksct@scotlandmail.com) Or info.royalbank@yahoo.co.uk) Information about the deposit code are as follows. Name of depositor:.... Dr. Zachary Khalil Nationality:.......... Sudan Next of kin :......... Miss. Brinda Khalil Amount deposited:.....$m5.750 Account no. RBS745008901546/QB/91/A Based on this information i will like you to send this mail direct to the bank Sir/Madam, I, Mr.-----------,a permanent resident of ----------- wants to put forth the following few lines for your kind favor and quick necessary action at your end, that Miss Brinda Khalil, daughter of Late Dr. Zachary Khalil, now living in Dakar Senegal is in a refugee status, I am her foreign partner and i stand on her behalf as her trustee, she is the only next of kin to her late father who has an account in your bank where he had deposited some amount of money for her beloved daughter, I want to know the possibilities of assisting her to transfer the deposited amount of her late father of which she is the next kin to my account in my country, after receiving a reply from you, I will be able to know the procedure and probability of transfer of the amount from your bank to my account. Expecting an early reply, with regards, Yours faithfully, Please try and contact them now for confirmation and as well on how possible to transfer the 5.750 million U.S dollars) to you. I will be waiting to hear from you soonest. Yours Brinda Khalil. From: "Royal Bank of Scotland" Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2016 09:45:46 +0100 Cc: brindkhalil@hotmail.com Subject: ACKNOWLEDGMENT/PROCEDURE ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND HQ INST ANDREW'S SQUARE,EDINBURGH Tel: +447966274007 Date: 16-01-2016 ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND. (R.B.S) For your attention, Sir, I am the chairman of Overseas Operation/Wire Transfer wishes to write you. Miss BRINDA KHALIL informed that she wishes you to be her trustee/representative for the claim of her late father's deposit money with our bank. Late DR. ZACHARY KHALIL the owner of (Halil industrial technology plc) deposited (US$m5.750) with account no. RBS745008901546/QB/91/A Hence you have been really appointed as a trustee to represent the next of Kin. How ever before our bank will transact any business concerning the transfer of the fund with you, we will like you to send the followings: 1. A power of attorney and affidavit of oath permitting you to claim and transfer the funds to your bank account on her behalf. This document must be endorsed by a Senegalese resident lawyer which she can help you to get one. 2. The death certificate of late DR. ZACHARY KHALIL (Her deceased father) confirmation of the death. 3. A copy of statement of account of the account issued to DR. ZACHARY KHALIL by our bank. Note that the above are compulsory, and are needed to protect our interest,yours, the next of kin after the claims. These shall also ensure that a smooth, quick and successful transfer of the fund is made. We promise to give our customers the best of our services. Should you have any question(s), please contact foreign transfer officer Mr. Ross McEwan Tel: +447966274007 for more directives/ clarifications. Yours Faithfully CEO, Mr. Ross McEwan From: Brinda Khalil Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2016 15:40:47 +0000 Subject: PLEASE CONTACT THIS LAWYER FOR THE DOCUMENTS Hello, How are you today? I believe you are doing well. God will bless and reward you for every effort you are making to see me out from this horrible situation i found myself today. As for me i am fine here with all hopes that you will assist me to transfer my money to your position for a better life with you. I am suffering here in this prison called orphanage camp and i believe with you i can start a new life in your country after the transfer of my money to your account. I can see what the bank is demanding before they will transfer my money to your position. The only problem we have now is the Power of Attorney and affidavit of oath which the bank said that it will be issued by a lawyer here in Senegal for me to sign my signature on it. After reading the mail from bank, i discussed it with Rev Joshua Dawba and he gave me the contact of this lawyer, Barrister Edward Solomon. He is one of the lawyers working with the united nations here in Dakar Senegal, I want you to contact him on both phone and email telling him that you are my foreign partner that you need his services to prepare a power of attorney that will enable you transfer my 5.750 million dollars from Royal Bank Of Scotland to your account on my behalf due to my refugee status. Presently i have my Late Father Death Certificate and statement of account with me here which i will give to the lawyer when you contact him. His contact information is as follow; Bar. Dr. Edward Solomon (Esq). E-mail address; ( barristeredwardsolomon@yahoo.fr ) Office telephone no. +221703041230 God bless you as you contact him immediately. Yours Brinda Khalil Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2016 09:25:54 +0000 (UTC) From: Barrister Edward Solomon Subject: LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE. LEGAL PRACTITIONER & ATTORNEYS OF SUPREME COURT OF JUSTICE.EDWARD SOLOMON CHAMBERS AND ASSOCIATES. ADDRESS; 511 AVENUE JEAN JAURES DAKAR, SN Telephone: +22170304123 ATTENTION MR: JON, SEQUEL TO YOUR EMAIL ON HOW TO PREPARE A POWER OF ATTORNEY FOR YOU AND YOUR PARTNER MISS BRINDA KHALIL TO ENABLE YOU STAND ON HER BEHALF TO TRANSFER HER LATE FATHERS FUND FROM ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND TO YOUR ACCOUNT. I WISH TO INFORM YOU THAT AFTER DUE CONFIRMATION FROM THE BANK OF THE TRUE EXISTENCE OF THE MONEY ITS LEGACY AND INQUIRES ABOUT THE COMPLETION OF THE TRANSFER PROCESS,THAT I HEREBY ACCEPT TO HANDLE THE CASE. I UNDERSTAND FROM THE TRANSFER DIRECTOR OF THE BANK THAT THE ACTUAL CREDIT BALANCE AT THE MOMENT IS $5.75O MILLION U.S DOLLARS AND YOU HAVE BEEN NOMINATED BY THE NEXT OF KIN TO BE HER FOREIGN TRUSTEE, THAT AS SOON AS THEY RECEIVE ALL THE NECESSARY DOCUMENTS THEY WILL COMMENCE THE TRANSFER TO YOUR NOMINATED ACCOUNT IN YOUR COUNTRY. AS SOON ALL THE DOCUMENTS ARE READY I AM GOING TO SEND TO YOU A SCAN COPIES OF THE DOCUMENTS WHILE THE ORIGINAL WILL BE SENT THROUGH DHL COURIER SERVICE TO SCOTLAND DUE TO ITS IMPORTANCE. PRIOR TO MY INQUIRIES FROM THE FEDERAL HIGH COURT HERE IN DAKAR SENEGAL TODAY CONCERNING THE POWER OF ATTORNEY AND AFFIDAVIT OF OATH WHICH WILL ENABLE ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND DEAL WITH YOU ON BEHALF OF YOUR PARTNER. FROM MY INQUIRIES IT WILL COST THE SUM OF 340 U.S DOLLARS FOR AUTHENTICATION OF THE POWER OF ATTORNEY AT THE HIGH COURT BEFORE IT BECOMES VALID AND 160 U.S DOLLARS FOR THE NOTARY STAMPING, ALSO A POVERTY ALLEVIATION LEVY IMPOSED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THIS COUNTRY IN THE CATEGORY OF SUCH FUND INCOME IS 380U.S DOLLARS AND MY CONSULTATION FEE IS 300 U.S DOLLARS. THE TOTAL MONEY IS 1180 U.S DOLLARS. TO SPEEDY THE PROCESS YOU ARE TO SEND 1180 U.S DOLLARS THROUGH WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER OR MONEY GRAM TRANSFER WITH THE NAME OF MY SECRETARY MR.MICHEAL BARRY. TO ENABLE ME SECURE A VALIDATE POWER OF ATTORNEY AND AFFIDAVIT OF OATH FOR YOU AND YOUR PARTNER. ALSO MAIL TO ME THE NECESSARY INFORMATION FOR COLLECTION IMMEDIATELY IN THIS ORDER; RECEIVER; MR. MICHEAL BARRY Address; 511 Avenue Jean Jaures Dakar,SENEGAL QUESTION;... ANSWER;..... AMOUNT;..... I ANTICIPATE YOUR PROMPT RESPONSE. YOURS IN SERVICE. BAR. (DR) EDWARD SOLOMON (ESQ). Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2016 20:17:05 +0000 Subject: I HAVE GOOD NEWS FOR YOU Hello Dear, How are you, hope your are good. You might think that i have forgotten you. Though, it is indeed, quite some time. On my singular, I am much delighted and privileged to contact you again, after couple of months now. It takes fate, courage and God's fearing to remember old friends and at the same time, to show gratification to them, despite circumstances that made things, not worked out as we projected then. I take this liberty to inform you that, the transaction we were pursing together, finally worked out by God's infinite mercy and I decided to contact you, just to let you know. I have conscience as a human being, due to your tremendous contribution to make things work out in retrospect. Meanwhile, I must inform you that, I am presently in an Paraguay with my new husband who helped me achieve this goal for numerous business negotiations and establishment. I just arrived yesterday night and checked inn, in a hotel and decided to go down to the hotel business center to mail you Now, with my sincere heart, I have raised and signed an International Cashier's Bank Draft, to the tune of $150,000.00 u.s Dollars (ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND U.S DOLLARS) only in your name as COMPENSATION to your dedication, humanity and contribution, as it were.Please, contact NOW, I left the draft with the Rev father in the refugee camp his contact information are as follows. Rev Father Joshua Dawba. Name Rev Father Joshua Dawba.. E-mail: (joshuadwba@hotmail.com) Telephone number : +221773430582 You are to forward to him, the following: 1. YOUR FULL NAME & ADDRESS WHERE HE WILL SEND THE CHEQUE TO 2. YOUR TELEPHONE NUMBER AND ALSO YOUR PASSPORT OR YOUR ID CARD He, will advise you further about the shipment of the ICBD to your Residence Address or Office Address you may provided. Feel free to reach him via this very mail address and telephone immediately So, your early response to that effect, shall be admired. You have to mind the days on route shipment. please it will be NICE you call him on his above telephone number today and also send mail directly to his email address as stated E-mail: ( joshuadwba@hotmail.com ) do not fail, it is necessary/important. please accept this with your whole heart as i will communicate with you anytime, now i am very busy trying to invest my money Sincerely Yours, Brinda Khalil. If you received a similar letter, please ignore it. Do not answer it. If you do, you will end up on more of the mailing lists used by the criminals behind this fraud. Read more.... , . The 'Aedes aegypti' mosquito, which transmits the Zika virus. Rafael Neddermeyer (Fotos Publicas) 1. What is the Zika virus? It is a virus similar to dengue and yellow fever that was first discovered in Ugandas Zika forest in 1947 among monkeys who were being controlled and monitored for yellow fever. It remained relatively unknown until 2007 when an outbreak took place on Yap and other islands that make up the Federated States of Micronesia in the Pacific that affected 8,187 people. Between October 2013 and February 2014, a new outbreak occurred in French Polynesia where 8,264 cases were reported. 2. How is it transmitted? The Zika virus is usually spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which also carries dengue fever. But there have been cases that have shown that it can also spread through sexual transmission, from mother-to-baby in the womb, and through blood. The virus cannot be transmitted via breast feeding. In Brazil, 3,530 cases of microcephaly related to the Zika virus were registered between October 2015 and the beginning of this year 3. What are the main symptoms and signs of the disease? Most people infected do not develop any clinical signs, but when they do, the most common are fever, rash, pain in the joints and muscles, conjunctivitis (red eyes) and headaches. Less frequently, symptoms can also include swelling, sore throat, coughing, vomiting, and blood in the semen. In general, the symptoms usually go away on their own in three to seven days. However, joint pain can last for up to a month. 4. Is there any treatment for the Zika virus? There is no known treatment but the symptoms can be controlled by taking paracetamol or dipyrone to manage the fever and aches. Antihistamines can also be used to control rashes. Medical experts warn against taking any medications that contain acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) or other anti-inflammatories because they increase the risk of complications from hemorrhaging. 5. What is the link between the Zika virus and microcephaly? The Brazilian Health Ministry confirmed the connection when, at the end of November, authorities saw a rise in microcephaly in some states where there had also been an increase in the number of Zika virus cases. The conclusion was reached after a study showed the presence of the virus in blood samples taken from a baby who was born with microcephaly and later died. It is not yet known how the virus reacts in humans or how it sets off microcephaly, but researchers are conducting more studies. Experts recommend using repellents and installing mosquito netting over doors and windows to avoid being bitten In Brazil, 3,530 cases of microcephaly related to the Zika virus were registered between October 2015 and the beginning of this year. Authorities are also investigating the deaths of 46 newborns with microcephaly and their possible links to the Zika virus. The United States recently registered its first microcephaly case linked to the virus in Hawaii. According to The New York Times, the mother of the baby had traveled to Brazil last May. 6. What are the recommendations for pregnant women? The USs Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended that pregnant women put off traveling to 14 nations and territories in Latin America, including Brazil, Colombia and Puerto Rico. In Brazil, health authorities recommend that pregnant women protect themselves from insect bites by avoiding going out at certain hours of the day, covering themselves, and using repellents. 7. Is there a vaccine? There is no vaccine against the Zika virus. 8. How can it be prevented? At the moment, the Aedes aegypti mosquito is the main suspect responsible for causing the virus. The key is to stop standing water from accumulating in places such as tires, plant pots or any open containers were the mosquitoes might breed. The Aedes aegypti also transmits the dengue fever and chikungunya viruses. Experts recommend using repellents and installing mosquito netting over doors and windows to avoid being bitten. 9. What countries have been most affected by the Zika virus? According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Zika virus was only reported last year in nine countries in the Western Hemisphere: Brazil, Chile (including Easter Island), Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Surinam and Venezuela. US authorities have also reported cases of the Zika virus. 10. Has the Zika virus caused any deaths? Brazil has confirmed three deaths that are possibly related to the Zika virus. The victims were a newborn, a man who suffered from lupus, and a 16-year-old girl. English version by Martin Delfin. Why getting sued could be the best thing to happen to New Orleans' public defenders You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close Alfonso Rus, former head of the Valencian provincial authority, is one of the main suspects in the case. Juan Carlos Cardenas (EFE) More information Major political corruption raid in Valencia nets 24 arrests Two days after 24 people were arrested in an anti-corruption sweep in the Valencia region, the judge in charge of the probe has placed the entire Popular Party (PP) in the area under investigation on suspicion of illegal party financing and money laundering. Sources familiar with the case said that the attorneys office has evidence suggesting irregular activities at the local, provincial and regional levels of the PP over the course of several years. A total of 29 people with ties to the PP are under scrutiny in connection with kickbacks allegedly paid by companies in exchange for government contracts. Would-be contractors paid out 3% of the contract amount to politicians and officials in a position to make decisions. A former provincial official won 12 million in the 2011 Christmas lottery and tried to conceal the winnings Investigators are also looking at firms that provided services to the Valencian PP, including transportation companies that took party members to the Valencia bullring for PP rallies. Anti-corruption prosecutors have uncovered suspicious increases in the personal wealth of regional party officials, including Juan Jose Medina, who managed several PP election campaigns in the Valencia province and soon thereafter purchased a Jaguar and a detached home. Medina, one of the 24 people who were arrested on Tuesday, works in advertising. Witness depositions have also led investigators to probe allegations that PP officials bought thousands of euros worth of lottery tickets. Enrique Crespo, a former deputy chief of the Diputacion de Valencia, the provincial authority, won 12 million in the 2011 Christmas lottery and tried to conceal the winnings, according to a judge investigating a separate corruption case. Investigators think that this massive purchase of lottery tickets was a way to launder money from the kickbacks. English version by Susana Urra. Community Its now easier than ever to connect and chat with others in your local area. You can connect with your community by asking general questions, give area updates and recommendations and even let your community know about local events that are taking place. Donald Trump during a campaign stop in South Carolina. Sean Rayford (AFP) More information Trump arremete de nuevo contra Mexico Donald Trump has lashed out once again against Mexico with a new video posted on YouTube in which the Republican US presidential frontrunner included the United States southern neighbor on a list of countries that are ripping us off. In his video, Trump reminds supporters that, because he is financing his own campaign, he will be able to bring in the best people to the White House who are not influenced by outside interests. We are not going to be patsies; we have been patsies to the world for too long We will have the greatest negotiators in the world negotiating against China, Japan, Mexico, Vietnam and all of the many countries that are ripping us off, Trump says in his 51-second video. We are going to bring our jobs back, we are going to bring our manufacturing back. We are not going to be patsies; we have been patsies to the world for too long, Trump states. As the Iowa primary caucus approaches, the Trump campaign have been hitting hard on sensitive issues such as illegal immigration, the legal use of firearms, and jihadist terrorism. Donald Trumps new campaign video. This is not the first time that Trump has attacked Mexico. When he announced his candidacy last June, the billionaire Republican contender promised to build a wall along the US-Mexican border to keep drug traffickers and rapists from crossing over. He pledged that he would force Mexico to pay for the construction of the wall. English version by Martin Delfin. Glencore OK'd to exceed nickel emissions temporarily Ontario's Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change recently granted Glencore a site-specific standard for its nickel emissions in Sudbury, buying the mining company more time to meet stricter emissions standards. Ontario's Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change recently granted Glencore a site-specific standard for its nickel emissions in Sudbury, buying the mining company more time to meet stricter emissions standards. File photo. Ontario's Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change recently granted Glencore a site-specific standard for its nickel emissions in Sudbury, buying the mining company more time to meet stricter emissions standards. Glencore's Sudbury smelter site currently meets the provincial standards of 0.15 micrograms per cubic metre, over an annual averaging period, for nickel and nickel compound emissions. One microgram represents one millionth of a gram. But the province's new air quality standards, under Ontario Regulation 419/05, takes effect July 1 and will add stricter limits for nickel and nickel compound emissions. Like many other industrial polluters, Glencore applied for a site-specific exemption, so it could upgrade its facilities to meet the higher emissions standards. Following an in-depth technical review, the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change approved Glencores request for a site-specific standard for nickel and nickel compounds at their Sudbury Smelter, said Ministry of the Environment spokesperson Lindsay Davidson, in an email to NorthernLife.ca. Glencore has already made significant investments in state-of-the art technology and will continue investing in its facility in order to reduce air emissions. In June 2014, when Glencore held a mandated open-house event to inform the public about its plans to reduce emissions, the company said it planned to spend up to $400 million to make modifications to its Falconbridge smelter so it can meet new provincial standards for its nickel emissions. Chad Pearson, an environmental manager with Glencore's Sudbury Operations, said at the time that the company would need time to make necessary upgrades to its facilities. Some of this technology just isn't out yet, he said. So we're actually having to develop some of this in house. Glencore has since told the Ministry of the Environment it expects to complete its capital projects to reduce nickel emissions by the end of 2022. The company's new site-specific standard is to reduce its nickel emissions to 0.066 micrograms per cubic metre from Jan. 1, 2023 to June 30, 2026 10 years after the stricter regulations will have come into effect. Getting children to be more active is the focus of a new multi-million initiative of the Ontario government and Greater Sudbury is one of 45 communities getting a cut of that cash. Getting children to be more active is the focus of a new multi-million initiative of the Ontario government and Greater Sudbury is one of 45 communities getting a cut of that cash.The city is one of 45 Ontario communities taking part in the Healthy Kids Community Challenge, a provincewide goal of promoting childrens health through physical activity and wise food choices. The City of Greater Sudbury is receiving up to $1,125,000 from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term care (MOHLTC) to fund the Healthy Kids Community Challenge.[This] is great news for families in our community, said Sudbury MPP Glenn Thibeault at a press conference today at Tom Davies Square. I look forward to seeing the difference this challenge will make in the lives of our children.Every nine months, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC) will launch a new theme related to physical activity or healthy eating. The first theme Run. Jump. Play. Every day. encourages, as the phrase suggests, daily physical activity.As part of the theme, a variety of events that fit the theme will be hosted in Greater Sudbury over the next five months.Events include free skating at several outdoor rinks, neighbourhood events and on Feb. 6 a communicty Snow Day on Ramsey Lake.Adopting a healthy lifestyle starts at an early age, said Mayor Brian Bigger. The Healthy Kids Challenge is a reminder to all of us that we can be positive role models in the food choices we make and the amount and variety of physical activity we perform each day.Do you know a Healthy Kids Champion? the city is looking for local children who fit the bill of a "Super Health Kid." If you know one, encourage he or she to submit a video, drawing or essay about what makes them a Super Healthy Kid. Champions will be featured on the citys website and in healthy kids promotions.For more information, visit the Healthy Kids website , like the Facebook page , or follow the Twitter handle A Northern Ontario environmental organization says a new report by the federal commissioner of the environment and sustainable development highlights a lack of oversight from the National Energy Board when it comes to pipeline projects. A Northern Ontario environmental organization says a new report by the federal commissioner of the environment and sustainable development highlights a lack of oversight from the National Energy Board when it comes to pipeline projects.In her report , tabled in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Commissioner Julie Gelfand and her office found the National Energy Board did not adequately track company implementation of pipeline approval conditions, or consistently follow up on deficiencies in company compliance with regulatory requirements.Northwatch, a regional coalition of environmental organizations based out of North Bay, said that failure to follow up on approval conditions could make the proposed TransCanada Energy East project which would transport bitumen and crude oil from Alberta across Northern Ontario even more risky.Brennain Lloyd, Northwatch's project co-ordinator, said the conditions the National Energy Board imposes on companies like TransCanada are often the buffer between safe and unsafe operations.The commissioner of the environment report audited 49 cases between 2000 and 2014, and found the National Energy Board's tracking of companies' compliance to conditions was either out of date, or incomplete in 24 of those cases.On the flip side, the commissioner's report found the National Energy Board has made progress in providing more access to information on incidents and compliance.The proposed Energy East project would use existing pipeline infrastructure to transport bitumen and crude oil 1,600 kilometres across Northern Ontario, primarily along the Highway 11 route.The pipeline would descend near North Bay before splitting south and east, toward Ottawa.Lloyd said her two concerns are around the risk of a major rupture, or a smaller leak, that could go unnoticed for weeks.It will be a really hard blow if and when there is a major rupture or failure, she said.Near North Bay, a rupture could potentially leak crude oil into Trout Lake, the city's main drinking water source, and the much larger Lake Nipissing.In a press release the National Energy Board said it plans the address the environment commissioner's findings by the end of 2016.The NEB absolutely enforces and monitors all companies compliance with pipeline approval conditions and has complete confidence that compliance with pipeline approval conditions is appropriately and comprehensively evaluated by NEB staff and board members, said National Energy Board chair and CEO Peter Watson, in a press release.The audit makes recommendations regarding the documentation of this work and the NEB took immediate action after speaking to the CESD last year to begin rectifying this issue. Lorne Street Scotiabank closing in May Scotiabank's Lorne Street branch will be closing its doors for good on May 18. Employees were told in November that the branch would be consolidated with its main Sudbury branch on Durham Street in Sudbury's downtown. Scotiabank's Lorne Street branch will be closing its doors for good on May 18. File photo. Scotiabank's Lorne Street branch will be closing its doors for good on May 18. Employees were told in November that the branch would be consolidated with its main Sudbury branch on Durham Street in Sudbury's downtown. Scotiabank spokeswoman Heather Armstrong said Scotiabank is working to "better organize itself to best serve its customers and to be a stronger competitor throughout Canada." The decision to consolidate the branches was made after careful consideration, said Armstrong, from the bank's headquarters. Employees at the Lorne branch have been reaching out to customers in recent weeks to advise them of the change and assist them in making the move, she said. Concerns about the spread of the Zika virus in South and Central America has not deterred travelers from visiting popular vacation destinations, says a local travel agent. Concerns about the spread of the Zika virus in South and Central America has not deterred travelers from visiting popular vacation destinations, says a local travel agent.People have mentioned it, but it doesn't seem to be a panic, said Leah Miller, the manager of Merit Travel in Sudbury. It's not stopping anyone from travelling.Miller said she and her colleagues always advise their clients about potential travel risks.She said she would ask any pregnant clients to sign a waiver if they plan to travel to a country reported to have Zika virus.Miller added she would personally postpone travel plans, or choose a different destination if she were pregnant and planned to visit one of the 23 identified countries.On Jan. 25, the Public Health Agency of Canada issued a public health notice about Zika virus. And today, the World Health Organization said it is concerned about how "explosively" the virus is spreading.To date, Zika, which is spread by certain mosquito species, has been detected in 23 countries , including popular travel destinations for Canadians like the Dominican Republic, Barbados and the U.S. Virgin Islands.Only one in four people infected with Zika virus are believed to develop symptoms, which include low-grade fever, joint pain, red eyes, rash and generalized symptoms such as muscle pain, physical weakness, lack of energy and headaches.But for pregnant women, and their unborn babies, the virus can have far more dire consequences. Zika virus has been linked though not conclusively yet to a rare birth defect called microcephaly. Children born with the condition have much smaller heads than their peers, and often have developmental issues as they get older.Generally, there's no treatment for microcephaly, but early intervention with supportive therapies may help enhance a child's development and improve their quality of life.In Brazil, where reports of Zika virus have been particularly widespread, there have been 4,000 cases of babies born with microcephaly since September.The World Health Organization announced Thursday it would be convening for an emergency meeting to combat the rapid spread of the virus. The organization has said as many as three to four million cases of the virus could be expected.There is no known vaccine for Zika virus.For most people, Zika virus' symptoms are mild, and last two to seven days, says the Public Health Agency of Canada.The mosquito species known to transmit Zika virus are not established in Canada, and are not well suited for our climate, says the Public Health Agency of Canada. The risk of transmitting the virus in Canada is low to non-existent for those reasons. Greater Sudbury Police arrested one man and are searching for another after they allegedly used a skimming card at two local businesses. The two men used the fabricated card-like device at point of sale terminals at two local businesses Jan. Greater Sudbury Police arrested one man and are searching for another after they allegedly used a skimming card at two local businesses.The two men used the fabricated card-like device at point of sale terminals at two local businesses Jan. 27, police said. One of the suspects was arrested at the scene, while the other left on foot. He remains unidentified.The man who was arrested is from Southern Ontario, and therefore may have committed similar offences throughout Ontario on his way to Sudbury, a press release said.Police caution businesses to be vigilant of the distraction techniques used by the suspects.Greater Sudbury Police's fraud unit is investigating.Anyone with information is asked to contact Greater Sudbury Police at 705-675-9171 or Crime Stoppers at 705-222-TIPS, online at www.sudburycrimestoppers.com or by texting TIPSUD and the information to CRIMES (274637). I am back to blogging -- not that life is any less complex, but hopefully, a few minutes will continue to appear here and there to keep going. I turned off all posts in February because I was unable to respond to any; they will reappear, but I don't know how to keep their original dates, so now they are popping up as new! No promises on any regular, weekly features. I have to do those at work! I have, however, have missed the Internet dialogue. Note: 100th Lamb replaces the Blest Atheist blog, which was hijacked in 2009; the posts were transferred here. Click for an explanation. Bako Sahakyan sends congratulatory address to Serzh Sargsyan On 28 January Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan sent congratulatory address on the Day of the Army to the Republic of Armenia President Serzh Sargsyan. The address runs as follows: "Honorable President Sargsyan, On behalf of the Artsakh people, the authorities and on myself personally I would like to convey sincere congratulations on the Day of the Army, a holiday that is considered very important for all the Armenians. The glorious Armenian army is the offspring of independence, the pride of the entire Armenian nation, which it loves and cherishes like its child. Its brave soldiers, following the lead of their ancestors, devotedly carry out the sacred duty of defending the Homeland, performing and displaying unique feats and courage. You have had a great personal contribution in the establishment and formation of the Army, its ongoing enhancement and development. You are doing everything possible for consolidating defense capability of the two Armenian states, solving issues and reaching goals of nation-wide nature. I once again congratulate You and the whole personnel of the Republic of Armenia's armed forces on this cherished holiday and wish peace, good health and great success for the glory of Mother Armenia and the native people". CENTRAL INFORMATION DEPARTMENT OF THE OFFICE OF THE ARTSAKH REPUBLIC PRESIDENT SUBSCRIBERS OF UCOMS ALL TIME BEST OFFER TO ENJOY ADDITIONAL BENEFITS Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders PACE co-rapporteurs on Armenia concerned by reports of alleged war crimes or inhuman treatment perpetrated by Azerbaijans armed forces There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox UCOMS SPECIAL OFFER OF THE UNLIMITED INTERNET IS NOW TERMLESS There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol Armenia and Azerbaijan to do so without delay An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan". UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022 Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully Google Ad The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces LEVEL UP ONLY FOR STUDENTS: UCOM OFFERS X2 AND X3 MORE INTERNET STATEMENT BY SECRETARY ANTONY J. BLINKEN This criminal act is another proof that the Armenophobia policy. Tatoyan Nikol Pashinyan, Nancy Pelosi discuss a number of issues related to the Armenian-American agenda and regional developments Delegation by Nancy Pelosi Accompanied by Alen Simonyan Visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi Arrives in Yerevan Armenian Revytech, global technology leader SAP and financial services software specialist SAP Fioneer sign a cooperation agreement With 120 million drams donated by Mikael Vardanyan, the defenders of the homeland will be treated in a new building OSCE Chairman-in-Office and OSCE Secretary General call for immediate cessation of hostilities along Armenia-Azerbaijan border Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh USA Embassy Message for U.S. Citizens ANCA Issues National Call to Action to Stop Taxpayer Funding of Aliyevs Aggression Students have been piling into Janette Kammerers classroom at Washington Elementary after school for weeks. They shuffle in and wander up to the piano to let Kammerer know theyre there before finding their respective spots throughout the space in the front of the room. Each of them holds a colored folder containing music for the six songs theyve been practicing. Instead of opening them up when the songs start playing, they drop the folders to the floor. For more photos of this event, click here. The students are all fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders, and theyve been working hard to memorize the six songs the folder contains. Theyre expected to be able to sing on pitch consistently, maintain a musical part, exhibit self discipline and sing in the correct range something many adults cant accomplish. The skills are required for the children to participate in the 2016 Sing Around Nebraska concert that will take place on Saturday, Jan. 30. The biannual event is sponsored by the Nebraska Choral Director Association, and this will be the first year it takes place in North Platte. We have such a beautiful facility in the high school, Kammerer said. Students from some of the other schools dont get the opportunity to perform in an auditorium like that. Kammerer, who teaches music at Washington and Jefferson Elementary, is the site chair for the concert. This is the 10th year shes been involved with Sing Around Nebraska, but only the second that shes participated as a member of the North Platte Public School District. Kammerer said the program is an excellent opportunity for students to go through the audition process and to perform on stage in front of an audience. It teaches them to be confident, Kammerer said. Music helps [students] grow and mature as a whole being. Studies have shown that it helps them do better in school its so important. While shes been working hard with the more than 40 students from the NPPSD, other teachers from surrounding schools have been working with their classes. On Saturday, the 135 singers will come together for the first time at NPHS where they will spend the day working with clinician Kandi Stelling from Lexington Public Schools. Its a great way for students to connect with kids from other schools, Kammerer said. At 4 p.m., the students will take the stage and put on a performance that is open to the public. Admission is $3 per person; students younger than 12 get in free with a parent. It's been a big week for Community Civility Counts. On Monday, Civility Counts in the Classroom had its second class. It went well, read about it here. The next day, I jumped in the car with my executive editor, Bob Heisse, and headed down to Indianapolis to watch history. Sen. Lonnie Randolph, D-East Chicago, had a special resolution to present to the Indiana Senate. That resolution, SR-6, was about us. Randolph, a Community Civility Counts supporter since the beginning, had drafted a Senate Resolution that he was going to ask his fellow Indiana Senators to vote on. SR-6 congratulated the Gary Chamber of Commerce, Chuck Hughes and Dr. Gordon Bradshaw, and The Times Media Co. for starting such an important initiative. SR-6 had some of the best language to date on what Civility Counts is when it comes to government. It said: "Whereas, In order to better understand opposing points of view, we must first hear and understand these points of view; "Whereas, Governmental entities must also adhere to the principles of civility; "Whereas, The way government reaches a decision can be as important as the actual decision; "Whereas, Meetings conducted in a fair, open, and civil manner can enhance credibility and acceptance." I love this document. This is exactly what we mean when we talk about civility among government. I couldn't have possibly said it better myself. Randolph understands what we mean. Civility is more than just being "polite" as the dictionary defines civility. Our meaning of civility is about conversation. It's about creating safe spaces for us to learn and grow. I also want to thank the other senators who spoke, Earline Rogers, D-Gary, Frank Mvran D-Hammond and Ed Charbonneau, R-Valparaiso, who all had positive words about the campaign and the people behind it. I especially noted Mrvan's plug for my editor, who has been working very hard behind the scenes to make sure Northwest Indiana's non-profits and social issues take center stage. Without him, we would not be involved in Community Civility Counts. So, imagine if Indiana was a state where ideas were free to discuss openly at all times. That no one had fear of being piled on or bullied because of their stance on anything? What if we could all learn from each other in an open environment? Imagine what we'd learn about ourselves, let alone each other. HAMMOND Leonard Fowler always cashed his paycheck and kept the money in his wallet. Its the detail of his life that would make him the target of a robbery and ultimately led to his stabbing death. Fowler, 46, had allowed Cindy Lou Landress to stay with him in his Hammond home. It was April 1988 and Landress had moved back to the area after living in San Diego. She had previously been married to a man who was a distant relative of Fowler. She at some point reconnected with William Lewellen, someone she had known when she was younger. The two decided to rob Fowler on April 23, 1988. They knew Fowler had recently cashed his $1,100 paycheck, and like always was keeping the cash in his wallet. After Fowlers daughter left for work, Lewellen forced Fowler to the ground while threatening him with a knife, according to court records. Landress used an extension cord and suspenders to tie Fowler up while they took the cash from his wallet. Landress told Lewellen to leave, but he instead grabbed a knife after Fowler managed to free himself and was starting to load a shotgun, according to court records. Fowler was stabbed to death 22 times. Landress and Lewellen fled to San Diego with Fowlers cash and truck. They eventually were arrested in San Diego. About a year later, Landress was convicted of murder and a Lake County jury recommended she be sentenced to death. Lewellen pleaded guilty to a charge of murder and was sentenced to 60 years in prison. In 1992, the Indiana Supreme Court overturned Landress' death sentence because there wasnt direct evidence that she inflicted the wound that killed Fowler, or that she used one of the knives in a way that caused serious bodily injury. There were two knives used during the homicide. Her case was sent back to Lake Superior Court for another sentencing hearing. Some of the mitigating factors her defense attorney asked the court to consider was her turbulent upbringing that included being abused. She married when she was 13 years old, and she later abused alcohol and drugs, according to court records. Then Lake County Criminal Judge Richard Conroy sentenced Landress in 1993 to 60 years in prison. She later appealed the sentence, but it was upheld by the Indiana Supreme Court. The 60-year sentence at the time was the maximum a person could receive for murder. Conroy during the hearing said he was handing down the sentence because of Landress' criminal history, her position of trust and because of the "heinous nature" of the homicide. Landress, who is now 58 years old, was released from prison in 2014, according to the Indiana Department of Correction website. Lewellen, 66, remains in the Indianapolis Re-Entry Education Facility. He was released from prison Dec. 28, 2015, according to the Indiana Department of Corrections records. My paternal great grandfather James Franklin Russell died 16 days after I was born. I never got to know him and the only photograph I have that may be of him is a grainy group shot of family members. It wasn't until I found his WWI draft card that I could begin to picture him. According to the information, my great grandpa James was of medium height, stout in build with blue eyes and light-colored hair. While it wasn't a photograph, it helped paint his picture for me. I've been able to find both WWI and WWII draft cards from several of my male relatives. They contain an abundance of information. The WWI cards provide information such as address, age, date of birth, race, whether or not they are a natural born citizen, occupation, where they are employed and next of kin along with a physical description. From the WWI draft cards I've found, I not only learned what my great grandfather James looked like, but also that he was a mine foreman at the Block Coal Co. in 1918. I also found the WWI draft card of my other Tennessee great grandfather, James A. Garfield Sharp. He was of medium height and build with dark brown hair and eyes. He too was a coal miner in 1918, but with the Rich Mountain Coal Co. What wonderful information to have. It helped give me a clearer picture of who these two men in my past were, what they looked like and what they did. I also found both the WWI and WWII draft cards of my maternal grandfather Ernest Schulze. His WWI card gave me interesting clues. I'd always understood my grandparents, who were married in 1914 in Chicago, had come to Indiana the year after. The draft card confirmed, however, that wasn't true. Dated 1917, they were still living in Chicago where he worked as a teamster for Consumers Co. The two cards for my Grandpa Schulze also caused a little confusion. According to his WWI card, he was born in 1894; but on his WWII card, he was born in 1895. The WWII draft card doesn't have as much information. The physical description was no longer included. Still, if offered tidbits as to his age, present address, place of birth and next of kin. By the time he registered in 1942, he was living in East Gary (now Lake Station) and worked as a welder for the New York Central Railroad. I was able to access the draft card records through Ancestry.com, but there are other resources, through a bit of a search, you should be able to find the records. I was a bit disappointed with the National Archives web site. They're the official keeper of the records. While they have WWI draft cards of some famous people of the time (Rudolph Valentino, Fred Astaire, W.C. Fields, etc.) that were fun to read, they didn't help in my own family's search. For us common folk, they do provide reference to microfilm roles, but they aren't available online. They are available at National Archive research sites - the closest to us is in Chicago. Good luck with your search. Let me know what you find. Drop me an email at joyce.russell@nwi.com with any stories, tips or questions. In business as in sports, there are players and then there are the Hall of Famers who rarely come along. Five accomplished local business leaders will be inducted next month into the Northwest Indiana Business and Industry Hall of Fame, in recognition of their business acumen, leadership and community involvement. The Times Media Co. and its BusINess Magazine sponsor the annual awards ceremony. They will also be recognized by Gov. Mike Pence, who will serve as keynote speaker for the event. The 2014 Hall of Fame class features Thomas Katsahnias, former general manager and chief operating officer of Inland Steel in East Chicago; Jim McGill, former owner of McGill Manufacturing Co. in Valparaiso; Fred Halpern, a co-owner of Albert's Diamond Jewelers in Schererville and Hobart; and Adela Ortega, the owner of Professional Locomotive Services in East Chicago. Entrepreneur, author and director of the Gerald I. Lamkin Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center O'Merrial Butchee will receive the inaugural public service award and also will be inducted. The BusINess and Industry Hall of Fame induction program is now in its seventh year. The Times Media Co. started the Hall of Fame to honor people who have made significant contributions to business and industry in Northwest Indiana, and demonstrated substantial involvement in the region and its communities. "These Northwest Indiana leaders have not only achieved in their own field, they also have shown the dedication and determination to care deeply about the future of our communities and the legacy of their leadership," said Times Media Co. publisher Chris White. "This group, more than any others before, have had second acts in their lives." Honorees have demonstrated leadership, innovated, displayed visionary outlooks for Northwest Indiana, shown personal commitment to community service, and shared personal or corporate wealth with philanthropic causes. They may also have supported education or environmental stewardship. Last year's Hall of Fame class included Tom Collins Sr., CEO of Luke Oil in Hobart; Danita Johnson Hughes, president and CEO of Edgewater Systems of Balanced Living in Gary; Tom Sourlis, chairman and founder of Mortar Net USA Ltd in Burns Harbor; and Stephen Teibel, co-owner of Teibels Restaurant in Schererville. U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar was honored with a lifetime achievement award. The class of 2014 induction ceremony luncheon will take place at 11:30 a.m. April 4 at the Radisson Hotel at Star Plaza in Merrillville. The public is welcome to attend. Tickets cost $35 per person, and corporate sponsorship of tables are $350. Contact Debbie Reilly at (219) 933-3329 or debbie.reilly@nwi.com to make a reservation and purchase tickets. For more information or to buy tickets online, visit www.nwi.com/halloffame. MERRILLVILLE | Achievement took center stage at the Radisson Hotel at Star Plaza on Friday when five local business legends were enshrined in the Northwest Indiana Business and Industry Hall of Fame. The Times Media Co. and its BusINess Magazine sponsored the annual awards ceremony, which recognizes accomplished business people for their leadership, community involvement and determination. The 2014 Hall of Fame class included Thomas Katsahnias, former general manager and chief operating officer of Inland Steel in East Chicago; Jim McGill, former owner of McGill Manufacturing Co. in Valparaiso; Fred Halpern, a co-owner of Albert's Diamond Jewelers in Schererville and Hobart; Adela Ortega, owner of Professional Locomotive Services in East Chicago; and O'Merrial Butchee, entrepreneur, author and director of Ivy Tech's Gerald I. Lamkin Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center. Butchee received the inaugural public service award. "Everybody wants to know how you started out," Halpern said. "I inherited a store with two employees. I had to tell them to wait to cash your check a little later. I had to tell the water guy, 'Please don't turn off my water,' and the electrical guy, 'Please don't turn off my electricity.' I told them I will pay you eventually, and obviously those bills got paid because I'm here now. I lived at home with my family for five years and never took a penny out of the store. "It wasn't easy is the point I'm trying to make. Everybody has to get paid before you do because you have to have credibility," he said. "After you take care of your help and bills and you have any money left, buy some more inventory." Hundreds of people applauded the inductees Friday at the Radisson Hotel Celebrity Ballroom, where Gov. Mike Pence gave the keynote address. "The Times Business and Industry Hall of Fame is filled with brilliant and distinguished people," Katsahnias said, after thanking his late wife for making him the person he is. "It's an honor to be put in such company. I probably don't deserve it, but I'm not going to give it back." Katsahnias credited his Greek immigrant parents for teaching him the value of hard work, faith, personal responsibility, perseverance and education. He said such values guided him well through a long and varied career that included running Ancilla Health Systems and being chairman of the board of Calumet College of St. Joseph. Ortega credited her colleagues and family for helping her build up her locomotive manufacturing company, which employs 28 workers in East Chicago. She only had two employees a mechanic and an electrician when she founded the business 18 years ago. "The next time I come back here, I want to have 1,002 jobs, then 3,000 jobs the time after that," she said. "I would like to hire people who enjoy what they're doing, and continue down the path of growth." McGill inherited his company and grew it to the point where it employed 1,500 workers before it was sold to Emerson Power Transmission for $50 million in 1990. "My granddad who started the company made me responsible for who I was," he said. "He said, 'Never forget you're a McGill. Give back to your community as much as you get from it.'" Butchee, who has done consulting work for McDonalds, Johnson Controls and Northwest Mutual Life Insurance, said no one makes it on his or her own. She said she was able to accomplish so much during her career because of all the help she has gotten along the way. "As we continue to think about who we are, we have to realize we didn't make it on our own," she said. "Somebody was carrying you." MERRILLVILLE | Gov. Mike Pence took shots at Illinois while touting Indiana's business climate and encouraging business leaders to go forth and sell the state. Pence described himself as Indiana's salesman-in-chief, said he talked every day with business owners and CEOs about bringing jobs to the state and called Illinois companies "low-hanging fruit." He called upon Northwest Indiana business leaders to reach out to business owners outside the state and encourage them to relocate to or grow in Indiana. He made the remarks Friday at the Northwest Indiana Business and Industry Hall of Fame induction at Radisson Hotel at Star Plaza in Merrillville. The Times Media Co. and its BusINess Magazine sponsor the annual awards ceremony. Pence praised first responders for their handling of the massive multi-vehicle crash during white-out conditions that killed three motorists and injured 20 more in January on Interstate 94 near Michigan City, saying they impressed America by rescuing stranded motorists in 30-below weather. He said Indiana is ready to begin work on the Illiana Expressway as soon as Illinois checks off a few more boxes, voiced support the South Shore Line expansion and indicated Northwest Indiana would be strongly considered for a trial five-county, pre-K program. Much of his talk focused on Indiana's economy and competition with neighboring states for new jobs. "Indiana is a national leader in job growth, adding 50,000 new private-sector jobs last year," he said. "When I accepted duties as your governor, the unemployment rate was north of 8 percent. It is now 6.1 percent, which is the fourth largest decrease in the nation." More work needs to be done because 200,000 Indiana residents are still out of work, Pence said. State officials are working to lure new business operations, including from neighboring Illinois. Pence cited the recently launched "Stillinoyed" campaign, which asks Illinois business owners to consider Indiana if they are annoyed by higher taxes. Online ads include "Admit it, you find me fiscally attractive," and "You had me at balanced budget." Indiana just passed legislation that will lower the state's tax rate from 6.5 percent to 4.9 percent in 2021. "We've been driving toward an objective," he said. "When all these tax cuts take effect, it will be official. Indiana will be the lowest taxed state in the Midwest. I'm probably going to put that on signs facing Michigan and Ohio and Kentucky and Illinois and Illinois and Illinois and Illinois." WASHINGTON Americans rushed to buy new homes in December at the strongest pace in 10 months, with 2015 marking the strongest year for this segment of the housing market since 2007. The Commerce Department said Wednesday that new-home sales surged 10.8 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 544,000. It was the third consecutive monthly gain since sales collapsed in September. The increase nearly pulled the sales rate even with the level of 545,000 in February 2015 and points to continued momentum for real estate and construction in the opening months of this year. This is a promising sign for the housing market as we move into 2016, said Tian Liu, chief economist at Genworth Mortgage Insurance. We expect the strong increase in new home sales to continue as the fundamentals in the housing market remain strong and newer vintage homes are in short supply. Sales of new homes accelerated sharply in 2015, rising 14.5 percent on the entire year to 501,000. Steady job growth that cut the unemployment rate to a healthy 5 percent has given many homebuyers increased confidence, while relatively low mortgage rates improved affordability. Yet sales of new homes continue to run below the 52-year historic average of 655,200, a sign of the severe hit absorbed by the market after the housing bubble burst. Builders responded to the demand by increasing construction. Over the course of 2015, ground breakings rose 10.8 percent to 1.1 million. Yet supplies main relatively low with only 5.2 months inventory of new homes available, down from 5.6 months in November. The industry generally considers six months supply to be healthy. New-home sales climbed strongly in the Northeast, South and West in December. They were nearly flat in the South the countrys largest housing market. The median new-home sales price fell 4.3 percent from a year ago to $288,900. But Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist at the real estate firm Trulia, cautioned that this doesnt necessarily mean that affordability has improved for first-time buyers. Only 19 percent of new-home sales were below $200,000 in 2015, a decrease from 23 percent in 2014. This is likely due to a combination of low inventory of new starter homes and fewer first-time homebuyers, McLaughlin said. Still, lower borrowing costs have helped reduce cost pressures and encourage sales, a trend likely to run through this year. Message of Catholicos of All Armenians on Army Day MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS KAREKIN II ON ARMED FORCES DAY From the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, our sacred sanctuary established by Christ, We extend Our Pontifical blessings and congratulations to the brave officers and soldiers of the Armenian Armed Forces, and all Armenians throughout the world on the occasion of Armed Forces Day. The formation of the Armenian Army is a great achievement of our independent state which is the result of the struggle, love and devotion of our brave soldiers for the Homeland. Today, through the feats of our soldiers and commanders; and sometimes by sacrificing their lives, the borders of our country are intact and protected. The valiant spirit of the Armenian soldier gives encouragement to our people, guiding us to serve to our Homeland with devotion, zeal and love for each other. In front of the Holy Altar, we pray that our Heavenly Lord blesses and keeps all the soldiers and commanders victorious. And may the grace, love and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us. Amen As a boy, he lay outside, staring at the vastness of the black sky, the stars and the moon. He wondered what was out there and wanted to explore. Years later, he did. Jerry Ross, now 66, is known around the region as the Crown Point-raised kid who grew up to be an astronaut, launching into space seven times, a feat only one other person on the planet can claim. This month, he will release, "Becoming a Spacewalker: My Journey to the Stars," a children's version of his autobiography, "Spacewalker: My Journey in Space and Faith as NASA's Record-Setting Frequent Flyer." The hardback book is targeted for third- and fourth-grade reading levels, Ross said. "It's basically a children's version of my first book, but it has more pictures of me as a youngster," he said. Ross wants to remind young readers he was in their shoes, and working hard led to reaching his goals. "I didn't have anything handed to me," he said. "You've gotta have a dream. Once you have the dream, set goals." Children should talk to their parents, grandparents and teachers about setting goals, and "don't give up too easily," he cautioned. Often, people try something but do not see immediate results, so they quit, he said. "In a world where we now have everything instantaneous, they need to hear that life isn't quite that way," Ross said. "They need to be more patient and more diligent." In "Spacewalker," Ross shared tales of growing up in Northwest Indiana and attending Purdue University in West Lafayette. He also wrote about his time in the Air Force and working at NASA. The children's book has many of the same elements, but Ross leaned on co-author Susan G. Gunderson to adapt it for a younger audience. Gunderson is a faculty member in the College of Education at Purdue University in West Lafayette. She has been developing lesson plans for teachers to use the book as a resource in their classrooms, Ross said. "They can use it as a mechanism to look at maps and study timelines and concepts, such as gravity," he said. Lesson plans will be available at his website, www.jerrylross.com. Ross credits Gunderson for urging him to write the children's version. "She had read my book and thought there were a lot of great messages in there for young people to hear," Ross said. "It's a continuation of what I've always wanted to do, to reach out to young people." He said he worked hard, long hours to achieve his dreams, but it never felt like work because he loved it. He wants children to align their talents and God-given capabilities with their dreams. "If you can find that proper niche, you're going to be very blessed," he said. Ross has no books in the works now, although he found a diary penned by his triple-great-aunt from the 1880s who documented her time living in the Wyoming territory. He would like to use that for historical education. CROWN POINT -- Authorities said deadbeat parents have a month to begin past-due child support payments or face an aggressive new program to treat them as criminals. Lake County Sheriff Rogelio "Roy" Dominguez and Prosecutor Bernard Carter announced Thursday they and the U.S. attorney's office aim to break the will of the most defiant fathers and mothers, some of whom owe more than $30,000 in court-ordered support payments. "Nonsupport is child abuse," Dominguez said. They would arrest, prosecute and convicted deadbeats, who could be sent to live in the sheriff's work-release center, where child-support payments would be automatically deducted from their incomes. Carter said his staff of 39 caseworkers oversee about 90,000 cases, of which tens of thousands involve overdue child support. The problem has risen significantly in recent years with steel mill closings and layoffs, he said. He said the sheer size of the caseload has forced the county in the past to stop short of criminal charges. Instead, they use civil contempt of court, in which a judge can send a parent to jail for up to 180 days. That tactic often produces a windfall of overdue child support. Carter and Dominguez said they hope to get cooperation voluntarily by granting a 30-day moratorium, beginning today, in which those owing child support can set up payment plans. After that deadline, the sheriff's office will begin to aggressively seek out parents wanted on civil warrants for owing child support. The total number wasn't disclosed Thursday, but Carter said his office will draw up a list of worst offenders to be targeted. Carter said his office also will prepare a list of parents to be charged criminally. He said his office must prove in a criminal prosecution a parent has income but refuses to pay. He said that standard could be difficult to meet if a jury sympathizes with parents who say their past income has dried up and they are now destitute. A conviction could result in a prison sentence of up to eight years if the overdue support exceeds $15,000. Dominguez said the U.S. attorney's office may prosecute cases in which the offending parent lives outside of Indiana. Bill Dolan can be reached at bdolan@nwitimes.com or (219) 662-5328. INDIANAPOLIS An Indiana Senate committee approved legislation Wednesday night providing civil rights protections to lesbian, gay and bisexual Hoosiers, tempered with a broad exemption for nearly any entity claiming a religious affiliation. Senate Bill 344 also intentionally excludes transgender Hoosiers from its anti-discrimination provisions, leaving thousands of Indiana residents vulnerable to losing their jobs, homes or being denied service in a restaurant or other business open to the public. The measure passed the Senate Rules Committee, 7-5, with only Republicans, including state Sen. Ed Charbonneau, R-Valparaiso, voting in favor. State Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn, and all Democrats were opposed, including state Sens. Jim Arnold, D-LaPorte, and Karen Tallian, D-Ogden Dunes. It now goes to the full, Republican-controlled Senate for an expected vote next week on whether to advance it to the Republican-controlled House. Committee members spent more than 90 minutes tinkering with specific details of the legislation before settling on a final version and considering some three hours of public testimony. The plan adds sexual orientation, veteran status and active-duty military status to the seven classes race, religion, color, sex, national origin, disability and age already specifically protected under Indiana law against discrimination in housing, education, employment and access to public accommodations. Religion-affiliated organizations, including churches, adoption agencies, day care programs, schools, clergy and any other nonprofit that offers religious-centered programs, as well as most wedding service providers, could still discriminate based on sexual orientation by claiming sincerely held religious beliefs. State Sen. Travis Holdman, R-Markle, sponsor of the legislation, also persuaded the panel to specifically authorize anti-abortion organizations and crisis pregnancy centers to continue discriminating against homosexuals if they choose. In addition, the measure lifts a state ban on contracting with businesses and other entities that favor hiring members of a specific religious group, as permitted by federal law, or requires their employees follow a religion-inspired code of conduct. It also repeals the 2015 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, including the "fix" that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and replaces it with a direction to the Indiana Supreme Court that religious liberty should be strongly favored in any case involving the constitutionally protected right. A similar proposal, Senate Bill 66, known as "Super RFRA," which would have declared freedom of religion, speech, assembly and the right to bear arms only can be infringed by the state through the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling government interest, failed to advance out of a separate committee Wednesday. Finally, the legislation requires a General Assembly study committee this summer review issues relating to gender identity discrimination for possible action by lawmakers in 2017. Holdman said it was challenging for him as a conservative, evangelical Christian to figure out the appropriate balance between anti-discrimination protections and religious freedom. He pronounced himself satisfied with the committee-approved proposal. Most Hoosiers testifying to the committee were less satisfied, and opposition to the measure produced some odd political bedfellows. For example, both Curt Smith, head of the Indiana Family Institute, and Chris Paulsen, of Freedom Indiana, urged lawmakers to reject the proposal. Smith because it provides sexual orientation protections; Paulsen because it excludes gender identity. Business leaders, including Kevin Brinegar of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce and Scott McCorkle of Salesforce, declared the proposal a good start, but ultimately unacceptable because it diminishes Indiana's welcoming reputation by continuing to permit some discrimination. The committee rejected a proposal that it simply add "sexual orientation, gender identity" to the civil rights statutes without any exceptions. VALPARAISO The city plans to make improvements to the intersection of Jefferson Street and Michigan Avenue, which will allow for about eight new parking spaces near the Porter County Public library. City Engineering Director Tim Burkman said curb bump-outs are planned for the northwest corner of Jefferson and Michigan along the frontage of the library. It will help improve visibility for drivers southbound on Michigan crossing Jefferson. Burkman said it will also shorten the crosswalk for pedestrians crossing Jefferson and improve the visibility of those pedestrians for drivers eastbound on Jefferson. The changes will allow for more angled parking spaces and remove the current, striped no-parking area in front of the library. "We will re-stripe the parking spaces along the north side of Jefferson, east of Michigan up the alley to change the parallel parking to angled," Burkman said. VALPARAISO New mothers now have a way to donate breast milk in Porter County. Fagen Pharmacy, 3400 N. Calumet in Valparaiso, recently opened a depot site for Indianapolis-based The Milk Bank, which provides breast milk to neonatal intensive care units across the Midwest. Knowing this would help sick and premature babies, we thought this would be a great community asset, said Sandy Vanderploeg, a registered nurse with Fagen Pharmacy. She noted the depots first donor was actually a Fagen pharmacist. Breast milk is known to be heavy in antibodies, which protect against illness. It is also said to lower the risk of necrotizing entercolitis, a sometimes deadly inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract common in premature babies. Fagen Pharmacy is the first Porter County breast milk depot. Northwest Indiana also has donation sites at Crown Point OB/GYN, 800 W. Burrell Drive, and the LaPorte County WIC Office, 201 E. Eighth St. in Michigan City. Region NICUs dont currently use breast milk. The donated milk goes to hospitals elsewhere in Indiana, as well as Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri and Kentucky. Mothers who want to donate up to their kids second birthdays have to first be screened by The Milk Bank to see if they have any communicable diseases or use drugs or alcohol. Selected mothers can then drop their frozen milk off directly at the depot, which has a deep freezer on site. The milk is then shipped to The Milk Bank, which pasteurizes it and tests it for sterility. Lauren Duncan, donor mother coordinator for The Milk Bank, said another benefit of breast milk is that it can get premature and sick babies out of the NICU faster, reuniting families and saving on health care costs. Breast milk is called liquid gold. It truly is lifesaving, she said. With moms retiring out, were always in need of new donors. By moms donating, it can help the outcomes of babies all over the country. People interested in becoming donors can contact The Milk Bank at (317) 536-1670 or visit themilkbank.org. SCHERERVILLE The pungent smell of smoke hung in the air Wednesday at Stan's Auto Salvage, but a blanket of snow covered most visible signs of a blaze that consumed more than an acre of the yard Tuesday and burned through the night. Chip Lukasik, whose father started the Schererville business in 1961, said the fire "ruined a good night for at least 100 firefighters." "It's just an unfortunate situation for everyone involved," Lukasik said, as he stood behind a counter in the business's office Wednesday afternoon. He said firefighters did "an excellent job" by containing the fire and preventing it from spreading to any of the buildings on the property at 7967 Wicker Ave. He was encouraged by the outpouring of support he's received, he said. The fire burned numerous smashed vehicles, officials said. Its cause remained under investigation Wednesday, Assistant Schererville Fire Chief Robert Patterson said. Lukasik said the fire was called in by a passer-by on Alexander Street, which runs behind the business to the east. Several employees were on scene at the time, but they learned about it from emergency crews, he said. Patterson said firefighters were called to the business about 7:20 p.m. and found a large fire. Obviously with a fire like this, where you have cars stacked on top of cars, you get air pockets and it creates flares, Patterson said. We were trying to get out to spots where you cant even get a vehicle. Patterson said there was one hydrant on the property near the main office, but the site is so large, it was not sufficient to battle the blaze. Several departments brought tanker trucks to the scene, which were used to relay water to the blaze in the field, he said. That always takes time, but once we got everything set up, it worked beautifully, Patterson said. Ladder trucks assisted in hard-to-reach areas of the property, he said. Morgan Olson, of St. John, and Hayden Karstensen stood at the south end of the parking lot at Drenths Highway Garage about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, looking out across a field as the fire burned in the distance. They said they heard periodic booms and saw sparks as firefighters moved in truck after truck to douse the flames. A front loader appeared to be moving cars away from the flames but stopped after one explosion, they said. Lukasik said he had been stockpiling the smashed vehicles while waiting for steel prices to rise. Tariffs recently placed on imported steel haven't yet led to much of a rise in prices for scrap metal, he said. Employees drain all of the gas and oil and remove batteries from vehicles before they're smashed. Any explosions or sparks could have resulted from burning airbags or fumes that remained after the draining of fluids, he said. Lukasik, who runs the business with his brother Pat Lukasik and son Dan "Boone" Lukasik, said employees keep the yard clean. "We try to abide by all the rules and just be good neighbors and good people," he said. In addition to buying salvaged vehicles, Stan's operates a 24-hour towing service and contracts with Munster, Dyer, Schererville, St. John and Lake County. Lukasik said the last major fire at the property was about 35 years ago, when the body shop burned. The body shop was closed eight or nine years ago, he said. Fire crews from St. John, Lake Hills, Highland, Munster, Crown Point, Lake Ridge, Merrillville, Cedar Lake, Lowell and Crete Township all assisted in fighting the fire, Patterson said. No firefighters were injured battling the blaze. With the conditions last night with the cold and snow, its wonderful to know everyone went home safely, he said. It was a tough fire, but everyone did a great job. Crews remained on scene until around 4 a.m., Patterson said, tending to flare ups at the scene. Schererville firefighters were called back to Stans later Wednesday morning when a few vehicles flared up again, he said. The loss estimate is unclear, because the vehicles were all slated for scrap, he said. For Glen Ellis, it's a felony drug conviction and subsequent release from prison. In Janice Mosley's case, it's seeking out a new start after fleeing what she deemed an abusive marriage. The varied stories of Ellis and Mosley and the reasons behind why hundreds of others in the region are living without homes were all part of an official 24-hour government count Wednesday. The point-in-time count is ordered every year by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in an effort to apportion housing grants and other resources to the homeless. In Lake County, about 20 volunteers descended on Gary, Hammond and East Chicago under the supervision of William Gillespie and Felisha Brown, both officials of the Continuum of Care Network of Northwest Indiana. In addition to counting homeless people, volunteers also collected demographic and personal information folks were willing to share, including mental health status, whether they had been victims of domestic violence and veteran status. Some of the area's homeless were easier to find than others. Mosley, 30, said she has been living at the Missionaries of Charity shelter for women and children in Gary since Monday after fleeing domestic abuse. Missionaries of Charity workers already enter the HUD survey information into a shared computer system when women enter the shelter. But Ellis, 56, has been living on and off since 2009 in the Bakery House, a Gary faith-based shelter for men that doesn't participate in the centralized computer system. Ellis said it has been a challenge finding work since his release from the Westville prison about six years ago following a felony drug-related conviction. The shelter offers him a roof, structure through daily chores and a place to stay while looking for work. So far, seasonal part-time painting work has been his main source of income, he said. Gillespie and Brown counted and interviewed more than a dozen men at the Bakery House on Wednesday; reasons for being homeless ranged from criminal convictions to mental illness, another common characteristic of region homelessness. The count also was ongoing Wednesday in Porter County and throughout Indiana. In Porter County, Elizabeth Allen, the Ten Year Plan coordinator for Porter County Coalition for Affordable Housing, said agencies such as Housing Opportunities, local food pantries, township trustees, Gabriels Horn and even the public libraries took a count of homeless people as they came in for services. Allen said the participating agencies will submit their totals this week, but the total wont be tallied until next week. Performing the count helps determine a region's social service needs for federal funding, Gillespie said. But the count also helps his agency link homeless people with services available in real time, Gillespie said. Volunteers in Lake County were preparing Wednesday afternoon to continue the search and count of the region's homeless into the night, including checks of more hidden places on the streets and in abandoned buildings in the urban core. "If we find people without shelter, we will do all we can to get them services as part of this process," Gillespie said, noting the Continuum sponsors a Rapid Rehousing Program. The program's eventual goal is getting homeless people to shelters and then to residences. Gillespie said the Lake County homeless counts will be available in June when a final state report is published. Last year, volunteers surveyed 294 homeless people in Hammond, Gary and East Chicago, he said. HAMMOND -- David Garcia experiences homelessness all year long. The 45-year-old Hammond man, who said he suffered disabling injuries when he was hit by a car in 1995, sometimes makes a tent in wooded areas in Illinois, but also lives on the streets. He wears layers of clothing wherever he goes. Garcia participated in Wednesdays Point-in-Time Homeless Count at the St. Joseph Soup Kitchen in Hammond where he eats lunch Monday through Friday. Im looking for shelter, Garcia told Anita Gilyard of the East Hammond Pullman Crime Watch Group, one of volunteers who helped the Hammond Community Development Department conduct the count mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The volunteers began Wednesday to checked medical facilities, train stations, bus stops and shelters to locate homeless people or those in transitional housing. Developed by the Indiana Housing & Community Development Authority, the survey form the volunteers helped complete included such questions as Where did you sleep last night?, Have you been continuously homeless for at least one year? and Have you experienced domestic violence? A separate questionnaire is used for people living in domestic violence shelters including Haven House, said Owana Miller, Hammonds community development director. Its really amazing, Miller said as individuals received clothing and toiletries. My volunteers have done an awesome job. Its heartfelt, and a way we attempt to take care of all the citizens. Unlike other Lake County cities where the Point-in-Time Count is taken, Hammonds homeless population includes those from Illinois, she said. There are also not as many shelters here (in downtown Hammond). We just have Haven House and the Claude Street shelter. Lake County is one of 15 regions in Indiana where the Point-in-Time count is taken on the fourth Wednesday in January each year, said Sharron Liggins, executive director of the Continuum of Care Network NWI, Inc. in Gary. In addition to Hammond and Gary, the count was taken in East Chicago, Hobart and Lake Station. In 2015, the Lake County surveys were completed by 216 individuals and 188 households that included an adult with at least one child or another adult, said Liggins as teams of volunteers checked in at Veterans Life Changing Services on Ridge Road. Strategies to reduce homelessness among veterans and families with children are to provide permanent supportive housing, Liggins said. These two groups are the fastest-growing populations experiencing homelessness, she said. To help that effort, there are 60 units at Edgewater Systems South Shore Commons on 20th Street for those with disabilities and mental illness, Liggins said. In the spring, Sojourner Truth House will begin 40 units for homeless women with children. Ex-offenders are another group needing permanent supportive housing, Liggins said. When you have housing, you become more stable, she said. It helps reduce recidivism. CROWN POINT The day Alton Bradley was killed, his mother thought a two-hour morning weather delay meant he was safe. The 17-year-old boy went to school without a problem, and he came home to find a package containing snow boots and goggles that he modeled for his family. His mother, Melissa Bradley, told Lake County Criminal Judge Salvador Vasquez that her son had saved up money from his three jobs to make the purchases. When later that day he asked to hang out with a friend, Matthew Smolek, she didn't think her son was in danger. A receipt showed he bought a Mountain Dew at 8:11 p.m. from a grocery store. He would be pronounced dead less than two hours later. What exactly happened in the minutes leading up to Alton Bradley's death was still in dispute up to the end of Wednesday's sentencing hearing. Tyler M. McAfee, 20, of Lansing, admitted to fatally stabbing Bradley and injuring Smolek. Vasquez sentenced McAfee to six and a half years in prison after he pleaded guilty to reckless homicide and criminal recklessness. The maximum sentence he could have received for reckless homicide is six years, while the maximum sentence for criminal recklessness is two and a half years. McAfee originally faced a murder charge, but it was dismissed as part of the plea agreement. Vasquez cited McAfee's previous felony conviction for theft as one of the reasons why he handed down the sentence. According to court records, McAfee was driving on March 3, 2015, near 142nd Avenue and Lauerman Road in Cedar Lake when he was involved in a two-vehicle crash with Dakota Young. Alton Bradley and Smolek were walking in the area and had stopped to talk to someone in Young's car. Smolek, who at the time was 18 years old, used a flashlight to break the passenger window of McAfee's car, according to the plea agreement. He testified Wednesday he was angry McAfee had almost run him over. The passengers who were with McAfee at some point fled. An altercation broke out among several people, which escalated to a fight between McAfee and Smolek. Bradley tried to intervene and got close to McAfee. It was then that McAfee in a "wild, uncontrolled fashion" swung his knife and stabbed both teens, according to the agreement. Bradley died from stab wounds to his chest, back and left shoulder. Smolek survived stab wounds to his left arm and chest. Melissa Bradley said she was told her son's last words were, "I didn't do anything." She brought with her a large framed portrait of her son while she explained how the shoes he wore that night, a pair of moccasins, indicated to her he wasn't looking for trouble. She ran through her hands the dirt she collected from the shoes. "The loss of Alton is pure agony," she said. "We will never be able to fathom why while we are all here on Earth." Smolek testified he vomits daily, has nightmares and had to leave the area since the stabbing. He said he didn't even know McAfee. "God, I'm so sorry that this happened," Smolek said. "It should not be me sitting here giving this statement." Cedar Lake police detective Carl Brittingham read text messages from McAfee written the day before the homicide suggesting he was out looking for trouble. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Nadia Chivers argued McAfee was driving around with a knife while another one of his passengers had a stun gun. But defense attorney Gojko Kasich argued it was a close case of self-defense. In addition to his client's windows being broken, McAfee was chased and knocked down. McAfee's father, Charles McAfee, said his son was raised to defend himself, but also to take responsibility for his actions. He said his son wants to work for a family friend's business and attend college. Two other relatives described McAfee as a happy person before the homicide. Tyler McAfee, who was wearing a striped Lake County Jail uniform and cried throughout the hearing, apologized to the crowded gallery filled with Bradley's family. He said he had been carrying the knife in his car to protect himself. While in jail, he has spent time on suicide watch and was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder because of what he did. "The nightmares and flashbacks, that is my life sentence," McAfee said. If NASA had not made changes to its flight schedule in late 1985, Jerry Ross would have been on the ill-fated space shuttle Challenger. "My crew was assigned to Challenger flights but things got shuffled around," the Crown Point native and former astronaut said. Ross had just flown his first mission in November 1985. The changes in schedules had Ross assigned to his second flight and training at Los Alamos National Laboratories on Jan. 28, 1986. He and his crew knew the Challenger launch had been delayed. "We had a TV on in the corner with the sound down," Ross said. A crewmate was looking at the television. "What's that?" he recalled astronaut Dale Gardner saying. "As I looked up, I saw the pieces flying through the sky," Ross said. "My mind wouldn't let me realize what was going on. I tried to rationalize it by thinking they were doing a launch abort." In his heart, he knew that was not the case. Obviously, we all realized very quickly it was a disaster and that in all likelihood, our friends were lost, Ross said. Ross, a 1966 graduate of Crown Point High School and Purdue University graduate, said he and his crew quickly flew back to Houston on a flight heavy with "a very somber mood." "We couldn't help but think of our friends and their families," Ross said. Ross said he and his crew went home to their own families, then went to the field when the families of those lost on Challenger arrived. "Throughout the next weeks, we did whatever we could to help out around their homes," he said. "We picked up the mail, just whatever we could." "I obviously knew the five NASA crew members quite well," Ross said. Ross and mission specialist, Lt. Col. Ellison "El" Onizuka, were friends from their Air Force days. "We played softball together and our kids would play together while we worked together," he said. Ross worked with Judith Resnik and Ronald McNair was a support member on his first mission. All of the astronauts were like a tight-knit family, Ross said. "At that time, there were only approximately 100 astronauts total and we had a limited number of offices," Ross said. "We enjoyed working together. We enjoyed playing together. We enjoyed partying together." "It was a tough thing to go through and realize it could have been any of us," he said. "I think it's only normal to have those thoughts, but in our business, you didn't have to lose people to have that sense of mortality." Ross said he "was not totally on board" with the teacher in space program. "I like the concept of encouraging young people to pursue math and science, but I didn't think flying school teachers or artists or politicians or whoever they were planning on flying was the best way to do that," he said. He also thought it was too early in the shuttle program for such a mission. "I thought NASA was treating the space shuttle too much as a routine vehicle," Ross said. At the time, the shuttle had only had about 25 flights. "In the Air Force, for a new vehicle, that would have just been scratching the surface," he said. "After 135 flights, we were still learning about the vehicle." Ross' next mission was canceled as NASA determined how to continue with the space shuttle program. Ross said he and his crew was ready for the first mission after Challenger. "We all felt very strongly that what we were doing was very important for our country and mankind in general," Ross said. "The shuttle mission gave us the opportunity to go into space and conduct experiments and build the International Space Station," Ross said. Ross went on to fly seven missions and logged a record-setting nine space walks before he retired in 2012. He returns back to the Region frequently for appearances at the school named in his honor in Winfield and at the Challenger Learning Center at Purdue University Calumet, which houses much of his flight memorabilia. Ross said the work of the space shuttle crews lives on in studies taking place now on the effects of long-term living in space with astronaut Scott Kelly. "We're learning a lot and that's what the program is for," Ross said. HOBART A 16-year-old Hobart High School student was arrested Wednesday after he posted an online threat late Tuesday saying the school would be shot up, police said. The boy was taken into custody about 8:20 a.m. at a friend's home in the 500 block of Old Ridge Road, police said. He's expected to face an intimidation charge in Lake County Juvenile Court. The boy was cooperative and told officers he thought school officials would have realized his post on the AfterSchool app was a joke, Lt. James Gonzales said. "I don't know if these kids are in touch with what goes on in the world anymore," Gonzales said. "All of these threats have to be taken seriously. We did take them seriously, and everything worked out. There is no such thing as an idle threat anymore." Police Chief Rick Zormier said in a post on the department's Facebook page that a school resource officer received information about the threat about 9 p.m. Tuesday. Zormier posted limited information on Facebook late Tuesday, and officers worked through the night to determine the source of the threat, he said. The School City of Hobart notified parents about 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, he said. There was an increased police presence at Hobart High School as students arrived and at other schools throughout the day, police said. Gonzales, one of two officers who took the teen into custody, said the boy didn't have any weapons on him. HAMMOND Police said Thursday they are investigating an allegation a child was molested at St. Casimir Catholic School. The alleged molestation occurred during regular school hours Monday and was reported by the child's mother, Lt. Richard Hoyda said. St. Casimir School representatives are cooperating with the investigation, he said. Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Sgt. Mark Biller at (219) 852-2906. St. Casimir Principal Lorenza Pastrick sent a letter to parents Wednesday alerting them to the incident. She said the police contacted her Tuesday about the molestation complaint made by a member of the family. "At that time, the child involved was not able to put a name with the face," Pastrick said. "St. Casimir has been cooperating fully with police and in the interest of timely communication, the notice was sent to parents." In the letter, Pastrick said the circumstances surrounding the event are nebulous and unclear. She said specifics on the incident, including when and where it took place and who was involved remain unknown. "I need to stress that no one, at this point, has been identified as the person involved," Pastrick wrote to parents. According to diocesan standards, many security measures are in place and continue to be observed in our children's best interests, she said. "As I mentioned in my notice to parents, additional steps have been taken but, for security reasons, we are not able to share that information with the public at large. This is all we know at this point." Barbara O'Block, superintendent of the Catholic Diocese of Gary, was away from the office Thursday and couldn't be reached for comment. HAMMOND | Ryan Zalewa, of St. Charles, Ill., works a full-time job at CMI Novacast in DesPlaines, Ill., and is working toward a bachelor's degree in mechatronics, juggling classes at Purdue University Calumet and the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn. Daniela Ramirez, of East Chicago, landed a full-time job as a mechanical design associate at Morrison Container Handling Solutions in Glenwood, Ill., following an internship with the company. The 2012 East Chicago Central High School grad is a junior at Purdue Calumet majoring in mechatronics. Anan Ayyad, 21, of Oak Forest, completed two internships at ArcelorMittal, then got a full-time job at the steel mill while studying at Purdue Calumet. The three are among more than 100 students majoring in mechatronics engineering technology, which allows students to gain a broad electrical and mechanical background for careers designing, installing and problem-solving the equipment that produces and packages items for consumers. Dean of the College of Technology Niaz Latif and professors Akram Hossain, Masoud Fathizadeh and Athula Kulatunga said the manufacturing industry's success depends on its ability to integrate electrical control, automation and mechanical design into a range of innovative products and systems. They say it requires employees who can work in an interdisciplinary engineering environment. Fathizadeh emphasized students are trained using the actual machinery that's in industry today. "Our students learn how to analyze and design. They can make the machine, operate it, install it and repair it," he said. "The mechatronics engineering technology four-year degree was the first of its kind in the country. The guys who graduate from this program are in great demand." Kalatunga said the minimum starting salary for a mechatronics graduate is about $56,000. The program began at Purdue Calumet with 17 students in 2008 and has grown to more than 100 students in the bachelor's program and another 60 in the master's program. Engineering professors work with high schools throughout Northwest Indiana to attract teens to the university and the mechatronics programs. They also work with industry, which plays a major role in providing the equipment students use in class. Nick and Nancy Wilson, who own Morrison Container Handling Solutions, said they love the program. "There was a need for a single person who understood both sides -- mechanical engineering and electrical engineering," Nancy Wilson said. "My husband Nick and Dr. Latif were at a conference and it really opened their eyes to the size of the industry and an opportunity for a program like this. They literally began writing the curriculum on the plane home. This new program has produced a wonderful talented group of people." Seyran Ohanyan attends opening of MOD National Defense Research University On January 28, the RA President, Commander-in-Chief of the RA Armed Forces Serzh Sargsyan participated in the Grand Opening of the National Defense Research University, MOD, RA, which was also attended by the Defense Ministers of the RA and NKR, senior executives of the RA Armed Forces, department heads, as well as Ambassadors accredited in Armenia, foreign dignitaries, and men of science and education. The RA Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan and Major General Hayk Kotanjian, Head of Drastamat Kanayan Institute for National Strategic Studies, MOD, RA, Doctor of Political Science, Professor, presented to the President Serzh Sargsyan the facilities of the Universitys new building, the lecture halls equipped with modern computer technology and workrooms serving for research and educational purposes. At the beginning of the Opening Ceremony, Major General Hayk Kotanjian made a presentation introducing in detail the history of founding the National Defense Research University established on the basis of Drastamat Kanayan Institute for National Strategic Studies, the objectives and goals set before this educational institution, the organizational structure and development perspectives. The establishment of the University was an eleven-year-long complex, multistage process. The constant support and patronage of the RA President Serzh Sargsyan and the RA Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan were the key to its success. According to the idea the University has been established in two main stages: the establishment of the research component the Institute for National Strategic Studies, and then on the basis of its development by forming the educational component and bridging of the research and educational activities the creation of the united academic educational institution the Research University. In 2004-2015, the Universitys establishment project was developed and reviewed in the leading academic-educational and state institutions of the RA and US, namely at the Institute for National Strategic Studies of the US National Defense University (NDU), the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the same Institute, NDU Center for Applied Strategic Learning, NDU College for International Security Affairs, Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the State Committee of Education of the RA Ministry of Education and Science, the RA National Center for Professional Education Quality Assurance. The goal of the University - unique in the entire region- is to conduct defense security studies for the political-military leadership of the State and, by means of teaching the products of these studies, to craft a new generation of leaders through Executive Education, Master, Graduate and Doctoral Courses. The Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan welcoming the participants pointed out that the University would consolidate the defense security interagency intellectual and expert potential around the defense axis. He underlined that the University project had been elaborated via studying the best practices of the US National Defense University, Harvard University, as well as the Chair of National Security of the Russian Academy of State Service at the President of the Russian Federation, and their adaptation in Armenia. Minister Ohanyan thanked the US and Russian partners for their valuable contribution to the establishment of the University. He expressed the confidence that the National Defense Research University could become a smart power-based important international platform for the dialogue about defense security issues in academic format for the Republic of Armenias ally and partner states, thereby promoting regional stability and security. Welcoming remarks were made by the academic consultants of the Universitys establishment project Dr. James Keagle, Professor of the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, US National Defense University, Lt. Gen. Tad Oelstrom, Professor, Director of the National Security Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University, and Prof. Alexander Nikitin, Doctor of Political Science, Director of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Security, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). At the end of the Opening Ceremony President Serzh Sargsyan awarded the RA state award the Medal of Gratitude to James Keagle, Tad Oelstrom, Alexander Nikitin and Col. Gen. Nikolay Bordyuzha Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Chairman of the CSTO Academic-Expert Council for their contribution to the establishment of the National Defense Research University. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton says the transit system is still very safe despite a recent spate of subway slashings. His comments came after two more attacks earlier this week. Police say a man seen in photos assaulted a woman on a 3 train in Brooklyn Tuesday night. The victim says the man said "I will chop you up on this train" before hitting her with an unknown object wrapped in a cloth. The woman was treated at the hospital for a cut on her hand. Earlier that night, police say a 32-year-old man was slashed in the face on a 6 train at 116th Street. There have now been five subway slashings so far this year. "We're working very hard to prevent them, rather thanrespond to them and make arrests in almost every instance," Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said. "I don't know if they're copycats or not," Bratton added. "Each one seems to have their own motivation when we make the arrest and get into what was behind it." Kari Bazemore, who was arrested earlier this month, is the only person linked to multiple slashings, according to investigators. One of those alleged assaults took place in Chelsea. Separately, officers arrested on Wednesday 21-year-old Damon Knowles, who police accuse of slashing a woman on a D train earlier this week. Anyone with information on the case should contact the Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS, or text CRIMES and then enter TIP577, or visit www.nypdcrimestoppers.com. A New York City sanitation worker is under arrest after police say he lied about being robbed in Queens this week. Michael Morelli, 31, is charged with filing a false report. Morelli initially told police that he was working alone in Jamaica Wednesday morning when he was pistol-whipped and robbed by two men. But sources tell NY1 investigators now believe Morelli actually met with a prostitute while on duty. Sources say he was on his way back to his job site when he got into an altercation with two unidentified men and lost his cell phone. Morelli has only been on the job for four months. Investigators suspect he made up the story so he would not get fired. Why would the F.B.I. even want to come in here and risk bloodshed? Jason Patrick, one of the armed protesters occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, wondered aloud to me a week and a half ago, as we stood smoking in the snow, watching the daily flow of trucks carrying volunteers and supplies into the compound. Over a marsh with some birds in it? I dont see it. It was true that for most of the two weeks I spent inside the little stone office building that Ammon Bundy and his allies used as their occupation headquarters, the scene felt far less confrontational than you would imagine from the news reports. The men and women occupying the refuge had even resisted the term standoff. I dont even know why they call us a militia or use that word standoff. How many long guns have you seen here? Patrick told me on Jan. 5. After the arrests on Tuesday night of Bundy and seven others and the fatal shooting of one of the groups key members, Patrick is now leading the remaining occupiers. How many police officers have you seen out front? he asked. Until Tuesday, it had mostly been the case that reporters, local ranchers with grievances against the federal Bureau of Land Management and curious visitors were free to walk around the site during daylight hours. Overt displays of militance were prohibited. When the Pacific Patriots Network, a sympathetic coalition of militia groups from across the Northwest, mounted an armed demonstration early this month in which members with semiautomatic rifles and tactical gear blockaded the entrance to the refuge, Bundy and other occupation leaders said they were put off by their military display, which occasioned an emergency strategy meeting. The Pacific Patriots Network deferred and mostly withdrew from sight, stating that their intention was to act as a buffer between law-enforcement authorities and the occupation. The situation at the refuge, and across the rural west, has now changed irrevocably. LaVoy Finicum, who was killed in the confrontation Tuesday, was an extremely well-liked figure among activists sympathetic to Bundys cause, and to them he has quickly become a martyr. It was a straight-up take-me-out hit organized by the F.B.I., one occupier from Utah who left the refuge before the arrests messaged me this morning. He pointed me to an audio recording purporting to be a firsthand account of the incident that was posted to YouTube Wednesday morning. In it, a young woman who says she was riding in Finicums truck at the time of the arrests claims that over a hundred shots were fired and that Finicum was shot to death after emerging from the truck with his hands above his head. (At least one other person claiming to have witnessed the shooting has offered a different account of events.) Christo, the artist known for large-scale public works like The Gates in Central Park, wasnt exactly sure how to begin his lecture at a Manhattan school on Tuesday night. Im thinking of what Jeanne-Claude would say, he said, referring to his wife and artistic partner, who died in 2009. I miss her all the time, because my English is very poor, and my French is very poor. She was always talking. Wearing a pink button-down dress shirt with a French collar and faded jeans held onto his small frame by a woven-leather belt, the artist, 80, explained his latest project floating piers on a lake in northern Italy to donors and board members of Publicolor, a nonprofit arts and education organization that he has long supported. He spoke in front of one of two Sol LeWitt paintings that the group recently donated to the High School of Fashion Industries in Chelsea. LeWitts widow, Carol, and daughter Sofia were also in attendance. Christos lecture eventually caught its rhythm, and he breezed through the last 50 years of his work with Jeanne-Claude, including projects that famously defamiliarized landmarks like the Pont Neuf in Paris or the Reichstag in Berlin by wrapping them in millions of square feet of fabric. Pacing and talking rapidly with a Bulgarian accent, he occasionally misspoke, and his nephew and assistant, Vladimir Yavachev, interjected with corrections. MR. SPLITFOOT By Samantha Hunt 322 pages. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $24. Samantha Hunt is one of the most inventive novelists working today, and Mr. Splitfoot features her usual imaginative flair. Set in upstate New York, it tells the story of Ruth, a teenage orphan who lives in a cultlike group home overseen by a charismatic leader. Ruth and Nat, another orphan, claim they can speak to the dead. Theyre taken under the wing of a con man, who sees dollar signs in their gift. In alternating chapters, we see Ruth many years later, when she eerily refuses to speak. She picks up her pregnant niece, Cora, and they go on an epic walk, which moves toward the novels dramatic conclusion. Ms. Hunt is a graceful, sometimes poetic writer who knows how to build suspense. Its hard to stop walking once you start, Cora thinks, because stopping gives the bad things a chance to catch up. GOOD ON PAPER By Rachel Cantor 301 pages. Melville House. $25.95. Shira, the narrator of Ms. Cantors second novel, is a temp worker and a struggling writer in her mid-40s. She lives in Manhattan with her young daughter, Andi, and a co-parent, her close friend Ahmad. Earlier in life, Shira had started on the path to a Ph.D., translating Dante. Suddenly, shes contacted by Romei, a Nobel Prize-winning Italian poet known for his trickster persona, his inauthentic voice, his disconnection from language. He would like her to translate his newest work. But why did he choose her? And why is he seeding his text with echoes of Shiras own stories? Ms. Cantor is unafraid of asking big questions explicitly, like whether fidelity to texts or to people is possible. The complicated details of Romeis schemes and Shiras past start to pile up and will satisfy lovers of plot, but the novel is at its strongest when Shiras voice is loosely playful and ruminative. THE SHUT EYE By Belinda Bauer 292 pages. Grove Press. $14. Two missing children are at the center of the sixth novel by Belinda Bauer, a prizewinning British crime writer. Daniel Buck, a 5-year-old, disappeared from just outside his house, and his mother, Anna, is losing her mind to grief. Edie Evans was almost a teenager when she went missing while riding her bike, and a detective named John Marvel remains committed to her case, which many consider cold. When Anna desperately enlists a psychic (the shut eye of the title) to help find her son, Marvel balks, but unlikely pieces start to fit together. The books supernatural elements are creepy rather than cheesy, and Ms. Bauer is insightful about people, their bereavement and the way it distorts them. She also provides, in the end, the perfect mix of closure and lingering questions. Was false hope better than none? the novel asks. Or far, far worse? Fans of Ruth Rendell will find familiar pleasures in Ms. Bauers work. Royal Dutch Shells chief executive, Ben van Beurden, can breathe easier after shareholders backed his big gamble that oil prices would rebound. Only 17 percent of investors voted against his $50 billion takeover of the BG Group on Wednesday. Cost savings estimated at $3.5 billion will help assuage some worries, and paying partly in shares insulates some of the market effect, but the $60-a-barrel oil that Mr. van Beurden says is needed for the deal to create economic value still looks far away. Brent crude futures have dropped 46 percent since Shell announced the merger last April, forcing Mr. van Beurden to find more cost savings. About 2,800 jobs will be cut from the combined company because of the deal, while Shell is reducing its work force by 7,500 from 2015 to 2016. More savings may have to be found if oil prices continue falling. BGs current headquarters in the sleepy English town of Reading are likely to become a stranded asset. The vote may look like a vote of confidence that Mr. van Beurden can cut costs to the bone and that oil prices will rise. It no doubt helps that oil bears will have sold out long ago and that there is little else for oil majors to do with their cash beyond hoarding it or giving it back. Shell already abandoned plans to drill in the Arctic back in September. Teaming up with BG looks less risky, but should crude oil plummet to $20 a barrel and stay there, Mr. van Beurdens big bet could be his last. The attorney general of Massachusetts said on Wednesday that she had opened an inquiry into whether Gilead Sciences had violated state consumer protection laws by charging too much for its hepatitis C drugs. The notification, which was contained in a letter to the company from the attorney general, Maura Healey, is the latest challenge to the practices of Gilead, which has become the largest and most profitable biotechnology company by dominating the market for drugs used to treat both H.I.V. and hepatitis C. On Tuesday, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a nonprofit organization that treats patients with H.I.V. and AIDS, filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate patents covering the new version of Gileads mainstay H.I.V. drug, tenofovir. The lawsuit also says that Gilead, to maximize product life span but to the detriment of patients, delayed the introduction of the new, safer version of tenofovir until the old version was about to lose patent protection. The hepatitis C drugs, Sovaldi and Harvoni, are widely considered breakthroughs curing most patients in 12 weeks with few side effects. But Sovaldi has a list price of $1,000 per daily pill, or $84,000 for 12 weeks, and Harvoni costs $94,500. Those prices, and the great demand for the drugs, have strained the budgets of state Medicaid programs and prison systems, forcing many of them to restrict treatment to those most seriously ill. Investigators this week found 100 pounds of heroin, with an estimated street value of $14 million, hidden in an axle and drive shaft casings in the bed of a pickup truck pulled over after a drug task force stakeout in Queens, the authorities said on Wednesday. On Tuesday night in Elmhurst, a pair of pickup trucks with North Carolina license plates crept into the area near Northern Boulevard and 84th Street, circling the block several times, the authorities said. Officers from a drug enforcement task force, investigating heroin distribution in the region, were camped out and watching, according to a statement from the office of the special narcotics prosecutor in New York City. The drug task force includes agents and detectives from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, the New York Police Department and the New York State Police. At 8:45 p.m., officers pulled over the trucks, and a drug-sniffing dog alerted them to the presence of narcotics in one of them. The drivers of the trucks, Peter Omar Garcia-Romero, 33, and Jose Guadencio Lantan-Vela, 65, were arrested and have been charged with multiple counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance, prosecutors said. War participant recalls how she cheated her mother for leaving for the front (video) It was the end of 1991 and the beginning of 1992 when I watched on TV, that a soldier with a wounded foot died, as there were no professional doctors. On the next day I went to the Ministry of Health and said that I wanted to leave for the front and asked them to send me and I was sent for two months, tells Aida Serobyan, participant of Artsakh War, Chairwoman of Artsakh war participant women public organization, in the interview with A1+. After 2 months, the Minister of Health of Artsakh prolonged her stay up to 4 months and then 6 months. Later, when the actual war started, I understood that I couldnt leave and return. I sent a telegram to Avan number 12 polyclinic and informed that the situation was very hard, I couldnt return, I asked them to maintain the position and stayed until the end of the war, recalls Mrs. Aida. The latter also tells how she cheated her mother for leaving for the front. When I was to leave for Martakert in two days on helicopter, I was thinking what to say to my mother. On the way home I was thinking what to say, but when I reached home and my mother opened the door, I said mechanically that I had been sent to Jermuk sanatorium and that I had to go. My mother was very happy, she gave me a cup and said, My girl, besides work, go and drink healthful water of Jermuk. I was happy. I took the cup my mother had given to me and left for Martakert. Mrs. Aida, who was wounded during Artsakh battle for four times, tells stories, which happened during the war. She recalls liberation of Omar mountain pass in 1993, which, according to her words, was the most impassable and the coldest mountain pass. It was awful in Omar mountain pass, and not only as there werent trench and shelter for soldiers, no means of heating, we were standing on those turns, it was 45 degrees below zero, our eyelashes were frozen, pieces of ice were hanging from mustaches of the men. I remember, when the Azerbaijani mortars started firing and we were lying on the ground; they were firing for 15-20 minutes and we were lying on the ground, then when a soldier was wounded and I rose in order to aid, during that time snow under my breast had melted and froze. When I rose, some pieces from my clothes remained on the ice, she tells. Aida Serobyan singles out her Mother's Gratitude to the Heroes of Artsakh medal among her other medals and awards. It is the first medal of Artsakh. I was awarded it in 1992 in the battlefield, it is my first medal made of shell fragments collected during Shushi bombardment, notes Mrs. Serobyan. The Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation has finally acknowledged what everyone else has known for months: The $4.1 million Squibb Park Bridge, closed for 17 months, is not reopening anytime soon. At a meeting of its board on Friday, park corporation officials said they were suing the firm of the bridges designer a MacArthur genius grant winner and removing his company from the repairwork, with plans to replace it with an international engineering firm. The lawsuit, filed in State Supreme Court, alleges breach of contract and professional malpractice. Squibb Park Bridge, a 400-foot wooden pedestrian bridge that is supposed to connect Brooklyn Heights to the 1.3-mile-long Brooklyn Bridge Park, opened in 2013. But a year later, its gentle up-and-down movements part of the its allure became too pronounced, and the bridge began to sway and tilt. In August 2014, it was abruptly closed by the park corporation, which operates Brooklyn Bridge Park. As weeks gave way to months, officials from the park corporation refused to say what, exactly, was wrong with the bridge. In July, as local elected officials and residents grew frustrated, park corporation officials insisted that the repairs were finished and that the bridge was set to reopen as soon as New York City inspectors signed off on the work. Still, the bridge, which starts in Squibb Park, at Columbia Heights and Middagh Street, remains closed. ALBANY Scrambling to contain an environmental scare in the small upstate village of Hoosick Falls, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo directed two New York State agencies on Wednesday to use Superfund money, filtration systems and testing to address the presence of a toxic chemical in the local water supply. The announcement came more than a month after federal officials warned residents in Hoosick Falls, a riverfront community about 30 miles northeast of Albany, not to drink public water or use it for cooking because of the presence of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, an industrial chemical used in the manufacture of coatings such as Teflon, cleaning products and other materials. Local officials welcomed the governors decision, while Basil Seggos, the acting commissioner of the State Department of Environmental Conservation, said such emergency measures were necessary to restore the publics confidence in Hoosick Falls. Mr. Seggos said his agency, working with the State Health Department, would investigate the extent of the contamination, which has been linked to the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics plant, located on the edge of the Hoosick River, not far from the municipal wells that provide the village with its drinking water. Moving from one subway car to another is no easy task. There is the dart-and-hustle option, entailing a sprint between entrances before the doors close, and the perilous and prohibited passing between the doors at the end of the car. But the Metropolitan Transportation Authority wants to examine another route: a new generation of subway trains with open pathways between cars. This week, the authority released an image of the model, known as an open gangway plan, delighting train aficionados who had wondered when the idea would arrive in New York City. The model has already appeared in systems in Paris, Toronto and other cities. The cars are still years away here: The authority could award a contract as early as next year to build 10 of them, and they would not be delivered until at least 2020, or later, officials said. But their inclusion in a presentation to the authoritys board members brought to life an idea that has been debated for years. Nearly four decades after his father founded the Moral Majority, Jerry Falwell Jr. is presiding over the biggest crisis the modern evangelical coalition has ever had to face. With his endorsement of Donald J. Trump for president on Tuesday, the younger Mr. Falwell has dismayed his fellow conservative evangelicals and baffled many others, who think its counterintuitive that Mr. Falwell would endorse this thrice-married reality television star. Mr. Falwell is the president of his fathers Liberty University, seen by some as the official voice of evangelicalism. Does this mean the whole movement will follow or at least most of it? The answer is no, and the reason is that while the Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr. was long the face of the religious right the go-to guy for reporters, the talking head on Americans television screens his son has never played that role, even within evangelicalism. Mr. Falwell is influential, certainly, but today no one can lay claim to such a monolithic status. Even his own constituents, graduates of Liberty University, have questioned his judgment in endorsing Mr. Trump. The Trump endorsement demonstrates just how fractured evangelicals have become in this presidential contest, and how none of the candidates can count on a single leader to unite the evangelical vote behind him. Still, the Right to Rise onslaught is a decent explanation for Rubios stagnation. But not a complete one, since its not as though Jeb actually controls the entire Republican establishment. If his donors were really unhappy with his strategy they could desert en masse to Rubio; if leading Republican politicians felt certain Rubio was the better bet, they could counter Jebs ads with a wave of endorsements. But they havent, again despite Rubios higher favorables and better general election odds. Which raises the possibility that Rubios a little too conservative. Both the Republican donor class and the New Hampshire electorate, in slightly different ways, are more moderate or even liberal than the wider Republican electorate. Meanwhile, as Harry Enten of FiveThirtyEight points out, Rubio is a lot more conservative than his great establishment hope image currently suggests. Moreover, his conservatism is most pronounced on social issues, which makes him culturally alien to both the libertarian and Yankee moderates of New Hampshire and the secular and socially liberal segment of the partys donor base. Which is why it isnt necessarily surprising that Rubio is polling slightly better in evangelical-heavy Iowa than in New Hampshire, or that hes having trouble putting away more moderate figures like Christie and Kasich in the latter state. It may well be, as Enten suggests, that a lot of Republican bigwigs are just much more politically and culturally comfortable with the other candidates in the establishment lane, and so they arent ready to throw in with Rubios piety and Tea Party-ish voting record until they have no other choice. Then there also might be a more personal element as well Rubio seems a little too ambitious. Hes no Ted Cruz, whose naked self-promotion and penchant for making enemies has left him effectively running against the entire institutional party. But as Matt Yglesias of Vox notes, Rubios ascent has been marked by repeated acts of rebellion and opportunism many of them successful, all of them quite normal for politicians, but condensed into a relatively narrow span of time. The G.O.P.s history as a royalist party is somewhat exaggerated, but it has repeatedly handed nominations to elder statesmen in years when it seems to be their turn, and the royalist tendency is naturally strongest in the party elite. It may not be only Jeb Bushs inner circle that regards Rubios rise as a little swift, and his decision to run as a little premature, even arrogant. There may be a sense that he needs to prove himself with voters, to actually win a caucus or a primary, before he can lay claim to wide support. No sooner was the Ebola virus subdued in Africa than another virus, Zika, began sweeping through South and Central America. It has been linked to serious birth defects and is threatening to invade the United States. It is imperative that the World Health Organization not repeat its sluggish response to the Ebola crisis and act urgently this time to mobilize international action. Until it reached the Western Hemisphere, the Zika virus related to dengue, yellow fever and West Nile virus and named after the Ugandan forest where it was first identified almost 70 years ago had caused little more than relatively mild, flulike infections. But in the nine months since it came to the Americas, it has moved swiftly through Brazil and two dozen other countries and territories, spread by mosquitoes of the Aedes species, which can breed in the tiniest pools of water and usually bite during the day, making them especially hard to control. Though not particularly dangerous to the person infected, the spread of Zika has been accompanied by a huge spike in microcephaly, a congenital and irreversible deformation of the skull in newborn babies. The number of reported cases in Brazil jumped from 147 in 2014 to nearly 4,000 in 2015, leaving health officials with little doubt although no firm scientific proof that Zika was responsible. Scientists have also identified a possible link between the virus and the neurological disorder known as the Guillain-Barre syndrome. At present there is no vaccine, no cure and no widely available test for Zika infection. In their absence, the obvious course is to avoid mosquito bites by wearing clothes that cover arms and legs, and using air-conditioning and screens and insect repellents containing DEET. Brazil, which is hosting the Olympic Games this summer, has begun an extensive campaign to eradicate mosquitoes, including the deployment of 220,000 soldiers to search for breeding sites, and has urged women to avoid getting pregnant until the outbreak is brought under control. Tom Wesselmann, the late Cincinnati-born artist who was a contemporary of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Jasper Johns, found fast fame in the 1960s with his supersized and visceral vision of the female form. But in the new David Zwirner gallery show of his portraits and nudes in London, 30 of his early collage works, which date from 1959 to 1964, reveal his softer, more naive side. There are no gargantuan nipples or smoking mouths here; rather, these pieces have an undone feel thats at odds with the slickness of his later and better-known works albeit with familiar flashes of vivid, ad-world color. The Pop Art label was not one that Wesselmann loved. Critics struggled from the start with the very un-Pop intent of his work, which set out to animate figurative art, inspired by European artists from Matisse to Bonnard to Titian. That ambition rings true in these rarely seen, small-scale assemblages of postcards and found ephemera from richly patterned interiors to still-lives starring Campari and Cinzano. The show spotlights a prodigious period in Wesselmanns career, one which saw the young Cooper Union student elevated from a local teacher who made pictures in his apartment at night to an internationally lauded, if reluctant, star of the Pop Art scene. This is where it all started, says the art historian and independent curator Marco Livingstone, who compiled the artists first major retrospective in Japan in 1993 and is keenly aware of the misreadings of Wesselmanns work. People made assumptions that these were pin-ups or Playboy images, yet for him they were depictions of intimacy and sexual liberation. Wesselmann was a private man who shunned the showier side of the art world. One of his earliest sitters was Claire Selley, the model and Cooper Union alumna who was his wife up until his death in 2004. He was working within a very long tradition of the female nude as a subject, adds Livingstone. He felt that he was just updating it for his time and his culture. The interesting thing is that it looks so eternally fresh. It hasnt aged. Now, some minds are changing. The process of labor market adjustment is gummier than anybody realized, said Mr. Hanson, a professor at the University of California at San Diego. The persistent negative effects of Chinese trade on much of the American labor market have toppled much of the received wisdom about the impact of trade on labor markets, Mr. Hanson wrote with his co-authors, especially the consensus that trade could be strongly redistributive in theory but was relatively benign in practice. In fairness to the economics profession, that consensus emerged mostly because workers actually did adjust more easily to trade in the past. Global trade soared in the four decades after World War II without apparent negative effects on labor markets in rich countries. But most of this trade was between rich countries, and exposing Ohio workers to competition with Ontario workers wasnt that much different from the competition they always had with Michigan workers. As Mr. Gordon and his co-authors describe, the rise of trade with China since 1991 increasingly exposed American workers to competition from those who would work for much less, causing particular problems for lower-skilled workers. There is also a damaging trade imbalance. The rise of Chinese exports would not have had such negative effects on the American labor market if it had been offset by a commensurate rise of Chinese imports. More exports to China would have created American jobs, both in exporting industries and in the sectors that support those industries, making it easier for displaced workers to find new jobs. Instead, China has run a persistent trade surplus. What that really means is that Chinese consumers save much of their income from export industries instead of using it to consume imports. This is one of the major global imbalances identified by Ben Bernanke, the former Fed chief, as a driver of both high unemployment and asset price bubbles in the United States. In the long term, Mr. Snyder said, wed like to see those pipes replaced. He announced a panel of experts to help find a solution. Replacing thousands of water service lines in Flint that are made of lead would be a vast undertaking, engineers said, one that would take years, if not more than a decade. Karen Weaver, the mayor of Flint, has said that the cost of such a project could be as high as $1.5 billion. No one has yet said where that money would come from for this diminished city, which has had financial troubles for years. The damage has been done, said Sergio Kapusta, a scientist and expert on corrosion. That piping in each house is going to put out lead contamination for some time. The best course of action is that they be replaced. State officials said they had increased the level of phosphates in the water to coat the inside of the pipes, an initial step that could help alleviate the problem. Keith Creagh, the interim director of the State Department of Environmental Quality, said that lead levels in Flint had dropped significantly. The wife of a Northern Illinois police officer who killed himself after embezzling from a youth program was indicted by a grand jury Wednesday on charges of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority. The wife, Melodie Gliniewicz, turned herself in at the Lake County Sheriffs Office and was taken to the county jail, said Det. Christopher Covelli, a sheriffs office spokesman. Her husband, Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz, died Sept. 1. The authorities say he staged his suicide to look like a homicide because he feared discovery of embezzlement from the Fox Lake Police Explorer Post. He ran the program for teenagers interested in a possible career in law enforcement. The authorities say Melodie Gliniewicz was an adviser to the Explorer Post and had a fiduciary role with the programs finances. Mr. Gliniewiczs death touched off a manhunt involving hundreds of officers and raised fears of police killers on the loose. HOUSTON Lawyers for anti-abortion activists, including one who was a leading figure in the defeat of the citys anti-discrimination ordinance last year, on Wednesday called this weeks indictments of Planned Parenthood critics legally flawed. They said they would ask the district attorney not to proceed with the case. Jared Woodfill, a lawyer and the former chairman of the Harris County Republican Party, who was the spokesman for one of the main coalitions opposing the anti-discrimination ordinance, is part of the legal team representing David R. Daleiden, 27, and Sandra S. Merritt, 62, who were indicted by a grand jury here Monday on charges related to the use of fake IDs and offers to buy fetal tissue. Mr. Woodfill and another lawyer representing Mr. Daleiden and Ms. Merritt, Terry W. Yates, called for another grand jury to look into Planned Parenthoods actions. We believe that this is a runaway grand jury that has acted contrary to the law, Mr. Woodfill said. Instead of indicting the wrongdoers here, the organization trafficking in baby body parts, theyve gone after the whistle-blower. While some Iowans say they remain inspired by Mr. Carsons life story as a person who rose from a hardscrabble childhood to become a renowned physician, faith in his presidential prospects has dimmed. Bens a good guy and he has guts, but I dont think he has a chance to win, said Larry Carder, an undecided voter from Des Moines. I think out of the gate, he was just too soft-spoken. What he says is reasonable, but in your mind youre saying, Can he really lead the country? Many religious Iowans who trudged out on an icy night to hear Mr. Carson said they hoped divine intervention might help him beat the odds. We Christians need to get on our knees and pray, and I mean, pray, Marlene Stemler said. My heart says, as a Christian, vote for Ben Carson. Changing minds of undecided voters this late in the process will be challenging. Despite Mr. Carsons ease talking to religious groups, endorsements from influential evangelical leaders such as Jerry Falwell Jr. of Liberty University and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council have gone to Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz, the favorites to win Iowa. I was surprised by that, Robert Dees, the retired general who is the new chairman of Mr. Carsons campaign, said of Mr. Falwells backing of Mr. Trump. But the only endorsement we plug for is We the people. President Obamas closest neighbor died on Monday, just a few days after vacating the peace vigil encampment behind the White House that she had occupied for more than 30 years in what was considered the longest political protest in American history. The protester, Concepcion Picciotto, died in a Washington apartment she shared with three roommates not far from her Lafayette Square tent, said Schroeder Stribling, the executive director of N Street Village, which provides services to homeless women. Ms. Picciotto, who had been in declining health, was about 80. The cause of death has not been determined, the medical examiners office said Wednesday. Camped on a red brick sidewalk under a plastic tarp, Ms. Picciotto, a diminutive, weather-beaten Spanish immigrant and transplanted New Yorker, became a familiar sight to passers-by and tourists as she denounced nuclear weaponry and fended off those who dismissed her as daft. Her hand-lettered signs declared Read My Lips, No New Wars and Live by the Bomb, Die by the Bomb. WASHINGTON President Obama signed a presidential memorandum on Thursday creating a White House task force on cancer, the first step in what Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has called a moonshot to cure the disease, administration officials said. The president appointed Mr. Biden to lead the panel, which will include representatives from at least 13 government agencies. The groups first meeting will be on Monday, officials said. The emotional power behind the push will come from Mr. Biden, whose son Beau died last year after a battle with brain cancer. This month in his final State of the Union address, Mr. Obama cited Mr. Bidens moonshot comment, saying that Im putting Joe in charge of mission control. Mr. Obama pledged in the speech to initiate a governmentwide push to cure the disease along the lines of the effort in the 1960s to send a man to the moon. The president made no specific promises but urged Americans to believe that a cure could be found. For months, Donald J. Trump had kept up a relentless and sometimes personal barrage against the Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, in retaliation for the tough and, he said, unfair questioning she submitted him to in the first Republican debate last summer. And for months, Fox News and Ms. Kelly had avoided taking the bait, intent on sticking to Ms. Kellys vow to avoid becoming part of the story. Foxs decision to fight back this week after Mr. Trump demanded Fox remove her from its panel of moderators at a debate sent the already unconventional Republican race for president into uncharted territory just days before the first critical contest in Iowa. With Mr. Trump declaring he will skip the debate, scheduled for Thursday at 9 p.m. ET, the most potentially consequential fight on the campaign trail is not between Mr. Trump and his fellow candidates, but between Mr. Trump and the top-rated cable television news network, which is also one of the most important forces in Republican politics. At least 12 people were killed Wednesday when explosives carried by at least two women were detonated in a market in the northern town of Chibok, where Boko Haram militants abducted more than 200 girls almost two years ago, the police and residents said. At least 15 people were wounded. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the attack was similar to others claimed by Boko Haram. It was not immediately clear whether the casualty figures included the bombers. Some analysts say that Boko Haram may be using captives to carry out bombings. President Omar Hassan al-Bashir ordered the opening of Sudans border with South Sudan for the first time since the souths secession in 2011, the state news agency SUNA reported Wednesday. The border was closed in 2011 when relations deteriorated after the south seceded after a civil war. The two countries failed to agree on borders and the status of several regions that both sides claim sovereignty over, and they accuse each other of backing armed rebellions against the others governments. But President Salva Kiir of South Sudan unexpectedly and unilaterally announced a normalization of relations on Tuesday after Mr. Bashir agreed to cut the transit fees for South Sudanese oil crossing Sudans territory via pipeline to the Red Sea last week. RIO DE JANEIRO Brazils health ministry issued new figures on Wednesday about the Zika virus that offered reason for continued concern, but also a glimmer of hope. On its own, the virus is not normally life-threatening. The most common symptoms include fever and joint pain, and most people who become infected have no symptoms at all. The big question surrounds the viruss link to other ailments. The health authorities in Brazil said Wednesday that reported cases of microcephaly a rare condition in which infants are born with abnormally small heads had climbed to 4,180 since October, a 7 percent increase from the previous tally last week. Malaysias anticorruption agency said Wednesday that it would appeal the attorney generals decision to clear Prime Minister Najib Razak of criminal charges over the transfer of $681 million into his personal bank accounts. Attorney General Mohamed Apandi Ali said Tuesday that money channeled into Mr. Najibs accounts in 2013, just before national elections, was a personal donation from Saudi Arabias royal family. He said that the donation was without any conditions and that Mr. Najib had returned $620 million that was unused. But Malaysias Anti-Corruption Commission said it would ask an independent government panel to review the decision. WASHINGTON President Obama nominated Lt. Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr. to lead American military operations in Afghanistan, where the United States is at a critical juncture in the fight against the Taliban, the Pentagon said on Wednesday. If confirmed by the Senate, General Nicholson would replace Gen. John F. Campbell, who has held the position since 2014. It was not clear what General Campbell would do next. The Taliban now control significant parts of Afghanistan, and American Special Operations forces and Afghan troops have been battling the groups fighters in the southern part of the country. Those developments are a sign of how the conflict has continued even after Mr. Obama announced the end of the United States combat mission in Afghanistan in late 2014. In October, Mr. Obama announced that he had slowed the withdrawal of American troops from the country. At the time, the president said that the United States would keep 9,800 troops there through most of 2016. That number is set to fall to about 5,500 at the end of this year or in early 2017. The United States has had forces in Afghanistan since 2001. Two top United Nations relief officials expressed growing frustration on Wednesday over the organizations inability to deliver aid to destitute Syrians trapped by war, saying that the number of besieged areas has risen to 18 from 15 in the past few weeks and that nearly half a million people may be at risk of starving to death. The officials, Stephen OBrien and Ertharin Cousin, delivered their warnings to the United Nations Security Council two days before the scheduled convening of talks in Geneva aimed at halting the war in Syria, which has raged for nearly five years. Whether those talks will proceed as hoped remains unclear. Mr. OBrien, the United Nations emergency relief coordinator, told Council members that roughly 4.6 million people lived in besieged or hard-to-reach areas, and that combatants had ignored the Councils resolutions requiring aid convoys be given safe passage. Ms. Cousin, the executive director of the World Food Program, echoed Mr. OBriens admonitions and said that close to half a million Syrians were completely cut off from all assistance. To prevent people from imminent starvation, we need the support and action of every Council member and every member state, Ms. Cousin said. A Buddhist deity sculpture, absent from the galleries at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, for 17 years, will go back on view there next month after undergoing analyses and treatments throughout its gilded surface. This deity, Guanyin, which embodies compassion, was carved about 900 years ago from a tree trunk. Nearly six feet tall, the figure is seated in a casual pose, with its glass eyes facing downward and one leg dangling as though being dipped in a pool of water. The underlying legend is that the deity was gazing at a reflection of the moon in the water. Abigail Hykin, a conservator at the museum, has stabilized its flaking paint and has supervised tests that revealed insects, nails, dowels, pins and patches embedded in the body and limbs. (Further testing is being done to determine the types of insects.) The sculpture will be displayed starting on Feb. 6. Only a handful of similar wooden Guanyins survive, including ones at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo.; the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam; and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The Boston museums figure is from northern China, but there is no information about which temple it belonged to before it arrived at the institution in 1920. It was originally sold to the museum with two smaller deity statues that will be analyzed to see whether their wood type and gilded paint match the Guanyin. A PEEK under the hood of three new cars from Volvo, Buick and Cadillac will not reveal a Made in China label. But those cars are breaking new ground in the auto industry, becoming the first to be manufactured in the Peoples Republic and exported to the United States. Swedens Volvo, now owned by Geely Auto of China, has shipped more than 1,000 copies of its S60 Inscription. Buick, desperate to fill the most glaring hole in its lineup, the compact crossover, will import the Envision. And this month, Cadillac announced that it would export a plug-in hybrid version of its new CT6 flagship sedan from China, supplementing production of the standard version from its Detroit-Hamtramck plant. Mindell Dubanskys romance with fake books began nearly two decades ago at a Manhattan flea market, where she picked up a small volume carved from a piece of coal and bearing the name of a young man who had died in a mining accident in 1897. An electric charge of grief went through my entire body, Ms. Dubansky, the longtime preservation librarian at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, recalled. A light bulb also went off in her head. Sensing an unexplored territory, Ms. Dubansky set out to map the contours of the world of fake books, eventually amassing about 600 made from stone, wax, straw, wood, soap, plastic, glass and other materials. She even coined a term for them: blooks, short for book-look. Mr. Pinckney, a respected literary critic, is a longtime contributor to The New York Review of Books. His first, better novel was High Cotton (1992), in which the narrator sampled black expatriate life in Paris. Image Darryl Pinckney Credit... Dominique Nabokov His new novel feels its way around a host of important themes, from the oppressive nature of black upper-class expectations to the crushing realities of AIDS in the diseases early days to the precarious era just before the Berlin Wall came down. But Mr. Pinckneys prose here lacks the poise of Isherwoods and the lyricism of James Baldwins, to mention another observer of black expatriate existence. In Berlin, Jed falls in with a high-art crowd. He gets a job with a trendy, Rem Koolhaas-like architect. A friend named Hayden Birge is a composer. Then there is Cello, Jeds cousin from Chicago, a former classical musician who is now a diva-like cultural personality in Berlin, part Jessye Norman and part Beyonce. Jed is the only person in West Berlin who knows that Cellos real name is Ruthanne. He is also the only person who knows that Cello grew up fat, but now had more than enough discipline to resist the most mocking sauce. The architect and Cello are both married, but the reader senses, because of their stormy manes, that an affair is on the horizon. The architects hair was all volume. Cellos is extraordinarily restless, milling from her forehead, tumbling over her formidable huntress cups. No one has a real conversation in Black Deutschland. Men and women stare past one another and utter cracked aphorisms like When it comes to spatial matters, all humans are Euclideans and When a man is desperate for a compliment, it is the same as shooting a horse. Mr. Pinckney aims for generational sweep, but on matters large, as well as small, he fires blanks. Sentences start promisingly, then wilt. For example: This would forever mark out my generation of black expatriates we exchanged silent greetings on the streets and in the cafes of Europe, even when young black American corporate lawyers living in Cheyne Walk or Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street no longer wanted to have any idea why we would. Yes, we were Generation Nod. Negotiations to restructure roughly $9 billion of the debt of Puerto Ricos power company have resumed after breaking down last week, reviving hopes that a default can be avoided. Creditors who have been trying for a year and a half to work out a restructuring deal with the utility declared their fragile deal dead when a crucial Jan. 22 deadline passed without a vote by the Puerto Rican Legislature to approve the restructuring plan. The creditors blamed Puerto Rico for failing to honor a commitment to enact an enabling law on time. The utility, the Puerto Rico Electric and Power Authority or Prepa countered that the creditors had changed some terms at the last minute. But late Wednesday night, both sides announced that they had resumed talks and agreed to wait until Feb. 16 for the Legislature to enact the required statute. Some employers have an eye on the rearview mirror, where the last recession still looms large. Though Storey Kenworthy had a record year in 2015, Mr. Kenworthy, its chief, remembers seeing revenue drop more than a third in 2008 and being forced to cut staff. Since then, we tried to look at things a little differently, he said, citing fixed costs like labor. A result is a trend around the country: more emphasis on nonwage benefits and bonuses that can be trimmed back if business dips. Since 2011, wages at the firm have risen to 2.5 from 2 percent annually, Mr. Kenworthy said, with employees now bringing home $48,000 on average. Yearly bonuses and profit sharing add 10 percent more. David Leto, executive vice president of the Palmer Group, an employment agency in Des Moines, said wages had steadily increased but employees know not to ask for the moon here. Employers are also conscious of keeping parity among existing workers and new hires, he said. As important as a paycheck is, it is just part of what attracts people to a company, said Mr. Rizai, of Workiva. He pointed out that he must compete with Facebook and Google for talent, which is why he spends so much time catering to the desires of his employees. This week, Fortune magazine named his company one of the top 10 large technology workplaces in the country. He echoed a theme voiced by many Iowa employers: Here, someone can live big find good schools for children and live in a comfortable house at a fraction of the cost on the coasts. Not everyone, Mr. Rizai said, wants to go to Silicon Valley. DES MOINES A Chinese citizen has entered a plea agreement with United States prosecutors, admitting that he participated in a conspiracy to steal seed corn from American companies. Mo Hailong, a permanent resident of the United States, was living in Florida when he was arrested in December 2013. He is accused of traveling to the Midwest to work with other employees of Kings Nower Seed, a subsidiary of the Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group to take corn seed out of fields in Iowa in order to ship it to China so scientists could attempt to reproduce its genetic traits. In the plea agreement reached Wednesday, Mr. Mo admitted that he had conspired to steal trade secrets from DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto. United States officials and members of Congress have also taken hard looks at some big American companies tax arrangements in Europe. And the Treasury Department has tried to block so-called tax inversions, in which American companies use mergers to relocate to European countries as a way to reduce their tax bills although the rules might not be able to stop the drug giant Pfizer from using its acquisition of much-smaller Allergan to relocate its headquarters to Ireland. Although the British prime minister, Mr. Cameron, defended his Google deal, his political opponents have criticized it as too generous to the company and not reflective of the full magnitude of its British revenue for the 10 years it covers. In studying the Cameron-Google agreement, Ms. Vestager may follow up on a request of the Scottish National Party, a British opposition party, which has sent a letter to the European Commission criticizing the tax deal with the search giant. A spokesman for Ms. Vestagers office said on Thursday that the complaint would need to be studied to see if it warranted a formal investigation. The issue could be particularly delicate, coming as Mr. Cameron has been trying to negotiate better terms for Britain within the European Union. As soon as June, Britain may hold a referendum in which voters would be asked whether they want to remain in the bloc or leave it. But Christian Cubitt, a Cameron spokesman, declined on Thursday to elevate the tax dispute to the level of the debate on Britains place in the European Union. He said simply that it was a decision for the commission" to decide whether to investigate, although he stressed that Google had agreed to pay all the tax that is due. Britain is by no means alone in seeking to handle corporate tax matters on its own terms. Italian financial police officials were to issue an investigative report to Google on Thursday, indicating whether the company has paid sufficient taxes in Italy since 2008. Although Google has not been accused of wrongdoing, tax officials say the delinquent amount could be about 300 million euros, or about $325.3 million. Walgreens, the giant drugstore chain, offered the latest vote of no confidence for Theranos, the Silicon Valley laboratory testing company it had collaborated with to offer blood tests for some of its customers. In a statement issued on Thursday, Walgreens said that none of the tests for its customers could be performed at Theranoss Newark, Calif., laboratory, which federal regulators just cited for violations of clinical standards. Walgreens said it was also suspending Theranos laboratory testing at its Palo Alto, Calif., store. Theranos contends that more than 90 percent of its laboratory analysis is done in Arizona, where it worked with Walgreens. But the statement did little to allay concerns about the reliability of Theranoss technology. Walgreens said previously that it was evaluating its next steps regarding its relationship with Theranos, and a company spokesman had no further comment. Theranos said it remained open for business and would continue testing at its Arizona lab. This is an issue that many other labs have faced, and we will fix it quickly and completely, working with our regulators as we always do, said Brooke Buchanan, a spokeswoman. A New York City police officer on Thursday morning shot and wounded an armed man who led the police on an erratic chase through the quiet streets of Midwood, Brooklyn, after robbing a cellphone store, the authorities said. The police said investigators recovered a 9-millimeter handgun from the ground, and a second firearm from a bag, near the Jeep sport-utility vehicle that the man and two others crashed into a parked car before trying to run away. The man was in stable condition at Kings County Hospital Center with two gunshot wounds to his torso. The chase, shooting and eventual arrest of the wounded man and another suspect threw the neighborhood into chaos and startled residents who said they were unaccustomed to violent crime in the area. Two men brandishing a firearm entered an authorized Verizon retailer at the corner of Avenue P and East Second Street around 11 a.m., Assistant Chief Patrick Conry, who is the Brooklyn chief of detectives, said. The men ordered the four workers who were inside into a back room and ran off with a number of cellphones. This is an interesting moment in relations between the United States and Israel. Call it a poisonous lull. The vitriol around the Iran nuclear deal has subsided. But something is rotten in the special bond. The American ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro, was recently dismissed as a little Jew boy by a former aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for saying that two standards seem to apply in the way the law is applied to Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and that too much Israeli vigilantism in the West Bank goes on unchecked. Shapiro was stating the obvious. Israeli settlers are citizens entitled to the full protection of civil law. The 2.8 million Palestinians in the West Bank are not. Their decades-old limbo places them in a permanent state of vulnerability subject to Israeli military law. Israel, in turn, exercises corrosive dominion; hence the vigilantism. What was interesting was that Shapiro chose to speak out a reflection of the acute frustration of the Obama administration with Israeli policies that cement what Secretary of State John Kerry has called a one-state reality. That reality is one in which Israel cannot remain a Jewish and democratic state. In Germany, politicians and the news media presented the Greeks as moochers trying to get their hands on Germans hard-earned cash. Coping with a flood of refugees makes some Germans feel they are victims of circumstances once again, and lays the ground for xenophobia and nationalism. Several other wealthier European Union countries also feel their way of life and identity are threatened, and fear further unification. In Britain, an argumentative minority found a reason to exist by accusing Brussels of interfering with national sovereignty, prompting Prime Minister David Cameron to risk his countrys membership in the European Union with a referendum. A chasm separates the social liberalism and internationalism of Syriza from the Christian Nationalism of its right-wing partner, the Independent Greeks. When the government presented a law allowing civil partnerships of same-sex couples, it was passed with votes from Syriza and opposition parties; most Independent Greeks voted against it. Yet the two parties stick together. Before their election a year ago this week, they presented themselves as patriots fighting foreigners and local elites. They built on anti-German anger in public gatherings and the media where German politicians were routinely portrayed as Nazis demanding reparations from Berlin and paying highly charged visits to memorials of wartime atrocities. They backed a campaign of civil defiance (called We wont pay), arguing that it was not Greece that owed money to its creditors, but the other way around. Syrizas leader, Alexis Tsipras, undermined every reform effort by previous governments, promising voters that the day after his partys election he would scrap the bailout agreement, with its hated austerity and reforms. Demagogues oversimplify things by making false promises and excessive accusations. They and, through them, their supporters are always in the right, no matter how mixed up reality may be. At the same time, they complicate things needlessly, often employing primitive conspiracy theories so that no one can understand what must be done. In Greece, the populist narrative was that the local and foreign elites ran up huge debts that the citizens were then forced to pay through reduced incomes, higher taxes and unemployment. Instead of noting that the Greek state was spending beyond its means and had to be reformed, Syriza argued that simply by voting for it, citizens could end the pain, and all the measures of the past few years would be reversed. LONDON When America catches a cold, Britain sneezes eventually. The argument about the proper limits of free speech and political correctness that has raged for years on American campuses has arrived at British universities with a vengeance. Here, the fate of one statue in Oxford has become the focus of fierce debate. The stone figure of Cecil Rhodes, the mining magnate who gave his name to the southern African state of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, has graced the facade of Oriel College since before World War I. Rhodes, who lived from 1853 to 1902, left this college, his alma mater, a substantial bequest. In addition, the university has a Rhodes professorship of race relations and every year admits a phalanx of talented young people from abroad, including 32 Americans, on Rhodes scholarships. (Bill Clinton, George Stephanopoulos, Bobby Jindal and Susan Rice are all alumni.) Now, though, a campaign calling itself Rhodes Must Fall one of whose founders, ironically, is a Rhodes scholar from South Africa, Ntokozo Qwabe has demanded the statues removal. The protesters argument is that for all his achievements, Rhodes held views that are completely unacceptable to modern sensibilities. In an 1877 essay Confession of Faith, composed in Oxford, Rhodes wrote: I contend that we are the first race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. As well as believing in the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon people, he was an early enforcer of racial segregation in South Africa and thus a forefather of the apartheid system. To the Editor: In Stop Wasting Americas Hydropower Potential (Op-Ed, Jan. 14), Senator Lisa Murkowski and Jay Faison of the ClearPath Foundation called for a much bigger role for hydropower in addressing climate change. But the bill they praise, H.R. 8, would undo decades of advances for river conservation. States from California to Maryland, Native American tribes and more than 200 conservation and recreation groups oppose H.R. 8 because it would undermine key protections for clean water and wildlife, curtail meaningful participation by state and federal natural resources agencies, tribes and local communities, and stack the deck for powerful energy companies. Its no wonder that the White House has promised a veto if the bill reaches President Obamas desk. Hydropower dams will continue to play a role in our nations energy portfolio. But we must balance energy production with clean water, wildlife habitat and all of the other benefits that rivers provide. H.R. 8 tips the scales in favor of big energy companies far from the real climate solutions our communities need. WM. ROBERT IRVIN President, American Rivers Washington To the Editor: Re Letter Reveals Plea for Mercy by Eichmann (front page, Jan. 28): In recounting Adolf Eichmanns plea for Israeli clemency, you write that Hannah Arendts portrayal of Eichmann as a banal bureaucrat who didnt appreciate the nature of his acts has been the subject of historical debate. Notwithstanding Ms. Arendts impressionistic interpretation of Eichmann in her New Yorker reports on his 1961 trial (later published as the well-known book Eichmann in Jerusalem), there is no genuine debate that Eichmann was a fanatical Nazi and anti-Semite, utterly devoted to the murder of every last Jew in Europe. In conversations with a Dutch Nazi recorded while he was hiding in Argentina, Eichmann made clear that his only regret was that some Jews managed to survive his efforts, saying that if 10.3 million of these enemies had been killed, then we would have fulfilled our duty. To leave the impression that there may have been merit to Eichmanns defense that he was a mere cog in the Nazi machine who only reluctantly followed orders is a disservice to history and the memory of Eichmanns victims. Just a little over a year ago, voters in Sri Lanka rallied to elect a new president, with high hopes that he would usher in a new era of government accountability and bring healing to a country fractured by the brutal civil war that ended in 2009. President Maithripala Sirisena has taken bold steps to fulfill those hopes since his election last January. But the wounds of war cannot be healed until a transitional justice process demanded by the United Nations in a resolution last October moves forward. On that score, Mr. Sirisena says his government will not act in haste. This is unacceptable. Atrocities were committed by both Tamil rebel troops and the Sri Lankan Army during the civil war. The perpetrators must be brought to trial. Mr. Sirisena has amply demonstrated a capacity to lead during the year he has held office. He has presided over promised parliamentary elections, and has moved to dismantle the cronyism and the repressive regime of his predecessor, Mahinda Rajapaksa. He has also moved to include Sri Lankas minority Tamils and Muslims in the countrys governance, to release political prisoners and to allow more freedom of expression. And he has righted the Rajapaksa governments tilt toward China, taking a balanced approach to Sri Lankas foreign relations that includes warmer relations with India and the United States. This month, Mr. Sirisena announced the beginning of a process to draft a new constitution. These are welcome steps. But they are no substitute for justice. Troubling allegations of torture under Mr. Sirisenas watch which his government denies must be addressed. Military leaders who oversaw the bloody operations that killed as many as 40,000 Tamil civilians in the final months of the war remain in command, and have even been promoted. A dangerous anti-Muslim campaign by Singhalese nationalists is threatening to further fray Sri Lankas ethnic fabric. Dr. Herbert L. Abrams, a radiologist at Stanford and Harvard universities and a founder of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 for its work in publicizing the health consequences of atomic warfare, died on Jan. 20 at his home in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 95. The death was confirmed by his son, John. In the late 1970s, Dr. Abrams became interested in the health implications of nuclear policy. It began to dawn on me that these weapons of annihilation were being considered for use in the settlement of disputes between nations when I had honestly not thought that that was ever in the cards, he told The Los Angeles Times in 1989. With a group of American and Soviet doctors, he helped create International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, with the goal of publicizing the health risks of a nuclear exchange and countering theories that physicians might be able to save enough people to continue civilized life. He later called nuclear weapons and nuclear war the central health issue of the 20th century. Dr. Abrams served as founding vice president of the group, which was awarded the Unesco Prize for Peace Education in 1984 and the Nobel Peace Prize a year later. In announcing the award, the Nobel committee said the group had performed an important service by spreading authoritative information and by creating an awareness of the catastrophic consequences of atomic warfare. Ethan Couch, the 18-year-old from Texas better known to the tabloids and the 24-hour cable news cycle as the affluenza teen, returned Thursday morning from Mexico, where he had fled last month with his mother. Mr. Couch, whose affluenza defense helped him avoid prison for a drunken-driving crash that killed four people in 2013, decided this week to drop his appeal in Mexico against deportation back to the United States. Early on Thursday, Mexican immigration authorities confirmed that he was on his way to the airport, The Associated Press reported. Local media in Texas later covered his arrival at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, escorted by federal marshals. He was later booked into a juvenile facility in Fort Worth, where he will be held overnight until a detention hearing, expected on Friday, Samantha K. Jordan, a spokeswoman with the district attorneys office, said in an emailed statement. BURNS, Ore. The F.B.I. took the extraordinary step of releasing surveillance video on Thursday showing the shooting death of LaVoy Finicum, a member of the armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge here in eastern Oregon, as the occupation continued by a handful of followers. Mr. Finicum, 54, was killed Tuesday by Oregon State Police troopers, said Greg Bretzing, the special agent in charge for the F.B.I in Oregon, after he tried to run through a police barricade on a wooded road, then climbed from his truck and, Mr. Bretzing said, reached for a weapon in his jacket pocket. There are various versions of what occurred during this event: most inaccurate, some inflammatory, Mr. Bretzing said, before playing the video shot from an aircraft at a news conference. To that end, we want to do what we can to lay out an honest and unfiltered view of what happened and how it happened. Mr. Bretzing stressed the investigation of the shooting was continuing. But he said the officers fired on Mr. Finicums truck as it sped toward a roadblock and went off the road into a snowbank, and then again after he left the vehicle. He said the total number of shots fired was in the single digits. While the vast majority of super PAC money still comes from wealthy individuals, union cash pooled from the dues and contributions of members has become a critical source of money for outside groups on the left. In 2012 and 2014, unions gave more than $200 million to super PACs. More than half of it went to union-controlled groups that spent tens of millions of dollars on advertising, mailers and other independent expenditures. So far in 2016, according to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics, seven of the top 20 organizational contributors to super PACs were unions or their affiliates, not corporations. When you have hundreds of thousands or millions of dues-paying members, you can wield a significant amount of influence, said Robert Maguire, an investigator at the center. Its the flip side of a lot of other spending were seeing this days. No union has spent as much money in the Democratic primary as National Nurses United, which was born out of a 2009 merger of three smaller unions and has unapologetically embraced liberal politics and movement-building. In 2011, union nurses provided health care at the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Lower Manhattan, and the organization has lobbied forcefully for single-payer health care and a financial transaction tax. When most large labor organizations backed Mrs. Clinton, the nurses were among a handful to support Mr. Sanders, among them the Communications Workers of America and the postal workers union. They are guided, the nurses leaders say, by the principle that taking care of patients means taking care of the country, too. On Thursday, the state legislature signed off on $28 million in emergency state spending for Flint requested by Gov. Rick Snyder, who has also asked the federal government to expand Medicaid to cover every Flint resident younger than 21. Democrats said they would attach their measure which may rankle Republicans, especially those who have resisted federal emergency disaster aid for other states in the past to a sweeping energy bill now on the Senate floor. They also suggested that they could filibuster that bill if their Flint package was not approved. Weve not yet made that decision, said Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan. But this is very serious. The amendment is one among several expected to be attached to the bill by both Republicans and Democrats, part of the open amendment process favored by Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and majority leader, but one which threatens the ability to pass bipartisan legislation like the energy legislation. Republicans, for instance, are considering an amendment to undo a recent Interior Department moratorium on new coal mining leases on public lands, a measure that would undermine the bills chances of being signed by President Obama. Democrats said the federal government had a responsibility to help Flint, where the drinking water was found to have elevated levels of lead after the city switched its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. A study found the percentage of Flint children with high lead levels more than doubled after the switch. Mr. Greenberg said Mr. Obama and Ms. Pelosi would be remembered for making transformative changes during 2009 and 2010, when the president confronted an economic crisis, Ms. Pelosi wielded the speakers gavel to corral support, and Senate Democrats controlled the 60 votes needed to overcome Republican filibusters. We will look at those two years as enduring, he said. But he said Mr. Obamas legacy would also include the political death of Ms. Pelosis once-powerful majority. Part of his legacy is the off-year elections, he said. How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause. Learn more about our process. Administration officials reject that critique, noting the historic pattern of losses that a presidents party often sustains in off-year elections and the eight House seats Democrats regained when Mr. Obama was on the ballot in 2012. They said Mr. Obama was a prolific fund-raiser and a frequent campaigner for Democratic candidates when asked; the president hosted 17 fund-raising events across the country in 2013 and 2014, they said. Some congressional Democrats said it was not enough not necessarily because Mr. Obama could have done more but because there could never be enough fund-raising given the nature of modern political campaigns. If the president had allocated 50 more of his days to raising money, Representative Brad Sherman, Democrat of California, said at a reception to mark the start of the retreat in Baltimore, we would have more Democratic members here. In a speech here, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. expressed optimism if the party draws sharp contrasts. I think we can win; I think the House we can win, Mr. Biden said. White House aides said they recognized the pressure lawmakers faced. Everybody can take pride in the very difficult and necessary votes that were taken in 2009 and 2010 to make sure the country got back on its feet, said David Simas, Mr. Obamas political director. People recognized at the time that they werent the most popular votes they could take. But few people would look back and say that wasnt the right thing to do. Mr. Simas said the president was committed to campaigning up and down the ticket for Democratic candidates. Thats what we are going to do, he said. _____ Trump or no Trump, the focus will be as much on the Fox News moderators as it will be on the candidates. With the accusations flung from the Trump campaign, viewers, if not candidates, will be parsing the questions, hunting for glimmers of bias. With this in mind, expect the moderators Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace to be exceptionally prepared and direct in their questioning. Nick Corasaniti _____ In the absence of Mr. Trump onstage, who can carry his mantle of devil-may-care straight talk? In truth, probably no one. But the best shot belongs to Chris Christie and Mr. Cruz. Watch for them to try, perhaps too hard, to own the night. Michael Barbaro _____ If Mr. Trumps presence sucked the air out of past debates, what will fill the vacuum this time? Look for the candidates seeking to appeal to establishment-aligned voters to make attacks that echo the ads the super PACs supporting them are placing on the airwaves: Marco Rubio on Mr. Bush, Mr. Bush on Mr. Christie, John R. Kasich on Mr. Rubio, and every variation in between. Nicholas Confessore _____ Can Ben Carson make an impression? He has yet to accomplish that feat in the Republican debates. But with his candidacy hinging on a strong showing in Iowa, this could be his last chance to make his pitch to a large number of voters. The retired neurosurgeon has been studying tax policy, cybersecurity and foreign policy. Thursday night may be his final opportunity to put that knowledge on display. Alan Rappeport _____ Asked on Wednesday night what he thought the effect of Mr. Trumps absence would be, Mr. Kasich not a standout performer in the debates so far gave a simple answer: Probably more time for all of us. Mr. Kasich is counting on a strong showing in New Hampshire to catapult his candidacy into the spotlight, so how he uses that time will matter. Will the candidate, whose calm demeanor has kept him from rising above the sharp tone of previous face-offs, have a better chance of being heard without Mr. Trump onstage? Thomas Kaplan _____ Does Mr. Kasich still get a free pass? The Ohio governor has drawn scant criticism from his opponents so far, with the occasional exception of Mr. Trump. But Mr. Kasichs polling numbers have risen lately in New Hampshire, where he has insistently wooed more moderate Republican voters. With a tight race there among the establishment-friendly candidates, rivals like Mr. Christie and Mr. Rubio may not allow Mr. Kasich to deliver his message again unchallenged. Alexander Burns BEIJING As if there had not been enough scares out of China lately, a new threat looms: a shortage of donkey skin gelatin. State news outlets warn that the diminishing supply has attracted a flood of fake stand-ins for donkey gelatin, a popular traditional medicine. Some breeders in the eastern province of Shandong, the historic heartland for donkey gelatin, are using implanted identification chips to protect their increasingly precious beasts. At least one company has offered consumers DNA certificates to prove that its product is the real, braying deal. Fortunately, there are experts and politicians at hand with solutions. The government should support donkey breeders by offering subsidies to encourage more breeding, Qin Yunfeng told Xinhua, the state news agency, in a report on Thursday. Mr. Qin has sterling qualifications. Xinhua called him a state-level expert on ejiao, the name for the rubbery substance extracted from boiled donkey skin that is reputed in traditional Chinese medicine to replenish the blood, cure coughs and insomnia, and offer a general boost. TOKYO A chief architect of Prime Minister Shinzo Abes plan to resuscitate Japan, the worlds third-largest economy, resigned on Thursday after reports by a magazine that he had accepted money from the head of a construction company in exchange for political favors. Akira Amari, the minister for economic revitalization, announced his resignation after markets closed in Japan. It was both a surprise and an embarrassing setback for Mr. Abe, who has used monetary easing by the Bank of Japan and other economic measures a package known as Abenomics to reverse the deflation and lackluster economic growth that have beleaguered the country for much of the past quarter-century. Mr. Amari, 66, was a close ally of Mr. Abe, and he led Japans negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major trade accord reached in October, after seven years of negotiations. He is the fourth minister of Mr. Abes government, but by far the most powerful, to resign over allegations of misconduct. I feel responsible for appointing him, and I apologize to the Japanese people for this matter, Mr. Abe said after Mr. Amaris resignation. KARACHI, Pakistan Fears about potential follow-up attacks on Pakistani schools by Taliban militants created widespread confusion and school closings this week, even as officials urged calm. The closing of the Pakistani militarys network of colleges and schools around Karachi, a little over a week after the Taliban attack that killed 21 people at Bacha Khan University in the northwestern town of Charsadda, prompted worry among many parents. Though the militarys decision and reasoning were not officially announced, news reports and social media posts about the closings led to widespread speculation that more attacks could be coming. Those fears were heightened after officials said that public schools in Punjab Province, Pakistans most heavily populated region, were being kept closed because of suddenly dropping temperatures. Though officials assured parents that the schools would reopen soon and that the move had nothing to do with security, many were not in the mood to take chances. If there is one more incident, there is going to be a collapse, said Aliya Agha, 47, a lawyer and activist in Islamabad. Our greatest asset is at highest risk at the moment. LONDON American Airlines Flight 109, traveling to Los Angeles from London, was more than two hours into its journey and close to Keflavik, Iceland, when several passengers and crew members suddenly and mysteriously became ill. Those aboard were startled, news reports said, and the pilot decided to fly back to London. The plane landed safely. But on Thursday, the mystery of what happened on the plane, which captured headlines in Britain and beyond, remained unclear. The Daily Telegraph in Britain, citing a passenger on the flight, reported that one crew member had fainted. American Airlines said in an emailed statement that two passengers and several flight attendants had complained of lightheadedness during the flight on Wednesday, prompting the captain to return to Heathrow Airport near London. It said there were 172 passengers and 16 crew members on the Boeing 777, which landed at 5:05 p.m. News reports said the plane had been met by paramedics, police cars and firefighters. Passengers and crew members were evaluated by health officials, American Airlines said, but none requested further medical attention. Luggage was removed for inspection, The Daily Telegraph reported. He was treated to full state honors at one of the French Republics most sanctified spots, Les Invalides, and the red carpet was rolled out for him at meetings with top business leaders. Later in the day, he met with President Francois Hollande at Elysee Palace. Lest they offend their guest, the French have kept wine off the menu, and the Italians covered up nude statues. So far, the courtship has worked swimmingly, as Italian and French business leaders have barely been able to sign the contracts fast enough. By the end of Thursday morning, less than 24 hours into Mr. Rouhanis visit to France, the carmaker Peugeot Citroen had signed a deal worth 400 million euros, about $438 million, with the Iranian carmaker Khodro. The oil company Total said it would sign a deal for 150,000 to 200,000 barrels a day. Airbus will sell 118 planes to the Iranians. Even as analysts warn that the Iranian market may not be as easy to access as many hope, and that it may not be the answer that Europe desires to its economic downturn, the allure is proving nearly irresistible. Mr. Rouhani represents one-stop shopping by himself: The Iranian government controls 80 percent of the countrys economy. And with Irans population of around 80 million, much of it young and eager to spend after years of cheap Chinese goods, Western companies cannot get there fast enough. Deals and potential deals, signed and promised for cars, planes, metals, pharmaceuticals have been cascading. French companies should rush to Iran and not waste any time, said Pierre Gattaz, the president of the French employer federation Medef. ROME Italy has given Europe many things, but rarely leadership. Among member states of the European Union, Italy is important but not always influential, partly because of the decades-old dysfunction of its politics. France and Germany traditionally set the European agenda, while Italy is often a junior partner, if sometimes a comic sideshow. But with the European Union fragmenting politically and hit by crises, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is arguing that Italys voice must now be heard and be taken seriously. He has taken a confrontational approach, partly out of frustration, which has brought new tensions in the bloc, even as all sides have sought to tamp down the conflicts in recent days. Mr. Renzis sudden assertiveness has left him open to charges of being an obstructionist and of grandstanding to score political points at home. He has criticized Brussels and Berlin including a public feud with the president of the European Commission. He has elbowed his way into European Union policy matters such as Russian sanctions, a gas pipeline in Germany and the deal with Turkey to slow down the influx of refugees. Im the leader of a great country, Mr. Renzi said during an interview last week. I have my ideas. LONDON At least 24 people drowned and 11 others were missing after a boat carrying Iraqi Kurds sank off the Greek island of Samos in the Aegean Sea, close to the Turkish coast, the authorities said on Thursday. The Italian Navy also rescued 290 migrants on Thursday and recovered six bodies from the water near a half-sunken rubber boat off Libya, en route to Italy. The navy rescued the migrants from three rubber boats. The six bodies were found near the third one, which was already sinking when the Italian vessel reached it. More than 3,700 migrants died while trying to enter Europe via the Mediterranean Sea last year, and the latest sinkings were a reminder that the flow had not stopped in the dead of winter, despite near-freezing nighttime temperatures. Swedish and Dutch officials suggested this week that they were preparing new steps to deal with the problem. Kelly Namia, an Athens-based representative of the International Organization for Migration, confirmed the death toll off Samos. According to accounts provided to the organization at a hospital, the wooden vessel was carrying 65 people when it sank on Wednesday night, even though it had a maximum capacity of 30. The aspiring cowboys also have to get used to working long days in harsh conditions, a concept that often seems novel to many of them. Working here is hard. Many people cannot stand it, especially the need to stay sober, said Viktor P. Buivolov, who installed elevators in Moscow before becoming the manager of the ranch. We even have a Breathalyzer here, he said, navigating a Russian UAZ Patriot sport utility vehicle through a herd of cattle. Agriculture all but disappeared from this and many other parts of Russia years ago, after the final screw was turned into scrap metal at the last surviving Soviet collective farms. But as oil prices have collapsed and Russia has imposed retaliatory sanctions against Western food products, reviving the economy with import substitution has become a priority for the Kremlin. President Vladimir V. Putin has said Russia has the potential to become a world leader in food production, and has set a goal of self-sufficiency by 2020. The ranch is part of the Miratorg company of Viktor and Aleksander Linnik, brothers who since 2010, have amassed an empire of more than 1.5 million acres of Russian rangeland and are on track to gather up one million more. At that rate they will become the largest landowners in Russia, owning territory the size of Lebanon. Every year, they would send us Christmas cards, Mr. Remeeus said. Youd think they would be upset, but they understood it wasnt personal. In 2012, the United States Treasury Department identified 58 of the companys vessels and 27 of its corporate affiliates as extensions of the Iranian state, and it threatened actions against Western companies that used any of those services. For N.I.T.C., business, long solid, unraveled in a couple of months. First, insurers started excusing themselves, saying that they could no longer work with the Iranian company. Major oil companies, including Royal Dutch Shell, Total of France and Repsol of Spain, all longtime clients, said they needed to clear payments before giving new orders, but they complained that banks were preventing them from doing so. At N.I.T.C. headquarters here, committees were formed to devise ways around the sanctions. First, they changed insurers, using local brokers instead, but their foreign clients refused to deal with them. Then Malta, one of the most accommodating flags to sail under, cut ties, and the company had trouble finding new partners. At first it worked with the microstate of Tuvalu, and it eventually reflagged the entire fleet under Tanzania, widely regarded as a substandard flag of convenience. The ships names were also changed, dropping references to their country of origin. The Iran Astaneh became Neptune, the Iran Damavand just Damavand. Before long, the pride of the Iranian fleet was sailing under names like Amber, Horizon and Success. Iran was accused of other, more nefarious methods of avoiding detection, like turning off signaling systems on its vessels and making ship-to-ship transfers while at sea. GAZA The military wing of Hamas, the Islamic group that controls Gaza, said Thursday that seven of its members were killed when a tunnel into Israel collapsed as they were working on it. On Tuesday, the men were repairing an old cross-border tunnel in eastern Gaza that was used for several attacks against Israeli forces during the 50-day war in the summer of 2014, according to the Qassam Brigades of Hamas. Israel said it had destroyed an underground network of more than 30 tunnels in Gaza during that war, but Israeli military officials have been warning in recent weeks that many of them have been restored. The Qassam Brigades said in a statement that the fighters who died in Tuesdays collapse had taken part in heroic operations during the war, killing and wounding a large number of the enemys soldiers. Four of them lived on the same street in the Daraj Quarter of Gaza City. By Thursday, Hamas had still not recovered all the bodies. Abu Hassan al-Shobaki, a cousin of one of the men killed, said by telephone that the family was happy and proud and welcomed the news of his death because he was martyred defending Islam and Palestine. Staffan de Mistura, UN special envoy to Syria: Al Salam aleekom (Greetings). My message today is meant to reach every single man, woman, child of Syria, inside Syria and outside, in the refugee camps or wherever you are. You know in the next few days we are planning to launch what we call the Intra-Syrian talks, negotiations, in order to have progress in the context of reaching, finally, stability and peace and dignity back in Syria. You deserve it. Five years of this conflict have been too much. The horror is in front of everyones eyes. You must know also that we count on you to raise your voice to say Khalas (enough), it is enough, to say to everyone who is actually coming from Syria and from abroad to this conference that there are expectations on them to make sure that their vision, their capacity of compromise in discussion for reaching a peaceful solution in Syria is now and they need to produce that. You have seen enough conferences, two of them already taken place. This one cannot fail. Weve heard your voices, we heard when you been telling us so many times wherever we met you, you Syrian people, you women, men and children of Syria saying: enough, khalas, kefaya (enough), enough killing, murdering, torturing, prisons. Enough buildings being destroyed, enough bombing my city where I am, and I do not who is bombing me, I just see bombs coming down, rockets, anything. Enough my brother, my sister being humiliated and becoming a refugee and trying to take a boat and drowning in the Mediterranean when I love my country. Enough when you see your children say I want to go to school and I cannot go to school because you are not allowing me to go because it is too dangerous. All this, we have heard it. Now we need to hear your voice to everyone who is coming to this conference, and saying this conference must be an opportunity not to be missed. We are going not to disappoint you from the UN point of view. You know we will never abandon the Syrian people but we need now you to feel that this time is the right one, we will do all what we can. God willing, Al sallam aleekom. I listened to it, I guess. When you listen intensely to anything you see how it can be improved. Its a rhythmic thing. Like music. You can feel the way that language lifts and turns around itself. The problematic character for me has always been Vince. Because hes closer to autobiography than anything else in the play everyone else is pieces, figments, fragments. Vince is more the guy himself. Has it become a different play as youve aged? Not really. It remains the same clunky play. One of the first plays to make a real impression on you was Eugene ONeills Long Days Journey Into Night. Its the greatest play ever written in America. But what I wanted to do was to destroy the idea of the American family drama. Its too psychological. Because this and that happened, you wet the bed? Who cares? Who cares when theres a dead baby in the backyard? Is the family still as central to your work? Your recent collaborations with the Abbey Theater in Dublin Kicking a Dead Horse and Ages of the Moon seemed to be moving away from it. Well, the last thing we did was a variation of Oedipus. You cant get any more familial than Oedipus. Do you think an outsider can ever really understand the dynamics of a family? I remember as a kid, going into other peoples houses. Everything was different. The smells in the kitchen were different; the clothing was different. That bothered me. Theres something very mysterious about other families and the way they function. As a child, did you know that your familys behavior wasnt normative? I thought this was all the way it was supposed to be. I remember a great friend of mine in high school, he took me aside and he said, I know your father was a little off the deep end, but I didnt know he was crazy. And that sort of shocked me a little bit. The restaurant was once named Africa, as if embracing an entire continent, when in fact the focus was on the cooking of the western coast, mainly Senegal. Samba Niang and Kine (pronounced kee-nay) Mar, natives of Dakar, opened its doors two decades ago on the northern side of West 116th Street in Harlem a strip that soon after became known as Le Petit Senegal, in honor of the immigrants who brought French and billowing boubous (ankle-length tunic-gowns) to the neighborhood. Eventually the restaurant acquired the suffix Kine, after Ms. Mar, the chef. The space it occupied was small and humble, but in 2005 it turned grand, moving across the street and sprawling over two stories. Takeout was offered below, through a plexiglass shield that grew amber with the years. A stairway wound past carvings in illuminated niches to a dining room with faux-marble tabletops, booths and drapes swept back from yawning windows. In the kitchen, women cooked crowded, fragrant stews by day and men roasted monuments of meat by night. Of the many beautiful things about good red Burgundy, the most striking is the way the wine keeps changing before you. From the moment you open a bottle and pour the first glass, a cascade of elusive aromas and flavors captures your attention. They begin gently and delicately, perhaps reminding you of enticing flowers and red fruits. With a little time, they may toughen, with suggestions of rocks and metals, even animals, before sweetening again. They reel you in, toss you back, and just when you believe the wine has reached equilibrium, it changes again. The mind reels. The spirit soars. Forgive me if I sound hyperbolic. Thats how I feel about Burgundy. Its not magic, but it is mystery, and no wine more than Burgundy conveys the inscrutability at the core of all great wines. Forget that rising demand for Burgundy in the last 20 years has sealed its status as a luxury commodity, sending prices soaring. Its enigmatic beauty is what enchants true Burgundy lovers. STOCKHOLM Interior Minister Anders Ygeman says Sweden could deport between 60,000 and 80,000 asylum-seekers in coming years. Ygeman told newspaper Dagens Industri that since about 45 percent of asylum applications are currently rejected, the country must get ready to send back tens of thousands of the 163,000 who sought shelter in Sweden last year. I think that it could be about 60,000 people, but it could also be up to 80,000, Ygeman was quoted as saying. His spokesman, Victor Harju, confirmed the quotes Thursday, adding that the minister was simply applying the current approval rate to the record number of asylum-seekers that arrived in 2015. Harju adds: That rate could of course change. Germany and Sweden were the top destinations for asylum-seekers in Europe last year In the sea near a Greek island, the coast guard said that at least 11 people, most of them children, died Thursday in the latest migrant boat sinking. Ten people were rescued, while the bodies of four boys, three girls, three men and one woman were recovered. Romanian border police said Thursday that they had rescued 119 asylum-seekers from Africa including 34 children who were on an inflatable dingy in the Mediterranean, trying to reach Europe. The migrants were dehydrated and had signs of hypothermia when they were picked up on Tuesday. They came from Gambia, Senegal, Liberia, Mali, Sierre Leona and Guinea Bissau and were planning to travel to the Schengen area. A Dutch politician says his country, which currently holds the EU presidency, is working on a plan to ease the migrant crisis by which a core group of member states would accept up to 250,000 refugees coming from Turkey in return for sending back the migrants that now arrive by the hundreds of thousands in Greece. Diederik Samson leader of the Socialist PvdA party, a key partner in the government told De Volkskrant newpaper that a core group of nations should be willing to accept a set number of refugees coming from Turkey, if the other migrants can be sent back. Curious teenagers peeked into the windows of the new Union Bank branch that opened at the center of Loara High School prompting laughter from a dozen students who work inside as tellers. Some onlookers wanted to know whether the 400-square-foot office once part of the campus library was open and ready to dispense some cash. Others asked if its really a bank. Its been interesting to see the reaction from my classmates and teachers, because they cant believe that we really have something like this, said Andrew Flores, a Loara High senior who works at the campus branch. Union Banks first school site in Orange County opened this week as part of an internship program aimed at teaching financial responsibility and providing hands-on job experience for students. Its Union Banks fourth campus in California. Security cameras keep an eye on customers specifically students and school staffers who open accounts, make deposits or complete withdrawals. By June, a $500 stipend and $1,000 college scholarship will be awarded to each of the 12 student-tellers who work under the guidance of a Union Bank manager. I realized right off the bat that it was an opportunity that isnt offered everywhere, and I wanted to be a part of it, senior Jesenia Almonte said. Its teaching me the importance of saving my money, and its definitely something I want to pursue as a career. More than 80 Loara seniors submitted applications, cover letters and resumes. When hired, the selected dozen underwent background checks, completed a week of training and were directed to maintain at least a 2.5 grade-point average. I was looking for work ethic, said Lydia Mendoza-Carmona, a Union Bank vice-president and the campus branch manager. Some students dont have many opportunities, because they need to go home after school to babysit their siblings or help with the family business, Mendoza-Carmona said. I looked for the kids who showed enthusiasm for helping their families while also wanting to be a part of this. Union Bank opened its first student-run branch at McLane High School in Fresno in 2011, then followed three years later with branches at Crenshaw and Lincoln high schools in Los Angeles. Other banking companies offer similar on-campus programs elsewhere in the United States. Initially a skeptic, Loara Principal John Briquelet said he was impressed with the program after attending a grand-opening ceremony for Crenshaw High Schools bank branch. I was all in and wanted to bring it here, because the kids at Crenshaw were so excited, Briquelet said. Its all about giving the students an opportunity to develop interpersonal skills, professionalism and handling big responsibilities. Contact the writer: 714-704-3769 or amarroquin@ocregister.com Samantha Bee wont be the first female late-night TV host, of course, but she could prove to be the best. Full Frontal with Samantha Bee debuts at 10:30 p.m. Monday on TBS, and Bee will bring an intelligent, topical sense of humor along with her hilarious interviewing style to the new weekly half-hour program. As the latest woman to break into the late-night club, whose membership over the years has been nearly exclusively white middle-age males, Bee will attempt to surpass the level of success of those who came before her. Most recently, Chelsea Handler hosted Chelsea Lately on E! for seven years. Handlers show seemed to have the reputation of being primarily for women. Perhaps that was partially due to the network on which it aired. E!s programming is largely targeted to women. Full Frontal appears as though it could have more wide-ranging appeal. Bee, 46, comes to TBS with a built-in following from her work on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and viewers will expect a similar sensibility. I think the success of Bees show will hinge a great deal on how it is marketed, said Shelley Jenkins, a Cal State Fullerton radio-TV-film professor. Pointing out that its a woman hosting a late-night show may, inadvertently, suggest to some that its a show for women. It shouldnt do this, but it might. In one of the promos for Full Frontal, a tray of sausages is depicted as a metaphor for the male-dominated late-night landscape. As much as I like the sausage promo and what it says about the current face of late night, I do think it may backfire and keep some guys from tuning in, Jenkins said. I hope Im wrong. The Star Wars promo (in which Bee is referred to as late nights newest warrior) was timely and funny, but I dont know that it spoke to the expectations or tone of the program. I cant recall either John Oliver or Stephen Colbert, both successful Daily Show alums-turned-hosts, being promoted in similar ways, she said. Perhaps I am just overly sensitive to the marketing strategy they are using with Samantha Bee because I am female. It just seems that the industry doesnt always seem to know how to promote shows, especially intelligent ones, helmed by women. Well see. In addition to Handler, the trail for Bee was blazed by Wanda Sykes (The Wanda Sykes Show, Fox, 2009-2010) and, of course, Joan Rivers, who became the first woman to host a late-night program when The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers debuted Oct. 9, 1986 on Fox. Rivers had a well-publicized falling-out with her former mentor, Tonight Show host Johnny Carson, at the time of her shows launch. Because of the power Carson wielded in the industry, Rivers show was essentially doomed from the start. The final episode aired May 15, 1987. Because Johnny saw her as competing against him now, he thought of her as ungrateful and banned her from The Tonight Show altogether, Jenkins said. That unofficial ban stayed in effect through (Jay) Lenos tenure. Only (Jimmy) Fallon brought her back for an appearance in what turned out to be her last days. I cant help but to think that if a man had launched out into his own show, Carson might have accepted it easier. But I think he felt Joan owed him something and, therefore, should be satisfied with what she had been given instead of wanting more. Samantha Bee doesnt have that problem. Many of Jon Stewarts co-workers have said that they owe him. Im sure shes no different. I also imagine that Stewart is most likely more encouraging of Bees intentions than Carson was of Rivers. As for Bees comedy, shes not as laugh-out-loud funny as Rivers was few are, female or male but Bees sensibility is that of very smart comedic storytelling. I think Samanthas humor will go over well with the late-night crowd, and I think her previous exposure on The Daily Show will definitely boost her ratings, Jenkins said. Full Frontal represents TBS second attempt to find a companion piece for its flagship late-night franchise, Conan. However, Bees program will air before Conan OBriens show rather than follow it, as The Pete Holmes Show did during its brief run from October 2013 to June 2014. It appears as though Bees vision for Full Frontal is to set it apart from other late-night shows. She has said she will not sit behind a desk and there will be no guests. The show will feature recorded interview segments. During Bees years on The Daily Show, there was no one better at asking an interview subject an absurd question designed to elicit a humorous response. She should be herself, Jenkins said. Shes already shown that she has a different, likable style with her bits on The Daily Show. You cant help folks look ridiculously stupid on national television and live to tell about it, unless you are extremely approachable, likable and funny as hell. On camera, shes all three. And if Bee goes on to enjoy a long, successful tenure as a late-night host, perhaps that could lead to more shows hosted by women in years to come. It would be nice to see us get to a place where a womans presence at the helm of a late-night show doesnt make news, Jenkins said, because its so commonplace. FALLON IN L.A. The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon will do another week of shows at Universal Studios Hollywood from Feb. 15-19. Among the guests scheduled to appear are Will Ferrell, Jennifer Lopez and Christina Aguilera. Fallon, who brought his show to L.A. last February, also will get some prime-time exposure the night before his West Coast gig begins. The Tonight Show Valentines Day Anniversary Special will air from 9-11 p.m. Feb. 14, celebrating the programs second anniversary with highlights from previous shows. Contact the writer: jdelillo@ocregister.com, Twitter: @JoeDeLillo FOUNTAIN VALLEY A crucial element of animal water cremations isnt getting banned in Orange County. The Orange County Sanitation District board criticized its staff Wednesday night for allowing the ick factor to dictate policy instead of scientific data. The districts staff had recommended banning liquefied animal remains from going down the drain, which the board members who were present unanimously voted down. The law would have prompted Paws and Claws in Orange to either haul the discharge elsewhere or close its business. Water cremation, or alkaline hydrolysis, is legal on humans in 13 states. In California, its only legal with animals and for certain medical uses on human remains. It works by breaking down the tissue with water, heat and alkaline chemicals in an aquamation tank, leaving bones that are later converted into ash. The staff acknowledged that the proposed change was because of concern over the publics possible perception of the practice. Originally, it sounded like were drinking liquified human remains, which is not accurate, just like we are not drinking sewage, said board member Chad Wanke, who is a Placentia councilman. Its really kind of ridiculous, he said. I did look into this technology and from what I can tell this is a good technology and safe technology and is a lot less distasteful than other waste going into the system. Bio-Response Solutions, which makes water-cremation units, says the discharged is peptides, sugars, amino acids, nutrients and some soap. Tom Beamish, a board member and La Habra councilman, said the staff not only treated the business unfairly, but were setting a dangerous precedent for a regulatory agency. Early in the meeting, the boards staff said it was concerned that allowing the discharge into the system would dampen public support of recycled water. Later, the staff confirmed that the discharge from Paws and Claws doesnt even go to a recycling plant but instead is treated and heads into the ocean because of where the business is located. There is at least one other firm that does animal water cremations in the county. Paws and Claws owners Brian and Deanna Kondrath said they were relieved with the boards decision. Thats all we wanted, a fair shake, Brian Kondrath said. LOS ANGELES (AP) The closure of a landmark Los Angeles bridge dating to the 1930s brought out residents who wanted one last walk or drive across before its demolished and replaced with a modern span. Dozens of people including members of a car club gathered to take photos late Tuesday on the 6th Street Bridge, which joins downtown Los Angeles with the Boyle Heights neighborhood. One woman was arrested when she refused officers orders to disperse, police said. City officials including Mayor Eric Garcetti planned to take a final walk Wednesday and then discuss details about upcoming closures and detours. Demolition is expected to last about 9 months and be followed by a $449 million project to build a replacement bridge designed by architect Michael Maltzan. Work is set to begin next week, necessitating a 40-hour closure of State Route 101 on Feb. 5. Maltzans design of the new span includes references to the current bridge, completed in 1932, including 10 pairs of arches. One arch from the old concrete bridge will be preserved and used in a community space that will be built underneath the new span, according to Councilman Jose Huizars office. The project is expected to be completed by 2019 at the earliest. The 3,500-foot bridge which crosses State Route 101, Interstate 5 and the Los Angeles River is being replaced due to deterioration caused by a chemical reaction in the concrete. BURNS, Ore. A day after eight members of an armed anti-government group were arrested, their jailed leader on Wednesday urged a handful of remaining militants to abandon the Oregon wildlife refuge they have occupied for more than three weeks and where they are now surrounded by federal agents. After militant leader Ammon Bundy made his first court appearance in Portland on Wednesday, his attorney, Mike Arnold, read this statement from his client: Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is now in the courts. Late Wednesday, the FBI and Oregon State Police said they arrested three more people connected to the occupation. A statement said they arrested 45-year-old Duane Leo Ehmer of Irrigon, Ore., and 34-year-old Dylan Wade Anderson of Provo, Utah, around 3:30 p.m. A few hours later, 43-year-old Jason S. Patrick of Bonaire, Ga., was arrested. The FBI said the men turned themselves in to agents at a checkpoint on a road near the refuge. As with the eight others arrested a day earlier, officials say these men will face one federal felony count of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats. Meanwhile, details began to emerge about the confrontation Tuesday on a remote highway that resulted in the arrest of Bundy and other leading figures in the group of occupiers, and in the death of militant Robert Finicum. Bundy followers gave conflicting accounts of how Finicum died. One said Finicum charged at FBI agents, who then shot him. A member of the Bundy family said Finicum did nothing to provoke the agents. An Oregon man who says he witnessed the shootout says he heard about a half-dozen shots but didnt see anyone get hit, and that the shooting happened quickly over maybe 12 or 15 seconds. Raymond Doherty said that he was about 100 feet back and couldnt see who specifically was shooting. But, he added, I saw them shooting at each other. There was no immediate way to confirm the accounts. Authorities refused to release any details about the encounter or even to verify that it was Finicum who was killed. Also on Wednesday, a federal judge in Portland unsealed a criminal complaint that said the armed group had explosives and night-vision goggles and that they were prepared to fight at the refuge or in the nearby town of Burns. Someone told authorities about the equipment on Jan. 2, when the group took over Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, according to the document. Bundy and the seven others are charged with felony counts of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats. The criminal complaint stresses that point. It states that the 16 employees at the wildlife refuge have been prevented from reporting to work because of threats of violence posed by the defendants and others occupying the property. Federal law officials and Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward held a news conference on Wednesday in which they called on the rest of the occupiers to go home. There is a huge law enforcement presence in the region, and the FBI has now set up checkpoints outside the refuge. FBI agent Greg Bretzing said people could leave through checkpoints where they will be identified. He said negotiators were available to talk if they have questions or concerns. Bretzing also defended the FBI-led operation that resulted in the arrest of Bundy and other leaders, and in the death of Finicum. I will say that the armed occupiers were given ample opportunities to leave peacefully, he said. Ward said multiple law-enforcement agencies put together the best tactical plan they could. Bundy followers took to social media to offer conflicting accounts of Finicums final moments. In a video posted to Facebook, Mike McConnell said he was driving a vehicle carrying Ammon Bundy and another occupier, Brian Cavalier. He said Finicum was driving a truck and with him were Ryan Bundy Ammons brother as well as three others. He said the convoy was driving through a forest when they were stopped by agents in heavy-duty trucks. He said agents first pulled him out of the vehicle, followed by Ammon Bundy and Cavalier. When agents approached the truck driven by Filicum, he drove off with officers in pursuit. McConnell said he did not see what happened next, but he heard from others who were in that vehicle that they encountered a roadblock. The truck got stuck in a snowbank, and Finicum got out and charged them. He went after them, McConnell said. Relatives of Ammon Bundy offered similar accounts, but they said Finicum did nothing to provoke FBI agents. Briana Bundy, a sister of Ammon Bundy, said he called his wife after his arrest. He said the group was stopped by state and federal officers. She said people in the two vehicles complied with instructions to get out with their hands up. LaVoy shouted, Dont shoot. Were unarmed, Briana Bundy said in an interview with The Associated Press. They began to fire on them. Ammon said it happened real fast. Ammon said, They murdered him in cold blood. We did everything they asked, and they murdered him. We complied with their demands, she said. McConnell had a different perspective. Any time someone takes off with a vehicle away from law enforcement after theyve exercised a stop, its typically considered an act of aggression, and foolish, he said in the Facebook video. McConnell said he was questioned by authorities, and he believes he was not charged because he was not considered a leader of the group. Briana Bundy confirmed that McConnell was in the convoy on Tuesday. Ammon and Ryan Bundy are the sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a high-profile 2014 standoff with the government over grazing rights. The group, which has included people from as far away as Michigan and Ohio, calls itself Citizens for Constitutional Freedom It came to the frozen high desert of eastern Oregon to decry what it calls onerous federal land restrictions and to object to the prison sentences of two local ranchers convicted of setting fires. Thirty years to the day later, Paul Okamura still remembers the smiling faces of the astronauts not the fireball that came later. It was Jan. 28, 1986, and Okamura, now 49, was a college-age guy at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida watching seven accomplished people climb happily into the space shuttle Challenger. A minute after takeoff we saw the explosion, said Okamura, who now lives in Irvine. At first, we thought it was the separation of the booster rockets. It wasnt. Instead, the burst of fuel and flame that started to engulf the Challenger 73 seconds into the flight was the worst accident in the history of the U.S. space program. But then, over the PA system in the viewing area, they told us what had happened. In an instant, the crowds excitement became sorrow. People started crying and hugging, he said. It felt like a funeral. Shuttle launches had become ho-hum; the Challenger was on its 10th mission. But with Christa McAuliffe, a civilian, set to be the first American teacher in space, people across the country were paying attention to Challenger. And even though the liftoff was in Florida, Challenger was an Orange County program. Much of the Challenger was designed by Rockwell International, which had a division in Newport Beach and was later headquartered in Seal Beach. Thousands of local workers from engineers to accountants to line employees had, at times, worked on the Challenger or one of the many other spacecraft and aerospace technology built over the years in Orange County. Even today, Challenger has strong local ties: McAuliffe Middle School in Los Alamitos is named after the teacher who died in the explosion. McAuliffes role in the Challenger mission had school classrooms across the country tuned in to watch the liftoff. Today, her best-known phrase, Be yourself, try your best and never be afraid to dream, is taught at the school. On Tuesday, Chapman Universitys Leatherby Libraries added documents to its archives from Allan J. McDonald, the scientist who refused to give a go-head for the Challenger launch the night before the explosion. The Chapman collection includes information from McDonald and another Challenger scientist, Roger Boisjoly. Those documents form the largest repository of Challenger information outside of the federal government. Cal State Fullerton alum Tracy Caldwell has said it was McAuliffe who inspired her to become an astronaut. In 2007, Caldwell, who also researched at UC Irvine, went into orbit aboard space shuttle Endeavour to help expand the International Space Station. She has spent 188 days in space and made three space walks. Mark Maier, founding chairman of the Chapman Leadership Studies Program, uses the Challenger catastrophe as an opportunity to learn. Many say that the accident could have been avoided with better communication and decision making leading up to the launch, and Maier has used the event to create training videos for students. He has said Challenger teaches the importance of decision making and leadership. A cluster of seven redwoods at Jessamyn West Park in Yorba Linda was planted in memory of the Challenger astronauts. Staff writers Roxana Kopetman and Lou Ponsi contributed to this report. Contact the writer: bseipel@ocregister.com WESTMINSTER Time is slipping away. That is the message that Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens delivered to Little Saigon on Wednesday regarding the countys search for three fugitives two with ties to Vietnamese gangs. We dont have any direct reports that theyre in Little Saigon, she said, but this is obviously where they have contacts. Hutchens drove to Westminsters Moran Street, known as media row, in the heart of Little Saigon to appeal for help directly from the communitys leading newspaper, Nguoi Viet, and leading TV station, Saigon TV. If the jail escapees are there, they likely wont stay long, Hutchens said. If you see or hear something suspicious, report it, she said. Theres a short window of opportunity, she said. Fridays jailbreak by Jonathan Tieu, 20, Bac Duong, 43, and Hossein Nayeri, 37, has triggered an intense manhunt by more than 250 law enforcement officials. Duong, who does not speak English, and Tieu are members of violent Vietnamese gangs, sheriffs Lt. Dave Sawyer said. Nayeri, not affiliated with local Vietnamese gangs, stands accused of kidnap and torture of a Santa Ana marijuana dispensary owner. The three escapees are considered armed and dangerous. A $200,000 REWARD Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do joined Hutchens on Wednesday to reassure the close-knit and sometimes tight-lipped Vietnamese American community he represents. We want to bring this to as early a conclusion as possible, Do said, noting rewards totaling $200,000. The FBI is offering a $20,000 reward for the capture of the three; the U.S. Marshals Service is offering a $30,000 reward. On Tuesday, the county Board of Supervisors kicked in an additional $150,000. The manhunt raises a couple of issues that long have shadowed Little Saigon, home to the largest concentration of Vietnamese outside of Southeast Asia. One is trust. The communitys insular nature helped first- and second-generation Vietnamese to gain a foothold in the United States after the 1975 fall of Saigon, but it also fostered a distrust of outside politicians and police. That explains why Hutchens visited Westminster on Wednesday with Do and why she enlisted Vietnamese-speaking deputies to hand out wanted posters, written in Vietnamese, for Little Saigon businesses to post in shop windows. We wont make them put up the fliers if they dont want to, Hutchens said. Thats a private business decision. Do said he expects good cooperation far different from decades past. The community has matured and finds itself more integrated, he said. The manhunt raises a second issue in Little Saigon: gangs. In the late 1980s and early 90s, Little Saigon was a hotbed for Vietnamese gangs, with arson, extortion and home invasions on the rise. A series of shootings in 1986 forced businesses to post private security guards around the clock. Officials say the gang problem has cooled but not disappeared. Fugitive Tieu, a 20-year-old member of the Tiny Rascal Gang or TRG, was being held at the Central Mens Jail on a murder charge. Investigators suspect he was one of several gang members that shot and killed Scottie Bui, 19, an alleged member of another Vietnamese gang, in 2011. Tieu was 16 at the time. Duong was arrested in November after police allege he shot a 52-year-old man in the chest. He also faces charges for allegedly stealing a motorcycle and resisting arrest. Federal authorities have been trying to deport him for years. HUNKERED DOWN Catching these fugitives may require luck, reward money and one more thing: old-fashioned, gumshoe police work. In that regard, Garden Grove police Lt. Bob Bogue thinks the local police may have an edge over sheriffs deputies, because the locals are walking and talking on the streets every day. If these escapees are here, he says, theyre hunkered down because they know their faces are on every TV. But eventually, he adds, they will get comfortable and start moving around. And then the Little Saigon community will see them and tell us. Han Solo has a big surprise. Harrison Ford, the actor who played the snarky, charming pilot in four Star Wars movies, will further detail The Walt Disney Co.s plans for Star Wars lands at Disneyland and at Walt Disney World. Fords announcement will be part of a two-hour, Feb. 21 ABC-TV special celebrating the 60th anniversary of Disneyland, The Wonderful World of Disney: Disneyland 60. Ford joins Elton John, who recently performed at Disneyland, and Derek Hough, a former Dancing with the Stars performer, as celebrities who will be in the show. Other stars have yet to be revealed. Disney announced plans for a Star Wars land last year. As previously reported, the 14-acre land is being built just to the north of Frontierland, where the Big Thunder Ranch once was located, along with some backstage areas. An opening date hasnt been announced. Disney officials have said the new land will be an immersive experience for visitors, with two signature attractions, including one in which guests ride Solos Millennium Falcon spaceship, and a cantina similar to the famed Mos Eisley joint from the films. Contact the writer: 714-704-3764 or jpimentel@ocregister.com or follow on Twitter @OCDisney The siege at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in central Oregon has always been different from the others. It is not like Ruby Ridge in 1992 or Waco in 1993, where federal and local law enforcement authorities battled militants on their private land. It is not like the Cliven Bundy ranch incident in 2014, when federal officials stepped away from a confrontation with the Nevada rancher and protesters who said that they were defending the right to graze cattle on federal land. Malheur is the first real siege brought about by a group of occupiers on the offensive. Armed with AR-15 assault rifles, shotguns, pistols and knives, dozens of men and women occupied a federal facility for more than three weeks, rallied others to their cause and, citing the Constitution, advocated severely curtailing federal authority across the country. An eruption of violence Tuesday on a highway outside the nearby town of Burns left one of the most prominent occupiers dead and eight others under arrest. (Three more were arrested Wednesday). Whatever happens next, supporters and critics agree that the Malheur occupation marks a dramatic turn in a long-simmering relationship between the federal government and radicals who view it as overreaching and corrupt. I think this is going to galvanize peoples concerns that the government is taking actions that its not supposed to, said B.J. Soper, a member of the Pacific Patriots Network, an umbrella organization of regional militia groups. I believe its going to galvanize people into the movement. Government officials and leaders expressed sadness and concern about the outbreak of violence but reaffirmed their support of law enforcements approach in handling the crisis. Meanwhile, the incident seemed to intensify anti-government sentiment among militia members and their sympathizers, who reacted with rage and calls for retribution. On Facebook and Twitter and in middle-of-the-night phone calls, supporters first shared reports that Cliven Bundys sons, Ammon and Ryan, had been arrested. Soon, word spread that Bundy supporter LaVoy Finicum had been killed. The Bundy Ranch Facebook page provided a dark timeline for followers: We have been informed that Ammon was taken into custody while outside the refuge and that shots were fired, but confirmation of these details is still lacking. We humbly seek the protection of God and ask for your prayers. Then two hours later: Tonight peaceful patriots were attacked on a remote road for supporting the Constitution. One was killed. Who are the terrorists? And then confirmation of Finicums death: LaVoy has left us, but his sacrifice will never be far from the lips of those who love liberty. You cannot defeat us. Our blood is seed. Elsewhere, details were murky at first and became even murkier as secondhand accounts became third- and fourth-hand accounts. Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore (R), who has been supportive of the Bundys, tweeted: My heart & prays go out to LaVoy Finicums family he was just murdered with his hands up in Burns OR. Other reports emerged that Finicum had charged police. In an audio recording posted on YouTube, a young woman who said that she was in Finicums truck said Finicum had his hands up as he told the police to go ahead and shoot him. She estimated that law enforcement fired 120 rounds into the vehicle. But the accounts could not be immediately verified. At a Wednesday afternoon news conference, law enforcement officials said that occupiers were to blame for the confrontation that left Finicum dead, but they would not discuss details of the confrontation, saying it is still under investigation. The news conference left Soper seething. The resident of Redmond, Ore., about 120 miles from Malheur, said that his militia organization had been acting as a buffer between the FBI and the occupiers on the refuge. Soper said the news conference was disgusting and full of lies. Our government should be ashamed of itself and Harney County should be ashamed of its elected officials as well, he said. Its pretty obvious that LaVoy Finicum was murdered by the government, he said, adding, Thats going to cause a pretty stern reaction from the community and from the people across America. Soper said that he never supported the takeover of federal property but that he thinks it has brought attention to the issues of land use and federal policies. The message that came out was a message that America and the western United States needed to hear, he said. Change is going to happen out here in the West because of what theyve done. The occupiers considered their decision to seize Malheur to be a game changer. During an interview two weeks ago, Finicum sat in one of the small administrative offices at the Malheur refuge and quietly explained why the armed takeover of the federal facility represented a significant strategic advance for groups rebelling against the federal government. Finicum had arrived in Burns on Jan. 3 to protest the upcoming reimprisonment of two local ranchers, Dwight and Steven Hammond, who had been convicted of arson on federal property and resentenced. An hour before the march, Ammon and Ryan Bundy held a small meeting to suggest a radical addendum to the protest. Ammon Bundy proposed that he and the others head out to Malheur, occupy it and refuse to relinquish it until demands had been met. He laid out all the efforts [that had been made] to resolve this thing at every level and where they had been rebuffed and not even responded to, said the soft-spoken Finicum. Then, at that moment, he laid out the plan to come and occupy here. At that point, I said, Ammon, let me make sure I understand what youre saying. For all these many years, we have been in a defensive posture, losing a little bit here and losing a little bit there as ranchers, and being forced backward. Is what youre saying that this is our first step forward? He goes, Yes, it is. The plan to take that step forward, Finicum said later, was unprecedented. Rhetoric that had been growing increasingly aggressive about how to respond to the federal government was turned into action. Now, Finicum is dead. The Bundy brothers are in jail. And as of late Wednesday, many occupiers had left the refuge. Through his lawyer on Wednesday afternoon, Ammon Bundy asked the remaining occupiers to please stand down. Tuesdays violence may have marked the beginning of the end of the siege at Malheur. But the occupiers decision to take over the facility in the first place worries groups monitoring the self-styled militia organizations that have challenged federal authority in the West and across the country. The fact that they took over this federal building is a new thing, said Heidi Beirich, who tracks militias and paramilitary organizations for the Southern Poverty Law Center. In the past, obviously weve had standoffs, but theyve been standoffs that involved feds sieging properties that are owned by the militants. Beirich said that the standoff at the Bundy ranch in 2014, during which the federal government walked away from confrontation, may have given the occupiers a sense that they could have success in their latest effort. Up to that point, I dont think people even as crazy as some of the people in the militia movement are thought that you could put a gun to a federal officer and not get arrested and actually get what you wanted, Beirich said. What is also new, Beirich said, is that militia groups are reaching out to people, ranchers and others, who may not share their fervent ideological views but do feel resentment toward some federal policies. Beirich said that the biggest expansion of anti-government groups came after the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, when 168 people were killed by militia movement sympathizers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. For a little while, the bombing gave a boost to the movement, Beirich said. But then the federal government . . . started cracking down really hard on violators in the anti-government movement. And the movement started collapsing. Where we sit right now, she said, the question is, Does this further embolden these people? Or do cooler heads prevail and decide to quietly slink away? The dissident artist and activist Ai Weiwei said Wednesday that he would close his current exhibition at the Faurschou Foundation in Copenhagen in protest of a new law allowing Denmark to confiscate refugees valuables to help pay for their stay in the country. The law, which was parliament approved Tuesday, requires refugees to hand over any assets worth over 10,000 kroner ($1,450), although exceptions would be made for items with sentimental value, like wedding rings. Ai made the announcement on Instagram, and the Faurschou, a contemporary art gallery, confirmed on both its Instagram account and its Facebook page that the exhibition, Ruptures, would close ahead of schedule. In a statement on Instagram using language identical to that of Ais post, the museum said that its owner, Jens Faurschou, backed the artists decision. It cited regrets over the Danish parliaments decision to be in the forefront of symbolic and inhuman politics of todays biggest humanitarian crisis in Europe and the Middle East, instead of being in the forefront of a respectful European solution to solve the acute humanitarian crisis. Opponents have criticized the Danish law as divisive, and they say it will diminish the countrys reputation for tolerance and potentially encourage xenophobia. The show, which opened in spring 2015, had been scheduled to run through April 15. In the past month, Ais Instagram account has focused on documenting refugees arriving on the shores of the Greek island of Lesbos. An Anaheim firefighter is under investigation by his employer to determine what repercussions, if any, he should face after pleading guilty in a DUI case in Murrieta, where he was the mayor. On Friday, Alan Long pleaded guilty to one count of misdemeanor driving under the influence with injury in connection with a October 2014 crash that injured four high school cheerleaders. Now that the criminal case is complete, we have initiated an internal investigation, which could take anywhere from a few days to a few months, depending on the complexity of it and the people who will be interviewed, said Anaheim police Sgt. Daron Wyatt, whos also a spokesman for the Anaheim Fire Department. Long was sentenced the same day to 180 days in custody which can be done with electronic monitoring and three years of probation, according to John Hall, spokesman for the Riverside County District Attorneys Office. Long also must participate in the states program for first-time DUI offenders, attend a Mothers Against Drunk Driving victim impact panel and pay more than $2,000 in booking fees, fines and penalty assessments, court records say. Long had originally been charged with felony DUI and sentence-enhancing allegations of inflicting great bodily injury and subjecting multiple victims to injury all of which were dismissed under the plea deal. His attorney, Virginia Blumenthal, entered the plea on behalf of her client, who was not required to be present. Long did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A battalion chief for the Anaheim Fire Department, Long has been active since his October 2014 arrest, Wyatt said. Although he stepped down from the Murrieta City Council following his arrest, Long remained on the ballot in that years election. He was re-elected to another four-year term. Murrieta police have said Long was driving south on Jefferson Avenue about 8:15 p.m. Oct. 16 when his full-size pickup truck smashed into the back of a Chrysler 300 waiting to make a left turn at Lily Avenue. The four girls in the car, ages 14 to 17 at the time, suffered moderate to major injuries. One girl had fractures to two vertebrae in her neck. The deal wraps up the criminal proceedings against the councilman, but he still faces a civil lawsuit. Riverside-based attorney Jean-Simon Serrano, who is representing the families of the girls, said the resolution of the criminal matter could spur some sort of settlement of the civil case in the near future. It will help in the sense we can finally take his statement, he said Tuesday. Up until this point he had refused to make a statement and said he was going to plead the fifth. He wont have that protection any more. Police officials rejected a public records request for the reports in the case, but the girls attorney provided a copy of the crash report. Long told police he had consumed about half a glass of wine with dinner an hour before the crash, the report says. Long said he was traveling about 25 mph when Chloe Rogers, the 17-year-old driver of the Chrysler, slammed on the brakes for no reason, the report says. But Rogers said she had been stopped, with her turn signal on, waiting for oncoming traffic to pass for about 20 seconds before Longs pickup slammed into her car, the report says. Toxicology tests showed Longs blood-alcohol level was in excess of .08 percent, the legal limit to operate a vehicle. He was arrested on suspicion of DUI that night. A hearing in the suit is scheduled for March 2. We live in an unprecedented era for communications due to the web and a multitude of social media outlets. Never before have we been able to contact so many people, so easily and so simply by making a few taps on a keyboard. Two out of every three Americans uses at least one social network site. Many are starting to rely on sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Digg and StumbleUpon for news and information. Many users have large social networks not only composed of loved ones, family and friends, but also acquaintances, friends of friends and even relative strangers. There are good and bad uses for these social media outlets. But I want to acknowledge one great use that gives the greatest gift of all: the gift of life. All of us can give this greatest gift simply by accessing our own social media networks to visit www.matchingdonors.com. The program has three primary goals: to increase the number of life-saving organ transplants, to increase the number of people willing to be a living donor, and to gather additional names of those individuals in need of an organ transplant. The National Registry is no longer the only source for those in need of an organ transplant. Matchingdonors.com provides a venue where those in need of an organ transplant can be listed and then communicate and meet with individuals who may be potential donors. This makes the organ donation program far easier, more efficient and expedites the entire process, doing in months what might have taken years in the recent past. Today, there are more than 80,000 people on the National Registry waiting for an organ transplant and 275 of them die each day. Many of these people have been on the list for years. The average wait for an organ transplant is 7 to 12 years. In California, you can register to be an organ donor when you renew your drivers license at the DMV or you can go online to the Donate Life California Organ and Tissue Donor Registry. There is one significant difference between the Donate Life California program and the Matchingdonors.com program. DLC is a deceased organ donation program that will harvest organs at the time of death. Matchingdonors.com is a living (altruistic) organ donor program, that matches willing organ donors with individuals in need of a transplant. The Matchingdonors.com program focuses on organ donations of the kidney, pancreas, liver, lung, bone marrow and intestine. Deceased organ donation programs are historically the first choice for people in need of an organ transplant, but it requires the death of someone else. The deceased organ donation program has a number of factors that can greatly impact the outcome of organ transplant surgery. The outcomes can be affected by the time and place of the harvest, as well as the transportation and proper care of the organs. In addition, the recipient needs to be ready to travel quickly and the surgical team needs to be ready and everyone must arrive in time at a facility where the transplant surgery can be properly performed. Even if all these factors match up, the transplant surgery is still an emergency procedure, which adds considerable risk because it is not possible to fully evaluate potential complications and procedures as in a scheduled surgery. Since Matchingdonors.com is a living organ donation program, the surgery can be scheduled and all pre-surgery evaluation and tests of both the donor and the recipient can be properly done. There also is a psychological benefit for both the donor and the recipient. They get to know one another and are able to form a bond that goes well beyond friendship. Additionally, the recipient can begin taking immunosuppressant (anti-rejection) drugs before the surgery, greatly increasing the success of the transplant surgery. No matter how you feel about organ donation programs, either living or deceased, take the time to visit the www.matchingdonors.com and read some of the many stories that convey the emotional impact donors and recipients have on one another. Then ask everyone who is part of your social media network to do the same thing. Together, with just a few taps on a keyboard, you can give the greatest gift of all: the gift of life. Ians weekly column covers regional, state and national issues. His 40 year media career, includes 20 years as publisher and CEO of various media companies. He welcomes comments from readers and can be reached at ilamont@lbregister.com. Authorities Thursday released a sketch of a man wanted on suspicion of inappropriately touching women on separate occasions while they were walking at night in Santa Ana. Detectives said the sexual batteries happened in the area of McFadden Avenue and Raitt Street, according to the Santa Ana Police Department. The first was on Sept. 4 and the second was on Jan. 1 both between 10 and 11:30 p.m. Police said that on both occasions, the suspect approached the women as they were walking alone and talked to them before the sexual battery occurred. The man is described as being Hispanic, age 24 to 29, 5 feet 4 inches to 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 150 to 165 pounds. Police advise people to walk in pairs and stay vigilant of those they dont know. Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Corporal Javier Aceves at 714-245-8542 or Orange County Crime Stoppers at 1-855-TIP-OCCS. Contact the writer: 714-796-7865 or afausto@ocregister.com With the presidential race in full swing, I have been getting a lot of mail about my previous bid for the big office and also my funny meeting with former President Richard Nixon. So today I thought I would reach back and give those of you who were not around at that time and that would be almost all of you except me a little recap. First off, meeting Nixon: In the late 1960s, when he was president, he bought the Cottons Estate in San Clemente and dubbed it the Western White House. The surf spot directly in front of the property is called Cottons Point and its where I surfed pretty much every day at that time. When he was in town, the military and Secret Service would block off the entire area, and nobody was allowed to surf except for the few guys who lived in Cypress Shore, the high-end private development north of the estate. So, being the weasel I can be when necessary, I wrote a letter to the Secret Service stating that I was the United States Surfing Champion, which I was, and that the surf spot in front of the Western White House is where I did my training to represent America in surfing competitions all around the world. I added that I would like a pass to be able to continue my training even when Nixon was in town. I had no idea if this was gonna work but figured it was worth a shot. To my surprise they called me and asked me to come in for an interview. They ran a comprehensive background check on me, and I guess they figured I was OK. They took my picture and got my signature and told me I could surf there any time I wanted. When Nixon was in town there were armed guards on the beach and a big Coast Guard boat outside the break along with a flock of helicopters cruising above. I would check in on the beach and paddle out to perfect big summer south swells either all alone or with Rolf Aurness. Rolfs dad was the actor James Arness (dropped the u for T.V.) and he had a home there, so they could also surf. It was a fantastic deal, at least for us. One afternoon I was out surfing by myself and was just getting out of the water when Nixon came walking down the beach. He was wearing blue walking shorts, a white shirt and blue tie, blue blazer, black dress shoes and blue socks. He was also surrounded by a bunch of bodyguards. He saw me coming up the beach and walked up and offered his hand. He smiled and said, So youre our surfing champion. I shook his hand and smiled back and said, So youre our president. We both laughed; the bodyguards didnt. He told me to have fun surfing and I told him to have fun being president and that was that. About 10 years later I was fairly seriously doing music and playing with some excellent musicians. At that time, 1979, there was another presidential race going on. Our piano player, Jerry Waller, wrote a cool song for me to do called A Surfer for President. We released an album right then and decided to call it A Surfer for President. This led to a fun little campaign that included T-shirts, ink pens, coffee mugs, pins and a few other commemorative items. The result was I got way more votes that most people ever thought possible, even though I personally was in shock I didnt win. Enough that they ran yet another background check on me just to see who in the heck I was and why people voted for me. It was pretty funny. I guess they figured I was OK because they never came to take me away or anything. Now, I am not saying I want to be a write-in or anything this time, but with the choices in front of us I certainly could not blame any of you if you did. I mean really, maybe just what this country needs is a man with a plank in his hand, hot dog diplomacy and tan chicks in the sand. And that would be a surfer for president. The sign above the door still reads Tabento Sushi and Sake. You cant miss it. But never mind the outdated sign. This place is now a Japanese ramen bar called Aoki No Chuuka, with a new chef/owner at the helm. The dining room seats only about 25. Dont everybody rush this place because theres only one dude, the owner, in the kitchen, and only one server in the dining room. That cook in his tiny kitchen makes a dozen different types of ramen. The yuzu shio ramen was the best thing I ate this week. The light assari-style shio broth, made with chicken and pork bones, is almost crystal clear, with a slight yellowish tinge that comes from citrusy yuzukosho (that slightly salty, fermented paste of citrus zest and green chili). This isnt one of those rich, thick, almost-milky-with-so-much-fat tonkotsu soups like the bowls I love at Yamadaya. This is a different beast: more delicate, brightly fragrant and laser-focused. The soup is filled with thin wheat noodles, soft but still bouncy and chewy. Its laden with several thick slices of braised pork belly, or chashu, that is soft enough to eat even when youre not wearing your dentures. Its garnished with dried red chili threads, which are more decorative than essential. Although ramen is one of my favorite comfort foods, never in my life have I been able to finish an entire bowl of broth and noodles. Ive seen it done, so I guess its possible. But as good as this one is, I still cant finish it. Contact the writer: bajohnson@ocregister.com or on Instagram: @bradajohnson The St. Regis Monarch Beach is one of O.C.s best places to have happy hour or a late-night drink. Its sophisticated yet friendly, popular yet not a draw for the Gold Coast bar-crawling crowd. And the sunsets are spectacular. Stonehill Tavern has always been the soul of the St. Regis; Im a big fan of its lead mixologist, Jenny Buchhagen. I passed by the Lobby Bar & Lounge on the way to Stonehill but seldom found a reason to visit. That was before the renovation. Workers are finishing a redo that brings out the resorts stylish, comforting qualities without going overboard. And the bar has been reborn as 33North, a coolly attractive lounge thats a worthy counterpart to Stonehill. You can choose to sit at the bar, in the salon or on the outdoor patio. To mark the unveiling, head sommelier Paul Coker and others have concocted some original cocktails that reflect the hotels location with a sly wink to those who know the area. The names of the new libations include some South County landmarks: T Street, Salt Creek, Green Flash, High Tide, Tower 33, Doheny Spice, Old Dana, Surfers Liberation and Champs Elysees. At $17 theyre no bargain, but youre at the St. Regis, after all. From the glass to the ice and the presentation, the price shows in each creation. Our concept is that youre in this beautiful beach house, said St. Regis marketing coordinator Lexi Zavouris. We wanted it to feel cozy and casual, just like your home. Well, not exactly. The St. Regis will present live music at 33North from 5 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. And on Friday and Saturdays we have a DJ, Zavouris said. Shes the only female DJ (in O.C.) who spins on vinyl. The cocktail menu favors gin and bourbon, with some trendy twists: the Salt Creek includes Earl Grey tea-infused Brooklyn gin. Some are variations on a classic, such as the Moscow Mule-like T Street. Others are complete originals. The cocktail spirits are often trendy, such as Hangar One vodka, but theyre not exotic. We wanted to find the good-quality (spirits) you can use for cocktails. Thats why this bars go-to bourbon is Elijah Craig. My roommate made me a boulevardier with Pappy (Van Winkle) and I almost cried, Coker said. Contact the writer: 714-796-7979 or phodgins@ocregister.com MOSCOW Syrian refugees should be given an opportunity to cast their ballots in the countrys future elections, Russias security chief has told The Associated Press, adding that the international community should focus on creating conditions for a free vote in Syria. However, demands for the immediate departure of Syrian President Bashar Assad would be counterproductive, said Nikolai Patrushev, a longtime associate of President Vladimir Putin who serves as the executive secretary of the presidential Security Council. Lets remember the sad experience of Iraq and Libya, Patrushev told the AP in a written reply to questions Tuesday his first remarks ever to a foreign news organization. Have they succeeded in stabilizing the situation there following a foreign intervention and physical removal of those countries leaders? Russia has recently joined forces with the United States and a dozen other nations to help broker Syrian peace talks set to start in Geneva on Friday, which are intended to pave the way for a new constitution and new elections in a year and a half. The nearly five-year Syrian conflict began in 2011 with protests against Assads rule and has morphed into an all-out civil war, involving a myriad of opposition units. It has seen Islamic State carve out a sizeable chunk of the countrys territory and killed a quarter of a million people and displaced millions. Moscow has staunchly backed Assad throughout the war, shielding his government from U.N. sanctions and providing it with weapons. Patrushev reaffirmed Russias longtime stance that its up to the Syrian people to determine Assads fate and the countrys future. What Syria should look like and who should be at its helm tomorrow must be determined by the Syrian people, not Russia or any other country, Patrushev said. Moscow has denied media reports claiming that Russias top military intelligence officer recently visited Damascus to urge Assad to step down. Different assessments could be made of the incumbent Syrian president, but insisting on his immediate departure isnt just political short-sightedness but an open interference into affairs of a sovereign state, Patrushev said. Efforts by the international community must be directed exclusively at creating the necessary preconditions for ensuring a free expression of will of all citizens of Syria, he added. Russia is ready to support the idea to create opportunities for Syrian refugees to vote, naturally under the same strict international control as in Syria itself. Amid tough bargaining over who should represent the opposition in the Geneva talks, Moscow has pressed its air campaign in Syria. Russian warplanes have flown nearly 6,000 combat missions in Syria since Moscow launched the air blitz on Sept. 30, helping Assads military to gain ground in recent weeks. Moscow says its targeting Islamic State and other extremist groups, but the U.S. and its allies claim Russian warplanes have also targeted the moderate opposition in a bid to shore up Assad. Patrushev said that Russia believes its necessary to more actively engage in political settlement with constructive opposition forces, which are ready to fight Islamic State, Jabhat al-Nusra and other terrorist organizations. After approving a list of terrorist groups at an international level, it would be necessary to precisely determine locations of non-radical militant units, which are ready to confront terrorists, to avoid hitting them with air strikes, he said. The Russian security chief noted that Moscows military action in Syria has prompted France, Britain, Germany, Italy and NATO as a whole to show more interest in joint efforts with Russia in fighting terrorism. He emphasized that attempts to divide terrorists into good and bad ones are categorically unacceptable, adding that its necessary to renounce any preconditions while creating a joint front against terrorism. Patrushev said that Moscows relations with the U.S. and its NATO allies have been strained by the Ukrainian crisis and the alliances expansion eastward that put Russias security at risk. We have seen a pointed buildup of NATOs military activity, the replacement of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe with newer models, and we have heard NATO generals hostile statements about our country, Patrushev said. He emphasized a serious destabilizing potential has been created by the continuing development of NATOs U.S.-led missile defense in Europe. Patrushev noted that the latest edition of Russias national security doctrine reflects the challenges posed by NATOs expansion to Russias borders and its ongoing military buildup. Like Putin and other Russian officials, he chafed at U.S. action in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya, saying it has destabilized the international situation and contributed to the spread of terrorism. Despite the tensions, Patrushev voiced hope for improving ties with the U.S., saying that we are interested in developing a full-fledged partnership with the United States on the basis of common interests, including in the economic sphere, and taking into account a key impact of Russian-American relations on the international situation. Its necessary to return to a normal dialogue, strengthen cooperation in the sphere of arms control and non-proliferation of mass destruction weapons, he said. Russia and the United States have big experience in anti-terror cooperation and the settlement of regional conflicts. MASON CITY, Iowa Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and his top advisers returned to Iowa on Wednesday evening having confronted a decision that will have lasting consequences for his presidential campaign and his political image: whether to open a new, tougher line of advertising against his rival Hillary Clinton in the closing days of the race for Iowa. The deliberation came as both campaigns acknowledge that Clinton has pulled slightly ahead in polling for the Iowa caucuses Monday. Some advisers to Sanders believe he can win here only by drawing sharper contrasts with her, especially by emphasizing her ties to Wall Street. The senator has prided himself on running an inspiring, issue-oriented campaign, and he speaks often of how he is not interested in tearing Clinton down. But the decision he is now grappling with echoes questions voiced by his supporters as Sanders finds himself within striking distance of Clinton in Iowa: Does he have the stomach to directly attack her, and potentially defeat her, or will he be satisfied having injected important issues into the race and preserving his well-earned reputation for eschewing negative campaigning? The Sanders campaign has made a major purchase of television airtime in Iowa that began Wednesday and continues until the caucuses. The campaigns ad makers have prepared two sets of commercials: One continues the feel-good tone of America, the campaigns popular 60-second spot, which shows farmers, children, dancing older couples and families cheering for Sanders, to the sound of Simon and Garfunkels 1960s folk anthem of the same name. The other takes aim at a central vulnerability of Clinton, her Wall Street ties, by contrasting Sanders vision for overhauling the financial industry with Clintons. We have options to go in different directions, said Tad Devine, the Sanders campaigns Washington-based senior adviser and media consultant, who attended the meeting Wednesday. Devine declined to describe the advertising in detail, other than to say that the tougher ad would give new information more in the wheelhouse of the kind of Wall Street argument. He was careful not to refer to the ad as negative, instead emphasizing that it highlighted differences between the two candidates. But it is likely that Clintons campaign, which is especially sensitive to criticism of her connections to Wall Street, will view the ad as negative. The moment for Sanders is a significant one. If he were to prevail in Iowa, and then go on to win in New Hampshire, where he is favored, he could generate momentum and financial support to present a serious challenge to Clinton. A loss in Iowa, however, would most likely diminish his standing, and his campaign could quickly lose steam. In an exclusive interview on board his campaign plane Tuesday, Sanders seemed to be wrestling out loud with the conflict between his desire to preserve his reputation for positive campaigning and his eagerness to defeat Clinton. He rejected any suggestion that his candidacy was only symbolic. We want to win, Sanders said. We think we have a good chance to win. We think Iowa has a historical role to play in making it clear that the American people want to move this country in a very different direction away from establishment politics and establishment economics. And thats what we hope will happen. In the interview on the plane, a leather-upholstered Gulfstream jet, during which he snacked on cheese wedges and kiwis, Sanders repeatedly described his campaign as positive. Nonetheless, he questioned Clintons acceptance of more than $600,000 from Goldman Sachs for giving three speeches. I am surprised that Hillary Clinton does not understand why so many people have strong concerns about her receiving many, many hundreds of thousands of dollars from Goldman Sachs and from many other financial interests, Sanders said. And I think people dont understand why she doesnt see the concerns that Americans have when you receive millions of dollars in speaking fees from Wall Street, the most powerful entity in America. You know people can draw their own conclusions, but that is just simply a fact. Sanders remark drew quick fire from Clinton campaign headquarters. Its disappointing that Senator Sanders has abandoned his claims of a positive campaign in order to parrot Karl Roves attacks, said a Clinton spokeswoman, Christina Reynolds, referring to the Republican strategist. The truth is, Wall Street and hedge fund donors are running ads to defeat Hillary Clinton because they know she will hold them accountable. Winning in Iowa once seemed a dream for Sanders, an independent socialist who acted more as a progressive conscience complaining on the shoulder of the Democratic caucus than as a power player in Washington. But his campaign, with its promises of free tuition, universal health care, better race relations, a cleaner environment and a cleaned up campaign finance system, caught the imagination of liberals, especially young ones. Within the Sanders campaign, some advisers are eager for the senator to more aggressively exploit Clintons weaknesses, especially the doubts about her trustworthiness. Devine, a veteran of several presidential campaigns and a longtime adviser to Sanders, acknowledged some frustrations in the ranks. But he said the campaign has to reflect the tone of its candidate. I understand that people would want more confrontation, Devine said. But what is important is that a candidate be comfortable delivering the message. PHOENIX An Arizona developer with Orange County ties has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for investment and bankruptcy fraud. Federal prosecutors say 64-year-old John Keith Hoover of Mohave Valley was sentenced Tuesday. Hes known in Orange County for his multimillion-dollar home and a condominium in Newport Beach. His 64-year-old wife, Deborah Hoover, was sentenced to one year of home confinement and five years of supervised release after being convicted of conspiracy to commit bankruptcy fraud. Prosecutors say John Hoover was a homebuilder in Fort Mohave, Ariz., and surrounding areas. They say Hoover created nearly two dozen companies that he used to solicit money from Arizona and California investors for bogus real-estate developments beginning in 1997. Hoover told investors their money would go to specific real-estate developments and then diverted the money for his own personal use. Prosecutors say Hoover and his wife filed bankruptcy while hiding assets. Prosecutors said part of the fraud involved payment of dues to Big Canyon Country Club in Newport Beach and concealing assets including two chandeliers and a Steinway grand piano in the familys Newport Beach homes. California regulators are scheduled to vote on rules today that will govern solar panel owners in the coming years and could make or break Californias burgeoning solar industry. In December, the California Public Utilities Commission issued a proposal that largely keeps intact the states net metering rules, which allow owners of solar panels to sell back to the utility electricity they generate but dont use, essentially winding their electric meters backward. Today, commissioners will vote on that proposal. They could choose to accept it as is or make changes. The solar industry hailed the rules when they were released in December. Utilities criticized them and believe solar users should pay more of the costs of maintaining the power grid. Ahead of the PUC meeting, utilities have proposed tweaking the rules to make them less advantageous to solar users. When a homeowners solar panels generate more electricity than the home is using, that energy is exported to the grid, and the utility sells it to another customer. Under current net metering rules, the utility compensates the homeowner at a full retail rate for that excess energy the same rate solar users pay for any energy they buy from the utility when, for instance, the sun isnt shining. The updated rules will apply to customers of Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric and Pacific Gas & Electric who get solar panels installed starting sometime later this year or next year, depending on when each utility reaches a set percentage of energy generated by rooftop panels. Current solar customers will be grandfathered under the old rules for 20 years from the date they hooked into the grid. The commissions proposal adds a one-time interconnection fee for future solar panel customers when they plug into the grid, while also increasing how much those solar customers pay for programs that bolster energy efficiency and assist low-income people. The interconnection fee is predicted to be $75 to $150, while the other programs will add between $5 and $10 a month to the average bill. Under the proposal, the commission will revisit the net metering rules in 2019, with further changes possible at that time. The small, additional fees are reasonable, the solar industry says, and will allow the industry to continue to grow as more and more homeowners install solar panels. Although we dont like everything in the proposed decision, it is a fair compromise that will maintain the opportunity for customers to go solar, said Brad Heavner, the policy director at the California Solar Energy Industries Association. The utilities disagreed and say that even with the additional fees, solar customers wont be paying their fair share to maintain the grid to which they export electricity and from which they buy electricity when their panels arent generating it. The proposal did not make needed changes to transition the (net metering) program to meaningfully reduce the subsidy being paid by non-participating customers, Southern California Edison spokesman Robert Laffoon-Villegas said. In its proposed rules, the commission rejected suggestions from the utilities to lower the energy export compensation rate for solar customers. But after Congress extended a 30 percent federal tax credit for solar installations earlier this month, the utilities banded together for one final request even though the deadline for commenting on the proposal had passed. In the request, the utilities asked the commission for a compromise that would lower the compensation rate for solar customers, but not as much as the utilities original request. If the commission chooses to lower compensation rates for solar users, the solar industry fears that its business will suffer as it has in other states that have changed net metering rules to make them less attractive for solar customers. In Nevada, for instance, changes made last month to lower compensation for solar customers and increase their fees have prompted solar companies to flee. SolarCity, one of the countrys biggest solar installers, is laying off or relocating 550 employees in Nevada. Many of them will be brought to California, SolarCity said. Contact the writer: aorlowski@ocregister.com. Twitter: @aaronorlowski With the U.S. presidential election approaching on Nov. 8, candidates from across the political spectrum have been concentrating their campaigns on voters fears and anger, says Stephen Stambough, Cal State Fullerton professor of political science. Anger can capture attention and give a candidate momentum and some passionate supporters, Stambough said. However, anger wont suffice through Election Day, he said. The candidates will soon have to present more to voters than feeding off their anxieties and frustrations, he said. It is very difficult for an electorate to stay angry about the same thing through an entire election cycle, Stambough said. According to Stambough, for that anger to turn into a successful movement, candidates need to set forth a detailed, coherent direction and legislative agenda in the coming year. While fear for safety is elevated following recent highly publicized terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, not all fear is directly correlated with physical safety. Theyre tapping into fears of all kinds of things, Stambough said. There is fear, anger and anxiousness, some of which is toward uneasiness in the economy. The middle class hasnt done very well during the recovery. There is fear in terms of uneasiness with international affairs, he said. People dont have faith or an understanding of the direction of Middle East policy. When voters are fearful, they dont tend to favor inexperienced or timid candidates, he said. During times of crisis, voters tend to look toward electing a leader with strong leadership skills and confidence, which current presidential candidates are portraying to voters in different ways. When people are afraid for security purposes which is different than economic purposes they tend to look for people who have strong leadership, Stambough said. That can be in the form of someone yelling and angry and forceful thats kind of (Donald) Trump. It can be in the form of someone who comes across as serious and confident thats kind of (Hillary) Clinton. First-time voters look at things a little differently they tend to want to make their own mark. This election, Stambough senses first-time voters are most attracted to Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. Being a democratic socialist is something thats a little bit different; its something that they might want to explore, he said. It can inspire them to think about issues differently than their parents or grandparents did. Over the next nine months, Stambough challenges voters to try to set aside feelings of fear and anxiety and instead rely on logic. Relying mostly or solely on fear is a negative because it is an incomplete way of approaching a problem, he said. It takes time and it helps if we have good leadership and media that looks beyond sound bites. Candidates, on the other hand, must keep in mind that anger will fade and they must provide a clear-cut plan and direction, he said. Anger can only take you so far. It is a temporary emotion, Stambough said. Contact the writer: amarcos@ocregister.com Lido Marina Village, a much anticipated retail center with property overlooking Newport Harbor, has finalized more tenants. The newest clothing stores include Faherty and Elyse Walker and eyewear store Black Optical. Faherty will open its third store at the center in the spring. The Elyse Walker store will feature designers such as Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen and Balenciaga. The store, which is scheduled to open this summer, will be Elyse Walkers second location. Lido Marina Village will be Black Opticals first California location. Lifestyle brand Serena & Lily will open its fifth location at the center over the summer. Clare V. Newport Beach, an accessories shop by designer Clare Vivier, will open its first Orange County store at Lido. The store, which sells totes, clutches, and sacs, has locations in Los Angeles and New York. Bailey44, a clothing line normally sold in high-end department stores and online, also is coming. Both are slated to open in late spring. Planet Blue, a beachy/boho store, is opening in the spring. Planet Blue opened its first store in Malibu 20 years ago. Designer Jenni Kayne will also open a store over the summer. Alchemy Works: Harbor House, a gallery, lifestyle retail and gathering space, is also planned for Lido Marina Village. The store will feature jewelry, accessories, home accents and more. Other stores announced for the center include dining options Nobu, Honor Coffee Roasters (opening next month) and Publica by Zinque, high-end pet store Charlie & Me, Curl Fitness, Lido Village Books and retailer Steven Alan. Recently opened stores include Juice Served Here, a juice bar that offers cold-pressed juices, smoothies, salads and other healthy options and Tress Apothecary + Salon, a bohemian salon that offers beauty treatments including manicures and hair coloring. Lido Marina Village was first developed in 1971 as a shopping village with water views. The center is now being restored by DJM Capital Partners, the developer behind Pacific City in Huntington Beach. Our idea in redeveloping Lido Marina Village was to create something very special, said Lindsay Parton, President of DJM Capital Partners, in a statement. We wanted to provide this discerning, local audience a sophisticated group of stores, restaurants and experiences that reflect the lifestyle of this idyllic spot in Orange County. Staff writer Nancy Luna contributed to this report. Contact the writer: hmadans@ocregister.com or Twitter: @HannahMadans For a third year, the family of the late Terry Tubesteak Tracy is organizing a Big Kahuna Koncert for a Cause in memory of the California surfing icon. The event will feature live music by Common Sense and Missing Persons, plus DJ Fluffy and artwork by Roy Gonzalez. Proceeds will benefit Surfers Healing, Rock the Autism, Therasurf, Red Autismo, Great Opportunities and OC Autism. Tubesteak Tracy was a 1950s surf pioneer at Malibu whose beach lifestyle inspired Gidget, a novel and Hollywood movie that thrust surfing into the national culture. He died in 2012 at age 77, having lived his final 24 years in San Clemente. My dad liked parties and having family and friends together, his daughter Jennifer said via email. That was important to him, and he also believed in giving back. She has gathered support from local businesses donating prizes and auction items including a one-week stay at a beach house in Costa Rica and a Paul Reed Smith guitar. Surf artist Gonzalez will show his art and donate 20 percent of proceeds to the cause. Hillary Clinton finally acknowledged during a recent town hall meeting that the Affordable Care Act is leaving many Americans stuck in part-time jobs. Although these workers are ready and eager to hold full-time positions, Clinton said President Obamas signature law has built-in unfortunate incentives that discourage full-time employment. Despite her warning, Mrs. Clinton still fervently supports the Affordable Care Act, even claiming recently its working as intended. These words may reassure many of her supporters, but they should frighten many of the 38-plus percent of the population who are Hispanics living in California. And with the Affordable Care Acts mandates coming into effect this month for businesses with over 50 employees, more Hispanics will fall victim to unfortunate incentives. Few have felt the Affordable Care Acts negative effects as strongly as the Hispanic community. Hispanics have been increasingly forced into part-time work in recent years, with the health care laws employer mandates helping to drive this trend. Alongside that shift comes lower incomes, weaker career mobility and altogether less opportunity for Hispanics to achieve the American Dream. Hispanics began to lose ground professionally in the years since the Great Recession. The rate of Hispanics working part-time for economic reasons meaning due to a lack of full-time jobs doubled as the recession took hold. It has yet to return to pre-recession lows. The most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics job numbers show 4.73 percent of Hispanics still facing involuntary part-time employment. Hispanic females face an even higher 5.83 percent. By contrast, the rate of involuntary part-time employment for the non-Hispanic population was roughly 3 percent. This gap wasnt always so noticeable. In a recent study conducted for the LIBRE Institute, The Hispanic Worker through the Great Recession and Recovery, I observed the wide disparity between Hispanics and non-Hispanics becoming the new normal as the Affordable Care Act took hold. In fact, during the four months leading up to the employer mandate taking effect in 2015, the rate of Hispanic involuntary part-time work skyrocketed 20 percent. Employers likely were accounting for the soon-to-rise cost of providing full-time positions. This trend toward part-time work especially hurts young Hispanics, who desperately need solid employment opportunities that lead to a long-term career. A recent Viacom-sponsored study found more than six out of 10 Hispanic millennials were involuntarily working part-time or looking for full-time work in the immediate aftermath of the Affordable Care Acts implementation. And 23 percent of Hispanic millennials reported having their work hours reduced, compared with just 14 percent of non-Hispanics. Fewer work opportunities mean bad news for this community. Home ownership represents the American Dream for many Hispanics, yet one study by the Demand Institute showed that 2.5 million Latinos seeking to buy a home by 2020 wont be able to. Much of that stems from reduced household income and savings brought on by involuntary part-time work. And thats for the Hispanics who can find work at all. The Hispanic unemployment rate is now 6.3 percent, over a full percentage point higher than that of the general population. Unemployment or involuntarily part-time work are unpromising options for the many ambitious Hispanics building their future. With that in mind, when Hillary Clinton acknowledges the Affordable Care Act is causing a shift to part-time employment she also should acknowledge how especially harmful that is for Hispanics. Federal mandates, with their unfortunate incentives, wont help them find long-term work. There are other reforms needed to level the playing field. Mrs. Clinton should start by bringing attention to the occupational licensing laws shell encounter in California. These laws require job-seekers to pay fees and spend many hours in training for jobs theyre often already qualified to perform. California licenses at least 62 professions, many of them jobs favored by Hispanic entrepreneurs. Its just another set of barriers for this community. A champion for the Hispanic community should focus on tearing down such barriers rather than reinforcing them. If Hillary Clinton truly wants to be a champion for Hispanics, she must advocate policies that free up the full-time jobs paving the road to the American Dream. Carli Dimino is the policy director for the LIBRE Initiative and its sister organization the LIBRE Institute. Tech and consumer agency McGrath/Power Public Relations and Communications has become agency of record for Richmond, CA-based medicinal cannabis extracts provider Constance Therapeutics. Founded in 2009, Constance Therapeutics is a leading manufacturer of therapeutic-grade cannabis oil, a product now recommended for medicinal purposes by physicians as an integrative approach to disease management. A California Section 215 Compliant collective, the companys products can be purchased only by registered patients in that state. As AOR, McGrath/Power will craft an integrated communications program for the company, positioning medical cannabis as a new approach to integrative medicine as it applies to cancer, autoimmune and nervous system diseases and symptom management. McGrath/Power Public Relations CEO and Founder Jon Bloom told ODwyers that the agency will initiate a program that focuses on linking the founders story to the work the company has done with patient members to date and the vision for this type of treatment moving forward. Communications efforts will also include use of traditional and social media, branding, as well as research and studies that illustrate the potential impact of the company's protocols. The medical cannabis industry is expected to comprise a $4.4 billion market by 2017. Currently, 23 states have legalized medical cannabis, and Bloom told ODwyers that many believe the green rush now occurring in this burgeoning albeit still controversial industry has the potential to rival the dot-com era in terms of investment, R&D and innovation. The cannabis industry has come quite a long way. More and more medtech companies are doing fascinating research that could lead to new types of treatments for a variety of illnesses, Bloom said. We love working with innovators and have for 30-plus years in high technology. Now we look forward to doing the same in the medtech space. San Jose, CA-based McGrath/Power, which holds a wide range of clients in the B2B and B2C tech sectors, was founded in 1983. Watch live: press conference with OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria and UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi 28/01/2016 - The heads of the OECD and UNHCR, at a joint high-level Conference on the integration of beneficiaries of international protection in Paris today, have called on governments to scale up their efforts to help refugees integrate and contribute to the societies and economies of Europe. In 2015, more than 1 million people crossed the Mediterranean Sea to look for international protection in Europe. In total, about 1.5 million claimed asylum in OECD countries in 2015. This is almost twice the number recorded in 2014 and the highest number ever. At the same time, asylum seekers represent only about 0.1% of the total OECD population, and, even in Europe, they represent less than 0.3% of the total EU population. The OECD and UNHCR stressed not only the moral imperative but also the clear economic incentive to help the millions of refugees living in OECD countries to develop the skills they need to work productively and safely in the jobs of tomorrow. Far from a problem, refugees can and should be part of the solution to many of the challenges our societies confront, said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria at the joint Conference in Paris today. They bring Hope: the hope of a better life and a better future for their children and ours. But to realise this potential, a substantial investment is needed to provide immediate support and help the refugees settle and adapt and develop their skills. It is a difficult and costly task in the short term, with a high pay-off for all in the medium to longer term he said. Our analysis demonstrates the benefits that well-managed migration can bring to the economies and societies of OECD countries. But this will largely depend on how well integration measures are designed and implemented. The earlier refugees get the required support, the better their integration prospects Mr. Gurria added. (Read the full speech here) Integration is a dynamic two-way process which requires both the individual and society to make considerable efforts, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said. In order to play a full role in the social, economic, and cultural life of their host country, refugees need to achieve equality of rights and opportunities. States have an important role in this process, ensuring that refugees play a positive and active part in the integration process, particularly in terms of the services provided to them and in ensuring that they are received by welcoming communities. The OECD also released today a report Making Integration Work: Refugees and others in need of protection, which provides the main lessons from the experience of OECD countries in fostering the integration of refugees. The report highlights many good practices to tackle key barriers and support lasting integration of refugees and their children. It stresses the importance of early intervention, including providing access to language courses, employment programmes and integration services as soon as possible, including for asylum seekers with high prospects to remain. It also stresses the need to help migrants settle where jobs are and not necessarily where housing is cheaper. The report also underlines the need to adapt integration programmes to reflect migrants diversity in terms of skills and the specific needs of refugees. More information on OECDs recent work on migration is available at http://www.oecd.org/migration-insights/ For more information or a copy of the book, journalists should contact Anna Biernat in the OECD Media Division (tel. + 33 1 45 24 14 28) or Celine Schmitt, UNHCR Spokesperson, Paris (+ 33 6 23161178 ) or William Spindler, UNHCR Spokesperson, Geneva (+41 79 217 3011). Loading... OilVoice will be with you shortly... Editors Note: Samantha Flynn, 21, is an Omaha college student pursuing a career in law enforcement. Her career choice grew out of her passion to serve the community after losing her mother in the 2007 Von Maur shooting and living through the 2011 Millard South High School shooting. The World-Herald asked Flynn to share her story. Today is my moms birthday. Her name was Beverly Flynn, and she was one of eight innocent people killed in the Von Maur shooting in December 2007. She would have been 56. Its hard not having my mom here, but Im thankful for the people I do have with me. My dad, Patrick, has always kept our family my two sisters and me close. Even though we are all super-busy, we make time to get together at least once a month. Family is so important. The loss of my mother is easier to deal with as each year passes. I focus on all of the good things her life has brought to me instead of dwelling on her death. Coping with grief is a lot easier when you focus on remembering the person who died and celebrating that life rather than focusing on what youve lost. Thats why today we are remembering a woman who was so loving, carefree and full of life. Each year on my moms birthday Ill visit her or wear orange, her favorite color. Tonight some friends and I are going to make one of my moms favorite meals (enchiladas), take a shot of Patron (her favorite tequila) and go out dancing (she loved to dance). Whenever I hear Dust In The Wind by Kansas or a Rob Thomas song, I think about her. Or if I see roses or a Chevy Silverado thats what she drove I am reminded that she is with me and always will be. I was just 13 when she died. I remember it being so hectic. I could comprehend what happened but not why. We had a ton of people in our house and lots of food being delivered from families and businesses that had donated it. The phone didnt stop ringing for weeks. I talked on the phone with Larry King from CNN. I remember feeling sadness, anger, grief, frustration, but most of all love. There were so many people around who cared about and loved our family and thats one thing that will always stand out. Our community is truly amazing. That was the same way the community responded when I was a junior at Millard South High School and a student opened fire, killing an assistant principal and wounding two other staff members before killing himself. I was in gym class when the school went into lockdown, so we moved into a locker room. Everyone was shaken up. You never think something like this can happen to you. Whats weird is that my dad, who works for UPS, usually delivers packages to the school around the time the shooting occurred. For whatever reason, he didnt have a package that day. These tragedies made me realize that the phrase terrible things happen to the best people is so true. Living through both of these difficult times has made me more appreciative of the days we have. I also feel like I am a more loving person because I know firsthand that you never know who you could lose. I have to thank my mother for instilling that strength in me. While she may not physically be here with us, I feel her presence every day and she continues to inspire me. Everyone tells me, Your mother would be so proud of you! I hope that through having a successful life, a good career, and being able to provide for my family, I will make her proud. I still go back to Von Maur often to shop probably too much. I definitely inherited a shopping addiction from my mom, who worked at the department store part-time. Even though something tragic happened there, I have so many wonderful memories of shopping with my mom at Von Maur that I still enjoy being there. I know that there can be triumph after tragedy, and I am hoping to share that with others by becoming a police officer. A career in law enforcement kind of clicked for me during my second semester of my freshman year in college. I loved my sociology in law enforcement class, so I decided to go for it. Now I am a senior studying criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Ive always appreciated how the community came together to support my family and all of the other affected families after both shootings. Ive always enjoyed giving back and helping others, so I figured this would be a fulfilling career. I can do work that will benefit the community that was there for me. Its my way of saying thank you to everyone who was there and contributed something after my mom died. You were there for me, and now its my turn to be there for you. * * * Also read: It was a sad tale that Omahans by now know well: a fiber-optic cable installation and drilling project, a ruptured gas line, a disastrous explosion and fire. Ms Pub in January 2016? For certain. But it all happened once before in the metro area, in Elkhorn in April 2000. Thats when a set of conditions similar to those that destroyed Ms in the Old Market burned down Gerst Custom Contracting on Veterans Drive. Owner Mike Gerst said it took four years to get his business going again, including years of litigation and planning for litigation that ended with an out-of-court settlement that recovered only a portion of the $1.8 million in losses enumerated in his suit. Id never sued anybody in my life, and I wound up suing almost everyone involved, said Gerst, who said he eventually settled for an amount that was less than the $500,000 of losses his insurance failed to cover. While large losses subject to lawsuits and insurance coverages vary widely, the Gerst Contracting case might demonstrate a rough template of what is ahead for those involved in the Ms Pub fire, which also destroyed apartments and the Nouvelle Eve boutique and damaged condos, a shop and another restaurant. The lawsuit in the Gerst case against the fiber-optic contractor and others wasnt filed until two years after the fire. While Gerst had insurance, he said it covered only part of what he lost hence the suit against those believed to be responsible. The suit went on for almost two years after it was filed, with the final dismissal order not coming until January 2004, or almost four years after the fire. It was an absolute horrible time, waiting for all of this to settle, Gerst said. It started out innocently enough, the day of April 11, 2000. Gerst, whose business had employed 50 people engaged in custom wallpapering, painting and remodeling, had arranged a business meeting in the conference room at his headquarters on Veterans Drive. The very instant he greeted his guest with a handshake, an explosion tore through the building. No one was seriously injured, but the building was a loss, called by Elkhorn firefighters at the time one of the toughest blazes that department had battled in recent years. Photographs from the day show enormous billows of thick black smoke. Occupants of nearby homes and buildings were evacuated to the nearby high school. Gerst said there was fiber-optic drilling going on near the property that day a crew from a company called Mid-America Contractors. As in the Ms Pub case, the underground contractor was working for someone else, a company called Nebraska Communications Service, which, in turn, had been hired by Qwest Communications, the Denver-based telecom giant that was the owner and operator of the underground fiber-optic network. The Gerst lawsuit filed in Douglas County District Court in March 2002 lays out a set of conditions similar to what is known about the Ms Pub fire, which broke out Jan. 9. The Gerst suit says Mid-Americas drilling fractured sewer and natural gas lines. Natural gas entered the building via the broken sewer line, the suit says, igniting and catching fire inside. That coordinates closely with what investigators have said so far about the Ms Pub fire. In that case, a Minnesota underground contractor, North Central Service, was performing fiber-optic work in the Old Market. North Central was a contractor for a firm called Unite Private Networks, which was itself performing the work for telecom giant Verizon Communications. So far, investigators for the Omaha Fire Department have said the fire was gas fed from the rupture in a natural gas line that broke during drilling related to the fiber-optic work. Gerst said such accidents are 100 percent avoidable, and that his suit was the only redress he had in a battle of fighting fire with fire. The guy out there operating the machinery didnt even seem to know anything had happened at the time, Gerst said of the interval between the rupture of the gas line and the fire. Legal tussles after such affairs are common. Gersts original lawsuit named telecom operator Qwest and contractors Mid-America and Nebraska Communications Service. The suit alleged negligent acts, such as failure to hire competent contractors, failure to supervise, and failure to adopt a safe work plan. Large property losses can end up in litigation, as the parties involved look for the responsible party or parties to pay for the damages, said David Crowe, a senior vice president of claims with Boston-based Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance, which offers a wide variety of business coverages. Insurance almost always is a major factor in such matters. Oftentimes, the party responsible for the damage has insurance designed to cover mishaps, such as hitting a natural gas line. In those cases, the insurance company for the aggrieved party will collect from the insurance company for the responsible party; if they disagree on how much, you can wind up with insurer-on-insurer courtroom action in the form of additional lawsuits. None of the principals in the Ms Pub case appear to have filed lawsuits so far. Omaha attorney Woody Bradford, who said he is now the lawyer of record for the owners of Ms Pub, said his clients are definitely considering all options. Bradford, of the firm Houghton, Bradford & Whitten, said some of his clients actions will depend on those taken by the owner of the building that housed the pub, Omahas Mercer Management, whose Mercer family was instrumental in the development of the Old Market district. Mercer Management has not said what its plans are for litigation after the total loss of the building. Back in Elkhorn, contractor Gerst has rebuilt his business. A new building was constructed on the same site within two years of the fire, although it took another few years to get all the business back. Gerst Custom is now back up to about 20 employees, Gerst said. The other companies involved in the 2000 fire have their own varied tales. The phone number for Mid-America Contractors in Omaha listed in online business directories has been disconnected. Telephone messages left with the person listed as the companys owner were not returned. Qwest, the telecom formerly known as U.S. West, was bought in 2010 by CenturyLink, the Louisiana-based carrier serving customers in 36 states, including Nebraska. A company with a profit in 2004 of almost $1 billion, Qwest took the lead in negotiating the Elkhorn fire settlement, Gerst said. Once the mediation began, the smaller companies were excused, he recalled. Because the case was settled out of court, theres no public record of what companies paid how much, and Gerst said he wasnt familiar with the in-depth aspects of the mediation that were handled by his attorney. Qwest's analog in the M's Pub case is New York-based telecom Verizon. Though Verizon says none of its people were on the job site when the fire happened, it was the project's main customer. Unite was engaged in a project to install fiber optic line that would, among other things, feed data to Verizon wireless antennas to be installed on light poles. The largest U.S. wireless phone company, Verizon had an annual profit of $18.4 billion last year, on sales of $132 billion. Subcontractor North Central hasnt responded to multiple inquiries from The World-Herald. Unite has said its cooperating in the investigation. There is one notable party that was not named in Gersts lawsuit: the Metropolitan Utilities District, the customer-owned natural gas system supplying the fuel to homes and businesses throughout the metro area, including Ms Pub. Gerst said his side determined that MUD had properly marked the location of the gas lines, and that the fault was with the contractors, not the utility. Contact the writer: 402-444-3197, russell.hubbard@owh.com Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated Verizon Communications' relationship to Unite Private Networks. Verizon is a customer of Unite, not a contractor. Advocates of school choice rallied on the steps of the Nebraska State Capitol Thursday morning, buoyed by a proclamation of support from Gov. Pete Ricketts. A crowd estimated at 500 turned out for the 10 a.m. event scheduled to coincide with National School Choice Week. Some arrived via 11 school buses. The purpose of the week is to show support for giving parents a variety of education options including traditional public schools, public charter schools, private schools, online learning and home schooling. Not to be outdone, however, a group supporting traditional public schools chose this week to hold its own first-ever Public Schools Day of Action to praise public schools and send the message that charter schools are unnecessary. That event Wednesday, organized by Nebraska Loves Public Schools, featured a Twitter campaign and statewide screening parties of a film the group produced that argues traditional public schools can get good results with the right leadership and support. Nebraska is one of seven states without charter schools. Previous attempts to authorize them under state law havent gotten far, in large part because of stiff opposition from the union representing public school teachers: the Nebraska State Education Association. Ricketts open support for charter schools, however, has given advocates an ally where it counts, if they can ever assemble the critical mass of support to tip the scales in the Legislature. In an interview with The World-Herald last week, Ricketts said charter schools could improve outcomes for low-income students. Its certainly been demonstrated in other locations that charter schools can help low-income kids, he said, but I think thats also something that has to be desired by the community. Specifically, as I think about it as an Omahan, do folks in north and South Omaha want that? If they want it, then we ought to pursue it. So the demand has got to come from the neighborhoods who are looking to make a change. Last week, the state teachers union released a poll indicating a majority of Nebraskans surveyed dont want public dollars going to private charter schools or vouchers. Pro-charter groups questioned whether the poll captured the feelings of disadvantaged parents whose children would benefit from charters. Ricketts declined to say whether he was supporting any specific school-choice legislation. A proclamation he signed Monday declaring Nebraska School Choice Week says, among other things, that Nebraska should support efforts to add more high-quality options, such as public charter schools and opportunity scholarships. There are no charter school bills in the current session of the Legislature, but Sen. Bob Krists Legislative Bill 26, carried over from last session, would allow donors to receive tax credits for contributing to scholarships that allow low-income students to attend private schools. Brittany Mascio, marketing manager for Nebraska Loves Public Schools, said it was no coincidence that her group scheduled its event this week. Mascio said traditional public schools deserve a seat at the table, especially if its a conversation about them. She said her organization provided the movie Consider the Alternative for 10 watch parties across the state Wednesday. The documentary produced by her organization points to Miller Park Elementary School in Omaha Public Schools as a model for how traditional public schools can raise achievement with the right leadership and support. Although nine in 10 students qualify for free or reduced-priced school lunches, the school saw a dramatic rise in reading and math test scores between 2011 and 2014 before slipping substantially in both subjects last year. The film gives much of the credit for rising scores to former principal Lisa Utterback. Schools are making great strides in Nebraska, Mascio said, and I think that this film is a way to show that public schools are really stepping up their game and they are being the schools that communities want them to be. The Twitter campaign urged people to post comments about what public schools mean to them, using the identifying hashtag: #ilovepublicschools. Katie Linehan, executive director of Educate Nebraska, said she is OK with Nebraska Loves Public Schools holding its event this week. Educate Nebraska supports bringing charter schools to Nebraska. Its a very good thing in Nebraska that theres existing public school choice, she said. Choice is offered through open enrollment, option enrollment and in some districts magnet schools. Where we differ with the folks at Nebraska Loves Public Schools is we dont think theres anything wrong with expanding to include public charter schools, particularly where theyre needed most, which is where you have an abundance of very low-performing public schools. World-Herald staff writer Martha Stoddard contributed to this report. Contact the writer: 402-444-1077, joe.dejka@owh.com LINCOLN A bill to create a specialty license plate for the protection of mountain lions loped through first-round debate Thursday in the Nebraska Legislature without a scratch. State senators voted 38-0 to advance Legislative Bill 474 to the second of three rounds of consideration. In addition to allowing the State Department of Motor Vehicles to offer motorists a plate featuring the big cats, the bill introduced by State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha would direct some of the sale proceeds to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission for wildlife conservation education. Although no senators voted against the bill, a couple of them played a little cat got your tongue with their normally talkative colleague. Sen. David Schnoor of Scribner pointed out that Chambers often has opposed spending proposals from the Game and Parks Commission during his long career. Touche, Chambers said in reply. Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha pointed out that Chambers also once strongly fought bills to create specialty plates for military veterans, Husker sports and other groups. Chambers once argued for preserving the utilitarian purpose of a plate, but specialty plates were adopted anyway. So have you seen the light? Krist asked. Reluctantly, but yes, Chambers said with a smile. Motorists could get a numeric cougar plate for an extra $5 fee or a message plate for an extra $40. A fiscal analysis estimated the plates could raise about $20,000 in revenue. Chambers admiration for mountain lions extends to his annual campaigns to outlaw the hunting of them in Nebraska. The claws have come out for those debates, given how the animals are loathed by many ranchers and farmers in rural areas. Chambers will try once again this year to get a mountain lion hunting ban out of the Natural Resources Committee, even though committee members recently killed a similar proposal that had been carried over from 2015. Contact the writer: 402-473-9587, joe.duggan@owh.com * * * Additional information on the Legislature More than 25 cheetahs will be brought to Kuno National Park in MP from Africa in future: Union minister How South Africa is resembling India of pre-2014 Lok Sabha election Feature oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer South Africa is in the middle of a transition and the scenario in that country roughly resembles that prevailed in India prior to its last general election: The reflection of a strong anti-incumbency mood transcending the boundaries of Parliament. Hazare, Kejriwal & Modi had benefited from anti-incumbency In India, it was Narendra Modi and his BJP who ended up as the ultimate beneficiary of the revolutionary zeal against the establishment of the day led by a hapless Manmohan Singh even though one cannot ignore the contribution of people like Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal in instigating the intense feelings. In SA, President Zuma resembles Manmohan Singh Similarly in South Africa, the regime of President Jacob Zuma is facing a similar backlash and though there is still some time before the African National Congress government completes its current tenure, the 35-year-old Opposition leader, Mmusi Maimane, could reap the benefit the most. Thank you so much to my fellow South Africans who came to be the voice for the unemployed. We must see change that brings jobs. Posted by Mmusi Maimane on Wednesday, January 27, 2016 The bigger problem in SA But the story in SA is not just a disapproval of the Zuma regime at a political level. People have resorted to massive protests against the president (a huge protest march for jobs was held in Johannesburg on January 27, resembling the five-kilometre-long protest march against corruption in India in 2011 which was inspired by Anna Hazare's hunger strike) but these grievances over jobs, economic state, unsatisfactory leadership are just the symptoms of a bigger problem that lies at the depth of the Rainbow Nation. A merciless fresh wave of democracy This problem speaks about a fresh and more intense wave of democracy flowing across the world. While the unfolding of the story of this fresh zeal has been more harsh in West Asia where democracy is not strong, they have been more peaceful but yet effective in practising democracies. The 2014 general election in India was no less a revolution in the guise of radical ballots which saw the grand-old party, the Indian National Congress, being reduced to its lowest-ever size in Parliament. Earlier this month, we saw a traditional force like KMT overthrown from power in Taiwan, thanks to a more assertive democratic zeal that seeks to outdo the Chinese influence. And now in South Africa, we see a resurgence of the black sentiments, over two decades after the country's first democratic elections. SA's born-free' generation wants more The born-free' generation of South Africa is more conscious and demanding more radical changes than the SA of the iconic Nelson Mandela had worked for in terms of forgiveness and reconciliation. This generation is cynical and view their country not as a Rainbow but Cappuccino (a majority of black at the bottom with some white cream at the top) Nation where the white enjoys more wealth than in the past. It is an irony that the new educated and young black middle-class is being able to express its complaints freely because of Mandela's hard work but that doesn't convince it anymore. The ambitious representatives of this class want better living standards (economic and social) and the hard-earned democracy in the mid-1990s is a lethal a weapon in their hands today to achieve their goal. Will Opposition ultimately take the benefit of this social anger in SA? The cumulative impact of the young generation's aggressive pursue of ambition and dream is also cultivated wisely by the opponents of the ruling party of the day and the government finds it immensely difficult to cope with the pressure. In India, the Congress had tumbled in 2014 because Modi succeeded in capturing the massive energy which was unleased in the form of the grievance of the young and educated middle class. For Zuma, the factor of racism could be an added concern in the next election. J&K govt formation: Why prolonged Governor's rule can hurt the state Feature oi-Vicky By Vicky It has been almost three weeks and there is still no clarity on the formation of the government in Jammu and Kashmir. There is a lot of guess work that is going on regarding the formation of the government. Several BJP leaders are still clueless about the exact position and Mehbooba Mufti has not spelt out her demands clearly as yet. There are a host of issues that are being discussed ranging from a financial package for Jammu and Kashmir to personal grief that is keeping this coalition between the PDP and the BJP at bay. While the leaders of both parties are in a better position to understand the dynamics, one must bear in mind that a prolonged Governor's rule is not good for this volatile state that battles militancy every day. Prolonged Governor's rule can harm J&K The BJP will find it very difficult to run the state from the centre. There is a need to be in coalition with a party in the state as they act as messengers to the people of the state. While both the BJP and the PDP are waiting for each other to blink first, what both need to bear in mind is that the state needs a government in place. When there is no local government in place, there is a good chance of trouble makers raising their head. Kashmir cannot afford violence and unless a local government is in place, there cannot be any guarantee of lasting peace. If some elements do take advantage of the stalemate and create trouble, then it will become very difficult for the union government to man the problem from Delhi. The locals would normally tend to strike a chord with a local government and hence the BJP needs to be in power with the PDP at any cost for now. The BJP too has not blinked as yet and wants to send a message to the PDP that it is not desperate to be in power. The NC has been demanding that polls are declared if the BJP and PDP cannot iron out their differences. However the PDP does not appear to be ready for polls at the moment. If the state goes to polls immediately there may not be any clear mandate and if the NC does make gains, then the PDP will be in the back seat. The BJP is looking to capitalise on this fact as it realises that polls are not an option for the PDP too at this moment. BJP leaders say that the stalemate will not last forever. Our senior leaders are in talks and very soon there will be a government in place. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 28, 2016, 9:24 [IST] Kerala solar scam: Who is Saritha S Nair? Feature oi-Preeti Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 28: Kerala solar scam is again back in news and to haunt the state Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, when assembly elections are about to take place in the state. On Thursday, Jan 28, an FIR was filed against Chandy, a day after he was accused of accepting bribe, a charge that he denied. The fradulent company-Team Solar floated by the two accused- Saritha S Nair and Biju Radhakrishnan, had collected huge amounts from various persons promising to provide solar solutions. Let us know more about Saritha S Nair, the prime accused in the solar scam case, who has alleged that Rs 1.90 crore had been given to Chandy's key aide for facilitating setting up mega solar projects in the state. Who is Saritha S Nair? Saritha was a director of the Team Solar Renewable Energy Co. After fraud complaints came to the fore, she was arrested was released on bail in Feb 2014, after staying in jail for nine months. Saritha Nair and Biju Radhakrishnan are accused of cheating investors by promising to supply solar panels worth crores of rupees. There are many other cases of cheating registered against them. The Rs 7-crore solar panel scam rocked the Chandy government in 2013. Three staff members with alleged links with Saritha Nair were later sacked by Chandy. [Kerala Shocker: 'Ministers form a lobby to trap women and use them'] In Oct 2014, her scandalous videos had gone viral on social media and on WhatsApp. Allegations made by Saritha S Nair Saritha Nair has alleged that she had paid a bribe of Rs 40 lakh to the PA of Power Minister Aryadan Muhammed. She also alleged that Chandy's former PA Jikkumon, who had sought Rs seven crore as bribe, had insisted that the money meant for Chandy be handed over to one Thomas Kuruvilla in Delhi. Kuruvilla was claimed to be Chandy's unofficial aide. She claimed that she handed over Rs 1.10 crore to Kuruvilla. Shocking allegations against Saritha Nair In Dec 2015, solar scam accused Biju Radhakrishnan told a judicial commission that he had in his possession a video recording allegedly showing his live-in partner Saritha Nair in compromising situation with Chandy and two cabinet colleagues. Meanwhile, Saritha Nair had denied Radhakrishnan's allegations and challenged him to come out with the clips. What CM Chandy says? "Let her state what benefit she got after bribing us. The cheques Saritha had handed over for relief fund had also bounced. I have not helped her in any way. The Commission will come out with all the truth. Saritha was given a lot of opportunities to tell her version." OneIndia News CBI arrests one of the two absconders in WB's Bogtui killings 1 in every 2 kids in Bengal is anaemic, says National Family Health Survey report India oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer Kolkata, Jan 28: More than half the children aged below five are anaemic in West Bengal, the latest National Family Health Survey 2015-16 (NFHS 4) data published by the Union Health Ministry have shown. A release by Kolkata-based Child Rights & You (CRY) said this last week. A marginal improvement It said the nutritional status of children in West Bengal is found to have improved only marginally, compared to that of the previous NFHS data published almost a decade ago. Besides child malnutrition, the quality of ante-natal and delivery care for expecting mothers also show worrying trends leaving a negative impact on the child's health in the state, as the recent survey findings suggest. The overall findings of the first phase of the NFHS 4, however, show marginal improvements in the maternal and child health and nutrition across 13 states and two UTs. West Bengal though has done fairly well in several child health and nutrition indicators like immunisation and treatment of critical childhood diseases, the progression rate of critical indicators like child nutrition, which has a direct link with the children's overall growth and development, remains far. Atindra Nath Das, Regional Director (East) of said: "The NFHS is not just a reflection of the state of health and nutritional well-being of children but it also provides the direction for corrective measures in state policies and programmes. For West Bengal, the data so released reinforces the need for the state to address nutritional security of children and expecting mothers as an emergency." Need stronger Anganwadi centres' "In the context of malnutrition, strengthening of Anganwadi centres and a robust system of growth monitoring, becomes imperative", He added. NFHS findings gives three sets of data as child malnutrition indicators stunting (low height for age), wasting (low weight for height) and underweight (low weight for age). As per the recent NFHS findings, anaemia in children is found to have decreased marginally across most of the states, but still remains worryingly widespread. In West Bengal, though the number of children under five are suffering from anaemia decreased by seven percentage points over the last decade (from 61% in 2005-06 to 54.2% in 2015-'16), one in every two children is still anaemic. The mothers do not fare any better either, as more than 60% of all women and 53.2% of pregnant women are found anaemic in West Bengal, the survey revealed. Alarming IMR rate The data also revealed that nine out of 11 states have not been able to reduce the Infant mortality rate (IMR) even by two percentage points annually. As per the analysis of critical child health indicators of NFHS 4 done by CRY, the only states that have been able to sustain a pace of annual reduction in IMR by two points are West Bengal and Tripura. Currently in Indiam 40 out of 1000 infants don't get celebrate their first birthday. The much-awaited survey on India's health indicators was released by the Health Ministry after almost a decade. While the report provides an improvement in the overall health of children, the rate of progression on annual basis is alarming. The status of nutrition for children under five shows marginal improvement. While both the proportion of underweight and stunted (low height for age) children has seen a decline, the proportion of wasted children has increased in 6 of the 11 states (West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Karnataka, Goa and Sikkim). Mission Indradhanush still a far cry Mission Indradhanush, the national initiative to achieve cent percent full immunisation seems to be a distant dream in light of the status of immunisation revealed by NFHS. In eight out of 11 states (Tamil Nadu, Haryana, UT, Tripura, Karnataka, Goa, MP, Sikkim) of the country, one out of three children dos not receive full immunization. Further analysis shows that these states have failed to increase their immunisation coverage even by 2 percent per year. The first phase of the survey included Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Goa, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttarakhand, West Bengal and two Union Territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 28, 2016, 14:49 [IST] Delhi air quality projected to cross 301 by Sat; GRAP stage II comes into effect ahead of Diwali IRCTC update: 140 trains cancelled on October 20; here is the complete list Partial solar eclipse on Diwali: Can you perform Lakshmi Puja on Oct 25? AAP a party of 'paap' and Arvind Kejriwal acts like '420 Md Bin Tughlak': Subramanian Swamy India oi-Reetu New Delhi, Jan 28: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy on Thursday again attacked Aam Aadmi Party and it's chief Arvind Kejriwal and said that 'AAP is a party of paap'. Continuing his tirade against AAP, Swamy slammed the party and said on Twitter, "AAP is a party of paap and the people of India will soon give them 'shraap'. Then they will go to their 'baap'." Talking about the issue of MCD workers in Delhi, the BJP leader took potshots at Delhi Chief Minister and said, "If 420 Md Bin Tughlak will not pay MCD salaries and wages then Namo should declare President's Rule equivalent in Delhi." Aap is a party of paap and the people of India will soon give them shraap. Then they will go to their baap Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) January 28, 2016 This time we will break Pakistan into 4 pieces, says Subramanian Swamy If 420 Md Bin Tughlak will not pay MCD salaries and wages then Namo should declare President's Rule equivalent in Delhi Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) January 28, 2016 Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday demanded fresh elections to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), saying it had failed to pay even salaries to its employees. "Management of an organisation which can't pay salaries to employees doesn't (have the right) to continue," the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader tweeted. He said the present MCD should be dissolved and fresh elections held. All the three wings of the MCD -- South, East and North -- are controlled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). MCD sanitation employees have been protesting for weeks demanding timely payment of salaries. On Thursday, many MCD employees protested outside Manish Sisodia's residence. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 28, 2016, 17:43 [IST] Embarrassment for Congress: Ashok Chavan may be prosecuted in Adarsh Society scam India oi-IANS By Ians English Mumbai, Jan 28: In an embarrassment for the opposition Congress in Maharashtra, the CBI could prosecute former chief minister Ashok Chavan in the Adarsh Society scam, officials said here on Thursday. Chavan, 57, is the Congress Lok Sabha member from Nanded and also heads the party's Maharashtra unit. His name had cropped up in the Adarsh Society scam forcing him to step down as chief minister in 2010. In 2013, then governor K Sankaranarayanan had rejected the Central Bureau of Investigation plea to prosecute him when the Congress-NCP government led by Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan was in office. However, citing grounds that it has unearthed 'fresh evidence', the CBI has again sought permission to prosecute Chavan. The BJP-Shiv Sena government led by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis last week recommended to Governor C.V. Rao to allow the CBI to prosecute Chavan. Chavan, the son of former chief minister and union home minister S.B. Chavan, retaliated by terming it as a vendetta by the BJP-Shiv Sena government. "It's a political vendetta against me. The Congress is raising issues of public importance and highlighting the failures of the BJP-led governments both in the state and the Centre. That's why they are targeting opposition leaders and misusing the CBI," Chavan hit back. He demanded to know that when the then governor had declined sanction after consulting the state solicitor general, on what grounds the state was now going ahead with the prosecution. In the CBI charge sheet, Chavan was listed as an accused and a two-member Commission of Inquiry comprising Justice (retired) J.A. Patil of the Bombay High Court and former chief secretary P. Subramanian had accused Chavan of 'political patronage' and 'quid pro quo'. Following the rejection by the then governor, the CBI moved the Bombay High Court to drop Chavan's name as an accused in the case. Chavan and 12 others are accused of conspiracy, cheating and criminal misconduct in the infamous Adarsh Society scam -- related to a 31-storey plush building in Colaba originally meant to house families of war heroes. After the scam broke out in 2010, and the probe panel found many in the society ineligible to be members, the building was fully vacated a few years ago. IANS CPI(M) protest demanding resignation of Oommen Chandy turns violent India oi-PTI Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 28: A protest by CPI(M) activists demanding resignation of Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy in the wake of bribery allegation by the prime accused in the solar scam on Thursday turned violent following which police used tear gas shells and batons to quell the protest. The protestors, who assembled in front of the state secretariat, threw stones at the police and tried to break the police cordon in the front of the secretariat. It's a deep-rooted conspiracy: Oommen Chandy on solar scam charge Police burst tear gas shells, used water cannons and batons to quell the agitators. The agitators raised slogans demanding resignation of Chandy and moved towards the Cantonment gate of the secretariat when police used tear gas shells and water cannons. CPI(M) leader and MLA V Sivankutty led the protest. Prime accused in the solar case, Saritha S Nair, had on Wednesday targeted Chandy and Power Minister Aryadan Mohammed while deposing before the Justice Sivarajan Commission in Kochi and had alleged that she had paid bribes to the tune of Rs 1.90 crore to a close aide of the Chief Minister and Rs 40 lakh to Mohammed. Both had denied the allegation. Solar scam pertains to cheating of several persons worth crores of rupees by Saritha and her co-accused Biju Radhakrishnan by offering solar panel solutions. The two allegedly canvassed business by using high-level names including that of Chandy. While Saritha was granted bail after remaining behind bars for nearly nine months, Radhakrishnan is still in jail. PTI Drug addict shoots class 6 student India oi-Pallavi Kanpur, Jan 28: In a gory incident where a man shot a class 6 student on January 19, it was revealed that the former was a drug addict and there was no motive behind killing the boy. He has confessed that he was jittery for not getting his daily dose of drugs and was looking for drug peddlers when he encountered the boy. Heera (the boy) was repairing his cycle on Tuesday night when Shah Alam (the murderer) asked him to give way. The boy refused to budge and said that there was enough space for him to pass through. Alam felt humiliated and took out his pistol and shot him five times and fled from TT Park in Barra area of Kanpur. POlice could reach out to him when one of his friends to whom he had confessed informed the police. Vishal Pandey, the circle officer of Govind Nagar said,"Alam has confessed to the crime; we have recovered his pistol that he buried near his house in Sanigawan area." His motorcycle and the gun that he had buried at his home have also been recovered. On Tuesday, the Akbarpur police informed the Barra police that Alam was hiding at a relative's place, which is when he was taken into custody. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 28, 2016, 14:17 [IST] Empower India: Kolkata Police to have transgenders on roll India oi-Pallavi Kolkata, Jan 28: In an initiative to integrate the transgender community in the society, the Kolkata Police has accepted the proposal of the West Bengal government to empower the community into the Civic Police Volunteer Force (CPVC). Also known as the Green Police, this group assists the Kolkata Police in traffic management. The State Minister for Women and Child Development, Shashi Panja, proposed this to the government during a meeting of the West Bengal Transgender Development Board and also spoke to the Kolkata Police Commissioner about it. In an interview to a leading daily, she said,"The prime issue that we face is that people don't have respect for the transgender community. But if they are incorporated as volunteers in the civic police force, then it will gradually allow people to imagine them in different roles." Although still in pipeline, this will set an example for the entire nation. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 28, 2016, 15:13 [IST] How the ISIS is structured in India India oi-Vicky New Delhi, Jan 28: The arrested persons alleged to be connected to the ISIS had formed an outfit with a proper hierarchy. They were operating on behalf of the ISIS under the name of Janood-ul-Khilafa-e-Hind. This was a name that they had given the outfit to avoid the heat of the intelligence bureau. If one looks at the manner in which the ISIS functions in India, it becomes clear that the authorised name of the group is Ansar-ul-Tawhid. This outfit which is headed by Shafi Armar a Bhatkal (Karnataka) resident is the official recruiting agency for the ISIS in India. The structure: Investigations being conducted by the National Investigating Agency has found that these 14 youth who were arrested last week had a proper structure. The chief was known as the Ameer-e-Hind. The Ameer-e-Hind of the outfit has been identified as Mudabbir Mushtaq Shaikh. A resident of Malwani in Mumbai, Rizwan was given the title Naib Ameer which means deputy chief. Ameer-e-Askari or head of combat operations was a title given to Najmul Huda, a resident of Bajpe in Mangalore. Nafees Khan a resident of Hyderabad was appointed as the head of logistics. While this was the hierarchy structure in India, the emir or the overall chief was Shafi Armar. His brother, Sultan Armar who floated the Ansar-ul-Tawhid after breaking away from the Indian Mujahideen had officially been declared as the emir. The declaration of Sultan as the Emir was done by Abu Bakr al-Bhagdadi, the chief of the ISIS in a video. This video was in circulation two years back and had been posted on an ISIS website. Sultan however died in Syria a few months back following which his brother is said to have taken over the Ansar-ul-Tawhid. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 28, 2016, 9:50 [IST] J&K: Mehbooba ups ante, BJP will wait till Jan 31 India oi-Vicky Srinagar, Jan 28: The Bharatiya Janata Party will wait until January 31 before taking a final call on the coalition with the PDP in Jammu and Kashmir. The PDP is scheduled to hold an important meeting on January 31 in which the future of the coalition in the state is expected to be discussed. Sources say that a final picture will become clear by January 31 and the BJP has decided not to react until the PDP completes that crucial meeting. Meanwhile the PDP appears to have stepped up pressure and is expected to list out some demands to the BJP before it could finalise the government formation. The family of the late Mufti Mohammad Syed even vacated the Chief Minister's residence while also giving up security and the official vehicles allotted to them. Fresh demands: Mehbooba Mufti who is most likely to become the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir if the coalition with the BJP works out is expected to make a few more demands. She would want the separatists to be engaged in talks with the government. The BJP has made it clear in the past as well that they cannot engage separatists in talks where Kashmir is concerned. Further Mehbooba is also likely to tell the BJP to refrain from making controversial statements regarding Article 370 which leads to trouble in the state.Further she is also likely to demand a free hand in running the state. BJP sources tell OneIndia that they have not been told anything as of now. There is no official communication to us on any demand as of now. As pointed out earlier, we will wait till January 31 before taking a final call on the coalition. The BJP leader also said that they are hopeful that things would be sorted out while also adding that none are in favour of mid-term polls. OneIndia News RJD MLA Awadh Bihari Chaudhary likely to be new speaker of Bihar Assembly Will not step down unless CM asks me to do so: Bihar Agriculture Min 'Jungle raj' in Bihar: RJD MLA's son assaults doctor at govt hospital in Gaya India oi-Mukul New Delhi, Jan 28: It looks like 'Jungle raj' has returned back in Nitish Kumar-led Bihar. At a time when ruling JDU-RJD alliance is facing flak from every quarters for rising crime and deteriorating law and order in the state, this will once again earn them ire of the Opposition. According to reports, RJD legislator Kunti Devi's son assaulted a doctor at a government hospital in Gaya district on Wednesday. It is being said that Ranjeet Yadav, son of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) legislator from Atri assembly constituency allegedly barged into the hospital and hit doctor Satyendra Kumar with a wheel chair. Police said that Ranjeet Yadav who is also an accused in the murder of a politician came along with his half a dozen supporters and thrashed Satyender Kumar Sinha at the Neemchak Bathani primary health centre on Wednesday evening. Doctor was quoted by as saying, "He (Ranjeet) hit me with a wheel chair, looked like he came with intention to kill, he is a hoodlum," Meanwhile, the BJP and its allies have demanded the arrest of RJD legislator Kunti Devi and her son Though Kunti Devi has denied her son's involvement in the matter, the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) and Hindustani Aawam Morcha (HAM) have demanded a stern action against the legislator and her son. "Kunti Devi and her son should be arrested immediately," Leader of Opposition in the state assembly Prem Kumar said. LJP leader Pasupati Kumar Paras and HAM state president Brishen Patel also demanded action against the two. Ranjeet Yadav also faces half a dozen other criminal cases, including murder of a leader of rival party. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 28, 2016, 15:05 [IST] NIA files chargesheet in Udhampur terror attack case India oi-Vicky New Delhi, Jan 28: The National Investigating Agency has filed a chargesheet in the Udhampur terror attack case. The NIA in its chargesheet has named Mohammad Naved as the prime accused. The chargesheet also names 8 others as accused in the case which has been termed as a Lashkar-e-Tayiba conspiracy. Udhampur Terror Attack: Did a lady escort the terrorists? On August 8 2015, two terrorists, Mohammad Naved and his accomplice had attacked a convoy of the Border Security Force at Udhampur in which two personnel of the BSF were killed. Naved was however captured alive. The NIA states in its chargesheet that the attack was part of a larger conspiracy of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba in which Naved and his associated had infiltrated from Pakistan into India to commit specific acts of terror. The NIA says that it would continue with investigations into the matter. During the probe the NIA had arrested several persons from Kashmir who were part of a local module which helped the Lashkar-e-Tayiba in its operations. Naved during his interrogation had revealed several details to the NIA about the attack and also the plans of the NIA. The NIA which submitted the chargesheet to the court said that investigations would continue and evidence produced as and when they get it. OneIndia News Embarrassment for Cong! President Pranab says Babri was Narasimha Rao's biggest failure India oi-Mukul New Delhi, Jan 28: This could leave top leaders of Congress including party president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi in deep shock. In what could be termed as big embarrassment to party, President Pranab Mukherjee in his book titled "The Turbulent Years: 1980-96" has indicted former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao for his role in the demolition of Babri mosque in 1999. In the book which was released by Vice President Hamir Ansari on Thursday, Pranab also criticised Rajiv Gandhi's decision on Ram Janmabhoomi. The opening of Ram Janmabhoomi temple site in Ayodhya was an "error of judgement" by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the demolition of Babri Masjid an act of "absolute perfidy" that destroyed India's image, President Pranab Mukherjee wrote in his memoir . "The opening of the Ram Janmabhoomi temple site on 1 February 1986 was perhaps another error of judgement. people felt these actions could have been avoided," the President has writes in the book. "The demolition of Babri Masjid was an act of absolute perfidy...It was the senseless, wanton destruction of a religious structure, purely to serve political ends. It deeply wounded the sentiments of the Muslim community in India and abroad. It destroyed India's image as a tolerant, pluralistic nation," he says. Mukherjee says implementation of the Mandal Commission's recommendations "contributed to reducing social injustice in society though it also divided and polarised different sections of our population". The period of 1989-91, Mukherjee says, was a phase dominated by violence and bitter divisions within Indian society. "Insurgency and cross border terrorism broke out in Jammu and Kashmir; the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir-Babri Masjid issue rocked the nation. Finally, a suicide bomber brought Rajiv's life to an abrupt and tragic end on 21 May 1991," he says. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad's campaign by mobilising activists to collect bricks from all over the country and take them in a procession to Ayodhya caused communal tension, he said. Recalling the Shah Bano case, the President says Rajiv Gandhi's action eroded his image of a modern man. "Rajiv's actions on the Shah Bano judgement and the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Bill drew criticism and eroded his modern image," the President said. Shah Bano, a Muslim mother of five children, was divorced by her husband in 1978. She filed a criminal suit in which the Supreme Court ruled in her favour and she won the right to alimony from her husband. However, the then Congress government, enacted the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986. The most controversial provision of the Act was that it gave a Muslim woman the right to maintenance for the period of iddat (about three months) after the divorce, and shifted the onus of maintaining her to her relatives or the Wakf Board. The Act was seen as discriminatory as it denied divorced Muslim women the right to basic maintenance which women of other faiths had recourse to under secular law. Mukherjee says Rajiv Gandhi has been criticised for his excessive reliance on some close friends and advisers who installed the so-called 'babalog' government. "Some of them turned out to be fortune seekers." (With inputs from PTI) SC recalls order, appoints Sanjay Misra as new UP Lokayukta India oi-PTI New Delhi, Jan 28: Supreme Court today recalled its December 16 order appointing controversial Justice Virendra Singh, a former judge of Allahabad High Court, as Lokayukta and named another retired judge as new ombudsman of Uttar Pradesh, terming the state government's statement on the issue as "somewhat inaccurate". Appointing Justice Sanjay Misra as new Lokayukta, the apex court bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi termed as "unfortunate" the inability of constitutional functionaries like the Chief Minister and the Chief Justice of the High Court to arrive at a consensual name as head of ombudsman. "We are persuaded to hold that our order appointing Justice Virendra Singh (Retd) as Lokayukta was on the basis of the statement made on behalf of the state of Uttar Pradesh which now appears to be somewhat inaccurate. "The picture that emanates from the above narration of facts is hazy, unclear and uncertain and we are left in serious doubt as to whether the constitutional/statutory functionaries or at least two of them had, at all, agreed on any name or names. "It is unfortunate that constitutional/statutory functionaries, in spite of prolonged and extended meetings, continued to have serious differences on a relatively simple issue i.e. appointment of the Lokayukta," the bench, also comprising Justice PC Panta, said. The bench picked out Justice Misra for the post as his name figured in the list of probables prepared by the Chief Minister and the Chief Justice of the High Court. While recalling its order appointing Justice Singh as Lokayukta, the court considered its 2002 judgement that had accorded "primacy to the opinion of the Chief Justice in the consultative process for appointment of Lokayukta". "...we are inclined to recall our order dated December 16, 2015 and instead appoint Justice Sanjay Misra (Retired Judge of Allahabad High Court) as the Lokayukta of Uttar Pradesh. In making the aforesaid appointment, we have taken note of the fact that the name of Justice Sanjay Misra appears in the common list of names that were discussed as mentioned in the letters of the Chief Justice of the High Court and the Chief Minister referred to above," it said. PTI 12 killed in Nigeria suicide attack International oi-IANS By Ians English Abuja, Jan 28: At least a dozen people were killed following suicide attacks in Nigeria's northeastern state of Borno, security sources and a rescue team coordinator said Wednesday. Hassan Chibok, a rescue team leader, said 12 bodies were found during rescue operation in Chibok town but the death toll might increase afterwards. The number of injured people so far rescued has reached 28. Two unnamed security officers told Xinhua five suicide bombers were suspected to have entered Chibok on its weekly market day but only three detonated their improvised explosive devices, wreaking havoc on the town. The two other suspected suicide bombers, yet to be apprehended, immediately fled the scene, the security officers said. One of the bombers detonated an improvised explosive device right inside a local market, said a witness identified as Manasseh Hassan. Another bomber blew himself up at a security checkpoint, hitting a "soft target", while the third bomber detonated his improvised explosive device near the same market, out of fear of being lynched. Local residents are blaming the attack on Boko Haram, a terror group which has proved to be a hard nut to crack in Nigeria since 2009. More than 200 school girls were abducted from Chibok town 21 months ago by Boko Haram. The abduction has aroused international outrage. None of the missing girls has been found, although government said it is making efforts to know their whereabouts and ensure their freedom. IANS Islamic State bomber detained in Russia for attempting attack in India was recruited through Telegram Why India should get access to Islamic State bomber detained in Russia Prosecutions story may be attractive but should be backed by evidence Indian origin ISIS terrorist jihadi Sid praises Hitler International oi-Jagriti London, Jan 28: The Indian origin Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist Siddharth Dhar has praised Adolf Hitler in a video monologue. Dhar, who has been dubbed "Jihadi Sid" by the British media, uploaded the monologue about his hatred of Jews and "Zionism" on YouTube in 2014. "Other people were aware of this evil doctrine and they did things to stop it. Like Adolf Hitler," said Dhar praising Dhar. Dhar also mentions the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion', a discredited 1909 text claiming a Jewish plan for global domination, saying the document "exposes their (Jews) hatred of humanity". "They have no qualms with wanting to subjugate them (other religions), oppress them and exploit them," he adds. The 32-year-old former bouncy castle salesman from Britain is believed to be the masked man who appeared in a brutal ISIS beheading video. ISIS propaganda video: Main suspect is Indian origin Siddharth Dhar? The Indian origin Dhar alias Abu Rumaysah who fled Britain in 2014 while on bail, was the focus of investigations into the video. Dhar originally a Hindu converted to Islam and joined the radical group al-Muhajiroun led by Bangladesh-origin preacher Anjem Chowdhuri. He was arrested in September, 2014 in the UK along with eight others on suspicion of encouraging terrorist offences. Dhar was released on bail to reappear in December but he fled. OneIndia News (With agency inputs) For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 28, 2016, 8:39 [IST] Poland says Berlin and Paris running EU as an 'oligarchy' Iranian president hails 'new relationship' with France International oi-PTI Paris, Jan 28: President Hassan Rouhani hailed a "new relationship" between Iran and France during a visit today that saw the signing of a host of post-sanctions business deals. "Let us forget the resentment," Rouhani said, calling for both countries to take advantage of the "positive atmosphere" following the removal of sanctions over the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme. "We are ready to turn the page" and establish a "new relationship between our countries", Rouhani told a meeting of business leaders. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls responded that "Iran can count on France". "France is ready to use its companies, its engineers, its technicians and its many resources to help to modernise your country," Valls said. Rouhani was welcomed to Paris with military honours and national anthems on the second leg of a trip signalling Iran's rapprochement with Europe since sanctions were lifted. The real business of the visit will come when Rouhani officially signals Iran's intention to buy more than 100 passenger planes from European aircraft maker Airbus. French carmaker Peugeot said it will return to the Iranian market in a five-year deal worth 400 million euros ($436 million) that was announced Thursday. Peugeot will produce 200,000 cars a year in a joint venture with local manufacturer Iran Khodro, according to a statement. The French carmaker was forced to pull out of Iran in 2012 as sanctions began to bite. In another potential bonanza for France, the head of French oil giant Total said his firm would sign a deal to buy Iranian crude. Although the French state is rolling out the red carpet for Rouhani, the Iranian opposition will hold a human rights demonstration and Jewish groups also intend to protest in Paris. Rouhani is to hold talks with President Francois Hollande which are expected to include discussions on Iran's role in Syria, where it is backing President Bashar al-Assad in a war that has killed 260,000 people. Talks are due to begin Friday in Geneva to take tentative steps towards ending the conflict. AFP This photo captured by Webb telescope offers rare and clearest view of Neptune and its rings NASA radar maps new view of World Heritage Site International oi-IANS By Ians English Washington, Jan 28: In just two 10-minute overflights, an airborne NASA radar has pinpointed areas of disturbance in Peru's Nasca lines World Heritage Site. The data collected on the two flights will help Peruvian authorities fully catalog the thousand-year-old designs drawn on the ground in and around the site for the first time. It will also give them a new tool for protecting the fragile constructions from both careless humans and natural disturbances such as floods. A shape called the Hummingbird is faintly visible above and to the left of the scale line, its long beak ending below a road that cuts diagonally from the right edge of the image to the centre. "In the synthetic aperture radar image of the same site, right, areas of disturbance appear dark. There are extensive areas of disturbance around the Hummingbird as well as a pathway down the gully directly above the glyph. Other small disturbances may have been caused by erosion in the dry creek beds," the US space agency said in a statement. NASA's Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) can record changes on the ground beneath the aircraft that occur between multiple flights which take exactly the same flight path. The instrument is used to monitor how volcanoes, earthquakes, and other natural hazards are changing Earth. NASA captures massive US east coast 'snowzilla' from space "The UAVSAR is ideally suited for observing the Nasca site because the region has virtually no vegetation and receives no rainfall whatsoever in most years, meaning that natural disturbances are minimal," said principal investigator Bruce Chapman. The UAVSAR images of the site appeared in a paper in the journal Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites. IANS Pentagon to release some detainee abuse images: rights group International oi-PTI Washington, Jan 27: The Pentagon has pledged to release part of a trove of photographs related to the abuse of prisoners at US detention centers in Iraq and Afghanistan, a top US rights group said today. The move would be the latest step in a legal saga between the US military and the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a freedom of information lawsuit in 2004 seeking the release of some 2,000 photographs showing detainee mistreatment. In a statement, the ACLU said the Pentagon had promised to post 198 of these images online by Friday. Though the administration of President Barack Obama had said it would release the photos back in 2009, Congress passed an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act allowing for the images to be withheld if the defense secretary deemed them to threaten national security. The US government opposes publishing the images because it fears they could provoke a violent backlash and place US forces and personnel overseas at heightened risk of attack. In March 2015, a US judge ordered the government to release the photos, but the Pentagon appealed that ruling. However, in November last year, Pentagon chief Ashton Carter declined to recertify 198 images as posing a risk to national security. Those are the pictures due to be released. The ACLU said it would continue to seek the release of the remaining 1,800 or so images. "We're still pressing our case for the remaining secret photos," the group said. US soldiers were implicated in the torture and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison when the US military ran it in 2004, a scandal that first broke when photos showing soldiers abusing detainees were published in US media. Between 2004 and 2006, 11 soldiers -- including Lynndie England, who was seen smiling beside naked prisoners being subjected to sexual abuse -- were convicted in court martials. (AFP) MNG Suspected Russian raids kill 44 Syrian civilians: monitor International oi-PTI Beirut, Jan 28: At least 44 civilians have been killed in suspected Russian air strikes in parts of northern and eastern Syria under the control of the Islamic State group, a monitor said today. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes on Wednesday had killed 29 civilians, including nine women and three children, in IS-controlled villages in the eastern Deir Ezzor province and its provincial capital of the same name. The strikes killed another 15 civilians, including five young brothers, in and around the city of Al-Bab, an IS bastion in the northern province of Aleppo, the Observatory said. Dozens of people were also wounded in the strikes, it said. The Britain-based monitor relies on a network of activists on the ground and says it distinguishes between Syrian, Russian and US-led coalition aircraft based on flight patterns, as well as the type of planes and ordnance used. Russia launched air strikes in Syria in September in support of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, a key ally. The US-led coalition has been carrying out strikes against IS targets in Syria and Iraq since the summer of 2014. Russian backing has helped Assad's forces make significant advances in recent months and the Observatory said Thursday that regime troops had moved to within eight kilometres (five miles) of Al-Bab. It was the closest pro-government forces had been to the city, a key IS stronghold in Aleppo, since 2012, it said. Al-Bab, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of the Turkish border, fell to rebel forces in July 2012 and was taken over by IS in November 2013. Regime forces are seeking to sever IS-held territory in Aleppo province from that held by the group in neighbouring Raqa. The Observatory said last week that Russian strikes in Syria had killed more than 1,000 civilians, including some 200 children. Russia has denounced accusations that its raids have killed large numbers of civilians as "absurd". The Observatory says the US-led strikes have killed 322 civilians, including more than 90 children. PTI UP ATS nabs 8 with links to al-Qaeda and its affiliate from UP, Uttarakhand Terrorist safe havens in Pak pose serious problem: US General International oi-PTI Washington, Jan 28: Terrorist safe havens inside Pakistan, providing shelter to terrorist outfits like the Taliban and the Haqqani network, is a serious problem, a top US general nominated to be the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan said today. "I view it (terrorist safe havens inside Pakistan) as a serious problem," Gen John "Mick" Nicholson told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing. If confirmed by the Senate, he would replace Gen John Campbell as Commander of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan at a time when serious concerns have been raised about the security situation in Afghanistan, where Taliban militants have caused large numbers of casualties and Islamic State affiliates have made some inroads. "One of the biggest problems has been the sanctuary, particularly for the Haqqani Network, particularly the involvement of the ISI in Pakistan, which in many cases have been supporting the Haqqani Network. Have you seen any progress in this whole problem?" Senator John McCain, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked Gen Nicholson. In response, Gen Nicholson said continued presence of the terrorist safe haven has been a major problem. "This has been one of the principal challenges. It's a sanctuary that our enemies, in particular the Haqqani Network, have enjoyed inside Pakistan," he said. "I note that the Pakistanis have also suffered significant casualties in the tens of thousands in terms of their security forces and their civilians," he noted. However, the US is not satisfied that there's adequate pressure put on the Haqqanis, he told the Senators. The recent operations in northern Waziristan have helped, as well as stationing of additional soldiers in tribal areas. "Some of this has pushed some fighters into Afghanistan, which has contributed to some of the issues there," he said. "So, it's a mixed story, and it's one that requires continuous engagement by the Pakistan military. And then, increasingly, we want to encourage the Afghans and the Pakistan military forces to work more closely together against their common enemies," Nicholson said. Earlier, in a written response to questions, Nicholson asked Pakistan to take persistent action against the Taliban, particularly the Haqqani Network. "Pakistan's pressure on the Taliban combined with its support to the reconciliation process are mutually reinforcing," he added. Haqqani network, which is linked to al-Qaeda has also been blamed for several deadly attacks against Western and Indian interests in Afghanistan, including the 2008 bombing of the Indian mission in Kabul. PTI International news brief: Trump rape accuser plans suit under new NY 'survivors' law and more Fact Check: Did Trump thank Musk for welcoming him back to Twitter Donald Trump gains lead in early voting States, polls show International oi-PTI Washington, Jan 28: Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump today gained substantial lead in early voting States of Iowa and South Carolina, while his Democratic counterpart Hillary Clinton has a narrow lead over her nearest rival Bernie Sanders, latest opinion polls show. According to NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist Poll released today, Trump leads Senator Ted Cruz of Texas with seven points in Iowa. This is quite a big jump as three weeks ago, Trump, 69, trailed Cruz by four points in this crucial state. The poll comes days ahead of the first presidential vote is caste in the Iowa Caucus on Monday, which will formally kick off the process to elect the new US President in November. The second and last four-year term of the US President Barack Obama ends on January 20, 2017. As per the latest poll, Trump has support of 32 per cent among likely Republican caucus goers. He is followed by Cruz with 25 per cent and Marco Rubio at 18 per cent. The polls also show that Trump has a massive 19 point lead over Cruz in New Hampshire while in South Carolina his lead is 16 points. "Trump is positioned to run the house in these first three states," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. "Will it happen? The answer depends on when or if anti-Trump sentiment will coalesce to interrupt his march to the nomination," he said. According to a Monmouth University Poll released today, Clinton, 68, leads Sanders in Iowa by just five percentage points. This is a big slump in her popularity given that in December her lead over Sanders was a whopping 22 points. "Support for Sanders has come from those who are new to the process, but the current poll indicates he is also cutting into Clinton's lead among die-hard Democratic partisans," said Monmouth polling director Patrick Murray. PTI Qatar Airways plane goes slightly off runway on landing at Kochi airport Qatar Airways' plans for setting up Airline in India put on hold Worlds longest direct flight: Qatar Airways may start Doha-Auckland flight International oi-Jagriti Doha, Jan 28: If reports are to be believed then Middle Eastern airline Qatar Airways will launch the world's longest direct flight. According to reports, Qatar Airways is planning to start a non-stop route between Doha and Auckland, New Zealand. The flight will take 18 and a half hours to cover the distance of 14,500 km from Doha to Auckland. Qantas Airways currently operates longest non-stop route from Sydney to Dallas flight since September 2014. The flight takes approximately 17 hours to cover 13,800 kilometres. Kuwait Airways drops New York-London route over discrimination against Israelis "Boeing 777-LR aircraft would be used to make the trip. The aircraft can carry 259 passengers. However, it is not clear when the airline will start the service," Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker was quoted as saying. The aircraft can carry 259 passengers. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 28, 2016, 15:25 [IST] Maharashtra: 50-year-old woman infected with Zika virus, Chickungunya; officials say no need to panic Zika virus 'spreading explosively': WHO chief International oi-PTI Geneva, Jan 28: The Zika virus is "spreading explosively" in the Americas, the head of the World Health Organization said today, as the global health body warned that it expected up to four million cases of the disease. WHO chief Margaret Chan called for an emergency meeting on February 1 on the outbreak of the virus, which has been blamed for the birth defect microcephaly, a condition that causes babies to be born with an abnormally small head. "The level of alarm is extremely high," Chan said, adding that the meeting of WHO's Emergency Committee on Monday will seek to determine if the outbreak qualifies as an international public health emergency. The virus "is now spreading explosively," in the Americas, where 23 countries and territories have reported cases, the WHO chief said. Marcos Espinal, the head of communicable diseases and health analysis at the WHO's Americas office, said the region should expect "three to four million cases" of Zika, without proving a timeframe for the outbreak to ramp up to that level. Following its initial discovery in a monkey in Uganda's Zika forest in 1947, the disease "slumbered" and "occasionally caused a mild disease of low concern," in humans, Chan said. "The situation today is dramatically different." Chan highlighted the growing concern over Zika's possible link to microcephaly and a neurological disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome. "A causal relationship between Zika virus infection and birth malformations and neurological syndromes has not yet been established, but is strongly suspected," Chan said. The emergency meeting will seek advice on the severity of the outbreak and what response measures might be taken. It will also aim to identify priority areas for urgent research, Chan said, after US President Barack Obama called for swift action, including better diagnostic tests as well as the development of vaccines and treatments. Espinal warned that Zika "will go everywhere the mosquito is." "We should assume that. We should not wait for it to spread," he said. Drawing a contrast with Ebola, Espinal stressed that Zika needs a carrier to spread and that controlling the mosquito was therefore crucial to controlling the outbreak. WHO has previously said that it expects Zika to spread to every country in the Americas except Canada and Chile. Brazil has been the country hardest hit so far, and concerns are growing about this summer's Olympics, which is likely to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors to host city Rio de Janeiro in August. Zika originated in Africa and also exists in Asia and the Pacific, but has not been associated with microcephaly there. It first came to prominence in Brazil in October. Microcephaly can cause brain damage or death in babies. AFP First 20 smart cities will be announced today as informed by the urban devlopment minister M Venkaiah Naidu. There are 97 cities in the smart city challenge. Rs 3 lakh crores will be spent in making these cities as smart cities. PM Modi has given stern message to the government officials and had asked them in strong words to act quickly on complaints and grievances from people related to the customs and excise sector. Delhi is much chaos after 1.5 lakh MCD employees went on strike demanding their pending salaries. in protest MCD workers placed mounds of garbage outside Delhi's deputy CM Manish Sisodia's residence. 2008-2022 One News Page Ltd. All rights reserved. One News is a registered trademark of One News Page Ltd. It is not a bad thing for us, that the route known as the Goldene Strae or the Golden Road as we will get to know it- has escaped the attention of so many. It has been spared being overrun by hordes of tourists and as you will discover the Komfie Manalo, Opalesque Asia: South Africas equity-centric hedge funds posted double-digit gains last year outperforming most of their Western peers which sustained heavy losses under extreme market conditions. Peregrines Total Equity Hedge Fund gained 19.94% last year and survived December up +.13%. Hedge funds serviced by Peregrine Securities performed fairly well at the end of a volatile year, remaining in the black for the month despite all sectors on the local bourse spending a second month in the red. Looking at the sectoral indices, while all were down, industrials proved the most resilient, ending down a marginal -0.1% for the final month of the year. Industrials ended the year overall up +17.9%. Resources did not see a bounce from their previous difficulties, with the sector recording another loss for the month of -1.9%. This leaves the sectors YTD at a disastrous -36.4%. Warren Chapman of Peregrine Securities said, "We return to our two primary hedge fund styles where equity long-short funds performed relatively well to remain in the black, with a marginal +0.03% for December (following +1.66% for November) while market neutral funds continue to gain at +0.85% for December (post the +1.17% gained in November). We see the two styles ending the year very healthily at +20.57% and +14.72% respectively." He added that financials were the weakest performers last month, down a s...................... To view our full article Click here Michael Moore is ready to arrest Gov. Snyder (Image by Michael Moore) Details DMCA "Do Not Send Us Bottles Of Water. Instead, Join Us In A Revolt." A Letter From Michael Moore Many of you have contacted me wanting to know how you can help the people of Flint with the two-year long tragedy of drinking water contaminated by the radical decisions made by the Governor of Michigan. The offer is much appreciated by those who are suffering through this and who have not drank a glass of unpoisoned water since April of 2014. Unfortunately, the honest answer to your offer of help is, sadly, you can't. You can't help. The reason you can't help is that you cannot reverse the irreversible brain damage that has been inflicted upon every single child in Flint. The damage is permanent. There is no medicine you can send, no doctor or scientist who has any way to undo the harm done to thousands of babies, toddlers and children (not to mention their parents). They are ruined for life, and someone needs to tell you the truth about that. They will, forever, suffer from various neurological impediments, their IQs will be lowered by at least 20 points, they will not do as well in school and, by the time they reach adolescence, they will exhibit various behavioral problems that will land a number of them in trouble, and some of them in jail. That is what we know about the history of lead poisoning when you inflict it upon a child. It is a life sentence. In Flint, they've already ingested it for these two years, and the toll has already been taken on their developing brains. No check you write, no truckloads of Fiji Water or Poland Spring, will bring their innocence or their health back to normal. It's done. And it was done knowingly, enacted by a political decision from a Governor and a political party charged by the majority of Michigan's citizens who elected them to cut taxes for the rich, take over majority-black cities by replacing the elected mayors and city councils, cut costs, cut services, cut more taxes for the rich, increase taxes on retired teachers and public employees and, ultimately, try to decimate their one line of defense against all this, this thing we used to call a union. The amount of generosity since the national media finally started to cover this story has been tremendous. Pearl Jam sent 100,000 bottles of water. The next day the Detroit Lions showed up with a truck and 100,000 bottles of water. Yesterday, Puff Daddy and Mark Wahlberg donated 1,000,000 bottles of water! Unbelievably amazing. They acknowledged it's a very short-term fix, and that it is. Flint has 102,000 residents, each in need of an average of 50 gallons of water a day for cooking, bathing, washing clothes, doing the dishes, and drinking (I'm not counting toilet flushes, watering plants or washing the car). But 100,000 bottles of water is enough for just one bottle per person -- in other words, just enough to cover brushing one's teeth for one day. You would have to send 200 bottles a day, per person, to cover what the average American (we are Americans in Flint) needs each day. That's 102,000 citizens times 200 bottles of water -- which equals 20.4 million 16oz. bottles of water per day, every day, for the next year or two until this problem is fixed (oh, and we'll need to find a landfill in Flint big enough for all those hundreds of millions of plastic water bottles, thus degrading the local environment even further). Anybody want to pony up for that? Because THAT is the reality. This is a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. There is not a terrorist organization on Earth that has yet to figure out how to poison 100,000 people every day for two years -- and get away with it. That took a Governor who subscribes to an American political ideology hell-bent on widening the income inequality gap and conducting various versions of voter and electoral suppression against people of color and the poor. It was those actions that led Michigan's Republican Governor to try out his economic and racial experiment in Flint (and please don't tell me this has nothing to do with race or class; he has removed the mayors of a number of black cities. This, and the water crisis in Flint, never would have been visited upon the residents of Bloomfield Hills or Grosse Pointe -- and everyone here knows that). We have now seen the ultimate disastrous consequences of late-20th century, neo-conservative, trickle down public policy. That word "trickle," a water-based metaphor, was used to justify this economic theory -- well, it's no longer a metaphor, is it? Because now we're talking about how actual water has been used to institute these twisted economic beliefs in destroying the lives of the black and the poor in Flint, Michigan. So, do you still want to help? Really help? Because what we need in Flint -- and across the country -- right now, tonight, is a nonviolent army of people who are willing to stand up for this nation, and go to bat for the forgotten of Flint. Here's what you and I need to do: Reprinted from The National Israel, it seems, has found a new weapon against Palestinian attacks -- the humble cucumber seed. Soldiers have been handing out seeds at checkpoints with advice to Palestinians -- a nation of farmers until their lands were swallowed up by Jewish settlements -- to stop their recent knife attacks on Israelis and invest in a peaceful future. Palestinians were not fooled. The seeds, the packets revealed, were produced by the very settlements that corralled them into their urban enclaves. Israel's image laundering is directed at western countries that have propped up the occupation -- economically and diplomatically -- for decades. As ever, Israel hopes to persuade outsiders that the occupation is benevolent. The futility of its PR, however, is highlighted by the latest initiative of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government. New legislation is designed to intimidate and silence Israeli human rights organizations -- the international community's eyes and ears in the occupied territories. These groups are to be defined as "moles," or agents of foreign governments. Justice minister Ayalet Shaked warned that such foreign intervention "endangers democracy." The problem is that the governments funding the human rights activity are not Israel's enemies, but some of its staunchest supporters -- European states. Israel treats Europe's support for human rights as malign interference, but it welcomes the vast sums channelled its way via the European Union's special trade agreement and the billions in US military aid. It is this kind of foreign intervention that sustains the occupation. The new legislation, however, risks leaving the EU and US exposed. Removing the minimal restraints imposed on the Israeli army by monitoring activity, the crimes of occupation -- and western complicity in them -- will be all the starker. Western governments have made a show of their retaliation. They warn that, without a two-state solution, Israel is hurtling towards a binational reality and comparisons with apartheid. Seeking to bolster the EU's recent feeble move to recommend labelling settlement products, its foreign ministers passed a resolution last week requiring all agreements with Israel to exclude the settlements. Europe has hinted that other penalties are in the pipeline. The United States echoes Europe. Its ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, last week broke with US protocol and admitted that Israel has two standards of law in the West Bank, separating between Palestinians and Jewish settlers. It was the nearest Washington has dared to suggest that Israel already enforces an apartheid system in the territories. Unused to having the US wash its dirty linen in public, Israel fumed. One of Mr Netanyahu's former aides even hurled an anti-Semitic insult at Mr Shapiro, calling him a "little Jewboy." As Bernie Sanders presidential campaign has gained momentum, Sanders has come under attack from Democrats and Republicans. Some mock Bernie's identification as a "Democratic Socialist," while others lament his supposed policy deficiencies. The critics miss the point. Sanders is running to call attention to a national emergency: the influence of money on politics, and economic inequality in general. In the last twenty years, Democratic presidential candidates have run on the basis of their policies ("bring the troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq," "implement national healthcare"). In contrast, Republicans have run on the basis of personality. (In 1992, George W Bush won because he was more likable than Al Gore.) In 2008, Barack Obama won the presidency because of his charismatic personality, his slogan "change we can believe in," and enough detail on major policies to keep his critics at bay. In 2016, Hillary Clinton is running a similar-style campaign based upon a slogan, "Hillary for America," and detailed policy positions. In contrast, Bernie Sanders is focusing on a single issue, money in politics. At the conclusion of the January 17th Democratic Presidential debate, Sanders explained: "Very little is going to be done to transform our economy and to create the kind of middle class we need unless we end a corrupt campaign finance system which is undermining American" what we have got to do is create a political revolution which revitalizes American democracy, which brings millions of young people and working people into the political process. To say loudly and clearly that the government of the United States of America belongs to all of us and not just a handful of wealthy campaign contributors." As Sanders has closed in on the Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, she and her surrogates have attacked his policy positions. During the January 17th debate, Clinton attacked Sanders' healthcare proposal saying, "There are things we can do to improve [Obamacare]. But to tear it up and start over again, pushing our country back into that kind of a contentious debate I think is the wrong direction." Her attack was supported by Paul Krugman who noted, "the virtual impossibility of achieving single-payer," Sanders' proposal must be taken in context. In his opening debate remarks, Sanders said: "Our campaign is about" thinking big. It is understanding that in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, we should have health care for every man, woman, and child as a right. That we should raise the minimum wage to at least 15 dollars an hour, that we have got to create millions of decent paying jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. So what my first days [in office will be] about is bringing American together to end the decline of the middle class, to tell the wealthiest people in this country that yes they are gonna start paying their fair share of taxes, and that we are going to have a government that works for all of us and not just big campaign contributors." Recall that when Barack Obama took office, he was confronted by a financial crisis -- the Great Recession of 2008. Obama had run on a different set of issues -- withdrawing troops from Iraq, universal healthcare, energy independence" -- but shifted focus in response to a national emergency. Bernie Sanders regards money in politics/economic inequality as a comparable national emergency. Sanders is not alone in this assessment. Early this year, Paul Krugman wrote about "Twin Peaks Planet": "It is now obvious that income and wealth are more concentrated at the very top than they have been since the Gilded Age." University of California Economics Professor Robert Reich concurred: "Surely 2016 is a critical year. But, as the reformers of the Progressive Era understood more than a century ago, no single president or any other politician can accomplish what's needed because a system caught in the spiral of wealth and power cannot be reformed from within. It can be changed only by a mass movement of citizens pushing from the outside." Bernie Sanders is not running a campaign based upon personality or a list of policy positions. He is running for president because he believes the US has a national emergency: "Let's be truthful. Very little is going to be done to transform our economy and to create the kind of middle class we need unless we end a corrupt campaign finance system which is undermining American democracy" we have got to do is create a political revolution which revitalizes American democracy, which brings millions of young people and working people into the political process. To say loudly and clearly that the government of the United States of America belongs to all of us and not just a handful of wealthy campaign contributors." Sanders is right. We are facing a national political crisis because of economic inequality. We must address this before we address a laundry list of other important issues. That's why we need "a political revolution which revitalizes American democracy. Shockwaves hit Southeast Asia on January 26th when news emerged that Malaysia's Prime Minister, Najib Razak, was cleared of corruption charges, with the country's Attorney General confirming that the transfer of $681 million to Najib's personal bank account was a donation from the Saudi royal family. AG Mohamed Apandi Ali also added that the funds were returned to the Saudi family, with the exception of $61 million, used during the 2013 election campaign. Najib, who was initially accused of misappropriating funds from the nation's 1MBD sovereign development fund, which he chairs, has denied any wrongdoing from the onset, insisting that the scandal was an organized political ploy by the opposition to unseat him. Despite the welcoming development of the closure of a corruption investigation that has rocked the country for the past year, political pundits within Malaysia continue to have their doubts, with Malaysia's anti-corruption body (MACC) calling for a review of the AG's decision and the reason behind the transfer of funds. Indeed, at first glace, Malaysia does not appear to be the first choice to quality for Saudi aid. However, speaking with the BBC, a close confidant of the Saudi royal family claimed that the donation was given ahead of Malaysia's 2013 elections to help Prime Minister Najib and his coalition to beat the opposition alliance. Partially composed of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), whose original members were influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood, the opposition coalition and its potential victory appeared a significant enough threat to Saudi Arabia, which has designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. In fact, Saudi Arabia has historically chosen to delve into the security and economic affairs of nations with a shared Sunni Muslim demographic, like Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain and Egypt, providing funds to the latter to encourage the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi. In Malaysia's case, Saudi Arabia became an economic partner back in the 1970s under the leadership of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. But what started off as a predominately economic partnership, quickly evolved into a security based relationship dating back to 2013 after the two nations signed a Memorandum of Understanding aimed at cooperation on counterterrorism issues and transnational criminal activity. Today, as the Southeast Asian region has come increasingly under threat from Islamic terrorism, this relationship has gained increased in value. Following the January 2016 attacks in Jakarta, Malaysia's branch of ISIS, known as Katibah Nusantara (Malay Archipelago Combat Unit), was quick to release a damning video denouncing the government's crackdown on Islamic extremism, announcing that they "will never bow down to the democratic system of governance as we will only follow Allah's rules". The government estimates that so far 150 Malaysian citizens have been arrested for spurring terrorist activities at home and inciting violence, with an additional 100 Malay's having gone to Syria and Iraq to fight with the Islamic State. For his part, Prime Minister Najib has been a strong proponent of a moderate Islam and has taken an active stance against hardline Islamist opponents, while also actively developing a strategy against violent extremism that has earned him a "very strong relationship" with the US on counterterrorism issues in the region. During a bilateral meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Najib, the two leaders agreed to set up the Regional Digital Counter-Messaging Communications Center (RDC3) with the aim of "coordinating and driving counter-ISIL messaging activity in the region" and weakening the narrative and appeal of the group. In return for cooperation on programs such as "Preventing and Combatting Serious Crime (PCSC)", largely a forum for sharing information such as biometric and DNA data, the United States has promised to add Malaysia to the Visa Waiver Program, allowing Malay's to travel to the United States without a visa for under 3 months. While some may continue to question the details of Saudi's donation to Prime Minister Najib back in 2013, what has become evermore clear is that Malaysia now stands at the forefront of the fight against Islamic terrorism in a region that today emerges as a new battleground against ISIS' growing international network. In this regard, it comes as no surprise that Riyadh will continue to play a strong role in supporting Malaysia's vision of a moderate Islam, while the latter appears set to become a leading regional force in the fight against ISIS. Reprinted from Unz Review Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu certainly knows how to return a favor. To express his gratitude for the United States having engaged in laborious 17 month multilateral negotiations that succeeded in eliminating Iran's ability to construct a nuclear weapon, Netanyahu is now demanding more money from Washington because the agreement has, in his esteemed opinion, made Israel more vulnerable. As Israel is already the largest recipient of United States military assistance at $3.1 billion a year the jump to $5 billion might seem relatively inconsequential, but for Netanyahu it will mean that 25% of his entire defense budget will now come from the United States, enabling Israel to free up funds to provide free university education and medical treatment for its citizens, something that the American taxpayers who come up with the money do not enjoy. And our government has repeatedly expressed its disapproval of the Israeli settlements for the building of which there is no shortage of funds in the Israeli budget, some of which surely comes from us. We are helping them to do what we ask them not to do. Insanity? And it seems that beyond that there is no limit to Israel's own particular form of expressing "thank you America." Even as Israel prepares to accept the additional money it seems disinclined to restrain either its actions or its rhetoric towards anyone who questions its behavior, including the President of the United States. One would think the prospect of receiving an extra $20 billion dollars would produce at least a little moderation but the Israeli government appears to be intent on sending a message to the Barack Obama White House telling the world who is really in charge. Last Tuesday, with Netanyahu off attending a meeting of global movers and shakers in Davos Switzerland, the Israeli government announced that it would be seizing from Arab owners 380 acres of arable land near Jericho in the Jordan River valley. The land has been up until now considered an Israeli Army security zone so even though it was Palestinian property the owners were not allowed to use it. Settlers are reportedly already encroaching on the land and it will no doubt soon transition into a new settlement bloc with the blessing of the military and government. Israel has also announced the destruction of West Bank buildings used by Bedouin tribesmen that were financed by the European Union (E.U.), presumably so it can declare the land vacant, permitting its annexation to construct permanent homes for Israeli Jews. The seizure and demolitions produced predictable protests from the Europeans, the Arab League, the Palestinians themselves and also from Washington. But as in the case of the all too fungible money flowing incessantly from Washington, Israel's having already stolen tens of thousands of acres of Arab land on the West Bank while planting something like 600,000 illegal settlers, many in heavily guarded compounds, a few hundred more acres matters little. But that would be to ignore the essentially political reality that the Netanyahu government always responds to critics by taking the offensive, in this case carrying out actions that are gross violations of international law a few days before a U.S. delegation is due to arrive in Tel Aviv to discuss Israel's new aid package. It demonstrates Israel's contempt for the interests and sensitivities of the United States. Indeed, Netanyahu does not behave as he does because he is compelled to do so or has some good reason for responding to critics disparagingly. He does so because standing up to the world community enhances his political stature among his extreme right wing supporters in Israel, who rejoice in telling critics that they do not care one bit about the increasing international sentiment condemning their behavior. And Netanyahu knows he can in reality behave with impunity because he de facto owns the U.S. Congress and the mainstream media and has said as much, noting that for him "I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in the way." Several recent incidents demonstrate the Netanyahu disdain for the opinion of the United States as well of the rest of the world. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro was on the receiving end of Bibi's wrath when he commented that "continued settlement growth raises honest questions about Israel's long term intentions," adding that the Israeli authorities do not investigate attacks on Palestinians "vigorously," that there was increasing vigilantism by settlers, and that there are two standards to the rule of law "one for Israelis and another for Palestinians." Shapiro was referring to civil law prevailing in Israel while the army operates on the West Bank under martial law, which has far fewer protections for the accused and where shoot to kill policies against Arab demonstrators have become common. The criticism, as mild as it was, drew an angry response from Netanyahu, who called statement "unacceptable and untrue." A political ally of Netanyahu called the American Ambassador a "little Jewboy." Israel, which fancies itself a democracy, does indeed have different standards of justice. As part of a new program of action against "terrorists," Israel last week began arrests of anyone who posts content on Facebook that the government considers to be anti-Israeli. As it is not necessary to actually do anything to fall afoul of the new regulations, the offense is in the nature of a thought crime. Inevitably, Arabs have been arrested but no Jews. It is also interesting to consider whether Israel believes its extraterritoriality on what it considers terrorism to extend to Americans and Europeans who criticize Israeli actions. Many of those who are reading these words might well find themselves arrested if they should ever have to enter Israel for any reason. Israel and its friends have also responded sharply to a European Union demand first put in place last November that products derived from the Israeli settlements be labeled as such, enabling consumers to avoid them if they choose to do so. Last week, the E.U. also indicated that any business or government to government dealings with Israel must not involve the settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Israel's point of view is that the West Bank settlements are de facto part of Israel. The Swedish foreign minister Margot Wallstrom has also been subjected to Israel's wrath after she suggested that it might be worthwhile to investigate whether Israeli police and military have been executing Palestinian prisoners extra-judicially. More than 141 Palestinians have died in the recent unrest versus 24 Israelis. There have been numerous reports that some of the Arab victims have been shot and killed after they were either incapacitated or arrested while a leading Rabbi has called for all Palestinians to be executed. The Netanyahu government has attacked Wallstrom, stating that her comments were "a mix of blindness and political stupidity." She has been officially banned from travel to Israel. Israel's pit bulls in the think tanks and media have inevitably joined in the discussion. Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post explains "Why it's correct to label the Obama administration anti-Israel," citing, among others, the deranged Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute, who describes identifying settlement produced goods as "blatant anti-Semitism" coupled with a warning that that "it should be clear to Jews everywhere that the 1930s are returning." Rubin also cites the ever reliable Elliott Abrams, who sees a broad movement to discredit Israel, commenting that the U.S. failure to condemn the E.U. action means that Obama is "joining the jackals." Rubin and her friends seek to twist the argument by maintaining that other areas "in dispute" do not have their products labeled, but they ignore the fact that there is no other situation anywhere in the world quite like Israel's continued military occupation coupled with the introduction of settlers, destruction of the local economy and exploitation of aquifers and other natural resources. And the West Bank is hardly disputed, except by the Israel first last and always crowd. It is clearly Palestinian land. Giving Israel more money will not make Netanyahu behave but there is no possibility that the largesse will somehow be terminated because America's timorous leadership is afraid to confront the obvious. The whole world understands that Israel is the ultimate rogue nation, propped up by the only remaining superpower, which appears to be a helpless giant whenever it is confronted by the Israeli Prime Minister's demands. Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard has recently suggested that the most influential papers within the U.S. mainstream media might want to consider featuring on their opinion pages more foreign power realists and a lot fewer neocons, in part because the former have been consistently right while the latter have nearly always been wrong. How true. It would be a breath of fresh air to open a newspaper and not be confronted by Elliott Abrams, Jennifer Rubin, Robert Kaplan, Charles Krauthammer and the Kagans spewing their nonsense about the Middle East. A realist would instead ask "What are America's interests in the Middle East?" and "Why do we have a widely promoted 'special relationship' with Israel?" The answers would demonstrate that Washington and Tel Aviv's interests do not coincide and never have. And that the special relationship is a self-serving fiction invented by Israel's friends. Understanding that and acting upon it would be a real change that many of us could quite comfortably live with. The immediate aftermath of the NATO bombing of Libya was a time of highgloating. Just as Iraq War advocates pointed to the capture and killing of Saddam Hussein as proof that their war was a success, Libya war advocates pointed to the capture and brutal killing of Muammar el-Qaddafi as proof of their vindication. War advocates such as Anne-Marie Slaughter and Nicholas Kristof were writing columns celebrating their prescience and mocking war opponents as discredited, and the New York Times published a front-page article declaring: "U.S. Tactics in Libya May be a Model for Other Efforts." It was widely expected that Hillary Clinton, one of the leading advocates for and architects of the bombing campaign, would be regarded as a Foreign Policy Visionary for the grand Libya success: "We came, we saw, he died," Clinton sociopathically boasted about the mob rape and murder of Qaddafi while guffawing on 60 Minutes. Since then, Libya -- so predictably -- has all but completely collapsed, spending years now drowning in instability, anarchy, fractured militia rule, sectarian conflict, and violent extremism. The execution of Saddam Hussein was no vindication of that war nor a sign of improved lives for Iraqis, and the same was true for the mob killing of Qaddafi . As I wrote the day after Qaddafi fled Tripoli and Democratic Party loyalists were prancing around in war victory dances: "I'm genuinely astounded at the pervasive willingness to view what has happened in Libya as some sort of grand triumph even though virtually none of the information needed to make that assessment is known yet, including: how many civilians have died, how much more bloodshed will there be, what will be needed to stabilize that country, and, most of all, what type of regime will replace Qaddafi? ... When foreign powers use military force to help remove a tyrannical regime that has ruled for decades, all sorts of chaos, violence, instability, and suffering -- along with a slew of unpredictable outcomes -- are inevitable." But the much bigger question was when (not if, but when) the instability and extremism that predictably followed the NATO bombing would be used to justify a new U.S.-led war -- also exactly as happened in Iraq. Back in 2012, I asked the question this way: Click Here to Read Whole Article We all know the name Goethe some of us even know the full name, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Ive never lived in the renowned 18th- and 19th-century writer, politician, and cultural polymaths homeland of Germany, but even when I lived in Los Angeles, I regularly went to my local branch of the Goethe-Institute for German cultural events. Even in Korea, where I live now, Goethe has left a wide if shallow mark: you can see The Sorrows of Young Werther in the form of an elaborate stage musical, for instance, and buy almost all the goods you need in life from the enormous conglomerate named after the young lady on whom Werther concentrates his doomed affections, Lotte. But why, more than 180 years after Goethes death, does his name still come up in so many different contexts? And given that, why do so many of us know so little about his long, varied, colorful, and highly productive life and career? This sounds like a job for the video wing of Alain de Bottons School of Life, whose short primers continue to bring us up to speed on why the legacies of so many cultural figures (with one section given over to the literary) have endured, or should endure. Goethe is one of the great minds of European civilisation, though his work is largely unknown outside of the German speaking countries, says de Botton in their video on Goethe: He deserves our renewed attention. To fill out the details provided in the School of Lifes video, you can read an overview of Goethes career (including details on the proper pronunciation of his name) in the accompanying Book of Life entry online. It tells the story of not just Young Werthers creator, but one of Europes big cultural heroes comparable to the likes of Shakespeare, Dante and Homer, skilled in letters, of course, but also in physiology, geology, botany and optics, who also spent stretches of his career as a diplomat, fashion guru, a senior civil servant, a pornographer, the head of a university, a fine artist, an adventurous traveller, the director of a theatre company and the head of a mining company. We might call Goethe, insofar as he developed his own mastery, spanning so much of the human experience, a Renaissance man out of time but one who, in his way, outdid even the actual men of the Renaissance. We have so much to learn from him, adds the Book of Life. We dont often hear people declaring a wish to be a little more like Goethe. But if we did, the world would be a more vibrant and humane place. Related Content: Goethes Theory of Colors: The 1810 Treatise That Inspired Kandinsky & Early Abstract Painting The Tale of the Fox: Watch Ladislas Starevichs Animation of Goethes Great German Folktale (1937) The Death Masks of Great Authors: Dante, Goethe, Tolstoy, Joyce & More Harry Clarkes 1926 Illustrations of Goethes Faust: Art That Inspired the Psychedelic 60s Eugene Delacroix Illustrates Goethes Faust, One of the Very Greatest of All Illustrated Books Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities and culture. Hes at work on a book about Los Angeles, A Los Angeles Primer, the video series The City in Cinema, the crowdfunded journalism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Angeles Review of Books Korea Blog. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook. FIRST EXOSKELETON FOR INDUSTRY UNVEILED EU Robo-Mate project presents first prototype of an exoskeleton to help production workers.Production workers often lift up to 10 metric tons of material a day. According to the Work Foundation Alliance (Lancaster, UK), 44 million workers in the EU suffer from work-related musculoskeletal disorders. Now researchers in the EUs Robo-Mate project have developed an exoskeleton that makes loads up to ten times lighter to lift or carry. The project partners presented the first prototype at Fraunhofer IAO in Stuttgart on 12 June.Effortlessly, a factory worker lifts a seat out of an old car. In a few nimble manoeuvres, he grips the 15 kg seat, hoists it out of its anchoring, and carries it to a station to join the other seats there. These fleet movements are made possible by an exoskeleton, a kind of external supporting frame that actively assists workers. Is this reality or science fiction?Production and assembly work includes many physically demanding activities that still have to be carried out by humans. This applies to small-scale series and prototypes, where the assembly of each piece is so individual that no robots could be programmed for the task. But it is also true for all kinds of activities that are either too complex for robots, cannot be standardized, or simply require human flexibility. One example is the disassembly of motor vehicles: as every used car brought in for dismantling is different, the removal of each vehicle part such as seats or batteries is individual. These tasks put a great strain on workers, particularly when they are performed for eight hours at a stretch. Workers engaged in production and disassembly tasks often lift and carry several tonnes of material in a day. Damage to the spine and long-term health problems are an almost inevitable consequence. In addition to the workers personal suffering, this also creates high costs for the healthcare system. Meanwhile, employers face the disadvantages of lost productivity through sickness, early retirement and difficulty recruiting new staff.The EU has set itself the goal of keeping manufacturing bases and jobs in Europe. But it will be necessary to make production conditions people-friendly in order to reduce the number of sick days and ensure that skilled workers remain fit and able to work over the long term.As well as protecting workers backs and supporting their posture, the Robo-Mate exoskeleton also helps them to lift heavy objects. By means of motors and sensors, it reduces the effective load people have to bear to a fraction of the actual load while also preventing postural damage.Although most people will have seen exoskeletons only in science fiction and superhero movies, there are actually two established fields of application for the technology: in the military and in medical rehabilitation. To date, however, no exoskeleton has been developed for use in manufacturing. This was precisely the goal that the partners in the EUs Robo-Mate project set themselves. Since the end of 2013, twelve research institutes and companies in seven European countries have been working together to develop a helper for production workers.Now the first Robo-Mate prototype is ready; it was presented at Fraunhofer IAO in Stuttgart on 12 June. Our exoskeleton prototype consists of modules for the arms, the trunk of the body and the legs, explains Prof. Dr. Wernher van de Venn, coordinator of the Robo-Mate project and Head of the Institute of Mechatronic Systems at Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland.- Arm modules: The modules for the arms are attached to the upper and lower arms. They actively support workers when lifting heavy loads: using motors, they deliver an up to tenfold reduction in the force acting on workers when lifting an object. A car seat weighing 15 kilograms feels like 1.5 kilograms when workers lift it with the help of the exoskeleton, says Prof. Dr. Carmen Constantinescu who heads the project at Fraunhofer IAO.- Trunk module: The trunk module is designed principally to stabilise and protect the back and spinal column. It helps workers to keep their torso straight when carrying out lifting and bending tasks, protecting the spine from twisting and slipped discs.- Leg modules: The exoskeleton supports the legs using two modules that stabilise the inner thighs from the trunk module. When workers carry out tasks in a squatting position, which can put the thighs under great strain, the leg modules stiffen and form a kind of seat, so that workers do not have to exert any additional strength.To find out where most assembly and disassembly problems lie and what the exoskeleton needs to be able to do, scientists at Fraunhofer IAO used software to simulate the work steps of various application partners in the project. They carefully considered the sequence of movements as well as which forces act on the body and how. This identified key steps where the strain on the body is very strong. Next, Constantinescu and her team of researchers simulated the corresponding work steps with the exoskeleton which meant they could pinpoint the steps for which the exoskeleton was a useful tool and rule out those for which it was unsuitable. Before now, nobody has managed to calculate the person and the surrounding exoskeleton as a single unit, says Constantinescu, describing the particular challenge of this undertaking. But that was precisely what had to be done in order to develop the skeleton and evaluate the use cases.Plenty of research is still needed before the Robo-Mate exoskeleton can become an everyday presence in European factories. One task is to make the exoskeleton and its use safe for its users and their environment. To ensure this, safety experts from the participating companies and institutes are working on a series of requirements. Another issue is the matter of acceptance: The only way this kind of support can be successful is if workers themselves accept the technology, says Prof. Dr. Michiel de Looze, partner for human-robot interaction at TNO, the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research TNO. Identifying ways of bringing production workers on side when introducing the technology was part of the projects remit. Design was another part: The prototype is functional, but its appearance is still off-putting you can see all the technology and the wires. Its probably a bit scary for people, says Prof. Wernher van der Venn, coordinator of the Robo-Mate project and professor at Zurich University of Applied Sciences. For this reason, designers are developing a casing that is functional yet also gives workers the impression it is there to help them: Were not looking to make superheroes. We want to develop a helper that supports production workers in their everyday work and keeps them healthy, says Dr. Leonard O`Sullivan, specialist in ergonomics and product design at the University of Limerick in Ireland.The basis for all work undertaken at the Fraunhofer IAO is a deep conviction that business success in a globalised arena is contingent on an ability to profitably leverage new high-tech potentials. In order to optimally exploit these opportunities, companies must be capable of developing and implementing customer and employee-oriented technologies faster than their competitors. Work organisation concepts must be simultaneously innovative and anthropocentric. A systematic design, in other words, is the outcome of pooled management and technical expertise. This holistic perspective when it comes to project processing ensures that equal consideration is given to commercial success, employees' interests and social consequences.Through its close cooperation with the Institute for Human Factors and Technology Management (IAT) of the University of Stuttgart, Fraunhofer IAO unites basic university research with applied science and business practice.Fraunhofer IAO, Juliane SegediNobelstrae 1270569 Stuttgart+49 711 970 2343presse@iao.fraunhofer.de Bank & Zukunft 2015 trend survey highlights the need for banks to reform business models Banks and the banking business are on the edge of profound change. This is the primary finding of the newly released Bank & Zukunft 2015 trend survey. Only a fifth of the executives and managers surveyed still anticipate business to take a positive direction in the next four years. Despite this, banks continue to drag their feet when it comes to implementing innovative business models in order to tap new areas of revenue.The 2015 edition of Fraunhofer IAOs annual Bank & Zukunft trend survey reveals uncertainty among bank directors and managers. Following years of optimism, it has become clear to decision makers that the status quo wont hold for much longer. Falling revenues in established business, increasing regulatory conditions as well as decreasing customer loyalty are already causing difficulties for many institutions. Despite this growing pressure, banks are still far too hesitant to make the necessary changes. The results of the IAO survey show that, once again, decision makers today focus primarily on cutting costs with the aim of achieving the related efficiency KPIs in the short term. Yet this unilateral focus on costs leads to an erosion of the basis for long-term growth and is thus often counterproductive in the long run. Right now, too many decision makers are still shying away from adopting innovations that would give rise to completely new business models. In doing so, theyre letting the competition get a jump on opening up new sources of revenue and occupying them over the longer term, warns Claus-Peter Praeg, who, as part of the Banks & Future innovation network, has been observing the development for years now.Digital ecosystems offer opportunities for new sources of revenueFocusing on the topic of banks and the digital economy, the 2015 trend survey presents banks with various ways to break away from the downwards spiral triggered by a pure focus on costs. The increasing digitalization of daily life for both private as well as commercial banking customers opens up new roads to lucrative banking. Theres no shortage of opportunities. Whats in short supply is the courage to step off the beaten path and try something different, says Praeg. Doing so is inconvenient and risky; it also requires managers and employees alike to be willing and able to adapt. Banking must be transformed if it is to once again live up to the important role it plays in the lives of many people, says Praeg. Digital ecosystems offer banks excellent opportunities here for offering brand-new customer experiences in banking services, which will allow them to successfully operate on the market for the long term.Findings to be presented at the Banks & Future conference in OctoberCopies of the Bank & Zukunft 2015 trend survey are available now in the IAO shop. You will have an opportunity to discuss the survey with its authors as well as banking experts at the annual Banks & Future conference in Frankfurt am Main, October 7-8, 2015. The event is organized by Fraunhofer IAO in cooperation with IBM and Commerzbank.Further information:Innovation forum Banks & Future: http://www.bankundzukunft.de/en.htmlFraunhofer IAO: http://www.iao.fraunhofer.de/lang-en/about-us/press-and-media/1238-banks-need-new-business-models.htmlIAO shop (German): http://shop.iao.fraunhofer.de/publikationen/trendstudie-bank-und-zukunft-2015.html?id=648Fraunhofer IAO:How will people live and work in the future? Asking this and similar questions, researchers at Fraunhofer IAO apply their findings in practice to achieve concrete results. Our experts shape the interaction between humans, technology and organization with a view to the whole, keeping each customers specific needs in mind. We help companies and institutions recognize the potential of new technologies, harness them for profit, and open up attractive future markets.Contact:Claus-Peter PraegBusiness Performance ManagementFraunhofer IAONobelstrae 1270569 Stuttgart, GermanyPhone: +49 711 970-2125E-Mail: claus-peter.praeg@iao.fraunhofer.de AEC and KACO new energy launch inverter production in Saudi Arabia CEOs Dr. Gassan Al-Shibl and Ralf Hofmann (centre) attend the celebratory ceremony in Riyadh. Riyadh / Neckarsulm, 21. September 2015 Under the name "Shams" (Arabic for "sun"), the Advanced Electronics Company (AEC) is manufacturing for the Arabian market a comprehensive range of solar inverters incorporating the technology from the Neckarsulm-based PV pioneer. The inverters from 20 kW to 1 MW conform to Saudi Arabian local content regulations.As part of a celebratory ceremony, Dr. Ghassan Al-Shibl, CEO of Advanced Electronics Company (AEC), and Ralf Hofmann, Managing Director of KACO new energy GmbH, launched production of the "Shams" joint inverter range on 10th September in Riyadh at the headquarters of AEC. The name comes from the Arabic and means "sun", the technology originates primarily from the renowned inverter manufacturer from Neckarsulm, true to the target specification of 'Made in Germany' quality worldwide.The production line was constructed under the instruction of Volker Heuser, COO at KACO new energy, and has a capacity of 2,000 units or 1 GW per year. AEC devices cover the power range from 20 kW to 1 MW and are the first inverters to fulfil the Saudi Arabian specifications for 'local content'. Its design is decorated with the same colour green featured on the kingdom's flag and also symbolises the environmental trend in Saudi Arabia. Due to its complete compliance with the local content regulations, the inverters in the Shams range achieve maximum suitability in terms of "Saudization", the programme for qualification and employment of the domestic population.The inverters are tested on an in-house photovoltaic system at the AEC facility that was put into operation in November 2013. The system is also used as a test bed for modules, including polysilicon-based modules from domestic manufacturer KACST as well as Yingli Green Energy and thin-film modules from First Solar and Manz AG. "Along the way" AEC will save several hundred barrels of oil per year with an in-house PV system, in other words, thousands of US Dollars. Dr. Ghassan Al-Shibl invites other module manufacturers to test the reliability of their products in the environmental conditions of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh.Dr. Ghassan Al-Shibl: "Our efforts reflect the government's objectives to use our regenerative energy sources to create future-proof employment, provide us with a wider economic basis and increase technological standards. Manufacturing and customer service close by mean not just a higher level of service for our customers, but also less stockkeeping, shorter delivery times and lower project costs. With the expertise of KACO new energy, AEC will succeed in becoming a leading manufacturer of PV inverters in the MENA region."Ralf Hofmann confirmed for KACO new energy GmbH: "We are delighted at the partnership with AEC, a Saudi Arabian leading company in the fields of development, production and servicing of electro-technical products. We can be sure that AEC will deliver to customers PV technology of the highest quality: inverters manufactured precisely in line with the German design to international quality standards. We bring our combined knowledge and decades of experience, and AEC in turn is known for high production levels and technology transfer. Together we will combine research and development in the Saudi Kingdom with excellent service for our customers. The on-site production also represents a crucial market advantage."About AEC:AEC, which was established in 1988 as an Offset Program company, has become a recognized regional pioneer in the innovation and development of advanced electronics serving the Military, Telecom and Industrial Sectors. AECs leadership, as one of the premier high technology companies in Saudi Arabia, includes world-class expertise in the fields of modern electronics manufacturing, engineering, system integration, repair & maintenance services, as well as complete solution capabilities at its facilities. AEC provides a gateway to highly specialized services and opportunities, and the company also offers the benefit of easy and rapid access to other regional markets, customers and distribution networks. Read more at www.aecl.comAbout KACO new energy:KACO new energy is amongst the worlds largest manufacturers of solar inverters. With offices in 16 countries, the company offers inverters for every array size from the smallest homes to the largest solar farms of hundreds of Megawatts. KACO new energy is based in Neckarsulm, near Stuttgart, Germany and the production facilities there, in the Americas and Asia have supplied around 7 Gigawatts of inverters since 1999. The company was the first inverter manufacturer to achieve fully carbon-neutral production and is rapidly heading towards power self-sufficiency. KACO new energy also supplies energy storage systems and battery inverters, as well as inverters for PV-Diesel hybrid systems and combined heat and power plants. In 2014, KACO new energy celebrated the centenary of the original company which was one of the first suppliers of inverters in the late 1930s. Read more at www.kaco-newenergy.comContact:KACO new energy GmbHAndreas SchlumbergerHead of Corporate CommunicationsCarl-Zeiss-Str. 174172 NeckarsulmGermanyTel. +49 7132 3818-0Fax +49 7132 3818-703pr(at)kaco-newenergy.dewww.kaco-newenergy.com Chem2Market launches first Online-Marketplace for raw materials Hamburg, 23.11.2015 - Chem2market.com offers residue and regular raw materials to manufacturers in the chemistry and cosmetics industry.Supplier use the online marketplace to list their residue raw materials to market them to other companies. So they can avoid costly disposal, save valuable resources and improve their CO2 footprint.Buyers can improve their economic efficiency by purchasing according to their needs, which is often not possible in regular sourcing.As the first global network chem2markt enables the efficient handling of residue raw materials across industries and helps companies to gain more sustainability.Buyers and logistics managers have little time for handling leftover materials and therefore often choose disposal.Sometimes leftovers cannot be used in the original industry but are valuable in other industries. The connection between different industries on chem2market.com can improve the utilization potential.The supply of leftover raw materials is about 5.200 raw materials in the industries chemistry, cosmetics, feed, food and pharma in 36 categories.Also regular sourcing is time-consuming for buyers. Here chem2market provides yet today more than 30.000 raw materials from international producers and distributors.This business unit will be developed continuously in the future.Our platform enables efficient trade and can contribute to the sustainable use of raw materials so Dr. Christiane Strasse, Founder and CEO of Chem2market.Chem2Market is the innovative platform for the exchange od residue raw materials in chemistry and cosmetics. The company was founded in 2012 in Hamburg, Germany. So far more than 35.000 raw materials and blends are listed. The platform is available in english and german language.Dr. Christiane StrasseChem2Market GmbHEhrenbergstr. 52D- 22767 Hamburg+49 40 80 79 60 10cs@chem2market.com First Colo GmbH is among the 50 technology companies with the fastest growth for the third time in a row Berlin, November 3, 2015 - First Colo GmbHs has seen uninterrupted growth this year: After receiving the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Award award in the last few years, First Colo is once again among the winners in 2015. The innovative IT service data center took 36th place last year and has moved up to 13th place this year. The competition was originally launched in the US in 1995 and has since developed into an international initiative. The award ceremony of the auditing and consulting company Deloitte took place last night at the Museum for Communication in Berlin. Winning the third consecutive award attests to First Colos continuing momentum of growth as well as its rewarding and constant innovation.The willingness to invest in staff and data center technologies is seen by management as the driver of growth for First Colo GmbH. Since First Colo tripled the server space with the recent expansion in Frankfurt and doubled their office space, they have, for example, an uncompromisingly powerful DDoS protection against overload attacks by cybercriminals that usually only large, internationally established companies can afford. The investment costs of this protection technology from a global market leader were in the high six figures and complements First Colos already proven technology, where the first effective countermeasures against DDoS attacks had already been developed more than 10 years ago. The Security Operations Center (SOC) team is therefore able to rely on long-standing accumulated expertise.In the past we had talked with data center customers who switched from one protection provider to the next out of frustration when it came to DDoS protection. It was clear to us that we want to position ourselves in such a way that we could bring an end to this annoying issue for our customers once and for all and as a result have invested a lot of money in staff and technologies, said Jerome Evans, managing director of the data center at Frankfurt Airport, and meanwhile the headaches associated with it have disappeared: For First Colo, 2015 has been the year with the highest number of new customers in our companys history. Although 2015 isnt included in this years Deloitte selection criteria, it nevertheless shows a longer term clear direction of the growth for our company. Ive also noticed an increase in satisfaction among our existing customers. If this trend continues, Im therefore going to assume that First Colo will continue to experience healthy growth into 2016/2017, even if pure logic has already ruled out the fact that one could permanently stay among the winners of Deloittes Fast 50 Award according to the applied selection criteria.The Deloitte Competition is in its 13th year in Germany this year. Its already become an institution and a firmly established award in the technology sector. With it, Deloitte honors the business achievements of the fastest growing technology companies in Germany. Prizes are awarded each year to companies that have exceptional growth rates. The selection criteria measure the cumulative sales growth of the last five fiscal yearsthis time based on the years 2010 to 2014. Companies that are mainly from the IT, communications, and life sciences sector are invited to participate.Its a special honor for us in 2015 to receive this award for the third consecutive year and to belong to the group of technology companies with the fastest growth, Jerome Evans said at the award ceremony, the award is also proof that we are right on target with the basic idea of offering the full spectrum of IT services from a single source. The award underlines our good positioning in a German market that is largely made up of medium-sized companies. Here personal contacts, short lines of communication with clear responsibilities, as well as tailored problem-solving skills are expected and rewarded accordingly by the customer. True to these principles, we will therefore continue to listen to our customers and continue to be service-oriented.First Colo GmbH operates high availability data centers in Germany and server locations in Europe as an IT infrastructure provider, with core competencies in Housing & Colocation, Managed Services, and DDoS protection. First Colo offers connectivity and IT management services for medium-sized and large customers. At First Colo the servers of countless industries have a secure, cost-effective, and up-to-date home. Customers mainly include medium-sized companies with a high volume of traffic and above-average demands on service quality and IT security. In 2015, according to the consulting firm Deloitte, First Colo is among the 50 technology companies with the fastest growth for the third time in a row.Jerome EvansFirst Colo GmbHHanauer Landstrae 291b60314 Frankfurt am Main European Data Portal launched European Data Portal. Source: www.europeandataportal.eu Luxembourg The European Commission has launched a quality-assured beta version of the European Data Portal, with more than 240,000 datasets, at the European Data Forum. An international consortium, which is led by Capgemini and of which con terra is a member, is responsible for the implementation.The European Data Portal (www.europeandataportal.eu) enables fast and simple searching of open data from 34 European countries and supports their systematic onward use. Open data comprises information gathered, generated or purchased by public institutions that may be used, modified and shared freely by anyone. A recently published study by Capgemini Consulting estimates the immediate market volume for open data within Europe over the next five years at 325 billion euros. The European Commission aims to use the European Data Portal to simplify access to this data, in order to more successfully tap into its enormous economic potential. However, state administrations, research institutes and the general public also stand to benefit from open data, thanks to the optimised administrative processes, increased transparency and improved possibilities for participation associated with it.Geo Open DataThe majority of economic, scientific and socio-political questions possess some kind of spatial reference. For this reason alone, the geographical component of the European Data Portal takes on special significance. In this context, con terra GmbH is contributing the extensive experience that it has amassed in the construction of national and international spatial data infrastructures to the construction of the portal. In close cooperation with Fraunhofer FOKUS, con terra gas has developed so-called harvesting mechanisms for discovering metadata from a variety of geo data sources. They work by combing the databases of member states for open datasets on a regular basis and incorporating them in a quality-assured manner in the European Data Portal. The 31 national catalogues of the EU-wide spatial data infrastructure INSPIRE as well as the catalogues of trans-regional satellite data providers are deserving of particular mention in the geo sector. Thanks to the use of harvesting procedures, it is then possible to make data from local authorities, federal states or countries centrally accessible without multiple gathering of datasets.By mapping into the DCAT-AP profile a transdisciplinary metadata exchange format for EU data portals the exchange and reuse of EU member states' spatial data and that of other European countries can be simplified and their quality improved. Moreover, all metadata is automatically translated during harvesting. For example, French metadata is automatically translated to German and vice versa, to simplify the Europe-wide search for data.Another feature available from the portal is the search for place names, for the purpose of simplifying the discovery of datasets by means of spatial search criteria. To this end, con terra employs the smart.finder, a solution that allows rapid discovery and structured access to extensive, heterogeneous datasets. The basic data is drawn from such sources as the geographical names according to INSPIRE Annex I and open data from geonames.org, which are harmonised and combined with the aid of the FME spatial data hub. The INSPIRE-compliant OGC Web Feature Service that has recently been made available by the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG) is also used for geographical names in the construction of this so-called gazetteer.The user is presented with an initial preview of the spatial data when he enters the portal. To form the preview, data from services created under INSPIRE (OGC WMS) as well as spatial data from the widespread Community Standard GeoJSON is loaded dynamically and visualised on background maps from the Eurostat Statistical Atlas, which in turn are provided by ArcGIS for Server from Esri. The client framework map-apps for e-government processes, SDI solutions and portals from con terra forms the technological basis of the geographical presentation of locally provided portal content.Feedback from the beta phaseThe provision of the beta version represents the European Data Portal's first public phase. The main aim is to obtain feedback from the public to allow onward development of the multi-million-euro project within the consortium, in accordance with requirements. Besides Capgemini, the consortium comprises the following partners and subcontractors: con terra, Fraunhofer FOKUS, Intrasoft International, The Open Data Institute, Sogeti, time.lex and the University of Southampton.con terra is extremely glad to have this opportunity to contribute as an expert in geo open data to this economically, scientifically and socio-politically important project of the future. The aim is to simplify public access to data on all administrative levels and to find the best possible way of tapping into the data's potential, supported by geo expertise.con terra integrates intelligent Geo-IT solutions into the IT structures of its customers in the private sector and public administration agencies. This enables geoinformation to be put to profitable use, making company processes sustainably more efficient, cheaper and more transparent.con terra GmbHMartin-Luther-King-Weg 2448155 MunsterGermanyPhone +49 89 207 005 2200info@conterra.dewww.conterra.de Envoy appointed HitchHikers guide to the Southern Hemisphere Envoy Advanced Technologies Pty Ltd has been awarded exclusive distribution rights for the complete HitchHiker Flight product suite in Australasia.This follows a long term working relationship between the parties on mutual clients like Jetabroad within the region. Envoys Partnerships Director, David Allen says The combination of Envoys sophisticated and market-specific travel software expertise combined with the content, connectivity and pricing capabilities of HitchHiker, means that we can jointly deliver comprehensive and specialised online solutions within a very economical framework for our clients.Envoy is currently enhancing a range of powerful Loyalty, Global Profile and Rules Engines that will work seamlessly with the HitchHiker (and other) connected data sources that Envoy utilises. Matt Grieve, UK-based Global Sales and Partnerships Manager at HitchHiker, added Being primarily based in Europe we have always wanted a technically strong and reliable partner with strong regional experience and so it was a natural progression to make. As a result of this appointment, solutions that can be delivered and enhanced with the added benefit of local support include: Extensive Low-Cost Carrier Content, Flight Booking Applications, Process Automation and Data Management. Envoys credentials in building effective and powerful online solutions for the broader travel sector continue to grow, with US and European ferry operators wanting to emulate the solution already provided to Spirit of Tasmania, for example.Allen continues Envoy is a quiet achiever with some big brand names receiving enterprise grade solutions at an extremely competitive price point. It is very rewarding to be sought out by global players based on the results we are producing from Australia and to better cater for this we have created a dedicated Travel Technologies division. The partnership between HitchHiker and Envoy has already produced interest from Asian companies who recognise the potential advantages of this new arrangement.About Envoy:Envoy Advanced Technologies, a Sydney-based software development company providing custom-built solutions to government, listed enterprises, and the SME space. Envoy focuses on Internet and mobile applications, using state-of-the-art new technology, and is a primary technology innovator with solutions for compliance and certification, agribusiness and online travel. It has an industry leading zero maintenance fee position on all of its developed code and is a Microsoft Web Development partner.About HitchHiker:Working as an independent software company since 1992, HitchHiker has been successfully developing software solutions for airlines, consolidators, online portals, travel agencies and tour operators.With over 20 years of experience in the tourism industry and numerous international projects, we have developed solutions for the entire chain of the flight tariff management process as well as numerous, powerful booking applications for all types of flights and touristic services.For the development of its solutions HitchHiker trusts in industry standards such as Microsoft technology: HitchHiker has once again attained Microsoft Gold Application Development competency and is compliant to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.Press contact Envoy:James MilsonManaging DirectorEnvoy Advanced Technologies Pty LtdLevel 1, 194 Miller StreetNorth Sydney, NSW 2060AustraliaABN 21 116 431 620 | ACN 116 431 620T +61 (0)2 8404 0590E james.milson@envoyat.comW www.envoyat.comPress contact HitchHiker:Uta WillMarketing ManagerHitchHiker GmbHBerner Strae 8160437 Frankfurt am MainGermanyT + 49 (69) 50 70 3 0F + 49 (69) 50 70 3 111E marketing@hitchhiker.netH www.hitchhiker.net ORSOFT provides integration of SAP SCM add-ons with SAP S/4HANA ORSOFTs certified interface plug-in for SAP has been adapted and fits the requirements of the SAP S/4HANA On-Premise Edition. For this purpose SAP S/4HANA was set up with the scope of the update from November 11th 2015 and the ORSOFT interface has been checked syntactically in full. The practical test showed that out of 52 SAP objects which are relevant for production logistics only the two objects customer order and delivery had to be revised.After the revision, the typical processes of production planning and supply chain management ran without any problems. The performance of SAP S/4HANA is noticeably higher compared to SAP ERP running on a conventional database. ORSOFT plans the official certification of the ORSOFT interface technology for the On-Premise Edition of SAP S/4HANA in late 2015.ORSOFT develops innovative APS (Advanced Planning and Scheduling) and SCM (Supply Chain Management) solutions as a complement to SAP ERP, SAP SCM, and SAP S/4HANA. ORSOFT solutions are used in the production planning process and manufacturing industries, for the supply chain management, master data maintenance and multi-resource planning in hospitals. Customers of ORSOFT are medium sized and big corporations worldwide, who mainly use SAP ERP or other leading ERP Software. ORSOFT employs 70 experts in the topics mentioned above and is steadily profitable since the foundation in 1990.ORSOFT GmbHDr. Dirk SchmalzriedMartin-Luther-Ring 13, 04109 LeipzigTel.: 0341 2308900marketing@orsoft.dewww.orsoft.net Pfeiffer Vacuum welcomes 2015 Rontgen Prize Winner Wilfried Glaum, Dr. Eleftherios Goulielmakis und Manfred Bender (from left) Outstanding contributions in the field of attosecond physics and technology with soft X-rays Vacuum indispensable for basic scientific research Pfeiffer Vacuum and Schunk Group support young researchersAsslar, November 27, 2015. This year, the Justus Liebig University Giessen awards its Rontgen Prize to Dr. Eleftherios Goulielmakis. The Rontgen Prize is awarded each year in an academic award ceremony for outstanding work on basic research into radiation physics and radiation biology. It is named in memory of Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen, who was a professor in Giessen from 1879 until 1888. The main goal is to distinguish work by young scientists. Half of the 15,000 prize is donated by Pfeiffer Vacuum and the Dr. Erich Pfeiffer Foundation, and the other half by the Ludwig Schunk Foundation.This year's award winner, Dr. Goulielmakis, is currently the head of the research group at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching near Munich. He is receiving the award for outstanding contributions in the field of attosecond physics and technology with soft X-rays.In 2005, Dr. Goulielmakis received his doctorate in physics from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, with studies in attosecond physics. These studies formed the basis for his pioneering contributions in this field. After his doctoral thesis, he succeeded in measuring the shortest electromagnetic pulse so far of 8 x 10-17 s. This ultrashort light pulse allows the observation of electron dynamics in atoms and molecules in real time. For the first time, Dr. Goulielmakis and his team managed to fully characterize the motion of valence electrons in ions in real time with an attosecond pulse (1 attosecond = 10-18 s) in the soft X-ray range. After that, Dr. Goulielmakis and his group developed a light field synthesizer, which can manipulate the waveform of a light pulse with attosecond precision. This opens up new methods for controlling electrons with light in the soft X-ray and extreme ultraviolet range with high temporal resolution. Furthermore, Dr. Goulielmakis and his team succeeded in accelerating electrons in solids with ultrafast laser fields, which for the first time allows a coherent emission of photons to be achieved in an extreme ultraviolet spectrum.On the basis of these research results, ultrashort X-ray pulses can be generated using laser in a special vacuum tube. These pulses make it possible to observe extremely small structures and even, for example, allow electrons to be depicted.Another application could be light-based circuits, which could increase the computational speed by a factor of 100,000 compared to current technology. The work of Dr. Goulielmakis contributes to the necessary fundamental understanding for enabling such light-based circuits to be developed in the first place.Manfred Bender, CEO of Pfeiffer Vacuum Technology AG, congratulated the award winner: Many research facilities have been a partner to Pfeiffer Vacuum for many years now. Our vacuum solutions are successfully used at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching and we are therefore particularly pleased that Dr. Eleftherios Goulielmakis is this year's Rontgen Prize winner. Bender explained further: For 125 years now, Pfeiffer Vacuum has been setting standards in vacuum technology. The company looks back on a success story shaped by a pioneering spirit and passion, which contributed to the technological progress of industry and science from the very beginning. Therefore, it is very important to us to promote cutting-edge research and, in particular, the next generation.Caption: Wilfried Glaum, Chairman of Dr. Erich Pfeiffer-Stiftung, the Rontgen Prize winner Dr. Eleftherios Goulielmakis and Manfred Bender, CEO of Pfeiffer Vacuum Technology AG (from left)About Pfeiffer VacuumPfeiffer Vacuum (stock exchange symbol PFV, ISIN DE0006916604) is one of the worlds leading providers of vacuum solutions. In addition to a full range of hybrid and magnetically levitated turbopumps, the product portfolio comprises backing pumps, measurement and analysis devices, components as well as vacuum chambers and systems. Ever since the invention of the turbopump by Pfeiffer Vacuum, the company has stood for innovative solutions and high-tech products that are used in the Analytics, Industry, Research & Development, Coating and Semiconductor markets. Founded in 1890, Pfeiffer Vacuum is active throughout the world today. The company employs a workforce of some 2,250 people and has more than 20 subsidiaries. For more information, please visit www.pfeiffer-vacuum.com.Press Contact:Pfeiffer Vacuum GmbHPublic RelationsSabine NeubrandT +49 6441 802 1223F +49 6441 802 1500Sabine.Neubrand@pfeiffer-vacuum.dewww.pfeiffer-vacuum.com The Symbiosis of Energy and Design: Building-integrated Organic PV Installations for Vic-Montaner in South-West France Sketch of the OPV walkway planned in the community of Pujo. Design by M. J.-C. Cousin of Atelier Cousin, Lourdes. Vic-Montaner and Pau, France and Nuremburg, Germany: Having a superior design while retaining good functionality is visible trend in many industries. However, over the last decade the conventional photovoltaic market has been rushing in a different direction, often ignoring design and aesthetics, leading to photovoltaic installations are either debatable in look or excluded from use in rural and inner-city environments alike. In a complete reversal, as a major step-change in technology, based on tried-and-tested installations at the German Pavilion, EXPO 2015 in Milan, and at the African Unions building for Security and Peace in Addis Ababa, BELECTRIC OPV and its partners, the Communaute des Communes de Vic-Montaner (CCVM), Axess Tech, and the Institut des Sciences Analytiques et de Physico-chimie pour lEnvironnement et les Materiaux (IPREM), are proving that things can be done differently: photovoltaics performing as multi-functional components in new buildings and renovations while respectfully adapting to the needs of local aesthetics. The installations will show that OPV can play an important role in delivering safe and reliable clean energy, as well as providing a protective and educative role in supporting our communities and daily lives.The CCVM is convinced that OPV can be integrated harmoniously and respectfully into the public environment, producing renewable energy and offering shade from sun, rain and hail, in community-scale installations, making it a perfect fit to the weather conditions in south-west France. The CCVM is teaming up with local partners to explore the creation of local industries to deploy these new OPVs in a style that confirms and integrates seamlessly with local needs. The teaming process was led by the IPREM, an institute run by the CNRS and the Universite de Pau et des Pays de lAdour, and involved in OPV research and development, and well placed through its coordination of European networks to access the right partners for this action. Axess tech will play a key role in ensuring the link between Belectric OPV and local artisans by providing advice and technical knowledge, facilitating a transfer of this advanced technology in conformity with French regulations. For OPV components and systems technologies, this group of partners is now joining forces with BELECTRIC OPV, the market leader for OPV projects.Four initial projects in the communities of: Andrest, Pujo, Sedze-Maubecq, and Vic-en Bigorre are planned. Once feed-back from these communities has been made, follow-up projects in Ponson-Debats-Pouts, Pontiacq-Viellepinte and other villages will be carried out. The range of the projects, from shaded walkways, church-yards, and public shopping malls, will demonstrate the way in which OPV can adapt to local aesthetics and needs. All the projects, despite their being commercial in nature, will be used to train local partners in the deployment of OPV in integrated projects, setting the base for the subsequent creation of an OPV industry based on the distinctive advantages of BELECTRIC OPVs technology based on a unique manufacturing process, combining printing, lamination and laser structuring technologies, allowing high scalability and the implementation of custom designs. Furthermore BELECTRIC OPV will support its French partners with the integration in the individual projects by means of accompanying system solutions.We are proud to be the first communities deploying OPV in integrated fashions in city-centre installations, says M. Jean-Louis Curret, the President of CCVM. Moreover, with this first set of projects we are laying the ground-work for an upcoming OPV industry in our region, by means of training our local industries for this new technology. M. Patrick Baylere, President for Renewable Energies at the CCVM says, It is remarkable that within a radius of several kilometres we have researchers that are actively giving their knowledge and savoir-faire for the local population and helping Vic-Montaner in becoming a first-class player in renewable energies in France. Accordingly, we are already in the phase of planning follow-up projects on an even larger scale, he adds.Organic Photovoltaics is a key technology for our region and we support this move 200%. Having this technology on our doorstep confirms the IPREMs key role in OPV research and development, says Dr. Olivier Donard, Director of the IPREM. Dr. Roger Hiorns, Charge de Recherche, CNRS says that, We believe that OPV will play an important role in our energy sourcing of tomorrow. To have these installations near-by will allow us to strengthen our research and development base, testing our materials in a safe and in a real-life environment. This will be directly relevant for future projects and for the education of our students, giving them a good chance to develop high-tech jobs in this region. Were looking forward to expanding our science education and outreach projects with local communities and schools.Dr. Claude Viguier of Axess Tech said, Axess Tech, with its understanding of the importance of new technologies, electrical installations, and artisanal work will provide a pivotal role in helping incorporate this renewable energy technology into a natural landscape, respecting French values, customs, and local legal needs. We will work closely with Belectric OPV and the IPREM and advise local artisans to ensure that this exciting new technology is implemented safely so that France has a strong implication in this technology.After the installations in Milan and Addis Ababa we are now looking forward to the projects in Vic-Montaner region, showing OPV in direct placement in city-centre environments and in several very innovative integration forms, exemplifying the versatility of our technology. The initial projects with completely different OPV setups will be another proof of the endless possibilities OPV can offer, comments Mr. Hermann Issa, Director of Business Development and Sales, BELECTRIC OPV. Furthermore the cooperation with the local partners creates the environment needed for follow-up projects and will be a good opportunity to make OPV installations more widely used in the coming years.About the Communaute de Communes Vic-Montaner (CCVM): CCVM is a local authority in south-western France which includes 29 municipalities. Its goal is to develop the community infrastructure that the municipalities of its sparsely populated territory cannot individually achieve. Its ambition is to create the conditions for a harmonious development for local residents and businesses of the area. Its activities are concentrated around four main areas:- Facilitating economic development;- Promoting tourism;- Improving the local habitat;- Providing public services at the inter-municipal level.Since 2008, officials have worked with the aim of ensuring that renewable energies and sustainable developments go hand-in-hand to economically reduce costs and systematically support the four areas given above. The Communaute de Communes Vic-Montaner is convinced that the harmonious development of an area relies on an economic, social, and environmentally approach being at the core of its values and actions.About the Institut des Sciences Analytiques et de Physico-chimie pour lEnvironnement et les Materiaux (IPREM): IPREM is a joint research unit run by the Universite de Pau et les Pays de lAdour and the CNRS. It brings together four research teams combining the complementary skills of more than 200 researchers. Their scientific work is organized around the five core disciplines of analytical chemistry, physical chemistry, theoretical chemistry, polymer physics and chemistry, and microbiology. The IPREM performs advanced research for tomorrows solar technologies and works closely with local communities and schools in outreach and educational programmes. For more information about the IPREM, see: iprem.univ-pau.frFor information about the ESTABLISH OPV project giving an example of IPREM coordinated actions, see: www.project-establis.euAbout Axess Tech S.A.R.L.: Axess Tech is a company specializing in making high-vacuum and ultra-high-vacuum systems. Created by researchers and by being in contact with multiple labs around France and Europe, Axess Tech has earned a very solid knowledge in designing, engineering, building systems and specific instruments for deposition, sample preparations and characterization of inorganic and organic materials for applications in surface science, micro- and nano-technologies, aerospace, renewable energies and so on. Axes Tech provides technical know-how for the utilisation of electrical and metal equipment in a safe environment and supports large and small industries in the use of new technologies.About BELECTRIC OPV: BELECTRIC OPV GmbH, with offices in Nuremberg and Kitzingen, is the market leader in the area of organic photovoltaics. BELECTRIC OPV produces bespoke organic solar cells and systems, tailored to customers specific requirements. Furthermore, BELECTRIC OPV is active in the area of research and development, in order to continuously provide their customers with creative and innovative solutions. Additionally, BELECTRIC OPV employs a unique manufacturing process, based on a combination of printing, lamination and laser structuring processes. These give a distinct advantage due to their high scalability and, moreover, allow the implementation of custom designs. BELECTRIC OPV supports its customers with the integration of OPV in existing as well as new products and delivers the accompanying system solutions. BELECTRIC OPV currently has two product lines: SOLARTE for architects and designers and POWER PLASTIC for large scale industrial applications. Products from BELECTRIC OPV stand for innovation, quality, and design. Further information can be found at www.solarte.com .BELECTRIC OPV GmbHMarketing & Sales, Hermann Issa, Director Business DevelopmentLandgrabenstrae 9490443 Nuremberg, GermanyPhone: 09385 9804 -5701, Fax: 09385 9804 -59701Email: opv-pr@belectric.com Internet: www.solarte.com Infotecs and FSM Group Value-Added Distributor at FinnSec in Helsinki FinnSec 2015 - Henna Telkkala from FSM Group and Josef Waclaw from Infotecs Berlin, December 01, 2015 Infotecs, an international provider of highly secure encryption solutions, participated in FinnSec Security Fair in Helsinki and presented its ViPNet technology at the stand of FSM Group, a value-added distributor.On November 18 20, 2015, experts and managers met up in Helsinki at FinnSec, the most important security and safety fair in Finland. FinnSec brought together various exhibition participants from all security and safety market segments from fire protection and security equipment through surveillance systems and anti-theft protection devices to cyber security and data security.Infotecs presented its IT security solutions at the stand shared with FSM Group, a value-added distributor. Since January 2015, this distributor has been a partner of Infotecs in Finland and provided Infotecs encryption solutions to its resellers. FSM Group is a renowned and leading manufacturer of technical security systems, alarm equipment, and IP video camera systems. The ViPNet technology developed by Infotecs is used in video surveillance to encrypt the transferred data and thus constitutes an essential component in the distributor's portfolio. ViPNet solutions can establish a secure channel from the surveillance station to IP video cameras, completely ruling out the possibility of fraudulent manipulations. This is how external attacks of the man-in-the-middle type are prevented.At FinnSec, Infotecs security specialists presented ViPNet Mobile Security, a new mobile solution that ensures the security of communications on mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones. The solution covers IP telephony, email correspondence, and chats. At the same time, it provides encrypted access to such applications as ERP, CRM, and remote desktop systems.By participating in FinnSec, Infotecs has intensified the expansion of its activities in the North European market. "FSM Group is our dependable partner and a successful leader in the video surveillance field," says Sergej Torgow, COO of Infotecs GmbH. "It is the second time weve joined a security fair in Finland in cooperation with FSM Group. Our conversations with interested visitors and clients in Helsinki have proved out the keen demand for encryption solutions."About FSM GroupFSM Group is a leading supplier of safety engineering solutions in Finland. As a value-added distributor, it offers a wide range of services along with solid know-how and cooperates with the best brands. The company has more than 20 years of expertise in the field. It is a merger of companies World Comp Oy (founded in 1985) and FSM Oy Fonel Security Marketing (founded in 1991). For more information, visit http://www.fsm.fi/ (website in Finnish).About InfotecsA pioneer of software-based VPN solutions since 1991, Infotecs developed its Peer-to-Peer ViPNet technology to deliver greater security, flexibility, and throughput than IPSec and other standards-based VPN products. ViPNet is the only VPN solution that supports true endpoint to endpoint security. More than 1,000,000 clients, offices, and servers have been securely connected with ViPNet products, backed up by an unparalleled world-class support, development, and technical team. Our solutions are designed to solve the toughest security challenges by providing superior protection that is flexible and effective. Company has a strong network of partners and actively develops its international presence having subsidiaries in Europe and Americas. Additional information on the company is available at visit: www.infotecs.biz.ContactInfotecs GmbHAnja MuellerMarketing & CommunicationsOberwallstr. 2410117 Berlin, GermanyPhone: +49 30 206 43 66-52anja.mueller@infotecs.bizTwitter: twitter.com/InfotecsEnglishFacebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Infotecs-Gmbh_english/400720220013566 Talesun Begins Production in Thailand Munich, 02. December 2015: Zhongli Talesun Solar, a leading international manufacturer of high quality solar modules and cells, has opened a new production line in Thailand. The manufacturing plant, located in the coastal province of Rayong, has a capacity of 500 Megawatt each for PV cells and modules. The new facility, the construction of which began in February this year, will exclusively meet demand in overseas markets.The opening of this new production facility in South East Asia sees Talesun increase its total production capacity to two gigawatts for photovoltaic cells, and three gigawatts for modules. The company will produce all its major module types at the Thai facility. The corresponding cell production is taking place entirely on site and European deliveries will begin in the first six months of 2016. The company is currently concluding all of the important certification processes both within the country and on the international level. These will ensure, from the outset, that the factory produces products that meet all of the established standards of the solar sector. The efficiency levels of the cells and modules produced in Rayong are 20.3%, and 17.55% respectively.Zhongli Talesun Solar recently confirmed by Bloomberg as a Tier 1 manufacturer has invested some two billion Renminbi Yuan in the construction of the production facility - a figure that equates to approximately 292 million Euros. "The commencement of production in Thailand represents another important step in our plan to invest around 15 billion Renminbi Yuan at the site by 2018," explains Eva Belletti, Managing Director at Talesun Solar Germany GmbH. "Our new state of the art facility maintains our commitment to an automation strategy. This ensures that the high quality of our cells and modules remains constant, irrespective of where they are produced. "The city of Rayong is situated in the East of Thailand, in the province that shares its name. Administratively, the area is affiliated to the central region of the country. The Kingdom of Thailand's capital city Bangkok is some 200 kilometers away. Alongside commerce, Rayong boasts a strong agricultural sector. The international airport U-Tapao lies approximately 40 kilometers to the west of the city. In addition, a 220 kilometers high-speed railway line is currently being planned, which will link the cities of Bangkok and Rayong, with a journey time of just 60 minutes.Talesun is an internationally operating premium producer of solar modules and cells for the private and industrial sectors. The company's 210,000m, fully automated production plant in the Chinese province of Jiangsu reaches a production capacity of 2 GW. Talesun has subsidiaries in Hong Kong, Singapore, Munich and San Jose. More information under: www.talesun-eu.com and www.talesunenergy.com.Simone AmannTalesun Solar Germany GmbHEuropean Head OfficeCentral Tower MunchenLandsberger Strae 11080339 Munich GermanyTel: +49 (0)89-189177-0E-Mail: simone.amann@talesunenergy.comStephan WildMBC IsarrauschenFreibadstr. 3081543 Munich GermanyTel: +49 (0)1512-7556465E-Mail: stephan.wild@mbc-isarrauschen.de Real Estate and High-Tech industry combined Rubina Real Estate has unified specialists from the real estate industry and representatives of tech-start ups at the kick-off event bricks & tech - innovational talks about the digital future of real estate in The Liberate Bar in Berlin. Twenty high-class guests were attending this private event. Guests from the real estate industry included among others Mr. Gordon Gorski, Managing director of Hochtief project development GmbH and Dr. Matthias von Bismarck-Osten, chief representative of Berlin investment bank. From the tech industry there was Dr. Emilio Matthaei, Managing director of Leverton GmbH, Christoph Brem, Managing director of Sensorberg GmbH and many more. This event was unlike any other. No long presentations or talks, but rather creating an atmosphere of casual networking and communicating. Carsten Heinrich, Managing director of Rubina Real Estate GmbH said We were curious, whether our concept of casual talks with no strict program would be accepted. We were all positively surprised, as everyone who has attended the event used the chance to discuss about professional topics in an unrestricted way.Smart livingPutting together the tech industry with traditional real estate business, Mr. Heinrich hit the bulls eye. It is the time of digital revolution, which is reaching the real estate industry and turned out to be very exciting as well as beneficial for both parts of the event. Topics such as a wireless-technology for opening doors were discussed. Mr. Heinrich said: The topic of property 4.0 will become within a short amount of time a predominant issue in our industry. It is a challenge for the real estate industry not to miss out on the development of modern technology. Despite several pilot projects, the realisation of property 4.0 is yet in its beginnings. Our new series of tech & bricks event should be a step towards this development.Rubina Real Estate is already engaging with the impacts of digital revolution towards the construction and management of properties. It became obvious that there is urgent need for action. Mr. Heinrich stated: The classic real estate industry needs to move further together with the high-tech scene. We need more practical examples that prove how latest technology can be integrated effectively in real estate. Demand will grow immensely in the foreseeable future, especially in the residential sector. This might lead to sacrifices in recent developments, as it will be easier to market those properties. But nevertheless, there will be times, where creativity will be sought after again.Rubina Real Estate is a leading real estate consulting company focused on assisting international buyers with their real estate investments in Berlin, Germany. Established in 2011 and headed by Mr. Carsten Heinrich, Managing director. The company founded a subsidiary, EichenGlobal GmbH, which is in charge of after-sales-service. In 2014 Rubina sold 185 properties. Whilst focusing on the Berlin real estate market, Rubina also guides its international team towards the developments of property 4.0.Rubina Real Estate GmbHCharlottenstrae 1810117 Berlin International Wind Engineering and Grid Integration from a Single Source Tailor-made solutions: International wind farm planning and grid integration services BBB and FGH to offer joint engineering solutions:Wind energy experts of BBB Umwelttechnik GmbH (BBB) and grid specialists of FGH GmbH have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the aim of combining their core competences on a project-specific level. Both parties intent to jointly offer the full range of services needed for the implementation and operation of wind energy projects.Due to the companies complementing expertise, developers and investors can coordinate all project related engineering activities with one single partner. Thus, a smooth running of a project and the effective realisation of customized solutions is feasible, which lays the basis for the projects economic success.BBB as well as FGH provide their services on a national as well as on an international level. Therefore, the target markets of their combined activities are Germany and Europe and the emerging global wind markets.BBB Umwelttechnik GmbH:BBB Umwelttechnik GmbH provides consultancy services in the field of wind energy project development. BBB delivers high quality wind measurements, bankable wind resource assessments and environmental impact studies. Based on those analyses, the projects feasibility is assessed and structural designs are developed. If requested, BBB also handles the project management in close coordination with the client. At the execution stage, BBB engineers provide procurement services, contract advice and supervision of the structural realization. In the course of project transactions, BBB delivers independent technical evaluations and risk assessments on wind farm projects (technical due diligence).FGH GmbH:Among others, FGH is specialized in engineering services in the field of grid connection and integration of power generating plants such as wind farms. Grid code compliance verification as well as its examination has to be analysed carefully, in order to not only contribute to the grids operation and security properly but also to reduce risks and costs in project implementation. FGH carries out the electrical design and project-specific engineering according to the grid operators specifications and ensures the fulfilment of the country-specific grid code requirements.BBB Umwelttechnik GmbHMunscheidstr. 1445886 Gelsenkircheninfo@bbb-umwelt.dePress contact:Markus Riegerm.rieger@bbb-umwelt.de A fork of OTRS rises: capeIT breathes new life into service management The software service provider c.a.p.e. IT GmbH will split off its product KIX4OTRS from the present OTRS base and change it into an independent software. The further development of the open source service management is planned as cooperation with a community and partner network.Chemnitz, 9th December 2015 cape IT develops a fork of the Open Ticket Request System (OTRS), which should be published as KIX in the foreseeable future. The company informs about the new generation of the present KIX4OTRS consciously, because it suits for the classic IT service management (ITSM) and also for service processing in the industry and health care (medical engineering). KIX will be published within AGPL-V3, which is the same open source licence as OTRS itself and KIX4OTRS that has been developed by the capeIT for years.The present core product KIX4OTRS will be released in the version 8 in January 2016. It will be the last (so far) planned release of KIX4OTRS for the current OTRS framework 5. Based on the technology, capeIT will build an intermediate stage to make it easier for KIX4OTRS users and partners to switch to KIX. In the future, KIX will be developed and the OTRS code will be continuously replaced with the new solutions coordinated by the capeIT. Planned are a basic and a professional version of KIX. The new products will combine the functional innovation advantage of KIX4OTRS with chosen, already separately available maintained modules. KIX will include simple installation & configuration automatism, which makes it easier to maintain the entire system. In general, KIX will stand out against OTRS with clearly extended range of functions and therefore, KIX can be compared with closed source solutions directly. The operational area are technical and IT service management.The new development branch is a reaction on the policy of the OTRS AG, the vendor of OTRS. The policy doesn't include long-time insight into the release plans and the availability of the base software. It also doesn't support community and partner network optimally. capeIT have been developing KIX4OTRS as the worldwide most extended community module for OTRS to immensly increase the innovation grade of the base software.The traditional focus of KIX4OTRS was set on IT helpdesk. In the last years, KIX4OTRS has been increasingly applied as monitoring and technical service for industry plants and medical engineering. The width of KIX4OTRS operation area will be continued by KIX. Additionally, KIX will be available for different areas starting with on-premise environment and up to the private or public cloud.Against all problems with OTRS as core product, we achieved to position our modular extensions with a high grade of innovation and stability successfully in the last years., says Rico Barth, managing director of the cape IT. KIX will be an open system with a clear road map to make it possible for users and partners to participate in the software development. At the same time, it will be a reliable and functionally fully developed company software for technical service. We are confident that our open source software will shape the market of the service management solutions importantly.capeIT assures that KIX will be open source software, because it is a base for optimal, service-oriented business models of the 21st century. It also supports the idea of Internet of Things and its Sharing Economy.The c.a.p.e. IT is located in Chemnitz, Saxony, Germany, and was founded als spin-off of a well-known international IT company in 2006. Due to many years of project experience of our ITIL-certified consultants and developers, we deliver services and products of high quality. We are a company with focus on service management and a professional provider of Open Source services and products.In the German-speaking area, we are one of few companies that offer services for Open and Closed Source solutions within service management (OTRS, KIX4OTRS). This variety allows us to consult and support our clients in optimal way within integration of service processing, organisation, environment - independently whether it's about the customer care, IT service management (ITSM) or technical service. We tailor our software solutions and IT conceptions to our customers' requirements and business processing. Our customers value this approach.Rico Barth, managing directorc.a.p.e. IT GmbHSchonherrstr. 8, D-09113 Chemnitzhttp://www.cape-it.de/pressTel: +49 371 27095 620Fax: +49 371 27095 625 Lookeen Search Technology Verified as Citrix Ready to Enhance Citrix Networking and Virtualization Solutions Lookeen Desktop Search Interface Lookeen Desktop Search Software is Trusted to Provide an Accurate Search Solution for all Citrix UsersKARLSRUHE, Germany December 10th, 2015 Axonic Informationssysteme GmbH today announced that Lookeen Desktop Search has been verified as Citrix Ready. The Citrix Ready program helps customers to identify third-party solutions that are recommended to enhance virtualization, networking and cloud computing solutions provided by Citrix. The program makes it easy for customers to choose complementary products that can enhance Citrix environments, and trust that these products will work effectively with Citrix solutions.Compatibility assuranceTo qualify for the program, Lookeen Desktop Search completed a rigorous series of tests established by Citrix to ensure compatibility with XenApp and XenDesktop. Customers can be assured that Lookeen Desktop Search will deliver fast, reliable, and scalable search on both persistent and non-persistent clients across XenApp and XenDesktop environments.Something that many virtual desktop users struggle with is search. Oftentimes, the search applications built into your OS simply do not work in such environments, said Martin Welker, CEO of Axonic. Our involvement with the Citrix Ready program demonstrates our commitment to solving this problem for our users and Citrix users. We are proud to provide Lookeen as a Citrix verified solution for Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop.Effective search across all network environmentsLookeen Desktop Search is a professional search solution for all users, from SMBs to large enterprises. It is architected to enhance search in virtual environments, like XenApp and XenDesktop, and across multiple file stores. It enables users to accurately search inside documents (including emails, PDF, Word, Excel, and more), across Outlook, Exchange Servers, and local and network drives. Lookeen provides a better user experience by providing users with effective and efficient search from a simple interface, and administrators with extensive control over virtual resources.Learn MoreFor more information about Lookeen: www.lookeen.comAbout AxonicAxonic Informationssysteme GmbH is focused on information, communication and recognition technologies. For the last few years, Axonic has focused research and development in the field of "communication intelligence" - the targeted analysis, representation and simplification of data communication. Axonics flagship product is Lookeen Desktop Search. The company is headquartered in Karlsruhe and was founded in 2003 by Martin Welker.About Citrix ReadyThe Citrix Ready program identifies verified solutions that are trusted to enhance virtualization, networking and cloud computing solutions from Citrix, including XenDesktop, XenApp, Cloud Portal, XenServer, NetScaler. The Citrix Ready designation is awarded to third-party products that have successfully met verification criteria set by Citrix, and gives customers an added confidence in the compatibility of the joint solution offering. The Citrix Ready program leverages industry-leading alliances across the Citrix partner eco-system to meet a wide variety customer needs, and currently incorporates partners who have demonstrated more than 25,000 product verifications. It also includes the Citrix Ready Community Verified program which allows customers to see thousands of products that have been verified by other customers to work in their production environments. Reach Citrix Ready using social media via the Citrix Ready blog site and Twitter.Axonic InformationssystemeKaiserstrae 24176133 KarlsruheGermanySiobhan O'Rorkecommunication@lookeen.com+49 (721) 3528375 SunOyster Systems to Realize Worldwide Demonstration Projects SunOysters operating under white clouds in Shanxi province, China The Concentrating Solar System for Combined Heat and Power Inks Sales Contracts for Pre-Series Installations in Chile, Egypt and India14 December 2015. SunOyster Systems GmbH (SOS), the Hamburg-based manufacturer of the CPVT system SunOyster, bags several contracts to install the innovative machines in different parts of the sun belt of the world. In the various locations and climates and under diverse grid conditions of the projects, SOS wants to demonstrate the maturity of the solar co-generation system for serial production.The SunOyster reaches a total energy efficiency of up to 75%, i.e. 30% of the direct radiation is converted into electricity and 45% into heat. The SunOyster shall be the most competitive form of solar energy where besides electricity also heat and/or cold are needed. The SunOyster wants to play an important role in filling the Framework Convention on Climate Change which was adopted yesterday in Paris with life.Starting in the West, the international utility ENGIE (formerly GdF Suez), through its Chilean subsidiary Laborelec Chile SpA, wants to install two machines in Chile and one in Belgium. Northern Chile has with 3,000 kWh per year and square meter the best direct normal irradiation (DNI) in the world. That corresponds to the energy content of 300 liters or two barrels of oil per m and year. It is no wonder that many enterprises in Chile, for example mining companies, have discovered photovoltaic energy (PV) and also concentrating solar thermal power plants (CSP) as their cheapest form of power supply. The SunOyster will concentrate the Chilean sunshine more than 1,000 times in order to generate each up to 15,000 kWh of electricity and 22,500 kWh of heat. ENGIE wants to compare the yield in Northern Chile and in Santiago de Chile with a site in Belgium in order to assess the future use of the SunOyster especially in contracting models. ENGIE is expert operator in the three businesses of electricity (largest IPP of the world), natural gas and energy services. Sebastian Falkenberg, general manager of Laborelec Chile, is still selecting different possible platforms for an installation in second quarter of 2016.This project offers three advantages: We can prove our SunOyster in the hardest solar radiation of the world. ENGIE is a leading global energy player and of course a very potent customer. And finally the booming Chilean solar market can become interesting for us says SunOyster Systems general manager Carsten Corino.The Egyptian government is planning to reduce the present subsidies for fossil-generated electricity and to increase the share of renewable energies in the generation. DNI is frequently as high as 2,500 kWh roughly three times the value of Hamburg. This is in particular the case for the off-grid area in which Egyptian entrepreneur Hassan Abdel Salam and his company Smart Power Solutions want to install three SunOysters in connection with an Eco Lodge. While the electricity shall replace most of the fuel used by the noisy diesel generator, the heat shall be used for thermal water desalination in order to green the desert. He is planning to develop the regional distribution of SunOysters.Hassan Abdel Salam: The African continent is facing a high increase in energy demand in Egypt 8 % every year and therefore a serious energy gap. Solar energy has become a very attractive option. The reason we chose the SunOyster is basically for its high efficiency of up to 75% which leads to low cost of energy. We believe we have the right product for the African market.In sunny India, the national government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a very ambitious target of 100,000 MW solar power capacity before the end of 2022. SOS will realize several installations with renowned companies which are interested to become a future large scale customer or perhaps even a local manufacturer of the SunOyster. Tata Power, belonging to the legendary Tata group, is the largest private utility in India. Tata wants to install the SunOyster on an office building in order to heat process water for the kitchen. Solar cooking and dish washing is popular in the large Indian canteens. Another paying customer is Swelect (formerly Numeric Power) from Chennai in Southern India. The mid-sized electronics manufacturer, PV installer and solar IPP wants to use the SunOyster heat in foundries belonging to the group. Altogether, SOS estimates the process heat demand of India in the SunOyster temperature range of up to 170C to be around 140,000 MW today. For the SunOyster, this would correspond to an additional 93,000 MW of electricity generation. Or to altogether almost 20 million SunOysters of 16 m mirror surface each.Additional SunOyster supply contracts in these and more countries are under negotiation.Editor and Press Contact:SunOyster Systems GmbHDr. Carsten CorinoPoststr. 46D-25469 HalstenbekT +49 4101 808767F +49 4101 587853cc@sunoyster.comwww.sunoyster.comCopyright: SunOyster Systems GmbHReprint free of charge. Please send a copy. Do not hesitate to contact us should you have any questions.SunOyster Systems is a Hamburg-based start-up company developing and manufacturing the SunOyster. The SunOyster is a technology for the co-generation of heat and power.SunOyster Systems GmbHDr. Carsten CorinoPoststr. 46D-25469 HalstenbekT +49 4101 808767F +49 4101 587853cc@sunoyster.comwww.sunoyster.com BINDER Avantgarde.Line drying chambers featuring new technology for improved performance BINDER Drying chamber FED 115 Avantgarde.Line Following extensive technical development, Tuttlingen-based BINDER GmbH is relaunching its Avantgarde.Line drying and heating chambers with new functions, innovative technology, and unique performance.BINDER GmbH, the world's largest specialist in simulation chambers for scientific and industrial laboratories, has overhauled its product portfolio of drying and heating chambers with extensive technical development work in order to perfect performance levels. To distinguish between the products, the previous units are now referred to as the Classic.Line while the new units come under the Avantgarde.Line. With 250,000 Classic.Line units sold around the world, customers have already been won over by the high quality of the products. Thanks to the further development of the Avantgarde.Line technology, the units are now even more firmly focused on addressing the requirements of scientific and industrial laboratories. The new APT.line air circulation system ensures absolute precision when it comes to the temporal and spatial temperature accuracy of the chambers. The unit insulation, measuring 60 mm in thickness, lowers energy consumption while increasing performance. This low level of heat dissipation means that the units offer outstanding energy efficiency. They provide a unique level of performance and fulfill the individual requirements of a wide range of different tests for scientific and industrial applications.As well as its excellent efficiency, the new Avantgarde.Line also boasts an innovative unit design and extremely convenient operation. The modern controller features an LCD display and provides a diverse range of functions with intuitive, user-friendly operation. The chambers are equipped with a standard USB connection, enabling operating data to be logged easily and transferred via the USB interface. The Avantgarde.Line drying and heating chambers have been available since October with an increased interior volume of 56 liters or 115 liters. January 1, 2016 will see the launch of additional units featuring the new Avantgarde.Line technology with an increased interior volume of 260 liters.BINDER GmbHDorothea Fichter-FechnerIm Mittleren Osch 578532 Tuttlingen, GermanyTel.: +49(0)7462-2005-632Dorothea.Fichter-Fechner@binder-world.comwww.binder-world.comBINDER is the world's largest specialist in simulation chambers for scientific and industrial laboratories. With its technical solutions, the company contributes significantly to improving the health and safety of people. Our range of products is well-suited to routine applications, highly specialized work in research and development, production, and quality assurance. With approx. 400 employees worldwide and an export rate of 80%, BINDER 2014 sales were more than 60 million euros. Largest exhumation project of all times Hamburger laboratory supports large-scale identification of Vietnam War victimsHamburg/Hanoi, 17 December 2015 The Hamburg laboratory Bioglobe has developed a concept for genetic identification of hundreds of thousands of victims of the Vietnam War for the government of Vietnam. In the largest identification project of all times Hanoi intends to recover the victims of the Vietnam War from mass graves, genetically identify and hand the victims over to their families so that they can be honoured and buried in accordance with the culture. After about two years of project planning, last week Bioglobe founder and CEO Prof Dr Wolfgang Hoppner was able to sign a contract that includes the technology transfer for the extensive project.The background of the ambitious and historically unique project is a resolution by the Vietnamese government to exhume and identify soldiers and civilian victims of the Vietnam War who are buried in anonymous mass graves. The so-called Project 150 was initiated by Premier Nguyen Tan Dung as the largest identification project of all times and involves several Vietnamese ministries as well as the internationally renowned International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP).Bioglobe was commissioned with the creation of a project plan on whose basis laboratories in Hanoi will be largely equipped with German technology so that identifications could be completed by the year 2020. Several trips to Hanoi were necessary in order to coordinate the procedure, in the course of which up to 1.4 million DNA samples must be identified. An initial project draft was discussed in the summer of 2014 within the scope of a workshop with anthropologists and forensic scientists from the USA, Korea and the Netherlands. The contract could finally be signed after a year of developmental work. This highly sensitive project is a special challenge for us, says Wolfgang Hoppner. We are confident that we can arrange it successfully. In the first project step starting in February of 2016, six scientists from the Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology shall be trained in the Bioglobe special laboratories in Hamburg.Bioglobe is among the most renowned and advanced laboratories for molecular genetic services in Germany. It provides molecular genetic diagnostics, pharmacogenetics, the support of genetic studies and molecular biological experiments as well as technology advice.we care communications GmbH, Angela LehnertSeewartenstrae 10 / Haus 5, 20459 HamburgTel.: +49 (0)40 756 639-10, lehnert@wecare-communications.com pascom Make Annual Donation to Support the Invaluable Work of the St. Ursula Hospice pascom show appreciation of the dedicated team at St Ursula's with annual donation [Deggendorf 15. December 2015] Every hospice employee worldwide makes incredible sacrifices and carries a heavy emotional and psychological burden on their shoulders. Theirs is the duty to provide invaluable care and comfort to their guests whilst simultaneously being a pillar of support to loved ones and all the while not knowing what tomorrow may bring.Being a beacon of hope for chronically ill patients and offering them and their families the peace of mind that the remainder of their journey may be spent in dignity and in a place of comfort is certainly an unenviable task but also one that deserves the utmost respect. It is in honour of this exceptional work, that pascom has pledged its annual donation to the St Ursula Hospice in Niederalteich, Bavaria.Mathias Pasquay pascom CEO and co-founder on making the St Ursula donation:Social commitment in any form is to be commended. At pascom, we are a family which makes it essential for us to give back to and support our community. Upon making our donation, we look to highlight projects that have the courage face up to and come to terms with emotionally painful challenges which often carry unjust social stigma. Through making our donation, we truly hope that we have been able to provide some support to the selfless team at St Ursulas as they continue caring for and providing invaluable comfort to their guests and their families.Upon accepting the donation, St. Ursula Hospice Director Dr. Ulrich Kruninger, talked of the daily challenges facing the hospice as well as of the recent renovation and much needed replacement of hospice facilities.Dr. Ulrich Kruninger Hospice Director on accepting the donation:We would like to thank pascom for their support. Due to legal regulations, 5% of hospice financing must be accounted for by donations and due to difficulties surround the subject of what we do, this is not easily accomplished. As the hospice currently has running costs in excess of 50,000 per year, we are grateful for every donation, they really do matter.Through making their donation, pascom are supporting the Hospice in financing their ongoing running costs. Moreover, as the Hospice recently invested 2.5 million in new equipment as well as expanding and renovating their facilities in order to better serve and care their patients in need of comfort, they are extremely grateful of any financial support they receive.About the St. Ursula Hospice NiederalteichUp until their retirement in 2012, the St Ursula Hospice was used as by the sisters of the Ursuline convent and for a while afterwards the role the building should play remained unclear.In 2013, talks began between the Deggendorf Hospice Association eV and the Ursuline Convent, represented namely by Sister Theresia who at this time was responsible for the Sisters in Osterhofen. During these discussions, the idea of founding a medical hospice on the former convent premises which turned into reality as did establishing an academy of Palliative Medicine, Palliative Care and Hospice Care within the former convent basement.After the expansion and renovation project, 10 beds are now available to cater for hospice guests who are cared for by a team of more than 20 staff who dedicate themselves to providing the highest levels of comfort and care to not only their patients but also their loved ones. The hospice also plays host to regular events which are for the benefits of their residents and ensuring that their time at the hospice is as comfortable and enjoyable as possible.In order to be able to continue to offer these and other services, the hospice of St Ursula in Niederalteich is extremely grateful for any support their receive.If your are interested in donating to support their excellent cause, you can find more information on their website: www.hospiz-niederalteich.de/spenden.html(English is available via the UK flag above Dr Kruningers profile)About pascom communication without bordersFounded in 1997, pascom is a Linux IT systems integrator with over 15 years worth of experience delivering tailor-made IP telecommunications and network infrastructures solutions and thanks to their Asterisk based mobydick phone system software, pascom have grown in to a market leader in the IP telecommunications across the DACH region and beyond.mobydick communications without borders is a software based, open standards platform which delivers powerful, innovative business communications solutions. Based on Asterisk, the mobydick phone system provides businesses with a scalable and flexible alternative to proprietary IP PBX solutions whilst simultaneously allowing companies to reduce telecommunication costs, increase mobility and boost productivity.Delivering a whole host of unified communications tools, mobydicks platform-independent, user-friendly admin interface, provides users and IT admins alike with an enhanced user-friendly experience and significantly decreases IT administration further boosting productivity, optimising workflows and increasing efficiencies.For more information about pascom and mobydick, please visit www.pascom.net.James Bartonpascom Netzwerktechnik GmbH & Co. KGBerger Strae 4294469 DeggendorfGermany Measuring sulfuric acid and oleum strength using sonic velocity meters The LiquiSonic inline analyzer by SensoTech monitors precisely the sulfuric acid and oleum strength and provides the data online. Monitoring the sulfuric acid and oleum strength (wt%) inline, directly in the process, enhances safety and efficiency of production plants. The measuring results are available online and in real time. Due to the physical properties of sulfuric acid and oleum, the most suitable measuring method for determining the acid strength is sonic velocity measurement. The LiquiSonic analyzer by SensoTech precisely measures with only one single sensor the sulfuric acid and oleum strength in the relevant concentration ranges.Applications of the analyzer include, for example, the acid production, alkylation, oil refining, syngas drying, fertilizer manufacturing, mineral processing or etching and pickling baths. The LiquiSonic technology is based on sonic velocity measurement providing clear and stable measuring results with an accuracy of up to 0.03 wt%. If the measuring values exceed or fall below critical process thresholds, a signal will be sent immediately ensuring timely countermeasures can be initiated. The real-time information significantly increases work environment safety and product quality and reduces costs caused by acid wastage and failed production.Made of Hastelloy C-2000, the LiquiSonic sensor is absolutely resistant to corrosion. The robust construction requires neither gaskets nor moving parts, so the sensor is maintenance-free with long-term stability. The installation is done directly into the existing pipe or vessel. The measuring results are updated every second, and for process automation the real-time data can be transferred to the process control system via 4-20 mA signal, digital outputs, fieldbus or Ethernet. The LiquiSonic controller displays and saves the measuring values. The analyzer is delivered as plug&play system, so a simple and fast commissioning is guaranteed.For 25 years SensoTech has been focused on the development, manufacturing and sales of inline analysis systems for process liquids. With worldwide installed, highly precise and innovative measuring systems for monitoring of concentrations, compositions and changes of chemicals as well as properties directly in the process, SensoTech has significantly contributed to the enhancement of the state of the art. In addition to the measurement of concentration and density, the phase interface detection as well as the monitoring of chemical reactions like polymerization and crystallization are typical applications. SensoTech inline analyzers set standards in the technological and qualitative valence, user friendliness and reproducibility of process values. Special calculation methods and sophisticated sensor technologies enable reliable and precise measuring results even under the most difficult process conditions.The knowledge and the experiences of the highly motivated and committed SensoTech staff are the result of many different applications supported by well-known customers from the chemical and pharmaceutical industry, food technology, semiconductor technology, automotive and metal industry as well as many other industries. In addition, these experiences also open up unimagined solution possibilities for new measuring challenges.SensoTech GmbHSteinfeldstr. 1D-39179 Magdeburg-BarlebenGermanyT +49 39203 514 100F +49 39203 514 109info@sensotech.comwww.sensotech.comSensoTech Inc.1341 Hamburg Tpk.Wayne, NJ 07470 USAT +1 973 832 4574F +1 973 832 4576sales-usa@sensotech.comwww.sensotech.com Archiving System ecoDMS for Raspberry Pi 2 Released ecoDMS and Raspberry Pi 2 are the ideal playground for tech-savvy DMS users. (Germany) Aachen, December 2015. Just in time for the Christmas season, ecoDMS GmbH has released the ecoDMS document management system as server component for Raspberry Pi 2. ecoDMS is renowned for its state-of-the-art technologies and modern, user-friendly archiving products. With this specially adapted version to Raspberry Pi 2, ecoDMS offers IT-savvy users an entirely new perspective in terms of document management.Raspberry Pi is a mini PC, the base of which is about the size of a credit card. The low price is ideally suited to match the ecoDMS pricing model. In combination with ecoDMS, Raspberry Pi 2 is the ideal playground to implement an archiving solution.The ecoDMS developers have succeeded in providing the ecoDMS server with its full functionality as a stand-alone component for the Raspberry Pi 2. Users can expect a comprehensive document management system that is easy and fun to use. From integrated and fully-automatic full text indexing and intelligent search functions, customised settings and version management to automatic document classification and archiving, ecoDMS leaves nothing to be desired. This is just a small extract of what ecoDMS has on offer.A free version of the ecoDMS software is available from the download area www.ecodms.de. For private users the archiving system is completely free, albeit with a limited functionality. After the first installation, ecoDMS is automatically enabled as demo version for the first 30 days. Those, who want to use ecoDMS after the demo phase and/or with the full scope of functions, need a licence for the full version. This can be purchased in the ecoDMS online shop at the competitive price of 49 Euros per licence.For more information visit www.ecodms.de.ecoDMS GmbH is an applord Holding Europe GmbH company. Since its foundation in 2014, the Aachen-based company has been selling the ecoDMS software. ecoDMS is a document management system used for archiving and managing electronic documents in a database. The software is a client-server system. ecoDMS is used for scanning, archiving and managing digital data and information. ecoDMS GmbH is renowned for its high degree of quality and service. Young, modern, and full of fervour, the software company opens new ways in document archiving. A strong, motivated team is offering perfect all-round service. ecoDMS GmbH is the first DMS provider to address private users, small to medium-sized companies and corporate customers.ecoDMS GmbHMarketing and PRAndrea WarmuthSalierallee 18aD-52066 AachenGermanyeMail: news@ecodms.dePhone: 0049 241 4 75 72 01Url: https://www.ecodms.de/index.php/en/press AOC and Philips monitors on the growth track Thomas Schade, Vice President Europe for AOC and MMD Amsterdam, 23 December 2015: Through product innovations and commitment to larger screen sizes, AOC and MMD, license partner for Philips monitors, achieved a leading position in Europes monitor market. Both AOC and MMD are subsidiaries of the world's leading display manufacturer TPV.While the overall monitor market is still facing some challenges, the trend towards larger screen sizes remains unbroken. According to the latest figures from the analyst Context, displays with 23 and above grew by more than 12 percent in the third quarter 2015 compared to the same quarter last year. Collectively, AOC and Philips monitors outperformed the market in the segment with a growth rate of more than 16 percent on an annual basis.In the overall monitor market, the two brands also developed successfully. In the third quarter, AOC and Philips reached a market share of nearly 15 percent, which means an increase of more than 26 percent in market share.With our two brands, AOC and Philips, we continuously focus on innovation and our customers needs. We are a display specialist, set trends and are always at the forefront when new categories and solutions give a push to the market. With our 40 4K display for example we demonstrated or innovative DNA and also other large screen size monitors, displays with QHD and 4K resolution, ergonomic and user friendly solutions are some examples for our innovation-driven approach. The result is a market share which makes us proud and also underlines that we have chosen the right strategy, says Thomas Schade, Vice President Europe for AOC and MMD.Particularly Eastern Europe is a strong driver of the successful development of the two brands. While some markets are still challenging, both brands increased their market share significantly from nearly 18 percent to actually close to 27 percent. Philips increased by more than 50 percent and reached a market share of nearly 16 percent, which places it in the number one position within the market. AOC has increased by more than 40 percent in the last quarter. As a result, the brand now occupies position number three in the Eastern European monitor market.In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the two monitor specialists also continued their successful development. AOC and Philips monitors increased their market share by nearly 5 percent in the third quarter 2015 compared to the previous quarter, cumulating in a market share of nearly 10 percent for both together. AOC was a main driver of this success, as it gained two positions in the market and increased from 5.7 to 6.4 percent in market share.About MMDMMD is a wholly owned company of TPV established in 2009 through a brand license agreement with Philips. MMD exclusively markets and sells Philips branded LCD displays worldwide. By combining the Philips brand promise with TPVs manufacturing expertise in displays, MMD uses a fast and focused approach to bringing innovative products to market. MMD serves the Western European, Middle East and African markets from its headquarters in Amsterdam. The Eastern European and CIS markets are served by a local office in Prague. Through its network of local sales teams MMD works with all major IT distributors and resellers. The companys design and development centre is located in Taiwan.www.mmd-p.comAbout AOCAOC is one of the global top brands in the display market. High quality, first-rate service, an attractive design as well as environmentally friendly and innovative products at competitive prices are the reasons why more and more consumers and distribution partners trust in AOC. The exceptionally broad product range of computer displays has won numerous awards. AOC is a subsidiary of TPV Technology Limited, the worlds largest LCD manufacturer. AOC serves the Western European, Middle East and African markets from its headquarters in Amsterdam. The Eastern European and CIS markets are served by a local office in Prague. Through its network of local sales teams AOC works with all major IT distributors and resellers.www.aoc-europe.comAOC International (Europe) B.V.Prins Bernhardplein 200, 6th floor1097 JB AmsterdamSeden AyyldzPhone: +31 20 5046952E-Mail: Seden.Ayyildiz@tpv-tech.comandMMD Monitors & Displays B.V.Prins Bernhardplein 200, 6th floor1097 JB AmsterdamChantal BlitsPhone: +31 20 5046945E-Mail: Chantal.Blits@tpv-tech.com Webinar: Code Coverage for Embedded Targets Errors in embedded systems can be fatal. It is critical that your software complies to safety standards like DO 178-C, ISO 26262, EN 50128, IEC 61508, IEC 62304 and IEC 60880. For this reason, the webinar will give you information about Safety Standards and Code Coverage on embedded targets. Specialists from Verifysoft will take you through Testwell CTC++ Code Coverage Analyser to demonstrate how to face up to the challenges of ensuring Code Coverage.Register now at: http://www.verifysoft.com/en_ctcpp_webinar.htmlVerifysoft Technology is a privately-held company located in Offenburg, Germany.The company has been founded in 2003 by a group of investors and specialists from the software testing industry.Verifysoft Technology is committed to provide test productivity solutions that will help companies more efficiently maintain and enhance their software applications.Our technologies are successfully used by more than 400 customers in over 30 countries all over the world.Verifysoft Technology GmbHTechnologiepark OffenburgIn der Spoeck 10-1277656 OffenburgGermanyPhone: +49 781 127 8118-0 Prchard Parks Maya Clinard Orchard Parks Maya Clinard, far right, took runner-up in singles at this past weekends Section VI Girls Tennis Championships at... Boys soccer peaking into sectionals It was not an ideal start to the 2022 season for the Orchard Park boys soccer team, dropping its first... Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism. Luncheon honors Dr. Ostergren Creative 360 will host a Yes We Can! luncheon on Feb. 5 in honor of community leader Dr. John Ostergren (91). Cost is $30. RSVP is required by Feb. 1. Ostergren was born April 9, 1925 in St. Paul, Minnesota, to Gertrude and John Ostergren. He is a first generation American whose family hails from Sweden. The family moved to Michigan when was 12. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps at age 17 while still in high school. He was later commissioned as a single and multi-engine pilot. At the end of his Army career, he enlisted in the Air Force Reserve for 11 years, where he attained the rank of captain. Ostergren completed chiropractic college and has been in active practice for 66 years. He also pioneered doctor fill-in for emergency and vacations. For two years, he was Chene and other notables. For the past 51 years he has been in practice at the Healthway Chiropractic Clinic. Contact Creative 360 at 989-837-1885 to make your reservation or sign up online at becreative360.org. Seating is limited. Exhibit honors veteran Chris Bennett, local war veteran and hospice patient, will celebrate the public opening of a personal exhibit in his honor at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 6, at Michigans Military and Space Heroes Museum in Frankenmuth. The public is welcome at the opening. At 17, Bennett wanted to enlist in the United States Navy, but his parents refused to sign the permission papers allowing a minor to enlist. When Bennett turned 18, he was drafted by the United States Army and was sent to Germany to fight in World War II. During his four years serving abroad in the Army, Bennett received two bronze stars, a good conduct medal and a Purple Heart. Those interested in more information regarding the Michigans Military and Space Heroes Museum may call (989) 652-8805. Those interested in more information regarding MidMichigan Home Cares hospice program may call (989) 633-1400. New exhibit opening The Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum will host an exhibition HWEH - GEEH Returning Again, an installation by Jinwon Chang. The exhibition will open Friday, Jan. 29 and be on view through Saturday, May 21. The imagery for the exhibition HWEH - GEEH was inspired by three near-death experiences in Changs life, each as a result of nearly drowning; at age 4 in a river, at age 10 in a swimming pool, and in high school at sea. These traumatic events were the catalyst that resulted in Jinwon creating imagery based on aquatic creatures and vessels able to survive in water. In their suspended state, as installed in the exhibition, they become for him floating self-portraits. The artist makes his creatures and vessels using strips of bamboo. His hometown Kwangju, South Korea is famous for its bamboo crafts and bamboo is a material he is very comfortable with. It is strong, flexible, light-weight, and natural. Many of his forms are partially covered with a paper or cotton batting soaked with glue. For more information on the Museum and its programs, www.marshallfredericks.org or call (989)964-7125. The Museum is located on the campus of Saginaw Valley State University. A number of area police departments, including the Midland Police Department, have untested sexual assault evidence kits, according to Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette and Michigan State Police Director Col. Kriste Kibbey Etue. Schuette and Etue today announced plans to assist departments across the state with the testing and potential investigation of those kits. According to the Attorney Generals Office, the Midland Police Department has 31 untested sexual assault kits, while the Midland County Sheriffs Office and Coleman Police each have none. Theres a distinct difference between being untested and uninvestigated, Midland Police Chief Clifford Block said, explaining each of the untested kits in the possession of his department was investigated. There are various reasons for the sexual assault evidence kits to be untested, such as the suspect in the case could have confessed or the evidence wasnt needed for prosecution, or the victim might have opted not to prosecute or even recanted their story, Block said. These are all nonactive cases, he said. The oldest of the untested kits goes back 13 years. Block also said laws regarding how the sexual assault evidence kits are handled recently changed. Rather than waiting for the prosecutors office to request the evidence before sending the kits to a lab for testing, as was the past procedure, now all sexual assault evidence kits are automatically sent for testing. The number of untested sexual assault kits in Michigan 1,819 in all was determined after Schuettes office began to survey 82 counties outside Wayne County in September 2015. In the survey, Schuette called on law enforcement officials to provide a count of untested kits in their possession so that state authorities could determine the most effective way to help local authorities process these cases, including testing that could help with unsolved crimes in other jurisdictions. The counts requested are those of sexual assault victims who were assaulted before Oct. 1, 2014, and were not previously tested for various reasons, which can include that the suspect confessed, pled guilty or was already incarcerated. Schuette and Etue expect that a closer examination of the untested kits will give them more insight into the status of these cases and how they can best help local authorities. Other area agencies not having any untested sexual assault kits include the Beaverton Police, Gladwin Police, Saginaw County Sheriffs Office, Saginaw Police, Saginaw Township Police and Tittabawassee Township Police. The Gladwin County Sheriffs Office has one untested sexual assault kit, the Bay County Sheriffs Office has seven, and the Bay City Department of Public Safety has 41 untested kits. Tackling untested sexual assault kits involves three basic phases: testing; investigation of the incident; and prosecutions where possible. Schuette and Etue will work together to see that the backlogged kits are processed, using a combination of $1.7 million appropriated by the legislature and grants awarded to the Michigan State Police to ensure justice for victims of sexual assault. Today, we take another step forward in getting rapists off the streets and ensuring justice for sexual-assault victims. I thank our prosecutors and law-enforcement agencies for working with us to test previously untested sexual assault kits, said Schuette. Experience shows that testing every kit helps law enforcement solve crimes and stop serial rapists. The Michigan State Police is committed to providing forensic analysis and analytical case support to ensure the best possible evidence is available to solve these crimes and bring justice to the survivors, said Etue. Michigan victims of sexual violence are encouraged to call the national sexual assault hotline toll-free, 1-800-656-HOPE. All calls are confidential, and will be answered by a local counseling center affiliated with the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). Assistance is also available online at www.rainn.org. FLINT, Mich. (AP) The latest on Flint's water crisis and efforts to fix the problem of lead in the drinking water (all times local): 5:35 p.m. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has convened the first meeting of a panel that will work on finding solutions for Flint residents whose drinking water is contaminated with lead, something he calls a "terrible tragedy." The Flint Water Interagency Coordinating Committee is a 17-member panel that will make recommendations regarding the health of people exposed to lead, study Flint's water infrastructure, and establish ways to improve communication between local and state government. Snyder told committee members it presents an opportunity to "leverage the resources" each brings. The committee includes Flint Mayor Karen Weaver, Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards, who has extensively studied the issue in Flint and elsewhere, and Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who is credited with bringing the problem to the public's attention after state agencies initially dismissed her concerns. ___ 3:45 p.m. Senate Democratic Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois says Democrats will offer an amendment to a bill on the Senate floor to address the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Durbin says Democratic Sens. Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan will seek to amend a Senate energy bill being debated on Thursday. Durbin offered few details, but said the measure would "protect children from water that is deadly or poisonous." State officials disconnected Flint from Detroit's water supply in 2014 and began using the Flint River to save money. Regulators failed to ensure the new water was treated properly and lead from pipes leached into the water supply, contributing to a spike in child lead exposure. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a Democratic candidate for president, called Flint's water problems "one of the great public health crises in modern times." ___ 2:45 p.m. Democrats in Michigan's Republican-controlled Legislature have introduced legislation to repeal an emergency manager law they say contributed to Flint's lead-tainted water crisis. The law lets the state appoint a manager to control a local government or school district's finances. Flint was under state financial management when it disconnected from Detroit's water supply and began using the Flint River to save money. State environmental regulators failed to ensure the new water was treated properly, which led to lead from pipes leaching into the supply. Rep. LaTanya Garrett says emergency managers are unaccountable to residents and notes the worsening finances of Detroit's school district under state management. Majority Republicans favor the law. House Republican spokesman Gideon D'Assandro acknowledges "mistakes were made in Flint" but says there are no cities under emergency management for the first time in 15 years. He says "that shows the early warning program and improved intervention measures we put in place worked." State Rep. Gary Glenn, R-Midland, joined other members of the House Military and Veterans Affairs Committee this week in visiting Flint to hear residents concerns about water quality and thank Michigan National Guard troops who are deployed distributing water and filters. Glenn voted in favor of a $9 million emergency appropriation two months ago to aid relief efforts in Flint, and last week joined the House in unanimously approving another $28 million in emergency funding requested by Gov. Rick Snyder. This years Go Red For Women Luncheon on Feb. 11 will be at Horizons Conference Center in Saginaw. The event, from 9 a.m.-1:30 p.m., will featured the American Heart Associations Lifes Simple 7 tool. Life Simple 7 focuses on seven ways to lower your risk of heart disease, including eat better, increase physical activity, manage blood pressure, reduce cholesterol, lose weight, reduce blood sugar and quit smoking. Keynote speaker will be Firas Alani, M.D., with Covenant HealthCare. A medical panel of local experts, including Parthiv Amin, M.D., cardiologist, Covenant HealthCare; Michelle Ellis, M.D., cardiothoracic surgeon, Mid Michigan Health; and Sue Steinbacher, nurse practitioner, St. Marys, will share the latest news on fighting heart disease in women. Plus, local heart disease survivors will share their stories. Also planned are a silent auction, a heart-healthy lunch, music and networking. Tickets are $100 and can be purchased online at www.GLBRGoRed.org. The Go Red movement has educated millions of women on the dangers of heart disease, and made major changes in health care. That is what the Go Red conference is about - to educate the women in our area on their risk of cardiovascular disease, shared Brittany Miller, corporate event director with American Heart Association. More than a decade ago, the American Heart Association discovered that heart disease killed more women than men. And it takes more womens lives than all forms of cancer combined. So the American Heart Association created Go Red For Women, a network of women dedicated to education, support and research. The American Heart Association is also hosting several other events, including: National Wear Red Day: Friday, Feb. 5, the one day a year that what you choose to wear can save a life. Post your photo online with #GoRedMi Its Time For A Check-Up, Twitter chat: Wednesday, Feb. 3 at noon learn why your yearly visit to your doctor can save your life @AHAMidMichigan #GoRedMi Is Your Life A Stress Test, Twitter chat: Wednesday, Feb. 17 at noon learn how to manage your stress and how stress affects your risk of heart disease @AHAMidMichigan #GoRedMi According to the American Heart Association, heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women. An estimated eight million women in the U.S. are living with heart disease, yet only one in six believe that heart disease is her greatest health threat. In fact, 90 percent of women have one or more risk factors for developing heart disease The Go Red For Women campaign is locally sponsored by Covenant HealthCare, Dow Corning Corp., St. Marys and Mid Michigan Health. Macys is a national sponsor of the Go Red For Women movement. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Saginaw Valley State University and Dow Chemical Co. leaders unveiled a new mobile research laboratory during a ceremony at SVSU on Wednesday. The mobile lab is a large recreational vehicle outfitted with scientific equipment to travel to K-12 schools in Michigans Great Lakes Bay Region and beyond to introduce students to hands-on learning opportunities, and ultimately increase interest in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math). It also will travel to various locations as part of research activities for SVSU students and faculty and K-12 students and teachers involved in the Dow Science and Sustainability Education Center at SVSU. SVSU purchased the lab as part of the Dow Science and Sustainability Education Center, which was established thanks to a gift from The Dow Chemical Company Foundation. We are very grateful to Dow for their generous support, and we share their goal of increasing opportunities for students to pursue careers in STEM, said Deborah Huntley, SVSU provost and a former research chemist. This sort of community engagement empowers our students and faculty to pursue ambitious research and learning endeavors, while collaborating with our corporate and educational partners to inspire the next generation. The mobile lab is equipped with scientific instruments selected to allow K-12 students to analyze soil and water samples collected in the Saginaw Bay Watershed. It also will provide for the study of alternative energy. The mobile lab is an innovative approach to bring science directly to the students and get them excited about learning, said Rich Wells, Dow vice president and site leader Michigan Operations. Dow understands how crucial it is to improve access to science, technology, engineering and math education for all students, and to help them see the opportunities that STEM skills can provide. Students in teacher Craig Coopersmiths science class at White Pine Middle School in Saginaw Township were invited to the ceremony and the first to tour the mobile lab and use the instruments. SVSU expects to begin making school visits with the mobile lab later this year. Those interested in arranging a visit should contact David Karpovich, H.H. Dow Endowed Chair in Chemistry and director of the Dow Science and Sustainability Education Center at (989) 964-4349 or dsk@svsu.edu. SVSU faculty and staff designed the lab in cooperation with Farber Specialty Vehicles in Columbus, Ohio, who built the vehicle. The Dow Science and Sustainability Education Center at SVSU was established to enhance STEM education in the Great Lakes Bay Region at all levels. It features a unique summer internship research program that promotes collaboration between high school students, teachers, SVSU students and SVSU faculty mentors. The Center also aims to engage the broader community with its mobile science lab, through which citizens will have opportunities to participate in scientific studies of the Saginaw Bay Watershed as well as green chemistry, biodiversity, and alternate energy. A second request for a Payment in Lieu of Taxes arrangement involving Lockwood Development and the Bracken Woods apartment complex sparked a two-hour discussion at Mondays Midland City Council. The resolution to refer the PILOT request to the Housing Commission for study and recommendation was passed by a vote of 5-0. Lockwood Development, a Southfield-based company, which already operates some facilities included in the PILOT program, first requested the PILOT program for the Bracken Woods apartment complex, 5301 Dublin Ave., through the Michigan State Housing Development Authority in August 2015, and it failed at the first reading of the resolution. Midland currently has 19 PILOT requests affecting rent throughout the city, with about 521 units total. The PILOT program is meant to promote affordable housing to low and moderate-income levels, with a lesser annual fee that means savings are passed on to tenants in the form of lower rent. THE CITYS TAKE Dave Keenan, assistant city manager for financial services, detailed some of the changes and new information brought forward by the city assessor about the value of the Bracken Woods apartment complex, at $3.2 million. Keenan referenced a report from the citys previous planning director, which talked about the need for low-income housing in Midland. We have data that illustrates that demand is still greater than the supply at this point, Keenan said, adding the report states PILOT projects would not have a negative impact on the existing housing or rental market. Keenan said that most PILOT projects are around 35 years but could reach up to 50 years. The new PILOT request would have a term of 25 years and a service fee negotiated to 4 percent from the previous submission of 6.5 percent and a 37-year term. There are 15 years left in the original PILOT request, but the current owners of Bracken Woods are looking to sell the property. HEARING FROM THE PETITIONER Mark Lockwood of Lockwood Development presented why the company wants to take over Bracken Woods. He stressed that the current owners would not profit from selling the property and neither would Boston Capital, the tax credit investor that prompted city council to take a closer look at how PILOTs are authorized. Lockwood said the apartment complex would continue to suffer from cash flow shortfalls and maintenance issues and could be foreclosed if the owners do not want to continue operating Bracken Woods. If the new PILOT request is approved, the purchase of Bracken Woods would close within 60 to 90 days and rehabilitation work would start shortly after and be completed within a year, Lockwood said. MSHDA would contribute $2.5 million over and above the mortgage, and community development company Cinnaire would make an equity investment of $2.49 million, he added. An important piece of the new PILOT request is eight additional units that would be provided to households with 30 percent of the area median income. Because there is already vacancy at Bracken Woods, Lockwood said there would be available apartments to designate for households at 30 percent AMI and tenant income would be reviewed annually to make sure standards are being met. He stressed that no one would be evicted if they make more than the certain standard required by the new PILOT. Steve Arnosky, Ward 3, asked Lockwood how the city can avoid the current solution with the Bracken Woods owner because of the PILOT, and wondered what would happen if Lockwood Development decided to sell the property in the middle of the term. Our track record suggests that we dont let our properties fall into disrepair, Lockwood said, adding that it was a requirement of another PILOT the company requested that if the property were sold, the PILOT would dissolve. MSHDA Chief Placemaking Officer Gary Heidel and Tom Edmiston, senior vice president of Cinnaire, both spoke at the meeting in favor of the new PILOT request. Weve worked with them for many, many years, they have an outstanding reputation, Heidel said about Lockwood Development. I think youll see this will be a true asset to the community. PUBLIC COMMENTS AnnaMaria Morgan, president of the Midland Area Real Estate Investors Association (MAREIA), spoke against the request. She brought up the previous PILOT request, and said the group she represents would prefer city council to honor the original Bracken Woods PILOT without an extension. The bottom line of the new PILOT request is that the needs of low-income families are not being met, the city is receiving less in taxes with residents paying more in taxes with only Lockwood and its investment companies benefitting from the arrangement, Morgan said. As a volunteer with Continuum of Care, Ron Parmele said he has learned about the needs of Midland residents he was not aware of before. He was impressed by Lockwoods presentation and said approval of the new PILOT request is a no-brainer to him. I continue to struggle with the point that MAREIA is making, Parmele said, pointing out the members own and rent property for profit. Their focus is not low-income housing. Why the pushback is surprising to me, it seems like two different markets. This is a great way to revitalize the project, Lockwood is willing to make it right. By day, Staff Sgt. John E. Kinsley III, 25th Air Support Operations Squadron, is a tactical air control party specialist, or TACP. When he is not engaged in an active mission, he spends his time training for a litany of different scenarios, both combative and non-combative. Although he is trained to eliminate the enemy abroad, on Jan. 18, 2016, John Kinsley was a life-saver. Kinsley was able to use his skills garnered from his Air Force and U.S. Army training to rescue a kayaker from his potential demise. I was enjoying a day on the beach with my family when we noticed a kayaker practicing in the waves, said Kinsley. All of a sudden, we saw the kayak coming into shore, but the person inside it wasnt. Calvin, who did not provide his last name, was the person in the kayak and shared his perspective of the experience. I was kayak-surfing a few hundred feet off the beach when my kayak was overturned and swept away, said Calvin, I immediately started swimming toward shore, battling the currents with waves constantly crashing on me. Calvin said he knew there wasn't a good chance of him making it all the way back to shore. Kinsley said he noticed Calvin was caught in a riptide, who was attempting to wave his arms and call out for help. Answering his call, Kinsley immediately grabbed a boogey board from one of his children, and immediately leapt into ocean, battling sets of 10-15 foot waves in the process. I think as a TACP, when youre going through training, they instill the fundamental value of never give up, said Kinsley. When I was heading out there, it was never a question of if I was going to make it. I had to get out there, the entire time I was thinking; Im not going fast enough." Speed and Kinsleys reaction time was paramount in this incident, as he swam more than 150-feet into the Pacific to lend a hand to the kayaker in need. As I got closer to Calvin, he got a burst of motivation and started making his way to me, said Kinsley. I grabbed onto him, gave him the boogey board and made sure he got his breath back before we headed back to shore. The two swam east along the shore until they were freed from the riptides grasp. Once they arrived back on the beach, Kinsley made sure Calvin was okay before heading back to his family. He also said the feeling didnt quite sink in until people started coming up to him and thanking him on the beach. I guess I didnt even realize what just happened, it was just a relief to see that he was okay, said Kinsley. It just felt like the right thing to do, he needed help. There were a few other groups of people on the beach, but I was in the right place at the right time. I know my peers would do the same exact thing." Before leaving, Calvin exchanged information with SSgt. Kinsley and was able to send an email to his chain-of-command, thanking him for his efforts. "Honestly, I'm not shocked to hear that John didn't hesitate one second when he saw that man's life in danger, said Lt. Col. Russell J Hall, 25th ASOS commander. I'm very proud of what John did. He is a role-model in the 25 ASOS and proves it each day with selfless actions like these." In the email, Calvin said Kinsleys selfless act is a much appreciated act of kindness that he will forever be thankful of. He (Kinsley) was the only person who risked his life to help save mine, said Calvin. It was a pleasure to cross paths with SSgt. Kinsley. Since this incident, every breath of air has been more enjoyable. I know that without his help, there's a good chance I may not be breathing at all. Personnel from both U.S. and ROK air forces gathered to participate in Buddy Wing 16-1 here Jan. 25 to 29, 2016. U.S. Airmen from the 36th Fighter Squadron and Aircraft Maintenance Unit traveled to Seosan AB, ROK, to participate in the Buddy Wing exercise with ROK air forces personnel from the 121st Fighter Squadron, 20th Fighter Wing, Seosan AB, ROKAF. The Buddy Wing program is a combined fighter exchange between the U.S. and ROKAF to promote solidarity among any operations we may execute, said Capt. Shannon Beers, a 36th Fighter Squadron pilot. Buddy Wing is a great opportunity to work with our Korean counterparts in deterrence exercises in the event of combat operations. A program conducted throughout the year, Buddy Wing is held across the peninsula and is used to sharpen interoperability between the allied forces. The ROKAF and U.S. alliance is not the matter of short-term but a long-term, everlasting one, said Capt. Yim, Chung Su, a 121st FS pilot. I hope we are able to continue to improve the combined exercise where more ROKAF and U.S. Airmen can participate. Designed to increase mutual understanding and enhance interoperability, Buddy Wing exercises allow participants from both nations the opportunity to exchange ideas and practice combined tactics. Our number one role here is deterrence and being capable in our credibility, Beers said. The better we work together, the better we will be able to live up to that role. Buddy Wing is a unique opportunity to work with the ROKAF, learn how they do things and teach them different techniques from our end, he continued. Interoperability is vital to our success. Knowing that I have capable combat partners and they also have faith in me helps to execute the mission here on the peninsula. Some of the challenges faced create better learning opportunities. The biggest challenges are working with unfamiliar terms and in different airspaces, Beers said. Well work through those differences in mission planning so we have a better understanding now versus in a real-world incident. A large part of being a fighter pilot is working on mission planning, he added. We conduct the planning to go over every detail including potential contingencies that may arise. In the event of a real world foreign aggression, we would have anticipated that problem and executed successfully. This Buddy Wing included four F-16 Fighting Falcons from the 36th FS and more than 10 KF-16C Fighting Falcons from the 121st FS. My favorite part in the Buddy Wing is starting the exercise with U.S. from the beginning, Yim said. There have been some other combined exercises, but Max Thunder and Buddy Wing exercises are the only ones which we can train together from planning until the end of flight. In that sense, this exercise is really important and I like the part where we both can plan together. The alliance between the U.S. and ROK has been prevalent for more than 62 years. The success of Buddy Wing program is imperative to our success in the event of real world contingencies, Beers said. The more we practice, the better prepared we are in the war front. FORT HOOD, Texas - With help from some local universities, Soldiers from 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team may avoid some common cultural pitfalls during the brigade's nine-month deployment to South Korea. Guest lecturers spoke to Soldiers from the 91st Engineer Battalion "Sabers," 1st ABCT, on a variety of topics, including Korean language, history, culture and food at the Mission Command Training Complex here Jan 8. "It gave us a different perspective having civilians come and talk to us about Korea," said Maj. Alexander Samms, operations officer for 91st Engineer Battalion, 1st ABCT. Additional training, like cultural lectures, ensures that Soldiers are prepared on and off the battlefield to represent the U.S. well, said Samms. Sonia Kim Uber, a lecturer in Korean culture from Baylor University, discussed some of the basic phrases to know in Korean, the currency and a little history of the land. The presentation also included videos about many other topics, including Korean food and Taekwondo, a martial arts developed in Korea. "I hope the Soldiers learn more about the Korean culture, people and a little bit of the Korean language, too," said Uber. Soldiers also received advice on everything from table etiquette, like not sticking their chopsticks into the rice bowl, to driving in Korea. The recommendations were to prepare the Soldiers to represent the U.S. during their rotation there. "I think they have more influence than they think they do," said Samms, "It's an excellent opportunity for Soldiers to be a positive presence, and to share American culture and perspectives." One message shared by many speakers was for Soldiers to get out and explore the different opportunities and cultural venues that Korea has to offer. "Please don't waste your time; there is a lot over there to do," said Sungkwun Ha, a Southwestern University seminary student who was a Korean augmentee to the U.S. Army for two years. "I saw many Soldiers stay in their room because they thought there was nothing to do." In preparation for the deployment, Soldiers conducted gunneries over the course of the spring and summer 2015, with a culminating field training exercise, Ironhorse Challenge, in August. The brigade completed a decisive action rotation at the Army's National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, in October. Since that time, Soldiers have conducted additional gunneries, drills and command post exercises, in addition to preparing and shipping thousands of pieces of vehicles and equipment. The brigade will be attached to the 2nd Infantry Division, replacing the 2nd ABCT, 1st Cav. Div., as the rotational force in Korea. Since the deactivation of the 1st ABCT, 2nd ID in June 2014, the U.S. has maintained a rotational armored brigade in the Peninsula. The Ironhorse Brigade has a proud history of supporting the nation's allies, deploying to the Germany, Poland and the Baltics in 2014 as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve and Combined Resolve II and III. "I hope they have a good experience in Korea and with the Korean people," said Uber. BEIJING, China - SECRETARY KERRY: Well, Mr. Minister, my friend, thank you very, very much. You and I have indeed met a great deal in the last three years. China and the United States have been able to find a level of new cooperation with respect to a number of issues. On Iran and the Iran nuclear agreement, China took on major responsibility. We worked very effectively as the P5+1. On counterterrorism, were engaged in major initiatives and we obviously all share a very common interest. On climate change, we really had a very important moment that broke the mold of the past and showed new leadership, and we were able to achieve a landmark, groundbreaking agreement in Paris. On Afghanistan, we have worked together. On Ebola, we worked together. So we found important common ground. And I appreciate your comments about Laos, Cambodia, ASEAN. These are all important countries all with important interests. But clearly, we have several important issues we need to find a way to move forward on. One is the issue of the nuclear program of the DPRK, North Korea a major challenge to global security, one of the most important issues of security to the United States of America. And the second issue, of course, is concerns and activities in the South China Sea, which weve talked about before, and we obviously will talk about today. We have proven, as you said, when our two countries find a common ground and work together we can make things happen. And its my hope that today we can be constructive and find a way forward. I thank you for your welcome. I know you had Deputy Secretary Blinken here just a few days ago. And I look forward to picking up on his conversation. MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, California -- As the cross-hairs of the scope landed on target, Cpl. Ishida, from the Japan Ground Self-Defense Forces Western Army Infantry Regiment, squeezed the trigger of the .50-caliber machine gun. The tremor from each round firing traveled up his arms and into his body as he kept the machine gun on his target. Smoke from the machine gun floated past and machine gun fire filled the room. He stood up in the machine gun turret smiling as he turned to his fellow soldiers, who stood watching from behind. United States Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Michael Casey, the battalion master gunner for 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion and simulator operator, worked alongside JGSDF Master Sergeant Fukase to arrange scenario challenges and place targets for the next JGSDF soldier to overcome in the amphibious assault gunner simulator during Exercise Iron Fist 2016 at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Jan. 26. Iron Fist is an annual, bilateral amphibious training exercise designed to improve the Marine Corps and JGSDFs ability to plan, communicate and conduct combined amphibious operations, and also conduct bilateral training in advanced marksmanship, amphibious reconnaissance, fire-and-maneuver assaults, staff planning, logistical support, medical knowledge sharing and fire support operations. Similar to the Marines, JGSDF soldiers began their hands-on training in a simulator, which tests the amphibious assault crews skills working together to overcome various challenges such as engaging moving and stationary targets at unknown distances. The simulator also offers the ability to control variables, such as weather conditions, the amount of ammunition and weapon system failures. The simulator allows us to develop any scenario for the [JGSDF] soldiers, teaching them the individual, crew and section leader levels, said Casey. It is important for the crew of an amphibious vehicle be able to quickly identify a target, know their weapons capabilities and execute engagements with their weapon systems effectively. As the JGSDF develops their Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade, Japan wishes to continue combined amphibious training for their ground self-defense forces. Exercises like Iron Fist help play a key role in the advancement of Japans amphibious capabilities. Working with the simulators gives the [JGSDF] soldiers the chance to begin to experiment and learn from different scenarios, said 1st Lt Michael Ragonese, platoon commander, for 1st Platoon, Bravo Co., 3rd Amphibian Assault Battalion. The simulator offers that hands-on appreciation for the capabilities and limitations of the amphibious vehicle. Since 2006, exercise Iron Fist has offered Marines and JGSDF soldiers the unique opportunity to train and work side-by-side on U.S. soil. The knowledge shared during exercise Iron Fist will effectively increase the cohesion between the U.S. Marines and the JGSDF soldiers during an amphibious operation, said Ragonese. MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan - Ambassador Caroline Bouvier Kennedy, U.S. ambassador to Japan, made her first official visit to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, Jan. 28, 2016. Kennedy visited to gain a better understanding of MCAS Iwakunis community and witness the ongoing transformation of the air station through the multitude of construction projects, which costs more than a billion dollars a year, driven by the Defense Policy Review Initiative. Certainly, visiting Japan has given me a real understanding of what we have invested here how strong and important our alliance is, said Kennedy. Kennedy first visited the air traffic control tower for a birds eye view of what approximately $3 million dollars a day of construction looks like. Kennedy then visited Marines with Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 152. While at the squadrons hangar, Kennedy viewed a KC-130J Super Hercules, gaining an understanding on the multiple capabilities of the aircraft in the Pacific theater. She commended the Marines on their efforts in supporting and fostering better relations between Japan and the U.S. Its nice to see a government official come down take time out of her day to come speak with the Marines and tell us how important the mission that we are doing is for the United States of America, said Gunnery Sgt. Michael Forest, VMGR-152 squadron gunnery sergeant. The U.S-Japan alliance is the cornerstone of the future, said Kennedy. I hope you all realize the choices you are making and how proud of you the embassy is to work with our colleagues in the military on a daily basis. Thank you all for your service. Afterward, Kennedy visited Air Rescue Squadron 71, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. Beijing, China - PRESIDENT XI: (Via interpreter) Mr. Secretary, a warm welcome to China. We really have a very crowded schedule here and you are just here for one day. And I know before coming here, you visited a couple of Southeast Asian countries. We welcome you to China. Generally speaking, the China-U.S. relationship has been smooth and on the way up in the past year. Often I think back to the visit I made last year to the United States. In my view, it was a very successful visit. And I had a very good meeting with President Obama at the Paris climate change conference, and he and I have spoken to each other on the phone a couple of times where we had timely exchanges on issues of mutual interest. And the various institutions and mechanisms between our two countries have been operating smoothly. I know youve had good working relationships with State Councilor Yang and Foreign Minister Wang. And our two countries have also made progress in cooperation on various fronts on the economy and trade, on people-to-people and cultural exchange, on security issues, and on the cyber-security issue. And in the meantime, our two countries have been in timely communication on international and regional issues, such as the Iranian nuclear issue, the Korean nuclear issue, Afghanistan, and so on. And Im satisfied with the development of our relationship. Generally speaking, when China and the United States work together, we can make good things happen with win-win results for both sides and that contribute to peace, prosperity, and stability in the world. The Chinese side is prepared to work with the U.S. side, and Im prepared to work with President Obama to make efforts to advance the new model of major country relationship between China and the United States based on no conflict or confrontation, win-win cooperation, and mutual respect. SECRETARY KERRY: Well, Mr. President, thank you very much. Thank you, first of all, for this meeting and for the very productive and in-depth conversations I had earlier. Your foreign policy team and state councilor have done an excellent job of helping us to make some progress today. And on behalf of President Obama, I want to thank you for the help that China gave to the effort on the Iran nuclear agreement. China played a critical role. The effort on climate change was really historic, and you made a key decision with President Obama to change that whole debate. We're not here to turn your winter blues bluer. Especially with impending festivities like Groundhog Day headed to our doorstep to make things a tad better. However... We thought we ought to advise you, all the same, in the event you've been in hibernation mode, just like that furry underground namesake shadowed every 2/2. Within the space of just a week or so, a quartet of key classic rock-era acts has been annexed to the area concert scene. Namely: James Taylor, 5/29, Peoria Civic Center; Alice Cooper, 5/4, Peoria Civic Center; John Mellencamp, 4/10, Sangamon Auditorium; and the Beach Boys (such as they are these days), 5/13, Peoria Civic Center. For all we know, and the way things are going, there'll be some more additions to that roster by the time this sees print. But it's more than adequate, as is, for the sake of the discussion at hand. Namely: That their back-to-back scheduling has come almost day-and-date with mass leave-takings from some of their most venerated peers. Plus, several not as venerated, perhaps, but equally crucial in the scheme of things. Not to downplay or trivialize other musical modes and traditions, but this recent swath of grim reaping has occurred largely among rock-pop performers with both feet in the so-called classic time-frame (late '60s-early '80s), and within just a few years of each other in the same age range, around 65-70. Since exactly a month from this day (Dec. 28), the Grim R.'s bumper harvest has included: Motorhead's flamboyant front man, Lemmy (Kilmister), 70. Pop-R&B singer Natalie Cole, 65. Mic Gillette, founding father of Tower of Power, 64. Eagles guitarist Glenn Frey, 67. Mott the Hoople drummer/co-founder Dale Griffin, 67. Rollins Band drummer Jason Mackenroth, the odd man out at a mere 46. Dio bass player Jimmy Bain, 68 (who died at sea on a Def Leppard Cruise). And, of course, leading this pack, David Bowie, 69, with perhaps the most artfully orchestrated passage any rock artist has ever managed ... all on his terms, leaving the hooded creep with the scythe looking pretty inept. The most notable aspect above and beyond the sheer breadth and depth of the talent lost is the fact that not one of these performers could be considered unduly aged, at least in terms of the new-whatever calculations. Doing the math, the mid-60s would be century 21's new mid-40s. The point being made here is, of course: If you've a desire to see one or more of these newly announced acts, either for the first time or for the nth time, better not tarry. Especially since, age-wise, each one falls into that "danger zone": James Taylor, 67 Alice Cooper, 67 (turns 68 a week from today, 2/4) John Mellencamp, 64 The Beach Boys that count for the Peoria show, Mike Love, 74; Bruce Johnston, 73 (for the record, quasi-estranged original members Brian Wilson and Al Jardine are evenly matched with Johnston at 73) Frankly, yes, all four of the above group are no strangers to Central Illinois, making fairly periodic passages our way: Mellencamp played the Coliseum in its freshman year, and was in Peoria just last summer. Cooper was in Peoria three years ago and here at the Coliseum six and eight years ago. The Beach Boys were in Champaign a year ago, and here at the Coliseum 5 years ago. And Taylor, the least frequent flyer our way, hasn't been on a Central Illinois stage since he played Peoria 10 years ago, at 57. Assuming the Reaper is off harvesting other fields, if these intervals remain constant, then expect a 77-year-old Taylor for his next pass ... Beach Boys inching toward 80 ... Cooper welcoming us to his septuagenarian nightmare ... and Mellencamp, the kid of the bunch, hopefully staving off some of the serious health issues of the past decade as he hits the "danger age" of 67-68. Hurry, then: time waits for no one ... not them, not us. LINCOLN Nine people are in custody so far as part of what police say was a meth lab operating out of a Lincoln residence. The nine suspects all remain in Logan County jail in lieu of posting $100,000 each. Lincoln Police Chief Paul Adams said Thursday the investigation into the alleged meth operation is ongoing. Charged with manufacturing more than 900 grams (about 2 pounds) of methamphetamine are: Donald Sturgeon, 29; Alexandria Bitner, 20; Rodney Lovelett, 25, Sarah Shelby, 21, Ashley Davis, 24 and Brandon Lovelett, 24. All six were arrested earlier this month at a residence in the 1000 block of Seventh Street. A woman who was accused of fleeing the house, Robyn Johnson, 19, also of Lincoln, was later arrested on charges of meth manufacturing and using a home for meth manufacturing. She also was jailed in lieu of posting $100,000. A week after the meth bust, Lincoln police arrested Ruby Scott, 47, of Lincoln on a charge of meth manufacturing. She was jailed in lieu of posting $50,000. The ninth suspect, Jerry J. England, 30, of Lincoln, was charged Tuesday with meth manufacturing. He also remains in jail in lieu of $100,000. According to Adams, the search for Sturgeon on an alleged parole violation led police to the home on Seventh Street. Once inside, officers found the active meth lab, he said. Changes in the process used to make meth can require many participants, said Adams. Multiple people are used to buy pseudoephedrine products, the common ingredient in cold and allergy medications, from various businesses to avoid attracting attention from law enforcement. Those shopping trips leave a paper trail required by federal law for such purchases that police can use in their investigation, he said. The existence of active meth operations in neighborhoods is a risk to public safety on several levels, added Adams. "This involves very hazardous, dangerous materials" that puts those living in the area at risk of exposure to toxic agents and fires, he said. The Illinois State Police tactical response and meth team processed the crime scene at the Lincoln residence where more than 900 grams of meth was located. BLOOMINGTON Local school and municipal officials liked some of the ideas but questioned the details in Gov. Bruce Rauner's second State of the State address on Wednesday. A 10-point plan to improve schools near the end of Rauner's address drew different reactions at Bloomington-Normal districts. Barry Reilly, superintendent at Bloomington District 87, took issue with Rauner's goal of increasing state money for low-income and rural school districts "without taking money away from any other districts," according to the speech. After cuts last March, the state gave $97 million back to schools, but the money wasn't evenly distributed. It doesnt give me a lot of hope seeing the first thing he lists, he did the opposite," Reilly said. "Im supposed to get excited about 2 through 10? Mark Daniel, superintendent at Normal-based McLean County Unit 5 schools, said while the proposals are vague, the first thing that comes to my mind is how positive this is for education in the state of Illinois. He praised goals of increasing early childhood funding and encouraging partnerships among districts, universities and businesses. When asked about Rauner's plan to "give school districts more flexibility when it comes to bargaining, contracting and bidding," Daniel declined to comment. Labor unions have staunchly opposed those changes. Those are all things that are nice to say, but hes in a Legislature controlled by Democrats," Reilly said. Id prefer he concentrate on other mandates schools are held to. Reilly applauded a goal of developing an "objective student growth measure, not necessarily based on the PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers)" the state's controversial new standardized test though he questioned how to fairly grade schools across socioeconomic levels. Government When asked about a section of the speech about information technology and a new economic development branch of state government, Normal Mayor Chris Koos said change could be helpful. Of better technology, including a new Cabinet-level position, Koos said as a small-business person doing tax work online with the state of Illinois, its not the easiest thing in the world, so I could see this initiative helping there." He also praised a possible expansion of public-private partnerships that helped bring two hotels to uptown Normal. Bloomington Mayor Tari Renner said the speech's proposals were old wine in old bottles, so his reaction was, "I'm glad the tempers seem to be calming down a little bit. Were not going to make progress at all if theres not some civility, he said. Renner added he wouldn't hold my breath for progress from Springfield on Rauner's proposals or the state's budget, which is now seven months overdue. The main thing I would hope from the state of Illinois is that they keep their hands out of our treasury, he said. If they stay away from us, thats the best thing they could do right now. BLOOMINGTON Larry Venezia was remarkably calm Wednesday afternoon for someone who just had a car smash through his living room wall. "We've lived here for 31 years," he said, surveying the damage to his home at 102 Fairway Drive. Despite being on the busy intersection of Towanda Avenue and Emerson Street, this was the first time the house was hit. "I guess the law of averages just caught up with us." Venezia and his wife, Lurinda, were home when the eastbound Honda sedan crossed the intersection and struck the house at 2:40 p.m. When we were dispatched the car was halfway through the house, said Bloomington police spokeswoman Sara Mayer. Lurinda Venezia, who was in the living room, suffered a minor arm injury and declined transportation to the hospital. Her husband was not injured. A male passenger, whose identity was not disclosed, was taken to Advocate BroMenn Medical Center, Normal, with non-life-threatening injuries, police and fire officials said. The driver, an unidentified woman, did not require medical treatment, officials said. The driver tried to turn north on Towanda, Mayer said. The car crossed through a pile of snow next to a traffic light island and a turn lane before going into the yard, Larry Venezia said. "I heard a slight noise. I could hear something was not right in the intersection," he said. Sitting at the dining room table, he started to go see. "It happened so fast, you can't do anything." The car went through a stone exterior planter and a fireplace as it broke through the wall. Its front end was crushed. Lurinda Venezia, who was sitting on a couch next to the fireplace, said she doesn't recall how she got out of the way. "I guess I was in shock," she said. The living room was strewn with debris bricks, stone, wood, drywall and shrubs and a haze of plaster dust hung in the air. The attic access panel in the bathroom down the hall, which Larry Venezia said was normally hard to budge, popped out and fell to floor possibly because of the sudden change in air pressure, he speculated. The driver was cited on charges of driving without a valid drivers license and making an improper turn, Mayer said. Waiting for a contractor to board up the floor-to-ceiling, 5-foot-wide hole, Larry Venezia was philosophical about the accident. "It is what it is," he said, noting no one was badly hurt. "It's just wood, nails and glass." BLOOMINGTON Financial records for murder suspect Kirk Zimmerman were turned over to prosecutors who are looking at the documents as potential evidence in his case. Zimmerman was in court Thursday for a hearing related to two subpoenas issued to Mid-Illini Credit Union and State Farm Bank by the state for Zimmermans accounts. Defense lawyer John Rogers objected to release of the records, saying the material is not relevant to the murder charges against the Bloomington man, who is accused of first-degree murder in the November 2014 shooting death of his ex-wife, Pamela Zimmerman. Consistent with an earlier ruling for other bank records, Judge Scott Drazewski denied the defense objection and the documents were handed over to First Assistant States Attorney Adam Ghrist. The judge also ruled the financial data will be kept under seal to maintain its confidentiality. Prosecutors also received documents submitted under a subpoena by Sprint and Comcast, and Ghrist said he may have received documents the state requested from Best Buy related to the Zimmerman case. Kirk Zimmerman, 57, is accused of killing his ex-wife at her east Bloomington office. The 53-year-old victim, an accountant and financial planner, was found Nov. 4, 2014, by Bloomington police who responded to a call from a person concerned about her well-being. She had been shot four times, said authorities. Thursdays hearing was the first time Kirk Zimmerman has been to court since he posted $200,025 in November and was released from McLean County jail, where he'd been since his arrest on July 21, 2015. According to records, the bond was paid from retirement accounts held by Kirk Zimmerman and his girlfriend, Kate Arthur. Since his release, Kirk Zimmerman has been on electronic monitoring and required to stay in his home at 2804 Park Ridge Road unless he is visiting his doctor or his lawyer. Rogers disclosed at an October hearing that Kirk Zimmerman has cancer, but did not offer any details. A report reviewed by Drazewski on Thursday showed Kirk Zimmerman has complied with conditions of his release. A March 29 hearing is scheduled to review the status of the case. SPRINGFIELD There are competing plans at the Statehouse to deal with the funding crisis facing higher education in Illinois. Because Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Democratic-controlled General Assembly haven't been able to agree on a budget for the fiscal year that began July 1, public universities and community colleges across Illinois haven't received any state funding. Likewise, the state hasn't funded Monetary Award Program grants to help low-income students at public and private colleges cover the cost of tuition. An Illinois House committee approved a bill Wednesday that would appropriate more than $397 million for MAP grants and send nearly $325 million to community colleges. However, it does not address funding for public universities. Meanwhile, Republicans in the House and Senate have introduced bills in both chambers that would fund MAP grants and community colleges as well as public universities, although schools would be funded at reduced levels. The plans, sponsored by state Rep. Dan Brady of Bloomington, whose district includes Illinois State University, and Sen. Dale Righter of Mattoon, who represents EIU, are tied to a proposal that would give the governor the authority to move money around within the state budget to cover shortfalls. They said the plans have the governor's support. Brady sits on the House Higher Education Committee, which approved the MAP grant and community college funding bill without any Republican votes. He said he voted against the bill because it doesn't include a way to pay for the appropriations and doesn't deal with funding for universities. "This bill, with all the good intentions, is not sustainable in funding right now," Brady said, adding that it will face a likely veto from Rauner if it passes both chambers. Democratic state Rep. Kelly Burke of Evergreen Park, who chairs the committee, said that higher education is a "critical service" and noted that Comptroller Leslie Munger would have the authority to prioritize payments for MAP grants and community colleges if the bill is approved. Brady and Righter said their bills would offer a more comprehensive approach. Both would spend about $1.7 billion to fund universities at 80 percent of what they received in fiscal year 2015 and community colleges at 90 percent. MAP grants would be fully funded at 2015 levels. That would all be contingent on giving the governor more authority to move money around to fill budget gaps. SPRINGFIELD The Illinois House and Senate passed a bill Thursday that would fund grants for low-income college students and send money to community colleges, but it faces a likely veto when it reaches Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's desk. Democrats say the bill would help community colleges keep their doors open and allow students who receive grants through the Monetary Award Program to stay in school. The bill, which comes with a $721.5 million price tag, doesn't deal with funding for public universities. They've also been caught up in the state's budget impasse. Republicans say the bill won't have its intended effect because there's no money to pay for it. They've offered their own plan, which would fund universities and community colleges at reduced levels and fully fund MAP grants. It's tied to a proposal that would give Rauner new authority to move money around within the budget to cover shortfalls. The bill that passed Thursday, which would devote $397 million to MAP grants and more than $324 million to community colleges, was approved without any Republican votes. Democratic Rep. Kelly Burke of Evergreen Park, who chairs the House Higher Education Committee and sponsored the bill, said it's a first step toward funding all aspects of higher education. Before the vote, she noted that the majority of House members attended a public university or community college in the state. "The people of the state of Illinois were with us when we were trying to get ahead, when we were trying to become successful, when we were trying to make a path for ourselves," Burke said, "and I think we owe it to the current students to provide that same courtesy and that same boost up." Democratic Sen. Scott Bennett of Champaign, who represents the University of Illinois, has introduced a bill that would fund public universities. Like their Republican colleagues in the House, Sens. Dale Righter of Mattoon and Chapin Rose of Mahomet said Thursday's votes showed a willingness on the part of Democrats to pass bills without funding and a lack of willingness to compromise. "We have a bill, too," Rose said at a committee hearing earlier in the day. "Ours actually has a way to pay for some of this stuff." The Republican plan would fund universities at 80 percent of what they received in fiscal year 2015 and community colleges at 90 percent. Tim Nuding, Rauner's budget director, sent a memo to lawmakers Thursday urging them to support that plan. He wrote that the GOP proposal "is far more fiscally responsible as it would help MAP students, community colleges and universities without exploding the deficit, skyrocketing the bill backlog or exacerbating the state's cash flow crisis." Despite its lack of funding for public universities, Illinois State, Eastern Illinois, Southern Illinois and Western Illinois universities, among others, expressed their support for the bill that passed Thursday. Jay Groves, chief of staff to ISU President Larry Dietz, said that although getting full funding for the current year is very important, so is supporting community colleges and making sure MAP grant recipients can continue going to school. If Rauner signs the bill, ISU would be reimbursed for the $14 million in MAP grants it has committed to fronting to students. "That's a big help," Groves said. Brooke Chilton, a senior in accounting at Illinois Wesleyan University, a private school in Bloomington, is one of 125,000 MAP grant recipients across the state. Unlike ISU, her school won't be covering the grants for the spring semester. That's left Chilton uncertain about how she'll cover that portion of her school expenses. She said she hopes Rauner signs the bill. "I understand he wants to make a difference and make Illinois better, but I just don't understand why us students have to go through the pain and suffering that we are right now because of other people's mistakes," Chilton said. Grammy-nominated musician LynnMarie Rink from Nashville, Tennessee is a mother to 9-year-old James, who was born with Down syndrome and was diagnosed with Autism three years ago. Hence, the boy communicates through iPad since the age of three and has been using the device as a learning tool. However, James' iPad started to malfunction to the point of being no longer usable. Luckily, local charity "The Fiona Rose Murphey Foundation" was kind enough to provide the boy with the help he needed to replace his broken gadget. So, Rink and his son headed off to the Apple store in Green Hills to buy one. But while on the mall, the excitement was momentarily halted after James suddenly ran into the glass wall at the Apple store. Terrified LynnMarie quickly ran to his son and sat down on the floor to comfort him. Few seconds later, one of the Apple staff came over and asked LynnMarie if there is anything he can do for them. Thus, the mother explained that they went there to buy an iPad and asked the employee if they could do the transaction on the floor as she wanted to continue comforting her son. And so, the employee did. He went back with the iPad and sat down with them on the floor. The worker set up the device and even showed the boy how to use his new gadget. The kindness of the staff really touched Rink and wrote to her Facebook, "no words to accurately describe how grateful I am." "As a special needs parent, you don't know what you're going to encounter," the mother added. "Just meet me right where I am. Don't make me stand up or stand out. We know we're not normal but we try to be. And he just sat on the floor with us." Rink initially forgot the employee's name but after her post went viral, one the Apple staff identified the kind-hearted guy as Andrew Wall. The worker further revealed that Wall has been working at the establishment since last summer. Parents dream of having their children go to a school where their educators are willing to sacrifice their lives to protect their students. That is exactly the kind of educator Susan Jordan was. According to a report from CNN, Amy Beverland Elementary School principal Susan Jordan was killed in a bus crash when she pushed away a couple of kids from harm's way. Jordan was the school principal for the Indiana elementary school for more than two decades already during her death. The beloved principal was helping some children get to their ride home when a school bus jumped the curb with two children on its path. According to the driver of the runaway bus, Jordan successfully pushed the kids out of the way but got fatally hit in the process. The driver was not sure why the bus accelerated and jumped the curb. The two 10-year-old students that Jordan saved were taken to Riley Hospital for Children for non-life-threatening injuries, according to IndyStar. The school bus that jumped the curb had 25 students on board and not one of them was injured. The Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township suspended classes for Wednesday to mourn for the death of the principal. "Susan was an amazing educator. She had a remarkable way of making everyone she came in contact with feel valued and important," read the statement from the school board. "She had a passion for children that is unmatched." Just this past May, the students and staff of the school Susan Jordan worked for as a school principal created a tribute video to celebrate her contributions for the school. "She is everything I want to be when I grow up," a woman says on the video. "She is kind. She's caring. She's compassionate. She's loving. She's sincere, and she's a professional." A man from Texas has been arrested by the police for confiscating his daughter's iPhone. The 36-year-old father was later acquitted of the misdemeanor charge by the Dallas County judge, citing "insufficient evidence." In September 2013, Ronald Jackson confiscated her then 12-year-old daughter's iPhone 4S after finding a rude and inappropriate text message. However, the child's mother and now ex-wife, Michelle Steppe, expressed disapproval to this punishment by calling the police on him. Shortly after, the police came to ask for the smartphone back. However, Jackson stood his ground. He held onto the iPhone 4S unit for three months until he received a citation in the mail for theft of property, reported Yahoo! Parenting. He was offered a plea deal in January 2014 in the condition that he return the smartphone back to his daughter. He refused, hired a lawyer and requested a jury trial. The case was moved to the Dallas County and in April 2015, Jackson was arrested and jailed. He was released after posting a bail worth US$1,500. "It made no sense to me for them to show up and make a big deal out of something that was a small thing," Jackson said. "I couldn't believe they would go to this extent for a cellphone. It didn't seem right." Jackson went into trial but was acquitted two days after because Dallas County Criminal Court Judge, Lisa Green, ordered that the jury declare the man not guilty. She said there was no sufficient evidence to convict the man of theft. Steppe, who is now married to the Grand Prairie, Texas police officer, stated that she is dissatisfied of the verdict because she is the rightful owner of the smartphone. She told WFAA that she is upset because this only proved that even if a person has paid for an item with their own money, it can still be taken by someone else. Jackson doesn't think that he can restore his relationship to his family, nor does he want to. He said: "I have to separate myself to them." Two-time Academy Awards winner, George Clooney, found the perfect Christmas gift for his parents when he and his wife Amal encountered a video of an adorable terrier online. The actor and the human rights lawyer were immediately enamored by the rescued pup that they decided to welcome him to the family. Last week, an adoption center, LuvFurMutts, published online the heartwarming story of how a terrier named Nate found his forever home. Nate has been staying the shelter for nine months after he was rescued from a hoarder. The energetic and lovable pup would've been adopted quickly if not for the birth defect on his hind legs. "When we took Nate to adoption events, people would stare and kids would point," the shelter wrote on Facebook. "Several people applied to adopt him but then said no when they met him. He was with us 9 months. The lowest point came when an adopter cried when she met him and said she would be depressed the rest of her life if she had to look at him every day." Fortunately, the Clooneys found him. The "Gravity" actor has been following the story of Nate for awhile when he decided to adopt the rescued dog for his parents. Nick and Nina Clooney have lost their terrier of ten years recently, so, finding Nate who is in dire need of a loving home was fated. The actor and filmmaker showed the videos of Nate online to Nina who immediately fell in love with the friendly fur ball. LuvFurMutts praised the A-listers for accepting Nate into their home wholeheartedly. The 54-year-old "Ocean's Eleven" star is a lover of dogs. He and his fashionable wife are parents to three dogs - all of them adopted. According to Hello Magazine, a few months ago, the A-list couple adopted a four-year-old basset hound mix named Millie who was found by rescuers wandering the streets for food scraps weeks before the Clooneys chanced upon her profile on Petfinder. This service applies to you if your subscription has not yet expired on our old site. You will have continued access until your subscription expires; then you will need to purchase an ongoing subscription through our new system. Please contact the Parsons Sun office at (620) 421-2000 if you have any questions Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. FXs hit anthology series American Horror Story is taking an internet meme where it has never gone before. Us Weekly broke the news about the cable series potential season six plot yesterday, revealing that Ryan Murphy planned to shift the shows focus for the upcoming season to the internet urban legend Slenderman. The legends origins go back to 2009, where it first appeared in the Something Awful forum. The large, ominous black-suited character is known for its chilling appearance and stalking children. A figure with a rapid rise to internet fame, Slenderman appeared in video games, stories and television series before landing itself at the center of a real-life murder that saw two 12-year-old girls stab their friend. The story has a few hurdles to jump before production can start. Eric Knudsen owns the rights to the character, which means that Murphy will have to work out usage issues surrounding the titular character. Theres also the problem of the script not having been written by Murphy himself. Someone else wrote the script, and AHS wants to adapt it to fit the show, an insider told the magazine. They have to buy the rights. Then theyre going to figure out the cast from there. Hopefully this isnt some scary internet hoax, as it has immense potential to be a spine-tingling story arc. Millions of tourists visit the Dominican Republic each year for its pristine beaches, merengue music and high quality rum, but many visitors dont get to see the real thing. Packaged holidays and all-inclusive deals confine travelers to the resorts that stud the coastline in towns like Punta Cana and Puerto Plata. Overrun with chain hotels and tacky restaurants, these places do little to show off the countrys rich cultural heritage. But with crime rates dropping and more roads being built, other areas of the island are opening up. The Samana Peninsula in the north is of particular interest and is large enough to keep you busy for at least a week. With a bounty of natural attractions, cute towns and untouched beaches, plan your visit now before it gets discovered. The jewel in the crown that any Samana resident will proudly tell you about is Cascada El Limon (pictured above), a 171-foot-high waterfall hidden deep within the folds of steep trails and rough terrain. Its not too far from the main road and can be reached either on foot or horseback. Winding through farmland, narrow paths and river banks, the trail eventually leads you to the top of the waterfall, where stone steps take you back down to the bottom. Locals and travelers alike bathe in its natural swimming pool, despite the waters often-cold temperatures. Pack a picnic and pull up a log or stop at the top for a snack in the shack; it might not look like much, but they offer anything from cocktails to lobster while local artisans sell their wares and horses graze in the shade. As of now, the Samana Peninsula is home to many deserted beaches. On the far side of Playa Bonita is a hidden cove where local fishermen roam, bucket in hand. Houses with well-manicured lawns dot the edge of this section of the beach, and a surf school runs courses year-round. Go a little further and youll soon have the beach to yourself, without a building or human in sightexcept for the passing few who sell Presidente beers out of coolers. Keep walking to reach Playa Coson, where small restaurants await. Order anything off the grill and admire the view while sipping a pina colada out of a freshly foraged pineapple. Las Terrenas is a little fishing village that in the last two decades has attracted a wave of expats to its shores without scaring off the locals. Start your morning at the French bakery, Boulangerie Francaise, where fresh croissants and coffee ensure a bustling trade every day of the week. Next, visit the old fish market; the goods are caught on the beach and sold steps away, ensuring freshness. Boatloads of fishermen go in and out throughout the day, hauling in buckets of tuna, lobster, shrimp and sardines. Some of them run shacks on the beach where they grill that days catch and serve it to passers-by with rice or fried plantain. For a more refined evening out, XO serves cocktails and tapas-style dishes like serrano-wrapped lobster on its chic beachfront terrace. If the beaches already mentioned arent remote enough for you, head south to the town of Samana and convince a fisherman to take you over to Cayo Levantado, a tiny speck of paradise in the Samana Bay. Most of the island is part of a luxury hotel, but non-guests can enjoy the beaches, restaurants and amenities. The currents can be dangerous so dont swim out too far while snorkelinga must-do for fans of sparkling marine life. The sand is as fine as salt and as white as snow, and the water glistens emerald. Several inland spots offer rum cocktails, lobster grills and fine cigars as well as artisan craftsenough to keep you occupied until the last boat back to the mainland. Some of the best fish on the Peninsula can be found at Playa Rincon. On the east side near Las Galerasanother small fishing villagethis spot is well-hidden, but if you know where youre going and you keep a close eye out for the road sign, youll get there eventually. Playa Rincon is even wilder than Playa Bonita; the only sign of development here is a fish shack on the beach and a cabin further up the hill. The underwater life is also more animated here. Take a seat on one of the benches inside the beachs makeshift restaurant and try grilled lobster, whole fish or huge shrimp, then succumb to the sweet calls of the girl with the coconut bread winding her way up and down the beach. Zosia Swidlicka is a traveler that writes. With homes all over Europe, she is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Our medias cultural mirror has rapidly evolved during the last half-decade to reflect a more realistic myriad of non-heterosexual experiences. From asexual to pansexual, its refreshing to see those often kept in the dark given the spotlight. Whats more, were seeing LGBT characters developed beyond the caging tropes and harmful stereotypes that have plagued them for decades. Queer-focused stories arent required to center on suppressed identity, taboo love affairs or tragic deaths. Profound coming-of-age stories, hilarious tales of revenge and quirky romances can also belong to those not straight of heart. Telling an honest, nuanced and engaging story is difficult enough without the responsibility of depicting a frequently misrepresented community. From shorts and documentaries to non-English language features and film festival darlings, these movies boast not only a compelling narrative, but expertly (and respectfully) highlight the diverse experiences of the LGBT population. Here are five films released since 2010 that dont just challenge perceptions of queer sexuality, but remind us that a life lived less straight isnt a life lived less humorously, adventurously, or underwhelmingly ordinary. By default, being a twenty-something is messywhether its dealing with crumbling relationships, jobs youre too inexperienced for or the lies you tell to appease your parents. Desiree Akhavan explores that universal experience of untangling our identities in 2014s Appropriate Behavior. Shirin is a secretly bisexual woman fresh out of a break-up and dedicated to getting ?over her ex-girlfriend. But Shirins dispirited attempts to push every aspect of her life back on track fall awkwardly and disappointingly flat at every turn. Shirin can talk her way into a job and a date, but can she keep either? Appropriate Behavior follow one womans journey through life telling everyone shes an adult until she accidentally becomes one. Rather deftly, Akhavans film serves as a commentary on translationthe differences between the language we use, the things we actually mean, and how it all gets twisted. The narrative plays with Shirins identitiesas an Iranian, a woman, a millennial, and a bisexualsometimes hilariously, other times rather poignantly. All 86 minutes of the film are spent watching Akhavans character desperately and unsuccessfully try to say what she wants. But as the responsibilities, one night stands and brush-ins with her ex mount, Shirin begins to realize that the real trick to communication is taking the time to understand yourself before trying to communicate that to someone else. Appropriate Behavior is undoubtedly a comedy, but also a heartfelt look at how we learn to say what we mean and be who we are. For the general public, sexuality exists on a concrete spectrum: straight and gay. But there are those who live in the in-between, the place where gender attraction becomes a blurred mess of sometimes, only if, and not at all. Angela Tuckers documentary, (A)sexual, centers on the latter category, a diverse community of people who arent sexually attracted to anyone, ever. Through first person accounts, interview clips, and research data, (A)sexual explores the larger social and scientific discourse surrounding the queer communitys most confounding orientation. As the film asks viewers to investigate the mechanics of their own desire, arousal, intimacy and attraction, a larger discussion unfolds about what place physical romance has in a relationship and where a sex-less identity fits into our sex-driven culture. In addition to challenging the idea that asexuals are broken, Tucker thoroughly examines what it means to identify with that label. The film shines most, however, in its ability to re-shape general conversation around the boundaries and expectations of love. Are physical and emotional intimacy necessary to sustain a lasting bond? How do you attain (and maintain) a partnership when typical feelings of desire, arousal and attraction dont guide your relationship? If loves definition cant be concretely defined, why are we so insistent that sex is a part of it? (A)sexual picks apart how we define normal relationship behavior by questioning our unflinching acceptance of sex without love, and our hesitancy to conceptualize love without sex. A small-town Kentucky teen trying to find the one gets caught in a sexually confusing, but totally endearing love triangle in Eric Schaeffers Boy Meets Girl. Ricky is a town beauty, known for her outspokenness, wit, fashion sense and being trans. When the equally beautiful Francesca arrives in town for her engagement, shes drawn to Rickys charismatic nature. The connection begins as a simple and effortless friendship, but both girls find their mutual interests and understandings quickly morph into something more. The budding relationship gets complicated when Rickys best friend becomes jealous, and Francescas fiance finds out. As Ricky balances falling in love and making her dreams come true, she finds that the one thing shes been looking for is right in front of her. We tend to unconsciously politicize transgender films, but Boy Meets Girl dodges that bullet entirely. The films ability to be nothing but a sincere romance with a dash of quirky humor makes it a stand out among the handful of trans-oriented film offerings. From having the sex talk with your best friend to your first time with the towns beautiful newcomer, Boy Meets Girl celebrates the frivolity and fragility of young love and young dreams. At the same time, Boy Meets Girl doesnt shy away from its main characters identity. Instead, its used as a lens to explore the sometimes over-complicated nature of sexual identity. At the end of the day, Schaeffers film is a touching, sweet and fearless portrayal of women falling in love. This American Film Institute thesis film follows a young trans tween as she transitions into a new environment. When we first see Stealths Sammy, shes stuffing her bra in a womens changing room. This moment, like many others in the film, is a glaring metaphor for Sammys internal tension over fitting in at her new school. See, this isnt her first rodeo, and shes terrified of having to go to yet another new school if her secret is revealed. But when Sammy meets two girls and they immediately like Sammy, she feels that this time could be different. Then Sammy gets the ultimate girlhood invitationa sleepover invite. While Sammy is eager to go, her mother is fiercely opposed, terrified by the threat of exposure it presents. But Sammy is determined to live her life wholly as girl. If she doesnt go to this sleepover, how will she ever truly fit in as the person she is? A film festival hit, Stealth is a well-executed story about the fears and desires young girls face during a pivotal period of growth. Sammy is a trans girl, which we often equate to having an entirely separate set of femalehood issues than cis girls face. While Stealth manages to realistically and respectfully demonstrate Sammys unique experience, director Bennett Lasseter and writer Melissa Hoppe challenge notions about who gets to have what narrative. In that sense, much of what we see isnt an experience of a trans girl, but a genuine look at a pivotal time when tween identities are both impressionable for and imperative to social survival. The gateway to girlhood is full of challenges, from gossip and fights with your mother, to girls-only parties and finding true friends. Sammy navigates the maze with grace and veracity, unwilling to compromise who she isa strength admirable at any age. Based on Daniel Ribeiros 2010 short I Dont Want to Go Back Alone, the Brazilian drama The Way He Looks (Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho) follows one teens ingenious coming-of-age story. Consistency is at the center of Leos world, from weekly visits with his grandmother to the walk home from school with his best friend, Giovana. Thats because Leo is blind, a condition that makes adapting to unforeseen changes difficult. As the high schoolers desire for self-sufficiency grows, his behavior begins to confuse and alienate those closest to him. Much of that growing disconnect stems from his new friendship with Gabriel, a boy whose innocent insensitivity towards Leos visual impairment forces the shy teen out of a stifling routine. Ribeiros exploration of the experiences that catapult us through the complicated throes of teenhood is at times subtle, but always grounded and ultimately the films greatest strength. When and how do we become independent from our parents? What type of verbal or physical commitments does a relationship require? Where is the line between friendship and something more? And most interestingly, what does it say about the biology of sexuality, and the chemistry of love, when you cant see the person youre attracted to? The Way He Looks is no traditional tale of growing up. Its a tender illustration of the coming out we all experience as we cross the threshold of young adulthood. Abbey White is currently between a post-bacc journalism program and graduate school. She contributes to geek and entertainment sites The Mary Sue and ScreenSpy when shes not busy bingeing Netflix or running around some comic con. You can follow her on twitter. Han Solo is returning to the Star Wars universe to celebrate the franchises commercial success, and Disneylands anniversary, in a major way. Disney has announced plans for Harrison Ford to appear in The Wonderful World of Disney: Disneyland 60 TV special, which will celebrate 60 years of the theme park. The iconic actor is slated to reveal the companys plans for several Star Wars attractions. According to an ABC press release, Disneyland in Anaheim and Disneys Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World in Florida will be privy to construction for the new themed attractions. Most of the parks upcoming rides for the record shattering franchise have been kept under wraps. However, it is clear the lands will feature attractions centering on a Millennium Falcon flight and a battle between the First Order and the Resistance. The two-hour Derek Hough hosted special, scheduled to air on Feb. 21, will also feature appearances by Elton John, Josh Gad and Witney Carson. Thanks to a booming U.S. currency, Americans abroad can stretch their dollar a whole lot more this year. For instance, trips to mainland Europe are 20 percent cheaper in some countries, Japan is surprisingly reasonable and greenback users can get double their money in Brazil and South Africa. If youve ever wanted to visit one of the above or especially the below, consider making 2016 the year you do it. Its still cheap but not as cheap as it used to be, remarked my friend James after returning from Thailand recently. Enter Vietnam. With a similar Asian flavor at half of what it costs to jaunt through its trendier neighbor, the slender country on the South China Sea is brimming with inviting beaches, Buddhist pagodas, placid rivers and terraced rice fields. Trademarks also include pho noodles and those killer conical hats. Best time to visit: Spring or Fall. Not in Western Europe and notably cheaper than before. Thats about the only thing Estonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Hungary have in common. But that doesnt mean you shouldnt care. From the rocky beaches and old-growth forests of Estonia, the Balkan mountains and outdoor turquoise of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to the timeless Danube River and neoclassical buildings of Hungary, theres a lot to learn and a lot to like from all three. Best time to visit: May to September. Oh, Canada! Dont be so apologetic. You are adorable, good-looking, and huge the second largest country in the world. You are peculiar enough to remind visiting U.S. citizens that theyre no longer in the States, but familiar enough to make them feel as welcome as they would in a second home. You are friendly, your great outdoors are some of the greatest Ive seen and youre 20% cheaper than you were before. Take our money, good neighbor. Take it! Best time to visit: April to October. Not long ago, Turkey was a steal. Then its economy spiked and tourism picked up (good for them, bad for globe trekkers). Today, this rich cultural bridge between Europe and Western Asia is affordable once more25% cheaper than it was last year. If America is the melting pot of the world, Turkey is the melting pot of Greek, Persian, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires. Old and new, together as one. Best time to visit: Spring or Fall. Book a trip to gorgeous Cancun, and it wont be much cheaper than California or Florida. Venture anywhere outside of the tourist towns, however, and youll enjoy prices that are 30 percent less. With those substantial savings, you can enjoy even more beaches, mountains, deserts, jungles, ancient ruins, humble company and the worlds most agreeable cuisine. Gracias, Mexico. Te queremos. Best time to visit: October to May. Photo: Images Money, CC-BY Off the Grid columnist Blake Snow writes epic stories for fancy publications and Fortune 500 companies. Follow him on Twitter. With refugees making headlines around the world, Kathleen Spivacks Unspeakable Things proves remarkably timely. The lyrical novel explores the lives of European refugees during the later years of World War II, the efforts made within the diaspora to save lives back home and the struggle to release a traumatizing past. These elements combine to make Spivacks novel at once jarring, magical and undoubtedly essential. Herbert Hofrat and his wife Adeline were prominent members of Viennese society before the war, enjoying an idyllic life with their sons David and Michael. But when the war forced them to flee, Herbert made an unspecified deal with the authorities that resulted in the loss of his son Michael in exchange for his familys escape. Adeline was driven to hospitalization by grief and guilt, all while her husband, son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren lived in a cramped apartment in Manhattan. Herbert soon sets himself up as a fixer for fellow refugees, the kind of man who can pull strings to get family and loved ones safely out of Europe. But hes surprised when his beloved second cousin Anna, or The Rat, arrives in New York City. The two were childhood friends and had maintained sporadic communication while The Rat was in Russia, where she married into the nobility before the fall of the monarchy. Hunched due to a spinal deformity, The Rat has a unique power to draw in other people, a lively sense of humor and a life story touched by immense danger. The other characters in Unspeakable Things complex web are a doctor who serves the Nazi regime, Herberts son David, who works as a translator in Washington, and a string quartetall of whom lost a finger before fleeing to Vienna. It takes most of the story for each individual thread to weave together, building to the end of the war and a remarkable resolution. Spivacks writing is moving, but her magical realism takes a few chapters to understand. Unspeakable Things jumps across decades, into memories, between continents and among characters. This can be disorienting early on, and its not always possible to establish the lines between reality and perception. The world she creates for her small segment of the diaspora is dark, defined by constantly looking back at traumas survived and losses endured. The handprints of lovers stay on the skin for decades, severed fingers develop their own habits while away from hands and ghosts mingle with the living. Once Spivacks characters begin interacting, however, they form a community with a complex history. The magical elements of the story are then able to serve the plot as a whole, manifesting the deep struggles of each character. The past is a living and visible facet of the story, something to lean on as a crutch against the future. For Adeline, the ghost of her dead son keeps her trapped in a cycle of hallucination and rage, while The Rat is marked by a two-week love affair with Rasputin. Spivack maintains the perfect balance between revelation and secrecy. The book is at its most rich when focused tightly on the interior life of a characteror on the string quartets four characters. Their lives, values and pains come into sharp clarity through Spivacks writing, yet she leaves much to the imagination. Through the final pages, words still remain unspoken and doors remain closed. The sense that these characters control how much is known about the lives they left behind builds tension that would otherwise become mere shock value. Even as the past looms heavily over each individual, Spivack allows glimmers of hopethe promise of escape, of purpose, of the ability to reconcile an anguished past with an unknown future. Spivack ultimately conveys the belief that things can never be the same, yet she hints that what is to come just might transform into something beautiful. Bridey Heing is a freelance writer based in Washington, DC. More of her work can be found here. Last week I had a chance to visit the only eastern rite parish of my diocese, the Melkite Church of Saint Ignatios of Antioch in Augusta, Georgia. The Melkite Church traces its roots to the ancient city of Antioch where Saint Peter himself founded a Christian community before going to Rome. It was in Antioch that disciples of Jesus were first called Christians, and its third bishop, Saint Ignatius, was the first to describe the Church as Catholic. The Melkite Church received that name after the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) where not all Christians recognized the teachings of the Council. Those living within the Eastern Roman Empire (or Byzantine Empire) who accepted the teachings, along with the emperor, became known as Melkites, derived from the Syriac word malko which means royal or kingly. Use of this term distinguished those who followed the orthodox teaching of Chalcedon (which was supported by the emperor) from those Churches who did not recognize Chalcedon, primarily its teaching on the two natures of Christ. Today, the Churches that did not recognize the Council of Chalcedon are known as the Oriental Orthodox or non-Chalcedonian Churches such as the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church, and Syrian Orthodox Church. I visited Saint Ignatios for the first time when I was a senior in high school. My religion teacher, who was a parishioner of Saint Ignatios, invited us to attend Divine Liturgy. As an eighteen year old Catholic who had only twice visited a non-Roman Catholic Church, I was stunned by the beauty of Saint Ignatios. Every inch of its walls and ceiling had icons. I was drawn into the mystery of the liturgy as Father Dan Munn chanted in tones I had never heard before, and everyone responded joyfully. I recall putting the booklet with the prayers down and simply watching the mystery unfold before me. During that Divine Liturgy, eleven years after my first communion, for the first time, I was struck with an unquestionable conviction that Jesus Christ truly is present in the bread and wine which become his body and blood. I had always believed it, but as we prayed together the prayer before communion of the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, I had no doubt that the words of Jesus Christ were true, this is my body this is my blood. I share with you this beautiful prayer. A prayer through which Christ strengthened my belief in His true presence in the Eucharist: I believe and confess, Lord, that You are truly the Christ, the Son of the living God, who came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first. I also believe that this is truly Your pure Body and that this is truly Your precious Blood. Therefore, I pray to You, have mercy upon me, and forgive my transgressions, voluntary and involuntary, in word and deed, known and unknown. And make me worthy without condemnation to partake of Your pure Mysteries for the forgiveness of sins and for life eternal. Amen. Loving Master, Lord Jesus Christ, my God, let not these holy Gifts be to my condemnation because of my unworthiness, but for the cleansing and sanctification of soul and body and the pledge of the future life and kingdom. It is good for me to cling to God and to place in Him the hope of my salvation. Receive me today, Son of God, as a partaker of Your mystical Supper. I will not reveal Your mystery to Your adversaries. Nor will I give You a kiss as did Judas. But as the thief I confess to You: Lord, remember me in Your kingdom. The prayer is very much in the spirit of the publicans prayer. Its a prayer that recognizes the mystery of the Eucharist, and allows one to approach it aware of ones own sinfulness and need for mercy. I find the last two lines very intimate, I will not reveal Your mystery to Your adversaries. Nor will I give You a kiss as did Judas. These words express total fidelity to Jesus Christ and utmost respect for the mysteries that occur during the liturgy. This is a simple, yet beautiful prayer that opened up my soul to be convinced that the Eucharist is the greatest gift Jesus has given us, and one that must be approached with awe are reverence. Pictures are mine, all rights reserved. Today we remember one of the greatest minds who ever lived, Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). Despite all his intellectual work and writing, towards the end of his life Saint Thomas had a mystical experience which led him to say, All that I have written seems like straw compared to what has now been revealed to me. Born in Roccasecca Italy, he was the nephew of the Count of Aquino. His father envisioned him becoming the abbot of the nearby prestigious Benedictine Abbey of Montecassino, but Thomas felt called elsewhere. He shocked his family by not following this path, but by joining the new mendicant Dominican Order. The family felt disgraced. Thomas, rather than living comfortably at Montecassino wielding great spiritual and temporal power, would have to beg for his food, relying entirely on others for his subsistence. The family must have been pleasantly surprised at how Thomas life transpired. Saint Thomas became a celebrated professor at the University of Paris. Tensions arose as he introduced Aristotelian philosophy into the curriculum and a power struggle emerged between diocesan and religious priests at the university. Recognized by the universal church for his great mind and heart, he was asked to compose the liturgy for Corpus Christi and died he in 1274 as he prepared to participate at the Ecumenical Council of Lyon, France. I have attended two institutions that bear his name, Aquinas High School in Augusta, Georgia, and The Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome. Even though I barely became acquainted with Saint Thomas in high school, I certainly learned to appreciate his work in college and seminary. In 2009 I visited his hometown of Roccasecca high on a mountain overlooking Aquino and the Mediterranean Sea. A few years before that, I visited Toulouse, France where Saint Dominic began the Dominican Order. While there, I went to the Church of the Jacobins where Saint Thomas is buried. Pictures are mine, all rights reserved. In his homily on the annual ecumenical Vespers to close the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity at St Pauls Outside the Walls, Pope Francis apologized for the wrongs committed by Catholics against other Christians. Speaking as Bishop of Rome and leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis asked for mercy and forgiveness on account of the non-evangelical behavior on the part of Catholics toward their separated brethren. He also called on Catholics to forgive wrongs done to them by other Christians. We can not undo what has been, but we will not allow the weight of past sins continue to pollute our relationships. The mercy of God renewed our relationships. This echoes the formal apologies led by Pope St John Paul II on Ash Wednesday of the Jubilee Year 2000 in St Peters basilica. Should a pope, or for that matter, should any Catholic apologize to Protestants for the persecutions of the past? First it should be made clear that the pope is not apologizing for the Catholic Church or for the eternal claims of the Catholic Church. Hes taking responsibility for the actions of individual Catholics down the ages who persecuted their non Catholic brothers and sisters. Even so, is this a legitimate thing to do? Can one person apologize for the sins of another? Yes. Its a perfectly good and decent thing to do, and it was a magnificent step forward when Pope St John Paul II did this in 2000, and it is wonderful to see Pope Francis follow in his footsteps. It is possible to express regret and sorrow over the sins of the past because we are one body and often the sins committed by individual Catholics were done in the name of their religion. Were crimes committed against Protestants by Catholics? You bet. Check out the St Bartholomews Day Massacre Should Catholics be horrified and ashamed of what happened in the name of their religion? Of course. Should the Pope, as head of the church admit these wrongs and seek forgiveness? Absolutely. After all, seeking forgiveness and saying Sorry is the foundation stone of the Christian faith. Continue Reading Image via Flickr Patna: Nearly a hundred students of Patna Women's College on Wednesday protested outside the campus on Bailey Road after the college administration denied them filling their form for the third year honors examination. The temper flared even more when the students were not allowed to meet with the Principal, reports said. "Today is the deadline to fill the form without paying any penalty. From tomorrow, we will be required to pay the fine. This is the first time students have not been allowed to fill the form even after submitting their medical report as required by the college," said the protestors. PWC Principal Sister Mary Jessie, however, told the reporters that the college had this policy of not allowing students to appear in the exam if they did not satisfy the minimum 75% attendance rule. "The students who have less than 75% attendance record have been stopped from filling their forms and take the exams. If the university administration wishes to act otherwise, it needs to let us know," the Principal said. A delegation of the students who then met with the Governor's Principal Secretary told him that the college never cared about the attendance before and after the sent-up test so many students chose to skip college during that period. "This has never been done before and if the college had changed the rules midway then it should have notified the students accordingly," said a student. Patna: Students of Patna Art College on Wednesday sat on a dharna to protest against the beating of some of their colleagues by the students of Patna College in an incident that occurred when the entire nation was celebrating India's 66th Republic Day last Tuesday. According to the reports, several students of Patna Art College were participating in a Republic Day function at Patna College when some hostel students started to misbehave with the girls students. When other students from Patna Art College tried to intervene, they were roughed up by the hostel goons. As if that was not enough, these thugs who occupy Patna University hostels in the garb of being students then chased the fleeing Art College students all the way to Patna Art College where they beat up the students again and also vandalized the property. A sense of fear prevails at the Patna Art College. Dr. Chandra Bhushan Srivastava, the college Principal, has lodged an FIR against unidentified Patna College Students. It may be recalled that both Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav have repeatedly denied the accusation of the return of 'Jungle Raj' in Bihar and had said that no criminal will be spared under the Nitish-Lalu-Congress rule in the state. US Hawks Ignore Top Israeli Official on Iran 01/28/16 By Ali Gharib (source: LobeLog) Last week, Israels top military official made some staggering comments during the course of a security conference in Tel Aviv. Heres how The Forwards JJ Goldberg reported the comments of Lieutenant General Gadi Eisenkot, Israels chief of staff, which seem as of yet to be unavailable in a full English translation from the original Hebrew: Eisenkot said there were two existential threats to Israel, and both are currently declining. One was the threat of nonconventional weaponry, including both Irans nuclear program and Syrian chemical weapons... First, he said Israel faces no existential threats right now, because Obamas Iran nuclear deal has removed the greatest threat to Israels existence... As for the Iranian nuclear agreement, he said it is a strategic turning point that includes many risks but also opportunities. These comments should be unremarkable, since Israels security establishment has long givensupport, if cautious support, to diplomacy with Iran and the accord reached as a result. But Eisenkots remarks are still worth pointing out because of the sad state of affairs in the American discourse about Iran. The Silence of the Hawks Take, for example, the many adherents of a right-wing pro-Israel worldview-including Washingtons neoconservatives. They now dominate the Republican Party and make up a large, pro-Israel circle of hawks in the Democratic Party as well-both on Capitol Hill and beyond. What are the chances that this esteemed class of commentators, pundits, and politicians will even begin to address the remarks that Eisenkot just made? Allow me this bold prediction: few if any will deign to address them at all. Im guessing, for example, that this news item wont be linked in newsletters from neocon groups like the Israel Project and the Foreign Policy Initiative, which focus heavily on Iran and Israel matters. And I certainly cant imagine theyll appear in the neoconservative publications-Commentary, The Weekly Standard , and so on-that supply hawkish and Republican Washington with its talking points. These groups, pundits, and politicians have all roundly opposed the Iran nuclear deal, sometimes on the very grounds that it makes Israel less safe. Take, for example, Lindsey Graham, the trigger-happy South Carolina Republican Senator, who said immediately after the Iran deal that it was akin to declaring war on Sunni Arabs and Israel by the P5+1. Thats right: hes saying that the deal was so bad for Israels security that it was tantamount to America, the United Kingdom, France, China, Russia, and German all declaring war against Israel! What will Graham have to say about Eisenkots remarks? Im guessing well never find out-he and his hawkish friends are unlikely ever to address it. One might be able to forgive this hawkish constellation for taking the view they did: they were merely taking cues from Israels right-wing government and its American lobbyists. This agreement is not just bad for Israel, its dangerous for the entire free world, said the right-wing Israeli official Danny Danon. Giving the worlds largest supporter of terrorism a free pass in developing nuclear weapons is like providing a pyromaniac with matches. (Of course, precisely zero nuclear experts think that this deal gives Iran a free pass to develop nuclear weapons, but never mind.) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was just as blunt: This is a very dangerous deal and it threatens all of us. My solemn responsibility as prime minister is to make sure Israels concerns are heard, he said, appealing to American Jews to oppose the accord. Israeli Ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer, who looks out for Israels interests first, lobbied hard on Capitol Hill against the deal. Accordingly, pro-Israel activists the country over took the cues and ran with them. One group of Jewish activists in Pittsburgh even warned that the deal would hasten a Second Holocaust in Israel. Will Danon, Netanyahu, Dermer, and these Pittsburgh activists acknowledge Eisenkots remarks this week? Count me doubtful. The Ottolenghi Intervention One neoconservative pundit did address the concerns of Israels security establishment. When an Israeli strike against Iran was still considered a live issue, Emanuele Ottolenghi of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies made the point that Israel could definitely still attack Iran (theres more than a hint of hopefulness in his analysis). His argument, made in the Israel Projects publication, The Tower, came before the deal had been struck, but was nonetheless headlined, How A Weak Iran Deal Makes Us All Less Safe and War More Likely. When he finally got around to responding to those members of the security establishment-at this time, mostly former officials who had come out against the prospect of an Israeli attack-he simply dismissed them: Retired Mossad and Military Intelligence officials voicing views in public that they could not express while in service hold the same value as similar opinions, authored by former U.S. Secretaries of State or National Security Advisers, about where the Obama Administrations foreign policy can or cannot go. Though theyre often well known, some with political stars in their eyes, or scores to settle, rarely are these voices considered evidence of policy. Ah, you see these former officials, with their political ambitions or scores to settle are soooooooo unreliable. Ironically, Ottolenghi cites some of their peers opining in the opposite direction, both understating the prevalence of the anti-attack view among the security establishment and ignoring the possibility that these officials, too, could be motivated by other factors. What makes Ottolenghi of Eisenkots position-that is, the current head of Israels military? Im not holding my breath to find out. Neoconservatives and other right-wing pro-Israel hawks have ignored the fact that some (current) officials from Israels security establishment never viewed Iran-even armed with a nuclear bomb-as an existential threat. They have instead taken whatever Netanyahu says as articles of faith, faithfully repeating his talking points across any number of media and platforms. Of course, everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. But that these right-wing activists and agitators who rely so heavily on whining about Israels security dont dare to take on Eisenkots positions speaks volumes about how seriously-and to what ends-they consider these issues. I hope they think of this as a challenge: Will any of them soberly remark on what the head of Israels military has to say about how the Iran nuclear deal has made Israel safer? Follow LobeLog on Twitter and Facebook About the Author: Ali Gharib is a New York-based journalist on U.S. foreign policy with a focus on the Middle East and Central Asia. His work has appeared at Inter Press Service, where he was the Deputy Washington Bureau Chief; the Buffalo Beast; Huffington Post; Mondoweiss; Right Web; and Alternet. He holds a Master's degree in Philosophy and Public Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science. A proud Iranian-American and fluent Farsi speaker, Ali was born in California and raised in D.C. Wife Of American Pastor Freed By Iran Seeks Legal Separation 01/28/16 Source: RFE/RL The wife of Saeed Abedini, an American pastor freed on January 16 from an Iranian prison as part of a prisoner swap, is seeking to legally separate from her husband. On the same day Abedini returned to his home in the U.S. state of Idaho, court documents show that his wife, Naghmeh Panahi, filed a petition for separation. Naghmeh Panahi with her husband Saeed Abedini in a family photo Naghmeh Abedini previously told supporters that her husband had been abusive and suffered from a pornography addiction. She told Reuters on January 27 that her husband had threatened to end their marriage if she did not take steps to repair his public image. "I sincerely had hoped that this horrible situation Saeed has had to go through would bring about the spiritual change needed in both of us to bring healing to our marriage," she said on Facebook. "Tragically, the opposite has occurred." Saeed Abedini, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was jailed by Iran in 2013 for allegedly compromising Iran's national security by setting up home-based Christian churches there. He was one of five Americans released in a prisoner exchange as Washington lifted sanctions on Tehran in return for Iran curbing its nuclear ambitions. Based on reporting by Reuters and AP Copyright (c) 2016 RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org Russian Oil Execs Agree To Talk With OPEC About Boosting Prices 01/28/16 Source: RFE/RL Russian oil executives and energy officials decided this week they should talk to Saudi Arabia and the OPEC oil cartel about cutting output to boost world oil prices, the head of Russia's pipeline monopoly said on January 27. "If you cannot afford cola with your sandwich, drink oil." cartoon by Mohammad Tahani, Iranian daily Arman The comments by Nikolai Tokarev, head of Transneft, gave the strongest indication to date of possible cooperation between the cartel and Russia, the top non-OPEC oil producer, and helped spur a sharp rise of more than 5 percent in world oil prices. A vice president of Lukoil, Russia's No. 2 oil producer, said earlier this week that Moscow should start talking to OPEC. Tokarev said oil executives and government officials met in Moscow on January 26 and reached the conclusion that talks with OPEC were needed to shore up oil prices. "At the meeting, there was discussion in particular about the oil price and what steps we should take collectively to change the situation for the better, including negotiations within the framework of OPEC as a whole, and bilaterally," he said. "The main initiative is being shown by, of course, our Saudi partners. They are the main negotiators. That means that they are the ones we need to discuss this with first of all." He said Russia is willing to discuss output cuts with OPEC, calling that "one of the levers or mechanisms that would allow us to in some way balance the oil price." The oil executives meeting in Moscow, moreover, discussed the technical feasibility of cutting production in Russia, he said, and agreed that because oil field activities are frozen in during the winter, production cuts would only be possible in the summer. A Russian Energy Ministry representative confirmed to Reuters that possible coordination with OPEC had been discussed at the meeting, which the ministry hosted. "The meeting participants discussed the possibility of coordination of actions with OPEC members amid unfavorable market conditions on the global oil market," the official said. Premium crude prices have fallen from around $115 a barrel in the middle of 2014 to a little above $30, causing problems for oil producers everywhere, from bankrupting shale producers in the United States to forcing first-time reforms such as the elimination of expensive energy subsidies in wealthy Persian Gulf states. In Russia, the price collapse along with economic sanctions imposed by the West over the crisis in Ukraine has pushed the economy into recession and severely depleted government revenues. Hard-hit Venezuela and other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries want coordinated output cuts to push up prices, and they have been pressing Russia to play its part. But Russian officials have always resisted such calls in the past, citing the futility of trying to counter entrenched market trends like the current downturn. A Kremlin spokesman told Reuters on January 27 that while Russia holds regular discussions with other oil-producers on the situation in world markets, there are no plans as of now for coordinated actions. Thus it would be a major reversal for Russia if discussions with OPEC begin in earnest following this week's apparent agreement among oil executives in Moscow. Russian production reached a new post-Soviet high in December of 10.80 million barrels per day. That puts it in the same league as Saudi Arabia, OPEC's biggest producer, which also pumps more than 10 million barrels a day. Agreeing to output cuts would also be a big change for OPEC, which accounts for one-third of global output. The cartel failed to agree to any cuts at a meeting last month, with the Saudis and other participants sticking to their game plan of maintaining output to maintain their market share and drive out high-cost shale producers in North America. The meeting broke up in disarray after Iran, previously kept from international markets by Western sanctions, insisted on its right to dramatically increase production by up to 1 million barrels a day with the lifting of sanctions this year. Economists estimate that suppliers already are producing about 1.5 million barrels per day more than global consumers need. That has produced a glut of oil on world markets so acute that some countries are running out of space to store it cheaply. So far, within OPEC, only Algeria and Venezuela have clearly expressed support for a production cut. However, Iraq, OPEC's second-biggest producer after Saudi Arabia, softened its stance this week, saying it is now willing to reduce its output if all major producers inside and outside of OPEC agree. Iraq, like Iran, has been ramping up production and hit record production levels last month, in a development that shook markets and sent oil prices spiraling lower earlier this week. But while Russia and Iraq now seem more willing to tighten the oil spigot, Iran remains bent on increasing production, leading many analysts to be skeptical that any agreement on output cuts is on the way. With reporting by Reuters and TASS Copyright (c) 2016 RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org Iran's Rouhani Visits Paris as Part of 'Charm Offensive' 01/28/16 By Bernard Shusman, VOA Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived in France Wednesday - the first official visit of an Iranian president there since 1999. Rouhani flew in from Italy where he closed business deals worth $18.5 billion. He is expected to do likewise in France. Iran's President Hassan Rouhani arrives in Paris, France, Jan. 27, 2016. (photo by Iran's President Hassan Rouhani arrives in Paris, France, Jan. 27, 2016.(photo by Islamic Republic News Agency The visits come after the sanctions were lifted from the Islamic Republic as part of an agreement with six major powers limiting Iran's nuclear development. Hes back in business. Thats the bottom line," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist of First Standard Financial company. "So hes going to sell whatever he can. Certainly Europe is the place for him to be and also in emerging markets, more so than the United States. A charm offensive! declared Iranian expert Richard Nephew, former State Department official and now program director at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy. He told VOA that a primary objective of Rouhanis presidency is to restore Irans normal ties with the rest of the world. But Nephew is suspicious of the trade deals Iran has made: oil to China, gas to Italy, a purchase of more than 100 Airbus planes from France. Lets see what these trade deals result in. Its one thing to announce a deal with China for $600 billion. Well see what that generates, he said. Nephew cited previous deals in Africa, where up until now not a single penny was transacted. Iran's President Hassan Rouhani arrives to attend a meeting with French business leaders and politicians at a hotel in Paris, France, Jan. 27, 2016. (photo by Iran's President Hassan Rouhani arrives to attend a meeting with French business leaders and politicians at a hotel in Paris, France, Jan. 27, 2016.(photo by Islamic Republic News Agency Help for ordinary Iranians Does the lifting of sanctions uplift and aid the Iranian population? "It might not," Nephew says. "This is a billion dollar question and a lot of Iranians, as I understand, have fairly mixed expectations with a lot of hope that things will turn around but the general glum demeanor is maybe well get something, but it will be a long time and a big effort to trust people who control the economy.' He added: I think ultimately if trade deals allow for the growth of new industry in Iran, the automotive industry , for example, you will see unemployment go down, youll see a general improvement in the quality of life for the Iranians. The nuclear deal between Iran and the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany broke a 12- year international standoff, during which Iran was accused of developing nuclear capacity for military purposes and hit with serious economic sanctions. After an agreement was signed in July 2015 to destroy Iran's existing nuclear materials and ultimately dismantle much if its nuclear program, the sanctions were lifted earlier this month. With the sanctions lifted, Iran was free to sell itself to the world. De-isolating Iran According to Columbias Nephew, Rouhanis trip this week to Italy, his trip to France, is all part of the strategy to get Iran out of international isolation. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, left, leafs through a book he gave to Pope Francis as a gift, during their private audience at the Vatican, Jan. 26, 2016. (photo by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, left, leafs through a book he gave to Pope Francis as a gift, during their private audience at the Vatican, Jan. 26, 2016.(photo by Islamic Republic News Agency In Italy, Rouhani met with Pope Francis in the Vatican. The pontiff talked about terrorism, and said that Iran has a role to play in bringing peace to the Middle East. According to Nephew, the most significant role the Iranians can play is halting support for terrorist groups and the use of violence for political ends. Rouhani also made time for some sightseeing, like visiting the Roman Colosseum and the Capitoline Museums. Museum officials covered up classical Roman statues of nude human beings by building boxes around them. It was done, according to officials, to avoid offending the Iranian president. Rouhani did request it, but he thanked those responsible for wanting to put their guests at ease. In 2010, several epic earthquakes delivered one of the worst annual death tolls ever recorded. The deadliest strike, in Haiti, killed more than 200,000 people and reduced homes, hospitals, schools, and the presidential palace to rubble. In exclusive coverage, a NOVA camera crew follows a team of U.S. geologists as they enter Haiti in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. The team hunts for crucial evidence that will help them determine exactly what happened deep underground and what the risks are of a new killer quake. Barely a month after the Haiti quake, Chile was struck by a quake 100 times more powerful, unleashing a tsunami that put the entire Pacific coast on high alert. In a coastal town devastated by the rushing wave, NOVA follows a team of geologists as they battle aftershocks to measure the displacement caused by the earthquake. Could their work, and the work of geologists at earthquake hot spots around the U.S., one day lead to a breakthrough in predicting quakes before they happen? NOVA investigates compelling new leads in this profound scientific conundrum. (Premiered January 11, 2011) The best 2-in-1 laptop 2022: our picks of the best convertible laptops These are the best 2-in-1 laptops you can buy right now Mobile World Congress is coming back to Barcelona, but don't worry about the reports of political instability(Opens in a new window). Barcelona is open for business, locals tell me, with thrilling new restaurants and gorgeous modernist buildings open to the public for the first time. We've been updating our MWC travel guide for five years now (the base 2013 guide has more information). As always, we worked with Turisme de Barcelona(Opens in a new window) to find out what's new in town. This year, we also collaborated with ByHours(Opens in a new window), a local company that developed an app to let you reserve hotel rooms for a few hours at a time. It's perfect for grabbing a place to nap when you arrive in Barcelona and can't check into your conference hotel yet. As always, start with the official MWC website(Opens in a new window) for all of your MWC planning. What Country Is MWC in, Anyway? Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, which has been in a standoff with the Spanish government in Madrid over an independence referendum in October. Parliamentary elections in December returned separatists to power, although they got less than 50 percent of the popular vote. Madrid has been running Catalonia through "direct rule," avoiding the region's parliament. That said, things on the streets of Barcelona are calm, according to Noemi Rosell of Turisme Barcelona. There haven't been demonstrations since October and transportation, the airport, and hotels are running smoothly, she said. Unlike in previous years, we haven't heard threats of transportation or workers' strikes during MWC. That said, there's always some sort of shenanigans going on in town during the show. There will inevitably be someone with a banner making a statement, like in 2015 when members of the Femen feminist group protested Facebook's photo censorship policies, or in 2017 when a Greenpeace protester interrupted the Samsung press conference to make a statement about recycling. Barcelona is a politically active town, and MWC is just too big a stage to turn down. Getting Around MWC is mostly held at the Fira Gran Via, which is out in the suburb of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, between Barcelona and the airport. The Fira is an extremely efficient, well-laid-out convention center, but it's also extremely long. If you're headed to Halls 1-3 or Registration, you need to go to the South Entrance. If you're headed to Halls 6-8, you need to go to the North Entrance. (Halls 4 and 5 are in the middle.) You can pick up your badge and transit pass at the airport, so make sure to do that before heading into the city. The best way to get from the airport to the city center still isn't the train, but the frequent and direct, E5.90 Aerobus(Opens in a new window) to Placa Espanya and Placa Catalunya. The relatively new Line 9 subway (shown above) runs from the airport to a stop directly under the Fira's South Entrance and it connects with several other lines. But if you're coming to the show from the Placa Espanya area and headed to the South Entrance, it's still faster to switch at Espanya for the suburban trains, which go to the Europa-Fira station. Here's a full Barcelona Metro map(Opens in a new window). The train stations are a long way from the North Entrance and Hall 8. If that's where you're going, your best bet is still to take a taxi, or the frequent H16 public bus from Placa Espanya or Placa Catalunya to the corner of Passeig de Zona Franca and Foneria, which is close to the North Entrance. MWC will also run a shuttle between the North Entrance and Hall M8 at the older convention center by Placa Espanya. Barcelona has also simplified its bus network in recent years, with new routes running more frequently in straighter lines. The most relevant buses for MWC-goers are the H12, which cuts a straight line from the South Entrance of the Fira, past the old Fira, down to the Placa Catalunya and beyond; and the aforementioned H16, which can take you to the Forum or to the North Entrance of the Fira. Here's the new bus map(Opens in a new window). Uber and Lyft are illegal in Barcelona, but you can still get a taxi using an app. MyTaxi(Opens in a new window) is the dominant app in Barcelona, having subsumed Hailo last year. Taxis are relatively affordable, especially if you're on an expense account. Tip by rounding up to the next euro. A MyTaxi from Placa Catalunya, in the center of town, to the Fira Gran Via should cost 15-20 euros. But traffic can get insane during peak hours, making the frequent and easy-to-use trains a speedier bet. MWC also runs special shuttle buses(Opens in a new window) from hotels in outlying areas to the event. In my experience, these buses often get stuck in very bad traffic, so if there's a way for you to take the train instead, take it. What to Eat You're going to eat a lot of jamon. But you don't have to give in to the jamon entirely: Barcelona is a global food hub, known for exciting, cutting-edge cuisine. There's a lot of Asian-European fusion going on around town right now. The city has also ramped up its international comfort-food options in the past few yearspizza and Mexican food, for example, have gotten much better. The Culture Trip has a rundown of new restaurants(Opens in a new window) in Barcelona; Asian, Indian, and pizza places take the lead. Rosa Gonzalez of ByHours suggests heading to "elBarri(Opens in a new window)," a six-plex of restaurants all run by the Adria brothers, celebrated Barcelona restauranteurs. (One of the restaurants, Bodega 1900, is shown above.) The six restaurants are all within two blocks of each other by the corner of Carrer d'Entenca and Avenida del Paral-lel, just a short walk from Placa Espanya. The link above leads you to a site for all of them. "At Bodega 1900 you'll find a vermouth bar served with reimagined snack foods. You also have Tickets that's a contemporary tapas bar. If you want to try an elevated Mexican cuisine you have Hoja Santa. In case you are craving Mexican food, but the traditional one? Then you have the Nino Viejo taco bar where you can eat delicious food for around 40.00 per person. Want something exotic? At Pakta you can have a taste of a Peruvian-Japanese food fusion," she wrote to us. I'd also like to make a pitch for my current favorite Barcelona cocktail and tapas spot, Vivant(Opens in a new window) (Carrer del Consell de Cent 394, 08009; +34 933 1588009). Vivant has a modern take on traditional tapas; they're all recognizable, but they're a cut above the preparations you get in the big Rambla de Catalunya tapas joints. They also serve gin and tonics in giant globe glasses. Here are some other options: two more high-end recommendations, two inexpensive ones, and two unusual "modernista" experiences. Marea Alta (Opens in a new window) . (Av. Drassanes 6-8) is undoubtably the most spectacular new restaurant in Barcelona. It's on top of the Columbus monument at the bottom of the Rambla! Amazing views and nautically themed decor keep you busy while you await your excellent grilled fish. Yes, it's an all-fish menu, with several options priced by the kilo. This isn't cheap by any means (you'll be lucky to get out at 60 euros/person) but it'll be a memorable meal for sure. . (Av. Drassanes 6-8) is undoubtably the most spectacular new restaurant in Barcelona. It's on top of the Columbus monument at the bottom of the Rambla! Amazing views and nautically themed decor keep you busy while you await your excellent grilled fish. Yes, it's an all-fish menu, with several options priced by the kilo. This isn't cheap by any means (you'll be lucky to get out at 60 euros/person) but it'll be a memorable meal for sure. Kak Koy (Opens in a new window) . (Carrer de Ripoll, 16) Koy Shunka is the best sushi restaurant in Barcelona, and its sibling Shunka may be the best overall Japanese. Kak Koy brings the same attentiveness to other Japanese preparations, most specifically charcoal-grilled sumiyaki meats, served in a small space along marble bar tables. It's a hidden gem, although you should expect to pay between 50-100 euros per person. . (Carrer de Ripoll, 16) Koy Shunka is the best sushi restaurant in Barcelona, and its sibling Shunka may be the best overall Japanese. Kak Koy brings the same attentiveness to other Japanese preparations, most specifically charcoal-grilled sumiyaki meats, served in a small space along marble bar tables. It's a hidden gem, although you should expect to pay between 50-100 euros per person. La Esquina Barcelona (Opens in a new window) . (Carrer de Bergara, 2) It's a nouvelle-English bistro with artisanal coffee and a 15-euro lunch set menu near the Placa Catalunya. It's a lot like somewhere you'd find in a nice neighborhood of London or San Francisco, which may offer a refreshing alternative to the amount of jamon you're going to be consuming this week. . (Carrer de Bergara, 2) It's a nouvelle-English bistro with artisanal coffee and a 15-euro lunch set menu near the Placa Catalunya. It's a lot like somewhere you'd find in a nice neighborhood of London or San Francisco, which may offer a refreshing alternative to the amount of jamon you're going to be consuming this week. Parking Pizza (Opens in a new window) . (Carrer de Londres, 98) Parking Pizza offers upscale pizzas and shareable dip appetizers at very reasonable prices of around 20 euros per person for a meal. You'll find several traditional preparations with a little extra flavor, like adding fennel to a pepperoni pizza, or sage and shallots to a four-cheese pizza. . (Carrer de Londres, 98) Parking Pizza offers upscale pizzas and shareable dip appetizers at very reasonable prices of around 20 euros per person for a meal. You'll find several traditional preparations with a little extra flavor, like adding fennel to a pepperoni pizza, or sage and shallots to a four-cheese pizza. El Mama/La Papa (Opens in a new window) . (Passatge de Pere Calders 2) This dual restaurant/nightclub combines fusion cuisine with live cabaret shows. It's "el mama" before 9 p.m., a more traditional restaurant, transforming into "la papa" at dinnertime. (Yes, they're mixing up the genders on purpose.) Performers in elaborate costumes march out into the crowd as multicolored disco lights strobe, acrobats appear, and the food teeters between Spanish and global, with Thai influences claimed. . (Passatge de Pere Calders 2) This dual restaurant/nightclub combines fusion cuisine with live cabaret shows. It's "el mama" before 9 p.m., a more traditional restaurant, transforming into "la papa" at dinnertime. (Yes, they're mixing up the genders on purpose.) Performers in elaborate costumes march out into the crowd as multicolored disco lights strobe, acrobats appear, and the food teeters between Spanish and global, with Thai influences claimed. Opera Samfaina (Opens in a new window) . (La Rambla 51) is a Modernista experience with food, and it's getting lots of buzz for its overall experience. It's part food court, part theme park, part statement of cultural identity: everything in here is Catalan, down to the dreamlike, Dali-esque decor. There are four different bars, various tapas, and a sit-down dining space called Odisea where you enjoy a tasting menu while surrounded by a 360-degree projection of prominent Catalan chef Jordi Roca. If you don't feel like sitting after a day at the show, proceed on to Placa Europa for Meet & Eat(Opens in a new window), a food court and entertainment series run by a bunch of local L'Hospitalet restaurants. It'll be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. during the show, with 16 food stands and live music. This is the third year for Meet & Eat, and I remember it being a buzzing scene, albeit with long lines for food tickets. Looking for an event restaurant? Group Sagardi and AN Grup are two multi-brand restaurant businesses with high-quality spaces all over town. Sagardi(Opens in a new window) is more upscale, while AN Grup(Opens in a new window) is extremely affordable. Both are easy one-stop shopping for events. What to Do If you haven't been to the flagship Barcelona attractions like the Sagrada Familia, Casa Batllo, and the Cathedral, you'll have plenty to do in Barcelona. But if, like me, you've been coming to Mobile World Congress for several years now, you probably want some new things to do. Several new, notable buildings have opened up in the past few years. The Sant Pau Art Nouveau Site (C. Sant Antoni Maria Claret, 167), in a gorgeous old hospital, now offers tours of a reconstructed 1920s hospital ward(Opens in a new window). Tickets cost 14 euros. From a hospital, let's head to a prisona Modernist panopticon prison. The "model prison" in Barcelona was closed in June 2017 and reopened for tours(Opens in a new window) earlier this year on Fridays and Saturdays. Tours run every 15 minutes from 3-8 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. Just stop by the prison at Carrer d'Entenca 155, 08029. The touring exhibition of official Game of Thrones props and sets(Opens in a new window) is in town while we're at Mobile World Congress. They have costumes, props, weapons, armor, and sets. It's down at the Maritime Museum on the waterfront, and timed tickets cost 15.50 euros. Tickets sell out, so buy in advance, if you can. That all sounds a little stressful, right? Let's go to a home instead. Casa Vicens(Opens in a new window), an early Gaudi house, opened to the public just before MWC 2017, so you probably haven't seen it yet. The house is in the Gracia neighborhood, which has been called "Barcelona's Greenwich Village" for its small shops and boutiques. Entrance costs 16 euros. Gaudi isn't the only Modernist with a relatively fresh new building open. Josep Puig i Cadafalch's Casa(Opens in a new window) de les Punxes(Opens in a new window) (Av Diagonal 420, +34 930 185 242) opened in 2016. It's not Gaudi, but Puig i Cadafalch is a major Barcelona figure in his own right. The house is full of gorgeous architectural touches and themed to the legend of dragon slaying Sant Jordi, complete with an "interactive experience" on the main floor. Barcelona Turisme also has a great brochure on "new attractions"(Opens in a new window), which have opened since 2013, including a quartet of design museums and the Born Cultural Center, which has swiftly become one of Barcelona's most-visited sites. If you feel like Barcelona's paths are well beaten, the dozen new attractions in this brochure will give you fresh ideas. Staying Connected Barcelona has a slow, citywide Wi-Fi system that works throughout the city and is plumbed into the public buses. Connect to the "Barcelona Wi-Fi" SSID across the city. If you want to use your phone on 4G in Spain, you need to have LTE bands 3, 7, and 20. Use FrequencyCheck.com(Opens in a new window) to see if your phone supports those bands. All iPhones back to the 6, along with the iPhone SE, will work fine; Android phones vary model to model. Your first stop should be your US carrier's roaming plan. AT&T and Verizon both let you use high-speed data as if it's coming from your plan allowance at home, at a rate of $10/day. Sprint gives you free data at 128kbps, with high-speed data costing $5/day or $25/week. T-Mobile gives you unlimited 256kbps data and charges $20/1GB of fast 4G data. You can save money by using a local SIM card, although then you lose your US phone number for the duration. Vodafone Spain's Tourist Plan(Opens in a new window) offers 2GB of data and 50 minutes of calling for 15 euros. You can get it at any Vodafone store in town; there's one in the former bullring, "Arenas" shopping mall across from the old Fira on Placa Espanya, as well as one in the El Corte Ingles department store on Placa Catalunya. With the demise of XCom, we're still picking My Webspot (shown above) for the best 4G hotspot deal. They'll give you 1GB per day for E9.90 per day, and they'll deliver to your hotel. 7 Barcelona Apps You Need All of these apps are available on both iOS and Android. Seek them out in your app store. ByHours MWC Party List ByHours provided us with this MWC afterparty and event list, with events from Sunday through Thursday. Some of these require tickets, some are invitation-only, but you should never be alone on an MWC night in Barcelona. Longtime tech PR fixture Karen Thomas also has her own list(Opens in a new window), which includes some events that aren't on ByHours' list. (We aren't going to steal Karen's list, just link to it.) Mobile Sunday 2018 with Tech.eu(Opens in a new window) (Sunday, 25 February from 6 to 10 p.m.) Don't miss the most important networking event before the Mobile World Congress in collaboration with Tech.eu. You'll take a look at the future of mobile and the current trends from some of the world's leading entrepreneurs, startups, investors and corporations. Meet the Editors & Analysts(Opens in a new window) (Sunday, 25 February from 7 to 8:30 p.m.) Join Light Reading, Heavy Reading, Telecoms.com, and Ovum, and about 100 service providers at a cocktail party, where you will taste the local beverages and finest tapas with the team of editors and analysts. IoT Garden Party(Opens in a new window) (Tuesday, 27 February, 4 to 6 p.m.) The IoT Garden party is the only dedicated IoT Networking event at the Mobile World Congress 2018. Go to meet the leading lights of the global IoT industry. IoT Stars(Opens in a new window) (Monday, 26 February, 7 to 10 p.m.) IoT Stars is an event for IoT companies to pitch in front of a top international jury and for companies to connect to a C-level audience of entrepreneurs, developers, designers, investors, industry players, press and media working in the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. Mobile Marketing Mixer 2018(Opens in a new window) (Tuesday, 27 February, from 8 p.m. on) Network with the high-fliers of mobile marketing at this year's Mobile World Congress. It will be hosted by Masterclassing and Mobile Marketing Magazine at the old Moritz beer factory. #MWC18 Networking Event By TechTribe(Opens in a new window) (Wednesday, 28 February, from 7 to 11:30 p.m.) Tech Tribe is a community with the vision to share knowledge through interactive events that combine multi-disciplinary talent and thought speakers who inspire, educate and bring people together. Go and network with international talent from different fields, local and foreign startups. QUOBIS tapas party(Opens in a new window) (Wednesday, 28 February, from 8 to 10:30 p.m.) Enjoy the Quobis party at the MWC Barcelona with some delicious tapas and a glass of wine. Out of Metrics(Opens in a new window) (Dunne&Raby, Thursday, 1 March, from 7 p.m. on) This is an event series curated by FAD to discover the work of international designers and architects working at the intersections of design, technology, and the environment. CES 2018: Let's Take a Ride in Lyft's Self-Driving Car CES 2018: Let's Take a Ride in Lyft's Self-Driving Car Many Netflix users across Indonesia were presented with a troubling issue on Wednesday: their access to the streaming service was blocked. As reported(Opens in a new window) by the Wall Street Journal, PT Telkom Indonesia, the country's largest Internet Service Provider, blocked access to Netflix because it didn't have the right permits. But it also objected to violent and adult content available on the service. Netflix told the paper that it doesn't have to get regulatory approval like other providers because it's an optional, Internet-based service. A spokesman for the ISP told(Opens in a new window) the country's Indo Telko that Netflix will only be restored when it addresses its concerns and follows the country's regulations. Those who don't subscribe to Telekom can still watch Netflix, the Journal said. Netflix expanded to Indonesia just a few weeks ago when it went live in "nearly every country of the world." (Sorry, China.) The company's move was viewed as an opportunity by Netflix to stop the rampant use of VPNs, which are widely employed to access content available in other regions. Shortly after the expansion, in fact, Netflix announced a crackdown on VPN use. Still, launching 130 countries is no simple task. Those countries have individual regulations on what kind of content is legal and what may or may not be shared with the public. And as the Indonesia row has shown, some companies aren't so pleased with all that Netflix offers. How did the smartphone market fare in Q4? Depends on who you ask. According to Strategy Analytics(Opens in a new window), global smartphone shipments were up 6 percent from 380.1 million units in Q4 2014 to 404.5 million in Q4 2015. However, according to the firm, that "was the smartphone industry's slowest growth rate of all time." IDC, meanwhile, estimated(Opens in a new window) a slightly smaller 5.7 percent growth, from 377.8 million units in Q4 2014 to 399.5 million units in Q4 2015. To them, though, that signified a "strong holiday quarter [that] boosted worldwide smartphone volumes to new record levels." Both firms, however, agreed that the 1.4 billion smartphones shipped in 2015 overall - a 12 percent bump, Strategy Analytics said - was a noteworthy milestone. Both also noted the growth of Huawei. "Huawei joined an elite club and shipped over 100 million smartphones in a year for the first time ever during 2015," said Woody Oh, Director at Strategy Analytics. "It was an impressive performance. However, there are signs that Huawei's growth is starting to slow. Its annual growth rate of 35 percent halved sequentially from 62 percent in the prior quarter, as major vendors like Xiaomi began to fight back in core markets of Asia." IDC's Melissa Chau pointed out that "Huawei is one of the few brands from China that has successfully diversified worldwide, with almost half of its shipments going outside of China." She predicted that the phone maker "is poised to be in a good position to hold onto a strong number 3 over the next year." Samsung, however, was once again No. 1 with 20.1 percent of global smartphone market share during the quarter, Strategy Analytics said. Apple landed at 18.5 percent, followed by Huawei (8.1 percent), Lenovo-Motorola (5 percent), and Xiaomi (4.8 percent). "This was Samsung's fastest growth rate for almost two years, and it helped Samsung to stay ahead of Apple and maintain first position," said Neil Mawston, Strategy Analytics executive director. Despite a record quarter, "Apple's iPhone growth is peaking," Mawston said. "Apple will have to expand into new markets like India or Nigeria if it wants to reignite iPhone growth in 2016." IDC had similar market share numbers, but IDC Research Manager Anthony Scarsella was a little more optimistic about Apple. "Apple assured the public that demand for its premium smartphones is still alive and kicking," he said. "A new record-setting quarter ... indicates consumers' continued demand for Apple's latest offerings regarding upgraded hardware and software." Ubuntu is thwarting Microsofts efforts to keep PCs safe. Modern Windows PCs are required to ship with Secure Boot enabled, a safety measure that limits access to Microsoft-approved operating systems. To make life easier for Linux users, Microsoft provides Linux distribution bootloaders with a Microsoft signing key. But Ubuntus signed bootloader will happily boot unsigned code, breaking the whole chain of trust. Thankfully, this is set to change with the upcoming Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. Ubuntus Secure Boot support is not secure Secure Boot is supposed to establish a chain of trust from the UEFI firmware all the way to the operating system. For example, when its used with Windows, the UEFI firmware ensures that the Windows bootloader bears a correct signing key that hasnt been modified. The Windows bootloader then hands off to the next stage, which also checks for legitimacy. The goal is to ensure no rootkits have interfered with the boot process. Linux distributions, for their part, have a signed bootloader from Microsoft, which gives them the go-ahead from the UEFI firmware. But with Ubuntu, once the UEFI firmware hands off, the bootloader doesnt check to ensure that the Linux kernels it boots are signed by Canonical (maker of Ubuntu). Not only does this mean Secure Boot isnt a security feature for Ubuntu users, it also means that a hacker could actually use Ubuntus trusted bootloader to boot untrusted malware on almost any Secure Boot-enabled PC: The Grub bootloader used by Ubuntu has a way to boot Windows, making it possible to attack Secure Boot-enabled Windows systems. This isnt common knowledge, but its not something Canonical hid, either. In a comment on a bug report from mid-2015, Ubuntu security engineer Marc Deslauriers wrote, Ubuntus support for secure boot is solely intended as a compatibility measure so that media can boot on secure boot enabled computers. There are no current plans to enable secure boot as a security measure. Prominent free-software developer Matthew Garrett discovered this on January 6, 2016. In a series of profanity-laced tweets, he accused Ubuntu of criminal ineptitude. Noting the potential for the signed-by-Microsoft bootloader to be repurposed to attack other operating systems, Garrett added in a tweet. This isnt a decision that affects just Ubuntu users*everybody* who uses UEFI Secure Boot has their security weakened by this. Ubuntus signed Grub bootloader will boot anything, making it a security hole in Secure Boot. Ubuntu 16.04 should fix things Despite its casual acknowledgement of the security vulnerability, Canonical is working on securing its Secure Boot implementation. As the Secure Boot page on Ubuntus wiki says: Canonicals Secure Boot implementation in Ubuntu 15.10 and early [sic] is primarily about hardware-enablement, said Canonical. If you want to use Secure Boot as a security mechanism, an appropriate solution would be to use your own keys (optionally enrolling additional keys, see above) and update the bootloader to prohibit booting an unsigned kernel. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS is planned to enable enforcing secure boot (see LP: #1401532 for details). Ubuntu 16.04 is scheduled for April 2016 release, giving Canonical just a few more months to reconfigure the bootloader with security in mind. However, as Garrett points out, those old Ubuntu bootloaders would also need to be blacklisted. Theyre currently floating around out there, posing a potential security risk to the Secure Boot ecosystem. Its a shame, too. Secure Boot is a mandatory hardware feature for Windows 10-certified PCs, and PC manufacturers dont have to include the signing key Microsoft provides for Linux distributions. If those signed Linux bootloaders represent a potential security threat, it could give Microsoft and PC manufacturers a reason to stop making things easy for Linux users. Google Chrome users may now enable a mark of shame when visiting websites that dont use HTTPS encryption. As Motherboard reports, these sites will have a red X and gray padlock icon next on the left side of the address bar. Google currently uses this icon to flag instances where encryption doesnt work properly, but may also expand it to unencrypted HTTP sites. For now, the icon is available as an optional flag in Chrome. Users can enable it by visiting chrome://flags, scrolling to mark non-secure as, and choosing mark non-secure origins as non-secure. An unnamed Google employee told Motherboard that the company will the goal is to make this option default someday, hopefully. Whats the holdup? As one developer noted when Chromes Security Team first proposed the idea in 2014, in many cases getting an HTTPS certificate isnt free. Hitting HTTP sites with a scarlet letter might not go over well with webmasters, especially for smaller sites. Still, many major sites now use HTTPS, and Google has been factoring HTTPS into its search rankings (albeit as a minor ranking signal) since 2014. Why this matters: With HTTPS, data travelling to and from the web browser is better-protected against surveillance and hijacking of sensitive data. The only drawback, aside from the effort required by webmasters to implement it, is that its a little bit slower than non-encrypted HTTP connections. Although Google has advocated the use of HTTPS for several years, the search giant has tried to avoid being too heavy-handed. The new icon is another way to nudge more sites to make website encryption the norm. Becki Gomez, who became a community hero when speaking up against her mugging, will retire Tuesday, Feb. 2 as an obstetrics nurse following 34 years at Hemet Valley Medical Center. She departs to a life of grandparenting after helping deliver at least 6,000 babies over 19 years of three weekly nursing shifts. Its 6,000 easy, she said. That would be just two per shift. That is pretty average. Gomez is well known for unsuspectingly becoming the inspiration for the powerful Rebuild Hemet movement on social media. It greatly influenced a Hemet City Council election and played a big role in retaining the citys fire department instead of contracting with Riverside County. She is a woman who lived a San Jacinto Valley life well. Gomez and her husband, retired California Highway Patrol Sgt. Rene Gomez, raised their three children in the valley. She took the tough path of advancing from her position as an obstetrics unit secretary for 15 years to become a Mt. San Jacinto College-trained registered nurse at age 40. She has a sense of humor that kept the close-knit nurses at the hospital entertained over the decades. The type who wears Mickey Mouse ears to Disneyland, Gomez became a regular character in my column. I loved being summoned to the OB department to see her latest stunt. My favorite was when the nurses won a 2013 Halloween hospital pumpkin-carving contest. It was a time for fun after they delivered an astonishing 145 babies during October of that year. They entered with a carving of an expectant Baby Mama figure formed with three pumpkins in the Gomez kitchen. A belly opening showed a fetus inside an amniotic sac about ready to be born. A surgical cap topped the pumpkin mamas head. Life was not so funny the previous summer when she was threatened at knifepoint and her purse was snatched while parking in a lot behind a shopping center in East Hemet. Fortunately, she was uninjured. News of the incident struck home. The friendly Gomez reminded many people of their wives, mothers, sisters, daughters and friends. It was a crime against everyone. Gomez decided to speak to the Hemet City Council about the assault. Her nurse buddies joined her in support. Word spread and more people wanted to attend. Her son Gabe Gomez, an actor living in Hollywood, started a community rebuilding style Facebook page to publicize the concern about Hemet crime. Soon, thousands of people signed on as followers and variations of the page formed. The council meeting was moved to the Hemet Library for more seating. At least 700 people listened to Gomez speak. Television and newspaper reporters covered the evening. Gomez did not want to be the face of an anti-crime effort, but that is what she became. She helped her town. Now all she wants is to be a a mother grandmother. She and her husband will visit their two daughters, Rachael and Michele, their husbands and their three grandchildren in Texas. They will see their son, Gabe, in California as they travel between states. The Rebuild Hemet movement subsided following a couple effective years. It was crazy, she said. It got too negative, but it did serve a purpose. It increased community awareness. Contact the writer: bpratte@pressenterprise.com, or 951-368-9078 A hiker was in critical condition Thursday, Jan. 28, after suffering major injuries in an area of Menifee, authorities said. Firefighters received a report of the injured hiker in the area of McCall Boulevard and Valley Boulevard about 8:10 a.m., according to a Cal Fire/ Riverside County Fire Department news release. After determining that the hiker could not be reached from the ground, fire officials asked for assistance from a Riverside County Sheriffs Helicopter. The helicopter was able to hoist the hiker and take the person to paramedics, the release says. The hiker was later taken to the hospital for major injuries, the release says. Contact the writer: 951-368-9693 or agroves@pressenterprise.com Five people were arrested Wednesday, suspected of helping three inmates escape from Orange County Central Mens Jail. Although the three fugitives remained at large, Sheriff Sandra Hutchens said in a televised news conference that she believes the five people arrested are part of a larger group that helped in the escape. Their names have not been released, and Hutchens said more arrests are expected during the next two days. Hutchens also has not ruled out the possibility that the escapees had help from people inside the system. An investigation into that question is ongoing. Hutchens described the three fugitives Hossein Nayeri, Jonathan Tieu and Bac Duong as armed and dangerous and said authorities still have no sightings of the men. A $200,000 reward has been offered for information leading to their arrests. The men escaped Friday, cutting through barriers (one barrier was one-inch steel, the sheriff said), squeezing through plumbing ducts and rappelling off the roof. Its every sheriffs nightmare, Hutchens said. You dont want an escape from any jail; its not a good day. Theres not a member of the Orange County Sheriffs Department that does not feel like we let the public down. Earlier in the day, Hutchens visited Little Saigon, appealing for help within the community. Tieu and Duong have connections to Vietnamese gangs. Later, in the news conference outside the jail, the sheriff said some of the suspects arrested are gang members. But she offered no details of the arrests. A department spokesman said later that revealing the names of those arrested would compromise the investigation. The Sheriffs Department released new photos of Bac Duong on Wednesday that showed his gang tattoos. The escape has prompted changes at the jail, including the way deputies count prisoners, Hutchens said. The men escaped sometime after the 5 a.m. head count Friday and were not noticed missing until a second head count that evening. Hutchens described Nayeri, who is charged in a 2012 kidnap and torture case, as the escapes likely mastermind, saying he is more sophisticated than Tieu and Duong. On Monday, a deputy district attorney said Nayeri is diabolical and compared him to movie villain Hannibal Lecter. Heather Brown, who is prosecuting the case against Nayeri, said jail officials were warned that Nayeri deserved special attention. The District Attorneys Office later called those comments inappropriate, uninformed and rash. Hutchens on Wednesday defended the Sheriff Departments handling of Nayeri. We house based on behavior, and there were no issues with any of these individuals while in our custody, Hutchens said. (Nayeri) was housed in an appropriate area of the jail. The Central Mens Jail, built in 1968, has had 16 escapes over the decades. Hutchens described it as old and high-maintenance and noted that at the time it opened, 70 percent of its inmates were charged with misdemeanors and 30 percent with felonies. Today, she said, the ratio is flipped. She pointed out that the jail, including the dormitory-style module where the escape began, is short on modern technology. Do we continue to put money into an old jail? the sheriff asked. I think there are some technologies that we can invest in. Authorities have set up a hotline for anyone who has information about the case: 714-628-7085. Contact the writer: ksharon@ocregister.com From the time she was 6 years old, Renna Nightingale knew what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. Walking out of the Grove Theatre in Upland after a production of Oklahoma, Nightingale was enchanted by the colors, costumes, music and story. She announced her ambition of a life in the theater to her mother on that night. Two years later, she was standing alone on the stage of the Redlands Bowl, having been cast in the role of Tootie in Meet Me in St. Louis. The first night, I remember stepping onstage with my hair in ringlets, staring into an ocean of literally thousands of pairs of eyes, said Nightingale, 22. It was terrifying. Thankfully, the music started and saved the day. From that moment forward, Ive never had stage fright and Ive never questioned my passion for telling stories. Her love for the art of theater has grown into a deep passion for storytelling, whether it be performing or writing. Since the beginning of time, humans have related to one another through story, she said. I am extremely passionate about the vital importance the arts are to our community. They preserve our history, challenge our beliefs and encourage us to explore and think differently. I intend to dedicate my life to it. After graduating early from Los Osos High School, the lifelong Rancho Cucamonga resident attended Azusa Pacific University as an acting major. She fell in love with writing while enrolled in a screenwriting class. As a child, Nightingale worked consistently on local stages. She moved on to appear on television shows such as Zoey 101 and Wizards of Waverly Place, as well as a pilot called Social Girls. In spite of this success, Nightingale said she has struggled with fear of rejection, imperfection and failure throughout her life. At the age of 13, she was a finalist for the lead in the world premiere of Jason Robert Browns 13: The Musical. After not getting the role, she was heartbroken. But with the support her parents, Nightingale turned that rejection into motivation. That is part of the message she hopes to convey in her blog, Plot Twist. My goal is to inspire young women to turn the unexpected plot twists life throws them into a catalyst towards empowerment, she said. Although I do target my blog for female millennials, I have had incredible response from men and women ages 12 to 50. Nightingale speaks with excitement about her featured role in Hello, My Name is Doris, starring two-time Oscar winner Sally Field, which opens March 11. At one point during filming the director, Michael Showalter, instructed us to continue improvising after the dialogue was finished and Sally and I came up with new bits every take, she said. I was even lucky enough to be there for Sallys last shot of the film. As everyone was saying goodbye, she pulled me into a hug and said, Youre going places, kid. Ill always remember that. Nightingale also currently appears in the role of Ilsa in the Riverside Repertory Theater production of Spring Awakening, which runs through Feb. 7 at The Box in downtown Riverside. For more information on Renna Nightingale, visit plottwistlife.com or follow her on Instagram at @Rennaissance. Patrick Brien is executive director of the Riverside Arts Council, a private, nonprofit corporation. Contact the council at info@riverside, 951-680-1345 or riversideartscouncil.com. Contact the writer: community@pressenterprise.com Ontario police are investigating the death of an Ontario businessman who was found dead Wednesday, Jan. 27, in his office. Arturo Perez, the 56-year-old owner of Arts Forklift Repair at 1948 Grove Ave., was found unresponsive inside the business by an employee, according to an Ontario Police news release. When officers responded to the scene, they determined Perez had died. Though the cause of Perezs death remains under investigation, police are calling it suspicious. Anyone with information regarding this investigation may call Detective Jeff Wentz at 909-395-2715. Information can also be reported anonymously at 800-78-CRIME or www.wetip.com. Californias rooftop solar movement won big Thursday, Jan. 28. A divided California Public Utilities Commission shot down efforts by the states investor owned utilities to reduce the compensation received by owners of rooftop solar systems for their contributions to the power grid. The PUC instead voted 3-2 to approve rules requiring utilities to keep the net metering, the compensation system that requires utilities to credit solar system owners for the electricity that they contribute to the power grid at the same rate that consumers pay for electricity. Such credits essentially are banked during the sunny times of the day and are redeemed when the homeowners use electricity from the grid at night. The rule is expected to keep rooftop solar affordable and help California remain the nations leader in producing carbon-free renewable energy. Renewables are really on track and beyond, said Michael Picker, the commissions president, who proposed the rules after months of hearings and staff analysis. Picker was joined by commissioners Liane M. Randolph and Carla J. Peterman in voting yes. But commissioners Catherine J.K. Sandoval and Mike Florio voted against the measure, saying it unfairly shifted the costs of using the grid to people who dont have solar systems. They are not paying their fair share for transmission assets, Sandoval said. Such costs will have to be picked up by everybody else, she said. Mike Mohr, owner of Corona-based Mohr Power Solar, said he was pleased. We have been working on this for a long time, he said. The new state commission rules pertain only to customers of privately owned utilities, including those served by Southern California Edison. The commission does not have oversight over city-owned utilities, such as those that serve Riverside, Anaheim and Los Angeles. In addition to preserving net metering, the new rules allow the utilities to impose one-time connection fees estimated to be between $75 to $100. In addition, customers will pay about 2 cents a kilowatt-hour for all electricity consumed. Solar system owners also will have time-of-use rates, in which electricity is more expensive during the peak-use times of day. The decision was a loss for Southern California Edison and the states other investor-owned utilities. These companies sought to greatly reduce the compensation solar system owners receive and impose heftier fees for use of the grid. Such changes were needed so that solar owners pay their fair share of the cost of maintaining the power grid, the utilities argued. In a last-minute appeal to regulators, Edison, Sempra Energy and San Diego Gas & Electric had proposed that payments to rooftop customers be reduced over time. The final order rejected that. The decision came just a little more than a month after Congress voted to preserve a tax credit that covers 30 percent of the cost of solar systems until 2019. Florio, one of the PUC commissioners who voted no, argued that new state and federal rules make the solar industry too reliant on government subsides. This doesnt put the industry on a sustainable path, he said during the commission meeting. Still, the executive director of the California Solar Energy Industries Association praised the decision. We all know that California is a world leader when it comes to being green, said Bernadette Del Chiaro, in an e-mailed statement. Todays vote is more than that. It is about California continuing to champion innovation and a different way of doing things, in this case, building a smarter energy grid and allowing individual consumers to generate their own clean electricity. Bloomberg News contributed to this report Contact the writer: 951 368-9471 or ddanelski@pressenterprise.com Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday, Jan. 27, announced his support for a ballot measure that would allow nonviolent felons to spend less time in prison and give judges, not prosecutors, the power to determine whether juveniles should be tried as adults. In a Sacramento news conference, Brown touted the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016, which could go before voters in November, as a way to relieve crowding in California jails and prisons while protecting public safety. The initiative, which amends the state constitution, needs 585,407 valid signatures from California voters to qualify for the November ballot. If approved by voters, the measure would increase good behavior credits for inmates who complete rehabilitation and education programs while behind bars. It also would allow non-violent felons to seek parole after they have completed their base sentences without the numerous enhancements that have been added over the years. Brown says the proposals build on federal court orders requiring California to reduce its prison population. The governor helped create the states determinate sentencing system when he was governor in the 1970s and 1980s, but has said he now has regrets that it has led to less discretion. His initiative would change that system by allowing nonviolent inmates to be paroled earlier. The measure also would require judges, instead of prosecutors, to decide if juveniles as young as 14 should be tried in adult court. Judges should judge. Prosecutors should prosecute, Brown said. The measure came about after intense conversation with law enforcement officials, district attorneys and other interested parties, he said. John Hall, a spokesman for the Riverside County district attorneys office, said its too early for his office to comment on the measure. Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, criticized the measure. Recent changes in sentencing laws have contributed to the rising crime rate in local communities throughout California, Melendez, who is vice chairwoman of the Assemblys public safety committee, said in a news release. The governors proposal today promises more of the same. Assembly Republicans support giving local officials the tools they need to properly rehabilitate criminals. However, protecting Californians and our communities must come first. The initiative that Brown is proposing would further reduce the states prison population, which is under a cap ordered by a panel of three federal judges with backing from the U.S. Supreme Court. The state is currently under the headcount limit thanks in part to voter-approved ballot measures that reduced penalties for career criminals and those convicted of certain drug and property crimes. But that population is expected to grow again, and the state is making do now by sending inmates to out-of-state prisons and keeping them in rundown facilities within California, such as the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco. Brown, who is termed out of office in 2018, has about $24 million in his campaign account that he can spend on initiative or candidate campaigns. The measure comes amid sweeping changes in recent years to Californias criminal justice system. In 2011, state lawmakers passed public safety realignment, which shifted responsibility for certain nonviolent, low-level offenders from the state to counties. As a result, many offenders who would have served time in state prison now serve multi-year sentences in county jails. Riverside County officials say the countys five jails werent built for long-term stays and thousands of inmates were released early to comply with a court order to ease crowding. In November 2014, voters approved Prop. 47, which reduced some non-violent crimes from felonies to misdemeanors and allowed re-sentencing for felons convicted of those crimes. While the measure is credited for reducing jail populations, critics said its made the public less safe. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Contact the writer: 951-368-9547 or jhorseman@pressenterprise.com Riverside County sheriffs deputies arrested a 31-year-old San Diego man in the early morning hours Wednesday, Jan. 27, after finding him inside a car that had been reported stolen, authorities said today. Milton Shepherd was arrested for receiving stolen property and booked into Southwest Justice Center with bail set at $5,000, online jail records show. A Riverside County Sheriffs Deputy was patrolling a parking lot at a business in the 23000 block of Clinton Keith Road in Wildomar and came across the black Toyota SUV that Shepherd was reportedly inside, according to a Riverside County sheriffs news release. The deputy ran the plate on the SUV and determined it was stolen outside of San Diego, the release says. Additional patrol units arrived and Shepherd was arrested without incident, sheriffs officials say. Anyone with additional information about the stolen vehicle is encouraged to contact the Wildomar Sheriffs Station at 951-245-3300, or after hours at 951-776-1099. Contact the writer:951-368-9693 or agroves@pressenterprise.com A San Bernardino County sheriffs detective ran a red light, causing a traffic collision that resulted in injuries to the officer and another driver, a California Highway Patrol investigation concluded. An Alabama insurance company has submitted a claim against San Bernardino County seeking reimbursement for damages from the Dec. 2 collision involving its customer and a sheriffs vehicle. Though the crash occurred hours after deputies and other law enforcement officers responded to the Inland Regional Center shooting in San Bernardino, Sheriffs Department spokeswoman Jodi Miller said she had not received any information that the two incidents were related. The report said the detective, Grant Ward, told an investigator he was driving west on Fifth Street when he entered the intersection with Sterling Avenue with some of his emergency lights activated. Ward believed he entered on a green light, the report said. Two other drivers, one traveling south on Sterling and one traveling north, also said they had green lights. Another witness said the deputy ran a red light. The driver, insured by Infinity Insurance Co., was identified as Andres Gutierrez. The claim is seeking $10,608.76 for the collision and $500 for the insurance deductible. Ward made two statements to investigators, one saying that he was en route to a staging area and the other that he was en route to a call. Ward was driving in the direction of the Inland Regional Center when the crash happened just before 1 p.m. Two hours earlier, two terrorists shot 14 people to death and wounded 22 others at the IRC. The CHP investigator wrote that although Ward had his emergency lights on, he did not have the right of way to enter an intersection on a red light because he had not activated his siren. Ward broke a finger and suffered swelling to his left shoulder, knee and ankle, the report said. Gutierrez suffered a deep scrape to his right hip, had a swollen and bruised left knee and a cut on his left hand, among other injuries, the report said. No injuries were reported to the driver of a third car involved in the collision. As the Australian and Nauruan governments bicker amongst themselves over who is responsible for the detention centres in Nauru, and why such a veil of secrecy lies over the place, CNN have managed to remotely interview seven current and former refugee children living behind the bars. The children most of whom did not want to be named paint a pretty bleak picture: boredom, depression, suicidal behaviour, hopelessness, harassment, bullying, and all the while still dealing with the trauma of incidents that brought them to Nauru in the first place. Its not a crime to want to have a better life and future, one 18-year-old said. We are treated as prisoners. By simply reporting on the facts as theyve encountered them, CNN has shined a light on our widely-criticised offshore detention policy, and it aint pretty. Heres a fact: children in detention are reporting the above. Heres another: Immigration Minister Peter Dutton declined CNNs requests for interviews (he is notorious in his shunning of media, and for good reason; he invariably puts his foot in it). His office did, however, give a statement: Yup. Thats all our Immigration Minister had to say on the matter. Heres a few other roadblocks in place to journalistic reporting on Nauru: their government charges an $8,000 non-refundable fee per person for media to even apply for a visa, while our Immigration Department forbids pictures, video, and audio records to be taken, makes journos sign forms that they will not interview any detainees, and requires all content to be submitted to the government for screening. Why? According to CNN, its to protect their privacy. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, one of the few politicians actively working to remove children from detention, features in the news story, which is 100% worth a watch. But the fact remains that our apparent ill-treatment of refugees and lack of transparency about it is so bad, that major overseas networks are now reporting on it. The question is: is Canberra even bloody listening? Watch / read the whole thing HERE. This is how the Australian government justifies keeping children in a remote island detention camp: http://cnn.it/1PGdJZx #Nauru Posted by CNN International on Wednesday, 27 January 2016 Source / Photo: CNN. Bridal designer Jaclyn Jordan got started in fashion at an early age. "I was fortunate enough to have a grandmother that is an amazing seamstress," Jordan said. "She taught me how to sew when I was three or four. My first project was making a quilt for my Barbies, so they could stay warm." Jaclyn Jordan The Carlisle native would spend the next 14 years designing and building clothes, and even put on her own fashion shows while in high school. Today, Jordan's designs are once again in Carlisle, but this time they come by way of New York City: this designer is also an entrepreneur, and runs her own company called Jaclyn Jordan New York, specializing in bridal gowns. Jordan's line is currently being carried by Tamzen's Bridal, which is only about a block away from where Jordan grew up. "The whole story is really serendipitous," said Jordan, describing how she met the owners of Tamzen's Bridal, Tamzen Butler and Robert Sonntag. They happened to cross paths at a bridal show in New York, and Jordan noticed the couple's access badges read Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. The Carlisle store was in the process of opening, and so it was a natural fit. Everything in Jordan's collection is heirloom quality. "Basically that means that we sew everything," she said. "We don't glue it. That's to ensure that the garment is something that can last, and be passed on for generations." Glue, Jordan said, can warp the fabric and cause yellowing, even after only a few years. Currently, only Jordan's separates, such as sashes and veils, are available through Tamzen's Bridal. But that may soon change. "Our dresses are custom made to order through Jaclyn Jordan New York only," Jordan said. "Our line will be expanding this coming April, and brides will be able to buy our dresses here and in other retailers next April." Michelle Inch.png Police are concerned about the whereabout of Michelle Inch, whose parents were the victims of a home invasion robbery. (Provided photo) CANTON -- The car belonging to the missing daughter of a Lycomng County couple who were victims of an armed home invasion has been found but the search continues 33-year-old woman. State police said the black 2002 Honda Accord belonging to Michelle L. Inch was found Thursday morning in Canton Twp., outside the borough of Canton in Bradford County. Inch was last seen about 5 p.m. Tuesday in Canton with Michael Jason Houseweart, one of the men charged with the early Wednesday armed invasion at the home of Gary Linda Inch outside Montoursville. Her cell phone went dead Tuesday also, according to state police who said Houseweart, 27, and Inch had been living together in her parents' house until they reportedly had a recent falling out. Investigators say they consider Michelle Inch a missing and endangered person and anyone with information about her should contact state police at 570-368-5700. Houseweart and Brian Matthew Vroman, 27, also of Canton, were jailed without bail early Thursday after being arraigned on 43 counts each that included attempted homicide, arson, robbery, aggravated assault and theft. The arrest affidavit states Houseweart admitted the two broke into the Inch home in the 100 block of Sechler Drive about 3 a.m. Wednesday, pointed a rifle at the couple, restrained them with duct tape and stole cash, a poker set, flat-screen television and two cell phones. Before leaving they allegedly set a fire with gasoline used as an accelerant. Linda Inch was able to break free and go to a neighbor's for help. Montoursville firefighters rescued her husband. When Leon Hooper of Halifax heard about U.S. Marines lost off the coast of Hawaii Jan. 22 after their helicopter crashed, he went out and lowered his flag to half staff. Leon Hooper "It's still down and will stay that way for a long time," said his daughter, Cynthia Hooper of Halifax. Hooper, 86, a retired Marine, died Saturday after shoveling snow off the roof of his home, said his family. "He was a terrific dad and a terrific person. He was through-and-through Marine Corps. It's a wonder he didn't make us get up and salute every morning," Cynthia said. During the storm, Hooper "was on the roof, shoveling the chimney out so there wouldn't be any snow around it," said his son, Steven Hooper of Harrisburg. Leon and Dena Hooper It was something Leon Hooper did every time there was a big storm, because he wanted to keep the weight off the cathedral ceiling at their mobile home, Cynthia said. Hooper had been outside working on the roof 20, maybe 30 minutes last Saturday. "He came in, sat down on his chair, and asked my sister to help get his boots off. He took one gasp and that was it," Steven said. Cynthia called 911 and did CPR, following instructions over the phone. EMTs continued trying, but couldn't revive him, Cynthia said. "They tried everything - they were terrific with him," she said. "He was always worried about the weather - he hated winter, the snow," she said. Hooper spent plenty of years in the cold, having been stationed in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. He later worked in Alaska on the Distance Early Warning radar sites, nicknamed DEW, Steven Hooper said. He traveled across the state, to Point Barrow and elsewhere. He grew to love flying while in Alaska, Cynthia said. "He said he would have liked to have learned to fly," she said, and made sure his son Steve did. "He could tell you looking at an airplane what it was, where it was built, where it was used," she said. One of Hooper's hobbies was making scale models of airplanes, Cynthia said. "He was pretty fussy on the detail," Steven said. His first replica was a plane flown at Millersburg airfield - a Kreider Reisner AR 34 built 1929 in Hagerstown, Md., Cynthia said. Corvairs were another of Hooper's hobbies. He co-founded the Central Pa. Corvair Club, and had 10 of them at one time, Steven said, and showed three of them. He also made a model of a Granville "Gee Bee" plane, also known as the "Flying Milk Bottle," as well as a Piper Cub. Hooper also made a several-foot-long replica of a canal boat that he donated several years ago to the Halifax Area Historical Society. He was a history buff, particularly of the Civil War and Gettysburg, where his ancestors reportedly fought on opposite sides, said his family. While he was called up to serve in the Korean War, he came down with Scarlet fever and was later discharged, Steven said. He began working for Alvord-Polk Tool Co. in Millersburg, from which he retired. Hooper loved his cat "Spook," and his children's dogs miss him already. "He loved his grandchildren, his wife was everything, he loved us kids. He would give things up for us," Cynthia said. In addition to Steven and Cynthia, he is survived by his wife of 66 years, Dena; daughter Debbie Johnson of Camp Hill; sister Judy Klinger and her husband Bill; brother Bill and his wife Shirley; and grandchildren, great-grandchildren and nieces and nephews. There will be a viewing from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Jan. 29 at Hoover-Boyer Funeral Home in Millersburg. Services will begin at 10:30 a.m. with burial and military honors to follow at Indiantown Gap National Cemetery in Annville. UPDATE: Correction was made to Hooper's name in article. Central Dauphin School Board member Linda Dallago has resigned from her seat and the board is seeking applications for those interested in filling a portion of her term. Linda Dallago Dallago, whose resignation was approved by school board members Tuesday, had recently been elected to the board as a member representing Region 2 of the district, but she said Tuesday that she was moving outside of that area to a home in West Hanover Township, in the district's Region 3. Dallago said while the move meant she'd have to resign, she had enjoyed working for the district's taxpayers, administration, teachers and students. Dallago, a board member and past president of the Panther Ram Foundation, served on the school board from 2009 to 2013. She lost a re-election bid in 2013, but returned to the school board in December following the November election. Board members on Tuesday night said Dallago would be missed. Superintendent Carol Johnson said she hoped whomever the board found to fill Dallago's seat would have the same passion for the district's students. "Every decision that Linda made was always through the lens of is it what is best for the students, which is what our lens is in the administration," Johnson said. "She has been a friend to our schools. She has been a friend to our kids." Residents of the district's Region 2, which includes Lower Paxton Township, Middle Paxton Township and Dauphin Borough, who are interested in being considering for the vacancy must submit a letter of interest to Board Secretary, Kim Fisher at the Central Dauphin Administration Building, 600 Rutherford Road, Harrisburg, Pa. 17109, according to a legal notice on the vacancy. Letters of interest, which also can include a resume, must be submitted by Feb. 3. The school board intends to appoint a new member on Feb. 22. The term would run through December 2017. NEW BLOOMFIELD -- If it weren't for Donald Meyer's seemingly reckless actions on Jan. 11, his 12-year-old daughter may still be alive. "The investigation showed but for Mr. [Donald] Meyer's reckless actions, Ciara would still be here," said Perry County District Atdtorney Andrew Bender during a news conference Thursday morning. "Mr. Meyer's reckless conduct, knowing his daughter was standing behind him, triggered a chain of events that tragically led to the death of Ciara Meyer." State police have charged Donald Meyer, 57, in the girl's Jan. 11 shooting death at the family's Rebecca Drive apartment in Perry County. Court documents show Donald Meyer Jr. faces charges of criminal homicide; involuntary manslaughter; persons not to possess firearms under provisions of the Mental Health Procedures Act; endangering the welfare of children; two counts of aggravated assault; simple assault; terrorist threats; and two counts of reckless endangerment in connection with the reported incident. Investigators said Meyer, in an argument with Constable Clark Steele about the family's eviction time, pointed a loaded .223 semi-automatic weapon at the uniformed officer's chest. Staring down the barrel of the gun, Steele fired a single bullet from his .40 caliber pistol. The bullet hit Meyer, shattering the man's upper left arm before also fatally striking Ciara Meyer. Ciara died from the shot to her heart and lung. Her death was ruled a homicide. State police investigators and the Perry County district attorney's office have cleared Steele in the incident, determining that he fired his weapon in self-defense. He will not face any criminal charges. Donald Meyer Steele was not unfamiliar with Donald Meyer. The pair had met at least two times before, when Steele delivered paperwork on the scheduled eviction. Each occasion had been uneventful, and Steele later described Meyer as respectful. On Jan. 11, Steele went to the house under the impression that there wouldn't be a problem, said Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Jonathan Mays. Police had not made calls on the home on a regular basis, save for one domestic call that was handled by township police and did not end in an arrest, Mays said. "So there were certain signs that were not present that would have been indicative of taking other steps as part of the [eviction] process," he said. Investigators later found Donald Meyer owned a number of weapons -- including another semi-automatic weapon, a couple of hand guns and a shotgun -- and ammunition for each during a search of the home. Some of those weapons had been purchased illegally after police claim Meyer falsified purchasing records by denying that he had been committed for mental health reasons. The Meyer family, Mays said, had Donald involuntarily committed in November 2011 when "medical professionals deemed him to have mental health issue." Under the Mental Health Procedures Act, he could not legally own any weapons. Steele was aware there were guns in the home, but it was not something that would raise immediate suspicion. "This is Perry County. It's rural. [Steele] deals with these processes all the time and it's not uncommon for him to go to a residence where the residents possess and own guns," Mays said. The incident unfolded quickly and the constable did not immediately know his bullet had hit the child. Steele saw Ciara "for a momentary flash," but "he didn't see her when the shot was fired," Mays said. "The defendant is a rather large man and Ciara was a small young lady, and [Meyer] size and just the small portion of that doorway that was open, she was hidden from view," he said. Now, Mays described Steele as distraught. "This is certainly something, he did not want to see happen and unfortunately it did," Mays said. "Surely he probably harbors some blame internally, but the blame lies with the defendant here." Ciara's mother, Sherry Gehman-Meyer, has since met with Steele and forgave the constable, saying she understood the situation he "was put in." Steele has not returned to his work as a constable, but "there is nothing that would prevent him from doing so if and when he feels he can return," Bender said. Police do not have record of any members of the Meyer family reporting that Donald illegally had weapons in his possession, Mays said. At this time, Bender said the district attorney's office and state police investigators do not foresee bringing any charges against Ciara's mother or any other members of Meyer's family members. While Meyer did not fire the weapon that killed his daughter, he can be charged because "in a very general sense, there is transferred intent under Pennsylvania law," Bender said, adding that under the law, criminal homicide does not have to be committed intentionally. Donald Meyer has been cooperative "as much as can be expected" as he's moved from treatment at Hershey Medical Center to Perry County Prison, Mays said. Meyer is being held without bail and is set to be arraigned on the additional charges Thursday. He has requested a preliminary hearing, which will be scheduled at a later date. plfile capitol dome Talks on the unfinished portions of the state budget resumed at the state Capitol on Wednesday with a no-taxes, no-side issues approach laid on the table. (The Patriot-News, file) Remember that incomplete state budget? Pennsylvania's Republican legislative leaders proposed a new way to try to tie it off Wednesday, hopefully before Gov. Tom Wolf launches debate on his 2016-17 proposal, which is now scheduled for a Feb. 9 unveiling. Their new template is to finalize the incomplete line items - such as school funding levels, funding for legislative operations and aid to Penn State, Pitt and Temple - without any increase in the sales or personal income tax rates. Wolf vetoed or amended those and other appropriations on Dec. 29 in order to force the Republicans who dominate the General Assembly back to the bargaining table for further negotiations on his priorities, which the governor felt were left under-funded. In exchange for leaving the state's broad-based taxes alone now, the Republicans would drop any immediate insistence on public employee pension reform or liquor privatization. They would reserve the right to get back to those issues even later this year. "Let's just finish up this last 10 percent of the budget and then we'll move on the other issues," said House Majority Leader David Reed, a Republican from Indiana County. Reed added that the Republicans' vision of finishing the current-year budget includes a final spending number somewhere close to the $30.2 billion figure in the bill that Wolf approved in part Dec. 29. That would take considerable re-negotiation of Wolf's preferred $30.8 billion "framework" proposal, which stalled in the House of Representatives just before Christmas. But Reed and other GOP leaders contend the fact that this budget is so late can now be turned into a taxpayers' advantage, as even some previously agreed-to spending can appropriately be pushed to the new fiscal year. There was no final agreement Wednesday, though Democratic House and Senate leaders did task their staffs to engage in further "budget-only" talks to see if there can be bipartisan agreement. "We'll look at it," said House Democratic Leader Frank Dermody, D-Allegheny County, without making any other commitments. Wednesday's closed-door talks at the Capitol came against the backdrop of a new report on the state's fiscal situation that seemed to help all sides in the lingering budget impasse buttress their arguments. For the Republicans and other opponents of tax increases, there's this: The projected 2015-16 deficit, now little more than half-way through the budget year, is nowhere near the $1.2 billion the Wolf administration had projected last spring. The state's Independent Fiscal Office expects the final expenses to exceed available income by $318 million, based on full appropriations in the budget bill that Wolf allowed to be partially adopted in December. That would still require some third- or fourth-quarter spending freezes, tax increases, or a combination of the two for the current budget to be brought into balance. But the difference between the projections may leave many Republicans feeling justified in their resistance to broad-based tax increases this year. For Wolf and others who believe tax increases are badly needed to keep the current ship of state afloat, there's this: The IFO also projected that, based on expected surges in human service costs and pension obligations and the elimination of some one-time steps in play for this year, the general fund deficit for 2016-17 will balloon to $1.86 billion. That's too much to cover with cuts, Senate Democratic Leader Jay Costa, D-Allegheny County, said after Wednesday's meeting, so "somehow revenue has to be part of the equation." So, while major tax increases have been held off like the proverbial Barbarians at the Gate this year, the pressure is only building and the issue could well be right back on the table in an election year. This new round of budget talks will likely either take flight or flop fairly quickly. Besides Wolf's Feb. 9 budget address, there is also concern that available funding for state prison operations and other major services subject to Wolf's line-item reductions last months could run dry within several weeks. Canadian Foreign Minister Stephane Dion, left, meets with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry alongside NATO ministerial meetings at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015. North America's three foreign ministers will be all smiles when they meet Friday to discuss the upcoming Canadian-hosted leaders' summit, but Canada and Mexico may bring some lingering resentment towards their American amigo on trade. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ AP/Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo via AP This photo released by the Georgia Department of Public Safety shows Trooper Jacob Fields. Fields and a driver who led him on a chase on a highway in suburban Atlanta both suffered gunshot wounds after exchanging fire Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, a Georgia State Patrol spokesman said. (Georgia Department of Public Safety via AP) Ned Pence, 78, passed away January 15, 2016 peacefully at home. Ned was born on July 21, 1937. He grew up in Mackay, Idaho, with his parents and four brothers. In 1955 he left Mackay to attend the College of Forestry at the University of Idaho to study Forest Management. He received his B.S. degree in Forest Management in 1959 and married Arleen Westfall, the love of his life in Salmon, Idaho. After graduation he worked at many jobs as a professional forester in Washington, Idaho, Alaska, and Montana. He returned to the University of Idaho in 1966 and received a Master of Forestry degree in 1967. Ned believed and practiced active forest management. The high point of his career was his position as District Ranger for the Island Park Ranger District on the Targhee National Forest from 1976 to 1980. The Island Park Ranger District was experiencing an infestation of the mountain pine bark beetle and becoming a dead forest. Ned supervised the harvest of about 150,000 acres of dead and dying lodgepole pine. The 1988 wildfire in Yellowstone National Park stopped at the District boundary where there was no ground fuel to burn. Over thirty years later the area is stocked with rapidly growing lodgepole pine. Today few people would understand what happened in the 1970s. There are thousands of acres of new forests growing in Washington State, the Boise National Forest, Payette National Forest, Targhee National Forest and the Tongass National Forest as a result of active forest management that involved Ned. Ned was a Fellow and Golden member of the Society of American Foresters. In 1980 Ned transferred to the Petersburg Ranger District of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. He resigned from the United States Forest Service in 1990 to become a forest consultant working with his wife, Arleen, and son, Don. In 2005 he recognized that the mountains were too steep and the brush too thick to continue and retired. One son, David, preceded him in death. Ned leaves his wife, Arleen at their Moscow, Idaho home; his son, Don (Deb) Pence in Hauser Lake, Idaho; his daughter, Tammy (Tim) O'Connor of Deary; three grandsons, four granddaughters, and his four brothers. A vigil service will be held on Monday, February 1 at 10:30 am at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Moscow. The funeral service will begin at 11:00 AM. A luncheon for family and friends will follow at St. Mary's Family Center. In lieu of flowers, Ned asks that donations be made to the Steel House Inc. Building Fund, 501 (c)3 Charitable Organization, % Zions Bank, 105 S. Main ST., Moscow, ID 83843. Online condolences may be sent to http://www.shortsfuneralchapel.net. Bristol-Myers Squibbs Daklinza has been cleared in Europe for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C in three new difficult-to-treat patient populations. The drugs expanded label now includes use of the drug in combination with sofosbuvir (Gileads Sovaldi, with or without ribavirin) in hepatitis C (HCV) patients with decompensated cirrhosis, HIV-1 co-infection, and post-liver transplant recurrence. Daklinza (daclatasvir) is already approved in Europe for use in combination with other therapies across genotypes 1, 2, 3 and 4 for the treatment of chronic HCV infection in adults, and the Daklinza/sofosbuvir regimen is the only approved 12-week, all-oral treatment for genotype 3 HCV patients without cirrhosis. The new indications are based on data from the Phase III ALLY clinical trials, which showed high sustained virologic response (SVR) rates across the patient subsets. In ALLY-2, the Daklinza/sofosbuvir regimen demonstrated overall SVR12 in 97% of patients co-infected with HIV, including 100% in genotype 3, and SVR12 rates were found to be greater than 94% across all combination antiretroviral therapy regimens, BMS said. In ALLY-1, 94% of post liver-transplant patients and 83% of patients in the cirrhosis cohort achieved SVR12. The drugs expanded approval is an important step forward for a significant group of patients with chronic hepatitis C who are still in need of treatment options that can deliver high cure rates, noted Douglas Manion, head of Specialty Development, BMS. The complex clinical considerations for physicians treating HCV/HIV coinfected patients and patients with cirrhosis, decompensated cirrhosis or post-transplant recurrence of HCV reinforces the vast diversity of this disease, and we have worked hard to continue to identify and address those patients who require additional solutions for cure. MEDIA QUESTIONNAIRE Name of Publication Established (Give exact date) ADDRESS TELEPHONE FAX NO NAME OF EDITOR Name of Printer Language Frequency Please attach a copy of declaration certificate Off Days Please specify whether morning, evening or state the date of issue Date on which the first issue was brought out Any special edition Price per copy Annual subscription Editorial Objectives and policy Appeal to any special community, class or section News services subscribed to Special regular features (i.e Womens or Children page etc) & when appearing INSIDE CANYON WORDS AND PHOTOS: MATT WRAGG A disruptive innovation is an innovation that creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network, displacing established market leaders and alliances. - Wikipedia Canyon's headquarters are an imposing affair, situated in the heart of Koblenz. While it may not look like as much fun in this weather, a pumptrack outside the headquarters is always the sign of a bike company that knows how to enjoy itself. It may not look like much today, but this trailer is where Canyon began. It was from this trailer that founder, Roman Arnold, first began to sell bike parts at races - and from there the business grew. Today it is on display inside the entrance to the headquarters. In their headquarters they have their heavily-equipped testing lab. It is here that Canyon tests all of its frames, forks and components to their limits. Alongside the more common examination processes, including microscopes and conductivity testing, they have an CT scanner to examine the structural integrity of the kit. This is essentially the same technology you would be examined with if you went to the hospital, but to work with far more dense metals and composites the power is turned up to levels that would be harmful to humans (they don't turn the machine on with the door open - this was just for the photo). Every aspect of every component that Canyon put their name to is tested against a myriad of loads and stresses - from impacts on the headtube, to how much force the dropout can take, depending on the test they may face 100,000 cycles or having the force or load increased and increased until the material can no longer take it. Every aspect of every component that Canyon put their name to is tested against a myriad of loads and stresses - from impacts on the headtube, to how much force the dropout can take, depending on the test they may face 100,000 cycles or having the force or load increased and increased until the material can no longer take it. While the main headquarters are impressive, it's only one of a number of sites they have around the town. The actual production of the bikes happens here - in their vast warehouse and manufacturing facility outside the town. If you think you receive a lot of post, you should see how much a company of this size receives... This is, admittedly, more than would usually be in this area because this facility when we visited Canyon had only just opened the new facility and were still in the process of cataloguing the garagantuan amount of components you need to build as many bikes as they do. Before the goods are sent through to the warehouse, each batch is checked by quality control to make sure they are fit to be mounted onto the bikes. If you're going to produce 100,000 bikes per year you're going to need quite a lot of kit to do that, so you're going to need a lot of space to store the frames, components and finished bikes. If you're going to produce 100,000 bikes per year you're going to need quite a lot of kit to do that, so you're going to need a lot of space to store the frames, components and finished bikes. Assembly takes place in this hall - the frames enter on the left, then work their way in a "U" shape to finishing on the right. Assembly begins with preparatory steps - preparing the cable routing, mounting the frame bolts and greasing the frame's apertures Some steps are done separately to the main production line - for instance, the handlebars and stem are mounted with all the necessary equipment and cables to one side, they are then mounted as a single unit in one go on the main line. Within just a few steps the frame becomes recognisable as a bicycle, rather than an assortment of components. Within just a few steps the frame becomes recognisable as a bicycle, rather than an assortment of components. When the basic assembly is done, it is time for the bike to cross the floor to the right-hand side for setup. The fully assembled bikes are setup to shop standard - all the gears are indexed, brakes tested and alignment of the contact points setup. The mechanics take each bike for a quick spin up and down the hall floor to make sure everything is working order, so the customer can take the bike out of the box and, after some minimal reassembly, get out and ride. The fully assembled bikes are setup to shop standard - all the gears are indexed, brakes tested and alignment of the contact points setup. The mechanics take each bike for a quick spin up and down the hall floor to make sure everything is working order, so the customer can take the bike out of the box and, after some minimal reassembly, get out and ride. To prepare the bikes for shipping they are meticulously prepared and slightly disassembled to fit in the shipping boxes. From Our Firehouse to Yours COOKS - It is sort of strange how things get started, some projects take a lot of time and thought, others are off the cuff ideas. In the case of... Seul Choix Haunted GULLIVER - The big fundraiser for the Gulliver Historical Society, Haunted Lighthouse is coming this weekend to a real haunted Lighthouse located in Gulliver, Mich. Seul Choix Pointe Lighthouse is... The general public can sigh in relief. Those evil bureaucrats won't be messing with their cultural identity. At the same time, local geeks and brewers can sleep well in the knowledge that Czech beer nomenclature won't be the object of international mockery once the new legislation comes into force. The most contentious issue of the proposed amendment to Regulation no. 335/1997 Coll. of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic has been settled with a compromise.It is been agreed thatwill remain as a category, but only reserved to bottom fermented beers, as Perun and Praotec Cech intended, while all the rest will be indicated asalways for beers of 11 to 12.9 PlatoAt last Tuesday's press conference, representatives of the Czech Association of Micro Breweries (Ceskomoravsky svaz minipivovaru - CMSMP) explained that this, and the other changes, will more accurately reflect the current picture of the local beer market, adding that, in order to keep up with the evolution of the market, further amendments should be expected in the near future.That's an aim I share, and I would therefore like to contribute a few ideas to the future amendments:, as a name for a category has been made obsolete and inaccurate. Since 2009, most of the beer in the Czech Republic is drunk bottled, and I'm sure someone somewhere is laughing at the image of, like it happened with top-fermented. The legislation should somewhat address that, too. My first choice for the new name,, presented two problems: on the one hand, it is still a registered trade-mark, on the other, it could create confusion at a pub; people would no longer order , but a and the server might bring them a bottle instead of a draft beer. A better name then would be. It sounds nice, I thinkand it's very accurate.should be also considered instead of Silne. (, of course, should not be touched, I wouldn't like Pavel Paral to make a fool of himself again with an opinion piece about beer .)The nameseems to have been chosen a bit on a rush and that's why, I believe, besides opening the door for a lot of silly jokes, it does not fully express the contrast with Lezak. To that purpose I suggestor simplyBut the changes should not end there. Beer nomenclature has a lot of inaccuracies, some of which border the offensive. India Pale Ale should be revised. Not only modern IPAs have nothing to do with India, but the name also refers to colonial oppression and brutality. I suggestor, if they want to keep the acronym. Imperial, as an indicator for stronger, presents a similar problem. Not only this country hasn't been part of an empire for nearly a century, but the word is also contrary to the tenets that form the pillars of European values. I suggestoras alternatives.But let's not get carried away. This is a concern that transcends the boundaries of Czech beer culture and thus, it should be addressed at the international stage.Na Zdravi! 2016 News Archive This page includes links to all the news articles published on pokernews.com during 2016. For your convenience, the articles are segmented by month. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Rachel Maddow put on a display of what cable news is truly capable of with a fantastic town hall discussion about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Maddow demonstrates how the contamination happened: Maddows town hall was the anti-cable news. There were no raging talking heads placing political blame. Instead, there was a master plumber describing in detail the cost and effort that it will take to replace all of the lead pipes in the city. (Total cost for each home roughly $10,000, and there are 30,000 homes in Flint.) The town hall was not a political blame game, or an emotional plea for help. In true Maddow fashion, the discussion from Flint was focused on the crisis and how it can be fixed. For instance, the doctor who discovered the elevated blood levels in the children of Flint, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, discussed the resources that these kids may need and how the parents and the community can come together to give the kids that were exposed the best possible outcomes. Video of Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha: Flint Mayor Karen Weaver pointed out that it isnt realistic for the people of Flint to live on bottled water: The mayor also discussed how the peoples trust in government has been broken and democracy needs to be restored: Rachel Maddows town hall featured the best experts on the Flint crisis talking about what has happened and what needs to be done. It was telling that Gov. Rick Snyder was asked to appear at the town hall, but he never responded to Maddows invitation. Maddow reminded viewers that thanks to Gov. Snyders city manager in Flint, the responsibility for the poisoning of a city rested with the governor and state officials, not the local politicians. Obviously, Rick Snyder knew that his bogus and untruthful buck passing to the people of Flint would not hold up under questioning, so he avoided Rachel Maddow at all costs. Too often cable news is nothing more than talking heads and pundits arguing all day and night. An hour after Donald Trump and Bill OReilly screamed at each other on Fox News, Rachel Maddow held a serious discussion about the crisis in Flint. The contrast between the fantasyland bluster of Donald Trump and the reality of poisoning of an American city was crystal clear. If Donald Trump and Fox News represent the worst of what cable news is, Rachel Maddow and her town hall showed the country the best of what the medium is capable of. Viewers should be holding cable news to a higher standard and demanding more programming like Maddows intelligent and informative town hall while putting an end to the Fox News/Donald Trump circus of distraction. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print According to KATU 2, Ammon Bundy, arrested yesterday by federal and local authorities, spoke through his attorney, Mike Arnold, to the remaining insurrectionists at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, telling them to go home to their families. Bundy was not able to do so himself because, according to KATU 2, he and the others arrested yesterday were taken to Portland and booked into the Multnomah County Jail and made their first appearance in federal court on felony charges. There, the judge ruled they remain in federal custody because, sensibly, he realizes there is a chance they would not show up in court. They have already demonstrated their lack of respect for federal authority, after all. A look at the groups Facebook page will demonstrate to readers just how delusional these people are, talking about common thievery as a principled defense of liberty. While remaining occupiers are engaging in various doomsday scenarios and calling on militia to rally to them and kill anyone who tries to stop them, Bundy realizes the situation is now different than that which has applied since they took control of the federal property on January 2: Im asking the federal government to allow the people at the refuge to go home without being prosecuted, Bundy said through his attorney Mike Arnold, who stood outside court to read Bundys statement. To those remaining at the refuge, I love you. Let us take this fight from here. Please stand down. Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is ours for now in the courts. Please go home. This includes, presumably, his own wife Lisa, who is at the refuge. Lisa Bundy apparently does not agree with her husband according to the groups Facebook page, which posted this Wednesday night: ALERT! From Ammons wife, Lisa: Ammon would not have called for the patriots to leave. We have lost a life but we are not backing down. He didnt spill his blood in vain! Hold your ground Ranchers come and stand! Committee of Safety come and stand! Militia come and stand! The post has since apparently been taken down. With their leadership gone, the dynamics of what might be driving events in the refuge buildings is unknown. But the situation is unraveling in Oregon. With its leadership in custody and federal authorities closing in, rats are fleeing the sinking ship. The FBI said eight people left Wednesday, and of that eight, three were arrested on felony conspiracy charges: Duane Leo Ehmer, 45, of Irrigon, Oregon, Dylan Wade Anderson, 34, of Provo, Utah and Jason S. Patrick, 43, of Bonaire, Georgia. Several more vehicles left before checkpoints were established. Not everybody, apparently, wanted to go out like Butch and Sundance. Greg Bretzing, special agent in charge of Oregon, said I will say that the armed occupiers have been given ample opportunity to leave the refuge peacefully [and] opportunities to negotiate. Bretzing, speaking at a press conference in Burns, Oregon, went on to say: As outsiders to Oregon, they have been given the opportunities to return to their families and work through the normal legal process to air their grievances. Instead, these individuals have chosen to threaten and intimidate the America they profess to love and, through criminal actions, bring these consequences upon themselves. After reading Bundys statement, attorney Arnold said Bundy just wants the whole thing to be over: Mr. Bundy wants to be able to get back out, get back to work. He has no intent to go back to Malheur County. He wants to go home, be with his family and go through this process with his team. This, apparently, is not the goal of others, to, having made their point about federal control of public lands, to simply go home and let the courts decide. This is not the path of testosterone. In a statement, the Southern Poverty Law Centers Heidi Beirich, Intelligence Project Director said: We are relieved that the ringleaders of the Malheur occupation are now in custody. The tragic loss of life is not surprising given that the armed insurrection has reached this point. It is critical that the federal government prosecute those involved in the Oregon standoff so that the antigovernment movement understands that there is a price to pay for their reckless and unlawful behavior. The failure to do so in Bunkervillle in 2014 emboldened not only Cliven Bundys sons, but the entire movement, and led to the situation were facing today. We hope that the remaining occupiers and law enforcement reach a peaceful resolution. Cliven Bundy, in Los Angeles when he got word of his sons arrest, said Isnt this a wonderful country we live in? Actions have consequences. It was the lack of consequence of Cliven Bundys own insurrection that led direction to the actions of his son, his eventual arrest, and the death of LaVoy Finicum. Finicum, whatever bizarre fantasies militia apologists want to weave, did not die a hero, did not die a patriot, but was a man who violated federal law, who, while claiming to defend property rights violated the property rights of others, and, when he refused to surrender, paid the ultimate price. The whole misbegotten adventure has been a foolish waste of both lives and resources, and its time for it to end. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print After being hammered by Hillary Clinton for his vote against a bill that would have allowed victims of gun violence to sue gun dealers, Bernie Sanders will co-sponsor a Senate bill that will allow victims to sue gun manufacturers and gun dealers. According to a press release from Sen. Richard Blumenthals office, The Equal Access to Justice for Victims of Gun Violence Act would: ensure that the victims of gun violence are allowed to have their day in court and that the gun industry manufacturers, sellers and interest groups is not shielded from liability when it acts with negligence and disregard for public safety. The bill would repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) . In 2005, Congress passed PLCAA, which provides immunity in state and federal court from civil liability for manufacturers, distributors, and dealers of firearms, as well as their trade associations, in most negligence and products liability actions. This immunity from liability under well-established common law principles that apply to everyone else in society is unique to the gun industry. As a result, gun makers and sellers have a lesser obligation to act with reasonable care for the safety of the public. It also means that gun sellers can turn a blind eye to straw purchasers or traffickers who may buy hundreds of weapons and traffick them to others with no background check whatsoever. As most gun companies are responsible businesses, this immunity only protects the worst actors in the industry. Bernie Sanders voted for the PLCAA in 2005, which has led to Hillary Clinton and gun control advocacy groups relentlessly hitting his record on guns in 2016 primary. Sen. Sanders officially added his name as a co-sponsor of the bill on Thursday in an attempt to negate the Clinton attacks on gun control. As recently as Monday at the CNN Democratic town hall, Sen. Sanders defended his 2005 vote to exempt gun dealers from lawsuits, It also had a provision in it which says the following and people may disagree with me, this is my view. Is that if you are a small gun shop in Vermont, and I legally sell you a weapon, OK? You go out, buy that gun legally, and then you go out and kill somebody. I think the gun shop owner should not be held liable to your criminal act. Thats what I believe. However one feels about the fairness of the Clinton campaigns strategy, the reality is that the attacks worked. Sen. Sanders is trying to put the issue to bed by co-sponsoring the Senate legislation. The Democratic primary campaign has been a fascinating contrast in strategies and the latest move by Bernie Sanders has made the race even more interesting Portfolio English Edition's premium content is available only for subscribers Learn about the hottest news of the day, along with immediate follow-up analyses and 1000's of exclusive articles with full access to the premium content. Register and apply for a 14 days free trial period. The National Agency for Public Service has proposed that the Cabinet of Ministers takes measures to prevent the return of unused funds to Japan that were received from the sale of the greenhouse gas emission quota under the Kyoto protocol. Head of the National Agency for Public Service Kostiantyn Vaschenko delivered the proposal at a cabinet meeting. "The Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry, Foreign Ministry and Finance Ministry during a week are to draw up a proposal on the provision of the timely and proper implementation of the agreements on the sale of the Assigned Amount Units (AAU) and submit it to the cabinet," he said, presenting the report of the agency's commission that checked the work of officials of the Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry regarding the holding of a tender to use the funds received from the sale of the quota under the Kyoto protocol. Vaschenko said that due to the untimely holding of the tender to select companies that were to reconstruct outdoor lighting systems using the funds from the sale of the quota around $140 million has been left unused and could be returned to Japan. A private company's efforts to build a high-speed rail line linking Rochester to the Twin Cities are steaming ahead as state and Olmsted County officials are expected to suspend work on Zip Rail next week. The Minnesota Department of Transportation announced Wednesday it would stop work on the Zip Rail project , pending a vote by the Olmsted County Regional Rail Authority on Tuesday. A resolution before the county board would suspend work on the Zip Rail project "for the indefinite future," citing the private-sector efforts. MnDOT also revealed it had approved miscellaneous work permits for the North American High Speed Rail Group , allowing the private company to move ahead with a feasibility study along the proposed high-speed rail corridor. "We feel fortunate to be able to be in this position that we get to study this, that we get to see if it's possible," said Wendy Meadley, the rail group's chief manager. The rail group is seeking to build a $4.2 billion, elevated high-speed rail from Rochester to the Twin Cities that would be funded by U.S. and Chinese investors. The company's plan also calls for doing commercial development that would be tied into the rail line. A privately funded rail line has yet to be built in North America. Earlier this week, MnDOT released the Alternatives Analysis Report , which recommended eight potential corridors for the publicly funded high-speed rail line be considered for future study. But with no federal or state dollars available for the project, official say it makes sense to suspend work on the project. ADVERTISEMENT "It just seems like the natural point to put a pause on it," said Dan Krom, director of MnDOT's passenger rail office. Krom estimates that completing the next phase of the project a Tier 1 Environmental Impact Statement could cost upwards of $60 million. As such, he said it makes sense to let the private company decide if it wants to move ahead with a project of its own. "Anytime we can leverage private sector investments in infrastructure in Minnesota, it's worth us taking it into consideration," Krom said. The work permits issued by MnDOT to the rail group are valid from Feb. 1 to July 1. They allow the company to do non-intrusive activities in the right-of-way of Interstate 494, Minnesota Highway 55, U.S. Highway 52 and U.S. Highway 63, according to Bryan Dodds, director of MnDOT's Office of Land Management. Meadley said the company's feasibility study will involve economic modeling, basic engineering work and environmental analysis. "We're at step one where we can study to see if it's going to be a go or a no-go," she said. The feasibility study will be funded by a group of private businesses with an interest in high-speed rail. That group does not include Mayo Clinic. Meadley said the company also plans to meet with residents along the route to talk about the proposal and gather input. As for the study work completed for the Zip Rail project, Meadley said it's really of little value for the company. She said the rail group's project is very different than the public proposal, so they will need to start from scratch with their own analysis. ADVERTISEMENT Not everyone is pleased to work on a possible high-speed rail line continuing. Goodhue County Commissioner Dan Rechtzigel said he remains fiercely opposed to high-speed rail along U.S. 52. He said he believe it will hurt his constituents and will fail, leaving taxpayers holding the bag. "Whether it's public or private, my position hasn't changed. I'm committed to destroying this project as quickly as possible with extreme prejudice," he said. But others welcomed news that the rail group had decided to begin studying the corridor. Rochester DFL Rep. Kim Norton said she is excited at the thought of a high-speed rail line linking Rochester to the Twin Cities. "I just think the possibilities are endless. There are strong economies in both sectors, but also they are two population hubs that can provide employees to a variety of businesses," she said. The publicly funded Zip Rail was projected to create more than 11,000 new jobs and more than $1.6 billion in increased economic output, according to MnDOT. Olmsted County Commissioner Ken Brown said he is pleased the private rail group received the work permits. He said he expects there will be support on the Olmsted County Regional Rail Authority to pass the resolution and suspend work on Zip Rail. "I don't expect any push back on that (resolution)," Brown said. "There's no public money and the permits are done, so hopefully the private enterprise will come on board and move forward." ST. PAUL State health officials say they've confirmed a case of a rare mosquito-borne virus, but say it's not a risk to spread in Minnesota. Minnesota's Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the Zika virus case Wednesday. It was found in a woman in her 60s living in Anoka county who returned from a trip to Honduras. The rare tropical disease is spreading in Latin America and the Caribbean. It usually causes a mild illness but is suspected in an unusual birth defect and other health issues. The CDC is warning pregnant women against traveling to several countries in Central and South America. State health commissioner Ed Ehlinger says the virus isn't a threat in Minnesota. The state says most infected patients experience no symptoms. Yatseniuk doubts that investors soon arrive to Ukraine, has stake on self-employment Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk has urged banks to finance the creation of new businesses, entrepreneurship and self-employment, offering new tools, as the quick arrival of foreign investors to the country is unlikely. "Foreign investors would not come running here tomorrow, and you know better than me what it is linked to. The first and main reason is what will be in Donbas," he said at a meeting with representatives of the banking sector held on January 16. The prime minister said that the government sets a task of creating new jobs, including via self-employment. "Friends, we do not credit production, we issue short-term credits, mainly consumption. [We need] credits so that people were able to create businesses and develop self-employment in Ukraine," he said, addressing bankers. Harley H. Flathers, 84, of Rochester, passed away on Monday, Jan. 25, at Mayo Clinic Hospital-Saint Marys Campus following a brief illness. A celebration of life is planned at Christ United Methodist Church in Rochester at 11 a.m. Friday, Feb. 12. Harley was born to Homer and Vivian (Raabe) Flathers at Saint Marys Hospital on Aug. 27, 1931. He was reared on the family farm in rural Fillmore County southeast of Stewartville, attended Dogtown School No. 118, and graduated from Chatfield High School in June 1949. He intended to follow his father into farming but was stricken with polio a month later, which robbed him of the use of his legs. After a lengthy hospitalization at Sister Kenny Institute in Minneapolis and an attempt to co-farm with his father, he was led by what he described as divine guidance to study radio broadcasting at the American Institute of the Air in Minneapolis. His employment at KAAA radio in Red Wing, Minn., in 1953 was the beginning of a 63-year industry career. An opportunity at KROC radio brought him to Rochester in 1957, and he stayed at the station until 1981. He is particularly remembered for staying on the air round-the-clock during the massive 1978 Rochester flood, broadcasting from KROC's remote transmitter building. He later worked for KWEB and was affiliated with it and sister stations for the rest of his career, through several changes of ownership, different formats and call letter changes. In addition to being well-known for his morning drive time shift, he eventually became equally well-known for selling and producing radio ads. Harley came to know and understand the community from a unique perspective. His innumerable remote broadcasts from carpet showrooms to car dealerships; from grocery stores openings to the opening of Methodist Hospital; and from the Olmsted County Fair to the Country Breakfasts on the Farm enabled him to meet vast numbers of citizens, business leaders, farmers, doctors, and Mayo Clinic visitors. He regularly fulfilled master of ceremonies duties for Rochester Symphony Orchestra concerts, July Fourth band concerts at Silver Lake Park, dairy princess and beauty pageants, Rochester's Summer Music Project and Rochesterfest. "HF" had a propensity to interview comedians and musicians during the early and middle years of his career, and he took great pride in interviewing the likes of Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Guy Lombardo. He surmounted his physical challenges and strived to help others, actively participating in the March of Dimes, the National Paraplegia Foundation and many other not-for-profit organizations. And he sold knives and china on the side sometimes while entertaining clients with his musical saw. Harley's interest in local history and his ability to tell stories in great detail brought him to the attention of the Post-Bulletin, where for several years he wrote two weekly columns for the paper, recounting personal takes on southeastern Minnesota history ("Back and Forth" on Thursdays) and and on places of worship in the area ("As the Spirit Moves Me" on Saturdays). He received the Exchange Club's Book of Golden Deeds award in 1966, was simultaneously recognized with WCCO Radio's "Good Neighbor Award" and the Minnesota Handicapped Person of the Year Award in 1977, accepted the Rochester Chamber of Commerce's Ag Person of the Year award in 1996, received the Rotary Club's Paul Harris Award in Chatfield in 1989 and in Rochester in 2006, and was inducted into Minnesota's Pavek Museum of Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2002, among numerous other honors. Harley met June S. Jury, an exchange nurse from London, England, in Rochester on Christmas Day 1958, and they married nine months later. They shared more than 56 years together, though Alzheimer's has compromised her latest decade. During the pair's international travels, they hosted and guided tours of Spain, Portugal, England, Scotland and Wales. They were active members at Homestead United Methodist Church and later at Christ United Methodist. Harley is survived by his wife; his children, Edward, of Minneapolis, Jeffrey (Chaoying Sun), of Monterey, Calif., Jane (Gary Nie), of Springfield, Mo., and Emily (Veronica Taylor), of Phoenix, Ariz.; and grandchildren, Kristina Flathers of New York, N.Y., and Ethan and Kirby Nie of Springfield, Mo. He was preceded in death by his parents and his sister, Elaine. The family is greatly indebted to Darlene Charland, to the Reflections unit staff at Shorewood Senior Living Campus, to the dedicated nurses and doctors of Mayo Clinic, and to the fellowship of Christ United Methodist Church. In lieu of flowers, memorials are suggested in Harley's name to the local offices of the Alzheimer's Association of Minnesota and North Dakota, the March of Dimes, the Salvation Army, the Olmsted County History Center, or local not-for-profit organizations of your choice. As expected, the Iowa caucuses have been the focus of political attention in recent weeks. After all, our neighbor's first-in-the-nation status gives presidential hopefuls the traction they need to prove themselves as a viable candidate. No candidate who finished worse than third in the Iowa caucuses ever has gone on to win a party nomination. That's why you see presidential hopefuls visiting as many of Iowa's 99 counties as possible, even though Iowa chooses just 1 percent of the delegates to national party conventions. That also makes Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders' visit to Minnesota on Tuesday, less than a week before the Iowa caucuses, so revealing. The Vermont senator made campaign stops in Duluth and St. Paul, demonstrating that Minnesota is a pivotal player in this year's presidential race. "If we stand together, if we have a vision of what this country can become, there is nothing, nothing, nothing that we can't accomplish," Sanders told an estimated crowd of 6,000 at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center. Last week, Republican candidate Marco Rubio stopped in Minneapolis for a fundraiser, stressing Minnesota's importance in this year's campaign. ADVERTISEMENT "We're going to be very competitive here," Rubio said at the Minneapolis Club. "This primary (caucus) has now been moved ahead in the cycle. Which means you may very well be the state, or the group of states, who decide who the nominee is." The Florida senator was just the latest Republican to visit Minnesota. Texas Sen.Ted Cruz made a campaign appearance last month in St. Paul. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul made four stops, including one in Rochester, in November. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum visited Rochester in May. Minnesota's political experts say more candidates are coming, prompted by the decision to move both party caucuses to March 1, also known as "Super Tuesday," when more delegates are at stake than all the previous 2016 primaries and caucuses put together. Twelves states are holding primaries or caucuses, accounting for more than one-fourth of the Republican Party's delegates and more than one-fifth of the Democratic Party's delegates. "We've either had our caucuses too late or, as last year, too early. This year, we're right in the thick of things," said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance in the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs and the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. The R epublican National Committee has mandated that the Minnesota's Republican straw poll during the March 1 caucuses will be binding. In addition, the national party is requiring Minnesota's 38 delegates to the Republican National Convention be awarded on a proportional basis instead of winner-take-all. The Democrats aren't taking Minnesota for granted either. The three major Democratic candidates Sanders, Hillary Clinton and Martin O'Malley have committed to attend the annual Minnesota DFL Humphrey-Mondale Dinner on Feb. 12. Candidates from both parties will be visiting Minnesota frequently next month. After the Iowa caucuses on Monday night, the primary schedule gradually picks up the pace as New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina convene their primaries and caucuses in February. Then, on March 1, Minnesota joins 11 other states in the biggest delegate bonanza of the campaign. "Minnesota has been fly-over country," Jacobs said. ADVERTISEMENT Not anymore. That is a question that could be repeated daily, given the steady stream of news stories like these. First, from Germany, where New Years Eve turned into a nightmare of sexual assault with hundreds of women being attacked by migrants, a report on several cities preparations for Carnival: Cologne and Bonn carnival organisers have begun handing out rules for refugees for next weeks jollity with warnings about women, alcohol and urinating in public. The cities are on edge after mass sexual assaults by immigrants against hundreds of women on New Years Eve in Cologne. The number of complaints resulting from the frenzy in and around the main station now stands at over 820. Carnival is a bigger celebration and could be a worse problem. In Bonn, carnival organisers have now printed leaflets welcoming migrants provided they behave themselves. Printed in several languages including Arabic, the flyers read: People dress up to celebrate, sing and dance together. In the carnival time everyone must deal respectfully with one another and observe the laws. Butzen that means kisses on the cheeks. Sexual approaches are not allowed! Women and men must always be in agreement. No means no! No means no. Thats borrowed from American college campuses, isnt it? Somehow I think these folks have a little farther to go. Urinating in public is forbidden! Im glad they cleared that up, although here, to be fair, the migrants might have some company. In Cologne one of the points raised on the leaflet which is printed in Arabic too is also about alcohol, which Muslims are not supposed to consume. It reads: Many in Cologne will be drinking beer or other alcoholic beverages at carnival time, but of course there is no obligation to do so. Having fun, singing and dancing can all be done as well without alcohol. Speaking for myself, I never did much singing or dancing without alcohol, but others may be different. The point is that if you have to start at square one with a gentle suggestion that sexual assault and public urination are frowned upon, you are probably in trouble. This story comes from Sweden: Swedish police have resorted to sending undercover officers to Stockholms swimming pools amid a rising number of sex assaults on girls by migrants. Plain clothes police will monitor swimming baths in the Swedish capital after a few dozen suspected cases of sexual harassment were reported mainly by parents of teenage girls. It comes amid reports that a number of girls said they had been sexually assaulted by young male asylum seekers at the citys Eriksdalsbadet Olympic baths in the past three weeks. The girls who filed complaints were all under the age of 18. We do not wish to point fingers to a specific group Of course not! but we are talking about boys without a parent or guardian, Stockholm City police chief Elisabeth Anestad told Expressen. Eriksdalsbadet, which is the biggest aquatics centre in Stockholm, has previously reported a spike in sexual assaults mainly incidents involving boys and young men groping women. As a result, Stockholm police will now have uniformed police regularly patrolling the swimming centre, and the pools hot tubs are now segregated by sex. Its happening in Belgium, too: It comes as a Belgian mayor announced that he would propose banning male refugees from a swimming pool for a month on Monday after complaints from female bathers. And, not surprisingly, Germany: The German town of Bornheim, 19 miles south of Cologne, temporarily banned male asylum seekers from its pool this month after receiving complaints of sexual harassment. Last week, the historic baths Johannisbad baths in Zwickau, Saxony banned all migrants after male asylum seekers had been caught masturbating in a hot tub and sexually assaulting women. Back to Sweden: Sweden has seen a dramatic increase in the number of Moroccan under-18s who apply for asylum without a parent or guardian in the past four years, with many later running away from the housing provided to live on the streets in the capital. Stockholm police estimate that at least 200 Moroccan street children move in the area around the main train station in the centre of the capital, sleeping rough, and living off criminal activity. These guys are a huge problem for us. They steal stuff everywhere and assault security guards at the central station, one police officer told SVT. They grope girls between their legs, and slap them in the face when they protest. All police officers are aware of this. I would never let my children go to the central station. No officer would. [National Police Commissioner Dan Eliasson]said: Well, you are of course distraught on behalf of everyone involved. Naturally, for the person killed and her family, but also for a lone young boy who commits such a heinous incident. What has that person been through? Under what circumstances has he grown up? What is the trauma he carries? This entire migration crisis shows how unfair life is in many parts of the world. We have to try to help solve this best we can. Still in Sweden, a more tragic crime. Alexandra Mezher, a 22-year-old social worker who was working at a home for unaccompanied young refugees, was stabbed to death by one of them. He is said to be a 15-year-old Somali, but in fact his identity is unknown and no one knows how old he is. The reaction to the murder by left-wing Swedish officialdom was mixed Most Swedes would say that the incident shows how unfair life was in Sweden, to poor Miss Mezher. But Eliassons sympathy for the murderer was not unique: Eliasson is not the first senior political figure in Sweden to demand compassion for the 15-year-old boy being held on suspicion of murder. Marie Osth Karlsson, a senior local government commissioner, said: I also have to express sympathy for the man behind the crime, there is also a person behind it Both Eliasson and Osth Karlsson belong to the ruling Social Democrat party, which has been criticised in the past year for its handling of the migrant crisis. You might think that is enough for one day. But here is one more, from Denmark. A 17-year-old girl was attacked near a refugee center by a man who tried to rape her. Fortunately, the girl had a can of pepper spray in her purse and fought off the attacker, who has not been caught. The upshot? The girl is to be prosecuted, apparently, for illegal possession of pepper spray. The case has sparked considerable controversy in Denmark. We could go on, but lets mercifully draw the curtain over events in Europe. We have here predators and prey, a familiar theme in nature. But even rabbits and wildebeest are smart enough to understand that they are prey and to try to defend themselves. European elites? The jury is out. UPDATE: More information has come out about the murder of Alexandra Mezher, in part because the allegedly 15-year-old murderer has made his first court appearance. I am going to hazard a guess and speculate that the perpetrator, reported to be six feet tall, is older than 15: It has also emerged that the perpetrator attacked another resident of the home for unaccompanied minors, and Ms. Mezher intervened to try to stop the fight. It was at that point that the perpetrator stabbed her to death. Ms. Mezhers family says that she had warned her mother she was caring for big powerful guys aged up to 24 in the shelter for unaccompanied minors. I normally dont recommend books on Power Line unless Ive read them from beginning to end. However, Im making an exception for Karl Roves The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters. Why? First, because Im in the early-middle of a long history of Austria and probably wont make any headway on Roves book (beyond the first chapter, which I have read) for some time. Second, Ive been a McKinley fan ever since reading William McKinley and His America by Wayne Morgan some years ago. Third, and most importantly, watching Rove discuss his book before an audience at AEI convinced me that he has mastered the subject and tells his story with gusto. Specifically, Im convinced of what Doris Kearns Goodwin says in her endorsement of the book: The Triumph of McKinley is the Triumph of Karl Rove. This is a rousing tale told by a master storyteller whose love of politics, campaigning, and combat shines through on every page. Both the man and his times are brought to such vivid life that I felt myself catapulted back to the turn of the last century. And it was great fun to be there. Does McKinelys triumph over William Jennings Bryan in the election of 1896 still matter? Ill reserve judgment on that question until Ive finished reading the book. Theres no doubt, though, that the election changed the political landscape for many decades. Although Republicans had controlled the White House for all but eight years from 1861 until 1897, most of the presidential elections during that period had been close (some extraordinarily so) and the Democrats had often controlled at least one chamber of Congress. From 1897 until 1933, Republicans held the White House for 28 years, the Senate for 30, and the House for 26. The GOP lost power only when it split apart after Teddy Roosevelt (McKinleys second vice president) bolted. Rove argues that this amazing run was due to the realignment that occurred in 1896. In his words, the GOP suddenly became a frothy, diverse coalition of owners and workers, longtime Americans and new citizens, lifetime Republicans and fresh converts drawn together by common beliefs and allegiances. I think we can see where Rove is going with this. Today, nearly all Republicans venerate Ronald Reagan presidency, and Calvin Coolidges stock has soared among conservatives lately. (Coolidge is linked to McKinley in that his vice president, Charles Dawes, was McKinleys boy campaign manager in 1896.) McKinley, meanwhile, is forgotten. He shouldnt be. McKinley was a Civil War hero, a successful governor of Ohio, a highly influential member of Congress, an effective and beloved President, and a man of extraordinary character and judgment. Im hoping that, with the publication of The Triumph of William McKinley, the man and his presidency (which is beyond the scope of Roves book, but worthy of exploration) will begin to receive the attention they deserve. The management of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas on Wednesday reacted angrily to latest reports by a non-governmental organisation, ActionAid Nigeria, that Nigeria lost about $3.3 million (N650.1 billion) to alleged dubious agreement granting excessive tax incentives to the company. The NLNG, in a right of reply issued in Lagos described ActionAids report as false, misleading and hypothetical. But ActionAid Nigeria says it is standing by its report, insisting the NLNG exploited the incentives granted it by the Nigerian government by neglecting to resume tax payment at the due time. The companys General Manager, External Relations Division, Kudo Eresia-Eke, described as incorrect claims in the report alleging that tax breaks totalling $3.9 billion for NLNG had impacted on social services in Nigeria. The reality was that the Federal Governments initial investment of US$2.5billion, bolstered by the associated tax incentives, has so far yielded over US$33 billion in the form of dividends, taxes and feed-gas purchases for the country over the past 16 years, with additional US$ 5 billion accruing through corporate spend on local goods and services during the same period, Mr. Eresia-Eke explained. The company paid $3.6 billion in Company Income Tax and Education Tax between 2014 and 2015. This is in line with NLNGs corporate vision to help build a better Nigeria, he added. The Nigeria LNG Limited, he noted, was established at a period the LNG technology was still very new in Africa, pointing out that the establishment of the plant made Nigeria the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa to possess such new technology and the second such country in all of Africa. The pioneering nature of such a company in Nigeria as well as the huge investments required, running to several billions of dollars in foreign investments, Mr. Eresia-Eke said, were the reasons considered by the Nigerian government in granting the company a 10-year tax holiday. The incentive was granted under the provisions of the Nigeria LNG (Fiscal Incentives, Guarantees and Assurances) Act, CAP. N87, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 (NLNG Act). According to Mr. Eresia-Eke, the concept of tax holidays was a global business practice, with Oman, Malaysia, Qatar and Trinidad offering up to 10 years tax holidays, (Angola 12 years) to attract LNG investments. NLNGs tax holiday period, he explained, covered the period between 1999 and 2009, which was provided for under Section 2 of the NLNG Act. During that period, he said the company grew from an initial investment of two trains to a six-train facility, with current total valuation of the plant at $16 billion. At the expiration of the tax holiday period, the General Manager said NLNG did not have taxable profit for the 2010 to 2012 financial years due to unrelieved Capital Allowances on qualifying fixed assets acquired during the pioneer period. Regardless, he said the NLNG paid Education Tax of $65.08million, $107.04million and $118.59million for the 2010, 2011 and 2012 financial years, respectively. However, ActionAids Policy & Campaigns manager, Tunde Aremu, insisted the figure of $3.3 billion loss in the report were very conservative as they neither covered the initial five years guaranteed the company by the pioneer status provisions, nor include calculations of various other taxes the NLNG was exempted from. The incentives, as the finding has shown, were really an unnecessary generous handout to the companies. Before the project took off, there were already subscriptions by companies from different countries for their product, Mr. Aremu said. He said there was evidence that the partners in the project exploited the incentives received, to the extent that although the 10-year tax holiday granted it in the NLNG Act ended in 2009, the NLNG refused to commence payment of corporate income tax until 2012. NAB suspects managers of Skhidny Mining of causing $20 mln worth of damage during purchase of uranium concentrate The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NAB) suspects officials of Skhidny Mining (Zhovti Vody, Dnipropetrovsk region) of causing $20 million worth of damage during purchase of uranium concentrate in 2014-2015. The information is outlined in the materials published in the state register of court rulings. "Acting willfully, the officials of Skhidny Mining, knowing for sure that STEUERMANN Investitions- und Handelsgesellschaft mbH carries out only mediation business signed the contract with the company and additional contracts on supply of uranium concentrate at the prices that are considerably higher than the prices of direct producers," the materials say. According to the NAB, Skhidny Mining signed the contract with STEUERMANN, although actually the producer - Stepnogorsk Mining and Chemical Complex (Kazakhstan) supplied the products. As reported, annual needs of Ukrainian nuclear power plants (NPPs) in uranium is 2,400 tonnes, while production at Skhidny Mining today does not exceed 1,000 tonnes a year. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Thursday arraigned Aku Aku and Philips Aliku, alongside their company, Al-Aminu Oil and Gas Limited, before Justice Sulaiman Tukur of the High Court of Kaduna State. They were arraigned on a five-count charge bordering on conspiracy, forgery and obtaining N14.6million by false pretence. The offence is contrary to Section 8 (a) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act, 2006 and punishable under Section 1(3) of the same act. The first accused person, Mr. Aku, while being in the employ of the Petroleum Equalisation Fund Board, allegedly registered a private company, Al-Aminu Oil and Gas, where he is a director. Mr. Aku, allegedly conspired with the second accused person, Mr. Aliku, who is also a director in the company, and obtained N14, 602,600.00 from the federal government on the pretence that the money was for the loading and selling of petroleum products by a filling station purportedly located on Madikiya Road, Kafancha, Kaduna State. The prosecution counsel, however, did not oppose the bail application. After listening to both counsel, Justice Tukur granted the accused persons bail for N1 million each, with one surety each in like sum. The court said the accused persons must hand over their international passports to the court registrar, and that each of the sureties must be a civil servant not below Grade Level 14 or a principal officer in a company. The accused persons are to be remanded in Kaduna Prison pending the fulfilment of their bail conditions. The case has been adjourned to March 11 for trial. The senate president, Bukola Saraki, has reacted to a letter from former President Olusegun Obasanjo, to Mr. Saraki and the speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, in which Mr. Obasanjo accused the National Assembly of corruption, greed, impunity and lawlessness. Mr. Obasanjos letter, published exclusively by PREMIUM TIMES on Wednesday, said most members of the 469-member National Assembly were receiving constituency allowances without maintaining constituency offices as the law requires of them. The former leader said he was distressed by the massive corruption and lawlessness at the National Assembly and other arms and tiers of government. In Mr. Sarakis statement, obtained from his media office on Thursday, the senate president assured that the Senate under his leadership was committed to good governance, transparency, accountability, due process and responsiveness to the economic reality of our nation. It is for this reason that the legislative chamber has introduced bold and progressive reforms in the management of the finances of the National Assembly, he said. He also said he was canvassing making the National Assembly budget open to the public. The full statement: Yesterday, I acknowledged that I received a letter from former President Olusegun Obasanjo in which he called the attention of the National Assembly to some issues. I will want to assure President Obasanjo that the leadership and membership of the 8th Senate are committed to good governance, transparency, accountability, due process and responsiveness to the economic reality of our nation. It is for this reason that the legislative chamber has introduced bold and progressive reforms in the management of the finances of the National Assembly. This is of even greater importance during a tough fiscal period for our country. Like I said during my closing address at the plenary after our debate on the 2016 Budget, the Senate must lead by example in terms of our own funding, budgets and accountability showing, beyond doubt, value for money. I have canvassed that we must lay bare the budget of the Senate, nay the National Assembly and its affiliated institutions. I equally canvassed the need to strengthen the capacity of the legislative institution to carry our effective oversight of the executive arm so that we can ensure the budget leads to the realization of the policy objectives of the Buhari Administration. Again, let me reiterate my position in the speech I made this morning on the need for us to work towards blocking all areas of revenue leakages while also strengthening the anti-corruption agencies so that the little resources that are now available will serve the interest of the overwhelming majority. As a former president and a father of the nation that we all hold in high esteem, I intend to reply the letter and outline the actions the Senate is taking to address his concerns. In conclusion, I appreciate President Obasanjo for his consistent role in always reminding those of us in government about our responsibilities to the general public and offering timely advice where necessary. Signed Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki Former President Goodluck Jonathan has said he would, at the appropriate time, open up on the arms money scandal, involving at least $2.1 billion. Investigators say the money, meant for purchase of arms for the fight against Boko Haram, was squandered by the former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, allegedly on the instructions of Mr. Jonathan. At a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, on Wednesday, Mr. Jonathan emphasised the importance of education in fighting terrorism. He later tweeted about his readiness to speak on the alleged arms funds mismanagement. My voice will certainly be heard at the appropriate time regarding the alleged arms funds mismanagement, the former leader said. I would not want to interfere with the proceeding by the judicial system that my administration worked tirelessly to strengthen. My post presidential focus is advancing democracy and good governance in Africa. Mr. Jonathan later added that the Buhari administration, which is investigating the scandal, is currently fighting Boko Haram with weapons his government purchased. The current administration continues to fight them with the weapons we acquired and collectively I am confident we will eradicate them, he tweeted. Earlier at the press conference, Mr. Jonathan said lower education levels are linked to poverty and poverty is one of the chief causative factors of crime whether it is terrorism or militancy or felonies. According to him, there are obviously other dimensions to the issue of insecurity in Nigeria and particularly terrorism, the dearth of access to formal education over years created the ideal breeding ground for terror to thrive in parts of the country. He added, Education is one of those issues. If former African leaders can form themselves into an advisory group to gently impress on incumbent leaders the necessity of meeting the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recommended allocation of 26% of a nations annual budget on education, I am certain that Africa will make geometric progress in meeting her Millennium Development Goals and improving on every index of the Human Development Index. Data has shown that as spending on education increases, health and well being increases and incidences of maternal and infant mortality reduce. Mr. Jonathan explained that while in office he began the practice of giving education the highest sectoral allocation beginning with his first budget as President in 2011. My policy was to fight insecurity in the immediate term using counter insurgency strategies and the military and for the long term I fought it using education as a tool, Mr. Jonathan said. As I have always believed, if we do not spend billions educating our youths today, we will spend it fighting insecurity tomorrow. And you do not have to spend on education just because of insecurity. It is also the prudent thing to do. Nigeria, or any African nation for that matter, can never becomewealthy by selling more minerals or raw materials such as oil. Our wealth as a nation is between the ears of our people. The former president said it was no coincidence that the Northeast epicenter of terrorism in Nigeria is also the region with the highest rate of illiteracy and the least developed part of Nigeria. Explaining that in Nigeria though the federal government does not have a responsibility for primary and secondary education, he could not in good conscience stomach a situation where 52.4% of males in the Northeastern region of Nigeria have no formal Western education. According to him, the figure is even worse when you take into account the states most affected by the insurgency. He said, 83.3% of male population in Yobe state has no formal Western education. In Borno state it is 63.6%. Bearing this in mind is it a coincidence that the Boko Haram insurgency is strongest in these two states? So even though we did not have a responsibility for primary and secondary education going by the way the Nigerian federation works, I felt that where I had ability, I also had responsibility even if the constitution said it was not my responsibility. Knowing that terrorism thrives under such conditions my immediate goal was to increase the penetration of Western education in the region while at the same time making sure that the people of the region did not see it as a threat to their age old practices of itinerant Islamic education known as Almajiri. Mr. Jonathan noted that for the first time in Nigerias history, the federal government which he led set out to build 400 Almajiri schools with specialized curricula that combined Western and Islamic education. He said 160 of them had been completed before I left office. I am also glad to state that when I emerged as President of Nigeria on May 6th 2010, there were nine states in the Northern part of the country that did not have universities, he said. By the time I left office on the 29th of May 2015, there was no Nigerian state without at least one Federal University. The former president recounted that the fall of the Gaddafi regime in August 2011 led to a situation where sophisticated weapons fell into the hands of a number of non state actors with attendant increase in terrorism and instability in North and West Africa. Mr. Jonathan explained that his administration initiated partnership across West Africa to contain such instability in nations such as Mali, which I personally visited in furtherance of peace. He said, And with those countries contiguous to Nigeria, especially nations around the Lake Chad Basin, we formed a coalition for the purpose of having a common front against terrorists through the revived Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF). Those efforts continue till today and have in large part helped decimate the capacity of Boko Haram. He also explained that his administration waged the anti-terror was with the effort to improve intelligence gathering capacity, lamenting however that this has not enough attention. Prior to my administration, Nigerias intelligence architecture was designed largely around regime protection, but through much sustained effort we were able to build capacity such that our intelligence agencies were able to trace and apprehend the masterminds behind such notorious terror incidences as the Christmas Day bombing of the St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, Niger State. Other suspects were also traced and arrested including those behind the Nyanya and Kuje bombings. Not only did we apprehend suspects, but we tried and convicted some of them including the ring leader of the Madalla bombing cell, Kabir Sokoto, who is right now serving a prison sentence. The former president said he would use the newly Goodluck Jonathan Foundation to further democracy, good governance and wealth generation in Africa. He said, Of course, Charity begins at home and for the future, what Nigeria needs is to focus on making education a priority. Thankfully, the administration that succeeded mine in its first budget, appears to have seen wisdom in continuing the practice of giving education the highest sectoral allocation. This is commendable. I feel that what people in my position, statesmen and former leaders, ought to be doing is to help build consensus all over Africa, to ensure that certain issues should not be politicized. The spokesperson of the Peoples Democratic Party, Olisa Metuh, has been released from prison after meeting his bail conditions. Mr. Metuh, who is standing trial for alleged money laundering, was granted bail on January 19, but remained in detention after failing to meet the terms. Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court, Abuja, had ordered him to pay N400 million as bond, in addition to providing two sureties who own properties in the Maitama district of Abuja. Each surety was also asked to deposit N200 million. On Tuesday, the judge agreed that the sureties could own properties in other areas of Abuja. Mr. Metuh had asked the court to vary the terms of his bail. The PDP spokesperson is accused of receiving N400 million from a former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki. The money was part of about $2.1 billion voted for arms purchase, but allegedly diverted by Mr. Dasuki. A witness on Wednesday testified before the Federal High Court in Abuja revealing that the spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Olisa Metuh, had N400 million paid into his account on November 24, 2014 by the office of a former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is prosecuting Mr. Metuh for allegedly receiving N400 million from Mr. Dasuki. The money is believed to be part of an alleged $2.1 billion Mr. Dasuki is accused of diverting while he was NSA. The witness, Eno Mfon Effiong, a staff of Diamond Bank, is the fourth Prosecution Witness ((PW4) to testify before Justice Okon Abang on the case involving Mr. Metuh. She is a customer relations manager at the bank, with the responsibility of attending to customer requests, packaging credits facilities, and managing customers accounts. Ms Effiong informed the court that she managed Dextra Investment Limited account since Feb 10,2014 when the company opened the account at her bank. She also told the court that on November 24, 2014, the sum of N400m was paid into the account of Dextra investments Limited from the office of the NSA. She said the company operated five accounts and that Mr. Metuh once demanded statements of his account, which was delivered to him in his residence. At that point, Mr. Metuhs lawyer, Emeka Etiaba, objected to the presentation of some documents by the witness. Mr. Itiaba told the court that one of the documents, a letter, did not relate to the statement of the witness. He further argued that the witness is not the originator of the documents presented and should therefore not testify regarding it. Mr. Itiaba prayed the court to discountenance the documents tendered by the witness, saying most of them did not comply with section 84 of the Evidence Act. Responding, however, the prosecution counsel, Sylvanus Tahir, urged the court to dismiss the objection for lack of merit, stating that its aim was to mislead the court. Mr. Tahirs prayer was upheld by Justice Abang. Earlier, the judge turned down the request of Mr. Itiaba who prayed the court to stay proceedings on Mr. Metuhs substantive suit, following the absence of the defendants lead counsel, Onyeachi Ikpeazu. Mr. Itiaba had told the court that Mr. Ikpeazu could not make it to the session, as he was attending to an election matter, which was time bound at the Supreme Court. But in his submission, Mr. Abang held that Mr. Ikpeazu failed to inform the court in writing about his absence. The Judge said Mr. Itiaba cannot be allowed to make such an appeal through the backdoor for Mr. Ikpeazu. He therefore ruled that the hearing continue after the ruling on Mr. Metuhs application for the variation of the terms of his (Mr Metuhs) bail condition. As part of his ruling on the application for the variation, Mr. Abang adjusted an earlier decision he made on the expected location of assets belonging to Mr. Metuhs sureties. Mr. Abang, who had earlier ruled that the sureties must have assets only in Maitama area of Abuja, said the sureties could now have assets from any part of the Federal Capital. He however added that no further appeals would be considered on the variation of bail terms, stressing that the defendants had the prerogative of appealing the decision of the court in a higher court if they were not satisfied by it. More witnesses were presented by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Thursday before Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja to testify in the ongoing case of alleged money laundering involving the spokesperson of the Peoples Democratic Party, Olisa Metuh, and his company, Destra Investment Limited. Mr. Metuh is being tried for allegedly receiving N400 million (four hundred million naira) from a former National Security Adviser (NSA), Sambo Dasuki, who is accused of laundering $2.1 billion At the hearing of the case Wednesday, Eno Mfon Efiong, a staff of Diamond Bank and an account officer of the defendant, who testified as the fourth prosecution witness, confirmed to the court a credit transaction from the office of the National Security Adviser into Destra Investment Limited account. At the resumed hearing Thursday, the counsel to EFCC, Sylvanus Tahir, presented Yomi Badejo-Okusanya, a public relations consultant and Kabiru Ibrahim, a bureau de change operator who testified as fifth and sixth prosecution witness respectively. Mr. Ibrahim, a bureau de change operator, told the court that he exchanged the sum of $1million for Destra Investment. He said he was given the money by a certain Nnena Nicole Ararume in 2014. He said the money was exchanged at the rate of N183 per US dollar, and transferred into the account of Mr. Metuhs company. He however informed the court during cross examination that he had no direct contact with Mr. Metuh throughout the exchange transaction. Mr. Ibrahim said he was given the account number of Destra Investment Ltd. by Ms Ararume, adding that he transferred the naira equivalent of the sum of $1million (N183 million) from his Daimond Bank account to that of Destra Investment. The first Prosecution Witness, Ms. Ararume, had on January 25 told the court that she was given the sum of $2 million, which she exchanged into Nigerian currency for Mr. Metuh. Ms Ararume said she gave $1million of the money to a certain Sie Iyenome who appeared as the second Prosecution Witness, (PW2) and explained how he had the said sum exchanged at the rate of N183 per dollar. Ms Ararume said she gave the other half of the money to Mr. Ibrahim who also exchanged it at the same rate. Earlier, fifth prosecution witness, Badejo-Okusanya, the Managing Director of CMC connect, which is a Public Relations agency involved in image management and other media services, told the court that his company was paid N77.5 million by Destra for services rendered to the PDP . Mr. Badejo said the money was paid in two tranches, with the first sum of N7.5 million paid directly into his account by Destra, while the remaining N70 million was paid into CMCs account by Mr. Metuhs company. Documents in support of his claim, including documents containing evidence of payments for different placements of advertorials of PDP in various media, were tendered and admitted as exhibits. After listening to the witnesses, Justice Abang adjourned the case to February 4 for continuation of trial. Mr. Abang said the reason for the one-week adjournment was to enable him to attend to other commitments at the Lagos division of the High Court. The Chairman, Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory, Dino Melaye, on Thursday reacted to the letter written by ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo to the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, describing it as a misplacement of anger. Arguing that Mr. Obasanjos regime exposed the National Assembly to corruption and easy money, Mr. Melaye (APC Kogi West), in a statement in Abuja, said he expected the former resident to have forgiven all those who defrauded him in 2007, those who collected his money and refused to implement the 3rd term agenda. He said, I have tremendous respect for President Olusegun Aremu Okikiola Obasanjo. Elder statesman, respected pan Africanist and committed patriot. I went through the letter written to all senators and members of the House of Representatives. The letter I can see is a misplacement of anger. Our leader is mistaking the 8th National Assembly as the same Senate Assembly that defrauded him in 2007: Those who collected his money and refused to implement the 3rd term agenda. I appeal to Baba that we are not the ones please. After nine years of that bribery saga, the first of its kind, I expect forgiveness to have taken place. There was the case of bribery introduced by the Obasanjos regime in the desperate attempt to remove Speaker Ghali Umar Naabba from office then. In fact, there was open display of that bribery money on the floor of the house. That government exposed the National Assembly to corruption and easy money. I hope this is not an attempt to cover up and distract attention from the Halliburton and Siemens corruption allegations. While I am against corruption anywhere in Nigeria, I will not support accusations based on anger and vindictiveness. The 8th Senate should also look inwardly and purge herself of all the deliberate misgivings of the past. Nigeria must work and we must support the anti corruption stand of the Muhammadu Buharis Administration. Mr. Obasanjo had written the National Assembly accusing federal lawmakers of corruption, impunity, greed and of repeatedly breaking the nations laws. In a letter dated January 13 and addressed to the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, the former president specifically accused the lawmakers of fixing and earning salaries and allowances far above what the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission approved for them. He also alleged that most of the 109 senators and 369 members of the House of Representatives were receiving constituency allowances without maintaining constituency offices as the laws required of them. Mr. Obasanjo was president between 1999 and 2007. In the letter, exclusively obtained by PREMIUM TIMES, the former president said on a few occasion, both in and out of office as president, he had agonised over the massive corruption and lawlessness at the National Assembly and other arms and tiers of government. He said he had reflected and expressed, outspokenly at times, his views on the practice in the National Assembly which detracts from distinguishness and honourability because it is shrouded in opaqueness and absolute lack of transparency and could not be regarded as normal, good and decent practice in a democracy that is supposed to be exemplary. While referring to the issue of budgets and finances of the federal legislature, Mr. Obasanjo said the present economic situation that the country has found itself in is the climax of the steady erosion of good financial and economic management which grew from bad to worse in the last six years or so. Read full letter here The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been declared winner of Gombe States Akko Federal Constituency rerun election conducted Wednesday 27, January 2016. Announcing the results in Kumo, the Returning Officer, Sofeme Jebson, said that Ismaila Muazu Hassan of PDP was elected with 21,094 votes while Musa Danladi of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) took second with 4,578 votes. Salisu Babikir of African Democratic Congress (ADC) scored 723 votes and Haruna Adamu of New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) scored 448 votes. The All Progressives Congress, APC, had no candidate in the election, following the nullification of its candidates 2015 win by the Appeal Court. The court had cancelled the election on the grounds that the candidate, Umaru Kawuwa Barambu, did not properly defect from the PDP. Meanwhile, the election for the Akko North state constituency was declared inconclusive. President Muhammadu Buhari Thursday in Nairobi, Kenya, reaffirmed his administrations commitment to the implementation of the United Nations Environmental Programmes recommendations for the clean-up of Ogoniland and other parts of the Niger Delta which have been damaged by crude oil spillage. Speaking during a visit to the United Nations Office in the Kenyan capital, Mr. Buhari urged the United Nations to give more support for his administrations efforts to clean up the region. When I came into office on 29th May 2015, one of the first tasks I carried out was to authorize the implementation of the recommendations of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) for the clean-up of Ogoni land, the president said. The devastation caused by oil spillage has destroyed many lives and livelihoods and is clearly one of the reasons why many people in that region lost faith in Government and resorted to the many criminal activities we are seeing in the region today. The action our government took to implement UNEPs recommendations has given the indigenes of the region hope that there are better days ahead. Let me, therefore, express appreciation on behalf of the Government of Nigeria to UNEP and other development partners for their cooperation and support on this very delicate matter and also request for their continued support as we implement the recommendations and transform the fortunes of the region, Mr. Buhari said. The president applauded the outcome of the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that held in Paris in December last year. The commitments agreed in Paris will clearly benefit Nigeria and many African nations adversely impacted by climate change. We therefore look forward to their fulfilment and implementation. As the UN Office in Nairobi gears up to host the 2nd session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-2) this year under the auspices of UNEP, I would like to take this opportunity to further pledge Nigerias commitment to this very worthy cause of having a safe, secure and clean planet, he said. President Buhari also said that with half of the worlds population now living in cities, world leaders must give greater attention to the challenges of rapid urbanisation. In our effort to promote the sustainable urbanization in Africa, the Federal Government of Nigeria funded and anchored the Africa Urban Agenda (AUA) programme in partnership with the UN-Habitat. The Programme aims to enhance engagements between state and non-state actors to build consensus around identified urban development priorities and amplify Africas voice at the global level towards HABITAT III. The Africa Urban Agenda will culminate in a major conference of African Ministers of Housing where numerous issues will be discussed. I am pleased to announce that this conference will be hosted by Nigeria in Abuja next month and I look forward to meeting and deliberating with you, and other stakeholders on this very important topic, the president said. The Resident Coordinator of United Nations Office, Sahle-Work Zewde, said that the election of President Muhammadu Buhari in a free and fair election last year demonstrated the commitment of Nigerians to democracy as a system of government. She described Nigeria as a crucial member of the UN, a vital partner and a major contributor to UN peace-keeping operations. Before leaving the United Nations Office, President Buhari undertook the symbolic planting of a tree, a tradition reserved for all visiting Heads of State and Government. He also addressed the ongoing session of the Mini-United Nations, an annual event that brings children from all of the worlds regions together to draft, debate and pass resolutions on issues of current global interest. Over 6 million women are victims of female genital mutilation across the six states in south west Nigeria, a group, New Initiative for Social Development, has said. At a training organized for journalists in Ado-Ekiti, Wednesday, the group said that Oyo State has the highest figure with almost 2 million victims. The training, tagged Reduction of Discrimination and Violence against Women in South West. Nigeria, was organized with the support of the British High Commission. There is a general apathy on the issue of violence against women on the part of the police institution, said Abiodun Oyeleye, Executive Director of the body. A typical example will be that of a victim approaching a police station and the police officers insist on laying the complaint over the counter without trying to conceal her identity or guaranteeing her privacy or possibly requesting information that is not central to the genuine complaints. The one-day training was aimed at creating awareness for the Violence against Persons Prohibition Act which was signed into law in May 2015, after 13 years in the National Assembly. Margaret Fagboyo of the Department for International Development said the tortuous journey of the bill was enough pointer to the complexity of the problems facing discrimination against vulnerable women. Studies have shown that our society is endemic with incidences of rights violation and abuses, as well as cases of discrimination against vulnerable persons, said Mrs. Fagboyo, acting Regional Coordinator, South West, DFID. The high prevalence and intensity of the violence most times arose from local customs, traditional beliefs and value system. Unfortunately, the legal and judicial system do not offer much protection against the violence and abuse. The ugly trend is further accentuated by our culture of silence. Mrs. Fagboyo said until the passage of the VAPP bill last year, only a handful of states in the country had specific laws targeting domestic violence and abuse. However, the content of the new law is tailored towards our environment, reflecting the realities of domestic violence and discrimination in Nigeria today. In addition, the law incorporates relevant provisions of international human rights laws and principles. Mrs. Fagboyo also said the new law covers practices such as spousal battery, forceful ejection from home, forced financial dependence or economic abuse, harmful widowhood practices, and female circumcision among others. Victims and survivors of violence are also entitled to comprehensive medical, psychological, social and legal assistance by accredited service providers and government agencies, with their identities protected during court cases, she said. So, on one hand, the legal provisions aspect has been settled, the question however remains: how do we ensure its awareness and enforcement? It would only remain a law in abeyance if the key stakeholders refuse to own it, and merely keep it in the statute book. According to Wale Adebajo of the British High Commission, the challenges of the domestic violence law is that it is not yet known to the people. The citizens have no access to the law including the justice sector stakeholders which makes it very difficult to enforce, said Mr. Adebajo, Communication Manager and Political Adviser, British Deputy High Commission. That is why the British Government is supporting New Initiative for Social Development to promote the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Law and educate the stakeholders to make the enforcement possible in order to reduce violence against women including harmful traditional practices especially in Nigeria especially in the southwest. Ikechukwu Okafor, a university lecturer, described the law as comprehensive in its objectives and approach to violence against persons. It seeks to harness contributions from all participants and stakeholders in fighting this crime, said Mr. Okafor, a Senior Lecturer at Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti. Apart from the courts, police and prisons which are usually the primary institutions for criminal matters this Act spreads a wide net of stakeholder participation including governmental, non-governmental, faith-based, voluntary and charitable organizations amongst others. The objectives and approaches adopted by this Act are robust and all-inclusive. However, its success will largely depend on strong advocacy which leads to attitudinal change in the society. The Ukrainian parliament has failed to back bill No. 1558-1 vetoed by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The bill envisages restructuring all consumer credits issued in foreign currency at the exchange rate of UAH 5.05/$1. A total of 101 lawmakers supported the proposal. The lawmakers also failed to override the president's veto only 54 MPs backed the proposal. Thus, the bill is considered repealed. President's envoy to parliament Stepan Kubiv said in the parliament that the bill could have affected the banking system. "The scheme to restructure liabilities proposed in the bill would considerably shatter the balance of rights of the credit agreements' parties in favor of borrowers, putting the whole burden of losses only on the Ukrainian banking system, which would entail the urgent additional capitalization of the banking system, refinancing, devaluation of the national currency, the increase of expenses of the Individuals' Deposit Guarantee Fund and the increase of expenses of the national budget, it would also introduce the unequal approach to the borrowers who have paid on their credit liabilities at the new exchange rate and those borrowers who did not have a possibility of fulfilling the conditions of their credit agreements or were unfair borrowers," he said. PLEASE BE ADVISED: Soon we will no longer integrate with Facebook for story comments. The commenting option is not going away, however, readers will need to register for a FREE site account to continue sharing their thoughts and feedback on stories. If you already have an account (i.e. current subscribers, posting in obituary guestbooks, for submitting community events), you may use that login, otherwise, you will be prompted to create a new account. S.Group Corporation has denied claims of tax agencies on tax payment against the group's companies. "Tax agencies in 2014 confirmed that there are no claims on tax payment against S.Group's companies. The letters of the State Tax Inspectorate of Amur-Nyzhniodniprovsky district of Dnipropetrovsk are dated February 2014. S.Group successfully challenged the new claims of taxmen in court in 2015," the corporation said in a statement, a copy of which has been forwarded to Interfax-Ukraine. Copies of documents that fully refute the statements of Deputy Prosecutor General in Dnipropetrovsk region Andriy Bachysche, S.Group Board Chairman Dmytro Rybalka said. Rybalka said that actions of Dnipropetrovsk prosecutors are linked to the political pressure on his brother, MP Serhiy Rybalka. "In 2012-2013 we received claims that we allegedly did not pay UAH 145 million of taxes. These were done in the period of Yanukovych regime and they were linked to the corporate conflict of S.. Group with the ATB supermarket chain. The co-owner of ATB [Hennadiy] Butkevych tried to destroy and seize our family business. However he failed, and in 2014 tax agencies admitted their mistakes. We asked for explanations and received the answer that they do not have claims against us, and all criminal cases were closed," Dmytro Rybalka said. He said that in late 2014, fiscal agencies again tried to additionally accrue allegedly unpaid in 2012-2013 taxes for S.Group's Prodexport-2009, although the district administrative court in Dnipropetrovsk in September 2015 declared these claims void. He also said that the department of the State Fiscal Service in Dnipropetrovsk region failed to challenge the decision in the court of appeals and the ruling took effect. Rybalka said that Prosecutor General's Office in Dnipropetrovsk region is trying not to allow the continuation of the court dispute regarding the collection of the UAH 110 million debt of the ATB supermarket chain to S.Group in the business court of appeals in Kyiv. For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME. Jones chronicles the history of the global elite's bloody rise to power and reveals how they have funded dictators and financed the bloodiest warscreating order out of chaos to pave the way for the first true world empire. Watch as Jones and his team track the elusive Bilderberg Group to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. Learn about the formation of the North America transportation control grid, which will end U.S. sovereignty forever. Discover how the practitioners of the pseudo-science eugenics have taken control of governments worldwide as a means to carry out depopulation. View the progress of the coming collapse of the United States and the formation of the North American Union. Never before has a documentary assembled all the pieces of the globalists' dark agenda. Endgame's compelling look at past atrocities committed by those attempting to steer the future delivers information that the controlling media has meticulously censored for over 60 years. It fully reveals the elite's program to dominate the earth and carry out the wicked plan in all of human history. Endgame is not conspiracy theory, it is documented fact in the elite's own words. DTEK energy holding of Rinat Akhmetov stirs up coalminers' protests in western Ukraine, Energy and Coal Industry Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Demchyhsyn told reporters in Kyiv on Wednesday. "First this is happening in the western region Lviv and Volyn where we take coal and supply it to Zakhidenergo. My dear DTEK: they do not want that we supply this coal to then, and that's why they use any methods to stimulate people to attack me, go to the streets and do not work. Not to produce coal that I could sell to Zakhidenergo," he said. The minister added that state-run coalmines shipped 100,000 tonnes of coal to Zakhidenergo (belongs to DTEK), while the mines did not receive payments for this coal. "This year we again shipped around 80,000 tonnes. They also did not pay," he said. Demchyhsyn said that in 2016, UAH 500 million was provided from the national budget, and this would allow paying the wage arrears to coalminers. "In January we received UAH 50 million and UAH 180 will be provided in February. It is enough to pay debts It is likely that we will receive the money on February 1 or February 2. However, some people have the principal position: this does not suit us. Irrespective of the fact if they produce coal or not, fulfill the target or not. They say: this does not suit us, pay cabbage!" he said. The minister said that this position could be explained by political motives and a desire to shatter the situation. NIEUWEGEIN, The Netherlands, January 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Not for release, publication or distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, or any other jurisdiction in which such release, publication or distribution would be unlawful. last trading day of depositary receipts of ordinary shares in Ballast Nedam on 25 February 2016 ; ; delisting of depositary receipts on 26 February 2016; offer to acquire all depositary receipts offered through Euronext Amsterdam at EUR 0.30 per depositary receipt until last trading day of depositary receipts; and per depositary receipt until last trading day of depositary receipts; and intent to initiate statutory buy-out procedure (uitkoopprocedure) at a buy-out price of EUR 0.30 per depositary receipt ultimately on 26 February 2016 . The private limited liability company Renaissance Infrastructure B.V. with its seat in Breda (the "Offeror"), a company controlled by RC Ronesans Insaat Taahhut A.S., and the public limited company Ballast Nedam N.V. with its seat in Nieuwegein ("Ballast Nedam") today jointly announce that Euronext Amsterdam N.V. has, subject to the terms set out in this press release, agreed to co-operate with the delisting of the depositary receipts of ordinary shares Ballast Nedam ("Depositary Receipts") from the Stock Exchange of Euronext in Amsterdam ("Euronext Amsterdam"), effective 26 February 2016, with the last trading day being 25 February 2016. The Offeror and Ballast Nedam furthermore jointly announce that the Offeror will offer to acquire any and all Depositary Receipts offered through Euronext Amsterdam at a price of EUR 0.30 per Depositary Receipt. The Offeror and Ballast Nedam furthermore announce that the Offeror intends to initiate a statutory buy-out procedure (uitkoopprocedure) ultimately on 26 February 2016 at a buy-out price (uitkoopprijs) of EUR 0.30 per Depositary Receipt. Depositary Receipts held by the Offeror As of the date hereof, the Offeror holds 215.558.127 Depositary Receipts (representing 97.85% of the total issued capital of Ballast Nedam) as a result of the offer for Depositary Receipts announced by the Offeror and Ballast Nedam on 17 September 2015 (the "Offer"), the rights issue and private placement transactions, the envisaged key terms of which were announced by Ballast Nedam on 9 December 2015, as well as certain transactions effected through the open market. Delisting request and Standing Order for depository receipts by the Offeror As announced in the offer memorandum (biedingsbericht) issued in relation to the Offer, Ballast Nedam has requested a delisting of the Depositary Receipts from Euronext Amsterdam pursuant to Euronext notice (Euronext mededeling) 2004-041, effective as soon as possible. Euronext Amsterdam has agreed to the delisting of the Depositary Receipts effective as of 26 February 2016, provided an acceptable 'exit' opportunity is offered on the terms set out below. In this context, Ballast Nedam and the Offeror have agreed that the Offeror will offer all holders of Depositary Receipts other than the Offeror to buy their Depositary Receipts. This will be effected by the Offeror issuing a general standing order through the Stock Exchange of Euronext Amsterdam to acquire Depositary Receipts (the "Standing Order"). The Standing Order: (i) will apply to all Depositary Receipts not already owned by the Offeror offered through Euronext Amsterdam; (ii) will be made unconditionally (onvoorwaardelijk); (iii) will remain open for acceptance for 20 trading days, starting on 29 January 2016 (9:00 AM CET) and ending on 25 February 2016 (17:40 PM CET), where after the Standing Offer will be withdrawn; and (iv) will be made at an offer price (the "Offer Price") of EUR 0.30 per Depositary Receipt. The Offer Price is equal to the price for the Depositary Receipts paid by the Offeror in the Offer and is well in excess of the average market price for the Depositary Receipts over the last 14 trading days of EUR 0.254, and the closing price of the Depositary Receipts of EUR 0.245 on Euronext Amsterdam on 27 January 2016. This Standing Order will not only be announced in this press release, but also in a nationally distributed newspaper. As stipulated above, the period during which you can sell your Depositary Receipts under the Standing Order ends on 25 February 2016 at 17:40 PM CET. This period will not be extended. Should you wish to sell your Depositary Receipts, you should therefore timely instruct the bank through which you hold your Depositary Receipts. Should you still hold Depositary Receipts upon expiration of the Standing Offer, these Depositary Receipts (or the ordinary share represented by such Depositary Receipt) will become subject to the statutory buy-out procedure referred to below. Ballast Nedam and the Offeror will announce the aggregate take up of Depositary Receipts under the Standing Offer by means of a single press release to be issued on 25 February 2016, after close of trading of Euronext Amsterdam. The Standing Order is fully supported by the management board, and supervisory board of Ballast Nedam and will not have any consequences for the activities, place of business, or employees of Ballast Nedam or the Offeror. Renaissance confirms to have the funds available to fulfil its obligations under the Standing Order. Renaissance and Ballast Nedam confirm that they have made all information relevant for holders of Depositary Receipts to assess the terms of the Standing Offer publicly available. For information on Ballast Nedam, including copies of the offer memorandum (biedingsbericht) issued in connection with the Offer, and the prospectus issued in connection with the rights offering and private placement transactions referred to above, please refer to the website of Ballast Nedam (http://www.ballast-nedam.com). In connection with the public announcement of the Standing Order through this press release, the Autoriteit Financiele Markten (AFM) has issued an exemption (ontheffing) from certain provisions of the Dutch Financial Markets Supervision Act (Wet op het financieel toezicht) and the Take Over Decree (Besluit openbare biedingen Wft). Last trading day and delisting of Depositary Receipts The last day that the Depositary Receipts can be traded on Euronext Amsterdam will be 25 February 2016 and delisting of the Depositary Receipts will take place on 26 February 2016. Statutory buy-out proceedings In order to acquire any Depositary Receipts not owned by the Offeror after 25 February 2016, the Offeror will commence statutory buy-out proceedings (uitkoopprocedure) in accordance with the Dutch Civil Code as soon as practically possible, with the intent to initiate such proceedings ultimately on 26 February 2016, against a buy-out price (uitkoopprijs) of EUR 0.30 per Depositary Receipt (or ordinary share represented by such Depositary Receipt). This means the Offeror will seek to obtain all Depositary Receipts not tendered under the Standing Order by court order. For more information, please contact the bank through which you hold your Depositary Receipts. Exchange Agent ABN AMRO Bank N.V. Corporate Broking (HQ7050) Gustav Mahlerlaan 10 P.O. Box 283 1000 EA Amsterdam The Netherlands Tel: +31-20-344-2000 Email: corporate.broking@nl.abnamro.com The Offeror Renaissance Infrastructure B.V. Claudius Prinsenlaan 144 4818 BN Breda The Netherlands Ballast Nedam Ballast Nedam N.V. Ringwade 71 3439 LM Nieuwegein The Netherlands Ballast Nedam targets its strategic focus at successfully acquiring and carrying out integrated projects in the working areas of housing and mobility in the Netherlands and internationally. We also work on projects where we can make a difference for the client with our expert knowledge and skills. Ballast Nedam applies a differentiated market approach for its three divisions. With further industrialization of the building process through the use of innovative modular concepts and standardization Ballast Nedam creates enduring quality at the lowest possible life cycle costs for its clients and society. The Ballast Nedam share is included in the Amsterdam Small Cap Index (AScX) of Euronext. PRN NLD SOURCE Ballast Nedam STRASBOURG, France, January 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) this week adopted a resolution that accuses Armenia of "deliberately depriving" Azerbaijanis of water flowing from the Sarsang reservoir, which is located in the Armenian-controlled territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. It says that this "environmental aggression" requires "the immediate withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from the region concerned." MP Milica Markovic from Bosnia and Herzegovina prepared the report, unambiguously entitled "Inhabitants of Frontier Regions of Azerbaijan are Deliberately Deprived of Water." "The problem with providing the Azerbaijani population with drinking water is very important," Markovic said, adding that the use of water is an integral part of human rights, according to international conventions. "PACE cannot ignore the problems of Nagorno-Karabakh and the sufferings of the ordinary people who are facing the shortage of water from the reservoir controlled by Armenia," Markovic said. Behind the crisis is the continued occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and the seven surrounding Azerbaijani districts by Armenia, which has left the country in control of high-lying catchment areas as well as the unmaintained Sarsang dam. Markovic's report says Armenia has created an artificial environmental crisis by denying water to the once-productive agricultural regions of Azerbaijan that lie downstream. As a PACE rapporteur, Markovic was tasked to investigate the water crisis and dangers caused by the lack of maintenance at the dam, which, she warned, could "result in a major disaster with great loss of human life and possibly a fresh humanitarian crisis." She called for Armenia to allow access by independent engineers and hydrologists to carry out a detailed on-the-spot survey, something Yerevan has so far refused. "Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to undertake a visit to Armenia, owing to the lack of cooperation of the Armenian delegation," she said during the heated debate. The adoption of the resolution is a victory for Azerbaijani MP and PACE member Elkhan Suleymanov, who has fought to raise awareness about the Sarsang issue for years. "This resolution is a step in the right direction," Suleymanov said. "But the 400,000 people that live downstream are still in grave danger and the issue will only be resolved if Armenia adheres to international law and withdraws from the occupied territories." Numerous international bodies, including the United Nations, European Parliament and the OSCE have adopted resolutions calling for the immediate withdrawal of Armenian troops from Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding Azerbaijani provinces. Newly elected PACE President Pedro Agramunt called the unresolved conflict one of the key challenges for the Strasbourg-based assembly. SOURCE Azerbaijan Monitor SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- "Phoenix Children's Hospital has provided hope, healing, and the best healthcare for children since it was born in 1983, and has grown to become one of the largest children's hospitals in the country." Phoenix Children's Hospital gives many options for donation. They offer money contribution programs, volunteer opportunities, corporate programs, toy donations, and you can even buy children's artwork. It is great that they have so many options for the community to get involved. Chris Kay, CEO of Blue Global Media has recently donated several toys for the children. " Money is nice to give, but seeing the joy on a child's face when they receive a gift is priceless. I cannot imagine the days these children and families have, so if I can make them happy for a moment I will," says Kay. Charitable giving is a big part of Blue Global Media. We have hosted food drives, toys for tots, sent packages to deployed soldiers and even donated to our local animal shelter. Blue Global doesn't just help locally, but also globally with charities like PlanUSA. Being a good citizen goes hand in hand with being a good business. It's simply about being aware and responsive to the needs of people, whether it's a customer or the community. Blue Global will continue to support the community and find new ways to help. About Blue Global Media: Blue Global Media, located in Scottsdale, Arizona, is a preeminent online lending company. Founded in 2006 by entrepreneur and investor Chris Kay, the company uses its proprietary technology to match customers with lending product to meet their unique needs. Blue Global is a member of, and has been accredited by, the Online Lenders Alliance (OLA). For more information about Blue Global Media, please visit http://www.blueglobalmedia.com. Media contact: Audrey Peck Email 480-543-7701 SOURCE Blue Global Media Related Links http://www.blueglobalmedia.com HONOLULU, Jan 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The astrologer Grant Lewi once said that astrology assists people to their highest achievements by "indicating the lines along which their will may be most progressively applied, the goals to be sought, and the individual means by which each one may arrive at the outermost boundaries of their world." When our astrology is in harmony with our psychology, we are on the path toward realizing our greatest self. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160128/326892 CUTV NEWS proudly salutes Bonnie Prebula. Watch this special CUTV NEWS profile to see how Bonnie is taking her skills to the next level. Visit her website at www.AstrologyConsultantService.com. Bonnie Prebula is an international astrology consultant and the founder of Astrology Consultant Service, where she interprets astrological forecasts to assist individuals in strategizing future decisions. Recently, however, Bonnie followed the same path laid out to her by the stars to integrate her unique artwork into her practice and bring more of her authentic self into the world. While astrology is very left brain, Bonnie says her creative brain is more thoroughly satisfied by her wonderful art work Bonnie creates soft sculpture figurative art of people (Santa, angels, elves) and animals (dogs, teddy bears, dragons, mermaids) as well as commissioned soft sculpture fabric works of family pets from photographs. Each piece is one-of-a-kind. "I like whimsy. That seems to come through in my art," says Bonnie. "People are just fascinated by something that isn't commercially done. They stop by and tell me 'These have life!'" When the economy first crashed in 2008, Bonnie's pharmacy chain was in desperate need of more revenue. She and a friend started taking lessons in fabric sculpture. Soon, people from all over Oahu were visiting Bonnie's pharmacy to see what was new. She sold the last of her pharmacies in October 2010 to focus all of her attention on Astrology Consultant Service and her original art from her Holiday Gift Gallery & Studio in Honolulu, where she produces and exhibits her unique artwork. Today, in addition to her figurative soft sculpture of people and animals, Bonnie also creates necklaces, bracelets, earrings as part of her new line of astrology symbol jewelry. Recently, she started her own line of "Astro Bears," specially created in the colors of an individual client's Astrology chart with the natural gem assigned to their Sun Sign of the Zodiac in a pendant for the bear's necklace. For more information on Bonnie Prebula's unique art, visit http://bonniegp.com/art. Video - http://youtu.be/Yti27PMG4Og SOURCE CUTV News Related Links http://bonniegp.com/art WASHINGTON, Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Corporate Whistleblower Center is urging a medical doctor or a nurse manager with specific proof involving million dollar Medicare fraud, or overbilling to call them anytime at 866-714-6466 for an easy to understand explanation about how the federal whistleblower program works. The Center is especially focused on hearing about information related to Medicare Fraud and a hospital ER, a nursing home, a rehab center, a hospice care provider, a dialysis center, or an imaging center. As they would like to explain anytime the rewards for Medicare fraud can be enormous. http://CorporateWhistleblowerCenter.Com Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160127/326471 Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160127/326472 As a recent example on January 12th, 2016 the Department of Justice announced the nation's largest rehabilitation care company agreed to pay $125 million to resolve a government lawsuit alleging that they violated the False Claims Act by knowingly causing skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) to submit false claims to Medicare for rehabilitation therapy services that were not reasonable, necessary and skilled, or that never occurred. Specifically, the government's complaint alleged the healthcare company's schemes included the following: Presumptively placing patients in the highest therapy reimbursement level, rather than relying on individualized evaluations to determine the level of care most suitable for each patient's clinical needs; During the period prior to Oct. 1, 2011 , boosting the amount of reported therapy during "assessment reference periods," thereby causing and enabling SNFs to bill for the care of their Medicare patients at the highest therapy reimbursement level, while providing materially less therapy to those same patients outside the assessment reference periods, when the SNFs were not required to report to Medicare the amount of therapy the company was providing to their patients (a practice known as "ramping"); Scheduling and reporting the provision of therapy to patients even after the patients' treating therapists had recommended that they be discharged from therapy. In this instance the whistleblowers will receive nearly $24 million as their reward. The Corporate Whistleblower Center says, "What many medical doctors, nurse managers, or healthcare professionals do not realize is they have already won the lotto, because they have specific information multi- million dollar Medicare fraud and we want them to cash in. What makes us unique is we will help a potential whistleblower organize their information so they can get the best possible reward as we would like to explain anytime at 866-714-6466." http://CorporateWhistleblowerCenter.Com Simple rules for a whistleblower from the Corporate Whistleblower Center: * Do not go to the government first if you are a major whistleblower. The Corporate Whistleblower Center says, "Major whistleblowers frequently go to the federal government thinking they will help. It's a huge mistake." * Do not go to the news media with your whistleblower information. Public revelation of a whistleblower's information could destroy any prospect for a reward. * Do not try to force a government contractor or corporation to come clean to the government about their wrongdoing. The Corporate Whistleblower Center wants to emphasize there are high quality whistleblowers healthcare in every state including California, New York, Florida, Texas, Massachusetts, Maryland, Rhode Island, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Washington, and Alaska. Any type of insider or employee who possesses significant proof of their employer or a government contractor defrauding the federal government is encouraged to contact Corporate Whistleblower Center anytime at 866-714-6466 or via their web site. http://CorporateWhistleblowerCenter.Com For attribution related to the company providing rehab services, and the whistleblower reward please refer to the January 12th, 2016 United States Department of Justice press release on this matter: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/nation-s-largest-nursing-home-therapy-provider-kindredrehabcare-pay-125-million-resolve-false Case Number: United States ex rel. Halpin and Fahey v. Kindred Healthcare, Inc., et al., Case No. 1:11cv12139-RGS (D. Mass.). Media Contact: M. Thomas Martin 866-714-6466 SOURCE Corporate Whistleblower Center Related Links http://CorporateWhistleblowerCenter.Com A statement of Energy and Coal Industry Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Demchyshyn that DTEK energy holding stirs up coalminers' protests in western Ukraine is untrue, the press service of DTEK has reported. "The energy sector in Ukraine in the past 18 months has entered the state of deep crisis, which touched both state-run and private enterprises. The way out of the situation should be tight constructive cooperation of private and public sectors with the ministry and regulator. Attempts to shift responsibility for the situation in the sector do not promote the resolving of the problems of the Ukrainian energy sector," DTEK said. The holding said that in 2015, DTEK's thermal power plants (TPPs) bought over 580,000 tonnes of coal from state-run coalmines, including over 450,000 tonnes from Lviv and Volyn coalmines. "The company registered and paid for coal stored at Zakhidenergo's TPPs. The debt of the state to DTEK for electricity generated as of January 1, 2016 reached UAH 4.7 billion. The position of DTEK was and remains unchanged. Ukraine should support own production, burning Ukrainian coal at Ukrainian TPPs. This would ensure the country's energy independence," the holding said. BOISE, Idaho, Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The second most common reason patients seek medical care is back pain, while lower back pain stands as the leading cause of worldwide disability. At any given time, over 31 million Americans are afflicted by some degree of back pain, resulting in billions of dollars worth of treatment - mostly without any lasting results. It is a fact that a large number of back surgeries may not be necessary, meaning patients are going under the knife where there may be other less invasive options available. Furthermore, back surgery does not always guarantee success, as about half of back surgery patients continue to have back pain long after their procedures. Dr. Deed Harrison, Chiropractic BioPhysic (CBP) president and clinical director at the Ideal Spine Health Center in Eagle, Idaho agrees that many patients are not being given the right options to properly manage back pain. "When a large number of surgeries are deemed unnecessary, it goes to show that the medical profession is failing in two critical areas: diagnosis and treatment. Back surgery must be reserved as the very last option to combat back pain," says Dr. Deed. "Instead of back surgery, I urge patients to seek a second opinion from a highly trained and certified CBP chiropractor so that they may truly understand the cause of their back pain and get educated on just how successful Chiropractic BioPhysics is in improving back pain and spinal health through corrective spinal care." While regular chiropractic care may help alleviate pain temporarily, CBP is the only treatment plan which concentrates on long-term success based on highly calculated and customized spinal rehabilitation and postural correction care. Once spinal and postural misalignments are corrected, back pain will subside significantly and patients will be able to go about living a pain-free or dramatically improved quality of life. These statements are evidenced by 3 randomized clinical trials, 2 non-randomized trials, and numerous case reports in the scientific literature. Dr. Deed Harrison is a world-renowned chiropractor and chiropractic pioneer and invites back pain sufferers from across Boise, Eagle and Meridian to learn more about CBP through complimentary in-office consultations at his Eagle, Idaho facility. Contact: Dr. Deed Harrison 208-939-2502 SOURCE Ideal Spine Health Center Related Links http://www.idealspinehealth.com GREEN COVE SPRINGS, Fla., Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- IndustryNewsletters, a division of HomeActions LLC, an e-prospecting and client relationship service, is pleased to announce the appointment of two presidents for key divisions. Laurie Friedman has been appointed president of the Payroll and PEO divisions of IndustryNewsletters. She has more than 13 years of experience in enhancing marketing, communications, branding and business development for payroll service bureaus, PEOs, human resources consulting firms and employee benefits specialists. She specializes in building relationships and assisting professionals in reaching all aspects of their marketing, lead generation and communication goals. Previously, Friedman was regional sales director of BizActions LLC, and after its sale to Thomson Reuters, she stayed with the company as a business development specialist. David Ross has been appointed president of the Accounting and Legal divisions of IndustryNewsletters. He brings 25 years of experience in assisting professional service firms with enhancing their marketing, communications, branding and business development strategies. Ross has served on the California Society of State CPAs MCS/MAP Committee, as well as the State Marketing Committee. He has helped a wide variety of professionals reach their business development goals. Previously, Ross was national sales manager of BizActions LLC and then marketing communications specialist for Thomson Reuters Checkpoint Marketing for Firms. IndustryNewsletters focuses on marketing email newsletters for accounting firms, payroll bureaus, PEOs, human resources and employee benefits companies, and other service providers. Each IndustryNewsletters product contains professionally written articles that are automatically populated in each issue. In addition, clients can also write and add their own articles. Clients don't need any coding or programming skills to use the service. Indeed, no matter how the clients use the newsletter, all articles are laid out and mailed out automatically with the push of a button. And for those who want to customize their newsletters, the company provides online, in-context help and live customer service support. About HomeActions and IndustryNewsletters IndustryNewsletters and HomeActions were founded by Barry Friedman, CPA, who managed many CPA firms for over 25 years and subsequently sold them to American Express. He then created BizActions LLC, which became the largest marketing e-newsletter company for CPA firms and payroll companies, and sold that to Thomson Reuters in 2012. He has over 15 years' experience in the email newsletter space. HomeActions and IndustryNewsletters are virtual companies that employ more than 30 people. Both are headquartered in Green Cove Springs, Florida. For more information, please visit our websites, HomeActions.net and IndustryNewsletters.com, or contact Richard J. Koreto, chief content officer, at 845-642-4314 or email. SOURCE IndustryNewsletters Related Links http://industrynewsletters.com GREENBELT, Md., Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA has awarded a sole source contract modification to Raytheon Space & Airborne Systems, of El Segundo, California, for two Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instruments for the Polar Follow-On / Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) -3 and JPSS -4 Missions. This is a cost-plus-award-fee new work modification. The total value of this contract is increased from $571,227,466 by $563,583,823 to $1,134,811,289. This action extends the period of performance to 18 months after the launch of JPSS-4. The Contractor will manufacture, test and deliver the VIIRS instruments, support instrument integration on the spacecraft and provide launch and post-launch support. The VIIRS Polar Follow-On / JPSS-3 and JPSS-4 instruments will be new builds of the VIIRS currently flying on the NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP Mission. VIIRS is a scanning radiometer that collects visible and infrared imagery and radiometric measurements of the land, atmosphere, cryosphere and oceans. VIIRS data is used to measure cloud and aerosol properties, ocean color, sea and land surface temperature, ice motion and temperature, fires and Earth's albedo. Climatologists use VIIRS data to enhance global climate observations. The JPSS missions are funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to provide global environmental data in low Earth polar orbit in support of NOAA's mission. NASA is the acquisition agent for the flight systems and components of the ground segment. For more information about JPSS, visit: http://www.jpss.noaa.gov For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO SOURCE NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center Related Links http://www.nasa.gov NEW YORK, Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The world market for microarrays is estimated at $4 billion according to Kalorama Information. The healthcare market research publisher said the market includes DNA microarrays, Lab-on-a-Chip products, Protein Microarrays and others. The global microarrays market is rapidly evolving with new applications, technologies, and end-users. Newer technologies are emerging as companies are investing more on research and development to gain a competitive edge in this expanding market. DNA microarray is the most widely used diagnostic tool, and is used for tracking the behavior and pattern of diseases. Microarrays, or biochips, are a collection of microscopic DNA spots or proteins, or other biological material, immobilized on a solid surface such as a glass slide, membrane, microtiter plate, or other solid surface. Microarrays are used to test levels of large number of genes or peptides that are arrayed in rows and columns simultaneously or to genotype multiple regions of a genome. Some can process laboratory functions on a single chip of only millimeters to a few square centimeters to achieve automation and high-throughput screening. In its latest report, The World Market for Microarrays, Kalorama said that despite the entrance of next-generation sequencing products and predictions of the demise of microarray products, a multi-billion dollar market will remain for the foreseeable future. "In a sense, we don't think you can count microarrays out," said Bruce Carlson, Publisher of Kalorama Information. "Sequencing is exploding but at the same time, this technology has an installed base and is cost-effective in many cases." Several life sciences areas are trending, in a helpful way, for the market for microarrays. Proteomics and Genomics are two areas driving the use of microarray products. Genomics is the study of genetics that applies recombinant DNA, DNA sequencing methods, and bioinformatics to sequence, assemble, and analyze the function and structure of genomes (the complete set of DNA within a single cell). This field includes trying to determine the entire DNA sequence of organisms and fine-scale genetic mapping. Proteomics studies when and where proteins are expressed, and their structure, functions, and interactions. Proteomics has broad applications in drug therapeutics and diagnostics. Illumina, Agilent and Affymetrix are among the top names in microarrays. Santa Clara, CA-based Affymetrix was one of the pioneers and one of the largest producers of DNA microarrays, according to Kalorama. Affymetrix was recently set to be purchased by Thermo Fisher for approximately $1.3 billion. "The recent acquisition of Affymetrix by Thermo Fisher demonstrates the industry's belief in the technology," Carlson said. Kalorama's The World Market for Microarrays has segment market analysis for types of microarrays, geographic breakouts and forecasts to 2020. Companies are profiled in the report. The report can be obtained at: http://www.kaloramainformation.com/redirect.asp?progid=88304&productid=9618385. About Kalorama Information Kalorama Information, a division of MarketResearch.com, supplies the latest in independent medical market research in diagnostics, biotech, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and healthcare; as well as a full range of custom research services. Reports can be purchased through Kalorama's website and are also available on www.marketresearch.com and www.profound.com. We routinely assist the media with healthcare topics. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and our blog at www.kaloramainformation.com. Contact: Bruce Carlson (212) 807-2622 [email protected] www.KaloramaInformation.com Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150831/262422LOGO SOURCE Kalorama Information Related Links http://www.kaloramainformation.com COLUMBUS, Ohio, Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- For 25 years, White Castle has turned its restaurants into designated Castles of Love, and celebrated Valentine's Day with a fun, affordable dinner for people of all ages. Now, for the third year in a row, White Castle is expanding its love for its communities through a partnership with the American Red Cross. "White Castle is dedicated to giving back to its communities, and supporting the American Red Cross this Valentine's Day is something we're passionate about and believe in. It's amazing the impact our Cravers make when they work together to support a worthy cause," said Jamie Richardson, vice president of White Castle. From January 29 to February 14, 2016, White Castle will accept donations at all of its restaurants in increments of $1, $3 and $5 to support the Red Cross' disaster relief efforts to help families recover from home fires. Customers who donate can show their support by placing paper Red Crosses on the wall at their local White Castle. All proceeds raised will go to support the Red Cross disaster relief efforts across the nation. The mission of the American Red Cross is to prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors. Donations to the Red Cross help the organization provide safe shelter, food, emergency relief supplies, emotional support and health services to those in the wake of disasters. "We hope all of our customers will spread the love and consider making a donation to the American Red Cross this Valentine's Day," Richardson said. For those interested in attending the reservation only Valentine's Day dinner at their local White Castle restaurant, tables are booking fast. Visit whitecastle.com to find information about the event hours and phone number to call and make reservations in your area. About White Castle White Castle, America's first fast-food hamburger chain based in Columbus, Ohio, is celebrating 95 years as a family-owned business. The company was founded in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921 serving The Original Slider which was named the most influential burger of all time in 2014 by Time. All White Castle Sliders are made from 100 percent USDA inspected beef. Today White Castle owns and operates nearly 400 restaurants in 13 states and has two dedicated Crave Mobiles that attended hundreds of events in 2015. White Castle's commitment to maintaining the highest quality products extends to the company owning and operating its own meat processing plants and bakeries as well as three frozen food processing plants. The retail division markets White Castle signature products in grocery, warehouse and convenience stores across the USA and in a growing number of international locations, including military PX's around the world. WhiteCastle.com is a culture center for Cravers, the chains loyal and passionate fan base, connecting like-minded Slider enthusiasts from around the globe in a social media setting. For more information on White Castle and to see the Craver Hall of Fame, visit whitecastle.com. About the American Red Cross The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies about 40 percent of the nation's blood; teaches skills that save lives; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a not-for-profit organization that depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, please visit redcross.org or visit us on Twitter at @RedCross. About Castle Shares By feeding hunger, hope and dreams, the White Castle family helps build strong, thriving, Craver communities through the Castle Shares program. Founder Billy Ingram believed in taking care of people and giving back to the community. His philosophy still remains a focus of the family-owned business after 95 years. White Castle donates over $2 million every year to a variety of charities across the nation. In 2015, White Castle raised a record $940,000 through its Autism Puzzle Piece campaign, which was donated to Autism Speaks. The White Castle family supports more than 50 charities each year with volunteers, money and food donations. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130409/CL91655LOGO-b SOURCE White Castle Related Links http://www.whitecastle.com Ukraine's Foreign Ministry will insist on permanent monitoring of the situation in Russia-occupied Crimea by representative offices of international organizations in accordance with the Geneva Convention, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has said. "We worked with international organizations, primarily with the Council of Europe [CoE], and we secured, despite Russia's resistance, [decisions] to send a preliminary mission to Crimea. We have agreed with Thorbjorn Jagland [CoE Secretary General] that this will be the first step. But I will press for a conventional mechanism in Crimea," Klimkin told Interfax on Wednesday. Since the year began, Kyiv has been trying to lend a new dynamic to the issue of retaking Crimea and is taking a number of steps in this direction, in particular, it will insist on a broader Geneva format, the minister said. "We saw Jagland's statement on Russia's violation of the human rights convention, we saw clear reports by international organizations regarding Crimea. And it is based on this that we must build a discussion format for the Crimea problem: we believe it should a 'Geneva plus' format since you cannot exclude Turkey as a serious player and campaigner for Crimean Tatars' rights," Klimkin said. The current visit to Crimea by CoE Secretary General's special envoy Gerard Stoudmann is "the fist step where one person, a special representative of the CoE secretary general, goes to Crimea for the first time to look at the situation," the minister said. "But we believe there should also be the CoE European commissioner for human rights and the monitoring must be permanent. This is what we must come to and that is crucial," Klimkin said. It was reported that at an economic forum in Davos on January 20 Ukraine's Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko announced Ukraine's plans to create a forum similar to the Geneva format, which would include Russia, Ukraine, the European Union and the United States, to launch dialogue over Crimea's return. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov responded by saying on January 26 that Russia is not in talks with anyone over return of Crimea, which is a Russian territory, so there is nothing to return. Ukrainian army says its positions in Donbas shelled 40 times in past 24 hours Militants have opened fire on Ukrainian military positions in Donbas on 40 occasions in the past 24 hours, the press center of Kyiv's army operation in south-eastern Ukraine reported on its Facebook account on Thursday. "The situation was tense on the outskirts of Donetsk," it said. Small arms, large-caliber submachine guns and grenade launchers have been fired at Ukrainian military checkpoints located in Opytne, Pisky, Avdiyivka and near the Butivka mine, it said. Ukrainian army positions located in the vicinity of Maryinka came under anti-aircraft system fire. A sniper was also operating in the area, the press center said. Mortars, grenade launchers and small arms were also used against the Ukrainian army's fortifications near Mayorsk on the Svitlodarsk arch. Small arms and large-caliber submachine guns were fired at Ukrainian military checkpoints in Triokhizbenka, Luhansk region, at around 8:00 p.m. Ukrainian soldiers "did not return fire," the press center said. The UK Government has published details of 600 acres of surplus public sector land for sale as part of its drive to see tens of thousands of new homes built across the country. Housing Minister Brandon Lewis urged developers to seize the opportunity and look at the sites via the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA). Some 80 public land sites are now for sale and there will be 40 more over the next 18 months. It is estimated these sites will support more than 5,000 homes as well as land for industry and business. Over 20% of the sites already have outline or detailed planning permission. Lewis pointed out that the Government has embarked on the largest house building programme since the 1970s and said that some 160,000 new homes should be built through the sale of surplus public sector land. Using surplus public sector land for housing has helped us get the country building again with the number of new homes up by 25%. Selling off these sites will allow us to go even further, delivering on our ambition to support a further 160,000 homes, while providing a significant boost to local economies and the taxpayer, he said. I now want to see developers getting shovels in the ground as quick as possible and build the homes hard working people want and deserve, he added. The HCA is the governments disposal agency for surplus public land, and using its local market knowledge, commercial expertise and experience of managing large portfolios of land, exceeded its contribution to the governments last land programme by more than 3,000 homes. In total, Whitehall departments released enough public sector land to support more than 109,000 homes during the last parliament, Lewis also pointed out. The sale of surplus public land helps to meet government priorities to build more homes and business premises, while delivering a financial return to the taxpayer, said HCA chief executive Andy Rose. We will use our commercial expertise and local market knowledge to make land attractive to house builders, to help get homes built more quickly and meet local priorities. As the governments disposal agency for surplus public land, we are well placed to support other departments and agencies in meeting their contribution to the governments land programme, he added. A new Land Development and Disposal Plan sets out some key principles of land disposal, which followed a review of the HCAs processes and were developed in cooperation with the Home Builders Federation and its members. These include clearer objectives for each site prior to sale, early and meaningful market engagement with a transparent pipeline of sites and clearer commercial terms. Public sector land accounts for a significant proportion of potential residential land and can play an important part in helping the country to boost housing numbers, said David OLeary, policy director at the Home Builders Federation. The role of the HCA is critical in helping the government to meet its ambitious targets for releasing public land for housing and the creation of a more commercial environment with greater clarity will encourage more companies to bid for sites, he explained. In developing this new approach, the HCA engaged constructively with the industry. To be successful, public land disposal processes must be as clear and efficient as possible, taking account of the needs of all house builders, from SMEs seeking small sites through to large national companies with the capacity to develop very large sites, he pointed out. The Remada Company announces that the entire first floor of the office space at 5900 Green Oak Drive, Minnetonka, Minnesota, has been leased to the Integrated Auto Group, Inc. They will move into their new offices this spring. The building on Green Oak Drive is a total of 60,000 square feet, said Steve Liefschultz, CEO of the Remada Company. The transaction will result in an occupancy of approximately 92% when the tenant moves in on April 1, 2016. We are looking forward to a long and successful business relationship with Integrated Auto Group. Another 5,400 square feet have been leased to a banking corporation effective March 1, 2016, and two other leases are being negotiated as well that will essentially fill the building. The Remada Company is the managing agent for the location, and this is also where the companys offices are located. The company is composed of expert real estate agents and managers who deal with commercial properties, rental housing units and helping clients buy and sell homes. Companies and individuals are finding that Minnesota is a great place to start a business, or a great place to move a business to. Much of the state seems immune to economic problems that have plagued the rest of the country. Minnesota has recently been named one of the top 10 places for business by Forbes due to its booming economic climate and high quality of life. www.menoldinc.com Menolds stable, deliberate growth over the last 39 years stemmed from a focus on placing customers needs first. Menold Construction and Restoration, a Central Illinois-based reconstruction, renovation and restoration firm, has selected Champaign-Urbana as the home of their third corporate location. The new office is located at 807 Pioneer Street in Champaign and will service Champaign County and surrounding areas. Menold Construction and Restoration has been offering commercial and residential construction and restoration services across Central Illinois since 1977. From their locations in Peoria-Morton, Bloomington-Normal, and now Champaign-Urbana, they offer full-service solutions for commercial, residential, and institutional property damage from water, mold, fire, storms, and more. They also provide a wide variety of additional services, including the long-term elimination of surface pathogens. According to President Tom Menold, having a physical location in Champaign makes sense, based on a growing client base in the area. Local Champaign personnel will supervise operations, man local crews, and ensure customer satisfaction. They will be supported by the proven Menold processes and the Menold network, which includes 60 + employees, hundreds of contract support professionals, and dozens of long-time partner suppliers. Menold also draws upon national resources to bring a formidable capacity to serve customers throughout Illinois. He added that Menolds stable, deliberate growth over the last 39 years stemmed from a focus on placing customers needs first, and from truly exceptional employees striving for excellence. While our industry is construction and restoration, we are often set apart from other providers by our focus on and a high level of service to our customer. The team at Menold appreciates our Champaign-Urbana customers, and we are now proud to be even closer to them, states Tom Menold, President. Whether there is damage from water, floods, fires, smoke, winds, or harmful molds or pathogens, Menold offers 24-hour emergency service and valuable, non-emergency solutions. For more information about Menold Construction and Restoration call 1-217-689-4911 or visit http://www.menoldinc.com. Laser Hair Therapy by Lasercap LCPRO LCPRO is working. I have used it consistently for 6 months. I went from feeling panicked each morning when Id do my hair to now getting compliments on my hair when Im out and about. LaserCap is now under new management with a renewed focus. With over 30 years in hair restoration, 15 of those focused specifically on Low Level Laser Hair Therapy, John Vincent is uniquely qualified for his position as President of LaserCap. John Vincent is one of the most knowledgeable and respected experts in the field of hair replacement today. Originally as a hair replacement business owner, later as an executive in the largest clinic group of hair transplant surgeons in the world, and managing his own Laser Hair Therapy clinic in California, advising individuals with hair loss problems. Today, John brings his knowledge and experience, along with having a dynamic team who will support those physicians who want to add profits to their business with Dr Michael Rabins LaserCap devices. In a nutshell, light therapy improves cellular respiration and function by stimulating the hair follicle cells. Better breathing cells, make for a better functioning hair follicle which, in turn, produces a happier, healthier hair. LaserCap is the original take home laser device for laser hair therapy. Until recently this technology was only available through in-office devices, in hair clinics. The LaserCap LCPRO can be taken home, making it a much more effective treatment. LaserCap has been featured in over 125 CBS & Fox local news programs! As well as being featured in Allure, Prevention, SELF, Architectural Digest, bon appetit, Conde Nast Traveler, and many more! The LaserCap was recently featured on CBS News where Dr. Keswani explains the benefits of using LLLT (low level laser therapy), please watch the LCPRO video for more information. Learn more about LCPRO Laser Hair Therapy by clicking here. LaserCap technology is revolutionizing how physicians treat hair loss today. The LaserCap LCPRO is the holistic, luxury haircare device used to get dramatic results non-surgically. We proudly manufacture LaserCap products in Cleveland, USA under the expert guidance of our team of world-class leaders in Science, Engineering and Technology. We take product quality seriously and customer service even more so. LaserCap products are built for comfort. The LCPRO is the best choice to treat hair loss and promote hair growth. Visit the LaserCap website at http://www.lasercap.com to learn more about the original take home laser hair therapy device. Representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), who have attended the Minsk meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group, have put forward their own conditions of a reform of the Ukrainian Constitution, which have been declined, Ukrainian representative in the political subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group Roman Bezsmertny told Interfax. "The Ukrainian side has declined these proposals," Bezsmertny told Interfax on Wednesday evening. He confirmed that the DPR wanted a DPR quota in Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada to be stipulated at the constitutional level, representatives of the self-proclaimed republics to have the right to harmonize all the bills and the veto right on decisions in the sphere of foreign policy. Additionally, Donetsk wants a full amnesty of all the participants in the conflict. The DPR also wants "the region of Donbas" to be granted a broad economic (the right to trade with Russia), political (the right to elect its parliament, government and president) and cultural (the protection of the Russian language) autonomy. The DPR's initiatives on the reform of the Ukrainian fundamental law also envisage that they demand the right be granted to them to independently form the personnel of police, security services, judicial bodies, the prosecutor's office, border troops and other institutions "without coordination with the Kyiv authorities." Mobile Dev + Test and IoT Dev + Test Full Programs Announced We are excited to offer delegates two programs in one location. This two-in-one event will offer access to over sixty learning and networking sessions over six days, TechWell Corporation, an industry leader in software improvement conferences and training, has announced the full program for its Mobile Dev + Test and Iot Dev + Test conferences to be held April 1722, 2016 at the Westin San Diego Hotel in San Diego, CA. We are excited to offer delegates two programs in one location. This two-in-one event will offer access to over sixty learning and networking sessions over six days, said Stasi Richmond, Director of Marketing. Delegates can build a customized week of learning with a variety of topics available through pre-conference training classes, keynote presentations, tutorials, and concurrent sessions. This years keynote titles include, The First Wave of IoTBlood in the Water, Mobile and IoT Wins! Now What?, 10,000 Years in Your Pocket: The Deep History of Your Mobile Device, and Balancing New Tools and Technologies vs.Risk. Topics covered during tutorials and sessions will include: Wearable and Smart Technology Security Testing for Mobile Android and iOS Development Wearable UX Mobile App Design Enterprise IoT Embedded Systems Development Smart Home and Office Apps and More Additionally, this year, delegates will have the option to attend a free, half-day bonus session on Friday which will show how to design apps for Android devices with Luke Wallace. The Mobile Dev + Test and IoT Dev + Test conferences will also feature an Expo where delegates can network, watch live demonstrations from top industry solution providers, attend industry technical presentations, and more. For more information, visit http://mobile-iot-devtest.techwell.com. ABOUT TECHWELL CORPORATION: TechWellthrough its conferences, training, consulting, community websites, and online resourceshelps people and organizations develop and deliver great software. For more information, visit http://www.techwell.com. ### 3 x 5 Foot Thin Red Line Flag with embroidered stars and sewn stripes Everyday heroes should be recognized and honored every day Fine Line Flag creates products that honor everyday heroes. The latest release is a black, white, and red 3 x 5 foot banner in the style of the American flag. The emblematic single red stripe refers to the "thin red line" and honors firefighters. Detailed construction sets the flag apart. Embroidered stars and individually sewn stripes are key features. Durable 210D nylon enhances performance because it dries quickly, resists fading from UV rays, and wards off mildew. Other details include brass grommets and four rows of stitching in the fly hem. According to Fine Lines founder, we strive to make products that are worthy of the tributes they represent. The phrase thin red line has a rich history. In 1854 William H. Russell was reporting on the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. When the 93rd (Sutherland Highlanders) Regiment of Foot held off the Russian Cavalry against all odds, Russell described the Highlanders as a thin red streak tipped with a line of steel. For brevity this became known as the thin red line. Later, Rudyard Kipling referred to the same courageous foot soldiers when he penned the line, Thin red line of 'eroes in a poem called Tommy. In 1962, a novel by James Jones titled "The Thin Red Line" chronicled a group of World War II soldiers. Subsequently two feature films were based on the novel. Time and time again the phrase has been used referring to a line of courage that cannot be defeated. Recently, the thin blue line has gained popularity as a symbol to honor and show support for law enforcement officers. Naturally, the thin red line has come to symbolize the bravery and sacrifice that firefighters make every day. According to the National Fire Protection Association, every 24 seconds a fire department in the U.S. is dispatched on a call. Today there are approximately 1,140,000 active firefighters in the U.S. alone. What stands between harms way and the citizenry is a thin red line of brave and committed firefighters. For more information on the history and use of these symbols supporters are encouraged to visit the Fine Line Flag Facebook page and watch their videos. In addition to the new release, Fine Line Flag also offers the same quality Thin Blue Line Flag honoring police officers. Friends and family looking to show support can purchase both flags through Amazon. The flags retail for $24.99 but for a limited time enter coupon code "Fireflag" to receive a 10% discount. All Fine Line products are backed by a 100% money back guarantee which promises a full refund. No questions asked if dissatisfied. Fine Line Flag supports and makes regular donations to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, the National Law Enforcement Officer Memorial Fund, and the Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP). Dr. Judith McLeod These programs will enhance their practices, improve patient outcomes and enrich the students lives. California Southern University has announced that the universitys accrediting body, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and University Commission (WASC), has granted final approval of CalSoutherns Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) and Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) degree programs. CalSouthern has begun accepting enrollments into both programs. CalSoutherns BSN is a degree completion program designed for registered nurses looking to earn their bachelors degree to meet the upcoming Magnet Recognition Program requirement that 80 percent of Magnet-status hospitals staff nurses hold a BSN degree or higher by the year 2020. The MSN program is tailored to nurses looking to advance into senior leadership or upper-level educational programs in hospitals and other healthcare facilities. The new CalSouthern School of Nursing is led by its dean, Dr. Judith McLeod. Dr. McLeod, a doctoral graduate of Johns Hopkins University, joins CalSouthern after a nursing and education career that has spanned four decades. I am extremely pleased to have received final WASC approval for the BSN and MSN, and extend a warm welcome to the programs first students, says Dr. McLeod. These programs will enhance their practices, improve patient outcomes and enrich the students lives. And it is my hope that our students will also positively influence other nurses as they incorporate the knowledge and skills they attain at CalSouthern into their practices. About CalSouthern: California Southern University is a regionally accredited university, offering online degree programs at the bachelors, masters and doctoral levels in business, law, criminal justice and psychology to a nationwide and international student body, utilizing a proprietary learning system. CalSouthern is accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC), 985 Atlantic Avenue, #100, Alameda, CA 94501, (510) 748-9001. To learn more about online education at CalSouthern, please visit http://www.calsouthern.edu. SCS Engineers, an environmental consulting and contracting firm, has added two specialists to its environmental management group in the Southeast. David Beben and Andrew Collins, both senior project professionals, are now working for SCS out of offices in Orlando, Florida, and Atlanta, Georgia, respectively. Beben comes to SCS from a waste management team in Jacksonville, Florida. He is a professional environmental engineer and a LEED Accredited project manager with over ten years of experience. Beben has worked at dozens of privately and publicly owned landfills in the southeast and around the country, including Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Alaska. He is highly qualified to address the challenges of landfill expansion and closure construction management, collection and secondary use systems for landfill leachate, solid waste permitting, drainage design and permitting, water quality monitoring, SWPPP/NPDES, SPCC plans, and compliance with individual state regulatory policies. Collins comes to SCS from an environmental consulting firm where he was the Environmental/Geosciences Lead. Collins, a Professional Geologist in Florida and Georgia has managed groundwater and environmental remediation projects throughout the world and brings a strong understanding of the regulatory environmental policies with which businesses and government installations must comply. His experience includes Phase I and II environmental assessments, large mitigation and remediation projects for utility companies, businesses, manufacturers, the petroleum industry, and governments. David Beben earned a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Engineering from Tulane University and a Master of Science in Environmental Engineering from the University of Florida. David is a member of the Solid Waste Association of North America and is registered nationally as a Construction Documents Technologist. Andrew Collins is a licensed Professional Geologist in Georgia and Florida. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Geology from Baylor University, a Master of Science in Hydrology from Baylor University, and a second Master of Science in Business from Georgia Institute of Technology. David and Andrew bring years of technical experience to prevent and solve environmental challenges, says Carlo Lebron, a Vice President of SCS Engineers Southeastern Region. They have technical expertise and business sense; SCS clients appreciate that valuable combination for solving environmental issues. About SCS Engineers SCS Engineers environmental solutions are a direct result of our experience and dedication to solid waste management and other industries responsible for safeguarding the environment. For more information about SCS, please visit our website at http://www.scsengineers.com. Gold Trails TV series host Kevin Hoagland If we get the kind of events theyre talking about, the flood gold is going to be incredibly good! El Ninos Golden Lining, is the cover story featured in the most recent issue of Gold Prospectors magazine. The article takes a look at El Nino and how heavy rainfall and flash floods are expected to replenish placer gold deposits in the American Southwest this winter. With weather experts forecasting the strongest El Nino in half a century, the Gold Prospectors Association of America predicts a banner year for prospecting and mining in gold-bearing areas hit by heavy rainfall and flash floods. Kevin Hoagland, the host of the GPAA-produced TV series, Gold Trails, eagerly awaits auspicious prospects. El Nino is going to create a lot of opportunities because its been so dry for so long, and what moves gold is water. So, as we start having flash floods and high water events as predicted, and the washes start to flow, areas that really havent produced much gold in the last couple of years are going to start producing gold again. They will be replenished, Hoagland said. That creates a perfect opportunity to get out with a drywasher once the floods are over. Heavy rains and strong winds will cause massive erosion, including mudslides and flash floods with enough force to move sands, gravel, rocks and even large boulders, Hoagland said. As the water slows to a trickle, gold that has been unearthed will drop out of suspension in once fast-moving water and fall where it may, creating a layer of flood gold on or close to the surface. Then, as more rain occurs, the gold will begin to settle deeper into the damp ground, and wind erosion will move sand, either covering it or further exposing it. If we get the kind of events theyre talking about, the flood gold is going to be incredibly good, which means youll be working anywhere from the ground surface to only eight or 10 inches down, and those areas could be very, very productive, he said. If its a flash flood, the water comes through and the gold gets moved, but the water disappears almost instantly. Its gone. In essence, with little to no water movement, the gold becomes locked in place, but during a flood the force of rolling rocks tumbling through the wash and the abrasion of fast-moving sands in the water will release the heavier gold and move it downstream. Naturally, the greater the volume and velocity of the water, the larger the gold and the further distance it will be moved until the water slows as the rain dissipates or the water pools behind a log or boulder, for example. Ive worked patches of flood gold, where Ive dug down maybe two feet and got a gram. But, after a major flood, Ive taken the first six inches of dirt off and gotten an ounce. It just depends on how the gold moves, Hoagland said. Though the desert rains are likely not far off, there is plenty a gold prospector can do in the calm before the storm, Hoagland said. Ive got places in California where Im just waiting for the flash floods to come, Hoagland said. Patience. Its all about patience. And, right now, before the rains start is a great time to go out and look at different areas and start doing your prospecting. With todays gold prices hovering at about $1,100 a troy ounce, the age-old pastime of gold prospecting can still be a profitable endeavor depending on your skill level, said Gold Prospectors magazine Managing Editor Brad Jones. For beginners, the best way to learn how and where to find your own gold is by joining a gold prospecting club, such as the Gold Prospectors Association of America, the oldest and largest gold prospecting organization in the world, Jones said. The GPAA will give you easy access to hundreds of GPAA mining claims across the United States. A one-year GPAA membership covers your whole family and is a great way to get started for just $84.50. Membership includes your mining permit and access to GPAA mining claims, as well as the GPAA Claims Club Membership Mining Guide with hundreds of claims maps and directions, Jones said. It also includes a one-year subscriptions to both Gold Prospectors magazine and the Pick & Shovel Gazette. Our local GPAA chapters are a great place to rub elbows with experienced gold prospectors who enjoy teaching newcomers how to find gold. Not only is gold prospecting an exciting activity, but its a great way to spend time outdoors with your family, Jones said. Its a fun, affordable adventure and there is always the thrill of knowing you could find a huge gold nugget, or even strike it rich! Gold is where you find it, and so half of the art of gold prospecting is simply getting off the couch and heading outdoors to look for it, Jones said. The other half is having a positive attitude, learning some basic skills and knowing your equipment. For more information about how to and where to find your own gold, or to join the Gold Prospectors Association of America, go to http://www.goldprospectors.org. To attend a GPAA Gold & Treasure Show and get a hands-on demonstration of gold panning with real gold and learn about all the latest small-scale mining equipment, go to http://www.Facebook.com/gpaagoldshows for show dates, venues and hours for the Spring 2016 shows. Register online and get half-off the regular $10 admission price at the door. Gerber Childrenswear LLC (Gerber Childrenswear), a leading marketer of newborn, infant and childrens apparel and related products, today announced the acquisition of Triboro Quilt Manufacturing Corporation (Triboro), a leading marketer of newborn and infant bedding, layette, bath and safe sleep products. Terms of the private transaction were not disclosed. We look forward to Triboro and its talented associates expanding the breadth of the Gerber Childrenswear family to further grow our market share in the newborn - toddler space said Gary Simmons, President and CEO of Gerber Childrenswear. This combination represents a marriage between two key players in the newborn-toddler category. Triboros product, design and supply chain capabilities are the perfect strategic compliment to our licensed brands and first class operating and sourcing expertise. This transaction positions Gerber Childrenswear as a leading player in the bedding category, with opportunities to grow Triboros existing business and also expand Gerber Childrenswears bedding offering. The acquisition of Triboro also augments Gerber Childrenswears growing portfolio of owned brands, with the acquisition of the Cuddletime, Cuddle Care and Just Born brands. Joel Kaplan, owner and CEO of Triboro, will continue to lead the Triboro team. Working with Gerber Childrenswear is a unique opportunity to further advance our goals of bringing great value in products and services to families, retailers, our factory partners and our associates said Joel Kaplan. We share a passion for providing safe, quality experiences for babies. With this union, we not only have a greater capability to provide superior products for babies, but we do it in brands that can drive businesses with and for our retail partners. This is an exciting step forward for our colleagues both in the USA and Asia. MMGs Senior Managing Partner, Allan Ellinger, initiated and led the transaction. Gerber Childrenswear was also represented by law firms Greenberg Traurig, LLP and Wells & Wells, P.A., and accounting diligence firm CohenReznick LLP. Triboro was represented by David Goldberg and law firms Pryor Cashman LLP and Kane Kessler, P.C. About Gerber Childrenswear LLC Gerber Childrenswear LLC is a leading socially responsible marketer of children's everyday basic/fashion apparel and related products which it offers under some of the world's most trusted brands. Licensed brands include our flagship brand, Gerber, as well as New Balance, Jockey and NFL. Proprietary brands include Onesies and Always Baby. The company sells layette, sleepwear, playwear, activewear, undergarments, accessories, hosiery, bibs/burp cloths, bath and bedding, as well as reusable cloth diapers, to all channels of distribution. For additional information about the company, please visit http://www.gerberchildrenswear.com. About Triboro Quilt Manufacturing Corporation Triboro, a third generation family business, has been providing quality infant and toddler products, inclusive of bedding, layettes, bath products, nursery accessories and related clothing, bedding and accessories items since 1933. Products are offered through top newborn and infant retailers under company owned brands, Cuddletime, Cuddle Care and Just Born, and licensed brands, inclusive of Disney. The company prides itself on its design and product innovation, with products made of the highest quality materials in some of the finest factories in the world. For additional information about the company, please visit http://www.triboro.com. We offer the physician access to more knowledge that can assist in making the right decision that is our goal Past News Releases RSS Qonsilus wins three Gold... In the fall of 2015, the Deutsche Arzteblatt (the professional journal of the German Medical Association) reported that, not only would the generation and storage of massive amounts of healthcare data be of interest within the digital healthcare market, but also the development of suitable IT tools for analyzing data, would be welcomed. Based on knowledge models on file, Qonsilus rapidly and safely converts medical data into personalized recommendations for diagnosis and treatment. The decision-making process relayed to the patient helps laboratories, physicians and healthcare companies in finding solutions more rapidly and is based on sound data for better, faster decisions. As the first medical product of the series, Qonsilus Lab makes complex and specialized knowledge immediately available to laboratories: the diagnostics service provides rapid access to medical specialist knowledge relevant to practical situations and based on the available laboratory and clinical data proposes suggestions for diagnoses, treatment options and measures tailored to the individual patient. The result is an automated finding at three levels of complexity that are geared towards the laboratory physician and can be forwarded to the referring physician. As a result, Qonsilus Lab complements the decision-making skills, supplements the laboratory analyses with treatment recommendations, and offers diagnoses at the level of the specialist. Foremost partners in the healthcare sector and data analysis - including Roche Diagnostics Germany, 3M, IMS Health, and Qlaym - are already collaborating with Qonsilus: since September 1, 2015, Roche Diagnostics Germany GmbH has been the exclusive distributor for Qonsilus Lab GynEndo, the diagnostics service for the field of gynecological endocrinology. Qonsilus Lab GynEndo contains over 7,000 dynamically compiled text blocks and 5,000 rules based on the scientific knowledge model for gynecological endocrinology designed by Prof. Dr. med. Freimut Leidenberger and Prof. Dr. med. Thomas Strowitzki. This means that solid, proven knowledge from experts and specialist bodies can be retrieved with a high standard of quality. We offer the physician access to more knowledge that can assist in making the right decision that is our goal, explained CEO Oliver Schauer. We are extremely pleased to have gained Roche Diagnostics, the market leader in laboratory diagnostics, as a partner for marketing our medical innovation. As an approved medical tool, Qonsilus Lab can be used for proof-of-concept for other medical indications since the existing platform facilitates a rapid, modular application to all healthcare sectors. In terms of the safety of the treatment recommendations, the company is certified under DIN EN ISO 13485 by TUV SUD for the preparation of diagnoses, treatment options and measures on an individual patient basis using the available laboratory and clinical data. The medical software Qonsilus Lab is authorized as a Class IIa medical device as of August 2015 (in accordance with the Medical Devices Directive 93/42/EEC). The company Qonsilus GmbH was established in 2011 as medesso GmbH and renamed Qonsilus GmbH in November 2015. About Qonsilus Qonsilus is a medical software firm converting medical data into individualized diagnostic and therapy recommendations. The decision-making process relayed to the patient assists laboratories, physicians and healthcare companies in making better, faster decisions. The user obtains direct access to specialist knowledge from a wide range of sectors relating to practical situations as well as the processing of all relevant information providing more time and competence for the decision itself. The Qonsilus team includes physicians, scientists, medical editors, software specialists and IT experts, all of whom possess many years of experience. The company is certified in DIN EN ISO 13485 (standard for quality management systems in the medical products sector). The Qonsilus Lab software is approved as a Class IIa medical device. For more information, please visit the company website at http://www.qonsilus.com Source: http://www.aerzteblatt.de/archiv/172025/Medizinische-Forschung-Club-der-medizinischen-Avantgarde All trademarks used in this release are protected by law. We consistently strive to offer our guests an exceptional experience at our hotel The charming and intimate Whale Cove Inn has been recognized and named a winner in the Top 25 Small Hotels in the United States category of the 2016 TripAdvisor Travelers Choice awards for hotels. Were so honored to be recognized by Tripadvisor and its community of travelers as one of the best small hotels in the United States, said Carl Finseth, owner of Whale Cove Inn. We consistently strive to offer our guests an exceptional experience at our hotel and winning under the components of remarkable service, quality, and value shows that our guests truly do value the experience they have at our boutique hotel. To see TripAdvisor traveler reviews and opinions of Whale Cove Inn, please visit the TripAdvisor page. To experience one of the best small hotels in the United States, plan a trip to Whale Cove Inn, located along Oregon Coasts enchanting Highway 101. With a variety of specials and packages, you can further enhance the unparalleled experience guests of the Whale Cove Inn already love. Im thrilled with this recent accolade and looking forward to welcoming our guests to our award-winning hotel, said Finseth. Congratulations and thanks go to everyone who makes Whale Cove Inn the treasure it is and especially to our guests who find our little treasure in the cove. About Whale Cove Inn: Whale Cove Inn is a boutique and romantic hotel with eight suites on the iconic Highway 101 of the Oregon Coast. A mile south of Depoe Bay, this inn dazzles guests with its luxurious suites, ocean views, and amenities. Whale Cove Inn holds prestige with high-end associations such as Select Registry and is in the Diamond Collection of bedandbreakfast.com. Whalecoveinn.com About TripAdvisor: TripAdvisor is the world's largest travel site*, enabling travelers to plan and book the perfect trip. TripAdvisor offers advice from millions of travelers and a wide variety of travel choices and planning features with seamless links to booking tools that check hundreds of websites to find the best hotel prices. TripAdvisor branded sites make up the largest travel community in the world, reaching 350 million unique monthly visitors**, and more than 290 million reviews and opinions covering 5.3 million accommodations, restaurants and attractions. The sites operate in 47 countries worldwide. *Source: comScore Media Metrix for TripAdvisor Sites, worldwide, July 2015 **Source: TripAdvisor log files, average monthly unique users, Q3 2015 With the advent of oneilCloud, we intend to make it easy for records managers around the world to choose ONeil by deploying our cloud services in their region. Building on the successes of its cloud-based reinvention of its records management software in North America, ONeil Software announces the deployment of its innovative technology, oneilCloud, to the European (EU) region through the Amazon Web Services (AWS) data center in Dublin, Ireland. In addition to ONeils support, training and business presence in the U.K. for over 20 years, this deployment further confirms the Irvine, CA, companys commitment to its EU region customers. By deploying within the EU, concerns of the European Commission (executive body of the EU) related to the locality and security of personal information, are addressed and mitigated. Additionally, by being in-region, overall performance and reliability are improved. oneilCloud is a comprehensive, browser-based, software-as-a-service solution that scales to record centers - commercial, corporate, and government - of all sizes. It takes the burden of locally hosting a records management application and database, and moves it to a web-based cloud environment managed by ONeil, in collaboration with the subscribing records management organization. Cost savings can be easily articulated with oneilCloud. For example, moving from the traditional on-premises ONeil application to the re-written cloud application results in savings related to hardware, software, upgrades, IT staff, licensing, maintenance, and more. But beyond the substantial reduction in cost, the new technology provides greater power, ease-of-use, accessibility, and flexibility. Security is enforced at all levels, whether its data in-transit, at-rest in the database, in backups, or user authentication and access rights. Disaster recovery is built-in. Active dashboards provide immediate decision-support information, tailored to assist users in their specific records management responsibilities and related interests. David Holt, CEO of ONeil Software, notes: With the advent of oneilCloud, we intend to make it easy for records managers around the world to choose ONeil by deploying our cloud services in their region. This deployment to the EU, along with the current North America deployment and other regions to follow, confirms our commitment to aggressively invest in innovative services and solutions for our target market and customers. About ONeil Software Committed to leading the industry for over 34 years, ONeil Software has remained The FIRST Choice of Record Centers Worldwide. Our technology is installed in more than 90 countries/territories, ranging from start-ups to multi-nationals. ONeils solutions manage/track multiple types of data from deposit to destruction, work order to invoice. Company cloud solutions include oneilCloud, oneilBridge and Cloud-Based Licensing. ONeil is also known as an industry pioneer for bar code tracking, portable printers, wireless handhelds, web technology and mobile connectivity. Our company provides worldwide coverage, with offices in California, Florida, United Kingdom and Australia. For more information, visit our website at http://www.oneilsoft.com. Source: ONeil Software Media Contact ONeil Software Chris Spisto, 949-458-1234 marketing(at)oneilsoft(dot)com Sensiba San Filippo LLP (SSF), a leading Northern California-based CPA and business-consulting firm, is proud to announce that Founder and Audit Partner, Steve San Filippo, has been named a Distinguished Volunteer Fundraiser Honoree by the Association of Fundraising Professionals Silicon Valley Chapter. The Association of Fundraising Professionals Silicon Valley Chapter is the largest community of professional fundraisers in the world. Through monthly luncheons, volunteer events and workshops, the association strives to provide its professional community with helpful knowledge and skills to help better the Silicon Valley Community. It is such a pleasure to see Steve honored for his philanthropic work, says John Sensiba, Managing Partner of Sensiba San Filippo. Community service is a fundamental principle at our firm a foundation that Steve helped implement at our start nearly 40 years ago. His extraordinary commitment to the health and wellbeing of our community is inspiring, and we are all very proud to see him recognized for his efforts. Steves philanthropic endeavors have helped improve a broad range of causes all across the Bay Area. Steve has done extensive volunteer work with youth organizations, including serving on the Junipero Serra Board of Regents and the Board for Notre Dame High School Belmont. He also remains extremely active on the Board for the Sequoia Hospital Foundation, where he has served 25 years on a number of committees including several terms as Board Chair. Additionally, Steve was recently appointed by Dignity Health to sit on the Sequoia Hospital Community Board of Directors. About Sensiba San Filippo With over 35 years of experience, Sensiba San Filippo LLP (SSF) ranks among the regions top 20 public accounting firms. Offering comprehensive assurance, tax and advisory services, the firm has a regional focus with global expertise. As a member of KS International (KSI), SSF is a part of an international association of affiliated accounting firms that supports their clients global business needs in over 60 countries. Headquartered in Pleasanton, the firm has offices in Oakland, San Mateo, San Jose, Morgan Hill and San Francisco. For more information, visit http://www.ssfllp.com. Presidential envoy for Crimean Tatars' affairs Mustafa Jemilev has discussed with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu the establishment of the special group to deal with the Crimean de-occupation issues at a meeting in Strasbourg. "At a meeting [the parties] discussed a proposal to set up a special international format of cooperation that will ensure a possibility to work closely for de-occupation of Crimea. On our side we propose to create an international group, which will include countries, signatories of 1994 Budapest Memorandum, along with Turkey, as one of the influential Black Sea states," Jemilev wrote on his Facebook account. He stressed that Cavusoglu has supported the establishment of the mentioned group. "This issue is to be discussed in detail in February this year during the visit of Ukraine's Foreign Minister to Ankara," presidential envoy said. The meeting was also attended by Ukraine's MP, member of Ukrainian PACE delegation Heorhiy Lohvynsky and delegate of the Crimean Tatar People Kurultai Rustem Umerov. Atilus, a digital agency specializing in web design and internet marketing, whose clients have been featured on Oprah, Shark Tank, and Inside Edition, has been named internet marketing agency of record for the Naples, Marco Island, Everglades Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB). Floridas Paradise Coast, the brand name promoted by the CVB utilizes one of Southwest Floridas most popular and trafficked websites http://www.paradisecoast.com. Atilus, the locally based and staffed digital agency, with offices in Bonita Springs & Naples, will implement national internet marketing services, strategies and solutions for the CVB including search engine optimization and Pay Per Click marketing, to enhance the awareness of Floridas Paradise Coast and expose it to an even larger audience. Floridas Paradise Coast website offers visitor information and guidance for potential tourists to obtain vacation and group meeting information for all of the Naples, Marco Island, Everglades Florida area. Jack Wert, executive director of Paradise Coast explains, Floridas Paradise Coast is unlike any other vacation or meeting destination with gorgeous beaches, amazing restaurants, and a way of life for residents and visitors alike that is unmatched in any other part of the country. Our goal is to enlighten potential visitors nationwide of our slice of Paradise and, with Atilus help, we believe we can entice even more people to visit, stay and play here. We look forward to working together with their knowledgeable team. Zach Katkin, Atilus CEO expanded, Between this project and two other top-secret projects were working on currently, Atilus is really working hard to promote this region digitally. Many of the small businesses we work with are shocked to see the national results a great web presence and digital marketing can have and were bringing to bear the most advanced strategies alongside the CVB and these other projects and were honored that the CVB chose a local, seasoned vendor. The CVB is already ahead of the digital curve with an amazing website, and were looking forward to working with the other ad agencies and partners involved to further this area digitally and attract even more visitors from around the nation and globe. About Atilus Atilus, Florida leading digital agency, was founded in 2005 by Zach Katkin and Harry Casimir. Atilus tagline Grow Your Business Online is achieved for clients through web design, strategic digital marketing and business application development. Atilus seeks to increase their clienteles bottom-line and return-on-investment by increasing their presence in the market place. Atilus has developed over 600 websites and serves clients nationwide. For more information, visit http://www.Atilus.com About Naples, Marco Island, Everglades CVB The Naples, Marco Island, Everglades Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) is the official tourism marketing and management agency for Collier County, Florida, known as Floridas Paradise Coast. The CVB produces the areas ongoing destination marketing campaigns, website and visitor guides, and provides information and assistance for travel media, group meeting and event planners, tour operators, and travel agents. For more information visit http://www.paradisecoast.com. Follow the destination on Twitter @ParadiseCoast and on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/TheParadiseCoast. Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) and The University of Texas at Austin, in partnership with Western University, are hosting the 2016 International Symposium on the Implementation of Social Media in Population and Community Health Initiatives. The symposium is designed specifically for professionals and clinicians in public and community health, informatics, health care, health communications and emergency health. This years topic is "Defining a Roadmap for Implementation of Social Media in Population and Community Health Initiatives. The event will take place on January 29 at J. Neils Thompson Commons Building at the J.J. Pickle Research Campus, 10100 Burnet Road, Building 137, Austin, Texas, 78759. Social media is still an evolving medium; however, the importance of this communication medium cannot be over looked, said Susan McBride, Ph.D., RN-BC, CPHIMS, TTUHSC School of Nursing professor. More importantly, platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even Snapchat reach important audiences. With the increasing use of these forms of communication technology in most areas of society, it is important that health professionals develop deeper insights and knowledge of social media technologies in order to use the technology to communicate with communities about their health. While social media is a well-established communication tool for many, adopting it for public health goals presents a number of challenges. The symposium will address these challenges and present solutions. We are improving how we plan and evaluate social media for public health in order to ensure this modality of communication continues to serve program recipients in an effective, convenient and ethical manner, said Leanne Field, Ph.D., distinguished senior lecturer and director of the Health Informatics and Health Information Technology program at The University of Texas at Austin, which is co-hosting with TTUHSC. This event will bring together health professionals, content experts and students from Canada and the U.S. to develop a better understanding of the current state of best practices for using social media in population health. The end goal of the symposium will be a white paper describing a comprehensive roadmap for implementation and evaluation for use of social media in public and population health initiatives. Social media is more than likes and retweets, but its also a vital forum for information sharing to the general public, McBride said. Plus, it is important to help combat myths by being the go-to resource. Professionals should be working together to understand what works, what doesnt. We need to share information across all sectors to increase awareness and, most importantly, have a positive impact on the health of communities. For more information, including the complete speaker lineup, travel information and registration visit http://nursing.ttuhsc.edu/symposium/index.html or follow the event on Twitter @phsmaustin1. We are thrilled to assist businesses with their video needs and encourage brands to take advantage of video marketing now. Pepper Gang Digital Marketing Agency has announced their service offering expansion to include video marketing services. Pepper Gang aims to provide high quality video production offerings through the partnership with Sound and Vision Media, a prestigious video production company with over 40 years experience in the Greater Boston area. Video Marketing is expected to dominate the industry in 2016. 61% People have higher purchase intent after watching a brands 30 sec video. According to ReelSEOs Video Marketing Survey and Business Trends Report, 93% of marketers are using video in their campaigns. We are enthusiastic about expanding our service offerings and expanding a relationship with Sound and Vision Media. In communicating with Steve Birenbaum, it was clear that their ideas and proven methods of success complemented our mantra and the goals we set for our clients. said Stefanie Daneau, the co-founder of Pepper Gang. With the growing consumption of video, weve seen a strong demand for video marketing in the industry. In order to provide a more comprehensive and convenient service, we decided to partner with one of the most prominent media production studios in the area to enhance our capability in this field. We are thrilled to assist businesses with their video needs and encourage brands to take advantage of video marketing now. "Video is the new document." said Steve Birenbaum, Strategic Sales Consultant of Sound and Vision Media. "Everything is different now in the sense that most stagnant words and pictures are replaced by a captivating video which in result will help build trust between a business and a consumer." The expansion of video marketing service reflects the agencys growth and allows it to take place among few digital marketing agencies that provide one-stop full-service video marketing in downtown Boston. Video marketing will be one of the agencys main focuses in the next six months. The new video production services include: Video ideation and planning Video editing/graphics and recording Audio and voiceover options Script writing To encourage brands to try video marketing, starting on January 2016, businesses around the nation are able to receive video marketing strategy consultation at no cost from Pepper Gangs video marketing certified team. To learn more about the details of their video marketing services, please visit Pepper Gangs website, or contact them directly at 617.674.2100. About Pepper Gang: Pepper Gang is a Boston based digital marketing agency that specializes in creating strong, innovative integrated marketing solutions. The company was born out of a desire to tell each brands story in a way that compels like-minded consumers to align with the brand. Pepper Gang combines original thinking, creativity, and analysis to propel the growth of each clients customized strategy. About Sound and Vision Media: Sound & Vision Media is Bostons premier video production facility, featuring a spacious production studio, green screen capabilities, an audio recording studio, and HD video editing suites. It provides full media production services, from scripting to post-production, at reasonable rates. The company specializes in corporate video, radio and television commercials, marketing and fundraising videos, as well as video for the web. Local SEO for Green Industry Businesses eBook "The ways green industry businesses generate leads and new sales are changing." HindSite Software, the premier provider of field service software to the green industry, recently released an eBook designed to help green industry businesses improve their local search engine rank in 2016. Local SEO for Green Industry Businesses delivers search engine optimization ideas green industry businesses can leverage to drive more traffic to their web sites. The eBook is designed to teach readers how to create a local search strategy, basic on-page optimizations that will impact search ranking, provide advice on what not to do and introduce some free and paid tools that can help green industry businesses develop their search engine strategy and measure their results. The impetus for the eBook was a survey HindSite conducted in late 2014 that showed a dramatic increase in the number of customers who found their service provider through the Internet. Ten years ago, nearly 90% of buyers found their service provider through word of mouth. Today, as many buyers find their provider through the Internet as they do word of mouth. The ways green industry businesses generate leads and new sales are changing, explains Chad Reinholz, Marketing Manager at Hindsite Software. Buyers trust the Internet as much as their peers, which is why its vital that green industry businesses leverage local search optimization to grow their customer base. For green industry businesses, ranking high for localized searches and search terms is one of the keys to getting found on the Internet. A solid SEO strategy can help green industry businesses get to the top of search engine rankings. There are plenty of tools and resources that small businesses can use to strengthen their SEO, explains Reinholz. In this eBook, readers will learn how to use these tools to their advantage and how to get found by people searching for services in their area. In addition to optimizing for local search, HindSites software can be another growth catalyst. According to the 2015 Green Industry Benchmark Report, green industry businesses that use HindSite were twice as likely as their peers to experience year-over-year revenue growth in excess of 20%. Visit http://info.hindsitesoftware.com/local-seo-for-green-industry-download to learn more and to download the eBook for free. About HindSite Software HindSite Software has helped contractors better manage and grow their business with field service software since 2001. Initially designed as irrigation software, HindSite today assists service businesses with scheduling and billing, contact management, field data collection, and invoicing in QuickBooks, and Sage50. When used by lawn care businesses, this paperless lawn care software has been proven to increase efficiency and organization, meaning greater profit potential with less administrative time. Kumar S. Raja, Esq. Kumar's energetic, attentive and client-focused approach to the practice of law aligns perfectly with our firm's core values." Steven J. Tinnelly, Esq., Managing Shareholder Tinnelly Law Group, PC, one of the top California HOA law firms, is proud to announce the addition of attorney Kumar S. Raja, Esq. to the firm. Mr. Raja earned his Juris Doctorate from Loyola Law School in 2002, where he was a Scott Moot Court Participant. During law school, Mr. Raja completed externships at the Office of the Los Angeles City Attorney and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, where he worked for the Honorable Kathleen March. He has an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he wrote for the school newspaper, the Daily Bruin. Prior to joining the California HOA law firm, Mr. Raja assisted with the representation of several large master-planned communities throughout Southern California. Most notably, he successfully represented a community in an action that resulted in a published decision before the California Court of Appeal. He has been an invited guest lecturer at multiple continuing education seminars involving community associations and condominium formation. Mr. Raja's extensive litigation experience in the courtroom has given him the expertise to counsel the firm's clients in the boardroom with respect to the long-term benefits and costs associated with Board actions. Kumar's energetic, attentive and client-focused approach to the practice of law aligns perfectly with our firm's core values," says Steven J. Tinnelly, Esq., Managing Shareholder. "We are thrilled to have such a talented attorney join our growing team. We are confident he will be a tremendous asset both to our firm and its clients. About Tinnelly Law Group Tinnelly Law Group, PC is recognized by the community association industry as one of the top California HOA law firms. Since the firms founding in 1989, 100% of its efforts have been dedicated to representing HOAs and providing them with sensible and cost-effective solutions to their diverse legal problems. It counsels hundreds of HOAs throughout California through legal issues related to corporate governance, enforcement, maintenance, insurance, litigation and transactional matters. Tinnelly Law Group recently launched FindHOALaw, a robust resource for HOA law and legal information. Its substantial volume of content and easy-to-use interface help users better understand the unique body of law governing HOAs in California. Tinnelly Law Group also provides its clients with access to comprehensive assessment collection services through the use of its affiliate, Alterra Assessment Recovery. Tinnelly Law Group has offices in Orange County, San Diego, Riverside County, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Member CAI, and CACM. Signature Bancorporation, Inc., Platinum Sponsor of the Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) Chicago Chapter, hosted Accelerator Learning Day at their downtown branch at 191 N. Wacker Drive in Chicago this week. EO Chicago is a national organization that enables peer-to-peer networking among area business owners through their local chapters. Signature Bank has been a Strategic Partner of EO since 2014. EO Accelerator Learning Days are a series of programs designed to help entrepreneurs take their business to the next level. Accelerator participants must be the owner or founder of an operating business with gross yearly revenues between $250,000 to $1 million. A maximum of 30 participants are accepted into the Accelerator program per city. Signature Bank is proud to be a Strategic Partner of EO Chicago and host of Accelerator Learning Day, connecting like-minded business owners who have the same entrepreneurial spirit that we do, said Nate Dinger, Vice President of Commercial Banking at Signature Bank. Signature Banks three founders are Chicago natives who know this city, its economy, and the challenges that local small businesses face. Our partnership with EO Chicago is a natural fit. EO Chicago has more than 100 members and hosts several networking events throughout the year to help entrepreneurs achieve business success. Signature Bank is headquartered at 9701 Higgins Road, Suite 500, Rosemont, IL 60018 and can be reached at 773-467-5600 or online at http://www.signature-bank.com. About Signature Bank Signature Bank is wholly owned by Signature Bancorporation, Inc. At its founding in 2006, Signature Bancorporation became the largest privately funded de novo bank holding company in Illinois. Based in Chicago, Signature Bank specializes in middle-market commercial banking and is a full-service retail bank offering an extensive range of financial product lines to consumers. Signature Bank offers a unique balance of relationship-driven service with leading-edge technology to provide customers with the personalization they expect from a community bank and the technology capabilities they demand from a national bank. Visit Signature Bank online at http://www.signature-bank.com. Member FDIC. Today, Altep, Inc. announced the expansion of its data forensics and consulting service offerings to include the Departed Employee Protocol. Designed to be executed when an employee leaves a company, the Protocol provides a framework for assessing the recent activity of exiting staff to determine whether risk and/or loss of proprietary or confidential information should be an area of concern. Importantly, the firm manages such inquiries under a flat fee structure so that corporations can better predict and control costs. More often than not, corporations worry about the onboarding process for employees ensuring a smooth transition into a new role, making sure appropriate training is completed, and the like. However, corporations should also perform due diligence with regard to departing employees. Alteps protocol streamlines the process by detailing key items and areas to assess. Under the Departed Employee Protocol, Alteps experts forensically analyze a departing individuals documents, emails, internet activity, file access, and mobile device data to determine whether the employee may have shared or transmitted sensitive information inappropriately. Additionally, Examiners determine whether and when portable devices were connected to the employees computer, whether the individual used cloud-based services like Dropbox and Google Drive, and much more. As a part of the inquiry, Alteps experts assess data created, sent, received, or used by the departed employee according to its conceptual content, focusing on ideas and conversations which may pose a problem for the client. This is accomplished via Riskcovery, a concept-driven data analysis platform which leverages a taxonomy of text samples to define ideas of interest, and subsequently identify data in which those ideas are discussed. Altep is the sole distributor of Riskcovery, and staffs a team of analysts who are experts in the use of the tool. Since these inquiries can provide critical insight into the companys potential exposure, the Departed Employee Protocol also calls for a comprehensive report, in laymans terms, of all findings and points of interest. In the event of verified data leakage, Alteps Cyber Security division can assist in determining the scope and impact of the incident. "Information leakage is - or should be - a top concern for organizations of all kinds," said Warren Kruse, Altep's VP for Data Forensics. "When an employee leaves the organization, compliance, IT and senior management all have a vested interest in verifying that the individual's access to corporate intellectual property was used appropriately. Altep's Departed Employee protocol provides an important framework for analysis of employee activities, and I'm confident it will prove to be of great value to corporate and law firm clients we support from our offices throughout the US and in Europe." About Altep Altep, Inc. is a Relativity Best in Service Orange Level hosting provider, with certified Experts, Administrators, Analytics Specialists, Reviewer Specialists, Assisted Review Specialists, Infrastructure Specialists, and Sales Professionals on staff. The firm assists Fortune 100 and AM Law 100 clients with data forensics, discovery management, and compliance risk assessment. E-Discovery services include early data assessment, ESI and traditional paper processing, and secure hosting. Alteps data and process management experts hold a variety of certifications and credentials, including Project Management Professional, EnCase Certified Forensic Examiner, Certified Forensic Computer Examiner, Licensed Private Investigator, Certified Information Systems Security Professional, Certified Information Privacy Professional, SNIA Certified Storage Professional, and Content Analyst Advanced Analytics Certification. Find more information about Altep, Inc. at http://www.altep.com The new DataPath website focuses on giving our clients and other visitors fresh, relevant content that provides unique insight into an ever-changing healthcare industry. DataPath, Inc., a leading innovator in the benefits administration and workers compensation payment solutions industries, launched its redesigned company website (http://www.dpath.com) this month. The new website offers a more intuitive, user-friendly environment that makes valuable industry content and news easily accessible to visitors. The websites clean layout enables visitors to quickly access and share videos, whitepapers and industry news. Users can also subscribe to the DataPath news feed, which features company news and blogs. Visitors may view current job openings, learn about DataPaths history, meet company leadership and much more. DataPath is at the forefront of the benefits administration and workers compensation payment industries, and we needed a website that highlighted our experience, innovation and legacy, stated Bo Armstrong, DataPaths director of marketing. Our new website focuses on giving our clients and other visitors fresh, relevant content that provides unique insight into an ever-changing healthcare industry. As part of the website launch, DataPath is incorporating a new theme: All Trailblazers Leave a Path. For more than 30 years, DataPath has been blazing a trail to better healthcare through innovative technology solutions, marking a path for others to follow. The theme also reflects the companys commitment to working with its clients to help them find new pathways to business success. Visit http://www.dpath.com to experience DataPaths new website and all of the insight and information it has to offer. About DataPath: DataPath, Inc. is a privately-owned business based in Little Rock, AR. Since 1984, DataPath has been creating solutions for the administration of consumer-directed healthcare accounts, premium billing, and insurance payments. The company is also an end-to-end payment processor for workers compensation, indemnity and provider payments. In 2015, DataPath helped develop and administer the healthcare private option for the State of Arkansas. Judith Rhines, Gilbane Building Company, Boston Judiths professionalism and ability to build on her network of relationships, specifically in the higher-education market and Northern New England, will effectively support our strategic business plan." Mike Kennedy, Vice President Gilbane Building Company is excited to welcome back Judith Rhines as Senior Business Development Manager based in its Boston office. Judith previously served as a Business Development Manager for Gilbane in New England before joining The Rath Group as Senior Communication Advisor in 2004. Judith brings her extensive background in business development and client management, as well as her strong network of industry decision makers in the higher-education, institutional, healthcare and financial services markets to Gilbane. Judiths reputation, industry knowledge and client development expertise are tremendous assets for our firm, said Michael Kennedy, Vice President. Judiths professionalism and ability to build on her network of relationships, specifically in the higher-education market and Northern New England, will effectively support our strategic business plan for 2016 and the continued development of new opportunities. Judith retains a BA in Communications from the University of New Hampshire and is a graduate of Leadership New Hampshire. Judith is a Board Member of the Dragon Boat Club of Boston, Board of Governors for NH Public Television and past Director and President of PlanNH. Judith is a member of the Society of College and University Planning (SCUP), National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) and Association of Independent Schools in New England (AISNE). Today, Altep, Inc. announced the expansion of its data forensics and consulting service offerings to include the Departed Employee Protocol. Designed to be performed when an employee leaves a company, the Protocol provides a framework for assessing the recent activity of exiting staff to determine whether risk and/or loss of proprietary or confidential information should be an area of concern. Importantly, the firm manages such inquiries under a flat fee structure so that corporations can better predict and control costs. More often than not, corporations worry about the onboarding process for employees ensuring a smooth transition into a new role, making sure appropriate training is completed, and the like. However, corporations should also perform due diligence with regard to departing employees. Alteps protocol streamlines the process by detailing key items and areas to assess. The findings can help clients make informed decisions about whether further diligence is necessary. Under the Departed Employee Protocol, Alteps experts forensically analyse a departing individuals documents, emails, internet activity, file access, and mobile device data to determine whether the employee may have shared or transmitted sensitive information inappropriately. Additionally, investigators determine whether and when portable devices were connected to the employees computer, whether the individual used cloud-based services like Dropbox and Google Drive, and much more. As a part of the inquiry, Alteps investigators assess data created, sent, received, or used by the departed employee according to its conceptual content, focusing on ideas and conversations which may pose a problem for the client. This is accomplished via Riskcovery, a concept-driven data analysis platform which leverages a taxonomy of text samples to define ideas of interest, and subsequently identify data in which those ideas are discussed. Altep is the sole distributor of Riskcovery, and staffs a team of investigators and analysts who are experts in the use of the tool. Since these inquiries can provide critical insight into the companys potential exposure, the Departed Employee Protocol also calls for a comprehensive report, in laymans terms, of all findings and points of interest. In the event of verified data leakage, Alteps Cyber Security division can assist in determining the scope and impact of the incident. "Information leakage is - or should be - a top concern for organizations of all kinds," said Warren Kruse, Altep's VP of Data Forensics. "When an employee leaves the organization, compliance, IT and senior management all have a vested interest in verifying that the individual's access to corporate intellectual property was used appropriately. Altep's Departed Employee protocol provides an important framework for analysis of employee activities, and I'm confident it will prove to be of great value to corporations we support from our offices throughout the US and in Europe." About Altep Altep, Inc. is a Relativity Best in Service Orange Level hosting provider, with certified Experts, Administrators, Analytics Specialists, Reviewer Specialists, Assisted Review Specialists, Infrastructure Specialists, and Sales Professionals on staff. The firm assists Fortune 100 and AM Law 100 clients with data forensics, discovery management, and compliance risk assessment. E-Discovery services include early data assessment, ESI and traditional paper processing, and secure hosting. Alteps data and process management experts hold a variety of certifications and credentials, including Project Management Professional, EnCase Certified Forensic Examiner, Certified Forensic Computer Examiner, Licensed Private Investigator, Certified Information Systems Security Professional, Certified Information Privacy Professional, SNIA Certified Storage Professional, and Content Analyst Advanced Analytics Certification. Find more information about Altep, Inc. at http://www.altep.com Kyiv reports 40 attacks by militants in Donbas in past 24 hours Ukrainian presidential administration spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk has accused militants in Donbas of violating the ceasefire over 40 times in the past 24 hours. There was low-intensity fighting along the entire contact line in the Donetsk region, with militants' units firing grenade launchers and small arms at Ukrainian army positions, Motuzyanyk told a press briefing in Kyiv on Thursday. Militia forces fired an infantry fighting vehicle at Ukrainian military positions in Pisky, and seven targeted attacks by snipers were recorded in the Donetsk airport area, he said. A militants' sniper was also operating in Maryinka, located near the city of Mariupol, he said. The militants used an anti-tank missile system in Hranitne and fired mortars at Ukrainian Armed Forces positions in Talakivka. Militants fired only small arms in the Luhansk region, he added. "No Ukrainian servicemen have been killed, or injured, as a result of fighting in the past 24 hours," Motuzyanyk said. Identifix, Inc., an industry leader in vehicle diagnostics and repair for over 25 years, has been named a winner of the 2015 Top 5 Tools Award presented by TechShop Equipment, Tools & Supplies magazine, a trade publication for automotive technicians and repair shop owners that provides the latest information on shop equipment, tools and supplies. The Top 5 Tools Award recognizes companies that exhibit superior brand strength, technological leadership and product innovation. It is the only true equipment and tool recognition based exclusively on views expressed by shop owners and technicians. Peer-oriented awards are, of course, prestigious, and were grateful for the recognition, said Mark Theriot, Identifix Managing Director, but to have our subscribers nominate us and cite our commitment to consistently improving our brand and user experience is something really special. Were always looking to make our product schematics and processes more intuitive to reflect real-world scenarios. We rely on our customers for honest feedback, so for them to let us know were doing something right is the perfect compliment. Award winners were determined based on the number of times a company or product was mentioned by shop owners and technicians in the January 2015 through December 2015 issues of TechShop in the Top 5 Favorite Tools section. Identifix was one of only 12 companies to receive the award. Because the winners of the Top 5 Tools Award are picked by the shop owners and technicians who read TechShop magazine and visit our website, it is the only true equipment and tool award chosen by the ultimate customer the end-user technician or shop owner, said publisher Sean Donohue in the article announcing the honorees. The December 2015 issue of TechShop announced Identifix as a winner to more than 100,000 repair shop recipients. For more information on the award and publication, go to http://www.techshopmag.com/12-tool-and-equipment-manufacturers-earn-techshops-2015-top-5-tools-award. About Identifix: Located in Roseville, Minnesota, Identifix is a leading source for vehicle diagnostics, genuine OEM service & repair information, Factory Scheduled Maintenance plans and reliable estimating. Identifixs products and services include the online tool Direct-Hit and its technical Repair Hotline. Direct-Hit is a registered trademark of Identifix. Founded in 1987, Identifix serves customers in the United States, Canada and Latin America and is a subsidiary of Solera Holdings, Inc. (SLH), a leading global provider of risk and asset management software and services to the global automotive and property marketplace, including the P&C insurance industry. For more information, visit identifix.com or follow the company on Twitter at twitter.com/identifixdotcom. PMO Advisory LLC We offer the best value in professional training certification courses, and our classroom participants have a very high pass rate on the first attempt. In 2015, the first attempt pass rate for PfMP, for example, is 100%. PMO Advisory has developed its own unique and novel Price Matching Guarantee, in support of its social mission as an aspiring B-Corp. The company is so confident in its training solutions that it encourages participants to actively seek comparable certification training courses that originate and are delivered in the United States. PMO Advisory will match that price through a series of evaluations that looks at course content, richness of materials, delivery mode, quality, support guarantee, and other criteria. What sets PMO Advisory apart from other training firms, other than the fact they are the only PMI REP offering training courses in all the major PMI certifications through all common delivery channels, is their Expert Level Instructors who are industry and academic professionals certified in the courses they teach; their 12 Month Support Program novel to the industry which includes email support and future free attendance at their Intelicamps (real-time, certified instructor-led virtual courses); their own Money Back Guarantee; their unique Intelicamps that connect real-time participants from all over the world; and their large test banks covering PfMP, PgMP and PMP. We offer the best value in professional training certification courses, and our classroom participants have a very high pass rate on the first attempt. In 2015, the first attempt pass rate for PfMP, for example, is 100%. This is a testament to our quality. We invite our potential participants to shop around, and if they can find a comparable course to what we offer at a lower price we will offer our training course to them at that price, states Te Wu, CEO and Founder of PMO Advisory, himself certified in PfMP, PgMP, PMP, RMP, ITIL. And if we cannot match their price, then we will offer access to our test bank for free or another equivalent offering. Some of the price matching policies of the firm include: (1) Price Matching for courses that originate and are delivered in the US only; (2) Price Matching for classroom courses that include a mix of virtual and traditional learning only not online courses; (3) Training Product Suites are complex and since PMO Advisory is a full service provider, matching prices may mean a reduction in certain corresponding services; (4) And if PMO Advisory cannot match the price, they are going to provide participants with FREE access to the corresponding practice exam test banks including PfMP, PgMP or PMP/CAPM. PMO Advisory is a socially minded management advisory and training firm with expertise in business and IT execution, serving as a resource to help enable ideas for organizations. PMO Advisory helps transform business ideas, plans, objectives and vision into reality using a proven, customizable consulting approach. The firms advisory team is expert in portfolio, program and project leadership, process improvement, and business transformation. As a training company, the firm is striving to be the most comprehensive project management training firm in the world offering certification training in Portfolio (PfMP), Program (PgMP), Project (PMP, CAPM, PRINCE2, and MSP), Risk (PMI-RMP), Agile (PMI-ACP, SCRUM), and Service Management (ITIL series) training. For more information, visit PMO Advisory on the web at http://www.pmoadvisory.com. Cytegic may be a young company, but when it comes to innovating how companies manage cyber security risks, it has already demonstrated its ability to deliver on big ideas, said Hudi Zack, COO, Cytegic. Cytegic, a provider of innovative cyber security management solutions today announced that Hudi Zack has joined the company as Chief Operating Officer (COO). Zacks proven track record of building, scaling and managing all aspects of business operations will strengthen Cytegics ability to execute as it meets the growing demand for its solutions. Cytegic may be a young company, but when it comes to innovating how companies manage cyber security risks, it has already demonstrated its ability to deliver on big ideas, said Hudi Zack, COO, Cytegic. By enabling security officers to assess, manage and effectively communicate cyber risk issues to business stakeholders, organizations can be much more agile, proactive and preemptive in their approach to cyber security. Thats a game-changing proposition, and Im delighted to be part of the team. Cytegics cyber security management platform provides Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) with a single pane of glass for managing daily cyber security operations, decision making and reporting. Having launched in North America in January 2015, Cytegic has already closed several strategic U.S. deals, is gaining strong momentum within the financial services, manufacturing and government sectors, and has expanded its sales and marketing teams. Bringing a rare mix of technical and business acumen to Cytegic as well as a proven track record of building and growing world class organizations, Hudi will lead Cytegics operations as it continues to ramp up globally. Hudi comes to Cytegic after founding and leading Verints Cyber Business Unit. Prior to Verint, he founded and was CEO of CorrSight, a SaaS provider in the online financial brokerage arena. Before CorrSight he was Division President of the Billing Product Unit at Amdocs, where he led a 700-employee unit. Prior to Amdocs, Hudi served as vice president of R & D and then COO of Metalink, a fabless semiconductor company. He holds a masters degree in Electrical Engineering from Tel-Aviv University (Israel) and a bachelors degree in Mathematics and Physics from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (as a member of Talpiot program). Mr. Zack perfectly compliments Cytegics diverse and accomplished executive team, which includes Chairman Carmi Gillion, a well-known Israeli politician and former head of the Shin Bet (Israels equivalent to the FBI) and CEO Shay Zandani, who founded the Israeli Air Forces Information Warfare Department and co-founded Cytegic after more than a decade running PwC Israels Global Risk Management practice. Hudi knows how to grow an early-stage innovator into a global leader, and we are thrilled to have him on board, said Shay Zandani, CEO, Cytegic. In todays saturated and hyper competitive cyber security market, we need more than just a great product we need great people, and Hudis experience and achievements reflect his ability to create thriving and highly successful businesses. Hudi has already become an invaluable asset and we look forward to his contributions to our long term success. About Cytegic Based in Tel Aviv, Israel and Tenafly, New Jersey, Cytegic offers the first comprehensive cyber security management platform that enables Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) to assess, manage and communicate the business impact of cyber risk to any business stakeholder. Its suite consists of three products: Cyber Maturity Assessment (CyMA) which monitors and manages internal security controls, Dynamic Trend Analysis (DyTA) which provides contextual, actionable threat intelligence, and the Cytegic Cyber Decision Support System (CDSS) that sits on top of CyMA and DyTA and provides a single pane of glass for CISOs to identify, prioritize and respond to cyber risks with unprecedented clarity and agility. Founded in 2012, Cytegic is privately funded. Its customers include Bank Leumi, Amdocs, PwC and some of Israel's largest banking institutions. For more information, visit http://www.cytegic.com. Our proven ability to deliver tangible organic search (SEO) results means we're looking forward to a successful collaboration over 2016 and beyond. etyres offers a mobile tyre fitting service to both individual motorists and businesses, and differentiates itself through a focus on customer service and competitive pricing. Matt Bullas, founder and CEO of Click Consult, says: Were delighted to be working with etyres. Our dedicated Organic Search Team has a proven ability to deliver tangible results and, with our solid background within the tyres sector, we look forward to a successful collaboration over 2016 and beyond. The Cheshire-based agencys client portfolio also includes Oxfam, Truprint, Chill Insurance, Netflights, Virgin Balloons, ABTA, LloydsPharmacy Online Doctor and Act-On. As well as being shortlisted in the Northern Digital Awards for its PPC campaign on behalf of SHEilds, the agency has been named one of the UKs top 20 search marketing agencies by The Drum and ranked as the top North West agency for SEO turnover in Econsultancys Top 100 Digital Agencies Report 2015. About Click Consult: Located in North West England, Click Consult is a multi award-winning search marketing agency with a focus on organic (SEO) and paid search (PPC). With over 70 professionals employed and with a portfolio of over 80 clients from across the UK, Click Consult works with businesses looking for a tangible, measurable return from their online budget. The agency also provides a range of other services, including content, outreach, social engagement and conversion rate optimisation (CRO), as well as international and multilingual search marketing. Click Consult is a Google AdWords and Microsoft adExcellence certified company. Scheidt & Bachmann USA Headquarters moves to Cross River Center in Lowell, MA. Copyright Photo Credit Bruce T. Martin Transportation solutions provider Scheidt & Bachmann USA, Inc. (S&B) has announced plans to relocate its North American subsidiary headquarters to a larger facility in Massachusetts. Beginning October 1, 2016, Scheidt & Bachmann USAs principal place of business will be Cross River Center, located at 1001 Pawtucket Boulevard, Lowell, MA. The company will occupy 72,000 square feet of renovated space on two floors within the 836,000-square-foot mixed use building. The facility, originally built by Wang Laboratories in 1981, has been redeveloped by Farley White Interests and will be shared with other advanced office, manufacturing and research and development tenants. Presently, Scheidt & Bachmann USA is located in Burlington, MA. Since establishing its headquarters in Massachusetts, Scheidt & Bachmann USA has grown to become one of the largest providers of fare collection and parking solutions in the US. Locally, the company has produced the MBTAs automated fare collection (Charlie Card) system, as well as providing fare collection equipment and services to 11 of the states 15 regional transit systems. Scheidt & Bachmann USA was also the vendor chosen by the Massachusetts Port Authority to develop the automated parking payment system currently used in the public garages at Logan International Airport. The new facilities will allow for a flexible, spacious and technologically advanced work environment for Scheidt & Bachmann employees. Susan Nemetz, Scheidt & Bachmann USAs Vice President of Fare Collections, commented that management searched extensively within Massachusetts for an appropriate space which could accommodate our growing manufacturing, production and service need. We are very pleased with our new location in the City of Lowell, which is growing in reputation as a hub for business development. The current headquarters in Burlington has been occupied by Scheidt & Bachmann USA since 1995. We have enjoyed our Burlington location for two decades. There comes a time when business requirements must drive change. This is certainly the case with our relocation decision, said John MacDonald, President of Scheidt & Bachmann USA. Our new facility offers the right infrastructure to support our growing needs today and provides flexibility to accommodate planned growth in the years to come. Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Jay Ash commended Scheidt & Bachmanns announcement. Scheidt & Bachmann USA is a highly respected technology and manufacturing company and its decision to expand its headquarters in Massachusetts will help to create more jobs for our citizens and is a reflection of the Baker Administrations commitment to economic growth and opportunity in every part of the Commonwealth, he said. Lowell City Manager Kevin Murphy added, [The City is] delighted that Scheidt & Bachmann has chosen to bring their US Headquarters to Lowell. This move is another example of the caliber of companies choosing to locate in the City and of our efforts to attract high quality jobs to Lowell. Scheidt & Bachmann is one of the largest international transportation solutions providers operating 24 subsidiaries around the world. Scheidt & Bachmann USA, which was established in 1995 and has always been headquartered in Massachusetts, offers solutions for fare collections systems and parking access and revenue control systems specifically in the U.S. and Canadian markets. Much of the production process for the fare collections division is handled from the principal office. Scheidt & Bachmann USA will remain at 31 North Avenue, Burlington, MA 01803 until October 1, 2016. About Scheidt & Bachmann Scheidt & Bachmann has been a leading international transportation solutions provider since 1872. Scheidt & Bachmann USA, Inc. operates two divisions in the North American market; Fare Collection Systems and Parking Systems. The Fare Collection Systems division is a leading provider of Fare Collection Systems and Services for mass transit. Core business activities include design, manufacturing, integrating, deploying, servicing and hosting of Fare Collection Systems and related ITS solutions. The Parking Division offers parking access and revenue control systems to various industry clients including airports, hospitals, universities and municipalities. The company has provided complex transportation solutions for 140 years and specifically for the past 30 years in the fare collection industry. Scheidt &Bachmann USA, Inc. celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2015. The company was formally incorporated in 1995 and established its headquarters in Burlington, MA. Scheidt & Bachmann GmbH created the subsidiary to capitalize on growth opportunities in both the Fare Collection and Parking markets in the US. Since its inception, the company has achieved consistent growth along with a reputation as an industry innovator focused on client satisfaction. Scheidt & Bachmann has 24 subsidiaries across the globe and over 2,900 employees worldwide. The company has an unwavering commitment to the long term success of their customers. For more information, visit Scheidt & Bachmann's website at http://www.scheidt-bachmann.com. As an agency thats focused almost exclusively on creating content for the B2B technology space, were obviously thrilled to have an industry veteran like Doug on board. nDash Marketing, a rapidly growing content marketing agency, today announced the addition of Doug Barney as Managing Editor. In this newly created role, Doug will lead content creation efforts for the agencys expanded roster of B2B technology clients. Prior to nDash Marketing, Doug held executive and lead level positions for Network World, IDG, TMC, Redmond Media Group and other technology publications. His industry knowledge and journalism background will play a pivotal role in the companys future growth plans. As an agency thats focused almost exclusively on creating content for the B2B technology space, were obviously thrilled to have an industry veteran like Doug on board, said Michael Brown, Founder and CEO of nDash Marketing. His experience and leadership will be invaluable for what we have planned next. In less than 24 months, nDash Marketing transformed itself from a one-person operation to an in-house team of eight, along with more than sixty active clients worldwide. Based out of Natick, Massachusetts, the agency has developed a strong reputation in the fields of cloud computing, data security, telecommunications and software development, among others. It was a perfect for me, both in terms of the clients and the companys overall view of content, said Doug, who also has experience as a freelance writer for the likes of IBM, Intel, CA, Cisco and other enterprise organizations. Im excited to be part of a company that has achieved so much at such an early stage, but who also has bigger plans for the future. To learn more about how a content marketing agency can benefit your business, download nDash Marketings Pricing Guide. About nDash Marketing nDash Marketing is a full-service agency providing content marketing services. Our mission is to help brands of all shapes and size create awareness, educate their markets and generate demand with original content, written for their specific audiences. From copywriting to content strategy, nDash can act as the primary producer of written content, or as an extension of an in-house marketing team. One of the first steps in accelerating our growth was to retain Commenda Securities as our financial adviser and investment banker. - Todd Lambert, EventSphere President & CEO The meetings and conventions outlook for 2016 and beyond is positive and continues to grow, say industry experts. EventSphere, a major meeting-planning firm, is poised to expand its brand and national footprint over the coming 24 months to capitalize on the industrys strength. The company recently retained Commenda Securities LLC to assist with its growth strategy. One of the first steps in accelerating our growth was to retain Commenda Securities as our financial adviser and investment banker, said EventSphere CEO Todd Lambert. The firm will identify potential acquisitions of companies that could accelerate our top-line growth while also enhancing EventSpheres customized service offering. Commendas expertise is its ability to identify such strategic growth opportunities and to expertly manage the process. EventSphere and Commenda are working together to find other strategic partners that meld with the EventSphere culture of customer service and customized choice, offering an array of services and expertise to fit each clients needs. Commendas research and advisory services strengthen EventSpheres vision for growth. Based on our assessment of the meetings market, the industry is highly fragmented with different firms offering a disparate array of services, making the sector ripe for consolidation, said John Runningen, president of Commenda Securities. With its best in class technologies and prudent growth strategy, supplemented by carefully targeted acquisitions, EventSphere can become the preferred go-to meeting and event planning solution for organizations of all sizes and needs. EventSphere Client Base Expands EventSphere has been chosen to manage housing for the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in partnership with Akintayo Management Group. These two teams previously partnered with the DNC Conventions housing programs in 2008 and 2012. The companies also handled housing needs for the 2013 Presidential Inauguration. EventSphere has also established new client relationships, including its partnership with Hinman Dental Society, the Girl Scouts of the USA and the Texas Dental Association to manage the organizations housing registration. Our philosophy of custom service supported by industry-leading technology has allowed EventSphere to experience fantastic growth and build superb client partnerships across a diverse cross-section of industries, Lambert said. We look forward to expanding the EventSphere brand and offering additional services through organic growth as well as the smart acquisition of businesses that share our culture of offering a personalized, boutique approach that our clients appreciate. About EventSphere Founded in 2010 by industry veterans, EventSphere specializes in delivering state-of-the-art travel and reservation administration in the meeting and events industry. Services include site selection, hotel contracting and concession negotiating; event management; marketing and advertising services; onsite fulfillment and VIP program services; and attrition management. The staff at EventSphere works to understand each clients needs and craft effective programs and solutions to streamline the meeting planning and organization process. EventSphere is headquartered in Atlanta and serves clients across the country and internationally. For more information about EventSphere, visit http://www.eventsphere.com or call 678-704-8724. About Commenda Securities LLC Commenda Securities LLC is the broker-dealer subsidiary of Commenda Capital, a financial advisory and merchant banking firm that assists management teams with the tools, contacts and business strategies critical to growing their businesses. To fund this growth, the company has access to capital from private equity groups, venture capital firms, family offices, foundations, hedge funds, individuals and institutions. Founded in 2011, and based in Atlanta, Commenda works with middle-market companies that have compelling products, services or technology. Commenda develops and funds efficient business models that can create operating synergies and serve as a solid platform for accelerating growth. For more information about Commenda Capital, visit http://www.commendacapital.com or call 770-858-0085. -30- Paragon Software Group, the technology leader in data security and data management solutions, announces the release of its Universal File System Driver (UFSD) software development kit for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). The new SDK expands the possibilities for system management and security software vendors working in UEFI environments. The technology allows system vendors and motherboard manufacturers to make their UEFI systems more competitive and user-friendly. Introduced by Intel in 2005 as a replacement for the aging MBR (Master Boot Record) and PC BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) interfaces, UEFI now comes standard on new computers, where it is positioned between the operating system and firmware stacks. Despite advantages over traditional BIOS and MBR, UEFI is technically limited by its support for FAT32 (File Allocation Table), an outdated file system, which restricts file sizes to less than four gigabytes. In an effort to address this problem, motherboard manufacturers have started to implement read-only NTFS support into their UEFI firmware but this only solves half of the problem. With the release of UFSD SDK for UEFI, Paragon Software now delivers a complete read/write solution. Based upon the companys industry-proven, cross-platform Universal File System Driver library used around the world in billions of devices such as smartphones, tablets, routers, networked storage, and cameras, the new SDK opens transparent, full read/write support for Windows-native NTFS, Linux-native ExtFS, and other file systems in the UEFI pre-boot environment. Paragons UFSD drivers work through the "simple file system protocol," allowing software developers familiar with UEFI system calls to utilize the same APIs already used for FAT32 to access NTFS and ExtFS volumes. Developers can now put more focus on the workflow and usability of their programs, rather than worrying about low-level storage functions. Key Features Full access to NTFS, ExtFS, ExFAT, HFS+, ReFS in the UEFI pre-boot environment Example Scenarios Use NTFS- or ExtFS-formatted thumb drives to install operating systems Check the integrity of core OS files in the pre-boot environment and restore modified files Scan for and remove malware (including "rootkits") before they gain control over the running OS Deploy system updates in the pre-boot environment without interfering OS applications Restore NTFS or ExtFS volumes from backup images How it Works Watch the video demonstration at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX5zdK8osFE System Requirements UEFI Development Kits: 2014 SP1 or later Architectures: x86 32 and 64 bits Additional Services Paragon Software also offers maintenance and support as well as development and consulting services for this SDK. Availability: The UFSD SDK is available for licensing: https://www.paragon-software.com/technologies/ufsd/ufsd-uefi.html For more details about the new technology and evaluation options, please contact technology(at)paragon-software(dot)com or call: US: 1-888-347-5462 UK: 44-800-047-0957 Germany: 49-(0)-761-59018-201 About Paragon Software Group:. Paragon Software provides technology to a host of world-class companies and partners including Belkin, Bosch, Cisco, D-Link, Dell, Toshiba, HP, Western Digital Corp., ASUS, Seagate, LG Electronics, Logitech, Buffalo, Acer, EMC/Iomega, Siemens, Lenovo, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia and ZTE. For more information please visit the company website at http://www.paragon-software.com. Frost Miller--integrated marketing agency We are thrilled to continue our creative work with the Frost Miller team, noted Alison Moser, DDW director of marketing. Together weve developed a strong, brand and we are excited to see how our marketing grows over the next three events. Frost Miller has worked with Digestive Disease Week to develop marketing collateral since 2011 After a required creative review at the end of its marketing contract, Frost Miller was rehired by Digestive Disease Week (DDW) to develop promotional materials for the next three events, starting with DDW 2017. We are thrilled to continue our creative work with the Frost Miller team, noted Alison Moser, DDW director of marketing. Together weve developed a strong, strategic brand over the past few years and we are excited to see how our marketing grows over the next three events. Digestive Disease Week is the worlds largest gathering of physicians, researchers and academics in the fields of gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy and gastrointestinal surgery, attracting more than 14,000 GI professionals. It is sponsored by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute, American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), and Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (SSAT). FM, an integrated marketing agency, will design print and digital advertisements, registration brochures, direct mail, on-site programs and other promotional materials. Previously, FM helped rebrand DDW to present a more cohesive image to its constituents and the industry at large. Evan Mann, vice president of creative at Frost Miller, said, Continuing our relationship with DDW is welcome news. The show is very dynamic and were happy to continue developing collateral pieces that speak to this audience. The FM team is highly-experienced at creating successful exhibitor and attendee promotional campaigns using both digital and traditional tactics. It combines its strategic planning and design capabilities to create successful marketing campaigns for more than a dozen tradeshows, meetings, and conferences nationally and internationally each year. About Frost Miller Founded in 1992, Bethesda, MD-based integrated marketing agency Frost Miller provides strategy, branding, graphic design, copywriting, digital marketing and web development, social media, public relations, and media planning to its regional, national and international clients. Among its clients are National Mining Associations MINExpo INTERNATIONAL, Air Traffic Control Association, CITEM, National Association of Home Builders and Electronic Transaction Association. Frost Miller is listed on the Washington Business Journals List of the regions Top Advertising Agencies. More information is available at http://www.frostmiller.com or on Twitter @frostmiller. This webinar will provide insight into the clinical trial payment process from the site perspective. DrugDev, the leading specialized provider of global site payments, is pleased to host a new complimentary webinar, The Site Perspective: Why Payment Terms and A/R Processes Matter, featuring experienced expert speakers from Marquez Clinical Site Partners. Ana Marquez, Founder and CEO of Marquez Clinical Site Partners, and Cesia Abea, Accounts Receivable Specialist at Florida Pulmonary Research Institute, will provide first-hand knowledge into the process while detailing the benefits for sponsors and CROs of keeping global sites focused on patients instead of administrative tasks. [Webinar] The Site Perspective: Why Payment Terms and A/R Processes Matter Date: February 3, 2016 Time: 12-1 pm EST CLICK TO REGISTER Cant make it? Everyone who registers will receive a recording after the event Sites work hard to meet clinical trial milestones and timelines, yet too often have to deal with late, inconsistent, inaccurate and missed payments for the work they have completed, causing cash flow challenges for the site. Meanwhile, A/R continues to be a challenge largely due to inefficient systems. This webinar will provide insight into the clinical trial payment process from the site perspective. Attend the webinar to learn: Why payment terms and A/R processes matter Common pitfalls to avoid Best A/R practices for Sites Sponsor benefits of happy sites Proven global VAT and aggregate spend reporting strategies The webinar will conclude with a Q&A with expert speakers. Register to attend and learn how leading sponsors and CROs develop mutually beneficial relationships with global sites. Want to solve your global site payment challenges? Contact the DrugDev payments team. About the Presenters: Ana T. Marquez, Founder and CEO, Marquez Clinical Site Partners Ana established MCSP based on the needs and demands of clinical research site professionals across the country. MSCP sites specialize in Respiratory Research, Sleep Medicine, Gastroenterology, Pediatrics, Internal Medicine, Endocrinology, Rheumatology, Allergy, and CNS. Ana is a frequent industry speaker. She is Chairman for The Society for Clinical Research Sites (SCRS) Membership Committee and Chairman of the Drug Information Association (DIA) SIAC for Investigative Sites. Cesia Abea, Accounts Receivable Specialist, Florida Pulmonary Research Institute Cesia has several years of experience working in the clinical trials industry. Her expertise includes invoicing, maintaining accounting reports, supervising various other aspects of collecting accounts and keeping them current, and forecasting to provide information needed to make sound business decisions. About the Moderator: Stuart Thiede, President, DrugDev Payments Stu leads the highly skilled and experienced professionals who deliver investigator payment services to clinical trial sponsors and CROs. Stu brings nearly 30 years of experience to DrugDev from companies that provide software and professional service solutions to the pharmaceutical industry. About DrugDev DrugDev is an innovative technology company which provides cloud-based solutions to help sponsors, CROs and investigators do more clinical trials together. DrugDevs unified platform optimizes site selection and activation, investigator payments and clinical operations efficiency. DrugDev also serves as the trusted third-party host of the revolutionary Investigator Databank collaboration and the TransCelerate Investigator Registry. Learn why 9 of the top 10 sponsors and 4 of the top 5 CROs trust on DrugDev technology to do more trials at drugdev.com. The members of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada's international affairs committee have unanimously supported a proposal that Ukrainian delegates not participate in the 47th General Assembly session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (PABSEC) scheduled for June 28-30 in Moscow. The proposal to the committee members was aired by Liudmyla Denysova, head of Ukraine's permanent delegation to PABSEC. "We warned [at the previous 46th General Assembly session in Bucharest] that Ukraine would not take part in the events taking place on Russian territory, and would boycott the next PABSEC General Assembly session in Moscow," the press service of the Popular Front party quoted Denysova as saying at the committee meeting on Wednesday. The Rada has drawn up a letter, to be signed by Chairman Volodymyr Groysman, to Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, asking him to instruct Ukrainian diplomatic missions abroad to work toward securing a common approach among the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) member-states on not participating in the 47th session of the PABSEC General Assembly, Denysova said. The members of the parliamentary committee supported the idea, and decided to address the international affairs committees of the parliaments of the PABSEC member-states to urge their delegations to boycott the session in Moscow, the press service said. It began with this one question: Why are boys falling behind in school? That was a topic that journalist Richard Whitmire covered frequently as an editorial writer at USA Today. It led him to pen his first book, Why Boys Fail: Saving Our Sons from an Education System thats Leaving Them Behind. Four books and countless articles, blogs and tweets later, Whitmire has built a national following for his in-depth and often thought-provoking examinations of the American education system. Now, Whitmire joins the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation as a senior fellow, where hell continue to work as an author and journalist, traveling across the country, observing and interviewing administrators, teachers and students to discover the newest and best practices in education and to share his thoughts on whats workingand whats not. Richard is a highly respected writer in the education world, and were honored to have him join the Foundation as a senior fellow, said Aaron North, vice president of Education at the Kauffman Foundation. We look forward to learning from him, along with his national audience. Whitmire has spent the last year as an Emerson Collective fellow. His recent coverage has focused on the success of proven charter school models, charter-district partnerships and a California-based charter school district that recently received a boost from Facebooks code team to help create a new personalized learning software program. His opinion pieces have been published by USA Today, the Seventy Four, the New York Daily News, the Washington Post, Real Clear Education and Slate. He also publishes on his own website, richardwhitmire.com, and on Twitter @richardwhitmir. Whitmire will also contribute to the Kauffman Foundations new education blog, EDinsight. The Kauffman Foundation shares my interest in the role innovation plays in revitalizing urban school systems and communities, and I look forward to contributing to the Foundation as a senior fellow, said Whitmire. About the Kauffman Foundation The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a private, nonpartisan foundation that aims to foster economic independence by advancing educational achievement and entrepreneurial success. Founded by late entrepreneur and philanthropist Ewing Marion Kauffman, the Foundation is based in Kansas City, Mo., and has approximately $2 billion in assets. For more information, visit http://www.kauffman.org, and follow the Foundation on Twitter and Facebook. WorldRemit logo We are pioneering international mobile-to-mobile remittances London, UK and Johannesburg, South Africa, 28 January 2016 WorldRemit and MTN Group today announced that WorldRemit customers can now send money instantly to MTN Mobile Money wallets in Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia. The launch follows the signing of a global partnership agreement earlier this year, to enable WorldRemit customers all over the world to send international remittances to MTNs Mobile Money customers. This partnership makes sense for both companies, as WorldRemit and MTN share a disruptive approach to innovation and bring impactful services to our customers. Together, we are now providing an instant, fully digital and very affordable solution to send international remittance to Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia. Other countries will follow soon, says Serigne Dioum, MTN Group Head of Mobile Financial Services. At WorldRemit, we are pioneering international mobile-to-mobile remittances. Our partnership with MTN allows our customers around the world to send money instantly from the WorldRemit app to MTN Mobile Money users in Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia. Together with MTN, we make sending money home as easy as sending an instant message, says Alix Murphy, Senior Mobile Analyst at WorldRemit. She continues: For diaspora members sending money to friends and family back home in these countries, Mobile Money is a real game-changer. In Uganda, Mobile Money has already overtaken cash pick-up and bank deposits as the preferred method to receive money. We expect this trend to continue as MTNs Mobile Money services reach millions of people without bank accounts, giving them access to a variety of life-enhancing financial services including savings and insurance schemes. People in more than 52 countries already use the WorldRemit app to send around 400,000 money transfers every month to over 125 destinations. WorldRemit is the leading sender of remittances to Mobile Money wallets connecting to over 25 different services worldwide. MTN Mobile Money enables users to perform utility payments, save money, purchase airtime and access a range of mobile financial products. To date, MTN Mobile Money is used by customers in 15 countries across Africa, i.e. Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Congo, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Republic, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda and Zambia. In keeping with its aim to accelerate the rollout of international remittance, MTN launched a cross-border mobile money transfer service between Uganda and Rwanda in August. The service allows customers in both countries to transact via MTN Mobile Money with the same simplicity as for a local money transfer. MTN also offers a mobile money cross-border remittance service between Ivory Coast, Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. The remittance corridor between Kenya and Rwanda is the latest addition to MTNs Mobile Money bouquet of services. It forms part of a major initiative between MTN and Vodafone, to enhance financial inclusivity in East Africa. In the six months to 30 June 2015, MTN grew mobile money subscribers by 45,8% to 32,4 million. *NB: All figures are unaudited About the MTN Group Launched in 1994, the MTN Group is a leading emerging market operator, connecting subscribers in 22 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The MTN Group is listed on the JSE Securities Exchange in South Africa under the share code: MTN. As of 30 June 2015, MTN recorded 231 million subscribers across its operations in Afghanistan, Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Cote dIvoire, Cyprus, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Republic, Iran, Liberia, Nigeria, Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, South Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Uganda, Yemen and Zambia. Visit us at, http://www.mtnbusiness.com and http://www.mtn.com For more information, please contact: Samantha Moodley on 083 212 9434 or Samantha(dot)moodley(at)mtn(dot)com Twitter: @MTNGroup About WorldRemit WorldRemit is changing the way people send money. Its easy just open the app or visit the website no more agents. Transfers to most countries are instant send money like an instant message. More ways to receive (Mobile Money, bank transfer, cash pickup, and mobile airtime top-up). Available in 52 countries and 125+ destinations. Backed by Accel Partners and TCV investors in Facebook, Spotify and Dropbox. WorldRemit is the UKs fastest-growing technology company (Deloitte Technology Fast 50 2015) WorldRemits global headquarters are in London, UK with regional offices in USA, Canada, Japan Australia and New Zealand. Read more: About us Media contact: media(at)worldremit(dot)com or +44 (0) 207 148 6118 ext. 214 Our panel of judges feel that Alesias stellar leadership within Avalaras legal department and throughout the company illustrates how a strong, strategic relationship with in-house counsel leads to company growth Alesia Pinney, executive vice president and general counsel for Avalara, Inc., has been named Outstanding Chief Legal Officer for private companies with up to $500 million in revenue by the Puget Sound Business Journals 2016 Corporate Counsel Awards committee. The annual award honors legal heroes in Washington state that help companies innovate, thrive, and make solid business decisions. The Puget Sound Business Journal is pleased to honor in-house attorneys who demonstrate above-and-beyond prowess in handling legal challenges and bringing value to the companys bottom line, said Becky Monk, assistant managing editor for the Puget Sound Business Journal. Our panel of judges feels that Alesias stellar leadership within Avalaras legal department and throughout the company illustrates how a strong, strategic relationship with in-house counsel leads to company growth. As a member of Avalaras executive team, Alesia delivers a consistently positive and measurable impact on virtually every area of our company, said Scott McFarlane, Avalara CEO and co-founder. In the last year alone, she helped improve our deal velocity by streamlining our contracts and she was instrumental in negotiating and executing multiple strategic acquisitions in lodging, fuel, and telecommunications, and a significant global compliance offering. Im proud to speak for all Avalarians in congratulating Alesia for this well-deserved recognition. Pinney has a proven track record serving as an operational, accounting, and legal executive for private and publicly traded companies. Her wealth of experience includes managing public offerings and private financings, mergers, acquisitions, and company-transforming strategic transactions. Since joining Avalara in 2013, Pinney has completely transformed the companys legal function, moving it from a perceived growth inhibitor to an active, supportive partner to each of Avalaras business units. Additionally, she has assisted the company in raising over $200 million from leading venture capital and private equity investors. In 2015, Pinney streamlined the sales negotiation process, which helped Avalara enter into thousands of new deals and supported the companys 40 percent- plus year-over-year growth. Previous positions include serving as general counsel and secretary for Radiant Global Logistics Inc., EVP for Legal and Operations at Talyst Inc., and general counsel for InfoSpace Inc. and drugstore.com. Before that, Pinney practiced law at Perkins Coie, LLP, and she has served as senior corporate counsel at RealNetworks. Pinney began her career as a certified public accountant at Deloitte Haskins and Sells. About Avalara Avalara helps businesses of all sizes achieve compliance with sales and use, excise, communications, VAT other transactional tax requirements by delivering comprehensive, automated, cloud-based solutions that are fast, accurate, and easy to use. Avalaras Compliance CloudTM platform is designed to effectively manage complicated and burdensome tax compliance obligations imposed by state, local, and other taxing authorities in the United States and internationally. Avalara offers hundreds of pre-built connectors into leading accounting, ERP, ecommerce and other business applications. The company processes millions of tax transactions for customers and free users every day, files hundreds of thousands of transactional tax returns per year, and manages millions of exemption certificates and other compliance related documents. A privately held company, Avalara s venture capital investors include Sageview Capital, Battery Ventures, Warburg Pincus, Technology Crossover Ventures, Arthur Ventures, and other institutional and individual investors. Avalara employs more than 1000 people at its headquarters in Seattle, WA and in offices across the U.S. and in London, England and Pune, India. More information at: http://www.avalara.com Damien R. Hall Inclusion in the Forty Under 40 class recognizes Damien for his youthful leadership, intellectual savvy, contributions to the greater Portland community, and generally being someone to watch in this town. Ball Janik LLP is pleased to announce that Damien Hall is a recipient of this years esteemed Forty Under 40 recognition from the Portland Business Journal. The Portland Business Journal Forty Under 40 recognition celebrates those who are making a big impact in their professional career and within the Portland community. Inclusion in the Forty Under 40 class recognizes Damien for his youthful leadership, intellectual savvy, contributions to the greater Portland community, and generally being someone to watch in this town. Damien will be recognized at the Portland Business Journals Forty Under 40 event on February 18th. Damien is Chair of Ball Janik LLPs Land Use and Real Estate practice groups. He is talented, collaborative, committed, and thoughtful in his approach to representing clients. He volunteers his time to several non-profit boards such as Home Forward and CareOregon, and industry-related groups such as the Portland Development Commissions (PDC) Central City Budget Advisory Committee, the Association of Oregon Redevelopment Agencies (AORA), and the Metropolitan Exposition Recreation Commission (MERC). About Ball Janik LLP Ball Janik LLP is a Pacific Northwest law firm headquartered in Portland, Oregon, with offices in Orlando, Florida and Salt Lake City, Utah. For over thirty years, Ball Janik LLP has been providing outstanding legal services in the areas of bankruptcy and creditor rights, commercial litigation, construction and design, construction litigation, employment, real estate and land use, insurance recovery for policyholders, and securities litigation. Ball Janik LLP represents large and small businesses; state, municipal and local governments; associations; schools and universities; and individuals. Ball Janik LLP provides clients an aggressive, skilled, team approach to solve problems and achieve results. Ball Janik LLP has been recognized by Chambers USA, U.S. News Best Lawyers, The Best Lawyers in America, and Corporate International. Ball Janik LLPs success and integrity have repeatedly made it one of Oregons Most Admired Professional Firms, according to the Portland Business Journals survey results of CEOs throughout the region. 2015 was our best year. Not many companies can say they have a subsidiary in China. 2015 marked the year Transfinder recorded yet another year of record revenue and also became a global software company, opening its first international office, a research and development center, in Shanghai, China. Transfinder also opened a Training Center in Austin, Texas, in 2015. Total revenue for 2015 was $11.6 million, up 12 percent from 2014, when the logistics software company recorded $10.4 million in revenue. 2015 was our best year, said President and CEO Antonio Civitella. Not many companies can say they have a subsidiary in China. Were going to be doing great things in China that other companies cannot do. Civitella said he expects to open additional offices both in the United States and internationally. We are going to other locations, he told the 100-person company during his annual address at Transfinders Schenectady headquarters. A live feed carried the address to the Austin office, the first time a feed was necessary. Also in attendance was Tony Chen, who heads the Shanghai office. Other 2015 highlights include: Landed 168 new clients, with more than 50 percent leaving competitors products for Transfinder; Transfinder entered the municipality market, providing routing software for the City of Schenectady to manage such activities as snow plowing and garbage collection; Released a record-breaking three new products (Viewfinder, API, Selfiefinder); Record attendance at its Annual Client Summit, which was held in Austin, Texas, in May, with more than 250 attendees, up from last years recording-breaking 210 who attended in Albany, New York; Attended 34 tradeshows in 24 states; The New York BizLab, a technology accelerator founded by Civitella to build a tech community in Schenectady, is nearly 75 percent filled with growing, cutting edge companies. Another significant source of revenue growth is the companys three-day in-house training seminars called Transfinder University, launched in July 2014. In 2015, 134 transportation professionals attended Transfinder University, including the first class held in Austin, Texas. Thats up from a total of 35 in attendance in 2014. Civitella said 2015 was a year filled with milestones but said 2016 has already started with a bang, with plans for the biggest product release in the companys history. He sees a day when the lights will stay on 24/7 in Schenectady. Cant you see it? Civitella asked. This building is going to be open 24 hours a day. About Transfinder Founded in 1988 and headquartered in Schenectady, New York, Transfinder is a national leader in intelligent transportation systems, providing transportation management systems and services to municipalities, school districts and adult care facilities. Transfinder, an Inc. magazine fastest-growing company for the past nine straight years, has offices in Austin, Texas, and Shanghai, China and is headquartered in Schenectady, New York. The software company develops and supports routing and scheduling solutions for optimal transportation logistics. For more information, visit http://www.transfinder.com. We know the high standard of R2 and our customer are being met when we have the W C Groulx Logistics team involved with a given load. R2 Logistics, Inc., a Third Party Logistics service provider, today named W C Groulx Logistics as its 2015 Carrier of the Year for providing superior transportation service to R2 Logistics and its customers. Located in Flint, Michigan, W C Groulx Logistics is a growing company that has been in business since 2011. The company primarily services the Midwest region and has played a critical role in expanding R2s relationship with a Midwest manufacturer. Molly Winget, Glen Lacey and the rest of the W C Groulx team have been instrumental in servicing the account beyond the expectations of R2 Logistics and our customer, stated Brad Schneider, R2 Logistics Co-Vice President of Operations. While there are many loyal carriers in R2s network we would like to personally congratulate W C Groulx Logistics on their commendable efforts in 2015. We know the high standard of R2 and our customer are being met when we have the W C Groulx Logistics team involved with a given load. About R2 Logistics, Inc. R2 Logistics, Inc. is a Third Party Logistics company headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. The company works with over 35,000 transportation providers nationwide and was named to Inbound Logistics Top 100 3PL Providers list in 2015. R2 Logistics delivers industry-leading services through 10 primary operating branches. These branches focus on full truckload transportation as well as services including less-than-truckload (LTL), expedited freight, intermodal, certified hazardous material, specialized hauling and supply chain management. For more information about R2 Logistics, visit http://www.r2logisticsteam.com. As more businesses and organizations recognize the economic benefits of being environmentally responsible, demand is increasing for leaders in sustainable management practices. To address these needs, National University and University of California, San Diego Extension are introducing an innovative partnership that offers students pathways to pursue studies in the growing field of sustainability management. The credit transfer partnership allows those who have completed UC San Diego Extensions Sustainable Business Practices certificate program to obtain credit for two classes that can be applied toward National Universitys Master of Science in Sustainability Management, which is the regions only sustainability-focused masters degree program. Both the certificate and masters program are available online, allowing students throughout the country to benefit from the partnership. Balancing economic growth with sustainable practices is one of our worlds most pressing issues and National University is pleased to be partnering with UC San Diego Extension to offer students new avenues to advance their studies in a field that is so important to our global future, said Dr. Michael R. Cunningham, President of National University and Chancellor of the National University System. This partnership brings together the very best in quality and flexibility so that we can collectively meet a critical need in our society while supporting our regional economies and environmental resources. Through the partnership, students enrolled in National Universitys masters program can elect to obtain Extensions certificate in lieu of taking two of the degree courses at National University. National University is the second-largest private, nonprofit university in California. Mary Walshok, Dean at UC San Diego Extension, said the credit transfer agreement is an example of how collaboration between educational providers can benefit not just students but the larger regional economy. We know that we are stronger as a region when we collaborate with each other rather than compete with one another, Walshok said. This partnership promises to accelerate the growth of a talent pool of people with both the skills and the depth of knowledge needed to ensure companies can be effective stewards of the environment. The partnership leverages the credentials of two academic leaders in the in-demand field of sustainability. According to Wanted Analytics, a firm that tracks hiring data, sustainability jobs in the United States have more than doubled in the past four years. In addition, a Green Jobs Report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors estimated that more than 4.2 million more green jobs could be generated by 2038. National University, which launched its M.S. in Sustainability Management in 2012, offers a unique focus on management skills that emphasize the environment, economics and equity to meet a growing management need in this specialty. It is tailored for those interested in working in a variety of sustainability professions such as sustainability management, environmental consulting, energy efficiency analysis and resource management. Offered through National Universitys one-course-per-month format, the Master of Science in Sustainability Management is a quality program with a high degree of flexibility. UC San Diego Extensions Sustainable Business Practice certificate is designed to provide a foundational understanding of the business case for sustainability as well as build essential skills for measuring the effectiveness of sustainability. To find out more about UC San Diego Extensions Sustainable Business Practices certificate, visit extension.ucsd.edu/sustainable. To learn more about National Universitys M.S. in Sustainability Management, offered through the School of Engineering and Computing, call 800-628-8648 ext. 8600 or visit nu.edu/sustainability. # # # About UC San Diego Extension: As the continuing education and public programs arm of the university, UC San Diego Extension educates approximately 63,000 enrollees a year, which translates to about 31,000 students in nearly 4,600 courses. UC San Diego Extension is recognized nationally and internationally for linking the public to expert professionals and the knowledge resources of the University of California. Learn more at extension.ucsd.edu. About National University: Founded in 1971, National University is the second-largest private, nonprofit institution of higher education in California. With 30,000 students and more than 150,000 alumni, National University is the flagship institution of the National University System. National University is dedicated to making lifelong learning opportunities accessible, challenging, and relevant to a diverse population of students. Four schools and two colleges the College of Letters and Sciences; the Sanford College of Education; the School of Business and Management; the School of Engineering and Computing; the School of Health and Human Services; and the School of Professional Studies offer more than 100 graduate and undergraduate degrees and 23 teacher credentials. Programs are offered at locations throughout California and across the nation, and are also available online. National University is headquartered in La Jolla, California. http://www.nu.edu/ Norland on life after surviving electrocution by a 12,500-volt, 200-amp overhead powerline, "People need to understand that when they take short-cuts and make mistakes, they arent only risking their own well-being they risk everyones around them, too. For Gary Norland, that day in 1992 was just like any other day except that it was a Friday, and he had places to be and things to do after work. There was an hour and 40 minutes left in the workday and no budget for overtime. Plus, it was Homecoming night, and Norland had volunteered to serve at the Sheriffs Department that evening. In trying to get out of there on time, I took short-cuts and made mistakes, Norland says. I got hurt because I lost focus. I was focused on everything I was supposed to do that evening instead of what I was doing at that moment. As the PowerTest 2016 keynote speaker, Norland will share his heartbreaking, unforgettable story of how rushing and neglecting to put safety first resulted in his electrocution by a 12,500-volt, 200-amp overhead powerline. PowerTest, sponsored by NETA InterNational Electrical Testing Association, is March 14-18, 2016, at the Omni Fort Worth Hotel in Fort Worth, Texas. Norlands keynote address will take place Monday, March 14, at 8:30 a.m. Norlands story isnt an easy one to hear. He suffered severe electrical burns over nearly 40 percent of his body. He lost three weeks of his memory, and for a long time, couldnt remember anything longer than 60 seconds. Doctors said he had suffered permanent brain and spinal cord damage and would never walk again. In fact, the doctor on duty that night told Norlands brother that he wasnt going to make it. Eventually, Norland lost count of the surgeries more than 50 over a period of seven years. Interestingly, Norlands presentation is just as much about what other people suffered as a result of his accident as it is about what he had to endure. Norland gave a small safety workshop at last years PowerTest conference, and attendees were so impressed by his message that they asked to have him speak again. Im going to tell my story and give the safety message, but this year, Im also going to bring my wife to give her viewpoint on how my injury impacted her life and that of our family, he says. She didn't leave my side for the first four months, he continues. Relatives and friends had to disrupt their lives to take care of our kids. The community held fundraisers for us, which meant that people gave the money they worked hard to earn to help us, just because I was careless on the job. People need to understand that when they take short-cuts and make mistakes, they arent only risking their own well-being they risk everyones around them, too. PowerTest 2016 represents the largest gathering of electrical power systems professionals in the industry and is the only conference and trade show specifically designed for the electrical testing industry. As the premier electrical maintenance and safety event, the PowerTest 2016 audience will feel an affinity to Norlands story. As he puts it, Think or this could be you. People think that companies want them to hurry and get the job done quickly, says Norland. But the majority of companies are trying hard to get their people to slow down and understand that its not about production its about safe production. It costs the company a lot more if a worker is seriously injured on the job than it does if the worker puts safety first and takes the time to prevent accidents. A few years after the accident, Norland told himself: You can sit around collecting social security and be a burden on society, or you can get out there and help other people learn from your experience. He began giving safety talks to all sorts of organizations, spreading the message that your life can change in an instant just like his. Last year alone, Norland gave 80 presentations. The message is about motivating people to be safe, he says. Whether youre above the ground, on the ground, below the ground, at work, or at play, youve got to think things through. Your safety comes down to you. With Norlands Monday keynote followed by a week of 35 learning sessions and 12 in-depth technical seminars as well as the ability to explore new products, ask questions, and expand their professional network Attendees can even submit sessions for continuing educational credits. PowerTest 2016 is an excellent training event and a solid value for the investment. In addition, attendees receive a USB drive saved with all PowerTest 2016 Monday presentations. Register for PowerTest 2016 online at http://www.powertest.org, where a complete PowerTest 2016 Conference and Trade Show agenda is available. Attendees may also call 888-300-6382 (NETA) for assistance. ABOUT NETA NETA is an ANSI Accredited Standards Developing Organization that creates and maintains standards for electrical maintenance and acceptance testing for electrical power equipment and systems, as well as a standard that addresses the certification of electrical testing technicians. NETA is an association of leading electrical testing companies comprised of visionaries committed to advancing the industry standards for power system installation and maintenance to ensure the highest level of reliability and safety. Lucas Group Deborahs experience at Rice University will allow her to work with and mentor leading HR professionals, which will undoubtedly assist her in her role at Lucas Group. Deborah Manning, Senior Partner in the Human Resources division of Lucas Group, an award-winning executive recruiting firm, has been hired as an adjunct instructor at Rice University. A seasoned talent acquisition professional, Manning will teach the SHRM-SCP course to prepare HR practitioners to be recognized as SHRM-Senior Certified Professionals. Deborah is an all-around Human Resources expert who has played an integral role at Lucas Group since joining us in 2009, said Aram Lulla, General Manager of Lucas Groups HR Division. We are confident she will be an excellent addition to the staff at Rice University and help HR practitioners achieve their professional goals. Offered through a top 20 national university, the SHRM-SCP course is designed for post-graduate professionals with eight or more years of experience in the industry. Students take the SHRM test 2-3 weeks post the 12-week class completion to earn their certificate of achievement. Lucas Group encourages our Associates to seek educational and industry-specific opportunities outside the office to enhance their recruiting practice and knowledge base, said Lulla. Deborahs experience at Rice University will allow her to work with and mentor leading HR professionals, which will undoubtedly assist her in her role at Lucas Group. With a 30-year background in HR including 10 years of classroom training experience, Manning brings a unique and robust perspective to her students at Rice University. She has a combined 15 years of corporate and executive search experience in talent acquisition processes as well as 15 years of experience as an HR generalist. Manning holds a B.S. in Political Science from Alcorn State University and is SPHR and SHRM-SCP certified. Lucas Group is a nationwide leader in executive recruiting, and its recruiters specialize in all practice areas including Accounting & Finance, Human Resources, Information Technology, Legal Manufacturing, Military Transition and Sales & Marketing. Using national reach together with local search expertise, Lucas Group recruiters have been making long-term, strategic career placements for more than 40 years. About Lucas Group Lucas Group is North Americas premier executive search firm. Since 1970, our culture and methodologies have driven superior results. We assist clients ranging in size from small to medium-sized businesses to Fortune 500 companies find transcendent, executive talent; candidates fully realize their ambitions; and associates find professional success. To learn more, please visit Lucas Group at http://www.lucasgroup.com and connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Jon Bosak, UBL organizer "The publication of a comprehensive, royalty-free, international XML standard for electronic commerce ensures that businesses will not be locked into proprietary formats as they move into the digital age The Universal Business Language (UBL), developed by the OASIS open standards consortium, has now been approved for release as an ISO and IEC International Standard. Version 2.1 of UBL was balloted through the Joint Technical Committee on Information Technology (JTC1) of the International Standards Organization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and given the designation ISO/IEC 19845:2015. UBL is widely used around the world for procurement (e.g. ordering and electronic invoicing), sourcing (e.g. tendering and catalogues), replenishment (e.g. managed inventory) and transportation and logistics (e.g. waybills, forwarding instructions, and intermodal freight management). Allowing audiences to speak the same language and promoting a standardized exchange of data in electronic documents is of crucial importance for businesses and organizations. It helps optimize cost and avoids data lock-in. The IEC is happy to note that the Universal Business Language (UBL) Standard, developed by the OASIS open standards consortium, is now adopted as an International Standard, through the ISO IEC Joint Technical Committee on Information Technology (JTC1), said Frans Vreeswijk, IEC General Secretary and CEO. UBL provides the standards for the PEPPOL (Pan European eProcurement Online) platform and public procurement initiatives in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and UK (NHS). The European Commission chose UBL as one of the first consortium standards officially eligible for referencing in tenders from public administrations. UBL is now used routinely by government agencies for electronic invoicing across Europe as well as in Turkey, Peru, Colombia, and Panama. One of ways the software industry can assist in trade facilitation is to standardize on the formats of the data being exchanged in electronic documents. But until recently, the use of differing or proprietary formats has effectively created barriers to trade. This milestone marks the point at which the industry can stop debating what standards they should use for trade documents and start delivering the benefits to trade that such an opportunity offers, said Tim McGrath, co-chair (Business Analysis) of the OASIS UBL Technical Committee. "The publication of a comprehensive, royalty-free, international XML standard for electronic commerce ensures that businesses will not be locked into proprietary formats as they move into the digital age," said Jon Bosak, who organized the OASIS UBL Technical Committee in 2001 and led the effort through the completion of UBL 2.1 in 2013. "Adoption of UBL will foster the growth of an entire standards-based ecosystem, leading to the creation of inexpensive, off-the-shelf solutions and lowering the cost of entry for enterprises of every size." In UBL, developers find a complete library of XML schemas for a suite of structured data objects for common business documents. Being able to pick up and use peer-approved, structured document validation artifacts (for example, an electronic invoice), precludes having to create one's own colloquial schemas for such XML documents. To meet custom sector-specific requirements, communities can tailor additional data objects to augment the standardized structures, added G. Ken Holman, co-chair (XML technology) of the OASIS UBL Technical Committee. ISO/IEC approval of UBL as an International Standard is a logical milestone for a standard that is broadly used in public procurement and trading communities around the world, noted Laurent Liscia, CEO of OASIS. We appreciate the support this action shows for the OASIS open standards process, and we join ISO and IEC in recognizing the value and long-term viability of UBL. UBL 1.0 was published in 2004. In 2013, UBL 2.1 was ratified as an OASIS Standard and subsequently submitted by OASIS to the ISO/IEC JTC 1 Information Technology body. As ISO/IEC 19845, the standard will continue to be maintained and advanced by the OASIS UBL Technical Committee, which includes representatives of Boeing, Danish Ministry of Finance, NEC, Swedish Association of Local Authorities, US Department of Defense, Tradeshift and others. New members are welcome. Additional Information: ISO/IEC 19845:2015 http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=66370 OASIS UBL Technical Committee http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ubl/ About ISO/IEC JTC 1 JTC 1 is the standards development environment where experts come together to develop worldwide Information and Communication Technology (ICT) standards for business and consumer applications. Since 1987, ISO/IEC JTC 1 has brought about a number of very successful and relevant information and communication technologies (ICT) standards in many fields: IC cards (smart cards), automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) technologies, information security, biometrics, cloud computing, multimedia (MPEG), database query and programming languages as well as character sets, to name just a few. http://jtc1info.org/ About OASIS OASIS is a non-profit, international consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of open standards for the global information society. OASIS promotes industry consensus and produces worldwide standards for business transactions, cloud computing, content technologies, security, privacy, M2M, IoT, energy, and other areas. OASIS open standards offer the potential to lower cost, stimulate innovation, grow global markets, and protect the right of free choice of technology. OASIS members broadly represent the marketplace of public and private sector technology leaders, users, and influencers. The consortium has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 65+ countries. http://www.oasis-open.org The sanctions against 17 former senior Ukrainian officials are still in effect, while the ruling of the General Court of the European Union applies to the sanctions, which were valid until 2015, Head of the Special Investigations Unit of the Main Investigation Department of the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) Serhiy Horbatiuk. "Currently, all the sanctions imposed against 17 former senior officials are in effect. They have not been canceled," he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Thursday. Horbatiuk recalled that the sanctions were extended until March 2016. This decision has not been overturned. The representative of the Prosecutor General's Office also said that Ukraine's Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaliy Kasko will go to Europe to convey the position of the Prosecutor General's Office concerning the continuation of the sanctions. Horbatiuk said that European institutions in March 2014 decided to apply economic sanctions against former senior Ukrainian officials. These sanctions were imposed for the period of one year until March 2015, and in March 2015 it was decided that the sanctions are in effect until March 2016. "The decision of the European court concerns the decisions of the European institutions for the period March-April 2014 regarding the sanctions that were in effect during one year. The decision regarding the sanctions from March 2015 to March 2016 was not considered and revoked, as at present it is in effect," he said. Horbatiuk presented the translation of a press release of the European court regarding the decision on the cases of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov Azarov's son Oleksiy, ex-NBU governor Serhiy Arbuzov, former Energy Minister Eduard Stavytsky, and brother of the former head of presidential administration, businessman Serhiy Kliuyev. "The General Court upholds the actions brought by the five Ukrainians and annuls the freezing of assets imposed on them for the period from March 6, 2014 to March 5, 2015," he said, citing the press release. Thus, he said that in this case the European court made the decision only on the formation of the principles of applying sanctions. The message of the European court is that a person cannot be treated as being responsible for misappropriation of funds solely on the ground that he is the subject of a preliminary investigation in a third country, he said. In March 2015, the decision to extend sanctions was made on the basis of materials from the Prosecutor General's Office presented to the European Commission. They contain information on investigation into criminal cases with notice of suspicion, putting the persons on the wanted list and the sum of the damage. "During this year around 70 letters with information concerning the investigations were sent. All the required information was provided to European institutions to decide on the issue of the prolongation of the sanctions," he said. This area of Texas is rapidly growing and having the chance to develop a community in near the new and improved University of Texas Rio Grand Valleys Edinburg campus, offers us the opportunity to do something different. A new $27.73 million luxury, off-campus student housing community is coming to University of Texas Rio Grande Valleys Edinburg campus in August 2017. Domus Development, a veteran student housing development company based in Dallas, will break ground in May 2016 for Legends Edinburg, which will bring 566 beds to the market. Located on the corner of Chapin Street and Sugar Road, just 1/10 mile from the Edinburg campus, Legends Edinburg will provide students with a wide range of amenities to create the best community for residents to live, study and play. Amenities include a salt-water resort-style pool, sand volleyball court, study rooms, a chic clubhouse with a game room, a computer lounge and more. Residents will be able to choose from a variety of spacious floor plans including one, two and four-bedroom options. The individual apartments will come fully furnished with modern appliances, granite countertops, hardwood style flooring, ceiling fans, full-size washer and dryer and more. Residents will be able to sign individual leases, meaning they are only responsible for the rent of their individual bed, not the rent of the entire apartment. The entire property is also equipped with high-speed Wi-Fi, and will employ an on-site maintenance and management staff. This area of Texas is rapidly growing and having the chance to develop a community in near the new and improved University of Texas Rio Grand Valleys Edinburg campus, offers us the opportunity to do something different, said Eric Jakimier, owner of Domus Development and student housing industry veteran. We really work hard to be architecturally sensitive to the areas we go in to and because of this, we are going to lean on some modern/Mexican architects who are personal heroes of mine. Its going to really stand out in the marketplace and be very different from your standard, run of the mill project. Legends Edinburg will be the second purpose-built student housing community on the campus. We are catering to the diverse student demographic with Legends Edinburg, said Jakimier. Unlike most student housing communities, just over 30 percent of our apartments will be one-bedrooms, which will be a draw for the medical students who prefer the solidarity as the new medical program at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley opens. Domus Development has hired Asset Campus Housing (ACH), the largest management and privately held student housing company in the U.S., to manage the community. This is the fifth project that Domus Development has brought ACH in to manage and lease up. "We've worked closely with Eric on past projects and we are excited to partner with him again for Legends Edinburg," said Joe Goodwin, senior vice president of marketing for Asset Campus Housing. "This community will offer a unique atmosphere for its residents, tailored to fit their needs to help them be successful in school and in life." Legends Edinburg will be ready for move in for Fall 2017. About Domus Development Dallas-Based Domus Development specializes in the development of student housing, both university-owned and privately owned communities across the U.S. Domus Development is highly experienced in all aspects of student housing development, from site selection, acquisition, due diligence, design consultant management, lender contract negation, negotiations with governmental agencies, construction management, project turnover and reporting to investors. For more information, please visit http://www.domusdevelopmentllc.com. About Asset Campus Housing (ACH) Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Asset Campus Housing, Inc. ("ACH") is an affiliate of Houston-based Asset Plus Companies, a third party property management firm specializing in real estate services for investors, developers, and owners. Asset Campus Housing manages a student housing portfolio of more than 176 properties, exceeding 115,000 beds located throughout the United States. http://www.assetcampus.com Louie Sepulveda Celebrates 10 Year Anniversary The quality of employees is in part because of the many benefits and amazing things that Bill and Tina Howe have to offer employees. They make it an environment where we can excel and grow with the company..." Bill Howe Plumbing has been one of the leading San Diego plumbing companies since first opening in 1980. Operating with a clear mission to retain happy and healthy employees, provide the highest quality services at affordable rates, and give back to the community, they have succeeded in building their business on their strong family values and ethics. Louie Sepulveda celebrated his tenth anniversary with the company in January, and has been an exemplary employee and integral part of the Bill Howe drain specialist team. He is also a Journeyman Plumber in San Diego having graduated from one of the first Plumbing-Heating-Cooling-Contractors Journeyman Program. Louie began working at Bill Howe Plumbing when he was just 19, and worked alongside of his dad who was one of the drain supervisors at the time. He showed great aptitude, and when the PHCC Program opened, the company paid for his full tuition offering support and growth within the company. We are very proud of all of our employees, but it is especially rewarding to celebrate the 10, 20, and 25 year anniversaries, said Human Resource Manager, Amber Baynard. I have been here for 19 years myself, and know the quality of employees is in part because of the many benefits and amazing things that Bill and Tina Howe have to offer employees. They make it an environment where we can excel and grow with the company, which is why we stay. Of the Bill Howe Family of Companies over 150 employees, 10 percent have been with the company for ten years or longer, and over 40 percent of the company has been part of the team for over 5 years. Bill Howe says, They become our family, and we do everything to keep them, make them happy and help them to succeed in their professional and personal lives. Louie Sepulveda has been recognized within the company on multiple occasions, most recently as the Above & Beyond Award Winner in November, and the Excellence Award Winner in December. For more information about the San Diego plumbing company, visit http://www.billhowe.com, or to speak with Bill or Tina Howe regarding this announcement, contact Bill Howe Marketing Director, Julie Riddle at Julie(at)billhowe(dot)com. About Bill Howe Family of Companies Bill Howe Family of Companies is comprised of Bill Howe Plumbing, Inc.; Bill Howe Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc.; Bill Howe Restoration & Flood Services, Inc. The family-owned and operated company began in 1980 with the plumbing division and has grown into San Diego Countys largest low-cost one-stop-shop for service, repairs and installation, offering both residential and commercial services. 9085 Aero Drive, Suite B, San Diego CA 92123. Call 1-800-BILL-HOWE because We Know Howe! ### Accion and Opportunity Fund, two of the nations leading microlenders, have launched a first-of-its-kind study to discover just how large of an impact a microloan (on average, $10,000) has on small businesses across America. Microlending in the United States is not new; however, this will be the first national, longitudinal, qualitative study that focuses on economic well-being outcomes for individuals and their households, small businesses, and underserved communities in the U.S. Leadership funding for this evaluation study has been provided by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, with significant additional grant funding from JPMorgan Chase & Co. Increasing a familys financial stability is critical for the optimal development of children, says Loren S. Harris, director of family economic security at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Assuring parents have access to capital to become small business owners is a crucial step toward economic security. We look forward to learning more from this study about the role of small business microloans to support Americas entrepreneurial families. Microlenders help bridge the gap for small businesses that do not have access to traditional financing, and provide resources, training and many other tools to bolster their success, said Janis Bowdler, Head of Community Development and Small Business Initiatives, JPMorgan Chase Foundation. JPMorgan Chase is pleased to support this valuable study, spearheaded by two leaders in the field, and eager to continue helping microlenders expand opportunity and inclusive growth across the country. Over the next 2 years, independently-commissioned evaluation partner Harder + Company Community Research will conduct borrower surveys, in-depth interviews, and focus groups with small business owners in Boston, Chicago, Greater Los Angeles, New Mexico, New York, Miami, San Diego, and the San Francisco Bay Area to create a comprehensive, national dataset. The study will assess change at three levels of analysis - individual borrower, the business, and community after the receipt of a microloan. With a twenty-one year old history of vibrant lending in communities across the nation, Accion has an interest and a duty to study the impact of our work. American households are still struggling to build and rebuild wealth. The role of a microloan can be transformative. We hope to learn how, and in exactly what ways beyond the outcome data were already collecting, said Gina Harman, CEO, Accion, The U.S. Network. Opportunity Funds core values are dignity, opportunity, and responsibility. As a lender and as stewards of the funds we receive from donors and investors, we are committed to provide responsible financial help to our clients. To ensure the loans we provide meet our goal to improve the economic well-being of low-wealth, under-capitalized entrepreneurs, we are dedicated to making the investments to evaluate, research, and continue to learn, said Opportunity Fund founder and CEO Eric Weaver. Baseline data collection will commence in January 2016 and the first interim report should publish in September 2016, followed by an interim and final report in May 2017 and March 2018. About Accion Accion is dedicated to developing, nurturing and advancing a network of world-class microfinance organizations for the benefit of creating lasting economic change for small businesses owners and their communities throughout the United States. The Accion U.S. Network ("the Network") unites four independent CDFIs across the United States - Accion Chicago, Accion East, Accion New Mexico * Arizona * Colorado * Nevada and Accion San Diego- into the largest non-profit microfinance network in the country. In addition to providing loans via lending offices located in twelve U.S. cities, Accion makes loans available to entrepreneurs across 49 states via an online loan application. Historically, the members of the U.S. Network have together provided more than one-third of domestic microfinance loans. The Network is affiliated with Accion International, a nonprofit organization that has helped to build and support 63 microfinance institutions in 32 countries on four continents since 1961. The Network office, formed in 2011, is dedicated to developing, nurturing and advancing a network of world-class microfinance organizations with the aim of creating lasting economic change throughout the United States. Through programming and partnerships, the Network serves to accelerate scale; foster innovation, collaboration and learning; identify efficiencies; and expand capacity within the U.S. microfinance industry. About Opportunity Fund Opportunity Fund believes that small amounts of money and financial advice can help people make permanent and lasting change in their own lives, driving economic mobility and building stronger communities. We say Yes! to small business owners, low-income students, and families because entrepreneurship, education, and sound financial habits are proven pathways to greater economic opportunity. Our strategy combines microloans for small business owners and microsavings accounts to help students pay for college and families save for a rainy day. As Californias leading microfinance provider, our team has deployed $115 million and helped more than 12,000 people since 1994. Learn more at http://www.opportunityfund.org. Contact: Lauren Rosenbaum Accion U.S. Network (202) 750-0859 lrosenbaum(at)accion(dot)org Caitlin McShane Opportunity Fund (408) 512-2211 caitlin(at)opportunityfund(dot)org We are confident that Porters skill set fits with this key position. PharmMD announced today that Joe Porter has joined as Vice President of Business Development, further developing his expanded portfolio of regional and national accounts. In his role, Porter assumes the sales leadership responsibilities in the Northeast, MidWest, and Atlantic Coast regions, while building on PharmMDs momentum as market innovator for Star Ratings improvement and effective Medication Therapy Management. We are confident that Porters skill set fits with this key position, said Kent Holdcroft, SVP of Sales & Marketing. Joes expertise and strategic thinking are exactly what we were looking to drive our entire organization. Porter brings over 10 years of developing integrated sales and strategic marketing initiatives in the payer, diagnostic and medical device industry. He comes to PharmMD from Home Access Health Corporation in Chicago, IL. Porter served as the Regional Vice President of Sales where he was responsible for the overall coordination, functional management and leadership of all sales and marketing activities in the Eastern Region of the United States. I am delighted to be a part of the PharmMD team and will continue to raise the bar on quality healthcare, stated Porter. I am positive that PharmMD is on a strong path to success. Porter holds a BS in Health Sciences and Human Performance from Ithaca College. About PharmMD: For Health Plans, ACOs, or Self-Insured Employers that want to measurably improve member and employee health, PharmMD is the proven choice for pharmacy quality solutions and medication risk management. Founded by healthcare and pharmacy innovators, PharmMDs outcomes-driven reporting, priority on personal touch, and scalable network are backed by performance-based pricing that guarantees fast results for Star Rating improvement and the most effective Medication Therapy Management. For more information go to http://www.PharmMD.com. Offering a discretionary overdraft service can provide your financial institution with increased revenue and be a welcome benefit to accountholders who may have short-term liquidity requirements. BSG Financial Group, a group of independently organized companies that provides revenue-enhancing programs and compliance solutions for financial institutions nationwide, announced today it will host a webinar for financial institutions entitled, "A New Year. A New Look at Discretionary Overdraft Programs." The free webinar will be offered on Tuesday, February 9, 2016 and Thursday, February 11, 2016, with separate sessions each day for both banks and credit unions. The webinar is especially relevant for financial institutions that have not implemented a discretionary overdraft service, or those that have experienced a decline in service fee income since the implementation of the amendment to Regulation E in 2010. The session will reveal the opportunities that exist to increase revenue and offer a valuable benefit to members who may have a short-term liquidity requirement. It will feature presenters Jeff Harper from BSG Financial Group and industry expert, Erik Hoghaug, of Hoghaug Consulting, LLC. BSG Financial Group is offering this webinar as part of an ongoing educational series that it provides for its clients and potential customers. Who: BSG Financial Group Presenters: Jeff Harper from BSG Financial Group and industry expert, Erik Hoghaug of Hoghaug Consulting, LLC When: Tuesday, February 9, 2016: Bank Session: 1:00 pm EST Credit Union Session: 3:00 pm EST Thursday, February 11, 2016: Bank Session: 4:00 pm EST Credit Union Session: 2:00 pm EST Registration: http://www.bsgfinancial.com/newlookwebinar In this webinar, the presenters will discuss: Industry Trends and the Changing Landscape of Overdrafts Benefits of Offering a Discretionary Overdraft Service How to Ensure Your Overdraft Service is Fully Compliant Steps to Enhance an Overdraft Service Setting Overdraft Limits to Reduce Risk The Value of Tracking NSFs Due to Debit Card Declines About BSG Financial Group Louisville, Ky.-based BSG Financial Group is a group of independently organized companies that provides revenue-enhancing programscombined with compliance solutionsfor financial institutions to help them meet their financial goals. BSG Financial Group has been a provider of innovative overdraft programs since 1999, including the industry's first cloud-based overdraft management solution, Courtesy Connect(R)/Courtesy Limit. The company's additional revenue-enhancing solutions include: Demand Deposit Account Management; Fee-Based Packaged Checking Accounts; Expense Management & Vendor Negotiation; Vendor Management; Social Media Management; and Appraisal Management Services. BSG Financial Group includes the following companies: CourtesyCloud Management Solutions, LLC; BSG Financial, LLC; IQ Development, LLC; and Sales Performance Group, Inc. For more information about the company, visit http://www.BSGfinancial.com. This first-of-its-kind event will create a breeding ground for innovation. Invest for Health, an inaugural health care event, will take place during the SXSW Interactive Festival on March 14 at the JW Marriott in Austin, Texas. Presented by Ascension Ventures, athenahealth, and Cambia Health Solutions, Invest for Health will bring together entrepreneurs, heath care executives, and venture capitalists to discuss some of health cares most pressing pain pointsand the disruptive solutions necessary to solve them. This first-of-its-kind event will create a breeding ground for innovation, connecting entrepreneurs with investors, national health care organizations, and other industry stakeholders. Topics at Invest for Health include: Overcoming the stagnant nature of health carean industry starved for innovation How to incentivize providers of health care services to partner with innovators to find ways to increase practice profitability with improved operations and quality of care Tips for developing better experiences for patients and health care providers Call for Health Care Innovators: Networking Opportunity Invest for Health will also feature 30-minute networking breaks between each speaking session. Startups at any stage of development are encouraged to apply online for the opportunity to network with Invest for Health speakers, thought-leaders, investors, and stakeholders. Companies who qualify will be notified by Friday, Feb. 26. For more information visit investforhealth.care/connect. Invest for Health is an official event of the SXSW Interactive Festival, an annual five-day event featuring presentations and panels from the nations top technology experts, innovators, and enthusiasts. Each year the festival gathers more than 30,000 people in the heart of Austin. To stay updated on the latest line-up of speakers, agenda and networking opportunities available to entrepreneurs, visit InvestForHealth.Care. About Ascension Ventures Ascension Ventures, launched in 2001, is a subsidiary of Ascension, the nation's largest Catholic and non-profit health system. Ascension Ventures' role is to construct and manage a strategic portfolio of investments that deliver venture-level investment returns, have the potential to transform the healthcare industry and significantly enhance the experience for patients, their families and their caregivers. Ascension Ventures has three venture funds with $550 million in committed capital under management. Its limited partners include Adventist Health System, Ascension, Catholic Health Initiatives, Decatur Memorial Hospital, Dignity Health, Intermountain Healthcare, Mercy and Trinity Health. About athenahealth, Inc. athenahealth is a leading provider of cloud-based services for electronic health records (EHR), revenue cycle management and medical billing, patient engagement, care coordination, and population health management, as well as Epocrates and other point-of-care mobile apps. We connect care and drive meaningful, measurable results for more than 73,000 health care providers in medical practices and health systems nationwide. For more information, please visit http://www.athenahealth.com. About Cambia Health Solutions Cambia Health Solutions, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, is a health solutions company dedicated to transforming health care by creating a person-focused and economically sustainable system. Cambias growing family of companies range from software and mobile applications, health care marketplaces, non-traditional health care delivery models, health insurance, life insurance, pharmacy benefit management, wellness and overall consumer engagement. Through bold thinking and innovative technology, we are delivering solutions that make quality health care more available, affordable and personally relevant for everyone. To learn more, visit cambiahealth.com or twitter.com/cambia. About SXSW Interactive The 23rd annual SXSW Interactive Festival returns to Austin from Friday, March 11 through Tuesday, March 15. An incubator of cutting-edge technologies and digital creativity, the 2016 event features five days of compelling presentations and panels from the brightest minds in emerging technology, scores of exciting networking events hosted by industry leaders and an unbeatable lineup of special programs showcasing the best new websites, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer. From hands-on training to big-picture analysis of the future, SXSW Interactive has become the place to discover the technology of tomorrow today. Join us in March 2016 for the sessions, the networking, the special events, the 18th Annual SXSW Interactive Innovation Awards, SXSW Accelerator, the SXSW Gaming Expo, the SXSW Trade Show, the SX Health & MedTech Expo, SX Create, The Job Market, cross-industry conversations with attendees from SXSW Film and SXSW Music, and, most of all, the unforgettable inspirational experiences that only SXSW can deliver. SXSW Interactive 2016 is sponsored by Esurance, Mazda, Monster Energy, Capital One, Bud Light, Deloitte Digital, McDonalds, Ten-X and The Austin Chronicle. For Ascension Ventures media inquiries, contact Johnny Smith at Johnny.Smith(at)ascension(dot)org or 314-733-6975. For athenahealth, Inc. media inquiries, contact Holly Spring at media(at)athenahealth(dot)com or 617-402-1631. For Cambia Health Solutions media inquiries, contact Christine Lynch at Christine.Lynch(at)cambiahealth(dot)com or 208-333-7839. AllegroGraph - "Top 10 Analytics Solution Provider" Using AllegroGraph, Enterprises can run queries of unprecedented complexity to enable predictive analytics and real time decision-making within a myriad of industries including Healthcare, Life Sciences, Financial Services, and Publishing, - Aasman Franz Inc., an early innovator in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and leading supplier of Semantic Graph Database technology has been named to Pharma Tech Outlooks Top 10 Analytics Solutions Providers for 2016. Franz Inc. has been selected as a Top 10 Analytics Solution Provider after careful evaluation across a dozen quantitative and qualitative elements, said Stacey Smith, Editor of Pharma Tech Outlook. Our selection process takes into consideration a companys experience, industry recognition, technical certifications, market presence and positive client reviews. Franz Inc. and their Semantic Graph Database, AllegroGraph, are clear market leaders for Analytics in the Pharmaceutical Industry. Pharma Tech Outlook covers the latest developments in the pharmaceutical industry. They provide valuable updates news, views and trends, expert opinions, studies, discoveries, R&D and clinical trials essential for decision-makers in the industry. Covering all the novel outcomes, Pharma Tech Outlook aims at contributing to the transformation of innovations into services as well as creating a healthy and productive society. Pharma Tech Outlooks Top 10 Analytics Solution Providers are selected annually by a panel of experts and members of Pharma Tech Outlooks editorial board to recognize and promote technology entrepreneurship. Using AllegroGraph, Enterprises can run queries of unprecedented complexity to enable predictive analytics and real time decision-making within a myriad of industries including Healthcare, Life Sciences, Financial Services, and Publishing, said Jans Aasman, CEO of Franz Inc. Integrating databases is a virtually effortless which is particularly valuable if organizations want to tap into the growing number of public datasets to enrich their analytics. Information has always existed everywhere but has often been isolated, incomplete, unavailable or unintelligible, according to Gartner. Advances in semantic tools such as graph databases as well as other emerging data classification and information analysis techniques will bring meaning to the often chaotic deluge of information. (Source: Gartner Identifies the Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2016.) A recent Forrester Research report stated, "Graph databases are a powerful optimized technology that link billions of pieces of connected data to help create new sources of value for customers and increase operational agility for customer service. Because graph databases track connections among entities and offer links to get more detailed information, they are well-suited for scenarios in which relationships are important, such as cybersecurity, social network analysis, eCommerce recommendations, dependence analysis, and predictive analytics." (Source: Forrester Research, Market Overview: Graph Databases, May 28, 2015) Franz's recent announcement of the first Semantic Data Lake (SDL) for Healthcare, which was created in collaboration with Montefiore Medical Center (the eighth largest hospital group in the U.S.), Intel, Cloudera and Cisco. The SDL for Healthcare is a scalable and extensible Healthcare platform designed for Accountable Care and Personalized Medicine initiatives. AllegroGraph has played a critical role in the Semantic Data Lake for Healthcare, by facilitating integration of complex information for basic science, clinical, population, community, environmental, behavioral and wellness research data to enable knowledge-based analytics, classification, pattern recognition, predictive modeling and simulations at scale. About Pharma Tech Outlook Pharma Tech Outlook is an online and a monthly magazine which covers most important and latest developments in the pharmaceutical industry. Through nominations and consultations with industry leaders, its editors choose the best in Pharma domains. Pharma Tech Outlooks December-January Edition is an annual listing of Top 10 Analytics Solution Providers. For more information, visit the website at: http://www.pharmatechoutlook.com/ About AllegroGraph Unlike traditional relational databases or Property Graph Databases, AllegroGraph employs semantic graph technologies that process data with contextual and conceptual intelligence. AllegroGraph is able run queries of unprecedented complexity to support predictive analytics that help organizations make more informed, real-time decisions. AllegroGraph is the first Graph Database to support analysis across N-dimensions - any conceivable measurement of an object, property or operation. AllegroGraph can analyze temporal (time) and geospatial (location) dimensions relative to any 'event,' such as a disease, drug interaction, genetic combination, biomarkers, observations, image or physical sensors. AllegroGraph is utilized by dozens of the top Fortune 500 companies worldwide. About Franz Inc. Franz Inc. is an early innovator in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and leading supplier of Semantic Graph Database technology with expert knowledge in developing and deploying complex Big Data analytics solutions. AllegroGraph, Franz's flagship, high-performance, transactional, and scalable Semantic Graph Database, provides the solid storage layer for Enterprise grade NoSQL solutions. AllegroGraph's Activity Recognition capabilities provides a powerful means to aggregate and analyze data about individual and organizational behaviors, preferences, relationships, plus spatial and temporal linkages between individuals and groups. For additional Franz Inc. customer success stories, please visit: AllegroGraph - http://allegrograph.com/allegrograph-at-work/ Allegro CL - http://franz.com/success/ Franz's Professional Service team is in the business of helping companies turn Data into Information and Information into Knowledge. We combine Data, Business Intelligence, and Analytics consulting services under one roof for our customers. Franz, an American owned company based in Oakland, California, is committed to market-driven product development, the highest levels of product quality and responsive customer support and service. Franz customers include dozens of Fortune 500 companies and span the healthcare, government, life sciences and telecommunications industries worldwide. Franz has demonstrated consistent growth and profitability since inception. All trademarks and registered trademarks in this document are the properties of their respective owners. The natural appearance of Sanderling Marquee24 reflects design elements that have characterized luxury architecture for millennia. This award is a testament to the company's commitment to superior design and craftsmanship, said Ramsay Hawfield, Vice President of Marketing and Product Development at Eldorado Stone. Eldorado Stone, the leading manufacturer of the worlds most believable architectural stone veneer, was recognized with an international GOOD DESIGN Award for its Sanderling Marquee24 (formerly Sanderling Marquee Limestone) profile. The Marquee24 profile received the highly-coveted award as a result of Eldorado Stones ongoing commitment to authenticity and artistry in architectural stone veneer. This award is a testament to the company's commitment to superior design and craftsmanship, said Ramsay Hawfield, Vice President of Marketing and Product Development at Eldorado Stone. The GOOD DESIGN Award recognizes Sanderling Marquee24 for its proprietary molding techniques, high-quality materials and hand-painted artistry, which reflect the natural elements and distinctive character that homeowners and designers have come to expect from our products. TWEET THIS: The @Chi_Athenaeum honors @eldoradostone with #GOODDESIGN Award 2015 for Marquee24. http://bit.ly/1G1ixSZ With a monochromatic, clean design, Sanderling Marquee24 offers a modern interpretation of classic architectural elements, said Hawfield. This new profile captures the luxurious warmth and texture that stone adds to the architecture of a home, and the GOOD DESIGN Award recognizes how it elevates interior and exterior applications. Sanderling Marquee24 is part of the all-new Modern Collection from Eldorado Stone. The Modern Collection features 15 architectural stone veneer profiles, 49 colors and clean lines and a neutral color palette as a departure from more rustic arrangements. For more information about the Modern Collection, please visit eldoradostone.com. For an interview with Ramsay Hawfield, please contact Brenda Forman at 916-285-9835. # # # About Eldorado Stone Eldorado Stone, LLC is headquartered in San Marcos, Calif. It is a subsidiary of Headwaters Incorporated (NYSE:HW), a world leader in creating value through innovative advancements in the utilization of natural resources. Eldorado Stone offers a full line of interior and exterior products that elevate architecture and design, including stone and brick veneer, fireplace surrounds, fire bowls and a full Eldorado Outdoor collection. The company currently operates manufacturing facilities in several states with regional distribution centers across the U.S. For more information and to view a gallery of beautiful installations, visit http://www.eldoradostone.com or call 1-800-925-1491 for a free catalog. About The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design presents its GOOD DESIGN Awards annually to innovative companies that raise the standards of consumer products, representing quality design with a commitment to the highest form, function, and aesthetics. The Chicago Athenaeum is an International Museum of Architecture and Design. The Museum's mission is the advancement of public education about the value of Good Design and how design can positively impact the human environment. The GOOD DESIGN Awards Program was introduced in 1950 by design pioneers Eero Saarinen, Charles and Ray Eames and Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., and has since become the oldest and most prestigious awards program organization in the world. GOOD DESIGN is a registered trademark of The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design. IMPACT Programs Administrator Cindy Quiroz leads the SBA part of the Business Fundamentals Academy. The Business Fundamentals Academy was incredible! My husband and I learned so much invaluable information, said Shannon Opel from Superior Steel in Huntingburg, Ind. We put together an action plan for next steps." Contractors and contractor-hopefuls gathered in Cleveland, Ohio, January 11-15, 2016 to learn the fundamentals of running a business from IMPACT personnel and professional business consultants retained by IMPACT. IMPACT is the Iron Workers labor-management arm. IMPACT is committed to the development of new and existing contractors, and we understand the pressures and headaches that can sometimes come along with launching a new business. To better assist these businesses, IMPACT launched the Construction Contracting Business Fundamentals Academy in 2015. The inaugural Business Fundamentals Academy was held at the 31st Annual Ironworker Instructor Training Program in Ann Arbor, Mich., in July 2015. This 5-day course is designed for current and future contractors, including ironworkers who are interested in starting a business. The course focuses on developing fundamental business skills, such as developing an operations and business plan, obtaining financing, setting up an accounting system, collecting money from customers, understanding contract terms and conditions, identifying insurance requirements, establishing safety programs, funding work and avoiding problems that will compromise success. The course is designed to provide the business foundation that will strengthen a contractors ability to be profitable during the early startup phase of the business. Dale Hansen from MDA Training; Devin Pipkin from TrueNorth; Drew Yorpel from Milestone Safety; and Ken Roper, Dave Barry and Tyler Pare from FMI led modules focusing on safety, insurance and more. The Business Fundamentals Academy was incredible! My husband and I learned so much invaluable information, said Shannon Opel from Superior Steel in Huntingburg, Ind. We put together an action plan for next steps. Its not as easy as we thought to start a business. Im very, very happy IMPACT offered this for us. The Construction Contracting Business Fundamentals Academy will be offered multiple times in 2016. For more information on the course, please contact Dr. Cindy Menches as 800-545-4921 or visit http://www.impact-net.org. Lex Mundi to welcome key note speaker Donald Kaberuka, former president of the African Development Bank, at the Lex Mundi Emerging Africa Conference, which will be held March 3-4, 2016, in Cape Town. Dr. Kaberuka will kick off the two-day global conference by addressing trends and events that investors should watch for as they assess opportunities in Africa. The conference continues exploring challenges and addressing the concerns of senior corporate counsel and business decision makers who operate in or are considering expansion into Africa. Other speakers include chief executives and senior general counsel from companies such as Rothschild,, Goldman Sachs, Deloitte, GE and Ecobank, These experts will lead discussions focused on legal strategies for investment and growth amid the rapidly changing political, regulatory and competitive dynamics in Africa. Topics include: legal aspects of corporate strategy and operations in Africa; market opportunities in industry sectors; Africa's legal frameworks (national and regional); implications for investment terms; and best practices for proactively structuring investments. For registration and conference information visit: http://www.lexmundi.com/2016EmergingAfrica About Lex Mundi in Africa With more than 500 lawyers on the ground in nineteen African jurisdictions, Lex Mundi member firms have experience working together to provide investors coordinated legal advice and service covering all relevant areas of commercial and financial law, including mergers and acquisitions, dispute resolution, antitrust and competition, compliance and tax. Lex Mundi member firms in Africa are working on transactions across the continent. Together they provide extensive coverage and are committed to working together to provide on-the-ground expertise. About Lex Mundi Lex Mundi is the worlds leading network of independent law firms with in-depth experience in 100+ countries. Lex Mundi member firms offer clients preferred access to more than 21,000 lawyers worldwide a global resource of unmatched breadth and depth. Each member firm is selected on the basis of its leadership in and continued commitment to its local market. The Lex Mundi principle is one independent firm for each jurisdiction. Firms must maintain their level of excellence to retain membership within Lex Mundi. Through close collaboration, information-sharing, training and inter-firm initiatives, the Lex Mundi network is an assurance of connected, on-the ground expertise in every market in which a client needs to operate. Working together, Lex Mundi members are able to seamlessly handle their clients most challenging cross-border transactions and disputes. Member law firms are located throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean and North America. Through Lex Mundis nonprofit affiliate, the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation, members also provide pro bono legal assistance to social entrepreneurs around the globe. For more information, please visit http://www.lexmundi.com and http://www.lexmundiprobono.org. The Rigaku BioSAXS-2000 on the left port of an FR-X. The right port includes an AFC11 and P200K detector. Rigaku Corporation is pleased to announce its attendance at the 60th Biophysical Society Meeting Saturday, February 27, 2016 to Wednesday, March 2, 2016 in Los Angeles, CA. Information about both small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and single crystal X-ray diffraction instrumentation products from Rigaku will be presented in Booth #828. The BioSAXS-2000 system is an updated version of its popular 2D Kratky system for small angle X-ray scattering of biological samples. The BioSAXS-2000 includes the new OptiSAXS optic, which captures a larger angle of the X-ray source to provide more than double the flux at the sample position enabling faster data collection with higher signal-to-noise, thereby offering a beamline experience for home laboratory SAXS experiments. Single crystal X-ray diffraction instrumentation from the Rigaku Oxford Diffraction division will also be featured. These instruments are used to determine three-dimensional atomic structures of small molecules. The range of small molecule crystallography systems from Rigaku is designed to address the particular needs of any given lab, group or department. Through this new division, Rigaku offers complete expertise and the latest technology to meet the most vigorous small molecule crystallographic requirements. Rigaku is pleased to contribute to the Biophysical Society Annual Meetings longstanding tradition of bringing together leading scientists from the all over the world who work at the interface of the life, physical, and computational sciences. About Rigaku Since its inception in Japan in 1951, Rigaku has been at the forefront of analytical and industrial instrumentation technology. Rigaku and its subsidiaries form a global group focused on general-purpose analytical instrumentation and the life sciences. With hundreds of major innovations to their credit, Rigaku companies are world leaders in X-ray spectrometry, diffraction, and optics, as well as small molecule and protein crystallography and semiconductor metrology. Today, Rigaku employs over 1,100 people in the manufacturing and support of its analytical equipment, which is used in more than 70 countries around the world supporting research, development, and quality assurance activities. Throughout the world, Rigaku continuously promotes partnerships, dialog, and innovation within the global scientific and industrial communities. For further information, contact: Michael Nelson Rigaku Global Marketing Group tel: +1. 512-225-1796 michael.nelson(at)rigaku.com LULAC members from across the country will travel to Washington, D.C. in order to participate in the LULAC Annual Legislative Conference and Awards Gala. During the two day conference, members will meet with Members of Congress and agency leaders to discuss how present policies and regulations impact the Latino community. The Legislative Conference is divided into sessions where issue experts will discuss the need to strengthen the Affordable Care Act and ensure accountability for Latino students success. In addition, the policy summit will address the need for comprehensive immigration reform, supporting President Obamas administrative actions, ending the detention of vulnerable populations, and repealing the 34,000 bed quota rider from appropriation bills. The legislative sessions are open to the public. More information can be found at http://www.lulac.org/gala. At this years Awards Gala, U.S. Senator John Cornyn will be a featured speaker. The Legislative Award will be presented to U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren for her tireless efforts in representing the needs of middle and low income families. The Advocacy Award will be bestowed upon Mr. Julio Pabon for his work on behalf of the Latino community and his leadership in ensuring bilingual coverage of key sporting events. This years Legislative Conference will begin on Wednesday, February 24 at the Mandarin Oriental located at 1330 Maryland Avenue SW, Washington, DC from 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. The LULAC Awards Gala will also take place on Wednesday, February 24 from 6:00 P.M. to 9:00 P.M. at the Mandarin Oriental Grand Ballroom. ### The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is the nations largest and oldest civil rights volunteer-based organization that empowers Hispanic Americans and builds strong Latino communities. Headquartered in Washington, DC, with 1000 councils around the United States and Puerto Rico, LULACs programs, services and advocacy address the most important issues for Latinos, meeting critical needs of today and the future. For more information, visit http://www.LULAC.org. ITsavvy, one of the fastest growing providers of software defined data center (SDDC) solutions in the U.S., just announced that it received VMware NSX Certification to design and support secure, efficient, cost-saving NSX SDDCs for its clients. ITsavvys Senior Director of Solutions Architecture Nathan Farris said, In order to receive certification, our engineers had to complete training and pass the NSX certification test. The fact that we have achieved this should give our clients a level of confidence that ITsavvy can maximize the benefits of SDDCs. An SDDC is a virtualization function where all elements of the infrastructure: storage, networking, processing, and security are virtualized and delivered as a service. NSX is VMwares offering in that market. NSX delivers the operational model of a virtual machine by reproducing the network model in software. Once implemented, this enables network features and functionality to be created or modified quickly from a centralized location. Users can also create isolated virtual infrastructure through custom combinations of NSX capabilities. For virtual machines that are running on the NSX framework, policies can be applied based on operating system, location, or keyword, Farris explained. This gives organizations the ability to set specific network security policies; it provides assurance that everything has been and continues to be correctly configured and secured. Key benefits of NSX include: A reduction in network provisioning time from days to seconds. Operational efficiency through automation. Workloads can be placed and moved independent of the physical network elements. NSX can integrate third-party network and security solutions through standard APIs. The deployment is potentially non-disruptive over existing physical networks or next generation network elements. One advantage that isnt obvious, but I think is very important is micro-segmentation, Farris added. Without a lot of modification you can add a lot more security to your network. For example, you can create a firewall between each server and each department. It gives you a lot more control. Specific features of NSX include: Logical Switching: Users can reproduce the complete L2 and L3 switching functionality in a virtual environment, decoupled from underlying hardware. The NSX Gateway: An L2 gateway provides seamless connection to physical workloads and legacy VLANs. Logical Routing: Routing between logical switches provides dynamic routing within different virtual networks. Logical Firewall: The distributed firewall features kernel-enabled line rate performance, virtualization and identity awareness, with activity monitoring. Logical Load Balancer: The full-featured load balancer has SSL termination. Logical VPN: Software includes site-to-site and remote access VPN. NSX API: REST API for integration into Cloud management platforms is included. ITsavvy President and CEO Mike Theriault said, The team of engineers that make up our Advanced Solutions Group are among the best and brightest in the world. They allow us to offer an end-to-end solution for everything we sell, including NSX. This certification demonstrates how hard we work to stay on top of the technology that makes the most sense and offers the most benefits to our clients. ITsavvy, one of the fastest growing companies of its type in the U.S., is a recognized leader in tailored end-to-end IT product and service solutions. ITsavvy built its reputation as a value-added reseller with industry-leading product availability, design and implementation, client support and delivery speed through 46 distribution centers across the U.S. ITsavvy also has data center locations in New Jersey, Illinois and New York. The companys new, user-friendly website provides hundreds of concise, leading-edge IT decision-making resources, including an e-commerce site with real-time pricing and availability. ITsavvy is headquartered in Addison, IL, with offices in Chicagos Loop; Hauppauge, NY; New York, NY; Warren, NJ; Aurora, IL; Davenport, IA; Hayward, CA; Beavercreek, OH; Indianapolis, and Miami. Call 1-855-ITsavvy (1-855-487-2889), email: info(at)ITsavvy(dot)com, visit: http://www.ITsavvy.com. Full release at: http://www.itsavvy.com/itsavvy-receives-vmware-certification-to-provide-nsx-software-defined-data-center-sddc-solutions "With his extensive legal experience, proven government contract success at HP and thorough leadership experience, Patrick is the right leader to help Mass Markets govern through an increasing percentage of XAAS market share." - Anthony Marlowe, CEO Mass Markets, a leading Anything-as-a-Service (XaaS) and domestic contact center business process outsourcing (BPO) company that delivers revolutionary technology and innovative, quality driven customer service solutions using the most advanced technology in the industry announces that Patrick M. Long will join Mass Markets as Executive Vice President and General Counsel. Starting on January 25, 2016, Mr. Long will oversee all legal matters for the company and serve as the primary legal adviser to the company, including owner and CEO, Anthony Marlowe, COO Jason Falco and the rest of the Mass Markets management team. Additionally, Mr. Long will oversee all public sector business and corporate development including education, local, state, and federal business opportunities. "We wanted to find a candidate who offered the right balance of legal expertise and leadership skills, and with an understanding of the complexities of the public sector marketplace," said Anthony Marlowe, CEO of Mass Markets. "I am pleased that the best candidate for the role of Executive Vice President and General Counsel is Patrick Long. With his extensive legal experience, proven government contract success at HP and thorough leadership experience, Patrick is the right leader to help Mass Markets govern through an increasing percentage of XAAS market share." Most recently, Mr. Long was responsible for supporting global outsourcing legal operations for Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Services, a global business and technology subsidiary of the HP Enterprise business unit. Throughout his thirteen-year employment with HP, Mr. Long held a number of positions, both domestically and internationally, with increasing levels of importance within and without the Legal Department. He is widely recognized as a subject matter expert in risk management, compliance, negotiation, contract operations, domestic government sales, and intellectual property. Mr. Long pioneered many firsts for HP while negotiating over emerging technologies and new methods of communication. He has also helped to negotiate some of the largest service deals in HP's history. Prior to working for HP, Mr. Long was an attorney for Compaq Computer Corporation and was in private practice in downtown Chicago focused primarily upon intellectual property matters for information technology startups. Mr. Long received his law degree from Loyola University School of Law in Chicago and his Bachelor of Arts undergraduate degree from Boston College. Mr. Long is married with one child and lives in Evanston, Illinois. "I am energized to be returning to my legal roots and look forward to working with my fellow employees in putting my years of enterprise experience to good work for the Company in this strategic role," said Patrick Long. "While recognizing that Mass Markets has more than a decades record of success in servicing enterprise clients, I believe I have much to offer the Company and am excited at the wonderful opportunity to lead the government and legal areas. I will do my utmost to help Mass Markets innovate and grow with great integrity and success. We are going to accomplish great achievements." About Mass Markets An Anything-as-a-Service (XaaS) leader, Mass Markets provides domestic based Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) inbound and outbound contact center services and cloud technology platforms that deliver a distinct business advantage through performance and efficiency. A unique partner, Mass Markets offers traditional customer service, inside sales and tech support services alongside cloud technology and integration service, a comprehensive Anything-as-a-Service (XaaS) solution for our customers. An industry expert operating exclusively in the USA, Mass Markets has experience executing high quality business-to-business and business-to-consumer interactions across a wide range of industries. With highly secure infrastructure and agile cloud technology solutions, Mass Markets offers customers a unique combination of business process support and innovative technology framework. For more information visit us @ http://massmarkets.com or call 1-866-577-2461. Mass Markets is an MCI Company. Soil Health Partnership begins third year to demonstrate data-driven benefits to farmers. Our annual Soil Health Summit brings progressive leaders together to learn about the research, innovations and technology taking place in the realm of soil health. As the Soil Health Partnership embarks on its third year, the organization has high hopes for network expansion and ground-breaking soil data results that will contribute to a sea change in farming. The partnership held its third annual Soil Health Summit in Indianapolis Jan. 21-22, hosting more than 140 attendees, including farmers, agriculture industry leaders, environmental groups and university representatives. Its very striking to me that the agricultural community is awakening to the positive impact soil health can have on the environment, crop yields and farm economics, said Nick Goeser, SHP director. Our annual Soil Health Summit brings progressive leaders together to learn about the research, innovations and technology taking place in the realm of soil health. The partnership is a data-driven initiative of the National Corn Growers Association, with support from Monsanto and the Walton Family Foundation, as well as technical support from The Nature Conservancy and Environmental Defense Fund. Demonstration farmers in the program collect data with the help of field managers and their agronomists in practices like cover crops, nutrient management and conservation tillage. The organization hopes to increase the number of demonstration farms enrolled to 60 this year. Economics are key to changing practices on the farm weve heard that again and again, Goeser said at the summit. Although early in our data collection process, were in this for the long haul. We continue to improve data collection and our analytics process. We are also working on how we will put that research in your hands. Our research means nothing if it isnt published to be used by our farmers and beyond. The first day of the summit featured presentations on cover crop economics, precision land management, and panel discussions from farmers and industry collaborators. On the second day, participants shared thoughts on the data collection, further collaboration opportunities and communication within the partnership and with those interested in the results. These farmers are pioneers and innovators, said Chris Novak, NCGA CEO, during the summits closing address. They are taking risks to build data that prove soil health improvements mean economic benefits from better yields, and environmental risk mitigation. We thank them for their leadership. About the Soil Health Partnership The Soil Health Partnership brings together diverse partner organizations including commodity groups, federal agencies, universities and environmental groups to work toward the common goal of improving soil health. Over a five-year period, the SHP will identify, test and measure farm management practices that improve soil health and benefit farmers. We believe the results of this farmer-led project will provide a platform for sharing peer-to-peer information, and lend resources to benefit agricultural sustainability and profitability. An initiative of the National Corn Growers Association, we provide the spark for greater understanding and implementation of agricultural best practices to protect resources for future generations. For more, visit soilhealthpartnership.org. Julie Steinmetz will focus on media relations, internal communications and new business for TSN Communications. Like all our team members, Julie came highly recommended from an existing employee. This hiring strategy allows us to bring in top talent to our family-like atmosphere, while building a virtual office structure with national experts. TSN Communications welcomes Julie Steinmetz as its newest account manager. Steinmetz, who brings experience with a wide range of clients, is adept at finding media opportunities that meet the communications and business objectives of each client. Steinmetz has worked with both privately held and public company entities, and is well-suited to provide the comprehensive service the companys teamwork brings to all its clients. My skillset and previous professional experience in the communications field will align perfectly with TSN Communications highly trained team of professionals, Steinmetz said. I look forward to working with my new colleagues and clients to deliver exceptional work. Prior to joining TSN Communications, Steinmetz worked at CBD Marketing, a Chicago marketing agency specializing in B2B strategy. There, she focused on targeted media coverage for businesses in the healthcare, technology and higher education industries. Steinmetz started her career at the Chicago office of Edelman, one of the worlds largest public relations agencies. In the past year, Steinmetz has won coverage in a wide range of metro market media, including Chicago, where she secured feature stories for her client with the citys top business publications. She has also secured her clients national interviews with reporters and editors at large circulation publications such as The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch and Kaiser Health News. Like all our team members, Julie came highly recommended from an existing employee. This hiring strategy allows us to bring in top talent to our family-like atmosphere, while building a virtual office structure with national experts," said Greg Zilberfarb, TSN Communications CEO and president. Julie is the fourth communications pro weve welcomed to our team in the past year, increasing our staff to 18. With a degree in communications from the University of Iowa, Steinmetz currently resides in Chicago, where she enjoys hot yoga and experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen. She and her fiance are planning a summer 2016 wedding. About TSN Communications: TSN Communications is a full-service consulting company specializing in niche marketing and communications solutions to companies, non-profits and government agencies. TSN Communications develops and implements custom programs in public relations, market research, education and outreach, event planning, technology deployment, online training, Internet television and more to help its clients gain increased market share and visibility. A division of Virginia-based the Sales NetWork, TSN Communications has locations across the United States. To learn how TSN can Grow Your Business, visit http://www.TSNcommunications.com. If you are new to iQ you can schedule a demo and learn more about this opportunity. PSFK iQ - Where Innovators Turn for Research. Our professional-grade research platform is designed specifically for Retail and CX leaders who want to know whats next. Whether youre staying current on trends or need a real-time research partner to help you get ahead, count on PSFK iQ to deliver the info you need to make your next move. Battle of the machines: Chinese robot makers take on foreign peers As China embraces automation, the wide technology gap between local and foreign robot makers is narrowing slowly but surely In a glitzy exhibition hall in Beijing, an extraordinary Tai chi show is on. The performers are a martial arts master in spotless white robes andwait for itan industrial robot. It's the kind of robot you would often see hiding behind safety barriers at factories. No sooner had the master pushed his right hand against the robot than the latter sprung into action, circled around and smoothly pushed him back in one fluid motion. Tai Chi practitioner doing Tai Chi with a robot at the World Forum On Robots, in Beijing, on Nov 24. [Photo/Xinhua] The 90-second demo is more ballet than combat as the man and the machine engage in almost intimate motions. Every time the master comes into contact, the sensor-rich machine, well, senses the touch instantly, determines the amount of pressure in it and 'instinctively' moves in the intended direction. "This is China's first homegrown seven-axis collaborative robot," said Qu Daokui, president of Siasun Robot & Automation Co, the manufacturer of the motorized arm. It can be trained by hands to perform a string of industrial tasks like grinding, packaging and feeding parts. Kuka, headquartered in Augsburg, Germany, is a leading manufacturer of industrial robots and solutions for factory automation.The company developed its first industrial robot in 1973. Its robots are used in the automotive industry, plastics, metalworking, andthe electronics industry, among others.[Photo/chinadaily.com.cn] "It is ready to work side by side with humans on assembly lines, performing a string of industrial tasks like grinding, packaging, assembling and feeding parts," he said. The collaborative robot, which was unveiled in November, is part of a broad effort by Siasun, as well as its domestic peers, to cash in on the country's growing appetite for industrial robots as enterprises are cranking up automation of car and electronics factories. The world's second-largest economy is already the leading market for industrial robots, accounting for a quarter of global sales, according to the International Federation of Robotics. Top diplomats from Beijing and Washington found more common ground on Wednesday on key issues including the latest nuclear test by Pyongyang. In a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry, President Xi Jinping said that China-US ties have been smooth and have advanced in the past year, and the two countries have had "timely communication" on topics including the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue. When China and the United States work together,they can make big things happen that are good for the world, Xi said. Meeting the media with Kerry at the Foreign Ministry, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China will hold "comprehensive and in-depth deliberations with the United States and other parties" on an expected UN Security Council resolution on the recent nuclear test by Pyongyang. China and the US have agreed on the broad goal of restarting negotiations on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, Wang said. Kerry said their meeting was constructive and the two countries had agreed to accelerate their efforts on the issue at the United Nations. Kerry spoke highly of productive communication and coordination between the two countries, specifically men-tioning the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal. Responding to allegations by US media that China's self-defense facilities on some garrisoned islands and reefs in the South China Sea have "boosted militarization ",Wang said China has promised not to engage in militarization. "International law has given all sovereign countries the right to self-protection and self-defense," Wang said. Taiwan also featured in the talks between the top diplo-mats, with Wang saying, "Taiwan is a core issue affecting China-US ties". He urged Washington to "take concrete action to support the peaceful development of cross-Straits relations". In response, Kerry reaffirmed the US commitment to the One-China policy. Kerry arrived in China on Tuesday after stops in Laos and Cambodia. He also met with State Councilor Yang Jiechi on Wednesday.Su Ge, president of the China Institute of International Studies, said China and the US should "grab the wheel firmly", adding that one of expected political legacies of US Presi-dent Barack Obama is the steady and healthy growth of the two-way relationship. Teng Jianqun, a senior researcher of US studies at the same institute, said Kerry's visit "showcased the shared emphasis on keeping the rela-tionship on track in 2016", when the US presidential election takes place. Wang and Kerry are signal-ing that Beijing and Washing-ton are moving closer to each other on resolving the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue as they have both stated opposition to any further attempts to desta-bilize the region,Teng said. Fan Jishe,a researcher of US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Washington is still expecting Beijing to do more and to increase pressure on Pyongyang - an approach that has been opposed by China. Skip Skwarek, whose long tenure at Dial Books for Young Readers included roles as managing editor and associate publisher, died of pneumonia on January 15 in New York. He was 70. Skwarek began his childrens book career at Dial in 1982 working for Phyllis Fogelman and rose to associate publisher before leaving the company in 1998. Matthew Van Fleet, creator of a number of bestselling and critically acclaimed novelty concept books, has worked closely with Skwarek since his first book, One Yellow Lion, was published by Dial in 1992. The two met when Van Fleet was working in the art department at Grosset & Dunlap, and Skwarek played a key role in editing and art directing all of Van Fleets subsequent titles. The pair has published Van Fleets books with longtime editor Paula Wiseman (whom Van Fleet also met at Dial), and Wisemans eponymous imprint at Simon & Schuster is Van Fleets current publishing home. Wiseman offered this reflection: I learned so much from Skip and Phyllis in our days together at Dial. Skip was a great friend and editor. And Van Fleet reminisced about collaborating with Skwarek over the years. One of the things that was so special about Skip is that he took novelty books seriously when everyone else treated them as disposable junk. Face it, once you put a piece of fur on something, youre not going to win the Caldecott. What we were doing was more like a high-quality picture book with novelty elements. He forced me to make the books better, to redraw or rethink things. He knew how we could make a really good book but also in the grand scheme, laugh about it and not get so caught up in it that it wouldnt cost out or not get done. Van Fleet paid tribute to Skwarek on his website with a favorite drawing he did for him years ago. Thats how I remember him, chain-smoking at his desk. Van Fleet said. Sometimes he would take forever to go over a manuscript and Id ask him, Are you using it as a coaster? We had a lot of laughs. Skwarek is survived by his husband, Dick Donahue, a former PW editor. If Amazons business practices continue unchecked the result could be a nuclear winter for book publishing, said founder and CEO of Smashwords Mark Coker during a January 27 event called Amazons Book MonopolyA Threat to Freedom of Expression? Coker participated via Skype in a panel called "Amazon and the Author at the afternoon-long event sponsored by the Authors Guild, the American Booksellers Association, the Association of Authors Representatives, and Authors United, and held at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC. Last year the event sponsors asked the Department of Justice to examine Amazon for antitrust violations. After a meeting with the DoJ that Authors Guild executive director Mary Rasenberger said went very well, the organizations planned this event to delve into antitrust concerns, as well as ways in which Amazon's book monopoly affects ideas and their dissemination in a democratic society. As the invitation to the event from Authors United founder DougPreston said: Never in the history of our country has a single corporation dominated a vital marketplace of informationuntil today. In opening remarks, New America Foundation senior fellow and author Barry Lynn said these fears about Amazon are not easy to make public. Both he and Preston, who followed Lynn to talk about Amazon and the Authors, said some authors and editors refused to take part in the event because they worried about professional recriminations. After Preston detailed some of Amazons dirty tactics, which include its 2014 dispute with Hachette over e-book pricing, lawyer, author, and past Authors Guild president Scott Turow sat in conversation with author and journalist Christopher Leonard. Turow joked that Amazon has been very good for me, but hes involved in this fight because he believes in an independent authorial class. The first panel, moderated by Harpers magazine president and publisher John R. MacArthur, featured author and editor Frank Foer, Smashwords' Coker, author Susan Cheever, and William Morris Endeavor literary agent Eric Simonoff. Cheever said she's concerned that "business practices [by Amazon] have been harmful to the future of books. Foer claimed that Amazon is "destroying the culture of book publishing." Later in the day, those with legal backgrounds spoke about whether a case could actually be made that Amazon is indeed a monopoly. Maurice Stucke, professor of antitrust law at the University of Tennessee and cofounder of the Data Competition Institute, said that because Amazon can manipulate "the flow of books across its platform, there is an argument to be made for antitrust legislation against the company. Fellow speaker Jonathan Kanter, antitrust partner at the law firm Cadwalader, agreed, noting that Amazon has little competition. Stucke said that even though there may be a legal case to be made for antitrust action, the question remains about who will make it. Once the deterrent value [of antitrust legislation] falls off...it becomes a matter of political will. Why arent [government agencies] enforcing these laws? China will establish a national emergency and rescue team with about 320 members to deal with nuclear power emergencies over the next 5 years. The decision came after the country published its first white paper on nuclear emergency preparedness. The nuclear emergency rescue team will mainly be responsible for dealing with serious nuclear accidents as well as taking part in international rescue operations. The team, scheduled to be established next year, is actually part of an upcoming unified, fully-fledged national nuclear emergency response capabilities system. Yao Bin, Head of Nuclear Emergency and Security Division under China's State Administration of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense, said the team will be mobilized during possible nuclear power accidents. "Under the leadership of the State Council, or China's Cabinet, China's national nuclear accident emergency coordination commission and the national emergency office will have unified authority to deploy the team." China has already founded over 30 national professional rescue teams to specifically take charge of various types of specialized rescue missions in different regions. For his part, Xu Dazhe, director of the China Atomic Energy Authority, believes that to ensure public safety when there's a nuclear accident must always be the top priority. "Among all those lines of defense for nuclear security, nuclear emergency preparedness is the last one. For us, the most important task now is to improve the safety level of nuclear construction, and prevent accidents from occurring via innovation, secure and reliable standards, as well as advanced technologies and equipment." To that end, the white paper says China will build and maintain national nuclear emergency capabilities commensurate with the safe and efficient development of nuclear energy. Xu also notes that China is considering construction of offshore nuclear power plants. He says the country will conduct a "careful and scientific" feasibility review before it makes its decision. According to the newly issued white paper, China plans to raise its installed nuclear power capacity to 58 gigawatts with an additional 30 gigawatts under construction by 2020. China will also speed up drafting the nuclear safety law and atomic energy law. Yao Bin explained the significance of issuing the white paper. "Releasing the nuclear emergency preparedness to the society in the form of a white paper can help the public comprehensively understand China's nuclear emergency preparedness work, and enhance the entire society's confidence in developing nuclear energy." Zhu Xuhui, former General Manager of China National Nuclear Corporation, says nuclear emergency preparedness is inherent in China's nuclear development. "The white paper makes public the mechanisms for China's nuclear emergency preparedness , which indicates China attach great importance to nuclear safety when developing nuclear energy. It echoes President Xi Jinping's nuclear security concept: both development and safety are important, development is premised on safety." In March 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time elaborated on the country's nuclear security concept of sensible, coordinated and balanced development while addressing the 3rd Nuclear Security Summit in the Hague. As of the end of October 2015, the Chinese mainland had 27 nuclear power generating units in operation, with a total installed capacity of 25.5 gigawatts. Another 25 units with a total installed capacity of 27.5 gigawatts are under construction. Their care and safety is mutual responsibility of families, government and society as a whole The central government intends to improve care systems for children left-behind in rural areas by migrant worker parents, a high-level government meeting pledged on Wednesday. A system will be set up to serve such children by reporting on them, intervening and offering assistance as needed, all to keep them from falling prey to criminal activity. The decisions were made at an executive meeting of the State Council presided over by Premier Li Keqiang. The meeting also discussed measures to reduce the number of left-behind children by encouraging migrant workers to permanently move to cities or work near their rural homes. A statement issued after the meeting said that "caring for and protecting millions of children left behind in rural areas, and allowing them to grow safely and in good health is the mutual responsibility of families, government and the society as a whole". Each party, it said, including the local government, village committee and school, must carry out its duties. Charity and social organizations were encouraged to participate to improve the system. China has about 60 million left-behind children. In recent years, a number of tragedies have called attention to their plight. Last year in Bijie, Guizhou province, four children of absent migrant workers committed suicide at home. They were aged 5 to 13. Also in Bijie last year, a 15-year-old girl and her 13-year-old brother were killed at home. Police found that the girl had been sexually assaulted before she was murdered. Their parents were migrant workers away from home. In 2014, 10 villagers were imprisoned for repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting a left-behind 13-year-old girl in Guangxi province. Augustana alum Estlin Feigley will be back on campus Saturday to show his first feature-length film, "The Stream," followed by an interactive filmmaking workshop for students. The family-oriented movie (first released in 2013) will be shown Saturday at 1 p.m. in Centennial Hall, 3703 7th Ave., Rock Island. Tickets are $6, available by calling 309-794-7306 or visiting augustana.edu/tickets. Proceeds will benefit the college's planned theater building, as Augie's theater program benefited Mr. Feigley. He graduated in 1993 and has returned before (from his Chicago home) to show his short films. "This is exciting to come back and show 'The Stream,'" the 44-year-old (who directed and co-wrote it) said recently. "The movie is really a kids film. I'm not creating a dark piece looking for cutting-edge adult audiences." In the movie (mainly shot in Philadelphia in summer 2012, and set in 1981), Ernest obsesses over George Lucass "Star Wars" saga, like most boys his age. In the woods outside Ernests neighborhood, capture-the-flag contests escalate into major Jedi battles, with yellow Wiffle ball bats substituting for light sabers. But when a bully snaps Ernests already-damaged weapon in half, Ernest and his friends accept a mission: follow a nearby stream to the mall, buy a new bat and return before their parents realize theyre missing. The film features Rainn Wilson ("The Office"), Mario Lopez ("Extra!", "X Factor"), Kelly Rutherford ("Gossip Girl"), and Christopher Gorham ("Covert Affairs") and includes a nostalgic Top 40 soundtrack and John Williams' "Star Wars" music. Mr. Feigley -- who formed Dreaming Tree Films in 1998 with his wife -- said he was able to snag such stars partly to support a good cause and realize a good script. "They get involved after they look at the script, then once they find out what's going on behind the scenes, they go for it," he said, noting his next film features Steve Guttenberg. "A lot of celebrities have been just fantastic. It was fun to have kids get a chance to work with celebrities." In 2013, "The Stream" was shown at Regal Cinemas in 20 major markets across the country (but not Moline), and 80 percent of the proceeds went to Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Mr. Feigley partnered with them "because they were the not only a great group, but also wonderfully aligned with the work we were doing with teenagers," he said. The Dreaming Tree mission is "to nurture creativity, encourage teens to believe in themselves and provide the career insight that will help them grow both as artists and individuals," according to its website. "Our programs break through the Hollywood glam and allow teens to explore different creative mediums," the site says of writing, design, photography, acting, directing, producing, cinematography and editing. "The Stream" was produced with the help of 160 middle and high school students (from East Coast Boys & Girls Clubs) working behind the camera, learning all aspects of filmmaking. The kids didn't act in the film, but worked with a professional cast and crew. Dreaming Tree partnered in 2002 with After School Matters, a Chicago public-school program to provide inner-city teens with filmmaking experiences (over three years total). After seeing how teens worked, Dreaming Tree expanded its reach to teens across the country. Their short films have been shown at more than 25 film festivals and seen more than 3 million times online, on cable or DirecTV. Mr. Feigley brought a crew from Dreaming Tree to Augustana in 2001 and filmed a webisode featuring theater students and professor Jeff Coussens. In a 2013 Augie article, Mr. Coussens said. "As one of Estlin's former profs, I am proud to see how far he has traveled. Not only has he become a great filmmaker in his own right, but his current charitable work truly embodies the kind of entrepreneurship and service values that we strive to instill in all our students." Mr. Feigley has offered his writing, filmmaking, and music video programs for students across the country. He had a theater scholarship at Augustana and played lead roles in several productions. After graduating, he earned a master's in theater from University of Iowa, and pursued an acting career in Los Angeles for a couple years before moving back to Chicago. His new feature is the science-fiction "Traveling Without Moving," about two girls who must save their parents after they created a wormhole machine and are on the other side. After Saturday's screening, students of all ages can learn about special effects, sound demonstrations, stunt choreography and more during an interactive film session. "The Stream" is available to rent on iTunes. Mr. Feigley was nominated for a 2015 Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Childrens Programming for "Moochie Kalala Detectives Club," and his companys nonprofit division, Fresh Films, has been putting teens behind the camera since 2002. For more information, visit dreamingtreefilms.com. A Davenport man pleaded not guilty Wednesday to illegally selling a pistol police say was used in two shooting incidents last fall. Lonnie J. Long, 44, is charged in Scott County with transferring a pistol to a person who didn't have a valid permit, an aggravated misdemeanor punishable by up to two years in prison. Attorney Murray Bell filed a written arraignment and plea of not guilty Wednesday on Mr. Long's behalf, according to court records. Mr. Long is accused of selling a pistol to Robert Mayes II, 40, of Coal Valley, prior to Mr. Mayes using the gun during two shooting incidents on Oct. 26 in Davenport and Bettendorf. Charges allege the gun transaction occurred at Mr. Long's home and, at the time, Mr. Mayes did not have a valid permit to buy the handgun. Police said Mr. Mayes, armed with a semi-automatic pistol, sought out his estranged wife on Oct. 26 at a Davenport law office where she worked. After firing multiple rounds inside the building, Mr. Mayes fled in a vehicle to a Bettendorf medical manufacturing company, where the woman's male friend was employed. The man was warned and left the building before Mr. Mayes entered and fired several more shots, police said. Mr. Mayes died in the parking lot from a self-inflicted gunshot wound as officers arrived on the scene. No one else was shot, but two people received superficial injuries, according to police. A former Davenport man could face up to 20 years in federal prison after pleading guilty this week to possession of child pornography. Sentencing for Philipp Nathan Johnson, 40, is set for June 15 before Chief U.S. District Judge John Jarvey. The federal possession charge typically carries a possible prison sentence of up to 10 years. However, if Judge Jarvey determines Mr. Johnson's prior offense is a "qualifying conviction," the charge will carry a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and maximum of 20 years, according to the plea agreement. Mr. Johnson, a registered sex offender, was convicted in 2000 in Scott County of sexual abuse in the third degree against a girl younger than 13, according to court records. In the latest case, Mr. Johnson was indicted in June in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, Davenport. A criminal complaint said, on Nov. 20, 2014, an ex-girlfriend turned Mr. Johnson's cellphone over to the Davenport Police Department. The woman said she purchased the phone for Mr. Johnson while they were dating and that, while looking through the phone, she had discovered images of child pornography and a virus that locked the phone from certain Internet sites, the complaint said. The phone was seized by police at that time and placed into evidence. Officers later were contacted by another acquaintance, who said she was told by Mr. Johnson that his phone had been turned over to law enforcement because it had "stuff on there," the criminal complaint said. The woman said Mr. Johnson denied knowing how the material got to be on his phone. A forensic examination in April found close to 500 images of child pornography had been downloaded on the phone between Oct. 26-28, 2014, according to the plea agreement. "The examination concluded that the user of the phone browsed the Internet for pornographic websites, which appeared to contain child pornography, and downloaded such images onto his cellular phone," it said. Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz elaborately staged his Sept. 1 suicide to look like he'd been killed in the line of duty because he feared his embezzlement would be uncovered, authorities say. His death triggered a massive, weeks-long manhunt that left the community on edge. Investigators announced two months later that it was a suicide and released details of the embezzlement scheme. The revelation stunned the northern Illinois community where the officer known as "G.I. Joe" was regarded as a hero and role model for young people he mentored in the Fox Lake Police Explorer program. Authorities released incriminating text and Facebook messages in November showing a frantic Gliniewicz discussing the money and ways he could evade discovery. An official with knowledge of the investigation identified Gliniewicz's wife and one of his sons, an Army soldier stationed in North Carolina, as the recipients of those messages. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the probe publicly. The officers' wife, Melodie Gliniewicz, was indicted Wednesday by a grand jury on felony counts of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority and for personal benefit. With her indictment, the financial investigation is over and no one else is expected to be charged, said Lake County Sheriff's Office spokesman Christopher Covelli. Investigators were not able to prove that the officer's 23-year-old son, Donald "D.J." Gliniewicz, knew until after the fact that the money he was spending had been stolen, Covelli said. Melodie Gliniewicz had fiduciary responsibility for the Explorer accounts as a program adviser. D.J. Gliniewicz, who had gone through the program in his youth, did not, Covelli said. The text messages between the officer and his son, an Army specialist with the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, show the older Gliniewicz was lending him several thousand dollars from Explorer accounts for things such as truck repairs and a summer leave trip to Oklahoma. He pleads with his son to return the money. "You'll have to start dumping money into that account or you will be visiting me in JAIL!!," he said in a June 25 message. "The 1600 and the 777 all came from there." The investigation could not determine definitively whether the younger Gliniewicz knew before that point that the money was from Explorer funds, Covelli said. Investigators sifted through thousands of pages of financial documents, interviewed witnesses and flew to D.J. Gliniewicz's military post to interview him, Covelli said. In a message sent through a spokesman for the 82nd Airborne, D.J. Gliniewicz declined to comment Thursday. It was not clear whether he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf. Melodie Gliniewicz was taken to the county jail Wednesday and released later in the day after posting 10 percent of her $50,000 bond. "Melodie is a victim of her husband's secret action and looks forward to her day in court to show the world her innocence," said the law firm Kelleher & Buckley, which is representing her. Investigators found that money from the police explorer's account was used for expenses including more than 400 restaurant charges, personal payments to a Starbucks and a local theater as well as a trip to Hawaii. Gliniewicz was experienced in staging crime scenes for drills with the youth program. Moments before his death he radioed dispatchers to tell them he was chasing three suspicious men. He left his equipment strewn over a wooded, swampy area leading up to the spot where he shot himself twice, once in his ballistic vest and once in his upper chest. BURNS, Ore. (AP) Video of the fatal police shooting of an Oregon wildlife refuge occupier appears to show the man reaching into his jacket before he fell into the snow. The FBI said the man had a loaded gun in his pocket. Authorities played the FBI video Thursday amid claims that Robert "LaVoy" Finicum did nothing to provoke officers in the confrontation Tuesday on a remote Oregon high-country road. Four occupiers remained at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge late Thursday and refused to leave without assurances they wouldn't be arrested. The FBI said it was negotiating with them. The occupation by ranchers and others began on Jan. 2, and at one point there were a couple of dozen people holed up, demanding that the federal government turn public lands over to local control. But the compound has been emptying out since the arrest of leader Ammon Bundy and 10 others over recent days and with the death of Finicum. A federal judge said Thursday she will not release any of those arrested while the occupation continues, the Oregonian reported. The judge's comments came shortly after Bundy, through his attorney, repeated his call for the holdouts to leave peacefully. Bundy and others arrested have another federal court hearing scheduled for Friday afternoon. The aerial video shows Bundy's vehicle stopped by police. He and an occupier riding with him Brian Cavalier were arrested. A white truck driven by Finicum was stopped but took off, with officers in pursuit. The video shows Finicum's vehicle plowing into a snowbank when encountering a roadblock. A man identified as Finicum gets out of the truck. At first, he has his hands up, but then he appears to reach into his pocket at least twice. "He did have a loaded 9mm semi-automatic handgun in the pocket," said Greg Bretzing, special agent in charge for the FBI in Portland. Bretzing also said Finicum's truck nearly hit an FBI agent before it got stuck in the snow. "Actions have consequences," Bretzing said. "The FBI and (Oregon State Police) tried to effect these arrests peacefully." The FBI posted the video to its YouTube channel (http://bit.ly/209MgEw ). With Finicum lying in the snow, the video shows the arrest of two other occupiers as they got out of the stuck truck: Ryan Bundy, who is Ammon's brother, and Shawna Cox. Bretzing said another woman was in the truck but was not arrested. He did not identify her. Bretzing said agents and troopers provided medical assistance to Finicum after they were confident they had addressed any further threats. He said that happened about 10 minutes after the shooting. Two loaded .223 caliber semi-automatic rifles and a loaded revolver were found in the truck, Bretzing said. Bundy and his followers were on their way to a meeting in the community of John Day when they encountered the FBI-led operation to apprehend them. The FBI acted amid growing calls that something be done to end the occupation, including from Oregon's governor. Oregon Public Broadcasting on Thursday spoke with the holdouts and identified them as David Fry, who is from Ohio, husband and wife Sean and Sandy Anderson of Idaho, and Jeff Banta of Nevada. All 11 people under arrest have been charged with a felony count of conspiring to impede federal officers from carrying out their duties through force or intimidation. Three of the 11 were arrested Wednesday night when they left the refuge. The charges say the refuge's 16 employees have been prevented from reporting to work because of threats of violence. Ammon Bundy is the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a tense 2014 standoff with the government over grazing rights. The group came to the desert of eastern Oregon in the dead of winter to decry what it calls onerous federal land restrictions and to object to the prison sentences of two local ranchers convicted of setting fires. China Three Gorges Corporation signed an agreement to develop the 450,000 kilowatt Souapiti hydroelectric project in Guinea, on Jan. 20, according to the company. The Souapiti hydroelectric project is to be built on the Konkoure River, 135 kilometers away from Guinea's capital city Conakry. With a normal reservoir level of 210 meters and total installed capacity of 450,000 kilowatts, after completion, the project will not only meet the country's domestic demand for electricity, but also transmit power to neighboring countries including Gambia and Senegal. The contract is valued at 1.38 billion U.S. dollars, with a 58-month contract duration. This is the second hydropower station contract the company has signed in Guinea. The first one is Kaleta Hydropower Station, with a total installed capacity of 240,000 kilowatts. The deal was signed on Aug. 13, 2011 and the first unit began to generate power on May 28, 2015. Canberras Convoy for Cancer sees around 400 plus Trucks and over 200 bikes take part each year and before it gets rolling ,there is the hotly contested Lead Truck Auction. This morning hit104.7s Ryan & Tanya broke all records racking up $131,650 for the Lead Truck and Lead Bike. Holcim Concrete had the winning truck bid of $21k. Its Ryan & Tanyas second week On-Air and had their first experience of Canberras generosity with Tanya saying, Its the first time Ive actually been on-air in a studio and speechless. It was simply an amazing morning. This years Convoy departs from Copper Crescent, Beard at 10am and follows the Majura Parkway to the Federal Highway with the first truck expected to arrive at Exhibition Park in Canberra at 10:30am. The finale of the Convoy for Cancer Families includes a family carnival, food stalls and opportunity to see the 400 trucks and 200 bikes up close plus a performance by Shannon Noll. Entry is by gold coin donation and the Cancer Support Group will be taking donations on the day. The line was abandoned after the bridge over the river Mur was destroyed by the retreating German army in 1945. Passenger services still operate today on the Austrian Federal Railways (OBB) branch line from Spielfeld-Strass to Bad Radkersburg, while on the Slovenian side the Gorna Radgona Ljutomer remains in use for freight traffic. A feasibility study has showed the potential for reopening the cross-border section, which now has the support of both the Styrian government and Slovenian authorities. However, co-financing will be required from the Austrian federal government and from the EU cohesion fund. The extension of Bad Radkersburg branch into Slovenia would also ensure the long-term future of this line, as the current public service contract for the operation of passenger services is due to expire in 2019. The Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) announced Jan. 28, 2016 that former San Diego County Sheriffs commander Michael Barletta has been hired to oversee all field security and enforcement operations to help ensure safe travel for nearly 97 million passengers annually. He will supervise 200 transit officers. Prior to joining MTS, Barletta served in the San Diego County Sheriffs Department for 30 years. During his tenure, Barletta led the department in multiple areas including the Sheriffs Rural Division where he oversaw law enforcement efforts for 2,200 square miles of San Diego County, the Lemon Grove Sheriffs Station, the Investigations Division and the Human Resources Bureau. Mike has proven experience in all facets of managing a large law enforcement agency and effectively protecting the public, said Paul Jablonski, MTS CEO. All of his law enforcement work has been in San Diego, so hes familiar with our region and our transit system. Mikes experience in San Diego and with the Sheriffs Department will be a valuable resource to us. MTS contracts with Transit Systems Security, which deploys 165 officers for MTS. Additionally, MTS directly employs 35 Code Compliance Inspectors. Barletta will directly oversee both groups. Barletta will be third in command as the Manager of Operations for Transit Enforcement, behind MTS Deputy Director of Transit Enforcement and Code Compliance Ed Musgrove and Director of Transit Enforcement Manuel Guaderrama. Combined, MTS Securitys leadership has more than 85 years of law enforcement experience with the Sheriffs Department and San Diego Police Department. We have exceptional leadership and a wealth of experience on our security team, said Guaderrama. One of our priorities is maintaining strong relationships with the cities, communities and partner law enforcement agencies. The addition of Mike Barletta builds on these efforts. Barletta holds three degrees from San Diego State University including a bachelors degree in criminal justice and masters degrees in education and public administration. He lives in East County with his wife, Anita. They have three children and two dogs. MTS operates 95 bus routes and three Trolley lines on 53 miles of double-tracked railway. Every weekday more than 300,000 passenger trips are taken on MTS bus and Trolley services. MTS set a new record in FY 2015 with 96.7 million riders. "This road accident brought me and my wife together - it turned out to be a blessing in disguise...", was the message received by Feng Wei, a traffic police officer in Jiangxi province, on Jan. 23 from a man surnamed Huang. Back at around 6:00 p.m., July 8, 2014, a rear-end collision occurred at the Longnan section of Daqing-Guangzhou high-speed railway. A man getting out from the front car said very angrily, "my family is waiting for me at restaurant for a birthday dinner. It's too bad!" The woman in the rear car also felt a little aggrieved because of the man's unkindly tone. "I did not mean to do it and no one wants things like this to happen." While the two kept blaming each other, police patrol officer Feng Wei arrived at the scene and said, "Since it is late, I will deal with this quickly and then let the insurance company determine the damages for you." Hearing this, the two were highly relieved. After checking their driving licenses, Feng Wei joked, "What a coincidence! You were both born in 1988 so youve got some common ground" The two smiled at each other and said nothing. They came to the office of traffic police and got the accident report. They both felt satisfied with the results and gave telephone numbers to each other. The next day, the two went to the 4S car repair shop. However, the repair fee for Huang's car, a Mercedes-Benz sedan, reached as much as 120,000 yuan. Because Li only bought mandatory auto insurance and had no third-party liability, Huang can only obtain 2,000 yuan of compensation. Due to the large gap, they asked Feng Wei to mediate. They finally reached an agreement, but Huang unexpectedly gave up the compensation. (File Photo) But Why did Huang do so? After several private contacts between the two youngsters, they got to know each other and both had a favorable impression on each other. Because they are both from the same city, Ganzhou, they began to meet up: drink tea, have dinner and see movies together. After several months of contacts, they formally established a relationship and so Huang gave up compensation claim. Now they have got married meaning Feng Wei became their matchmaker. Welcome to Railway Gazette. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. By continuing to browse this site you are agreeing to our use of these cookies. You can learn more about the cookies we use here. OK Nathascha Rengifo has been appointed Sony Pictures Television's channels VP for Latin America, except for Mexico and Brazil. From Sony's Miami office, she will head the strategic management of AXN and Canal Sony, including programming, marketing and business development. She will be responsible for the Sony teams in Miami, Buenos Aires and Bogota, and will work closely with Jose Antonio Hidalgo, the network's VP for Mexico , and Alberto Niccoli, senior VP for Brazil.Nathascha is a leader, enthusiastic about our business, said TC Schultz, Sony's executive VP and managing director for Latin America and Brazil, to whom the new executive will report. This appointment complements Sony's structure, aiming to realign our networks with the expectations of our audiences and advertising partners.Rengifo has worked for Sony Pictures since 2011, when she started as director of marketing for affiliated companies. Lately, she was executive director for vertical marketing between the company's networks in Latin America.Her previous experience includes working at Colombia's RTV Television, Telepacifico and Leo Burnett's advertising agency. Prosecutor demands 6 and 7 years in jail for former Bank of Moscow managers MOSCOW, January 28 (RAPSI) A prosecutor has demanded to sentence Konstantin Salnikov and Alla Averina, former top managers of the Bank of Moscow who stand charged with embezzling over 1 billion rubles (about $13mln) from the bank, to 7 and 6 years in prison respectively, RAPSI learnt on Thursday in Moscows Meshchansky District Court. In addition, the prosecutor asked the court to fine Salnikov and Averina 500,000 ($6,300) and 400,000 rubles ($5,000) respectively. Investigators claim that Salnikov, former senior trader at the banks Currency Transactions Department, and Averina, the former director of the banks Department of Transactions Administration, were the accomplices of Andrei Borodin, then president of the Bank of Moscow, and his first deputy, Dmitry Akulinin, who have been charged in absentia of embezzling over 1 billion rubles (about $13mln) from the bank. Salnikov has been charged with embezzlement, and Averina stands charged with being an accessory to embezzlement and abuse of office. According to investigators, they acted in collusion with Borodin, Akulinin and one other bank employee. In 2011, a criminal case was opened against Borodin and Akulinin on charges of large-scale fraud involving state funds. They were accused of lending $443 million to shell companies, which then transferred the funds to Yelena Baturina, the wife of former Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov and the owner of the construction empire Inteco. Borodin fled to the UK in 2011. In November 2011, the Russian Interpol bureau put Borodin and Akulinin on the international wanted list. In March 2013, Borodin was granted political asylum in the UK. Businessman gets 5-year suspended sentence for embezzling $161 mln of BTA Bank assets MOSCOW, January 28 (RAPSI) A Domodedovo Court in the Moscow Region has given the former Director General of Eurasia Logistic, Alexander Volkov, a 5-year suspended sentence for embezzling more than 12.7 billion rubles ($161 million) of BTA Bank assets, the court told RAPSI on Thursday. The court also imposed a fine of 800,000 rubles ($10,000) on Volkov. Eurasia Logistic belonged to Kazakh tycoon Mukhtar Ablyazov. It built industrial facilities in the former Soviet Union and is part of the investment and industrial group Eurasia. It has been running Class A industrial complex projects since 2005. According to investigators, in 2007, Volkov along with former head of BTA Bank Ablyazov and other members of an organized group embezzled the banks assets totaling over 12.7 billion rubles. Volkov has pleaded guilty. Ablyazov, accused of embezzling over $6 billion from BTA Bank, fled to the UK after the Kazakh government acquired a stake in BTA Bank in 2009 and the bank came under the control of its sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna. He was granted political asylum in Britain in 2011. However, he remained a fugitive from justice since February 2012. His whereabouts remained unknown until he was detained on July 31 near Cannes, France. Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine are all seeking his extradition. In October 2015, French authorities approved the extradition to Russia of Kazakh tycoon Ablyazov. Nicht Ihr Computer? Dann konnen Sie fur die Anmeldung ein Fenster zum privaten Surfen offnen. Weitere Informationen "There's never been a line of commercial insurance that has more data at its fingertips than cyber insurers do today," says Methven. "But it's how they find that needle in the haystack." Chinese ambassador to U.S. Cui Tiankai held a reception to celebrate the Spring Festival in the Sheraton Hotel of Charlotte, North Carolina on Wednesday. The reception was presided over by Minister Li Kexin. More than 400 guests joined the event, including Governor Patrick McCrory of North Carolina, Congressman Robert Pittenger, Speaker of the House Tommy Pope of South Carolina, Mayor Jennifer Roberts of Charlotte and other local government officials, businessmen, local Chinese and students. In his remarks, Ambassador Cui pointed out that this was the very first Chun Jie celebration the Chinese Embassy had ever held outside Washington D.C. He hoped a closer tie with local communities would foster more exchanges and cooperation between China and the U.S. at the sub-national level, thus further promote China-US relations. Ambassador Cui shared with guests the impressive development of China-North Carolina exchanges. By the end of 2014, the trade volume between China and North Carolina reached 15 billion US dollars, making China the 3rd largest export market and the largest source of import of North Carolina. Over a dozen well-known Chinese companies, like Lenovo and China Tobacco, have invested in North Carolina. Moreover, North Carolina had established 2 sister province-state relations and 6 sister city relations with Chinese provinces and cities. With these compelling numbers and the commitment from the local governments and enterprises, Chinas cooperation with North Carolina has become an excellent example of China-US sub-national exchanges. Ambassador Cui elaborated the great potential of sub-national cooperation between China and the U.S., backed by solid political foundation, robust Chinese economy and strong economic and people-to-people bond. He said the embassy would make it a priority in 2016, as part of an effort to drive the overall development of China-US relationship. Ambassador Cui said, sub-national cooperation means practical cooperation between cities and states, but beyond that, it is an indispensable part of the big picture -- how the two biggest nations in the world work together. In September 2015, President Xi Jinping paid a successful state visit to the U.S. The historic visit achieved 49 outcomes and reaffirmed the commitment from both sides to building a new model of major-country relationship between China and the U.S., featuring non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation. This laid the political foundation for sub-national cooperation between China and the U.S. Trade and people-to-people bond adds to the good prospects of the overall China-US relations. 2016 would be the China-US Tourism Year. It will give a push to the interactions and mutual understanding between the two peoples. Moreover, Chinas strong growth, especially the new five-year plan that aims to bring innovative, coordinated, green, open and inclusive growth, can easily dovetail with the economic development in US states and cities, including North Carolina. Though there are challenges, the foundation of China-US cooperation has been solid, and our common interest far outweighs our differences. China-US relationship will move on in a healthy and steady track. The deepened sub-national cooperation will bring new engines driving China-US relationship. According to the Chinese Zodiac, 2016 is the year of Monkey. Ambassador Cui expressed his best wishes to China-US relationship. He said, thanks to the cooperation between our two governments and two peoples at different levels, with such spirit like Monkey King and Tar Heels, we will certainly overcome difficulties and realize our goals. Governor Patrick McCrory of North Carolina, Congressman Robert Pittenger, Speaker of the House Tommy Pope of South Carolina, Mayor Jennifer Roberts of Charlotte and the representative of Chinese community Yang Huadong also applauded the progress of China-US sub-national cooperation and expressed their commitment to this endeavor in their remarks. After the blizzard, spring is back to Charlotte. Ambassador Cui and guests exchanged views on China-US cooperation and guests expressed their best wishes to China-US relationship in the coming year. BERLIN - As Europe struggles to deal with the refugee crisis, it seems like a long time ago that Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras threatened to undermine EU sanctions against Russia. His flirtation with Russian President Vladimir Putin last year was widely seen as a way for Greece to increase its leverage in negotiations with its eurozone partners and the International Monetary Fund, which were reaching a critical stage in the spring. In the end, a deal was struck in the summer that prevented a default and allowed Greece to remain in the single currency, though it is unlikely to do much to solve Greece's deeper economic problems - and Greece remained supportive of European policy toward Russia. However, as I argue in a new GMF policy brief, the situation of an EU member state seeking external help - or coming under external pressure to undermine an EU policy - is likely to recur in the future. Long-term changes in the structure of global trade are transforming the economic basis of the EU's external relations. In particular, for nearly all EU member states, trade with other member states is decreasing as a share of total trade. Intra-EU exports have declined as a share of the EU's overall exports from 68 percent in 2000 to 63 percent in 2014. This shift away from intra-EU trade raises difficult questions about the future of European integration. The way eurozone countries decided to respond to the crisis is also exacerbating the trend of increased economic dependence on non-Western powers. In particular, a policy of prolonged and coordinated austerity, as well as constitutional limits on public debt to which eurozone countries have agreed, limit the potential for Europe to generate growth internally. This leaves no alternative to externally fueled growth, making EU member states more dependent on economies outside the EU in different ways. While the eurozone "core" will likely increasingly rely on non-Western powers as export markets, the "periphery" will increasingly rely on them as sources of investment. Increased dependence gives non-Western powers leverage that can be used to prevent EU member states from taking tough positions or agreeing on common positions with each other or with the United States. In the medium term, China could be an even bigger challenge for Europe than Russia. EU member states have much to gain from trade with, and investment from, China, so it is likely to have increasing leverage over them. The increasing economic dependence of EU member states has already constrained the ability of Europeans to take tough common positions on issues such as human rights. As one official puts it, China has "bought a blocking minority" in the European Council. In recent years, Europeans have made slow, incremental progress toward develop foreign policy institutions and "strategies." The Lisbon Treaty created a European foreign minister position in the form of the high representative for foreign and security policy. Additionally, the treaty initiated the European External Action Service, which in turn created the institutional basis for a more coherent European foreign policy. The EU is also currently undertaking a review of the EU's global "strategy." However, in these discussions, the growing economic dependence of EU member states on non-Western powers is rarely discussed. Unless European policymakers go further in connecting internal and external policy, this leverage by non-Western powers could undermine the progress Europeans are making in developing a more coherent foreign policy. At the moment, there is no mechanism for EU member states to collectively reconcile their internal and external interests. For example, after Tsipras threatened to undermine sanctions, the EU had no way to discuss how to balance the need to resolve the euro crisis with the need to uphold the European security order to reconcile member states' interests in each. The EU has long made trade-offs between the different interests of member states on both internal and external policy. Indeed, such trade-offs are the basis of European integration. But the changing relationship of EU member states with the rest of the world - in particular the increased leverage that non-Western states will have over them - mean that it is now necessary for the EU to go further in connecting its internal and external policy and to make even more complex trade-offs between member states' interests. In short, the EU needs a mechanism through which it can prioritize between internal and external objectives. (AP photo) Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Russian Security Council, said in an interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets that the United States was trying to weaken Russia in order to gain access to its mineral resources. He added that the "disintegration of the Russian Federation is not ruled out" by the United States. "This will open access to the richest resources for the United States, which believes that Russia possesses them undeservedly." Coming from a senior Russian official and former head of the Russian intelligence service close to President Vladimir Putin, this statement has to be taken seriously. This is not because the statement is true, nor even that Patrushev believes it's true, but because it gives us a sense of how the Russians are framing the ongoing confrontations with the United States and in turn, the reasons for Russia's problems. The United States is being framed as an existential threat to Russia's survival because of conscious, intentional U.S. strategies. As the Russian economy disastrously declines and real wages plunge, explaining the country's troubles as the result of the malignant intentions of an outside power shifts the blame from a failure of the Russian government to an American plot. The Russian government becomes the victim and the protector of the Russian people, who in turn are expected to rally behind the Kremlin. Putin has recently made several statements praising Josef Stalin. Stalin had miscalculated the Nazis' intentions and signed a treaty with them in 1939, only to then face a German invasion of the USSR in June 1941. Stalin used the invasion to create a bond between himself, the Soviet state and the Soviet people. Whatever questions the public might have had about Stalin's wisdom in being so unprepared for the invasion became unimportant. Germany threatened the Soviet public, the state protected them and only Comrade Stalin could keep the state and the people together. There is a link between Putin's slow resurrection of Stalin and the idea that the United States is plotting Russia's destruction. The reality of Russia's dire economic situation and the sense of embattlement the Kremlin is creating are two different things. To begin with, the Russian explanation for the American strategy is a desire to control Russian resources. The problem with this theory is that the United States is itself mineral rich, and the development of American energy technology dealt with whatever oil shortages existed. Most of the minerals the U.S. lacks are readily available in the Western hemisphere. If the United States did need minerals, the idea that it would look for them in a massively destabilized Russia is far fetched. Accessing, extracting and shipping the minerals would present political, military and logistical nightmares. In the past, Germany and Japan have each considered accessing Russia by various means to alleviate mineral shortages. The United States has never entertained the notion because it either already has the minerals or can easily find them elsewhere much more cheaply. The United States, in fact, would not like to see the disintegration of the Russian Federation. When the Soviet Union collapsed, it collapsed largely into orderly parts, with Russia as the successor state. If Russia were to collapse, there would be no order. Russia borders Scandinavia, the European Peninsula, Turkey and China. The United States gains little advantage from chaos and might be drawn into situations that could spiral out of control. Also, Russia has several thousand nuclear weapons and missiles. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Washington and Moscow worked to transfer all nuclear weapons in former Soviet territory into the control of a responsible state. The thought of loose nuclear weapons and missiles in Tajikistan or other former Soviet republics was an American nightmare. If Russia disintegrated, it could lose control of these nuclear weapons, posing an existential threat to the United States and to other countries. The idea that the United States would risk this level of chaos in order to secure control of Russian minerals runs counter to all strategic or geopolitical thinking. The problem is not that the United States is plotting the disintegration of the Russian Federation. The problem is that the Russian Federation is moving toward disintegration on its own. The single greatest failure of post-Cold War Russia was not using oil revenues to underwrite, possibly with outside investment, a robust and diversified economy. Putin wanted to do this, but the complexity of the Russian political system resulted in the diversion of revenue from a drastic modernization drive to creating a stable coalition to maintain the status quo. Political reality blocked economic necessity, as has frequently happened in the Russian system. The Russians could not control the price of oil - the foundation of the Russian economy. When the China bubble burst and Europe entered a long-term crisis, expectation of growth in demand for oil evaporated. At the same time, due to irrationally high prices and new technology, oil surged into the market. The outcome was the collapse in oil prices and eventually the realization that these prices might represent the new normal. Russia funds much of its national budget and regional governments through oil revenues. There is a growing funding problem as resources dry up, and the regions' umbilical cords to Moscow are disintegrating. There's a new sheriff in town in the Middle East -- and it's not the United States of America, who just spent trillions of dollars and lost thousands of soldiers in two different wars in the region. The new hegemon in the Levant and the Fertile Crescent is a rising axis of Russian, Iranian, and Syrian power. Beginning with the Iranian Quds Force commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani's trip to Moscow in July 2015 -- where together with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he planned the Russian and Iranian offensive that has preserved the Assad regime until now -- the Russian-Iranian partnership has blossomed in myriad ways. Russia has backed the Assad family regime in Syria since the 1970's, when Nikita Khrushchev founded the Russian naval base in the Mediterranean at Tartus on the Syrian coast. It was always highly doubtful that the Kremlin would allow such a long-term ally to be shredded in the maw of the Arab Spring. Therefore it was only natural that the Syrian regime's biggest Shiite benefactor, the Islamic Republic of Iran, would be a natural ally for the Russian Federation. Russia and Iran is a natural marriage -- each needs the other in different ways. For one, Russia needs money, badly. Iran is about to come into a lot of it, as the Iran nuclear deal is implemented, an agreement that, by the way, Russia helped put in place. Western sanctions over Russia's actions in Ukraine, and the collapse in the price of crude oil, are devastating the Russian federal budget. Iran can help alleviate this lack of cash flow by buying a whole lot of Russian weapons. Already Moscow is shipping Iran the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system, and there is talk of Iran buying tanks from Russia to modernize its armor, which is antiquated and sorely lacking in capability. Analysts predict that if the price of oil stays in the $30 range, Russian foreign currency reserves could be depleted within two years, along with a significant devaluation of the ruble. Russia has also announced it will be assisting Iran with the development of nuclear power facilities in the near future. It is also likely that the Iranians are not driving as hard of a bargain as the Chinese when negotiating pricing with the Kremlin. Iran owes Russia for the coming sanctions relief, and is therefore negotiating from a position of weakness with Russia. Hezbollah, Iran's proxy terrorist army in Lebanon, is now being armed by Russia as well. Russia has built large weapons depots in Syria and given Hezbollah free access in exchange for intelligence and targeting information for Russian airstrikes originating out of Latakia and other forward operating bases Moscow has constructed near rebel-held areas. For now, Hezbollah is training these weapons on the Syrian opposition; however, at some point, they will look south toward Israel. Russia and Syria just this month announced that they signed an agreement allowing Russia to enjoy an open-ended military presence in Syria. Also announced were joint air missions where Syrian MIG-29s escorted Russian bombers as they attacked Islamic State positions. The Russian air assault on anti-Assad forces has saved the Assad regime, and therefore Moscow's footprint in the Middle East, for now. This result obviously saves Iran's influence in Syria and Lebanon, therefore allowing Iran to maintain pressure on Israel. After all, Iran's call for the destruction of the Jewish State has never really been repudiated. Combined with Iranian influence in Baghdad, the axis of Iran, Russia, and Syria controls territory from Persia all the way to the Levant. It truly is a remarkable turn of events. The speed in which the power vacuum was filled after the withdrawal of most American troops from the region is simply stunning. In a period of years, the Middle East may see a nuclear-armed Iran using this regional hegemony to force its will on the world. Israel could be isolated. America and NATO might have a much tougher time shaping events in this volatile area of the globe without the ability to gain a foothold, being squeezed out by possible territorial control of this new axis. (AP photo) Property details: This listing is for the Pine Meadows Range Lot 465 and 466 Unit 4 - FIVE ACRES of undeveloped land, no structures or utilities. It is located along a dirt road named Apache Drive and is accessible by car without four wheel drive. The property is a 20 minute drive from the El Morro National Monument, a stable water source used for centuries by travelers through the region on their way west, and the art community of Ramah, New Mexico (87321), home of the famous Ancient Way Cafe and outpost. A lit... Price: $ 7,500 Seller State of Residence: Nevada Property Address: Lot 465 and 466 Pine Meadows Ranches State/Province: NM City: Ramah Type: Homesite, Lot Zoning: Residential Zip/Postal Code: 87321 Location: 870**, Grants, New Mexico You will be redirected to eBay Nearby 87321 Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale Buy real estate. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale in US and Canada. Search Real Estate By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 01/27/2016 ADVERTISEMENT Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade. judge Jennifer Lopez is back together with Casper Smart, but is she looking to walk down the aisle again?"I'm not engaged and I didn't know there were rumors," Lopez told Ryan Seacrest on his KIIS-FM radio show Wednesday, according to E! News. "I've been so busy that I haven't really had time to keep up with the gossip."The 46-year-old singer and Shades of Blue actress confirmed she's dating Smart again while appearing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show earlier this month. However, "no wedding" is in the works.Lopez and Smart, 28, appeared to begin dating back in November 2011, which was only four months after Lopez had split from Marc Anthony , her third ex-husband with whom she shares seven-year-old twins Max and Emme.Lopez and Smart dated for almost three years before calling it quits in June 2014. Rumors had circulated around the time of the pair's split that Smart had cheated on Lopez with a transgender model he allegedly met online and had been exchanging messages and photos with via Instagram.Despite the bad press, Lopez and Smart maintained a friendship after their breakup. They were spotted together on numerous occasions in 2015, including holidays and award shows, sparking speculation the on-again, off-again pair were back together Prior to Anthony, Lopez had wed and divorced Ojani Noa and Cris Judd . She also had high-profile relationships with rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs and actor Ben Affleck , whom she had been engaged to.Lopez recently said on NBC's Today show her failed relationships won't stop her from wanting to be a bride again, and ultimately a wife."I love getting married," she admitted, according to E! News. "I really want to get married in a church with a big dress."Maybe the fourth time will be the charm, and maybe Smart will be that lucky guy!'s fifteenth and final season currently airs Wednesday and Thursday nights on Fox. By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 01/28/2016 ADVERTISEMENT Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade. Former star Chris Soules has a lawsuit on his hands.Soules is suing the dating website Farmersonly.com for allegedly using his likeness in advertisements, People reported According to the lawsuit Soules filed Tuesday, Farmers Only -- which caters to rural singles -- advertised "a bachelor farmer in search of love" and reportedly made Soules "identifiable from the combination of a picture with a blacked-out person" and a reference to the bachelor falling for a city girl.The Farmers Only ads did not use Soules' name, but the campaign went as far as to mention the bachelor's engagement ending because he "picked a city girl" and how his relationship would've fared better had he gone to the website and selected a country girl.Soules is upset with the company because he feels they capitalized on his story from . At the end of the ABC reality dating series' nineteenth season, Soules proposed to Whitney Bischoff , a fertility nurse from Chicago. The couple ended their engagement in May, and by that point, Bischoff had yet to move to Soules' farm in Arlington, Iowa.Soules is asking for compensation from Farmers Only for allegedly using his image without permission. He's also seeking legal fees, People reported. , We're sorry, this article is not currently available Survey: Only one third of Chinese white collar workers to get annual bonus After a year of hard work, will Chinese white-collar workers receive their year-end bonuses? A survey released by Zhilian Recruiting on Monday shows only 13.4 percent of them have got annual bonuses and 20.5 percent have been promised the reward after Chinese lunar new year. In other words, only one third of Chinese white collars are lucky enough to have bonuses. Zhilian, a China-based recruitment website, conducted the survey in 32 cities. Among them, employees in Hangzhou boast the highest year-end bonuses per capita with 15,044 yuan, followed by Beijing (14,412 yuan) and Shanghai (13,532 yuan). While employees from Guiyang and Yantai can expect to receive an average bonus of less than 5,000 yuan, ranking them bottom place. 93.4 percent of workers will get cash bonus, 11.7 percent will be rewarded in items and 2.7 in stocks or stock options, according to the survey. The survey shows employees from Xiamen were the most satisfied in China with their bonuses in 2015, followed by Changsha and Shanghai. Employees from Guiyang show the least satisfaction with their bonuses. Chinese finance industry employees lead the respondents in year-end bonuses with 17,039 yuan per person, followed by the sectors of energy, mining, environmental protection, IT/communications, electronics and the Internet. And service industry employees have the lowest level with only 6,102 yuan. As for different enterprises and institutions, SOE employees enjoy the highest average bonuses with 17,027 yuan. The next are government departments (11,098 yuan), wholly foreign-owned enterprises (10,752 yuan) and private firms (8,506 yuan). The overall average year-end bonus in 2015 amounted to 10,767 yuan, lower than 13,613 yuan of the previous year, according to the survey. The global real estate network of CENTURY 21 Real Estate expands its brand in Slovenia with the launch of the company's new CENTURY 21 Slovenia in the country's capital city of Ljubljana. "Extending the brand's presence in the Republic of Slovenia is an exciting expansion for CENTURY 21 as we continue to build on our global leadership positioning," said Rick Davidson, president and chief executive officer of Century 21 Real Estate LLC. "We look forward to CENTURY 21 Slovenia becoming a market leader in Europe's only country that combines the Alps, the Mediterranean, the Pannonian Plain and the Karst." According to the press release of CENTURY 21 in PR NewsWire, Victoria Babkova, owner of CENTURY 21 Slovenia, signed an exclusive 25-year franchise agreement to develop the CENTURY 21 brand throughout the Republic of Slovenia. "Our vision is clear," said Gorican Denis, Chief Executive Officer of CENTURY 21 Slovenia. "We want to establish superior quality services and become a marker leader not only in Slovenia but Croatia as well. We are amazed by the ongoing support the CENTURY 21 System is giving us and proud that we took an important step forward by affiliating with the C21 brand." CENTURY 21 Slovenia will be an independently owned and operated master franchise affiliate of Century 21 Real Estate LLC. "I am incredibly impressed with the level of expertise, client focus, professionalism and culture of the leadership team at CENTURY 21 Slovenia," added Davidson. "I am confident that Gorican and his team will ensure that our brand is identified with professionalism, honesty, integrity, and the highest standards of quality service." Century 21 Real Estate LLC is a franchisor of the iconic CENTURY 21 brand with the largest global network in the residential real estate industry. At present, the company has approximately 6,900 independently owned and operated franchised broker offices in 78 countries and territories worldwide, as well as has more than 101,000 independent sales professionals. New York-based Prudential Nutshell Realty joins the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, part of the HSF Affiliates LLC family of real estate brokerage franchise networks, and will now be operating under the name Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Nutshell Realty. "We are excited that the Nutshell Realty team has chosen to join Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices," said Gino Blefari, CEO of HSF Affiliates. "The brokerage will represent the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices brand well with their strong reputation throughout the community and [their] high ethical standards within the marketplace." According to the press release of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices in Business Wire, the Nutshell Realty is a full-service brokerage that was founded in 2001. The company has been serving the Mid-Hudson Valley and Ulster County, and is considered to be one of the top-performing brokerages in both volume and units sold among the 140 companies in its marketplace. "We are proud and excited to join Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices," said Tim Sweeney, associate broker and co-owner of Nutshell Realty. "The brand, whose namesake is the world-renowned Berkshire Hathaway Inc, was built on strong values of stability, strength, quality and innovation, and those fundamental values mean everything to us." In addition to the ongoing business consultation, professional education, marketing support, and the exclusive Luxury Collection program for high-end and resort listings, agents from Nutshell Realty will also gain access to the Global Network Platform of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, that includes a suite of online tools, applications and services. "We are always focused on growth and productivity," said Tom Jackson, broker and co-owner of Nutshell Realty. "This new brand will enable us to provide even better service to our clients and strengthen our presence locally." Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices is a California-based real estate brokerage network that was built for a new era in residential real estate. Founded in 2013, at present, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices has 42,000 agents and 1,200 offices operating in 47 states. As Sydney celebrated the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Sydney Opera House in 1973, the event was attended by the son of Jan Utzon, the building's designer. Although it has been four decades since the completion of the opera house, the controversy behind its foundation is never forgotten. When Australian PM Joseph Cahill announced a contest in December 1955 to design an opera house, Utzon filed an entry of 12 drawings, which were initially rejected, until an architect named Eero Sarinen picked his design and eventually became the winner. Although the judges referred to his design as very simple, they finally acknowledged the design's innovativeness. When the construction started in March 1959, the estimated cost was set at seven million Australian dollars; however, the final design has not yet been finished by Utzon. A couple of years following the construction, the plan was a year late from its schedule because the construction has already started even before the designs were completed. In 1965, Australian PM Robert Askin and David Hughes, a public works minister, took control of the project. They required Utzon to provide the completion date and final costing. But when Utzon refused to give up the creative control over the project, Hughes cut off the funding for the architect, which forced him to resign in 1966. At that time, the construction was almost completed while the cost had already reached AUD $23 million. The resignation was followed by controversy and protests by people who demanded for Utzon's reinstatement. The architect later left the country. But, in the late 1990s, the Sydney Opera House Trust initiated the communication with Utzon and made him the building consultant. Today, the Sydney Opera House receives eight million guests every year, enhancing the economy of Australia by AUD $775 million, and is being regarded as an iconic building that has earned Sydney an international significance, CPH Post reported. The New York City Economic Development Corp. is looking for a developer to help demolish majority of a block in Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan. The city is looking to put up a mixed-use development in its place. According to Crain's, the redevelopment will house hundreds of apartments, retail spaces and even a 150,000 square foot facility for a nonprofit organization, which currently owns the existing property. The city is gearing up to launch its bidding process in search of a developer for two sites surrounded by 10th Avenue, between West 40th and West 41st Streets. As it turns out, the two development sites could consist of as much as 700 apartment units. The selected developer will definitely face a challenge though, as 40 percent of the total units will need to be affordable. The winner of the bidding wars will also need to reserve a portion of the block to make way for a future No. 7 train subway station, as well as building a new facility for Covenant House New York, a nonprofit organization that aids homeless adolescents with shelter, and educational and employment programs. "We see the chance to build a state-of-the-art facility to ensure we can end the waiting lists, and help strengthen the quality of programming we are providing," said Creighton Drury, the executive director of Covenant House New York. Drury also noted that the organization had to decline as much as 80 people a month because of limited spaces (the nonprofit can currently accommodate only 350 people per night). The institution currently operates in three different buildings on the same block, near 10th Avenue. Covenant House New York first purchased a series of three buildings back in the 1970s, when Manhattan's West Side and the proximate Port Authority Bus Terminal were still far from the city's prime locations. Since the assets have become more valuable and desirable, the Covenant House New York is hoping that the new development will give them a new home. In fact, the chosen developer will have to start construction on the nonprofit's home before anything else. Check out the photo of the property here. The buildings outlined in red are part of the potential development site. What was the Spring Festival travel rush like 60 years ago? Editor's note: A group of photo shows the journey of a train from Beijing to Dalian in northeast China's Liaoning province in January 1956. China railway mileage was 26,500 kilometers in that year. 60 years later, the railway mileage reached over 100,000 kilometers, with 19,000 kilometers of high-speed rail, ranking the first in the world. The upgrade of railway network makes peoples journey home more convenient. It is estimated that 2.91 billion trips will be made during the 40-day travel rush from Jan. 24 to March 3 this year, said the Ministry of Transport. Wang Shujuan, a worker of a factory, returns to work after sick leave on a train from Beijing to Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning province in January 1956. (China Youth Daily/Jia Huamin) All crew members of a train from Beijing to Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning province, take their colleagues' turn on duty in January 1956. (China Youth Daily/Jia Huamin) The school year begins, and students line the halls of the Zell B. Miller Learning Center, walking to class or just burning time. Many of these students go to school on some form of the HOPE Scholarship, the legacy project of the buildings namesake. The crew at Dons Sandwich Shop: Tyler Perry, left, Robin Lentz, Linda OBrien, Polly Spahn and customer Teri Booker SHARE Half chef salad ($6.95) at Dons Sandwich Shop Half of a Morgan sandwich ($6.55) Cup of clam chowder ($2.95), a Friday special By Marc Beauchamp Described as Reddings first deli, Dons Sandwich Shop on Bechelli Lane has been serving up pastrami and corned beef sandwiches since 1962. Cottonwood native Robin Lentz, the fourth owner of the business, is keeping founder Don Hirbes tradition alive with great deli sandwiches, daily soup specials, homemade fruit pies and cookies. Were so old school here, Lentz told me after lunch last Friday. Its like going to your mother or grandmothers house for dinner we make it all from scratch. Its the kind of place where regulars are called by their first names. We know all our customers. Its kind of like walking into Cheers. Everybody knows everybody and everybody talks to everybody. Dons is known for its popular pastrami sandwich, Lentz said. I drive down and pick up the pastrami in Sacramento and we shave it ourselves. Also popular is the spicy Morgan sandwich your choice of meat with french dip, pepperjack cheese and green chile. I had it on Dutch crunch bread with a side of potato salad and a cup of clam chowder. My wife ordered the half chef salad. Ambience? Old Redding wood laminate on the walls, Formica tabletops and florescent lights. Regulars include construction workers and contractors, seniors and young mothers. Lentz bought the place in 2008 and has had to endure some tough economic times. But the place is carrying itself now, she said, in large part because of manager and friend Linda OBrien. Havent been to Dons? Its open weekdays for lunch. Look for the sign on the side of Bechelli Lane just across the street from Nellos Place. I was full after my sandwich and sides otherwise I wouldve tried a piece of fresh-baked pie or the bread pudding with whiskey sauce. Or an old-time milkshake. Noticed the vintage Hamilton Beach mixer behind the counter. Regulars also load up on the chocolate chip cookies, baked daily, Lentz told me. Lentzs favorite meat is the roasted turkey (its real, not processed ... we roast it every day) on a sourdough roll and the chicken artichoke soup special on Tuesdays. Her husband, Ben, and manager OBrien prefer the pastrami. Lentz was raised on a cattle ranch in Cottonwood. Thats why I learned to cook (at age 11). Im the oldest of eight and I always had to cook for the hired hands. Some 45 years later shes still cooking for an appreciative crowd. go now Dons Sandwich Shop Address: 3034 Bechelli Lane, Redding Phone: 223-3744 Hours: Monday - Friday 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Social media: Facebook Owners: Robin and Ben Lentz Established: 1962 Sample menu items: Pastrami sandwich $8.95 Morgan sandwich $9.95 Half chef salad $6.95 Potato salad $2.95 Soup (bowl) $5.95 Pie $3.50 Bread pudding $3.50 Old-time milkshake $3.95 Tami Huntsman is escorted out of Monterey County Superior Court following her arraignment Jan. 8 in Salinas. A California couple with 22 years of age between them appeared briefly in court to face charges they killed two of the womans young children, stuffed their bodies in a plastic bin and stashed them in a Redding rental storage unit. Huntsman, 39, and her 17-year-old companion, Gonzolo Curiel, appeared in court to be arraigned on first-degree murder charges for the deaths of Huntsmans 6-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son. Curiel is being tried as an adult. SHARE Gonzolo Curiel By Nathan Solis of the Redding Record Searchlight Tami Huntsman and Gonzolo Curiel have pleaded not guilty to the killing of two children found in a Redding storage locker in December, and abusing of a third child who was in the care of Huntsman. Huntsman, 39, and her boyfriend Curiel, 17, are accused of abusing to death a 6-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, stuffing their bodies in a plastic bin and storing them in a storage unit at AAA Enterprise Stor-All in Redding in December. The pair is also charged with abusing a 9-year-old girl, who was found starving and with broken bones in the back of an SUV parked in Quincy. She was hospitalized for several days and is expected to recover physically from her injuries. Huntsman appeared at Monterey County Superior Court at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, according to court records. Huntsman attorney Kay Duffy declined to comment, telling reporters outside of court that she was just assigned the case. The teen's attorney, Jeremy Dzubay, also declined to comment. On Dec. 18, Dean Flippo, Monterey County District Attorney, filed charges against Huntsman and Curiel, who despite his age will be charged as an adult. Both are charged with two counts of murder, including three counts of torture, child abuse and conspiracy. The District Attorney's Office has not made the decision if it will pursue the death penalty for Huntsman. Curiel is not eligible due to his age, Flippo said. The three victims were siblings and in the custody of Huntsman and lived with Huntsman, her boyfriend and her three biologic children in Salinas. Investigators believe the two children were killed in Salinas as a result of sustained physical abuse and neglect. The rest of the children were placed in foster care. Authorities responding to a request for a welfare check found the 9-year-old in the locked SUV on Dec. 11 and arrested the couple in the apartment, where they were staying in Quincy. Two days after the arrests, authorities say Curiel told investigators about the two bodies at the storage unit. The children were reported to be found in the Redding storage unit on Dec. 13. The Shasta County Coroner's Office performed an autopsy on the children and determined the deaths occurred outside of Shasta County. Authorities say the couple abused the three children over the course of a year. In the district attorney's complaint, the children are identified as John and Jane Doe. But at a news conference in December, Flippo said he's confident the two children are 3-year-old Delylah Tara and 6-year-old Shaun Tara, who were in Huntman's custody. Shasta County District Attorney Stephen Carlton said the autopsy showed the children died sometime around Thanksgiving. A preliminary hearing has been set for Feb. 19, according to the Monterey County District Attorney's Office. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Tami Joy Huntsman SHARE By APNewsNow SALINAS, Calif. (AP) A Northern California couple has pleaded not guilty to killing two young children and abusing a third in the womans care. Tami Huntsman and her 17-year-old boyfriend are accused of abusing to death a 6-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, stuffing their bodies in a plastic bin and storing them in a rented storage unit in Redding. The pair is also charged with abusing a 9-year-old girl, who was found starving and with broken bones in the back of an SUV parked in Quincy. The three victims were siblings and in the custody of 39-year-old Huntsman. The three victims lived with Huntsman, her boyfriend and in Salinas. Investigators believe the children were killed in Salinas due to sustained physical abuse and neglect. SHARE Joseph Nurkiewicz James Lister Homeless forum set for Thursday A homeless forum that will feature four to five homeless or formerly homeless local residents will be at 6 p.m. Thursday at First United Methodist Church, 1825 East St., Redding. The event, hosted by Shasta County Citizens Advocating Respect, will include refreshments. The homeless who will participate are in their early 20s. Deputies: Man held in bomb threats Trevor James really didn't want to have his day in court Tuesday in Tehama County. James, 35, of Red Bluff, was scheduled to appear in court, but instead was arrested on suspicion of calling in a bomb threat at the Tehama County Courthouse, the Tehama County Sheriff's Office said. Two calls came in Tuesday morning that claimed a bomb had been placed near the Tehama County Superior Court Department 1. James approached deputies while they investigated the threat and said he was to appear in court. He wanted to be excused because the courthouse had been evacuated. But James was told he would still need to show up. He was to appear for sentencing related to possessing stolen property. Moments later, another phone call came in. This time the caller claimed to have placed a bomb in every courtroom. Deputies still observed James in the area and saw he had a cell phone, which they asked to see. Deputies looked at the phone and discovered all recent calls had been erased, the sheriff's office said. James told deputies he did not know the cell phone's number. But before they gave the phone back to James, deputies got the number. While waiting for the Shasta County Bomb Squad to arrive, deputies did a trace on the calls received and found the bomb-threat calls had come from James' cell phone, the sheriff's office said. A suspicious device was discovered near a water fountain by the courthouse steps and the bomb squad rendered it safe. James was arrested and a search warrant was obtained for his home. At the residence, investigators found evidence linking James to the planted device, the sheriff's office said. Redding police list problem motels The Redding Police Department is now posting a list of the motels that have the most police calls on its website. The service was requested by the Redding City Council and includes the name and address of each motel, as well as a breakdown of the number of various calls for service, such as theft, disturbances and suspicious vehicles. You can access the page at http://reddingpolice.org/resources/hotelscfs/, or accessed through the Resources pulldown menu at the top of the website. Domestic violence sends man to prison A 38-year-old Red Bluff man has been sentenced to four years in prison after being arrested last year on suspicion of punching his girlfriend in the face, knocking out her prosthetic eye, Tehama County prosecutors said Wednesday. James Matthew Lister was arrested Sept. 2, 2015, on domestic violence and other charges in connection with the assault. In addition to punching his girlfriend in the face, Lister also forced his fist into her mouth to try to make her "eat his ring," prosecutors said. Boyfriend who lit bed sentenced Tehama County prosecutors said Wednesday a 37-year-old Red Bluff man has been sentenced to four years in state prison after he was arrested in September for threatening to burn down his home and lighting a bed on fire. Joseph Paul Nurkiewicz, who lived with his girlfriend and three sons, threatened to burn down the home during an argument, prosecutors said. Nurkiewicz, who was charged with arson and making criminal threats, then lit a fire to the mattress on which the children were sleeping, prosecutors said. Driver injured in Shasta Lake crash A 26-year-old woman was sent to the hospital after her vehicle ran into a tree Wednesday morning in Shasta Lake. The Shasta County Sheriff's Office said they received a report at 7:12 a.m. about the wreck on Shasta Dam Boulevard, just west of Rouge Road. Deputies determined the driver, Alyssa Chambers, was traveling east on Shasta Dam Boulevard when her 2000 Dodge Dakota left the south side of the roadway and struck the tree. Chambers suffered major injuries, deputies said. The cause of the collision is pending an investigation, but alcohol was not determined to be a factor in the crash, the sheriff's office said. Building burns in Shasta Lake A commercial building that has been vacant for several years caught fire Wednesday night in the city of Shasta Lake. The fire was reported about 8 p.m. in the area of Shasta Dam Boulevard and Lassen Avenue, according to dispatch reports. The vacant building is next to the Shasta Lions Club on the north side of Shasta Dam Boulevard. Battalion Chief Charles Dahlen said the fire burned a couch and through the floor in the front of the building before it was extinguished. It took firefighters about five minutes to knock it down. There were no injuries and the cause of the fire is under investigation. Dahlen said the building had been tagged by the city because it was unsafe to occupy but break-ins continued to happen. Concerned about the survival of winter-run Chinook salmon, state wildlife officials want to close fishing on a section of the Sacramento River in Redding for four months this spring and summer. SHARE By Damon Arthur of the Redding Record Searchlight Concerned about the survival of winter-run Chinook salmon, state wildlife officials want to close a section of the Sacramento River in Redding for four months this spring and summer. Under the proposal, the river would be closed from the Highway 44 bridge to Keswick Dam from April 1 through July 31. While salmon fishing would not be allowed in the 5-mile stretch of river, state Department of Fish and Wildlife officials are worried about trout anglers accidentally hooking a salmon during spawning. Fisheries officials are especially worried about the endangered winter-run because over the past two years, about 95 percent of the eggs and recently hatched fish were killed by high water temperatures in the river during the summer and early fall. Curtis Milliron, a fisheries program manager for the DFW, said there are so few winter-run salmon returning to the river that his department has to do everything it can to help them spawn without distractions. "This race of fish, the winter run, is in some of the poorest condition it's ever been in," Milliron said. Nearly all of the endangered winter-run Chinook spawn in that section of the river. Other Chinook, such as the fall run, also spawn in other sections of the river and in tributaries. There are four species of salmon that spawn in the river the fall, late fall, winter and spring runs. DFW officials are holding a meeting Friday to talk about the proposal, which needs to be approved by the California Fish and Game Commission. While recreational fishing guides understood the reasons for closing the area to fishing, they weren't happy about it. The river is renowned for its trout fishing and draws anglers from around the world. Fishing guide Kirk Portocarrero said he lost about 20 percent of his business when the river was closed to fishing last year. "It hurt me quite a bit. It's a section a lot of boats want to go to," Portocarrero said. Nick Fasiano, director of the outfitting department at the Fly Shop in Redding, said the closure last year hurt the company's guide business. However, there is still plenty of river to fish, even with the closure, he said. "The big red letters are the Sacramento River is closed to fishing, when in reality we still have a lot of good fishing still open," he said. Fasiano said he would like to see the state close the river to all types of boating. But Milliron said DFW only has the authority to keep anglers out of the area. To help protect the fish, the city of Redding has agreed to lower the light level on the Sundial Bridge during the period the river is closed to fishing. Milliron said the young fish swimming out to sea are attracted to the lights under the bridge and stop when then see them. When the young fish stop and gather at the lights, they become easy prey for trout, he said. Lowering the lights keeps the fish moving along, he said. To make up for the high number of young fish killed on their way out to the ocean, U.S. Fish & Wildlife officials also plan to more than double the number of fish it releases into the Sacramento River from the Livingston Stone Fish Hatchery near Shasta Dam. The fish are typically raised at the hatchery and then trucked downstream and released into the river. Fish and wildlife officials said they were waiting to release the fish during a rainstorm in late January or early February. Rain storms help turn the water muddy, giving the fish cover from predators, officials have said. SHARE Concerned about the survival of Winter-run Chinook salmon, state wildlife officials want to close to fishing a section of the Sacramento River in Redding for four months this spring and summer. Under the proposal, the river would be closed from the Highway 44 bridge to Keswick Dam from April 1 through July 31. While salmon fishing is not allowed in the 51/2-mile stretch of river, state Department of Fish and Wildlife officials are worried about trout anglers accidentally hooking a salmon during spawning. Fisheries officials are especially worried about the endangered winter-run because over the past two years, about 95 percent of the eggs and recently hatched were killed by high water temperatures in the river during the summer and early fall. Nearly all of the endangered winter-run Chinook spawn in that section of the river. Other Chinook, such as the fall run, spawn in other sections of the river and in tributaries. The department is holding a public hearing to take comments on the proposal on Friday. The meeting is from 4-5:30 p.m. at the Redding Public Library, 1100 Parkview Ave. in Redding. The American television drama series House of Cards features U.S. politicians' ruthless pragmatism and manipulation in political struggle. As inappropriate as it is, some people still compare China's anti-corruption campaign to House of Cards, insinuating anti-corruption is a tool for power struggle to discriminate against dissidents. Is this just alarmism? Corruption is the natural enemy of modern politics. Some people refer to the anti-corruption campaign as a political need, or another type of conflict among the politicians. It does make sense if this political need means to purify the governing party and keep a closer relationship with the people, and conflict means fighting against corruption and controlling its spread. Action is the best response to these rumors. The CPC Central Disciplinary Committee and Ministry of Supervision set up an anti-corruption website, a mobile app, and an account on WeChat to improve the transparency of their work by inviting people to supervise and report. Instead of playing House of Cards, facts have shown that the anti-corruption campaign in China is the terminator of any House of Cards scheme. If the anti-corruption campaign in China really is a so-called power struggle, then how can the fact that even officials of grassroots villages have also been investigated for graft be explained? Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, countless rumors have collapsed on themselves. Safe landing fell to the ground as retired officials also have to be investigated, punish someone as a warning to others collapsed after several big tigers also got caged for corruption. All the achievements resulting from the anti-corruption campaign so far are more than enough evidence of the determination of China fighting official graft. The reason that anti-corruption is a power struggle still has a market to spread out is mostly because of information asymmetry, rumors from some ulterior motivations and the mentality of the social transformation period. Different from literature and arts, the key of politics lays in public benefits and prudence. While for the public, instead of spreading hearsay news irresponsibly, people should use their right of speech and question events properly when it comes to politics; for functional governmental departments, the openness of discipline inspection work still needs to be further propelled, and they should also be more concerned with the publics doubt and response to them in a timely manner. It is an unquestioned fact that the anti-corruption campaign has fostered peoples trust and support for the Party. Fallacies can neither cover the accomplishment achieved from the campaign, nor stop the firm steps in strengthening Party discipline. This article is edited and translated from , Source: People's Daily. SHARE It might seem crazy what I'm about to say, as Pharrell Williams sang in the "Happy" song, but I am another happy guy, which is just as irritating in its own way. Sadly, I am a happy but lonely outlier. A poll announced earlier this month confirmed what we already knew that Americans are in a growing state of rage. As a people, we are angrier than wet hens. We are madder than nudists caught outdoors when a cold front arrives. We are more peeved than some of the readers of this column, which is saying a lot, as some appear to live in a constant state of peevedom. Of course, these descriptions are mine informed by my own interactions with the chronically agitated and do not appear in the findings of the poll. It was called the "American Rage Survey" and was a joint project of NBC News, Survey Monkey and Esquire. It is appropriate that Survey Monkey was involved, especially as the subject was Americans going ape. Fortunately, this was an online poll, so the monkeys did not have to go tree to tree with clipboards, which might have upset sloths. Everybody knows that you don't want to upset sloths, as they have many friends in government. The pollsters questioned 3,257 adults in November a few days before Thanksgiving, and some of you are doubtless outraged that you weren't participants. Please don't blame me, I am just the messenger. Ah, to heck with it, blame me anyway if it makes you feel better I'll still be happy. A naive person might suppose that people would be feeling more grateful than usual around Thanksgiving but outrage takes no holiday. The poll found that 49 percent of Americans feel angrier now about current events than they did a year ago. White people were the angriest, 54 percent of them more outraged than last year, compared with Latinos (43 percent) and African-Americans (33 percent). Among political groups, Republicans were angrier than Democrats, proving once more that the GOP stands for Grumpy Old Party. Some 64 percent of Republicans were more irked by current events than they were a year ago, compared with 42 percent for Democrats. This perhaps reflects what might be called the reverse of Obamacare, Obamaconsternation, in which the patient suffers severe political pangs not covered by any insurance. What is wrong with me that I am not mad? I certainly feel the odd man out. I am a white man who until recently was always registered as a Republican before finally overcome by shame (it helped that I moved away and had to re-register to vote). Oh, I sometimes get angry, but overall I have been outrageously happy living in America where the opportunities for political humor are so rife. Although everything is far from swell, I believe in American exceptionalism, the nation's exceptional ability to muddle through every adversity no matter who is in charge. Of course, I was a liberal Republican, which meant that I also had to endure much loneliness. Orphans in the poorhouse on Christmas Eve did not feel so isolated. Will Rogers once said: "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat." I said: "I am not a member of any sane political party. I am a Republican." Ah, those carefree days of shutting down the government, American rage in action to no effective purpose. Still, while my liberal Republican days lasted, it did feel good to be covered by the Endangered Species Act as if I were a whooping crane. I miss that now as an independent. But it's just as well. Most of us should be unaffiliated. George Washington was right. He warned of factions parties, we call them and we now know they lead to nothing but anger and disappointment. Sometimes I will reply to a disgruntled reader and say: "You know, if my politics made me as bitter and unhappy as yours, I'd get a new sort of politics." To believe that politicians will end up doing what you want them to do is to make a date with severe disappointment. You might as well be a Cincinnati Bengals fan and expect your team to go the Super Bowl. This nation has way too much politics going on way too much of the time. No wonder way too much anger exists. Politics is too often a monkeyshines joke. My fellow Americans, laugh already, don't rage. It may sound crazy but it isn't. Reg Henry is a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist. Readers may email him at rhenry@post-gazette.com The fight, which continued this week in Cook County Circuit Court, touches on whether Double Door gave the landlord proper notice that it wished to extend the lease. Schiff introduced documents that included a lease extension request letter from Double Door's Mulroney dated April 24, more than 180 days before the lease expired, as required by the contract. Strauss' attorney, Bonita Stone, said the landlord never received the letter and that she wanted to question Mulroney. Chicago's Ukranian Village neighborhood offers up a hipster scene and beautiful architecture, making it one of the most desirable communities in the city for house hunters. (PHIL VELASQUEZ / CHICAGO TRIBUNE) Ukrainian Village is predicted to be not only Chicago's hottest 'hood this year but also the country's hottest 'hood, according to a new report from real estate brokerage firm Redfin. House hunters searching home listings on Redfin's website are driving the rankings. The Hottest Neighborhoods of 2016 report ranked neighborhoods in 31 metropolitan areas across the nation based on the growth in page views and favorites on Redfin.com and its app for the second half of the year, according the report, released Thursday. "Ukrainian Village itself is tranquil, but bordered on all four sides by business and nightlife corridors. For someone who wants a single-family home while still enjoying city life, the location is ideal," Redfin real estate agent Niko Voutsinas was quoted as saying in a Redfin news release. Advertisement "Much of Ukrainian Village is landmarked, so you'll find brick and stone housing built in the late 1800s, rather than the trendier (and more expensive) new construction condos nearby and on the neighborhood's main thoroughfares." While Ukrainian Village is generating interest in its real estate, the neighborhood is home to places many Chicagoans check out whether they're renters or homeowners, like Empty Bottle and Fatso's Last Stand. Advertisement Other neighborhoods in the Chicago area on Redfin's list are the West Loop and East Village. For Chicagoans who think East Village is in New York, Chicago's East Village neighborhood, also known as the East Ukrainian Village, is bounded by Division Street south to Chicago Avenue and Ashland Avenue west to Damen Avenue, an area many Chicagoans simply refer to as the community area of West Town. Popular restaurants Homestead on the Roof and The Winchester fit within those boundaries. "East Village offers many new construction opportunities, which appeals to many buyers. It's in the heart of the nightlife corridors along Damen, Division, and Chicago Avenue. The transit is also very convenient, via the Blue Line," Voutsinas said. Obviously, the West Loop has seen explosive growth recently in housing and restaurants, including a mix of upscale and casual choices such as Bar Siena, Green Street Smoked Meats and Little Goat, to name a few. "The combination of hot restaurants and easy access to the Loop is appealing. The West Loop area has also established itself as a desired location for startups and tech companies," Voutsinas said. Redfin data show that homes for sale in those three neighborhoods don't stay on the market for long. According to Redfin, the median sale price in 2015 was $472,000 for Ukrainian Village, $368,500 for the West Loop and $482,200 for East Villageall way above the $245,700 for Chicago proper. The neighborhoods are projected to see greater interest, sales and prices in 2016, the Redfin release stated. The top 10 hottest neighborhoods in the U.S.: 1. Ukrainian Village in Chicago Advertisement 2. Eastwood in Nashville, Tenn. 3. Ericsson in Minneapolis 4. Hyde Park in Austin, Texas 5. Mount Pleasant in Washington, D.C. Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. > 6. Midtown in Ventura, Calif. 7. El Camino Real in Irvine, Calif. Advertisement 8. Hampden in Baltimore 9. Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis 10. Roosevelt in Seattle @lvivanco | lvivanco@redeyechicago.com Want to learn how to brew beer or make an awesome cocktail? Click here for cocktail classes in Chicago. A play about marriage equality, a New Belgium beer dinner and more things to do in Chicago on Thursday, Jan. 28. EAT Pizza + New Belgium Beer Dinner Advertisement Ranalli's 1925 N. Lincoln Ave. 312-642-4700 Advertisement Dine on four courses of pizza paired with New Belgium beers including Caribbean pork with Citradelic tangerine IPA and white pizza with Fat Tire amber ale. 7 p.m. $35. Tickets: ranallislincolnpark.com/events DRINK Off Color Brewing Night at County Barbeque County Barbeque 1352 W. Taylor St. 312-929-2528 Try limited-release beers from the Chicago brewery including DinoS'mores imperial stout ($8) and 15 Feet applewood smoked wheat beer ($5) plus food specials such as the Dino Bone, a beef rib served with fries ($18). Brewery reps also raffle off swag. 6 p.m. No cover. Urban Chestnut Stein Giveaway The Radler 2375 N. Milwaukee Ave. 773-276-0270 Advertisement Buy a liter of the St. Louis brewery's Zwickel Bavarian style lager, and you'll get to keep the stein it's served in. 5 p.m. $12. DO 'Le Switch' at Theater Wit. (Photo courtesy of Michael Brosilow ) 'Le Switch' Theater Wit 1229 W. Belmont Ave. 773-975-8150 Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. > About Face Theatre presents the world premiere of Philip Dawkins' romantic comedy about a commitment-shy queer man unsure how to react to U.S. marriage equality. $20-$35. Tickets: aboutfacetheatre.com Will Miles. Will Miles album recording Advertisement Timothy O'Toole's 622 N. Fairbanks Court 312-642-0700 See the Chicago native and co-host of the Comedy at The Knitting Factory show in New York record his debut stand-up comedy album. 9 p.m. Doors open at 8 p.m. $10-$15. Tickets: comediansyoushouldknow.com HAPPY HOUR OF THE DAY Get an Irish coffee, old fashioned, Manhattan or select appetizers for $6 from 4-7 p.m. at Fado Irish Pub (100 W. Grand Ave. 312-836-0066). Want to learn how to brew beer or make an excellent cocktail? Click here for classes in Chicago. Outside Diggi Palace's walls, things may be getting darker. Speech may be under threat; writers may be getting murdered for their writing. But, inside, it is possible to feel hope that ideas, nevertheless, may have their own power, says Mihir S Sharma. In India, few good things can survive a decade of explosive growth. Restaurants lose focus, columnists begin to repeat themselves, companies stop innovating. But, to one's continual surprise, the Jaipur Literature Festival seems to be an exception to this otherwise firm rule. Early every January, people murmur to each other that this will be the year that Diggi Palace is finally swamped; and, every year, the JLF's organisers and their army of bright-eyed young volunteers somehow manage to fit ever more readers, writers, selfie-takers and chai-drinkers within the antique haveli's colourful, frescoed walls. Every fall, people read the programme and say -- well, the next JLF doesn't look quite as exciting, does it? Nothing stands out, right? And, every winter, they return from the festival saying that, as it turns out, the panels and programming worked even better than before. India is now a country of literature festivals. Last year, I was in Chandigarh over a weekend that actually featured two competing festivals, each busy poaching the other's stars to come to their parties. You even have specialised festivals: Delhi's Comic Con now fills a stadium, and during the Crime Writers Festival earlier this month, Oxford Bookstore in Connaught Place was decorated with corpses and blood, and girls bustled around dressed as cops. The excitement that surrounds these is real, and not contrived, as is always the case with occasions celebrating particular genres that have dedicated fans. But, even amidst this multiplicity, Jaipur somehow manages to be the one you really want to go to -- for no reason other than its own energy. When JLF began, it was very much an elite affair; India's English book-reading public is tiny, and this was an opportunity for them to chat with writers from abroad whom they knew of, but would never otherwise have met -- as well as to the writers from small-town and rural India whom they might meet, but might never otherwise have heard of. Some time in the early 2010s -- perhaps the morning that Oprah Winfrey arrived and shut down a couple of Jaipur's main roads -- it became something quite different. Today, it's less a festival of individual writers than it is of ideas; of particular books than it is of the possibility of reading. Yes, people who read only occasionally come -- but not to "be seen" any more. Instead, they come because they hope that listening to authors and being in the sort of environment that JLF provides will make up for the very fact that they don't read all that much. I have little patience for those who disdain this hope -- particularly since the most "literary" of people are more than happy to read essays in The New York Review of Books in the expectation that this is a close substitute to actually reading the book. (As a friend of mine suggested recently, the NYRB should, just once, come out with a gag issue in which it completely mis-states the plot and purpose of each book it's reviewing, and then sit back and watch.) Outside Diggi Palace's walls, things may be getting darker. Speech may be under threat; writers may be getting murdered for their writing. But, inside, it is possible to feel hope that ideas, nevertheless, may have their own power. The most exhilarating of sessions at Jaipur this year was hearing Stephen Fry talk about Oscar Wilde -- a simple yet deeply personal exposition of Wilde's life and trials, in both senses of that word. It was exhilarating not just because Mr Fry is a superb performer, or because Wilde is one of the greatest characters in literary history. It was exhilarating because Mr Fry did not hold back just because he was in India -- he was completely himself in describing growing up, discovering his sexuality, dealing with bullies and a restrictive outside world, and in comparing his own experiences with those of Wilde, a century earlier. And, above all, it was exhilarating because the audience -- overwhelmingly Indian, overwhelmingly small-town, most of which had never heard of Mr Fry and not even perhaps of Oscar Wilde -- spontaneously gave the speech a very rare standing ovation. Outside Diggi Palace's walls, Section 377 is back in force, and those professing alternative sexualities are less free than they were a few scant years ago. But, inside, it was possible to believe that minds could change. If, of course, you let those ideas be heard. Audiences at places like JLF come to educate themselves, to remind themselves that there's a free world of books out there, and to feel better thereby. Occasionally, however, we're reminded of the thuggish outside world, which runs by rules very different from the warm thoughtfulness that granted Mr Fry his ovation. In the hour before the closing debate on free speech, featuring newly-minted government awardee Anupam Kher -- our leading independent intellectual -- a sea of people began unexpectedly streaming through the gates even as the ordinary festival-goers were leaving. Hard-faced men crowded into Diggi Palace's front lawns. When Anupam Kher got up to speak, they cheered and clapped. When a political opponent spoke, they drowned him out with cries of "Modi! Modi! Modi!" (It didn't sound fascist at all). Ideas matter, and places like JLF matter. They can work to change us for the better. But they might not be allowed to. 'I do not call the BJP or RSS as extremist groups, but some small groups all over India have started behaving aggressively after the BJP came to power.' 'These groups think they have the authority to attack anyone and impose their ideas on people.' Archbishop Leo Cornelio, the Archbishop of Bhopal, recently commented that though Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan wanted harmony and peace in the state, some fringe groups responsible for the attacks on Christians were giving a bad image to MP. The Archbishop discusses today's India with Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com The Catholic Secular Forum released a report that painted Madhya Pradesh as the worst state as far as attacks on Christians were concerned. Do you agree with the report? You have to see where the attacks are taking place. We have a large number of Adivasis and tribals in the state to whom education has not reached so far. Some fringe elements, who patronise these people, prevent education from reaching them. They are made to understand that whoever goes to educate them are looked upon as people trying to convert them. That is why they are attacked. But the government does not take any action against these fringe elements as the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), somehow, is intimidated by these people. Top government officials are ready to take action, but at the local level these rogues even intimidate the police. That is why justice is slow and sometimes not there at all. It is not that the government officially supports this kind of violence, but they are unable to control the rogues with a strong hand. Those at the local level take authority in their hands and create problems. Is it not the government's responsibility to rein in these fringe elements? Absolutely! Sadly, some of the government officials are under the mercy of these fringe elements. It happens mainly in the remote areas. For example, the city of Bhopal does not get affected by such problems. There is another side to the story too. I want to say that there are some small groups who try to vigorously preach and create disturbances. Recently, there were reports about some churches being destroyed. They were not actually churches, but huts put up by some groups for prayers. Those were not real churches at all like it was reported in the papers. Do you feel attacks on churches have increased after the BJP came to power at the Centre? I do not call the BJP or the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) as extremist groups, but there are some small groups all over India which have started behaving aggressively after the BJP came to power. Somehow, these extremist groups feel that it is their government, as some of these elements were patronised by the BJP in earlier times. So the government felt obliged to them for coming to power. Take, for example, what happened at the Bible Convention at Jabalpur. Many people had come from villages for the event and at night, some people came and start attacking those who were sleeping there. Though the attackers were identified and arrested, they were let off soon. The government should take strong action against such people who take law into their hands. These groups think they have the authority to attack anyone and impose their ideas on people. Do you feel these fringe elements have affected Prime Minister Modi's image? Definitely! He was silent in the beginning. Later, he spoke a bit, but there was no action from the government's side. What is needed is strong action from the government so that these fringe elements also understand that the government is serious about controlling them. Once they know that they will not get any support from the government, they will keep quiet. Do you feel unsafe after the BJP came to power at the Centre? If you ask me whether I feel unsafe as the Archbishop of Bhopal, I would say -- at the personal level -- I do not feel so. But the incidents that are happening here and there are a matter of concern. It is not a matter of feeling safe or unsafe, we feel the law and order situation has to be preserved. In such a situation, everyone who does not belong to the majority community can feel intimidated or unsafe. It is the duty of the government to ensure that every citizen of the country feels safe. How do you describe Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan's rule? As chief minister, he has been doing a good job. That is why he has been elected for the third time. If he was not doing well, the people of Madhya Pradesh would not have done so. MP was one of the six sick states in the country and under him the state has progressed quite well. The question is how is he dealing with the incidents that are taking place in the state? I feel this government is thriving on advertisement, propaganda, etc. The euphoria that existed during the election is waning now. Has his way of dealing with the minorities changed this time? I would not say the situation has deteriorated. Rather, he has always been quite fair. When I spoke to him, he said he did not want any such incidents happening when he was ruling the state. He also told me that the police would take strong action against anyone who indulges in violence. Like I said, it is the fringe elements that disturb the peace of the state. What is needed is more vigilance and strict action against them so that they will not repeat these crimes. Do you feel with the BJP coming to power at the Centre, the fringe elements have become more active all over India and also in Madhya Pradesh? Archbishop Leo Cornelio 'The word 'conversion' is a tool they are using to attack us. If a student does not get admission in a school of ours, they will accuse us by saying, "We did not get admission because they refused to convert." This is wrong. Thousands of students study in our schools. Do they all convert to Christianity?' 'The word 'conversion' is a tool they are using to attack us. If a student does not get admission in a school of ours, they will accuse us by saying, "We did not get admission because they refused to convert." This is wrong. Thousands of students study in our schools. Do they all convert to Christianity?' They were very active in the beginning of the BJP rule at the Centre, and that was because there was silence on the part of the government. When it became too much, the prime minister said that he would not allow such incidents to happen. After that, I would say that they have gone quiet now and for the past several months, there were less and less such incidents happening though some of them still talk about ghar wapsi and such things. Now that you spoke about ghar wapsi, let me ask you this. Your religion believes in conversion while most Hindu groups talk about ghar wapsi. Where will these parallel activities lead to? The word 'conversion' is a tool they are using to attack us. If a student does not get admission in a school of ours, they will accuse us by saying, 'We did not get admission because they refused to convert.' This is wrong. Thousands of students study in our schools. Do they all convert to Christianity? You must understand that there are these extremist groups in every religion who vehemently preach. It is wrong to degrade another religion, as India is a multi-religious country. Conversion itself is a grace of God. Human beings cannot convert a person's conscience unless God decides. The accusation is that you help people in the tribal areas with the intention of converting them to Christianity... Yes, they say so. Some time back, even Mother Teresa was accused of having the ulterior motive of converting by (RSS Sarsanghchalak) Mohan Bhagawat but it died down when the majority of India spoke against it. The majority of Hindus in India have an understanding of what we do and are very, very, tolerant. Only the fringe groups accuse us. And in every religion, there are these extremist elements. Because of them, you cannot accuse all Christians. If somebody tries to convert against the will of a person, there are enough laws to stop it. But you cannot create laws to target minorities. Is this the reason why the MP government is reluctant to hand over some government schools in the backward districts to churches? You wanted to run them better so that students benefit from it. You said the other day that the government had not responded to your request. Our plan was to adopt one or two schools in the backward areas in order to make them model schools. The government is trying to educate children by giving them books, food, uniform, etc, but not education. Students get everything free except education whereas in our schools, we give education but we do not give anything else free. What we say is if the government gives the responsibility of imparting education in one or two schools, we can appoint some of our sisters or fathers there to oversee teaching. Let the government continue to provide what they are giving till now. They need not even pay our teachers. We think we can help the state and the students this way. The problem is no government teacher wants to work under our supervision because then they have to really work. So you feel it is the teachers who are preventing the government from implementing this idea. Not only teachers, some in the education department are not interested in this idea. Right now, they can take everything easy and not work. When we supervise, we will make everyone work. It is a complex issue. They do not want to see missionaries getting involved in government schools. They will accuse us of using the opportunity to convert. What was the chief minister's response to your request? When I spoke to him, he was very favourable to the idea. He said he alone could not take a decision and had to consult the others. I felt he was not averse to the idea of handing over a couple of schools in the backward areas to us. Our only intention is to impart good education to the students. It is an attempt on our part to show them the way. You also said the other day that the Madhya Pradesh Religious Act is being misused now. Why do you say so? I call this law unjust. We are not talking about freedom to convert; but freedom to practice and preach what you believe in as a Constitutional right. By me practising and preaching, if somebody wants to convert, why should he go to the collector and get his permission to convert? Is it not intrusion into one's fundamental right? About the word inducement, how do you define inducement? Is feeding a hungry inducement? Is taking care of a sick woman in a hospital inducement? One of the most debated words today is intolerance. Do you feel India has become intolerant? India has always been one of the most tolerant countries in the world where so many cultures, so many languages and so many religions co-exist. Having said that, with growth, development and the resultant competitive spirit have made people very intolerant because some section of the people want to dominate the others. Competitiveness has made people intolerant as everybody is in a mad rush to outsmart the other person and win. Unfortunately, Indians have this crab mentality. Indians believe that they can win only if they pull the other person down. The more materialistic a person is, the less spiritual he is. Ideologically also, this dominance is happening. That is why some painters and writers were targeted and killed. India is a religious country as the majority of people believe in some religion or the other. We should have the freedom to express, but without offending others. You cannot hurt or insult anybody's religion or sentiments. Do you feel the world itself is turning intolerant? We see violence happening all around the world. It is, but I feel today the media likes to highlight only violence and negative things. There are so many positive things that are happening everywhere, but what gets prominence is bad news or negative news which is sensational. Only those who do negative things get prominence in the media. This has to change for the violence to stop. Two jail officials and a policeman were on Thursday suspended after "item songs" were performed by a woman dancer in the Dargah Prison campus in Vijaypura, Bijapur district of Karnataka, on Republic Day. Action has been taken against the jail in charge P S Ambekar, Warden Sampat and Head Constable Gundalli based on the report from Vijayapura District Superintendent of Police Siddaramappa, DGP (Prisons) Satyanarayana Rao told reporters. In the video footage aired by some TV channels, currency notes were seen showered on the dancer by a few people around. The event was reportedly held before releasing 38 prisoners from jail for good conduct. The dance show was held before the district in charge minister M B Patil and other dignitaries arrived at the function and presented release certificates to the convicts. Rao said the Bengaluru police team would investigate the incident thoroughly to find out as to who arranged the item songs and for what purpose. He said it should not have happened and instruction would be given to jail officials not commit such mistakes in future. Rao said officials have been asked to keep a vigil on bad elements and illegal activities of prisoners. He said jammers would be installed in the jail campus to stop misuse of mobiles by prisoners. Rao came to the city soon after some TV channels aired video footage of the programme. He said he had given instructions to Belagavi jail superintendent to inspect the Vijayapura jail and also asked SP to send report on the incident. Image: A screecapture of the 'item song' being performed before the inmates. Photograph: ANI/Twitter In the backdrop of suicide of a Dalit research scholar in Hyderabad University, Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Ramdas Athawale today demanded that members of the community be allowed to possess firearms given a "vertical rise" in incidents of "atrocities" against them. The Republican Party of India-Athavale leader also said that after the suicide, the party's alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party is only political in nature and there are no similarities in ideologies. He demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi "immediately sack" Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya amid allegations that his letter to Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani in August last year claiming that the university had become a "den of casteist, extremist and anti-national politics" led to suspension of Rohith Vemula and four others. "Cases of atrocities against the Dalit community are rising by the day and the perpetrators are not being booked. In such a scenario, it has now become imperative that government takes extreme steps to protect the community. "We demand that the government issue licences to Dalits so that they can possess firearms. This way they can at least protect themselves and their families," the Dalit leader told reporters. The RPI-A is a constituent of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in the state and at the Centre. "After the suicide, our alliance with the BJP is only political in nature and there are no similarities in (our) ideologies. We demand that Dattatreya resign from his position and if not, the prime minister should sack him immediately," he said. The Information and Broadcasting ministry is sending a show cause notice to Hindi news channel NDTV India over its coverage of the terrorist attack on Pathankot airbase which "prima facie" violated norms. Sources said that the ministry has decided to issue a show cause notice to the prominent news channel after it observed that sensitive information was broadcast by it even when the operation was still on and two of the terrorists were known to be alive. "It has come to the ministry's notice that when the operation was on, the correspondent of the channel gave details and locations of sensitive spots in the airbase. Telecast of such strategically sensitive information could affect the operations and could even cause damage," a source said. It is learnt that during the telecast, the channel mentioned facilities like the fuel tank etc, which should have in any case been avoided when the operation was still on, officials said. The I&B ministry has repeatedly asked for restraint by TV channels in their reporting of terror attacks especially when the operation is still on, they added. "The ministry has decided to issue a show cause notice to NDTV India," an official said. Officials said that under the Programming Code, which has to be followed by channels as per the Cable TV Networks (Regulation) Act, live coverage of anti terrorist operations is not allowed. Media coverage in such cases should be restricted to periodic briefing by an officer designated by the government, officials said. Since the channel "prima facie" did not stick to the norms, its explanation has been sought, they added. The January 2 attack on the air base left seven security personnel dead while four terrorists were also killed. Two other terrorists were believed to have died in a fire at a building. Last year, the ministry had barred channels from airing live coverage of anti-terrorist operations by security forces by approving a new rule as per which broadcasters in such situations will have to restrict themselves to reporting periodic briefing by designated officers. The home ministry has been persistently of the view that live coverage of anti-terror operations should be banned. While delivering the first Justice J S Verma Memorial Lecture last year, I&B minister Arun Jaitley had said there had been reports that real time coverage of 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai had helped the handlers of terrorists to get information about what the security agencies were doing. Muslim women on Thursday staged a protest demanding entry into a restricted area of the Haji Ali dargah in Mumbai, a stir that came amid a campaign by a group seeking rights for female devotees to offer prayers at inner sanctum of Shani Shingnapur temple in Maharashtra. Several activists belonging to Muslim women groups held placards demanding entry for females into the sanctum sanctorum of the historic dargah, which receives hundreds of devotees everyday. A participant said it was male patriarchy, and not religion, which was imposing restrictions on women. This is against tenets of Islam. The Constitution has given you equal rights, Islam supports the Constitution, she added. A Muslim womens rights group is locked in a legal battle with trustees of the Haji Ali dargah, which has barred womens entry into mosques mausoleum. The Bombay high court is hearing a petition challenging the Haji Ali Trusts decision to ban the entry of women in the sanctum sanctorum of the dargah (grave of a male Muslim saint). On January 18, the HC said it would wait for Supreme Courts ruling on entry of women in Sabarimala temple of Kerala before deciding on the plea related to the dargah. A bench of Justices V M Kanade and Reveti Mohite-Dere had said both matters involved entry of women in the religious shrines, and hence they would like to see what view the apex court would take on the issue before deciding on the PIL pending before them. The next HC hearing will take place on February 3. The protest in Mumbai broke out two days after members of a group, Bhumata Brigade, were prevented by police from entering into Shani Shingnapur temple in Ahmednagar district to break a 400-year-old tradition banning women from entering its sacred sanctum. After the high-voltage march to the temple by the Bhumata Brigade volunteers, which was foiled mid-way, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis called for a dialogue between temple authorities and activists to find a way out of the row. The popular shrine is dedicated to Lord Shani, who personifies the planet Saturn in Hindu belief. Women devotees are not permitted on the chauthara (sacred platform) of the temple as per the centuries-led tradition followed at the shrine. PLEASE READ: Image: Women stage a protest demanding entry to Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai. Photograph: PTI Illustration: Shen Lan/GT The US rebalance to the Asia-Pacific is Secretary of State John Kerry's focus of his recent visit to Laos and Cambodia. In a report on Monday, Reuters said Kerry's visit aims to "urge Southeast Asia to show unity in response to Beijing's claims in the South China Sea." It is unlikely that Laos and Cambodia will simply throw themselves on the US, but with Washington ratcheting up its rebalance strategy, the US' leverage in China's periphery is increasing. For that, a reason is that Chinese neighbors need Washington's growing presence. As an enormous market, the US remains attractive to Southeast Asian countries such as Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. China is unable to replace the US in this regard in the short run, and the global US promotion of values such as human rights and democracy has also influenced these countries' political lives. Laos maintains an amiable relationship with China. But recent years have seen the country toning up its connections with the US. This year, a high-level Lao delegation will visit the US, and there will be a summit between both leaderships. The Lao moves reflect a geopolitical tendency pushed by Washington. The US is making efforts to drive a wedge of distrust between China and its neighbors by manipulating their historical worries about the northern powerhouse, and the current concerns about long-standing territorial disputes. The escalation of these concerns is resisting the buildup of cooperation between China and its peripheries. China has to deal with Washington's intervention with greater efforts at greater costs. This is the crux that hinders China from being a leading voice in regional political and economic affairs. For quite a long time to come, Washington's rising influence will shadow China's political and economic activities in its peripheral areas. Beijing's initiatives will be contained by the US-conjured air of distrust. China should shove back against US intervention, but the US is unlikely to compromise and alter its rebalance strategy. It is unrealistic that China lives in hope that it can improve its relations with its neighbors when the US retreats. Conventional wisdom argues that, for geopolitical reasons, China's neighbors will have to depend on China to develop. They say as long as Beijing keeps expanding and enhancing cooperation with these countries, it will eventually offset Washington's leverage in rebalancing. Such opinion has a point, but it might overlook Washington's real power. Right now, the US regards the South China Sea disputes as a major pivot. Kerry has sent a clear message to Laos during this visit that Washington hopes it will help counter China when Laos assumes the rotating presidency of ASEAN this year, instead of following Cambodia, which rejected a China-bashing statement in 2012. China should reveal Washington's ulterior motives. In the meantime, it should address the repercussions within the framework of ASEAN, and by doing so Washington's leeway for more intervention will be squeezed. In most cases, it is more important to disintegrate the foundations of US assertiveness than engage in a face-to-face confrontation. China has the wisdom and ability to find a common ground for peaceful co-existence with its neighbors, and it can find a path to protect China's interests while enhancing mutual trust with its neighborhood. Otherwise, only the US will profit, at the expense of the entire region. China and the US are locked in a perennial game in China's peripheral areas. If China wants to have an edge, it had better not give the US a chance to roll the dice. Terrorist safe havens inside Pakistan, providing shelter to terrorist outfits like the Taliban and the Haqqani network, is a serious problem, a top US general nominated to be the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan said. "I view it (terrorist safe havens inside Pakistan) as a serious problem," Gen John "Mick" Nicholson told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing (Read the full text of his confirmation hearing HERE). If confirmed by the Senate, he would replace Gen John Campbell as Commander of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan at a time when serious concerns have been raised about the security situation in Afghanistan, where Taliban terrorists have caused large numbers of casualties and Islamic State affiliates have made some inroads. "One of the biggest problems has been the sanctuary, particularly for the Haqqani Network, particularly the involvement of the ISI in Pakistan, which in many cases have been supporting the Haqqani Network. Have you seen any progress in this whole problem?" Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked Gen Nicholson. In response, Gen Nicholson said continued presence of the terrorist safe haven has been a major problem. "This has been one of the principal challenges. It's a sanctuary that our enemies, in particular the Haqqani Network, have enjoyed inside Pakistan," he said. "I note that the Pakistanis have also suffered significant casualties in the tens of thousands in terms of their security forces and their civilians," he noted. However, the US is not satisfied that there's adequate pressure put on the Haqqanis, he told the Senators. The recent operations in northern Waziristan have helped, as well as stationing of additional soldiers in tribal areas. "Some of this has pushed some fighters into Afghanistan, which has contributed to some of the issues there," he said. "So, it's a mixed story, and it's one that requires continuous engagement by the Pakistan military. And then, increasingly, we want to encourage the Afghans and the Pakistan military forces to work more closely together against their common enemies," Nicholson said. Earlier, in a written response to questions, Nicholson asked Pakistan to take persistent action against the Taliban, particularly the Haqqani Network. "Pakistan's pressure on the Taliban combined with its support to the reconciliation process are mutually reinforcing," he added. Haqqani network, which is linked to Al Qaeda has also been blamed for several deadly attacks against Western and Indian interests in Afghanistan, including the 2008 bombing of the Indian mission in Kabul. The pressure on Pakistan to crack down on terrorism has to be kept up and the United States remains strongly engaged with India to tackle the menace which is affecting regional peace, US Ambassador Richard Verma said on Thursday. Appreciating Prime Minister Narendra Modis Lahore outreach, Verma said there was a need to work with the moderates in Pakistan and that the US was working with Islamabad on the issue of terror. We have to keep the pressure up, keep the leverage up work with moderate forces, work with Prime Minister Sharif and thats exactly the US President has done, Secretary (John) Kerry has done and we will continue to do it, he said. The envoy said Indias engagement with Pakistan was important and that US President Barack Obama was appreciative of Modis outreach in Lahore last month. He said Obama has appreciated decisions by Modi and Sharif to stick to talks despite the Pathankot terror attack. On reports about the US negotiating a civil nuclear deal with Pakistan similar to the one it had with India, Verma categorically said no such proposal was on the table. Asked why US was not putting enough pressure on Pakistan to come down hard on terror infrastructure, the envoy said Washington has different relationship with both the countries and that its counter-terrorism cooperation with India was expanding rapidly. He said there was a need to strengthen democracy in Pakistan while putting pressure on the country to tackle terrorism and bring to book perpetrators of terror attacks. On Afghanistan, he said there was a need for political solution to the Afghan problem and that elements within Taliban have to be engaged for reconciliation. Verma said year 2015 saw a significant progress in Indo-US ties in diverse areas including nuclear energy, defence and trade and commerce. Asked whether there has been ease of doing business in India as claimed by the government, he said, we were in a much better position then we were before. At the same time, he said there was need to have reforms in tax and land acquisition among others. He said the two-way trade story has been very positive in the last one year, adding US hoped to commence nuclear commerce soon with India. The envoy said US will do its bit to ensure Indias membership to various export control regimes. Image: A woman holds a sign during a civil society protest rally against terrorism. Photograph: Mohsin Raza/Reuters In her quest for the parents of Geeta, the hearing and speech impaired girl, who was brought back to India from Pakistan last year, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has written to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar seeking his help. Vikas Swarup, spokesperson, ministry of external affairs, said details like Geetas photographs over the years, identification marks, have been provided to the Bihar CM and he has been requested to forward it to the officials at the district level. Our efforts are on to ascertain her parents. Few days back External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has written to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar providing him her details. The letter has Geetas photos, how she looked before. We have sent details about her identification marks. We have also given details about her possible areas of origin as indicated by her, Swarup said. He has been requested to pass on the information in all districts and from there it can be passed on to village level so that the process of finding Geetas family could be expedited, he said. Geeta returned to India in October last year, nearly 15 years after she accidentally crossed over to Pakistan. She has been staying in Indore at an institution for hearing-impaired people till her family is located by the government. She was also invited as a guest at the Republic Day ceremony, Swarup said. Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump has gained substantial lead in early voting States of Iowa and South Carolina, while his Democratic counterpart Hillary Clinton has a narrow lead over her nearest rival Bernie Sanders, latest opinion polls show. According to NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist Poll released today, Trump leads Senator Ted Cruz of Texas with seven points in Iowa. This is quite a big jump as three weeks ago, Trump, 69, trailed Cruz by four points in this crucial state. The poll comes days ahead of the first presidential vote is caste in the Iowa Caucus on Monday, which will formally kick off the process to elect the new US president in November. The second and last four-year term of the US President Barack Obama ends on January 20, 2017. As per the latest poll, Trump has support of 32 per cent among likely Republican caucus goers. He is followed by Cruz with 25 per cent and Marco Rubio at 18 per cent. The polls also show that Trump has a massive 19 point lead over Cruz in New Hampshire while in South Carolina his lead is 16 points. "Trump is positioned to run the house in these first three states," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. "Will it happen? The answer depends on when or if anti-Trump sentiment will coalesce to interrupt his march to the nomination," he said. According to a Monmouth University Poll releasedon Thursday, Clinton, 68, leads Sanders in Iowa by just five percentage points. This is a big slump in her popularity given that in December her lead over Sanders was a whopping 22 points. "Support for Sanders has come from those who are new to the process, but the current poll indicates he is also cutting into Clinton's lead among die-hard Democratic partisans," said Monmouth polling director Patrick Murray. Donald Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, could be seizing upon "fear" and "anger" among American people for poll gains instead of hope and a promise for a better future, US envoy Richard Verma has said. Sounding critical of certain comments by Trump, Verma said his remarks against Muslims and immigrants were "widely condemned" across America's political spectrum. "We are in a campaign season and I would just obviously take what is said during a campaign with a grain of salt. Secondly, those comments that Mr Trump uttered have been widely condemned across the political spectrum. From the far right to far left those comments were critiqued and condemned," the Ambassador told NDTV. Replying to a question, Verma suggested Trump was trying to capitalise on fear and anger of American people for electoral benefits. "I think there is still a lot of economic insecurity. I think people are concerned about the growing gap. Sometimes they see it upon people that go to what I would call lowest common denominator politics and seize upon fear and anger instead of hope and a promise for a better future," he said, while referring to some of the controversial comments of Trump. Trump's popularity rating had soared after his anti-Muslim rhetoric in which he called for banning all Muslims from entering the US to ensure security for American people. Verma suggested that the kind of politics Trump was resorting to was not what ideally American people looked for. "What really inspired me is the politics that lifted people up brought people together and gave people hope and unified the country. "That's the kind of politics that attracted not only parents but millions of people around the world to the US. And the US has been a beacon of hope. "It's been a beacon of freedom, country of immigrants, diversity. I believe that is the character of American people. That's what our country was build on. Frankly our two countries were built very similarly and constitution's notion of celebrating diversity," the envoy said. Replying to a question, he said, whoever comes to power in Washington succeeding President Barack Obama, one of the priority relationship for the new administration would be India. He said there has been bi-partisan support for Washington's deeper relationship with India. Azerbaijan: Prisoner of conscience tortured with impunity? Publisher Forum 18 Author Felix Corley Publication Date 27 January 2016 Cite as Forum 18, Azerbaijan: Prisoner of conscience tortured with impunity?, 27 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56a9c1944.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Shia Muslim theologian and prisoner of conscience Taleh Bagirov was subjected to "severe torture" and a broken nose while in detention at the Interior Ministry's Main Directorate for the Struggle with Organised Crime in December 2015. No official at the Main Directorate would explain why Bagirov was tortured, what punishment those responsible will face or how such torture can be prevented. "No-one here gives information," the duty officer told Forum 18 News Service. Rashid Rumzada, head of Azerbaijan's National Preventive Mechanism which is supposed to help prevent torture, told Forum 18 that confidentiality meant he could not discuss individual cases. Shia Muslim cleric Nuhbala Rahimov is in four months' pre-trial detention facing possible criminal trial. The criminal trial of two female Jehovah's Witnesses one of whom is very ill - is due to resume in a Baku court tomorrow (28 January). And the appeal by five Sunni Muslims against long prison terms is due to resume at Baku Appeal Court on 2 February. Egypt: Appeal court upholds prison sentence for five activists including poet Ahmed Said Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 27 January 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Egypt: Appeal court upholds prison sentence for five activists including poet Ahmed Said, 27 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56a9d8114.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Surgeon and poet Ahmed Said was among the five activists who were arrested and jailed in November 2015 for allegedly taking part in a protest. However, according to defence lawyers working on the case, there is no evidence proving that the protest, as stated in the National Security Agency's investigations report, actually took place. The report is based on the investigations of a single National Security Agency officer, but at least two of the activists say they were tortured and ill-treated during interrogation. Some of the offences for which they were convicted, such as assembling without a permit, are in themselves contrary to international standards as they criminalize the exercise of protected human rights, while others, such as disrupting traffic, were unfounded. "Today's verdict, coming on the heels of the '25 January Revolution' anniversary, is another sad sign that Egypt's criminal justice system is itself unfit for purpose," said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme. "Ahmed Said and the other activists should never have been on trial in the first place. Their case is one more appalling example of the relentless government campaign to crush independent and critical voices and activists in Egypt today." Amnesty International will continue to call for the release of all five, who also include Mostafa Ibrahim Mohamed Ahmed, Karim Khaled Fathy, Mohamed Abdel-Hamid and Gamila Seryel-Dain. Copyright notice: Copyright Amnesty International Morocco ramps up crackdown on press freedom with trial over citizen journalism Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 26 January 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Morocco ramps up crackdown on press freedom with trial over citizen journalism, 26 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56a9d85a4.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Tomorrow's trial of seven Moroccan journalists and activists on charges including "undermining state security" and "failing to report foreign funding", is part of a calculated crackdown on freedom of expression, Amnesty International said. The seven are due to face trial for taking part in a foreign-funded project to train people to use smartphones for citizen journalism. The court papers show that authorities believe that grassroots journalism may "destabilize Moroccans' trust in their institutions". "This case clearly demonstrates that Morocco's government is stepping up its attacks on press freedom. Helping Moroccans harness smartphone technology to report on what is going on in the country is not a crime, and it is outrageous that it is being treated as a state security offence. Moroccans have the right to receive and spread information about what is happening in their country," said Said Boumedouha, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director. Five of the seven face penalties of up to five years in prison, under national security laws, if convicted. Amnesty International is calling on authorities to drop the charges against the seven defendants. Tomorrow's trial is just the latest episode in a mounting crackdown on freedom of expression in Morocco. In another high-profile case, on 21 January, the country's terrorism court charged a leading independent journalist, Ali Anouzla, with "advocating", "supporting", and "inciting" terrorism. The charges relate to an article published in 2013 on his popular news website Lakome.com in which Ali Anouzla criticized a video by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). He was arrested and detained for over a month following the publication and the website was taken down. If found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in prison. Ali Anouzla has also been charged in a separate case with "threatening national integrity" for an interview he gave to the German daily newspaper Bild last November after receiving the Raif Badawi prize for Courageous Journalists, in which he allegedly used the term "occupied Western Sahara". The journalist insists that the newspaper mistranslated his words, and that he had referred to the territory simply as the "Sahara". Moroccan authorities claim sovereignty over Western Sahara, a territory south of Morocco which it annexed in 1975. If found guilty, he risks up to five years in prison under the current Press Code. "Morocco's authorities must drop the charges against Ali Anouzla and stop prosecuting journalists for doing their work, as well as peaceful activists, on state security and counter-terrorism charges. They must call a halt to their ongoing campaign to quash dissenting voices and scare people into self-censorship," said Said Boumedouha. Background The defendants in tomorrow's court case are: Maati Monjib, 53, historian and founder of the Ibn Rochd Center for Studies and Communication, president of the NGO Freedom Now (which he set up jointly with Ali Anouzla) and a member of the Moroccan Association for Investigative Journalism (AMJI). A regular commentator on Moroccan politics in international media, think tanks and academic forums, he is thought to be the main figure targeted in this prosecution. Abdessamad Ait Aicha (known as Samad Iach), 31, journalist and former employee at the Ibn Rochd Center for Studies and Communication, and AMJI member. Hicham Mansouri, 35, journalist and former AMJI employee, recently released from prison after serving a 10-month sentence in what Amnesty International fears was a politically-motivated conviction. Hicham Khreibchi (known as Hicham Al-Miraat), 39, medical doctor, founder and former president of the Digital Rights Association (ADN), as well as former advocacy director for Global Voices. Mohamed Essaber/Sber, 44, president of the Moroccan Association for the Education of Youth (AMEJ). Maria Moukrim, 39, journalist, former AMJI president. Rachid Tarik, 68, journalist (retired), AMJI president. Several defendants are also former supporters or members of the 20 February Movement, Morocco's peaceful pro-democracy and anti-corruption protest movement that emerged in 2011 in the context of popular uprisings in the region. Copyright notice: Copyright Amnesty International UN must act on call for South Sudan arms embargo Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 26 January 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, UN must act on call for South Sudan arms embargo, 26 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56a9d9084.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. The UN Security Council must act immediately on the recommendations of its own Panel of Experts and enforce a comprehensive arms embargo to halt the flow of weapons into South Sudan, said Amnesty International today. Following the outbreak of the conflict in December 2013, Amnesty International has been lobbying for an arms embargo to help bring an end to serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. The fighting has resulted in tens of thousands of civilian deaths, with hundreds of thousands displaced. "Last year's peace agreement has proven insufficient to end atrocities and usher in accountability in South Sudan's internal armed conflict. It should be a no-brainer for the international community to suspend the flow of arms where those arms are being used repeatedly to commit war crimes and to perpetuate grave and systematic human rights violations and abuses," said Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty International's Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes. "The arms embargo should be seen as a preventive rather than a punitive measure and be an essential step towards consolidating lasting respect for human rights. No country should be transferring arms to any party to the conflict in South Sudan until there are clear and enforceable guarantees that those arms will not be used to commit or facilitate further violations of international human rights or humanitarian law." The UN Panel's report concluded that: "Both sides have continued to seek to arm their forces, even after the signing of the peace agreement in August [2015] and in the face of considerable economic stress. The continued influx of arms has had a devastating impact on civilians and on the overall security situation in the country" It therefore called for a comprehensive embargo on the supply, sale, transfer or transhipment of weapons, ammunition, military vehicles and any other forms of military assistance, including technical and financial assistance, equipment maintenance and training, to South Sudan. The countries named in the report as having facilitated arms transfers to South Sudan include Ukraine, which has transferred helicopters and machine guns, and has provided military logistical assistance. Independent sources told the Panel that there is a "standing unwritten agreement" whereby Uganda acts as a regional conduit for transfers of arms and ammunition. Israeli Micro Galil rifles seen in Upper Nile State, for instance, were originally exported by Israel to Uganda in 2007, but were subsequently sold on to the South Sudanese National Security Service in 2014. The report described the Sudanese government as "the default arms supplier for the opposition" in South Sudan, although opposition forces were also using ammunition originating in China and the former Soviet Union. In July 2014, Amnesty International slammed the shipment of more than 1,000 tonnes of small arms and light weapons to South Sudan's government from the Chinese state-owned manufacturer, China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO). The Chinese government then cancelled further arms transfers in September 2014 following international outcry. Welcoming the UN Panel's call for an arms embargo, Amnesty International added that it should include all indirect exports via other countries, the transfer of military components, dual-use technologies and any brokering, financial or logistical activities that would facilitate arms transfers. Background Amnesty International first called on the UN Security Council in May 2007 to strengthen provisions of the UN arms embargo on Sudan by extending its application to the entire territory of Sudan, including to South Sudan (before it became an independent state in 2011). Since the conflict between forces loyal to South Sudan's President Salva Kiir and those loyal to opposition leader Riek Machar began in December 2013, Amnesty International and others have documented and published evidence of war crimes and other serious violations and abuses being carried out by both sides. An African Union (AU) report published in October 2015 condemned killings, torture, mutilations and rape against civilians - as well as forced cannibalism. The conflict has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the destruction of entire towns. Approximately 1.6 million people were internally displaced and another 600,000 fled to neighbouring countries. An estimated 3.9 million are facing food insecurity, with the UN repeatedly warning of a deepening humanitarian crisis and potential famine should fighting continue. Despite several attempted ceasefires in the ensuing years, culminating in a more elaborate peace agreement signed in August 2015, there continues to be total disregard for international human rights and humanitarian law and a lack of accountability for violations and abuses committed in the conflict. Progress towards the establishment of a Transitional Government of National Unity envisaged in the peace agreement has stalled. Copyright notice: Copyright Amnesty International Egypt's myth of stability: Gross abuses don't deliver security Publisher Amnesty International Author Nicholas Piachaud Publication Date 25 January 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Egypt's myth of stability: Gross abuses don't deliver security, 25 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56a9da9f4.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Five years ago, human rights defender Ahmed Abdullah was among thousands of Egyptians who took to the streets for 18 days of mass protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square, eventually forcing then-President Hosni Mubarak to step down and the security forces to retreat. Today, Ahmed is on the run. He dodged arrest by the thinnest of margins on January 9, after plainclothes police in Cairo raided his regular coffee shop. The NGO which he chairs, the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, had recently exposed a surge in enforced disappearances, which has seen hundreds vanish at the hands of state security forces over the last year alone. He is not the only one whose activism has put him at risk. In recent weeks, security forces have been rounding up activists linked to protests and journalists critical of the government's record. Five years since the uprising that ousted Mubarak, Egypt is once more a police state. The country's ubiquitous state security body, the National Security Agency, is firmly in charge. Egypt's human rights defenders say they have their backs to the wall, with rights groups stripped of their funding and many of their staff banned from traveling and under criminal investigation. The secret police are everywhere. They're listening to your calls. They're monitoring what you post on social media. They're prowling the streets. Seeing "terrorism" everywhere, but unable to catch it, they have cast a net so wide as to encompass all of Egypt. This botched "counter-terror" campaign has seen peaceful dissenters locked up while armed groups slip through the net. Tens of thousands of people have been arrested in the crackdown-nearly 12,000 of them last year, according to one Interior Ministry official. Prisons, police stations and other detention facilities are full to breaking point.Prisoners and detainees are packed into overcrowded cells and forced to sleep on cold concrete floors, without adequate food, medicine or clothing. Injustice is writ large. Last December, a court had to adjourn a high-profile trial because the hundreds of defendants, who include the prominent photojournalist "Shawkan", couldn't fit in the courtroom. The criminal justice system has spiraled out of control. One 20-year-old man, Mahmoud Hussein, has languished behind bars for nearly two years, without charge or trial, simply for wearing a T-shirt that said "a nation without torture" and a scarf that said "25 January Revolution." Reports of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees are widespread, with state security forces accused of doling out savage beatings and electric shocks, and placing detainees in stress positions-as well as, in several instances, subjecting them to sexual violence. While the security forces have been snatching people from the streets, their offices and their homes, Egypt's government has been busy stealing away human rights in the name of combating "terrorism" and protecting "national security." Today, the U.S. and EU states are once more looking to Egypt's security forces as a guarantor of stability in a region turned upside down by conflict. They are seen as a bulwark against the chaos of Libya and Syria, and the threat of the armed group known as Islamic State (ISIS). The U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has spoken of a "common fight against violent extremism and terrorists." The U.K. has called Egypt "a key strategic partner" in combating "extremism and violence" in the region. But security forces that are unable or unwilling to distinguish between peaceful dissent and groups intent on deadly violence are surely part of the problem. Egypt's intelligence services have filled its jails to bursting with peaceful protesters, politicians and opposition activists, increasingly joined by human rights defenders and journalists. Armed groups, meanwhile, have repeatedly demonstrated that they can escape the dragnet. They have killed hundreds of members of the security forces since 2011, and they have also targeted judicial officials, ordinary Egyptians and foreign nationals. Both the security forces and the army have squandered opportunities to bring suspected members of armed groups to justice, and have instead hauled suspects before military courts in grossly unfair trials; in one instance putting them to death for attacks committed while they were already detained. The world would do well not to listen to the Egyptian government's siren promises of stability and security. A security apparatus that uses torture, excessive force, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance to crush all forms of dissent should not be considered "a key strategic partner". Instead of a short-sighted approach of proposing new arms sales and stepping up security assistance, states looking for a regional ally in confronting "violent extremism and terrorism" should press for real reform of the security apparatus and judiciary. Nicholas Piachaud is Egypt Researcher at Amnesty International. Copyright notice: Copyright Amnesty International TAIPEI, Jan. 28 -- Taiwan leader Ma Ying-jeou on Thursday visited Taiping Island, the largest of the Nansha Islands in the South China Sea, to meet personnel and deliver a speech ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year. In the speech, Ma said that Taiwan will work to end disputes, pursue peace and reciprocity and promote joint development in the South China Sea. Islands in the South China Sea were first discovered, named and used by the Chinese in the Western Han Dynasty. They were incorporated into the maritime defense system no later than 1721, in the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, with patrols and other management measures, Ma said. After the Republic of China was founded in 1912, the government published maps of the South China Sea islands in 1935 and 1947, reaffirming its sovereignty over the islands and their surrounding waters, according to Ma. He added that Taiping Island will be transformed into an island for peace and rescue operations, as well as an ecologically friendly and low-carbon island. "China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands," Ma Xiaoguang, spokesperson for the mainland-based Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said Wednesday when commenting on Ma Ying-jeou's visit. Both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China, and people on both sides have the common obligation to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity and safeguard the Chinese nation's overall and fundamental interests, Ma Xiaoguang said. Egypt's courageous few fighting for human rights Publisher Amnesty International Author Mohamed Lotfy Publication Date 22 January 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Egypt's courageous few fighting for human rights, 22 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56a9db634.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Never before in my 10-year career has working on human rights in Egypt been so dangerous. Today in Egypt, human rights activists, lawyers, political activists and independent journalists, all have to live with their phone calls being tapped, endless smear campaigns and hate speech from state-affiliated media as well as continuous harassment and intimidation from the authorities. For some, this relentless persecution can even lead to arbitrary arrest, prolonged detention, harsh sentences after unfair trials and sometimes even torture, enforced disappearance at the hands of the state or death in custody as a result of medical negligence. This is pretty much the same list of human rights violations suffered by the people whose rights such defenders are meant to be protecting through their activism and work. In the mind-set of those holding power today in Egypt, civil society and the media are merely tools to be used and abused however they wish. Independent civil society is not supposed to exist, let alone organizations working to promote human rights. In such a climate of fear, those who continue to defend human rights are truly bravehearted. On 9 January 2016, my colleague, chairperson of the board of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF), Dr. Ahmed Abdullah, narrowly escaped an attempt by security agents to abduct him at a coffee shop he often frequents in Giza. Three security agents in plainclothes, arrived in a privately owned unmarked car, raided the coffee shop and questioned staff about him. When they were told that he was not present, they conducted a thorough search of the coffee shop. They failed to produce an arrest or search warrant from the public prosecution meaning there was no legal basis for the search. This incident took place following a spate of arrests of peaceful, liberal political activists between December 2015 and early January 2016. Some now face trumped-up charges such as "belonging to the 25 January movement" - a movement that noone has ever heard of before. Others are charged with organizing and participating in protests in defiance of Egypt's draconian protest law. Many continue to languish in jail in inhuman conditions. Since 27 December 2015, I have been forced to leave my home and go into hiding because of a rumor on social media that security forces were on their way to my home. I am certainly not alone in living with the fear of arbitrary arrest. Several key human rights organizations in Egypt have had their offices raided or faced investigations, often for working without authorization or for receiving foreign funding. The degree to which security agencies disregard the rule of law, apply laws arbitrarily and flout their duty to uphold rights enshrined in the Egyptian constitution, Egyptian law and not to mention their international human rights obligations, is truly chilling. The Egyptian judiciary seems unable or unwilling to stop grave violations such as enforced disappearances, torture and death in custody. My own organization, ECRF, has recently been at the forefront of the battle to call for an end to enforced disappearances in Egypt where scores of people have vanished at the hands of the government. Our campaign "Stop Enforced Disappearance", mobilized activists on social media and supported the families of the disappeared, providing them with documentation and legal aid. This attention ultimately forced mainstream media to speak out on the issue and as a result, the state's National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) was obliged to report more than 100 cases of disappearances to the Ministry of Interior. After initial denials, in an embarrassing U-turn, the Ministry of Interior was forced to acknowledge that the names submitted by the NCHR were indeed of individuals detained by the authorities. This campaign is perhaps one of the main reasons why our organization and its staff now face routine intimidation and come under regular attack in the media. Our recent report on the issue concluded that the National Security Agency under the auspices of the Ministry of Interior, and the Military Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces, are involved in abduction and incommunicado detention of detainees in a number of locations including the infamous Azouli military jail. Every human rights defender knows there can be a high price for telling the truth in the face of unjust government actions. But peaceful action, guided by the compass of the principles of humanity, is stronger than all tools of repression. Human rights defenders must stick to their human rights compass especially in the face of ruthless intimidation. Uncovering human rights violations everywhere in the world offers inspiration and makes all human rights defenders stronger in their respective country. A human rights battle won in one country and brings us all one step closer to freedom and justice. Copyright notice: Copyright Amnesty International Myanmar: Prisoner amnesty marred by outrageous jailing of activist for Facebook post Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 22 January 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Myanmar: Prisoner amnesty marred by outrageous jailing of activist for Facebook post, 22 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56a9db924.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. A prisoner amnesty in Myanmar today does not go nearly far enough as scores of peaceful activists remain behind bars, Amnesty International said. The jailing today of another activist just hours after the amnesty was announced is a stark reminder of how prevalent repression still is in the country. The government today announced the release of 102 prisoners, including at least 16 prisoners of conscience who Amnesty International has campaigned for. But a court in Yangon today also sentenced peace activist Patrick Kum Jaa Lee, 43, to six months in prison for "online defamation". He was first arrested in October 2015 for a Facebook post showing someone stepping on a photo of Myanmar Army Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. "Today's events perfectly sum up how the Myanmar authorities give with one hand and take with the other. Just hours after the prisoner amnesty was announced, an activist has been sentenced to six months in jail for nothing but a harmless Facebook post," said Laura Haigh, Amnesty International's Myanmar Researcher. "Although we are delighted for those who walk free today, scores more remain behind bars while hundreds of other peaceful activists are on bail facing jail time. "Amnesties like the one today have little positive long-term effect as long as the same repressive practices fuelling arbitrary arrests and detention of activists continue. The guilty verdict against Patrick Kum Jaa Lee is outrageous and must be overturned." Among the prisoners of conscience released today are: Philip Blackwood, who in 2015 was sentenced - alongside Thun Thurein and Htut Ko Ko Lwin - to two and a half years in prison for "insulting religion" and another charge after using an image of the Buddha to promote a night club; and 13 members of the Michaungkan community jailed in 2015 for protesting in a land dispute. Amnesty International is aware of almost 100 other prisoners of conscience still behind bars. "It's heartening that the men and women released today can go back to their lives and families, but the fact is none of them should have been charged in the first place. If President Thein Sein is serious about leaving a positive legacy, he must clear the country's jails of all prisoners of conscience once and for all," said Laura Haigh. "Despite the optimism around the recent elections, today's verdict is also a clear reminder that peacefully criticising the military is still very much off limits in Myanmar. The new government, which is meant to take power at the end of March, must do much more to ensure full respect for the human right to freedom of expression." Background Prisoners of conscience released in today's amnesty include: Naung Naung, member of the Movement for Democratic Current Force (MDCF), sentenced in October 2014 to two years and four months' imprisonment for protesting without authorization and for distributing leaflets stating that Aung San Suu Kyi and ethnic leaders had been elected as an interim government. Thirteen members of the Michaungkan community in Yangon sentenced at the end of last year to seven months in prison for participating in a series of peaceful protests relating to a land dispute. Phillip Blackwood, sentenced to two years and six months in prison in March 2015 for "insulting religion" after an image of the Buddha wearing headphones was posted on social media to promote a Yangon bar. Amnesty International has so far been unable to confirm if Thun Thurein and Htut Ko Ko Lwin, who were jailed in same case, have also been released. Student Naing Ye Wai, sentenced to prison in 2015 for peacefully protesting in Mandalay for the release of all detained students and for the newly adopted National Education Law to be amended. Amnesty International is aware of almost 100 prisoners of conscience still behind bars, including: Phyoe Phyoe Aung, Secretary General of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU), currently on trial along dozens of other peaceful student protesters and their supporters for protesting against the National Education Law in 2015; five media workers from the Unity Weekly magazine who were jailed for publishing an article about an alleged chemical weapons factory in 2014; and writer Htin Lin Oo, sentenced in 2015 to two years in prison after he gave a speech criticizing the use of Buddhism to promote religious discrimination. Copyright notice: Copyright Amnesty International Cameroon: Authorities must drop "non-denunciation" charges against three journalists Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 21 January 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Cameroon: Authorities must drop "non-denunciation" charges against three journalists, 21 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56a9dbdf4.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Cameroonian authorities must immediately and unconditionally drop all charges against three journalists accused of failing to disclose information and sources, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders said on the eve of their trial before a military court. Journalists Baba Wame, Rodrigue Ndeutchoua Tongue, and Felix Cyriaque Ebole Bola are due to appear before a military court in Yaounde tomorrow. They are the first journalists charged for the crime of 'non-denunciation' to be tried in a military court. The journalists had been investigating a story about allegations of collusion between elements of the security forces and a leader of an armed group from Central African Republic that had been accused of previously attacking a town in the east of Cameroon. They were charged with failing to share information that could harm national security. "Charging journalists for abiding by the ethical standards of their profession is a violation of the right to freedom of expression, and a worrying development in Cameroon," said Stephen Cockburn Amnesty International West and Central Africa Deputy Regional Director. If convicted, the three journalists could be sentenced to jail terms between one and five years and/or a fine between 50,000 to 5 million CFA (approximately US$832 - US$8,325). Having received documents about the alleged affair, the journalists had written to the police to get more information. Receiving no reply they abandoned the investigation and did not publish the story. They were originally charged in October 2014 under Article 107 of Cameroon's Criminal Code, and placed under judicial control, registering with the police each week and prevented from publishing in the media. The journalists deny they uncovered any information that could undermine security and say they wish to protect their sources. "Cameroon's Criminal Code should be reformed in conformity with international standards to protect freedom of expression and the confidentiality of sources. The public have a right to information and national security must not be used as a pretext to stop journalists from doing their job," said Clea Kahn-Sriber, Reporters Without Borders Africa Desk Manager. Cameroon has ratified both the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which provide protections for journalists and their sources. Copyright notice: Copyright Amnesty International Afghanistan: UN mine clearance officials strongly condemn murder of four de-miners Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 27 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Afghanistan: UN mine clearance officials strongly condemn murder of four de-miners, 27 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56a9e17540d.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. 27 January 2016 - United Nations demining officials in Afghanistan today strongly condemned an attack in which unknown militants shot dead four de-miners while a fifth was reported missing in Helmand province, one of the most heavily mined in the strife-torn country. "The Mine Action Programme of Afghanistan (MAPA) will not be deterred from this important work by such attacks, which violate the most basic principles of humanity," the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) said in a statement, referring to a grouping that comprises 46 humanitarian and commercial organizations in one of the largest mine action programmes in the world. MAPA provides employment to over 10,500 Afghan citizens. "There is no known motive for the unprovoked killing of these humanitarian workers," UNMAS added of the attack, which took place in Abbazhai village of Nahr-e Seraj district as demining teams were conducting normal mine clearance activities. Helmand is the largest province in Afghanistan by area and third largest by population. Provincial records show that in landmines, unexploded ordnance and other arms claimed at least 23 civilian casualties in 2015. The province is heavily affected by unexploded ordnance, with 109 known minefields covering 68 square kilometres. "UNMAS condemns this breach of the understanding that de-miners are neutral, humanitarian workers providing a service to communities in Afghanistan," the statement said. Darfur: UN expresses grave concern over new hostilities and impact on thousands of civilians Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 27 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Darfur: UN expresses grave concern over new hostilities and impact on thousands of civilians, 27 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56a9e18fd4.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. 27 January 2016 - The United Nations today expressed grave concern over the impact of the ongoing hostilities in Darfur on thousands of civilians who have been forced to flee their homes amid the conflict that began two weeks ago. Initial reports by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) indicate that about 19,000 civilians have fled into North Darfur state, and up to 15,000 into Central Darfur state, following fighting in the mountainous Jebel Marra region that straddles three Darfur states. According to a statement issued by the Africa Union-UN Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), these figures represent more than a 52 per cent increase in just 24 hours, reportedly caused by intensified aerial bombings carried out on Monday. "The protection of civilians remains our paramount concern during conflict," said the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Marta Ruedas, in a separate statement. "While it is encouraging that some humanitarian assistance is being provided, clearly much more is needed and we are working with our national and international partners on the ground to ascertain how the vulnerable can be helped during this time. We are therefore advocating for safe and unfettered access to provide timely assistance to those in need," she added. OCHA indicated that some humanitarian assistance, including nutritional supplements for children, medicine and purified water, has been provided in North Darfur to some of the newly displaced people - the vast majority of whom are women and children. The humanitarian community is also working to provide emergency relief to those displaced in Central Darfur, but the lack of access is preventing the immediate provision of aid. "While the exact number of civilians who have fled the Jebel Marra is yet to be confirmed, there are also unverified reports of other civilians having sought refuge deeper into the Jebel Marra area," Ms. Ruedas noted. Yesterday, UNAMID received information that 19 villages near Rockero, north Jebel Marra in Central Darfur, were burned down during fights. Most residents of these villages are reported to have fled to Sortoni, Kabkabiya and Tawila, while others have sought shelter in surrounding mountains. Many children have also been reported missing. Freight train 79213 loaded with nearly 200 motorcycles set off from Guangdongs Foshan railway freight station at 11 a.m. on Jan. 26. This is the first freight train carrying motorcycles in the history of China for Spring Festival. The freight train is set for the migrant workers who ride thousand miles home by motorcycles during the Spring Festival. The first train departed from Foshan of Guangdong province on Jan. 26 is expected to arrive at Guigang, Guangxi, on Jan. 27. In recent years, some migrant workers in Guangdong from Guangxi, Hunan and Guizhou provinces braved the cold to ride a thousand miles back home, due to not being able to buy train tickets or needing to use motorcycles after returning home. The Guangzhou Railway Group specifically organized a freight train this year so that the motorcycles could also be taken home. Lu Shangfeng, deputy director of the Guangzhou Foshan Railway Freight Center, said that it is the first that a freight train is arranged to carry motorcycles in the history of railways in China. As the gasoline inside the motorcycles is flammable, all motorcycle fuel tanks have been emptied before the shipment. The train cars will be well ventilated at the same time. To ensure the safety of this novel consignment, the railway sector organized experts and technical staff to conduct feasibility studies and ultimately determine the loading reinforcement program. Before implementing the program, the railway sector has made three loading tests on five motorcycles. Twenty-four Chinese provinces and municipalities recently set their GDP goals for 2016 during their annual sessions of Peoples Congress and Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference which help set the tone for the year ahead. Unlike in the previous year, 15 regions have adjusted their GDP growth rates downwards while six maintained the same figure as before. Even so, most of the targets for 2016 are still higher than the expected national growth. The working conference held at the end of last year set a five-year economic growth target of at least 6.5 percent. Chongqing, the southwestern municipality, maintained a 10 percent target, making it the only one among the 24 provinces and municipalities that kept a double-digit target. Northwestern Shaanxi province and southeastern Fujian province, which also set targets of 10 percent last year, dropped the rate by 2 percent and 1.5 percent respectively. Lian Ping, chief economist of Bank of Communication told Shanghai Securities News that the decline in the expected growth can be attributed to a downward pressure on the economy nationwide. This year the central government will focus on reducing production capacity, which will bring a lot of pressure on northeastern and central-western regions, Lian added. In addition, local governments aim to put more emphasis on growth quality than the rate. More provinces and municipalities are also adopting a range-based target in 2016 for the first time. Guangxi, Jiangsu and Shandong provinces set the range between 7.5 percent and 8 percent. For Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces, the scope is from 7 percent to 7.5 percent, while Shanghai aims at 6.5 percent to 7 percent growth. Lian believes that two factors contributed to their decision. On the one hand, as the economy still faces uncertainties, the range-based target is more flexible. On the other hand, it shows local governments are shifting their focuses to production capacity reduction and structural adjustment. The national growth expectation this year could also be a range-based target between 6.5 percent and 7 percent, Lian forecasted. While most provinces across China have lowered their GDP target, the northeastern region raised the bar. Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces set the target between 6 percent and 6.5 percent, 6.5 percent and 7 percent respectively. Lin Muxi, a professor of Liaoning University explained the reversed trend, saying that the northeast is expected to be motivated by a fusion of industrial capital and the financial industry, the Made in China 2025 strategy and further policies of opening up this year. Mooresville, Owen Valley land in final AP football poll Just like that, Indiana's high school football regular season is over. Here's a look at where area teams landed in the final AP Poll of the season. My wife and I finally watched "San Andreas" on Friday. It's popcorn fare straight outta Redbox an earthquake disaster movie. It has its flaws or, should I say, its faults? It had us laughing about its predictability, though earthquakes are unpredictable. Dude, I could've written this movie. In the action-adventure movie that I'd also produce and direct, the hero is a dude with lots of muscles and no hair. He could have a few tats. Maybe one on his right biceps that says "Squeeze here," and another on his left biceps that says "Got this?" This guy is strong. We'll save one scene just to showcase how strong, like one in which he bends or breaks something to make a rescue. You and I would hopelessly watch opportunity slip away, but not this guy. Yet, part of the baggage he carries and, remember, he's strong so he can carry a lot of baggage is the time he could not save the girl because it could not be done. But he can't get over it. Her death is his fault. No buddy or babe can convince him otherwise. Spoiler alert: He'll get a second chance to redeem himself in my movie. Sorry but that's law in Hollywood. Our guy can do anything. He pilots a helicopter but when one is not available, he jumps into a plane. And when he ditches that, he's whipping a powerboat across the bay. He drives a pickup. Black. Looks either brandnew or just washed. By hand. And always angled like it's in a commercial for Dodge. He knows how to parachute. When he rescues his wife so that she then will hold his hand and make eyes at him again, they jump out of the plane together. He is so skillful that he lands in the major league ballpark. If she were landing in his arms, it would be at home plate so he could catch her (rimshot ... catcher ... OK). But they touch down at second base just so he can make a PG-13 comment about getting to that far with her. I'm still thinking about whether our hero can cook or not. This guy for sure would grill but also eat salads and his vegetables to stay fit. There is little lag time in my movie for him to dally in the kitchen. In fact, he doesn't eat during the entire movie, which also is very heroic. (He also never has anything to do with a bathroom; you ever see a zipper on a superhero's outfit?) So, the story line of my movie is this: There's going to be a natural disaster so we can hire the best special effects folks. How about ... an earthquake! In California, of course. The hero is estranged from his wife. That baggage thing has split them apart. Thus, they are apart when disaster strikes. But not for long! They have a daughter. She loves her dad, she loves him. This day, she's with the new man in the life of our hero's estranged wife. New guy's rich, wearing Italian-made loafers and being all cool, but he's a wimp. No match for hero dad in arm wrestling. They will be in new guy's office building when the earthquake strikes but she will wind up in his building under construction to be saved. (Or not) We've seen earthquake movies before. Usually San Francisco or Los Angeles. In my movie, we're in both cities! Double the trouble! Tall buildings falling ... we've seen that, too. What else can we do? Send the scientists wanting to predict earthquakes to, uh, a dam. That collapses. That mini disaster is needed in the story line because it's just a hint of what's to come from the CGI team. The scientists warn that this is the big one but no one believes there's a killer shark in the water. I know that's another movie, but the fear factor still works. Allows for "Told you so!" moments later. Water is cool for special effect, so when the earthquakes shake, rattle and roll San Francisco, the water is sucked out of the bay and then rushes back as a ... tsunami! People are worried about collapsing buildings, cracking streets and falling power lines and here comes a wall of water. With one of those supersize cargo ships sailing into the high-rent district. After cutting the Golden Gate Bridge in half. I did not forget about the dad wannabe. He abandons the hero's daughter, so it's only a matter of time before he meets his maker. How? (You have to see the movie) As for the daughter, this is the 21st century, so she's no clueless, whimpering college student in a low-cut top. She's a resourceful, brave grrrrl of tomorrow in a low-cut top. Alas, she needs to be rescued, like mom was. She almost drowns first, though. Then she spits up water like a fountain when hero dad, not giving up, tries again to revive her with chest compressions that somehow don't crack her ribs. The reunited family stands atop a hill surveying the destruction and our hero says the only three words he can. No, not "I love you" but "We will rebuild." (Dramatic music plays) Cut to the scientists who, despite millions dying, are praised for saving lives. Except for that of their co-worker, who died heroically early on to put more determination into their efforts. Pretty good movie? Too bad for me, though. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson save his family if not the day, I failed to see my name, Greg "The Piece of Gravel" Jaklewicz, in the credits. Didn't see my name either in my other movie about a kind-of-handsome-in-an-aloof-way rebel with a rusty but trusty spacecraft and his hairy companion who meet a kid named Luke and his canister vacuum cleaner-looking robot buddy ... As air pollution in China has triggered more concerns in recent years, many local governments formally promised a blue sky by reducing emissions in their government report, the Beijing Times reported Thursday. Up to Wednesday, 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions have written air pollution control in their reports. Some even clarified the specific target for 2016 and for 2016 to 2020. Those governments also reviewed their work on air pollution in the past. Data showed that most of the regions have achieved the expected goals. Though progress has been made, the residents are far from satisfied with the general air quality. Wang Jingwei, deputy of the Tianjin People's Congress, explained that it would be a long course since it will take a long time to transform the coal-dominated energy structure and eliminate vehicle exhausts. Local governments, therefore, placed more priorities on air pollution. Hebei Governor Zhang Qingwei, for instance, listed environment as well as air and water pollution as one of the provinces five biggest challenges facing economic transition. Eleven of the 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions even gave a concrete target number covering the PM 2.5 concentration and other indexes. Such examples include Hebei, Shaanxi, Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin. They also planned to increase their budget for pollution control, with Henan raising its budget to 1 billion yuan, and Beijing to 16.5 billion yuan. Analysts believed that though local governments have strong determination, pollution control is not easy as industrial and energy structures, air-borne dust caused by construction sites and vehicle emissions all stand in the way. In order to strive for blue skies in the future, local governments also plan to adjust energy consumption patterns, reduce industrial pollution and dust, and strengthen the management of vehicle emissions. In addition, more governments realized that they need to collaborate with their neighbors on reducing emissions. Zhao Chuanfeng, a scholar from Beijing Normal University, said that 2016 to 2020 will be a key period for smog treatment. He added that different regions should take targeted measures based on their own conditions. Dyess Air Force Base is in the running to house the KC-46, the Air Force's next-generation air refueling tanker. Bases are being judged in the categories of missions, environment, capacity and costs and the final basing decision is expected in 2017. "I don't know what the chances are but I know Dyess will be very competitive," said U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Lubbock. "Any time we might have the opportunity to expand missions at Dyess Air Force Base, that's more jobs and that's more opportunities for the community," he said. Dyess now houses B-1 bombers and C-130J cargo planes, and employs about 5,400 military and civilian personnel. Tankers would not be a stranger to the base. In its early days, the base housed KC-97 tankers in support of B-47 bombers, also housed at Dyess. From the mid-1960s to 1993, KC-135 tankers were stationed at Dyess. Brian Yates, vice president of military affairs for the Abilene Chamber of Commerce, said, " ... our part in this is to make sure we're communicating from the Abilene perspective and saying, 'Hey, yes. We're very supportive. We want this. This is a good thing.'" He added the sole focus in the process of evaluation right now is "to make sure the information they're using to evaluate the decision is accurate." Boeing received a contract from the Air Force in 2011 to build the new KC-46 aerial refueling tanker aircraft that will replace 179 of the service's 416 KC-135 tankers, according to Boeing spokesman Chuck Ramey. The KC-46 competed its first fuel transfer test Sunday with an F-16, according to Aviation Week. Further testing will be done with other types of aircraft. Other base candidates are: Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, Trenton, New Jersey; Dover AFB, Dover, Delaware.; Fairchild AFB, Spokane, Washington; Grand Forks AFB, Grand Forks, North Dakota; J.B. Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina; J.B. Lewis-McChord, Tacoma, Washington; Little Rock AFB, Little Rock, Arkansas; MacDill AFB, Tampa, Florida; Scott AFB, Mascoutah, Illinois; and Travis AFB, Fairfield, California. Twitter: ARN_Titus According to Lloyd Huff, the college classroom's gain was the stage's loss. Huff, the former chairman of the English departments at both McMurry University and Hardin-Simmons University, died Saturday in Clyde. He was 98. "He loved drama," said Larry Brunner, who was Huff's student at McMurry and later his colleague in the English department at HSU. "He used to say that when he entered the classroom, the stage lost a great actor." Brunner, who retired two years ago after teaching at HSU for 39 years, said Huff's joke wasn't far off the mark. Brunner said Huff was a passionate teacher who commanded his students' attention. "He would read literature to his classes," Brunner said. "It would be such an eloquent reading. He read as an actor would, as a good actor would." Another colleague, Delores Washburn, agreed that Huff was center stage in the classroom. "He had that stage presence," she said. "He wasn't a tall man, but he had a great speaking voice." However, she said it was his personality that drew students to him. "He attracted students from all disciplines," said Washburn, who was hired by Huff at HSU. "Everyone was endeared to him." Washburn said that Huff displayed a sense of humor that students enjoyed. "One time, he was teaching about active and passive voice," she said. "He said, 'The boy kicked the desk' is active voice. 'The desk was kicked by the boy' is passive voice.' He kicked the desk so hard he put a hole in it. The next day, there was a Band-aid where the hole was." Washburn also said Huff collected tie tacks and would wear a one each day, along with a colorful tie. Brunner said that Huff played a critical role in his life. He said Huff was the first professor he had who made Christian principles part of the curriculum. "It's easy to do when you teach literature because literature is about life," Brunner said. "I just had never seen anyone do it before." Brunner described Huff as a fair teacher who made his students work. While Huff was no longer the department chairman at HSU when Brunner went to work there, Brunner said he had no doubt that Huff was the reason he was hired. "There's no question," he said. "There weren't very many English openings then. I had sent out hundreds of resumes. There's no question he's the reason I was hired." Huff also formed the local chapter of Mensa in 1964. Huff was born in Brownsville and graduated from Alamo Heights High School in San Antonio. He earned his BA in English at Westmoreland College in San Antonio before serving in the Air Force during World War II. He later received his master's degree in English at Baylor University, his Ph.D. in English at Indiana University and a master's degree in Bible from HSU. He taught English at McMurry from 1949 until 1967, and at HSU from 1967 until he retired at 70. Brunner said Huff was forced to retire. "That was before it was against federal law to make people retire," Brunner said. Huff was a member of First United Methodist Church in Abilene from 1959-1975 and a member at First Baptist Church in Clyde from 1975 until his death. He served as a Sunday school and Bible study teacher. Huff is survived by his wife Naoma, a longtime teacher in Clyde, and daughters Ruth Knightstep of Clyde and Joy McElroy of Greenville, both of whom are teachers. "Education is in every aspect of their lives," Washburn said of the Huff family. Cruz, Abilene Zoo's 2-year-old maned wolf which was scheduled to be shipped to Australia for a breeding program, died Jan. 8 from a heart attack, said Stephanie Carle, zoo veterinarian. Plans were announced last year to ship Cruz to Altina Wildlife Park in Australia to breed with a maned wolf from the Pueblo, Colorado, zoo. The maned wolf is considered endangered in its native South American countries and near threatened by the International Union of Conservation of Nature. Now the Association of Zoos and Aquariums will have to find a new mate for the species survival program, said Kelly Thompson, zoo marketing and development coordinator. The zoo was preparing Cruz for his trip when he experienced the heart attack, Carle said in an email Wednesday. "The animal was sedated for a physical exam and medication administration required to be imported to Australia," she said. "Based on the histopathology, the animal experienced a heart attack during the procedure, possibly due to abnormal fat accumulation in his heart and other organs." Cruz also had inflammatory bowel disease. Carle said it was unclear if he would have survived the trip to Australia based on the necropsy. Altina Wildlife Park requested Cruz and would have paid for his transportation to Australia. The zoo wished to import maned wolves from the United States to help diversify the species, Thompson said. The Abilene Zoo has two other maned wolves, Cruz's parents. His sister, Sofia, is at Fossil Rim Wildlife Center near Glen Rose. Twitter: BrookeCrum_ARN A crowd packed a common area at the newly constructed A.L. "Dusty" and Nancy Rhodes Family Care Complex at the Hendrick Home for Children celebrating the completion of a more than three-year venture Wednesday. The complex, which will effectively double the size of the program assisting single mothers and their children, is a $7.2 million, privately funded space with state-of-the-art amenities designed to provide residents with the safety and security needed to turn their family lives around and get their feet under them mentally, financially and spiritually, said Barbara Dahl, Hendrick Home for Children's vice president of community relations. She said the new space has her personally excited for the future. "I'm excited because I know we're going to be able to help more kids and more parents in Abilene," Dahl said. "When you help the parent, you help the child and that is our mission." About 175 donors helped fund the new facility's construction, which took about 13 months to complete after a lengthy campaign. It's the parents like single mother Rachel Leucht, who moved to the campus about three years ago, who actually will see the benefits, though. At 26 and down on her luck after poor choices in men and in debt after having her then-18-month-old daughter, Leucht was crashing and burning. Now the 29-year-old is feeling more confident in herself. The debt is gone and money is even being put in a savings account to possibly fund her daughter's future college endeavors. Leucht is also taking her college courses with her sights set on biotechnology research in the future. She's finishing at Cisco College in May and hoping to take classes at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center come next fall on her way to a bachelor's degree. She said the most important part of the process, though, is that her daughter won't have to know the hard times that came before the two relocated to the expansive property by Sayles Boulevard and South 27th Street. "Even though we started at the bottom, she will never feel that," Leucht said. "She has never had to worry about where her meals are coming from. I haven't had to be stressed out about the bills or where we're going to go, what we're going to do. It made me a better mother. I guess it rubs off on them and they feel it." Twitter: @TimothyChippARN Fighting flu starts with a shot, and it's time for Texans to get one The best-buddy Republican presidential contenders who hugged each other in Washington in September now are trading attack ads in Iowa and New Hampshire. Sen. Ted Cruz, who could rapidly list his Washington friends because there aren't many, had played nicey-nice with billionaire New York mogul and reality show personality Donald Trump. Cruz, a tea party darling, admitted later that when Trump faded as Cruz predicted he will he hoped to inherit Trump's supporters. But by January, as Cruz almost was living in Iowa and overtaking Trump in polls, Trump hit Cruz with the same change-the-subject attacks he'd used on other candidates. Trump questioned whether Cruz's birth in Canada allowed him to meet the constitutional qualification as a 'natural born' citizen to be president. So Trump, who has repeatedly managed to hog the media spotlight at the expense if the many other candidates kept Cruz off balance. The junior Texas senator found himself fielding 'birther' questions about his citizenship rather than carpet-bombing Syria or fighting the 'Washington cartel.' Trump didn't let up. He brought in former Alaska governor and GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin for an endoresement. She was made briefly famous when John McCain picked her as his running mate in 2008. There was something sadly tasteless about Palin endorsing the guy who had dismissed McCain as a war hero because he'd been captured by the North Vietnamese. 'I like guys who weren't captured,' Trump had flippantly commented. Over the weekend, Trump also commented on Cruz's relative popularity, particularly in the Senate, where he has run roughshod in the tradition-conscious body. 'One of the problems with Ted Cruz is everybody hates him,' Trump said. As for himself, Trump, who can't resist boasting about his lead in the polls, bragged that he's more popular than ever. 'I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?' Trump declared. 'It's incredible!' Meanwhile, the GOP establishment is wringing its collective hands about all the damage that either Trump or Cruz would do to the Republican Party, and down-ballot races that could endanger their thin majority 54 to 46 in the U.S. Senate. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who dropped out of the race before he was probably going to get embarrassed in his home state's GOP primary Feb. 20, summed up their attitude most graphically and succinctly. Asked if he'd prefer Trump over Cruz, Graham said: 'It's a lot like being shot or poisoned: I think you get the same result.' Sen. Ellis for Commissioner. . . . . Following the death of longtime Harris County Commissioner El Franco Lee on Jan. 3, state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, hopes to win the job. Lee, 66, a former state legislator who became commissioner in 1985, was unopposed for re-election this year. The filing deadline has passed, so Ellis hopes Democratic precinct chairpersons will select him as a replacement candidate . Some may wonder why Ellis, a senator since 1990, would give up that position to become a county commissioner. But with Republicans almost prohibitively in control of the Senate, it is probably appealing to have a position with at least some power. There's also money. As a senator, Ellis makes $7,200 a year. A Harris County commissioner makes almost $170,000. Plus, Ellis, 61, would be immediately eligible for about $80,000 a year in legislative retirement. Combined with the commissioner's salary, that's about $250,000 annually 35 times what he makes as a legislator. Longtime Democratic state Rep. Garnet Coleman of Houston also has indicated interest in the commissioner's post. Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, a Republican, appointed Lee's close friend and former Houston City Attorney Gene Locke, a Democrat, as commissioner until a successor is selected. Email Dave McNeely at davemcneely111@gmail.com. This has been the wildest and most unpredictable presidential campaign in memory, and no one has voted yet. There's no law saying it can't get even crazier. With Donald Trump and Ted Cruz leading the Republican field and Bernie Sanders threatening to torpedo Hillary Clinton, some Americans are worried they will be faced with only unthinkable options on the November ballot. One of those people has the means to do something about it: Michael Bloomberg. The former New York mayor is considering a run as an independent. His thinking reportedly is that if the two major parties shun experienced and relatively centrist contenders, there will be a big gap in the middle of the political spectrum that he could fill. 'If you have a Democratic front-runner who is opposed to capitalism and a Republican front-runner who wants to deport 10 million immigrants,' one insider told Politico, Bloomberg would be more inclined to jump in. The last interloper with broad appeal was Ross Perot, who in 1992 rose to first place in the polls and eventually captured 19 percent of the popular vote. (His 1996 campaign was far less potent.) His candidacy, however, was the reverse image of what Bloomberg could offer. Perot was the angry outsider challenging two middle-of-the-road candidates, Republican George H.W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton, whom Perot regarded as champions of an unsatisfactory status quo. Bloomberg would make the case against angry outsiders. The case for taking Bloomberg seriously is that he's a pragmatic problem-solver who as mayor produced a budget surplus and lowered the crime rate. He has a fiscally conservative, socially liberal outlook that many voters share but the major party candidates may not offer. The financial data company he founded has made him one of the wealthiest people in the world. He has plenty of money to spend on a campaign. The case against his prospects? He's argued in the past that a 'short, Jewish, divorced billionaire' would be a tough sell nationally. Overcoming American voters' attachment to their political party has never been easy. He would be depicted as a nanny-state liberal who wants to deprive Americans of guns and giant sodas. But liberals have their own complaints: His 'stop and frisk' police tactics alienated many blacks, he battled with unions and he's about as close to Wall Street as anyone could be. Bloomberg toyed with the idea of an independent or third-party run for president in 2008 and 2012, only to back off. In an ordinary year, Bloomberg probably wouldn't be pondering a run and if he were, no one would be taking him seriously. But political experts have been about as reliable as astrologers this year. No one expected Trump to dominate the race month after month. No one expected Jeb Bush to be a nonentity. No one expected a democratic socialist from Vermont elected to the Senate as an independent, not a Democrat, to give Clinton nightmares. History and political logic suggest that Bloomberg can't be elected, though he could attract enough votes to change the outcome. 'It is far more likely that if he ran, Bloomberg would play a spoiler role than emerge as the winner,' says David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Barack Obama's presidential campaigns. If you have confidence in history and political logic, there are powerful reasons to think Bloomberg won't run, much less win. But it's risky to assume that the realities we take for granted are as relevant as they used to be. President Bloomberg, impossible? Maybe so. But the word 'impossible' has been redefined more than once in this campaign. Chicago Tribune Thursday should be sunny with a high close to 66 and a nightly low near 36. Expect highs this week to range from the 40s and up into the 70s while the nightly lows should stay in the 20 to 50 range. Your seven day forecast: Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 66. West wind 5 to 10 mph becoming north in the afternoon. Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 36. North wind around 5 mph becoming south southwest after midnight. Friday: Sunny, with a high near 70. South southwest wind 5 to 15 mph. Friday Night: Clear, with a low around 44. South southwest wind 10 to 15 mph. Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 75. Southwest wind around 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Saturday Night: Clear, with a low around 50. Breezy, with a southwest wind 15 to 20 mph. Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 73. West wind 10 to 15 mph. Sunday Night: Clear, with a low around 43. South wind around 10 mph. Monday: Sunny, with a high near 70. Breezy. Monday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 41. Breezy. Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 56. Breezy. Tuesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 29. Blustery. Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 46. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below This just in... The fourth North Korean nuclear test on Jan. 6 presents us with some riddles, one of which is its timing, which appears rather inappropriate at first glance. Virtually until the last moment, the North Korean government was working hard to improve relations with other countries, showing no indication that a nuclear test was imminent. On the contrary, North Korean officials put out hints that encouraged observers to believe that, in the immediate future, another exercise in nuclear sabre-rattling was not on the cards for the time being. Indeed, over the last year or two, North Korea has worked hard to improve relations with Russia, Europe and Southeast Asia. In recent months, there were signs that relations with South Korea had also begun to get better. However, in early January, the fourth nuclear test damaged North Koreas international standing. While North Koreas relations with key supporters China and Russia are likely to survive basically intact, there is virtually no chance of positive developments in ties with South Korea, Europe or Australia. One can argue that North Korea needs nuclear weapons for security reasons, or at least believes that it does, and therefore has to test nuclear devices from time to time. However, even if we accept either or both of these two propositions, this still leaves us with the main issue unresolved: Why so little coordination between diplomats and nuclear engineers? Indeed, why did North Korean political leaders, aware of the coming nuclear test, not order its diplomats to remain passive i.e. not to waste resources and political capital on attempts to win grace and favor from Europeans and Southeast Asians? At first glance, indeed, it would have made far more sense to first conduct a nuclear test and brave the unavoidable political fallout, before proceeding with efforts to improve relations with the outside world and get necessary benefits. Such consequences would have allowed the North Korean government to test the value of its deterrent and enjoy the subsequent efforts of its long-suffering and hardworking diplomatic corps. Strangely, this is not what happened. However, this is not the first time such things have happened under the Supreme Leader, Kim Jong Un. On Feb. 29, 2012, North Korea and the United States signed the so-called Leap-day agreement. According to the terms of this agreement, North Korea was promised 250,000 tons of food to be shipped in twelve monthly installments so long as it continued not to test missiles or nuclear weapons. Less than two weeks after it signed the deal, North Korea broke the agreement, declaring that missile tests would be commencing soon, thus failing to get a single gram of free food. Once again, it would probably have made more sense to test missiles first before signing an agreement. Had they done so, they would have had a tested missile, and perhaps an even bigger supply of free food. But they chose not to do so making life for the Obama administration rather easier and cheaper. Back in 2012, such a diplomatic mishap could be blamed on the turmoil of power transition: the young Kim had only just taken over from Kim Jong Il. However, the fact that the same thing happened again four years later seemingly points to a deeper problem: The North Korean bureaucracy is not coordinating properly. The North Korean state bureaucracy is known to be highly compartmentalized, with different agencies effectively siloed, seldom if ever exchanging information between themselves. Thus, it is normally the duty of the leadership to ensure that cogs and wheels of the state machine move in unison. One can surmise that, while diplomats worked hard to improve relations acting on instructions from the young Kim, military engineers worked around the clock following the instructions of another adviser to prepare a nuclear test. Both policies could easily be reconciled had top decision makers bothered to coordinate, but obviously they did not. If this is indeed the case, such a lack of coordination is potentially highly dangerous, not only for North Korea, but also for its neighbors. Chinese President Xi Jinping heads a hard-line administration which displays growing intolerance of dissent and increasingly harsh policies towards civil society groups, rights activists and lawyers, a U.S.-based rights group said on Thursday. The ruling Chinese Communist Party under Xi "does not tolerate any form of organized opposition or independent political parties," human rights group Freedom House said in its annual report, While global freedom faced its worst year in a decade in 2015, China's latest round of repression has been escalating since Xi came to power, it said, describing the country as "not free" and giving the country 16 marks out of 100 overall. "Harassment of previously tolerated civil society organizations, womens rights defenders, labor activists, and human rights lawyers intensified during the year," the report, titled Freedom in the World, 2016, said. "In July, security forces detained over 250 individuals involved in public-interest legal work in an unprecedented crackdown on Chinas 'rights-defense movement'," it said. "Internet controls continued to tighten, and several professional journalists were detained, imprisoned, and forced to make televised confessions," the report said. Restrictive laws Meanwhile, citizens who attempt to form opposition parties or advocate democratic reforms have been sentenced to long prison terms, the group said, citing the case of jailed Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, currently serving an 11-year jail term for subversion. In addition, Xi's administration rolled out a suite of laws that could further infringe on freedoms of association, expression, and religion, including the National Security Law in July and anti-terrorism legislation passed in December. Further legislation on cybersecurity and foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are in the pipeline, Freedom House said. Civil rights activist Huang Xiaomin, a member of the Pan-Blue Alliance group that supports the policies of Taiwan's nationalist Kuomintant (KMT), said the Communist Party is out of touch when it comes to getting their message across to the wider public. "They are still using the old ways of thinking from several decades ago ... including blocking, controlling, and framing people on trumped-up charges," Huang told RFA. "All of the factors contributing to social tension are on the increase," he said. "And yet they're still using such old-fashioned methods, which have been proven to be ineffective in the past." 'Guangzhou Three' The report came as authorities in the southern Chinese province imposed tight surveillance and house arrest on local activists ahead of a long-awaited sentencing hearing for the "Guangzhou Three" activists. Rights lawyer Tang Jingling, former teacher Wang Qingying, and writer-activist Yuan Xinting, known as the Guangzhou Three, initially stood trial on June 19 at the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court for "incitement to subvert state power" after being held in a police detention center for more than a year. Guangzhou rights activist Jia Pin said he had been summoned for questioning by state security police over his support for the three men, and warned not to try to attend the hearing. He said fellow activist Li Biyun is currently under house arrest and surveillance by several dozen police officers and hired muscle in Guangdong's Shunde city. "She is staying with her sister and wanted to go to hospital for a medical appointment, but they wouldn't let her," Jia said. No personal liberty Hong Kong activist Richard Choi, of the Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movement in China, said there are no guarantees of personal liberty whatsoever in China. "We have seen this over the past year with the detention of rights lawyers, rights activists, and other citizens who have had their freedom restricted," Choi said. "[Also with] the lack of judicial independence there." In the central province of Henan, rights lawyer Ji Laisong said he is still awaiting a trial date for Yu Shiwen, an activist from the provincial capital Zhengzhou detained in 2014 after taking part in activities to mark the 25th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.. "I hope they go to trial soon, because he has been locked up for nearly two years now," Ji told RFA. "That's even longer than [prominent rights lawyer] Pu Zhiqiang, and they've let him out now." Political instability Hong Kong political analyst and veteran China watcher Willy Lam said the crackdown down on any form of dissent, regarded by the party as "instability," looks set to continue in the face of slowing economic growth. "Beijing is terrified that they will see a rise in public protests and demonstrations as the economy slows and unemployment rises, making the country even less stable," Lam told RFA. "That's why Xi Jinping is stepping up his control over the media and Internet, to minimize social unrest and popular movements," he said. China has recently begun formally arresting a number of detained rights lawyers on subversion charges after holding them in unknown locations for six months, rights groups said. Ten are lawyers or others connected to the Beijing Fengrui law firm, including prominent rights lawyer Wang Yu, her husband Bao Longjun, and Fengrui boss Zhou Shifeng. Thirty-three still held As of Jan. 22, at least 317 lawyers, legal workers, and rights activists have been detained, held for questioning, or placed under some form of restriction since the crackdown began on the night of July 9, 2015, the Hong Kong-based Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group (CHRLCG) said in a statement on its website. While the majority have been released, albeit under surveillance or with travel bans imposed, 33 remain in detention or "residential surveillance," many at an unknown location. Reported by Qiao Long and Xin Lin for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Chow Tze-nam and Wen Yuqing for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie. Key figures in Hong Kong's political establishment hit out on Thursday at recent protests by students at the city's prestigious University of Hong Kong (HKU), using rhetoric similar to that of Beijing when faced with the pro-democracy Occupy Central movement of 2014. Arthur Li, the controversially appointed chairman of the HKU council, said that students who protested outside the council's last meeting on Tuesday night were being poisoned and manipulated by others, and were similar to people "on drugs." Li, who is a serving member of chief executive Leung Chun-ying's cabinet, the Executive Council, was speaking two days after being besieged in a building on the HKU campus after it was surrounded by hundreds of students calling for him to come out and talk with them. "I am very clear about the motivations of a small minority of students, about their standpoint, and that they are well-meaning," Li said. "But they are like people on drugs, who do irrational things under their influence." "Of course we would blame such a person, but we should also be clear about who it is who is supplying the students with this 'drug'," Li said. Li accused pan-democratic politicians, including the Civic Party, for fueling the protests and a week-long class boycott, which came amid growing public fears that behind-the-scenes pressure from Beijing was influential in the council's decision to reject the candidacy of liberal scholar Johannes Chan for the post of pro-vice-chancellor last year. Leaked audio recordings of council meetings revealed that Li played a key role in the rejection of Chan for the job. Academic independence Students and academics have expressed concern at the level of government involvement in the day-to-day running of HKU, saying the current arrangements are a threat to the academic independence of the university. While the council has said it will review its structure in time, the students are calling for immediate changes and for a dialogue with Li, who responded instead by singling out some of the protest leaders for public criticism. "There was a student called Yvonne Leung who called all the students out on a class boycott, but the Civic Party was behind the scenes, manipulating things, because Johannes Chan hadn't got the job they wanted him to get," Li said. "The Civic Party and the other pan-democrats have been on the sidelines, inciting the the students to riot," Li said. Li said he was happy to meet with any students at any time. "I'm just not going to come out and meet with you when you are holding a metaphorical gun to my head." Li also took aim at HKU student union president Billy Fung, who he described as a "spin doctor," accusing him of disseminating false information to the media. "He promised to maintain confidentiality when he was at the meeting [with officials], and then he went out and immediately held a press conference at which he leaked all of the content of the meeting," Li said. " "He also told the students that we weren't planning to set up a review panel [to look into reforming the council structure] when the council voted unanimously ... to set one up," Li said. Footage handed over Meanwhile, HKU vice-chancellor Peter Mathieson, who has said the students' protest amounted to 'mob rule,' has agreed to hand over security camera footage of the protests to police, sparking criticism from pan-democratic legislator Audrey Eu. "Mathieson should be siding with the students, who are worried about the institution's autonomy," Eu told government broadcaster RTHK on Thursday, calling on senior academics to take action to resolve the standoff. I call upon all the other deans and ... senior lecturers the students can trust, please, come out and act as some kind of mediation, and try to resolve and understand the difficulties," Eu said. "They are legitimate concerns at the end of the day. You should not treat them as mobs, and criminals," said Eu, who is also a member of the HKU Alumni Concern Group. "That's not the way to treat students." Police are investigating the protests after Mathieson said the students behavior had put the safety of council members at serious risk, and amid reports of minor damage to university property, government broadcaster RTHK reported. The protests come amid growing fears that Beijing has no intention of respecting Hong Kong's traditional freedoms of expression, including the city's pluralistic political scene and once freewheeling press and publishing industry. Under the terms of its 1997 handover to China, Hong Kong was promised the continuation of its existing freedoms and a "high degree of autonomy." But the recent "disappearance" of five men connected to a bookstore selling political books banned in mainland China, two of whom are in police custody across the internal border, sent shock waves through the city, sparking street protests. Chinese officials have so far declined to explain how the men, one of whom, Gui Minhai, is a Swedish national detained on holiday in Thailand, and one of whom, Lee Bo, holds a British passport, reached China in the first place. Unanswered questions While Chinese officials have said Lee is in China, "assisting in an investigation," there are many other questions still unanswered. "The questions are: where exactly is Lee Bo? Why can't he come out and speak? How did he get back to China? Why can't he come back to Hong Kong?" pan-democratic legislator and veteran rights activist Leung Kwok-hung told RFA in a recent interview. "So far, we don't have any answers, but if he isn't being held under criminal detention, he should be able to leave China whenever he chooses," Leung said after meeting earlier this week with a delegation of U.K. members of parliament in Hong Kong to ask similar questions. Civic Party lawmaker Dennis Kwok called for the immediate release of all five men linked to Causeway Bay Books. "The only way to make calm things down is to release the Causeway Bay Five at once, including Lee Bo, Gui Minhai, and the others," Kwok told RFA. "And if illegal methods were used to get them there, then the central government needs to give us an explanation." I will say once again, that when people break the law in Hong Kong, mainland Chinese law enforcement have no jurisdiction." Reported by Ho Si-yuen for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry says representatives from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, and the United States will meet in Islamabad next month to discuss how to resume the stalled peace process between Kabul and the Taliban. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qazi Khalilullah said the February 6 meeting was part of an effort aimed at laying out a "road map" to peace for war-torn Afghanistan. It will be the third such meeting in recent weeks. Khalilullah said on January 28 that Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will soon travel to Qatar as part of that effort, but did not elaborate on that visit. The announcement comes days after the Afghan Taliban said its "political office" in Qatar was the only entity authorized to carry out negotiations on its behalf. Based on reporting by AP President Barack Obamas nominee to be the next U.S. military commander in Afghanistan has told the U.S. Senate that the security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating, and assured senators he will do a complete review of the U.S. troop levels needed to stabilize the country. Lieutenant General John W. Nicholson, Jr. told the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing on January 28 that "there will always be some level of violence in Afghanistan." He said he would have a better sense of conditions there within a few months if he is confirmed by the Senate. Nicholson would succeed General John Campbell, who is expected to retire around the beginning of March. There are now about 9,800 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. At Campbell's urging, Obama last October abandoned his plan to reduce troop levels to near zero by the end of 2016. Instead, he said they would shrink to 5,500 by the end of the year. Nicholson said he supports the decision to keep troops in Afghanistan for now and that he agrees with Campbell's decision. Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP BRUSSELS -- An EU court has ruled that the bloc was wrong to freeze the assets of five close associates of ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. The ruling on January 28 by the EUs General Court concerns former Ukrainian Prime Ministers Mykola Azarov and Serhiy Abruzov, Azarov's son Oleksii, former Energy Minister Edward Stavytskyi, and businessman Serhii Klyuyev. The EU in March 2014 placed the five on a blacklist of individuals suspected of stealing Ukrainian public funds before Yanukovych was brought down by street protests. The EUs General Court said on January 28 that the five were included on the blacklist based solely on a letter from the Ukrainian Prosecutor-Generals Office. But the letter dated from March 2014 provides no details concerning the matters specifically alleged against the five Ukrainians or the nature of their responsibility, the Luxembourg-based judges argued. The ruling can be appealed within two months before the European Court of Justice. A revolutionary court in Irans Golestan Province has sentenced 24 believers in the Baha'i faith to as many as 11 years in prison each. A Geneva-based spokeswoman for the International Baha'i community, Simin Fahandezh, said the 24 individuals are being imprisoned strictly because of their religious faith, which is not officially recognized by Iran. "Theyre innocent," Fahandezh said. "They havent committed any crime as the only charge against them is their membership in the Baha'i community. She said the prison sentences, ranging from six to 11 years, demonstrate that "human rights have no value for Iranian authorities." She said those who've been sentenced were detained in 2012 in Golestan during a crackdown against the Baha'i community. The sentences can be appealed. Bahai routinely face persecution in Iran. Fahandezh said there are currently more than 80 Baha'is in jail in Iran. She said the treatment of Baha'is in Iran has not changed since President Hassan Rohani took office and promised to improve Iran's human rights record. "Baha'is are still being detained. Jailed. Young Baha'is are still being deprived of their right to study, and the number of Baha'i cemeteries that have been desecrated has increased," Fahandezh said. Last year, the United Nations special rapporteur on minority issues, Rita Izsak, called on Iran to take concrete steps to protect Baha'is and other religious minorities in Iran. Iranian President Hassan Rohani has sealed a 22 billion euro ($25 billion) deal to buy 118 civilian aircraft from the French firm Airbus The deal to purchase the planes was announced in Paris on January 28 at a ceremony attended by Rohani and French President Francois Hollande. Meanwhile, France's Peugeot-Citroen announced a joint venture with Iranian automaker Khodro to make 200,000 cars a year in Iran starting in 2017. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the countries should forget past rancor. Valls said: "France is available for Iran," and "Iran can count on France." Earlier on January 28, Rohani told French business executives in Paris that Iran is "favorable terrain" for resumed trade between East and West. Rohani urged the French business leaders for support to unblock financing for resumed trade now that sanctions over Irans nuclear program are being implemented. Continued U.S. bank restrictions against Iran are a hurdle to many European countries seeking renewed commerce. Rohani praised France and said he wants to use the positive atmosphere after a landmark nuclear deal to boost ties. Later, at a joint press conference with French President Francois Hollande, Rohani reiterated that Tehran would keep its commitments made under a nuclear accord with major world powers. Rohani said the United States, the European Union, and other world powers would also have to keep their end of the bargain. Hollande said that the basis of new relations with Iran depends entirely on the respect of commitments made in the nuclear agreement. Hollande said he also reminded Rohani that France was "committed to human rights" during talks in Paris. The Islamic republic is often criticized for human rights violations, including a large number of executions. As Rohani was meeting with Hollande in Paris, a protest was held by the feminist group Femen -- including a mock hanging from a bridge of one of their members who had painted an Iranian flag across her naked chest. On the bridge above her, protesters had hung a banner saying: "Welcome Rohani, Executioner Of Freedom." During their meeting in Paris, Hollande and Rohani said they also had addressed the situation in Syria. The French president emphasized the urgency of negotiating a political solution to Syria's civil war, saying "we urgently need to put in place humanitarian measures and negotiate a political transition. It is possible." Rohani said it was up to the Syrian people to make decisions about their country. When asked whether Tehran was ready to compromise on the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Rohani said "The problem in Syria is not a question of people, but terrorism and the Islamic State." Iran has been helping Assad's regime, Tehran's main regional ally, with financial and military support. With reporting by AP, Reuters, and AFP A Kosovar citizen accused of hacking the personal data of 1,351 U.S. military personnel and sending it to the Islamic State (IS) extremist group made his first public appearance in the United States on January 27. Ardit Ferizi, 20, appeared in a U.S. court in Virginia to face terrorism charges after being extradited from Malaysia, where he was detained in October on a U.S. arrest warrant. Charging documents say the Kosovar hacker broke into the computer server of a U.S. online retailer and stole the military members' identifying information. The criminal complaint says Ferizi provided the information to IS, including the British hacker Junaid Hussain, who boasted about having the information in an August 2015 tweet titled "NEW: U.S. Military AND Government HACKED by the Islamic State Hacking Division!" Twitter messages show that Ferizi also offered to create a computer program enabling IS to post propaganda that would "never get deleted," according to court records. U.S. officials called Ferizi's case the "first of its kind" when his arrest was announced last year. He faces up to 35 years in prison if convicted. Based on reporting by Reuters and BotaSot BISHKEK -- A critic of a top Kyrgyz government official has fled the country to avoid paying a large fine. Uran Botobekov's relatives told RFE/RL on January 27 that he had to leave the country after the Bishkek City Court upheld a previous court's decision to fine him for libel. Kyrgyz presidential adviser Ikramjan Ilmiyanov sued Botobekov last year, claiming that the latter had insulted his honor and dignity in an interview with a Bishkek-based news agency in April 2015. In the interview, Botobekov claimed that Ilmiyanov, who was then deputy chief of the presidential administration, had been behind the privatization of a major publishing house in Bishkek. Botobekov said Ilmiyanov was seeking influence as well as personal gain. A court in Bishkek found Botobekov guilty of libel in August 2015 and ordered him to pay a fine of 1.8 million soms ($23,700). Botobekov dismissed the court's decision as politically motivated. His current whereabouts are unknown. Moldovan politics makes strange bedfellows, as shown by recent protests in Chisinau. But the unlikely alliance of pro-Europe and pro-Russia parties is fueling concerns that Moscow will emerge the winner. The main parties behind the protests -- the Socialist Party (PSRM), Our Party (PN), and the Dignity and Truth (DA) party -- have found some common ground. They staunchly oppose what they consider a corrupt political elite, blaming it for failing to lift Moldova's citizens out of deep poverty. They seek early elections and the dismissal of the country's newly approved government, which they accuse of being a puppet of that corrupt elite. And they're united in calling for the arrest of a hugely powerful oligarch and media mogul accused of involvement in a massive fraud that shook Moldovans' faith in government. But their positions on the opposite end of the political spectrum are what makes their union so improbable. The Socialist Party and Our Party are pro-Russian, and have made no attempt to hide their desire to move closer to Moscow; Dignity and Truth is pro-European, and wants to maintain Moldova's course toward Brussels, and away from its Soviet past. Short-Term Relationship The leaders of the three parties -- the Socialist Party's Igor Dodon, Our Party's Renato Usatii, and Dignity and Truth's Andrei Nastase -- have spearheaded the recent protests, which erupted over the approval of Prime Minister Pavel Filip and his new government. Analyst Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation explains that the three have teamed up out of convenience, and based on their mutual belief that oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc wields too much power over the current government. "This is a short-term tactical alliance," Socor tells RFE/RL. "In the vision of those who made this alliance, they aim to topple the current government formally led by Pavel Filip, but actually controlled by Plahotniuc." The controversial oligarch is seen by many as a main figure behind a massive fraud discovered last year. Around $1 billion, accounting for one-eighth of Moldova's GDP, disappeared from Moldova's banking system. The ensuing scandal led to the fall of the government in October, and the approval of Filip and his government came after two unsuccessful attempts to choose a new prime minister. To the protest leaders -- pro-Russian or pro-European -- Filip's government too closely resembles the one voted out by Parliament three months ago, and which "not only the protest leaders but also probably a large majority of the Moldovan society views as a manifestation of organized crime and of a captive state," Socor says. The three protest leaders have gone to great lengths to reassure their voters that once their immediate goal is achieved and early elections are announced, they will go their separate ways. But the alliance is nonetheless cause for consternation on both sides of Moldova's Russia-Europe divide. Poised For Victory The problem, for many, is that in the event the joint effort does succeed in forcing new elections, the pro-Russian parties are in the best position to gain. A recent opinion poll showed that if elections were held today, the Socialist Party (with nearly 17 percent of the vote) and Our Party (with just under 15 percent) would garner the most votes. Victory would put them in position to form the next government, and threaten to once again unravel Moldova's efforts to chart its own course since the fall of the Soviet Union. In a country with a three-quarter Romanian-speaking majority, which on the surface identifies more closely with Europe, the pro-Russian parties have steadily grown in influence. Their rise is seen as an indication of growing nostalgia for more prosperous Soviet times and disappointment with ever-elusive EU integration, and also as a consequence of public dissatisfaction with successive pro-European governments that failed to improve living standards despite signing an Association Agreement with Brussels in 2014. Pro-Russian leaders Dodon and Usatii strongly opposed Moldova's signing of that agreement, and are advocating membership in the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union instead. Dodon's Socialist Party made a strong showing in its debut election in November 2014, winning 20 percent of the vote on the back of its slogan "Together with Russia." Huge banners showing Dodon together with Russian President Vladimir Putin featured heavily in the party's campaign. But with the Communist Party refusing any alliance with the Socialists ahead of the election, Dodon's party was left stranded upon winning, and pro-European parties were able to form the doomed minority government. Usatii's arrival on the scene has the potential to alter the landscape enough to put a Moscow-friendly government in power. Usatii returned to Moldova in 2014 after a decade spent in Russia. His last attempt to make his mark in Moldovan elections fell short when his pro-Russian Homeland party was banned just days ahead of the November 2014 parliamentary elections by order of the Supreme Court on the grounds that it had illegally received funding from abroad. In February, his next effort -- Our Party -- was approved, and after having left Moldova in the wake of his election ban he returned to run for mayor of Balti, Moldova's second-largest city. He won the June election after spending generous amounts of money on charitable acts. Criticism For Everyone Both Dodon and Usatii have been traveling extensively to Russia, and were seen together on a plane returning from Moscow on January 20, just hours before launching the current protests outside Parliament as lawmakers hurriedly approved Filip's government. The two have played down their anti-EU stance during the protests, instead focusing on their professed anticorruption fervor. But the effort has done little to diminish critics' suspicions that their ultimate goal is to bring Moldova back in Moscow's orbit once they accede to power. Seeing Ukraine's struggles to shake off the Russian yoke, highlighted by a Russian-fueled separatist war in eastern Ukraine, the palpable fear among Europe-leaning Moldovans is that the same scenario could be repeated in their country. "You cannot fight corruption and an oligarchic system together with two extremely dubious representatives of this very system -- one of them a former interloper and a current political adventurer such as Renato Usatii," Moldovan political commentator Petru Bogatu tells RFE/RL's Moldovan Service. "You cannot clean out your house, your table, with dirty hands." Meanwhile the pro-European Dignity and Truth party -- which finished a distant third in the recent opinion poll with 9 percent -- stands accused by critics of selling out despite Nastase's repeated declarations that he remains a staunch pro-European whose immediate goal is to release Moldova from oligarch Plahotniuc's "captivity." According to Bogatu, Nastase has cast a shadow on Moldova's pro-EU camp, and risks his political future by teaming up with Dodon and Usatii. "For a Moldovan citizen who is a pro-European, a unionist and a democrat, cohabitation with a filo-Russian interloper and a favorite of Putin, even directed against an oligarch such as Plahotniuc, is like you would join the Islamic State group to topple [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad," Bogatu says. Against The Wall As the Kremlin weighed in on the crisis, announcing on January 22 that President Putin had discussed "the worsening situation in Moldova" with permanent members of the Russian Security Council, Moldovan Prime Minister Filip looked West for support. Romania, the United States, and the European Union have expressed support for his new government, while urging it to implement urgent pro-EU and anticorruption reforms. But looking for more than just words, Filip traveled on January 26 to Romania -- with which Moldova shares a common language and history. He left Bucharest with the promise of a $65 million tranche from an overall $162 million assistance package. But the lifeline came with a caveat: Filip needed to provide evidence that the new Moldovan government was serious about reform before the money would be sent. As the three unlikely allies prepare to take their protest to the next level -- including a meeting with Parliament speaker Andrian Candu on January 29 to discuss their demand that Parliament hold an emergency session to dissolve the government and call early elections -- all eyes are on Filip to see if he can deliver. RFE/RL's Moldovan Service correspondents Mircea Ticudean, and Alexandru Eftode in Prague, and Liliana Barbarosie and Iulian Ciocan in Chisinau, contributed to this report Four police officers have been killed in an attack in southwestern Pakistan. Police said gunmen opened fire on the four as they were riding motorcycles down a road on January 28 in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan Province. Two died on the spot, while the other officers succumbed later in hospital. The attackers escaped and a search is under way to find them. Pakistan's Taliban, the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack in an e-mail sent to RFE/RL. Balochistan is the scene of a low-intensity insurgency by nationalist and separatist Baluch groups, who want a share of revenue from gas and mineral resources and complete autonomy from Islamabad. It's also home to Taliban insurgents, drug smugglers, kidnapping rings, sectarian militants, and government-backed paramilitary death squads. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called on Germany to provide all the details of its investigation into a claim of rape by a 13-year-old girl from a Russian immigrant family in Berlin. Lavrov said on January 28 that if Berlin presented "all the necessity information, there will be far less misunderstanding." He also denied interfering in German affairs. The girl, who disappeared on January 11 before reappearing the next day, is at the center of a media storm after she initially told police she was kidnapped and raped by what her family said were Middle Eastern migrants. Berlin police say they have found no evidence of rape or abduction. But the spokesman for Berlin's prosecutor's office, Martin Steltner, told RFE/RL on January 27 that two men, neither of whom are a recent migrant, were under investigation for possible past sexual contact with the girl. Lavrov's statement comes a day after German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier cautioned Russia not to exploit the case politically. On January 26, Lavrov said that he hoped German authorities dont "attempt to cover up the reality for some domestic politically correct reason." Based on reporting by dpa and AP Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said during a visit to Turkmenistan that Russia is eager to forge closer ties with the secretive and authoritarian Central Asian nation. Lavrov told Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov that Russia was ready to cooperate more closely with Turkmenistan in fighting terrorism, drug smuggling, and organized crime, according to Russian media reports. During their talks on January 28 in Ashgabat, Berdymukhammedov said developing a transit corridor between the two countries had big potential, according to TASS. The Turkmen leader also extended an invitation to Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit Turkmenistan. During talks with his Turkmen counterpart, Lavrov said Russia was ready to help Turkmenistan patrol its southern border with Afghanistan, but he added Ashgabat does not need such assistance right now. Lavrov also said Russia and Turkmenistan were planning to increase defense and security cooperation to better ensure regional security. According to Human Rights Watch, Turkmenistan, rich in natural gas, remains one of the worlds most repressive countries, with a disastrous human rights record. Berdymukhammedov, reelected in 2012, his relatives, and their associates maintain unlimited control over all aspects of public life. Based on reporting by Interfax and TASS Russian oil executives and energy officials decided this week they should talk to Saudi Arabia and the OPEC oil cartel about cutting output to boost world oil prices, the head of Russia's pipeline monopoly said on January 27. The comments by Nikolai Tokarev, head of Transneft, gave the strongest indication to date of possible cooperation between the cartel and Russia, the top non-OPEC oil producer, and helped spur a sharp rise of more than 5 percent in world oil prices. A vice president of Lukoil, Russia's No. 2 oil producer, said earlier this week that Moscow should start talking to OPEC. Tokarev said oil executives and government officials met in Moscow on January 26 and reached the conclusion that talks with OPEC were needed to shore up oil prices. "At the meeting, there was discussion in particular about the oil price and what steps we should take collectively to change the situation for the better, including negotiations within the framework of OPEC as a whole, and bilaterally," he said. "The main initiative is being shown by, of course, our Saudi partners. They are the main negotiators. That means that they are the ones we need to discuss this with first of all." He said Russia was willing to discuss output cuts with OPEC, calling that "one of the levers or mechanisms that would allow us to in some way balance the oil price." The oil executives meeting in Moscow, moreover, discussed the technical feasibility of cutting production in Russia, he said, and agreed that because oil field activities are frozen in during the winter, production cuts would only be possible in the summer. A Russian Energy Ministry representative confirmed to Reuters that possible coordination with OPEC had been discussed at the meeting, which the ministry hosted. "The meeting participants discussed the possibility of coordination of actions with OPEC members amid unfavorable market conditions on the global oil market," the official said. Premium crude prices have fallen from around $115 a barrel in the middle of 2014 to a little above $30, causing problems for oil producers everywhere, from bankrupting shale producers in the United States to forcing first-time reforms such as the elimination of expensive energy subsidies in wealthy Persian Gulf states. In Russia, the price collapse along with economic sanctions imposed by the West over the crisis in Ukraine has pushed the economy into recession and severely depleted government revenues. Hard-hit Venezuela and other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries want coordinated output cuts to push up prices, and they have been pressing Russia to play its part. But Russian officials have always resisted such calls in the past, citing the futility of trying to counter entrenched market trends like the current downturn. A Kremlin spokesman told Reuters on January 27 that while Russia holds regular discussions with other oil-producers on the situation in world markets, there are no plans as of now for coordinated actions. Thus it would be a major reversal for Russia if discussions with OPEC begin in earnest following this week's apparent agreement among oil executives in Moscow. Russian production reached a new post-Soviet high in December of 10.80 million barrels per day. That puts it in the same league as Saudi Arabia, OPEC's biggest producer, which also pumps more than 10 million barrels a day. Agreeing to output cuts would also be a big change for OPEC, which accounts for one-third of global output. The cartel failed to agree to any cuts at a meeting last month, with the Saudis and other participants sticking to their game plan of maintaining output to maintain their market share and drive out high-cost shale producers in North America. The meeting broke up in disarray after Iran, previously kept from international markets by Western sanctions, insisted on its right to dramatically increase production by up to 1 million barrels a day with the lifting of sanctions this year. Economists estimate that suppliers already are producing about 1.5 million barrels per day more than global consumers need. That has produced a glut of oil on world markets so acute that some countries are running out of space to store it cheaply. So far, within OPEC, only Algeria and Venezuela have clearly expressed support for a production cut. However, Iraq, OPEC's second-biggest producer after Saudi Arabia, softened its stance this week, saying it is now willing to reduce its output if all major producers inside and outside of OPEC agree. Iraq, like Iran, has been ramping up production and hit record production levels last month, in a development that shook markets and sent oil prices spiraling lower earlier this week. But while Russia and Iraq now seem more willing to tighten the oil spigot, Iran remains bent on increasing production, leading many analysts to be skeptical that any agreement on output cuts is on the way. With reporting by Reuters and TASS DUSHANBE -- Chinese authorities have executed a Tajik national convicted of drug trafficking. Tajik Foreign Ministry officials told RFE/RL that Hasan Yusufov, 51, was executed early in the morning on January 28. Tajik Embassy representatives were allowed to meet with Yusufov before his execution, the officials said. Yusufov was arrested in Urumqi, the capital of China's northwestern region of Xinjiang, in 2011 and was charged with drug trafficking. He was later found guilty and sentenced to death. All attempts by the Tajik Embassy to overturn the death sentence were fruitless, the Foreign Ministry officials said, adding that talks were under way to bring Yusufov's body home to Tajikistan. Tajik officials said earlier that 16 Tajik citizens were currently in China's prison system, four of whom are on death row while five are serving life terms. Ukraine's central bank has more than halved its 2016 growth forecast as the cash-strapped country battles crises ranging from a fall in commodity prices to a new trade embargo by Russia. The National Bank of Ukraine said on January 28 that several unfavorable factors beyond the country's control forced the downward revision of its growth forecast from 2.4 percent to 1.1 percent. The central bank had made the 2.4 percent growth prediction in late November. Earlier in January, Moscow expanded its embargo on Ukrainian products and restricted their movement across its territory to other markets in response to Kyiv's decision to approve a free-trade and political association pact with the European Union. Russia and Ukraine have been at odds over the Kremlins annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and Moscows support of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Based on reporting by AFP and UNIAN John McCain, the powerful chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, is vowing to reinstate a ban on U.S. military use of Russian rocket engines. McCain on January 27 said he will introduce legislation striking language enacted as part of a massive spending bill last month that eased the ban put in place after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014. The United States must "ensure we end our dependence on Russian rocket engines and stop subsidizing [Russian President] Vladimir Putin and his gang of corrupt cronies," he said. McCain cited two Russian executives --Sergei Chemezov and Dmitry Rogozin -- who were targeted by U.S. sanctions and yet their positions in Russia's space and defense industry allow them to personally profit from the sales of Russian RD-180 engines to the U.S. military. Each engine costs roughly $30 million. "So we now have senior Russian politicians, friends of Vladimir Putin, that are making tens of millions dollars in the pass-through money that is paid for the Russian rocket engines," McCain said. Congress weakened the ban on military use of Russian engines out of worries that it could drive United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, out of business and leave just one other U.S. provider to lift satellites into space -- SpaceX. Top Pentagon and Air Force officials defended their use of the Russian engines at a committee hearing on January 27 and urged the panel to allow it to continue until alternatives are available. They said they were moving ahead with plans to fund public-private launch services in 2017. Defense Undersecretary Frank Kendall, the Pentagon's chief arms buyer, said ULA might not survive if the U.S. military immediately stops using the Russian engine that powers its Atlas 5 rocket. He said ULA has a second rocket, the Delta 4, that does not use the RD-180 engines, but that vehicle costs "millions of dollars more" than the Atlas 5 rocket and could not compete with cheaper launches provided by SpaceX. The Air Force last year certified entrepreneur Elon Musk's SpaceX to execute military launches, but has not yet awarded a contract to the company. Kendall said losing ULA would leave the military relying solely on SpaceX for launches, despite a policy that requires two avenues for launching satellites into space. McCain and other senators urged the department to provide data on the exact cost of switching to the Delta 4 rocket until other options are available. They said they backed spending more money on that rocket, rather than buying Russian engines. ULA's recent order of 20 more Russian engines amounted to "a nearly half-billion-dollar windfall" for Russia, McCain said. McCain also blasted ULA for refusing to bid in an Air Force launch competition last year, despite receiving billions of dollars in government funding to maintain its launch capability. With reporting by AP and NBC News The wife of Saeed Abedini, an American pastor freed on January 16 from an Iranian prison as part of a prisoner swap, is seeking to legally separate from her husband. On the same day Abedini returned to his home in the U.S. state of Idaho, court documents show that his wife, Naghmeh Panahi, filed a petition for separation. Naghmeh Abedini previously told supporters that her husband had been abusive and suffered from a pornography addiction. She told Reuters on January 27 that her husband had threatened to end their marriage if she did not take steps to repair his public image. "I sincerely had hoped that this horrible situation Saeed has had to go through would bring about the spiritual change needed in both of us to bring healing to our marriage," she said on Facebook. "Tragically, the opposite has occurred." Saeed Abedini, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was jailed by Iran in 2013 for allegedly compromising Iran's national security by setting up home-based Christian churches there. He was one of five Americans released in a prisoner exchange as Washington lifted sanctions on Tehran in return for Iran curbing its nuclear ambitions. Based on reporting by Reuters and AP A felon released from prison six months ago who was wanted in last weeks killing of an Amelia County man and the abduction of his wife shot himself Wednesday in Fitchburg, Mass., as police closed in to arrest him, authorities said. The U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force, working with Massachusetts State Police, located Dana L. William, 43, about 9:10 a.m. at an apartment in Fitchburg and attempted to arrest him. But William, who was armed, shot and critically wounded himself as officers prepared to enter the residence, authorities said. He was transported to an area hospital with life-threatening injuries, said Massachusetts state trooper Paul Sullivan, a department spokesman. The Amelia Sheriffs Office said in a release that William had died, but Sullivan said the suspect remains alive and is in critical condition. Massachusetts State Police is investigating the shooting. As soon as they went to the door there was a single gunshot fired, and Mr. William was (found) suffering from a critical life-threatening injury, said Kevin Connolly, a supervisor for the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force in Richmond. No law enforcement weapons were discharged. Authorities are now focused on locating Olene H. Brooks, 68, who police said William abducted after killing her husband, Woodell E. Brooks, also 68. Police said William took friends and family hostage last Thursday near the couples home in the 1700 block of Poor House Road. Police found Brooks bound and dead in the couples home, and William left the area after taking Olene Brooks hostage, Amelia authorities said. Were hoping that shes found alive, but her whereabouts are currently unknown and everybodys trying to find her, Connolly said. The Amelia Emergency Squad and the Amelia Emergency Squad Auxiliary have offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to Olene Brooks. The U.S. Marshals Service has contributed an additional $2,500. William was married to a daughter of Olene Brooks. The Amelia Sheriffs Office, Virginia State Police and the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force had conducted a manhunt for William since last Thursday. The state medical examiners office has ruled Woodell Brooks death a homicide and the cause asphyxiation due to ligature strangulation. Connolly said early in the case that the Richmond-area fugitive task force had developed information that William may have fled to Fitchburg, his hometown. (But) we didnt think he would go there, Connolly said. We had leads in North Carolina and Florida, and Fitchburg, as well as here. Then on Friday evening, the Richmond-area squad developed additional information and the Marshals Service Task Force in Boston conducted interviews in the Fitchburg area. But it wasnt until (Tuesday) that we developed information here of a possible address he would be at in Fitchburg, Connolly said. The Richmond squad then provided that information to the Marshals Service in Boston, and that group went to the home to arrest William, Connolly said. William was staying with a female associate, Connolly added. There were multiple addresses that were being watched, but this is the one we felt he was in, Connolly said. William was released from prison a little more than 6 months ago after serving 2 years and 2 months for one count of rape and five counts of violating a protective order, according to Virginia Department of Corrections records. He was convicted in Chesterfield County on April 22, 2013. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison with 38 years suspended for the rape, and 12 months with 11 months suspended on each of the protective order violations, DOC records show. William was released to community supervision on July 6 of last year. With his rape conviction, William was required to register as a sex offender, and he was entered into the state database in May 2013. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Olene Brooks can call the Amelia Sheriffs Office at (804) 561-2118 or Amelia Crime Solvers at (804) 561-5200. It looks like nothing was found at this location. Maybe try a search? Search for: Search A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind. This Position Is Closed to New Applicants This position is no longer open for new applications. Either the position has expired or was removed because it was filled. However, there are thousands of other great jobs to be found on Rigzone. Roanoke College announced its events schedule for February. The months public events lineup is listed below. Honors Conference Week: Keynote Speaker Joseph Rule Wednesday, Feb. 3, 6-9 p.m., Massengill Auditorium Joseph Rule, an emeritus professor at Old Dominion University, will lead a discussion about conservation, a topic that determines how we live our daily lives. Rule taught ocean, earth and atmospheric sciences at ODU, and he was associate dean of the College of Sciences. He works with organizations to raise environmental awareness in the Chesapeake Bay. In 1991, he was a Fulbright scholar, lecturing in environmental sciences at Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin, Poland. Roanoke College Coffee Shop Talk: The Lore of Lost Cities: From El Dorado to the Lost City of the Monkey God Thursday, Feb. 4, 8 p.m., Mill Mountain Coffee and Tea, Salem Dr. David Anderson, visiting assistant professor of sociology at Roanoke College, will discuss the lore of lost cities, from El Dorado to the lost city of the Monkey God. Coffee Shop Talks provide a relaxed forum for discussion and inquiry on a wide range of topics. Each one-hour talk includes a short presentation, followed by questions and discussion. Emergent World Power: Chinas 21st Century Revolution Monday, Feb. 8, 7:30 p.m., Colket Center Garrett Meeting Room Dr. Lionel M. Jensen is associate professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Notre Dame, and faculty fellow of the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies and of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. His research is identified closely with the intellectual history of Confucianism, however, his interests and published work extend from ancient through medieval, modern and even contemporary topics. He has conducted research in Chinese religion and thought, contemporary economy and politics, human rights, folklore, early Sino-western contact, popular cults, comparative mythology and nationalism. Theatre Roanoke College: These Shining Lives Thursday, Feb. 25 Saturday, Feb. 27, 7:30 p.m., Olin Theater; Sunday, Feb. 28, 2 p.m., Olin Theater Based on the true story of four women working in a clock factory in the 1920s, These Shining Lives, by Melanie Marnich, chronicles the many challenges that these women face. Their story is one of courage and hope. Tickets: $7 adults/$5 senior citizens and non-RC students Tickets available at www.roanoke.edu/events, or by calling 540-375-2333. Email boxoffice@roanoke.edu for more information. ONGOING: Art Exhibition: Friday, Jan. 22 Sunday, Feb. 28 Olin Gallery: Roanoke Colleges Fine Arts Faculty Smoyer Gallery: Jennie Ruhland: From the Page to the Stage Olin Gallery- Roanoke Colleges Fine Arts Faculty This exhibition will showcase current work created by Roanoke Colleges Studio Art Faculty - Scott Hardwig, Elizabeth Heil and Katherine Shortridge. Hardwig teaches ceramics and sculpture at Roanoke, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1977. He received his master of fine arts degree from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Heil joined the Roanoke College faculty in 1981 and teaches photography, computer graphics and printmaking. She earned her master of fine arts degree in printmaking and drawing from Northern Illinois University. Shortridge received her master of fine arts degree from Indiana University and has taught painting and drawing at Roanoke since 2003. Smoyer Gallery- Jennie Ruhland: From the Page to the Stage From the Page to the Stage will showcase Ruhlands process of costume design through concept boards, visual renderings and material samples that the artist has created for various theater productions. This exhibition will also feature the actual dresses produced from these renderings. The collection includes pieces from plays performed at locations such as Roanoke College, the University of Virginia, Mill Mountain Theatre and Roanoke Childrens Theatre. Submitted by Roanoke College RICHMOND A bill seeking to reinforce the religious protections for ministers and others who perform weddings cleared an initial hurdle in subcommittee Wednesday. House Bill 19, sponsored by Del. Chris Head, clarifies that marriage officiants cant be required to take an oath as part of their certification process and arent considered agents of the state. The bill, prompted by the legalization of same-sex marriage, is part of a slate of religious liberty bills drawing support this year from conservative groups like the Family Foundation of Virginia and the Alliance Defending Freedom. In a subcommittee hearing Wednesday, Head, R-Botetourt County, said his was a narrow measure designed to ease concerns and reaffirm the freedoms of marriage officiants. We dont want to prohibit anyone from being able to have the union they are legally entitled to, he said. But we also want to make sure the officiants are protected in the event it does violate their closely held religious beliefs. Heads bill covers both ministers and civil officiants who are certified to perform weddings. It passed the GOP-led House Courts of Justice Civil Law Subcommittee with opposition from the panels Democratic members. Del. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, said she was concerned the bill would end up giving people a free pass to discriminate. Head stressed his proposal doesnt deal with the duty of court clerks to issue marriage licenses or other hot-button issues in the marriage debate. Subcommittee Chairman Del. Greg Habeeb, R-Salem, said he saw the measure as a simple clarification bill seeking to preserve the rights of ministers and others who may decline to perform a wedding for a wide variety of reasons. I think this has the potential, if talked about the wrong way, to be a fairly controversial bill, he said, and I dont think its actually intended to be controversial. The bill will now advance to the full House courts committee for consideration. Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Republican General Assembly leaders will announce a bipartisan deal on gun policy Friday that would effectively reverse Attorney General Mark Herrings move to sever concealed carry reciprocity agreements with more than two dozen states while enacting a handful of gun-safety measures sought by Democratic lawmakers. The deal, confirmed by McAuliffes office and the office of House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford County, would undo Herrings decision last month to stop recognizing concealed carry permits issued by 25 states, a move protested by gun-rights advocates who argued it needlessly targeted law-abiding gun owners. The agreement, expected to be formally announced Friday afternoon, is the first major bipartisan breakthrough of the legislative session. It allows Republicans to say theyve restored and expanded concealed carry rights, while Democrats can say theyre gaining ground on gun restrictions long blocked by the legislature. The governor believes this is a bipartisan deal that would keep Virginians safe, said McAuliffe spokesman Brian Coy. I think everyone gave something up and everyone got something, said Howell spokesman Matt Moran. The deal would require the Virginia State Police to be available at all gun shows to perform voluntary background checks for dealers who are not federally licensed. It also would require anyone subject to a permanent protective order to surrender guns in their possession, a policy aimed at removing guns from domestic violence situations. Though the deal could be viewed as a setback for Herring often accused by opponents of playing politics with his office, but praised by supporters as a champion of progressive causes the attorney general said in a statement Thursday that hes encouraged to finally see a bipartisan conversation on reducing gun violence. If finally enforcing our concealed handgun reciprocity laws helps break the legislative logjam on efforts to expand background checks and force domestic abusers to turn over their guns, then Im glad we could provide some momentum and I hope this is just the first step in enacting sensible gun safety measures, Herring said. Coy said Herrings decision on concealed carry permits, which some gun-rights activists feared would lead other states to stop recognizing Virginia permits, served as a catalyst for the agreement. Without his leadership, this deal would not have been possible, Coy said. McAuliffes deal-making on guns didnt sit well with some of his allies in the gun-control push. Andy Parker, the father of slain WDBJ (Channel 7) journalist Alison Parker, criticized the governor in a statement circulated by Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group that poured in more than $2.4 million to support Democratic campaigns in last years elections. Since my daughter, Alison, was killed on live television in August, Ive stood by Gov. McAuliffes side and applauded his leadership on gun safety and he has been a friend and source of support for me and my family, Parker said. That is why if reports are true that hell put the gun lobby agenda ahead of the safety of Virginians, I am beyond disappointed. Herring has said his decision to revoke reciprocity with the other states stemmed from a provision of state law meant to prevent Virginia from recognizing out-of-state permits issued under looser rules. The action was scheduled to go into effect Feb. 1. Under the compromise, Virginia would have to enter into reciprocity agreements with states that require recognition of their own permits before recognizing Virginias permits. Anyone who has had a Virginia permit revoked could not carry a concealed weapon in Virginia using another states permit. The legislation making up the concealed-carry portion of the deal was crafted by Sen. Bryce Reeves, R-Spotsylvania County. Senator Reeves and many others have worked diligently to find common ground while protecting Second Amendment rights, said Senate Republican Caucus Chairman Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover County. We think this agreement accomplishes that goal. Some had warned that the concealed carry decision would cause hardship and confusion near state borders, where residents frequently cross from one state to another. U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, released a statement with Rep. Phil Roe, a Tennessee Republican, saying it was encouraging to see the governor backing off his support for the attorney generals misguided decision. Put simply, we believe your Second Amendment right does not stop at a state line, the congressmen said. Individuals under permanent protective orders, which are issued by judges and can last up to two years, would have to sell or transfer guns in their possession within 24 hours. McAuliffe has previously encouraged judges to use their power to remove guns in domestic violence cases, but the deal would make it a legal requirement. Although the deal stops short of closing the so-called gun show loophole, it would station state police at gun shows as an option for unlicensed sellers who dont have access to the federal database for background checks. The deal is expected to be officially unveiled Friday afternoon at a news conference featuring leaders from both parties. RICHMOND The House Appropriations Committee is considering a different way to send almost $190 million in new state funds to local school divisions, using money from the Virginia Lottery with fewer strings attached than proposed by Gov. Terry McAuliffe. The Appropriations alternate plan would direct lottery funding to support local schools, instead of using that revenue source to balance the states budget, which is the method Virginia has followed for the past five years. McAuliffe proposes to use state general funds for hiring new teachers and increasing support of at-risk students. The advantage would be more local flexibility in how school divisions spend the money without the requirement to match state funds used to hire new teachers, said Appropriations Chairman Chris Jones, R-Suffolk. Were not going to reduce the amount of funding, but we want to give more flexibility, Jones said after a staff presentation on how the state zeroed out the allocation of lottery funds to help local school divisions during the recession. Since the first lottery ticket was sold in 1988, the proceeds of the profitable state gaming enterprise have been used to pay for one-time capital projects, to help pay the states share of direct aid to education, and send money to localities to use for a combination of capital and operating expenses. However, since voters created the State Lottery Proceeds Fund through a statewide referendum in 2000, the state has gradually used the lottery money to supplant general tax dollars to pay for its share of education costs and reduced the amount sent directly to localities. In 2011, for the first time, local school divisions received no direct lottery proceeds. Chesapeake School Superintendent James Roberts told the committee that school divisions would welcome the proposed flexibility in how they spend the money included in the governors proposed two-year budget, as long as no school division receives less. I would submit to you that using any new revenue to restore funds in an area such as the lottery dollars would not only give school divisions more flexibility to fill holes created by cuts in previous years, but it would also restore confidence in the public that lottery funds are being used to increase funding to our public schools, Roberts said. I would caution you, however, that any change to the governors proposal should guarantee each school division at least the same amount of increased funding in the original budget submitted by the governor, he said. The option suggested by committee staff would re-purpose about $139 million proposed by McAuliffe to help school divisions hire 2,500 new teachers to partly fill the hole created by deep cuts in state funding for K-12 education since 2008. It also would send about $50 million over two years to school divisions for at-risk programs through the lottery, but a fiscal analyst for local governments warned that some poorer divisions could receive less money by using a formula that places less emphasis on the number of free lunches as a measure of poverty. Youre going to change who gets what by re-purposing it, said James Regimbal, a fiscal consultant to the Virginia Municipal League and Virginia Association of Counties, in an interview after the Appropriations Committee meeting. Regimbal dismissed the notion that funneling the proposed new spending through the lottery fund would help localities any more than any other kind of state budget appropriation, although he said school divisions would welcome flexibility in how they can spend the money. Flexibility is fine thats what everybody wants, he said. But the real issue is how much money do you get. Increasing state funding of K-12 education is the top priority in the budget McAuliffe proposed last month. Roberts estimated up to $1.7 billion has been cut from school budgets since the 2008-2009 school year. Roberts said the suggestion of routing the proposed new funding to hire teachers through the lottery would allow school systems such as Chesapeakes to restore cuts it has made in replacing equipment and deferring maintenance. Hiring new teachers would require more in local funding than the state would provide under the governors plan, he added. The money also would begin to restore the lottery as a dedicated source of local school funding, Jones said. CHRISTIANSBURG A decorated combat veteran hopes to represent the Fighting 9th. Derek Kitts of Christiansburg, who recently retired from the U.S. Army after three tours in Iraq and another in Afghanistan and three years of teaching ROTC classes at Radford University said this week that he is joining the ranks of possible Democratic contenders for the 9th Congressional District seat. It is now held by Republican Morgan Griffith of Salem, who won election to Congress in 2010. Kitts, 46, said Monday that he thinks that his military background, which includes earning two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart, sets him apart from other Democratic hopefuls. He said that he is exploring fundraising possibilities and plans a formal announcement of his candidacy soon. I feel a gap, Kitts said of Griffiths representation of the sprawling 9th District, which covers all of Virginia south and west from Salem. Theres a big difference between being a politician and being a leader. A leader is needed out here, not another politician, Kitts said. Kitts is joining about a half dozen Democrats who have expressed interest in taking on Griffith, Democratic district committee Vice Chairwoman Aviva Frye said Tuesday. The field includes Roanoke Mayor David Bowers and farmer and retired postal worker Bill Bunch of Tazewell County. Democrats are still setting their schedule for choosing a candidate, Frye said. Local delegates will be picked on the weekend of April 16, she said. The delegates then will select a nominee at a district convention in May, Frye said. Contacted Tuesday, Griffith said that while the districts Democrats had not yet chosen his opponent, the partys national priorities suggested the candidate would be not in step with the people of Southwest Virginia. Kitts is a Roanoke native whose father runs a fasteners manufacturing company in Lynchburg. Kitts is married with two daughters one now deployed with the 82nd Airborne, he said, and the other a freshman at Christiansburg High School. In November, he retired from an Army career that took him to Germany and Saudi Arabia, as well as to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. He earned a bachelors degree in public safety along the way, stacking up credits at different institutions, then finishing with two years at Bluefield College. In a book about the surge campaign in Iraq, Lt. Col. Michael Silvermans Awakening Victory, Kitts is described as one of the units brightest platoon sergeants, and also the biggest smartass in the battalion. A first sergeant when he retired, Kitts said that his time in the military taught him about taking care of people and about the consequences of actions. As an example, he cited a 2005 incident that he later wrote about in the Army Times. Patrolling near a checkpoint, Kitts squad was approached by a car that looked like one they had been warned could carry a bomb. When the car sped toward them, squad members opened fire. They wounded the driver, who turned out to be an Iraqi Army solider, an ally, who said that he hadnt seen their signal to stop. A bullet also went past the car and hit a 5-year-old girl down the street. Kitts said the girl was rushed to a U.S. hospital and saved. He wrote that he ended up in the same medical facility with her after spraining his ankle, and talked to her as she recovered. On Tuesday, Kitts said that though the childs shooting was accidental and he hadnt fired the shot, he had commanded the unit. You can delegate authority but you can never delegate responsibility, he said. Kitts was wounded himself in a separate incident when a bomb blew up beneath his vehicle, he said. His Purple Heart medal now hangs on a wall at home on a plaque with a piece of the armor plating from the vehicles floor, he said. If elected, Kitts said he would support the Affordable Care Act but would consider changes to improve it. He said that he would oppose banning immigrants of certain religions or from certain countries because doing so seems to fly in the face of the principles on which America was founded. As an avid target shooter and the owner of more than one and less than 100 firearms, Kitts said he strongly supports gun ownership. But he said he believes background checks should precede all sales and that people should receive more firearms safety training. Kitts said he agreed with Republicans call for more mental health care as a partial solution to gun violence, but that comes under the Affordable Care Act. Overall, Im moderate. Id honestly call myself a Blue Dog, he said, referring to the name for a group of fiscally conservative Democrats. He sounded eager to start campaigning against Griffith. When I really believe in something, Im a bull in a china shop. Im a hammer, Kitts said. But Ive always believed in taking care of people first. A bright star still radiates in our hearts.Nicholas Robert Anderson, 23, recent Virginia Tech Physics graduate, passed away in Blacksburg, Va. on December 22, 2015. Born in New Brunswick, N.J., Nick moved to Virginia Beach in 1997. Nick earned the rank of Eagle Scout in 2010, and graduated later that year from Tallwood High School. At Virginia Tech, Nick served as President of the Astronomy Club and also was an avid member of the Back Bay Amateur Astronomers. He earned various astronomy awards, including the Master Observer Award and the Messier 400 Award.Musically gifted, Nicholas played the piano, bassoon, cello, and trombone, and recently completed his first piano composition. Nick had a love of animals, travel, and exploration, and spent last summer working at Yellowstone National Park.Left to cherish his memory are his father, Charles Anderson; mother, Sandra Anderson LaSalle; brother, David Anderson; and grandmother Anne Belsky; and extended family and friends.A memorial service was held on Saturday January 16, 2016 at the First Presbyterian Church of Virginia Beach. A second service will be held at 3 p.m. on Saturday January 30, 2016 at the Virginia Tech War Memorial Chapel in Blacksburg, VA.In lieu of flowers, please donate to the Union Mission, P.O. Box 3203, Norfolk, VA 23514-3203, or a charity of your choice.Nick's passion for astronomy can be viewed via his active website at www.MessierThanAComet.com. A DARING teenager is preparing to go from 0 to to 120mph in ten seconds, taking on the UKs highest tandem skydive in memory of her grandparents. Megan Hancock (17), from Mexborough, has signed up to The Big Jump For Weston Park Hospital Cancer Charity to raise funds for the hospital where they were cared for. Megan never got to meet her two grandfathers as her dads father Edward Hancock died aged 49 of throat cancer when her father was aged ten. In 1996 her mothers dad, Eddie Welsh, died from colon cancer aged 72, and eight years later her grandmother Katie Hancock died from kidney cancer. All three were cared for at Weston Park Hospital. Megan (pictured) said: All the staff at Weston Park Hospital were brilliant with both my granddad and gran. I remember feeling like I was too young to say thank you at the time but now Im older, I want to do all I can to show how grateful we were and still are to this day. I decided to take on The Big Jump to support the hospitals dedicated charity and raise as much money as possible. Weston Park Hospital Cancer Charity is encouraging those seeking the thrill factor to sign up to The Big Jump and take on a 15,000ft skydive on June 12. Megan, who works at Mexborough School as a business administrator, said: The skydive will take me completely out of my comfort zone but I wanted to do something extreme to raise awareness and money for the hospital and charity Charity fundraiser Sarah Cross said: For those looking for an exciting challenge in 2016, The Big Jump is a perfect way for supporters of the cancer charity to help raise funds whilst remembering loved ones or supporting those receiving treatment. Megan is incredibly courageous and we wish her the best of luck as she aims for her target and prepares for the jump of her life. Skydives are becoming more popular amongst our fundraisers so we now have a dedicated jump day on June 12 at Skydive Hibaldstow, North Lincolnshire, where jumpers can jump as part of Team Weston Park. Last year, skydivers raised 25,000 between them, which went towards life-changing projects within Weston Park Hospital. *p(0,8.504,0,10,0.567,0,g(P,S))To sponsor Megan visit www.justgiving.com/Megan-Hancock. To find out more about The Big Jump visit www.thebigjump.org.uk. POLICE sniffed out and shut down a cannabis farm at a house. Officers from Rotherham North local policing team (LPT) seized ten plants from a property on Brookside in Swinton on Friday, January 22. A spokesman said police and community support officers could smell the drug while on routine patrol and were granted a search warrant. Suspected stolen electrical items were also seized in the raid. Anyone with any information about people they suspect may be involved with drug dealing should call police on 101. Alternatively, call Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555111. thTe Scandinavian country is a prime destination for refugees and other migrants entering the EU illegally. Last year, more than half applications were accepted and this is about 60,000 people. This requires important resources from the government. Regarding people who will have rejected applications, the first step will be to go with voluntary return, and to create the best conditions for that, Interior minister Anders Ygeman told to the media. And if that doesnt work, we will need to have returns backed up by force. Swedish government is also seeking return agreements with countries such as Afghanistan and Morocco. To stop migrants to remain without legal papers, the government will deter businesses from employ those who have had their applications refused. US scientists have urged the World Health Organisation to take urgent action over the Zika virus, which they say has "explosive pandemic potential". Writing in a US medical journal, they called on the WHO Director-General to convene an IHR Emergency Committee to advise countries on critical issues such as vector control, system preparedness, travel advisories, and avoiding punitive measures. Also, an emergency committee of disease experts should be convened immediately to advise the Director-General about the conditions necessary to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), Daniel R. Lucey and Lawrence O. Gostin said in an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The World Health Organization Monday warned that Zika virus was likely to spread across nearly all of the Americas. The biggest concern is the potential impact on babies developing in the womb, and US health authorities have warned pregnant women not to travel to Latin America and the Caribbean to avoid exposure to the Zika virus. Nearly 4000 suspected cases of microcephaly - babies born with tiny brains - have been reported in Brazil alone since October. The US scientists called on the UN health agency to heed lessons from the Ebola outbreak, and blames that its failure to act decisively cost thousands of lives. The WHO Director General was widely criticized for waiting 4 months after the first cross-border transmission of Ebola before declaring a PHEIC. Their warning came ahead of WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan's briefing Thursday at the 138th WHO Executive Board meeting on Zika virus and steps that WHO is taking in response to the outbreak. The global dimensions of Zika are quite clear, with fresh urgency as the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro loom. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Political News While much of the recent focus of the presidential campaign has been on Donald Trump's decision to skip tonight's Fox News debate, the results of a trio of new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls show the real estate tycoon leading the Republican races in all three early-voting states. Just four days ahead of the Iowa caucuses, the results of a survey of likely Republican caucus-goers show Trump with a 32 percent to 25 percent lead over Senator Ted Cruz, R-Tex. The seven-point lead for Trump in the latest poll reflects a turnaround from a poll conducted earlier this month, which showed Cruz with a 28 percent to 24 percent advantage. Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., came in third in both polls, although support for the Florida Senator has climbed to 18 percent from 13 percent. A separate survey showed that Trump has expanded his substantial lead among likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters. The poll showed Trump in the lead in New Hampshire at 31 percent, followed by Cruz at 12 percent and Rubio and Ohio Gov. John Kasich tied at 11 percent. In a survey conducted earlier this month, Trump led Rubio 30 percent to 14 percent, with Cruz at 10 percent and Kasich and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush tied at 9 percent. The billionaire businessman also has a commanding lead in South Carolina, where NBC/WSJ/Marist conducted their first survey of likely primary voters. The poll showed Trump with the support of 36 percent of likely South Carolina primary voters, followed by Cruz at 20 percent and Rubio at 14 percent. "Trump is positioned to run the house in these first three states," said Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, Director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. "His supporters are committed and plan to turn out." "Will it happen? The answer depends on when or if anti-Trump sentiment will coalesce to interrupt his march to the nomination," he added. The NBC/WSJ/Marist survey of 450 likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers was conducted January 24th through January 26th and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.6 percentage points. The survey of 612 likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters was conducted January 17th through 23rd and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.0 percentage points. The NBC/WSJ/Marist survey of 718 likely South Carolina Republican primary voters was also conducted January 17th through 23rd and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. (Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore) For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Political News Circuit City is making a comeback as an electronics boutique store after becoming bankrupt in 2009, Twice reports. Veteran retailers Ronny Shmoel and Albert Liniado revealed their plans to open new Circuit City retail stores using a boutique model rather than its earlier superstore model. Circuit City reportedly plans to launch its first retail store in the Dallas in June. The stores will sell tablets, video game systems, drones, 3D printers, and smartphones. The company hopes to open 50 to 100 stores in 2016. Shmoel and Liniado had acquired the "Circuit City" brand from Systemax Inc., in October 2015. Systemax had bought the brand name after its bankruptcy and had used to sell electronics and media as an online retailer CircuitCity.com, until late December 2012. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com More Blogs A group of Super PACs supporting Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., has offered to donate $1.5 million to veterans charities if real estate tycoon Donald Trump accepts the Senator's invitation to a one-on-one debate. The offer from the groups known as Keep the Promise comes as Trump has decided to skip Thursday night's Fox News debate amid an ongoing feud with moderator Megyn Kelly. Cruz subsequently challenged Trump to a one-on-one debate before the Iowa caucuses on Monday and called on his supporters to tell the businessman to accept his invitation. The Super PACs offered to make the donation, as Trump is holding a rally his campaign says will benefit veterans instead of attending the Fox News debate. "Not only would this be a heck of a debate, but it would also be a terrific opportunity to generate millions of dollars for the veterans," the donors backing the Super PACs said in a joint statement. The Cruz supporters said the debate should be an hour long and take place before the Iowa caucuses, with the candidates allowed to pick the moderators themselves. Cruz released a statement on Wednesday inviting Trump to a one-on-one debate in Sioux City, Iowa, on Saturday at 8 pm. The Senator suggested the moderators either be radio hosts Mark Levin, Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh, or that the format simply be questions from the audience. "We owe it to the men and women of Iowa to ensure that they hear jointly and directly from the two leading Republican candidates so that they may contrast our positions on the critical issues we face as a nation as they make their final choice leading up to Monday's caucuses," Cruz said. Just four days ahead of the Iowa caucuses, the results of a NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll showed Trump with a 32 percent to 25 percent lead over Cruz among likely Republican caucus-goers. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Political News Three hostile gunboats destroyed in Taiz coasts TAIZ, Jan. 28 (Saba) The missile force of the army and popular committees destroyed three gunboats belonging to the aggression off Mokha port in Taiz province, a military official said on Thursday. The army and popular committees fired guided missiles at the aggression boats, which were moving in the Yemeni coasts and attacking citizens and public and private installations, the official explained. He confirmed that the missiles hit their targets accurately, which led to the destruction of those boats. BA Saba Facebook Facebook Twitter Twitter Whatsapp Whatsapp Telegram Telegram Email Email Print Print [28/January/2016] A first-of-its-kind journey along India and Pakistan border What binds the two most talked about nations - India and Pakistan together? What makes the I give my consent to Sakshi Post to be in touch with me via email for the purpose of event marketing and corporate communications. Privacy Policy Ex-officer was a churchgoer, family man. Police say he may be a serial rapist. The Allen family lived on the northwest side of Hutchinson, less than two miles from Rice Park, where several women said they were accosted. 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United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe By Peggy Kelly Santa Paula News With El Nino projected to start as early as January its time to be prepared for any water related mishaps you know could occur on your property. And one of the best ways to prepare is to have sandbags placed in strategic areas before the rain comes, an effort the city will help you with Saturday when free sand and bags are available for residents only. According to Interim Public Works Director Brian Yanez, free bags and sand will be available January 2 at the Community Center (corner of West Main Street and Steckel Drive) from 8 a.m. to noon. Youll be limited to 10 bags per vehicle with proof of Santa Paula residency and youll have to bag them yourself, said Yanez. Well supply the shovels to use, the sand is free, the bags are free so come and do it The coming El Nino is projected to perhaps be the worse ever recorded, the forecast already surpassing the El Nino of the late-1980s and mid-1990s. An El Nino weather event does not mean that there is a single onslaught of heavy rain but a series of storms that keep coming creating water runoff, debris flows and flooding. With California in the fourth year of a serious drought the potential complications from an El Nino are heightened due to dry, rock-hard land that initially will reject too much moisture and then shed topsoil. If an emergency situation arises, Obviously well have sand and bags available, as soon as we know something is coming through well set up as normal at Fire Station One, on South 10th Street. The sand and bags available Saturday said Yanez, Are just to give the community a little jump start to prepareif people know they have a problem on their property they should work to prevent damage and not wait until they have damage, from flooding. By Peggy Kelly Santa Paula News Its back and Caltrans is planning two meetings in the Santa Clara River Valley to consider improvements to Highway 126, a longstanding and controversial plan for Santa Paula and Fillmore area residents but work that Caltrans claims will enhance safety. The first California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) scoping meeting will be on January 27 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in Fillmores City Hall Council Chambers, 250 Central Ave. in Fillmore. The second meeting will be held on February 3 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the Santa Paula Community Center, 530 W. Main St. in Santa Paula. The meetings reflect the formal kickoff of studies by Caltrans for the project to enhance safety throughout the State Route 126 corridor and reduce potential conflicting traffic movements, according to an agency spokesperson. The project is located on Highway 126 between Hallock Drive in Santa Paula and Fillmores E Street, a stretch of approximately 7 miles. Highway 126 provides an east-west connection between US Highway 101 in Ventura County and Interstate 5 in Los Angeles County. According to a statement, Caltrans is considering options that include a concrete median barrier or a raised median island with visual markers. Possible features include roundabouts, wider road curves, an acceleration/deceleration lane at railroad crossings, retaining walls and improved highway access including driveways at various locations. One design option notes co The cost of the project could hit $70 million, about $10 million a mile. A modern roundabout according to the Federal Highway Administration, is a type of looping junction in which road traffic travels in one direction around a central island and priority is given to the circulating flow. Signs usually direct traffic entering the circle to slow and to yield the right of way. Those living and working along Highway 126 as well as commuters have questioned Caltrans plans in the past noting suggested improvements would hamper farming and create its own hazards if access is restricted along the route. Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/28/2016 -- Acetophenone is an organic compound and one of the simplest forms of ketone. Acetophenone is a viscous colorless liquid and is an important precursor in the production of fragrances and resins. The applications of acetophenone include resin precursors, pharmaceuticals, fragrances, chewing gums and it is also used as a laboratory reagent. The demand for acetophenone across the globe is expected to show strong growth in the next few years. Complete Report with TOC @ http://www.mrrse.com/acetophenone-market Acetophenone are used in applications such as perfumes and fragrances while it also acts as a precursor in the production process of various chemicals. This makes acetophenone a major form of ketone to be produced commercially. In, terms of demand the demand for acetophenone is high from the perfumes and fragrances market where acetophenone is an essential ingredient for creating fragrances resembling cherry, almond, jasmine, honeysuckle and strawberry fragrances. Acetophenone is also used as a fragrance ingredient in detergents, soaps, lotions and creams. It is also used as a flavoring agent in nonalcoholic beverages, tobacco and some foods. Acetophenone as a product is also used in chewing gums and forms one of the various additives to be used for making cigarettes. Naturally, acetophenone occurs in many food products such as apple, apricot, cheese, beef, banana, and cauliflower. Earlier, acetophenone was used in medicines as an anticonvulsant and hypnotic. Acetophenone can also be used as a catalyst in olefin polymerization. The demand for acetophenone is expected to stem from the emerging economies of Asia Pacific such as China and India as well as countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia etc. Growing disposable income in these regions is expected to drive the market demand for acetophenone in Asia Pacific. With growing consumer spending of luxury products such as perfumes and fragrances is expected to further drive the demand for acetophenone which is one of the main ingredients of perfumes. With growing economies of Asian countries has led to an increase in the expenditure on lifestyle products thus, the demand for perfumes and other lifestyle products has seen a spike in these region. With increased demand for perfumes, the demand for acetophenone is expected to increase especially in these regions. Inquiry on this report @ http://www.mrrse.com/enquiry/13 In terms of acetophenone production, Asia Pacific was the major producer of acetophenone followed by North America and Europe. Consumption pattern of acetophenone was similar to the production pattern across the globe. In terms of consumption, Asia Pacific was the major consumer of acetophenone, globally. Asia Pacific was followed by North America, Europe and Rest of the World. North America is one of the major markets for perfumes industry and thus is also an important demand destination for acetophenone. The major acetophenone markets in North America were U.S and Canada. Europe has a large presence of lifestyle products producers, where there are many manufacturers related to the perfumes industry. In Europe, the major consumptions markets were Germany, France, Italy, and U.K amongst others. In Asia Pacific, China accounted for the largest demand for acetophenone followed by India, Japan, Indonesia etc. There has been a growing demand for acetophenone and its products especially from countries of Asia Pacific such as China and India. With further economic development of these regions is expected to further propel the demand for acetophenone and its derivates in the near future. Request a Free Sample Copy of the Report @ http://www.mrrse.com/sample/13 Some of the major companies operating in the global acetophenone market are Rhodia, CellMark USA LLC, Alfa Aesar and INEOS Phenol among others. About MRRSE MRRSE stands for Market Research Reports Search Engine, the largest online catalog of latest market research reports based on industries, companies, and countries. MRRSE sources thousands of industry reports, market statistics, and company profiles from trusted entities and makes them available at a click. Besides well-known private publishers, the reports featured on MRRSE typically come from national statistics agencies, investment agencies, leading media houses, trade unions, governments, and embassies. Port Harcourt, Rivers State -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/28/2016 -- In a latest announcement, the official website of National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) has listed the selected study centres for students of the academic session 2016-17. As per the articles posted on the university's official website, the study centres are categorized according to zones namely, South East zone, Central Zone, North West zone, North East zone, South East Nigeria, and in Lagos state. A representative of the university revealed that the study centres are being spread across 36 states of Nigeria and that all detailed information for contact and inquiries has been provided for each study centres. He stated, "Interested students can visit the website and click on their respective zones where they will find the name of the department official who is in charge of the specific study centre along with address, e-mail, and contact details." The representative also added that the university has increased the number of study centres so that they could reach out to more students as well as make it easier for students to maintain a close connection with the university. He also said that the university has launched a study centre in Lagos state with Dr. Olubiyi Adeniyi Adewale as the centre director."All the study centres have been approved as per university norms and are also published in the National Universities Commission (NUC) of Nigeria", added the representative. In addition to the announcement of the new study centres, NOUN has also listed the programmes or courses for the new academic session. Moreover, visitors can also view the 2016-17 academic calendar to find out about the admission dates, exams, and so on. It disclosed by the representative that those interested in admitting for any of the available course can download the application form through the link given in the website. "Courseware and study material can be downloaded in PDF format", stated the representative. For more details go to http://www.nounstudents.org.ng/ About nounstudents.org.ng The website is dedicated to providing all the latest information and details about the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). Contact Media nounstudents http://www.nounstudents.org.ng/ Port Harcourt city, River state Ph. No +234.08105961069 admin@nounstudents.org.ng Pune, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/27/2016 -- According to the new market research report "Photolithography (Equipment) Market by Type (i-line, KrF, ArF Dry, ArFi, and EUV), Light Source (Mercury Lamp, Excimer Laser, Fluorine Laser, and Laser Produced Plasma), Wavelength, and Region - Forecast to 2020", the market is estimated to reach USD 8.02 Billion by 2020, at a CAGR of 4.3% between 2015 and 2020. Browse 75 market data Tables and 53 Figures spread through 160 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Photolithography (Equipment) Market" http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/photolithography-equipment-market-145860852.html Early buyers will receive 10% customization On this report. Factors such as growth in the semiconductor industry, requirement for advanced technical equipment, and government support are key drivers for photolithography equipment market. Moreover, adoption of photolithography equipments for advanced packaging application provides huge opportunity for further growth of this market. ArFi equipment is expected to lead photolithography equipment market: The ArFi equipment is widely used in the manufacturing of semiconductor devices for double and multi-layer pattering techniques.. This equipment is available at lower costs when compared to other equipment, which is tremendously increasing the growth of ArFi equipment in photolithography market. EUV is expected to grow at the highest CAGR between 2015 and 2020 The EUV equipment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR between 2015 and 2020. This is mainly due to the fact that EUV has several advantages over other equipment such as improved wavelength, and lower operational and maintenance cost for semiconductor devices. EUV generates wavelength of the order of 13nm, which is being used in the photolithography equipment to manufacture semiconductor devices. Thus, the manufactures have started giving preference to EUV equipment. APAC is expected to hold the highest market share and grow at a high CAGR during the forecast period APAC accounted for the largest share in the photolithography equipment market in 2014; and is expected to grow at the highest CAGR between 2015 and 2020. The growth is attributed to increasing industrialization and urbanization in the region. Further, the increasing semiconductor manufacturing capacity in the countries such as China, Taiwan, and South Korea are key factors responsible for the increasing adoption of photolithography equipment. Major players operating in this market are ASML Holdings, N.V. (The Netherlands), Nikon Corporation (Japan), Canon, Inc. (Japan), JEOL Ltd. (Japan), NuFlare Technology, Inc.(Japan), Ultratech, Inc. (U.S.), Rudolph Technologies, Inc. (U.S.), SUSS Mictotec, A.G. (Germany), Nil Technology (Denmark), and EV Group (U.S.). Ask For PDF Brochure: http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownload.asp?id=145860852 This research report categorizes the global photolithography equipment market based on type, light source, wavelength, and region. This report describes the drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges with respect to the photolithography equipment market. .The Porter's five forces analysis has been included in the report with a description of each of its forces and their respective impact on the photolithography equipment market. Browse Related Reports Sputter Coating Market by Target Material (Pure Material, Compound), by Substrate (Metal, Glass, Plastic, Semiconductor), by Application (Architecture, Electronics, Optical, Tribological & Decorative Coating) & by Geography - Global Forecast to 2020 http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/sputter-coating-market-38931101.html Surface Mount Technology Market by Equipment (Soldering, Screen Print, Placement, Inspection, Cleaning, Repair & Rework), by Application (Automotive, Consumer Electronics, Telecommunication, Medical), and Region - Global Forecast to 2020 http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/surface-mount-technology-market-99662691.html About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets is world's No. 2 firm in terms of annually published premium market research reports. Serving 1700 global fortune enterprises with more than 1200 premium studies in a year, M&M is catering to multitude of clients across 8 different industrial verticals. We specialize in consulting assignments and business research across high growth markets, cutting edge technologies and newer applications. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. M&M's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connect over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. The new included chapters on Methodology and Benchmarking presented with high quality analytical info graphics in our reports gives complete visibility of how the numbers have been arriving and defend the accuracy of the numbers. We at MarketsandMarkets are inspired to help our clients grow by providing apt business insight with our huge market intelligence repository. Contact: Mr. Rohan Markets and Markets UNIT no 802, Tower no. 7, SEZ Magarpatta city, Hadapsar Pune, Maharashtra 411013, India Tel: + 1-888-600-6441 Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com Sterling Heights, MI -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/28/2016 -- Pinnacle Treatment Centers, a multistate provider of addiction treatment services has opened its second location in Sterling Heights, Michigan. St Claire Shores will open shortly. The company operates in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Kentucky, and Virginia and is scheduled to open in Indiana, Ohio and Minnesota. Services include (inpatient), outpatient, sober living environments - a full comprehensive continuum of care. "Our objective is to serve individuals who can benefit from outpatient services, residential and sober living environments. Pinnacle Treatment serves patients who confront a range of challenges. Michigan is an important market for us. As such, we have named Tanya Vasser as our new Regional Director for the area. Her multistate and tenured experience is well suited for the Michigan environment," Joe Pritchard, CEO of Pinnacle Treatment said. "I have worked in the areas of behavioral health, substance abuse, social work and community support. I look forward to working with people in Southern Michigan as we provide recovery and treatment service. Both our Washentaw and Macomb county facilities are conveniently located to accommodate people's schedules" Tanya Vasser Regional Director for Pinnacle Treatment said As reported in The Detroit Free Press in August 2015: "We know in Michigan that we've seen a huge spike in prescription pill abuse," said U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade of the Eastern District of Michigan at a press conference. "We've also seen a serious resurgence in heroin as addicts turn to that as a cheaper alternative for their opioid addiction. That has resulted in some very significant problems in Michigan, and we seem to be exporting our problems to other states." The Macomb Daily reported in April 2014 that the county leads the rest of the state in heroin deaths: Since 1999, 477 people have died from heroin overdoses in Macomb County, with gradually increasing numbers for each three-year period. Wayne County had the most, 807, in the past 15 years, with more than 200 in each three-year period 2003-2005 and 2006-2008. Macomb County, the state's third most-populous county, last year had the fourth most total substance-abuse admissions, 4,350, behind Wayne, Oakland and Genesee counties, according to the Bureau of Substance Abuse and Addiction Services within the Michigan Department of Community Health. (The Macomb Daily, Jameson Cook, April 19, 2014, http://www.macombdaily.com) The Pinnacle Treatment locations provide treatment for opioid and heroin addiction on an outpatient basis. This includes a combination of methadone treatment/Medication Assisted Treatment combined with both individual and group therapy. What is Medication Assisted Treatment And Methadone and how does it work? - Methadone has been effectively used for over 45 years. - Supervised treatment with methadone can eliminate opiate use. * - Methadone will prevent opiate withdrawal when taken as prescribed. - When in treatment, dosages begin low and increase to a stable level. This will not produce a high when taken daily. *It is critical that Methadone treatment occur with the oversight of trained professionals, as it can be lethal to non-tolerant opiate individuals. What is Outpatient Counseling and Support Systems (Individual and Group Therapy)? - Methadone is most successful in combination both individual and group therapy. Work with an individual therapist enables individuals to understand addiction. - Methadone treatment combined with both individual and group therapy best success to a sober life. - Individual counseling is central to Pinnacle's treatment plans. - Individual therapy is a safe and confidential environment. Therapy sessions provide strategies to confront addiction. This includes coping mechanisms and life skills to prevent relapse. - Group therapy is an important component to recovery, but it is not for everyone. Some patients are not ready for group therapy. It does provide a support system when guided by a professional. The members of the group confront similar challenges. Sterling Heights location: 34208 Van Dyke Avenue, Sterling Heights, MI 48312 586-554-7136 About Pinnacle Treatment Centers Pinnacle Treatment operates in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and Kentucky and will operate in Minnesota, Michigan and Indiana shortly. Plans are in process for entry into Ohio. The 10+ year old organization treats over 8000 people daily and provides and offers a continuum of care model that includes residential (inpatient), outpatient and sober living environments. Our facilities are fully equipped to treatment individuals throughout their treatment program. All locations include physicians, nurses, clinicians, administrative and support staff. For more information on our Michigan Location please visit www.AnnArborTreatment.com or www.Sterlingheightstreatment.com. Media Contact: Jennifer Mooney 513-550-3808 Jennifer@TheMooneyGroup.Net Tulsa, OK -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/28/2016 -- So Fetch Designs is a new and modernized online based t-shirt business that is making the children of our society standout and shine. The business was started in 2015 by two mamas that have a combined 7 children and are semi obsessed with the movie Mean Girls. They are striving to provide the most stylish tees for you and your littles at affordable prices. That shirt is so fetch! That shirt is so fetch! is a phrase that continues to make its rounds around social media. It is a few words that symbolize the business, as well as explain the trendy direction. Sarah and Amber are the owners and designers behind this popular brand. They use each other to fuel their ideas, as well as make their designs unique. "So Fetch kind of happened organically. We both enjoy dressing our kids and are always looking for different and fun things to put them in so we decided to make stuff ourselves! Once we got started it was really fueled by our desire to give back. Part of our profits go to helping people in our community. There's a local mama that was recently diagnosed with breast cancer that we are giving funds to help with meals for her family. There is also a missionary family in Uganda that we are helping to support. Our hope is that over time we will be able to see and know that God gave us this opportunity so that we can bless other people and show the world His kingdom and His love." Making people smile and giving to the less fortunate is what separates this company from their competition. Some celebrities have started to take notice like Jessica Biel's BFF Beverley Mitchell. If you're looking for stylish tees to fit the whole family this is the place to shop. Shop at: www.thatssofetchdesigns.bigcartel.com Instagram: @so_fetch_designs Facebook: www.facebook.com/ThatsSoFetchDesigns **To schedule an interview, please respond to this e-mail message or contact Don Bischoff at 813-792-2181. Or reply to don@mediaproductions.tv Contact: Tony Cutillo, Publicist 813-792-2181 confirm@ecmpr.com "A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972 A shape-shifting frog from Ecuador, a giant virus from Siberia, a bioluminescent shark, a ruby seadragon, and the worlds smallest snail are among the twenty most bizarre species discovered in 2015. 1. Miltons titi monkey (Callicebus miltoni), a species of monkey from Brazil: Miltons titi monkeys are found in the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso, Amazonas and Rondonia. Like their close relatives, these monkeys live in small groups consisting of a mated pair and their offspring. The groups are territorial and use warning calls to keep others at bay they are particularly vociferous early in the morning and during the rainy season. Because they are not able to swim or cross mountainous terrain, Miltons titi monkeys are restricted to a small area, effectively hemmed in by a number of rivers and hills. 2. Eastern Santa Cruz tortoise (Chelonoidis nigra ssp. donfaustoi), a subspecies of Galapagos giant tortoise: The Eastern Santa Cruz tortoise is found only on the island of Santa Cruz, Galapagos Archipelago. The subspecies name, donfaustoi, honors Galapagos National Park ranger Fausto Llerena Sanchez, known to his friends and colleagues as Don Fausto. 3. Pristimantis mutabilis, a shape-shifting frog from Ecuador: Pristimantis mutabilis can be found in the Reserva Las Gralarias, Pichincha, north-central Ecuador. It is believed to be the first amphibian known to have a shape-shifting capability. 4. Maratus jactatus, a species of peacock spider from Australia: Maratus jactatus, nicknamed Sparklemuffin, is a tiny spider: males are barely 4.5 mm long, though females are a bit bigger, up to 5.3 mm long. The species name jactatus means rocking (jolting) in Latin, a reference to the very rapid lateral rocking that punctuates the courtship display of males of this species. According to scientists, male Maratus jactatus display by tilting the expanded fan to one side or the other, and then moving the extended ipsilateral leg III, mostly behind the fan. 5. White-cheeked macaque (Macaca leucogenys), a species of monkey from Tibet: The white-cheeked macaque is robust, heavy-bodied with a relatively short tail. Modog County, Southeast Tibet, is the only known range of white-cheeked macaque, though its range may extend to neighboring counties in Tibet and the part of southeastern Tibet controlled by India. The species can be found in many different habitats, from tropical forest at 1,395 m, to primary and secondary evergreen broad-leaved forest at 2,000 m, as well as mixed broadleaf-conifer forest at 2,700 m. 6. Lasiognathus dinema, a species of anglerfish from the deep waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico: Lasiognathus dinema lives at depths ranging between 3,280 and 4,900 feet (1,000 and 1,500 m). Only three individuals of this species all females were collected. They ranged in size from 1.2 to 3.7 inches (3 to 9.5 cm) in length. They were collected as part of an ongoing Natural Resource Damage Assessment Process conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration pursuant to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. 7. Wilkins rock-wallaby (Petrogale wilkinsi), a species of marsupial from Australia: The Wilkins rock-wallaby is found in the northern and eastern Northern Territory, Australia. The species is named after Australian explorer, naturalist and aviator Capt Sir George Hubert Wilkins who, in 1925, collected one of the first specimens in southwestern Arnhem Land. Another common name suggested for the Wilkins rock-wallaby is the Eastern short-eared rock-wallaby. 8. Ruby seadragon (Phyllopteryx dewysea), a species of seadragon: The Ruby seadragon is only the third known species of seadragon and the first to be discovered in 150 years. The holotype specimen was trawled east of the remote Recherche Archipelago in 51 m, additional specimens extend the distribution west to Perth in 72 m. The color of the specimen was a bright shade of red. Scientists believe the species coloring suggests it inhabits deeper waters than other seadragon species, as the red shading would be absorbed at depth and effectively serve as camouflage. 9. African golden wolf (Canis anthus), a species of canid from Africa: The African golden wolf is native to north and northeastern Africa. 10. Montagne dAmbre dwarf lemur (Cheirogaleus andysabini), a species of lemur from northern Madagascar: The Montagne dAmbre dwarf lemur measures 6.3-7.1 inches (16-18 cm) long, with a tail length of 10.2-10.6 inches (26-27 cm). About the size of a small squirrel, this animal weighs 250-310 g. It is reddish-brown in color with a white underside and has brownish-black rings around the eyes. It is known from the Montagne dAmbre National Park and areas nearby around the town of Joffreville, northwest of the Irodo River in northern Madagascar. Part 2 >>>>> A simple toolkit that allows local health workers to ensure it is safe for women to have abortions has been tested successfully in Ethiopia, India and South Africa. The toolkit is designed to speed up the process of deciding whether women in rural areas can get an abortion because the procedure is less invasive and dangerous in the first nine weeks of pregnancy. The kit includes a questionnaire to help health workers evaluate risk factors, including pre-existing medical conditions, and a urine pregnancy test to determine womens eligibility for an early termination. An international research team led by the World Bank and the World Health Organization tested the toolkit and compared its results with physical exams of women seeking an abortion. They found that the toolkit was accurate in more than 90 per cent of cases in which the women knew the date of their last menstrual period. While [our toolkit] is not an intervention ready for scale up as yet, it will help pave the way for health workers to play a more important and effective role in reducing the burden of unsafe abortion, says Bela Ganatra, a WHO scientist and joint lead author of the study, published in PLOS One earlier this month (5 January). The researchers adapted the toolkit to local calendars and languages, but it was still inconclusive for the 2.5 per cent of patients who could not recall the date of their last period. After ten weeks of pregnancy, more invasive methods have to be used to safely terminate the pregnancy. The kits accuracy also relied heavily on health worker training. In Ethiopia, where community health workers received more training than those in the other two countries did, the toolkits accuracy was 92 per cent, compared with 80 per cent in India and 77 per cent in South Africa. Ganatra says the small risk of women being falsely deemed eligible for an early abortion by the toolkit is not a problem. The kit is meant to facilitate referrals to safe abortion facilities, where a trained abortion provider would confirm the eligibility before actually providing a woman with care, she says. According to Ellen Israel, a senior advisor for womens health with Pathfinder International, a sexual health NGO that supports abortion, stigma and discrimination continue to drive women towards dangerous abortions. This often involves unsafe providers or happens when a pregnancy is too advanced for simpler intervention methods. Working with sensitised community health workers can encourage women [to assess] their options and rights regarding unwanted pregnancy, Israel says. This checklist is just one example of the many steps needed to expand health worker roles to increase access to safe abortion care. This article was originally published on SciDev.Net's global edition. Scientists thought guppies in Northern Trinidad could be a rare example of adaptation to crude oil pollution. But they found something else. When scientists from McGill University learned that some fish were proliferating in rivers and ponds polluted by oil extraction in Southern Trinidad, it caught their attention. They thought they had found a rare example of a species able to adapt to crude oil pollution. At a time when humans are imposing an unprecedented burden on the world's ecosystems, studying how organisms can tolerate pollutants is crucial to understanding the impact of human activities -- and to helping to mitigate it in the future. Led by Dr. Gregor Rolshausen, then a postdoctoral researcher at McGill working with Prof. Andrew Hendry, the team went to study the guppy fish living in polluted areas, comparing their morphology and genetic makeup to those of similar guppies from non-polluted parts of Trinidad. But the key to the guppies' survival in oil-polluted waters was not what the researchers had expected. Prof. Hendry explains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=568hCM-wFZs Meet 'Kinyongia msuyae', a new species of chameleon, which was discovered in Tanzania. 'Kinyongia msuyae' is a brown and green chameleon that has some blues spots. The species was found in four mountainous forest areas in the Udzungwa Mountains and Southern Highlands of Tanzania, according to a news release. The species was named after Charles A. Msuya, a Tanzanian herpetology, who gathered first known specimen relating to this new species. The researchers of the study claimed that the newly found species is shedding new light on the Makambako Gap region, which is a zoological barrier between diverse species of fauna of the Southern Highlands and Eastern Arc Mountains. Over the last few years, Tanzania's Southern Highlands have become quite famous for new discoveries of various species. Back in 2003, the Wildlife Conservation Society discovered the 'kipunji,' a primate species that turned out to be a new genus. This discovery was one of the first in Africa since 1923. In addition, WCS had also discovered Matilda's horned viper, new type of snake in 2012. "Along with our discoveries of the Kipunji, Matilda's horned viper and other reptiles and frogs, this new chameleon really seals the deal as regards the boundary of the Eastern Arcs," Tim Davenport, coauthor of the study, said in a new release. Davenport is also the Director of WCS's Tanzania Program. "It is very clear now that the so-called Makambako Gap doesn't exist zoologically, and that the Southern Highlands is every bit as biodiverse and endemic-rich as all other Eastern Arc Mountains," Davenport said. "With its own unique fauna and flora the region thus warrants as much protection as we can possibly afford it." The findings of this study were published in the journal Acta Herpetologica. Related Articles Western Rattlesnakes: Head Shape, Genetics Shed Light On Species' Evolution Toxic Pollutants Found In Fish Across The World's Oceans For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN). New research suggests that antidepressant use during pregnancy will not increase the risk of heart defects for the future child. Researchers at University College London found that these medications did not increase the risk of congenital heart defects in newborns. However, previous research has suggested that taking some antidepressants-particularly selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)-may increase the risk of birth defects if taken during the first trimester. "Women often receive conflicting messages on whether they should continue taking antidepressants during pregnancy and many women may discontinue antidepressants in pregnancy because they fear adverse effects on their unborn child," said Dr. Irene Petersen, a researcher at University College London, in a news release. During this recent study, researchers collected information on over 200,000 patients as part of the Health Improvement Network primary care database; these participants had also been involved in four large studies on children of women who had and had not been treated with antidepressnat drugs. From the sample, over 5,000 women received SSRIs before pregnancy, close to 3,000 received SSRIs during pregnancy and almost a 1,000 received other types of antidpressatns during pregnancy. Meanwhile, the other 200,000 women did not have any antidepressants before or duing pregnancy. The study showed that less than 1 percent of children had cognenital heart anomalies within five years of birth. Futhermore, researchers found no significant differences between women taking the drugs and women who were not. At the end of the findings, researchers push an emphasis on talking with your doctor about what's ultimately right for the patient. Many argue that taking antidperssants in order to prevent depression would be a greater benefit to the patient than stopping treatments--despite some risks for certain health problems for the baby. Related Articles Potato Consumption During Pregnancy Increases Gestational Diabetes Risk For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN). FLORENCE, S.C. As the world recognized International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Wednesday, Florence community members, students and faculty members of Francis Marion University heard from Rabbi Leah Doberne-Schor, rabbi at the Beth Israel Congregation in Florence, about the importance of speaking up whenever people see hatred and prejudice taking place. Bearing witness is more than just a memory, it also is an obligation to tell those stories, Doberne-Schor said. Not just so the Holocaust wont happen again but so that we can better understand what happened and stop the spread of hate. Doberne-Schor told audience members that although the Holocaust might seem far removed from where the world is today, there are still prejudices and stereotypes that form people's opinions. She referenced a Pyramid of Hate that showed how easy it is for small things like not challenging jokes that belittle other people to lead to discrimination, violence and even genocide. Hatred is something that has to be taught and nurtured, Doberne-Schor said. Three-year-olds and four-year-olds dont know about hatred unless they are taught about it and unless it is grown it does not manifest in that way. In society today, Doberne-Schor said, people can see some of the problems plaguing Germany resurfacing. The Nazis are not unique in using scapegoating, Doberne-Schor said. We here, in our political discourse today, complicate political problems placing them squarely on the shoulders of certain minority groups or certain religious groups. Scapegoating will do little to help us come together productively to address the issues we face. Doberne-Schor also warned that inaction can have just as much effect on the outcome of a situation as any action does. She paralleled the plight of the Jewish people trying to find refuge from the Nazis to the current crisis worldwide with Syrian refugees. When we think of the Holocaust as a world apart, instead of a part of our world, we risk distancing ourselves from the events instead of learning from them, Doberne-Schor said. The danger of acting as a bystander, those lessons, are as true today as they were all those years ago. During an election cycle that focuses on issues of immigration and wars against terrorist groups, Doberne-Schor said, people need to hold leaders accountable for what they say and do. The teachings of tolerance are at their most important in difficult and challenging times, times when we are afraid and responding to crisis in the world because as Holocaust educators suggest these are precisely the times we are most at risk of accepting stereotypes and turning to scapegoating, Doberne-Schor. Regardless of what is going on in the world, we have a civic duty to speak up when those in elected offices or those running for higher offices would fan the flames of hatred for their own ends. This election cycle we need to be especially vigilant when we hear, if we hear, candidates perpetuating prejudice or practicing scapegoating. MLS is selling the five vessels - Sri Prem Veena, Garima Prem, Gaurav Prem, Garv Prem and Aarti Prem for $32.26m to related companies of its syndicate of lenders. The sale reduces the debt owed by the company to the lenders and the vessels are expected to be delivered in February. The purchasers are unrelated to the current and former directors and controlling shareholder of the company, MLS said in a statement to the Singapore Exchange. MLS was placed under judicial management on 18 January following an application to the Singapore courts by creditor HSH Nordbank. The Maritime & Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) said it had received 12 bids for LNG bunker supplier licenses in response to a Request for Proposal last year. MPA said it would work with the license holders to develop the necessary infrastructure to start supplying LNG bunkers from early 2017. With growing international regulatory requirements and stricter standards for emissions, LNG is likely to be part of the fuel mix for global shipping as it becomes more cost-competitive and supply chain and infrastructures are developed, said Andrew Tan, Chief Executive of the MPA. The authority is working with stakeholders to develop LNG bunkering standards and procedures at both the national and international levels. We will work closely with MPA and our partners to develop and test safety procedures and build relevant infrastructure to make LNG bunkering a reality in Singapore, said Seah Moon Ming, ceo of Pavilion Energy. YY Chow, ceo of Keppel Offshore & Marine commented: We will leverage our years of experience and expertise in providing LNG solutions including gas carrier servicing to support MPA in its goal to develop Singapore into a key LNG bunkering hub in Asia. The MPA is funding up to SGD12m to build six LNG-fuelled vessels and has received five applications for the funds, which it said it was evaluating. Tuesday marked the 179th anniversary of Michigan's statehood, but such milestones seem insignificant when pondering the millennia over which indigenous peoples have traversed the Great Lakes region. With the coming of white settlers and the imposition of their imagined boundaries on the land, however, much of the history of Michigan's natives has been tragically erased--but not all. Remnants of trails that guided native peoples through the region since time immemorial persist to this day, even if they aren't so obvious as they once were. "Detroit was a hub in a continent-wide network of footpaths worn into the earth centuries before Cadillac or Columbus," writes Paul Szewczyk, creator of In a post entitled " Retracing Detroit's Native American Trails ," Szewcyzk compares historic maps drawn by early surveyors of southeast Michigan with present day ones, finding direct correlations between the location of ancient trails and some contemporary roadways. For instance, Shiawassee Street in downtown Farmington clearly aligns with the meandering Shiawassee Trail first surveyed by Samuel Carpenter in 1817. Several other examples or native trails-turned-roads, including Moravian Road in Macomb County, Dixie Highway in northern Oakland County, and Lafayette Avenue in Pontiac, are detailed in the post. "Our map was not a blank canvas when Cadillac landed in 1701," Szewcyzk writes. "Sometimes we assume that the tribes pushed out of southeast Michigan left without a trace, even as we drive along the pathways they built, unaware of their origin. The land was worked and shaped by those who had preceded us since time immemorial, and the Earth bears witness to this fact." Interested in discovering more about Native American trails and other forces that shaped our pattern of settlement in our region? Continue to follow Press Release January 28, 2016 Bam Seeks to Strengthen Islamic Banking in PH Habang wala pa ang BBL, tuloy ang pagtulong natin sa ating mga kapatid nating Muslim. A senator has filed a measure to strengthen the country's Islamic banking system to give Filipino-Muslim entrepreneurs access to financing and other services that are compliant with the principles Shari'ah or Islamic law, while the much debated Bangsamoro Basic Law is still being deliberated. Sen. Bam Aquino's Senate Bill No. 3150 or the Philippine Islamic Financing Act of 2016 seeks to amend the charter of the Al-Amanah Islamic Investment Bank of the Philippines, the only Islamic Bank in the country established in 1973. "It seeks to strengthen the Al-Amanah Bank to provide a broader market, while promoting both the establishment of other Islamic banks and engagement in Islamic banking arrangements by conventional banks under the supervision and regulation of the BSP," Sen. Bam said. At present, Sen. Bam said Muslim banking and finance applies principles based on the Shari'ah Law, where the kind of banking and financing operations is characterized by risk-sharing and equitable distribution of wealth. "Undertaking or financing of anti-social and unethical business, and the setting of interest or a fixed pre-determined rate of return are prohibited," said Sen. Bam, chairman of the Committee on Trade, Commerce and Entrepreneurship. With this, Islamic banking and finance in the Philippines is limited by three major challenges, such as lack of clear and regulatory framework, lack or scarcity of experts on Islamic banking and finance, and lack or very low investor awareness and acceptance of Islamic banking and finance. These challenges prevent the country from enjoying the vast growth of Islamic banking worldwide, which increases by 21 percent despite the existing global context. "Currently, there are more than 600 Islamic financial institutions operating in more than 75 countries and almost all major multinational banks offer Islamic financial institutions," Sen. Bam said. Sen. Bam said the measure will help address these challenges and provide Muslim entrepreneurs an environment where they can thrive and prosper through his measure. "Accompanied by other critical inclusive financial reforms and innovations, this bill seeks to ensure the development of MSMEs not only in our major urban centers but also in the poorest and hardest to reach areas," the senator said. "It also seeks to ensure that every Filipino, regardless of status, identity or religion has access to critical services to enable them to seize economic opportunities and be part of the country's progress," he added. The bill amends the charter of the Al-Amanah Bank, providing for the organization and regulation of an expanded Islamic banking system in the Philippines. The proposed measure further mandates government to provide programs for increased consumer awareness and capacity building required by the expanded Islamic banking system. Press Release January 28, 2016 Cayetano says ending disorder in Filipinos' lives his top priority "Bringing back order and security." This is the top priority of the next government in the eyes of vice presidential bet and Senate Majority leader Alan Peter Cayetano. Disorder, lack of security In a two-hour radio interview on Wednesday, Cayetano said that there is so much disorder and lack of security in the country today. "People wake up telling themselves, 'napakagulo naman ng buhay.' Crime, drugs and corruption. It's a constant perturbation of the mind. Sobra na ang gulo at hirap na dinaranas ng tao," Cayetano said. Cayetano explained that this is what he and his running mate presidential hopeful Davao City Mayor Rodrigo "Rody" Duterte want to address in their first year of government if elected in the coming May polls. "Mayor Duterte and I both believe we need a strong developmental state to promote real inclusive growth through regional development. But we need to build first the suitable condition by cracking down on crime, drugs and government corruption," Cayetano stressed. To do this, Cayetano said they will strengthen and capacitate the country's security forces. The senator vowed to cleanse the ranks of the police and military of the corrupt, provide better salaries and incentives for law enforcers, and modernize their anti-crime and anti-narcotics infrastructure. "One vision, 18 regional strategies for development" The senator also pushed for a "one national vision, 18 regional strategies" approach for the country to achieve inclusive growth. He and Mayor Duterte see federalism as the unifying framework to achieve this. Taguig as model of quality health care On the issue of health care, Cayetano said he will implement the same services that Taguig City offers its senior citizens, which include the delivery of medicines straight to their houses. The senator explained that government should respond to the needs of the poor, especially the elderly. "Hindi na pumipila ang senior citizens na mahihirap sa health center, idinedeliver na sa kanilang mga bahay ang serbisyo. Hindi sila ang may utang na loob, ikaw ang may utang na loob, so gobyerno ang lumalapit," he said. Cayetano said that to restore order and a strong sense of security among the people, what's needed are bold solutions and swift action that will bring about real change. "Hindi na uubra ang pwede na o papatak patak na pagbabago. Sa amin ni Mayor Duterte, makakaasa ang lahat ng tunay at tuloy-tuloy na pagbabago." Press Release January 28, 2016 Transcript of ANC's interview with Senate President Franklin M. Drilon Q: Were you informed of the existence of such a video tape that is supposedly taken by a US military drone about the fire fight between the SAF and the MILF? SPFMD: No and if there is such a video tape, it should have been shown yesterday during the seven-hour hearing. Nothing was shown and we closed the hearing. Q: As a matter of fact, a lot of people were somehow disappointed that the hearing yesterday did not reveal any new information. Senator Enrile said he was going to show eight points that will show the participation of the President. Do you feel that any of that came out yesterday? SPFMD: No such information came out because there is no evidence that could support those assertions and charges. Well, the main thrust of Senator Enrile's request to re-open the investigation is the alleged direct participation of the President in the planning and execution of the Oplan Exodus. During the seven-hour hearing, it was shown that it was actually Napenas who crafted the Oplan Exodus. It was him who signed the Oplan Exodus as the author of that document. He deliberately disregarded the President's instruction to coordinate with the AFP. As a result of that; it was Napenas who compartmentalized the operation on the Mamapasano to himself and Purisma, because of his mistrust to the AFP. So he was the approving authority of the Oplan Exodus and all the other plans before that. He was so proud that he was the author of this. There was some responsibility borne out of this. There was no evidence, after seven hours of hearing, of any approval of the president. It was Napenas who approved and planned the whole thing. Of course, he informed the President. Q: One of the most telling statements coming out from that hearing was the confirmation that there was no order from the President to the AFP to stand down from providing reinforcement to the SAF. SPFMD: That's correct. Even Napenas said there was no such order. The AFP said there was no such order. Those assertions of stand down just made the story more interesting. Q: Again, to make the story more interesting is the claim by Valeroso that there was an audio recording of an attempt to cover up the Mamasapano incident. Such information coming from a former military officer, do you think it should be worth looking into without necessarily producing that audio recording? SPFMD: I don't want to dignify those kinds of remarks. We were there for seven hours. If he had anything, it should have been brought up yesterday. Q: If they had to bring that out, it should be brought out in a public hearing or executive session? SPFMD: Whatever they want to do. It's their own privilege. But we were there for seven hours and nobody came out with that. Q: With what happened yesterday, Senator Poe said that there is really nothing more to add to the committee report. SPFMD: If there's anything to add is that the President did not actively and directly participate in the planning and preparation of the Oplan Exodus, except that it was submitted to him. Q: In the committee report, do you expect to include what the PNP said that the President may have breached the chain of command? SPFMD: I don't want to pre-empt Senator Poe and her committee. One thing that she said is there was nothing that will prompt her to revise her report. I do not know if she will submit that report to the Senate plenary for approval so it will be debated upon. As of now, it remains a committee report and it has not been acted upon by the Senate? Q: Do you still have time to do that? SPFMD: We have three days left. Let's see. I cannot be certain about that. Q: In the Senate, what's the status of the BBL? SPFMD: Senator Enrile is still interpellating and the signs are not very good. I don't think we have enough time. I don't know if Senator Marcos will be present during the next three days. I am not optimistic that we will be able to pass the BBL in the Senate. Q: What was the communication between Congress and Malacanang on this issue? Has the President of any of his representative been giving any signal that you should really try to give this BBL to the Aquino administration before he steps down. SPFMD: It's not a matter of giving it to the Aquino administration. Yes, the President had been pushing for the passage of this but he has also been realistic. Unfortunately, and especially given the political environment that we've been operating in with the last few weeks, it is extremely difficult to get this through by Wednesday next week. As I've said, we will keep on pushing but I don't think we can pass it. Q: Whatever the outcome, it might become historically the fault of the legislature for not being able to pass the BBL and not completing this important piece of the peace process with the MILF? SPFMD: Let's put the record straight. We were on the way to the approval of the BBL. The committee hearings were going smooth until the Mamasapano incident took place. In fairness to the legislature, we did our best but you can operate only in a political environment conducive to the passage of this bill. Unfortunately, after the Mamasapano incident, the environment became very toxic. I can say that I think the BBL is the 45th victim in Mamasapano. In the spirit of past Wiegand Gallery exhibitions on such artist couples as Joan Brown and Manuel Neri, Deseo Ardiente: Richard and Camilla Shaffer Paintings provides a glimpse into two intertwined creative lives. We share parenting and we share painting and we share life, Richard Shaffer says of the show, which will include individual paintings and installations as well as collaborations. Were different, but were the same. Robert Gumpert shifts a little, watching as Lt. Kendal Daggs flips through the portraits hes just handed her. Boy, Tameka was feeling herself, she says. Tameka needs to stop coming to jail. I think shes made a lot of progress, Gumpert says. Daggs looks up for a minute. Theres another inmate, she tells him, about to be released. Might be nice to get her in before she leaves. Daggs starts looking through the photos again. She signs each one as she goes. I love this girl, she says, stopping on another one. She is just the sweetest little thing. Finally, she hands the stack back to Gumpert. When you going to do the staff? she asks and then walks him to an empty interview room where fluorescent lights buzz overhead and the chairs are made of plastic. Gumpert knows how all this goes. For 10 years, hes been taking portraits of the inmates in the San Francisco jail system. He spends Fridays at the womens jail and Saturdays at the mens. The deal is, the inmates pose for him and tell him a story on tape the story can be about anything, their scars or maybe about their family, how they do their makeup, the card games they play to pass the time, anything, so long as it doesnt have to do with their current case and in return, theyll get four prints. Gumpert calls the project Take a Picture, Tell a Story. The latest government statistics put the number of people locked up in the United States at more than 2.2 million. I believe the reason we can lock people up to that number is because the public at large doesnt see them as human beings, Gumpert says. Looking at the black-and-white portraits and listening to the stories Gumpert spends his days collecting, its easy to imagine that this is all some effort to push back against the easy narrative. But a decade in, he knows better. I dont have any illusions about that, he says. Those illusions are long gone. The project exists mostly for Gumpert and the subjects, though hes shown some of the portraits in group exhibitions and created a small home for them online. When he talked to a publisher about a book of the images, Gumpert says he was told they didnt want to put out a book of thugs. After a few minutes, Jessica Nelson walks into the room. She looks young, hardly a line on her face. Her hair is in tight cornrows and shes dressed in all orange everything an orange sweater over an orange T-shirt, orange pants, orange socks in orange shoes. She sits down across from Gumpert, signs a few release forms and they get started. So Im going to ask you three questions to begin with, Gumpert says. Uh-huh. Your name, whether or not you agree to do this, and then some general question so I can get a sound check in here. OK. And then Ill ask you to tell your story. Do you have a story to tell? Sure. Gumpert is 68, with close-cropped gray hair. He wears black, round, wire-frame glasses and the sort of collared shirts that have two big pockets on the front. He tucks his shirt into his blue jeans. He says photography is the only talent hes ever had. Hes got a stray memory of his mom raving about a photograph hed taken of a crack in the street. I kept looking at it wondering, What is she rambling about? The photographs Gumpert has spent his life making are dark in almost every sense of the word. Some of them look as if theyre bleeding black ink. Early on he found himself taken by a set of British photojournalists, men like Philip Jones Griffiths, Bill Brandt and Don McCullin. If you set their work next to each other, what you get is a set of black-and-white images, heavy in contrast and grain, focusing on some of the worst elements of the human condition. It never occurred to me that I had absorbed all that. Gumpert himself had a hard time finding work and representation. Stylistically and approach-wise, its just not what American publications wanted or would use. For years, he worked as a foreign correspondent, often dropping into a country to cover an election. Eventually, though, he settled back in San Francisco to raise his son, working as a freelancer and union photographer. Some years later, the projects began. Gumpert wanted to see things other people couldnt, and managed to do just that. At first, he spent a year photographing a homicide detective, then it became a year with the Tenderloin Task Force and then a few months in a jail intake facility that was about to be decommissioned. Most of it was too hard for the publications he approached. In too poor taste, he said theyd tell him. The whole f system is in too poor of taste, he said to one editor. Thats why we should run it. The projects continued: eighteen months with a public defender, time at Highland Hospital and John George Psychiatric Hospital. He rode around with paramedics for two years, documented the Pacific Stock Exchange and the state Legislature. Finally, in 2006, then-Sheriff Michael Hennessey approached Gumpert about photographing the last few months of San Bruno Jail. Once Gumpert was done with San Bruno, he pitched the sheriff his idea for the portrait project. OK. Tell me your story, Gumpert says to Nelson. When I first got here, I was having a difficult time adjusting, Jessica Nelson says. I didnt like to eat any of the food here because it was heavy and greasy. About three weeks into staying here ... I decided to come up with my own cookbook because every night I was taking the food apart and making something palatable out of it. ... Yesterday I made an apple turnover, which is kind of hard to do when youre locked up in jail. Nelson goes on to explain how she uses peanut butter in just about everything. To make cake, theyll break up bread items and mix them together with peanut butter and milk. Its not that bad. It actually comes out pretty nice. Lately, shes been making lots of pot pies. We eat a lot of potatoes. All told she has about 32 recipes going. Gumpert asks about birthday cakes, how much it all costs. Can you eat together? Sometimes the deputies allow us to send something upstairs. Like if its somebodys birthday, theyll give us permission to be up there for a few minutes or to be able to sing Happy Birthday, Nelson says. She pauses. Thats about it, though. I dont think I have too much more. Thank you. After a year had passed, Hennessey asked if Gumpert was done yet. Another year, Gumpert said. After that year was up, Hennessey asked again. Another year, Gumpert said, and Hennessey stopped asking. In the beginning, Gumpert had free range of the jails. He could interview and photograph inmates in their cells, as they worked out, in groups, with their shirts off. Over time, restrictions were put in place. Theres always been a certain number of deputies and officers who dont get it and dont want it. Shirts have to stay on, no more groups, no more wandering the hallways. Photographs are inspected for gang signs and tattoos before Gumpert can hand them out. Still, Gumpert keeps coming back. He says theres something different about this project, something special, even performative, about the way he and the subjects play off one another. The inmates keep coming, too. Gumpert carries three small red notebooks with him. One is a signup for the women, one for the men and one for reprints. The mens list runs a year long. There are a few reasons, Gumpert suspects, that people ask to be photographed in a place they probably cant wait to leave. I treat everybody with respect, so its not an unpleasant experience, he says. Im interested in them in a way which most people are not. Im interested in their lives, and Im interested in who they are, and I truly think their stories are worth something. Theres also something about it all happening away from everything else in the jail, in a quiet room, just Gumpert listening. Nobodys watching us. Its just a conversation. The photos themselves are always in black-and-white, a small thing that erases all that orange, all that temporary stain that says to somebody looking on that the subject has done something wrong. So the prints find their way to family members, onto Facebook and up on the cell walls. Turn your head toward me a bit, Gumpert says to Nelson. She turns slightly and Gumpert starts shooting. He tells Nelson she has a small twist of hair sticking up. Yeah. Cowlicks, she says, and she smooths it down. Gumpert poses Nelson on the table, in a chair, takes her out to the hallway and shoots some with natural light. After hes done, he runs through the photos with her. There are a lot of them that fall into either not that bad or not too bad categories. Thats when my hair was sticking up, she says. I dont think I want any of those. He tells her hell be back in a few weeks with her prints. Her release date might be before then, she says. If he could get them done sooner, that would be better. If not, I can be reasonable. She laughs a little. A few minutes later, a guard comes to the room and walks her out. Ryan Kost is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: rkost@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @RyanKost Paul Chinn/The Chronicle After three decades of carving himself a reputation as one of the most if not the most rabble-rousing peace activist priests in Northern California, the Rev. Louie Vitale has written a book looking back on it all. The book is called Love is What Matters: Writings on Peace and Nonviolence, and the 84-year-old friar will do his first book-signing event for it Thursday night at the Oakland retirement center where he now lives. He will be assisted by fellow longtime peace activists the Rev. John Dear and David Hartsough, who also has a new book out called Waging Peace. SACRAMENTO Gov. Jerry Brown is putting his weight and likely his campaign war chest behind a November ballot initiative that would allow inmates to get out of prison earlier and require judges, not prosecutors, to decide whether to charge juveniles as adults. The Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016 initiative would roll back parts of Proposition 21, the ballot measure voters approved in 2000 that gave prosecutors the right to try minors as adults. It also would give inmates with nonviolent offenses the chance to seek parole after serving time on their primary, most serious offense. That would mean that inmates whose sentences were lengthened because of secondary offenses or enhancements tougher penalties due to drug, gang or weapons violations might not have to serve the extra time. Its pretty dramatic, said Joan Petersilia, a Stanford law professor who has studied the states prison system for decades. With enhancements, a base term of 4 years can quickly turn into 20 years. In one fell swoop (Brown) is eliminating that. Brown said that only well-behaved inmates would be considered for early parole. The initiative would let inmates strive for a reduced sentence through a revised credit system for good behavior, education and rehabilitation. Inmates earn credits This says before the add-ons are served, there will be a possibility a person can be considered for parole if their behavior has been exemplary, Brown said in a conference call with media. It allows credits to be earned and it allows for parole consideration to be given. Those two experiences depend on the inmate making definite steps to change what got them in prison in the first place. The proposed initiative needs necessary signatures to qualify for the November ballot. The reason for the changes, Brown said, is to give inmates an incentive to rehabilitate. In its essence, its to provide an incentive, both reward and punishment, because those who misbehave can lose credits they attain, Brown said. $24 million war chest Browns support of the measure is the first indication of what he will do with $24 million in campaign funds hes been sitting on. Brown would not say whether he would use his campaign funds because that would be using government time to discuss campaign spending. He did, however, say he would do whatever it takes to get this done. Petersilia said some sort of sentencing reform was anticipated as the state looks for long-term solutions to dealing with prison overcrowding, as required by a three-judge federal court panel. Brown said the ballot measure would allow prisoners to take control over their lives by giving them the ability to show they are ready to return to society. He called it a partial return to indeterminate sentences, in which prisoners were given broad sentences such as five years to life and had to show a parole board they were rehabilitated and had a plan for their release. The governor was joined by faith leaders and law enforcement in his announcement. L.A. chiefs view We have a very finite resource in which to deal with crime in California and that is our prison system and our jail system, and we have to effectively use those systems and we do not when we keep the wrong people incarcerated for the wrong length of time, thereby not freeing up space for people who deserve to be there, said Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, who did not take an official position on the measure. Brown has called for criminal sentencing reform for more than a decade after becoming a critic of the states determinate sentencing practices, fixed prison terms which he helped create. Determinate sentences give prisoners a set release date, which itself was considered a reform 40 years ago. During Browns first stint as governor in 1975, the states prisons used indeterminate sentencing, which had been a staple of the system for nearly 60 years. Arbitrary and racist That system wasnt without its critics, who argued that the parole boards decisions were arbitrary and racist, and that sentences without a release date led to prisoners acting out violently while incarcerated. One of the things that created the movement for determinate sentences was there was a distrust that was created by the decisions made at the parole review hearings, said Patrick McGrath, the district attorney in Yuba County and president of the California District Attorneys Association. In many peoples minds there was a wide disparity between who was getting out and when and what prison officials were considering. Only nonviolent offenders The Legislature stepped in and passed a bill to create determinate sentences, which Brown signed into law in 1977. McGrath said returning to indeterminate sentencing could be problematic, even if it applies only to nonviolent offenders. The emphasis has been on this not affecting violent offenders, but I think most members of the public would be surprised at what qualifies as a nonviolent offense under the penal code, McGrath said. Domestic violence, driving under the influence that causes death, residential burglary these would be eligible for early release. Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber (Tehama County), said the measure would weaken the criminal justice system and increase the victimization of California citizens. Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez Over industry objections, a federal judge has allowed Berkeley to start requiring cell phone retailers to tell customers that carrying switched-on phones too close to their bodies might expose them to radiation levels higher than recommended by federal guidelines. The citys ordinance had been scheduled to take effect last June, but was blocked by court order after CTIA-The Wireless Association sued, claiming the law violated freedom of speech. In September, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco issued an injunction against the entire ordinance because it contained a disputed warning that this potential risk is greater for children. The City Council then removed that warning, and on Wednesday Chen allowed the rest of the ordinance to take effect, rejecting the industry groups request for a stay while it asks a federal appeals court to declare the entire ordinance unconstitutional. The measure requires retailers to notify customers that the federal government sets radiation standards for cell phones, and that a user may be exposed to levels that exceed those standards by carrying a phone in a pocket or tucked into a bra when the device is connected to a wireless network. Chen ruled in September, and reiterated Wednesday, that Berkeley had based that warning on the Federal Communications Commissions research and guidelines. By contrast, he said, the now-discarded warning about a potentially greater risk for children was not based on scientific consensus or federal guidelines, but was a matter of scientific debate that retailers could not be required to pass on to customers. In arguing that the overall ordinance was unconstitutional and seeking a stay, CTIA cited a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said government agencies could require product-sellers to pass along government messages only if the statements are factual and uncontroversial. The industry group contended Berkeleys message was overstated and misleading, since the FCC, by its own admission, built in a considerable safety margin when it set guidelines for carrying cell phones. But Chen said the city had referred accurately to the FCC guidelines and would not interfere with legitimate free-speech rights by requiring the standards to be communicated to customers. Although the federal agency established standards that may have been stricter than necessary, it did set specific limits and did so in order to assure safety, Chen said. CTIAs disagreement is not enough to make the citys message controversial, the judge said, noting that science is almost always debatable at some level. He also said the industry group and its members are free to criticize the message, as long as they comply with the requirement to pass it along to customers. CTIA criticized the ruling and said it would ask the Ninth U.S.Circuit Court of Appeals to halt enforcement of the ordinance while the industry group appeals. The overwhelming scientific evidence refutes Berkeleys ill-informed and misleading mandatory warnings about cell phones, CTIA said in a statement. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko In the face of a state investigation over allegations of misused funds, Fine Arts Museums trustee Louise Renne has called on her fellow board members to privately meet with legal counsel over potential lawsuits, while board President Dede Wilsey continues to insist there is no cause for concern. The issue arose at the end of a regular board meeting Tuesday, at the de Young Museum, when trustees of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco were presented with a report by an outside auditing firm that addressed the possibility of litigation in only general terms. Renne, a former San Francisco city attorney, and fellow trustee Daniel Johnson, also an attorney, were dissatisfied that the report ignored the news that FAMSF is under investigation by the office of state Attorney General Kamala Harris for authorizing a $450,000 payout to a retired employee. Each and every one of us on the board has a fiduciary duty, and just ignoring what the public is talking about is not part of our fiduciary duty, a visibly agitated Renne said. Wilsey, who was about to adjourn the meeting, became defensive at the suggestion of legal action against FAMSF, though nothing specific was mentioned. There is no potential litigation at this time. I dont know why you are making an issue out of it, said Wilsey, who blamed the unpleasantness on the lies I read in newspapers every couple of weeks. As has been reported by Chronicle columnists Matier & Ross, Wilsey spearheaded paying $450,000 in disability severance to Bill Huggins, a museums engineer who retired in September 2014 after suffering a heart attack. His wife, Therese Chen, also works at FAMSF as a registration director but went on leave to care for her husband. Chen was allegedly known for doing favors for Wilsey. When FAMSF Chief Financial Officer Michelle Gutierrez complained about the payment, she was demoted in a staff shakeup last spring. She subsequently filed a whistle-blower complaint with both the city and the state attorney general. Gutierrez was put on administrative leave and has retained trial attorney Joe Cotchett to represent her in a potential legal action. Wilsey has stated previously that Gutierrez cosigned the check to Huggins and that she did not need board approval for the payment. Tuesdays board meeting was the first since this possible malfeasance surfaced, and there was no mention of it until the audit report came up on the agenda. Normally the four-member audit and risk committee approves the report and refers it to the full board for approval, but in this case the audit committee could not gather a quorum and Wilsey, who admitted that she had not read the audit report, referred the item to the next regular meeting, April 19. Neither Johnson nor Renne serve on the audit committee, but both were upset that the report suggested there was nothing out of the ordinary, in terms of legal issues that may be coming. That would be upsetting to anybody in light of the recent news reports, Johnson said later. We know that there is an ongoing investigation and that certain things have happened. Once the topic was broached at the meeting, Wilsey said she would love to clear the air but has been advised by counsel not to. Reached on her cell phone Wednesday, Wilsey said she was in a meeting and only picked up the phone because she thought it was her mother calling. She said she could talk in one hour but at press time had yet to make herself available. Renne proposed the meeting with the attorney be held within 21 days, but Wilsey asked that the deadline be extended to 28 days, on account of upcoming holidays. Rennes motion to meet in closed session with counsel carried unanimously. FAMSF is a nonprofit that operates the de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor, both city-owned museums. Reached at her law office Wednesday, Renne said that since FAMSF is a nonprofit, each board member bears a legal duty to protect its assets. Before we approve any audit report, the board needs to be fully informed about any and all potential litigation, she said. Renne has been a steadfast supporter of Wilsey, who joined the Board of Trustees in 1993 and became board president in 1998, at which time the position of chairman was eliminated. Dede has been a more than generous philanthropist, Renne said. When asked whether she thought Wilsey had perhaps been president of the board for too long, Renne said, Whether it is as president or otherwise I would hope that she would continue to participate in the life of the museum for as long as she wants. Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: swhiting@sfchronicle.com More than a dozen high school students were suspended from St. Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco after they took part in a racist-themed party at Stern Grove in the Outer Sunset, school officials said Thursday. The party, which took place Saturday at the city recreation area and was promoted through social media, was themed a wigga party and was attended by students from at least five high schools including St. Ignatius, said Principal Patrick Ruff. The slang term wigga combines the word white and a racial epithet and refers to a white person who attempts to emulate African American culture by drawing on stereotypes of clothing and mannerisms. Its disheartening and incredibly sad this type of thing exists not just for SI, but for the entire city, Ruff said, noting that the 14 students involved had been suspended as soon as administrators learned of the party. This really is a critical juncture for us. Ruff said the school has put an emphasis on social justice issues for years, and that he hoped last weekends incident could provide lasting lessons at the school. We work really hard to educate our young men and women on issues of equity and inclusion, Ruff said. Weve been doing this work for years, but now we have a concrete example that will give us an opportunity to have a conversation. The school takes the issues seriously enough, Ruff said, that in 2010 it appointed Matthew Balano as director of the Office of Equity and Inclusion. It focuses on diversity at the school, where African Americans account for just under 5 percent of the student body, compared with 55 percent for white students. Balano said hes been in contact with students this week, and that they are justifiably upset. Theres a feeling of sadness and disappointment, but theres trust that we are working hard to get this right, Balano said. This is a very messy thing, but were doing our best to get through this. Nahrie Pierce, a 17-year-old senior at the school and president of the Black Student Union, said she became aware of the party on Saturday night while it was going on, when some of the students posted pictures to social media. She got in contact with some of her African American classmates, who collectively decided they needed to take action and ultimately went to Balano. Even with the relatively small black population at the school, Pierce said she and others in the Black Student Union work hard to make the school a welcome place for people of all ethnicities. Sometimes it can be difficult, but we have clubs and groups like the Black Student Union and we try hard to create space for our African American students. Its not surprising to me, she said of the party. But were trying to change that. Reaction at the school has been mixed, students said, with some feeling the suspensions were an overreaction to a teenage mistake, while others called for the students to be expelled. Thomas OHalloran, an 18-year-old senior, said he knew some of the kids who went to the party and that they had told him how much they regretted it. Still, OHalloran thought the punishments were justified. You cant go to a party like that and post pictures on social media and think that nothing is going to happen, he said. Its just weird that this would happen at an institution that tries so hard to promote inclusion. Moving forward, Ruff said he planned to address the issue with both the student body as a whole and in smaller groups to foster a teachable moment, a sentiment echoed by Student Body President Lizzie Ford. Kids are angry and and things are intense, Ford said shortly after she and Pierce addressed the student body Thursday over the public address system. This is heartbreaking, but you have to acknowledge when you mess up and we messed up. A lot of students are in pain, but this is an opportunity for us to say that this is not the school we are. Kale Williams is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: kwilliams@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfkale Nothing drives people away from a restaurant, food or beverage faster than a flurry of headlines about people being sickened by E. coli or listeria. Just ask Chipotle Mexican Grill, which has been scrambling to recover from a multistate E. coli outbreak that drove the companys stock down more than 40 percent and has resulted in a class-action lawsuit. Or Blue Bell Creameries, which faced several recalls and factory shutdowns and now faces a Department of Justice investigation in connection with listeria contamination of its ice cream. But often, troubles for one business can mean opportunities for others. And the competitive field of food testing is one and one Philadelphia biotech startup is hoping it has found a niche. Invisible Sentinel has patented a technology called Veriflow that uses a handheld device to detect the DNA of micro-organisms like E. coli, salmonella and listeria quickly and at a relatively affordable price. The technology has been approved by AOAC International, an association that sets standards for microbial food testing. Its like a pregnancy test one line negative and two lines positive except that its amplified DNA that youre reading, said Invisible Sentinel co-founder Benjamin Pascal. The firm says 114 companies in the United States and more than 50 internationally use the technology at more than 250 sites in 18 countries. Wawa Inc., which owns dairy and beverage manufacturing plants as well as 715 convenience stores in six states, tested Veriflow for about six months before signing on in March 2013. Invisible Sentinels technology was two to three times faster than others, said Chris Gheysens, Wawas chief executive officer. Dawn Norton, director of food safety at WholeVine Products in Santa Rosa, said her company, which produces products from grape seeds and skins, has begun using Veriflow to make sure its plant equipment and surfaces are pathogen-free. Large food companies with in-house labs often pay tens of thousands of dollars for equipment and usually need highly trained technicians or microbiologists to run them. Invisible Sentinel can set up an in-house lab for about $5,000 and train almost anyone to use it in less than a day. It makes money by selling its proprietary test kits, which cost $240 for a package of 24 tests. The cost of $10 per test is higher than the industry average of $4 to $8, but Invisible Sentinel says competitors have higher lab equipment costs. The in-house labs are particularly attractive to wine companies, which can use them to test for spoilage organisms at wineries rather than having to ship samples out for testing. It allows us to do more testing with the same budget, said Torey Arvik, a former technical director at Jackson Family Wines who now works for WholeVine. Invisible Sentinels sales have been rising. The company posted revenue of $50,000 in its first year of sales in 2013, $1.1 million in 2014 and more than $4 million in 2015. It has ambitious projections of $30 million in 2018 and $60 million in 2020. Nicholas Siciliano, the CEO and a co-founder, expects the company to turn a profit in 2016. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each year about 1 in 6 Americans becomes sick from contaminated foods or beverages, and 3,000 die. Invisible Sentinel was started by a pair of entrepreneurs with science backgrounds. Siciliano, now 37, was born in Philadelphia. Growing up, he had a fascination with science and building models. Id throw the directions away and figure out how to put it together myself and how to improve on it, he said. He graduated from Villanova with a degree in chemistry in 2004 and obtained a doctorate in immunology and microbial pathogenesis from Thomas Jefferson University in 2015. In between, he took a consulting job at a biotech startup, Integral Molecular, and later worked as a research specialist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. A mutual friend introduced Siciliano to Pascal in 2006, and the two formed Invisible Sentinel. We did the business plan on the table in his mothers kitchen while she was making pasta for us, Pascal recalled. WASHINGTON The government on Wednesday sued the operators of the for-profit DeVry University, alleging they misled consumers about students job and earnings prospects. In the complaint, the Federal Trade Commission alleged that DeVry deceived students by claiming that 90 percent of its graduates actively seeking employment landed jobs in their fields within six months of graduation. The agency also says DeVry was misleading when it claimed its graduates had 15 percent higher incomes one year after graduation on average than graduates of all other colleges or universities. Instead of landing jobs in their field of study, FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said, some graduates found themselves working as delivery drivers or restaurant servers. She said up to 50,000 or so students may have been affected by the alleged wrongdoing. In a statement, DeVry Education Group, parent of DeVry University, said the commissions allegations are without a valid legal basis and that the company intends to vigorously contest the complaint. The FTC is seeking a court order to stop DeVry from making its advertising claims, via TV, radio and elsewhere. Ramirez said the commission would seek monetary relief for those affected but that it was too early to say how much money that might involve. Educational institutions like DeVry owe prospective students the truth about their graduates success finding employment in their field of study and the income they can earn, Ramirez said. In concert with the FTC lawsuit, the Education Department announced its own action against DeVry. Under Secretary Ted Mitchell said the department has informed DeVry that it must stop making certain claims about its postgraduation outcomes and that it must inform students that it cannot substantiate those claims or risk losing federal student loan money if it fails to do so. DeVry, based in Illinois, has more than 55 campuses across the country, offering online or on-campus degree programs in business, technology and health care technology. The solar industry scored a major victory Thursday when a divided California Public Utilities Commission voted to keep largely intact the system that compensates solar homeowners for excess electricity that they place on the grid. The vote extends, with minor changes, Californias net energy metering system, one of the states most important incentives for rooftop solar power. California is both headquarters to the U.S. solar industry as well as its largest market, with more than 450,000 homes sporting solar arrays. The win caps a hard-fought lobbying campaign that pitted solar companies against traditional utilities, which consider the current system a subsidy that increases costs for their non-solar customers. The utilities wanted the commission to impose new monthly charges that would apply only to solar customers, an idea the commissioners rejected. The solar companies, in turn, accused the utilities of trying to strangle an industry that threatens their long-standing monopolies. Thursdays vote was close, with President Michael Picker and commissioners Carla Peterman and Liane Randolph voting in favor of the extension, while commissioners Mike Florio and Catherine Sandoval opposed it. Our course is not for the rooftop solar industry, or for the utilities, Picker said. Our decision today is a big step forward toward giving California consumers more choice, more control and more responsibility for their energy choices. Its a big step, but only one of many. Both Florio and Sandoval objected for the same reason a last-minute change that exempted solar homeowners from paying a specific charge related to electricity transmission. That one detail, the commissioners complained, would unfairly shift the burden of paying the transmission charge onto non-solar utility customers. And both insisted that the solar industry doesnt need the extra incentive, particularly after Congress in December unexpectedly renewed a 30 percent tax credit for solar installations. Any system which benefits the few at a cost to the many can only be sustained for so long, Florio said. That is always true. The decision continues to pay solar homeowners the full retail rate for their excess electricity about 17 to 20 cents per kilowatt-hour for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers. New solar customers, however, will have to pay a one-time fee, estimated at $75 to $150, to connect their system to the grid. They also will face increased monthly charges to pay for costs shared by most utility customers, such as subsidizing electricity bills for low-income households and paying off the lingering costs of Californias 2000-01 energy crisis. Those increased charges will add about $5 to a typical solar homeowners monthly bill. Finally, to pay for the energy they still use from the grid, new solar customers will switch to time of use electricity rates, which charge different prices at different times of day. Homeowners who already have solar arrays wont be affected by the changes at least not yet. They will continue to be compensated under the old net metering rules for 20 years after the date their panels were connected to the grid. Each of Californias large, investor-owned utilities will begin applying the new net metering rules once rooftop solar power accounts for 5 percent of their peak electricity demand, or July 1, 2017 whichever comes first. PG&E, which already has 210,000 solar customers, expects to hit the 5 percent level in September. PG&E expressed disappointment with the vote and said the current net metering system is both antiquated and unsustainable. PG&E is committed to working with all parties to find the right balance to support continued growth of solar and evolve regulations that reflect the market dynamics of 25 years ago and to help ensure that rates for all customers are equitable, the company said. Solar companies welcomed the decision, even if they had reservations about some of the details. Fights over net metering have raged in several states, and a decision late last year in Nevada to cut compensation to solar homeowners prompted several companies to scale back their operations there. While todays decision is a compromise that will require the solar industry to adapt, it rejects the utilities anti-solar proposals and continues Californias renewable energy leadership, said Bryan Miller, senior vice president of public policy at San Francisco solar leasing company Sunrun. The decision does not end Californias fight over net metering. Instead, it represents a pause. The decision calls for the commission to revisit the issue in 2019. By then, commissioners hope to have a better grasp of solar powers costs as well as its benefits to the grid. I will be the first to say to say that we really do have a way to go before we have an enduring rooftop strategy, Picker said. David R. Baker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: dbaker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DavidBakerSF This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A second suspect was arrested on murder charges stemming from last months shooting death of a teenager who was treated like a grandson by Oakland City Council President Lynette Gibson McElhaney, officials said. Shiheim Johnson, 19, was also charged with robbery and unlawful firearm activity in the death of 17-year-old Torian Hughes, Alameda County prosecutors said Wednesday. Johnsons alleged accomplice, a 15-year-old boy, was arrested Jan. 4 and also charged with murder. McElhaney said Hughes was like a grandson to her, and that she had helped raise him and his mother. We are grateful that (the Oakland Police Department) was able to identify and apprehend the suspects relatively quickly. It certainly provides a measure of solace as we grieve, McElhaney said in a statement. We recognize that many families have to grieve under the cloud of uncertainty and are not able to fully put their loved ones to rest. A vigil had been held to honor Hughes in the days after his death, and nearly 400 people attended his Oakland funeral, including Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and Alameda Mayor Trish Herrera Spencer, who designated Jan. 11 Torian Hughes Day in the city of Alameda. Police found Hughes about 1:40 p.m. on Dec. 20 suffering from a gunshot wound and lying on the ground in the 900 block of Mandela Parkway in Oakland. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Johnson and his alleged accomplice approached Hughes and a second juvenile victim under the ruse of selling a firearm to Hughes, according to a statement made in court documents by Oakland police Officer Bradley Baker. Both teens pulled out guns and demanded property from Hughes and the other boy. Johnson pointed his gun at the second boy, threatened to kill him, then took his cell phone and money, police said. The 15-year-old suspect pointed a gun at Hughes, also threatening to kill him if he didnt hand over his belongings, police said. When Hughes resisted, the boy shot him and ran away with Johnson, according to court documents. Police spotted Johnson on Jan. 20 in the 1000 block of 21st Street in Oakland. Johnson ran and briefly eluded officers, but eventually was caught and taken into custody in the 1900 block of Linden Street, where police found a loaded gun he was believed to have been carrying, officials said. Johnson had a prior juvenile conviction for possession of a firearm. He also was sentenced to 145 days in juvenile hall in November 2012 after he was convicted of robbery. Too many people have become numb to the carnage and terror that is the daily reality for black youth all over the country, McElhaney said. Weve believed for too long that if you do the right thing, you can survive the mean streets. But the truth is, every day people doing the right thing in the right place are falling victim to gunfire. Its really time to stop playing politics with this epidemic. Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno A second suspect was arrested this week and charged with robbery and attempted extortion stemming from last months street mugging of San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener, officials said. On Monday, more than a month after the robbery, police took 19-year-old Damian Wells of San Francisco into custody, said Officer Albie Esparza, a police spokesman. Wells, who was on felony probation at the time of his arrest, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of robbery, attempted extortion, receiving stolen property and grand theft, according to Max Szabo, a spokesman for the San Francisco district attorneys office. He is being held on $140,000 bail. Police suspect Wells is one of two male accomplices who, along with a woman, confronted Wiener and stole his cell phone the evening of Dec. 18 as he was approaching the 16th Street BART Station in the Mission District, police said at the time. Instead of letting the muggers get away with his cell phone, Wiener negotiated to get it back, offering them $200 cash. They headed to a nearby ATM, where the supervisor withdrew the money and, as he would later explain, got the thieves on the bank surveillance camera in the process. The following week, San Francisco police announced the arrest of 40-year-old Lasonya Wells of San Francisco. She was charged with felony robbery and extortion as well as misdemeanor counts of grand theft and receiving stolen property. The third suspect remains at large. San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Vivian Ho contributed to this story. Kimberly Veklerov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KVeklerov This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Four prominent Bay Area district attorneys came together Wednesday to once again thrust the issue of human trafficking into the limelight and to implore everyday citizens to keep their eyes open for the subtle signs of what they called modern-day slavery. With Super Bowl 50 as a backdrop and with the Bay Area coming under a national media spotlight, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon called together his counterparts Nancy OMalley of Alameda County, Jeff Rosen of Santa Clara County and Steve Wagstaffe of San Mateo County to highlight their own efforts to combat the scourge, and also to call on the public to play their part. The Bay Area happens to be one of the hot spots for human smuggling, Gascon said at a news conference at San Francisco International Airport. We all have a responsibility to look for the signs. Law enforcement agencies have been holding local training sessions with airport workers, transit drivers and hotel employees on how to spot the telltale signs of human trafficking. Officials said victims often exhibit evidence of neglect or abuse, have few personal possessions and show fearful or anxious behavior. Wagstaffe pointed to the successful prosecution of a human trafficker in San Mateo who was caught smuggling five young women, two of them minors, after a hotel worker reported his suspicious behavior. In Alameda County, two men were convicted of what OMalley described as a robust trafficking operation after community members tipped off authorities. No one agency can or should stand alone to address this issue, OMalley said. It takes a village. And it will take the entire village, OMalley said, as gangs turn from the drug trade to the more lucrative and easily concealed trade in human beings who are not just sexually exploited, but also often smuggled into the country to be put to work in fields, factories and restaurants for little to no pay. Gascon said human trafficking was equivalent to modern-day slavery. Beyond expanding education outreach to help the public spot signs of abuse, the district attorneys noted that services available to victims of human trafficking have been greatly increased to include housing support, mental health services, employment counseling and financial assistance. One of the people providing that support is Patricia Barragan, a victims advocate who works out of Gascons office and provides legal assistance to victims, often accompanying them to court when they testify against their traffickers. Its difficult for them to come face to face with their traffickers, Barragan said. But I think it empowers them, too, to see that the system can work for them. Kale Williams is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: kwilliams@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfkale Garcia, Enrique/Courtesy of San Jose PD A 22-year-old San Jose man was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of sexually assaulting and killing his girlfriends 2-year-old son, police said. Manuel Anthony Lopez was taken into custody more than a week after the young boy was found dead, police said. A state appeals court indicated Wednesday that it is considering a potentially historic judicial intervention in Californias woeful school finance system a ruling that it violates students constitutional right to an adequate education. The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco heard arguments in a suit by many of the major participants in public education school boards and administrators, the California Teachers Association and State PTA, and nine individual districts, including San Francisco and Alameda. They argued that the states 19th century constitutional guarantee of a school system to encourage the promotion of intellectual ... improvement is transgressed by a system that trails nearly every other state in student achievement, staffing and per-pupil funding. During the 75-minute hearing, the three-justice panel seemed uncertain about how to define a legal standard that wouldnt interfere with the Legislatures authority to set funding levels for schools and other state programs. But when the states lawyer argued that no such standard exists and that courts should leave school financing to lawmakers, the justices responded sharply. The schools are inadequate. Californias at the bottom of the list, said Justice Stuart Pollak, who noted that courts in other states have required wholesale changes in school financing. Cant we recognize that there is a basic, fundamental problem with our schools? There must be a judicially manageable standard to decide whether California is violating its students rights, Justice Martin Jenkins said. He suggested that the court could read some broad policy standards into the state Constitution and leave the details of any remedies to the experts. Thats all the plaintiffs are asking, said their lawyer, Steven Mayer: for the court to declare that the existing systems inadequate. Legislature, fix it. Proposition 13 effect The suit, filed in 2010, challenged a school finance system that plunged from the top to the bottom of the national rankings after passage of the Proposition 13 property tax cut in 1978 and subsequent reductions in state spending. California, with more than 6 million public school students, has some of the nations most oversize classes, lowest staffing ratios and lowest test scores, the plaintiffs said. Recent increases in school funding, they said, will return the state only to 2007-08 levels, which ranked among the bottom five states. In response to similar suits, courts in six states have struck down their school finance systems. When Washington state legislators failed to increase financing in response to a 2012 state Supreme Court order, the court held the Legislature in contempt and started imposing fines of $100,000 a day last year. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Steven Brick dismissed the California suit in 2011, saying the state Constitution, while providing the right to an education, doesnt guarantee any level of funding. Deputy Attorney General Joshua Sondheimer, the states lawyer, made the same argument to the appeals court. The quality of education is not something that is capable of judicial determination, Sondheimer said. Theres no workable standard. States defense He urged the court to defer to the Legislature, which, Sondheimer said, has passed 530 school-related bills in the past five years, all designed to improve the adequacy of the educational system. But Justice Peter Siggins noted that California lawmakers have also declared overall standards of educational quality, which courts could presumably use as their measuring stick. Siggins also grilled Mayer, the plaintiffs lawyer, on the need for judicial intervention. Noting that the state Supreme Court, in the early 1970s, had required school districts to move toward equal per-pupil funding by ending their reliance on local property tax revenues, Siggins asked whether the Constitution requires anything more than equality of opportunity. Mayer replied that funding shortages affect middle-class students as well as poor ones. The problem, he said, cant be solved by taking money from one district and giving it to another. A ruling is due within 90 days, and the losing side could then seek review in the state Supreme Court. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Oakland will launch a citywide effort Thursday to triple the number of college graduates coming out of public schools, an ambitious and expensive cradle to career plan that aims to reverse cycles of poverty and hopelessness by raising expectations that all children can thrive in school. The centerpiece of the Oakland Promise initiative is an infusion of grants, ranging from $500 college savings accounts for children born into poverty to college scholarships of up to $16,000 for low-income students. The money is intended to provide both real and symbolic support, signaling to kids and their families that theres an investment in their future. According to officials, who have spent six months developing the initiative and will announce the details Thursday at Oakland High School, it will cost $38 million to ramp up the program over the first four years and up to $35 million annually to sustain it. The money is coming from sources including foundations, philanthropists, the city and the school district. The effort is something of an experiment, because no other place in the country has this kind of comprehensive, long-term strategy to send more kids to college, city officials said. But the need is great in Oakland, where 10 percent of the citys public-school ninth graders graduate college. Yes, this initiative is ambitious, said Mayor Libby Schaaf. All my life Ive seen this as the one thing that has held Oakland back. Over the next 10 years, officials said, Oakland Promise plans to open 55,000 college savings accounts, provide $100 million in college scholarships and serve 200,000 students and families. Every City Council and school board member has endorsed it, as have 100 community organizations, two dozen university officials and 200 leaders including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. $25 million raised While sustained funding is the central challenge, Oakland officials say they raised $25 million to launch the effort. The school district is expected to cover $1 million annually, and the city has committed $150,000, a number that may increase now that the initiative has begun, officials said. The East Bay College Fund plans to contribute $1.5 million per year, while Kaiser Permanente and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. are giving $3 million and $1 million, respectively, to start up the program. Organizers will need $18 million more to cover the costs through 2020, an amount they say is reachable. It will be on us to make the case that eventually this would be one of the smartest public investments that any city could make, Schaaf said. That investment includes the $500 college fund for each child born into poverty with eligibility tied to the same government standards that apply to free and reduced-price school lunches as well as a $100 college account for every kindergartner, high school counseling centers and up to $16,000 in scholarships that come with individual mentors and support through college. Belief in all kids Oakland Promise combines successful initiatives from across the country, with a focus on disadvantaged youth and building a culture of a college-bound city, said David Silver, the mayors education director. Research shows that a child who has a college savings account of at least $500 is four times more likely to graduate college, he noted. Middle-class families generally consider college a given, said city schools Superintendent Antwan Wilson. Poor children and families dont and they often dont believe in the system. A $500 college account, he said, tells them the city believes in them and their future. Hope is extremely important. Its called privilege, and the way privilege works is it gives you the ability to take things for granted, Wilson said. Odds are, a young person born into poverty in Oakland will live a life of poverty and have a shorter life. The prescription to change that, however, is expensive. The citys plan is to ramp up the number of children served over the next four years and fully implement each piece within 10 years. By this fall, 250 babies born into poverty will have $500 in the bank for college, according to the timeline, stepping up to 1,000 per year by 2020, and all 2,200 within a decade. Their parents will be also be eligible for up to $500 to support their childs development. That will cost an estimated $5 million over the first four years. In addition, every child entering kindergarten in a public school about 4,600 each fall will have $100 for college by 2020, and more in matching funds if their parents put in money. That will cost $2.9 million over four years. In the same period, roughly $3.6 million will go to future centers at high schools to support applications for college and financial aid, with all slated to be open within 10 years. College scholarships are the most expensive part of the plan, which calls for $1,000 to $16,000 to go to every financially and academically eligible student, with mentors assigned to them to ensure they get their degree. That will cost $25.5 million to scale up, with a goal of supporting 1,600 scholarship students per year within a decade. Colleges pledge aid Two dozen colleges and universities across the country have signed on to support Oakland students, some offering to cover gaps in tuition, provide on-campus support or guarantee admission for qualified students. Peralta Colleges in Alameda County will cover all tuition and fees for every Oakland student for the first semester. And Paul Quinn College, a historically black university in Dallas, is offering full tuition as well as room and board for qualified students. College is the gateway into the middle class. We want to just blow open the gate, said Diane Dodge, director of the East Bay College Fund, which will oversee the scholarship and mentoring programs. More than 80 individual donors have signed on, with one anonymous party endowing the first four years of the so-called brilliant baby initiative, including the baby college savings accounts and parent grants. Long-term funds unclear However, long-term funding is unclear. Organizers say possible sources include endowments as well as a reliable stream of public funding, perhaps from a voter-approved measure. Caheri Gutierrez, a 25-year-old Oakland native, said the initiative would help people like her. She struggled as a teenager and suffered a gunshot to the face when she was 18, but graduated high school and now works with young people at Youth Alive, a violence prevention group. Its going to transform the city, the expectations, the trajectory, the life outcomes, the world, she said. At this point Im a little jealous. Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker Cradle to career program The Oakland Promise initiative, at full implementation, plans to offer a range of support to city children, including the following: Brilliant baby: $500 college savings accounts for every child born into poverty and $500 parent grants. K2College: $100 for each entering public-school kindergartner, with matching funds available based on parent donations. Future centers: College and career centers at each high school with at least two full-time staff members and a representative from the East Bay College Fund. College scholarships: Up to $16,000 in college scholarships for low-income students. College completion: Mentoring and support for college students. For more information, go to www.theoaklandpromise.org. Sitting in a federal prison, the Iranian American former aerospace executive felt optimistic after years of frustration and despondency. His lawyers had filed what they regarded as a strong appeal, and he had reason to believe that his 2013 conviction, on illicit business dealings with Iran, might soon be reversed. The former executive, Nader Modanlo, was one of seven people released by the U.S. this month in a high-profile prisoner exchange deal with Iran, but he is hardly celebrating. The price of freedom was to abandon his appeal and keep the felony conviction on his record, an agonizing choice for a man who insists he never broke any laws. Modanlo, 55, said he was shocked when he learned of the proposed deal on Jan. 14, and was given only two hours to decide whether to accept it. He angrily rejected the terms, and the deadline passed, starting what would become a two-day frenzy of phone calls from prison involving his lawyers, relatives, the Justice Department and Iranian consular officials. The pressure was intense, he said, noting that the White House had leaked news of the deal before he had agreed to it. He eventually signed on and was able to reunite with his family in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, where he has lived for many years. But the conviction he had been vigorously contesting, for brokering a deal to help Iran launch its first communications satellite into space on a Russian rocket, almost certainly means he will never again be able to work in the aerospace business. I would have preferred to get the outcome of the appeal, he said. That was a chance I was willing to take. The Jan. 16 prisoner exchange in which Iran freed five Americans, four of them dual citizens accompanied the implementation of a landmark agreement between six world powers and Iran to limit its nuclear program. For many Americans, the prisoner deal was all about the happy endings for those who had been imprisoned in Iran, some for years, on vague charges of spying or other hostile acts: among them Amir Hekmati, a Marine veteran from Michigan, and Jason Rezaian, the Washington Posts Tehran correspondent. But the prisoners released in the U.S. all but one dual nationals as well went through less-publicized traumas. Some, like Modanlo, saw themselves as unfairly prosecuted pawns in the hostilities between Iran and the U.S., and felt they were manipulated again as part of the countries new detente. Whether Modanlos reluctance to take the commuted sentence offered by the prisoner deal threatened the entire agreement remains unclear. Justice Department officials declined to comment on the terms or on why the government had exerted such pressure on Modanlo to accept. For Modanlo, the idea of waiving his right to pursue vindication in court was especially difficult. His lawyers had filed an appeal last year that alleged a pattern of prosecutorial actions that had denied him a fair trial. Asked about Modanlos case, Rod Rosenstein, the U.S. attorney for Maryland, said in a statement that publicly disclosed evidence had proved his guilt beyond any reasonable doubt. Beijing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned Wednesday that if China failed to do more to curb North Korea's enhanced nuclear capacity, Washington would take steps that China has strongly opposed, including deploying defense systems to protect U.S. allies in Asia. "This is a threat the United States must take extremely seriously," Kerry said of North Korea's growing nuclear arsenal at a news conference with the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi. "The United States will take all necessary steps to protect our people and allies. We don't want to heighten security tensions. But we won't walk away from any options." Kerry adopted the tough tone after nearly five hours of talks with Wang that were dominated by North Korea and what the United States and China, a treaty ally of the North, should do in the aftermath of its fourth nuclear test. The secretary was referring to the deployment of a missile defense system to South Korea that has been under discussion for some time but that the South, a U.S. ally, has resisted because of China's opposition. But after the North Korean test on Jan. 6, the South's president, Park Geun-hye, said she would consider accepting the missile system called THAAD, for Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense to better cope with the North's growing nuclear and missile threats. China agreed during the talks Wednesday to new U.N. sanctions against the North, and negotiations on their content will proceed in the coming days, Wang said. But these new sanctions "must not provoke new tensions," he said. A draft of new sanctions was sent to China about 10 days ago, but by the time Kerry arrived in Beijing, China had not responded in substance, U.S. officials said. Suggesting that the Obama administration was evincing a little too much concern about the North Korean nuclear test, and that Washington's attention would soon drift away, Wang said that China "will not be swayed by specific events or the temporary mood of the moment." Wang stuck to a basic theme, that China's preference is the reconvening of talks on North Korea. "Sanctions are not an end in themselves," he said. Kerry made clear that the United States' position was that China, North Korea's biggest trading partner, needed to use its leverage and what he called its "connections" with the country to pressure it to give up its nuclear arsenal. Washington would like China to curb exports of oil, including aviation fuel, that help keep the bare-bones North Korean economy afloat. It has also asked China to crack down on its banks and businesses that give the North access to foreign exchange. A bill calling for sanctions against Chinese entities that help North Korea in its military programs, criminal activities and money laundering recently passed with strong support in the House of Representatives. As part of his attempt to persuade Beijing, Kerry used the example of the recent Iran deal: The restrictions on Iran's banks and financial institutions to conduct transactions abroad helped bring that country to the negotiating table over its nuclear program, a feat that Kerry led and that China supported, along with Russia. Kerry used the news conference to publicly call on China to take similar actions against North Korea and to create another "united front." "With all due respect, more significant and impactful sanctions were put against Iran, which did not have nuclear weapons, than against North Korea, which does," Kerry said. The secretary faces a tough sell. President Xi Jinping of China made a decision last year that it was better for China to have a friendly nuclear-armed North Korea on its border than a hostile nuclear-armed North Korea, Chinese analysts have said. "For China, the worst-case scenario is you push North Korea over to become an enemy with nuclear weapons," said Zhang Baohui, director of the Center for Asian Pacific Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. "I think China has decided to tolerate North Korea as a nuclear state." Xi sent a top lieutenant, Liu Yunshan, a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, in October to attend a military parade and to deliver a personal letter from Xi to the North's leader, Kim Jong Un. Nevertheless, Zhang said, China has urged North Korea to denuclearize. And the North's detonation of a nuclear device on Jan. 6 was a way of telling Beijing that it could not dictate the country's foreign policy, Zhang said. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 5 1 of 5 Contributed photo Show More Show Less 2 of 5 Contributed / Contributed Photo Show More Show Less 3 of 5 4 of 5 Contributed / Contributed Photo Show More Show Less 5 of 5 A series of talks by automotive experts on a range of topics, from the classic to futuristic, will be hosted by the New England Auto Museum over the next several months at Dragone Classic Gallery & Showroom on Post Road West. Each of the events will start at 11 a.m. Saturdays in the showroom, 176 Post Road West. In addition to a featured speaker, there will be a light lunch and a technical session hosted by restoration professional and historian George Dragone focusing an aspect of classic car preservation and maintenance. J. David Ake / Associated Press NEW HAVEN A drug trafficker who flooded Fairfield County with oxycodone, cocaine and marijuana will spend six years in a federal prison. The states top federal prosecutor, Deirdre Daly, announced Thursday that 54-year-old Konstantinos Gus Zografidis will serve a six-year prison term followed by half that time in supervised release. Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is heading to the Bay Area on Feb. 21 for a campaign fundraiser at the Atherton home of a tech entrepreneur. Clinton will be raising money at the home of Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, the CEO of Joyus, a video-driven online shopping site with headquarters in San Francisco. Organizers are focusing on reaching out to young people Clinton is trailing Democratic challenger Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., among younger voters and to women in tech. Cassidy is also the founder of theBoardlist, which is trying to place women into executive positions in the male-dominated tech industry. In an e-mail sent to possible supporters, Cassidy wrote that she hopes the fundraiser will be a forum where Hillary can address issues specific to women and young leaders in the industry. She asked attendees for potential topics so we can curate specific questions for Secretary Clinton to talk about. ... Whether it (is) discussing job creation to equality in the workplace to broadband and technology adoption among low-income communities, wed love you to join and share your input for this event. In an attempt to lure younger tech activists to cut loose some cash, organizers are asking for $500 donations for people under 35. The charge is $1,000 for those over 35, and $2,700 for people who want to have a photo taken with the former secretary of state. It will set donors back $27,000 to be on the host committee which includes further fundraising responsibilities but $7,500 for those under 35. Clinton headlined a fundraiser in early January in San Francisco. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, was the draw at a Hillsborough fundraiser this month. Joe Garofoli is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli SACRAMENTO The California Legislature moved quickly this week to pass a bill that corrects a mistake in the states historic medical marijuana laws passed last year. AB21 deletes a provision that lawmakers inadvertently left in the legislation that said cities and counties had to create their own medical marijuana regulations by March 1 or the state would assume the responsibility. Lawmakers did not mean to set a deadline. The deadline, however, caused local governments to panic at the prospect that they would lose local control of medical marijuana regulation and many cities simply banned cultivation. On Thursday, the Assembly passed AB21 in a 65-0 vote after the Senate passed it Monday 35-3. It now heads to Gov. Jerry Brown, who is expected to sign it. My concern with the March 1 deadline was that these bans were happening without input from communities and stakeholders, said Assemblyman Jim Wood, D-Healdsburg, who authored AB21 and parts of last years medical marijuana laws, which are supposed to provide more structure for the states loosely regulated, billion-dollar industry. Two decades ago, California became the first state to allow for medicinal use of marijuana. However, it was largely unregulated, even as it became a booming industry. 2015 deal Last year, the Legislature reached a deal with Brown, which was ultimately signed into law, that requires state and local licenses for medical marijuana businesses under the new Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation. The bills classify medical marijuana as an agriculture product, meaning cultivators have to abide by the same regulations as farmers when it comes to their use of water, pesticides and other products. How well California regulates medical marijuana could affect whether voters would support legalizing recreational marijuana use for adults. Proponents of recreational marijuana are collecting signatures for an initiative they hope to put on the November ballot. Lawmakers and marijuana advocates urged local jurisdictions that passed bans in recent weeks to revisit them after Brown signs AB21 into law. The legislation is an urgency bill and would go into effect as soon as Brown signs it. Reaction lamented Aaron Herzberg, a partner at CalCann Holdings Inc., which invests in medical marijuana businesses in the state, said the knee-jerk reaction by cities that have banned marijuana cultivation in response to the deadline undermines the new laws. You can agree Sacramento is going to regulate this, but if every city says, No, no, no were not going to do this, its kind of a meaningless law, Herzberg said. Now that cities are no longer under the gun, I am hopeful that cities will adopt a more thoughtful approach. Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez Mike Nichols arrived in the U.S. as a refugee from Nazi Germany with the ability to speak only two sentences in English: I dont speak English and Please dont kiss me. Most Americans who knew Nichols as Elaine Mays improv partner or the director of films such as Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate and Silkwood may not have even realized that English was his second language. He not only spoke the language like a native, but understood the American character, its core and conflicts, as only a great artist could. Nichols, who died after suffering a heart attack at 83 in November 2014, is the subject of an American Masters documentary directed by May and premiering on Friday, Jan. 29, to kick off the PBS series 30th anniversary. Mike Nichols isnt an acme of filmmaking most of it features Nichols talking to film, TV and theatrical producer Julian Schlossberg, with a stingy selection of archival clips, and a handful of former colleagues talking about how brilliant, funny and smart he was. And yet, every time May cuts away from Mike Nichols talking, youre impatient for her to get back to him. That only underscores why you entirely believe people like Bob Balaban, Meryl Streep, Stanley Donen, Neil Simon and Matthew Broderick when they proclaim him a singular genius. Nichols arrived in the United States as Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky in 1939. He wasnt an especially good student but ended up going to the University of Chicago. College was mostly a chance to chase girls and have fun. His life changed when he saw A Streetcar Named Desire onstage with Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy and Kim Hunter. His newfound interest in theater led him to the Compass Players and Second City, where he describes himself as having been painfully inept at improv for weeks. And then he wasnt. He found his talent and he found May. The two formed an improv team whose success eventually led them to An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May on Broadway in 1960, as well as TV appearances. Fame proved their undoing as collaborators, though. Being famous and doing eight shows a week was especially hard on May, Nichols says. Other comedy teams had broken up before Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis lasted a decade, from 1946 to 1956 but they were best known for their film work. Nichols and May were known for TV appearances and their Broadway show. Nonetheless, their split was heartbreaking for a new generation of fans who valued a more intellectual brand of comedy befitting the dawn of the 60s. Nichols had trouble adjusting to not being, as he puts it, half of something anymore. He directed a version of Jules Feiffers Passionella in New Jersey (which later became part of the Bock-Harnick triptych Broadway musical The Apple Tree, directed by Nichols), but didnt realize he was meant to be a director until the producer Saint Subber drafted him to oversee a new play by Neil Simon called Barefoot in the Park, with a young Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley. Nichols won the first of many Tony Awards as a director for the play. Walter McBride/WireImage Nichols struck gold his first time out on Broadway and did the same with his first film, Edward Albees Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, with Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Sandy Dennis and George Segal. It was a great film, but his next was to be an indelible distillation of American cultural deterioration in the late 20th century: Although some critics wrongly labeled The Graduate as a comedy about the generation gap, in fact, it was a film about materialism and hollow values. With its screenplay by Buck Henry, The Graduate is a probing descent into the American psyche, mirrored in Benjamin Braddocks descent into his own psyche, as represented by the opening scenes of an airliner landing in Los Angeles. His next film was less successful. Nichols couldnt do with the adaptation of Joseph Hellers best-selling novel Catch-22 what Robert Altman did with MASH the same year. With more aircraft than the Italian air force, Catch-22 was a leviathan of a movie, and its size simply snuffed the sardonic tone of Hellers book. Looking back, Nichols kept thinking somethings wrong. This wasnt my kind of picture. Mays film doesnt try to be either a comprehensive catalog of Nichols achievements or a thorough biography of his marriages and children. It doesnt have to: Its far more interesting to consider what Nichols has to say about high and low points in his career. It becomes even easier for us to understand why Streep and Broderick, among others, are so lavish in their praise for his style as a director when Nichols displays unusual insight about himself. We believe him when he says that having a flop was important to him as a film director. Expectations were so high about what he could do that they presented an obvious burden for him. Having a flop meant you could get past it and get back to your real life. Mays film is one of two documentaries on Nichols scheduled for TV this year. The other, Becoming Mike Nichols, will air on HBO next month, but premiered at Sundance in January. It doesnt matter who got there first, though: Theres more than enough material in the singular life and career of this most American artist for a dozen documentaries David Wiegand is the TV critic and an assistant managing editor of The San Francisco Chronicle. E-mail: dwiegand@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @WaitWhat_TV Mike Nichols, American Masters: 10 p.m. Friday, Jan. 29, on KQED. LONDON At least 24 people drowned and 11 others were missing after a boat carrying Iraqi Kurds sank off the Greek island of Samos in the Aegean Sea, close to the Turkish coast, authorities said Thursday. The Italian navy also rescued 290 migrants Thursday and recovered six bodies from the water near a half-sunken rubber boat off Libya, en route to Italy. The navy rescued the migrants from three different rubber boats. The six bodies were found near the third one, which was already sinking when the Italian vessel reached it. More than 3,700 migrants died while trying to enter Europe via the Mediterranean Sea last year, and the latest sinking was a reminder that the flow has not stopped in the dead of winter, despite near-freezing nighttime temperatures. Swedish and Dutch officials suggested this week that they were preparing new steps to deal with the problem. Kelly Namia, an Athens-based representative of the International Organization for Migration, confirmed the death toll off Samos. According to accounts provided to the organization at a hospital, the wooden vessel was carrying 65 people when it sank Wednesday night, even though it had a maximum capacity of 30 people. The passengers were all Iraqi Kurds, aside from the smugglers, who were believed to be Afghans. At least one smuggler is believed to have drowned, but his body has not been located, Namia said. The Greek coast guard continued to search for survivors Thursday afternoon, using vessels and a helicopter. More than 600,000 migrants fleeing Afghanistan, Syria and other countries devastated by violence or poverty arrived in Greece from Turkey last year, often on inflatable rafts, dinghies or fragile wooden vessels like the one that capsized Wednesday night. Earlier on Wednesday, six migrants, including a child, drowned when their vessel sank off the island of Kos, also close to Turkey. The European Union has been increasingly critical of Athens handling of the migration crisis, the worst in Europe since World War II. More than 1 million migrants reached Europe last year, mainly through Greece. The European Union has offered Turkey, a crucial point on the migrant trail to Europe, nearly $3.3 billion to help curb the flow of refugees and asylum-seekers. On Thursday, Frontex, the European Unions border agency, reported that the share of Syrian migrants arriving in Greece has fallen in recent months. In December, 39 percent of migrants arriving in Greece declared themselves to be Syrians, down from 43 percent in November and 51 percent in October. At the same time, the proportion of Iraqis among the arrivals in Greece increased to 25 percent in December, up from 12 percent in November and 11 percent in October. The issue of nationality is important, because many Syrians and Iraqis are legally eligible for asylum while those classified as fleeing poverty rather than persecution are often not eligible. PARIS After years of tensions over Irans nuclear ambitions, Europe is ushering in a new era of relations with the once-pariah state, welcoming Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Italy and France with high expectations that he can set in motion lucrative business deals and regional peacemaking. But theres also a note of caution, notably about Irans human rights record and geopolitical goals. The end of economic sanctions after six nations struck a deal to curb Irans nuclear activities means the country of 80 million will soon be flush with funds, allowing Tehran to spend and, some Europeans hope, end its isolation from the West. The visits to Italy and France are also part of efforts by Iran to reach out to its old partners to balance its diplomatic reach with eastern partners like China and Russia. Iran signed billions of euros in deals during Rouhanis first stop in Italy which also prompted controversy when officials covered up naked statues in a Rome museum in an apparent effort to avoid offending the Iranian leader. Italys culture minister called the move incomprehensible. At a news conference Wednesday in Rome, Rouhani invited American businessmen to join their European counterparts in investing in Iran and taking advantage of the new era of win-win collaboration after years of mutual losses. Its possible, but the key is in Washington, not in Tehran, he said. At the same time today, if American investors and the heads of the American economy want to come to Iran and invest in my country, there are no problems from our point of view. Rouhani, a relative moderate elected in 2013, flew to France later Wednesday and was meeting with Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron and a group of French business leaders. He is expected to oversee the signing Thursday of a bevy of contracts, including a possible deal with Airbus to renew Irans fleet of passenger jets as Tehran looks to push tourism. Irans aviation industry has suffered due to sanctions over the past three decades. Out of Irans 250 commercial planes, only about 150 are flying. Oil giant Total, engineering group Alstom and carmakers PSA Peugeot-Citroen and Renault-Nissan, with a past presence in Iran, are among companies that could clinch deals, too. In Italy, the government and private companies inked more than a dozen accords with Iran covering the metals industry, oil services, rail transport and shipbuilding. Decades of sanctions have starved the Iranian economy and isolated Iran. The last Iranian head of state to visit France was moderate President Hassan Khatami in 1999 and he was the first since the 1979 Iranian revolution. Rouhani was originally scheduled to visit Paris in November, but the trip was called off after Nov. 13 Islamic extremist attacks that killed 130 people. The comedian Dieudonne Mbala Mbala, whose anti-Semitic comments have put him at the center of a free-speech debate in France, said Thursday that he had been detained at the Hong Kong Airport and barred from entering the territory. Mbala Mbala, who was scheduled to perform two shows in the city, posted on Facebook a photograph of the notice denying him entry, writing that he and his two eldest sons had been detained by the Hong Kong police for over 14 hours. The Hong Kong Immigration Department declined to specifically address Mbala Mbalas case, but it said in an e-mail that it was committed to upholding effective immigration control by denying the entry of undesirables. The comedian was convicted in March of condoning terrorism in France after he posted a Facebook message suggesting sympathy with one of the gunmen involved in the January 2015 attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the satirical newspaper in Paris, that left 12 dead. A separate free-speech ruling was upheld in November by the European Court of Human Rights, which said Mbala Mbalas right to expression did not permit him to make anti-Semitic jokes or statements denying the Holocaust. Attempts at silencing Mbala Mbala have created tensions over free speech and gained him support among some French Muslims, as well as far-right sympathizers. He is widely associated with an inverted Nazi salute known as the quenelle, and, in 2013, he lamented that a prominent Jewish journalist had not died in the gas chambers. Hong Kong has a significant French population, estimated at close to 20,000, and Mbala Mbalas was traveling to the city to perform Dieudonne en paix (Dieudonne in Peace) on Thursday and Friday at a venue in Cyberport, a development on the western part of Hong Kong Island. A booking website was selling tickets to the shows for about $54. The Cyberport management company would not confirm that the shows had been canceled, saying only that the performances were a private booking in a restaurant. The shows were to take place at the Arcade Center, according to the Facebook page for the event, and 42 people were said to be attending. PARIS Frances government welcomed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday with promises of a new beginning in an old relationship, starting with investments to boost Irans flagging economy that has been crippled by decades of sanctions. Its a new chapter of our relationship, French President Francois Hollande said in a joint news conference after a two-hour meeting with Rouhani at the Elysee palace. I want that relationship to be useful, useful to both countries, useful to the (Middle East) region affected by wars, crises and tragedies. Hollande added that he raised the issue of human rights and freedom during the meeting. France sees the visit also as an opportunity to draw Iran into a role of crisis-solving, notably in Syrias civil war where Iran actively supports the government of President Bashar Assad, which Paris firmly opposes. We must fight terrorism in Syria and Iraq, Rouhani said during the joint conference. We must help the Syrian people so that the Syrian people can build a sustainable future for the country, he said. Rouhani decried the sanctions his country was previously under, saying history has shown that they never worked. He said the nuclear deal that led to the lifting of sanctions this month can serve as a model for solutions in other crises, notably in the Middle East. A total of 20 agreements were signed after Rouhanis meeting with Hollande. Iran Air signed a deal to buy 118 aircraft from Airbus, valued at $25 billion. PSA Peugeot Citroen also announced a joint venture with Iran Khodro to produce latest-generation vehicles in Tehran by the end of 2017. French and Iranian companies also signed agreements in the sectors of air and maritime transport, airports, health and agriculture. Oil and gas company Total inked a deal with the National Iranian Oil Company to purchase crude oil. The French presidency said the total amount of the deals signed during Rouhanis visit, including Airbus, could reach up to $32.8 billion. The historic outreach trip did face some strains, however, in a reminder of the complexities confronting all sides despite the French welcome mat. France has asked its European Union partners to consider new sanctions on Iran for its recent ballistic missile tests, officials said. That highlights continued suspicions between Iran and the West. GENEVA The U.N. special envoy to Syria said Thursday that the peace talks he plans to launch in Geneva in the next few days are an opportunity not to be missed, urging Syrians to step up to the occasion to end their countrys devastating civil war even as the main Syrian opposition group continued to delay its departure. Speaking in a recorded message to the Syrian people on the eve of the talks, he said the United Nations will never abandon them and urged Syrians to raise their voices and tell delegations coming to Geneva to compromise for the sake of peace. You have seen enough conferences two of them already have taken place. This one cannot fail, he said. Peace talks are scheduled to begin on Friday, but are now likely to be delayed due to ongoing disputes over which opposition parties will attend. And the main Syrian opposition group said it was still waiting for an official response from the United Nations about a list of concerns. The Saudi-backed opposition bloc known as the Higher Negotiating Committee, which will be the main bloc in the talks, says that before it participates in the Geneva talks the government should stop bombardments and allow humanitarian access to besieged rebel-held areas according to U.N. Security Council Resolutions. It will be very difficult to hold the talks on Friday, said one Syrian opposition figure whose group is part of the Saudi-backed list. He added that many opposition figures still havent obtained visas or made reservations to come to Geneva. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Staffan De Mistura, in his message, sidestepped the issue of when the talks would actually start, saying the U.N. was planning to launch the Syrian talks in the next few days. The horror is in front of everyones eyes, he said, addressing the Syrian people. You must know also that we count on you to raise your voice to say khalas, its enough. Diminished Care The families of two teenage boys and a Democratic lawmaker are at the Department of Healths Sequoyah Adolescent Treatment Center. Its not the first time the center has been scrutinized. In 2012, Joey Peters reported . At Risk State Auditor Tim Keller announced the of New Mexicos state and local governments that are considered at risk based on the latest audit cycle. Since 2009, government agencies have been placed on the list if they fail to submit their annual audits. This year, entities will also be placed on the list if they receive audit opinions that indicate significant problems with their financial statements. If public funds are not audited, the risks of fraud, waste and abuse increase. Raising Questions New Energy Economy and Bernalillo County officials want the Public Service Company of New Mexico to provide of its risky long-term lease repurchases in the Palo Verde nuclear plant in Arizona. Historic Designation: Boon or Bust? Thomas Ragan reports that Santa Fe County commissioners on a resolution to support turning La Bajada Mesa into a national monument after dozens of residents spoke out about the matter, saying such a designation could be either a boon or unnecessary government intervention that would restrict its use, not improve upon it. Cancer Doc Heads to DC Joe Biden, whose son died from brain cancer last year, has invited one of the states top cancer docs to the White House to discuss . Biden wants to increase funding for additional cancer research. Chronic Violations The Las Cruces Public School District Board is being accused of chronic violations of the and now Secretary of Education Hanna Skandera has referred the district to the state attorney general's office for investigation and action. She says it's clear that school board members either don't understand or choose to ignore their roles and responsibilities in providing oversight of the district. As a result, Skandera is directing the school board to undergo training specific to its roles and responsibilities as well as training specific to the open meetings act. The training must be completed within 60 days and refresher training will be scheduled at least twice annually until the board shows it can comply with the open meetings act. Legislative News More budget tightening is expected as oil price forecasts trend downward. budget tightening Dan Boyd reports that Senate Finance Chairman John Arthur Smith says as revenues tighten, were going to have to suck it up . suck it up At least some of the states small oil production companies could be getting a tax break . small oil production companies could be getting a tax break The drivers license bill that Democrats say encourages discrimination passed the House on Wednesday. Republicans say theyre simply focused on public safety and making sure the state complies with Real ID rules. The bill now heads to the Senate. encourages discrimination KRQEs Alex Goldsmith reports state Rep. Rick Little, R-Chaparral, is facing criticism after saying, People choose their sexual orientation so they shouldnt be protected by hate crimes law. Curbing Cronyism The perception of cronyism in New Mexico is , according to a new study released by an associate professor at the University of New Mexico. To curb cronyism in New Mexico, the report suggests three changes that are already under consideration: a statewide ethics commission; greater transparency in campaign financing and lobbying; and a more detailed review of tax breaks given to businesses. Food Stamp Lawsuit Justin Horwath reports, The New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, an Albuquerque-based nonprofit, is asking a federal judge to that would temporarily prevent Gov. Susana Martinezs administration from implementing new rules that tie food assistance to employment. Trial Rules Relaxed The New Mexico Supreme Court will give to prosecutors and cops in Bernalillo County to bring felony cases to trial and to provide evidence to defense attorneys. The revisions will also make it harder for judges to dismiss cases for failure to meet deadlines under the rule. A case cant be dismissed if a prosecutor shows by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant is a danger to the community or the failure to comply with the rule was caused by extraordinary circumstances beyond control of the parties, the court said in a news release announcing the changes. And, the justices extended the deadline for a defendants arraignment, depending on how charges are brought in a case. Santa Fe Reporter As January winds down, things are looking extremely up around the states food and beverage landscape. This week brings us a special cart at the Anasazi Restaurant in Santa Fe to exalt the arrival of National Hot Chocolate Day. A manufactured holiday to sell more of the stuff? Sure. But it's hot chocolate, which is delicious, so who cares? The Food Depot, Northern New Mexicos food bank, gears up for its annual Souper Bowl competition and fundraiser. And if you missed your chance to try Santa Fe Spirits Atapino-brand limited-run liqueur before it ran dry, fear not: It has risen! Plus, a few other news items to titillate the taste buds. Have food news? Please share!! You can send it to thefork@sfreporter.com. And if you want your friends to join the party, please send them this way. Hot Tub Chocolate Machine To celebrate National Hot Chocolate Day on Jan. 31, the Anasazi Restaurant, Bar and Lounge at Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi in Santa Fe is setting up an adult-flavored hot chocolate cart, and some of the offerings are a chocolate lover's dream. The Anasazi has never been shy to present pop-up spirits-based events, so this comes as no surprise. First, there is a distinction that must be made between hot chocolate and hot cocoa, and not just because Hot Cocoa Day is on Dec. 13, and that would make us look stupid. Hot chocolate contains milk with real chocolate, while hot cocoa uses powdered cocoa and some liquid, usually water or milk. The folks at the Anasazi don't skimp on the good stuff (milk and real chocolate!). Look for the Kentucky Hot Tub Hot Chocolate, made with a dash of Ancho Reyes ancho-chile liqueur, and the Lucha Libre, crafted with Republic Reposado tequila, Kahlua, Mexican hot chocolate and cinnamon whipped cream. Expect to see a rotation of hot chocolate-centric cocktails throughout the winter. Slurp to Save Lives The Food Depot's annual Souper Bowl professional soup competition is upon us (Jan. 30), and the list of of more than 30 competitors this year is impressive. At around $30 a head, it may seem a bit steep. But it's for a good cause. And then there's the math: It's about $1 for each sample, with no angry chefs at the table denying you a second taste before casting your final votes. Online tickets, a list of competing restaurants, soup categories and more information can be found here. Tip: Get there early to park and line up. There will be a few tickets available at the door, too. Rollin Deep-Hearted The Food Depot is also on wheels, and on Jan. 22, it rolled into Los Alamos to launch its mobile-food program. Crunching the embarrassing numbers regarding food insecurity in the state, The Food Depot did what it always does: It stepped up. A Stout Order Also in Los Alamos, the Bathtub Row Brewing Co-Op, in cahoots with the New Mexico Brewers Guild, is preparing for the state's first Stout Invitational on Feb. 20. Sample 12 New Mexico stouts, get schooled on stout in educational talks with top brewers and grab a souvenir pint glass. Need a ticket? A Spirit in the Pines (Again) Santa Fe Spirits' small-batch, whiskey-based, oak-soaked Atapino liqueurmade with local pinon nuts, Silver Coyote single-malt white whiskey and resin made from local, hand-collected ponderosa pineran out quickly when it was introduced during the holidays last year. Good news! A new batch has arrived, and Santa Fe Spirits invites you to celebrate its return from 5-8 pm on Friday, Jan. 29, at its main distillery on Mallard Way. Gelato on the Move On Jan. 21, Ecco Espresso & Gelato officially announced its reopening in a new location at 128 E Marcy St., next to Cheesemongers of Santa Fe. It's just a hop across the street from its original location, but getting settled in took a good month. Happy Opening! Cant Finish that Beer? Make Dessert There are many times when and many reasons why one must put down the pint glass before it's empty, but there is no reason to let the brew go to waste. Hoard that mighty liquid, and make beer-toffee sauce! Thank you for subscribing to The Fork. Remember: Your food news could be our food news, and we love hearing from you. Hit us in the culinary sweet spot at thefork@sfreporter.com Santa Fe Reporter Bolstered by what they saw as positive results from a survey that included 400 random phone calls to adult residents in New Mexico, a pair of Democratic legislators insisted Thursday that the legalization of recreational marijuana would be a slam dunk if the issue were ever put before the voters or passed both chambers in the form of a law. Not only that but marijuana, which is mostly distributed in the streets and in the back alleys, would be taxed and regulated, generating yearly revenues between $20 million and $60 million, depending on the tax rate and consumer demand, according to state Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, and House Rep. Bill McCamley, D-Mesilla Park, who outlined their vastly different legislative approaches in the Roundhouse. McCamley wants to introduce HB 75, a cross strain of laws that currently make pot legal for recreational purposes in Colorado and Oregon, while Ortiz y Pino hopes to bring the subject before the state's voters in the form of a constitutional amendment in November's general election in a state where its current medical marijuana law received 71 percent support among those polled, the survey said. While both their plans now face an uphill battle in the House, with two weeks to go in the 30-day session, both peddled a recent survey, conducted by Brian Sanderoff of Research and Polling Inc., in which 61 percent of those surveyed supported the legalization of marijuana, while 31 percent opposed it. The sampling, which was conducted over a six-day period between Jan. 8 and Jan. 13, further revealed that when residents were informed that there would be restrictions on where the marijuana would be grown, consumed and purchased, and that its revenues would help pay for education, law enforcement and Medicaid, the support went up to 69 percent, with 28 percent in opposition. The last time a similar survey was conducted, in 2013, the support to legalize the drug came in at 52 percent, but Sanderoff pointed out that it was part of an overall registered voter poll and didn't solely focus on the concept of legalization. "It's not just ex-hippies in Taos," Ortiz y Pino said, in opening up the press conference. "People in every part of the state are for it." And that includes the eastern part of the state, which is traditionally conservative and where 58 percent of those queried were in favor of it, in places like Deming and Lordsburg. Perhaps most eye opening is that 51 percent of the responders said they tried weed at least once in their lives (quite possibly a low-ball number, if you assume that at least some of the respondents didn't want to admit that they had used it in a phone interview). In general, the poll found that 73 percent of men supported the legalization, compared with 66 percent of women, and that 74 percent of the Hispanics backed the idea, with 64 percent of the Anglos concurring. Overwhelmingly, 86 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 34 were totally down for going to a future pot dispensary, and 49 percent of senior citizens had no problem with it. But the Republican-controlled House does, and therein lies the rub, which had Emily Kaltenbach, with the Drug Policy Alliance, exhorting and deferring to what amounts to a windfall in Colorado, of which recreational marijuana partially played a part, with 70 million visitors last year and a $18 billion net in tourism dollars. Marijuana arrests there have plummeted, Kaltenbach said, and last year, the state raised $125 million in tax revenues from the legalization. "All eyes have been on Colorado," she said, adding that the prophecy of destruction by the naysayers never played out as a result of its legalization a few years ago. If New Mexico were to ever legalize pot, sooner rather than later, it would join Oregon, Colorado, Alaska and Washington DC. But now both measures have to pass the House and the Senate, and while Ortiz y Pino says that he believes that the survey may sway the House, and he fully expects the Senate to get on board, he explains that he needs a majority before it can be sent to the voters. "But the governor," he says, "can't veto it." As for McCamley, he perhaps faces more of a struggle, which he witnessed last year when he introduced similar legislation; when asked by a reporter about that "gruesome death," he joked, "Gruesome? It was quick." Interestingly enough, if the constitutional amendment passed both chambers and it went before the state's voters, it could drive up voter registration, noted McCamley, who says part of his district lies within the boundaries of New Mexico State University, and he thought it time to start listening to what the young people of the state want. Waiting in the wings, however, are the Republicans, who, generally speaking, are following in lockstep with Martinez and her crime-and-punishment policies, and while Ortiz y Pino said that quite a few Republicans have told him that it's only a matter of time before pot is legalized, they still aren't ready to vote for it just yet. "Let's not be the 49th state to do so," Ortiz y Pino said, jokingly referring to the state's ranking in education in the nation and all the buzz lately, followed by childhood poverty, which tops the nation. "Let's be the sixth, the seventh or the eighth." Santa Fe Reporter New Zealand Refining is expected to almost double the amount it returns to shareholders in the coming year as analysts anticipate record earnings from the country's only oil refinery, which resumed dividend payments in 2015. The Whangarei-based company is expected to pay a final dividend of 14 cents per share in the 2015 financial year, adding to the 5 cents paid in the first half, before stepping it up to 35 cents for 2016, according to a Reuters summary of analyst forecasts. Its results are due to be released on Feb. 24. The company cancelled dividend payments in 2014, the first time it had ever done so. NZ Refining earned its highest ever processing fee in 2015 as it processed a record number of barrels. Its refining margins are being boosted by a weaker kiwi dollar and a sharp drop in oil prices, and as investments in upgrades and efficiencies start to pay off. The company is expected to post an annual profit of $151 million in 2015, according to the Reuters forecasts. That's a jump up from the $9.9 million the previous year, and would surpass the previous record of of $139.8 million set a decade earlier. "New Zealand Refining has positive earnings momentum driven by strong refining margins that are expected to remain firm in the near term," Forsyth Barr analyst Andrew Harvey-Green wrote in a report this month, where he retained his 'outperform' rating on the stock. "The resumption of dividends and expected increase in dividends in FY2016 makes NZR an attractive prospect." The company's net debt, which ballooned to $315 million in 2014, is expected to reduce to $211 million in 2015, and continue to decline to $145 million in 2016, according to the Reuters forecasts. The reduction in debt "to more manageable levels" is likely to help underpin increases in the dividend payments, Craigs Investment Partners research analyst Grant Swanepoel said in a note this month, where he rates the stock a 'buy'. NZ Refining shares last traded at $3.69. The stock has gained 45 percent the past year, making it the fourth-best performer on the S&P/NZX 50 benchmark index. BusinessDesk.co.nz Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Air New Zealand Limited Retail Bond Offer Books Close Spark welcomes C-band spectrum allocation AIA - 2022 Annual Meeting Chair & Chief Executive Addresses MOVE Completes Purchase of Vessel for Trans-Tasman Service Heartland to purchase Challenger Bank in Australia, and provides lending growth update October 20th Morning Report VTL - Director Resignation - Reg Barrett Infratil 2022 Sydney Investor Day Rua Bioscience Confirms First International Order AIA - Auckland Airport considers retail bond offer Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 By Anvar Mammadov - Trend: The cost of technical assistance of the EU aimed at the project to create e-agriculture will amount to 1.4 million euros, head of the office of agriculture ministry of Azerbaijan Ilham Bayramov said. He made the remarks Jan. 28 at a seminar dedicated to the implementation of the project. "The work within the first phase of the technical assistance has already started," he said. "The EU has provided the Azerbaijani side with the technical requirements for the development of an information system for agricultural subsidies, IT-infrastructure of e-agriculture, orthophoto (an aerial photograph geometrically corrected, used to measure true distances) system." Bayramov said that the tender for selecting contractors to undertake the work has been already held. "The winner of the tender became a consortium of six companies from Hungary, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Italy and Azerbaijan," he said. The aim of the project is to ensure a fair and transparent distribution of agricultural subsidies. Assistance should ensure reliable data for use in policy-making and assessing the impact of policy and contribute to improving the quality of life in rural areas. LONDON: Activist and lawyer Henri Tiphagne has been named the winner of the eighth Human Rights Award by Amnesty International Germany for "tirelessly and bravely standing up" for human rights in India. Tiphagne, the People's Watch founder who campaigns against discrimination and the use of torture, will be presented the award on April 25 at the Maxim Gorki Theatre in Berlin. "Henri Tiphagne and his organisation People's Watch, while fighting to ensure the rights of others, are themselves being harassed and hampered in their work by the authorities. And there are other civil society organisations in India that are in a similar position," said Selmin Aaliskan, director of Amnesty International Germany. "The award is therefore meant to send a strong signal of support to the whole of the Indian human rights movement," Aaliskan said. Tiphagne has been named for the award for "tirelessly and bravely standing up for human rights," the rights group said. People's Watch has been researching and documenting human rights violations, as well as providing legal representation to those affected for over 20 years, the group said. The organisation also actively supports human rights education. In 1997, Tiphagne founded an institute offering training for teachers as well as mentoring around school human rights education programmes. So far, they have managed to reach out to around 500,000 children in 18 Indian states. Through the award, Amnesty aims to honour and support the awardees' exceptional human rights commitment and raise awareness of their work amongst the German public. The award comes with 10,000 Euros (USD 10,876) provided by Amnesty Germany's foundation Stiftung Menschenrechte, Forderstiftung Amnesty. Former award recipients include: Monira Rahman from Bangladesh (2006), Women of Zimbabwe Arise from Zimbabwe (2008), Abel Barrera from Mexico (2011) and Alice Nkom from Cameroon (2014). Read More: India, Russia Ink Deal on Competitive Research Projects India Sews Up Cyber Security Accords with Three Countries BENGALURU: The government of India recently announced the list of recipients of the prestigious Padma Awards. In which, Padma Vibhushan is regarded as highly esteemed category; it is also the 2nd highest civilian award after Bhart Ratana. The government has recognized 10 candidates from various sectors, whose contribution to their respective field is Immeasurable, thus down goes the briefed description on each recipient. Also Read: 6 Things to Look Forward to This Republic Day Life or Death: How to Stay Informed as a Citizen of the World WASHINGTON: The U.S. state of Nevada will open a new tourism office in New Delhi to promote its travel and tourism sector in India, an official said. Nevada Lt Governor Thomas Hutchinson before embarking on an India trip for its launch said, "Opening an office in India will provide Nevada with greater opportunities to promote international travel and tourism to our state". He said the state has 6.5 per cent share of the Indian travel market and the research indicates that the top reason for Indians to travel is to visit families living in the US, an area where we actively market the state. "We currently enjoy 6.5 per cent of the India travel market share here in Nevada. With a new office in New Delhi, I am confident that our increased presence will encourage even more tourists from India to visit the Silver State," Hutchinson said. He said Indians generally allot a maximum annual budget of USD 5,451 for international tour and they prefer staying in mid-priced hotels and want to experience duty free shipping. Also Read: Performance Of NDA Govt Rated 'Above Average' In Opinion Poll 6 Online Money Making Strategies That Can Make You Super Rich WASHINGTON: A top Indian official in Chicago has asked the Indian-American community in the city to participate in the development-centric initiatives by the Indian government. The Indian nationals, persons of Indian origin and friends of India attended the 67th Republic Day Celebration organized by the Consulate General of India in Chicago at its premises. The guests met the freezing cold weather to be a part of this celebration. Indian governments flagship programmes as "Make in India", "Skills India", "Swacch Bharat Abhiyan", "Digital India", "Startup India", and "Green India" would give a big boost to the growth trajectory of the country, said Ausaf Sayeed, Consul General of Indian Consulate in Chicago. Addressing a large gathering during the Republic Day celebrations on Tuesday, Mr Sayeed called upon the Indian-Americans to proactively participate in all the ambitious development-centric initiatives of the government of India. Read More: Disney World Sued For Replacing American Workers with Indians Trump to Skip Presidential Debate, Asks: Why Do I Have to Make Fox Rich? India is Doing Great, Nobody Talks about it, Says Donald Trump Source: PTI Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 Trend: As many as 6,599 depositors of the Bank of Azerbaijan will receive compensations from the Azerbaijan Deposit Insurance Fund (ADIF), said the Fund's Executive Director Azad Javadov. Since last week, the Central Bank of Azerbaijan has revoked licenses of six banks - Atrabank, Caucasus Development Bank, Ganja Bank, Bank of Azerbaijan, United Credit Bank and NBC Bank. Currently, 37 banks are licensed to carry out banking activities in Azerbaijan. ADIF will begin issuing compensation payments to the bank's depositors starting from Jan. 29, he said addressing a press conference in Baku, Jan. 28 "Given that the Bank of Azerbaijan is unable to fulfil its obligations, its depositors will get the compensations," he said. "In total, the bank has 7,342 depositors - some 6,599 of them will receive a compensation totalling 24 million manats (including six million manats in foreign currency)." Javadov added that under the current laws, the highest amount of the insured deposit is 30,000 manats. "If any client has a deposit worth 50,000 manats, some 30,000 manats of it will be returned by the fund, while the remaining part will be given by the liquidator company [using the bank's funds]," he said. "Agent banks have already been defined for the issuance of compensations," Javadov said, adding the compensations will be available at Muganbank, while the clients in Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic can receive it at branches of Rabitabank. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- There is no question Dante Viggiano savagely stabbed a Huguenot couple after breaking into their home 17 months ago, killing the husband and badly wounding his wife, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday at the defendant's murder trial in state Supreme Court, St. George. There's also no doubt Viggiano, a diagnosed schizophrenic, knew what he was doing, despite his mental history, Assistant Adam Silberlight said in his closing argument. "This man, Dante Viggiano, he is a thief and he is a murderer," Silberlight said, pointing at the defendant who sat impassively at the defense table. "There's absolutely no indication that he did not know what he was doing was wrong. The defendant was capable of understanding the nature and consequences of his actions, and for those reasons he should be held accountable for ... brutally stabbing Peter and Vincenza Gialluisi." Prosecutors allege Viggiano, 21, fatally stabbed Peter Gialluisi, 66, and seriously wounded his wife, now, 67, in their Venus Place home. The couple had just returned from visiting family in New Jersey and walked in on the Great Kills resident around 9:45 p.m. during a home invasion, allege prosecutors. Leaving behind a trail of blood, Viggiano made his way to the Huguenot station of the Staten Island Railway and took the train home, prosecutors allege. The alleged murder weapon, a large kitchen carving knife, was found in a wooded area across from the victims' home, prosecution witnesses have testified. In his summation earlier on Wednesday, defense lawyer Eric Nelson contended jurors should find Viggiano not guilty by reason of insanity. Nelson said Viggiano was so mentally ill, haunted by hallucinations and delusions, that he couldn't tell the difference between right and wrong when he attacked the victims. Viggiano is charged with first- and second-degree murder, attempted murder, assault and burglary. Silberlight, who is trying the case along with Assistant District Attorney Natalie Barros, addressed jurors for 90 minutes. The defendant did not look at him as he spoke. He said Viggiano's actions in trying to conceal several crimes in the summer of 2014, including the assault on the Gialluisis, demonstrated his ability to plan and think clearly. DNA evidence showed Viggiano had broken into a Rossville home around July 19, 2014, snatched the keys to a car and stolen the vehicle, said Silberlight. Viggiano was busted about two weeks later in a sting operation in which he had contacted the owner and sought to obtain a second set of keys for the auto. Using a fake name, he told the man he had found the car and needed the keys to return the vehicle to him, said Siblerlight. Silberlight contended Viggiano needed the second set because he had misplaced the keys he stole. When arrested, Viggiano gave cops yet another fake name and a bogus date of birth in an attempt to minimize his culpability, said Silberlight. Evidence also showed Viggiano had been casing the Gialluisis' home around that time, Silberlight said. He showed up there twice in July and also called the same day, claiming he was new to the area and wanted them to meet his mother, said the prosecutor. Peter Gialluisi told him he would call the police if he came back, his wife testified. In addition, a landscaper testified he saw the defendant sitting in a wooded area across the street from the victims' home on the day before the attack, Silberlight said. The defendant broke into the Gialluisi's home through a kitchen window off their patio, he said. Alarmed by the victims' return, he charged at Vincenza Gialluisi, who had entered the house through the garage and stabbed her, said Silberlight. Viggiano then attacked Peter Gialluisi, who was using a walker, throwing him down on the ground in the garage and stabbing him multiple times, Silberlight said. Viggiano went back and forth between the victims, stabbing them "over and over and over again" about the head, neck and body, Silberlight said. The defendant was bent on killing the Gialluisis because he knew they could identify him from his prior visits in July, said Silberlight. "At that point, he makes the conscious choice to eliminate both of them," said Silberlight. "This is not a stranger, because not everyone comes to your house a couple of times and is told you're going to call the cops if they come back." The testimony of forensic psychiatrist Dr. Jason Hershberger further deflated Viggiano's insanity defense, maintained Silberlight. Dr. Hershberger examined Viggiano in August of last year after reviewing the defendant's hospital records, psychiatric history, police reports and interviewing his mother, Silberlight said. Hershberger concluded the defendant was schizophrenic, and had presented a history of hallucinations and delusions several years earlier. But Viggiano, who denied attacking the Gialluisis, also denied experiencing any hallucinations or delusions in August 2014 or at the time of his interview, said Hershberger. Consequently, Hershberger opined that Viggiano's symptoms on the night of the slaying were not so severe as to distort his sense of right and wrong. Hershberger was the only psychological expert to offer an opinion about Viggiano's mental state on Aug. 31, 2014. "We are not denying the fact he is a schizophrenic ... but there is absolutely nothing from his past that excuses anything he did in July and August of 2014," said Silberlight. TOP QUOTE: "Just because someone is schizophrenic, antisocial, depressed, that does not mean they are not aware how wrong their conduct is or they can't appreciate their actions," said Assistant District Attorney Adam Silberlight in his summation. INTERESTING MOMENT: About 10 assistant district attorneys sat in the gallery to listen to Silberlight's summations and to show support. WHAT'S NEXT: Justice William E. Garnett will charge jurors on the law Thursday morning; they'll begin deliberating afterward. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Every year Staten Islanders rely on Charles G. Hogg -- better known as Staten Island Chuck -- to let us know if we're going to have six additional weeks of winter or an early spring. The American tradition of Groundhog Day, which is celebrated on Feb. 2, began in the 18th century by Germans in Pennsylvania -- home of Punxsutawney Phil, Pennsylvania's furry prognosticator. The tradition made its way across the United States, although not every state uses a groundhog to predict the weather. Staten Island does use a groundhog, and Chuck has become somewhat of a local celebrity over the last few years, especially after the controversy he's caused since 2009 -- the year he bit then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Then, Chuck was dropped by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2014 -- but that's a completely different controversy. He called for an early spring eight times in the last nine years, with an 80 percent accuracy rate, and hopefully he'll do the same this year -- we've had enough snow this past week to last us the whole winter. Do you have photos of Groundhog Day? Share them in the comment section below or email them to KDalton@siadvance.com Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job Posted on 28 January 2016 by Guest Author This is a guest post from Emmanuel Vincent and Daniel Nethery for Climate Feedback (@ClimateFdbk) An opinion piece by Patrick Michaels in the Wall Street Journal (The Climate Snow Job, Jan. 24, 2016) is riddled with inaccuracies, according to an evaluation by ten scientists with relevant expertise. The article makes false or misleading statements on several aspects of climate science, including the global temperature record, the methodology for measuring global temperature, the effect of El Nino on global temperature, and the economic impact of climate change. The mention of so many distinct aspects of climate science is intended to allow the author to pass himself off as an authority on climate science, while at the same time bamboozling readers into accepting three startlingly spurious claims. Claim 1: It is therefore probably prudent to cut by 50% the modelled temperature forecasts for the rest of this century. This is the opinion of the author with no basis in science. Climate models have successfully projected changes in climate observed in recent years. These models are not perfect representations of our climate system, but they are our best tool for forecasting future climate change. Claim 2: The notion that world-wide weather is becoming more extreme is just that: a notion, or a testable hypothesis. The scientific consensus is that some extreme weather events are becoming more severe and occurring with greater frequency in relation with climate change and more importantly these are expected to increasingly affect societies in the future. The author attempts to cast doubt on the science by claiming that the economic cost of extreme weather has remained stable over the past quarter-century. The author misleads the reader into concluding that because the economic cost of extreme weather has not increased, then extreme weather cannot have increased. But this fallacious reasoning is only the tip of the iceberg. Dr Laurens Bouwer, a senior risk analysis advisor at Deltares, told Climate Feedback that the claim that losses caused by severe weather have remained stable over the past 25 years is not accurate. It also belies the extent to which insurance agencies recognize the risks that climate change poses. The article cites data from Munich Re, whose head of Geo Risks Research and its Corporate Climate Centre, Professor Peter Hoppe, has publicly stated that climate change is one of the greatest risks facing humankind this century. Through a part of its core business, the insurance industry is directly affected and therefore assumes a leading role in devising solutions for climate protection and adaptation to the inevitable changes. Claim 3: Without El Nino, temperatures in 2015 would have been typical of the post-1998 regime. This is false. Scientists estimate that the current El Nino event contributed only a few tenths of a degree to the record global temperature observed in 2015. The year would have gone down as the hottest on record even without the El Nino event, as explained in this article by The Carbon Brief. Patrick J. Michaels would have his readers believe that the observed increase in global temperature, underlined by the news of the hottest year on record, is business as usual. His readers should instead draw the conclusion that no matter how conclusive the evidence, climate contrarians like Michaels intend to go about their business as usual, casting doubt on the science. The Wall Street Journal promises potential subscribers to help them make better-informed decisions by providing them with expert commentary and insight. This op-ed piece is objectively at odds with that ambition. Many more claims made by Patrick Michaels have been debunked by scientists, read their detailed analysis. Climate Feedback is a global network of scientists who collaborate to assess the credibility of major sources of climate change media coverage using cutting edge technology of web-annotations. The following scientists analyzed this op-ed: Dr Rasmus Benestad, Norwegian Meteorological Institute Dr Laurens M. Bouwer, Senior Advisor Risk Analysis, Deltares Prof Peter de Menocal, Director, Center for Climate and Life, Columbia University Prof Jennifer Francis, Rutgers University Prof Shaun Lovejoy, McGill University Dr Ken Mankoff, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Prof James Renwick, Victoria University of Wellington Dr Victor Venema, University of Bonn Dr Emmanuel Vincent, University of California, Merced Dr Britta Voss, U.S. Geological Survey Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 By Azad Hasanli - Trend: Azerbaijan's Ministry of Finance will start the placement of bonds in national and foreign currencies in February 2016, Samir Sharifov, the country's finance minister, said Jan. 28 at a press conference in Baku. He said the issuance of bonds is partly related to the current situation in the market. "It should be noted that in connection with the national currency's devaluation the confidence in manat has fallen," said Sharifov. "Manat sale and US dollar purchase have increased. It has become difficult today to get the manat in the banks, as the banks' assets are mostly in dollars." To increase the trust in the manat, the government has decided to start issuing bonds, the minister added. "We are ready to provide bonds to the market at a high rate," said Sharifov. Earlier the minister noted that the majority of population has foreign currency savings, which are kept not in the banks, but at homes. "These funds are withdrawn from economic circulation, and that is bad. And what does that lead to? People don't make profit from those funds," he said. "In order to make those funds work, we are ready to provide their owners with profit. If they shun banks now, they can invest their money in our currency bonds," said the minister. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @AzadHasanli Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 By Anakhanum Hidayatova - Trend: An exhibition of young artists dedicated to the Khojaly genocide will be held in London, a press release of the European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS) said Jan. 28. Works of students and young artists from across the UK will be shown at the exhibition. Winners, works of which are the most imaginative and memorable regarding the power of the image to promote peaceful resolution for conflicts and to empathize with the plight of refugees, will be awarded with Khojaly Peace Prize. The event will be held on Feb. 24. On February 25-26, 1992, the Armenian military, together with the 366th infantry regiment of Soviet troops stationed in Khankendi, committed genocide against the population of the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly. Among those 613 killed in the massacre, there were 63 children, 106 women and 70 old people. Eight families were totally exterminated, 130 children lost one parent and 25 children lost both. A total of 487 civilians became disabled as a result of the onslaught. Some 1,275 innocent residents were taken hostage, while the fate of 150 people still remains unknown. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Anahanum By clicking Agree, you consent to Slates Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and the use of technologies such as cookies by Slate and our partners to deliver relevant advertising on our iOS app to personalize content and perform site analytics. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information about our use of data, your rights, and how to withdraw consent. Agree Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 Trend: President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev received the Secretary General of the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) Halil Ibrahim Akca Jan. 28. Stressing the importance of Azerbaijan's good bilateral relations as well as political and economic cooperation with member states of the Economic Cooperation Organization, the president underlined that Azerbaijan was keen to expand this cooperation even further. Highlighting that Azerbaijan is actively cooperating with ECO, President Aliyev hailed the importance of holding the organization's first summit in the country. The president stressed the significance of economic cooperation among the member states at a time when economic difficulties and crisis dominate in the world. President Aliyev expressed his confidence that the visit of Akca to Azerbaijan would create a good opportunity for holding discussions on the future plans of the organization. Describing Azerbaijan as one of the active members of Economic Cooperation Organization, Akca recalled with satisfaction the last summit of the organization which was held in the country. The sides exchanged views over the prospects for cooperation between Azerbaijan and ECO. Baku to host winter Future Shorts festival. The screening will be organized as a part of YARAT FreeStyle Program, an open platform for everyone who looks to engage creatively with a broad and diverse audience. This festival covers 90 countries, 300 cities, 6 continents and offers 1,400 showings per year throughout the world. During its ten year existence, the festival has gained the attention of movie fans over a huge territory from Finland to Mexico. The festival gives an opportunity for professionals and newcomers all over the world to become a part of an international cinematographic community. The Winter Season of Future Shorts includes seven films. Special guest: "Lost dreams" by Chingiz Mustafayev Language: original, Russian subtitles February 17,18,19 | 8 pm YARAT Contemporary Art Centre (near the National Flag square) Admission: please collect your FREE ticket in advance at YARAT Centre. Simmons says the bomb testing is a major item on the list of minimum requirements that must be met before the F-35s can be used in combat. The base hopes all the requirements will be met by August. Thank you for visiting the Daily Journal. Please purchase an Enhanced Subscription to continue reading. To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account. We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription. A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much! Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 Trend: Robotics contest gathering BHOS students studying in process automation engineering program was organized at BHOS by process automation engineering department. Welcoming students BHOS rector Elmar Gasimov wished every success the participants of the contest. He stressed that he was particularly glad that students were able to exercise their knowledge during extracurricular activities. Elmar Gasimov attached great importance to students' creativity and initiatives urging them to proceed in this direction. Speaking about students' contest and exhibition BHOS rector said that participation of representatives of international companies, BHOS partners, was also worthwhile. He also said that the companies had already chosen its specialists and expressed his gratitude to Avandsis GROUP, Schneider Electric, Emerson Process Management, ABB, Siemens companies which presented the students their encouraging gifts. Elmar Gasimov also thanked BHOS process automation engineering department for organization of the contest. He emphasized that BHOS process automation engineering specialization is very essential one and that students' activities were always focused on there. BHOS rector said that he was convinced that such kind of contests would be organized continuously and drew attention of the audience to the importance of organization of the contest with involvement of the secondary schools. He particularly recommended to involve pupils of the secondary schools in the similar contests. Then the contest engaging six teams started. Students showcased robots made by them and informed about their functioning. According to the juries' assessment "New Era" team became the winner of the contest, "Moon Walkers" took runner-up position and the team who finished the contest the third was "Star". The companies BHOS is cooperating with presented their gifts to students who took first, second and third places. It should be pointed out that 18 third year students joined the contest. 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Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 125 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 157 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f00ebcd8)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f01f91d0)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f00ebcd8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 955 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f01f91d0)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f01add20)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1300 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f01f91d0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f01f91d0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612ee5142c8)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f00ea180)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f00ea180)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28:
29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:948 /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 125 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 157 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612eb99d780)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612ee515e50)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612eb99d780)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 955 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612ee515e50)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612efe1fa60)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1300 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612ee515e50)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612ee515e50)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612ee515298)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612ee75e908)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612ee75e908)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 Doctors have urged people who lived near the proposed Adani Carmichael mine, and the transport links that would service it, to get their health checked now to arm themselves for possible action down the track. Doctors for the Environment Australia member David King, a Brisbane-based GP and senior lecturer at the University of Queensland's school of medicine, said those residents needed a "baseline" with which to compare their health down the track, should they fall ill as a result of the mine's activities. A Mackay-based paediatrician says not enough had been done to measure the potential health impact of the near-28,000 hectare mine. Credit:Glenn Campbell "I certainly would, because if I developed problems I could more easily prove it wasn't from my exposure to something else 20 or 30 years ago," he said. "But it's a shame they have to take that initiative and pay for it themselves when it ought to be the government's responsibility, or the company that's profiting from it and leaving the individual to collect the information that might or might not be needed. Leading Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese has thrown down the gauntlet in the federal seat of Grayndler, announcing he will recontest the seat he has held for nearly 20 years despite earlier indications that he might move to the neighbouring seat of Barton. However he remains under threat from the Greens because of the radically redrawn electoral boundaries. In a carefully staged piece of political theatre, Mr Albanese chose to make the announcement from Balmain's Unity Hall Hotel, birthplace of the Australian Labor Party 125 years ago. The Balmain peninsula (which returned a Greens candidate at the last state election) has been moved into Grayndler, which at the same time has lost parts of Marrickville, Dulwich Hill, Hurlstone Park, and the student epicentres of Newtown and Camperdown. Emphasising his environmental credentials as the original author of Labor's renewable energy targets and emissions trading scheme, Mr Albanese signalled a knockdown battle in the electorate with a savage attack on his Greens rival, Jim Casey, whom he targeted without uttering Mr Casey's name. Former prime minister Tony Abbott has told a conservative Christian group in the United States that allowing same-sex couples to wed will contribute to "the erosion of family", a stance that drew a swift rebuke from his openly gay sister Christine Forster. Fairfax Media revealed this week that Mr Abbott would travel to New York to speak on "the importance of family" to the far right Alliance Defending Freedom group. In the speech Mr Abbott declared that "we need less ideology and more common sense" but reaffirmed his strong opposition to same-sex marriage. He urged policy makers to pass on the institution of marriage "undamaged" to future generations and said most children would prefer to be raised by a mother and father. The RSL has condemned protesters opposed to the removal of century-old Moreton Bay fig trees along Sydney's Anzac Parade for using in their campaign a poem to the fallen in World War I. Despite mounting opposition, the Baird government is standing firm in its decision to allow trees, said to have been planted along the avenue in 1917 in honour of Australian diggers, to be felled for a $2.1 billion light rail line to the city's eastern suburbs. Contractors began cutting down eight trees on Anzac Parade near the new Albert (Tibby) Cotter Walkway on Wednesday and a further nine on Wansey Road near Randwick Racecourse. The tram line will link Circular Quay to the eastern suburbs via Anzac Parade, and includes stops near Moore Park and the racecourse. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 Trend: Creating of a transit corridor with Russia has a great potential, Turkmen President Gurbunguly Berdimuhamedov said at a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, RIA Novosti reported. President Berdimuhamedov recalled that an idea of creating a transport transit corridor between the two countries was put forward in its time. "We have a ferry crossing," he said. "Moreover, we repair all our vessels in the Astrakhan region." The president also said that the trade turnover between Russia and Turkmenistan greatly increased following the meeting of the intergovernmental commission in 2015. President Berdimuhamedov drew attention to the successful cooperation in such areas as textile, construction, agriculture, as well as oil sector. "We urge Russian companies to develop the transport infrastructure," he added. A 59-year-old Canberra man accused of having sex with a teenaged girl and sharing explicit images with her online has been committed for trial in the ACT Supreme Court. The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, confirmed on Thursday in the ACT Magistrate's Court he wished to enter pleas of not guilty to the three charges against him. The man is accused of sending the girl a picture of his penis. Credit:Tanya Lake He faces two charges of having sex with a child between the ages of 10 and 16, and one charge of using the internet to deprave young people. The court was told the defendant knew the girl who was aged between 12 and 14 at the time of the alleged offences through his partner, who was good friends with the girl's mother. Angry sacked workers are set to attend the first meeting between Queensland Nickel creditors and administrators. FTI Consulting will convene the meeting in Townsville on Friday, two weeks after 237 workers were axed from Queensland Nickel's troubled Yabulu refinery. Clive Palmer has said he had no responsibility to ensure the retrenched workers get their entitlements and won't be repaying donations from his nickel business so they can be paid. Overseas workers at three Sydney factories that supply pastries, vitamin pills and desserts to businesses including Coles, Woolworths and airline companies have been allegedly underpaid by more than $45,000. The Fair Work Ombudsman is taking legal action against Sydney businesswoman Yan Hu and her labour-hire company Global Express Consultancy Pty Ltd in the Federal Circuit Court. Overseas workers packaging vitamins in Sydney were allegedly underpaid. Credit:Michel O'Sullivan Ms Hu faces fines of up to $10,200 for each incident and the company could be penalised up to $51,000 for each breach of the Fair Work Act. The 19 employees from Taiwan and Hong Kong were in Australia on the 417 working holiday visa. They were allegedly underpaid between February 2014 and May 2015 while working at three factories including one at Taren Point Factory, operated by Banquet Desserts, which supplies cheesecakes and muffins to Coles and Woolworths. So, maybe a bushfire and the refugee crisis have a lot in common. Maybe, both are experiences where human beings connect to the sense of survival and the imposition of leaving behind the place where one built her or his personal history. Yet this is familiar to me: people fleeing desperately to save their life, leaving behind any traces of their past. Isn't this similar to the experience of being a refugee? A person who flees from his homeland to save her or his life and tries to start a new life with no material possessions. Just memories. What comes next, after the fire has torn its way through your world and taken its toll? Credit:Wolter Peeters What comes next, after the fire has torn its way through your world and taken its toll? How might one come to terms with having everything burnt to nothing in one day with only memories of what was? I have often pondered the immense human suffering of the aftermath of bushfires here in Australia. I have tried to put myself in the position of those who live through these fires and the losses that they bring. But I have never experienced a bushfire. I have never seen the sky turn red with impenetrable smoky clouds. I cannot even imagine how it must be to have just moments to run from a fire that may take your life. The fear in that moment must be overwhelming and connects oneself to the animalistic instinct for survival. When I see it in this way I can't stop thinking of my own experience as refugee and political asylum seeker, and I immediately understand how those families feel after losing everything. How they will struggle to start over and how in their new home they will be constantly remembering material things they had and they don't have any more. And when I say material things, it is referring to the picture of the great grandmother that was taken in 1890, or the painting that one bought from a humble painter in a small town or the teacup that belonged to a deceased husband or simply the teddy bear that generations of kids hugged. It is in that moment that bushfire tragedies and refugee crises become one. Because they are talking about the common spaces of human beings, and these common spaces are just what one calls home and how this sense of home disappears forever. I remember when I arrived in Australia in 2009. I can still smell the fear of not having any money for food and the doubt of what would happen to me the next day. I still have in mind all the nights that I went to bed thinking of my family and being scared for the safety of their life; the memory of crying, and crying and crying for all the tragedy of losing everything. The victims of the bushfires in Australia are living the same. They are experiencing the same sense of loss, the same life tragedy. Surely they will be asking themselves: Why me? What have I done to deserve this? And with time they will understand that sometimes life gets in the way and we have no other option than to accept those facts that we can't change. I support them in my heart and mind because I understand what they have gone through. Ramon Martinez-Mendoza was born in Venezuela in 1977 and arrived in Australia in 2009. A student's ATAR does not make a student substandard. And that's true even if the student with the low ATAR goes on to do a teaching degree. It's the one ranking which truly gets everyone exercised. How can we unleash those with poor ATARs on our next generation of exam serfs? Yet Associate Professor Vince Wright of the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, whose work was published in the Australian Journal of Teaching Education last year, surveyed data from 600 teaching students, focusing on how they did in their final teaching placement. There was nearly zero nearly zero - relationship between student entry ATAR and how those same students did in their all-important teaching placements. "It's a belief that what you achieved at high school determines you for the rest of your life," says Wright. And what of doctors with no ATARs? Terrifying, no? I went looking for medical students with low or no ATARs. I found Skye Kinder who grew up in Bendigo, scored 85 in her HSC; and ended up doing a medical science degree. She used a rural access scheme to get into that course; and again when she finally got into medicine. She's doing just as well as her peers despite the fact her ATAR is at least 10 full points lower than the others in her year. Or another medical student in a Group of Eight university. He didn't even complete his HSC and ended up doing a management degree online. He is now in his fourth year of medicine and travelling perfectly well. He is planning to specialise in general surgery. These two medical students are the first in their families to have degrees. In the young man's case, neither of his parents finished school. That's progress. I've taught many many students in combined law degrees at the University of Technology Sydney, who've openly discussed their ATARS, far distant from published marks; but excelling excelling in their studies. Sometimes even they are surprised by how well they are doing. They are Indigenous students or perhaps they were sick during their last year of high school; or maybe they went to a school where the top student scored 80 and they were that top student. Sometimes their mothers developed cancer during the HSC year; or sometimes schizophrenia. These students need our support; not scrutiny and punishment. Universities must stop pretending the tweaking of ATAR cutoffs tells us anything about the quality, resilience and application of the students in the courses. I do not care whether the cutoffs for the courses in which I teach are plus or minus the students remain the same, some brilliant and motivated, some unready for university life. And some of my very proudest moments as an educator are those with students who came in on access schemes and went on to shine in both university and adult life. Professor Sally Kift, one of only two Australians to have won an Office of Learning and Teaching fellowship from the federal government to specifically study what helps a student stay at university, says ATARs tell us more about where students went to school and "the social and culture capital which 'cottonwoolled' them" at the point of their final school assessment. "ATAR tells us more about social advantage than it does about anything else," she says. Kift reports that in 2014, around half of those attending university for the first time did not even have an equivalent of an ATAR. If that tells us anything, it says we need another way of choosing. I have obtained exclusive Treasury modelling of Malcolm Turnbull's tax plan. OK, to be clear, I obtained it a decade ago. It turned up again this summer during a frenzied spring clean of my paperwork. But given the former merchant banker's subsequent meteoric rise, it is well worth revising. A mere backbencher at the time, Turnbull had taken it upon himself in 2005 to team up with an ANU academic to model no fewer than 274 options for cutting personal income tax rates and thresholds. The tax paper itself was far from secret. In fact, Turnbull personally emailed it to bureau chiefs in the Canberra press gallery, before delivering a speech on the matter and publishing the paper on his website. Unsurprisingly, this really irked the then Treasurer, Peter Costello, who directed then Treasury secretary, Ken Henry, to cost and model the distributional impact of just three of Turnbull's reform options, all of which involved abolishing the top marginal tax rate and reducing the second top marginal tax rate. During my year at the children's hospital some of my time was spent looking after children in the infectious ward. I saw complications of measles: terrible rashes, life-threatening pneumonias, encephalitis. Some died, but thank goodness, most recovered. In the ward for babies less than a year old, I saw a few babies admitted with whooping cough, a truly frightening experience. The poor baby gets a coughing spasm and just can't stop to take a breath. They go blue and are in a truly critical situation. In 1971, I saw a child with diphtheria, thank goodness never again. In the early 1960s, the German measles (rubella) vaccination had just been put on the market. The illness itself was not serious, but if a pregnant woman came in contact with the virus, her baby was at a high risk of fetal abnormalities. During my early days as a doctor in Switzerland and then in Sydney at the children's hospital in Camperdown, I saw children with the after-effects of mother having had the rubella virus. The main problems were babies with cataracts or small heads, deafness and occasional heart defects. After introducing the vaccination we, as doctors, hardly ever saw those terrible defects. When I started university they were just introducing the oral vaccination for polio. Very rapidly the number of cases dropped off. Now we can say that polio in the Western world is a thing of the past. Not however, in less developed countries. Somebody, some time, is going to bring the virus back to our country. When I was in primary school in the 1940s, we all accepted the fact that following the autumn holiday one of the 40 children in the class would not return to school, because they had either died or were paralysed after contracting polio. Those who survived usually ended up in the iron lung, a monstrosity most people nowadays would never have seen. In the following years as a country GP, far fewer complications from those viral illnessess were observed, only rare cases of mumps or mild measles. Following the introduction of the haemophilus influenza vaccination, the number of children with meningitis was reduced, and there were fewer cases of croup. Before this vaccination was introduced, we had the "trachi-bell" (tracheotomy bell) at the hospital in Camperdown. When that bell rang, everybody knew a child was suffocating. The emergency team would rush to the ward and life-saving measures had to be introduced to try to save the child; a very frightening event. I have not seen a case like this since the early 1970s. From my point of view, the West had beaten those terrible plagues. In 1980, working with the Red Cross on the Thai-Cambodian border and in 1988-1989 in Cambodia itself, I was again confronted by children with severe measles, terrible purulent ear infections and deafness. Most of the children there had never been vaccinated. I came to realise how lucky we are in the West not to have those terrible illnesses. I am aware of the fear parents have, that their child might suffer severe side-effects from vaccinations. I personally know one of the professors in London who was researching the link between vaccinations and autism. A colleague of his (Dr A.J. Wakefield) then published the very damning article on the connection between them. I believe we can now all say no serious scientific research has established any connection between vaccinations and autism. Science is only as good as what we know at the time. I am now in my 70s. When I look back at all the terrible illnesses we had in the past and consider how we are now free of them, medical science has done a great job. Two years ago at a conference in Switzerland, we were told about the case of a young boy dying in Switzerland from measles. Swiss people are much more hesitant to vaccinate their children; therefore they are having more serious cases of these viral illnesses, which we thank goodness don't see in Australia. If we let our guard down, how long will it be before we again see all those illnesses? Many parents and grandparents, as well as young doctors, have never seen those terrible viral illnesses and perhaps they wonder why we should be worried about them. Australia's pre-eminent architectural photographer John Gollings has been named a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the Australia Day Honours for his services to architectural photography and the documentation of landmark architecture. It's been a long time coming for the celebrated photographer, who studied architecture before working in advertising in the 1960s. Architectural photographer John Gollings at work doing an aerial shoot. He has since gone on to photograph some of the most iconic structures and sites in Australian architecture, playing a huge role in defining contemporary Australian architecture's visual language in the process. Gollings has won countless accolades throughout what is a storied career, including the Royal Institute of Australian Architects President's Award in 1990 and 1998, and was appointed the co-director of the Australian exhibition at the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale. The recent outbreak of the mosquito-borne Zika virus in South America serves as a stark reminder of the health risks linked to a warming world, health experts say. The virus, linked to brain damage in thousands of babies in Brazil, has already been discovered in Australian travellers returning from South America, and was detected in six Australians last year. Zika is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which also spreads the dengue and chikungunya viruses. The Zika virus generally only causes symptoms in one in five people. While authorities confirm there have been no locally acquired cases reported in Australia, more than 20 "countries of concern" have been listed around the world which pregnant women and those considering pregnancy have been advised to avoid, after links were made between the virus and microcephaly. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 Trend: The Central Bank of Azerbaijan may render financial assistance to the Azerbaijan Deposit Insurance Fund (ADIF) in case of shortage of funds for payment of compensations to the closed banks' depositors, said Azad Javadov, the ADIF executive director. He made the remarks at a press conference in Baku Jan. 28. Javadov further said that currently the volume of ADIF's funds stand at 132 million in the manat equivalent. "ADIF's insurance reserves stood at 132 million manats as of late 2015," he said. "Some 75 million manats of this amount have been placed in state bonds. The remaining funds amount to $28 million and seven million euros. They have been placed on the CBA account." "The total amount of deposits in the six liquidated banks is 80 million manats," he said. "But while inspecting the Bank of Azerbaijan's deposits, it was found out that the insured deposits in the bank amount to 24 million manats, rather than 36 million manats." "As a result, the total amount of the insured deposits dropped to 68 million manats," he said. "I'd like to add that other banks have not been declared bankrupt yet. But even in this case, we will have enough funds to meet our commitments." Javadov also said that according to the new legislation, in case of a shortage of funds, ADIF may appeal to the CBA for a loan. "Under the previous legislation, in case of a shortage of funds, ADIF could issue bonds to draw funds or appeal to the CBA for a loan," he said. "But under the new legislation, we can appeal to the CBA for a loan, issued under the state guarantee." Javadov said that the data on banks may constantly change. In general, the total number of depositors in six banks was initially 31,000 people, according to these banks. Waves of thunderstorms have begun to hit Sydney, some of them potentially severe, as a complex low pressure system brings storm activity to much of eastern Australia. The Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe thunderstorm warning for large hailstones and damaging winds for the Sydney region. "Severe thunderstorms were detected on weather radar near Richmond, Penrith, Lake Burragorang and Wisemans Ferry [and were heading south-eastwards]," the bureau said. Prominent counter-terrorism expert turned Labor candidate Anne Aly says there is a need to "revisit" the controversial citizenship laws, which the Opposition supported. Professor Aly, who is one of the nation's best-known specialists in understanding why people are drawn to religious and political extremism, announced on Thursday she would stand for Labor in the Liberal-held seat of Cowan in Western Australia. New Labor MP Anne Aly - she is one of the five MPs with the name "Anne" in Parliament. Credit:Christopher Pearce She slammed the national security debate as one often driven by the "politics of division and fear". The 48-year-old will be pitted against the conservative Liberal backbencher Luke Simpkins, who holds the seat with a 7.5 per cent margin. It was previously held by Labor MP and prominent military veteran Graham Edwards. Distressing testimonies from women who have suffered and seen others suffer domestic violence has left the Duchess of Cornwall visibly moved. The wife of Prince Charles visited London's charity on Wednesday, and listened to five women share their stories on domestic violence. Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall becomes emotional hearing stories of victims of domestic violence. Credit:WPA Pool After the women had spoken, Camilla thanked them. "All of you going around and talking about it does create awareness," she said. Scientists have pinpointed a major trigger for schizophrenia in our molecular make-up that could explain why the disorder develops in adolescence. The study, published in the international journal Nature, found a huge spike in a single gene, C4, needed to prune away excess brain cell connections, dramatically increased a person's risk of developing schizophrenia. Public sector employers have been told a worker's "glass jaw" will be no defence if they lodge claims for psychological injuries. Credit:Tamara Voninski Like pruning back the tangled branches of a hedge, synaptic pruning is part of the brain's natural development. The process helps thin out the overabundance of grey matter of a child's brain during adolescence to clear the neural pathways needed to develop more complex connections in adulthood. But in patients with schizophrenia with a spike in C4, this pruning switches into overdrive, shearing through too many synapses, causing an abnormal loss of brain matter, researchers found after analysing data from over 29,000 schizophrenia patients, 36,000 controls and 700 post-mortem brains from 22 countries. A man has been charged with murdering another man who was found fatally stabbed in a driveway in Sydney's south-west last year. Police arrested the 56-year-old man on Thursday and charged him with the murder of Campsie resident Xun Ke. Mr Ke was found suffering stab wounds in the driveway of his unit block at Clissold Parade in Campsie about 11.40 pm on March 28. Sydney University is pushing for a new light rail line from Central Station to Strathfield via its campus to cope with surging demand for public transport after it was overlooked as a site for a metro train station. The Baird government has canvassed the possibility of so-called "rapid transit" bus services or dedicated bus lanes along Parramatta Road to improve public transport links for students to the university. Patronage has surged on the trams between Central Station and Dulwich Hill in Sydney's inner west in recent years. Credit:Christopher Pearce However, the university says such measures will be insufficient to meet demand for transport to its campus or the nearby Royal Prince Alfred hospital at Camperdown. "We believe light rail has to be the answer if we are talking about transport for both RPA and the university," Sydney University's director of campus infrastructure services, Greg Robinson, said. A prominent Queensland street artist dubbed "Brisbane's Banksy" has been found guilty of wilful damage by graffiti after he painted several sites across the city without permission. 36-year-old Anthony Lister argued he didn't intend to damage five sites he painted across Brisbane between 2009 and 2014, saying he had blessed the property with his well-known work. Mural of an Aboriginal boxer in Redfern by Anthony Lister. Credit:Anthony Johnson However, he was found guilty on one charge of wilful damage by graffiti in the Brisbane Magistrates Court this afternoon. The charge was brought by Brisbane City Council, which has previously commissioned Lister to paint traffic signal boxes across the city. A high-rise student accommodation building in Brisbane's CBD that was due to open its doors this month has been barred from housing residents. The 23-storey Iglu Brisbane at 65 Mary Street was due to open this month, but issues with the building materials have prevented its certification. Comment has been sought from Iglu, but Fairfax Media's calls have not been returned. The building is subject to a state government Building and Development Dispute Resolution Committee hearing, due to "non-conforming building products" being used in its construction. He may be the son of The King but that didn't stop Nova presenter Mitch Lewis from getting his car towed on Wednesday night. After attending the Seven Network program launch in West End, Lewis - the son of NRL legend and Nine Network presenter Wally Lewis - returned to his car only to find a towing company had relieved him of it. Mitch Lewis copped a $550 fee to retrieve his car after it was towed. "Every other park around there was taken, why else do you go and park somewhere you're not supposed to?" he said. "It's my own fault, I completely wear that." You may have heard of the names Huawei, Xiaomi, and Oppo over the last few years, but have yet to try one of their phones for yourself. You're not alone. In Australia, Apple and Samsung dominate the market in what appears to be a two-horse race. But 2016 could be the year that changes that, as Chinese manufacturers set their sights on global expansion. For Australian audiences, Xiaomi remains the most enigmatic of Chinese brands. Xiaomi grabs all the headlines, the tech press love it, but there is still no official way of buying its products in this country. Xiaomi M1 smart phones running the MIUI operating system. Credit:Bloomberg Xiaomi's willingness to, ahem, take inspiration from Apple can leave you breathless. The company's industrial design, marketing, websites, and packaging all feel as though they could have been made in Cupertino. Consensus among the tech press is that Xiaomi would have a difficult time launching in Western markets, as any move outside China would open it up to intellectual property and copyright complaints from Apple. But it seems determined, and appears to be building up a patent war chest ahead of an international expansion. I've imported a few Xiaomi accessories, and I'm always impressed by the quality of the products. Its external battery packs are probably the best value on the market, and, unlike some cheaper units, you can trust you're not buying a lithium-ion time bomb. At $26, the Mi Band fitness tracker outperforms most from Fitbit and Jawbone. Be careful when you buy, though. Such is the irony of Xiaomi's success that there are many counterfeit versions of its products online. I'd recommend buying via Deal Extreme to ensure you're buying an official product. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Jan. 28 By Huseyn Hasanov- Trend: The situation in the Caspian region and neighboring Afghanistan has been discussed during a meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov in Ashgabat, the Russian foreign ministry said Jan. 28. "The situation in Central Asia in terms of the risks in the territory of Afghanistan was discussed," Lavrov said. "We have a common position on the need for a political settlement of Afghanistan's problems." Lavrov said that the sides also confirmed the close cooperation in the UN and other international organizations. The sides stressed the significant progress on the trade-economic cooperation in terms of the achieved results and prospects. Six months after launching the all-you-can-eat Apple Music subscription service to rival Spotify, Apple's internet radio service is no longer free. iTunes Radio launched in Australia in early 2014 as a free ad-supported streaming music service, letting users create custom radio stations based on a track, artist or genre similar to Pandora. It wasn't until mid-2015 that Apple launched the Spotify-style Apple Music, offering access to millions of tracks and letting subscribers listen to albums from start to end. As of January 29, listening to iTunes Radio stations will require a monthly Apple Music subscription, leaving the curated Beats 1 internet radio station as Apple's only free streaming music service. Apple's radio service is no longer free. Taylor Swift didn't like it, anyway. The move bucks the trend of offering free ad-supported streaming music to entice potential Premium subscribers, a model employed by rivals Spotify, Samsung's Milk Music, Deezer, Guvera, Pandora and Rdio, before its closure at the end of 2015. Apple offers a free three-month trial for new Apple Music users, with a free 12-month subscription available to some Telstra mobile customers. Spotify and Google Play Music are now offering extended three-month Premium trials as they compete with Apple to win over former Rdio subscribers shopping for a new music service. Apple has also scrapped ad-free iTunes Radio access for subscribers to iTunes Match, which was launched back in 2012 to let Apple users stream music they already owned. In some ways iTunes Match and iTunes Radio were stop-gap measures while Apple negotiated a full subscription service with the music industry. The changes to iTunes Radio come as subscription services experience a backlash from musicians, frustrated over low royalty fees. "Chuck a u-ey" is arguably the most 'Strayan road direction you could give, but your GPS probably has no clue what it means. Google, maker of the popular Google Maps mobile app which many use for its GPS directions feature, has gone some way to correcting that today by updating its assistant so it replies with an Aussie accent and better understands the unique Aussie turn of phrase. Google Maps now understands Australians a little better. Credit:Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/AFP Slang words like "arvo", "footy" and "Maccas" have been added to the search engine and Google Maps vocabulary, along with tricky Australian town names like Tibooburra and Unanderra. The move brings Google in step with rival personal mobile assistants which have already been catering to Australian customers for months. If you've ever awkwardly hit the thumbs-up "Like" button on a Facebook post with not-so-good news, you'll be relieved to hear the social media giant is rolling out five alternatives. Facebook's chief operating officer Chris Cox has revealed five new emoji buttons - Angry, Sad, Wow, Haha and Love - will be launched worldwide in the next few weeks. The traditional "Like" button will still appear at the bottom of posts. If the user holds down the button on a smartphone, the five emoji options will be revealed. Victoria Police are appealing for help to solve a cold case in which a man sexually assaulted a teenager twice in the same location in Sunshine three decades ago. Cold Case Sexual Crime Squad detectives were told the incident happened when the girl, who was 15, was checking on her horse in a paddock near a caravan park on Ballarat Road about 4pm on Saturday, March 22, in 1986. The Cold Case Sexual Crime Squad officers have released this photo of the paddock where a teenager was assaulted twice by the same man in the 1980s. Credit:Photo: Victoria Police Victoria Police spokeswoman Kelly Grindley said the girl walked past a stranger who was feeding another horse in a nearby paddock. "He has then followed her, grabbed her from behind and pulled her to the ground before sexually assaulting her," Ms Grindley said. "The girl managed to free herself and ran away." However, nearly four months later, on July 13, 1986, the teenager went to check on her horse at the same location in the late afternoon when she was grabbed from behind by the same man who had previously attacked her, Ms Grindley said. "The man threatened her with a knife before cutting her clothing and sexually assaulting her," she said. "The girl then ran away." Police were hoping someone in the community holds the key to solving the cold case sexual assault and and have released the image of a man who they believe may be able to assist with their investigation, Ms Grindley said. The security industry is facing a long-needed overhaul to nationalise licensing and training due to the concerns of coroners over the death of patrons who were restrained by security guards. A 181-page report by the national training regulator, the Australian Skills Quality Authority, mentions the death of Anthony Dunning at Crown casino in 2011 and the death of Jerry Karamesinis at the former 21st Century nightclub in Frankston in 2007. The report cited the coroner's 2015 inquest into Mr Dunning's death and the danger of "positional asphyxia" when restraining a patron at a licensed venue. Anthony Dunning died in 2011 after an altercation with Crown casino security guards. Credit:Nine News "It cannot be over-emphasised that guards, security officers and others need to fully understand that positional asphyxia can occur when a person is restrained in a prone, face down position," the report said. Maurice Blackburn lawyer Dimi Ioannou, who represents the Dunning family, said changes were needed to prohibit the use of man-handling techniques because many questions remain unanswered in relation to what happened to Mr Dunning. The crisis at V/Line has claimed the scalp of the regional rail operator's chief executive, Theo Taifalos, who quit on the spot on Thursday after being told he had lost the confidence of the Andrews government. The government said last week that V/Line services would begin to improve late this week, but conceded on Thursday that the severe level of disruption commuters are suffering would go on until at least mid-February and that it will take months before services fully return to normal. A VLocity train negotiates the S-bend above North Melbourne station. Credit:Paul Jeffers Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan said she was furious, having been given false advice by V/Line last week that a solution was imminent. "I was given inconsistent and unreliable advice on that issue," she said. There remain doubts over whether Cardinal George Pell will return to Australia next month to give testimony to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, after he failed to travel to the United States this week for a speaking engagement. Australia's highest-profile Catholic, who is based in Rome where he manages the Vatican's finances, previously cancelled a planned trip to Melbourne in December to give evidence to the commission due to a "worsening" heart condition. His testimony on how he responded to child abuse allegations as a priest in Ballarat and as the Archbishop of Melbourne was delayed until February this year, when a third public hearing into Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat is due to begin. However, even church officials are unsure whether the 74-year-old will be able to return from Europe. A West Australian man who left his two-year-old son in a car on a hot day has been fined $1000 plus court costs of $88.50. 23-year-old Haidar Mussawy pleaded guilty in Perth Magistrates Court today to leaving a child in a car without supervision in a manner likely to cause distress. Police say Mussawy left the toddler in the car for at least 30 minutes on Terrace Road in East Perth on October 11. The temperature was 32 degrees just after 4pm on the day the boy was left in the car and police reportedly had to force their way into the car to rescue the boy. Fort Worth, Texas: The American teenager lambasted for a defence of "affluenza" in the killing of four people while drink-driving arrived back in Texas on Thursday after being deported from Mexico and was placed in juvenile detention. After his flight landed, Ethan Couch, 18, was seen with his hands behind his back being escorted by uniformed officers through the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and had grown a beard. He fled to Mexico in December along with his mother after a video emerged on social media that showed Couch had probably violated the probation deal reached in juvenile court that kept him out of prison for causing the deadly crash in 2013. More than 600,000 people have attempted the task, from the west coast of America to the South Island of New Zealand, with 30,000 reaching the end and submitting entries via the GCHQ website. They range from a 14-year-old maths prodigy to retired professors, but all have been found wanting. More than a month after the director of UK spy agency GCHQ set a fiendishly difficult "fun" Christmas quiz , not one person has managed to get all the answers right. London: It cannot be solved with a search engine. Specially written algorithms have failed to crack it. Even geeks pooling their considerable resources in internet chat rooms have fallen short. With just four days to go until the deadline for entries expires, it seems that the cryptographers have stumped the entire planet with what may go down as the world's hardest puzzle. One of the questions from the GCHQ Christmas quiz. Credit:GCHQ "We have had entries that have been within one or two answers of being perfect," said a spokesman for Government Communications Headquarters, to use its full title, "but no one has quite got there yet". Part of the problem lies in the fact that some questions are so open-ended that puzzlers do not know whether they have answered the question in full. Some questions, in the form of pictograms, do not even have instructions for what is required. GCHQ insists the quiz is not impossible, though it admits that its top cryptographers who set the questions have made some of the solutions so abstract that players might not follow the same train of thought. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend: SOCAR Trading, a trading arm of SOCAR, intends to enter the gas market in the future, Arzu Azimov, SOCAR Trading executive director, said in an interview with European Business. Azimov said that SOCAR Trading shows a well-advanced market position in crude oil, and only recently the trading company has stepped into gas and power projects. "Crude oil trading and products from third parties are the bread and butter of our business," Azimov said. "We have a close eye on emerging markets where we might gain advantages. China, India, Africa, these are only some examples. For instance, we are constantly working in Africa, participating in all tenders for exporting. We are always looking for opportunities to buy and sell." Azimov said that for 2016, SOCAR Trading is setting its goal for growth and gain on equity by generating new trading activities, searching the market and meeting potential customers and counterparties. "We will keep our presence in the physical market, but we will not become a pure trading company," he said. "We will certainly continue our production business." Azimov said that another new development will be SOCAR Trading's venture into the gas and power sector, which is regarded as the future in the fossil fuel market. "If we invest in the refining sector, we will experience the opportunities that will arise," he said. "We will stay integrated in the chain of crude oil in order to keep control. The more integrated we are, they more successful we are. Another important aspect which we are looking into will be business efficiency." Azimov said that no doubt, SOCAR Trading is well aware of its exposed position in crude oil trading and its future opportunities. "Today, it employs a workforce of over 200 people at its Genevabased headquarters and at its trading offices in Singapore, Dubai and London," he said. "SOCAR Trading has also recently incorporated its fifth trading office in Calgary, Canada. Our competitive advantage is our attachment to SOCAR as a state oil company and our position as a well-respected trading partner, which is also involved in third-party trading with a strong customer orientation." SOCAR Trading with headquarters in Geneva was created at the end of 2007 by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR). SOCAR Trading sells the main part of crude export volumes from the Ceyhan port (The Mediterranean Sea, Turkey), carries out trading of oil and oil products of other countries, and also renders assistance to the parent company with the international investments. The field of activity of SOCAR Trading covers the countries of Europe, Asia and America. Gaziantep, Turkey: Russian warplanes have hit a bakery funded by the British government in northern Syria a few hours before it was due to start providing food for 18,000 people. Hundreds of civilians have been killed by Russian air strikes since the onset of the Kremlin's intervention in September. The targets of Russian bombs have included mosques, field hospitals and schools all of which should enjoy protection under international humanitarian law. An explosion seen in an October video released by the Russian Defence Ministry purporting to be from air strikes in Syria. Credit:Screengrab The raid on the rebel-held village of Hazano in Idlib province is the first acknowledged occasion that a British-funded humanitarian site has been hit. Eight people were killed, including three children, during the air strike on January 20. The attack took place about 3pm on the day the bakery was due to open. Russian warplanes fired two weapons into a residential apartment just a few metres from the bakery, killing two families inside and injuring more than 100 people. PHILIPSBURG:--- Former Minister of Justice Richard Gibson told the new Minister of Justice Edison Kirindongo and members of the media on Wednesday that the Ministry of Justice has a lot of work, he advised the Minister that he would need to do some serious restructuring in order for the Ministry to function properly and to eliminate the back-biting among the civil servants working in the Justice Ministry. Gibson said that the Police Force of St. Maarten is undermanned, yet the police is doing the best they could with the little training they have and human resources. The former Minister said that St. Maarten wasted five years because in his view nothing was done to properly upgrade the men in blue and no proper training was given to them, which also include persons that are holding management positions. Besides that he felt that those within KPSM has to be given full training in order for them to fill the vacant positions within the police force. He said the Dutch is willing to assist with the training of police officers where they said that they will provide 10 skilled and train police officers of the RST to KPSM while they will take ten officers from KPSM to train them. This process he said will be rotated until all police officers on St. Maarten are fully trained. The former Minister of Justice said that the same goes for the prison, there too he said the personnel needs training and more manpower. He referred to the report from the progress committee that clearly stated that the personnel from the justice ministry lacked training. Gibson said steps have to be taken to provide the training and tools even though government does not have monies to do all that is necessary to fully equip the men in blue, he said while he considered the first five years since St. Maarten became a country as lost years, he believed that the Justice Ministry has to be up to par within the coming five years. The new Minister of Justice Edison Kirindongo who was sworn in on Tuesday did attend the weekly press conference in order to acquaint himself with members of the media. Prime Minister William Marlin and the other Ministers of the Marlin cabinet welcomed the Minister of Justice whom Marlin said is busy familiarizing himself with those working in the Ministry and getting informed on what has to be done. PHILIPSBURG:--- During the Caribbean Travel Marketplace, which is the Caribbean's largest and most important marketing event, Minister Lees hard work and contributions were recognized and shown appreciation for as former President of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA). This event took place on January 21st-23rd in the Bahamas, of which Minister Lee took vacation days and paid for all travel expenses himself in order to attend. It was his opportunity to say good bye in a respectful manner as the Minister had to abruptly resign due to taking office as the Minister of Public Health, Social Development, and Labor (VSA). While at the event, Minister Lee took the opportunity to engage in discussions with the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), and CHTA on the Zika virus. Discussions involved ways to share best and worst practices, aggressive vector control programs for hotels and Governments, monitoring the impact the virus will have on the economy across the region, as well as prevention and control measures for visitors and the general population. A recent initiative that has stemmed from this regional cooperation is a webinar session hosted by CHTA, CTO, and CARPHA on January 28th at 11:00am. Tortola British Virgin Islands:--- On November 26, the EU funded COSME Programme, launched a regional study on diversification of the Caribbean OCTs. The purpose of the study is to determine the extent to which the economies of the Caribbean OCTS need diversification and provide concrete recommendations to do so. Consultants are A-to-Z Consultants, with key experts Dr. Noel Watson and Tamira La Cruz, MBA. The objective of COSME is to improve the competitiveness of SMEs in the British, Dutch and French OCTs by facilitating an enhanced business enabling environment through appropriate policies, support to BSOs and SMEs and efforts to increase collaboration and trade between the OCTs, with the rest of the Caribbean and with Europe. The beneficiary countries include Aruba, Curacao, St. Maarten, Bonaire, Saba, St. Eustatius, Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, St. Barths and Turks & Caicos Islands. Diversification is important because of the vulnerability of small economies. In addition the findings of the study will be an input for policy formulation, which is an objective of the program, says Diana Hendrickson-Fleming, Team Leader/Key Expert 1 of GOPA Consulting Team attached to the COSME Programme Management Unit in the British Virgin Islands. Both consultants Dr. Watson and Ms. La Cruz are from the region and have extensive experience with regional economic development in CARICOM, CARIFORUM and the OCTs. They will consult with stakeholders in all OCTs, benchmark the performance of the countries based on hard data, provide recommendations and develop a system for the structured sharing of best practices of small states in general and the OCTs in particular. The OCTs are often not included in global benchmarking studies, so this will be relatively new. The consultants will assist in particular those smaller OCTs which do not have the resources to study and develop their own diversification and other economic development strategies. Focus of the recommendations will be on opportunities for SMEs, defined to be companies with up to 50 employees or annual revenues up to USD 3 million. GREAT BAY(DCOMM):--- Ministry of Public Housing, Environment, Spatial Development and Infrastructure (Ministry VROMI), announces that the public tender Solid Waste Collection on Sint Maarten 2016-2021 meeting, is scheduled for Wednesday, February 3, at 1.00PM at the A.C. Wathey Legislative Hall Government Administration Building. The meeting will run up to 3.30PM and doors will close at 1.00PM. Interested persons are urged to be on time. The meeting was initially scheduled for 10.00AM on the aforementioned date at the offices of Ministry VROMI, however, due to the large interests shown, it was decided to move the venue to a larger area in order to accommodate all those who are interested in attending. PHILIPSBURG:--- The Central Committee will meet in an urgent session on January 29th. The Minister of Justice will be present for the sitting of the House. The Central Committee meeting has been set for Friday at 10.00am in the General Assembly Chamber of the House at Wilhelmina Straat #1 in Philipsburg. The agenda point is the status of insurance coverage for Police Officers and their families and other related and affected issues. This urgent meeting was called by the United Peoples (UP) party faction Members of Parliament (MP) Tamara Leonard, (MP) Franklin Meyers, and Independent (MP) Leona Marlin-Romeo. Members of the public are invited to the House of Parliament to attend parliamentary deliberations. The House of Parliament is located across from the Court House in Philipsburg. The parliamentary session will be carried live on St. Maarten Cable TV Channel 120, via Pearl Radio FM 98.1, the audio via the Internet www.pearlfmradio.com and via www.sxmparliament.org. PHILIPSBURG:--- The Unions representing the GEBE Employees hereby express relief and satisfaction. Brooks return to company has brought about some changes which the employees have been yearning for, after going through a period of frustration with recent appointments to manage the utility company. Those recent appointments lack the competency and managerial skills to take GEBE to the next technical and operational level. Hopefully Mr. Brooks Will rise to the occasion because the company must be restructured to meet the needs of St. Maarten and the future development of the country. WIFOL-ASEWI is looking forward to working with the management team for the future. PHILIPSBURG:--- On Wednesday January 27th at approximately 04.25 p.m. the Central Emergency Dispatch received a call informing them of a fire on board of a boat docked at the pier of Island Water World in Cole bay. Immediately several police patrols, fire department and paramedics were sent to the location to investigate what was going on. On the scene the investigating officers noticed that the powerboat Rhum Runner had caught fire. The fire had grown so large that two other boats namely the powerboat Lo Emma and the catamaran Naughty Dreams had also caught fire and were burning out of control. The fire department assisted by boats from the Sint Maarten Sea Rescue Foundation, the harbor Pilot boat, the Coast Guard and private citizens the fire was brought under control. The fire totally destroyed all three vessels. The cause of the fire still not clear and has to be established by the fire department. KPSM Police Report AMSTERDAM:--- The ability to create a plan together with relatives and friends in difficult times. Moreover the ability to have a say and maintain direction, amidst the involvement of government and aid organizations. Soon residents of the Dutch Caribbean in such situations will also be able to request an Eigen Kracht seminar. On January 27th Glenn Helberg of Stichting Ocan and Hedda van Lieshout of Eigen Kracht Centrale signed a cooperation agreement to make seminars available on Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius. Last year September, citizens, professionals and administrators collectively recognized during an Eigen Kracht seminar on Bonaire, the benefit of such seminars for the shaping of aid, the cooperation between involved parties and the importance of letting the affected persons maintain direction. Both Ocan and the Eigen Kracht Centrale believe in the power within of affected persons and those that are involved. Having started in 1985, Ocan commits itself to the strengthening and improvement of the social position of Dutch Caribbean community in the Netherlands and recently that in the islands as well. Ocan sought the cooperation of the Eigen Kracht Centrale which has facilitated some 10.000 Eigen Kracht seminars in the Netherlands since the year 2000. Independence is a key condition for the introduction and organization on the islands. For this reason, solely citizens who are not tied either government or aid organizations will be eligible for the training to become a certified Eigen Kracht Coordinator. Coordinators facilitate fellow citizens and their circle of involved persons with the creation of a plan in which families maintain direction. Collaboration with local parties is of essence; such as the pleasant cooperation with Dianne Lucassen of Stichting Awor on Bonaire. Trials during the introduction phase of the Eigen Kracht seminars will lend for the creation of a unique character on the respective islands. Exablox Expands Global Sales With Japanese Distributor SCSK Corporation SUNNYVALE, CA (Marketwired) 01/27/16 Exablox, the award-winning company reimagining storage, today announced that it has partnered with SCSK Corporation, a global IT services company in Japan. SCSK is delivering Exabloxs innovative OneBlox, a scale-out object storage appliance, and OneSystem, its secure, multi-tenant, cloud- based management service. This expansion adds a major partner for Exablox in Japan, increasing the companys global reach. SCSK supports businesses with a comprehensive portfolio of IT services and solutions ranging from system integration, IT infrastructure implementation, IT management and BPO (business process outsourcing) to IT hardware and software sales. Furthermore, with its proven storage expertise, SCSK is the ideal partner for Exablox and the Japanese market. For the first time, SCSK will be able to deliver affordable, on-premises, scale-out storage with leading-edge enterprise features including inline variable and fixed-length deduplication, inline compression, continuous data protection and zero-configuration storage expansion to its customers. I am very pleased to announce that SCSK Corporation signed the Master Distribution Agreement with Exablox and has launched the OneBlox scale-out storage appliance in Japan, said Naoki Ike, executive officer general manager, IT Engineering Div., IT Platform Solutions Group. We will establish a distribution channel with our reseller partners and provide storage monitoring, software support and management services using OneSystem. In order to manage unpredictably growing data, the ability to begin with smaller capacity deployments, seamlessly scale-out over time, and provide data protection services are the must-have requirements for enterprise storage solutions. Im confident that Exabloxs OneBlox meets these requirements and will be well appreciated by customers in Japan. Exablox fills a critical gap in the Japanese storage market, providing an easy, flexible approach to scale-out storage that enables customers of all sizes to pay as they grow. Exabloxs OneBlox is the only solution that gives IT organizations the choice of both inline variable and fixed-length deduplication as well as inline compression, resulting in data-reduction ratios of up to 20:1. Exablox also offers its Private OneSystem, an on-premises storage management platform that can be deployed as a virtual machine and retains the benefits of a cloud-based management solution. The Japanese market has lacked a scale-out object-based storage solution built for the mid-market that does not sacrifice enterprise functionality, said Ezra Hookano, vice president of sales, Exablox. We look forward to partnering with SCSK in filling this void and helping customers solve their rapid and unpredictable data-growth challenge. Exabloxs products are available immediately through SCSK. For more information, visit . Exablox is the award winning company reimagining storage. Exablox solves organizations runaway storage costs and information management nightmares due to accelerating and unpredictable data growth. OneBlox is a scale-out object-based NAS solution that is far easier to scale and manage than the legacy systems and delivers enterprise-grade software, including inline deduplication, compression, continuous data protection and disaster recovery. Founded in 2010, Exablox is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., and backed by leading Silicon Valley venture firms and strategic investors. Visit Exablox online at and join the conversation at . Jordan Tewell 10Fold Communication 415-800-5379 Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 Trend: Nar has reached commercial agreement with British EE/T-Mobile UK, which is one of the largest European mobile communication operator. In the framework of the project, Nar and the UK's largest mobile operator EE/T-Mobile will be able to provide more qualitative GSM service to its subscribers while roaming. The roaming service of the Nar operator with one zone one price covers more than 165 countries. More detailed information about the roaming services can be obtained from the official webpage of the mobile operator: www.nar.az CloudLock and OneLogin Partner to Deliver Integrated CASB and IDaaS Security SAN FRANCISCO, CA and WALTHAM, MA (Marketwired) 01/28/16 CloudLock, the leading provider of CASB and Cybersecurity-as-a-Service solutions, and , the innovator in identity management bringing speed and integrity to the modern enterprise, today announced a new partnership to manage all identities that touch corporate data and protect organizations from threats and cloud malware across users, accounts and applications. OneLogin offers the fastest, easiest and most secure path to cloud-based SSO and enterprise identity management across all users, devices and cloud and on-premises applications. Pre-integrated with thousands of enterprise SaaS applications and commonly used web applications, OneLogin is simple to deploy and easy to administer, dramatically reducing the time to on-board and off-board employees while reducing the risk associated with bad password hygiene and enabling employees to be good security citizens. CloudLock and OneLogin extend CloudLocks Cloud Security Fabric, a unified cloud security solution that enables organizations to manage and secure all of their SaaS applications centrally. Managing and securing millions of identities across more than 200 countries, OneLogin secures connections across users, devices, and applications. The integration of CloudLocks cybersecurity platform with OneLogin provides a comprehensive security solution with a set of unique capabilities: CloudLock defends against account compromise with cross-platform User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) for SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, and IDaaS environments. CloudLock uses advanced machine learning to detect anomalies in account usage based on factors such as activities outside of whitelisted countries and actions across distances in an impossible amount of time. The CloudLock Apps Firewall discovers and controls cloud apps connected to the corporate environment, and provides the largest crowd-sourced security solution to identify individual app risk, using our Community Trust Rating. CloudLock is the only company to have discovered over 100,000 connected cloud applications. As a comprehensive identity solution for hybrid environments, OneLogin easily integrates into heterogeneous web environments to manage all identities that touch corporate data, including every user, app, and device. In addition to OneLogins existing support for federation through SAML & WS-Trust, OneLogins new LDAP service allows enterprises to connect to OneLogins cloud directory via LDAP. Together, CloudLock and OneLogin aggregate and correlate data indicative of suspicious behavior to identify risk that may otherwise go undetected. CloudLocks UEBA, acting in an orchestration role between event feeds from OneLogin and SaaS applications, utilizes advanced machine learning techniques to dynamically classify the riskiness level of user behavior. This classification level is shared with OneLogin for purposes of automatically stepping up or stepping down the security policy of the user in real time. For instance, when CloudLock detects suspicious activities by a user (say login from a previously unknown location or access to sensitive records within a SaaS application), it will tell OneLogin this user is now classified as risky. In turn, OneLogin can respond in a number of configurable ways, from requiring more frequent MFA challenges from the user all the way to locking the users account and requiring they reset their password in order to regain access. The integrated solution delivers the best of both worlds, with the ability to deploy new apps and on-/off-board employees within seconds to optimize productivity, while access changes propagated in real-time to all end-points instantly update all systems across the entire app portfolio to keep enterprise data secure. In addition to the full integration of CloudLock and OneLogin, CloudLock can be accessed through OneLogins IDaaS solution via SAML integration, enabling security professionals to easily manage user access through the OneLogin Admin Console. We are very excited about the unified offering between CloudLock and OneLogin, and to experience the combined power of their best in class security and IDaaS solutions, said Stanley Amaya, CISO at LAFISE Group. Partnering with OneLogin to provide next-generation IDaaS/IAM security further extends our mission to provide the most comprehensive CASB cybersecurity-as-a-service solution, said Gil Zimmermann, CEO and co-founder at CloudLock. Bridging our unique API approach with OneLogins single sign-on and identity-management platform empowers our joint customers to gain control over suspicious activity and the growing volume of cloud malware. Our unified solution will enable joint customers to better protect mission-critical business assets. Combining OneLogins identity and access management capabilities with CloudLocks cybersecurity services extends ITs capabilities to monitor and address security incidents around users, data, and applications and mitigate risk of account compromise in real time, said David Meyer, Vice President of Product at OneLogin. For more information about CloudLock for OneLogin, please visit . OneLogin brings speed and integrity to the modern enterprise with an award-winning SSO and identity management platform. Our portfolio of solutions secure connections across all users, all devices, and every application, helping enterprises drive new levels of business integrity and operational velocity across their entire app portfolios. The choice for innovators of all sizes such as Conde Nast, Pinterest and Steelcase, OneLogin manages and secures millions of identities across more than 200 countries around the globe. We are headquartered in San Francisco, California. For more information, visit , , , or . CloudLock, the leading CASB and Cybersecurity-as-a-Service provider, offers the Cloud Security Fabric enabling enterprises to protect their data in the cloud, reduce risk, achieve compliance, manage threats and increase productivity by continuously monitoring and protecting more than one billion files for more than 10 million end users daily. CloudLock delivers the only complete, risk-appropriate and people-centric approach to cloud cybersecurity. Learn more at . OneLogin Media Contact: Dan Rampe OneLogin 415-530-2804 Marie Williams Coderella 415-689-4029 CloudLock Press Contact: Stephanie Olesen Inkhouse +781-966-4100 Oh no....FBL.....who now?Yeah I'm not feeling especially optimistic about this meeting (thanks anyway EN) in fact if I think about it too much I start to get angry so I can't really think about it. I'm going into this prepared to have to explain to her why we can't do what she wants us to do, and expecting to have a crap load of more responsibility piled on us. Yay! I had a great talk with my dad yesterday, he gave me some really good advice. Basically it's just a job at the end of the day, and if it's killing me with stress, leave, it's not a failure to save your sanity and health.....or, put my head down and stick it out till the ship does go down in flames, collect my severance package and go on my merry way saying, "thanks, and seeya." Good ol' dad.He's worked at the same company since the year I was born, worked his way from forklift driver to most senior level sales management. I respect him in a lot of ways, but we also don't see eye-to-eye on a lot too, as you can imagine.It has been crazy windy here, but a warm Chinook wind, it's cool. When it's windy my trailer sounds like it's going to take off!I have a date tonight after work, lord help me. Economy January 28, 2016 John Milios Much coverage of the Greek debt crisis has focused on the troika of international creditors and German chancellor Angela Merkel a striking image of parasitic foreign powers scapegoating the country for personal gain. In some corners of the Left, this narrative has fueled the demand for Grexit (a Greek exit from the eurozone) under the impression that such a move would create a more favorable environment for a break with austerity. This animated the Left Platforms disagreements with Syrizas bargaining-table approach and their later metamorphosis into Popular Unity. Jannis Milios, once Syrizas chief economic adviser, aligns neither with Syriza nor with Popular Unity. He views Syrizas current program as a reversal of its original radical one. Yet his alternative to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsiprass approach is not Grexit, but a confrontation with Greeces domestic capitalists. Athens-based journalist Alp Kayserilioglu recently sat down with Milios to discuss the history of Syriza, the purpose of the eurozone, and the power of the countrys domestic bourgeoisie. Alp Kayserilioglu (AK): How would you characterize Syriza, and how would you explain their swift rise the last years, which culminated in their election to government? Jannis Milios (JM): To understand the situation of the Greek left today, you have to look back into history. There was a big split in the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) in 1968. One part of the KKE, the so-called KKE Interior, more and more developed into a very prostatus quo, conservative Eurocommunist party while the other, KKE, over time turned into a post-Stalinist, pro-Moscow communist party. But both shared similar reformist and gradualist thoughts on making Greece less dependent through more economic growth (of Greek capitalism, of course), which was conceived as a transition phase to an anti-monopolist democracy, before gradually the transition to socialism could be completed. It is this very shift in their ideological and practical stance that made possible the foundation of Synapismos in 1989, which was originally an alliance of the former KKE Interior (at that time renamed to Greek Left-EA) and the KKE with other non-communist political groups or cadres. The shift toward these type of alliances explains the decision of both communist parties to join a caretaker government under the leadership of Nea Demokratia, or New Democracy (ND) in 1989; that proved to be a disaster since it fully stabilized and legitimized neoliberal ideology and policies. When the KKE left the caretaker government and Synapismos in 1990, many of its cadres remained, constituting another split in the KKE. Thats when it adopted its massively sectarian and isolationist stance, well-summarized by its old slogan of Five parties, two policies (i.e. KKE versus everybody else). On the other hand, following this split in the KKE and Synapismos, Synapismos was transformed from an alliance into a political party in 1991. Synapismos was then the main driving force in founding Syriza in 2004, initially an alliance of Synapismos with several other political groups of the Left including at least four of the revolutionary extra-parliamentarian Left. After 2004, with the support and strength of these new political organizations, Syriza secured somewhere around 4 to 5 per cent in parliamentary elections (half as much as KKE). They became more and more involved in the movements. The majority of its members were radicalizing, adopting the radical lefts political positions. In 2006 they played a decisive role in the struggle of students against the privatization of the universities. In December 2008 when Alexandros Grigoropoulos was murdered [a student shot by police in Athens], Syriza was the only major party that didnt simply condemn the violent mass uprisings that took place afterwards, but raised the question about the causes of the unrest. And Syriza was attacked for this non-condemnation, especially from the side of the KKE. However, the major turning point was the square movements. Around 25 to 33 per cent of the population across Greece joined these movements from March 2011 to February 2012. That was the movement that tipped the balance in favor of Syriza. Immediately its electoral support rose, first capturing 16.8 per cent of the vote in May 2012, then 26.89 per cent only six weeks later, in June 2012, definitively becoming the second most powerful party. As for the internal composition of Syriza, while Synapsismos (itself derived from the KKE tradition) constituted their main body, as it approached government in the wake of 2012, a part of its leadership began taking on a social-democratic reformist stance; on the other hand, it attracted members and groups from the alter-globalization movement and the spirit of Genoa 2001. The latter part gave the coalition a more radical edge. Tsipras himself is a former member of the radical youth organization of Synaspismos, which was an element of the more radical part of the coalition. However, the majority of the Synapismos leadership started to push Syriza toward the center left, especially after the electoral success of 2012; this sped up after the 2014 elections for the European Parliament, and they managed to change Tsipras along the way. Around the time of Syrizas 2012 success, internal democratic workings of the party were becoming irrelevant and the leadership more and more took on an autonomous stance. This trend deepened after the elections for the EU parliament in 2014: in these elections, Syriza was the top party with 26.57 per cent of the votes. All the documents that were published in this time, like the programs of 2012, the political resolution of the first congress of Syriza in 2013 and so on, they were just fig leafs hiding the center-left turn of Syrizas leadership. AK: One can discern the change in the documents themselves. The resolution of the first congress of Syriza in 2013 expresses the partys two souls: it talks about socialism of the twenty-first century, but also about a mixed economy, productive reconstruction, and so on. JM: Yes, yes, exactly. A part of the Syriza leadership had already made compromises with the Greek bourgeoisie; people like [Deputy Prime Minister] Yannis Dragasakis cared about being portrayed in mass media as responsible guys who care about productive reconstruction and competitiveness of the economy (i.e. of Greek capitalism). And Syriza began flirting with center-left politicians and small center-left parties like Dimar, a former split from Syriza. And the ideological shift that took place within Syriza is exactly how you described it: slowly the main focus shifted from wealth redistribution, taxing the rich, building up a social economy, and so on toward more supposedly neutral terms like growth, productive reconstruction, combating the humanitarian crisis, etc. that portrayed the society and the economy as something where we all share the same interests and where we arent divided along class lines. All these political and ideological shifts manifested themselves in the Thessaloniki Program of September 2014, which dropped many of the original demands and slogans of Syriza and was deprived of anything that couldve been understood as anticapitalist. By December 2014 before Syriza became the government I had already decided not to participate in the elections or in the Syriza government that was going to be formed. I made my decision public on December 31, 2014, and when Tsipras called me one day after the elections in January 2015 and told me that he had good portfolios to offer me I thanked him and repeated my arguments about why I had decided not to be a minister in the new government. I hoped that by staying out of the parliament and the government I could more effectively influence the partys base to resist this shift from the partys original radical program. What I mean is that when Syriza became the government the shift had solidified. They were playing the lesser-evil game, a new memorandum with less austerity and more room to make decisions. Yanis Varoufakis accepted 70 per cent of the memoranda whatever that means right after becoming finance minister and signed a preliminary agreement on February 20 that inscribed a continuation of the logics of the memoranda. Syriza then put forward its supposed red lines as a fig leaf to conceal the compromises they made: maintenance of the existing neoliberal framework as it had been shaped in the four years of austerity memoranda though without any further reductions of wages and pensions, hikes in the VAT, insisting on ending the humanitarian crisis and so on. In the process of the negotiations and with the third memorandum in July 2015 most of those red lines were completely cast aside, but the rhetoric of we fought with all our forces but were defeated by a stronger enemy could be retained in a plausible manner. And Tsipras was reelected in September 2015 precisely on the grounds of him being able to convince the people of the notion that he had fought hard and that he is the lesser evil, that he follows the austerity memoranda only because he was beaten by stronger foreign forces. I actually do think that we have better chances of reorganizing again as long as people voted for Tsipras and Syriza thinking at least we have kept the really bad outside. Because with time, as they see that Syriza is doing exactly what every other party since the memoranda also did, they will intensify the struggle against the neoliberal austerity framework and the state, since they will see that even the lesser evil is evil enough. AK: And what do you think is to be done now after the complete defeat of Syriza? To me there seems to prevail a spirit of resignation and surrender. JM: What we need to do now is to start from the beginning. We are now in a situation as it was, lets say, around 2000. We need to reconstruct an alternative from below and any idea of a progressive left government is at the moment, because of Syriza, dead. We need completely new and different slogans and different ways now to begin again. We cannot use the old concepts, methods, and slogans they just wont work anymore. AK: So you dont think that the new party, Popular Unity, is going to succeed? JM: Yes indeed, I think thats precisely why they havent succeeded so far and wont succeed in the future. You know, my main problem with Lafazanis, Lapavitsas, and LAE is that they are way too similar to Syriza in its original, more radical form, with the addition of the focus on exiting the eurozone and/or the EU. Lafazanis does the same as Tsipras did: he has this style of vote me into government and I will solve the problems instead of shifting the focus toward look, you people should fight and I will assist you in your struggles. Its this classical etatist or governmentalist stance of the traditional Greek left. On the other hand, Greeks, despite the crisis, have some wealth in form of deposits, cars, apartments, and the like, and they naturally fear a devaluation of a new currency if Greece would quit the eurozone. People wont go for a straightforward exit of the eurozone, which is a very difficult venture if they dont see why they should do so. Our main tactics and our focus should not be on the question of the eurozone and the EU but on an anticapitalism that is based on developing methods of self-management of the people. We can only pose the question of leaving the eurozone or EU if its based in constructing alternative modes of self-management and economy that have an anticapitalist drive. If we see that while engaging in our anticapitalist struggles the eurozone and the EU become a fetter, then we can pose the question of leaving both. But we shouldnt do it the other way round as LAE does that is, to first pose the question of exiting the eurozone (in order to supposedly promote growth) and then caring about the social struggles and a possible anticapitalist edge of the same. There is this obsession with exiting the eurozone and/or EU and rescuing Greece within this part of the Left. This, however, is because of a peculiar and persistent patriotic trend within the Greek left. In the two phases of the Civil War (194445 and 194649), the Left, including the National Liberation Front (EAM) and the Greek Peoples Liberation Army (ELAS), claimed to be more patriotic and authentic Greeks over their collaborationist and monarchist opponents. This was emphasized more than their communist or socialist identity. They saw Greece as a dependent colony that is kind of colonially exploited by imperialism and has to be rescued from the fetters of imperialism and colonialism first so as to then, some day, go forward toward socialism. This kind of patriotic left identity continues to have a strong effect today. AK: Pasok came out of former Prime Minister Papandreous Panhellenic Liberation Movement (PAK), a organization resisting the military dictatorship. PAK saw Greece as an industrial and military satellite of the USA under neocolonial domination, necessitating an armed anti-imperialist national liberation movement. JM: Exactly! Thats what Im trying to tell you. To name a characteristic example, you have Markos Vafiadis, an old ELAS chief commander, a communist, who was an MP of the old radical Pasok, which was stuck on this national liberation discourse that neglected domestic class antagonisms and Greece was in a time of massive capital profitability and growth. It is this tradition of Greek left-wing patriotism which continues today when, for example, Lafazanis keeps talking of Greece as a debt colony or of Germany alone dominating Greece and similar things. In reality the EU ascension process was a strategic choice of the dominant factions of Greek capital to upgrade and reinforce their own position domestically against labour and internationally in the international division of labour. The institutional framework of the EU and the eurozone should be understood as a framework that enforces neoliberalism for the sake of the collective capitalists of all the countries that join these frameworks instead of as a mere colonial project of Germany or whatever. AK: I get your point. But dont you think that there is some kind of a material basis for an argument concerning very unequal power relations between Greece and Germany within the EU? That Greece as a minor imperialist or sub-imperialist power is dependent in ways Germany, as a major imperialist power, is not? Greece did lose much of its agricultural and industrial basis in the EU ascension, which makes it very vulnerable. You can cope without importing solar cells from China for some time, but you cant cope without importing food if your economy is dependent on this which is the case with Greece. This was obviously used as leverage against the Syriza government. JM: Well of course Greece is a small country compared to Germany, but what is the big difference between Greece and other small countries in the EU like Denmark or Finland? There was indeed a major deindustrialization process, but that happened across European countries. Greeces strong industrial sectors are oil processing, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, and basic metals. Apart from that Greece has restructured into a capitalist service economy focusing especially on shipping, tourism, software, and lottery. Did you know that Greek ship owners possess more than 20 per cent of the worlds tanker commercial fleet? We do have big capitalists in Greece. AK: OK. So what do you say shouldve been done under Syriza? JM: They shouldve focused on changing social relations inside Greece. First of all start taxing the rich, make them pay for their massive profits, which they fully protect through low taxes, tax exemptions, and tax evasion. Then stop the payments to the troika and tell them: Sorry, but we cant pay right now. You are not giving us the tranches you owe us. So how can we pay you back? Lets see if we can after we have managed our economy. Until then, no payments. Contrary to popular opinion I dont think that this wouldve been classified as default. Standard and Poors, among other rating agencies, even said that they wouldnt classify such a move by Greece as an act of default. Third, start installing capital controls before a bank run occurs, so as to stop capital from fleeing the country or any other actions that would destabilize the economy. AK: Well dont you think that exactly these kind of moves wouldve induced a very strong reaction by the Greek bourgeoisie and the EU at the same time? Wouldnt being prepared to battle the EU then also be a part of fighting the Greek bourgeoisie itself? And shouldnt a left alternative seek to reconstruct parts of Greeces agricultural and industrial potential to reduce unequal dependence? JM: Of course it wouldve induced a very strong reaction by the EU, and yes, that fight would also entail fighting the Greek bourgeoisie. I just say focus on the class relations within Greece. We should have done a radical left, Jacobin-style politics: throw in anything you got, issue IOUs if necessary, terrorize the bourgeoisie with taxes, capital controls, whatever means you can mobilize. And all the while foster workers control in the workplaces, build up closed cooperatives, and so on. And of course we need to reconstruct our agricultural and industrial potential, but with the workers and citizens initiatives playing a decisive role in it. But this again is also partly a struggle that is to be fought primarily within Greece. For example look at the agricultural land. Banks by now possess so much agricultural land because of farmers that went bankrupt. You should go and seize those lands and give them to big cooperatives under workers control and reconstruct the agricultural potential and also the industrial potential in this manner. And within this framework of a clearly class-based politics, changing social relations within Greece, you confront the pressure by the EU and if necessary announce a referendum on the relation with the eurozone and/or the EU. It wouldve been better to go on the offensive as I just outlined and fail and be voted out of office again than to not have even tried out your own way. Solar Novus Today Has Been Integrated With Novus Light Technologies Today Visit Novus Light Technologies Today to see all the cutting-edge stories and products that you have come to enjoy on Solar Novus Today. In addition, you will find more information on related light-based technologies. Get the latest solar and renewable energy news delivered right to your inbox. Sign up for the Green Technologies newsletter CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR GREEN TECHNOLOGIES NEWSLETTER Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 Trend: Azerbaijan's Finance Ministry expects to receive 100 million manats from state property privatization in 2016, which will be used to cover the budget deficit, said Samir Sharifov, the country's finance minister, at a press conference Jan. 28. He did not rule out the possibility of attracting more funds from the state property privatization. "Some 685 small state enterprises and facilities, unfinished buildings, vehicles, 456 land plots, 20 joint stock companies were privatized in 2015," Kerem Hasanov, chairman of the State Property Committee, said earlier. He also said that 464 non-residential areas and 298 land plots were leased in 2015. "Five state-owned enterprises were privatized through investment contests," added Hasanov. january 27, 2016 Founder of Veterans Heritage Project is a Hon Kachina Volunteer Award Recipient PHOENIX Barbara Hatch, Veterans Heritage Project (VHP) founder and program director, will be recognized by the Hon Kachina Council at their 39th annual event, held on May 7 at the Camelback Inn in Scottsdale, Arizona. Presented annually since 1977, the Hon Kachina Volunteer Awards program recognizes the achievement of outstanding Arizona volunteers and increases public awareness about volunteerism. Honorees receive a one-of-a-kind hand carved Hon Kachina doll and a cash award for their nonprofit organization. Barbara is one of seven honorees who were chosen from nearly 100 nominations. The rigorous selection process takes several weeks as council members interview the individual who nominated the candidate, as well as three additional references who are familiar with the candidates volunteer work. In the final review round, a council member also visits with the candidate to witness their volunteer work first-hand. I nominated Barbara because I have been privileged to witness not only her passion and dedication for serving veterans and students, but also the exemplary level of service and quality she brings to all of her volunteer work, said Laura Byers, VHP board president. Barbara volunteers 365 days a year and has been doing so for 11 years. She has made a significant and immeasurable impact in not only the development of Veterans Heritage Project, but in the immediate and future lives of her students, veterans, and their families. Our family has personally experienced the enormously positive impact of her work. Barbara taught my son about setting goals and working hard to achieve those goals. VHP awoke in my son an incredible passion for education, service, giving back to the community, and the importance of living each day to pursue his dreams. Barbara, a retired AP history school teacher from the Cave Creek Unified School District, began her volunteer work in 2004 when she established an after-school club that would allow her students to meet with veterans, learn from their experiences, and document the veterans oral history through video archiving at the Library of Congress. From 2004 to 2009, the club evolved with student participation in civic events and Veterans Day celebrations, along with the publication of student essays in annual hardbound books entitled Since You Asked. With the support of parents who understood the value the program could bring to students in additional schools, VHP incorporated as a 501 (c)(3) non-profit in 2009. As VHP grew to 12 chapters in 2013, Barbara made the decision to retire from teaching so she could dedicate herself full-time to VHP in order to properly honor her veteran partners and provide quality support and training for the students and teachers. VHP chapters are now in 20 schools throughout Arizona and Barbara continues to volunteer at least 60 hours a week in mentoring students and teachers, speaking with community groups, and organizing civic event participation. The lasting impact from Barbaras volunteer work comes through the preservation of history, the building of student character, the healing that takes place in participating veterans, and the bonding of families. Students who come from different backgrounds and experiences and even cities across the state, learn how to interact with a different generation, as well as how to work together to accomplish a goal. The successful completion of the program not only builds students academic skills, but it builds the soft skills of interpersonal communication, confidence, and respect for others that is required for effective leadership. Because of their belief in Barbara and her program, more than 45 individuals volunteer their time on a regular basis with VHP, serving as board members, teacher advisors, chapter advocates, committee members, and classroom speakers. Their work in building a sustainable program recently reached a milestone, with the hiring of the non-profits first executive director. VHP is so successful that there is a waiting list of veterans who want to be interviewed, a steady stream of calls from interested teachers and schools, and alumni students who seek out opportunities to stay involved, commented Michelle DiMuro, executive director. I believe that Barbara has laid the foundation for VHP to serve as a national model for immersive learning, and with community support can be replicated in any school in the country. january 27, 2016 Rule change to affect non-residents applying for hunt permit-tags Upcoming pronghorn, elk draw to operate under adjustment PHOENIX The five-member Arizona Game and Fish Commission recently changed how and when hunt permit-tags may be issued to non-resident applicants through the Arizona Game and Fish Departments random computer draw. The specific rule - R12-4-114. Issuance of Nonpermit-tags and Hunt Permit-tags can be found on page 41 of the Arizona Game and Fish Laws and Rules 2013-2014 Supplement. The rule states that up to 10 percent of the hunt permit-tags are available to non-resident applicants, but no more than half of those hunt permit-tags may be issued in the bonus point pass of the draw. The remaining hunt permit-tags, not to exceed 10 percent, will be available in the remaining two passes of the draw. This change went into effect Jan. 3. The 2016 pronghorn and elk draw will operate under these changes. The rule change was implemented to address hunts where the 10 percent non-resident cap is met in the bonus point pass of the draw. In these hunts, non-residents in lower bonus point categories have no chance of drawing a hunt permit-tag. Since the accrual of bonus points was added to Arizonas draw process in the early 1990s, the Commissions intent has been to allow every applicant, resident and non-resident, an opportunity to draw a hunt permit-tag in the hunt of their choice. While odds may be low because of demand for a given hunt, every hunter would at least have a chance in the draw. Some frequently asked questions (FAQ): How does the change affect the 10 percent cap for non-residents? The 10 percent cap still applies to deer, pronghorn, elk, turkey, bighorn sheep, bison and bear, but the Commission removed javelina from the cap. Nothing in the draw is a guarantee. All phases of the draw are randomized, with residents and non-residents in the same randomized pool of applicants. The rule allows for up to 10 percent of the hunt permit-tags by hunt number (or by genus for bighorn sheep and bison) to go to non-residents, but it does not guarantee that 10 percent actually will be issued; it depends on each applicants random number. There is no change to this 10 percent non-resident restriction. Residents and non-residents always are competing together in each phase of the draw until the 10 percent non-resident cap is reached. How does the draw work? The draw features three phases, or passes. First pass (bonus point pass): In this pass, 20 percent of hunt permit-tags are issued starting with maximum bonus point holders (looks at both first and second choices on application). Top down for bonus points; acts like a preference point system. Second pass: In this pass, the remaining 80 percent of hunt permit-tags are issued (looks at both first and second choices on application). An applicants bonus points give them more chances at being issued a low random number. Even hunters without bonus points can draw hunt permit-tags. Third pass: For all hunt permit-tags not yet issued, this pass looks at third, fourth and fifth choices on an application. How does the change affect the hunt permit-tags available for non-residents in the bonus point pass of the draw? The rule now states that only half of the hunt permit-tags available to non-residents may be issued during the bonus point pass. In the past, if there were 10 hunt permit-tags available to non-residents, all of them would be available during the bonus point pass. Now only five of these would be available in the bonus point pass. If all five are issued, then the other five would be available during the remaining two passes. There is no guarantee that all 10 hunt permit-tags would be issued to non-residents; it depends on each applicants random number. Here is an example for an elk hunt with 100 hunt permit-tags allocated: Up to 10 hunt permit-tags may be issued to non-residents for this hunt. Twenty hunt permit-tags will be issued during the bonus point pass of the draw. The remaining hunt permit-tags may be issued during the remaining two passes of the draw. During the bonus point pass of the draw, five of the 10 hunt permit-tags available to non-residents may be issued. If there are five non-residents within the lowest 20 random numbers, then five hunt permit-tags will be issued to non-residents in the bonus point pass; the other five hunt permit-tags will be available in the second or third pass of the draw. If only three non-residents have low enough random numbers in the bonus point pass of the draw, then three hunt-permit tags are issued to non-residents and the remaining seven hunt permit-tags become available in the second or third pass of the draw. How will you round the number of hunt permit-tags when calculating 10 percent and the half for the bonus point pass? The number of hunt permit-tags available will be rounded down as to not exceed 10 percent, or half. For example, an elk hunt number with 75 hunt permit-tags would have up to seven hunt permit-tags available for non-residents and only three hunt permit-tags would be available during the bonus point pass. What if there is only one hunt permit-tag available for non-residents to draw in a hunt? Since half of one is 0.5 in other words, not a complete hunt permit-tag the draw will round to 0 hunt permit-tags available in the bonus point pass of the draw, and the single hunt permit-tag will be available to non-residents in the two remaining passes. How many hunt permit-tags must be in a hunt before there are hunt permit-tags available to non-residents in the bonus point pass? There must be 20 hunt permit-tags in a hunt for elk, pronghorn, deer, turkey or bear before a hunt permit-tag is available for non-residents in the bonus point pass. The same does not hold true for bighorn sheep or bison, as these are issued by genus. For more information, e-mail AZGameBranch@azgfd.gov. january 27, 2016 Women in Wildland Fire Boot Camp 2016 Application Deadline: Friday, February 5, 2016 Selected applicants will be notified by February 12, 2016 Have you ever wanted to start a career where youre respected and appreciated? Do you want to help your community and your country? Do you want to be a leader and role model? Are you physically fit? If so, you may have what it takes to become a Wildland Fire Fighter! The USDA Forest Service, Southwest Region, is seeking a small group of career focused women to be on-call Wildland Fire Fighters for the 2016 fire season. These on-call positions will provide support to Wildland fire operations over the summer when needed and can help pave the way for future employment and career advancement inside of the Forest Service. If you are selected for this opportunity, your first assignment will be a Women in Fire Boot Camp. The Boot Camp will provide comprehensive, formal physical Wildland Fire Training and orientation. Upon successfully completing this training each person will receive a Wildland Fire Fighter certification and protective gear.Persons selected to these positions will provide temporary emergency support on wildland fires and other emergency operations nationally as well as throughout the Southwest. The Boot Camp assignment will provide the basic firefighting training and some preparation for the Work Capacity Test (WCT) that is required in order to meet National Wildfire Coordinating Group Red Card qualification as a Wildland Fire Fighter (see Minimum Federal Qualification Requirements below). All participants must pass the basic training and the WCT before becoming certified.These positions are administratively determined (AD) emergency positions. If selected, you will be paid for the Boot Camp training and your physical fitness test, or the WCT. Base pay for these positions starts at the AD-B rate, of $15.96/hr. Once selected for this work you will need to remain on call. The main duty stations will be located in Arizona and New Mexico. However, you may be expected to travel within the Southwestern Region or across the country, on short notice for work assignments lasting up to 21 days. Please note this is an intermittent position with a workload entirely dependent on fire conditions both in the Southwest and across the Nation. This position does not guarantee any kind of permanent work but it is a good starting point for those interested in a career with the Forest Service.While on wildland fire assignments, you may be expected to be away from your home for an extended period of time. You may be exposed to primitive living conditions such as camping in wilderness areas away from electricity, showers, and with no cell phone reception for days on end. On the other hand you may be placed in hotel rooms with all the amenities in downtown areas of major US cities. Operating vehicles both on and off road, hiking, commercial flights, boat rides, and mission flights on helicopters are just some of the modes of transportation to be expected on the job.Wildland Fire Fighters can operate in close proximity to open flames, heat and smoke. The work can be physically demanding requiring up to 16 hour work days for up to 14 days in a row without a day off. The work consists of hiking, carrying heavy equipment, operating fire apparatus, working near heavy machinery, and using hand tools such as shovels, Pulaskis, and chainsaw, sometimes in high stress situations. Respect, flexibility, understanding, crew cohesion, and teamwork are the foundation of any good fire fighter. Exhibiting these principles both on and off the clock is expected. Participate in training. Participate in physical fitness. Keep yourself and your equipment fit for duty, in response ready condition. Remain on call for response to wildland fires and other emergencies. Travel and work 14- and possibly 21-day assignments, possibly out of the state. Safely engage in wildland fire suppression and other emergency response operation activities.1. Must be 18-37 years of age (exceptions will be considered)2. Must be in good mental and physical condition3. Must be able to pass basic wildland firefighter training (provided)4. Must be able to pass the Agency work capacity test at the Arduous level.This involves a 3-mile walk that must be completed wearing a 45-pound weight vest, in less than 45 minutes. Pack test will be scheduled during the second weekend session. (pack provided)Please fill out attached application, Health Screening Questionnaire, WCT Informed Consent Form, and return via mail, fax or email, following the directions on the Application. Training will be held March 4-6 and March 11-13. There will be two locations where training sessions are held. You need to mark which location you are submitting your nomination for. You must attend both weekends and complete all training in order to receive a certificate.Arizona Session:Phoenix Interagency Fire Center6335 S. Downwind, Suite 101 Mesa, AZ 85212Mail: USDA Forest ServiceAttn: Colleen Loretto 333 Broadway Blvd. SE Albuquerque, NM 87102Fax: (505) 842-3806E-mail: cloretto@fs.fed.us ALL FORMS MUST BE SENT OR YOUR APPLICATION WILL NOT BE COMPLETEFor more information please visit http://www.fs.usda.gov/main/r3/fire-aviation Guest Editorial By Greg Allen | January 27, 2016 Extrapolation on presidential thoughts, then, and now President Obama recently gave his final State of the Union address. The legacy of his presidency will be the subject of debate for quite some time, but current conjecture, by many, would assert hes the worst president Americas ever had. Opinions of Barack Obama no doubt run the gamut. However, Im of the opinion words matter and theyre a reflection of what resides within a persons soul. For the sake of analysis, well dive into the thoughts of probably one of the greatest presidents America has ever had and those of our current one. Today, the United States Constitution is constantly being subverted - yet, Abraham Lincoln cautioned: Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties. And not to Democrats alone do I make this appeal, but to all who love these great and true principles. (August 27, 1856) Abe boasted that I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. (February 22, 1861) Lincoln asserted: Let us turn this government back into the channel in which the framers of the Constitution originally placed it. (July 10, 1858) The people are the rightful masters of both congresses and courts - not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it. (September 17, 1859) Not to the extent it was in the 1860s, but America is still deeply divided along racial lines. Many say the President is complicit in that - Divider in Chief was a recent best-selling book. Mr. Obama claimed: I don't want to pit Red America against Blue America. I want to be President of the United States of America. (Nov. 10, 2007) In a 2008 speech, presidential candidate Barack Obama said: Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. When Barack Obama ran for office he said his administration would be the most trustworthy and transparent in history, but the exact opposite has rung true. Abraham Lincoln claimed: I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him. (August 11, 1846) In 2004, Mr. Obama said: We can participate in the political process without fear of retribution and that our votes will be counted - or at least, most of the time. That statement has a disclaimer at the end and the IRS would indeed dish out retribution after that was targeted toward conservative groups. In 2006, The President said: If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all else is lost. (August 28) Americans still believe in an America where anything's possible - they just don't think their leaders do. (September 1) I always believe that ultimately, if people are paying attention, then we get good government and good leadership. When we get lazy, as a democracy and civically start taking shortcuts, then it results in bad government and politics. (September 25) Abraham Lincoln was assertive in saying: I do not think I could myself be brought to support a man for office whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion. (July 31, 1846) Interesting though, Barack Obama claimed: This notion that's peddled by the religious right that they are oppressed is not true. Sometimes it's a cynical ploy to move their agenda ahead. The classic example being that somehow secularists are trying to eliminate Christmas, which strikes me as some kind of manufactured controversy. (Jul. 11, 2006) Mr. Lincolns insights were keen when he said: I have understood well that the duty of self-preservation rests solely with the American people. (January 19, 1863) When the people rise in masses in behalf of the Union and the liberties of their country, truly may it be said, "The gates of hell shall not prevail against them." (February 11, 1861) Greg Allens column, Thinkin Out Loud, has been published bi-monthly since 2009. Hes an author, nationally syndicated columnist and the founder of Builder of the Spirit in Jamestown, Indiana, a non-profit organization aiding the poor. He can be reached at www.builderofthespirit.org or follow him on Twitter @GregAllencolumn. By Linda Bentley | january 27, 2016 Councilman DiCiccio exposes citys water rate hike for pay raises scam Arizona Free Enterprise Club excoriates city for Prop. 104 waste, fraud and abuse Sal DiCiccio PHOENIX Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio exposed the citys scam back in 2010 when the city claimed it cut 305 employees but instead secretly transferred them to the Water Department and raised water rates to cover their pay. Once again, the city has raised water rates to give employees raises. Since fiscal year 2008/2009, Water Department employee compensation has increased by $16.8 million. Average per-employee compensation increased by more than $11,000 to $88,162.45 during the same period of time. DiCiccio points out staff, by contract, already receives guaranteed raises and bonuses for merit and longevity each year. However, he says, the union is pushing for additional pay raises that will require citizens to pay even more for water in the future to cover the expense. Meanwhile, now that Phoenix voters approved Prop. 104, a $31.5 billion, 35-year transportation tax relying on a 0.7 percent sales tax that runs from 2016 through 2050, the lack of accountability, transparency and blank check warnings the Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AFEC) made prior to the election are now coming to light. The city already had a 0.4 percent transportation tax in place that was set to expire in 2020. Prop. 104 increases the tax to 0.7 percent, extends it until 2051 and is supposed to fund an additional 42 miles of light rail to the existing 13.5-mile system, expand or improve bus routes, extend bus service and Dial-a-Ride hours, bus stop shade structures, increased security, road maintenance and repairs and more. The citys ballot language never divulged the fact there was already a 0.4 percent transportation tax in place until 2020 and the proposition passed by a 55 to 45 percent margin. All expenditures under the plan shall be reviewed by a Citizens Transportation Committee (CTC), as was included in the ballot language to advance transparency, public input, and government accountability. According to the AFEC, this citizens oversight committee has no power or authority and is run by Phoenix staff members whereas 25 city employees sit on the approximately 30-person citizens panel each meeting. Phoenix city staff is now planning to hire a program management consultant to perform what the CTC is required to do, despite the multi-million dollar expenditure never having being placed on an agenda for the CTC to review. Meanwhile, AFEC points out the entity that was in charge of managing Valley Metro bus and light rail systems in Phoenix recently forced its CEO to resign. The resignation came after a number of expenses for fancy meals, first-class airfare, alcohol and numerous trips to Portland, Ore. were exposed. While the city is conducting a full audit, the attorney generals office is performing an investigation to determine if there were any criminal actions involved. Valley Metros troubles were known by the city well before Prop. 104 was placed before voters, but voters were never informed until after the election. Scott Mussi AFEC president Scott Mussi stated, This does not mean more cannot be done to bolster transparency and accountability. If the city does not empower the CTC to protect Prop. 104 funds from waste, fraud and abuse it will be a long 35 years for taxpayers. AFEC, a 501(c)(4) organization, was founded in 2005 as a free market, pro-growth advocacy group dedicated to Arizona issues and politics, with a mission of promoting policies that encourage economic prosperity and a strong and vibrant Arizona economy. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 Trend: The Azerbaijani government will additionally allocate 70 million manat to the National Entrepreneurship Support Fund under the Ministry of Economy, Samir Sharifov, the Azerbaijani Finance Minister, said at a press conference Jan. 28. "This has been envisaged in the updated forecasts of the state budget-2016, to be prepared by February," the minister said. "The volume of concessional lending to entrepreneurs through the National Entrepreneurship Support Fund will be 250 million manat in 2016," Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said earlier at a meeting on economic and social issues. The preferential loans amounting to 248.5 million manat were delivered to 5,243 entrepreneurs through the National Entrepreneurship Support Fund in 2015. The implementation of the projects through these loans allowed creating about 12,600 jobs. january 27, 2016 Governor Doug Ducey launches special team to help clear rape kit backlog Team will produce recommendations for requiring testing of every rape kit, aid in ensuring justice for sexual assault victims PHOENIX Governor Doug Ducey recently announced the members of the Arizona Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit Task Force, a bipartisan coalition of victims advocates, law enforcement officials and policy makers tasked with addressing the injustice of untested rape kits throughout Arizona. Throughout the country including Arizona crime labs struggle to keep up with timely testing of the kits, resulting in a backlog of 2,300 untested kits in Maricopa County alone. For too long, women across our state have awaited justice for the despicable crimes inflicted upon them, while predators evade the law looking for their next victim, said Governor Ducey. We must do everything in our power to stand up for those whove been victimized and that means bringing to bear every resource and taking every necessary action to identify their assailants and lock them behind bars before they harm anyone else. Governor Ducey charged the task force with multiple responsibilities, which include: providing legislative recommendations to ensure every kit is tested in a timely manner; developing a statewide standard process for testing protocols of the kits; developing a statewide tracking system for the kits; and development of a public education plan to assist sexual assault victims. Governor Ducey established the task force by Executive Order on January 11, 2016 to address a key priority in his 2016 State of the State address. Governor Ducey has appointed the following members to the task force: Dia de los Muertos in South Bend: Here's how you can celebrate Unlike the city's Day of the Dead events in the past, this one has broader community involvement. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Jan. 28 By Huseyn Hasanov- Trend: The joint large-scale projects in the oil and gas sector were discussed at the meeting between Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and Iranian Ambassador Seyed Mohammad Ahmadi, the Turkmen government said Jan. 27. The special attention was paid to the possibility of expanding the trade and economic ties, as well as cooperation in transport and energy spheres, implementation of joint large-scale projects in the oil and gas industry and the processing of hydrocarbon resources. The sides exchanged the views on the prospects of bilateral relations. They also discussed the priority issues of bilateral cooperation at the current stage. The sides expressed mutual readiness to strengthen the full-scale partnership on the principles of mutual benefit, equality and goodwill. Particular attention was paid to the development of the inter-state relations on a multilateral basis, as part of the international organizations, including the UN and its bodies. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend: Iran is unlikely to begin exporting its own gas to Europe for the next ten years, Alexander Sharov, the expert, the deputy head of the Iranian department at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Business Club, said. "At present, the gas extracted in Iran is mainly used to increase the oil production," Sharov told Trend. "Gas is pumped into the layers to maintain pressure." "Iran has huge potential in terms of gas production," he said. "But now most of the gas produced in the fields is pumped back into the well. Up to 25 bcm of gas are pumped annually only at one field - Yadavaran." "The water-salt solutions could be used for this purpose and gas could be supplied for export and domestic consumption," he said. "It is impossible to construct a gas pipeline to Europe via Turkey, taking into account both economic and political factors." He said that Iran will be more engaged in gas processing, rather than its export in the next years. "The 15th and 16th phases were launched at the giant South Pars field in December," he said. "Iran was building gas chemical complexes of the gas from this field. Each of them is capable of processing about 10-15 bcm of gas per year." "Such large gas-chemical complexes were built in Asaluyeh, namely, Jam, Zagros, Parsian, Marun and others," he said. "The large methanol, ammonia production facilities are being built in Iran now. Any surplus of gas will be processed into gas-chemical products in the coming years. It is possible to sell them easier and with more profit. Iranian gas is unlikely to be supplied to Europe in the next ten years." He added that the pipeline's construction to Oman, through which Iran will supply 10 bcm of gas annually, is real. "Iran and Oman have very close and trustful relations. In addition, there is need to build a total of 50 kilometers of sea part at the bottom of the Strait of Hormuz at the depths of 80-200 meters," said Sharov. "But even there, the gas will not be exported further and will be processed into liquefied natural gas (LNG) at the plant built at the Iranian bank's expense," he added. European market is not attractive for Iran n terms of sales of LNG, according to him. "I think that Iran will find consumer to sell its 1.5 million tons of LNG much more expensive. For example, LNG prices will be higher in Japan," said Sharov. "The example of Qatar is demonstrative, which sells LNG at a loss. Europe's supply at low prices leads to it," he added. He noted that Iran plans to launch seven large complexes, each of which is designed to release 6-10 million tons of LNG annually. "A part of projects was implemented prior to the imposition of 70 percent sanctions. However, we are unlikely to see the launch of these LNG projects in the next two or three years in Iran," said the expert. "The fact is that the US now actively releases its LNG to the world market, and the Iranian projects will be at the stage of study and examination in the near perspective," he added. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov Suburban schools grow slightly, or lose less than state average Numbers from the state Department of Public Instruction show that in suburban Milwaukee, about 27 school districts grew last year, or lost fewer students than average. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 By Aygun Badalova - Trend: Global oil prices will not remain at the current level, around $30 a barrel, for long, Charles Ellinas, oil market expert, Executive President, Cyprus National Hydrocarbons Company (CNHC) believes. "It is an over-reaction to recent developments coupled with trader speculation," Ellinas told Trend. "Iran will not ramp up its production as fast as many suggested and US shale oil production is already on a downward trend," he added. Iran following the removal of the sanctions against the country plan to increase its current oil export of one million barrels per day by 500,000 barrels. The figure is aimed to be raised by another 500,000, to two million barrels per day within a six-month period at the next step. Iran's current oil production is estimated to be around 2.8 million barrels per day. The US crude oil production is projected to average 8.7 million barrels per day in 2016 and 8.5 million barrels per day in 2017. Ellinas said that the current oil prices are hurting many countries now. "There is not much of a choice but to carry on," he said. "However, some recovery is on the way. Already the OPEC Secretary-General is calling non-OPEC and OPEC members to cooperate in addressing the depressed oil market," Ellinas said. He expects that by the middle of the year we will be back to around $50 a barrel. Oil prices fell on Wednesday on bigger U.S. crude inventories. Brent crude oil prices moved lower by about one percent to start trading in New York at $31.49 per barrel. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark for crude oil prices, was down roughly 2.4 percent to start the day at $30.71 per barrel. The World Bank has recently lowered its 2016 forecast for oil prices to $37 per barrel from $51 per barrel. The lower forecast of the bank reflects a number of supply and demand factors. These include sooner-than-anticipated resumption of exports by Iran, greater resilience in U.S. production due to cost cuts and efficiency gains, a mild winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and weak growth prospects in major emerging market economies. Earlier this week OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri said it is vital the oil market addresses the issue of the stock overhang, and once this overhang starts falling then prices start to rise. "Given how this developed, it should be viewed as something OPEC and non-OPEC tackle together," al-Badri said. Welcome to SwanseaOnline - your home for the best news, sports and what's on coverage of the city. Never miss a Swansea story with our daily newsletter Sign up to comment on our stories here Follow us on Facebook and Twitter | Swansea City news | Ospreys news | InYourArea Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 By Dalga Khatinoglu - Trend: French Total is planning to sign a deal with Iran to purchase crude oil. "Total is going to sign a contract to purchase 150,000-200,000 barrels per day of Iranian crude oil," Press TV quoted Total's Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanne as saying Jan. 28. Before sanctions were imposed in 2012 over Iran, EU was importing about 800,000 barrels of Iranian oil and condensate. The commencement of the nuclear deal on Jan. 16 eliminated sanctions and European companies can resume oil purchase from Iran. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani started his visit to France today. Iranian government ordered the National Oil Company to add 500,000 barrels per day to production level and increase this volume to one mbpd in the second half of 2016. Before Total, Greece's biggest oil refiner Hellenic Petroleum agreed on Friday to buy crude oil from Iran. Hellenic Petroleum was a major buyer of Iranian crude, which accounted for about 20 percent of the southeast European country's annual crude oil imports before sanctions were imposed on Tehran in 2011, according to a Reuters report. Chart details the causes of the destruction of Challenger on Jan. 28, 1986. NASA's space shuttle Challenger accident was a devastating tragedy that killed seven astronauts and shocked the world on Jan. 28, 1986. Killed in the accident were Challenger commander Dick Scobee, pilot Michael Smith, mission specialists Judy Resnik, Ronald McNair and Ellison Onizuka, payload specialist Gregory Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe, who was set to become the first teacher in space. Remembering Challenger: NASA's 1st Shuttle Tragedy (Photos) Here's a look at how the Challenger accident occurred: An inspection of the launch pad revealed large quantities of ice collecting due to unusually cold overnight Florida temperatures. NASA had no experience launching the shuttle in temperatures as cold as on the morning of Jan. 28, 1986. The coldest temperature of a previous launch was 20 degrees warmer. Columbia & Challenger - Astronaut Jerry Ross Remembers | Video Morton Thiokol, the builder of the solid-rocket boosters, advised NASA that they believed the O-ring seals in the solid-rocket boosters would perform adequately in the cold. To make each solid-rocket booster, the Morton Thiokol factory built four hull segments filled with powdered aluminum (fuel) and ammonium perchlorate (oxidizer). At the launch site, the fuel segments were assembled vertically. Field joints containing rubber O-ring seals were installed between each fuel segment. The O-rings were never tested in extreme cold. On the morning of the launch, the cold rubber became stiff, failing to fully seal the joint. Space Travel: Danger at Every Phase (Infographic) As the shuttle ascended, one of the seals on a booster rocket opened enough to allow a plume of exhaust to leak out. Hot gases bathed the hull of the cold external tank full of liquid oxygen and hydrogen until the tank ruptured. At 73 seconds after liftoff, at an altitude of 9 miles (14.5 kilo- meters), the shuttle was torn apart by aerodynamic forces. The two solid-rocket boosters continued flying until the NASA range safety officer destroyed them by remote control. The crew compartment ascended to an altitude of 12.3 miles (19.8 km) before free-falling into the Atlantic Ocean. NASA Remembers Challenger | Video Columbia Space Shuttle Disaster Explained (Infographic) 'Challenger Disaster: Lost Tapes' Includes McAuliffe Lesson Plan Rehearsal | Nat Geo Video Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. The brightest star in Earth's night sky, Sirius, hovers over a burial mound, called the Leeburg tumulus, in a new image by project nightflight. The bright star Sirius presides over an ancient burial mound in a dazzling new photo by project nightflight, taken at the Grossmugl Star Walk in Austria. Project nightflight is an initiative that promotes interest in and conservation of the night sky, led by astrophotographers Karoline Mrazek and Erwin Matys. The group captured this view of Sirius, the brightest star in Earth's night sky, about a half hour's drive from Vienna. The project's work is online at www.project-nightflight.net. "This image, shot on January 22, 2016, shows Sirius rising above the Leeberg tumulus, a 2500 years old ancient burial mound at the endpoint of the Grossmugl Star Walk," project nightflight wrote in an email to Space.com. [Gallery: Amazing Skywatcher Photos from Around the World] The Grossmugl Star Walk, set up by project nightflight, is self-guided tour that's nearly 1 mile long (1.5 kilometers). Visitors learn how to spot different astronomical features over the course of a 90-minute walk. The burial mound acts as the tour's finale, and is featured in this new image, called "Frozen Farmland." "The image was shot one day before full moon on a very cold and crisp winter's night," the photographers wrote. "The near full moon illuminated the frozen farmland surrounding the tumulus and gave the sky a distinct bluish hue." Editor's note: If you capture an amazing photo of the night sky and you'd like to share it with us and our partners for a story or image gallery, send images and comments in to managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com. Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. Galaxies come in all shapes and sizes, but can generally be grouped into easily identifiable regular shapes, such as the elegant spirals or run-of-the-mill ellipticals. And then there are the irregular galaxies, which account for roughly a quarter of known galaxies, that are just kinda messy. ANALYSIS: Galaxy Grows Monstrous X-Ray Tail In this recent Hubble Space Telescope observation, one such irregular galaxy, located around 16 million light-years from Earth, has been observed. It looks like a loose collection of stars that have been thrown together and shuffled, like my end-of-semester university dorm room. But this galaxy, called NGC 5408, isn't just a scattering of stars, it's a whole galaxy and it's a galaxy with some interesting astronomical history. Originally discovered by British astronomer and mathematician John Herschel in June 1834, NGC 5408 was presumed to be a planetary nebula -- a gaseous cloud of gas generated by a dying star. But as astronomical optics improved, its true nature was revealed; NGC 5408 is an entire galaxy living by its own rules, refusing to conform to a regular shape. ANALYSIS: Requiem for a Weeping, Doomed Galaxy According to a NASA news release, NGC 5408 is notable for its ultraluminous X-ray source, known as NGC 5408 X-1. This class of object could be the signature of an intermediate-mass black hole, one of the most sought-after astrophysical objects in the cosmos. Intermediate-mass black holes (or IMBHs) are the "middleweight" black holes that are thought to be the missing evolutionary link between puny stellar mass black holes and the gargantuan supermassive black holes. They are, however, very hard to find and astronomers are currently keeping tabs on ultraluminous X-ray sources in the hope that they may signal the presence of these mid-sized black holes. Source: NASA Originally published on Discovery News. The crew of the space shuttle Challenger's STS-51L mission, which ended in tragedy 73 seconds after launch on Jan. 28, 1986. From left to right: Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, Judy Resnik, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair, Michael Smith and Ellison Onizuka. Thirty years ago today, NASA suffered a spaceflight tragedy that stunned the world and changed the agency forever. On Jan. 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after blasting off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center, killing all seven astronauts on board including New Hampshire educator Christa McAuliffe, a civilian who had been selected to fly via NASA's "Teacher in Space" program. NASA astronauts had died on the job before Apollo 1 crewmembers Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee were lost when a fire broke out inside their command module during a launchpad exercise on Jan. 27, 1967 but the Challenger disaster was something different altogether. [Remembering Challenger: NASA's 1st Shuttle Tragedy (Photos)] "The whole country and the whole world were in shock when that happened, because that was the first time the United States had actually lost a space vehicle with crew on board," said former NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao, who flew three space shuttle missions during his career (in 1994, 1996 and 2000), and also served as commander of the International Space Station from October 2004 through April 2005. "It was even more shocking because Christa McAuliffe was not a professional astronaut," Chiao told Space.com. "If you lose military people during a military operation, it's sad and it's tragic, but they're professionals doing a job, and that's kind of the way I look at professional astronauts. But you're taking someone who's not a professional, and it happened to be that mission that got lost it added to the shock." Changing the culture On Jan. 28, 1986, NASA's space shuttle Challenger exploded after liftoff, killing seven astronauts and shocking the world. Here's how the Challenger accident occurred (Image credit: by Karl Tate, Infographics artist) Before Challenger launched on its ill-fated STS-51L mission, the space shuttle program had completed 24 missions in a row, starting with the April 1981 liftoff of the orbiter Columbia. That run of success bred a measure of complacency, Chiao said. "There was a 'launch fever' at the time, to try to get these missions off on time, and get more missions going," he said. That type of thinking played a significant role in the disaster, experts have concluded. Challenger was lost because a rubber "O-ring" seal on the shuttle's right-hand solid rocket booster failed, allowing hot gas to escape and damage the orbiter's external fuel tank, as well as the gear that attached the booster to the tank. The O-ring failed in part because unusually cold temperatures on launch day caused the part to harden, investigators later determined. The temperature at liftoff time was 36 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) 15 degrees F (8 degrees C) colder than any previous shuttle launch, NASA officials have said. [NASA Remembers Challenger (Video)] "The decision to launch the Challenger was flawed. Those who made that decision were unaware of the recent history of problems concerning the O-rings and the joint, and were unaware of the initial written recommendation of the contractor advising against the launch at temperatures below 53 degrees Fahrenheit [11.7 degrees C] and the continuing opposition of the engineers at Thiokol [Morton Thiokol, which built the shuttle's solid rocket boosters] after the management reversed its position," investigators wrote in their report about the disaster, which is known as the Rogers Commission Report. "They did not have a clear understanding of Rockwell's concern that it was not safe to launch because of ice on the pad," they added. (Rockwell International built the space shuttles for NASA.) "If the decision-makers had known all of the facts, it is highly unlikely that they would have decided to launch 51L on Jan. 28, 1986." In a way, the accident jolted these decision-makers awake, Chiao said. "A lot of things changed," he said. "The space shuttle had to be entirely re-certified. Every last little technical piece was re-analyzed." This work took nearly three years. The shuttle program was grounded until the orbiter Discovery blasted off on Sept. 29, 1988. The STS-51L Challenger flight crew receives emergency egress training in the slide wire baskets. They are (L to R) Mission Specialist, Ronald McNair, Payload Specialist, Gregory Jarvis, Teacher in Space Participant, Christa McAuliffe. Directly behind them are Mission Specialist Judy Resnik and Mission Specialist, Ellison Onizuka. (Image credit: NASA ) Fallen heroes The Challenger disaster claimed the lives of seven people: commander Francis "Dick" Scobee; pilot Mike Smith; mission specialists Judith Resnik, Ron McNair and Ellison Onizuka; and payload specialists McAuliffe and Greg Jarvis. They are still missed today, three decades later. "Thirty years just seems like yesterday," said Barbara Morgan, who served as McAuliffe's "Teacher in Space" backup and eventually made it to orbit herself in 2007, aboard the space shuttle Endeavour. "These people are still with me all the time, every day." Morgan said that McAuliffe and the "Teacher in Space" program had a huge impact, even though the STS-51L mission ended in tragedy. Teacher in space Christa McAuliffe (top), backup crew member Barbara Morgan (bottom) and payload specialist Greg Jarvis (back right) training in a KC-135 vomit comet in the 1980s. (Image credit: NASA JSC Image Repository and Terry Slezak) "It was a really bad time for education. A huge study had come out a big document called 'A Nation at Risk,' and it talked about how bad our education system was, and it kind of painted all schools and all teachers with a big, broad, bad paintbrush," Morgan told Space.com. "There was a very popular saying at the time: 'Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach.'" But McAuliffe helped change that perception, she added. "Christa was just a wonderful teacher, a wonderful human being and a wonderful representative of our profession, and that made it so that it got turned around," Morgan said. "That's something that I'm really, really grateful for, and proud of." Just a few months after the Challenger accident, the fallen astronauts' family members set up a nonprofit called the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, which seeks to spark students' interest in science, technology and math by giving them exciting, hands-on experiences in these fields. The Challenger Center has reached nearly 4.5 million kids over the last 30 years, Morgan said. The nonprofit is a "living legacy to education, carrying on the education mission that Challenger was all about," she said. "To me, that speaks volumes about what the crew was like and who they were, and it's reflected in their wonderful families as well." Keep exploring Sadly, Challenger was not the space shuttle program's only tragedy. On Feb. 1, 2003, the orbiter Columbia broke apart upon re-entering Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts on board. These crewmembers were commander Rick Husband; pilot William McCool; payload commander Michael Anderson; mission specialists David Brown, Kalpana Chawla and Laurel Clark; and payload specialist Ilan Ramon, from the Israel Space Agency. A piece of insulating foam had broken off Columbia's external fuel tank during the orbiter's launch more than two weeks earlier, damaging the shuttle's left wing. Investigators later determined that this damage allowed hot atmospheric gases to enter the wing's interior, leading to the shuttle's destruction. (Some complacency had crept back into the shuttle program by 2003, Chiao said; foam shedding had been observed during previous shuttle launches but had not been deemed a potentially catastrophic phenomenon.) [Columbia Space Shuttle Disaster Explained (Infographic)] Disasters such as the losses of Challenger and Columbia serve as reminders that spaceflight is an inherently difficult and risky proposition, Chiao said. "I don't think space travel will ever be as safe as commercial air travel, just because the amount of energy you have to put into a vehicle to accelerate it to orbital speed at 17,500 mph [28,160 km/h] any time you have to put that much energy into a vehicle, and then take it out again to bring it back, there's going to be risk involved," he said. "Unfortunately, as much as we try to minimize and avoid these mishaps, every now and then we're going to have them happen," Chiao added. "What we have to do is, do what we can to learn from them, apply lessons learned and keep moving forward." NASA's path forward does not include the space shuttle; the agency grounded its remaining orbiters for good in July 2011. American astronauts are currently dependent upon Russian Soyuz spacecraft to get to and from the International Space Station, though NASA has said it hopes private spacecraft developed by Boeing and SpaceX will be ready to take over this taxi service by late 2017. NASA's human spaceflight program, meanwhile, is focused on getting people to Mars sometime in the 2030s (with a mission to a captured asteroid in lunar orbit in the 2020s currently envisioned as a sort of stepping stone). The agency is developing a capsule called Orion and a huge rocket called the Space Launch System to make all this happen. "I know we're going to get there," Morgan said of Mars. "It's taken longer than I think we all wished, but it's exciting." You can learn much more about the Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia tragedies here: http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/DOR2016/index.html Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com. Paul Sutter is a visiting scholar at The Ohio State University's Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics (CCAPP). Sutter is also host of the podcasts "Ask a Spaceman" and "RealSpace," and the YouTube series "Space in Your Face." Sutter contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Take a deep breath. That air filling up your lungs, that oxygen pulled into your bloodstream, stoking your metabolic fire, making you possible, is old. Older than you, older than the Earth itself. That oxygen once lived in the heart of a star that is now long dead. That calcium in your bones? That iron in your blood? The same. Billions of years ago, there was no Earth, no sun, nor even a solar system. There was just a relatively featureless cloud of gas and dust, hundreds of light-years across. Pretty much in stable equilibrium, that cloud could persist for hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years. But given just a little nudge perhaps by a nearby supernova going off, sending its blast wave echoing through the nascent cloud it quickly fragmented, folding in on itself in a complicated tangle of knots and streams. Pockets of gas pinch off and catastrophically collapse, in some cases reaching such incredible densities and pressures that nuclear fusion begins deep in the heart of a young system: This is the birth of a star . The shattered remains of the cloud organize themselves into a disk. The disk spawns planets that cannibalize more material as they grow and compete for space around the new sun. In fits and starts and collisions, and in migrations and bursts of intense radiation, the leftover debris is cleared from the system, leaving a family: a star (maybe two), a few rocky planets, gas giants, asteroids and frozen leftovers in the outskirts. A solar system is born. It's elemental A few new elements breeze into the solar system over the millennia, but by and large, what the solar system was born with is all it has. The elemental mixture of that primordial gas cloud determines the fate of the system. Not enough silicon? No rocky planets. Just a hint of oxygen? No liquid water on those planets. A bare handful of carbon? Nothing to use to build little critters to swim around in that water. But how did this solar system's particular mixture of elements get in that gas cloud oh so many billions of years ago in the first place? To tell the truth, I already gave the answer: fusion. In that newborn sun, and in its heart today, a nuclear fire rages. The crushing weight of the sun's own gravity layer after endless layer of gas trying to squeeze itself into the center encourages atomic nuclei to overcome their natural repulsion for each other and fuse, like every bad rom-com you've ever seen. The fusion process leaves a little bit of energy left over , and the countless fusion reactions are enough to power the sun's radiation for billions of years and give Earth the warmth and light needed to make life possible. The process just needs to start with hydrogen, a simple proton. And there is plenty of that in the earliest moments of the universe. All else follows. Every star in the sky, including Earth's own sun, is a massive, sleepless factory for creating new elements. Hydrogen to helium. Onward to carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. In more massive stars, the chain pushes even further, to include calcium, magnesium, neon and argon. All the way to iron and nickel. Getting heavy But there, the party stops. After iron and nickel, fusion doesn't produce energy anymore it takes it. Fusion still happens, but there's nothing to stop the relentless gravitational collapse, no energy production to re-flate the star and balance the contraction. The infalling material tries to jam onto the core, is stopped by the solid iron ball at the center, and quickly retreats. In other words: boom! A supernova is one of the most fantastic displays of reckless energy seen across the universe . Billions of stars' worth of energy, wasted in a single flash lasting a few weeks. In that energetic inferno, anything is possible. Want to waste energy fusing some new heavy elements? Who cares there's plenty to spare! Have some more! It's party time! It's in that furious explosion that the rest of the periodic table is filled out. What wasn't fused in the heart of a star is birthed in the star's death throes, in complicated dances of nuclei and stray neutrons. This isn't just a cute bedtime story this is science, after all, and it requires some evidence. The theory was sweated out in a landmark paper led by physicist William Fowler, who went on to receive a Nobel Prize for his efforts. If you're a topical expert researcher, business leader, author or innovator and would like to contribute an op-ed piece, email us here (Image credit: SPACE.com) Today, scientists can identify what elements stars are made of, as each element leaves a distinct thumbprint in the starlight. Physicists can observe the fusion happening in the core of Earth's sun by capturing stray neutrinos, a byproduct of the fusion reaction, in detectors here on Earth. Researchers can examine supernova remnants to identify trace elements drifting through the broken clouds. Scientists can explain why some elements are more abundant in the universe than are others: If a particular chain reaction is more common in stars, then the element produced by that reaction will make its mark on the cosmos. And human beings can see how they really are made of stars the ashes of long-dead stars, but stars nonetheless. Those points of light in the night sky are connected to people in a deep and meaningful way. Human blood and bones are a part of the natural cycle of formation, birth, life and death of humanity's heavenly cousins. People come from stars and will return to the stars; every star dies, and in some fashion spreads its material back from where it came. And when the light from Earth's sun finally snuffs out, it will carry humanity's ashes back into the darkness, to be reshaped again into new worlds, and possibly new life. Learn more by listening to the episode "Are We Really Made of Stars?" on the "Ask a Spaceman" podcast, available on iTunes (opens in new tab), and on the Web at http://www.askaspaceman.com. Thanks to the City of Lima, Ohio, for the question that led to this piece! Ask your own question on Twitter using #AskASpaceman or by following Paul @PaulMattSutter and facebook.com/PaulMattSutter. Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates and become part of the discussion on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Space.com . Ancient Babylonian tablets like this one show that calculating the distance Jupiter travels in the sky over time can be done by finding the area of a trapezoid, showing the creators understood a concept essential to modern calculus 1500 years earlier than historians have ever seen. A set of ancient Babylonian tablets that describe how to track Jupiter across the sky have revealed an astronomical technique 1,500 years ahead of its time. Jupiter's erratic pace across the sky appearing to slow down and speed up from day to day based on the combination of its orbit and Earth's must have perplexed ancient astronomers and tested their best computational techniques. A newly discovered tablet written in Babylonia's cuneiform script discusses calculating the position of Jupiter. When combined with four other tablets, it suggests that ancient Babylonians used a surprisingly modern technique to calculate how far the bright dot traveled through the sky over the course of months. Their process requires a leap in understanding in how position and speed relate to time, one that wouldn't appear again until 1350 and that was a precursor to modern calculus. [Views of Jupiter, the Solar System's Largest Planet] The new results were detailed in the journal Science today (Jan. 28). The connections between speed, position and time are known to most modern travelers people easily understand speed as a measure of miles or kilometers per hour. Locations are often described in terms of time ("it's only an hour away") rather than distance. The insight that led to calculus demonstrated the connection between a graph of the traveler's changing speed and the total distance traveled. "This is familiar to any student of physics, or math or science," Mathieu Ossendrijver, an astroarchaeologist at Humboldt University of Berlin, told Space.com. But using time as a variable to calculate speed or distance has not been part of human culture forever. Using a graph to understand motion or speed over time is usually traced back to scholars in Oxford and Paris around 1350, and then to Isaac Newton, who developed integral calculus, Ossendrijver said. "What I now found is that this method was already invented in Babylonia more than 1,500 years earlier." Ossendrijver was an astrophysicist before he began studying the history of science and cuneiform in 2005. In 2012, he published a book of new translations for the known Babylonian tablets that featured astronomical calculations and tables. The procedure Ossendrijver translated from the Babylonian tablets appears to show how to calculate the distance that Jupiter has traveled over a long stretch of time, by using measurements of how fast it was moving across the sky on given days. This calculation might be particularly interesting to the ancient astronomers because of Jupiter's association with Babylon's patron god, Marduk. Under the Babylonians' earlier, arithmetic-based method, astronomers would measure the distance Jupiter traveled every day then, by adding together the "distance per day" for each day from the first through the 60th, they would get the total distance traveled. The newly discovered method instead used a geometric shortcut, and only needed the "distance per day" for the first day and the 60th, not the ones in between, to get the distance overall. Today, that calculation might be done by drawing points on a graph for Jupiter's measured speed on the first day and on the 60th day. Each of those points shows Jupiter's speed across the sky and the day the speed was measured. Drawing lines to connect the points to each other and to the "ground" directly below them, at a speed of zero, creates a geometric shape a trapezoid and calculating that shape's area reveals how far the object traveled. The process of measuring that geometric shape was described on the Babylonian tablets. Although the tablets did not have any visible graphs, the calculations done matched this technique precisely, Ossendrijver said. The distance travelled by Jupiter after 60 days, 1045', is computed as the area of the trapezoid whose top left corner is Jupiter's velocity over the course of the first day, in distance per day, and its top right corner is Jupiter's velocity on the 60th day. In a second calculation, the trapezoid is divided into two smaller ones with equal area to find the time in which Jupiter covers half this distance. (Image credit: Trustees of the British Museum/Mathieu Ossendrijver) When Ossendrijver first encountered the Babylonian tablets, he didn't understand why calculations on a trapezoid were included along with tables related to Jupiter's position, he said. Only after he saw a fifth, uncataloged tablet, which showed a different procedure for finding Jupiter's position using the same examples as the trapezoids, did he realize the connection between the figure and the tables, Ossendrijver said. Eventually, he understood a second trapezoid calculation on the tablets, too: dividing it into two trapezoids with equal area, which would correspond to finding when Jupiter had traveled half the distance, he said. The advanced technique has been found only on the four tablets so far, which all use slightly different wording but the same example, he said. There isn't any evidence yet of the process being more widespread, Ossendrijver said. "This would open up new ways of computing motion they could have applied to other planets, other parts of Jupiter's motion," Ossendrijver said. "We don't have [examples of that]. We only have these four tablets, and they all deal with Jupiter and they all deal with the same segment of 60 days. That's quite strange." When Babylonian culture, and the cuneiform script it was recorded in, died out around the year 100, the technique was seemingly forgotten, Ossendrijver said, only to crop up again in the 14th century when scientists and mathematicians began to use graphs to calculate changes to a system over time. Other aspects of Babylonian astronomy, in contrast, made it through the ages: People still discuss signs of the Zodiac, for instance, and use the Babylonian system of degrees, minutes and seconds, in units of 60, to calculate distances across the sky. Babylonian observations and techniques, translated into Greek, offer evidence of that transfer of information, Ossendrijver said. Knowing that ancient Babylonians had access to this newfound technique provides a whole new context for examining previously discovered tablets, as many tablets that are already translated have sections that aren't yet understood, Ossendrijver said. And it also forces science historians to rethink the way astronomical techniques evolved, he said. "In the beginning, I felt insecure myself, because the implications of this, from a history of science point of view, are kind of big," Ossendrijver said. The process shows "a more abstract and profound conception of a geometrical object in which one dimension represents time," Alexander Jones, a historian at New York University said in Science's news article accompanying the work. It's much earlier than these concepts have ever been found before, he said, and "their presence testifies to the revolutionary brilliance of the unknown Mesopotamian scholars who constructed Babylonian mathematical astronomy." Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Jan. 28 By Huseyn Hasanov- Trend: The Special Working Group on the development of the Convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea discussed positions of the Caspian littoral states regarding this convention in Ashgabat during the meeting Jan. 27-29, Turkmen Dovlet khabarlary state news agency reported. Ashgabat meeting is taking place at the level of deputy foreign ministers of the Caspian littoral states - Turkmenistan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Iran. The agency reported that during the meeting, heads of delegations expressed positions of their states regarding certain provisions of the Convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea, designed to strengthen the legal norms of interaction in various fields in the Caspian Sea. In September 2014, important documents were adopted - Agreement on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological resources of the Caspian Sea, which provided a legal basis for the joint implementation of comprehensive measures for the protection, primarily sturgeon, as well as an Agreement on cooperation in the field of prevention and liquidation of emergency situations in the Caspian Sea and the Agreement on Cooperation in the field of hydrometeorology of the Caspian Sea. The report said that Turkmenistan acts as a supporter of diversification of trade and economic relations between the Caspian littoral states and the full implementation of huge natural, energy, industrial, transport and transit potential the Caspian region is rich with. The Caspian region is also recognized as one of the fastest growing geopolitical and economic centers of Eurasia. A whole range of issues was brought to the agenda of this meeting, in particular, the issues regarding conservation and protection of aquatic biological resources of the Caspian Sea, which today are of particular concern for all coastal states. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 By Dalga Khatinoglu - Trend: Iranian president has kicked off his first trip to EU in post-sanctions era, signing above $18 billion contracts with Italy. He is also expected to ink several multi-billion dollar contracts in France. President Hassan Rouhani arrived in France on Jan. 27, just after visiting Rome. After the West imposed tighter sanctions on Iran in 2012, the Islamic Republic's GDP fell from above $590 billion in 2011 to about $425 billion in 2014, according to the World Bank (WB). The country's GDP growth is estimated to reach 0.5 percent in 2015, while real GDP growth is projected to accelerate to 4-5.5 percent in 2016/17 and to average 4 percent throughout the medium term, International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated. WB's estimations are more optimistic than that of IMF's, however, coming to investment issue, this body too is very cautious. According to WB, foreign direct investment (FDI) may increase to about $3 billion a year. This is much lower than what Iran expects. Iran plans to reach eight percent GDP growth annually in the Sixth Development Plan (2016-2021) and Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Ali Tayebnia announced earlier that some $233 billion, including $90 billion foreign investment is needed per year to reach an eight-percent GDP growth. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Iran's annual inward FDI was $2.408 billion in average during 2005-2007, while this figure for 2011-2014 was $3.523 billion. Iran's total FDI inward from 1995 to 2011 was a little more than $33 billion, according to the UNCTAD. About $400 billion needed in energy sector only As for Iran's announced investment opportunities, at least $500 billion investment is needed to use them in five to 10 years. Mohammad Mirzaei, the head of equipment and housing sector at Fuel Conservation Organization, affiliated with Iran's oil ministry, told Trend Sep. 16 that Iran needs a $200 billion investment in total to halve energy intensity by 2021. Iranian officials have warned that without halving energy intensity, the oil-rich country may become net energy importer in mid-term. On the other hand, Iran unveiled a new designed oil and gas contract in November, called Iran Petroleum Contract, offering 50 oil and gas fields to foreigners. Iran is expected to absorb $70 billion investment in these fields. The country also plans to attract $70 billion investment in petrochemical projects to triple the output to 180 million tons per year in 2025. Iran's oil ministry put the needed investment in both upstream and downstream oil and gas sector at $185 billion in mid-term. Meanwhile, Iran's Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian said on Jan. 26 that completion of unfinished projects in the water and electricity sector needs about $53 billion of assets, including $30 billion FDI. The country also has planned to double automobile production level to three million vehicles, to import more than 120 passenger planes and other major projects attracting foreign companies and funds. The main part of the needed investment should be put by foreigners in Iran, because the country suffers financially due to low oil price, which is expected to continue in mid-term. Iran reportedly has about $55 billion unblocked assets abroad, which can help the country finance the projects in the upcoming two years. Meanwhile, it may take one or two years for foreign companies to decide to start investing in major projects in Iran. --- Dalga Khatinoglu is an expert on Iran's energy sector and head of Trend Agency's Iran news service In predominantly Muslim regions, the state of women's rights is especially troubling. Polling indicates that the majority of Muslims do not take it for granted that men and women have the same rights. The Pew Research Center in Washington surveyed 38,000 Muslims between 2008 and 2012. More than half -- and a whopping 87 percent in the Middle East and North Africa -- held the view that a woman should always obey her husband. In fact, only a quarter of those questioned in the Middle East and North Africa felt that daughters and sons should inherit equal shares of their parents' money, and only a third said that women have the right to get divorced. Lamya Kaddor is tired of the debate over Islam. The liberal Islamic scholar has been working as a mediator for years. She explains Islam to non-Muslims in Germany, and she explains non-believers to Muslims. There has been much to explain since Sept. 11, 2001, when al-Qaida terrorists flew airliners into the World Trade Center in the name of Allah. The discussion about terrorism was followed by a series of debates, on forced marriages and honor killings, female genital mutilation, Salafists, the construction of mosques and now, once again, the image of women. "Now I'm starting to explain what Islam is all over again," says Kaddor. The 37-year-old teaches Islamic Studies in Dinslaken, in northwestern Germany. The image of women held by many migrants is indeed a problem, she says. They have come to a free country from "oppressed societies," she says. "Then they have to wait 15 months to find out whether or not they can stay. This is too long. It allows people to fall back into old patterns," says Kaddor. 'Where I'm From, This is Handled By Men' Many women come into contact with these patterns in Germany, not just in the form of sexual harassment, but in situations where it becomes clear that they are not being accepted in their professions and social roles. Most of the women SPIEGEL spoke with about the subject were unwilling to be quoted by name, fearing that they could be labeled as xenophobic, and they stress that difficulties are the exception, and that most Muslim men essentially have no problem with women. "Muslim offenders often have a problem accepting female judges," says one judge from Hamburg. She claims they treat her with contempt, and use gestures or facial expressions to show that they do not respect a woman in her position. A female flight attendant says she "often has problems with Muslim men working as ground personnel." To avoid unpleasant situations, she says, crews often decide to send a male coworker instead. Female German Federal Police officers who process immigrants at the border with Austria say that men ignore or berate them. Some spit on the ground in front of them, says one officer. "That sometimes requires a more robust effort." The personnel manager for a company in the southwestern state of Baden-Wurttemberg remembers how a male employee snapped at her, saying that she, as a "German woman," had no business telling him what to do. On another occasion, an employee asked to meet with a male colleague instead of her. "I have nothing against you," he said, "but where I'm from, this is handled by men." Maresi Lassek, president of an elementary school in the northern city of Bremen for 20 years, remembers "how fathers kept their hands clasped behind their backs" to avoid having to shake her hand. An elementary school teacher from the Odenwald region south of Frankfurt speaks of "outlandish experiences," and says: "I often had the feeling that fathers didn't take me seriously, because I'm a woman." A teacher from Hamburg says that fathers tried "to avoid us women and converse with our male colleagues instead." And when Annelie Hobohm, who teaches illiterate children in a Hamburg school, asks everyone in the class to clean up, the boys sometimes refuse to sweep the floor. Cleaning is women's work, they say. Sineb El Masrar was born in Hanover in 1981, the daughter of Moroccan immigrants. She's also a member of the German Islam Conference and a pioneer in the Islamic women's movement. Her book "Emancipation in Islam -- a Reckoning with Its Enemies," is set to be published in Germany next month. "There is a misogyny, a hatred for women," she says. A Dichotomy in Images of Women El Masrar says that the history of Islam, up until the present, has been shaped by the patriarchal oppression of women. She argues that the Cologne assaults were spurred by a number of things: crowded living conditions for migrants in hostels or small apartments, their lack of prospects and the neglect they experience when they lack the support and supervision of the family. But there is also another reason, says El Masrar: "A culture that makes all things sexual taboo." The men came from an environment in which there is no tender sexuality, she explains. "Everything that's connected with tenderness and sex is placed in the context of prostitution." She speaks of a schematic image in which women are either saints or whores, in which there is no room for self-determined women. For some Muslim men, says El Masrar, it is irritating and frustrating that not every woman in Germany is available, "just because she's walking in a miniskirt." Some, she explains "react by becoming extremely religious, while others become aggressive." El Masrar points to Moroccan men as an example, noting that many experience frustration not only in Europe, but also in the country of their origin. "Sex is taboo, on the one hand," she says, "but on the other it's downloadable everywhere." There are even sex hotlines in Arabic, she says. The men act out their insecurities on the street, where women are harassed and propositioned. But women in the country have been fighting back for some time. In a movement similar to #Aufschrei (#Outcry), a German Twitter initiative to raise awareness about sexism and sexual harassment, women in Morocco have taken to the streets to protest "against all that ass and breast grabbing, the whispers and the perversions that women face." Young men are also beginning to seek alternatives to narrow patriarchal role models. Asmen Ilhan is a case in point. A few years ago, the young man from Berlin caught himself pigeonholing the girls in his class into either "sluts" or "non-sluts," into girls who had a boyfriend, went out at night or wore tight pants, and girls who behaved in a way deemed appropriate by the Turkish community. At the Carl-von-Ossietzsky High School in Berlin's Kreuzberg neighborhood, the question of which girls were considered "sluts," and which ones were not, was an important one -- both for the boys who kept a close eye on their sisters, even though they themselves were making out and having sex with girls, and for the girls, who were better off staying away from men altogether. No one would have been shocked to hear someone yell in the schoolyard: "I'll kill my sister if anyone touches her." And it would have been hard to tell whether statements like that were meant seriously. Program to Change Minds Ilhan was always caught in the middle. His parents came to Germany from Turkey in the late 1970s, and he was born in Berlin. To Germans, he was a Turk, and to Turks he was a Kurd. He was never accepted as a traditional Muslim because his father is an Alawite. His mother is involved in the women's movement within the immigrant community: a word like "slut" would never have been allowed at their dinner table. But different rules applied in the classroom. Girls were expected to be pure and quiet and boys strong and loud, the latter fixated on their predetermined role as guardians and future breadwinners. Ilhan had already gotten used to this division, if only to fit in, but when he was 16, he began having doubts. At the time, a friend invited him to join a group that met regularly to question their concept of how girls and boys should behave. The group members were at odds with a culture in which the honor of an entire family depended on whether a daughter was still a virgin at her wedding, and in which boys were obligated to defend that honor -- whether they liked it or not. Ilhan and his friends became part of a project, called Heroes, in which young men from immigrant families campaign for women's rights. It has already trained 35 young men. Those who become "Heroes" are given a certificate to hang in their rooms. The program includes various role-playing games: In one, a strict father sends his son to bring home his sister, who is hanging out with friends, in another, a family forbids a son from marrying his Swedish girlfriend. The boys also play the role of the girl. Heroes has held more than 1,000 of these role-playing workshops in schools and youth centers in the last seven years. Even the German president has visited the award-winning project. A photo taken on the day of the president's visit hangs on the wall, across from a poster with a quote from Albert Camus: "Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear." A Bizarre Understanding of Honor? "Cologne brought our issues to the fore," says theater teacher Yilmaz Atmaca, one of the co-founders of the Heroes project. Ilhan, now 23, studies psychology and works as a group leader. Seven boys from the program got together in the first week of January to try to come up with an explanation for the Cologne sexual assaults. In their view, the assaults reflect a bizarre understanding of honor. "I'm afraid that the perpetrators felt that women who were wearing Western clothes and were out alone at night had no honor. This is precisely the attitude we want to prevent with our work." At the same time, the young men also felt attacked. They have been campaigning for women's rights for years, "and now people are suddenly saying across the board that the Arab man is a threat." Muslim men are not the only ones who feel unsettled since Cologne. Many people in Germany are concerned about the tension between the desire to stand up for women's rights and the desire to show solidarity for refugees. Is it acceptable to lower our standards on emancipation in deference to foreign customs? The Federal Employment Agency is also grappling with this question. It trains its employees in both "intercultural sensitization" and "gender sensitivity." The problem is that "intercultural competency" and "gender competency" are not always compatible. What happens, for example, when a Muslim customer refuses to shake a female coworker's hand? Should the woman accept this as being correct from an intercultural perspective, or should she take the standpoint of gender sensitivity and insist on a handshake? "There can be contradictions between a consultation that focuses on sensitivity to migrants and one that emphasizes gender sensitivity," says Eva Peters, director of a project that provides advanced training advice. For Julia Klockner, opposition leader for the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the decision was clear. About four months ago, she chose not to meet with an imam who refused to shake her hand. It was a bold move, but one that raises a necessary question about the limits of tolerance. She was making the point that women cannot be expected to accept discrimination out of consideration for cultural differences. This meeting of these cultures is, obviously, not always problematic. A 41-year-old management expert who volunteers to teach German at a refugee hostel in Essen, for instance, has nothing but good things to say about her students. They include construction workers and auto mechanics from Afghanistan, as well as pharmacists from Syria. Her students are always helpful, polite and respectful, she says. "Every time we meet, they are friendly when they greet me and say goodbye, they thank me after the lesson, and they offer to carry my bags when they are heavy. And they also respect my privacy. No one has ever called me at an inappropriate time." On a Saturday in the Advent season, in the lead up to Christmas, the group organized a cooking evening. Men and women chopped vegetables together, stirred the pots and seasoned the food, and finally served up Syrian appetizers and an Afghan rice dish -- united in the proud recognition that their backgrounds and cultures were being honored in this way. As the volunteer teacher put it: "These Muslim men are more appreciative than many Germans I know." By Christiane Hoffmann, Julia Juttner, Sarah Kempf, Ann-Kathrin Muller, Cornelia Schmergal, Katja Thimm, Andreas Ulrich According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the average adult American will change jobs 11 times during their lifetime employment. That's a lot of change. Sometimes such change occurs when individuals are involuntarily shown the door due to downsizing or lay-offs. That's beyond their control. Safe to say, it's usually better to leave a job on your own terms. However, that level of self determination requires the ability to read the workplace tea leaves, as well as having an exit strategy that includes a viable career option or pursuit of an entrepreneurial dream. For some, the trickiest part is knowing when to pull the rip cord and leave. Here are three clues that may serve as harbingers of a future career change. 1. Your advice is ignored. I worked for a company that had a major product issue that was loosely associated with an eye infection among a few dozen customers within a specific region of the world. A week after the first reports came in, my recommendation to senior management was to temporarily pull that newly-launched product off the shelves entirely until we had clarity as to whether or not the product was a direct cause of the infections. Due to the high level of uncertainty, it was the only certain action we could have taken. The situation seemed to be a redux of the classic Tylenol recall in the early 1980s. It seemed to be a no brainer. It wasn't. My recommendation was unanimously shot down by senior executives who believed that it was a non-issue because the complaints and infections were isolated to a specific region. Their thinking was that if it was a product problem, infections would be popping up around the world. They blamed the isolated infections on consumers misusing the product. That's when I started looking for my next employer, because my counsel was ignored when it was most needed. As it turned out, the product issue spiraled out of control for that company. Retailers removed all its related products from their shelves. The organization never fully recovered. Related: 4 Pieces of Bad Startup Advice That You Should Ignore 2. You're asked to compromise ethics. Another instance occurred when I worked for a different company that was announcing a series of job cuts following its acquisition by a larger company. The reduction in force (RIF) was to be publicly presented in a media release as an "...average 10 percent reduction across the organization." However, the cuts were actually a 17 percent RIF of rank-and-file employees and a three percent cut for the executive ranks. The newly entrenched top brass somehow rationalized that calculating the average between those two groups was the right thing to do. They refused to accurately portray it as a 20 percent cut. As one of the spokespersons answering media inquiries, I couldn't in good conscience convey that misrepresentation of the facts and refused to comment on local media inquiries. I left that situation as quickly as I could. Related: Are Business Ethics at a Low Ebb? 3. Promises are not kept. Lastly, if the organization you work for fails to keep its promises, you should seriously consider other employment options. As a cost-saving measure, I was given the entire workload of overseeing dozens of company trade shows in addition to my communications responsibilities. I was told that if I successfully carried that extra workload for a year, I would be promoted in salary and title. A year later, after a great performance review, I was told that neither the title nor salary boost would occur. That solidified my intent to leave. In each instance, I landed a much better opportunity. Everyone's situation is different, so it's useful to have some baseline guidance as to when you should start looking, but what's critical to keep in mind is that it's always preferable to leave for a better job situation than endure a bad job situation. Related: 9 Things Managers Do That Make Good Employees Quit Related: 3 Signs Your Job Has Become Intolerable How Quitting Can Get You Exactly What You Want The Beauty of Freelancing Until You Hit the Big Time Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved DANBURY News-Times readers helped raise $82,000 substantially more than in past years to assist families through The Giving Fund, which is part of an annual partnership with the United Way of Western Connecticut. For the fifth straight year, stories were printed in The News-Times each week between Thanksgiving and New Years detailing problems faced by five area families and suggesting specific donations that would assist them during the holiday season. UWWC Corporate Events Manager Stacy Schulman could not explain why this years program was so successful, but said sharing stories with the publication helped readers relate to their neighbors struggles. They can feel it more, its something more tangible that they can relate to, Schulman said. They feel for the individual stories. Since the program started, more than $210,000 has been raised to benefit families in need. Schulman explained the 30 cases detailed in The News-Times this year focused on families that have incomes above the federal poverty level, but are living below a cost-of-living threshold. It makes a huge difference, she said. These are people that are working people, but are just above the poverty level. Examples of those who were helped by the program include a disabled military veteran caring for her terminally-ill mother, a father struggling to care for his children and wife after she was diagnosed with a debilitating disease and several cases of domestic violence. The UWWC appreciated the generosity of those who contributed and helped change the lives of so many in greater Danbury. The donations covered the needs of all the cases listed in The News-Times and excess funds are being used to help other area families. Schulman said the money helped cover a variety of needs. This could be medical bills or something with their car that wipes out the money they have, she said. This gives them an edge to get ahead a little bit. The News-Times sister papers also raised large sums for the United Way, with Greenwich Time and The Stamford Advocate donating $50,000 and the Connecticut Post contributing $24,000. The University of Rhode Island and its insurance carrier have settled a lawsuit relating to the 2011 death of a student-athlete from Orange, Conn. Joseph P. Ciancola III, a member of the URI baseball team, died three days after a strength and conditioning team workout at the school. He collapsed during the Oct. 24, 2011, workout session and remained hospitalized until he died at Rhode Island Hospital on Oct. 27. The settlement, announced Thursday, was settled on Jan. 8 for $1.45 million. The decision to settle recognizes that this was a tragic death and acknowledges the uncertainty involved in litigation of this nature, acccording to a release from Linda Acciardo, of URI. More News Friends fondly recall former Amity star Ciancola Ciancolas mothers attorney, Patrick C. Barry of Decof, Decof & Barry, P.C., said the settlement was good for both sides, adding, This was a tragic death and a hard-fought legal dispute. We are pleased that in addition to the settlement funds, URI will set up a scholarship in Joes memory. Joe was, and with this scholarship, will continue to be part of the University of Rhode Island Athletics family, said Thorr Bjorn, URIs athletic director. Ciancola graduated in 2010 from Amity Regional High School, where he was an accomplished baseball and hockey player. He was selected to the 2010 Connecticut Post all-star baseball team. I give (Joeys mother, Michele) so much credit, said Gary Lindgren, the schools hockey coach. She stuck to it. She has so much courage. She told me she was doing this for Joey. It puts some closure to it, but its hard. Its tragic. We miss Joey terribly. Staff writer Doug Bonjour contributed to this story. Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, is back at work after two months of staying home with his new daughter, Max. In fact, he even posted that he doesn't know what to wear in the office. First day back after paternity leave. What should I wear? Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Monday, January 25, 2016 Zuckerberg's leave was touted as a great leap forward for family leave across the country. "Studies show that when working parents take time to be with their newborns, outcomes are better for the children and families," Zuckerberg wrote. "At Facebook we offer our US employees up to 4 months of paid maternity or paternity leave which they can take throughout the year." Noble. Also, it's good business practice since, in an economy where demand for talent is increasing, attraction and retention of the best employees often rests on benefits like family leave, generous vacation, and the like. Mark Zuckerberg, billionaire trailblazer in so many ways, could have been the perfect example of the benefits of family leave. Instead, what he became an exemplar of how very difficult, if not impossible, it is to balance the demands of leading an organization with caring for a child. Related: How a Rule Change by Pope Francis Gives a Lesson in Leadership to All For a guy who was supposedly not working, he got a lot of work in. To wit: On December 1, he launched the Chan Zuckerberg initiative, his $45 billion charity designed around "curing disease, personalizing learning, harnessing clean energy, connecting people, building strong communities, reducing poverty, providing equal rights and spreading understanding across nations." On December 17, he emerged to fight a court decision in Brazil to ban WhatsApp On January 6, he marketed the pre-order of Oculus Rift headsets On January 7, he touted Messenger usage growth to the Facebook community On January 15, he was in the office, celebrating Facebook employee Andrew Bosworht's tenth anniversary with the company On January 18, he launched a way for Facebook users to give to the European refugee crisis On January 20, he did a little Facebook PR, touting how the company is pushing for more Internet connection around the world. Even last Sunday he was working, announcing a new data center in Clonee, Ireland. These are just the work functions we know about because he posted them on Facebook. We don't know the number of phone calls to the office, the can't-miss meetings, the day-to-day decision-making. I would bet Zuckerberg's last cent that he stayed connected and stayed involved. It's his company. It was, until the stork showed up with Max, his baby. He created it, shaped it, developed it. He is a leader with a sense of responsibility to his brand, his team members, his customers and his world. There is no "taking off" from that. That is in no way a criticism. Most committed people struggle daily with trying to "have it all," managing the needs of their business and career with the needs of their families. Work-life balance is something elusive, mostly because it just doesn't exist. At best, we try to find a harmony, rather than balance. It is a way of life for people at all economic levels and -- speaking as someone who has been a single dad, schlepping a stroller into my office for a meeting -- both genders. Zuckerberg, as one of the world's richest people, shows the push and pull that comes from having a family and running a business. Zuckerberg is so wealthy, he could walk out of Facebook's headquarters today and never have to spend a moment away from his blessed Max. His wife, Priscilla Chan, is an accomplished physician who never has to work, either. It can be all Max, to the max, if they wanted, an option nearly every other human on the planet simply can't afford to have. Related: The Business World's Cultural Icon Has a Real Culture Problem But we want to be more than just parents and family members. We want to have successful careers. We want to show our children that we built something, that there's a legacy on the planet to the work we have done. We believe that there is a fruit to our labor, both in the companies we have built and the babies we have delivered. Instilling a strong work ethic, a sense of innovation and fostering creativity are all parts of good parenting. We rear our children mostly by example, after all. I imagine Zuckerberg wasn't able to spend all of his energy on his newborn child. That doesn't make him a bad parent. It makes him a normal parent. It makes him a human parent. There were days when I had a child screaming for a diaper change, or teething, or simply going through the pains of growing up and I couldn't wait to grab my phone, check my email and hope -- pray, even -- that my talents and knowledge were needed in the office. At the same time, when the babysitter or nanny was at home, I would constantly check in there, too, conjuring all measure of household catastrophe in my mind during meetings. Zuckerberg's parental leave was not the all-in leave that some people crave or that some companies continue to deny to their employees. If anything, if I worked at Facebook, I'd wonder whether family leave was truly time off, or just Zuckerberg's version of an occassional temporary pass from some meetings. Who am I kidding? I probably wouldn't take that much leave either. After all, Zuckerberg, while being an example of leaders using paternity leave, actually only took two of the four months he was eligible to take. Make no mistake: Mark Zuckerberg did a lot of good with his two-month repose. He ensured Max woke up (every two hours, probably) to the soothing arms of his parents. He read to her. He bonded. He apparently taught her to swim. That is good parenting. He also continued to run his company, even going into the office to take part in events. That's good management and even better leadership. There are lessons here that go beyond simple family leave and the benefits of utilizing the privilege you have in spending time with your newborn. Like everyone who posts updates on social media, Zuckerberg only showed us the moments or feelings he wanted to share. The next step should be a real discussion about how complex, how conflicted parenting can be when balanced with career and entrepreneurship. Having an honest conversation about that, without falling prey to touting your company's family-leave policy, could create better solutions for working families and build a true legacy for the working world Max Zuckerberg will enter. Related: Entrepreneurs Need to Realize They're All the C-Word Related: Did Mark Zuckerberg Really Take 'Paternity Leave?' Here's Why Every Employee Should Have Unlimited Vacation Days How to Come Home Happy While Succeeding at Your Job Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate BRIDGEPORT So-called truther Matthew Mills will get his chance to convince a jury that not only did the Sandy Hook tragedy not happen, but that hero-teacher Victoria Soto was a made-up person. As Sotos younger sister, Jillian, cried a few feet away, Superior Court Judge William Holden rejected Mills request for a special probation program that would have cleared his record. Please dont give him this (accelerated rehabilitation), he shouldnt get it, Jillian Soto tearfully pleaded as she stood before the judge. He over and over again has harassed my family. Mills, 32, of New York, stood glancing around the courtroom as Soto spoke, showing no emotion. His lawyer, James Hardy II, said his client was exercising his constitutional rights when, police said, Mills shoved a photograph of her dead sister in Jillian Sotos face before a charity race in Victoria Sotos memory last Nov. 7, contending it was all a lie. He then made a video recording of her reaction. Victoria Soto, of Stratford, was hailed as a hero after police said she was killed while protecting her first-grade students from gunman Adam Lanza at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012. Under accelerated rehabilitation, a program for nonviolent offenders, Mills would not have pleaded guilty to the charges against him, but could be place on up to two years probation. If he committed no crimes during that probation, the original charges would be dismissed. Sometimes facts are misinterpreted and police reports are not as factual as they should be, Hardy told the judge of the allegations against Mills, who is charged with breach of peace and interfering with police. Hardy argued that the charges against Mills, who works for Wells Fargo Bank, are not serious, and that there was no likelihood Mills would offend again. He has a wife who has had it up to here with him and given him an ultimatum, Hardy told the judge. They have a child on the way. But Assistant States Attorney Craig Nowak retorted that Mills history shows he has every reason to do it again, pointing out that Mills barged into a post-game interview for Super Bowl 48 at Giants Stadium, yelling that the 9/11 terror attacks were not real. He is entitled to his First Amendment rights; what he is not entitled to is to confront members of the Soto family before a charity race, shove a photo of their dead sister in their faces and harass them, the prosecutor continued. I object to him getting accelerated rehabilitation. Holden glanced at the crying Jillian Soto as he paused to render his decision. Im of the opinion that any crime that threatens someones liberty is serious, the judge began. No one, Mr. Mills, is limiting your passion to do what you desire, but this request is denied. Holden continued the case to March 2. Im so happy the judge didnt give him accelerated rehabilitation, said Jillian Soto, her cheeks wet with tears, as she left the Golden Hill Street courtroom. While he is sensitive to the claims, he stands firm that he was exercising his First Amendment rights, Hardy said as he and Mills left the courthouse. On Nov. 7, hundreds were attending the third annual race in Stratford to raise money for educational scholarships in Sotos name when, police said, Mills approached Jillian Soto. They said Mills shoved a photograph in the younger Sotos face and began angrily charging that not only did the Sandy Hook tragedy not take place, but that Victoria Soto never existed. Police said the photo was of the Soto family, including Victoria Soto, sitting on a seawall in Stratford. Jillian Soto became very upset at Mills actions and repeatedly asked him to leave her alone, but police said he persisted until officers arrived on the scene. He then ran off and was captured following a short foot chase with officers on Main Street, police said. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate STAMFORD The firm that signs off on the removal of asbestos in the citys 20 schools may have an inappropriate relationship with the company that assigns the work. AMC Environmental is responsible for testing for asbestos before and after remediation. The company is located at 622 Clinton Ave. in Bridgeport, the same address as AFB Construction Management, the firm that handles maintenance and repair contracts for Stamford schools. The Bridgeport building, which displays both companies names on a sign in the front yard, is owned by an eponymous limited liability corporation registered to Alfonso Barbarotta, AFBs chief executive officer. Barbarotta rejected suggestions Tuesday that it was improper for AMC to work in city schools on jobs assigned by AFB. They were established for years and years before we got here, said Barbarotta, who has worked with the Stamford school district since 1999. We didnt bring them in here. They were here long before us. Barbarottas contention is supported by district finance chief Hugh Murphy, who previously answered questions about AMC by email. AMC was hired years before AFB arrived by the city engineering department, Murphy wrote. However, records on file with the Connecticut Secretary of the State show AMC Environmental was incorporated in 2007. Barbarotta said the company was purchased by its current owners, Jason and Erin Pringle, from Anthony Vuozzo, a contractor who died in 2008. State records show Vuozzo as the owner of AMC Technologies, a Stratford firm that went defunct in 2009. Most recently, AMC has worked in the Stamford district as the on-site consultant for asbestos abatement at Stamford High School and Rippowam Middle School. The firms work in the district is funded through the districts 420 account, a line item for facilities maintenance managed by Barbarotta and AFB. City payment records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act state that AMC was paid about $291,000 over the past five years. Not all of that money was for work in the schools, city officials said. Lou Casolo, the citys top engineer, said Tuesday that his department has hired AMC in the past for small projects. A review conducted by The Advocate of the past five years of invoices filed by AMC to various city offices, however, showed that about 90 percent of the work AMC was paid for was handled by the districts facilities department, which AFB is contracted to run. Asked if AMC Environmental, owned by the Pringles, was affiliated with any of his companies, Barbarotta said no. They pay the rent to 622 Clinton Avenue Associates, Barbarotta said, adding that AMC under Vuozzo had longtime contracts in Stamford. In addition to Stamford schools, AFB manages schools in New Haven, East Haven and West Haven, Barbarotta said. AMC has no contracts in those districts. A woman who answered the phone at AMCs office last summer confirmed that AFB was her companys landlord. The woman, who declined to identify herself beyond indicating she and her husband owned the company, said the couple had worked on Stamford projects since 2007 Murphy told The Advocate that three other firms Hygenix Incorporated, Fuss & ONeill, and Belfor Property Restoration have done similar work in the district over the past five years. The bulk of that work, however, has been conducted under the auspices of capital projects run by the city engineering department outside of Barbarottas authority. Hygenix, based in Stamford, has done a significant amount of work in city schools on the removal of toxins such as asbestos and PCBs. Each of their invoices bears the stamp of city engineering and the date the documents were received. Similarly, Manchester-based Fuss & ONeill, which worked with the city on some of its Hurricane Sandy cleanup, has been contracted by the engineering department to oversee the removal of hazardous materials from schools such as Dolan, Cloonan, Turn of River and Northeast. Belfor, a Wallingford firm, has done mold remediation at Westover Magnet School and Westhill High School. When Barbarotta was asked if he had helped AMC secure any contracts in Stamford, Barbarotta gave an emphatic, God, no. Barbarotta has been accused of murky relationships with subcontractors in the past. Perennial Barbarotta foe and Trumbull First Selectman Tim Herbst accused the contractor in a 2013 report of concealing his relationship with Conveo Energy, a company Barbarotta pitched to the Trumbull Board of Education. In a defamation suit Barbarotta filed against Herbst last month, he said his affiliation to the energy company was well known and in no way concealed. Barbarottas involvement with the company, the complaint reads, was apparent from the distributed materials, which listed Conveos business address as AFBs own. Barbarotta insisted Monday that theres no conflict of interest between AFB and AMC, which now rents out Conveos old offices. The firm is simply his tenant, Barbarotta said. ESimko-Bednarski@scni.com; 203-964-2215; stamfordadvocate.com/news Advocate staff member Justin Papp contributed research to this report This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Thirty years ago on Thursday, four students and a chaperone from southwest Connecticut witnessed one of the worst space flight accidents before their very eyes: the Challenger space shuttle explosion. The four students from Norwalk and two from New Hampshire had won an essay contest sponsored by Norden Systems Inc. of Norwalk, then a subsidiary of United Technologies - the company that manufactured parts of the solid-rocket boosters attached to the Challenger. Seventy-three seconds after liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986 the solid-rocker boosters and the Challenger exploded, killing the seven astronauts on board Dick Scobee Michael Smith, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis and school teacher Christa McAuliffe. Unusually cold weather in the 20s that morning left Challenger's booster rockets with stiff O-ring seals; a leak in the right booster that doomed the ship. More News On the 30th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, a look back in photos McAuliffes tragic death has inspired generations of classroom teachers and students. It also lead to creation of 40 Challenger Learning Centers, focusing on science, technology, engineering and math. One of those centers is at the Discovery Museum in Bridgeport. Kenneth Craw, then a junior at a Norwalk High School also witnessed the explosion. He went on to become a middle school science teacher. Jennifer Knapp, now Jennifer Dinan, and John Bonhage were juniors at Brien McMahon High School in Norwalk when they witnessed the launch. On the 25th anniversary of the explosion, Dinan, who now lives in Stratford, recalled, When the actual explosion occurred, we did not realize that it had happened. I remember correctly, the crowd was still cheering when it actually happened, because they didn't know. And then a hush came over the crowd and everyone was murmuring." Bonhage also remembered the streaks of smoke and chemicals staining the January sky. You could see, when you looked up, one plume from takeoff all of the sudden turned into three different patterns of smoke in the sky that had gone in random directions," he said. So you knew something was up, but you're still hearing the take-off, the aluminum oxide crackling. That's what I remember. To read the full story of the then Norwalk students memories of seeing the explosion, click HERE. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 27 By Khalid Kazimov - Trend: An Iranian shipping line has denied reports regarding a fire incident on its ship sailing on the Volga River on Jan. 27, criticizing Russian and Kazakh media outlets for reporting false news. "If the reports regarding the fire incident somehow harm Iran's shipping lines, we can file a legal case in international organizations," Mehr news agency quoted Ali-Akbar Ghonji, the head of the Khazar Sea Shipping Lines, as saying. A refrigerator on board Iranian "Nardis" ship's kitchen discharged smoke due to a minor technical failure this morning, however the problem was resolved immediately, he added. Ghonji added that Kazakhs and Russians make attempts to exaggerate ordinary incidents on Iranian ships in order to show off Iranian shipping lines being low-standard and rusty. Saying that such incidents on ships are considered ordinary, he said that a Russian guide onboard the ship informed a nearby icebreaker ship about the technical problem, and then the news was leaked to the media outlets. He further added that the ship is safe and sound on its way to Iran's Anzali Port and it will dock on the port as scheduled. Even as the Connecticut Association of Realtors reported a double-digit percentage increase in December home sales that helped keep up momentum coming into this year, an executive with the states largest locally-based real estate agency said almost a third of the companys current listings are by homeowners planning to leave the state. Kent Hanley, executive vice president of sales for William Raveis Real Estate, disclosed the figure during a Tuesday economic forum at Gateway Community College in New Haven sponsored by Barnum Financial, with both firms based in Shelton. Raveis has 20 offices in Fairfield County and another 100 throughout the Northeast; its Stamford broker Michael Feldman is the 2016 president of the Connecticut Association of Realtors. The Connecticut exodus figure reported by Raveis is higher compared with its findings in other Northeast states, and surpasses U.S. Census Bureau data tracking household mobility between states. (It) is not the most welcome statistic that we like to see, Hanley said. A lot of people are moving out of state for tax purposes, as well as from a jobs perspective. Both perspectives have been in the Connecticut spotlight in January, following General Electrics (NYSE: GE) decision to move its headquarters to Boston in the summer, citing not just Connecticuts tax burden but also its ability to hire top talent in emerging fields like digital technology. Roberto Vannucchi, executive vice president of Connecticut operations for Douglas Elliman, said GEs departure has caused more hand-wringing than the actual economic impact of its departure might merit, and said in the Greenwich area there has been no perceptible increase in clients selling homes with plans to move out. In fact, he said multiple Greenwich clients have put their larger family homes on the market in an effort to downsize, but many of them buy a smaller domicile closer to town. Ever since GE announced their relocation, theres been a certain paranoia that, Oh my god, everyones fleeing the state of Connecticut, Vannucchi said on Wednesday. People are moving in and out of the state for any number of reasons, but I would not agree with the 30 percent number. According to Census Bureau estimates for 2014, 19.8 percent of moves in Connecticut involved a household leaving the state, with the overall figures including home sellers and renters as well. At least some of the latter category represent people searching for new apartments with better lease terms within their immediate neighborhood, numbers that would not be reflected in Raveis surveys that track the plans of people selling homes. As estimated by the Census Bureau, 13,300 Connecticut residents relocated to Massachusetts in 2013, versus 8,400 coming south for a net outflow of 4,900 people in all. Connecticut was able to overcome those losses with some 6,800 arrivals from New York, but in 2014 only 82,750 people moved into the state from elsewhere in the United States, versus 95,500 departing for other states, and the gap narrowed partially by new arrivals to Connecticut from foreign countries. If the household mobility numbers paint a conflicting picture, the states real estate sector is coming off a strong year, in part as renters shopped for their first homes. During the first 11 months of 2015, about 22,360 homes had sold in Fairfield County, according to data from the Connecticut Multiple Listing Service and peer organizations covering Greenwich, Darien and New Canaan a 6.4 percent increase from the same period in 2014. Still, that trailed a 9 percent increase statewide, with about 84,175 transactions completed through last November and New Haven County generating the largest increase at 14.3 percent. With GE employing 800 people in Fairfield, it is anyones guess how many of those homes will hit the market, as executives weigh whether to stay or go, not to mention other staffers who might leave the company and sell their homes if they find employment elsewhere; Also unknown is the degree to which any GE effect will have on the relocation survey figures captured by William Raveis. If we look at our portfolio, we have a very modest amount of personal loans (and) residential loans to GE employees, said Jack Barnes, CEO of Peoples United Financial, in a conference call with investment analysts last week. When you really stop and think about it, some of those mortgages are 20 years old and some are 10 years old and some are a couple years old Theyre talking about 200 people going from Connecticut, so again, when you think about the real estate market and other things, we dont expect it to be significant. Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-964-2236; www.twitter.com/casoulman Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 By Khalid Kazimov - Trend: Iran is seeking foreign and domestic investment for a project to transfer water from north of the country to central areas, a senior official said. Alireza Daemi, the deputy energy minister for planning affairs, has said that the best way for implementing the project is through foreign and domestic investment, Fars news agency reported. According to the plan, the country will filter and transfer 200 million cubic meters of water annually from the Caspian Sea to the Great Salt Desert (Kavir-e Markazi in Persian, a large desert lying in the middle of the Iranian plateau) including the Semnan Province, he said. Given the amount of water in the Caspian Sea the project will not have a negative impact on its water level, the official added. In October 2012, the Iranian energy ministry received the permission to transfer water from the Caspian Sea to central parts. In December 2013, Iranian deputy energy minister Sattar Mahmoudi said that Iran has finished preliminary studies for transferring water from the Caspian Sea to inland. However, Iran's Environment Protection Organization opposed the plan suggesting the project may harm the ecosystem. A ndrew Bailey, head of the Prudential Regulation Authority and soon to be head of the Financial Conduct Authority, has ordered a full investigation of senior executives at the head of HBOS when it nearly collapsed and had to be taken over by Lloyds Bank. The FCA and PRA launched a full enforcement investigation into certain former HBOS senior managers. It declined to name them but said they could be banned from working in financial services for life. Last years report into the failure of HBOS by the same two regulators identified 10 executives as part of the near-collapse. These included the chairman Lord Stevenson and two chief executives James Crosby and Andy Hornby. The report also identified former finance chief Mike Ellis, now chairman of Skipton building society, Colin Matthew, who ran the international division of HBOS, and Lindsay Mackay, who ran the treasury operation. Last years much-delayed report said the bank, which had to be rescued by Lloyds which was then bailed out with 20 billion of taxpayers money during the height of the crisis, failed to set an appropriate strategy, and also failed to challenge a flawed business model that placed inappropriate reliance on continuous growth without due regard to the risks involved. An accompanying report by senior QC Andrew Green was highly critical of the FCAs predecessor, the Financial Services Authority, over its decision to investigate only one HBOS director Peter Cummings, who was banned and fined 500,000 in 2012. Green, at the time, said it was clearly in the public interest that that decision should be reconsidered. He did, however, say it was right not to have investigated Crosby, who forfeited his knighthood and gave up 30% of his pension entitlement in 2013. The FCA and PRA, led by Bailey, now have the power only to ban the executives they are investigating from working in the City or any senior role in financial services for life. The time limits to impose fines on them have passed. The regulators could attempt fines if they discovered material new information or evidence in their new investigation but this is highly unlikely given the amount of time and effort that has already been expended on various HBOS inquiries. Today the regulators would only say: These investigations will determine whether or not any prohibition proceedings should be commenced against them. The FCA and PRA continue to review materials with a view to making further decisions regarding other former HBOS senior managers. They declined to say how many people are the subject of this new investigation. Andrew Tyrie, head of the Treasury Select Committee, said: It is a welcome move that the issues raised by Andrew Green are being taken up and considered. C orporate bosses reactions to the Google tax row is less overwhelmingly pro-the tax avoiders than youd expect. Naturally, the likes of Rupert Murdoch, whose media interests arent exactly aligned with the free-to-air search engine, is bitterly opposed to its behaviour, but its not just him. Others, particularly those with bricks and mortar operations which cant be shifted to Dublin or Bermuda, are equally incensed: We pay tax at 20%, plus ever-rising business rates, they howl, yet the worlds most profitable corporations pay nothing! More still particularly those at big consumer-facing companies talk of how Google is further damaging trust between business and the public, leaving a nasty taste in the mouth and customers felling disengaged. From the unscientific tally of conversations Ive had, though, a clear majority sympathise with the tech giants: nobody wants to pay tax so why not find legal ways to avoid it? One Footsie boss in this latter camp cited the no-taxation-without-representation principal. Big firms pay the biggest taxes, yet they dont get a vote, he fumed. Whatever your view, everyone in business seems to agree on one thing: the tax code is way too long and complicated. It needs simplifying and unifying across Europe and, ideally, the world. The fewer the rules, the fewer the loopholes. I ts easy to be sceptical about TSBs claim to be running a quasi-John Lewis partnership when the boss has just trousered 1.3 million. But I detect a genuine effort to improve the banks ethos. Staff were told on Thursday theyre getting an annual share of the banks profits totalling 12.5% of their pay nice to have as the Christmas credit card bills bite. When TSB split from Lloyds, chief executive Paul Pester tore up the old bonus structure which arguably tempted staff to mis-sell products such as PPI. Rather than sales targets, employees were rewarded for service and customer satisfaction. According to TSB, 80% of staff earn more under the new incentives. That leaves 20% who might not be so happy. One of these just tried, and failed, to sue TSB for unfair dismissal. She was fired because, although she excelled in selling PPI and earned big bonuses, she fared badly under the new customer-focused regime, allegedly being overly direct with customers and incorrectly filling in paperwork so theyd be approved for loans they shouldnt have. The judge ruled against her and said TSB was justified in trying to change the culture. Thats as good an ad as Pester could wish for. T he world's biggest smartphone maker Samsung has fuelled fears that the era of booming smartphone sales is at an end after a slump in sales triggered a shock profit warning. Just days after the worlds number two smartphone maker Apple chilled investors with a warning about slowing iPhone sales, the South Korean giant said 2016 profits would probably fail to live up to those achieved in 2015. The company, led by billionaire tycoon Lee Kun-hee, said it would see weaker single-digit growth amid softening demand and intensifying competition, echoing Apple's report of softness in China and Hong Kong. Overall quarterly figures for the final three months of 2015 added to the gloom, showing a 40% slump in net profits versus last year. Total sales for 2015 fell by 5.6 trillion won (3.2 billion) to 200.65 trillion won versus the prior 12 months, held lower by its component business which was hit by falling global prices for the chips its makes for LCD devices like TVs and PC screens. "The fundamental problem is the penetration of smartphones has reached high levels across the whole world." The figures will alarm investors who have made a bet on a ballooning smartphone sales led by growing demand from burgenoning middle classes in China, India and Brazil. Despite previous growth rates of 25% to 30% in the past five years, the number of new smartphone users globally is declining, hurting these rates. The fundamental problem is the penetration of smartphones has reached high levels across the whole world and there is no more growth from increasing it, Liberum tech analyst Janardan Menon said. This was a market which grew at up to 50% and now you are looking at single digit growth. Its the same story for any new technology product, everything reaches this stage. PCs reached it and unfortunately when this happens, price and margin pressures start increasing. The problem was underscored by Samsungs vaunted Galaxy S6 handset launch last April. Despite boasting top of the range specifications, it failed to repeat same success of previous Samsung phones with customers shunning the device. Shares in Samsung, which is listed in Seoul, finished 2.6% lower. The stock has declined by 9% overall since the turn of January. The group, which also confirmed plans to buy back 2.99 trillion won of stock as part of a buyback programme, said it shipped 97 million handsets during the final quarter and 9 million tablets. A slight quarter on quarter decrease in smartphone shipments due to a year-end inventory adjustment and an increased portion of the mid- to low-end products led to the decline in sales while a seasonal increase in marketing expenses slightly impacted profit, the company said. Despite dominating global smartphone sales, Samsung lags in the lucractive Chinese market, where it is squeezed by behind cheaper phones made by Huawei and Xiaomi and higher end models made by Apple. Apple sparked concern on Tuesday when it said iPhone sales last quarter grew at their slowest pace since the iconic phone was originally launched in 2007. Apple predicts fall in iPhone sales It sold 74.77 million of the handsets for the three months ending 26 December, less than a 1% increase on the 2014 quarter when 74.5 million were sold. Revenue forecasts for January to March were also downgraded to between 50 billion and 53 billion, a level which would be the companys first quarterly decline since 2003. S erial director and publisher Gail Rebuck shares the secrets of her success, including knowing your core role, setting boundaries and learning from setbacks. What do you do? Im chair of Penguin Random House UK and sit on the management committee of its co-owner, Bertelsmann. I am also chair of the Royal College of Art and Cheltenham Literature Festival and have two non-executive directorships as well as working with literacy charities. I often travel abroad for meetings but generally only for short lengths of time. I am also a member of the House of Lords and try to attend every afternoon. What do you like about your work? Its really stimulating that in any one day I may work on four or five totally different issues. "If you fail, fail fast and move on." Although theyre very varied, most of my jobs are in the creative field, which is my passion. But although Im busy, I also have time to think more deeply, which I probably didnt when I was running Random House for all those years. What challenges do you face? Even when I was a chief executive, I always did other things like launching World Book Day and being on the board of BSkyB. When youre a CEO, you know what your core job is. You prioritise that and allot time to other jobs accordingly. Thats not the case when you have a portfolio of part-time roles like I do now. The problem is theyre amoeba-like and can grow and grow so you have to manage your time really carefully. Its also unpredictable: you never know quite where the next problems going to occur. What was your biggest break? That was when the publisher Anthony Cheetham asked if Id like to join him in setting up our own publishing house, Century, in 1982. There werent many publishing start-ups in those days. Traditionally, new books would first be produced in hardback for review purposes and would only get the full marketing thrust when they went into paperback. We were all from paperback backgrounds and thought we could bring that marketing discipline to hardbacks. It worked! We were bought in 1989 by Random House, and in 1991 I took over as chief executive of what was then one of the largest publishing groups in the UK. What was your biggest setback? I became CEO literally overnight and found we had a serious problem with our distribution business in Tiptree, where we physically distributed our books, and those of more than 60 client publishers. Theyd installed a new warehouse management system and it was going wrong. I mean really wrong books in the wrong boxes, being dispatched to the wrong places. Its still known as one of the worst distribution meltdowns in publishing history. I was no expert in physical distribution so I hired specialist consultants to sort it out but they still couldnt get it fixed. In the end, I realised I had to go and take charge myself. For several months, I was getting up at 4am to be in Colchester in time for the daytime shift while we got it sorted. On my first day, I went to Goods In and said: Right, Im a book. What happens to me? They took me all the way through the system until I understood the whole process. The solution turned out to be quite simple but local management had just been overwhelmed and needed someone to come in with fresh eyes. I learned that even when somethings completely out of your sphere, if you concentrate, using the right expertise, you can make things work. How do you juggle your work and personal life? When I was young, I was all work. I lived for it and felt passionately about what I was doing. But when I had my daughters in 1986 and 1989, I realised I had to set some boundaries. I would try to get home by 6pm for three or four nights a week and put them to bed, often working afterwards or even going back out. I had to become far more organised and ruthless about my working time. My husband [New Labour adviser Philip Gould], died in 2011 but he was around to see the children grow up. He worked in politics, so he did pretty unsocial hours too. What tips do you have for those starting out in business? Follow your instincts, take risks and learn from failure but dont overthink it. Like in the tech world, if you fail, fail fast and move on. Bring passion into what you do and commit to it with a sense of purpose. R eflecting on the life of Gandhi, George Orwell opened a celebrated essay with the words: Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proven innocent. In recent years, and partly because earlier generations awarded them a more saintly status, the British public has adapted this excellent maxim by substituting the word MPs at the beginning of it. You may have noticed by now that I have made it the business of this column to occasionally defend politicians (while mostly slating them) on the grounds that, like proper journalists, they are a boon to democracy. To that end, I think you should know about something called the UK Life Sciences Strategy. Published early in the last parliament, and co-authored by Rohan Silva, my fellow columnist in these pages, it invested huge energy and resources behind the biological knowledge that generates a trade surplus of more than 5 billion and employs nearly 200,000 people in more than 5,000 companies. To take just one example of what this has achieved, we have now built 13 Genomic Medicine Centres around the country. These use information from our genomes to improve clinical care. It has life-saving consequences in fields as diverse as oncology and pharmacology. Together with the revolution in patient data, where you can access health records and advice from the smartphone in your pocket, it will change healthcare everywhere. Britain is leading the way, as part of a Life Sciences Strategy which, when reviewed two years ago, had already made notable progress in eight of 13 key areas. Have you heard about any of this? If not, can I suggest why? Two words: George Freeman. The Tory MP for Mid-Norfolk is precisely the kind of politician you never hear about because he is at least as interested in doing things as being things. He spent more than a decade working in the life science industry and, more than perhaps anyone else in Whitehall, now owns the strategy in government. For that privilege he has taken a whopping pay-cut and put an unbearable strain on his family life. Do we really think extracting this price and inflicting this toll makes better public servants of our MPs? Who knows what scandal will afflict him in years to come but Freeman has been improving the nations prospects for a while. He knows, as few know, that at its best politics oscillates between the tedious, the menial and the vital. Not for him the fanfare of breakfast talk radio or attendant cameras on every factory visit. Modern politics, a noble profession staffed by ignoble amateurs, is more mundane than that. Once upon a time we thought of MPs as saints. Then we were shocked when they turned out not to be spared the peccadilloes common to man. This shock, and the ensuing disgust, has spawned a rancid political culture that makes zeros out of heroes, casting the likes of obscure George Freeman as geeky, boring even though our lives depend on him. Our culture is too crude and rude to give MPs their due, and when the history of our time is written by those who missed it, few will attach glory to the plodding Englishman without retinue and renown. Yet unbeknown to a sedated electorate more interested in trivialities, it is just such men and women who spare us the burden of having to care. N ick Ferguson, now chairman of Sky, famously said when he worked in private equity how disgraceful it was that government policies designed to stimulate his industry meant his tax rate was lower than that of his office cleaner. But even in his wildest dreams Ferguson could surely not have conceived of a time when Google, a company employing 2,400 people in this country and which makes a notional profit here estimated at 1 billion-plus, could pay UK profits tax at the equivalent of just three per cent. Forget the cleaners even small businesses, which the Government says are the lifeblood of the economy, cant get away with that. They pay a minimum of 20 per cent. Googles take is rather different. In a letter to the Financial Times this morning it said it believed the profit arising in the UK derived only from the value added by its activity here, and this was nowhere near the above estimate. It stresses that it complied with the law and the tax it has agreed to pay amounts to 20 per cent this lower number. Google is not alone. In recent years there has been growing anger as the public have become aware of the many legal but morally doubtful tax avoidance strategies employed by multinational companies. They would probably be even angrier if they knew how long it has been going on. Some City accountants have been vaguely embarrassed for years at how US companies, having bought British businesses such as Asda or Cadbury, would load them up with debt to extinguish their profits. Another wheeze was to divert revenues offshore to pay new licence fees and royalties to an entity conveniently located in Switzerland. But the companies got away with it because it was largely below the radar, and besides governments were generally keen to encourage foreign takeovers and investment here and did not want to frighten the horses. Being open for business meant not making a fuss. So tax avoidance is nothing new but it has become much more widespread. After seven years of austerity and 20 years without a decent pay rise the public has become understandably much less tolerant of it. It has become more prevalent because the nature of companies has changed. And companies have lost their moral compass as business schools have taught a generation of young executives that greed is good and anything (legal) goes as long as it increases profits. Companies used to be inseparable from the communities where their factories were located and felt a loyalty to them. Their employees produced stuff on the ground or stacked in the warehouses that tax inspectors could verify and value so there was little scope for argument. Companies did not want to argue anyway, provided they thought the tax they were asked to pay was fair. The technology giants that are the leaders in todays world have much of their value not in factories but in intellectual property, meaning their software, search engines and algorithms. They operate across the globe, making full use of the web. Then they contrive through various electronic book entries to show that the value was added and their profits for tax purposes created in havens such as Luxembourg in Amazons case or in Bermuda via Ireland for Google, rather than in the countries where most observers would believe the work was done. Tax authorities struggling with codes and processes which are more steam engine than silicon chip find it almost impossible to pin them down. And if they do get too aggressive, the companies threaten to take their ball away and play somewhere else, to relocate to another country. Part of the problem is governments want it both ways they want the tax but they also want to create the impression that this is a low-tax, business-friendly place. And it works. Companies such as Apple and Dell did not build facilities in Ireland because the weather made a nice change from California, they did it because corporation tax in Ireland was 12.5 per cent before allowances. Thus a central plank of George Osbornes strategy has been progressively to reduce the rate of corporation tax in part to persuade British-based multinationals to bring money home and partly to bring in other companies from overseas. The trouble is it is in effect a race to the bottom, in which the difference between Britain and Bermuda is one of degree not of principle. This plays into the hands of companies that can simply threaten to leave if confronted with something they dont like. So the first thing governments could do particularly in the EU is agree they all charge the same rate of tax, or decree that companies using tax havens are competing unfairly and use this as an excuse to whack extra duties on products. 'Part of the problem is governments want it both ways they want the tax but they also want to create the impression that this is a low-tax, business-friendly place' But simply to suggest these is to underline how unlikely they are and even more so when you include the US. Corporate lobbyists there would destroy the careers of any politician who tried to push something they did not like through Congress. The truth that dare not speak its name but which was articulated in a letter to the FT from Green MEP Molly Scott Cato on Monday is the number of politicians within EU member states who prefer to cosy up to corporations rather than do what their electorate wants. These difficulties have prompted governments to turn to the OECD to create a global code of conduct. But the OECD has no real clout. It has had some success in bullying tiny tax havens but it has yet to score a like on Facebook, still less force a change of practice at Amazon, Starbucks, Google and the rest. This prompts defeatists to say the whole attempt to tax profits is doomed and they may be right. But that probably means we should work internationally to agree on another way to tax multinational companies which could, for example, be on the proportion of their turnover arising in any specific country, or simpler still, as a standard levy on every item they sell. While these measures would be less open to abuse, they still require governments to co-operate on tax if they are to be watertight. It would also suggest that the rest of us would have to pay more tax as well. That probably explains why, in spite of the political rhetoric, the will to change is still not there. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 By Farhad Daneshvar - Trend: Iran and France are set to sign 20 business deals, including the deal on purchase of Airbus aircraft within the coming hours. The deals are expected to be signed on the sidelines of a meeting between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his French counterpart Francois Hollande today, Iran's state run Radio VIRI reported. The report added that the contracts on Airbus, Peugeot Citroen, oil and gas as well as transportation will be signed this evening on the sidelines of the meeting. Under the terms of the contract which is expected to be signed within the upcoming hours, Airbus will be committed to deliver the aircraft to Iran as soon as possible. Iran Khodro and Peugeot Citroen are expected to establish a new company in Iran. The company will manufacture Peugeot 208, 2008 and 301 as of the second half of 2017. Rouhani who arrived in Paris on Jan. 27, met with a group of French entrepreneurs and ministers at his arrival to discuss expansion of trade ties. "Within the framework of the current policies of the Iranian government France is again to become active in Iran, with new energy and strengthened will," said Rouhani. "We are here to welcome all investors and economic managers to cooperate with Iran," Rouhani told the French businessmen. We are now ready to open new chapter in ties between the two countries, he added. W hen I was four, I thought women ran the world. The Queen ruled over her people, Margaret Thatcher over Parliament, and my mother over her progeny (sorry, Pa). It was only after Thatchers ousting that I realised this triumvirate was an anomaly. I was growing up in a mans world. But 2016 or so Ive been telling myself was going to be the year when the ultimate glass ceiling would be smashed. Come November 9, Hillary Clinton would be suffering the grandmother of all hangovers, deeply regretting dancing to Katy Perrys Roar after her victory speech (already a meme). The Oval Office would be hers, a boon to pantsuit and scrunchie sales, geeky teenagers with terrible glasses and yes, to women. Over the past couple of weeks, though, my dream has started to fade as Bernie Sanders has eaten into Clintons lead. I dont even have a vote but I am wholeheartedly Team Hillary. Yet, contrary to what critics routinely claim about feminists, I dont want Clinton to be President just because shes female. Id guess of the 158.6 million women in the US there might be 10 who could be credible presidential candidates, so thats 158,599,990 women I wouldnt support. You can exclude most Republicans too. Theres no point shattering that ceiling if the shards of glass end up cutting other women. What I desperately dont want, though, is for Clintons sex to be what stops her from winning the Democrats nomination. Clinton is the most qualified of the presidential contenders. She is also the most criticised. If Sanders got the nod, he could expect to be lampooned in the way she has but Clinton has had nearly a quarter of a century of it and is still fighting. That speaks of extraordinary resilience. There is the stench of sexism around so much thats fired her way. In fact, shes started to embody many of the problems women experience in the workplace. Shes too robotic! Shes too emotional! Shes bashed repeatedly for mistakes shes made, yet her male counterparts seem to be handed get-out-of-trouble passes for greater sins. Ive heard American women say that while theyre Democrats, and would like a woman in the White House, they dont want it to be Clinton. Here, I think theyre making the mistake of thinking that the first woman President has to be the perfect female candidate. She doesnt: she just needs to be better than all the men running. I think that feeling stems from the way women are routinely made to represent all other women, like an unfunny female comedian being used to write off all the rest, while an unfunny male comedian never is. Clinton will bring maternity rights to the forefront in the US. But I also think shell spark a global cultural shift. In a meeting of ageism and sexism, lifes second innings has been the preserve of men. If the leader of the free world is a 69-year-old female, how could we still treat women over 50 as invisible? Forget girl power, lets make way for grandmother power. Part of Clintons struggle is being the Establishment candidate. The Americans famously hate a coronation (if she beats Sanders by a small margin this may actually play to her advantage). Branding her Establishment though ignores how revolutionary it would be to have a woman in the White House. It will also mean more four-year-old girls who think being a woman is no obstacle to running the world. Hollywood is still selling women short Adam McKay director of The Big Short has spoken about the Oscars So White controversy. I think its a legitimate complaint, he told the Huffington Post. I think more diversity is important. Which sounds great. Except that he has made not only an incredibly white film but a deliberately, defiantly male one. In his words: The irony is, we had to make a movie about Wall Street, which is mostly white men. So it was a little frustrating for us but thats the truth of Wall Street, we had to do it. But did they really have to? Did Margot Robbie need to be in a bath to talk about subprime mortgages? Did the camera have to play perve at Selena Gomez while she was explaining synthetic CDOs? These are subjects everyone should understand; to present actresses as mere titillation risks alienating female viewers. I wrote last week about how super analyst Meredith Whitney has been cut from the film. Since then, lots of men most of whom havent seen it, nor read the book have told me Im wrong to claim sexism. Its about masculinity gone wild, they said. But thats not what the film is about: its about the clever souls who saw through the machismo. And one of them happened to be a woman. As for McKay, his response is a cop-out: he seems to believe diversity is somebodys elses to deliver. Keep hedgehog death off the road The Stop HS2 campaign has a new weapon in its arsenal: the plight of the humble hedgehog. Mrs Tiggy-Winkle and her stickly-prickly relatives have their last central London refuge in Regents Park but now risk being squished under the HS2 lorries using the London Zoo car park. All those of us who were mentally scarred as children by the death toll in Animals of Farthing Wood (Game of Thrones but for kids, according to my colleague Guy Pewsey) will fear this wont end well. This hedgehog haven in the omphalos of our capital a scintilla of the wild in the midst of the man-made deserves protection. The campaign to prevent a Farthing Wood re-enactment now boasts the historian Tom Holland, dynastic leader Stanley Johnson and Tulip Siddiq MP. Ill be adding my name to that list. * I read yesterday while eating a Pret sarnie at my desk that the long lunch was officially dead. No one drinks any more so those blotto afternoons napping at the desk are lost to history. Which makes sense: were all so scared of the sack that we darent be unproductive. What makes no sense is a disturbing new trend Ive noticed: people asking to meet you at 1pm for a coffee. I dont mind a truncated meal but it must involve food. S tanley Tucci is so neat, so trim, so sharply dressed in a formal suit, that, sitting in a suite at Claridges, as part of the round of publicity for his latest film, Spotlight, hes reduced to picking fluff off the sofa hes sitting on, since theres certainly none on him, as he carefully considers his reply to what he thinks about the current row about the Oscars and their lack of diversity. I dont know, he says. I didnt know the voting demographic was what it was, or is what it is. I think its interesting thats all Im going to say. I think the awards are great because more people will go see your movie, particularly a movie such as Spotlight, and I think thats really important for small movies. We put a huge amount of onus on awards and maybe we shouldnt do that, he concludes, that last phrase spoken differently, like a whispered secret, italics audible. Competition is anathema to art. Thats it, in a nutshell, to me. Spotlight, which tells the story of how, in 2002, a small team of investigative journalists at the Boston Globe exposed the Catholic Churchs cover-up of the activities of more than 70 paedophile priests in the city, isnt that small a film any more. Its up for six Oscars, and is reckoned by some to be the frontrunner for Best Picture. Spotlight Exclusive Interview With Cast & Crew As it happens, Tuccis only Oscar nomination was for playing a killer of young girls in The Lovely Bones (2009). At the time, he expressed some discomfort about having to inhabit the part although its Tuccis likeability that made him convincing, so initially plausible to his victims: I knew it would be painful and I cant read books or see movies in which children are harmed, he said then. Now he adds: Not that they shouldnt be made just that I cant watch them. In Spotlight, he plays an Armenian lawyer, Mitch Garabedian, who has dedicated his life to seeking justice for the victims of abuse and he appears bad-tempered and scary, before you realise that hes actually a good person. Did that part in The Lovely Bones inform the role? In some way I think so, maybe it was an antidote. Your biggest fear as a parent is for anything to happen to your kid. Also, the extent of the abuse and the cover-up was so profound its important to tell the story again and again. Tuccis serious role comes as a surprise after his campy turns in The Devil Wears Prada, as the queeny Count in A Little Chaos and above all as the monstrous reality show host Caesar Flickerman in The Hunger Games, a role he once admitted live to Graham Norton he had based partly on him deftly adding the intelligence is yours. Star quality and seriosuly sharp: Stanley Tucci / Jay Brooks / Camera Press Before Ive got halfway through a question about playing so many memorably camp roles, Tucci cheerily breaks in: Im a cheap ham. Then he explains that when he was asked to play the gay nightclub owner in Burlesque, hed said I just dont know if I want to play another gay character. But the producer asked: Stanley, why is it when a heterosexual actor is asked to play a gay character a number of times they feel that theres a limit, but if theyre asked to play a heterosexual character theres no limit? I said, OK, youre right and then ultimately, if its well-written, thats the most important thing. He has always been careful to avoid being typecast, especially as Italian, he says. It took years to avoid that. When I started out, with the Italians the roles were generic and the person was a mafioso and they were evil. Italians were always innately evil. We know this not to be the case, he says, drily. It was insulting having grown up as an Italian-American both sides Italian and there was a certain point where I just stopped taking those roles. Spotlight - Trailer Having lived all his life in New York, Tucci moved to London four years ago. In 2009, his wife Kate, with whom he had had three children, died of breast cancer, aged 47. In 2012, he married Felicity Blunt, some 20 years his junior, the elder sister of his co-star in The Devil Wears Prada, Emily Blunt, at whose wedding they had met. Having trained as a barrister, Felicity now works as a literary agent and in January last year they had their first child, Matteo. Tucci tries to be as dry about him as everything else Hes great, hes very funny. Thats good, because otherwise, you know, forget it, hed be out but hes proud. I never imagined when my wife died that I would marry a person so much younger. I never had any interest in it I wonder if he has any advice for people in a similar age-gap relationship? I never imagined when my wife died that I would marry a person so much younger. I never had any interest in it and honestly Im not just saying that to not sound like a lech. I had no interest. I wanted to be with someone my own age, or even older, because of my vanity, he says, quite straightforwardly. But my wife, first of all, is so much more mature than me that her actual years dont mean anything. Shes an extraordinary step-parent and her affection for my children and their affection for her eclipsed any age gap. I did say to her once that Im sad Ill never see her get old, because I would like to be there and I wont be. Although you never know ... if I keep exercising and drinking martinis... Extraordinary: Tucci playing lawyer Mitch Garabedian alongside Mark Ruffalo in Spotlight, which is up for six Oscars and tipped to win Best Picture / Open Road Films Tucci, 55 and 5ft 8in, is in great shape, working out at least five times a week. I do it at home and I go to the gym. Today Im not exercising, which makes me anxious. And was the move to London the family live in Barnes easy? He laughs. Its fantastic. Look, come on, were in Claridges. I love it, its a great city just driving around today, you just look over, and say, oh my God, look at the architecture, look at the Thames, its incredible. Its a very high-functioning city, it has so much to offer, the cultural diversity is amazing, the NHS is an amazing thing. Its great. It was a very easy transition for me. Once Id figured how to top up my Oyster card. Is it permanent? Yeah nothings permanent but its as permanent as it can be. I have a place in America but Im here. Can he imagine President Trump? Nope! he says firmly, then corrects himself. Well, I can imagine it but I dont want to. I can imagine anything, thats my job. I tell him he could play him yeah! he agrees although hed need a hell of a wig. Suddenly I remember reading that one reason hed spent so much time on public transport in London is that hed had trouble passing the theory in his driving test, repeatedly failing on hazard-perception. But now hes driving again? I got my licence! he says gleefully. I took my driving test two weeks ago and passed. I was so nervous! Oh my God, Id been driving for 39 years. You have to basically unlearn all these little habits that you have. The fellow passed me but he did say, Mr Tucci, you do have to make sure that you look in your mirrors. He beams. I dont care whats behind me. I feel like a 16-year-old. Spotlight is in cinemas from tomorrow Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout Review at a glance I n these dree and dreary days of January, London needs something to cheer itself up and the answer might very well be the Vault Festival. Some old railway arches near Waterloo will become, for six non-stop weeks, an ingenious hub of creativity offering eight performance venues, a panoply of shows and a variety of food and drink. Come for one evening and you might decide to burrow underground here until spring. Opening the theatre line-up in some style this first week is Echoes, Henry Naylors striking pair of intertwined monologues about two young British women who set out from Ipswich with ideals and adventure on their minds. Tilly (Felicity Houlbrooke), a forward-looking Victorian, joins the Fishing Fleet in search of a husband in colonial India; present-day student Samira (Filipa Braganca) is off to the would-be caliphate of Islamic State. Despite their seeming differences, what amazes are the similarities that Naylor adroitly draws between these bright, articulate and naive women who have both been taught to put their trust in the words and deeds of men. Disillusionment inevitably follows; we could happily listen to Houlbrooke and Braganca for far longer than a mere 55 minutes. Echoes until January 31; Vault Festival until March 6, The Vaults (0871 220 0260, vaultfestival.com) Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout H ow many of your Facebook friends actually care when it comes to your gloomy statuses? The answer is only a handful, if a new study is to be believed. A researcher at Oxford University conducted a test to find out just how strong the bonds are between friends on the social media platform, and how this correlates to real-life friendship. The study analyzed the different boundaries set in virtual relationships that overlap real-life friendships in order to determine how many of users social-media friends can truly be relied upon in reality. According to the study, people who have 150 friends on Facebook can only rely on 4.1 of them during an emotional crisis, and only 13.6 ever express sympathy. Professor Robin Dunbar, who conducted the study, believes we tend to have five intimate friends, 15 best friends, 50 good friends, 150 friends, 500 acquaintances and 1500 people we can recognise on the site. But despite having several hundreds of online friends, when respondents were asked how many of their Facebook friends they considered to be genuine friends, they considered just 20 percent to be close pals. The study also outlined a limit of 150 friends, which he called the Dunbar Number, which claims that it is impossible for people to have more than 150 friends. The best apps for Londoners 1 /16 The best apps for Londoners Zip car Join, reserve, unlock and drive it really is that simple. The capitals preferred car clubs app gives 24/7 access to cars and vans in your neighbourhood and lets you extend or cancel reservations on the go. Free Uncover Sick of being stuck on waiting lists? You need Uncover, which redistributes cancelled reservations at some of the capitals top restaurants, including The River Cafe and Nobu. Not for planning freaks, though tables typically become free at 40 minutes notice. Free Uber So popular its become a verb, this private driver service has revolutionised travel in the capital. Its speedy and affordable, making it a welcome alternative to the night bus. Free Santander Cycles Launched this summer, the official app for Boris fifth child can be used to search for nearby docking stations and check bike availability. Theres also a journey planner featuring easy, moderate and fast routes to satisfy all cycling tribes. Free Plume Air Report This new app has been downloaded by 3,000 Londoners. Sensors gathering air pollution data submit updates every hour, resulting in a scale that ranges from fresh to extremely polluted. Free Nightcapp Heres an app that will have booze hounds raising their glasses. NightCapp is a map that pinpoints more than 1,500 London watering holes that stay open past 11.30pm. It also shows users when a bar is about to close by highlighting it in orange. Better get moving. Free Money Dashboard An award-winning budget planner, this helps you keep track of personal spending across multiple accounts, pay off credit cards and even makes suggestions on how to manage your finances better. Free Her Promising to introduce women to a lesbian that hasnt slept with any of your friends, this revamped dating app includes queer-themed news and blogs, upcoming event notices and an improved algorithm-matching system. Free FoodMood This new startup, which reckons its Tinder for food, pledges to narrow down your choice of lunchbreak destinations. Hit yum or yuk on photos of dishes in your area. Juvenile, but strangely addictive. Free Daily Yoga This offers more than 50 yoga sessions, as well as a database of 500 yoga poses. Suitable for all levels, programmes include yoga aimed at specific areas of the body and weight loss. Namaste to that. Free Coffee Meets Bagel Billed as the anti-Tinder, this new kid on the block delivers just a single match to users once a day. Coffee Meets Bagel uses Facebook profile information to recommend suitors based on friends of friends. Neither coffee nor bagels are included. Free. Bristlr Do you have a beard? Perhaps youd like to stroke one on a regular basis? This can be arranged. Unlike other dating apps, Bristlr is unashamedly all about hooking up the hairy with the hairless. Theres even a beard-rating option for aficionados. Free And surprisingly, the total number of Facebook friends one has didn't seem to matter when it comes to the number of significant relationships. You could have thousands of friends and still only a handful of reliable mates. Respondents who had unusually large networks did not increase the numbers of close friendships they had but, rather, added more loosely defined acquaintances into their friendship circle simply because most social-media sites do not allow one to differentiate between these layers, Professor Dunbar said. Time to cut down your Facebook friends list? Follow us on Twitter: @eslifeandstyle F rom a puffin in flight on Wales Skomer Island to Yangons bustling fish market in Myanmar, this years National Geographic Traveller competition collects some of the most breathtaking sights across the globe. Now in its fifth year, the contest aims to unearth the best hidden talent in Britain, showcasing nature and travel photography from all corners of planet Earth. The shortlisted winners are competing across several different categories including: Action, Nature, People, Urban, Mobile, Video and Portfolio. The overall category champions will be sent on a photographic commission to destinations including Tanzania, Vietnam, Abu Dhabi, Italy and Iceland on behalf of National Geographic Traveller. The Harsh Life of the Arctic (Picture: Agnes Proudhon-Smith) / Agnes Proudhon-Smith Pat Riddell, editor, National Geographic Traveller said: Weve been incredibly impressed with the response and high standard of submissions to our annual Photography Competition. "With more prizes and opportunities for a commission available this year, the competition quality was extremely high. Dont miss February 13, when well reveal our winners and explain why we think they stand out. The winners of the National Geographic UK Photo Competition will be announced at the Outdoor Adventure & Travel Show at Londons ExCeL on 13th February: telegraphoutdoorshow.co.uk Follow us on Twitter: @eslifeandstyle A shop owner left a note saying he would be back in 20 minutes shortly before he was detained by US marshals in a Texas shopping centre on suspicion of a murder in London 19 years ago. Foyjur Rahman, 44, was today appearing at Uxbridge magistrates court after being extradited on suspicion of killing a takeaway driver in Islington in 1997. He has been charged over the murder of father-of-two Abdus Samad, 25, in Alwyne Villas, Canonbury, in May that year. Mr Samad was lured to an address with a bogus delivery order and attacked by two masked men. He later died from his injuries. Rahman, 44, was detained outside his store in the Music City Mall in Odessa last month by undercover US police. He had left the hand-written note on the front of his shop which said: I will be back in 20-30 minutes, or 1pm. After agreeing to extradition, he was arrested by detectives at Heathrow. In 2012, Mohiuddin Bablu, 40, was convicted of Mr Samads murder after he was extradited from Bangladesh. He was jailed for a minimum of 18 years after a trial at the Old Bailey. American court documents allege that shortly after the murder Rahman fled to the United States, where he eventually set up shop. A woman was sexually assaulted by a gang of four teenagers in a north London street. Detectives in Enfield have appealed for information after the attack took place in Mottingham Road, Edmonton, on Sunday at 9.15pm by a group of boys believed to be aged about 17. One of the youths was believed to be carrying a knife. Police today released descriptions of the four suspects and appealed for any witnesses to contact them. One is described as black, who was seen wearing a black baggy jacket, a black scarf covering all of his face. He also wore black jeans and black trainers. Another youth is described as black, wearing dark blue jeans, a black puffer jacket with his face also covered up by a black scarf. A third suspect is thought to be of Turkish origin and wore a grey scarf covering his face, a brown jacket with a white collar. Another teenager was described as being of unknown ethnicity and was seen wearing a black jacket. Scotland Yard said neighbourhood officers have stepped up patrols in the area in response to the incident. Anyone with information should contact Enfield CID on 020 8345 3311 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or at crimestoppers-uk.org. A 12-year-old girl was raped at knifepoint by a man posing as a police officer in north London. Police are appealing for witnesses after a man on a bike stopped the girl in Sandhurst Road, Edmonton, at about 5.30pm on Wednesday and claimed to be an officer. He said she matched the description of a shoplifter and that he needed to search her. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: As he carried out this search he raped her and threatened her with a knife. The attack is being linked to an almost identical approach an hour earlier to another 12-year-old girl, who managed to get away. The earlier incident happened just a few hundred yards away in Shirley Grove at about 4.30pm on Wednesday. In that incident, a man on a bike stopped the girl and told her to come with him to a van, again saying she matched the description of someone he needed to arrest. He then grabbed her by the wrists when she refused, but she managed to run away when he let go. A 32-year-old man was arrested on Thursday in connection with both incidents and is currently in custody at a north London police station. Detective Inspector Tracey Cormack, from the Met's Sexual Offences, Exploitation and Child Abuse Command, said: "We are appealing for anyone who may have witnessed these offences or think they may have been approached by this man to come forward and report this to the police." Anyone with information should call the incident room number on 020 8217 7428 or contact officers via 101. A 14-year-old girl has been given a four month detention order for punching an 87-year-old woman on a bus in south London. The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was sentenced at Croydon Youth Court on Thursday after she pleaded guilty to attacking Marion Endacott. The court heard Mrs Endacott was left "petrified" by the attack on the 166 bus on October 16. In a victim impact statement read out in court, Mrs Endacott said she is frightened to travel by bus and looks over her shoulder when she approaches bus stops. She also said she had started to sleep with the lights on and moved temporarily into her daughter's home after the attack. She added that she wanted to leave her home in Coulsdon following the incident. "I get scared when I hear a creak of the door," she said in a statement. "When I'm out the house especially near bus stops, Im petrified of bumping into the girl. I can see her fist come towards me." The girl's defence solicitor Raheema Jamal said the teenager accepted her actions were uncalled for. District Judge Peter Greenfield said he had no choice but to give the girl a detention order because of persistent offending after another assault against a care worker last February. In January she also damaged a coffee table by throwing it against a window. The judge said he couldn't understand why the teenager attacked Mrs Endacott, who was described in court as "frail and elderly." He also said another bus passenger offered to pay the girl's fare after the driver refused to move off when she got on the bus without a ticket. Mrs Endacott was left with bruising and swelling to her eye following the attack. District Judge Greenfield said the random attack was so serious because of the risk of the elderly woman falling back, which could have proved fatal. He said: "As far as I'm concerned you had no reason to attack this innocent lady. You knew she was vulnerable." She was punched after the bus came to a stop when the 14-year-old and another teenager boarded. Although the friend paid, the defendant didn't and challenged the bus driver leading to a stand-off as the bus came to a halt. The court heard that Mrs Endacott told the bus driver she was only a couple of stops away from home, causing the teenager to smirk. The elderly woman said "It's not funny" and was then punched by her attacker. In a previous statement the girl said she was pushed by the victim and retaliated. At one point during the hearing the 14-year-old was handed a tissue to dab her eye as the court heard how the incident unfolded. The girl's lawyer asked the judge to consider an 18-month youth rehabilitation order as her client was "terrified" of going to prison. She said the 14-year-old had no history of violence but admitted a "pattern was emerging" after a previous assault conviction last February. In January she was also charged with criminal damage after she threw a wooden table at a window. Ms Jamal said: "She has not had the benefit of anger management and there has been nothing done to address these issues." The teenager is expected to spend two months in detention and the remainder of her sentence on a training order. T he wife of a Maoist cult leader due to be sentenced on Friday for raping two of his followers and imprisoning his daughter for 30 years has said his conviction is a "frame-up". Chanda Balakrishnan is standing by her husband Aravindan, 75, who faces jail for a string of sex attacks and for cruelty towards his daughter, whom he secretly fathered with another woman. His trial at London's Southwark Crown Court heard harrowing details of how he ruled his tiny sect, the Workers' Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, with an iron fist. Known to his small coterie of female followers as Comrade Bala, he fathered a child with one of his devotees, Sian Davies, a former pupil at Cheltenham Ladies' College. Daughter of cult leader speaks But growing up, the girl, known as Fran, was told she was a "waif" adopted by the group. Shown no affection and relentlessly bullied and beaten, she was banned from going to school, making friends, and even leaving the cult's home unaccompanied. Mrs Balakrishnan told The Times she was "shocked" that her husband had fathered a child with someone else - but brushed it off as a "mistake". She added: "For 99.99% of the time he is loving me and not these other people." Jurors heard that Balakrishnan brainwashed his followers into thinking he was god-like. He manipulated and terrorised them into following his every command, and invented an invisible war machine called Jackie which he said could kill people and trigger natural disasters if anyone went against him. But his wife insisted he is innocent. She told The Times: "It was a frame-up. If (the women) were genuinely in fear, they could have left at any time. They both went out to work every day." Balakrishnan, of Enfield, north London, was found guilty of six counts of indecent assault and four counts of rape. He was also convicted of two counts of actual bodily harm, cruelty to a child under 16, and false imprisonment. Following the guilty verdicts, Judge Deborah Taylor told the grey-haired pensioner he faces a "substantial custodial sentence". Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 By Farhad Daneshvar - Trend: Iran and France have signed memorandums of understanding (MOU) on the sidelines of a meeting between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his French counterpart Francois Hollande in Elysee Palace, Paris. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his French counterpart Laurent Fabius signed the first MOU which is a roadmap for strengthening ties between Tehran and Paris, Iranian state-run TV channel IRINN reported from the event venue Jan. 28. The delegation led by President Rouhani and the French side signed Jan. 28 a number of documents on a range of sectors, including healthcare, environment, industry, and agriculture. Earlier at a meeting with French business leaders on Jan. 28, President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran is open for investment, adding that his Paris visit was aimed at reviving business ties. One week after the removal of international nuclear related-sanctions on the Islamic Republic, Rouhani arrived in Italy for the first leg of his European tour on Jan. 25, which wrapped up Jan. 27 by signing of a raft of deals. Rouhani said at the start of his visit to France that the Islamic Republic is ready to welcome foreign investors adding there are no more obstacles to investment in Iran. The pragmatic president's visit came just a week after the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA/nuclear deal) that put an end to economic sanctions against Tehran. In a joint statement on Jan. 16, the EU's High Representative Federica Mogherini and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced the implementation of the JCPOA and the removal of economic sanctions on Iran. According to the statement, EU has confirmed that the legal framework, providing for lifting of its nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions, is effective. The Iranian president led a 120-member delegation including ministers and businessmen during the five-day tour to Rome and Paris. Earlier on Jan. 23, Iran and China signed 17 agreements, including on energy sector and boosting trade ties to $600 billion following the removal of sanctions. A 37-year-old man has been charged with stabbing to death university lecturer Daniel Young in Morden. Mark Loveridge from Mitcham will appear at Bromley Magistrates' Court tomorrow accused of murder. Loveridge was also charged with causing grievous bodily harm to a 23-year-old man stabbed in the buttocks earlier on the same morning. Mr Young, 30, was knifed in Kendor Gardens on the morning of January 19 as he walked towards Morden Tube station. Ambulance crews pronounced him dead at the scene and a post mortem examination gave the cause of death as a stab wound. He had been just two days into a new job at the London campus of Coventry University when he was killed. His LinkedIn page said he had worked his way up through the hospitality industry before completing a master's degree in international hospitality management. Mr Young's brother paid tribute to his sibling in the days after his death. He wrote on Facebook: "Just so proud of everything you achieved in your life, places you travelled, friends you made. You are inspirational big bro." Detectives have been appealing for witnesses since his death and anyone with information is urged to call the incident room on 020 8721 4961 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. A police investigation into allegations of physical and sexual abuse linked to failed charity Kids Company has been dropped. Detectives found no evidence to justify any charges after studying 32 pieces of information or intelligence, Scotland Yard announced. A spokesman for the Met added: "Nor have we identified any failings by the charity in respect of them carrying out their duty to safeguard children or vulnerable adults." The Met launched an inquiry into reports of alleged physical and sexual abuse in July "following the receipt of information from a journalist". Detectives from the Sexual Offences, Exploitation and Child Abuse Command identified 32 pieces of information or intelligence relating to a period between 2008 and 2015. These reports concerned allegations or information relating to children and staff based at the charity, the force said, adding: "However, the majority were third-party reports which were vague in detail." Officers carried out "detailed and extensive inquiries" to establish the veracity of the information, speaking to a number of individuals connected to the charity. No-one was arrested or interviewed under caution in connection with the investigation. An incident which had previously been investigated by police and resulted in a "male adult service user" of the charity receiving a three-month suspended sentence for assaulting a member of staff was included within the reports. The Met spokesman added: "Aside from this case, to date the Met has identified no evidence of criminality within the 32 reports which would reach the threshold to justify a referral to the Crown Prosecution Service. "Nor have we identified any failings by the charity in respect of them carrying out their duty to safeguard children or vulnerable adults. "As such, the Met investigation into potential physical and sexual abuse has now concluded, although, as with any investigation, should any further information come to light it will be fully considered." Kids Company is also the subject of an investigation by the Charity Commission. Police said a referral process is in place with the commission should any evidence of criminality be revealed as a result of their inquiries, adding that there is currently no investigation by the Met into allegations of fraud against the charity. Founded by Camila Batmanghelidjh in 1996 to offer counselling, support and art therapy to disadvantaged youngsters in Lambeth and Southwark, Kids Company was widely praised for its innovative approach and received a total of at least 42 million from central government and 4 million from local authorities and lottery bodies. However, it folded amid a storm of controversy in August 2015 - just six days after receiving a 3 million grant in a final bid to keep it afloat. In December, Alan Yentob, who was chairman of trustees at the charity, stepped down as BBC creative director after facing intense scrutiny during the episode. Additional reporting by the Press Association. P olice have launched an investigation after seizing a leopard skull in a raid in south London. The raid was carried out after the skull was spotted for sale on eBay, prompting concerns it was being illegally traded. Bidding had reached 670 before the listing was removed. Officers found the skull after searching an address in Claremont Road, Surbiton, on Thursday afternoon. A special certificate is required for the sale of such items, issued by the Animal and Plant Health Agency. Typical day for the @MPSKingston #Wildlife Crime Officer - just executed a search warrant & seized a leopard scull! pic.twitter.com/j1SbY0V3Nq Sgts Dave & Will (@MPSKingstonTnC) January 28, 2016 A spokesman for Kingston police said: The seller is currently being investigated for allegedly trading this skull without the required certificate. S erial killer Levi Bellfield was today linked to one of Londons most notorious unsolved murders after his shock confession to the killing of schoolgirl Milly Dowler. Homicide detectives are examining a series of admissions by him to a number of other crimes in the capital and across the UK. These are believed to include the killing of Hampstead housewife Judith Silver, 51, found battered to death in a mews in 1990. The ex-bouncer, who ran a car clamping firm, is serving a whole-life jail term for murdering 13-year-old Milly, following his conviction in June 2011. Bellfield was already in jail for the murders of Amelie Delagrange, 22, and Marsha McDonnell, 19, plus the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, when he went on trial accused of killing Milly as she walked home from school. Police refuse to reveal details of other crimes to which Bellfield, 47, has confessed but he is suspected of involvement in up to 20 serious attacks including rape and murder dating back to 1980. These also include the murder of 14-year-old Patsy Morris, who was strangled on Hounslow Heath, west London, in 1980, when Bellfield was 12. He is said to have confessed to murdering her but detectives doubt he is the killer. Police are believed to also be assessing the murder of Patsy Morris Other killings which are set to be assessed by the homicide detectives include the murders of Lin Russell, 45, and her daughter Megan, six, who were ambushed as they walked their dog Lucy in fields near their home at Chillenden, Kent, in 1996. Mrs Silver, a financial adviser, was beaten to death a short distance from her home in Hampstead and her body was found by a newspaper boy on October 20, 1990. Her belongings, including a bag with her money, were untouched by her side but a neck chain was stolen. No one was arrested for the murder. The admission by Bellfield who gained sadistic pleasure from extreme violence against women rejecting his advances that he raped and killed Milly finally came during an investigation into whether he had an accomplice, Surrey Police announced yesterday. Milly was snatched from the street near her home in Walton-on-Thames on March 21, 2002. Her body was found months later in a wood at Yateley Heath, Hampshire, 25 miles away. New links: serial killer Levi Bellfield Bellfield, who now calls himself Yusuf Rahim, lived 50 yards from where she vanished but did not become a suspect till he was arrested by police in London in 2004 for the other crimes. Later it emerged that detectives investigating Millys murder knocked on his door but got no answer so they did not pursue the inquiry. Today Colin Sutton, the detective who led the investigation which convicted Bellfield, warned about believing his admissions. He told the Standard: He is manipulative and calculating. Id be really surpri- sed if this was someone who was intent on making a new start. "There is always an angle with Levi, always something that he is trying to manipulate. I dont know whether he is thinking down the line if there is a challenge to the whole-life tariff, whether he might be able to apply for parole. I think he could be that calculating. He is up there in the lexicon of serial killers. If not in quantity, he is as bad and as evil as anyone. Bellfield is currently serving life for the murder of 13-year-old Milly Dowler The Met said it was looking at new information relating to criminal investigations but refused to give details. A spokesman said: We are liaising with a number of other UK police forces in relation to information passed on to us regarding a number of criminal inquiries. "That information remains subject to assessment and for that reason we will not be discussing the matter in further detail at this time. Other cases linked to Bellfield include Anna Maria Rennie who identified him as the man who tried to force her into a car in Whitton, west of London, when she was 17 in 2001. The jury at his 2008 trial for the two murders could not agree and the charge was left on file. At least four other women reported being attacked in circumstances that matched Bellfields modus operandi before he was caught. S everal schools in south-west London shut today amid reports of security threats. Schools in the borough of Merton including primary Bishop Gilpin were evacuated for police searches. It comes two days after 14 schools in Britain and six in France were evacuated due to a series of similar threats. A statement on the Church of England schools website said: Bishop Gilpin is closed this morning due to a threat made against Ricards Lodge (not Bishop Gilpin). Police are currently checking Ricards Lodge and several other hospitals and schools. We plan to reopen this afternoon should we get official confirmation that the threat to Ricard's Lodge is a hoax. Ricard's is currently being searched and we have been told to expect an update from the police after 11am. It is the second time in a week that Ricards Lodge was evacuated due to a security alert. Wimbledon LL OB schools evacuated due to bomb scare Merton Councils cabinet member for education, Martin Whelton, said he knew of three schools that were evacuated. He said he understood Ricards Lodge High School, Ursuline High School and Harris Academy Merton had been shut. In a later tweet he added: Everyone has been safely evacuated & the police are investigating. Hopefully it will be resolved shortly. Ursuline High School in Wimbledon confirmed a bomb threat had been made this morning and all students had been evacuated before Year 11 pupils were sent home. A statement on Bishop Gilpin's website said this morning: 'Bishop Gilpin is closed this morning due to a threat made against Ricards Lodge. We have received official clearance to reopen this afternoon. "Children will be welcome in school from 1.30pm onwards. Children should make their way to class as they would in the morning. Gates will be staffed.' A spokesman for the Met Police said threats made today were being treated as 'malicious communications'. A Department for Education spokesman said: 'We are aware of the ongoing incident, police are looking into it and we are monitoring the situation." B oris Johnson today hailed a momentous day for London as a second medical emergency helicopter was unveiled after a 4 million fundraising campaign. The new helicopter will enable Londons Air Ambulance to extend its flying hours and reach an extra 400 critically injured patients a year, including victims of shootings, stabbings, road crashes and falls from height. The Mayor said: This is a momentous day for London, for Londoners and for the dedicated healthcare professionals of Londons Air Ambulance. We should all be proud of Londons Air Ambulance. The world-class care the doctors, paramedics, pilots and staff here provide is already saving lives and having a second helicopter at their disposal can only improve outcomes for patients across the city. Air ambulance helicopter LL OB The new helicopter landed at the Royal London hospital helipad for the first time this morning. Donations included 2 million from the London Freemasons and 1 million from Chancellor George Osborne, from fines imposed on banks. The helicopters are operated by a charity, with medical staff paid by the NHS. The new helicopters arrival today comes in time to prevent a loss of air cover for several weeks when the main helicopter undergoes annual maintenance. Mr Johnson praised the dedication, determination and generosity of countless individuals and organisations but urged business leaders to continue to support the service, which will now cost 6 million a year to run. One patient saved by Londons Air Ambulance, Surrey police motorcycle officer PC Andy Holmes, told how it came to his rescue when he suffered a traumatic amputation of his right leg after he was hit by a car while on patrol near Heathrow airport. Pc Holmes, 38, a married father of two, told the Standard: Had I not had the help I had, especially from the air ambulance, I may not be here today. I went to work that day and didnt come home for three-and-a-half weeks. To be able to supply London with a second helicopter means that more lives may be saved. I knew from the injury I had that I couldnt do anything to save myself and my life was in the hands of others. He had been in pursuit of a suspicious van when the collision occurred in May 2014. He had slowed his BMW patrol bike to 30mph and had his blue lights flashing when he was hit at a roundabout. As I came off the bike, the bike effectively crushed my right leg between itself and a road traffic sign, he recalled. Before people got to me, I tried to stand up and realised I couldnt. Bystanders applied a tourniquet to his leg before London Ambulance Service paramedics arrived. The air ambulance trauma team anaesthetised him on scene and flew him to the Royal London, in Whitechapel, where he underwent emergency surgery. A second operation was required when surgeons were unable to save his knee. PC Holmes later spent three weeks at the Douglas Bader Rehabilitation Centre at Queen Marys hospital, Roehampton, being fitted with a prosthetic leg and learning how to walk again. He returned to a desk job at Surrey police last March. T hree beauty consultants have failed in their demand for 38,000 for alleged race and sex discrimination from the company which runs the cosmetics counter at Liberty. A tribunal rejected claims by Darshana Patel, Semone Ballin and Leena Chaudhary, who worked for Hourglass at Regent Street. However Ms Chaudhary's claims of breach of contract and failure to provide a written statement of terms of employment were said to be well founded. Central London Employment Tribunal said it expected both sides to agree terms or return for a further hearing. Hourglass said: "Intolerance of any kind violates the core values of Hourglass." A shopper today told of her shock after finding what she claims was faeces in a bag of sprouts. Noeleen O'Reilly, from Kensington, said she made the grim discovery after opening a packet of flower sprouts she bought from Lidl in Mile End. After complaining to the supermarket chain she was asked to send a photograph and then return the packaging, with the foreign body included so it could be examined. Two weeks later she received a letter that said tests had determined the matter in question was in fact a decomposed potato. But Mrs OReilly insists it was in fact faeces. Lidl offered her an apology and a 10 voucher, but Ms O'Reilly alleged the chain had not taken her complaint seriously. Recalling the moment she made the alleged discovery, she said: "As I opened the packaging I thought one of them looked a bit weird so I picked it up and the smell was just appalling. "Sick": Ms O'Reilly said she was disgusted when she opened the packet of flower sprouts / Noeleen O'Reilly It (the smell) hit me straight away and went up my nose. I couldnt eat that evening, I felt sick. I took everything I bought and just dumped it in the bin. I wanted to get as far away from anything to do with Lidl. I went to bathroom to clean my hands. It really, really upset me. If that had of entered my body I could have been extremely unwell. I can guarantee this was not a decomposed potato. Im sure this was faeces. I want Lidl to own up and admit they have made a serious mistake. I want someone to phone me personally and apologise over what has happened. Had they shown they were upset about this and showed concern I would have been satisfied. The purchase was made on Friday, January 8 while Ms OReilly travelled to her partners home in east London. A Lidl spokeswoman said Ms OReillys complaint was being investigated with the supermarkets quality assurance team. The supermarket added in a statement: "We were very sorry to hear that this particular product did not meet the high standards that both we and our customers expect. We take matters such as these extremely seriously, and as soon as the customer got in touch our Quality Assurance team immediately launched an investigation in conjunction with our supplier. "We work with highly reputable suppliers who have thorough procedures in place to ensure that issues such as these are investigated to an appropriate level. "Standard procedures include both human sense assessments and laboratory practices where necessary. On this occasion it was clear from the first stage of the investigation that the evidence received was organic and field originated. This was further substantiated by the presence of three sprouts which commonly protrude from seeding potatoes. "We would like to reassure customers that this is an isolated incident and apologise sincerely for any distress caused." G oogle today faced a probe by the European Commission over its alleged sweetheart deal with the tax authorities in Britain. Margrethe Vestager, the EUs Competition Commissioner, signalled that she could investigate the controversial agreement as Labour and the SNP called for such an inquiry. If we find there is something to be concerned about, if someone writes to us and says, This is maybe not as it should be, then we will take a look, she told BBC radio. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor today formally asked Ms Vestager to investigate the agreement that Google to pay 130 million to cover a 10-year period after a probe by HM Revenue and Customs. He said: After a week in which George Osborne has hid from our calls for transparency and scrutiny over his tax deal with Google we need to ensure that the deal the Chancellor struck was not one that undermines our tax system and is not a deal that fires the gun on a new race to the bottom of corporation tax in Europe. Leaders clash over Google He also highlighted reports this week that France and Italy are seeking to claw back more money from multi-nationals such as Google. Stewart Hosie, the SNPs economic spokesman, said: We think she should investigate to make sure the tax paid is the tax due. He said that the Commission had told the tax authorities in Luxembourg to collect more tax from Fiat after an investigation and Dutch fiscal chiefs to do the same with Starbucks. Im sure those companies also said they pay the tax due, said Mr Hosie. Last autumn, the European Commission announced that after in-depth investigations, it had concluded that Luxembourg had granted selective tax advantages to Fiats financing company and the Netherlands had done the same with Starbucks. In each case, a tax ruling issued by the respective national tax authority artificially lowered the tax paid by the company, its report said. The influential Commons public accounts committee announced this morning that it will take evidence from senior officials at Google and HMRC on February 11. Google, which has denied any wrongdoing, defended its position today. Governments make tax law, the tax authorities independently enforce the law and Google complies with the law, said Peter Barron, the US tech giants European public affairs chief. But Google is at the centre of a growing storm over tax payments made by multi-national corporations, with many people believing they are avoiding paying millions in Britain. One of Googles biggest British shareholders today called on the company to pay much more in taxes in this country. James Anderson, whose Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust owns 120 million of shares in Googles parent company, Alphabet,- said it was in the companys own interest to pay a decent rate of tax. A poll by BMG Research for the Standard this week also showed that eight out of 10 people wanted multi-national firms doing business in Britain to be forced to reveal publicly if they are paying tax here. Chancellor George Osborne has hailed the agreement with Google as a major success. B oris Johnson today came under increasing pressure to come off the fence over the European in-out referendum as Downing Street launched a final push to get a deal on new membership terms. David Cameron announced he will hold talks with Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, in London on Sunday night after negotiations hit trouble. He has also torn up tomorrows diary to dash to see Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels. Tory eurosceptics said privately they doubt the Mayor of London will back the campaign to quit the EU and should make his position clear. One told the Standard: Boris would make a great leader of the campaign to leave, but we suspect he will fall into line with the Prime Minister. But he should make clear sooner rather than later so that someone else can step up to the plate. Friends of the Mayor denied reports that he and Justice Secretary Michael Gove both plan to back the In campaign in return for a deal that would give Parliament sovereignty over decisions made in Brussels. Hes not agreed a deal with the PM on sovereignty, hes seen no detail. He, like everyone else, will decide on the basis of renegotiation detail, said a friend. Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb became the latest senior minister to signal he will back the Stay campaign. Philip Hammond and Nicky Morgan have also said they will not vote for Brexit if Mr Cameron gets the deal he is looking for. The chances of a breakthrough at the February 18 summit are said to be on a knife-edge after other countries objected to Mr Camerons proposals to curb migration to the UK from Europe. The Prime Minister scrapped a planned visit to Scandinavia tomorrow so that he could launch a diplomatic blitz to salvage the talks. Other meetings are likely to be announced, said an insider. Downing Street denied his re-arranged diary was a sign of panic. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Tuesday that it will be much more difficult to stage the referendum before the summer if no agreement is reached in February, and impossible if there is no deal before the end of March. Mr Tusk has to decide early next week whether to bother tabling the UK renegotiation on the summit of February 18-19. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 By Farhad Daneshvar - Trend: Iran signed a deal with Airbus for the purchase of 118 aircraft from the European manufacturer. The deal was signed by Iran's Roads and Urban Development Minister Abbas Akhoundi and his French counterpart on the sidelines of a meeting between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and French President Francois Hollande in Elysee Palace, Paris, Iranian state-run TV channel IRINN reported from the event venue Jan. 28. Under the terms of the contract, Airbus will be committed to deliver the aircraft, acquired by Iran under the lease, within four years. According to the contract, the planes will be brand new in different types, including the wide-body Airbus A380. Iran is committed to pay for the planes within 10 years. Earlier at a meeting with French business leaders on Jan. 28, President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran is open for investment, adding that his Paris visit was aimed at reviving business ties. One week after the removal of international nuclear related-sanctions on the Islamic Republic, Rouhani arrived in Italy for the first leg of his European tour on Jan. 25, which wrapped up Jan. 27 by signing of a raft of deals. Rouhani said at the start of his visit to France that the Islamic Republic is ready to welcome foreign investors adding there are no more obstacles to investment in Iran. The pragmatic president's visit came just a week after the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA/ nuclear deal) that put an end to economic sanctions against Tehran. In a joint statement on Jan. 16, the EU's High Representative Federica Mogherini and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced the implementation of the JCPOA and the removal of economic sanctions on Iran. According to the statement, EU has confirmed that the legal framework, providing for lifting of its nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions, is effective. The Iranian president led a 120-member delegation including ministers and businessmen during the five-day tour to Rome and Paris. Earlier on Jan. 23, Iran and China signed 17 agreements, including on energy sector and boosting trade ties to $600 billion following the removal of sanctions. A town hall in east London has become the first in Britain to vote to leave the European Union. Havering council decided by 30 votes to 15 to support a motion declaring the UK would be better off outside the EU. Although the vote is merely symbolic it will be a boost for the Leave campaign and send a message to David Cameron not to take traditionally pro-EU London for granted. Lawrence Webb, Ukip group leader in Havering, called on other councils across the country to follow suit ahead of the Governments referendum. The councils six Ukip councillors formed an alliance with eurosceptic Conservatives and independent councillors to support Britains exit from the EU. The motion read: Due to the negative impact that EU directives such as the agency working time directive and EU procurement rules have on the ability and cost of Havering Council to fulfil its obligations, this council agrees that Britain would be better off outside the European Union. Ivana Bartoletti, Labours London Assembly candidate, said: I know where I stand: staying in Europe would certainly benefit the people of Havering in terms of supporting the economy and local business, decent conditions for workers and opportunities for young people to study and train in other European countries. Although the UKs place in Europe touches all our lives, Id encourage Havering council to focus its mind on Haverings own crises. Tory mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith, a eurosceptic, is understood to have concerns about the timing of the referendum. He fears that a June poll would ensure the EU dominates political debate during his campaign to replace Boris Johnson at City Hall. A spokesman for the Stronger In campaign said: Ukip are kidding themselves if they think the majority of people in this great city support leaving the EU. Barely a day goes by without a London business firmly declaring their support for Britain remaining in Europe. D avid Cameron was at the centre of a growing row over child refugees today as at least nine more died when a boat sank in the Mediterranean. Hundreds more vulnerable children are likely to be offered a safe haven in Britain under plans unveiled by the Government. But the Prime Minister was denounced as callous by shadow overseas aid secretary Diane Abbott. She attacked the Government for refusing to meet calls from charities to admit at least 3,000 young people who have reached Europe from countries such as Syria and Afghanistan. She tweeted: Saw appalling conditions in #CalaisJungle for myself. Callous that Cameron still wont take any of those children. Downing Street rejected the criticism, insisting that humanitarian experts say most children who have lost their parents are best cared for in their broader family rather than being flown to the UK. TODO: define component type apester Ministers also believe that opening Britains doors to refugees and economic migrants who have already reached Europe will encourage more to attempt the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean. Coastguards said at least 18 people, nine of them children, died in the latest migrant boat sinking off the Greek island of Samos. Another boat sank off Kos yesterday, leaving seven dead, including two children. Immigration minister James Brokenshire today said the UK would work with the United Nations refugee agency to identify exceptional cases of unaccompanied children in conflict zones in the Middle East and North Africa who would benefit from protection in Britain. B oris Johnson has recommended that Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe should be given only a one-year extension to his contract as Met Commissioner, in a move which raises doubts about the future of Britains top police officer. In a letter to Home Secretary Theresa May, the Mayor is understood to have said that Sir Bernard, whose current five-year term ends this summer, should not receive the extension of two to three years which the Commissioner is believed to have wanted. Instead, Mr Johnson has proposed only a 12-month extension on the grounds that the shorter period will allow the next Mayor to decide whether he wants Sir Bernard to stay in post for longer. The recommendation, which must be approved by Mrs May and then by the Queen, effectively places Sir Bernard on probation. It will be seen by his critics as a rebuff in the wake of controversies over the Mets handling of the investigation into child sex abuse allegations against former military chief Lord Bramall and other high-profile figures. Mr Hogan-Howe has also been attacked by some over Scotland Yards pursuit of newspaper journalists over alleged corrupt payments to public officials, which ended with a large number of failed prosecutions. However, City Hall sources insisted Mr Johnson and his deputy mayor for policing Stephen Greenhalgh remain big fans of Sir Bernard, and that the decision to opt for a one-year extension was motivated by courtesy towards the next Mayor, rather than concerns about his performance. TODO: define component type apester A source added: The Mayor is a big supporter of Sir Bernard but the recommendation has been made bearing in mind that there is a mayoral election this year. Another official said Mr Johnson wanted to give the new Mayor adequate time to get to know and work with Sir Bernard before having to make a decision about who should head Scotland Yard. Mr Johnson declined to comment. Mrs May had written to the Mayor asking for his recommendation to be provided within 10 days. That was prompted by concern that if Mr Johnson favoured replacing Sir Bernard, whose contract expires in the summer, there would be insufficient time to find a replacement. The Home Secretary will now decide whether to accept the recommendation and retain Sir Bernard. If she opts to reject him, legislation passed since his appointment in 2011 means the next commissioner could be a foreign citizen. Potential candidates might include New York police chief Bill Bratton. Supporters of Sir Bernard point to his record in cutting the official crime figures for London and his forces success in protecting the capital from terrorism and from riots, which had overwhelmed the Met shortly before his apppointment. A landmark trial of an NHS Trust and doctor accused of causing the death of a healthy mother undergoing a caesarean operation collapsed today. Primary schoolteacher Frances Cappuccini, 30, had died shortly after giving birth to her second child in 2012 Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust was accused of corporate manslaughter over her death in the first prosecution of a health service body since the offence was introduced in 2008. Locum consultant anaesthetist Errol Cornish, 68, was accused of gross negligence manslaughter over his role in the care of the mother-of-two, who died after postnatal surgery at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury, Kent. But judge Mr Justice Coulson instructed the jury at Inner London Crown Court to acquit both defendants today, just over two weeks into their trial, having ruled yesterday that they had no case to answer. In his ruling, which can be reported for the first time today, he praised the Cappuccini familys dignity during the trial and said: There is no question that Frances Cappuccini should not have died at the trust hospital on October 9. Its inevitable that her family will want to know why she died and hold someone to account. But the judge outlined a series of flaws in the prosecution case, including evidence that showed some of locum Dr Cornishs actions had been about as far from a gross negligence manslaughter case as it is possible to be. He also branded some of the arguments against the trust as perverse. Mrs Cappuccini, who was affectionately called Mrs Coffee by her pupils, was a Year One teacher at Offham Primary School, near West Malling, Kent. The tragedy left staff shell shocked and they closed the small 200-pupil village school for a day to help children come to terms with her death. The court heard that she had given birth by caesarean section to a boy, Luca, in 2009 with only minor difficulties. After becoming pregnant for a second time she arrived at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in October 2012 after her waters broke. It was decided early the following morning that she should undergo another caesarean section, as her labour was not progressing. As a result, she gave birth to her second son, Giacomo, shortly after. However, the court heard that, on being returned to the ward, it quickly became clear that she was suffering heavy bleeding. Surgeons successfully removed sections of placenta that had been mistakenly left inside her uterus and she was placed in the care of Dr Azeez and South African-born Dr Cornish, 68. But within a few hours she had died after suffering a massive heart attack from a build-up of acid in the body as a result of not being able to breathe. The trial heard that a second anaesthetist, Dr Nadeem Azeez, 53, was primarily responsible for Mrs Cappuccinis care, but did not face a trial alongside them because he had returned to his native Pakistan. John Price, QC, prosecuting, claimed both Azeez, 52, and Dr Cornish had failed to take basic steps to ensure Mrs Cappuccini began to breathe again when they started to bring her round. Her husband Tom wiped away tears as he listened to details of her death. He attended court throughout the trial, but was not present as the foreman of the jury of 10 women and two men returned formal not guilty verdicts on the order of the judge. Mr Justice Coulson told them that he had agreed with arguments from the defence barristers that neither had a case to answer. He said: On my direction, as a matter of law, both defendants are not guilty. Both Cornish and lawyers representing the Trust had pleaded not guilty and denied all the allegations. The taxpayer now faces a legal bill of hundreds of thousands of pounds as defence lawyers indicated they may seek to have their costs paid by the Crown Prosecution Service. In a statement the Trust said its sympathies were with Mrs Cappuccinis family and no outcome from these proceedings could bring any consolation to the family. It added: The allegation of corporate manslaughter has been consistently denied by the trust and now also comprehensively rejected by the court. The trust regrets that the CPS saw fit to pursue the charge in the first place, given the additions stress this will have caused all involved. A British teenager and an Australian terror suspect discussed packing a kangaroo with explosives, painting it with an Isis flag and setting it loose on police officers, court documents allege. The 15-year-old boy from Blackburn and 19-year-old Sevdet Besim are alleged to have discussed the plot online as part of plans to carry out a terror attack in Melbourne during an Anzac Day parade. The celebrations are held every year on April 25 to mark the 1915 Gallipoli landings in Turkey. Besim is now standing trial in the Victoria state supreme court for his alleged involvement in the plot. Besim, who faces a potential life sentence if convicted, and four alleged conspirators were arrested in Melbourne a week before Anzac Day. Besim has pleaded not guilty to four charges relating to a plot. In court documents presented today, prosecutors said Besim and the British youth discussed that a kangaroo could be packed with explosives, painted with the IS symbol and set loose on police while chatting on the Telegram messenger service. Prosecutors said that communications resume in the early hours of Thursday 20 March 2015 with an image being sent by Besim with a comment of look what I got ahaha. The conversation continues with Besim detailing what he did that day and they have a general discussion around animals and wildlife in Australia including a suggestion that a kangaroo could be packed with C4 explosive, painted with the Isis symbol and set loose on police officers. He is also alleged to have said he was ready to fight these dogs on there (sic) doorstep. Id love to take out some cops, Besim is said to have written. I was gonna meet with them then take some heads. Police allege Besim was motivated by an extremist ideology and had expressed support for terrorist organisations, particularly the IS movement. The 15-year-old became Britains youngest convicted terrorist after admitting his part in the Anzac Day plot in October last year. Manchester Crown Court heard he sent thousands of online messages to the other alleged Australian jihadists and was planning a massacre. Police said the plan hatched by the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was shocking in its brutality and scope. Handing the boy a life sentence at Manchester Crown Court, Judge John Saunders said he remained a significant risk. He ruled the Briton could not get parole for five years, adding the teenager would be released only when he was no longer a danger to the public. The Gallipoli campaign was the first major military action fought by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during the First World War and hundreds of thousands attend commemoration services around Australia. D avid Bowie auditioned for a role in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Actor Dominic Monaghan, who played Merry Brandybuck in Peter Jacksons films, has confirmed that he bumped into the music icon at the first audition. The British actor told the Huffington Post that he saw the late star after he had read for his role at a casting agency office in London. As I was reading a magazine waiting, David Bowie came in and signed his little list and went in. Im assuming he read for Gandalf," he said. Run-in: Dominic Monaghan bumped into David Bowie at the auditions I cant think of anything else he wouldve read for. He may have read for something else but Im a huge David Bowie fan, and I was lucky enough to know his son now, so just seeing him in person was pretty special to me. David Bowie - in pictures 1 /28 David Bowie - in pictures Loved up David Bowie and his wife Iman at a charity event in 2011 Getty Images The early years David Bowie, back when he was Davy Jones Getty Images Ziggy Stardust David Bowie performed as his intergalactic alter-ego for the last time at Hammersmith Odeon, 1973 Getty Images Station to station David and his first wife Angie Getty Images Bright lights David Bowie performing at the Isle of Wight Festival in 2004 Getty Images Portrait Bowie at a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival, 1983 AFP/Getty Images Theatricality Bowie in his 'Angel of Death' costume at The Marquee Club, 1973 Getty Images Rock stars David Bowie with Iggy Pop (left) in Germany, 1977 Getty Images Mullet man Bowie perfoming in 1987 Getty Images Fame David Bowie receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, 1997 Getty Images Wembley David Bowie performing at Wembley Stadium in 1999 Getty Images Blondies David Bowie with Debbie Harry at the MEN Arena, 2003 Getty Images Icons David Bowie with Kate Moss at an awards party at New York Public Library, 2005 Getty Images David Bowie at the CFDA Awards, 2005 Getty Images Artists David Bowie with Lou Reed at the Lou Reed NY photography exhibit, 2006 Getty Images Red carpet David Bowie and Iman at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2008 Getty Images Angie Bowie, Zowie Bowie (Duncan Jones) and David Bowie (wearing an eyepatch) appear at a press conference at the Amstel Hotel on 7th February 1974 in Amsterdam, Netherlands Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns Singer David Bowie with his wife, model and actress Angela Bowie on January 01, 1974 in London Anwar Hussein/Getty Images David Bowie in Labrynth Duncan Jones and David Bowie at the Tribeca Film Festival, New York, America on 30 April 2009 Rex David Bowie pictured to promote his Black Star album While its not known what Bowie actually read for or whether or not he was actually offered a part, Jackson was open about purposely casting unknowns in the roles. Back in 2001 he told Entertainment Weekly: These are famous, famous characters, loved for nearly 50 years. To have a famous beloved character and a famous star colliding is slightly uncomfortable. L eonardo DiCaprio posed for photos with Pope Francis during a one-to-one meeting at the Vatican. The Oscar-nominated star took time out from promoting The Revenant to meet with the pontiff to talk about environmental issues on Thursday. DiCaprio is reported to have kissed the Popes ring upon arrival, before saying in Italian: Your Holiness, thank you for granting me this private audience with you. He then presented the head of the Catholic Church with a cheque from his charitable foundation as well as a book of works by the 15th-century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch. The Revenant Exclusive UK Premiere Report Speaking about the famous Triptych, DiCaprio reportedly said: As a child I didn't quite understand what it all meant. But through my child's eyes it represented a planet, the utopia we had been given, the overpopulation, excesses, and the third panel we see a blackened sky that represents so much to me of what's going in in the environment. Leonardo DiCaprio meets Pope Francis 1 /5 Leonardo DiCaprio meets Pope Francis Two worlds collide Leonardo Di Caprio meets Pop Francis at the Vatican EPA Shared interests Pope Francis and US actor Leonardo Di Caprio EPA One-to-one Leonardo Di Caprio and the Pope shake hands EPA Having a laugh? The actor and the pontiff seem to share a joke EPA The pair are thought to have discussed the actors environmental work and the Popes recent call for the replacement of fossil fuels with greener energy sources. While DiCaprio is expected to pick up the Best Actor at this years Oscars, he has been spending a lot of his time on his foundation in recent months. The star recently addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, saying that his charity would be donating $15 million to global environmental projects. T he modern office is a shifting concept, though certain stereotypes endure. You expect bankers in sterile skyscrapers; you think of creatives on Soho streets, queuing for flat whites in Aussie coffee shops. And you imagine anyone who works in gaming (with anyone meaning men) hot-desking somewhere in the orbit of Old Streets roundabout, bouncing ping pong balls off walls and tripping over teetering towers of old Dominos boxes. As ever, the reality is more nuanced. We work in Camberwell in an artistic community, explains Luke Whittaker, the co-founder of indie gaming studio State of Play, on a road full of prop designers, architects and photographers. His co-founder Katherine Bidwell is, obviously, female. Furthermore, State of Plays methods are more analogue than one expects of a company creating mobile games. Its Bafta award-winning game Lumino City is a puzzle that the team crafted on a huge set made from paper, card, wood, miniature lights and electric motors. We filmed it in a photography studio four doors down. [The office] is full of scalpels and paper. This stuff isnt conventional but theres no reason it shouldnt be used. The lesson is to assume nothing about the London gaming industry. Simon Bennett, the director of Roll7, another award-winning studio, explains: Our office used to be in an incredibly grimy part of Deptford that wed been in for years. It was a shoddy set-up 12 guys in one space, and it was an absolute tip, a bit like what youd expect. Now though were totally remote: everything we do is in the Cloud. Model-making, artistic communes and offices in the Cloud: the culture is changing, mirroring the shift in audience. The rise of mobile has attracted a wider and more female audience: more than half of regular active users of mobile games are women. The biggest shift is in the massive rise of female gamers, says Bennett. That does represent quite a big shift. Mobile has moved gaming from what was considered to be quite a hardcore experience a console in the living room to something youd play with one finger out and about on the Tube. Whittaker says pensioners have contacted State of Play to enthuse about their games. But two-year-olds play it too. Ive got a toddler who just loves running around on it. Its the technology iPads have brought it to a whole new market. Talent in the capital is diverse. There are a lot of people coming to gaming in London who maybe werent working in it previously people who were into design or graphic design, explains Bennett. This new talent drives companies imagination and ambition. We just invented our dream project and directed everything towards doing that, says Whittaker. And London is a febrile place for innovation. Bossa Studios office on Scrutton Street in Shoreditch admittedly plays closer to type, though its games do not. One, called I Am Bread, explores the beautiful story of one slice of breads epic and emotional journey as it embarks upon a quest to become toasted; Twelve a Dozen stars an abstract avatar who takes you on an adventure in your quest to save your family and city from the Ultimate Prime Number. There is a great amount of support coming from people who would not have helped in the past, says Bossa co-founder Imre Jele, who cites the Mayor of London and the Wellcome Trust as supporters of the London gaming scene. And smaller studios can challenge the bigger companies. We can be brave. Perhaps, though, the biggest shift enacted by the independent gamers is to intellectualise the market heaving it away from the cliche of teenage boys shooting at soldiers in their bedrooms. Theres no reason why this should be any less intellectual than films or books or anything like that, says Whittaker firmly. In many ways, it can be more so because you have that element of people exploring things. Follow Phoebe Luckhurst on Twitter: @phoebeluckhurst Tehran, Iran, Jan. 28 By Mehdi Sepahvand, Farhad Daneshvar - Trend: Iran is ready for vast economic cooperation as it enjoys great capacities and has many needs to be fulfilled, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told French business representatives in Paris. He explained that socio-political security, rich energy resources, educated workforce, and good relations with regional countries make Iran an interesting place for investment, IRNA news agency reported January 28. Rouhani went on to underline that Iran needs foreign investment in energy, industry, agriculture, transportation, tourism, and labor market. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who also participated in the conference, said his country took the hardest blow from Iran sanctions. He hailed the signing of numerous business deals as a good sign of the two countries' will to expand ties. At the end of the conference, three cooperation agreements in the fields of car manufacturing, health, and agriculture were signed by private sector representatives from both sides. After the removal of international nuclear related-sanctions on the Islamic Republic, Rouhani traveled to Italy for the first leg of his European tour on Jan. 25, which wrapped up Jan. 27 by signing a raft of deals. Hassan Rouhani said at the start of his visit to France that the Islamic Republic is ready to welcome foreign investors, adding there are no more obstacles to investment in Iran. The pragmatic president's visit came just a week after the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA/nuclear deal) that put an end to economic sanctions against Tehran. In a joint statement on Jan. 16, the EU's High Representative Federica Mogherini and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced the implementation of the JCPOA and the removal of economic sanctions on Iran. According to the statement, EU has confirmed that the legal framework, providing for lifting of its nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions, is effective. The Iranian president led a 120-member delegation including ministers and businessmen during the five-day tour to Rome and Paris. Earlier on Jan. 23, Iran and China signed 17 agreements, including on energy sector and boosting trade ties to $600 billion following the removal of sanctions. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 By Dalga Khatinoglu - Trend: French oil and gas company Total has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran to purchase crude oil from the Islamic Republic. The MOU was signed Jan. 28 by the National Iranian Oil Company and Total on the sidelines of a meeting between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and French President Francois Hollande in Elysee Palace, Paris, IRINN TV reported. Earlier, Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh announced Tuesday that Total has willingness to buy Iranian oil. Press TV also quoted Total's Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanne as saying Jan. 28 that Total is going to sign a contract to purchase 150,000-200,000 barrels per day of Iranian crude oil. Before sanctions were imposed in 2012 over Iran, EU was importing about 800,000 barrels of Iranian oil and condensate. The commencement of the nuclear deal on Jan. 16 eliminated sanctions and European companies can now resume oil purchase from Iran. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani started his visit to France today. Iranian government ordered the National Oil Company to add 500,000 barrels per day to production level and increase this volume to one million barrels per day in the second half of 2016. Before Total, Greece's biggest oil refiner Hellenic Petroleum agreed on Friday to buy crude oil from Iran. Hellenic Petroleum was a major buyer of Iranian crude, which accounted for about 20 percent of the southeast European country's annual crude oil imports before sanctions were imposed on Tehran in 2011, according to a Reuters report. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 By Khalid Kazimov - Trend: Iran's Army unveiled a a 150 km-range radar on Jan.28, during a "massive" drill, dubbed "Velayat 94", near the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The initial range of radar is 150 km, but the figure would reach 400 km with new releases of the radar, Fars News Agency reported. The radar is capable of detecting both surface and aerial targets. In recent years, Iran's navy has been increasing its presence in international waters to protect maritime routes and provide security for merchant vessels and tankers. In line with international efforts to combat piracy, the Iranian navy has also been conducting anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden since November 2008 to safeguard the vessels involved in maritime trade, especially the ships and oil tankers owned or leased by Iran. Dozens of bills in this years legislative session are attracting the interest of business groups, an array that includes tax exemptions, workers compensation, minimum wages for servers, family medical leave, corporate income tax, bridge-building, low-cost health plans and wind energy. But proposed laws on taxes and the relationship between the state and other government subdivisions, especially schools, will take up huge amounts of the senators remaining 44 days in session this year, said Sen. Burke Harr of Omaha, chairman of the Business and Labor Committee. Senators introduced 338 new bills and three proposed constitutional amendments this month and can consider bills carried over from last year. Bills have to be prioritized to be heard, Harr said. Each of the 49 senators can designate one priority bill, the committees get 32 priority bills, and the Legislatures speaker can designate 25 more, leaving out most other bills. Another limit: We just dont have any money, he said. Projections show a $140 million shortfall in the two-year state budget that ends June 30, 2017. Still, Harr said, business and politics are interrelated. Government should provide services that businesses need such as an educated workforce and business needs to provide its share of the money to do that. Heres a sampling of business-related proposals: Norfolk Sen. Jim Scheer, chairman of the Banking, Commerce and Insurance Committee, said the most significant bill from the committee will be Lincoln Sen. Kathy Campbells LB 1036, which would restrict interest rates and change other rules for payday lenders. LB 1089, introduced by Sen. Matt Hansen of Lincoln, would raise the minimum wage for workers who receive tips from $2.13 an hour to $3.60 an hour in August and to $4.50 in August 2017. A similar bill died on the floor last year. The Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce supports LB 812, which would exempt custom software from sales taxes. In a statement, Union Pacific Corp. said it is one of many companies supporting LB 812, which would benefit Nebraska by developing good tax policy consistent with the vast majority of other states. It benefits consumers and businesses of all disciplines and size, and ensures Nebraska remains competitive attracting new jobs and investment. Thats consistent with the chambers legislative priorities on taxes, funds for transportation projects and economic development support, said Omaha chamber lobbyist Jennifer Creager. The chamber will take positions on other bills as the session proceeds, she said. Bellevue Sen. Sue Crawfords LB 850 would establish a paid family medical and military leave insurance program, supported by a payroll tax up to 0.5 percent of wages. Its on the list of bills opposed by the Nebraska office of the National Federation of Independent Business, a small-business advocacy group. Bob Hallstrom, Nebraska director for the federation, which has 5,000 members in the state, said business owners generally support property tax reductions and government cost reductions and oppose tax increases. Federation members seem to support Ralston Sen. Merv Riepes LB 817, which would set up a direct primary health care option for employees, Hallstrom said. The association will co-sponsor this years small business day in Lincoln on Feb. 19, when business owners can hear from and talk to senators. While you may have heard about the research and development (R&D) tax incentive the Australian Governments tax incentive to encourage innovation you may be unsure how to apply for the incentive, or... Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 By Farhad Daneshvar - Trend: French President Francois Hollande has officially welcomed his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani at Elysee Palace in Paris. Iran and France are set to sign 20 business deals on the sidelines of the meeting, including a deal on purchase of Airbus aircraft. Earlier at a meeting with French business leaders on Jan. 28, President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran is open for investment, adding that his Paris visit was aimed at reviving business ties. One week after the removal of international nuclear related-sanctions on the Islamic Republic, Rouhani first arrived in Italy for the first leg of his European tour on Jan. 25, which wrapped up Jan. 27 by signing of a raft of deals. Rouhani said at the start of his visit to France that the Islamic Republic is ready to welcome foreign investors adding there are no more obstacles to investment in Iran. The pragmatic president's visit came just a week after the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA/ nuclear deal) that put an end to economic sanctions against Tehran. In a joint statement on Jan. 16, the EU's High Representative Federica Mogherini and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced the implementation of the JCPOA and the removal of economic sanctions on Iran. According to the statement, EU has confirmed that legal framework, providing for lifting of its nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions, is effective. The Iranian president led a 120-member delegation including ministers and businessmen during the five-day tour to Rome and Paris. Earlier on Jan. 23, Iran and China signed 17 agreements including energy and boosting trade ties to $600 billion following the removal of sanctions. | By Denham Sadler The raft of policies in the $1 billion innovation statement are just the beginning, with the government ready to consult with the startup community to find policies that work, minister for industry, innovation and science Christopher Pyne says. In an email Q&A with StartupSmart, Pyne says the government has been taking the range of criticisms from the community on board, including talks of a possible investor drought in the lead-up to taxation changes, a lack of focus on gender diversity, an expensive advertising campaign to spruik the statement and claims changes to equity crowdfunding laws wont help startups at all. The government will continue to listen and be open to new ideas as it consults during the implementation process, Pyne tells StartupSmart. There is no once and for all action or set of measures in the context of innovation policy. To foster a vibrant and sustainable innovation ecosystem, to bring about change, especially change in culture, demands a continuing effort over time. It also requires adaptation to changes in circumstances and the agility and flexibility to respond to and take advantage of opportunities which present themselves. The email Q&A with Pyne has been published in full below: StartupSmart: Last year was such a huge one for innovation and the startup community, what should they expect in 2016? Christopher Pyne: The announcement of the National Innovation and Science Agenda (NISA) by the Prime Minister and the minister for industry, innovation and science on 7 December 2015 is an important step towards a more innovative and entrepreneurial economy. The Agenda sets the vision for a collective approach to addressing barriers to innovation and the development of an entrepreneurial culture. The Government has started the implementation of the NISA measures and will prioritise this work in 2016 with a number of measures commencing in July 2016. The Government will continue to listen and be open to new ideas as it consults during the implementation process. There is no once and for all action or set of measures in the context of innovation policy. To foster a vibrant and sustainable innovation ecosystem, to bring about change, especially change in culture, demands a continuing effort over time. It also requires adaptation to changes in circumstances and the agility and flexibility to respond to and take advantage of opportunities that present themselves. There are growing concerns about an "investor strike" in the six months before the innovation statement taxation changes are implemented, are you concerned about this? The government is consulting with stakeholders so policy details are finalised in consultation with industry before the changes are signed into law. Stakeholders wishing to participate can register their interest by emailing or . Why has the startup sector and innovation space become such a primary concern of the government and will this continue to the election this year? As the Prime Minister said in announcing the Agenda, companies that embrace innovation, that are agile and prepared to approach change confidently and with a sense of optimism are more competitive, more able to grow market share and more likely to increase their employment. More jobs, more growth - that is the focus of my government. The Agenda is a long-term approach of complementary measures that will change Australias innovation culture by enabling risk, by encouraging people to see that risk can be a positive and that we can learn and grow from our failures. The Agenda measures are a start and we can do more to do to leverage our talent and skills, to build increased diversity in the Australian economy and to ensure that we are positioned to participate fully in the global economy of the 21st century. The Agenda is not only about startups; it is much broader than this. However, it does recognise that, in a world where technology is ubiquitous and is increasingly the enabler of new opportunities, these businesses are frequently the vehicle through which innovative ideas are developed and introduced to national and international markets and, in the longer term, jobs created. The government's planned $28 million innovation statement advertising campaign has been criticised, do you think this is an appropriate use of money as opposed to investing in startups or infrastructure? The research conducted by the government shows there is a clear need in Australia for a cultural shift when it comes to the importance of risk-taking, embracing new ideas and perceptions of business failure. We cant afford to be left behind. As a part of the governments commitment to transforming our economy and delivering jobs for Australians, we will be investing $28 million in a public information and community engagement campaign. It will be designed to help change the culture around innovation and science in our businesses, engage young people to help inspire the entrepreneurs of the future and provide the key information to any Australian wanting to take a risk on a new business venture. What other ways will the government try to make Australian culture more innovative and entrepreneurial? The Agenda is a long-term approach of complementary measures that will change Australias innovation culture by enabling risk, by encouraging people to see that risk can be a positive, and that we can learn and grow from our failures. The government will continue to develop policies that encourage risk-taking and the embrace of new ideas, whether through measured incentives, through international engagement and longer term through the education system which has a critical role to play. The government's equity crowdfunding reforms have been heavily criticised for not doing enough to benefit startups and small business - what do you think of these critiques and do you think the reforms will still benefit this sector? Improving the availability of capital for Australian startups is an important goal of the Agenda. The Agenda contains a range of measures designed to achieve this, of which the introduction of a regulatory regime to facilitate crowd sourced equity funding (CSEF) is one. Some of the other measures include tax incentives for investors, a new incubator support programme and the establishment of the CSIRO Innovation Fund and Biomedical Translation Fund. CSEF will open up access to new investors for Australian startups. The new CSEF arrangements will take effect as soon as the enabling legislation is passed into law, expected to be before the end of 2016. The legislation was introduced into Parliament on 3 December 2015. The Government has been guided by the need to ensure that the regulatory model appropriately balances support for investment and reducing compliance costs with maintaining appropriate levels of investor protection. The Australian model is competitive globally with the issuer cap of $5 million each year higher than the US and New Zealand cap, and the investor cap of $10,000 per issuance higher than the average in New Zealand and the UK. There is no aggregate cap on CSEF investment per 12 month period, and this supports a portfolio approach to investment in high-risk startups. As is to be expected and welcomed, there has been a range of views expressed on regulatory design features during the continuing consultation process. How will the government go about addressing the gender and diversity gap in the innovation sector? Under the Agenda, the Australian government has committed $13 million over the next five years in measures to increase the number of girls and women studying STEM subjects at school and university, and going on to in STEM related careersincluding in innovative industries and startups. The Agenda will provide funding to expand existing initiatives based on successful Australian and international models (such as the Science in Australia Gender Equity pilot and the Male Champions of Change project), as well as a range of public-private partnerships to celebrate female STEM role models and foster interest in STEM among girls and women. These initiatives will build on work already under way in Australian Government science agencies to drive greater gender diversity in the innovation system. You've been in this position for four months now, how have you found the new role and your interactions with the startup community? It was a great honour for me to accept the Prime Minister's offer to become the minister for industry, innovation and science in the first Turnbull Ministry. Having served for five years as shadow minister and then two years as minister for education and training, I was delighted by this new opportunity to serve in an economic portfolio that is central to the future of our nation. Developing my relationship with the startup community has been most rewarding the level of entrepreneurship, innovation and enthusiasm here in Australia is already remarkable, and I know the Agenda will unlock that even more into the future. Im most heartened by the fact that when I meet startup founders and entrepreneurs they arent sitting back waiting for a handout they are cracking on with achieving their dreams and only want the government to get out of the way. Many of the startup policies have bipartisan support - how do you differentiate the government from the opposition in terms of innovation? The governments Agenda is a $1.1 billion package to support innovation and entrepreneurship and the measures put Australia on the right track to becoming a leading innovator; open to adapting and evolving to improve the wellbeing and quality of life for all Australians. Is the federal government willing to work with the opposition and other parties in this space? The government welcomes Labors sudden interest in economic policy and creating jobs and growth. We look forward to working with them in delivering the Agenda. Follow StartupSmart on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. | By Rayn Ong There is talk of an investor drought among my fellow angel investors. We are worried that the lack of clarity in the innovation statement, which doesnt come into effect until July, may cause the angel funding pool to dry up for the next few months. As a result, startups might die because they cant close a funding round. But angel investors shouldnt base their strategy on tax benefits. I want to share a few stories of a hypothetical angel investor called Bill who isnt waiting for the innovation statement to come into effect. The tax offset Draft: A 20% non-refundable tax offset on investment capped at $200,000 per investor, per year. Plain English: If you invest $200,000 after July 2016, you can claim $40,000 against your income tax. Bill invested in a startup in February 2016, he didnt wait until July. Bill made ten times his money when the startup was acquired five years later. Bills friends said no to the same startup and made $0. They claimed the tax offset via another company after July though. That company declared bankruptcy six months later. Capital Gains Tax exemption Draft: A 10-year capital gains tax exemption for investments held for three years. Plain English: The CGT exemption only works for investments held between three to 10 years. Bill invested in a seed financing round in February 2016 - he didnt wait until July. Bills friends invested in December 2016 with other Series A investors at twice the valuation Bill got. Bills friends cashed out in November 2026, almost 10 years later, at a $2 billion valuation, mainly because they dont want to pay capital gains tax. The founders of the startup then figured out the Chinese market and made five times their average revenue in one quarter. The public market went crazy at the IPO. Bill waited till the IPO. He held his shares for 11 years and cant claim CGT exemption. Bill still made more money than his friends, even with the $40,000 tax offset, the CGT exemption and time value of money taken into account. The eligibility test Draft: Have expenditure and income of less than $1 million and $200,000 in the previous income year respectively. Plain English: Government thinks startups should spend less than $1 million and make less than $200,000 a year. If you spend or make more, you are not a startup. Bill invested in a deal in August 2016. The company made $200,001 in the previous income year, so Bill cant claim the tax benefit again. Bill made 100 times his money at the IPO eight years later. Bills peers said no to the same deal. Bill bought beers for his peers with his IPO money and still has change left over. If you plan to make only one $200,000 investment this year, then the timing and the 20% offset matter. If you follow a portfolio approach and you know about the power law distribution for your return, your one best investment will return more money than the rest combined - then the CGT exemption can reduce the required return to make up your whole fund. If you miss out on that great company because you waited, angel investor Bill will do better than you with his sub-optimal strategy. Lets assume we define angel money as investment rounds at less than $10 million valuation and that the investors are aiming for more than ten times return after five to seven years, with exit being either an acquisition or an IPO. If the government wants to encourage the right investors to put money into these kinds of activities, why not just make any sub-$100 million valuation exit tax-free? For example, Bill paid $1 million for 20% of a company that eventually exited for $200 million. The $1 million becomes $40 million in this case (assuming no dilution with further rounds of funding). The first $20 million is tax free, the next $20 million is taxable: Easy. I think this simple rule will attract the right crowd with a long-term plan and a big war chest to put their money to work. They will save taxes on the small wins, offset some taxes with the write-offs, and eventually pay tax happily when they hit a monster win. Dont restrict the investment timeframe because we cant force liquidation events. Angel investments are not liquid. By imposing a 10-year time frame on the tax benefit, we may cause unnecessary tension for the company around the 10 year mark. Dont restrict the investment terms, let it be an equity round, a convertible note, with normal or preference shares, because we dont want to distort the market. Dont restrict the investment vehicle, because the money can come from a person, a family trust or a self-managed super fund. Otherwise, lawyers and accountants make money not startups. Also, an interim solution between now and July would be really good too, like an appeal mechanism for any investment made before July. A wise man once said, tax benefit is a sweetener, never the reason. Angel Investor Bills strategy is not optimal, but dont optimise your strategy around tax benefits. You may miss a unicorn because the filters and restrictions set by the officials may not be optimal either. Rayn Ong is an angel investor and a member of Sydney Angels, working closely with the Startmate and muru-D accelerator. The full post was originally published on Medium. Follow StartupSmart on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. | By McCullough Robertson SPONSORED POST What you dont know can hurt your business. We spoke to a legal tech expert to uncover the best ways to avoid exposing your startup to non-compliance of privacy laws. At some point this year, the long-awaited mandatory data breach notification bill is expected to become law, which would mean that businesses with an annual turnover of $3M or more would be required to notify their customers and the regulator of all serious data breaches. That might sound like bigger business than your average startup, and so many businesses will simply ignore the new law when it is passed, assuming theyre exempt. But if youre in the technology sector or rely heavily on the personal data of your clients, you might not be exempt and could be dealing with personal information (and triggering privacy obligations) without realising it. We sat down with Alex Hutchens, Partner of Australian law firm McCullough Robertson, to discuss implementing privacy compliance into your culture right from the start. 1. This new law won't apply to me why do startups need to be aware of it? The whole point of a startup is to create a successful business. No magic buzzer goes off when annual turnover exceeds $3m. Startups need to prepare for the fact that once their revenue is healthy, they will be immediately caught by privacy obligations, rather than trying to reverse-engineer privacy compliance into their business. Secondly, many startups deal with data rich products. Technology is evolving so quickly that even anonymised data sets used for big data analysis can be used to identify people, and so you might be unwittingly dealing with information covered by privacy laws even though your revenue is low. Prepare for that now rather than playing catch-up later. 2. What does a serious data breach look like? Currently under Australian privacy law, notification is only voluntary; if an individuals information is hacked or inadvertently leaked, they are not required to be told. The flaw in this system is that individuals dont get the chance to help themselves by cancelling their credit cards, or by resetting all their passwords. The new law aims to fix this flaw. Under the proposed laws, if there is a data breach and as a result there is a real risk of serious harm for an individual you have to notify. 3. What should my response plan look like? We advise voluntary compliance right from the start of your businesses* - its better to be privacy compliant when you dont need to be, rather than discovering later that you are non-compliant when you should have been. Have technical and operational protections in place to prevent breaches, and implement processes that comply with the notification obligations. Thankfully, as a startup you have a natural competitive advantage being new and relatively flexible, so you can better build systems with privacy in mind. Plan in advance. A well-run notification process can demonstrate commitment and professionalism which confirms to your customers that you are the right company to do business with. Overall, you want to establish a culture of privacy compliance. Be on the front foot and minimise any damage both arising from the breach itself, and to your companys professional reputation. Want further details on crowd-sourced equity funding? Get in touch with McCullough Robertson for support and advice. 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To help you find what you are looking for: Enter Search Term(s): Still cant find what youre looking for? Send us a message using our contact us form. To report a broken link or other problems with the website, please include the URL. Thank you for visiting state.gov. North Korea may be preparing to launch a long-range missile as soon as in a week, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported early on Thursday, citing an unnamed Japanese government official. The official cited signs of possible preparations for a missile launch based on analysis of satellite imagery of the North's Tongchang-ri missile test site on its west coast. The report came as U.N. Security Council members were discussing fresh sanctions against the North after it conducted its fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6. The North is already under sanctions for its nuclear and missile programmes, Reuters reported. North Korea last conducted a long-range rocket launch in late 2012, successfully putting an object into orbit in what experts believed to be part of its effort to build an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The North is also seen to be working to miniaturise a nuclear warhead to mount on a missile, but many experts say it is some time away from perfecting the technology. The Kyodo report gave no other details about the satellite imagery analyses. On Wednesday in Beijing, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi agreed on the need for a significant new U.N. Security resolution against the North but there were few signs of concrete progress. U.S. Navy Admiral Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, said on Wednesday before the Kyodo report was published that North Korea's actions underscored the importance of strengthening an alliance among Japan, South Korea and the United States. He said he supported reviewing the possibility of converting a U.S. Aegis missile defense test site in Hawaii into a combat-ready facility to bolster U.S. defenses against ballistic missile attacks, an initiative first reported by Reuters last week. Harris also told reporters after his speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that it made sense to put a mobile missile defense system known as the Terminal High Area Defense in South Korea. That decision must be made jointly by the United States and South Korea, he said. North Korea said on Jan. 6 it exploded a hydrogen bomb, although the United States and other governments and experts voiced scepticism that it had made such a technological advance. As our nation celebrates National School Choice Week across all 50 states at over 16,500 events, its important to understand North Carolina isnt simply a member of the band in this school choice trend, but is the drum major leading others in a growing, national parent revolution. Though we can appreciate that the majority of children are educated in traditional (district) schools, nearly 3 million are educated in public charter schools, 2 million children are taught at home, and millions more receive private education. Statewide, we have 1.3 million students in district schools, nearly 78,000 in public charters, close to 100,000 in private schools and another 107,000 students who are homeschooled. When you factor in policies such as the Opportunity Scholarship Program, which creates pathways for working-class families to access private education, and the first year of virtual public charter schools, well soon surpass over 300,000 students being educated non-traditionally in the Tar Heel State. While examining this recent growth trend, we shouldnt simply begin and end at recent legislative education policies, solely. North Carolina has always embraced the ideals of educational options; however, access to these options has traditionally been for families who could afford them. Not any longer. Lets analyze the impact of recent education policies in our state and the new beneficiaries of such programs: the elimination of the public charter school cap allowed for more urban and rural charters to start up in counties/districts serving families where theyve never previously existed; new private school scholarships are only eligible for low to moderate income families, serving nearly 4,000 students in the Programs first two years and thousands more in years to come; and lastly, North Carolina virtual public charter schools, in their first year in our state, are educating nearly 3,000 more students. The most extraordinary thing behind this parent revolution is the fact that ordinary families are leading it! Though many of these educational programs have just started to take root, several of our states largest school systems saw smaller enrollment growth over the last year in many cases for the first time due to an increase in non-traditional school enrollment (public charter, private and homeschool). School systems in Iredell and surrounding counties should take heed given the similar growth of school options in the area. While many of our public school officials bristle at such an idea, I believe one school official, from our states largest school district, got it right when he stated in a recent article: In the past, public schools could assign students to wherever they wanted to because parents couldnt make a choice to leave the public schools. Now were trying to make every school a choice of high quality so that parents dont want to leave. He goes on to say that, At a time when people like choice, (we) must provide options to families. This is the new reality for not only our nation, but especially North Carolina. We must embrace it, abort the natural tendency to resist change, and purposefully move away from an antiquated mindset of public schools versus any and all other school options. To be clear, the educational choice momentum is building and is a phenomenon which I urge leaders to embrace before it engulfs them. We, as citizens and citizen leaders, must realize the importance of a strong, collaborative relationship between the diverse educational models our state now provides parents. This should not only benefit students, but such a symbiotic K-12 relationship should also work for every school through the sharing of best practices to provide new and exciting ways of educating our future leaders. For North Carolina to continue being a great state, we must emphasize innovation and flexibility to improve academic achievement for every student not just the privileged few. This truth regarding educational equality can no longer simply be an aspirational one. To the contrary, these ordinary families the real impetus behind this parent revolution both within our state and beyond now demands it to be their new reality. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28 Trend: The US has requested the NATO's help in fighting "Islamic State" terrorist organization (IS, ISIL, ISIS or Daesh) in the Middle East by providing surveillance planes called the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), Alliance's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Jan. 28. "We have got a request from the U.S. to provide support to the efforts of the coalition, to help them with the NATO AWACS surveillance planes, and we are now looking into that request," Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at a news conference presenting the annual report of 2015. He said that NATO defense ministers would discuss the U.S. request at their meeting in early February, although there is no deadline for any decision. He noted that all Alliance members are also the members of coalition against the IS. AWACS monitor airspace within a radius of more than 400 km (250 miles) and exchange information via digital data links, with ground-based, sea-based and airborne commanders. The Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), the executive body of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) which includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Armenia, has announced that it has decided to impose antidumping (AD) duty on corrosion-resistant seamless pipes, with diameter up to 426 millimeter, imported from Ukraine Thursday, 28 January 2016 23:16:26 (GMT+3) | Mexican steel exports to the US in 2015 declined both in terms of volume and value, according to a media report citing government data. In 2015, Mexican steel export revenues to the US reached $2.12 billion, 32.6 percent down, year-on-year, from $3.15 billion. Exports volumes in the same period totaled 2.50 million mt, 25.6 percent down, year-on-year. Thursday, 28 January 2016 17:12:05 (GMT+3) | Istanbul According to market sources, Turkish steel producers' merchant bar export prices have remained stable week on week in the range of $370-410/mt FOB. Meanwhile, demand for Turkish merchant bar in the export market has failed to improve once again and is still quiet. Export offers from Turkish merchant bar producers are at the following levels: Product Price ($/mt) FOB Angle 370-380 IPN-UPN 380-390 Flat bar 400-410 IPE 380-390 All prices are on FOB basis and for January shipment. Thursday, 28 January 2016 15:21:49 (GMT+3) | Brescia Italian producers' average price for medium-sized rebar in their local market has remained at 325/mt ($354/mt) ex-works, unchanged from one week ago, while their export offers stand at 325-330/mt ($354-360/mt) FOB. In the meantime, Italian rebar exports to Algeria will continue to remain at a standstill until February 3, when the period for import permit applications will end and licenses will be issued. 1 = $1.09 Politicians from many European parties try to capitalise on xenophobic reflexes by presenting Greece as the main source of the refugee crisis. Their pressure on Athens entails an increase of the already large number of deaths of migrants. In the last days, we have witnessed attempts to isolate Greece and present our country as the main source of the current refugee crisis. The politicians orchestrating the aforementioned campaign are known for their extremist views, come from a multitude of European political parties and unfortunately include among them a number of government officials. The aim of such political maneuvering consists of nothing less than the accumulation of political capital on the cheap, fueling xenophobic reflexes in the process. Proponents of such views hope that they will be able to distance the European Union from the responsibilities that it bears over such matters. That said, the collective responsibility that we all Europeans share, consists of not actively engaging during the last five years with the main cause of the refugee crisis i.e. the War in Syria and the unprecedented humanitarian crisis that it has produced. Furthermore, hyper conservative and nationalistic circles that have embarked upon such a campaign, repeatedly induce the cancelation of decisions made by EU institutions. Decisions such as those reached by the European Council since mid 2015, find themselves in particular if not explicitly at the non-implementation attention of the aforementioned circles. Matters of ignorance as well as of perpetuated alleged ignorance are raised, by the discourse and statements that such circles produce. Greece will not drown women and children It goes without saying that Greece is guarding its boarders; however what Greece cannot do and will not do is sink boats and drown women and children. We must be very clear on this matter. Such a stance is dictated to us by International Treaties and the values of our civilization as Greeks. It is no coincidence that yesterday Europe's border guard agency Frontex has made clear that refoulement of boats is beyond both its mandate and international law. Nikos Xydakis Nikos Xydakis (62) is Vice Foreign Minister for European Affairs in the cabinet of Alexis Tsipras. From January to August 2015 the left-wing politician and journalist served as Greece Alternate Minister of Culture. As a journalist, writer, book and art critic Xydakis has collaborated with a number of magazines and newspapers, including the Athens daily Kathimerini. From 2003 to 2014 he was the newspapers editor in chief. Criticism of Greece for supposedly "not guarding" its borders is a thin disguise of the fear that hyper conservative politicians hold for the number of refugees seeking safety in Europe; as if our humanity is conditioned and depends upon "amounts" rather than fact. Thus, Greece is a custodian of European culture in the good company of those who stand by the refugees, such as Germany, Austria, Sweden and a number of other countries in Europe. As of today, Greece has rescued 104.000 children and adults from the Aegean Sea. I would like to take this occasion to express my gratitude to the men and women of the Greek coastguard, to the volunteers and everyday islanders for their contribution and their hard work, which will stay in our memory and will be stated by history. EU-assistance is still lugging behind The pressure on Greece to alter the conditions, upon which it exercises control in the Aegean Sea, entails an increase of the already large number of deaths of refugees and migrants. How is Greece supposed to alter the way it exercises control of its sea boarders? By pushing back and sinking rubber boats? Have we already forgotten that only a few days ago forty-two lives were lost among which those of seventeen children? Rhetorical questions, the answers to which are self-evident. Therefore, whoever promulgates solutions as "Greece altering the way it exercises control" should have the political integrity not to require indirectly the implementation of appalling policies by Greece, but to request the implementation of such "policies" directly by offering his or hers endorsement of them. Lets put things straight: Greece requested from the very first instance further assistance from the EU as well as the deployment of Frontex. Even today, despite the promises made, such assistance is lugging behind and has not been implemented to the appropriate extent. Even with lesser forces than promised, Frontex as a European institution, is co-operational today in the Aegean Sea and has joint responsibility. Greece has no objections for Frontex to take upon itself an even greater part of the work that it conducts today jointly with the Greek Coast Guard. "Hot Spots" will be completed by mid-February A draft Schengen evaluation report on Greece concluded today that the country is neglecting its obligations on protecting the external borders of the Union. The Commission is well aware that the report is based on outdated evidence since the beginning of November and has not taken appropriate measures to fully include the Greek side on the proceedings of finalizing this report. This is a practice that leverages pressure on Greece but it is politically toxic. We need to avoid this kind of brinkmanship if we want to find honest solutions to the problem. By mid-February, Greece will be completing the so-called "Hot Spot" registration centers, enabling thus the recording and identification of 100% of the refugees. This said, I would be looking forward to an answer from the extremist circles in Europe that are critical of Greece today, to the following question "when the identification of all arrivals will be complete, will this solve their problem or will they remember at that instance that its actually the sheer number of refugees that employs them?". While these developments are taking place in Greece, what should Europe do in the meantime? The resettlement program for 160.000 refugees has foundered due to the fact that too many countries are delaying and stalling its implementation. Or should we ought to blame Greece as well, a country that already hosts since 1990 at perfectly harmonious conditions approximately one million immigrants, a figure that corresponds to the ten percent of the countrys population? Unfortunately, the same holds for the returns of the non refugees to the place from which they depart i.e. Turkey. The figures of returnees are minimal, despite the presence of a bilateral agreement between Greece and Turkey since 2001. The European Union must focus upon the real problems Greece has always understood its place within the European Union as that of one among a community of equal partners and allies where peace, security, prosperity constitutes their common aims. From the very first moment of the refugee crisis, the Greek government recognized how critical the situation was and thus worked hand in hand with its EU partners towards the normalization of the management of the refugee flows. We cannot accept witnessing in the 21st century the drowning of refugees en masse in the Mediterranean. Scenes as such retract memories of the darkest moments of human history. The European Union should take a stance over this issue, an irrevocable and clear stance. Finally, the European Union must focus upon the real problems at hand as the war in Syria and the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. The European Union ought to undertake with its institutions and the Dutch Presidency, together with the UN, the role of the peacemaker that it deserves. Only in such a way we will solve, all Europeans together, todays crisis as well as the next crisis, which in the world that we live in, seems inevitable. France and Iran have turned a new page in bilateral relations, French President Francois Hollande said Thursdayc Sputnik reported. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is currently on a visit to Paris, his first European tour since the removal of the EU sanctions against Tehran. "For 17 years the Iranian president has not visited France. Today we opened a new chapter in our relations. I hope our cooperation will be beneficial for everyone," Hollande told a joint press conference with Rouhani. The French president noted that some 30 deals in various spheres were signed during Rouhani's visit. Earlier in the day, Rouhani met with representatives of various French firms, including energy giant Total and car manufacturer Renault. In July, Iran and the P5+1 group, comprising Russia, the United States, China, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, reached a deal ensuring the safe nature of Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions, including embargoes on trade in gas and oil. On January 16, the International Atomic Energy Agency verified Tehran's compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The United Nations, the European Union and, in part, the United States have since lifted their anti-Iran sanctions. Three Turkish soldiers were martyred in an operation against the terrorist PKK organization in southeastern Turkey, according to the military Wednesday. The Turkish General Staff also said in a statement that at least 20 PKK terrorists have been killed in counter-terrorism operations in Turkey's southeastern provinces, Anadolu reported. Three soldiers, who were heavily wounded in an armed attack by the members of the separatist terrorist organization in the central Sur district in Diyarbakir province, died at the hospital. Three others were also wounded and hospitalized, the statement said. Meanwhile, 11 PKK militants were "neutralized" in a security operation in the Cizre district of Sirnak province Tuesday. The statement added that six improvised explosive devices were destroyed, while 11 hunting rifles and a sniper rifle were seized. According to the General Staff, nine other PKK terrorists were killed on Tuesday in the Sur district of Diyarbakir province, which brought the total number of PKK deaths to 134 in that area. The army also said that 465 PKK terrorists had been "neutralized" since Dec. 15 in the Cizre operations. The southeast has been the scenes of a significant military operation since mid-December. The PKK - designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU - renewed its armed campaign against the Turkish state in late-July 2015. Since then more than 240 members of the security forces have been martyred. A clerk arranges bundles of 100 Chinese yuan banknotes at a branch of China Merchants Bank in Hefei, Anhui Province, March 17, 2014. (Photo : Reuters) Chinas leading private bank, China Merchants Bank (CMB), and Didi Kuaidi, the top ride-hailing mobile app in China, on Tuesday, Jan. 26, announced a strategic partnership. The partnership includes an equity investment, joint bankcards, in-app credit card payments, driver recruitment, and automobile financing services. Advertisement The equity investment makes CMB the latest inclusion to the mobile app's strong backers including Tencent, Alibaba, Ping An Ventures, China Investment Corporation, CITIC Capital, International Capital Corporation and Beijing Automotive Group, among others. According to Xinhua, neither of the parties in the partnership has disclosed the amount of the investment. However, Didi Kuaidi raised a record-breaking $3 billion in 2015. Making the announcement at a press conference, Jean Liu, the president of Didi Kuaidi, referred to the CMB investment "a heavyweight," pointing out that its association with CMB is "strong and trusting." Liu added that the relationship would enable the app to link its fiscal and mobile online-to-offline platforms to CMB's experience in the banking sector to create the world's largest online ride-hailing platform, the Global Times reported. Liu said, "In the spirit of openness and collaboration, Didi looks forward to building an ever stronger, broader transportation platform with China's leading financial and industry players." The partnership will enable CMB clients to pay fares using CMB credit cards. The two corporations will start accepting applications for joint CMB-Didi credit and savings cards via CMB's sales channels or Didi's app in Q2 2016. Didi drivers and car owners will finance vehicle purchases via CMB, with terms and payments according to a joint review by the two parties. The companies will share customer information in line with policies. The executive vice president of CMB, Zhao Ju, said that the partnership with Didi will enhance CMB's Internet finance technique in the sharing economy. Data from the China Internet Network Information Center reveals that the country has approximately 688 million Internet users and most of them spend money through their mobile phones on a daily basis. With over 250 million registered users and 14 million registered drivers, Didi Kuaidi is among the most popular app and online payment agencies, recording 1.43 billion rides last year. Deficient practices at a lab operated by blood-testing startup Theranos pose "immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety," the U.S. government's Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said in a letter to the company released on Wednesday. Theranos, founded and led by Elizabeth Holmes, has been in the spotlight after reports in the Wall Street Journal suggested that the company's blood-testing devices were flawed and had problems with accuracy. The CMS, in a letter to the company dated Jan. 25, told Theranos it had 10 days to provide evidence that it had corrected the issues causing concern. Theranos, which is based on Palo Alto, Calif., said the CMS report did not reflect the current state of its lab in Newark, Calif. "We are still reviewing the report, but we addressed many of the observations during the survey and are actively continuing to take corrective action," the company said. "A full plan of correction will be submitted to CMS within days." The company said the CMS's findings did not apply to the whole lab and did not relate to the company's lab in Arizona, where Theranos processes more than 90 percent of its tests. Theranos, valued at about $9 billion, has promised to shake up medical testing by conducting a wide range of tests with just one drop of blood collected using a tiny vial, rather than the large vial typically used. WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday proposed competition in the pay television set-top box market, a move that could let consumers swap costly cable industry boxes for cheaper service through devices such as tablets. This could help companies such as TiVo, Roku and Apple deliver a cable feed, too, as part of their video recorders or streaming-TV devices, according to the proposal, which will be voted on Feb. 18. The FCC says Americans spent $20 billion a year to lease pay-TV boxes, or an average of $231 a year. The summary said set-top box rental fees have jumped 185 percent since 1994, while the cost of TVs, computers and mobile phones have dropped by 90 percent. A coalition of existing pay-TV providers oppose competition in the set-top box market and on Wednesday said it would not provide new programming to customers or lower their television bills. The FCC said consumers should be allowed to get cable, satellite or other pay-TV through an app or through devices such as a smart TV or tablet instead of only a set-top box. The only change the FCC is proposing is to allow consumers alternative means of accessing the content they pay for, the summary says.FCC chairman Tom Wheeler compared set-top boxes to Americans being forced to rent rotary dial telephones for decades. In 2007, the FCC opened wireless networks to non-carrier-provided devices. The FCCs goal is to allow consumers to have a user friendly interface that integrates pay TV and streaming content on one device. In November, a group of eight Democratic senators including presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken, Cory Booker and Ed Markey, wrote to the FCC urging opening the set-top boxes to competition. The FCC is finally on its way to fulfilling the promise to American consumers of a competitive and robust video box market, Markey said Wednesday, praising the proposal to help ensure that consumers are not captive to bloated rental fees forever. The FCC said a competitive marketplace is required by a 1996 law. Set-top boxes should be open to pay-TV rivals using formats that conform to specifications set by an independent, open standards body, the FCC said. The rules would replace an old technology, called CableCard, that lets consumers get a card from their cable companies and stick it into another box such as a TiVo. It was supposed to free consumers from cable boxes, but it wasnt very popular. CableCard never achieved a very competitive marketplace, said Chris Lewis, vice president of government affairs for consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge. He hopes new rules could help other companies create technology that appeals to more consumers. The Associated Press contributed to this report. GLENDALE A bus stop on Lockwood Avenue near Austin Place has become a local landmark, thanks to Grace Mehan. Drivers know to look for elaborate holiday decorations she and her family place on and around the #56 Metro marker, including on a bench her dad made for her. Grace Mehan, 23, has Down syndrome. She calls the bus stop her special place. And over the weekend, that place was vandalized. On Friday night, someone pulled off the Dream With Me sign she put out for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s birthday, leaving just shreds of paper behind. The poster that she had placed out in anticipation of the coming leap year met the same fate the following night. Vandals also stripped down the wire strung with solar lights that connected a pole to the bus stop sign, and knocked over a timber that supported the bench. I have to believe it was a random act, said Colleen Mehan, Graces mother. Regardless, it was hurtful and disrespectful. Her daughter covered her eyes in recent days whenever she went by, not wanting to see her beloved bus stop in such a state. That bus stop, and the one across the street, are her gateways to important places in her life on Wednesday morning, it took her to her job as a hostess at Mike Duffys Pub and Grill in Kirkwood. She also works at Kirkwood Station Brewing Co. and volunteers at the citys YMCA. That afternoon, a Metro bus took her to St. Louis Community College-Meramec, where shes learning about managing time and money, and, to her delight, art. Grace Mehan said she loves showing off her creativity at the bus stop, which borders the Westborough Country Club. She and her family started decorating it in 2011. Thats when her father, Tom Mehan, built the little bench next to the bus stop sign, mostly as a safe place for her to sit where she could be easily seen as she waited for the bus. He dresses in costume to take each holiday theme even further. Hes a federal prosecutor by day, but drivers along Lockwood know him better as St. Patrick, a turkey, Santa Claus, Cupid, a groundhog or the Easter bunny. Colleen Mehan takes photos and posts them to the Graces Glendale Bus Stop Facebook page, which the family started in 2012. People make a point to drive by around holidays, and to get out to snap pictures. Normally people know she puts work into decorating that bus stop and leave it alone, said Glendale police Capt. Bob Catlett. The Mehans filed a police report with his department about the damage. Catlett said no other vandalism was reported over the weekend. The Mehans did have trouble one Fathers Day, when they hung out neckties. People added their own ties to honor their fathers, too. Somebody stole about 20 of them, which had been outdoors for days, including in rain. Glendale owns the land where the bus stop is placed, and Metro doesnt have any say in what goes there, a Metro spokeswoman said. And the only thing the Mehans ever have heard about the holiday decor is praise. It puts a positive spin on people of all abilities, Colleen Mehan said. Its a party. So the Mehans arent going to stop that party. Theyll be out this weekend, probably decorating with a stronger-than-ever theme. Theyve been flooded with offers to help get the bus stop back to its former festiveness. Soon, theyll probably do something with a Mardi Gras theme. Valentines Day is coming up, too. Grace Mehan wants to give a shoutout to a friend who has a birthday coming up. She has another idea for what a new poster at the bus stop should say. Stay away, bad guys, she said Wednesday, not long before she hopped on a Metro bus with her friend. Ai Weiwei made the announcement on popular social networking site Instagram, saying he was shocked when he heard about the Danish government's proposal to confiscate the assets of asylum seekers. (Photo : Getty Images) Ai Weiwei, a prominent Chinese artist, has withdrawn from a scheduled participation in an art exhibition in Demark. The decision, which was announced on Jan. 27, was due to a Danish policy regarding asylum seekers, according to a report by the Global Times. Advertisement Ai made the announcement on popular social networking site Instagram, saying he was shocked when he heard about the Danish government's proposal to confiscate the assets of asylum seekers. "This [bill] has left me no choice but to withdraw from the 'A New Dynasty--Created in China' art exhibition as a sign of my protest toward the shameless decision made by the Danish government," Ai said. The exhibit will also showcase artworks from 25 Chinese contemporary artists. It has been hosted by Aros since November of last year. According to a news article by BBC News, the Danish parliament gave support to a new migrant policy that seeks to confiscate valuables worth over 10,000 kroners or $1,500 from asylum seekers. The confiscated assets are planned to cover food and housing costs. Erlend Hoyersten, director of the Aros art museum located in Aarhus, Denmark, expressed shock upon hearing about Ai's decision. "We are not a government-run museum. What we do is not overseen by the government in terms of content. . . . I am a bit surprised that the art museum has become a symbol of the government of Denmark," Hoyersten said in a phone interview with the Global Times on Wednesday. "He of all people should know that you can't make [ordinary] people be responsible for the government's decisions," Hoyersten said, adding that Ai's withdrawal from the art exhibition denies Aros' audience to see and experience his work. Art, according to Hoyersten, is more important than ever in Denmark, what with all the social, economic and political changes that are sweeping the region. "You need art pieces that are challenging and open. Aros is an important part of that," said Hoyersten. Hoyersten cleared the matter, however, saying that Aros is still open to any future cooperation or collaboration with the renowned Chinese artist. "But, of course, when these things happen, we have to learn from it." Updated at 1:30 p.m. with reaction from local official: ST. LOUIS A psychiatrist who wanted to open a federal halfway house in south St. Louis said he withdrew his proposal after being served a tough lesson. "I have learned one thing about trying to develop a large business," said Dr. Junaid Syed. "The next time I am going to do business, I am going to do it in the county." Syed wanted to build a 161-bed halfway house, the largest of its kind in the region, in an unused wing of St. Alexius Hospital West Campus, 2639 Miami Avenue. Syed, chairman of psychiatry at St. Alexius, applied for the contract last summer through his business, Xcell Prison Health. He said the city wouldn't approve permits and the community wouldn't support the project. "The city is not helping me, nobody is helping me," said Syed. He blamed the local alderman and a developer for leading the opposition. Alderman Cara Spencer, of the 20th Ward, who represents the area near Gravois Park, has for months said Syed wasn't doing any community outreach about the project. On Thursday, Spencer said she strongly disagreed with Syed's view of the events. "The city, me and others did a lot of work with Dr. Syed and the hospital," she said. "If he wants to run a business with no community involvement then maybe the county is the place for him." When Syed hosted his first community meeting Jan. 5, near Cherokee Street, it didn't go well for him. "They were not even listening to the proposal," Syed said. "They came to disrupt the meeting, and they did." There are currently two halfway houses in St. Louis that work with inmates leaving federal prison. Missouri Goodwill Industries houses about 25 women at 18th and Locust streets. Dismas House of St. Louis, an unmarked building on Cote Brillante Avenue near Kingshighway, has about 140 beds. Dismas House holds the contract Syed was seeking. ST. LOUIS Former city police Officer Jason Flanery had cocaine as well as alcohol in his system the night he allegedly crashed into a parked car with a police vehicle, Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce said Wednesday. Flanery was charged Monday with driving while intoxicated (alcohol) and leaving the scene in the incident shortly after dawn on Dec. 19. Investigators said he crashed a squad car into a parked vehicle on Jamieson Avenue at Lindenwood Park and drove away. The damaged police vehicle was found parked near his home. He had finished a patrol shift about four hours earlier, police said. Flanery, 33, resigned from the force later that day. A blood sample analyzed by the Missouri Highway Patrol showed his blood-alcohol content at 0.117 percent, above the legal limit of 0.08, which led to the DWI charge. Joyce said Wednesday that after learning the test was only for alcohol, Police Chief Sam Dotson asked for the follow-up analysis that confirmed cocaine. Joyce said her office will review the subsequent cocaine finding and probably amend its charges against Flanery. But she said it would remain misdemeanor DWI. His lawyer declined comment. Flanery is the officer who fatally shot VonDerrit Myers Jr., 18, in an exchange of gunfire in the Shaw neighborhood on Oct. 8, 2014. Myers death, occurring two months after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson by a police officer there, added to unrest in the St. Louis area. Investigators said evidence showed that Myers fired at Flanery, who was working a secondary shift for a security company hired by a neighborhood group. He was cleared in that shooting and remained on the force until his resignation in the aftermath of the crash. On Jan. 20, Myers parents and the mother of his child filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in St. Louis Circuit Court against Flanery, GCI Security and the Flora Place Community Improvement District. Joyce confirmed the cocaine report in a telephone interview while attending a conference on police-involved shootings sponsored by the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys. She said the association includes prosecutors from the nations major urban areas. The conference is in Phoenix. JEFFERSON CITY An attempt by Missouri lawmakers to sanitize state government after last years scandals is moving to the Senate. In two quick votes Thursday, members of the House overwhelmingly approved the final pieces of a package of bills designed to address ethical shortcomings that have dogged the denizens of the capital city in recent years. Senate Majority Leader Mike Kehoe, R-Jefferson City, said the proposals could be aired in the Legislatures upper chamber in the next two weeks, with an eye on sending the changes to Gov. Jay Nixons desk later next month. Included in Fridays action was House Bill 2226, which would bar gubernatorial appointees from financially benefitting from their work on behalf of taxpayers. A second proposal, House Bill 2203, would bar politicians from investing their campaign funds in the stock market or other so-called exotic financial schemes. The House earlier approved a plan to prohibit lawmakers from accepting gifts from lobbyists and placed a one-year waiting period for lawmakers wanting to become lobbyists. Unlikely to change, however, is Missouris lack of a cap on campaign contributions. Although Nixon, a Democrat, called for limits on donations, GOP leaders are not pursuing the idea. When asked Friday if the issue would be considered in his chamber, Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard said, No. The state has operated without contribution limits since 2008, resulting in some campaigns regularly pulling in five- and six-figure contributions. State Sen. Bob Onder, R-Lake St. Louis, agreed with Richard. Campaign contributions in my view are political speech. That is not part of the discussion, Onder said. House Speaker Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, said the governor has not made any personal appeal to him to add campaign limit to the legislative package. Ive never seen the governor really follow through and substantively engage on the subject of campaign finance reform. Were happy to have the governors input on any of these ethics bills, Richardson said. I dont think to this point weve gotten a whole lot back. In a statement, Nixon said he appreciated Richardson and members of the House for their support of the gift ban and the cooling off period for lawmakers going into lobbying. While there is clearly more work to be done in the area of campaign finance, the bills passed by the House represent solid steps forward," Nixon said. Republicans who control the House and Senate have made ethics reform a priority early in the 2016 legislative session after last year ended in disarray. In May, House Speaker John Diehl, a Republican, resigned because of sexually charged messages he exchanged with a 19-year-old intern from Missouri Southern State University. A few months later, Sen. Paul LeVota, a Democrat, resigned amid sexual harassment allegations from multiple former interns. With the Senate poised to begin debating the various measures, members of a Senate panel offered an early review to some of the proposals. Some said they fear they may wind up spending more time filling out new disclosure reports than making laws. We need to be focusing on legislation when were here, said state Sen. Bob Dixon, R-Springfield. Its too much reporting, added state Sen. Gina Walsh, D-Bellefontaine Neighbors. WASHINGTON Senators on Thursday attacked the departments of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security for allegedly releasing children who came into the country illegally to people who exploited them as child laborers or forced them into the sex trade. "I find the situation in front of us today unacceptable and I am disgusted and angry," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, referring to a program in which children detained in government holding facilities were released to "sponsors" who sometimes lied about their relationships to the children. "Somebody is going to step up as a result of this hearing and take full and complete responsibility for these children," McCaskill said. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, called it "incredible" that "HHS policy was that no criminal conviction, no matter how serious, automatically disqualified the sponsors." Johnson said the problem was greatly exacerbated by rising numbers of unaccompanied minors who tried to enter the United States after an Obama administration "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" (DACA) declaration that allowed undocumented immigrant children to be exempt from deportation. He said that unaccompanied children from Hoduras, Guatemala and El Salvador annually detained by the U.S. had risen from under 4,000 before the DACA declaration in 2011 to more than 50,000 by 2014. Children detained were often placed with "sponsors," sometimes family members or even parents who had earlier come to the U.S. But not all got that placement and ended up badly exploited, the report said. "The challenge for us was that the program did grow by about 10 times over a three-year period," said HHS Acting Assistant Secretary for Children and Families Mark Greenberg. He said staffing to handle it was "significantly expanded," from about 50 to about 120, but that current law did not allow government officials to more strongly follow up on placements of children. He said that "our view that we no longer have continuing custody" after "we have released the child" from government detention is long-standing HHS policy. He said that 4 percent of the children placed by HHS were subject to followup visits. McCaskill said that "this hearing is not about DACA, it is about those children who appeared at the border" and ended up exploited. "The U.S. should be an example to the world" in its humane treatment of these children no matter how they got here, she said. The investigations subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, released a report saying that HHS allegedly placed a number of "unaccompanied alien children" in the hands of "a ring of human traffickers who forced them to work on egg farms in and around Marion, Ohio, leading to a federal criminal indictment." That indictment alleged that some of the children were forced to work six or seven days a week, often 12 hours a day, and that their families back in their native countries - Guatemala and other Central American countries - with physical harm if they refused to work or "surrender their entire paychecks." McCaskill described another case uncovered by committee investigators in which a 16-year-old immigrant girl detained by U.S. authorities was placed in a home where the sponsor told authorities he was her cousin, but in fact had no relation to the girl and treated her as a "mail order bride." She and Portman, in sometimes angry exchanges with two top HHS officials responsible for the child refugees, pressed them on why there was not more followup on potentially bad placements with felons or others suspected of exploiting the children. HHS Acting Assistant Secretary Greenberg said Congress had not passed laws allowing HHS to make those followup visits. "We followed the law that Congress enacted," Greenberg said. "Under that law we don't have the ability to make these visits mandatory." McCaskill angrily responded, saying that Greenberg, a Harvard-educated lawyer, should have seen plenty of authority under current law to respond to suspicions that children were being exploited. "I went to one of those public universities," McCaskill said, referring to the University of Missouri. "I don't think I'd have the nerve to say" that federal authorities had no authority to follow up on placements. "Were you ever troubled by your inability to protect children?" Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., asked Greenberg "Yes," he responded. "For me this has never been a paper process." He said that he had previously made the committee aware of his belief that Congress had not given the HHS more authority to follow up on placements. "I have conveyed that very directly to this committee in my prior testimony and when I make public talks" about "the limited role that HHS plays," he said. McCaskill said that the parents of these children "took a risk that every parent in this room can't imagine taking. "They said, 'yeah, take my child, I want this child out of my country, because I love this child so much,' and they believed that America was someplace that they would be safe," McCaskill said. "And we have two federal agencies that have abdicated their responsibilities to the welfare of these children." JEFFERSON CITY Damage and flood-fighting along major Missouri highways cost at least $15 million, running the tab on public works to $56 million or more. Patrick McKenna, director of the Missouri Department of Transportation, told the House Budget Committee Wednesday his staff continues tabulating the cost. The department plans to seek disaster reimbursement from the Federal Highway Administration to help pay those expenses. It may go up, he said. Record crests along the Meramec River in late December were the most damaging of the widespread flooding in eastern Missouri and Southern Illinois after three days of record rainfall. On Jan. 21, President Barack Obama approved aid to individuals in 33 Missouri counties who were affected. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon followed on Monday with a request to the federal government for help in paying an estimated $41 million in damage to roads and local public works, and costs in overtime, supplies and equipment in dealing with the floods. He made that request on behalf of state agencies, 39 counties and the city of St. Louis. That request is separate from what McKenna will seek for major highways. The Department of Transportation calculates damage to federal-aid highways, which include interstates and most state routes. Nixons request covers damage to local roads and streets. Bob Brendel, a spokesman for McKenna, said the $15 million estimate includes damage to highways as well as overtime and supplies, including sand, to fight the floods. The Meramec swamped parts of Interstate 44 near Valley Park and Interstate 55 near Arnold. Brendel said the Federal Highway Administration has its own system of disaster aid to states for damage to major highways, but the state calculates damage in the counties listed in Obamas declaration. The Federal Emergency Management Agency handles individual assistance. Tim ONeil of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report. JEFFERSON CITY The city of St. Louis single largest source of general revenue would be phased out over 10 years under a measure approved by a Senate committee Thursday. The measure initially would have eliminated St. Louis and Kansas Citys 1 percent earnings tax by the end of 2017. In Thursdays amended version, Kansas City would be spared the chopping block. Anyone who lives or works in the city of St. Louis or Kansas City must pay the 1 percent tax. In St. Louis, the tax generates one-third of the citys general revenue, a total of $185 million last year. It pays for city services such as police and fire departments, park maintenance and street repair. Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, who is running for attorney general this year, sponsored the measure. He says the tax is unconstitutional based on a recent Supreme Court decision in Maryland because a credit for income taxes paid to other states is not provided. Schaefer said St. Louis has shown more willingness to look into fixing the problem than has Kansas City. But he also said Kansas City offers a credit for some taxes paid, making its 1 percent tax less egregious. St. Louis is a starting point, Schaefer said. St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay said in a statement Thursday he does not believe this measure is actually meant to pass. Many bills are proposed to attract attention to a theoretical cause or an ambitious sponsor, he said. I believe that bills aimed at the Earnings Taxes of St. Louis and Kansas City belong in that category. Both Slay and Kansas City Mayor Sly James testified against the measure this month. Other lawmakers have filed measures that would eliminate the cities earnings taxes. Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, tweeted Thursday that carving out Kansas City is not a victory. The battle is yet to come. City residents last approved the tax in 2011, an election forced by a Rex Sinquefield-backed proposition that bars the creation of any new municipal earnings taxes in Missouri. St. Louis and Kansas City voters must reauthorize the tax every five years. If voters ever fail to pass the tax, it would be phased out over 10 years. Voters in both cities will be asked to approve the tax again this year. Schaefer has received $750,000 from Sinquefield, a retired investor and the states No. 1 political donor, in his quest for the attorney generals office. Republican leaders say the bill could be debated on the Senate floor in the next week or two. The bill is Senate Bill 575. Clinics in Thailand that handle such cases are reportedly cheap, with a track record of high success rates. (Photo : Getty Images) Since China's decision to allow couples to have two children, more and more Chinese couples are flying to Thailand in hopes of conceiving a "test-tube" baby, according to a report by the Global Times. Clinics in Thailand that handle such cases are reportedly cheap, with a track record of high success rates. Advertisement However, the main reason that draws Chinese couples to Thai clinics is gender selection, a practice that's been banned in China since 2003 as a means to even out China's gender imbalance. According to a Xinhua News Agency reporter, eight out of 10 patients waiting for treatment at the Jetanin Institute for Assisted Reproduction in Bangkok were Chinese. One patient even disclosed that it was her second trip to Thailand for in vitro fertilization (IVF), citing that the first procedure was a failure. One doctor from the institute also revealed that majority of their clients--over 70 percent--are from China. It's not a new trend, however, as this has been the case for several years. Doctors at Jetanin Institute offer a variety of consulting services to an average of 200 clients per day. Although the one-child policy has been relaxed since 2013, not a lot of couples are having a second child. Others cite the economic pressures child-rearing can bring, while more and more couples are discovered to be infertile. This is where IVF services come in. Thailand has a track record for success when it comes to such procedures, rating 10 percent higher than China, according to Guangzhou Daily. Female clients aged 25 to 28 can have a success rate as high as 75 percent. Although statistics fluctuate from time to time, Thailand's success rate is still comparatively higher than that of other Asian countries, said some medical staff at Jetanin Institute. IVF procedures in Thailand are cheap as well, costing between 80,000 and 100,000 yuan. It's significantly cheaper compared to American rates, which reach up to 160,000 yuan. Not all clinics in Thailand are legal, however. According to Reuters, data from the Royal Thai College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists show that there are only 44 officially registered IVF clinics in Thailand in 2014. Come April 5, it will be 25 years since Robin and Julie Kerry were raped and pushed to their deaths from the Chain of Rocks Bridge. In a city thats no stranger to gruesome crimes, the Kerry sisters case was cinematically horrifying. Now Reginald Clemons, one of two men and two juveniles tried as adults in their killings, will again go on trial for capital murder in the case. By a 4-3 vote in November, the Missouri Supreme Court threw out Clemons 1993 conviction and death sentence. Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce had 60 days to decide whether to retry him. On Day 60, she said she would, and again seek the death penalty. Except for the part about the death penalty, Ms. Joyce made the right decision. Clemons deserves a fair trial, which entails the presumption of innocence. He got neither the first time around. There has never been doubt that Clemons was one of four individuals who encountered the Kerry sisters and their cousin, Tom Cummins, on the bridge that night. Clemons precise role in the crimes was always the issue. St. Louis Police detectives got a confession out of him, but it turns out they may have beaten it out of him. Former Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Michael Manners, who was appointed by the Supreme Court to review evidence in the case, concluded that Clemons had been beaten and a prosecutor had suppressed evidence of it. In November, the Missouri Supreme Court said suppressing evidence material either to guilt or to punishment violated the U.S. Supreme Courts 1963 ruling in Brady v. Maryland. In Clemons 1993 trial, the jury wasnt told that a Missouri probation officer who interviewed Clemons a few hours after his arrest had noticed bruises and swelling on his face. That testimony almost certainly would have bolstered Clemons claim that his confession was coerced. In a hearing during his evidence review, Judge Manners said, There was shoddy police work almost beyond comprehension. When I said shoddy, I meant they took a path of least resistance, closing an investigation early as it was the easiest thing to do. A new trial will conjure many searing memories for the Kerry family, but they supported Ms. Joyces decision to retry Clemons. A second capital murder conviction could be tough. The trail is 25 years cold, and some of the original key players are dead. The Clemons case has become a cause celebre for death penalty opponents, and the trial likely will draw international attention. A couple of things remain beyond dispute: Two women who would now be entering middle age were deprived of their lives, and Reginald Clemons was there when they died. Taking the death penalty off the table would make this case a whole lot simpler. LONDON MARKET MIDDAY: Banks and oil majors support FTSE 100 Thursday, October 20, 2022 - 12:38 London's big banks and energy companies were keeping the FTSE 100 steady on Thursday at midday, even as investors watched with horror as the government at Westminster goes ever more off-kilter. The mood over on Wall Street was no better either. Numbers from Tesla soured what had been a decent third-quarter earnings season so far. The FTSE 100 index was down 7.08 points, 0.1%, at 6,917.91 midday Thursday. The FTSE 250 was up 26.48 points, 0.2%, at 17,274.03, and the AIM All-Share faded 3.68 points, 0.5%, at 782.29. The Cboe UK 100 was down 0.2% at 691.17, the Cboe UK 250 was down 0.3% at 14,758.86, and the Cboe Small Companies lost 0.2% to 12,341.25. In European equities on Thursday, the CAC 40 in Paris was flat, while the DAX 40 in Frankfurt was down 0.7%. UK Prime Minister Liz Truss is battling to contain the fallout from a calamitous 24 hours for her premiership, which saw a Cabinet minister resign and an open revolt in the Commons. Tory members of Parliament are wondering how long the prime minister can go on following the chaotic events, but a Cabinet ally said "at the moment" Truss will still lead the party into the next election, due in 2024. Transport Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan said the government is seeking to provide stability, and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt should be given the time to set out his financial plans at the end of October. But a senior MP said Truss has just hours to turn the situation around following the chaos in Parliament on Wednesday. The pound, already under pressure by a dollar boosted by Fed rate hike expectations, slid again on Thursday. Sterling was quoted at $1.1201 midday Thursday, lower than $1.1242 at the London equities close on Wednesday. "Political infighting and the uncertainty of policy continue to demand a risk premium for sterling, where GBPUSD could easily slip back to the bottom end of its wide 1.10-1.15 range. The wild card is what happens to the top job and whether the re-emergence of former Chancellor Rishi Sunak would represent a steadying of the ship or merely split the Conservative party asunder. One can understand why foreign investors will want to steer clear of sterling until the political environment becomes a lot clearer," analysts at ING commented. The euro traded at $0.9791 midday Thursday, up slightly from $0.9784 at the European equities close on Wednesday, Against the yen, the dollar was quoted at JP149.77, unchanged from the London equities close on Wednesday. The greenback had spiked to JP150 earlier on Thursday, for the first time since 1990. It puts the Bank of Japan under the spotlight and also raises the prospect of another intervention by the Japanese government. The dollar had traded around JP146 when Japan intervened last month. The dollar has enjoyed a blistering rise so far in 2022 against its fellow safe-haven currency. At the start of the year, the dollar had only fetched around JP115. A hawkish Federal Reserve has lifted the greenback this year, and the market expects aggressive rate hikes to continue as the central bank bids to cool rampant inflation. "Remarks from the US central bank for the interest rate outlook, especially in the near term, remained hawkish," analysts at Lloyds commented. In London, shares in banking stocks were on the up. They had fallen on Wednesday on the threat of an additional tax on profit not being reduced as planned by the UK government. Lloyds Banking rose 2.3%, NatWest added 1.3% while FTSE 250-listed OSB climbed 3.1%. Among the stocks dragging on the FTSE 100 was Dechra Pharmaceuticals, down 3.1%. Dechra said it is confident of delivering on market expectations for its financial year, as it looks ahead to its all-important second half. The veterinary products firm said trading in its first quarter ended September 30 was below the prior year, as expected. This is due to a challenging comparator with higher demand levels during Covid-19 and the phasing of price increases. "As the market growth slows, analysts have become more bearish on Dechra and moderating near-term growth expectations while waiting to see how it normalises and how sticky companion animal healthcare expenditure may be in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis," analysts at Liberum commented. Dunelm lost 2.0%. For the 13 weeks to October 1, total sales for the homewares retailer came in at 357 million, down 8% from the previous year. Looking ahead, it noted a "challenging" macroeconomic environment, including recent volatility in exchange rate movements. It reiterated annual guidance, however. Naked Wines surged 28% after announced a leadership re-jib and a restructuring. Chief Executive Nick Devlin struck a penitent tone. The CEO said the online wine seller made "mistakes" in the pursuit of fast growth. Darryl Rawlings will step down as chair with immediate effect, with David Stead to take his place. Stead has been a director of the firm since 2017 and is currently chair of the audit committee. In addition, Deirdre Runnette will become senior independent director. Naked Wines said it was in active discussions with James Crawford to assume the role of chief financial officer on a permanent basis. Gemfields fell 11%. It said a mine in Mozambique, neighbouring operations at 75%-owned Montepuez Ruby Mining, was attacked. The Cabo Delgado region in northern Mozambique has been hit by Islamist insurgency in recent years. Gemfields said MRM has begun evacuating operational employees and contractors, so mining has ceased. Elsewhere in the junior AIM market, shares in Baron Oil jumped 52%. Oil and gas production in the North Sea should be boosted in the coming years through a number of measures, the regulating body has recommended. In a report released on Thursday, the North Sea Transition Authority has said drilling activity remained low in 2021 compared to pre-pandemic levels. It comes after the NSTA said it would expand oil and gas licences, a move which is facing a legal challenge from climate campaigners. The NSTA's head of technology, Carlo Procaccini, said: "Amid the energy crisis, it is vital that North Sea industry works quickly to secure additional supplies of oil and gas, produced as cleanly as possible." Baron Oil has a 32% interest in the Inner Moray Firth asset, a prospect that it describes as "one of the few remaining undrilled UK North Sea targets". Gold was quoted at $1,637.66 an ounce midday Thursday in London, lower than $1,631.50 late Wednesday. Brent oil was trading at $93.70 a barrel, higher than $90.83. BP was up 1.9%, Shell up 2.3% and Harbour Energy up 4.0%. Stocks in the US are called largely lower. The Nasdaq Composite is called down 0.5%, and the S&P 500 down 0.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is called 0.1% higher, however. Tesla was down 5.4% in pre-market trade. In the three months to September 30, net attributable income jumped to $3.29 billion from $1.62 billion a year prior. Total revenue rose 56% to $21.45 billion from $12.76 billion, with Automotive revenue up 55% to $18.69 billion from $12.06 billion. "Investors had their first big disappointment of a US third quarter earnings season which, up until now, had been a qualified success, with Tesla missing expectations on revenue and car sales," AJ Bell analyst Russ Mould commented. "The electric vehicle manufacturer's underpowered performance reflects continuing challenges around the supply chain and rising costs. It suggests expectations were pitched too high coming into this quarterly update." Still to come in Thursday's economic calendar, there are US initial jobless claims at 1330 BST. Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. The partnership of CMB and Didi aims to bind mobile and automobile credit and financial options thru local businesses like Didi Kuaidi. (Photo : YouTube) China's top cab hailing service - Didi Kuaidi - claims that its taxi services have contributed to dialing down pollution levels in China. In a research report released in Jan. 21, Didi Kuaidi claims that its services have reduced individual number of car trips by 1.14 million per day. This move by Didi Kuaidi has cut down over 13.5 tons of carbon emissions. Advertisement The recent research paper is titled "China Urban Smart Transportation Report," which has been created by Didi Kuaidi, in association with Watching Media and First Finance Commercial Data Research Centre. Citing excerpts from this study, Tech in Asia reported that Didi Kuadi's services offer four pronged solutions to China's urban transportation challenge. First, its services reduce need to buy new vehicles for commutation purposes. Second, it reduces private car rides and increases social peer-to-peer experience on account of its car-pooling services. Third, its services alleviate urban traffic pressure and congestion issues. Fourth, it reduces negative environmental impact caused by vehicular emissions. According to Financial Times, Didi Kuaidi secured China's first municipal license for "internet car booking" on Oct. 8, 2015 in Shanghai. While the license was being granted, Chinese political leaders had made it clear that such services could reduce traffic congestion and pollution. Didi Kuaidi is jointly owned by Chinese internet giants- Alibaba and Tencent - and offers serious competition to American cab hailing company Uber. In a recent report, Didi Kuaidi claims to have 99 percent market share in taxi-hailing services, and 87 percent market share in private car ride services. This number is disputed by Uber, which claimed to have 35 percent market share of private cab services in China. China has recently attempted to cut down on its alarming levels of urban pollution; however, some doubts whether Didi Kuaidi or Uber contribute to a positive environmental impact, since most of the car rides they offer are solo ones. Tianjin to Start Relocation of Two Chemical Plants to Nangang Industrial Zone This Year People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers of the anti-chemical warfare corps clean up the debris at the blast site in Binhai new district of Tianjin. (Photo : REUTERS) Local authorities in Tianjin will start the relocation of two large chemical plants in 2016, which is expected to cost about 29 billion yuan, five months after the massive blasts of the chemical warehouse that killed more than 160 people in 2015, the Xinhua News Agency reported. Advertisement Wang Junming, general manager of Nangang Industrial Zone Co. Ltd., told Xinhua that Tianjin Chemical Plant and Tianjin Dagu Chemical Plant will start relocation this year, from a densely populated area to the Nangang Industrial Zone in southern Tianjin. The two factories were established in the 1930s and located in Tianjin's Hangu and Tanggu Districts. "They have posed safety and environmental threats to the residential areas in the neighborhood," Wang said on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the Tianjin Municipal People's Congress, the local legislature, on Sunday, Jan. 24. Wang said that a total of 29 billion yuan (about $4.5 billion) is expected to be raised for the relocation, based on state low-interest loans and supportive funds provided by Tianjin's Binhai New Area. In August last year, massive blasts at a chemical warehouse rocked the Tianjin Port, and the incident claimed the lives of more than 160 people. After the accident, Tianjin began moving chemical plants to the Nangang Industrial Zone, about 30 kilometers from the explosion site, and 10 kilometers from the nearest residential area. Wang told Xinhua that no new chemical plants will be approved or built in the area following the blasts. Nangang Industrial Zone in Binhai New Area has an area of 200 square kilometers. It was designed to become a world-class multi-functional zone featuring heavy chemical industrial base and port. Local authorities said in October last year that a 24-hectare park will be constructed on the site of the deadly Tianjin warehouse explosions. The construction started in November last year. The park is expected to be completed in July next year. A high school, a primary school and a kindergarten around the park will also be constructed based on agreements, the report said. In Order Make a Comment You need to login. Although the European (MDBA) air-launched Scalp cruise missile has been in service since 2002 it has not been used heavily since 2oo3. That changed in 2015 when France intensified its war against Islamic terrorism and the new Typhoon fighter-bomber was equipped to use Scalp. With a max range of 560 kilometers the 1.3 ton Scalp has a 450 kg conventional warhead and a highly accurate (capable of hitting ships or small buildings) terminal guidance system. Scalp uses GPS, INS and terrain recognition guidance systems to get close enough for the terminal guidance system to take over. Costing about $1.5 million each some 3,000 have been ordered since the late 1990s and about a hundred used. France bought 600 while Britain ordered nearly a thousand (as Storm Shadow) and wealthy Gulf Arab oil states bought over a thousand. Greece, Italy and Egypt also bought some. The recent use of Scalp in Syria and Mali have been successful. Britain first used Storm Shadow in combat during air campaign against Iraq during 2003. But now all the nations with Scalp/Storm Shadow are using it more frequently against terrorist targets. X 0 20 Help Keep Us Soaring We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling. We need your help in reversing that trend. We would like to add 20 new subscribers this month. Each month we count on your subscriptions or contributions. You can support us in the following ways: Micromanagement, first seen during the Vietnam War when advances in communications allowed someone in Washington to communicate directly with commanders in combat, has reached new heights and is causing major headaches for another generation of battlefield commanders. The latest disaster is a combination of still better communications in addition to growth of White House staffs. In particular an advisory group like the NSC (National Security Council) has been overwhelmed many additional personnel, most of whom have only opinions to offer, not advice based on long experience. In the beginning, when the NSC was created in 1947, it consisted of senior military and State Department officials based in Washington. These original NSC members all had long experience in their fields and the president used the NSC for advice and to test new ideas. But over the next fifty years more support staff were added to the NSC and after the end of conscription in the 1970s fewer of these staffers had any military experience and even less understanding of how diplomacy actually worked. When the NSC got so large (about fifty members) that the staff seemed to be getting in the way some directors sought to reduce the size. But after 2001 NSC growth got out of control and is currently about 400 people. As a result the experienced people are so outnumbered that they are often considered the enemy by the inexperienced (in national security and diplomacy matters) support staff. The tail was truly wagging the dog. This type of NSC has become an embarrassment and seemingly invulnerable to reform. This mutant NSC is one reason U.S. military and diplomatic policy seems so random and aimless. No one in the government can muster sufficient support to change the situation and return the NSC to its original usefulness. Meanwhile the ability of the bad advice to quickly make life miserable for the troops (and diplomats abroad) became really noticeable in 2004 when the U.S. Department of Defense decided to provide the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) with a real time combat command capability. This meant that the JCS, led by its chairman, now had a combat command center in the Pentagon where they use satellite communications to directly observe, and sometimes control, combat forces anywhere on the planet. This should not have been a problem because most of these senior officers learned, early on in their military training, the importance of giving subordinates their mission and leaving it to these lower ranking officers to figure out a way to do it. But now, with a generation of senior commanders with no experience of being micromanaged platoon leaders in Vietnam, the insidious and crippling micromanagement disease is creeping back into the White House and Pentagon. Field commanders are being second guessed by nervous superiors half way around the world. These same superiors are now calling in lawyers to help them make the right (for the guy in Washington) decision while the troops are under fire and waiting for permission to proceed. It wasn't always this way. It was since the mid-19th century that a government could exercise any control at all over armed forces far from the capital. This was first done with the introduction of overland and undersea telegraph lines in the 19th century and world-wide radio broadcasting equipment early in the 20th century. Before that an admiral or general was sent off with orders to accomplish a mission and pretty much allowed to get it done as they saw fit. The generals and admirals rather liked this approach, as their job was hard enough without a bunch of politicians looking over their shoulder and second guessing their every decision. Even with the radio messages from back home, the combat commanders were still left to sort things out on their own. The radio was used mainly to report progress, or lack of it, not ask permission for every move. But by the 1960s it was possible to patch through a telephone call from the White House to an infantry battalion commander deep in the Vietnamese bush. And it wasn't just the dreaded phone call from the president you had to worry about. The beleaguered battalion commander might have brigade, division, and corps commanders circling overhead in helicopters, all of them observing and offering advice or giving orders. This "micromanagement" was much disliked by the guys on the ground, trying to run a battle they were right in the middle of. After Vietnam the Department of Defense tried to deal with this problem by establishing regional commands to cover the entire planet and then appointing four star generals or admirals to command all American forces in that region if there were a war. The rest of the time they would keep an eye on things and get ready for any possible war. These commanders in chief (or CINCs as they are still called, unofficially) were sometimes guilty of micromanagement, although all experienced combat commanders recognized that it was best to leave the commanders of the fighting units alone. This was the lesson of history. Micromanagement was bad but it persisted. Why? Blame it on the media. Just as military communications had improved so had the ability of the media to get the story back to their audience (of voters, pundits, and unfriendly politicians). In the past the commander on the spot might do things that did not look good in the media but it took so long to get the story back that the operation was over by the time it did. If the battle was won many sins would be forgiven. That no longer works. Communications now allow reporters to deliver color commentary while a battle is in progress. The American president, the ultimate (by law and in fact) commander in chief, is held responsible for whatever the troops do. It is not possible, politically, to wait for the combat commanders to finish their job before the president, or his aides, issues new orders. Examples of micromanagement were abundant in the recent Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Washington often had to be consulted before sensitive attacks were made (like having a Predator UAV launch a Hellfire missile at some guy on the ground who might be Osama bin Laden, or some tall Afghan with a beard, a new SUV, and a commanding manner). The JCS Command Post was an attempt to deal with this problem. The JCS and the Secretary of Defense are the president's senior, and most frequent, military advisors. Ultimately, the buck stops with the JCS. So by plugging the JCS into a world-wide command system, politically sensitive decisions can be resolved quickly (in minutes, or at least in less than an hour). The more frequent contact between the president, the Secretary of Defense, and the JSC with combat commanders might build up a degree of trust that would enable sensitive decisions to be made more quickly. This would happen, in a best case situation, because the JCS Command Post had developed confidence in the judgment of the commanders out there. But the JCS Command Post has just become another layer of management that slows down decision making without improving the ability of the troops to get the job done. The expanding NSC staff often put itself between JCS and the president. Another side effect was a proposal that the CINC be reduced to the status of a staff officer. The CINC and his people (several hundred staff officers and support troops) would be the repository of knowledge about the local situation and would take care of all those logistical and support details that enable the combat operations to happen. So far, the CINCs have successfully resisted this, but it's happening anyway whenever the folks back in Washington want to throw their considerable weight around. Speaking of staff work, one thing combat staffs are increasingly concerned with is how to deal with politically delicate situations that the media could run with (often in uncomfortable directions). This sort of thing has been seen frequently since 2001. For example, when sandstorms seemed to have "stalled" the American advance on Baghdad in 2003, the president, or at least the Secretary of Defense, had to be in touch with the commanders inside the sand storm and then say something to the press that would defuse the story and wouldn't blow up later if it proved to be false. For those who didn't catch the follow up on the sand storm, the troops were delayed by the need to resupply (especially fuel for their very thirsty M-1 tanks) and the storm actually helped because the Iraqis thought they could safely move Republican Guard divisions under cover of it. They couldn't, as there were American satellites, UAVs, and sensors on the ground that could see right through the sand. Iraqi tanks and troops got shot up on a massive scale before they realized that the swirling sand blinded them more than the Americans. The ability to quickly communicate between the battlefield and the Pentagon came in handy after Baghdad fell in 2003and the Baath party diehards continued to resist with ambushes. But all of this communication was improvised. That experience naturally led to the idea that better preparation for that situation would have improved communications and decision making. The Pentagon and White House already expected to see real time UAV video coverage of critical events. But there are often dozens of video feeds running through Department of Defense satellites, and the JCS Command Post tries to sort it all out and have the most important videos marked for the attention of the president, Secretary of Defense, and Chairman of the JCS, or for release to the media. Micromanagement originally appeared because the technology was there to make it possible. New technology keeps showing up, making more mischief, or benefits, possible. As always, it's up to the people using the technology to make things happen or screw things up. Turns out that you can usually depend on the tech to be more reliable than some of the people using it. Dirty Little Secrets DLS for 2001 | DLS for 2002 | DLS for 2003 DLS for 2004 | DLS for 2005 | DLS for 2006 DLS for 2007 | DLS for 2008 India Loses Faith In Russia by James Dunnigan January 27, 2016 At the end of 2015 a number of very senior Indian officials went to Russia to meet with their counterparts there and one items at the top of the agenda was the continued reliability problems with the Su-30MKI jet fighters. Fifty of these Russian designed aircraft were built in Russia for India and the rest of the 272 aircraft order is being assembled locally. Deliveries should be complete by 2019 and at the moment India is not keen on ordering any more. There is a reason for that. India has been complaining out about these reliability problems since 2010 and the most telling statistic is the percentage of Su-30MKIs out of service for maintenance or repairs. Russia promised that this would only be about 25 percent, which is competitive with similar Western aircraft. India points out that in reality between 40 and 45 percent of the Su-30MKIs are out of service, many for reliability problems that Russia assured India would not happen. The impact of this lower availability means that of the 210 Su-30MKIs India has only about 126 are available to fight rather than the 157 Russia promised. That means 31 fewer Su-30MKIs available to use in wartime. That is a significant loss and India is demanding a solution. Most of the problems are related to engines and Russia says it has narrowed most of the problems down to difficulties related to ball bearings. The engines are also assembled in India, using Russian and Indian made parts. Russia has devised several fixes for the engine problem but the readiness (for combat) rate of the Su-30MKI has not changed. India is demanding that Russia allow Indian firms to manufacture many more spare parts. Russia does not like to do that because spare parts are more profitable than the aircraft. The Indian Air Force has lost five of its Russian designed Su-30MKI jet fighters since 2009. In 2011 the commander of the Indian Air Force took an hour-long flight in one of India's Su-30MKI to reassure Indian pilots that the Su-30MKI was safe. Two had crashed in 2009, due to mechanical failures and there were widely publicized reliability problems with the engines and many of the other Russian designed and built components of the aircraft. There have been two losses since 2013. Indian pilots are understandably nervous about the safety of the many Russian warplanes they fly. The MiG fighters India used since the1960s are much more dangerous but the more recent Su-30 models were believed to be a lot safer than they turned out to be. Russian efforts since then to fix the problems have not reassured Indian pilots or politicians and India is running out of patience. Its not just mechanical problems. In 2012 India went public with yet complaints about an unspecified "design flaw" in the electronic flight control system for the Su-30MKI. There were also problems with ejection seats and several other components of the new Russian stealth fighter (the T-50) which India is helping to develop. All this has led India to negotiate a deal to buy 129 French Rafale fighters and hope that this would persuade the Russians to improve the reliability of Russian aircraft. Russia insists that it has the T-50 problems under control but the Indians are unconvinced and threatening to withdraw from helping pay for development and buying over 150 of the T-50. Privately Russia blames many of the reliability problems on poor Indian maintenance and construction practices. India is more open about describing the Russians of being incapable of matching Western reliability standards. Russia has decided to abandon development of An-70, four-engine turboprop transport that began development in the 1980s in Ukraine when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. The An-70 is dead because of the war with Ukraine which led to Russia cancelling its 2012 order for 60 An-70s. These were to be delivered between 2014 and 2020. The canceled An-70s will be replaced by a smaller number of the new Russian Il-76MD-90 transports. Thirty of these have already been delivered and the Russians are satisfied with the latest version of the elderly Il-76. Still the Russian Air Force believes it needs at least another fifty Il-76s to replace the cancelled An-70s and rapidly aging Cold War era Il-76s. This is a sad end to Antonov, which is now bankrupt and being dissolved. In 2008, after two years of stalling, Russia agreed to put up the needed $300 million to revive the An-70 development program. Since the beginning the An-70 has been pitched as a low cost alternative for nations needing C-130 or A400M type medium military transports. The An-70 is a powerful prop-driven aircraft. While the C-130 can haul 20 tons and the A400M 37 tons, the AN-70 can carry 47 tons (for up to 1,350 kilometers). Carrying 20 tons, the An-70 can travel 7,400 kilometers. The aircraft also excels in one area the Russians were always good at: the ability to operate from unpaved, and short, runways. The Russian-Ukrainian company developing the AN-70 expected to sell lots of them to countries like India and China and others that want the most for their money in a rugged military transport. Antonov, a Ukrainian company after 1991, kept An-70 development going from the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 until mid-2006 and maintained good relations with the Russian government. But Russia said it wanted to concentrate on further developing its own Il-76 jet transport at the expense of the An-70. The Ukrainians pointed out that there was still a demand for propeller driven transports. Eventually the Ukrainians made their case that the An-70 was needed. Russia placed an order in 2012 that enabled development and plans for mass production to move forward. That ended in late 2014 when Russian turned on Ukraine (for ousting a pro-Russian government) and seized Crimea and attempted to do the same in eastern Ukraine. Meanwhile in 2012, after several years of starting and stopping negotiations, the Russian Air Force decided to go ahead and buy 39 of the new Il-76MD-90 transports. While similar in appearance to the Il-76, the 76MD-90 is basically a new aircraft, with numerous new structural and electronic components as well as new engines. That was one reason that, during development, it was referred to as the Il-476. The Il-76MD-90 had its first test flights in 2012 and was to enter service in 2014 but that was delayed until late 2015. The Il-76MD-90 can carry up to 60 tons and is about 15 percent more fuel efficient. The Il-76MD-90 is seen as an excellent candidate for export sales. Russia rolled the first upgraded Il-76 in 2007. New engines and electronics give the Il-76MD-90 eight percent better fuel efficiency and the ability to lift more cargo. Further improvements will increase fuel efficiency another 14 percent. Russia is trying to make the Il-76/Il-76ND-90 a contender in the military air transport market and the new Il-76ND-90 is being showcased to make that happen. The Il-76 is somewhat similar in capability to the U.S. C-17 but uses older technology, more similar to the retired (in 2006) U.S. C-141. The Russians have also been buying a stretched version of the Il-76 (the Il-76MF). This version first flew in 1995, and has become popular with users of earlier Il-76 models. The Il-76MF had better engines and can carry 50 tons of cargo over 4,000 kilometers. Another popular Il-76 is the tanker version (called the Il-78). There are far more Il-76's in use than all of America's four engine jet transports (C-5, C-141, C-17) put together. Nearly a thousand 900 Il-76s were manufactured since the 1970s, with over a hundred exported, so far, mainly to Cuba, Iraq, China, India, Libya, and Syria. With few foreign or domestic sales since the 1990s, the Il-76 manufacturer (Chkalov) survived by manufacturing wings and other components for the An-124, An-70, and An-225 transports. In addition, it made replacement parts for the Il-76 and Il-114 aircraft. The new models of the Il-76 indicate a substantial R&D investment and an effort to make the Il-76 a serious competitor (mainly on price, at about $60 million each) with the C-17 (which costs about four times as much and is able to carry up to 100 tons). What the C-17 is best at is carrying about half that weight, half way around the world, non-stop. The Il-76 has a hard time matching that. The C-17 is also easier to maintain and more reliable. But the fuel-efficient Il-76ND-90 that can be refueled in the air has a price that's tough to beat. A major customer for the new Il-76s is Russia. All 110 Russian Il-76s have been grounded several times in the past few years because of problems. In one case the engine fell off an Il-76 while it was preparing to takeoff. Now there is a suitable replacement and no competition from Antonov. For two years the United States has delayed action on a Qatari attempt to buy 36 (and eventually 73) F-15E fighter bombers (for nearly $4 billion) and Kuwaiti efforts to buy 28 F-18E fighters (for $3 billion). The American Department of Defense and State Department approved the deal and there was support in Congress but for reasons unclear the American president refused to approve (or disapprove) the deal or even explain why not. Kuwait has long used the older F-18A and wants the latest model to improve its defenses against an increasingly aggressive Iran next door. With a max weight of 29 tons, an F-18E can carry up to eight tons of bombs. Combat range is 720 kilometers, and the aircraft was designed as a fighter. Qatar still wants the F-15E, which Israel and Saudi Arabia are both major users of but in the meantime has bought 24 Rafale fighters from France. It is still a mystery of how tiny Qatar (population 2.2 million) justifies the purchase of over 73 F-15Es. Middle Eastern nations are major users of the F-15E. Saudi Arabia alone has 153 F-15SA fighter-bombers. This includes 84 new ones ordered in 2012 and 69 upgraded F-15S models. The F-15SA is a special models of the F-15, similar to the two-seater F-15E, and unlike the single seat F-15Cs the Saudis already have optimized for ground attack. Israel protested selling the Saudis such advanced bomber technology, but the U.S. worked this out via secret discussions. The Saudi "F-15SA" is similar to the South Korean version of the F-15E, the F-15K. This is a customized version of the 36 ton U.S. F-15E (a two seat fighter bomber version of the single seat, 31 ton F-15C fighter). Already in service for over twenty years, the F-15E can carry up to 11 tons of bombs and missiles, along with a targeting pod and an internal 20mm cannon. The Saudi will begin receiving the new F-15SAs in 2016 and those will cost nearly $30 billion. The F-15E is an all-weather aircraft that can fly one-way up to 3,900 kilometers. It uses in-flight refueling to hit targets anywhere on the planet. For the Saudis this means they can keep these bombers in the air longer, searching for targets. Smart bombs make the F-15E particularly efficient. The second crewman (the backseater) handles the electronics and bombing. The F-15E remains a potent air-superiority fighter, making it an exceptional combat aircraft. This success prompted Israel, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Singapore to buy it, paying about $100 million per aircraft. In the U.S. Air Force the F-15E is one of the most popular aircraft for combat pilots to fly, even more so than the new F-22. At the end of 2015 China announced that it had changed its laws to allow Chinese military and police commandos to operate overseas. This came as a surprise to some in naval intelligence because it was known that for several years special operations teams had been seen on Chinese warships operating off the Somali coast as part of the international anti-piracy patrol. But as far anyone knows these commandos never saw any combat although they were observed training a lot. China is expected to use this new authority to offer commandos for sensitive peacekeeping emergencies. China has a lot of different commando units to send overseas. China allows different services (including the paramilitary national police) and military regions to create and maintain their own special operations forces. Thus there are ten separate special operations forces (seven military regions, the navy and the national police have two). The capital (Beijing, also a military region) has the largest force with over 3,000 personnel. Since the late 1990s the total manpower was expanded from about 12,000 special operation troops nationwide to over 30,000. Each military region has a special operations brigade with about 2,000 troops. In a few cases smaller forces of several hundred operators are organized for about half a dozen combat divisions plus a few more for some armies. The non-army special operations units tend to be smaller, with lots of them in the various provincial and special police forces. Same with the navy and two marine brigades and its equivalent of the American SEALs. The current plan is to form small (platoon or company size, that is 20-150 troops) special operations units in every division and navy squadron (unit of several warships). Thus the army actually has eleven special operations brigades or (smaller) regiments but the troops are scattered all over the army. These variations also hide the fact that most of these troops, while elite, are more similar in capabilities to Western rangers, paratroopers or SWAT teams. There are few who are as capable as the American Special Forces or commandos (as created during World War II by the British in the SAS and SBS) After World War II there were similar but a bit different SAS variations like American SEALs and Special Forces units that focused on traditional commando ops. The Russians came up with Spetsnaz while the Germans and French and many former British colonies created quite impressive versions of SAS. China did not get into forming special operations troops until the 1980s and each of the military regions and several major police organizations were allowed to develop their own versions of the basic idea (elite troops performing very difficult tasks). Naturally there is more emphasis on martial arts and physical conditioning, both Chinese traditions admired but not always practiced intensively by the military. Chinese special operations skills involve a lot of work on improving reconnaissance capabilities and the ability to track down and quickly kill or capture small groups of troublemakers (especially separatists or religious fanatics). In the 1990s Chinese special operations commanders began looking into using their elite troops for raiding key enemy targets to paralyze the enemy ability to move and react. Chinese publicists made much of the fact that one of the two National Police special operations units (the Snow Leopards) won the annual International Warrior Competition (the Commando Olympics) two years in a row. This involved competing with troops from 17 other nations, including the United States. That said, each year the Americans were not able to send their best because most U.S. special operations troops are either in combat, getting ready for operations or recovering from their last tour. Still, the Snow Leopards did well and in other international operations (usually of a counter-terrorism nature) the Chinese operators always demonstrated a professional attitude and mastery of the skills needed to be an effective commando. The Snow Leopards are one several commando units in the national police and are based in Beijing. Two of the four squadrons of the Snow Leopards specialize in commando operations (like hostage rescue or difficult raids), while another handles bomb disposal and exotic (nuclear, biological, complex bombs) weapons and the other squadron specializes in snipers. The Snow Leopards were formed in 2002 and trained for five years before going to work. There are several similar units in other parts of China. In general, these police commando units do not reveal much about themselves. Much is known about the Snow Leopards because they were the first and being in the capital are something of a showcase unit for Chinese special operations in general. The Snow Leopards are, like many commando units, small (under 500 personnel) and very selective. The Snow Leopards are mainly a counter terrorism unit, of which there are several in the national police (called the PAP or People's Armed Police). In China, the line between the armed forces and the police is sometimes blurred, especially when it comes to paramilitary outfits like the PAP. The 22,000 peacekeepers, 20,000 Somali soldiers and over 10,000 pro government militiamen have not been able to eradicate Islamic terrorists like al Shabaab or unruly clan leaders and warlords. Violence has been greatly reduced over the last few years but al Shabaab continues to stage high profile (likely to make the international or regional news) attacks, especially in the capital (Mogadishu). Corrupt government officials and clan leaders help keep the violence going by tolerating all manner of illegal activity as long as the bribe is large enough. Fortunately the neighbors (especially Ethiopia and Kenya) are tired of all this Somali lawlessness as neighboring countries have been victims of it for as long as anyone can remember. The UN agrees that something should be done but so far no one has been able to come up with a plan that will bring long-term peace. The January 15th defeat of Kenyan peacekeepers in Somalia will have unpleasant repercussions for Somalis in Somalia as well as over 600,000 living as refugees in Kenya. Relations between Somalis and their neighbors have never been good and they are getting worse. While the UN and foreign aid groups urge peaceful means to bring peace to Somalia that has not worked after more than two decades of efforts. Historically force is the only thing that has worked in Somalia. British 19th century colonial administrators learned that the best way to deal with Somali outlaws was to "shoot on sight, shoot first, shoot to kill, keep shooting." Not unexpectedly, post-colonial Somalia proved unable to govern itself. The tribal rivalries kept the pot boiling, and even the rise of a "clean government" party (the Islamic Courts) after 2001, based on installing a religious dictatorship, backfired and turned into al Shabaab. That caused even more Somalis to flee their homeland. That caused other problems. Somali refugees throughout Africa and worldwide have acquired a reputation for violence and criminal behavior. This is one reason foreign aid for Somalia is decling, largely because of the corruption and violence against aid workers. Aid in 2015 was half of what it was in 2014 and the decline continues. Kenya has had the worst problems with Somali refugees. In 2015 over 5,000 Somalis returned from Kenya as part of a Kenyan program to persuade Somali refugees to voluntarily return home. Kenya offered inducements it hoped would persuade at least 100,000 to go back by the end of 2015. That did not happen. This is a big step back from the original plan to expel all (over 600,000) legal and illegal Somali refugees in the country. The expulsion threat came in response to ever more horrendous al Shabaab attacks inside Kenya, including an April 2015 al Shabaab massacre of 148 Christian students at a university. The UN promised to help with refugee camp security and moving more of the refugees back to Somalia but strongly opposed expulsion. Nevertheless the UN has promised to get 50,000 Somali refugees to leave Kenya in 2016. That seems unlikely because in January only about 1,200 left. In Somalia politicians and al Shabaab agree that Kenya should stop mistreating Somalis in Kenya if only because this mistreatment is used by al Shabaab for recruiting. The Kenyan government recognizes this problem and talks about curbing violence against Somalis in Kenya but controlling popular hatred of and hostility towards murderous Somalis is difficult. This is particularly true because of the recent al Shabaab terror attacks in Kenya and the centuries of Somalis raiding into Kenya. Its an old problem that does not lend itself to quick or easy solutions. Meanwhile the UN has to cut food supplies to all the refugees in Kenya (mostly Somali but some from Sudan) because not enough donors could be found. There is only so much donor money out there and many donors seek areas where they believe their money will do the most good. Long term refugees (as with the Somalis in Kenya) are not seen as the best use of donor funds. Currently the UN spends about $115 million a year to feed the refugees in northern Kenya. Nearly half that money comes from the United States. Refugee officials continue having problems maintaining security in the Somali refugee camps and a growing number of foreign aid organizations are withdrawing from some camps because of the chronic violence. Violence against aid workers in Somalia doubled in 2015 compared to 2014. In 2015 there were 140 attacks on aid workers in Somalia, leaving 17 dead. In 2014 there were 75 attacks and ten dead. Foreign aid workers have been demanding better security in Somalia for decades. They expected some improvement in 2014 because al Shabaab had been largely driven from Mogadishu and much of the countryside. But things got worse in large part because of the success in driving al Shabaab out of towns they had held for years. Typically the troops turn control over to local clans who pledge loyalty to the government. The clan gunmen are usually commanded by guys that foreigners describe as warlords and these rogue militias consider any unarmed foreigners they encounter fair prey. Bringing world class standards of law and order to Somalia is not something you do quickly, especially when you have few troops you can depend on. The Somali troops are not much better than the militiamen or al Shabaab fanatics when it comes to playing by the rules. There are not enough foreign peacekeepers to do it all. Not in a country where the custom is to take whatever you can get any way you can. The foreign aid groups have this idea that anywhere they are, even in places like Somalia they can demand that foreign troops to protect them. This causes diplomatic problems because the aid groups have better relationships with world media and get their version of reality out faster than the uglier but more accurate version can. And then there is the corruption. This is one area where Somalia excels. Thus most recent (2015) international study found Somalia one of the two (along with North Korea) most corrupt nations in the world. Corruption in this Transparency International Corruption Perception Index is measured on a 1 (most corrupt) to 100 (not corrupt) scale. The two most corrupt nations have a rating of 8 (North Korea and Somalia) and the least corrupt is 91 (Denmark). A look at this index each year adds an element of reality to official government pronouncements. African nations are the most corrupt, followed by Middle Eastern ones. Some Somali pirates are surviving by offering their services to foreign fishing ships (trawlers) illegally operating off the coast. For a fee the pirates will protect the trawlers from other pirates. So far this is working. While not as lucrative as taking large ships for multimillion dollar ransoms, it is keeping several piracy gangs in business. The pirates long justified their crimes by claiming to be protecting local fishermen from illegal foreign fishing ships. That was always a myth. The pirates only attacked the trawlers when they thought they could get a ransom (usually they could not) or to use the trawler and its crew as a mother ship for long range piracy operations. Many of the Somali pirates have gone back to fishing or smuggling and note with anger that anti-piracy aircraft and warships will pass right by foreign trawlers obviously fishing illegally in Somali waters. The foreign trawlers are often what is called "freezer trawlers." These ships are up to 100 meters (320 feet) long and have facilities on board to store hundreds of tons of frozen fish. These ships normally stay at sea months at a time and have crews of 14-30. The smaller (coastal) freezer trawlers are often old and worth less than half a million dollars each and almost impossible to get a ransom for. The owner cannot pay whatever ransom the pirates often demand for these ships. These trawlers are all over the Indian Ocean, between Africa and India and the anti-piracy patrol has been warning trawlers and the companies that own them to stay away from the Somali coast. When these trawlers are fishing illegally they are at risk despite the presence of the anti-piracy patrol. When under attack the trawlers can call for help but because trawlers move slowly while working and are close to shore there is rarely time for anti-piracy forces to reach them in time. Many observers (especially Somalis) see the illegal fishing as simply another form of piracy but there is no international outcry over it because the damage done is local and not multinational. January 26, 2016: In the south, near the Kenyan border, Kenyan peacekeepers abandoned two camps near the towns of Badhadhe and el Adde and moved to new camps closer to the Kenyan border. Al Shabaab forces quickly moved into Badhadhe and took control. Kenya said the movement was a normal redeployment of troops in the area and not a retreat triggered by the January 15 al Shabaab capture of another Kenyan army camp near el Adde. Despite that defeat Kenyan troops soon returned and drove al Shabaab out of el Adde. In northeast Kenya, near the coast and the Somali border an al Shabaab roadside bomb hit a vehicle full of police killing five policemen and wounding several others. January 21, 2016: In Mogadishu al Shabaab gunmen attacked a seaside restaurant at night and killed 23 people before security forces were able to regain control of the area a day later. Suicide bombers and gunmen were used to overwhelm security, which is usually pretty strong for places like this. January 15, 2016: In the southwest (550 kilometers from Mogadishu) al Shabaab attacked a peacekeeper camp near the Kenyan border and drove most of the 150 Kenyan soldiers there from the camp. At least a hundred Kenyan soldiers died or were captured during the attack. The Islamic terrorists looted the camp and took control of a nearby towns (el Adde and Ceel Cadde) the peacekeepers were protecting. Al Shabaab later announced that the captured Kenyan soldiers would be used as human shields for protection from Kenyan air strikes. Based on pictures later released it appears that many of the soldiers were killed after capture, especially if they were wounded. In response to this defeat the Kenyan government said Kenyan troops would remain with the Somali peacekeeping force. January 14, 2016: In central Somalia (Galgadud) soldiers clashed with al Shabaab killing nine Islamic terrorists and losing one soldiers. Another ten al Shabaab men were wounded and captured. January 13, 2016: Kenya sent over a hundred additional policemen to the Somali border to improve security there. This comes in response to several al Shabaab attacks in December along the border. January 11, 2016: ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) released a video in which a former al Shabaab member urged Somalis to come join ISIL and help destroy al Shabaab. Most al Shabaab members have rejected ISIL and remained loyal to al Qaeda. But several dozen al Shabaab men did leave and join ISIL. There have been some skirmishes between this ISIL group and al Shabaab but with this video ISIL is openly declaring war on al Shabaab. The ISIL problem began in 2015 when a growing number of dissatisfied al Shabaab members responded to ISIL recruiting efforts and joined with other dissident al Shabaab men to create several small ISIL groups in Somalia. Al Shabaab has declared those who join ISIL are traitors and seeks to kill them. This has made all foreign members suspect because most Somali members want nothing to do with ISIL. Thats because al Shabaab was founded as a Somali nationalist organization and al Qaeda respected that. ISIL did not and wants to conquer the world. In late 2015 ISIL in Somalia clashed with al Shabaab several times and lost most of its new recruits to death (in battle) or desertion. This helped the security forces and peacekeepers but they dont like to publicize this. With more foreign al Shabaab members deserting and going public about it, the internal problems of al Shabaab were becoming more widely known. Now ISIL has decided to go public with the problem in Somalia. January 10, 2016: In Mogadishu al Shabaab planted a bomb in a car belonging to a government official. The explosion killed the official and wounded another. January 7, 2016: In Mogadishu al Shabaab fired two mortar shells towards the Presidential Palace but missed and killed two civilians and wounded three others in a nearby refugee camp. Wellesbourne Airfield For full details of how to enter just pick up your copy of the Herald, still only 65p. Wellesbourne Airfield It has been suggested that the delay in repairing them is partly due to the conflicting gas works in Sheep Street. Fraser Pithie, a retired Severn Trent senior manager, said based on his assumptions as much as 100,000 gallons of treated water could have gushed from the damaged pipe in Chapel Street. It will now follow into the river. Mr Pithie said that was the equivalent of the capacity of the two underground reservoirs that feed Stratford towns 27,000 homes. Combined, the two one at the Welcombe Hills and the other at Bordon Hill hold enough water for a weeks supply. A spokeswoman for Severn Trent Water told the Herald last night: Were sorry to our customers in Stratford who have been affected by the water leaks in Chapel Street and Waterside. They arent affecting our customers water supply, however they have both proven very tricky to repair. We want to assure everyone that were working as quickly as possible to repair both leaks and get everything back to normal. MediaPlatform Profile MediaPlatform lets Global 2000 companies craft custom, premium live streaming business broadcasts that they use to engage their hybrid workforces, attract and captivate virtual event and meeting audiences, and measure and understand each viewer's experience. With many companies now realizing the limitations of video tools adopted to cope with pandemic office closings, in 2022 MediaPlatform is helping organizations centralize and scale their video communications to meet enterprise-grade scale and security requirements. MediaPlatform gives video professionals unparalleled flexibility to brand business broadcasting experiences into dynamic experiences, resizing and adding video, image, text and third-party website widgets, as well as interactive elements like QA, surveys, polls and sentiment voting icons - to create highly unique and customizable experiences that reflect their corporate brand and culture. MediaPlatform was named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Video Content Management. Product Description MediaPlatforms end-to-end enterprise video platform lets organizations webcast, capture, stream, transcode, host, deliver and govern all live and on-demand video assets within a single, centrally managed platform thats purpose-built for enterprise environments. Core elements include live webcasting, enterprise video content management, technology-agnostic video delivery and industry-leading video intellienge and analytics. MediaPlatform Broadcaster MediaPlatform Broadcaster was built exclusvely for the unique requirements of business broadcasting. Businesses, not unlike their media counterparts, make significant investments in live broadcasts with a specific ROI in mind: to deliver credible, premium content that captivates and inspires employees, partners and prospects. Broadcasters new content creation capabilities let companies take live webcasts to new levels, enabling producers to build nearly unlimited webcast templates that they can use to switch during events between video, images and interactive elements. The result is an endless variety of dynamic experiences that event producers can use to keep viewers on the edge of their screens. https://www.mediaplatform.com/broadcaster/ MediaPlatform On Demand MediaPlatform On Demand gives organizations a corporate YouTube experience that lets them easily and efficiently use streaming media to improve corporate communications, enhance training and enable collaboration. On Demand is an intuitive, channel-based online video portal where employees can view, capture, search, manage, rate, and share streaming videos from anywhere via their desktop, tablet or smartphone. It lets companies make all their video assets discoverable and shareable via a secure, searchable portal. https://www.mediaplatform.com/ondemand/ MediaPlatform Smartpath MediaPlatform Smartpath is a network-agnostic, overlay routing technology that ensures that viewers receive the best possible quality live video stream across a multitude of corporate network technologies. Smartpath is used by Global 2000 companies to optimize their existing networks for video delivery. Smartpath provides a rules-based engine that defines the optimal streaming format, bit-rate and transport protocol for each corporate network site and defines how to manage failover and redundancy. Recognizing that most large webcasting customers have disparate networks, Smartpath uniquely integrates with a wide range of network technologies from its own MediaPlatform Edge eCDN to peering and public CDNs and supports a wide range of streaming options from multicast to mobile. https://www.mediaplatform.com/smartpath/ MediaPlatform Video Business Intelligence MediaPlatform Video Business Intelligence (VBI) provides real-time live webcast monitoring and post-event network analysis that give webcast stakeholders measurable and quantifiable metrics that prove that end viewers received a quality video experience and that video was effectively delivered across the corporate network as intended. VBI gives technical teams the ability to monitor and troubleshoot live event issues in real time, rather than relying on support calls or anecdotal feedback. Post-event, Network and IT teams use its massive data collection capabilities to fine-tune Smartpath delivery rules, and to identify and shore up network weak spots prior to future webcasts. https://www.mediaplatform.com/vbi/ MediaPlatform Event Success Dashboard MediaPlatform Event Success Dashboard provides next-level analytics that enable organizations to clearly understand how their CEO Town Halls or company-wide business broadcasts are performing technically, as well as how their audiences are reacting to the information thats being presented. With an improved audience experience that includes sentiment tracking and a highly intuitive administrative dashboard, the Event Success Dashboard displays: how live streams are being delivered to users across internal networks; timeline-based dynamic sentiment scoring they can use to gauge messaging effectiveness and give to presenters during events; quality of service roll-up scores for quick event technical grading, and much more. lets event organizers see audience sentiment and webcast performance in real time via intuitive displays. https://www.mediaplatform.com/eventsuccessdashboard MediaPlatform Edge MediaPlatform Edge helps organizations to optimize their existing corporate network infrastructure and available bandwidth for live and on-demand video. Edge is a software or appliance-based solution for delivering live video and caching video ondemand that creates a pervasive video distribution solution or enterprise Content Delivery Network (eCDN) across the enterprise. Edge is part of MediaPlatforms flexible, network-agnostic distribution approach which enables enterprises to leverage existing infrastructure, in addition to offering software-based solutions in combination with media server technologies, to address any kind of network reality and at the lowest possible cost for both live and on demand video. https://www.mediaplatform.com/edge/ MediaPlatform Bridge MediaPlatform Bridge lets companies use their video confernecing technologies as a source for live webcasts. Bridge is an intuitive, cloud-based solution that lets admins enhance live events by allowing remote presenters to join webcasts using mainstream video conferencing tools. Bridge converts video from any SIP-based video conferencing endpoint or bridge, including those from leading providers such as Cisco, Polycom, Zoom and Pexip, into a premium source for live webcasts. Bridge lets webcast admins increase interest and registration for live events by making it exceptionally convenient for coveted speakers - such as industry analysts, bellwether customers and technology gurus - to join from their home offices, rather than travel to studios or take on complex camera/encoder set ups. https://www.mediaplatform.com/bridge/ Featured Video Categories Prosecutors in Shanghai are cracking down on both the officials who received bribes and the people who handed them. (Photo : Getty Images) Due to intensified efforts to combat corruption, more senior official in Shanghai were investigated for corruption in 2015 than the previous year, according to a statement from the chief prosecutor of the city on Tuesday, as reported by Shanghai Daily. Advertisement Prosecutors investigated a total of 428 people who have been linked with 363 corruption cases, including seven bureau directors and 51 department directors. The number is around 40 percent more than in 2014, according to the annual report of Chen Xu, chief prosecutor of the Shanghai People's Prosecutors' Office, to the Shanghai People's Congress. Dai Habo, former deputy secretary-general of the city government, was among the bureau directors investigated. He was charged with taking 3.24 million yuan ($346,000), plus more than $39,000 and HK$300,000 ($38,500) in bribes. Feng Jun, former general manager of State Grid Shanghai Electric Power Co., has been charged with taking 43.47 million yuan worth in bribes, alone or with partners. He was also not able to account for property worth 76 million yuan. Jiang Xiefu, former Party chief of Baoshan District, was charged with accepting over 1.74 million yuan in bribes when he was serving as Party secretary of the district, Party secretary of the housing, land and resource administration of the city, and a senior lawmaker from 1997 to 2008. Among the deputy bureau directors investigated were Li Jun, former vice president of Shanghai Huayi (Group) Company; Lu Jin, former deputy director of Jinshan District; Guo Hong, former deputy human resources director of China Railway Corporation; and Cui Jian, former deputy general manager of Baosteel Group Corp. Chen also said that 10 local corruption suspects who had fled overseas were caught in 2015. City prosecutors have also been cracking down on those who offer bribes, said Chen. There have been investigations into 112 suspects of 89 cases. There were arrest warrants issued for 27,691 people in criminal cases in 2015, while prosecutions were launched against 42,343 people. In 2014, only 29,577 people were issued arrest warrant for criminal cases, with prosecutions launched against 42,791 people. In contrast, there was a total of 953 people who were prosecuted for serious criminal offenses like murder, robbery and kidnapping in 2015, 10 percent lesser than in 2014. General Electric (NYSE: GE) is signing a power up plan with the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity (MoE) for critical electricity generation and maintenance projects throughout the country. The power up plan comprises a set of technological solutions and upgrade projects to ensure essential incremental power, adding 700 megawatts to the national grid in time for the summer period. The value of the contracts signed totals more than US$1 billion, with financing already in place for the initial stage of the projects equaling US$328 million. Mussab Al Mudaris, speaker of the MoE, said, We are committed to strengthening our infrastructure to meet the growing demand for electricity, particularly during peak summer months, including the upcoming summer season. GEs power up plan illustrates GEs commitment to helping Iraq during current economic challenges. The set of solutions it brings includes upgrades and maintenance projects that will strengthen our power plants productivity and efficiency levels. Our integrated approach to strengthening the capacity of our national grid aims to support economic growth by delivering assured power supply to meet the needs of infrastructure development as well as domestic consumption. Azeez Mohammed, president and CEO, GEs Power Services business, Middle East and Africa, said, The GE power up plan for Iraq, launched under the patronage and guidance of the prime minister and the minister of electricity, with the support of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, is a unique initiative that underlines our strong commitment to Iraq where we have over four decades of partnerships in the power sector. With the introduction of our Advanced Gas Path (AGP) solution and related works for the heavy-duty gas turbines at the power plants, we can significantly scale up capacity while also minimizing operational downtime. GEs turnkey approach to the upgrades will help meet the peak summer demand for electricity and enable the MoEs power plants to sustain higher levels of productivity and operational efficiency in the future. GE has commenced the shipment of parts and began the on-site execution of these projects at the MoE plants in Iraq. The technology upgrades include, among others, heavy fuel oil (HFO) conversions that will help scale up productivity in addition to installing advanced hot gas path components at the various gas turbines. AGP technology advancements feature hardware design and materials improvements to the components of GEs gas turbine hot gas path system. These innovations are coupled with GEs advanced controls software to expand gas turbine performance and enable the power plants to operate more dynamically. The ministry will supply the heavy fuel oil to the sites where the HFO technology is being installed due to the scarcity of natural gas resources and to leverage the capacity of the new units during the upcoming summer season. To date, over 130 GE turbines have been installed across the country. GE has over 40 years of presence in Iraq, and with three offices in Iraqin Baghdad, Erbil and Basrathe company continues to deliver its latest technology and expertise to local customers. The corporate logo of financial firm Morgan Stanley is pictured on the company's world headquarters in the Manhattan borough of New York City, January 20, 2015. REUTERS/Mike Segar By Michelle Price and Olivia Oran (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) has scaled back a group that invests in financial technology on behalf on the bank's equities division, according to people familiar with the matter. Most of the eight to 10 members of the principal strategic investments group have left the Wall Street firm in the last few months, including head Gary Offner, the people said. A Morgan Stanley spokesman declined to comment. The move comes as Morgan Stanley, like its Wall Street peers, is looking to cut costs amid pressure on its bottom line. It also comes as the group shifts its strategy to focus more on the investments' strategic fit to the bank's sales and trading operations, rather than one that just looks at returns, one of the people said. The business will continue to exist with a smaller headcount and the bank is not retreating from investing in financial technology, the people added. The principal strategic investment group invests in market structure ventures and financial technology that align with the bank's equities division. It has held stakes in companies including Philadelphia Stock Exchange, BATS Global Markets, Chi-X Global and bank messaging company Symphony Communications. Morgan Stanley's equities division, which this week named Peter Santoro as its global head of trading, remains a bright spot for the bank. The business, which competes head-to-head with rival Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS), generated revenue of $8.1 billion in 2015, excluding adjustments, up 18 percent from the year prior. A separate Morgan Stanley group based in London makes investments on behalf of fixed income. It is unclear if this group was impacted by the cuts. Other banks including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup (NYSE: C) and Credit Suisse AG (NYSE: MLPN) have teams that make bets on the future of financial technology. (Reporting by Michelle Price in Hong Kong and Olivia Oran in New York; Editing by David Gregorio) Kynikos Associates LP Founder and Managing Partner Jim Chanos speaks during the Reuters 2014 China Summit in New York, October 28, 2014. Prominent short-seller Chanos said Tuesday he has lightened up on some of his bets against Brazil, saying most of the By Lawrence Delevingne PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) - Hedge funds are starting the year off negative. Professional money managers gathered at an elite Morgan Stanley investment conference in Palm Beach, Florida this week expressed a range of pessimistic market views, including so-called bearish takes on the energy sector, China, and stocks such as Valeant Pharmaceuticals and SolarCity. Paul Tudor Jones, the billionaire head of hedge fund firm Tudor Investment Corp, said during a panel discussion that he is negative on commodities, including crude oil, according to people who heard the remarks. Jones, whose firm invests based on macroeconomic trends, believes that commodity prices will stay low because they are in a long-term, cyclical downturn. Separately, Dmitry Balyasny of Balyasny Asset Management said during a conference session that his $12 billion stock-focused firm has a negative view of energy company equities, according to a person who heard the remarks. The sector has been hurt amid declining oil and gas prices. The hedge fund and investor matchmaking event, held annually at the upscale Breakers Palm Beach hotel, is private and closed to the press. Spokesmen for Tudor and Balyasny declined to comment. CHINA, STOCKS Another topic of negative views was China. Jim Chanos of Kynikos Associates and Kevin Kenny of Emerging Sovereign Group reiterated a negative assessment of the world's second-largest economy during separate panel discussions, according to people with direct knowledge of the remarks. Chanos said that China was on a treadmill to hell, according to one of the people, and Kenny warned that other emerging markets will likely suffer more in the near term because of Chinas slowing economy. Both men are known for bets against Chinese-related securities: an Emerging Sovereign Group wager against the yuan currency yielded large paper profits last year, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal; and Chanos has long warned that high Chinese levels of debt are unsustainable, among other issues. Chanos, who specializes in bets against stocks, also said in a separate discussion with hedge fund investors that he was negative on drug company Valeant and solar power business SolarCity. According to a person with knowledge of the remarks, Chanos said that Valeant no longer has the drug pricing power it used to following scrutiny of its acquisition-heavy business model. He also said that SolarCitys outlook was too optimistic given the likely long-term depreciation of its solar panels and other challenges. Spokesmen for both companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Chanos has already been public with bets against both companies. He and a spokesman for Emerging Sovereign Group at parent company Carlyle Group declined to comment. The views come after a bad year for many managers - the average hedge fund lost 0.16 percent in 2015, according to data from industry tracker Absolute Return. Some funds are also suffering in January given broad declines in stocks and commodities. SOME SUN To be sure, some hedge fund heavyweights at the oceanfront event gave optimistic views. One came from Eric Mindich of Eton Park Capital Management. The $9 billion multistrategy firm manager said during a panel discussion that he is positive on Japan and related investment opportunities. Eton Parks main fund gained 7.5 percent for 2015 in part because of winning Japan bets. A spokesman for the firm declined to comment. [nL2N14Z1LD] Kenny of Emerging Sovereign Group also tempered his negative near-term views on China by saying that it and other emerging markets would likely become so cheap that it would present a strong buying opportunity. (Reporting by Lawrence Delevingne; Editing by Jonathan Oatis) SUNNYVALE, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- BirdEye, a leader in Business Reputation and Customer Experience, today announced that it has raised $8 million in Series A funding to further expand its enterprise platform. The round was led by Trinity Ventures, with participation from numerous Silicon Valley luminaries, including Salesforce founder and CEO, Marc Benioff; Yahoo co-founder and former CEO, Jerry Yang; "Godfather of Adsense," Gokul Rajaram; Twitter SVP, Kevin Weil; BranchOut founder, Rick Marini; tech writer and media personality, Semil Shah; and LinkedIn's Ellen Levy. Ajay Chopra, general partner with Trinity Ventures, joined the BirdEye board of directors while Clara Shih, Hearsay Social CEO and Starbucks board member, joined the advisory board. Founded by alumni of Yahoo, brothers Naveen & Neeraj Gupta, BirdEye is designed to enable CMOs to acquire new customers through intelligent reputation marketing. It also enables CXOs to retain existing customers using in-moment experience, surveys, customer insights, and competitive benchmarking. "BirdEye redefines customer feedback. Imagine you are able to send a text to your customer right when they pick up their rental car, fix their issue even before they leave the lot, and instantly auto-post their positive feedback everywhere on the Internet. That's the power of in-moment customer experience coupled with intelligent business reputation marketing. No other platform does that," said Naveen Gupta, CEO of BirdEye. "We're excited to be joined by this seasoned group of investors who can help us build next generation enterprise software for the reputation economy." "We strongly believe in the competitive advantage of proactive customer experience and reputation in driving growth for enterprises," said Ajay Chopra, general partner at Trinity Ventures, "BirdEye is fast emerging as leader in this segment. We were most impressed with BirdEye's product innovation, customer growth, and management team that quietly bootstrapped the company to substantial revenues and profitability." BirdEye has rapidly acquired more than 10,000 clients -- from prominent Fortune1000 brands to the nation's leading digital agencies -- which are using the platform to enhance brand reputation, elevate the customer experience and outperform the competition. Mass media and brands have also started adopting the BirdEye Score -- a real-time composite metric based on review ratings and customer sentiment from more than 200 review sites and major social media channels. "AME Cloud Ventures invests in data-driven companies, and BirdEye has distinguished itself as a business' best friend by delivering the information that matters," said Jerry Yang, founder and former CEO of Yahoo. "It is applying data science in a practical yet elegant way to activate customer intelligence and let the voice of the customer guide better decisions companywide." Availability See how enterprises are benefiting from the BirdEye platform. Request a demo at http://birdeye.com/free-demo or 1-800-561-3357 ext. 1. About BirdEye BirdEye (birdeye.com) is the leading reputation marketing and customer experience SaaS platform. BirdEye collects customer feedback, ratings and sentiment across every channel -- review sites, social media, surveys. BirdEye customer experience platform converts in-moment feedback into swift corrective actions, leading to positive experiences, while the reputation platform auto-promotes your positive reputation across search engines and social media. End result -- higher retention and new customers. Founded by Yahoo, Google, and Amazon alumni in 2012, BirdEye is based in Sunnyvale, CA with offices in Dallas, Denver, LA and New Delhi. BirdEye's platform is used by 10,000+ businesses. About Trinity Ventures Trinity Ventures is a top-tier venture capital firm combining business insight, practical expertise and a personal touch to help start-ups win big. For over twelve funds, Trinity has helped passionate entrepreneurs with breakthrough ideas transform markets and lives. Trinity's investment team takes a collaborative approach and believes in personal engagement, mutual respect and goal alignment to deliver out-sized returns to entrepreneurs and investors. The firm invests in early stage technology companies with emphases on Cloud and Mobile Infrastructure, Software-as-a-Service, Digital Media, and Social and Mobile Commerce. For more information, visit www.trinityventures.com. Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/1/28/11G080712/Images/teamphoto-e1bc9af6224ab7a6ac9ab70e4df8dafc.jpg Source: BirdEye French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius (top) and Iran's President Hassan Rouhani review troops as they attend a ceremony in the courtyard of the Hotel des Invalides in Paris, France, January 28, 2016. REUTERS/Jacky Naegelen By Michel Rose and John Irish PARIS (Reuters) - France and Iran hailed the sale of Airbus planes and the renewal of a decades-old carmaking venture as symbols of thawing relations on Thursday while protesters in Paris tried to get human rights onto the agenda. President Hassan Rouhani was accompanied on his official visit to Paris, the first by an Iranian president since 1999, by ministers and business leaders who announced deals including a joint venture between carmakers PSA Peugeot Citroen and Iran Khodro and plans for Iran to buy 118 Airbus (NYSE: AIR) passenger planes to update its aging fleet. His visit after a stop-off in Rome for more deals follows an agreement between Iran and the west on Iran's nuclear program, allowing the lifting of sanctions this month. The deals were signed at a ceremony attended by Rouhani and French President Francois Hollande. Construction group Bouygues and airport operator ADP (NASDAQ: ADP) are set to build an extension for Tehran airport, while Vinci , another building firm, is lined up to design, build and operate new terminals for the Mashhad and Ispahan airports. French oil company Total said it would buy some 200,000 barrels of Iranian crude from the OPEC producer. There were also deals in shipping, health, agriculture and water provision, all signed despite continued diplomatic tensions. DEALS UNFINISHED, BANKS WARY The Airbus deal alone is worth $27 billion at list prices and French government sources put a 15 billion euro ($16 billion) overall tag on the agreements. But most have yet to be finalised or are subject to conditions. Senior French bankers have expressed wariness. Iran's industry minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh said an agreement between French export-credit group Coface and the Iranian central bank signed this week was an important step in the right direction. But he said French banks must support a corporate push into post-sanctions Iran. "If they don't get active, there will be no increase in business," he warned. For Peugeot, the Iranian factory tie up is critical. When it suspended sales in Iran in 2012 it lost nearly 10 percent of global deliveries and interrupted a relationship dating back more than 50 years. Under Thursday's deal, set to be finalised in the middle of this year, Peugeot and Iran Khodro plan to modernize a factory near Tehran and be producing cars by mid 2017. They target an initial 200,000 vehicles a year making Peugeot 208, 2008 and 301 models with a Peugeot investment of 400 million euros ($436 million) over five years. Away from the signing ceremonies and speeches, an estimated 3,000 people marched through Paris seeking to raise awareness about human rights. A protestor from the Femen womens' activist group dangled in a mock hanging from a bridge with an Iranian flag painted across her naked chest. Human Rights Watch criticized Iran on the death penalty and abuse of rights of women and minorities. It also said the state of emergency declared by Hollande after Islamist militant attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 last year threatens rights to liberty and freedom of movement. (Additional reporting by Tim Hepher, Michel Rose, Bate Felix, Gilles Guillaume and James Regan; Writing by Andrew Callus; Editing by Leigh Thomas and Ruth Pitchford) Ivory Coast's President Alassane Ouattara speaks at the first cabinet meeting of the year at the presidential palace in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, January 13, 2016. REUTERS/Joe Penney AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The International Criminal Court's prosecutors have intensified their investigations into supporters of Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara, chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said on Wednesday. Speaking to reporters the day before the opening of the trial of Ouattara's predecessor Laurent Gbagbo, accused of unleashing civil war rather than leave office, Bensouda said she could give no details about ongoing confidential investigations. "The investigations into the conflict in Cote d'Ivoire will be on both sides of the conflict," she said, using the country's French name. "We started in 2015. We have intensified investigations into the pro-Ouattara camp, and it is ongoing." The court has so far brought charges against only three people in connection with the conflict that followed the 2010 elections: Gbagbo, his wife Simone and his ally Charles Ble Goude. (Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Alison Williams) By John Irish and Bate Felix PARIS (Reuters) - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told French business leaders on Wednesday that Iran was open for investment as he started a visit in France to revive business ties despite diplomatic differences. On Rouhani's first trip abroad since Iran's sanctions-ending nuclear accord with world powers took effect, Italy this week already rolled out the red carpet for the moderate Iranian president and his 120-member delegation of business leaders and cabinet ministers, signing a raft of deals. But with France having taken a hard line in the nuclear negotiations, being outspoken in its condemnation of Iranian support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and having close ties with Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab rivals of Shi'ite Iran, the Paris leg of Rouhani's European trip was lower key. "It's true that Iran has returned to the international community, but it doesn't mean we agree on everything, especially on Syria," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said ahead of Rouhani's arrival. Nevertheless, since July, French trade and political delegations have traveled to Tehran to explore opportunities. Officials have said certain "commitments" could now be agreed, although how definitive they are is unclear. "We don't see any obstacles for companies who would want to come and invest in Iran," Rouhani told a French business delegation. "My coming here is to show that Iran is ready for investments," he added, speaking through a translator. Airbus Chief Executive Fabrice Bregier, who was part of the French delegation, said that he held talks this month in Tehran with government and Iran Air officials that could lead to the rapid sale of aircraft. "We are at the disposal of our Iranian counterparts to help renew the fleet," Bregier said. Iran urgently needs modern, safer and less-polluting airliners after decades of being unable to obtain spare parts or new models due to sanctions. After starting his trip to Paris by meeting some 20 company executives, Rouhani is due to deliver a speech to business leaders on Thursday at a Franco-Iranian forum, where Iranian ministers will outline their plans. Several agreements are due to be announced after a meeting with President Francois Hollande. Iranian officials have said they are poised to agree on a deal for Airbus aircraft. Carmakers Peugeot and Renault may also agree contracts. Airport design and construction talks may be on the agenda too, potentially involving builders Bouygues and Vinci and airports operator ADP. Although many sanctions relating to Iran's nuclear program have been lifted, most U.S. measures remain in place. Companies are worried about the sanctions snapping back if Iran violated the terms of the nuclear agreement and are including this scenario in their risk analysis. "Investing in Iran is not exactly like investing in Holland or Denmark," a French diplomatic source said. "Everyone wants to be certain that there's no Damocles Sword hanging over them before investing." (Reporting by John Irish and Bate Felix; Editing by Mark Heinrich) Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo (L) and his wife Simone sit in a room at Hotel Golf in Abidjan, after they were arrested, April 11, 2011. REUTERS/Stringer By Thomas Escritt THE HAGUE (Reuters) - War crimes prosecutors accused ex-Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo of orchestrating "unspeakable violence", including murder and gang rape, to cling to power after losing an election, pitching his country into civil war. Rising stiffly on the opening day of his trial at the International Criminal Court, Gbagbo, 70, pleaded not guilty to all charges. His co-accused, youth leader Charles Ble Goude, 44, also pleaded innocence and said he did not recognize the charges. Four months of conflict ravaged Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa grower, in early 2011 after Gbagbo refused to step down. Around 3,000 people were killed and the fighting ended only when former colonial power France intervened militarily, allowing election winner Alessane Ouattara to take office. The trial could ramp up tensions in Ivory Coast, where Gbagbo, the highest-ranked politician ever to appear before the 13-year-old ICC, remains influential. The gallery was packed with rowdy supporters, many of them Ivorians who had traveled to The Hague from Paris. Some rushed to a bulletproof glass barrier and chanted: "Gbagbo! President!" as the accused was led out of the courtroom. Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said Gbagbo and his inner circle had targeted Muslims and ethnic groups they assumed had supported Ouattara. "Cote d'Ivoire succumbed to chaos and was subjected to unspeakable violence," she said, using the country's French name. "Nothing would be allowed to defeat Mr. Gbagbo: If politics failed, violence was seen as politics by other means." TEST OF CREDIBILITY Bensouda related the account of one witness who had been arrested at a pro-Ouattara rally and subjected, along with other women, to three days of gang rapes by armed gendarmes. Seven were killed when state security agents opened fire from an armored car on a demonstration in a marketplace in an immigrant neighborhood of the capital Abidjan, she added. In Ivory Coast, the trial was closely watched by supporters and opponents alike. Gbagbo's supporters, hundreds of whom demonstrated outside the courthouse on Thursday, say he is a victim of neo-colonial meddling by France and accuse prosecutors of ignoring alleged crimes by Ouattara's camp. "We want him released," said Paris-based Ivorian Michele, demonstrating in the windswept street in front of the court in The Hague. Ouattara was a "rebel chief" who had been helped by France to usurp power, she added. On Friday the prosecution will continue to outline its case, and on Monday the defense takes its turn. The trial is expected to last at least a year in all. The case is a test of the credibility of the global war crimes court. Its last attempt to press charges against a top politician, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, ended in disarray amid fierce diplomatic lobbying by Kenya and its African allies. [L8N15B3M7] The court has so far handed down just two convictions, both against little-known African warlords. It opened its first investigation outside the continent on Wednesday, into the 2008 Russia-Georgia war. (Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Anthony Deutsch and Andrew Roche) Moldova's Prime Minister Pavel Filip (L) shakes hands with his Romanian counterpart Dacian Ciolos at the government headquarters Victoria Palace in Bucharest, Romania, January 26, 2016. REUTERS/Inquam Photos/Octav Ganea BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Romania's prime minister pledged on Tuesday to send emergency aid to Moldova and work to bring its ex-Soviet neighbor closer to the European Union as long as it makes greater efforts to reform its system and end corruption. Moldova, Europe's poorest country which shares a border with EU member Romania and has close language and cultural links, has been in the grip of a scandal in which $1 billion was syphoned off into foreign accounts, shaking shaken public confidence in its pro-EU leaders. Speaking at a news conference in Bucharest with Moldova's new prime minister Pavel Filip, Romania's Dacian Ciolos urged Chisinau to adopt concrete reform steps in exchange for aid. "To the extent to which the Moldovan government commits to some reforms, the Romanian government is considering, in a first phase, emergency aid to help those needy Moldovan citizens to cope with the winter period, a difficult period," he said. Alluding to public protests in Chisinau against the leadership, Ciolos said: "Political stability in Moldova is important for security in the region and for Romania. We want stability ... and to see a government embarked on reforms." He added that Bucharest wanted to see evidence from the Chisinau government that it intended to implement reform before delivering an initial 60 million euro tranche of aid from an overall 150 million euro assistance package. Repeated protests in Chisinau threaten to derail Filip's chances of running a stable government at a time when Moldova sees its economy sinking and is trying to negotiate new funding from international lenders. Filip said implementing obligations under a political association agreement with the EU which it signed last year were a priority for the Moldovan government. "We'll act in such way that pro-European ways return," Filip told reporters. (Reporting by Radu Marinas; Editing by Richard Balmforth) DOUALA (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers killed four people at a school in northern Cameroon on Thursday, local officials said, the latest attack in a central African country struggling to contain violence blamed on Boko Haram militants in neighboring Nigeria. A dozen people were wounded in the twin bombing in the town of Kerawa, Mayor Seiny Boukar Lamine said. While there was no immediate claim of responsibility, northern Cameroon has become the scene of increasingly frequent suicide attacks as Boko Haram Islamist militants step up cross-border violence that has also affected Chad and Niger. A suicide bombing of an outdoor market in northern Cameroon three days ago killed 32 people and wounded 66 in one of the deadliest attacks in the country to date. A local prefect said the school in Kerawa targeted on Thursday had been housing Nigerian refugees. Boko Haram has killed thousands of people and driven more than two million from their homes during its six-year insurgency in one of the world's poorest regions. (Reporting By Josiane Kouagheu and Sylvain Andzongo; Writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by Mark Heinrich) Some left-behind children sleep in dorms in their kindergartens because their parents leave them to work in the city. (Photo : Reuters) China's central government has expressed its intention to improve the care systems for children left-behind in rural areas by their parents who migrate to the cities to work, according to a high-level government meeting held on Wednesday, reported China Daily. Advertisement A system will be set up to cater to the needs of left-behind children by reporting on them, intervening and offering assistance according to need, all with the goal of preventing them from becoming victims of criminal activity. The decisions were made during a State Council executive meeting presided over by Premier Li Keqiang. Part of the meeting also discussed new measures that will be adopted in order to reduce the number of left-behind children by encouraging their parents not to migrate away from them in favor of either permanently moving to cities with their children or working closer to their rural homes. "Caring for and protecting millions of children left behind in rural areas, and allowing them to grow safely and in good health is the mutual responsibility of families, government and the society as a whole," said a statement issued after the State Council executive meeting. It also said that each party, including the government, village committee and school, must carry out its duties. It also encouraged charity and social organizations to participate to improve the system. There are currently around 60 million left-behind children in China. In recent years, the media has called attention on numerous tragedies involving left-behind children, gaining sympathy for their plight. In Bijie, Guizhou Province, four children of absent migrant workers committed suicide at home in 2015. They were aged 5 to 13. Also last year in Bijie, a 15-year-old girl and her 13-year-old brother were killed at their home, while their parents were away in the city for work. Police discovered that the girl was sexually assaulted before being murdered. In 2014, 10 villagers in Guangxi Province were imprisoned for repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting a left-behind 13-year-old girl. If Yes is marked, indicate below the file number assigned to the registrant in connection with Rule 12g3-2(b): Not applicable. Indicate by check mark whether by furnishing the information contained in this Form, the registrant is also thereby furnishing the information to the Commission pursuant to Rule 12g3-2(b) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Indicate by check mark if the registrant is submitting the Form 6-K in paper as permitted by Regulation S-T Rule 101(b)(7): o Indicate by check mark if the registrant is submitting the Form 6-K in paper as permitted by Regulation S-T Rule 101(b)(1): o Indicate by check mark whether the registrant files or will file annual reports under cover Form 20-F or Form 40-F. Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused the Report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized. Exhibit 99.1 NOTICE TO THE MARKET Gerdau announces its plans to form a joint venture with the Japanese companies Sumitomo Corporation and The Japan Steel Works (JSW) to serve Brazils growing wind power industry. The project, which will require approval from anti-trust authorities, is expected to be located in Pindamonhangaba (Sao Paulo) and will supply parts for wind turbine towers starting in 2017. The initiative was made possible by Gerdau 2022, a project launched in 2015 that aims to boost the competitiveness of the companys entire operations guided by a long term strategic vision. Specific measure include streamlining internal operations and structures, modernizing the corporate culture, reassessing the potential profitability of assets and developing new business opportunities. Were working to transform Gerdau into a more efficient and profitable company, given the current and future challenges of the global steel industry. Were seeking to join forces with partners with recognized experience in their industries in order to create new business opportunities. With Sumitomo Corporation and JSW, we will develop high-tech products for our clients, which will enable them to generate higher profit margins, said Gerdaus CEO Andre B. Gerdau Johannpeter. Joint venture to serve Brazils growing wind power industry The new joint venture is expected to be formed by the partners Gerdau, Sumitomo Corporation and The Japan Steel Works (JSW) and will require R$280 million in investments for the acquisition of new production equipment. Gerdau will supply assets for the production of rolling mill rolls, without any expected cash expenditures. The project will be located at Gerdaus mill in Pindamonhangaba, which will supply special steel for the manufacture of parts for wind turbine towers (main shaft and bearing rings). This project will create 100 new direct jobs. Sumitomo Corporation and The Japan Steel Works (JSW) are Japanese companies with vast expertise in the global wind power industry and technological mastery of production processes for components for the industry. Gerdaus joint efforts with the two companies will enable local production of parts for the construction of new wind farms in the country, supplying clients with high-quality products at competitive costs. Gerdaus interest in the joint venture should surpass 50%, making it a higher interest in the partnership. The interests of the other partners will be defined when executing the projects agreement. In addition to equipment for the wind power industry, the new company will also manufacture rolling mill rolls for the steel and aluminum industry, which are products already made by Gerdau and marketed in over 30 countries. Total capacity for the production of parts for the wind power industry and of rolling mill rolls should reach 50,000 tonnes per year. The prospects for Brazils wind power industry are promising. According to the Brazilian Wind Power Association, Brazils installed wind capacity currently accounts for 6% (8 GW) of the countrys electricity generation. By 2024, this figure is expected to reach 11% (24 GW), according to the Ten-Year Energy Expansion Plan of the Ministry of Mines and Energy. Wind power generation is especially well suited to the countrys Northeast and South, given the regions regular winds and favorable conditions for the installation of equipment. Furthermore, wind energy is a clean and sustainable form of power generation and avoids CO 2 air emissions. The execution and formalization of the joint venture is pending analyses and approval by the applicable authorities. Porto Alegre, January 27, 2016. Harley Lorentz Scardoelli Executive Vice President An international architecture consultancy firm wants Kiwi talent to help it innovate. Woods Bagot will create up to 20 jobs in 12 months when it opens its new studio in Auckland - the firm's first in New Zealand. Woods Bagot has been involved in some of the biggest projects in New Zealand, including new convention centres in Auckland and Christchurch. Supplied Woods Bagot helped design SkyCity's international convention centre. It employs around 850 people worldwide. Design leader and studio chair Gavin Kain, who will head the Auckland studio, said the company's plan to recruit New Zealand architects and designers was in line with its "local and global" strategy. Woods Bagot could combine Kiwis' local knowledge with the resources of its numerous international offices, Kain said. "We find the combination of having local and global is quite powerful, they challenge each other and spark off each other as well." "If you don't have people understanding the particularities of a place, there can be problems, but likewise bringing people from the outside to have a new perspective, new experiences is very valuable as well." Kain's involvement in other New Zealand projects, including SkyCity's New Zealand International Convention Centre, and the Christchurch Blueprint Masterplan, convinced him New Zealand was a country where exciting design and innovation could happen. "Because we've been involved in these projects over a period of time we've got to see how New Zealand is performing as a place, and it's a really exciting place to be at the moment," he said. "Auckland's very buoyant, New Zealand's very buoyant, [Auckland]'s a very international city and a very outward-looking city, and our goal as a business is to be in cities where innovation and creativity are emerging from." Woods Bagot invests two per cent of its global revenues into research each year, which has helped it pioneer some major architectural innovations. Kain mentioned the Auckland and Christchurch convention centres as projects that have benefited from that research. He said convention centres were typically "big dumb uninviting boxes which tend to sit on the periphery of cities, lacking engagement, and then every now and again several thousand people converge on them". Woods Bagot was trying to turn that around by making the Auckland and Christchurch centres part of their cities' fabric. "In both Auckland and Christchurch the pre-function spaces will be the largest spaces in the city, and what we've tried to do is make them be spaces that are an extension of the city," he said. Kain said working at Woods Bagot would enable Kiwis to work on cutting-edge projects on both a local and a global scale. "We're one business and we call it one global studio, so the exciting thing is that people working in Auckland are just as likely to work on a project in North America or in Asia as they are in New Zealand, and it becomes an opportunity to have experiences around the world." Much of Otago is under threat from the spread of conifers, and the Otago Regional Council has been given a clear message from residents that it should take a more active role in controlling the problem. The wilding conifer invasion, especially in inland parts of the province, poses a significant threat to the tourism industry regionally and nationally. Experts estimate more than 300,000 hectares of land in the region have some wilding infestation and that figure is likely to triple to 900,000 hectares in the next 20 years if nothing is done. If left uncontrolled, wilding pines are predicted to spread across 20 per cent of the country within two decades, at a cost to the economy of more than $1.2 billion. The Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago districts have active wilding conifer control groups operating already with the Wakatipu Wilding Control Management Group, a charitable trust, now spending more than $1 million a year on control operations around Queenstown alone. Most respondents - 93 per cent - to a recent online survey conducted by the Otago Regional Council (ORC) were concerned about the issue and its impacts on the region. The top three issues identified by respondents were loss of scenic landscapes, damage to environmentally sensitive areas and reduced water availability in rivers. They want the council to support the work of community groups already actively controlling the spread of wilding conifers. ORC chairman Stephen Woodhead said he was pleased with the public response to the survey and the very clear message it had given the council. The survey, completed by 589 respondents, closed on January 22. The largest number of responses came from the Queenstown Lakes District (277), followed by Dunedin City (132), Central Otago District (128), Waitaki District (23) and Clutha District (15). Asked how important it was to reduce the spread of wilding conifers across Otago landscapes, only 6 per cent of respondents thought it was not important. Woodhead said the council was unlikely to be directly involved in wilding control but would consider supporting existing groups, and in some cases funding new groups to cover a wider area. The council had not yet considered the scale of likely funding but a draft annual plan workshop would decide the direction the council would take and how it would fund it. "This preliminary feedback is useful as we consider whether to propose funding for community-based wilding conifer management projects in our draft 2016-17 Annual Plan and develop options for public consultation," he said. Woodhead said people would be able to comment on the issue and any proposed options through the annual plan submission process. A draft plan consultation document will be publicly available from late March and submissions will close on May 2. Grant Hensman, co-chairman of the Wakatipu Wilding Conifer Control Management Group, said he was delighted with the strong support for wilding control but added he was not surprised considering the groundswell of public concern. The charitable trust has an annual operating budget of $1.4m. It has lobbied the Otago Regional Council for funding for the last five years and will again be asking it for a contribution of 10 per cent of its budget this year. Hensman said the Queenstown Lakes District Council had contributed about $330,000 annually to the group's control efforts and was looking to increase that funding to $500,000 in its long-term plan. "They are doing a great job," he said. "They recognise the problem and know that unless they get behind it we're going to get beaten." "We think that unless this is elevated to a national issue and the Crown gets behind it, ultimately we will all lose this battle," Hensman said. "It is a national problem and seeds don't respect boundaries; they go from Otago to Canterbury to Marlborough. It has to become a national issue and it has to be addressed at that level. "You can talk and do all the surveys you like, but unless we actually spend the money, the problems just grow. Every year it gets bigger." In September the Minister of Conservation, Maggie Barry, told the Otago Regional Council to "step up to the plate" and take action on wilding trees. Speaking at the launch of a community programme for controlling wilding conifers on the slopes above Queenstown, Barry said the regional council was "dragging the chain" and warned the Government would take further measures if it and other councils failed to take action. "The time for sitting back and waiting for miracles to occur has long passed," she said at the time. Woodhead rejected the minister's suggestion that the ORC was "dragging the chain" saying a co-ordinated regional and national approach was required while it was still possible to contain the spread of wilding conifers. He said the bulk of the problems with wilding spread started on Crown land and the council believed the Crown was a key player in controlling that spread, working alongside regional and district councils. "It's a national problem and we would like to see the Minister of Conservation and her colleagues commit some funding to it nationally," he said. The Ministry for Primary Industries launched a National Wilding Conifer Management Strategy in late 2014 with a vision to plant "the right tree in the right place." Its goal is to prevent the spread of wilding conifers by containing or eradicating established areas by 2030. The strategy has the backing of a wide range of parties including forestry and farming industries, the Department of Conservation, Land Information New Zealand, the Defence Force and regional and district councils. The group says wilding conifers are changing iconic high country landscapes, altering ecosystems and displacing native vegetation. They can reduce water yields in sensitive catchments, reduce grazing land, limit land use options and cause damaging wild fires. Forestry experts estimate 6 per cent (1.7 million hectares) of the country's total land area is already affected by wilding conifers and their spread is increasing at a compounding rate of 5-6 per cent annually. At current rates, that spread equates to an increase of 90,000 hectares a year. Six species most prone to spreading are Pinus contorta and Douglas fir, followed by Scots pine, dwarf mountain pine, Corsican pine and European larch. All have small seeds which can be wind-blown considerable distances. The other two common wilding species are ponderosa pine and Pinus radiata which carry a larger seed and therefore pose a reduced risk of spread by wind drift. All of these species were planted extensively for their shelter or landscape values, for research purposes, erosion control and production forestry up until the mid-1900s. Since then, Pinus radiata and Douglas fir have emerged as the preferred species for production forestry, with Douglas fir the species causing the most concern on inland high country sites. Experts agree if action is delayed, the impact and costs of control will increase exponentially as infestations increase in scale. Martinborough winery Murdoch James Estate founder Roger Fraser explains the impact of a large fire on the property late on Wednesday. A fire that destroyed an implement shed and valuable machinery at a Martinborough winery did about half a million dollars of damage, but could easily have cost a lot more. Murdoch James Estate founder Roger Fraser said had workers removed about 50 kilometres of customised bird netting worth up to $200,000 on Wednesday, just hours before the blaze. "If they'd been in there [during the fire], we would never have been able to replace them before vintage," he said. LOREN DOUGAN/ FAIRFAX NZ Roger Fraser in the remains of the shed that burnt down on Wednesday night. A neighbour phoned and woke him after spotting the blaze about 11pm on Wednesday, but it spread very quickly. READ MORE: * Firefighters battle shed blaze at Murdoch James vineyard * Ripping out 25,000 healthy vines a lesson for economy: winemaker By the time Fraser arrived from his nearby home, the building was "lighting up the sky". CALEB HARRIS/ FAIRFAX NZ Damaged machinery in the remains of the machinery shed destroyed by fire at Murdoch James Estate winery. "It was just unbelievable, the scale of it." He could hear loud "pops", presumably from vehicle fuel tanks exploding. Two tractors and mowers, two side-by-sides, chainsaws and a quad were destroyed, at a total cost of about $500,000, Fraser said. ROGER FRASER By the time Roger Fraser reached a fierce fire on his property, it was too late to save the large shed, or anything in it. "But this can all be replaced and no-one was hurt ... if it was the winery building, I'd have been a very different man this morning." Some pinot gris grapes and vines near the blaze were scorched by the "waves of heat", but production would not be affected. "It's a terrible loss and it's very expensive, and the business will have to manage its way through that, but it wasn't our main building and we'll recover." CALEB HARRIS/ FAIRFAX NZ A fire service investigator works to establish the cause of the fire at Murdoch James Estate. Although he was insured, the fire had still hit his staff hard during a busy time. His vineyard manager was reduced to tears as he watched the destruction of the building and equipment. The cause of the fire, which broke out just before 11pm, was still being established by a fire service investigator on Thursday. Fraser did not want to speculate about the cause. He doubted it was arson, but was keeping an open mind. Staff were checking extensive security camera footage. Neighbours and other winemakers had offered to lend tractors and other replacement gear, which was heartening. There are about 39 hectares of vines at Murdoch Estate, which employs 15 staff and also has a 120-seat restaurant and wedding venue. Martinborough fire station officer Jake Hawkins said seven engines from around Wairarapa and Wellington fought the blaze at its height, not leaving the scene until about 3am. Their fast action saved an adjacent shed and ensured the winery building and restaurant, 50 metres away, were not threatened, Hawkins said. "It was a total loss ... they were pretty upset, as you would be." Another Martinborough wine producer, The Elder Pinot, was hit by a machinery shed fire earlier this month, but owner Margaret Hanson said it was not suspicious, with the likely cause being an electrical surge after a power cut. Her large machinery barn was razed, and she put the cost at about $90,000 although she was fully insured. "We were incredibly lucky there were gale-force winds and it could have taken the whole property." The town's winemakers had also rallied around after that fire, she said. Police allege the male doctor, aged in his forties, indecently assaulted and stupefied four male victims last year. A Hawke's Bay doctor charged with stupefying and indecently assaulting patients is going to the High Court in a bid to keep his name secret. Police allege the male doctor, aged in his 40s, indecently assaulted and stupefied four male victims between January and September last year. It is alleged some of the offending occurred in toilet cubicles, a treatment cubicle, and a darkened surgical room. The doctor pleaded not guilty to all 13 charges he faces and was granted bail in November. READ MORE: * Hawke's Bay doctor accused of stupefying, assaulting patients * Doctor on indecency charges keeps name suppression * Hawke's Bay doctor accused of stupefying and assaulting patients to be named At a subsequent hearing in Napier District Court a fortnight ago, Judge Tony Adeane refused the man's application for continued name suppression, but gave him until Friday to file an appeal against that decision in the High Court. The court confirmed an appeal had been filed and a hearing on the name suppression issue has been scheduled for March. Crown lawyer Fiona Cleary told Judge Adeane a fortnight ago that keeping the man's name suppressed had the effect of casting suspicion on other doctors in Hawke's Bay. But his lawyer, Harry Waalkens, QC, rejected that claim, saying there were 285 medical practitioners in Hastings and 71 in Napier. "It would be the end to this man's career if he does not get this interim name suppression," and it would create "extreme consequences to him", Waalkens said. The doctor was working under significant supervision by the Medical Council and his employer, Waalkens said. He is required to have a chaperone in some circumstances. Councillor Herman Van Rooijen wants the council to reinvest money used to replace trees, to be put into reserves instead. Money wasted replacing trees destroyed by vandals has sparked a proposal to remove them from one council's budget. South Waikato Councillor Herman Van Rooijen raised the issue when the cost of maintaining trees was discussed at the Community and Assets Committee meeting recently. The sight of trees snapped in half on Harry Martin Dr in Putaruru was the last straw, he said. Van Rooijen was part of a walking group who came across the destruction of six trees on January 15. READ MORE: * Vandals cost Waikato ratepayers millions * Commemorative WW1 tree stolen from Whangamata park "Quite a few undiplomatic words were used. It's something that shouldn't happen in our community "If that is the attitude of people I question whether we should keep on spending money. It is a question council should debate." Half a kilometre away on Marchant St trees were also attacked and destroyed. "When trees are good, you don't particularly notice. It's only when they're not there that you look at them." A total of 15 trees costing $2,550 were destroyed during the Christmas period in Putaruru. Many more were pruned back to help with their recovery. Communications manager Kerry Fabrie said the average cost to replace a tree was between $160 and $180. "Rate payers pay for this destructive behaviour. Incidences of this type of vandalism spike during school holidays and when there is a party in the area." Four streets have been identified in Putaruru and two in Tokoroa as high risk areas. The current annual budget is $95,000 and people are encouraged to report and identify vandalism immediately. An avid tree planter Van Rooijen said money from the budget should be redirected into reserves. "Rather than asking people to travel out to the reserves, I would like to bring a native reserve closer to people. "Bring the birds closer to town so people can enjoy it." One location is at Lake Moana-nui. A site proposed by the Mayor Neil Sinclair to dedicate a grove of 91 trees as a memorial for environmentalist Gordon Stephenson. The second location is to have natives planted at the Lorraine Moller Reserve in Putaruru. The late environmentalist had a strong influence on the councillor who worked closely with him on various projects. Looking on the positive side, Van Rooijen said the issue is an" opportunity to do something else that is positive". Sachets of butter found in an Invercargill house saved the day and ensured Nigella Lawson didn't go without cheese rolls at dinner on Tuesday. Three ILT Stadium Southland staffers were tasked with finding a plate of "Southland sushi" for the famous foodie, but while they managed to grab 10 cheese rolls from a stadium freezer, there was no butter in sight. "We can't serve them without butter," stadium receptionist Alivia Walker said. Your comfort food recipes Share your stories, photos and videos. Contribute Eventually some butter sachets were found at the house of a friend who worked at a hotel, and the cheese rolls were stacked high and sent on their way. READ MORE: * Review: A Night with Nigella purr-fectly lovely * Nigella Lawson dazzles at Invercargill dinner * Invercargill chef Simon Henry not nervous about cooking for Nigella Lawson * Nigella Lawson - six things she should do in New Zealand * Duco Events trim expectations for Nigella Lawson's Invercargill appearance * Southland cheesed off over Dunedin cheese roll claims * No need to be cheesed off, Dunedin mayor tells Southlanders When the empty plate was returned, Walker and her co-workers were told by the woman who delivered them that Lawson really enjoyed them. NICOLE JOHNSTONE/FAIRFAX NZ Nigella Lawson entertains Southlanders at a book signing in Invercargill on Tuesday. "She told us she said 'you've done Southland proud'," Walker said. Duco Events chief executive Martin Snedden said the lengths stadium staff went to get the cheese rolls was an example of how Lawson was treated to Southland's hospitality. "During the questions and answers on the night she used this as an example of how friendly and wonderful New Zealand people are." 1 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/STUFF Nigella Lawson laughs during Paper Plus book signing event at H & J Smith in Invercargill on Tuesday afternoon. 2 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ Hafsha Abdul-Jabbar, 11, of Mokotua, has her cook book signed by Nigella Lawson at Paper Plus Invercargill on Tuesday. 3 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ A large crowd gathers in the foyer at ILT Stadium Southland ahead of Simply Nigella in Invercargill on Tuesday. 4 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ Nigella Lawson laughs during Paper Plus book signing event at H & J Smith in Invercargill on Tuesday afternoon. 5 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ Amelia, 14, Paige, 11, and Megan McKenzie, all of Invercargill, read Nigella Lawson's book as they wait to have it signed. 6 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ Celebrity chef Nigella Lawson visiting Invercargill. 7 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ Melissa Tyson and Jodi Remi at Simply Nigella in Invercargill on Tuesday. 8 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ Bronwyn Sadler, of Invercargill, has her book signed by Nigella Lawson after a two-and-a-half-hour wait at Paper Plus Invercargill on Tuesday. 9 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ Bronwyn Sadler, of Invercargill, with her book, signed by Nigella Lawson, at Paper Plus Invercargill on Tuesday. 10 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ A large crowd waits for celebrity chef Nigella Lawson to arrive at Paper Plus Invercargill on Tuesday. 11 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ Bronwyn Ward, Morgan Shepherd, Ruth Shepherd and Alicia Smith at Simply Nigella in Invercargill on Tuesday. 12 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ Sisters Bindi and Jo Sharp, both of Invercargill, at Simply Nigella in Invercargill on Tuesday. 13 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ Laura Downing, holding Phoebe Gilchrist, 4 months, and Layla Gilchrist, 2, all of Perth, took time out from visiting family in the south to have their book signed by Nigella Lawson. 14 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ Andrea Dalton, Allen Ngakai, Terry Laidlaw, Colin Keane and Aaron Mills at Simply Nigella in Invercargill on Tuesday. 15 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ A large crowd waits for celebrity chef Nigella Lawson to arrive at Paper Plus Invercargill on Tuesday. 16 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ Jan Jennings and her daughter Lizzie Jennings, both of Invercargill, at Simply Nigella in Invercargill on Tuesday. 17 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ Monique Shirley, Catherine Brown, Sue Watt and Renee Morgan, at Simply Nigella in Invercargill on Tuesday. 18 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ Brooklyn Chalmers, 8, and Mahalia Chalmers, both of Invercargill, get their books signed by Nigella. 19 of 19 ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ Vickie Hiini, Roy Sutherland, Charmaine Sutherland and Kathryn Ladbrook, at Simply Nigella in Invercargill on Tuesday. Snedden said Lawson's visit to New Zealand was a huge success, with 550 seats filled in Invercargill and 800 seats in Auckland. At the beginning of January, he hoped 500 to 550 tickets would be sold in total for the Invercargill show. On Thursday, he said the ticket target was hit, with many attending the Invercargill show from out of town. A minimal number of tickets were freebies, junkets or giveaways, Snedden said. Snedden said the ticket prices did not have an impact on sales, as Duco reached its target of 550 Invercargill seats. "We thought it was great... I think she loved it here, certainly." Those who could not attend the event were able to get books signed by Lawson at Paper Plus. Lawson stayed one night in Invercargill. Rather than leaving the country straight away she flew to other commitments in New Zealand, he said. "Nigella does really have a soft spot for New Zealand." Lawson commented frequently on the generosity of Southland people, Snedden said. Canine parvovirus can be treated with antibiotics and an intravenous drip. A highly infectious and dangerous canine disease is returning to Blenheim, vets say. Vets on Alabama vet Helen Murphy said two young puppies were seen at the clinic within an hour of each other on Wednesday morning, suffering from canine parvovirus. Springlands Veterinary Centre vet Nigel Nesbit said his clinic saw three cases last week, all from the Redwoodtown area. He had seen five cases since Christmas. Fortunately the last three dogs he had seen had recovered, but the other two had died, he said. READ MORE *Dogs dying in parvo outbreak *Parvovirus prompts vaccination plea The virus usually affected puppies and young dogs and its onset could be very fast. "Within 24 hours a dog can go from a normal dog to a very sick dog, nearly dead," Nesbit said. The first warning sign he often saw was diarrhoea. Murphy said other early warning signs of the disease were vomiting, or a puppy being unusually subdued. Nesbit said it was not possible to tell whether it was parvovirus unless the dog was tested, so he encouraged dog owners to take their animal to the vet straight away. Sometimes dogs did not respond to treatment, Murphy said. "The virus itself is nasty." She said it was important owners did not walk their dogs in public places unless they were vaccinated. The virus attacked the gut and caused dehydration, vomiting and bloody diarrhoea. The puppies at Vets on Alabama were receiving intravenous fluids and antibiotics, and were in the clinic's isolation unit. "They're doing very well," Murphy said. Parvovirus was highly infectious and lived in the environment for months. It was not airborne, but was spread via faecal-oral transmission and usually affected young puppies and dogs. Two years ago there was a severe outbreak of the virus, from Motueka to Blenheim, she said. Nesbit said different vets used different vaccines. His clinic often vaccinated puppies from 10 weeks so they would not need a booster shot, but could vaccinate them from six or seven weeks. Murphy said puppies could be vaccinated at her clinic from six weeks old, and dog owners should go to a vet to vaccinate their animals against the virus as soon as possible. According to information supplied by Vets on Alabama and NZ Farming, the virus is resistant to many typical disinfectants. A solution of one part bleach to 32 parts water can be used to clean the infected dog's toys, food dish and water bowl. They should be cleaned and then disinfected with this solution for 10 minutes. People who had walked through an infected area should also clean their shoes. Veterans' Affairs says support for veterans will go unchanged. Sue Moroney has slammed a proposal to shift Defence Force jobs out of Hamilton and centralise them in Wellington. Labour's Hamilton list MP said the "change proposal", which would see the loss of 29 jobs at the Hamilton Veterans' Affairs office, is just the beginning. "The idea that call centres are going to be centralised to Wellington, where there are some of the most expensive commercial real estate around, then Hamilton's got more problems to come," said Moroney. The government is ignoring the regions, she said, and the loss of 29 jobs in Hamilton is significant. READ MORE: *Maori war veteran's pension cut is WINZ 'weaponised' *AgResearch confirms redundancies *NZ Post set to cut 100 jobs "If that takes hold, then there are hundreds and hundreds of more jobs losses on the way for our city." New Zealand Veterans' Affairs is part of the New Zealand Defence Force. Staff at the Hamilton Veterans' Affairs office were told of the proposal on January 13; however, no final decision has been made. In an emailed statement, a Veterans' Affairs spokesperson said the proposal, if accepted, would see Hamilton jobs shifted to the capital. "The proposal recommends closing the Hamilton Veterans' Affairs office and centralising services and support in Wellington," the spokesperson said. Veterans' Affairs has only two offices - in the Hamilton CBD on Anglesea Street and on Lambton Quay in Wellington. The proposed change would see support for military veterans and their families improved and staff would be able to progress their careers through the department. No face-to-face contact with the public exists at either the Hamilton or Wellington offices. Veterans' Affairs run an 0800 telephone number and mail-out service. More effort will be put into providing information through forums, meetings on camps and bases, RSAs, and online. "The services and support available to veterans under the act are not affected by the change proposal," the statement said. National secretary of the Public Sector Association Glenn Barclay was concerned with the closure of Government offices in the regions. "When regional offices close, it not only costs jobs but impacts on the quality of service offered to the public," said Barclay. "We are concerned at the closure of regional offices within the public service, and this is another example." A Chinese Coast Guard ship is seen in the middle of South China Sea near Kuantan, Malaysia, on March 15, 2014. (Photo : Getty Images) China reaffirmed its claim to sovereignty over several islands in the South China on Wednesday in response to outgoing Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeous recent visit to the disputed Taiping Island, although stressing that both the mainland and Taiwan have a shared responsibility to safeguard the region. Advertisement "Safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity and the overall interests of the Chinese nation are the common responsibility and obligation of compatriots on both sides," Ma Xiaoguang, spokesperson of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, said in a bi-weekly news briefing. President Ma flew to Taiping on a C-130 cargo plane on Thursday morning to offer Chinese New Year wishes to the island's residents and to reiterate his call for peaceful coexistence and joint development in the region. "Taiping Island is able to sustain human habitation and an economic life of its own. Taiping Island is categorically not a rock, but an island," the president said, adding that recent infrastructure developments in the island reinforces Taiwan's claim of sovereignty and its rights over the surrounding waters. The visit comes following the opposition Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) landslide victory in Taiwan's general elections in Jan. 16. Ma, who is expected to step down in May, said it had asked DPP chairwoman and President-elect Tsai Ing-wen to send a representative to the trip, but the DPP declined, the Beijing-based Global Times reported. "As the DPP is poised to become the ruling party, the mainland may face greater challenges in terms of the South China Sea," Wang Jianmin, a cross-Straits scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times. Ma Xiaoguang warned that relations between mainland China and Taiwan will face a serious setback if the 1992 Consensus, in which both governments recognize only "one China," is not followed. It is not realistic for Taiwan to sever economic cooperation with the mainland to expand its so-called "space of international cooperation," the mainland's Taiwan affairs spokesperson said, noting that the international community acknowledges the one-China policy. The United States also issued a rare rebuke to Ma's trip, saying it could exacerbate tensions, and renewed a call for dialogue between parties to the dispute. "President Ma Ying-jeou has every right to make his position clear on the South China Sea. We just disagree with this particular action. We view it as, frankly, raising tensions rather than what we want to see, which is de-escalation," U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Wednesday. Located roughly 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) south of Taiwan and 46 hectares (110 acres) in size, Taiping is one the largest islands in the Spratly island group, an area where Taiwan shares claims with China, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. Peter Taylor's proposed path to Rio keeps changing. The 2012 London Olympics bronze medalist in the lightweight men's double sculls with Storm Uru had his Rio plans greatly disturbed last year. Initially, he was omitted from the lightweight four that he'd won gold and silver with at the past two world champs after national trials, and put in a new double combination with Hayden Cohen. GETTY IMAGES Peter Taylor, right, and Hayden Cohen had a disappointing 2015 in the lightweight men's double sculls. Then at the 2015 world championships in Aiguebelette, France, the duo were unable to finish in the top 11 required to qualify the boat for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. READ MORE: Big names line up for Cup But this summer, Taylor has again been training with the sweep oar lightweight group that also consists of James Lassche, James Hunter, Curtis Rapley and Alistair Bond. GETTY IMAGES The NZ lightweight men's four of James Hunter, Alistair Bond, James Lassche and Curtis Rapley compete at the third World Cup regatta at Lucerne in 2015. So his hopes of being back in his preferred boat - and one which has already qualified and is a genuine Olympic medal contender - have received a boost. "I was ready for anything to happen this summer," Taylor said. "I was open to sculling all season then having a crack at the four at trials. But now no disciplines are unfamiliar to me and I guess it's all options open until trials." Rowing New Zealand's selection trials will start at the end of February, but this week's Cambridge Town Cup regatta from Friday-Sunday is the first major racing event that will be of significant interest to selectors. To emphasise Taylor's uncertainty, the 32-year-old will compete in the heavyweight men's single scull this weekend, while Lassche/Hunter and Rapley/Bond get a chance to impress in the sweep oar heavyweight men's pair class. He admitted 2015 was "a disappointing season". "I was really gutted with how we finished up - our result at world champs was not what we had trained for, targeted and were capable of. I guess what I was most disappointed about was how we failed to deliver what we'd been able to do in trainings. "We'd been able to do some pretty handy times and speeds in training, but for one reason or another we weren't able to replicate that at the world champs. It was a combination that didn't quite have that cohesiveness to deliver at a world champs environment." Now Taylor is again in selection and boat limbo - a very different picture from 2012. "Storm and I heading to London were pretty unchallenged in our seats," he said. "We were able to really have our focus on London 2012 and being our best for that week of the Olympics. This year round, we're just really focused on trials." The trial system means that the four crew boats - along with the women's single scull - Rowing NZ will send to Lucerne, Switzerland, in May won't have their line-ups finalised until early March. But Taylor's adamant that's still the best way to do things. "I can only see one approach. "Unless you're the likes of Mahe [Drysdale], or the men's pair, who have very much got a hold of their positions ... There's a whole bunch of us who are medal-quality crews at the Olympics, but the crews have yet to be decided. "It's an uneasy situation to be in, but you've got to set your priorities right. "So you trial in March to find your best boats and your best medal chances, then your next priority is the qualification boats - because the reality is the those boats are less likely to medal as the ones that have already qualified. "Everyone turns up on the first day of trials knowing this can determine whether you may be going for a medal or going to qualify." That also means Taylor will have to push one of his training colleagues out of a seat to be selected, making for a tricky balancing act. Taylor said all rowers want their crewmates to be at their best too, and the best win seats. "I turn up everyone morning at Lake Karapiro to win a gold at Rio 2016. "To do that, you need the fastest crew - you need four fast people for the lightweight four. "So doing that over summer with your crewmates increases the likelihood for Rio. You're looking to improve yourself every day, but you can't be an individual out there in your crew. "You can be as strong as hell, but if you're not rowing with the other guys, you'll be out the back door." China has implemented stricter regulations regarding the operation of commercial websites' local branches. (Photo : Getty Images) Chinese authorities have stepped up efforts on curbing news reporting malpractices made by commercial websites. Under the new notice posted by the Cyberspace Administration of China on its website on Monday, only commercial sites that have already been given licenses to report news will be allowed to put up local sections for their reports. However, the sites are still required to apply for approval from the CAC's provincial-level office with jurisdiction over the particular branch. Advertisement The branches only have one month after the release of the notice to get approval, else they will be shut down, the Global Times reported. Provincial branches are also allowed to reprint news coming from the main branch, the notice further said. According to Sun Yat Sen University's School of Communication and Design director Zhang Zhian, the new regulation was made in response to the proliferation of fake news posted by the local branches of these sites. Hang said that the problem was due to some of these sites outsourcing their local branches to other companies which, in turn, posted incorrect or fake information, or used it to attack and blackmail other companies. Authorities shut down 387 local branches of commercial sites last year for spreading false information. Meanwhile, the CAC also strengthened its cybersecurity efforts by joining up with Indonesia's National Cyber Information Defense and Security (NCIDS), Tempo.co reported. NCIDS expert staff Muchlis Ahmady said that the new agreement is part of the two countries' long-standing knowledge-sharing program. Muchlis said that the agreement will cover different sectors. First is joint cooperation, while the second one is about information and communication technology strategies that are designed to develop the parties' cybersecurity awareness for decision-making. The third sector will focus on capacity building, while the final one is going to be concerned with research in the field. The officer said that the program will help a lot in enhancing China's and Indonesia's cyberspace crisis management capabilities. To share with friends and brethren The Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (the Everlasting Gospel), and to prepare a people to stand when He returns to redeem His remnant. Also, to share relevant information of current events, and to show how they relate to prophecy; By means of articles, editorials, opinions, scripture readings, and poetry. Disclaimer Endrtimes does not necessarily endorse or agree with every opinion expressed in every article/video posted on this site. The information provided here is done so for personal edification; It's up to the reader to separate truth from error, and to examine everything (like the Bereans) from a Biblical perspective. Let the Holy Scriptures be you guide! - - - FAIR USE NOTICE: These pages/videos may contain copyrighted () material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of ecological, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, economic, DEMOCRACY, scientific, MORAL, ETHICAL, and SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes. It was standing room only in the Coromandel Area School Hall with hundreds of people gathering to pay tribute to Coromandel legend Barry Brickell on Wednesday. The pioneering potter, artist, author, conservationist and railway enthusiast, died peacefully surrounded by family and friends at his home in Driving Creek on Saturday. He was 80 years old. The cruise ship Azamara Quest expected to arrive at the Port of Tauranga at 5.30pm is under investigation for an alleged incident when it entered Tory Channel earlier this week. A passenger on board says the 180m long ship passed within 30 meters of rocks on entering the channel from Cook Strait. Daniel McKillop, RN BSN has been appointed emergency department nurse manager at Syracuse VA Medical Center. McKillop received trauma training at the U.S. Army Trauma Training Center (ATTC) at Kings County Hospital, in New York City. He is a graduate of State University of New York at Morrisville and Keuka College. McKillop has 23 years of military service, serving in both the US Air Force and the US Army. He returned to the VA hospital from SUNY Upstate Medical University where he received additional training in ICU, trauma and administrative. SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- The mom of an Oswego County teenager who died after smoking synthetic drugs praised the New York State Senate for passing a series of bills this week aimed at combating the deadly drugs. But Teresa Woolson said she is worried that the state Assembly will let the legislation die without voting on it - just like it did last year. Victor Woolson, 19, died Aug. 10, 2012 at Oswego Hospital, where he had been rushed the day before after he had smoked synthetic marijuana and collapsed while swimming in Lake Ontario with friends. Woolson, a Scriba resident and student at Cayuga Community College in Fulton, had purchased a product called "Pineapple Avalanche" from an Oswego shop, Xtreme Underground, shortly before that, his mother said. Marketed as an incense, the product contained a man-made drug called synthetic cannabinoids, which can cause death, she said. "I was, of course, outraged," Woolson said. "How could a product be on the shelf of a store and then kill my son the same day?" The Senate passed five bills Monday to try to prevent the sale of synthetic drugs, whose manufacturers frequently change the chemical compounds of the products to stay a step ahead of federal and state drug laws. One law would make it a crime to possess or sell a product containing synthetic cannabinoids. Conviction of a misdemeanor possession charge could result in a jail term of up to one year. Depending on the weight of the product, possessing or selling felonies could result in prison terms of up to 25 years. Another bill would make it a civil violation of the state's general business law for a business to sell products containing synthetic cannabinoids. A court could fine a business $2,000 for the first offense, $5,000 for a second, and could revoke a store's licenses to sell tobacco, alcohol and lottery tickets for a third offense within five years. "I'm very pleased to have something passed," Woolson said of the Senate action. "But I'm apprehensive because it has to get through the Assembly. I will be in the near future writing letters to encourage the Assembly to pass the bill." What will the Assembly do? The Assembly will review the bills, said Michael Whyland, a spokesman for the Democratic majority there. He said Speaker Carl Heastie has not indicated this year if he will support the synthetic drug bills. Deirdre Canaday, a woman from Athens, in Greene County, whose son, Aaron Stinson, died in 2011 after smoking synthetic marijuana, said she's been told that Assembly members fear that criminalizing synthetic marijuana would disproportionately impact minorities. "The New York State Assembly needs to understand these criminalization bills won't lock up people's sons and daughters. We are trying to save their sons and daughters," Canaday said. "We are going after the distributors and manufacturers of these poisons." Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan called on the Assembly to pass the bills. "For five years, I have sponsored legislation that has passed the Senate on numerous occasions so that we can hold criminals accountable for the creation of new and dangerous drugs that evade our current laws. It is past time for the Assembly to join us and help put an end to synthetic drugs today," said Flanagan, R-Smithtown. A report released by the Senate this week said over 6,800 people have been hospitalized statewide as a result of using synthetic cannabinoids and 68 percent of those patients used Medicaid, resulting in over $1.1 million in payouts by taxpayers. "In Onondaga County, synthetic marijuana overdose cases have risen by 580 percent since 2011," said Sen. David Valesky, D-Oneida, who sponsored one of the Senate bills. "My bill will require the State Department of Health to establish a database of these deadly chemicals to better inform the public, retailers and law enforcement about these toxic drugs." Woolson: New laws needed Woolson said the death of her son demonstrates the need for new laws. Brian Colombo, the owner of the Oswego store that sold him the product, was charged a year after Victor Woolson's death with selling missbranded drugs. Colombo pleaded guilty in 2015 to a misdemeanor and was fined $1,000. Woolson sued Colombo and Xtreme Underground for $5 million, alleging they caused her son's death. In November, an insurance company representing Colombo settled the lawsuit by agreeing to pay Woolson $350,000, she said. Woolson said she still has a lawsuit pending against Charles Burton Ritchie, a filmmaker from Florida and Utah, whose company was the alleged manufacturer of the product that killed her son. Ritchie and another filmmaker were indicted in October in Nevada on charges of manufacturing and distributing synthetic drugs. Contact Mike McAndrew anytime | email | Twitter | 315-470-3016 WATERTOWN, N.Y. -- Three corrections officers from the state Watertown Correctional Facility are accused of falsifying time and training records, the New York State Police said. Gary W. Brown, 44, of Brownville, was charged with fourth-degree falsifying business records, official misconduct and defrauding the government. Gerald P. Manson, 51, of Watertown, and Kevin R. Berghorn, 53, of Copenhagen, were each charged with petit larceny, falsifying business records and official misconduct. Brown, Manson and Berghorn were arrested Wednesday. All three men worked as weapons training officers at the medium security prison for men in the town of Watertown. An extensive investigation was done by the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision Office of Special Investigations. Investigators analyzed time cards and other records, state police said. They also conducted surveillance. State police said the men routinely falsified time cards by saying they attended training classes for full 8-hour days, but instead the left training after just a couple hours. Brown was paid $1,227 that he did not earn, state police said. Mason and Berghorn are accused of taking $740 and $400 respectively for training hours that they did not work, state police said. Troopers have turned the case over to the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office. Kevin R. Berghorn Gary W. Brown APTOPIX Brazil Zika Virus An Aedes aegypti mosquito is photographed through a microscope at the Fiocruz institute in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. (Felipe Dana | The Associated Press) A single case of Zika virus has been confirmed in Monroe County, bringing the total number of cases of the disease in New York up to five. The Department of Health confirmed that individuals in New York City, Monroe, Orange, and Nassau counties had contracted the disease, all while traveling abroad, according to CBS New York. There are a total of 31 cases of the disease across 11 U.S. states, according to WHEC-TV. The disease has been linked to the birth defect known as microcephaly, which can leave newborns with unusually small heads and abnormal brain development. Health officials did not say whether the affected person was a man or a woman, but did say the individual was not pregnant, according to WHAM-TV reporter Sean Carroll. State Heath Commissioner Howard Zucker issued a statement last week saying there "is virtually no risk of acquiring Zika virus in New York State at this time as the virus cannot be spread by casual contact with an infected person and mosquitoes are not active in cold winter months." All of the afflicted New Yorkers contracted the disease in one of the tropical countries where it has become an epidemic. Officials have urged pregnant women to avoid travel to 24 countries, mostly in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the virus has been spreading. The countries and territories include: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela, Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Martinique, St. Martin, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Cape Verde, off the coast of western Africa and Samoa in the South Pacific. The United Nations plans to hold an emergency meeting Monday to determine whether the disease, which is "spreading explosively," should be declared an international health emergency. One World Health Organization scientist said there could be up to 4 million cases of Zika in the Americas in the next year. Despite the concern, U.S. health officials remain confident that a widespread outbreak in the country is unlikely. Dr. Anthony Fauci told The Associated Press he thinks the Zika virus can be kept at bay with "mosquito vector control." Meet the 'Infectious Disease Cowboys' hunting down dengue in Syracuse Information from The Associated Press contributed to this report. 2016-01-28-JohnDSmith.jpg World War I veteran John D. Smith, center, is shown in this June 1958 photo outside the family home on Canoga Road in Auburn. His son, Paul E. Smith, now 90, stands next to him. Paul will be among family members who will accept a Purple Heart awarded posthumously by the U.S. Army for his father's service in World War I. (Family photo) AUBURN, N.Y. - For decades, John D. Smith's family knew little about his service in World War I. All they had was a certificate of appreciation from President Woodrow Wilson that hung on a wall in his Auburn home. The former machine operator at American Locomotive Co. took the very private memories of his service with the U.S. Army in France to his grave. He died in Auburn at the age of 83 in 1971. "He never talked about anything," said his grandson, Paul Smith II. Now 98 years later, Paul Smith II has uncovered the truth: His grandfather was the victim of a poison gas attack from German troops in the August 1918 battle to cross the Vesle River in France. He likely suffered blistering skin wounds, and saw others die long, painful deaths from their exposure to mustard gas. Smith never received any medals or honors for his service, but his grandson -- with the help of U.S. Rep. John Katko, R-Camillus -- plan to correct that oversight today. Smith will be honored posthumously with the award of a Purple Heart for his wounds in battle, the World War I Victory Medal with Oise-Aisne and Meuse-Argonne bronze battle clasps and France service clasps, and the World War I Victory Button in silver. Three generations of Smith's family plan to accept the medals from Katko in a ceremony this afternoon at the 174th Attack Wing headquarters at Hancock Field in Mattydale. John Smith's son, Paul E. Smith, 90, of Auburn; grandson, Paul Smith II, of Auburn; great-grandson, Michael, 35; and at least four other grandchildren, will also witness the presentation of a U.S. Army memorandum reflecting Smith's entitlement to the awards and honors. Paul Smith II, 65, of Auburn, said the ceremony will mark the end of his five year quest to find out about his grandfather's service in World War I, and answer questions that date back to his childhood. "My grandfather never spoke about his service," Smith said. "He never mentioned it. I don't know if it had any kind of bad memory for him, but he never discussed it with family members." Smith said his own father, now a 90-year-old World War II veteran, had no information about John Smith's World War I service record. John D. Smith's discharge papers from the U.S. Army confirm he was wounded when exposed to a mustard gas attack during a World War I battle at the Vesle River in France. But when John Smith's youngest son died more than five years ago, Paul Smith II asked a cousin if he had left behind anything pertaining to their grandfather's military service. It turned out the family had a single box of papers, and inside were John Smith's enlistment and discharge papers from the Army. The papers showed the Elbridge native had enlisted at the age of 30 on Feb. 24, 1918, and served until an honorable discharge in November 1919. The paper's confirmed Smith served with Company H, 2nd Battalion, 308th Infantry Regiment, 154th Infantry Brigade, 77th Division of the American Expeditionary Forces in France. And listed on the line for "Wounds received in service" were two words: "Gassed, mustard." Paul Smith II said he took the information to the Cayuga County veterans office to see if he if his grandfather had ever received any medals or honors for his service. When a search turned up nothing, Smith asked State Sen. Michael Nozzolio for help to see if his grandfather deserved honors. Nozzolio referred Smith to Katko, and less than three weeks later the Army acknowledged that his grandfather deserved a Purple Heart. "At the young age of 30, Mr. Smith put his life on the line for our country to ensure our freedom," Katko said. "Today, we honor him for that with this medal, and we pay tribute to him as an American hero." Paul Smith II said he plans to display the medals, along with the certificate of appreciation from Woodrow Wilson, in a shadow box at the gun shop he owns in Auburn, S & S Sales, on Canoga Road. Contact Mark Weiner anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751 This Page Is Under Construction - Coming Soon! Why am I seeing this 'Under Construction' page? Tim Dorsey will be at the Vero Beach Book Center 6 p.m. Feb. 1 to promote his latest book Coconut Cowboy. SHARE By Angela Smith Avid Vero Beach reader Robert Lamont has high expectations for the book signing Monday at the Vero Beach Book Center. New York Times bestselling author Tim Dorsey will be there promoting his latest novel, "Coconut Cowboy." "There's just something about Dorsey and the way he speaks he's just as entertaining as his books are," said Lamont, who's attended the author's past book signings at the Vero Beach book store. "He tells these fascinating stories and gets you hooked just like his books do and when you walk out, you have a smile on your face and a good feeling knowing it was time well spent." The Vero Beach Book Center is one of many stops for Dorsey, a Tampa author who's introducing the 19th title to his popular vigilante novel series about Serge Storms, a serial killer with an unusual sense of justice and a love for history. In the new novel, Serge and his sidekick, Coleman, are taking a classic motorcycle road trip through Florida's Panhandle re-enacting scenes from the 1960s movie "Easy Rider," with the usual history lessons and laugh-out-loud antics Dorsey is known for in the series. "This is a concept I had rattling around in my head for the last few books and I waited to do," Dorsey said. Although "Easy Rider" helped inspire the book's storyline, you don't have to see the movie to read the book, Dorsey said. "They're on a road trip and he (Serge) talks about the history of Florida and traveling from small town to small town looking for that American dream," he said. Without giving too much away, Dorsey takes an approach similar to the other books in his series, incorporating true outrageous Florida news. "I read about a small town being investigated for corruption with public money and instantly thought this was made for me after finding out what happened with some of the evidence," Dorsey said. "I had a lot of fun writing the book and this one just flowed and hopefully I connect with the readers. They've been very kind up to now." Despite the author's large following, the Florida reporter turned author never dreamed he'd be promoting a book, let alone a series he says is on the verge of becoming a television show. "I thought 'I'll win the lottery if I can even get one book published,' " Dorsey said. Even though he knew it was a long shot, he said he continued to write because he loves it. "My dream was to hold a book with my name on it and maybe paid enough to make a couple of car payments or something and now it's my living." Serge Storms has many more Florida towns to visit and weird news to track, so Dorsey anticipates many more books in his future. "The challenge is keeping up with Florida," Dorsey said. ABOUT THE BOOK SIGNING What: Book signing with New York Times bestselling author Tim Dorsey When: 6 p.m. Feb. 1 Where: Vero Beach Book Center, 392 21st St., Vero Beach Cost: Free Advice: Arrive early as 60-70 people are expected to attend. Information: 772-569-2050 or www.verobeachbookcenter.com Billions of mullet make their way out of inlets and head south along the coast during their annual migration. Mullet was commonly eaten by early fishermen in the area. (FILE) SHARE Historical items, such as these crabs smashers from the 1940s and 1950s, are on display at the Working Waterfront Museum at Fishermans Landing in Sebastian. The wooden tools were used to remove blue crabs from fishermens nets. By Janet Begley SEBASTIAN Visitors to Sebastian's Working Waterfront will get a chance to taste the foods of the early settlers when the Indian River County Historical Society holds its first "Mullet Fry" from noon to 2 p.m. Feb. 6. It's the first event for the newly opened Working Waterfront Museum at the rear of the old Hurricane Harbor restaurant at 1540 Indian River Drive. The site also includes a fish market and small restaurant, with a fish house on the Indian River currently under construction. "We had to limit the scope of the event to one day and only for two hours," said County Historian Ruth Stanbridge "Our goal was to let people could see all the progress that has been made on the waterfront. It's really a prelude to what could take place in the future once construction is completed in the fall." Local fishermen have been catching mullet for the past week for the event, Stanbridge said. They fileted the fish and froze it for the fish fry. Side dishes, including "swamp cabbage," will be provided by the Marsh Landing Restaurant in Fellsmere. "We decided on mullet because it was the fish of choice for the early fisherman," Stanbridge said. "While they might have sold the other fish they caught, they ate the mullet." During the fish fry, visitors can take tours of the historical displays in the exhibit center. Photos of old ice houses that once dotted the riverfront are on the walls, along with the names of prominent fishing families such as Judah, Sembler, DeVane and others. There are white boots used by fisherman to protect their feet as they hauled their catch from the river to waiting ice barrels; old nets and a lighted buoy that once marked the location of underwater nets in the river; a shadow box table with historical artifacts; as well as video monitors that will show live webcam feeds of the Sebastian Inlet and the Indian River Lagoon. The fish fry will be limited to no more than 200 people because construction at the Working Waterfront is still ongoing, Stanbridge said. Tickets are available on a first-come, first-serve basis for $10 each, and can be purchased at the Vero Beach Historical Society office in Vero Beach and the Sebastian River Area Chamber of Commerce. Stanbridge said people have been eager to have an event on the waterfront. "People naturally want to see progress," he saidStanbridge. "I think they'll be surprised." MULLET FRY What: Fish fry sponsored by the Indian River County Historical Society, opportunity to see waterfront development progress When: Noon to 2 p.m. Feb. 6 Tickets: $10 per ticket, with $1 extra for swamp cabbage. They can be purchased at the IRC Historical Society Office at the Vero Beach Railroad Station, 2336 14th Ave. in Vero Beach or at the Sebastian River Chamber of Commerce office on Main Street in Sebastian. Information: 772-778-3435 or www.irchistorical.org St. Lucie County felony arrests: Jan. 27, 2016 Timothy Turner, 46, 1700 block of Sanderling Lane, Fort Pierce; warrant for robbery with a deadly weapon. Calym Blake, 29, 700 block of 35th Street, Fort Pierce; possession of a weapon or ammunition by a convicted felon. Eugene Hudson, 43, 900 block of Revels Lane, Fort Pierce; warrant for burglary of an occupied dwelling. Mideya Juarez, 23, 1600 block of Sylvester Lane, Port St. Lucie; possession of a controlled substance (suboxone/narcan combination) without a prescription. Leandro Gonzalez-ramirez, 39, Miami; warrant for criminal use of personal I.D. information. Rashawn Francis, 22, Orlando; grand theft of a firearm. Walter Moorehead, 33, 100 block of Palm Drive, Port St. Lucie; possession of a controlled substance (oxycontine/dilaudid/morphine). Marvin Perla, 46, 8000 block of Westmont Drive, Fort Pierce; battery commit domestic battery by strangulation; cruelty towards child abuse without great bodily harm. Felicia Gautier, 53, 4400 block of Jaunt Road, Port St. Lucie; possession of cocaine; possession of a controlled substance (clonazepam/oxycodone/carisoprodol/morphine). Raymond Hillary, 41, 2000 block of Avenue D, Fort Pierce; warrant for possession of cocaine with intent to sell. Charles Elery, 38, 700 block of 8th Street, Fort Pierce; possession of cocaine. Stephen Bethel, 27, 5400 block of Moorhen Trail, Port St. Lucie; warrant for court order for termination of pretrial supervision, robbery. Jabari Andrews, 37, 700 block of Camino Street, Port St. Lucie; possession of MDMA. Noelle Freiert, 26, 2300 block of Addison Street, Port St. Lucie; larceny/grand theft; fraud giving false statement verification of ownership regulating metals of $300 or more; dealing in stolen property. Chantel Edwards, 24, Coral Springs; out-of-county warrant, Broward County, possession of alprazolam. Victor Moreno, 37, 1300 block of Port St. Lucie Boulevard, Port St. Lucie; warrant for failure to appear, driving while license suspended. Bryan Mendelsohn, 26, 100 block of Silverstream Circle, Fort Pierce; larceny/grand theft. Regina Corderman, 50, 2600 block of Seneca Avenue, Fort Pierce; burglary of an unoccupied dwelling, while unarmed. Richard Fowler, 47, 600 block of Kildare Street, Port St. Lucie; re-admit, DUI. Robert Schneider, 47, 6400 block of U.S. 1, Fort Pierce; warrant for violation of probation, DUI. Brian Murray, 19, 500 block of Butler Avenue, Port St. Lucie; re-admit, possession of alprazolam. Vincent Bartolotta, 26, 7500 block of Pine Lakes Boulevard, Port St. Lucie; re-admit, possession of alprazolam, possession of buprenorphine. Dusty Gonzalez, 31, 800 block of Emil Drive, Fort Pierce; re-admit, trafficking in cocaine, possession of more than 20 grams of marijuana. Lisa Marquisette, 53, 2700 block of Flotilla Terrace, Fort Pierce; re-admit, battery, prior conviction. Danny Robinson, 29, 300 Essex Drive, Fort Pierce; out-of-county warrant, St. Lucie County, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Arrested in Indian River County. SHARE By Andrew Atterbury of TCPalm MARTIN COUNTY Some Martin County School Board members are backing away from a $1 million computer initiative they approved just three months ago. They now are rethinking whether to furnish laptops to all incoming freshmen. "I don't want to have another debacle where we spend a fortune changing something tremendously and have parents upset and complaining, wondering where all this money has gone," School Board member Tina McSoley said. In October, the board unanimously approved a districtwide technology plan, part of which includes providing every ninth-grader with a laptop to use in school and at home. Yet when board members heard a "Laptops for Learning" update earlier this month, some were taken aback. Under the plan, the district would purchase 1,500 laptops for $1 million about $666 apiece and issue them to all ninth-graders at Martin County's three high schools beginning this fall. With freshmen getting computers each year, all high school students would be laptop-equipped in four years. Families would be on the hook for a $25 annual fee to use the computers, which they would carry from class to class and take home each night but would return before summer break for maintenance. A deductible would apply for repairs and replacement of lost or stolen computers. Students with financial hardships would qualify for subsidies, school officials said. Families also could provide their own laptops or have their children use classroom desktop computers. Ideally, students would use the same laptop for four years if it remains in good condition. Some School Board members, however, now aren't so sure the program is a good thing. Board member Rebecca Negron suggested incentives to have parents buy computers for their children and working out ways to find them discounts to reduce the number of computers the district would need to buy. "Each year you're spending a $1 million," Negron said at the Jan. 7 board workshop meeting. "To me, I think there is a better way." Martin County isn't the first Treasure Coast school district to launch an intensive, and expensive, technology plan. St. Lucie launched a similar program this year, with every student and teacher at two high schools receiving a take-home laptop for $25 a year. The pilot project cost $4.1 million spread over four years for approximately 3,600 computers. It could be expanded to additional schools if money is available, officials said. Indian River County schools this year spent $2.1 million to place 25 tablets in 114 middle and high school classrooms. The tablets, however, are for in-school use only. Aside from her financial qualms, Martin County board member McSoley doubts the effectiveness of having so many computers in classrooms and opposes having students take laptops home. At a recent board meeting, she posed more than a dozen questions to the district's technology department, many regarding the potential loss of instruction time due to teachers fiddling with technology. Teachers will have all the training they need before the plan unfolds, staff has said. Moreover, students won't be glued to the computers. Rather, the laptops will be used at the discretion of teachers, according to staff. Teachers rely on a breadth of strategies, and the computers add another tool at their disposal while preparing students with skills necessary to be productive after graduation, said Douglas Konopelko, coordinator of digital learning for Martin County schools. "This is becoming a part of literacy," Konopelko said of computers in the classroom. Board members could continue their discussion of Laptops for Learning at their February meeting if someone asks to put it on the agenda, although Superintendent Laurie Gaylord last week warned against it, saying that rehashing the plan would be a step backward. Regardless, the purchase order for 1,500 laptops must be voted on before summer for the plan to be put into play. Cases of the flu are on the rise in Indian River County. SHARE By News Release INDIAN RIVER COUNTY A sharp increase in flu-like illness and diagnosed cases of the flu has been reported. The Florida Department of Health in Indian River County urges residents and visitors to take precautions to limit their risk of exposure to seasonal flu. Seasonal flu is an infection of the respiratory tract caused by the influenza virus. Compared with most other viral respiratory infections, such as the common cold, cases of the flu often cause a more severe illness. "By getting a flu shot and practicing good hand washing techniques, we can help prevent the spread of the flu", said Miranda Hawker, Florida Department of Health Administrator. "Everyone 6 months and older should get vaccinated, even if they got the flu shot last season." Symptoms of the flu are headache, fever, a severe cough, runny nose or body aches. Contact your physician if symptoms appear. Tips for preventing the flu include: SHARE By Nicole Rodriguez of TCPalm Editor's note: This story was updated from its original version to reflect the correct salary for the City Council position. PORT ST. LUCIE Two familiar faces, acquainted with public service on the Treasure Coast, have jumped into this fall's election for two City Council seats. Jolien Caraballo declared her candidacy for the District 4 seat now held by Ron Bowen, and John Carvelli declared for the District 2 seat. Three-term incumbent Michelle Berger is not seeking re-election to that seat on the City Council. Caraballo, 35, in early 2014 was the only candidate to file for a special election when Bowen was suspended for allegedly violating Florida's open-meetings laws. A married mother of two and director of operations at Fusion Aveda Salon in St. Lucie West, she held the seat for two months after Gov. Rick Scott suspended Bowen. Scott reinstated Bowen after he took a plea deal that substituted the criminal charge with a civil infraction if he accepted responsibility for the violation. Caraballo ran unsuccessfully against Bowen in 2012. "I love this city from the bottom of my heart," said Caraballo of her decision to run again. Promoting small business and economic growth are issues Caraballo plans to crusade for during her bid, she said Wednesday. "I want to provide an environment where people feel they can have a sustainable life here and that their children are going to be able to not just grow up here, but have a future here," she said. Bowen on Tuesday said he's focused on city business and hasn't put much thought into his re-election. Carvelli, 54, a seasoned public servant who served 16 years on the St. Lucie County School Board, 1994-2010, including time as its chairman and vice chairman, is a married father of one and currently the principal of Pierce Hammock Elementary School in Loxahatchee in Palm Beach County. Robert Joseph, 42, and former mayoral candidate Chauncelor Howell, 53, also are running for Berger's seat. Carvelli, a Clemson University and University of Florida graduate, said he will tout his experience balancing big budgets and lengthy public service to the area. His key issues are financial responsibility, supporting law enforcement to keep the city safe and working alongside the school district to improve city schools, he said. "(The city) can use some help right now," Carvelli said Tuesday. "I see the city going through some tough times and I have background working with large budgets." "Vision and foresight" are attributes the city needs to navigate out of rough economic waters and solve big issues such as the collapse of the Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute of Florida and the city's debt of $916 million, he said. Both candidates who intend to keep their full-time jobs if elected to the part-time, $32,839 City Council position have strong roots in the area. Caraballo has lived in Port St. Lucie 25 years and attended Port St. Lucie High School and Indian River State College. She is on the Port St. Lucie Historical Society board and the Keep Port St. Lucie Beautiful committee. Carvelli, a 43-year resident, attended St. Lucie Middle School, Lincoln Park Academy and graduated from John Carroll Catholic High School. The Indian River State College campus in Fort Pierce. It's easy to see how poverty can breed a sense of hopelessness, and why young men in many American cities including those on the Treasure Coast turn to gangs, drugs and violence. Yet a new program at Indian River State College may offer them a better direction. It's called the Ice House program, and the first class of 25 seniors from Fort Pierce Westwood High School begins Monday. The program, according to instructor Tom Kindred, is all about focusing on possibilities. "It demonstrates to young people," Kindred explained, "that if you focus on what you want to do, you're capable of achieving anything. They just have to get beyond their situation." The title of the course comes from a book by Clifton Taulbert, "Who Owns the Ice House?" He grew up in the segregation-era Mississippi Delta where every man and boy worked in the cotton fields and barely scraped by. Clifton's Uncle Cleve was different. He owned the ice house. Cleve had saved up his wages and when the town ice house came up for sale he pounced. In a time before air conditioning, Cleve had the monopoly in keeping people cool. As he delivered ice in 15- and 20-pound blocks, he taught Clifton to dream and how to become an entrepreneur. Kindred's class uses videos of similar entrepreneurs who built their businesses from nothing. There's Brian Scudamore who founded 1-800-Got-Junk. The idea came to him while waiting at a McDonald's drive-thru. Scudamore worked in an auto-parts store. Customers who purchased vehicle parts often asked if he knew anyone who could install them. Scudamore started doing just that in his spare time and went from a $700 investment to annual sales in excess of $100 million in 300 locations. The point of the 16-week IRSC course, Kindred said, is to persuade students that they don't have to allow bad circumstances to determine who they are and where they can go in life. "Don't play the victim," Kindred said. The impetus for the program came from state Rep. Larry Lee, who grew up on Avenue O in northwest Fort Pierce when that community was more nurturing and inclusive than it is today. He began the Restoring the Village movement, which has blossomed into dozens of separate but complementary programs that could make northwest Fort Pierce a safer, more hopeful and productive place. Iconic rancher Bud Adams had approached Lee about helping Fort Pierce youths find a way to succeed. The two men met with IRSC President Ed Massey, who immediately saw both the need and the potential, Kindred said. By chance, Kindred had just learned about the Ice House concept at a conference. A pilot program ran last year with students from Dale Cassens School. This year, the college will offer the program to high school seniors. Kindred an entrepreneur who's owned a variety of small businesses himself teaches what he calls commonsense life lessons. He also stresses the need for continuing education at the college level. "I tell them knowledge plus action equals success," Kindred said. He has a roster of guest speakers including Sheriff Ken Mascara and Police Chief Diane Hobley-Burney. Kindred also will bring in entrepreneurs he's helping via the college's Business Incubator program. Eventually, Kindred would like to offer entrepreneurial classes for adults on Saturday mornings. "I think our community could become really engaged. We only need a handful of people to really make a difference," he said. "I see so many people who are simply reacting to their environment. Life is not a lottery. I teach them you can't sit and wait for success to find you. Go find it yourself." Massey and St. Lucie County schools are working with the Economic Development Council to provide a foundation where we can grow our own jobs, schools spokeswoman Kerry Padrick said. The Ice House program is an exciting extension of that mindset. I will be following its progress with great interest. The McCaughey family had been told it was safe to reoccupy their Palm City house. It wasn't, as the reports cited below show. The chemicals used to eradicate termites by Sunland Pest Control Services Inc. of West Palm Beach a subcontractor of Terminix International Co. had not dissipated from their home. Consequently, after the McCaugheys returned home the evening of Aug. 16, three family members got sick. Ten-year-old Peyton McCaughey suffered brain damage. The tragedy that has befallen the McCaugheys is a cautionary tale for every homeowner who contracts with a pest-control company. It also underscores the need to review and strengthen state rules and regulations governing fumigation. When the fumigation process is done improperly, people's health and lives are put at risk. State Rep. MaryLynn Magar, R-Tequesta, has filed a bill that would increase regulation of fumigation companies. Among other things, House Bill 1205 would authorize the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to require safety procedures for the clearance of residential structures before reoccupation after fumigation. It also would allow the agency to place additional conditions on fumigant registration, including: Requiring registrants with the state to train distributors and end users in safety measures, proper use, safe storage and the management of fumigant materials. Obtaining approval for continuing education and training programs. Conducting quality-assurance reviews. "The bill will improve safety by ensuring that pest control operators are correctly trained," Magar said. "Properly using the fumigant and following clearance procedures is the key to safety." If Magar's proposals had been in place before Aug. 16, they might have spared the McCaugheys from a real-life nightmare. Days after the incident, the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services conducted an investigation. The agency found Sunland had poorly maintained devices for checking that the house was clear for people to re-enter. On Sept. 4, the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services issued Sunland a stop-fumigation order "based on Sunland's failure to have two clearance devices" checked properly. "Neither of these (devices) was in working order," state investigators concluded. Magar's proposal addresses this issue. "These devices should be calibrated according to the manufacturer's requirements by trained technicians," Magar said. "We seek to require pest control companies to certify to the department that their devices are calibrated according to manufacturer's requirements at the time they submit a fumigation notification." The Florida Department of Health said in a report that three McCaughey family members had confirmed cases of pesticide-related illness and injury. "Sulfuryl fluoride exposure was the most likely cause of illness," the report states. The courts now are dealing with the fallout of the Aug. 16 event. The McCaugheys have filed a lawsuit against Terminix International and Sunland Pest Control Services. On Jan. 15, federal authorities filed criminal charges against Sunland and Grenale Williams, the company's owner, and employee Canarie Deon Curry. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court (Southern District of Florida), alleges the defendants used a restricted-use pesticide in a manner inconsistent with its labeling and made false statements during the investigation with respect to the type of pesticide used and the fumigation, aeration and clearance of the house. Sadly, it took a tragedy to focus attention on an issue that potentially affects tens of thousands of Florida residents each year. The state's Office of Inspector General issued a report this month on "Structural Fumigation Regulations and Processes." It noted there are 137 pest control businesses actively performing structural fumigations in the state and "these businesses performed approximately 66,700 structural fumigations in fiscal year 2014-15." Equally noteworthy is the fact, cited in the report, that sulfuryl fluoride is the most common pesticide used in structural fumigations. It was used 99.92 percent of the time in the previous fiscal year. Sulfuryl fluoride also is classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a "restricted use pesticide" because of its high toxicity. Since January 2010, 166 calls were received by the Florida Poison Information Center Network related to sulfuryl fluoride exposure, the report states. Magar, who has familiarized herself with the fumigation issue in recent months, offers the following advice for homeowners: Always do your homework and look for properly licenses companies. Determine whether the company you choose is doing the work itself or subcontracting the actual tenting and fumigation. If the company is employing a subcontractor, request the subcontractor's information and track record. Ask for references from people you know who have had work done by the company. Visit the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services' website (FreshFromFlorida.com) for information on pest control and pest control companies. Every homeowner needs to be aware of the inherent dangers of fumigating your house. Martin County Board of County Commissioners Bathtub Reef Beach and Sailfish Point beach restoration projects to begin. SHARE By Martin County Bocc STUART With permit in hand from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) and the pending permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, major restoration work will begin soon on a vital project to enhance one of our community's local treasures, Bathtub Reef Beach, as well as the northern half of Sailfish Point Beach. Martin County has selected Ferreira Construction to perform the work, which will use sand from the St. Lucie Inlet and nearby flood shoals to build the beach. Funding for this project will come from multiple sources, including a grant from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection that was included in this year's state legislative budget and a 50 percent cost share with the Sailfish Point Property Owners Association. A FEMA reimbursement from hurricane damage sustained in 2012 is also under review and may provide additional funding. The goal is for the project to be completed in May 2016, prior to the start of the new sea turtle nesting season. Martin County's Coastal Engineering Division plan for the restoration effort is the most cost-efficient as well as the most environmentally sensitive approach. Sand will be dredged from the flood shoals and the impoundment basin of the St. Lucie Inlet located immediately south of these beaches. This will help maintain the safety and navigability of the Inlet for local boaters. The sand will then be piped to the beach and distributed from that point across 4,900 feet of coastline, from just north of Bathtub Beach and extending south into Sailfish Point. "This approach provides a high-quality recreational beach, increased storm protection and is designed to protect the integrity of the fragile Sabellariid worm reef that serves as both a critical marine habitat and protective barrier at Bathtub Beach," explained Martin County coastal engineer Kathy FitzPatrick. Part of the project will restore the Bathtub Beach parking lot that was lost over the last several years as the beach eroded and sand had to be piled up in the parking area. "Essentially, visitors to the beach have had very little parking available. This project will restore 100 parking spaces," said FitzPatrick. "We know this may be frustrating to some beach visitors in the short-term, and cause inconveniences. However, the end result will be a bigger and better Bathtub Reef Beach one that more closely resembles the way the beach used to be." As preparation for restoration begins, the south section of the parking lot will be closed, beginning on Jan. 27, with the entire parking lot expected to be closed beginning Febr. 8 until the restoration work is complete. Additionally, the beach itself will have extremely limited access for the duration of the project. It is suggested that residents use the Chastain and Santa Lucea beaches until restoration work for Bathtub Reef Beach is completed. "We know how beloved the Bathtub Reef Beach is to Martin County residents and visitors and are excited about being able to move forward jointly with our critical beach renourishment projects for Bathtub Reef Beach and Sailfish Point," said Edward J. (E.J.) Ewing, Jr., Sailfish Point general manager. Information about beach and parking lot closings, access and construction and restoration updates will be soon be available on the county's website. Martin County's Atlantic beaches span nearly 22 miles along our coast and include Jensen Beach, Stuart Beach, Sailfish Point, St. Lucie Inlet State Preserve, Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge, and the Town of Jupiter Island. These beaches are an integral part of the quality of life in Martin County, generate considerable revenue to the economy of Martin County, and support homes, businesses and related infrastructure (roads, utilities) for many residents and visitors. Bathtub Reef is located just offshore at Bathtub Beach Park and is a popular spot for snorkelers due to the large numbers of marine creatures and fish that congregate there. Its presence is also a key factor in creating the "bathtub effect" of very shallow waters during low tide that make it such a favorite swimming location for families with young children. Bathtub Reef is a fascinating reef system, created by tiny tube-building Sabellariid sea worms. It is not only an incredibly unique system, but also an extremely fragile one. The worms cement sand grains together, creating a vast network of tube dwellings. Colonies build on top of one another over time and create a reef system that helps break waves and reduce beach erosion. This habitat is used by more than 500 marine species including endangered sea turtles that forage on and around the reef. Photo provided The Florida Public Relations Association (FPRA) is the largest association for public relations professionals in the state of Florida. The Treasure Coast Chapter is an active chapter with more than 50 members and growing. The 205-2016 Board of Directors is pictured. SHARE By Jayne Johnson FORT PIERCE The Treasure Coast chapter of the Florida Public Relations Association (FPRA) invites public relations and marketing practitioners to join its 2016 Image Awards workshop. Members and non-members are invited to the chapter's January meeting, where Image Awards director Adrienne Moore, APR, CPRC will provide information about the Image Awards process. Previous award winners will also be available to answer questions. Participants will be asked to think about which annual projects should be submitted to the local Image Awards. Local winning projects will eventually make their way to the Golden Image Awards at the Florida Public Relations Association Annual Conference in August 2016. The chapter invites all interested practitioners to attend the workshop on Thursday, Jan. 28, at 11:30 a.m. It will be at the County Administration Complex's Media Room, which is located at 2300 Virginia Avenue, Fort Pierce. The cost, which includes lunch, is $20 for FPRA members and $25 for nonmembers. Reservations may be made online at http://fpratreasurecoast.com. The Treasure Coast chapter of Florida Public Relations Association (FPRA) was founded in 1984 to serve the needs of public relations professionals in Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties. The chapter's goal is to advance the profession of public relations, to promote high professional and ethical standards, and to build the reputation of the profession on the Treasure Coast. For more information, visit http://fpratreasurecoast.com. volkman10 Distinguished - BHPian Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: -- Posts: 20,517 Thanked: 55,865 Times View My Garage re: Suzuki & Toyota considering a partnership? EDIT: Confirmed Quote: As demonstrated by minus signs in front of the sales results of big automakers, global sales slowed down in 2015. In the U.S., it took record low gasoline prices, and loose credit, to barely clear a sales record set 15 years ago. The EU market has seen a comeback, but it likewise remains far below its 2007 peak. In the worlds third-largest car market Japan, sales were down hard. Big displacement growth engine China misfired in 2015, and could only be restarted with the amphetamines of the auto business, major tax breaks, which are bound to cause cold turkey in China when withdrawn. Quote: Looking for underserved markets with long-term growth potential, carmakers focus on the ASEAN countries, on India, and they begin to set eyes on Africa, the worlds last undeveloped car continent. A lot of people with not much money are in these regions. And this is where those tiny low cost cars come in. Global automakers have their eyes set on India, but the top three, Toyota, Volkswagen, and GM all have a hard time getting a grip on the market. The motor-maharaja of India, a subcontinent with nearly the same population as China, is Suzuki with some 50% of the market, a lot of it thanks to the Suzuki Alto, a slightly higher motorized version of its Japanese kei car namesake. The other half of Indias 2.6 million passenger vehicle market is divided among more than 10 players, with all except Hyundai holding single digit market shares. No wonder Suzuki looks like a pretty bride. Quote: Toyota Motor and Suzuki Motor have begun talks on a tie-up, looking to take advantage of each others know-how and capitalize on demand for compact cars in India and other emerging economies. It boasts a 40% share of the Indian passenger-vehicle market, a major profit source. Suzukis robust sales network, built up over three decades, would likely be a major asset to Toyota as it expands its Indian operations. While Toyota set up a production arm in India in 1997, the results have been lackluster, with its market share at just 5% or so. The automaker aims to use the partnership with Suzuki to gain a firmer foothold in areas of greater Asia outside its existing stronghold, which includes Thailand and Indonesia. Toyota tops the global automobile market with annual group sales of some 10 million vehicles. It is a leader in safety technology, including self-driving cars, as well as eco-friendly vehicles such as the Prius hybrid and Mirai fuel cell car. Environmental and safety regulations are expected to tighten worldwide. With integration of information technology becoming essential to the industry, Suzuki likely aims to take advantage of Toyotas next-generation technology. Suzuki and the Toyota group will discuss the potential partnership from a variety of angles, with cross-shareholdings a possibility http://www.forbes.com/sites/bertelsc.../#2f32dab849c8 http://blogs.barrons.com/asiastocks/...p-talk-nikkei/ Why is Suzuki lucrative? An insight from Forbes,Nikkei version, Last edited by volkman10 : 28th January 2016 at 07:54 . 1,432.9 million units shipped in 2015 Vendor 2015 Shipment Volumes (in Millions) 2015 Market Share 2014 Shipment Volumes 2014 Market Share Year-Over-Year Growth 1. Samsung 324.8 22.7% 318.2 24.4% 2.1% 2. Apple 231.5 16.2% 192.7 14.8% 20.2% 3. Huawei 106.6 7.4% 73.8 5.7% 44.3% 4. Lenovo 74.0 5.2% 59.4 4.6% 24.5% 5. Xiaomi 70.8 4.9% 57.7 4.4% 22.8% Others 625.2 43.6% 599.9 46.1% 4.2% Total 1,432.9 100.0% 1,301.7 100.0% 10.1% Lenovo + Motorola 73.9 5.16% 93.7 7.20% -21.1% Vendor 4Q15 Shipment Volumes (in Millions) 4Q15 Market Share 4Q14 Shipment Volumes 4Q14 Market Share Year-Over-Year Growth 1. Samsung 85.6 21.4% 75.1 19.9% 14.0% 2. Apple 74.8 18.7% 74.5 19.7% 0.4% 3. Huawei 32.4 8.1% 23.6 6.3% 37.0% 4. Lenovo 20.2 5.1% 14.1 3.7% 43.6% 5. Xiaomi 18.2 4.6% 16.5 4.4% 10.0% Others 168.3 42.1% 174.0 46.1% -3.3% Total 399.5 100.0% 377.8 100.0% 5..7% Lenovo + Motorola 20.2 8.1% 24.7 6.5% -18.1% The Big Three of 2015 : Samsung, Apple, Huawei many vendors have placed a renewed focus on pushing premium-looking mid-tier devices as a new value proposition to consumers in both developed and emerging markets. We expect similar devices to appear in 2016 from a variety of vendors that will focus on affordable value without neglecting performance and aesthetics you might also like Despite the year-on-year slide in its sales growth, Korean electronics giantmanaged to still be world's number one smartphone vendor last year based on raw figures gathered by theThe premier global provider of market intelligence -- shared that the worldwide smartphone market saw a total ofmarking the highest year of shipments on record, up 10.1% from the 1,301.7 million units shipped in 2014!finished the year with 324.8 million units shipped, which is up only 2.1% from its 318.2 million shipments in 2014. With stradily increasing pressure in the high-end bracket from Apple, and at the low end to midrange echelon from Chinese manufacturers Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo, ZTE, and others, Samsung definitely faces a multi-front battle.Demand for Apple iPhone 6S and 6S Plus in China and the US elevatedin 2015 to 231.5 million units shipped in the year. This represents 20.2% growth from the 192.7 million units shipped in 2014 -- despite criticism that the new models look identical to their predecessors and the fact that the average selling price of the iPhone climbed to $691, up from $687 one year ago. With such high ASP for its best-selling handsets, Apple still has more than 90% of the industry profits from shipping smartphones.But perhaps the biggest success story in the mobile industry last year belongs to Chinese electronics company. According to IDC, Huawei got the strongest year-over-year growth among the top five vendors at 37%. They added, "Huawei also became the fourth mobile phone vendor in history to ship over 100 million smartphones in a year (preceded only by Nokia, Samsung and Apple). Of the key brands originating from China, Huawei has consistently expanded its presence and share on the back of affordable handsets in emerging markets, combined with increasingly competitive flagship models."Huawei's success is also mirrored by one of its main competitors in China, Lenovo, which saw a 24.5% increase in its shipments from 2014 to 2015 and a whopping 43.6% growth in its Q4 2015 shipment volume versus the same quarter in 2014!"After its acquisition of Motorola, [4th largest smartphone vendor of 2015]was still trying to find its feet amidst organizational changes while facing greater competition in its domestic market from smaller, local competitors at the low end. The Motorola brand, strong in 2014 in the Americas with the Moto G and Moto X, saw fewer groundbreaking new models in 2015. The Motorola name will be shortened to just 'Moto' and be used for high-end devices while the "Vibe" brand from Lenovo will represent the low-end. Lenovo will also put its faith entirely in Motorola as they have elected Moto to design, develop, and manufacture smartphone products going forward," shares IDG.Meanwhile, despite ramping up in India and launching in Brazil, Xiaomi spent 2015 trying to encourage consumers - especially in China where it gets 90% of its sales - to transition away from the low-end range of models into more midrange releases. Although its sales performance last year wasn't as impressive as in previous years, on the basis of this growth, Xiaomi was still able to widen the gap from number six, LG."With heavy saturation in many mature smartphone markets such as the U.S., Europe, and China,Samsung has found success in this segment with its A-Series, and Huawei with its Honor brand.," explains, Research Manager at IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.Based on TechPinas Traffic Data from 2015, some of the top smartphones in the Philippines by interest are Samsung Galaxy J1, Lenovo A7000, Samsung Galaxy J5, Lenovo A7000 Plus, Apple iPhone 6S Plus, and Samsung Galaxy J7 -- reflecting data on a global scale. Interestingly, however, Pinoy handset releases from Cherry Mobile, Starmobile, and MyPhone as well as those by Taiwanese company Asus and other players like Oppo and O+ USA also led other models by interest within the same period in our local market. Nvidia is once again on the ball when it comes to releasing graphics drivers in time for major game launches. Today's new driver, version 361.75 WHQL, brings 'Game Ready' optimizations to Rise of the Tomb Raider and Tom Clancy's The Division beta, alongside SLI profiles for both games. The 361.75 drivers also bring support for external graphics card connected through Thunderbolt 3. So long as you have a Maxwell-based card, which includes the entire GeForce 900-series as well as the GTX 750 and 750 Ti, you'll be able to hook up a supported laptop like the Razer Blade Stealth to a Thunderbolt 3 graphics card enclosure to improve performance. As for more minor updates, the 361.75 drivers add an SLI profile for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain multiplayer, and update the SLI profiles for Rainbow Six Siege and Sebastien Loeb Rally Evo. You can download the GeForce 361.75 WHQL drivers through GeForce Experience right now, or alternatively, you can grab a manual updater from our driver download page here for Windows 10, and here for older versions of Windows. In reporting its Q1 finances, Apple confirmed what analysts had feared. iPhone sales have slowed to the worst year-over-year growth ever, an occurrence that had already prompted investors to look beyond the world's most valuable company. It was still a record quarter for Apple, according to the numbers and Apple CEO Tim Cook. Apple saw $75.9 billion in revenue for its first quarter and a net income of $18.4 billion, figures that were only a hair higher than analysts expected. "Our team delivered Apple's biggest quarter ever, thanks to the world's most innovative products and all-time record sales of iPhone, Apple Watch and Apple TV," Cook says. "The growth of our Services business accelerated during the quarter to produce record results, and our installed base recently crossed a major milestone of 1 billion active devices." Apple has ascended to its rank as the world's most valuable company on the backs of its iPhone line. Analysts, however, say the company will probably not generate much growth if it doesn't offer a new product soon enough or if it doesn't cut the iPhone's price for more customers in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America. "If you want one, you probably have one for now," Gartner Research's Tuong Nguyen says of the iPhone. "If you don't, it's probably well out of your price range. They've hit their point where they have their users." Now, with the sector saturated with iPhones and the smartphone market at large nearly satiated on smartphones, investors have been turning to Apple's rivals for growth. Alphabet, the recently formed holdings company for Google, has steadily climbed back into contention with Apple and has been threatening to replace Cook's as the world's most valuable company. Apple was recently valued at about $562 billion and Alphabet wasn't far off with its $500 valuation. Unlike the smartphone-reliant Apple, the majority of Alphabet's revenues come from ad dollars. Other tech companies such as Micrsoft, Facebook, Amazon and Netflix are heavily invested in virtual reality, social media, cloud computing and Internet streaming. Apple's iPhone, meanwhile, accounts for about 60 percent of its revenues. With the launch of the iPhone 7 about three quarters away, Cook and company cautioned that one quarter isn't the best indicator of Apple's overall health. "Especially during periods of economic uncertainty, it's important to appreciate that a significant portion of Apple's revenue occurs over time," Cook said, adding that the iPhone's popularity has provided the company with a "long-lasting foundation." 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A 26-year-old man suffered severe burns on his hands and legs after the battery of an e-cigarette exploded in his pocket while he was at his workplace at Tilton, New Hampshire. Matthew Gilson from Moultonborough obtained second- and third-degree burns as a result of the incident. A surveillance video shows smoke from the explosion emerging from Gilson before he runs off. Gilson, an employee at the store that assembled his vaporizer, underwent his second surgery last Monday and received multiple skin grafts. His recovery is expected to take months. His mother, Laura McCrea, said that he was in good spirits post-surgery but also suffered a lot of pain. It just blew up within a matter of minutes, McCrea recounted in a local media interview, saying her son was so badly burned down to his flesh. The explosion shredded the victims pants and underwear, added McCrea. It was unknown whether Gilson had the entire e-cigarette unit in his pocket or just the battery. In an effort to curb his smoking habit, Gilson bought his e-cigarette a month before. According to his mother, the store put the vaporizer together for her son. A man from Glasgow in the United Kingdom also suffered the same fate, getting second-degree burns when an e-cigarette he purchased on eBay particularly a Cherry Bomber vaporizer exploded as well. Marc McParland was rushed to the hospital after his hand was engulfed in flames. The 21-year-old hotel worker, who quit smoking a year ago, needed specialist medical treatment for his severe burns on his hand, fingers and wrist. I heard a crackle and hiss before the vape burst into a huge flame like a proper fiery explosion, recalled McParland in an interview, adding that he managed to kick the flame out by the time someone saw him and came to his aid. He warned of the risks of buying these products over the Internet, and said the device itself was sent without actual instructions. [T]he only real information I could gather was which extra equipment to acquire in terms of batteries and a multi-meter, he explained. Both the China-based manufacturer of the battery in Gilsons case and the eBay seller that sold the vaporizer to McParland could not be reached for comment. Other burn incidents from e-cigarettes have surfaced, with some directly citing the explosion of the devices battery. E-cigarettes are powered by rechargeable lithium batteries. They create a vapor for users to inhale, with a LED light at the top that is triggered to simulate the flame seen in a regular cigarette. Although these devices provide nicotine that can get someone hooked like the nicotine in regular cigarettes, they come with no actual combustion. Shoddy manufacturing practices have been identified for many risks associated with e-cigarettes, leading to contamination during production, parts melting when in contact with the heating coil during vaping and even exploding batteries. Photo: Vaping360.com | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Beware: taking paracetamol while pregnant could harm the fertility of ones future daughters, a new study suggested. When a mother rat was given painkillers while pregnant, her female offspring had smaller ovaries, fewer eggs, and smaller babies than those who were not exposed to the medications. Even male offspring were affected at birth and exhibited smaller counts of germ cells (which become sperm later on), although their reproduction bounced back during adulthood. Study co-lead author and professor Richard Sharpe of University of Edinburgh said the results indicated that painkillers should be used cautiously during pregnancy. "It's important to remember that this study was conducted in rats not humans, however, there are many similarities between the two reproductive systems, Sharpe said in a statement, recommending that pregnant women adhere to current painkiller use guidelines at the lowest dose for the shortest time possible. In the study, the team gave pregnant rats two painkillers: paracetamol and indomethacin, a prescription painkiller belonging to the same class as aspirin and ibuprofen. They saw the drugs effects one to four days from start of treatment although it should be noted that fetal development is much slower in humans than in rats. Apart from the results in offspring, the painkillers also affected other generations, with the granddaughters having decreased ovary size and altered reproductive function. Likely causing these effects is the way painkillers act on prostaglandins, which are hormones known to regulate ovulation, menstruation, and labor induction. Previous research suggested paracetamols effect on baby boys reproductive health. A University of Edinburgh-led study, for instance, found that the drug may reduce the production of testosterone in the unborn male child, likely increasing the risk for testosterone cancer and infertility. Paracetamol is widely deemed as a safe choice for the treatment of pain during pregnancy. It has been used routinely during all pregnancy stages to manage pain and high temperature. The UKs National Health Service, for instance, recommends that if there is any need for painkillers, paracetamol is usually safe to take. It urges avoiding any other drugs during pregnancy, especially in the first quarter. The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports. Photo: Ambrose Heron | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Consumer technology healthcare firm Theranos Inc. faces another challenge. U.S. regulators from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released a letter saying Theranos lab practices in one of its facilities pose immediate jeopardy to patient health. The facility in question is the Newark, California laboratory, which was inspected as part of the agency's Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA). Regulators were able to complete the on-site survey on Nov. 20, 2015, but the investigation officially concluded on Dec 23, when the lab sent critical information to the agency. "As a result of the survey, it was determined that your facility is not in compliance with all of the Conditions required for certification in the CLIA program," the letter says (PDF). Aside from the lack of compliance, the agency also states that the facility has deficient practices than can result in immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety. Immediate jeopardy is defined as a situation that needs prompt corrective action because it has already caused, is causing or will likely cause serious hazards or death to the recipients of the lab's services and to the public. The agency found that the lab did not meet the required conditions for hematology, analytic systems and labs performing high complexity testing. CMS requires labs that pose immediate jeopardy to perform actions to eliminate the jeopardy and exhibit condition-level compliance. Facilities that are not able to do so may not be certified under the CLIA certification program. CMS now requires Theranos to submit a credible allegation of compliance statement and an acceptable evidence of correction. These documentations should show what corrective interventions were performed on patients who have been affected by the deficient practice. The laboratory should also show how the it was able to identify other patients who could potentially get harmed because of their deficient practice. Theranos must also enumerate the measures it has included in its system to ensure that the incident will not happen again. If the requirements are not met, CMS will have to pose sanctions against Theranos' CLIA certificate. The agency's corrective actions may include Civil Money Penalty that may reach up to $10,000 per day, suspension, and limitation or termination of CLIA certificate. Theranos Inc. said it has made changes to its policies and personnel, even hiring a new consultant, Dr. Waldo Concepcion, from Stanford University. Photo: Steve Jurvetson | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The DeLorean DMC-12 is about to go back to the future, thanks to a new law that lets small-volume replica car manufacturers to be treated on different standards unlike big brands such as Toyota. To start things off, Click 2 Houston reported about the new DMC-12 going back into production, providing photos inside the factory where a line of the iconic vehicle is being assembled, which has a tentative release date sometime in 2017. "It's fantastic. It is a game-changer for us. We've been wanting this to happen. That was a green light to go back into production. That was prohibited. It was against the law to do it," Stephen Wynne, CEO of DeLorean, tells the website. The H.R.2675 "Low Volume Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Act of 2015" that allowed all this to happen is only for replica cars, which refers to vehicles that bears some similarities in appearance with others that were manufactured 25 years ago or earlier. To boil things down, the new DeLorean purchased every leftover part it could get hold of when the original company went down the tubes three decades ago, and it has either been fixing or restoring DeLorean vehicles since then. But with a massive amount of parts at hand plus the law in question, the 2017 DeLorean DMC-12 can actually come forth. "The new law provides common-sense regulatory relief for small businesses that would otherwise be treated as if they were producing millions of cars. The companies are required to register with NHTSA and EPA, and file annual production reports. The replica vehicles will be subject to equipment standards, recalls and remedies," DeLorean posted on its website. Now, what everyone probably wants to know is what's going to be under the hood. Luckily, Jason Torchinsky of Jalopnik was able to get in touch with the DeLorean VP James Espey. According to Espey, GM is not the only engine option, where the company is considering choosing among three suppliers. Two of those will be domestic and one will be foreign. The carmaker could possibly go for a naturally aspirated V6 rear engine that packs in 300 to 400 HP, which suggests that it could be a Japanese engine. As for the tires, the updated DMC-12 will sport 17- or 18-inch wheels so that it can be fitted with high-performance tires, a major step-up from the DMC-12 back in the 1980s that housed an engine that clocked at 130 HP along with 14- to 15-inch rims that can't accommodate high-performance tires. Its components include a transaxle setup because of its rear-engine configuration and larger brakes and shocks. Regarding the center stack, HVAC and other ancillaries, they will be from the company's favorite supplier. Needless to say, the vehicle will come equipped with updated electronics befitting of a modernized car. That's all the details that DeLorean would disclose for now, but it shouldn't take too long for the carmaker to make more announcements in the foreseeable future. It's believed that the 2017 DeLorean DMC-12 will roll out with a price tag between $80,000 and $100,000. With a huge upgrade in performance and power, it's hard not to get excited about it. Of course, it won't be that easy to get the new DMC-12s off the ground, as the NHTSA and DOT still have a couple of wrinkles to iron out before 2016 ends, but the year has just begun so they certainly have plenty of time. At any rate, the modernized DMC-12 is about to hit the road, and that's what everyone wants to see. Photo: Robbie Shade | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Human Rights Watch said in its annual review on Wednesday that human rights remained in crisis in Egypt in 2015. In the introduction to the review of over 90 countries, HRWs Executive Director Kenneth Roth wrote the spread of terrorist attacks beyond the Middle Eastled many governments to curtail rights in misguided efforts to protect their security. Authoritarian governments throughout the world, fearful of peaceful dissent that is often magnified by social media, embarked on the most intense crackdown on independent groups in recent times. While HRW acknowledged that the threat to Egypts security is real, particularly in troubled North Sinai, New York based rights group said that Egyptian authorities have used torture, disappeared scores of citizens, banned many others from travel, and possibly committed extrajudicial killings. The Egyptian government has repeatedly criticised HRW reports. In a June 2015 statement, the Egyptian foreign ministry said HRW does not have credibility among Egyptians, charging that the rights group has been determined to promote lies and false information based on inaccurate, undocumented data. IThe government also argued that the organisations reports since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 have targeted the Egyptian people and their will to achieve their aspirations. In their report, the group touched on the military intelligences brief detainment of journalist Hossam Bahgat for two days in November to question him on an investigative report he wrote on a an alleged foiled military coup attempt. HRW also described the terrorism law, passed last August, as so broad that it could encompass civil disobedience. In North Sinai, HRW said Egypts armed forces forcibly evicted more than 3,000 families from a town on the border with the Gaza Strip, violating international law, in reference to the city of Rafah. The Egyptian government has said the relocation of Rafah residents was a necessary step to allow security forces to control the Egypt-Gaza and stop terrorist movement of personnel or weapons. The government also provided monetary compensations to evicted families. The report also criticised what it described as enforced disappearances of political activists; violation of the international right to freedom of movement by preventing activists, politicians, and academics from travelling; and the use of torture by police in their investigations. HRW cited an incident that took place in July, when police shot dead nine Muslim Brotherhood members in a home raid, as evidence "[government] killings may have constituted extrajudicial executions. In that case, the Egyption ministry of interior maintains that it shot dead the Brotherhood members only after they opened fire at police personnel. Egypt's interior ministry has repeatedly maintained that it remains committed to upholding human rights values. Listing a relatively positive development, HRW states that in December 2015, the authorities referred to trial several police officers suspected of involvement in a number of torture cases. Courts have sentenced three of these officers to five years in prison in one of those cases. The sentence can still be appealed. Search Keywords: Short link: Its not only your blood pressure or cholesterol you should closely watch when you eat fast food your cards security may be at risk, too. Wendys, for instance, is currently looking into possible fraudulent charges to its customers credit and debit cards. Payment industry contacts reported unusual activity on payment cards that were used legitimately at some stores of the popular fast food chain, which prompted Wendys to launch a probe with the help of cybersecurity personnel and law enforcement authorities. Wendys said that until the investigation is completed, it will be difficult to determine with certainty the nature or scope of any potential incident. The investigation was reported first last Wednesday on KrebsonSecurity.com, owned by cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs. Sources in the Midwest and on the East Coast, according to Krebs, hinted of possible cyber theft activities. Fraudulent charges may have occurred elsewhere after the cards were legitimately used at some of our restaurants, Bob Bertini, Wendys spokesman, confirmed with Krebs. Headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, Wendys is the third biggest burger chain in the U.S. with some 5,700 local locations. It continues to compete fiercely in the market, saying its same-store sales rose 3.1 percent at its North American sites in last years third quarter. Restaurants and retail companies are fast becoming a close target of cyber security attacks. Back in 2013, Krebs first disclosed Targets major data breach. The firm said last December that it will pay around $39 million to banks and credit unions to address losses from the said holiday-season data breach. In the past few years, major similar incidents include those involving Home Depot Inc. and eBay. In the food industry, Jimmy Johns sandwich chain said its payments systems at some of its stores were infiltrated in 2014. Those who have used their credit or debit card at Wendys in the last couple of weeks would probably benefit from monitoring their account before their monthly statement arrives or officialy confirm the occurrence of fraudulent charges. Photo: Mike Mozart | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. American multinational consumer electronics superstore Circuit City is making a comeback with its first retail store set to open this June. Circuit City filed for bankruptcy in 2008, resulting in the closure of about 700 retail stores across the U.S. Systemax, an American Fortune 1000 company that bought the "Circuit City" brand and used it to sell media and electronics items via CircuitCity.com. In December 2012, the Circuit City's online operations merged with TigerDirect. In October 2015, the intellectual property and the brand name were sold to retailers Albert Liniado and Ronny Shmoel, who founded the Circuit City Corporation with the intent to open Circuit City retail locations again. However, the retailers will be adopting the boutique model rather than the superstore business model. According to trade publication Twice, the area of the upcoming Circuit City stores will be in the range of 2,000 and 4,000 square feet. The stores will have product zones, so customers can choose products based on brands and categories. The Circuit City stores will be targeted at millennials and will include a number of products such as smartphones, tablets, wearables, notebooks, gaming products, 3D printers, drones, headphones and more. Touchscreens and electronic price tags will enhance customers' buying experience. The retail stores will also keep an assortment of high-quality but value-priced products under the company's own brand name. These products include power banks, USB cables and digital accessories. Liniado says that the stores will have adequate staff who receive training and salary, as well as commissions. The stores will be made by the same fabricator who works with other big businesses such as Verizon and AT&T. The first Circuit City store is expected to be opened in June in the Dallas market. Shmoel, the CEO of the enterprise, says that around 50 to 100 corporate-owned stores should be up and running by the end of 2017. Shmoel also plans to have between 100 and 200 franchised stores in the U.S. by 2017. The franchised stores will be about 1,500 square-feet will include limited variety of gadgets mostly in the price range of $9.99 to $29.99. Shmoel says the has already formed a team comprised of ex-RadioShack franchise personnel, former employees of many major retail chains and retail enthusiast Liniado. Major brand endorsements with popular companies such as Canon and Sony are also in place. "The vendors were very excited," says Shmoel. "We want to become best partners with them. Brands have become diminished in lieu of price, and consumer education has worsened with the growth of the web." Shmoel also notes that he has studied the mistakes and successes of retail chains to improve the shopping experience of customers. Photo: Terry Ross | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Apple has seeded the second beta version of iOS 9.3 to both developers and the general public. Among the updates included is a feature that seemingly allows the Smart Connector of the iPad Pro to update the firmware of accessories. Several users have reported that the Logitech Create keyboard case of the iPad Pro has been suffering from lagging issues and dropped keystrokes. A firmware update to the keyboard case is said to fix these problems, but the news is that the update is being pushed out to the accessory in a unique way. Stefan Wolfrum, a German developer, said that upon the installation of the iOS 9.3 second beta on his iPad Pro, he was prompted to allow the installation of the update to the Logitech Create keyboard case the following day. Wolfrum noted that iOS 9.3 beta was responsible for pushing out the update to the keyboard case's firmware through the Smart Connector of the iPad Pro. A member in the official forums of Apple news website MacRumors confirmed the feature, as his Logitech Create keyboard case also received the firmware update when it was plugged into an iPad Pro that was powered by iOS 9.3 second beta. MacRumors also said that it was able to recreate the steps that led to the firmware update for the Logitech Create keyboard case by updating the iPad Pro to iOS 9.3 second beta and then plugging in the accessory to the tablet. Once the accessory is connected, a pop-up notification alerted users to an accessory update asking for permission to update a smart connector accessory. The update takes somewhere between 30 seconds and 40 seconds, though there is no indication on what changed with the update once it is completed. The ability of the iPad Pro's Smart Connector to transmit both power and data has made accessories such as the Logitech Create keyboard case possible, but the update feature on the iOS 9.3 second beta displays the first instance of firmware updates for accessories being pushed out through the Smart Connector. It is unclear, however, whether the new version of the iOS included the firmware update or whether it downloaded the update from a server. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Cats are considered to be among the most commonly domesticated animals in the world today. However, new scientific evidence suggests that early humans may have tamed the ancestors of these felines more than once throughout history. Zooarchaeologist Dr. Jean-Denis Vigne and his colleagues at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris examined a set of 5,300-year-old cat bones retrieved from a Chinese village called Quanhucun. They discovered that the remains (a mandible and a pelvic bone) belonged to a species different from the Near Eastern wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica), which is considered to be the ancestor of all modern-day house cats. The bones closely resembled those of the leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), a species that is endemic to the area. When researchers unearthed the feline remains 15 years ago in central China, they were unsure whether or not they belonged to Near Eastern wildcats that likely made their way to farmlands in the country from the Middle East. If this were true, it would mean that the cats would have already been domesticated before they arrived to China. However, upon closer analysis of the shapes and size of the bones, Vigne and his team found that the remains were indeed from wild leopard cats, which may have been domesticated by Chinese farmers. This suggests that another feline species other than the Near Eastern wildcat underwent a similar yet separate process of domestication. The researchers found a few factors that point to a possible domestication of the leopard cats, such as their smaller size compared to wild leopards and the excessive wear of the animals' teeth, which suggests they were likely fed by humans. "That's evidence of special treatment," Vigne explained. "Even if what we're seeing here is not full domestication, it's an intensification of the relationship between cats and humans." Scientists believe that if a second domestication of felines did occur, as suggested by the recent findings, it could change people's understanding of how domestication works. Fiona Marshall, a researcher from Washington University, pointed out that cats largely domesticated themselves. If they did undergo a second domestication, she said other animals may have also become domesticated in a similar fashion even without the help of humans. "This is very important work that should have a great impact," Marshall said. "This is the leading edge in a shift in thinking about domestication processes." The findings of the study are featured in the journal PLOS ONE. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. To show its support for gamers, Nvidia recently launched a driver that offers gaming experience optimization. The graphics card company acknowledges players' enthusiasm for the Rise of the Tomb Raider and the soon-to-arrive beta version of Tom Clancy's The Division, and its latest software shows exactly that. Thanks to the updated driver, GeForce GPU owners will see a variety of issues resolved, alongside the much-expected support for Thunderbolt graphics, currently in beta only. The 361.75 variant of the graphics driver holsters a neat list of fixes. For example, GeForce cards from notebooks will no longer crash in Photoshop CC 2015 and will be more stable overall. Also, the OEM promises that the Nvidia control panel will stop breaking at launch. Good news in store for users of Windows versions newer than Vista: Nvidia repaired the GPU clock, which sometimes remained above idle on 144 Hz monitors to SLI configurations. The latest driver release from Nvidia also offers beta support to users who want to run their GeForce GTX GPUs externally over Thunderbolt 3. Looking at the manufacturer's list, an important number of cards receive the support. The list includes items such as the Titan X models, the GTX 900 series, the Geforce GTX 750 and Geforce GTX 750Ti. If the beta testing phase goes smoothly, this opens up an array of possibilities for gamers who are on the go. With the Thunderbolt 3 support for external GTX graphics cards, ultraportable notebooks will be able to offer quite a gaming rig to players who value their mobility more than anything. Last but not least, Nvidia's latest driver packs optimizations for the best gaming experience in acclaimed title Rise of the Tomb Raider and the anticipated Tom Clancy's The Division beta. GeForce owners can head to Nvidia's page to download it right now, or simply access the GeForce Experience for the same result. Nvidia also pushes new interesting products in the hardware segment. According to a recent report from Hardware Battle, Nvidia will unleash two powerful mobile GPUs soon. The GeForce GTX 980MX and GeForce GTX 970MX are built so that notebook owners get a gaming experience that matches the one on a dedicated desktop gaming rig. If you're intrigued, read more about the technical assets of the two high-end GPUs. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Volkswagen is slowly inching toward progress in making its faulty diesel vehicles from its emissions scandal comply with regulations in Germany. On Wednesday, the embattled automaker was granted its first approval in the country on its proposal for fixing the manipulated emissions software in one of its diesel models, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. "The Federal Motor Transport Authority today gave final approval for the vehicle model Amarok 2.0-liter," the authority said in a statement to the Journal. That means VW could go ahead and inform owners about the model's issue, set a recall and repair the affected vehicles. While it's a step in the right direction for VW in Germany, the automaker still hasn't received a green light for its proposal to fix nearly 600,000 faulty diesel vehicles in the United States. Two weeks ago, the United States' Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board (CARB) rejected the company's proposed fix for compromised diesel vehicles. Earlier this week, VW's second-largest shareholder gave the company a three-month deadline to come clean about the origins of its emissions scandal in an attempt to speed the process of remedying its impending recall in the United States. In Germany, VW is ordered to recall models with 1.2-liter, 1.6-liter and 2.0-liter diesel engines. "Approvals for the other affected models are currently under examination," the Federal Motor Transport Authority told the Journal. The automaker had previously stated that a software update, each taking about 30 minutes, would be installed on 1.2-liter and 2.0-liter diesel engines, while 1.6-liter engine models would require a software update and hardware fix to bring their emissions to compliance. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Thirty years after the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle, which resulted in the deaths of astronauts Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe a school teacher who was set to become the first "private citizen" to go to space NASA will commemorate the tragedy, along with other catastrophes that have taken place since the initiation of the space program over five decades ago. Others who will be memorialized at the event include the Apollo 1 crew (which consisted of members Roger Chaffee, Gus Grissom and Edward H. White), all three of whom were killed in a cabin fire during a test launch in 1967, and the Columbia space shuttle, which disintegrated over Texas and Louisiana due to damage obtained during its mission, killing members Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, Michael P. Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David M. Brown, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut in space. At 11 a.m. EST, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, Deputy Administrator Dava Newman and other members of the agency will begin a wreathe-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Live coverage will begin at 10 a.m. EST. The Challenger mission is one of the most well-known tragedies of its kind, most likely due to the media coverage surrounding the Teacher in Space program from which McAuliffe was selected both before and after the missions. Sparse coverage was given during the date of the actual launch on Jan. 28, 1986, with the exception of CNN, which broadcasted the event on the network. News sources also recorded the reactions of spectators watching the launch and subsequent disaster on-site including McAuliffe's parents, which were also circulated at the time. The explosion of the craft occurred due to a malfunction in the O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) after liftoff. What resulted was mounting pressure from the ignited gas within the rocket motor, which affected the left SRB and structural failure 73 seconds into the flight, which resulted in the explosion, eventually killing all seven crew members. Some were said to have survived the initial breakup of the spacecraft; the exact time of death of each astronaut still remains unknown. The tragedy subsequently led to a hiatus in the space program, which lasted for almost three years. For NASA's real-time livestream of the events, as well as a schedule and downlink info, you can click here. NASA has also provided a link to learn more about each respective tragedy, which features photos of the crew, text and video. Watch the original CNN broadcast of the Challenger tragedy in the video clip below. Source: NASA 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Doctor Who fans already began panicking earlier this month when Netflix announced that the series would leave its subscription service. However, U.K. fans got a reprieve, with Netflix keeping the popular science fiction show about a time traveling alien in that country. And at the time of the announcement, U.S. fans made plans to subscribe to Hulu to continue watching the series. Unfortunately, there's more bad news for U.S. Who fans: the series will also leave Hulu as of next month, leaving that country's fans completely in the dark: there will be no Doctor Who streaming anywhere in the country as of Feb. 1. However, the BBC definitely has something up its sleeve. "A BBC spokesperson told us that American Whovians will still be able to stream seasons 7 - 9 on BBCAmerica.com and that the series will still be available through Amazon Video, iTunes, Google Play, and more VOD platforms," wrote Decider. "However they added: 'We hope to announce a new digital partner for Doctor Who shortly.' " So what does that mean? Did BBC work out a deal with Amazon, Hulu or Netflix for exclusive streaming rights? That could happen, but there's another, more likely, possibility. After years of promising the BBC iPlayer to U.S. viewers, will the network finally announce its own subscription streaming service? It's something U.S. fans have wanted all along, but the BBC has put it on the back burner, thanks to a lot of pushback from U.S. cable and satellite providers. Last year, though, the BBC announced that it hoped to launch its streaming service in the U.S. in 2016. Has the day finally arrived that this will happen? It certainly makes sense that the company would pull its most popular series from other streaming services to garner new subscribers when it makes its big announcement. "Over the next few years, we intend to work with global partners to grow Worldwide further, taking advantage of the demand for British programming and new digital opportunities," said BBC's director general Tony Hall last year as reported by the Hollywood Reporter. "Next year, we're launching a new OTT video service in America offering BBC fans programs they wouldn't otherwise get." So for now, Who fans shouldn't panic, at least not too much. Because in the end, this could result in the very thing they have wanted all along: U.S. access to BBC programming via streaming. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Humans might not be the first beings to reach deep space after all instead, it might be robots. In an effort to accomplish some of the major goals the space agency outlined last year including designing a new exploration system, seeking proposals for deep space journeying and kickstarting initiatives to send astronauts to Mars by 2030 NASA scientists and engineers are turning to humanoid robots as a way to test out conditions for space travel, serving as a sort of litmus test, and in effect paving the way for their human counterparts. "NASA is counting on robots to setup and care for deep space exploration facilities and equipment pre-deployed ahead of astronauts," said NASA's Langley Research Center scientist Sasha Congiu Ellis in an interview with Phys.org. "Robots are also excellent precursors for conducting science missions ahead of human exploration." Named R5, the 290-pound, six-foot robot or rather, two robots currently in development were first used "to complete disaster-relief maneuvers." After being granted to MIT and Northeastern University to compete in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) Robotics Challenge (DRC) by NASA, each robot was (and is) set to be fitted out with more space survival-oriented features and programming, all with the help of a $250,000 yearly grant from the U.S. space agency. According to Northeastern's principal investigator of Athena, Taskin Padir, the university is aiming to outfit its R5 with significant improvements in grasping objects of unknown origin, motion control and human-robot interfacing and interaction all of which will improve the chance of a successful deep space venture. "Extreme space environments are dangerous for humans. And, robots are ideal for dangerous tasks. NASA already has rovers on Mars. This is an effort to advance autonomy of humanoid robots," Padir told Spaceflight Insider. "We will have a better understanding of when and how humanoid robots will help with future deep space exploration missions as we continue our research and development in this field." Source: Phys.org 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The Starz adaptation of Neil Gaiman's American Gods finally has its lead character cast. Actor Ricky Whittle will take on the role of Shadow Moon in the network's television series. Although Whittle has a decent list of credits on IMDB, he's probably best known in the U.S. as Lincoln on The CW's hit series The 100. "I'm thrilled that Ricky has been cast as Shadow," said Gaiman in an email press release. "His auditions were remarkable. The process of taking a world out of the pages of a book, and putting it onto the screen has begun. American Gods is, at its heart, a book about immigrants, and it seems perfectly appropriate that Shadow will, like so much else, be coming to America. I'm delighted Ricky will get to embody Shadow. Now the fun starts." Shadow is one of the main characters of American Gods, a mysterious convict who gets released from prison after his wife and best friend die in a car accident. He gets hired as a bodyguard by a con man, Mr. Wednesday, who seems to know Shadow better than he knows himself. As the two travel across the U.S., Shadow learns that his new boss is actually the god Odin, who is recruiting all the old gods to take on a battle against the new gods. Gaiman also wrote a follow-up story, Anansi Boys, which Starz also has permission to use for its new show. "We searched every continent and country and all the islands in between for our Shadow Moon, and we are lucky to have found Ricky," said showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green. "Fans of the novel will find he has every bit of the heart of the character they fell in love with." Starz first announced that it planned on developing American Gods last June. After the announcement, Gaiman stated that he was "thrilled, scared, delighted, nervous and a ball of glorious anticipation." Gaiman isn't just the writer of the American Gods novel, though. He's also planning on writing several episodes for the television series. Shooting for American Gods begins in April, so fans can expect more casting announcements to come soon. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. At least two crew members were killed in Wednesday's crash, the cause of which has not been specified An Egyptian F-16 fighter jet has crashed during a military exercise, killing its crew, the military said in a statement early on Thursday. The statement did not specify a death toll or provide the cause or location of the incident. Ahram Arabic news website reported that two were killed in the crash, the pilot and a captain. They were aged 48 and 42, it added. The website said the warplane came down near a military airbase in the town of Fayed, in the port governorate of Ismailia, around 120 km east of Cairo. Egypt's army has in recent months reinforced its armament with the deliveries of F-16 aircrafts from the US and Rafale fighter jets from France as well as submarines from Germany. Search Keywords: Short link: The California Broadband Council is scheduled to meet for the first time in 2016 in Sacramento next week and will discuss funding, the digital divide and other issues.The council, chaired by Department of Technology Director Carlos Ramos, was established in 2010 via legislation to increase broadband deployment and adoption statewide.The meeting is on Thursday, Feb. 4, from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the State Capitol Building, Room 2040.The meeting agenda includes discussion on California First Responders Network (CalFRN) and the FirstNet request for proposal, as well as updates from the California State Transportation Agency and the California State Library.CPUC Commissioner Catherine Sandoval also is scheduled to present a water/energy nexus workshop and other programs. Anonymous-linked hackers bring down Thai prison websites in protest of death sentence to two British tourists An Anonymous-linked group of hackers brought down sites of 20 prisons throughout Thailand in protest against death sentences passed by a local court in a controversial case earlier in January 2016. The online hacktivist group yesterday brought down websites of at least 20 prisons in Thailand to protest agains the death sentences against Zaw Lin and Wyn Zaw Htun for the September 2014 rape and murder of Hannah Witheridge and murder of David Miller on the Surat Thani resort island. Anonymous had announced campaign called # Justice4WaiandZaw and had earlier brought down 300 websites belonging to Thailands Courts of Justice. In a post on Anonymous for Justice Facebook page, hacktivists from the Blink Hackers Group took responsibility for the attack and listed several hashtags related to the case of two British tourists murder on the Thai island of Ko Tao. On January 13, two 22-year-old Myanmar men were sentenced to death after, according to critics of the decision, they were tortured to admit guilt in the killing of the UK citizens. According to The Bangkok Post, main Corrections Department website was quickly restored, while pages of other facilities remain offline. Anonymous, however, have warned of more attacks on Thai justice and prison websites till the issue is resolved. California Police Used Stingrays in Planes to Spy on Smartphones Tracking of phones by the Government with the use of a controversial invasive technology just got a little more controversial. In the new documents, the Anaheim Police Department has accepted that on aircraft flying above the Southern California city that is home to Disneyland, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, they make use of surveillance devices known as Dirtboxes (plane-mounted stingrays). The Anaheim Police Department have owned the Dirtbox since 2009 and a ground-based stingray since 2011, according to documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. In the nearly seven years that it has possessed the equipment, they may have lent out the equipment to other cities across Orange County. Matt Cagle, technology and civil liberties policy attorney for ACLU-NC, wrote in a blog post about the new documents, This cell phone spying programwhich potentially affects the privacy of everyone from Orange Countys 3 million residents to the 16 million people who visit Disneyland every yearshows the dangers of allowing law enforcement to secretly acquire surveillance technology. Stingrays and Dirtboxes are mobile surveillance systems that fool mobile phones and other mobile devices by copying a legitimate cell phone tower in their vicinity by connecting to them and make them disclose their unique ID and location. In order to force devices to establish a connection with them, Stingrays release a signal that is stronger than that of other cell towers in the vicinity. However, Stingrays not just picks up the IDs of targeted devices, but also every phone that are within range will contact the system and disclose their ID. Stingrays and Dirtboxes also can disturb phone service for anyone in their vicinity whose phone connects to the devices besides picking up trackable data from phones. In other words, it means that there is a possibility that millions of people in Orange County would have their phones connected to government surveillance devices without knowledge and might have experienced disrupted services as a result. For the first time last year, in a court case involving a Sprint customer, an FBI agent acknowledged the disruption capability. Because of the way the Mobile Equipment sometimes operates, FBI Special Agent Michael A. Scimeca disclosed to a judge, its use has the potential to intermittently disrupt cellular service to a small fraction of Sprints wireless customers within its immediate vicinity. Any potential service disruption will be brief and minimized by reasonably limiting the scope and duration of the use of the Mobile Equipment. Even though Stingrays are created to identify 911 calls and allow them to pass to legitimate cell towers without connecting to the surveillance device, the disclosure from the FBI agent raises doubts that other kinds of emergency calls that are not made to 911 may not get through. No details have been provided by the Anaheim police as to how do they use their Stingray and Dirtbox devices or do they take any measures to ensure that there is minimum service disruption. For many years, the use of Stingrays by local law enforcement agencies has been predominant. However, the use of the more intrusive Dirtboxes has mainly been restricted to federal law enforcement, though at least two large cities were known before to be using them. For example, in 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US Marshals Service from at least five metropolitan-area airports were operating the Cessna aircraft with Dirtboxes installed on them. The locations of these airports provided authorities with a wide-sweeping flying range that covers cell phones used by most of the US population. It was disclosed in subsequent news reports that Chicago and Los Angeles local police departments possessed Dirtboxes as well. Anaheim is the smallest city known to have one. If a city of this size possesses a Dirtbox it really begs the question what other cities smaller than Los Angeles and Chicago were able to buy these devices in the six years since it has had one, says Cagle. There is no clarity to what extent does the Anaheim police use their Stingray and the plane-mounted Dirtbox. The police department bought its Stingray two years after buying the Dirtbox in 2009. An upgrade to the Stingray was approved by the Chief of Police in 2013, which the ACLU believes gave it the ability to keep a check on the modern LTE cellular networks used by millions of smartphones. In other words, as cell carriers upgraded their networks to LTE, Anaheim police took steps to exploit that very network which millions of customers would entrust with their private communications, wrote Cagle. A policy stating that any federal agency using a stingray or Dirtbox must obtain a warrant was issued by the Justice Department last year. However, that policy left a gap for local law enforcement agencies to continue using them without a court order. To close that gap for police and other local law enforcement agencies in that state, the California lawmakers passed a state legislation last year. That so-called CalECPA law requires that these local agencies also obtain a warrant, as of January this year. The California lawmakers passed another bill that requires any law enforcement agency in the state using such equipment to have established a usage policy for it and to make that policy available freely. Without more transparency and an enforceable set of rules, we really dont know whether these devices are used from the sky to investigate routine crimes or pursuant to a warrant as CalECPA now requires, Cagle told WIRED. We look forward to seeing jurisdictions releasing publicly available use policies with a warrant requirement. Alleged ISIS-linked hacker becomes the first person to appear in U.S. Court A hacker from Kosovo accused of hacking into a U.S. companys server and passing the personal data of more than a thousand US officials to ISIS militants appeared in the U.S. federal court in Eastern District of Virginia on Wednesday. It was the first time Ardit Ferizi, 20, had publicly appeared in the United States since being extradited from Malaysia, where he was detained in October on a US provisional arrest warrant. He is facing several charges, including providing material support to a terrorist organization and aggravated identity theft. Ferizi is accused of hacking an American company and stealing the sensitive data, then passed personal details of over 1,300 U.S. military and government employees to an ISIS propagandist, who posted the information online and urged followers to attack them. The posting warned that soldiers of ISIS would strike at your necks in your own lands! At the request of the U.S., Ferizi was arrested by Malaysian authorities in Kuala Lumpur last September. The Justice Department sought his extradition, and he was brought to the US this week to face the hacking and terrorism charges. Ferizi is believed to be the leader of a hacking group called Kosova Hackers Security, the US Justice Department said after the arrest last year. The same statement alleged that Ferizi, also known by his hacking nickname Th3Dir3ctorY, unlawfully provided obtained information to a British citizen and ISIS member Junaid Hussain, alias Abu Hussain al-Britani, between June and August 2015. On August 11, 2015 Hussain tweeted: NEW: U.S. Military AND Government HACKED by the Islamic State Hacking Division! with a hyperlink to a 30-page document. The document also contained the names, email addresses, passwords and phone numbers of 1,351 U.S. military and other government personnel. He was later killed in a drone strike in Syria on August 24. When Ferizi was arrested, assistant attorney general John Carlin said in a statement, This case is a first of its kind. According to the DOJ, Ferizi waived extradition. If convicted, he could face up to 35 years in prison. An Albanian interpreter has been appointed in advance of his next court appearance on Friday. Prosecutors say Ferizi is the source of one of the most high-profile ISIS hacking incidents of all time. This arrest demonstrates our resolve to confront and disrupt ISILs efforts to target Americans, in whatever form and wherever they occur, Assistant Attorney General John Carlin said in an October press release. Ferizi, originally from the town of Gjakova in Kosovo, was studying computer sciences in Malaysia. Ferizis arrest and Hussains death are part of a potential increased Pentagon focus on ISISs tech-savvy members. In December, a U.S. drone strike also took out a lesser-known ISIS hacker, Siful Haque Sujan. Over the last year, ISISs digital warriors have gained attention by defacing media outlets websites, taking over high-profile Twitter accounts and even stealing credit card data. The unexpected digital achievements have provided the group with valuable propaganda that the U.S. has struggled to counter. A 40 anos de Malvinas "Revisar el pasado es pensar el futuro". La frase de la presidenta de Telam, Bernarda Llorente, resume el espiritu del documental coproducido entre la agencia de noticias y el canal publico de TV sobre la cobertura que los medios de comunicacion hicieron del conflicto, plagada de censura y mentiras. Una autocritica necesaria para mirar hacia adelante en un (ya viejo) contexto de fake news y negocio informativo. The service was launched earlier this week to 'boost communication with the public and bolster the parliament's transparency' Egyptians have sent around 5,000 Whatsapp messages of suggestions and grievances to the country's newly-elected parliament in the first days following the release of the number. On Saturday, the parliaments secretary general provided a new phone number specifically for the messaging service to receive messages from citizens with the aim of "boosting communication with the public...and bolstering the parliament's transparency." In the first two days after the service was launched, the chamber received 3,629 messages that have mainly addressed legislative and supervisory issues as well as social grievances, the parliament said on its official website. Over 1000 messages were sent on the third day, it said on Wednesday. A controversial civil service law that the chamber has recently rejected came first among the issues tackled in the messages. The bill, endorsed early in 2015, sparked widespread controversy as critics fear it could dramatically trim down Egypt's bloated public workforce of over six million employees. Last week, the chamber voted down the bill as part of a constitutional two-week review of a slew of laws passed in its absence. Other key issues the messages covered included demands for raising minimum pensions and modifications to a law on the old system of extended leasing of apartments. Egypt's new parliament was elected in a six-week poll in November and December of last year, three years after an old Islamist-dominated chamber was dissolved by a court ruling. The chamber has 568 elected members plus another 28 appointed by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi. Search Keywords: Short link: The GDP figures demonstrate that the recovery remains fragile. While the services sector continues to grow, production is close to stagnation and the construction sector is now in recession. Every effort must be made to support both these sectors as we seek to rebalance the economy, he said. The policeman was arrested while photographing a security checkpoint near the Giza pyramids A Turkish policeman was arrested in Egypt early Thursday while photographing a security checkpoint near the Giza pyramids, a security source told Aswat Masriya. The policeman was accompanied by two diplomats in a car carrying a diplomatic number plate in Cairo's neighbouring governorate of Giza. The policeman was arrested and sent to a provincial police station while the diplomats were allowed to leave, the source said. He arrived in Egypt on 25 January, the fifth anniversary of the popular uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak. He told interrogators he is in the country for tourism purposes. Photos of a subway station and a security post in Giza were found on the policeman's cell phone, the source added. Many Egyptians and tourists have recently been stopped and questioned by police while photographing public places as authorities aim to boost security amid ongoing security threats following the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. Ties between Egypt and Turkey have since soured, with Turkish President Tayyip Recep Erdogan emerging as one of the fiercest critics of Morsi's removal. Search Keywords: Short link: Barclays said financial markets had failed to grasp the sheer "breadth" of the British vote, calling it one of "the most significant global risks of the year", and one which could lead to the collapse of the European project. Investors have been selling off the pound in anticipation of an EU referendum, which could take place as early as the summer. Sterling has depreciated by 9pc against the single currency since November. But if Britain voted for an EU exit, the political and institutional reverberations on the continent would be far greater than any economic fall-out, said the bank, who compared the implications to that of a "Grexit". A committee of MPs will grill officials from HMRC and Google bosses at a hearing in February, it has been announced. The Public Accounts Committee will take evidence on the subject of corporate tax deals on Feb 11 amid calls for Google and other big multi-national corporations to pay more tax. It comes as HM Revenue and Customs' controversial 130million tax deal with Google is also set to be investigated by the European Union to see if it broke state aid rules. The EU's Competition Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, indicated she would be willing to consider an investigation into the Google deal. A judge dismissed corruption charges for 73 ministry of interior officials on Thursday in the case known as the "one billion Egyptian pounds. The officials were accused of illicit gains under Mubarak-era interior minister Habib El-Adly. In August 2015, the judge, who represents the prosecution in this case, referred El-Adly and 12 other officials in the ministry of interior to criminal court. The defendants are accused of using their influence to acquire illicit gains amounting to LE1 billion (close to $128 million) when El-Adly served as minister of interior. There were 90 other defendants in the case who were not referred to court but who were banned from travel, including 17 civilian officials from different state institutions such as the ministry of finance, ministry of transportation, and the Accountability State Authority (ASA), and the 73 aforementioned interior ministry's officials. Thursday's decision included lifting the travel ban for the 90 defendants as the interior ministry officials refunded the amount of money they gained under El-Adly's authority. The 73 defendants, some of them former defendants and others still serving in their posts, cited in the investigations that the money was "monthly incentives" granted by the minister as a reward for the "extraordinary efforts" made by them. Among the 73 officials who refunded their money was El-Adly's aid and head of Cairo's security directorate, Ismail El-Shaer who paid more than LE10 million. In November 2014, both El-Adly and El-Shaer, along with five other top interior ministry officials and former president Hosni Mubarak, were acquitted on charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during the January 2011 uprising. Search Keywords: Short link: Egyptian police forces have arrested dozens of Egyptians and foreign nationals as part of a security campaign in Giza on "fugitives and violators," Ahram Arabic news website reported. Twenty four "fugitive" Egyptians who have been sentenced in absentia were arrested Thursday during raids on rented apartments in the neighbourhoods of Agouza and Dokki in Giza, provincial security official Khaled Shalaby said. Nineteen foreigners of different nationalities have also been arrested due to expired residence permits, according to Shalaby. Officials say fugitives often rent apartments to hide out from authorities. Owners of the buildings are required by law to notify local police of their tenants. Thursday's operation was aimed to clamp down on violators and fugitives, he added. The extensive campaign comes days after similar raids by security forces on apartments and cafes in downtown Cairo days ahead of the 5th anniversary of the 2011 revolution that toppled long-time autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Search Keywords: Short link: A spokesman said: "The MPS is liaising with a number of other UK police forces in relation to information which has been passed on to us regarding a number of criminal investigations. That information remains subject to assessment and for that reason we will not be discussing the matter in further detail at this time. Nothing is more important than the safety of our children, where any school is subject to such a threat, real or otherwise, there are clear emergency arrangements in place that have been agreed with police and the local authority. President Sisi is expected to discuss issues related to the Renaissance dam with his counterparts from Sudan and Ethiopia during the summit Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi is expected to hold talks with his counterparts from Sudan and Ethiopia over Addis Ababa's controversial Renaissance Dam plans during the upcoming African Union summit in Addis Ababa, according to media reports. Egypt has been negotiating the dam issue with Ethiopia since 2011 when Addis Ababa began building its controversial dam that Cairo believes might affect its historical 55 billion cubic metre-share of Nile water. Ethiopia claims that its "long-awaited national project," would not cause harm to any Nile basin country, saying that it is primarily aimed at generating power as only 10 percent of its population have consistent electricity services. Since 2013, Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia have been holding tripartite talks to discuss both the benefits and pitfalls of the project. Following dozens of diplomatic and technical talks, the three countries agreed on a new French consultancy firm, BRL, to conduct studies on the possible impact of the dam on downstream countries. Late in 2015, Dutch company Deltares pulled out citing that there were not enough guarantees that an independent, high- quality study could be carried out. BRL will conduct the studies alongside the French firm Artelia; the two are set to complete their work in November 2016. In December 2015, President El-Sisi addressed the public saying that there is no reason to worry about that dam and that the matter would be resolved. However, El-Sisi added that "I totally understand the concern of Egyptians as water is a matter of life or death." "We already agreed with our brothers [the Ethiopians] that they want to live the same way that we want to live, he added. Egypts current negotiations with Ethiopia are based on Addis Ababas timeline for filling the dam as well as its storage capacity. The dam, which is scheduled to be completed in 2017, will be Africa's largest hydroelectric power plant with a storage capacity of 74 billion cubic metres of water. Search Keywords: Short link: The EgyptAir flight was grounded after a tip was made claiming there was a bomb on the flight The chief of Ahram's bureau at the Cairo International Airport told Airport Ahram Online that the EgyptAir-Istanbul flight 735 took off towards its destination after security officials confirmed that an earlier bomb threat tip was unfounded. In statement issued Thursday afternoon, EgyptAir announced that flight 735, scheduled to take off at 13:55, was grounded minutes before scheduled take off at 13:55 after a communications officer at one of the European embassies in Cairo received an email claiming there was a bomb on the flight. The plane was taken to the emergency runway for inspection and passengers were escorted off. A security source at Egypt's Ministry of Interior told Ahram Arabic website that no bomb was found on the flight. Search Keywords: Short link: The minister of justice said that all the death sentences issued against members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood would be carried after all appeals are exhausted Egypt's Minister of Justice Ahmed El-Zend said in a TV interview on Wednesday that he believed that for every fallen "martyr" from the Egyptian police and Armed Forces, 10,000 Muslim Brotherhood members and their supporters should be killed. "I believe that if 40,000 terrorists were killed it would not be enough for the martyrs. I swear to God that the fire burning in my heart will not die except when for every martyr, 10,000 Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters are killed," El-Zend said while giving condolence on the Sada El-Balad TV channel for personnel killed in the war on terrorism. The minister vowed that all the death sentences issued against members of the Brotherhood, including former president Mohamed Morsi, would be carried out after all appeals are exhausted. El-Zends comments immediately created controversy on social media across the country, with the hashtag #El-Zend trending for many hours in Egypt. Although he did not mention the justice minister by name, former vice president Mohamed ElBaradei posted a tweet which many believe was meant as a criticism of El-Zend's vow. "There are constants for any society: Freedom and human dignity, knowledge and value are the core of any future. The social consensus is a necessity to build any nation, as well justice, and not revenge," the Nobel laureate said. Last November, in an interview with the BBC, President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi ssid that it was unlikely that mass death sentences handed down to hundreds of Islamists following the ouster of Morsi would be carried out, arguing that those verdicts were preliminary and can be appealed. The Muslim Brotherhood was officially designated a terrorist organisation in Egypt in November 2013. El-Zend became minister of justice in 2015, after serving for years as the head of the powerful Judges Club. He was among the most outspoken opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood during their short one year in power 2012-2013. Search Keywords: Short link: The head of NATO said on Thursday that the United States has requested the alliance's help in fighting ISIS in the Middle East by providing surveillance planes called the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS). NATO is not directly involved in combating ISIS militants in Syria and Iraq, with the United States leading a coalition of nations that includes all 28 NATO allies. NATO member Turkey also shares a long border with Syria and Iraq. "We have got a request from the U.S. to provide support to the efforts of the coalition, to help them with the NATO AWACS surveillance planes, and we are now looking into that request," Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference. Stoltenberg said NATO defence ministers would discuss the U.S. request at their meeting in early February, although there is no deadline for any decision. AWACS monitor airspace within a radius of more than 400 km (250 miles) and exchange information via digital data links, with ground-based, sea-based and airborne commanders. NATO is already sending AWACS to Turkey to strengthen Ankara's air defences on its border with Syria. It was not immediately clear if those planes will play a dual role. Search Keywords: Short link: He has been denouncing the existence of a plot to remove him from power through a form of coup that uses "lawfare" as a mechanism to delegitimize leftist rulers. | Read More Sweden said it expects to expel up to 80,000 migrants whose asylum requests will likely be rejected, as another 18 people including children drowned off Greece Thursday in a desperate bid to reach Europe. As the continent grapples with efforts to stem a record flow of migrants, Swedish Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said the mass expulsions of people who arrived in the Scandinavian country last year would require the use of specially chartered aircraft and be staggered over several years. "We are talking about 60,000 people but the number could climb to 80,000," he told Swedish media, adding that police and migration authorities had been tasked with organising the scheme. Of the 58,800 asylum requests handled by Swedish migration authorities last year, 55 percent were accepted. Many of those requests were however submitted in 2014, before the large migrant flow began. Ygeman said he used the 55 percent figure to estimate that around half of the 163,000 asylum requests received in 2015 would likely be rejected. Sweden, a country of 9.8 million, is among the European Union states with the highest proportion of refugees per capita. More than one million people travelled to Europe last year -- the majority of them refugees fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan -- in the continent's worst migration crisis since World War II. Most cross by boat from Turkey to Greece and the United Nations says more than 46,000 people have turned up on the EU member's beaches so far this year, while 170 people died making the dangerous journey. Flimsy boats packed with migrants are still arriving on Greek beaches every day, the passengers undeterred by Europe's cold wintry conditions. On Thursday, the bodies of 18 migrants, including nine children, were discovered off the Greek island of Samos after their boat capsized and 17 others were still missing, the Greek coastguard said, a day after seven other bodies were found near the island of Kos. With the influx showing little sign of abating despite the cold weather, many countries -- including Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, France -- have tightened their asylum rules in a bid to discourage new arrivals. Reflecting the mounting tensions, Brussels on Wednesday blasted Greece's handling of the crisis and warned it could face border controls with the EU's passport-free Schengen zone if it does not protect the bloc's frontiers. Athens is worried its border with Macedonia will be closed, leaving refugees trapped in the country. After having closed its border for several hours last week, Macedonia again blocked refugees from entering at its southern border with Greece for three hours overnight. An interior ministry official said that was because 600 people were queuing at Macedonia's northern border to cross into Serbia. Several hours later the refugees were allowed on their way and the situation returned to normal. Some 3,000 people were on Thursday waiting at the Macedonian border on the Greek side, police there said. Greece is not the only country under fire -- Denmark has faced heavy criticism after its lawmakers passed a bill this week allowing authorities to seize valuables from refugees in a bid to deter new arrivals. Some have likened the move to the Nazis' confiscation of gold from Jews during the Holocaust, with Human Rights Watch denouncing the bill as "despicable". Neighbouring Sweden has seen the number of new migrants entering the country fall since it brought in systematic photo ID checks on travellers on January 4. Concerns have been growing over conditions in Sweden's overcrowded asylum facilities, however, and on Tuesday officials called for greater security the day after an employee at a refugee centre for unaccompanied youths was stabbed to death. A young male allegedly attacked the 22-year-old employee, named by local media as Alexandra Mezher whose parents were from Lebanon, at a centre for youngsters in Molndal, near Gothenburg on Sweden's west coast. Her death has led to questions about conditions inside some centres, with too few adults and employees to take care of children, many traumatised by war. Sweden's National Police Commissioner Dan Eliasson earlier this week requested 4,100 additional officers and support staff to help counter terrorism, deport migrants and police asylum facilities.Sweden said it expects to expel up to 80,000 migrants whose asylum requests will likely be rejected, as another 18 people including children drowned off Greece Thursday in a desperate bid to reach Europe. As the continent grapples with efforts to stem a record flow of migrants, Swedish Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said the mass expulsions of people who arrived in the Scandinavian country last year would require the use of specially chartered aircraft and be staggered over several years. "We are talking about 60,000 people but the number could climb to 80,000," he told Swedish media, adding that police and migration authorities had been tasked with organising the scheme. Of the 58,800 asylum requests handled by Swedish migration authorities last year, 55 percent were accepted. Many of those requests were however submitted in 2014, before the large migrant flow began. Ygeman said he used the 55 percent figure to estimate that around half of the 163,000 asylum requests received in 2015 would likely be rejected. Sweden, a country of 9.8 million, is among the European Union states with the highest proportion of refugees per capita. More than one million people travelled to Europe last year -- the majority of them refugees fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan -- in the continent's worst migration crisis since World War II. Most cross by boat from Turkey to Greece and the United Nations says more than 46,000 people have turned up on the EU member's beaches so far this year, while 170 people died making the dangerous journey. Flimsy boats packed with migrants are still arriving on Greek beaches every day, the passengers undeterred by Europe's cold wintry conditions. On Thursday, the bodies of 18 migrants, including nine children, were discovered off the Greek island of Samos after their boat capsized and 17 others were still missing, the Greek coastguard said, a day after seven other bodies were found near the island of Kos. With the influx showing little sign of abating despite the cold weather, many countries -- including Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, France -- have tightened their asylum rules in a bid to discourage new arrivals. Reflecting the mounting tensions, Brussels on Wednesday blasted Greece's handling of the crisis and warned it could face border controls with the EU's passport-free Schengen zone if it does not protect the bloc's frontiers. Athens is worried its border with Macedonia will be closed, leaving refugees trapped in the country. After having closed its border for several hours last week, Macedonia again blocked refugees from entering at its southern border with Greece for three hours overnight. An interior ministry official said that was because 600 people were queuing at Macedonia's northern border to cross into Serbia. Several hours later the refugees were allowed on their way and the situation returned to normal. Some 3,000 people were on Thursday waiting at the Macedonian border on the Greek side, police there said. Greece is not the only country under fire -- Denmark has faced heavy criticism after its lawmakers passed a bill this week allowing authorities to seize valuables from refugees in a bid to deter new arrivals. Some have likened the move to the Nazis' confiscation of gold from Jews during the Holocaust, with Human Rights Watch denouncing the bill as "despicable". Neighbouring Sweden has seen the number of new migrants entering the country fall since it brought in systematic photo ID checks on travellers on January 4. Concerns have been growing over conditions in Sweden's overcrowded asylum facilities, however, and on Tuesday officials called for greater security the day after an employee at a refugee centre for unaccompanied youths was stabbed to death. A young male allegedly attacked the 22-year-old employee, named by local media as Alexandra Mezher whose parents were from Lebanon, at a centre for youngsters in Molndal, near Gothenburg on Sweden's west coast. Her death has led to questions about conditions inside some centres, with too few adults and employees to take care of children, many traumatised by war. Sweden's National Police Commissioner Dan Eliasson earlier this week requested 4,100 additional officers and support staff to help counter terrorism, deport migrants and police asylum facilities. Search Keywords: Short link: President Recep Erdogan on Thursday called for the Turkish people to vote in a referendum to strengthen his power in a presidential system, saying it was out of the question to take a step backward on the issue. Erdogan, the strongman of Turkish politics for more than a decade, has long been seeking a new constitution to transform his post into a powerful US-style executive "super-presidency," which he says will provide more effective governance. But it was the first time he made it clear he wanted to call a referendum in any eventuality. "If the presidential system will be a good choice for Turkey's future, then it should be adopted without any dispute," he told civil society groups in Ankara. "It's out of question for Turkey to take a step back in this issue: People will not allow this to happen," he said. "The parliament should make a decision but afterwards people should be consulted. The final decision should be made by the people, not by lawmakers." The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) does not currently command the two-thirds or three-fifths majority in parliament needed to change the constitution or call a referendum on the issue, respectively. Erdogan's comments indicates he ultimately wants a referendum but he did not give any details on the timing. Erdogan, who critics say has become more autocratic after winning Turkey's first direct presidential election in August 2014, said he wanted the changes not for "himself" but the stability of his country. Turkey's current parliamentary system in which both the prime minister and president are elected by popular vote "has outlived itself," Erdogan said. "It's an anomaly," he added. "But I want to correct this misunderstanding: a presidential system is not a personal matter for Tayyip Erdogan." A parliamentary committee is expected to begin meetings next week on a new civilian constitution that would replace the 1980 charter drafted by the military after a coup. Opposition parties agree that a change is long overdue, but fear that a presidential system would consolidate too much power in the hands of one man. Search Keywords: Short link: Speeding Tipper Hits Star Hero Car Malayalam superstar Mohanlal met with an accident while he was on his way to the sets of his upcoming movie "Pulimurugan" in, Kerala.The actor miraculously escaped after the car, in which he was travelling, was hit by a speeding tipper. The actor was on his way to attend a film shoot when the accident occurred. However, Mohanlal escaped with no injuries. The Malayali actor is currently working in one Puli Murugan's directorial film and also signed up for two Telugu films. He will appear in Key role in NTR'S upcoming film Janata Garage. This is not the first time that the actor had a miraculous escape from an accident. He met the accidents several times and escaped unhurt. News Posted: 28 January, 2016 Jana Reddy demands all party meeting Hyderabad, Jan 28 (INN): Leader of Opposition in Assembly K. Jana Reddy on Thursday demanded that Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao convene an all-party meeting to discuss the issue of irrigation projects in the State. Addressing a press conference at Congress Legislature Party office here, Jana Reddy said that the Chief Minister should incorporate the suggestions of opposition parties in the execution of irrigation projects. He said an in-depth study should be conducted on all irrigation projects in the State. He also asked the State Government to accept the suggestions made by retired Engineer-in-Chief Hanumantha Rao on the construction of bridges over Godavari River. He said that the government should take measures to improve the ground water levels in all the districts. He said most of the suggestions being made by KCR were not practical and since he changes his ideas too frequently, officials were not taking him seriously. Jana Reddy also ridiculed Irrigation Minister T. Harish Rao's challenge on Narayankhed by-elections and said he believes in practical politics while TRS leaders got habitual of offering resignations. He also hosted lunch for media persons wherein Rs. 5 per meal, being sold by the GHMC, was served. He said that he scheme was launched by the previous Congress regime and it has been helping thousands of poor people every day. News Posted: 28 January, 2016 Centre signs MoU with AP Govt Hyderabad, Jan 28 (INN): In the august presence of Union Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, a Memorandum of Understanding is signed between the Ministry of Railways and State Government of Andhra Pradesh for 'Formation of Joint Venture for Development of Railway Infrastructure in the State Andhra Pradesh'. On behalf of the Railway Ministry, Ved Prakash Dudeja, Executive Director/Works signed the MoU whereas on behalf of Government of Andhra Pradesh P. K. Srivastava, Advisor, Rail Projects, Government of Andhra Pradesh signed the MoU at New Delhi on Wednesday. The MoU were signed in the background of Railway Minister's budget announcement regarding setting up of Joint Ventures with States for focused project development, resource mobilization, land acquisition, project implementation and monitoring of critical rail projects. Speaking on the occasion, Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu said that the Indian Railways was happy to have a dream come true, of Cooperative Federalism. He said that the MoU was very important since it would help in developing rail infrastructure in the State of Andhra Pradesh. The MoU envisages formation of a Joint Venture company having 51% stake of State Govt. and 49% stake of Ministry of Railways. Thus, the JV company shall be fully owned by the Government. The company will primarily identify projects and possible financing avenues in addition to Govt of India and the state Govt. After finances for a project are tied up, a project specific SPV or special purpose vehicle shall be formed. This SPV can have other stake holders from Industries, Central PSUs, State PSUs etc. However, the JV company shall be a mandatory stake holder with minimum 26% shares in the SPV. The Ministry of Railways will sign a concession agreement of 30 years with the project SPV for safe and sound operation, revenue sharing and providing technical & marketing logistics to the SPV. The revenue sharing shall be based on already established formula being used for inter zonal apportionment of revenue. News Posted: 28 January, 2016 A suicide car bombing killed at least eight people at a checkpoint outside Yemen's presidential palace in the southern city of Aden on Thursday, security and medical officials said. The dead included soldiers and civilians and at least 12 others were wounded, a medical source said. A security source said the attack appeared to target the convoy of a local businessman who was entering the presidential complex. Sources had initially said the convoy was carrying Aden's governor, Aidarus al-Zubaidi, but he later told AFP he was not in the area at the time of the attack. Witnesses said the blast had damaged at least six vehicles and a nearby mosque. Zubaidi survived a car bombing earlier this month, after being appointed in December following the killing of his predecessor, Jaafar Saad, in an Aden bombing claimed by the Islamic State (ISIS) group. Aden has become the temporary headquarters for President Abd-rabbo Mansour Hadi's government as it battles to retake large parts of the country from Shia Houthi rebels, including the capital Sanaa. But the city has also seen a growing militant presence, with Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, long active in Yemen, and ISIS apparently vying for influence. Search Keywords: Short link: Thailand managed to attract just under 30 million international visitors in 2015, according to final figures released by the Tourism Department. These 29,881,091 foreign arrivals represented an increase of 20.4% over the 24.81 million who visited in 2014, statistics posted on the departments website showed. The Thailand tourism industry has been defiantly strong despite challenges such as the Bangkok bombing at a busy central intersection last August which killed 20 and injured more than 120 people, reported Reuters. Famous for delectable street food and maze-like shopping markets, Bangkoks tourists stayed a cumulative total of 107 million nights and spent $15.2 billion in 2015, according to the Destinations Index. Thailand came out on top as the most popular regional travel destination last year, with three of its cities making the top ten in MasterCards Asia Pacific Destinations Index 2015. Bangkok was the most popular city by arrivals, total nights stayed and total amount spent, according to a MasterCard survey based on findings sourced primarily from national tourism boards. This performance has a lot to do with the influx of Chinese tourists arriving in Thailand, with visitor numbers to the kingdom surging over the past year at one of the fastest rates in the Asia-Pacific region. Arrivals from China soared 71% last year to 7.93 million, representing 26.5% of all international tourists. Growth from East Asia overall was 36%, helped by a strong performance from Malaysia, up 31% to 3.42 million and accounting for 11% of all visitors. Japan and Korea each accounted for 4.6% of the total with arrivals from the former up 9% and the latter up 22.3%. European arrivals declined 8.6% overall to 5.63 million, including a 45% plunge from economically troubled Russia to 884,085. Among other large European markets, German arrivals were up 6.3% to 760,604 and UK tourists totaled 946,919, an increase of 4.3%. Arrivals from the Americas grew 12.3% to 1.23 million, led by a strong gain of 13.6% from the United States, to 867,520 visitors.South Asia has also become a more promising market with 13.3% growth last year. Visitor numbers from India edged above 1 million for the first time, up 14.6% from a year earlier. However, arrivals from Oceania fell 2.3%, led by a 3.1% decline in Australian visitor numbers to 805,946. Visitor numbers from Africa declined 1.7% to 161,640, while Middle East arrivals expanded 10% to 658,129. In 2016, the Thai government expects Chinese visitors to account for even a larger proportion of the record 32 million people forecast to visit. Whats ultimately driving Thailand is the Chinese, said Matthew Driver, MasterCards Asia-Pacific group executive for products and solutions. Islamic State (ISIS) group claimed responsibility on Thursday for a bomb attack outside the residence of Yemeni President Abd-Rabbo Mansour Hadi which killed eight people. In a statement online, the militant group said the attack was carried out by a suicide car bomber it identified as Abu Hanifa al-Hollandi, suggesting the attacker was Dutch. The group said the attack had killed about 10 members of palace security and wounded about 20. It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the claim or the identity of the attacker. Search Keywords: Short link: Morocco will hold a parliamentary election on Oct. 7, the second ballot since the kingdom adopted constitutional reforms designed to calm protests during the Arab Spring uprisings. The Islamist Justice and Development party, known by its French acronym PJD, won elections in 2011 and has led the government since then. It was the first time King Mohammed had allowed an Islamist group to take power. The reformed constitution has shifted some powers to the elected government but King Mohammed still retains ultimate authority. "The next parliamentary elections will take place on Oct. 7, 2016," a government statement issued after the weekly cabinet meeting said. Analysts believe the PJD could win a second term in the 2016 elction although austerity measures that the government launched to revive public finances have started to weigh on Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane's popularity. Benkirane's government may face even further pressure this year as weak growth is expected, with a drought looming after an exceptional cereal harvest in 2015. Agricultue accounts for more than 15 percent of the Moroccan economy. The government sees gross domestic product (GDP) growing by only 3 percent in 2016, down from 5 percent last year, as agricultural output is expected to drop sharply. The central bank is forecasting only 2.6 percent this year. Search Keywords: Short link: Banks and payment companies are nutting out a new security protocol for digital wallets in Australia to avoid a repeat of the spike in identity theft when Apple Pay was introduced in the US. Members of the Australian Payments Clearing Association which includes banks, credit card companies and payments networks are worried tech companies, including Google, Apple and Samsung, do not have to adhere to the same security and privacy requirements for customer information as they do. Apple Pay. Its 100 members, as well as regulators ASIC, the Reserve Bank, APRA and the ACCC, are due to respond to a private consultation draft of a Third Party Digital Wallet Security Code by the end of January. "Australian financial institutions are subject to prudential regulation and ongoing supervision in relation to their privacy compliance. Mobile wallet providers are not subject to the same level of ongoing supervision," the consultation paper says Want to turn 30 cents into $500 or more in just three weeks? It's very simple: just stand by your post box and wait. The catch is you will have to be very, very lucky - and have friends in Adelaide. Rare 30c emergency stamps printed in Adelaide. Credit:Picasa Australians will have noticed that in 2016 it now costs $1 to post a standard letter, up from 70 cents last year. But even Australia Post wasn't completely ready for the change, so on January 4 the Adelaide GPO cranked up an old printing machine and quietly produced an "emergency" run of 30 cent stamps to allow the public to make up the difference between the old rate and the new. These six counter produced stamps (three depicting kangaroos, three koalas and all marked "Adelaide 2016") are plain looking, but very special. Negotiations to sell the Port of Melbourne have stopped after the state opposition claimed proposed changes to anti-corruption provisions will stymie political discussions. The opposition is now demanding all discussions regarding the port sale be conducted in writing. Talks over introducing legislation to lease the port for up to $7 billion have stalled. Credit:Joe Armao However, the Andrews government has rubbished the opposition's claims, arguing "good-faith discussions" will not be hampered because of the changes. The plan involves the creation of some 500,000 short-term jobs, funded by 2 billion ($3.1 billion) worth of donations and international contributions, according to a report in the Associated Press. Asylum applicants wait outside the Central Registration Office for Asylum Seekers (LAGeSo) to receive their benefits the day after a young Syrian asylum applicant reportedly died. Credit:Getty Images Washington: Germany is proposing a new scheme to cope with the burden of Syrian refugees. A program that would create half a million jobs for those without work closer to home. "It's called cash for work, to employ Syrian refugees, but also unemployed Jordanians ... in building schools, infrastructure," Mr Mueller said as he visited refugee camps in Jordan. Participants would be paid about 300 a month. German Minister for Economic Co-operation and Development Gerd Mueller with Syrian refugee children during his visit to Baqaa Refugee Camp in Amman, Jordan, on Tuesday. Credit:AP The plan comes as a 24-year-old Syrian asylum seeker reportedly died while waiting to receive benefits from the German government outside a Central Registration Office for Asylum Seekers (LAGeSO) building in Moabit, Berlin, on Tuesday. A volunteer with the group Moabit Hilft (Moabit Helps) claimed the man, who had been waiting for days, contracted a high fever and died after the volunteer called an ambulance. So far neither Berlin police, hospitals nor city officials have been able to confirm the man's death. LAGeSo has come under heavy criticism for long delays in distributing benefits to registered asylum applicants and some shelters claim refugees are unable to buy food due to the delays. German officials intend to formally push for the jobs initiative at a now-annual Syrian aid conference that will be held next week in London. Millions of Syrian refugees remain in limbo in packed camps scattered across neighbouring Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Good news for Egypt. "The past two and half decades have seen significant improvements in almost all areas of children's lives. The number of children under the age of five who die each year has been reduced by almost 50 percent," says Bruno Maes, UNICEF representative to Egypt. Maes explains that infant and maternal mortality rates have also been reduced. "This is the result of progress made by Egypt in the last 15 years," he says. Prior to his post in Egypt, Maes served in several Arfican countries, including Burundi, Ethiopia, Madagscar and Chad. According to Maes, poverty is the common factor between those countries and Egypt. Yet in many sectors, Egypt is doing better. Nonetheless, there is a long road ahead. "When it comes to education for instance, access to schools in Egypt has reached almost 90 percent," says Maes. One of the reasons behind that positive outcome is Egypt's investment in human resources, even if distribution is not yet equitable. "We still have 319,127 Egyptian children in the age bracket from six to 10 out of school. The quality of education remains a challenge due to overcrowding, quality of teaching and violence in schools," Maes explains. For him, there is no doubt that education is a top priority. According to Maes, female genital mutilation (FGM) is another field where progress has been achieved. Since the Child Law of 2008 that criminalises FGM, "there has been a 10 percent decrease in that practice. It went from 74 percent in 2008 to 61 percent in 2014 for young women between 15-17 years." he says. This means that FGM has steadily decreased in the past decade, which is of course good news. Yet the bad news is that despite the fact that it is considered a criminal offence in the Egyptian penal code, it is still performed by health professionals. "The practice by doctors for girls aged 0-19 years increased to 74 percent in 2014," Maes says. "But this shouldn't be a medical practice at all." What is interesting is that those figures are much lower than the 90-91 percent rate stated by most NGOs and researchers. Why such a discrepancy in the numbers? According to Maes, the high figures are a result of the wrong use of information, and as such they fail to show progress that has been accomplished in the country. Simply, those studies target the wrong age group. "The fact that the FGM rate remains stable at 90 or 91 percent for women between 15 and 49 years is not relevant because those adult women have already undergone the operation and continue to be part of the population," Maes explains. Therefore, for a more accurate evaluation of the FGM phenomenon, one has to observe the age group 15 to 24 years, right after the risk period, in which the operation could be performed. "As UNICEF, this is what we advise," adds Maes. This progress on FGM could be observed in certain regions more than in others. The rate is much lower in the Delta area than in Upper Egypt, where it remains very high. UNICEF is also focusing on street children one of the major problems facing the country. Progress seems less obvious in that case. "We are working with the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood as well as with the Ministry of Social Colidarity," says Maes. The first thing to be noticed is the huge discrepancy in numbers between the figures advanced by the government, talking about thousands of children, and NGO estimations that are much higher. "It is a phenomenon that is very difficult to evaluate. First, we have to define who is a street child," Maes says. According to Maes, this concept could cover a child who lives in the street most of the time but goes back home at some point. "So what UNICEF does is focusing on the factors behind this phenomenon, such as poverty and domestic violence," he says. "We are working with NGOs providing services and shelters, only if the children accept of course, because in some cases, children are getting used to living in the streets and do not want to give up their 'freedom.' One of the major actions of UNICEF in helping children is through the Child Protection Committee. We created a Child Protection Committee pilot in 2007 in Alexandria and it was very successful. Such commitees could play an important role, as they provide a child protection network. The project was adopted by the government and is now part of the 2008 law," says Maes. However, because of a lack of finance, the project did not extend to the rest of the country. Nonetheless, recently the Egyptian government signed an agreement with the EU according to which the latter will grant 30 million Euros that would be used in UNICEF projects. Part of this money could help financing such committees, Maes hopes. In terms of child protection, Maes explains, UNICEF also focuses on juvenile justice. "This year there was a little less than 500 detained children, for an average of 15 days," he says. Currently the number of detained children as reported through NGO partners is 199, of which there are 59 cases linked to political events, 84 charged with criminal offenses and 56 irregular migrant children. This number however could represent only a small faction of the actual number of detained children. "UNICEF has government authorisation to provide legal assistance to those children. We also have access to police stations and all places where the children are detained. Prisons are not places where children should be found," Maes adds. Other examples of UNICEF's contribution and involvement on the ground are project such as Takaful and Karama. "Those projects are examples of efforts done by the government to modernise social protection through cash transfer," says Maes. Karama is a programme that aims at helping old and/or handicapped people, whereas Takaful targets the poorest families with children. "UNICEF has helped the Egyptian government to elaborate those programmes," Maes says. "UNICEF is now cooperating with the Ministry of Social Solidarity for the projects' evaluation, to see their impact and whether they actually reach the most deprived social classes and the poorest children," he adds. "In Egypt, there are 9.2 million children who live below the poverty line with less than LE10 per day and 7.5 million who live with LE10-14 a day," he explains. The programme Takafol covers the first category only. This is why UNICEF supports the Egyptian government demand to the World Bank to include other deprived categories in that programme as well. In terms of cooperation with the government, UNICEF hasn't found any problem, Maes explains. To the contrary, "Since I came to Egypt, the communication with the Egyptian government has been excellent." "The problem lies in the slow path of procedures and delays in the execution of agreed on plans. The challenge is therefore to speed up the implementation of the clauses linked to child protection according to the 2014 Constitution," he adds. This is precisely the role of UNICEF, promoting and advocating children rights. "When a state like Egypt commits itself by signing the Convention on the Rights of the Child, we act in such a way as to ensure that the government and its partners implement it. UNICEF is here to support and assist governments to elaborate political and national strategies. This is achieved progressively as things can't be solved overnight." Search Keywords: Short link: As Canberra embraces generations of new Australians during citizenship ceremonies across the city on Tuesday, Sue Le pauses for thought as she remembers her own journey to the country she now loves. At the age of just 13, Ms Le fled her homeland of Vietnam on an 11-metre wooden boat with her parents and seven siblings. The family was pursued by pirates before being plucked out of the ocean by an American Oil tanker as a typhoon approached the rickety skiff. They then spent 18 months detained in a refugee camp in Malaysia, before finally taking their first steps on Australian soil in February of 1982. Ms Le's father, Le Van Deo who was part of the wave of an estimated 110,000 of the original "boat people" who fled to Australia from communist Vietnam - chose the city of Canberra to start a new life with his large family because "he wanted all of us children to have a good education and we heard Canberra was an education city", according to Ms Le. Tickets for Singapore Airlines' new direct routes went on sale on January 25 and will start on September 21. Robin Poke, Hughes, managed to secure a ticket for the first flight by Singapore Airlines to Wellington, New Zealand, in September. Credit:Jeffrey Chan For some New Zealand companies, one of these opportunities is to sway "smart Canberrans" to move across the ditch. Singapore Airlines' Capital Express route linking Canberra with Singapore and Wellington opens up many exciting opportunities for exports, tourism and business. Return economy tickets between Canberra and Singapore will cost from $650 and passengers travelling between Canberra and Wellington will pay fares from $469. New Zealand's largest auction and classifieds site, Trade Me, is seeking Canberra's IT whizzes now that "Wellington is on Canberra's radar like never before". A spokesperson for the company, Simon Young, said Trade Me would allow more Canberrans to branch out from the public sector "to work in a more creative or open environment where the tech scene or start-up scene allows you do do more interesting things". Packing up and moving to the city of "internationally recognised" culture, cuisine and creativity would advance careers and offer reasonably-priced homes, according to Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency chief executive Chris Whelan. But would swift connectivity between two capital cities and the targeting of Canberrans for Wellington jobs be enough for the Kiwis to steal our smarties? Patricia Piccinini's famous Skywhale, Canberra's most talked about hot-air balloon, continues to draw huge crowds on her latest overseas tour. Commissioned as part of Canberra's Centenary celebrations in 2013, the artwork is known for making headlines and catching public attention wherever she flies. Latest stops in Sao Paulo, Brazil and Galway, Ireland, have been no different, and planning is under way for visits to Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco and Los Angeles in 2016. Crowds view the Skywhale on its recent tour to Sao Paulo, Brazil. Overseas commitments mean Skywhale will again miss Canberra's Balloon Spectacular in March, but her private owners say the balloon will remain linked to the national capital. Global Ballooning director and chief pilot Kiff Saunders said Skywhale and exhibitions by Ms Piccinini had made the front page of newspapers in Brazil. The University of Canberra has moved to reassure staff that strict asbestos safety procedures have been followed as part of external building works on the Bruce campus. Staff working in building 10, home to various facilities within the Faculty of Health including the disciplines of nursing and midwifery, said they were evacuated last week over concerns that asbestos fibres could have been contained in black dust found in academic offices as asbestos removal works were taking place on the outside of the building. One of the entrances to the 120-hectare University of Canberra campus in Bruce. Credit:Rohan Thomson The work, planned during the quieter period of the summer semester, saw pieces of grit dislodged from the building's facade, leading to additional precautionary measures being put in place to ensure the safety of staff and students working inside the building. One staff member said faculty had not been provided with adequate information about the exposure and they were urgently seeking information from the university about the health and safety risks. Premiership-winning player Nick Smith has pledged his commitment to the Sydney Swans until 2018, after signing a two-year contract extension. The 27-year-old defender has played 142 games in the red and white since being recruited from the 2007 rookie draft. Nick Smith (left) has signed until the end of 2018. Credit:Getty Images Apart from winning the premiership with the Swans in 2012, Smith was also included in the All-Australian side in 2014. Swans general manager Tom Harley says they are rapt to have a player of Smith's calibre extend his contract. Regional Express pilots are threatening a four-hour stoppage on Monday morning that could ground flights across regional Australia if they cannot reach a deal with the airline to limit overnights away from home. Regional residents, business travellers, government officials and medical professionals are among those that could be affected by the proposed stoppage between 5am and 9am if a deal between the company and the pilots is not reached at a meeting on Friday. Rex is the monopoly carrier on many of its routes. Credit:Andrew Taylor Rex is the monopoly carrier on many of its routes across NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania, limiting the ability of affected customers to book on other carriers. Rex pilots will also refuse to fly any aircraft with a non-critical defect where maintenance can normally be deferred on Monday, although the impact could be limited if engineers fix the defects in the meantime. A Rex spokeswoman said the company was aware of the planned stoppage and contingency plans had been organised to minimise the impact of the action on passengers if it went ahead. Clydesdale Bank chief executive David Duffy is promising shareholders who will soon own a piece of the lender directly, that it has dealt with a series of problems that dogged the bank in recent years, dragging on profits of its owner National Australia Bank. After NAB investors strongly backed a plan to spin off its British business, early next month NAB shareholders will receive one share in Clydesdale for every four NAB shares they own. Britain's Clydesdale bank says issues which have dogged it recently have been resolved. Credit:Bloomberg While analysts say there are still significant challenges facing Clydesdale, Mr Duffy's pitch to sceptical investors is that they are picking up the lender at a "very cheap" price, while he also pointed to a series of changes at the bank. Chief financial officer Ian Smith reiterated the bank's intention to start paying dividends from next year, despite some analysts questioning its ability to maintain the needed returns over the longer term. So ANZ reportedly has run up the white flag on its bold plans to have a serious presence in Asia. That the market and commentariat generally applauded the retreat says plenty about the lack of ambition at the cosy Big End of town and our market's preoccupation with the short term. ANZ's retreat should be a matter of regret rather than applause. Yes, ex-CEO Mike Smith was overpaid and failed to deliver what he promised to do in Asia, what he was hired from HSBC to do. But that doesn't mean it was wrong to try or that it's necessarily right to give surrender. To succeed in Asia takes decades, not one CEO's turn at the wheel. It requires a long-term commitment of money and talent to make it in the world's great growth markets. It looks like Australia's comfortable cartel members haven't got the ticker for that. Many in the industry argue that the ratings system has, until now, not caught up to reflect changing viewer habits and the number of people watching on catch up and via other devices. It captures viewing of Seven, Nine and Ten's catch up services on computers, tablets, smart TVs, games consoles and mobiles as well as those of the ABC and SBS. Online catch-up services only boost total average television viewing by 1 per cent to 2 per cent. Credit:Rodger Cummins The TV industry's long-awaited video measurement system shows that catch-up services only boost total average television viewing by 1 per cent to 2 per cent but for blockbuster shows it's as much as 15 per cent. On first glance the results are rather underwhelming, with only a minimal uplift in total average viewing. However, shows such as Seven's My Kitchen Rules, Nine's The Block and Ten's The Bachelor are showing an audience uplift of between 10 per cent and 15 per cent as a result of the new measurement, according to Doug Peiffer, OzTAM chief executive. "On the surface (the average figure) may appear to be underwhelming but when you get into particular pieces of content it's not. If a programme is getting a million television viewers and it gets an extra 100,000 viewers that's important," Mr Peiffer said. He added that those online audiences had deliberately sought out those shows and argued that pre and mid-roll advertising shown against the online versions of those shows would have higher recall rates, something which advertisers and media buyers would find attractive. Mr Peiffer said the first official measurement for online catch-up would create a currency for selling and buying ads against those videos. It is all very well for the Australian Republican Movement to promote the popularity of an Australian head of state, but its spokespeople seem to be taking the same unconvincing, flawed pathway that saw the 1999 referendum fail. To flamboyantly declare that a very high proportion of people, or premiers, or voters want an Australian as a head of state is just not good enough. It has always been popular, for very good reasons it makes good sense, but only if shifting from the current system is to one as good as the one we've got. Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove says Vietnam veterans were treated shabbily. Credit:Wayne Taylor It is support for a safe and democratic model that is essential for success, not a populist, emotional, anti-monarchist cry. In the lead-up to the unsuccessful 1999 referendum, my late father, the former governor of Victoria Richard McGarvie, proposed the McGarvie model, also known as the Australian Democracy Model. A man was killed Thursday when unknown assailants opened fire on a policeman in Egypt's Beni Suef, some 150 km south of Cairo, Ahram Arabic news website reported. Unidentified gunmen opened fire on a private vehicle carrying a national security policeman and a civilian on a highway near the governorate's Menshaat Assem village. The policeman, Abdullah Ismail, was injured with a gunshot wound to the chest. Medics say he is in critical condition. A friend who was accompanying him was killed in the shooting. It was not immediately clear if the incident was criminal or a militant attack. Egypt has been battling an Islamist insurgency based in parts of North Sinai that has mainly targeted police and military personnel. Militant attacks spiked following the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. Search Keywords: Short link: John Truman St Leonards The mere fact that James Mahoney had to write that letter (January 28) suggests to me that the concept of the proposed republic is not at all well-defined. Just read all the comments on Peter FitzSimons' article earlier this week. The last referendum failed because voters didn't like the model. The next one will most likely fail because the voters won't know what it's all about. Forget the emotional hype about growing up/standing on our own two feet and take out the ridiculous assertions about the alleged champagne-swilling, toffee-nosed aristocrats living in palaces on the other side of the world. None of that stands up as a cogent argument. Tell us straight, what beneficial change will there be in our lives if we go through with this? Leaving aside the pollies, what's in it for us? David Dolphin Summer Hill If the head of state, in practice, is the Governor-General, doesn't that then imply that the British monarch is redundant? One head of state "in practice", and another "not in practice" why? Sarita Chand Turramurra Paul Sheehan laments the lack of direction in the republican movement. One course that could be taken would be for a plebiscite to be held in conjunction with the same-sex marriage plebiscite. A simple question could be put, "Do you approve of an Australian becoming head of state when the Queen dies?" If a positive answer was achieved, then a follow-up referendum could be put giving everyone a choice between the appointed model and the elected one. Simple, cost-effective and does not even require a politician to be involved. Lindsay Foyle Stanmore Couldn't add a thing to Paul Sheehan on why the push for a republic is doomed. A "Ten" column. Ivan Head Camperdown We already have an Australian head of state. The Governor-General is appointed by the Prime Minister. As such Australia has had some highly talented governors-general during recent decades. They have provided quiet, neutral and respected oversight that Australians have come to appreciate. Few would been elected if voted on by the general public. Then the constitution needs to be changed by amendments to all relevant references to the governor-general. A new clause specifying the procedure for electing a "president" also has to be inserted. It's not, as the republicans claim, a matter of a simple referendum with a yes/no answer. That is simply a "poll" and means a further constitutional amendment, which has to be put to another referendum. No attention has been paid to such amendments. The constitution was written for a very different society and needs to be revised to define the powers of the president. What's the point of simply doing a symbolic and flawed change when what is needed is a major overhaul. Stephen Thomas Wahroonga Sadly, Paul Sheehan is probably right. Despite the views of the majority of the population, the fundamental problem with the drive for a republic is that Australians dislike politicians. Until we can trust our politicians to act ethically and honourably the impasse will remain. Penelope Smith Lane Cove Nowhere left to protest felling of fabulous fig trees I am dismayed about the removal of the enormous fig trees that line Anzac Parade, a magnificent boulevard to rival any in the world ("Poetic protest 'disrespectful, wrong': RSL", January 28). Not for long. And they are all to go because the Baird government won't budge on shifting the route of the light rail. My despair and frustration is increased by the impotence in being able to do nothing about it. Emails to politicians, submissions to the light rail authority - nothing. A desperate phone call to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's office (he is the federal member responsible) met a very terse and brusque response: "It's a state matter", I was told in no uncertain terms. Turnbull and his people do not want to know about it. I've tried what an ordinary citizen can. But to no avail against the vested interests of the horse racing fraternity and their planned hotel and the complete intransigence of the government. If you voted for Mike Baird, take note. I will never vote for this government again. Josie McSkimming Coogee McGregor's apology was right decision Catherine McGregor has apologised for calling the appointment of David Morrison as Australian of the Year as a "weak and conventional choice". So she should ("McGregor apologises for calling Morrison a 'weak' choice", January 28). For someone who has always been so good with words it was a pusillanimous decision to speak out against the appointment in the first place. Not to mention sounding a straight out case of sour grapes. She also says she will probably die without seeing a trans Australian of the Year. I will probably die without seeing the end of wars in the world, sexual abuse of children ending, the cure for cancer or heart disease being found. All those issues, too, are sad. All of us have a cause we believe in. But all of us live in hope. If McGregor hasn't learnt that, she's learnt nothing. Peter Skrzynecki Eastwood All those years in the defence forces and Catherine McGregor still manages to shoot herself in the foot. Matthew Thomason Mosman Big talk, little action Noel Pearson seems to have placed loyalty over judgment ("Pearson wishes he had entered politics", January 28). He is still barracking for former prime minister Tony Abbott despite Abbott's abject failure to do anything concrete for Indigenous people during his term as leader of the Coalition and as prime minister. Abbott, in talking big, did little, unlike previous prime ministers Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser and Paul Keating on land rights, Kevin Rudd on the apology and even John Howard's attempted Northern Territory Intervention (at least he did something). What price loyalty, Mr Pearson? Apart from photo opportunities in remote communities I cannot think of a thing Abbott did to address the Indigenous reforms you have been tirelessly pursuing these past 15 years. Don Smith Ashfield Breach of privacy I find it disgraceful that whenever there is a "crazy sportsman" story that all we get is moral indignation about them and not the circumstances around how we got to see it ("Dog act: what now for Pearce?", January 28). This was in a private home, so the filming without consent is probably illegal. These were invited guests, not trespassers, so the judgment to allow someone so drunk into the home is poor and suspicious. Did anyone else find it remarkable how well positioned the camera was for the whole episode? The appalling and sad behaviour is one thing, but the fact that next to no attention is afforded to the gross breach of privacy and potential criminal behaviour in sourcing the scandal is shameful. And dangerous. Matthew Donnellan Rodd Point David Morrison, the NRL needs you. Vicky Marquis Glebe The vision is fraying Thank you, Mark Kenny, for your honest appraisal of Malcolm Turnbull as he begins his first calendar year as Prime Minster ("Turnbull's moderate vision begins to fray around the edges", January 28). I could fully comprehend why Tony Abbott was so unpopular but I am having trouble understanding why Malcolm Turnbull is so popular. At this point there is no evidence he is any better than Abbott despite his better suits. Everything he stood for has been abandoned . Where are his principles? Claiming there's never been a better time to be an Australian is a fallacy when we look to other countries such as New Zealand and Canada where they have leaders who are prepared to make a decision. With an election this year we can only hope Turnbull and his current disruptive backbenchers and cabinet will provide Australians with some hope for a modern 21st century country. Robyn Lewis Raglan Elected to serve? I know that I may be naive, but I thought that politicians were elected to serve the interests of those who elected them ("Opponents threaten Coalition unity over vote for same-sex marriage", January 28). The recent rash of senators and MPs stating that their principles, conscience, beliefs etc, would force them to vote against marriage equality even if a majority of Australians support it have, in my view, a choice. They can represent the wishes of their electorate or, in light of their strongly held principles, resign from Parliament. Anything else would be hypocritical. Peter Rawsthorne Largs Uni money wasted So it appears that competition in the tertiary sector has led to a race to the bottom when it comes to university entrance standards ("Scrap ATARs, says uni boss", January 28). Thank you, free market theorists. I noticed one university's ATAR cut-off for teaching was 50. Yes, there are many students who have an aptitude for tertiary study who cannot achieve the necessary ATAR, but this would surely be a small number and not the majority of students with below average results. This waste of taxpayer funding would be better spent in the early years of education so that students would be more capable of achieving in accordance with their potential. Instead we find quite a significant number of students do not get past their first year at university, wasting both taxpayers' and their own money. No wonder there is a glut of teachers and no one to sort out the best from the worst as they move through their casualised apprenticeship years, except perhaps the free market? Vanessa Tennent Oatley One bold symbol needed for Australia's flag The point about a national flag (Letters, January 28) is that it should be readily identifiable from a fair distance, leaving the storylines for the crest. The most successful include those of Britain, Canada, Japan, Nazi Germany, and the US, among others. Be bold, colourful and above all else distinctive. If a stylised leaping kangaroo is too kitsch, what about those stylised icons recognised for Australia: the Opera House or the Bridge? We'd have to get Melbourne on board though. Barrie Brown East Gosford Valerie Craig (Letters, January 28) hit the right nail on the head. Save us from the southern cross! Leo Oostveen Chippendale Who pays the ferryman? It is interesting to see Transport for NSW now saying taxpayers (the Government) are paying too much to private ferry operators because of the popularity of cheaper Opal fares on Sunday ("Taxpayers forking out for popular Sunday ferries", January 28). Perhaps if the ferry service had not been privatised this would not be such a problem. But of course privatisation always brings savings, doesn't it? Diana Finch Holroyd Naming rights Andrew Upton stepped out of the spotlight as the artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company but has found it quickly again, this time on Broadway. Upton's The Present, his adaptation of Anton Chekhov's first full-length play Platonov, which starred Richard Roxburgh and Cate Blanchett, will play a limited Broadway season of at least 13 weeks at the end of 2016 in a venue yet to be announced. Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh in the STC production of The Present, now bound for Broadway. "Broadway is a Mecca for theatre and it's very exciting to get picked up for a longer run than you would get in a festival situation," says Patrick McIntyre, the STC's Executive Director. "It's a massive acknowledgement of the company's work over the past few years. We've had opportunities to do something like this in the past but all the factors have come together this time." The Present's Broadway producer is ex-patriot Australian Stuart Thompson, whose previous Broadway successes include seasons of the Almeida Theatre's King Charles III (which plays in Sydney from late March), the National Theatre's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and The Book of Mormon. Graphic captures shocking scale of refugee crisis One the greatest obstacles to realising the scope of the refugee crisis that has seen millions of people displaced in the Middle East is understanding its dramatic scale. Migrants warm themselves inside the tent used for registration in Berlin. Credit:AP According to recent United Nations reports, today more 60 million have been forcibly displaced from their homes, with an estimated 800,000 refugees from the Syrian crisis alone seeking asylum in Europe since the outbreak of civil war in 2011 (a mere segment of the 4 million registered refugees living in camps in Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt and Jordan). Finnish design studio Lucify has attempted to depict the crisis visually, creating a striking series of interactive maps and graphics that show the movement of asylum seekers to and from different countries every month over the past four years. The federal government's troubled myGov website is set to be taken over by the Prime Minister's pet public service project the Digital Transformation Office. Fairfax understands that moves are already under way for the DTO to take over the management of the web portal from Commonwealth service delivery workhorse the giant Department of Human Services. Users of the MyGov website have been reporting problems for months. Credit:Michele Mossop Neither agency would confirm that a takeover was under way but one government IT expert said the move would be a chance to make a real difference for the digital change project which has so far produced little more than "wishy-washy" statements. In Canberra they marked Australia Day with a gong for a champion of women but at Port Stephens it was a naked woman on a stubby holder for more than 20 new Australian citizens. Port Stephens Council has issued an unreserved apology after its newest citizens, including two young girls, received a "Welcome to Australia" pack that included a beer stubby holder with an Australian flag and a lurid naked lady silhouette straight from the back of a 1970s panel van. Appalled: Kate Washington. Credit:Marina Neil Although the pack was put together by a volunteer committee, the council took full responsibility and deeply regretted the incident, general manager Wayne Wallis said. "The gift bag containing the stubby holder was in no way part of the official citizenship pack, nor was any gift bag distributed by a member of council staff," Mr Wallis said in a statement after the council was made aware of the welcome pack item on Thursday. When dumped Sydney Roosters player Willis Pele Meehan was sentenced for assaulting and stealing from a taxi driver he walked out of court and told a waiting media pack that he wanted to "eat some cake". Asked whether he thought the magistrate had been scathing about his behaviour he replied, "I've had worse," outside the Sydney Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday. Back in court: Willis Meehan. Credit:Getty Images Meehan was put on a good behaviour bond and sentenced to 150 hours of community service for assaulting a taxi driver and stealing his coin pouch at Maroubra in July last year. Deputy Chief Magistrate Chris O'Brien shook his head as he spoke to Meehan a promising young player he had seen before. The NSW Police stands accused of targeting poorer people by choosing not to test for substances preferred by wealthier sections of society such as cocaine. The police, who are greatly increasing the use of roadside tests across NSW, test for only three types of drugs: cannabis; amphetamines and methamphetamine; and MDMA, the party drug known commonly as "ecstasy" or "molly". A saliva swab being taken. Credit:Ken Irwin But it can be revealed that Drager, the German multinational that supplies police with roadside testing machines, boasts of its capability to detect cocaine and a range of other drugs not currently tested for in NSW. The Greens' Justice spokesman, David Shoebridge, has accused the police of targeting drug users from certain social classes. For most people, driving on the correct side of the road and navigating shopping centres are largely stress-free experiences. But for many newly settled refugees, a simple trip to an Australian supermarket can be an overwhelming trial fraught with language barriers and culture shocks. The members of the newly formed Syrian Community Association will help new refugees settle into Australian society. From left: Abir Daher, Hala Hendawi, Muhanad Salim Alali, Tawfik Smeisem, Mazen Haj Hashem, Abdul Shahoud Baset and Anas Khwam. Credit:Kate Geraghty So with 12,000 Syrian refugees expected in Australia over the next year, a group of former migrants and refugees are preparing to help the new arrivals settle in. Based in western Sydney, the Syrian Community Association is hoping to provide the social and cultural assistance many of them never received. A small team of international refugee athletes will participate in the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro this year, Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, confirmed Thursday. While touring a refugee camp in Athens, Greece, Bach said: "We want to draw the attention of the world to the problems of the refugees," Reuters reported. "It would not be a big number, between five to 10," he said of the team. The team would compete under the Olympic flag, Bach said, echoing remarks he made in October at the United Nations. A Brisbane man has created an online petition calling for an investigation into the cost variations of veterinary clinics after he was faced with a possible $3000 vet bill for his beloved dog, Rocket. Paul John Whyte, 40, had taken his seven-year-old Australian terrier to a veterinary clinic on April 2015 after Rocket become "grossly overweight" and refused to eat. Mr Whyte said goodbye to his seven-year-old dog, Rocket, one day after taking him into the vet. Credit:Paul John Whyte The vet told Mr Whyte that Rocket would need a blood transfusion after finding his white blood cell count was "through the roof", along with an ultrasound, x-ray and three night stay at the clinic, estimated to cost about $3000. "The vet said, 'It's quite expensive and a lot of people can't afford the treatment, but this amount of money would have to be paid before Rocket could be taken home'," Mr Whyte said. Fighting terrorism and resisting tyranny are not separate processes that can be dealt with successively. They should be dealt with simultaneously, as tyranny is one of the main factors that lead to terrorism The more the ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) menace expands, the more fighting terrorism on the military and security levels acquires an absolute priority. This is quite evident since the Paris attacks on 13 November. The open war on terrorism, or using it as a pretext, has escalated and the security approach dominated over everything else. A change in the standpoints of some Western countries towards accepting Bashar Al-Assad during an unspecified transitional period became more obvious as well. Thus, discussing this assumption with much more objectivity and realism is a necessity today more than ever, after its glitter increasingly shone. If it is true that not all that glitters is gold, consequently what glitters more brightly in a certain moment, especially when this happens under the pressure of fear from some danger or threat, is not more gold also. Currently, the assumption of priority is one of fighting terrorism, rather than the factors creating this terrorism. This priority, indeed, requires eliminating confusion, which often happens when separating factors that cannot be but connected, because they constitute an indivisible formula. Tyranny in its top stage is a kind of unspoken terrorism defined in international law as state terrorism. This terrorism is one of the most important reasons for the black terrorism that tops the global agenda. The fundamental defect here is that fighting terrorism and resisting tyranny are not separate processes that can be tackled successively. The claim that it is necessary to fight terrorism first is but circumventing accumulated experience denoting that the environment of tyranny produces terrorists more than can be killed or incarcerated in any war on the same. Tyranny with all its social, economic and cultural repercussions, not only political, is one of the most important factors of the emergence of black terrorism, which finds in extremist religious interpretations "intellectual cover" since its early beginnings in the 1960s. The relation between terrorism and tyranny, hence, is old and long preceded the ISIS phenomenon. Studying the origins of terrorism indicates that there were objective circumstances that drove some groups of youth into searching for an ideology that stimulates rebellion against despotic regimes, after the glow of leftist Marxist ideologies waned. They found their long lost authority in extremist fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) notions. This terrorism came out from the darkness of government prisons that carried despotism to an extreme. Then the extremist fiqh interpretations were extracted from obscurantist books in order to perform the function of religiously legitimising them. The story started when tyrannical regimes closed the doors to peaceful change. Some of those before whom the doors were closed resorted to violence. Tyranny led the factors that drove them to terrorism. Its early beginnings, since this was the case, are due to oppression, repression and injustice. Hence, the black banner bearers picked concepts such as jihad, loyalty and enmity, applying Sharia Law (the Islamic legal system) and other concepts in their most extreme forms of interpretation and reinterpreted them in accordance with their attitude towards armed violence. This is what happened in Egypt in the 1960s when armed religious organisations were set up. The experience of Ayman El-Zawahiri, the current leader of Al-Qaeda organisation, has special significance in this context. This gentle boy, who is the scion of two ancient families (Al-Zawahiri and Azzam), and was excellent in his medical studies, turned to extremism leading to terrorism, which he called jihad, due to factors on top of which comes tyranny that filled him with fury. This is what can be deduced from the story of his transformation in his book titled Knights under the Prophets Banner, where he explained how the execution of Sayed Qutb in 1966 affected him more than his writings. He said that he read Qutbs words mixed with his blood. Perhaps what Qutb wrote was forgettable, or to be understood in a less hardline light later, if he were not executed. According to him, the idea of the temporary vanguard does not differ in essence from the advanced vanguard or the proleteriat vanguard among some Marxist currents. But his execution added a fighting meaning to it. Thus, rebels furious against tyrannical authorities reformulated it within the requirements needed for providing a religiously legitimate point of reference for considering terrorism as jihad against these authorities. They not only considered these authorities tyrannical, but infidel as well. This naive linkage between tyranny and infidelism was clearer for another youth in the same period, Shukri Mustafa, the founder of Jama'at Al-Muslemin (the Society of Muslims), which was known in the media by the name of Al-Takfir wal-Hijra (Excommunication and Exile). He wondered if those who practised this brutal torture in some Egyptian prisons in the 1960s were really Muslims. His limited, simple mind did not find an answer except that such unjust men cannot be Muslims. A reactionary educational system, established by a despotic regime, contributed to closing this mind. This intimate relation between terrorism and tyranny is proven in many analytical writings and maybe the most recent of these is Ibrahim El-Haidaris book Violence and Terrorism Sociology. For tyranny involves violence against society or some of its sections. Consequently, the culture of violence usually spreads in oppressed societies, in the manner in which El-Haidarys book explains has taken place in Iraq in the last decades. This has also happened in Syria and other countries in varying degrees. If the bombs and missiles were to eliminate terrorism, then George W Bush would have been truthful when he declared, ecstatically, in May 2003 "Mission Accomplished." ISIS did not exist at the time. Thus, we can say today, in a more confident tone than before, that confronting terrorism requires terminating tyranny, not cooperating with it or assisting it in Syria. This assistance means actually supporting terrorism and expanding its spheres. For all this is but a mirage, or an attempt to market the illusion of pursuing the elimination of ISIS without implementing any radical political change leading to a pluralistic democratic regime based on citizenship in Syria, and real reformation in Iraq. The doors to free participation must be opened, thus creating hope in a better future among the youth, including in other countries of the region. The writer is a political scientist and commentator. Search Keywords: Short link: People are not heeding advice relating to "gutless" coward punch attacks, Queensland police say, after a man was charged with unlawful striking causing death, the second such charge in 2016. Brandon John Mischewski, 39, was charged on Wednesday afternoon after he allegedly punched and "stomped" on 33-year-old Scott Williams at a Boorook Street unit at Buddina in the early hours of Sunday morning, police said. Mr Mischewski was allegedly assisted by others at the unit to move Mr Williams to his bed, where he later died. Police said those who moved the body weren't aware of the severity of injuries inflicted on Mr Williams. Victoria's police chief says the force is determined to disrupt two street racing groups in the wake of Wednesday's fiery high speed crash off a freeway in Melbourne's north-west. Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said Taskforce Regarder, made up of highway patrol police, detectives and intelligence officers, was set up in November to target the Southern Skids and Northern Skids. "We know two groups are coming together forming competitions, northern versus southern with 'N' and 'S' on their cars," he said. But, what's wrack you ask? People in Melbourne's west and beyond had to put up with a mystery stink for a few days this month. Credit:Andrew De La Rue ADL The source of the mysterious pong that stunk out Melbourne's west earlier this month may have been found. It's rotting seaweed. Rotting seaweed and mudflats have been blamed for the smell. Victoria's Environment Protection Authority has found a combination of rotting seaweed and exposed mudflats during an extreme low tide was the likely cause of the foul stench that wafted over dozens of suburbs. The EPA received more than 400 calls between January 10 and January 15 from residents complaining about what they could only describe as a "poo" smell. From Altona, Footscray, Tullamarine and Avondale Heights to Footscray and Maidstone, residents were holding their noses. Two Australian brothers who run a chain of chiropractic clinics in Indonesia have been arrested for allegedly working illegally. Jakarta police detective chief Krishna Murti said Thomas and Anthony Dawson tried to escape through the roof of their office in Permata Hijau in South Jakarta when they were arrested on Wednesday night. Australian brothers Anthony Dawson and Thomas Dawson have been arrested for allegedly running chiropractic clinics in Indonesia without the correct work permits. Credit:Rengga Sancaya Senior Commissioner Krishna said they did not have the correct work permits. He said the brothers, who had opened five Chiropractic Indonesia clinics in Jakarta, could face up to five years in jail. Jakarta: Indonesia could begin importing cattle from countries that have foot and mouth disease as part of a new economic stimulus package aimed at lowering beef prices and reducing its reliance on Australia. Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution said that under the new package cattle could be imported from a zone or area that had been declared disease-free even if diseases such as foot and mouth were present in other parts of the country. Australian cattle at a feedlot run by the firm PT Tanjung Unggul Mandiri in Tangerang, 25 kilometres west of Jakarta. Credit:Irwin Fedriansyah The price of Australian beef would take a hit in Indonesia if the market was flooded with cheap beef or buffalo meat from countries such as India, which has foot and mouth disease. Australian beef industry sources expressed frustration at the announcement, saying it added to the uncertainty surrounding exporting to Indonesia and raised biosecurity concerns. "We feel like theater is a powerful platform for kids to be heard," said Katie Cappiello, cofounder of the All-Girl Theater Company, along with Meg McInerney, a fellow NYU Tisch graduate. With that intention, Cappiello and McInerney founded the All-Girl Theater Company in 2007 after deciding to pursue their common passion for teaching. The company offers girls aged 9 to 18 in the New York tristate area with intensive training in method-based acting technique as well as with opportunities to collaborate on original material. In 2013, Cappiello and McInerney came to to FringeNYC, introducing the All-Girl Theater Company's provocative play, Slut, which addresses emotionally charged issues of sexual assault, teen-girl sexuality, and "slut culture" among today's youth. Nearly two-and-a-half years later, the piece has made it to the off-Broadway stage at Dixon Place, where it will run now through February 27, featuring young actresses Brittney Adebumola, Zora Casabere, Willa Cuthrell, Lexa Krebs, Amari Rose Leigh, Mary Miller, Casey Odesser, Katie Prael , Eliza Price, Darci Siegel, and Alice Stewart. Before the show gets underway, we decided to look back at the piece's humble beginnings on the Fringe of the New York theater scene. Take a look at Cappiello's 2013 conversation with TheaterMania, where she discussed building the play from the ground up, seeing her teenage students transform throughout the creative process, and wiping the word "slut" from their vocabulary. Katie Cappiello and Meg McInerney, cofounders of the All-Girl Theater Company. ( Lynn Savarese) How did you and Meg McInerney start working together? A mutual friend introduced us. He said, "You have all the same passions, you have all the same goals you'll love working together." So we met, had a three-hour conversation, [and decided] to quit our jobs right there at that moment [to] start this company. What inspired your interest in working with young girls? We wanted to create something that we wished we'd had when we were young girls, which is a space where we could comfortably be with our peers and talk openly and honestly about all the things we were thinking about but never really had the courage to say out loud [or] the tools to express. Do you find that a lot of the girls who come to you are dealing with similar issues? Oh yes. It's interesting, we taught girls in Indonesia [last] summer, and we also spent some time in the Midwest working with girls there, and a lot of the core issues are the same: girls feeling like they're not being heard, girls feeling like they have all this stuff they want to say but there's really no platform for them to share it, and really no sense of community where they can share it safely and honestly and not be criticized for it or censored. It doesn't seem to matter where we go or who comes to us. That seems to be the glue that ties all these girls together. Can you see the girls change as they go through your class? When they're in class with us, it's a safer space to say what [they] want to say and try it out and realize that it's OK to speak [their] mind about certain things. It gives [them] the permission and the courage to do it on a larger platform. It gives them ownership over their opinions and their ideas. And like the girls say, "If I'm speaking up about an issue that I know is not popular in my school or among my group of friends, I know come every Sunday, I've got a group of girls that have my back, no matter what." Were the girls the ones who decided on the subject for this play? Oh yeah, it's all them... Now that they're fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, the conversations revolve a lot around sexand this word [slut] was coming up all the time. The way they would use it to not only degrade themselves but to degrade other girlsor [how it] was being used against them in order to make them feel bad about the fact that they were interested in their sexuality. They were really having a hard time navigating how to walk that line We just thought it was such an interesting subject to explore, and it was the type of thing that had the girls in hysterics one minute and then in tears the next minute. How does the writing process work? Do you write the script with the girls? We start off without any writing at all [It's] ideas and a round circle, discussion about anything. Sometimes we sit and we talk for four hours. They're allowed to say anything they want to say. They're allowed to curse, they're allowed to share the most intimate details of their life, whatever they want to share It's a place where they can bounce ideas off [one another]. We spend a couple months doing that, and then we start improvving around certain ideas. Then we let the girls free-write, and then we decide what our play's going to be about. Meg and I start by typing as the girls are improvving, and then I start scripting scenes together. The whole goal is to create something in their voice around the subject matter that really matters to them. "Slut" is a very provocative choice for a title. Whose decision was it to name the play that? The group's. We make those decisions together. I think we knew that this is what the title needed to be. [It] could've beensomething softer or more generic. But that's just not what the play is The girls [have been] getting some flak about the title, and one of [them] said so brilliantly, "It's amazing that someone can question the title but not question their use of the word." Are they nervous about performing such a personal play for their families? No, actually. They're pumped about that. From the get-go, we bring the parents in and start showing them what we're working on and open it up to a conversation with [them]. They're incredibly supportive, I think because they see their daughters' growth through the process. How do you hope people respond to the play? We always tell the girls our goal is to entertain of course, but that's not the main focus of what we do. It's their job to risk and invent and put themselves out there so they're creating something that speaks some kind of truth. I think a lot of times people put their own opinions on the teen-girl experience especially the teen-girl sexual experience because they don't really understand what it is to live that. I think when people come see the play they'll be very touched by the quality of work that the girls are bringing to the stage. IRVINE, CA - January 27, 2016: Hyundai Capital America (HCA), a top-10 U.S. captive auto-finance company that does business as Hyundai Motor Finance and Kia Motors Finance, is proud to announce it has developed new point-of-sale educational booklets to help consumers understand the ins-and-outs of auto financing. MORE INFO Hyundai Research and Buyer's Guide Guide The Financing 101 and Leasing Benefits booklets, available at Hyundai and Kia dealerships across the nation, are designed to help consumers make more informed car-buying decisions. They explain vehicle financing options in a simple and relatable way so consumers can feel comfortable with the financing process and confident in their decision. Hyundai Capital America, through the Hyundai Motor Finance and Kia Motors Finance brands, led the industry in providing complimentary credit scores to all of its customers. Since then, the company has been increasing its efforts to empower consumers with easy-to-understand information they need to make the right auto-financing decision for their budget and lifestyle. "We're consistently looking for ways to add value for our partners and consumers, and we believe these straightforward guides to vehicle financing really resonate with consumersespecially those who may be buying or leasing a vehicle for the first time," said Scott Belkofer, vice president of sales. The new educational booklets are part of a suite of materials HCA has developed to empower consumers with easy-to-understand information about everything from purchasing or leasing a vehicle, to what to expect and how to prepare when returning your lease. Combined with other efforts, like the company's Financial Futures employee volunteer program teaching financial literacy to at-risk youth, and providing guides to understanding your credit score on the Hyundai Motor Finance and Kia Motors Finance websites, the new materials are part of a holistic approach HCA is taking to make more information about financing and credit available to consumers. ABOUT HYUNDAI CAPITAL AMERICA Headquartered in Irvine, CA, Hyundai Capital America is a top-10 U.S. auto finance company supporting the financial services needs of Hyundai Motor America and Kia Motors America. Through the Hyundai Motor Finance and Kia Motors Finance brands, the company provides financial products to Hyundai and Kia dealerships nationwide, including dealer inventory and facility financing, as well as indirect vehicle financing for retail and lease customers. Through its subsidiary, Hyundai Protection Plan, the company offers vehicle service contracts and other vehicle protection products under the Hyundai Protection Plan and Power Protect brands. As of 2015, the company serves over 1.5 million customers and over 1,500 dealers nationwide, and has over $25 billion in assets. In addition to its two offices in Orange County, CA, Hyundai Capital America has customer support centers in Atlanta and Dallas. Henny's Take - 2016 Auto Show Detroit In Positive Mood, But Will It Be Enough? SEE ALSO: 2016 Detroit Auto Show (NAIAS) Complete Press Pass Coverage +VIDEO By Henny Hemmes Senior European Editor The Auto Channel DETROIT - January 22, 2016: Last week, the North American International Auto Show in Detroit started in a positive mood. No surprise, as sales went well last year. But are several interesting world premieres enough to conquer with the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, that opened its doors a week before? Since the early nineties until the financial crisis hit the world, Motown focused mainly on muscle power and concepts, whether or not realistic but always with a hint to the future. This year, the future was shown at the CES, where nine car manufacturers showed their state of technology for internet connectivity and autonomous driving. Concept cars Back to Detroit, where Buick stole the show with the Avista, a gorgeous concept car that shows the creativity of the design team of chief Ed Welburn. The Avista is a study for a 2+2 coupe and revives the old glory of Buick design. Is it realistic? I think so. Under the hood is a 400 hp strong twin-turbo 3.0-liter V6 with cylinder deactivation. Inside the latest technology such as touch sensitive controls. Another concept for an upcoming production model was presented by Volvo. Its S90 has to bring the Swedish brand into the premium segment, especially in China and important to Geely, the Chinese owners of Volvo. We can expect the production model to look pretty much the same, with alas, the info screen placed too low in the dashboard. Important feature is the large animal detection for dear, moose and lions to minimize collisions. The S90 will be another full-size sedan that, design wise, does not set itself very much apart from its future competitors. Kia presented the Telluride, a bold concept for a large SUV that immediately reminded me of my one and only visit in 1997 to the small town with the same name. From there a Jeep Jamboree took us to the top of the world overlooking the Rockies. Stunning! Hyundai came up with the Genesis G90, a concept for the first new model under the separate Genesis brand. Personally, I would have chosen a different name and not one that has already been in use for a Hyundai model. The nose of the concept hints at those of the Lexus. No news about when to expect a production model. Important production cars came into the limelight, such as the 2017 Chrysler Pacifica, the new interpretation of the brand that invented the minivan. Those who think that this type of vehicle will be phased out in the near future, may be wrong. Even with the declining popularity of the family van, Chrysler sold half a million units of its Town and Country last year. And with expectations of the amount of young families to increase, the Pacifica may open up new possibilities. But if sales figures can be brought back to 2 million, like in the past, remains to be seen. In any case, the looks of the new minivan is much more attractive than that of the boxy outgoing model. When I looked at the Chevrolet Bolt, the compact electric model which GM put on stage, I doubted whether there will be many Americans who like to drive fully electric and if so, would they chose a small car like this? GM wants to introduce the Bolt in Europe under the wings of Opel, but even on the old continent, the BEVs (battery electric vehicles) can only survive with huge government incentives. Doesnt that go for America as well? I heard that the Bolt is going to cost around 30,000, that is after a tax deduction of $7,500, hmmm. There were more new models, such as the Chinese built Buick Envision, the Chevy Cruze hatchback, Ford Fusion, Infiniti Q50 and QX60, Lexus LC 500 Coupe., but less trucks than we were used to see at NAIAS. In that respect, Honda and Nissan attracted attention with respectively the 2017 Ridgeline pick-up and the Titan Warrior Concept. I should not forget VLF. The abbreviation is well known as Very Low Frequency with radio amateurs, but they now also have a meaning in the automotive world. Former GM-chief Bob Lutz had already teamed up with businessman Gilbert Vilarrreal in VL Automotive and now, with Designer Hendrik Fisker on board the company is called VLF Automotive. Before the unveiling of the new car, I spoke to Lutz, who volunteered that formerly, he would never have believed that it would be possible to build a new car with an investment of only 10 million dollar (5 million by himself and 5 million by Vilarreal. That would have cost a car manufacturer some 200 million, Mr. Lutz said. Lutz, now in his eighties, still successfully passes the test for his pilot's license. No wonder that VLFs 745 bhp super-car has been given the name Force 1 (after the presidential plane Air Force 1). Meanwhile, the Fisker Karma is adapted by VLF and is now called Destino. The car had to be reduced in size so as not to use most of the nearly 600 kg heavy battery pack as in the original model. Europeans Of the Europeans, Mercedes-Benz stole the show with three world premieres including the new E-Class. Audi presented the A4 allroad quattro. Porsche showed the 911 Turbo S and Volkswagen came to Detroit with the Tiguan GTE Active Concept, but without the Buzz-e, the concept for a new interpretation of the microbus, that made its world premiere at the CES in Las Vegas. The Tiguan GTE is a concept for a plug-in hybrid model with a 148 hp strong gasoline engine and a 12.4 kWh battery pack that delivers energy to two electric motors. BMWs booth was packed with real muscle in the shape of the new BMW M2 and the X4 M40i and not new, but always good for a lot of attention a bright orange M3. The Bayerische Motoren Werke will start its Centennial celebrations on March 7 in Munich and we may expect some interesting concepts/models this year. So far, everybody involved keeps tight-lipped, but the twinkle in BMW peoples eyes when I try to discover more, speak for themselves. All in all there was a lot to see as a forebode of more automotive news this year. Please stay tuned. STUTTGART -- January 26, 2016: The countdown to a milestone anniversary for the Mercedes-Benz Museum begins on 29 January 2016, the 130th birthday of the automobile: The Mercedes-Benz Museum will be launching its programme on that day with a series of themed guided tours and a special presentation to mark ten years of the Mercedes-Benz Museum. To coincide with the actual "birthday" itself, on 19 May 2016, a special exhibition about the E-Class, "Meisterstuck-E" (MasterpiEces), will open. The main anniversary celebrations for fans and families will take place on 4 and 5 June 2016. Since 2006, the Mercedes-Benz Museum has been telling the story of the automobile from its beginnings and into the future. More than 7.1 million visitors have visited the venue over the last ten years. What date could be more appropriate for the launch of a major programme to mark the anniversary of the Mercedes-Benz Museum? On 29 January 2016 it will be 130 years since Carl Benz registered the patent for his "gas engine-powered vehicle" back in 1886 - a date that is generally considered to mark the birth of the automobile. 120 years later, on 19 May 2006, a good two and half years of construction work came to an end with the opening of the new Mercedes-Benz Museum, just outside the gates of the Unterturkheim plant. Right from the beginning, its architecture, exhibition concept and events set new standards in this field. On the day the anniversary programme is launched, 29 January 2016, there will be hourly themed tours on special subjects such as the automobile, Silver Arrows, commercial vehicles, Bertha Benz, the architecture of the museum and Women and Cars (bookings on the day at the museum). There will also be a special presentation covering the first ten years of the Mercedes-Benz Museum on the Classic Island (Level 0). The spotlight throughout 2016 will be on this special anniversary A particular highlight over the coming months, alongside the opening of the E-Class special exhibition on 19 May, will be the anniversary weekend on 4 and 5 June 2016. Fans and families can look forward to a major celebration under the heading "A future always needs a past". The Mercedes-Benz Museum will be marking this milestone birthday throughout the year with the following anniversary programme: Special exhibition: Safety cars (until 17 April 2016) Web series Museum Monday (from 25 January 2016) Special presentation in the atrium: SLS AMG GT 3 (until 29 February 2016) Special presentation: 10 years of the Mercedes-Benz Museum (from 29 January 2016) What's the cow doing in the fridge? Hands-on exhibition for children (16 February to 4 March 2016) Mercedes-Benz social media night (23 February, 2 March, 6 April, 18 May and 8 June 2016) Bonhams Auction (19 March 2016) Long Night of Museums (2 April 2016) "Tricks for Kids" international animated film festival (27 April to 1 May 2016) Special exhibition all about the E-Class: Meisterstuck-E ("MasterpiEces") (19 May to 6 November 2016) Pre-work Party and anniversary programme to mark 10 years of the Mercedes-Benz Museum (19 May 2016) Anniversary weekend marking 10 years of the Mercedes-Benz Museum for fans and families (4/5 June 2016) Cars & Coffee (every Sunday from 19 June to 4 September 2016) Mercedes-Benz Lounge (14 June to 4 September 2016) The museum is an established destination for visitors from all over the world. More than seven million people from over 160 countries have visited the Museum so far to see its display of 160 vehicles and altogether more than 1500 exhibits, on show over an area of 16,500 square metres. The Mercedes-Benz Museum brings the legend of Mercedes-Benz to life and with it the history of individual mobility from the invention of the automobile by Carl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler in 1886 through to the present day. The building itself also attracts attention. The multiple award-winning architecture by Dutch architectural practice UNStudio is perfectly complemented by the exhibition concept developed by the Stuttgart-based museum designer HG Merz: on nine levels, paths wind in the shape of a double helix along a time axis stretching from the invention of the motor car to the present day. The Mercedes-Benz Museum is constantly reinventing itself, thanks to a varied programme of attractive events covering a broad spectrum of topics. Together with the permanent display and changing special exhibitions, this is a significant factor in ensuring that guests from all over the world enjoy visiting the Mercedes-Benz Museum and do so over and over again. Honda Honored with Four Diversity Awards Presented by the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers (NAMAD) and IHS Automotive MORE INFO Honda Research and Buyer's Guide Guide MARYSVILLE, OH -- January 27, 2016: Honda was honored with four awards at the first Diversity Volume Leadership Awards presented by the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers (NAMAD) and IHS Automotive at the 2016 North American International Auto Show. The Honda Accord and Honda CR-V were recognized for national sales leadership with women and ethnic Millennials in 2015. The Honda CR-V, America's best-selling SUV, was named the "Top Women's Vehicle" and the Honda Accord was named "Top Ethnic Millennial Vehicle." The Honda Accord and Civic were also recognized as "Ethnic Volume Leaders" in the Mideast and Western regions, respectively. "We are witnessing a massive demographic shift that is reshaping our marketplace," said Marc Burt, assistant vice president of Honda North America, Inc. Office of Inclusion & Diversity. "These awards reflect our associates' continued commitment to innovation and overall understanding of how our vehicle design, functionality and marketing relate to our increasingly diverse customers." The awards show, the only event of its kind, recognizes top-performing automotive brands that are driving sales with multicultural consumers. Awards were presented to brands whose vehicles had the highest number of new-vehicle registrations among African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian Pacific Islanders and Native Americans. To learn more about Honda's diversity efforts, visit Honda Diversity For Dogs, its Trick and Treat Its almost Halloween, a great time to teach your dog a trick and give him a treat. Most trainers are fans of trick training. Its not as silly as it... Muzzle is not a bad word If you see a dog in a muzzle, you immediately think the dog is aggressive. Right? Well, this is not always true. Unfortunately, seeing a dog in a muzzle carries... We all have our New Years resolutions. For most, these consist of steps toward self-improvementjoining a gym, participating in a Dry January, saving money, or quitting smoking. Kanye Wests New Years resolution was, it seems, to tweet like theres no tomorrow. And god bless him for it. Late Tuesday night, rapper Wiz Khalifa fired off the following tweet: It came in response to Kanye changing the name of his upcoming album from Swish to Waves, with Wiz claiming the name waves belonged to Harlem rapper Max B, who released a string of Coke Waves mixtapes before being convicted on charges of aggravated assault, felony kidnapping, armed robbery, and murder. Hes serving a 75-year prison sentence. Max B is closely affiliated with fellow New York rapper French Montana, who is the ex-boyfriend of Kim Kardashians sister, Khloe. West paid respect to Max B via a tweet, and things seemed to be on ice. Then, early Wednesday, rapper Wiz Khalifa fired off an innocuous tweet: Hit this kk and become yourself. Khalifa Kush (KK) is the name of the rappers strain of marijuana. In a 2014 interview, he discussed how he has people grow the strain specifically for him, and that same year, he released a song called KK with lines like, I got my own weed, sucka / So I aint gotta hit yours. KK are also the initials of Kanyes ultra-famous wife, Kim Kardashian. So Kanye, thinking Wiz was tweeting about his beloved wife, flew into a Twitter rage, verbally undressing every facet of the rappers existence, from his style (I screen grabbed those pants and sent it to my style team) to his music (no one I know has ever listened to one of your albums all the way through) to his JV status (I am your OG and I will be respected as such). A large portion of Kanyes ire was directed at Wizs ex-wife, Amber Rose, and their child, with Kanye tweeting, You let a stripper trap you and I know you mad every time you look at your child that this girl got you for 18 years. It should be noted here that Kanye was completely out of line from the get-go, using the occasion of a terribly misinterpreted tweet to take low blows at Wizs ex-wife and child. If anyone said the same about Kardashian and North or Saint West, you can rest assured that Kanye would go full-Bride, showing up at Wizs house in a form-fitting yellow-and-black tracksuit clenching Hattori Hanzo steel. This isnt the first (or 10th) time Kanye has slut-shamed Rose, whom he dated from 2008 to 2010 after he spotted her in the music video for Ludacriss What Them Girls Like. In February of last year, Kanye appeared on Power 105.1s The Breakfast Club and unloaded on his ex. Shes just soaking in the moment, Kanye said of Rose. If Kim had dated me when I wanted, there would be no Amber Rose. He later doubled down, saying he had to take 30 showers after dating Rose before Kim would accept him. But the origins of this hip-hop imbroglio are hard to define. Kanye and Rose were very hot and heavy during their three-year relationship, which was immortalized in a very hot-and-heavy, head-licking photo shoot with Terry Richardson. When they split in early 2010, Kanye went into self-imposed exile in Hawaii to work on an album dedicated to Rose, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The song Runaway, in particular, is seen as an open apology to Rose for the way he treated her throughout their relationship. She find pictures in my e-mail / I sent this bitch a picture of my dick / I dont know what it is with females / But Im not too good with that shit, raps Kanye. See, I could have me a good girl / And still be addicted to them hoodrats / And I just blame everything on you / At least you know thats what Im good at. Rose dealt with the split a bit differently. She first engaged in a rebound fling with Kardashians ex, NFL running back Reggie Bush, and then took to the tabloids to air the couples dirty laundry, claiming in a number of interviews that it was Kanyes flirting with Kim that led to their demise. Kim is one of the main reasons why me and Kanye are not together, Rose said in an exclusive interview with Star magazine. Shes a homewrecker! According to Rose, Kanye and Kim were hooking up while she was still with Kanye and Kim was dating Bush. They were both cheating, said Rose. They were both cheating on me and Reggie with each other. [Kim] was sending [racy] pictures, and I was like, Kim, just stop. Dont be that person. I thought at least shed be woman enough to respond to me. She never responded. I want to thank her, Rose continued of Kim. Because if she was never a homewrecker, then I never would have met Wiz [Khalifa], and I wouldnt be as happy as I am now. That interview took place in January 2012, and weeks later, a man who claimed to be Roses former publicist alleged on Twitter and Facebook that he introduced Rose to Kanye, that Rose stole from him, and that Rose was planning to steal from Kanye, blaming the latter revelation for their breakupnot Kim. Rose denied the allegations. Kanye and Kim became official in April of that year. For the next couple of years, the two had reached a gossip column detente, with Kanye and Kim marrying and having two children, and Amber and Wiz marrying and having one child. Following Rose and Wizs split in late 2014, her beef with Kanye reignited. In February 2015, Kims little sister Kylie Jenner (17) began dating the rapper Tyga (25). Now, Tyga has a child with the hip-hop model Blac Chyna, who is best friends with Rose. When the relationship came to light, Rose went on The Breakfast Club and blasted it.Kylies a baby, said Rose. She needs to go to bed at 7 oclock and relax. Its ridiculous. Tyga should be ashamed of himself. Thats how I feel, for sure. He has a beautiful woman and a baby that he left for a 16-year-old who just turned 17.Rose did make some good pointsin their home state of California the Kylie/Tyga coupling qualifies as statutory rape. The interview prompted Kylies sister Khloe Kardashian to fire off a few tweets at Rose, labeling her a hypocrite for stripping at 15 yet criticizing Kylie for her illicit relationship with Tyga. Rose didnt take the criticism lying down and decided to drag Kimand by extension Kanyeinto the mix: Kanyes infamous 30 Showers interview on The Breakfast Club was in response to this tweet by Rose. And, if that werent enough, in recent weeks Roses pal (and Tygas ex) Blac Chyna has begun dating Rob Kardashian, the semi-estranged brother of Kylie, Kim, Khloe, and co. Its hard to determine whos more at fault here. If Kanye cheated on her, Rose has a right to be upset. But its been six years since theyve split. The two have both moved on and started separate families, yet Rose, who is mostly famous due to her association with Kanye, seems to keep tethering herself to Kanye and the Kardashians for the considerable ink it generates. And the same goes for Blac Chyna, Tyga, and the Kardashians. The best thing Kanye can do is ignore them entirely, but hes never been one to take an insult lying down. When Rose caught wind of the recent Kanye-Wiz spat, and the insults he threw her way, she went for the jugular: As long as theres ink to be spilled and gossip columns to be filled, dont expect this feud to die down anytime soon. Roses celebrity depends on it. BEIRUT Rarely does a criminal case fall into a judges lap as open-and-shut as Michel Samahas.Yanked out of his bed by Lebanese police in a dawn raid on Aug. 9, 2012, within one day the four-time cabinet minister had confessed to conspiring with Syrian officials, up to and including President Bashar al-Assad himself, to blow up Sunni Muslim Lebanese politicians, religious figures, and bystanders at Ramadan fast-breaking gatherings. Thanks to a series of videos leaked to the media, a flabbergasted nation could watch with their own eyes as Samaha, a veteran politician and household name, produced bags of explosives, timers, and detonators from his car, and spoke casually of plans to murder an MP, members of the MPs family, and senior clerics (let them be buried), with express indifference to additional civilian casualties (whoever departs along the way, departs!). There seemed no conceivable way out of a severe punishment, and at his formal indictment in February 2013, the judge sought the death penalty. And yet, on the 14th of this month, Samaha walked out of Lebanons Rayhanieh prison and returned to his family home in Beirut an almost-free man, released on $100,000 bail. Despite the gravity of the charges brought against him in 2013plotting to carry out terrorist acts using explosive devices; planning assassinations of political and religious figures; instigating sectarian conflict; and forming an armed grouphe was sentenced to just four and a half years imprisonment in May 2015, in a decision legal observers said reeked of Syrian influence over the judiciary. An appeal is underway at the court of cassation, but, since a jail year is only nine months in Lebanon, Samaha has already fully served his sentence in the three years and five months since his incarceration. Unless the appeals court changes the verdict, the U.S.-sanctioned Specially Designated Global Terrorist is out for good. This has caused rather an outrage in Lebanon, and not just for the obvious reasons. To many Lebanese, Samahas arrest held almost unique political, even emotional significance. For one thing, he was far weightier a catch than his second-rate ministerial and onetime parliamentary career bespoke. In a country with no shortage of dependable Syrian allies (the kind word for them), Samaha was a cohort of rare caliber. Part of a Christian splinter group that broke away from the anti-Syrian Phalangists to embrace Damascus in 1985, Samaha came to be an intimate confidant of both President Hafez al-Assad and his son and successor, Bashar. Valued especially for his Western connections, he was credited with helping arrange the latters state visit in 2008 to attend Bastille Day festivities in Paris as the esteemed guest of President Sarkozy. The story goes that even after Lebanons own presidential entourage turned up the same week in Paris, Samaha remained with the Syrian delegation. Compounding the magnitude of his arrest was the law of public life in Lebanon, which holds that those who displease the Assads appreciably reduce their chances of dying a natural death. This long-observed statistical phenomenon, dating back at least to the 1977 assassination of leftist leader Kamal Jumblatt, was particularly noticeable in the run-up to and aftermath of the Syrian armys forced withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005itself prompted by the enormous car bomb on Valentines Day of that year which obliterated the prime minister, Rafiq al-Hariri, along with 21 others. From 2004 to the present day, at least 11 high-profile foes of Damascus have perished by the same or similar means, while four survived assassination attempts with grave wounds. Among the victims was Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, head of the very police unit that busted Samaha, slain by a car bomb outside what he thought was a safe house two months after Samahas arrest. Though few were ever in doubt as to who stood behind this gruesome liquidation campaign, evidence of incontestable concreteness could never quite be procured. The capture, in flagrante, of so symbolic a personage as Samahaseen telling the police informant, on camera: There are [only] two people who know [about the plan]Ali [Mamluk, director of Syrias National Security Bureau] and the presidentlooked, for a moment, like it might change that. Instead, his release has only brought home how very little has changed in the last decade. MP Marwan Hamade was the first of the batch to be targeted in 2004, when a Mercedes exploded as he drove past it just off Beiruts iconic corniche. That only one of the three in the carpolice escort Sergeant Ghazi Bou Karoumlost his life was considered a lucky escape. As Nicholas Blanford documents in his book, Killing Mr. Lebanon, the 65-year-old Hamade broke all of his ribs as well as his foot, needed 450 stitches in his head, suffered brain hemorrhages and burns, and took the best part of a year to recover. As he recounted in 2014 while testifying at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), established in The Hague to investigate Hariris assassination, Syrias military intelligence chief in Lebanon Rustom Ghazaleh hastily ordered the police investigation into Hamades case closed on the grounds that responsibility had to lie either with Israel or Hamade himself. Speaking to The Daily Beast about Samahas release, Hamade said it only reaffirmed his gratitude for being included among the auxiliary cases falling under the STLs mandate, even if no indictment has yet been issued in The Hague. I said to myself, Well, we did well to fight to get a special tribunal on Lebanon, because even if its a slow-paced operation, at least were not under the pressure of local interests and Hezbollah or the Syrians [] at least I know the judges sitting in The Hague are not under the pressure of those sitting in [Lebanon]. Unfortunately for most such victims and their relatives, however, only two other cases have thus far been deemed by the STL to meet its jurisdiction criteria. The assassination of Mohammed Chatah, an International Monetary Fund economist who later served as U.S. ambassador and minister of finance, on Dec. 27, 2013, was one of the majority that do not. Though, as so often, Lebanese authorities have failed to identify any possible culprits, Chatahs links to the anti-Syrian March 14 political coalition led most in the general public to suspect the usuals. When The Daily Beast asked Chatahs son, 31-year-old tech entrepreneur Omar, how he had received Samahas release, he described it as a punch in the gut. The diligence with which [Brig. Gen. Hassan, the late mastermind of the Samaha bust] went about catching Samaha, with audio and video recordings, was unparalleled in the history of Lebanon, said Chatah. Hassan and the people around him in the [police] worked tirelessly to do this the right way, and despite the overwhelming evidence and clear security threat he poses, the judge released him on bail. That capriciousness of injustice is scary, when you consider how it has permeated our institutions and government. At the same time, Chatah echoed the feelings of impotence and despair expressed by countless Lebanese in private conversations, recalling that while he admired the young demonstrators protesting outside Samahas residence and elsewhere in the country since his release, a sense of futility stopped him from joining them. I feel helpless. When we demonstrate, nobody listens. When we applaud responsible people for conducting thorough investigations and lawful arrests, they are killed. When we put our faith in the judges and courts, they show total disregard for the law. I am beyond disappointed; its like we have come to expect this capriciousness. Its the banality of injustice. We are so jaded as a country that when a murderer is so obviously caught red-handed, it just slides by. Above all, Chatah described Samahas release as the loss of perhaps the last chance to obtain some modicum of justice for the long series of unpunished bombings, from that of Hamade through Hariri to my father, and many others in between. [The arrest of Samaha] was important because it was done through thorough investigations, through public institutions, and best of all it was preempted; no one had to die. said Chatah. Personally, if justice, institutional justice, can be meted out for just one of the people assassinated, just once, I will feel a little better. I will sleep a little bit better at night. Adding to the bitter taste for many is Hezbollah, who is normally excellent at keeping a grudge but has pronounced it high time to put the episode to bed and, essentially, asked what the fuss was about anyway. There was no longer any legal justification for [Samahas] detention to continue, said MP Muhammad Raad, head of Hezbollahs parliamentary bloc. Those objecting to his release were mere rabble-rousers, guilty of petulance and maliciousness. Raads remarks were ridiculed by TV satirist Nadim Koteich, who, with a mock shrug, mimicked: Four years is enough, what did the guy do? Moved explosives from Syria, commissioned by a foreign state, to blow them up in his country, and kill people? Whats the issue? (Koteich had to change his filming location after receiving death threats in 2014readers may, perhaps, perceive an emerging pattern.) Yet beyond Hezbollah alone is the broader realization that, rather than the days of Assads hold over Lebanon fading into the pastas so many had hoped in 2005, and then again in 2011they are, if anything, looming ever larger in the future. Looking beyond Lebanons frontiers, which is where most of Beiruts vital politics are decided, those Lebanese aspiring for a genuinely sovereign and independent nation have fewer reasons than ever for optimism. That the Iran Deal is likely to strengthen Hezbollah is a fact admitted even by its chief architect and defender, President Obama. Thanks to Iranian and, now, Russian intervention to support Assad militarily, as well as a gradual but unmistakable American abandonment of its Assad-must-go policy, the autocrat that Secretary of State John Kerry once compared to Hitler hasnt looked so comfortably seated in half a decade. Those reading the winds have already started to act: Last Monday, one of Lebanons last anti-Assad hawks, Samir Geagea, stunned supporters and critics alike by officially endorsing his mortal foe of three decades, Hezbollah ally Michel Aoun, for president. This neednt mean Lebanon is wholly lost to Syrian hegemony all over again. For one thing, various powerbrokers, including the countrys main Sunni party, are rigidly aligned against Aouns candidacy. It does mean, however, that when Samaha told reporters in his living room upon his release that he plans now to continue his prior political work and activity, there is no obvious reason for anyone not to take his words with the absolute and utmost seriousness. For Latino Republicans who have known Ted Cruz over the last 15 years, the candidate stumping across the country on an anti-immigration platform is not the rising talent they once worked with on the George W. Bush campaign, in the Bush administration, and then as Texas Solicitor General. The Ted Cruz of those years was a whip-smart and audaciously ambitious lawyer who lent his considerable intellectual heft to the policies many Latino Republicans cared most about, including immigration reform. But during a CNN debate in December, as Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio clashed over Cruzs past positions on offering legal status to undocumented immigrants, Cruz said definitively, Ive never supported legalization, I do not intend to support it. Weeks later, Cruz doubled down, explaining to Fox News Bret Baier that he tried to amend to the Senates Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill not to pass it, but to doom it to defeat. Bret, youve been around Washington long enough, you know how to defeat bad legislation. And with that, Cruzs bridge back to his former colleagues in Latino Republican circles began to burn. Its just a flat out lie. Period, said Robert De Posada. Theres just no truth behind it. De Posada is a former Director of Hispanic Affairs for the RNC and founder of the Latino Coalition, a conservative Latino organization that worked with the Bush administration unsuccessfully to pass immigration reform. My criticism is that Cruz can say, Things have changed and Ive changed my position. But dont sit here and flat out lie that you have never been for legalization when the facts are very clear. The facts, according to De Posada and several Republicans who worked with Cruz in Washington and Texas, are that in Cruzs past work for Bush and later as a board member of the Washington-based Hispanic Alliance for Prosperity Institute, Cruz helped craft policies to allow undocumented immigrants to stay in the country and pursue legal status. None of those efforts included granting automatic amnesty to undocumented workers, but it is clear in the minds of his former colleagues that finding a way to offer immigrants a way to remain in the United States and gain legal status was central to the work Cruz did. A former Bush administration official who worked with Cruz during the 2000 campaign and later as a part of an interdepartmental White House working group on immigration remembered Cruz as an aggressive member of the teams tasked with creating a framework to pass Bushs pro-immigration agenda. The position Cruz holds today was not in play in those years, the official said, in sometimes deeply personal terms. How do you say hypocrite in Spanish? Do you know? Its Ted Cruz, the former official said. To know Ted is to hate Ted. The official described Cruzs role on the Bush immigration agenda as working as a liaison between the office of public liaison and the White Houses policy shop. He wanted to bring immigrants out of the shadows, the official said. Thats changed since the campaign and changed since the White House days. But of course it has. If it suits Ted, hes for it. If it doesnt, hes against it. Its a disappointment, said the official, who, like many of the people interviewed for this piece, referenced Cruzs natural intelligence. I think Ted could do a lot of good if he had a soul. But before the White House, Cruz worked in Texas as a policy adviser for the Bush presidential campaign, including on Bushs plans for immigration reform. When Charles Foster, a prominent Houston immigration lawyer, was tapped to draft Bushs plan, he said he was told the campaign had a team of bright young lawyers to work with him. One of them, named Ted Cruz, had in his bailiwick of issues immigration and he would be my contact with the campaign, Foster said. Together, Foster and Cruz worked for nine months drafting what would become the immigration principles of the Bush campaign and eventually the White House. The plan would not include amnesty like Ronald Reagans blanket legalization program, which immediately put undocumented immigrants in line for citizenship. But Bush would push for a path to legal status, an aggressive temporary worker program, and a requirement that undocumented workers who stayed in the United States would go to the back of the line for citizenship. Foster remembers Cruz as a very hands on professional who never raised objections to the policies. I assumed Ted was supportive of Gov. Bushs positions, but I honestly cant remember asking Ted if he agreed with the position and personally supported it. I assume he did, but we were like lawyers representing the interests of our client. After the campaign and two years in the Bush administration, Cruz moved home to Texas to become the states Solicitor General in 2003. Once in Texas, he joined the board of advisers for HAPI, a group of Latino conservatives that included George P. Bush, former members of Congress, and multiple veterans of the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush administrations. While Cruz was a member of the board and its policy committee, HAPI advocated conservative positions to an array of issues, including its opposition to both climate change legislation and the Affordable Care Act. On immigration, HAPI strongly advocated for a path to legalization, including President Bushs principles for immigration reform, as well as the 2006 McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill. Its just bullshit, said a former member of the HAPI when asked about Cruzs contention that he never supported legalization. Thats what pisses us all off. Dont throw us under the bus for legalization and not take on the nativists and the crazies when you wrote the language. Stand for something. The former HAPI board member, who asked not to be named in order to speak freely, described Cruz as a fully engaged member of the group. Cruz co-chaired a 2005 event featuring Gov. Rick Perry and served as a keynote speaker for two of the groups events. And because of Cruzs legal expertise, board members said they relied on him to do the first draft of policy positions, including HAPIs support for immigration reform. When he ran for Senate in 2012, HAPI hosted a fundraiser to support his candidacy. In the 2012 campaign for Senate, Cruzs role at HAPI became the subject of a bitter disagreement between Cruz and David Dewhurst, then the lieutenant governor of Texas and Cruzs opponent in the Senate primary race. The Dewhurst campaign accused Cruz of leading two organizations that support amnesty, a position that neither HAPI nor the other group ever supported. But members of HAPIs board insist that legalization for undocumented immigrants was always unequivocally a part of its platform. HAPI no longer exists, but Cruz has gone on to become its most famous and potentially most powerful former member, an end to the story that many of his fellow Latino Republicans lament. When he went so far as to say hes never been for legalizing, thats where he crossed the line and lost people like me, said Robert De Posada. Its a character issue where a lot of us are just like, Um, no. You dont see us as a culture, as a white culture, pushing this agenda of abortion, women outside the home, not having babies, everybody getting more and more and more and more, just more and more, like we dont have enough, and were so fat. And thats about where the Florida man lost his thread. The anti-abortion activist, identified as Greg Pound, was speaking Monday in front of the Florida House Criminal Justice Subcommittee, expressing his support for HB 865. That bill would make abortion completely illegal in Florida except when pregnancy threatens a womans life or interferes with the treatment of an already-life threatening diseaseand only then if two physicians certify in writing that this is the case. The bill would also remove the stipulation that abortion is permitted in order to avert a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function, claiming that this exception for a womans health impedes the states protection of viable unborn human life. The net effect: Abortion would be illegal for any woman who would not die from pregnancy or childbirth. The proposed legislation would also slap anyone who performs an abortion or operates an abortion clinic with a first-degree felony charge, which could carry a prison sentence of up to 30 years. As the Miami Herald reports, the patently unconstitutional bill easily cleared the subcommittee by an 8-3 vote. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that states cannot place an undue burden on women seeking an abortion before fetal viability, let alone try to ban it entirely at every stage. But for one Christian lawmakerand, apparently, a racist activist with too much time on his handsthe Supreme Courts final say is really more of a suggestion. The Legislature urges the United States Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood of Southern (sic.) Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992) HB 865 reads. Later on, it calls these Supreme Courts rulings arbitrary, saying that they provide inadequate guidance for this state to enact meaningful protections for unborn human life. In addition to the twice-repeated typoPlanned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania was a party in the pivotal 1992 case that upheld Roe but allowed more state-level restrictionsthe bill also inserts several references to God and the Creator into Floridas abortion legislation.The Legislature finds that all human life comes from the Creator, has an inherent value that cannot be qualified by man, and begins at the earliest biological development of a fertilized human egg, it reads. The bill refers to human life as the most fundamental gift from God, citing these arguments as justification for Floridians to exercise their right to self-government and prohibit unnecessary abortion.The religious tenor of the bill is not a surprise given its sponsor, Republican state representative Charles Van Zant. A minister and graduate of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Van Zant famously claimed in 2014 that the implementation of Common Core education in Florida would attract every one of your children to become as homosexual as they possibly can.Lest anyone shake their head and say, Only in Florida, four states have passed trigger laws that would make abortion illegal in most cases if Roe v. Wade were overturned. Eleven states have bans pre-dating Roe that are still technically state law, and eight others have legislation expressing an intent to restrict abortion to the fullest extent permitted by any future Supreme Court Roe reversal, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Van Zants bill is not even the first to fly directly in the face of the Supreme Courts guidance. Louisiana, Utah, and North Dakota have all attempted to implement blatantly unconstitutional abortion bans after Roe v. Wade.Most recently, North Dakota passed a fetal heartbeat law in 2013 that was intended to ban abortion after six weeks. It was blocked in federal court last year and the Supreme Court denied an appeal to that decision earlier this week, preventing the legislation from ever being enforced. In the event that Van Zants bill makes it through subcommittees and becomes law, Florida would join the lofty ranks of states that pass extreme abortion bans knowing that they will be immediately struck down. For now, the bills main claim to fame is that it brought Pound, a man concerned for the fate of white culture, to the floor of the Florida House of Representatives. In his remarks Monday, which have since spread online, Pound rambled on about Mexicans and Muslimsneither of whom kill their babies, he claims and how a low fertility rate in the United States spells doom for the future of the country. His confusing remarks seem to run counter to a sentiment shared by the many anti-abortion conspiracy theorists who argue that abortion is a form of black genocide; for Pound, abortion needs to be stopped to save the white people. His conclusion: Its either repent or perish, America. Thats the way it is. University of South Florida students and alumni may recognize Pound as a campus preacher.You need to be free from your white savage mindset! he can be heard shouting in one students video project on the activist. Did God create Adam and Eve or Adam and Steve? he asks in another YouTube video. According to a 2009 Tampa Bay Times report, Pound, then running as a write-in candidate for sheriff of Pinellas County, was charged with aggravated stalking and violation of a domestic violence injunction for holding up signs next to his childrens school bus after they were removed from his custody in 2007. Those charges didnt stop him from running for sheriff again in 2012 and releasing a campaign video filmed in front of a towering crucifix. The publicity that Pounds remarks have received probably wont do HB 865 any favors. But perhaps his endorsement is exactly the kind that such an outrageous bill deserves. ROME Europe as we know it may be coming to an end. Few people under the age of 30 can remember when traveling from Italy to France to Germany and other countries within continental Europe meant a stop at every border for a passport check and customs inspection. But before the so-called Schengen Agreement that melded the union together was enacted in 1995, Europe was like a giant patchwork quiltwithout the pieces sewn together. Back then, each country had multiple sets of border controls on the roads, rail lines, and airports where not-always-friendly border guards raised a wary eyebrow to anyone country hopping. Passports were filled with different stamps from different border crossings, all of which admittedly seems like something out of a vintage movie. Now, slowly but inexorably, those old borders are coming back, as Europe grapples with the continuing migrant and refugee crisis that saw more than a million people enter the zone in 2015 alone. And as each country rebuilds its fences and suits up its border guards, Europe is coming apart at the seams. The latest bright idea on the table to deal with the migrant crisis is to suspend the 1995 Schengen Agreement for two years, starting in May. If that idea becomes fact, it would immediately stop the flow of humanity entering the many countries that dont want the refugees and migrants traipsing through their territory. Sounds simple perhaps, especially when you consider that most boundaries on the main highways and rail lines still have the ruins of the old border posts in place. But since it has been more than 20 years since most of these border controls were last used (back then the Internet was just a few years old and smart phones were still an item on Steve Jobss to-do list), bringing them into the modern era will surely be a tedious affair. And costly: it is estimated that re-creating and staffing the old checkpoints will cost in the tens of billions of euro. Nobody even wants to tally the overall cost to each member nation if Schengen is suspended, but they would be astronomical, says Federica Mogherini, high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and vice-president of the European Commission. Not just for the implementation, but in terms of economic impact on a divided Europe. It would surely cost more than what countries pay to resettle the refugees. The plan will certainly work to stop unwanted refugees in countries in northern Europe, but only by effectively bottlenecking them in Greece and Italy, where they enter by sea. More than 40,000 people have already arrived in Greece and Italy this year, according to the International Organization for Migration IOM. But putting aside for the moment the obvious pressure it would add to the sea border countries where the vast majority of migrants and refugees land, suspending Schengen would also exact a terrible toll on European citizens and all travelers who have become accustomed to effortless travel and free movement once within the confines of the Euro zone. And taking away Schengen leaves only the shaky euro currency as the common thread holding the fractured union together. Not even a year ago, experts were warning that the single currency was all but doomed. So much for European unity. If the spirit leaves our hearts, we will lose more than the Schengen, Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission president, told the Financial Times. A single currency does not exist if the Schengen fails. European companies that depend on the ease of exporting goods within the Euro Zone warn that border controls might deter businesses since delivery times would most certainly be hindered by red tape. By some estimates, the cost to those companies in having to reinstate customs that go hand-in-hand with border controls would cripple the express delivery system that now zips through the zone. The loss of this simplification could cost the express industry alone approximately 80 million per annum and at the same time significantly increase the volume of customs processes having to be undertaken, according to a report by Euro Express (PDF). Other transport sectors face possibly even greater increased costs with the withdrawal of this simplification. Border controls could also greatly impact businesses in border cities from expanding or even hiring other Europeanseven those who live a few kilometers away might have to go through lengthy passport controls to get to and from work. Consider for a moment all the budget airlines and city hop deals that are now in place across the country. Closed borders within Europe would also create chaos for air traffic and tourism, especially when you consider the budget lines that bank on easy country hops between nations that would, without the Schengen Agreement, have to either use larger and more expensive airports with customs centers already in place, or help build new facilities at pop-up airports that were never intended for international flights. A cheap round trip flight from Rome to Barcelona that now costs less than 50 bucks could triple as cheap airlines bear the brunt of border costs. Think about train travel, too, which has become so smooth in the last two decades that most long-haul pan-European travelers dont even know what country they are traversing. Road travel, too, would be fraught with delays as every car, camper, and semi-truck would have to be stopped so passports and cargo could be checked. None of that seems to matter. On Monday, Europes interior ministers met in Amsterdam where Klaas Dijkhoff, the Dutch immigration minister, insisted that the European Commission allow the enforcement of border controls and suspension of Schengen to any nation that deemed it necessary for at least two years starting in May. These measures are inevitable at this point in time, he said. On Wednesday, the EU went one step further and blamed Greece for not abiding by the Schengen-set rules on asylum that dictate that migrants entering the country be properly documented and vetted before being allowed to move on into Europe. Greece, which has seen 35,000 migrants and refugees arrive in the first three weeks of 2016nearly 3,000 a dayshot back that it was being scapegoated by Europe for a lack of a coherent policy in dealing with the migration crisis. Still, the EU warned Greece that it had three months to get in line or its borders could be closed for air and land travel, which many see as a first step in the disintegration of Schengen as a whole. On Wednesday, Anders Ygeman, the Swedish Interior minister, warned that Greece wasnt doing enough. If a country doesnt live up to its obligations, we will have to restrict its connections to the Schengen area, he said. Greece, in turn, blamed Turkey for not cooperating to stem the flow of refugees, but that blame fell on deaf ears. The IOM estimates that there are well over 2 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, with more arriving every day. And they are all heading toward Europe, borders in place or not. President of the European Council Donald Tusk told Deutsche Welle that the future looks bleak. We have no more than two months to get things under control, he said, or the EU will fail as a political project. And that failure will have global repercussions. Christian Brothers Apple brandy launched Heaven Hill Brands has launched Christian Brothers Apple, the third flavour extension in the growing Christian Brothers Brandy family. The newest addition takes a bite out of the popular flavoured brown spirits category, building on the fast-growing apple flavour and successes of CB Honey and Peach. CB Apple combines real, natural apple with the Christian Brothers Brandy, distilled from premium grape varietals and aged in hand selected oak barrels. This combination of two veritable classics will hit a sweet spot among consumers as apple-flavored spirits alone accounted for US$350 million of annual sales, according to 2015 Nielsen data. Likewise, flavoured whiskey is expected to grow 40% to nearly 9 million cases in 2015, according to Impact Newsletter. CB Apple is a classic from its core, integrating a storied brandy with an innovative flavour profile that has proven successful across other spirits categories, says brand manager MaryCrae Guild. Leading off the success of CB Honey and Peach, CB Apple is a natural extension for Christian Brothers Brandy as more consumers seek new flavour varieties. Christian Brothers Apple is available across the US in 50ml, 375ml and 750ml sizes bottled at 35% abv. (70 proof). Marketing materials will use the Christian Brothers CB & tagline by adding CB &a taste of apple. The RRP is US$10.99 for 750ml. 28 January 2016 - Felicity Murray The Drinks Report, editor Area science buffs can catch a glimpse into the future of transportation this weekend at Texas A&M University. The SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition from 1:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday at the Hall of Champions at Kyle Field is open to the public. Admission is free to the inaugural event, where student teams from around the world will present design plans for pods in a Hyperloop transport system. A&Ms College of Engineering is hosting the SpaceX event. Hyperloop travel doesnt exist yet, but the college and high school teams will be judged on their conceptions of pods that travel at high speeds within a low-pressure tube. Winning designs will build a prototype and test it at a California facility. In addition to checking out the more than 100 student booths, attendees can fly an F-22 jet simulator, watch a demonstration of a hoverboard and take a virtual tour of the Hyperloop test track. Also, a team from the University of California, Berkeley, is setting up a 60-foot-long model Hyperloop track. Throughout the afternoon, key players in the future of transportation technology will give a series of 15-minute talks in the Hall of Champions. Speakers include Brogan BamBrogan, a founder of Hyperloop Tech; Andrew Liu, a vice president at engineering and transportation firm AECOM; and Steve Davis, a director at SpaceX. The awards ceremony will begin at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday. Concessions will be available during the event. Its really geared more to high school-level and up, said Pam Green, director of communications for A&Ms College of Engineering. Its going to be fun and exciting. Former Texas A&M University President Robert Gates received an emphatic welcome in his return to Aggieland on Wednesday during an event that saw the former secretary of defense discuss a variety of topics addressed in his new book. Throughout the hour-long event, which was open to members of the Bush Library and Museum and invited guests, Gates shared excerpts from his book, as well as anecdotes about his experiences over the years with leadership. "The truth is that if we don't fix our institutions and do so urgently, it can have catastrophic consequences for our way of life, our financial security, our national security, our freedoms and, at times, our very lives," Gates said at the forum. "My new book is about how you actually can fix [government and business] institutions [and] how you can change and reform government and other big organizations that govern our day-to-day lives [to] make them work better, be more cost effective and more responsive to citizens and customers." While the majority of the talk focused on the themes of his book, Gates also didn't shy away from briefly weighing in on the presidential race and the state of affairs in the nation's capital. "When I say that it's a pleasure to be here, bear in mind that just a couple of days ago I was in Washington, D.C., which has been paralyzed by a blizzard -- just like before the blizzard," said Gates to laughter from the crowd. "In fact, the only thing unfrozen in Washington these days are Iranian assets." Gates also addressed the popularity of candidates like Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders, noting they have "tapped into a very real frustration on the part of many Americans." "Presidential candidates are talking in one way or another about the problems and inadequacies of government and business, but the candidates are largely focused on primal scream therapy rather than actual solutions," Gates said. He added that many recent "failures of institutions in both public and private sectors" can be attributed to a "lack of courageous, tough-minded leadership." During a question-and-answer session, nearly all of those who stepped up to the microphone to address Gates opened with kind words about impact that he had on each of their individual lives. Among them was a young man from Afghanistan -- who received a "whoop" from the crowd after announcing that he would soon be graduating from the Bush School -- who thanked Gates for his years of service and asked his advice on how the youth of Afghanistan can work to improve upon the work of current leaders in the country. "Twelve years back, I was a hopeless boy and did not have a future," the man said. "On behalf of myself, my family and my generation in Afghanistan, I sincerely thank you and the American people for what they have done. Without your support, I would not be standing here." Answering his question, Gates said leaders must stay away from the "tendency to become increasingly authoritarian, even if democratically elected" and focus on being humble when it come to their "sense of self." The event closed on a lingering question that was met with widespread applause when an audience member asked Gates if he would "pretty please run for president." Quick to answer, Gates deferred the question by letting the man know that his "wife knows where you live." Gates' book, A Passion for Leadership: Lessons on Change and Reform from Fifty Years of Public Service, is now on sale. Foreign carmakers are setting up more showrooms in the provinces as their cars become more popular here, mostly where development projects are underway. Data from the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association show that there was a 30-percent hike from 246 to 321 in the number of showrooms for imported car brands between 2009 and 2013. The region with the most noticeable increase is the holiday island of Jeju. Jeju attracts many Chinese investors and tourists as well as comfortably-off Korean parents who send their children to international schools there. Car rental firms there are also increasing their fleet of imported cars. While only 190 foreign cars were registered in Jeju in 2010, the number surpassed 3,400 last year. BMW set up shop in Jeju in March this year, and Volkswagen early this week. Ford and Nissan are about to follow. Wonju in Gangwon Province has also seen the number of imported car dealerships rise from just one to eight since 2009. The city is one of the cities designated for the government's "balanced development" plan, and the 2018 Winter Olympics is to be held in nearby Pyeongchang. Audi has been the most aggressive brand to open shops in the provinces, with six in Cheonan, South Chuncheong Province; Cheongju, North Chuncheong Province; Gunsan, North Jeolla Province; Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province; Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province; and Suncheon, South Jeolla Province. FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) Twenty years after 9-year-old Amber Hagerman was found dead in Arlington, a Hood County woman cried all over again. "It got pretty emotional," Diana R. Simone, the massage therapist whose idea for Amber Alerts has rescued 794 children, said. "I just wish something could have been done for Amber." Simone and a client, the late Rev. Tom Stoker of Fort Worth, were talking about the grim news and crying that day on the massage table. In the early days of brick-sized cellphones, she wondered aloud if an alert could be sounded for missing children. "Why not radio?" Stoker asked, popping up from the table. Simone called a KDMX/102.9 FM midday host, Kim Ashley, and the Amber Alert was born. Two decades later, it's finally working the way she imagined. The new cellphone Amber Alerts have rescued 21 children. That year, seven local radio station managers from competing chains, including Dan Bennett and Tyler Cox of what is now Cumulus Media's WBAP/820 AM and KLIF/570 AM, did the hard work to set up a local broadcast alert system, similar to those for thunderstorms. "Now people say, 'Oh, you're the one who thought up those phone alerts waking me up at 2 in the morning!'" Simone said. "But we're away from radio more now. People listen to their own music. But they take their cellphones everywhere." Until 2002, the radio managers always credited a "listener idea" and Simone remained anonymous. It was Stoker who unearthed a copy of her follow-up letter, and KDMX officials identified it. In 2002, she said she had never told anyone it was her idea because "it seemed to be working." It is. The incidence of child abductions by strangers has declined sharply since 1996, and the alerts also discourage family abductions that risk lives. "It's fantastic that it acts as a deterrent," Simone said. "It puts a million eyes on the lookout in a matter of minutes." Simone, now 70, is often held up as an example of the power of ideas. When The Dallas Morning News published a salute to Simone earlier this month (bit.ly/1PoY4Hs), the headline was: "Think 'just plain folks' can't make a difference? This life-saving woman sure did." "In today's world which too often seems to be going to hell in a handbasket and in which scoundrels, posers and just plain jerks get too much air time I wanted to make sure Diana Simone's name was lifted up," Grigsby wrote. Simone was sheepish. "It strikes me as so strange when people talk about me," she said. "The heroes are the police looking for these children, and the firefighters, and the people working in battered women's shelters. I only did something, just one thing, one time." But it has worked 794 times. Julia (Guntle) Stevens August 17, 1925 - January 26, 2016 Julia Jean Guntle Stevens stepped through the doorway of Heaven on January 26, 2016, from the Hospice Brazos Valley Inpatient Facility, with her daughter and son-in-law by her side. A celebration of life service is set for 11:00 a.m. Saturday, January 30, at St. Michael's Academy Chapel, 2402 South College Avenue in Bryan. The service will be preceded by a time to visit with the family from 10-11:00 am. Born in Frankfort, Indiana, on August 17, 1925, she was the thirteenth child of James Cloyd Guntle and Myrtle Estelle Hinton Guntle. Julia married the love of her life, Richard Stevens, on December 21, 1951, and they were devoted to each other for forty one years of marriage until he went to be with the Lord. She and Richard moved to Bryan, Texas, in 1981. They treasured country living in Edge for many years before moving back to Bryan. Julia delighted in listening to gospel music, watching old movies, traveling, cruising, and RVing and enjoyed reading a good book. Julia attended Skybreak Church and loved her church family. She faithfully served on the costume crew of "Messiah" through many productions and also enjoyed serving in other areas. Left to cherish her memory are daughter, Lisa Gail Lyon and son-in-law John Richard Lyon, with whom she made her home; granddaughter, Monique Nicole Lyon Hernandez and husband Luis of Bryan; grandson, Daryl Sean Richard Lyon of College Station, and granddaughter, Megan Amanda Lyon Young and husband Justin of College Station; great-grandsons, Bryson, Caiden, Jordan, Israel, Sylas and Jaxon; special nieces and nephews, Virginia and Donald Runner of Houston and, Janice and Sam Flowers of Frankfort, Indiana; and lifelong friend, Lois Appel of West Chester, Ohio. She was preceded in death by her loving husband, Richard, her baby boy, and all of her siblings. While we mourn her loss and will miss her dearly, we are comforted to know that she is reunited with loved ones that have gone before her. The family wishes to thank the staff of Hospice Brazos Valley Inpatient Facility for all of the loving care and attention provided to Julia and the family during her time there. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorials be made to Hospice Brazos Valley Inpatient Facility. Cremation services are in the care of Callaway-Jones Funeral Home and Crematory. Expressions of condolence may be made at callawayjones.com Transparency International said more than 6 billion people -- the vast majority of the global population -- are living in countries "with a serious corruption problem." "But 2015 was also a year when people again took to the streets to protest corruption," he said. "People across the globe sent a strong signal to those in power: It is time to tackle grand corruption." Jose Ugaz, chair of Transparency International, said the report shows corruption is still a "blight" across the globe. No country scored a perfect 100, but a few came close, with Denmark at 91, and Finland and Sweden each at 90. Low scores mean more corruption, and the report gave Somalia and North Korea an eight, while putting Afghanistan at 11. Transparency International released its annual Corruption Perceptions Index on Wednesday, relying on what it calls expert opinion from around the world to measure perceived levels of public sector corruption. A new report lists Somalia, North Korea and Afghanistan as the most highly corrupt nations on Earth. 'Serious Corruption Problem' The worst performing region is sub-Saharan Africa. Botswana ranks as one of the better countries in the world with a 63, but the report says most of those countries have a "serious corruption problem." "In many countries, including low scorers Angola, Burundi and Uganda, we're seeing a failure to prosecute corrupt public officials on the one hand, and intimidation of citizens who speak out against corruption on the other," the report says. It calls on governments to make sure the rule of law applies to everyone. Among the most corrupt nations are countries in the Middle East and North Africa that are dealing with the battle against the Islamic State group and persistent political instability. Islamic State fighters seized large areas in Iraq and Syria in mid-2014 and have managed to remain in control of major cities despite international military efforts. The report gives Iraq a 16 and Syria an 18 in terms of public corruption. The rise of ISIS and the ensuing fight against terrorism have been used by many governments as an excuse to crack down on civil liberties and civil society," Transparency International says, using an acronym for the militant group. "Far from helping, such an approach means that entrenched corrupt networks go unchallenged, often serving as yet further financial fodder for terrorism." Elsewhere in the region, the report scored Libya at 16, Jordan at 53 and noted improvements in Saudi Arabia, particularly with the expanded inclusion of women in politics, giving the country a 52 on the index. European Rankings In Europe, Transparency International cited concerns about harsh restrictions on civil society and free media in low-scoring countries Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Uzbekistan. It also expressed worry about "marked deterioration" in Hungary, Macedonia, Spain and Turkey, saying each once had hope for positive change but now has growing corruption and shrinking democracy. The region has some of the least corrupt nations in the world, but the report says even leaders Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway have had major corruption cases in the past year. Asia, the report says, is a region united by corruption, yet shows little sign of taking action against it. "From campaign pledges to media coverage to civil society reforms, corruption dominates discussion." Japan easily tops Asian nations with a score of 75, while the index gives China a 37, 35 for the Philippines and 21 for both Cambodia and Myanmar. Transparency International says countries in the Americas need systemic reform, especially when it comes to making judiciaries free from political influence. It also calls for better regional cooperation to prevent corrupt individuals from hiding in another country. Canada at 83 is the region's top scorer, with the United States close behind at 76. Uruguay and Chile also score as some of the least corrupt nations, while Haiti and Venezuela rank near the bottom with scores of 17. Many observers see race and class as factors in Flint, Michigan's drinking water crisis. Earlier this week Flint's mayor, Karen Weaver, said, "It's a minority community. It's a poor community. And our voices were not heard." We asked Robert D. Bullard, Dean of the School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University and a pioneering scholar in the field of environmental justice, to discuss how race and class have shaped the ongoing public health disaster in Flint. How do you think regulatory agencies would have handled Flint's drinking water problems if they were dealing with a middle-class, majority-white community? State regulators and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regional office in Chicago would have acted differently if this water crisis had taken place in a white suburb of Detroit. What happened in Flint is a blatant example of environmental injustice. The more information comes out, the clearer it is that this community was not treated according to the usual protocols. It was almost as if regulators didn't believe them and thought their health wasn't important. In studying the history of environmental justice, you see over and over that it generally takes longer for poor communities to be heard when they make complaints. Government officials received complaints in April 2014 expressing that something was wrong with the water in Flint. If regulators at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality had had to drink that water, or serve it to their children, their response would have been different. You've written about the role of race in government responses to disasters and public health crises. Do you see parallels between Flint's situation and other cases? There's a reason for the title of my book, 'The Wrong Complexion for Protection: How the Government Response to Disaster Endangers African American Communities'. We reviewed 80 years of disaster responses, from the 1927 Mississippi River flood to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the BP oil spill in 2010. What we found was that government is disproportionately slower to respond to disasters when communities of color are involved. Unequal protection is a reality. The right to clean air, clean water and safe places for kids to play is something that affluent communities take for granted. But many low-income and minority communities don't get parks, or street lights, or housing code enforcement, or safe drinking water. The cumulative environmental stresses in these neighborhoods create a toxic stew. And then government agencies don't respond when people complain. The government's nonresponse to Flint's water crisis is on the scale of the federal nonresponse to Hurricane Katrina. Why do you think regulators may discount complaints from low-income and minority communities? Do they think those residents don't vote, or are uninformed about the issues they are complaining about? Japan's royal couple arrived in the Philippines Wednesday for a historic five-day visit marking six decades of formal diplomatic ties between the two nations. President Benigno Aquino greeted Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko with a red carpet ceremony at Malacanang Palace, the official presidential residence, complete with a traditional honor guard and gun salute. Outside the palace, several hundred people rallied to demand justice for women forced into sexual slavery by women by Japanese forces during the war. Aquino and Emperor Akihito held talks at the palace before attending a ceremony at the country's largest war cemetery to honor those who died during Japan's occupation of the Philippines. Tens of thousands Filipino soldiers died marching to Japanese concentration camps or during confinement. SHARE Anthony Black By Gleaner Staff Anthony Black, interim principal and former assistant principal for Central Academy, has been selected as principal for the school. Black was named interim principal in December, when then-principal Kasey Farmer left to become the attendance specialist for Henderson County Schools. His role as assistant principal was filled in December, by then-North Middle School Principal Curtis Shelton. Becky Johnson was named interim principal at North. Black brings 13 years of experience with Henderson County Schools. Black began his career at Jefferson Elementary as a student teacher. Upon graduation from Murray State with a bachelor's degree in education, he was hired as an elementary teacher there in 2004. In 2013, he earned his master's degree in education administration from Oakland City University, and in 2014 taught math at Henderson County High School before taking the post as assistant principal for Central Academy in July 2015. "The staff at Central Academy School work diligently to help the students succeed not only academically but socially," Black said in a statement. "When they graduate, I want them not only to be college and career ready, but to be a productive and responsible citizen." SHARE By Tom Lovett of The Gleaner On Wednesday, Gov. Matt Bevin backed up his vocal support for the I-69 project and a new Ohio River bridge at Henderson. "So often we forget about the I-69 corridor," Bevin said Tuesday as he unveiled his two-year budget proposal during his State of the Commonwealth address to the Legislature. "The western part of the state has a very strong trunk as well, but it is a sapling by comparison to some of the others. That will change. "We are going to accelerate forward into this road plan the things that will allow us to look at the bridge in Henderson." "We were over the moon to hear him mentioning that," said Brad Schneider, president and CEO of Kyndle and member of BridgeLink, the coalition that advocates for the construction of an Interstate 69 Ohio River Bridge. Henderson Mayor Steve Austin echoed those sentiments. "I'm extremely happy that he mentioned I-69 and see it as favorable a situation for the state as we do locally." Schneider said he and BridgeLink Chairman Bob Koch of Evansville met with Bevin right after Christmas to talk about I-69 and the bridge. "We asked him to move up funding for environmental impact study slated for 2018; we asked to move that up to 2017 or sooner if possible," Schneider said. "That $2.5 million in the vast scheme of the project is not much but it's a key component." Schneider said he and Koch came away from the meeting pleased. "(Bevin) is huge believer in I-69 and its importance to our region." On Wednesday, the state released hard copies of the proposed road plan. As BridgeLink requested, the money for the environmental study was moved forward to 2017. The plan calls for $2.82 million to be allocated in 2017 for the environmental study but then goes on to call for $41 million for the project, spread out over three years, starting in 2019, to "develop alignment for Interstate 69 Henderson/Evansville Ohio River crossing." The project would receive $6 million in 2019, $20 million in 2020 and $15 million in 2021 for preconstruction work. "That's all new money (for the project)," Schneider said. Austin said the money in the road plan was exciting news. "Nothing can happen can happen until the environmental impact study is complete, so getting that will really put things on fast track," he said. "I think tolls will pay for about 50 percent (of the bridge's cost) so we'll need help from the state and federal governments, but getting that environmental study moved up is certainly important." To his knowledge, Schneider said Tuesday's address was the first time a Kentucky governor has used the State of the Commonwealth to advocate for I-69 and a bridge. "I don't want to give anyone the wrong impression, Gov. Steve Beshear was a strong supporter of I-69 and the (I-69) shields going up around Henderson are evidence of that, but he never used such a public platform," Schneider said. "Getting the bridge build is going to take a major show of support and Gov. Bevin did it." "We understand that his draft plan is just a suggestion; the Legislature has the final say, but we hope with the help of the Western Kentucky caucus, we can preserve all his suggestions for keeping I-69 moving right along." The road plan also calls for $11 million over two years (2018 and 2019) to replace the U.S. 60 bridge over the Green River at Spottsville. SHARE The following information is based on public records from local and area law enforcement agencies and/or court systems: HENDERSON CIRCUIT COURT Jacob R. Baker, 23, Evansville, pleaded guilty Monday to first-degree possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was granted pretrial diversion, supervised, for five years. Wesley N. Ice, 31, Petersburg, Indiana, pleaded guilty Monday to theft under $10,000 and being a second-degree persistent felony offender, operating a motor vehicle without a license and driving under the influence (second offense). Sentencing was scheduled for Feb. 22. William T. Billings, 20, 13000 section of Kentucky 136-East, pleaded guilty to second-degree robbery, amended from first-degree robbery and/or complicity. Sentencing was scheduled for Feb. 22. Steven R. Parr, 44, Cannelton, Indiana, pleaded guilty Monday to four counts of second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument. Sentencing was scheduled for Feb. 15. Jimmy L. Hazel, 39, 1000 block of North Elm Street, pleaded guilty Monday to first-degree possession of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and operating on a suspended/revoked license. A charge of improper signal was dismissed. Sentencing has been scheduled for Feb. 8. Phillip Z. Zornes, 26, address unavailable, pleaded guilty Monday to first-degree promoting contraband and possession of marijuana. He was sentenced to a total of two years. Aaron T. Cartwright, 36, 100 block of North Ingram Street, pleaded guilty Monday to first-degree possession of a controlled substance. He was sentenced to two years. Troy Sloan, 28, 900 block of Atkinson Street, pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree robbery, amended from first-degree robbery and/or complicity. Sentencing was scheduled for Feb. 22. Nikita B. Carey, 30, 1400 block of Wright Street, pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of second-degree assault, one of which was amended from first-degree. She was sentenced to 10 years total. Kylin R. Runyon, 20, 1300 block of Helm Street, pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree robbery, amended from first-degree robbery and/or complicity. Sentencing has been scheduled for Feb. 15. Bear Hoskins, 30, address unavailable, pleaded guilty Monday to theft by failure to make required disposition of property between $500 and $10,000. Sentencing has been scheduled for Feb. 15. Brittany L. Pirtle, 27, 100 block of North McKinley Street, pleaded guilty Monday to first-degree possession of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and public intoxication. She was sentenced to a total of three years. Michael D. Cox, 38, 2700 block of Winding Creek Lane, entered an Alford plea Monday to third-degree burglary and falsely reporting an incident. He was given probation for five years and must pay $400 in restitution. William Apka-Lord, 23, 400 block of Plum Street, was sentenced to a total of 11 years for use of a minor in a sexual performance, first-degree unlawful transaction with a minor under 16, possession of matter portraying a sexual performance by a minor, prohibited use of electronic communication system to procure a minor to participate in a sexual offense and failure to comply with the sex offender registry. HENDERSON POLICE DEPARTMENT Ashley N. Ohrt, 30, 1100 block of Atkinson Street, was arrested Friday, Jan. 15 on four charges of second-degree unlawful transaction with minor, while Jesse H. Huff, 35, also a resident in the 1100 block of Atkinson Street, was charged with two counts of second-degree unlawful transaction with a minor. The charges stem from Ohrt allegedly providing marijuana to four minors and smoking it with them, police said. Huff was charged for allegedly knowing two of the teens had smoked marijuana, a news release said. Both Ohrt and Huff were lodged at the Henderson County Detention Center. Cecil Davis, 18, 2700 block of Zion Road, was arrested Jan. 16, on a charge of first-degree rape. The offense stems from Davis allegedly forcing a juvenile to have sex. He was lodged at the Henderson County Detention Center. EDITOR'S NOTE: Those charged with crimes are considered innocent until they are found guilty in a court of law. Every effort is made by this newspaper to report the final disposition of each case. In the event we fail to do so, a call to our newsroom, 827-2000, will prompt a background check on those cases and, if necessary, a published report on the final disposition. SHARE By Don Babwin Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) A grand jury has indicted the wife of a disgraced northern Illinois policeman who embezzled money from a youth program and then staged his own suicide to look like a homicide. Melodie Gliniewicz, 51, turned herself in Wednesday at the Lake County Sheriff's Office when she learned of the grand jury indictment on charges of helping divert money from a program for teens interested in law enforcement careers. She was taken to the county jail, and was released later in the day after posting 10 percent of her $50,000 bond. Her husband, Fox Lake Police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz, died Sept. 1. Authorities said he shot himself because he feared discovery of the embezzlement from the Fox Lake Police Explorer Post. The officer's death touched off a manhunt involving hundreds of officers and raised fears that several killers were on the loose. Joe Gliniewicz was initially hailed as a community hero and praised for his work with the youth program. At the time, Melodie Gliniewicz's tearfully told hundreds of people gathered at a candlelight vigil that Gliniewicz had been her "hero" and her "rock." Two months after Gliniewicz's death, authorities announced he had killed himself after stealing from the village's Police Explorer program for seven years, prompting tough questions about why it had taken so long to reach that conclusion. The Lake County State's Attorney's office said in announcing the indictment of Melodie Gliniewicz that money from the police explorer's account was used for expenses including more than 400 restaurant charges, personal payments to a Starbucks and a local theater as well as a trip to Hawaii. Melodie Gliniewicz was indicted on charges of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority and for personal benefit. Joe Gliniewicz had run the Explorer program with Melodie Gliniewicz serving as an adviser and in a fiduciary role involving the program's finances, authorities said. In a statement, attorneys for Melodie Gliniewicz vehemently denied that she took part in her husband's scheme. "Melodie is a victim of her husband's secret action and looks forward to her day in court to show the world her innocence," said the law firm Kelleher & Buckley. Caption 1: Melodie Gliniewicz, 51, of Antioch, Ill., appears at the Lake County sheriff's office after she was indicted in Waukegan, Ill., by a Lake County grand jury. The grand jury on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, indicted the 51-year-old Gliniewicz on felony counts of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority for personal benefit. (Mark Welsh/Daily Herald via AP) Caption 2: Melodie Gliniewicz, right, of Antioch, Ill., appears at the Lake County sheriff's office after she was indicted in Waukegan, Ill., by a Lake County grand jury. The grand jury on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, indicted the 51-year-old Gliniewicz on felony counts of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority for personal benefit. (Gilbert R. Boucher II/Daily Herald via AP) Caption 3: Melodie Gliniewicz, right, of Antioch, Ill., appears at the Lake County sheriff's office after she was indicted in Waukegan, Ill., by a Lake County grand jury. The grand jury on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, indicted the 51-year-old Gliniewicz on felony counts of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority for personal benefit. (Gilbert R. Boucher II/Daily Herald via AP) Caption 4: Detective Chris Covelli, left, of the Lake County Sheriff's office speaks about the wife of disgraced Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz. Melodie Gliniewicz, 51, of Antioch, Ill., appeared at the Lake County sheriff's office after she was indicted in Waukegan, Ill., by a Lake County grand jury. The grand jury on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, indicted the 51-year-old Gliniewicz on felony counts of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority for personal benefit. (Mark Welsh/Daily Herald via AP) Caption 5: Melodie Gliniewicz, 51, of Antioch, Ill., appears at the Lake County sheriff's office after she was indicted in Waukegan, Ill., by a Lake County grand jury. The grand jury on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, indicted the 51-year-old Gliniewicz on felony counts of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority for personal benefit. (Mark Welsh/Daily Herald via AP) Caption 6: Melodie Gliniewicz, 51, of Antioch, Ill., appears at the Lake County sheriff's office after she was indicted in Waukegan, Ill., by a Lake County grand jury. The grand jury on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, indicted the 51-year-old Gliniewicz on felony counts of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority for personal benefit. (Mark Welsh/Daily Herald via AP) Most Iowans disapprove of Biden, believe US is on the wrong track WESTPORT -- Longtime Connecticut comedy purveyors Treehouse Comedy Productions have begun using their comedy-booking know-how for good. The 30-year-old standup comedy production company is a new franchisee of Rhode Island-based Funny 4 Funds, which provides comedians and marketing resources to groups who want to host a fundraiser in their area. "I love doing these things," Treehouse Comedy owner Brad Axelrod told The Hour. "It's so much more fun dealing with people that have a cause and want to raise money, and you can give them some insight into how to do it." While driving to work at the United Illuminating Company in Orange, Matt Casso's van was struck head-on by a vehicle he said drifted across three lanes. The driver of the vehicle was uninsured and was driving with an expired license, Casso said. "It's pretty much all on me and my sister," who has multiple sclerosis, Casso, of Naugatuck, told The Hour. Unable to return to work, Casso's medical expenses piled up as he attended extensive physical therapy and was forced to install stairlifts and special railings to his home. Casso said his boss at United Illuminating had the idea to approach Axelrod about holding a Funny 4 Funds benefit event. Treehouse Comedy's first Funny 4 Funds event was held at Riverview Bistro in Stratford to benefit Casso. The show featured as headliners Connecticut comedian Billy Winn and Funny 4 Funds founders Bill Simas and Mike Murray; 150 tickets were sold, and the event raised 4,700 dollars towards Casso's medical expenses. "It helps big time," Casso said. "The biggest part of it for me was I didn't care if I made a penny -- I was just so happy to see everybody." "The (Funny 4 Funds) organization is excellent," Casso added. "They make pamphlets, they'll make the tickets; they pretty do everything for you." Simas and Murray "came down and performed on the show and kind of rolled out their model of success," Axelrod said. "It was awesome to see all of the people that were there to support Matt, and it was awesome to see Matt out," Axelrod told The Hour. "At the end of the day, we wrote him a check for 4,700 bucks after all expenses -- and the beauty of that was it was on a Tuesday." Axelrod said he has several more charity events planned for March and April at venues around the state to benefit organizations like the Make A Home Foundation, Shoreline Social Opportunity Solutions, the Danbury Elks Lodge and Harrybrooke Park in New Milford. "We'll do 'em any place, any time, anywhere," Axelrod said. Axelrod founded the Treehouse Comedy Club in Westport in 1983. Over the years, the club bounced back and forth several times between Westport and Norwalk before assuming its present form as a production company affiliated with venues around the state. "The Treehouse was Connecticut's original and first full-time comedy club," Axelrod told The Hour. During the Eighties, the original Westport location hosted heavy-hitting comedians like Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Dennis Leary, Jon Stewart and Louis C.K. In 1989, Axelrod sold the lease to his Westport club and moved Treehouse to Norwalk, in the Connecticut Avenue shopping center that until recently housed Barnes & Noble. "We were there for a handful of years," Axelrod said. "we brought in Sam Kinnison, we played Chris Rock in that room, we played Bill Maher, Jeff Foxworthy, Kevin Nealon." In the mid-Nineties, the club moved back to Westport, to a location on the lower level of Porky Manero's. Then the club relocated to Norwalk; according to Axelrod, Lisa Lampanelli launched her standup career at Treehouse's open-mic nights during this last phase of the club's physical incarnation. Treehouse Comedy Productions now books comedy shows around the state, with regular venues in Westport, Trumbull, New Milford and New Haven. Chinese tourists can't seem to get enough of Thailand, with visitor numbers to the Southeast Asian kingdom surging over the past year at one of the fastest clips in the Asia-Pacific region. In a year that saw the Thai military government grapple with an outbreak of the deadly flu-like MERS virus as well as the bombing at a major shrine, Chinese tourists helped turn Bangkok into the region's most-visited destination in 2015, according to the first-ever MasterCard Asia Pacific Destinations Index published on Wednesday. All three Thai destinations in the 10 most-visited list -- Phuket was ranked fifth, Pattaya eighth -- recorded more than 10 percent year-on-year growth in international arrivals, outpacing other locations like Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, which were at No.2 and No.4, respectively. DARIEN -- Most people walk past trees and plants every day without paying much attention to the biological diversity surrounding them. "A lot of people walk through, and all they see is a tree," said Dan Landau of the Norwalk Tree Alliance, which oversees the more than 20 thousand trees that sit on city property. "They have no idea if it's a maple, or an oak, or what." "They may be able to tell a pine tree," Landau added. "That's pretty obvious." Western Massachusetts-based naturalist Michael Wojtech, author of the tree-identification manual "Bark: A Field Guide to Trees of the Northeast," would tend to agree. For Wojtech, an interest in the natural world and ecology is underpinned with a desire to sharpen his awareness and perceive the forest as more than just a "blur of browns and grays." Wojtech is "interested in introducing levels of perception and levels of seeing things," he told The Hour. "It's a good way to slow down." "I think (deepened awareness) relates to not just natural history, but to everything in life," Wojtech added. While studying conservation biology at Antioch University, Wojtech began studying tree bark, an often-overlooked arboreal feature that is the subject of his book as well as his upcoming talk at Darien Library Feb. 2. Both book and talk, Wojtech said, are "looking at a characteristic of trees that we don't look at that closely, typically, ... and also just in the curiosity of wondering why it looks the way it does, and why it looks so different on lots of different trees." By learning to identify trees by their bark, nature enthusiasts will not only learn to identify trees year-round, regardless of whether they are foliated; they will gain a deepened ecological perspective, according to Wojtech. For example, the pitch pine tree, with its thick, cork-like bark, grows in dry, sandy, fire-prone areas. According to Wojtech, the thick bark is "really a protective mechanism, because they live in a place where low-intensity fires are part of the ecosystem." The paper birch, which like the pitch pine grows in Fairfield County, has a distinctive white bark that peels off in strips. This peeling, Wojtech said, keeps the birch's outer protective layer relatively thin, allowing sunlight to penetrate to the bark's inner chlorophyll layer, allowing some photosynthesis to occur even when the tree has no leaves -- an advantage for a deciduous tree that, like the paper birch, grows in northern, wintery climes. Wojtech said the paper birch's white bark may also be due to its chilly habitat: daytime warming by the sun followed by rapid cooling at night can injure trees, causing cracks and fissures. "Now you have this white bark that doesn't heat up anywhere near what a dark tree does," Wojtech said. A familiarity with the trees and other flora near our home can be rewarding, Wojtech told The Hour. "For me, it's a way to connect with landscape, and connect with a place," Wojtech said. "They're always there. You can always find trees to look at and connect." Sabina Harris, chair of Tree Conservancy of Darien -- which with Darien Library, Darien Land Trust and Darien Nature Center is co-sponsoring Wojtech's lecture -- said Wojtech's philosophy of ecological knowledge as a way to connect with one's surroundings jibes with her organization's mission. "That's what attracted us to have him as our guest speaker, because he has a similar philosophy to us that a tree isn't just a tree; there's more to it," Harris told The Hour. "We hope that by people being able to identify trees, you might be able to get more of a connection to it," Harris said. Harris added that besides hosting educational talks, Tree Conservancy of Darien has planted trees in various locations around town, including Tilley Pond Park and the Connecticut Veterans Cemetery at Spring Grove Cemetery. Wojtech will share his knowledge about local tree identification and bark at his lecture, "Bark: Get to Know Your Trees", at the Darien Library on Tuesday, Feb. 2 at 7 p.m. NORWALK -- "We're really excited to be back at the Maritime Aquarium (at Norwalk)," said Marvin Baum, producer of the annual Chocolate Expo set to take place Sunday at the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk. "How can you not have a good time seeing sharks and tasting chocolate?" Offering chocolate items ranging from salad dressing to bath soap, 38 vendors from around the tri-state area and New England will make this year's fourth-annual Expo the biggest ever. The event, to be held in the Aquarium's Newman's Own Hall, will be a tantalizing feast for the senses, Baum said. On entering the hall, visitors will "be greeted by just that whole smell of chocolate, and the visual of chocolate there," Baum told The Hour. One of the vendors attending the Expo for the first time this year isSouthington-based Sixpence Pie Company, which has been featured on the Food Network and CNBC. According to Lisa Totten, who founded the bakery five years ago with co-owner Kara More, Sixpence Pie Company specializes in meat-filled savory pies. "It just ended up being very niche-y," Totten told The Hour, explaining how her bakery came to focus on meat-filled pies. "(It's) something that nobody in the tri-state area really does." In keeping with the Chocolate Expo's theme, Totten said she and More plan to bring chicken mole and chocolate stout beef pies, as well as sweet pies like chocolate-creme and banana-Nutella. As well as more vendors, this year's event includes demonstrations by celebrity chefs in the Aquarium's IMAX theater. Scottish Francis of the cooking show "Master Chef" and Tony "Tone-Tone" Albanese of "Cake Boss" will be among this year's high-profile demonstrators, Baum said. "We're attracting some really nice vendors now as the event has grown," Baum told The Hour. "We're bringing a variety of very interesting foods to this event." With his mascot Smokey the Pig in tow, New Jersey chef Larry Rosenberg will visit this year's Expo to sell his always-popular chocolate-covered bacon. Rosenberg said his company, Bacon Bites, has gone through about a million and a half pounds of chocolate since his chocolate-covered bacon proved an unexpected hit at the 2012 Philadelphia National Candy, Gift and Gourmet Show. "I had five hundred-something boxes made" for the show, Rosenberg told The Hour. "I needed four thousand." "It's gotten pretty out of control," Rosenberg added. "I cooked 52 thousand pounds of bacon last year!" Rosenberg, who owns a smokehouse in Pennsylvania, now slings his wares at bacon festivals across the United States. He will bring his full line of bacon-containing products -- pizzas, Oreos, peanut butter cups -- to this year's Chocolate Expo, and perform a demonstration in the IMAX theater at 4 p.m. "It's crazy, the whole bacon world. There's bacon festivals all over the United States," said Rosenberg. "People who like bacon are just die-hard." Baum said that for each year's Chocolate Expo Rosenberg puts a different spin on his chocolate-bacon recipe. "He's always coming with something brand new," Baum told The Hour. "It's popcorn; it's bacon; it's drizzle; it's bark." Savory, non-chocolate food items like crackers, cheese and pickles will also be represented, according to Baum. "When you go to a wine tasting ... you need to cleanse the palate," Baum explained, adding that the event will present an opportunity to stock up on Valentine's Day gifts and could make for a good pre-Valentine's date. "Everyone loves the Aquarium, and almost everyone loves chocolate as well," Baum told The Hour. "Chocolate makes people feel good, and that's what we want to do." The Chocolate Expo takes place Sunday, Jan. 31 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Newman's Own Hall at the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk. Expo admission is free with Aquarium admission, which will be available at a discounted price of 15 dollars for adults and ten dollars for kids aged three to 12. No IMAX movies will be shown on Jan. 31 to accommodate Chocolate Expo demonstrations taking place in the theater. CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- Thirty years after the Concord High School class of '86 watched social studies teacher Christa McAuliffe and six astronauts perish when the space shuttle Challenger broke apart on live TV, a number of them have gone into teaching -- and some wonder if, indirectly, the tragedy affected them enough that they wanted to make a difference, as she did. One of them, Tammy Hickey, didn't like social studies at all, but she enjoyed McAuliffe's law class. McAuliffe took Hickey and fellow students to courtrooms and conducted mock trials in class. Hickey remembers how personable she was, and how she shared her enthusiasm and experiences when she was in the running to be the first teacher in space. Hickey, now a junior high physical education teacher in Bradenton, Florida, just knew McAuliffe would be picked from more than 11,000 applicants. "As a teacher now, I know that I want to show respect and show my students that I care," Hickey says. "I can say to emulate how she was, would be a service to these kids for sure." Hickey joins a number of members of the class of '86 in Concord who became teachers and guidance counselors in the 30 years since they and other students of all ages nationwide watched with disbelief and horror as the shuttle broke apart 73 seconds after liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986, becoming a generational touchstone. "I try to be very mindful," says Joanne Walton, who teaches grades four through six in Fairfax, Virginia. She says she sometimes goes through a "What would Christa do?" mantra in her teaching. "She knew that teaching was way more than just imparting information and that it was really important to know students," Walton says. Holly Merrow, a math teacher for students in fifth through eighth grades in Camden, Maine, had McAuliffe for American Women in History, a class that McAuliffe created and is still taught at Concord High. She worries people will forget her and her motto: "I touch the future. I teach." "I hear people use it, and I wonder if they know that it came from her," she says. Members of the class of '86 have petitioned the Obama administration to have a national holiday named for McAuliffe and the Challenger crew, "to honor Christa and the other astronauts for their ultimate sacrifice." The hope was to reach 100,000 signatures by Friday, but it has fewer than 200 so far. Concord, a city of about 42,000, built and named a planetarium for McAuliffe, 37 when she died, then later changed it to the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, recognizing native son Alan Shepard, the first American in space. Just a few years ago, it named an elementary school for her. The city has been low-key on marking Challenger anniversaries as her family stayed in Concord and her young children, Scott and Caroline, grew up. Today, both are educators with children of their own. Caroline declined to be interviewed, and Scott did not respond to an email. "The passage of 30 years since the Challenger accident is not of great personal significance to our family," their father and Christa's widower, Steven McAuliffe, said in a statement. "For us, Challenger will always be an event that occurred just recently. Our thoughts and memories of Christa will always be fresh and comforting." McAuliffe, a federal judge, added, "We are happy to know that Christa's goals have been largely accomplished in that she has inspired generations of classroom teachers and students, and has focused public attention on the critical importance of teachers to our nation's well-being." Also Thursday, students at Concord High will hold a moment of silence, writing about their dreams as part of a "Reach for the Stars" assignment and listening to discussions about McAuliffe. They are gathering old yearbook photos and combing through the planetarium archives to put together a permanent display. Scott Reynolds, a 1987 alumnus who teaches science at the elite St. Paul's School in Concord, conducts a field trip to a local cemetery with his students for one course. The students, from all over the world, get demographic data from the gravesites and make a spreadsheet linking people's deaths to wars and diseases. When they're done, they drive by Christa McAuliffe's gravestone, and he asks if they know who she was. "There's always one kid who knows," he says. "I can't say I'm depressed. It's 30 years. It's completely understandable that they don't remember this. I'm more enlightened by the fact that there's always somebody who knows who she was." PARIS -- After years of tensions over Iran's nuclear ambitions, Europe is ushering in a new era of relations with the once-pariah state, welcoming Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Italy and France with high expectations that he can set in motion lucrative business deals and regional peacemaking. But there's also a note of caution, notably about Iran's human rights record and geopolitical goals. The end of economic sanctions after six nations struck a deal to curb Iran's nuclear activities means the country of 80 million will soon be flush with funds, allowing Tehran to spend and, some Europeans hope, end its isolation from the West. The visits to Italy and France are also part of efforts by Iran to reach out to its old partners to balance its diplomatic reach with eastern partners like China and Russia. Iran signed billions of euros in deals during Rouhani's first stop in Italy -- which also prompted controversy when officials covered up naked statues in a Rome museum in an apparent effort to avoid offending the Iranian leader. Italy's culture minister called the move "incomprehensible." At a press conference Wednesday in Rome, Rouhani invited American businessmen to join their European counterparts in investing in Iran and taking advantage of the new era of "win-win" collaboration after years of mutual losses. "It's possible, but the key is in Washington, not in Tehran," he said. "At the same time today, if American investors and the heads of the American economy want to come to Iran and invest in my country, there are no problems from our point of view." Rouhani, a relative moderate elected in 2013, flew to France later Wednesday and was meeting with Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron and a group of French business leaders. He's expected to oversee the signing Thursday of a bevy of contracts, including a possible deal with Airbus to renew Iran's fleet of passenger jets as Tehran looks to push tourism. Iran's aviation industry has suffered due to sanctions over the past three decades. Out of Iran's 250 commercial planes, only about 150 are flying. Oil giant Total, engineering group Alstom and carmakers PSA Peugeot-Citroen and Renault-Nissan, with a past presence in Iran, are among companies that could clinch deals, too. In Italy, the government and private companies inked more than a dozen accords with Iran covering the metals industry, oil services, rail transport and shipbuilding. Decades of sanctions have starved the Iranian economy and isolated Iran. The last Iranian head of state to visit France was moderate President Hassan Khatami in 1999 -- and he was the first since the 1979 Iranian revolution. France showed its eagerness to take up where it left off in Iran as soon as the July nuclear deal was signed. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius visited Tehran, as did an important delegation of France's main business group, known as Medef. Yet there are sticking points like Iran's poor human rights record, which is marked by hundreds of executions. Iran is also an active supporter of the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who France firmly opposes. France wants Iran to play a "positive role" in the Syrian war and become a partner in peace to resolve the conflict, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said. Rouhani was originally scheduled to visit Paris in November but the trip was called off after Nov. 13 Islamic extremist attacks that killed 130 people. Rouhani told reporters that he and Pope Francis discussed the need for religious leaders to speak out against extremism and terrorism during their audience Tuesday. But in an apparent reference to the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, attacked by extremists a year ago for lampooning the Prophet Muhammad, Rouhani said freedom of expression "doesn't mean offending that which is sacred to other people's faith." While saying that extremist violence must be condemned, the Iranian leader insisted that "all religions are to be respected, their books and the millions of people who follow the faith." Insulting them "creates division and doesn't help anyone," he added. ___ Winfield contributed from Rome. ___ Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield NORWALK -- The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Connecticut Department of Revenue Services will be at Norwalk Community College Friday to provide information about tax credit programs and free tax-preparation assistance available to low-wage Norwalk taxpayers. "We'll have a representative from the IRS and a representative from the Department of Revenue Services that can speak earned income tax credits or any of the other credits," said Lucille Vaughan, Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) coordinator for the Connecticut Association for Human Services (CAHS) in Hartford. "And we'll have brochures if they want to take the brochures away with them to give to family and friends." On Friday, members of the Norwalk VITA Coalition will be joined by Mayor Harry W. Rilling and Ron Peruzzi, a senior consultant with the IRS, at Norwalk Community College to announce the kick-off of the "Volunteer Income Tax Assistance" season in Norwalk. The event is scheduled for 1 p.m. in the East Campus Atrium of the college at 188 Richards Ave. Sponsored by the IRS, the VITA program works with low-moderate income families to file free state and federal tax returns. Families who had an income of $54,000 or less in 2015 may qualify for free tax preparation services, according to CAHS. "I strongly support this program and want to encourage Norwalk residents to use this valuable service," Rilling said in a statement released by CAHS. "I also want to thank the VITA staff and dedicated local volunteers who make it possible for low-income families to benefit from accessing their tax credits." The kick-off event comes as three VITA centers open across Norwalk this month to help low-income taxpayers. The Norwalk Community College VITA center opened Tuesday at two locations at the college. Walk-in services are available Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., in West Campus Room W138. Services are available Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 7 to 9 p.m., in the East Campus Atrium. A second VITA center will open Feb. 2 at Family & Children's Agency, 140 Water St. The center will be open Tuesdays, from 5 to 9 p.m. Services are by appointment only. To make an appointment, call (203) 523-5336. A third and new VITA center will open Feb. 2 at South Norwalk Community Center, 98 South Main St. Walk-in services will be available Tuesdays, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturdays, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., on the second floor of the building. Last year, trained VITA volunteers in Norwalk prepared almost 400 tax returns, returning $694,582 in state and federal refunds to local families, including $141,354 in federal Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC), which may have otherwise gone unclaimed, according to CAHS. The Connecticut EITC provides an additional credit for working families, which is 27.5 percent of the federal EITC. This tax credit helps provide low-income working families with children more money to pay monthly bills, pay off debt and save for emergencies, according to CAHS. "We are excited to provide free tax preparations," said Jim Horan, CEO of CAHS, which helps coordinate the VITA campaign across the state. "We are thrilled to have a large new site at the South Norwalk Community Center this year, and we offer tax filers other free services at all three sites to help them build long-lasting financial stability." Residents can call 2-1-1 or visit www.211ct.org, the United Way's free information hotline, for more information or to locate the closest location. For more information about federal or state EITC eligibility, visit www.irs.gov or www.ct.gov/drs/eitc. The government is determined to attract more Chinese visitors by easing visa requirements. The Justice Ministry said Wednesday it will lower the age requirement for multiple entry visas from the current 60 to 55. That would make another 80 million Chinese people are eligible for multiple entry. The ministry will also allow Chinese visitors to stay for up to 90 days at a time, up from the current 30 days. It is also introducing 10-year multiple visas for professionals such as lawyers and academics. Until now, Korea offered only five-year multiple visas to young people with Chinese or Southeast Asian passports who either attend or have graduated from universities here. Electronic visas will be available for all members of Chinese tour groups starting in March. So far, electronic visas were offered only to visitors from certain parts of China. In the second half of this year, the government will create a special visa for foreigners to come to Korea to attend K-pop-related events. Last year, 13.36 million foreigners visited Korea, down 6.3 percent compared to 2014. The decline was due to the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and a dismal 12 percent return-visit rate among Chinese tourists, most of whom seem disappointed by their first trip. William Clark Shackleton, 83, of Grand Island passed away Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016, at CHI Health St. Francis in Grand Island. Services will be at 2 p.m. Friday at Livingston-Sondermann Funeral Home Chapel, with Pastor Mike Wooten and Pastor Dan Brenton officiating. Full military honors will be performed at the funeral chapel. Visitation with family present will be from 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday at the funeral home. Inurnment will be in Fort McPherson National Cemetery near Maxwell at a later date. Bill was born near Almena, Kan., to Howard and Fay (Smith) Shackleton on July 20, 1932. At the age of 3, he moved with his family to Cornell, Wis., and lived there until Bill joined the United States Air Force in March of 1952. He returned home in 1956 and joined the family in Arapahoe. He later met Wanda Roberts and they were united in marriage on Sept. 13, 1957, in Beaver City. He was a hard worker and provider for his family. He relocated in 1966 to Lexington, where he worked at Cornland Pressed Beef plant until he started his own business repairing windshields in 1985. In 1986, he moved his family to Grand Island to continue his business, later retiring in 2005. After retirement, he was a crossing guard for Starr Elementary School and really enjoyed his interaction with the children there. Bill was a past member of Parkview Baptist Church in Lexington and attended Evangelical Free Church in Grand Island. He enjoyed woodworking, hunting, camping and especially his family. Survivors include his wife, Wanda; sons and their wives, Wayne and Jennifer of West Palm Beach, Fla., and Randy and Marji Shackleton of Grand Island; six grandchildren, Ashley, Kim, Cole, Dani, Christopher and Brooke; and numerous nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents and a brother. Memorials are suggested to the family for future designation. Online condolences may be directed to www.livson.com. Looking for the big games to watch in Week 9? We have them right here. On Friday, Jan. 29, the Saint Louis Science Center unveiled Above and Beyond, a new interactive exhibition exploring the wonder and science of flight and the transformative innovations that shape advances in aerospace. The exhibition is presented by Boeing [NYSE: BA] in celebration of the companys 100th anniversary in 2016. St. Louis will be the second U.S. stop on the five-year tour that will also include several international destinations. Innovations in aerospace have improved the way of life for people around the world, and we are excited that this exhibition helps visitors engage with the innovation, design and science that drive the remarkable achievements, while also having fun, said Bert Vescolani, president and CEO of the Saint Louis Science Center. We are excited to host Above and Beyond, which will educate visitors, while providing an entertaining experience. Our mission is to ignite and sustain lifelong science and technology learning, and we believe that offering exciting and engaging exhibits like this helps spark that interest and inspire a new generation of innovators. The 5,000-square-foot Above and Beyond exhibition offers unprecedented interactive experiences to inspire curiosity in, and exploration of, advances in aerospace, from the first powered flights to the newest innovations in aircraft and spaceflight. After entering an immersive wraparound theater, visitors venture into five galleries comprising dozens of interactive displays. Exhibit-goers can ride to the edge of space in a simulated space elevator or test their own supersonic fighter-jet design in a virtual high-speed flying competition. A group flying experience with motion-sensing image capture helps visitors learn what its like to fly like a bird in a flock, while exploring the forces of flight. Hands-on interactive, touch-table displays and augmented reality are examples of exhibit technology offering an experiential understanding of the scientific concepts behind flight and space travel. The impressive technology, design and spirit of this Above and Beyond exhibit bring to life the amazing contributions that companies like Boeing have made to the aerospace industry in the past, and provide a glimpse into the possibilities of the future, said Jim ONeill, senior St. Louis site executive, Boeing Defense Space & Security. We hope the experiences children have in this exhibit will inspire curiosity and lead them to become future innovators, engineers or business leaders. Above and Beyond will tour three venues a year, stopping at each venue for approximately three months. The U.S. exhibition tour is projected to draw 4.5 million to 5.5 million visitors. Tour stops will include St. Louis, Charleston, S.C., Seattle, Chicago and Houston, among other cities. The tour in 2016 coincides with Boeings centennial celebration, during which the Saint Louis Science Center will host the exhibition from January to May. Above and Beyond will also launch around the world in the Middle East, Asia and Europe. Above and Beyond is produced by Evergreen Exhibitions in association with Boeing, in collaboration with NASA and the Smithsonians National Air and Space Museum, and in educational collaboration with The Museum of Flight in Seattle. For more information on the Above and Beyond exhibition at the Saint Louis Science Center, please visit slsc.org. About the Saint Louis Science Center The mission of the Saint Louis Science Center is to ignite and sustain lifelong science and technology learning. It is one of the top 15 science centers worldwide and was named one of the Top 10 Science Centers for Families by Parents magazine. The Saint Louis Science Center complex includes a five-story OMNIMAX Theater, Boeing Hall and the James S. McDonnell Planetarium. For more information about the Saint Louis Science Center, please visit slsc.org. About Boeing Boeing is the world's largest aerospace company and top U.S. exporter, supporting airlines and U.S. and allied government customers in 150 countries. More than 160,000 employees at Boeing design, develop and build the worlds leading commercial and military aerospace products, including the 787 Dreamliner, the V-22 Osprey, F/A-18 Super Hornet and the CST-100 Commercial Space Transportation System. In 2014 Boeing was ranked #1 Innovator in Aerospace for the eighth consecutive year by the Patent Board and holds more than 14,000 active patents globally. About Evergreen Exhibitions Evergreen Exhibitions (formerly Clear Channel Exhibitions) is one of the world's premier providers of traveling museum exhibits. Evergreen Exhibitions conceptualizes, designs, produces, markets and tours its traveling museum exhibits, primarily in science, art, natural history and children's museums. The exhibits use educational concepts to create high-quality, immersing, multi-sensory, entertaining and educational experiences for family audiences. Nearly 100 million people worldwide have enjoyed an Evergreen Exhibitions experience. President Park Geun-hye plans to visit Iran now that international sanctions against the Islamic country have been lifted, Cheong Wa Dae said Wednesday. Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Jeong Yeon-guk said Park is "considering" visiting the country. The presidential office is in talks with Tehran to arrange a visit in the first half of this year, he added. The two countries have been talking about Park's visit behind the closed doors since last July, when the conclusion of Iran's nuclear talks with the West was imminent. Chinese President Xi Jinping was the first foreign head of state to visit Iran after the lifting of the sanctions, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is also planning a trip. Many countries are eager to do business with Iran, which with a population of 80 million is the largest market in the Middle East. Korea believes it is in a good position to beat the competition since it has maintained relatively friendly relations with Iran despite international sanctions since the Iranian revolution in 1979. The two countries established diplomatic ties in 1962, but there have been no state visits by their leaders until now. In 1978, Shah Reza Pahlavi invited President Park Chung-hee to visit, but the trip never materialized because the Shah was overthrown and Park assassinated. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Erika Anindita (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 House of Representatives Speaker Ade Komarudin and former House speaker Setya Novanto are nominated as candidates to replace Aburizal Bakrie as Golkar Party chairman. The nominations were announced on Wednesday in Jakarta by Golkar deputy treasurer Bambang Soesatyo, a supporter of Aburizal. The move follows demands by the Aburizal camp for an extraordinary national congress. Bambang also mentioned Golkar secretary general Idrus Marham as another potential candidate. "Those three names may finally compete in the race," said Bambang at the House of Representatives in Jakarta on Wednesday, adding that Ade could be the strongest candidate in the race. Ade replaced Setya, who resigned on Dec. 16, 2015 while the House's ethic council was investigating his role in a case of alleged misconduct. Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Sudirman Said had reported Setya to the council for allegedly claiming to have won the approval of President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo to help mining company PT Freeport Indonesia extend its contract for a gold and copper mine in Papua in return for company shares and projects. Ade Komarudin declined to comment on Bambang's statement, saying that the most importing thing was to unify the conflicting elements within the party during the extraordinary congress. "It's better to focus on unifying Golkar to restore it as one entity. The chairmanship is an easy matter," Ade said on the sidelines of a press conference. One of the aims of the Golkar national leadership meeting was to organize the extraordinary congress, which has received support from senior party leaders like Vice President Jusuf Kalla, former president B. J. Habibie and former Golkar chairman Akbar Tandjung. Meanwhile, the Agung camp also expressed support for the extraordinary congress on the condition that it, too, be involved in organizing the event. Both camps within the party see the national congress as the only solution to the internal conflict. Golkar is divided by rivalry between two factions; one led by Aburizal, who was elected at the party's national congress in Bali in November, 2014, and a splinter faction led by Agung Laksono, who was elected at the Ancol National Congress in December, 2015. (bbn).(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 An Indonesian journalists group has asked the government to review the permits of ten free-to-air television networks that will expire this year, amid concerns over the exploitation of air time to serve the business and political interests of the network owners. The Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) said on Thursday that the ten televisions ' RCTI, SCTV, Indosiar, TV One, Metro TV, Trans TV, Global TV and TV7 ' had been warned frequently by the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI), a state regulatory body, for their journalistic violations. 'The government does not need to renew their permits if they keep doing so,' the AJI chairman Suwarjono said in a press release. AJI notes the violations of the ten televisions consist of sadistic, impolite conversation, neglecting children's rights and misusing the media for political campaigns. Suwarjono said AJI supported the initiative of KPI to seek input from the public before making a decision on the ten television entities. The public is encouraged to offer suggestions and opinions until Jan. 31. 'I hope KPI can be transparent,' he asserted. Previously, a lawmaker and the Indonesian Television Broadcasting Association (ATVSI) rejected KPI's initiative to carry out public assessment. 'It does not make sense why a good intention has been rejected,' Suwarjono said, adding the KPI initiative should be a tradition. (dan)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Farida Susanty (The Jakarta Post) Tangerang Thu, January 28, 2016 State-owned airport operator PT Angkasa Pura II (AP II) is eyeing higher revenue and profits this year, banking its hopes on the operation of new terminals, including the newly expanded Terminal 3 at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten. 'We expect greater contribution from the planned operation of Terminal 3 Ultimate [at Soekarno-Hatta airport], as well as the newly operated airport terminals in Bandung, Jambi and Pontianak,' AP II finance director Andra Y. Agussalam said on Wednesday. Andra said the company expected revenue to jump 35 percent to Rp 7.5 trillion (US$541.1 million) this year from the corresponding period last year. The same trend was observed with its profits, which are expected to increase 14.2 percent to Rp 1.6 trillion this year from around Rp 1.4 trillion last year. Regarding the expanded Terminal 3 Ultimate, the company said the terminal would have a 15 million passenger capacity for the first phase scheduled to be in operation by May and 25 million passengers upon its full operation. Construction has reached 93.9 percent completion, according to the company's data. The additional revenue expected from the Terminal 3 Ultimate alone was Rp 508 billion for its aero business and Rp 330 billion from the non-aero business, said AP II commercial and business development director Faik Fahmi. 'That goes with the assumption that the terminal would start operating in May. We will really see the impact in 2017,' he said, referring to the full operation of the terminal. The company has invested Rp 10 trillion for the construction of the 42.2 hectare terminal, as well as water and electricity system, among others, sourced from loan and internal capital of the firm. The expanded terminal was intended to ease traffic at the crowded airport, which can only accomodate 25 million passengers annually, yet currently welcomes over than 62 million passengers annually. AP II, which manages 13 airports in the western part of the country, expects to increase the capacity of the terminal to 65 million passengers. 'As passenger growth is around 5 percent annually, and tolerance for the capacity is around 20 to 30 percent, we would be able to accommodate 80 million by around 2017,' AP II president director Budi Karya Sumadi said. National flag carrier Garuda Indonesia would move its flights to the new terminal by May, accompanied by the international airlines of SkyTeam, including Air France, China Airlines and Korean Air. 'We will also build a hotel and commercial area [around the terminal],' Budi said, adding that the company would synchronize the final launch with the railway heading to the airport, which was expected to see completion by February 2017. Apart from the new terminal, the company also stated that its subsidiaries to be launched this year in the cargo and property retail sector would also add to the company's revenue, as well as the planned increase in non-aero business to 45 percent this year from 34 percent in the previous year. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 Over the last two years, the Berlan drug syndicate, led by a 64-year-old woman known as Mama Yola, may have pocketed up to Rp 16.2 billion (US$1.16 million), part of which was likely used to fund boarding-house businesses, according to a Jakarta Police official. Jakarta Police's narcotics directorate head Eko Daniyanto said the police had seized three bank accounts belonging to Yola. According to Eko, the financial records showed that in 2014, no less than Rp 2 billion had flowed through one of the accounts. Meanwhile, last year, two other accounts recorded transactions totalling Rp 14 billion and Rp 200 million, respectively. 'The transaction totals are indeed extraordinary as they amount to more than Rp 16 billion. We are now conducting further investigations,' Eko said. He added that in the initial investigation, police had found that Yola had used the money to fund businesses involved with drugs and boarding houses. The police arrested Yola along with her daughter Anita on Jan. 21, a day after a brawl in her house during which a policeman and an informant with killed. The incident began when three officers and two informants raided Yola's house in Berlan, East Jakarta. Two police officers, Brig. Patrik and Brig. Taufik from the Central Jakarta Police, and two informants, entered the house while another policeman, First Insp. Hariadi Prabowo, guarded outside. Finding the policemen in the house, Yola and Anita began to shout, bringing 15 people rushing inside. The group attacked Hariadi before forcing the two officers and the informants into a corner with machetes. The four escaped the attack by jumping into a river behind the house. Patrik, Hariadi and informant Rudi survived, while officer Taufik and informant Jepri were found dead in the river. The police arrested Yola, Anita and other suspects the next day, when hundreds of joint personnel from the military, the police and the military police were deployed to Berlan to look for the alleged attackers and to clean the area of drug-related activity. In the joint operation, police detained three alleged attackers and fatally shot two others. Eight other attackers are still at large, but Eko said police knew their general locations to be Jakarta and Bandung, West Java. He warned the eight suspects to surrender to the police within a week. The suspects' family in the capital and in Bandung have been called on by police to hand over the perpetrators, instead of protecting them. Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Mohammad Iqbal said the police had teamed up with residents of various neighborhoods in the capital to anticipate similar crimes. He further urged the public to not hesitate to file reports to the police if they found any crime, particularly drug dealing, to be going on in their neighborhoods. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ganug Nugroho Adi (The Jakarta Post) Boyolali, C. Java Thu, January 28, 2016 Many of the children who were among the 354 members of the Fajar Nusantara Movement (Gafatar) that arrived at the Donohudan haj dormitory in Boyolali, Central Java, on Monday looked happy when counselors offered them toys. They were soon engrossed in the various toys ranging from puzzles and yo-yos to dolls, toy cars and balls, promptly forgetting their fatigue after their long journey from West Kalimantan. 'It's fun here. We had no toys in our new house [in the Gafatar compound in West Kalimantan]. We just slept at home,' said one of the children, 8-year-old Maya. Ahmad Rifai, 10, also appeared happy as he played with a coloring book and pencils he had received from the counselors. He said he could not draw or write while in West Kalimantan because there was no school there. Rifai said he and some other children his age did receive lessons but there was no classroom. They studied under a tree, with a neighbor as teacher. 'Sometimes we studied math, sometimes Indonesian, but we did not study every day,' he said. Rifai was previously a fourth-grader at an elementary school in Wonogiri, Central Java. He had to drop out of school six months ago to follow his parents to the Gafatar compound in Mempawah, West Kalimantan. Widya, 8, who hails from Yogyakarta, told the same story. She had to quit school when her parents took her to join the Gafatar members. She was a third grader before leaving for Kalimantan. 'I was sad because I could no longer be together with my friends and could not go to school. I want to go back to school,' she said. The children were among 2,000 Gafatar members who were forcibly evicted from their homes by a mob in Mempawah last week. Police and military officers evacuated them as their residential and agricultural complex was besieged by thousands of angry local residents. The residents destroyed and burned down the houses after they were abandoned. A car belonging to one of Gafatar members was also set on fire. The residents reportedly became angry after news reports circulated about missing Gafatar members and linked the group to Al-Qiyadah al-Islamiyah, which was founded by Ahmad Mussadeq. Mussadeq, who reportedly claimed to be a new prophet, was sentenced to four years in jail by the South Jakarta District Court in 2008 for blasphemy. Gafatar executives repeatedly denied that their organization was related to or based on any religion, but rather the state ideology Pancasila. Gafatar had reportedly run a home schooling program called Sekolah Berbasis Rumah (home-based school) in their chapter offices across the country before the organization dissolved itself in August 2015. The Home Ministry rejected an extension of Gafatar's permit in November, 2012. After the disbandment, many members migrated to Kalimantan to engage in communal farming. Leader of the psychiatric team for Gafatar members Hastaning Sakti said that the children's mental state was relatively good, but they were extremely tired due to their long journey. She said the children were in need of counseling to help them restore their emotional equilibrium, especially after witnessing their homes being burned. Imam Setiawan of Diponegoro University's Family Empowerment Center (PPK) said the children needed counseling to help them feel comfortable in their new environment. 'They need a few days to adapt themselves to their new environment,' he said. The condition of the children moved the commander of the Military Resort Command (Korem) 074/Warastratama, Col. Arhanud Toto Nugroho, to plan to send a team of psychologists to help the children regain their spirit to return to school. The Sebelas Maret University (UNS) has also prepared a team of psychologists and will establish a post to offer counseling to former Gafatar members for at least six months. Chairman of the psychology study program of the UNS' School of Medicine, Hardjono, said that Gafatar members might be traumatized and in need of counseling through a crisis center. 'The burning of their houses, their being evicted by locals could be a trigger. They also may have anxieties that they may not be accepted in their places of origin,' said Hardjono, adding that such trauma needed special psychological handling. Timeline * 2000: Al-Qiyadah al-Islamiyah founded by Abdussalam, also known as Ahmad Mussadeq, in Gunung Sari, Bogor * July 23, 2006: Mussadeq declares himself a Muslim prophet, replacing Prophet Muhammad, after what he claims to have been 40 days of meditation at Gunung Bunder, Bogor * Oct. 4, 2007: MUI announces that Al-Qidayah al-Islamiyah is blasphemous and urges government to ban sect * April 23, 2008: South Jakarta District Court sentences Mussadeq to four years in prison for blaspheming Islam * Jan. 21, 2012: Fajar Nusantara Movement (Gafatar) is launched in JIExpo Kemayoran, Central Jakarta * Nov. 20, 2012: Government orders disbandment of Gafatar, based on Home Ministerial Decree No. 220/2012 * June 2015: Banda Aceh District Court sentences six Gafatar leaders to three to four years in jail for defaming Islam. Court says convicts defamed Islam, as they acknowledged their spiritual leader, Mussadeq, as a messiah. * Aug. 13, 2015: Gafatar is dissolved * Dec. 30, 2015: Gafatar in spotlight after disappearance of physician Rica Tri Handayani and her child from Yogyakarta. * Jan. 15, 2016: As many as 54 people from different regions across Central Java are reported missing by their respective families and are feared to be linked to Gafatar * Jan. 19, 2016: Unidentified group of people burn down Gafatar camp in Monton Panjang area, Mempawah regency, West Kalimantan. Local authorities evacuate 796 people * Jan. 22, 2016: Government sets up program aimed at 'deradicalizing' members of Gafatar in order to reintegrate them back into their respective communities across the country * Jan. 23, 2016: Hundreds of members of Gafatar start returning to their respective hometowns ____________________________________ To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. For print subscription, please contact our call center at (+6221) 5360014 or subscription@thejakartapost.com Timeline ' 2000: Al-Qiyadah al-Islamiyah founded by Abdussalam, also known as Ahmad Mussadeq, in Gunung Sari, Bogor ' July 23, 2006: Mussadeq declares himself a Muslim prophet, replacing Prophet Muhammad, after what he claims to have been 40 days of meditation at Gunung Bunder, Bogor ' Oct. 4, 2007: MUI announces that Al-Qidayah al-Islamiyah is blasphemous and urges government to ban sect ' April 23, 2008: South Jakarta District Court sentences Mussadeq to four years in prison for blaspheming Islam ' Jan. 21, 2012: Fajar Nusantara Movement (Gafatar) is launched in JIExpo Kemayoran, Central Jakarta ' Nov. 20, 2012: Government orders disbandment of Gafatar, based on Home Ministerial Decree No. 220/2012 ' June 2015: Banda Aceh District Court sentences six Gafatar leaders to three to four years in jail for defaming Islam. Court says convicts defamed Islam, as they acknowledged their spiritual leader, Mussadeq, as a messiah. ' Aug. 13, 2015: Gafatar is dissolved ' Dec. 30, 2015: Gafatar in spotlight after disappearance of physician Rica Tri Handayani and her child from Yogyakarta. ' Jan. 15, 2016: As many as 54 people from different regions across Central Java are reported missing by their respective families and are feared to be linked to Gafatar ' Jan. 19, 2016: Unidentified group of people burn down Gafatar camp in Monton Panjang area, Mempawah regency, West Kalimantan. Local authorities evacuate 796 people ' Jan. 22, 2016: Government sets up program aimed at 'deradicalizing' members of Gafatar in order to reintegrate them back into their respective communities across the country ' Jan. 23, 2016: Hundreds of members of Gafatar start returning to their respective hometowns Remote islands like Heuksan, Ulleung, and Baeknyeong are to get their own small airports to make travel easier for islanders who can afford the flights. The government hopes to build small airstrips on the islands that can be used by small turboprops. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport is to release a draft plan at a public hearing on Thursday. According to the plan, the mini airports will be built on Heuksan in 2020 and Ulleung on 2021 for the convenience of islanders and to boost tourism. On Baeknyeong Island, the government plans to build a military airstrip that can also be used by civilian aircraft. "After the hearing on Thursday, we'll carry out feasibility studies," a ministry official said. "Currently, if you travel to Heuksan Island from Seoul, you'll have to go to Mokpo first and then take a ferry that takes about two-and-a-half hours. But once an airstrip is built, you can get from Gimpo directly to the island in just an hour," the official added. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Thu, January 28, 2016 The government will extend its support for the leader of the Golkar Party who was chosen by a national congress in Riau in 2009 to help the party organize another congress as part of the effort to end its leadership schism. Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna H Laoly said on Thursday that the relevant decree would be issued that day, as reported by kompas.com. The Riau congress selected Aburizal Bakrie to be party chairman, Agung Laksono to be deputy chairman and Idrus Marham to be secretary-general. Subsequently Golkar split into two factions: one led by Aburizal as chosen by a congress in Bali in November 2014 and another by Agung, who was elected at a conflicting congress in Ancol, Jakarta in December 2015. The government, the minister says, will give the Riau leadership six months to prepare for an extraordinary congress, whose results of which are expected to be accepted by the opposing factions. The Riau leadership roster was to have expired in 2014, but it was prolonged so the party could face the 2014 legislative and presidential elections. (bbn)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ayomi Amindoni (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 Former members of the controversial group Fajar Nusantara Movement (Gafatar) may be allowed to participate in a transmigration program provided by the government as long as they uphold the state ideology of Pancasila, a minister said on Thursday. The government would assist and put the former members of Gafatar who were recently forced from their homes by a mob to be included in a transmigration program, Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Minister Marwan Jafar said. "But on the condition that they no longer trouble about ideology. It is must be clear [they uphold] the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI) and Pancasila," Marwan told journalists on Thursday. The government would provide areas in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi to resettle them if they had nowhere else to go, he added. The government is also preparing an education program for the former Gafatar members who will return to the group's farm complex in Mempawah of the Pontianak regency in West Kalimantan, from which they were unlawfully evicted earlier this month. However, they will still face opposition to their return by members of a mainstream religion that accuse them of heresy and because of unsubstantiated rumors involving the unexplained disappearances of several member of the now outlawed group. Before they can reintegrate with the general society, Marwan said the former Gafatar members must first disband their organizational structure, with the help of the government's re-education program. "They have their own state structure. They have a president, a prophet and even their own ministers," he said. The Religious Affairs Ministry is also carrying out a re-education program with the former members of Gafatar to change their religious beliefs. Meanwhile, the Social Affairs Ministry is conducting promotional programs to try to make sure that they will not suffer from intimidation when they return home. Hundreds of people, mostly from Central Java, have reportedly gone missing after they supposedly joined Gafatar, although they allegedly moved to Kalimantan voluntarily as part of the group attempt to establish a headquarters there. A mob burned down the residences of several former members of the group in Mempawah last week and forced more than 1,000 of them, including children, from their homes and into temporary shelters. The government had tried to move individuals back to their home areas, but they continued to meet rejection from local people because of the perception that they are heretics. President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo called on his ministers to manage the issue well and to ensure the safety of the beleaguered citizens during the relocations. (rin)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 Rights organizations have slammed statements from government officials, discriminating against a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LBGTIQ) group, as unconstitutional, asserting on Wednesday that the minority group had their rights protected by the Constitution. LGBTIQ rights organization Arus Pelangi chairperson Yuli Rustinawati said the recent government officials' statement on banning LGBTIQ people from having their rights upheld had discriminated against Indonesian citizens who were supposed to be protected under the Constitution. "[The statement] contravened human-rights principles embodied in the 1945 Constitution that guarantees protection for all Indonesians from any discrimination for any reason," Yuli said. On Sunday, Technology, Research, and Higher Education Minister Muhammad Nasir said the LGBTIQ community should be barred from university campuses as they corrupted the morals of the nation when a university was meant to uphold moral values and the values of the ancestors of Indonesia. The statement was followed by various responses from other officials, including Culture and Elementary and Secondary Education Minister Anies Baswedan, People's Consultative Assembly chairman Zulkifli Hasan, House of Representatives member Reni Marliawati and Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil, who all made similar discriminatory statements against LGBTIQ people. Yuli said such discriminatory statements degraded the human dignity of the minority group and served as a form of hate propaganda that had the potential to trigger more violence and intolerant action against the group. "A country, particularly its government, is responsible for protecting, developing, upholding and fulfilling the human rights of its citizens," she said. Yuli added that the President should forbid and stop every violent action that discriminated against the LGBTIQ community, such as the raids and forced eviction from their houses carried out by the police and the Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) as well as religious civil organizations. "[LGBTIQ] did not do anything wrong, but they face sweeping raids. We want the government to stop this," she said. Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) program director Yasmin Purba said even though the latest data on the raids was still unavailable, the rights groups had received some reports on raids occurring in Bandung, West Java, and Jakarta. "We are afraid that the officials' statements will act as hate propaganda that will lead to further rights violations against LGBTIQ communities," Yasmin said. Transgender and Men Who Have Sex with Men Network (GWL INA) spokesperson Slamet Rahardjo concurred, saying Minister Nasir's statement barring the LGBTIQ community from universities had violated citizens' rights to an education in-line with human-rights principles. The government officials had also violated Nawacita, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's nine development priorities that promise to uphold human rights and legal protection of minority groups, Slamet added. "We urge President Jokowi to impose strict sanctions on the officials who have committed unconstitutional actions and betrayed the Nawacita," he said. To anticipate the rising threat, the rights groups has opened a hotline center for LGBTIQ community members who face raids, eviction, violence or discrimination. It has asked them to report to Arus Pelangi on +62-129-333-2150 or to GWL-INA on +62-226-540-3583. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ina Parlina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 Amid soaring beef prices, the government announced on Wednesday its ninth economic stimulus package, which included measures to stabilize beef supplies and prices by diversifying beef import sources and deregulating logistics. Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution said that under the new package, the Agriculture Minister would introduce a zoning system within a cattle-importer country, instead of using a country-based criteria, to help reduce dependence on a single country. 'A country can be declared as not having completely [foot and mouth or other] disease-free zones, but we can import cattle from a certain zone or area [within that country if free from disease],' Darmin added. Indonesia has become the largest importer of Australian live cattle, with total imports standing at 365,480 head of cattle as of June last year, or more than half of Australia's total live-cattle exports, surpassing imports from Vietnam and China, according to data from Meat and Livestock Australia. Meanwhile local farmers and businessmen have complained that the service of the livestock vessel KM Camara Nusantara 1, which was initiated by President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo to cut the cost of transporting cattle within Indonesia, is not viable. Under the latest economic policy package, the government will now also deregulate five ministerial regulations related to the logistics sector. For example, the government will introduce electronic single-billing for services related to customs and will improve a national single window for import-export services. According to Darmin, the government will also boost the use of the rupiah for transportation and logistics. 'It's probably a bit weird but the fact is that there are some transportation services, particularly logistics services, that still use foreign currencies' he added. Trade Minister Thomas Lembong said the deregulation in the logistics sector would provide extra flexibility for cattle imports. 'The main factor in the supply chain is logistics. Therefore, the package is expected to be able to increase competitiveness in transportation and logistics,' Thomas added. Wednesday's announcement on the new economic policy package was made following a limited Cabinet meeting earlier in the day in which Jokowi instructed his ministers to introduce a policy that would maintain the balance of costs between producers, traders and consumers. Elsewhere in the package, the government also decided to speed up infrastructure development related to electricity and the transmission grid, and would prepare a presidential regulation to support state-owned electricity firm PLN in developing electricity infrastructure. 'The policy will provide a legal basis for PT PLN so that it can immediately complete infrastructure development in an efficient and transparent manner,' Darmin added. The government, Darmin said, would also support PLN by ensuring its project-financing through state capital investment. The government has issued eight economic policy packages since early September last year, ranging from the simplification of export-import regulations to electricity price cuts, amid slowing global demand for local commodities and a six-year low in the country's economic growth. The government expects the non-oil and gas industrial sector to bounce back to a growth level of around 6 percent this year. Previously, Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) executive director Enny Sri Hartati said that while a growth target of 5.7 to 6.1 percent next year could possibly be achieved, it would require a lot of time and effort. 'I think the target can be achieved if the government is able to shift the existing [commodity-based] industry toward a processing industry. The thing is, can it be achieved quickly?' she said recently. Enny said that with the country's existing industry heavily relying on imports, industrial growth might not amount to anything higher than around 5 percent this year. Meanwhile, the Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) expects a brighter business outlook this year in spite of continuing external challenges. 'The 4.73 percent economic growth, which is higher than the 4.67 recorded in the second quarter, is a turning point,' Apindo chairman Hariyadi B. Sukamdani said recently. According to Hariyadi, the economic policy packages had boosted optimism regarding the country's economic situation as such measures indicated the government's commitment to overseeing growth, especially in the manufacturing industry. Manufacturing, Hariyadi said, contributed around 20 percent ' the largest of any sector ' to Indonesia's economy, followed by trade and agriculture. ______________________________________________ To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. For print subscription, please contact our call center at (+6221) 5360014 or subscription@thejakartapost.com Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Prima Wirayani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 Following a move by state-run telecommunications firm PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) to block US film streaming giant Netflix, analysts have lodged criticism of the government, suggesting the latter stipulate clearer guidelines and regulations on the operations of mobile application and streaming-based content providers. 'The government has to regulate Netflix, not ban it,' said LBP Enterprise analyst Lucky Bayu Purnomo on Wednesday. Lucky added that the government should view the new media as a challenge instead of a threat because similar businesses would flourish and try to enter the country in the future. Maybank Kim Eng Securities analyst Pandu Anugrah voiced a similar opinion, saying that the government should set a clear and consistent policy to regulate not only Netflix but other apps and streaming websites. 'This is a consequence of the era of digitalization, which will affect new regulations that need to be prepared or amended by the Communications and Information Ministry,' Pandu said in an email. Telkom Group, which owns cellular telephone operator Telkomsel and internet providers Indihome and WiFi.id, blocked on Wednesday access to Netflix on all of its internet services because the media streaming site had not fulfilled the country's prevailing regulations. 'We took the step to protect Indonesians and ensure proper services for them,' said Telkom corporate communications vice president Arif Prabowo. Telkom, as a state-owned enterprise, made the move to support the government and urge Netflix to begin discussions with related authorities about its operations, he added. The move was commended by Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara, who after a meeting between his ministry and the Indonesian Telecommunications Regulatory Body (BRTI) earlier this month gave Netflix a one-month period to complete its operating licenses. 'I understand and appreciate Telkom Group's corporate action to block Netflix access in Indonesia while waiting for our ministry's policy on the matter,' he wrote on his Twitter account on Wednesday. He added that Netflix as an electronic system operator (PSE) was required to fulfill Indonesia's regulations, such as forming a local legal entity and adjusting its content according to prevailing laws. The government previously indicated that it would study the possible impacts on the market before taking any action following the announcement by Netflix earlier this month that it would enter the Indonesian market. Netflix currently offers subscription rates starting from Rp 109,000 (US$7.86) per month with a one-month free trial. Corporate secretary of publicly listed cable television company and internet provider First Media, Harianda Noerlan, said that his firm was waiting for 'directions from the government' on its decision to block Netflix. He stated that the government should issue a regulation on the streaming media's operation in Indonesia as it charged its customers and generated income. However, he also said that his firm was ready to cooperate with Netflix on a mutually beneficial scheme. 'Netflix poses no threat to our business ['] as customers can make their own choices,' he said over the phone. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 The government needs to create a level playing field regarding its plans to allow 100 percent foreign ownership of big e-commerce companies, a local e-commerce chairman said. "The intention is actually good as e-commerce is an open market and thus it may be hard for the government to limit the operation of big foreign e-commerce companies. As local players, we are aware of it, but the government needs to explain the level playing field," Mataharimall.com chairman Emirsyah Satar told thejakartapost.com on Wednesday. Previously, Information and Communications Minister Rudiantara said Indonesians were already using services from big e-commerce companies even when they do not have a physical presence in the country. "Rather than letting all the profits go abroad, we will allow them to operate here with 100 percent ownership," said Rudiantara. Emirsyah said local e-commerce players were still discussing the matter. "Hopefully we will reach an agreement about the level playing field in March. One of the things that we're discussing is the reciprocity issue, as they're able to enter our market freely but we are not. The regulator needs to consider these kinds of issues," said Emirsyah. (kes)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 Jessica Kumala Wongso, 27, filed a report with the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) on Wednesday over the public and the Jakarta Police's blaming of her for the death of Wayan Mirna Salihin. According to Komnas HAM commissioner Siane Indriani, Jessica, accompanied by lawyers, complained about the recent situation in which she seemed to be blamed for Mirna's death. Siane explained that Jessica felt uncomfortable during investigations due to the rude attitude of the police. Meanwhile, through the press, the public tried to back her into a corner as if she was the murder suspect. The police raided Jessica's house without uniforms, Siane continued, and yelled at her relatives, using rude language over the phone. 'That treatment and those attitudes have embarrassed her and her family. All of her neighbors now think that she is the murderer,' Siane said after the meeting with Jessica. She added that the press should not have exposed her as if she were responsible for her friend's death. Siane also advised the police to keep working based on scientific investigation, instead of on public opinion. Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Mohammad Iqbal said that the police respected Jessica's move to file a report with Komnas HAM. He said that as a witness, Jessica had the right to defend herself. Jessica has been in the limelight over Mirna's death, which was caused by cyanide laced coffee. Shortly before Mirna died, Jessica ordered and paid for a cup of coffee for her at an eatery in Central Jakarta. After taking a few sips, Mirna suffered convulsions and died soon after. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Hans Nicholas Jong (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 Human-rights activists have condemned the persistence of prejudice against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people after controversy erupted recently surrounding a gender and sexuality counseling group at the University of Indonesia (UI). Human rights watchdog Setara Institute said on Wednesday that the public, including state officials, had shown of late an increased degree of intolerance toward LGBT individuals. 'We have to understand that there's a growing conservatism within our society. It has happened not only in public, but also among our officials. That's why there are officials who broadcast their personal values [and condemn the LGBT community],' Setara Institute deputy chairman Bonar Tigor Naipospos told The Jakarta Post. He was referring to Research, Technology and Higher Education Minister M. Nasir, who made a statement on Saturday arguing for the prohibition of LGBT students from university campuses. After a public outcry, he defended on Monday his earlier statement, saying he respected the right of individuals to choose their sexuality and had not intended to eliminate the discussion of LGBT issues on campus. Nevertheless, the former rector of state-run Diponegoro University (Undip) in Semarang said the presence of LGBT groups in Indonesia should be examined thoroughly by academia given the fact that Indonesia was a country that upheld theological and moral values. Bonar expressed criticism of Nazir's position and behavior. 'He should have been neutral, not forgetting [his role] to protect all Indonesians without looking at their backgrounds,' Bonar said. 'Even though we don't have regulations protecting the LGBT community, we hope officials and the public will refrain [from harassing the community].' After Nasir's statements, other public officials, including Culture and Education Minister Anies Baswedan, People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) speaker Zulkifli Hasan, Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil, delivered hostile remarks toward LGBT people. Anies, for example, said that parents and teachers should be concerned about 'deviant behaviors' among LGBT teenagers. 'They [the public officials] have said things that could escalate violence against LGBT people and could be used to legitimize the violent behavior of intolerant groups,' Yuli Rustinawati, the chairperson of LGBT rights watchdog Arus Pelangi, told the Post. The National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) deputy chairman Budi Wahyuni condemned the government officials. 'We are pushing for officials to be just and level-headed and not so easily stigmatize people based on any little thing. They should refrain from making statements that could provoke violence and discrimination,' he said on Wednesday. 'We also ask that the state, the public and the media listen to the problems faced by the LGBT community, whether it's discrimination, violence or human rights violations.' According to a study by Arus Pelangi in 2013, 89.3 percent of LGBT people in three big cities, namely Jakarta, Makassar and Yogyakarta, had experienced some form of violence because of their sexual orientation. 'We are worried [that people are growing more hostile following uneducated remarks from officials]. Therefore, we are opening a hotline for anyone [from the LGBT community] who feels worried or who has already experienced violence. They can call us or text us via WhatsApp messenger at 081293332150,' said Yuli. She added that Arus Pelangi, alongside other activists, planned to send a letter to President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo calling on him to stand up against the metastasizing discrimination and prejudice being directed toward the LGBT community. 'We are asking Jokowi to punish and reprimand the ministers and the lawmakers [who perpetuate discriminative behavior toward the LGBT community],' Yuli said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 A picture of American singing star Joe Jonas wearing a black jacket decorated with a printed rooster bowl, noodles, stinky beans and Rp 50,000 and Rp 100,000 banknotes has gone viral, with speculation circulating on the maker. 'It's a trending topic now in Indonesia's social media. They say @joejonas is wearing a Kenzo. No, he is not. He's wearing my sister's 'Hartono' collection,' claimed the owner of Instagram account @andrew_hartono late on Tuesday. The designer is Sherly Hartono, a graduate of Central Saint Martins art and design college in London, known at home for her satirical designs. The owner of clothing line Hartono included the jacket in her Fall/Winter 2015 Lookbook under the theme Just Lick It, a parody of Nike's tagline Just Do It. The collection of sporty street wear was 'inspired by the street culture of Jakarta', as stated in the online lookbook. Jonas was seen wearing the jacket at an event held by public relations master Karis Feinsten in Utah, the US, on the weekend, as well as at several radio events. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Nani Afrida and Ina Parlina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 Following the Transportation Ministry's refusal to issue a building permit for the construction of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, the project has hit another snag, as lawmakers urged the Air Force not to give up its land for the ambitious project. Following reports that the construction of Southeast Asia's first high-speed railway would require land belonging to the Halim Perdanakusuma airbase in East Jakarta, lawmakers from House of Representatives Commission I overseeing defense and foreign affairs called on the government to review the project. It was reported that one of the railway's stations would be located on land currently within Halim airbase. Besides the one in Halim, the government will also build another three stations along the route, in Karawang, Walini and Tegalluar, near Bandung, all in West Java. 'A military airbase is a vital facility and part of our defense system for Jakarta. It has a jet fighter squadron, military Airbus and the presidential airplane. The base is also part of an integrated defense system [...] so it would be a cause for concern if the land should be given up,' Commission I member TB Hasannudin of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) said in Jakarta. Hasanuddin went on to criticize the Defense Ministry's decision to hand over 49 hectares for the high-speed railway station. He said the ministry was giving too much away. 'The project itself only needs 8 hectares, while the remainder would be used for commercial purposes such as for hotels and shopping malls,' Hasanuddin said. The senior lawmaker warned the commercial facilities could pose a threat to the military's strategic assets. 'The military airbase and its compound require a security belt, so the presence of hotels and shopping malls nearby would entail security risks to our weaponry and our personnel,' he added. Hasanuddin suggested the government relocate the railway station from Halim to somewhere like the Cipinang Melayu area, which also has an Air Force asset. Air Force spokesperson Air Comr. Dwi Badarmanto said the Air Force had handed over a piece of land in Cipinang Melayu for the railway project. 'The railway network will be constructed in another area of Halim Perdanakusuma Air Force base, but it's still our asset,' Dwi said. He said the relocation was necessary to protect Air Force facilities. 'We have Air Force housing and many other facilities and these should not be relocated,' Dwi said. The government has launched a joint project with China to build the high-speed rail service, linking Jakarta to Bandung, the provincial capital of West Java. The groundbreaking ceremony on Jan. 21 was presided over by President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo, who signed an inscription on a large stone in Walini. The project is expected to be completed by 2019. The high-speed train, running at 350 kilometers per hour, is predicted to take 36 minutes to get from Jakarta to Bandung. The train will later be integrated with local mass transportation systems such as the Mass Rapid Transit and the Light Rail Transit. In his effort to ensure the project will proceed without hindrance, the President has said that he is open to suggestions from the public and that he will conduct a regular evaluation of the multibillion-dollar project. 'Since the groundbreaking, there have been some statements by lawmakers and members of the public, both pro and con. Of course the President listens to those suggestions [...] The President will consult relevant ministries regarding such input,' presidential spokesman Johan Budi said on Wednesday. Johan also maintained that Jokowi would conduct regular evaluations of the progress of the high-speed rail project. The 142.3 kilometer railway costing US$5.5 billion is being constructed by PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia China, a joint venture between an Indonesian consortium of four state-owned companies and China Railway International Co Ltd. The foreign ministers of the U.S. and China failed to reach agreement on Wednesday on how to deal with North Korea after its recent nuclear test. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington and Beijing agreed on the "need for a UN resolution" to impose sanctions but failed to provide details. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi claimed that sanctions against the North should not be the final goal and insisted China continues to stand behind the policy of engaging Pyongyang in dialogue. This makes it quite clear that China will not tighten the noose around North Korea's neck by limiting trade to the point where it really hurts. North Korea has responded to each and every UN sanction by conducting a nuclear or missile test. It has vowed never to give up its nuclear ambitions, and there is no chance that it will buckle under further sanctions. Now that China has more or less promised to sit on its hands, Pyongyang will push ahead full steam in developing a nuclear warhead small enough to mount on a missile and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Once it develops these weapons, the military balance on the Peninsula will tilt dangerously. Even if the South bolsters its missile defenses with the aid of the U.S., such defense systems will only offer us brief psychological solace while the country remains in the crosshairs of the North's weapons of mass destruction. Using conventional weapons to counter such a threat is ludicrous. The U.S. has passed the buck for taming North Korea to China, and China is doing nothing. Seoul now faces a real need for public discussion of the development of its own nuclear weapons. If the public wants the country to arm itself with nuclear weapons, the government will simply have to scrap a joint declaration from 1991 to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and initiate talks with the U.S. to obtain the right to enrich uranium and reprocess its own spent nuclear fuel rods. It will require delicate handling. If Seoul is too aggressive in pushing ahead with its own nuclear program, it could alienate the U.S. and face international sanctions. This would be devastating for an export-dependent country. And if it tries to obtain the technology on its own, its efforts could be thwarted by the superpowers, which will monitor every move. But Seoul can no longer sit idly by as the six-party talks lead to no results and Washington and Beijing are busy blaming each other for their diplomatic failures. North Korea has invaded this country in the past and has not hesitated to provoke Seoul repeatedly since the ceasefire agreement was signed in 1953. If it obtains nuclear weapons, the South faces a bleak fate. Would China come to the rescue if the North launched a nuclear attack against South Korea? Would the U.S. step in to protect Seoul? Judging by Washington's inaction in the military crises in the Ukraine and Syria, it would probably respond only after Seoul has been turned into a pile of smoldering ashes. The biggest victim of North Korea's nuclear weapons program is not China, Japan or the U.S., but the people of South Korea. They can no longer sit idly by and continue to ignore the options they have to deal with this threat. Read this article in Korean Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Tassia Sipahutar and Grace D. Amianti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 Indonesia will see its economy expand at a higher rate this year as the government and business players seek to develop untapped potential and spur higher investment realization from China, an investment forum concluded on Wednesday. The event, dubbed the 'Mandiri Investment Forum' and hosted by state-lender Bank Mandiri and its subsidiary Mandiri Sekuritas, saw the attendance of high-ranking government officials, central bankers and business players, among others. In his speech at the event, Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said the Indonesian economy had started to recover, as shown by the expansion in gross domestic product (GDP) in the third quarter of last year. 'We saw moderate growth in the first half of 2015, but that has since changed. Government consumption increased and we have already begun shifting from the commodities sector to the manufacturing sector,' he said, adding that the change was also reflected by data on regional GDP. The third quarter of 2015 saw GDP rise to 4.73 percent from 4.67 percent in the second quarter, according to data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS). Java ' with its factories and manufacturing businesses ' accounted for 58.27 percent of the economic distribution, and grew 5.39 percent year-on-year (yoy). Sumatra and Kalimantan ' known for their commodity resources ' only grew at an annual rate of 3 percent and 0.4 percent yoy, respectively. 'Some regions in Indonesia had higher growth than the national GDP, such as Bandung and Central Java, which grew by 8 percent and 5 percent, respectively,' Bank Mandiri president director Budi Gunadi Sadikin said, pointing out the need to push investment and economic growth across different regions. Bambang acknowledged the dampening effects of the ongoing economic slowdown in China, but insisted that China was still in a strong position and offered a lot of opportunities for Indonesia. 'We want to change the products that we export to China to finished goods from commodities. We want to attract higher investment from China as well, not just commitments, but also realized investments.' 'So we have to remain optimistic and find new opportunities. We have to maintain close economic ties with China,' he said, adding that he was optimistic that Indonesia could achieve its 5.3 percent GDP growth target this year. Meanwhile, Asian Development Bank (ADB) country director Steven Tabor said that Indonesia had not fully explored its export potential. 'Indonesia accounted for 1 percent of global exports in 2014. There is still 99 percent to be captured, plenty of room for expansion.' Tabor also highlighted the importance of tourism and e-commerce as new growth sectors. 'E-commerce contributes 9 to 10 percent of GDP in China, 40 percent of GDP in western Europe, but less than 1 percent of GDP in Indonesia.' The event was attended by more than 700 international and local participants and business practitioners. The event aimed to connect regulators, private companies, investors and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) through new partnerships and networking. In order to invite more investment into the country, Mandiri Sekuritas president director Abiprayadi Riyanto said the event was also attended by 60 mutual fund managers with assets under management worth at least Rp 270 trillion (US$19.48 billion). Despite looming market volatilities, Abiprayadi said investors and companies were confident that the Jakarta Composite Index (JCI), the country's main stock exchange barometer, could hit 5,000 this year due to accelerated government spending. 'With an improved situation, we hope our clients who delayed and rescheduled their equity issuances in 2015 will continue their corporate actions this year,' he said, adding that Mandiri Sekuritas had already booked seven mandates of debt paper issuances worth about Rp 9 trillion for this year. Bank Mandiri finance director Kartika Wirjoatmodjo said the event also wanted to promote the digital economy and encourage the formation of startups as new players in the private sector. Meanwhile, Gatot Trihargo, the State-Owned Enterprises Ministry's deputy for business services, said the ministry had completed a new roadmap for SOEs that would push them and their subsidiaries to build more partnerships with private companies and become global players. ____________________________________ To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. For print subscription, please contact our call center at (+6221) 5360014 or subscription@thejakartapost.com Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 Ecotourism is set to be developed in Aceh, Central Kalimantan and Papua following a new partnership between Indonesia and the United States. Under a five-year initiative called Lestari (everlasting), the partnership aims to achieve a balance between economic developments and green growth. The initiative's targets include the establishment of 10 public-private partnerships aimed at promoting low-emissions development. According to the latest data, said Reed Merill from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Indonesia was the fifth largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter with 85 percent of its emissions stemming from land-use activity such as deforestation and peat fires. National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) director of forestry and water resources conservation, Basah Hernowo, said the government would strive to bring together environment conservation and economic growth planning as coordination between the two had so far been neglected. He added that the government was also committed to reforming the bureaucracy by, for example, simplifying the permit process for attaining government-owned lands. USAID Indonesia environment office head John Hansen said small businesses should be involved in the project as they played an important role in driving the economy. "Ecotourism, if not planned correctly, can be as damaging as deforestation," said Hansen. (kes)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 Jessica Kumala Wongso, a key witness in the death of Wayan Mirna Salihin, on Wednesday visited the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) to report police's treatment to herself as if she had already been a suspect of the case. 'Jessica complained that she was treated like a suspect,' said Komnas HAM commissioner Siane Indriani as reported by kompas.com, adding that the media had also taken part in cornering her. Siane said Jessica, accompanied by her lawyer Yudi Wibowo during the visit, told Komnas HAM about the chronology before the death of Mirna at Olivier CafA, Grand Indonesia in Central Jakarta on Jan. 6 that was similar to what was explained by the police. Yudi said his client had to talk Komnas HAM to ease her depression. 'Jessica is in depression, therefore she came to Komnas HAM,' said Yudi as reported by kompas.com. The lawyer confirmed that his client complained about the media report that was not in her favor in connection with the case. Based on the simulation of the incident, Mirna, Hani and Jessica were at the cafA. Jessica came first and ordered a cocktail and a cold Vietnam coffee. Minutes after, Mirna and Hani came to the cafA and Mirna drank the coffee. After drinking, she suffered from convulsions and foamed at the mouth. She died on her way to hospital. The police had questioned Hani, Jessica and relatives of Mirna. The police had also raided Jessica's house after the incident. 'What she was experiencing [during the investigation] made her inconvenient. The first time she was summoned, the police investigators treated her rudely,' said Siane, citing Jessica's explanation during the meeting with her. Siane said that Jessica tried to assure Komas Ham that she is innocence in the death of Mirna. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ina Parlina and Suherdjoko (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta/Semarang Thu, January 28, 2016 President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo told his Cabinet members on Wednesday they needed to take care of the followers of the Fajar Nusantara Movement (Gafatar), a spiritual cult that seeks an alternative communal life for its members, who have been evicted from their community in West Kalimantan. 'They are citizens too. They are entitled to state protection,' Jokowi said, as quoted by the Coordinating Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan at a media briefing in his office. More than 1,000 Gafatar followers, mostly women and children, have been displaced after their housing complex in Mempawah was attacked on Jan. 19 by a mob of between 3,000 and 5,000 people. The attacks were triggered by reports, some released by government officials, that the cult posed a serious security threat to the country, and also to Islam. The government is currently in the process of evacuating the group to Java, where most of them originate from. The plan to send them back to their original Javanese villages, however, could meet with opposition from locals, many of whom have already said they are not welcome. Many Gafatar members have no home to go to, having sold their property and given all their money to the organization. The evictions had to stop, Luhut demanded, amid growing fears that similar Gafatar communities in 18 other provinces could face the same fate. The government previously stated that Gafatar was not registered as a mass organization and that it had hidden political motives. The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) has declared it a deviant sect. Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa said that the government was treating the evicted people as 'victims of social conflict', which entitled them to full state assistance. As of Tuesday night, there were more than 1,100 Gafatar members living in three separate barracks in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, waiting to be flown or transported by boat back to Java. On Wednesday morning, at least 712 Gafatar members, who had been evacuated from Pontianak on board Navy vessel KRI Teluk Banten, landed at Tanjung Priok Port in North Jakarta. Later in the day, 1,821 others from Ketapang, West Kalimantan, arrived at the Tanjung Emas Port in Semarang, Central Java. While in government care, they were receiving counseling, health care services, spiritual guidance and state guidance, as well as schooling for the children, Khofifah said, noting that in Mempawah, the children received home-schooling rather than attending state schools. Having spent the last two days with them, she said she felt a strong sense of community among Gafatar's members, and that they all worked as farmers on communal lands. National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti said 26 leaders of the group were currently under investigation to determine if they had violated any laws. They would be detained for questioning, he said, while the rest of the group would be sent back to their original villages. He also said that Gafatar was a reincarnation of the Islamic State of Indonesia (NII) movement, which fought on and off for decades to turn Indonesia into an Islamic state. They had the same objectives and motivations and the same methods, he added. 'We must not tolerate them, even though the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion,' Badrodin said, adding that although Gafatar leaders and members had dissolved the group, their practices remained. The MUI observed that Gafatar no longer used Islamic banners, as it had in the past in order to avoid a government ban, though it noted that the earlier group from which it metamorphosed, Al Qiyadah Al Islamiyah, had been banned and its leader Ahmad Musadeq jailed for four years in 2004 under the 1965 Blasphemy Law. Human rights campaigners have blasted the government for its indecisiveness in resolving the conflict, while National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) chairman Nur Kholis has expressed his disappointment over the government's lack of initiative in mediating the social unrest in Mempawah. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Cikarang, West Java Thu, January 28, 2016 Publicly listed pharmaceutical company PT Kalbe Farma is constructing its first biotech-based drug factory in Cikarang, West Java. It is hoped that the construction of the factory will help the country reduce its dependency on imported raw materials for drug production. The factory will produce erythropoietin, a biosimilar made from the cells of living creatures that will help the body form red blood cells and battle cancers, anemia and kidney failure. The factory is scheduled to be operational by the second half of this year. The company is expected to start selling the product next year after receiving certification from the government. The factory will be run by two of Kalbe's subsidiaries, namely PT Kalbio Global Medika and PT Kalbe Genexine Biologics, a joint venture between Kalbe Farma and South Korean biotherapeutics firm Genexine. PT Kalbio Global Medika will produce the ingredients and the medicine and PT Kalbe-Genexine Biologics will be in charge of research and development. Kalbe Farma president director Irawati Setiady said the new project would help the company expand its grip over the domestic and regional market. 'The construction of this biosimilar factory is a follow up to our commitment to supporting the creation of an integrated pharmaceutical industry, starting from raw materials production to technology expertise and exports,' she said during the groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday. According to the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM), 70 percent of drugs consumed in Indonesia are made by local firms. However, 90 percent of drug ingredients are imported due to limited technology development and difficulties for foreign investors to put money into the sector. Nevertheless, more companies are starting to go downstream. Earlier this week, state-owned Kimia Farma announced a plan to produce drug materials. BPOM chairman Roy Sparringa also announced at the event that five out of the country's 208 pharmaceutical firms had stated their commitment to opening biosimilar factories. Biosimilar is currently not as popular as chemical medicine though it has gained worldwide recognition as a better form of therapy for certain diseases. Halbe Farma's factory hopes to run at a maximum annual capacity of 10.5 million syringes. The company plans to sell 80 percent of its product in Indonesia, and export the remaining 20 percent to Africa and ASEAN nations. The product will be one of its newest items. In 2016, the company plans to launch five to 10 new products to boost sales. 'This year, we're aiming to boost sales by more than 10 percent to around Rp 20 trillion,' said Kalbe Farma corporate secretary Vidjongtius. To do that, the company has allocated Rp 1 trillion to Rp 1.5 trillion in capital expenditure, 50 percent of which will be used to develop prescribed medicines. The rest will be allocated for its over-the-counter drugs, consumer products and logistics business. Vidjongtius added that to support the company's ambition to help reduce the state's dependency on imported materials, the government needed to ease its formula for calculating tax derived from research and development. 'Research and development is expensive and a long term investment. The government could relax its tax formula so we can save more and innovate more,' he said. To encourage more foreign investors to manufacture raw materials in Indonesia, the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) has proposed a plan to allow foreigners to own 100 percent of a drug production company, up from the previous level of 85 percent. (rbk) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Haeril Halim and Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) questioned on Wednesday Golkar politician Budi Supriyanto, a member of House of Representatives Commission V overseeing infrastructure, for his alleged role in a bribery scheme involving fellow lawmaker Damayanti Wisnu Putranti. KPK investigators have alleged that Budi received S$404,000 (US$283,000) from a businessman who wanted to secure a construction project in Maluku. Investigators earlier arrested Damayanti, a politician from the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) for accepting S$99,000 from the businessman, identified as Abdul Khoir. Abdul is the CEO of construction firm PT Windhu Tunggal Utama (WTU). For 2016, the House has earmarked around Rp 1.4 trillion to fund several infrastructure projects in the Maluku and North Maluku provinces, some of which are being targeted by Abdul. After an eight-hour questioning on Wednesday, Budi denied received money from Abdul. 'No, I did not [receive] any money,' Budi told reporters at the headquarters of the KPK. The KPK raided Budi's office at the House compound last week. The raid was soon followed by the issuance of a travel ban, raising speculations that he would soon be named a suspect in the case. KPK spokesman Priharsa Nugraha refused to disclose details about Budi's role in the case, saying that the lawmaker was questioned on Wednesday as a witness for Abdul. Abdul's lawyer Haeruddin Massaro confirmed that his client had prepared billions of rupiahs to bribe 'a number of parties' to secure the Maluku project. Haerudin said, however, that his client did not want to participate in bribery. 'My client just followed a path regularly taken by others in getting government projects. If you go to a local traditional market, it is usually vendors who first make offers before a buyer says a word about what he wants to buy. That's the analogy,' said Haerudin. Haeruddin did not confirm or deny the existence of the $404,000 that his client had allegedly funneled to Budi. On Tuesday, Damayanti filed a proposal to become a justice collaborator to expose other bribe-takers in the case. KPK chairman Agus Rahardjo said that the KPK would look into Damayanti's request to work as a justice collaborator. 'She has requested [to become a justice collaborator] and we've received the letter. However, we need time to evaluate her behavior during the investigation and we will not make a decision until her trial,' Agus said. Separately, lawmakers sought clarification on the KPK's decision to involve members of the National Police mobile brigade (Brimob) when raiding the offices of Damayanti, Budi and Yudi Widiana of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) last week. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Grace D. Amianti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 New venture capital firm PT Mandiri Capital Indonesia (MCI), owned by state-run Bank Mandiri, has been launched to provide alternative financing for the country's potential start-up businesses. For the first phase, Bank Mandiri has injected fresh capital worth Rp 350 billion (US$25.2 million) into MCI and controls 99 percent of the company's equity, while the remaining 1 percent is held by its securities subsidiary Mandiri Sekuritas. Bank Mandiri is committed to increasing the company's total capital to Rp 500 billion, according to MCI president director Eddi Danusaputro. The company, which was inaugurated on Wednesday, will provide financing through private placements in prospective startup companies, especially 'financial technology' (fintech) firms that have recently become popular. 'At least 80 percent of the startups that we seek will be fintech companies. We have no problem with asset size of the startups as long as they have potential and good business models,' Eddi said in a press conference at the launch on Wednesday. He said MCI was currently conducting due diligence for prospective startups, also called 'investees', some of which had already showed their readiness to start partnering with the company. MCI also regards Mandiri Young Entrepreneur and Mandiri Young Technopreneur, which are competitive corporate social responsibility programs of its parent company and which seek out new entrepreneurs, as 'talent pools' to help search for potential startups. 'We also plan to build partnerships with local and global universities, business incubators and technology companies in order to screen potential startups and investors,' Eddi said. Eddi said MCI was ready to be a 'business incubator' for thriving startups, which often face difficulties in seeking traditional financing from banks and other financial companies as a result of tight regulation. He said MCI would open access to Mandiri Group's networks and customers and help widen market access for startup entrepreneurs who had already obtained capital. Eddi added that the company would be open to partnership with other venture capitalists through co-partnering schemes and clear 'exit strategies', or mechanisms for when they wanted to divest their stakes in the startups. MCI was also prepared by its parent company to build a joint-venture firm with BC Card, a South Korean payment system company, to enhance Mandiri's electronic data capture (EDC) system. Eddi said MCI would work together with Digital Artha Mandiri, an IT company owned by Mandiri Manajemen Investasi, a Mandiri second-tier asset management firm, in order to enhance Mandiri's e-cash and cardless electronic money (e-money) products. Bank Mandiri finance and strategy director Kartika 'Tiko' Wirjoatmodjo said the lender and BC Card were currently in the process of establishing the joint-venture company, which is expected to start operating next month. Tiko said previously that the joint-venture would help Mandiri to outsource its EDC system, allowing an open EDC platform for other banks wishing to utilize its payment and settlement services. 'As Mandiri's new subsidiary, the performance of MCI will be seen through the increase of its valuation, rather than dividends. I have yet to set a target for MCI, but usually valuations of fintechs double or triple in five years if they are successful, so we want to see the potential first,' he said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 The government has chosen to take a distant stance on state-run telecommunications firm PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia's (Telkom) decision to block the US-based Netflix, calling it a 'corporate privilege'. Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara said Telkom's move did not represent the government's stance despite Telkom's status as a state-owned enterprise. "Other internet service providers are still allowing Netflix access. So, it is a pure corporate decision," Rudiantara told thejakartapost.com on Thursday in Jakarta, adding that the requirement for Netflix to open a representative office in Indonesia was subject to regulations. Netflix combines three kinds of services, namely providing internet content, broadcasting and streaming instead of 'pay-per-view'. The streaming service is currently under review. Rudiantara acknowledged that among issues with Netflix was its content, which needed to go through Indonesian censors. "It will be difficult for Netflix. You can see for yourself on how much content there is [in Netflix] that must be censored," he said. Therefore, Rudiantara said the ministry was currently undergoing intensive discussions with the Culture and Education Ministry and the Umar Ismail Film Center to discuss a feasible way of censoring video-streaming content. (ags)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 House of Representatives (DPR) Deputy Speaker Fadli Zon said that former president Soeharto had contributed a lot to the country and that he should be remembered as one of the country's most important figures. 'Despite all the criticism toward him, Pak Harto contributed a lot,' Fadli said as quoted by kompas.com on Wednesday. Fadli said that Soeharto's greatest contribution was the economic progress that he had created while he was in power for 32 years. Soeharto died eight years ago at the age of 86. He was buried at a family cemetery in Astana Giri Bangun, Surakarta, Central Java. Fellow House Deputy Speaker Fahri Hamzah earlier backed a proposal for Soeharto be given the title of national hero. By promoting Indonesia's economic development, Fahri claimed that Soeharto had provided the country with strong infrastructure and a sound political structure. 'Public disappointment is fair. It is the same for every president,' he said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 The government has announced the ninth economic package, which is intended to boost the electrical infrastructure, to stabilize meat supply and deregulate logistics. The government would support state-owned electricity company PLN in achieving the ambitious 35,000 megawatt program, Economic Coordinating Minister Darmin Nasution said in a press release on Wednesday. The supporting measures include a capital injection, legal assistance such as in dealing with land conflicts, quicker processing of license procedures as well as the formation of a new company to ensure the supply of primary energy sources. "We want to reach an electrification ratio of 97.2 percent by 2019. With the ratio currently standing at 87.5 percent, the electric infrastructure needs to grow by 8.8 percent per year according to the economic growth assumption of 6 percent," Darmin said. He stressed that PLN had to commit to local industries by prioritizing domestic firms as suppliers and contractors in open book procurement processes. Regarding meat supply, the government plans to further open the import of beef or water buffalo meat and add more countries to the list of potential countries from where to source imports, beyond the main supplier countries like Australia and New Zealand. "In 2016, national demand reached 674,690 tons, equal to 3.9 million head of cattle. That demand could not be met [domestically], since national production is just 2.5 million head per year. That leaves a deficit of 1.4 million head or 235,160 tons, which needs to be filled with imports," Darmin said. The minister added that deregulation of the logistic sector was aimed at improving connectivity from villages to cities. Among other measures, the government plans to remove Communications and Information Ministry Regulation No. 9/2015, which states that commercial postal services must be more expensive than universal postal services. By removing this rule, private postal services like JNE and Tiki will be allowed to operate at the same price with state postal services. Furthermore, billing and payments for port services will be integrated in an electronic system to speed up processing. An electronic port system is to be developed to better manage port activities, such as yard planning, customs procedures, delivery orders, trucking and billing. The system, called 'inaportnet', will be integrated with the so-called national single window, which handles export and import documents. The government plans to make the use of rupiah mandatory in transportation activities, because the conversion of US dollars to rupiah in the current dollar transactions is higher than the Bank Indonesia exchange rate. As another element of the latest economic policy package, the government aims to create synergies with state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in building a creative economy. SOEs will support the development of domestic creative products with high potential, such as furniture, Muslim clothing, traditional food, jewelry and movies. (bbn)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 The National Police have named and detained three men as suspects on allegations of harvesting and selling kidneys to hospitals, the practice of which is in violation of Law No. 36/2009 on health and Law No. 21/2007 on human trafficking. Head of subdirectorate III at the police's detective division, Sr. Comr. Umar S. Fana, told reporters on Wednesday that the three men ' Yana Priatna alias Amang, Dedi Supriadi bin Oman Rahman and Kwok Herry Susanto ' had allegedly promised 15 victims large sums of money if they were willing to donate their kidney, but were only given Rp 70 million (US$5,050) after undergoing a transplant. Furthermore, the suspects promised that a kidney transplant would not negatively affect their health. 'The modus includes promising victims money for giving one of their kidneys to those in need ['] The problem is that those who donate and receive kidneys must receive medical treatment for up to three months. However, they were immediately sent home [by the hospitals] and that Rp 70 million is not enough for [the victims] to get proper treatment,' he said at the National Police headquarters in South Jakarta, adding that the victims were all aged between 20 and 30 years old. The recipients of the kidneys allegedly paid Rp 225 million to the suspects, with a down payment of Rp 10 million. The police said evidence showed that Herry received the largest sum at Rp 110 million and the rest was divided between Yana and Dedi. Umar explained that the victims ' who hail from south Garut, south Bandung and Soreang among other regions in West Jakarta, ' were all from the lower-income bracket and worked laborious jobs, deeming them unqualified to become kidney donors. He added that the three suspects had once sold kidneys abroad. However, due to strict regulations that limited donors to blood relatives in several countries, the three men decided to keep their operations domestic with both Indonesian and foreign national patients as their customers. 'There has been indication that some of the people who received [the kidneys] were foreigners,' Umar said. Umar said that police officers were also investigating the involvement of the Jakarta hospitals that received the kidneys. 'We are investigating whether they also had motives to buy and sell the organs, or if they just committed malpractice,' he said, declining to disclose the names of the hospitals. He said that according to the law, organ donors must be intensively interviewed to verify their relationship with the organ receiver and profession. However, Umar said, none of the victims were interviewed and only underwent tests at a hospital in Garut to determine whether they were a match with the receiver. Health Ministry secretary-general Untung Suseno Sutarjo told The Jakarta Post that he had yet to hear of the case. However, he said that if a doctor was involved then they could have their license revoked. 'Doctors must obey regulations and regulations stipulate that organ donors cannot involve an exchange of funds. [So if a doctor is involved] then we can obviously revoke their license,' he said. Untung acknowledged that it was sometimes difficult to prevent financial exchange between an organ donor and receiver. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Erika Anindita (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 The former boss of a state-owned port operator will be interrogated for the first time by investigators of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) as a suspect in connection with the procurement of three quay container cranes (QCC). KPK investigators accuse the former president director of PT Pelindo II, Richard Joost Lino, of committing corruption when his company purchased the cranes through the direct appointment of their supplier. Lino was accused of misusing his authority to enrich himself by conducting the procurement from Chinese company Wuxi Huadong Heavy Machinery Co. Ltd. (HDHM) in 2010. 'Yes, we have summoned Lino for interrogation on Friday,' KPK spokesman Priharsa Nugraha told thejakartapost.com on Thursday. Lino was named a graft suspect late last year for his alleged role in the US$20 million deal, but the anticorruption body had to delay interrogating him because he challenged its move by submitting pretrial motion to the South Jakarta District Court. On Tuesday, the court's sole judge, Udjiati, rejected Lino's pretrial plea, announcing that the KPK's investigation into him was legitimate. Priharsa said the KPK sent the summons letter to Lino's house on Tuesday. The KPK also imposed a six-month travel ban on Lino on Dec. 30. (bbn) (+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 Hundreds of individuals and civic organizations are urging the government to protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and questioning (LGBTIQ) people amid discriminating statements made by officials against them. Some 490 individuals and 115 nongovernmental organizations across Indonesia signed a joint statement on Wednesday in support of the LGBTIQ in the country. The Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta), the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI), LGBTQ rights organization Arus Pelangi, Transgender and Men Who Have Sex with Men Network (GWL INA) and the Indonesian LGBTIQ Forum are among the groups that participated in the event held on Wednesday. The protection of the basic rights of LGBITQ people was important, activist Dhyta Caturani said at the event, citing a 2013 study by Arus Pelangi that said 89.3 percent of LGBTIQ people had experienced psychological, physical, sexual, economic and cultural abuse. All discriminatory statements showed that the state had violated the human rights of its own citizens, Dhyta said, and that the statements were contrary to one of the state's main duties of protecting all citizens against discrimination of any kind. "The officials have given the right to intolerant people to incite violent against the LGBTIQ community," Dhyta told journalists on Wednesday, adding that the statement may lead to the criminalization of and violence against the LGBTIQ. Similarly, National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) commissioner Magdalena Sitorus also said in 2014 the commission received 37 reports of physical and sexual abuse against LGBTIQ women. "The government should be fair and not make statements that may ignite violence and discrimination," Magdalena said. Research and Higher Education Minister Muhammad Nasir said on Sunday that the LGBITQ community should be barred from university campuses as they "corrupt the morals of the nation". Nasir's statement was followed by a public outcry urging him to take it back for fear that it would trigger attacks against the LGBTIQ people. Other officials then jumped on the bandwagon, such as Cultural and Education Minister Anies Baswedan, Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil, lawmaker from the United Development Party (PPP) Reni Marlinawati and People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Speaker Zulkifli Hasan, who all made similar statements. (rin)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Safrin La Batu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 Gerindra has become the first political party in Jakarta to officially announce its eight possible candidates for challenging incumbent Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama in the gubernatorial election next year. Among the eight are Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil and businessman Sandiaga Uno, who is also a member of Gerindra's advisory board. Ridwan did not attend the announcement on Wednesday, but Muhammad Taufik, chairman of Gerindra's Jakarta chapter, said Ridwan had confirmed his readiness by letter and by email. Six other possible candidates announced were: Jakarta councilor Muhammad Sanusi, House of Representatives legislator Biem Benjamin, Gerindra secretary-general Ahmad Muzani, former deputy defense minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, Jakarta regional secretary Saefullah and Muhammad Taufik himself. The eight would start campaigning and laying out their visions and missions until June when the party would reduce their number to three, Taufik said, adding that the three would be selected based on their popularity in an internal party survey. 'We cannot conduct the survey now as some of the would-be candidates have just started [to introduce themselves],' he said. A recent poll by Jakarta-based think tank the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) showed that while Ahok was the most popular candidate among Jakartans, he is lagging behind Surabaya mayor-elect Tri Rismaharini and Ridwan in terms of likability. The poll, conducted between Jan. 5 and 9 and involving 400 respondents, shows that 94 percent of Jakartans are familiar with Ahok and 45 percent of them will vote for him in next year's election. However, in terms of likability, Risma scored better with 85.54 percent, followed by Ridwan with 85.02 percent and Ahok in third with 71.39 percent. 'We are very sure that our party candidate will come out as the winner in the election,' Taufik said when asked whether his party candidates would be able to beat Ahok. He argued that his party would be able to increase its candidates popularity using the same strategy it used to boost Ahok's electability several years ago when he ran for Jakarta vice governor on a ticket with now President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo. 'No one knew Ahok several years ago. His popularity was only 7 percent, far below [then governor] Fauzi Bowo,' he said. 'These are not just claims. We can prove it with data.' Ahok was a member of Gerindra but then decided to resign from the party in 2014 after the party supported a motion that regional leaders be selected by members of the House of Representatives instead of by their respective constituents in regional elections. Meanwhile, Sandiaga, who attended the announcement, said winning the upcoming race would be challenging as polls showed Ahok was still above other possible candidates, including him, but said he believed that Gerindra would be able to increase the following of any of its candidates. 'The numbers are significant [in predicting elections] but there are many instances where Gerindra has successfully boosted a candidate's popularity,' he said. 'I am a businessman and I used to work with only three employees when I started. Now my business has more than 30,000 employees. The key [for winning the election] is hard work,' he said. He said one way to increase his popularity was by introducing his vision and strategy for improving people's financial situation in the capital. 'Ahok is already on track, but the Jakarta administration has not comprehensively creating a good climate for the business sector. For example, start-up businesses have yet to be developed,' he said. 'What I want to do now is to introduce my vision 24 hours a day and seven days in a week to Jakartans,' he said. Although several political parties, including the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), have said they will pick Ahok as their candidate in the upcoming election, Ahok has often said that he will run as an independent. A General Election Commission (KPU) requirement stipulates that in order to run as an independent candidate, a person must prove that they can secure at least 7.5 percent of all voters registered at the KPU for that area. With around 7 million voters currently registered for Jakarta at the KPU, he would have to prove at least 525,000 supporters by providing copies of their ID cards. So far, Ahok's supporters, known as Teman Ahok (Friends of Ahok), have gathered around 630,000 copies of ID cards belonging to Jakartans who support his candidacy. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ralph Jennings and Christopher Bodeen (The Jakarta Post) Taipei Thu, January 28, 2016 Taiwan's president, defying a rare criticism from key ally the United States, visited an island in the disputed South China Sea on Thursday to emphasize Taiwan's sovereignty claims in the increasingly tense region. Accompanied by about 30 staff members, Ma Ying-jeou spoke at a national monument on Taiping, also known as Itu Aba, and reiterated his call made last year for peaceful coexistence and joint development with other claimants. The island is part of the Spratly archipelago, where China, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and the city-state of Brunei have overlapping claims. Roughly 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) south of Taiwan and 46 hectares (110 acres) in size, Taiping is the largest naturally occurring island in the area. It has recently been eclipsed in size, however, by man-made islands created by China out of reefs and shoals. China has built housing, ports, airstrips and other infrastructure on the newly created islands, drawing accusations from the US and others that it is exacerbating tensions in the strategically vital region. Ma cited infrastructure developments, including a 10-bed hospital and a lighthouse, saying they reinforced Taiwan's claim of sovereignty and granted it rights over the surrounding waters. Taiwan is spending more than US$100 million to upgrade the island's airstrip and build a wharf capable of allowing its 3,000-ton coast guard cutters to dock. "All this evidence fully demonstrates that Taiping Island is able to sustain human habitation and an economic life of its own. Taiping Island is categorically not a rock, but an island," Ma said. The Philippines expressed concern over the trip, and US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Wednesday that the United States was disappointed, saying it could exacerbate tensions. "President Ma Ying-jeou has every right to make his position clear on the South China Sea. We just disagree with this particular action. We view it as, frankly, as raising tensions rather than what we want to see, which is de-escalation," Toner said. During a visit to Beijing on Wednesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry encouraged all parties in the South China Sea to clarify their territorial claims, exercise restraint and engage in negotiations on the basis of international law. Taiwan stations about 200 coast guard personnel, scientists and medical workers on Taiping. It occupies a number of other islets in the South China Sea, including the Pratas island group to the north. There was no immediate response to Ma's visit from China, although a spokesman for the Cabinet's Taiwan Affairs Office on Wednesday repeated Beijing's claim to "indisputable sovereignty" over the South China Sea islands. "Safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity and the overall interests of the Chinese nation are the common responsibility and obligation of compatriots on both sides" of the Taiwan Strait, Ma Xiaoguang told reporters. China and Taiwan hold identical claims to the South China Sea, aligning with Beijing's "one China principle" that considers the two part of a single Chinese nation. Beijing has threatened to retaliate to any formal change in Taiwan's legal status with military force. Coming near the end of his eight years in office, Ma's visit is the second by a Taiwanese leader. Former president Chen Shui-bian visited in 2008 when he delivered a similar message. Ma, who has been criticized at home as weak on foreign policy, must step down in May due to term limits and analysts said he considers the island visit a capstone to his time in office. Opposition party president-elect Tsai Ing-wen declined an invitation to go on the trip. Tsai won a decisive victory over the candidate from Ma's China-friendly Nationalist Party in this month's election while leading her independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party to a majority in the legislature, casting new uncertainty over the future of Taiwan-China relations. "President Ma...views advancing [Taiwan's] maritime interests as part of his legacy," said Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington. "His visit to Taiping will further incite nationalistic fervor in the claimant countries and increase tensions." ___ Bodeen reported from Beijing. Associated Press writer Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ralph Jennings (The Jakarta Post) Taipei Thu, January 28, 2016 Taiwan's president, defying criticism from key ally the United States, departed Thursday to visit to an island holding in the disputed South China Sea. Accompanied by about 30 staff members, Ma Ying-jeou left the capital Taipei early in the morning aboard an air force C-130 cargo plane bound for Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba. Taiping lies in the Spratly island group, an area where Taiwan shares overlapping claims with China, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. The city state of Brunei also claims a part of the South China Sea. Taiping is the largest naturally occurring island in the area, but has recently been eclipsed in size by man-made islands created by China out of reefs and shoals. China has built housing, ports, airstrips and other infrastructure on the newly created islands, drawing accusations from the U.S. and others that it is exacerbating tensions in the strategically vital region. Taiwan stations about 200 coast guard personnel, scientists and medical workers on Taiping. It occupies a number of other islets in the South China Sea, including the Pratas island group to the north. There was no immediate response from Beijing, but the Philippines, which occupies a string of islands and reefs near the island Ma will visit, expressed its concern over the trip. "We remind all parties concerned of our shared responsibility to refrain from actions that can increase tension in the South China Sea," Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Charles Jose said in Manila. Coming near the end of his eight years in office, Ma's visit aims to emphasize Taiwan's sovereignty claim over the South China Sea. Hemmed in diplomatically by China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, Ma's government also wishes to be seen as a legitimate actor in the struggle for influence in the area, where tensions have been sharpened by China's increasingly robust assertions of ownership. Ma, who has been criticized at home as weak on foreign policy, must step down in May due to term limits and analysts said he considers the island visit a capstone to his time in office. Opposition party president-elect Tsai Ing-wen declined an invitation to go on the trip. "President Ma...views advancing (Taiwan's) maritime interests as part of his legacy," said Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington. "His visit to Taiping will further incite nationalistic fervor in the claimant countries and increase tensions." U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Wednesday that the United States was disappointed by Ma's trip, saying it could exacerbate tensions. During a visit to Beijing on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry encouraged all parties in the South China Sea to clarify their territorial claims, exercise restraint and engage in negotiations on the basis of international law. "I stressed the importance of finding common ground among the claimants and avoiding the destabilizing cycle of mistrust or escalation," Kerry said following a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The U.S. takes no position on who owns the islands, but says developments in the South China Sea are a matter of national security. The sea is home to key shipping lanes as well as important fisheries and a possible wealth of oil and natural gas reserves. Tensions have been especially high since Beijing transformed seven disputed reefs into islands. The U.S. says the new islands don't enjoy the status of sovereign territory and sent a guided-missile destroyer close to one of them, called Subi Reef, in October in a challenge to Beijing's territorial claims, sparking warnings from China. (kes)(+) ___ Associated Press writer Christopher Bodeen in Beijing and Jim Gomez in Manila contributed to this report. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 Two Australian nationals were arrested on Wednesday night for allegedly operating illegal chiropractic clinics in Jakarta and Bali. 'The people had tried to escape from the police arrest through the roof of their house,' said the head of the Jakarta Police's general crime division, Sr. Comr. Krishna Murti, on Thursday. The two were identified by police as Antony Dawson, allegedly the owner of the clinics, and Thomas Dawson, whom police claim to be a fake doctor who offered services in the clinics. During his interrogation, police say Dawson told them that he had one clinic in Bali and five in Jakarta. Police shut down all Chiropractic First clinics in Jakarta several weeks ago after the emergence of an alleged malpractice case that they claim caused the death of a woman, Allya Siska Nadya, who received treatment from one of the clinics. Allya reportedly went to the Chiropractic First clinic in Pondok Indah Mall on Aug. 5 last year for a consultation for neck pain. She underwent her first session with Randall Cafferty, an American doctor, on Aug. 6 to address the problem. However, when Allya returned home she suffered from severe pain in her neck and she died on Aug. 7 in the hospital, which issued a medical report saying she had died with abnormalities in her neck bones. The police have named a number of suspects in connection with the case, including Cafferty, who reportedly had already returned to his country. (bbn)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 28, 2016 The United States is taking steps to support Indonesia to improve its law enforcement, particularly to tackle illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. In its efforts, the US Department of Justice will be involved in providing training for prosecutors and judges, US Ambassador to Indonesia Robert Blake said on Wednesday when speaking to reporters at the American cultural center, @America. "Many of these illegal activities are linked one way or another. [We] really strongly believe that as we make progress to stop illegal fishing, we will also make progress on related illegal activities," Blake said. According to Blake, the two countries are also discussing initiating a new program to build cooperation between Interpol and Indonesia to assist in law enforcement in the fishery. These efforts aim to not only confront illegal fishing but also to reduce related illegal activities like trafficking in persons and illegal wildlife products, illegal logging and even drugs, says Blake, because these fishing boats are often used for many of those activities as well. Mas Achmad Santosa, head of the IUU fishing prevention task force, said there is still a lot that needs to be improved within the country's criminal justice system. "The weakness in our system lies in the ability to detect, respond and punish," Mas Achmad said. There needs to be an overhaul of the criminal justice system in dealing with fishery crimes, he said, adding that the integrity of the bureaucracy and justice system is vulnerable. According to data released by the World Bank in 2015, fishery crimes cost the country US$20 million in economic losses and over-fishing threatened about 65 percent of Indonesia's coral reefs. On this issue, the US government, through is development agency, also launched a $33 million five-year sustainable fishery program that will focus on protecting biodiversity in Indonesia's coral triangle area. The Indonesian government's efforts have produced results. From Oct. 2014 until Dec. 2015 the government sank 117 boats and revoked the business permits of 15 companies. There will be continued efforts this year with Rp 500 million assigned to the task force. The series of US government-led initiatives is being implemented as part of a growing maritime collaboration between both nations as a result of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's visit to Washington in October of last year. The signing of a memorandum of understanding on maritime cooperation by both nations sought to expand cooperation in marine areas to deepen engagement in five different sectors, namely maritime security, maritime economy, marine resources and fisheries conservation and management, maritime safety and navigation and marine science and technology. (bbn)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Nancy Benac (The Jakarta Post) Washington Thu, January 28, 2016 The long-running drama of Hillary Clinton's marriage ' her husband's infidelity and how she dealt with it ' is back as a subtext in this year's US presidential race. The issue has a new, sharper edge this time: Voters are processing old events in an era of heightened concern about sexual assault and after Republican Donald Trump characterized Democratic candidate Clinton as an "enabler" of her husband's indiscretions and alleged that she had helped to discredit his accusers. Both Clintons have tried not to engage, each uttering the identical "I have no response" when questioned separately about the matter. And plenty of Americans are right there with them on that: Bring up Bill's behavior and Hillary's coping techniques and they suddenly become monosyllabic and start glancing around for the exits. But Hillary Clinton has plopped the question squarely in Americans' laps days before the Iowa caucuses Monday open voting in the 2016 campaign. "I'm going to let the American voters decide what's relevant and what's not relevant," she said when asked about Trump's accusations during a recent Democratic debate. It's no small matter for Clinton, who draws a lopsided share of her support from female voters and for decades has made advocacy for women a big part of her persona. It's especially important as she tries to attract a generation of younger women who only learned about the Clinton presidency in history class and have come of age in a time of different attitudes toward sexual harassment and abuse. Clinton's Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders, complains about being asked about the Clintons' "personal stuff" when he'd rather focus on issues. But he's also made clear he considers Bill Clinton's past behavior "totally, totally, totally disgraceful and unacceptable." Interviews with dozens of potential voters around the country reveal strong and opposing views about how ' and whether ' Clinton should be measured by how she dealt with her husband's behavior. "The personal stuff is irrelevant," pronounces Brian Brown, a 56-year-old former professor and Democrat from Antrim, New Hampshire. "I don't like how she swept it under the rug, but then again, you don't know what goes on behind the scenes," says Jeff Daignault, a 46-year-old independent from Largo, Florida. "Hillary was an accomplice," says Amy Stricker, a 57-year-old conservative from Rochester Hills, Michigan. Clinton's campaign has rejected the notion that she was actively involved in aggressive efforts by her husband's presidential campaign and the Clinton White House to discredit women who claimed to have had affairs with her husband or to have been sexually assaulted by him. "These are attempts to draw Hillary Clinton into decades-old allegations through fabrications that are unsubstantiated," campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said Wednesday. "Hillary Clinton has spent her whole life standing up for women, and charges to the contrary are grossly unfair and untrue." Allegations of womanizing, extramarital affairs and abuse have trickled out over the course of Bill Clinton's political life, including a wave of what his campaign referred to as "bimbo eruptions" when he first ran for president in 1992 and still more allegations of misbehavior after investigators in 1997 started looking into Clinton's sexual encounters with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Clinton was impeached over the Lewinsky affair. In 1998, he agreed to an $850,000 settlement with state worker Paula Jones, who had accused Clinton of exposing himself and making indecent propositions when Clinton was Arkansas governor. The settlement included no apology or admission of guilt. (bbn) Associated Press writers Tamara Lush in Terra Ceia, Florida; Ann Sanner in Columbus, Ohio; Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire; Kristen Wyatt in Denver and Emily Swanson in Washington contributed to this report. The state attorney generals office last week announced a $47 million settlement with CenterLight Healthcare in a Medicaid fraud case. The organization operates a health care facility and diagnostic treatment center at 375 Grand St. CenterLight was accused of fraudulently billing Medicaid for services it did not provide to more than 1200 patients. More from the news release distributed by AG Eric Schneidermans office: Under the settlement, CenterLight Healthcare admitted that it enrolled Medicaid beneficiaries who were referred by social adult day care centers even though the beneficiaries were not eligible to receive managed long-term care under the plan, and that the centers were providing services that did not qualify for reimbursement under New York State Department of Health standards, or CenterLights contract with DOH. CenterLight receives over $3,000 a month per member from New Yorks Medicaid program as part of its MLTCP. Under the settlement, New Yorks Medicaid program will receive $28,050,652.04 and the United States will receive $18,700,434.70. The U.S. Department of Justices Southern District of New York reached a parallel agreement with CenterLight. The non-profit organization was founded more than 90 years ago. It operates more than 40 facilities across the city. City Council member Margaret Chin, chair of the aging committee: put out the following statement: Healthcare providers like CenterLight that seek to take advantage of the skyrocketing demand for social adult day care services are not just defrauding the system they are betraying the trust of the elderly patients they serve. Social adult day care programs provide essential services to thousands of functionally impaired older adults throughout our city, and I congratulate Attorney General Schneiderman and his staff for their efforts to protect these vulnerable New Yorkers. Chin authored legislation in 2014 setting up an Office of the Social Adult Day Care Ombudsperson to investigate complaints. Lets get caught up on the Lower East Side restaurant scene: Japanese ramen master Shigetoshi Jack Nakamura has opened a noddle shop at 172 Delancey St., in a little space alongside the Williamsburg Bridge. He did a brief stint at Ramen Lab on Kenmare Street and now has a spot of his own. Gothamists Scott Lynch says, the Nakamura menu is short and delicious, with all four ramen choices (and the lone appetizer) well worth traveling for. The restaurant is the newest big deal ramen shop to get excited about, writes Grub Street. No wine and beer yet, but thats on the way. The place is only open for dinner. Check out the menu and other details here. Galeria is now open at 43 Clinton St., offering simple and original food from local, fresh not preserved products in unusual combinations. Bedford & Bowery stopped by to chat with owner Jairo Barros, formerly a co-owner of Organika in the West Village. The food is described as vaguely Brazilian and wholesome, meaning, big, healthy bowls overflowing with fresh seasonal vegetables and farro. Grub Street has the scoop on a second location of Mimi Chengs at 380 Broome St. (near Mulberry Street). The original spot for fresh, homemade dumplings (using organic ingredients) debuted on 2nd Avenue in 2014. Community Board 3 is out with its liquor license applications for February. At the February 16 meeting, there will be a pitch from the operators of the restaurant opening in the Joie de Vivre Hotel at 50 Bowery. The team from the Public Hotel, opening at 215 Chrystie St., will also be presenting their plans for multiple restaurant/nightlife establishments. You can keep an eye on the applications as theyre uploaded in the next few days. Critics savage 99-year land lease scheme BANGKOK: Criticism has flared over the governments plan to amend a law to allow foreign investors to lease state land for up to 99 years. landpropertyeconomicspolitics By Bangkok Post Thursday 28 January 2016, 09:00AM The government earlier said the amendment of the commercial and industrial leases in the immovable property act, which will extend the maximum lease term for state land from 50 to 99 years, would help entice foreign investors. The Pheu Thai Party has insisted the issue should be put up for a referendum. Chavalit Wichayasut, acting deputy secretary-general of Pheu Thai, said the amendment will directly affect people and the matter needs thorough consideration. It is important that peoples opinions should be gauged through a referendum, he said, adding it is not suitable for the current government to proceed with it. The study must be meticulous since this will affect Thai peoples rights, Mr Chavalit said, adding if an idea has to be proposed to bolster foreign investment, it should be done by a democratic government, which would have a better relationship with the international community. United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship chairman Jatuporn Prompan said the issue is delicate and the best way is to put it up for a referendum to allow people to decide. He said the Office of the Ombudsman has stated foreigners are using Thai nominees to occupy land in the country and the office must take this matter up with the government. Political science scholar Pramote Nakornthab posted a message on his Facebook page against the move. He said he supported Arthit Ourairat, rector of Rangsit University and former house speaker, who said the move is tantamount to stealing the countrys treasures. Government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said the administration supported the amendment because a 50-year land lease is unattractive to major investors, who require a long time to break even, which makes domestic and foreign investors hold back from expanding here. Trade and investment competition will become more intense, particularly as the Asean Community has just been launched, he said. The countrys incentives must be improved to be better or on par with other countries, he said. Land in Malaysia and Singapore can be leased for up to 99 years, in Vietnam for up to 70 years and in the Philippines, Cambodia and Myanmar for up to 50 years, he said. He insisted the 99-year land leases will be limited to business investments, and the lease contracts can be terminated if the lessees breach the law. The amendment was initiated by state agencies handling economic affairs, which believe the law needs to be changed to measure up to international standards and comply with the governments policy of strengthening the economy, the spokesman said. He said the government wants all parties to be open-minded, insisting the idea would help the country in the long run and is not tantamount to handing the country's territory over to foreigners as some have suggested. Athip Peechanont, chairman of the Thai Chamber of Commerces construction and property business group, supported the idea which he said would help boost the countrys competitiveness to be on par with neighbouring countries. It would also solve the problem of foreigners hiring nominees to lease land for them, while the government could raise more tax. However, he insisted 99-year leases must not be permitted for farmland. Read original story here. Deputy PM calls for Phuket officials to tow national economic policy line PHUKET: Deputy Prime Minister Admiral Narong Pipatanasai has called for Phuket officials to take heed of the Pracharat economic policy when making budget allocations to projects to ensure the best projects for the greater public good get budget support first. economicspoliticsland By Suthicha Sirirat Thursday 28 January 2016, 05:19PM Deputy Prime Minister Admiral Narong Pipatanasai (centre) een here with Phuket Governor Chamroen Tipayapongthada (left) during yesterday's tour of the island. Photo: Phuket PR Dept Deputy PM Adm Narong called for local officials to heed the new economic policy at a meeting during his inspection tour of the island yesterday (Jan 27). His call for local officials to follow the policy follows Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha announcing the Pracharat policy during his weekly address to the nation on September 25 last year. (See story here.) At the meeting in Phuket yesterday were also the Governors of the Andaman coast provinces of Krabi, Trang, Phang Nga and Ranong. Governors have been informed to follow the new economic policy Pracharat, which calls for all levels of government to exercise its power for the benefit of the people, Deputy PM Adm Narong told The Phuket News. The new policy will help solve problems effectively by having the people and the government working collaboratively. This way we are moving together in the same direction in solving any issues. Deputy PM Adm Narong also promoted the role of the Damrongdhama Centre (Ombudsmans Office). The Damrongdhama Centre is crucial for the people and helps the government to provide better assistance to those who need it and help them resolve their issues quickly and effectively, he said. The Damrongdhama Centre in each province should operate at the provincial level and must improve how effectively it serves the people. In providing assistance, each issue must be solved quickly and the centre must follow up to keep people satisfied. However, Deputy PM Adm Narong noted that land issues, especially the likes of which that have plagued Phuket for decades, will take time and the support of the central government to resolve. There are problems, mostly dealing with land, that the Darongdhama Centre and provincial Governors wont be able to solve on their own because these issues fall under central government policy, he said. Such issues include public land encroachment, applications for Chanote land title deeds for areas on government land, holding a Chanote title for park or forest land these are the problems of land ownership that the central government will help to solve, but to do so will take time because these issues involve many departments and each have their own policy and procedure, he added. I have ordered the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment, Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Interior to follow up with these issues because to issue titles for land falls under many departments and involves many law and procedures. We wont be able to solve them all quickly, but we will do our best to help the landless to have a place as part of the policy, he added. Ladyboy jailed 2 months for launching dog from condo BANGKOK: A transgender woman who threw a Chihuahua from her fifth-floor apartment in Bangkok has been sentenced to two months in jail without suspension, with the court saying it wanted to set a strong precedent for animal abuse. crimeanimalsviolence By Bangkok Post Thursday 28 January 2016, 04:27PM A photo of Yonlada Jampasri, 23, charged with animal cruelty for throwing a Chihuahua from her fifth-storey balcony. (Photo from Facebook page of dog owner Meyanee Sitthisuk) The Bangkok North Municipal Court initially jailed 23-year-old Yonlada Jampasri to four months after she pled guilty to flinging 4-year-old Deli off her Wang Thonglang district balcony in a fit of rage after the pooch pooped inside the premises. The defendant was charged of causing malicious damage and animal cruelty in violation of the Prevention of Animal Cruelty and Provision of Animals Welfare Act. The sentence was commuted to two months due to Yonladas confession. The jail term was not suspended, however, as the court wanted the case to be an example to animal abusers. After the verdict, Corrections Department officials immediately took her to the jail at the Bangkok North Municipal Court, Thai media reported. Yonlada admitted to the tossing room mate Meyanee Sitthisuks Chihuahua onto a nearby roof when she surrendered to Wang Thonglang police yesterday (Jan 27) following a complaint by the 23-year-old owner. Ms Meyanee told police she and her four-year-old dog Deli had been staying with Ms Yonlada at the Soi Lat Phrao 122 unit for about 10 days before the incident took place. However, Yonlada had told her houseguest she didnt like pets and lost patience with the dog when it soiled the floor. Although Yonlada was given the maximum penalty under the law, Ms Meyanee complained on her Facebook page today (Jan 28) about the light sentence given to her. Read original story here. Phuket Gov calls for a meeting to end sea gypsies land dispute PHUKET: Phuket Governor has order both parties sea gypsies and Baron World Trade Co Ltd involved in the Rawai land dispute to attend a meeting on Tuesday (Feb 2) to find a solution to end the ongoing issue. landpoliticsculture By Eakkapop Thongtub Thursday 28 January 2016, 03:09PM Sea gypsy protesters arrive at the Bangkok Bank main Phuket branch on Phang Nga Rd today (Jan 28) to hand a letter directly to the branch manager to hand to Chali Sophonpanich, who along with other family members, are directors of Baron World Trade Co Ltd. Gov Chamroen Tipayapongthada held a meeting at Provincial Hall yesterday (Jan 27) together with Royal Navy Third Deputy Commander Rear Admiral Pisai Sookwan, Provincial Police Chief Col Teeraphol Thipjaroen, local government officials, members of the sea gypsy community and representatives of Baron World Trade Co Ltd to discuss the incident. The announcement came following the intervention by officials to stop a clash between private workers hired to clear the land for private development and the sea gypsy villagers yesterday (Jan 27) in Rawai. Whilst the clash was taking place, a second group of over 200 sea gypsies went to Provincial Hall to hand a formal request to Deputy Prime Minister Admiral Narong Pipatanasai, who was making a brief to the island, asking the government assist is resolving the dispute. (see story here) Following the clash, Gov Chamroen Tipayapongthada held a meeting at Provincial Hall together with Royal Navy Third Deputy Commander Rear Admiral Pisai Sookwan, Provincial Police Chief Col Teeraphol Thipjaroen, local government officials, members of the sea gypsy community and representatives of Baron World Trade Co Ltd to discuss the incident. Gov Chamroen said, The confrontation between Baron World Trade Co Ltd and the sea gypsies has resulted in members of both parties being injured. Police are investigating and collecting names of those involved and some of them will face assault charges. There are over 2,000 people (333 families) in the sea gypsy community in Rawai and these people need access to a sacred place of worship that they had used for generations. The sea gypsies are asking for a two metre walkway to be left to allow them gain access to that area but so far there has no word from Baron World Trade Co Ltd, he explained. Gov Chamroen continued, Rawai Mayor, Aroon Solos, has been assigned to bring representatives from the sea gypsy community and Baron World Trade Co Ltd to a meeting at provincial hall on February 2 at 10am so we can help them find the best solution to this problem. This land dispute issue is severely damaging the islands tourism image. I am not sure who or what department is responsible for allowing this to happened, but, from now on, to solve any disputes on the island i must be reported to first. Then we will work together step-by-step to solve the problem. Most importantly, every issue must be solved with reason not violence, Gov Chamroen concluded. Meanwhile, sea gypsy protesters also arrived en masse at the Bangkok Bank main Phuket branch on Phang Nga Rd in Phuket Town to hand a letter directly to the branch manager to hand to Chali Sophonpanich, who along with other family members, are directors of Baron World Trade Co Ltd. Chali Sophonpanich is second son of Chatri Sophonpanich, grandson of Chin Sophonpanich. And he serves as the President of Asia Investment. Bangkok Bank is his family business. PropertyGuru acquires Asia Property Awards and Property Report PHUKET: Leading Asian online property portal PropertyGuru Group has announced its purchase of the real estate media businesses of Ensign Media, headquartered in Singapore. The purchase includes Property Report, a regional luxury property and lifestyle magazine and website that publishes news and insights on such investment destinations. It also includes Asia Property Awards, the regions biggest, best-recognised and respected property industry awards, held in nine countries annually. propertytechnology By Press Release Thursday 28 January 2016, 11:43AM Steve Melhuish, CEO and Co-Founder of PropertyGuru, said, Were excited to welcome the Ensign team and businesses to PropertyGuru. This latest acquisition strengthens the Groups content, geographic reach and services we provide to real estate developers regionally. With the recent implementation of the Asean Economic Community (AEC), Asean has been forecast to become the worlds fourth largest economy by 2030. In the next 10 to 15 years, we expect increasing cross-border movements and foreign investments, creating more demand for properties in these markets. With 14 million property seekers from all over the world using our online portals every month, searching for the right property, gathering trends, insightful news and feature stories, PropertyGuru is well-placed to help them find the home they've always dreamed about. The move allows PropertyGuru's 14 million users and Property Report's 70,000 online and offline readers to have combined access to PropertyGuru's 600 monthly research and news articles published in three languages across four markets, and Property Report's 100 plus online features per month. The acquisition of the Ensign businesses will strengthen PropertyGuru's integrated property media capability, combining the company's leading online property sites and its 20 property shows across the region, with a leading print and online publication and a highly successful and prestigious property industry awards platform in Asia. The national editions of Asia Property Awards are held in Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia and Vietnam annually. The winners from each country go on to compete in the South East Asia Property Awards, which are presented annually in Singapore at a showcase conference and gala dinner event. The China Property Awards separately cover Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau and are held annually in Hong Kong. Each award is judged by an independent panel of industry experts and has a fully transparent entry and judging system supervised by BDO, one of the world's largest accountancy and auditing networks. The Asia Property Awards are the benchmark for recognizing quality real estate in Asia. Founded by Terry Blackburn and Duncan Worthington in 2003 and headquartered in Singapore, Ensign began publishing Property Report in 2004. Focusing on high-end real estate in the region, and international investment opportunities for readers, Property Report is now a bi-monthly print magazine distributed across ASEAN and Hong Kong via newsstands, five star hotels, airport lounges and direct mail. Property-Report.com features listings of Asia Property Award winning developments and over 100 Asia-focused property articles each month, receiving 60,000 page views monthly. Ensign's founder, Terry Blackburn, who will be joining PropertyGuru to continue to drive growth in the Asia Property Awards and Property Report, said, "Over the past 10 years, Property Report has established an expertise in providing its readership with the latest insights on luxury property investment in Asia, and we are very excited about this next stage. "The Asia Property Awards are already the region's largest and most respected real estate awards and now, with PropertyGuru's support, they will be even bigger in 2016 and the years ahead. This is great news, both for developers seeking credible recognition, and for investors looking for the region's best properties. Together with PropertyGuru, we will ensure that award winners in the world's most exciting real estate destinations receive the widest possible recognition for their achievements." Watertown students who qualify for reduced meal plans eating for free As of Oct. 11, students within the Watertown School District who qualify for reduced meal plans will eat for free for the 2022-23 school year. Michael Cummings, Copy Editor cummings@grinnell.edu Students, faculty and community members flooded Grinnell Colleges Darby Gym on Monday, Jan. 25, to listen to Sen. Bernie Sanders address Iowans before the caucus on Monday. Once seen as a long-shot in his bid against Hillary Clinton, Sanders is now within striking distance with the latest polls showing both candidates in a deadlock for Iowas delegates. Are you guys ready to make a political revolution? Sanders opened his speech. During his speech, Sanders strongly encouraged everyone to participate in the caucuses and the democratic process. Democracy is not a spectator sport, he said, citing the statistic that 80 percent of young people did not vote in the last election. Democracy means your right to stand up and fight for what you believe in. Sanders outlined the pillars of his campaign, comparing many struggles for rights throughout American history, including the abolition of slavery and the womens suffrage movement, to his own goals and the demand for an economic revolution. He suggested that his campaign would build on this legacy to continue to fight for the rights of underprivileged Americans. Sanders also called upon the Republican discussion of family values. He argued that Republican candidates use family values to push their own social agendas by preventing same-sex couples from marrying and restricting access to reproductive healthcare. In response to much criticism on his ability to navigate foreign policy, Sanders weighed in on foreign wars, specifically his plans for the future of the Middle East. Sanders said that under his administration, he would provide support for Muslim soldiers on the group to tackle terrorism rather than the more direct American intervention seen under Obama. In response to criticism that he lacks Clintons extensive foreign policy experience, Sanders has argued that a candidates sense of judgment and ability to make decisions should outweigh their years on the job. Professor H. Wayne Moyer, Political Science, seems to agree. Hillary does have some advantages in that she knows most of the world leaders, she knows their strengths and their weaknesses but the judgement issue is critical, too, Moyer said. I do have some concernsId like to see more experience On the other hand, he has much more experience than Barack Obama had. Sanders also has students thinking hard about his positions on various issues. Criminal justice reform is really important to me, and I think hes by far the most prepared to handle criminal justice reform, and the most responsive, said Anna Schierenbeck 18, who serves as the Communications Director of the College and Young Democrats of Iowa. Still, Schierenbeck says that Sanders isnt the perfect candidate for her. [Primary and secondary] education is really important to me, Schierenbeck said, adding that this is an issue frequently left out of the discussion. I would have liked to hear him talk a little bit about what he thinks about Common Core and how to improve that, she said. For other students, the choice between Sanders and the other candidates is obvious. I think its a very clear question about which direction the Democratic Party wants to go, said Dhruv Gupta 17, President of Grinnellians for Bernie Sanders. Does it want to stay corporate democratscorporate liberalsin which we put big business ahead of people, or do we want to go in the direction of having government ensure that wealth is redistributed, [ensuring] that liberal ideals and human rights are protected? Neither the bright glare of the political spotlight nor the constant criticism of the Liberal governments Syrian refugee operation from opposition benches bothers John McCallum, Canadas minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. Even the decision by a Republican-controlled U.S. Senate committee to hold a meeting in Washington next week on Canadas fast-track refugee plan and its implications for U.S. national security doesnt rankle him. The U.S. Administration has in fact supported our refugee initiative, McCallum told the Star. I have spoken to the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary as well as the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, and both expressed support. We are confident in the measures we have taken on security, as are the heads of the RCMP, CSIS and CBSA. The fact that the U.S. Senate has chosen to hold hearings on this issue is of course their decision. The 65-year-old Markham-Thornhill MP who has been front and centre on the Syrian refugee file since he was appointed to cabinet after the election is deeply honoured and moved to be in charge of what has become one of the most important files in Ottawa, he says. The statement seems genuine, although its hard to reconcile the emotion with the no-nonsense, shoot-from-the-hip manner that the Cambridge-educated McCallum is known for. Its a brand new world for me, he said in an interview at his constituency office in a Markham strip mall. I cant think of anything more rewarding. To see with my own eyes these people coming from horrors overseas and be welcomed to Canada, its a moving experience. He has put his money where his mouth is, explaining that he and his family have made a donation to help a Syrian refugee family. His wife, Nancy Lim, is an immigrant herself, originally from Malaysia. She, too, shares the excitement McCallum feels about his new job and the plan to welcome refugees to Canada. Shes pretty excited about it, he said. She gives me good advice about various issues along the way. But it does mean Im away from home more than I otherwise might be. His offices are decorated with mementos and photos from supporters a plaque from the Sikh community; a Ganesh from the Hindu community; an award from the Chinese community. Down the hall, a couple seek advice from one of McCallums assistants. She refers them to the appropriate officials in Ottawa. Sitting in his office, he looks tired, but remains enthusiastic about the task at hand. He is not new to Cabinet, having served both as a junior finance minister and defence minister in the government of Jean Chretien. Nor is he new to the immigration file, since he served as critic. But in his current role as Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship minister he is front and centre in one of the busiest and highest profile positions in cabinet. And he and a group of his fellow cabinet ministers have been given a monumental task to bring in more than 25,000 government-assisted Syrian refugees as well as thousands of privately sponsored refugees. What Ive done before has tended to reflect my economist background, said McCallum, who not only is a former economist at the Royal Bank of Canada but also was Dean of Arts at McGill University. This is different because it speaks to Canada. It speaks to who we are as a country. Im honoured and pleased to be in the spotlight because I do think it is important that we send a message to ourselves and a message to the world as to what Canadians are made of. He believes the portfolio is a natural fit. My riding, where we are today, Markham, is according to Statistics Canada Canadas most diverse city, said McCallum. Its a hugely multicultural place, and the key to my election over 15 years has been support from the Chinese community, the South Asian community, and so I live and breathe multiculturalism in my job, and so naturally I am very keen on building an even better multicultural society. The job comes with sleepless nights, hours of meetings with bureaucrats and unexpected trips to the Middle East on the refugee file. And still to come are meetings on the long list of promises the Liberals have made when it comes to other immigration and refugee policy. The former economics professor is the first to admit the plan to bring in Syrian refugees fleeing the worst humanitarian crisis since the Second World War is not without snafus. The Liberals missed their first deadline of bringing 25,000 refugees to Canada by the end of December. And more recently, COSTI, a Toronto non-profit agency handling local resettlement, asked Ottawa to pause its delivery of government-sponsored refugees for five days because it was behind in its task of finding housing for new arrivals. Vancouver, Ottawa and Halifax had asked for similar delays. But McCallum doesnt seem concerned. I am told this will be resolved in a matter of a few days, not longer than that, he told reporters. And, in the meanwhile there are other places in Canada who are ready and willing to receive the refugees. He admits a plan of this magnitude is bound to have problems. I just think its important to do this job as quickly as possible, but above all to do it well. Its not going to be perfect. There are going to be hiccups along the way. And indeed, McCallum himself has also taken a misstep or two, including making what he now says was an inappropriate comment to the Conservative immigration critic, Michelle Rempel, when Parliament sat briefly after the election late last year. McCallum told Rempel: Were into sunny ways; I would suggest to my colleague to look a little more cheerful. Rempel asked the Speaker for an apology, which McCallum was quick to give. I like to just set the record straight and move on, McCallum said about the incident. McCallum has been so preoccupied with the refugee plan he is only now beginning to look at implementing some of the other promises the Liberals made on the immigration file, including repealing parts of the Citizenship Act as well as reallocating resources to speed up processing times for spousal, family and caregiver applications. McCallum first entered politics in 2000, at age 50, after being wooed by Liberal Senator David Smith and Chretien. It was an unusual step, he concedes. He left a high-powered job as chief economist and senior vice president at the Royal Bank with an equally high-powered salary rumoured to be about $400,000 for a job as MP. You get less money, less time with family, but you get an opportunity to do something you believe in, he explained. A mid-life crisis, perhaps? Not really. He was motivated to leap into the political arena by the then-leader of the Canadian Alliance, Stockwell Day. Stockwell Days Canada was radically different from my Canada, so it made me keener to be on the Liberal team, he said. And to do something to reflect the values of a Canada that McCallum believed in one that was multicultural, welcoming, humanitarian. I think if it had been Joe Clark versus Jean Chretien, I might not have entered politics. Critics worry some key issues will be overlooked So what do the opposition critics think of John McCallum and his performance as Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister? According to Jenny Kwan, the New Democratic Partys Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship critic and MP for Vancouver East, McCallum is an experienced parliamentarian, but he and his government have failed to live up to the original federal election promise of bringing in 25,000 government-assisted refugees by the end of the 2015. Its important that the government live up to that commitment, Kwan said. While encouraged by McCallums promise to bring in a total of between 35,000 to 50,000 Syrian refugees (both government and privately sponsored) by the end of 2016, Kwan worries the Liberals and McCallum wont live up to their promise. The government must meet their commitment to bring in 25,000 government-assisted refugees. Thats the commitment from the campaign. Kwan also is worried that the Liberal government will not stick to some of its other campaign promises involving immigration policy, including one that the Liberals would increase the number of parent and grandparent reunification applications from 5,000 to 10,000. But so far that hasnt happened. She fears the government will backtrack on that pledge. Its important for the government to not forget about other important issues in this portfolio. She also fears other promises may be abandoned such as repealing Bill C-24, which made substantial changes to the Citizenship Act as well as the promise to speed up the processing times of applications including citizenship, spousal sponsorship, caregiver, parent and grandparent as well as family reunification. So far, we have extended our hand to the minister to say to him we want to work collaboratively with him on these important issues and other policy issues. And hes been receptive to it. And I think thats good. Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel is also worried the Liberals may not keep their election promises. But she also has some reservations about McCallum, particularly after the run-in they had in the House. This is a serious file, said the MP for Calgary-Nose Hill. He was blatantly glib, she said referring to the exchange she and McCallum had in Parliament. I was a little surprised given the sunny ways mantra of the Liberals the minister was as glib as he was in the House of Commons blatantly glib. It was shocking actually. She also criticized McCallum and the Liberals for turning the Syrian refugee crisis into what she described as a political wedge. And she is critical of the Liberals failure to meet their campaign promise to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2015. I think the Liberals promised an unobtainable figure during the campaign for the refugee initiative and you know I think that the number is important. This is a core campaign commitment they used the number as a political wedge in what I think was a heart-breaking situation. I think the minister has been tasked with creating a veil of smoke and mirrors around that campaign commitment. She shares the concerns of the NDPs Kwan that McCallum and the Liberals wont keep the rest of their immigration campaign promises, including the doubling of parents and grandparents reunification program; changes to the citizenship act as well as speeding up the processing times of all classes of applications to the department. In regards to legislative changes I think there will be greater scrutiny of some of their campaign promises as legislation is rolled out. Syrian refugees by the numbers 14,003 Number of Syrian refugees who have come to Canada to date. 15,036 Number of Syrian refugee resettlement applications in progress. 5,886 Number of Syrian refugee applications that are finalized but the refugees have not yet travelled to Canada. Data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship as of Jan. 27 SHARE: Federal health and safety investigators want a court to grant access to the cockpit voice recorder of the doomed ORNGE air ambulance flight that crashed and killed four men in Moosonee, Ont., in 2013. In making the request to the court, the lead investigator has laid out what people he interviewed suggest contributed to the crash: How a combination of poor training and spatial disorientation likely led to the deaths of ORNGE Capt. Don Filliter, first officer Jacques Dupuy and flight paramedics Dustin Dagenais and Chris Snowball. And how management at ORNGE contributed to the problem. The problem, in part, stemmed from the fact that the people running the show didnt have the appropriate background. Because of this, they didnt understand the constraints and the risks of flying up north, investigator Domenic Iacobellis, a federal health and safety official, wrote in his affidavit filed in the Superior Court of Justice, citing his interviews of experienced pilots, including the former safety manager of ORNGE. ORNGE was charged in 2014 with 17 federal health and safety violations under the Canada Labour Code related to the crash of the chopper, which was on its way to pick up a patient. Before those charges hit court, investigators want to add the cockpit voice recording to their evidence brief. That poses a problem. So far, the only investigation team that has heard the recordings is the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which is doing its own probe. That probe, with no sign of a report, is now the longest-running aviation accident investigation in Canada. Investigators say they want the recording to help them determine which pilot was flying, whether there were any mechanical difficulties encountered, and whether the pilots were aware of the helicopters altitude, attitude, and direction to travel in the moments leading up to the crash. One scenario under investigation by the health and safety team is that the pilot lacked experience in a difficult night-time takeoff in effect, he was flying blind and to counter the incorrect perception that the nose of the helicopter was rising, pointed it down and flew the aircraft into the ground. Another scenario is a phenomenon known as the lean. This sensory illusion takes place when a pilot goes into a turn in the dark with no visual cues available. Though ORNGE is just now experimenting with night vision goggles, they were not used by the air ambulance in 2013. With a lean, the pilots internal sensory mechanism fails and the pilot becomes immediately, and frighteningly, disoriented, the affidavit states. A veteran Royal Canadian Air Force pilot who was consulted by the investigative team stated that the lean can cause a pilot to overcorrect. This can cause the aircraft to turn too much and the pilot can quickly lose control and crash, because he does not know where he is, which direction he is pointing or turning, and where the ground might be. Its rare in Canada for cockpit voice recorders to be released. Iacobellis and his team want access to determine which of the two pilots was flying, and what, if anything, was said before the crash. A spokesman for the Transportation Safety Board said no comment could be made on the court action. He directed the Star to the boards website, which states that under the safety boards legislation the information contained on cockpit voice recorders is considered to be privileged and can only be released by the board when the board considers it necessary in the interests of transportation safety. The affidavit in the ORNGE case notes that a court order is needed before the recordings can be released. Soon after the accident, the Stars Bruce Campion Smith interviewed veteran helicopter pilots who said the two ORNGE pilots would have faced an inky, disorienting darkness soon after takeoff from the remote airport. According to the affidavit, helicopter pilots taking off from Moosonee and headed on a short hop to Attawapiskat must turn left, right after takeoff. At night, it becomes pitch black instantly. The only way to turn safely in these conditions is to get a good rate of climb, the investigators write. Deprived of sensory input, flying blind, the tendency might be to overcorrect on a turn, or to pitch the aircraft forward and into the ground. There is no electronic beacon at Moosonee, so the aircrafts instruments have nothing to locate, the affidavit states. Though the person listed as pilot that night, Don Filliter, was an experienced aviator, he had not flown out of Moosonee recently and it was his first time flying this type of helicopter (Sikorsky-76A) in three years. He had just rejoined ORNGE after working for a government ministry as a pilot and his previous night experience was often with night vision goggles, which ORNGE did not have. The investigators also raise concerns with the level of training (on a simulator) provided to the person listed as co-pilot, Jacques Dupuy. The investigators also note that ORNGE insiders had warned the air ambulance service that night operations were the single greatest danger. Despite this (ORNGE) was regularly making routine patient transfers in the middle of the night. No patient was on board the night of this crash. As the Star previously reported, investigators allege ORNGE violated its own green-on-green policy, meant to prevent the pairing of two pilots relatively new to their flying positions. ORNGE told the Star it could not comment on the request for the voice recordings, which will be heard in court later in the winter. In May 2014, ORNGE received a summons with respect to charges laid in connection with the accident under the Canada Labour Codes occupational health and safety provisions. ORNGE intends to defend these charges. As this matter is before the courts, it would be inappropriate to comment further. We have been made aware that the Crown is seeking a court order for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada to produce the contents of the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) from the Moosonee helicopter. ORNGE is monitoring but not participating in these proceedings, reads a statement from ORNGE. Our thoughts continue to be with the families of our Moosonee crew members, said ORNGE spokesman James MacDonald. Kevin Donovan can be reached at (416) 312-3503 or kdonovan@thestar.ca SHARE: Of all the duties that educational leaders and policy-makers have, ensuring that schools are safe is arguably the most important. But it looks like that is not happening in our city. Documents from the provincial government state that 56 per cent of schools in the Toronto District School Board are in critical or poor condition. And sometimes the consequences are dire. As reported by CTV news, a 6-year-old girl went to the bathroom at her Toronto school only to have the stall door collapse on her head, giving her a major concussion that took her over two months to recover from. Clearly we have a problem. Teachers have been trying to sound the alarm about these issues for years. According to Elementary Teachers of Toronto president John Smith, teachers call the union almost every day about safety concerns in their schools. Perhaps in order to really change things though, teacher unions need to take more drastic measures, as their colleagues in other jurisdictions have done. For example, in order to call attention to their crumbling school buildings, teachers in Detroit have engaged in a mass sick-out campaign. Because it is illegal under Michigan state law for any public employee to go on strike, Detroit teachers have been calling in to work sick en masse, effectively shutting down schools across the district. While this may seem like a radical move, it has at the very least brought the issue to the forefront of public consciousness. But if we really want to change things, first we need to understand how we got to the current state of affairs. Originally, school boards in Ontario raised most of the money they needed to build, maintain, and operate schools from their local property tax base. School boards could then also raise additional money from new residential and commercial development through Educational Development Charges (EDCs), which were designed to help school boards accommodate new growth. This changed in the 1990s during the Common Sense Revolution. Based on its desire to make deep cuts to education spending, the Harris government took over complete control of school board funding. It also instituted a new regulation stating that school boards could no longer receive any money from new development if their total student enrolment to total capacity fell below a certain ratio. These two changes have had a devastating impact on TDSB finances and the boards ability to properly maintain and enhance its schools. It is estimated that the TDSB has lost out on hundreds of millions of dollars from forgone EDCs alone. Some might say that the TDSB should have simply shut down and sold all of the schools that are below capacity. But apart from the fact that the TDSB has sold 30 school sites and 82 properties over the last 17 years, in a system where school board trustees are elected locally by ward, closing and selling schools is extremely difficult. There are simply no political incentives to do so. The provincial government could easily remedy the situation in a number of ways. First, while maintaining the current level of funding it provides, it could give school boards back the ability to raise additional funds to meet local needs. This would also have the added bonus of undercutting the provincial underfunding excuse that is trotted out for almost every problem in schools. Second, it could remove the vacancy requirement needed to access EDCs, and amend the legislation so that these funds can also be used to repair, upgrade, expand and construct new schools. However, if what the province really wants is to close schools, it should do so itself. It can do this by way of regulation ordering the TDSB to close and sell below-capacity schools to the province at market value. That way the TDSB will be able to immediately access the funds it needs to fix the schools that are currently falling apart. Once upon a time we did have a system where school boards had the money they needed to effectively repair, maintain, and operate their schools. And the provincial government could easily create such a system again. Premier Kathleen Wynne surely knows this, as she started her political career as a TDSB trustee vehemently opposed to the changes brought by the Harris government. But now that she herself is in the ultimate position of power, the plight of mere school boards seems to have been forgotten. Sachin Maharaj is a PhD student in educational policy at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Gordon Petch is a lawyer with over 30 years of experience specializing in municipal law and education planning issues. SHARE: Search Jim Cramer's "Mad Money" trading recommendations using our exclusive "Mad Money" Stock Screener. The Federal Reservelet us down again, Jim Cramer announced to his Mad Money viewers Wednesday. That means there's more pain ahead for stocks and investors need to remain cautious and keep their cash on the sidelines. Cramer said the Fed needed to take the possibility of a March rate hike off the table. By not doing so, the central bank made things much worse for stocks, as uncertainty will continue percolating through the markets. Cramer then returned to his "checklist for finding a bottom" to see if there's anything positive investors could use to counter the Fed. The political uncertainty has not gotten better, nor have things in China where the Shanghai markets have closed well below the key 3,000 level. Cramer said there are also no bottoms forming for commodities or oil, and the strong U.S. dollar continues to weigh on stocks. The geopolitical tensions with North Korea appear to have died down somewhat, so that may be seen as a positive. Beyond that, the markets have seen no real leadership nor sizable merger activity. All in all, Cramer said there are still far too many unchecked boxes on his list. That's why investors will need to remain vigilant. Executive Decision: David Demshur For his "Executive Decision" segment, Cramer spoke with David Demshur, chairman and CEO of Core Labs (CLB) , the high-tech oil services company that has seen its shares decline 60% from its all-time highs two years ago. Demshur said Core Labs' mission remains the same, helping customers produce more oil and gas from every well. He said because of Core Labs, the amount of drilling activity in the U.S. can decline with the output remaining the same. When asked about the current oil glut, Demshur predicts supply and demand for oil to balance out in the second half of 2016. He said every well depletes over time, and this year the global depletion rate is forecast at about 2.6 million barrels a day. That means 2.6 million barrels of new capacity must be brought online just to break even. Add that number to the projected increase in demand of 1.2 million barrels a day, and it's easy to see how the current oversupply will soon dry up. When asked whether oil could plummet as it did in 1986, Demshur said not to worry. Back then, he noted, there was 10 to 12 million barrels a day of spare capacity. Today there's only about one million. Own Apple, Don't Trade It How do you value a company that's like no other? That was Cramer's question as he dove into the latest earnings from Apple (AAPL) , a stock he owns for his charitable trust, Action Alerts PLUS. Cramer said Apple is the greatest wealth creator of our generation, and the company now has one billion active devices around the globe. Yet, four times every year the analysts struggle to value Apple. Now that Apple essentially owns the cell phone market, and that market appears to be softening for the first time, these traditional analysts are struggling to find another category to replace those lost revenue. But they're not finding any juggernauts in iPads, Apple TVs or Apple Watches. Cramer said he can't blame these analysts. After all, they saw the declines in mainframes, mini computers and most recently PCs. Why wouldn't Apple and its cell phones follow the same pattern? But Cramer said unlike your old PC, Apple products are loved like no other and have brand loyalty that's off the charts. Apple also has something else -- service revenue that were up 23% year over year. Cramer said Apple can't be seen as just a hardware company because all those apps, music and movies being downloaded to Apple devices are translating into billions in revenue. Services, Cramer concluded, will be the key metric to follow for Apple, which is why the stock is a bargain. Executive Decision: Michael McGarry In his second "Executive Decision" segment, Cramer checked in with Michael McGarry, president and CEO of PPG (PPG) , the chemicals and coatings maker with shares 20% off their high. McGarry said he still sees room to grow in the auto market, with even China still having a little upside left. Meanwhile, in aerospace, McGarry said he was disappointed with the build rates in the fourth quarter but sees growth returning in the first quarter. Looks at markets overseas, McGarry sees expanding sales in Mexico, where last quarter saw a 7% gain. He is also bullish on Europe, where PPG saw a 3% gain in the fourth quarter. Given all of these positives, Cramer said PPG is a bargain at these "doom and gloom" prices. Lightning Round In the Lightning Round, Cramer was bullish on Cisco Systems (CSCO) and McDonald's (MCD) . Cramer was bearish on Alcatel Lucent (ALU) , Sprint (S) , Abiomed (ABMD) , Dunkin Brands (DNKN) , Seaspan (SSW) and uniQure (QURE) . No Huddle Offense In his "No Huddle Offense" segment, Cramer pondered whether the jarring forecasts from Boeing (BA) signal a problem with Boeing or a problem with the entire aerospace cohort. Cramer said perhaps the problem is indeed with Boeing, as United Technologies (UTX) reported strong sales of its next-generation engines while Alcoa (AA) saw strong demand for its aerospace aluminum. Cramer said the fact remains that Boeing sells its planes in U.S. dollars, while rival Airbus (EADSY) sells its planes in depressed euros. That means Airbus planes are on sale while Boeing's prices are increasing. Cramer said to use the weakness in Boeing to buy Honeywell (HON) . To watch replays of Cramer's video segments, visit the Mad Money page on CNBC. To sign up for Jim Cramer's free Booyah! newsletter with all of his latest articles and videos please click here. At the time of publication, Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS had a position in AAPL and CSCO. Updated to add information from an FT report, comments from Jim Cramer and to reflect Google, not Google Ventures, invested in Magic Leap. TheStreet regrets this error. Twenty-six words might not seem like a lot, but when it comes from one of the world's most powerful businessmen, it's enough to raise eyebrows. On Apple's (AAPL) fiscal first quarter earnings call, CEO Timothy D. Cook was asked about his high-level thoughts on virtual reality. While the 55-year old Apple executive didn't sound overly enthusiastic about the platform, he didn't exactly dismiss it, either. "In terms of virtual reality, no, I don't think it's a niche," Cook said. "I think it can be -- it's really cool and has some interesting applications." On Friday, The FT reported Apple had acquired FlyBy Media, an augmented reality startup, and has a "secret research unit" with hundreds of employees working on the project. According to the report, Apple has been building prototypes of VR headsets for several months and has been assembling its team via acquisitions and by hiring away employees working on VR technologies for rivals such as Microsoft, citing anonymous sources. Virtual reality headsets, such as Oculus Rift, from Facebook (FB) -owned Oculus, Samsung Gear VR, HTC Vive/Steam and to a lesser extent, Alphabet's (GOOG) (GOOGL) $25 headset Google Cardboard, have captured much of the attention of tech enthusiasts, media and the investment community as the next big platform. There are also augmented reality platforms, such as Microsoft's HoloLens and Magic Leap, which Alphabet, then known as Google, led a funding round in. With augmented reality, images or graphics are "open," meaning they actually emerge from a device into the real world. By comparison, virtual reality is often seen as images that are "closed," or inside a device, usually a headset. (The above video is an example of the openness of augmented reality.) How the market shakes out between augmented and virtual reality is yet to be determined, but it's clear there's anticipation the markets will be extraordinarily large, regardless. Tech M&A advisory firm Digi-Capital expects the augmented/virtual reality market to explode, hitting $120 billion by 2020, with the large majority going towards augmented reality. Creative Strategies analyst Ben Bajarin noted Apple's propensity for owning the entire ecosystem, both hardware and software, as well as designing its own chips, would give them a leg up in designing a virtual or augmented reality product. Apple could not be reached for comment on this story. Though Apple never publicly confirms products before they are announced, Cook's comments seem to suggest that Apple is at least intrigued by the VR/AR market. Digging deeper confirms that line of thinking. Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple has filed several patents related to virtual reality over the years. Patently Apple, a website focused on Apple patents, uncovered an update in July 2015 to a patent that shows Apple added a touch sensor and speaker to a head-mounted carrier, with a speaker, tools to detect a user's head movements, a camera on the head-mounted carrier and new configurations to integrate the headset with a cellular telephone. The headset is designed to give users the feeling of three-dimensional viewing. There have been other patents granted to Apple for augmented reality recently, including one for an augmented reality projector. An eventual move into virtual/augmented reality could help reignite Apple's sales, which would be welcome news for investors. After reporting first quarter results that saw iPhone units grow just 0.2% year over year, Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple said it expects fiscal second quarter revenue to be between $50 billion and $53 billion, below the $58 billion it generated in the same time frame last year. Apple cited a number of factors, including pent-up demand last year for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, exceptionally strong currency headwinds and a shifting macroeconomic environment, the likes of which Apple hasn't seen in some time. Apple is a holding in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS charitable portfolio. "I think the analysts are missing the entire story," says Cramer in the above video. "Apple is becoming a Procter & Gamble/Gillette story. They have a billion devices -- when you get a device, suddenly you're starting to use different services whether it be music, iTunes...and that whole service revenue has gone from $25 billion to $31 billion...I think you should buy it and buy it right here." Exclusive Look Inside: You see Jim Cramer on TV. Now, see where he invests his money and why Apple is a core holding of his multi-million dollar portfolio. Want to be alerted before Jim Cramer buys or sells AAPL?Learn more now. Jackdaw Research analyst Jan Dawson categorized Cook's comments on virtual reality as "about as vanilla as they could be," but noted that Apple is at least "likely looking into but not yet committing significant resources to" the category. In 2013, Apple acquired PrimeSense, the maker of the technology behind the original Microsoft (MSFT) Kinect, for a reported $345 million, one of Apple's larger acquisitions to date. In 2015, the company acquired Metaio, an augmented reality startup for a reported $34 million. The Financial Timesrecently reported Apple has hired Doug Bowman, one of the world's leading virtual reality researchers. Rene Richie, editor-in-chief of another Apple-focused website, iMore, believes it's important for Apple to be at least exploring virtual reality. This is in addition to projects like the oft-rumored Apple Car and the Internet of Things because they "are all trendy technologies right now," Richie opined via email. Coming on the heels of the Consumer Electronics Show, where virtual/augmented reality has never been buzzier, products are starting to come to the forefront of more consumers' minds, moving beyond just the arena of first adopters and tech enthusiasts. Samsung's $99 Gear VR was one of the top sellers on Amazon this holiday season, while the $600 Oculus Rift is back-ordered until July. Google Cardboard, which was introduced in 2014 at its developer conference, has aided the education market, thanks in part to its low cost and also to Google's continued push to expand its software capabilities, including Google Expeditions, its education-focused virtual reality curriculum. (Earlier this week, Google noted more than 5 million Cardboard viewers have shipped, with more than 25 million Cardboard apps installed from Google Play.) Virtual reality is likely going to cater towards games as well as content, such as movies and TV shows, with price points similar in nature to game consoles, such as the Xbox or Playstation, Digi-Capital noted, potentially reaching tens of millions of hardware units sold. By contrast, augmented reality could reach hundreds of millions of users, with hardware prices near those of smartphones or tablets. Neither the Microsoft HoloLens, nor anything from Magic Leap, are available commercially yet, but the $3,000 HoloLens is slated to ship the developer edition in the first quarter this year. Even though there's significant promise about the pending augmented/virtual reality revolution, it's gotten off to a particularly rocky start. Google Glass, an optical headset that went on sale in April 2013, was widely castigated because of privacy concerns, particularly when they were worn in public. There were fears people could be recorded unknowingly or be able to identify strangers using facial recognition technology or have their picture taken without their consent. In Feb. 2014, a woman in San Francisco was assaulted at a bar for wearing the device. In Jan. 2015, Google announced it would stop producing the $1,500 prototype device. On Dec. 28, 2015, Google filed for a new application for Google Glass with the Federal Communications Commission, but the company shut down several social media accounts associated with the device earlier this week. The chart below details where the money is likely to be spent on both augmented and virtual reality, with hardware capturing a significant portion of each submarket. Cook's comments, which some saw as just a mention in passing, are likely to continue fueling speculation about what the Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple has up its sleeves for this market. That is of course, assuming Apple ventures into the arena at all. After a miserable 2015, in which retailer Sears Holdings (SHLD) saw its share price shrink 37%, the new year doesn't bode well for the well-known retailer. SHLD data by YCharts Sears is facing major obstacles, not least of which is shoppers' continuing shift to buying everything from jackets to phones to kitchenware at Web sites such as Amazon. While all retailers who have a bricks-and-mortar presence are facing the heat, Sears seems to be in a particularly tough spot. It can't seem to generate consumer excitement around its Sears and Kmart stores, its move to monetize valuable real estate assets doesn't seem to have cheered investors sufficiently and it faces renewed competition in the appliance space from J.C. Penney (JCP) . Sears just can't seem to get its act together, and it's likely that it will be part of a group of fundamentally weak stocks that have a terrible year. Despite all its troubles, Sears remains the top appliance retailer in the U.S., according to this article in The Wall Street Journal. But this position is under threat now from J.C. Penney, which, after three decades, is returning to selling appliances in its stores. Come February, J.C. Penney will test the waters by introducing these items in 22 stores in San Diego, San Antonio and Tampa, Fla. If all goes as planned, J.C. Penney will extend the reintroduction to its stores in other locations. J.C. Penney planned the move after receiving intelligence that appliances were the top items that shoppers searched for on its Web site, The Wall Street Journal said. The 22 stores will sell appliances from companies such as General Electric, LG Electronics and Samsung. What's more, even before J.C. Penney decided to return to appliances, Sears' market share in the space was on the decline, to 25.5% in September 2015 from 33.3% in 2006, the Journal reported. In other product categories, Sears is flailing. According to this commentary in Forbes, Sears' shopper share has fallen 40% over the past decade in softlines including clothing and shoes and hardlines including sporting goods, linens/bedding, home improvement products and electronics. And in women's clothing, the shopper preference share fell by more than half over the last 10 years. Sears did manage to reduce its net loss year over year in its fiscal third quarter, which ended on Oct. 31, 2015, but the loss was still a whopping $454 million (down from $548 million a year earlier). Revenue fell about 20% year over year to $5.75 billion. Revenue at stores open for at least a year, which is a gauge of the company's performance, fell 8.6% overall. All this is forcing the retailer to cut costs, and thereby shut some of its Kmart and Sears stores. Sears did give itself more time, and raise a significant amount of cash, with last year's spinoff of a chunk of its quality real estate properties in the form of Seritage Growth Properties (SRG) , a real estate investment trust that leases the properties back to the retailer. The deal generated $2.7 billion in cash, which helped Sears pay back debt and absorb losses. However, this cash infusion is expected to cover Sears only until mid-2017. Then what? To truly adapt to the current dynamic retail environment, Sears wil need to strengthen its retail core, rather than relying on the monetization of its real estate assets. With Fairholme Capitalrecently increasing its stake to become Sears' second-largest shareholder, expect some activist investor drama in the company this year. But with Sears' continuing losses and fresh competition in the appliance space from J.C. Penney, it seems best to stay away from its shares for the foreseeable future. As we've just explained, Sears is a precarious stock, especially in this down market. If you want to see a complete list of the absolute worst stocks you can own right now, I urge you to take a look at this report called 29 Dangerous Stocks: Sell Now! Inside, you'll see a full list of the market's most overvalued stocks, and learn the process you can use to keep avoiding them in the future. Click here now for a copy. Make sure there aren't any Sears-type landmines in your portfolio! This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned. Jack Dorsey may want to rethink his dual role as CEO of social network site Twitter (TWTR) and mobile payments startup Square (SQ) . Both companies are trading at or below their initial public offering price. If Twitter's share price keeps dropping it could soon become the target of a tech-focused activist hedge fund urging a sale and Dorsey's ouster. Dorsey, who founded both companies, has recently announced some changes, with four top VPs on its executive team exiting the company and one new hire, a new chief marketing officer, brought on board Tuesday. Insurgent investors may want to give Dorsey's new team -- including a soon to be announced "high-profile media personality" on its board -- some time before launching an activist campaign. However, without a major turnaround soon, Dorsey's position as CEO of two major publicly traded companies becomes a significant vulnerability that could attract an activist. "The biggest single problem that shareholders have with Dorsey is that he is not able to devote his full time to Twitter and the share price slide suggests he should spend his full time with Twitter," said Wedbush Securities Inc. analyst Michael Pachter. To be CEO of two publicly traded companies is too much, said Eric Jackson, managing director of activist fund SpringOwl Asset Management and a columnist for Real Money and TheStreet. This is especially true when one of the firms, Twitter, is in the midst of a turnaround. In tech, dual CEO roles are rare, with Elon Musk, currently CEO of Tesla Motors (TSLA) and privately held SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technology Corp., reportedly recommending against taking on two chief executive positions. In addition, a large minority of shareholders have already expressed their disappointment with Twitter at the ballot box. Roughly 31% of the voting shares opposed the re-election of Twitter director David Rosenblatt, an ex-Google and DoubleClick ad executive, at the company's annual meeting in June. The vote was substantial and likely directed at broader concerns about whether Twitter really needs two ex-Google directors -- Omid Kordestani, Twitter's chairman, previously served as chief business officer at the online search giant. An activist could also seek to curry favor with Twitter's institutional investor base by pointing to its poor governance ranking. The social network company received the lowest rating possible, a 10 out of 10, for governance by Institutional Shareholder Services. According to a report obtained by The Deal, Twitter received a red flag for a "pay for performance" misalignment based on the proxy advisory firm's qualitative review. It also issued a red flag around Rosenblatt's poor election result. Wedbush's Pachter said he is not surprised about the ISS concerns around compensation. He calculates Twitter's roughly 4000 employees receive on-average roughly $175,000 each in annual stock-based compensation. "We all tolerate it when the stock price goes up," Pachter said. "But not so much when the stock price is down." However, any activist that would launch a campaign at Twitter would face significant obstacles. For one thing, Twitter's board is classified, which means the activist could, at best, succeed at installing a minority slate of dissident directors who would have some influence but couldn't remove Dorsey on their own. In addition, the annual meeting is the only place one can elect directors at Twitter so they would need to nominate director candidates by a March 6 deadline. In addition, roughly 15% of Twitter's outstanding shares are owned by insiders, including 3.7% stake owned by Dorsey, according to the company's 2015 proxy statement. Also, SpringOwl's Jackson argues most activist funds don't have enough expertise in the area of social networking companies or how to fix a user growth problem at Twitter. "They would probably worry about looking foolish by taking a position in Twitter and coming out with a bunch of prescriptions about how to improve a consumer-facing app," Jackson said. While many activists seek to break up companies, Twitter can't really be broken up. Pachter asserts that its Tweetdeck and Vine subsidiaries could not survive as standalone businesses. Nevertheless, if the stock price drops low enough, Jackson said an activist could seek to gin up interest in having Twitter sold even as he concedes that Dorsey is unlikely to want to sell the business for anything below its $26 a share IPO price. Twitter's stock price has dropped from roughly $31 a share in October to the current $16.77. According to Jack Mohr, director of research for Jim Cramer's charitable trust, Action Alerts PLUS, this could be exactly what happens. Twitter is an AAP holding. "Much has been made about the immense, unlocked potential that the microblogging company harbors, and many believe that it could draw upon the scope, scale and expertise of a successful social media or news conglomerate to unlock its inherent value and turn the struggling company around," Mohr said Thursday. "Takeover rumors around [Twitter] have been abundant since last April, but the subsequent 70% valuation compression since the earliest report makes the case for being acquired more reasonable." Exclusive Look Inside: You see Jim Cramer on TV. Now, see where he invests his money and why TWTR is a core holding of his multi-million dollar portfolio. Want to be alerted before Jim Cramer buys or sells TWTR? Learn more now. Potential buyers include Alphabet (GOOGL) , Facebook (FB) , Alibaba (BABA) , Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo! (YHOO) . Rupert Murdoch'sNews Corp (NWSA) last week denied rumors it is interested in buying Twitter. For some, the only real strategic fit for Twitter would be Facebook. Pachter suggests that embattled Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer could seek to buy Twitter as part of an effort to reinvigorate its brand and help it fend off its own activists. Starboard Value's Jeff Smith has threatened a change-of-control proxy fight at Yahoo if it didn't replace management and quickly explore a sale. "Facebook is missing real time news and Twitter allows people to follow things they are interested in rather than people they know," he said. "If Marissa Mayer wants to keep her job she has to do something and buying Twitter could be it." And how would the activist launch their campaign? An insurgency could effectively take off with a tweet - following in the footsteps of Carl Icahn, who began his Appleundefined insurgency with one. It seems like that would be the most Twitter-friendly approach, with a quick securities filing and hashtag alert, #sellTwitter, to follow. Trade-Ideas LLC identified Texas Instruments ( TXN ) as an unusual social activity candidate. In addition to specific proprietary factors, Trade-Ideas identified Texas Instruments as such a stock due to the following factors: TXN has 19x the normal benchmarked social activity for this time of the day compared to its average of 3.52 mentions/day. TXN has an average dollar-volume (as measured by average daily share volume multiplied by share price) of $505.6 million. Identifying stocks with 'Unusual Social Activity' tends to be a valuable process for traders looking to capitalize on the 'talk of the town' stocks that are basking in far more attention from the StockTwits financial community than normal. Good press? Bad press? It ultimately doesn't matter if it's good or bad if you know how to trade around the sentiment. Certain hedge funds use such data for their proprietary algorithms and it is not uncommon to see shared social sentiment play itself out in a stock's price trend. EXCLUSIVE OFFER: Get the inside scoop on opportunities in TXN with the Ticky from Trade-Ideas. See the FREE profile for TXN NOW at Trade-Ideas More details on TXN: Texas Instruments Incorporated designs, manufactures, and sells semiconductors to electronics designers and manufacturers worldwide. It operates through two segments, Analog and Embedded Processing. The stock currently has a dividend yield of 3%. TXN has a PE ratio of 18. Currently there are 10 analysts that rate Texas Instruments a buy, 1 analyst rates it a sell, and 17 rate it a hold. The average volume for Texas Instruments has been 6.1 million shares per day over the past 30 days. Texas Instruments has a market cap of $50.8 billion and is part of the technology sector and electronics industry. The stock has a beta of 1.34 and a short float of 2.7% with 2.92 days to cover. Shares are down 7.5% year-to-date as of the close of trading on Tuesday. EXCLUSIVE OFFER: See inside Jim Cramer's multi-million dollar charitable trust portfolio to see the stocks he thinks could be potential winners. Click here to see his holdings for 14-days FREE. TheStreetRatings.com Analysis: TheStreet Quant Ratings rates Texas Instruments as a buy . The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, notable return on equity, good cash flow from operations and expanding profit margins. We feel its strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had lackluster performance in the stock itself. Highlights from the ratings report include: The current debt-to-equity ratio, 0.41, is low and is below the industry average, implying that there has been successful management of debt levels. To add to this, TXN has a quick ratio of 1.69, which demonstrates the ability of the company to cover short-term liquidity needs. Current return on equity exceeded its ROE from the same quarter one year prior. This is a clear sign of strength within the company. When compared to other companies in the Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment industry and the overall market, TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC's return on equity exceeds that of the industry average and significantly exceeds that of the S&P 500. Net operating cash flow has slightly increased to $1,409.00 million or 1.87% when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC has also vastly surpassed the industry average cash flow growth rate of -75.28%. TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC reported flat earnings per share in the most recent quarter. This company has reported somewhat volatile earnings recently. But, we feel it is poised for EPS growth in the coming year. During the past fiscal year, TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC increased its bottom line by earning $2.58 versus $1.92 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings ($2.72 versus $2.58). Regardless of the drop in revenue, the company managed to outperform against the industry average of 3.5%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly dropped by 2.0%. Weakness in the company's revenue seems to not be hurting the bottom line, shown by stable earnings per share. You can view the full Texas Instruments Ratings Report. EXCLUSIVE OFFER: See inside Jim Cramer's multi-million dollar charitable trust portfolio to see the stocks he thinks could be potential winners. Click here to see his holdings for 14-days FREE. NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Devon Energy (DVN) are rising by 8.86% to $26.68 in early afternoon trading on Thursday, as the rally in the price of oil drives some energy and related stocks higher today. The price of the commodity moved into the green today on the hope that Russia and OPEC would agree to cut production, Reuters reports. However, Saudi Arabia has reportedly stated that it has made no proposal to cut its production by 5%, as had been suggested on Thursday by Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak. "If there was a cut it would be very bullish and there's a reaction that's pushing oil higher," Brenda Kelly, head analyst at London Capital Group, told Reuters. Crude oil (WTI) is up by 3.25% to $33.35 per barrel this afternoon and Brent crude is soaring by 3.2% to $34.16 per barrel. Devon Energy is an Oklahoma City-based independent energy company engaged in the exploration, development and production of oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids. Separately, TheStreet Ratings has a "sell" rating and a score of D+ on Devon Energy stock. This is driven by several weaknesses, which TheStreet Ratings believes should have a greater impact than any strengths, and could make it more difficult for investors to achieve positive results compared to most of the stocks it covers. The company's weaknesses can be seen in multiple areas, such as its deteriorating net income, generally high debt management risk, disappointing return on equity, weak operating cash flow and generally disappointing historical performance in the stock itself. TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this articles's author. You can view the full analysis from the report here: DVN DVN data by YCharts The sun has already set on the British Empire. It may also be setting on the UK's membership in the European Union. While global investors have been concerned about the economic slowdown in China and U.S. market volatility, there's another looming issue: a national referendum in which UK citizens will decide whether to remain a member of the European Union. It has been conventional wisdom that voters would reject the notion of leaving the EU. But over the last few months, the chances of a "Brexit" have increased. The national referendum has been a long time in coming and it's expected this year. The United Kingdom joined the European Union in 1973, and it has been a controversial decision among some Brits. In fact, there was a 1975 referendum, in which 67% of voters supported staying in the EU. But the issue has festered, particularly among conservatives who believe that their nation would fare better on its own. Prime Minister David Cameron assured voters that there would be a national referendum by 2017, and the Parliament has already passed a measure that calls for a referendum to happen. Cameron campaigned on trying to secure better terms for membership within the EU, but Germany and France have bristled at his entreaties, contending that you can't cherry pick which rules with which to comply. Even the Obama administration has weighed in, saying that the UK will have a diminished voice from the global stage, should it remove itself from the EU. The U.S. would rather deal with one trading partner, the European Union, instead of having to negotiate a separate side agreement, as it looks to make progress on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) agreement. Nevertheless, the UK may be hurtling towards an exit -- because the allure of the European Union has been diminished in recent years. Membership in the European Union's euro (of which the UK does not participate) was supposed to lead to more prosperity. But instead, countries like Germany and France are being asked to foot the bill for peripheral countries like Greece, which is being forced to undergo austerity. The prosperity which was promised hasn't materialized. Moreover, the refugee crisis has created political and social angst in several countries, including the UK. That millions of refugees have arrived in Europe has called into question the Schengen agreement, which allows free movement within the EU. However, last week, Austria instituted border controls, and more national governments are considering taking a similar step. The wave of immigration is leading to an increase in isolationism within Great Britain. A recent poll found that 42% of Brits support remaining a member of the EU, whereas 40% wanted to leave, with 17% undecided. The markets are starting to respond to the prospect of a Brexit too. The GBP trade-weighted index has a risk premium of 1 to 7%, which is elevated compared to history. It is possible that investors will hedge GBP positions, creating a further dislocation between the market price and fair value of the sterling. Within rates, look for 2Y and 5Y gilts to fall as much as 20 bases points, especially if a Brexit looks more likely. Of course, if a Brexit happens, Britain would have to negotiate the terms of its leaving, which would create an overhang in its market. In that case, there would be a high degree of uncertainty, and political risk premia would remain elevated. Then there is the domino effect of Britain leaving. It may encourage other countries to leave. "The UK would present continental opponents of immigration with a politically potent example (and threat) of how to deal with one of the thorniest and most emotionally charged trans-national issues confronting European voters," said Barclays in a note. Add a Brexit to your growing list of things to worry about. This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned. Kabir Sehgal is the author of New York Times bestseller Coined: The Rich Life of Money And How Its History Has Shaped Us and The Wheels on the Tuk Tuk. He is also a Grammy-winning producer. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter. NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- XeroxCorp. (XRX) stock is down by 0.65% to $9.15 in after-hours trading on Thursday, after a report said the company is planning to split in two. Xerox will separate its hardware business and its services business, sources told the Wall Street Journal. As part of the deal, activist investor Carl Icahn will receive three board seats, according to the Journal. Last year, Icahn took a stake in Xerox and said he intended to discuss operational improvements and strategic alternatives with the company's board. The company reports its earnings results before the market open on Friday. Based in Norwalk, CT, Xerox offers business process and document management services. Separately, recently, TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this articles's author. TheStreet Ratings rates this stock as a "hold" with a ratings score of C. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its reasonable valuation levels, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and expanding profit margins. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including deteriorating net income, disappointing return on equity and weak operating cash flow. You can view the full analysis from the report here: XRX XRX data by YCharts Montreal, CA (H4T1V6) Today Cloudy with showers. High 47F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Cloudy skies early, followed by partial clearing. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low around 40F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Rancher Cliven Bundy speaks to media while standing along the road near his ranch Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, in Bunkerville, Nev. Cliven Bundy and his wife Carol Bundy was returning from a trip to visit the family of LaVoy Finicum, a 55-year-old rancher from Cain Beds, Ariz., who died Tuesday after law enforcement officers initiated a traffic stop near the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. It's unclear what happened in the moments before his death. (AP Photo/John Locher) Carissa Etienne, left, Regional-Director for the WHO Pan American Health Organization, (WHO/PAHO) sits next to China's Margaret Chan, right, General Director of the World Health Organization, WHO, as she speaks about the Information Session on Zika virus for WHO Member States, during a WHO Executive Board session, at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP) Hospital acquires new surgical robotics technology Burke Health announced the purchase of new robotics technology for use during spine surgical procedures last week. The Globus ExcelsiusGPS is a revolutionary robotic navigation platform system designed to be intuitive and streamline the surgical workflow. Real-time tracking of instruments and implants, along with audible, visual and tactile feedback, enables... County center wins senior trike Local seniors now have access to an adult tricycle. Director Kimberly Mathis attended the Move Augusta Senior Expo and Bike Rodeo sponsored by Augusta Urban Ministries October 8. The event, held at The Salvation Army Kroc Center, was aimed at people over 50 years old, and included resources and health... 4-H Food Challenge Team takes State For the first time, Burke County 4-H decided to put together a junior food challenge team this summer. Teams are compromised of 2-4 students in the 6th-8th grades. This competition is very competitive and teams must advance to state after the district competition. Our team started practicing weekly in July... County rehashes trash problem I am bringing up the trash again, Commissioner Evans Martin said during the October 11 meeting. We have to do something about the trash. Martin asked that the record show that he wants to do something about the countys dumpster sites. He made a suggestion that eliminating 10 sites would... House Democrats clawed their way into power and delivered a burst of historic legislation for President Barack Obama after he took office seven years ago. Now, in his final year, Obama is leaving them greatly diminished and confronting questions about whether their next generation of leaders can lead them back into the majority. So as Obama addresses House Democrats gathered in Baltimore this week for an issues retreat emphasizing party unity and team spirit, its likely to be a bittersweet experience for many. Obamas House allies are in far worse shape politically than they ever imagined they would be at the dawn of his first term, when successive electoral romps in 2006 and 2008 gave them a whopping 257-178 seat edge in the House. Obama and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., used that majority to push through an economic stimulus package, the most far-reaching overhaul of health care since Medicare and Medicaid and a revamp of regulation of the financial services industry. Democrats controlled majorities of the Mississippi, Arkansas and North Carolina delegations. Seats in Upstate New York that had been in GOP hands for decades were under their control. Even Alabama was evenly split. Then came 2010, and the wave of tea party anger over Obamas policies on health care, the economy and energy wiped out many moderate and conservative Democrats representing rural swing districts. Democrats lost 63 seats, Republicans claimed the majority and Obama bemoaned the shellacking. When Obama completes his term, Democrats will have one of their smallest minorities in the House, just 188 members to the GOPs commanding 247, and little realistic prospect of regaining control anytime soon. Not a single white Democrat in the Deep South holds a seat in Congress. Even more problematic for Democrats is that Republicans control state legislatures in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, and have redrawn congressional districts so as to minimize potential Democratic gains. It was all worth it. It was fabulous, Pelosi said of Democratic legislation in Obamas first term at a news conference with reporters. House Democrats are natural political warriors and their spirits tend to rise in presidential election years that are far better for them than midterms. People are looking at the 2016 election and I think theyre pretty upbeat, said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic fundraiser and strategist. If either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz is at the top of the ticket, everybody I talk to thinks its going to be a good year for Democrats. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Trump and Cruz have already damaged the GOP. The Republican presidential primary circus has already shifted the debate so far to the right to an extreme place that House Republicans, House Republican candidates and up- and down-ballot Republicans across America are taking more extreme positions and are saying more extreme things than they normally would have, Lujan said. Pelosi and top lieutenants Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., are all in their mid-70s. Some potential successors are already moving on. One of them, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., has shifted his gaze to the Senate, resisting a plea from Pelosi to stay in the House. Another, Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., named by Pelosi to a leadership post last year after four tough years as chairman of the campaign arm, has opted to retire at the end of his term. To be sure, Pelosi and House Democrats backed by Obama have wielded their fair share of clout despite being relegated to the minority. GOP leaders like former Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, have had to look to Democrats to pass legislation, as did new Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., in negotiating and passing a recent massive spending bill. This weeks issues conference will feature Obama as the keynote speaker Thursday night. Other speakers are Vice President Joe Biden, San Francisco billionaire and climate change activist Tom Steyer, The Daily Show host Trevor Noah, and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada met with Obama on Tuesday and the White House issued an upbeat statement on potential areas of bipartisanship like the budget, criminal justice reform, dealing with Puerto Ricos fiscal crisis and addressing the opioid epidemic. A more divisive topic for Democrats the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact negotiated by the administration was also discussed. Pelosi dismissed worries that a series of bipartisan accomplishments this year in keeping with the playbook of GOP leaders like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky might protect Republican incumbents and make it more difficult for Capitol Hill Democrats. We have a responsibility to meet the needs of people, Pelosi said. And so if our calling is to work in a bipartisan way to get something accomplished for the American people, thats a higher priority. Politics is another piece of it. (AP) Hillary Clinton pressed the Democratic National Committee on Wednesday to add a presidential debate before next months New Hampshire primary, seeking another high-profile exchange with rival Bernie Sanders. The push by Clinton for more debates and Sanders resistance to adding another forum underscores his strength in Iowa and New Hampshire and the heightened concern within Clintons team that she could lose both of the first early voting states. Clinton is trailing Sanders in New Hampshire and locked in a tight contest in Mondays Iowa caucuses, raising the possibility that the Democratic front-runner could lose the first two presidential contests. Adding another debate before New Hampshires Feb. 9 primary would give her a large television audience that might help her reach undecided voters. I am, you know, anxious if we can get something set up to be able to be there. So lets try to make it happen, Clinton said in a phone interview with MSNBC, which announced the new debate with the Union Leader, New Hampshires largest newspaper. Clinton said she wanted DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz to approve the debate and for Sanders to join her. But both have resisted. Amy Dacey, the DNCs chief executive officer, said on Twitter earlier Wednesday that Democrats have a debate schedule, and were sticking to it. Sanders campaign has said it has no plans to participate because the DNC hasnt sanctioned the proposed debate. The Vermont senators campaign has warned it could jeopardize their ability to participate in upcoming debates scheduled in Wisconsin and Florida. Sanders wants the DNC to consider adding 3 or 4 more debates after the ones currently scheduled, campaign manager Jeff Weaver said Tuesday. Former Maryland Gov. Martin OMalley, who has long criticized the DNCs debate schedule, supports adding the debate in New Hampshire. For months, OMalley and some of Sanders supporters have claimed that the national committee is rigging the schedule to benefit Clinton, scheduling fewer debates to avoid undermining her national lead in the polls. Many of the televised events have been held on weekend evenings, giving it a limited audience. Clintons push for more debates signals her deficit in New Hampshire against Sanders, who has represented neighboring Vermont in Congress for more than two decades. (AP) France has asked the European Union to consider new sanctions against Iran over recent missile tests, in a request made just days after the EU ended sanctions over Irans nuclear program, officials have told The Associated Press. Two officials from European Union nations told AP that the request came last week at a meeting of 28 EU foreign ministers. That was two days after the EU and the U.S. lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for U.N. certification that Iran had scaled back its nuclear programs. Iran said those programs were peaceful but critics feared it wanted to build nuclear weapons. The United States had imposed new sanctions over the firing of a medium-range Iranian ballistic missile just a day before the reported French request. The two officials said the French proposal is under EU review but most other EU members view it as counterproductive to efforts to revive political and economic ties with Iran after the protracted chill over the nuclear dispute. The officials, who were briefed by people who attended the meeting, spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly. Disclosure that the French asked for such a review even if it is ultimately unsuccessful could complicate a visit by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who arrived in Paris from Rome on Wednesday to improve political and economic ties now that the sanctions have been removed. Neither the French government nor the European Union responded to AP requests for comment by late Wednesday. A French diplomat who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the topic cited Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius as saying the EU is considering possible new sanctions on Iran. He declined to say which nation initiated the process. (AP) An understanding has been reached between Shas and Yahadut Hatorah and Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who heads the Bayit Leumi party, regarding the bill being pushed by Shas and Yahadut Hatorah. As reported earlier, the bill seeks to eliminate the compulsory introduction of secular subjects into chareidi schools, but leaves the decision to the individual schools. The chareidi parties, which were in opposition during the last administration, are working to change the current law which compels teaching basic secular studies in chareidi schools wishing to receive state aid. This would include subjects like math and English. Chinuch Atzmai and other chareidi systems remain opposed to any and all state intervention in the curriculum of their schools. According to a Kikar Shabbos News report on Wednesday, Gafne and Yaakov Margi spoke with Bennett earlier in the day, and the bill will be represented, this time as a government bill following a discussion in cabinet. From Yahadut Hatorahs perspective, Bennett and his colleagues are bound by coalition agreements, which stipulate the bill must be backed by coalition partners. It appears Bennett was angered to learn of the bill in the media and by pulling it and giving him control via the cabinet will suffice to make it palatable for him. The chareidim continue the same mantra, that the bill is mentioned in the coalition agreements so one way or another, Bayit Yehudi is going to have to back it. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) Shas and Yahadut Hatorah are hoping to push through a law that will undo the law passed by the previous Knesset, a law passed by Bayit Yehudi and Yesh Atid which compels schools receiving state aid to teach students so-called core subjects, referring to mathematics, English and other basic secular studies. According to the Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) report, Finance Committee Chairman MK Moshe Gafne is working with MKs Uri Maklev and Yaakov Margi, with the latter heading the Knesset Education Committee, to push the bill ahead. Upon hearing of the effort, Education Minister (Bayit Yehudi) Naftali Bennett stated he will not permit such a bill to pass into law. However, Gafne is quick to remind Bennett that coalition agreements that he signed compel him to back the law, which will permit chareidi mosdos to decide if they want to include secular studies in their curriculum or not while still receiving state funding. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) While the kosher factor is not the reason, there has been a 16% increase in Israeli wine exports to Asia in 2015, with an overall 6% increase in the Israeli wine industry last year. According to the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute, the 6% increase bring the industry to $39 million in 2015, but ironically, the money value of the exports actually dropped by 3%, and this is attributed to the weakening of the euro. Wine exports to Asia are up 16% to $2.6 million, and to N. America the experts grew 8% to $25 million. The market in Asia is less concerned with kashrus and more concerned with a quality wine product. Exports to the European Union dropped 18% to $10 million, once again attributed to the weakening euro. The institute reports there are a total of 300 wineries operating in Israel including 60 commercial ones. While exports are a significant component of the industry, the local marketplace turnover is NIS 1 billion annually, which represents 40 million bottles a year and this does not include 10 million bottles of grape juice, of which 20% is for export. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) In the PA (Palestinian Authority), it is a capital offense to sell homes and land to Israelis and the PA has arrested the brother and a son of a man who recently sold two homes to Jews in Hebron. According to an Arutz-7 News report, when the PA was contacted regarding the arrests the person was told the 17-year-old and his uncle in custody would not see the light of day until such time the man who actualized the sales turns himself over to authorities. Ironically, last week, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon ordered the eviction of the residents of these buildings and his move was backed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. At that time, the Jewish community leaders announced that the homes were purchased legally and there was no cause for the eviction, adding that instead of worrying about evicting the Jews, the government should protect the man who sold the homes so not harm comes to him. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro spoke with Kol Chai Radio host Mordechai Lavi and Wednesday morning, 17 Shevat. He was asked to comment on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moons scathing attack on Israel and the UN leaders placing the blame for ongoing Palestinian terror on Israel, the result of the Israeli occupation. Shapiro explained I prefer to address the US position on terrorism and permit me to make it clear, we are opposed to all terror attacks. He went on to condemn recent Palestinian acts of terror including in Otniel and Tekoa, explaining while there may be difference of hashkafa at times, the United States condemns the terrorist acts which are the fault of those who carry out these attacks. The ambassador was speaking in Hebrew. The ambassador recently came under fire for his ill-timed remarks in which he expressed criticism of Israeli policies in Yehuda and Shomron. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) Magen David Adom blood bank officials are calling on Israelis to donate blood as there is a nationwide shortage. At present the shortage is especially type O as well as all RH negative blood. MDA calls on people to donate between 17 and 19 Shevat as a special effort is being made nationwide to accommodate blood bank services. For information as to where one may donate, one may call 03-5300-400 (person will respond) or 1-800-400-101 (for a digital response). One may also visit the organizations webpage for blood donations. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) The 18-year-old terrorist was waiting, looking to decide who his victim would be in the stabbing attack in Givat Zeev on Wednesday night. The terrorist saw a chareidi couple at the convenience store at the gas station in Givat Zeev. He stabbed the husband, Menachem Mendel be Chana Yehudit twice, leaving him seriously wounded. He then fled the scene and passersby saw what occurred and chased after him, apprehending him until police arrived. The terrorist sustained minor injuries from the blows he sustained while being restrained for police. The victim, Menachem Mendel, 38, is a resident of Givat Zeev. He arrived in Shaare Zedek in very serious condition and was rushed immediately into lifesaving surgery and required a number of units of blood to compensate for the significant blood loss. Doctors report the knife struck major blood vessels. Bchasdei Hashem today, Thursday, 18 Shevat, he remains in stable condition in an intensive care unit. It is also reported the terrorist was armed with two knives with officials pointing out that one must use extreme caution when trying to apprehend such an individual and one must not assume a knife dropped at a scene is the only weapon the terrorist is carrying. In this case, a knife was dropped at the scene and the second knife was found by police after they took custody of the prisoner. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem/Photo: Media Resource Group) Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders are energizing grassroots voters as the first balloting of the 2016 presidential race draws near. Yet the three maverick contenders are also alarming political operatives over the damage each could wreak on their own parties House candidates this November. The worry is that each mans take-no-prisoners appeals would alienate moderate voters in the two to three dozen competitive House races expected in seats from Florida to California, often in the suburbs. While it seems unlikely Republicans will lose House control, some in the GOP envision a serious dent in their current majority should Trump or Cruz be nominated, while Democrats worry that a Sanders candidacy would deflate their chances for sizable gains. Being able to talk passionately about democratic socialism may be a virtue, said Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., who formerly led House Democrats campaign organization and is backing Hillary Clinton for his partys presidential nomination. Im not sure that resonates to swing voters in the suburbs and exurbs, and those are the districts we have to win to take back the House. An independent senator from Vermont, Sanders has dubbed his political philosophy democratic socialism and is surging among liberal and young voters with calls for universal health care and a broadside against income equality. Cruz, a Texas Republican senator and unyielding conservative, is popular among evangelicals and tea party backers while Trumps blunt assaults on all things establishment are resonating with working-class white voters, landing both amid the leaders of the GOP pack. All three have found support among Americans disaffected with Washington and the economy. But while political professionals from both parties consider Trumps ultimate performance with voters unpredictable, they think the trios appeal to key moderate voting blocs like suburban women could be weak. That would be bad news for House Republicans from swing districts if Trump or Cruz is nominated and for Democrats from such seats if Sanders is selected. His ideas are so far to the right, it makes it difficult for a swing district message to be coupled with that, Tom Reynolds, a former House Republican from upstate New York who headed House GOP political operations, said of Cruz. Reynolds advice to House candidates from such areas if Cruz or Trump wins the Republican nomination: Define what youre about so they identify you for what you are, even with all the atmospherics of whats above you. Seemingly agreeing that House Republicans need to define an agenda, Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has said his chamber will map its own conservative priorities by the partys July nominating convention. Republicans control the House 247-188, including one vacant Ohio seat the GOP is certain to win, their biggest majority since 1930. That gives Democrats a good chance to recapture seats with the additional turnout of minority and younger voters expected in this presidential election year an outcome they believe Trump or Cruz would enhance. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have both shifted the conversation to the extreme right, improving Democrats pick-up opportunities, said Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., who heads his partys House campaign committee. Roughly two-thirds of the contested districts are held by Republicans, including seats in the Chicago and Denver suburbs, South Florida, upstate New York and Texas. Democrats face tough fights to defend districts in Arizona; Omaha, Nebraska; New Yorks Long Island; Sacramento, California and Florida. House Democrats nervousness about Sanders seems tempered by doubts that he will best Clinton for the nomination, despite his recent surge in polls. Even so, they concede theyd have to emphasize their differences with Sanders should he become their partys pick to succeed President Barack Obama. Theyre especially wary of his socialist label and his plan to broadly increase taxes to finance his proposal to broaden health coverage. Were not Obama clones, we vote against him on a regular basis, and were certainly not socialists, said Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., a leader of the 15-member Blue Dog Coalition of moderate House Democrats. With Trump and Cruz atop many GOP presidential surveys, concerns are more widespread among Republicans. Though they say each partys ever-improving use of computer-drawn congressional districts locks in most House seats and provides a firewall against a catastrophic loss, many concede that both men would pose dangers at the top of the ticket. Thats especially true for Cruz, who helped steer the GOP into a losing 2013 government shutdown battle against Obama. That fight remains politically poisonous with moderate voters and House Republican freshmen who won 2014 elections in swing districts, in part, by opposing such tactics. Hes taken some votes on the extreme side, and that makes them a little bit concerned, said Sarah Chamberlain, president of the Republican Main Street Partnership, which represents 72 congressional Republican pragmatists. Many Republicans view Trumps comments on Mexicans, Muslims and women as incendiary and potentially damaging in House swing districts. But they say its unclear whether that would be outweighed by the real estate billionaires celebrity and the attraction his brusque approach has had for disgruntled lower-earning voters. Hes said some very provocative statements, and obviously the campaigns are going to have to work through those, said David Winston, a top consultant to House Republicans. (AP) The Satmar Rebbe Shlita is scheduled to arrive in Eretz Yisrael next week and he is planning to dedicate a handsum some to the battle to prevent the induction of chareidim into the IDF. The Satmar Rebbe of Williamsburg Shlita is due to arrive in Eretz Yisrael for the bris of a grandson and will continue his minhag of the Shekel Tahor program, which is simply Satmar matches each shekel a yeshiva does not take from the state. In past years Satmar has spent millions on this program for it feels yeshivos mustnt take any funds from the Zionist state. Kikar Shabbos News reports that this time however, the rebbe is not just going to continue the program but he is planning to invest major funds in the battle against serving in the military, stating we must mobilize on behalf of these people. The rebbe is expected to arrive on Monday evening 22 Shevat and he will head directly to Yerushalayim. The bris is expected to be held on Tuesday morning and thousands of chassidim from all over Israel are expected to attend. The rebbe is expected to leave on Tuesday night for London for what is billed a historic visit, his first to that city since becoming rebbe. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) It is reported that the terrorist who perpetrated the Givat Zeev stabbing attack late Wednesday night, Abadah Abu Ris, is a son of Dr. Aziz Abu Ris, with the latter being among the group of terrorists expelled from Israel by Yitzchak Rabin in 1992. They returned from Lebanon not too long thereafter, in 1993. The attack occurred shortly after 11:00PM on Wednesday night inside Givat Zeev. The attacker stabbed Menachem Mendel [Rivkin] ben Cana Yehudit, 38, a resident of Givat Zeev, two times. He arrived in the trauma unit in very serious condition and BH, is in stable/serious condition in an intensive care unit following surgery. The terrorist was lightly injured when citizens chased after him and restrained him until police arrived. The terrorist was treated and released in custody from Hadassah Hospital. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) The government has postponed the sale of the taxpayer's remaining stake in Lloyds Banking Group due to the turmoil in global financial markets, Chancellor George Osborne said today. Confirming reports, Mr Osborne said on his official Twitter feed: We'll build a share owning democracy. So British people can buy Lloyds shares but we'll only sell when turbulent markets have calmed down. Prime Minister David Cameron pledged during last years general election campaign to sell the final part of the government's stake in Lloyds, which it acquired following a 20billion bailout of the bank during the 2008 financial crisis. Chancellor tweets: George Osborne said on his official Twitter feed: We'll build a share owning democracy. So British people can buy Lloyds shares but we'll only sell when turbulent markets have calmed down Details of the 9.2 per cent stake sale expected to be one of the biggest privatisations since British Gas and BT in the 1980s were confirmed for this spring by the Treasury last October. The government had planned to further reduce its stake in Lloyds via a scheme aimed at major investors early this year, before sealing its exit with a broader offer to the public in the spring, in moves expected to raise around 2billion. Chris Beauchamp, Senior Market Analyst, at IG said: Given the way the share price has moved, it is not surprising that Osborne has decided to hang on to the last vestiges of the Lloyds stake better to take the flak over a change in plan than suffering brickbats for selling at too low a price. Given the outlook for the UK economy, confirmed by this mornings GDP data, it seems reasonable to think that the time will come, once consumer spending rises and market sentiment improves. However, that time is not now, and the British public are likely to be better served by the UK remaining a Lloyds shareholder for some time longer than had been anticipated just a year ago. He added: Research conducted by IG shows there is significant public appetite for the Lloyds share offer, with 43 per cent of the UK adult population being aware of the offer and 6 per cent likely to apply. The Treasury has been gradually selling down the taxpayer's stake in Lloyds through on-market sales to institutional investors, reducing its peak holding of 43 per cent in the bank to under 10 per cent. FORMER LLOYDS' BUSINESS TSB SAW PROFITS DROP BY A FIFTH LAST YEAR IMPACTED BY CHARGES LINKED TO ITS TAKEOVER BY SPAIN'S SABADELL Challenger bank TSB saw its profits tumble by more than a fifth last year as it was impacted by merger charges and investments to grow its mortgage book. TSB - spun out from Lloyds Banking Group and then taken over by Spanish rival Banco de Sabadell last March - said management pretax profits fell 20.9 per cent to 105.7million in 2015 as it also faced a fall in charges levied on customer accounts. The lender said it notched up 1,000 new customers every day in 2015, helping deposits increase 5.2 per cent to 25.9million. It also confirmed that it had bought 3billion of ex-Northern Rock loans over the period. TSB chief executive Paul Pester said the bank was well-ahead of its growth strategy. He added: Balance sheet growth has been strong and profits, while exceeding our plans, have declined as expected, on both a management and statutory basis. Mr Pester also confirmed that TSB will not face any PPI charges after it broke away from Lloyds with a clean balance sheet. TSB has 4.5 million retail customers across the UK and 631 branches. Mr Osborne insisted: 'We will sell Lloyds to the British people but we will do so when the time is right.' A spokesman for Lloyds Banking Group said today: The timing of any future retail sale is a matter for the Government. Our focus is on moving the group forward so that it can continue to be profitable and deliver sustainable returns to all our shareholders. Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: Osborne will clearly be looking for a better deal for the Government, to maximise returns as best he can, and he wont want any issue that was aiming for substantial involvement from private investors to be a flop. That would damage already fragile sentiment and make it harder for any future privatisations to do well. With global markets having had one of their worst ever starts to a year amid slumping oil prices and concerns over growth in China, it is no real surprise the timetable has been delayed. The FTSE 100 index has dropped around 7 per cent over the first three weeks of 2016, although it has recovered some ground since last week sinking into bear market territory for the first time since 2008 with the index then 20 per cent below its peak hit in April last year. In late morning trade today, Lloyds shares on the FTSE 100 index were down 1.5 per cent, or 1.0p at 63.9p, well below the 73.6p level at which the City thinks taxpayers break even on a stake sale. Earlier this week, Lloyds shares touched their lowest level since July 2013 at 61.86p. Banking shares have come under pressure this week ahead of next months annual results season amid worries that the sector could shoulder a further 5billion bill for the payment protection insurance mis-selling scandal. Shares decline: Lloyds stock on the FTSE 100 index were today down 1.5 per cent at 63.9p, well below the 73.6p level at which the City thinks taxpayers break even on a stake sale Yesterday Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander UK became the first High Street giants to set aside more money for PPI compensation as they prepare for a deluge of claims ahead of a likely two-year time bar on complaints set to be introduced by regulators in the spring, with the final deadline likely to fall in 2018. In an unscheduled announcement, RBS revealed it had made a further 500m PPI provision, taking its total costs for the scandal to 4.3billion, which together with other charges will drag the majority taxpayer-owned bank into another annual loss its eighth consecutive deficit. Spanish-owned Santander UK also said in its annual results yesterday that it has set aside another 450million to compensate customers mis-sold PPI, taking its total cost to 1.52billion. Analysts at Investec predict Lloyds could be forced to make another 2.5billion PPI provision, having already set aside 13.9billion, while Barclays could make another 1billion provision, having booked a 6billion charge so far. An online petition has been signed by more than 140,000 people backing Steve Lewis, the former army officer from the town of Crickhowell in the Brecon Beacons, to become the next chief executive of HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC). The current chief exec, Dame Lin Homer, will step down in April and Steve is putting himself forward for the role. The Crickhowell businessman was involved in a TV experiment, aired last week, which saw local tradespeople moving their accounts offshore in a bid to copy the likes of Google, Starbucks and Amazon. Steve and his wife Sam have run the local coffee shop, Number 18 Cafe, in Crickhowell for 11 years Father of six Steve, 63, has run the local coffee shop, Number 18 Cafe, in the town with his wife Sam, 48, for the past 11 years. He says: 'It's about time that the board, that is meant to scrutinise the way our Government enforces tax policy, stopped helping multinationals reduce their tax bills and started working for the British public and British small businesses to deliver fair tax for all - big and small.' 'While I pay 20 per cent of my coffee shop profits in tax many of the large coffee shop chains use legal loopholes to avoid tax or negotiate with HMRC to reduce their tax bill to 0 per cent.' Steve argues that when Dame Lin Homer steps down, there is a chance to make a change to the tax system. 'The playing field is not fair, it is not just and it damages our communities, but this month there is an opportunity to change it', he adds. Instead of replacing her with a 'lifelong civil servant'or someone cosy to big business,' Steve says the Government should appoint someone who 'champions ordinary citizens and understands small businesses'. With a 19-year military career and a 25-years of experience in corporate businesses, Steve thinks he's the man for the job - and so do 141,763 people who have already signed the petition on change.org. Steve Lewis (pictured) has set up a campaign to become the next chief executive of HMRC Calling himself 'the people's taxman' Steve says 'I will have no fear or compromise in holding aggressive tax avoiders, tax abusers and tax bullies to account. 'Government officials rarely look outside for top jobs like this. So I'm going to need your help to convince them that the public want a new approach to fair tax,' he adds. The immediate aim now for Steve and the Fair Tax Town campaign is brand damage to the companies he calls 'tax abusers'. He wants to name and shame these 'tax bullies' and make the public aware of exactly how much tax is paid by the multinationals. There are a number of publicity campaigns planned to increase public awareness around the issue. In the first protest, set for February, supporters will be asked to buy a large, bulky item from Amazon and then return it the next day. But before sending it back, a 'Fair Tax Town' sticker will be attached to the box. Amazon will have to pay for the delivery costs when the item is returned and Steve says it's a way to 'show the big guys that we don't like the fact they're not paying tax'. Shopkeepers in Crickhowell took their town offshore in protest of the taxes paid by multinationals Steve also plans to invite Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, to have an open debate with him at this year's Hay festival at the end of May. This would give him the chance to explain the fact that Facebook paid just 4,327 corporation tax last year - less than a UK worker on 26,500 salary pays. Another action planed will be social media-led with supporters of the 'Fair Tax Town' changing their profile pictures to the campaign logo. 'It's a hypocrisy that we're allowing' this to happen, says Steve, who describes the practice of multinationals legally being allowed to pay far less tax as 'just wrong'. He argues that if he had a place on the inside of the HMRC board he would change the law so companies that wished to pay a lower amount of tax would be forced to negotiate the deals in public - so it would be clear exactly how much tax each was paying. Source: Change.org. Steve says having a position within HMRC would allow him to expose the 'tax abusers' Steve explains that if a company's reputation is tarnished then people will be less likely to shop there, and workers will be less likely to apply for jobs at the firm. 'HMRC is not the enemy' he makes clear, it's 'George Osborne who sets the tax policy' which lets so many companies abuse the tax system. The TV programme Steve was involved in aimed to highlight the loopholes in the UK tax system which allow multinational companies to avoid paying corporation tax. It was presented by Heydon Prowse and followed the traders from Crickhowell as they set up a company in the Isle of Man. They were also taught how a 'Dutch Sandwich' loophole is created (by setting up a company sandwiched between the UK and a tax haven) and how to use Intellectual Property (IP) to reduce the profits they declare and in turn the corporation tax they pay. Steve is inviting Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, to this year's Hay festival for a public debate This news comes after Google this week said it would pay 130 million in tax dating back to 2005 to HMRC. But Steve criticised the move and says Google has got off lightly with the payback deal as it brings the multinational's 10-year tax bill to effectively just 3 per cent of it's estimated 7.2 billion profit. He said: 'Google must have been over the moon with how lightly it got off. They probably thought all their Christmases and New Years had come at once. George Osborne today repeated his claim that Google's 130million UK tax deal was a 'major success' as the EU prepared to investigate whether it amounted to illegal 'state aid'. The Chancellor has repeatedly been forced deny the tech giant has been let off by HMRC because experts claim Google's bill should have been more than 1billlion. Mr Osborne has faced a barrage of criticism after he hailed the 130million 10-year deal as a 'victory' but asked about it again today he said: 'I regard that as a major success'. Repeat: George Osborne, pictured at the Airbus factory in Filton, Bristol, today repeated his claim that the 130million 10-year tax bill Google will pay is a success He added: 'When I became Chancellor Google paid no tax. Now Google is paying tax and I have introduced a new thing called a diverted profits tax to make sure they pay tax in the future. 'Is there more to do? Clearly there is. Weve got to make sure the international rules catch up and we are leading that effort'. Investigations: The EU's competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said today she is ready to look at the deal and MPs will question Google and HMRC in February Google's 130million 'sweetheart' UK tax bill is set to face an investigation into whether it broke EU laws on state aid. The EU's competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said today she is ready to look at the deal with HMRC after the SNP wrote to her demanding a probe. Google executives and tax officials who signed off the 130million agreement covering 10 years of tax will also be grilled by MPs on the Commons public accounts committee on February 11. Earlier the tech giant hit back over criticism of its tax regime and the controversial 130million deal struck with HM revenue and Customs and asked: 'What should Google pay in the UK?' The Treasury committee has launched an inquiry and sources at the National Audit Office revealed they are also poised to investigate the deal. Ms Verstager said today that so-called 'sweetheart deals' for big companies were 'unfair' and could amount to illegal state aid. Asked whether she would launch an investigation, the EU competition commissioner told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: 'That is way too early to say because I don't know the details of the deal. 'If we find there is something to be concerned about, if someone writes to us and says this is maybe not as it should be, then we will take a look.' Google's European public affairs chief Peter Barron (right) has hit back over criticism of its tax regime and the controversial 130million deal struck with HM revenue and Customs The internet giant has agreed to pay the sum, which covers 10 years of back-dated taxes, but the 'sweetheart' deal has come under fire from the Labour party, European leaders and even one of its biggest British shareholders. THE CELEBRITY TAX MAN BEHIND 130MILLION GOOGLE DEAL Jim Harra, the HMRC official believed to have helped seal the Google 130m tax deal, won 'tax personality of the year' last year. Three years ago the civil servant was paid 370,000, including a 235,000 pension contribution, meaning he was handed 100,000 more than his boss 'Dame Disaster' Lin Homer. Mr Harra, head of tax at HM Revenue and Customs, triggered outrage when he suggested it was unrealistic to expect multinational firms to pay as much as other businesses. He said: 'I can certainly understand the (public) frustration. There is no doubt that multinationals have got capabilities and resources to make sure they organise themselves in the most tax-efficient ways opportunities that are not open to domestic business that doesn't have subsidiaries around the world. That is an inevitability.' Advertisement It has also thrown the spotlight onto how Google has funnelled its international sales, including those made in the UK, through Dublin to benefit from Ireland's lower tax rate. It has also used company structures in Bermuda. However, now the company's European public affairs chief Peter Barron has defended Google's tax deal, saying that as a US-based company it pays the bulk of its taxes in America - $3.3billion in the last financial year. Google has previously said that it declares little profit in the UK because most of its profits are derived from innovations invented in the US. In a letter to the Financial Times he hit out at coverage of the deal, stating that Google was already paying UK tax on profits generated in Britain, and claimed there had been little discussion about 'the international tax rules and how they work'. He wrote: 'As a US company, we pay the bulk of our corporate tax in the US: 3.3 billion dollars in the last reported year. What should Google pay in the UK? We pay tax based on the value added by the economic activity of our staff here, at the current standard rate: 20 per cent. 'After a six-year audit we are paying the full amount of tax that HM Revenue & Customs agrees we should pay, including 130m in additional back tax. 'Governments make tax law, the tax authorities independently enforce the law, and Google complies with the law.' The UK is Google's biggest market outside of the UK and last year the value of its sales in Britain that year was 3.8billion, with the majority of its UK profits coming from online advertising. However, it paid just 20.4m in taxes in 2013. David Cameron (left) , pictured yesterday during Prime Minister's Questions, insisted his government was collecting taxes never picked up by Labour as Jeremy Corbyn (right) challenged the deal agreed with Google Chancellor George Osborne, pictured during yesterday's furious exchanges, looked on as Jeremy Corbyn claimed senior Tories had offered 'mixed messages' on his deal Mr Barron's letter came as one of Google's biggest British shareholders, James Anderson, called on the company to pay 'much more' in British taxes. Mr Anderson, whose Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust owns 120 million of shares in Google's parent company, Alphabet - said it was in the company's own interest to pay a 'decent' rate of tax. Mr Anderson told The Times that Google and other international companies accused of failing to pay their fair share of tax would earn respect if they agreed voluntarily to contribute more. 'My take remains that it is in the long-term interests of Google and others of that ilk to pay decent rates of tax and that they and others would be best served in taking the lead in volunteering,' he said. 'They are beneficiaries of state spending at many levels and in return they would get respect.' When the deal was announced on Friday, Chancellor George Osborne said the settlement was 'a victory for the action we've taken' against corporate profit-shifting. Google's European public affairs chief Peter Barron has defended Google's tax deal, saying that as a US-based company it pays the bulk of its taxes in America - $3.3billion in the last financial year. Pictured is its company headquarters in Mountain View, California During a furious Prime Minister's Questions on yesterday, Prime Minister David Cameron disputed claims that Google's settlement with HMRC meant it was paying a tax rate of just 3 per cent. He angrily attacked former Labour ministers - including Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling - for allowing the company to get away with paying no taxes for years. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, however, complained that under the Conservatives there was 'one rule for big multinational companies and another for ordinary, small businesses and self-employed workers'. The Government also came under pressure from Brussels, with French MEP Eva Joly, vice chairwoman of the Special European Parliamentary Committee on Tax Rulings, calling for Chancellor George Osborne to face questions about the 'very bad deal'. Downing Street, meanwhile, sought to play down reports that France and Italy had succeeded in securing far tougher settlements with Google. Aggressive French officials are close to getting 380million from Google, while Italian authorities 'My understanding is that the French and Italians have said how much tax they would like Google to pay. Let's see what is actually paid. I'm not sure if any tax has been paid in those countries,' a No 10 source said. China's highest heating project to be implemented in Tibet 2016-01-28 18:34 LHASA, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) -- China's highest-altitude heating project in Tibet will be operational by October, it was announced on Thursday during the regional "two sessions," the meetings of the local legislature and political advisory body. Heating will cover Nagqu Town, which is at an altitude of more than 4,500 meters in Nagqu Prefecture, north Tibet. Nagqu falls within the sub-frigid zone, and has an annual mean temperature of about 2 degrees Celsius, with the lowest temperature tumbling to as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius. Over 70 percent of the heating project has been completed, and trials across Nagqu have been successful. The heating project will mean 200,000 residents, nearly half of the total population in Nagqu, will no longer need to burn cow dung pats for warmth. In 2013, the local government invested 1.15 billion yuan (176 million U.S. dollars) in projects like central heating, water supply and drainage, and sewage treatment in Tibet, according to Li Hongwei, director of Nagchu Prefecture Development and Reform Commission. Another heating project is under construction in Ngari Prefecture, about 1,500 kilometers east of Nagqu. Homes in Lhasa, the capital city of Tibet, were connected to the central heating network in 2014. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Bill Parry As a medical professional for more than 20 years, 52-year-old Emily Taylor of Rego Park was very much against drug use and never tried marijuana in her life. Than she began suffering from multiple neuropathies with chronic stabbing pains all over her body beginning six years ago. I had to try and control the pain with huge doses of opiates and other narcotics that left me useless, said Taylor, which is not her real name because she asked that her identity be protected. Then came the recurrent migraines that made me suicidal. When Vireo Health of New York opened the boroughs first medical marijuana dispensary last Friday, Taylor was the first patient through the door. After a consultation she left the facility, located at 89-55 Queens Blvd., just steps away from the Queens Center mall in Elmhurst, with a weeks supply of cannabis-based medication products in the forms of vapor and capsules instead of tinctures and oils that are also available. Ive just had my third surgery and had a neurostimulator implanted in the small of my back to block the pain signals to my brain, Taylor said. Narcotics make you drowsy so you can sleep through the pain but medical marijuana doesnt make me drowsy, so I can function. It is a distraction so you dont hyper-concentrate on the pain and if you can distract the brain, why not? It was relief for patients suffering from pain associated with a variety of chronic and terminal illnesses such as cancer, Lou Gehrigs disease, HIV/AIDS and multiple sclerosis that led the state to pass the Compassionate Care Act in 2014. Vireo Health of New York was awarded one of five licenses in the state to manufacture and dispense pharmaceutical-grade medical cannabis under the strict protocols of the state Department of Health. For the first time in 100 years, marijuana is being sold legally in Queens, Vireo Health of New York CEO Ari Hoffnung said. This time its in non-smokeable forms like tinctures, oils and pills dispensed by licensed pharmacists. The images you see from California and Colorado will not be seen here. There will be no joints and no pot brownies. A patient seeking to alleviate pain and suffering can go to the state Board of Health website to register and receive a medical marijuana identification card for a one-time fee of $50. After a consultation with one of the nearly 200 physicians across the state who have taken a four-hour online course, a client can make an appointment for further consultation with a medical professional at the facility known as the Queens Patient Center. One needs the medical marijuana identification card and the registered physicians recommendation to pass through heavy security just to enter the building. If everything is in order, the pharmacist will retrieve the medical marijuana product from a safe and package it in an unmarked bag. Its very much like going into any pharmacy and picking up your Tylenol or blood pressure medication, said Dr. Laura Bultman, Vireo Healths chief medical officer. No images of leaves here, we will not have stereotypical imagery. Hoffnung said there would be no tie-died shirts or music in the background and even the signs on the building are low key so the operation appears more like a pharmacy or a doctors office. When the location was first announced, there was some concern and alarm from community members, according to state Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry (D-Corona), who attended the opening. After they saw the precautions that are required by the provider, people have calmed down about it being here, Aubry said. Most people wont even notice this place. By Bob Friedrich Gov. Cuomo and the mayor decided to shut down all roads and most mass transit in New York City during our recent epic snowstorm. The mayor threatens to arrest drivers who disobey his edict. Yes, the same progressive administration that wants to decriminalize urinating in public, turnstile jumping and public intoxication? Dont arrest those folks, but arrest drivers who are trying to go to their job at a hospital or driving to an open supermarket seeking milk for their baby. How in the world did we ever get to this state of affairs and how in the world did we ever survive all of these years without government overbearance? We are infantilizing the population and the scary thing is that most people probably agree with the mayor and governor. Not a single reporter asked the mayor how he expects hospital workers to get to their jobs. Shortly after the mayor and governor ordered adults off the roads, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said the following when asked by a reporter why he wasnt shutting down the roadways in NJ. I prefer not to implement a heavy handed government implemented travel ban. I believe in the good judgment of our citizens. Wow, what a breath of fresh air and I am a registered Democrat. As president of Glen Oaks Village, I am responsible for our community of 10,000 residents. Because of the Nanny State edict, we were unable to bring in our staff the next day to begin plowing and shoveling our driveways, sidewalks and stoops. The mayor and governors decision to shut down the roads and mass transit has now made a very bad snowstorm even worse. Sometimes the one-size-fits-all dictates of Nanny State government doesnt work. I implore all of our elected officials in the future to please think through the consequences of such actions and give credit to the good judgement of adult citizens even if a few of them dont show similar judgement. Bob Friedrich Glen Oaks Village Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Madina Toure Elected officials and residents said Queens was faring a bit better at mid-week after expressing frustration over the slow cleanup from the blizzard that left streets impassable in some neighborhoods. The second worst snowstorm in the citys history dumped as much as 34 inches on Jackson Heights and buried some central Queens thoroughfares in drifts, but other parts of the borough were back to normal two days after the blizzard struck. Mayor Bill de Blasio visited Queens twice after the storm and conceded that the city could have done a better job in certain parts. He also pointed out that heavy snowfall can pose major problems for Queens because the borough has the largest land area and the most roads. Borough President Melinda Katz said the city was unprepared for the ferocity of the storm, but city agencies still performed well. Along Main Street in downtown Flushing Wednesday morning, it appeared to be business as usual. Although there were still piles of snow, the sidewalks were clear for pedestrians to walk and roads were clear for drivers. Sally Lien, a cashier at the Yizhou store at 40-20 Main St. said the situation had improved, noting that people initially struggled to cross the street and that she saw elders falling because they did not have their canes. But she was disgusted by the smelly garbage in front of her store. No one clean(ed) it, Lien said. On Bell Boulevard in Bayside, the sidewalks were also clear for pedestrians. Two city Department of Sanitation trucks and five city Department of Transportation workers were seen clearing the snow. As of Wednesday morning, every street in Queens had been plowed and made passable, and there were 912 sanitation workers with 731 pieces of equipment in the borough, according to Monica Klein, a spokeswoman for the mayor. There were also 89 front end loaders doing piling and hauling operations in Queens, she said. The MTA said subway service was back to normal by Sunday morning, buses were running with some delays and the LIRR was on track by Monday afternoon. The mayor visited Astoria, Long Island City, Flushing, East Elmhurst, Corona, Jamaica Sunday and Woodside Monday. In an interview with NY1 Monday while he was touring Woodside with City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside), the mayor said the situation in the borough was a mixed bag. A lot of good work has been done here by the Sanitation Department, but we also see some streets that definitely need more work today that were going to focus on them, de Blasio said. Van Bramer found the cleanup was not occurring as the mayor had said, especially in Woodside and Sunnyside. After the mayor toured those two communities and other parts of Van Bramers district, resources started trickling in. Katz said the constituent services unit at Borough Hall was working closely with the city Department of Sanitation. The city admittedly got caught off guard at the volume of snow from the historic blizzard, which dumped a record-setting 30.5 inches of snow at JFK airport, Katz said. Over in southern Queens, which was buried in snow, City Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-Ozone Park) held a news conference at which he accused the mayor of failing Queens by not providing the manpower or equipment needed for the cleanup. City Councilman Paul Vallone (D-Bayside) received over two dozen calls, emails and social media messages from angry Whitestone, College Point and Auburndale residents who had not seen a plow for two days, but the complaints had stopped by Wednesday. The administration clearly mishandled the allocation of resources and we need answers as to why Queens was not made a priority when it was the borough that received the most snow, Vallone said. City Councilman Rory Lancman (D-Hillcrest) said the citys snow plow tracker had inaccurate information, which interfered with the cleanup. Airport development adding to economy, jobs in the region Pittsburgh may always be known as the Steel City, but a wave of new industries are popping up near its airport to redefine business in the region. SHARE TORIN HALSEY/TIMES RECORD NEWS Henry Florsheim, CEO of the Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce and Industry, speaks Wednesday during the chamber's annual meeting at the Ray Clymer Exhibit Hall. TORIN HALSEY/TIMES RECORD NEWS Times Record News Publisher Dwayne Bivona is the new chairman of the board of the Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He succeeds immediate past chairman Chuck White. The chamber held its annual meeting Wednesday at the Ray Clymer Exhibit Hall. TORIN HALSEY/TIMES RECORD NEWS Wichita County Judge Woody Gossom addresses the audience Wednesday afternoon at the Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting. The luncheon was at the Ray Clymer Exhibit Hall and showcased significant events from 2015 regarding the county, Sheppard Air Force Base, Midwestern State University, the WFISD and the city. TORIN HALSEY/TIMES RECORD NEWS Midwestern State University President Suzanne Shipley speaking Wednesday at the annual meeting of the Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Shipley addressed the many projects and expansions in store for the university and the successes of 2015. By John Ingle of the Times Record News Wichita Falls and the surrounding area witnessed several positive events ranging from historic rains quenching a drought-stricken region, businesses expanding to the city and education entities moving forward with projects and working with industry to address the future workforce. Highlights were provided during Wednesday's Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce & Industry Annual Meeting at the Ray Clymer Exhibit Hall, and Times Record News Publisher and President Dwayne Bivona was introduced as the chamber's new chairman of the board. Wichita County Judge Woody Gossom, 82nd Training Wing vice commander Col. Timothy Gillaspie, Midwestern State University President Suzanne Shipley, Wichita Falls city manager Darron Leiker, and Wichita Falls Independent School District Superintendent Mike Kurht each provided comments on their specific areas. Local architect Dick Bundy, chairman of the Wichita Falls Economic Development Corp., was also recognized as the Member of the Year, a new award created by the chamber to appreciate the efforts of an individual or business. Bivona showed his unique style by using his New York-to-Texas dictionary before talking about 2016 being just as extraordinary as 2015. He said significant change begins with an imagination such as the visionaries working to re-create Lake Wichita, establish Downtown Wichita Falls as a destination or industry realizing the need to bring life to an existing manufacturer. "To bring our imagination to fruition, we'll need our young professionals to lean in, buy in and dig in," Bivona said. "Last night (Tuesday), the Times Record News recognized its sixth 20 Under 40 awards. I can tell you, these young men and women are ready to go. Let's get them engaged working on projects with our more experienced professionals." Chuck White, president and CEO of First Bank and past-chairman of the chamber, said he is proud of the accomplishments of the chamber in 2015. It begins, he said, with a positive and energetic chamber staff working to make Wichita Falls better. "I think it guarantees our success and effectiveness for years to come," he said. "If it can be done, this group is going to get it done." Gossom said the county was able to work on several issues in 2015 including addressing jail issues, make the Wichita County Clerk office more efficient and presentable for customers, better parking for employees and guests, and new voting equipment, among others. Goals in 2016 include new software at the courthouse that makes inmate book-in more efficient, as well as financial software that will streamline the budgeting process for all of the county offices. With local, state and federal elections around the corner, he said they are moving forward with the concept of having super precincts that will function like early voting polling places, where voters don't have to worry about rushing back to their district to vote. The county is also moving toward building a justice center to address jail and court security and safety issues. Gillaspie said 2016 will be a huge years for Sheppard Air Force Base as it readies to celebrate three milestone: The base will celebrate its 75th anniversary, the 50th anniversary of the German air force training at the base, and the 35th year of the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training program. The vice commander said the Air Force is at its smallest manning level since World War II, and it's something that was noticed on Capitol Hill. "This last year, Congress and the Air Staff recognized we didn't have enough aircraft maintainers to do the mission we have," he said. "So it's going to grow (at Sheppard) by about 10,000 people. As most of you are aware, we do all the aircraft maintenance training in the Air Force here are Sheppard Air Force Base, or tied to the 82nd Training Wing at our detachments around the world. "There's going to be about 10,000 new airmen at Sheppard, so we're going to grow in mission a little bit this year, and so we'll have a few more airmen, a few more instructors and a few more families that will make a presence here in Wichita Falls and the surrounding communities. Shipley said MSU continues to move forward with projects to address student housing with a $35 million dormitory, replacing drought-worn fields with turf, and expand the Fain Fine Arts building to provide more space for the mass communication department and music classes. The school was also able to secure $53 million in funds for new construction such as a $40 million health sciences and human services facility, and building improvements such as lifting the ceiling of Moffett Library at a cost of $8 million. MSU is also extending its reach to Fort Worth with an adult learning center. "It's really exciting to our alumni that we're doing this because it will spread Midwestern's name, it will give us really great name recognition in a metropolitan area, but it will not detract from our residential, highly undergraduate campus here in Wichita Falls," she said. Leiker lauded the city's success of surviving the drought with an innovative process, and now looks forward to firming up the city's water infrastructure for the future with the indirect potable reuse project, a $33 million venture, that will dump 9-10 million gallons of treated wastewater effluent into Lake Arrowhead, and the long-term plan of building Lake Ringgold with a price tag of about $300 million. The city will also complete a $16.6 million project to replace antiquated water meters with smart meters, making collecting data and monitoring the system for leaks more accurate and efficient. The city will also partner with Sheppard to clear out an area of dilapidated structures near Sheppard's main gate and replace it with an eye-catching display and covered bus stops for airmen and others who use the public transit system. Kurht said the school district is also moving forward with game-changing ventures such as the Career Technical Education center in 2016 on the city's southeast side, the additions at McNiel and Barwise junior highs. The CTE project, he said, will put about 2,800 students attending one of its 28 CTE courses under one roof instead of scattered throughout the district. The superintendent said they will also implement their largest digital initiative in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades with Chromebooks. Students, he said, will be issued the Chromebooks in the sixth grade and have the opportunity to purchase the likely outdated laptops for $1 when they prepare to move on to high school. Like MSU, WFISD will also replace some of its natural fields with turf. Put the phone down Birthdays are special, anniversaries too. Who doesn't want to set aside time to remember the good stuff and eat enough cake to forget the bad. Calendars are full of commemorative international months, weeks and days. We've already missed out on 2016 National Nothing Day (1/16), National Hugging Day (1/21) and Beer Can Appreciation Day (1/24). There's still time to prepare for tomorrow, National Corn Chip Day. Somebody start the chili. There are important days to remember however, the birthdays of Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Jonas Salk and other historic figures. Over centuries they have changed lives. What consumer couldn't appreciate Get to Know Your Customer Day (third Thursday of each quarter). Well known for Groundhog Day, Feb. 2, there's much more. February offers Create a Vacuum, Shower With A Friend and Pizza Days. But don't fail to honor National Freedom (from slavery) (2/1), Thank a Mail Carrier (2/4), Random Acts of Kindness (2/17) and Wear Red Day (2/5) in support of women's heart health. April has celebration months like National Humor, Record & Information Management and Welding. In North Texas we need to make lots of pies to mark National Pecan Month. People should be even more interested in International Children's Book Day, which honors the birthday of Hans Christian Andersen, author of favorites like "The Little Mermaid" and "The Ugly Duckling." Libraries have story telling time. Parents can give books to their children or if they are too young, read to them. Here at TRN, we like April 4, National Hug a Newsman/Newswoman Day and June 23, National Columnists Day (we are aware that a number of people celebrate this by writing letters to the editor telling us to stuff a sock in it). The lists go on and on, with many important days to acknowledge, but the goofy nerdy humor can be a tool for survival Fight The Filthy Fly Month, National Accordion Awareness Month, Old Maid's Day and World Juggler's Day. It's time for even more interesting months and days, things we've all considered as we experience life's greatest challenges and mishaps. A campaign must begin for the addition of: National Where Did I Put the Keys? Day Who Ate All The Leftovers I Saved For Dinner? Day Adult Art Class As a Stress Reliever Month Brevity Is The Soul of Wit Day, Did I Ask to See That? Day Put Down The Phone and Drive the Car! Month National Combat Bad Hair Day And my personal favorite: If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say Come Sit Next to Me Day SHARE Holcomb By Barbara Green A 27-year-old Nocona woman reported missing by her family Saturday evening was found dead in a car near Saint Jo. Haly Cay Holcomb was driving to her job at Winstar Casino in Oklahoma early Saturday for a 6 a.m. start to her work day when she was involved in a wreck. Nocona Police Chief Kent Holcomb said Haly's mother, Christi Holcomb, filed a missing person's report with police at 6:58 p.m. Saturday. "When she did not show up at home or call, the family got concerned. They later found out she did not make it to work," Holcomb said. Family and friends searched for her on Saturday and resumed on Sunday. Holcomb said police checked her cell phone records and it last pinged on a tower near Saint Jo, which helped narrow the search. While walking the highway about 11 a.m. on Sunday, Bill Holcomb, Haly's father, found her vehicle in a heavily wooded ravine. According to a report filed by Department of Public Safety Trooper Tony Cunningham, the accident is believed to have happened around 5:40 a.m. three miles east of Saint Jo. Haly Holcomb was driving a Chevy Traverse east on U.S. Highway 82. "It appears the driver fell asleep. The vehicle drove off the right side of the road, went through thick brush and came to a stop in a creek bottom," according to the report. Justice of the Peace David Allen pronounced Holcomb dead at the scene at 11:45 a.m. Her body was sent to the Dallas County Medical Examiner for an autopsy. Allen said Monday afternoon the preliminary medical examiner's report indicates cause of death was blunt force trauma from the accident, but the report will not be ready for 90 days. Holcomb attended Nocona High School. She and her partner Luis Parola were raising two children. A funeral service will be announced at a later date. Ted Cruz talks to supporters after the debate. (AP Photo/Morry Gash) SHARE Steven Cooper, Wichita Falls I am sick and tired of the lack of knowledge that we as Americans have, as a whole, about our own Constitution. I also think before reporters and political experts voice their opinions they should have at least read the Constitution. A great example is the recurring theme of who is legal to run for the presidential office. Instead of just repeating what you hear on the National News look at the Constitution yourself. Article II, Section 1 paragraph 5 states "No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; ..." for you low information types the Constitution was ratified on June 21, 1788. I think old Ted was probably born after that. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of the Constitution. It is a great read. You might even figure out the first amendment makes no reference to separation of church and state, only the fact that the Government is not allowed to limit our religious liberties. You might also look at the "Federalist and Anti- Federalist papers," they get you inside the head of the founders and what their intent was in the Constitution. SHARE South Sudan's civil war began on the night of December 15, 2013, when a firefight erupted between soldiers serving in the presidential garrison in the capital city, Juba. "Between" is an important word. The battle pitted soldiers from the Dinka tribe (largest in South Sudan) against soldiers in the Nuer tribe (second largest). The government, led by president Salva Kiir, a Dinka, and the rebels, led by Riek Machar, a Nuer, agreed to their first cease fire on December 31. Fire and combat, however, never ceased. Instead, it spread. Every cease fire and peace declaration since has failed to hold. Poor communication between negotiating teams and fighters in the field is one reason cease-fire agreements quickly collapsed. Though South Sudan has several major oil fields, which generate oil export revenue, the country remains largely undeveloped and has few roads. Radio and telephone communications are iffy. An agreement might take hold in one area but fail in another. Word that fighting continued elsewhere would spark skirmishes where the cease fire was initially observed. Intertribal distrust also undermined cease-fire agreements. Smaller tribes have reasons to fear political domination by the Dinka and Nuer. U.N. observers and nongovernmental aid organizations operating in South Sudan estimate the death toll at somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 human beings. A couple of sources speculate 30,000 dead is more likely. They base their speculation on poor communications and the number of internally displaced persons. The U.N. has around 12,500 peacekeepers in South Sudan, serving with the U.N. Mission in South Sudan. A substantial number of these troops defend 185,000 IDPs living in six large camps. Relief agencies estimate there are another 1.5 million IDPs inside South Sudan. Some 650,000 South Sudanese have fled to neighboring countries. That last number is fairly solid. The math suggests that at one time or another, the war has forced over 2.3 million people to flee their homes. That number 2.3 million refugees and IDPs is the only one big enough to bring occasional international attention to South Sudan's agony. But it is a despairingly big number, isn't it? The August 2015 peace agreement the last major cease fire was the most promising. That agreement even has a name and a diplomatic acronym: Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan. Unfortunately, ARCISS failed to stop the fighting. Major cease-fire violations occurred in Oct. and Nov. 2015. This January the rebels accused the government of launching an attack in South Sudan's Unity state. However, a decision made by President Salva Kiir may completely gut the deal, and gut it by design. On Dec. 24, 2015, Kiir announced that he would reorganize South Sudan into 28 constituent states rather than its original 10. He then proceeded to swear in new governors. The rebels contend Kiir's move violated power sharing agreements central to the ARCISS peace deal. The rebels are right. Kiir imposed a most dangerous gerrymander reminiscent of the worst 19t century European imperialists. Borders of the new states break up tribes, some of which belong to the rebel coalition. The Shilluk tribe is the country's third largest. Shilluk live in northern South Sudan along the east and west banks of the Nile River in what was Upper Nile state. They now live in two states, Eastern Nile and Western Nile states. The Shilluk are not pleased. Rebel leaders say Kiir's reorganization will reignite the civil war. It could. If it does, in South Sudan we will witness another example of a leader and his elite cadre undermining a political agreement that would have halted an impoverishing war. And why did the leader do it? Over the short term, the 28 state structure strengthens Kiir's personal control of state power. Austin Bay is a commentator on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition," covering foreign affairs but often addressing issues in Texas that have a national interest. FILM EMPAC's "On Screen/Sound" film series continues by focusing on how dialogue is dubbed into a movie's soundtrack. Two films "Picture and Sound Rushes" and "Blackmail" will be screened in "No. 9," the latest installment of the series. Morgan Fisher's 1973 film "Picture and Sound Rushes" exposes new relationships between spoken word and image that are amusing, intriguing and uncomfortable. Originally intended as a silent film, Alfred Hitchcock's "Blackmail" became a talkie after the production studio decided to take advantage of new sound technologies. The 1929 film is one of the first British "talkies." 7 p.m. Thursday. $6. EMPAC, 110 8th St., Troy. 276-3921; http://www.empac.rpi.edu LECTURE Carlotta Walls LaNier holds a prominent place in the civil rights movement. At 14, she was the youngest member of the Little Rock Nine, a group of black students who enrolled at all-white Little Rock High School. The students faced angry mobs and Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus, a segregationist, deployed the Arkansas National Guard to block them from entering the school. The students finally entered the school after President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division to escort them into the building. LaNier will be the keynote speaker at the University at Albany's annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration this week. 7 p.m. Monday. Free. Campus Center Ballroom, UAlbany Washington Avenue, Uptown campus, Albany. 956-8150; http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst EXHIBIT What did the Empire State look like during the Ice Age? State Museum scientist Dr. Andrew Kozlowski has a pretty good idea. The good doctor will provide an overview of glacial events in the state in a lunchtime lecture titled "Got Time for a Cold One? The Ice Age of New York State." Kozlowski will also discuss new techniques being used to discover the chronology of the Ice Age in the state. He will take questions following his 20-minute presentation. 12:10 p.m. Tuesday. Free. State Museum, 260 Madison Avenue, Albany. 474-5877; http://www.nysm.nysed.gov Albany A 57-year-old widow from South Glens Falls was charged with Social Security fraud, accused of collecting $112,000 in survivor benefits from the federal government without disclosing she remarried and was no longer eligible for the money. Roberta Rivers was arraigned before U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel Stewart on Wednesday on an indictment accusing her of stealing the survivor benefits from the Social Security Administration. The charges also include theft of government property and Supplemental Security Income fraud, U.S. Attorney Richard Hartunian's office said Thursday. The indictment alleges Rivers "concealed and failed to disclose that she had been remarried and resided with her new husband, a fact that she knew would disqualify her from receiving benefits." Rivers, who was released on bond, would face a maximum of five years in prison if convicted, though the penalties would likely be lower under advisory federal sentencing guidelines. In another case, prosecutors said Karen L. Sowman, 55, of the Albany County hamlet of Preston Hollow was arraigned Thursday on an indictment accusing her of stealing $69,000 in benefits from the Social Security Administration. The indictment alleges Sowman took and spent the payments deposited into her deceased mother's bank account knowing that the money was not hers. Sowman faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted. She was released on her own recognizance pending a trial scheduled for March 28. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Burns, Ore. A day after eight members of an armed anti-government group were arrested, their jailed leader on Wednesday urged a handful of remaining militants to abandon the Oregon wildlife refuge they have occupied for more than three weeks and where they are now surrounded by federal agents. After militant leader Ammon Bundy made his first court appearance in Portland on Wednesday, his attorney, Mike Arnold, read this statement from his client: "Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is now in the courts." It was unclear whether the remnant of Bundy's followers still holed up at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge south of Burns was ready to heed his advice. Meanwhile, details began to emerge about the confrontation Tuesday on a remote highway that resulted in the arrest of Bundy and other leading figures in the group of occupiers, and in the death of militant Robert Finicum. Bundy followers gave conflicting accounts of how Finicum died. One said Finicum charged at FBI agents, who then shot him. A member of the Bundy family said Finicum did nothing to provoke the agents. An Oregon man who says he witnessed the shootout says he heard about a half-dozen shots but didn't see anyone get hit, and that the shooting happened quickly over maybe 12 or 15 seconds. Raymond Doherty told KOIN-TV that he was about 100 feet back and couldn't see who specifically was shooting. But, he added, "I saw them shooting at each other." There was no immediate way to confirm the accounts. Authorities refused to release any details about the encounter or even to verify that it was Finicum who was killed. Also on Wednesday, a federal judge in Portland unsealed a criminal complaint that said the armed group had explosives and night-vision goggles and that they were prepared to fight at the refuge or in the nearby town of Burns. Someone told authorities about the equipment on Jan. 2, when the group took over Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, according to the document. Bundy and the seven others are charged with felony counts of "conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats." The criminal complaint stresses that point. It states that the 16 employees at the wildlife refuge "have been prevented from reporting to work because of threats of violence posed by the defendants and others occupying the property." Federal law officials and Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward held a news conference on Wednesday in which they called on the rest of the occupiers to go home. There is a huge law enforcement presence in the region, and the FBI has now set up checkpoints outside the refuge. FBI agent Greg Bretzing said people could leave through checkpoints "where they will be identified." He did not say whether any of them face arrest. Bretzing also defended the FBI-led operation that resulted in the arrest of Bundy and other leaders, and in the death of Finicum. "I will say that the armed occupiers were given ample opportunities to leave peacefully," he said. Ward said multiple law-enforcement agencies put together "the best tactical plan they could." Bundy followers took to social media to offer conflicting accounts of Finicum's final moments. In a video posted to Facebook, Mike McConnell said he was driving a vehicle carrying Ammon Bundy and another occupier, Brian Cavalier. He said Finicum was driving a truck and with him were Ryan Bundy Ammon's brother as well as three others. He said the convoy was driving through a forest when they were stopped by agents in heavy-duty trucks. He said agents first pulled him out of the vehicle, followed by Ammon Bundy and Cavalier. When agents approached the truck driven by Filicum, he drove off with officers in pursuit. McConnell said he did not see what happened next, but he heard from others in that vehicle that they encountered a roadblock. The truck got stuck in a snowbank, and Finicum got out and "charged them. He went after them," McConnell said. Relatives of Ammon Bundy offered similar accounts, but they said Finicum did nothing to provoke FBI agents. Briana Bundy, a sister of Ammon Bundy, said he called his wife after his arrest. He said the group was stopped by state and federal officers. She said people in the two vehicles complied with instructions to get out with their hands up. "LaVoy shouted, 'Don't shoot. We're unarmed,' " Briana Bundy said in an interview with The Associated Press. "They began to fire on them. Ammon said it happened real fast." "Ammon said, 'They murdered him in cold blood. We did everything they asked, and they murdered him. We complied with their demands,' " she said. McConnell had a different perspective. "Any time someone takes off with a vehicle away from law enforcement after they've exercised a stop, it's typically considered an act of aggression, and foolish," he said in the Facebook video. Ammon and Ryan Bundy are the sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a high-profile 2014 standoff with the government over grazing rights. The group, which calls itself Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, came to the frozen high desert of eastern Oregon to decry what it calls onerous federal land restrictions and to object to the prison sentences of two local ranchers convicted of setting fires. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Washington President Barack Obama and his aides have said a lot of nice things about Bernie Sanders, but not this one: He's ready to be president. The key omission was particularly noticeable Wednesday as Obama and Sanders met for their first one-on-one since Sanders jolted the Democratic campaign and locked Hillary Clinton in an unexpectedly tight race. The long-discussed meeting between Obama and his sometime critic was a moment for the president to display his public neutrality in the heated primary race to replace him rebutting suggestions that he's in the tank for Clinton. For Sanders, it was a chance to show he's got some sway with a president who's still popular among Democrats. "By and large, over the last seven years on major issue after major issue, I have stood by his side where he has taken on unprecedented Republican obstructionism and has tried to do the right thing for the American people," Sanders said after the meeting. But neither the White House nor Sanders is suggesting the men are kindred spirits, or even close political allies. White House officials say the men lack much of a personal relationship and have markedly different approaches to politics. The president this week declared bluntly he doesn't see Sanders' upstart campaign as a reboot of his own battle against Clinton in 2008. Obama allies bristle at comparisons between Sanders and the president. It's a reminder that even as Obama watches the nomination battle from a distance, he is personally tied to the outcome. He remains focused on ensuring a Democrat wins the White House and on protecting his legacy. Increasingly, it appears, he sees Clinton as his best hope. Sanders emerged from the 45-minute meeting with gracious things to say about his host. Photographers were not allowed to shoot the president and Sanders together. He said he believes Obama has been "even handed" in his dealing with the candidates. The president has campaigned for him in the past, Sanders noted, harking back a decade to an appearance then-Sen. Obama made in Vermont. And he has campaigned for Obama, he said, delivering a pointed rebuke to Clinton, who has suggested Sanders has been disloyal to the president. The White House had kind words for Sanders' contribution to Democrats enthusiasm, although not his leadership. "That ability to engage Democrats and excite them and inspire them will be critical to the success of Democrats up and down the ballot," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. "Whether Senator Sanders is the nominee or not." The caveat was a marked contrast to remarks Obama recently made about Clinton. In an interview with Politico, the president described his former secretary of state as "more experienced than any non-vice president has ever been who aspires to this office." Sanders has "great authenticity, great passion and is fearless," Obama said, but he added the senator is untested. White House officials say the Obama interview was a reflection of his close, working relationship with Clinton and his focus on wanting Democrats to win, not unease with Sanders. Although Sanders and Obama overlapped in the Senate, they have few personal ties. Sanders, an independent who tends to vote with Democrats, is an unabashed liberal willing to hold the line. Obama has shown far more interest in pragmatism than ideological purity. The president respects the role Sanders has played in the Senate, a White House official said. Indeed, a younger Obama once cheered that effort. "It seems like power is always trumping principle," Obama said as he campaigned for Sanders in 2006. "Things can change, that we can overcome that cynicism." Park City, Utah Rachel Chanoff and Sue Killam are at Sundance and on a mission. Chanoff, curator of performing arts and film at MASS MoCA, is a consultant for the feature program at the Sundance Film Festival. Killam is managing director for performing arts at MASS MoCA the sprawling mecca of contemporary art in North Adams, Mass. They arrived in Park City on Monday night with one objective. "We see many, many, many movies," said Chanoff on Tuesday. She and Killam hit the festival each year with an eye toward MASS MoCA's winter-spring documentary series, which often includes films they've seen at Sundance. By week's end, they'll have attended "probably" 18 screenings. "Sundance and MASS MoCA have a big allegiance, an alliance and an alignment of mission. ... Both are places that are platforms for artists, but also real incubators for artists," Chanoff said, noting the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab in residency each year at the museum. The Sundance goal "of helping artists to really investigate their work, and create their work, is very similar." Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. By Tuesday afternoon, the pair had already caught a few films. One was "Weiner," Josh Kriegman's documentary tracking the mayoral campaign and sexting woes of Anthony Weiner, the former New York congressman. Next up on their schedule was "Cameraperson," the directorial debut of documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson. "She's given workshops at Williams, and we've shown a couple of her films," Chanoff said. Chanoff has seen at least one film so far that might find its way east: "Audrie & Daisy," Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk's portrait of two high school girls who were sexually assaulted and shamed by their communities. The film "was just devastating and also very, very powerful," she said. Will that come to MASS MoCA sometime soon? "I think so." Albany Emma Simoneaux has been keeping a keen eye on the weekend forecast. The 17-year-old Catholic Central High School senior isn't exactly a weather enthusiast, but she is hoping the mild temperatures continue, at least through Sunday. That's because she'll be camping out Saturday night at Sheehy Palmer Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6776 as part of its fourth annual Freeze Out to raise awareness about the plight of homeless veterans. "I usually sleep in a tent with a fuzzy blanket, but this year I wanted to be like everyone else and sleep on the ground," said Simoneaux, who has participated in the event for three years. "The first year it was so cold that I begged my dad to take me home, but then I just got used to it." More Information Give back to those who serve Sheehy Palmer Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6776 is collecting clothes for homeless vets. For information, go to http://www.facebook.com/VFW6776. See More Collapse Officers and members of VFW Post 6776 and Fort Orange American Legion Post 30 will brave the elements overnight at 525 Delaware Ave. for Freeze Out Four, which is held to call attention to and show support for local homeless veterans. Dozens of participants including Albany County Executive Dan McCoy, who recently re-enlisted as a sergeant first class for six years with the New York Army National Guard will keep warm by a few fires to be stoked throughout the night. With lows expected to about 30 degrees, this year seems downright balmy compared to past events. Simoneaux, who is by far the youngest camper, will join her father, Andrew, a VFW member and Army veteran who served briefly in the first Gulf War after spending years stationed in Korea. Helping vets like her dad is at the top of a long list for the highschooler. She also volunteers at local soup kitchens and food pantries, but raising awareness about the issues veterans face is personal. Watching her father cope with post-traumatic stress disorder inspired Simoneaux to purse a degree in psychology. She has already been accepted at Niagara University, where she'll participate in the ROTC Purple Eagle Battalion. Simoneaux plans to follow in her father's footsteps and join the Army after receiving her bachelor's degree. "My dad and I are so close, we do everything together," said Simoneaux, who is also supported by her mom, Nikki, and twin brother, Sam. "Seeing what my dad goes through, I chose psychology to try and make a difference." In addition to sleeping on the cold ground, Simoneaux collected coats, cold-weather gear and business attire at Catholic Central for a pair of programs sponsored by the VFW for veterans in need. The collection was only supposed to run for a week, but Simoneaux is still receiving donations. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. The clothing drive and Freeze Out were coordinated by Jim Ader, VFW Post 6776 commander, who decided that the post should help homeless veterans facing the winter chill without warm clothes. He said the response from the community has been overwhelming. For Simoneaux, the event is bittersweet because she'll be away at school next year. "This has always been my thing with my dad," Simoneaux said. "Being able to help other veterans like him means a lot to me." Freeze Out Four begins at 6 p.m. Saturday and runs through Sunday afternoon, with a pancake breakfast to be served at 8 a.m. for $10. For information, call 465-9349. jpatterson@timesunion.com @JenSPatterson 518-454-5340 SKIP DICKSTEIN A recent Republican debate reminded me of a bigoted statement made Jan. 17, 2014, by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz's comments about New York values are not nearly as insulting to New Yorkers as those made by Governor Cuomo in his 2014 statement. Governor Cuomo took offensive cheap shots at pro-life and pro-Second Amendment Republican supporters as extreme conservatives. He said: "If that's who they are and they're the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York, because that's not who New Yorkers are." I agree with the program I don't agree with the program I like the idea, but feel the current proposal is too broad Let me park where I want! Vote View Results The masonry bridge in Hydetown that carries Main Street over Thompson Run is one of seven Crawford County bridges set to be replaced, this year, under PennDOTs Rapid Bridge Replacement Project. A public meeting will be held Monday, in Saegertown, to discuss the project and any public concerns. [January 28, 2016] ABI Research Forecasts 9 Million Broadband Subscribers to Use DOCSIS 3.1 Equipment by 2017 SINGAPORE, Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- With ultra-broadband technologies on target to become a transformative next generation solution for high speed internet, ultra-high bandwidth and faster internet speeds of 1 Gbps will be achievable when using G.fast, cable technology DOCSIS 3.1 or GPON. In fact, DOCSIS 3.1 is able to produce downstream speeds of 10 Gbps and upstream speeds of 1 Gbps when equipped with the proper devices and ideal network settings. ABI Research, the leader in transformative technology innovation market intelligence, forecasts that there will be approximately 9 million broadband subscribers using DOCSIS 3.1 equipment by 2017, representing slightly more than 1% of total fixed broadband subscriptions worldwide. "Technology vendors like SAGEMCOM, Technicolor and Teleste Corporation already have commercial DOCSIS 3.1 solutions available in the market, which has seen strong response in the Western European region," says Michael Inouye, Principal Analyst at ABI Research. "The DOCSIS 3.1-ready products and solutions are able to achieve 1.2 GHz bandwidth, and some, like those from Teleste, started shipping in 2014. Meanwhile, operators in the United States are showing interest, with cable players like Comcast, Cox and Midcontinent to launch their DOCSIS 3.1 networks in 2016 and 2017." The growing demand for broadband content and services, along with the need for enhanced quality of experience (i.e. high definition video and beyond and smooth streaming) is spurring the development of gigabit services in the market. With numerous planned trials on DOCSIS 3.1 to facilitate the commercial deployments of gigabit services, many cable companies are making the availability of DOCSIS 3.1 nearer to a reality due to its expected cost-effectiveness and scalability. At present, ABI Research finds that interest for on-demand services is picking up faster than traditional broadcasting. In addition, European operators are facing tough competition from content providers, which, in turn, leads to a huge demand in network devices like ultra-broadband. "European operators like Altice, TDC and Telenet likewise made inroads into preparing their networks for the launch of DOCSIS 3.1 in 2016," concludes Sam Rosen, Managing Director and Vice President at ABI Research. "Ultimately, in instances in which corporations and homes already installed cable, it is more economical to upgrade cable services than make the switch to fiber, which gives DOCSIS 3.1 a definite advantage in the market space. Thinking ahead, enhanced deployments of ultra-broadband networks could pave the way for cable operators to migrate to a pure IPTV over DOCSIS network, abandoning legacy broadcast QAM technology. However, no major operator is publically investigating that approach." These findings are part of ABI Research's Set-Top Box and Home Gateway Service (https://www.abiresearch.com/market-research/service/set-top-box/), which includes research reports, market data, insights and competitive assessments. About ABI Research For more than 25 years, ABI Research has stood at the forefront of technology market intelligence, partnering with innovative business leaders to implement informed, transformative technology decisions. The company employs a global team of senior analysts to provide comprehensive research and consulting services through deep quantitative forecasts, qualitative analyses and teardown services. An industry pioneer, ABI Research is proactive in its approach, frequently uncovering ground-breaking business cycles ahead of the curve and publishing research 18 to 36 months in advance of other organizations. In all, the company covers more than 60 services, spanning 11 technology sectors. For more information, visit www.abiresearch.com. Contact Info: Christine Gallen Tel: +44.203.326.0142 [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20151014/276887LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/abi-research-forecasts-9-million-broadband-subscribers-to-use-docsis-31-equipment-by-2017-300211434.html SOURCE ABI Research [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 28, 2016] InterSystems TrakCare Honored With 2015/2016 Best in KLAS Award for Global (Non-U.S.) Acute Care EMR InterSystems, a global leader in health information technology, today announced that research and insights firm KLAS has honored the InterSystems (News - Alert) TrakCare unified healthcare information system with the prestigious 2015/2016 Best in KLAS award for Global (Non-U.S.) Acute Care EMR. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160128005293/en/ In addition to the Best in KLAS award, InterSystems also received two category awards: Global (Non-US) Acute Care EMR for the Asia/Oceania region as well as the Middle East Region. The Best in KLAS award recognizes outstanding efforts to help healthcare professionals deliver better patient care. The Best in KLAS designation is reserved for vendor solutions that lead their software and services market segments with the broadest operational and clinical impact on healthcare organizations. The "2015/2016 Best in KLAS Global Software (non-US)" report, published today by KLAS, is based on rankings by healthcare providers outside the U.S. in three segments: Electronic Medical Record (EMR), Patient Administration System, and Picture Archiving and Communication System. Healthcare providers rated theirsatisfaction with vendors' sales, contracting, implementation, and support, as well as their solutions' quality, functionality, fit with requirements, ease of use, performance, and interoperability. "As healthcare continues to evolve, it is imperative that we seek innovation and constantly address the needs of a shifting market. The Best in KLAS and Category Leader winners are the ones making the greatest strides within their market segments. I congratulate each of you for your award," said Adam Gale, CEO and president of KLAS. "KLAS is honored to work with talented healthcare providers who willingly share their experiences with us and make the Best in KLAS report possible. We also commend all the vendors who strive to improve their products and services in order to provide the best possible healthcare. It is truly a joint effort." "This award from KLAS is outstanding recognition of the TrakCare unified healthcare information system, which is sold only outside the U.S.," said Christine Chapman, Vice President for TrakCare at InterSystems. "I would like to thank all our customers for working in partnership with InterSystems to achieve the high satisfaction levels among healthcare professionals that this award for TrakCare represents." About KLAS KLAS is a research and insights firm on a global mission to improve healthcare delivery by amplifying the provider's voice. Working with thousands of healthcare professionals and clinicians, KLAS gathers data and insights on software, services and medical equipment to deliver timely reports, trends and statistical overviews. The research directly represents the provider voice and acts as a catalyst for improving vendor performance. Follow KLAS on Twitter (News - Alert) at www.twitter.com/KLASresearch. About InterSystems InterSystems provides the information engines that power some of the world's most important applications. In healthcare, finance, government, and other sectors where lives and livelihoods are at stake, InterSystems has been a strategic technology provider since 1978. InterSystems is a privately held company headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA), with offices worldwide, and its software products are used daily by millions of people in more than 100 countries. Visit InterSystems.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160128005293/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 27, 2016] Dole Packaged Foods Announces New Website And Social Networks WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif., Jan. 27, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Dole Packaged Foods, LLC announced today that it has launched a new U.S. website: dolesunshine.com. The website highlights Dole Packaged Foods' healthy and nutritious products with new design and navigation elements. For example, it features enhanced recipe and product search capabilities with easily navigated visual product usage ideas right on the homepage. The site has been designed to optimize both the desktop and mobile experiences. "The launch of this website represents an important step forward for us," said Michael Contreras, Sr. Digital Marketing Manager for Dole Packaged Foods. "It gives the consumer a focal point to obtain information and recipes on all our healthy products, whether they be ambient, frozen, dried fruit, or juice." He added that all the social media profiles have been updated and renamed to add consistency to the company's recently launched "Share the Sunshine" communication platform. The new social profiles and links for Dole Packaged Foods are: Facebook Instagram facebook.com/dolesunshine @dolesunshine instagram.com/dolesunshine Twitter @dolesunshine Pinterest twitter.com/dolesunshine pinterest.com/dolesunshine YouTube youtube.com/c/dolesunshine ABOUT DOLE PACKAGED FOODS Dole Packaged Foods, LLC is a world leader in growing, sourcing, distributing and marketing fruit and healthy snacks. Dole sells a full-line of packaged ambient fruit, frozen fruit, dried fruit, and juices. The company focuses on four pillars of sustainability in all of its operations: water management, carbon footprint, soil conservation and waste reduction. For more information please visit dolesunshine.com or doleintlcsr.com. 2016 Dole Packaged Foods, LLC. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160127/326765 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20141016/152677LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dole-packaged-foods-announces-new-website-and-social-networks-300211078.html SOURCE Dole Packaged Foods, LLC [January 28, 2016] ALPHAEON Strengthens Global Leadership With New Senior Appointments IRVINE, Calif., Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ALPHAEON Corporation, a social commerce company and subsidiary to Strathspey Crown Holdings LLC, today announced it has strengthened its global leadership with the appointment of Clint Carnell as President of Europe, Middle East and Africa and David Barrios as Vice President of Canada and Latin America. Mr. Carnell and Mr. Barrios both bring successful track records building a broad spectrum of companies to their new positions. Mr. Carnell will be responsible for strengthening ALPHAEON's leadership presence in EMEA, fostering product innovation and growth across those markets, while Mr. Barrios will oversee strategy, growth and management of the Canadian and Latin American markets. "We are thrilled to welcome Clint and David to ALPHAEON's growing team of accomplished executives," said ALPHAEON President and Chief Operating Officer Bob Rhatigan. "Clint's deep expertise in specialty healthcare's self-pay sector bolsters our EMEA leadership and our global presence, while David's extensive experience in ophthalmology and medical aesthetics extends ALPHAEON's commitment to deliver innovative products, services and solutions to physicians and consumers globally. Both additions advance our strategy to provide our customers with local service presence internationally while leveraging ALPHAEON's proprietary ShoutMD social commerce platform globally." Prior to joining ALPHAEON, Mr. Carnell was President and Chief Executive Officer of Perseon Corporation, a life sciences company dedicated to the research, development and producion of energy ablation devices used to treat soft tissue tumors. Previously, Mr. Carnell was CEO of Myoscience, Inc. and prior to this served as COO of Solta Medical Inc., which was later sold to Valeant Pharmaceuticals. Early in Mr. Carnell's career, he served as VP of US Surgical Business for Bausch + Lomb. "ALPHAEON is striving to create a new vision for the self-pay healthcare industry," said Mr. Carnell. "I believe my experience in the ophthalmic and aesthetic medical device market will fit well with the company as it continues to expand globally." With nearly 15 years developing solutions for medical businesses, Mr. Barrios has helped implement strategic initiatives across a roster of leading healthcare companies. Prior to joining ALPHAEON, Mr. Barrios was a General Manager of Galderma's Spain & Portugal region where he led their three global business units located in Iberia. Previously, Mr. Barrios held the position of Business Unit Director Surgical, Spain & Portugal, for Bausch + Lomb, where he led strategic plan definition and implementation. In addition, he held senior leadership positions within Johnson & Johnson and American Express. "It's an honor to join a company with a strong network of board-certified physicians and a strong innovative vision," said David Barrios, ALPHAEON VP Canada and Latin America. "I'm looking forward to leveraging my experience to grow ALPHAEON's presence and reputation in support of medical solutions in the Canadian and Latin American regions." About ALPHAEON Corporation ALPHAEON Corporation is a social commerce company with the goal of transforming self-pay healthcare by bringing to market highly innovative products and services to promote consumer wellness, beauty and performance. The company works in partnership with board certified physicians ensuring access to leading advancements in lifestyle healthcare. For more information, please visit www.alphaeon.com. About Strathspey Crown Holdings, LLC Strathspey Crown is a growth equity firm specializing in lifestyle healthcare. The firm is founded in partnership with physician investors across key medical specialties including plastic surgery, ophthalmology, dermatology, dentistry and orthopedics. For more information, please visit www.strathspeycrown.com. ALPHAEON PRESS CONTACT: Jenna Mons, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications Tel: +1-904-343-3449 Email: [email protected] To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/alphaeon-strengthens-global-leadership-with-new-senior-appointments-300210991.html SOURCE ALPHAEON Corporation [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 28, 2016] ClassDojo Introduces Video to Bring Classrooms to Life for Parents SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, ClassDojo introduces video for Class Story, giving teachers and parents an easy way to share in the story of a child's day, and bridge the gap between school and home. From a playground game to a science experiment, a theatre performance or a class celebration, parents can now share in those special moments that need more than a photo to come to life. "When teachers, parents, and students are able to share in the school experience, relationships grow, trust develops, and classrooms become real communities," said Liam Don, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at ClassDojo. "With video, teachers can easily bring the classroom to life, giving parents an even deeper feel for those amazing moments that make their child's day so special. We hope this brings parents, teachers, and students even closer together." ClassDojo is a communication platform used in over over 50% of US schools, as well as a further 180 countries every day. Through open, positive, and frequent sharing, teachers, parents, and students are able to form deeper relationships that strengthen the tie between the school and home. "I love being able to see my daughter learning with her friends," said Kim Angier, a parent in North Carolina. "School is the biggest part of her day and it means so much to feel like I'm part of it. I can't wait for video so I can experience these amazing moments with her that I might never otherwise see. I think it'll bring us even closer togeher." Video also helps solve a growing issue in US schools: the language barrier. For the 22% of parents who don't speak English at home, the disconnect they feel with school can feel even greater. Together with "Translate," which lets parents instantly view any post in up to 35 languages, video will help ensure all families can be part of their child's day, no matter the language spoken at home. "Most of the parents of my students do not speak English at home," said Jen Ellison, a teacher in California. "My students already cheered when they heard I could translate messages into Spanish. Video is an even more powerful way for me to engage parents who would otherwise be left out. I can't wait to see the reaction -- a video really is worth a million words!" Teachers and parents who already use ClassDojo can begin sharing on video starting today by updating their ClassDojo app. Those new to the platform can get started by downloading ClassDojo for free from the iOS App Store or Google Play. "We believe when teachers, parents and students work together as a community, they can change education from the ground up," said Liam Don, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of ClassDojo. "Video adds an even deeper layer of emotional communication that will further strengthen every classroom community." For more information on Class Story please visit www.classdojo.com/ClassStory and for more information on ClassDojo, please visit https://www.classdojo.com/press/. About ClassDojo ClassDojo's mission is to help communities of teachers, parents and students work together to transform education from the ground up, in every classroom in the world. Founded in 2011 and based in San Francisco, California, ClassDojo is a communication platform that creates a community inside and around every classroom. The company does this by helping teachers, parents, and students share moments from class more openly, frequently, and positively with each other. This includes sharing classroom activities, as well as skills students are building, using using photos, videos, and messages. Today, ClassDojo is used in over 1 in 2 US schools, as well as a further 180 countries. To learn more, visit: https://www.classdojo.com/ or Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160127/326817LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/classdojo-introduces-video-to-bring-classrooms-to-life-for-parents-300211195.html SOURCE ClassDojo [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 28, 2016] Google Training for Workplace Productivity Comes to Houston with Search Inside Yourself Program HOUSTON, Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- A recent Stanford study says that spending time on social media, web browsing and multitasking is leading to poor cognitive skills among professionals. It cites that today's managers have become "suckers for irrelevancy." Distractions causing cognitive overload are more pervasive than ever and divert attention on top of an already overwhelming communication tool like email. It's estimated that we spend about 28 percent of worktime managing email. The typical CEO gets about 200 to 300 emails per day. The sheer volume blurs focus, which is a key factor for productivity, and costs companies billions. Google understood this back when it created the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute in 2007. Now professionals in Houston can benefit from the principles and approach the tech giant pioneered with a two-day program on March 24th-25th, 2016 at Asia Society Texas Center. The institute is based on the best-selling book "Search Inside Yourself" (SIY) by Google engineer and co-founder Chade Meng whose movement took off at Google. Meng uses the latest neuroscience research to focus attention and mindfulness while building core emotional intelligence skills needed for effective leadership in the digital age. Meng believes that having emotional intelligence is more important than having a high intelligence quotient in the workplace: self-awareness, altruism, personal mastery and empathy, which help you to understand your colleague's motivations. "Houston's robust workforce o energy, technology, nonprofit, public sector and healthcare professionals who seek advantages to performing better at work make it the ideal city for this unprecedented program," said Ahmad Khan who helped bring SIY to the city. More than 2,000 Google engineers have taken the course and it has attracted the world's leading companies beyond Silicon Valley. "Our institute is a globally-recognized training organization that has worked with thousands of senior professionals from companies such as Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Disney, Amazon, Facebook, and more," said Meng. "Today's leadership is about how well we use our minds and our relationships with others. We're inspiring people to use this approach to optimize their performance." A key goal is for participants to attain cognitive clarity and regain focus. SIY uses the latest in neuroscience research, emotional intelligence development, and mindfulness training so participants can learn how to focus their attention and develop positive mental habits, improve their emotional competencies, and increase their self-awareness and self-management skills. Dr. Laura Delizonna, an instructor at Stanford University who specializes in the science of happiness and mindfulness, and Simon Moyes, who specializes in helping people practice mindfulness in their modern urban life will lead the programs in Houston. To register and purchase tickets, go to www.siylihouston.org. SIY is a non-profit institution. Please contact Chester Jacinto, [email protected] or Kate Gardiner, [email protected] with any questions. About Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute is globally recognized as a training organization that helps individuals increase their focus, build their mindfulness, and develop the skills they need to lead in the digital age. The organization was founded by Chade Meng, a Google engineer and author of the New York Times Bestseller Search Inside Yourself. The organization is guided by a board that includes such thought leaders as Arianna Huffington and neuroscientist Dr. Richard Davidson. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/google-training-for-workplace-productivity-comes-to-houston-with-search-inside-yourself-program-300210935.html SOURCE Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 28, 2016] Atlanta Department of Corrections Becomes First Detention Facility to Deploy BodyWorn Camera Technology ATLANTA, Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Utility, Inc. officially announced today the Atlanta Department of Corrections has deployed Utility's BodyWorn police body camerasthe only automated, policy-based, body-worn police camera currently available on the market. The Atlanta Department of Corrections is the first and only detention facility to equip its personnel with BodyWorn recording technology to document interactions with inmates. Doing so enhances transparency, improves safety and bolsters trust between staff and detainees. "Utility is an Atlanta-based company; knowing that the Atlanta Department of Corrections is using our products is special to us and it also shows the critical need for correctional facilities to deploy BodyWorn cameras to maintain transparent operations," said Robert McKeeman, CEO of Utility. "Our goal is to provide law enforcement organizations with policy-based recording and video managment capabilities so officers can do their jobs safely while also being transparent about their interactions with suspects, witnesses and the community. We are thrilled to be a part of the first correctional facility to implement body cameras, and we look forward to working more closely with [Atlanta Department of Corrections] Chief Labat and the rest of the Atlanta Department of Corrections." The Atlanta Department of Corrections purchased 130 BodyWorn units. Utility's revolutionary BodyWorn camera system is the only available product to automatically start recording based on the individual police department's specific privacy policies using triggers such as a built-in accelerometer and voice-activated recording. BodyWorn's Wi-Fi and 4G LTE service automatically uploads recorded video to a police department's cloud-based storage system for optimal transparency and video management. The service also enables real-time communication between corrections officers and Central Dispatch so officers are aware of alerts. By deploying BodyWorn, the Atlanta Department of Corrections also has access to Utility's Smart Redaction software, which automatically redacts faces, body parts and other objects in a video to protect inmate and officer privacy. The software can selectively blur or "unblur" images based on need; users' specific privacy-policy restrictions; and local, state and federal laws. This unique feature minimizes lead-time to publish redacted video taken by a body-worn camera, eliminates added labor costs, and maximizes both accountability and transparency of law enforcement. Smart Redaction is a standard feature within Utility's AVaiL Web video management system. In addition to BodyWorn, the Atlanta Department of Corrections also purchased Rocket vehicle routers and in-car video systems. Rocket equips the department's transport vehicles with powerful and secure wireless internet capabilities for up to 1,500 feet around the vehicle, while the in-car video systems keep a watchful eye on the detainees during transport. This system empowers the department to monitor and document interactions between correctional facility staff and inmates during the transportation process. For more information about Utility and its Generation 2 BodyWorn product, visit the Utility website at http://www.utility.com About Utility Utility is a venture-capital funded software developer headquartered in Decatur, Georgia in metropolitan Atlanta. The company provides real-time Situational Awareness and Police Video Management Software as a service and vehicle wireless communications hardware solutions for Police, Fire, EMS, Electric and Gas Utility, and Public Transit customers across the US. Utility owns US patents 6,831,566; 7,768,548; and 8,781,475; and has numerous patents pending with the US Patent Office, the Canadian Patent Office, and the European Union Patent Office. Contact: Jake Mendlinger Office: 516-829-8374 / Cell: 516-639-3373 Email: [email protected] Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160128/326871 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/atlanta-department-of-corrections-becomes-first-detention-facility-to-deploy-bodyworn-camera-technology-300211381.html SOURCE Utility, Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] You have reached a premium content area of Transitions. To read this entire article please login if you are already a Transitions subscriber. Not a subscriber? Subscribe today for access to: Full access to the website, including premium articles videos, country reports and searchable archives (containing over 25,000 articles). Android users who want to (and really should) keep their phones secure got a bit of a bonus today (Jan. 28), as antivirus maker Avast removed premium pricing from Avast Mobile Security and made all of the app's features free. (Image credit: Dirima/Shutterstock) Avast Mobile Security has been our Editor's Choice among Android antivirus apps for the past two years, but until today, users had to pay $2 per month, or $20 per year, to access all its features. Those premium features include a privacy advisor that checks apps for leakage of personal data, and an "app lock" that prevents use of designated apps without a PIN. Both are now free. But other features, such as an on-device firewall and a network usage meter, have been discontinued. (In an FAQ (opens in new tab) on its website, Avast said the firewall worked only on rooted devices, and the network meter was rarely used.) MORE: Best Android Antivirus Apps In our most recent review of Avast Mobile Security, we wrote that the app offered "an unparalleled level of user control, excellent malware protection and a truly staggering number of anti-theft and privacy-protection features." Unlike most Android security-app makers, Avast has specialized features for rooted Android phones, such as a lost-or-stolen device tracker that will survive a factory reset. However, we also noted that Avast's security solutions were unusually modular and complex, and that's still the case. Avast Mobile Security primarily protects against malware infection; a separate app, Avast Anti-Theft handles the securing and retrieval of lost or stolen phones. A third app, Avast Mobile Backup, used to automatically back up devices; it has disappeared from Google Play, and we've asked Avast representatives what happened to it. (Update: Avast Mobile Backup has been discontinued.) Also available to Android users are Avast Battery Saver, Avast Cleanup & Boost, the password manager Avast Passwords, Avast Ransomware Removal, which removes certain kinds of Android ransomware, and Avast Wi-Fi Finder, which locates reasonably safe open networks. (A similar app for iPhones is called Avast SecureMe.) Like Avast Avast Mobile Security and Avast Anti-Theft, all are completely free and can be installed and used individually, yet integrate well with each other. But if you're not an Android power user, the sheer number of options and configurations might be overwhelming. The only paid mobile offering the company retains is Avast SecureLine, a virtual-private-network (VPN) client app that can be tried out for a 7-day free trial. After that, it's $2.59 per month, or $20 per year, for each mobile device (including iOS ones). SecureLine is also available for Windows PCs and Macs, but that'll cost $80 per year (currently discounted to $60) for each computer. Customers who'd paid for the premium version of Avast Mobile Security will receive a compensatory subscription to SecureLine for Android for the length of their remaining Avast Mobile Security premium subscription. Its fair to say that Adelaides synth master Luke Million had a massive 2015, touring throughout Australia, the UK and Europe, collaborating with an array of artists and seeing his single Fear The Night featuring Jesse Davidson getting love nationally. To follow all that hes now returning with his brand new single Archetype featuring Jeswon from Aussie hip hop crew Thundamentals. Luke told us a little about how the collar came about I found myself at Studios 301 in a writing session with legends Jeswon, Trials and Chance Waters. We were vibing out working on some tracks together, we gelled really well and before we knew it we were channelling funk, hip hop and electronic music into this next level party jam. After a few months sitting on it I knew it had to see the light of day. I re-tracked the instrumental on nearly every bit of vintage gear I have in my studio and hit Jeswon of Thundamentals up to write and lay the final vocals down and he sure brought the goods. If that wasnt enough Trials also from Adelaide hip hop crew Funkoars has taken the track and given it a whole new re-work with this his remix (which were premiering today). Trials says about working with Luke The way Luke touches synths makes me constantly question how much he sold his soul to Satan for and whether or not I can get the same deal with a referral. I co-produced a very early demo of Archetype with Luke, Jeswon and Chance Waters in Sydney on a lazy hazy Friday till Luke took it home and polished our beautiful baby ready to be a full grown record released into the wild. I also did two different remixes of the tune this ones full of thumping drums direct from the MPC and a rinsing of L. Millys dangerous keytar outro from the original, the other one is uhh, wavy. like me trying to fit in a bathtub wavy.. ENJOY ! Check out the banger of a tack below and pop by Lukes Facebook page for more info on upcoming shows and releases. Not only was 1975s Physical Graffiti far from cynical or lazy, many consider the album to be the bands finest hour and bear their crowning achievement. For most bands, releasing an album made up of only eight original tracks and leaving the rest of the running time to be taken up by unused cuts from previous recording sessions looks like a lazy and cynical cash-grab. But it goes without saying that Led Zeppelin were not like most bands. Were talking, of course, about Kashmir, the tune that for many sums up what made Led Zeppelin so great epic soundscapes, head-banging riffs, muscular percussion, fantastical lyrics, and a sense that you were preparing for some sort of great battle. Zeppelin lore suggests that there are demo versions of Kashmir, which in its nascent stages was titled Swan Song, that stretch for up 58 minutes long, though Jimmy Page, guitarist and producer of Physical Graffiti disputes this. Nah, he would later tell Mojo. But it was long. Armed with the newfound freedom afforded by a double album, the band went hog wild, creatively speaking, veering in and out of genres and creating what author Dave Lewis called an embarrassment of riches. But the album wasnt originally conceived of as the treasure trove it became. Initial recording sessions took place in November 1973 at Headley Grange in East Hampshire. The sessions were quickly halted and the studio time given to Bad Company. Love Classic Rock? Get the latest Classic Rock news, features, updates and giveaways straight to your inbox Learn more JOIN According to Lewis, bassist John Paul Jones, weary from the bands herculean touring schedules and promotional commitments, decided he wanted to quit the band and take up a position as choirmaster at Winchester Cathedral. After Jones changed his mind, the band recorded eight tracks at Headley Grange in January and February 1974, which they soon found stretched the running time of a typical LP. The band came to the decision to include unreleased tracks from other sessions. We had more material than the required 40-odd minutes for one album, Page told Trouser Press. We had enough material for one and a half LPs, so we figured lets put out a double and use some of the material we had done previously but never released. It seemed like a good time to do that sort of thing, release tracks like Boogie With Stu which we normally wouldnt be able to do [T]his time we figured it was better to stretch out than to leave off. After the addition of some final overdubs and the conclusion of mixing, Page came up with the title Physical Graffiti to illustrate the physical and written energy that had gone into producing the album. Not exactly critical darlings during their time (though you wouldnt know it to read Rolling Stone these days), the album was released to a surprising amount of acclaim, with many critics suspecting the album to be Zeppelins vie for artistic credibility. Looking back on the album, it still stands as arguably the bands best. Sure, Led Zeppelin was a ferocious crack of thunder that signalled the dawn of a new era, Zeppelin II had Whole Lotta Love, III had Immigrant Song, IV Stairway To Heaven, and Houses of the Holy No Quarter. But Physical Graffiti was Physical Graffiti, a single continuous work thats bigger than the sum of its parts, which reached previously unfathomed realms of imagination for a band once dismissed by critics as simple-minded cock rock. Fans and critics alike argue to this day whether its the bands Sgt Peppers or their White Album, but the truth is that its neither. Physical Graffiti is Led Zeppelin, pure and unabashed and at their peak. Finn has endangered kids, stonewalled police, deceived victims, hidden predators and betrayed thousands of Catholic families, said Barbara Dorris of SNAP. Why give him more chances to hurt more families? Why take the risk? Some church officials claim Finn should be forgiven. Theres a difference between forgiving a wrongdoer and enabling a wrongdoer to do more wrong, said David Clohessy of SNAP. We can forgive a drunken school bus driver. But were irresponsible and cruel if we give her the keys to another school bus. Thats what Nebraska Bishop Paul Conley is doing with Finn: giving him another opportunity to put his career and comfort above the safety of innocent youngsters, the wounds of suffering victims, and the feelings of Catholic families. Finn retains his title bishop and all the privileges that come with it: a pay check, health insurance, dental insurance, car allowance, and the prestige of belonging to a rarified group. And he gets to perform sacraments and say mass and hear confessions and begin to ingratiate himself with Nebraska families, and win the trust of, and perhaps hurt or betray more Catholics. Again, why take the risk? asked Dorris. In nearly every other workplace, hed be unemployed, for one or all of the allegations he faces. We recently noted a group of protesters confronting Nebraska Catholics over a Kansas City scandal. Now here's the word from local leaders . . .Quote . . .Developing . . . "The Kansas City Police Department said two sergeants and seven detectives have been temporary relieved of duty with pay amid an internal investigation into case management issues in the Crimes Against Children section." "Police said Chief Darryl Forte became aware last fall that cases were not being addressed in a timely manner. The department is concerned that serious cases with vulnerable victims may not have been handled in the most effective ways." Baker issues statement on KCPD investigation Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker issued the following statement today after KCPD announced an investigation of its Crimes Against Children Unit: It has been my highest priority to protect our communitys most vulnerable population - children. All those responsible for the welfare of our kids must examine where we come up short. Rest assured, my office will assist police in investigating and submitting these important cases. In the end, our community must have absolute confidence that all of us especially police and prosecutors are doing everything possible, as quickly as possible, to protect our children from harm. I will stand for nothing less. Today's bad news for the KCPD . . .One of the more serious crackdowns by the Chief . . .Developing . . . MANNY ABARCA IV OFFICIALLY ENTERS MISSOURI DISTRICT 19 RACE Platform to Include Public Safety, Educational Equity, and Fair Jobs Here'sat the latest contender in what's shaping up to be a heated political battle for Missouri House District 19 in Kansas City's urban core.Manny Abarca is well known to many residents and neighbors in Kansas City's Northeast not only for his job as abut also for his many community volunteer activities.Mr. Abarca is the youngest contender in this election contest and one of the very few Latinos to launch a recent bid for political office throughout the metro in what is likely one of the most diverse districts in all of Missouri.Here's his kick-off presser which offers some information about the candidate along with links for more research. Checkit:January 28, 2016Historic Northeast resident and 5th Congressional District staffer Manny Abarca IV has officially launched his campaign for the open Missouri House District 19 seat. Abarca is the 3rd candidate to enter the race and plans to draw on his experiences behind the scenes as a field organizer on multiple campaigns including U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill's 2012 bid for re-election.Abarca has established himself as a community leader in his efforts to organize neighborhood watch programs, address blight, and perhaps most notably, take on the Kansas City School Board as part of his "Save Thacher Save Our Schools" campaign. Abarca has been working in constituent services for the last two years for Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, II. His extensive training and on the job experience, combating agency bureaucracy and fighting for services and benefits earned by the Federal government, puts him in a prime position to effectively serve and take on any constituent issue. Whether fighting for someone's Social Security Disability benefits, navigating the twists-and-turns of our healthcare system, or fighting for someone's home that is being foreclosed on by big, corporate banks.Abarca credits his values and work ethic to his family, and specifically the long line of namesakes, (from Manuel Abarca I who earned a purple heart in WWII and Manuel Abarca Jr., a local business owner and Teamster truck driver, the same occupation Manny's father now holds), to his mother, who put her own educational goals on hold for 27 years to provide for Manny and his siblings, only to return and finally earn her higher education degree this past year.Abarca commits to "combat some of the rhetoric thats coming down from Jefferson City and fight for issues that matter to the 19th district, be that on protecting Kansas Citys earnings tax or for finally funding the much needed and necessary regional crime lab in Independence," and believes that this opportunity will allow him to "take a stand on these issues as well as provide more for the district."A full list of Abarca's policies can be found on his websitewhich goes live at 10am. You can also followand on twitter. For direct information, contact Manny at Manny@MannyforMissouri.com or call 816.499.1155. This release was created and paid for by Friends of Manny Abarca for Missouri, Jerry W. Potocnik, Treasurer.############Developing . . At the outset of this debate we noted that talk of Missouri General Assembly ranting against the E-tax was mostly bluster and chest thumping from Republicans angry with Mayor Sly.And now . . . It seems that Jeff City efforts against the E-Tax are over before they start.Here's the news Progress KC leaked to reporter Mike Mahoney:Credit where it's due . . . This means somebody had to go and kiss the ring of Rex Sinquefield in order to earn a pass before this election . . . Side note: it's about time we stop believing that Democracy has anything much to do with the electorate.But I digress . . .The real deal . . . Now campaigners must continue to create a false sense of urgency for Kansas City voters who need to show up to approve the tax but not in great enough numbers to be really riled up about actually changing the status quo. 10% turnout for registered voters driven to the polls by organizers should be just perfect for what is tantamount to Kansas City's welfare program for consultants.You decide . . . Tourexpi, turizm haberleri, Reiseburos, tourism news, noticias de turismo, Tourismus Nachrichten, , travel tourism news, international tourism news, Urlaub, urlaub in der turkei, , holidays in Turkey, , global tourism news, dunya turizm, dunya turizm haberleri, Seyahat Acentas, This site is best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0+, at a minimum screen resolution of 1024 x 768. Commercial Bank of Qatar earned a net profit of QR1.458 billion ($389 million) in the year ending Dec. 31, against a profit of QR1.94 billion a year ago, the bank said in a statement. CBQ, which also owns Alternatifbank in Turkey and holds a 34.9 per cent stake in National Bank of Oman, said earnings per share stood at QR4 for the period compared to QR5.39 a year ago. The bank's board has recommended distributing a cash dividend of QR3 per share, the statement said. For 2014, CBQ's board had recommended a cash dividend payout of QR3.5 per share and the issue of one bonus share for every 10 shares held. Reuters Japan's JGC Corp has signed a $355-million deal with Bahrain's Banagas to build the expansion of a gas-processing plant in kingdom, Bahrain's state news agency reported on Wednesday. The plant is expected to process 350 million cu ft of additional associated gas from the Bahrain oilfield, the agency reported. A signing ceremony was held today under the patronage of Bahrain's Minister of Energy Dr Abdul Hussain bin Ali Mirza. The agreement includes the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of the Banagas Expansion Project. The agreement was signed by Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, the chief executive of the Bahrain National Gas Company (Banagas), on behalf of Bahrain and Yoshihiro Shigehisa, the chairman emeritus of JGC Group, at a ceremony held at Four Seasons Bahrain Hotel, said the BNA report. Dr Mirza said the agreement was a significant milestone for Banagas' expansion and added to the achievements of the energy sector in Bahrain. The project is among the many other National Oil and Gas Authority (Noga) strategic projects aimed at securing continued economic growth in the country, he said. Dr Mirza said that setting up of the gas project by JGC further enhanced the historical relations between the company and the oil companies in Bahrain. Three international companies had participated in the tendering process at the design and construction phase of the gas plant, a design which had to accommodate 350 million cu ft of associated gas from the Bahrain Oil Field and produce liquefied petroleum gas and naphtha, utilising re-injection pressure and excess gas. The plant will be equipped to process dry gas. The project is expected to take 32 months to be ready for a trial run and start actual operations in September 2018. It is one of the largest projects implemented by the company in terms of capital, energy utilisation and providing job opportunities to Bahrainis. - TradeArabia News Service and Reuters Siemens, a leading global industrial group, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) worth $1.6 billion with Iran on transportation equipment and services, said a senior official from Siemens. Iran has a lot of opportunity and this won't be the last MoU, chief executive officer of Siemens AG, Joe Kaeser, was quoted as saying in an Iran Daily report. The MoU came after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany), came into force on January 16, it added. Qatar Airways Cargo has announced that it will launch three new freighter routes to Budapest (Hungary), Prague (Czech Republic) and Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) in March. This will increase the airlines freighter destinations in Europe to 14 and in Asia/Pacific to six. The airline now flies its fleet of 16 freighters to 52 dedicated-cargo destinations and flies belly hold cargo on passenger aircraft to more than 150 destinations across its global network. An A330F will fly twice a week from Doha to Ho Chi Minh on Thursdays and Saturdays, and will provide 120 tonnes of cargo capacity to and from the city per week, in addition to the 72 tonnes weekly belly hold capacity on the daily passenger flights to Ho Chi Minh. Qatar Airways Cargos new service to Ho Chi Minh will support Vietnams growing influence as a major exporter of garments, footwear and handicrafts to the US and Europe. The new Doha Budapest Prague service will depart from Doha on Thursdays and Sundays. The 120 tonnes of weekly cargo capacity on the A330F, which will fly to the two new Eastern European cities, will be allocated evenly between the two markets. This new route will provide a major new gateway into Eastern Europe from Asia for electronics and automotive parts, as well as textiles, pharmaceuticals and biotech products. We are delighted to announce our network expansion in Asia/Pacific and Eastern Europe, said Ulrich Ogiermann, Qatar Airways chief officer cargo. We have identified a definite gap in the market in these regions and we look forward to supporting local businesses in the areas with a more robust service connecting them to our wider global network. Qatar Airways Cargos network expansion for 2016 began in January with the launch of a new freighter destination to Dallas/Fort Worth, taking the airlines number of freight destinations in the US to 13. In addition, a fourth-weekly freighter began serving Los Angeles on January 19, complementing the new passenger service to the City of Angels, which commenced January 1. Further network growth is planned for later this year as more aircraft join the expanding fleet. A new A330F and a new B747F nose loader were received by the airline last month, and a further A330F is scheduled to arrive in the first quarter of the year followed by three new Boeing 777Fs by the end of 2016. TradeArabia News Service The second edition of ArtBahrain, an international art fair to promote Arab talent and boost the regional art industry, will be held in October this year. Having witnessed remarkable success in its inaugural version last year, the art fair has already secured the support of regional and international artists and galleries as well as key sponsors and plans to showcase even more creative talent from across the Middle East and North Africa. The 2015 edition of ArtBahrain hosted nearly 50 participants from 17 countries across the Middle East, Africa, Europe, the Far East and Asia and witnessed a footfall of nearly 15,000 visitors over four days, with total sales topping BD170,000 ($447,958), said a statement. The event featured the works of acclaimed Arab and international artists and galleries, and introduced diverse art aptitudes from classic acrylic to sculpture, digital photography and new age installation. Our aim is to increase participation by 10-15 per cent this year and reach out to even more artists and art institutions both regionally and across the globe, said ArtBahrain co-founder Kaneka Subberwal. Based on the positive response we have received so far, we are confident we can achieve this target. "The Mena region is fast emerging as a major player in arts and boasts tremendous creative talent; the flourishing arts scene in this part of the world holds great potential to drive investment and fuel industry growth, making it a viable economic contributor. Events such as ArtBahrain provide a vehicle to drive this development and encourage the next generation of Arab artists, Subberwal said. This years ArtBahrain will form part of the calendar of events planned by the Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority to commemorate the countrys standing as Manama Gulf Capital of Tourism 2016. - TradeArabia News Service UAE businesses are still considerably behind their Western counterparts when it comes to implementing sustainable practices, according to an industry expert. Since Dubai pledged to make Expo 2020 the first sustainable expo, the UAEs sustainable development agenda has been thrust into the global spotlight, said Marcos Bish, managing director of Summertown Interiors, a leading UAE-based fit-out contractor specialising in green interiors. The UAE Government has made very clear its intention to become a successful model of a sustainable economy and has put in place some ambitious targets to make this vision a reality. Most recently Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, launched the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050. This aims to make Dubai a global centre of clean energy and green economy by providing 7 per cent of Dubais energy from clean energy sources by 2020, 25 per cent by 2030 and 75 per cent by 2050, he added. The UAE through its diverse strategies and investments in clean and renewable energy is leading global efforts in this area, despite having the second-largest oil reserves in the world. Much effort is being put into diversifying the UAEs economy away from oil by 2021 to create a business environment that ensures economic and social stability, Bish explained. Although there has been an increased interest in building green in the past few years, the corporate and economic benefits of sustainability are still underestimated in the region. Being green is a lifestyle choice and a business strategy, which, if done well, positively impacts the companys bottom line. People will be more engaged and work better together, costs will be managed more efficiently, and the company will gain credibility in the market, Bish noted. As a company that walks the talk, our clients, partners and the business community in general look to us for advice and knowledge when it comes to integrating sustainability into their business operations. From our own experience, the most common mistake companies make when they want to embrace sustainability is having too narrow a vision: setting just a few goals and metrics for measurement, and then following those without looking at the big picture. Sustainability has always been at the forefront of Summertowns operations and we will continue to pioneer the green movement here in the UAE. We look to inspire and help other companies to integrate green practises into their business strategy to help sustainability become the standard modus operandi, both in the UAE and worldwide, he concluded. TradeArabia News Service A new study has listed `factories automation as one of the top three emerging trends in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the UAE in 2023. The other two upcoming trends for 2023 in the two GCC countries, according to the study by Poly, are smart liv Dubai-based Emirates airline has unveiled plans to expand its fleet with the addition of 37 new planes, worth a total of $14.5 billion, to support its expansion of global operations, said a report. According to The National, the airline will receive 21 Airbus A380 superjumbos and 16 Boeing 777s by March 2017, chief commercial officer Thierry Antinori said on Wednesday in Singapore. Beginning in February, Emirates will fly to Panama in what will be the longest nonstop commercial flight by any carrier, overtaking Qantas Airways's service to Dallas from Sydney, the report said. It will also fly to new destinations this year, including Cebu in the Philippines and two cities in China, as well operate operate five daily flights between Dubai and Colombo every day, except Wednesdays when it will operate four flights, from August 1. "We will continue to grow," Antinori said. "We will continue to invest, innovate, have a younger fleet. It's about creating new markets." The Gulf carrier also plans to retire 26 airplanes, including some A330s and A340s, from its fleet, Antinori said. The airline is studying an order for Airbus's A350-900 and -1000 variants along with Boeing's 787-9 and -10 models. As of January 17, the carrier had 247 aircraft in operations with 257 on order. The Perumbavoor MLA has been directed by the court to appear before the investigating officer on Saturday. Unlimited Vacation Club Members Can Now Make Yacht Reservations Easier Than Ever Before (TRAVPR.COM) UNITED STATES - January 28th, 2016 - Unlimited Vacation Club (UVC) by AMResorts upholds its strong partnership with Yachts-E, a premier yacht rental company, with a new reservation process for members. UVC continues to take VIP service to the next level. Through the Yachts-E program, members can now reserve a lavish yacht directly through UVC at a discounted rate when visiting resorts in the following destinations: Cancun, the Riviera Maya, Cozumel, Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos and Punta Cana. Jamaica and Costa Rica are next on the list of exotic destinations that will offer direct yacht reservations through the vacation club in the near future. With this luxurious member benefit, vacationers can enjoy all of the upscale amenities of Yachts-Es well-appointed vessels which include two spacious cabins with TVs, two bathrooms, a saloon with a plasma screen, and a cock pit galley just to name a few. Additionally, members can choose from a number of fantastic excursion options within the destination. Enjoy fishing, whale watching, day cruising, sunset sailing and more, all while aboard a private yacht. Experience ultimate luxury through the Yachts-E program and take advantage of all of the exclusive privileges that come along with being a UVC member. With yachts ranging from 34 to 45 feet in size, members can choose to charter a smaller vessel, ideal for more intimate and romantic settings or a larger vessel, ideal for larger groups looking to enjoy an afternoon of fun with friends and family. Members can learn how to make yacht reservations with Yachts-E by logging into UVCs site or by calling UVCs call center. US & Canada: 1-877-923-2582 Mexico: 01-800-845-0375 Argentina: 0800-666-3458 Chile: 1230-020-6848 France: 0805-080021 United Kingdom: 0-808-189-1401 Brazil: 0-800-891-5369 To learn more about UVC, visit www.unlimitedvacationclub.com. About Unlimited Vacation Club Unlimited Vacation Club by AMResorts is an exclusive travel club providing exclusive privileges to its members at luxurious AMResorts properties throughout Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America. Through a variety of participation levels, discerning travelers can enjoy an array of benefits when they travel to any Zoetry Wellness & Spa Resorts, Secrets Resorts & Spas, Breathless Resorts & Spas, Dreams Resorts & Spas, Now Resorts & Spas and Sunscape Resorts & Spas. Our over 37,000 members can even enjoy access to exclusive partner offers. For more information, visit www.unlimitedvacationclub.com. About AMResorts AMResorts is the fastest-growing provider of sales, marketing and brand management services to six unique, all-inclusive concept resort brands with nearly 45 properties in Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America. These brands include: the luxurious and boutique Zoetry Wellness & Spa Resorts (www.zoetryresorts.com); adults-only Secrets Resorts & Spas (www.secretsresorts.com); Breathless Resorts & Spas (www.breathlessresorts.com); family-friendly Dreams Resorts & Spas (www.dreamsresorts.com) ; vibrant Now Resorts & Spas (www.nowresorts.com); and fun-filled Sunscape Resorts & Spas (www.sunscaperesorts.com). Unlimited Vacation Club (UVC) by AMResorts upholds its strong partnership with Yachts-E, a premier yacht rental company, with a new reservation process for members. UVC continues to take VIP service to the next level. Through the Yachts-E program, members can now reserve a lavish yacht directly through UVC at a discounted rate when visiting resorts in the following destinations: Cancun, the Riviera Maya, Cozumel, Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos and Punta Cana. Jamaica and Costa Rica are next on the list of exotic destinations that will offer direct yacht reservations through the vacation club in the near future. With this luxurious member benefit, vacationers can enjoy all of the upscale amenities of Yachts-Es well-appointed vessels which include two spacious cabins with TVs, two bathrooms, a saloon with a plasma screen, and a cock pit galley just to name a few. Additionally, members can choose from a number of fantastic excursion options within the destination. Enjoy fishing, whale watching, day cruising, sunset sailing and more, all while aboard a private yacht. Experience ultimate luxury through the Yachts-E program and take advantage of all of the exclusive privileges that come along with being a UVC member. With yachts ranging from 34 to 45 feet in size, members can choose to charter a smaller vessel, ideal for more intimate and romantic settings or a larger vessel, ideal for larger groups looking to enjoy an afternoon of fun with friends and family. Members can learn how to make yacht reservations with Yachts-E by logging into UVCs site or by calling UVCs call center. US & Canada: 1-877-923-2582 Mexico: 01-800-845-0375 Argentina: 0800-666-3458 Chile: 1230-020-6848 France: 0805-080021 United Kingdom: 0-808-189-1401 Brazil: 0-800-891-5369 To learn more about UVC, visit www.unlimitedvacationclub.com. About Unlimited Vacation Club Unlimited Vacation Club by AMResorts is an exclusive travel club providing exclusive privileges to its members at luxurious AMResorts properties throughout Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America. Through a variety of participation levels, discerning travelers can enjoy an array of benefits when they travel to any Zoetry Wellness & Spa Resorts, Secrets Resorts & Spas, Breathless Resorts & Spas, Dreams Resorts & Spas, Now Resorts & Spas and Sunscape Resorts & Spas. Our over 37,000 members can even enjoy access to exclusive partner offers. For more information, visit www.unlimitedvacationclub.com. About AMResorts AMResorts is the fastest-growing provider of sales, marketing and brand management services to six unique, all-inclusive concept resort brands with nearly 45 properties in Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America. These brands include: the luxurious and boutique Zoetry Wellness & Spa Resorts (www.zoetryresorts.com); adults-only Secrets Resorts & Spas (www.secretsresorts.com); Breathless Resorts & Spas (www.breathlessresorts.com); family-friendly Dreams Resorts & Spas (www.dreamsresorts.com) ; vibrant Now Resorts & Spas (www.nowresorts.com); and fun-filled Sunscape Resorts & Spas (www.sunscaperesorts.com). ### When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. Chandigarh: The Students for Society on Thursday held a protest rally against the failure to resolve pending issues. The students gathered to protest against the attitude of the authorities towards the genuine concerns raised by the students in the past. They demanded to ban four-wheelers as per the decision of the referendum. A Central consultative committee should be constituted democratically as agreed to by the authorities. They also demanded that there should be transparency in the allotment of hostels to all students. Annual college magazine released To commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Sri Guru Gobind Singh College, Sector 26, here, a special issue of the annual college magazine, AGAMMI JYOT, was released on Thursday. Management members of the Sikh Educational Society, prominent alumni and professors associated with the college over the years were present on this occasion. Western Sydney varsity delegation visits PU A delegation of Western Sydney University (UWS) visited Panjab University on Thursday. The UWS delegation led by Senior Research Manager Professor Julia Shelley, along with other delegates, visited the University Institute of Engineering and Technology (UIET) for identifying the areas for development of partnerships in engineering sciences and finalising Memorandum of Understandings (MOU) to be signed between the two universities. PU Dean International Studies Deepti Gupta led the delegation to the UIET. Trilingual event A trilingual event, Vande Mataram: A Tribute to the Nation, was organised by the Department of English at the PGGC-11 on Thursday. A large number of enthusiastic and zealous students turned up for slogan-writing and declamation contest. The theme of the event was patriotism. Students, with zeal and fervour, talked on the issues of globalisation, decolonisation, nationality and remembered the great heroes of the nation. Australian education fair held IDP Education India organised Australian education fair at a hotel in Sector 17 here on Thursday. The fair was for students aspiring to pursue higher education in Australia. As many as 37 Australian institutions are participating in the fair across the country. It is a platform for students to gauge their prospects, apply directly to the institution of their choice and get first-hand information on courses, scholarships, etc. Piyush Kumar, Country Director, India-IDP Education, said: In the fair, students can have a face-to-face interaction with university representatives and get answers to all their queries related to studying in Australia. TNS Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 28 As sanitation workers continue their strike for the second day today, Chief Minister Arvind Kerjriwal who is in Bengaluru and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in separate statements demanded fresh elections to civic bodies following their failure to disburse salaries of their employees and officials. The sanitation workers are on a three-day strike demanding their salaries and back wages for the last two months. Kejriwal in a tweet alleged that there was a total failure in the management of MCDs as several areas in the city reeled from the stench of uncollected garbage due to the strike by sanitation workers. All the MCDs - North, South and East Delhi - are being ruled by the BJP. Coming down hard on the three municipal bodies, the Deputy Chief Minister alleged that the sanitation workers were "instigated" by some people to throw garbage in front of his residence and office. "Management of an organization, which can't pay salaries to employees, doesn't have right to continue. MCDs should be dissolved. Hold fresh elections," Kejriwal, who is on a 10-day-long medical leave at Bengaluru, tweeted. Sisodia decries garbage politics Addressing a press conference here, Sisodia slammed the office bearers of the civic bodies for engaging in "garbage politics, claiming sanitation workers had been "instigated" to throw garbage in front of his official quarters. "We gave them funds before time without even adjusting the loans amounting to around Rs 6,000 crore extended by us. However, the workers are being instigated to throw garbage in front of our houses and offices," Sisodia told reporters. Sisodia reiterated the ruling AAP's claim that the Delhi Government released the entire fund under the non-Plan head to MCDs and "yet their employees are not being paid their salaries". The three corporations have themselves admitted having received Rs 892.92 crore for North MCD, Rs 465.53 crore for East MCD and Rs 668 crore for South MCD, under the non-Plan head for the current financial year, which will come to an end on March 31, the government said. "It is clear that 90 per cent of the non-planned allocation is for payment of salaries, then the basic question is: why the MCD employees have not been paid their salaries?" "They have bungled the funds and when we order inquiry into it they do not allow it," Sisodia complained, referring to a two-member probe team formed by the government to look into accounts of the municipal corporations. The Delhi High Court had yesterday asked the Centre to ensure that civic agencies keep the Capital clean as per the 'Swachh Bharat' policy and directed the police to ensure there was no hindrance in the removal of garbage by the municipalities Hamid Ansari The Arab Turbulence of 2010-2011 was quintessentially a non-religious, secular phenomenon that took the shape of a leaderless mass movement. It sought dignity, empowerment, political citizenship, social justice and taking back the State and its institutions from rulers and their cronies. The slogans, interestingly enough, did not resort to calls for Arab unity or advocate Islam as the solution. Its most dramatic impact was the abandonment of the fear of the state's security apparatus. Uncontrolled rage did not help matters and it soon gave way to sectional interests. Counter-revolutionary forces exploited the prospects of chaos to prevail and impose even greater control. Why did this happen? In a famous passage on the history of the Russian revolution, Leon Trotsky had observed that the masses go into a revolution not with a prepared plan of social reconstruction, but with a sharp feeling that they cannot endure the old regime. The political process thus unleashed results in a guiding organisation without which the energy of the masses dissipates. Record shows that in the case of the countries affected by the Arab Turbulence, the emergence of such a guiding organisation happened belatedly and inadequately. There was no consensus on the political and economic model to be put in place. It was "a tale of three battles rolled into one: people against regimes; people against people; regimes against other regimes." The objectives of the protesting masses ranged from modest reforms and constitutional monarchy (as in Morocco and Jordan and in a short-lived, muted, manner in Saudi Arabia) to overthrow of the head of state (Tunisia, Egypt and Libya) to a state order based on Islamic principles (Egypt under Morsi). The call for social justice did not, however, bring forth an implementable programme of action. While left-leaning groups and unions wanted higher wages and a reversal of privatisation, others sought more liberal policies. Catalyst for long-term change It is relevant to recall that the Turbulence was not as a single event, but a catalyst for long-term change whose final outcome is yet to be seen. The main legacy of the Arab Spring is in smashing the myth of Arabs' political passivity and the perceived invincibility of arrogant ruling elites. Even in countries that avoided mass unrest, the governments took the quiescence of the people at their own peril. Panic characterised the initial reaction of the traditional Arab establishments whose primary objective was to maintain the status quo. Domestically and across the GCC, an authoritarian retrenchment and narrowing of political space emerged. Some of the GCC states took steps focused on (a) containment of the revolts in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, (b) bring about a counter-revolution in Yemen and Bahrain, (c) support the revolution in Syria. * * * Some questions arise. What were the principal characteristics of authoritarian systems that were challenged by the two years of Arab Turbulence? What were its immediate and longer term consequences? Did it have a visible impact on patterns of governance? What are its regional and global implications? According to most observers, the authoritarian order in West Asia and North Africa was and is characterised by lack of transparency, information scarcity, nepotism, political subservience, absence of a sense of equal citizenship, ambiguous accountability, political irresponsibility, and absence of rule of law. The effort in many cases to seek legitimacy through ritualistic references to religious injunctions about rule through mutual consultations and requirement of obedience to those charged with authority among you did nothing to alter this harsh ground reality. Those who protested against it sought the opposite of these attributes. The response pattern, with local variations, lent credence to Machiavelli's dictum that men forget more easily the death of their fathers than the loss of patrimony. Voluntary abdication from seat of absolute power is a rarity in human affairs and did not happen in West Asian lands. Three consequences emanated from this; they persist to this day. One was initial gestures of financial largesse to their public along with an immediate resort to increasingly harsh measures to restrict the freedoms of their citizens to express themselves and meaningfully to participate politically and hold power accountable. Another was a decision in some of the GCC states to give generous financial packages to the countries affected by the Turbulence. A third was to intensify their military involvement in the internal conflicts in Bahrain, Yemen, Syria and Libya. * * * A good part of the debate on Arab Turbulence, and official pronouncements from different quarters, has focused on alleged mischief emanating from the sectarian, Sunni-Shia, conflict. Its political origins in recent years can be traced to the geopolitical consequences of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and to the reported 2004 pronouncement of the Jordanian monarch. Some of the GCC states have been its proponents in recent years. According to one scholar, sectarianism became a pre-emptive counter-revolutionary strategy. This, however, clouds rather than illuminates the complex realities of regional politics. A more realistic perspective on this was provided by the Amir of Qatar who, in his UN General Assembly speech on September 28, 2015, described the existing confrontation as political regional Arab-Iranian difference rather than being a Sunni-Shiite dispute. The Turbulence in Arab lands was not immune to regional and extra-regional inputs. Bahrain, Libya, Syria and Yemen were subjected to political and or material interventions from across national borders; some of these emanated from within the region, some from immediate or proximate neighbourhood, and some from great or big powers. The objective in each case was and is to prevent, retard or reverse the change sought by a visible majority of the public. Batlefields galore The picture at the end of the year 2015 was one of total disarray, a situation in which regional and global powers together with empowered local groups are engaged in political and military action in half a dozen different battlefields. The immediate concern of each is to prevail upon its adversary. Little thought, if any, is being given to longer term consequences for the societies in the region. In the process, the rationale for the Turbulence takes the back seat. It has been said that the failure to understand catastrophes is even deadlier to a people than the catastrophes themselves. The requirement to comprehend the prerequisites and essentials of participatory governance were perhaps not fully comprehended by the protesting public, nor did it have a full measure of the forces aligned against it. The need to combine rage with realism went unappreciated, except in the case of Al-Nahda in Tunisia where the requirement of a wider consensus was appreciated. With the exception of Egypt, the primary and primordial identity of the Arab lands of the Ottoman Empire was essentially tribal with some regional attributes. As independent entities, no organic changes were brought about in their internal tribal structures; instead, the tribal hierarchies were integrated in the new political structures deliberately by domestic and external forces that, despite protestations to the contrary, ended up being authoritarian. This deprived them of a mass base and genuine public participation through political institutions. Aspects of this deficiency were reflected in the UNDP's second Arab Development Challenges Report 2011. * * * The link between the citizen and the state through the mechanism of accountability (and an implicit social contract going beyond the ruler-subject relationship) is thus critical for domestic cohesion and internal security but has not been sufficiently in evidence. An analysis of the states of West Asia some years back identified among its characteristics the politics of limited association and of an essentially broad urban middle class base in which coercion or co-option into the state structure rather than (in a) durable resilience of the system whose legitimacy is based on the full participation of the people in the body politic. Decades earlier, the Moroccan historian Abdallah Laroui had spelt out the requirement: The democratic principle means that no one in society possesses political truth, that this truth will only gradually take shape through the procedures of discussion and successive elections. Excerpted from the speech, Turbulence in West Asian State Systems: Road blocks in the Quest for Participatory Governance, by the Vice President at the IInd West Asia Conference organised by the IDSA Islamabad, January 28 Indias habit of "hurling unsubstantiated terror allegations" undermined efforts to counter terrorism in the region, Pakistans foreign office said on Thursday. Foreign Office Spokesperson Qazi Khalilullah said at his weekly news briefing here: "Terrorism is a problem for Pakistan and the world at large, not just India". Asked about fingers being pointed at Pakistan whenever there is a terror attack in India, Khalilullah said Asked about allegations against Pakistan whenever there is a terror attack, he said such allegations affected the fight against terrorism in the region in a "collaborative manner". He also said although foreign secretaries of both countries kept in touch to decide when to hold cancelled talks, he did not give a date. India and Pakistan mutually agreed to defer talks between foreign secretaries after the Pathankot attack and said they would reschedule it soon. India has sought action by Pakistan on the evidence provided pointing to the outlawed Jaish-e-Mohammads (JeM) involvement in the predawn strike on an Air Force Base in Pathankot on January 2. He also reacted to a joint statement by India and France on terrorism saying that Pakistan had sacrificed much to counter terrorism and had been appreciated for its efforts globally. PTI Seoul, January 28 North Korea may be preparing to launch a long-range missile as soon as in a week, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported early on Thursday, citing an unnamed Japanese government official. The official cited signs of possible preparations for a missile launch based on analysis of satellite imagery of the North's Tongchang-ri missile test site on its west coast. The report comes amid discussions among U.N. Security Council members for fresh sanctions against the North after it conducted its fourth nuclear test on January 6. The North is already under sanctions for its nuclear and missile programmes. North Korea last conducted a long-range rocket launch in late 2012, successfully putting an object into orbit in what is believed by experts to be part of its effort to build an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The North is also seen to be working to miniaturise a nuclear warhead to mount on a missile, but many experts say it is still some time away from perfecting the technology. The Japanese Government source said a missile launch could occur in about a week at the earliest, Kyodo reported. It gave no other details about the satellite imagery analyses. On Wednesday in Beijing, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi agreed on the need for a significant new U.N. Security resolution against the North but there were few signs of concrete progress. North Korea said on January 6 that it exploded a hydrogen bomb, although the United States and other governments and experts voiced scepticism that it had made such a technological advance. Reuters Washington, January 28 US President Barack Obama warned on Wednesday against the rise of religious intolerance in veiled criticism of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during an event to honor men and women who helped save Jews from peril in the Holocaust. Obama made the remarks at the Israeli Embassy, where he attended a ceremony to honor, posthumously, two Americans and two Polish people who protected Jews from the Nazis during World War Two. The event came on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. His remarks, the first of a sitting US President at Israels embassy, were also a sign of lowering tensions between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus administration. The event was hosted by Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer, who helped orchestrate Netanyahus speech last year to Congress about the then-pending Iran nuclear deal. The speech irked the White House. Dermer, at the ceremony on Wednesday, thanked Obama for the message of friendship he conveyed by attending. The president is also clearly irked by Trumps rhetoric. The billionaire businessman, the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination for the Nov. 8 election, has called for the United States to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country as a national security measure. An attack on any faith is an attack on all of our faiths. For Americans, in particular, we should understand that its an attack on our diversity, on the very idea that people of different backgrounds can live together and thrive together, Obama said, adding: Here, tonight, we must confront the reality that around the world, anti-Semitism is on the rise. We cannot deny it. Agencies All-white affair at Oscars: US President takes note US President Barack Obama has joined the outrage over two straight years of all-white acting nominees for the Academy Awards. He says the Oscar debate is an expression of a broader issue. "Are we making sure that everybody is getting a fair shot?" Obama asked. The 88th Academy Awards will take place on February 28 here. Some are calling for boycotts because no acting nominees were black. IANS tricountyleader.com expired on 09/23/2022 and is pending renewal or deletion. Backorder Domain A frame from the NTSB animation recreating the accident. Image: NTSB A Nevada trucking company has been refused a retrial stemming from a fatal 2011 accident in which an Amtrak train was struck by a truck along U.S. 95, causing the deaths of 6 people, including the trucker, according to a report in The Salt Lake Tribune. In 2014, a jury ruled in favor of Amtrak and ordered that the fleet pay more than $4.5 million in damages. John Davis Trucking was found at fault based on testimony from the National Transportation Safety Board investigation. That testimony contended that the driver was inattentive and the truck had poorly maintained brakes, which likely contributed to the crash. John Davis Trucking was seeking a new trial, arguing that the judge in the original case failed to emphasize evidence that the signal and crossing gate at the railroad crossing were faulty. However, the federal judge felt that the trucking company had received a fair trial and that its new arguments were only rehashing old arguments that the court had already decided on. The collision destroyed the truck and several passenger railcars. It also ignited a fire that engulfed two railcars and part of a third. The accident killed the truck driver, the conductor, four passengers and injured 15 more. According to the NTSB investigation, the truck was traveling 58 mph and failed to brake until it was less than 300 feet from the crossing. Investigators determined that the truck was still going 26-30 mph when it struck the crew car of the train. Nine of the 16 brakes on the truck were found to be out of adjustment or inoperative at the time of the accident and the antilock brakes of both trailers were not functioning. OKLAHOMA CITY A coalition on Wednesday announced it will pursue a vote of the people in an effort to reduce the prison population, save money and help low-level offenders get treatment and find employment. Right now in Oklahoma, we have the second-highest incarceration rate in the country, which drains significant resources away from investments that can reduce crime by rehabilitating Oklahomans and returning them to productive lives in the community, said Kris Steele, Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform chairman and former speaker of the Oklahoma House. Its time we institute a more effective approach that addresses the root causes of crime and makes Oklahomas communities safer. Im proud that so many of our leaders agree and are joining with Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform to take the issue directly to the people. The coalition announced the initiative petitions, State Questions 780 and 781, during a Capitol press conference and filed the paperwork with Secretary of State Chris Benge. The ballot initiative reclassifies certain low-level offenses, like drug possession and low-level property offenses, as misdemeanors instead of felonies. Such a move would save money by decreasing spending on corrections. It would not apply to drug distribution or manufacturing, Steele said. We need to make sure space is available for those individuals who engage in distribution or manufacturing, but when it comes to addiction or simple possession, we believe Oklahoma communities are better served if those individuals receive treatment and supervision in the community rather than long prison sentences, Steele said. The initiative would invest the cost savings into rehabilitation programs to treat drug addiction and mental health conditions that often contribute to criminal behavior but go untreated in prison. It would also invest savings in education and job-training programs to help low-level offenders find employment and avoid returning to prison. The purpose is to give low-level offenders a second chance, Steele said. The coalition will begin efforts to collect signatures in the coming weeks, with the goal of obtaining 86,000 signatures to get it on the ballot in November. We feel strongly there is public support for these conservative, common-sense reforms and want to be able to give voters an opportunity to have their voice heard on the issue, Steele said. The state has a long history of prison crowding. The prison population increased by 12 percent from 2009 to 2014. Budget constrictions have reduced programs and caused correctional officers to work overtime to cover shifts. Spending nearly half a billion dollars a year to imprison people does nothing to address the underlying conditions like mental health and addiction which send many individuals to prison in the first place, said Rep. Pam Peterson, R-Tulsa. Our Legislature is working hard to address mandatory minimums of low-level offenders and alternatives to incarceration while ensuring public safety. These ballot initiatives will complement our efforts. Peterson said the states high incarceration rate affects other areas of government, such as social services provided to the inmates children. State officials earlier this year declared a revenue failure, triggering mandatory cuts from general revenue to state appropriated agencies, including the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. In addition, lawmakers expect to have at least $900.8 million less to spend in crafting the fiscal year 2017 budget. Jeffrey Dan Williams wild roller coaster ride through the federal judicial system came to an end Wednesday. Thats when U.S. District Judge James Payne resentenced him after he pleaded guilty to drug charges dating back 18 years. Payne gave Williams, 55, a term equal to the amount of time he has served, meaning he will be released. We got real fortunate, said William Widell, his public defender. Wednesdays proceedings marked the second time since 2014 that Williams has been freed in the same criminal case. The first occurred in April 2014 after Payne sided with an appeal by Williams and issued an order dismissing indictments and vacating a judgment and 35-year prison sentence against him. The judge ruled that Tulsa police officers including several later convicted following an investigation into department corruption from 2008 to 2011 manufactured evidence in order to secure Williams conviction and conducted an unconstitutional search and seizure of him the day he was arrested. However, an appeals court ruled in June that Williams release was improper and ordered him back to federal prison, where he returned in September. While sending him back to prison, the appeals court left the door open to Williams having a gun charge against him dismissed. Williams subsequently challenged the gun charge, and Payne sided with his argument and ordered the charge dismissed in November. With the gun charge vacated, Widell said, Payne had the discretion to resentence Williams on the three remaining drug-related charges, which he did on Wednesday. So, Judge Payne looked at it and said, I dont think that the evidence that he was sentenced on was reliable, Widell said, referring to the basis for the time-served sentence. Williams, who jail records show has been in the Tulsa Jail since Dec. 9, was expected to be freed Wednesday. He will have to serve a five-year term of supervised release. Williams sister, Susan Weatherman, said Wednesday that the family had been hoping the judge would exonerate her brother. But Im grateful for what we got, she said. Kung Fu Panda 3 delivers a great message to young people, some of the most gorgeous animation out there, and action-comedy that will amuse those of all ages. It doesnt quite do those things in the picture-perfect way it did in the first film way back in 2008, but then sometimes your introduction to an iconic character is so breathtaking that to see him again is to merely enjoy the ride. And in this case, Jack Black. The comedic actor has always gone over well with young audiences, with bits of juvenile humor still a part of his over-the-top arsenal at age 46, and the pudgy, powerful panda named Po is one of his best roles. Hes more than good; hes Robin Williams-in-Aladdin-great at bringing out the humor and the heart of this character and these movies. We first met Po as the large, lazy panda with a noodle-cooking adoptive father in their Chinese village who just might be destined for greatness if he could only believe in himself. He has since proven his martial-arts mastery and been proclaimed a prodigy as the Dragon Warrior, a protector of his community, but the new film finds Po having to prove himself all over again. A grave threat to the Valley of Peace village is coming Kai, the series first supernatural villain, is a big bull with huge horns, a nasty disposition and a pair of jade swords hanging from long chains that he wields with great dexterity. This is unlike any bad guy that Po and his Furious Five team have faced, and Kai has an added advantage. Hes exceptional at extracting the chi (pronounced chee), or the energy/essence that flows through all things, from other martial-arts masters and making himself, uh, extra chi-chi. Of course, Kai can only be defeated by a master of chi, or someone who truly knows himself. Thats not Po right now: His long-lost biological father, Li, has finally found Po and wants him to return to their panda village to discover his roots. This tale of two fathers and Pos emotions being pulled toward both is told with enough depth and soulfulness to overcome the familiarity of the realize your potential and become who you were meant to be narrative. The Dreamworks Animation filmmakers know what works. Two films later they havent changed the story enough to call this movies theme original, but their execution is solid and the experience is rich. The choreography of the action-fight scenes, while mild enough for the littlest of viewers most likely to love this movie, is as creative and colorful as the animation, which is stunning. Kung Fu Panda 3 has a signature look that makes it among the few occasions anymore in which watching in 3-D is a joy, from the lush, green landscapes and mountain villages to the pandas fluffy fur. Black is so comfortable in becoming Po that the humor comes easy among the bits of slapstick, and his chemistry with Bryan Cranston, who gives voices to his panda papa, is exceptional. The Furious Five team of voices Tigress, Viper, Crane, Monkey and Mantis, voiced respectively by Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Jackie Chan and Seth Rogen shine in smaller roles this time around. Thankfully Dustin Hoffman, so beautifully reserved as Pos mentor Master Shifu, has more time to make his mark. The oddest event is that Kai never sounds like Simmons, a man with a distinctive voice who does so much yelling here that they could have hired anyone whos loud for this role. Kais story is also too dense in background details, which makes it less interesting than Pos engaging travels to the panda village, a fun montage of interacting with other pandas of all sizes and character quirks. Theres eating, sleeping, chilling, rolling down hills for fun. Then repeat. That is all ahead of the time that Po and the pandas must all learn how to defend their village by playing to their sedentary strengths and showing that its always better to face your problems head-on rather than to run away. For an animated movie with martial arts at its core, Kung Fu Panda 3 mirrors Po in the way that it has matured into something meaningful and yet remains a lot of fun. A Tulsa woman accused of using a man's debit card shortly after he was fatally shot in early December was charged Wednesday in his death and is being sought by police. Tisha Renea Young, 32, is charged with first-degree murder, robbery with a firearm, possession of a firearm after a felony conviction and unauthorized use of a credit/debit card, according to court records. The victim, 25-year-old Jeromy Lamar Ingram, was found dead in the driver's seat of a 2002 Honda Odyssey that was parked at the Courtyard by Marriot at 3340 S. 79th East Ave. around 11 p.m. Dec. 5. Police think Ingram was shot about 3:30 p.m. that day, Sgt. Dave Walker said. About a month later police released a photo of a woman they said used Ingram's debit card about 20 minutes after the shooting at the nearby EZ Mart, 3711 S. Memorial Drive, Walker said. At the time, police believed that the woman had "intimate knowledge" of Ingram's murder, Walker said. Prosecutors allege that Young used a pistol to intimidate Ingram and take his debit card before shooting him. Judge Millie Otey ordered that a warrant be issued for Young's arrest Wednesday. Jail records indicate that Young had not been arrested by Wednesday evening. Young was convicted of robbery with a firearm in 2005. OKLAHOMA CITY Despite a challenging budget year, Gov. Mary Fallin will propose a pay raise for teachers on Monday when she gives her State of the State address to a joint legislative session in the House chamber. There are going to be a lot of different proposals this year for giving teachers a pay raise, Fallin said during an interview Thursday. You will see me propose a plan this year, also, to help give our teachers a pay raise they need. A number of lawmakers have also proposed teacher pay raises. Oklahoma is facing a teacher shortage due in part to low pay compared to salaries offered in other states. In this unprecedented teacher shortage, it is absolutely critical that we as a state address teacher compensation and give teachers a stronger reason to stay in Oklahoma classrooms, State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister said. I am thankful for Gov. Fallins commitment to improving teacher pay, and I look forward to hearing more in her State of the State address. Fallin declined to discuss how she proposes to pay for the raise until Monday. State-appropriated agencies were told to cut their budgets by 3 percent due to a revenue shortfall for the current fiscal year. A second revenue failure could occur before the end of the fiscal year, which is June 30. Meanwhile, lawmakers will have to craft a fiscal year 2017 budget with at least $900.8 million less to spend. The budget problems are the result of tax cuts, a dramatic drop in the price of oil, and other factors. Fallin was asked whether she supports a proposal by University of Oklahoma President David Boren to increase funding to education, including a $5,000 pay raise for teachers. Boren has proposed a vote of the people to increase the sales tax by 1 cent on the dollar. The proposal recently withstood a protest by OCPA Impact, the lobbying arm of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. Oklahoma would have the highest sales tax in the nation if the measure passed, Fallin said. In addition, it would compete with cities and towns that want to use sales tax revenue to pay for jails, police and fire services, she said. Those are all things the public needs to be aware of, she said. A Texas sheriff says "affluenza" teenager Ethan Couch has been transported to a juvenile detention center following his deportation from Mexico, but that he hopes the 18-year-old is transferred to an adult jail. Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson says Couch was taken to the detention center in Fort Worth on Thursday after arriving on a flight at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. The sheriff says he was calm and his only request was for food. A judge is scheduled to decide Friday whether Couch will continue to be held at the juvenile facility or be moved to an adult jail. He also could be released as prosecutors investigate whether he violated terms of his probation in a juvenile case stemming from his 2013 drunken-driving wreck that killed four people. Anderson says he wants Couch held at an adult jail because of his age and the severity of his offenses. The sheriff says Couch also will undergo a routine medical screening. As Rod Tillman often pointed out, ragtime was like the rock n roll of its day. It was kind of the forbidden thing in the early 20th century, he once said in an interview, adding that parents preferred their kids stick to ballroom and more socially acceptable music. By the time Tillman discovered it, though almost a century later ragtime itself had long since fallen out of fashion. But in Tillman it would find a fan for life. And thanks in large part to his efforts, the music would enjoy new life of its own in Tulsa. As a founder and former director of the Ragtime for Tulsa Foundation, and more recently on his own, Tillman gave much of his time to ragtime during the last 20 years, and created more opportunities for audiences to hear it. Roderick W. Tillman died Jan. 21 of complications from leukemia. He was 81. A memorial service is set for 1 p.m. Friday at All Souls Unitarian Church. Moores Rosewood Funeral Home is handling arrangements. A geologist by trade, Tillman was not a musician himself. He played the trumpet in high school, but never picked it up after that, said his wife, Carol Tillman. But musician or not, he found a style of music that spoke to him. It was at a ragtime festival in Sedalia, Missouri, in the early 1990s that the bug bit him, his wife said. Afterward, back in Tulsa, Tillman connected with a handful of other fans of the syncopated pre-swing style of music. Eventually, Ragtime for Tulsa was born. The organization staged its first concert in 1997 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the genres birth and with Tulsas centennial as well. It was the first of many shows to follow, with Tillman helping to bring in ragtime artists from all over the world. Through attrition, the foundation board eventually dissolved, his wife said. But Tillman couldnt let it go. He took the project under the auspices of the Tulsa Arts & Humanities Council, and kept bringing in artists, staging two to three shows a year. Its been a one-man operation the last few years, his wife said, adding that her husband recruited the performers and printed fliers. All told, over the last two decades, Tillman helped stage 48 ragtime concerts in Tulsa. The most recent was in October. Tillman was a Tulsa resident for 50 years. A native of Macomb, Illinois, who held a doctorate from the University of Colorado, he worked in oil company research labs before becoming a consultant. He was a former president of the Tulsa Geology Society. In 2007, Tillman helped organize a ragtime festival in Tulsa for the states centennial. As part of it, composers were invited to write a signature piece titled Tulsey Town Rag. The winning tune, submitted by well-known ragtime composer Hal Isbitz, will be performed Friday at Tillmans service by Tulsa pianist Donald Ryan. Its a beautiful piece, Carol Tillman said, and an appropriate sendoff for her husband. Ragtime was a real passion for him. Tillmans survivors include his wife; her children, Michael Edwards and Alicia Edwards-Kirk; his sons, Jefferson and Frederic Tillman; six grandchildren; and a sister, Elizabeth Burdick. When Donald Trump first announced he was going to run for president and focused on all the things wrong with our government, I was cheering. I loved his dumping of political correctness and his bold statements as to what needed to change. I now realize that he is nothing but a great showman and has become the type of politician that is whats wrong with this country. His stumping has consisted of mostly trying to destroy his opponents rather than focusing on what he would do to fix things. Hes enough of a celebrity and master of the media that if he were sincere in what he claims he wants to do to Make America Great Again he wouldnt need to waste one word focusing on his opponents. He ought to be talking specifics. Instead, his objective is to win at all costs regardless of what he has to do in the process. Soaring rhetoric already gave us one incompetent president who is destroying our country. We are being duped again and might elect one who will finish the job. Jim Rayl, Broken Arrow Those who anticipated President Barack Obama would veto the partial repeal of his brainchild, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, were correct. While the conservatives did try, this effort was largely a contrivance to appeal to voters. The members of Congress are not ignorant; they knew exactly what was going to happen. They are completely aware that Americans everywhere are losing their health insurance, choosing to go uninsured and seeing larger portions of their hard earned income drained as employers are forced to displace their wages form their employees pockets to the coffers of Obamacare health plans, which have caused insurance premiums to skyrocket. Yet, once again, Congress took the easy road. Members can technically tell their constituents that they tried, even though they were fully aware they had no leverage and no chance at actually getting the bill by the president. Every part of the country is suffering from this economic disaster, even those who have insurance! Higher deductibles and fewer options make Obamacare a nightmare for everyone. Unfortunately, Congress forfeited its most powerful tool in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, giving a two-year delay on the enactment of the 40 percent Cadillac tax on magnanimous health plans. The tax includes excess benefits provided under employer-sponsored coverage, and applies to insured and self-insured health plans, as well as federal and state government plans. The motive behind this tax was to terminate employer-sponsored coverage. Labor unions soon discerned this tax would eradicate their own existence. Giving two more years before the tax is enacted will help to further lodge Obamacare and make it even more difficult to repeal. Sadly, this is only the beginning of the problems Americans will soon face due to Obamacare. Doctor-patient relations are already starting to deteriorate. Unqualified people are interfering in the medical process, and the most encouraging, astute and luminous minds are discouraged from considering the medical profession. Americas old system was not perfect, but what is? Most citizens had affordable health coverage and taxpayers dollars werent being squandered. America needs an executive leader who is going to have the backbone to do what is right and unshackle Americans from the tragedy that is Obamacare. State Rep. Mike Ritze, R-Broken Arrow, a board certified physician and surgeon, is chairman of the House Public Health Committee. This country's cyclists will come up against the region next month when T&T hosts the Ca Nines new local sitcom Here Come the Habibs, will premiere on Tuesday, February 9, at 8.30pm. Produced by Jungle (The Moodys) the series is created by Rob Shehadie, Tahir Bilgic and Matt Ryan-Garnsey. The show is expected to follow The Big Bang Theory on Nine but its unclear if it will compete head on with Sevens new local drama, Wanted. Its been a long time since a commercial networks has produced a local sitcom, but the early buzz on the series is good. Theyve just won the lottery, now Lebanese-Australian family the Habibs are moving from the burbs into Australias richest suburb and living the Aussie dream. But to their new neighbours, the old-money ONeills, this means war! ONeill matriarch and Bonza Biscuit heiress Olivia (Helen Dallimore) is convinced the Habibs have made their fortune through illegal means. Habib patriarch Fou Fou (Michael Denkha) a carport builder only wants whats best for his family but soon finds himself locking horns with Olivia. Before long their spouses and children are caught in the crossfire of a feud that only one family can survive. Meanwhile, Fou Fous wife Mariam (Camilla Ah Kin) is intent on becoming part of her glamorous and wealthy new community. Mariam tries to create peace and strikes up an unlikely friendship with Olivias henpecked husband Jack (Darren Gilshenan). The children are soon acquainted too. Elias Habib (Tyler De Nawi) straight-laced university student has his heart set on next door neighbour and it girl Madison ONeill (Georgia Flood). Layla Habib (Kat Hoyos) social media-obsessed high school student exploits her new life hoping to become a social media starlet. And eldest brother Toufic Habib (Sam Alhaje) is a wannabe entrepreneur. The Habibs great Aussie dream is to make a better life for their family. Olivia ONeill reckons the best thing for her family will be ridding themselves of the Habibs. For both familes, its a case of careful what you wish for in this fish-out-of-water story which brings a fresh comic perspective to multicultural Australia. Yalla! Hi, my name is Scott C. Waring and I wrote a few books and am currently a ESL School Owner in Taiwan. I have had my own UFO sighting up close and personal, but that's how it works right? A non believer becomes a believer when they experience their first sighting. You witnessed it, your perceptual field changes, so now you need to share it. I created this site to help the UFO community get a little bit organized. I noticed that there was a lot of chaos when searching for UFO sighting reports, so I hope this site helps. I wanted to support those eyewitnesses who have tried to tell others about what they have seen, yet were laughed at by even closest of friends. More and more each day the governments of the world leak bits and pieces of UFO information to the public. They have a trickle down theory in hopes of slowly getting citizens use to the idea that we are not alone in universe and never have been. The truth is being leaked drop by drop until one day we look around and find ourselves neck high in it. The discovery of alien species in existence is the most monumental scientific event in human history, suppression of that information is a crime against humanity. About me: I live in Taiwan. I OWN MY OWN ENGLISH SCHOOL, AND ONCE HAD 5 SCHOOLS. Am Former USAF at SAC base (flight line). Age: 42 Educ: BA in Elem ed. Masters in Counseling ed. I had two UFO sightings, (30+bus size orbs) in military and in 2012 personally saw the UFO over Taipei 101 building on New Years Day (and recored it). The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has passed a resolution under which Ukraine can impose sanctions against politicians, who visit occupied territories of Donbas and Crimea without the concurrence of government. Ukrainian presidents envoy for peaceful regulation of situation in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, MP Iryna Heraschenko wrote on her Facebook page. We have managed to introduce a very important amendment to the PACE resolution on sanctions against parliamentarians, which enables Ukraine to impose sanctions against politicians visiting occupied territories of Crimea and Donbas without the concurrence of Kyiv, she wrote. iy Congolese refugees line up to board a UNHCR truck heading from Ezo, in South Sudan's Western Equatoria State, to a new settlement at Makpandu. UNHCR/R.Nuri EZO, South Sudan, Jan 28 (UNHCR) - Congolese refugee Pierre fled violence several years ago, and hoped that he had found a place of safety in this border town in South Sudan - then security deteriorated rapidly and without warning. Clashes erupted between the so-called Arrow Boys and South Sudanese government soldiers late last year. The school and hospital were looted and homes burnt to the ground. Now, Pierre* and thousands of other refugees have to move again. "I thought it was the end of the world," said Pierre, recalling the day violence caught up with him. "I was in my fields when the fighting began. I dropped everything and rushed home to get my wife and children, but on the way I was taken by armed youth." He was held hostage and forced to carry the militia's supplies, all the while unaware of the fate of his wife or their two-month-old daughter and four-year-old son. He was finally released unharmed after several days. "I immediately headed back home to look for my family, fearing the worst," he continued. "When I reached Ezo, I found my hut completely ransacked and my boy inside alone in tears but my wife and younger daughter were gone." Pierre took the risk of waiting at home for days to make it easier for his wife to track him down, in case she returned. "She came back after a week," he said. "I was so happy to see her back holding our baby girl." The 57-year-old farmer and his family are among thousands of refugees who fled war at home and found safety in this South Sudanese border town and who now have to move again after new fighting broke out there, also forcing aid groups to leave temporarily. A humanitarian convoy protected by armed peacekeepers last week carried a vanguard of 30 refugees originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo from Ezo to a new settlement at Makpandu, a town 220 kilometres to the east. Pierre and his family were among 30 refugees who were the first to be relocated from Ezo to Makpandu, in a convoy arranged by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, South Sudan's Commission for Refugee Affairs, and World Vision International. Peacekeepers from the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) provided armed protection for the mission. UNHCR expects to mount more operations as needed for those of the 3,200 Congolese refugees who lived in and around Ezo and are willing to relocate to Makpandu. The majority are believed to have fled back across the border into the DRC, or to the neighbouring Central African Republic. The violence around Ezo continued into January, and the situation is still so volatile that humanitarian agencies, including UNHCR, are now pulling out. This conflict is separate from fighting that broke out in December 2013 between South Sudanese soldiers and opposition forces led by the former vice-president, Riek Machar, which has driven 2.3 million people from their homes. "We are leaving Ezo with a heavy heart, but security is critical for our staff to operate and deliver assistance," said Ahmed Warsame, the UNHCR Representative for South Sudan. "Our promise to support the host community remains, and so does our commitment to resume operations in Ezo if the security significantly improves in the future." For Pierre and the refugees who will move to Makpandu, UNHCR and its partners initially provide welcome help that includes cooked meals, soap, plastic sheeting, blankets, and buckets. Refugees are given a medical check-up, including a measles vaccination. They will soon receive shelter materials and land on which to build a new home. "I hope my family and I can live in peace in this place," said Pierre. "This is the second time that we have been forced to leave behind our home and farm and start again from scratch. Is this how life is supposed to be?" More than 1.6 million South Sudanese are already internally displaced, and the country hosts 263,000 refugees fleeing conflict or instability in neighbouring nations. Adding to the original conflict between supporters of the president and Machar, and the fighting around Ezo, fresh violence erupted on January 21 between government forces and a local armed group named The South Sudan National Liberation Movement (SSNLM) in Yambio, the capital of Western Equatoria state. At least 15 people were killed, and thousands were displaced. By Rocco Nuri in Ezo, Western Equatori, South Sudan *Name changed for protection reasons. The heads of the OECD and UNHCR, at a joint high-level Conference on the integration of beneficiaries of international protection in Paris today, have called on governments to scale up their efforts to help refugees integrate and contribute to the societies and economies of Europe. In 2015, more than 1 million people crossed the Mediterranean Sea to look for international protection in Europe. In total, about 1.5 million claimed asylum in OECD countries in 2015. This is almost twice the number recorded in 2014 and the highest number ever. At the same time, asylum seekers represent only about 0.1% of the total OECD population, and, even in Europe, they represent less than 0.3% of the total EU population. The OECD and UNHCR stressed not only the moral imperative but also the clear economic incentive to help the millions of refugees living in OECD countries to develop the skills they need to work productively and safely in the jobs of tomorrow. "Far from a problem, refugees can and should be part of the solution to many of the challenges our societies confront," said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria at the joint Conference in Paris today. "They bring Hope: the hope of a better life and a better future for their children and ours. But to realise this potential, a substantial investment is needed to provide immediate support and help the refugees settle and adapt and develop their skills. It is a difficult and costly task in the short term, with a high pay-off for all in the medium to longer term" he said. "Our analysis demonstrates the benefits that well-managed migration can bring to the economies and societies of OECD countries. But this will largely depend on how well integration measures are designed and implemented. The earlier refugees get the required support, the better their integration prospects" Mr. Gurria added. "Integration is a dynamic two-way process which requires both the individual and society to make considerable efforts," UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said. "In order to play a full role in the social, economic, and cultural life of their host country, refugees need to achieve equality of rights and opportunities. States have an important role in this process, ensuring that refugees play a positive and active part in the integration process, particularly in terms of the services provided to them and in ensuring that they are received by welcoming communities." The OECD also released today a report Making Integration Work: Refugees and others in need of protection, which provides the main lessons from the experience of OECD countries in fostering the integration of refugees. The report highlights many good practices to tackle key barriers and support lasting integration of refugees and their children. It stresses the importance of early intervention, including providing access to language courses, employment programmes and integration services as soon as possible, including for asylum seekers with high prospects to remain. It also stresses the need to help migrants settle where jobs are and not necessarily where housing is cheaper. The report also underlines the need to adapt integration programmes to reflect migrants' diversity in terms of skills and the specific needs of refugees. More information on OECD's recent work on migration is available at http://www.oecd.org/migration-insights/ For more information or a copy of the book, journalists should contact Anna Biernat in the OECD Media Division (email: [email protected], tel. + 33 1 45 24 14 28). News Contacts: For more information or a copy of the book, journalists should contact: Shoppers throng the commercial hub of Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan. Here people can buy mobile phones, groceries, even wedding dresses. UNHCR/J. Matas PARIS, France, Jan 28 (UNHCR) - Two leading international organizations, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, today called on governments to step up efforts to help refugees integrate and contribute to the societies and economies of Europe. Both organizations stressed it made economic sense to help the millions of refugees living in OECD countries to develop the skills they need to work productively and safely in the jobs of tomorrow. "Refugees have skills. They deserve our efforts. Einstein was a refugee. We should not forget that," UNHCR head Filippo Grandi told a press conference during a joint high-level Conference on the integration of beneficiaries of international protection in Paris. " Grandi, who took office on January 1, added: "Integration is a dynamic two-way process which requires both the individual and society to make considerable efforts. In order to play a full role in the social, economic, and cultural life of their host country, refugees need to achieve equality of rights and opportunities." He stressed that states have an "important role in this process, ensuring that refugees play a positive and active part in the integration process, particularly in terms of the services provided to them and in ensuring that they are received by welcoming communities." Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees and Angel Gurria , Secretary-General of OECD call for scaling up integration policies in favour of refugees. OECD/Andrew Wheeler OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria concurred saying it was a difficult and costly task in the short term, but had a high pay-off for all in the medium to longer term. "Migrants and refugees are not a burden.They contribute to growth and are a hope for the future," he declared. The Paris-based OECD is a global forum where the governments of 34 democracies with market economies work with each other, as well as with more than 70 non-member economies to promote economic growth, prosperity, and sustainable development. In 2015, more than one million people crossed the Mediterranean Sea to look for international protection in Europe. In total, about 1.5 million claimed asylum in OECD countries in 2015. This is almost twice the number recorded in 2014 and the highest number ever. At the same time, asylum seekers represent only about 0.1 per cent of the total OECD population, and, even in Europe, they represent less than 0.3 per cent of the total EU population. "Far from a problem, refugees can and should be part of the solution to many of the challenges our societies confront. They bring hope: the hope of a better life and a better future for their children and ours. But to realise this potential, a substantial investment is needed to provide immediate support and help the refugees settle and adapt and develop their skills," Gurria added. "Our analysis demonstrates the benefits that well-managed migration can bring to the economies and societies of OECD countries. But this will largely depend on how well integration measures are designed and implemented. The earlier refugees get the required support, the better their integration prospects," he said. The OECD also released today a report Making Integration Work: Refugees and others in need of protection, which provides the main lessons from the experience of OECD countries in fostering the integration of refugees. The report highlights many good practices to tackle key barriers and support lasting integration of refugees and their children. It stresses the importance of early intervention, including providing access to language courses, employment programmes and integration services as soon as possible, including for asylum seekers with high prospects to remain. It also stresses the need to help migrants settle where jobs are and not necessarily where housing is cheaper. The report also underlines the need to adapt integration programmes to reflect migrants' diversity in terms of skills and the specific needs of refugees. The US Preventive Services Task Force has recommended that all pregnant women should be screened for depression and evaluated again after the child is born, nj reports. The recommendation concluded early diagnosis and treatment are effective. New Jersey was the first state in U.S. a decade ago to require postpartum depression screening for all women before they are discharged from the hospital and during follow-up visits with a pediatrician. "New Jersey has been a real leader in this area already as one of the states that mandates screening for mothers already," said Ramon Solhkhah, the corporate medical director for Behavioral Health Services at Meridian Health, a hospital chain based in Monmouth County. "The big problem has and will be what to do when you are screened? There is a real shortage of psychiatrists and mental health professionals," he said. Depression occurs in one in eight of all pregnant and postpartum women. According to the new recommendations, screening "should be implemented with adequate systems in place to ensure accurate diagnosis, effective treatment, and appropriate follow-up," according to the task force consisting of a group of medical professionals appointed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The task force "does not consider the costs of providing a service in this assessment," according to the recommendation published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. According to NPR, legislation introduced in Congress last July authorized the federal government to fund screening and treatment for pregnant women or women who have given birth within the past year. Another for-profit college company is coming under fire for allegedly spreading false job placement statistics in order to attract prospective students. The Federal Trade Commission announced Wednesday a lawsuit against DeVry Education Group accusing its main campus, DeVry University, of exaggerating how quickly and easily graduates find jobs in their fields in a national advertising campaign. "Millions of Americans look to higher education for training that will lead to meaningful employment and good pay," FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said in the news release. "Educational institutions like DeVry owe prospective students the truth about their graduates' success finding employment in their field of study and the income they can earn." DeVry boasted 90 percent of its graduates found jobs in their fields within six months of graduating, according to The Huffington Post. The FTC alleged the school system had been using such overinflated stats since at least 2008, affecting tens of thousands of students. The FTC also accused DeVry of misrepresenting its graduates' average incomes within a year of graduating. Since 2013, DeVry peddled a statistic that claimed its graduates were earning incomes 15 percent higher "than the graduates of all other colleges or universities" within a year of graduation. The lawsuit singles out television ads that later appeared on YouTube in which the people in the advertisements are fielding job offers while the voiceover cites the allegedly exaggerated job placement figures. DeVry CEO Daniel Hamburger said in a statement his company will fight the lawsuit and "looks forward to demonstrating the accuracy and credibility of our students' career success." The FTC's lawsuit comes just months after the Education Department shut down Corinthian Colleges after investigating the for-profit education company for falsifying job placement stats. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had also sued the company for leading its prospective students to take out high-interest loans, The Washington Post reported in April. Then in Nov., Education Management Corp and the Justice Department announced a $100 million settlement to end various state attorneys general's investigations over allegations of deceptive recruiting tactics used on prospective students. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette noted EDMC did not admit fault, but pledged to be more transparent. "As required by the law and expected by the public, institutions need to be accurate in their marketing and recruiting to prospective students. And we confirm this truthfulness of advertisements through the backup information schools provide upon request," Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell said in the FTC's release. "The Department and the FTC's related announcements today are the result of much collaboration and cooperation. We are grateful to our partners at the FTC for their hard work and dedication on this matter." J-Term Courses Help Fill Special Niche for UW Students While most University of Wyoming students were enjoying the winter break with traditional holiday events, participating in outdoor activities or generally relaxing, nearly 500 UW students continued their studies in some unique classes. Beginning Dec. 19, students participated in J-Term courses that continue through the end of January. Many of the students in these types of classes are student-athletes and international students who remain in the country during the winter break. Also participating are junior- and senior-level students who are looking to find opportunities to 'sneak' in a few additional credits in anticipation of meeting their graduation requirements, says Miguel Rosales, project coordinator in the office of Summer Session and Winter Courses in the UW Outreach School. J-Term -- which basically stands for January Term -- are classes previously called winter break courses, but have been rebranded as J-Term to indicate when the bulk of the coursework will run, Rosales says. Rather than create a fourth academic term, in addition to the fall, spring and summer, these are spring semester courses that finish in January. J-Term class offerings include online, hybrid (online and face-to-face), face-to-face, Wyoming field-based and international travel courses. With the shift in the academic calendar that began last year, the Outreach School found an opportunity to use the time in January to enhance course offerings and look into face-to-face offerings on a small scale, along with hybrid offerings. Previously, we only facilitated online course offerings and Wyoming/international travel course offerings, Rosales says. A big part of the push for the pilot that began in 2008 was to serve the groups that were identified as good candidates for taking J-Term courses. Nearly 20 courses are offered through the program, with such titles as Introduction to African American and Latino/a Studies; Public Speaking; Modes of Understanding: Mass Media & Collective Consciousness; Modes of Understanding: American Film and the Social Construct of Race; Musical Theatre Voice Lesson; and Mode of Understanding: The Art & Culture of Hip Hop. Some of the international courses are offered in Costa Rica, Chile, West Africa and Cambodia, while three are offered in Jackson Hole. The UW Outreach Schools pilot program began in 2008-09 with a single international travel course. In 2009, the first online course was offered, and the program has grown since. In 2012-13, a total of 101 students were enrolled in J-Term coursework, and the number increased to 177 and 266 enrollments the following two years. For more information about J-Term courses and other UW Outreach School programs, contact Rosales at (307) 766-6559 or mrosales@uwyo.edu, or visit the website at www.uwyo.edu/outreach/. Martin Luther King Jr. Events Begin Monday at UW The annual Willena Stanford Community Supper and march open this years Martin Luther King Jr. Days of Dialogue (MLK DOD) celebration Monday, Feb. 1, at the University of Wyoming. The program will take place at 6 p.m. in the Wyoming Union Ballroom with the committees co-chairs, Ryan Dinneen ONeil and Macki Snyder, along with UW Vice President for Academic Affairs David Jones giving opening remarks. A rally and march is planned at 5 p.m. beginning in the Wyoming Union skylight lounge. MLK DOD events are scheduled throughout the week of Feb. 1-6 -- later dates than in previous years. Events each year are offered to raise awareness of diversity issues, build a sense of community and celebrate diversity. UW community members honor the continuing impact of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his life and ideals through this celebration. This year's MLK DOD theme, Untold Stories, Unheard Voices, recognizes the importance of dialogue that gives voices to marginalized communities, Dinneen O'Neil and Snyder say. Many of the programs fit into this years theme, the co-chairs add. Programs will include: A Troubled Hypothesis: The Myth of Diversity in STEM; When Oppression Turns to Depression: Exploring the Intersections Between Mental Health and Social Oppression; All People are Mortal: Examining Power and Privilege in Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice; and Unheard Voices in Faith Communities. Other activities during the week include a coffee hour to discuss topical issues; a book discussion Wednesday, Feb. 3, at noon in Room 506 of Coe Library; the MLK DOD keynote address Thursday, Feb. 4, at 7:30 p.m. in the Wyoming Union Ballroom; and a film, Straight Outta Compton, sponsored by Friday Night Fever, will be in the Wyoming Union Family Room at 5:30 p.m., 9 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. Feb. 5. A panel discussion will follow the 5:30 p.m. screening; and, also that night, slam poet J Mase III will perform at 9 p.m. in the Wyoming Union Ballroom. The week concludes Saturday, Feb. 6, with a day of service that begins at 1 p.m. and ends with a diversity ball at 6 p.m. in the Wyoming Union Ballroom. To view the entire weeks events with more details, including the keynote speakers information, visit the MLK DOD website at www.uwyo.edu/mlkdod. New Book Describes Wyomings Wild Mammals Bobcats are among the 117 mammal species described in a new book by Steve Buskirk, University of Wyoming professor emeritus of zoology. (Wyoming Game and Fish Department Photo) Wyomings 117 native wild mammal species -- ranging from grizzly bears to bats and pygmy shrews -- are the subject of a new book written by Steve Buskirk, University of Wyoming professor emeritus of zoology. He will speak and sign copies of the book, titled Wild Mammals of Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park, Tuesday, Feb. 16, at 5 p.m. in the UW Berry Biodiversity Conservation Center, hosted by the UW Biodiversity Institute. "There has been a need for some time for a book that people can reference to find out what wild mammals are in Wyoming, what they are called, where they occur and how their distribution has changed over the decades." Buskirk says. Expanding beyond the traditional field guide, Buskirk emphasizes taxonomic classification, geographic range and conservation status for mammalian species. Introductory sections are provided for each order and family, and individual species accounts organize a wealth of data ranging from habitat associations to field measurements in an easy-to-use format. The book also characterizes the habitats of Wyoming mammals and addresses the conservation and management of mammals in the region. The distribution of some of these species is important to conservation, and a lot of decisions are based on what we know about whether or not the distribution is staying constant, expanding or declining, Buskirk says. Some species, he says, have increased in distribution over the last 30 or 50 years; others have decreased; some declined in the early 20th century and have later recovered; and there are some that werent even in Wyoming when the first settlers arrived, such as mountain goats that were transplanted into Montana near the northwest Wyoming border. Expanded distribution sometimes is due to more extensive surveys that show some mammals occur much more frequently than originally thought. The pygmy rabbit, for example, was first detected in Lincoln County around 1980, and later was found in a lot more places; not because it increased in distribution, we have just done a better job of searching for it, Buskirk says. Published by the University of California Press and the UW Biodiversity Institute, the book features color species photos, continental and state-scale distribution maps, and a comprehensive bibliography with nearly 1,000 references. One reviewer notes, Wild Mammals of Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park is an indispensable resource for mammologists, conservation biologists and dedicated naturalists working and living in this region. For more about the book, visit www.wyomammals.com. Oculus introduced its new tool, Quill. The tool enable illustrator to draw and create animation inside the VR. This will enhance the process of making a VR film as illustrator can draw directly into the film. Quill works much like Tilt Brush, according to Tech Crunch, the VR painting app which was recently acquired by Google. Quill utilize Oculus Touch controllers and motion cameras to enable users selecting different brushes and colors, swing their hands through the air, and each flourish appears instantly within the 3D canvas. However, Oculus does not mention about its plan to make Quill available for public. As for now, the tool is used mainly for Oculus illustrators in creating their VR film in Oculus Story Studio, like the latest short film Dear Angelica. Oculus Story Studio was estalished in 2015, recruiting 10 Hollywood creatives in order to release five VR film. Oculus announced its film studio in Sundance Film Festival 2015. The invention of Quill was started during the making of third film, Dear Angelica. Engadget reported that scanning and rebuilding process of the illustrators drawings into CG is a time consuming proces. Therefore, the team decided to try building a tool to allow its illustrator, Wesley Allsbrook to draw directly within VR. Oculus Story Studio engineer, Inigo Quilez created tool to enable Allsbrook draw the illustration in the VR, hence Quill was created. This new creation introduced a new method for Oculus to make its VR film, following its previous films: Henry and Lost. Producer of Dear Angelica, Edward Saatchi said regarding Quill, "This is something that's being built completely differently to the way that Henry was built." While illustrator Wesley Allsbrook said, "Quill allows me to paint in space and paint in time. It records my point of origin. It records how fast I draw. It allows me to make every single asset that we're going to use for this film and make it in a way that is authentic to my own style." Oculus introduces Quill in 2016 Sundance Film Festival, which is held from Jan. 21 to 31 in Park City, Utah. Richard Trenholm from CNET told his experience trying out Quill in the festival as pure magic. 'At first, I found myself drawing on a flat plane in front of me, as if drawing on a wall. I even stepped from side to side to draw on different parts until Wesley encouraged me to rotate the artwork instead. And as I spun the fish in the air, something amazing happened: I started to draw in 3D." Quill is a new tool created to cater the need of VR film making for Oculus Studio. The tool enable illustrator to draw in 3D and speed up the process of making a VR film. Starbucks announced that they would stop operating four out of five of their Teavana Tea Bar outlets in the U.S. Three Teavana locations in New York will be converted to Starbucks stores, one location in Beverly Hills would be closed, but one location in Seattle will continue to operate as per usual. At first, the coffee maker company saw a big opportunity in tea beverage markets when they acquired tea retailer Teavana in 2012. According to Grub Street, Starbucks set aside $620 million to invest in the tea line as CEO Howard Schultz confidently stated that the move would eventually grant them a $90 billion global market opportunity. The first Teavana Tea Bar was opened in New York in October 2012. And then two other tea bars opened in New York, one in Beverly Hills, and one near its headquarters in Seattle. Although four of the outlets would be either closed or converted to Starbucks, the Seattle tea bar will remain open. The Teavana Tea Bar in Seattle not only will serve made-to-order tea drink just like Starbucks, the store will also test new ideas regarding the tea business line. The fact that one store remains open not only to sell products but also to develop new ideas proves that Starbucks is not giving up on tea entirely. The decision was regarded to as a few step backs but not a complete surrender. Also, it is worth noted that the decision to retreat would not affect 350 Teavana retail locations that would continue selling packaged teas and appliances. According to ABC News, this isn't the first time Starbucks has retreated from their big idea. On June, the company also closed its more than 20 La Boulange cafes, the name which they also bought in 2012. After the closing and converting of these stores, Starbucks then incorporated both the tea products from Teavana Tea Bar and baked goods from La Boulange brands to their Starbucks' menu. Buzzfeed also noted that Starbucks' own Evolution Fresh stores, that serves smoothies and fresh juice, has also undergone the similar change. Starbucks closed its retail location in San Fransisco, but three other stores in Washington remain open. This Starbucks' failing experiment could mean that Americans are just not that into tea, but that doesn't keep the coffee maker company from retaining and keep developing the ideas. The conversion of Teavana to Starbucks will begin in April, and the Beverly Hills outlet will also close this year. Schools in the Sebring village have been closed for the 3rd consecutive day on Wednesday. The closure has been followed by detection of higher levels of lead in the water supplied to some homes and buildings. With the detection, Ohio appears to be second mid western state to be plagued by tainted water. Classes of three schools in Sebring, located some 60 miles (97 km) northeast to Cleveland, have been suspended since Friday. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has hit the village serving a violation notice last week. The nature of the notice has led the EPA to notify residents of Sebring the first warning centering detection of lead contamination in the water samples. The first warning evokes risks to pregnant women and children and has been served on December 3, reports Reuters. The Sebring news has been followed weeks of controversy over high lead levels in the water of Flint, Michigan. The detection has led Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to step down, according to a news published in Yahoo News. Sebring village has a legal obligation to develop a plan to adjust its treatment and processes to minimize lead from leeching into the water from residential piping. It also requires issue quarterly news release cautioning about the potential risks on lead contaminated water. Government bond dealers in UK are observing market conditions as highly challenging. This is due to the increased regulations and cost of capita for funding their operations. These factors have made the banks less interested in risking their own capital. The market scenario has been reflected from the minutes of a meeting held on Tuesday among market makers, investors, representatives from the Debt Management Office (DMO) and Treasury, reports Reuters. On Tuesday, trade in London Stock Exchange suffered a huge loss of 20 billion ($28.5 billion) following a turmoil in China's market. The market bounced back on Wednesday as Sage software company and slow raise in oil price. According to Express, within a short time after trade opening on Tuesday, FTSE 100 dropped by almost 1.5% to sit below 5,800. This undid most of last week's gain, as the London market loss 20 billion ($28.5 billion). Drop in London and global market was triggered by plunge in China's stock to its two-year low since 2014. The drop shocked the global market as investors in China are feared of the continuing slowdown in the country's economy. Other major factor that also prompted the stock market drop in London is another fell of oil price to below $30 per barrel. The overflowing supply that continues to override the demand has made the oil price continues to be under pressure. Last week, oil price dipped to the lowest value in 12 years. UK stock market started to rebound on Wednesday. Led by Sage Group share, FTSE 100 started to bounce back from loss a day before. The software firm Sage Group increased big at 7.5% as the top gainer in London stock exchange. An analyst in Investec said in a note as quoted by Reuters, "We see a lot of juice left to squeeze out of this orange, and the right team in charge to do it." In the oil and gas sector, the increase of demand in U.S. has boost the share by 2.6% and oil price started to raise slowly at $32 per barrel. Meanwhile, as Glencore, BHP Billiton and Anglo American made a gain, the mining index increased 1.9%. BBC reported that on Wednesday oil price increased 6% to $32.30 a barrel at Brent crude. As a result, FTSE was closed 0.6% higher than on Tuesday. According to BBC, the oil cartel, OPEC has agreed to take action to handle oversupply. On Monday's meeting, OPEC called for co-operation from non-OPEC oil producing nations. However, after previous OPEC actions have triggered global glut in recent years, it may not be easy for non-OPEC countries to trust OPEC, unless the cartel acted first. A wild swing still overshadow oil price as the oversupply may continue amidst speculation of reduced of production. An analyst of Phillip Futures in Singapore, Daniel Ang said, "It is going to be very difficult to maintain higher prices." Following a rough slowdown on Tuesday, London's FTSE bounced back yesterday. Oil price also started to slowly climb as speculation over production cut emerge and increasing demand. JOSEPH A. GARCIA/STAR FILE PHOTO Maricela Morales SHARE By Claudia Boyd-Barrett Farmworker advocates are calling on the Ventura County and Santa Barbara County Boards of Supervisors to enact a "Farmworker Bill of Rights" to protect laborers against alleged abuses. At a launch event at the Ventura County Government Center on Wednesday, groups who work with farmworkers denounced what they say are widespread labor-rights violations in agricultural fields along the Central Coast. A Farmworker Bill of Rights would help prevent such violations, organizers said. Their proposal calls for a series of policies designed to strengthen protections against extreme overwork, wage theft, pesticide exposure and sexual harassment. "We're here to stand up for basic human rights and a sustainable food system that treats workers with dignity and respect, that sustains our planet and is healthy for our communities," said Maricela Morales, executive director of Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy, or CAUSE, one of the organizations leading the campaign. "No system, including the food system, is sustainable without protecting all of its workers," she said. Other groups leading the campaign are Oxnard-based Mixteco/Indigena Community Organizing Project, female farmworker advocacy group Lideres Campesinas, and United Farm Workers of America. According to organizers, a total of 85 civic groups, political leaders and businesses have endorsed the campaign. Last summer, CAUSE surveyed almost 300 farmworkers in Santa Paula and Oxnard. According to those who responded, almost 60 percent have experienced wage theft, nearly one in five said they are not given adequate breaks, and close to a third said they had been injured on the job but generally received no compensation or benefits. Half reported negative health effects from pesticides. "It's not fair that they don't take into account what farmworkers like us suffer from the pesticides," laborer Barbara Flores said in Spanish, who complained she developed skin rashes and eye and respiratory problems as a result of pesticide exposure. One farmworker spoke of losing her job after becoming pregnant, and another said his employer underpaid him by $2,000. The proposed bill of rights would increase penalties for employers caught stealing wages, step up investigation of wage theft and labor law violations by hiring new county investigators, and provide an anonymous hotline for workers to report abuses. It also would require growers to offer unpaid pregnancy leave to women that protects their job status, and make sure workers have 10 minutes to rest, drink water and use bathrooms once they reach rest areas. Organizers also want the county to fund health and safety education for farmworkers, inspect farms for access to clean bathrooms, help growers reduce the use of harmful pesticides, and employ a crime victim advocate at the District Attorney's Office who would focus on farmworker sexual assault. "Female farmworkers are especially vulnerable to sexual harassment and assault, and they frequently need help to navigate the court system and access services," said Arcelia Aguilera, Ventura County committee secretary for Lideres Campesinas, who also spoke in Spanish. But John Krist, CEO of the Farm Bureau of Ventura County, said in a separate interview afterward that he doesn't believe extra regulations are needed. Growers already comply with more than 70 state and federal laws that address most of the issues identified by the farmworker advocates, he said. "I'm not sure how adding a layer of county regulations to an already comprehensive regulatory framework really would measurably improve working conditions for the farm labor force," Krist said. Labor conditions in the fields are not as bad as the CAUSE report indicates, he said. He said the organizers should work with the agricultural industry to address the perceived problems instead of making what he called "unsubstantiated allegations." "No doubt there are some abuses. Every industry, not just agriculture, has some bad actors," he said. "For the most part the growers really do care about the health and welfare of their workers and it pains them to see when there's evidence of mistreatment, so I would encourage CAUSE to sit down with leaders in the agricultural community to work out a way to enlist the industry's help." No county supervisors attended the launch event. However, Bill Gallaher, chief of staff for Ventura County Supervisor John Zaragoza, said Zaragoza is supportive of the farmworker groups, although he has yet to read their full proposal. Morales said campaign organizers plan to work with county supervisors to bring the Bill of Rights to a vote and would like to see policies passed by Cesar Chavez Day on March 31. SHARE CHUCK KIRMAN/THE STAR The Hawaiian Chieftain and Lady Washington, replicas of old sailing vessels, conduct a three-hour battle sail last weekend, viewed from Marina Park in Ventura. TALL SHIPS PULL INTO PORT The tall ships have returned to Ventura County, offering public tours and sailing excursions through Feb. 15. Lady Washington, the official ship of Washington state, and her companion ship Hawaiian Chieftain, are in Channel Islands Harbor now, and visitors can learn a sea shanty or help raise a sail aboard a two-hour Adventure Sail on Jan. 31, Feb. 7, and Feb. 14 11 a.m.-1 p.m. The remaining Battle Sails, featuring a recreation of a naval skirmish which features real cannons firing real gunpowder, are Jan. 30-31, Feb. 6-7 and Feb. 13-15 from 2-5 p.m. Additionally there will be one, two-hour evening sail on Feb. 3 at 4 p.m. The ships moved out of Ventura Harbor early because of sediment buildup there. Lady Washington is a wooden-hulled replica of one of the first U.S. flagged ships to visit the West Coast of North America. She appeared as the HMS Interceptor in the 2003 Disney movie, "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl." Hawaiian Chieftain, launched in 1988, is a steel-hulled interpretation of an early 19th century coast trader. Tickets for the Battle Sails are $75 for adults, $67 for students/seniors/active military and $39 for children 12 and under. Adventure Sail tickets are $47 for adults and $39 for children 12 and under. Walk-on tours offer a chance for visitors to board the ships at the dock and visit with the crews. A $3 per person donation is requested. Visit www.historicalseaport.org or call 800-200-5239. Family home 18 months after fire razed their Thousand Oaks condo The Thousand Oaks family says it's been a long, frustrating wait, but they're thrilled to finally be back home in their two-bedroom unit. PHOTO BY JARED DEVER, OCVCD The Aedes mosquitoes that can be infected by travelers carrying the Zika virus have been found in Southern California but not in Ventura County. SHARE By Tom Kisken of the Ventura County Star Neither the Zika virus nor the mosquitoes that can carry it have been found in Ventura County, officials said Wednesday. But the virus that may cause brain damage in infants is being spread in more than 20 regions and countries, including Brazil, Mexico and Colombia. The handful of infections in the U.S. involving travelers include an adolescent girl from Los Angeles County who went to El Salvador in late November. She's now recovered. The aggressive Aedes mosquitoes that can act as transmitters if they bite a person infected with the virus have been found in Kern and Los Angeles County. Protecting yourself Concerns about Zika and other mosquito-borne viruses trigger public health recommendations. Pregnant women should consider postponing trips to countries where Zika is being spre0ad. If you are bitten by small black mosquitoes with white stripes in Ventura County, call the mosquito hotline at 805-658-4310. Use insect repellents containing DEET, picaridin, IR3535, oil of lemon eucalyptus, or para-menthane-diol. Using an EPA-registered insect repellent is safe and effective for women who are pregnant and breastfeeding. When weather permits, wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants. Use air conditioning or window/door screens to keep mosquitoes outside. Empty standing water from any receptacles including flowerpots or buckets. For more information, go to bit.ly/1OQ77nO or go to the CDC Zika page. Sources: California Department of Public Health, Ventura County Environmental Health You won't find Dr. Robert Grossman, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Newbury Park, glossing over the virus. "It's not overblown, probably," he said, offering a simple message for his pregnant patients with travel plans to Brazil, Mexico or other affected countries. "I would tell them not to go," he said, echoing recommendations made by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and triggered by concerns over unborn babies. CDC officials say the virus may be linked to microcephaly, a birth defect that can result in abnormally small heads in babies and developmental issues. The surge in illnesses has triggered warnings in some countries for women not to get pregnant. Assessments of the possibility of the virus spreading locally vary. "At this point, I think the risks are negligible," said Dr. Robert Levin, Ventura County public health officer. Transmission would likely have to involve a traveler who contracts the virus in another country, returns here and then is bit by an Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus. The small, day-biting mosquitoes could then infect other people. The mosquitoes can also carry dengue, yellow fever and the infection, chikungunya. Ventura County environmental health workers trap for the Aedes species but have not found them. The Aedes aegypti has been reported in 12 other California counties. The Aedes albopictus has been found in five counties. Both types have been found in Kern and Los Angeles counties. "In our state, we're in the midst of a full-court press," said Levin. "Anytime one of these mosquitoes is found, the state just collapses on top of it and tries to do everything to wipe it out." The mosquitoes have been reported in Los Angeles County since 2011. That means Zika and the other diseases linked to the carriers are real possibilities, said Kelly Middleton of the Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District. "We have no indication that mosquitoes are transmitting anything in Los Angeles County. We just have to be prepared for that eventuality," she said. Mosquito control workers in Los Angeles and Ventura counties focus on conveying to homeowners and others the importance of removing standing water, even regularly scrubbing a pet's water dish. Mosquito activity should remain relatively quiet until days lengthen and grow warmer, said Cary Svoboda, vector ecologist with Ventura County Environmental Health. People who think they've been bitten by an Aedes mosquito should call the hotline at 658-4310. "These are going to be small dark mosquitoes with white bright bands," he said of the Aedes species. "The fact that they're going to be aggressively biting during the day is what separates them from our local mosquitoes." The importance of controlling mosquito populations is underscored by warnings about the possible spread of disease across the Americas including the United States, said Dr. Ben Schwartz, a deputy director of a communicable disease program run by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. "The World Health Organization warns that this infection could spread to wherever the mosquitoes that transmit the disease are present," he said. If the Aedes mosquitoes are eventually found in Ventura County and become widespread, concern would be warranted but not fear, said Levin. "We're talking about something that may never happen in our county and if it does happen my guess is it's years away ... not days," he said. Evelinda Perez, of Oxnard, is nearly six months pregnant with her first child a boy. She hasn't thought much about Zika. That will likely change when she goes on a family camping trip over Easter weekend. "I will put on the mosquito repellent," she said. In this Jan. 28, 1986 picture, two unidentified spectators at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral react after they witnessed the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger. (AP FILE PHOTO) SHARE Today is the 30th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger disaster. The accident on Jan. 28, 1986 just 73 seconds into the flight killed all seven on board, including schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. We asked readers where they were, what they were doing and or/how they reacted. Jerry Sargent Jr I worked on the Challenger. It was a sad day when this happened. Marcy McPherson Morgan In class watching it. The teacher in the adjoining room was the sister of the teacher on board. I still remember her screams. Tasha Hernandez Christa McAuliffe was my school teacher so I was watching the lift off on TV. I was extremely sad. Daniel Zendejas I was a senior at Oxnard High School. I forget which class I was in but they should've just ended the school day. Every class I attended the rest of the day had the TV on showing the coverage. Seeing Ms. McAuliffe's parents after what happened is what broke my heart more than anything that day. Hard to believe it's going to be 30 years. Jeremy Wolin I was home sick from school that day in Port Orange, Florida. I saw on TV that the shuttle was launching and I grabbed my moms Kodak "Disk" camera, went out on our back dock and photographed the whole event. NASA confiscated the photos for investigative purposes is what we were told went we went pick them up from being developed. I received a few of the shots back in the mail a year or so later. Mickey Richardson I was in 8th grade and had a field trip to the oaks mall in Thousand Oaks to interview employees for a consumers Ed class. I remember walking into the big department store and a wall of tv's showing the explosion over and over again and just standing there in disbelief. Trisha Freetly Clegg My oldest daughter is named after Christa McAuliffe. My dad named her that. She will be 30 in July. George Hurd I was working for Morton Thiokol, the manufacturer of the Solid Rocket Motors (SRM) for the Shuttle. We would gather in the break room to watch every launch on closed-circuit tv... I remember all of us watching in horror as these events unfolded, and the months of uncertainty afterwards as the investigation sought the cause. It was a horrible experience... Michelle Skow I was 16 and home for the day because I'd had my wisdom teeth pulled the day before. I was laying on the couch watching the shuttle launch, while my mom was reading and missed it. I sat up and said "Mom, the shuttle just exploded!" She replied "No it didn't, they always look like that when they take off." Then she looked up at the tv. Chris Garvin 6th grade at Big Springs Elementary in Simi, the whole school for the most part was gathered in the cafeteria room and it was broadcast live for us..I remember the excitement of all the kids & staff and the immediate shock and horror in minutes.. Jim Green I was working on the flightline at CAFB, MS. I remember all the jets we had just launched turning around and coming back. We didn't know what was going on until the returning pilots told us. Debbie Wegrzyn My dad was dying of cancer. Just to make me feel even worse i went into his bedroom to tell him what happened. I dont know if he heard me. I just know he loved the space program. Michael Vecera I was about 10 years old and home sick from school that day...watched it live on TV...I did a scrapbook project on it...one of the newspaper clippings I used I'll never forget was an illustration of the hands of God in a welcoming pose poking out from the clouds as if to welcome the shuttle into heaven...very touching and appropriate. Madeline L. Bate I was sitting in the doctors office waiting for Jeff to see the oncologist. He thoughtfully said, "Wow! What a way to go!" We read each others' minds, as he knew his days were numbered, and the near future was so uncertain. He passed away on August 5th of that same year. I am so glad we had those last months with him, but it was a painful price to pay. I will always love my Jeff. Ralph Hayes Teaching my honors freshman science class and thinking how close I was to being on that shuttle. Michael Johnson I remember where I was like it was yesterday. You see, I was serving aboard the USS Aubrey Fitch (FFG-34)Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate, and we were just a few miles off Cape Canaveral finishing up some routine operations. We were just about to head home, when the captain made the call to take the ship a bit closer to the Cape so that we could all observe the shuttle lift off. Well needless to say, things went very wrong, very fast. We all watched in horror and disbelief as the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded literally right above us. We were immediately called to battle stations and were given orders to remain on station to assist in the recovery of the fallen shuttle debris. This was one of the significant moments in my life and my Naval carrier. RIP Challenger crew, gone, but definitely not forgotten. Chad Wesley I was born THAT day. I turn 30 Thursday. Catherine Pedigo Lipson Watching it on TVcould never watch another launchtoo sad. Lindsy Pfaff I was in my moms belly as she watched. I remember her telling me about it on each anniversary. Cristina Ruiz Diaz I just know I was in school (kindergarten) and everything just stopped, just dead silence and my teacher was crying. Tamara Thomas I was on the playground with my central Florida kindergarten class watching it in real life. Robert Hough This happened on my 9th birthday. Every year I think about this and makes me sad. We were told to go straight back to the class room after lunch that day and we all watched. It was a sad day and a sad birthday. They will never be forgotten. Tamara Stewart Mrs. Hazelman's class. The whole room fell silent and Mrs. Hazelman cried quietly at her desk. Sad, sad day. Matt Zewalk My uncle Mark was a cameraman for a Tampa news station and covered every shuttle launch. On that day, for some reason, instead of following the Challenger itself he chose to capture the faces and reaction of the crowd as it launched into the sky. It is his footage that shows the confused, then devastated parents of Christa McAuliffe as they stare up at the heavens. He still cannot speak of that awful day. God bless that whole crew and their loved ones. Don Williams My wife Sue & I were flying home from the Bahamas and were over Florida and could see the launch. The pilot of the plain came on and told us to watch out the right side of the plain to see it. I got my video camera out and taped it. I saw the whole event and still have the tape. Michael Maxey I was at work for Rockwell International. Our facility built the cargo payload bay doors for all the shuttles. The announcement came over the loudspeakers, an absolute silence fell over the entire facility. Many heads were bowed in prayer, and quite a few tears were shed, including some of mine. It was one of those events you will always vividly remember to me, like JFK's assassination or the Twin Towers falling. Sad day. Desiree Gibson I was having my 2nd birthday. I don't remember it obviously but it's something I keep trying to read/learn more about. Rick Miller I was 6. Didn't know of it. But I went to Christa McAuliffe school when it first opened in 87 in Kansas. We met her parents at the grand opening of the school, they spoke and I was forever intrigued since that day. Patrick Collins I was working at Space Launch Complex 6 at Vandenberg Air Force Base California. SLC-6 would have launched the Space Shuttle from the west coast had the Challenger disaster not occurred. J Shawn Wyckoff First grade. My whole school assembled to watch the takeoff since Christa McAuliffe was aboard. Most of us had never seen a shuttle launch, me included. I had a feeling something went wrong since there were two contrails (I know that word now; I didn't in 1986). They quickly evacuated us and sent us back to our classrooms. Later on we learned the fate of Challenger and her crew. Even at six, it was not my introduction to death. I was sad but also accepting since I knew that traveling to space was dangerous. The memory of that booster spinning off into oblivion is as vivid now as it was 30 years ago. Man, I'm getting old. Delaney Green She wasnt born yet but I daughter has learned and remembers. Sherry Benedict Szkolnik 4th grade in Lakeshore Elementary. I'm now 40 yrs old but I swear it feels like that just happened yesterday. Linda Mae Gregory Answering my front door for the UPS Guy. We shared the moment together and cried. Harry Styles, band member of the hit pop music group and teen heart-throb, One Direction, visited O by Cirque du Soleil at the Bellagio last night, Thursday, August 1 (Pictured: Harry Styles of One Direction with contortionists of O Photo credit: Von Loyrangsy/Cashman Photo). Photo credit: Von Loyrangsy/Cashman Photo. Styles, in town to perform two consecutive nights at Mandalay Bay alongside his bandmates, arrived at the infamous Cirque du Soleil water show alongside seven friends, thrilled to be seeing it for the first time. With his one night off in town to have some fun, Styles and friends said they couldnt think of any other show theyd rather see knowing that O is the best! The group sipped Fiji waters during the performance and afterwards visited with the cast and snapped photos while exploring backstage. Photo credit: Von Loyrangsy/Cashman Photo. A new semester may be just beginning, but theres no doubt that college students across the nation are already planning for Spring Break 2014. TREVI Italian Restaurant will welcome vacationers, starting Tuesday, Mar. 18 through Mon., Apr. 7, with: $6 TREVI Bites including: tomato bruschetta fresh stuffed mushrooms fried calamari eggplant crisps homemade meatballs mini stuffed cheeseburgers (pictured at top) Drink specials include: $3 Bellinis, made with a refreshing blend of peach nectar, sparkling wine, light rum and peach puree $4 bottled beers: Bud Light, Budweiser, Coors Light, Corona, Miller Lite and Peroni $6 wines by the glass: chardonnay, pinot grigio, cabernet sauvignon, Chianti and merlot $6 signature martinis, including pomegranate cosmo, Italian marga-tini, blue-tini and limone martini TREVI also recently introduced 32-ounce Las Vegas sign souvenir cups for $15 each at the walk-up gelato bar. Spring breakers can cool off with the frozen Bellini, strawberry daiquiri and pina colada flavored varieties. Refills are priced at $10 each and regular cups are also sold for $10 each. Tapping into the Spirit of Oktoberfest in Las Vegas, Magicians of the Century Siegfried & Roy demonstrate that celebrating an authentic Oktoberfest in the desert is no illusion. Here, the German-born duo are shown kicking off the party at the Hofbrauhaus Las Vegas by tapping the first keg of delicious Oktoberfest brew on Saturday, September 13, 2008. Hofbrauhaus is the only faithful reproduction of the original Hofbrauhaus Munchen in the world. And, much like the original Hofbrauhaus which has remained Munichs most famous attraction since 1589, Hofbrauhaus Las Vegas has become the place to celebrate good times and holidays. Hofbrauhaus is located at: 4510 Paradise Road Las Vegas, Nevada 89169 (Across from the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino) For more information visit: http://www.hofbrauhauslasvegas.com or call (702) 853-BEER (2337) With just a few weeks left until the inaugural On the Rocks Las Vegas, nightlife fans can still purchase tickets to the biggest multi-day, one-admission-price party Vegas has ever seen (Photo courtesy of Spike TV). The three-day event produced by Jon Taffer and the Nightclub & Bar Media Group offers one-price entry to 50+ pool party and nightlife events, held at the most famous clubs in the world with headliners including DJ and producer Laidback Luke at Hakkasan at the MGM Grand Hotel on Friday, July 12, rap superstar Lil Jon at Wynn Las Vegas Tryst on Saturday, July 13 and DJ Tiesto at Wet Republic on Sunday, July 14. Fans of the popular Spike TV series Bar Rescue will have the opportunity to meet its star Jon Taffer as he presides over Happy Hours sponsored by Bar Rescue and Anheuser-Busch at On The Rocks headquarters, The Palms Casino Resorts The Social Bar, on July 12-14 from 5-7 p.m. An On The Rocks wristband and The Palms room key are your ticket in to this special meet and greet event. New episodes of Bar Rescue start on Sunday, July 7 on Spike TV. Adding to the excitement and energy of the event, a team of world class brands and sponsors are lending their support and expertise to this first annual On the Rocks. Partners and sponsors include Las Vegas Sun, Las Vegas Weekly, The Palms Resort and Hotel, Diageo, MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch. The Ticket holders will also receive hefty gift bags full of great products from sponsors that include Veggie Chips, Somersault Snacks, M&Ms Mars, Coconut Water Flavored, Margarita salts and beer salts, Stoneys BBQ sauce, Mello Night dream water and Drink Positive Orange Juice. People walk through Istanbul's tourist hub of Sultanahmet, where 10 German tourists were killed by the Islamic State (IS) group on January 12, 2016 AFP/Bulent Kilic MOSCOW: Russia's federal tourism agency on Wednesday (Jan 27) issued a warning that Islamic State militants were planning to abduct Russian citizens in Turkey. "According to the competent agencies, leaders of the IS terrorist group plan to take hostages from among Russian citizens in Turkey," it said in a statement. "Hostages can be transferred on to territories controlled by militants to hold public executions and to be used as human shields in combat with Syrian government and coalition forces," it added. "Therefore we draw the attention of all independent tourists departing for Turkey to the necessity of taking all possible measures to ensure personal security." Turkey had been Russia's number one foreign tourism destination for years but this came to an abrupt end following the shooting down of a Russian military plane by Turkish jets on the Syria-Turkey border in November. The warning essentially targets all remaining Russian tourists in Turkey, as organised tours by travel agencies were banned by Moscow as part of a raft of retaliatory measures in the wake of the jet downing. The incident sparked a crisis in relations between Moscow and Ankara, with the Kremlin accusing the Turkish leadership of essentially funding Islamic State militants. Russia reintroduced entry visas for Turks and slapped sanctions on several Turkish products. Russia has been conducting air strikes in Syria, its ally in the region since Soviet times, since September. Turkey meanwhile is part of a parallel US-led coalition targeting IS in the country. The two countries have lately also clashed over the guest list for Syria peace talks set for later this week, with Moscow saying they would be pointless without Syrian Kurdish group the Democratic Union Party, which Ankara considers is linked to Kurdish rebels inside Turkey. Turkish authorities have blamed IS for a suicide bombing in the heart of Istanbul's tourist district earlier this month that killed 10 Germans, one of a string of deadly attacks said to be the work of the militant group. Spokesman for the Syrian High Negotiations Committee (HNC), Monzer Makhous (pictured in December), told AFP the talks in Riyadh could last "perhaps all day". (Photo: AFP/Fayez Nureldine) RIYADH: The Saudi-backed Syrian opposition met on Wednesday (Jan 27) to decide whether to attend UN peace talks, as wrangling over who will go threatens to derail the biggest push yet to resolve the country's war. Members of the so-called High Negotiations Committee - formed in Riyadh last month in an effort to unite Syria's fractious opposition - met in the Saudi capital for a second day on whether to accept a UN invitation to the talks due to start Friday. The Committee insists it must be the sole opposition delegation at the talks in Geneva and is asking for "clarifications" after the UN issued invitations to other regime opponents. The negotiations were already delayed from Monday over the issue of who will represent the myriad forces opposing President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's nearly five-year civil war. Committee spokesman Monzer Makhous told AFP the talks had resumed and could last all day but refused to comment further. Diplomats, including US Secretary of State John Kerry who met with Committee members at the weekend, have piled pressure on the opposition to attend. The talks are part of a UN-backed plan agreed by top diplomats last year in Vienna that envisages negotiations, followed by the creation of a transitional government, a new constitution and elections within 18 months. AMBITIOUS ROADMAP The roadmap is the most ambitious plan yet to end the conflict which has left more than 260,000 dead and forced millions from their homes. UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura's office said on Tuesday it had issued invitations to the talks, but refused to say who had been invited. The Committee, which earlier this month named Mohammed Alloush of the rebel group Army of Islam as its chief negotiator, confirmed it had received an invitation but so did several other opposition figures who do not belong to the body. It was not clear whether the other figures had been invited as official delegates or simply observers to the talks. Committee member Salem al-Meslet told AFP the body would ask on Wednesday "for clarifications (from the UN) concerning some issues, particularly humanitarian issues". The Committee has also called for the lifting of regime sieges on rebel-held areas and aid deliveries to civilians as conditions for attending the talks. The row over who will attend the talks reflects not only internal divisions but also the interests of the various diplomatic powers embroiled in the Syria conflict. Russia, a key ally of Assad, has pushed for a broader range of opposition at the talks, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying on Tuesday that negotiations "will not achieve results" if Syria's Kurds are not represented. While there are Kurdish representatives in groups that make up the Committee, Syria's most powerful Kurdish organisation, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), said Tuesday it had not yet received an invitation. TURKEY THREAT ON KURDS Turkey, a leading backer of the opposition, has said it will boycott the talks if an invitation is extended to the PYD, which it considers an offshoot of the Kurdistan Worker's party (PKK) that has waged a bloody insurgency in southeastern Turkey. There have been no suggestions that jihadist groups, including the Islamic State group which has seized control of large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq, should be invited to the talks. Instead of meeting face-to-face, delegations are expected to engage in "proximity talks" during the negotiations, which would involve officials including foreign diplomats shuttling between opposition and regime representatives. Officials have said the talks would run over six months, with the first round expected to last between two and three weeks. Syria's regime has designated its UN envoy Bashar al-Jaafari, who has represented the government at previous failed peace efforts, as its chief negotiator. The talks come as Syrian government forces have made important military gains in recent weeks, backed by air strikes launched by Moscow last September. Pro-government forces this week seized the key town of Sheikh Miskeen in southern Daraa province from rebels and took the last opposition-controlled town in coastal Latakia province, Rabia. A part of the Dai Nam Seafood Processing Company in the central province of Phu Yen's Tuy Hoa City was destroyed by tides. Fishermen in the province are facing difficulties due to tides. - VNA/VNS Photo The Lap The fishing vessel owned by two brothers, Huynh Van Binh and Huynh Van Minh in Tuy Hoa's Phu Dong Ward, was salvaged yesterday by border guards and the local people after it sank in large waves the previous night. The entire cabin, boat and machinery were damaged. What worries Binh and Minh the most is that their vessel's insurance has expired, making it more difficult for them to recover their losses. The tide also destroyed the coastal area in Phu Dong Ward, from the southern section of Da Dien to Vinashine company area, during the last two days. Two sea mouths have been opened, making way for the waves to flow into the river. However, five fishing vessels are yet to be pulled ashore. Fishermen are looking for ways to cope with large waves and surges at midnight, which caused vessels to collapse. Residents have also been affected. Pham Thi Hoa, whose home was completely destroyed by the waves, said, "Everything in my house was washed away into the sea. Whatever it takes, I will just run for myself." Fishermen in Phu Yen Province will have to find places to keep their vessels safe from the grades six and seven winds, along with cold air. Border Guards in Phu Yen Province have made contact with 164 fishing vessels with 1,596 workers, of which 16 ships with 154 workers are already in safe places. As a consequence of the cold winds during the last two days, Phu Yen has seen billows of clouds, particularly in Phu Dong Ward, Tuy Hoa City. Large waves have washed away the property of local people and fishermen. #stocks-summary Seoul shares down for 2nd day on rate hike woes South Korean stocks retreated for a second straight session Thursday, as investor sentiment worsened on concerns about aggressive rate hikes. The Korean won fell against the U.S. d... The protocols include co-operation between Russian and Belarusian automakers and their Vietnamese partners in establishing several joint ventures for manufacturing and assembling of trucks, and vehicles with ten seats and more, pick-ups and some special-use vehicles, in Viet Nam. - VNA/VNS Photo vietnamnet.vn A protocol on automobile production co-operation was initialled by the officials from the negotiating teams of the two countries in Minsk, Belarus, on January 20. On January 15, Viet Nam also initialled the protocol with Russia in Moscow. The ministry said the protocols would be negotiated and signed based on the priority clauses of investment projects under the free trade agreement between Viet Nam and the Eurasia Economic Union (VN-EEU FTA). After initialling the above-mentioned protocols, Russia and Belarus have both informed that they would immediately conduct procedures to pass the VN-EEU FTA and put the protocols on automobile co-operation into effect at the same time. The protocols include co-operation between Russian and Belarusian automakers and their Vietnamese partners in establishing several joint ventures for manufacturing and assembling of trucks, and vehicles with ten seats and more, pick-ups and some special-use vehicles, in Viet Nam. The vehicles assembled in Viet Nam will be suitable for the Viet Nam Automobile Industry Development Plan by 2020 and in the vision for 2030, which requires a localisation rate of 25 per cent for special-use vehicles, 30 per cent for trucks and pick-ups, and 35 per cent for vehicles with 10 seats and more, by 2020. By 2025, the localisation rate will be 40 per cent for special-use vehicles and pick-ups, 45 per cent for trucks and vehicles with ten seats and more. Besides the domestic market, the joint ventures have been oriented to export cars to a third country, which are Southeast Asian nations where the cars with 40 per cent localisation rate from Viet Nam will enjoy import tax exemption. To reach the above target, Viet Nam will allow the joint ventures to import free-of-duty a number of completely built up units for exploratory selling in the Vietnamese market. They will also enjoy a concrete tax exemption quota for the import of auto components and parts for domestic assembling in five years, which is the period before the import tax on auto components and parts is cut to zero per cent under the VN-EEU FTA agreement. The protocols are expected to officially be signed by the end of January or early March this year. Photo by Los Angeles Time Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist at Tacomas Stadium High School, a local landmark where scenes for the 1999 teen comedy 10 Things I Hate About You were filmed. Cambodian-born Lin Li-Chan this month became the first immigrant to win a seat in Taiwans parliament. The country can already claim to be a frontrunner of multiculturalism in Asia, thanks to a relatively open immigration policy and an economy that relies on foreign workers. But as a representative of the Kuomintang Partywhich overall lost the Jan. 16 elections to the Democratic Progressive PartyLin pledged to work to further migrants rights and integration in Taiwan. Not only immigrants but also Taiwanese people support my work to help immigrants integrate better in Taiwan, she said in an interview with VOA Khmer. This shows how Taiwanese people are learning to accept the important roles immigrants play in helping Taiwan grow economically. Lin hopes that her work will continue to bridge cultural and historical gaps between the Taiwanese-born citizens and immigrants and their families. Asked about Taiwans open immigration policy, Lin said that it was vital to the countrys manufacturing and export-oriented economy, especially since Taiwan has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. The countrys women have on average only about 1.12 children each, with a rate of just over two children per woman required to keep a stable population. According to some reports, immigrants now make up the majority of Taiwans population of about 23.5 million. The creation of permanent residency in 1999 and a relaxation of citizenship requirements in 2014 have paved the way for many foreigners to seek employment in Taiwan. The Taiwanese government also provides education and skills training programs free of charge to newly arrived immigrants, to help them quickly integrate in Taiwanese society and contribute back, Lin said. There are also scholarship and childcare programs that help young immigrant mothers attend school while their children are young, she added. Lin arrived in the country after her family arranged for her to marry a Taiwanese man in 1997, when she was 20 years old. The newly elected politician has been an activist on migrant issues in Taiwan for many years, working closely with women from China, Vietnam and Cambodia. Due to concern of human rights abuses and human trafficking, in 2008, the Cambodian government suspended a memorandum of understanding with Taiwan that allowed Cambodians to marry Taiwanese citizens. Lin says she has not yet taken a good look at this issue but hopes to work on it as a lawmaker soon. Apart from her legislative work, Lin is currently conducting research on the roles of NGOs in Cambodia. She said she hopes that her work in Taiwans parliament can help strengthen the relationship between Cambodia and Taiwan. If you suspect you might be experiencing a heart attack, seek emergency services immediately, a Cambodian-American doctor says. It is considered an emergency, Florida-based doctor Taing Tek Hong told Hello VOA. Call an ambulance, he said, and take aspirin. Dont drive yourself or ask your family to drive you to the hospital, he said. You could die on the way there. Waiting 5 or 10 minutes for the ambulance is safer, because they have the equipment to treat you on the way. Ly Cheng Huy, a medical doctor and owner of the website HealthCambodia.com, told VOA Khmer that emergency services are recommended in Phnom Penh, where there is access to hospitals. However, outside the capital, this is rarely true, and a medical emergency may require transport to Phnom Penh, he said. To prevent heart attacks in the first place, Taing Tek Hong recommends keeping blood pressure and cholesterol levels low, through exercise or medicine. Diabetics must also keep their blood sugar levels normal, he said. Cambodia scored very poorly on a perceived corruption index, put out each year by Transparency International, but a government spokesman says the report doesnt reflect the effort the government has put into combating the practice. Transparency International scores Cambodia 21 points out of 100 on its Corruption Perceptions Index 2015. The closer to zero a country scores, the more corrupt it is perceived by the people who live in it. That puts Cambodia No. 150 of 168 countries. Sok Eysan, a spokesman and lawmaker for the Cambodian Peoples Party, said the score is not an accurate picture of Cambodia. Im not interested in the score, he said. This corruption issue requires us to work together in all sectors and environments in order to prevent it, because this issue cant be done all at once, he said. It requires us to do it regularly and in a long-term way. Om Yin Tieng, head of the governments Anti-Corruption Unit, said the transparency assessment was made with not enough data and could create a trap of one country comparing itself to another. We are not relating to this score or interested in it, he said. Cambodias score of 21 out of 100 puts it on par with Burundi and Zimbabwe on the index. In Southeast Asia, Myanmar scored better, with 22. Denmark had the highest score on the index: 91. The US scored 76 and was No. 16 on the list. Ok Serei Sopheak, head of Transparency International Cambodia, said during the launch of the report Wednesday that more reforms are needed in the countrys public institutions, especially the judicial system. Over the past years, Transparency International Cambodia has requested that the Cambodian government undertake key and systematic reforms in key national institutions, by focusing on judicial reforms, the enhancement of laws for access to information, a law on protections for witnesses and whistleblowers, amendments to some articles of the anti-corruption law, and the clearance of nepotism and conflicts of interest in state institutions, he said. But so far those tasks have achieved very little and have not been fully implemented. U.S. President Barack Obama has posthumously honored four people who risked their lives to protect Jews during the Holocaust. The ceremony, which took place for the first time in the U.S., was held Wednesday -- International Holocaust Remembrance Day -- commemorating the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in southern Poland. Israel confers Righteous Among the Nations medals to non-Jews who helped Jews during the Holocaust. Ceremony Obama joined Jewish leaders and Holocaust survivors at the Israeli Embassy in Washington for the ceremony honoring Americans Roddie Edmonds of Tennessee and Lois Gunden of Indiana, and Polish citizens Waley and Maryla Zbijewski. "The Talmud teaches that if a person destroys one life, it is as if they've destroyed the whole world, and if a person saves one life, it is as if they've saved an entire world," Obama said. In his speech, Obama said anti-Semitism and intolerance are on the rise again, and he encouraged everyone to stand against such movements. Earlier in the day, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington hosted an event honoring the victims of the Holocaust. Holocaust survivors, foreign dignitaries and other guests lit candles for the victims. Many of the survivors now live in the United States. Alfred Munzer, a Holocaust survivor, said, "I was born in the Netherlands, in Holland. My life was saved by an Indonesian family living in Holland, and especially their Muslim nanny. I was 9 months old when when I was left with this family. They really risked their lives to take in a Jewish baby. And that's why I am able to be here today." 'Grace of the Lord' Nesse Godin, a Holocaust survivor from Lithuania, said, "As a little child from 13 to 17, I lived through a ghetto, concentration camp, four labor camps and a death march. How did I survive? By the grace of the Lord in heaven by whatever name we call him." German ambassador Peter Witting said Germany is aware of its special responsibility to prevent genocide in the future. "We Germans today share your pain and the memory of the unspeakable horror. But most importantly, we share a vision for our common future. Our confrontation with the past is the moral compass that guides our actions so that Jewish citizens can live in peace and security in Europe and everywhere in the world," Witting said. Later Wednesday, German, French and EU ambassadors held a roundtable discussion on combating hate in Europe. Brazil's Federal Police on Wednesday launched the latest stage of a sweeping investigation into corruption at state-controlled firms, with six arrests and 15 search warrants issued in the states of Sao Paulo and Santa Catarina. The warrants in the so-called "Operation Carwash" probe involve the suspected use of offshore companies and real estate transactions to launder money from bribery, graft and other offenses, police said in a statement. According to TV Globo, raids were being conducted in Sao Bernardo do Campo, the political stronghold of former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose Workers' Party is involved in the probe. Engineering firm Grupo OAS SA and cooperative bank Bancoop were among the targets of Wednesday's raids, the channel said, without saying how it obtained the information. Dozens of executives and politicians have been arrested or are under investigation on suspicion of overcharging Petrobras and other state firms on contracts and using part of the proceeds to bribe members of President Dilma Rousseff's ruling coalition. Around 80 police were involved in the latest raids, code-named "Triple X," according to the statement. They were collecting evidence of crimes including corruption, fraud, money-laundering and illegal foreign-currency market offenses. In addition to the six arrests, two people were to be taken to police headquarters in the southern city of Curitiba for questioning, the statement added. Britain could impose sanctions on Maldivian individuals if the Maldives government fails to take action to free political prisoners, Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday. Mohamed Nasheed, the Maldives' first democratically elected president, is serving a 13-year sentence on terrorism charges for the alleged abduction of a judge after a rapid trial last March that drew international criticism. Nasheed and his lawyer, Amal Clooney, met Cameron at Downing Street in London on Saturday after the former president won permission to travel to Britain for surgery. The Maldives gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1965. "We want to see a change in behavior from the Maldivian government to make sure that political prisoners are set free and, yes, we are prepared to consider targeted action against individuals if further progress isn't made," Cameron said in Parliament. He was responding to a question from lawmaker John Glen about whether Britain would work to build an international consensus on targeted sanctions. On Saturday, Cameron's office said the prime minister and Nasheed had agreed that a Commonwealth meeting to be held in the Maldives next month would provide an opportunity to press the Maldivian government to engage in "open political dialogue and free all remaining political prisoners swiftly." Former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders are locked in a tight Democratic presidential nominating contest ahead of the Iowa Caucus, the latest survey in the farm state showed Wednesday. Quinnipiac University said Sanders, who calls himself an independent socialist Democrat, is winning the support of 49 percent of Democrats likely to participate in next Monday's party caucuses in Iowa, compared to 45 percent for Clinton, the country's top diplomat from 2009 to 2013. The Iowa voting is the first balloting in the months-long process to pick Democratic and Republican presidential nominees ahead of next November's national election to select a successor to President Barack Obama when he leaves office in a year. White House meeting Days before the vote in Iowa, Sanders met with President Obama at the White House Wednesday for talks on foreign policy and the economy. After the 45-minute meeting, Sanders said Obama has been "even-handed" in publicly staying neutral in the long drawn out campaign, even though U.S. political analysts have long assumed the president favors Clinton's nomination as the Democratic candidate. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama believes Sanders' unexpectedly close race against Clinton is good for Democrats. "That ability to engage Democrats and excite them and inspire them will be critical to the success of Democrats up and down the ballot, whether Senator Sanders is the nominee or not," Earnest said. Recent poll Quinnipiac's Iowa survey, conducted in recent days, showed men, very liberal and younger voters supporting Sanders, who has centered his campaign attacks on Wall Street and corporate interests in the United States that he says have led to a growing wealth gap between the very rich and the rest of Americans. The poll showed voters 45 and older, along with women, favoring Clinton, who could become the first female U.S. president Quinnipiac polling official Peter Brown said the Iowa trend could be reminiscent of 2008, when Clinton lost the vote in the central U.S. state to Obama, who went on to win the Democratic nomination and the presidency. "Perhaps more than other contests, the Iowa caucuses are all about turnout," Brown said. "If those young, very liberal Democratic caucus participants show up Monday and are organized, it will be a good night for Senator Sanders. And if Sanders does win Iowa, that could keep a long-shot nomination scenario alive." National surveys of Democrats still show Clinton ahead, but with a dwindling margin over Sanders, down to 12 percent in one poll released this week. In Photos: Candidates Campaign Ahead of Iowa Vote Photo Gallery: Trump Skipping GOP Debate Donald Trump, the leading Republican contender in the 2016 U.S. presidential race, is skipping the final GOP debate on Thursday before next week's first election contest in the Midwest farm state of Iowa. Meanwhile, former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders are locked in a tight Democratic presidential nominating contest in Iowa, according to the latest survey. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email to a Friend Memes are making the rounds mocking Italy's decision to cover up nude statues at Rome's Capitoline Museum with big white boxes for a visit by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Ahead of Monday's press conference between Premier Matteo Renzi and Rouhani, wooden panels were erected around some Roman statues in the museum. The decision has caused anger in Italy, where it has been condemned by critics as "incomprehensible," "ridiculous," and "submission" to principles that are against Western culture. The museum says the Renzi's office wanted the statues along Rouhani's path to the press conference covered up. Renzi's office declined to comment. When Renzi and Rouhani spoke, it was in a room featuring the famed bronze statue of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, fully clothed. Speaking on January 27 in Rome, Rouhani said that Tehran had not contacted Italian officials to ask for the statues to be covered up. "This issue is something journalists and the press like to discuss," Rouhani said. He added that he didn't have "any talks" with Italian authorities on the issue. "I know that the Italians are very hospitable, a people who seek to make their guests' visits as pleasant as possible and I thank them for that," Rouhani added. Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini, who accompanied Rouhani on the museum trip, called the classical cover-up "incomprehensible." He insisted that neither Renzi nor himself had been made aware of the decision in advance. After wrapping up his visit to Italy, Rouhani arrived in France where he is expected to preside over the signing of major business contracts. According to some media reports, France has balked at making a similar gesture. A photoshopped picture of the Mona Lisa wrapped in the Islamic hijab that is compulsory for women in Iran was being shared on social media ahead of the trip, which follows the lifting of sanctions against the Islamic republic under a landmark deal restricting its nuclear program. Some Iranians have likened Italy's decision to cover up nude statues to Iran's state censorship, including tough Internet censorship that targets tens of thousands of websites. "Smart filtering of statues during #Rouhani's trip to #Italy," reads the tweet that includes a photo of the nude statues covered in the page that Iranians see when they try to access banned websites. Meanwhile, some suggested that there were perhaps more creative ways of covering up nude statues than hiding them behind wooden panels. In 2013, a relief carving of a naked man at the U.N.'s headquarters in Geneva was covered up by a large white screen apparently in an effort not to offend Iranian diplomats who were due to take part in talks over Iran's nuclear activities. More than four centuries ago, the Roman Catholic Church commissioned Daniele da Volterra to paint veils and loincloths over some of Michelangelo's nudes in the Last Judgment, an 1,800-square-foot panel in the Sistine Chapel. Da Volterra was scorned by contemporary artists for agreeing to do so. One papal master of ceremonies at the time is said to have told the pope that the painting was "more fitting for a bathhouse or a tavern than a papal chapel," Reuters reported. In less than one year, a new president will be sworn into office and face a number of serious foreign policy challenges. Here is how the candidates stand on some of the issues of deep strategic interest to Washington. Democrats Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Diplomacy is not the pursuit of perfection it is the balancing of risk. - Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., Sept. 9, 2015. IS/Mideast. Clinton supports a three-pronged strategy against IS: expanding the coalition airstrikes and upping support of local Arab and Kurdish forces; cutting off the global terror pipeline of funds, arms and fighters; and disrupting online radicalization and recruitment. She has called for a no-fly zone in Syria, but opposes any U.S. troop deployment. Clinton supports a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. She has also called for increased U.S. military and intelligence support to Israel as a vital partner against extremism and Iranian expansion. Iran: Clinton says Americas greatest security threat is nuclear proliferation and the possibility of nuclear material falling into rogue hands. She supports the Iran deal, but stresses vigilance and enforcement as part of a greater strategy to contain Iran. She has called for imposing new sanctions on Tehran for its ballistic missile program and opposes normalizing relations. China/Asia: Clinton supported the U.S. strategic pivot to Asia as part of an effort to confront North Korea and support allies in territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea and near Japan. She opposes the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free-trade deal with 12 Pacific Rim economies that aims to crack down on Chinas trade policies. She has historically taken a tough stance toward China on cyberspace and climate change. Reacting to North Koreas claim that it tested a hydrogen bomb, Clinton called it blackmail and called on China block illicit trade across its border with North Korea. Russia: Clinton would work with EU allies to develop tougher sanctions on Russia and reduce EU reliance on Russian oil. In the January Democratic debate, she suggested she was open to resetting relations with Moscow, depending on the terms. She says she believes that Russia, if not checked, would expand beyond Crimea. She has also defended the "reset with Russia" during President Barack Obama's first term, saying it achieved, among other things, a new bilateral treaty to reduce nuclear weapons, permission to resupply U.S. troops in Afghanistan by traveling across Russia and Russia's agreement to impose sanctions in Iran. She supported NATO expansion and argued in her 2014 book Hard Choices that curtailing Russian aggression would have been more difficult without NATO allies in Eastern and Central Europe. Former Gov. Martin OMalley (Maryland) We must put our national interest first, we must put America first. campaign announcement speech, Baltimore, Maryland, May 30, 2015. IS/Mideast: OMalleys approach to foreign threats is to strengthen the U.S. economy and secure American cyberspace first, and to create a new foreign policy based on engagement and collaboration. He has called for strengthening U.S. intelligence gathering. He opposes U.S. boots on the ground against ISIS, but says the U.S. should give its regional allies the resources they need to defeat the group. He has called for amplifying local voices to reveal IS as murderous thugs. He opposes a no-fly zone in Syria because it could lead to an escalation with Russia. He supports a two-state solution to the Mideast crisis. Iran: OMalley has said a nuclear Iran, along with IS and climate change, are the greatest threats facing the U.S. He supported the Iran nuclear deal and would reimpose a full array of sanctions for any violations. China/Asia: OMalley has called for a rethink of our relationships with China and Russia, who he says are neither trusted allies or total adversaries. He opposes the TPP deal as a race to the bottom for American workers that will have little impact on China. He has said there are other ways to engage with like-minded nations - apart from fast-track trade deals to combat common enemies. Russia: OMalley has said very little about Russia, other than that he views it, like China, as neither an ally nor an enemy. U.S. Military/NATO: "NATO has served us well, OMalley said in October. But he advocates forming other alliances, in Africa and the South China Sea, to help manage international crisis. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont) I think in terms of our priorities in the region, our first priority must be the destruction of ISIS. Our second priority must be getting rid of Assad, through some political settlement, working with Iran, working with Russia. fourth Democratic debate, Jan. 17, 2016. IS/Mideast: Sanders believes adversaries Saudi Arabia and Iran should lead the fight against IS both from the air and on the ground, and has criticized Gulf Arab allies for not having done enough. He has called for a new NATO, that includes the current members, as well as Russia and Arab League nations to confront IS as a united front. He calls for a negotiated end to Syrias civil war and would support rebels trying to remove Bashar al-Assad from power, but says he is ready to take America into war if necessary. Sanders backs a two-state solution to the Middle East crisis and has criticized both Israeli settlement expansion and Hamas rocket attacks on Israel.. Iran: Sanders, who views a nuclear Iran as a threat, supports the nuclear deal as a victory of diplomacy over saber rattling. He has stated that the U.S. should move aggressively toward normalizing relations with Iran. China/Asia: Sanders opposes trade deals with China, believing they benefit corporations but not the American worker - especially the TPP, which he says will outsource even more American jobs overseas, benefit Wall Street alone and be impossible to repeal. In the wake of North Koreas claimed hydrogen bomb test, Sanders called for China to apply more pressure on Pyongyang to abide by international conventions. Russia: Sanders has called for working with allies to isolate Vladimir Putin politically and economically, enforcing sanctions and freezing Russian assets. He would also work with Russia to defeat IS. Republicans Former Gov. Jeb Bush (Florida) We are at war with radical Islamic terrorisma struggle that will determine the fate of the free world. - addressing Citadel Military College, South Carolina, Nov. 18, 2015. IS/Mideast: Bushs plan to defeat IS calls for the U.S. to lead an international coalition against it, establishing and enforcing no-fly zones and safe havens to harbor refugees. He has called for expanded airstrikes and using U.S. special operations forces to target terrorist networks. Bush would also boost U.S. support for Iraqi troops, embed with them and loosen engagement rules. Bush also supports directly arming Kurdish Peshmerga and build a new U.S. base in Iraqs Anbar Province. He would also work to secure U.S. borders and enhance national cybersecurity efforts. Bush would undo Obamas defense cuts and rebuild the U.S. military, expand troop levels, bolster special operations forces and intelligence gathering, and replace outdated equipment. He advocates expanding the U.S. military presence abroad as a deterrent to enemies and says the U.S. must be prepared to use force against urgent threats. Bush is a close friend of Israel and would work to repair U.S.-Israeli relations he says were mismanaged by the current administration. He considers Jerusalem as Israels capital and would move the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv. Iran: Bush has called the Iran nuclear deal dangerous, deeply flawed, and shortsighted and, if elected, he might not repeal the agreement on day one, but would reverse U.S.-Iran policy. He has said military force would be an option in enforcing Irans compliance. He would also work to encourage civil opposition to the regime in Tehran. Russia: Bush has said the U.S. should have provided greater support for Ukraine against Russian aggression and should consider invoking the collective defense clause of the NATO treaty - i.e.,an attack on one ally is an attack on all allies. He has also said the U.S. shouldnt rule out putting troops on the ground in the Baltic states, if only to conduct robust training exercises. But he also said the U.S. should not isolate Russia to the point of pushing it into the arms of Beijing. China/Asia: Bush has said he supports an ongoing, deep relationship with China: Its so easy to create misunderstandings that we could easily go from being a competitor economically to being challenged in terms of security. Bush also believes the U.S. needs to expand its influence in Central and South America, to compete with Chinas influence in those regions. Gov. Chris Christie (New Jersey) This century, more than any other, will be defined by the Pacific.- Portsmouth, New Hampshire, May 18, 2015 IS/Mideast: Christie has said he would send U.S. troops to fight against IS if necessary, but would prefer organizing and arming local players to defeat it. He opposes Russias presence in Syria, which he says is aimed only at propping up the Assad regime. He supports imposing a no-fly zone in Syria and says he would shoot down any Russian planes who might violate that air space. Christie also opposes allowing Syrian refugees of any age into the U.S., and maintains the U.S. should recommit to Israel, which he has called a beacon of freedom in a sea of autocracy. Iran: Christie believes Iran is a greater threat than IS and has criticized the White House for rushing the Iran nuclear deal. He said that if elected, he wouldnt repeal the deal on day one as Bush and Cruz would, but would review it and make decisions based on where we are at that moment. He also noted that U.S. allies, as well as Russia and China, have a stake in the matter. Russia: Christie takes a tough stance against Russia, which he says has been stealing Americas lunch money throughout the Obamas terms in office. He has said he believes Putin is looking to establish himself as a leader in the Middle East, and that he wont let Russia bring Communist domination back to the world. China/Asia: Christie is equally tough on China. During the November 2015 Republican debate, he said he would fly U.S. planes over the disputed islands in the South China Sea to counter Chinas upgraded presence there. Christie says he supports free trade but opposes the TPP. He would continue to maintain partnerships with China, but at same time demand China respect human rights, global law and allies sovereignty. NATO/Military: Christie calls for upping support of NATO allies in Eastern Europe and encouraging European members to increase annual defense spending to 2 percent of GDP, as required by the alliance, and by helping them access systems and training necessary to counter Russian aggression. Christie would increase U.S. defense spending and develop new weapon systems on the ground, air, sea and in space. He would also work to beef up U.S. intelligence gathering abroad, strengthen U.S. cyber security and, as a supporter of the Patriot Act, he would toughen anti-terror and surveillance laws. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (Texas) On the first day in office if Im elected I will rip to shreds this catastrophic agreement with Iran. Republican debate, Sept. 16, 2015. IS/Mideast: Cruz has called radical Islam as the second greatest U.S. security threat. He wants to ban refugees from terror-ridden regions and calls for Congress to pass the the Expatriate Terror Act, which would revoke the citizenship of American IS supporters. Cruz would arm the Kurdish Peshmerga as the main boots on the ground against IS and expand U.S. airstrikes. He would support ground troops only as a last resort but if the U.S. does go in, it should be with overwhelming force. Cruz would also beef up U.S. borders and ban refugees from terror-ridden areas. Cruz calls the U.S.-Israel alliance a bedrock. Cruz regards Jerusalem as Israels capital and as president, would move the U.S. Embassy there. He has said that the issue of settlements is a matter for Israel to decide, and he would halt U.S. aid to the Palestinians for inciting terror. Further, he would defund the U.N. if it continues its anti-Israel bias and cut off federal funds to American universities boycotting Israel. And he would designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terror group. Iran: Cruz ranks a nuclear Iran as the single greatest U.S. security threat and believes Iran will use billions in released funds to attack America and its allies. He has called the recent Iran prisoner swap deal propaganda for both Iran and the Obama administration. If president, he has said he would designate Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terror group. Russia: In early 2015, Cruz called for arming Ukraine against Russia. To counter Putin, he would increase sanctions and expand laws that blacklist Russian rights violators. He has also called for opening up U.S. liquified natural gas exports to reduce Baltic states' reliance on Russian gas. And he has called for reinstating anti-ballistic missile batteries in Eastern Europe. China/Asia: He supported the TPP initially, but later backtracked, saying the TPP would undermine both U.S. immigration laws and U.S. sovereignty. He has outlined a tax plan to encourage U.S. companies back to America. He has blasted China on human rights and states that in trying to expand its territory, China aims to kick America out of the Pacific. Gov. John R. Kasich (Ohio) Mark my words, we will all be on the ground [in Syria] sooner or later. Sooner is better than later.- Council on Foreign Relations, Dec. 9, 2015. IS/Mideast: Kasich supports creating safe havens and no-fly zones in Syria. He would send U.S. troops to Syria, expand support to the Kurds in Syria and Iraq and beef up international intelligence sharing. He has said he would organize NATO and regional alliesJordan, Egypt and the Gulf States to defeat IS on the ground, rebuild the military and overhaul defense procurement, strengthen cyber defenses and international intelligence sharing. He has called for using U.S. international media including VOA and RFE/RL - to counter extremist messages. And he would create a new federal agency to spread the Judeo-Christian message around the world. Iran: Kasich opposed the Iran nuclear deal. If elected, he would review the deal, but avoid a knee-jerk decision on revoking it. He also says he wouldnt hesitate to reimpose sanctions if Iran violates one crossed t or dotted i. Russia: Kasich advocates working with EU allies to bolster new NATO states against Russian aggression, supplying them with arms and training. He would also repositioning U.S. forces and strengthen air defense systems along eastern allies borders with Russia. He has stressed that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all. China: Has said he would send an aircraft-carrier task force in the South China Sea and expand troop presence the Western Pacific. Kasich supports the TPP as a means of firming up regional alliances that could stand up to China. He recently called on China to stop manipulating the stock market. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (Florida) If youre a political adversary of Vladimir Putin, you wind up with plutonium in your drink or shot in the street. Charleston, South Carolina, Aug. 28, 2015 IS/Mideast: Rubio has called for sending U.S. troops (fewer than 50,000) to assist Sunni Arabs and local players against IS. His plan to defeat the extremists would expand airstrikes, set up safe zones in Syria and support rebels in ousting Assad. He also calls for arming Sunni fighters and Kurds directly. On the political front, he would counter IS propaganda by broadcasting U.S. victories; encourage a more inclusive government in Iraq and autonomy for Sunni tribes, and work to counter Irans influence in Iraq. He would also expand the Patriot Act. As for the Mideast peace process, Rubio has stated that under current conditions, a two-state solution to the Middle East crisis is not possible. In November 2015, He spoke out firmly against the EU decision to label goods produced in territories that Israel occupies. Iran: Rubio says if elected, he would cancel the nuclear deal, and he has pledged to use military force if Iran pursues its nuclear activities, and work with Congress to impose tougher sanctions on Iran for its support of terror. Russia: Rubio would seek tougher sanctions against Putin and his cronies for the Russian aggression against Ukraine and would work to reverse Russias annexation of Crimea by arming and training Kyiv, increasing sanctions and disengaging from diplomacy with Moscow on any but the Ukrainian issue. He would add to heavy weapons and vehicle stockpiles in Central and Eastern Europe, maintain a permanent troops presence in the region, lift restrictions on U.S. energy exports and update NATO defense strategies. China/Asia: In a June letter to the White House, Rubio cited concerns over Chinas provocative actions to assert military and territorial dominance, which he said threaten U.S. and allies political and economic interests. He urges additional, regular and sustained U.S. military deployments to allies in the region. He also slammed China for its human rights record and breaches of cybersecurity, and calls for sanctions and/or criminal charges against implicated individuals. He also opposes Chinas proposed NGO law. Separately, he has said he would return North Korea to a list of state sponsors of terror, sanction North Korean officials overseas assets and invest in a "comprehensive missile defense system across the U.S. Businessman Donald Trump Never, ever, ever in my life have I seen any transaction so incompetently negotiated as our deal with Iran. And I mean never. anti-nuclear deal rally in Washington, D.C., Sept. 11, 2015 IS/Mideast: Trump considers IS Americas number one threat and advocates striking hard against it and the oil fields and refineries that fund it, then positioning U.S. troops around the sites until oil companies to come in and rebuild. In December, he suggested to FOX News that to defeat terrorists, it may be necessary to target their families. He told CNN in December the U.S. should allow Syria and Russia fight IS (Theyre in Syria already), and he wouldnt work to oust Assad, who he says looks better than the other side. He would not only block Syrian refugees from entering the U.S., but would build a big, beautiful safe zone in Syria to house them. He also advocates creating a database to track Syrian refugees and has said he wouldnt rule out a database of U.S. Muslims and surveillance of U.S. mosques. And he has pledged that if elected, America will have such a strong military that nobody is going to mess with us. He has also questions why the U.S. supports Saudi Arabia against Iran when the Gulf kingdom is wealthy enough to pay for its own security. On the peace process, Trump says hes confident he could negotiate a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians within six months. He did not offer details, so as not to show his cards. He supports moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem but has made no comment affirming Jerusalem as Israels undivided capital. He has previously questioned both Palestinians and Israels commitment to peace. Iran: Trump has called the nuclear deal a tremendous liability but says now that it is in place, hell work to enforce it and has promised that there will be hell to pay if Iran is found in violation. He said the recent prisoner swap was a bad deal for the U.S., but suggested he had a role in getting U.S. prisoners released. Russia: Trump advocates maintaining relations with Russia. He has repeatedly praised Putin as a leader he could deal with, and he has defended Putin against British assertions that Putin sanctioned the poisoning of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko. He has also repeatedly asked why the U.S. spends money defending countries who could either defend themselves or who could be defended by other players. In 2000, he wrote that the money spent maintaining NATO troops in Europe could be better spent elsewhere. China/Asia: Trump has criticized the U.S. as being way too eager to please China in light of harmful trade practices. He would designate China as a currency manipulator. He would work to fight Chinas intellectual property theft and practice of forcing U.S. companies to share U.S. technology with Chinese competitors. He would end Chinas export subsidies and its lax labor and environmental laws that he says enable cheap labor and ultimately take jobs from U.S. workers. Trump opposes the TPP as a horrible deal that allows China to take advantage of everyone without actually being a part of the deal. For years, Trump has also questioned why the U.S. spends money to defend Japan and South Korea, who can afford to defend themselves. And he has suggested they should pay America for the service. Neil Belmore and his son Matt are on a road trip from Toronto to Palo Alto, California - 4300 kilometers - driving without stopping for gas. They're powering up their all-electric Tesla Model S at charging stations along the way. Not too long ago, electric car owners couldn't plan a road trip like that. The lack of charging stations outside of major cities kept them fairly close to home. That, and the high price tag of electric cars, meant these alternative vehicles were only a tiny slice of the auto market. Dawn of the electric age? But at least one of those obstacles is being overcome. It's getting easier to find charging stations all across the country, and around the world. Many Internet maps can now display the expanding network. There are several stations in the parking lot of a luxury Colorado shopping center. The parking lot attendant calls the sleek oval electric charging stands a bargain. We give you one hour free to charge your Tesla, he explained. In Kansas, after driving down a country road surrounded by sunflowers and growing crops, Tesla drivers can power up for free at a Holiday Inn. That's where the Belmores have stopped to plug in their shiny black Tesla. Neil says he and his son are sharing the driving. Hes a very fast Tesla driver, I have to say. He makes me nervous. Matt laughed. After just 30 minutes, the Belmore's battery-powered Tesla rolls silently back onto the nearby interstate highway, with enough power to go another 240 kilometers plenty to reach the next Supercharger. Forward-thinking families pull in to Golden Real Estate in Colorado, to take advantage of the free charge-ups Jim Smith offers to any electric car. Also in Smiths parking lot are shiny solar panels, so he gets plenty of clean power from the sun. We want to save the planet from global warming and from wasteful use of energy," he explained. "And we also want to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. Nearly 200 Nissan dealers in the U.S. offer a free, fast charger called a CHAdeMO for Leaf owners. Boulder Nissans Nigel Zeid says many campgrounds and homeowners also offer charging stations that drivers can find on the Internet through Plugshare. Once you sign into Plugshare, you can see all the peoples homes, and you can contact them, and they leave little messages like if you want to charge and Im not there, this is the code to the garage," he said. "Or heres my cell phone number or text me. Planning for the future These developments do not surprise Hunter Lovins, a world-renowned promoter of sustainable development. She not only owns an all-electric Leaf, she charges its batteries through an array of solar panels right in her own backyard. The easy thing about this Leaf is I simply plug it into the wall," she said proudly. "Today, on a nice sunny day, the sun is charging my Leaf. When the sun goes down, theres a battery bank over there, and that charges the Leaf. While solar panels, charging stations and electric cars are currently expensive, Lovins says their costs are dropping so fast, they might someday outnumber not only gas-powered cars, but hybrid vehicles that can run on both gas and electricity. She points to the telecommunications industry as a model. Just as people in remote areas are leapfrogging straight to cell phones from no phone, theyll go from no car to electrics rather than an intermediate step through hybrids, she said. As for filling stations, Lovins says that if they continue to focus on fossil fuels, they might become dinosaurs. Driving by one of her former, favorite gas stations, Lovins shakes her head. I used to be a regular customer over there at Boulder Gas, and I would stop in and say hi to the guys behind the counter, and buy something to eat and fill up my car. Havent been in there since I bought the Leaf, she said. Lovins suspects that gas stations will soon feature electric charging stations next to traditional fuel pumps. And some day soon, she hopes charging stations might be as common as gas stations. The United States needs to change its approach to North Korea to effectively deal with Pyongyangs growing nuclear threat, a former U.S. envoy said. Earlier this month, Pyongyang conducted its fourth nuclear test in what it claimed was a successful test of a hydrogen bomb. While the United States and its allies questioned whether North Korea tested such a weapon, many experts appear to agree Pyongyang is continuing efforts to enhance its nuclear capability. Kathleen Stephens, former U.S. ambassador to South Korea during the first Obama administration, told VOA Monday that Washington should enhance efforts to counter the North Korean threat, while maintaining a strong alliance with regional allies. Enhanced effort needed I dont think this is the situation where the status quo is something that is acceptable, Stephens said when asked if the Obama administrations containment policy of strategic patience should be continued. We do see with this fourth test a need for redoubled effort, she added. The former diplomat, however, acknowledged Pyongyangs apparent unwillingness to abandon nuclear development, saying Pyongyang often blocked diplomatic efforts toward denuclearization. We were certainly hoping we would be able to continue the works that have been done through the six-party talks to implement the 2005 Joint Statement of Principles, said the envoy, referring to Pyongyangs second nuclear test in May 2009. With the latest test, the denuclearization effort has become more difficult, according to the ambassador. Extent of sanctions unclear On Wednesday, Washington and Beijing agreed on the need for new U.N. sanctions, but appeared to disagree on the extent of the action against Pyongyang. I think that what was important today is I heard from the foreign minister a commitment clearly to passing a resolution and make it strong, and adhere to the last resolution, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Beijing after meeting with Chinas Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Its important that we pass a new U.N. Security Council resolution on this issue for consultation. At the same time, sanctions are not an end in themselves, said Wang. North Korea has been at odds with the international community over its nuclear development since the early 1990s. The multi-state talks involving the United States, China, Russia, Japan and two Koreas have remained stalled since December 2008. Seventy-one years ago, Soviet troops entered the notorious Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi extermination camp near Krakow, Poland, liberating the remaining 7,000 prisoners, most of them sick and dying Jews. Days earlier, as the Red Army approached, the Nazis evacuated 60,000 other inmates, forcing them on a death march. Dozens of elderly Holocaust survivors lit candles at Auschwitz on Wednesday the U.N.-designated International Remembrance Day to commemorate the dead and to pay homage to their own suffering and the ordeals their families endured. Wednesday's remembrance comes against a backdrop of growing anti-Semitic threats, attacks and murders in Europe. Approximately 1 million of the more than 6 million Jews who died in massacres and a network of death camps across Central Europe died at the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex poisoned in gas chambers or killed by starvation, crushingly brutal labor and torture, or disease. Ivan Martynushkin, a Red Army officer who turned 21 when his unit liberated the death camp, said last year: "We saw emaciated people very thin, tired, with blackened skin. You could see happiness in their eyes. They understood that their liberation had come, that they were free." Shadow looms This year's anniversary a year since Jewish shoppers were gunned down in Paris by an adherent of the Islamic State terror group coincides with a shadow cast over a new generation of Jews, driving record numbers to leave the continent for Israel or America. We must be honest enough to admit that more than 70 years after the Shoah, anti-Semitism is still alive in our 'civilized' European Union," said Federica Mogherini, the European Union's top foreign affairs official. In an interview with VOA, Poland's chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, a native New Yorker and a dual U.S.-Polish citizen, echoed the warning. Asked whether Jews still have a future in Europe, he said: "This is a very tense time for Jews in Europe. And it is not as simple a question to answer as it might have been five years ago. But at the end of the day, I can't imagine that all the Jews are going to leave Europe and so, therefore, there has to be a future." Record French exodus France, which has the largest Jewish population of any European country, has seen a sharp rise in anti-Semitism. A recent report by Human Rights First suggested that more than half of all reported hate crimes last year in France were anti-Semitic, despite the fact that Jews make up only 1 percent of the French population. The consequence has been a dramatic exodus, with a record 8,000 French Jews leaving for Israel in 2015, according to Israel's Immigration Ministry. On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Europeans of not doing enough to combat anti-Semitism. He said anti-Semitism is not merely growing among new immigrant communities on the continent, but is gaining traction across Europe. Success in fight elusive Schudrich, who was attacked in 2006 in central Warsaw by a 33-year-old man with ties to Nazi organizations, doesn't entirely agree with the Israeli prime minister on the efforts of European governments. "European leaders have not been effective in their attempts to fight anti-Semitism," he said. "European leaders, Jewish leaders, we really have not found the effective method yet. But what is equally important is that many European leaders still really want to try." Schudrich welcomed remarks by German Chancellor Angela Merkel this week, when she stressed the importance of dealing with anti-Semitic attitudes among some migrants arriving from countries where "hatred toward Israel and Jews is commonplace." She cited the fears of German Jewish leaders and argued that the need to teach the history of anti-Semitism in Europe has grown more urgent with the influx of a record 1.1 million asylum seekers to Germany last year, many from the Middle East. "With many migrants, though, it is not only important to impart the lessons of the Holocaust, but the concepts of democracy, of multiculturalism and pluralism," Schudrich said. "These are not concepts they have encountered in their life experiences it is not a criticism of them; it is a reality. And if they are going to succeed in Europe, then something is going to have to change. Learning about the Holocaust is one element in a much larger picture." U.S. officials have arrested five people in connection with a daring California prison break in which three maximum-security inmates escaped and remain at large. More arrests are expected. Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens said she believes the inmates had assistance from the outside and that the investigation is focusing on a local Vietnamese gang. "They had to have had help," Hutchens said late Wednesday. The three inmates rappelled off a roof using knotted bed sheets when they fled the Orange County Men's Central Jail in Santa Ana on January 22. The suspects "have some connection to the individuals who have escaped," Hutchens said. Police say one of the fugitives, 20-year-old Jonathan Tieu, who was serving a murder sentence, was a member of a Vietnamese gang. The other men who fled were identified as Hossein Nayeri, 37, who was serving time for kidnapping and torture and 43-year-old Bac Duong, convicted of attempted murder. Police believe the men are dangerous, likely armed and possibly being hidden by Vietnamese accomplices. Nayeri was probably the mastermind of the escape, Hutchens said, adding the inmate's sophistication, military past and history of fleeing from law enforcement have investigators focusing on his role. A former U.S. Marine with special operations training and a history of mental illness, Nayeri was born in Iran but brought up by siblings in Fresno, California, The Orange County Register reported. More than 250 law enforcement officials from local, state and federal agencies are engaged in the search, the paper said. The governor of the northern U.S. state of Michigan says that about 200 children have been identified as having elevated lead levels in their blood from drinking the tap water in the city of Flint and that the number could grow. "There could be many more and we're assuming that," two-term Republican Governor Rick Snyder told CNN Wednesday. He called it a "huge mistake" that the city's water was not treated for possible lead contamination with a $100-a-day chemical fix as it began drawing water from the Flint River in 2014. The financially troubled city of 100,000 residents, many of them poor and the majority of them black, was under state management control at the time. The city's state overseers decided to switch the Flint water supply from Lake Huron, via the Detroit public system, to save $5 million over a two-year period. After 19 months, the officials switched back to the Detroit supply in October as complaints mounted about Flint's odd, brownish water and tests confirmed its toxicity. "There was a failure of government in terms of people not using common sense enough to prevent this from happening and identifying it soon enough... and the people that did work for me, so I am responsible," said Snyder, who once headed the Gateway computer company and later was a venture capitalist before winning the Michigan governorship. Street protesters angry about the Flint situation have called for Snyder's resignation, but he has refused, saying he is determined to correct the problem. He appointed a team of experts to determine what needs to be done to fix the corroded water supply pipes and treat people with the high lead levels in their blood. He declined to commit to a costly replacement of the city's water pipes, but held out hope for a short-term fix, chemically re-coating the insides of the pipes and then having independent testers verify that the water flowing through the pipes is safe. Asked whether anyone should drink the Flint water at the moment, Snyder said, "No, we don't want them to." Federal and state officials, along with charities and individual donors, have provided water filters and truckloads of bottled water to residents in recent days as the scope of the crisis become apparent. Lead exposure is dangerous for all people, but it can have devastating effects on children, irreversibly harming their brain development, lowering their intelligence, stunting growth and leading to aggressive and anti-social behavior. The long-awaited trial of former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo got underway Thursday at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Gbagbo, 70, and his close ally and former militia leader, Charles Ble Goude, are charged with crimes against humanity including murder, rape, and persecution stemming from Ivory Coasts post-election war in 2010. Gbagbo is the first former head of state to be tried at the ICC. Some 3,000 people were killed during the four month long conflict. Stephen Cockburn, Amnesty Internationals deputy regional director for West and Central Africa, said the trial marks a milestone in the search for justice for the thousands of victims of the crimes allegedly committed during crisis. 'Historic event' The opening of the trial of Laurent Gbagbo is a historic event for international justice. This is the first time that a former head of state will be tried in front of the court. Its of course also a very grim day for the victims of the conflict in Cote dIvoire, Cockburn said, referring to Ivory Coast by its French name. Cockburn said the ICC should hold all those who committed crimes accountable, including President Alassane Ouattaras supporters. He said it is also important for the trial to be conducted successfully, particularly for justice and reconciliation purposes in Ivory Coast. While Gbagbo and his former minister of youth Charles Ble Goud earned being tried, its important that national and international courts look at the suspected perpetrators of violence and other crimes committed during the martial law of the President Ouattara side to make sure that justice is even-handed, Cockburn said. Both the prosecutor and Gbagbos lawyers have promised that the trial will reveal the actual truth of what really happened in Ivory Coast. "The purpose of the trial is to uncover the truth through a purely legal process," said ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. "Our case is based on the law... and on the strength of the evidence our investigators have gathered," she insisted, adding the ICC was proceeding with the case "in all fairness and all impartiality." Critical of court However, some Africans see the ICC as targeting Africans and argue the continent should have its own court, similar to the special court set up in Dakar, Senegal, by the African Union to try former Chadian leader Hissene Habre for atrocities committed during his rule in the 1980s. The African Union has called for cases against sitting leaders in the court to be deferred until the politicians leave office. In the case against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, the African Union passed a resolution in 2009 telling its member states to refuse to cooperate in the arrest and transfer of al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court. The African Union in 2014 also expressed disappointment that its request to the United Nations Security Council to defer the trials of Kenya's president, Uhuru Kenyatta, and his deputy, William Ruto, had not yielded the "positive result expected". ICC prosecutor Bensouda in 2013 called for a delay in the Kenyan president's trial, saying there was no longer sufficient evidence to charge him with crimes against humanity. Both Kenyatta and Ruto are accused of crimes against humanity for allegedly orchestrating violence after Kenyas disputed 2007 presidential election. Former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo went on trial Thursday at the International Criminal Court, facing charges of crimes against humanity. Gbagbo is the first former head of state to be tried at the ICC, and human rights groups say his trial is a milestone in the search for justice for victims of war crimes. Some Africans, however, see the ICC as a tool of the West and argue the continent should have its own court. In Abidjan, the trial is all over the news. "The Beginning of the End," reads the headline on a pro-government newspaper. "The Chances of Gbagbo and Ble Goude," reads the headline on a different paper that favors the former head of state and his top aide. In some neighborhoods, Gbagbo supporters have organized live broadcasts of the trial. "I came to watch the trial of my president, said Basile Konan Dessi, adding "I hope he will be released, because there is no evidence against him." The charges The 70-year-old Gbagbo and Ble Goude are charged with four counts of crimes against humanity, allegedly committed in 2010 and 2011 when Gbagbo supporters clashed with supporters of politician Alassane Ouattara over the results of the presidential elections. About 3,000 people were killed. Eventually, Gbagbo was arrested and Ouattara became president. Ouattara was reelected last year. The trial has rekindled criticism that the court is biased. Since its inception in 2002, the court in The Hague has prosecuted cases from eight countries, all of them African. Some argue Gbagbo should be tried on the African continent, as in the case of former Chadian leader Hissene Habre, who is being tried by a special court in Senegal. Boubacar Kone, acting spokesperson of a branch of Gbagbos party, the FPI, says the trial is unfair because pro-Ouattara individuals accused of crimes during the post-election violence are not being brought to justice. "Here is a conflict in which only one camp is being prosecuted," he said. Topic of conversation Samassi, who owns a cafe in a popular Abidjan neighborhood, says the trial is the main topic among his customers these days. He says he hopes the trial will shed light on atrocities committed during the crisis. "I would like that justice be done on this matter," he said. "On Laurent Gbagbo, on the killings and the crimes committed, to call the attention of all Ivorian and also all African heads of state, because no crime must remain unpunished." Drinking his morning coffee, Kakohi John Guie says his only hope is that the trial is peaceful. "I think justice will decide and then the situation in Ivory Coast will be stable again," he said. The trial is expected to last three to four years. You can chalk it up as another victory for the machines. In what they called a milestone achievement for artificial intelligence, scientists said Wednesday they have created a computer program that beat a professional human player at the complex board game called Go, which originated in ancient China. The feat recalled IBM supercomputer Deep Blue's 1997 match victory over chess world champion Garry Kasparov. But Go, a strategy board game most popular in places like China, South Korea and Japan, is vastly more complicated than chess. "Go is considered to be the pinnacle of game AI research," said artificial intelligence researcher Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind, the British company that developed the AlphaGo program. "It's been the grand challenge, or holy grail if you like, of AI since Deep Blue beat Kasparov at chess." DeepMind was acquired in 2014 by Google. AlphaGo swept a five-game match against three-time European Go champion and Chinese professional Fan Hui. Until now, the best computer Go programs had played only at the level of human amateurs. In Go, also called Igo, Weiqi and Baduk, two players place black and white pieces on a square grid, aiming to take more territory than their adversary. "It's a very beautiful game with extremely simple rules that lead to profound complexity. In fact, Go is probably the most complex game ever devised by humans," said Hassabis, a former child chess prodigy. Future applications Scientists have made artificial intelligence strides in recent years, making computers think and learn more like people do. Hassabis acknowledged some people might worry about the increasing capabilities of artificial intelligence after the Go accomplishment, but added, "We're still talking about a game here." While AlphaGo learns in a more human-like way, it still needs many more games of practice, millions rather than thousands, than a human expert needs to get good at Go, Hassabis said. The scientists foresee future applications for such AI programs including: improving smartphone assistants (Apple's Siri is an example); medical diagnostics; and eventually collaborating with human scientists in research. Hassabis said South Korea's Lee Sedol, the world's top Go player, has agreed to play AlphaGo in a five-game match in Seoul in March. Lee said in a statement, "I heard Google DeepMind's AI is surprisingly strong and getting stronger, but I am confident that I can win, at least this time." The findings were published in the journal Nature. Myanmar President Thein Sein struck a conciliatory tone Thursday in what is likely his last address to a military-dominated parliament before Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party takes control of the legislature on Monday. Thein Sein, who will stay in office until a new president takes power in March, hailed the "triumph" of Myanmar's transition of power and urged political parties to work together for the good of the country also known as Burma. He also said he would help longtime pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi's government succeed. "Even though there were difficulties and challenges, we were able to bring a democratic transformation eventually," Thein Sein said. "This is a triumph for all Myanmar's people." During his speech to lawmakers, whose five-year terms expire Friday, the president outlined many of the sweeping political and economic reforms his government has accomplished in the past five years. Reforms Thein Sein, who came to power in 2011, has released political prisoners, scrapped censorship, legalized trade unions and protests, sought peace with ethnic minority insurgents, and pushed through legislation on everything from land reform to foreign investment. However, his greatest achievement might be his administration's ability to organize and conduct credible elections in November that were praised by international observers, as well as his work on the transfer of power to Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD). In 1990, the NLD was elected in a landslide, but those results were ignored by a junta that tightened its grip on power for two more decades. Thein Sein on Thursday said he had not supported reforms in order to hold on to power. "During the last five years, we have built a better foundation for the next government, who won the 2015 election. I did not do this with the expectation of being a second-term president," said Thein Sein, under whose leadership the impoverished nation of 51.5 million people has transformed from a pariah state into one of the world's fastest-growing economies. "As the winning party needs to work for the national interest, the minority parties also need to cooperate and, sometimes, criticize if necessary for the country," said the 70-year-old president, whose term expires at the end of March. "Our government will help the new government." Parliament However, Myanmar's army retains major clout a quarter of parliamentary seats. Meanwhile, the new NLD-dominated parliament, which convenes on Monday, will pick its speakers and other key positions in the chamber before electing a president over the next few weeks. Aung San Suu Kyi is barred from the presidency. The junta-drafted constitution prevents people with foreign spouses or children from holding that office. She has two sons with British citizenship. For her part, wildly popular Aung San Suu Kyi has said she will not press for an immediate change to the constitution, and will appoint a ceremonial head of state, a senior official in her party said earlier this month. The pro-democracy activist also said she will include in the new cabinet at least one member of the military-linked Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which was trounced in the November election, as well as members from ethnic minorities who have complained of being sidelined from power. National League for Democracy executive Win Thein told reporters Thursday that it will nominate a member of the Burman ethnic majority for lower house speaker and an ethnic Kachin for his deputy. It will propose a Karen for speaker of the upper house, and an Arakanese for his deputy. The proposed deputies come from other parties. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has signed trade deals with France worth billions of dollars following the lifting of international sanctions imposed over its nuclear program. "We are ready to turn the page for a new relationship between our two countries," he told a group of French business leaders in Paris after his arrival Thursday in the French capital. "We are announcing today that we are ready for this and on this trip we bring this message toward all investors, economic bodies, that they are welcome in Iran." WATCH: Iranian president speaks on bilateral relations with Paris Business deals Later Thursday, Rouhani met with French President Francois Hollande at the Elysee Palace. Some 20 agreements were signed in the presence of the two leaders, including in the areas of health, agriculture and the environment. Iran Air has agreed to update its aging fleet by purchasing 118 passenger planes from European aircraft maker Airbus, in a deal worth an estimated $25 billion. French sources said the sale, which includes both medium- and long-haul planes, will be finalized once international sanctions against Iran are fully lifted. Another deal will pave the way for a joint venture between French car manufacturer Peugeot Citroen and the Iranian firm Khodro. Peugeot, which pulled out of Iran in 2012, will modernize a Khodro factory near Tehran. Its expected to produce 200,000 vehicles a year starting in 2017. Also, the French oil firm Total announced a deal to buy oil from Iran, the first such agreement with a Western oil company following the lifting of sanctions. After the meeting with Rouhani, Hollande lauded the new chapter in relations, saying "this relationship can be useful, useful to our two countries, useful to the region, which is marked by war, by crises and therefore by tragedies, and useful to the world." He said he reminded the Iranian leader that France was "committed to human rights." Rouhani, for his part, told reporters that Iran and France should share intelligence to fight against "fanaticism, terrorism and extremism." Protests greet Iranian president Rouhani's arrival in Paris on Thursday was met by protests, notably over executions in Iran. In one demonstration, a woman dangled from a Paris bridge in a mock hanging, with an Iranian flag painted on her chest. His visit to France is the first by an Iranian president since 1999 and comes as part of a five-day trip. It included a stop in Rome, where he signed an estimated $18 billion in deals for steel and pipelines. A man from Kosovo made his first appearance in U.S. federal court Wednesday on charges of hacking computers and giving information about more than 1,000 U.S. military members to Islamic State. Ardit Ferizi faces up to 35 years in prison if convicted. Police in Malaysia arrested Ferizi on a U.S. warrant in October and extradited him to the United States Federal prosecutors allege Ferizi used the alias "Th3Dir3ctorY" and ran an Internet hacking group called the Kosova Hacker's Security. They say he broke into the computer system of a U.S.-based company and stole personal information on 1,351 U.S. military members and federal employees, and passed that information to the terrorists. In August, an Islamic State member named Junaid Hussain sent out a Twitter message that contained a link to a longer document. That document said, "We are in your emails and computer systems, watching and recording your every move. We have your names and addresses. ... We are extracting confidential data and passing on your personal information to the soldiers of the khilafah [the political system that implements Islamic policies], who soon with the permissions of Allah will strike at your necks in your own lands." The rest of the document listed the names, email addresses and telephone numbers of the U.S. personnel. It is not clear whether any Americans were harmed as a direct result of the stolen information. Four years after the army staged a coup in Malis capital and jihadists banned music in areas they occupied, the country is beginning to reclaim its role as a regional hub for culture. Last year, Bamako saw the return of Les Rencontres de Bamako, a biannual photo festival that was canceled after the 2012 crisis. More cultural events dot the horizon, including this week's four-day acoustic music festival in the capital. Toumani Diabate is one of Mali's most acclaimed musicians, winning two Grammys for his work on the kora, a guitar-like instrument. He said the return of the festival means a lot to Malians. "It's not politics or politicians that move Mali and Africa forward, he said, it's the culture and especially the music. For a country like Mali that lives off and through its music and artists, it has a huge impact." The festival in Bamako takes place amid continued security concerns following the attack on the Radisson hotel in November 2015 and the attack on a hotel in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, on Jan. 15. But artists can help Mali heal from its wounds, Diabate said. "Mali is known in the world for its music," he said. "Artists like Ali Farka Toure, Salif Keita, Rokia Traore, Habib Kouyate, Vieux Farka, and Bassekou (Kouyate) and Ballake [Sissoko have] put Mali on the map. This is however maybe only five, 10 percent of the musical talent in this country. We, the artists, can help Mali. It's not only the politicians. We, too, have an important role to play, but we lack the means." The war and conflict has made life difficult for artists and music promoters. Most foreign artists and music producers are steering clear of Mali, making it harder for up-and-comers to make connections and launch themselves on the international circuit. Terror, and luck One exception is the band Songhoy Blues. Three of the band's members are from towns in northern Mali. The conflict there drove them to Bamako, where the group formed at the height of the crisis in 2012. Garba Toure, the band's guitarist, says that "without the crisis, there might not have been a Songhoy Blues at all." "If the conflict in 2012 hadn't happened, maybe I wouldn't have been here in Bamako where I meet Aliou and Oumar with whom I formed the band, he said. The conflict was a time of terror and suffering but for us, for the band, it proved to be a strike of luck." When British artist Damon Albarn took his transborder music project Africa Express to Bamako in 2013, he got word of a talented quartet that played the capital's bars and night clubs. The band auditioned for Albarn and was selected for the album Africa Express, bringing together Western and Malian artists. Last year, the Songhoy Blues released its well-received debut album Music in Exile, chronicling the conflict while offering a message of peace and reconciliation. The band plays the festival with Albarn on Friday night. Dazzled by an unprecedented wave of migration, Sweden on Thursday put into words an uncomfortable reality for Europe: If the continent isn't going to welcome more than 1 million people a year, it will have to deport large numbers of them to countries plagued by social unrest and abject poverty. Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said Sweden could send back 60,000 to 80,000 asylum seekers in the coming years. Even in a country with a long history of immigration, that would be a scale of expulsions unseen before. The first step is to ensure voluntary returns,'' Ygeman told Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri. But if we don't succeed, we need to have returns by coercion.'' The coercive part is where it gets uncomfortable. Packing unwilling migrants, even entire families, onto chartered airplanes bound for the Balkans, the Middle East or Africa evokes images that clash with Europe's humanitarian ideals. But the sharp rise of people seeking asylum in Europe last year almost certainly will also lead to much higher numbers of rejections and deportations. European Union officials have urged member countries to quickly send back those who don't qualify for asylum so that Europe's welcome can be focused on those who do, such as people fleeing the war in Syria. People who do not have a right to stay in the European Union need to be returned home,'' said Natasha Bertaud, a spokeswoman for the EU's executive Commission. This is a matter of credibility that we do return these people, because you don't want to give the impression of course that Europe is an open door,'' she said. EU numbers EU statistics show most of those rejected come from the Balkans including Albania and Kosovo, some of Europe's poorest countries. Many applicants running away from poverty in West Africa, Pakistan and Bangladesh also are turned away. Even people from unstable countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia can't count on getting asylum unless they can prove they, personally, face grave risks at home. Frans Timmermans, the Commission's vice president, told Dutch TV station NOS this week that the majority of people seeking asylum in Europe are not refugees. More than half, 60 percent, should have to return much more quickly. If we start with doing that, it would already make a huge difference,'' he said. Sending them back is easier said than done. In 2014, EU nations returned less than 40 percent of the people who were ordered to be deported. Sometimes those seeking asylum go into hiding after receiving a negative decision. Sometimes their native country doesn't want them back. EU countries, including Sweden and Germany, have had some success sending people back to the Balkans on chartered flights. Of the 37,000 who returned from Germany on their own accord last year, all but about 5,000 were from the Balkans. It's been more difficult with Iraq and Afghanistan,'' said Mikael Ribbenvik, director of operations at the Swedish Migration Agency. The returns have worked during some periods, and not so well during others.'' Proper paperwork One of the biggest obstacles to sending people back is to obtain travel documents from their home countries. People routinely lose or even destroy their travel papers coming to Europe, creating confusion about where they are from. Most countries in the world don't accept someone if it cannot be proved that it's one of their citizens,'' Ribbenvik said. Sweden has urged the EU and its Frontex border agency to help establish return agreements with the countries of origin. Frontex's budget for deporting people was significantly increased this year, allowing it to coordinate more flights and help countries prepare their own. Under U.N. rules, countries are supposed to offer protection to refugees fleeing war and persecution. But some European countries also offer protection to people deemed at risk of torture or the death penalty or who are suffering from an exceptionally serious disease. Even for those who get a negative decision within months, it can take years before all appeals are exhausted and they are ordered to leave. People will hide Jawad Aref Hashemi, a 43-year-old Afghan who lived in Iran before traveling to Denmark to seek asylum, suggested he won't accept no for an answer. If people are sent home, they will protest. How will they send us home? In big cars? We are not animals,'' he said. Abdi Xuseen, a 28-year-old Somali who also sought asylum in Denmark, said people will hide'' or go on hunger strikes if they are forced to leave Europe. Statistics from the Swedish Migration Agency show 127,000 people have been ordered to leave the country since 2010. About 60,000 did so voluntarily, while 26,000 were deported with coercion and 40,000 absconded. Authorities have little information on the latter group. Some are believed to have left the country, while others remain in Sweden illegally, at risk of being exploited in a black market economy. There has to be noticeable consequences for companies that use illegal labor,'' Ygeman told Dagens Industri. If there's a decent illegal labor market, the incentive to stay in Sweden will be strong.'' More than 160,000 people applied for asylum in Sweden last year, the highest number in Europe relative to population size. Ygeman's estimate that 60,000 to 80,000 of them will have to leave was based on the current rejection rate of about 45 percent. Meanwhile, the stream of migrants making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe continues. Greece's coast guard said 25 people died, including 10 children, when a migrant boat sank Thursday off Samos, an island near the Turkish coast. Romanian rescuers dropped off 119 African migrants in Italy after recusing them from an inflatable dingy. The migrants were dehydrated and showed signs of hypothermia, the Romanian border police said. A new species of chameleon has been found in the Udzungwa Mountains and Southern Highlands areas of Tanzania. The brown and green specimen is scattered with blue spots, researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society say, describing the new species in the journal Acta Herpetologica. The scientific name of the new reptile is Kinyongia msuyae, which honors Tanzanian biologist Charles A. Msuya who spent much of his life describing the reptiles and amphibians of the country. Researchers say the discovery provides more information on the Makambako Gap, what some think is a zoological barrier between the Southern Highlands and Eastern Arc Mountains. The WCS has maintained the barrier doesnt exist, arguing there are closer biological affinities between the two regions. Tanzania has seen many new discoveries recently, the researchers said noting a new kind of primate called Kipunji, and a new type of snake called Matildas horned viper found in 2003 and 2012 respectively. "Along with our discoveries of the Kipunji, Matilda's horned viper and other reptiles and frogs, this new chameleon really seals the deal as regards the boundary of the Eastern Arcs," said Tim Davenport, Director of WCS's Tanzania Program and co-discoverer of the new chameleon. "It is very clear now that the so-called Makambako Gap doesn't exist zoologically and that the Southern Highlands is every bit as biodiverse and endemic-rich as all other Eastern Arc Mountains. With its own unique fauna and flora the region thus warrants as much protection as we can possibly afford it." The wife of a Chinese editor who recently went missing was summoned by Chinese officials for questioning Tuesday, just minutes before she was scheduled to discuss her husband's case live on international television. He Fangmei said Friday that she last spoke to her husband, Li Xin, former opinion editor for the liberal-leaning Southern Metropolis Daily, on January 11 when he was riding a train in Thailand. According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, Li told international media last November that he fled China after being forced to work for years as an informant for the State Security Department on the activities of intellectuals, nongovernmental organizations and rights activists. His wife said Li was planning to seek asylum in Thailand, where, she feared, the journalist was abducted by Chinese security forces. According toThe New York Times, "acceleration of deportations to China from Thailand began" in 2015 as Bangkok officials sought economic and political support from Beijing. Latest incident Li's supporters say he is just the latest defiant Chinese citizen to be clandestinely transported across the border. On Tuesday, Ms. He told VOA's Mandarin service that her husband had left her with a cellphone containing the contact numbers of two security agents who often gave her husband orders, but they never answered her phone calls or responded to messages. They may have feared that I would reveal their names and phone numbers and other information concerning their identity, Ms. He said just after agreeing to discuss Lis disappearance live on VOA Mandarin service television. Less than an hour before her scheduled air time, she was summoned to a local police station. According to Spanish news service EFE, Ms. He's personal cellphone was confiscated during the detention. After being released by Chinese officials, He contacted VOA by email to apologize for her inability to be available for the televised interview. Thai probe urged Ms. He had said earlier that Thai police refused to discuss her husband's disappearance and asked her to contact the Chinese Embassy in Thailand. Thailand and China are kicking the ball back and forth, she told VOAs Mandarin service. I had hoped that Thai police will tell me what had happened. But they refused to help, saying I should ask the Chinese Embassy for help. The United States has called on Thai authorities to look into Li's case and that of other missing Chinese nationals. We urge Thai authorities to investigate this disappearance and provide any information they may have of Mr. Li's whereabouts to his family, a U.S. State Department official who asked not to be named told VOA on Tuesday, echoing officials who have expressed concern about reports that Chinese journalists are under pressure from authorities. "We will not be silent when human rights are violated," Daniel Russel, assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, said last week. The Chinese government insists it protects the rights of Chinese citizens and respects media freedom. A U.S. Senate panel unanimously approved tougher sanctions against North Korea, targeting its nuclear program, cyber activities and human rights record. Thursdays voice vote by the Foreign Relations Committee came several weeks after Pyongyang claimed it tested a hydrogen nuclear bomb, and sets the stage for full Senate passage of the bill. Its going to become law, predicted the committees chairman, Republican Senator Bob Corker. The bills lead author, Republican Cory Gardner, said it builds on legislation passed by the House of Representatives earlier this month. "Both the House and the Senate bill focus on mandatory sanctions, which is a dramatic change from the sanctions regime we have in place today, Gardner said. But it also goes a step further in cyber security policies, codifying executive orders and making sure we are focusing on human rights. Our bill also goes into sanctions on minerals that can be used to fund proliferation activities. Lawmakers of both parties acknowledge the United States has little, if any, leverage over North Korea, and that no assumptions can be made that Pyongyang will respond to pressure in a predictable or rational manner. As a result, the sanctions bill targets entities upon which North Korea relies for its nuclear program and other activities. Its challenging, admitted Democratic Senator Robert Menendez. But those who are suppliers to North Korea they are rational actors because for them its about economics. Humanitarian aid unaffected Menendez co-authored the bill, which also seeks to ensure that sanctions do not disrupt international aid to North Korea. American and international organizations that are trying to help the people of North Korea will continue to be able to do so, Menendez said. Senator Corker said he remains unsure whether the nuclear test announced January 6 was, in fact, a hydrogen bomb, but noted that both houses of Congress had been mulling tougher sanctions long before North Koreas most recent detonation. There are things that occur that heighten (concern) and cause people to be more acutely focused, Corker said. We just happened to be in a position where we could move in a very timely way because of the work that had been done. Senator Gardner said he hopes for a repeat of the impact sanctions had on Iran. Our sanctions against Iran are what brought them to the negotiating table in the first place, Gardner said. Now I wasn't happy with the ultimate outcome that Iran ended up with, but the fact is tough sanctions, mandatory sanctions will bring them to the table, and we're looking for a peaceful solution to the Korean peninsula. I believe that we have to move away from a policy that has failed, of strategic patience, and make sure that we are putting in mandatory sanctions that will actually do the job to focus on the forgotten maniac [North Koreas Kim Jong Un]," he added. Peru's electoral committee said on Wednesday it might bar a leading presidential candidate from the race if a university in Spain verifies plagiarism allegations against him. Cesar Acuna, a wealthy former governor and businessman who is tied for second place in recent polls, has denied claims that he copied the work of others without attribution in his 2009 doctoral thesis on education. The Complutense University of Madrid opened an inquiry after Twitter users accused Acuna of plagiarism based on several pages of the thesis. "If they withdraw or invalidate his diploma or title, obviously that would mean falsehood... he would be removed if it's falsehood," said Francisco Tavara, the president of Peru's National Jury of Elections. Acuna, who once boasted at a book fair that he never reads, owns three private universities in Peru and has made improving education a central campaign pledge. In December he told Reuters he believed he was gaining in polls because Peruvians want an honest, hard-working leader. Eliminating Acuna from the presidential race could boost the chances of front-running candidate Keiko Fujimori, who competes with him for key votes from the poor. It could also benefit other lesser-known candidates, hoping to garner enough support to face Fujimori in a runoff. "I deny the accusations and the attempt to use this matter to invalidate my candidacy," Acuna told a news conference where he declined to take questions. "All authors consulted for my work are included as bibliographic references." Peruvians will head to polls on April 10 for the first presidential election since a decade-long mining boom ended. Acuna and other candidates have vowed to bolster weak economic growth and crack down on crime that has risen under President Ollanta Humala. Fujimori, the conservative daughter of jailed ex-president Alberto Fujimori, has been drawing about a third of voter support in recent polls but needs at least 50 percent of ballots to avoid a second-round contest in June. Acuna had 13 percent support in an Ipsos survey this month, matching investor favorite Pedro Pablo Kuczynski who has slipped in recent polls. Popular in part because of his rags-to-riches story, Acuna has shaken off previous setbacks ranging from domestic violence allegations, which he denies, to criticism for putting his children and brother on his party's list of congressional candidates. While the country awaits a decision from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on a possible 2016 bid for the White House, he continues to spread a message on global warming. On Wednesday, Bloomberg addressed a crowd of investors, policymakers and business representatives at the U.N.-hosted Investor Summit on Climate Risk with a simple request to the public: Keep pushing for change. "The public is upset with all of those who say, 'There's nothing going on,' and then there's a flood where there wasn't water before, he said. And then there's a drought where there used to be lots of water, and the ski resort that they want to go to doesn't have any snow." He said the private sector and cities across the United States have made significant progress, while other institutions have failed. "Fundamentally it's fair to say the American federal government has done nothing, state governments have done a little, but cities along with the private sector have closed 200 out of the 500 coal-fired power plants in America," Bloomberg said. The three-term mayor and billionaire philanthropist, who was appointed the U.N. secretary-general's Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change in 2014, has long established himself as a champion for climate change policy. Internationally, he praised the Chinese government, which he said doesn't receive enough credit for its recent initiatives on climate change, including a ban on smoking and the closure of four power plants in Beijing. Clean Trillion challenge Last month, an international climate conference in Paris produced an agreement to limit global warming to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. In an emotional address at Wednesday's summit in New York, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, said that by 2030, the chapter on high carbon fossil fuels must be closed. "There is a huge impact if we put money into the wrong fuels, into the wrong energy systems, she said. We're going to be dealing with those greenhouse gas emissions to the point where we will not be able to stay well below 2 degrees." The summit's organizer, Ceres a nonprofit sustainability advocacy organization hopes to accomplish what it has coined the "Clean Trillion" challenge: a renewable energy investment goal of $44 trillion, or $1 trillion per year, among the world's leading businesses and investors. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said clean energy investment stood at $330 billion in 2015, more than six times higher than it was in 2004. He called the progress "a good down payment," but called for more. "Markets now have a clear signal they need to unleash the full force of human ingenuity and scale up investment that can generate low emissions with resilient growth, he said. The world now counts on [the investor community] to act at the speed and skill needed to transform the global economy." Motivating to action The summit's keynote speaker, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, fired up the crowd of investors with a simple question: Must we change? "Hell, yes, we have to change!" he exclaimed. The answer to his second question Can we change? was no different. Gore argued that the cost of renewable energy and energy efficiency will sharply decline in coming years, providing nations with a practical ability to do more. The investment community, he said, has an important role in leading that effort. A month after it was agreed in Morocco, a U.N.-backed plan for a united Libyan government is struggling to take off. Efforts to push the hard-fought compromise through show the enduring regional rivalries and power struggles that have bedevilled Libya since the 2011 overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi. While foreign pressure builds to tackle a threat from Islamic State militants, Libya's internationally recognized parliament, based in the east, has rejected a main article in the U.N. accord as well as a proposed list of ministers. It is not yet clear whether a rival parliament in Tripoli will participate and its chief said Thursday that separate negotiations without U.N. involvement were the "only solution." A new government would need to move to Tripoli in order to exercise power effectively, but armed groups hold sway there and brigades of former anti-Gadhafi fighters still settle feuds in the streets with anti-aircraft cannon. The conflict between the armed groups who loosely back both political sides has left room for Islamic State to take control over Sirte, Gadhafi's home city, and parts of the coast. This month they attacked Libya's biggest oil terminals and made the most deadly single raid since Gadhafi's fall. "This government has to fill the vacuum," U.N. envoy Martin Kobler said. "If the politicians are discussing problems day and night and they do not act on the ground, those like Daesh [Islamic State] will use the political vacuum to expand their power." Bumpy road Any progress was expected to be bumpy. Hardliners in both camps rejected the agreement at the outset. Divisions emerged last week in the Presidential Council, whose nine members were drawn from different regions to steer through the U.N. plan. One contention has been the proposed government's bloated size and the question of how Libya's fractured political landscape can be represented in a future cabinet. Prime Minister-designate Fayez Seraj said the expanded list of 32 ministers was the result of the "sharp political polarization and armed conflict." Critics said it pandered to the wishes of militias and factions that have sought to consolidate their power over the past five years. One council member who refused to support the proposed government, Omar al-Aswad, said he had argued for a "crisis government" of just 10 members chosen on ability, but had been overruled in a late-night backroom deal. "The country is burning and citizens are desperate," he told Reuters. "Some think that we should build a modern civilian state based on justice and equality. In contrast, others think in terms of private interests, based on regionalism." Under the U.N. plan the eastern parliament, the House of Representatives, will be the main legislature. It will work with a second chamber, the State Council, formed from the reinstated General National Congress (GNC) in Tripoli. When it convened this week the House demanded a government proposal with fewer ministers, although it backed the U.N. plan in principle. Its objection to a clause that would transfer power over senior security appointments to the new government would also need to be resolved. The chances of this happening turn on the future role of General Khalifa Haftar, a former Gadhafi ally who leads the armed forces allied to the eastern government but is deeply unpopular in the west. If political wrangling drags on, pressure may mount from Western powers anxious about Islamic State to back a unity government regardless. But that would create a risk that the Presidential Council and its government become "a group of people who've been picked and imposed by the international community," said Wolfram Lacher of the German Institute for International Security Affairs. Securing Tripoli The U.N.-backed plan says the unity government should move to Tripoli from Tunis, where the council is currently based. But securing the Libyan capital is no small task. In the past, militias have stormed government buildings, attacked parliament and even briefly kidnapped a prime minister. Though some forces have said they support the U.N.-backed plan, GNC head Nouri Abusahmain renewed his criticism of it Thursday, and there are plenty of armed factions that could act as spoilers. Several recent incidents have highlighted the risks. When the Presidential Council paid a fleeting visit to the city of Zliten after a car bombing earlier this month, it ran into a group of protesters who fired over their convoy. When it named a committee to take charge of security, the prime minister of the Tripoli government said this violated military law and ordered an investigation into its members. Late Tuesday one faction, the Tripoli Revolutionary Brigade, paraded round the city in more than 100 police vehicles before announcing that a government "imposed by the international community would be considered an invasion." "If the government enters Tripoli, it will have only one possibility: throwing itself in the arms of militias or armed groups," said Aswad, the council member. "The same scenario that happened previously with former governments will repeat itself." A deadly attack at a Pakistan university last week that killed 21 people was preceded by serious security lapses from an administration that ignored concerns raised by its own staff and local police, according to sources both in and outside the university. Seven buildings around the Bacha Khan University campus have security posts on their roofs, but most were not staffed during the January 20 morning attack. One security official on the campus, in this northwestern city, said guards sometimes leave their rooftop posts and move downstairs during cold weather. However, a fact-finding committee formed by the in Khyber Pakhtunkwa provincial government learned that some guards were not on duty during the attack, according to an official privy to the committee's investigation. The vice chancellor of the university, Fazal Rahim Marwat, denied that any security guards were missing and said most of them were at work in a different campus location when the attack began. The vice chancellor also said the conservative local culture in Charsadda made rooftop security assignments difficult to fill. "If a guard stands [on the rooftop], the neighbors complain that their privacy is violated," Marwat said. Serious negligence An unprotected spot at the rear of the campus, considered vulnerable to intruders, was where militants entered after cutting barbed wire and scaling a wall. The guard assigned to the nearest post had not yet arrived at work; he was shot and wounded by the attackers in the university's parking lot. The university's director of crisis management, Ikram Ullah, said that lapse amounted to "serious negligence ... on the university's part." "Once they're inside the hostel [student housing] and they've caught you unprepared, then what can you do? Nothing," he said. While no one knew of a direct threat to Bacha Khan University, several employees spoke about requests to beef up security. Provost Farhad Ali said he had asked twice in early January for heightened security to protect students' living quarters, "but I did not receive any answer." "The Crisis Management Cell made recommendations which are on the record. The university has still not carried out the recommendations," said Arsala Khan, a former administrative officer and a member of the cell. The recommendations, made last March, included making sure the weapons carried by guards were functional. Several employees, who did not want to be named for fear of losing their jobs, expressed concerns about the quality of weapons and the number of bullets each guard carried. Security recommendations Other recommendations included having around-the-clock monitoring of cameras and hiring female security guards to search female students or visitors. Until the attack, cameras installed on campus were monitored only during business hours. However, at the time the campus was stormed by gunmen just after 9 a.m. January 20 the cameras were on and being monitored, and someone did push the alarm button. A female guard has yet to be hired as part of the university's security contingent. Former security chief Muhammad Khushhal Khan, who served in this post until a few weeks before the attack, also wrote several letters to the administration expressing his concerns and requesting additional resources. He did not have much success. In one letter to local police sent in late December 2015, he requested additional manpower in and around the university, calling the areas surrounding the campus "unsafe" and acknowledging that their own guards were "not well trained" to deal with a serious attack. Several security officials questioned whether it was possible to find a well-trained person to work for just $3 a day, the approximate daily wage for most university security guards. In addition to concerns expressed by university staff, local police said they advised the university to tighten security on multiple occasions. They said they sent at least three written notices over the past 15 months, chiding the university for not complying with its security obligations. The university administration blamed a lack of resources for these failures, but some employees wonder if a more serious approach toward security could have saved lives. A U.S. Senate investigation has found that federal authorities failed to protect undocumented children who entered the United States without an accompanying adult. In a prepared statement before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Thursday, Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) said that the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) process for releasing unaccompanied children to sponsors, who in some cases exploited them, suffers from serious, systemic defects. HHS Acting Assistant Secretary Mark Greenberg told the hearing that the agency has instituted new procedures aimed at preventing abuse of minors once they are released by the government. Portman and Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) initiated the probe, prompted by a case in Portman's home state of Ohio in which at least six children from Guatemala were forced to work long hours on egg farms in Marion County. Six people have been charged in the case. Other cases of abuse of children after their release from government custody to guardians are under investigation by the subcommittee, Portman said. "It is intolerable that human trafficking - modern-day slavery - could occur in our own backyard," Portman said. "But what makes the Marion cases even more alarming is that a U.S. government agency was responsible for delivering some of the victims into the hands of their abusers." Over the past two years HHS has placed about 90,000 migrant children, most of them for Central America, with adult sponsors in the United States, Portman's statement said. President Barack Obama's administration has been criticized for its immigration policy some say encouraged a surge, which rose significantly in 2015. Critics said it caused a major logistical problem for American officials who struggled with the influx. Portman said that everyone can agree that the administration has a responsibility to ensure the safety of the migrant kids that have entered government custody until their immigration court date. Multiple suicide bombings have killed 15 civilians and a soldier in the Nigerian town of Chibok, where Boko Haram extremists kidnapped scores of schoolgirls almost two years ago, local leaders said Thursday. Many of those wounded in the attack Wednesday suffered severe burns and are "battling for their lives," Dr. Idrissa Danladi told The Associated Press by telephone. Ten people were evacuated for better medical care but the town's small hospital still is overwhelmed, he said. "People are trying to help with donations, but there's a shortage of blood," he said. Residents blamed Boko Haram, the Islamic extremist group that kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls in April 2014. Dozens of the girls escaped but 219 still remain missing. The militants have turned to suicide bombings since troops last year forced them out of towns and villages. The 16 victims were buried Wednesday, said Pogu Bitrus, head of the Chibok Development Association. He said six male and female suicide bombers entered the northeast Nigerian town on Wednesday, when people gather for the weekly vegetable market. The first blast came when a man blew himself up at a military checkpoint. A soldier was injured and later died, Bitrus said. That explosion raised the suspicions of the military commander, who rushed to the market to warn people to disperse. As he arrived, however, a woman about to be searched blew herself up, Bitrus said. Several people died and the commander was wounded. Other explosions followed swiftly, of veiled women who had already slipped into the market. Boko Haram's increasing use of child and adult suicide bombers has raised fears the group is using captives as weapons. A military bomb expert has told the AP that some explosives on suicide bombers have been remotely detonated, indicating that the carriers might not be willing. On Thursday, two female suicide bombers targeted a government school in Cameroon's northern town of Kerawa, killing only themselves but wounding some students, said regional governor Midjiyawa Bakari. No further details were immediately available, although Boko Haram militants have carried out such attacks in Cameroon's north. Political leaders in Somalia have agreed on a framework for holding elections this year, a move the international community hopes will stabilize the long-troubled country. The framework, announced Thursday after two days of heated talks in Mogadishu, calls for creation of an upper house of parliament, with 54 seats allocated among Somalia's states. The 275 seats in the existing lower house of parliament will be divvied up using the 4.5 formula, a power-sharing system among the country's four major clans and their smaller counterparts. Thirty percent of all seats will be reserved for women. Lower house members will be elected by clan elders, while upper house representatives will be chosen by "caucuses of the regional assemblies" in the states. When formed, parliament will choose a president to succeed incumbent Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, in office since the government was created in 2012. No dates for the elections were announced. The current government's mandate runs out in September. In a statement, Somalia's international partners, including the United Nations, the United States, and European Union and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), welcomed the framework and commended Somali leaders for reaching a compromise. Two previous meetings to settle on an election model ended in failure. The statement stressed that continued political progress is "indispensable" to ensuring that Somalia has a stable, secure future. The country is attempting to recover from a quarter-century of lawlessness and war, and a continuing insurgency by Islamist militant group al-Shabab. In an interview with VOA last July, President Mohamud said that "one person, one vote" elections would not be possible in Somalia under current circumstances. The president insisted his government has made progress on the political, security and economic fronts, and said he will seek re-election. Abdulaziz Osman and Mohamed Olad from VOA's Somali Service contributed to this report For years, overfishing in the territorially contested South China Sea has depleted local fish stocks. But since 2012, the controversial construction of artificial islands has ecologically devastated the disputed water way. Recently released satellite images show man-made scarring on at least 28 reefs. The impact of the dredging and land reclamation projects are compounding the pre-existing impacts of fishing, said Dr. Terry Hughes, a James Cook University professor of Marine biology, adding that the Asian countries building artificial islands there are having a substantial environmental impact. Between 2012 and 2015, Chinese fishermen have used large, extended propellers affixed to utility boats to chop the reefs and prepare for the construction of artificial islands. Fishermen scour the ocean floor for giant clam shells, which are prized as jewelry and luxury items that sell for up to $150,000. According to Dr. John McManus, a University of Miami marine biologist, while building on the reefs is not new, Chinas large-scale construction of a military base and runways is resulting in unprecedented environmental damage. Suddenly we have this massive situation where large areas of coral reef are being buried," he said. "In the end it was almost 13 square kilometers 13 million square meters that was destroyed, just in terms of being buried under these islands, and this was a huge, huge shock. Chinas Foreign Ministry has said the artificial islands are to be used for civilian purposes, search and rescue missions, as well as defense. In an interview with Australian media, Wu Shicun, president of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, said China has been building in the sea according to a green construction ethos, with strict ecological protection measures guiding the construction. But Samantha Lee of the World Wildlife Fund says any construction in the waterway risks damaging the reefs and the already depleted fish stocks that rely on them to survive. If the sediment concentration of the water is too high, it will block off the sunlight and which will cause adverse impact to the growth of the coral," said Lee, a marine conservation advocate. "And again, if the sediment content is too high, it will block the gills of the fish. McManus has long argued for the establishment of a peace park in the sea and the brokering of a joint resources management agreement which would include a code of conduct and a freeze on territorial claims. He says this would protect the vital ecosystems. Recently, Vietnam and Taiwan began smaller-scale construction work on islands in the contested waterway. Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir has ordered his country's border with South Sudan opened for the first time since the south broke away to become an independent country in 2011. Sudan's state-run news agency said Wednesday that the president "ordered the relevant authorities to take all measures required to implement this decision on the ground." The move was a major step toward improving relations between the neighboring countries that have been at each other's throats since the South Sudanese seceded. The south took much of Sudan's oil reserves but agreed to pay the north a fee to transmit the oil through its pipelines. Bashir has agreed to consider cutting those fees. Both sides have also battled over unresolved border disputes, including control of another large oil field. Civil war broke out in the south in 2013, sending hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing into Sudan. The south accused Sudan of backing anti-government rebels while Sudan alleges the south supports separate rebellions in the Darfur, and the Blue Nile and South Kordofan regions. The Netherlands, which holds the European Union presidency, is working on a plan for a core group of member states to accept migrants and refugees from Turkey, if migrants who already arrived are sent back to Greece, a Dutch politician said Thursday. Diederik Samsom, the leader of the Socialist PvdA party, a key partner in the government of Prime Minister Mark Rutte, told De Volkskrant newspaper that current EU plans were not working because many member states refuse to take in refugees. He said the Dutch plan would require a core group of nations to accept about 250,000 refugees coming from Turkey in exchange for sending back to Greece hundreds of thousands of migrants who have already arrived. Samsom said that returns could happen quickly once Turkey gains full status as 'safe country' for migrants and refugees. If the core group of EU nations voluntarily accepts the refugees, the 28-nation EU as a whole would have to bear the financial burden, Samsom said. More refugees drown Meanwhile, the bodies of at least 18 migrants who drowned when their boat capsized were recovered Thursday off the coast of the Greek island of Samos. Authorities say 10 people were rescued. Most of the fatalities were children. The bodies of seven migrants - two of them children - were recovered Wednesday after their boat capsized off the island of Kos. More than one million people from war-torn nations flooded into Europe last year, making it the continent's worst migration crisis since World War II. Many of those arrived in Greece after making a dangerous voyage from Turkey across the Aegean Sea. Several prosperous countries in northern Europe have taken measures to discourage the migration of people who are fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Deportation plans As recently as Thursday, Sweden said it is preparing to deport about 80,000 asylum seekers, about half of the 163,000 people who entered the country in record waves last year. Interior Minister Anders Ygeman told a Swedish newspaper that the refugees will be expelled because the applications for asylum were being rejected. The rejected applicants will be able to leave voluntarily, or could be forcibly sent back home. Sweden was a top destination for refugees because of its long-standing open borders policy. Earlier this week, Denmark's parliament passed the so-called "jewelry bill" aimed at deterring people from seeking asylum there, in a move that sparked condemnation by rights groups. The new law allows authorities to seize asylum-seekers' property valued at more than $1,450 to help defray the costs of their upkeep. Switzerland has started taking valuables worth more than $985, while the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg secures valuables above $380. Other areas in southern Europe have been reported to follow a similar practice. The Syrian opposition says it will not be at peace talks scheduled to begin in Geneva on Friday. The main opposition delegation, a Saudi-backed group known as the High Negotiations Committee, said Thursday that responses it had received to its demands for an end to airstrikes and the lifting of a siege in Syria were not acceptable. The committee has been meeting in Riyadh this week, and members said they would remain there through Friday, missing the start of the proximity talks in Switzerland. Representatives, however, did not rule out participating later in the talks, which are expected to last for months. The announcement reflected the difficulties in setting the stage for negotiations to end a conflict that will soon enter its sixth year. That conflict has killed a quarter-million people and has displaced nearly 4.6 million others. Staffan de Mistura, the U.N. special envoy for Syria, said in a video message Thursday that the talks could not be allowed to fail. This conference must be an opportunity not to be missed," he said. U.N. organizers said the meetings set to start Friday would not be peace negotiations, but proximity talks meant to lay the groundwork for negotiations. Syrian government representatives decided to attend after discussions with de Mistura earlier this month in Damascus. Despite continuing attacks by both the Russian-backed Syrian government and a fractured opposition that includes al-Qaida and Islamic State terrorists, the U.N. envoy sees the talks as an important first step. My job is to be always optimistic, he said after his recent meetings with officials of President Bashar al-Assad's government. De Mistura sent out invitations to the talks Tuesday. U.N. officials indicated the list would not be made public until the talks had begun. The talks will get under way against a backdrop of ongoing violence. Syrian forces loyal to Assad have intensified their bombing campaigns, as have Russian warplanes. At the same time, Islamic State militants have not ceased their attacks. The group claimed responsibility for two bombs Tuesday that killed 22 people in Homs, an opposition stronghold. Once talks start in Geneva, the plan is to keep all parties in separate rooms, with no face-to-face meetings. David Butter, a Middle East politics expert at Chatham House in London, said the talks might serve as a needed sign that the world community is doing something to try to stop a seemingly endless and profoundly destabilizing conflict. This is a realistic appraisal of international consensus that we need to have some sort of political process going on perhaps a recognition of the parties, certainly the opposition parties, that theyre starting to get exhausted with the conflict itself, and it has been so damaging on every level, humanitarian and otherwise, Butter said. Pressure to enter into negotiations is largely external, with the United States, the European Union, Russia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia all pushing for a solution. In the West, that urgency has been fueled by terrorist attacks in Paris and the United States, and by the migrant crisis. The number of migrants flowing mainly from Syria and Iraq to Western Europe is expected to reach 4 million by the end of next year. Officials say nearly 40,000 have entered Western Europe in the three weeks since the start of 2016. The Syrian talks had been set to begin January 25 but were delayed to Friday by discussions about who should represent the opposition. The president of Taiwan, a staunch but overlooked claimant in Asias biggest maritime territorial dispute, flew to a contested island Thursday to send a signal that has reached as far as Washington. President Ma Ying-jeou boarded a military aircraft before 9 a.m. for Itu Aba, a tropical atoll in the South China Sea also known as Taiping Island. He visited about 200 people stationed there as coast guard personnel, medical workers and scientific researchers before returning to Taipei by evening. Ma called for peaceful development of Itu Aba, citing infrastructure developments including a 10-bed hospital and a lighthouse. "All this evidence fully demonstrates that Taiping Island is able to sustain human habitation and an economic life of its own. Taiping Island is categorically not a rock, but an island," he said, adding it will be transformed into an island for peace and rescue operations, as well as an ecologically friendly and low-carbon island. In other words, we have these services related to peace and humanitarian work, Ma said at a news conference in Taipei upon his return from the island. We can develop those on the island and extend them to fishermen or people from nearby places. President Ma emphasizes that Taiping Island is an inherent territory of the Republic of China, his spokesman Charles Chen said Wednesday, using the constitutional name for Taiwan. Ma's visit to the islet 1,600 kilometers away from Taiwan follows an unusually stern statement this week from the foreign ministry calling the sea's four major tropical island archipelagos parts of the Republic of China under international laws. The Republic of China is Taiwan's legal name. The statement says Taiwan has stood by Itu Aba and other islets for 60 years. Regional dispute The president's visit may help spotlight Taiwan's position. Despite its claim to nearly the whole 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea, Taiwan normally struggles to get attention for lack of diplomatic relations in Asia. China, the most powerful claimant in the maritime dispute, says Taiwan itself belongs to Beijing and forbids other countries from forming diplomatic ties. Taiwan has built Itu Aba, an atoll covering half a square kilometer in the Spratly archipelago, into a coast guard outpost with solar energy projects and medical staff to help storm-battered ships. Those developments on the ocean's largest natural islet are parts of Taiwan's effort to gain international attention. In a statement Thursday, the president called for peaceful use of Itu Aba. Analysts say other claimants around the South China Sea are more likely to protest Ma's visit than endorse development on the islet. Five other governments claim all or part of the sea that stretches from Taiwan southwest to Singapore. Ma's trip to the waters comes as China landfills other islets and the Philippines protests the basis for China's claims to a United Nations tribunal. Taiwan uses a nearly identical basis. US reaction On Wednesday the U.S. State Department called the Taiwan leader's trip unhelpful to easing disputes in the South China Sea. Frankly, were disappointed," State deputy spokesperson Mark Toner said. "We view such an action as unhelpful and does not contribute to the peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea. We urge Taiwan and all claimants to lower tensions and deescalate tensions rather than taking actions that could possibly raise them. Vietnam, another claimant that has landfilled some of the ocean's 500 islets, normally protests when Taiwan tries to shore up its claims. China may also sound off despite efforts under Ma's eight-year tenure to improve relations. Ma must step down in May due to term limits and hand power to the opposition party's president-elect, Tsai Ing-wen. The opposition party has chafed with China in the past and Tsai said last year that if elected she would pursue dialogue with all governments with stakes in the South China Sea. Beijing would protest that move to block those countries from strengthening ties with Taiwan. But China is unlikely to take action now at the risk of offending the United States, said Shane Lee, a political scientist at Chang Jung Christian University in Taiwan. Washington wants all claimants to work harder on getting along. [China] will be irritated at least, probably make some noise and so on, Lee said. I don't think they will take any actions, because the Americans are there, too. "On the one hand, Taiwan ... [doesn't] want to give up the claims of China," said Jerome A. Cohen, a China legal scholar and professor at New York University, speaking at a discussion hosted by the Asia Society on Wednesday. On the other hand, he added, Taiwan lacks the formal diplomatic ties within the UN system to challenge competing claims such as the lawsuit the Philippines lodged against China at The Hague. Cohen instead urged Taiwan to aim to become the "Switzerland of Asia," opening Taiping to all international entities for conferences, negotiations, research and dialogue, and thereby asserting a new conciliatory in the disputed maritime region. Competing claims Brunei and Malaysia also claim parts of the sea. Competing claims have sparked occasional clashes between vessels since the 1970s. In 2014, Chinese and Vietnamese boats jousted after Beijing allowed an oil rig to be stationed off Vietnam's coast. The South China Sea is rich in fisheries as well as possible reserves of oil and natural gas below the seabed. Half the world's shipping traffic by tonnage also passes through the sea. The islets, many submerged in high tides, have no indigenous population. Political experts in Taiwan say President Ma considers the Itu Aba visit a key personal milestone. He has been criticized at home for forming ties too fast with Beijing and being too soft on foreign policy. The opposition's president-elect was invited on the trip but declined without giving a reason. Turkey's Security Council announced Thursday that the PYD Syrian Kurdish group and its YPG militia have no future in Syria. Ankara has warned it could intervene militarily. Observers say Turkey has become alarmed about increasing Russian and U.S. support for the group and militia in their fight against Islamic State. Ankara accuses the PYD/YPG of being offshoots of the Kurdish rebel group PKK, which Turkish forces are currently battling both domestically and by air in Iraq. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan this month promised to eradicate the PKK from the region. The threats should be taken seriously, said political columnist Semih Idiz of Turkey's Cumhuriyet newspaper. "Prime Minister [Ahmet] Davutoglu himself has said that if Turkey sees it necessary, it will take the same precautions against the YPG in Syria that it's taking against the PKK in Iraq," Idiz said. "So, in a way, Turkey has left the door open to conducting operations against the YPG." Observers say Turkeys political leadership is probably feeling emboldened by its success in excluding the PYD from Syrian peace talks scheduled for Friday in Geneva. Syrian Kurdish gains But Sinan Ulgen, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Institute in Brussels, said Ankaras hardening stance is also a reaction to recent military gains by the Syrian Kurdish forces, complicated by Turkey's downing of a Russian plane it said had crossed into its airspace. "There is certainly a degree of unease in Ankara over these attempts by PYD to cross westwards," Ulgen said. "But after the downing of the Russian plane, Turkey has limited ability to project power in Syria for fear of provoking a military confrontation with Russia." After the downing in November, Russia deployed a sophisticated anti-aircraft missile system in Syria. Moscow is also reportedly seeking to court Syrian Kurdish forces, which are already being supported by U.S. air power in their battle against the Islamic State. Despite Ankaras threats and its exclusion from the Geneva talks, the PYD remains in a strong position, columnist Idiz said. "The military situation on the ground is going to determine the final outcome," he said. "And the YPG and the PYD are allied with America, and the war on the ground continues. And if the West reduces its backing to the Syrian Kurds, then Russia is going to step in." YPG moving west? There were signs Thursday that YPG leaders were on the brink of defying Ankara and crossing one of Turkey's red lines when it comes to the Syrian Kurds a westward move from Kurdish positions in northeastern Syria. YPG commanders confirmed to VOA a local Kurdish news report that they had drawn up battle plans to launch a ground offensive west of the Euphrates River to attack the Islamic State-held towns of Jarablus and Manbij, as well as Azaz, which is held by insurgent factions opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Turkish officials have warned frequently that an en masse trespass west of the Euphrates by Kurdish fighters would invite Turkish retaliation. In December, the YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) seized the October Dam on the Euphrates River, giving them access to the Aleppo countryside. Some SDF fighters crossed west of the river. For face-saving purposes, the Turks accepted that the SDF fighters who actually crossed were Arabs and Turkmen and not Kurds, prompting some observers to speculate that the Turkish authorities were now prepared to tolerate an inevitable westward advance by YPG fighters to push IS militants out of Jarablus and Manbij, a feat Western and Gulf-backed anti-Assad rebel groups have been unable to do. YPG commanders say that the goal of the offensive would be to cut IS fighters off from the border with Turkey, severing a logistical route Islamic militants use to ferry in foreign recruits and supplies. IS controls around 100 kilometers of the border between Jarablus and Azaz. Not just Turkey Syrian Kurdish forces accuse Turkey of having already made sporadic attacks against them along the border. If YPG forces continue to make military gains, while Turkish forces step up their battle against the PKK across Turkeys predominantly Kurdish southeast, observers warn that the dangers of the internal conflict spreading farther into Syria are likely to grow. And a YPG ground attack would risk more than Turkish retaliation. Anti-Assad rebel groups also would most likely react violently in defense of territory they consider inherently Arab, not Kurdish. In mid-January, Islamic factions favored by Gulf countries clashed with SDF forces around the village of Malkiya in Aleppos northern countryside, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in London that relies on information from a network of political activists. On Monday, YPG forces started a bombardment of Jarablus with artillery shelling and mortar fire. We bombed several military vehicles for IS, a Sharia court and a security center for the terror group. At least 21 terrorists were killed, said YPG spokesman Nuraddin Gaban. He added: Jarablus is one of our main targets. The U.N. Childrens Fund is appealing for humanitarian aid for North Korea, amid heightened tensions over Pyongyangs latest nuclear test. The U.N. agency is calling for $18 million for this years effort to provide assistance for about 6.9 million people, including 1.7 million children, in North Korea. UNICEFs plan calls for the agency to put $8.5 million in aid for nutrition, $4.5 million for health, and $5 million for clean water and sanitation. The plan includes a project to provide treatment to about 25,000 children under age 5 affected by severe acute malnutrition. There has been a 72 percent increase in diarrhea among the children because of a severe drought in the North, according to a new report released by the agency Tuesday. Humanitarian needs Last year, North Korea was hit with what it said was the worst drought in 100 years, severely damaging the countrys agricultural sector. The report said that in August, the government announced a more than 20 percent reduction in crop production compared with the previous year. UNICEF is running nearly 150 community-based sites to treat acute malnutrition. These lifesaving interventions must be continued in 2016 to complement the already weakened national capacity of health, nutrition and water, sanitation and hygiene services, the report said. The appeal from UNICEF comes as North Korea is facing international sanctions over its nuclear test earlier this month. The sanctions are aimed at curbing Pyongyangs nuclear and missile development. But some aid groups are voicing concerns that the sanctions could hurt legitimate humanitarian work in the country. Trouble for NGOs Recently, the U.S. House passed legislation that would put financial pressure on North Korea and the Senate is also considering a bill that seeks to expand sanctions on Pyongyang. Keith Luse, executive director of the National Committee on North Korea, a nongovernmental organization that promotes U.S.-North Korea relations, said the House bill contains provisions that would make it increasingly problematic for U.S. NGOs to operate inside North Korea. Christian Friends of Korea, a U.S.-based Christian aid group, is making an urgent appeal to its donors to stress the need for continued humanitarian work in North Korea. In a statement released this week, the group called for efforts to ensure that the final bill will adequately protect the full scope of privately funded humanitarian work for needy North Koreans. An impasse that led Haiti to suspend elections indefinitely could undermine efforts to reduce poverty and shore up democracy unless a solution is found soon, according to the chief of the U.N. stabilization mission in Haiti. Sandra Honore, the top United Nations envoy to Haiti, told The Associated Press that it's important for the suspended electoral cycle to be resolved as quickly as possible "given the tense moments that the country is living right now.'' For 12 years, the world body has kept a mission in Haiti designed to focus on security and stability. "I would hope that reason will prevail and that the best possible solution will be arrived at to prevent the country from regressing,'' she told AP in a Tuesday interview at the headquarters of the U.N. mission. A presidential and legislative runoff was called off less than 48 hours before the Jan. 24 vote was set to begin amid a surge of violent protests and deep suspicion that a first round was rigged in favor of the ruling party's presidential candidate. Outgoing President Michel Martelly is scheduled to step down Feb. 7, threatening to leave a political vacuum. For days, Haiti's political leaders and others with influence have been working to find a solution to the crisis. Martelly has asked the Organization of American States to send a mission to help Haitians reach agreement, and he has also asked several sectors to pick members for a new Provisional Electoral Council, which oversees the country's election process. The protests that flared in the capital last week have died down, though some pro-government demonstrations have taken place outside the capital. Honore called on political actors to publicly repudiate violence in Haiti, the hemisphere's poorest country and one of the most unequal in the world. "In order to attract investment, in order to be able to create more jobs, which the country desperately needs, these acts of violence and acts of intimidation only serve to deter'' investment in Haiti, she said. The U.N. mission, largely made up of a foreign force of troops and police, has been in Haiti since the chaos following a 2004 rebellion that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power. The mission is deeply unpopular with many Haitians. Scientific papers have suggested there is ample evidence to show that U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal inadvertently brought cholera to Haiti after human waste was dumped in the country's biggest river, some 10 months after a January 2010 earthquake devastated much of Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas. Lieutenant General John "Mick" Nicholson, the current head of NATO's Allied Land Command, has been chosen as the new commander of international forces in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said Wednesday amid concerns about setbacks in the fight against the Taliban. Nicholson, whose selection must be confirmed by the Senate, would replace General John Campbell, who has commanded U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan for 18 months and is expected to retire. Nicholson is a veteran of multiple deployments in Afghanistan. He commanded the 82nd Airborne Division and a company in the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook told reporters. "He understands the importance and complexity of our mission in Afghanistan," Cook said, having served previously as chief of staff of operations for the International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces Afghanistan. The transition comes amid growing concern about the security situation in Afghanistan, where Taliban militants have caused large numbers of casualties among Afghan troops and Islamic State affiliates have made some inroads. The Taliban seized the northern city of Kunduz last year before being driven out by Afghan troops supported by coalition special forces. They also seized districts in Helmand province and threatened the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. Brigadier General Wilson Shoffner, a spokesman for the international mission in Afghanistan, said last week that Afghan security forces had "mixed results" in their first year of carrying out the fight against the Taliban on their own. "Whenever they conducted deliberate, planned operations, they actually did fairly well," he said. "Where they had trouble and they didn't do so well was in response to crisis situations." The security situation prompted President Barack Obama to announce in October that the United States would maintain a force of about 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through most of 2016 instead of drawing down to an embassy-based presence by 2017. The U.S. Army general picked to lead U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan warns the security situation there is deteriorating despite a valiant effort by Afghan forces. Lieutenant-General John "Mick" Nicholson told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that terror groups like Islamic State and al-Qaida continue to see Afghanistan as an attractive sanctuary. He warned the U.S. may need to take a more aggressive approach. "We still see attempts by terrorist organizations to get into Afghanistan," Nicholson said. "Do we have the right level of CT [counterterrorism] capability to deal with that?" Of particular concern to U.S. military and intelligence officials is the spread of the Islamic State group, which has sought to establish a sanctuary in Nangarhar province, and a resurgent al-Qaida in Kandahar province. The Taliban have also re-emerged as a threat, briefly seizing the northern city of Kunduz last year while also taking key districts in Helmand province. There are concerns, too, that the Taliban have hopes of retaking their spiritual home in Kandahar. Nicholson assured lawmakers he would not let the U.S. sit idly by. "We need to prevent Kandahar from falling into the hands of the Taliban," Nicholson said, adding he would "absolutely" recommend using U.S. military force to prevent the Taliban from retaking the provincial capital. If approved by lawmakers, Nicholson would take over as the commander for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan from Gen. John Campbell, who is expected to retire. Crisis situation The U.S. currently has about 9,800 troops in Afghanistan for counterterrorism activities and to train and advise Afghan security forces. But that number is expected to drop to about 5,500 by the end of the year, worrying lawmakers. "I believe we are in a crisis situation," said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, a constant critic of the Obama administration's Afghanistan policy. "It makes no strategic or military sense to continue the withdrawal of American forces." Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte also expressed alarm at the way the administration has telegraphed troop levels in Afghanistan to U.S. enemies. "This has been a constant kabuki dance," Ayotte said. "We cannot afford to take on risks that allow obviously safe havens, again, for al-Qaida and ISIS engagement." Nicholson said that, if confirmed, he would review U.S. troop levels during his first 90 days in command and make an appropriate recommendation, warning he saw the need for a long-term commitment. Realistic expectations needed But he also said the U.S. needed to have a realistic expectation of what can be achieved. "This is Afghanistan. There will always be some level of violence in Afghanistan," Nicholson said. "We're not trying to create a Western-style society here," he added. "We are looking at an adequate level of security to prevent the re-emergence of transnational terrorist threats." Nicholson is currently the commander of NATO's Allied Land Command, based at Izmir, Turkey. He has served several tours of duty in Afghanistan and also commanded the 82nd Airborne Division and a company in the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment. Lawmakers praised Nicholson for his experience. Nicholson's nomination could go before the full Senate for vote as early as next week. The University of Missouri's governor board says it's suspended an assistant professor accused of assault stemming from a campus run-in with student journalists during protests in November. Pam Henrickson, chair of the University of Missouri system's Board of Curators, said in a statement after a special board meeting Wednesday night that Melissa Click is suspended "pending further investigation." The board called for its general counsel to conduct an investigation so the board can determine whether additional discipline "is appropriate." Click had a confrontation with a student photographer and a student videographer on Nov. 9 during protests at the Columbia campus over what some saw as university leadership's indifference to racial issues. 'Some muscle' Click called for "some muscle" to help remove the videographer from the protest area on the Columbia campus. Click has pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge. Interim university Chancellor Hank Foley resisted calls earlier this week to fire Click, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He said he would wait for due process to play out. Click is scheduled to be back in court on February 16, the paper reported. WATCH: Related video of November 2015 incident U.S. defense chief Ash Carter significantly boosted benefits Thursday for mothers and fathers in the country's armed forces, a move aimed at improving their work-life balance and to keep them from leaving the military. Carter said the U.S. would double the paid maternity leave for new mothers in the military from six to 12 weeks, which he said would put the Pentagon "in the top tier of American institutions in offering this." In addition, he said the paid benefit for new fathers would increase from 10 to 14 days. Secretary of Defense Carter told reporters that the military would also increase its available child care to 14 hours a day to give two-career couples more flexibility in managing work obligations and family life, add 3,600 mothers' rooms at military facilities where women could breast feed newborn infants and cover the cost of preserving sperm and eggs so that couples can conceive babies if they are otherwise unable to reproduce offspring because of injuries they have incurred in U.S. military operations. He said service members with families would be given the option to maintain geographic postings they like, rather than being transferred every two or three years to new ones, but in exchange would be required to extend their service commitment. He said a Pentagon study concluded the U.S. military has a 30 percent lower retention rate for women of child-bearing age than for others in the armed forces, losing many women from the all-volunteer force because they could not manage the twin demands of child-rearing and serving in the military. "Tackling these problems is imperative," he said. Carter said the new benefits "reflect the needs of a different era," in contrast to a time when most often only fathers worked and mothers stayed home to raise children. "I believe we'll be at the forefront of the American workplace," Carter said, creating "a more family friendly employer." At the same time, he emphasized "there's no way to separate service from sacrifice," and that the needs of keeping the country strong militarily will still be paramount. Freed Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian says his Iranian captors told him the newspaper did not exist and no one knew of his predicament. Rezaian, who was imprisoned by Iran for 545 days, was welcomed home Thursday by his newsroom colleagues and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at the Post's new headquarters not far from the White House in downtown Washington. Rezaian occasionally struggled for composure as he told his story. For much of the 18 months I was in prison, my Iranian interrogators told me The Washington Post did not exist, that no one knew of my plight, that the U.S. government would not lift a finger for my release, the former Tehran bureau chief told a cheering throng. Today I am in this room with the very people who helped prove the Iranians wrong. WATCH: Video of Rezaian, Kerry The 39-year-old Rezaian said it was "truly humbling" that so many people, including U.S. government officials, journalists and his relatives and friends fought for so long to get Iran to release him. No other country would do so much for an ordinary citizen, and I know that, he said. Rezaian was accompanied by his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, his brother Ali, and their mother, Mary Rezaian. An Iranian court convicted him of espionage, but neither the nature of the charges against him nor his sentence was ever publicly disclosed. "A week ago on Saturday, was one of the days I enjoyed the most as secretary of state, said Kerry, referring to the day when Rezaian was released. For months, the newspaper and the U.S. government protested his detention, but he was not freed until January 16, the same day the United States and five other world powers implemented an agreement with Tehran curbing its ability to build a nuclear weapon in exchange for lifting sanctions that have hobbled the Iranian economy. Four other Americans were also released at the same time, while the U.S. freed seven Iranians who had been convicted or accused of violating the trade sanctions. "This is particularly sweet for everyone for Jason to be home," an emotional Kerry said. "This gnawed at us because we knew the consequences" of his jailing. 'Reporting the truth is not a crime' To those who try to intimidate or imprison reporters, we need to stand up and say committing journalism and reporting on the truth is not a crime, said Kerry, while voicing concerns over challenges faced by many journalists around the world including those reporting from war zones. He added the State Department and United States Agency for International Development are sponsoring programs to support independent media in more than 30 countries. As the newspaper officially dedicated its new building, Kerry extolled the virtue of a free and independent media presence in democratic countries. Kerry said that 71 journalists were killed last year because of their profession and the work they did, with another 200 jailed by repressive governments. "No government...can clearly call itself great," Kerry said, "if it doesn't allow freedom of expression. A country without a free and independent press has nothing to brag about." The United States is urging all parties invited to this week's Syrian peace talks in Geneva to show up without preconditions. The talks on a ceasefire and setting up a transitional government in Syria were supposed to have started Monday. They have been put off until Friday because of squabbles over who should be invited. U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura sent out invitations Tuesday, but did not disclose who was on the list. But various media reports say it includes representatives of Saudi- and U.S.-backed moderate opposition groups, members of the Russian-backed opposition, and Syrian Foreign Minister Wakid al-Moallem. It was unclear Wednesday exactly who is planning to come to Geneva. The U.S.-backed opposition insists it should be the only opposition delegation there. It demands Russian airstrikes in Syria stop and the Syrian government lift sieges that are strangling a number of towns. Russia has insisted that Syrian Kurds should also be allowed to come while Turkey says no. U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said all sides need to come to the table without making demands ahead of the talks. "We believe it should seize this opportunity to test the [Syrian] regime's willingness and intentions and expose before the entire world which parties are serious about a potential peaceful political transition in Syria and which are not," Toner said. Not invited to the talks are Islamic State and the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaida-linked group fighting to topple the Syrian government. While the United States says representatives of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should attend the peace talks, it says Assad - a dictator who murders his own people - cannot be a part of Syria's future. Moscow, Assad's strongest ally, says that decision is up to the Syrian people. Republican presidential candidates on Thursday held their last debates before Monday's Iowa caucuses the first event in which voters actually make their choices for their parties' next presidential nominees. Most of the candidates quickly addressed FOX News moderator Megyn Kellys request to address the elephant not in the room Thursday night: that front-runner Donald Trump was not participating in the debate. "I'm a maniac and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly, and Ben, you're a terrible surgeon," Texas Senator Ted Cruz said to rival Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, saying that he had now "gotten the Donald Trump portion of the program out of the way." Florida Senator Marco Rubio said while the billionaire candidate is entertaining, Trump is not what the campaign is about. And former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who has often been the target of Trumps barbs, joked that he missed having the real estate mogul on the stage. WATCH: Talking about the 'elephant not in the room' But the rest of the candidates avoided mentioning Trump and quickly moved on to establish their credentials as president. Because of the large number of candidates 11 host FOX News split the debates in Des Moines, Iowa, between the seven candidates leading polls and the four bringing up the rear. Immigration issue In the most heated exchanges of the night, moderator Kelly, using video clips of candidates previous statements, questioned several candidates regarding their seeming flip-flops on the immigration issue. Rubio campaigned for the Senate in 2010 on a tough immigration stance, saying he would never support blanket amnesty. He later became part of a bipartisan group of senators called the gang of eight, who crafted a comprehensive immigration bill in 2013 that contained a pathway to citizenship. The bill passed in the Senate but failed in the House of Representatives. In a testy exchange with Kelly, Rubio denied he had changed his position on immigration, easily one of the most contentious issues for the Republicans. What Ive always said is this issue needs to be solved, he said. He said while hes not for deporting the millions of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. -- as Trump has suggested he would do -- were not for handing out citizenship either. Bush attacked Rubio, saying the senator had sought his support as governor on legislation that would allow a pathway to citizenship. But "then he cut and run because it wasn't popular with conservatives," he chided. Rubio fired back, saying Bush "used to support" a path to citizenship. The former governor responded: "So did you, Marco." Attacks on Cruz Cruz also had to answer video clips that showed him saying he would support immigration reform legislation, if some of the amendments he had offered were approved. He denied he had changed his stance, saying his amendments were not to fix all of the legislation's problems but to ensure undocumented immigrants in the U.S. couldn't gain legal status. Cruz's reply brought attacks from both Paul and Rubio. They accused Cruz of claiming to be the only "true" conservative on the immigration issue, while Cruz accused Rubio of changing his stance on immigration to appeal to donors. Fox, which partnered with Google for Thursday's debate, used questions from various Americans throughout the debate. One such question came from Dulce Candy, an Iraq war veteran who was brought to this country from Mexico as a child. Appearing via YouTube, Candy asked how immigrants should feel welcome in the United States, given the harsh rhetoric regarding immigrants and refugees by the party's candidates during the past few months. Bush responded, saying Candy "deserves our respect," while Rubio, again calling for reforming the immigration system, told her, "we will always celebrate legal immigration." WATCH: Candidates on national security: National security Google said its searches reflecting the question Is America safe? have increased 400 percent since 2008, leading to questions posed about national security. Rubio and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul had a heated exchange over how far the government can go in anticipating domestic terrorism. Rubio, warning the U.S. faces an unprecedented threat from the Islamic State group, said he would go after terrorists "wherever they are" and if caught, "we're sending them to Guantanamo," referring to the detention center for prisoners in Cuba. He has called for shutting down mosques, which he said are being used to radicalize terrorists. Paul called Rubios plan a wrong idea. ... If you want to defend the country, it begins with border security." A Libertarian, Paul has been one of the most vocal opponents of the National Security Agency's bulk data phone collection program. 'Undercard' debate At the earlier debate Thursday, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum criticized Fox and other media outlets for not publicizing the so-called "undercard" debate. He accused the media of taking Iowa voters out of the political process. Former business executive Carly Fiorina said she was ignoring the media and putting her faith in Iowans to decide what issues are truly important. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee complained that hardworking Americans were not getting what he called a "fair shake" in the economy, and he repeated his determination to outlaw abortion. Former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore said he was the only military veteran running for president. He said veterans would be treated with respect by the Department of Veterans Affairs when he is president. But Thursday's spotlight was stolen by the Republicans' leading contender, billionaire real estate mogul Trump. He refused to take part in the debate because of what he alleged was poor treatment by Fox News. Fox said the flamboyant Trump, a political novice who has surged to the top of political surveys of Republican voters, was welcome at the debate and would be treated fairly. But the network refused to replace moderator Kelly, who angered Trump at an August debate by asking him about slurs he has made over the years about women. On Thursday, he held firm in his refusal to debate, tweeting, "The 'debate' tonight will be a total disaster low ratings with advertisers and advertising rates dropping like a rock. I hate to see this." However, a Fox News spokesperson rejected Trump's statement Thursday, saying: "The debate is completely sold out. No rates have changed and there are no advertisers who have backed out." Still, Trump was by far the most-searched-for candidate on Google during the first half of the main debate, according to Google Trends data. At one point, searches on his name outpaced -- by nearly 4-to-1 -- the second-most-searched-for candidate, Rubio. Trump rally Trump held a separate event at Drake University for U.S. veterans that coincided with the GOP debate. He said he decided not to appear out of respect for myself. ... I wanted to be at the debate tonight, but you have to stick up for whats right." He told the crowd gathered at his rally: "When you're treated badly, you have to stick up for your rights," adding that "we have to stick up for our country if we're being mistreated." Trump said his foundation already has raised $5 million for Americas vets. He said he's putting up $1 million of his own money, and that many of his wealthy friends are giving large contributions as well. Huckabee and Santorum showed up at the Trump event. Each was invited by Trump to speak briefly. Those hoping for a political showdown in Vietnam were disappointed, as the Communist Party introduced Thursday its preordained quartet of leaders, which included General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, whose term was extended, and the first woman elected to one of the countrys top four posts. The party congress results ended months of speculation that Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung might shake things up and take Trongs seat. Instead, the party returned to homeostasis in re-electing the somewhat conservative general secretary. It also made safe bets with Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc for prime minister, Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang for president, and Legislative Vice Chair Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan for National Assembly chairwoman. 'Not really new faces' There are not really new faces, forceful characters, or individuals with charisma, said Tuong Vu, a political science professor at the University of Oregon. Perhaps the lady, Ms. Ngan, shes an unknown. But her position is still low in the four positions. Maybe between now and the next congress she will rise, who knows. Ngan has become the first woman elevated to the partys top brass, but Vu said the balance in geography rather than gender might explain her promotion. She is from southern Vietnam, Phuc is from the central region, and Quang and Trong are northerners. Much has been made of the differences between Dung, as an economic reformer whose three children studied in the west, versus Trong, as a party stalwart who tilts toward China, the only communist country bigger than Vietnam. But observers say the gears for Vietnams liberalization were set in motion years ago and will continue, no matter who comes to the helm. Next generation of leaders Professor Pham Quy Tho, of the Academy of Policy and Development in Hanoi, said the next generation of leaders know Vietnam must prepare to compete and integrate with the rest of the world. Tho pointed to the onslaught of trade agreements that will bring foreign rivals, from the Trans-Pacific Partnership to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Economic Community. "There will be reforms, not just for the economy, but also for society, so that people can adapt to the requirements of the new economy and human resource needs, said Tho, who teaches public policy. Investors echoed his sentiments. HSBC economist Izumi Devalier said in a research note that the candidates all seem to basically agree that further decentralization of the economy is necessary to ensure rising living standards. Devalier suggested Vietnam consider, for example, loosening the ties between state companies and the banks that so easily lend to them. Reforms likely Similarly, Kevin Snowball, CEO of PXP Vietnam Asset Management, believes reforms are likely to move forward, if more slowly under Trong. In an email to investors, Snowball said he hopes that before leaving office this summer, Dung will reassure less market-savvy bureaucrats that foreigners arent buying up state firms just to ransack them. Given that reforms, particularly those concerning the stock market, have come to a grinding halt over the past several months in the run-up [to the party congress], it is unlikely that reforms can get any slower than currently, Snowball said. The outcome of the party congress, which meets every five years, had been predicted for days. Yet some Dung supporters still got their hopes up, even though, as Vu says, a single person wouldnt be decisive in a system that rules by consensus. Regardless of Dungs individual power, Vietnamese gravitated to him for channeling their insecurities about potential encroachment from China. While this years party votes attracted more attention and internet chatter than usual, most Vietnamese carried on with their lives. To be honest Im not really interested in politics, said Nguyen Huyen, who works for a charity serving the disabled. I know I cant change anything. The Zambia Episcopal Conference has warned Zambians not to take the countrys peace for granted after expressing concern about inter-party violence among supporters of political parties in the run-up to the August 11 general election. In a letter issued on the state of the nation in 2016, the nation's Catholic bishops expressed strong opposition to what they said was the vulgar language politicians have been using against each other. They were also concerned about "pockets of violence in the recent past," especially in the parliamentary by-election and in the run-up to the presidential by-election last January 20, said Father Cleophas Lungu, general secretary of the conference. The bishops said the current political culture does not reflect a maturing democracy. They faulted political leaders for failing to stop the conduct, and in some cases for fanning the flame that led party members to engage in hooliganism and violence. Lungu said the priests want to ensure that politicians and their supporters do not disturb the countrys oasis of peace as parties prepare to launch their campaigns to canvass for votes ahead of the presidential, parliamentary and local elections. We do not take peace for granted. It is a gift from God, but also a responsibility of citizens, but more so a responsibility that shoulders upon our leaders, he said. Call for police impartiality The priests also called on the police to be impartial in the enforcement of the Public Order Act. Enforcement has often been selective, they said. Zambian police say the Public Order act underscores the importance of groups and political parties coordinating their planned activities with the police to ensure there is peace and stability. But opposition party supporters say the police use the measure to violently suppress their meetings. They also said the police appear to be doing the bidding of the ruling Patriotic Front party, an accusation the police deny. This is a piece of legislation that, despite the provision of the freedom of association, the freedom of speech in the bill of rights of the constitution, takes away that freedom, essentially by giving powers to the police to manage and apply restrictions to people who would want to carry out these political activities, Lungu said. The Catholic bishops in Zambia did categorically indicate that they are not pleased with the way the police sometimes conduct themselves," he said. "They called on the police to be objective, to be nonpartisan, and for the police to be professional. The bishops said that the police tend to favor the politicians in the ruling party, and the opposition parties are not guaranteed their well-deserved freedom of association and of peaceful political activity. Lungu said the bishops have called on President Edgar Lungu and his government as well as the police to rise above partisan politics and to lead in the promotion of true reconciliation and pea Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe left Harare on Thursday for an African Union (AU) summit in Ethiopia, amid vehement denials by a top commissioner that AU diplomats have expressed desire to see Mr. Mugabe serving a second term as chairman of the continental bloc. After leading a visit by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs to the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa this week, Zanu PF legislator Kindness Paradza said AU commissioners and diplomats wanted the ageing leader to stay. "The majority of African ambassadors in Addis Ababa and AU commissioners had a consensus that if it was possible, President Mugabe would be given a second term as chairman or assume any other supreme role to fulfil the Pan-African vision of the continental body," Paradza told the state-run Herald newspaper. But African Union Commission Deputy Chairperson Erastus Mwencha told Studio 7, in an exclusive interview, that that is false information. That's not true. That is false information, I am hearing it for the first time, Mwencha said. As President Mugabe steps aside, critics and admirers are weighing his achievements and failures at the helm of the AU. Independent political commentator Rejoice Ngwenya offered an indicting take, saying there was absolutely nothing that Mugabe, who turns 92 next month, achieved as AU chair. If it was an examination, I would give him zero out of ten, said Ngwenya. He said expecting Mr. Mugabe to have resolved the many problems bedeviling Africa when he has failed to deal with the political and economic crises in his own country was being too ambitious. But Zanu PF legislator Joseph Tshuma disagreed, saying Mugabe leaves behind an indelible legacy at the African Union. Some ambassadors reportedly want President Mugabe to run for a second African Union term or be given an influential position in the continental body. Chad is expected to take over the rotating AU chair within the next few days. Most Zimbabwean teachers, who can hardly survive on monthly meager earnings, have resorted to selling various wares in an attempt to supplement their income. This evening we will give you an insight into Zimbabwe-Equatorial Guinea relations as the southern African nation seems to have benefited by getting lines of credit amounting to over $200 million. On the other hand, Equitorial Guinea will always thank Zimbabwe for a failed coup in 2004. And do you still remember Thulani Biya Ncube, former Highlanders and Warriors kingpin? Stay tuned for more details. Stay tuned for these stories and more coming up on Studio 7 at 7:30 pm on 9-0-9 Medium Wave and on the 4-9-3-0, 5-9-4-0 and 1-5-4-6-0 shortwave frequencies. We also broadcast on www.channelzim.net. Please check us out on Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter. Today on LiveTalk our hosts of the Womens Roundtable will be talking with listeners and experts about illegal vendors in Zimbabwe. Send us your numbers on our WhatsApp number 001 202 465 0318. The number again 001 202 465 0318. Stay tuned!!!!!! Some hotel operators in northern Zimbabwe say business is being crippled by rampant poaching in the Zambezi valley and surrounding areas This came out at a two-day National Tourism Master Plan seminar in Kariba town attended by various stakeholders, who expressed concern over the depletion of wildlife in the region. One of the attendants, Shakespear Tsomondo, who is in the tour guide business, told participants that there was a marked decrease in tourism arrivals last year due to wildlife poaching. Tsomondo said government should intensify the fight against poachers as very few tourists normally visit Zimbabwe to either see or hunt animals. He said most tourists are not interested in just putting up in hotels. Several other attendants supported his views noting that wild animals play a critical role in promoting tourism in the country. Other issues that came out at the seminar included disparities in the pricing of tourism packages and various commodities in Zimbabwe. Businesswomen, Jaqueline Pasipanodya, who owns a lodge, said some tourists are even complaining about high food prices. Pasipanodya said some organizations like Buy Zimbabwe Campaign, promoting the purchasing of local products instead of goods bought from other countries, appear to be discouraging tourists from visiting Zimbabwe. Sophie Kurebwa, Zimbabwe Tourism Association director of Planning, Research and Development, noted that her organization will urgently look into the concerns of all stakeholders. Kurebwa said government should immediately take stern measures against poachers as the country is risking losing tourism business to nations like Namibia. She said the fall of the South African rand is worsening the situation for Zimbabwe. Peter Nizette, associate development consultant and team leader of the Zimbabwe Tourism Master Plan, urged government to look into issues of licensing that was being hampered by state bureaucracy. The master plan is designed to guide Zimbabwes tourism sector and hopefully catapult it into the envisaged US$5 billion industry within the next few years. Firebrand former leader of the Zimbabwe Union of Democrats, Margaret Dongo, says she suspects foul play in the gutting of her Ridgeview house in Harare early this month. Dongo claims that the house was allegedly bombed using a home-made device by unknown assailants. She says police and the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority have assessed the incident with ZESA saying the fire was not connected to an electrical fault. "I have had such attacks on my life before but this one has scared me to the bone," Dongo says. She says it reminded her of the way former army general Solomon Mujuru died. Property worth thousands of dollars went up in smoke in the inferno. Studio 7 failed to reach the police for a comment. In a related development, a hut belonging to a Murehwa South family in Mashonaland East province suspected of supporting former Vice President Joice Mujurus People First project was set on fire this week in what locals suspect to be politically motivated. People First spokesman Rugare Gumbo could not comment on the suspected arson saying he was yet to be briefed by their provincial leadership on the development. The European Union is set to give Zimbabwe an additional $4.5 million with a view of raising more funds to ease a drought caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon and a crumbling economy. EU ambassador to Zimbabwe, Phillepe Van Demme, told journalists in Harare on Thursday that the regional body confirmed the funding Wednesday. We will obligate another $4.5 million for Zimbabwe for close monitoring of the challenges and quantification through the quick assessment being organized by ZIMVAC that will have more precise figures which will allow not only the EU but member states of the EU and other international partners to go back to their capitals and find out whether additional support can be mobilized. The funding is in addition to the 12 million dollars, which the EU has given to Zimbabwe and six other southern African countries to save lives of people facing hunger. Van Demme said there was stiff competition for emergency funds and urged the Zimbabwean government to declare drought an emergency in order to enhance its chances of getting more funding amid competition from other needs. Thats why we think it may be important to declare a state of humanitarian emergency because that is a signal to the international community that indeed we have difficulties coping with this crisis. Asked whether Zimbabwes huge foreign debt would not hinder Zimbabwes chances for more emergency funding, Van Demme said humanitarian funding was never linked to any considerations. Humanitarian aid is always disconnected from any other considerations. The announcement by the EU follows reports that the United State Agency for International Development will give an additional $5 million to Zimbabwe to ensure food security in the country. USAID and its partners such as the United Nations World Food Program are this year spending more than $30 million on drought mitigation measures in Zimbabwe. Agriculture Minister Joseph Made could not be reached for comment. The Zimbabwean government is spending more than $200 million on maize imports. An estimated 1,5 million people are in need of food aid but traditional leaders say the figure could increase as more people are running out of food. Increased activity along the East African Rift, Ethiopia Thu, 28 Jan 2016, 20:36 20:36 PM | IS 20:36 PM | IS The high level of Erta Ales lava lake 21 November 2015 Sattelite image from GoogleEarth, showing the upper part of the East African rift in Ethiopia and surrounding countries. Screenshot from interactive map on earthquakes.volcanodiscovery.com June 2011 Lava flows and ash plume at Nabro Volcano, Eritrea. After Robert Simmon (NASA Earth Observatory), via Wikimedia Commons Our local expedition leader informed us about increased volcano-tectonic activity along the Ethiopian part of the East African rift: aand aIn the Danakil depression, northern Ethiopia, the continuously active lava lake at Erta Ale started to. This latest overflow created new pahoehoe lava flows that cover Erta Ales caldera floor both to the north and south of the lava lakes eruptive vent. At the moment of writing this news item, the lava lake is thought to be still overflowing. It is however unclear for how long this phase of lava overflow will continue.The currently increased activity at Erta Ale was first reported in November 2015 when travellers visiting the caldera observed that the level of the lava lake was less than 1 meter below the rim of the vent. The lakes activity remained high throughout the next 9-10 weeks, with the lava lake falling and rising repeatedly, and eventually culminated in a first overflow of its vent around midnight of 15 to 16 January 2016. Theincreased volcanic activity with, making it a rather rare event. Not so much is known about the average activity at Erta Ales lava lake,because this shield volcano is best visited from November to February (the coolest months in the hottest place on earth) and has only been observed and reported on a more regular base over the past 10 years.Erta Ale is one of many volcanoes dotted along the, which can be compared to a large tear running from Erithrea through Ethiopia, along the great lakes of Uganda, Kenyia, DR Congo, Tanzania, Zambia and Malawi down into Mozambique, and which isoccured along this same rift system but inat 18h34 UTC, with a hypocenter at about 10 km depth. Although not very strong, such earthquakes are rather unusual in this area near Lake Awassa, as shown by the I felt it reports from people living 20 km east of the epicenter and which vary from V (moderate shaking) to VI (strong shaking) on the Mercalli scale which ranges from I (not felt) to XII (extreme). Reports describe books falling from shelfs and cracks in many local houses, frightening the inhabitants which remained outside for the rest of that night. Since this first earthquake,on irregular intervals. The epicenter of Sundays M4.2 earthquake wasThis 15 km wide caldera overlaps the NW margin of the older 30 by 40 km Awassa caldera where the present-day Awassa lake is situated. After formation of the Corbetti caldera,deposited lava flows in its centre (known as Urji volcano), and built a large obsidian dome on its SE rim (known as Chabbi volcano) and a pyroclastic cone on its west rim (unnamed). Although the ages of these eruptions are unknown, it has been shown that these volcanic deposits are too young to be dated with the K-Ar method (so). Fumarolic activity is still on-going at these post-caldera cones. Could the increase in seismicity be ain Corbetti caldera?A series of(magnitude 4.5 or greater) started on the night ofnear a sparsely populated area of theborder in the northern part of the Danakil depression. The earthquakes were linked to the simultaneous eruption of nearby, which up to 12 January 2011 had no record of historic eruptions. This sudden volcanic activity at the northern end of the East African rift continued for about one month and formed a ca. 15 km long lava flow. The ash cloud of this eruption rose up to 14 km and drifted to W-NW, forming a minor disruption to air traffic. On the 19th of June, the Nabro eruption produced the up to then highest concentrations of sulphur dioxide emission in the earths atmosphere ever recorded from space. The ash and tephra fall from this eruption covered a large area, negatively affecting water, crops and cattle of the local nomadic Afar people. Many Afar villages near the volcano were evacuated and at least 38 people were reportedly killed, but the exact death toll is this eruption is unknown.The recent earthquake activity along the East African rift in south Ethiopia should therefore be closely watched. Because although the chances of an eruption near Awassa are small, the 2011 eruption of up to then dormant Nabro volcano shows that they are not nihil. In 2005, when Jeffrey Feltman then the US ambassador in Beirut - supervised the assassination of Rafic Hariri, he relied on support from Germany, both for the assassination itself (Berlin supplied the weapon) [1], and for the UNO Commission charged with accusing Presidents el-Assad and Lahoud (prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, police commissioner Gerhard Lehmann and their team). The international campaign against the two Presidents was notably led by the German political analyst Volker Perthes [2]. Volker Perthes studied in Damascus, Syria, in 1986 and 1987, funded by a German research grant. He then went on to pursue a career as professor of political science in Germany, with the exception of the period between 1991 and 1993, during which he taught at the American University of Beirut. Since 2005, he has been the Director of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), the main German public think tank, which employs more than 130 specialists, half of whom are university professors. However, when Feltman organised the Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2006, he implicated only the United States, hoping that once Hezbollah was beaten, Syria would come to its rescue in Beirut, which would provide an excuse for US intervention. Finally, Berlin sent only its marines to participate in the United Nations Forces (Finul). During the annual meeting of the Bilderberg Group, between the 5th and the 8th June 2008 - five years before the war - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a presentation which underlined the necessity of overthrowing the Syrian government. She was accompanied in this task by the Director of the Arab Reform Initiative [3], Bassma Kodmani (future founder of the Syrian National Council), and the Director of the SWP, Volker Perthes. The Bilderberg Group is a NATO initiative, and NATO directly handles security for these meetings [4]. According to a cable revealed by Wikileaks, Volker Perthes advised Ms. Rice concerning Iran. He believed that it would be dangerous to launch a military operation which could have unpredictable regional consequences - it was, however, more efficient to sabotage its economy. Volker Perthes advice was followed, in 2010, with the destruction of the software of Iranian nuclear plants by the Stuxnet virus [5]. In March 2011, Volker Perthes published an opinion column in the New York Times mocking President el-Assads speech to the Peoples Chamber, during which the President had denounced a conspiracy against Syria [6]. According to Perthes, the revolution was under way in Syria, and el-Assad had to go. In the summer of 2011, the German government managed the breakthrough of the Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia and Egypt. It noted that at the CIAs demand, it hosted the international coordination of the Brotherhood in Aix-la-Chapelle. Berlin thus decided to support the Brotherhood everywhere they attained power, with the exception of Hamas in Palestine, in order to avoid annoying Israel. Under the influence of Volker Perthes, the German Minister for Foreign Affairs at that time, Guido Westerwelle persuaded himself that the Brotherhood was not Islamist , but guided by Islam . He created a discussion forum with the moderate Islamist movements (sic), and a Task Force for Syria. As for Perthes, he organised a reception at the Ministry in July for a delegation from the Syrian opposition, led by Brother Radwan Ziadeh. On the 6th October 2011, on the proposition of the State Department, Volker Perthes took part in the closed conference organised by the Turkish Industry & Business Association (Tusiad) and the private US intelligence company Stratfor in order to study Turkeys energy options, and also the possible responses of eight other countries, including Germany [7]. Present at the meeting were the ten top Turkish fortunes and Taner Yldz the Minister for Energy the man who was supposed to help the Erdogan family organise the funding of the war with oil stolen by Daesh. In January 2012, Jeffrey Feltman then State Department director for the Near East asked Volker Perthes to direct the The Day After programme, which was tasked with putting together the next regime in Syria. These meetings were held over a six-month period and resulted specifically in a report which was made public after the Geneva Conference. The Day After mobilised 45 members of the Syrian opposition, including Bassma Kodmani and the Muslim Brothhood. It was financed by the US Institute of Peace, the equivalent of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), but is under the authority of the Department of Defense. Also solicited were Germany, France, Norway, Holland and Switzerland. The Day After drew up the first draft of the plan for the total and unconditional capitulation of Syria, which became the obsession of the United Nations once Jeffrey Feltman was nominated Director of Political Affairs for the United Nations, in July 2012. Here are the principles of the Perthes-Feltman plan the sovereignty of the Syrian People will be abolished ; the Constitution will be repealed ; the President will be relieved of his functions (but a vice-President will remain in charge of formal functions) ; the Peoples Assembly will be dissolved ; at least 120 leaders will be considered guilty and banned from any political function, then judged and condemned by an international Tribunal ; the Direction of Military Intelligence, the Direction of Political Security and the Direction of General Security will be dismantled and dissolved ; political prisoners will be freed and anti-terrorist procedures will be repealed; the Hezbollah and the Guardians of the Revolution will be made to withdraw ; then, and only then, will the international community fight terrorism [8] At the same time, Volker Perthes organised the Working Group on Economic Recovery and Development for the Friends of Syria . In June 2012, under the co-presidency of Germany and the United Arab Emirates, this group distributed to the member states of the Friends of Syria concessions for the exploitation of Syrian gas, which could be claimed in return for their support for the overthrow of Assads regime [9]. Volker Perthes also organised the Working Group on Transition Planning for the Arab League. Finally, he set up the Syrian Transition Support Network in Istanbul. As from the Geneva Conference (30th June 2012) and the meeting of the Friends of Syria in Paris (6th July 2012), we can find no more public traces of Volker Perthes role, apart from his publications, which are aimed at maintaining Germanys support for the Muslim Brotherhood. Germany is maintaining its policy, and after the abdication of the Emir of Qatar and the powerful rise of Saudi Arabia, nominated Boris Ruge - the director for Syria in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs - as its ambassador to Riyadh. In the summer of 2015, during his visit to Damascus, the Syrian government asked Staffan De Mistura for an explanation concerning the Perthes-Feltman Plan, of which he had only just been made aware. Highly embarrassed, the special envoy of the General Secretary of the UNO confirmed that these documents did not engage him, and promised to take no notice of them. It seems that Moscow had threatened to make them public at the Security Council during the presence of the heads of state at the opening of the General Assembly in September 2015. However, the documents were not divulged their revelation would have questioned the very existence of the United Nations Organisation. During the same period, Berlin once again made contact with Damascus, but the Syrians were unable to determine whether this secret initiative was a reflection of a new policy by Chancellor Merkel, or one more attempt at infiltration. However, at the same time, Volker Perthes was nominated by Staffan De Mistura and his superior Jeffrey Feltman [10] as a peace negotiator (sic) for the next meeting in Geneva. He will be tasked with meeting alternatively with the delegation from the Syrian opposition and the delegation from the Syrian Arab Republic. For the last three years, in violation of their own Charter, the United Nations, far from doing anything at all to help restore peace to Syria, and without presenting the slightest evidence, accuse the Syrian Arab Republic of having put down a revolution, of using chemical weapons against its own population, of the massive practice of torture, and of starving its people. Above all, it is dragging its feet on any peace initiative, leaving time for NATO and the Gulf Co-operation Council to pilot the overthrow of the regime by foreign mercenaries, in this instance the terrorist organisations al-Qaida and Daesh. A.W.O.L. is the most frustrating kind of Arrow episode. After a perfectly take-it-or-leave-it hour of television, were left with the potential for so much more. The larger plot points (a meaty Diggle story line, the return of Goth Felicity, and lots o Lyla) hold great appeal, but, as executed, those arcs never quite deliver or satisfy. Take, for example, Diggles relationship with his brother, Andy, which is front and center in A.W.O.L. We know that Diggle feels betrayed because Andy secretly operated as a war profiteer during their tour in Afghanistan. Diggle has spent a good portion of the last four episodes struggling with this revelation, returning time after time to the issue when visiting his brother, whos currently in the custody of Team Arrow. So dedicating this weeks flashbacks to the moment when Andy decided to become a war profiteer feels both repetitive and underwhelming. It wouldve been much more interesting to see the Diggle brothers in some other context or time, if only to flesh out the bond (or lack thereof) between them. At least we get a small glimpse of the bond between Diggle and Lyla. As they walk home from a date night, Dyla is approached by Alan Chang, an A.R.G.U.S. agent who used to work with Lyla. He has a message for A.R.G.U.S. chief Amanda Waller. Before Chang can say anything, a black van screeches onto the scene, and gunmen dressed head-to-toe in black start shooting. Diggle and Lyla do their best to stop the men, but its no use. They kidnap Chang, and Diggle gets a bullet in the arm. (I love and totally buy that Lyla would be packing heat on date night.) Changs kidnapping leads Diggle and Lyla to a confrontation with Waller, who Lyla suspects had Chang working on an off-the-books mission. Waller denies any knowledge of a special operation, but when she goes to shake Lylas hand good-bye, she slips her a flash drive. (Ha, a literal secret handshake!) The flash drive reveals that Chang and two other A.R.G.U.S. agents were investigating a corrupt U.S. Army special-forces unit called Shadowspire. Diggle knows Shadowspire; its the group Andy worked for as a war profiteer. So Diggles story is less about Diggle than it is about Andys connection with Shadowspire. This is thorny for a number of reasons: First, Arrow really doesnt need to further complicate the criminal landscape in Star City. Theres already one organized criminal element that dresses in black and attacks people H.I.V.E. and its ghosts. (Indeed, its difficult to discern any sartorial difference between a ghost and a member of Shadowspire, save for the latters small red insignia.) Second, there hasnt been any buildup to Shadowspire until A.W.O.L., so the actors have to cram in a bunch of expository dialogue. David Paul Ramsey does his best with the material, but its unsatisfying to listen to Diggle wax on about freeports and commodities. Felicitys story, by contrast, is far more personal. Shes adjusting to her new life constrained in a wheelchair. Oliver is in full-on nurse mode, prepping her dinner and doling out pain medication. Felicity understandably wades into self-pity and doubt, telling Oliver that shes of no use to Team Arrow anymore. Oliver shuts her down with sweetness: Your superpower is right there, he says, pointing to her brain. Still, that thoughtful sentiment isnt enough to convince her to join Team Arrow on a mission quite yet. Left alone in the loft, Felicity pops a few extra pain pills and starts to hallucinate visions of the goth hacktivist Felicity from season threes The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak. Goth Felicity proceeds to harass Felicity about her choice to play superhero. The hallucination scenes are pretty impressive, technically speaking, but ultimately fall a bit flat. Its through no fault of Emily Bett Rickards, who pulls off both versions impressively. (Orphan Black spin-off, anyone?) Im just not quite sure what this adds to Felicitys story. Goth Felicitys taunts mostly centered on Felicitys choice to give up her hacktivist identity to join the superhero world felt random and directionless. Do you have anything the least bit interesting to say to me besides those jabs you keep making? Felicity asks Goth Felicity. Im not sure she does. Also, since when has Felicity doubted the superhero life? The fact that this identity-crisis plot is neatly tied up at the end of A.W.O.L. only serves to show how this whole arc feels like Felicity filler. And theres really no excuse for Felicity filler, what with everything she has going on this season. (Shes the CEO of a large corporation who just lost the use of her legs, damn it!) As much as I love Goth Felicity, it would have made more sense for Felicity to hallucinate visions of Darhk. Perhaps Arrow could have explored some kind of PTSD plot. Or, instead of a hallucination scene, how about a meaningful moment with her mother about her paralysis? Meanwhile, Diggle brings Andy out of Team Arrows jail cell and into A.R.G.U.S.s jail cell. (Somebody, please habeas corpus that man.) After Team Arrow finds Chang and the other missing agents dead, Waller wants to debrief Andy on Shadowspire. Andy tells Waller that Shadowspire is all about misdirection, so although Wallers intel indicates Shadowspire is after a shipment of rail guns, Andy guesses that theres some other end game. Andys right. The rail guns are a ruse for Shadowspires actual plan: attacking A.R.G.U.S. A Shadowspire group, led by the Diggle brothers former commander, Lieutenant Joiner, infiltrate A.R.G.U.S. headquarters and threaten to kill Waller if she doesnt give them the codes to Rubicon. (Rubi-whaaa? Introducing this doesnt make the stakes feel higher just more convoluted!) Lyla tells Joiner that Waller would sooner let all of her staff die than give up the codes. Death threats are the only card Joiner has left to play, so he realizes that Waller is useless. He shoots her right in the forehead. R.I.P., Waller! With Waller dead, the pressures now on Lyla. Joiner demands that she locate the Rubicon access codes. Diggle watches the scene remotely from the A.R.G.U.S. prison cell, where hes watching over Andy. He pulls a Felicity, rewiring the television set to broadcast the feed to the Arrow lair. But hes running out of time, so Andy convinces Diggle to let him help, even though Diggle has to release him from the cell. And then we reach the episodes big question: Once released, will Andy double-cross Diggle? All signs point to yes when Andy tells Joiner that Diggle is above in the ventilation system trying to save Lyla. Diggle is captured and held as ransom so Lyla will give up the codes. Lyla looks at John lovingly and explains that Rubicon can never be released. Joiner threatens to put a bullet in Diggles brain. Diggle looks at Lyla and asks her to give up the codes for him. Wait, what? Lyla was going to let them execute John right in front of her for the good of the people? And Diggle had to ask her to save his life? Ice-cold, Lyla! I think weve found our new A.R.G.U.S. head. But Lyla has trouble with the computers because a hallucination-free Felicity remotely blocks her access to the codes. Moments before Joiner pulls the trigger on Diggle, Andy swoops in to knock the gun away this is all part of Diggles plan. Team Arrow shows up, and a brawl breaks out. The day is saved, and a Rubicon crisis (whatever that is) is avoided. Andy doesnt betray Diggle, so hes released from custody and comes over for pork roast at the Diggles apartment. Meanwhile, Oliver and Felicity share a nice quiet moment back at the loft. She breaks out an old photo of herself as Goth Felicity; shes finally ready to share that part of her past with Oliver. This intimate glimpse into their life as a couple is handled well and not without a little humor, thankfully. When Felicity notes that the old Felicity would have released Rubicon as some sort of political statement, Oliver deadpans, The old me would have snapped Joiners neck. Oliver then broaches the issue of Felicitys paralysis. He promises her that he doesnt want to live in denial, but that doesnt mean hes giving up hope. He points out that the out-of-this-world elements of their lives (people flying, people shrinking, people rising from the dead) lead him to believe that a cure is out there. Its the kind of optimism Goth Felicity might have scoffed at. Luckily, that version of Felicity is long gone. FLASHBACKS The big reveal in the Afghanistan flashbacks is that Joiners boss, and the head of Shadowspire, is Reiter, who also appeared in season fours Lian Yu flashbacks. This probably wouldve been more shocking if I were invested in the Lian Yu flashbacks. But Im not. BULLS-EYE Whatever my issues with the story, I thought all of the actors gave great performances. Good news: Felicity finally gets a code name, Overwatch. Bad news: Oliver will no longer sexy-whisper Fe-li-city over the comms. I cant help but think Oliver carrying Felicity down the stairs is a symbolic nod to him carrying her over the threshold later this season WHEN THEY GET BACK TOGETHER. Felicity, to Oliver: I love how playing superhero is what we consider normal. I liked Lyla and Olivers toast to Waller. Ill miss Cynthia Addai-Robinsons steely portrayal. At least shes still alive in the flashbacks. I really enjoyed Lyla in this episode. Lets hope she replaces Waller at A.R.G.U.S. itd bring her back into the vigilante plots. Felicity wanting Oliver to appreciate her speech at the lair. Diggle channeling Felicity to make her proud. Laurel finally learns a secret before others. Dont screw it up, Laurel! Felicity to Oliver, about holding Damien Darhk responsible for her injuries: Its the fault of one man, and he has an on-the-nose extremely alliterative name. MISSING THE MARK The biometrics twist of using Changs eyeball to enter the secured A.R.G.U.S. premise. It went over my head on first viewing. The stunts were pretty uninspired. Plus, Im getting a little tired of bullets and gunfire. Felicity going crazy while reading The Shining is a little too cute for my taste. I wish there had been one or two more zingers this episode. Not as funny as usual. NUMBER OF SHIRTLESS STEPHEN AMELL SCENES: 0 (Im in the grave, yall.) Find me on Twitter and tell me your Arrow code name. Dont call them honey. Photo: Getty Images The Sally Bowles of the New Jersey Turnpike, Danielle Staub, will go silently into that good night no longer. Staub took to Twitter to announce that her silence is over and she plans to spill all the details on Andy Cohen, Bravo, and Real Housewives of New Jerseys effect on her life. What becomes of a dream that has a table flipped at it? Does it dry up like being engaged 19 times? Does it fester like being called a prostitution whore on television then run? Staub is a caged bird no longer; shes Nora Helmer and shes leaving Torvald behind and slamming that door defiantly. I'm breaking my silence And writing my tell all including the "Reality of #RHONJ" the impact on mine and my family's life's @Andy @bravotv DANIELLE (@daniellestaub) January 28, 2016 Maybe Staub can shed some light on which pop stars besides Lance Bass Cohen has had a digital get-down with. [24 ticking clock noise] Photo: Tristan Fewings/2015 Getty Images After doing some 24-7 spying in Berlin on Homeland, Miranda Otto is heading back to the homeland (not her homeland, our homeland; Ottos from Australia) to do some more spying in 24. The actress, who played CIA station chief Allison Carr in Showtimes series and Eowyn in the Lord of the Rings films, will be the female lead in Foxs 24 reboot, 24: Legacy. Otto will play Rebecca Ingram, a former head of CTU who is now married to a senator and has doubts about giving up her former life. She joins Straight Outta Comptons Corey Hawkins, who will play an army vet who gets pulled back into action. Hawkins and Ottos lives will intersect over the course of 24 hours, in the style of the original series, though hopefully neither of them will be ambushed by cougars. Shot amid the desolate beauty of Israels Negev Desert, Elite Zexers Sand Storm is emerging as one of the most-admired films at this years Sundance. It charts the shifting power dynamics between men and women, and between parents and children. And although the film is set among the Bedouin and carries the whiff of authenticity with respect to their rituals and attitudes, thanks to Zexers having spent years among them its story feels universal in its broad strokes. When we first meet our 18-year-old protagonist Layla (Lamis Ammar), shes being taught to drive by her doting father, Suliman (Haitham Omari), even as he also chastises her for not doing better in school. Suliman is the kind of guy who can pride himself on his progressiveness as evidenced by Laylas own very modern attitudes while still being subservient to tradition. We learn that its the eve of his wedding to a second, younger wife. Whats more, his first wife, the headstrong Jalila (Ruba Blal-Asfour), Laylas mother, actually has to help out with the marriage celebrations. Meanwhile, Jalila and Layla seem to be constantly at odds with one another; when Mom discovers, via a cellphone mishap, that Layla has a boyfriend at school, she freaks out. Layla is smitten with her father and irritated by her mother. But as the story proceeds, she begins to discover where the real power in her family lies: Suliman is in effect a weakling, unable to stand up to the expectations and disdain of others and terrified of the murmur of disapproval and shame. We sense that he didnt even really want this second marriage. Jalila, on the other hand, is personally tough but socially pliant. She can tear into Suliman in private, but dares not in public, for fear of retribution. Layla might think her moms a scold and spoilsport, but its clear that Jalila is in fact fiercely protecting her children. The young girl and her boyfriend Anwar (Jalal Masrwa), in the meantime, are in the throes of romantic passion. Like the teenagers that they are, theyre convinced that nothing can stand in the way of their love. Sand Storm will remind some viewers of Deniz Gamze Erguvens Oscar-nominated Mustang from last year. Certainly, both films depict the ways that women are forced into unwanted lives in tradition-minded Middle Eastern cultures (though let it be noted that the mores of a small Black Sea village in Turkey and the mores of a Bedouin village in the Negev are worlds apart from one another). But Mustang showed how a society might destroy a young womans agency under the delusion that it was protecting and preserving her. The betrayal of Sand Storm feels more intimate and familial. It comes from Sulimans weakness in the face of others scorn, and, more important, from the strong-willed Jalilas inability to wield any real power against the forces that once broke her as well. Ultimately, this is a tale of a mother and daughter trapped in a cycle of yearning and despair. Its a lovely, deeply affecting film. From left: Jenna Fischer as Rhonda McNeil, Megan Mullally as Leanne. Photo: Ed Miller/WTTV Productions Limited How dry is the NBC comedy well? Dry enough that its taking straight-up imports. Its not unheard of for ABC to air Canadian cop shows in the summertime, say, but not so long ago, the eight oclock Thursday slot on NBC was as primo as primo got, which is where the network has placed Sky 1s You, Me and the Apocalypse. Here is a brief history of what has aired in that time slot over the last 30-odd years: The 198485 TV season until the 199192 TV season: The Cosby Show 199293 TV season: A Different World, Out All Night (that was a one-season Patti LaBelle show), Mad About You 199394 and 199495: Mad About You 199596 through 200304: Friends 200405: Joey 200506: Joey, Will and Grace 200607 through 200809: My Name Is Earl 200910 and 1011: Community 201112: Community, 30 Rock 201213: 30 Rock, Community 201314: Parks and Recreation, Community 201416: The Biggest Loser, The Slap, Dateline NBC 201516: Heroes Reborn; You, Me and the Apocalypse That right there is the story of NBC, and the story of broadcast in general. A lifetime of dominance squandered in a little over a decade, and not just because of lousy shows, though theyre there, but more that Joey came at the worst possible time, as networks were losing ground to cable. The Biggest Loser is a creative surrender. Dozens of people loved Heroes Reborn. You, Me and the Apocalypse is NBC throwing up its hands, admitting its not going to bother developing shows to run opposite Greys Anatomy, The Big Bang Theory, and American Idol. You can only fight so many fights. This is the white flag. Or is it? Because YM&TA is actually a charmer smart, original, oddball, and probably the best show on NBCs current roster. (Though its rejection of a serial comma saddens me somewhat.) The shows slightly cartoonish tone makes its world-is-about-to-end premise palatable, and its characters can have moments of emotional depth without accidentally grounding the show in too much realism. For a show about the end of times, its very cheery. The British-American series, like other postapocalyptic fare, features a eclectic group of unlikely bunker-mates. Matthew Baynton (The Wrong Mans) stars as Jamie, a somewhat mopey Brit still searching for his wife, who has been missing for seven years. Theres Jenna Fischer (The Office) as Rhonda, a mousy woman who winds up convicted of a serious crime, but only in an attempt to protect her son. Theres Rob Lowe as a priest, Megan Mullally as a swastika-sporting fellow inmate of Rhondas, a whole kooky secret-twin subplot. Its reminiscent of action dramedies like Chuck, in a good way. The show bounces between its different characters almost a la Lost in that we know they all end up together, but were not sure how. We have a solid number of postapocalyptic shows right now: The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, The Last Man on Earth, The 100, Between, 12 Monkeys, Falling Skies YM&TA focuses on the lead-up, on how people respond to the news that there are 34 days left on Earth as we know it. For some people, its a time of panic; for others, a time to hold fast to their religious beliefs; for most, its complete mayhem. But a lot of armageddon stories teach us to fear each other that once societys tempering structures crumble even a little, we all revert to feral violence. YM&TA doesnt seem to think that. Instead, its characters become a little more open to otherwise unlikely companionship, maybe a little bolder in the bucket-list sense. If anything, they become more inclined to see humanity in other people, not less. Not everyones a sweetheart, and not everyones good by any stretch. There are murderous cyberterrorism subplots and scary lunatics, but on a zoomed-out level the show posits that human existence is itself worth saving. But is NBCs existence? Look at its current roster: Superstore, Telenovela, The Biggest Loser, The Voice, Blindspot, Hollywood Game Night, Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, The Mysteries of Laura, Law & Order: SVU, Chicago PD, The Blacklist, Shades of Blue, Caught on Camera With Nick Cannon, Grimm, Dateline NBC. People watch some of these shows. But can you picture rewatching them? (Other than SVU, which is grandfathered in from the NBC of yore its on its 17th season.) Can you picture a serious person saying I will rewatch The Mysteries of Laura anytime Im feeling blue! the way people rewatch Parks and Recreation? Come hell or high water, at least Ill always have The Blacklist. No, youll always have The West Wing. Chicago Med is no ER. Maybe this is just a lull, a natural part of any development program. Maybe You, Me and the Apocalypse is just the jolt the network needs. But what it feels like is that for network TV, the world already ended, and YM&TA is the scrappy survivor. Replenish your species, quirky drama with excellent performances and an inventive set of ideas. Go forth and replant the fallow wasteland of your network. Snyder probably didnt specify that he meant Batfleck. Christopher Nolans trilogy of Batman movies helped push superhero films into the heart of popular culture. Zack Snyder directed Man of Steel. So when Snyder decided to make Batman v Superman, the director told Empire that he decided to ask for Nolans blessing. Nolans response was about as measured as that of a British villain in a Christopher Nolan Batman movie: You tell me if you dont want me to do it, Snyder told Nolan. After a silence, Nolan said, Well, we dont own these characters. When youre done making Batman movies, someone else will [make them]. With that unequivocal and enthusiastic endorsement, Snyder went off to cook up Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which is coming to a theater near you on March 25. Snyder added, In a lot of ways Batman v Superman is a very personal concept It is just two people trying to understand each others point of view, which is enough for us to propose a brand-new fan theory: Batman v Superman is a meta-commentary about Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan. American painter Ellsworth Kelly died Dec. 27 at age 92. He had been a fixture in the art world since 1956, when he had his first solo show at a New York gallery, and was one of our last ties to the generation that brought American art to worldwide prominence in the years after World War II. Though a contemporary of the more famous abstract expressionists, Kelly painted in a style that came to be called minimalism, and his quiet work was often difficult to appreciate by people accustomed to the heroic gestural paintings of artists like Jackson Pollock. Kelly was born in Newburgh, New York, in 1923 and by the sixth grade wanted to be an artist. At 20, he was drafted into in the Army and served in a battalion that painted realistic-looking dummy tanks, artillery pieces and jeeps to fool German surveillance airplanes. Following the war, he studied at the Boston Museum School, but soon went to Paris, where he lived and painted for six years. After returning to the United States, he began showing his work in galleries and was regularly included in annual exhibits of new art at the Whitney Museum, which in 1957 became the first to buy one of his paintings. Two years later, he was part of an important exhibit of new American artists at the Museum of Modern Art. Early in his career, he developed a style in which he covered large canvases all the way to the edges with bright color, depicting no objects at all. Some of his pieces consist of several canvases of various colors in a row. They are best understood as explorations of color itself, how it looks alone and how it interacts with other colors. Its easy to fall into art-world jargon when talking about Kellys work. In trying to measure his contribution to American art, it can seem like the descriptions of his work are more important than the paintings themselves. Philip Kennicott, The Washington Posts Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic, said that the seeming simplicity of Kellys style his use of single panels of bright color also made it both easy to take in at a glance and easy to underestimate. But to see his work in person, to spend a few minutes slowly absorbing it, is a revelatory experience of the sort only great art can provide. ArtNews magazine called Kelly a giant of abstract painting, and those who know his work well regularly place him in such rarified company as Picasso and Matisse. He was one of four artists chosen to represent the United States at the 1966 Venice Biennale, and in 2013 his contributions to the art world were acknowledged with the National Medal of the Arts. If you go to the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, you can see Kellys largest work, titled Dallas Panels (Blue Green Black Red), which the DSO Art Association commissioned him to paint when the hall was new. He hoped it would express clarity, optimism and joyful good spirits. Amid the austere gray and white marble of the centers atrium, Kellys towering panels of color jump off the wall when you see them. It makes you feel as exuberant as the bright colors themselves. Even the black panel, in this context, seems almost riotous. More than any other painter I can think of, Kellys work exemplifies the purely visual aspect of great art. It slows us down and lets us see color itself as the powerful, beautiful presence that we often take for granted. He was a timeless artist. Barnetts Public House 420 Franklin Avenue 254-714-1356 On Facebook, and at barnettspublichouse.com Hours: Closed Mondays; 4-11 p.m. Tuesdays-Wednesdays; 4 p.m.-midnight Thursdays; 4 p.m.-1 a.m. Fridays; 10 a.m.-1 a.m. Saturdays; and 10 a.m.- 2 p.m. Sundays. Price: $ (see guide below) Takeout: Yes Alcohol: Yes, full bar On the menu: The restaurant recently revamped its menu, with only a few items carried over from the previous menu. New menu items include The Cajun, The Italian Stallion, The Greek and Bahn Mi, all featuring gourmet sausages served with flat bread or a baguette. Other new items include Andouille sausage or shrimp with jalapeno grits, homemade boudin and beans, bratwurst and The Blue Collar Dog, a black Angus beef hot dog. Desserts include salted caramel cheese cake, bread pudding and a smore kit. Good to know: Offers free wi-fi and daily drink specials. Restaurant origin: Barnetts opened in the spring of 2010 before closing its doors Dec. 31, 2014. Under new ownership, the pub reopened in February 2015. Tandoori Trailer Waco Chowtown food truck court (University Parks Drive at Franklin Avenue.) 254-495-6466 On Facebook, Twitter and at tandooritrailer.com Hours: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays and 5-7 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays. Hours may vary due to weather; dinner hours longer in spring and summer. Closed Dec. 31-Jan. 3. Price: $ Takeout: Yes. Curbside service and phone app allowing ordering available after mid-January. Alcohol: No On the menu: Tandoori chicken (roasted in a tandoor, an Indian clay oven), chicken curry, paneer makhani (cubes of paneer cheese in a spiced tomato and cream sauce), chole (chickpeas), naan (baked flatbread), samosas (deep-fried pastry with savory fillings), basmati rice. Good to know: Garlic naan is a customer favorite. All dishes are made fresh daily. Restaurant origin: Co-owner Johnny Bhojwani came to work in Baylor Universitys admissions office in 2011 only to discover the nearest Indian restaurant was in Killeen. Houston resident Naresh Thadani was looking for a business in which to invest and Bhojwani suggested creating an Indian cuisine food truck. Freddys Frozen Custard and Steakburgers 817 S. Jack Kultgen Freeway 254-301-7330 On Facebook and at Hours: 10:30 a.m.- 10 p.m. Sundays-Thursdays. 10:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays. Drive-through open 10:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Sundays-Thursdays, 10:30 a.m.-midnight Fridays-Saturday Price: $-$$ Alcohol: No On the menu: Steakburgers, hot dogs, chicken breast sandwiches, veggie burgers, french fries, cheese fries, frozen custard sundaes and milkshakes. Good to know: Most popular order is the No. 1 combo, a double cheeseburger with fries and drink. Steakburgers made fresh daily and vegetable sides cut fresh daily. Freddys Fry Sauce also sold separately. Restaurant origin: World War II veteran Freddy Simon started the original Freddys in 1950s in Wichita, Kansas. WiseGuys Chicago Eatery 579 N. Valley Mills Drive 254-732-7580 On Facebook and at Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays. Closed Sundays. Price: $-$$ Takeout: Yes. Also available through Sic em Delivery. Catering also available. Alcohol: BYOB On the menu: Cheese-steaks, Italian beef sandwiches, hot dogs, hamburgers, sandwiches, french fries, onion rings, mozarella strips. Good to know: Customer favorites are cheesesteaks and Italian beef sandwiches. Live music at 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Back room available for parties, meetings. Restaurant origin: Current owners Gary and Barbara Klyczek, both from Chicago, reopened WiseGuys on Aug. 22, after previous management had operated as Tonys Chicago Grill. Its part of the original chain that opened the Valley Mills location in November 2012. Zoes Kitchen 1810 S. Valley Mills Drive 254-714-1361 On Facebook Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. Price: $-$$ Takeout: Yes. Catering also available. Alcohol: Beer and wine. On the menu: Mediterranean cuisine, hummus, salads, kabobs, pitas, sandwiches, rollups, soups and desserts. Good to know: Signature dishes include chicken kabobs, quinoa salad, steak rollups and hummus. Grilling is the predominant method of cooking no fryers or microwaves used and a variety of gluten-free, vegetarian and vegan options are available. Restaurant origin: Zoe and Marcus Cassimus founded the restaurant in 1995 in Homewood, Alabama. The Waco restaurant, the chains 163rd location, opened Oct. 27. The Patio on Eighth 511 S. Eighth St. 254-235-1151 On Facebook Hours: 11 a.m. to midnight Sundays-Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. Price: $-$$ Takeout: Yes Alcohol: Yes, full bar Smoking: The Backyards patio area has smoking zones that comply with the citys new smoking ordinance. On the menu: Burgers, barbecue, sandwiches, tacos. Good to know: Hamburger baskets and chicken-fried steak are popular with the lunchtime crowd while many viewers of The Backyards 40-foot television screen and outdoor stage are fans of the specialty appetizer Texas cheese steak balls, breaded and deep fried balls of chopped, seasoned brisket, cheese and jalepeno bits. Restaurant origin: Calvin Gossett, owner of The Patio on Main in Temple, wanted to expand into the Waco market and got the opportunity with the kitchen and meat-smoking operation of The Backyard, which opened in early October. Fuego Tortilla Grill 1524 S. 13th St. 254-235-2740 fuegotortillagrill.com and on Facebook Hours: 24 hours daily Price: $-$$ Takeout: Yes; drive-through also available. Alcohol: No On the menu: Tacos (beef, chicken, pork, fish) and puffy tacos; breakfast tacos; salad. Good to know: Customer favorites include the El Presidente (grilled chicken, bacon, cheese, fried avocado), The King (steak, beans, cheese, avocado) and the Dr Pepper Cowboy (brisket, chipotle corn, cheese, Dr Pepper barbeque sauce). Restaurant origin: The Fuego Tortilla Grill started in College Station and now has locations in San Marcos and Waco. The Baylor-area location, the second in Waco, opened Aug. 27. Guide: $ main dishes less than $10; $$ $10 to $20; $$$ more than $20. Hannah Read, who with drummer Zach Daniel makes up the duo Lomelda, writes about home and human connection in her songs, so its only fitting that Lomeldas headlining appearance Friday night at Common Grounds touches home in several ways. Theres the home of Waco, where Lomelda started nearly four years ago and which still serves as physical home for Daniel, his wife and daughter. Theres the home of the Common Grounds stage, where Lomelda made its debut. And the emotional home of fellow musicians sharing that Common Grounds stage over the years, represented in the opening bands Tapajenga and Evan and the Condors. Read, now based out of Austin, is looking forward to the night. Now, we really dont get to play Waco much anymore, she said in a recent phone interview. Im excited to play. Read, a native of Silsbee, grew up in music with both a father and siblings who could play guitar. She played in a brothers band when she was in high school I was the 15-year-old playing in the background, she said and when she came to Baylor University to study literature, majoring in the great texts, she found more time to write and play, plus things to write about. In college, you have to read so much that it opens your mind to so many possibilities, Read said. She had been performing solo as Lomelda when her path crossed that of drummer Daniel, and she decided she needed to put together a show in which theyd have to perform together. Things clicked at a totally ridiculous and goofy Christmas show, and more collaborations followed, leading to a non-solo Lomelda in April 2012. Lomeldas size fluctuated in its early years, but the Read-Daniel pairing has proved Lomeldas core and essence. Its our shared identity, she said. So what does Lomelda mean? Read explained that she once worked with a funeral home, preparing video slide shows for the deceased. Lomelda was the middle name of one young woman who had died in the middle of a vibrant, full life. That juxtaposition of joy and sorrow struck Read as a potent reminder that life and time are finite, and Lomelda has served as a reminder to do more with her life, even as she admits the names meaning sometimes shifts for them. Lomelda built a fan base in Waco, encouraged by attentive audiences at such venues as Common Grounds, and it has expanded with time. Since Reads graduation last year, the duo have played venues as far away as Oklahoma and Arkansas, plus more of Austins club scene. In October, Lomelda released its first recording, Forever, for Austin-based Punctum Records, and though Read says theres enough recorded material for a follow-up, the two will promote Forever for the time being. Fridays show will reunite Lomelda with two bands that have Common Grounds in, well, common. Austin band Tapajenga, which recorded a joint EP with Lomelda, counts two former Common Grounds employees and former Waco musicians in its lineup, Paul Mitchell and Jaxon Willis. Evan Lecker, of opening band Evan and the Condors, previously played in Waco band Ethan Durelle. Those renewed friendships remind Read of what she liked about the Waco indie band scene. Its such a cool community small enough to get to know pretty much anyone involved, she said. Its a nostalgic show for all of us. A Robinson councilman is threatening legal action against the city for the second time in recent weeks, this time claiming the city damaged his property value by disposing of waste on an adjacent lot, according to documents obtained in an open records request. Councilman Doye Bakers attorney, Vance Dunnam Sr. of Dunnam & Dunnam L.L.P., sent a letter to council members stating the city owns adjoining property to the council members and has used it for several years as a waste disposal dump. The area is more than 4 feet deep, and waste includes chemicals, barrels, drums and old tires, among other things, according to the letter. The letter, dated Jan. 14, states Baker and Dunnam want to meet with city leaders and see if the matter can be resolved without litigation before filing suit for the damage they claim the citys waste disposal has done to Bakers property. Using city property to dispose of solid waste is unauthorized, in violation of Texas Commission on Environmental Quality regulations and has caused serious damage to Bakers property value, according to the letter. The letter comes less than two weeks after Robinson City Council agreed to send a letter to Baker asking the fellow councilman to remove obstacles he had put in place blocking Shamrock Drive. Baker argued he owns that area, while other council members and city staff cited an engineering survey showing Shamrock Drive is a public street. Baker, who began his first term on the council in January 2015, has said it is likely that the only way the issue of who owns that area could be resolved is in court. The city owns property on one side of Shamrock Drive, while Baker owns about 14 acres on the other side. At the end of the street is the alleged dump site. Baker had left a tractor sitting in the street overnight. He said he parked it there so he could mow the next morning. City officials said they tried calling Baker to have him move that tractor so they could access their property, before having it towed. Mike Dixon, a Waco attorney who represents the city, said Wednesday he could not comment on the recent letter from Baker. But an open records request filed by the Tribune-Herald with the city shows Dixons response to Bakers letter. Dixons response, dated Jan. 21, states any suit filed against the city would be vigorously defended and sanctions would be sought. In order to avoid the embarrassment of you filing a frivolous suit on Mr. Bakers behalf and the imposition of sanctions against Mr. Baker, I think that it is important that you get correct information, the letter states. Initial reporting Dixons response also questions Bakers initial reporting of improper dumping. Baker reported the city last year to the TCEQ, then contacted the press, rather than advising city staff of the violation so they could take corrective action as one might expect someone to do who is elected to represent the citys interests, the letter states. The violation was an accumulation of materials, mostly brush, tree trimmings, boards and plastic, along with some empty and sealed containers, not loose chemicals, according to Dixons response. The TCEQ then contacted the city, which took action to clean up the property. TCEQ officials again inspected the property and determined in May 2015 that the city had corrected the matter. I consider this threat to be yet another attempt by Mr. Baker to harass the city and city staff. Its timing came right after the city council voted to demand that Mr. Baker remove obstructions from a street right of way and to move a fence that actually encloses land belonging to the city. It also comes in the midst of an enforcement action regarding the failure to maintain as operational a life safety system at an apartment complex for seniors owned or operated by entities believed associated with Mr. Baker. Dixon said Wednesday he could not comment on information regarding the apartment complex for seniors. He said he has not received a response from Bakers attorney since sending the letter. Baker said Wednesday he originally purchased Fountainview Senior Apartment Living in 2000 from the city when it was a nursing home. But the unit is now owned by his children, he said, and he is not involved in the business. Wish I was. Id sell it, Baker said. I guess they think I own my kids. County tax records show the city sold Baker the apartments in 1999, then he transferred the deed to the Doye Baker Limited Partnership in 2002. Dunnam declined to comment and said the letter was pretty self-explanatory. Unseen concerns Baker said this week what concerns him most is what one cant see at the dump site: chemicals that could have soaked into the ground. Baker said he is aware the TCEQ cleared the city, but he doesnt think they tested any soil samples for chemicals. Its past contamination. Its everything. Its just got everything in it, he said. Baker said he hates for this to happen because it is not good for his city. People, like myself, have invested a lot in the town, he said. Baker said he was intending to divide his property into 64 lots for homes. But now, he said, he thinks the property would be hard to sell. TCEQ spokeswoman Andrea Morrow said there have been no recent complaints about the area since the Feb. 26, 2015, investigation. Morrow said the city removed the unauthorized municipal solid waste noted during the investigation and submitted compliance documentation that resolved violations. Additionally, on May 5, 2015, the TCEQ conducted a follow-up site assessment at the request of the city that verified the waste was removed. No spills, discharges, oil sheens or soil staining were noted during the investigation, so no additional cleanup or soil sampling was warranted, she said. Despite concern from some faculty members about Baylor Universitys initiative to increase diversity, the schools new Presidents Advisory Council on Diversity is promising a thorough conversation about the issue. Conversations were started in the fall, conversations we need to continue, advisory council chairwoman Lori Baker said. Were going to do that in the broadest sense possible. What we want is to make this a broader conversation with different avenues in which faculty can be a part of it. Baylors diversity initiative began with the Chief Diversity Officer Implementation Planning Group, which hosted two town hall meetings in the fall. Then-Provost and Executive Vice President Edwin Trevathan convened the group at President Ken Starrs request. In a letter to faculty after the start of the fall 2015 semester, Trevathan informed them the university was committed to creating the chief diversity officer position. The planning group would study similar efforts at peer institutions, and the Baylor community would give input to define the structure and responsibilities of the new position, Trevathan wrote in the letter. That process has spurred debate among faculty members, and the new advisory council will handle the issue moving forward. Trevathan stepped down from his administrative post this month after less than eight months at Baylor. He will remain at the university as a neuroscience professor. Trevathan did not respond to questions about whether the process to create the diversity officer position had anything to do with his resignation. The planning group Trevathan convened sent a report of its findings to Starr in December, but officials declined to release it publicly. Baker, an associate professor of anthropology and past chair of the Faculty Senate, said the advisory council will begin reviewing the report at its first meeting, which could be as soon as this week. Inclusive as possible Im excited about the committee doing this and I want to make sure to let everyones voice be heard and heard well, Baker said. The community will come together to be as inclusive as possible. Religion professor Daniel Williams attended one of the first planning groups town hall meetings. Williams said he and others were unhappy with the availability for faculty input. Im still not absolutely certain there was room for various comments to be made, Williams said. The people leading the meeting really didnt respond to anything. That was not their job to do that, but the provost was at that meeting. . . . He just showed up and gave a small speech that favored us doing it, which struck a number of us as coercive. The opposition that was taken was simply that. Members of the department of religion signed a letter to Trevathan in November expressing support for Baylors initiative to hire a chief diversity officer. We affirm the value and practice of diversity as continuous with the moral vision of the Christian Gospel, the letter read. All but four members of the department signed the letter of support. Williams was among the four who did not sign it. The departments website lists 31 faculty members. Williams instead signed a letter to Trevathan that expressed a belief that broad and deep faculty consultation and deliberation is needed before beginning any search for a chief diversity officer. The letter calling for more faculty input was signed by 28 faculty members and a retired provost. Williams was also confused about what would be expected of hiring committees with new diversity initiatives. What are they supposed to do? Williams asked. Something other than look for academic excellence? Are we supposed to vote based on someones physical characteristics rather than academic achievements? Rishi Sriram, an assistant professor and graduate program director of educational administration, served on the CDO group and also will serve on the advisory council. He is the only person to work on both groups. Srirams perception of the town hall meetings differs from Williams. I thought the town hall meetings were represented by a really engaged group of faculty, Sriram said. I thought there were lots of viewpoints that varied from one another. People felt safe to share their thoughts and opinions on the work to be done. Sriram also said he thinks the group is wondering what Trevathans resignation means for Baylors diversity initiative moving forward. But Williams felt Trevathans approach to the issue may have turned off some faculty. It seems to me to be unwise for a new provost, having never been one, to become a puller for a manifestly ideological type of agenda, Williams said. Thats what diversity agendas have become across universities all over the U.S. It seemed like an unfortunate decision on his part to push that card. So what happened was he alienated just as many faculty as supported him. I actually find having to fight about ideology in an academic context troubling, Williams said, when most of us are trying to do academic work in teaching and research. Getting waylaid by agendas is very aggravating. Baker, meanwhile, continued to stress that input from faculty, staff, students and alumni is pivotal to the conversation moving forward. It has to be a community effort, she said. Everyone has to have a part and contribute for it to work. We want a really comprehensive plan based on what we hear from everyone. Three armed and masked men robbed a Bushs Chicken at 3632 N. 19th St. late Tuesday night, prompting an investigation to find the brazen suspects, Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said. Officers were called to the restaurant shortly after 10 p.m., after three men entered the restaurant with handguns, Swanton said. There were several employees inside the business, but no customers were inside, Swanton said. They put one of the victims on the ground, fired a shot off near her. Nobody was hit. Nobody was injured, but this was certainly a terrifying event for those employees that were involved. Swanton said the shot was fired toward the ceiling and hit a light fixture. The suspects reportedly took an undisclosed amount of cash from a back office area before fleeing on foot toward the back of the building. This was pretty bold on their part, because this is a pretty well-traveled thoroughfare with windows set up in the front, Swanton said. Numerous Waco officers, (including) a K9 (officer), responded to the scene, but we were not able to find any of the suspects. Officers said it was fortunate no injuries were reported. Swanton said the business has surveillance cameras in the store that may provide evidence in identifying the suspects. These are certainly three violent criminals that we would like to get behind bars, he said. This was a pretty brazen robbery, and it could have turned tragic very quickly. The Bushs Chicken robbery comes two weeks after three other armed robberies were reported at Waco businesses. No known suspects have been arrested in the four recent robberies. As the Tribune-Herald previously reported, two armed men robbed a CEFCO convenience store at 1620 S. 18th St. on Jan. 10; two armed men robbed Taqueria El Charro Tapatia restaurant at 1615 W. Waco Drive on Jan. 12; and two armed men robbed Sams Southern Eatery at 1824 E. Waco Drive on Jan. 13. There is nothing at this point to indicate that these are all the same suspects, but we always look at the possibility that some of these robberies may be related to each other, Swanton said. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Waco Crime Stoppers at 753-4357. Irans re-integration into the global economy with the lifting of economic sanctions brings great joy to Iranians but deep reservations to many Americans. With access to more than $100 billion in once-frozen assets, Iran will undoubtedly help shape our world economy, allowing Iran to expand its sphere of influence, mainly in the Middle East. To Iran, one of the positive elements in this turn of events is its ability to rejoin the top ranks of global oil producers. As Ive outlined in previous writings, once sanctions were lifted, Iran would be well positioned to influence the oil market, a mix that now includes the heady presence of Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United States. To what degree, you might well wonder. Answer: The market and geopolitics together will decide. All this comes on the heels of a sharp drop in oil prices to below $33 a barrel, something we see reflected whenever we pump gasoline to our hearts content or read about fiscal jitters in states that rely heavily on oil revenue to fund government operations and services. Now that sanctions are officially lifted, oil prices will continue to decline further. Yes, economic opportunities await Iran, but they wont come too fast. Irans economy consists of a series of knots that will take time to loosen. For instance, Iran had to store some of its oil in tankers at sea due to international sanctions. Not anymore. The lifting of sanctions allows it to finally sell its oil on the open market ironically, contributing to even lower prices for itself and everyone else. My prediction is Iran could add between 600,000 and 800,000 barrels per day to its output. This possibility has already created panic in the oil market, mainly in Muslim archrival Saudi Arabia. Irans Catch-22 Could this explain the turmoil within Aramco, the Saudis state-run oil company? Could it also explain the sudden visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Riyadh recently? The answer is yes. The added Iranian oil, I believe, is a conservative estimate. Irans oil minister, Bijan Zanganeh, argued in an interview with CNN that Iran is aiming at an output of about 1.5 million barrels by the end of 2016, taking daily production output worldwide to about 4.2 million barrels. You dont have to be a Nobel Prize-winning economist to figure out that oil prices will remain low for a while, perhaps longer than some suspected. However, should war erupt between Iran and Saudi Arabia which I do not foresee, nor do both countries really want for all their saber rattling oil prices would quickly jump above $100 a barrel, triggering renewed interest in the oil patch of the United States. While its no secret that Saudi Arabia wants to eliminate competition mainly the U.S. shale boom in order to maintain high oil prices in the long term, the lifting of sanctions on Iran will force OPEC members to reconsider such strategies and step up production to defend their market shares, even as OPEC prepares for its much-anticipated June 2 meeting in Vienna. All this comes with a Catch-22 challenge for Iran. Amid an oil glut, it needs a barrel of oil to sell at $145 to balance its own budget. However, a flood of investments by other countries will allow Iran to re-integrate into the global economy. This could not be more evident than in a visit by Xi Jinping to Iran; former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroders visit to secure Germanys business interests; and a visit by a high-level French delegation to Iran for the third time since the West reached a deal with Iran over the latters nuclear program. Against this backdrop, Saudi Arabias internal political and economic turmoil especially Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmans latest announcement regarding partial sale of state-owned oil leviathan Aramco raises serious concerns. The question is whether the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Aramco provides the kingdom more time and investment to weather devastating oil-price declines. The answer, theoretically, is yes. But reality suggests otherwise. Saudi options While my analysis suggests that such a public offering is designed to calm nervousness in the market, Im convinced the kingdom will wait till after OPECs June meeting in Vienna to move ahead. Equally important, between now and then, Saudis will be watching the market anxiously as Iran floods it with more oil. Further, the Saudi decision regarding the Aramco IPO depends on just how fast other economies (China, Russia, Germany, France, Great Britain, etc.) invest in Iran and the gate to securing contracts in energy and other sectors is wide-open. Although the Saudi crown prince is enthusiastic about the partial sale of Aramco, such a move could stifle the global energy industry, leading to creation of a company (as suggested in The Economist) with far greater market capitalization than Apple, ExxonMobil, Berkshire Hathaway and Google combined. After all, Aramcos net worth exceeds $7 trillion. The other issue is legal. Should the kingdom move forward with this offering, it is legally obligated to disclose relevant audits of Saudi oil fields. My guess is Washington has no idea what the exact Saudi oil reserves are. Further, such a disclosure will highlight how much liquidity (in trillions of dollars) the kingdom has in U.S. banks and our economy. Such disclosure would have serious repercussions in the streets of Riyadh, Jeddah and the already marginalized southeastern part of the kingdom. And dont forget that countrys double-digit unemployment rate. Flip side in all this: whether such a decision could force loyalists of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Nayef main rival of Mohammed bin Salman to orchestrate a palace coup. I wouldnt be surprised. Meanwhile, Irans minister of transportation says Iran has reached a tentative deal with the European consortium Airbus to buy 114 passenger planes. Further, Iran looks to purchase 400 passenger planes over the next decade. Whatever your political orientation or however you feel about the wheeling and dealing of Mideast nations, let pragmatism and common sense prevail in the hope that Washington seizes the awaited economic opportunities so our own companies and the somewhat anemic U.S. economy at least have a share of the pie. David Oualaalou is a global affairs analyst, blogger, author and professor. A former international security analyst in Washington, D.C., he is a part-time instructor at McLennan Community College. Some lately have suggested that Baylor Universitys religious identity places at risk its diversity and the very quality of its education. Such claims fail to grasp a fundamental point: It is precisely as a Baptist university committed to scholarship and teaching that Baylor makes a distinct contribution to the diversity of education in Texas, the United States and beyond. That is why as a Catholic priest with a background in physics, philosophy and theology, I routinely recommend Baylor to family, friends and parishioners seeking an academically rigorous and Christian education. To claim that Baylors education must be second-rate because it is a Christian university is to assume that people of faith cannot be first-rate researchers or teachers. Such an unproven belief is called a bias. When it ignores the demonstrated accomplishments of Christian scholars, it risks becoming outright bigotry despite its claim to speak in the defense of diversity and excellence. In this light, the assertion that an institution must become secular to gain access to first-tier status and funding would merely reveal that such status is a social label masquerading as an academic assessment. First-tier status would then be exposed as little more than an award used by a majority (or an elite) to enforce social conformity in an effort to protect its power base. Admittedly, it has a nicer sound than Irish (or Jews, Blacks or Catholics) Need Not Apply, but in the end it would come to the same thing: Differences are unwelcome. Were that the case, Baylor would have to abandon or hide its distinctiveness in order to pass so that it could participate in the system and receive its rewards. On the other hand, if first-tier is actually about scholarship, then Baylors Baptist identity is no obstacle to membership and its presence would enhance the diversity of a group of institutions that are overwhelmingly public or nonsectarian. Those who wish to consign Christian universities to perpetual second-rate status or who seek to enforce their particular view of diversity on the internal governance of religiously based institutions sometimes assert that inquiry into the religious belief and practice of a professor is discriminatory or irrelevant because faith is not a legitimate measure of expertise. This is to mistake the primary purpose of such inquiries. Christians seek to dedicate their entire lives, including their work, to the service of God and neighbor in Christ. An institutional inquiry examines how a professor understands academic work as an integral part of religious life. This is not irrelevant for Baylor as a Baptist university wishing to promote Christian witness, and it has concrete implications. Consider, for example, the scholarship and witness of Dr. Lori E. Baker, who has helped identify the remains of those dying along illegal immigration routes in the Southwest, or of the late Dr. Diana Garland, who advanced the excellence and community outreach of Baylors pivotal School of Social Work. Many Christian students (and parents) value the witness of life provided by Christian scholars as an essential part of an education. This provides them role models and helps them to develop as Christians who will be entering the academy or another profession. Baylor seeks to fill this educational niche by offering first-rate content in a Christian context. Secular institutions, naturally, provide a different educational context. That is the beauty of diversity in educational systems: It welcomes differences without compromising academic quality. As a nation, we are thankful for secular universities like Harvard, Princeton and Rice just as we are thankful for white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant presidents like Washington, Lincoln and Wilson. But will one more create diversity? Is there no room for Christian universities in the first tier or for Catholic, female or minority presidents? In the 21st century, can we really believe that they unable to make the grade? As a Catholic interested in Christian education, I hope that Baylor continues to enhance its commitment to excellence and diversity in education while strengthening its distinctive identity as a Baptist university. For Christians, this will be a precious gift that promotes witness to the Gospel. For the secular community, it will help to foster a diversity of educational models that is vital to our pluralistic democracy. Or, as one might say in Latin: Pro Ecclesia, Pro Texana. Father Timothy V. Vaverek is a Catholic priest in Gatesville and Hamilton. He has served the Waco area for 25 of the past 30 years. Heartbreak, Texas, is 50 or 500 miles west of Houstons sushi bars. I found refuge there after a painful divorce. Later, I found love in the form of Sally Rae, head waitress at The Waterin Hole Cafe. We married, and experienced a wild sort of happiness that men my age seldom see. My daughter, Janey, grew up and went to college. Along the way we inherited a special, savant sort of little genius named Lil Billy. More on him later much, much more. The night Lil Billy disappeared, our big barn burned down. We lost some goats, and Sally Rae had to sell most of the herd because we didnt have shelter for them. I got burned, but after five days in the hospital in Carson City, I started hunting for our lost child. I had few enough hopes for his being alive: My silver ax was missing from the barn. I personally sifted every inch of the ashes, hoping against hope that it was gone. Lil Billy loved that ax as little children sort of latch onto things. As I sifted I prayed my strongest prayer I wouldnt find some remains of our special son. Lil Billy was brighter than a new-minted penny, but often out of touch of ordinary things. Well, I found neither my tool nor his bones. Also, I found nothing of T-2, our favorite goat. Most goats are real particular about letting only their own kids nurse off them. T-2 was the exception. She would let any hungry little passing kid have a sip. Such goats are like gold when mothers go dry, die in birthing or get mastitis. One day I even caught Lil Billy sipping right from the source, all innocence and wonder. Lil Billy, you are a child, not a kid goat! At least use the tin cup! I exclaimed. The tin cup was missing, too. I had little enough to pin my hopes upon, but faith needs little fertilizer, and fertilizer was about the only thing we had left. My search for him led me upstream for a half-days walk, but a heart attack cut me short of satisfaction. I had a hard time of it, nearly died (or did die, once or twice, depending on whom you listened to), but I believed Lil Billy was still out there. Sally Rae kept house, made soup from air some days, but she held true. I could do little but hope as I lay at home, recuperating. Did I mention that for the first time in our marriage, we were both unemployed? We lived off our non-existent savings, lived as country folk often do on faith for a better tomorrow. Not to be too personal, but for the first time in our marriage, the hotness that had made Sally Rae and I so close, well, cooled. We treated each other right, said the right things, but few couples can recover from the loss of a child, biological or otherwise. The weather turned from sleet to snow, then cold rain, then sleet again and snow. Any other year, I would have rejoiced in the moisture, but every pellet of sleet, every drop of rain, every flake of beautiful snow made me wonder why God sent it the year Lil Billy was likely out there, exposed to the elements. Im not real smart, but Im smart enough to realize I dont know Gods mind. We were down, really down. Just as we sat down for some thin potato soup with a little hog back in it, a knock came at the door. Well hi, Ben, come on in, I said. It was Ben Samuels, our town Jew. He was foster-raised by Baptist folks who drove an extra 30 miles every Friday to get him in to synagogue, but he also had to go to Cottonwood Baptist Church every Sunday. The result was one of the kindest, most conflicted men Ive ever met. He was honest to a fault, indecisive in all things relating to exercising government authority, and sharp at business. He was the richest man in town, ignoring Mean Old Man Storm. Ignoring Storm was easy, but I digress. Ben Samuels was the perfect mayor for Heartbreak; he was full of authority, he loathed to exercise, and he generally knew the best way to get the town pump fixed. He also owned most of the boarded-up shops downtown. Have a seat, I said. Can we offer you a little soup? Thanks, but Ive eaten, he responded, Go ahead while I tell yall a little story. Get it while its hot. I know you folks have been through some hard times; it might make you feel a little better. Ben sat back. If he had a fault, it was that he liked the sound of his own voice. I never knew a man who had a harder time getting to a point, but, then he was a politician. No one trusts a bald-headed barber. Rufus Toby delivered his final verdict at a town meeting last night, Ben reported. Toby was the dreaded food cop from Austin. He has decisive findings about the potato salad of Sally Raes that sickened the whole town last fall at the VFD picnic. Sally Rae tensed. The second worst moment of her life was when Gomer, her boss at The Waterin Hole Cafe, announced in his loudest voice that she was fired for poisoning the whole town. The only thing at all that had helped dampen her shame was the guilt associated with the yakking, ralphing and upchucking of about 500 folks. Well, is Arnie going to arrest her? I asked. Things at that moment were so grim I was ready to throw our few possessions in Rosie my pickup and head out of town on a one-way trip. No. Actually, what Toby discovered was that it was Gomers pickles that made everyone sick. I fired him on the spot. I wish you had been there. It was a sweet moment, after the way he treated Sally Rae. By the way, I own 51 percent of The Waterin Hole Cafe. Silent partner, and all that. Sally Rae and I looked at each other, sort of round-eyed and unblinking. It wasnt how her soup tasted. As you doubtless know, I own most of the real estate in Heartbreak proper; I dont want to own a ghost town. We are in danger of losing our post office. If we lose that, the school will shut down, and in 10 years it will all be pasture again. With that, he shifted his gaze round to Sally Rae. We need The Waterin Hole. Its way beyond a food joint. Its as much the heart of this fair community as Cottonwood Baptist Church. Im proposing that I buy your ranch, and yall can use the proceeds to buy 49 percent ownership of The Waterin Hole. Ben shifted back to me, Nothing personal, Dave, but I think your goat-ranching days are about over. Back to Sally Rae: And I will throw in the empty spaces next door for your new living space. Sally Rae and I looked at each other again. We both knew that in two months we couldnt make our next payment on the ranch, much less cover my copious doctors bills. For the first time in months, hope seemed reasonable. I opened my mouth to shout yes when Sally Rae gave me The Look. If youre married you know it, if you are single but have aspirations, you better learn it. It means Shut up! Ben slowly turned back to my wife. Now he knew who he was dealing with. Hmm, 51 percent, she said. What?! Ben asked, innocent as a new-spanked babe. I want 51 percent ownership of the cafe, the next two abandoned buildings, plus $15,000 for renovations. Final offer. Two building and $10,000, Ben replied. We cant live in cobwebs, and the stove is shot. Fifty-one percent, $10,000 free and clear; and $5,000 at 3 percent over 20 years, and the next two spaces down. Or we walk. Heartbreak has never been too kind to me; I might like some place new for a fresh start. Youre a hard woman to drive a bargain with, Sally Rae. I hope so. Done. Ill draw up the papers by Monday if I can find a sober lawyer between now and then. With that, Ben shook her hand, and magnanimously turned and shook mine as well. Dave, Sally Rae said. Either shut your mouth, or put some soup in it. I walked Ben Samuels to his car after the usual 15-minute goodbye ritual that Southern politeness requires. We offered twice more to share our soup with him, offered him a bed for the night if he might be too tired to drive, and we promised to get together real soon. We all laughed at inane, overtold jokes. Some feel that Southerners are hypocrites, but the subtext was We bargained hard, well be true, dont worry. We still like you. Some Southerners have tried to dispense with this lengthy, sometimes tiresome process, but most of them have been divorced several times and they never do well in business. As I walked Ben Samuels out to his Cadillac, there came a white stirring in the dark. T-2 ran up to me, and licked my hand! Hope for Lil Billy found new life! ----- David L. Mosley is a retired teacher who owns an 80-acre ranch in North Waco, where he raised goats until discovering he was really raising coyotes, bobcats and wild dogs. He is a fourth-generation Wacoan. He calls himself over-educated, underfunded and land poor, and he drives a broken pickup truck. Email him at David_Mosley1951@yahoo.com When the calendar flips to February, Debbie Reed knows it wont be long before her shop is swamped with people needing flowers for their sweethearts on Valentines Day. But thats been the routine for years at Reeds Flowers, which has been in continuous operation since 1930. On Valentines Day Ive seen them lined up out the door and around the corner, she said. Youll get a lot of people last-minute, when the guys are desperate. Debbie Reed said this year will be a little different in that Valentines Day falls on a Sunday when the shop is closed. But the week leading up to the day will be loaded with long hours trying to fill the many orders for the holiday. Friday and Saturday should be especially busy, she said. Weve done as many as 350 deliveries in one day (because of Valentines Day) before, she said. Making sure there are plenty of roses especially the red ones can be a challenge for the holiday, she said. But keeping customers satisfied with bouquets and fresh flowers has been a hallmark of Reeds. Debbie Reed has taken over the business from her father, Harry Reed, who in turn followed in the footsteps of his parents, Bert and Blanche Reed, and his uncle, Tom Reed. It was Tom Reed who opened Reeds Flowers in 1930 at 1025 Austin Ave. In the late 1950s, the shop moved two doors over to 1029 Austin Ave., at the corner of 11th Street. Its remained there ever since. Tom Reed learned the flower trade in 1912 from the Wolfe family. The original Wolfe floral operation lasted from 1892 to 1997, when it sold the last of its greenhouses to a California company. Fifth- and sixth-generation Wolfes today run Wolfe Wholesale Florist, which has been open since 1990. Harry Reed was still regularly coming to the store until about a year and a half ago, Debbie Reed said. The 93-year-old now lives at Stilwell Retirement Residence, and he still occasionally has advice to share with his daughter about the floral trade. Harry Reed started working in the family business as a youth, starting with potting plants in a greenhouse off Dallas Highway. I did whatever was necessary, he said, including making deliveries. His father, Bert, was in charge of running the greenhouse in Lacy Lakeview while mom Blanche took care of the flower shop in Waco. The business survived during the Great Depression, but it wasnt easy, he recalled. We had to get through some pretty rough years, he said. People either didnt buy flowers or they did and then couldnt pay. Like flowers, the business grew in the years after that. At one point the Reeds had shops and greenhouses in Temple, Belton and Cameron, he said. But Harry Reed took a bit of a detour from the flower business when he thought he might make a career of flying. After graduating from La Vega High School he entered a program to train civilian pilots and later joined the U.S Air Force. He was called to be an instructor and trained other pilots. He also was trained on the large B-29s, which were designed for use in the Pacific during World War II. After the war he flew B-25s at Connally Air Force Base, teaching radar interception tactics to pilots. He remained in the Air Force Reserves for 10 years. He married his own sweetheart, Glenda Pledger, completed his degree from Baylor University and had two daughters and a son. He returned to run Reeds Flowers with his parents, eventually taking over for them. Waco also holds a place in the history of the states floral industry. The Texas State Florists Association was founded in Waco in 1914, though it is now headquartered in Austin. Harry has two younger siblings, James Reed, a retired Army colonel in San Antonio, and Dorothy Campbell, of Cleveland, Ohio, but neither were interested in taking over the business as he grew older. As he has stepped away from the day-to-day duties of overseeing the business, he does have fond memories of his years in the floral trade. Ive met some of the nicest people through the industry, he said. Ill never forget how many nice things they have done for me. Daughter Debbie eventually decided she would continue the family legacy. Much like her father, Debbie Reed grew up learning various aspects of the business over time. First it was deliveries, then how to design bouquets and arrangements, and she has since added bookkeeper to her duties with the shop. Its definitely a seven-day-a-week job. There is a lot going on, she said. But every day is a new day. She said its been about the last 10 years that shes gotten heavily involved with running the business. Debbie said she got a great sense of what is required to run the place during a six-week stretch in 1998 when her father took a cruise and visited Australia and she was put in charge. Thats when I really saw what it takes, she said. One of Reeds Flowers standing orders is providing floral arrangements for a number of churches throughout Waco. Weve been doing it for a long time, and we give them good prices, but we also look at it as giving to the church, she said. Valentines Day and Mothers Day remain the big flower occasions, and Debbie Reed knows it wont be any different this year. She and her staff are getting ready for the heavy stretch. She added that her dad is still her biggest hero and shes glad she has embraced the legacy of continuing Reeds Flowers. I decided I wanted to keep it and keep it going, she said. Taiwanese exchange students Li Meng-Yu, left, and Yu Hsiao-En are enjoying the year making new friends and enjoying a more relaxed American culture. If they were home, they would be studying. Mia, 16 and Sean, 18 are exchange students from Taiwan. Mia, or Li Meng-Yu, is from the capital in the north, Taipei, and Sean, or Yu Hsiao-En is from Tainan in the south. "Pei means north," Sean said and Mia's eyes light up with a new understanding about the names of their hometowns. "That's right!" Mia said. Mia is a bright bubbly junior at Wahkiakum High School. Sean, a senior, is more sober and serious, and easily the taller of the two. He must be 6'4". Meeting a fellow citizen in a world away from home has eased the transition somewhat, though neither has suffered too badly from homesickness. A shared language has helped them navigate life here. They also find commonality with an exchange student from China, though they've noticed that she has an accent. She probably thinks they do too. They were in art class on Tuesday afternoon, working on a project. Mia loves anime and has created wonderful portraits in that style. Taiwan is near Japan, where animation is very popular. "We know a lot of animation," Mia said. "I just like to draw." Sean is also artistic, though his work leans more towards design. He had taken pictures of two of his recent designs, an aircraft and a submarine. They were precise and detailed. "Not all Taiwanese can draw," Mia said teasingly. "My dream is to become an aircraft designer," Sean said. "In my country there are not enough resources in this area. I've come here to first learn English and hopefully to make contacts." He is also interested in the military. Though he has no plans to join the military in Taiwan, he hopes to eventually design weapons or equipment for them. "Mostly aircrafts," Sean said, "but I also know a bit about tanks and ships." Mia wants to work in business like her parents. She is here to learn English and have a different educational experience than the one she's had in Taipei. Both agree that there is a lot more pressure there. Mia turned out for volleyball and plans to join track. Sports are really important here, Mia said, surprised by the difference. "Volleyball is really cool, but there is a very different attitude between America and Taiwan." After games in Taiwan, the teams silently separate. "Here they high five and even if you did badly, they will say nice try or nice hustle," she said. "At home, even doing good feels like punishment." Sean is a member of the Broadcast Club and he also plays the drums in the band. He started playing the drums a couple years ago with his church band in Tainan. What do they do for fun at home? Study," Mia said under her breath. Sean laughed. And agreed. "I surf the internet," he said. "There are a lot of people," Mia said. "Usually they are busy." "Studying," Sean said quietly. They laughed. They've had all school year to work on this act. Mia's favorite teacher is Mr. Hurley. Diana Zimmerman "He's so nice," she said, "but he kind of confuses me. He makes jokes. American jokes take me forever. Unlike the above example, humor doesn't always translate. "I like Mr. Cox but I don't like his assignments," Sean said. "His assignments are so hard," Mia laughed. Talk turned to language. They are getting better at thinking about and doing their assignments in English first. If pressed, they might tell you that 'Holy Cow!' means something completely different and a bit unsavory in Taiwan. "Language is fun!" Mia said, laughing. Sean is staying with Bob and Diane Garrett and Mia is living with Stephanie and Steven Leitz and their family. IN THE COUNTY COURT OF SAUNDERS COUNTY, NEBRASKA IN THE MATTER OF THE ESTATE OF WALTER R. ANDERSON, SR., Deceased Estate No. PR15110 Notice of Informal Probate and Notice to Creditors Notice is hereby given that on December 29, 2015, in the County Court of Saunders County, Ne braska, Beverly Anderson, 1229 North Hackberry, Apartment #310, Wahoo, Nebraska 68066, and Wal ter Anderson, Jr. 208 North Drive, Fremont, Nebraska 68025, were in formally appointed by the Registrar as Personal Representatives of this Estate. Creditors of this estate must file their claims with this Court on or before March 21, 2016, or be forever barred. Elizabeth Zahourek Clerk of the County Court Scott Tingelhoff, #21645 Attorney for the Applicants Tingelhoff Law, P.C., L.L.O. 353 City View Drive Wahoo, Nebraska 68066 (402) 4433900 Attorney for Estate 12079921;Jan 21, 28 Feb 4 NOTICE IN THE COUNTY COURT OF SAUNDERS COUNTY, NEBRASKA Estate of Helen M. Radenslaben, Deceased Estate No. PR161 Notice is hereby given that on January 5, 2016, in the County Court of Saunders County, Ne braska, the Registrar issued a writ ten statement of Informal Probate of the Will of said Decedent and that Bobby Radenslaben, whose address is 1264 County Road B, Ceresco, NE 68017, was informally appointed by the Registrar as Personal Repre sentative of the Estate. Creditors of this Estate must file their claims with this Court on or before March 14, 2016, or be forever barred. Elizabeth Zahourek Clerk of the County Court 387 N. Chestnut Wahoo, NE 68066 Jovan W. Lausterer Bar Number: 23081 Bromm, Lindahl, Freeman Caddy & Lausterer 551 North Linden Wahoo, NE 68066 (402)4433225 12079810;Jan 14, 21, 28 NOTICE IN THE COUNTY COURT OF SAUNDERS COUNTY, NEBRASKA Estate of Ed Leroy Crouse, Deceased Estate No. PR165 Notice is hereby given that on January 8, 2016, in the County Court of Saunders County, Ne braska, the Registrar issued a writ ten statement of Informal Probate of the Will of said Decedent and that TRUDY S. WEYERS, whose ad dress is P.O. Box 195, Pleasant Dale, NE 68423, was informally ap pointed by the Registrar as Personal Representative of the Estate. Credi tors of this Estate must file their claims with this Court on or before March 14, 2016, or be forever barred. Elizabeth Zahourek Clerk Magistrate Saunders County 387 N. Chestnut, Suite 5 Wahoo, NE 68066 JOHN C. HAHN, #15068 Attorney At Law Jeffrey, Hahn & Hemmerling, P.C.,LLO 5640 So. 84th Street, Suite 100 Lincoln, NE 68516 (402) 4837711 12079855;Jan 14, 21, 28 NOTICE IN THE COUNTY COURT OF SAUNDERS COUNTY, NEBRASKA IN THE MATTER OF THE ESTATE OF WILLIAM J. BENAL, Deceased Case No. PR 163 Notice is hereby given that on January 8, 2016, in the County Court of Saunders County, Ne braska, the Registrar issued a writ ten statement of Informal probate of the Will of said Deceased and that Cassandra E. Leach whose address is 1722 North Maxwell Avenue, Fre mont, Nebraska 68025, has been appointed Personal Representative of this Estate. Creditors of this es tate must file their claims with this Court on or before Marc 14, 2016, or be forever barred. Elizabeth Zahourek Clerk of the County Court John H. Sohl Attorney at Law 559 North Linden Wahoo, Nebraska 68066 Ph. (402) 4434110 Fax (402) 4434120 Bar No. 16663 12079856;Jan 14, 21, 28 NOTICE In the County Court of Saunders County, Nebraska Estate of Gary R. Nash, Deceased Estate No. PR164 Notice is hereby given that on January 8, 2016, in the County Court of Saunders County, Ne braska, the Registrar issued a writ ten statement of Informal Probate of the Will of said Decedent and that Shawn P Nash at 4021 Davidia Ct., Loveland, CO 80538 was informally appointed by the Registrar as Per sonal Representative of the Estate. Creditors of this Estate must file their claims with this Court on or before March 21, 2016 or be forever barred. Elizabeth Zahourek Clerk of the County Court County Court of Saunders County 387 N. Chestnut, #5, Wahoo, NE 68066 Darren L. Hartman (Bar I.D. #22904) Haessler, Sullivan, Klein, Ltd. P.O. Box 146 666 N. Broadway Wahoo, NE 68066 Telephone (402) 4434181 Fax:(402)4434182 Email:hsklaw@wahooattorneys.com Attorney 12079922;Jan 21, 28 Feb 4 NOTICE IN THE COUNTY COURT OF SAUNDERS COUNTY, NEBRASKA Estate of Dale C. Hanson, Deceased Estate No. PR166 Notice is hereby given that on January 14, 2016, in the County Court of Saunders County, Ne braska, the Registrar issued a writ ten statement of Informal Probate of the Will of said Decedent and that Jay E. Hanson, whose address is 1251 County Road L, Mead, NE 68041, was informally appointed by the Registrar as Personal Repre sentative of the Estate. Creditors of this Estate must file their claims with this Court on or before March 21, 2016, or be forever barred. Elizabeth Zahourek Clerk of the County Court 387 N. Chestnut Wahoo, NE 68066 Curtis A. Bromm Bar Number: 10442 Bromm, Lindahl, Freeman Caddy & Lausterer 551 North Linden Wahoo, NE 68066 (402)4433225 12080004;Jan 21, 28 Feb 4 NOTICE IN THE COUNTY COURT OF SAUNDERS COUNTY, NEBRASKA Estate of Robert W. Pearson, Deceased Estate No. PR169 Notice is hereby given that on January 19, 2016, in the County Court of Saunders County, Ne braska, the Registrar issued a writ ten statement of Informal Probate of the Will of said Decedent and that Glenda K. Russell, whose address is 619 West Avenue, Grand Island, NE 688034250, was informally ap pointed by the Registrar as Personal Representative of the Estate. Creditors of this Estate must file their claims with this Court on or before March 28, 2016, or be forever barred. Elizabeth Zahourek Clerk of the County Court 387 N. Chestnut Wahoo, NE 68066 Loren L. Lindahl Bar Number: 12481 Bromm, Lindahl, Freeman Caddy & Lausterer 551 North Linden Wahoo, NE 68066 (402)4433225 12080122;Jan 28 Feb 4, 11 WAHOO -- Union contract stipulations stunted recent efforts from the Saunders County Board of Supervisors to rebid health insurance for county employees. With current insurance coverage ending March 31, Supervisors did their due diligence and the bid process culminated in two bids on Nov. 10. Current health insurance is provided by the Michigan Conference of Teamsters Welfare Fund, but they did not place a bid. The Supervisors were not aware until the Jan. 19 meeting that the Michigan Teamsters union contract for county employees also stipulates and specifically names themselves as the health insurance provider. The contract does not end until June 30. Less than half of county employees filled out an online health application that would provide information about their medical histories, so competitive bids cannot be obtained, said Ryan Swinton, the consultant hired by the board specifically for this process. Swinton, an employee of UNICO Group, Inc. was paid $3968.75 by the board for this service. Swinton suggested the language in the new union contract should be changed. Your hands are tied now and forever with Michigan until that language is removed, said Swinton. Non-union employees could potentially fill out the application and have separate coverage from union employees. That would create a nightmare, said Supervisor Scott Sukstorf. If contractually obligated, why did you hire Ryan, asked Eric Hancock, who put one of the initial bids in on Nov. 10. The board stated they did not know their hands were tied and they would not have hired Swinton if they previously knew this. The board also stated there have not been any negotiations with the union yet. Mark McQueen with Baird Holm Attorneys at Law in Omaha has been hired by the board to negotiate the upcoming union contract, said County Clerk Patti Lindgren. There are currently three union contracts in place for county employees, one for law enforcement, one for the department of roads and one for other courthouse employees. For non-union employees, the countys employee handbook will dictate benefits and procedures. County Attorney Steven Twohig suggested to the board on Jan. 12 that Pam Bourne, an expert in labor law, be used to update the countys employee handbook as it should mirror the union contract. In the short-term, the countys employees will not be without health insurance. Health insurance renewal with the current provider will not automatically renew the existing union contract, though the stipulation is in the contract. The board consensus is that the current health insurance is very good. According to auditors, there is no state statute that says the county is required to take bids for health insurance, Lindgren said. The ACT government is developing a village plan for Tharwa to guide future development of Canberra's oldest settlement. Minister for Planning Mick Gentleman, who announced the plan on Thursday, said the final document would align with the ACT Planning Strategy, which promoted Canberra as the "bush capital". Minister for Planning Mick Gentleman said the final document would align with the ACT Planning Strategy, which promoted Canberra as the "bush capital". Credit:Rohan Thomson Mr Gentleman said the village's historical significance required the development of a plan, which would involve community consultation. "Tharwa poses some planning challenges in terms of supply of utilities and its positioning as a rural village," he said. Ms Parry-Okeden's net worth of $US8.8 billion ($12.5 billion) makes her the country's richest person (again) while Ms Rinehart has fallen to second place with a net worth of $US8.5 billion ($12.1 billion). In the past five years Ms Rinehart has topped Forbes Australia's rich list , but this year she has been unseated by another woman - reclusive American heiress and longtime Australian resident Blair Parry-Okeden . Forbes says Ms Parry-Okeden, who grew up in Hawaii and moved to her ex-husband's country of birth Australia decades ago, was recently confirmed to be an Australian citizen. Gina Rinehart. Credit:Lisa Maree Williams After her mother's 2007, death she inherited a quarter of US media conglomerate Cox Enterprises, America's third-biggest cable TV company. This is not the first time Forbes has named Ms Parry-Okeden as Australia's richest person. She first took the title in 2009, overtaking mining magnate Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest for the top spot Forbes says Ms Rinehart's wealth has slipped $US3.2 billion in the past year, mainly due to falling iron ore prices and a legal ruling which impacted her shareholding in Hancock Prospecting. Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp paid no UK net tax at all between 1987 and 1999, attacked Google parent's tax deal with the UK. "Google et al broke no tax laws,'' Murdoch wrote on Twitter. "Now paying token amounts for p r purposes. Won't work. Need strong new laws to pay like the rest of us.'' Eight of the 10 media companies that paid no income tax in Australia are linked to the Murdoch family. He was referring to Alphabet's agreement to pay 130 million pounds in taxes dating back to 2005. It has been Newcrest Mining's problem child for many years, but the Lihir mine in Papua New Guinea is finally starting to hit its straps. The 3.1 million tonnes of ore put through the Lihir mill in the December quarter was a record amount, and ensured the asset worked faster than its official capacity. Newcrest Mining is benefiting from a lower Australian dollar. Credit:Bloomberg Lihir, which has been the subject of billions of dollars of impairments since being acquired in 2010, produced 26 per cent more gold than in the September quarter and has helped get Newcrest back on target after a slow start to the 2016 financial year. Despite a major machinery failure at its flagship Cadia mine in October, Newcrest produced 1.2 million tonnes of gold during the past six months, meaning it is now working at a pace that will allow it to meet its full-year guidance of 2.4 to 2.6 million ounces of gold. Wattle has evolved in Australia for more than 30 million years. It has been the great witness to the whole Australian story our companion even when we didn't realise it. It is our national symbol without par. Wattle has welcomed us all, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, colonials, post-war newcomers and more recent migrants from all lands. It is the source of our green and gold national colours, drawn from the palette of the leaves and blossoms of our national floral emblem (Acacia pycnantha), the golden wattle. Wattle is a unifying symbol and has no baggage in our national conversation. Talk of recognition of Aboriginal people in the nation's constitution is all very good, but progress seems snagged by political complexities and compromises. Given our record in passing referenda it seems it will take much longer than good sense and moral judgement may recommend. But there is something that we can do to help the country through this recurring trial. And we can be guided through our unfinished business as a people and a nation by our national floral emblem, the wattle. Her enquiry arises from an historical truth and the ache that Australia Day prompts each year in our hearts, suggesting that we can and should do better. It reminds us that for those Australians who were the original custodians of this land, January 26 will always be a day that began a damaging process of dispossession and a hurtful lie. National Wattle Day (September 1) has been an officially gazetted day since 1992, so why don't we think of both January 26 and September 1 as joint days on which we celebrate our great fortune to live peacefully in this land. Organised celebrations around the country on Wattle Day emerged in 1910 as a way that Australians expressed their loyalty to this land and their pride in calling it 'home'. These sentiments are no less relevant today. Wattle's great journey across our land teaches us the importance of resilience and adaption. Over millennia it has survived and flourished by adapting to its conditions. More than ever the message of resilience and adaption is relevant to us as a people and a modern 21st century nation. Our Prime Minister could invoke no better symbol to reinforce his message that we must welcome and adapt to change. The wattle has demonstrated that it is a great survivor, one that has adapted to changes in climate and geography. Throughout it has delivered us a great bounty with its golden blooms from more than 1000 varieties, flowering in all parts of the country and in bloom somewhere in Australia every day of the year. The solution may not simply be to diffuse the focus of the January 26 celebrations. Rather a real solution could be to link the two days, Australia Day and National Wattle Day, so that each provides scope for its own forms of national celebrations and perhaps some national reflection. Currently National Wattle Day is celebrated widely across the country, but rather more quietly than is its January counterpart. It is rich in meaning but perhaps less endowed with celebratory fizz. Australia Day, on the other hand, seems increasingly at risk of being an empty celebration that craves an authenticity that National Wattle Day has, simply by virtue of the wattle symbol. But more could be done to augment the September date, such as making it a focus for celebrating the land and the importance that we care for it and invoking the wonderfully appropriate symbolism of wattle, to welcome new settlers at citizenship ceremonies around the country. We could make it the date to announce Order of Australia awards, rather than the June Queen's Birthday. Another option would be to facilitate a form of national deliberative reflection by citizens on an issue of national significance (asking what is the right and best thing to do), as a way to draw on the wisdom of our people and the best of science and learning, informed by the lessons of living in this ancient land and the spirit of the land itself. It is a truism that our rights will atrophy if they are frozen in time. In practice, the law is evolving to accept marriage equality. The principle of equality has underpinned the reasoning of many national legislatures and courts that have supported same sex marriage laws. Judge Sachs of the South African Supreme Court, for example, argued that: "Given the centrality attributed to marriage and its consequences in our culture, to deny same-sex couples a choice in this respect is to negate their right to self-definition in a most profound way." Similar ideas supported the majority decision of the US Supreme Court in Obergefell v Ohio Department of Health in June last year. Four of the seven judges agreed that the right of same sex couples to marry is guaranteed by two clauses of the 14th Amendment; that no person is to be deprived of "life, liberty or property without due process of law", and that they should be afforded equal protection of the law. The leading judgment of Justice Kennedy sets out the reasons why the right to liberty includes marriage equality. His judgment deserves close attention because it sets out the principles that underpin the right to marriage equality, principles that can inform public debate in Australia. Justice Kennedy observes that the history of the institution of marriage is one of continuity and change, evolving from an arrangement by parents for political, religious and property reasons to a voluntary contract. As women gained legal, political and property rights, they were no longer considered to be a single entity under the control of their husbands. Over the past few years, the courts have invalidated bans on interracial unions, and the marriage of fathers who were behind in their child support payments. The courts have also upheld the right of prisoners to marry and the right of married couples to use contraception and has invalidated laws that criminalised same sex intimacy In light of the dynamic evolution of the law, the US Supreme Court concluded that marriage equality is a fundamental liberty protected by the Constitution. Justice Kennedy relied upon four principles; individual autonomy, the "nobility of purpose" of marriage, safeguards for children and families of same sex couples, and marriage as a keystone of our social order. He also stressed the harm that arises from the exclusion of same sex couples from the benefit of civil marriage. The risk of harm, Justice Kennedy argued, means that an individual can appeal to the courts for protection without waiting for Parliament to act. After my column last week there was some debate on Twitter about whether I could be forcibly repatriated to Aotearoa, New Zealand, for being stupid and unAustralian. It wasn't the ugliest convo to come my way (Twitter is an ugly medium). And the answer, in case you're wondering, is no, I cannot be refouled, even if stupidity were unAustralian. Indeed - I reflect by way of riposte - if stupidity led to exile, the Aussie population would be small indeed. But the underlying assumption interests me. Why would like-mindedness be necessary or even desirable in that catch-all we call a nation? Monocultures, we know, are feeble things, sickly and disease-prone. From farming to city form, diversity gives us strength and resilience. Disagreement is our muscle. Yet increasingly there are things we cannot discuss. Every Australia Day brings a hubbub of identity behaviours. Out from the attic, like boxes of faded Christmas decorations, come the flags and the honours, the picnics and the flagellations, republics, referenda, beer, guilt, triumph and, always, the mighty prawn. I have no problems with Australia becoming a republic. I also think this is the majority view. I do have problems with middlebrow megaphones. The current debate, if you could call it that, about a republic is a fraud. Australia is not going to become a republic while self-appointed Dumb and Dumber are trying to dominate the process. Let's look at the first attempt: Dumb. The agitation for a referendum began a quarter of a century ago in 1991, after it became Labor policy. Within months the Australian Republican Movement was set up. It made its first mistake by appointing the novelist Tom Keneally as its first head. Keneally is a delightful man but his appointment introduced a subtext of Irish versus English into the argument, which would be exacerbated later by the inevitable acidity of Paul Keating. What followed was a cascade of errors for the republic case. There was much misguided contempt for existing constitutional arrangements. There was gratuitous contempt for the British royal family. After Prime Minister John Howard established a Constitutional Convention, held in 1998, the republican model that emerged was a doomed pastiche. The frontrunner for the prized Labor preselection in Wills has been targeted for his involvement in Iraq and the Middle East by a "vicious dirt sheet", as the bitter battle for the seat intensifies. On Thursday, Labor members in the seat, which includes Coburg, Brunswick and Pascoe Vale, received a four-page dirt sheet on Peter Khalil, detailing his involvement and statements on military action in the Middle East. Peter Khalil had a landslide win in Wills. Mr Khalil was director of national security policy for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in 2003 he also served as a foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Being driven to distraction may be sucking dry your ability to focus and succeed. Just take a look at how many tabs on your browser you have open right now. I have 12 open. Going deep: We need to focus to achieve elite performance. Credit:Getty Images If you find yourself flicking between Facebook, the news and your emails, while completing a project, while eating breakfast at your desk and pausing to send a text message, you are fairly typical of the way modern workers operate. It also means you have "attention residue" and it is likely to be affecting you far more than you realise. Tension had been simmering on Noakes Parade for some time before Michael Kimmorley was hit by a four-wheel-drive and nearly killed. Friends and family say he walked over to a neighbouring house at Lalor Park in Sydney's west just after 7pm on Australia Day to defend a couple of teenagers who had been caught up in a dispute. A few words were exchanged, an engine was revved and, seconds later, Mr Kimmorley, 42, was hit and catapulted into a blue, parked car. Fairfax Media has viewed a video of the moment Mr Kimmorley was hit. If you find yourself in New York any time soon and feel like you could really do with some 'Netflix and Chill' then we've got just the place for you. There's a new listing on Airbnb specifically tailored to subscribers of the insanely popular internet meme. The 1 bedroom apartment situated in the West Village area of the city, features a Netflix bedspread, a fully stocked mini-bar, an HD projector with an AppleTV and Netflix account as well as having access to a rooftop area. The idea for the room, which costs $400 a night, came from Tom Galle, a 31-year-old who works in advertising, Moises Sanabria, a 25-year-old artist, and Alyssa Davis, a 26-year-old engineer. go rent it it's really cute Y' link in bio A photo posted by Tom Galle Soft (@tomgalle) on Jan 27, 2016 at 2:39pm PST The trio put up the listing yesterday and have so far booked in one guest during February. Commenting on the listing, Tom Galle said: "A lot of our work revolves around Internet culture or popular culture. We loved the idea of bringing a meme to life and offer it as a real experience. The Netflix and Chill meme sort of naturally came up as the right subject to build a project around, and the idea grew automatically from there." As per usual, Twitter's reaction has not disappointed. Have meme-sex with someone special, under Pikachu's warm gaze. $400. https://t.co/vGyl6haKmg willy (@willystaley) January 27, 2016 Via Mashable Three men have been arrested over an alleged carjacking of a good Samaritan on the Western Ring Road on Thursday morning. A 25-year-old St Albans man and two 20-year-old men from Keilor Downs and Melbourne were arrested in connection with the car theft and are in custody. The scene of the crash on the Western Ring Road and later carjacking. Credit:Matt Gallant/Twitter The alleged carjacking took place on the West Gate Freeway on-ramp about 6am, when a driver was flagged down by two men who were involved in a minor crash between a car and a truck. After the driver asked about their injuries, the men demanded the keys to his white Nissan Skyline. When he refused, the men allegedly assaulted the driver and drove off in his car. Two young people who died in a fiery crash after careering off a bridge were members of Melbourne's illegal racing scene, and had been warned by their loved ones not to speed. Harley Churchill and Ivana Clonaridis were travelling in Mr Churchill's ute at speeds of up to 160 km/h when the blue Holden Commodore left the EJ Whitten Bridge on the Western Ring Road at Keilor East and flew 100 metres through the air before exploding on the ground below. It is unclear who was driving the ute, but police believe the driver had been racing the driver of a silver Ford before the accident, which occurred about 1.30am on Wednesday. A driver of a black Mercedes who allegedly spat in the face of a young McDonald's drive-through worker has contacted police. The teenage worker had the man's saliva on her face and in her mouth following the argument at the Essendon McDonald's outlet on Keilor Road, police said. Police have released a photo of a man they wanted to speak to regarding a spitting incident at a fast food outlet. The man became impatient and refused to wait to pay for his order of two frozen Cokes at the first drive-through window about 5pm on January 13. He was left waiting at the window for between 20 and 30 seconds, while the drive-through operator took another order, police said. Police have initially ruled out any connection between two shootings in neighbouring suburbs in Melbourne's north on Thursday morning. The first shooting took place about 12.30am at Dallas Drive in Dallas, where police were called after reports of gunfire. Police don't believe there is a connection between two shootings in Melbourne's west. A man in his 20s subsequently showed up at a nearby hospital with a suspected gunshot wound to his leg. Police were later called to Johnstone Street in Jacana about 1.45am, where they found another man in his 20s who had been shot in his pelvis. London: British Prime Minister David Cameron has been condemned over his response to the refugee crisis in Europe after describing people in a camp in Calais as a "bunch of migrants". The British Refugee Council said Mr Cameron's comments were "disappointing" and called on him to show political leadership in response to the "desperate" situation. British Prime Minister David Cameron addressing the House of Commons. Credit:AP Opposition MPs also lined up to criticise the Prime Minister, who made the inflammatory comments during a House of Commons clash with Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn as part of his response to Mr Corbyn's criticism of the British Government's deal with Google over its 130 million ($262 million) backdated tax bill. He was reacting to the opposition's call for Britain to do more to help refugees in the French town of Calais. Also on this day, television ratings show that 24 million people watched the previous night's debate, smashing cable viewership records and emboldening Trump, who takes credit for the big number and apparently concludes that TV networks are so dependent upon him that they will bow to his wishes. August 11: Kelly says on her show that she has "decided not to respond" to Trump's "blood" comment. August 13: Fox News chief executive Roger Ailes tells the Los Angeles Times that Kelly will return as a moderator for the Jan. 28 debate. August 24: After a post-debate vacation, Kelly returns to hosting her show, and Trump goes on a Twitter rant that would become typical over the next few months. August 25: Ailes issues a sharply worded statement backing Kelly and condemning Trump's digital fusillade: "Donald Trump's surprise and unprovoked attack on Megyn Kelly during her show last night is as unacceptable as it is disturbing. Megyn Kelly represents the very best of American journalism and all of us at Fox News Channel reject the crude and irresponsible attempts to suggest otherwise. I could not be more proud of Megyn for her professionalism and class in the face of all of Mr. Trump's verbal assaults. Her questioning of Mr. Trump at the debate was tough but fair, and I fully support her as she continues to ask the probing and challenging questions that all presidential candidates may find difficult to answer. Donald Trump rarely apologises, although in this case, he should. We have never been deterred by politicians or anyone else attacking us for doing our job, much less allowed ourselves to be bullied by anyone and we're certainly not going to start now. All of our journalists will continue to report in the fair and balanced way that has made Fox News Channel the No. 1 news network in the industry." September 21: Trump makes clear that his complaints about Fox News go beyond Kelly. September 23: Trump announces a boycott of all Fox News shows. September 29: Trump ends the boycott by appearing on "The O'Reilly Factor." October 7: On Charlie Rose's TV program, Kelly opens up about the frost between her and Trump and says she hopes they can move forward as professionals. November 4: Trump goes after Kelly on Twitter again. This time, she responds. November 29: Adweek publishes an interview in which Ailes describes a conversation he had with Trump shortly after the August debate. Look, I've always had the same relationship with Donald for 30 years. It's a friendly relationship, surprisingly enough. I did call him after the first go-round, and I said, "What the hell is wrong with you? The United States is at war with every goddamn country in the Middle East, and you're at war with Megyn Kelly and you think that looks good? It doesn't look good." December 15: On the day of a CNN debate, Trump rips Kelly and Fox News for their coverage and analysis of his poll numbers and debate performances. December 16: After complaining about questions during the CNN debate, Trump appears again on O'Reilly's show. But when O'Reilly invites Trump to air his grievances, all he wants to do is knock Fox News, not CNN. January 4: Vanity Fair features Kelly on its cover, and she says in an interview with the magazine that Trump used to be an admirer. In the past, she says, "he would send me press clippings about me that he would just sign 'Donald Trump.' And he called from time to time to compliment a segment. I didn't know why he was doing that. And then when he announced that he was running for president, it became more clear. But I can't be wooed. I was never going to love him, and I was never going to hate him." January 25: Trump says in a CNN interview that he will "probably" participate in the upcoming Fox News debate but adds, "I'm not 100 percent." January 26: Trump posts an Instagram video complaining about Kelly's alleged bias and polls his Twitter followers about whether he should attend the debate. Ailes, meanwhile, tells The Fix that he will not be replacing Kelly as moderator. Trump finally decides that he definitely will not go. In a late-night statement, Fox accuses Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, of issuing a threat: "In a call on Saturday with a Fox News executive, Lewandowski stated that Megyn had a 'rough couple of days after that last debate' and he 'would hate to have her go through that again.' Lewandowski was warned not to level any more threats, but he continued to do so. We can't give in to terrorisations toward any of our employees." You may recognise her as CIA station chief/ Russian spy Allison Carr from series 5 of Homeland, but she's just reportedly been cast as the "female lead" in Fox's reboot of '24'. Because 24 needs to be rebooted. As for who will by playing Jack Bauer this time around, that duty has gone to Corey Hawkins, best known for his portrayal of Dr. Dre in Straight Outta Compton. According to The Verge: "She'll be playing a former leader of CTU, the counter-terrorism unit that Bauer worked at / was intermittently hunted down by throughout the original series." Deadline meanwhile says: "'24: Legacy', written by 24 veterans Manny Coto and Evan Katz and directed by Stephen Hopkins (who helmed the original 24 pilot), chronicles military hero Eric Carters (Hawkins) return to the U.S. and the trouble that follows him back - compelling him to ask CTU for help in saving his life, and stopping what potentially could be one of the largest-scale terror attacks on American soil." While an airdate has yet to be announced, and the show is still very much in its 'pilot' phase, Fox will no doubt aim to have it released ASAP. For official diocesan information please click the diocesan logo on the right. to Bishop David's blog. Here you can find news, information, articles and pictures about the Church of England Diocese in Europe. We have over 300 congregations or worship centres serving Anglican and (mostly) English-speaking people in Europe, Morocco, Turkey, Russia and some central Asian countries. https://cxianliu.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/braking-before-dawn/ BRAKING BEFORE DAWN By West Kentucky Star Staff Jan. 27, 2016 | 06:32 PM | HICKORY, KY Bud Houston, technical product specialist for Federal - Mogul Motorparts, recently discussed the different products the parts manufacturer offers during a presentation for West Kentucky Community and Technical College automotive technology students at the Skilled Craft Training Center near Mayfield. Having industry trainers like Bud Houston coming into the classroom to talk about newer technologies coming their way gives the students an opportunity to increase their knowledge and awareness so they will become better technicians when they graduate, said Bob Gunn, assistant professor in the automotive technology program. I also enjoy having industry representatives show them the latest repair procedure that will help them fix it right the first time. Headquartered in Southfield, Michigan, Federal-Mogul Motorparts offers and distributes a broad portfolio of products through more than 20 of the worlds most recognized brands in the global automotive aftermarket, while also serving original equipment vehicle manufacturers with products including braking, chassis and windshield wiper applications. Houston, whose office is in St. Louis, talked to WKCTCs students about automotive brakes and alignments using Federal-Mogul Motorparts custom training van. He encouraged the colleges current automotive students to consider applying for the company-sponsored academic scholarship for $2,500 for the 2016-2017 academic year. WKCTCs automotive technology program at the Skilled Craft Training Center near Mayfield emphasizes theory of operation and hands-on training in electrical/electronics, brakes, suspension, engine repair, fuel, emissions, engine performance, transmissions and climate control systems. The program offers certificate, diploma and associate in applied science degree opportunities. For more information about this selective admission program, contact program coordinator Bob Gunn at Robert.gunn@kctcs.edu. By Joe Jackson Jan. 27, 2016 | 10:05 PM | PADUCAH, KY A Paducah man was arrested Wednesday on robbery and fleeing and evading charges. According to the Paducah Police Department, officers responded Tuesday night to a report of a robbery which had just occurred in the area of 2900 Park Avenue. The victim told police that 19-year-old Aerion Jones of Broad Street had stolen her Xbox. According to police, Jones contacted the victim through Facebook inquiring about the Xbox she was selling. The victim and Jones agreed on a price, time and place to meet. When the victim arrived, Jones displayed a gun, took the Xbox and ran from the location. Officers found Jones Wednesday in the area of 1100 Park Avenue. Jones fled from officers on foot but was apprehended a short time later at a home on Park Avenue. Jones who is currently out on bond for a prior robbery in 2015, was arrested without incident and lodged in the McCracken County Jail. US awards $2.8B in grants for EV batteries in 12 states including Kentucky By Joe Jackson Jan. 27, 2016 | 05:14 PM | MAYFIELD, KY Four men face burglary and theft-related charges in Graves County. Approximately two weeks ago, the Graves County Sheriff's office received a report of a stolen 4-wheeler from the Sharon Church Road area of Mayfield. Deputies learned that a second 4-wheeler had been stolen in the Backusburg Road area of Golo. Deputies said both ATVs were located in a barn off KY 1710 just east of Mayfield. On Tuesday, deputies charged 29-year-old Christopher Howe and 22-year-old Brady Howe, both of Mayfield, and 21-year-old Jacob Shaw of the Freemont area with two counts of theft by unlawful taking under $10,000, three counts of criminal trespass and two counts of tampering with physical evidence. Tuesday night, deputies received a call from a resident on State Route 303 just south of Mayfield, reporting that her house had been burglarized and several things were missing. Deputies had just left the same home earlier that day, after detaining Christopher Howe on the 4-wheeler theft investigation. Prior to the call of the burglary, a Mayfield police officer conducted a traffic stop on 28-year-old Robert Carter of Mayfield. During the traffic stop, officers located a purse and some medication belonging to the victim of the burglary. Carter was arrested on DUI and other charges by Mayfield police. He was later charged with burglary, theft by unlawful taking over $500, criminal mischief and tampering with physical evidence by the Graves County Sheriffs Department. By Joe Jackson Jan. 27, 2016 | 10:26 PM | CARRSVILLE, KY Two men were arrested Wednesday after a road rage incident in Livingston County. According to the Livingston County Sheriff's office, 20-year-old Tim Chittenden Jr. of Paducah got into an argument with 19-year-old John Chittenden Jr. of Carrsville near the Tolu community in Crittenden County. Deputies said Tim Chittenden left in his car and John Chittenden left in his pickup truck and began ramming Tim Chittenden's vehicle. The action continued on KY Highway 135 and proceeded west into Livingston County and the Carrsville community. Police said evidence at the scene suggested that Tim Chittenden's vehicle was rammed at dangerously high speeds. Several witnesses in the Carrsville area contacted Livingston County central dispatch to report the activity. Ultimately John Chittenden Jr. was arrested without incident at his home. He was lodged in the McCracken County Jail on one count of wanton endangerment and one count of criminal mischief. Tim Chittenden Jr. sustained no serious injuries during the incident. John Chittenden Sr. was also arrested during the incident on an outstanding warrant for receiving stolen property under $500. Deputies said his arrest stems from the burglary of a local hunting lodge in 2015. Email To : Multiple e-mail addresses must be separated with a comma character(maximum 200 characters) Email To is required. Your Full Name: (optional) Your Email Address: Your Email Address is required. By West Kentucky Star Staff Jan. 27, 2016 | 05:34 PM | FRANKFORT, KY Governor Bevin submitted his six-year highway plan to members of the Kentucky General Assembly on Wednesday, including a major Calloway County road project. The governor's outline allocates funding to expand U.S.641 to four lanes from Murray to the Tennessee state line. The plan also honors prior commitments for improvements along the I-69 corridor in western Kentucky. The plan, if enacted, includes $6 billion in state and federal funds to address "critical" transportation needs across the state. With this budget cycle, however, lawmakers will have nearly $1 billion less to work with over the next six years. That is due in part to declining gas prices, since less money will be available from road fund receipts. During his State of the Commonwealth address on Tuesday, Bevin reaffirmed his commitment to shore up Kentuckys aging infrastructure with an emphasis on bridge preservation. Bevin said bridges have been ignored for some time, and must now be addressed. In his plan, Bevin calls for no less than 15% of available state highway dollars to go toward bridge preservation and maintenance. Statewide, the Cabinet is responsible for over 14,000 bridges, some of which are considered structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. These bridges are safe for traffic, but require extra maintenance funding, weight limits and other restrictions to maintain safe travel. Other highlights from the governors Recommended Highway Plan include: Upgrade the William H. Natcher Parkway to interstate standards in order to establish the I-565 spur between Bowling Green and Owensboro Widening of I-75 to six lanes in Rockcastle County Maintenance and upkeep of the Brent Spence Bridge while a regional mobility study is performed Widen U.S. 421/KY 80 to four lanes in Clay County The Governors plan is online and can be seen at the link below. On the Net: Advertisement By West Kentucky Star Staff Jan. 27, 2016 | FRANKFORT, KY By West Kentucky Star Staff Jan. 27, 2016 | 05:22 PM | FRANKFORT, KY Leaders from both parties came together on the Kentucky Senate floor Wednesday to condemn Virginias recent decision to stop recognizing Kentucky concealed carry permits. Senate Joint Resolution 36 was passed by a by a 37-1 vote, condemning the move by Virginia, and urges them to restore a so-called reciprocal agreement that allowed concealed carry permit holders to legally carry a concealed firearm in Virginia. The governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the attorney general have arbitrarily and unilaterally made a determination that the Commonwealth of Virginia would no longer recognize Kentuckys concealed carry permits, said Democratic Floor Leader Ray S. Jones II of Pikeville. Now, this is a significant problem for Kentuckians, particularly those of us from Eastern Kentucky who, when we travel south, have to travel through the Commonwealth of Virginia. Republican Floor Leader Sen. Damon Thayer of Georgetown joined Jones as a primary sponsor of the resolution. Eighteen other senators were cosponsors. Tens of thousands of Kentuckians, law-abiding citizens, have been trained and permitted to carry firearms for personal protection and defense of their family, Jones said. As we see so many mass shooting and terrorist attacks on American soil, I believe it is vitally important that Americans have the right to protect themselves, their families and their friends. Jones said Kentuckys concealed carry law has been a model since its inception and that Kentucky concealed carry holders are not the ones committing mass shootings. Gun violence is a problem in this country, he said. It is a horrific problem in this country but the question is how do you address the violence. Do you address it by infringing on the rights of law-abiding citizens? I dont believe that is the answer. SJR 36 now goes to the House for consideration. Rita Redmond was a true lady who felt that every pupil had something to gift to the world Loading... Pink mist - picture it. The phrase conjures a peaceful, tropical landscape: rainforests at sunrise, hillsides on the subcontinent. In fact, it's a beautiful term for an appalling thing: military slang for a body, vaporised in battle; blood hanging in the air like liquid gas. Pink mist. "When one of your mates hasn't just bought it, but goes in a flash," says one of the squaddies Owen Sheers puts on stage. "From being there to not." All the way through Sheers' spoken word play, you tune into the language of war afresh. All that shorthand and slang becomes see-through: a way of tiptoeing around the truth, dressing up the realities of war in pretty idioms and metaphor. You hear the implications beneath "a nest of Taliban," and the FUBAR that is "friendly fire." You realise why everyone gets a nickname, what it takes to communicate with locals, how laced our lives are with images of war. One solider on R&R flips at the shot menu of a local night club: Jager bombs, Berry bombs, Fireballs. Sheers signs us up with three young Bristolians, fresh out of school with few available options. They go from playing war in the playground to waging it for real in Afghanistan; six weeks basic training then service. Arthur (Phil Dunster, first class) is drawn to the uniform - a desire to stand tall - but, for his best mates Taff and Hads (Peter Edwards and Alex Stedman), it's the best career path that's open. No-one signs up, if there's a decent job going elsewhere. "Not going someplace," says Arthur, "but leaving somewhere." It's a play that gets right into the psychology and the physicality of squaddie life - and George Mann and John Retallack find a regimented choreography of precise gestures, not unlike military sign language. Sheers has spent a lot of time with ex-soldiers (he wrote The Two Worlds of Charlie F), and it shows. He finds details others don't: the smell of explosives, the dark of a desert, Camp Bastion's very own Pizza Hut. His writing has the authenticity of a verbatim piece, without the flatness of testimony. Unlike other writers, he accepts the dignity of war, as well as its tragedy - and, while that can lead to bombast, it pays off in power and complexity. The tragedy, he suggests, goes largely unseen - at least, it doesn't show up in news reports and casualty lists. War doesn't just take lives, it ruins them too, robbing men of limbs and sanity, families of normal family life. Though slightly tacked on, Sheers gives voice to the women back in Bristol - mothers, wives and girlfriends - waiting to pick up the pieces. As a writer, Sheers places contemporary conflicts into the tradition of war poetry: Homer, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon - that sort of thing. On the one hand, that lifts images of war out of the news media and into inverted commas. Desert camos and IEDs have become part of life. Sheers repositions them as part of death. On the other, it means Sheers tends to replicate old tropes. Three boys leave Bristol, only one and a half - max - come back. Dramatically, you know exactly where Pink Mist is heading, but it also tips the scales too far. Soldiering's not safe by any means, but it's not the life or death sentence Pink Mist makes out. By falling in line with old war stories, Sheers misses the opportunity to find others: the perspective of female soldiers, contented professionals and Afghan life are all conspicuously absent. Pink Mist runs at the Bush Theatre until 13 February, then at Bristol Old Vic from 16 February to 5 March. Govt set eliminating outdated capacity 'a priority' Updated: 2016-01-28 07:30 By Zhang Yue(China Daily) A worker cuts steel bars on the production line of a mill in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province. [Photo/China Daily] New ideas and concepts on sharpening supply side reform have been raised by Premier Li Keqiang at a symposium with economists and enterprise representatives. The symposium sought views and suggestions from economists and business representatives on the draft of the Government Work Report as well as the country's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), which was released in November. The final version of the work report will be delivered at the annual session of the National People's Congress in March. Monday's symposium stressed the importance of supply side reform, which is aimed at ending ineffective supplies, creating new types of supplies, transforming outdated capacity and releasing the potential of the demand side. One government priority this year is to eliminate outdated capacity in the iron, steel and coal industries through market forces. At the meeting, representatives commented positively on China's economic development last year. They also urged the government to adhere firmly to reform and opening-up, which has spurred the nation's rapid economic growth over the past three decades. They also asked the government to further streamline administration and delegate power to lower-level authorities. Cao Guowei, CEO of Sina.com, suggested that many people wanting to start their own businesses should focus on Internet financing. He said that "real business opportunities" lie in innovation in traditional industries that use the Internet as a platform. "Many people do not know that, for a country like China, rapid development of the Internet has already reached a bottleneck, and there are many cases of failed entrepreneurship," he said. "Real opportunity lies in a good combination of traditional industry and good use of Internet platforms, such as the e-business mode of Taobao.com." Cao said the rise of the Internet has made some figures extremely popular, leading to opportunities for profit. This had aroused the interest of Premier Li, who asked Cao to expound on this. "I think he found this fresh and interesting," Cao said after the meeting. It was the first time that Cao had taken part in a symposium attended by the premier for suggestions on the Government Work Report. Li spoke highly of the participants' suggestions for China's economic development. "The Chinese people have always been full of wisdom and innovative ideas. The important thing is that these ideas should not be restricted," he said. The big wibble in the Spanish press today is the revelation that Real Madrid have reportedly attempted to coax Lionel Messi to the Bernabeu on no less than three occasions in the recent past. The claims were made on the Cadena COPE radio station, specifically the El Partido de las Doce show, that Messi has spurned Florentino Perezs advances thrice between 2011 and 2015 by telling the Real president Thanks, but Barcelona is my club. The first approach was made in the summer of 2011 when Real were concerned that Cristiano Ronaldo may be tempted by the huge money Man City were wafting in his general direction. A person close to Perez but with no official affiliation with Real Madrid duly attempted to set up a meeting with Messis representatives outside of Spain only to be told that the Argentinian superstar had no intention of leaving Barca. The second attempt supposedly came in June of 2013, shortly after Neymar had snubbed Real in favour of joining Barca. Ronaldo was stalling over a new contract and, once again fearing his star man might mosey off into the sunset, Perez dispatched a top executive to entice Messi to Madrid. Unsurprisingly, the offer fell on deaf ears. The third and final approach was reportedly made just after Barcelona secured the treble in 2015. Perez again sent an executive envoy to go out and snare Messi. Again, Madrid were told to bugger off. Well, feel free to make of that what you will. Probably a pile of total codswallop, but hey ho. McDonald's bets big on 'digital' growth in China Updated: 2016-01-28 07:47 By Wang Zhuoqiong(China Daily) A customer shows a self-made burger at McDonald's first Experience of the Future restaurant in Beijing.[Photo/China Daily] Global fast food chain to open 250 new outlets in smaller cities Global fast food chain McDonald's said on Wednesday that is setting up 250 new outlets mostly in lower tier cities and stepping up the pace of its digital expansion in China this year. The company, which is still recovering from a July 2014 food safety scandal, said it hoped the new moves will help attract more customers to its fast-food outlets. McDonald's unveiled the first of its "Experience of the Future" restaurant on the Chinese mainland on Wednesday in Beijing's Wangfujing shopping district. The outlet will cater to the core dining needs of customers and offer digital, personalized and customized experiences, said Phyllis Cheung, CEO of McDonald's (China) Co Ltd. A similar outlet will open in Shenzhen later this year, she said. China is already McDonald's third largest market globally, with 2,230 restaurants in the country. Cheung cited brand recognition, good value and convenience in terms of delivery services and breakfast products as key growth drivers for last year. This year, McDonald's will also upgrade its 150 Create Your Taste restaurants in first tier cities with digital services and do-it-yourself burgers. At the Wangfujing store, the company has teamed up with WeChat, the instant messaging service from Tencent, to offer mobility solutions to customers. These include order placement, selection of items from the customized burger menu, table bookings and an offline game space. The two-floor restaurant has a simple and plain design featuring look throughs and open spaces. The WeChat alliance also enables customers to use game credits for redeeming restaurant vouchers. Terra Xu, a research analyst at Mintel Group Ltd, said Chinese customers are willing to pay more for a better consumer experiences. Due to a series of food safety problems between 2012 and 2014, China's fast food market has seen a significant drop in growth. McDonald's biggest rival in China Yum Brands Inc, the parent of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, divested its China business into a separate company last October. However, Mintel's new report "Fast FoodChina 2015" reveals that in 2015, the total value of the country's fast food market was estimated at 690 billion yuan, up 8.5 percent from a year ago. A gradual recovery is expected in the next five years. By 2020, the total number of outlets is expected to reach 950,000, with compound annual growth of 8 percent. Guiyang to host 2nd big data expo Updated: 2016-01-28 15:15 By Ma Si(chinadaily.com.cn) Guiyang in China's Guizhou province will host a big data expo from May 26 to 29 as the country's first big data pilot zone is further tapping into the cutting-edge industry to boost economic growth. "This year's expo will focus on bringing both international corporations and local startups together to discuss the latest trends of big data technology and applications," said Liu Chuncheng, deputy mayor of Guiyang. According to Liu, there will be a 60,000-square-meter exhibition area for enterprises to showcase their innovative big data application technologies. Last year, the Guiyang International Big Data Expo attracted about 500 enterprises from the all over the world. Tech tycoons such as Jack Ma, chief executive of Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd, and Terry Gou, chairman of Foxconn Technology Group, were present at the meeting. Guizhou is already making significant progress in promoting the application and commercializing big data which is seen as a future asset for society. It's also established the world's first big data exchange market. Over 1,200 big data companies have set up their offices or branches in Guiyang in the first half of 2015. China's big three telecom operators - China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom - are devoting 15 billion yuan ($2.4 billion) into constructing three big data centers in Guizhou, which are expected to house 2 million servers. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 27/01/2016 (2458 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. OTTAWA She has been spied on by the government, was blocked from attending meetings with the minister of indigenous affairs and watched the funding for her organization get cut off, all because she wanted to stand up for indigenous children. Yet for nine years, Cindy Blackstock did not back down as she pushed the government to admit it was discriminating against First Nations children by knowingly and willingly underfunding child-welfare programs on reserves. Tuesday afternoon, Blackstock stood before the national media and tried valiantly to hold back the tears, a few hours after the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal finally agreed with her. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde looks on as First Nations Child and Family Caring Society Caring Society Executive Director Cindy Blackstock speaks about the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal regarding discrimination against First Nations children in care, during a news conference in Ottawa, Tuesday January 26, 2016. When I read the decision, the first thought in my brain was I thought its all been worth it, Blackstock said in the National Press Theatre. Its all been worth it. NDP indigenous affairs critic Charlie Angus Tuesday called Blackstock one of the greatest civil rights heroines in our country. For more than two decades, she has been a vocal advocate for indigenous children, founding the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society in 1998 and becoming its executive director. Its a role an elder once told her she was born for, but one she thinks she happened upon naturally after years of working as a social worker on a First Nation in B.C. and seeing the injustice of the system. Born in northern British Columbia to an indigenous father and a non-indigenous mother, Blackstock, 51, bounced around a number of remote towns in northern B.C., following her dads job with the forestry service. She eventually settled in Prince George, where she finished high school. Blackstock never lived on a reserve but said it was crystal clear to her even as a child that First Nations people were treated very differently. I wondered why, she said in an interview with the Free Press Wednesday. I always wanted to know what we had done. She moved to Vancouver to pursue a bachelors degree at the University of British Columbia, thinking shed eventually go into medicine. She completed a degree in psychology and needed to find a job to save money for medical school, when she landed a position as a child-protection worker in Vancouver. For eight years, she worked in the non-aboriginal system, and then in the mid-1990s moved to a position with the Squamish First Nation in Vancouver. She said she walked across the street from her first office to the reserve office and suddenly found the world of child welfare on a reserve is an entirely different animal. It was just shocking to me, she said. Before, when a child in her caseload needed something a new wheelchair, for example, or maybe a special medical formula she simply filled out the paperwork, and it was done. On the reserve, everything had to go through Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and most often, the request was denied. A little boy with cerebral palsy was denied a new standing walker by INAC because the one he had that was being held together with duct tape was good enough. A teenager who needed special psychiatric care was denied it because INAC refused to pay the provincial rate for the service. It was that kind of nonsense, and I saw it every day, Blackstock said. In 1998, when she realized there was no national network for indigenous child-welfare workers, she began working with Elsie Flette, who at that time was the executive director of West Region Child and Family Services in Manitoba, to get one started. It grew into the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society. We used each other for a lot of support, she said. The Caring Society set about creating a library of literature and resources for aboriginal child welfare and began working with the federal government to fix what were known to be flaws in its funding formulas. Reports and studies were done for the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (now called Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada). I was just naively moving along, thinking if we just proved (the formulas were wrong), they would fix them, said Blackstock. But in 2007, when it became clear the government had no intention of doing that, the Caring Society and the Assembly of First Nations jointly filed a complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Commission alleging discrimination on the basis of race against First Nations children. Blackstock said she again thought the case would be filed and the government would come to its senses. One month later, the federal government cut off all its funding to the Caring Society. In 2009, her suspicions were raised when an assistant to then Indian Affairs minister Chuck Strahl barred her from going into a meeting between Ontario chiefs and department officials. Instead, she was made to sit outside, guarded by security. The chiefs were told if they insisted she attend, the meeting would be cancelled. So Blackstock filed an access request for documents about herself, and 18 months later, she found out the departments of Indian Affairs and Justice were spying on her. They were collecting information from her Facebook page on the order of a senior official in the department and writing reports on what they found. The government also followed Blackstock to as many as 100 meetings where she was giving presentations, including one in Australia, and wrote written reports on what she said. And, she said, they twice accessed her private Indian Act registry file. Blackstock always felt the government was putting in a lot of effort to try to find something with which it could discredit her, since they had been unsuccessful in getting the human rights complaint tossed out on technicalities in court. Blackstock was incensed. She also became paranoid. You start to get suspicious of everything, she said. And, she said, when its the Department of Justice doing the spying, to whom do you complain? Eventually she went to the media, and in 2013 the privacy commissioner told the government to cut it out. Blackstock isnt entirely convinced they did because the government refused to sign a legal undertaking saying they had. The human rights complaint eventually made its way to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for a hearing. The ruling was issued Tuesday, almost nine years after the complaint was first filed. Blackstock called it Canadas Mississippi, a reference to the American civil rights movement. She was excited and anxious but defiant as well, warning the government better have more than empty words and rhetoric to bring to the table. I need to see things happen for the kids, she said, her voice wavering. Change isnt in a decision, its in their childhoods. It will all be worth it if these kids finally get a chance, and we finally do right by them. God help us, lets do that much. mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca Record number of Chinese tourists visited UK in 2015, VisitBritain says Updated: 2016-01-28 00:49 By Chris Peterson(chinadaily.com.cn) Chinese visitors at Stonehenge, a prehistoric site in Wiltshire, England. [Photo by Zhang Guilan / For China Daily] A record number of Chinese tourists visited Britain from January to September last year, an increase of 37 percent from the same period the year before, according to VisitBritain, the organization in charge of tourism in the UK. According to VisitBritain, 214,000 Chinese tourists came in the first three-quarters of last year, compared to 157,000 the year before. They spent an average of 2,023 pounds per head, a rise of 4 percent from the year before. Their total spend of 435 million was "great news" for the UK economy, Culture Secretary John Whittingdale told the BBC. "We are making it even easier for Chinese tourists to come and enjoy the best of Britain and our recently-launched two-year visa scheme will encourage even more to visit," he said. To contact the reporter: chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 28/01/2016 (2457 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The Manitoba Court of Appeal has overturned a precedent-setting decision by a judge who ignored federal legislation and refused to impose a mandatory minimum sentence in a unique criminal case. Bryce McMillan, 23, previously pleaded guilty to reckless use of a firearm for a September 2011 incident in Carberry. He admits shooting up a house where he believed people who had previously tormented and bullied him were inside. There were no injures. The charge carries a mandatory minimum four-year prison sentence. But Queens Bench Justice John Menzies ruled in 2013 that this particular section of the Criminal Code represents cruel and unusual punishment when meshed with the unique facts of the case before him. Menzies told a Brandon courtroom that going along with the required sentence as countless judges across Canada have been doing since the law came into effect in 2008 would be a clear charter breach. Bruce Bumstead/Brandon Sun files RCMP officers examine several shell casings and bullets left at the scene of an early morning shooting in September 2011. Accordingly, the minimum sentence provision must be declared invalid and of no force and effect, Menzies said in a 33-page written decision that raised legal eyebrows across the country. Instead, he sentenced McMillan to one year behind bars and two years of supervised probation. The Crown immediately filed an appeal, and the Attorney General of Canada filed for intervenor status. They were clearly worried about the precedent that had been set. Sentence overemphasized bullying: appeal court In a written decision released Thursday, the Manitoba Court of Appeal ruled that Menzies imposed a sentence that sends the wrong message and must be overturned. Canadian neighbourhoods are not war zones, Chief Justice Richard Chartier wrote. The public expects that the sentence will reflect societys denunciation and condemnation for such conduct and that it will serve as a general deterrent to prevent others from acting so recklessly in the future. Chartier said theres no question the victim had been subjected to frequent bullying and that it was a motivating factor for his crime. But he said Menzies placed too much emphasis on that factor and not enough on just how dangerous McMillans actions were. In my view, the sentencing judge greatly overemphasized the effect of bullying as a mitigating factor and, by doing so, he underemphasized the accuseds high degree of moral blameworthiness, said Chartier. Mandatory minimum reinstated, but remaining sentence stayed The Appeal Court has now replaced the one-year sentence with the mandatory minimum of four years, which is what Crown and defence lawyers had jointly recommended at the original sentencing hearing. But in a unique move, they have also ruled that the remaining portion of that sentence should be stayed meaning McMillan actually wont have to do any further time behind bars. In essence, they have wiped out the precedent so that it cant be used in future decisions, but also decided against punishing McMillan any further. Chartier cited the fact he would likely be out on day parole by this point anyway if the four-year sentence had been originally imposed in 2013. This is not an easy case. I recognize that this is a serious offence and that the need for denunciation and general deterrence would normally require that the accused be reincarcerated, said Chartier. However, when I balance out all of the relevant factors, I am of the view, in the totality of the circumstances, that the remaining custodial portion of the sentence should be stayed. I was at the end of my rope McMillan admits firing six rounds from a .22-calibre rifle into the residence of one of the people he claims had frequently tormented him. No one was injured, although two people were inside the residence at the time. McMillan claims he thought the house was empty. A human can only take so much before they push back, and I was at the end of my rope and didnt know what else to do, McMillan told a Brandon court at his sentencing hearing. My intention was to send a message and say back off and leave me alone. Menzies said at the time it seems ridiculous to send an otherwise law-abiding citizen such as McMillan to a penitentiary considering the circumstance of his crime. The veteran judge said the issue of bullying has been on the national radar and played a big role in his decision. It is true that bullying cannot be used to justify the actions of the accused. The accused has acted violently and society is entitled to be protected from people who react in a violent manner like the accused. Our society does not condone vigilante justice nor should it. The accused must be punished for his actions, he wrote. On the other hand, to ignore the bullying to which the accused has been subjected is to ignore the central underlying cause of this crime. There are many ways a victim of bullying may react to prolonged harassment. It should come as no surprise to anyone that lashing out may be one of them. McMillans house had been painted with vulgar words and phrases and he was routinely confronted on the streets and at his workplace, court was told. No charges have been laid for any of the incidents against him. McMillan had been free on bail since shortly after his arrest and under a 24-hour daily curfew with no alleged breaches. He had full-time employment and strong family support, including many who were present in court. He has also taken anger-management classes to help deal with some of his lingering resentment over what hes been through, court was told. www.mikeoncrime.com Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 28/01/2016 (2457 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Guns were the big-ticket items customs officers seized from American visitors at Manitoba border crossings in 2015. On Aug. 1, Emerson officers discovered a total of five undeclared guns from a 36-year-old Alaska man, including three handguns, one fully automatic rifle, and one semi-automatic rifle. The man was arrested and later released on bail. On Aug. 4, a man declared one firearm but failed to declare a seconda prohibited 9 mm semi-automatic pistol, while crossing at the South Junction port in southeastern Manitoba near Piney. He paid a $1,000 fine and returned to the U.S. HANDOUT A .22 calibre pistol seized at Winkler port of entry in September. On Sept. 8, ,Winkler officers seized a prohibited handgun and over-capacity magazine from a 23-year-old Minnesota man. The man paid $1,500 for failure to declare and returned to the United States. On Nov. 23, a 55-year-old U.S. man was fined $12,000 for trying to smuggle a firearm at the Sprague border crossing. The firearm was a semi-automatic .40 calibre pistol with over capacity magazine. Another major seizure was of child pornography. A Wisconsin man was sentenced to 18 months in prison for unlawful possession and attempting to smuggle child pornography in December, also at the Sprague crossing. Sprague officers also uncovered a mobile methamphetamine laboratory in June containing 85 grams of the drug. A 35 year-old Minnesota man was arrested and turned over to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 28/01/2016 (2457 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. WINNIPEGS indigenous community figures it can help Syrian refugees put down roots in the city and ease negative stereotypes that work against both groups. The Indian and Metis Friendship Centre is tonight hosting a public meeting on what an indigenous welcome to Syrian refugees could look like. The centre, located at 45 Robinson St., posted a call to action on social media a week ago, and expects individuals and representatives from the citys major indigenous and immigrant groups to attend. Alexandra Paul / Winnipeg Free Press Indian and Metis Friendship Centre acting executive director Maeengan Linklater (left) and board president Garry McLean (right) flank Immigration Partnership Winnipeg co-ordinator Abdikheir Ahmed. Facebook invitations for the meeting that runs from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. were posted last week under the heading Welcome to Turtle Island. The event will wrap up with an indigenous round dance. Sharing space is part of our identity as indigenous people; its a big part of our culture and our values to share what we have, the centres acting executive director, Maeengan Linklater, said. The focus of the meeting will be to start the process, with a dialogue, a discussion. With a goal in mind to forge lasting links with immigrant and refugee resettlement agencies, indigenous groups will look at resources, programs and space they can share with the Syrian community. An estimated 3,000 out of the 25,000 Syrian refugees Canada plans to take in are expected to settle in Manitoba, the majority of them in Winnipeg. Immigration Partnership Winnipeg, a key agency that links immigrants and refugees to settlement services, reached out to the local indigenous community before Christmas. Agency co-ordinator Abdikheir Ahmed said he first called the Aboriginal Council of Winnipeg and found himself immediately plugged into the friendship centre as a logical first step. A couple of things interested me. The first one was, as newcomers, we dont have a lot of information on indigenous people. When someone is approved for immigration, the orientation doesnt include adequate information about indigenous people. The second thing is we have to be able to coexist together, peacefully and to share resources, Ahmed said, adding that doesnt always happen. When immigrants get here, they pick up on stereotypes that indigenous people are poor, that theyre drug addicts and violent I want indigenous people to play a role to provide a different picture to newcomers, so they can learn first-hand from indigenous people before they pick up the negative stereotypes. Thirty years ago, the indigenous community performed a similar service for Filipino immigrants, said the centres board president, Garry McLean. The whole idea was, since the Indian and Metis Friendship Centre was the oldest organization in Winnipeg, wed welcome them, McLean said. And we can teach them the beauty of our culture and not what they may have learned from the history books. McLean and Linklater made the point Syrian refugees will face the same social and economic barriers as indigenous people. In Winnipeg, the urban aboriginal community still faces social challenges in the post-Indian residential school environment, but people here have a proud history of helping to access programs and services as a self-governing community, Linklater said. One of the first in Canada to be formed, the friendship centre dates to 1958. The need then was to fill in service gaps for a tiny community of 5,000. Today, with more than 70,000 people, Winnipeg is known as the indigenous capital of Canada, with the largest urban population in the country. In the intervening half-century, the indigenous community founded its own social agencies for services from employment to housing. When the Syrian community is settled, theyll start by having access to the same assistance and shelter rates, the same as everyone else, and theyll predominantly be in the inner city (and North End). Theyre going to be our neighbours, Linklater said. alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/12/2015 (2485 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. With waves of humanity crashing upon the shores of Europe, and Manitobans rallying to offer refuge, Free Press readers voted the Syrian refugee crisis the top international story of 2015. The Syrian refugee crisis received twice as many votes from readers as the second-ranked Paris terrorist attacks story and five times as many votes as the mass shootings in the U.S. The story arc of the refugee crisis connected with our readers at a number of levels, said Free Press editor Paul Samyn. Initially, it was the concern of the mass of humanity fleeing Syria. Then it was part of the debate that was the federal election, largely because of the shock from the captivating image of Alan Kurdi, the drowned Syrian boy. Finally, it was about efforts both in our city and across the country to welcome them to Canada. Santi Palacios / The Associated Press Files Refugees and migrants make their way out of the sea, as their boat, on which they crossed a part of the Aegean sea from Turkey, struck rocks on the Greek island of Lesbos earlier this month. Their story and that of others captivated the world in 2015. In Manitoba, with its history as a haven for refugees, the plight of the Syrian refugees struck a chord with many long before the devastating image of the lifeless three-year-old boy face down on a beach in Turkey shocked the world. More than a year ago, the Refuge Winnipeg coalition of faith and community groups was formed and set out to raise $120,000 to sponsor three large Syrian families. Volunteers from all walks of life rallied to house, furnish and feed the families whod been languishing in Lebanon. They arrived in Winnipeg in October and were taken under the wing of sponsors who accompanied them to medical appointments, got the kids registered for school and are committed to supporting and mentoring them during their first year in Canada. The plight of Syrian refugees roused peoples compassion in communities throughout the province. CP Alan Kurdi (left), with his brother Galib. In Altona, Build a Village is sponsoring 45 Syrian refugees. The first family arrived Dec. 19. The rest are expected later this month. In Dauphin, three church groups got together to sponsor three Syrian refugee families. When news broke that one of the churches received a threatening call about its plan to welcome the Syrian refugees, the sponsors were disappointed and a little unnerved until they learned the threat came from a man in Calgary, not a resident of Dauphin where theyre preparing to put out the welcome mat for the Syrians expected next year. For generations of Manitobans, the Syrian refugee crisis harkened back to earlier crises. Refugees from eastern Europe, the Balkans, Uganda, Chile and Vietnam who have successfully resettled in Manitoba spoke up, urging the government to open Canadas doors to the Syrian refugees. Groups such as the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg and Winnipeg Friends of Israel rallied to sponsor the Yazidi minority who took refuge in Turkey after being terrorized by the Islamic State. It may have been the photo of the little boy in a red T-shirt and blue shorts that awakened the world to the Syrian refugee crisis. For many Manitobans, it was a reminder of what could have happened to them and a call to prevent the death of more innocents. The war in Syria is now in its fifth year with no end in sight. Wafaa Abukhousa, a former refugee from Syria, holds two-year-old Jawad Daas after he arrives in Winnipeg with his family Dec. 19. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says there are nearly 4.4 million Syrian refugees half of whom are children. Most having exhausted all their savings are languishing in neighbouring countries such as Lebanon, where 70 per cent live in extreme poverty, the UNHCR reported Dec. 23. Canadians are still waiting for more to arrive. During the federal election, the Liberals promised to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees into Canada by the end of the year. In November, the Liberals amended that promise, saying the government would bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of February, with the first 10,000 to have landed by year-end. As of Dec. 21, 1,869 Syrians had arrived. Syrian refugees are greeted at the airport in October. with files from The Canadian Press carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 27/01/2016 (2458 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. As far as bitter divorces go, this was quite a classy affair. Former NDP cabinet minister Jennifer Howard, the unofficial leader of a group of dissident ministers who last year openly challenged Premier Greg Selingers leadership, confirmed Wednesday she would not seek re-election. Howard told reporters gathered outside Selingers office that as a mother of two young children, she had decided to take a job in Ottawa that would allow her and her wife Tara Peel to be closer to immediate family. Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press Fort Rouge MLA Jennifer Howard answers questions from the media while her eight-month-old daughter, Georgia, is held by Howard's wife Tara Peel. Howard said she was fully prepared to run for re-election in fact, she was spotted door-knocking just a week ago in her Fort Rouge riding but had decided a retirement from politics was best for her family. Selinger, along with veteran ministers Nancy Allan and Dave Chomiak, stood by Howards side. It had the hallmarks of a well-earned tribute to one of the smartest people to serve in the NDP government over the past 16 years. In fact, it was so respectful you might be forgiven for forgetting that just over a year ago, Howard and Selinger were mortal political enemies. For it was just a year ago that Howard and four other ministers accused Selinger of selfishly hanging on to the leadership in the face of growing evidence that he personally was dragging down the party as it headed towards an April 2016 election. Selinger stayed to fight for his job and against some pretty stiff odds, won. In this context, however, winning meant losing some very capable people in his party. Howard is a major political talent whose key seat is now in play without her incumbent presence. As she prepares to not only leave politics, but leave the province as well (for a job she would not identify), one can only wonder what could have been for Howard and her dissident colleagues had they kept their powder dry. Certainly, Howard worked hard to earn her status as one of the smartest and most eloquent members of the NDP government. She rose steadily from backbencher to junior minister to finance minister, where she shone the brightest. In fact, the only blemish on her career was her still-incomprehensible decision to openly call for a sitting premier to step down. Regardless of the motivations she outlined Wednesday, this is most definitely another consequential loss from the leadership skirmish. Detractors will accuse Howard of being a bad loser, or perhaps running for cover with all signs pointing to a NDP massacre in the April election. However, more reasonable people will realize it was really not a good idea for Howard to stay on given the events that transpired. Say what you will about her decision to go public with demands for Selinger to step down, Howard was an overachiever in the premiers cabinet. When Selinger steered himself and his government into stormy waters with an awkward move to increase the provincial sales tax to fund infrastructure, it was ultimately Howard, then the finance minister, and Theresa Oswald, the jobs and infrastructure minister (who ultimately challenged Selinger for the leadership), who came to his rescue. In fact, Howards performance while tabling the 2014 budget one year after the highly controversial, poorly conceived plan to hike the PST was a breath of fresh air. Gone were the fiscal non-sequiturs and mangled communication that Selinger and former finance minister Stan Struthers engineered the year before. In its place, Howard offered plausible contrition and a new, finely honed message about how the new tax revenue would be used and tracked through the treasury. As Howard was polishing the NDP governments messaging, Oswald was busy soothing the frayed nerves of skittish business and municipal leaders, whose support for the PST increase was late coming but critically important nonetheless. The work that Howard and Oswald did in saving Selinger from himself on the PST hike may not have entitled them to start a divisive civil war. But it certainly earned them more consideration than the current premier was willing to give them, particularly on the issue of whether he should stay on to lead. Their performance on the PST file alone should have made them among Selingers closest advisers on a go-forward basis. Instead, according to party sources, Selinger treated them like rivals, expressing skepticism about their motivations on every file or decision. Selinger was so openly suspicious of the two ministers, it was tragically ironic they would ultimately live up to his worst fears. Looking beyond the messy details of the last year, the NDP is now left without another strong candidate heading into an election. NDP sources said Wednesday that they expect to announce one or more star candidates ready to step in to contest the Fort Rouge nomination. The NDP will certainly have to find someone marketable given that Liberal Leader Rana Bokhari, currently riding an upward trajectory in pre-writ polls, has announced she will run in that riding. Howard and Selinger both demonstrated great dignity and class in the way they stood side by side to part ways. But it should never be forgotten that they are only parting ways now because they could not get along. dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca Last week I joined my DFL colleagues in the Minnesota House to unveil the Greater Minnesota for All agenda on the belief that a strong rural Minnesota means a strong Minnesota. The Greater Minnesota for All agenda isnt flashy. Its simply about getting things done for rural Minnesota. We propose to make investments that create jobs and help businesses expand, improve education and workforce training, provide property tax relief, make our communities safer from oil train disasters, and support our seniors. We cant afford another do-nothing session for rural Minnesota. Making investments that create jobs and help businesses expand should be something everyone can agree on. Its unacceptable that in many rural counties less than half of the homes have access to high-speed internet. Thats why were joining Governor Dayton and calling for a $100 million investment in rural broadband so our rural businesses, schools, hospitals and neighbors can compete in todays economy. Were proposing tax credits for workforce housing so people will be able to live where businesses are growing. Were also proposing a long-term and stable transportation package that will put people to work repairing our roads, bridges, and ensuring our rail crossings are safe. We also need to focus on job training and education, which is why we want to reward schools for each career and technical class that leads to a certificate in professions such as nursing, emergency medical technicians, and other high demand industries in rural Minnesota. Ensuring that property taxes are fair and affordable in rural Minnesota is vital to making our economies competitive and our communities livable. Unfortunately, despite the progress made over the last two years when property taxes were lowered, property taxes are expected to skyrocket. Preliminary numbers shows property taxes going up $450 million this year, and homeowners in our rural Minnesota communities will see their property taxes go up four times higher than homeowners in the large metro cities. Despite Republican objections and their focus on wealthy metro special interests, we need to increase local government aid, provide agricultural tax breaks, and help seniors stay in their homes with more direct property tax relief. Nothing less will do for Greater Minnesota. Our agenda also supports the 90,000 families around the state who care for a family member with dementia. Minnesotas economy and budget are in a strong position, but our potential for greatness in Minnesota will not be realized unless we make hardworking Minnesotans in every corner of the state our priority. Its time we level the playing field for greater Minnesota, and that wont happen unless this legislature truly makes greater Minnesota a priority. The so called Syrian peace talks were scheduled to start on Jan. 25, but they have been postponed. The talks have been rescheduled to begin on Friday. The reason the talks have been postponed is because nobody can agree on who should attend. The U.N. is busy trying to put something together, but I think they are going to have a hard time doing that because it may be too early to start peace talks. With Russia helping Syria it seems they are starting to get things under control. Should the U.S. be in a panic? I dont think so. Its ISIS that is the enemy, right? Im not sure I like the way our current administration is dealing with the tragedy in Syria. In some ways we are responsible for the current state of affairs. I think John Kerry should back off on pushing things, and start wondering if we have all the right eggs in the right basket. Much of Baraboo is covered in white, but those interested in art will find bursts of vibrant color during the third annual Cool Boo Open Studios event Saturday. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., 21 artisans at nine locations will share their paintings, jewelry, illustrations, stained glass, metal sculpture and many other types of art. Some pieces will be for sale and others are on display. A new organizer and three new stops along the way make for a unique Cool Boo experience this year. Textile and fiber artist Maday Delgado has taken over some of the planning, organization and recruiting for the event. It was the brainchild of Char terBeest Kudla, who will sell her handbags with other artisans at the Baraboo Arts and Banquet Center on Water Street. Her husband, Frank Kudla, will have his jewelry for sale and Ellen McGaugheys paintings and prints, Cory Polaneks photography and Kyle Martin and Josh Hesss paintings will also be at the Baraboo Arts and Banquet Center. Delgado will have some of her small quilted tapestries on display at Ardyths Sew-N-Vac Shoppe, which has donated space at 116 Fourth St. to serve as a headquarters for the event. She said her main goal was to help artisans to find their own audiences. Its a chance for the local community members to find out what people in the community do, Delgado said. Theres a lot of talent. Two new artists, Heather Pittenger of Seek Boutique and Tayanna Kliner with Paint on the Wall Art Life Studio, will open their doors for the first time Saturday. Both businesses are at 524 Oak St., above Corner Drug Store. Philip offers pre-loved, handcrafted and vintage items, and jewelry rooted in nature and empowerment, while Kliners studio is more about the process than the actual finished product. Kliner will open her studio that will allow people to paint on papers hanging on the wall. Two dozen jars of premium tempera paints await artists of all levels. This is about letting go of right and wrong, Kliner said. Its all about the joy of spontaneous expression. Yarn Arts Cafe at 401 Oak St. will feature new owner Cindy Kozels yarn art, as well as Jeanne Eberleins drawings and photography and Debra Gralls beadwork, baskets and 2D fine art. BillieJo Scharfenberg will display her stained glass and mixed media assemblages at Bug Tussel Wireless at 830 Highway 12. Scharfenberg, who participated in last years event, said one of her favorite pieces is a statue she found at a Goodwill store. It was a blessed virgin with the doors broken off, she said. After revamping the pieces with paint, plumbers putty, crystals and found objects, Scharfenberg said, Now, shes the divine feminine. Due to the reconstruction activities at the Al Ringling Theatre, members of the Sauk County Art Association will display their work at the James A. Schwalbach Gallery at the University of Wisconsin-Baraboo/Sauk County campus. Fox Line City Farm at 1200 Carpenter St. will host the upcycled and repurposed metalwork of Scott Sullivan, Jennifer Fox and Pam Bell will offer Valentines cards and other small items, cookbook author and baker Susan Holding of Little French Bakery will be there, as will Koren Russell with lamps and found objects. Jason Moyer will offer Lodge Coffee Roasters coffee. Delgado said she hopes the event will continue to grow each year. We want it to be taken as a stepping stone into the art community and to encourage other people to support a new venue, she said. A bill in the state Legislature would allow kids younger than 10 to hunt. In 2010, Wisconsin started letting children ages 10 and 11 hunt with mentors, as long as they were within arms reach and only had one gun between child and adult. Kids that age need not pass a safety class because, well, some are too young to read course material. Such hunts are growing in popularity, but theyre still bad ideas. This new proposal is even worse. Advocates believe engaging youngsters at earlier ages will foster the next generation of hunters and ensure that the states hunting tradition stays strong. Yet even at age 10, many kids lack the physical and mental maturity to safely handle guns. What age is too young? Is it 8, or 6 or even younger? Rep. Joel Kleefisch, R-Oconomowoc, suggests his proposal would remove burdensome regulation. He points to data showing that kids younger than 10 can hunt with mentors in 34 of 41 states that offer such programs. That doesnt make it smart. Also, Wisconsin is one of just four states that require one gun between mentor and child. Kleefischs bill would erase that stipulation. That makes it even worse. Many kids younger than 10 lack the strength to even hold up and safely point a deer rifle or shotgun, let alone comprehend that once the trigger is pulled, that bullet might travel miles beyond its target. Can they grasp the concept and finality of killing a wild creature? Its no surprise that the National Rifle Association and several other gun-rights groups support the legislation. This bill is all about money cash going to license sales and padding Department of Natural Resources coffers, to businesses catering to hunters and to Republican campaign coffers from special interests who fear any erosion of gun rights. Retired Rock County sheriffs Lt. Jim Dilley has taught hunter safety for 20 years. Based on his experience in law enforcement and as a parent, hunter and instructor, he doesnt think letting younger kids hunt makes sense. Advocates of the bill argue it should be the parents responsibility to decide when a child is ready. Such hunts might help kids and parents bond, build camaraderie and teach safety lessons on a deeper level than children might get through classes. But not all parents are appropriately wired. Dilley recalls parents who enrolled a 10-year-old in a safety class last year. He refunded their money when he realized the kid lacked strength to hold up the weapon. Likewise, some overzealous parents will push unwilling children to hunt. This might backfire and make more kids turn away from hunting. This proposal deserves the bulls-eye of rejection. JUNEAU | A 26-year-old Waupun man who faces charges of sexually assaulting a 3-year-old boy pleaded not guilty in court on Wednesday to additional charges after 473 images of child porn were found on his computer. Robert J. Moungey is charged with nine counts of possession of child pornography and one felony count of party to a crime of first-degree sexual assault of a child under the age of 12. He could face up to 110 years in prison and more than $200,000 in fines if convicted of all charges. Moungey, currently of the Dodge County Jail, pleaded not guilty to all of the charges on Wednesday. He is currently being held on a $50,000 cash bond. As a condition of his bond, Moungey may have no access to the Internet or contact with any minors. Moungeys wife, Cassandra J. Scheuers, 25, Waupun, is also charged with first-degree sexual assault of a child under the age of 12. She could face up to 60 years in prison. According to the criminal complaint, deputies were contacted to check the welfare of Scheuers on May 27, but found she was at the Waupun Police Department. According to the criminal complaint, Scheuers reported that she saw Moungey on a laptop computer with young naked girls displayed on the screen. She also said Moungey had shown her a video of him sexually assaulting a 1-year-old girl. Scheuers said that on one occasion, Moungey had tied a 3-year-old boy up to a bed with a restraint system used for bondage. Moungey asked her to sexually assault the boy, and she did so while the he took pictures. Scheuers said Moungey contacted her and sent her one of the photos via a message. She said he told her she could face the same criminal charges as he might face. According to the criminal complaint, Scheuers told police she assaulted the toddler because she was worried that Moungey would hurt her. The restraint system was taken to the Waupun Police Station. A detective was granted a search warrant and was able to retrieve a laptop and an external hard drive. Scheuers gave permission for the equipment to be taken. The electronic equipment was taken to the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigations in Madison. A computer forensic analyst at the Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigation discovered 16 movies and 473 images containing child pornography on the computer and external hard drive. The analyst said that some of the still photos showed what they believed to be Moungey having sexual relations with a 1- or 2-year-old child. The photos analyzed showed a number of different child victims ranging in age, gender and nationality. Many of the child victims were believed to be 5 or younger. Moungey will appear in court on March 1 at 1:30 p.m. for a telephone scheduling conference. JUNEAU | A 52-year-old Hustisford man pleaded no contest to his fifth offense of drunken driving. Daniel Haydin pleaded no contest to operating while intoxicated, fifth offense. One additional count of operating with a prohibited alcohol content, fifth offense, was dismissed on the prosecutions motion. Judge John Storck accepted Haydins plea and found him guilty. He was sentenced to 180 days in jail and three years of probation, withheld. Haydin will have Huber and transfer privileges while in jail. He also must maintain absolute sobriety. Haydin will also have his license revoked for three years and will have an ignition interlock device installed on his vehicle for three years. He will be required to participate in an AODA assessment and must participate in an OWI victim impact panel within 120 days of his conviction. According to the criminal complaint, police were called to the 4000 block of South German Road, Hustisford, on July 20 at 2:35 p.m. for a report of a vehicle that had struck an LP tank. The investigation showed that Haydin drove across the roadway from his residence and ended up in the yard of N4291 South German Road where he struck the LP tank. An officer observed an open can of beer in a cup holder within arms reach of the drivers seat. The investigation also showed that Haydin had consumed alcoholic beverages as he smelled of alcohol and had bloodshot eyes. His preliminary breath test resulted in a .20 sample and he was subsequently arrested. Haydin was convicted of operating while intoxicated in 1995, 2004, 2007 and 2008. Just as many can tell you where they were when they learned about the assassination of President Kennedy, or the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, I can tell you where I was on Jan. 28, 1986. I sat in Mrs. Chambers homeroom at L.W. St. John Middle School in Parachute, Colo., to watch the launch of a space shuttle with my classmates, and other students across the country. Payload specialist Christa McAuliffe was on board the Challenger with six other astronauts. Trained as part of the Teacher in Space Project, she was selected from a pool of more than 11,000 applicants. Students followed McAuliffes training progress and looked forward to her lessons from space. Instead, we witnessed a tragedy. The Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after take-off, and it is estimated that 17 percent of Americans watched it happen live. Media coverage of the disaster was such that one study estimates 85 percent of Americans heard about the explosion within an hour of the accident. The media coverage remains one of the things I remember most about the tragedy, revealing the good and bad of a 24/7 news cycle. Even as a sixth grader, I found myself frustrated by the oversaturation of coverage on the disaster. (Yes, I appreciate the irony that I now work as a member of the media). Other examples of this oversaturation can be found during the rescue of Baby Jessica from a well, the O.J. Simpson chase and trial, and coverage of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. President Ronald Reagan, scheduled to deliver his State of the Union address on that fateful day in 1986, instead addressed the nation from the Oval Office. His speech, written by Peggy Noonan, included a line from the poem High Flight by John Gillespie Magee Jr.: We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God. The Rogers Commission, assigned by Reagan to investigate the disaster, included many familiar names; astronauts Neil Armstrong and Sally Ride, theoretical physicist Richard Feynman and pilot Chuck Yeager. As an adult, I found myself horrified to discover that some of the astronauts on the Challenger may have been conscious during the time it took the Challenger to fall into the ocean. The investigation revealed that several activated personal air packs after the explosion. And while I remember learning about faulty O-rings on the rocket boosters being one of the causes of the disaster, it made me angry to learn NASA and the company responsible for the design were not only aware of the flaw, but defined the problem as an acceptable flight risk rather than redesign it. While not the only reason behind the disaster, those who played God with the lives of others have much to answer for. The Challenger explosion was not the first disaster for the space program, nor would it be the last. The Challenger was one of six shuttles built for flight. The Enterprise, Columbia, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour were the others. The Columbia was the first shuttle ready for orbit, and made its inaugural flight in 1981. I confess to being old enough to remember that first launch, as a first grader living in White Pine, Mich. And I remember waking up to the news on Feb. 1, 2003, that we lost another crew of seven when the Columbus broke up during re-entry on its 28th mission. NASA opted to end the shuttle program in 2011. Over 30 years, the shuttles flew 135 missions. We have a fascination with the stars, from our early ancestors identifying clusters of stars and assigning names and stories to those constellations, to the popularity of space exploration in television shows like Star Trek, BattleStar Galactica, Firefly, Babylon 5 and StarGate, or movie series like Star Wars and Alien. We search the night sky for signs we are not alone in this universe. One of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes comic strips from the creative genius, Bill Watterson, states, Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. At a memorial service for the seven astronauts lost on the Challenger McAuliffe, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik, Michael J. Smith, Francis Dick Scobee and Ronald McNair President Reagan addressed humanitys attempts to learn more about space. Sometimes, when we reach for the stars, we fall short, Reagan said. But we must pick ourselves up again and press on despite the pain. I hope to one day witness the first manned mission to Mars, and to marvel at the technology and innovation that comes when we attempt to reach higher. The Columbia County Sheriffs Office has released the name of the 16-year-old Lodi girl who died after a vehicle rollover Tuesday morning. Sierra Michelle Skarda, of the town of Lodi, was pronounced dead Tuesday afternoon at University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison after a Lodi EMS ambulance transported her from the scene of the accident in Spring Creek. This is as bad of a feeling as you can get, said Columbia County Sheriffs Office Detective Lt. Roger Brandner, and that it was just such a freak accident, but everything happened to line up. Lodi schools opened two hours late on Tuesday because of the 6 inches of heavy snow that fell overnight. Although authorities are not certain about the exact timing of the accident, Brandner said it appears Skarda was on her way to school when the car she was driving slid off her familys driveway and down the embankment, landing upside down in the creek. Emergency dispatch received a call from a passerby at about 10:13 a.m. and a few minutes later responders, including Lodi police and firefighters along with Lodi Shell Towing Company, were on the scene. A Lodi police officer went into the creek, cutting his hand on broken glass as he shattered the drivers side window to get access to Skarda, who was trapped inside with her seatbelt on. There was enough water in the cab area that she would have been submerged in the water, said Brandner. Although autopsy results have yet to be published, circumstances lend to concluding drowning as the cause of death. Weather conditions were such that the UW Hospital MedFlight helicopter could not get clearance to fly, so the Lodi ambulance transported Skarda to Madison. At the hospital, doctors were briefly able to get her heart beating, but they were not able to save her, Brandner said. The police officer and the passerby who initially ran into the water to save Skarda were treated and released shortly afterward. Besides getting checked for exposure, the officer needed stitches for cuts to his hand. The people that helped did an incredible job to get her out that fast and to give her a fighting chance and I think it was a miracle in and of itself just to get a pulse later on and have her at least fighting for a few hours, said Brandner. Obviously without the efforts of all those individuals, that never would have been a possibility. The offices of federal agricultural agencies arent moving into the new Columbia County administration building. Not yet, anyway. After a closed-session discussion Wednesday, the County Boards Ad Hoc Building Committee voted not to lease space on the buildings second floor, near the countys Land and Water Conservation Department, to the federal government for the Farm Service Agency and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. However, the committee left open the possibility of making space for the federal agencies in the new buildings lower level, if and when they want to move there. Ad Hoc Building Committee Chairman Kirk Konkel said the federal agencies wanted more space than the buildings plan allotted. With groundbreaking in a week, its too late to change the buildings floor plan to accommodate them, he said. Kurt Calkins, director of the countys LWC Department, said he had been talking with federal agricultural officials who serve Columbia County, and conveyed their concerns to the committee. Calkins said he has long hoped that his offices could be co-located with those of the federal farm agencies, for the convenience of farmers who work with both county and federal officials. Calkins office is currently in the Annex at 120 W. Conant St., while both the FSA and the NRCS are located at 2912 Red Fox Run, Portage. The building plan called for putting both the LWC and federal offices on the second floor (of three) in the new administration building, on the northwest side of the Portage Canal. Konkel said the federal farm officials offered their input when the administration building was being designed, as to the size and configuration of the space set aside for them. To change the floor plan now to give them additional space, Konkel said, would adversely affect the other offices that are to be located on the second floor, including the University of Wisconsin-Extension Columbia County, Planning and Zoning and Land Information. Also, federal ag officials have not firmly committed to relocating to the administration building, Konkel said. The issue arose at the June meeting of the County Boards Agriculture Land and Water Conservation Committee meeting, when the committee went on record as favoring the co-location. At that meeting, Columbia County FSA Director Susan Hunter said the federal government requires that bids be sought whenever a relocation is being considered, and decisions about where to locate federal offices are based mainly on the wishes and needs of the farmers that the offices serve. The committee did not close the door to a future relocation. The administration building will have a walk-out lower level, where there would be office space available, Konkel said, although the space would not, for now, be built out. And the second-floor office space that was intended for the federal farm offices will likely go to another county-related entity, Konkel said possibly the Columbia County Economic Development Corporation. President Barack Obama added another chapter to his reputation for running an imperial presidency last week when his administration announced plans for visa entry program changes that created a carve-out for travelers who have been in Iran. It was Congress, however, that was really carved out and Republicans wasted no time in lambasting the president for his unilateral move. The Obama administration is essentially rewriting the law by blowing wide open a small window of discretion that Congress gave it for law enforcement and national security reasons, said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R.-Va., the head of the House Judiciary Committee. In fact, the categories of people that the Obama administration is exempting from the law were expressly rejected by Congress. When Congress passed and Obama signed legislation at the end of last year, it was intended to tighten the reins on travelers who have visited Iran, Iraq, Syria or Sudan in the last five years in an attempt to dampen the threat of European nationals involved with the Islamic State from entering the country. Congress allowed a waiver of the visa restrictions for reasons of national security or law enforcement but rejected proposals easing restrictions for other reasons. Yet the administration issued the carve-outs for Iran that would allow business travelers to be included under that exemption, saying it was intended to balance security and economic interests. We want to make sure that we are doing everything to keep the country safe, said White House spokesman Josh Earnest, But we also dont want to unnecessarily disadvantage American businesses that are trying to do business overseas. No, no and no. Congress explicitly rejected that notion, but the president, enamored with Irans supreme leader and the implementation of the Iran nuclear accord, has chosen to throw it out the door and write laws of his own much in the same way he did with his shielding of as many as 5 million immigrants from deportation. That use of executive power is currently headed for the Supreme Court. The visa carve-out should as well. This is a republic, a nation of laws not a kingdom that is ruled by royal decree. Congress should reassert its decision, challenge the president and take away Obamas crown. What the Geonim permitted the far lesser rabbis of Chabad and Australia's version of Edah Haredit have banned. But don't worry. Even though ben pakuah meat would have dropped the price of kosher meat dramatically, these rabbis have your best interests at heart. And you can be assured of that because they they say so. Please click to enlarge: What is Ben Pakuah meat? A ben pakuah animal is either a fetus which has been removed from its mother's body alive after the mother has been shechted (kosher slaughtered) or, in this case, the descendants of two of those ben pakuah animals. The last recorded consumption of ben pakuah animals was circa 1,000 years ago by Hai Gaon, the head of the yeshiva in Pumbedita (now Fallujah, Iraq), who wanted to make this form of kosher meat widely available, in part to reduce the cost of keeping kosher. Certified ben pakuah animals are all automatically glatt kosher without having to check their lungs. Their hind-quarters can be eaten even without removing the halakhicly forbidden fats and the gid ha-nashe (the sciatic nerve) found in them. That means the whole animal is kosher (rather than slightly less than half of the animal currently used as kosher in the west). It also means fewer kosher supervisors are needed and kosher slaughter processing lines can move much faster without compromising kashrut. In this case, Rabbi Meir Rabi is using DNA testing and third party certification to prove the animals slaughtered as ben pakuah animals really are ben pakuah animals. Related Posts: Controversial Kosher Meat To Be Commercially Available. Controversial Kosher Meat Now To Be More Widely Available. [Hat Tip: BeenThereDoneThat.] Planning nutrient management prior to harvest Harvest is always a fast-paced season for growers, that's why it is important to meet nutrient management goals prior to harvest. Because the men are out of [Bnei Brak] they lose all shame and take advantage of a situation in which librarians hardly come into this [public computer] room." Haredim Use Secular Citys Public Library Computers To Surf Porn Sites, Patron's Complain Shmarya Rosenberg FailedMessiah.com Men from the adjoining haredi city of Bnei Brak use the public computers in the largely secular city of Ramat Gans public library to view web porn, MyNet reported. Ramat Gan locals have reportedly complained about this but librarians cant discriminate against customers by appearance or dress, and dont really have any way to stop porn surfing from happening, unless they catch someone redhanded. The Ramat Gan library has a filter that is supposed to block access to porn sites, but the haredi men who allegedly frequent the library to view porn are said to be adept at beating it. The library believes haredi porn surfing at its public computers to be a relatively small and infrequent problem - although angered locals and even some Bnei Brak residents are not so sure. Because the men are out of [Bnei Brak] they lose all shame and take advantage of a situation in which librarians hardly come into this [public computer] room," a haredi Bnei Brak resident told MyNet. The haredi head of the Knesset Finance Committee will block funding for the egalitarian prayer area to located at Robinsons Arch not far from the traditional Kotel (Western Wall) area. Powerful Haredi MK To Block Official Government Funding For New Egalitarian Prayer Area At Western Wall Shmarya Rosenberg FailedMessiah.com The haredi head of the Knesset Finance Committee will block funding for the egalitarian prayer area to located at Robinsons Arch not far from the traditional Kotel (Western Wall) area, the JTA reported. Rabbi Moshe Gafni, the co-head of the Ashkenazi haredi United Torah Judaism Party will block the approximately $10 million needed create the new prayer space, even though haredi political leaders supposed promised they would not oppose the plan when the cabinet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu votes on it Sunday. Netanyahu, however, has a solution to this problem: have either the Jerusalem municipality, the Reform and Conservative movements, or the Jewish Agency for Israel fund the project. However, haredim can essentially veto any allocation from city, so it is unlikely (although not impossible) for the bulk of funding to come from it. The Jewish Agency would likely act as a conduit for foreign donations earmarked for the egalitarian prayer space, not actually pay for it itself out of purely Israeli funds. That means the non-Orthodox movements would be forced to pay millions of dollars for something the Government of Israel was essentially ordered a decade ago by the High Court to build with its own funds. The Reform and Conservative movements and Women of Wall have already given up on the idea that the new egalitarian prayer space would be made contiguous with the Kotel proper and be made equal in prominence after the government only very recently recently made it clear security and diplomatic concerns would prevent the needed construction at the Holy Site. FailedMessiah.com reported more than two years ago two years before any other media source that construction would not take place due to those same security and diplomatic concerns a warning the non-Orthodox movements and WoW disregarded at the time. Shulamit Magnus a Jewish historian who is an award-winning author, a founder of Women of the Wall, and a plaintiff in a lawsuit currently before the High Court of Justice that calls for the enforcement of the already confirmed legal the right of Jewish women to read Torah at the Kotel (Western Wall) writes in the Jerusalem Post: Avichai Mandelblit, [a haredi ba'al teshuva who is now] Netanyahus cabinet secretary, has for several years led the negotiations to conclude a deal that will remove womens tefilla from the Kotel, a top haredi demand, and to relieve pressure from the Reform and Conservative movements for some official respect in Israel. Mandelblit is about to become [Israel's new] attorney-general. He is a lawyer. He knows Supreme Court cases. After reading ours, he suddenly had tremendous incentive to push the negotiations to conclusion. The Supreme Courts deadline for the state to give its response to our suit is now, January 29, 2016. Not that we didnt know it but the clearest indication of the strength of our suits is the speed and determination with which the state is determined to conclude these negotiations. Heres who has been at the table with Mandelblit: the Reform and Conservative movements; Anat Hoffman, executive director of the Reform movements Religious Action Center (IRAC) and chair of Women of the Wall; Rabbi Rabinowitz, backed by haredi MKs. The movements want state recognition of mixed-gender, egalitarian services at Robinsons Arch, an archeological site adjacent to the Kotel area. These services already exist there, including bat and bar mitzvas. What the movements hope to gain from a deal are embellishments at Robinsons and some structural changes so that the entry to Robinsons will be more prominent, with signage indicating that this is the egalitarian prayer area. Symbolically, this is very important to those movements, tantamount to state recognition of non-Orthodox Judaism, not at the Kotel, but near it. Anat Hoffman is caught between the mandate of the charter of Women of the Wall, which states that the groups non-profit status is based on its pursuit of womens prayer in the womens section of the Kotel, and her status as a paid employee of the Reform movement. Her group has done remarkable peddling around this conflict of interest to present the removal of womens tefilla from the Kotel to an alternate site, and its inclusion there as an afterthought to egalitarian tefilla, as somehow in accordance with its charter, or even its name: Women of the Wall. Then there is Rabbi Rabinowitz, representing the haredi establishment, who has defamed Jewish women for the act of prayer, for donning sacred garments, and for reading Torah (blasphemy) acts which, when performed by men, are called mitzva. Who sent police to detain and process us as criminals for this. Who has been agitating openly for us to remove ourselves from the Kotel, sending public notices of dis-invitation to the national holy site of the Jewish people: the administrator of the site telling Jews we are not welcome there. Unless we act like his kind of Jew/women. Whats in this deal for him and the haredi establishment? After all, it gives recognition in public space to Reform and Conservative Judaism, not something we would expect they would sign on to. We have been told the payoff is not simply banishment of womens group prayer from the Kotel but official recognition of the Kotel as a haredi synagogue, matching recognition Robinsons as a site of egalitarian prayer. Or perhaps, agreement to banish womens tefilla itself establishes the Kotel as officially haredi. Partisan players and politics, business as usual in Israel, one might think. Except that this deal, if it goes through, affects the status of the national holy place of the Jewish people and will make it officially, for the first time and God forbid, perhaps irrevocably, the preserve of one segment of the Jewish people, theirs from which to banish any who do not adopt its practice. What has until now been a de facto usurpation, done without national deliberation, let alone consent, would become enshrined, officially. This is what is at stake here for all of us. The reward for years of outrageous behavior and incitement, for rank intolerance and the preaching of hatred, will be the Kotel. China News on Women Sorry, the page you requested was not found. If you're having trouble locating a destination on Womenofchina.cn, try visiting the Womenofchina Home page KHNP, NASA sign cooperation agreement 28 January 2016 Share Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Nucleoelectrica Argentina SA (NASA) for technological cooperation. The MOU was signed in Buenos Aires yesterday by KHNP CEO Cho Seok and NASA vice president Sebastian Estrada (Image: KHNP) Under the MOU, the two companies will cooperate in nuclear power plant engineering, construction, operation and maintenance, KHNP announced today. KHNP said it has also held talks with NASA about participating in its planned project to refurbish the Embalse nuclear power plant. The project would not only extend the Candu-6 pressurized heavy water reactor's operating life by 25 years but will also increase its power output from 648 MWe to 683 MWe. The Korean company has already completed a major refurbishment of its Wolsong 1 - also a Candu 6 - in 2013. That unit was taken out of operation in April 2009 for an extended maintenance outage that included replacement of all its pressure tubes and calandria tubes. The reactor came back into operation in July 2011 with its performance raised from 629 MWe to 657 MWe. Candu reactors are designed to undergo refurbishment after about 25 years of operation, requiring a major outage but allowing reactor lives to be extended by up to 30 years. For all Candu reactors, this involves complete retubing. In September 2010, an MOU on cooperation in new nuclear projects and life extensions of existing plants was signed between South Korea and Argentina. Argentina has three operating nuclear power reactors - two at Atucha and one at Embalse - as well as three proposed plants. Researched and written by World Nuclear News Related topics Sellafield Ltd unveils socioeconomic investment plan 28 January 2016 Share The UK's Sellafield Ltd has arranged GBP500 million ($715 million) of socioeconomic investment via a Decommissioning Delivery Partnership (DDP) framework. The package includes jobs, apprenticeships and work for small- and medium-sized businesses. Sellafield Ltd describes the arrangement as possibly the UK's first ever public procurement that guarantees benefits for the community. It said that independent data analysis of the framework has found that 1140 jobs a year could be created or supported during the 10-year contract period. Tom Foster, chief decommissioning officer at Sellafield Ltd, said the DDP is going to be a crucial part of the company's mission to reduce the risk on the Sellafield site "by getting waste out of high-hazard facilities as soon as possible". Foster added: "Everyone in the framework is committed to achieving the best possible socio-economic outcomes in areas such as building skills for young people and ensuring small- to medium-sized enterprises also benefit from this major investment in decommissioning the site." The work to be carried out under the DDP has already been mapped out as part of Sellafield's existing performance plan. But there is "extra headroom" in the framework of up to GBP1.5 billion, it said, depending on how Sellafield Ltd prioritises and delivers its work. The first four confirmed 'delivery partners' - made up of 12 companies - will enter a 10-year agreement to support Sellafield Ltd staff on the decommissioning of its site in Cumbria, England. Of the 12 selected companies, 11 are based in, or have a significant presence in, Cumbria. All have committed at least 20% of their sub-contracting spend with small- to medium-sized enterprises. Working as part of four consortia or joint ventures, the selected companies are working with Sellafield Ltd to finalise the details of their "socioeconomic commitments", Sellafield Ltd said yesterday. Framework agreements are also being finalised with two other consortia that were successful in the initial tendering process, and they will be confirmed once legal and commercial arrangements are in place, it added. Delivery partners The delivery partners confirmed so far are: Integrated Decommissioning Solutions - comprising Energy Solutions EU Ltd, Hertel (UK) Ltd, North West Projects Ltd and Westlakes Engineering Ltd; the Nexus Decommissioning Alliance - Costain Oil, Gas and Process; Cumbria Nuclear Solutions Ltd (CNSL) - Shepley Engineers, James Fisher Nuclear Ltd, REACT Engineering Ltd, Jacobs Stobbarts, Westinghouse Electric Company UK Ltd, WYG Engineering Ltd; and the Decommissioning Alliance - Jacobs UK Ltd, Energy Solutions EU Limited, Westinghouse Electric Company UK Ltd. Selected to conduct decommissioning activities under two separate Decommissioning Framework Agreements, Westinghouse said in a separate statement that the contracts build upon the success it has already had at Sellafield in reducing risk and hazard at the First Generation Magnox Storage Pond. John Kipling, Westinghouse head of UK Decommissioning, Decontamination and Waste Management, said these two contracts were significant for Westinghouse, "as they strengthen the future of our UK business and demonstrate recognition of our technological capabilities in decommissioning". The contract commitments will be delivered by Westinghouse in West Cumbria, with support from the wider Westinghouse UK team based at Springfields and Chorley, Kipling added. Jacobs said the 10-year framework enables the consortium to work collaboratively with Sellafield Ltd to provide a strategic approach to project and program planning and delivery. It also allows the supply chain to "help shape work packages that bring better value and drive accelerated delivery", it said. Alan Seywright, Jacobs vice president for UK Nuclear and Defence, said, extending its collaboration to include its supply chain is a "further important factor in delivering our innovative approach". Jacobs employs over 600 people across Cumbria, of which 90% live locally. It received the West Cumbrian Community Heroes Award for Large Sustainable Business of the Year in 2015. Pledges The selected companies have pledged to adopt a 'local first' recruitment approach, give 150 jobs to 'under-represented or disadvantaged' people, create up to 240 new apprenticeships, and provide training, school outreach and business mentoring. These commitments will be written into the contract, meaning companies would lose out financially if they fail to deliver, Sellafield Ltd said. Paul Foster, managing director of Sellafield Ltd, said the DDP will place "socioeconomic outcomes at the heart of the contract from the outset and by holding contractors to account on delivery". He added: "We have listened to our stakeholders and worked with government, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and our supply chain to design a responsible, sustainable procurement that uses public sector contracts to unlock investment from the private sector, backed up by the power of a legally binding contract." From 1 April, the NDA is to take ownership of Sellafield Ltd, as part of reforms to management of the site announced in January last year. The decision meant that private consortium Nuclear Management Partners (NMP) lost its GBP9 billion contract as the site's Parent Body Organisation (PBO). As the Site Licence Company operating the site under the ownership of the PBO, Sellafield Ltd said its clean up mission and strategy remain unchanged "at the day-to-day operational level". Sellafield Ltd said last week that it plans to make efficiency savings to be able to work within its GBP2 billion budget for the next financial year as the site "enters the most crucial period in its modern history". The NDA secured the sum for Sellafield Ltd as part of the government's Spending Review, announced in November last year. Researched and written by World Nuclear News Related topics According to tax forms, the charity's spending on conferences and meetings increased from $1.7 million in 2010 to $26 million in 2014. In 2014, the Wounded Warriors Project charity received over $300 million contributions. Now they are under fire, with allegations of misuse of those funds, including excessive spending on company retreats and parties. According to tax forms, the charitys spending on conferences and meetings increased from $1.7 million in 2010 to $26 million in 2014, about the same amount that they spend on their top program, combat stress recovery. A CBS News investigation recently looked into how the charity spends its contribution money. Their attention was caught by the comparison with Wounded Warriors donation spending compared to other respected charities. They spoke to 40 former employees who described the organization as having spending that is out of control. One former employee described spending as extremely extravagant, with dinners and alcohol and meetings at fancy resorts. These employees say spending has skyrocketed since CEO Steven Nardizzi took over in 2009, many using the example of the 2014 annual meeting as an example. This meeting took place at the luxury Broadmore hotel in Colorado. Pictures and videos show Nardizzi rapelling down the side of the hotel during an all-expenses paid conference for employees. That four-day conference for about 500 staff members cost $3 million. According to Charity Navigator, most major veteran charities, such as Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust and Fisher House spend over 90 percent of their budgets on the vets they exist to serve. Wounded Warriors spends only 60 percent. Records on the Wounded Warriors own website shows that salaries for the top 12 employees are $2.7 million in total. Army Staff Sergeant Erick Millette, who came home from Iraq in 2006 with a purple heart, a bronze star, a traumatic brain injury and PTSD, worked for the organization for two years. He says the public does not see how Wounded Warriors spends its money. Stating that he is not speaking as a former disgruntled employee, Millette said that he witnessed lavish spending on staff, with dinners at fancy restaurants and meetings at lavish hotels. One former employee described the spending on alcohol and resorts as what the military calls fraud waste and abuse. Requests for interviews with Nardizzi by CBS News were denied, but they did allow their Director of Alumni, Captain Ryan Kules, to speak. Kules denied that there was excessive spending. He said that its the best use of donor dollars to ensure we are providing programs and services to our warriors and families at the highest quality. Kules gave the same answer when asked why conferences were not held at cheaper venues, saying it is to be sure they are aligned and can build as a team. He denied that $3 million was spent on the Colorado conference, and also said that the charity does not spend money on alcohol or excessive spending. In a statement Wounded Warriors disputed the validity of the CBS News investigation, citing numerous factual errors and misrepresentations. Jarod Robert Weaver By: Wayne Morin A man was arrested on a charge of corruption of minors after allegedly giving young girls cigarettes and letting them drive his car, police in Pennsylvania said. Donegal Township police said that they have arrested 20-year-old Jarod Robert Weaver, after being accused of allowing the girls to drive his vehicle and then reporting it as stolen. Weaver was charged with corruption of minors, filing a false police report, furnishing tobacco to a minor and allowing an unlicensed person to drive a vehicle. He was booked into the Washington County jail, and his bail was set at $25,000. According to the police investigation, Weaver called the police to Main Street, claiming that a woman stole his 2004 Chevrolet. When officers arrived at the scene, they learned that the woman was a 12-year-old girl. Police spoke with the girl with the parentsa permission, and she told the officer that Weaver allowed her to drive his vehicle. Another 12-year-old girl also told police that she and other girls were allowed to drive his car. Weaver also gave the girls cigarettes. FOUND :Appeal For Missing 17 Year Old This article is old - Published: Thursday, Jan 28th, 2016 UPDATE: Police have said overnight she has been found : https://twitter.com/NWPControlroom/status/692889691977175041 Police have issued an appeal targeted across North Wales for a 17 year old missing from Porthmadog. The above picture has been released of 17 year old Delyth Burrows who is missing from Porthmadog, and is said to have links to Rhyl, Colwyn bay. Delyth is described as 54 tall, slim, with long dark hair that has a red tint. Delyth could be wearing black leggings, brown boots, pink top, green jacket. If you have seen her or have any information please call police via the 101 number. Opening statements and testimony began this week in the long-awaited trial of New York City police officer Peter Liang for the killing of Akai Gurley, an unarmed 28-year-old African-American man walking down the stairs in his apartment building, part of the Louis H. Pink housing projects in the East New York section of Brooklyn. Jury selection in the case was completed last week. Gurley died more than 14 months ago, on November 20, 2014, as two cops were making a vertical patrol, checking the stairwells in the high-rise building. As Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Marc Fliedner put it, opening the prosecutions case, Akai Gurley is dead today because he crossed paths with Peter Liang. Liang was indicted by a Brooklyn grand jury on manslaughter and other charges last February, and both prosecution and defense agree on the immediate events that led to Gurleys death. Liang and his partner, Shaun Landau, were patrolling in the housing project when Landau reportedly heard the sound of footsteps. They were on the eighth floor at the time. Meanwhile, Gurley and his girlfriend, Melissa Butler, had decided to walk down from the seventh floor after the elevator never showed up, a common occurrence in public housing. They descended an unlit staircase, another product of the wanton neglect of basic maintenance in the projects. Liang opened the door from the flight above, raised his flashlight with one hand and drew his pistol with the other. He fired his gun immediately, and then returned to his partner, saying it had been an accident and that he would now be fired. The two men, instead of checking on whether anyone had been injured, argued for two minutes over whether their supervisor should be called, as stipulated in police rules, and which of them should do it. Meanwhile, Gurley started running. Then, staggering and in increasing difficulty, he collapsed on the fifth floor. Butler saw that he had been shot and tried desperately to get help by knocking on nearby doors. After apparently not resolving the argument of which of them should call their supervisor, (reports after the killing indicated that Liang had instead texted his representative in the police union), the officers made their way down the stairs, came across the mortally wounded Gurley and his crying friend Butler on the fifth floor, and did nothing, even though they are required to perform CPR when needed. In testimony on the first day of the trial, a neighbor, Melissa Lopez, said that she had called 911 after Ms. Butler rang her bell. I saw her standing there, crying, asking for help, her hands all bloody, Lopez said, according to the account in the New York Times. When she went out to the stairwell, she saw the police officers. Asked what they did, she replied, Nothing. The police did not summon an ambulance. The cops shot him, the cops shot him, Ms. Lopez said in her call for emergency assistance, recorded and played in court. Theres like a million cops, but no ambulance. After having seen the victim, Liang finally called his superior. During this whole period, Landau and Liang behaved as though Gurley was collateral damage, an unfortunate casualty in the job of policing the poor neighborhood. The prosecution charges that the officers behavior makes him guilty of second-degree manslaughter, involving recklessness rather than intent to kill. He also faces official misconduct, reckless endangerment and other charges. A manslaughter conviction could bring a sentence of 5 to 15 years in prison. Officer Landau is expected to testify under an immunity agreement. The prosecutions outline of the case indicates that, although Landau was not the shooter, he also refused to provide any aid to the dying man. The indictment of Liang is a rare occurrence. One recent report indicated that 54 police officers faced criminal charges in the past decade, out of the thousands of police killings, many of them involving unarmed and innocent or mentally disturbed individuals, that took place over this period. Convictions in cases like these are even more uncommon. Liangs lawyer indicated that the police officer would probably take the stand in his own defense. The strategy will apparently be to present him as a virtual innocent himself, a young officer trying his best and ensnared in what his defense attorney claimed was a million-to-one possibility, as his bullet ricocheted off the wall and struck Gurley. The attorney added that the case was not a referendum on policing in the United States. The cop is clearly guilty of violating specific rules on the holding and use of guns, breaching regulations in failing to notify his supervisor for 20 minutes, and, above all, refusing to provide first aid. These actions did not take place in a vacuum. The police are sent into the citys housing projects to carry out broken windows policing, initiated under the current police commissioner, William Bratton, during his first stint on the job more than 20 years ago. The cops function as a virtual occupation force, making threats and arrests for such charges as loitering and trespass, even in ones own building, and minor drug charges that would barely raise an eyebrow in wealthier parts of the city. The trial in the Akai Gurley case has been delayed for nearly a year, likely to allow anger to cool. His killing came within weeks of the exoneration of the police in the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the chokehold death of Eric Garner in Staten Island that past summer. Only two days later, 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot and killed by a Cleveland cop. The killing of Akai Gurley, unlike these cases, was accidental, but it was an accident that reflects the police-state atmosphere in working class and poorer sections of the city. On Monday, January 25, hundreds of Detroit high school students walked out of their classes to oppose the legal witch-hunt of teachers who have engaged in a series of sickout protests against deplorable conditions in the schools and the attack on public education being spearheaded by the school districts state-appointed emergency manager. The walkouts took place at three of the citys top academic high schools, Cass Technical, Communication & Media Arts, and Renaissance. The protests were timed to coincide with the court appearance of 23 rank-and-file teachers accused by the district of organizing illegal strikes. As the leaders of the Cass Tech walkout explain below, students were also motivated by the lack of teachers and supplies throughout the Detroit Public Schools. A video of the Cass Tech walkout by student Trinere Bass can be seen here. While the judge in the case rejected the districts request for a temporary restraining order and temporarily delayed a direct confrontation with teachers, preferring instead to rely on the Detroit Federation of Teachers to suppress continued protests, the threat of injunctions, fines and even arrests are being held in reserve. Meanwhile, state legislators in the capital of Lansing are preparing the bipartisan restructuring plan for the Detroit Public Schools, which would sharply increase the number of charter schools and expand the attack on teachers jobs, wages and health and pension benefits. The sickout protests by teachers and student walkouts were organized outside of the control of the unions and express the growing determination of the working class to defend the right to public education against the attacks by every level of the government from the Obama administration on down. We the Students, formed by students at Cass Tech High School, organized a walkout of students at the school in support of the Detroit teachers. Below is a brief interview between the World Socialist Web Site and the students who led the protest. *** WSWS: What made you come out and protest? Natalya: Originally, We the Students decided to protest to be advocates for change. Our teachers have been standing up for their rights and their students as well. We have always supported our teachers and we believe its unfair that they are subjected to lowered wages and cuts to their health care benefits, as well as the conditions they are forced to teach in. It is also not fair to us students, whose parents pay public taxes, to be subjected to the conditions that we are forced to learn in. In many DPS schools there are many teacher vacancies, there are minimal available desks because classrooms that were built for a class size of 30 now must accommodate 40 students. And those are only minor issues. When the injunctions were filed in an attempt to prevent further sickouts, it angered not only the teachers, but the students as well. We collectively decided that enough was enough! WSWS: Have you or other students faced suspensions or other disciplinary measures? Natalya: The initiators of We the Students who attend Cass Tech were not suspended. Students at Communication Media Arts High School who participated in the walkout were disciplined, with suspensions reduced from five days to one day. WSWS: How do you view your walkout action within the broader context of the teachers sickouts? Natalya: We the Students view our walkout as the first of many steps to achieve a better school system. Being that we are Americans, citizens of a democratic government, we have rights that are displayed in the Constitution. Our First Amendment right is freedom of speech, which includes the right to peacefully assemble. The students are the future. We have a voice and we do matter. If we do not stand for something, we will fall for anything. This not only affects us, it affects the generations that follow after. Last week, two Russian ships, one from Vladivostok and one from Crimea, arrived in Suva, the capital of the Pacific island state of Fiji, with a consignment of arms and other military hardware. There was no prior announcement regarding the delivery and the manifest of the shipment has not been revealed. Radio New Zealand Pacific affairs correspondent Michael Field reported on January 22 that the size of the consignment was disputed, but was estimated at between 20 and 27 container loads. Field said the materiel was rumoured to include a helicopter, heavy weaponry and new generation Kalashnikov assault rifles. According to the Guardian, the gifted weapons will be followed next month by Russian military personnel to act as trainers for the new arsenal. The shipment underlines the deepening geo-strategic tensions in the Pacific. In preparation for war, US imperialism, assisted by its allies Australia and New Zealand, is seeking to ensure its dominance in the South West Pacific and to counter the growing influence of China in particular. This has heightened tensions throughout the region and turned every country, including small Pacific Island states, into an arena of geo-political intrigue. Confirming the arrival of the Russian consignment, the acting commander of Fijis military forces, Rear-Admiral Viliame Naupoto, claimed the weapons were needed because Fijian peacekeepers serving on UN missions overseas are working in volatile areas with outdated arms. I must thank the government of Russia for the timely donation, Naupoto declared. Currently, 1,000 Fijian troops are on duty in UN-led missions in the Sinai, Syria, the Golan Heights, Iraq and Lebanon. In August 2014, 43 Fijian solders were captured on the Golan Heights by Al-Qaeda linked fighters from the al-Nusra Front and held hostage for two weeks until a ransom of $US25 million was paid. The UN assignments are an important source of revenue for Fiji, with remittances from soldiers abroad a significant boost to the economy. The UN presently owes $US140 million for the Fijian armys services. More fundamental strategic issues are, however, at stake. After the then military leader, now prime minister, Frank Bainimarama led a coup to seize control of the country in 2006, Australia, New Zealand and the US imposed travel, aid and commercial sanctions on Fiji. While professing concern for democracy, these imperialist powers were worried that Bainimaramas junta could lessen their sway over the former British colony. The sanctions only succeeded in alienating the regime, however. It adopted a Look North policy, initially establishing closer diplomatic, trade and aid ties with Beijing, and subsequently strengthening military ties. In 2010, Washington pressured Australia and New Zealand to drop the sanctions in an unsuccessful effort to stem the growth of Chinese influence in Fiji and across the wider region. Despite the subsequent lifting of sanctions, and the endorsement by the three Western powers of a bogus election in September 2014 to legitimise Bainimaramas rule, the Chinese role has continued. Chinese warships have started visiting the capital and, according to Michael Field, Fiji is considering the use of Chinese aircraft to patrol its exclusive economic zone. Fiji has encouraged other Pacific nations to take a more independent stance from Canberra and Wellington. In 2012, it set up the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) as an alternative to the Australian and New Zealand-dominated Pacific Islands Forum, from which Fiji had been suspended. Led by Fiji, the PIDF meets without the two regional powers, and last month criticised them for opposing Pacific island calls at the Paris climate summit for more stringent emissions targets. Since 2006, Fiji has established 57 new diplomatic partnerships, and developed ties with Russia. In 2012, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov became the first senior Russian government official to visit Fiji. Bainimarama reciprocated the following year, becoming the first Fijian leader to make a state visit to Russia. Fiji notably refused to join in the international stampede to demonise Russia over the US-backed coup in the Ukraine. Fiji was one of 58 nations that abstained on the UN vote in March 2014 to condemn Russias annexation of Crimea. The Russian arms shipment will ring alarm bells in Washington. Just as the Obama administrations strategic pivot to Asia involves the consolidation of US military alliances and partnerships throughout Asia directed against China, so the US seeks, at the opposite end of the Eurasian landmass, to isolate and subjugate Russia. While expanding its own military might across the Pacific, the US is demanding that all local governments fall into line with its strategic agenda. Tonga has recently been the recipient of new US military equipment, partly as a quid pro quo for the role Tongan soldiers played in Afghanistan, guarding the massive US airbase outside Kabul for five years. The militarisation of the wider Pacific under pressure from Washington has the potential to inflame even minor local disputes into dangerous confrontations. Tensions erupted in June 2013 after Tongan naval gunboats chased off a Fijian warship at the disputed Minerva Reefs, 1,500 kilometres north of New Zealand. The uninhabited reefs, annexed by Tonga in 1972, are also claimed by Fiji and could be a significant source of lucrative undersea minerals. South Korean, Chinese and Australian interests are seeking prospecting rights in the area. Some Fijian opposition MPs have alleged that the Russian shipment could include equipment intended for use in crowd control and other acts of political suppression. The regime recently purchased tear gas and riot control gear from South Korea in order to deal with the looming consequences of deepening social tensions, widespread poverty and inequality. The government still rests directly on the military, despite a bogus election in September 2014. The election, in which Bainimaramas Fiji First Party purportedly won 60 percent of the ballot, was held under conditions of press censorship, severe restrictions on opposition political parties and military provocations. The government is anti-working class and authoritarian, ruling largely through fear and intimidation. It has previously enacted harsh public order laws with measures against riot, violent disorder, affray, public processions and public assemblies. The author also recommends: Fiji PM threatens severe punishment for 70 people charged with sedition [8 September 2015] In talks yesterday in Beijing, US Secretary of State John Kerry threatened to escalate the American military build-up in Asia unless the Chinese government agreed to draconian new economic measures against North Korea over its latest nuclear test. At a news conference with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Kerry declared that the US took North Koreas nuclear weapons extremely seriously. He warned: The United States will take all necessary steps to protect our people and allies. We dont want to heighten security tensions. But we wont walk away from any options. Following North Koreas detonation of a fourth nuclear device on January 6, the US and South Korea said discussions had begun over stationing strategic assets on the Korean Peninsulain other words, bombers, submarines or warships capable of launching a nuclear attack. To underscore the warning, the Pentagon flew a nuclear-capable B-52 strategic bomber to South Korea four days later. As Beijing is well aware, the US military build-up is not primarily aimed at North Korea and its limited stockpile of nuclear weapons. Rather it is targeted against China itself, as part of the Obama administrations pivot to Asia over the past five years. Kerrys visit came just days after the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released a comprehensive study commissioned by the Pentagon calling for an accelerated US military expansion in Asia to counter China. The rather blunt diplomatic comments by Kerry and Wang at yesterdays press conference obviously masked more rancorous exchanges behind closed doors. Journalists waited around as the pairs meeting dragged out for nearly five hours. As the Washington Post noted, when they finally appeared, tension [was] written across their faces. Kerry had already made clear, before his visit, that he intended to confront the Chinese leadership over North Korea. Following Pyongyangs nuclear test, he declared that Chinas particular approach to North Korea had not worked and warned we cannot continue business as usual. A senior State Department official told the media earlier this week that Kerry would not only press Chinese officials for a tough UN resolution but for what China on a unilateral basis, as North Koreas lifeline, as North Koreas patron, will choose to do. Yesterday Kerry outlined the sweeping character of the sanctions demanded by the US, saying: There are certain goods and services that flow between North Korea and China; there are movements of ships, ports, so forth; aviation is an area and a sector of concern; various resource exchanges, whether its coal or fuelall of these areas where there are border customs. Washington is demanding that Beijing choke off North Koreas only access to vital supplies such as oil and aviation fuel, severely limit trade and block its already restricted connections to the global financial system. Such measures threaten to precipitate an economic collapse in North Korea and a severe political crisis for the fragile North Korean regime. The Chinese leadership had flatly refused to impose such a blockade, fearing that a political implosion in Pyongyang would send a flood of refugees into northern China and open the door for Washington to engineer a pro-US regime on Chinas doorstep. While condemning North Koreas nuclear test, Foreign Minister Wang declared that sanctions are not an end in themselves and urged a return to the path of negotiation and consultation. He insisted any UN resolution should not provoke new tension in the situation, [or] destabilise the Korean Peninsula. Beijing is the sponsor of the so-called six party talks involving the US, China, Japan, the two Koreas and Russia. An international agreement on North Koreas nuclear programs broke down in 2008 after the Bush administration unilaterally demanded a tougher inspection regime. The Obama administration has made no attempt to revive the negotiations, insisting instead that North Korea commit to giving up its nuclear weapons prior to any talks. Washington has exploited the ongoing tensions on the Korean Peninsula as the pretext for strengthening its military presence. After the previous North Korean nuclear test in 2013, the Pentagon announced the expansion of its anti-ballistic missile system in Asia with the stationing of a second THAAD battery in Japan. The US is now pushing for South Korea to accept a THAAD installation. These anti-ballistic missile systems are integral to the US preparations for war with China. Keeping up the pressure on Beijing, Kerry emphasised that it was good to agree on the goal, but its not enough to agree on the goal... We are looking forward to working with China ... to achieve an understanding about the strong resolution that introduces significant new measures to curtail North Koreas ability to advance its prescribed nuclear and ballistic missile programs. While North Korea was on top of the agenda, Kerry also again demanded an end to Chinas land reclamation activities and militarisation in the South China Sea. He insisted that the US did not take sides on the territorial disputes between China and its neighbours. He advocated their settlement under the Law of the Sea, arbitration, rule of law, direct bilateral negotiation. In reality, Washington, which has not ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, has directly challenged Chinas maritime claims. Last October, the Pentagon deliberately sent the guided missile destroyer, the USS Lassen, within the 12-nautical-mile territorial limit surrounding a Chinese-administered islet. Wang declared that the South China Sea Islands have historically been Chinas territory that China has a right to protect. He said facilities for self-defence were not the same as militarisation. If one equates such a right to militarisation, then the South China Sea has been militarised long ago, and mind you, China was not the first party that started the militarisation, he said, a reference to the actions of Vietnam and the Philippines. Kerry and Wang made repeated pro forma references to the need for greater collaboration between the United States and China to ensure peace and stability. The meeting, however, signalled deepening tensions between the two countries as the Obama administration steps up its pivot, accompanied by a distinct lack of cooperation on potentially-explosive issues. Maris Kucinskis of the Union of Greens and Farmers (ZZS) is poised to head a new governing coalition in Latvia. He was nominated to be the successor of Laimdota Straujuma of the right-wing conservative Unity Party who resigned at the beginning of December. The new coalition government, like the previous one, will consist of the Union of Greens and Farmers, Unity and the extreme-right National Alliance (NA). The formation of a new government marks a further shift to the right in the Baltic state which is home to approximately two million people. Straujuma stepped down under pressure from coalition partners and the European Union. It has already become clear during negotiations on the new government that extreme right-wing forces will dominate the policies of the country, which shares a border with Russia. Straujuma had already sharpened her rhetoric toward Russia, calling for a stronger presence of NATO troops in the country. Domestically, she continued the brutal austerity measures begun in 2008 which eliminated a large part of the countrys social infrastructure. The extreme right National Alliance controlled the ministry of justice under her administration, and the NA is expected to take over the ministry under Kucinskis. Last week, the co-chair of the National Alliance, Raivis Dzintars, told the press that his parliamentary fraction would unanimously support a coalition with the Union of Greens and Farmers. This agreement was reached because the prime minister designate has granted the extreme right more influence in the government coalition than his predecessor. While there was tension between Straujuma and the NA on the direction of the countrys refugee policy, the incoming government will adopt the policy of the neo-fascists. Kucinskis has ensured that the coalition agreement will include an absolute freeze on the acceptance of refugees into the country. Any further entries will be blocked, and the government would not agree to a quota for the admission of refugees. The Straujuma government had earlier consented to the entry of just 531 refugees from the Middle East and Africa. Augusts Brigmanis, the chairman of the Greens parliamentary fraction, declared in October of last year that 70 percent of Latvians were against the admission of refugees, a fact which he could not, however, substantiate. He openly declared on national television that if one told the refugees how poor social benefits in Latvia were, they wouldnt want to come anyway. Personally I do not want to see them here, said Brigmanis. The openly racist and anti-democratic character of the new government also finds expression in a proposed ban on burkas. Minister of Justice Dzintars Rasnacs from the National Alliance discussed the plans on LNT, a Latvian television channel: Such a ban will be introduced. The respective draft decision has been already worked out. He included in this a ban on traditional Islamic dress in all public places. According to Rasnacs, the ban would protect Latvian culture. Unity has also insisted that the Latvian language be adopted as the countrys official language. This is a blatant act of discrimination against the large Russian-speaking minority in the country, already disadvantaged for years. The government also wants to abolish the Latvian media council because they have not taken sufficiently harsh action against Russian-language media and have therebyin the words of the pro-government newspaper Latvijas Avizeencouraged Russification. The anti-Russian chauvinism and the ongoing provocations against Russia have intensified in the last week. They reached a high point with celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the Barricades on January 20 and 21. In January 1991, there was fighting between the Popular Front of Latvia, which sought independence from the Soviet Union, and special units from the Soviet ministry of the interior. Four civilians were killed and more than 100 were injured. Against the backdrop of the current conflict with Russia, officials warned that Russia posed a threat to Latvian independence. There was a campaign for a firm stance against Russia in the Ukraine conflict at numerous official events. The previous government had already increased NATO troops in the country and raised the defense budget on the basis of this threat from Russia. Two high-ranking generals of the US Army were in the Latvian capital of Riga on January 20 and 21, meeting with the head of Latvian armed forces, Lieutenant General Raimonds Grabue. They took part in memorial events and visited a military base in Adazi. The Adazi base is to undergo $8.3 million in improvements by 2017. This is part of a broader build-up of NATO troops in Baltic countries directed against Russia. Along with the continuing military build-up, austerity measures will be considerably deepened. Since the beginning of the worldwide economic crisis in 2008, the government has penalized the country with draconian austerity packages and largely destroyed social infrastructure. Between 2008 and 2012, around 50 percent of the countrys clinics were closed. The health care budget was again cut in 2016, while the defense and domestic security budget was increased by 180 million euros. The destruction of the public health care system has dramatic consequences. In mid-December, Anna Kivite of the Riga Stradins University reported to members of parliament that the number of new HIV infections in Latvia is three times higher than the European average. In 2014, Latvia had the second highest rate, with 17.3 new infections for every hundred thousand inhabitants. This was only surpassed by Estonia, with 22 cases. The European average for new infections is 5.9. For every 6,000 persons infected, only 1000 receive the necessary medication, explained Jana Feldmane of the ministry for health. Despite these facts, Kucinskis leaves no doubt that he will continue the strict austerity measures. National bank chairman Ilmars Rimsevics has reaffirmed the demand for a debt-free budget and further tax relief for businesses. US government forces under the leadership of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested eight leaders of the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon on Tuesday afternoon. During the arrests, they repeatedly shot Robert LaVoy Finicum, killing him. Ryan Bundy, who was among those arrested, was wounded. Ammon Bundy, who functioned as the leader of the occupation, was also arrested. The standoff at the remote refuge began on January 2, when Ammon Bundy, at the head of about two-dozen armed militia members, took over the government offices. Calling themselves the Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, they claimed to be protesting the re-imprisonment of ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond for setting fire to federal lands. They received extensive and generally sympathetic coverage in the mainstream media, which often depicted them as patriotic ranchers. The occupation became something a lightning rod for armed right-wing militia elements throughout the western United States. Supporters came to join them from Montana, Utah, Arizona and Texas, coming and going freely from the compound. The majority of the leadership of the occupation chose on Tuesday to travel about seventy miles north to the town of John Day to hold a community meeting. The drive along Highway 395 between John Day and the Wildlife Refuge is remote and largely unoccupied. Law enforcement personnel shut down the highway to traffic and set up roadblocks to capture the militia leaders. Press photographs reveal that the FBI deployed at least five armored vehicles and at least one Blackhawk helicopter. Press reports state that Finicum, who had functioned as something of an informal spokesperson for the group, was shot multiple times and killed at the roadblock. Details are not yet clear, but even the brief official account supplied at the press conference held in Burns, Oregon did not claim that Finicum opened fire or even held a gun. The militia leaders were traveling in two vehicles. The vehicle occupied by Ammon Bundy surrendered immediately to law enforcement. Finicums vehicle seems to have driven past the roadblock. An audio interview was published on LiveLeak and YouTube that purported to be with Victoria Sharp, who was in the vehicle with Finicum throughout the shooting. Sharp claimed that Finicum stopped at the roadblock but that government agents opened fire on the vehicle and then killed the unarmed man. Other accounts claimed that Finicum charged at the officers and they opened fire. In a simultaneous sting, the FBI arrested several other leaders of the occupation who were in the town of Burns. According to reports, six militia members under the leadership of Jason Patrick still occupy the Wildlife Refuge. Ammon Bundy, having surrendered to the authorities, called on the remaining occupiers to surrender. Patrick issued a statement refusing. The forces occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge are a deeply reactionary lot. Most were not even ranchers, as they were styled to be in the press. Among those arrested were a former marine reservist who led anti-Muslim protests; a talk show radio host; a tattoo artist; an electrician; a retired firefighter; and another ex-Marine. All were members of various right-wing militia organizations. Ammon Bundy operated a valet car fleet. The violent response of the government, however, was motivated by a desire to defend the power of the state. It will use the standoff with right-wing militia elements in Oregon as a pretext for the further expansion of the police powers and its freedom to murder at will. It is building up these powers in preparation for the emergence of genuine opposition to the state within the working class. At a meeting in Amsterdam this week, European interior and justice ministers sought to outdo each other with suggestions as to how the influx of desperate refugees from the Middle East could be stopped. No measure was too brutal for consideration. Proposals ranged from the hermetic sealing off of borders to the stationing of Frontex troops, even against the will of national governments, as well as the erection of concentration camps for hundreds of thousands of refugees. Greece came under sustained attack from several ministers who called for its expulsion from the Schengen zone, which guarantees free movement within the European Union, if Athens did not reduce the number of refugees transiting the country into Europe. A large proportion of the refugees from the Middle East risk the dangerous and often deadly journey from Turkey to the Greek islands close by before crossing Greece and leaving the EU at the Macedonian border. After travelling through Macedonia and Serbia, they enter the EU again through Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia, with many seeking access to Germany. Despite freezing winter weather and rough seas, up to 2,000 refugees are still crossing the Aegean Sea daily to the Greek islands. According to EU figures, by January 23, 44,000 people had already reached Europe from Turkey in this way in 2016. The number of refugees counted as dead or missing was 149. During the night of January 22 alone, 42 people drowned trying to make the journey, including 18 children. This route is to be shut down. Ministers demanded a significant strengthening of Greeces northern border with Macedonia by Frontex forces, and agreed to strengthen the border controls within the Schengen zone until the end of 2017. Greece was given an ultimatum to restrict the number of refugees or face expulsion from the Schengen zone. German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said after the meeting, We require a permanent, noticeable and sustained reduction of the numbers of refugees, and this must be visible in the coming weeks. It must be made clear, de Maiziere continued, that the border protection agency Frontex could act in place of a member state to secure the border. Germanys interior minister did not exclude the expulsion of Greece from the Schengen zone. We will put pressure on Greece to do its homework, he threatened. Theo Francken, Belgiums state secretary for asylum and immigration, raised the possibility of a closed facility in Greece for 300,000 refugees. It would have to be under EU administration, because Greeces state structures [were] obviously too weak, the Belgian politician said. Franckens proposal amounts the transformation of Greece into a giant concentration camp, with the creation of a ghetto for refugees on the scale of a medium-sized city. Nothing comparable has been seen in Europe since the end of the Nazi era. Sealing the Macedonia-Greece border with assistance from Frontex forces was supported by Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, who for months has been demanding the establishment of a massive border fence on Greeces northern border. Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico also gave his backing. According to a report by Der Spiegel magazine, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have already deployed their own police forces to this border and Hungary has supplied extensive materials for the construction of a permanent fence. On Tuesday, the Danish parliament passed legislation to confiscate asylum seekers valuables. Police will now be able to seize assets from refugees worth more than 10,000 kroner (1,340) to cover housing and food costs. The original proposal was to confiscate everything above the value of 3,000 kronor. In addition, the period migrants will have to wait before applying for relatives to join them will be extended from one year to three, temporary residence permits will be shortened and the conditions for obtaining a permanent permit toughened. With comparisons being made to measures taken against Jews during World War II, the Danish government responded by explaining that this was how unemployed Danish citizens were already treated! Denmark is, however, far from alone in taking such fascistic measures. Switzerland seized assets from 100 people in 2015 under rules similar to Denmarks, but set even lower at 900. Southern states in Germany are already implementing similar measures, with Bavaria confiscating all property in excess of 750 and Baden-Wurttemberg in excess of just 350. The Syriza government in Greece has already done the bidding of the EU in imposing savage austerity measures against working people. It is now being told to act with similar brutality against refugees. Greek Immigration Minister Ioannis Mouzalas responded by declaring that some EU members were of the opinion that the refugees should drown, while Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias made clear he understood what was expected when he complained to Germanys TAZ newspaper, If we want to stop the refugees, we would have to wage war against them. We would have to bombard them, sink their boats and let the people drown. The crossing of the Greece-Macedonia border is already a traumatic experience for refugees. Immigrants are regularly bullied and beaten by the police. A recent report from the German refugee support organisation ProAsyl showed that the sealing of borders in the Balkans had destructive and even deadly consequences for refugees. The Amsterdam meeting made clear that this outcome is desired and in line with the methods being considered. According to the report, tens of thousands of refugees are already being sent back to Greece from Macedonia, where they are left with nothing and forced to live on the streets. In Athens itself it is almost impossible to register as an asylum seeker. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was aware of only 1,150 accommodation places in Athens for an average of 10,000 asylum applications per year. Those who do not register an asylum claim risk being arrested and detained in a Greek deportation camp. Athens has blamed the government in Ankara for the number of people crossing the Aegean Sea, while the Turkish government has declared that it does not have the capabilities to secure the entire coast. The EU has been trying for some time to encourage Turkish cooperation in the refugee question and has promised 3 billion in aid, which has yet to be paid. There are currently 2.5 million people in Turkey who have fled the wars in the Middle East and North Africa. Only around 250,000 of these are in already existing camps. Turkey does not fully recognise the Geneva Refugee Convention and refugees cannot work there or send their children to school. Millions of people in Europe today are superfluous and unwelcome. Politicians and journalists are discussing openly how best refugees can be deterred, detained, channelled and pushed from one place to another, as if they were discussing animals or freight. They are, in fact, conspiring against people who see flight as the only way out of the misery created by imperialist wars carried out by the US and its European allies that have devastated the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa. Directed by Laszlo Nemes; written by Nemes and Clara Royer, based on the book The Scrolls of Auschwitz and various prisoners memoirs Hungarian filmmaker Laszlo Nemess debut feature film, Son of Saul, treats almost unimaginable horror: a day and a half in the life of a member of the Sonderkommando (special unit), made up of prisoners who staffed the gas chambers, at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp. More than one million people were murdered at Auschwitz from 1942 to 1944, 90 percent of them Jews, transported from all over German-occupied Europe. Henryk Mandelbaum, the last survivor of the Sonderkommando at Auschwitz, who died in 2008, called the unit members living corpses. Their average life expectancy in the position was two to four months. Under threat of death, the Nazis used them to conduct people to the gas chambers and burn their bodies in the crematoriums. Most of the death camp Sonderkommando members were Jews. An aspect of the Nazis diabolical plan was to make the victims partially responsible for the Holocaust. To other camp inmates they were traitors. Only about 200 of them survived the war. The unit members had to extract gold teeth, remove jewelry and other valuables, cut hair and disinfect the chambers. After reducing the burnt corpses to ash, they had to throw them into the nearby river. Isolated for fear of spreading panic, they received more food than other prisoners, but had little time for sleep or rest. The work was constant, the tempo brutal. Many, of course, could not cope and experienced nervous breakdowns, some committed suicide. After being forced to cover traces of the Nazi crimes, the bearers of secrets themselves were shot. Nemess Son of Saul depicts the events of October 7, 1944, when one of the biggest Sonderkommando uprisings took place. Some 450 out of 663 special unit prisoners took part in the revolt. Learning that they were slated for extermination, the prisoners attacked the SS and Kapos with two machine guns, axes, knives and grenades, killing three and wounding 12 German soldiers, as well as blowing up Crematorium IV. The rebellion was quickly crushed by the SS. All the insurgents were killed. Those who managed to escape and reach the nearby village, Rajsko, were surrounded in a barn and blown up with hand grenades. Five young Jewish women who worked for the Weichsel-Union-Metallwerke, a munitions plant within the Auschwitz complex, and who had smuggled small amounts of gunpowder to aid the uprising, were later hanged. Unlike previous portrayals of the Sonderkommando, such as the one in Tim Blake Nelsons The Grey Zone, which treated the conduct of the individual members as shameful, Son of Saul is a sincere attempt to depict the complex reality of the concentration camp and the multiplicity of connections between victims and their oppressors. Saul (Geza Rohrig) is a Hungarian Jew whohumiliated and paralyzed in the face of the enormous scale of the hellish mass murdernumbly collaborates with the Nazis to stay alive. After witnessing the murder of a teenage boy who has just arrived in a transport from Hungary, and believing the youth might be his son born out of wedlock, Saul decides to steal the body to ensure the boys proper burial. The recreated reality of the movie is brutally precise and historically accurate. Cinematographer Matyas Erdely uses a technique similar to that of the Dardenne brothers, following his main character very closely, providing a deliberately narrow field of vision, to immerse the viewer in the immediate surroundings. We can almost smell the dirt on Sauls body, feel his torment. Screams and moans in Yiddish, Hungarian, Polish, Russian and German substitute for a soundtrack and broaden the imagerys realism. Despite the blurry background, we are well aware of what is taking place at all times. It is precisely the lack of details that horrifies the most. Then there are the scenes in which terrible discoveries are subtly conveyed, such as the realization that the mountains of dust shoveled into the river are composed of human remains. Judaism forbids cremation of the body and treats it as a sin. The corpse needs to be wrapped in a tallit, a special fringed garment, and buried as quickly after death as possible. Like Sophocles Antigone, who defies the tyrant Creons edict forbidding the burial of her rebel brother, Polynices, Saul revolts against the brutal laws of the Nazi totalitarian state in defense of human and, to him, divine principles. He knows beforehand the rules and the consequenceshis crime is conscious and deliberate. Until the very end Saul remains untouched by and indifferent toward the authority that will crush him. Suffering beyond endurance, he accepts his fate: He can do nothing but die. Saul dies, but all is not lost for humanity. We know the Nazi regime ultimately collapsed, like that of the of the King of Thebes in Greek mythology. In Son of Saul Nemes accomplishes something rare for a modern artist, skillfully reviving the principles and themes of an ancient drama, sculpting the essence of a human tragedy. The viewer might question the uncompromising religious values Saul stands for. But it is undeniable that his clash with the camp authorities is of immense importance to human beings today who sense the vast gap between their innate sense of what is right and the doings of the global rulers. Saul is defending an old and annihilated order, now only an unreal shadow. By desperately searching for a rabbi in a world where such an individuals functions have been obliterated, he seeks to link the nonexistent with the existent. The respect paid to the body of what might be his offspring becomes a symbol of universal honor paid to all those slaughtered and then burnt in defiance of their religion in the inferno of crematoriums. Stealing the boys body becomes an act of retribution: the extermination of the Jews will not be completed because something will be left of them, even if in a grave. In Nemess film, there is little room for subjectivity nor much interest in Sauls individual personality: the man is a universal self and represents the community of people caught up by forces bigger and independent of themselves. He is an actor confronted on the stage not only with his oppressors, but with the chorus of camp resistance members who accuse him of failing the living for the sake of the dead. One of the chorus members, a Soviet soldier, even kicks him in the gut. There is something fixated and even psychotic in Sauls determination. It makes him endanger his own lifeand the lives of otherto fulfill his duty. Had he not lost the gunpowder due to his obsession with the dead body, would the uprising have been successful? It is perhaps difficult to identify with the cold, robot-like, half-dead Saul. But it is also difficult to condemn him. His face, although at times it resembles a predators, should invoke some compassion. Sauls condition speaks to something broader than his own individual fate: the wretchedness of all those forced against their will to toil for a system they did not create, merely to survive. Despite the films physical and intellectual constraints, which reduce the conflict largely to the ethical plane and omit any reference to the historical roots of the horrors it depicts, Son of Saul is a valuable artistic achievement. It is a matter of utmost importance that such a work reaches global cinemas. Fascist political tendencies are again on the rise and various European governments are adopting Nazi-style measures against refugees, including the confiscation of their money and valuables upon entry into miserable camps. Tata Steel have announced it is to shed a further 1,050 jobs in the UK. A statement given out by the company claims 750 jobs will go at the Port Talbot plant in South Wales, the biggest steel plant in Britain. A company statement went on to say that the action was taken to help save the rest of the site from closure or mothballing, and that the plant was losing 1million a day. Another 300 jobs will be lost at steel mills at two other Welsh plants, at Llanwern near Newport South Wales and at the Trostre tinplate manufacturing facility located just outside Llanelli, West Wales. Jobs will also go at Hartlepool in the North East and at Corby in the East Midlands. In the October 2015 job cuts of 1,200, Tata announced that, although it was expected to be affected, the Corby plant was not involved. During December 2015, Tata Steel entered into advanced negotiations to sell its Long Products Europe division to private equity company Greybull Capital. The Long Products business in Europe manufactures plates, sections, wire rod and semi-finished steel for various markets, including construction, ship-building, engineering and energy at plants in Teesside and Scunthorpe in the UK and at Hayange, north-eastern France. Job losses and wage cuts as well as cuts to pension entitlements are expected after the takeover is complete. The unions have already offered their help in seeing the takeover go ahead. Within days of this latest Tata announcement, Yorkshire-based specialist steel makers Sheffield Forgemasters announced it was cutting 100 of its 700 jobs. The company specialise in steel castings for the energy and civil nuclear industry. Chairman Tony Pedder, who led a buy out in 2005, explained that the reason for the job cuts was reduced activity in the traditional oil and gas sector, with oil prices down to a level that is deferring much potential new investment. We have been working with our major customers, suppliers and in particular, our secured lender, with whom we have concluded an extension to our financing facility. This will provide adequate funding for the business through to the end of March 2017. The accounts covering the last 18 months and published on the day the job cuts were announced showed a loss of 9.4 million. This is the first loss since the buyout. Politicians, union leaders and senior officials within the steel industry called the job cuts a wake up call for the government. The latest job cuts, as before, are blamed on the dumping of cheap Chinese steel, higher UK environment taxes and a strong pound. The unions made the usual threadbare demand that the Conservative government take decisive action. Roy Rickhuss, general secretary of the steel industrys largest union, Community, said that every sector of the UK steel industry is caught up in the current crisis. We keep saying that delays in implementation of support and a lack of swift and decisive action by government only puts more steel jobs at risk. In an earlier outburst Rickhuss declared, The spectre of the UKs cosy relationship with China hangs over the entire steel industry. The Prime Minister needs to stand up to China and stand up for our steel industry. No doubt many steel workers in Britain are, in contrast, asking when and where will Rickhuss and his cohorts in the steel unions take up a fight for steel workers. The announced cuts in jobs pensions and conditions connected to the takeover of Tata Steels Long Products Europe division by Greybull Capital was met with the full co-operation of the steel unions. Community had earlier failed in an attempt to aid the selloff of the Long Products division to the Klesch Group by hiring the French industrial consultancy company, Syndex, to report on how productivity at the Long Products division in Scunthorpe could be increased. In July Community engaged Syndex again to do a similar report at the black bar section based in Rotherham, South Yorkshire after Tata had claimed the plant to be unprofitable. Speaking to the media at the time, Stuart Sansome of Community said the French firm had a good track record of protecting workers. There is no suggestion whatsoever of opposition from either the trade unions or the Labour Party. Alan Coombs, president of Community at the Port Talbot plant, told the BBC the impact on the local community would be devastating. Workers at the Port Talbot plant are obviously worried about job losses, but have known for several years that the situation was worsening. Its been a slippery slope since 2008-09, but we are getting nearer to the edge all the time. Stephen Kinnock, the Labour MP for Aberavon, which includes Port Talbot, said job losses would be a bitter blow for the area and stressed only that support was needed for the workers made redundant. Thousands of steel industry jobs were lost during 2015 with cutbacks and the closure of plants in England and Scotland involving Tata and other steel producers. In December it was confirmed that the planned cuts of 720 jobs in South Yorkshire would go ahead, including 350 compulsory redundancies, in spite of the unions previously claiming they wouldnt accept compulsory redundancies. Last year, the Redcar steel plant on Teesside, owned by the Thai company SSI, went into liquidation with the loss of 2,200 jobs. Tata Steel also announced nearly 1,200 job losses at its plants in Scunthorpe and Lanarkshire. Caparo Steel Industries, the steel products company that is part of Labour peer Lord Pauls Caparo Group, filed for administration, putting 1,700 more jobs at risk. Sections of the company based in West Bromwich, Hartlepool, Wednesbury and Oldbury in the Midlands have been taken over by Liberty House Group. The clamour to blame Chinese imports for the jobs cull in Britain is a smokescreen. China supplies half of the estimated 1.6 billion tons of steel a year. The slowdown in the Chinese economy has created a surplus crisis. The international price of steel has plummeted by an estimated 45 percent over the past year, from 330 a ton ($500) to 280, a 45 percent drop in nearly 12 months. Steel markets around the world are oversupplied relative to current demand. Cheap raw materials contribute to this. Large profits are made by British companies and the state industries from purchasing imported steel, most of which comes from Europe and not China. Tata Motors based on Merseyside and the Midlands is a sister company of Tata Steel. It recently announced record production levels of its high end vehicles. The drive for profits, extracting the most out of workers at the cheapest rate, is at the centre of the crisis in steel. Each steel producing country is in a battle with the rest. The extremely low level of wages paid out to Chinese steel workers means the slowdown in Chinese manufacturing has created a large surplus of steel. The crocodile tears shed by UK politicians, unions and the media regarding the dumping of cheap steel creating unemployment has to be gauged against the commercial relationship Britain has with China, which shows how they benefit from the fruits of the super-exploitation imposed by Beijing. A report by the economic research firm Rhodium Group and the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies, highlighted in the Financial Times in June 2015, states that between the years 2000 and 2014, Chinese companies invested 46 billion in the 28 EU countries, most of which came in the wake of the 2008-09 global financial crisis. Of this figure, the UK received a total of 12.2 billion, making it by far the biggest recipient of Chinese direct investment. Germany was second with 6.9 billion and France third with 5.9 billion. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) -- Some local groups are offering you the chance to learn from NASA, and maybe even get your startup to the next level. It's thanks to Launch Sessions with NASA. Domi Station, Leon County Research & Development Authority and TerraCom Direct are teaming up with NASA to bring this program to the Capital City. The idea is helping aspiring entrepreneurs get their technologies on the market, by helping them overcome two big challenges: raising capital and securing intellectual property rights. NASA has developed several thousand patented space technologies for dozens of different fields, including robotics, propulsion systems, water remediation and software. These technologies are available to those who want to create new products and services to meet those needs. Organizers say, "Over the decades, NASA research has resulted in the creation of countless innovations in engineering and materials science. Join us at Domi Station as we hear presentations from NASA staff and are introduced to unique technologies currently available for licensing and commercialization." Mike Lester of the NASA Kennedy Space Center Technology Transfer Office will be on hand, offering a brief overview of the program and how startups can take part. Those involved say they're glad this event to Tallahassee, which has emerged as a hub for startups and aspiring entrepreneurs. It also coincides with the 2016 Innovation Park TechGrant program. Applications are available now. The Launch Session with NASA is Thursday, February 4 at 11:30 a.m. at Domi Station (914 Railroad Avenue). It's free to take part and all are invited. For more information on the event, call (321) 867-6227 or click here. TALLAHASEE, FL. (WTXL) - Florida A&M University hosted its Annual Spring Career Expo Wednesday, to help students and Alumni learn more about possible career fields. They were given the opportunity to network with more than 60 companies and 140 representatives from all across the country. The expo brought together employers and job seekers and allowed attendees to make connections. Florida A&M University student Walter Davis says, "you get the one on one experience, the representatives know more about the companies so you get a better feel of how the company operates. When it comes down to it by coming to career fair, they actually have recruiters here, looking for young professionals. so instead of just going online and being another number or another resume, you now get to make a connection with a recruiter, and wit that you can have a better chance at getting that position." FAMU says, participating organizations will also be hosting on campus interviews throughout the semester. The attorney for the leader of an armed group occupying an Oregon wildlife refuge says the man wants those remaining at the refuge to "please Throughout the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam, and while incarcerated in two prison camps, Mirjam Bolle wrote letters to her fiance that she never sent but hoped to share with him after the war. Yet when the two ultimately reunited she decided to leave the past behind and stashed them away. Now, decades later, she has published them as a memoir. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The result is "Letters Never Sent," 18 months of diary entries and observations that experts say shed new light on one of the Holocaust's most controversial legacies - the Judenrat, or Jewish Councils - the dark bureaucracy of intermediaries responsible for implementing Nazi orders. They were often despised by fellow Jews as traitors, but Bolle, still lively at 98 years old, defends their actions. She says the Judenrat had little choice and yet managed to lessen the blow to the community. As a secretary for the Jewish Council of Amsterdam, she was privy to their inner workings and says they managed to save lives by staving off Nazi deportation orders. Mirjam Bolle at her home in Jerusalem (Photo: AP) "The Germans decided that there would be a Judenrat, we had nothing to do with that," Bolle said in the living room of her meticulously kept old stone home in Jerusalem, where she has lived alone since her husband's death in 1992. "The Germans did what they wanted to do. I always say that if the war had ended after two years, no one would have had a problem with the Judenrat." With time, however, Bolle believes they outlived their usefulness. The nearly 1,200 Jewish councils continued to enjoy preferential treatment, even as they devolved into an administrative body for the Nazis' so-called "Final Solution," the planned extermination of the Jewish people. For some, the burden was too great to bear. Adam Czerniakow, head of the Warsaw Ghetto Judenrat, killed himself after he was forced to deport Jews to their deaths. Bolle's role was more limited. She took dictations, dispatched letters and was sitting in on discussions when the first mention was made of the Nazi concentration camps. "It was a different world ... You cannot judge what people did," she said. "People who are living a relatively normal life just cannot imagine." Six million Jews were killed by German Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust, wiping out a third of world Jewry. Today, fewer than 190,000 elderly survivors remain in Israel. Bolle is among the oldest. Israel's main Holocaust memorial day is in the spring, marking the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising - when Jews in the Polish capital launched a brave, but ultimately doomed, attempt to resist the Nazis. The United Nations has designated January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorating the date of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in 1945. Bolle's entries began on this date in 1943. Her fiance, Leo Bolle, had gone in 1938 to what was then the British-ruled Mandate for Palestine and she had stayed behind a bit longer to work. Mirjam Bolle in her Jerusalem home (Photo: AP) Her letters describe German raids and deportations, the struggles of the Judenrat to postpone them and her own escape from one roundup when a German officer saved her by chaperoning her down the street. She described other soldiers as "wild beasts" and detailed how Jews were shot by German firing squads. Eventually, she was sent to Westerbork, a transit camp, before moving on to Bergen-Belsen, the infamous German camp where fellow Dutch Jew and diarist Anne Frank died. Bolle managed to smuggle her collected letters out by wrapping them in a shirt, tossing them over the barbed-wire fence out of sight of a Nazi guard and collecting them on the other side. "I did something very foolish," she said. "If he had seen that, I wouldn't be here today." In one segment, she writes to her fiance that "we'll need years to talk about everything we've been through." They were reunited in July 1944, four years before Israel gained independence, when she arrived in the Holy Land through a prisoner exchange of Dutch Jews for German prisoners of war. "I had a lot of luck," she said. Hoping to put the war years behind her, she stored the letters in a drawer and forgot about them for decades. Her hardship didn't end in Israel. Her son, an Israeli air force pilot, was killed in the 1967 Mideast war, and three years later her younger daughter died in a military accident when the jeep she was riding in drove over a Syrian mine on the Golan Heights. Her only remaining child, a daughter, died of illness in 2011. Dan Michman, head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, said Bolle's insights were particularly valuable because of the scope of devastation in the Netherlands, where 75 percent of the country's 140,000 Jews were exterminated. He said the Jewish Council in Amsterdam was colloquially known as "Jewish treason," but it did succeed in employing around 35,000 Jews who were exempt from immediate deportation. "We are approaching the moment that all survivors will not be with us anymore. Memoirs are therefore very important, but even more important are diaries and letters written during the period itself," he said. "They're real time documents and therefore they are very important for future teaching and studying the Holocaust." Bolle stumbled upon the letters in a drawer in 2000 and later decided to publish them. An English translation was published just over a year ago. One entry from the 280-page book, released by Yad Vashem Publications, indicates how even as a younger woman, Bolle cared deeply about keeping the memory alive. "I am vain enough to believe that this diary may be found hundreds of years from now and serve as an important source of information," she writes on Jan. 29, 1944. "That's why I included all the trivial things, because they may provide an outsider with a more vivid picture ... Perhaps one day our children will read it." A West Bank-based organization is taking action to protect businesses in the West Bank and the Golan from boycott campaigns by purchasing goods produced in small businesses there and marketing them to thousands around the world. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The initiative was made by the Lev HaOlam (Heart of the World) organization, founded two and a half years ago by Nati Rom, who lives in a hilltop community east of Shilo in the West Bank. We saw that there were no efforts using the story of Judea and Samaria to combat the boycott movement working so hard against us, said Rom in an interview to Tazpit Press Service (TPS). Store in the West Bank (Photo: Tazpit) Our goal is to fight the international boycott, Rom said. We buy products from small retailers on Israels frontline, including from Judea and Samaria and the Golan, who suffer from the international boycott and we help market their products around the world. People subscribe to our project and receive a beautiful package at their doorstep every month. Each package contains a variety of products ranging from food such as chocolate, wine, honey, snacks and organic herbal tea to handmade jewelry, all-natural cosmetic products, souvenirs, and home decoration accessories. We have more than 1,000 partners all over the world, mainly Jews, Rom told TPS. We are currently the biggest buyer in Judea and Samaria. We have customers from dozens of countries including Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Germany, Italy, Australia, and the United States. Rom considers the many European customers to be a means of combating the recent decision by the European Union (EU) to label products from the West Bank and the Golan Heights. We have lots of partners from Europe who wont be silent while the EU parliament decides to label Jewish products and while Jews are afraid to walk around with a yarmulke, he said. Our community and Facebook page make us a proactive community acting against BDS or any other anti-Israel organization. Rom said that Lev HaOlam also fights BDS through other means. We started a grassroots movement which includes thousands of supporters around the world. We brought 2,000 people to rally for Israel at Dam Square in Amsterdam and we demonstrate at a different location every month to expose the truth. We have held pro-Israel demonstrations in many locations, including Miami, Germany, Finland, Singapore and Sweden, Rom recounted. If they boycott, we will just buy more. If they spread hate, we will spread love. We are looking now more than ever for people all over the world to join us, Rom concluded. This is how we can win together and reclaim the land of Judea and Samaria. The more people support us, the more we will be able to buy larger quantities of goods and to support more businesses. WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama told an audience at the Israeli embassy in Washington on Wednesday that the rise in anti-Semitism is undeniable. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter In an emotional speech during a Righteous Among the Nations award ceremony marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day the first time such an event has been held at the Israeli embassy - Obama emphasized the US's obligation to lead the fight against anti-Semitism, saying: "We are all Jews." US President Barack Obama speaking on International Holocaust Remembrance Day X Dozens of people were seated in the embassy's Jerusalem hall when the door opened and Obama, with no announcement, entered with Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer. The president sat in the first row, next to Jewish movie director and good friend Steven Spielberg. Spielberg later introduced the president, saying he has "a Jewish soul." Obama moved the crowd during his speech, stating: "We are all Jews All of us have a responsibility." "We must confront the reality that around the world, anti-Semitism is on the rise. We cannot deny it," Obama said. "When we see some Jews leaving major European cities where their families have lived for generations because they no longer feel safe; when Jewish centers are targeted from Mumbai to Overland Park, Kansas; when swastikas appear on college campuses when we see all that and more, we must not be silent. "As President, Ive made sure that the United States is leading the global fight against anti-Semitism," Obama continued. "And its why, with Israel and countries around the world, we organized the first United Nations General Assembly meeting on anti-Semitism. Its why weve urged other nations to dedicate a special envoy to this threat, as we have." 'When Israel faces terrorism, we stand up forcefully and proudly in defense of our ally.' Obama speaking at the Israeli embassy in Washington. (Photo: gettyimages) Obama became visibly emotional when speaking about his great uncle who helped liberate one of Germany's most notorious concentration camps, saying that he grew up "hearing the stories of my great uncle who helped liberate Ohrdruf, part of Buchenwald, and who returned home so shaken by the suffering that he had seen that my grandmother would tell me he did not speak to anyone for six months, just went up in his attic, couldnt fully absorb the horror that he had witnessed. Obama also spoke of his own visit to Buchenwald and about the fact that he had taken his two daughters to the Holocaust Museum, "because our children must know this chapter of our history, and that we must never repeat it." He later stressed: "An attack on any faith is an attack on all of our faiths." The president also took the opportunity to address relations between the US and Israel. "(When) voices around the world veer from criticism of a particular Israeli policy to an unjust denial of Israels right to exist, when Israel faces terrorism, we stand up forcefully and proudly in defense of our ally, in defense of our friend, in defense of the Jewish State of Israel. "Americas commitment to Israels security remains, now and forever, unshakeable," Obama continued. "And Ive said this before it would be a fundamental moral failing if America broke that bond." Towards the end of his speech, Obama said: "As the book of Deuteronomy teaches us, 'Tzedek, Tzedek tirdof' 'Justice, Justice you shall pursue.'" Yesha Council head Avi Roeh on Tuesday wrote to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling on him, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan to block official Palestinian media broadcasts. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The request came following the testimony of the 15-year-old terrorist who stabbed Dafna Meir to death in Otniel, in which he admitted he had been incited to murder a Jew after watching Palestinian television. Dafna Meir, left, and the 15-year-old terrorist who murdered her Roeh's letter requests that Israel either bar Palestinian Authority broadcasts, or that it disrupt them by technological or physical means. "We hear again and again about the continuous incitement in official Palestinian media," Roeh wrote. "This incitement goes on undisturbed, and glorifies the names of murderers, praises terror attacks, features images of Jews as sub-human with nauseating characteristics and lies about the State of Israel, saying that Arabs who carry out attacks are innocent and that the Jews have taken control of the Temple Mount." There has been considerable incitement on Palestinian television channels over the last few years, especially during the last few months since the start of the escalation. The incitement has served to stoke the coals of the intifada and follows numerous attempts by Hamas to ignite an uprising in the West Bank over the last few years. Channels such as Al-Aqsa TV, Palestine al-Yom and al-Quds, which are based in the Gaza Strip, carry daily broadcasts with short interludes that unequivocally encourage attacks against Israelis. Hamas' Al-Aqsa television studios One clip shows the bodies of all female Palestinian terrorists that were killed while attempting stabbing attacks. It ended with the caption: "We swear to take revenge for Raqiya Abu Eid" (the girl who attempted to carry out a stabbing attack last Sunday at Anathoth and was shot and killed). Alongside the caption was an image of a bloody knife. Another video incorporates the funerals of terrorists while in the background there is a song praising them. There are, of course, endless clips dedicated to specific terrorists that are presented as almost superhuman heroes. Moreover, the news of every attack is carried live with songs of joy and praise to the martyrs. And then there are videos designed to sow hatred of IDF soldiers and settlers. The videos usually show staged situations in which actors play settlers or soldiers abusing, humiliating or shooting innocent Palestinians at checkpoints, markets or in the street. The 15-year-old who killed Dafna Meir said that in the time leading up to the attack, he watched Palestinian television, where Israel was presented as a country that "kills young Palestinians." Following the release of the testimony, which was cleared for publication on Sunday, the Shin Bet responded: "The serious consequences of the terror attack demonstrate once again the severity of the threat caused by the out-of-control incitement in the Palestinian press against the State of Israel and the Jews, which provokes lone terrorists into committing acts of murder and serious terror attacks." France's Peugeot-Citroen has announced a joint venture with automaker Iran Khodro to make 200,000 cars a year outside Tehran, as both countries seek to boost trade after the lifting of Western sanctions. Carlos Tavares, chairman of the PSA Peugeot-Citroen managing board, announced the deal Thursday during a visit to France by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. It will be a 50-50 joint venture, aiming to produce three new models of cars starting late next year. Peugeot was a major player in Iran's car market before the sanctions were imposed, and the company said negotiations for this deal have been under way since before the sanctions were lifted. France and Iran hailed a set of business tie-ups and export deals on Thursday including the sale of dozens of Airbus planes and a car factory revamp that re-ignites a decades-old relationship between Tehran and carmaker Peugeot. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The visit follows a deal between Iran and the West on the Middle Eastern country's nuclear program that resulted in the lifting earlier this month of trade sanctions. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, left, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani inspect the honor guard during a welcome ceremony at the Invalides in Paris, Thursday, January 28, 2016. (Photo: AP) The deals, some of which were not yet finalised, were announced at a Franco-Iranian business forum attended by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and a host of ministers and business leaders. With four business arrangements flagged by France's main industry body including the PSA Peugeot Citroen tie-up and a plan to sell over 100 Airbus passenger planes, French Prime Minister Valls said there would also be agreements signed in the areas of health, agriculture and the environment. The deals come despite a background of continued diplomatic tension with France, one of Iran's fiercest critics during the sanctions-lifting talks, and as human rights protests against the visit took place in the French capital. "Let's forget past differences and start anew," Rouhani said in a speech to the forum. Exactly what stage the Airbus deal was at remained unclear on Thursday, but French officials said Iran was putting the finishing touches to the deal. Iranian Transport Minister Abbas Akhoundi told Reuters Iran had reached a deal with the planemaker, but declined to give further details. Technical talks were continuing, people close to the discussions said. Iran earlier this week gave estimates between 114 and 127 Airbus planes. Airbus declined comment. Pierre Gattaz, head of France's Medef employers association, said French national railway operator SNCF and aluminum company Fives were also expected to unveil deals. "Iran's needs are enormous," Gattaz told reporters. "Iranians need everything. The country is not starting from scratch, it's got a very educated workforce, a real development potential." For Peugeot, racing to expand outside Europe after a brush with potential bankruptcy, the Iranian factory tie up is critical. The company said recently it was counting on Iran for about 400,000 annual vehicle sales by 2020. When it suspended sales in Iran in 2012 it lost nearly 10 percent of global deliveries and interrupted a relationship with Iran that dates back more than 50 years. Under the deal announced on Thursday but whose final signature will not be made until the middle of this year, Peugeot and Tehran-based Iran Khodro plan to modernize a factory near Tehran and be producing cars by mid 2017. The initial production target is 200,000 vehicles a year and the joint venture will make Peugeot 208, 2008 and 301 models with a Peugeot investment of 400 million euros ($436 million) over five years. French oil and gas giant Total meanwhile announced on Thursday that it would be signing a contract with Iran to buy crude oil, a deal also made possible following the lifting of sanctions. The contract, Total CEO Patrick Pouyanne, would allow for the petroleum company to purchase 150,000 barrels of oil and 200,000 barrels of crude per day. French President Francois Hollande and Rouhani should raise major human rights concerns in both countries during the visit, Human Rights Watch said in a statement. Issues include the death penalty, the abuse of rights of women and minorities in Iran, and the state of emergency declared by President Hollande after Islamist militant attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 last year that threaten rights to liberty and freedom of movement in France, it said. The US military has a contingency plan to deal with a potential collapse of Mosul dam in northern Iraq which would be catastrophic, the top US general in Iraq said on Thursday. US Army Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland said Iraqi authorities understood "the potential" for the collapse of the hydroelectric dam, whose foundation requires constant grouting to maintain structural integrity. He said the military was working with the government on a plan to protect Iraqi civilians from the impact of a collapse, which would send a surge of water down the heavily populated Tigris river valley. "The likelihood of the dam collapsing is something we are trying to determine right now ... all we know is when it goes, it's going to go fast and that's bad," MacFarland, head of the US-led coalition bombing Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, told reporters in Baghdad. European Union antitrust regulators said on Thursday they would examine a complaint from the Scottish National Party (SNP) about Internet group Google's back tax deal with British tax authorities. The 130 million pound ($185 million) settlement, announced on Friday, was hailed by the UK government as a major success but dismissed as "derisory" by the opposition Labour Party and criticised by other parties. The European Commission itself took aim on Thursday at tax avoidance by multinationals, proposing that EU states be allowed to tax corporate profits at home in some circumstances even if the money has been transferred elsewhere to avoid such payments. "Specifically concerning Google's tax treatment in the UK, the Commission can confirm it has received a letter from a member of the Scottish National Party on this matter," the EU's competition enforcer said in an email. "The Commission will look at it and issues raised, as with all letters received from stakeholders." Right-wing organization Im Tirtzu, which campaigned against foreign-funded NGOs, has broadened its assault to include left-wing artists on Thursday, accusing authors such as Amos Oz and David Grossman of disloyalty to the country. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter In posters published online and on its Facebook page, Im Tirtzu takes aim at what it calls "foreign agents in the cultural world," accusing Israeli actors, writers, directors and other "intellectuals" of obstructing the government's mission. "They are members of foreign agent organizations operating with foreign government funding ... against the State of Israel," it says, naming around 100 people from the worlds of cinema, theater, publishing and television. One of Im Tirtzu's posters featuring Shaa'nan Streett, Amos Oz, Yehoshua Sobol and Gila Almagor. It published on Facebook the names of several dozen "cultural people" listed on the websites of left-leaning charities and non-governmental organizations as serving as members of their boards or public councils. The posters follow a video campaign launched late last year in which Im Tirtzu accused the heads of several high-profile Israeli NGOs, including Breaking the Silence, of being foreign-funded "agents" bent on undermining the state. Im Tirtzu's offensive takes place amid deepening left-right divisions in Israel, with government ministers frequently critical of the arts and advocating a more religious-nationalist agenda. Culture Minister Miri Regev, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, has proposed cutting government funding for any theater or arts institution whose programs "subvert the state". Education Minister Naftali Bennett wants to introduce a civics textbook in schools that critics say reinterprets history with political bias. McCarthyism Opponents of Im Tirtzu have accused its leaders of a cultural witchhunt, akin to US Senator Joseph McCarthy's much-vilified campaign in the 1950s to expose Communist sympathisers in the United States, including in Hollywood and the arts. Commenting on Twitter, one of Im Tirtzu's founders appeared to defend McCarthyism, writing: "The historical details revealed that in most cases, he was correct." "This is incitement, but I'm in good company - David Grossman, A.B. Yehoshua and Chava Alberstein," actress Gila Almagor told Ynet on Thursday. "I am proud that I supported human rights and will continue to do so. As long as I am able to think, I will support human rights. What is this, the thought police? What is going on here? What a disgrace." Gila Almagor (Photo: Motti Kimchi) Playwright Yehoshua Sobol, who is also featured in the campaign, called on legal authorities to outlaw Im Tirtzu. "There's no nicer image for artists and creators 'planted,' as they are indeed trees planted by streams of water whose roots go down deep into the secrets of the language and spread out to the nation's culture for generations. It seems that those at Im Tirtzu don't have even grassroots, and they are not planted - not in the Hebrew language, not the history of the Jewish resettlement in Israel, not in the soil of the country and not in the world of culture and morality of the Jewish people throughout history," Sobol remarked. Yehoshua Sobol (Photo: Abigail Uzi) "They are the distorted result of the dark and evil times in which we live. But the state's institutions of law and order should not wait for the wind to remove this chaff. It is the role of the attorney general to deal with them, and it is the role of the Knesset to remove this destructive organization to the place the prophet Isaiah set aside for them: 'Your destroyers and those that made you a waste shall go forth from you' (Isaiah 49:17)," Sobol added. Rivka Michaeli, an Israeli actress and TV hostess, told Ynet that "I'm not speaking for God, I speak on behalf of people because I think that those who talk in the name of God debase Him as his ways are unknown. We can serve God in one way or another, to approach Him, pray to Him, ask for His mercy. We cannot act on His behalf. Im Tirtzu are sure that they are the word of God and they are not." Rivka Michaeli (Photo: Aviv Hofi) Regarding the other Israeli artists on the list, Michaeli said: "I think that I am in a very distinguished company. I'm really moved to be grouped with Amos Oz, David Grossman and Yehoshua Sobol. I thought, 'Here's how it begins', when fascism began in countries that I would rather not mention - this is how it starts. This is denunciation and branding. I expect there to be a great awakening, that it will not blow over so quickly. I really would like the prime minister to intervene and say 'that's enough' ... I'm afraid for Israel and the wonderful society that was founded here; it's a society that has lost its 'Isrealiness,' that has become more disapora-like, paranoid and unjust." Playwright Edna Mazia pointed an accusing finger at the Culture Ministry. "The problem is not these psychos with their ridiculous campaign. It is not worthy of a response and I don't care about that at all. What is serious is the trend in the Culture Ministry; this is the ground on which they are planted and allows them to grow - the legitimacy they get from Knesset members, ministers, the prime minister, the coalition and the opposition - the people who lead us. They let it happen. It seems it's no coincidence that Culture Minister Miri Regev chose to go to the premiere of 'Evita' out of all other shows. Apparently she thinks she could learn a thing or two from Eva Peron." Condemnation from across political spectrum Im Tirtzu was once regarded as a fringe group, but has increasingly close ties to members of Netanyahu's government, particularly the Bayit Yehudi party led by Bennett. Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, author of the NGO bill and a member of Bayit Yehudi, were quick to distance themselves from Im Tirtzu's latest outburst. Bennett called the campaign "embarrassing, needless and disgraceful." Shaked told Army Radio: "It does not serve any agenda and I do not think this is a proper campaign. I do not think these artists who hold salient left-wing views should be considered plants. Not everyone who is on the left should be demonized, certainly not." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also came out against Im Tirtzu's campaign. "I am opposed to labelling as a 'traitor' anybody who (holds opposing views to the mainstream). We are a democracy and there is a multitude of opinions," he told Israeli reporters travelling with him during a working trip to Cyprus. Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid, who has been fiercely critical of Breaking the Silence, also criticized the campaign, saying that the extremists have gone out of their minds. "David Grossman, who is a grieving father of a son who was killed during the Second Lebanon War, and Rivka Michaeli, are traitors?" Lapid asked. "Amos Oz is a plant? Gila Almagor, Sami Michael and Shaanan Streett are spies? "This isn't a matter of politics. Every rational person on the right or on the left needs to come out against this ugly, inciting, dividing and violent campaign," Lapid continued. "Im Tirtzu's campaign of hatred and incitement to violence crosses a red line." Likud MK Benny Begin slammed the campaign, which he said was "an attempt to implant in the mind of the public the words 'plants' or 'moles' as synonyms of 'traitors.' Searching, finding, and labeling so-called 'traitors' is an old characteristic of fascism, it's ugly and it's dangerous." Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni argued that "those who don't know how to fight enemies from without - create enemies from within. We won't allow for the State of Israel to become a country that persecutes its own inhabitants. Im Tirtzu is destroying Israel from within and isolating it from without - led and sanctioned by the government." According to Im Tirtzu, its members started working on their report on the "planted" artists after discovering that artists' involvement in leftist organizations was increasing. They argue that this activity is part of a slanderous attack by creators and artists against Miri Regev, which has been ongoing since she was appointed culture minister. "We are tired of financing artists who support organizations that are plants," Im Tirtzu said in a statement. "It shows contempt for the State of Israel and its values." "Every time the public representatives in the State of Israel try to fulfill the mission they were tasked with by the people in the most legitimate and democratic manner, we encounter an automatic smear campaign from these 'artists' who try to portray themselves as enlightened, progressive and those who 'know better' than the entire public," said Im Tirtzu director Matan Peleg. "The problem is that these people neglect to mention the fact they're members of 'plant organizations' operating with foreign funding and the New Israel Fund against the State of Israel." HELSINKI - Finland expects to expel nearly 20,000 migrants out of the 32,000 who sought asylum last year, a senior official from interior ministry said on Thursday, around the normal percentage but many more people. "20,000 is the estimate we are working with at the moment, but the number of asylum seekers who decide to return voluntarily could change it", Permanent Secretary Paivi Nerg told Reuters. That would be roughly 62 percent expelled. It compared with 56 percent in 2014, when there were only 3,651 applications. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Cypriot President Nikos Anastasiades and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Nicosia on Thursday to discuss cooperation in the fields of energy, tourism, research and technology, environment, water management, combating terrorism, and migration. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Netanyahu said the leaders agreed to set up a tripartite committee to study the possibility of building a pipeline to carry natural gas found in waters off Israel and Cyprus to Europe via Greece. "The discovery of important hydrocarbon reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean can serve as a catalyst for peace, stability and cooperation in the region," a joint statement by the three leaders said. "To this end, the three countries view the energy sector, and in particular, natural gas and renewable energy, as a solid foundation for cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean basin." Prime Minister Netanyahu, left, with Cypriot President Anastasiades, center, and Greek Prime Minister Tsiprasm, right (Photo: Haim Tzah, GPO) Tsipras said Greece can act as a bridge for the transfer of east Mediterranean gas to the EU. "These are momentous goals and by working together we can advance them more effectively than we can separately," Netanyahu said. Tsipras said the leaders agreed that dealing with the largest migration of people since World War II means tackling the problem "at its root" - poverty and war. Anastasiades said that additional financial support and economic development in war-torn areas would help alleviate the migration crisis. Photo: Haim Tzah, GPO The three leaders agreed to increase their security cooperation in order to combat the grave dangers posed by terrorism, both regionally and globally. The defense establishments of the three nations will work together to curb the flow of foreign fighters, restrict financial and military support to terrorist groups, and counter extremist propaganda. The leaders discussed encouraging tourism by offering joint packages, including cruises and religious, medical and other thematic tourism, and said their three countries' tourism ministers will meet to discuss the issue further. The countries also signed a cooperation agreement on managing water resources. Photo: Haim Tzah, GPO "Our states share the same values as well as the conviction that in order to effectively counter multiple challenges confronting us on a local, regional and international level, we must work collectively," Anastasiades said. The leaders also discussed potential collaboration in other fields, including agriculture, forestation, joint fire-fighting efforts, environmental protection including marine pollution, joint emergency response to natural disasters, exchange of information in emergency situations, joint search and rescue exercises, health, management of epidemics, joint scientific projects, development of renewable energy technologies, education, communications and trilateral roaming agreements, and commercial shipping. The leaders said they would meet again in the second half of this year. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met with the members of the French parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Wednesday - including Jewish MP Meyer Habib, an associate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The two had an interesting dialogue, with Habib asking Zarif difficult questions. "I'm a Jew, and today is the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Your country organizes a cartoon contest on Holocaust denial, and 70 years ago six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Are you willing to publically acknowledge that there was a Holocaust?" Habib asked. Habib added that he is a representative of 150,000 French people who live in Israel, "Your country calls to erase Israel off the map. Are you willing to publically recognize the existence of the State of Israel?" Zarif. Talented and cunning. (Photo: EPA) According to others who attended the meeting, Zarif answered Habib by saying that the cartoon contest is not held in his name, or the name of the Iranian government, but is organized by unaffiliated associations. He argued that "the State of Israel is the one using the Holocaust to justify the occupation of the Palestinian people," mentioning Prime Minister Netanyahu's remarks about the meeting between the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, and Nazi Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, as evidence. Zarif avoided addressing Iran's calls to wipe Israel off the map, and was not willing to publically recognize the State of Israel, but did say: "My friend Meyer Habib, we're not against Jews and there is even a Jew in the Iranian parliament. There are Jews who live in Iran. We're against the Zionist philosophy and the Zionist movement." Following the meeting, Habib said that Zarif was a smart and courteous man. "I was very surprised by his tone," said Habib, "he's very talented and gentle, but at the same time cunning. Exactly the opposite of (former Iranian President) Ahmadinejad." VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis is expected to visit the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz during his visit to Poland in July, the Vatican said. The Vatican spokesman, speaking during the presentation of a book by a 90-year-old Italian Holocaust survivor on Wednesday night, said the visit was "highly probable". Francis will be in the southern Polish city of Krakow in July for an international jamboree of Catholic youth. Auschwitz, which is the German name for the Polish town of Oswiecim where the camp is located, is about 65 km (40.39 miles) from Krakow. PARIS - Iran's trade and industry minister urged French banks on Thursday to overcome their wariness about doing business with the country, seeking to drum up much-needed foreign investment. French banks have been reluctant to handle deals with Iran, deterred by a $9 billion US fine on Paris-based BNP Paribas in 2014 for sanctions violations, even as both governments celebrated renewed ties. Iran's industry minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, speaking at a Franco-Iranian business forum, said there were no longer obstacles to keep French banks from doing business with Iran. "If they don't get active, there will be no increase in business," he warned. Yesh Atid MK Haim Yellin's car was pelted with rocks on Thursday after paying a condolence visit to the family of terror victim Shlomit Krigman in the settlement of Shadmot Mehola in the Jordan Valley. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Yellin, who was in the car at the time, was not hurt, but his car was damaged. After leaving the shiva in Shadmot Mehola, Yellin saw a man standing on a hill on Route 505. The MK said the man threw a building block at the car, trying to shatter the windshield. Yellin sped up, and the block hit the back window instead. Yellin's car after it was pelted with rocks. "While driving I suddenly noticed a young man lifting a building block and trying to throw it on a bus transporting children that was driving in the other direction," Yellin recounted. "I sped in an effort to run him over so he won't hurt the bus, and then he immediately lifted another block and aimed it in my direction. Since I was driving at high speed, it only hit the back of the car." He kept driving towards the Tapuach Junction, where he recounted the incident to police forces who started looking for the perpetrator. "This time it was a rock and not a rocket," said Yellin, the former head of the Eshkol Regional Council, who visits bereaved families every week. "We must not stop living our lives because of a terrorist who throws stones, shoots at us or tries to stab us. We must continue to hit back against terrorism with all our might, embrace the families of the victims but not abandon the diplomatic agenda." Krigman, 23, was stabbed earlier this week by two terrorists who infiltrated the settlement of Beit Horon in the Binyamin region of the West Bank. She died of her wounds two days ago. US President Barack Obama could have easily picked any stage he desired for his Wednesday speech marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, but he chose the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC. Some of his advisers thought it wasn't a good idea to give the honor to his host, Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer, who went behind the president's back last year and organized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyau's anti- Iran-deal Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Obama decided to take Dermer's invitation, despite his advisers telling him it could be interpreted as him giving Dermer and Netanyahu a reward for undermining him for a prolonged time while he was attempting to reach a historic agreement between the West and Iran. Obama, during the speech. "Americas commitment to Israels security remains." (Photo: Getty Images) Dozens of people sat in the embassy's Jerusalem hall when the middle door opened. Without any introduction, the president entered the room accompanied by Ambassador Dermer. Obama sat in the front row beside film director Steven Spielberg, his good friend. Spielberg was the one who introduced Obama before his speech, and said that Obama had the soul of a Jew. During the ceremony, in which medals and Righteous Among the Nations titles were given, Obama gave one of his most powerful speeches in opposition to anti-Semitism, managing to appeal to the audience's emotional side when he said "We are all Jews," and, "We gather to honor the newest of the Righteous Among the Nations and make real the call to 'never forget.' The President also took the opportunity to repeat the United States' commitment to Israel's security. Washington's right-wing, as well as Jewish organizations affiliated with the right, felt like Obama had abandoned Israel when he quickly signed the deal with Iran. There were even those who blamed him of deeply hating the Jewish state. That night, at the embassy, even the most skeptical of observers had to admit that Obama went all the way with showing his affection to the State of Israel and the Jews of the world. It was a speech with a resounding message, and highly emotional. Ambassador Dermer and Vice President Biden. (Photo: Shmulik Almany) "Here, tonight, we must confront the reality that around the world, anti-Semitism is on the rise," said the president, "We cannot deny it. When we see some Jews leaving major European cities where their families have lived for generations because they no longer feel safe; when Jewish centers are targeted from Mumbai to Overland Park, Kansas; when swastikas appear on college campuses when we see all that and more, we must not be silent." The president started his speech with two Hebrew words, "erev tov," ("good evening") and ended it with three, "Tzedek, Tzedek tirdof" (roughly translated as "thou shall pursue justice"). It was clear he was emotional when speaking of his great uncle who fought with the Allies in Europe, and was among the liberators of the Buchenwald concentration camp. "And at moments like this, as I listened to the extraordinary stories of the four that we honor, memories come rushing back of the times that Ive encountered the history and the horror of the Shoah growing up, hearing the stories of my great uncle who helped liberate Ohrdruf, part of Buchenwald, and who returned home so shaken by the suffering that he had seen that my grandmother would tell me he did not speak to anyone for six months, just went up in his attic, couldnt fully absorb the horror that he had witnessed," Obama said. He continued, "Then having the opportunity to go to Buchenwald myself with my dear friend, Elie Wiesel, and seeing the ovens, the Little Camp where he was held as a boy. Standing with survivors in the Old Warsaw Ghetto . And then the extraordinary honor of walking through Yad Vashem with Rabbi Lau and seeing the faces and hearing the voices of the lost, of blessed memory. And then taking my own daughters to visit the Holocaust Museum because our children must know this chapter of our history, and that we must never repeat it." Netanyahu speaking in front of Congress. No mention of the Israeli PM in Obama's speech. (Photo: AFP) Obama mentioned two Israeli presidents during the speech: Shimon Peres, whom he sent his well wishes after Peres suffered a heart attack earlier in January, and Reuven Rivlin, who "has spoken eloquently about the need for tolerance and acceptance among all Israelis Jewish and Arab." He did not say a word, for good or ill, about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Obama came there to embrace the Jewish people, as far as he was concerned at that moment Netanyahu didn't exist. The event was dedicated to the Holocaust Remembrance Day, and during it three medals were given to families that were declared by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations. But Obama also spoke of Israeli-American relations. "When voices around the world veer from criticism of a particular Israeli policy to an unjust denial of Israels right to exist, when Israel faces terrorism, we stand up forcefully and proudly in defense of our ally, in defense of our friend, in defense of the Jewish State of Israel," Obama said, "Americas commitment to Israels security remains, now and forever, unshakeable. And Ive said this before it would be a fundamental moral failing if America broke that bond." BALTIMORE - The US-led battle against Islamic State militants controlling parts of Iraq and Syria is gaining steam and will show more progress by year's end, Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday. Biden touted the recent success of US efforts backing Iraqi troops against the Islamic State in Iraq as part of a broad defense of Obama administration foreign policy. "I promise you, after Ramadi, watch what happens now in Raqqa in Syria and what happens in Mosul (Iraq), by end of this year," he told US House of Representatives Democrats, in Baltimore for a three-day retreat. Iraqi forces, boosted by US training, have evicted insurgents from large parts of Ramadi, leading to speculation that they could have success elsewhere against the Islamic State. This has been a long time in the making, but in our continuing pursuit to bring only the best of firearms, 2nd Amendment and defence related news to our readers, we are very excited to announce the next step in our evolution as a company. As of 2020, Minuteman Review is now the proud owner and operator of Your Defence News, a website with a long history of breaking huge news stories and investigative journalism. We hope you are equally as excited as us. This means that now the teams of Minuteman can combine with the firepower of Your Defence News to stay at the absolute forefront for our readers. Keep an eye. Big things are coming soon. We couldn't be more excited. In the meanwhile, here are some of our most popular posts and categories to keep you busy. Happy shootin' my friends! Buying Guides: Firearms Firearm Accessories Ammunition Gun Safes Scopes & Optics Hunting Air Rifles Best AR-15 Best AR 15 Scope Best Hunting Rifle Best Gun Safe Best AK 47 Best AR 10 Best Glock Triggers Best Glock Best Home Defense Shotgun The Global and United States Hydrobike Market Report has been published by QY Research recently. Hydrobike Market Analysis and Insights This report focuses on... A UK book publisher says congestion at Felixstowe Port has left it with no books to sell in the lead up to Christmas. Colin Hoad and Matt Gr... It is not difficult to say that there is no shortage of UFO conspiracy theories available today. Even before the famed Roswell incident, people have been adamant about the other-worldly beings visiting humans on earth. The trove of theories are only exacerbated by the introduction of the internet. Amongst the most prevalent claims that the Central Intelligence Agency or CIA has covered up UFO related evidence. Thankfully, the agency has recently released some of its well-kept files documenting encounters with these unidentified flying objects. Just this week, the CIA has uploaded declassified images from their top-secret files that UFO fans believe to be proof that extraterrestrials exist. The pictures are dated mostly from the 1950s. "To help navigate the vast amount of data contained in our FOIA UFO collection, we've decided to highlight a few documents both skeptics and believers will find interesting. Below you will find five documents we think X-Files character Agent Fox Mulder would love to use to try and persuade others of the existence of extraterrestrial activity" read the recent CIA blog post. Advertisement The agency released ten PDF files containing UFO related documents. One of the more interesting files details a UFO sighting in East Germany more than six decades ago. The report details the testimony of Oscar Linke, a 48 year old German Intelligence officer, who witnessed a huge flying pan about 15 meters long landing in a forest in Germany. The CIA also released records of meetings held regarding the implications of UFO sightings. In a file documented on October 2, 1952 and sent out by the Assistant Director of the Office of Scientific Intelligence, it was concluded that "Flying Saucers" pose two major risks in national security. Not only do they instigate mass hysteria, but they only expose the vulnerability of the US to air attacks. View the files here. Sign up to get the latest news delivered to your inbox every week! Earlier this year the United Nations World Meteorological Organization or the WMO released an alarming report concerning the rapid increase in the global climate. According to their research, 2015 broke all previous climate records. Last year charted a whopping 1 degree Celsius increase above average temperatures. The rapid change is brought on not only by the El Nino but also human-induced global warming. The Secretary-General has since pleaded for immediate actions directed to solve this problem. "We have reached for the first time the threshold of 1 degree Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. It is a sobering moment in the history of our planet" quipped Petteri Taalas, WMO Secretary General. However, some remain skeptical about the issue of global warming and climate change. Recently, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas was quoted in saying that there are no evidences to support the prevalence of climate change. The senator went so far as to say that it is nothing more that 'pseudoscientific theory.' Advertisement "Climate change is the perfect pseudoscientific theory for a big-government politician who wants more power" quipped the senator. Scientists from the United States has since published a study detailing the impact of humans to the hastening of global warming. According to their research, there is no denying that one of the causes of climate change is man-made. "Climate change is real, human-caused and no longer subtle - we're seeing it play out before our eyes" explained Michael Mann, lead writer of the study from Pennsylvania State University. The WMO is scheduled to release a more comprehensive report on the staggering climate statistics gathered in 2015. According to UN's official website, the document would include details on regional trends, extreme events, sea ice, sea level rise and tropical cyclones. It is expected that the full report on global climate change would be available by March 2016. PETA has been trying to make the use of animals for lab testing illegal over the past few years. Fortunately for the nonprofit organization, a recent discovery might make their pleas a reality sooner than expected. Scientists from the United States have recently claimed that they're about to unravel a new alternative to testing drugs without using a live subject. The scientists are now in the process of perfecting the use of cells in petri dishes to find out if the toxin compound in the drug is harmful to humans. As of now the lab started to test almost 10,000 types of chemical compound including pesticides, industrial chemicals, and food additives to find out not only if its harmful to human but to the environment as well. Toxicity is one of the major factor in which drugs usually fail and over the years scientists have been using animals to test how heavy the toxins are in a drug. Advertisement Using animals as lab "rats" is not only violating the rights of animals, it is also quite expensive. The new discovery currently named as Tox21 will not only make the advocacy of PETA finally come true, it would also help the government lessen the funds for drug testing. Three top U.S agencies are now joining forces with scientists to hasten the research on Tox21 namely - the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Tox21 will be freeing the animals from the lab tests that puts their life in danger and because of this PETA welcomes the new discovery with open arms. Julia Baines, science policy advisor of the organization has since voiced out her and her group's support for the project saying: "To understand more about human development and human diseases, the world's most forward-thinking scientists are developing and implementing methods that supersede the crude use of animals. PETA welcomes the wealth of advanced non-animal research methodologies that are creating a brighter future for animals and human health." Gone South: Latin AmericaFocused Mutual Funds Have a Rough 2015 (Continued from Prior Part) Performance evaluation The Fidelity Advisor Latin America Fund Class A (FLFAX) fell 4.2% in December 2015 from a month ago. In the three- and six-month periods ended December 31, the fund fell 3.0% and 24.4%, respectively. In the one-year period, the one well be analyzing, it tanked by 30.1%. Meanwhile, from the end of December to January 25, the fund fell 13.4%. The fund was an average performer in 2015, standing at fourth place among eight funds in this review. Lets look at what has contributed to this funds average performance. Portfolio composition and contribution to returns Launched in September 2010, FLFAX has been around for over five years. According to its latest geographical disclosure, Brazil, Mexico, and Chile are the top three regions it invests in, in that order, making up 88% of the funds assets. Well consider the latest complete portfolio of the fund available, from November 2015, our base. For December, well consider valuation changes for our analysis. All portfolio percentages mentioned from here on refer to the weights according to changes in valuation from November to December. Financials were the biggest negative contributors to FLFAXs returns in 2015. The fund manager experimented with different stocks from the sector, but the changes did nothing to reduce the downside. The preference shares of Itau Unibanco Holding (ITUB) led the negative contributors from the sector. They were followed by the preference shares of Banco Bradesco (BBD). Materials were second to financials in terms of negative contribution to the funds returns. Both regular and preference shares of Vale (VALE) were major negative contributors from the sector. Compania de Minas Buenaventura (BVN) and CEMEX Latam Holdings were noteworthy detractors as well. Fibria Celulose (FBR) was the sole positive contributor, but its contribution was dwarfed by the negative contribution of others and was of no practical significance. Story continues Ambev (ABEV) and Companhia Brasileira de Distribuicao (CBD), in that order, pulled the contribution from the consumer staples sector into negative territory. There was some help for that sector, though. Wal-Mart de Mexico, the sponsored ADR (American depository receipt) of Fomento Economico Mexicano (FMX), and CCU (CCU), among a few others, contributed positively and reduced the negative contribution from the sector. The Class L sponsored ADR of America Movil (AMX) dragged down the telecom services sector, while CCR dragged down industrials. The latter had some help, however, as Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico (PAC) reduced some of the negative contribution. Reasons for average performance Financials and materials really hurt FLFAX. However, a few stocks with substantial positive contributions reduced the drag caused by the negative contributors and helped the fund reduce its losses somewhat. Lets move on to the JPMorgan Latin America Fund A (JLTAX) in the next article. Continue to Next Part Browse this series on Market Realist: Imagine finding on-line, details of your ancestor's grave, in a cemetery on the other side of the world! Then being able to get a photo of the headstone! Find out more about the GRAVESTONE PHOTOGRAPHIC RESOURCE PROJECT : how you can benefit... how you can help! --- About the Author Deborah Bucknam, Esq. has practiced law for 37 years, and has a private practice in St. Johnsbury, Vermont ----- About the post In the last two weeks, opponents of industrial wind have rallied in Vermont, and the Vermont administration is beginning to "investigate" them. Below is a brief summary and history. A bill against industrial wind Two Vermont legislators introduced a bill to ban industrial wind on our ridge lines. They held a press conference in Montpelier on January 21: the press conference was attended by many supporters. The supporters wore green vests and cheered for banning industrial wind. The Administration strikes back "I believe this has the potential to shut down my organization of 16 years. It clearly falls under the definition of harassment. The press conference and the Ethan Allen Institute post took place on January 21, 2016. Perhaps purely by chance, on January 22, the Vermont Attorney General opened an investigation into whether Annette Smith, the highest-profile anti-wind advocate in Vermont, is "practicing law without a license." This was reported in a VtDigger article by Mike Polhamus on January 23: AG's office investigating complaints against Annette Smith, anti-wind advocate. As Polhamus points out: this is a charge with penalties left entirely to the court's discretion. He also quotes Ms. Smith: "Annette Smith is a person of integrity who has helped the weaker party in what would otherwise be a very uneven contest. This investigation will have a chilling effect on all citizen advocates." There are (at this writing) 147 comments on the Digger post. The vast majority are in support of Annette Smith. An early comment was written by Peter Galbraith , a former Senator in Vermont (and a Democrat). A short quote: This post: I wanted to write something really powerful about this issue: about the environment, about freedom of speech, about government harassment of dissenting views, about crony capitalism. Then, to my great relief, I received this press release from Deborah Bucknam in my email inbox. I have never met Ms. Bucknam, but she said it all, much better than I could. Thank you, Ms. Bucknam. Vermonts Attorney General has filed a complaint against Annette Smith, the activist who helps Vermonters opposed to Industrial Wind, navigate the administrative jungle that best describes the Public Service Board proceedings. I have represented folks opposed to Industrial Wind at the Public Service Board, and the hearings are overrun by lawyersmost of whom favor the governments and the developers positions on Industrial Wind. Neighbors opposed to an Industrial Wind project face a phalanx of government and industry lawyers in a proceeding that is costly, time consuming and often confusing. In other words, the fix is in.Now the Attorney General is siding with Vermonts large law firms and big lobbyists to deprive opponents of Industrial Wind the advice of a person who knows the intricacies of the proceedings and can help those who cannot afford the high priced lawyers the developers can. And make no mistake: even though this is a preposterous charge, and will likely be thrown out, its purpose will be fulfilled: to chill anyones free speech rights who dares to question the powerful in Montpelier.Practicing law without a license is a hoary concept left over from the medieval guilds where skilled tradesmen (including lawyers) sought to keep out competition. It was revived in the early 20th century when the newly organized Bar attempted to persuade legislatures to define the practice of law and regulate itto the Bars advantage. Legislators were wary of such a regulatory scheme, so the effort waned until the Great Depression, when lawyers incomes plummeted, and the organized Bar launched a new effort to keep out those who were in competition for their services. This time the Bar sought the help of the Judiciary, which took up the cause. That is where it stands today: the unauthorized practice of law is regulated in large part by the Judiciary. Over the years, lawyers targeted different groups: realtors, bankers, and investment advisors, with varying success. The reason for this effort was supposedly to protect consumers from service providers who did not adhere to the strict professional conduct rules of the Bar. However, with the advent of strong consumer protection statutes and competition among providers, this protection is mostly a red herring.The concept of unauthorized practice of law is so vague as to call into question its constitutionality. The practice of law is, according to the Vermont Supreme Court, "the rendering of services for another involving the use of legal knowledge or skill on his behalf -- where legal advice is required and is availed of or rendered in connection with such services. Under that standard, hundreds of public servants in Vermont provide legal adviceproviding information about relevant statutes, procedures and regulations---to the public and to Vermont attorneys smart enough to get the information directly from those in the know at state agencies. Yet these public servants will not and certainly should not--be prosecuted. Only Ms. Smith, who provides similar information to those who cannot pay for those high priced lawyers is prosecuted by the Attorney General. This is precisely the constitutional issue: a rule violates the Due Process clause of the constitution because it is too vague to put the public on adequate notice as to when a violation occurs, and it opens the door for selective prosecutionexactly what has happened here. The Attorney Generals action appears to be an effort to silence opposition to Industrial Wind, and to help the large Burlington law firms and their clients to keep from having to deal with pesky Vermonters who oppose their clients projects.Vermonters are being strangled by government overreach. The Attorney Generals action is a disgraceful example. If you dont agree with the powerful and well-connected in this state, then just shut up, or you may be the target of the Government and its unlimited resources.Video by Ethan Allen Institute Gone South: Latin AmericaFocused Mutual Funds Have a Rough 2015 (Continued from Prior Part) Performance evaluation The T. Rowe Price Latin America Fund (PRLAX) fell 5.7% in December 2015 from a month prior. In the three- and six-month periods ended December 31, the fund fell 1.2% and 23.4%, respectively. In the one-year period, the one well be analyzing, it declined 27.1%. Meanwhile, from the end of December to January 25, the fund fell by 9.7%. The fund had a bad month in December. However, better performance for the remainder of the year ensured that it had the second-smallest decline in 2015 among the eight funds in this review. Lets see what helped the fund contain its losses last year. Portfolio composition and contribution to returns Launched in December 1993, PRLAX has the second-longest track record among the funds in this review. According to its latest geographical disclosure, Brazil, Mexico, and Chile are the top three regions it invests in, in that order, making up 88.3% of the funds assets. The latest complete portfolio available for the fund is from September 2015. Therefore, well take that portfolio as our base and consider valuation changes as they were at the end of December 2015 for our analysis. All portfolio percentages mentioned from here on refer to weights according to changes in valuation from September to December. Financials were head and shoulders above all other sectors in terms of negative contribution to PRLAXs overall returns in 2015. The preference shares of Itau Unibanco Holding (ITUB) and preference shares of Banco Bradesco (BBD) contributed more than half of the sectors negative effect. Though Grupo Financiero Galicia (GGAL) contributed positively for the year, this contribution was too small to meaningfully reduce the overall negative contribution. The consumer staples sector was driven down by Ambev (ABEV) and BRF (BRFS). However, substantial positive contributions from Wal-Mart de Mexico, Grupo Lala, and the sponsored ADR ( American depositary receipt) of Fomento Economico Mexicano (FMX) reduced the drag on the sector substantially. Story continues While CCR was responsible for the poor showing of industrials, America Movil (AMX) and TIM Participacoes (TSU) drove down the telecom sector. Energy was hurt by Petrobras (PBR) and Tenaris (TS). Reasons for better showing No Latin America-linked product had a positive outcome in 2015. PRLAX was hurt most by its top three sectors, not unlike several of its peers in this review. However, some of PRLAXs stock picks were able to reduce the drag considerably, thereby capping the decline. Stock picks such as El Puerto de Liverpool and Grupo Lala, among several others, ensured curtailment of a further fall in returns. In the next article, well look at the Deutsche Latin America Equity Fund Class A (SLANX). Continue to Next Part Browse this series on Market Realist: About ZVTS Even with the Biden Administration adults in charge and Democrats in control on Congress (barely), there remains an increasingly crumbling global economy imperiling the world, rising nationalism and deadly racism across Europe and Asia, a seemingly endless war against terror, a federal government nobody trusts or believes in, global climate change putting us on the brink of destruction and a Village media that barely does its job on even the best day. Needless to say there's a lot of Stupid out there when we need solutions . Dangerous levels of Stupid. Into the fray, dear Reader. Tray tables, crash helmets, arms inside blog at all times. New Delhi: Delhi High Court on Thursday said there would be "no consistency" in a policy made by way of circulars or office orders, passed without statutory backing, as there could be new circular "every day". Justice Manmohan made the observation while hearing arguments on behalf of Delhi government and two associations representing private unaided schools, which have challenged the AAP administration's January 6 order scrapping 62 criteria, including management quota, in nursery admissions. The court said as per the procedure under law, the January 6 notification should have been issued by the Lt Governor. Defending its decision, Delhi government said the LG worked on aid and advice of the council of ministers and in the instant case, the decision was taken by the cabinet. It also said that while private unaided schools have their autonomy, if they misuse it, the state will step in. They do not have absolute autonomy, the government contended. It also said that by way of the notification, it did not prescribe any criteria, but only asked the private schools to adopt criteria which were fair, just and reasonable. Delhi government will continue arguments tomorrow. Brief arguments were submitted on behalf of the private unaided schools which said the statute did not provide the government with powers to govern their functioning,especially with regard to admissions. So the same cannot be done by way of notifications. The private schools also said that parents flock to them due to the poor condition of government schools. "The vacuum created by government schools and colleges not providing top-class education has been filled by the private schools," they said. In a recent affidavit, the Delhi government had defended its January 6 order saying the decision was taken to check "unfair and exploitative criteria" and prevent any discrimination against children in getting education in Delhi. The decision has been challenged by Action Committee Unaided Recognised Private Schools and Forum for Promotion of Quality Education For All which claim to represent various private unaided schools. Terming the AAP government's order as illegal, they have said they were not trying to champion the cause of all the scrapped 62 criteria, barring a few like management quota. Gone South: Latin AmericaFocused Mutual Funds Have a Rough 2015 (Continued from Prior Part) Performance evaluation The Aberdeen Latin American Equity Fund Class A (ALEAX) fell by 4.2% in December 2015 from a month prior. In the three- and six-month periods ended December 31, the fund fell 3.1% and 22.5%, respectively. In the one-year period, it dived by 27.8%. From the end of December 2015 to January 25, the fund fell 10.8%. Among the eight funds in this review, ALEAX fell the least in December. Though it did not have a great 4Q15, it had the third-smallest decline in 2015. Lets see what helped the fund reduce its downside somewhat compared with most other funds in 2015. Portfolio composition and contribution to returns ALEAX has the smallest track record among all the funds in this review. It has been in existence since March 2013. Financials have been primarily responsible for the fund posting -27.8% returns in 2015, with the sector contributing over a third of the funds negative returns for the year. Among holdings from the financial sector, Banco Bradesco (BBD) was by far the biggest negative contributor to returns. Itau Unibanco Holding (ITUB) and Multiplan Empreendimentos Imobiliarios were other major negative contributors. Grupo Financiero Banorte made a small positive contribution, but given the large negative contributions of all other holdings, it was not very meaningful. Even though materials formed less than 4% of the funds assets, they emerged as the second-biggest negative contributor to returns for 2015. Vale (VALE) was responsible for most of the negative contribution from the sector. Industrials followed, driven down by negative contributions from Grana y Montero (GRAM) and Localiza Rent a Car. Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste (ASR) and Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte (OMAB) contributed positively to returns, thereby reducing some drag caused by negative contributors. Reasons for performance Brazils poor position in 2015 reflected on all associated instruments, especially ALEAX, which had a large portion of its assets in equities from the country. A loss of investor confidence hit the countrys stocks hard. However, positive contributions from sizable holdings such as Embotelladora Andina (AKO.A) and Fomento Economico Mexicano (FMX) reduced the drag on the funds overall returns, thereby placing its performance in the third spot among the eight funds in this review. Story continues In the next article, well look at the second fund in our review, the Epiphany FFV Latin America Fund Class A (ELAAX). Continue to Next Part Browse this series on Market Realist: New Delhi: Disregarding the orders by the MHA pertaining the suspension of two special secretaries to the Home department, the Delhi government has issued a fresh order declaring they will only be entitled to a subsistence allowance instead of their full salary. Delhi Home Minister Satyendar Jain had on December 29 last put under suspension Special Secretary (Prosecution) Yashpal Garg and Special Secretary (Prisons) Subhash Chandra for allegedly refusing to sign a file pertaining to the Cabinet decision to increase salary of public prosecutors. Since the Centre had declared their suspension as "null and void", Garg and Chandra have been working in their offices at Delhi Secretariat. In an order dated January 27, Jain said: "In exercise of the powers conferred upon me under FR 53(1) hereby order that Yaspal Garg, special secretary (Home) under suspension shall be entitled to a subsistence allowance at an amount equal to the leave salary which the government servant would have been drawn, if he had been on leave on half pay and in addition dearness allowance, as admissible on such leave salary, till revocation of his suspension." The same order has reportedly been issued for Chandra. The move to suspended the officers had led to yet another tussle between the government and the Lieutenant Governor, as only the Lieutenant Governor can suspend senior DANICS officials with permission from the Home Ministry. Protesting it, around 200 Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands Civil Service (DANICS) officers had on December 31 gone on a one day mass-leave. To support the protest, the IAS officers had also worked half-day that day. Panaji: The Chief Electoral Office of Goa has proposed that the State Legislative Assembly elections can be held from December 11 to 18 as the current term gets over in March next year. "We have submitted the proposal listing December 11-18 as the dates to hold the election. It is for the Election Commission of India to approve the proposal," said a senior official from Goa CEO office. The current legislative assembly with 40 members was formed in March, 2012. Goa CEO has suggested that the assembly elections can be held along with four other states- Manipur, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. Goa dates are recommended considering Christmas holidays and examinations of college and schools in January and March, coming year. The ECI has already reviewed the electoral roll for the state which has 10,84,271 eligible voters. The term of current assembly is getting over on March 3, 2017 before which fresh elections will have to be held. The 2012 election saw BJP winning a handsome majority. The BJP had won total 21 seats while MGP had gained three, Goa Vikas Party (GVP) two legislators, Congress nine members and five independents. Ahmedabad: Jailed Patel quota agitation leader Hardik Patel has written a letter to Gujarat Congress chief Bharatsinh Solanki alleging that his party was using the the community for its own political gains and if this continues, it won't come to power for another 25 years. He also warned Solanki that his party would never get back to power in Gujarat, if it does not stop politics in the name of Patel community. In the letter, written from Surat jail yesterday and made public by his lawyer on Thursday, Hardik wrote, "Congress won recent Panchayat polls (in Gujarat) due to our agitation only. I am writing this letter because I have learnt that your party is using Patel community as well as some of our agitation leaders. But, your party has done nothing concrete for us yet. "We will not allow this approach of your party. I request you to stop the politics in the name of our community. Congress is out of power in Gujarat since the last 21 years. If this kind of politics does not stop, you will not come to power for another 25 years," he said. The quota agitation spearhead also asked Solanki not to be under impression that Patels do not have any other option than voting for Congress. "You might be under the impression that since Patels are unhappy with BJP, we do not have any other choice than to vote for Congress. If you believe so, then it is your mistake. We will find a third option if needed," Hardik's letter said. Zee Media Bureau Geneva: Even as fears mount over the rapid spread of the dangerous Zika virus across the US, the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday said that it expects the deadly mosquito-borne disease to affect between three million and four million people in the Americas. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said that the disease had gone from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions, calling for an emergency meeting on the outbreak on February 1. Marcos Espinal, an infectious disease expert at the WHO`s Americas regional office, said: "We can expect 3 to 4 million cases of Zika virus disease". He gave no time frame. There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is a close cousin of dengue and chikungunya and causes mild fever, rash and red eyes. An estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms, making it difficult for pregnant women to know whether they have been infected. "The level of alarm is extremely high," Chan told WHO executive board members at a meeting in Geneva. "As of today, cases have been reported in 23 countries and territories in the (Americas) region." Brazil`s Health Ministry said in November 2015 that Zika was linked to a foetal deformation known as microcephaly, in which infants are born with abnormally small heads Brazil has reported 3,893 suspected cases of microcephaly, the WHO said last week, more than 30 times more than in any year since 2010 and equivalent to 1-2 percent of all newborns in the state of Pernambuco, one of the worst-hit areas. Chan said that while a direct causal relationship between Zika virus infection and birth malformations has not yet been established, it is "strongly suspected". "The possible links, only recently suspected, have rapidly changed the risk profile of Zika from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions," she said. US President Barack Obama has called for faster research on the quick-moving virus, which has been linked to a rise in birth defects in Brazil. Meanwhile, Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said on Thursday that the hunt for a vaccine to prevent the Zika virus could take years. (With Agency inputs) New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah has said that his party will formulate a political strategy of 51 percent to defeat rival political parties including the Congress, a report said on Thursday. While speaking to 'Hindustan Times', Shah expressed confidence in the BJP of doing well in the upcoming state Assembly elections. Shah said, earlier it used to be Congress versus all or Indira (Gandhi) versus all. Now it is the BJP versus all or Narendra Modi versus all. The newspaper further quoted the BJP leader saying that many political parties, despite having ideological differences have joined hands for survival. While noting that polls are a matter of numbers, Shah said, BJP must come up with a political strategy of 51 percent to defeat these forces. I see this as a plus for the strength of the BJP. Shah, a close confidant of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was on Sunday elected the BJP president for a full three-year term, retaining the post he has held since the party took power in the country in 2014. Shah, 51, who took charge of the party in August 2014 from now Home Minister Rajnath Singh, was elected unanimously at a glittering event at the BJP headquarters attended by virtually all senior party leaders. Delhi: President Pranab Mukherjee in the second volume of his memoir, The Turbulent Years: 1980-96 has talked about Babri Masjid demolition and Operation Bluestar amongst other things. He has also talked about how Rajiv Gandhi wanted to know 'how potent' the bullets were after Indira Gandhi was shot by her bodyguards in 1984 and has enumerated the hours between the former PM's assassination and the naming of the next prime minister, as per Hindustan Times. Following is the extract from the book as published by the Daily on the issue - With the agenda of revamping the faction-ridden party organization, Rajiv Gandhi went on a tour of West Bengal at the end of October 1984. He arrived at Bagdogra airport near Siliguri in North Bengal on 29 October... On 31 October 1984 after addressing the first meeting at Ramnagar, Rajiv Gandhi reached Contai (Kanthi) where he began addressing his second meeting of the day. It was here that I received a message on the police wireless at 9.30 am: lndira Gandhi assaulted. Return to Delhi immediately. l immediately passed Rajiv a note, even as he was addressing the meeting, asking him to cut short the speech. He did so, and as soon as he sat down, I told him about the message. I suggested that we cancel all other engagements and return to Delhi immediately, and he agreed... Four of us - Rajiv Gandhi, Ghani Khan Choudhury, Rajivs PSO (personal security officer) and l - left Contai at around 9.40 am... Throughout the journey, Rajiv remained composed, but kept the transistor radio tuned to BBC news. It is through the news that we got to know that sixteen bullets had been pumped into Mrs Gandhi. How potent are the bullets used by VIP security personnel? he turned to ask his PSO. The PSO informed him that they were very powerful. Rajiv then turned to us and, with great emotion, asked, Did she deserve all these bullets? We simply sat there, stunned. After some time, hoping against hope, I said to Rajiv, The information we have received is that she has been assaulted; they have not yet said that she is dead... We received a wireless message that a helicopter would be waiting for us at the helipad of the thermal power station at Kolaghat, and that would take us to Calcutta... It took us about forty-five minutes to reach Calcutta. As soon as we landed, we were told that an Indian Airlines special plane was waiting for us. We rushed from the helicopter to the plane, which took off around 1 pm... Immediately after take-off, Rajiv went into the cockpit. After some time, he came back and announced, She is dead. There was absolute silence. Tears started rolling down my face, and I wept inconsolably, managing to compose myself only after some time and with great effort. Rajiv was exceptionally calm and displayed total control and fortitude, possibly a trait he had inherited from his mother... It was decided that we should request Rajiv Gandhi to take over as the full-fledged Prime Minister to meet the challenge posed by this extraordinary situation. Somebody suggested that I formally make this request to Rajiv and work out the modalities to be followed. I took Rajiv to the rear of the aircraft and requested him to take over as Prime Minister. His immediate question to me was, Do you think I can manage? Yes, I told him, we are all there to help you. You will have everyones support. Our plane landed in Delhi at around 3 pm. and we were received by Cabinet Secretary Krishnaswamy Rao Sahib, along with the Home Secretary and other officials... Krishnaswamy Rao Sahib apprised me of the prevailing situation. He counselled me that I would have to take over as Gulzari Lal Nanda had done in the past. I told him that Rajiv Gandhi would be sworn in, and then I, too, headed to AIIMS... Finally, many stories have been circulated that I aspired to be the interim Prime Minister. That I had staked claim and had to be persuaded otherwise. And that this created misgivings in Rajiv Gandhis mind. These stories are completely false and spiteful. President Zail Singh has pointed out clearly in his memoirs that P.V. Narasimha Rao and I both gladly agreed that his decision to place the mantle of Prime Ministership on Rajiv Gandhi was correct. New Delhi: As the Supreme Court mulls over the imposition of President's Rule in Arunachal Pradesh, shocking details have emerged on the reasons cited by Governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa for dismissal of the CM Nabam Tuki. As per a report in The Indian Express, Rajkhowa in his report to the Centre said that he had his family feared for their lives, while also accusing the CM of playing communal politics. The Governor also cited the repeated blockade of the Raj Bhavan and threats that it will be burnt down while he and his family were inside. Rajkhowa also alleged that members of the Tuki cabinet had joined protesters in sacrificing a Mithun cow outside the gates of the Raj Bhavan. Claiming that a number of public organisations had approached him seeking a CBI probe against 'corrupt' Tuki, Rajkhowa alleged that CM Tuki had encouraged government officials to take on the office of the Governor. Making another serious charge against Tuki, the Governor said that three dissident MLAs had told him that they were pressurised by terror outfit NSCN (K) to support Tuki. Delhi: Even as a Pakistani court dismissed the government's petition seeking voice samples of 26/11 mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and six other suspects in the Mumbai attack trial, India said on Thursday that the trial was a test of Pakistans sincerity in combating terrorism. We see the Mumbai terror attack trial in Islamabad as a test of Pakistans sincerity in combating terrorism directed against India. The planning, training and financing of the Mumbai terrorist attack was done in Pakistan where 99% of the evidence is, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said, as quoted by Hindustan Times. However, Swarup added that government had not received any word on this through the official channel. It is Pakistans responsibility to unearth and present the requisite evidence in the ongoing trial so that the perpetrators are brought to justice, MEA spokesperson further said, as per the website. The prosecution had filed an application in the Islamabad High Court seeking voice samples of the suspects to compare it with the communication intercepted by Indian intelligence and then present it before the anti-terrorism court (ATC) as evidence against the seven suspects in the Mumbai attack case. The Islamabad High Court on Monday dismissed the petition. In 2011 and 2015, the issue of obtaining voice samples of Lakhvi had been dismissed by the trial court on the grounds that "no such law exists that allows obtaining of voice sample of an accused", as per PTI. The prosecution's petition said the Indian intelligence agencies had intercepted communication between the suspects and the terrorists in connection with the Mumbai attack in 2008. In the recorded intercepts, the suspects are heard instructing the terrorists. The prosecution lawyers had argued that the samples were essential for concluding the investigation of this high profile case. The trial court had also rejected another petition of the prosecution requesting the court to declare Ajmal Kasab and Faheem Ansari absconders in order to meet legal formalities. The prosecution had told the court that unless it declared the two men absconders, the trial against them would remain 'inconclusive' as both have been cited as accused in the Mumbai attack case by Indian authorities and that they were also wanted by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) that was probing the 26/11 case. During External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's visit here last month, Pakistan had assured India of "steps being taken to expedite the early conclusion" of the Mumbai attack trial, something that India has been pressing for long. Pakistani authorities arrested seven Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) members involved in the planning of the attacks including the terrorist group's operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the mastermind of the Mumbai attack. Six accused - Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younis Anjum - have been in Adiala Jail for more than six years in connection with planning and executing the Mumbai attack in November, 2008, that left 166 people killed. Lakhvi, 56, secured bail in December, 2014, and was subsequently released from Adiala Jail on April 10, 2015, after the Lahore High Court set aside the government's order to detain him under a public security act. A trial is underway against them at the ATC since 2009. (With Agency inputs) Mumbai: Two days after Maharashtra's Shani Shingnapur temple made headlines over ban on women's entry, some Muslim women groups on Thursday protested in Mumbai demanding entry in Haji Ali Dargah. Several activists belonging to Muslim women groups held protest with placards demanding entry in Haji Ali Dargah. Earlier, the Bombay High Court had said it would wait for Supreme Court's ruling on entry of women in Sabarimala temple of Kerala before deciding on a similar plea in case of Haji Ali Dargah. The trustees of Haji Ali Dargah had told the court earlier that entry of women in close proximity to the grave of a male Muslim saint is considered as a grievous sin in Islam. On Jan 26, hundreds of women activists who were on their way to the Shani Shingnapur temple - to protest the entry ban inside the shrine's inner sanctum - were stopped by the security officials at Supa village in the state. (Adds details, background) PARIS, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Iran agreed on Thursday to buy 118 Airbus jets worth $27 billion at list prices, including a dozen A380 superjumbos, after international sanctions were lifted against Tehran this month. The planemaker said the deal, signed amid a raft of others during a visit by President Hassan Rouhani, was conditional on getting U.S. export licences because more than 10 percent of Airbus jetliner parts come from the United States. The order for 73 wide-body and 45 narrow-body jets allows Airbus to steal a march on US rival Boeing as Iran seeks to renovate and expand its worn-out fleet of 225 planes. The inclusion of A380s - the world's largest jetliner - sends a commercial signal to established carriers in the Gulf, and is a boost for Airbus, which has been struggling to sell them. However, they will not be delivered before end-decade as Iran expands its airports and focuses on urgent needs. Boeing has so far held back from Iran amid what industry sources and diplomats describe as political and legal concerns, but Iranian officials are urging it to mimic its European rival. The Airbus deal depends on unravelling a knot of financial issues including whether and how Iran can avoid using the U.S. financial system for the jets, usually priced in dollars. Deputy transport minister Asghar Fakhrieh Kashan told Reuters the deal would be financed using a mixture of European export credits - which guarantee loans by commercial banks - and lease financing. In an unusual move, Iran plans to set up a national leasing company with foreign investors invited to take a stake and no automatic restriction on basing it outside Iran. But problems need to be ironed out on rules for export credit deals amid quibbles over collateral. The deal was negotiated partly on the sidelines of a major CAPA aviation conference in Tehran this week, where Iran outlined requirements for 400-500 planes and offered flexible new regulations. Story continues "It was the first international platform for Iran to say we are back in business" since implementation of the deal ending sanctions on Jan 17, Bertrand Grabowski, a managing director of DVB Bank, said. Other models ordered include 45 A320-family jets and 45 longer-haul A330s. Both those sets of orders included current and revamped models and helped lift the catalogue value of the deal from earlier estimates of $25 billion. Iran also ordered 16 long-range A350-1000 twin-engined jets. (Reporting by Tim Hepher, Cyril Altmeyer; Writing by Andrew Callus; Editing by Michel Rose, Leigh Thomas) New Delhi: Known for his elephantine memory, President Pranab Mukherjee today said some facts from his years in governance will be buried with him as he disclosed some accounts of turbulent years of politics between 1980-1996 in his memoir released on Thursday. The second volume of Mukherjee's memoirs, 'The Turbulent Years: 1980-96' was released today by Vice President Hamid Ansari. Addressing a gathering at his book release event, Mukherjee said he did not deliberately speak on matters which are highly confidential and it was for the readers to read and come to their own conclusion. "Many people in their memoirs including Churchill (Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) and many others have written many of the State facts but I had a bit conservative approach as and when facts will be released by the government that people should come to know not from somebody's account who was in the government," the President said. He made a mention of his old habit of writing a page daily in a diary, which has some secrets. "That is why I have advised my daughter who is the custodian of this diary that never release this. You should digitise this but never release it. If you digitise it as and when government will find it necessary to release then they will release. "Even some time I have been confronted with but I avoided that. But I would like to stick to this view and, as I more than often say, some facts are to be buried with me and this can never be revealed and I stick to it," Mukherjee said.The basic material for the President's book has come from his own diaries. Mukherjee has held many sensitive posts in his long public life and was bound by oath not to divulge any information he may have received as a Minister. "It is his conviction that some facts are never to be revealed," a press release quoted him as having said. Speaking on the occasion, Vice President Hamid Ansari, who released the memoir, said the book is a commentary on our times and the age in which we live. It has several pertinent observations on the nature of Indian polity and Indian federalism which needs to be read carefully. Commenting on the book, Karan Singh, Member of Parliament, said the book is of great value because of the assessment of various personalities in it, description of major events of the period and the light it throws on important economic issues of that time. He said the most fascinating aspect of the book is the description of President's political career with its remarkable ups and downs. Singh described the President as a highly intelligent, seasoned and gifted politician, blessed with tremendous memory and great intellectual stature, the release said. Washington: Lieutenant General John "Mick" Nicholson, the current head of NATO`s Allied Land Command, has been chosen as the new commander of international forces in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said on Wednesday amid concerns about setbacks in the fight against the Taliban. Nicholson, whose selection must be confirmed by the Senate, would replace General John Campbell, who has commanded U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan for the past 18 months and is expected to retire. Nicholson is a veteran of multiple deployments in Afghanistan. He commanded the Army`s 75th Ranger Regiment as well as the 82nd Airborne Division, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook told a news briefing. "He understands the importance and complexity of our mission in Afghanistan," Cook said, having served previously as chief of staff of operations for the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, and U.S. Forces Afghanistan. The transition comes amid growing concern about the security situation in Afghanistan, where Taliban militants have caused large numbers of casualties among Afghan troops and Islamic State affiliates have made some inroads. The Taliban seized the northern city of Kunduz last year before being driven out by the Army. They also seized districts in Helmand province and threatened the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. Brigadier General Wilson Shoffner, a spokesman for the international mission in Afghanistan, said last week that Afghan security forces had "mixed results" in their first year of carrying out the fight against the Taliban on their own. "Whenever they conducted deliberate, planned operations, they actually did fairly well," he said. "Where they had trouble and they didn`t do so well was in response to crisis situations." The security situation prompted President Barack Obama to announce in October that the United States would maintain a force of about 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through most of 2016 instead of drawing down to an embassy-based presence by 2017. Washington: Describing terrorist safe havens in Pakistan, which is home to the Taliban and the Haqqani network, as a major challenge, a top US general nominated to be the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan on Thursday said it is difficult to destroy enemy having sanctuaries like this. "When an enemy enjoys sanctuary like that, it's very difficult to defeat them," General John "Mick" Nicholson, who has been nominated by the Pentagon as Commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, during confirmation hearing. Nicholson said he views the terrorist safe havens inside Pakistan as a serious problem. "This (terrorist safe havens) has been one of the principal challenges. It's a sanctuary that our enemies, in particular the Haqqani Network, have enjoyed inside Pakistan," he said responding to a question from Senator John McCain, Chairman of the Senate Committee. Critical of the Af-Pak policy of the Obama Administration, McCain also demanded an immediately halt to US troop withdrawals and eliminate any target date for withdrawal. Responding to the question, Nicholson said it is difficult to defeat the Taliban and Haqqani network when they enjoy terrorist safe haven, and as such, it is important to "enlist" Pakistan. "In this case, Pakistan, to go after those sanctuaries, and then the other important piece is to build up the defence capacity of the Afghans so that they can keep that level of violence down to a manageable level," the general said. Earlier, in a written response to questions, Nicholson asked Pakistan to take persistent action against the Taliban, particularly the Haqqani Network. "Pakistan's pressure on the Taliban combined with its support to the reconciliation process are mutually reinforcing," he added. Haqqani network, which is linked to al Qaeda has also been blamed for several deadly attacks against Western and Indian interests in Afghanistan, including the 2008 bombing of the Indian mission in Kabul. Hyderabad: SC and ST teachers of Hyderabad Central University will go on a hunger strike from Thursday to press their demand for the resignation of the Vice Chancellor and the in-charge VC in the wake of the suicide by Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula. Intensifying their protest, students held a demonstration outside the residence of interim VC Vipin Srivastava when he was in a meeting with non-teaching staff. The protesters then marched outside the campus and burnt an effigy of the vice- chancellor. Srivastava later visited the protest site to initiate a dialogue, but faced the ire of the students who raised slogans asking him to "go back". He was forced to beat a retreat in a few minutes as someone banged his car when it was about to move. Students of most universities in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana boycotted classes in solidarity with the agitators as they sought "justice" for Rohith, who was found hanging in a hostel room on January 17. The SC and ST Teachers Forum said in a statement earlier that its members would go on a hunger strike to press for the resignation of VC Appa Rao and the interim VC "in order to resume academic and administrative activities". Several members of the Forum have already given up their administrative responsibilities in solidarity with the agitating students. He, however, said that he later convinced police to let him go and talk to the protesting students. Srivastava said he could have stayed longer at the protest site but felt that would serve no purpose. The selection of Srivastava as interim VC was opposed by the students and SC/ST staff forums as they claimed he headed the Executive Council sub-committee whose decisions were "responsible for the death of Rohith" and that he was one of the accused in the death of another Dalit student in 2008. Meanwhile, in a bid to blunt the attack it has faced over the raging issue, BJP's student outfit ABVP has announced a nationwide campaign to highlight its version of events on the campus leading to Vemula's suicide. With PTI inputs New Delhi: Supreme Court on Thursday recalled its December 16 order appointing controversial Justice Virendra Singh, a former judge of Allahabad High Court, as Lokayukta and named another retired judge as new ombudsman of Uttar Pradesh, terming the state government's statement on the issue as "somewhat inaccurate". Appointing Justice Sanjay Misra as new Lokayukta, the apex court bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi termed as "unfortunate" the inability of constitutional functionaries like the Chief Minister and the Chief Justice of the High Court to arrive at a consensual name as head of ombudsman. "We are persuaded to hold that our order appointing Justice Virendra Singh (Retd) as Lokayukta was on the basis of the statement made on behalf of the state of Uttar Pradesh which now appears to be somewhat inaccurate. "The picture that emanates from the above narration of facts is hazy, unclear and uncertain and we are left in serious doubt as to whether the constitutional/statutory functionaries or at least two of them had, at all, agreed on any name or names. "It is unfortunate that constitutional/statutory functionaries, in spite of prolonged and extended meetings, continued to have serious differences on a relatively simple issue i.e. appointment of the Lokayukta," the bench, also comprising Justice P C Panta, said. The bench picked out Justice Misra for the post as his name figured in the list of probables prepared by the Chief Minister and the Chief Justice of the High Court. While recalling its order appointing Justice Singh as Lokayukta, the court considered its 2002 judgement that had accorded "primacy to the opinion of the Chief Justice in the consultative process for appointment of Lokayukta". "...we are inclined to recall our order dated December 16, 2015 and instead appoint Justice Sanjay Misra (Retired Judge of Allahabad High Court) as the Lokayukta of Uttar Pradesh. In making the aforesaid appointment, we have taken note of the fact that the name of Justice Sanjay Misra appears in the common list of names that were discussed as mentioned in the letters of the Chief Justice of the High Court and the Chief Minister referred to above," it said. The court, in its order, also observed that the reservation of the High Court Chief Justice on the name of Justice Singh with regard to his suitability for the post of Lokayukta was not brought before it when the last order was passed. "However, we now have on record the subsequent reservation of the Chief Justice of the High Court with regard to the suitability of Justice Virendra Singh (Retd) as Lokayukta as expressed in the Chief Justice's letter dated 16th December, 2015 to His Excellency the Governor of Uttar Pradesh. "We can only wish that the above reservation of the Hon'ble Chief Justice had been placed before us before we had passed our earlier order dated December 16, 2015 in Writ Petition... particularly when the High Court was represented before us on the said date," it said. Disposing of various pleas on the issue, it asked the authorities to pass within a week the "consequential orders" in terms of its direction appointing Justice Misra as new Lokayukta. It also asked the state to file "compliance report". The order came on pleas seeking quashing of Governor's notification, passed in pursuance of the verdict the apex court, to appoint Justice Singh as the new Lokayukta. Earlier on December 16 last year, in an unusual order, the apex court had exercised its constitutional authority and appointed Justice Singh as Uttar Pradesh Lokayukta, while expressing dismay that its several orders directing that the appointment to the post be made had not been "heeded" by the constitutional functionaries -- the Chief Minister, the Leader of Opposition and the Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court. However, the appointment was later stayed by the apex court itself after it was told by a UP resident Sachidanad Gupta that the state government has played a "fraud upon the apex court" by hiding the fact that the Chief Justice had expressed his reservations to the name of Justice Singh. Lucknow: BSP supremo Mayawati on Thursday charged the Narendra Modi government with attempting to strip AMU and Jamia Millia Islamia of their minority status and termed the move as "communally and politically motivated". "The BJP-led central government is out to strip these institutions of their minority status which they got after a lot of struggle and this narrow mentality lowers the prestige of the country...this is like an attempt to make students belonging to religious minorities orphans," Mayawati told reporters here. "This communally motivated step of the BJP government is actually politically motivated," she said, adding it was aimed at polarising its vote bank before the coming Assembly elections in some states, including Uttar Pradesh. By dividing the votes on caste and communal lines, BJP wants to serve the purpose of Samajwadi Party along with its own, she alleged, contesting the rationale being given for depriving these institutions of minority status. "We disagree with the logic that by doing so Dalits and OBCs will get reservation in these institutions," she said, adding Dalits consider religious minorities as their own because they are the ones who had converted in protest against the disparity in Hindu system and BSP always favoured reservation for them. The BSP chief said if the BJP government is so concerned about the welfare of Dalits and OBCs, it should improve the condition of primary and secondary schools all over the country so children from these sections get education. "If they are so concerned about children of these sections they should introduce reservation in private sector schools so that they are uplifted, but, instead of taking positive steps they are out to follow the policy of confrontation with a view to polarising votes," she said. It is unfortunate and shows the difference between "kathni and karni" (words and deeds) of the prime minister and the BJP government, she added. Rome: Italy`s Senate on Thursday begins examining a civil union bill for same-sex couples, a topic which has profoundly divided the country and could prove toxic for Prime Minister Matteo Renzi`s government. The debate has taken to the streets: tens of thousands of supporters demonstrated last weekend throughout the country, while opponents are planning a mass rally in the capital for Saturday. While Italy is the last major Western country not to allow gay couples legal status, after years of thwarted efforts the so-called Cirinna bill, named after the senator behind it, will land in the upper house of parliament at 9:30 (0830 GMT). In 2007, a vast demonstration dubbed "Family Day" forced the centre-left government of Romano Prodi to drop a much less ambitious civil union project -- and the rights campaign was cited as one of the reasons the cabinet fell in early 2008. But supporters say Italy has no choice this time but to change. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly slammed the delay and Italian family courts are already green-lighting the adoption of children in some cases. The first Senate debate will focus on potential constitutional issues, to be decided by a vote scheduled for Tuesday, before a week of debate on hundreds of amendments on the table and another to review and vote on each article. A vote is expected mid-February, after which the text will have to go before the lower house of parliament, where negotiations are already underway to try to ensure the bill passes smoothly -- avoiding a potential return to the Senate. As it stands, the bill will enable same-sex couples to commit themselves to one another before a state official, to take each other`s names and, in certain circumstances, adopt each other`s children and inherit residual pension rights. "It offers the bare minimum. If it doesn`t pass as it stands now, then it might as well not pass at all," Marco Simon Puccioni, a film director and gay father to twins with his partner of 11 years, told AFP. For others, it goes too far. "It is unacceptable to think of our children, our grandchildren, being taught that there are different models of families," said Massimo Gandolfini, neurosurgeon and coordinator of Saturday`s new "Family Day" protest. Pope Francis has also weighed into the debate, reminding Catholics this month that the Church rejects all forms of union outside of marriage between a man and a woman. While centre-left Renzi says he is confident the bill will pass, there are several sticking points, in particular pension rights and the ability to adopt the biological children of one`s partner. Renzi`s centre-right coalition allies, led by Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, are categorically opposed to adoption of children by a gay spouse, as is the Catholic fringe of the PM`s own Democratic Party (PD). Both camps have threatened to call a referendum if the bill passes as is. Meanwhile, left-wing parties in the opposition and the anti-establishment Five Star movement (M5S) -- whose support Renzi needs to get the bill through the Senate -- are threatening to pull the plug if even one comma of the text is changed. Polls show the country fairly equally divided on civil unions, but strongly opposed to adoptions. The premier, a practising Catholic who opposed the 2007 bill, has said the vote on the article in the bill regarding adoption will be done by secret ballot to allow conscientious objectors free rein. In the run-up, loud media headlines have been warning the adoption issue could affect 100,000 children in Italy. The country`s National Statistics Institute instead puts the figure at between 500 and 1,000 youngsters. Some have suggested a form of shared parental authority could be implemented while the child in question is a minor, after which it would be up to him or her to say whether they wish to be adopted by their so-called "social parent". But the idea has sent gay rights associations into a frenzy. The Cirinna bill is "the first step" to narrowing the gap with other countries and righting "a delay that does no honour to our country," said Gabriele Piazzoni, national secretary of Arcigay, the country`s largest such association. And on social networks, a hashtag by activist and transsexual former member of parliament Vladimir Luxuria has been picking up traction against the secret ballot, reading: #mettetecilafaccia or #showyourface. Ottawa: Canada rejected US security concerns over its fast-tracked resettlement of thousands of Syrian refugees, as the Senate in Washington prepares to hold a hearing on the repercussions for America. "We have put in place layers of security activity to ensure that our refugee initiative with respect to Syria can be successful," Canadian Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told Parliament yesterday. "The program is working well and indeed it will resolve in something that Canadians can be very, very proud of," he added in response to questions about why the Ottawa government declined an invitation to appear before the US Senate hearing. The US congressional panel is meeting next Wednesday to consider "Canada's Fast-Track Refugee Plan: Unanswered Questions and Implications for US National Security." It is scheduled to hear from a Toronto immigration lawyer who has criticised Canada's Syrian refugee plan, calling it unrealistic, border officials and others. Goodale said US officials have been fully briefed on Canada's refugee resettlement "and they understand exactly the layers of security screening that are in place," including UN assessments of asylum seekers, collection of biometrics and checks against security databases. A spokeswoman for Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister added, "We have emphasised and will continue to emphasise the integrity and robustness of our approach to the selection and screening of the Syrian refugees under consideration." Canada's new Liberal government pledged to take in 25,000 Syrian refugees -- more than double the US intake -- by the end of February. Its initial plan was to bring them to Canada by the end of 2015, but that was pushed back in response to criticism that the government was moving too fast, amid security concerns in the aftermath of deadly attacks in Paris, as well as due to logistical issues. Washington: US presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday escalated a fight with Fox News, using the word "bimbo" in a derogatory tweet about anchorwoman Megyn Kelly after pulling out of a debate only days before the first nominating contest of the 2016 campaign. Trump on Tuesday withdrew from the televised encounter, scheduled for Thursday night in Des Moines, Iowa, in irritation at host Fox News for allowing Kelly to moderate after her questioning angered him in a debate last year. The real estate magnate, who is the Republican front-runner to win the nomination for the Nov. 8 presidential election, followed up with a thinly veiled insult on Wednesday. "I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct," he wrote on Twitter. "Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!" Trump will appear on Fox Newss The OReilly Factor at 8 p.m. Wednesday to discuss his exit from the debate with host Bill OReilly. Trump`s Republican presidential rivals were quick to criticise the former reality TV star, with U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas blistering him in a series of tweets and accusing him of "trembling at being questioned by Kelly." Another Republican hopeful, U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, told Fox News that he welcomed Trumps absence from the debate stage because it means "we dont have to put up with a lot of empty blather and boastfulness and calling people names. Trump`s decision means the last televised debate before Monday`s Iowa caucuses - which kick off the state-by-state nominating race to choose candidates for the presidential election - will not feature the man who has dominated the Republican race for months and leads many opinion polls. It was seen as a bold gamble. `A risky move` Trump has said that in lieu of his debate participation he will hold a fundraiser for veterans. It will be held at Drake University in Des Moines and begin at the same time Thursday as the Fox debate, according to an invitation his campaign circulated Wednesday evening. "It`s a risky move, it`s very high-profile," said Craig Robinson, a former Iowa state party official. "But I`m not sure it will really change anyone`s mind about Trump." Trump has been feuding with Fox News since the network hosted the first Republican debate in August, in which Kelly asked Trump about his treatment of women, prompting a stream of insults from the candidate and complaints he was not being treated fairly. Cruz, Trump`s main rival in Iowa, used the hashtag #DuckingDonald to make fun of Trump for ducking out of the debate and tweeted a mocked-up picture of Trump`s head on Donald Duck`s body sitting on a pile of money. Cruz, a conservative and a debating champion in college, challenged Trump to a one-on-one debate. He tweeted a link to "duckingdonald.com," which asked visitors to sign a petition in favour of Cruz and Trump having a side debate. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, another Republican presidential contender, described Trumps decision at such a crucial time as a big mistake that calls into question his ability to be president. Anytime you get a podium and a microphone and 15-20 million people watching in an election campaign, you should take it, Christie told Boston Herald Radio. Another Republican candidate, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, said he wanted to focus on keeping the party united in order to beat Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, if she becomes the Democratic nominee. "These kinds of theatrics by Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are an entertaining sideshow, but they have nothing to do with defeating Hillary Clinton," Rubio said. Not every candidate was convinced Trump would follow through on his pledge to stay away. "He apparently is not going to come to the debate, although Ive got a $20 bet hell show up, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said at a town hall meeting in response to a question. "Poor little Donald, being treated unfairly, he said. Trump`s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said Trump was not afraid to debate his rivals or take reporters` questions. He added that Trump would be happy to debate Cruz if the contest, in which 12 Republicans are vying for their party`s nomination, narrows. "If it comes down to a two-person race, Donald Trump would be happy to debate him," Lewandowski told ABC`s "Good Morning America" programme. Fox News, in a statement on Tuesday, said it would not "give in to terrorizations towards any of our employees," but left the door open to Trump attending the debate. The event will be co-hosted by Google . "At the end of the day, Mr. Trump is going to have the last laugh," Lewandowski told MSNBC. Stockholm: Sweden intends to expel up to 80,000 failed asylum seekers, the interior minister said Wednesday, the latest move by EU states to tighten their borders in the face of the migrant crisis. Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said the mass expulsions of people who arrived last year as part of a record influx of migrants would use specially chartered aircraft and be staggered over several years. "We are talking about 60,000 people but the number could climb to 80,000," he was quoted saying by Swedish media, adding that police and migrant authorities have been tasked with organising the scheme. Sweden, a country of 9.8 million, took in more than 160,000 asylum seekers in 2015, putting it among the European Union states with the highest proportion of refugees per capita. More than one million people travelled to Europe last year -- the majority of them refugees fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan -- in the continent`s worst migration crisis since World War II. Most cross by boat from Turkey to Greece and the UN says more than 46,000 people have washed up on the EU member`s beaches so far this year, while 170 people died making the dangerous journey. But, with the influx showing little sign of abating despite wintry conditions, many countries -- including Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, France -- have tightened their asylum rules in a bid to discourage new arrivals.Reflecting the mounting tensions, Brussels on Wednesday blasted Greece`s handling of the crisis and warned it could face border controls with the EU`s passport-free Schengen zone if it does not protect the bloc`s frontiers. Greece is not the only country under fire -- Denmark has faced heavy criticism after its lawmakers passed a bill this week allowing authorities to seize valuables from refugees in a bid to deter new arrivals. Some have likened the move to the Nazis` confiscation of gold from Jews during the Holocaust, with Human Rights Watch denouncing the bill as "despicable". Neighbouring Sweden has seen the number of new migrants entering the country fall since it brought in systematic photo ID checks on travellers on January 4. Concerns have been growing over conditions in overcrowded asylum facilities, however, and on Tuesday officials called for greater security the day after an employee at a refugee centre for unaccompanied youths was stabbed to death. A young male allegedly attacked the 22-year-old employee, named by local media as Alexandra Mezher whose parents were from Lebanon, at a centre for youngsters in Molndal, near Gothenburg on Sweden`s west coast. Her death has led to questions about conditions inside some centres, with too few adults and employees to take care of children, many traumatised by war. Some 40 to 50 municipalities are facing extreme difficulties in Sweden`s biggest cities, according to local authority figures, while workers say many asylum facilities do not have enough resources to cope. Brussels: The European Union blasted Athens for its handling of the migrant crisis Wednesday, saying it had "seriously neglected" its duty to protect the bloc`s frontiers, raising the prospect of border controls with the rest of the passport-free zone. The criticism came ahead of a Swedish announcement that it intends to expel up to 80,000 migrants who arrived in 2015 and whose application for asylum has been rejected. Flimsy boats packed with migrants are still arriving on Greek beaches every day, with the passengers -- mostly fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan -- undeterred by cold wintry conditions. Rescuers on Wednesday found the bodies of seven more drowned migrants, including two children, after their boat sank near the Greek island of Kos -- just five days after 45 people perished in the Aegean Sea. The European Commission said Greece could face border controls with the rest of the EU`s passport-free Schengen zone if it fails to acts. "The draft report concludes that Greece seriously neglected its obligations and that there are serious deficiencies in the carrying out of external border controls that must be overcome and dealt with by Greek authorities," Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis told a press conference. The highly critical draft report found Greece was failing to properly register and fingerprint migrants, with security concerns still high after revelations that two jihadists behind November`s Paris attacks slipped into Europe by posing as refugees. Its findings pile further pressure on a country that has been fending off calls that it should face possible suspension from the 26-country Schengen zone, a cherished symbol of European unity. The report could pave the way for Brussels to authorise EU members to exceptionally extend border controls within the Schengen area -- including with Greece -- for up to two years, instead of the normal six months. Greece blasted the report as "unconstructive", accusing its EU peers of trying to shift blame instead of coming up with a joint solution to the continent`s worst migration crisis since World War II. "This tactic of diverting responsibility is not an effective response to a problem of historic dimensions, which requires joint action," said government spokeswoman Olga Gerovassili. Greece "is doing everything it can to respect its obligations, and we expect everyone else to do the same," she added. And Greek junior migration minister Yannis Mouzalas told AFP the situation had changed since the EU carried out its inspection for the report at the Turkish land border and on several Greek islands.The UN says more than 46,000 people have arrived in Greece so far this year, with more than 170 people killed making the dangerous crossing. In Brussels, Dombrovskis said that if a majority of the 28 EU member states adopt the Commission`s report, it will draw up a plan for shoring up Greece`s borders, especially its sea frontier with Turkey. "Greece will then have three months to implement remedial actions," Dombrovskis said. "If necessary remedial actions are not being taken there is a possibility... which would allow member states to temporarily close their borders." In the last few months, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, France and non-EU member Norway have all introduced six-month temporary controls in a bid to contain the influx. Sweden, which accepted more than 160,000 asylum seekers last year, is one of the European Union countries that has taken in the largest number of refugees in relation to its population of 9.8 million. Announcing the plan to deport up to 80,000 migrants, Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said the mass expulsions would have to be done using specially chartered aircraft and staggered over several years. Swedish officials have called for greater security at overcrowded asylum centres after the fatal stabbing this week of an employee at a refugee centre for unaccompanied youths. Her death has led to questions about overcrowded conditions inside some centres, with too few adults and employees to take care of children, many traumatised by war. Greece is not the only country under fire over its handling of the migrant crisis, with Denmark facing criticism Wednesday after its lawmakers passed a bill allowing authorities to seize valuables from refugees. Some likened the move to the Nazis` confiscation of gold from Jews during the Holocaust, with Human Rights Watch denouncing the bill as "despicable". Cairo: Egypt received three Rafale fighters from France on Thursday, the military said, six months after Paris delivered the first three of a consignment of 24 of the warplanes. The delivery is part of a EUR 5.2 billion (USD 5.6 billion) deal Cairo signed with Paris in February 2015 to purchase 24 Rafale multi-role combat jets, a frigate and missiles. "Egyptian armed forces have received the second batch of three Rafale fighter jets," the country's military spokesman said on his Facebook page. The sale of Rafales to Egypt was the first such export order for French manufacturer Dassault Aviation. In July, France also delivered a 6,000-tonne multi-mission frigate to Cairo as Egypt seeks to boost its military capability in the face of instability in Libya and a jihadist insurgency in its Sinai Peninsula. In October, the two countries signed another contract to buy two French Mistral warships, whose sale to Russia was cancelled by Paris because of the Ukraine crisis. Washington: North Korea appears to be readying some kind of a rocket launch, two US defense officials said Thursday, amid concerns Pyongyang is preparing to test a ballistic missile in violation of UN Security Council rules. The officials` comments came after Japanese media reported that satellite images showed North Korea seemed to be setting up a long-range ballistic missile launch from the Dongchang-ri site in western North Korea. "The indications are that they are preparing for some kind of launch," one US official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official did not say where in North Korea the preparations were taking place, but said people on the ground appeared to be readying "a regular space launch." "Could be for a satellite or a space vehicle -- there are a lot of guesses. North Korea does this periodically -- they move things back and forth," the official said. He added, however, that there was nothing to indicate the launch was "ballistic-missile related." But a second US official, who said the launch was coming "soon," cautioned that North Korea typically uses a space launch as a pretext for developing ballistic-missile capabilities. "Our concern is that when they do a space launch, it happens to be the same components that can be used in an ICBM," or intercontinental ballistic missile, the official added, also requiring anonymity. The development parallels events in December 2012, when Pyongyang put a satellite into orbit with its Unha-3 carrier. The international community condemned the launch as a disguised ballistic missile test, resulting in a tightening of UN sanctions, despite Pyongyang`s claim it was a scientific mission. Citing an anonymous government source, Kyodo News in Japan said the satellite imagery had been collected over the past several days. Increased movements of people and vehicles were seen around the launch site, which has now apparently been covered over, Japanese national broadcaster NHK said, citing a source familiar with Japan-South Korea relations. The United States regularly monitors North Korea from space, while Japan began satellite monitoring of the country in 2003. North Korea is banned under UN Security Council resolutions from carrying out any launch using ballistic missile technology, although repeated small-range missile tests have gone unpunished.The latest activity comes amid a flurry of diplomatic activity over possible further sanctions against Pyongyang for conducting its fourth nuclear test earlier this month. Pyongyang said the blast was a miniaturized hydrogen bomb, but experts have largely dismissed the claim. Washington is pushing for a strong United Nations response, including enhanced sanctions. But China, North Korea`s chief diplomatic protector and economic benefactor, is reluctant, even if Beijing`s patience has worn thin in recent years as its neighbor has pursued its nuclear weapons ambitions. US Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Wednesday and said they had agreed to mount an "accelerated effort" to resolve their differences over a new resolution. Kerry, who said nuclear-armed North Korea poses an "overt threat, a declared threat to the world," acknowledged that the two diplomats had not agreed on the "parameters of exactly what (a resolution) would do or say." South Korean defense ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok declined to confirm or deny the Japanese media reports, but said the South`s military was monitoring the site for any signs of a long-range missile launch. "In the past, North Korea always fired a long-range missile ahead of a nuclear test. But since it didn`t this time, we are concerned that it could launch one" afterward, Kim said. Kim also stressed that Pyongyang in the past had notified China and the US before carrying out nuclear tests, though this time it did not. "We believe that North Korea could launch grave provocations by surprise -- without pre-warning -- from now on." The North said that it carried out a submarine-launched ballistic missile test in December. Pyongyang hailed that test as a great success and released a video that researchers at the California-based James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies concluded had been heavily edited to cover up a "catastrophic" failure. The North claims it has developed long-range missiles capable of hitting the United States, but many experts say Pyongyang is still years away from obtaining a credible intercontinental ballistic missile capability. Tokyo: Satellite imagery analysis suggests North Korea may be preparing a long-range ballistic missile launch, Japan's Kyodo News reported today, citing a Japanese government source. Imagery collected over the past several days suggested the launch from the western Dongchang-ri site could come in about a week, Kyodo said. While the report did not provide any details on the source of the analysis, Japan's key security ally the United States regularly monitors North Korea from space while Japan itself in 2003 began its own satellite monitoring of the country. South Korean defence ministry spokesperson Kim Min-Seok declined to confirm or deny the report, saying the ministry did not comment on intelligence matters. He added, however, that South Korea's military was monitoring for any signs of a long-range missile launch. The report came as the international community discusses further sanctions against Pyongyang for conducting its fourth nuclear test earlier this month. "The reclusive country's supposed action could be aimed at flouting the (UN security) council and any plans among its members to tighten sanctions over the latest nuclear detonation," Kyodo said in its report. Washington is pushing for a strong United Nations response, including enhanced sanctions, to respond to the North's latest atomic blast. But China, North Korea's chief diplomatic protector and economic benefactor, is reluctant, despite their ties becoming strained in recent years as Beijing's patience wears thin with its neighbour's ambitions for nuclear weapons. US Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing yesterday and said they had agreed to mount an "accelerated effort" to try to resolve their differences on a new resolution. But Kerry, who said nuclear-armed North Korea poses an "overt threat, a declared threat to the world", acknowledged that the two had not agreed on the "parameters of exactly what it would do or say". Pyongyang said the blast earlier this month was a miniaturised hydrogen bomb, though experts have largely dismissed the claim. The South Korean defence ministry's Kim added that officials were on guard for any changes in North Korea's previous behaviour. Taipei: Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou flew to Itu Aba island in the disputed South China Sea on Thursday to reaffirm Taipei`s sovereignty over the outpost, ignoring criticism from Washington over the trip. Ma`s one-day visit to Itu Aba comes amid growing international concern over rising tensions in the South China Sea, especially in the wake of Beijing`s rapid creation of seven man-made islands in the Spratly archipelago. The Taiwanese Defence Ministry told Reuters that Ma had departed for Itu Aba. He is scheduled to hold a news conference around 1100 GMT on his arrival back in Taiwan. Washington, Taiwan`s biggest ally, on Wednesday called Ma`s trip "extremely unhelpful", adding it would not do anything to resolve disputes over the waterway. Taiwan has just finished a $100 million port upgrade and built a new lighthouse on Itu Aba, known as Taiping in Taiwan. The island, which lies in the Spratlys, also has an airstrip, a hospital and fresh water. Both Taiwan and China claim most of the South China Sea. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei also have competing claims. Vietnam`s top official in Taiwan said Hanoi "resolutely opposes" Ma`s visit. The Philippine Foreign Ministry said all parties had a shared responsibility to refrain from actions that could increase tensions. Ma`s office on Wednesday said the president, who steps down in May, would offer Chinese New Year wishes to residents on Itu Aba, mainly Taiwanese coastguard personnel and environmental scholars. "This is an exercise in national sovereignty, full of legitimacy and necessity," Taiwan`s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Given the tensions over the South China Sea, few senior political officials from any of the claimants have visited the contested region in recent years. Ma`s visit follows elections won by the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which declined a request by Ma to send a representative along. The DPP said Taiwan had a responsibility to maintain peace and stability in the area. Beijing on Wednesday reiterated that China and Taiwan had a common duty to protect Chinese sovereignty in the South China Sea. The claims of both China and Taiwan are based on maps from the late 1940s belonging to the Nationalists, when they ruled all of China. The Nationalists fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the Chinese civil war to Mao Zedong`s Communists. China has appeared unfazed by Taiwan`s upgrading work on Itu Aba. Military strategists say that is because Itu Aba could fall into China`s hands should it ever take over Taiwan, which it deems a wayward province to be retaken by force if necessary. The 46-hectare (114-acre) island supports around 180 people, about 150 of them coastguard personnel. Damascus: Key Syrian opposition members said on Thursday they will miss the start of crucial talks in Geneva aimed at ending the devastating war, as the UN warned the negotiations must not fail. Delegates from the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee said late Thursday that discussions in Riyadh over whether to attend the UN-brokered talks would continue the next day. Their absence in Geneva threats to derail the biggest diplomatic push yet to resolve the nearly five-year-old civil war, which has killed more than 260,000 people and forced millions from their homes. UN envoy Staffan de Mistura, in a video message to the Syrian people, said the talks could be their country`s last chance for peace. "Now we need to hear your voice to everyone who is coming to this conference, and saying this conference must be an opportunity not to be missed," the envoy said. He said that after several stalled peace processes, the Geneva talks "cannot fail". A spokeswoman for the UN talks, Khawla Mattar, said that no postponement was planned. A senior delegate of the High Negotiations Committee told AFP that a decision was expected on Friday on whether to attend the UN-brokered talks. Another delegate, Monzer Makhos, said that members "would not be there" in Geneva for the planned start of talks "as we have yet to make a decision". Western diplomats have piled pressure on the opposition to participate in the negotiations, which would be only the second dialogue between Syrians since the start of the conflict. The Committee has asked for "clarifications" after the UN issued invitations to other opposition figures, and wants assurances from the international community that it will move to end regime attacks on civilians and allow humanitarian aid. Salem al-Meslet, a Committee spokesman, said it was waiting for an answer from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the application of a Security Council resolution adopted in December that endorsed a roadmap for peace. He said De Mistura had already assured the opposition that two of the resolution`s articles -- calling for immediate access for humanitarian aid and an end to attacks on civilians -- were non-negotiable."We are serious about participating in the negotiations. The ones who are hindering the start (of talks) are those who are bombing and starving civilians," Meslet said. France-based Middle East analyst Agnes Levallois said the opposition was growing increasingly frustrated that the question of President Bashar al-Assad`s fate was being put off. "Assad is feeling stronger and stronger so is being inflexible," she said. Haytham Manna, a longstanding opposition figure who is co-chair of the political wing of a Kurdish-Arab alliance, told AFP in Geneva he did not expect talks to begin until Monday. A source close to the government in Damascus said its delegation, headed by Syria`s envoy to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari, would arrive on Friday. The talks are part of a UN-backed plan, agreed by top diplomats last year in Vienna, that envisages negotiations followed by a transitional government, a new constitution, and elections within 18 months. French President Francois Hollande called for negotiations to start as soon as possible. "We urgently need to put in place humanitarian measures and negotiate a political transition," Hollande said at a joint press conference with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Russia said on Thursday it wanted another meeting of world powers on Syria in Munich on February 11, when the first round of the Geneva talks could still be taking place. De Mistura`s office said on Tuesday it had issued invitations to the talks, but refused to say who had been invited. The Committee, which has named Mohammed Alloush of the Islamist rebel group Army of Islam as its chief negotiator, confirmed it had received an invitation, but so did several other opposition figures not belonging to the body. Former deputy Syrian premier Qadri Jamil told AFP in Geneva that he was part of a second opposition delegation invited to the talks. "We have decided we will not boycott the negotiations, but they will not succeed without the Kurds," he said. Turkey, a staunch opponent of the Syrian regime, has warned against any participation of Kurdish forces it says are linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers` Party (PKK). The push for talks comes as Syrian forces have been advancing against rebels in various parts of the country, thanks in large part to Russian air strikes launched in September. Critics have accused Moscow of killing hundreds of civilians in the strikes and on Thursday a monitor said at least 54 civilians had died in suspected Russian air raids in parts of northern and eastern Syria under IS control. BUENOS AIRES, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Argentine media firm Grupo Clarin S.A. said on Thursday its subsidiary Cablevision has taken full ownership of Nextel Communications Argentina, the country's fourth-largest mobile telephone company. Clarin's move to take 100 percent ownership of Nextel gives it a greater stake in Argentina's mobile market, in which Nextel holds a 3 percent share. In a notice to the country's market regulator, Clarin said Cablevision, Argentina's leading cable-TV provider, exercised an option to buy an additional 51 percent stake in Nextel. The deal is subject to approval by Argentina's media watchdog ENACOM, established by new President Mauricio Macri who has eased restrictions on media ownership since he entered office in December. Nextel faces much larger competitors in Argentina, such as Claro, owned by America Movil, Telecom Argentina's Personal, and Telefonica's Movistar. Clarin on Sept 14 bought an initial 49 percent stake in Nextel, a subsidiary of NII Holdings Inc, a Latin American mobile service provider. Days later the-then AFTIC media regulator rejected the deal, but that decision was later suspended by a local court. Clarin had been locked in a years-long battle with former President Cristina Fernandez that centred on the so-called Audiovisual Media Law introduced in 2009 that curbed media ownership. Clarin said Fernandez was taking deliberate aim at the company. In its first month in power, Macri's government dissolved the AFTIC watchdog and began easing restrictions laid out in the Audiovisual Media Law. The law capped corporate ownership of the broadcasting market, with the controls also applying to the cable sector. (Reporting by Maximiliano Rizzi and Richard Lough; Editing by Andrew Hay) [Cindy Blackstock , executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society Caring Society, speaks during a news conference regarding a ruling by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal with Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde in Ottawa, Canada, Jan. 26, 2016. REUTERS/Chris Wattie] Nine years ago, Cindy Blackstock filed a federal human rights complaint over the funding for child-welfare services provided to First Nations by the federal aboriginal affairs department. The president of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, along with the Assembly of First Nations, argued that the government provided far less funding per child than the provinces provided for non-aboriginal children, which amounted to racial discrimination. This week, a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal released a decision that upheld the complaint and agreed that the government of Canada discriminates against aboriginal children by underfunding the services on reserves a decision that could have repercussions for not only child-welfare funding but also education, health services and housing. Yahoo Canada News spoke to Blackstock about her lengthy battle and what the decision means. Q: What led you to file the complaint? A: I had actually worked as a child protection worker on the front lines myself and I began my career working off-reserve. Then when I moved on-reserve I was absolutely astounded by the inequities. Things that I took for granted as basic help for kids were no longer available because of the federal funding inequalities and I found that so unjust because I saw the harms to children first-hand. One of the cases I could never get out of my mind was a little boy with cerebral palsy. He was in child-welfare care and he required a standing frame and the federal government refused to fund it. His standing frame was held together by duct tape and they said hes going to have to wait another three years so he can qualify. Story continues It just shocked me and I felt I needed to do something about it. Q: Did you have any idea when you set out that it would be so long? Never in a million years. Im one of those people who believe that if you can document the problem which we did and they agreed you show them that its harming kids by driving record numbers into child-welfare care because their families dont get the same support as everybody else and then you develop a solution. The most surprising thing about this case is that we had to do it all. We had to file a case against the Feds so that they would treat little kids equally. Q: What was this like for you personally? The federal government actually put me under surveillance. I know this from their own documents. The privacy officer found that they violated the Privacy Act by collecting personal information about me and the tribunal found that they wilfully and recklessly retaliated against me for filing the complaint. [Blackstock was barred from attending a meeting of First Nations chiefs and officials at the Aboriginal Affairs ministry in 2009. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ordered the department to pay $20,000 to Blackstock for the behaviour of David McArthur, former special assistant to then-minister Chuck Strahl.] It was a bit scary, to be honest. Here I was just trying to stand up for kids and I had all this surveillance happening and everything else and I dont even have a parking ticket, let alone a criminal record. But I was always aware that the ones that really needed help were the children and it was my job to stand up for them. So, if this decision means these kids finally get what they need this will totally be worth it and Id do it again in a minute. Q: What comes next? We are asking the government to do two things: one is to publicly say they wont appeal the decision. They havent said that yet. The second is that from previous reviews we have done, we have action items they can take; that they could have taken the day of the ruling and made the lives of children better. They havent done those things yet. Q: Have you heard from the federal government? I want to give the minister credit for welcoming the decision. Thats a very positive step and we do have a meeting with them next week. Im hoping that even before that well hear public commitments to end this racial discrimination against children because its not only good for these 163,000 children but its good for Canada. Theres no room in Canadian society for racial discrimination to be a fiscal restraint measure of any government. It absolutely takes us away from the moral core of the nation. I feel that it really is the prime minister who needs to exercise leadership here and say across all government departments because theres many government departments involved in this, not just Indian Affairs say that this is unacceptable and were going to open a new day today. Q: What are your priorities for the government to begin changes? Ive already given it to them. And its on our website. Because Im focused on solutions and these are doable things, for example, implement Jordans Principle. What happens is that First Nations children face a whole extra layer of red tape when they try to access basic public services because the departments will argue over who should pay for it and this results in some very tragic and frequent delays or denials of service. For example, there was a little girl, four years old, and she went in for dental surgery. Something went horribly wrong and she required some life-saving equipment to be discharged before Christmas. There were over 17 different officials involved in this case in Health Canada and Indigenous Affairs and the Health Canada official, after a month, finally writes that theyre absolutely not going to pay for this piece of equipment. An exasperated private citizen actually had to step in and provide that equipment for that little girl. If she was non-aboriginal she would have gotten it. Jordans Principle simply says that First Nations kids should be able to access services on the same terms as others and not be denied services because theyre First Nations. Q: Whats next for you? Im going to keep at it because this decision was wonderful of the tribunal but nothings changed for children yet. I want to see a generation of First Nations children who are able to grow up safely with their families, get a good education and be healthy and proud of who they are. And I want to see a generation of non-aboriginal children who get those same things and they can grow up in friendship and in respect of one another and co-create a society where no child is ever told again, Youre not worth the money. This interview has been condensed and edited. By Joseph Ax NEW YORK (Reuters) - For coastal communities in New York and New Jersey, the powerful snowstorm menacing the East Coast this weekend brings an added danger beyond freezing temperatures, power outages and slippery roads. More than three years after Superstorm Sandy caused massive flooding damage in the region, officials said they were not expecting that level of storm surge but were nevertheless prepared for anything. "Between the snow and the flooding, personally, I'm more worried about the flooding," New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said at a press conference on Friday afternoon. The storm's arrival coincides with a full moon, ensuring that strong winds will combine with a high tide to produce significant flooding. The threat comes as many communities are still struggling to recover following Sandy's devastation. The beach resort town of Seaside Heights in New Jersey currently has a population of about 1,000, a far cry from the 3,000 year-round residents it had before Sandy, according to borough administrator Christopher Vaz. Many residents are still unable to return to homes destroyed by the floodwater. Vaz said officials have encouraged elderly and sick residents to consider leaving low-lying areas. The flooding is "absolutely" more of a concern than the snow, Vaz said. "We can handle six or 12 inches of snow," he said. In Ocean City, just south of Atlantic City, crews have used bulldozers to block beach access points with sand in an effort to slow down any storm surge. A number of vehicles, including repurposed military trucks, were available in case evacuations are needed. Frank Donato, who heads the Ocean City's emergency management office, said the latest forecasts were calling for as much as an eight-foot tide on Saturday night. While that represents a significant storm surge, it is still two feet short of the level reached during Sandy. "This is pretty typical for a strong nor'easter," Donato said. The looming storm prompted New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who had initially said he would continue to campaign in New Hampshire for the Republican presidential nomination, to reverse course and head back to his state on Friday evening. Christie made headlines in 2012 when he toured communities devastated by Sandy with President Barack Obama. While he drew praise for his response from many state residents, he also endured criticism from conservatives when he commended Obama's response, just days before the Democratic president was reelected for a second term. Officials said the years since Sandy had seen infrastructure improvements and hundreds of homes elevated above flood levels, though much of the work remains unfinished. "Not everyone is raised," said Paul Daley, the emergency management coordinator for the New Jersey shore community Toms River. "Some are still destroyed. Some are still in the design phase." Daley said crews have been out for days shoring up dunes on the beach using bulldozers. "We're expecting the worst and hoping for the best," Daley said. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city has "high-axle vehicles" and "swift water rescue teams" ready to go and has designated 16 potential shelter sites if evacuations are ordered. On Long Island, Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano said public works employees had been out for days clearing stormwater drains to ensure maximum capacity. The county has acquired a lot of equipment since Sandy to respond to flooding, including inflatable rescue boats. "Our residents post-Hurricane Sandy are more aware of the devastation a storm can bring," he said. "Most of our residents are better prepared should they be asked to leave their home." (Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Frank McGurty and Diane Craft) By Brendan O'Brien MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - A Milwaukee man who authorities said was planning to kill dozens of people in a mass shooting at a Masonic temple has been arrested and charged with possession of two machine guns and a silencer, federal officials said on Tuesday. Samy Mohamed Hamzeh, 23, told two people who turned out to be FBI confidential sources that he planned to carry out the shooting at a Masonic temple in Milwaukee in an attack that would be "known the world over" and in order to "ignite broader clashes," the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement. Authorities did not indicate whether Hamzeh is a U.S. citizen. He was arrested on Monday after he bought the two machine guns and a silencer from undercover FBI agents during a meeting that included the FBI sources, authorities said. The officials said Hamzeh had been under investigation since September and had first considered an attack on Israelis in the West Bank but decided instead to plan an attack in the United States. He abandoned that plan because of family, financial and logistical reasons, according to a criminal complaint. Hamzeh enlisted the help of two people he did not know were confidential sources for the FBI, and the trio had conversations in Arabic about plans to attack the temple, prosecutors said. "We are Muslims, defending Muslim religion, we are on our own ...," he said, according to the complaint. On Jan. 19, the three practiced firing a handgun at a range and then took a guided tour of the Masonic temple to learn when and where people would be meeting, the criminal complaint said. Hamzeh told the others they each needed to have a machine gun and a silencer, the Justice Department said. During their discussions about the attack, Hamzeh said he envisioned one person guarding the temple's main door while the others went upstairs to kill people in a meeting, according to authorities. "I am telling you, if this hit is executed, it will be known all over the world," Hamzeh told the sources, according to the Justice Department. "Sure, all over the world, all the mujahedeen will be talking and they will be proud of us." A Masonic temple is a meeting place for Masons, members of a fraternal organization. (Reporting by Brendan O'Brien; Editing by Peter Cooney and Sandra Maler) The Canada Revenue Agency has brought a Winnipeg woman back from the dead, so to speak, after the taxman accidentally declared her deceased in December. "It feels good. I'm excited. I want to get my student loan and everything and just get on with my life," said Alyanna Lapuz, 21, who had tried for weeks to have the agency address the error. Lapuz had received a letter from the CRA on Jan. 7 addressed to the "Estate of the Late Alyanna Lapuz." "I was just like, 'What is this?'" Lapuz said. She called CRA and spoke to an agent: "She said I was deceased." Lapuz believes premature reports of her death may have occurred when she called the agency in December to switch her GST cheques to direct deposit. "From direct deposit I became deceased," Lapuz said. "I didn't know you could just click a button and make somebody dead." Lapuz called the agency back repeatedly over the next few weeks, only to learn she was still considered dead. What was initially an amusing mix-up became a stressful problem requiring multiple calls and visits to the agency to fix the mistake. "I broke into tears because I was just so frustrated," she said. "I didn't know what to do any more. No one was helping." It didn't take long for her newly deceased status to interfere with her life. Lapuz is slated to start a dental hygienist program in Toronto in April, but her student loan application was put on hold because her social insurance number was invalid. The reason? Lapuz was also flagged in that system as deceased. "If I don't have my student loan, I don't know how I'm paying for school," Lapuz said. Lapuz is angry the agency had not been able to tell her how it happened or why it was taking so long to fix. She's also worried the situation may affect her taxes and other government documentation. "If you can click a button and make me dead, you can reverse it as fast as you did it," Lapuz said. "It took you two seconds to kill me, but it takes you what, months to un-kill me?" Story continues Late Thursday afternoon, Lapuz told CBC News a CRA manager in Calgary phoned her to apologize and say everything has been fixed. She added that the manager informed her that two employees who made errors in her case will be spoken to. "She says that it was an employee error, so that was nice, and she's saying that everything's OK now," Lapuz said. Lapuz said she also learned from Service Canada that her social insurance number has had its "deceased" flag removed. Thousands wrongly declared dead This isn't the first time an error like this has happened. Between 2007 and 2013, 5,489 Canadians have been erroneously entered as deceased in CRA's system. It has happened so often that in 2014 the Office of the Taxpayers' Ombudsman released a report on the problem and made eight recommendations to fix it. Among the recommendations were improvements to the clarity of CRA's forms for reporting death and following up with people who report deaths to the agency "to substantiate the date of death." The CRA initially declined an interview and noted it could not speak about individual cases. In a statement to CBC News, the agency said the rate of these errors has dropped since 2013. "Despite safeguards to ensure the accuracy of our files, occasionally information we receive is incorrect or human error can occur during the processing of a taxpayer's information," the statement said. "When CRA becomes aware of an error, we do inform our partners. The CRA responds quickly to take corrective measures when an error is reported. In fact, the CRA aims to rectify the situation within 24 hours." However, it's been three weeks since Lapuz first reported the error to the CRA, and until Thursday afternoon she had yet to be assured the problem would be fixed. Bob Campbell, the national president of the Union of Taxation Employees, which represents 25,000 CRA employees across the country, said errors in any job are likely to happen. But he points to the 6,000 jobs cut from CRA over the past four years. "You cannot have less people doing a lot more work," said Ottawa-based Campbell. "You're only allowed so much time on each file or on each item you're dealing with." Campbell sees a connection between Lapuz's problem and CRA staffing. "It all comes down to the amount of people that are available to do the job," he said. Whatever the reason, Lapuz just wants to be back among the living. "I feel like as days go by my student loans are not going to work, I'm worried my credit cards are not going to work. I'm running out of time," she said. "This should have been fixed the first time I called." The taxpayers' ombudsman declined to comment for this story. The CRA said it has accepted and acted on all eight recommendations from the ombudsman's report. If you have a tip for the CBC News I-Team, please call our confidential tip line at (204) 788-3744 or email iteam@cbc.ca. Virtualization Move Your Labs Online As more classes go online, schools need a workable approach for giving students access to high-demand software. Virtual desktops provide the answer. Even as online courses proliferate on campus, those programs face a challenge: How do you give students access to high-octane software and big data sets they need for their classes when they can't simply walk into a computer lab on campus and log in? At Indiana University, for example, three online courses required access to ArcGIS, a high-end mapping application. Historically, the university would bundle up 10 or so DVDs with the software loaded alongside student data sets and ship them to students at the start of the course. When the university's technology services organization calculated the amount of time students spent sorting out the installation on their own computing equipment alongside the time spent by staff and faculty packaging the files, making the instructions and handling the inevitable tech support calls and e-mails, it was obviously not the right approach "if we were going to move to scale in the online environment," said Matthew Gunkel, manager of e-learning design and services. A similar situation surfaced at Capella University, where students all of whom are online needed to use industry-grade applications such as Microsoft Project and EnCase Forensic in order to perform the technical requirements of their courses. Dean of Technology Sue Talley has been at her position in the School of Business and Technology for long enough to see the evolution of Capella from storing software on its servers in places where students could download it to dabbling in the virtual space "doing some really simple things with the software" to going whole-hog with virtualization. In both schools, virtualized desktops now provide an experience for students comparable to walking into that physical computer lab. But the approaches differ. In IU's case, the technologists have integrated components developed internally and externally to create a virtual desktop solution with "zero logistical overhead," as David Goodrum, director of teaching and learning technologies, put it. Capella, on the other hand, has outsourced the work to a service provider that specializes in delivering virtual environments for just about any purpose. Seeking a "Really Good" Student Experience For its virtual desktop project, IU's Technology Services organization brought together three divisions Goodrum and Gunkel's Learning Technologies, as well as Client Services and Support and Enterprise Systems. Their job was to figure out how to move various classes online in a way that would "create a really good experience for our students," said Goodrum. Client Services had already introduced IUanyWare, which allows users to run applications from almost any computing device without first having to install them on the device. However, first, the user has to install Citrix Receiver, a client application for setting up a virtual desktop. That desktop reaches into the IUanyWare server to launch the virtualized applications. While IUanyWare had found pickup among faculty and staff, usage didn't extend much to the classroom. SAN MATEO, CA--(Marketwired - Jan 28, 2016) - Argyle Data, the leader in native Hadoop applications for revenue threat analytics in mobile communications, and Kalostec have signed a partnership agreement to provide Argyle Data's application suite in Latin America as part of its big data analytics and security solution set. The agreement is the third in as many months, continuing Argyle Data's momentum towards rapid international expansion. The agreement marks an important step forward in Argyle Data's international channel expansion strategy, giving the company its first foothold in Latin America. It also reflects the growing demand from Latin American mobile communications operators for solutions to fight fraud. Based in Buenos Aires, Kalostec is a big data systems integrator with close relationships to the major telecommunications operators in the region. With more than half the population in the region now subscribing to a mobile service, the telecommunications market in Latin America continues to grow. However, the GSMA reports that operator revenue growth is forecast to slow to just 2% between 2013 and 2020 making managing the bottom line a top priority. Central and South American mobile operators lose almost $2 billion dollars per year to fraud with subscription and dealer fraud forming almost 30% of the problem (according to the Communications Fraud Control Association's latest report). Subscription fraud, commonly known as "never-pay" or "first default" where a subscriber receives a discounted phone and does not pay the first month's fees, is an increasing problem. "Mobile fraud and revenue threats do not respect international boundaries, and we are seeing increasing demand globally, requiring partnerships worldwide," said Vikash Varma, President and CEO at Argyle Data. "Leading mobile operators see the increasing threat of subscription, never-pay and dealer fraud and know that a new approach, with more than a simple credit check, is required. Story continues "Leading mobile operators see modern big data approaches, using machine learning against vast quantities of information in a data lake, as the way to detect never-pay and dealer fraud and also protect their network and subscribers from increasingly sophisticated attacks. We are very pleased to work with Kalostec to bring this state-of-the-art approach to mobile operators in Latin America." "Today's businesses urgently need solutions that allow them to make strategic use of massive amounts of data, especially in the area of fraud detection and prevention," said Sergio Penas, CEO at Kalostec. "With their focus on big data and analytics, and native Hadoop technology, Argyle Data's application for threat analytics is highly relevant to our mobile communications customers and will form a key element of our big data solutions portfolio." About Kalostec Kalostec provides big data analytics, virtualization, storage and security consulting services to corporations in the Latin America market. About Argyle Data Argyle Data is used by the world's leading mobile operators to detect the fraud, profit, and SLA threats that cost the industry $38 billion per year. Argyle Data's industry leading native Hadoop application suite uses the latest Hadoop and machine learning technologies, proven at Facebook and Google, to identify the revenue threats and attack patterns being waged against mobile networks in real time. To learn more please visit: Argyle Data Website Fraud & Technology Wire LinkedIn Twitter democratic debate US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) would participate in an additional Democratic presidential debate, but only if specific terms are met, his campaign announced on Wednesday evening. On Tuesday, MSNBC and the New Hampshire Union Leader announced that they would host an unsanctioned Democratic debate on February 4, only days before the New Hampshire primary. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) agreed to join, and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's campaign said that she would participate as long as Sanders and O'Malley also attended. Sanders, however, is still holding out for a better deal. The Sanders campaign released a statement on Wednesday proposing three debates in addition to the last-minute contest on February 4. The campaign also said that the senator would only participate if the debates were held on non-holiday weekdays a marked difference likely from the current schedule of Democratic debates, which were almost exclusively held on weekends, when viewership is historically lower. In the Wednesday statement, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver pinned the blame on Clinton, slamming the former secretary of state for remaining silent despite Sanders and O'Malley's previous demand for more prime-time debates. Weaver said: From the beginning of this campaign Sen. Sanders has called for more debates. Secretary Clinton has not. Now she is asking to change the rules to schedule a debate next week that is not sanctioned by the DNC. Why is that? The answer is obvious. The dynamics of the race have changed and Sen. Sanders has significant momentum. Sen. Sanders is happy to have more debates but we are not going to schedule them on an ad hoc basis at the whim of the Clinton campaign. Her campaign did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment about whether it would agree to Sanders' terms. Despite claims that the Democratic National Committee rigged the debate schedule to favor Clinton, campaign staffers have reportedly said privately that additional debates would be welcome because she has been a strong debater. Story continues NOW WATCH: A North Korean defector tells us how she escaped and survived More From Business Insider (Adds Bombardier comment) NEW YORK, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Bombardier Inc was sued on Wednesday for at least $10.1 million (C$14.2 million) by a unit of Comerica Inc, after the Canadian aircraft maker was unable to find buyers for four planes whose leases had expired. According to a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Comerica Leasing Corp was the beneficiary under owner trusts that had bought the planes from Bombardier, and then leased them for 16-1/2 years to a predecessor of SkyWest Inc's ExpressJet unit. Comerica said Bombardier had guaranteed minimum residual values for the CL-600 business jets, which were developed by the former Canadair, and would make up shortfalls if it found no buyers or received only low bids within 90 days after the leases expired. But after failing to find buyers during the 90-day period, Montreal-based Bombardier breached its contractual obligations by failing to make required payments to Comerica, the Detroit-based bank unit said. Comerica is seeking just over $2.5 million for each plane, plus interest and legal fees. A Bombardier spokeswoman said the company performed in accordance with the contracts' terms, and the allegations in the complaint are without merit. The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan because the parties agreed that the dispute could be resolved there, Comerica said. Shares of Bombardier closed below C$1 on Wednesday, reflecting a shortage of new aircraft orders. The case is Comerica Leasing Corp v Bombardier Inc, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 16-00614. ($1 = C$1.407) (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Sunil Nair) By Michel Rose and John Irish PARIS (Reuters) - France and Iran hailed the sale of Airbus planes and the renewal of a decades-old carmaking venture as symbols of thawing relations on Thursday while protesters in Paris tried to get human rights onto the agenda. President Hassan Rouhani was accompanied on his official visit to Paris, the first by an Iranian president since 1999, by ministers and business leaders who announced deals including a joint venture between carmakers PSA Peugeot Citroen and Iran Khodro and plans for Iran to buy 118 Airbus passenger planes to update its ageing fleet. His visit after a stop-off in Rome for more deals follows an agreement between Iran and the west on Iran's nuclear programme, allowing the lifting of sanctions this month. The deals were signed at a ceremony attended by Rouhani and French President Francois Hollande. Construction group Bouygues and airport operator ADP are set to build an extension for Tehran airport, while Vinci , another building firm, is lined up to design, build and operate new terminals for the Mashhad and Ispahan airports. French oil company Total said it would buy some 200,000 barrels of Iranian crude from the OPEC producer. There were also deals in shipping, health, agriculture and water provision, all signed despite continued diplomatic tensions. DEALS UNFINISHED, BANKS WARY The Airbus deal alone is worth $27 billion at list prices and French government sources put a 15 billion euro ($16 billion) overall tag on the agreements. But most have yet to be finalised or are subject to conditions. Senior French bankers have expressed wariness. Iran's industry minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh said an agreement between French export-credit group Coface and the Iranian central bank signed this week was an important step in the right direction. But he said French banks must support a corporate push into post-sanctions Iran. "If they don't get active, there will be no increase in business," he warned. For Peugeot, the Iranian factory tie up is critical. When it suspended sales in Iran in 2012 it lost nearly 10 percent of global deliveries and interrupted a relationship dating back more than 50 years. Under Thursday's deal, set to be finalised in the middle of this year, Peugeot and Iran Khodro plan to modernise a factory near Tehran and be producing cars by mid 2017. They target an initial 200,000 vehicles a year making Peugeot 208, 2008 and 301 models with a Peugeot investment of 400 million euros ($436 million) over five years. Away from the signing ceremonies and speeches, an estimated 3,000 people marched through Paris seeking to raise awareness about human rights. A protestor from the Femen womens' activist group dangled in a mock hanging from a bridge with an Iranian flag painted across her naked chest. Human Rights Watch criticised Iran on the death penalty and abuse of rights of women and minorities. It also said the state of emergency declared by Hollande after Islamist militant attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 last year threatens rights to liberty and freedom of movement. ($1 = 0.9125 euros) (Additional reporting by Tim Hepher, Michel Rose, Bate Felix, Gilles Guillaume and James Regan; Writing by Andrew Callus; Editing by Leigh Thomas and Ruth Pitchford) BRUSSELS, Belgium, Jan. 27, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pursuant to the Belgian Law of May 2, 2007 relating to the publication of major shareholdings in listed companies, Delhaize Group has received a notification of the threshold of 5% being crossed downwards by Silchester International Investors LLP which owned 4.98% of Delhaize Group's voting rights as of January 21, 2016. On January 22, 2016, Silchester International Investors LLP notified Delhaize Group that as of January 21, 2016 Silchester International Investors LLP owned 5 179 425 Delhaize Group shares, representing 4.98% of its voting rights. The denominator is 104 004 952 shares. According to their previous notification received on December 18, 2014, Silchester International Investors LLP owned 10 239 515 shares, which then represented 9.97% of Delhaize Group's voting rights. Silchester International Investors LLP is controlled by Silchester Partners Limited, which holds over 90% of its capital interests. Stephen C. Butt, Silchester's Chairman and Chief Investment Officer, and his family control approximately 51.5% of the shares of Silchester Partners Limited. Silchester International Investors LLP acts as the fully discretionary investment manager for a number of funds, such as Silchester International Investors International Value Equity Taxable Trust, Silchester International Investors International Value Equity Group Trust, Silchester International Investors Tobacco Free International Value Equity Trust, Silchester International Investors International Value Equity Trust and The Cavella Trust. Silchester International Investors LLP has sole and exclusive proxy voting authority over the Delhaize Group voting rights that are the subject of this disclosure. The notification mentioned however that Silchester International Investors LLP does not act as custodian, and therefore the Delhaize Group shares are not held in its name. The notification is available on our website under the section Corporate Governance. Delhaize Group Delhaize Group is a Belgian international food retailer present in seven countries on three continents. At the end of 2015, Delhaize Group's sales network consisted of 3 512 stores. In 2015, Delhaize Group posted 24.4 billion ($27.1 billion) in revenues. In 2014, Delhaize Group posted 89 million ($118 million) in net profit (Group share). At the end of 2014, Delhaize Group employed approximately 150 000 people. Delhaize Group's stock is listed on NYSE Euronext Brussels (DELB) and the New York Stock Exchange (DEG). This press release is available in English, French and Dutch. You can also find it on the website http://www.delhaizegroup.com. Questions can be sent to investor@delhaizegroup.com . Contacts Investor Relations: + 32 2 412 2151 Media Relations: + 32 2 412 8669 Press release in PDF http://hugin.info/133961/R/1981391/725913.pdf HUG#1981391 As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQ By William Schomberg LONDON - Britain's trade unions are close to joining the push to keep the country in the European Union, bringing grass-roots muscle to a fight that has so far been dominated by big business and bankers, the head of the country's largest union group said. Unions will fight to stay in, emphasising jobs and workers' rights, Frances O'Grady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, told Reuters in an interview. Voters were not yet listening to the arguments because the campaign to date has had little to do with their everyday lives, she said. "There is a real danger that this campaign is turning into a debate between elites funded by the big banks on the one hand and hedge funds on the other," O'Grady said, referring to some of the main financiers of the rival camps. Opinion polls suggest voters are split almost 50-50 on whether to pull Britain out of the EU in a vote which Prime Minister David Cameron is likely to schedule for later this year. "What we need to do is start putting rights and jobs centre stage in the campaign debate," O'Grady said. "The bulk of the rights at work that matter to us originated in Europe." Britain has around 6 million union members, half the number of the late 1970s. But the TUC, which represents most unions, remains a political force with close ties to the opposition Labour Party which is broadly supportive of EU membership. In a referendum in 1975, the TUC campaigned to get Britain out of what was then European Economic Community. But it turned pro-Europe in the 1980s when Brussels promised to combine the allure for business of a single European market with strong protections for workers, something that contrasted with the bitter industrial conflict raging at the time between unions and former prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Last year, the TUC held off from promising to fight to keep Britain in the EU in protest at signs that Cameron wanted to water down the bloc's so-called Social Chapter incorporating workers' rights before he called the EU membership referendum. O'Grady said she was now confident that a weakening of protections such as guaranteed paid holidays and parental leave and health and safety rules would not be among the reforms Cameron is expected to clinch with other EU leaders next month. That means that all but a few of the 52 unions represented by the TUC are likely to urge voters to stay in the EU. "FABRIC OF UK" The EU-mandated protections for workers would be at risk if Britain votes to leave the EU. Many lawmakers in Cameron's Conservative Party resent them as an embodiment of EU over-reach into the affairs of member states. For the TUC, by contrast, they are sacrosanct. "A Brexit would have massive implications for jobs, rights, and the very fabric of the UK," O'Grady said, referring to a possible British exit. "If you take that floor away, workers will be worse off. It's a hell of a gamble for those, who want to leave Europe, to depend on particularly the government we have now to protect the rights on which so many people's working lives depend." The relationship between the EU and Europe's labour unions has come under strain in recent years. Many unions complain the bloc has taken an increasingly pro-business stance and were appalled by the austerity measures that it ordered for countries such as Greece, Spain and Portugal during the euro zone's debt crisis. O'Grady said Brussels had to show disillusioned voters that it could help them by spurring Europe to create more and better jobs. And, in an increasingly competitive global economy, Europe represented the best bet for Britain's workers, she said. "If I was asked the question, would workers be better off under a model of capitalism dominated by Russia or China or America, the answer is clear," O'Grady said. "However imperfect Europe is, it's better than the alternatives." (Writing by William Schomberg; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge/Jeremy Gaunt) Copenhagen (AFP) - Denmark's parliament on Tuesday adopted reforms aimed at dissuading migrants from seeking asylum by delaying family reunifications and allowing authorities to seize valuables, under legislation that has sparked widespread condemnation. The government insists the law is needed to stem the flow of refugees even though Denmark and Sweden recently tightened their borders -- a move that prompted Germany and Austria to turn back new arrivals heading for Scandinavia. After just under four hours of debate, the bill presented by the right-wing minority government of Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen was approved by 81 of the 109 lawmakers present. Approval had been widely expected, as the main opposition party, the Social Democrats, backed the measures as did two small rightwing parties. "There's no simple answer for a single country, but until the world comes together on a joint solution (to the migrant crisis), Denmark needs to act," MP Jakob Ellemann-Jensen of Rasmussen's Venstre party said during the debate. The legislation had stirred great controversy, but Rasmussen defended it as "the most misunderstood bill in Denmark's history." International outrage focused on plans to allow police to seize cash and valuables from refugees to help pay for their stay in asylum centres, while rights activists blasted a proposed three-year delay for family reunifications as a breach of international conventions. Some likened the Danish proposals to the confiscation of gold and other valuables from Jews by the Nazis during the Holocaust. - 'What is the alternative?' - Rasmussen shrugged off the criticism, seemingly more concerned with opinion polls showing that 70 percent of Danes rank immigration as their top political concern. Social Democrat Dan Jorgensen addressed opponents of the bill, demanding: "To those saying what we are doing is wrong, my question is: What is your alternative? Story continues "The alternative is that we continue to be (one of) the most attractive countries in Europe to come to, and then we end up like Sweden." Copenhagen has often referred to neighbouring Sweden as a bad example, where 163,000 asylum applications were submitted last year -- five times more than in Denmark relative to their population size. Denmark's minority government eventually backtracked on parts of the plan to confiscate migrants' valuables in order to secure wider backing. Asylum-seekers will now have to hand over cash exceeding 10,000 kroner (1,340 euros, $1,450) and any individual items valued at more than that amount, up from the initial 3,000 kroner proposed. After thorny negotiations with the other parties, Integration Minister Inger Stojberg agreed to exempt wedding rings and other items of sentimental value. The government points out that Danes seeking to qualify for social benefits sometimes also have to sell their valuables. However, they are not subjected to the kind of searches proposed in the new asylum law. - 'Plain wrong' - Once a champion of refugee rights, the Scandinavian country's goal is now to become "significantly less attractive for asylum-seekers", Stojberg said. "The tone in the public debate about refugees and immigrants has undoubtedly become tougher," Kashif Ahmad, the leader of the National Party, which hopes to enter parliament by targeting the immigrant vote, told AFP. John Dalhuisen, Europe and Central Asia director at Amnesty International, said the law was "plain wrong" and "a sad reflection of how far Denmark has strayed" from its historic support of international norms in the Refugee Convention. "European states must stop this dismal race to the bottom and begin to meet their international obligations, by upholding refugees' human rights and dignity," said Dalhuisen. "Anything less is a betrayal of our common humanity." But Marcus Knuth, Venstre's spokesman on integration issues, said such criticism was unfair. "Denmark continues to be one of the most welcoming and caring places that you can seek asylum in. So the criticism that all of a sudden we were doing something wrong we find highly, highly unfair," he told AFP. "We simply wish to be put more at par with other European countries so that we are not one of the countries that receive by far the most asylum-seekers." Home to 5.6 million people, Denmark registered 21,000 asylum applications in 2015, making it one of the top EU destinations per capita. Criticism had mounted ahead of Tuesday's vote, with the UN refugee agency UNHCR and the Council of Europe questioning compatibility with international conventions. But Rasmussen, whose party won a June election after promising an "immediate slowdown" of Denmark's refugee influx, was unfazed, arguing in turn that the UN Refugee Convention may need to be changed if refugees keep pouring into Europe. Twenty-seven MPs voted against the bill in the one-chamber parliament, including three dissenting Social Democrats. A legislator for Greenland, a Danish territory, abstained and 70 MPs did not take part. The bill is scheduled to be signed into law by Denmark's Queen Margrethe within a few days. By Alisa Tang BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Severe El Nino-linked drought has destroyed crops, killed farm animals and dried up water sources across East Asia and the Pacific, aid workers said, and UNICEF appealed for $62 million to assist children impacted by various crises in the region. Humanitarian agencies are monitoring and responding to droughts and food insecurity in an area from Indonesia and the Philippines, southeast to Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands. "El Nino is peaking at the moment, and we expect the impacts to come up after the peak," said Krishna Krishnamurthy, a regional climate risk analyst for the World Food Programme. Krishnamurthy visited East Timor earlier this month and saw areas that were parched even though their rainy season was supposed to have started in November. "Rivers are completely dry in several parts of the country," he said, noting some hard-hit areas were deceptively green. "I saw green paddy fields, but it's not rice - it's weeds and grass. It's difficult to monitor remotely (from satellite images). That's why the post-harvest assessment will be quite critical." The El Nino phenomenon, occurring every few years and caused by unusual warming of the Pacific Ocean, triggers heavy rains and floods in South America and dry, scorching weather in Asia and East Africa, and usually lasts about one year. UNICEF launched a $62 million appeal on Tuesday to help children affected by drought, conflict and other crises, focusing on areas such as nutrition, health, water and sanitation. UNICEF has called for $25 million for its work in conflict-affected Kachin, Shan and Rakhine states in Myanmar; $18 million for North Korea; $10 million for conflict-affected Mindanao province in the Philippines; and $5 million for Pacific Island countries. Here are updates on El Nino and drought from across the region. EAST TIMOR The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries reported 50 percent less rainfall than normal. In southern Viqueque district, farm animals are falling sick and dying due to lack of feed and dwindling water supplies, though there has been some rain since Jan. 15 which may alleviate the situation, it said. PHILIPPINES On Mindanao island, lack of rain has damaged more than 500 hectares of farmland in Zamboanga city, with rice, corn, vegetables and bananas "lost with no chance of recovery", according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). In North Cotabato, also on Mindanao, authorities declared a state of calamity because of $5 million of damage to crops, OCHA said, adding that 85 percent of the country was forecast to face drought by April. PAPUA NEW GUINEA An estimated 2.7 million people - more than a third of the population - are affected by a combination of drought and frost, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said, adding that priority needs are food, water and agricultural recovery. An IOM survey last month found 85 percent of communities assessed in Enga, Simbu and Jiwaka provinces rely on unprotected water sources, and 47 percent of respondents had a household member who had diarrhea within four weeks of the survey. PACIFIC ISLANDS Drought warnings or alerts are in force for Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, Vanuatu and Palau, according to UNICEF, which said more frequent and intense storms are expected in 2016, with Pacific islands suffering the most. School attendance rates have dropped in the Pacific Islands, where children are hungry and dehydrated, and face a high risk of malnutrition due to crop failure, water shortages and poor sanitation, UNICEF said. NORTH KOREA Severe drought in four agricultural provinces in 2015 has led to smaller harvests and reduced access to clean water, impacting the health of women and children, UNICEF said. In drought-hit provinces, 25,000 children are suffering severe acute malnutrition and require immediate treatment, and there has been a 72 percent increase in diarrhea among children under 5, it said. LINKS Timor Leste Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/El%20Nino%20Crop%20Situation%20Report%2020160115.pdf OCHA (on Mindanao, Philippines): http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/ROAP_Snapshot_160125.pdf 85 percent of country to face drought (Philippines): http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/OCHAPhilippines%20Humanitarian%20Bulletin%20No1%20%28January%202016%29%20FINAL.pdf IOM (Papua New Guinea): http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/IOM%20Sitrep%20%236%20-%20PNG%20Drought%20%28Jan25%29_final.pdf UNICEF appeal for East Asia and the Pacific: http://www.unicef.org/eapro/media_25142.html RELATED LINKS http://news.trust.org//item/20150603171137-vz6aw/ http://news.trust.org//item/20151223131253-ecl9l/ (Reporting by Alisa Tang, editing by XXXX. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, womens rights, corruption and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org) Berlin (AFP) - Brazil, plagued by a scandal surrounding state oil giant Petrobas, registered the biggest plunge on the corruption index of watchdog Transparency International, which warned that emerging economies are struggling to shake off graft. In its "Corruption Perceptions Index 2015" report, Transparency International said the Latin American country slumped seven notches to 76th position out of 168 countries over kickback allegations engulfing Petrobras. On the other side of the globe, explosive graft claims surrounding Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak also laid bare corruption dogging the Asian state, it noted. Overall, two-thirds of the countries measured by Transparency scored below the 50-point mark out of a top score of 100. Nordic countries -- Denmark, Finland and Sweden -- topped the chart with their clean public sectors as in previous years, while strife-torn or repressive states -- Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia -- brought up the rear. Emerging giants in particular showed a worrisome picture in the index used widely used as a gauge of the level of corruption by governments, legal systems, political parties and bureaucracies. "All the BRICS are challenged, the countries that are the really up and coming in the world economy, they all score below 50 in our index," Robin Hodess, TI group director for research, told AFP, referring to Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. South Africa was in 61st place with 44 points. Brazil and India were tied in 76th place with scores of just 38, while China fared slightly worse, in 83th place with 37 points. Russia only came in at 119th, managing just 29 points. Hodess noted that the Petrobras case has had a "tremendous impact... in the real uncovering of the way that the political networks and businesses have been covering up decades of corruption in the country". "Things are starting to change, but this has been the scandal that brought Brazil into a difficult situation in terms of public sector perception of corruption." Story continues The Latin American giant has been reeling over revelations that executives at Petrobras colluded with politicians and other businessmen to siphon off millions from the company through bribes and rigged contracts. A massive probe dubbed "Operation Car Wash" has netted dozens of prominent figures, including high-ranking Congress members and executives at Petrobras and major construction firms. President Dilma Rousseff herself has been investigated but so far emerged unscathed, although she was Petrobras chairwoman through much of the period when the corporation was at the centre of the embezzlement scheme. - 'Not enough political will' - Just hours ahead of the release of the Transparency index, Malaysia's top prosecutor cleared prime minister Najib of corruption, putting a spotlight on graft strangling the country's public sector. In the long-running case that has gripped the nation, the attorney-general said on Tuesday that a $681 million (628 million euros) deposit in Najib's bank account was a personal donation from the Saudi royal family. Najib has for months denied accusations that the payment came from a now struggling state-owned company he launched. Samantha Grant, TI's Southeast Asia coordinator, said the verdict left key questions answered, including the reason for the donation. "I think this case really highlights that kind of problem and the fact that while some measures have been taken, really getting to the bottom of the problem, and really working at the roots of corruption in Malaysia hasn't really been given enough political will and honest attention," she told AFP. Malaysia scored 50 in the index and came in at 54th place, down four from last year. TI, which uses data from institutions including the World Bank, the African Development Bank and business school IMD to compile the perceptions of the scale of public sector corruption, urged the public to prod their governments to carry out much needed reforms. "Overall we think it's very important that not only the government comes in with the reforms we are looking for -- the policy changes, and enforcing them, but that these countries pay attention to people, to the efforts of people on the ground," said Hodess. She cited the example of Guatemala, where protests pushed president Otto Perez to stand down last year over graft allegations. "The people can really make a big difference in drawing attention of elites to corruption issues, and we think in the long term it would make a big impact if people are part of the solution to corruption." Tokyo (AFP) - A South Korean woman forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers more than 70 years ago heaped scorn on Wednesday on an agreement between Tokyo and Seoul aimed at settling the so-called comfort women issue. The Japanese government must face its past and directly address those victimised by its soldiers, said 88-year-old Lee Ok-Sun, who said she was forcibly taken to China as a teenager to work in Japan's military-run brothels. Lee stressed that survivors like her are angry over the December deal, which she said was struck without consulting them. "There are living victims," she said through an interpreter at a gathering of more than 100 people in Tokyo hosted by Japanese supporters. "Shouldn't there have been some explanation to us what the agreement was going to say and what shape it would take?" Lee is among tens of thousands of women in Asia, mostly from Korea, who were forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers during World War II. She is visiting Japan with Kang Il-Chul, another former sex slave who was absent from the event due to fatigue. The plight of the ageing so-called "comfort women" is a hugely emotional issue that has for decades marred ties between Seoul and Tokyo, which ruled the Korean peninsula harshly from 1910-1945. But the two nations reached a deal in December, under which Tokyo offered an apology and a one-billion yen ($8.5 million) payment to surviving South Korean women -- an agreement both nations described as "final and irreversible". The accord, however, has sparked an angry reaction from some victims and South Korean activists, who take issue with Japan's refusal to accept formal legal responsibility. They also have bitterly complained that neither Seoul nor Tokyo consulted the women about the agreement before concluding it. Lee said victims want Japan to admit its past and issue an official apology while they are alive. The Japanese government has long maintained that issues related to Japan's colonisation of the peninsula and the war were settled in a 1965 agreement which saw Tokyo establish diplomatic ties with Seoul and make a payment of $800 million. Story continues "There are still scars on my arms and legs from when I was cut with swords," Lee said. "Can you tell me... not to protest to the Japanese government? "I want you to imagine the pain and anger that we experienced." By Thomas Escritt THE HAGUE (Reuters) - War crimes prosecutors accused ex-Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo of orchestrating "unspeakable violence", including murder and gang rape, to cling to power after losing an election, pitching his country into civil war. Rising stiffly on the opening day of his trial at the International Criminal Court, Gbagbo, 70, pleaded not guilty to all charges. His co-accused, youth leader Charles Ble Goude, 44, also pleaded innocence and said he did not recognize the charges. Four months of conflict ravaged Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa grower, in early 2011 after Gbagbo refused to step down. Around 3,000 people were killed and the fighting ended only when former colonial power France intervened militarily, allowing election winner Alessane Ouattara to take office. The trial could ramp up tensions in Ivory Coast, where Gbagbo, the highest-ranked politician ever to appear before the 13-year-old ICC, remains influential. The gallery was packed with rowdy supporters, many of them Ivorians who had traveled to The Hague from Paris. Some rushed to a bulletproof glass barrier and chanted: "Gbagbo! President!" as the accused was led out of the courtroom. Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said Gbagbo and his inner circle had targeted Muslims and ethnic groups they assumed had supported Ouattara. "Cote d'Ivoire succumbed to chaos and was subjected to unspeakable violence," she said, using the country's French name. "Nothing would be allowed to defeat Mr. Gbagbo: If politics failed, violence was seen as politics by other means." TEST OF CREDIBILITY Bensouda related the account of one witness who had been arrested at a pro-Ouattara rally and subjected, along with other women, to three days of gang rapes by armed gendarmes. Seven were killed when state security agents opened fire from an armored car on a demonstration in a marketplace in an immigrant neighborhood of the capital Abidjan, she added. In Ivory Coast, the trial was closely watched by supporters and opponents alike. Gbagbo's supporters, hundreds of whom demonstrated outside the courthouse on Thursday, say he is a victim of neo-colonial meddling by France and accuse prosecutors of ignoring alleged crimes by Ouattara's camp. "We want him released," said Paris-based Ivorian Michele, demonstrating in the windswept street in front of the court in The Hague. Ouattara was a "rebel chief" who had been helped by France to usurp power, she added. On Friday the prosecution will continue to outline its case, and on Monday the defense takes its turn. The trial is expected to last at least a year in all. The case is a test of the credibility of the global war crimes court. Its last attempt to press charges against a top politician, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, ended in disarray amid fierce diplomatic lobbying by Kenya and its African allies. [L8N15B3M7] The court has so far handed down just two convictions, both against little-known African warlords. It opened its first investigation outside the continent on Wednesday, into the 2008 Russia-Georgia war. (Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Anthony Deutsch and Andrew Roche) By David Brunnstrom and Prak Chan Thul PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of States John Kerry met Cambodian leaders on Tuesday but failed to secure their commitment to a more robust stance with Southeast Asian nations against China's pursuit of territorial claims in the South China Sea. Kerry was in Cambodia after a visit to neighboring Laos as part of an effort to urge unity among leaders of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations before a summit with President Barack Obama in Sunnylands, California, next month. In Phnom Penh, Kerry met Hun Sen, Asia's longest serving prime minister, and Foreign Minister Hor Namhong for what Kerry described as "candid and constructive" meetings. Hor Namhong said Cambodia's position on the South China Sea was unchanged. It believed individual countries should settle disputes among themselves without the involvement of ASEAN, he said. That mirrors China's position that ASEAN is not a party to territorial disputes, so rows should be resolved bilaterally. "We want it open to negotiations in the future between countries who made claims in the South China Sea," Hor Namhong said. China claims almost all the South China Sea, which is believed to have huge deposits of oil and gas, and has been building up facilities on islands it controls. Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines also have claims. Laos is the 2016 chair of ASEAN. Kerry said Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong told him on Monday that Laos wants to sea a unified association and avoid the militarization of the South China Sea. When Cambodia was ASEAN chair in 2012, it was accused of obstructing a consensus in the bloc over standing up to China's assertive pursuit of its South China Sea claims. "Cambodia was not a court that could judge that this island belongs to this or that country," Hor Namhong said on Tuesday. Kerry did not refer to the South China Sea in a statement after the meetings but stressed that the United States and ASEAN have a strategic partnership "and Cambodia plays a role in fully defining that partnership". Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, answering a reporter's question about a U.S. official urging ASEAN to unite to protect maritime rights, said that official did not represent ASEAN. "I hope the United States can play a constructive role for peace and stability in Asia Pacific region and not sow discord, she told reporters at a regular press briefing. Cambodia said it would work with the U.S. on efforts to combat Islamic State, Kerry said. Kerry was due in China later on Tuesday, where he is expected to press Beijing to put more curbs on North Korea after its nuclear test this month and reiterate U.S. concerns about China's behavior in the South China Sea. He called North Korea's nuclear program "about one of the most serious issues on the planet today, which is a clearly reckless and dangerous, evolving security threat in the hands of somebody who is questionable in terms of judgment and has proven thus to China". A senior official of the U.S. State Department said Kerry was expected to stress the need for a united front in response to North Korea through additional U.N. sanctions and for a tough unilateral response from China, which is North Korea's main ally and neighbor. (Editing by Simon Webb and Nick Macfie) Beijing (AFP) - US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Beijing Tuesday evening for meetings with senior government leaders, with North Korea top of the agenda following the reclusive state's fourth nuclear test earlier this month. The top US diplomat will also raise concerns over Beijing's "problematic behaviour" in the South China Sea and the thorny issues of humans rights and civil freedoms, a senior State Department official said. North Korea is expected to dominate the talks between Kerry with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi and other senior officials, as the international community seeks to squeeze Pyongyang with fresh sanctions following its latest nuclear test on January 6. China is North Korea's chief diplomatic protector and economic benefactor, but those ties have been strained as Beijing loses patience with Pyongyang's unwillingness to rein in its nuclear weapons ambitions. "The Secretary has made no secret... of his conviction that there is much more that China can do by way of applying leverage (on Pyongyang)," the US official said. The South China Sea will also be discussed as tensions and territorial disputes in the vital waterway between Beijing and its neighbours in Southeast Asia -- backed by Washington -- threaten to degenerate into conflict. "The continuing tensions and problematic behaviour by China in the South China Sea is very much on the Secretary's mind and something that he will certainly discuss in depth," the US official said. Finally, Kerry will raise with his hosts "what we see as a very significant tightening of political space for civil society and for NGOs," the US official said. Kerry's visit to Beijing is the last leg of a three-continent tour that began in Davos with stops in Saudi Arabia, Laos and Cambodia. By David Brunnstrom PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of States John Kerry called for Cambodia's government to allow "vigorous and peaceful" political debate ahead of elections in 2018 and said progress on human rights was critical to future relations. On a visit to Phnom Penh, Kerry met Hun Sen, Asia's longest-serving prime minister, and Foreign Minister Hor Nam Hong. He also met leaders of the opposition and civil groups to underscore U.S. concerns about human rights. With three years to go before the vote, political tension in Cambodia is already high. Hun Sen's biggest rival, opposition leader Sam Rainsy, fled to France in November to avoid arrest for an old defamation case which Sam Rainsy's political party say was revived at Hun Sen's bidding. Lawmakers from Sam Rainsy's party, the Cambodian National Rescue Party, were beaten in broad daylight outside in October outside the national assembly. "In my discussions today, I emphasized the essential role that a vibrant, democratic system plays in the development of a country and the legitimacy of its political system," Kerry said. "Democratic governments have a responsibility to ensure that all elected representatives are free to perform their duties without fear of attack or arrest." Kerry said discussions required directness and candor, even on sensitive issues such as human rights. "We care deeply about respect for human rights, universal freedoms, and good governance," he said. "Progress in each of these areas is critical being able to fulfill the potential of our bilateral relations but, also importantly, the full potential of the hopes and aspirations of the Cambodian people." Robust economic growth, job creation and sustained peace for an impoverished country devastated by decades of civil war, including under Pol Pot's 1975-79 "killing fields" regime, have ensured Hun Sen's continued re-election. Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge swept to power after Cambodia was heavily bombed by the United States during the Vietnam War. Kerry called Cambodia's recent economic progress "quite remarkable". "You have moved from extreme poverty, from a very small economy, to an economy that is growing very significantly and lifted many of your people out of poverty," he told Hor Nam Hong. Kerry also visited Cambodia's National Museum to demonstrate U.S. support for efforts to protect the country's cultural heritage through the return of illegally exported artifacts. Several significant cultural objects taken out of Cambodia illegally have been returned by U.S. private collections under an agreement between the two governments. (Additional reporting by Prak Chan Thul; Writing by Simon Webb; Editing by Nick Macfie) By Marice Richter and Anahi Rama FORT WORTH, Texas/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The American teenager derided for claiming a defense of "affluenza" in the killing four people while driving drunk arrived back in Texas on Thursday after being deported from Mexico and was placed in juvenile detention. After his flight landed, Ethan Couch, 18, wearing a hooded sweatshirt and sporting a beard, was seen with his hands behind his back being escorted by uniformed officers through the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. About an hour after touching down, he was placed in a Tarrant County juvenile detention center, where the local sheriff said he was calm and being fed. "He was as compliant and docile as anyone I have ever seen come into a facility," Sheriff Dee Anderson told reporters. "We are hoping that the day comes when justice is done for those families and the victims that were killed," he said. Couch fled to Mexico in December along with his mother after a video emerged on social media that likely showed the teen in violation of the probation deal reached in juvenile court that kept him out of prison for causing the deadly crash in 2013. He faces a detention hearing on Friday or Monday, at which a judge will determine whether to transfer the case from the juvenile system to the adult system, his lawyers said. "We are optimistic that, going forward, Ethan will comply with all court-imposed terms and conditions and that he will successfully complete his term of probation," lawyers Scott Brown and Wm. Reagan Wynn said in a statement. Couch was 16 when he was tried as a juvenile. A psychiatrist testifying on his behalf said he had "affluenza," as his family's wealth had left him so spoiled that it impaired his judgment to tell right from wrong. The affluenza diagnosis, not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, was widely ridiculed. If he violated the probation deal, Couch faces about four months behind bars. His mother, Tonya Couch, faces up to 10 years in prison for helping her son flee to Mexico. Couch's lawyers may seek to transfer him to the adult system so he can apply for bail, an option not available in the juvenile system, a legal official said. His mother was deported to the United States last month and has since been freed on bond. He was sentenced to 10 years of drug-and-alcohol-free probation for intoxication manslaughter, a punishment condemned by critics as privilege rewarded with leniency. (Writing by Jon Herskovitz and Gabriel Stargardter; additional reporting by Suzannah; editing by Simon Gardner, G Crosse and Alistair Bell) Kuala Lumpur (AFP) - Malaysia's official explanation of the $681 million that ended up in Prime Minister Najib Razak's personal bank account -- it was an entirely proper gift from friends -- has triggered derision and fresh questions in a country already well-used to allegations of graft. On Tuesday, Malaysia's Najib-appointed attorney-general cleared the premier of wrongdoing in a scandal that has gripped the nation, declaring that the money was a "personal donation" from the Saudi royal family. The announcement capped months of evasion by Najib on the source of the money and apparently laid to rest any threat of prosecution by Malaysian authorities. But Malaysia's opposition, anti-graft activists and social media users pounced on the perceived implausibility of the unexplained Saudi largesse and alleged a government whitewash. The Saudis themselves have not helped the situation, with The Wall Street Journal quoting a Saudi official saying the kingdom's government had no knowledge of the donation, adding such a royal gift would be "unprecedented". Senior opposition figure Lim Kit Siang called the episode a "high-water mark" in Malaysia's well-documented history of government corruption and impunity. "I cannot think of another case in the nation's history where the attorney-general's decision... has been greeted with more scepticism, outrage and scorn," he said. - Shifting explanations - Najib, 62, has struggled to explain the mysterious payment since it was revealed last July. He at first hotly denied it, but his government later acknowledged the payment came from a then-unspecified Middle Eastern donor. The revelation was particularly explosive because Najib already faced allegations that similar amounts were missing from a state-owned company he founded, and reports of lavish spending and possible corruption by his family, all of which are denied. The government has since detained or threatened whistleblowers, and Najib has purged his leadership of critics, including sacking a previous attorney-general who was investigating the funds. Story continues Malaysian social media roiled with derision on Wednesday. Najib's Facebook page and other sites filled with derogatory comments as parody images circulated, including one of Najib holding up the middle finger of one hand while holding a wad of cash in the other. The paucity of detail in the explanation offered by Attorney-General Mohamed Apandi Ali -- who owes his job to Najib -- fuelled the sense of outrage. Apandi said the $681 million came with no strings attached and that $620 million of it was later returned to the Saudis. He did not reveal the money's purpose or say what had happened to the remaining $61 million. Transparency International's Southeast Asia coordinator Samantha Grant said the government must address unanswered questions including, "Where did it go and why was this personal donation made?" Former premier Mahathir Mohamad, who has repeatedly demanded Najib's resignation over the affair, poked holes in the story in a blog posting, saying that merely receiving the money "is already wrong even though it may not be criminal". US and other foreign regulators have launched investigations into the money flows, but experts see little chance Malaysia will cooperate. - In the clear? - On Tuesday the premier welcomed Apandi's declaration as a chance to "move on". Analysts said lingering suspicion over the case hands an additional weapon to an opposition that has gained ground in recent years. "I don't think the Malaysian public is going to just move on," said Eugene Tan, a legal professor at Singapore Management University, adding that clearing Najib "raises more questions than answers". But few are willing to predict the downfall of Najib, who must call new elections by 2018. Analysts said he has effectively -- if messily -- weathered the scandal so far, retains the immense power of a six-decade party incumbency, and has outmanoeuvered internal critics to tighten control over the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). "He has really consolidated his power," said Ibrahim Suffian, head of leading polling firm Merdeka Centre. "So I think it will all be up to him unless the economy really turns sour." By Tommy Wilkes and Mehreen Zahra-Malik ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The head of a powerful religious body said on Thursday he is willing to review Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws that critics say are regularly misused and have led to the deaths of hundreds, to decide if they are Islamic. Pakistan's religious and political elites almost universally keep clear of debating blasphemy laws in a country where criticism of Islam is a highly sensitive subject. Even rumors of blasphemy have sparked rampaging mobs and deadly riots. But Muhammad Khan Sherani, chairman of a body that advises the government on the compatibility of laws with Islam, told Reuters he was willing to reopen the debate and see whether sentences as harsh as the death penalty were fair. "The government of Pakistan should officially, at the government level, refer the law on committing blasphemy to the Council of Islamic Ideology. There is a lot of difference of opinion among the clergy on this issue," Sherani said in an interview at his office close to Pakistan's parliament. "Then the council can seriously consider things and give its recommendation of whether it needs to stay the same or if it needs to be hardened or if it needs to be softened," Sherani, dressed in a traditional black robe, said. Sherani, who has hit the headlines in recent weeks after his council obstructed a bill to deter child marriages, did not disclose his own position. Pakistan's blasphemy laws mandate the death penalty, although no sentence has been carried out. Critics say the law is abused in poor, rural areas by enemies falsely accusing others to settle personal scores. Presenting evidence in court can be considered a new infringement, so judges are reluctant to hear cases. Those acquitted have often been lynched. Salman Taseer, a prominent liberal politician, was killed by his own bodyguard in 2011 after he had championed the cause of a Christian woman sentenced to death under the law. CHILD MARRIAGE Sherani, a member of parliament representing Pakistan's largest Islamist party, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, for some embodies Pakistan's struggle to balance modern, democratic ideals with pleasing conservative religious bodies demanding the imposition of strict Islamic law. In recent years his 54-year old council has ruled DNA cannot be used as primary evidence in rape cases, and supported a law that requires woman alleging rape to get four male witnesses to testify in court before a case is heard. His members' decision this month to block a bill to impose harsher penalties for marrying off girls as young as eight or nine has angered human rights activists. Senators have since debated whether the council, in its current form, is right for the modern democratic Pakistan that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said his country must represent. Sherani, head of the council since 2010, defended its recommendations, saying it was his job, as mandated by the constitution, to ensure the laws of the land were in line with Islam. The council's advice is not binding. "The state should only be concerned up until a point with the question of marriage," he said. "After reaching the age of maturity (puberty) the child has the right to reject a union." Three percent of girls in Pakistan are married before they turn 15 and 21 percent before age 18, according to UNICEF. Sherani said there were many un-Islamic laws on the statute book that he was advising the government to overturn, including presidential pardons for a murderer. Many of Pakistan's problems, including violence against religious minorities, were the result of the government failing to be sufficiently Islamic and instead pandering to the West, he said. "Pakistan's present government is a defender of the interests of the West," Sherani said. "Don't equate what the government thinks to what Islam is." (Editing by Robert Birsel) By David DeKok HARRISBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania constable who prosecutors say accidentally killed a 12-year-old girl during an eviction while firing in self-defense has been cleared of criminal wrongdoing, but the girl's father has been charged with murder. Perry County District Attorney Andrew Bender said on Thursday that Constable Clarke Steele was in imminent fear for his life and lawfully fired at Donald Meyer, 57, on Jan. 11 after Steele pointed a loaded, semi-automatic rifle at him from a few feet away. The .40 caliber bullet tore through Meyer's arm and struck Ciara Meyer, 12, in the chest as she stood behind her father, killing her almost instantly. She was home sick from middle school that day, police said. "Mr. Meyer's reckless conduct, knowing that his daughter was standing behind him, triggered a chain of events that tragically led to the death of Ciara Meyer," Bender said in a statement Thursday. Barbara Wevodau, the public defender assigned to Meyer, could not be reached for comment. Steele was in uniform, evicting Meyer and his wife and daughter from their $660 a month apartment in Duncannon, Pennsylvania, about 18 miles northwest of the state capital Harrisburg. They owed back rent of $1,452.60 plus penalty fees, according to court records, and knew they were to be evicted that day. Meyer was initially charged with several assault counts for pointing the semi-automatic rifle at Steele, but on Thursday was also charged with criminal homicide and endangering the welfare of a child in the death of his daughter, plus illegal possession of a firearm. The latter charge stems from Steele's prior involuntary commitment under the Mental Health Procedures Act, Bender said. In the weeks since the shooting, members of Ciara Meyer's family have publicly forgiven Steele, absolving him of blame for her death, and directed their anger at her father. After being treated for several days at a local hospital, Meyer has been held without bail in Perry County Prison. His trial date has yet to set. (Editing by Frank McGurty) Manila (AFP) - Ninety-year-old Hilaria Bustamante casts a tearful gaze at a wall plastered with photos of departed fellow sex slaves, vowing to demand justice during a historic visit to the Philippines by Japan's emperor starting Tuesday. Unbowed despite painful arthritis, the oldest known living Filipina "comfort woman" said she would join street protests to continue an unsuccessful campaign that has lasted more than 70 years. "Many of us have died without seeing justice, but we will fight until our last breath," Bustamante told AFP in a voice trembling with anger at a shelter in Manila for the now elderly women, run by advocacy group Lila Pilipina. "We want to tell Emperor Akihito: pay your debts. We are holding you accountable for the sufferings of the comfort women during the war." Up to 200,000 women in Asia, many of them South Koreans but also from China, the Philippines and what is now Indonesia, are estimated to have been forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers during World War II. Only 70 known Filipina victims are still alive, according to Lila Pilipina. Japanese leaders and senior officials have over the decades offered apologies and compensation money to the Filipina victims, albeit deliberately sourced from the private sector rather than the government. - 'Insincere' apologies - The women have deemed these efforts insincere, demanding instead an apology that comes with reparations directly from the Japanese government, as well as inclusion of the comfort women's plight in its official history books. Seoul struck a landmark deal with Tokyo last month for a one-billion-yen ($8.3 million) payment and a "heartfelt apology" for the South Korean comfort women. A similar deal for the Filipina victims is not on the agenda. Despite intense lobbying from the women, the Philippine government has not initiated similar negotiations with Japan. Philippine foreign affairs spokesman Charles Jose told AFP the matter would not be raised during Akihito's visit, the first ever by a reigning Japanese emperor. Story continues The Philippines and Japan have become close allies since the war, and Akihito's five-day visit is to celebrate 60 years of renewed diplomatic relations. Japan is the Philippines' biggest source of foreign investment and aid. The Philippines has in recent years also increasingly looked to Japan for military help to counter Chinese expansion in the South China Sea. - Never-ending nightmare - But for the comfort women, glossing over the war crimes is impossible. "It's a nightmare that never ends. We walk with heavy hearts and we don't know who to turn to for help," Estelita Dy, 85, told AFP, as she tearfully recalled the day she was brought to a military brothel. Dy said she was aged just 14 and buying food in a market after a long day of digging at a construction site when a truckload of Japanese soldiers started rounding up suspected spies. Dy said she tried to run away but tripped and fell to the ground. A Japanese soldier grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the back of the truck, she said. Dy said she stayed in the brothel for three weeks. "Every time I was raped. I would just close my eyes, cry and pray that it will be all over soon," she said, fidgeting with her fingers to relieve anxiety. A Filipino spy working for the Japanese helped her escape, she said. Dy, who later married and had two children, blames her weak hearing on having her face banged on a table by a Japanese solider who then raped her. Dy, who worked as a rice cake and soda vendor, said she was lucky her family accepted her fate. Many others, she said, were condemned and driven out of their homes by conservative parents. - Purple refuge - At Lila Pilipina's rundown office in Manila's suburbs, the former sex slaves came to depend on the refuge where they found comfort in shared suffering. The now-faded walls are painted purple, the colour of the local feminist movement. The women there affectionately call each other "lola", the Filipino word for grandmother. "Calling each other 'lola' shows that they are bonded by the same struggle," said Rechilda Extremadura, who runs Lila Pilipina. "They come here to cry their hearts out. They yearn for the familiar touch of someone who understands exactly what they're going through." Bustamante, one of only 10 Filipina comfort women physically able to join the rallies planned for this week, said her fellow women gave her the strength to continue fighting for justice. "This is an uncertain fight, but we will not stop," she said. Vatican City (AFP) - Pope Francis on Tuesday urged Iran to back peace efforts in the Middle East as the Islamic Republic's emergence from international isolation took a significant step forward with President Hassan Rouhani's first visit to the Vatican. Fresh from securing the lifting of international sanctions imposed over Iran's nuclear programme, Rouhani spent 40 minutes at the Vatican talking privately to Pope Francis, a strong backer of the deal with Tehran. In a statement afterwards, the Vatican said Francis had urged the Iranian leader to use Iran's important role to promote, together with other countries, "adequate political solutions" to the problems afflicting the region and to help combat terrorism and arms trafficking. "I thank you for your visit and I hope for peace," Francis told his guest at the end of their meeting, when journalists were briefly allowed to listen in. A smiling Rouhani, who presented the pope with a hand-made carpet from the ancient city of Qom, replied with one of Francis's catchphrases. "I ask you to pray for me," he said. "It was a pleasure to meet you and I wish you well in your work." In return for his gift, Rouhani was given a medal depicting St Martin cutting his cloak in half to give to a poorly clothed beggar. The Iranian leader also went away with English and Arabic versions of Francis's extended essay on the environmental challenges faced by the world. "Laudato Si" (Praise Be) has not been translated into Farsi. It was the first official visit to the Vatican by an Iranian president since Mohammad Khatami was hosted by John Paul II in 1999. Khatami also attended the Polish pope's funeral in 2005. Rouhani is on a five-day trip to Italy and France looking to drum up trade and investment to modernise Iran's economy, partly by pitching the country as a beacon of stability in a conflict-wracked region. - Safe and stable - Story continues Speaking to an audience of Italian and Iranian business leaders earlier in the day, Rouhani also portrayed Iran as the ideal base for companies seeking a foothold in a region of 300 million people, reassuring would-be investors their contracts would be honoured. "Iran is the safest, the most stable country in the entire region," Rouhani said. "Everyone understood that the nuclear negotiations represented a win-win situation for both sides. "Now we have created the conditions for investment and for the transfer of know-how. There has to be an advantage for both sides: we invite you to invest and we will provide stability and ensure that you can make adequate returns." He emphasised that all sections of Iran's often-divided political class, right up to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were firmly behind the post-sanctions drive to secure the trade and investment needed to create new roads, rail links, airports and other infrastructure. Rouhani outlined a vision of Iran being transformed into a hub for intra-regional economic development, linking the Middle East to South and Central Asia and even the Western fringes of China. "Do not regard us as just one country but as a country at the centre of a much larger market," Rouhani said, citing the example of the port of Chabahar on Iran's southern coast. Iran is seeking international investment to help complete a port which will provide a gateway for Indian companies seeking to do business in Afghanistan and Central Asia, as well as in Iran. Rouhani also pledged that Tehran would do nothing to jeopordise its stability and said economic growth could help beat terrorism in the region. "We have no intention of attacking or invading any other country. We have no intention of interfering in the affairs of any other country," he said. "A lack of development creates the conditions for extremism, unemployment recruits soldiers for terrorism." By Rozanna Latiff and Emily Chow KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia's attorney-general cleared Prime Minister Najib Razak of any criminal offences or corruption on Tuesday, closing investigations into a murky multi-million-dollar funding scandal that his opponents had hoped would bring him down. Najib was buffeted last year by allegations of graft and mismanagement at the debt-laden state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and by a revelation that about $681 million was deposited into his personal bank account. But Attorney-General Mohamed Apandi Ali said the transfer was a gift from Saudi Arabia's royal family, adding that no further action needed to be taken on the matter. Najib, who denied any wrongdoing and said he did not take any money for personal gain, welcomed the attorney general's statement. "The findings followed a thorough investigation by the relevant institutions, and he has confirmed what I have maintained all along: that no crime was committed," Najib said in a statement. Opposition party leaders denounced the finding, saying the appointment of the attorney-general by the prime minister in the midst of the crisis suggested a conflict of interest. But analysts said it was a victory for Najib that would allow him to focus on winning the next election in 2018. "The AG's statement today pretty much allows the government to move on ... As far as things are legally concerned, the prime minister is in the clear," said Ibrahim Suffian, director of independent opinion polling firm Merdeka Center. Although there were still a lot of people who would still be skeptical and critical of the government, he said. Apandi told a news conference no criminal offense had been committed by Najib in relation to three investigations submitted by Malaysia's anti-graft agency. "I am satisfied with the findings that the funds were not a form of graft or bribery," he said. "There was no reason given as to why the donation was made to PM Najib, that is between him and the Saudi family," he said. The involvement of the Saudi royal family is an unexpected twist in the saga over the funds transfer and the troubles of 1MDB, whose advisory board Najib chairs. The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) had earlier said only that the funds were a political donation from an unidentified Middle Eastern benefactor. Apandi said $620 million was returned to the donor in August 2013, about five months after the transfer, because it had not been utilized. He did not clarify what happened to the remaining $61 million that was not returned or explain why it had taken so long for news of the return of the funds to be released. 'UNITE AND MOVE ON' Najib, the son of a former prime minister, enjoys the backing of most of the powerful division chiefs in the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party. Even his fiercest internal critics, such as influential former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, accept that he cannot be unseated. Najib, who needs to build support ahead of the 2018 election, after scraping to only a narrow victory in the last polls, said the scandal had been "an unnecessary distraction". "Now that the matter has been comprehensively put to rest, it is time for us to unite and move on," Najib said. The scandal has shaken investors in Southeast Asia's third-biggest economy and rocked confidence in the coalition led by UMNO, which has held power since independence in 1957. The ringgit slumped by more than 20 percent in 2015 and has continued its slide this year, weighed down by global oil prices and political uncertainty. "The attorney-general is satisfied with the findings, but it remains to be seen whether the public is satisfied and will put the 1MDB scandal to rest," said Hak Bin Chua, ASEAN economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. After the scandal broke in mid-2015, then attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail - who had led investigations of 1MDB - was replaced by Apandi, a former judge with strong ties to UMNO. "The attorney-general should not have been involved in the decision affecting the PM because he was appointed by the PM," said Lim Kit Siang, parliamentary leader of the opposition Democratic Action Party. Two of the anti-corruption commission papers that Apandi reviewed related to SRC International, a former 1MDB subsidiary that is being investigated for an alleged misappropriation of funds. 1MDB is under investigation by law enforcement agencies in Switzerland, Hong Kong and the United States, media and other sources have said. (Additinal reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi, Joseph Sipalan and Umesh Desai; Writing by John Chalmers and Praveen Menon; Editing by Robert Birsel) Rome (AFP) - President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday described Iran as the safest and most stable country in the Middle East as he urged international investors to help modernise the country's sanctions-hit economy. On the second day of a landmark visit to Europe, the Iranian leader also pitched the Islamic Republic's potential for companies seeking a base in a region of 300 million people and vowed the government would never interfere in private business deals. "Iran is the safest, the most stable country in the entire region," Rouhani told an audience of Italian and Iranian business executives on his first overseas trip since the lifting of sanctions linked to Tehran's nuclear programme. "Everyone understood that the nuclear negotiations represented a win-win situation for both sides," Rouhani said. "Now we have created the conditions for investment and for the transfer of know-how. There has to be an advantage for both sides: we invite you to invest and we will provide stability and ensure that you can make adequate returns." Rouhani emphasised that all sections of Iran's often-divided political class were firmly behind the post-sanctions drive to secure the trade and investment needed to create new roads, rail links, airports and other infrastructure. The vision was to transform Iran into a hub for intra-regional economic development, linking the Middle East to South Asia and even the Western fringes of China. "Do not regard us as just one country but as a country at the centre of a much larger market," Rouhani said, citing the example of the port of Chabahar on Iran's southern coast. Iran is seeking international investment to help complete a port which will provide a gateway for Indian companies seeking to do business in Afghanistan and Central Asia, as well as in Iran. - Queue forming in Iran - He vowed Tehran would do nothing to jeopordise its stability and said economic growth could help beat terrorism in the region. Story continues "We have no intention of attacking or invading any other country. We have no intention of interfering in the affairs of any other country. "A lack of development creates the conditions for extremism, unemployment recruits soldiers for terrorism," he argued. Italy was Iran's largest European trade partner before the impact of sanctions shrunk annual exchanges from over seven billion euros ($7.58 billion) to 1.6 billion last year. Italian companies are now scrambling to get back into the country. They have got off to a strong start with some 17 billion euros worth of contracts signed on the first day of Rouhani's visit on Monday. Riccardo Monti, the president of the Italian Trade Agency, warned that business leaders could not afford to be complacent. "This country has an enormous need of investment, expertise and a great desire for Italy," he said. "If an Iranian entrepreneur has a choice, he chooses to do business with Italians. But there is a queue forming in Iran. We have a little advantage at the moment and we have to make the most of it." Moshen Jalapour, the president of Iran's Chamber of Commerce, said Monday's deals were only a first step and urged Western companies to start sending more specialist trade delegations to Tehran. STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden is likely to deport up to half last year's record 163,000 asylum seekers either voluntarily or forcibly, presenting a major challenge to authorities, Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said on Thursday. Between 60,000 and 80,000 people will likely have to leave, Ygeman said, which would represent about 45 percent of the total number of applicants. Sweden, with a population of almost 10 million, is one of the countries that has borne the brunt of Europe's migrant crisis as hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and north Africa have moved north to wealthier members of the European Union. Germany took in an unprecedented 1.1 million migrants last year. Both countries have tightened asylum rules to stem the flow and force other countries to share the burden. The Swedish government fears many people whose applications for asylum are rejected will go into hiding. Police will seek to find and deport them. Of the 13,000 sent back from Sweden last year 10,000 went voluntarily whereas 3,000 were forcibly deported. Over the past few years Sweden has rejected about 45 percent of claims for asylum, but with last year's record influx the greater numbers are putting an increasing strain on immigration and police authorities. "We have a big challenge ahead of us. We will need to use more resources for this and we must have better cooperation between authorities," Ygeman was quoted as saying by daily Dagens Industri. Adding to the problem is a backlog of applications. The Migration Agency says recent arrivals will have to wait between 15 and 24 months just to have their applications assessed. Ygeman said he thought chartered planes would be more widely used and hoped flights could be coordinated with Germany. Germany deported 20,000 foreigners last year. Sweden reversed its open door immigration policy late last year and has introduced border controls and identity checks to stem the flow of asylum seekers. It is also working on making it more difficult for companies to hire immigrants without proper documents to decrease the incentives to stay in Sweden. This week, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven promised more resources for police to deal with the increased workload because of the refugee situation. (Reporting by Daniel Dickson and Johan Ahlander; Editing by Robert Birsel and Janet Lawrence) Des Moines (United States) (AFP) - Republicans scrambling to win the first contest in the US presidential nomination race geared for battle at Thursday's high-stakes debate in Iowa, but defiant frontrunner Donald Trump upended the campaign by refusing to attend. Trump's gamble left the presidential race in uncharted waters days before Iowans vote February 1, but he insisted he will not back down in his feud with debate host Fox News. The billionaire has doubled down, in a game of political chicken, hosting a rival event for military veterans at the same time as his own party showcases its candidates to Iowa voters. All eyes are on the heartland state, where 12 Republican candidates and three Democratic hopefuls including Hillary Clinton are vying for both bragging rights and momentum as the primary race heads next to votes in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. "The 'debate' tonight will be a total disaster -- low ratings with advertisers and advertising rates dropping like a rock. I hate to see this," tweeted Trump, who has never held elected office. "I hope @CNN has enough bandwidth tonight because not many will be watching @FoxNews." Adding to the spectacle, rival Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who is languishing in polls and was attending an undercard event before the main debate, said he will join Trump at his counter-event for veterans. "It's not an endorsement of Donald Trump's candidacy; I'm still running for president," Huckabee assured CNN. Another low-poller, former senator Rick Santorum, will also attend Trump's event. Some veterans have denounced the fundraiser. "Vets don't need political stunts. We need candidates to present smart, specific plans on VA (Veterans Affairs) reform," said Paul Rieckhoff, founder of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. - Trump streaks ahead - Trump has accused Fox News, and especially debate moderator Megyn Kelly, of bias against him. Story continues With Fox and the billionaire in all-out war, the Republican National Committee appeared eager to downplay the Trump snub. "Every campaign is going to make the decision that they need to make" about debate participation, RNC chairman Reince Priebus told Fox News. "I think it's going to be a big night." Analysts have been riveted by the unexpected drama and disruption of the typical Iowa political playbook. The last major candidate to skip a pre-Iowa caucus debate was Ronald Reagan, in 1980. "Wow. What a chess game," Iowa State University political science professor Steffen Schmidt declared of the political theater. But the longtime election watcher said he believed Iowa core conservatives were "furious" at Trump's flippant decision. Trump has a genuine battle on his hands in Iowa with ultra-conservative senator Ted Cruz, his nearest GOP rival, who trails by about five percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average of recent Iowa polls. Cruz, who has earned endorsements from key evangelicals and anti-abortion figures who tout his conservative and religious values, insists the race is winnable. His team claims its ground game is second to none in Iowa, with 12,000 volunteers and staff blanketing the state. Little is known about Trump's grassroots efforts to generate caucus turnout in Iowa, and he has largely avoided the grueling face-to-face courtship of voters, opting instead to talk to them from a distant podium. Nationally, however, Trump keeps soaring. A recent CNN/ORC poll of Republican voters has Trump at 41 percent to 19 percent for Cruz, with more than two-thirds of Republicans saying they believe the billionaire developer will be the party's presidential candidate. Florida Senator Marco Rubio is third at eight percent, followed by retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at six percent and Florida ex-governor Jeb Bush at five percent. - Cruz at center stage - With Trump absent, Cruz will take center stage alongside six other Republicans eager for the opportunity to shine in the absence of the man accused of sucking the oxygen out of the room. Cruz told Fox it was "stunning" that Trump refused to debate, challenging him to a one-on-one showdown. Rubio meanwhile has denounced the Trump-Cruz sideshow. His final ad before Iowa portrays him as the electable Republican. "This election is about defeating Hillary Clinton, and about saving what makes America unique," he says in the television spot. The Donald is seeking to draw in Americans who have not voted for years, with the help of supporters like Julian Raven, an artist driving his larger-than-life painting of Trump across Iowa on a rented truck. "He has guts," said Raven. "God votes Trump." Copenhagen (AFP) - Denmark and Switzerland on Wednesday joined a growing number of European countries to report Zika infections among travellers returning from Latin America, where the mosquito-borne virus has been blamed for a surge in birth defects. "A Danish tourist who travelled to Central and South America was diagnosed on his return with the Zika virus," a hospital in eastern Denmark said in a statement late Tuesday. The Danish patient was a young man who was expected to make a full recovery, the head of Aarhus hospital, Lars Ostergaard, told public broadcaster DR. Two people returning to Switzerland from Haiti and Colombia were also diagnosed with the virus, the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health said. Neither was pregnant and neither required hospital care, the statement said. Health watchdogs in a string of European countries meanwhile said they had recorded Zika cases dating back to as early as March 2015. The Netherlands confirmed 10 cases and Britain five, all among people returning from South America. In Italy, the Spallanzani National Institute of Infectious Disease said four cases were recorded in March 2015, while in Portugal, the health ministry said four Portuguese had been infected. All eight had been travelling in Brazil. A woman in the Swedish capital Stockholm was diagnosed with the virus in July 2015, the Swedish Public Health Agency confirmed Wednesday. "The symptoms were treated and the woman recovered," said Karin Tegmark Wisell, head of microbiology at the health agency. In Spain, two cases of Zika were detected in late 2015, authorities in the northwestern region of Catalonia confirmed on Friday. Both were South American women -- aged 30 and 45 -- who had travelled to the continent over Christmas. Diagnosed on their return, they have since fully recovered. Neither was pregnant. - No vaccine - In Moscow, Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said the Russia authorities had been "monitoring (Zika) since it appeared. Story continues "Now we are working on controlling it as soon as any strange strains appear ... to have domestic medication for prevention and treatment." President Vladimir Putin added: "We need to pay attention to this ... work with transportation companies, airlines, understand the signs and react quickly." "Of course mosquitoes cannot fly over the ocean, but infected people can and do." There is no vaccine or specific treatment for Zika, a flu-like disease with a rash that goes unnoticed in 70 to 80 percent of cases. Most patients treat the symptoms simply with painkillers and other medication. The virus is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito after it takes a blood meal from an infected person. The insect can also carry dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. Zika was first reported in Africa, Asia and the Pacific before leaping to the Americas, where it has been linked to a jump in the number of babies born with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads, particularly in Brazil. The tally of cases of microcephaly in Brazil surged from 163 per year on average to 3,893 after the Zika outbreak began last year. Forty-nine of the babies have died. Some 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries have been swept up in the outbreak which has extended as far north as Mexico. Travellers have also brought it back to the US states of Florida, Hawaii and New York. So far there has been no known cases of local transmission -- infections that are generated within a country -- in the US or Europe, although France said such cases had occurred in its departments and territories in the Caribbean basin. WHO Committee to Meet on Zika Virus The World Health Organization will convene an International Health Regulations Emergency Committee on the alarming spike in Zika virus cases. According to a Jan. 28 official statement, WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan will convene an International Health Regulations Emergency Committee on the Zika virus and what she says is an "observed increase in neurological disorders and neonatal malformations." The committee will meet on Monday, Feb. 1, in Geneva to determine whether the outbreak merits a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. The term Public Health Emergency of International Concern is defined in the International Health Regulations of 2005 as "an extraordinary event which is determined, as provided in these Regulations: i. to constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease; and ii. to potentially require a coordinated international response." According to WHO, this definition implies a situation that is serious, unusual, or unexpected; carries implications for public health beyond the affected state's national border; and may require immediate international action. The responsibility for determining whether an event qualifies lies with the WHO director-general and requires the convening of an IHR Emergency Committee. Since the first case was reported in Brazil in May 2015, the disease has spread to 22 other countries and territories in the Americas. A causal relationship between the Zika virus and birth defects has not been established but is strongly suspected, according to WHO. Digital industrial goods manufacturer General Electric Company GE recently announced that it will relocate its corporate headquarters from Fairfield, CT to Boston, MA, lured by the depth in human capital and a more pro-business environment that would significantly reduce its tax burden. The strategic decision is likely to have several repercussions on the growth index of the company. The Driving Factors for Boston For more than three years, Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, had been scouting for an alternative to shift the headquarters from its 4-decade old abode. A formal review of the process began in June 2015, with a list of 40 potential locations that included Atlanta, Austin and Nashville. However, Boston was selected as the ideal choice based on a favorable business ecosystem, huge technology talent base, lower tax structure, a relatively better quality of life for employees and proximity to other company assets. Over the years, Massachusetts has been nurturing technology talent with over 55 colleges and universities in the Greater Boston area, arguably spending relatively more on research and development than any other region in the world. A favorable tax structure also tilted the scales in favor of Massachusetts, as it reportedly has a corporate tax rate of 8% versus an effective tax rate of 9% (due to surcharges on growth income) in Connecticut. That the company had other significant assets in the region further provided an edge in the decision-making process. Massachusetts houses nearly 5,000 employees of General Electric in businesses like Aviation, Oil & Gas and Energy Management. In addition, Boston serves as the headquarters of its Life Sciences business as well as its energy services start-up, Current. Relocation Costs The new headquarters in Boston will feature 200 corporate staff and 600 digital industrial product managers and developers from GE Digital, Current, robotics and Life Sciences departments. The company will also build a GE Digital Foundry for co-creation, incubation and product development with customers, startups and partners. General Electric, however, revealed that the relocation costs would have no material impact on its financials. In order to entice as big a company as General Electric, Massachusetts offered a warm welcome with up to $120 million in grants and other incentives and property tax savings of up to $25 million. However, the funds were pre-conditioned to be spent on developing public infrastructure facilities, including site preparation, acquisition for building and road and building improvements. In order to further offset its relocation expenses, General Electric intends to sell its offices in Fairfield and at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. A Smart Move by GE? General Electric is currently undergoing a massive restructuring program to transform itself into a digital industrial entity with a focus on core manufacturing businesses that have a digital edge. In accordance with Immelts vision, General Electric has divested most of the financial units under GE Capital. The company is betting high on the Industrial Internet as the next growth driver and its tactical moves are reminiscent of such a decisive shift. Although General Electric shares were down 1.4% yesterday to $28.24 on the impact of the news, experts believe that the move is likely to be beneficial in the long run as it focuses to improve profit from industrial operations and emphasize on the digital capabilities. We remain impressed with the continued efforts of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock to sustain its growth momentum in the near future. Some of the other notable companies in the industry worth mentioning include Gorman-Rupp Co. GRC and LSB Industries Inc. LXU, both carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) and Macquarie Infrastructure Corporation MIC, carrying a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report GENL ELECTRIC (GE): Free Stock Analysis Report LSB INDS INC (LXU): Free Stock Analysis Report MACQUARIE INFRA (MIC): Free Stock Analysis Report GORMAN RUPP CO (GRC): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research (Bloomberg) -- Vietnams new leadership is starting to take shape after days of behind-the-scenes sparring at a Communist Party congress, with the biggest beneficiary the partys chief, potentially signaling a more cautious approach to economic reform. General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong outmaneuvered reformist Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dungand was picked for five years in the powerful post. While Trong is expected to prioritize growth, when Dung retires this year at the end of his maximum two terms he may take his zeal for reform with him. With his large influence within the party and extensive network, Trong, 71, will probably frame the political agenda around protecting the party as the center of power. Even as he and other party stalwarts have embraced free-trade pacts, none of the presumptive leaders have shown as much drive to overhaul the economy and bloated state-owned companies as Dung did. They all agree there must be reforms of the state-owned enterprises, said Le Hong Hiep, a visiting fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. But they may be afraid to go too fast. Mr. Trong may not want to run the risk of reforms that could undermine the rule of the party. As part of the leadership changes, Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang was nominated to be the next president. Deputy premier Nguyen Xuan Phuc, not known for bold initiatives, is on course to replace Dung. In a speech at the close of the congress, Trong said the party needs to increase unity and vowed to protect the countrys sovereignty. During a press briefing afterward, he said the party must curb corruption and waste. The new leadership seeks to comprehensively increase reforms, accelerate economic growth at a sustainable pace and strive to make Vietnam a modern and industrial country that improves its citizens lives, he said. The partys 2016-2020 economic blueprint adopted at the congress calls for the creation of favorable conditions" to support private companies. It also urges faster privatization of state enterprises and resolving bad debt. Several leaders, including Trong, have warned that Vietnam is at risk of falling behind regional peers. Average growth in 2011 through 2015 was 5.9 percent, lower than the 6.5 percent-to-7 percent target set by the government. Story continues Trade Pact State-owned companies use almost 50 percent of Vietnams public investment and tap 60 percent of the countrys bank loans, while contributing to just a third of gross domestic product, according to government data. Trade agreements like the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership will necessitate changes to ensure private companies and state-owned enterprises operate on a level playing field, said Fred Burke,managing partner at Baker & McKenzie (Vietnam) Ltd, a law firm. Phuc, a protege of the late Nguyen Ba Thanh, the former chairman of the Danang Peoples Committee known for transparency and fighting corruption, is seen as an honest broker, a roll- up-your-sleeves-get-things-done kind of person, Burke said. As deputy premier Phuc, who comes from the central province of Quang Nam, oversaw a three-year project to streamline government bureaucracy, he said. He may not have a Harvard business degree but he can get the right people in the same room, Burke said. Party Delegates Trong received more than 80 percent of votes from party delegates to be a member of the central committee, a precursor to being re-elected as general secretary. Dung, at least indirectly, could continue to influence state affairs because his loyalists were elected to the committee, including his son, Nguyen Thanh Nghi. Not everything went well under Dungs stewardship, Trinh Nguyen, a Hong Kong-based senior economist for emerging Asia at Natixis SA., said in a Jan. 26 research note. Mismanagement of state assets resulted in boom-and-bust cycles, dragging down the competitiveness of domestic firms and the country, she wrote. Diplomatic Matters With Dung leaving the political stage, top leaders may not be as savvy on international affairs, at least initially, said Nguyen Viet Ha, Vietnam Managing Director for Bower Group Asia, a consultancy that advises foreign investors. "From what I know about Phuc, hes more of a domestic affairs person, she said. That can be a challenge for foreign investors or foreign companies in Vietnam who are trying to work with him. Vietnam will probably continue to balance its desire for closer ties with major powers such as the U.S. to counters Chinas assertive actions in the disputed South China Sea while maintaining a relatively positive relationship with its large Communist neighbor and main trading partner. Important Partner Before Trongs visit to the U.S. to meet with President Barack Obama last year, Trong said in written answers to questions from Bloomberg that Vietnam would prioritize ties with the U.S. as one of the most important partners in our foreign policy. Frictions rose this month after Chinese planes landed on a new airstrip on reclaimed islands in the Spratly islands chain, triggering protests from Vietnam. Vietnam said Jan. 19 it had demanded that China remove an oil rig it has parked in disputed waters. There is a very strong consensus among the party leadership regarding how to deal with China, Hiep said. They agree Vietnam must work with other countries to constrain Chinese ambitions. The departure of Dung could usher in a new generation of leaders for a country that needs fresh viewpoints, said Bower Groups Ha. With a new team in place, there will be challenges, Ha said. There will also be new energy and a new mindset in place that will make the country grow to a new level. --With assistance from K. Oanh Ha and Nguyen Dieu Tu Uyen. To contact the reporter on this story: John Boudreau in Hanoi at jboudreau3@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net K. Oanh Ha Vietnam's freshly re-elected top communist party leader has hit out at critics of his country's one-party system, arguing that collective decision-making is "more democratic" than in nations which hold popular elections. Trong, a conservative apparatchik, made the comments after being re-elected Wednesday for a second term as top leader, bringing the five-yearly Communist Party Congress to a close with a resounding victory for the party's old guard following weeks of infighting. The septuagenarian official, schooled in Soviet-style economics and seen as closer to Beijing than his erstwhile rival, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, used the first remarks of his new term to defend Vietnam's authoritarian system, which tolerates little dissent. "I don't want to name names, but some countries are nominally democracies yet the individual (leader) decides everything," he said. "With that in mind, who is more democratic?" he asked. Trong's rival, the reformist Prime Minister Dung who is widely credited with pushing a pro-business agenda and had been tipped for the top job, lost out in internal elections and will step down in May. His replacement is expected to be Nguyen Xuan Phuc, currently a deputy prime minister, state media said. Trong has been party chief since 2011 and will stay on following a compromise deal which analysts say is a break from the charismatic Dung's decade in power and a shift back towards more consensus-based decision-making. Trong said was he was "surprised" to have been asked to stay on in the party's top job, but prepared to face the challenges ahead. He sent a clear message in his speech that Vietnam, which is routinely criticised by rights groups and foreign governments for its intolerance of domestic dissent, will not be changing tack. "A country without discipline, in chaos and instability, that country cannot develop. So democracy and discipline must go together," he said. The country's new president, reported to be Tran Dai Quang by state media, is a police general who rose the ranks within the country's powerful Ministry of Public Security. Trong's ascent -- which owes as much to Dung's divisiveness as to his own popularity -- is unlikely to mark a dramatic change of course on key issues such as a dispute with Beijing over parts of the South China Sea and participation in a series of trade deals, including the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership. KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan has failed to remedy a series of chronic human rights abuses ranging from the torture of prisoners by security forces to brutal mistreatment of women, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Wednesday. The rights watchdog's 2016 annual report said reform efforts by President Ashraf Ghani's national unity government had been undermined by failure to contain internal differences and keep local strongmen and power brokers in check. "Afghanistan's national unity government squandered important opportunities to tackle serious human rights problems," Patricia Gossman, senior Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "As reforms have slipped, so have essential human rights protections for detainees, women, and the media." HRW said international donors, whose support is essential to the government of one of the world's poorest economies, had to work more closely with Afghan authorities to ensure that human rights gains made since 2001 were not lost. The section on Afghanistan, part of a 659-page report reviewing human rights practices in more than 90 countries, painted a bleak picture more than 14 years after U.S.-led forces drove the Taliban from power. The brutal murder of 27 year-old Farkhunda Malikzada after she was falsely accused of burning a copy of the Koran and the flawed trial which followed threw into stark relief the failure to advance women's rights, despite repeated government pledges, the report said. Hundreds of civilians were also killed in suicide and roadside bomb attacks last year. Islamist insurgents targeted judges, prosecutors and other government officials as well as journalists and Afghan and foreign aid workers. In addition, Taliban groups and others including Islamic State carried out kidnappings and "indiscriminate" attacks against civilians, the report said. Despite an action plan to eliminate torture by government forces and militias, documented cases of torture increased in 2015 but there were no reported investigations or prosecutions, it said. "Atrocities by the Taliban and other insurgents are no excuse for the government to deploy abusive militias or fail to hold the security forces accountable for violations," Gossman said. The report also pointed to the incident in the northern city of Kunduz in which a U.S. warplane attacked a hospital run by aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres, killing at least 42 people. An investigation found "human, procedural and technical" errors were to blame but many questions about the incident remained unanswered, Human Rights Watch said. (Reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Nick Macfie) BEIJING, Jan 28 (Reuters) - China CITIC Bank Corp confirmed on Thursday it has discovered a fraud involving 969 million yuan ($147.37 million) in funds illicitly drawn from its bill financing business. State-owned mid-tier lender CITIC Bank also said that police have been notified and corresponding funds and related assets have been frozen. Announcement of the fraud comes one week after the Agricultural Bank of China (AgBank) admitted it could lose as much as 3.9 billion yuan from a similar fraud. Chinese financial publication Caixin reported that the case was tied to two AgBank employees, who illegally sold the bills of exchange to an unnamed third-party, and then used the proceeds to invest in the stock market, which has slumped since the middle of last year. China's banks have been dogged by accusations of corruption. A recent crackdown on the financial industry has sparked investigations into several senior executives. A CITIC Bank employee working in the north-western city of Lanzhou allegedly conspired with other people between May and July to fake documents that were used as collateral to obtain a bankers' acceptance bills, Bloomberg News earlier reported. ($1 = 6.5754 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting By Shanghai and Beijing Newsrooms) Congress has approved a measure that will make election duties voluntary for public school teachers in the country. With the House of Representatives deciding to adopt the version of the bill approved by the Senate, the measure can now be sent to the President for signing. Senate Bill 2178 or the proposed Election Service Reform Act (ESRA) would allow public school teachers to turn down poll duties, which have been mandatory for them during past elections. For the teachers who opt to continue serving as Board of Election Inspectors (BEI), the bill also provides that they would get a higher honorarium. The House has passed the proposed ESRA, where the honorarium would be increased from P3,000 to P6,000 for the chairman of the BEI, P3,000 to P5,000 for BEI members, P3,000 to P4,000 for supervisors of the Department of Education, and P1,500 to P2,000 for support staff. Their travel allowance would also go up from P500 to P1,000. In the past, most BEI members were public school teachers. The BEI is the panel that conducts the balloting process in the precinct level. The proposed ESRA makes election duty on the part of teachers voluntary, instead of compulsory as the election law provides. Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, chairman of the Senate committee on electoral reforms and peoples participation and sponsor of the bill, said the measure will give the public school teachers the liberty to choose whether to serve in the elections as Board of Election Inspectors or not, by way of making the election service optional to protect them from political pressures and consider their personal welfare. Pimentel said that the increase in honoraria should take effect in this Mays elections. In order to ensure the timely payment of the honoraria, the bill provides that the person who caused the delay would be held liable for an election offense. The bill also grants five days of service credit instead of three days to all government officials and employees serving as members of the electoral boards, DepEd supervisor/official and support staff. Story continues The measure also grants an increase in the death benefits from P200,000 to P500,000 and the medical assistance in such amount as may be sufficient to cover for medical and hospitalization expenses until recovery of injuries sustained while in the performance of election duties. We must ensure that the very people whom we rely on to manage the conduct of elections in this country are properly cared for, so that they may continue to preserve, with utmost pride and passion, the very foundation of our democratic system an utterly free, honest and orderly election, Pimentel said. Senate Bill 2178 was introduced by Sen. Paolo Benigno Aquino IV and considered similar bills authored by Sens. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Loren Legarda and Pimentel. Rep. Antonio Tinio of party-list group Alliance of Concerned Teachers, one of the authors of the ESRA in the House, said although election duty would be voluntary, many teachers would still volunteer to serve in the BEI. He said the proposed law also provides legal assistance to teachers serving as election board. Considering the increase in honoraria and the solid package of benefits and legal assistance, teachers opting out of election service will be the exception, rather than the rule. Teachers will continue to serve in the overwhelming majority of polling precincts nationwide and they will do an even better job, he said. More than 630,000 public school teachers across the country are required to perform election duties and are usually not compensated right away in spite of the risks involved in their duties. It is only timely that we give our teachers better benefits and options regarding their poll duties, given the risks they take in ensuring that elections are facilitated in a proper and clean manner, Senate President Franklin Drilon said. Tinio, for his part, thanked Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II for the passage of the measure. Their support was crucial in securing House approval, given the limited session days remaining and the difficulty in achieving a quorum, Tinio said. We dedicate the passage of the bill to the memory of Filomena Tatlonghari, Nellie Banaag and other teachers who gave their lives while serving in elections, he said. Tatlonghari was killed in a ballot box-snatching incident in Mabini, Batangas in 1995, while Banaag died when armed men burned down her school during the 2007 elections. Meanwhile, the Senate also approved Senate Bill 886 defining the role of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) during elections. Allegations regarding the involvement of certain members of the AFP affecting the results of elections have been plaguing this country and reached its pinnacle sometime in June 2005 when the so-called Hello, Garci scandal broke out, Pimentel said. The bill aims to limit the role of the AFP during the elections to only maintaining peace and order when there are no available units or members of the Philippine National Police in the area or when there is a need to augment the PNP units in a certain area. The AFP personnel are prohibited from taking part in activities related to handling and opening of ballot boxes, counting, tallying and canvassing of votes and proclamation of winning candidates during any electoral exercise. With Jess Diaz French carmaker Peugeot will return to Iran in a partnership deal with a local manufacturer worth 400 million euros ($436 million), according to an agreement signed Thursday during Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's visit to France. The deal will see Peugeot work with the manufacturer Iran Khodro, with the first vehicles expected to roll off the production line in 2017. It makes Peugeot the first Western carmaker to announce a return to Iran since sanctions were lifted against the country after it signed a deal to limit its nuclear programme. Peugeot and its French partner Citroen will work with Iran Khodro to produce 200,000 vehicles a year using parts manufactured in Iran. The aim is to produce the Peugeot 208, the 2008 sport utility vehicle and 301 compact models. Peugeot pulled out of Iran in 2012 as Western sanctions imposed over the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme began to bite. At the time, Iran was Peugeot's second-largest market after France. With the lifting of the sanctions, Iran has signed a raft of commercial deals and Rouhani is also expected to tie up an agreement to buy more than 100 passenger jets during his two-day visit to France. Indonesia, once a notoriously corrupt nation in the region, could soon outperform Malaysia in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), says the global anti-graft body's Malaysian chapter. Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M) president Datuk Akhbar Satar said although Indonesia was currently ranked at 88, way down Malaysias 54th position, it has made double-digit leaps up the index in the past few years. Malaysias ranking, in contrast, stagnated in the 49-55 range, between 2013 and 2012. Launching the 2015 CPI results yesterday, Akhbar revealed that the republic improved by 19 spots from last year to sit at 88 among 168 countries. Meanwhile, Malaysia's ranking has declined by four ranks since 2014. Akhbar said the reason for Indonesias rapid rise was the strength and independence of its anti-graft agency and the overwhelming support it received from the public. "We should follow Indonesia's footsteps and use them as an example," said Akhbar. "Compared to Malaysians, the people of Indonesia have more will to fight corruption. They are willing to come forward to give information and to become witnesses in corruption cases. "Malaysians are afraid because we don't like to get into trouble. We love ourselves more than we love our country," said Akhbar. In 2013, Indonesias Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) was given the Ramon Magsaysay Award, widely touted as the "Asian Nobel Prize". Akhbar (pic, right) said it was another acknowledgement of Indonesia's seriousness in battling graft. TI-M deputy president, Dr Loi Kheng Min, said although Indonesia was currently ranked below Malaysia, focus should be given to its rate of progress. When the index was first introduced in 1995, Indonesia was ranked last among 41 countries. Its present position at 88 is the best it has achieved. Loi said KPKs independence could be used as an example to push for more reforms of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC). "In the past when KPK did not receive enough from the governments budget, the people raised funds and opened an office for KPK. Now KPK is financed by public donations and does not rely much on the budget," said Loi. Loi added that unlike MACC, KPK only took on high profile cases and was vested with prosecutorial powers. He said this contributed to its 100% success rate on convictions, as opposed to MACC's 85% success rate. January 28, 2016. By Luke Baker JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The United States, European Union and the United Nations have issued unusually stern criticism of Israel, provoking a sharp response from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and raising Palestinians' hopes of steps against their neighbour. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday described Israel's settlements as "provocative acts" that raised questions about its commitment to a two-state solution, nearly 50 years after occupying lands the Palestinians seek for a state. Ban also laid some of the blame for four months of stabbings and car rammings by Palestinians at Israel's door, saying "as oppressed peoples have demonstrated throughout the ages, it is human nature to react to occupation, which often serves as a potent incubator of hate and extremism". Netanyahu's response was quick and furious. Ban's remarks "give a tailwind to terrorism", he said, and ignore the fact "Palestinian murderers do not want to build a state". "The U.N. lost its neutrality and moral force a long time ago," he added, singling Ban out for personal criticism. While terse words between Israel and the United Nations are nothing new, Israel's closest allies, the United States and the European Union, have publicly expressed their own frustration with the policies of Netanyahu's right-wing government. Speaking at a security conference last week, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro questioned how equitably justice is applied in the occupied West Bank, saying: "At times there seem to be two standards of adherence to the rule of law: one for Israelis and another for Palestinians." That, too, drew an angry response from Netanyahu. Shapiro later said he regretted the timing of his remarks, made on the day an Israeli mother of six, stabbed to death by a Palestinian in a West Bank settlement, was buried. The European Union's policy of labelling products made in Israeli settlements has provoked similar anger from officials, while Sweden's foreign minister was branded an anti-Semite after calling for an independent investigation into Israel's efforts to quell the current wave of violence. NOT SO RESOLVED The criticism, particularly about the settlements, where some 550,000 Jews live in around 250 communities scattered across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, has raised Palestinian hopes that world powers might finally be minded to support a U.N. resolution condemning Israel's policy outright. "We are continuing our contacts with the international community... and will go to the Security Council for a resolution against the colonial settlement enterprise," Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians' chief negotiator, said last week. The last attempt at such a resolution failed in 2011 after the United States vetoed it, saying it harmed the chances for peace. The feeling among Palestinian diplomats now is that the United States may be less inclined to veto given the absence of peace talks and the depth of U.S. frustration with Israel. Israeli diplomats are also wary of that possibility. "It's always a risk and we are extremely attentive to it," said Emmanuel Nahshon, the Foreign Ministry's spokesman. "There has indeed been a lot of criticism of Israel recently, but I don't know whether that necessarily translates into a U.N. resolution." He said there had been "anti-Israeli resolutions" at the United Nations in the past, regardless of developments on the ground. The Palestinians hope France, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, might sponsor such a resolution, but it is unclear whether the French have the appetite for such a course. "If the French want to play a useful and positive role in the Middle East, they can't stand behind an initiative that is against Israel and only antagonises us," said Nahshon. Even if a resolution were to be drafted, diplomats played down its prospects. While President Barack Obama may have a fractious relationship with Netanyahu, he is unlikely to want to isolate Israel in a U.S. election year, with Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton keen to draw the Jewish vote. "The logic might seem to be there, but when it comes to it, the United States isn't going to let such a resolution pass," said a European diplomat who has worked at the United Nations. (Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Janet Lawrence) By Marice Richter and Anahi Rama FORT WORTH, Texas/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The American teenager derided for claiming a defence of "affluenza" in the killing four people while driving drunk arrived back in Texas on Thursday after being deported from Mexico and was placed in juvenile detention. After his flight landed, Ethan Couch, 18, wearing a hooded sweatshirt and sporting a beard, was seen with his hands behind his back being escorted by uniformed officers through the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. About an hour after touching down, he was placed in a Tarrant County juvenile detention centre, where the local sheriff said he was calm and being fed. "He was as compliant and docile as anyone I have ever seen come into a facility," Sheriff Dee Anderson told reporters. "We are hoping that the day comes when justice is done for those families and the victims that were killed," he said. Couch fled to Mexico in December along with his mother after a video emerged on social media that likely showed the teen in violation of the probation deal reached in juvenile court that kept him out of prison for causing the deadly crash in 2013. He faces a detention hearing on Friday or Monday, at which a judge will determine whether to transfer the case from the juvenile system to the adult system, his lawyers said. "We are optimistic that, going forward, Ethan will comply with all court-imposed terms and conditions and that he will successfully complete his term of probation," lawyers Scott Brown and Wm. Reagan Wynn said in a statement. Couch was 16 when he was tried as a juvenile. A psychiatrist testifying on his behalf said he had "affluenza," as his family's wealth had left him so spoiled that it impaired his judgement to tell right from wrong. The affluenza diagnosis, not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, was widely ridiculed. If he violated the probation deal, Couch faces about four months behind bars. His mother, Tonya Couch, faces up to 10 years in prison for helping her son flee to Mexico. Couch's lawyers may seek to transfer him to the adult system so he can apply for bail, an option not available in the juvenile system, a legal official said. His mother was deported to the United States last month and has since been freed on bond. He was sentenced to 10 years of drug-and-alcohol-free probation for intoxication manslaughter, a punishment condemned by critics as privilege rewarded with leniency. (Writing by Jon Herskovitz and Gabriel Stargardter; additional reporting by Suzannah; editing by Simon Gardner, G Crosse and Alistair Bell) LIMA (Reuters) - Peru's electoral committee said on Wednesday that it might bar a leading candidate from the presidential race if a university in Spain finds that plagiarism allegations against him are true. Cesar Acuna, a wealthy former governor and businessman, declined to provide immediate comment. His representatives said he would deliver a statement at 5pm (2200 GMT). The Complutense University of Madrid is investigating whether Acuna committed fraud in his 2009 doctor's thesis on education after Twitter users accused him of plagiarism when they said that parts of the thesis match previously-published texts without attribution. "If they withdraw or invalidate his diploma or title, obviously that would mean falsehood...he would be removed (from the race) if it's falsehood," Francisco Tavara, the president of Peru's National Jury of Elections, told reporters. Acuna is the owner of three private universities and has made improving education a central campaign pledge. His elimination from the presidential race would boost the chances of front-running candidate Keiko Fujimori - who competes with him for support among poorer voters - and other candidates hoping to garner enough support to face Fujimori in a run-off. Fujimori, the daughter of jailed ex-president Alberto Fujimori, has been drawing about a third of voter intent for the April 10 election. At least 50 percent of votes are needed to avoid a second-round contest in June. Acuna had 13 percent of support in an Ipsos survey this month, tying established politician Pedro Pablo Kuczynski who is popular among investors but has been slipping in polls. Acuna has promised to invest 6 percent of the country's gross domestic product in education and jumpstart slow economic growth. (Reporting By Mitra Taj; Editing by Alistair Bell) Theres nothing like beauty as balm for the wounded, soldiers confined at the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Medical Center at V. Luna in Quezon City found out after Miss Universe Pia Wurtzbachs visit yesterday. Its nice to hear their stories, very touching. They say its their day, but I feel its my day. Thats why we are here. I was able to talk to the wounded soldiers and some people who are affected by AIDS. I sincerely enjoyed the visit, Wurtzbach said. Cpl. Florencio Gacutan, still nursing an AK-47 gunshot wound on his left arm and confined along with other troopers at Heroes Ward 3A, said he was touched by the beauty queens words to him. Wurtzbach thanked him for defending the country and wished for his speedy recovery. A member of the Armys Special Forces, Gacutan was wounded in an encounter with New Peoples Army rebels in Agusan del Sur on Nov. 26. Aside from Gacutan, Wurtzbach also visited 40 other casualties of the battlefield at the key military hospital. Wurtzbach gamely posed for pictures with the wounded troops, saying that her afternoon visit yesterday made her day. Her entourage distributed brown paper bags marked Binibining Pilipinas filled with souvenir items. AFP deputy chief of staff Lt. Gen. Edgar Fallorina described the visit to the AFP Medical Center as something special as it uplifted the spirit of the battle casualties. The visit boosts the morale of the soldier-patients, Fallorina said, adding that it was the first time that a Miss Universe herself a Filipina took notice of the wounded soldiers plight. Jaime Laude DAKAR (Reuters) - Senegal said on Tuesday it had interrogated some 900 people over a three-day period as part of efforts to prevent attacks by Islamist militants following a series of strikes in the region. The former French colony has a reputation for stability in an otherwise turbulent region, having never suffered a major attack, despite sharing a border with Mali where al Qaeda-linked fighters have been active in desert areas for years. But two high-profile attacks targeting foreigners in the capitals of Mali and Burkina Faso since November have added to signs that an Islamist insurgency is spreading, prompting Senegal to boost security. "Nearly 900 people were called in for questioning in the context of the security campaign led by national police amid the terrorist threat," said police spokesman Henry Boumy Ciss, referring to a weekend campaign in the capital Dakar and the nearby city of Thies. A second security source confirmed the information, adding that 925 people had been questioned. Ciss said those interrogated were not targeted because they were terrorism suspects, but as part of a general vigilance campaign. Most were subsequently released but some were held and charged with a range of crimes not related to militant activity, such as drunkenness and traffic offences, he added. Seydi Gassama, executive director for Amnesty International in Senegal, said that police were authorised to conduct such operations provided there were government instructions. However, the group will closely watch for any potential rights abuses in the heightened security context, given a history of police excesses, he said. Diplomats have denied rumours of a specific threat to capitals of Dakar and Abidjan, both major hubs for Westerners working in the aid, diplomacy and financial sectors. "... We want to avoid an unnecessary psychosis among both Americans and Ivorians," said the U.S. embassy in Abidjan on Sunday, urging citizens to remain prudent. But everywhere there are signs of heightened security. Police officers stop and search vehicles near Dakar's beachside restaurants while armed guards are conducting patrols through Western style shopping centres in both capitals. (Reporting by Emma Farge and Diadie Ba; Editing by Alison Williams) Taiwans Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) is offering science and technology post-graduate scholarships in Taiwanese universities to Filipino scientists and researchers. The scholarship is for those who want to pursue a two-year masteral program or a two- year doctoral degree in any Taiwan university. Taiwan is offering the scholarships to encourage international students to pursue higher education in Taiwan. Each recipient will receive a monthly stipend of New Taiwan $30,000 (approximately P42,000) to cover tuition and other expenses during the duration of the program. Application period for the scholarship is until March 31. Applicants are advised to submit the required documents to MOST through the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office located at the RCBC Plaza, at the corner of Ayala and Gil Puyat avenues in Makati City. Republicans scrambling to win the first contest in the US presidential nomination race geared for battle at Thursday's high-stakes debate in Iowa, but defiant frontrunner Donald Trump upended the campaign by refusing to attend. Trump's gamble left the presidential race in uncharted waters days before Iowans vote February 1, but he insisted he will not back down in his feud with debate host Fox News. The billionaire has doubled down, in a game of political chicken, hosting a rival event for military veterans at the same time as his own party showcases its candidates to Iowa voters. All eyes are on the heartland state, where 12 Republican candidates and three Democratic hopefuls including Hillary Clinton are vying for both bragging rights and momentum as the primary race heads next to votes in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. "The 'debate' tonight will be a total disaster -- low ratings with advertisers and advertising rates dropping like a rock. I hate to see this," tweeted Trump, who has never held elected office. "I hope @CNN has enough bandwidth tonight because not many will be watching @FoxNews." Adding to the spectacle, rival Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who is languishing in polls and was attending an undercard event before the main debate, said he will join Trump at his counter-event for veterans. "It's not an endorsement of Donald Trump's candidacy; I'm still running for president," Huckabee assured CNN. Another low-poller, former senator Rick Santorum, will also attend Trump's event. Some veterans have denounced the fundraiser. "Vets don't need political stunts. We need candidates to present smart, specific plans on VA (Veterans Affairs) reform," said Paul Rieckhoff, founder of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. - Trump streaks ahead - Trump has accused Fox News, and especially debate moderator Megyn Kelly, of bias against him. With Fox and the billionaire in all-out war, the Republican National Committee appeared eager to downplay the Trump snub. "Every campaign is going to make the decision that they need to make" about debate participation, RNC chairman Reince Priebus told Fox News. "I think it's going to be a big night." Analysts have been riveted by the unexpected drama and disruption of the typical Iowa political playbook. The last major candidate to skip a pre-Iowa caucus debate was Ronald Reagan, in 1980. "Wow. What a chess game," Iowa State University political science professor Steffen Schmidt declared of the political theater. But the longtime election watcher said he believed Iowa core conservatives were "furious" at Trump's flippant decision. Trump has a genuine battle on his hands in Iowa with ultra-conservative senator Ted Cruz, his nearest GOP rival, who trails by about five percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average of recent Iowa polls. Cruz, who has earned endorsements from key evangelicals and anti-abortion figures who tout his conservative and religious values, insists the race is winnable. His team claims its ground game is second to none in Iowa, with 12,000 volunteers and staff blanketing the state. Little is known about Trump's grassroots efforts to generate caucus turnout in Iowa, and he has largely avoided the grueling face-to-face courtship of voters, opting instead to talk to them from a distant podium. Nationally, however, Trump keeps soaring. A recent CNN/ORC poll of Republican voters has Trump at 41 percent to 19 percent for Cruz, with more than two-thirds of Republicans saying they believe the billionaire developer will be the party's presidential candidate. Florida Senator Marco Rubio is third at eight percent, followed by retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at six percent and Florida ex-governor Jeb Bush at five percent. - Cruz at center stage - With Trump absent, Cruz will take center stage alongside six other Republicans eager for the opportunity to shine in the absence of the man accused of sucking the oxygen out of the room. Cruz told Fox it was "stunning" that Trump refused to debate, challenging him to a one-on-one showdown. Rubio meanwhile has denounced the Trump-Cruz sideshow. His final ad before Iowa portrays him as the electable Republican. "This election is about defeating Hillary Clinton, and about saving what makes America unique," he says in the television spot. The Donald is seeking to draw in Americans who have not voted for years, with the help of supporters like Julian Raven, an artist driving his larger-than-life painting of Trump across Iowa on a rented truck. "He has guts," said Raven. "God votes Trump." * Follows inspections by Hong Kong regulator * Funds adopt measures to deal better with liquidity shocks * Inspections found some investors were unfairly treated * Comes as Chinese stocks slide in 2016, down 25 pct so far * Some funds lacked orderly process for handling redemptions By Michelle Price and Saikat Chatterjee HONG KONG, Jan 28 (Reuters) - China-focused funds in Hong Kong are adopting measures to improve how they cope with liquidity shocks from Chinese markets after the securities regulator found some investors were unfairly treated during last year's market rout. More than half of the mainland's listed firms suspended trading in their stocks at the height of the slump in July, which made it hard for fund managers to value their portfolios and meet a flood of redemptions from investors eager to cut their losses. Fund managers are once again on notice of potential redemptions. After a brief respite from last year's fall, Chinese stocks so far in 2016 have dropped about 25 percent, wiping off 13 trillion yuan ($2 trillion) in market capitalisation. Inspections by the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) kicked off last year found many funds did not have rigorous processes for valuing their portfolios in the extreme conditions, people with knowledge of the discussions between the regulator and industry said. "This meant some investors were able to redeem at a higher price than they should have, leaving those left in the fund with a lower price. This is raising alarm bells," said Stewart Aldcroft, chief executive of CitiTrust, which acts as a trustee to several Hong Kong funds and has been involved in industry discussions on the matter. Following the inspections and faced with waning investor confidence, hedge funds, asset managers and exchange traded funds now hold more cash, so it is easier to meet redemption requests at times of stress. Asset managers, including Allianz Global Investors and BNP Paribas Investment Partners, are increasing their use of the stock connect scheme, a trading mechanism that allows funds in Hong Kong to adjust positions in Shanghai's stock markets more rapidly than using China's other investment channels. Some funds are also introducing stricter policies on valuing stocks that have halted trading and on managing redemptions. Chinese stocks dropped around 40 percent in just a few months last year, prompting investors to rush for the exits. An unexpected devaluation of the yuan in August added to concerns that the economy was in worse shape than policymakers had let on. The SFC found that during the slump many funds did not have an orderly process for handling redemptions. They chose not to use measures that could have alleviated liquidity stress, such as capping daily redemptions or suspending them altogether, fearing such action would damage their reputation. This meant investors left at the back of the redemption queue, or who did not redeem their investments at all, were sometimes left holding illiquid stocks - a situation the SFC believes may constitute unfair treatment, fund managers said. "Suspension of trading in a fund when a certain amount of underlying stocks are halted and better market liquidity are necessary to boost investor confidence," said Tobias Bland, chief executive of asset management firm Enhanced Investment Products in Hong Kong. The SFC is expected to make a second round of inspections and issue new guidelines in coming months, industry participants said. An SFC spokesman said the regulator had maintained "close dialogue" with asset managers, but he did not elaborate on the outcome of the inspections. "Management companies are required to have procedures to handle issues related to redemption, subscription and valuation of fund assets to ensure all investors are treated fairly, and they should keep investors informed of such procedures," he said. China's yuan-denominated stock markets are the third riskiest in the world after Egypt and Greece, risk management firm Axioma says. "Liquidity risk management is one of the key concerns for fund managers," said Caroline Yu Maurer, head of Greater China equities for BNP Paribas Investment Partners in Hong Kong. "What if I have big redemptions but I can't sell the stocks?" (Reporting by Michelle Price and Saikat Chatterjee; Editing by Neil Fullick) Prominent foreign news organisations have been reporting on the decision by Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali not to take further action over US$681 million deposited into Datuk Seri Najib Razak's personal accounts in 2013. Here are excerpts and summaries on the reporting by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, BBC and The Independent, among others. The Wall Street Journal (US) The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported a spokesman for the Saudi foreign ministry saying that officials were looking into the statement and couldnt now comment further. The alleged donation was made under the kingdoms previous monarch, King Abdullah, who died a year ago. The WSJ said critics of Najib werent satisfied by the A-Gs conclusions, claiming that the prime minister had interfered with the official probes into the RM2.6 billion donation as well as the controversial 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). DAP lawmaker Tony Pua was quoted by the WSJ as saying that the A-G has provided no new or convincing information or arguments to show the fund transfers were bona fide and not used for corruption. The Wall Street Journal first reported on July 2 last year about the flow of funds into Najib's personal accounts. The WSJ's report in July was based on documents leaked by Malaysian investigators probing Najib's brainchild, state-owned investment firm 1MDB. WSJ added that overseas probes into 1MDBs activities are continuing in at least five countries, including a US Federal Bureau of Investigation investigation into assets owned by Najib and his family, such as luxury real estate in New York and Los Angeles. The Independent (UK) Reporting on Najib's exoneration, The Independent highlighted that it was by an attorney-general he had appointed. The esteemed UK broadsheet also quoted opposition spokesman Kim Quek as saying: If the top public servant of the country can openly amass billions with impunity, why cant lesser officials similarly enrich themselves in lesser amounts? Wouldnt that open a floodgate of runaway corruption in the country? A country led by such a morally bankrupt leader would jeopardise the investment climate and cause a serious dent to the economy, which is already caught in a tailspin. There has been so much evidence made public implicating Najib, there are huge holes in the attorney-generals statements. He has answered none of the questions that have been raised. No one is going to believe this. According to The Independent, loyalists in Umno and Barisan Nasional may be unconcerned over the huge donation from persons unknown within the Saudi royal family but internationally, the economic fall-out could be substantial. The report quoted former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad as saying: The only thing we can do is to have the prime minister resign... or be removed. Because he is the principal person who has brought about this bad image for the country. The New York Times (US) The New York Times (NYT) reported on the outrage and cynicism by the opposition and ordinary Malaysians after the A-G had closed the investigation because "no laws had been broken". PKR secretary-general Rafizi Ramli was reported to have called Najib the luckiest person, having received so much money and most generous for having returned so much of it. The paper said Putrajaya had moved aggressively to shut down leaks that led to the investigation, with the police raiding the MACC headquarters while suspending the publishing license of The Edge Financial Daily, and also removing deputy prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who had been pressing for further investigations. On the SRC International probe, NYT reported Najib saying in a statement that he was of the belief that money he had spent from his account was all part of what had come from the Saudi royal family. Calling the case of SRC "potentially explosive", NYT said it involves the retirement savings of civil servants, from which SRC had received a loan of more than US$930 million following Cabinet approval. NYT continued with the reported lavish spending of Najib's wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, and his stepson in real estate in the United States coming under scrutiny. According to the NYT, last September, people with knowledge of the investigation said that a US federal grand jury was examining allegations of corruption involving Najib and "people close to him". The Guardian (UK) The Guardian reported Najib's reply to the attorney-general's comments, that it had confirmed what I have maintained all along: that no crime was committed. The UK daily quoted DAP's Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua saying that the basis to absolve the prime minister of any wrongdoing is utterly without merit because the personal affair does not preclude corrupt motives or transactions. The attorney-general has provided no new or convincing information or arguments on whether the massive funds were bona fide, which leads to the question whether the newly-appointed attorney-general is merely covering up for the prime minister. BBC International broadcaster BBC focused on the economic impact on the decision by the A-G, saying that this scandal "couldn't have come at a worse time for Malaysia the country has been hit by falling oil prices adding that the reputational damage to the economy can't fully be quantified." The BBC also reported a nervousness surrounding the way the Malaysian economy is being run, with the perceived lack of transparency not helping boost investor confidence. However, it's report said the fact that Malaysian shares and the currency barely reacted to the news of Najib's exoneration yesterday just reflects the ongoing fatigue that many Malaysians have with the state of affairs. The BBC added that though investigations into the RM2.6 billion donation and SRC International have been completed and the cases are closed in Malaysia, however, the issue of 1MDB under Najib's stewardship may yet have to answer questions from foreign authorities looking into the case of the "mysterious millions". CNBC Business news broadcaster, CNBC, spoke to DAP's parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang who said that it was "inappropriate for Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali to make a decision on whether offences were committed in the cases because he was appointed attorney-general by Najib himself." "It was very controversial circumstances when (previous A-G) Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail was sacked. It is a conflict of interest," Lim said, adding that Apandi, a former federal court judge, had strong ties with Umno, the main party in the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional. Bloomberg Bloomberg reported on the A-G's statement yesterday, with feedback from a political analyst on the voter sentiment to the news. "Can the government move on? Yes," Ibrahim Suffian, an analyst at the Merdeka Center was quoted as saying. But will the allegation affect the sentiment of the voters? It depends on how the government performs over the next couple of years. A CEO from a fund management company was also reported telling Bloomberg that once a leader has these kinds of negative perception, it affects investor confidence as a whole on concern of how the country is being run. It would be hard to change this negative perception. Fund managers in the US and Europe will not put Malaysia as attractive as peers after considering political factors, the fund manager had said. Bloomberg also quoted former opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as saying in a Twitter message: "The prime minister and attorney-general need to know that citizens will be the judge at the next elections." Anwar is currently serving time in Sungei Buloh prison after being found guilty of sodomy last February. The New Zealand Herald The New Zealand Herald commented on the blackout of the news on Najib by the Saudi Press Agency, despite the implication on the Saudi royal family. The report added that Saudi government officials in Riyadh also had no immediate comment about the case of the RM2.6 billion donation being closed. The Herald continued, quoting DAP's Tony Pua slamming Apandi's decision, saying the fact that it was a personal donation did not rule out corruption. Pua added that Apandi provided no new or convincing information to support his decision. January 27, 2016. Thirty years ago today, NASA suffered a spaceflight tragedy that stunned the world and changed the agency forever. On Jan. 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after blasting off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center, killing all seven astronauts on board including New Hampshire educator Christa McAuliffe, a civilian who had been selected to fly via NASA's "Teacher in Space" program. NASA astronauts had died on the job before Apollo 1 crewmembers Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee were lost when a fire broke out inside their command module during a launchpad exercise on Jan. 27, 1967 but the Challenger disaster was something different altogether. [Remembering Challenger: NASA's 1st Shuttle Tragedy (Photos)] "The whole country and the whole world were in shock when that happened, because that was the first time the United States had actually lost a space vehicle with crew on board," said former NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao, who flew three space shuttle missions during his career (in 1994, 1996 and 2000), and also served as commander of the International Space Station from October 2004 through April 2005. "It was even more shocking because Christa McAuliffe was not a professional astronaut," Chiao told Space.com. "If you lose military people during a military operation, it's sad and it's tragic, but they're professionals doing a job, and that's kind of the way I look at professional astronauts. But you're taking someone who's not a professional, and it happened to be that mission that got lost it added to the shock." Changing the culture Before Challenger launched on its ill-fated STS-51L mission, the space shuttle program had completed 24 missions in a row, starting with the April 1981 liftoff of the orbiter Columbia. That run of success bred a measure of complacency, Chiao said. "There was a 'launch fever' at the time, to try to get these missions off on time, and get more missions going," he said. Story continues That type of thinking played a significant role in the disaster, experts have concluded. Challenger was lost because a rubber "O-ring" seal on the shuttle's right-hand solid rocket booster failed, allowing hot gas to escape and damage the orbiter's external fuel tank, as well as the gear that attached the booster to the tank. The O-ring failed in part because unusually cold temperatures on launch day caused the part to harden, investigators later determined. The temperature at liftoff time was 36 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) 15 degrees F (8 degrees C) colder than any previous shuttle launch, NASA officials have said. [?NASA Remembers Challenger (Video)] "The decision to launch the Challenger was flawed. Those who made that decision were unaware of the recent history of problems concerning the O-rings and the joint, and were unaware of the initial written recommendation of the contractor advising against the launch at temperatures below 53 degrees Fahrenheit [11.7 degrees C] and the continuing opposition of the engineers at Thiokol [Morton Thiokol, which built the shuttle's solid rocket boosters] after the management reversed its position," investigators wrote in their report about the disaster, which is known as the Rogers Commission Report. "They did not have a clear understanding of Rockwell's concern that it was not safe to launch because of ice on the pad," they added. (Rockwell International built the space shuttles for NASA.) "If the decision-makers had known all of the facts, it is highly unlikely that they would have decided to launch 51L on Jan. 28, 1986." In a way, the accident jolted these decision-makers awake, Chiao said. "A lot of things changed," he said. "The space shuttle had to be entirely re-certified. Every last little technical piece was re-analyzed." This work took nearly three years. The shuttle program was grounded until the orbiter Discovery blasted off on Sept. 29, 1988. Fallen heroes The Challenger disaster claimed the lives of seven people: commander Francis "Dick" Scobee; pilot Mike Smith; mission specialists Judith Resnik, Ron McNair and Ellison Onizuka; and payload specialists McAuliffe and Greg Jarvis. They are still missed today, three decades later. "Thirty years just seems like yesterday," said Barbara Morgan, who served as McAuliffe's "Teacher in Space" backup and eventually made it to orbit herself in 2007, aboard the space shuttle Endeavour. "These people are still with me all the time, every day." Morgan said that McAuliffe and the "Teacher in Space" program had a huge impact, even though the STS-51L mission ended in tragedy. "It was a really bad time for education. A huge study had come out a big document called 'A Nation at Risk,' and it talked about how bad our education system was, and it kind of painted all schools and all teachers with a big, broad, bad paintbrush," Morgan told Space.com. "There was a very popular saying at the time: 'Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach.'" But McAuliffe helped change that perception, she added. "Christa was just a wonderful teacher, a wonderful human being and a wonderful representative of our profession, and that made it so that it got turned around," Morgan said. "That's something that I'm really, really grateful for, and proud of." Just a few months after the Challenger accident, the fallen astronauts' family members set up a nonprofit called the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, which seeks to spark students' interest in science, technology and math by giving them exciting, hands-on experiences in these fields. The Challenger Center has reached nearly 4.5 million kids over the last 30 years, Morgan said. The nonprofit is a "living legacy to education, carrying on the education mission that Challenger was all about," she said. "To me, that speaks volumes about what the crew was like and who they were, and it's reflected in their wonderful families as well." Keep exploring Sadly, Challenger was not the space shuttle program's only tragedy. On Feb. 1, 2003, the orbiter Columbia broke apart upon re-entering Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts on board. These crewmembers were commander Rick Husband; pilot William McCool; payload commander Michael Anderson; mission specialists David Brown, Kalpana Chawla and Laurel Clark; and payload specialist Ilan Ramon, from the Israel Space Agency. A piece of insulating foam had broken off Columbia's external fuel tank during the orbiter's launch more than two weeks earlier, damaging the shuttle's left wing. Investigators later determined that this damage allowed hot atmospheric gases to enter the wing's interior, leading to the shuttle's destruction. (Some complacency had crept back into the shuttle program by 2003, Chiao said; foam shedding had been observed during previous shuttle launches but had not been deemed a potentially catastrophic phenomenon.) [Columbia Space Shuttle Disaster Explained (Infographic)] Disasters such as the losses of Challenger and Columbia serve as reminders that spaceflight is an inherently difficult and risky proposition, Chiao said. "I don't think space travel will ever be as safe as commercial air travel, just because the amount of energy you have to put into a vehicle to accelerate it to orbital speed at 17,500 mph [28,160 km/h] any time you have to put that much energy into a vehicle, and then take it out again to bring it back, there's going to be risk involved," he said. "Unfortunately, as much as we try to minimize and avoid these mishaps, every now and then we're going to have them happen," Chiao added. "What we have to do is, do what we can to learn from them, apply lessons learned and keep moving forward." NASA's path forward does not include the space shuttle; the agency grounded its remaining orbiters for good in July 2011. American astronauts are currently dependent upon Russian Soyuz spacecraft to get to and from the International Space Station, though NASA has said it hopes private spacecraft developed by Boeing and SpaceX will be ready to take over this taxi service by late 2017. NASA's human spaceflight program, meanwhile, is focused on getting people to Mars sometime in the 2030s (with a mission to a captured asteroid in lunar orbit in the 2020s currently envisioned as a sort of stepping stone). The agency is developing a capsule called Orion and a huge rocket called the Space Launch System to make all this happen. "I know we're going to get there," Morgan said of Mars. "It's taken longer than I think we all wished, but it's exciting." You can learn much more about the Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia tragedies here: http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/DOR2016/index.html Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com. Copyright 2016 SPACE.com, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. By Ryvka Barnard Local council divestment might not sound very exciting, but it now forms a major battleground for those fighting against tyrannical governments around the world. Local authority divestment campaigns were a central part of the anti-Apartheid movement and an effective response to Margaret Thatchers failure to act on the systematic racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa. Across the UK, ordinary people stepped up, organised, and by 1985 over 120 local councils had taken action to end their ties with Apartheid. The people were winning and Thatcher was losing. Her answer: shut down the democratic space. In 1988 she imposed broad new restrictions on councils taking political action. Ultimately the restrictions proved ineffective, but thirty years on, the government is once more trying to shut down local democracy. This time the rights of Palestinians are at stake, suffering under another Apartheid regime. In November 2015, the government announced a proposal to block local councils from deciding how to invest their pension funds. It is currently consulting the public. This the latest in a sustained government assault on democratic rights and freedoms following the Lobbying Act, Trade Union Bill, Prevent and much else. Under the new plan, the government will have the power to veto investment decisions made locally on ethical grounds concerning human rights, arms trade, fossil fuels and much else. The move is a clear attempt to clamp down on the growing power of the grassroots boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement which aims to end government and corporate complicity with Israels violations of Palestinian rights. The Conservative Party said as much in a press release, labelling the proposal a response to the spread of militant divestment campaigns against UK defence and Israeli firms. For the past decade, trade unions representing thousands of workers, student unions, faith groups and local councils have mobilised to end UK complicity with Israels repeated violations of international law in its policies against Palestinians. Where the UK government has failed to hold Israel to account for its actions, ordinary citizens have stepped in. At least a dozen local councils have taken steps to divest from companies engaged in Israeli human rights abuses. Story continues The proposal comes at a time when the BDS movement is having unprecedented success around the world. Already in 2016, the American United Methodist Church declared the five largest Israeli banks off-limits for investment, French telecom giant Orange terminated its Israeli contracts, and Irish multinational CRH divested its share from the Israeli company supplying concrete for the Apartheid Wall. All of these victories are the result of hard-fought public campaigns, in the face of apathetic governments. The proposal is explicit: using pensions and procurement policies to pursue boycotts, divestment and sanctions against foreign nations and the UK defence industry are inappropriate, other than where formal legal sanctions, embargoes and restrictions have been put in place by the government. The governments aim is clear: to deter local councils from taking divestment action. And if the intimidation fails? The government will have the final say anyway, through something called 'power of intervention. So much for George Osbornes so-called 'devolution revolution. And when the government is not ignoring local people, its trying to scare them, shamefully playing on the financial insecurities of people already saddled with unnecessary austerity. Divisive policies undermine good community relations, and harm the economic security of families by pushing up council tax, claims Greg Clark, secretary of state for communities and local government. This is a dangerous red herring slipped into the proposal. There is no evidence to support his claim of a link between divestment and higher council tax. It is deliberate scaremongering and exposes the dishonesty at the heart of the governments anti-democratic proposal. Despite government efforts to repress it, local divestment action against South African Apartheid helped to topple that brutal regime. History was shown to be on their side. Now the same is happening again. Ryvka Barnard is the Senior Militarism and Security Campaigner at War on Want By Aziz El Yaakoubi RABAT (Reuters) - Morocco has suspended contacts with the European Union delegation in Rabat over a trade row, a confidential Moroccan government document showed, a move that could slow multi-million dollar development projects. The dispute has arisen at a sensitive time as the North African kingdom has played a growing role in security cooperation, helping France and Belgium track Islamist jihadists who carried out last year's Paris attacks. But Rabat's decision stopped short of a formal suspension of ties, and an EU source said the government remained in regular contact with high level EU officials, including foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini. Two other EU sources said the suspension may disrupt around 1.03 billion euros ($1.12 billion) of funding that the European Union has granted to the North African kingdom. "To keep projects working and funds flowing, meetings and information exchanges are needed. That is how the money is disbursed," one EU source said. The Moroccan foreign ministry asked government departments to suspend contacts and not to arrange meetings with the EU team in Rabat, the document showed, after an EU court last month cancelled a trade agreement with the kingdom, saying it should not include the disputed West Sahara region. The EU funding program includes some 188 million euros to support Morocco's advanced status with Brussels, 125 million euros for education, 100 million euros in health support and some 75 million euros to reform the judiciary in the country. Other funds were expected to be signed in 2016. Several European traders said the dispute appeared to have delayed the opening of Morocco's EU wheat tariff import quota -- an agreement with the EU under which Morocco opens tenders for imports. It was not possible to confirm whether the row was to blame. "This unusual delay looks like a political imbroglio at a time when imports have started late and there is a drought threatening the next harvest," one trader said. An EU source, who declined to be named due to the political sensitivity of the issue, said the delegation had received no official communication from the government regarding a hiatus, but confirmed there had been no meetings for several weeks. The Moroccan government spokesman and foreign ministry were not immediately available to comment but the country's ambassador to the European Union, Menouar Alem, told state news agency MAP relations with the bloc were currently on a "break". "There is no cut in diplomatic ties between Morocco and the EU... However, we are in a situation of a break until Morocco has some visibility on the legal security of the relationship that it has with the E.U.," ambassador Alem said. A EU delegation spokesperson declined to comment. SAHARA DISPUTE In Brussels, an EU spokesperson also declined to comment on the document, but an EU source said a high level EU official had visited Morocco last week to discuss "all issues related to our cooperation". The source added: "The EU's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini is in regular contact with the Foreign Affairs Minister to whom she talked yesterday." The reported contacts made it appear unlikely there would be any impact on Rabat's security cooperation and intelligence-sharing with France and other European states. The kingdom provided the tip-off that allowed French police to locate Paris attacker Abdelhamid Abaaoud, has held Abaaoud's brother Yassine since October and issued an arrest warrant for Salah Abdeslam, who is suspected of taking part in the attacks. The Moroccan king agreed with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a telephone conversation on Wednesday about repatriating illegal migrants to Morocco, a move that will help Germany limit migration from North African countries. Morocco has controlled most of Western Sahara since 1975 and claims the sparsely populated stretch of desert, which has offshore fishing, phosphate reserves and oilfield potential, as its own. Morocco's annexation of Western Sahara prompted a rebellion by the opposition Polisario Front, which has been backed by Morocco's neighbour Algeria. The United Nations brokered a ceasefire in 1991, but talks have since failed to find a settlement in Africa's longest-running territorial dispute. A legal case was brought to the court by the Polisario front and involves trade of agricultural products, processed agricultural products and fisheries. The court decision was announced on Dec. 10 ruling in favour of Polisario. EU institutions said after the court decision that they would appeal the ruling, but a second decision from the European court will take months or even more, sources said. Rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accuse Morocco of continuing to use excessive force against activists and repressing political freedom in Western Sahara. Rabat invests heavily there, hoping to calm social unrest and independence claims. Any investment involving international firms and foreign governments stirs controversy over the legitimacy of Moroccans to negotiate on behalf of the Western Saharan population. EU lawmakers approved a fisheries agreement with Morocco in 2013, allowing European ships into Moroccan and Western Saharan waters, two years after rejecting a similar deal out of concern it might not benefit the local population. (Additional reporting by Robin Emmott in Brussels and Valerie Parent in Paris; editing by Patrick Markey and Philippa Fletcher) By Devika Krishna Kumar NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil futures surged on Wednesday after Russia indicated there was a possibility of co-operation with OPEC, fanning hopes for a deal to reduce a global oversupply that sent prices to the lowest levels in over a dozen years last week. A statement from Russia's energy ministry left the door open to talks with OPEC, moments after the head of Russia's pipeline monopoly said officials have decided they should talk to Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members about output cuts. The top non-OPEC producer, Russia has in the past been unwilling to cut oil output, as it battles for market share with OPEC output leader Saudi Arabia. "I remain skeptical, at the end of the day, about that happening as the oil producers are looking at the other guy to cut production while maintaining their own levels," Andrew Lipow of Lipow Oil Associates said. "I think the geopolitical factors in the Middle East are playing a bigger part in the actual oil production than the statements from energy ministers who'd like to see higher prices." Hints of a possible deal between OPEC members and rival producers had already helped oil rally 4 percent on Tuesday. Brent crude rose $1.30, or 4.1 percent, to settle at $33.10 a barrel, after touching a session high of $33.49. U.S. crude settled up 85 cents at $32.30 per barrel, a 2.7 percent gain, having topped out at $32.84. Oil prices barely budged after the Federal Reserve right before the close left U.S. interest rates where they were and said it still expected downward inflationary pressure from lower energy prices to prove temporary. U.S. prices have risen 6.4 percent and Brent is up 8.5 percent over the last two sessions. They were looking firm even before the Russia news, on the back of a morning U.S. Energy Department report showing a surprise spike in demand for refined products like heating oil last week, when a massive blizzard hit the U.S. Northeast. Heating oil futures rose over 6 percent but gave up some gains after updated weather forecasts tempered the outlook for cold temperatures over the next two weeks. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said inventories of distillates, fell more than 4 million barrels, trumping expectations for a rise of about 2 million. "The draw in distillate stocks is bullish, but we know there was cold weather in the United States in the last week, so I would say the reason behind the draw has something to do with the cold winter weather and, as such, the impact should be short-lived," Tamas Varga of PVM Oil Associates said. The data also showed U.S. crude oil stocks hit their highest on record in the week to Jan. 22, due largely to increases on the U.S. Gulf Coast, a major oil hub. That inventory surge helped fuel the rally instead of fanning worries about excess supply, amid relief it fell short of an 11.5 million-barrel build reported by the American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday. [API/S] "I think we're in this mode where little things can set the market off into a reversal," Energy Management Institute analyst Dominick Chirichella said. "We're heading into a choppy trading period right now" Still, after three U.S. energy companies said Tuesday they were slashing spending, the market is looking for additional U.S. production cuts to rebalance the oversupplied market. (Additional reporting by Amanda Cooper in London, Catherine Ngai in New York and Meeyoung Cho in Seoul; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Alden Bentley) Three Hills Capital Partners has soared past 1bn for the final close of its fourth flagship fund, almost doubling the total it collected for its predecessor vehicle. By Karen Pierog and Dave McKinney CHICAGO, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner is showing no sign of budging from his stance that structural changes precede any move to raise revenue ahead of his second state of the state address on Wednesday. Nearly a year ago, the wealthy venture capitalist turned Republican governor used the annual speech to the legislature to lay out an ambitious agenda that included business-friendly changes to workers' compensation, a freeze on local property taxes, curbs on public sector collective bargaining, and legislative term limits. But Rauner's so-called turnaround to-do list hit a brick wall in the Democrat-controlled legislature, where House Speaker Michael Madigan pronounced it "extreme." The stalemate has left Illinois without a budget more than halfway through fiscal 2016. "Governor Rauner stands ready to pass structural reforms and a balanced budget that will help fund social-service programs and jumpstart our economy," his spokeswoman Catherine Kelly said in response to funding pleas on Tuesday from nonprofit agencies. Democrats, however, continue to balk at the governor's agenda. "What the speaker and I have been saying all along is 'Let's fix the budget,'" Senate President John Cullerton told reporters on Monday. Rauner "has these side issues he has been holding to. We're willing to talk about those topics, make some changes, but not dramatic radical changes, especially when there's a supermajority of Democrats." About 90 percent of state government is being funded through court orders, an enacted spending bill for K-12 schools, and continuing appropriations for big ticket items, such as pensions and bonds. State universities and colleges have been left out in the cold along with 125,000 students who qualified for state assistance, forcing some schools to announce layoffs, while Chicago State University warned it will run out of cash in March. A coalition of nonprofit agencies on Tuesday called for a revenue hike to keep Illinois' social service and higher education infrastructure from crumbling further. Story continues Illinois' biggest social services provider announced on Friday it was eliminating 750 jobs and shuttering more than 30 programs affecting about 4,700 seniors, children, veterans and other residents because the state is over $6 million in arrears. "The state of our state is just desperate at this point," said Dan Lesser, a director at the Shriver Center, an advocate for the poor. Cullerton said Democrats cannot hike taxes on their own. "We're not going to have any tax increase unless Bruce Rauner agrees to it," Cullerton said. (Reporting by Karen Pierog, editing by G Crosse) Modified On Jan 04, 2016 12:27 PM By Sumit As the year commences, carmakers are all set to begin it with a fresh lineup of machines. 2016 will host the biennial event of Auto Expo which will reveal a plethora of much awaited automobiles. Various automakers are ready with their upgraded products and are just waiting for the right time to launch. We have compiled a list of sedans which are much awaited in the Indian market and are expected to be revealed this year. Volkswagen Ameo Probably the most anticipated sedan of 2016. The previous month, Volkswagen announced that it will be revealing the sub-4 meter sedan in Auto Expo 2016. Since then, the automobile has been spied several times and looks almost similar to its hatch counterpart, Polo. To name some aspects, the car shares the platform, headlight and the doors with it. Although heavily camouflaged, the grille looks identical to the one present in the facelift version of Vento. Check design and feature analysis of the sedan Expected Price: Rs. 6 - 9 Lac Tata Zica Sedan Tata is likely to launch the Zica Sedan in Auto Expo 2016. It is most likely to get its powertrains from Zica hatchback that includes a 1.2-litre three-cylinder motor and a 1.0-litre diesel engine. The car is likely to come with two drive modes viz. Eco and City. Expected Price: Rs. 6.5 - 8.5 Lac Honda City Honda is ready to launch a facelift of its iconic sedan, City. Predicted to be revealed at Auto Expo 2016, the car is anticipated to be mechanically similar to the 2013 City. City 2016 is pegged to bear major aesthetic changes inside and out. Expected Price: Rs. 8.5 - 11 Lac Chevrolet Cruze (2nd Generation) Already unveiled in the United States, the second generation of Cruze will most likely see the Indian sun at Auto Expo 2016. The new Cruze is 68mm longer and 25mm shorter than the previous model which increases the cabin space. The Indian version is most likely to get a 1.6-litre Ecotec diesel engine mated to a manual gearbox. The power and torque delivering capacity is likely to be similar to that of previous 2.0L engine. Chevrolet Cruze: A Comprehensive Analysis Expected Price: Rs. 15.5 - 18 Lac Honda Accord Hybrid Honda is all set to bring back its premium sedan, Accord, in 2016. First launched in 2001, the cars sales were finally halted in 2013 due to some reasons. Unlike Honda Civic hybrid, the Japanese automaker is anticipated not to bring Accord Hybrid as Completely Built Unit (CBU). The units are rather likely to be manufactured at local plants. Expected Price: Rs. 30 - 34 Lac The Credit Union National Association (CUNA) wrote to congressional leadership Wednesday to combat factually incorrect attacks from bankers on the National Credit Union Associations (NCUA) field-of-membership proposal. In the letter, CUNA President/CEO Jim Nussle not only corrected the erroneous information put forth by the bankers, but expressed dismay at the reasoning behind it. Simply put, the letter provided by the American Bankers Association and Independent Community Bankers Association is factually incorrect and exposes a disturbing perspective on the part of Americas bankers that consumers should have less access to affordable financial services, Nussle wrote. The loose analysis of NCUAs field-of-membership proposal (FOM) articulated by the bankers letter is as disappointing as it is inaccurate, Nussle added. Here are the facts: Nothing in the proposal would allow credit unions to expand their fields of membership in an unchecked manner. If this proposal is adopted, federal credit unions will still face limits on whom they may serve under the Federal Credit Union Act. Nussle goes on to highlight how the Federal Credit Union Act gives the NCUA authority to implement FOM requirements, and that the current proposal modifies changes made by the agency in 2010 that added a number of restrictions not required by law. In Canada, as in the United States, the regulatory burden on credit unions is increasing. We are constantly inundated with new guidelines and regulatory requirements, says CUES member Kelly Marshall, CCE, CEO of $220 million Summerland & District Credit Union, Summerland, British Columbia. A little while back, a group of credit union CEOs recognized there was a growing amount of time spent on risk management rather than retail operations. We were losing our focus on what we were here primarily to do and that was to grow a successful member-focused business. So Marshall and leaders from other credit unions in British Columbia started talking about how they could get together to give compliance and risk management the proper attention while ensuring the sustainability of our business. After looking at various providers, six credit unions from the province finalized a memorandum of understanding and a master services agreement to jointly contract with PRA Group, an internal audit firm based in Surrey. Under the arrangement, PRA Group employee Scott Betts works full time as director of risk services for the group of credit unions, which calls itself the Risk Management Alliance, or RMA. A former regulator, Betts is based in PRA Groups Vancouver office and visits the credit unions at intervals. His duties include tracking the regulatory environment, knowing each of the six credit unions risk and regulatory situation in depth, helping each group member refine its best practices, and promoting best practices and policies to the larger group. Leonard Peltier Support Group Silicon Valley invites you to our next event to honor Leonard Peltier and also shine the light on the impact of solitary confinement on prisoners. Every jail and prison, including juvenile detentions in the U.S.A., use solitary confinement over long periods of time.Saturday 6th February, 20166:00p.m. - 8:00p.m.School of Arts and Culture, Mexican Heritage Plaza1700 Alum Rock Ave.San Jose, CA 95116February 6th is the 40th anniversary of Leonard's illegal arrest in Canada by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Although Leonard fought his extradition from Canada to the U.S.A., Canadian officials illegally extradited him. He was brought to trial in 1977 and the judge allowed more than 30 violations of Leonard's Constitutional rights during the trial. Leonard is now over 71 years old and is in very serious health. We need to get him out of prison NOW!We are honored to have Charlie Hinton perform his solo performance play:Solitary Man: My Visit to Pelican Bay State PrisonWritten and perfomed by Charlie HintonDirected by Mark KenwardIn July, 2013 Charlie Hinton responded to an action alert to write letters of support to a number of hunger strikers held in the Pelican Bay Security Housing Units (SHUs), also known as solitary confinement. Several of them wrote him back. Through their letters, conversations with former prisoners, and his personal observations, Charlie Hinton created a solo performance for theater - Solitary Man: My Visit to Pelican Bay State Prison, which takes place in late fall, 2014.In Solitary Man, Charlie visits a lifer named Otis Washington, a 64 year old native of New York City, whos been locked up since 1975, and at Pelican Bay since it opened. To quote Otis, "There are people who say they have no regrets in life, and if they had to do it all over again, they wouldnt change a thing. Well, Im just the opposite. Ignorance guided me to this present predicament. Over the decades Ive worked hard to better myself and recover from my raggedy past. In Solitary Man, Otis explains some of what he has learned and experienced.Charlie Hinton Bio:Solitary Man is his second solo show, after Lifewish. He grew up in Joplin, MO, and spent 3 years in the Peace Corps in Bolivia. His political awakening came through his time in South America, then his return home to the anti-war in Viet Nam movement, LGBT liberation, and prison work. He worked the last 19 at Inkworks Press, a worker owned and collectively managed printing company in Berkeley that recently closed its doors, leaving him retired."Other speakers and performers TBA.This event is a potluck.Please bring something to share that is prepackaged, i.e. not made at home.Please save the date and invite your family and friends to join us.School of Arts and Culture at Mexican Heritage Plaza is wheelchair friendly.This event to honor Leonard Peltier is children friendly.For more information please contact Donna Wallach, FreedomNow4LeonardPeltier [at] gmail.com (h) 408-557-8824(cell) 408-569-6608Sponsored by Leonard Peltier Support Group Silicon Valleyco-sponsored by: Justice for PalestiniansPlease let us know if your organization or group would like to co-sponsor and help promote this event. We would really like to have many people attend. SEATTLE, January 25, 2016 The National Marine Fisheries Service today announced a five-year review of endangered southern resident killer whales, which are down to just 84 orcas, to assess whether they are properly protected under the Endangered Species Act. The Fisheries Service last year announced plans to expand existing critical habitat protections from the killer whales summer habitat in Puget Sound to include 9,000 square miles of their winter foraging habitat along the West Coast sometime in 2017, but conservation groups have urged officials to speed up that timeline. These iconic orcas need more federal protection, not less. This status review will show these orcas are still endangered and that we need to quickly address threats from pollution, noise and lack of prey, said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been working to save these orcas since petitioning for their Endangered Species Act protections in 2001.The Fisheries Service will accept public comments for the next 90 days and is soliciting new science since the last five-year review was completed in 2011. Southern residents are threatened by habitat loss, declines in chinook salmon runs and other food sources, ocean noise and environmental toxins, which accumulate in orcas over their long lifespans. Recent studies have shown that maritime noise is affecting their ability to find food and mates, and that persistent organic pollutants in these orcas are harming their reproductive and endocrine systems.These killer whales are at a crossroads, Sakashita said. We need to act now to address the immediate threats to their survival while we continue to develop long-term remedies in the coming years.For more information on these orcas: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/mammals/Puget_Sound_killer_whale/ The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 990,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places..Center for Biological Diversity While much has been written about the Porter Gas Leak in the mainstream and alternative media, reporters and editors have failed to explain that the methane blowout occurs within the larger context of Californias many other environmental disasters driven by the Brown administrations questionable environmental policies. And these policies and subsequent disasters occur within the even larger context of the capture of the regulators by the regulated in California. Photo: Seneca Lake residents show solidarity with Porter Ranch residents. Photo courtesy of We Are Seneca Lake. Porter Ranch gas leak is one in series of Brown admin. environmental disastersHearing board action falls short of community demands to shut down Aliso Canyon Storage Facilityby Dan BacherThree groups - Save Porter Ranch, the Sierra Club and Food & Water Watch - on Saturday, January 23 released a joint statement accusing the South Coast Air Quality Management District Hearing Board (AQMD) of making a decision regarding the SoCalGas Leak that fails to adequately protect residents of Porter Ranch and other surrounding communities.The gas blowout that continues as I write this is considered by many to be the worst disaster of its kind since the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The leak detected on October 23, caused by well integrity failure, is only the most recent of many such leaks caused in California by aging infrastructure and just one of the many environmental disasters that have ravaged California under the Brown and Schwarzenegger administrations.Over the past few months, thousands of residents have been displaced and sickened by the fumes that contain carcinogens including benzene and toluene. The gas leak has emitted methane at a rate of 50,000 kilograms per hour, equivalent to 25 percent of the states total emissions of this heat-trapping gas, according to the groups.The leak has forced more than 12,000 residents to relocate and 1,800 more households are waiting for relocation assistance."After three weeks of hearings and deliberation, AQMD issued a Stipulated Order for Abatement, but residents and local elected officials say the order, which does not require the permanent closure of the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility, falls short of whats necessary to protect public health. The order also appears to contradict Governor Jerry Browns Executive Order to protect public safety," according to the news release.Gov. Browns order, issued January 6, requires state agencies to protect public safety and stop the leak by finding alternate supplies for natural gas and electricity; it also requires SoCalGas to maximize daily withdrawals of gas and to abide by a moratorium on gas injections in the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility, according to the groups.The groups said the AQMD Hearing Board "engaged in a lengthy debate over whether a letter in which the executive director of the California Public Utilities Commission ordered SoCalGas to keep 15 billion cubic feet of natural gas in reserve at the facility undermined AQMDs authority to shut down Aliso Canyon by requiring a complete draw-down of the storage facility."This move by the California Public Utilities Commission doesnt protect the health and safety of residents of Porter Ranch and neighboring communities. It protects SoCalGas assets and it appears to violate Gov. Browns order to withdraw the maximum amount of gas from the field, said Alexandra Nagy, Southern California Organizer with Food & Water Watch.SoCalGas has been unwilling protect residents because to drain its facility would harm its bottom line. Absent consistent leadership from Gov. Brown, SoCalGas and the CPUC are working together to keep as much gas in reserve as possible, threatening residents with further exposure to toxic emissions. Gov. Brown needs to clarify his order and demand the drainage and permanent shutdown of the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility," noted Nagy.The groups also criticized the AQMD Hearing Board for issuing the Stipulated Order for Abatement "instead of using its full authority to require SoCalGas to cease and desist operations at the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility by requiring the field to drawn down to the maximum extent possible."This is an ongoing disappointment and no one is managing this crisis situation. Without strong leadership from Governor Brown, state agencies are passing the buck and letting SoCalGas continue to pollute the air and poison our communities, said Matt Pakucko, President of Save Porter Ranch after a decision was reached. Governor Brown needs to step in immediately to require the continued withdrawal of gas from Aliso Canyon until the field reaches equilibrium and is shut down.Governor Browns Executive Order also calls for a moratorium on gas injection at the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility until a comprehensive review, utilizing independent experts, of the safety of the storage wells and the air quality of the surrounding community is completed. This process has not been initiated, and residents are calling on Brown to make the moratorium on gas injections permanent.SCAQMDs failure to put Californians livelihoods first is shameful, and Governor Brown should intervene swiftly, said Michael Brune, Executive Director of the Sierra Club. There should be no other choice but to shut down the dangerous Aliso Canyon facility and look to close every urban oil and gas facility throughout California and our country, to ensure the health of our communities and our climate is never again sacrificed for corporate polluter profits.In other gas leak news, on January 26, the SCAQMD sued Southern California Gas Co., accusing them of negligence in the massive gas leak. http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-85705041/ As gas leak continues, California fish populations drop to lowest recorded levelsWhile much has been written about the Porter Gas Leak in the mainstream and alternative media, reporters and editors have failed to explain that the methane blowout occurs within the larger context of Californias many other environmental disasters driven by the Brown administrations questionable environmental policies. And these policies and subsequent disasters occur within the even larger context of the capture of the regulators by the regulated in California.While Governor Brown has posed as a climate leader and green governor at conferences and photo opportunities around the globe, including the Paris Climate Talks in December, he has overseen water policies that have have brought once robust Central Valley salmon and steelhead and Delta fish populations to extinctions edge, in addition to promoting the Delta Tunnels Plan, a project that will only cause further ecological, economic and cultural damage. This is an ecological disaster that will impact fish, wildlife and aquatic life populations up and down the West Coast.As Caleen Sisk, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Tribe, said at a protest outside of a California Water Fix workshop in Sacramento on July 28, 2015: Right now the existing water projects continue to damage our ecology. They have already harmed our fish and driven them to extinction. The tunnels will only complete the job. The tunnels that they want to build are large enough to divert the entire Sacramento River.The tunnels are one key part of the plan that includes the Sites Reservoir, Shasta Dam Raise and Proposition 1, the water bond, she said.She said the water for the tunnels would be provided by Shasta Lake and Sites Reservoir and that to fill Sites Reservoir, the Shasta Dam would be raised to hold more water from the Sacramento River.The green Brown administration in 2011 presided over record water exports out the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and the killing of millions of Sacramento splittail, an imperiled native minnow, and other species at the Delta pumps. ( http://www.truth-out.org/speakout/item/30452-the-extinction-governor-rips-the-green-mask-off-his-tunnels-plan More recently, fish species ranging from endangered Delta Smelt to Striped Bass plummeted to record low population levels in 2015, according to the annual fall survey report released on December 18 by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). ( http://ecowatch.com/2016/01/22/california-fish-species-plummet Only 6 Delta smelt, an endangered species that once numbered in the millions and was the most abundant fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, were collected at the index stations in the estuary this fall. The 2015 index (7), a relative number of abundance, is the lowest in history, said Sara Finstad, an environmental scientist for the CDFWs Bay Delta Region.Likewise, longfin smelt, a cousin of the Delta smelt, declined to the lowest abundance index (4) in the history of the survey. Only 3 longfin smelt were collected at the index stations throughout the three-month period. For more information, go to: http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/4/1466156/-Delta-Smelt-and-other-fish-species-plummet-to-record-low-levels "Once the most abundant species in the estuary, we can now name smelt rather than count them," observed Bill Jennings, Executive Director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA).Brown promotes expansion of fracking, carbon trading and REDDMeanwhile, Governor Brown promotes the expansion of fracking and other extreme oil drilling techniques in California and backs potentially genocidal carbon trading policies and REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), according to indigenous leaders. ( http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/12/9/1458504/-Indigenous-activists-challenge-Governor-Brown-for-backing-genocidal-carbon-trading-program In addition, Brown oversaw the completion of marine protected areas, created under the privately-funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative, that dont protect the ocean from fracking, offshore oil drilling, pollution, corporate aquaculture, military testing and all human impacts on the ocean other than sustainable fishing and gathering.And it was only after months of intense pressure from environmentalists, public health advocates and Porter Ranch residents that Governor Brown declared a state of emergency in the Aliso Canyon Gas Leak disaster that began on October 23.In an apparent familial conflict of interest, Browns sister, Kathleen, plays a significant role at Sempra Energy, the corporation that owns SoCalGas, the company responsible for the gas blowout. She earned $188,380 in her position as a board member in 2014 and $267,865 in 2013. ( http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/12/19/1462031/-Jerry-Brown-s-ties-to-the-oil-and-gas-industry-highlight-regulatory-capture-in-CA Refugio Oil Spill disaster reveals Big Oils capture of regulatory apparatusAnd you remember the Refugio Oil spill disaster of last spring and summer off the California coast? Both the mainstream and the corporate media refused to report on the biggest scandal of the disaster: the fact that the very same person who oversaw the creation of four marine protected areas that were fouled by the oil spill is the lobbyist for the pipeline company, Plains All American Pipeline.Yes, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association, the most powerful corporate lobbying organization in Sacramento, chaired the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force that created the alleged marine protected areas on the South Coast! ( http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa/brtf_bios_sc.asp Conflicts of interest like this one abound in a state where the regulatory apparatus has been captured by the regulated, including Big Oil, corporate agribusiness, the timber industry and other corporate interests. ( http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2015/07/29/californias-biggest-secret-oil-industry-capture-of-the-regulatory-apparatus An examination of how resistance to what capitalism does to housing in the Bay Area can still jump off. From Amoeblog. This past July I ran an Amoeblog piece entitled #TBT To Earlier Era San Francisco Gentrification/Tech Invasion Backlash in which I looked back at a period in recent decades of San Francisco real estate and cultural history when an earlier era of tech fueled gentrification of The City was well underway. It was the late 1990s and while, in contrast to 2015, things may not seem as drastic as they are nowadays it was in retrospect clearly a warning signal of what was to come in 2015 when SF rentals now rival Manhattan's most expensive. The previous first wave tech invasion was when struggling local musicians and other artists were fleeing San Francisco due to being unable to keep up with increasing housing costs - prompting me at that time to theme and entitle one of the five Amoeba Music Compilations I produced Just Payin' The Rent because at the time that was about all most artists could at most afford to do (scrape by and barely pay their monthly rent that they hoped didn't get jacked up). It was a period seen by many as the "dot com" invasion of areas South of Market, particularly the Mission District.And it was when a housing rights activist/protester who went by the pseudonym of Nestor Makhno (the name of a pre-Russian revolution era anarchist) operated an ad hoc organization called the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project (MYEP). In 1997 he began a controversial street level poster campaign that involved the sniping of anti-gentrification posters plastered on walls and mailboxes all over the Mission that encouraged fellow longtime residents to slash tires and damage the property of the perceived culprits of that tech invasion of two decades ago. Eight months into his grassroots campaign, that raised the ire of the SFPD and the FBI who he successfully eluded for a long time, he got caught in the act and arrested for "suspicion of making terrorist threats and malicious mischief."As noted in the previous Amoeblog, the MYEP's founder was an individual named Kevin Keating whom the San Francisco Chronicle at the time described as a "self styled anarchist-communist38-year-old office temp, struggling writer, and direct action." Also as articulated in the previous Amoeblog, I wondered where Keating was now and what his thoughts would be on the current SF housing market that is a direct result of the implosion of new tech companies in the city. I had tried to contact Keating in vain, but after the piece was published I did connect with him. He then agreed to do a follow up interview piece with the Amoeblog, which follows immediately below.Amoeblog: First up, what do you know of San Francisco's housing market today in September 2015, and did you ever envision it getting to this stage back in the late '90s when you ran your campaign against gentrification?Kevin Keating: Capitalism is on the rampage. San Francisco is being turned into the world's nicest-looking office park. The city is being transformed into a great place for vapid buck-chasing slobs and a lousy place for everyone else. I was surprised that San Francisco wasn't rendered completely uninhabitable by the late '90s dot-com-fueled housing speculation boom. Happily the cyber-bubble popped in early 2001. I suspect something similar will happen this time as well. The biggest problem here is not what capitalism is doing to our lives and to the places where we live our lives. It's the lack of credible, ongoing, bare-knuckle resistance to what capitalism is doing to our lives. By credible I mean actions that are taken seriously by friend and foe alike. Effective resistance means establishing a dynamic where laws and elected officials are outflanked by widespread ongoing collective action. This means doing an end-run around the conventional decision-making apparatus of this society. We cannot vote our way out of our problems.Effective resistance means direct action. This is the only way that liberatory social change happens. In the current context this means inflicting visible damage on the economic interests of the predators and exploiters who profit from gentrification and displacement. The prevailing economic climate in San Francisco is the source of the problem. We need to mess up this economic climate. We can do this now. This involves the physical destruction of property owned by well-off types who invade low income neighborhoods. And of course it means more than this; we need big neighborhood public meetings, where we figure out who among us is most under the gun. We need to figure out where the landlords and investors preying on wage earners and low income people live. We should bring it home to them -- publicize their faces, home addresses, office addresses, and uncover and spread their personal information. We need to draw high-profile public negative attention to specific landlords and speculators. With this we can make it far too expensive for banks, speculators and landlords to conduct business at our expense. Bourgeois conformist types who colonize working class areas like San Francisco's Mission District are eager tools of the larger miscreants here. Bourgeois conformists value convenience above all else. They are not accustomed to resistance. A sustained effort to make things inconvenient for them in the working class areas they invade will persuade them to seek convenience elsewhere. This perspective was a key aspect of what the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project of the late 1990's was about.Amoeblog: What are the key differences (if any) between the '90s and the current gentrification waves in San Francisco?Kevin Keating: My surface impression was that the cyber-conformists were into a much more in-your-face type of conspicuous consumption during the late '90's phase of the problem. Or maybe the sudden proliferation of Jaguars, Benzes, and Beemers on the streets of a rough working class neighborhood like San Francisco's Mission District was more shocking then. That sudden surprising incongruous presence of their high end rides was why the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project of the late 1990's began with a widespread public call to vandalize yuppie vehicles. Targeting cars was an extremely effective way to get a combative message out. Nothing is more important to an American than their car. And to my surprise it turned out the spectre of vandalism was a more effective way to electrify the situation than all the actual vandalism was. Both are necessary. They help to feed each other's fire.Amoeblog: From your Facebook page it seems you are still fighting the good fight on behalf of housing rights. What exactly are you doing these days in continuing the battle you began back two decades ago?Kevin Keating: I wish I could say that I am still fighting the good fight. But effective anti-capitalist action is a collective effort. In recent years I haven't been able to get this together. First we should take a look at what the SF Bay Area's anarchist community has amounted to in the context of the current housing and displacement catastrophe. So-called anarchism is the biggest leftist current in the U.S. right now. A self-styled "anticapitalist social center" called Station 40 is located on 16th Street near Mission Street, across the street from the 16th Street BART Plaza. They have a photo of a black flag fluttering in a blue sky seen from a heroic angle on their Facebook page, and have hosted numerous public meetings where anti-authoritarian subculture dwellers groove on revolt in faraway places like Barcelona and Athens. For several years I attended these events. At Station 40 there was always plenty of fiery talk. Around 2010 and 2011 the recent phase of mass evictions and embourgeoisification was taking off. It was clear that I couldn't just do the exact same thing that I'd done in the late 1990's. We needed mass public resistance from the very earliest phase of the problem, and with that in mind I tried for a period of almost two years to get people at the "anticapitalist" social center Station 40 to host a meeting about accelerating gentrification that would be open to working people in our neighborhood -- that's the key point here, open to neighborhood people at large, and not just another vicarious living event for subculture scenesters. Nothing happened. There was no movement of any kind on this. It took the people at Station 40 almost two years to get around to telling me that they were unwilling to use their meeting space for a public discussion about the gentrification of the Mission District. This anarchist subculture space is located at the virtual ground zero of Mission gentrification. They've had scads of anti-authoritarian subculture events for a number of years, but they were unwilling to hold even a single event about the galloping demographic ruin of the working class neighborhood where their space is physically located that would be open to the Mission's working class. They nixed my using their space. They refused to get anything together on their own. And when their own eviction threat inevitably came, they hollered deceitfully about what a blessing Station 40 has been to the Mission District! The abysmal scene at Station 40 is an accurate reflection of what gets called anarchism or anti-authoritarianism in this part of the world. In regard to gentrification and the accompanying housing crisis the anarchist scene in the San Francisco Bay Area has been completely useless. I was around the Bay Area anarchist scene for about twenty five years, since the beginning of the 1980's. In real world social conflict terms the anarchist scene has proven to be a completely worthless phenomenon. It is a grease trap of passivity and terminal disengagement.The Bay Area's anarchist subculture is no different from what is seen with subcultures that coalesce among fans of Star Trek, fans of the Grateful Dead, and fans of role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. To continue to give discredit where discredit is due: After things went nowhere with the Station 40 poseurs I tried working with the group that is now called Eviction Free San Francisco. This was at the beginning of the summer of 2013. They were then called Eviction Free Summer. That's now more than three summers ago. A measure of their failure to make a difference is that after three years of existence under extremely fruitful circumstances for a combative message around housing Eviction Free San Francisco is still completely invisible to and ignored by a high ninety percent of San Francisco renters. Unlike the flakes of the anarchist subculture the people in Eviction Free San Francisco operate in the real world, and they have actually prevented a few evictions. But stopping a handful of evictions per year when more than a thousand people a year are being driven from their homes is a massive failure.These work within the system housing activists fail to have an impact because they choose to take on the problem from the least effective angle, at the final stage of the problem, when atomized renters have already been hit with the eviction notice. Once you are served with the eviction notice, you are probably going to lose your home. The people in Eviction Free San Francisco refuse to attack the root of the problem, which is the prevailing business climate in San Francisco and the economic interests of the rich. Eviction Free San Francisco has failed to communicate a message to most renters in San Francisco because Eviction Free San Francisco has no message to communicate. Unlike the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project, Eviction Free San Francisco offers no tools that embattled people can use. Everything with Eviction Free San Francisco is about begging politicians at City Hall to be nice to us. Begging elected officials doesn't impress elected officials. And it doesn't resonate with anyone other than a small number of people who aspire to become elected officials themselves, or get paid positions working for politicians, which is the long term goal of the main people behind Eviction Free San Francisco. In a capitalist society there are politicians who win most of the time, politician who lose most of the time, and politicians who lose all of the time. Work within the system housing activists are capitalist politicians who lose all the time. Eviction Free San Francisco is an unpaid appendage of City Hall. They try to act like players while getting endlessly played. They have no power at City Hall because they have no constituency to deliver to the powers that be. Work within the system housing activists are no threat to anything. They are easy to ignore.Amoeblog: Back in 1998 when you got arrested, what was the outcome of that and how was that whole experience for you?Kevin Keating: Getting arrested was no big deal. I've been arrested many times. And the police raid on the apartment my girlfriend and I shared on Folsom Street helped draw attention in a big way to my extremist perspective against the gentrification of the Mission District. But unfortunately the San Francisco Police Department also ended up victimizing my girlfriend, who was never involved in the anti-gentrification effort. The cops contacted my girlfriend's employer and got my girlfriend fired from her job. And in the vast assortment of items they seized from our apartment they also "accidentally" confiscated her grandmother's wedding ring. Later they threatened to bring more significant charges against her than they tried to bring against me. After I got out of jail the cops didn't mess with me but they messed with my girlfriend. These cowardly cop antics had a real cops-like-to-take-hostages feel to it.Amoeblog: As with anything that expands so rapidly - the bubble has to burst at some stage, as you alluded to earlier in this interview. So would you say that the bubble is going to burst and soon?Kevin Keating: I think so. I hope so. All I can do is hope for the best on this. One thing to bear in mind is that a huge percentage of internet-related economic activity is geared to the production of air sandwiches. The internet economy is largely about junk that doesn't actually exist; candy crush saga, apps for dweebs to find other dweebs in a bar without actually having to walk into the bar, as real people are inclined to do, new ways to go shopping, and of course Facebook and stuff akin to Facebook. It's like Gertrude Stein said: there's no there there. Facebook for example is every Facebook users personal urinal wall, appealing to the needy and vindictive twelve year old in all of us. This stuff has an Emperor's New Clothes quality to it. It is predicated on prepubescent novelty, and novelty is never novel for long. The capitalist mode of production is predicated on crisis -- and what goes up must come down. I believe that something similar will happen with the current dot-com plague.Amoeblog: Do you think that SF will ever return to the type of housing market (one affordable for lower income and middle income working people) again and if so what would that take to happen?Kevin Keating: In an immediate sense I think the tactics I've outlined above can be used by working and low income people. People who haven't been evicted yet can still hang onto their homes. It isn't too late to keep what's left of livable Oakland and SF from becoming bedroom communities for the rich. The suggestions I've made are merely points of departure, they are just starting points, and as combative people launch into action better and more far-going ways to resist may emerge. I definitely don't think we should pine for the supposedly good old days, when we only paid forty percent of our incomes to feed a landlord. We should think of something better than what's existed in the past. No single set of problem caused by capitalist social relations can be remedied without attacking the sum total of market society.Here I speak only of the U.S. because the U.S. is what I know a little about, but the problem is global and the solution will be global as well. Market-driven gentrification and the accompanying housing crisis are functions of accelerating extreme social inequality in the United States. No tendencies in conventional U.S. political life are going to slow down, stop, or reverse extreme social inequality. There has never been a stable bourgeois democracy without a large and complacent middle class. We no longer have this. Intensifying social inequality is a potentially deadly wound for the owners and rulers of this society. The Occupy movement was far from revolutionary. It was not terribly radical. It failed to sink deep roots in the everyday life struggles of mainstream working people. To mix metaphors in a clumsy way, Occupy was a flash in the pan and a mile wide and an inch deep. But it was the first widespread spontaneous expression of much bigger and badder events to come. I think the United States today is like France in 1788 or Russia in 1916 -- we are in a period of social peace that will end explosively and this will be all the more shocking because so few expect it. What we need today is something in the spirit of the old I.W.W., although not in its organizational form. And that's an anti-wage labor social movement of the wage-earning class. I can't see a situation emerging where I get to move back into a third floor railroad flat at 24th and Alabama and pay $240 a month for my room the way I did when I moved to the Mission in 1988. But I can see the possibility of all the converging crises of this society giving rise to a new mass popular movement that will be so widespread and so self-aware that it becomes impossible for banks and landlords to get money from people for housing. This will be a function of the permanent suppression of banks and landlords, and of ending the use of money for housing or anything else.Amoeblog: Thanks for your time and input on this topic. Is there anything you would like to add?Kevin Keating: My hope is that combative people will take efforts like these as a point of departure, and go farther than my efforts have. Some of my other revolutionary extremist docs can be found here:Love and Treason. http://www.infoshop.org/LoveAndTreason The ocean and marine conservation organization, Turtle Island Restoration Network released a Public Service Announcement video to call consumers attention to the impact of ordering a California driftnet caught swordfish. For Immediate Release CONTACT:Joanna NasarCommunications DirectorTurtle Island Restoration NetworkCell: (415) 488-7711Joanna@SeaTurtles.Org Turtle Islands Public Service Announcement Calls Consumer Attention to Californias Driftnet Fishery for Swordfish, One of Worst in the Nation for Marine Mammals Olema, Calif. (January 28, 2016) The ocean and marine conservation organization, Turtle Island Restoration Network released a Public Service Announcement video (watch here) to call consumers attention to the impact of ordering a California driftnet caught swordfish. "Transparency is key to allowing consumers to make informed decision about their health and our oceans health. Our PSA lifts the curtain of secrecy around this fishery and shows diners the power they have to make smart seafood choices by saying no to California driftnet-caught swordfish," said Joanna Nasar, communications director at Turtle Island Restoration Network (SeaTurtles.Org). In the video featuring actors Christopher Shelton, Matthew Wilburn King, and Dana Padgett, the non-profit organization shows how the California driftnet fishery for swordfish is among the most wasteful fisheries in the world in terms of bycatch (unwanted animals caught and discarded); and highlights the fact that swordfish is high in toxic mercury. "Our new PSA educates consumers on the fact that Californias driftnet fishery kills more whales and dolphins than any other on the West Coast, and shows the true price of a swordfish dinner," said Todd Steiner, biologist and executive director of Turtle Island Restoration Network. As Turtle Islands new report shows, the California driftnet fishery is a serious threat to marine mammals, sea turtles and sharks; targets toxic high-in-mercury fish; is a net drag on Californias economy; and hampers efforts to clean up international fishing practices. The new PSA educates consumers and diners about how choices they make impact their own health and Californias oceans and marine wildlife. All actors and crew volunteered their time and expertise to create this important PSA video, which was generously supported by the Futurity Foundation, http://futurityfoundation.org, and space for filming was provided by Cafe Aion, http://www.cafeaion.com, in Boulder, Colo. "Turtle Islands choice to educate American consumers about the impact of driftnets on our fisheries, and the practice's unforgiving slaughter of sea turtles, dolphins, whales, and sharks is critical to maintaining healthy oceans," said Dr. Matthew King is Founder and President of the Futurity Foundation and Affiliate Faculty of Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "Given that Americans no longer trust government nor corporations to do whats best for the people, at least we can still depend on the American people to do whats right for the oceans; put an end to driftnets." Background on the California Driftnet Fishery Today, the driftnet fishery in California consists of roughly 20 fishing vessels. The vessels set out nets the size of the Golden Gate Bridge to float overnight and indiscriminately catch whatever swims into their nets. The California driftnet fishery kills or injures approximately seven times more whales and dolphins than all other observed fisheries in California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska combined, and 13 times more than any other single observed fishery on the West Coast. The fishery has killed an estimated 16 endangered sperm whales in the last decade. Recent stock assessments suggest that this take is more than the population can sustain from all sources combined, much less from a single fishery. In total, an estimated 885 marine mammals have been killed in the past decade alone. Driftnets are banned by the United Nations, on the high seas, by a host of countries, and throughout the United States. Turtle Islands new report shows that it is time for California to phase out this outdated and ineffective method. Watch the PSA on YouTube here. Download the Driftnet Overview Report here (.pdf). ### Turtle Island Restoration Network works to mobilize people and communities around the world to protect marine wildlife, the oceans and the inland waterways that sustain them. Join us on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. SeaTurtles.Org Two professors (one a former OECD director) have done an economic study of the impact of the TPP on the 12 economies signed up to it, and also countries not part of it. Heres what they found in terms of impact on real income for each country by 2030: Vietnam +8.1% Malaysia +7.6% Brunei +5.9% Singapore +3.9% Peru +2.6% Japan +2.5% NZ +2.2% Canada +1.3% Mexico +1.0% Chile +0.9% Australia +0.6% US +0.5% So the gains to NZ are proportionally much greater than to the US, Australia or Canada. And also the developing economies do best of all, which is great for lifting more people out of actual poverty. It also estimates several countries not in TPP will suffer a drop in real income by being excluded. This is what Labour, Greens and NZ First us to withdraw from a trade agreement with 40% of the worlds GDP. Share this: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reddit WhatsApp More Pinterest Print Tumblr Chinas Deal with Iran: What Does It Mean for the Energy Market? (Continued from Prior Part) Iran plans to increase its energy exports In November 2015, Irans oil minister announced a new model of contracts for foreign oil and gas companies during a two-day conference in Tehran. The new framework allows foreign investors to retain the oil fields for a longer period. Foreign companies used to develop the oil fields and hand them over to Iranian oil companies. According to the new contracts, foreign companies will develop the oil and gas fields and extract the oil and natural gas from the fields. Foreign companies will own a stake in the oil and gas fields. However, the resources will belong to Iran. Europe (FEZ) will be a lucrative market for Iran. Oil and natural gas are important components of Irans GDP (gross domestic product). Irans top trading partners are China (FXI), the United Arab Emirates, and India (INDY). A lucrative opportunity for Eurasian companies European companies like Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A) and Total (TOT) are gearing up for the new contracts. The investment opportunity will also attract companies from Pakistan, India (INDY), and China (FXI). Russian companies like Lukoil (LUKOY) are also looking to invest under the new contract framework. The graph above shows the fall in Irans crude oil exports during the sanctions. In the next part of this series, well discuss Irans crude oil and natural gas reserves. Continue to Next Part Browse this series on Market Realist: The Herald reports: Two senior Labour MPs have broken ranks with the party line and declared their support for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), amid rumours that at least one, Phil Goff, could cross the floor of Parliament to vote with National if Labour opposes enabling legislation. The issue was hotly debated at the Labour caucus retreat in Wairarapa this week. Labour has joined the campaign to oppose the deal as the focus turns to the signing in Auckland next week. Mr Goff, a former leader and former Trade Minister and now an Auckland mayoral candidate, and David Shearer, also a former Labour leader, last night told theHerald they both still supported the TPP. Mr Goff said the deal should be signed. Former Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark also backed the TPP among 12 countries and it was begun under her leadership. Mr Goff was Trade Minister. Helen Clark in fact said not being part of TPP was unthinkable. Yet that is now Andrew Littles position it seems. Labour has decided to oppose the TPP on the grounds that it undermines New Zealands sovereignty. Mr Goff did not blatantly criticise Labours position. But he effectively dismissed that view and the suggestion that Labour would not be able to prevent foreign investors buying New Zealand residential property. Every time you sign any international agreement you give away a degree of your sovereignty. He cited the China free trade deal negotiated when he was Trade Minister. We gave up the sovereign right to impose tariffs against China when we signed up to the China free trade agreement. But it came with quid pro quos. China gave up its right to impose huge tariffs on us. Thats what an international agreement is; its an agreement to follow a particular course of action and a limitation on your ability to take action against the other country. You have the ultimate right of sovereignty that you can back out of an agreement with all the cost that that incurs. Thank you Phil Goff for that rational analysis. Indeed every international agreement limits sovereignty we have agreed not to torture people, we have agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions etc etc. The sovereignty argument is an intellectually weak and desperate diversion, that Little is deploying because there is so little to attack on the substance of TPP. Basically almost all the bad stuff that got scaremongered against wasnt in the final version. Share this: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reddit WhatsApp More Pinterest Print Tumblr Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream Park Features Mohaymen: Nine weeks after ending 2014 with an unblemished record and a spot among the Eclipse Award finalists for champion 2-year-old male, Shadwell Stables Mohaymen will make his much-awaited sophomore debut in Saturdays $350,000 Lambholm South Holy Bull (G2) at Gulfstream Park. The 27th running of the 1 1/16-mile Holy Bull headlines five stakes on the 12-race program that also includes the $200,000 Forward Gal (G2) and $150,000 Swale (G2) at seven furlongs on dirt and the $100,000 Sweetest Chant (G3) and $100,000 Kittens Joy going one mile on the turf. Regarded as the top 3-year-old prospect on the East Coast, Mohaymen is the third major Triple Crown contender to open his sophomore season in the Holy Bull for trainer Kiaran McLaughlin. Cairo Prince won in 2014 before having his career cut short by injury, and eventual Grade 1 winner Frosted was second last year. Since arriving in South Florida last month Mohaymen, a gray or roan son of Grade 1 winner Tapit, has worked four times at Palm Meadows, Gulfstreams satellite training facility in Palm Beach County. The latest was a bullet five furlongs in 59.40 seconds Jan. 21 that wowed Team McLaughlin and onlookers alike. Its very exciting to have a horse in this position. Obviously, weve had some good 3-year-olds in the past but never one thats three-for-three as a 2-year-old and one of the favorites from the start of the spring races, McLaughlin said. Its very exciting. Hes training great and done everything right. He works well every time and comes back and doesnt blow out a match. Though he didnt join McLaughlin until last summer due to immature knees, Mohaymen has progressed steadily since a professional half-length debut victory Sept. 19 at Belmont Park. He overcame some antics in the paddock and at the starting gate to win the Nov. 4 Nashua (G2) and returned to Aqueduct take the Remsen (G2) 24 days later. In his brief career Mohaymen has stretched out successfully from six furlongs to a mile to 1 1/8 miles, and in the Remsen showed the ability to settle off the pace and take dirt and the tenacity to split a narrow opening between horses and draw away to a 1 -length victory. Regular rider Junior Alvarado comes in from New York for the mount. Hes pretty seasoned for only starting three times, McLaughlin said. The work behind horses was very important in between the Nashua and the Remsen, for jockey and horse I think. Junior was real confident with him on Remsen day because he had sat behind two horses and taken dirt in the morning. We know he can handle most things thrown at him at this stage. We just hope we have a good trip and a clean trip. Mohaymen will carry Alvarado and 120 pounds from post two. Greenpointcrusader and Conquest Big E, separated by a half-length in the Breeders Cup Juvenile (G1) finishing seventh and eighth, respectively, will hook up again in the Holy Bull. Trained by Dominick Schettino for St. Elias Stable, MeB Racing and Brooklyn Boys Stables, Greenpointcrusader has not raced since the Oct. 31 Breeders Cup. A son of champion Bernardini based at Palm Meadows, Greenpointcrusader lost by a neck in his July 25 unveiling at Saratoga Race Course but came back to win by the same margin second time out Sept. 5. Stepped up to graded stakes in his third start, he overcame a rough start to come from off the pace and cruise by 4 lengths in the Champagne (G1) at Belmont Park, four weeks before the Breeders Cup. Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez will be aboard for the first time from post 5 at topweight of 122 pounds. Conquest Stables Conquest Big E had a similar start to his career, finishing second in his debut before capturing his second start and being thrust into stakes company third time out in the Breeders Cup. He capped his juvenile season with a two-length optional claiming allowance victory Nov. 28. Stabled with trainer Mark Casses string at Palm Meadows, Conquest Big E is another Tapit colt that has thrived in South Florida. He shows four works, two of them bullets, and will have the services of Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith for the first time at 116 pounds. Hes been training as good as a horse can train. My feelings always been that he trains like a really good horse and I think hes run well but so far I think in his career hes been an underachiever, Casse said. I do see things in him that make me think that he is a really good horse, but hes still got to prove it. This is going to be a big test this weekend. Wed rather find out now. Rounding out the Holy Bull field are Fellowship, impressive winner of the Florida Stallion In Reality Stakes Oct. 3 at Gulfstream, coming off a fifth-place finish in the Mucho Macho Man Jan. 2; and maiden winners Frontier Ranger and Perfect Saint who ran third and eighth, respectively, in an optional claiming allowance Jan. 9 at Gulfstream won by Perfect Saints Dale Romans-trained stablemate Cherry Wine. Related Links: Ready Dancer Back to Dirt in Swale at Gulfstream Park Kentucky Derby 2016 Prep Schedule Holy Bull Stakes 2016 Post Positions & Odds Race 11 5:05 PM ET 1 Perfect Saint 20-1 Lanerie/Romans 2 Mohaymen 6-5 Alvarado/McLaughlin 3 Fellowship 20-1 Caraballo/Gold 4 Conquest Big E 7-2 Smith/Casse 5 Greenpointcrusader 8-5 Velazquez/Schettino 6 Frontier Ranger 15-1 Zayas/Pellegrini Source: Gulfstream Park New Orleans, LA The new year has seen more than 400 The new year has seen more than 400 Xarelto lawsuits added to the multidistrict litigation, with almost 3,000 lawsuits now consolidated for pretrial proceedings. Xarelto lawsuits allege patients given the blood thinner were not properly warned about the increased risk of bleeding events, nor that the newer-generation anticoagulant did not have an approved antidote. According to court documents, as of January 15, 2016, 2,826 lawsuits were consolidated in MDL 2592 before U.S. District Judge Eldon E. Fallon (In Re: Xarelto (Rivaroxaban) Products Liability Litigation). Thats up from the 2,400 that were consolidated in December. Thousands of lawsuits have been filed against the makers of a variety of newer-generation anticoagulants, alleging patients were put at risk of serious bleeding injuries because they were not properly warned that the drugs did not have antidotes.Now that the lawsuits have been consolidated, bellwether trials are being scheduled to go ahead. Reports from news releases indicate the first two bellwether trials will be heard on February 6 and March 13 of 2017, with two more reportedly set for April 24 and May 30 of the same year. Forty cases will be chosen for a bellwether pool from which the bellwether cases will be chosen.Bellwether trials are run to give all sides a better idea of what outcomes subsequent trials are likely to have. Just because bellwether trials are being set, however, does not mean its too late for patients to file lawsuits of their own.One such lawsuit , involves Hattie Deville-Goodwin, who died three months after taking Xarelto to treat deep vein thrombosis in her leg. Hattie's granddaughter, Ashlie Fluitt, filed a lawsuit against Janssen Research & Development, alleging Xarelto was to blame for her grandmothers death.Warfarin, an older anticoagulant, has an antidote, which critics say makes it safer than the newer anticoagulants. But newer-generation anticoagulants were allegedly marketed as being easier to use than warfarin, because they didnt require constant blood monitoring. Critics argue that because there is no antidote, monitoring is necessary to ensure patients do not suffer a serious bleeding event, such as a hemorrhage.The Ashlie Fluitt lawsuit iscase number 2:15-cv-05874, in US District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana. In addition to the federal lawsuits, there are also state lawsuits filed in Philadelphia. (Adds details) By Giselda Vagnoni and Andrea Mandala ROME/MILAN, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Merger talks between Italian cooperative lenders Banco Popolare and Banca Popolare di Milano (BPM) took a big step forward on Thursday when Rome backed a tie-up. The two banks are at an advanced stage in merger talks and a combination would create Italy's third biggest lender by assets, just ahead of Monte dei Paschi di Siena. If successful, it would likely be the first merger since a reform of large cooperative lenders last year to encourage consolidation and strengthen Italy's fragmented banking system and could pave the way for a parallel deal between UBI, which had courted BPM, and Monte dei Paschi di Siena. A government source told Reuters on Thursday that a merger between Banco Popolare and BPM was "the most reasonable" among the options being considered and had the government's blessing. Spokesmen for the four banks declined to comment. Earlier this month, four sources said that BPM, whose stronghold is in the rich Lombardy region, and Verona-based Banco Popolare were aiming to agree a merger by early March. The CEOs of BPM and UBI met Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan on Wednesday. A source close to the matter said that during the talks, BPM CEO Giuseppe Castagna explained why he opposed a three-way merger with UBI and Monte dei Paschi - a complex deal which bankers said was also under consideration. YEAR-END DEADLINE The Italian banks targeted by last year's government reform have until the end of 2016 to shed their cooperative status, dropping ownership and voting restrictions that have until now shielded them from takeovers. Banks have been discussing defensive mergers for months but haggling over top jobs and the location of headquarters has hindered deals. However, recent sharp falls in Italian bank shares have focused attention on getting the deals done. Banco Popolare is Italy's fourth biggest bank by assets and has a market capitalisation of 2.8 billion euros, which has dropped sharply since the beginning of the year. Story continues Banca Popolare di Milano, with around 50 billion euros in assets, had a market value of 3.1 billion euros at Thursday's close. Sources have said their similar market values made it easier to find an accord. UBI's offer had run into trouble over the fact it could be seen as more of an outright acquisition of BPM by a bigger rival, the sources said. BPM boasts a better asset quality than Banco Popolare and has strong roots in Italy's financial capital and wealthiest city Milan. Keeping its headquarters there is key for BPM, several sources have said. Net problematic loans at BPM came to less than 4 billion euros at the end of September, less than a third of Banco Popolare's 14 billion euros. These soured debts are regarded by bankers as the Achilles' heel of a tie-up between the two, with some predicting a combined group could need a capital increase. (additional rpeorting by Gianluca Semeraro and Valentina Za in Milan, writing by Silvia Aloisi; Editing by Alexander Smith) The neon Google sign in the foyer of Google's new Canadian engineering headquarters in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario January 14, 2016. REUTERS/Peter Power MILAN (Reuters) - Italy believes Google (GOOGL.O) evaded 227 million euros ($247.5 million) in taxes between 2009 and 2013 and could hit the U.S. Internet giant with hefty punitive fines, investigative sources said on Thursday. The report by Italian finance police was due to be handed to Google later in the day and comes amid an increasingly angry debate across Europe over taxation of multinationals who park earnings in low-tax nations. Asked about the Italian report, a Google spokesperson said: "Google complies with the tax laws in every country where we operate. We are continuing to work with the relevant authorities." Finance police suspect that over a five-year period, Google failed to declare some 100 million euros of revenues in Italy which would have fallen into a 27 percent corporate tax bracket. In addition, some 600 million euros of royalties should have been revealed to the tax authorities and would have faced a tax demand for some 200 million euros. A source said there was no agreement yet with Google on the issue and said the eventual sum requested of the U.S. company could be considerably higher once penalties and interest arrears were added. Google's latest figures show it paid 2.2 million euros of tax in Italy in 2014 on revenues of 54.4 million euros generated in the country. Italy's Communications Authority estimates Google's Italian revenues at around 10 times higher. Last week Google agreed to pay 130 million pounds ($185 million) in back taxes to the British authorities, though the opposition Labour Party and others said the sum was too small compared with the profits the company earned in Britain. In December, Apple Inc (AAPL.O) agreed to pay Italy's tax office 318 million euros to settle a dispute over allegations it failed to pay taxes for six years, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said. On Thursday, the European Commission weighed into the row over taxation of multinationals with a proposal that would allow EU countries to tax corporate profits at home in some cases, even if the money had been transferred elsewhere. Story continues Google has based its regional headquarters in Dublin, where corporate tax rates are much lower than in Italy. The firm says its Italian presence merely provides consulting and marketing services for Google Ireland, the Middle East and Africa. EU tax law protects companies against paying tax in a country where they do not have what is termed a "permanent establishment". Speaking to Reuters last September, a Google spokeswoman said the company was "naturally" attracted by Ireland's relatively low corporate tax rate, as well as by the expansion prospects the country offered. "If governments don't like these laws they have the power to change them," she said. (Reporting by Sara Rossi, Manuela D'Alessandro, Emilio Parodi, Writing by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Janet Lawrence) - Rivers APC says it received the news of Supreme Court upholding Wike's victory with mixed feelings - The party says it will leave Gov Wike to God - APC however promises to give responsible opposition in the state [article_adwert] The Rivers state chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC), in its first reaction to the victory of Governor Nyesom Wike at the Supreme Court has said it will continue to give responsible opposition in the state despite receiving the news with mixed feelings. READ ALSO: Ikpeazu felicitates with Wike over Supreme Courts verdict The party in a statement signed by its state Chairman Dr. Davis Ikanya, recalled that the struggle to retrieve the mandates of its candidates, including that of the governorship candidate, hijacked in the 2015 sham elections, led to various rulings by the election petition tribunals and Appeal Courts, which annulled and ordered for the rerun elections for 22 State Assembly positions out of 32, all 3 Senatorial seats and 12 out of 13 House of Representatives seats. "Ordinarily, such large-scale annulment should have logically led to upholding the annulment of the governorship election as pronounced by the Tribunal and the Appeal Court. Unfortunately, the earlier concurrent decisions of the governorship election petition tribunal and that of the Appeal Court annulling the election of Governor Nyesom Wike, was upturned by the Supreme Court of Nigeria yesterday. While we are neither applauding nor condemning the decision of the apex court, we can only give thanks and adoration to God Almighty whose wisdom surpasses that of man. Rivers APC says it will leave Wike to God after the Supreme Court upheld his victory The APC thanked all its candidates in the race for Senatorial, House of Representatives and Rivers State House of Assembly rerun elections and urged them to remain steadfast and resilient and work hard alongside the party to ensure that they win all the forthcoming rerun elections. The party said it appreciates its leadership at all levels for showing uncommon courage, resilience and unity since inception to date. "Same appreciation goes to our esteemed and loyal followers who have resisted impunity, temptation and enticement to remain resolute in the service to the APC. It is our belief that whatever appears to be a setback now is only temporary as we will soon re-assert our pride of place in the political milieu of Rivers State and Nigeria. It must surely end in praise!" Alluding to violence that characterised the Governorship election, the APC said: "We call on our members across Rivers state especially survivors of those who lost their loved ones before, during and after the 2015 electoral violence that the justice we sought to put a closure to their pains and losses, though denied us by man, will still be granted by the ultimate judge, God Himself. He will prove that those who paid the ultimate price did not do so in vain because he is the God of justice." The APC reassured that it will continue to play the role of a responsible opposition party in Rivers State by protecting the peoples common interests and provide the bridge between the people and the APC federal government. To those who recently, defected to the party, APC, Dr Ikanya urged them to know that they made the right decision as they work together to create and enhance a working synergy that will transcend the present times in service to our people. APC Chairman urged all members of the APC in Rivers state "to remain calm, focussed and ready for the task ahead of us as party leaders and supporters at our various units, LGAs and the state. In all things, they should continue to give God all glory and adorations as that which is ahead is greater than that behind us. The Supreme Court had on Wednesday, January 27 upheld the mandate of the Rivers state governor, Nyesom Wike, thus, validating the result of the April 11 poll by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The apex court set aside judgments of both the Rivers state governorship election petition tribunal and that of the Abuja division of the Court of Appeal, which annulled Wikes election. According to Justice Kekere-Ekun who delivered the lead verdict, three separate appeals that were filed by Wike, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and INEC, were meritorious. Source: Legit.ng - The hidden agenda of Kanu and IPOB - An upsurge in the activities of the insurgents [article_adwert] Alhaji Sagir Muhammad, the leader of defunct Arewa Peoples Congress, in the interview granted to the Vanguard, has stated that Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and their leader Nnamdi Kanu has a secret agenda. Muhammad, also known as a front line General Ibrahim Babangida supporter, said "their hidden agenda is to declare Biafra and then go recolonize the South-South. READ ALSO: Heavy Security Presence In Court For Kanu's Arraignment "They would go and within a question of less than one month they would capture all those South-South and colonise the oil fields that is the agenda of IPOB. If you look at the East, it is land-locked; they dont have any serious minerals apart from coal. "Even the geography and geology of the East is so poor that even to build a good house they cannot unless you build a house in a bush because its all bush, its all forested and that is why you find the majority of the elite Igbo are now half of the owners of the houses in Abuja. "If the Indigenous People of Biafra are now saying that they want to have Biafra what are you going to do with more than three quarters of the Igbo who are outside the East? "Those in Kano, those in Lagos what are you going to do with then? Will you take all those people back to Biafra? They have no houses to live, they have no means of livelihood. They make money outside and not in the East so you find that they are crawling into fantasy world. Muhammad also expressed his thoughts about an upsurge in the activities of the insurgents despite claims that they have been technically defeated. He said that the insurgency is the most difficult aspect of military operation. You dont know your enemy, you dont know where he is, you dont know the kind of tactics he uses which is not conventional tactics, you dont know the kind of logistic he uses and you dont know where the logistics are or where they are hidden, Muhammad added. The former Arewa leader supported the idea of the dialogue with the insurgents. READ ALSO: Buhari Speaks On Current State Of The Nation If there is no dialogue how do you stop the remnants, supporters, children of those killed from metamorphosing into another insurgents? There has to be a way of making them know that what they are doing is not helping them and that their concept of Jihad is off mark, he said. Since the arrest of IPOB leader in October last year, young people, mainly from Igbos, have been protesting in south-east Nigeria and the oil-rich Delta region. The activists claim that they have been discriminated against by those in power. The Nigerian government has always claimed that most of the issues the Biafra activists are complaining about are not unique to southern part of the country. Source: Legit.ng - Buhari used weapons bought by Jonathan against Boko Haram - Crisis rocking PDP [article_adwert] Immediate past president Goodluck Jonathan has praised the government of Muhammadu Buhari. Jonathan in an exclusive interview to France 24 says the incumbent government is fighting against Boko Haram insurgents with the weapons which were purchased under his administration. The former president stated that the terrorism caught the country unexpectedly but his administration laid a solid foundation for insurgency to be defeated. He said: The new government is working hard and I believe they are still using the equipment we procured. Though the budget is still being debated, no new equipment has been bought, so even those equipment the president is using to prosecute the war against Boko Haram are those equipment we procured. READ ALSO: Boko Haram: Jonathan sheds light on African polity at Geneva When Boko Haram started in Nigeria, we had no terror experience. Yes we had armed robbery and other common crimes, but terrorism was different because the people involved were not afraid to die. So, you need a different mechanism to confront terrorism, you need superior technology, so that you will be able to stop them even before the attack. We never had the equipment, but when we were confronted, we started acquiring and before I left office we built reasonable capacity and I believe with what we left behind and also with what the new government will acquire, they will be able to prosecute this terror war to a reasonable conclusion. Jonathan also noted that the crisis rocking his party because of the loss of the 2015 poll. However, he showed optimism that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would soon recover its stability. The PDP definitely will have some minor issues, it is expected We lost the presidency and definitely we will have some kind of leadership problems. When you have a president, everybody looks up to the president. But when you no longer have the president, it becomes difficult for the party to have strong leadership, the ex-president added. I believe whatever you observe will be sorted out. Leaders of the party, elders of the party have been meeting and all this perceived disagreement will soon be sorted out. READ ALSO: Dasukigate: Jonathan speaks on ongoing arms deal scandal Every political party has misunderstanding, it is not new, it is always there. From the beginning of PDP, even before I got to Abuja as a vice-president and president, there were instances when the chairman of the party will be asked to step down. And some officers leave from time to time when there are issues. So what is happening is not new but I promise you that PDP will stabilize. In fact, by March this year, we are going in to elect officers at the lowest levels of the wards to the local government, to the states, to the zones then of course at the national officers will be elected; that is just in March. So the party will bounce back, whatever you are perceiving, it always happen and we will get over it. Watch the full interview below: Jonathan was defeated in his bid for re-election in the 28 March poll by the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari. Ex-president yesterday disclosed that he will speak on the controversy surrounding the appropriation of the funds meant for the procurement of arms under his government by the then National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki at the right time. Source: Legit.ng - Twin bombing kill four with a dozen wounded - No group has claimed immediate responsibility - Boko Haram likely suspects Four people were killed and a dozen others were wounded when two suicide bombers set off twin bombing in the town of Kerawa, northern Cameroon on Thursday, January 28. READ ALSO: Cameroonian troops invade Borno village, kill 40 Reuters citing local officials reported that there was no immediate claim of responsibility but Boko Haram militants who have carried out strings of suicide bombings in northern Cameroon are blamed for the recent attacks. [article_adwert] Just three days ago four suicide bombers affiliated with the Boko Haram sect attacked a village in the country's far north region on killing at least 25 people in one of the deadliest attacks the country has ever experienced. Sequel to constant attacks by Boko Haram militants on both churches and mosques, Cameroonian Christians and Muslims have united to fight against what they call a common enemy. READ ALSO: Four Suicide Bombers Attack A Village In Cameroon Local vigilante groups also began assisting the government against increasing attacks by the sect, which has begun using female suicide bombers more often. Boko Haram has been active in Cameroon for three years, looting, killing, and burning schools, markets and churches. Meanwhile, the identity of one of the masterminds of the abduction of Chibok girls on April 14, 2014, will soon be made public subject to verification by the Nigerian Army. Jarasu Shirawho, who is believed to be the sect leader around Damboa-Chibok-Askira axis of Borno state before he was apprehended last week in the state is believed to be one of the masterminds of the Chibok girls abduction. Source: Legit.ng Speculation of Favorable Supply Influenced Grain Prices (Continued from Prior Part) Soybean prices rose Soybean futures contracts on the CBOT (Chicago Board of Trade), for March expiry, rose by 0.74% and settled at $8.83 per bushel on January 27, 2016. Soybean futures prices rose because of speculation of lower-than-anticipated planting projections from the US Congressional Budget Office. Following the CBOT, the Teucrium Soybean Fund (SOYB) rose by 0.82% on January 27, 2016. The US Congressional Budget Office released baseline projections for US soybeans on January 27, 2016. According to the projections, soybeans would be planted across 83 million acres. It would yield 46 bushels per acre. It would have an opening inventory of 466 million bushels for marketing year 2016-2017. Speculations of lower-than-anticipated planting and acreage data supported soybean prices on January 27, 2016. Last week, the weather conditions in Argentina took an unfavorable turn. The weather was warm and dry compared to the traditional cool and rainy climate. Unexpected changes in weather conditions could have a negative impact on the agricultural output in varied proportions. Analysts think that the weather in the key soybean producing regions hasnt damaged the crop severely. However, it could damage the quality and quantity of soybean crops in the near term. The speculation of unfavorable output, in terms of quality and quantity, had a negative impact on the supply sentiments from Argentina on January 27, 2016. Rabobank released its projection for soybean prices in the 2016 harvest season. The projection slashed the prices by $0.10 per bushel on January 27, 2016. It cited that weather conditions supported abundant supplies and favorable production sentiments. The estimates included the decline in the planting area. However, the estimation highlighted that the decline in the planting would be negligible to the soybean inventory and production. The speculation of lower prices dragged soybean prices down on the day. Story continues Concerned fertilizer business The rise in soybean prices supports the farm income. The increase in the farm income supports fertilizer sales. In turn, it supports the shares of fertilizer companies. Fertilizer businesses including CF Industries Holding (CF) and Chemical & Mining Co. of Chile (SQM) rose by 1.9% and 0.26% on January 27, 2016. In contrast, CVR Partners (UAN) and Martin Midstream Partners (MMLP) fell by 2.6% and 0.12% on January 27, 2016. The Material Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLB) fell by 0.79% on January 27, 2016. Continue to Next Part Browse this series on Market Realist: The Aachener Grund, a property and capital management company, has purchased a residential and commercial complex on Breiten Strasse 48 in Lubeck from a private investor. The property has a total floor space of close to 1,300 m and is located in the best prime location in Lubecks city centre. [] Javascript Error Javascript is deactivated in your browser. To use all functions on this portal, for example the login, Javascript must be activated. Please activate Javascript in your browser settings. Under the name MY.O, CA Immo has planned to build a 25,000 m office complex in Munich. MY.O is an abbreviation for My Office. The office building will be developed on a plot of land in Nymphenburg, between the Wotanstrasse suburban train line and the Christoph-Raparini-Bogen. The plot has been [] CBRE Global Investors and Universal-Investment have acquired South Wharf Tower, a Class A office tower in Melbourne sold by the open-ended real estate fund Deka Immobilien Global managed by Deka Immobilien. The acquisition was made on behalf of Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK), one of Germanys largest institutional investors. The parties have [] Bank Austria is looking to sell Uno Shopping in Leonding by Linz. The owner Gebaude-Errichtungs- undVermietungsgesellschaft mbH belonging to Bank Austria. The 41,000 m shopping mall which has thus far been unsuccessful, has had a new concept developed which is part of the sale offer. In an effort to avoid [] Unveiled back in December 2015, the launch of Tata Zica has been delayed to February. It was in the first week of December that the media was invited to test drive the new Zica. During that time, though there was no official announcement, the rumor in the air was that Zica would be launched by the second week of January. But then came the news of Mahindra KUV100 launch, a car which is not exactly a competition, but intersected the Tata Zicas expected price range. Mahindra KUV100 launch and the upcoming Auto Expo are probably the reasons behind the delay in the launch of the new Zica. Though delayed, Tata Motors has managed to keep the buzz around Zica active over social media platforms. Apart from this, we have also heard that some Tata Motors dealers have started contacting prospective buyers via emails about the arrival of the new Zica. Few dealers have already started receiving display units. One such showroom is in Trivandrum, Kerala, where the Zica was recently spotted by Bobin Xavier. A completely new car, which is not only built on a new platform but also features a new design language and new generation engines, Zica project has been developed over a period of four years. To be launched in India by the second week of February, Tata Zica bookings are expected to open on the 3rd of February, 2016. Powered by new 3 cyl engines Revotorq 1.2 liter diesel engine and Revotron 1.2 liter engine, the price of Zica is expected to be in the range of INR 3.8 lakh to INR 6.5 lakh. Also Read Tata Zica Review Once launched, it will compete with the likes of Hyundai i10, Maruti Celerio and Maruti WagonR. Tata Zica Photos TVS Motors has also announced a salary cut of their employees Marketed as track-focused TVS Apache RTR 160 4V and RTR 200 4V, have undergone another round of price hike even as consumer sentiments continue to be weak. RTR 160 4V drum and disc variants now cost Rs 1,02,950 and Rs 1,06,000 respectively, which is 2k more as compared to the earlier price. RTR 200 4V revised price is Rs 1,27,500, which is Rs 2.5k more. TVS has been proactively updating its two-wheelers to comply with BS6 emission norms. As may be recalled, RTR 160 4V and 200 4V were updated to BS6 way back in November 2019. At that time, 160 and 200 had become pricier by Rs 2,444 and Rs 9,450, respectively. This was in line with industry trends wherein most other manufacturers including Yamaha, Honda and KTM had increased prices of their BS6 models. One reason for repeated price hikes at short intervals could be that the cost of upgrade to BS6 would be too high to cover in a single instalment. If prices are hiked all at once, it is bound to adversely impact sales. Thats why many two-wheeler manufacturers including TVS have opted for multiple price hikes spread over several months. New vs Old Prices TVS Apache TVS New Old Diff RTR 160 4V (Drum) 1,02,950 1,00,950 2,000 RTR 160 4V (Disc) 1,06,000 1,04,000 2,000 RTR 200 4V 1,27,500 1,25,000 2,500 Another reason could be that sales volume has dipped significantly due to Covid-19. Theres a lot of uncertainty and consumers are unwilling to invest in new vehicles. Every day, people are hearing stories about job cuts and businesses fighting for survival. Most rating agencies have predicted that Indias economy will take several months to regain its earlier growth rate. All these factors are adversely impacting consumer sentiments. As sale volumes dip, it becomes imperative to increase margins on every unit sold. This is the only way to maintain the earlier level of profitability. RTR 160 4V BS6 is powered by a 159.7 cc, oil cooled FI engine that makes 16 PS of max power at 8250 rpm and 14.12 Nm of max torque at 7250 rpm. Engine is mated to a 5-speed gearbox. The performance oriented bike has a top speed of 114 kmph. Some key features include double-barrel exhaust, glide through technology (GTT), single channel super-Moto ABS, and racing tyres. Colour options include Racing Red, Metallic Blue and Knight Black. RTR 200 4V BS6 comes with a 197.75 cc oil cooled, FI engine that churns out 20.5 PS at 8500 rpm and 16.8 Nm at 7500 rpm. Engine is mated to a 5-speed gearbox. The bike has a top speed of 127 kmph and can accelerate from 0-60 kmph in 3.9 seconds. Key features include LED headlamp, sporty graphics, fully digital speedometer with SmartXonnect connectivity tech, dual-channel ABS, race-tuned slipper clutch, and racing tyres. Colour options include Gloss Black and Pearl White. Warning: Graphic image below Rowdy was only 8 months old when a man who was supposed to be caring for him took him to a park in South Sacramento, California, tethered him to a tree and stabbed him nearly to death last August. A good Samaritan released him from the tree so he could escape. That was the first of many interventions to save Rowdy's life. Stace Dugdale Stace Dugdale The man who so brutally hurt Rowdy, 19-year-old Marquayous Hill, was arrested and charged with felony animal cruelty, and Rowdy was taken to the Sacramento County Animal Shelter where Dr. Jean Rabinowitz performed emergency surgery on him. Rowdy suffered horrific injuries to his neck and face, and lost his left eye, but he was determined to survive. Rowdy after emergency surgeryDr. Jean Rabinowitz Dodo Shows Soulmates Pig Loves To Launch Himself Onto His Dad's Lap Rowdy after emergency surgery | Dr. Jean Rabinowitz Hill ultimately pled guilty and was sentenced to 300 days in jail. Tragically, Rowdy was also "jailed" - initially held at a shelter as evidence while his abuser was prosecuted. Traumatized and under a great deal of stress in the kennel environment, Rowdy began having behavioral issues. The shelter was concerned about releasing him, but Rabinowitz had become Rowdy's champion, and she would not give up. She contacted NorCal Bully Breed Rescue, who worked with the shelter for months to coordinate Rowdy's release. NorCal brought in trainer Erin Kramer of the dog rehabilitation group Tug Dogs to evaluate Rowdy. Kramer, who specializes in canine behavioral issues, was confident Rowdy could be rehabilitated and recommended an 8-week training and behavior modification program for him at its Elverta, California, location. The cost would be in the thousands of dollars. NorCal Bully and the local shelter reached out to the community and, within a short period of time, the entire cost of the program was raised. Rowdy's attacker was recently released after serving only 86 days of his sentence. Just days later, Rowdy was also released, with a crowd of supporters led by Rabinowitz and his new friends from NorCal. Rowdy was on his way to a new and much improved life, starting at Tug Dogs. Rowdy leaves the Shelter with his Champions (Anna Sharp, Dr. Jean Rabinowitz and Leslie Bird)Stace Dugdale Rowdy leaves the Shelter with his Champions (Anna Sharp, Dr. Jean Rabinowitz and Leslie Bird) | Stace Dugdale Rowdy arrived at Tug Dogs on January 10, 2016. Tug Dogs specializes in rehabilitating dogs with fear, anxiety and aggression issues - often developed through life circumstances the dog had no control over. Trainers carefully consider each dog's environment, history, health and point of view to create a custom training program designed to change not only how that dog acts in the world, but how that dog feels in every situation he encounters. "While Rowdy is a sweet and surprisingly confident dog given his previous abuse, Rowdy is also a dog who arrived into our rehabilitation program totally unaware of the two most fundamental concepts every dog must know in order for us to teach them livability skills, training and behavior modification," Kramer said. The first of those two skills was impulse control - and as his name implies, Rowdy was lacking. He needed to learn from scratch "how to switch gears from excitement to calm," said Kramer. "By guiding Rowdy with the leash, giving him appropriate energy outlets outside of training and by modeling calm behavior, Rowdy has already started learning to control his impulses, helping him acclimate to home life," Kramer said. Rowdy at Tug DogsErin Kramer Rowdy at Tug Dogs | Erin Kramer There's a dog living in a cardboard box on a Miami street corner. He was dumped there on Sunday. He's braved chilly conditions. He's shivered through a drizzle of rain. Locals say he seems like he's waiting for his owner. If it's the same owner who dumped him there, good riddance. Julian Rovito Julian Rovito It may be hard to see right now, but this dog - despite the torrent of misfortune that led to being dumped here - is in the right place. At least, the beginning of the right place. The people who live around 10th Avenue and North River Drive believe it takes a community to save a dog. "Someone just dumped him there with blankets and water in a plastic bowl," resident Julian Rovito tells The Dodo. Julian Rovito Dodo Shows Faith = Restored Rescued Wild Horse Loves To Play With A Little Donkey Julian Rovito Then someone from the neighborhood put down a box. Then a tarp. The dog crawled into the box. Still waiting, apparently, for the owner who will never return. Sunday was a cold night. Neighbors hoped to coax the dog indoors. When they got close, he would growl or run away. "We didn't want to stress him," Rovito explains. "So we put a lot more blankets in there." Despite having no formal experience as a rescue, this neighborhood has been down this road before. Tenth Avenue and North River Drive butts up against a district known as Overtown, once notorious for drugs, crime and dog fights. It's still considered one of the poorest neighborhoods in the U.S. And every now and then, a brutalized dog wanders into Rovito's neighborhood. Like Charlie. A refugee from the fighting ring, Charlie showed up one day in 2014, his flesh lacerated, his soul shattered. "He kind of wandered into the neighborhood with his neck and body all ripped up," he says. Rovito and his neighbors started caring for Charlie, taking him to the vet, feeding him, giving him a place to sleep. "Everything's out of pocket for us," he adds. "We're just dog lovers. We don't get donations or anything." Just weeks later, a doctor in the neighborhood adopted Charlie. CharlieJulian Rovito Charlie | Julian Rovito "I see him all the time," Rovito says. "I walk him for the owners." Today, the dog-with-no-name is still sitting in that box, clinging to a dream of a long-gone owner. "We go out there every day," Rovito says. "We're feeding him. We're trying to get him to trust us. The next step is to get him a crate. Put him in there and take him to my vet." Calling animal control, he adds, is out of the question. There's a sense in the community that a shelter is where bad things happen to good dogs. Certainly, the shelter system is overtaxed, resulting in many dogs ending their days in their cold confines. Nearby Miami-Dade Animal Services is one of the most bustling, where animals are often seen tied to a gate outside the complex. It seems no one has time even to fill in the paperwork. "Every time a dog has appeared in the neighborhood, no one has called animal control," Rovito explains. "We try to solve our problems internally." But for all this community's collective compassion, they will need help from people who rescue dogs for a living. "None of us are professionals," Rovito says. "We need people to help us with potential fosters. We're willing to help with vet bills and stuff like that. We're all dog lovers." Julian Rovito Julian Rovito Katie Krupp is no stranger to seeing strays linger around Detroit's east side. But on Monday, she ran into a surprise during her commute to work: a dog living inside the remains of a burned-out, abandoned house. Detroit Pit Crew Dog Rescue Detroit Pit Crew Dog Rescue Lying alone on a mattress in what used to be an attic, the white pit bull stood out. Krupp was quick to call the Detroit Pit Crew Dog Rescue to help save him from the unstable structure, local news outlet WXYZ reported. Detroit Pit Crew Dog Rescue Dodo Shows Little But Fierce Pocket-Sized Kitten Grows Up To Be A Wild Woman Detroit Pit Crew Dog Rescue Theresa Sumpter, director of the Detroit Pit Crew, worked with volunteers to get the frightened dog to safety. The rescue, however, was easier said than done. "I thought my heart was going to pound out of my chest when I saw her run near the edge of the roof like she was going to jump," Sumpter told The Dodo. Detroit Pit Crew Dog Rescue Detroit Pit Crew Dog Rescue After a long 45 minutes, the rescue was complete - both the pit bull and the volunteers were able to make it out of the dangerous home safely. Detroit Pit Crew Dog Rescue Detroit Pit Crew Dog Rescue The pit bull, a female who's thought to be around 16 months old, has since been named Juno. Detroit Pit Crew Dog Rescue Detroit Pit Crew Dog Rescue Krupp told WXYZ that she's already in love with the dog and is considering adopting her. "Juno is doing great now - she is currently at an animal hospital receiving care," Sumpter said, adding that she was unsure how long Juno had lived in the abandoned home. Detroit Pit Crew Dog Rescue Detroit Pit Crew Dog Rescue This isn't the face you were meant to see. It belongs to one of 57 dogs found at a home in Rushville, Ohio, a city just southeast of Columbus. You were supposed to see the spritely faces of puppies. The kinds of puppies who cost hundreds, even thousands, of dollars - and soak up all the oohs and aahs in the world. Well, this is mom. Or at least one of the mothers found at the home-based breeding operation this week - a backyard breeding operation that isn't technically illegal in Ohio if you have a permit. And, it seems, all this face ever soaked up was neglect. This week, authorities descended on the house after receiving a tip about a backyard breeding operation. The condition of the animals onsite, however, is what prompted a tip to local police. In addition to the dogs, rescuers found four horses and a donkey on the property. All the animals are still being attended to by the Fairfield County Area Humane Society (FCAHS), which will be looking for homes for these animals in the days ahead. While we've seen many terrible puppy mills - a recent bust in Michigan springs sadly to mind - this operation, located so discretely in small-town America, may be a testament to how easily cruelty can be camouflaged. Fairfield Area Humane Society Drilling rigs are parked in the Cromarty waters near Invergordon, Scotland, on Wednesday. A drop in oil prices has reduced demand for drilling work in the North Sea and has led to the laying up of the rigs. (Russell Cheyne/Reuters) ECONOMY New-home sales soared in December Americans rushed to buy new homes in December at the strongest pace in 10 months, with 2015 marking the brightest year for this segment of the housing market since 2008. The Commerce Department said Wednesday that new-home sales surged 10.8 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 544,000. It was the third consecutive monthly gain since sales collapsed in September. The increase nearly pulled the sales rate even with the level of 545,000 in February 2015 and points to continued momentum for real estate and construction. We expect the strong increase in new-home sales to continue as the fundamentals in the housing market remain strong and newer vintage homes are in short supply, said Tian Liu, chief economist at Genworth Mortgage Insurance. Sales of new homes accelerated sharply in 2015, rising 14.5 percent in the entire year to 501,000. Steady job growth has given many home buyers increased confidence, while low mortgage rates improved affordability. Yet sales of new homes continue to run below the 52-year historic average of 655,200. Builders responded to the demand by increasing construction. Over the course of 2015, groundbreakings rose 10.8 percent to 1.1 million. Yet supplies remained relatively low, with only 5.2 months inventory of new homes available. The industry generally considers six months supply to be healthy. Associated Press EDUCATION Stanford tops list in annual donations Stanford University beat Harvard University once again in annual donations as U.S. universities raised a record $40.3 billion, bolstered by at least eight gifts of $100 million or more including art and rare books. Last year through June 30, Stanford led with $1.63 billion, a record for an individual school, according to a survey of 273 institutions released Wednesday by the New York-based Council for Aid to Education, which tracks university giving. Harvard ranked second with $1.1 billion. The gifts show that the nations wealthiest colleges continue to attract a disproportionate share of higher education philanthropy. The top 20 fundraising schools accounted for 28.7 percent of the total donations. The eight gifts of $100 million or more were received by only four schools, with four going to Stanford and two to Northwestern University. Total charitable contributions rose 7.6 percent. Bloomberg News Also in Business From news services Coming Today SpaceX flew a first stage rocket back to Cape Canaveral and landed it in December. Many in the space community heralded the achievement as a momentous step in the history of space flight that could touch off a boom in commercial space. (SpaceX/SpaceX) Last year, when Google and Fidelity invested $1 billion into Elon Musks SpaceX, one of the companys earliest backers also wanted to get in on the latest round of funding. But SpaceX ever-so politely asked Steve Jurvetsons Silicon Valley venture capital firm to kindly hold off. SpaceX, one of the hottest enterprises in the rising commercial space industry, suddenly could afford to turn money away. Theres so much interest, they cant take it all, Jurvetson said. So they decided to just bring on one new investor to make life simple. With some significant breakthroughs, led by high-profile billionaires such as Musk, Amazon.com founder Jeffrey P. Bezos and Virgin Galactics Richard Branson, the commercial space sector has started to capture the public imagination and make space travel cool again. Now the investment community, which typically has viewed space as far too risky and dangerous a bet, is courting the industry. High-profile breakthroughs, such as the spectacular rocket landings that SpaceX and Bezoss Blue Origin recently pulled off, show that ventures aimed for the stars are making revolutionary advancements. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.) There are many milestones in the life of a space-launch company: developing rocket technology; enduring the rigors of test flights; launching successfully and reliably. But getting investors to place a bet is perhaps one of the greatest hurdles of all, especially considering the risks inherent in spaceflight. The new space investors are catching up with the slow, but growing development of the commercial space sector, which NASA has been fostering for years. With the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011, NASA has awarded billions of dollars in contracts to commercial companies so that they could develop rockets to fly cargo and, eventually, astronauts to the International Space Station. Still, the industry is diverse, and different sectors are more advanced, and profitable, than others. Cubesats, the tiny satellites that can swarm around the Earth beaming back images of the planet, are already in high demand. Launching commercial and government satellites is also big business. But the emergence of other sectors, such as space tourism and asteroid mining, is still in the future. Space investors have typically been science-fiction enthusiasts looking to help create a new market and enjoy the thrill of trying to help mold the future that they would like to see. But thats beginning to change, industry officials said. People who are purely interested in financial return are just beginning to take a look at space, said Joe Landon, chairman of the Space Angels Network, a group of early-stage investors. The trend is more in that direction, but its still pretty early on. Over the past decade, the global space industry has grown at a steady clip, and officials think that the tipping point from steady to explosive is near. In 2014, its economy totaled $330 billion, a 9 percent jump from the previous year and up from $176 billion in 2005, according to the Space Foundation, a nonprofit organization that seeks to promote space endeavors across the world. After years of steady, respectable growth, the space industry appears to be on the cusp of a new era of rapid expansion in both capabilities and customers, the foundation said in its annual report. It wasnt always that way. For years, Jurvetson, a partner at DFJ, a Silicon Valley venture-capital firm, was looking for a space company to invest in. Launching model rockets was a hobby, and he would have loved to have found a way to mix business with pleasure. It didnt happen for 10 years, he said. Because in each and every case, no matter how exciting exploring the unknown is, or the grandeur of space tourism, none of them penciled out, economically. None of them until he met with Musk, who had detailed plans on how he would upend the space industry as he had with online commerce at PayPal. Rocket technology had stayed relatively stagnant for decades, with very few new entrants into the market. Innovation, which had disrupted virtually every industry, from cable to taxis, was somehow lacking in space. SpaceX and others have shown that the commercial space industry is enormous and ripe for disruption, Jurvetson said. Making a 100-fold improvement is actually a piece of cake, and making a thousand-fold improvement is feasible. Being able to reuse rocket boosters instead of discarding them after each launch, as is now typically the case, was one advancement. Making launch prices transparent, as SpaceX did, was another, said Chad Anderson, a managing director at Space Angels Network. The few launch providers hadnt publicized their prices, keeping the cost of getting to orbit largely a mystery. As long as you can keep it opaque and convoluted, you can charge more, he said. It was like a cartel. There were a few suppliers, and they agreed to do business this way. SpaceX has received billions of dollars in government contracts, and has a long backlog of launches. But Musks long-term goal is to colonize Mars, an endeavor that might test the patience of even the most visionary investor. Not wanting the quarterly pressure from stockholders, Musk has said that he wont take the company public until it gets to Mars. But for all the advancements that the industry has made, many of the companies are still untested in a realm that is unforgiving, said John Logsdon, professor emeritus at George Washington Universitys Space Policy Institute. None of them are quite there yet, he said. Theyve made in the past months some very significant steps toward lowering costs and doing things in a more commercial way. But governments are still the main customers for many of these ventures. . . . Lets not get too far ahead of ourselves. For all the successes, there have also been some significant setbacks. SpaceX and Orbital ATK (formerly Orbital Sciences), the other company NASA hired to fly cargo to the space station, both suffered explosions in recent years. A Virgin Galactic test flight in 2014 crashed after the spacecraft broke up in mid-flight, killing one of the pilots. But many investors realize that spaceflight is challenging and so far havent been scared off, industry officials said. And it doesnt hurt that a new class of billionaires have poured so much of their own money into the ventures. Having successful business people putting their money behind this gives it a lot of credibility, Anderson said. While the futuristic endeavors of colonizing other planets and opening up the cosmos to the masses may get a lot of attention, there are also companies doing things that are more practical, Landon said. One example: Earth observation. Thats a business now, he said. One of the leaders in that sector is Planet Labs, a San Francisco company founded in 2010 by a group of former NASA scientists. What we wanted to do was change the conversation and give a near real-time insight into the state of the world as it is now so you can make a better decision, said Robbie Schingler, the co-founder and chief strategy officer. The companys fleets of satellites collect all sorts of data that it says have endless real-world applications, from measuring crop yields, keeping an eye on natural resources or helping first responders in natural disasters. It has 39 satellites in orbit and expects to have 150 flying around the globe by years end. In April, Planet Labs announced that it had raised $118 million, which was more than expected. Other companies want to use space as a light-speed highway for commerce. Instead of running thousands of miles of cable across remote areas, OneWeb, a company backed by Branson, plans to put up a constellation of hundreds of miniature satellites that it says will connect the billions of people without Internet access to the digital economy. SpaceX is planning a similar endeavor with more than 4,000 miniature satellites. Meanwhile, Google has sponsored a $30 million competition for the worlds first privately funded mission to land a robot on the moon by next year. Google executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt are also investors in Planetary Resources, which plans to mine asteroids. Filled with precious metals, the asteroids are the diamonds in the rough of the solar system, Eric Anderson, the companys co-founder, told CNBC recently. Asteroids have rare metals, industrial metals and even fuels, he said, so we could create gas stations in space that would enable us to travel throughout the solar system just like Star Trek. It sounds like something out of a James Cameron movie. And maybe it will be. The Hollywood director serves as an adviser to the company. Jhumpa Lahiri lived with her family in Rome in 2012. Though she had studied Italian for 20 years, as part of her full immersion into the Italian language, she now kept a kind of philological notebook, full of vocabulary, phrases, rules of grammar. Initially, some of this was shaped into an essay in the magazine Internazionale. And now we have the memoir, In Other Words, which Lahiri, one of the most intellectually elegant novelists in the world, composed in Italian. The English translation by Ann Goldstein (translator of The Complete Works of Primo Levi and Elena Ferrantes Neapolitan Quartet ) participates in an exquisite duet across the page with Lahiris Italian. Strikingly honest, lyrical, untouched by sentimentality, In Other Words chronicles as philosophical and quotidian a courtship with a language as Ovids The Art of Love does with amore itself. [Michael Dirda on The Complete Works of Primo Levi] Italian is Lahiris third language. Her formative language is Bengali, but when her family moved to the United States, she made the adjustment to using English. Decades later, her books Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth and The Lowland, all written in English have entered the highest echelons of literary regard. Lahiri refers to her unmitigated desire to learn Italian as a self-imposed exile. Here she writes about the psychological, even clandestine effects of such cultural displacement: When you live in a country where your own language is considered foreign, you can feel a continuous sense of estrangement. You speak a secret, unknown language, lacking any correspondence to the environment. An absence that creates a distance within you. In Other Words is the most evocative, unpretentious, astute account of a writing life I have read. In part, this is because Lahiri so unabashedly asks and answers big and vexing questions: Why do I write? To investigate the mystery of existence. To tolerate myself. To get closer to everything that is outside of me. In Rome, speaking in Italian was inextricably bound with writing in Italian, all of which made for an exceedingly difficult apprenticeship. Feeling mortified when her teacher exactingly critiques her first short pieces, Lahiri writes, Ive never tried to do anything this demanding as a writer. I find that my project is so arduous that it seems sadistic. I have to start again from the beginning, as if I had never written anything in my life. But, to be precise, I am not at the starting point: rather, Im in another dimension, where I have no references, no armor. Where Ive never felt so stupid. I write to feel alone, Lahiri declares, which speaks to the paradox of being a writer to begin with, notably one who has tens of thousands of readers in many languages. In interviews, Lahiri has extolled the virtues of anonymity whenever she can return to Italy, sit in a cafe, line up espressos and talk with her neighbors. Yet in lovely and profound ways, In Other Words is a family story, one dealing with the vicissitudes and unpredictable blessings of relocating husband and children to a different world, with how memories are constructed, with the enervating sense of life as makeshift. For its treatment of such experiences, Lahiris memoir belongs on the same shelf as Anthony Doerrs Four Seasons in Rome. The chapter The Wall begins with Lahiri stating, There is pain in every joy. There follows, in a shop in Salerno, a somewhat cringe-worthy yet indelible scene: My husbands name is Alberto. For him, its enough to extend his hand, to say, A pleasure, Im Alberto. Because of his looks, because of his name, everyone thinks hes Italian. When I do the same thing, the same people say, in English, Nice to meet you. When I continue to speak in Italian, they ask me: How is it that you speak Italian so well? and I have to provide an explanation, I have to say why. The fact that I speak Italian seems to them unusual. No one asks my husband that question. Lahiri is typically frank about the deeper insistences that compelled her to move from Brooklyn to Rome: Im reminded of a passage in Verga, whom I recently discovered: To think that this patch of ground, a sliver of sky, a vase of flowers might have been enough for me to enjoy all the happiness in the world if I hadnt experienced freedom, if I didnt feel in my heart a gnawing fever for all the joys that are outside these walls! The speaker is the protagonist of La storia di una capinera (Sparrow: The Story of a Songbird), a novice in an enclosed order of nuns who feels trapped in the convent, who longs for the countryside, light, air. I realize that the wish to write in a new language derives from a kind of desperation. I feel tormented, just like Vergas songbird. Like her, I wish for something else something that I probably shouldnt wish for. But I think that the need to write always comes from desperation, along with hope. The great Czech writer Milan Kundera not only wrote his most recent novels in French, but rewrote earlier ones in French. This he called an opportunity for renewal of the spirit. Whether or not Lahiri chooses to write her future books in Italian, what matters is not linguistic provenance but the quality of the prose. Words like enduring and indispensable should be saved for only the rarest literary achievements, and the memoir In Other Words is one of those. Howard Normans most recent novel is Next Life Might Be Kinder. Romance novels are, by definition, about relationships. After all, without two people finding love and happiness, where is the romance? But in the best of the genre, those love stories are set against a bright, bold world filled with character and conflict. These three romance novelists build complex worlds that ensure love is hard won and incredibly gratifying. [Look back at the best romance novels of 2015] Its possible that no one sets the scene for romance better than Beverly Jenkins, in part because her love stories evolve in a time and place that often feels bleak and without hope: She writes African American romance stories of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. Her latest, Forbidden (Avon; paperback, $7.99), begins with Union soldier Rhine Fontaine standing in the ashes of the Georgia plantation house where he was born a slave, son to a brutal master. Light-skinned, Rhine is able to pass as white, and he does so, building an empire in the Nevada desert and working to help the African American community from his position of power. However, when he meets Eddy Carmichael, a black woman who was born free, everything he believes is thrown into chaos. There is much to love about this book. The history is rich and thorough, and the cast of secondary characters are wonderfully sometimes brutally honest. Jenkins does not shy away from the challenges that Eddy and Rhine and all black Americans face in the 1870s, and the truth of their journey makes this romance even more powerful when Rhine must reveal the truth to be worthy of Eddys love. This is historical romance at its very best. In her steampunk romance, Clockwork Heart (Samhain; paperback, $15.99), Heidi Cullinan deftly builds an alternate history, where Napoleon did not lose his wars to Britain and Russia. The French and Austrian empires are locked in battle, sending a stream of soldiers to war. Cornelius Stevens is the bastard son of the leader of the French military, and a pacifist, as well as a tinker-surgeon, specializing in mechanical body parts that give wounded soldiers a second chance at life. When Cornelius discovers Austrian soldier Johann at near death, he decides to work his magic on the other man by installing a clockwork heart. That heart is believed to be the greatest weapon of the time the secret to a constantly replenishing army. Cornelius and Johann are soon on the run, chased through this fascinating steel-and-chrome Europe-at-war, hiding with pirates and aristocratic spies with electric parasols and airships. The world-building here is remarkable, somehow fantastic and logical all at once a testament to Cullinans skill and the secondary cast is wildly entertaining, too. Cornelius and Johanns story is not for the timid romance reader; it edges into graphic erotica at times with scenes involving exhibitionism and multiple partners. But this is a beautiful romance, from the moment Cornelius pulls Johanns mangled, barely breathing body from a pile of corpses and thinks, Life. I have found you. This is another romance that will prove to readers that love will conquer, no matter the circumstance. In her latest, Duke of My Heart (Forever; paperback, $5.99), Kelly Bowen offers up a vibrant, clever heroine in Ivory Moore, proprietor of Chegarre & Associates. Shes a Regency-era fixer think Olivia Pope in a corset. Ivory is brought into one of Londons most glamorous homes to hide the body of a popular (and married) earl, only to discover that the woman who had been in flagrante with the deceased was not his countess. She was the younger sister of Captain Maximus Harcourt, and she is now missing, either run in terror or kidnapped. Max is a man with deep regrets and firm convictions that men do dangerous work and women, well, dont. When Ivory takes control of the search for his sister, heading into peril without hesitation, Max is knocked for a well-deserved loop. While the romance here is deeply satisfying (its particularly fun to find Max regularly gobsmacked), Bowen excels in writing secondary characters and scenes; Ivory employs a team of misfits, each talented and fascinating. Whats more, the nooks and crannies of this book are delightful, much like those in our real world, perfect to be discovered alongside true love. Sarah MacLean reviews romance monthly for The Washington Post and is the author, most recently, of The Rogue Not Taken. At 57, Barbie is getting a major makeover. The plastic doll, whose small waist and long legs have been criticized for creating unrealistic expectations for girls, will soon be sold with three new bodies curvy, tall and petite. Barbie will also be more diverse, coming in seven skin tones, 22 eye colors and 24 hairstyles. Mattel, the company that makes Barbie, has been searching for ways to recharges the dolls sales as want lists from girls now often include iPads and other electronic devices. The company hopes more kids will be able to relate to the new dolls. The body transformations have been in the works for two years, Mattel spokeswoman Michelle Chidoni said Thursday. The doll has changed in some ways already. New skin tones and looks were added last year. And Barbies foot was movable for the first time, allowing her to kick off her heels and wear flats. The company said it will also continue to sell the original 11 1/ 2 -inch Barbie. The new versions will begin arriving on U.S. store shelves in March. Whether the new models will be a hit with kids remains to be seen, though Chidoni said previous changes were positively received. Marketing experts said more will have to be done to return Barbie to her former glory. The look of the dolls is great, said Marc Rosenberg, a marketing consultant in Chicago, Illinois, who has worked in the toy industry for 25 years. But in order to connect with kids, the new dolls need to be show up in Barbie YouTube videos, apps and shows, said Rosenberg. Worldwide sales for Barbie have fallen every year since 2012. Mattel sells other dolls, including Monster High and American Girl brands. But Barbie remains very important to the company. It is hoped that the new models will recharge sales by pleasing parents who had grown tired of the familiar blonde doll. One size doesnt fit all, said Jim Silver, editor-in-chief of TTPM, a toy review site in New York. This gives people different options when choosing a Barbie for their child. Model astronauts were among the items being shown this week to the owners of toy stores in Europe. (Jason Alden/Bloomberg) It would be nice if kids are still excited about the toys and games they received over the holidays. But in the toy business, its time to fast-forward to December 2016. Toy sellers gathered in London, England, and Nuremberg, Germany, this week to show what they hope will be the big sellers at the end of this year. Owners of toy stores across Europe went to huge convention centers in those cities to test toys and place orders. In general, kids arent allowed to attend, because the shows are more about business than about play. A man rides a RipSurf board at the Toy Fair 2016 in London, England. The fair doesnt allow kids to try out the new toys. (Leon Neal/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images) Thats usually true at the U.S. toy convention, which is being held next month in New York City. But for the first time in Toy Fairs 113 years, kids will have a sneak peek, too. On February 13 and 14, the Toy Industry Association, host of Toy Fair, will stage a kid-focused event, Play Fair, where kids will be allowed to play with the toys ($30 tickets required). The new event is a bit of justice for young toy lovers. What kid wouldnt consider an adults-only toy event un-fair? Anika Hobbs is owner of the Nubian Hueman boutique, one of the businesses in the Anacostia Arts Center. (Yacouba Tanou/For The Washington Post) The Anacostia Arts Center has thrived on the east side of the 11th Street Bridge, but Terence Nicholson, cultural programs assistant, still gets worried at times. When considering new art pieces, on occasion he wonders how many people from other parts of the city might miss the work because Ward 8, where the center is located, still struggles with issues of poverty and crime. The center is too often called the citys best-kept secret, he says. Still, theres no denying Ward 8, which has long been a mixed-income area, is in the midst of transformation, fueled by both gentrification and homegrown ingenuity. The Anacostia Art Centers origins are rooted in community revitalization and opportunity, says Duane Gautier, president of Arch Development, which created the center. It opened in 2013. In a short time, Gautier says, it has become an incubator for art and new businesses, with several in the center itself. Other small businesses are opening nearby. Capitol Hill Crab Cakes opened recently, and artist Craig Kraft relocated from Shaw last year. There is so much beauty in opportunity, Gautier says. Adds Nicholson: Hard to say if this is causation or correlation, but wed like to think that weve had something to do with it. The center (1231 Good Hope Rd. SE) has come to serve as an open blank space as Gautier and staff call it for aspiring artists of all kinds. It is intended to be rented, borrowed and filled with artistic expression from around the world and Ward 8, says Amy Lokoff, the operations coordinator. Lokoff says the 2016 exhibitions explore the boundaries of urban landscapes and investigate what can only be seen when one looks beyond blurred city lines and geography. The shows opened this month with works by contemporary artists Lillian Hoover and Sol Hill. Hoover, a D.C. native, is featured in the nearby Honfleur Gallery. Hill, from California, is in the Vivid Solutions Gallery, which is in the center. The shows are up until March 11. The center is also continuing its 26-week series Live Saturdays, a collection of performances and art showings featuring a new artist every Saturday from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Lokoff calls the program a meeting place for diverse talent. For Nicholson, that diverse talent should be enjoyed by as many people as possible. Thats also key for the areas fast growth. I hope that the longtime natives of Anacostia are able to have a stake in the change, he says. Ward 8 residents Shawn Lightfoot, a chef, and Amanda Stephenson, an artist, are hoping to contribute to that. Their restaurant Art-drenaline partially opened in the center in December and planned to be fully operational this month. The Art-drenaline Cafe is a response to the health and income disparities in Anacostia and the greater Ward 8, Stephenson wrote in an email. The cafe features quality food in a community-inspired eatery that is ardent about serving fresh food options to area employees, locals and commuters while training and employing Ward 8 residents. Nana Agyemang, 21, student and Christian Hosam, 22, coordinator at a political nonprofit. (Photo courtesy of daters) Interviews by Nina Patel H es a recent college graduate who has returned to Maryland and started a job. Hes looking for someone with an interest in social justice. Shes a journalism student planning to apply to grad school. She expects a certain level of traditional gentlemanly conduct. Their date was at Ghibellina near Logan Circle. Nana: I wanted to be a little bit late, but I sadly got there right on time. Im a woman. You want to be five minutes late. To the point where he is excited for your arrival. Christian: I stood up and shook her hand. Nana: I thought he dressed well. He had on a blue button-up under his gray blazer. Christian: She was very fashion forward. Nana: We started talking about education and school. I was being very interviewy. What are you doing with your life? Whats one thing you wish youd done your senior year that you never had a chance to do? Christian: She did ask me about how easy it was to find a job out of college. I said it was mostly about patience and believing in yourself to know what roads to take and not take. Nana: I definitely gave him the platform to be more talkative. Christian: I talked more than I thought I would. It seemed like there was ample give and take. Nana: He was also asking me questions. ... But I feel like when I was talking he was looking around. I didnt feel like he was listening to me. Christian:Were both immigrants. Im from Trinidad and Tobago. Nana: Im originally from Ghana. Christian: I used to work for a professor that studied black Republicans. I knew shed get a kick out of that. We talked a lot about being black on campus. She talked about being editor of [George Washington Universitys] multicultural magazine. Nana: I run a publication that is based on minority lives on college campuses. I was like, thats a good connection. He didnt even flinch. I felt like he was like, When youre done talking Ill talk. Also as a woman, we think deeply into a lot of things, so maybe that wasnt it at all? Christian: We did align in politics. You cant talk about black Republicans without saying, Im not a black Republican. Not me just my research. Nana: I think what I did like the most was how much he knows about politics. Christian: I [grew up in] Prince Georges County. She said, I know a lot of the guys there, and theyre all the same. Nana: I feel like PG guys know what they want and nothing is going to stand in their way. If theyre so worried about themselves, do they have time to worry about someone else? Christian: I dont know what she meant by that. That was a bit jarring. I dont think she meant anything by it that was untoward. Nana: I probably put him off with the PG thing because I kept repeating it. Christian: I thought she brought it up a touch too much. Probably because I didnt understand what she meant. Nana: Hes never had a girlfriend. But hes surrounded with females. That doesnt make sense. Christian: We talked a lot about why were both single. What does that say about us? Nana: I asked him, Do a lot of people come to you for advice? He said, Yes. I knew it! Youre that person to go to for advice. Hes like, Do you need any advice? I was like, Why am I single? He was like, Your standards are too high. Ive definitely heard that before. Christian: We did get dessert. We got it to go. Nana: It was his idea to take it to go. I was really thinking about our bill the whole time. I was annoyed because we went over the tab. Christian: I said ... that we could split the balance and Id pay most of the tip. Nana: I think at any point when a guy takes out his phone and checks it during a date, hes not interested. We left at like 9. We walked out and he was like, We should connect on Facebook. Christian: She said she didnt have a Facebook [account]. Rate the date Nana: 3 [out of 5]. I wasnt attracted to him ... which was fine. It was great to meet new people. Christian: 4. There wasnt a romantic spark. As an experience it was fine. Update No surprise: no contact. Theyve called each other names. Theyve mocked, belittled, skewered and slimed. And now that oddest of couples Donald Trump and Fox News is engaged in a tit-for-tat feud like none seen in the annals of modern American politics. The greatest show on Earth or at least in Iowa. If things go as promised, Trump wont be there Thursday when Fox hosts the final Republican debate before Mondays Iowa presidential caucuses. He says hes backing out because of a taunting statement from Fox, though his detractors accuse him of dodging a last showdown with his chief rival, Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.). Instead, Trump has made plans to materialize elsewhere in Iowa, hosting a benefit for wounded veterans counterprogramming on a Trumpian scale of swagger. His threatened absence from the debate stage is a demonstration of Trumps perception of his own self-worth, his verifiable status as a ratings-generating gargantuan whose screen persona can translate into millions of advertising dollars. In a sense, its an act of subversion by a candidate who has broken all the normal rules of modern campaigns. But its also a manifestation of Trumps philosophy about getting what he wants when he wants it. Republican Donald Trump is saying he "most likely" won't attend the debate Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly is set to co-moderate. Here's a look back at the clash that started with an earlier debate in August 2015. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) The best thing you can do is deal from strength, and leverage is the biggest strength you can have, Trump wrote in his career- defining and profile-elevating 1987 bestseller, Trump: The Art of the Deal. Leverage is having something the other guy wants. Fox, a network that has reigned as a kingmaker in Republican politics, now seems faced with an adversary who is acting as if hes already the king and doesnt need it. The sniping peaked this week when the billionaire developer appeared to taunt Fox by polling his social media followers on whether he should appear at the debate. He also stepped up his attacks on Fox anchor Megyn Kelly, whom he wanted to have removed as debate moderator. The poll and the Kelly criticism irked Fox News chairman and chief executive Roger Ailes, according to an executive at Fox, and the network chief personally crafted a statement in response: We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings. According to the Fox executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, Ailes put together a tongue-in-cheek statement to take the heat off Megyn. On Wednesday, Trump via Twitter, naturally said Fox went too far. It was the childishly written & taunting PR statement by Fox that made me not do the debate, more so than lightweight reporter, @megynkelly. 1 of 25 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad People and groups Donald Trump has denounced View Photos Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is not one to back down readily from controversial statements, and the list of those he dislikes continues to grow. Caption Not one to back down easily from controversial statements, the Republican presidential candidate continues to add to the list of people he condemns. Mitt Romney After being attacked as a fraud by Mitt Romney, Donald Trump slammed him as a choke artist and failed candidate who begged for Trumps endorsement during his 2012 presidential bid. Tom Smart/EPA Wait 1 second to continue. While publicly feuding with Trump, the cable news behemoth also seemed to be at cross- purposes with itself, toggling between the competing goals of taking a hard line with the recalcitrant candidate and wooing him. Fox executives did not respond to multiple interview requests. Trump and Fox have been poking at each other for months. Their needling and gnashing began face-to-face at the first Republican presidential debate in August, when Kelly pressed Trump about calling women fat pigs and other derogatory names. Trump parried back the next morning by huffing that Kelly had blood coming out of her wherever. Critics said that was a reference to the anchors menstrual cycle, but the candidate said it was merely a reference to her demeanor. The tangle soon devolved into long-distance warfare, a series of snippy news conferences and social media taunts, periodically interrupted by detentes. Even as Trump has pounded away at Kelly, retweeting claims that she is a bimbo and calling her average in everyway, he has frequently appeared on Fox News programs. A defiant Trump appeared on Fox host Bill OReillys show Wednesday night, his 133rd appearance on the network since announcing his presidential run, according to a Fox tally. When OReilly suggested that Trump was making a mistake by skipping the debate, the GOP front-runner said, I think youre wrong. Trumps camp denied that the candidate was afraid to debate. He loves debating. He has participated in six debates, said Trump spokesman Corey Lewandowski. He welcomes the opportunity to debate. Fox has claimed that the Trump spokesman leveled a threat against Kelly on Saturday in a conversation with one of the networks executives. Lewandowski stated that Megyn had a rough couple of days after that last debate and he would hate to have her go through that again, a Fox spokeswoman said in a statement. We cant give in to terrorizations toward any of our employees. When asked about the Fox claim, Lewandowski said: I didnt do anything of the sort. . . . I did not threaten anyone. Jill Olmsted, a journalism professor and media critic at American University, said the cable channels unnecessarily snarky comments mean that Trump has won this round with Fox big time. They took the low road and made Mr. Trump look like he is being targeted by Fox, she said. I am quite surprised that grown-up media spokespersons for a major media outlet didnt know better, or at least werent more practiced in holding their tempers when giving public comment. But John Carroll, a communications professor at Boston University, said: This may be a situation where Donald Trump was too clever by half. It may have been a gambit to get concessions, but when Fox rightly told him to take a hike, he was boxed in. To save face he had almost no choice. Rush Limbaugh, the influential nationally syndicated radio host, concluded that Fox is underestimating Trump. I heard people on Fox last night talking about this. Who does he think he is? He cant control the media, Limbaugh said on his program Wednesday. I got news for you: He is controlling the media, and its his objective . . . He controls the media when hes not on it. He controls the media when he is on it. He controls the media when hes asleep. Nobody else has been able to do anything like this short of the Kennedys, and theyre pikers compared to the way Trump is doing this. For the umpteenth time in this strange Republican primary season, Trump has made the race all about one thing: Trump. Mike Mazza and his son Gabriel stand outside their subdivision attempting to get plow service for their street in Gaithersburg, Md. Jan. 26, 2016 Mike Mazza and his son Gabriel stand outside their subdivision attempting to get plow service for their street in Gaithersburg, Md. Gary Cameron/Reuters The storm has stopped, and the cleanup is only beginning but not without a snowball fight or some sledding first. The storm has stopped, and the cleanup is only beginning but not without a snowball fight or some sledding first. The storm has stopped, and the cleanup is only beginning but not without a snowball fight or some sledding first. What the D.C. area looks like after the epic blizzard What the D.C. area looks like after the epic blizzard After trudging a mile through two feet of snow to get groceries Tuesday, Steve Schecter decided that he could not wait any longer for plows to reach his Olney neighborhood. Schecter grabbed a shovel, and soon, other neighbors joined him blazing a cars-width trail from his cul-de-sac to the main road. It remained the only track out of Meadowland Terrace as of Wednesday evening. A normal bustle began to return to the Washington region Wednesday, with federal employees going back to work as they will again Thursday, on a three-hour delay. District students were back in school, but some in residential neighborhoods and on side streets felt abandoned after waiting for a plow for four days after Snowzillas last flakes. Its absolutely horrendous, Schecter said. Im from Chicago. We dont do this. Weve failed to reelect mayors because they have done a poor job of clearing snow. Those who werent snowbound had a somewhat easier time of it, but they still faced long delays and crowding on mass transit and the roads. And parents in major suburban school districts from Fairfax to Montgomery counties learned that their children would stay home again Thursday. And in some cases, Friday, too. With nearly 3.5 billion cubic feet of snow falling on the Washington, D.C., area, there's small mountains of snow to remove. But where do you put all that snow? For the District, the answer is RFK Stadium's Parking Lot 7. (Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post) Still, the storms lingering effects fell most heavily on people like Schecter, whose frustration was boiling over. Schecter said he had been calling his Montgomery County representative and the countys 311 help line to get his street plowed. He was told Tuesday night that his street would be plowed by Wednesday morning, but that didnt happen. His street was cleared Wednesday evening. Yet that was hours after a county website that listed plowed roads showed his as having been completed. Meanwhile, the government information technology worker said that he had been forced to telecommute for much of the week and his two children were stir-crazy. Schecter was not alone in taking up a shovel after a plow failed to materialize. After seeing no government-dispatched plow for days, Diane Thomas and her neighbors on Allanwood Drive in Aspen Hill also decided to free themselves. The retired insurance worker, 65, joined a plumber, a school worker, a legal administrator and a rotating crew of more than a dozen other neighbors spending most of Tuesday shoveling so they would be ready for Wednesdays commute. The plowing issues come after Montgomery County executive Isaiah Leggett (D) promised that every road in the county would get at least one pass with a plow by 7 a.m. Wednesday. If we could have trusted them, and believed that by 7 a.m. the road would have been clear, we wouldnt have done that, Thomas said of the heavy labor in their Norwood Park-area community. A Montgomery spokesman, Patrick Lacefield, said Wednesday that we did do a first pass before this morning on Allanwood Drive and that another was scheduled for later Wednesday. Overall, Lacefield said the county had performed well trying to make the streets passable. We did pretty good at meeting the 7 a.m. goal, Lacefield said. But, he added, with 5,200 lane miles to cover, some oversights were inevitable. Were taking down addresses and sending out plows immediately to mop those up. Residents in parts of Virginia also were experiencing problems. Arlington County reported late Wednesday afternoon that it had plowed at least a single lane on all of its streets and was moving on to widening the primary and secondary routes and addressing trouble spots in residential areas. The Virginia Department of Transportation handles major routes in the county, leaving only local roads to Arlington. Residents aggravated by unplowed or incompletely plowed streets have caused phones at the county building to ring off the hook, and Greg Emanuel, the countys director of environmental services, said Tuesday night that the countys online form, where residents can report a snow issue, has been inundated with more than 4,500 complaints. In addition, a new map of snowplows status, which is supposed to be updated every 12 hours, has marked some streets as plowed when they have not been. County Manager Mark Schwartz said he will consider whether an inaccurate map is doing more harm than good. It wasnt just the snowier suburbs that had issues. District officials cleared side streets in Columbia Heights on Wednesday after residents complained of unplowed streets. Amanda Oliver, a resident of Quincy Place, said plows tried to come down her street but abandoned the effort, leaving heaps of snow blocking the road. She managed to navigate Quincy Place in her Honda Civic on Wednesday morning, but the car fishtailed and chunks of ice thunked on the undercarriage. I think they were doing the best job they could, Oliver said of the citys plowing efforts. I think they should have been more cautious about reopening things. Sending people back to work and school was an irresponsible decision. By late Wednesday afternoon, District cleanup crews were still dismantling towering snow piles and scraping neighborhood roads clean in 21 of 76 slices of the city, according to Christopher Geldart, emergency management chief for Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D). The crews were planning to work through the night to get roads down to pavement in all sections of the city by Thursday afternoon, he said. At the same time, crews had been treating roads citywide before the expected freeze overnight Wednesday into Thursday. We will be treating 100 percent to the Districts roads, Geldart said. The halting recovery continued on the work commute, as well. Metrorail resumed service on the Silver Line at 5 a.m. Wednesday, the last line to reopen. Metrobus reported delays of up to 45 minutes Wednesday as buses navigated detours and plowed-in bus stops. It ran service on about half of its 300 lines and planned to provide modified service on all lines Thursday. Schools in Montgomery and Prince Georges counties, as well as in Alexandria, announced that they will be closed Thursday. Schools in Fairfax and Prince William counties said they will be closed Thursday and Friday. Moriah Balingit, Dana Hegpeth, Faiz Siddiqui and Patricia Sullivan contributed to this report. THE DISTRICT Boy is charged with making bomb threats A boy was arrested Tuesday in connection with two bomb threats called into a Southeast Washington school this month, D.C. police said. The juvenile was charged with two counts of threats to do bodily harm, according to police. His age was not released. Authorities said the calls were made Jan. 12 to the Somerset Preparatory School on Wheeler Road. Police searched the school that day, and no hazardous materials were found. Investigators from the departments telephone-support unit traced the phone calls, which revealed a link that led to the boy, authorities said. Victoria St. Martin MARYLAND Hogan seeks sponsors for proposed bills Aides to Gov. Larry Hogan said earlier this week that some of his proposed legislation would be introduced in the General Assembly on Wednesday. But that didnt happen. Instead, Senate Minority Leader J.B. Jennings (R-Baltimore County) asked senators to contact Hogans legislative office if they were interested in sponsoring any of the governors bills. Hogan (R) has said his legislative agenda will focus on education issues, redistricting reform, addressing the heroin crisis, and improving the tax and business climate. The governor announced several proposals in news releases Tuesday and Wednesday, but the actual bills remain unseen. Matt Clark, a spokesman for Hogan, said that members of the governors legislative team were still gathering co-sponsors. The governors first bills should be introduced on Thursday, he said, adding that the process was delayed because of the snowstorm. Ovetta Wiggins 2-year-old boy is shot in Waldorf apartment A 2-year-old boy was shot in the upper leg inside an apartment in the Waldorf area, a Charles County Sheriffs Office spokeswoman said Wednesday. Authorities got a call from the boys father around 3:45 p.m. The father said he was sleeping when he heard a gun go off inside his home, in the 3300 block of Patapsco Place, said Diane Richardson, a department spokeswoman. He told authorities that he saw his 2-year-old with a gunshot wound in the upper leg, Richardson said. The toddler, who was alert and conscious, was flown to a hospital, she said. Investigators were trying to determine who owned the gun and how the 2-year-old got ahold of it, Richardson said. Victoria St. Martin Bethesda man dies in crash on I-270 A 38-year-old man from Bethesda died after a single-vehicle crash Tuesday night on Interstate 270 in Montgomery County, according to Maryland State Police. Michael Garth Thomas was pronounced dead at Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center. Police said he may have suffered a medical emergency that led to the crash. The accident occurred about 7:45 p.m. on the northbound I-270 ramp leading to Interstate 370. Police said that Thomas, driving a 2012 Acura, lost control of the vehicle, struck a guardrail and become airborne. Police said the vehicle landed on the other side of the guardrail. Peter Hermann THE REGION Franchisee admits he bilked the IRS A businessman who owned or co-owned several Subway franchises in the Washington area admitted Wednesday that he and others bilked the IRS out of at least $1.5 million by seriously underreporting the money their shops were making. Obayedul Hoque, 49, a naturalized citizen from Bangladesh who came to the United States in 1987, at one time owned or co-owned eight Subway franchises and a gas station in Alexandria, according to court records and his attorney. He pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiring to defraud the IRS. Andrew Stewart, Hoques attorney, said that Hoque had agreed to pay restitution and back taxes. He knows what he did is wrong, and hes trying to fix it as best he can, Stewart said. Matt Zapotosky Charges dropped in attempted snatching Federal prosecutors dismissed charges against a District woman who police said tried to kidnap a child from a stroller on a Metro train in September. A hearing for Monique McKnight was set for Wednesday, but it was canceled last week after prosecutors agreed to drop the charges of attempted kidnapping and child cruelty. District psychiatrists had told a D.C. Superior Court judge that McKnight was not competent to stand trial. During a morning commute on Sept. 2, police said in charging documents, McKnight approached a stroller, containing a 3-year-old girl, on an Orange Line train and began yelling. Authorities said that McKnight bypassed the childs mother and tried to pull the girl out of the stroller. A bystander approached McKnight and pulled her away from the child. Passengers subdued McKnight until the train reached the Foggy Bottom station. Keith Alexander Mike Mazza and his son Gabriel stand outside their subdivision attempting to get plow service for their street in Gaithersburg, Md. Jan. 26, 2016 Mike Mazza and his son Gabriel stand outside their subdivision attempting to get plow service for their street in Gaithersburg, Md. Gary Cameron/Reuters The storm has stopped, and the cleanup is only beginning but not without a snowball fight or some sledding first. The storm has stopped, and the cleanup is only beginning but not without a snowball fight or some sledding first. The storm has stopped, and the cleanup is only beginning but not without a snowball fight or some sledding first. What the D.C. area looks like after the epic blizzard What the D.C. area looks like after the epic blizzard Nearly 2 1/ 2 feet of snow smothered New York City last weekend, at least five inches more than buried Washington, D.C. Yet it was New York that opened its public schools on Monday not the District, which waited until Wednesday. And it was New York that restarted its buses and subways first, triggering rounds of grousing among Washingtonians infuriated that a blizzard could turn the nations capital into a relative backwater. This is a city of wimps, said Mark Plotkin, the political commentator who moved to Washington in 1964. It still astounds me. Others tried to be more understanding. Joe Englert, the owner of 10 bars in the District, spent the weekend with his business partners shuttling employees and supplies to keep his beer taps flowing. With nearly 3.5 billion cubic feet of snow falling on the Washington, D.C. area, there's small mountains of snow to remove. But where do you put all that snow? For the District, the answer is RFK Stadium's Parking Lot 7. (Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post) Im going to give D.C. a break here, Englert said. Were much more of a car culture, and our culture puts us behind New York. You dont have to park there during storm. I hate to be reasonable, but thats the truth. Beyond culture, the resources available to the two cities also make a difference. New Yorks $77 million snow-removal budget allowed it to dispatch more than 2,000 pieces of equipment and more than 4,600 workers across the citys 302 square miles. On average, New York contends with 25 inches of snow every year, nearly twice what Washington gets. With 68 square miles to cover, the District has no blueprint for handling a storm like last weekends blizzard. Instead, the plans worst-case scenario is for 18 inches of snow, less than the 22 inches measured in parts of the city. The Districts $6.2 million snow-removal budget is paying for more than 700 pieces of equipment. The D.C. area both the city and surrounding areas are inexperienced with snow, period, said Terry Lynch, a Mount Pleasant activist. That applies to the populace for the most part and much of the workforce responsible for handling it. Even with a week of blizzard forecasts, the Districts planning seemed scattershot. A friend of the Districts head of homeland security reached out and offered a giant ice-melter, and the city accepted. An employee at the Department of Public Works recalled the name of a snow-removal contractor from Massachusetts that the city hired in 2010, and the city offered the contractor a retainer. Council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), who has oversight of snow operations, said the District needs to keep a stable of major contractors on retainer for megastorms to clear walkways, bus stops and fire hydrants. But she said the city government seems to accept that it can prepare only so much for rare events. If we planned for more than 18 inches, what that would do is say that we would have to keep resources at hand that we only use every, whatever, 10 years, Cheh said. When it comes to managing the weather in particular, the snow a mix of inferiority and defensiveness pervades Washington, as was evident during a news conference Monday when District officials were asked why New York was first to open schools and resume public transportation. A totally unfair comparison, bristled Chris Geldart, Mayor Muriel E. Bowsers director of Homeland Security and Emergency Services. He then questioned whether it was a safe situation for those students to get there? Thats Mayor [Bill] de Blasios call. By Tuesday afternoon, as the District was preparing to open its school system, de Blasios team was crowing that city workers had plowed enough snow to fill Yankee stadium to the top 66 times. On Wednesday, Geldart said he was too busy digging out the District and preparing for an overnight freeze to compare how the two cities responded to the blizzard. Honestly, I dont care, he said. I have no idea whats going on in New York, how theyre doing their removal, how far they are. Were two totally different cities. I really dont have the time. Chris Policano belongs to that slice of humanity that has resided in both cities, though his sonorous New York-ese betrays his Queens roots. When he moved to the District in 2009, he struggled to comprehend how Washingtonians appeared to panic at the mere forecast of snow. At first, my feeling was, This town is full of wusses, said Policano, a senior staffer at a labor union who lived in the District for six years before returning to New York. But then you come to enjoy being a wuss. The martinis he drank at the Jefferson Hotel during one storm helped change his view. I do kind of miss it, Policano said, before switching gears. No, not really. Enough. Its snow. Lets move on. Lets find a way. New York definitely handles it better. Phil Pannell, a Democratic activist who lives in Southeast Washington, said that when he moved to Washington in the 1970s, he was shocked by the people stampeding to the grocery stores before snow storms. But his expectations changed as he grew accustomed to the Districts rhythms. Now I go stampeding to the grocery store, too, he said. Staff writers Aaron C. Davis and Michael Laris contributed to this report. Council member Kenyan R. McDuffie (D-Ward 5) says his bill would insert social workers and psychologists into police units and emergency rooms across the District. (Bill OLeary/The Washington Post) A sweeping crime-prevention bill that would provide up to 200 at-risk individuals each year with mental-health counseling, job training and stipends, passed a vote among the D.C. Councils judiciary committee on Wednesday. Council Judiciary Chairman Kenyan R. McDuffie (D-Ward 5) said his bill, modeled after a successful program in Richmond, Calif., would also insert social workers and psychologists into police units and emergency rooms across the city, and would expand the citys monitoring and evaluation of patterns of violence and police abuse. The bill constitutes a public health approach to crime prevention and came as the result of months of research and meetings with crime-prevention experts across the country, he said. But even if the council passes the proposal, the measures will not go into effect in time to affect policing during the summer months, when crime tends to rise. And the Districts Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey S. DeWitt said the city also does not have the funds to implement it. The bill would cost the city $3.9 million in the current fiscal year and $25.6 million through the end of 2019. Funds are not sufficient . . . to implement the bill, DeWitt said Tuesday in a letter to council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D). That means the council would most probably have to wait to appropriate funds for the bill through the citys still-to-be-drafted 2017 budget, which will not take effect until Oct. 1. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who introduced her own anti-crime proposal at the end of the summer, also swiftly slammed the legislation Wednesday through a spokesman. Councilmember McDuffies package failed to include any provisions to combat crime, Bowser spokesman Michael Czin said in an emailed statement. While McDuffie said the 25-page document reflected a compromise between his and Bowsers proposals, it included only a few of the mayors original ideas such as plans to rehire retired D.C. police officers to join the citys forensics agency, and allow some inmates to temporarily leave the D.C. jail or Correctional Treatment Facility to work or attend school. McDuffies spokeswoman, Dionne Calhoun, in an email, countered that Bowsers proposal included provisions that either violated the Districts Home Rule Charter (requiring GPS data and synthetic testing by federal agencies), were potentially unconstitutional (warrantless searches of individuals under supervision), or had never been utilized (transit operator enhancements). The Committees proposal aligns itself with best practices in other jurisdictions and those recommended by the White House, Calhoun said. At some point, we have to face the fact that failed tough on crime proposals are out of step with the rest of the country and, frankly, open us up to suit. They certainly dont strengthen relationships between law enforcement and residents or prevent crime. What they do is lead to overincarceration and recidivism. Two attempts by Bowsers ally, Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), to add more of the mayors language to the bill were defeated with the help of Mendelson, who rarely participates in committee votes, but who backed McDuffie Wednesday. The Districts 2015 murder spike which at 162 was the citys highest number in seven years has raised fears and left city residents clamoring for answers and a strategy from government officials. But lawmakers have been divided over an appropriate answer. McDuffie and a number of community activists shot down the bulk of the mayors crime proposal, which included harsher penalties for violent attacks on Metro and broader supervision and searches of recent ex-offenders, when she presented it at the end of the summer. Then, this month, Bowser accused McDuffie and the council of dragging their feet on the passage of a comprehensive crime bill. [D.C. mayor clashes with a top city lawmaker on plans to combat crime] Evans on Wednesday said there was tremendous concern among D.C. police officers about a provision in McDuffies bill that would narrow the definition of assault on a police officer. He and Council member LaRuby May (D-Ward 8) also sought to insert into the bill Bowsers proposed enhanced penalties for violent crimes committed on board Metro trains and buses, and in city parks and recreation centers. Enhancing penalties for violence on public transit would send a message . . . that we take this extremely seriously, and were not going to tolerate what happened over the last year, Evans said. But McDuffie said that research has shown enhanced penalties to have little deterrent effect, and that existing enhanced penalties in the D.C. criminal code for example, concerning attacks on Metro bus drivers and taxi drivers have never been used. This is a feel-good measure, plain and simple that would do nothing to make District residents safer, he said. Czin, the mayors spokesman, said her office would continue to push her common-sense proposals . . . like enhanced penalties for crimes committed on public transportation, allowing judges to order offenders held for 72 hours if they violate a court order, and giving MPD access to GPS data of people under federal supervision when police are investigating a crime. Republican presidential hopefuls Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), seen at a Jan. 14 debate, are among the top-tier GOP candidates who want to end Common Core and shrink the federal role in education. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg) To hear the top-tier Republican presidential candidates tell it, on their first day in office, they will shift power over education from the federal government back to states and local communities. Problem is, Congress already took care of that. In December, the House and Senate overwhelmingly approved a new law that dials back the power of the federal government when it comes to local classrooms. It marked a profound reset of the relationship between federal and state governments. States, not the federal government, decide curricula, teaching methods, academic standards, what to do about struggling schools and how to define success or failure, among other things. All but two of the GOP candidates former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are also promising that they will rid the country of Common Core, the K-12 academic standards in math and reading adopted by more than 40 states and the District of Columbia. The trouble is, the president has no power over the Common Core. States decide academic standards. That has been true for years but was spelled out explicitly in the new federal education law. [How the Common Core came to be] Still, that hasnt stopped Donald Trump, Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, or retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson from telling voters that they will reduce the federal role in education while they also mothball the Common Core. From a 45-second video released by Trump on Wednesday: Im a tremendous believer in education, but education has to be at a local level. We cannot have the bureaucrats in Washington telling you how to manage your childs education. So Common Core is a total disaster. We cant let it continue. [Fact-checking Trump on education ] Two weeks ago, Cruz posted a video in which he said, If Im elected president, I will direct the U.S. Department of Education which should be abolished I will direct the Department of Education that Common Core ends today. Instead, I will restore power back to the states and to the local governments and ultimately back to the parents those closest to our kids who have direct responsibility for raising our children, each and every one of us moms and dads. From Rubios website: On Day One, Marco will issue an executive order directing federal agencies to stop any and all activity related to implementing or encouraging Common Core. . . . He will ensure no federal education funding is tied to mandates and prohibit the federal government from forcing states or local districts to adhere to principles or interfere in local education. And from Carsons website: In recent years, however, the U.S. Department of Education has increasingly tried to dictate how children are educated. . . . This federal intrusion must stop and Common Core must be overturned. Our education system must be run by involved parents and engaged teachers and principals at the state and local levels. Attempts by faceless federal bureaucrats to take over our local schools must be defeated. The occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in Burns, Ore., took a violent turn on Jan. 26, when a shooting unfolded during a traffic stop. One member of the armed group was killed and 11 have been arrested since, including leaders Ammon and Ryan Bundy. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post) The occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in Burns, Ore., took a violent turn on Jan. 26, when a shooting unfolded during a traffic stop. One member of the armed group was killed and 11 have been arrested since, including leaders Ammon and Ryan Bundy. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post) The siege at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in central Oregon has always been different from the others. It is not like Ruby Ridge in 1992 or Waco in 1993, where federal and local law enforcement authorities battled militants on their private land. It is not like the Cliven Bundy ranch incident in 2014, when federal officials stepped away from a confrontation with the Nevada rancher and protesters who said that they were defending the right to graze cattle on federal land. [More Oregon occupiers arrested; others leave as standoff appears to dwindle] Malheur is the first real siege brought about by a group of occupiers on the offensive. Armed with AR-15 assault rifles, shotguns, pistols and knives, dozens of men and women occupied a federal facility for more than three weeks, rallied others to their cause and, citing the Constitution, advocated severely curtailing federal authority across the country. An eruption of violence Tuesday on a highway outside the nearby town of Burns left one of the most prominent occupiers dead and eight others under arrest. Whatever happens next, supporters and critics agree that the Malheur occupation marks a dramatic turn in a long-simmering relationship between the federal government and radicals who view it as overreaching and corrupt. I think this is going to galvanize peoples concerns that the government is taking actions that its not supposed to, said B.J. Soper, a member of the Pacific Patriots Network, an umbrella organization of regional militia groups. I believe its going to galvanize people into the movement. Government officials and leaders expressed sadness and concern about the outbreak of violence but reaffirmed their support of law enforcements approach in handling the crisis. Meanwhile, the incident seemed to intensify anti-government sentiment among militia members and their sympathizers, who reacted with rage and calls for retribution. On Facebook and Twitter and in middle-of-the-night phone calls, supporters first shared reports that Cliven Bundys sons, Ammon and Ryan, had been arrested. Soon, word spread that Bundy supporter LaVoy Finicum had been killed. The Bundy Ranch Facebook page provided a dark timeline for followers: We have been informed that Ammon was taken into custody while outside the refuge and that shots were fired, but confirmation of these details is still lacking. We humbly seek the protection of God and ask for your prayers. 1 of 34 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Traffic stop turns deadly after shootout with occupiers of Oregon refuge View Photos Several arrested, one dead during shootout with armed activists in Oregon. Caption The armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge ended after 41 tumultuous days, as the final occupants surrendered. Cliven Bundy, father of the groups leader and himself a veteran of armed standoffs, was arrested as he arrived in Portland. Feb. 11, 2016 Ammon Bundy's attorney Mike Arnold, second from left, walks at the Narrows roadblock near Burns. Ore. The last four occupiers of a Malheur National Wildlife Refuge surrendered to authorities. The holdouts were the last remnants of a larger group that seized the wildlife refuge nearly six weeks ago, demanding that the government turn over the land to locals and release two ranchers imprisoned for setting fires. Thomas Boyd, The Oregonian/AP Wait 1 second to continue. Then two hours later: Tonight peaceful patriots were attacked on a remote road for supporting the Constitution. One was killed. Who are the terrorists? And then confirmation of Finicums death: LaVoy has left us, but his sacrifice will never be far from the lips of those who love liberty. You cannot defeat us. Our blood is seed. Elsewhere, details were murky at first and became even murkier as secondhand accounts became third- and fourth-hand accounts. Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore (R), who has been supportive of the Bundys, tweeted: My heart & prays go out to LaVoy Finicums family he was just murdered with his hands up in Burns OR. Other reports emerged that Finicum had charged police. In an audio recording posted on YouTube, a young woman who said that she was in Finicums truck said Finicum had his hands up as he told the police to go ahead and shoot him. She estimated that law enforcement fired 120 rounds into the vehicle. But the accounts could not be immediately verified. At a Wednesday afternoon news conference, law enforcement officials said that occupiers were to blame for the confrontation that left Finicum dead, but they would not discuss details of the confrontation, saying it is still under investigation. The news conference left Soper seething. The resident of Redmond, Ore., about 120 miles from Malheur, said that his militia organization had been acting as a buffer between the FBI and the occupiers on the refuge. Soper said the news conference was disgusting and full of lies. Our government should be ashamed of itself and Harney County should be ashamed of its elected officials as well, he said. Its pretty obvious that LaVoy Finicum was murdered by the government, he said, adding, Thats going to cause a pretty stern reaction from the community and from the people across America. Soper said that he never supported the takeover of federal property but that he thinks it has brought attention to the issues of land use and federal policies. The message that came out was a message that America and the western United States needed to hear, he said. Change is going to happen out here in the West because of what theyve done. The occupiers considered their decision to seize Malheur to be a game changer. During an interview two weeks ago, Finicum sat in one of the small administrative offices at the Malheur refuge and quietly explained why the armed takeover of the federal facility represented a significant strategic advance for groups rebelling against the federal government. Finicum had arrived in Burns on Jan. 3 to protest the upcoming reimprisonment of two local ranchers, Dwight and Steven Hammond, who had been convicted of arson on federal property and resentenced. An hour before the march, Ammon and Ryan Bundy held a small meeting to suggest a radical addendum to the protest. Ammon Bundy proposed that he and the others head out to Malheur, occupy it and refuse to relinquish it until demands had been met. He laid out all the efforts [that had been made] to resolve this thing at every level and where they had been rebuffed and not even responded to, said the soft-spoken Finicum. Then, at that moment, he laid out the plan to come and occupy here. At that point, I said, Ammon, let me make sure I understand what youre saying. For all these many years, we have been in a defensive posture, losing a little bit here and losing a little bit there as ranchers, and being forced backward. Is what youre saying that this is our first step forward? He goes, Yes, it is. The plan to take that step forward, Finicum said later, was unprecedented. Rhetoric that had been growing increasingly aggressive about how to respond to the federal government was turned into action. Now, Finicum is dead. The Bundy brothers are in jail. And as of late Wednesday, many occupiers had left the refuge. Through his lawyer on Wednesday afternoon, Ammon Bundy asked the remaining occupiers to please stand down. Tuesdays violence may have marked the beginning of the end of the siege at Malheur. But the occupiers decision to take over the facility in the first place worries groups monitoring the self-styled militia organizations that have challenged federal authority in the West and across the country. The fact that they took over this federal building is a new thing, said Heidi Beirich, who tracks militias and paramilitary organizations for the Southern Poverty Law Center. In the past, obviously weve had standoffs, but theyve been standoffs that involved feds sieging properties that are owned by the militants. Beirich said that the standoff at the Bundy ranch in 2014, during which the federal government walked away from confrontation, may have given the occupiers a sense that they could have success in their latest effort. Up to that point, I dont think people even as crazy as some of the people in the militia movement are thought that you could put a gun to a federal officer and not get arrested and actually get what you wanted, Beirich said. What is also new, Beirich said, is that militia groups are reaching out to people, ranchers and others, who may not share their fervent ideological views but do feel resentment toward some federal policies. Beirich said that the biggest expansion of anti-government groups came after the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, when 168 people were killed by militia movement sympathizers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. For a little while, the bombing gave a boost to the movement, Beirich said. But then the federal government . . . started cracking down really hard on violators in the anti-government movement. And the movement started collapsing. Where we sit right now, she said, the question is, Does this further embolden these people? Or do cooler heads prevail and decide to quietly slink away? Amancio Ortega Business Insider just released its list of the 50 richest people on earth, and, unsurprisingly, the top spot went to household name Bill Gates. But the second-richest person in the world is a secretive, little-known fashion retailing titan from Spain. With a net worth of $66.8 billion, 79-year-old Amancio Ortega edged out Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett for second place on our ranking created in collaboration with Wealth-X thanks to the rising fortunes of his clothing-store conglomerate Inditex. You might not immediately recognize Ortegas name, but chances are youve visited one of his stores. Once a tiny dress shop in Spain, Inditex is now one of the largest fashion empires worldwide, with more than 6,900 stores globally. The retailers portfolio of brands includes Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, and most notably, fast-fashion giant Zara. Ortegas net worth has steadily increased since founding Inditex in 1963, but its recent growth spurt caused his wealth to balloon. In 2015 alone, Inditexs stock rose 34%, and through the first nine months of the year sales were up 16% and profits increased 20%. The company also opened 230 new stores across 48 markets. His jaw-dropping wealth could easily have made Ortega a media magnet, but he's craftily avoided the spotlight his entire life. A primary-school dropout born to a poor family, Ortega was a complete mystery before a photo of him was released publicly for the first time in 1999 in advance of Inditex's initial public offering. Fiercely private and press averse, Ortega reportedly paid off a paparazzi in 2012 to prevent photos of his daughter Marta on her honeymoon from being released, according to Wealth-X. Ortega also lives humbly, routinely eating lunch with his employees in the company cafeteria and sticking to a simple uniform of a white shirt and blue blazer. Story continues The self-made fashion magnate is one of eight European billionaires that rank among the 50 richest people on earth. NOW WATCH: The one reason Zara is dominating the fashion industry right now More From Business Insider Democrat Will Jawando speaks during a Jan. 27 forum in Rockville for candidates seeking Marylands 8th Congressional District seat. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post) Two Republicans joined seven Democratic candidates in Marylands 8th Congressional District at a campaign forum Wednesday night, using the moment to argue that with the House likely to remain under GOP control next year, they would be the better choice for voters. The two Republicans one a longtime party activist and the other a recent Democrat and independent arent likely to turn up on Fox News or conservative talk radio. Shelly Skolnick, a Silver Spring lawyer, wants to raise the federal minimum wage to $10 and create a new value-added tax to pay for health care. He told a small crowd candidates and staff nearly outnumbered voters at the Aspen Hill Library in Rockville that electing a Republican to the House from the heavily Democratic district would send ripples through national politics. We want to make Congress work again. Lets elect moderates in both parties, especially in the 8th, Skolnick said. It will encourage moderates of both parties through the country to run. The other Republican, Liz Matory, is so newly minted that her website still calls her a post-partisan independent. She said that as an African American woman, she is best positioned for a seat at the table in a Republican House. Im the only one [of the candidates] who would be a part of the room, said Matory, a former Democratic Party field organizer. Two other GOP candidates, Silver Spring financial adviser Aryeh Shudofsky and Bethesda business consultant Gus Alzona, did not attend the forum. [Few GOP takers for Van Hollens seat] In a district with a 2-to-1 Democratic registration advantage, the Republican winner in the April 26 primary will face steep challenges in the general election. The already packed Democratic field grew Wednesday when David Trone, a multimillionaire Potomac wine retailer, announced that he would run a largely self-financed campaign. He was not at the forum. Assuming that he meets Wednesdays filing deadline, Trone will join state Sen. Jamie Raskin, Dels. Kumar P. Barve and Ana Sol-Gutierrez, former local news anchor and Marriott executive Kathleen Matthews, former Obama aide Will Jawando, former State Department official Joel Rubin and nonprofit executive David Anderson in vying for the chance to succeed Democrat Chris Van Hollen, who is running for the U.S. Senate. All the Democrats said they supported immigration reform, with several specifically favoring the bipartisan bill that passed the Senate in 2013. The measure creates a pathway to citizenship for those in the country illegally, doubles the number of U.S. Border Patrol agents and imposes new requirements for employers to verify the legal status of job applicants. Skolnick said he supported all provisions except citizenship, favoring only green cards for illegal immigrants unless they did something unusual like, say, serving in the military. With few substantive differences over policy, many of the Democrats made their case by leaning heavily on biography and calls for diversity. [Women over 50 a coveted voting bloc for Md. Congressional candidates] Jawando, the sole African American Democrat in the field, noted that all three congressional incumbents representing portions of Montgomery County Reps. John Delaney, John Sarbanes and Van Hollen are white males. While the district stretches from Takoma Park through portions of Frederick and Carroll counties, about 80 percent of its Democrats reside in Montgomery. We have three white men for a county that is 52 percent people of color, said Jawando, a lawyer who lives in Silver Spring. In the board room diversity matters, in schools it matters, in law enforcement it matters, and it should matter in this race. Matthews said she supported a higher minimum wage, gender pay equity, paid family leave and immigration reform. She added that with Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski retiring and Democrat Donna F. Edwards relinquishing her House seat to run for the Senate, the Maryland delegation and Congress in general suffer from gender imbalance. We need more women in Congress, Matthews said, noting that 1 in 5 members are women. I think we have a real opportunity to elect the first Democratic woman in the 8th District. Sol-Gutierrez said that with immigrations prominence as a national issue, her life experience as a Salvadoran American makes her the strongest candidate to push for reforms. Theres no one better to do that in Congress, she said. Barve touted his business credentials hes chief financial officer of an environmental cleanup company by calling himself the accountant in the legislature. He also cited a record of support for renewable energy and economic development. Barve, the grandson of Indian immigrants, also noted that electing the first Asian American member of Congress in Maryland history would be a nice bit of icing on the cake. Issues raised by the audience at the forum, sponsored by the Aspen Hill Civic Association, included use of tax money for private schools (all were against except Matory, whose position was unclear) and funding for public libraries, not exactly a core federal responsibility, but one that candidates happily jumped on. Raskin and Jawando pledged to return any overdue books. Rubin drew applause when he said that curbing runaway defense spending could free up money for libraries. I am not going to deny my children the ability to take out books from the local public library so that Boeing and other corporate defense contractors can build multibillion-dollar jets that dont work, he said. Rep. Chris Van Hollen picked up an endorsement from a union representing auto workers in the state. (Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post) A union representing Maryland auto workers endorsed Rep. Chris Van Hollen over Rep. Donna F. Edwards in Marylands competitive Democratic Senate primary Thursday. The Maryland State United Auto Workers Community Action Program represents over 15,000 active and retired members and their families in the state. The congressman met with union members last month at a Volvo plant in Hagerstown where 200 layoffs were looming. He said the company had committed to bringing those employees back whenever rehiring occurs. He told reporters in a conference call Thursday that he would continue to fight for labor as the lead Democratic negotiator in budget talks. We need to work together to increase the power of unions, he said. [Union that helped make Edwards switches alliance to Van Hollen] Both Edwards and Van Hollen have strong records with labor, and both have endorsements from various local unions across the state. But Van Hollen has the support of the powerful Service Employees International Union, a national group that was instrumental in Edwardss first election to Congress. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees has yet to endorse; the AFL-CIO elected to stay out of the race. [Poll finds tight race for Senate seat in Maryland] The most recent polling finds Van Hollen only two points ahead in the race for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D). D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier. A recent audit found that the use of excessive force and shootings by officers have remained low more than a decade after the Justice Department ended its oversight of the agency, but other issues remain. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post) Nearly a decade after the Justice Department ended its oversight of D.C. police, the use of excessive force and shootings by officers have remained low and have not reemerged as a problem, according to an independent report made public Thursday. The police force, according to the review commissioned by D.C. Auditor Kathleen Patterson, is plainly a very different, and much better, law enforcement agency than it was when federal authorities in 1999 began investigating fatal shootings by officers. At the time, the department had the highest rate among large cities in the nation. There is no evidence that the [police department] has an excessive use-of-force problem, said Michael R. Bromwich, who oversaw the review and had served as the court-appointed monitor overseeing the consent decree with the Justice Department that expired in 2008. Bottom line is that the reforms are still in place, and they continue to be managed by people who still care for them. [Audit finds D.C. police largely in compliance with past consent decree] The report did find fault with the police department, however, identifying what it called significant shortcomings that were procedural and substantive. Those include concerns about the way some internal investigations were conducted and about the merger of an elite squad that handled probes of shootings by officers into a larger unit. The report cites several instances in which investigations were incomplete, including cases where detectives failed to follow up on discrepancies between accounts of officers and questionable tactics that went unexamined. We do think the quality of the use-of-force investigator has declined, Bromwich said a news conference. Police disputed or sought to correct many parts of the report and said their investigations have not declined in quality. The department said in a written response that the agency remains a leader in the field of use-of-force investigations. The investigations conducted by [internal affairs] from 2008 to the present have investigative substance and are based on sound investigative principles. But overall, D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier called the review very satisfying to us and said it proved other police agencies now facing similar oversight by the Justice Department can emerge as better police departments. The report, titled The durability of police reform, comes at a time when law enforcement is under increased scrutiny across the country for tactics and use of deadly force. Many departments are implementing reforms that mirror those the District was forced to undertake years ago, and prosecutors are increasingly criminally charging officers for deadly shootings. [D.C. police respond to audit] Bromwich and Patterson said the just-completed review marks the first time a police agency that had been under federal oversight has been examined to determine if any of the reforms remain. Bromwich said the Districts success shows that reform can work not only for the police departments that are under siege, but for the communities that they serve. Lanier, a 26-year veteran who became chief in 2007, said that in the 1990s, the District and the police force had little money. She said the binding agreement with federal authorities to repair the department forced government to pour in money. Once we signed that agreement, the city had to back the police department, the chief said. She added that on Friday she will be working with other police chiefs across the country on new rules governing use of force that could become a new standard. Lanier also has begun a program designed to identify and root out problem officers and has implemented body-worn cameras to increase accountability. The Metropolitan Police Department came under scrutiny in 1999 after The Washington Post published a series called Deadly Force, which won the Pulitzer Prize for public service that year. In addition to the Justice Department review, the police chief ordered new firearms training for all 3,500 officers. [Read the Posts 1998 investigation into police shootings in the District] The report published Thursday says that since that time, intentional discharges of weapons 28 in 2001, 30 in 2004 and 31 in 2007 have declined to seven in 2010, nine in 2012 and 15 in 2015. Since 2009, the report says, the number of fatal shootings by police has remained relatively constant, between three and eight each year. Other types of force used by officers such as batons and tactical takedowns were difficult to track because of changes in policy and reporting requirements. But the report found no evidence of any significant or sustained increase in any category of use of force employed by MPD officers. The report found fault with Laniers decision in 2012 to merge the Force Investigation Team, called FIT, which had exclusively reviewed police-involved shootings and serious uses of force, into the internal affairs division, citing among other factors a diminished workload because of the fewer shootings by officers. Police responded that the auditors drew broad conclusions regarding the quality of internal investigations based on a review of handful of cases. It defended merging its elite force investigation squad into internal affairs, saying detectives were exceptionally trained. The report recommended that the internal affairs division assign specialists to handle such complex cases. The report authors singled out for review three police-involved shootings. In one, they said that while agreeing that shooting was justified, they said detectives failed to reconcile inconsistencies in the reasons officers gave for chasing the man hey had shot. The report also found that there were discrepancies between written summaries of interviews and tape recordings, and said a use-of-force review board made no serious effort to conduct a tactical analysis of the officers actions. The reviewers also said they were troubled at what the report called an inordinate length of time to investigate use-of-force cases, noting inquiries typically took more than 19 months to complete. The report says that based on information from prosecutors, there has never been a criminal prosecution of an on-duty MPD officer arising from an officer-involved shooting. Auditors said authorities should find a way to speed up inquiries or overlap administrative and criminal reviews, which can be difficult given the different legal requirements of both. Officers, for example, cant be compelled to give statements until after the criminal investigation is complete. Auditors put some of the blame on prosecutors, who said the report oversimplifies the complexities of the cases, the difficulties in completing forensic testing and the large workload of their office, which deals with many police agencies aside from the Districts. The U.S. attorneys office for the District said Thursday that prosecutors review more than 100 police use-of-force incidents each year, and must often wait for different agencies to complete parts of the probed before they can assemble all the investigative pieces. A D.C. firefighter who was poised to retire while facing internal charges in a botched response to a choking toddler has been told he cannot leave the department with benefits before a review panel disciplines or clears him. A fire department spokesman said the firefighter, Lt. Guy Valentine, remains on duty with his retirement listed as conditional. The 28-year veteran has been charged administratively with neglect of duty. Fire officials said Valentine was in a station blocks from the choking child when the call came last March, but did not interject when a dispatcher sent paramedics from more than a mile away. The department has blamed a faulty reading on a computer tablet for not recognizing Valentine was available. The 18-month-old died. Earlier this month, it appeared that Valentine was primed to take advantage of a mistake by fire officials when he sought to retire before facing a trial board. While a law passed by the D.C. Council last year bars firefighters facing serious misconduct cases from retiring, the department said it had not taken the administrative steps required to put the law in place. Officials said the department failed to write the regulations for the new law and publish them in the D.C. register for public comment. District and fire union officials said two weeks ago that it appeared Valentine could retire with full benefits. But Gregory M. Dean, chief of the D.C. fire and emergency medical services department, said Thursday that after a review, authorities decided to block Valentines retirement. Valentine has put in his retirement papers, but they generally take up to 60 days to process. Dean said the regulations were finalized on Tuesday and will be published Feb. 5. [New law never implemented governing firefighter retirements] Dean said he expects Valentine to appeal. He has a lot of tools at his beck and call and we would assume that he will do whatever he thinks he needs to do, the chief said. We are going to move forward, and were going to see what happens. Before the new law, members brought up on internal charges could leave the department with full rank and benefits, making any future discipline moot. A change was made following the retirement of another lieutenant who faced punishment after firefighters ignored a dying man outside a fire station in 2014. Valentine did not return calls to his home or cellphone on Thursday. Ed Smith, the head of the firefighters union, said he could not comment until after attorneys reviewed Deans decision. The union has expressed support for the new law. The father of the 18-month-old boy who died after choking on a grape said Thursday that he is relieved there is a chance to hold someone accountable. I would be very satisfied if action were taken, said Jose Cuesta, an economist with the World Bank and a professor at Georgetown University. It was unacceptable that a person could get away with this. Clarence Williams contributed to this report. The man who dubbed himself one of the Kush Gods and was accused of doling out brownies and other marijuana-laced treats laced from vehicles stopped around the city, was ordered back to D.C. jail Thursday. But not for the drug case. Following a hearing in D.C. Superior Court, Judge Rhonda Reid-Winston ordered the marshals to escort Nicholas Cunningham to a holding cell, saying there was a warrant for his arrest in California. The judge said Cunningham was wanted by authorities there for unlawfully removing his child from the jurisdiction and could face extradition. She did not offer additional details. After the hearing, Cunninghams attorney, Matthew von Fricken, said the warrant was a grave misunderstanding that he hoped to have resolved shortly. He declined to elaborate. Cunningham, 30, was arrested on Dec. 22 and charged with four misdemeanor counts of distributing marijuana in the District late last year. Authorities said Cunningham, who has built a following of more than 5,000 Twitter and Facebook followers, and other workers sold the drugs from brightly colored vehicles that stopped in Chinatown and along U Street Northwest. It is legal in the District to possess up to two ounces of marijuana and to give up to an ounce to someone else, though selling any amount is illegal. Prosecutors said in court papers that Kush Gods claimed it was trading the marijuana for monetary donations. WASHINGTON, DC - Police photograph of three automobiles seized in relation to the arrest of Nicholas Cunningham and Evonne Lidoff for distribution of marijuana. The pair had been giving away marijuan samples of donations in the district. The trio of vehicles are logo'ed with marijuana imagry and kushgod.com. (N/A/Metropolitan Police Department) [Original story of Kush Gods arrest for selling marijuana in the District] On Thursday, Cunningham walked into court wearing a new charcoal DKNY suit with the label still on the jackets left sleeve. He did not talk during the hearing, other than saying his name. D.C. prosecutors had offered Cunningham a plea deal which requires him to admit to two misdemeanor counts of distributing marijuana. In return, they said they would dismiss the remaining charges and would not oppose probation. The offer was pending and it is not clear whether Cunningham will accept it. Cunninghams employee, Eyonne Lidoff, 18, also was arrested and faces a misdemeanor distribution charge. Police said Cunningham is from Birmingham, Ala., but documents also list a Maryland address for him. Prosecutors said Cunningham sold more than $2,000 in marijuana products either loose weed or food items to an undercover officer between October and December 2015. As part of the arrest, police also seized three vehicles, including a Mercedes SUV and a Lexus coupe, each painted with pictures of marijuana. WASHINGTON, DC - Police photograph of three automobiles seized in relation to the arrest of Nicholas Cunningham and Evonne Lidoff for distribution of marijuana. The pair had been giving away marijuan samples of donations in the district. The trio of vehicles are logo'ed with marijuana imagry and kushgod.com. (N/A/Metropolitan Police Department) Prosecutors on Thursday also chided Cunningham for launching a mobile app, five days after his arrest, that would allow customers to submit orders for edible marijuana products for a $10 donation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Barker asked the judge to ensure the app was shut down. Cunningham agreed. We will be operating within the bounds of the law shortly, von Fricken said. The next hearing is scheduled for Feb. 23. An Islamic State fighter waves the groups flag from inside a captured government fighter jet following the battle for the Tabqa air base, in Raqqa, Syria. (Uncredited/AP) As the attorney for a Woodbridge man accused of helping an acquaintance try to join the Islamic State pressed the case in court Wednesday that his client was a victim of anti-Muslim hysteria, he ran into someone who did not want to hear it. The judge. At a hearing to determine whether Mahmoud Amin Mohamed Elhassan should be released from prison, lawyer Ashraf Nubani repeatedly referred to the troubles he said Muslims face in the United States. U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan D. Davis warned Nubani sternly to focus his arguments specifically on his client. At one point, the two men tried to talk over each other. Would you like to continue with your argument, or would you like to join your client in lockup? Davis exploded. Nubani said he would continue. [Attorney: Alleged terrorism plot involving Va. men created by government] That moment was the climax of a lively, hours-long hearing at the federal district courthouse in Alexandria. Elhassans sister and three other friends testified on behalf of the 25-year-old, and, for a time, it seemed that Davis was entertaining the idea of releasing him with conditions. He ultimately decided against it, concluding that while Elhassan might not be a danger to the community, he had demonstrated a complete lack of honesty and was a risk not to show up at future court hearings. Elhassan, a citizen of Sudan with a U.S. green card, was charged this month with aiding and abetting what authorities said was a plot to have an acquaintance join the Islamic State. That person, 28-year-old Joseph Hassan Farrokh, intended to fly to Syria, and Elhassan was aware of his plans and drove him to Richmond for the first leg of his journey, authorities have alleged. From the moment Elhassan appeared in court, Nubani criticized the case as being one that the government manufactured with the help of three informants who controlled the entire plot. In court Wednesday, he used the name of a man he alleged was one of the informants, drawing an objection from Assistant U.S. Attorney Dennis Fitzpatrick, who argued that it should be struck from the court record. What Mr. Nubanis trying to do is intimidate potential government witnesses, Fitzpatrick said. Davis ordered the name removed. [Virginia man accused of planning to join the Islamic State in Syria] Three of Elhassans friends and his sister took the witness stand, describing Elhassan, who came to the United States in 2012, as a peaceful man who loved computers and comforted his siblings after their mother died. Manzer Alam, who said he met Elhassan through Alams work at mosques in Dumfries and Woodbridge, spoke of Elhassans volunteering to teach an Arabic class for children and once fixing a broken cellphone screen for a religious leader and refusing to accept payment. Ive seen him to be a kind person, thinking about other people, Alam said. Reem Elhassan, Elhassans older sister, said her brother went to a refugee school in Egypt, that in the United States he was an A-student who went to Northern Virginia Community College, and that he worked intermittently as a cab driver and at Starbucks. He is the best friend I could ever ask for, she said. Davis questioned Reem Elhassan about her willingness to be responsible for her brother, should he be freed on bail, and for a time, the judge seemed to consider releasing the defendant pending trial. But Fitzpatrick argued that Mahmoud Elhassan had a history of lying. He alleged that in 2015, after applying unsuccessfully for government medical benefits in Prince William County, Elhassan falsely claimed to have moved to the District and sought $22,000 in similar benefits there. (Nubani said Elhassan had broken his leg in a car accident during his youth and had other health woes.) Fitzpatrick also argued that when Elhassan was taken into custody by FBI agents this month, Elhassan lied. Elhassan and Farrokh are next scheduled to appear in court Feb. 1. Six members of a family are dead after a murder-suicide in Chesapeake, Va., about 200 miles south of Washington, police said. Cameron Dooley, 26, shot and killed five relatives before turning the gun on himself after a standoff with officers that lasted several hours Wednesday, police said. The dead included Dooleys father, Steven Todd Dooley, 50, a recently retired officer from the Chesapeake Police Department. The incident began when Chesapeake police were called to a home in the 2300 block of Wildwood Road to check on the welfare of a person shortly after 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, police said. They discovered the suspects brother, Landon Dooley, 22, dead inside. An investigation led officers to a nearby home in the 1400 block of N. George Washington Highway around 7 p.m. Police negotiated with Cameron Dooley, who was armed, for several hours. Officers later entered the home and found the suspect and other family members dead. They included the suspects mother, Lori Dooley, 54; the suspects sister, Brooke Dooley, 17; the suspects father; and a fifth adult woman who has not been identified. Police believe the relatives were killed before officers arrived at the scene. The case remains under investigation. Thursday, Jan. 28 The Conversation Starters public forum Discuss issues that are important to St. Marys County residents with this grass-roots organization. Hosted by Historic Sotterley Plantation. 6-7:30 p.m. Lexington Park Library, 21677 FDR Blvd., Lexington Park. 240-718-8282, 301-863-8188 or sotterley.org. Free. JobSource interview skills class How to prepare for a job interview. 6-8 p.m. Charlotte Hall Library, 37600 New Market Rd., Charlotte Hall. 301-884-2211 or stmalib.org. Free. Online job application discussion Age 18 and older. Preparing to submit online applications for employment. 6:30-7:30 p.m. Charles County Public Library, La Plata Branch, 2 Garrett Ave., La Plata. 301-934-9001. Free. Saturday, Jan. 30 Passion of Christ auditions Open to all. Performances are scheduled for March 25 and 26. Southern Community Center, 20 Appeal Lane, Lusby. Call 443-295-3202 or 410-586-1101, or email passionplay4475@comcast.net. Bluegrass Winter Fest Performances by Bubby Abell & Spoon Creek, California Ramblers, 15 Strings, Tom Mindte & the Patuxent Partners, and the Martin Brothers & Aspen Run. A tribute will be held in remembrance of Charlie Thompson of the Bottom County Bluegrass band. Noon, Mechanicsville Moose Lodge, 27636 Mechanicsville Rd., Mechanicsville. 301-737-3004, 202-438-4128 or lodge495.moosepages.org. $15, couples $25. American Legion request night dance Includes songs from the 1950s, 60s and 70s. 7:30-11:30 p.m. American Legion Post 206, 3330 North Chesapeake Beach Rd., Chesapeake Beach. 301-855-6566, 410-257-9878, 301-855-6466 alpost206.org. $10. Monday, Feb. 1 Introduction to Word 2013 class Computer basics for those 16 and older. 2-4 p.m., Leonardtown Library, 23250 Hollywood Rd, Leonardtown. 301-475-2846. Free. Drop-in Minecraft program Ages 12-18. First come, first served. 4:30-5:30 p.m. Waldorf West Library, 10405 O'Donnell Pl. , Waldorf. 301-645-1395. Free. Tuesday, Feb. 2 Job Source mobile career center Employment and re-employment assistance. 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Waldorf West Library, 10405 O'Donnell Pl. , Waldorf. 301-645-1395. Free. Charles County Antique Arts Association meeting With a presentation by Joyce Ramsey on vintage costume jewelry. 9:30 a.m. Charles County Department of Social Services, 200 Kent Ave., La Plata. 240-271-9838. Free. A Taste of Chocolate: A Guided Chocolate Tasting event Age 18 and older. Learn about chocolate from different eras and taste samples. 6-7:30 p.m. Charles County Public Library, Potomac Branch, 3225 Ruth B. Swann Dr., Indian Head. 301-375-7375. Free. Otaku Nights Ages 10-17. Learn about drawing, basic story layout, thumbnails and character construction. Tuesdays 7-8:30 p.m. Calvert Library Twin Beaches branch, 3819 Harbor Rd., Chesapeake Beach. 410-257-2411. Free; registration required. Wednesday, Feb. 3 Book club for home-schooled students Ages 9-11. A discussion of Holes, by Louis Sacher. 10 a.m.-noon, Waldorf West Library, 10405 O'Donnell Pl. , Waldorf. 301-645-1395. Free. Teen Tech Space program Play games, use a computer lab and make crafts. 3:30-5 p.m. Lexington Park Library, 21677 FDR Blvd., Lexington Park. 301-863-8188. Free. Southern Maryland Audubon Society meeting Includes a presentation on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica. 7:30-9 p.m. Charlotte Hall Library, 37600 New Market Rd., Charlotte Hall. Call 301-752-5763 or email michael.patterson@pgparks.com. Free. Thursday, Feb. 4 Senior center book discussion Age 55 and older. Zero Day, by David Baldacci. 1-2 p.m. Richard R. Clark Senior Center, 1210 Charles St., LaPlata. 301-934-5423. Free. Drop-in Minecraft program Share strategies with other Minecrafters. 4-6 p.m. Lexington Park Library, 21677 FDR Blvd., Lexington Park. 301-863-8188. Free. Compiled by Bonnie Smith To submit an event Email: smliving@washpost.com Details: Announcements are accepted from public and nonprofit organizations only and must be received at least 14 days before the Thursday publication date. Include dates, times, address, prices and a publishable contact phone number. Metro board Chairman Mortimer Downey testifies on Capitol Hill, Friday, Feb. 13, 2015, before the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee. D.C. Council member Jack Evans was elected Thursday to replace Downey to lead the panel. (Molly Riley/AP) To get a sense of the fractious relationship among Metro board members, one need only look back to a year ago when mutual disdain between old and new leaders boiled over after a tense meeting with D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and other city officials. Board members Mortimer L. Downey and Tom Downs had just sat through a blistering critique of how they had allowed the transit agency to slide into a deep financial hole. Afterward, according to participants, Bowsers newly named transportation director, Leif A. Dormsjo, told Downey and Downs what he thought of their record. Youve got your head in the sand, said Dormsjo, who was about to join the Metro board as an alternate member. You should get your head out of your ass, Downs replied. Your reputation is in tatters, Dormsjo continued. Well, at least I have one, said Downs, a former president of Amtrak who left the Metro board soon afterward. The exchange summed up a bitter rift in Metros governing body that started when a wave of new members began to transform the agencys leadership. One of the newcomers, D.C. Council member Jack Evans, was elected Thursday to be the boards chairman. New Metro board leader says he plans to take a more prominent role. One consequence of the split was 10 months of internal turmoil that effectively paralyzed the transit agency as it struggled to deal with a fatal smoke incident, the hiring of a new general manager, increased federal scrutiny of its finances, and numerous safety lapses and chronic service disruptions. At closed-door meetings, board members repeatedly engaged in heated exchanges, which became personal at times, many said. But another result appears to be a new commitment by the board to do more to hold the agencys management accountable, especially on finances and safety. [Metro resists push from top elected officials for a change agent.] WMATA surveillance video inside LEnfant Plaza Metro station on Jan. 12, 2015, shows people on the platform evacuating, as smoke can be seen coming from the southbound tunnel for the Green and Yellow Lines. (NTSB) The newcomers, led by representatives of the District including Dormsjo and Evans quickly decided that the board had been too lax in its oversight of the administration of former general manager Richard Sarles. They formed an alliance with a Maryland board member, Michael Goldman, who had felt that way for months. The faction of insurgents began by faulting the previous board for financial missteps, which had endangered the agencys cash flow. Their disapproval jumped after the deadly Jan. 12, 2015, smoke incident in a tunnel outside the LEnfant Plaza station that left one person dead and scores injured. That calamity, plus a derailment in August involving a track defect that had been detected a month earlier, revealed safety concerns that had gone unheeded. The old board had become a fan club of the general manager, said new board member Corbett A. Price, whom Bowser nominated in the expectation that he would be a change agent. You cant just let management come in and do their dog-and-pony show without challenging them. We were appropriately quite aggressive. On the other side were several board members representing Virginia and the federal government. They were led by Downey, a veteran transportation executive at the end of a distinguished career. He joined the board in 2010 and became chairman a year ago. Downey and his supporters argued that the new members were exaggerating the agencys financial problems, overlooking the previous boards accomplishments, and ruining the panels effectiveness with their divisive rhetoric and tactics. By the end of the year, the insurgents had achieved many of their goals. They reined in borrowing to help balance the books. They stalled the systems expansion plans to focus on safety and reliability. They pushed out the chief safety officer, whom they saw as incompetent. They also made life so miserable for Downey that he decided not to seek reelection as chairman. They did so partly by raising questions about what they saw as a conflict of interest between his work on the board and a consulting deal he had with a Metro contractor. It resulted in an ethics investigation that he deeply resented, but he was ultimately cleared. I dont need the aggravation, Downey, 79, said in an interview. Some of the new board members were rushing in and saying . . . Basically, you are a crook. He concluded, Ive had a good, long career, and this is not the way Id like to bring it to an end. Im very unhappy. [D.C. Council member Jack Evans seems likely to shake things up as Metros next chair.] Downeys successor, Evans, has indicated that he plans to continue to press for change. But he and the other insurgents came up short in 2015 in several important ways. In particular, they failed to install a financial-turnaround specialist as the new general manager. They fought hard to get someone who would do a thorough housecleaning at Metro, including replacing many executives. Price was fond of saying at board meetings some version of: Everyone needs to be replaced. We need to start all over again. The newcomers succeeded in persuading a majority of the boards eight voting members to pick a former aerospace and airline executive, Neal S. Cohen, as their first choice for general manager. He had pared staff and achieved savings in previous positions. But Cohen dropped out of the running in November after his candidacy was leaked to the media. The board settled for its second choice, Paul J. Wiedefeld, who previously headed Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport. A good second choice Wiedefeld was viewed as having a good record but not as being the kind of transformational figure the insurgents originally sought. They went along with him partly to avoid adding to the embarrassing delay in making the decision. It wasnt the choice I wanted, but it was a good second choice, said a board member who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the selection process was confidential. Technically, [Wiedefeld] is very good. But hes a little too laid-back. [After a year-long search, Metro names a new general manager. ] The newcomers combative style also spoiled what several board members said had been a collaborative atmosphere that helped foster the compromises necessary to get things done. Mary Hynes, who represented Virginia on the board from 2011 through 2015, walked out of a meeting last spring in protest. She was angry at what she saw as the newcomers relentless, unconstructive criticism. It was months of sitting in these meetings and listening to them run down our leadership and work without offering any alternative solutions, said Hynes, who also was a member of the Arlington County Board at the time. Price said such bad feelings were unavoidable. The architects who were around during the disaster arent the architects who can save it, Price said. New people coming on and challenging them, they sometimes take a personal affront. Downey and others expressed hope that the agreement on a new general manager means the board will be more manageable this year. But some members expressed concern that Evans also would find it hard to unite the group. They cited his strong criticism of past board actions, desire for publicity and occasionally high-handed style. Evans has said he will seek to be the public face of Metro. Some board members think that should be Wiedefelds role. A board member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the selection process, was critical of Downey and Evans. Under Mort, there was absolutely no consequence for bad behavior, the member said, but the member added that Evans and his allies had been destructive, obstructionist. The board member also faulted Evans for being impulsive: Hes a diva ready, fire, aim. Evans, asked by a reporter after his election whether he was too sharp-elbowed to lead the board, said he had demonstrated in a quarter-century on the 13-member D.C. Council that he can assemble a majority. I am viewed as a person who knows how to count to seven, who can get the number of votes that are needed and can actually bring everybody along, said Evans (D-Ward 2). That was a great skill set to bring to a 16-member board with a lot of different personalities, he said. Bowsers role Perhaps the biggest single event contributing to the Metro boards shake-up was the inauguration of Bowser as mayor. Two of her nominees to the board, Price and Dormsjo, were among the most forceful critics of the old regime. Their contentious approach surprised some board members, because Bowser had been a member before becoming mayor and expressed little or no concern then about the agencys direction. Bowser has said that she, like most board members during her tenure, was unaware of the growing financial stresses, since the agency was getting clean audits each year. It later turned out that the audits were flawed, leading to a prolonged revision of the books. Metro reached a milestone last month when it finally got up to date in its financial reports. [Metro seeks to borrow $220 million to cover loan.] But after Bowser was inaugurated, D.C. Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey S. DeWitt convinced her that Metro was headed for insolvency unless it repaired its finances. He was concerned partly that Metros aggressive borrowing plans would weaken the Districts financial standing, since the city helps cover Metros costs. That led Bowser to nominate Price to the board. She knew his record in private business in restructuring companies, a task that often involved replacing top management and cutting costs. We wanted a real change agent, and that was Corbett [Price], said John Falcicchio, Bowsers chief of staff. Some board members believe that Bowser also wanted to defuse potential political criticism that she had been negligent as a member and thus bore some responsibility for the LEnfant Plaza accident. Falcicchio disputed that. When somethings not safe, thats not a political calculation thats a good-governance issue, he said. In another important change, Bowsers selection of Dormsjo to head the citys Transportation Department had the side effect of bringing in a longtime skeptic of Metros management. Dormsjo previously was a senior executive at the Maryland Department of Transportation, which historically has been critical of Metros finances. Thats partly because Maryland looks for ways to save money on Metro to free up funds for other transportation priorities, such as Baltimores transit system. Price, Dormsjo and Evans formed an alliance with Goldman, who before 2015 was the only board member who consistently challenged the majority, board members said. Goldman did so partly because he was concerned that the board was pushing to commit Metro to spend billions of dollars to expand the system at a time when ridership was declining. His effort to curb the agencys ambitions fit well with the thinking of Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who won election in 2014 after campaigning to shift spending from transit to roads. By contrast, Virginia favors expanding Metro, especially by instituting all eight-car trains on all lines during rush hour. Among other things, that would allow Metro to squeeze more passengers through a major choke point: the Potomac tunnel between the Rosslyn and Foggy Bottom-GWU stations. The District favors expansion, in principle, but its new board members didnt want to commit to it while the agencys finances were so uncertain. The result was a decision last year to indefinitely delay the plan, which would cost about $2 billion. Downeys legacy Downey acknowledged that the previous board came up short in significant ways. But he and his defenders also point to what they say are genuine achievements. It was during his time on the board, for example, that the panel began rebuilding the system and improving the boards governance procedures after a 2009 Red Line crash that killed nine people. Downey, too, was viewed as a change agent when the federal government named him to the board. He had an impressive resume, having served both as deputy secretary of transportation in the Clinton administration and as executive director of New Yorks transit system. [U.S. Transportation secretary: We all want Metro fixed, and fast.] As head of the boards safety committee, Downey helped oversee the agencys efforts to resolve problems identified by the National Transportation Safety Board after the 2009 Red Line crash. By 2014, both the NTSB and Federal Transit Administration were praising Metro for improving its safety culture. But the accolades ended abruptly with the LEnfant Plaza smoke incident. It showed that despite the agencys ongoing, $5 billion effort to repair and modernize the system, and all its public talk about the importance of safety, persistent problems remained with staffing procedures, communications and monitoring. Whats troubling is that our focus for four years had been on safety, Downey said. One afternoon, and its gone. Board members said part of the problem was that Sarles, the general manager until he retired a year ago, was an engineer focused mainly on equipment and hardware. He didnt ensure that safety-mindedness was instilled through all levels of the bureaucracy, and the board didnt see the failure. We should have been a lot tougher on fundamental management systems going in place that we could rely on, Downey said. He and others also said Sarles paid too little attention to finances. Again, the board didnt catch it. If theres anything for which I fault myself, its not holding senior management more accountable about detailed issues around management of finances, Downs said. Sarles declined to comment for this article. Overall, Downey said that although Metro made advances since he joined the board, he could understand why the new members were so critical. Given the bad year weve had, its not surprising that some people would say, It has to be on the chairmans radar screen, and its his failure, Downey said. Do I think that? No. Do I think Im part of it? Yes. Alexandria Mayor Allison Silberbergs first major initiative is an attempt to turn the city into a national leader in ethical governance. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post) By the standards of big-city politics, Alexandria is not a noticeably corrupt place. A few city employees have been arrested and convicted of embezzlement or assault in the past decade. But no elected official or top manager in the 150,000-population, inside-the-Beltway burg has been publicly caught with a hand in the till. [2009: Former Alexandria Parking Meter Repairman Pleads Guilty to Embezzlement] Still, ethics and potential corruption seem to be very much on the mind of newly elected Mayor Allison Silberberg (D), whose first major initiative is an attempt to turn Alexandria into a national leader in ethical governance. We should do this not when theres an issue, but when the sun is shining, Silberberg said. You set the highest standard . . . its the right thing to do [even] when theres not a problematic situation. The mayor has drafted a resolution calling for a nine-member study group to create a code of conduct and ethics pledge for elected and appointed officials; suggest ways to be clearer about why the council goes into closed session; impose stricter limits on gifts; and authorize state-level audits of council members already-required personal financial disclosure forms, among other items. Silberberg says she would also like to establish an ethics advisory commission to provide education, offer advice and handle citizen complaints. She is urging residents to turn up at the councils public hearing on Saturday to express their opinions on the need to establish tougher ethics practices. We have many city commissions, including a beautification commission, but we dont have an ethics advisory commission, she said in an interview this week. The employees of our city sign an ethics pledge. Our elected leadership should, too. [New mayor seeks her footing in tradition-bound Alexandria] But Silberbergs initial effort as the citys leader may be blocked or revised by other members of the all-Democratic City Council, several of whom think her proposal isnt specific enough. Council member John Taylor Chapman said Silberbergs proposal is too wide-ranging, though he is open to the idea of some ethics reform. I want to look at what were missing and what action we can take, Chapman said. You can make a reasonable argument that a code of conduct or ethics pledge should be in place in case something happens. Although Silberberg said her initiative is only forward-looking, not about the past, the idea for it came from her 2015 election campaign against four-time incumbent William D. Euille (D), whose campaign was funded in part by developers and others who had business before the council. [Alexandrias pace of growth fuels mayoral race, donations] Euille maintained that he properly disclosed every potential conflict, and therefore breached no city rules. Silberberg promised that if elected, she would push for more disclosures and create an ethics commission to advise the council and handle citizen complaints. It is not clear whether some of Silberbergs proposals would violate Virginias Dillon rule, which essentially reserves lawmaking power for the state unless the legislature grants specific authority to cities or counties. A spokesman for the state attorney generals office declined to comment on Silberbergs initiative. Other Northern Virginia jurisdictions primarily follow the state guidelines, although Loudoun County just adopted a 14-point code of ethics. Virginia requires elected officials to disclose a statement of their personal financial matters twice a year. The General Assembly in the spring tightened its own ethics guidelines, after a scandal resulted in charges and convictions of former governor Robert F. McDonnell (R) and his wife, Maureen. [Virginia legislature adopts stricter gift standards for public officials] The states new Conflict of Interest and Ethics Advisory Council is supposed to offer advice to both state and local elected officials, raising the question of whether Alexandria would need its own commission to serve the same role. Silberberg said she wants an advisory panel for the city that, among other things, could review the councils frequent use of closed sessions and recommend ways to make some of them more open to the public. The council already is required to declare why it is going into a closed session. In the past year or two, it has begun citing the relevant portion of Virginias open-meetings law, which allows public bodies to close their doors when discussing any of 44 subject-area exemptions, including land acquisition, attracting new businesses, legal challenges and collective bargaining. Vice Mayor Justin Wilson said he is willing to consider creating an annual report of the reasons the council has met behind closed doors, but noted the steps the council has already taken. Alexandrias government was the first in Virginia to post officials personal financial disclosure forms online, Wilson said. The council also decided to have its work sessions in the main council chambers so they could be broadcast and webcast. The city has also begun posting its internal audit reports online, one of the first in the state to do so, he noted. Its important to recognize the city runs an ethical and transparent government, and its something citizens should be very proud of, Wilson said. Can we improve on that? Absolutely. Silberberg said she does not want the council to take any action on Saturday. Instead, she wants the public to weigh in. Although her proposal says the nine-member study group should report back to the council by the end of April, Silberberg said in an interview that the deadline could change. We should not only be a state leader but a national leader in this area, she said. It could be a visionary step. Court clerks with religious objections to issuing marriage licences to couples because of their sexual orientation, marital history or many other reasons could send them to the Department of Motor Vehicles instead under a bill on its way to the Virginia Senate floor. Sponsored by Sen. Charles Bill Carrico (R-Grayson), the bill would give clerks or deputy clerks wide latitude to refuse to issue licenses to couples if they object to their unions on personal, ethical, moral, or religious grounds. The legislation does not specify any class of couples that could be denied licenses from clerks, but Democrats dubbed it the Kim Davis bill, a reference to the Kentucky clerk who was jailed last year after refusing to issue licenses to same-sex couples. Whether it be homosexual marriage or two heterosexuals who were divorced before, whatever that religious reason is . . . they would have an option to be able to allow those individuals to go to the DMV, Carrico said. When asked hypothetically whether the measure would cover clerks who object to granting licenses to interracial couples, Carrico initially said it would. He later said that, upon reflection, it would not apply because race is a protected class under anti-discrimination laws. Sen. Mark Obenshain (R-Rockingham), chairman of the Senate panel that sent the bill to the floor, said he did not think the bill would allow a clerk to discriminate on the basis of a couples racial makeup. I would never have supported a bill that would have that effect, he said. If it does this, I clearly cant support it. . . . Were going to look at it. But Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, said the measure is written so broadly that it could permit all types of discrimination. It would allow any clerk to practice whatever whim they have, she said. They could choose to not grant licenses to people who are Republicans if theyre Democrats. The whole thing is just fraught with a license to impose, as a public official, your personal whim on the public. Under the bill, couples who are turned away by the clerks could obtain a marriage license instead from the state Registrar of Vital Records at a local Department of Motor Vehicles office. Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria), the legislatures first openly gay member, said the bill calls for separate and unequal treatment, and this is immoral, unjust and unconstitutional. The bill passed the Senate Courts of Justice Committee on Wednesday night over the objections of all six Democrats and one Republican, freshman Sen. Glen Sturtevant of Richmond. It now moves to the full Senate for a vote, which is expected to take place next week. America has a long tradition of finding accommodation for religious exercise, said Chris Freund, a spokesman for the Family Foundation of Virginia. This bill would ensure that couples can obtain a marriage license through different means while at the same time ensuring that the conscience rights of clerks are protected. [ Kentucky clerk Kim Davis seeks exemption on gay marriage licenses ] Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) vowed to veto the measure if it reaches his desk. The Governor will veto this divisive and distracting bill and then get back to work building a new Virginia economy that is open and welcoming to anyone who wants to live, work or start a business here, spokesman Brian Coy said in an email. Its blatantly unconstitutional, said Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw (D-Fairfax). I dont think it will last five minutes in a federal courthouse. Somebody could easily claim, Well, I dont believe in allowing interracial marriages, inter-religious marriages, whatever. Theres no end to that. Told that Carrico had initially said that the bill would apply to clerks opposed to interracial marriage, Saslaw expressed surprise. That is something you would have heard in the days of massive resistance, he said. The bill is unlikely to make it out of the Senate, which Republicans control by a 21-to-19 majority. Without Sturtevants support, the GOP does not appear likely to have the votes to pass it. Sen. Donald McEachin (D-Henrico) said public officials who do not want to carry out their duties should find another line of work. Public servants need to serve, and serve all Virginians which is the opposite of what this bill proposes, he said. Carrico countered that Democrats cheered when Attorney General Mark Herring (D) declined to defend Virginias constitutional ban on gay marriage soon after taking office two years ago. Herring said he took that stance not because of his personal beliefs, but because he had concluded that the ban was no longer constitutional. Equality Virginia, the ACLU, they all argued the fact that the clerk took an oath of office, Carrico said. If they want to use that argument, Attorney General Herring took an oath of office to uphold the constitution of Virginia and failed to uphold it. . . . That argument went two ways. They cant say that it applies to the clerk but it doesnt apply to the attorney general. Clarification: This article has been amended to clarify Sen. Kenneth Alexanders initial position on Judge Rossie Alstons proposed election to the state Supreme Court. The original article reported that Alexander was considering supporting Alston, but in two places, it also referred to Alexanders support for Alston. The story should have referred to his consideration. Virginias long-running Supreme Court drama took a few more unexpected turns Thursday as a member of the state Senates black caucus briefly flirted with backing the GOPs plan to oust Gov. Terry McAuliffes choice for the state Supreme Court. Sen. Kenneth C. Alexander (D-Norfolk) said shortly before noon Thursday that he was considering voting for the judge whom Republicans want to put on the high court to replace the one McAuliffe (D) put there over the summer on a temporary basis. Republicans have been scrambling to find a Democratic defector in the closely divided Senate to make up for one on the Republican side. Freshman Sen. Glen Sturtevant (R-Richmond) has said he will not go along with plans to replace McAuliffes Supreme Court appointee with another judge a stance that has so far thwarted fellow Republicans, who control Richmonds upper chamber by a 21-19 majority. With Alexander waiting to make a decision, it was unclear whether Republicans could have had the votes to elevate Virginia Court of Appeals Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. to the Supreme Court. In the process, it would have allowed the GOP to oust Jane Marum Roush, who McAuliffe put on the bench with a recess appointment. Ill make my decision probably in the next couple of hours, Alexander told The Washington Post shortly before the Senate convened about noon. But within hours, after the Senates black caucus met behind closed doors, Alexander appeared to have made up his mind for Rouch. Republicans put off the vote, leaving the judicial tug-of-war in limbo. Alexander, who is running for mayor of Norfolk, did not respond to a request for comment later in the day. His legislative assistant, Yovonda Bellamy, said, He is supporting Roush. Asked if that meant he had ruled out supporting Alston if his name alone emerges from the GOP-dominated House, as expected, Bellamy said that Alexander would call to respond. He did not do so by Thursday night. Sen. Rosalyn R. Dance (D-Petersburg), another member of the black caucus who has sometimes been cozy with Republicans, said she would not break with the party on the judicial vote. Asked whether she would vote for Alston if his name came before her, she said, Im sticking with the Senate caucus, the Democratic caucus. GOP leaders initially voiced no objections to Roush, a highly regarded Circuit Court judge from the Washington suburbs. But they were put out because McAuliffe did not consult them on his appointment. GOP opposition to her grew after Roush accepted a second recess appointment from McAuliffe, whose authority to grant it was in doubt. Early in the controversy, Democrats argued that Republicans opposed Roush because of her gender, although they later largely abandoned that line of attack. Republicans pushed back by noting that Alston is black. Until now, the GOPs identity-politics appeal had not seemed to make any inroads with black Democrats. But Alexanders comments suggest that may have changed if only briefly. Ive only spoken to Judge Alston privately on the phone, Alexander said. Hopefully, Ill have a chance to see him before we vote on him. Asked Thursday morning whether he would support Roush if, through some unexpected twist, her name emerged from the House, Alexander said: I may have a chance to vote on Judge Roush, if shes coming over. I may have a chance to vote on Judge Alston, if he comes over. I dont know whos coming over. A Virginia House panel decided Wednesday that Gov. Terry McAuliffes controversial pick for the state Supreme Court is qualified to serve. But the vote to certify Justice Jane Marum Roush brought her no closer to keeping her job than she was last summer when McAuliffe (D) gave her a recess appointment, so angering Republicans that they vowed to unseat her a move unprecedented in modern Virginia history. The saga over the Supreme Court justice has heightened the already bitter partisan divide between the governor and the Republican-controlled legislature, revealed a maverick in the Senate and motivated charges that lawmakers are meddling in the judicial process as never before. Roush as well as Republicans choice for the bench, state Court of Appeals Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr., each appeared before the House Courts of Justice Committee and a packed meeting room Wednesday to make their case for the job. Both were certified as qualified to serve, and the House plans to take a floor vote in favor of Alston on Thursday. Only a handful of Republicans are expected to support Roush. Her backers include Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax), who first recommended her for the job. The House vote may be futile, however, because Senate Republicans still do not have enough votes to oust Roush or install Alston, and both chambers must agree. If we left here and we didnt actually have a vote and present a Supreme Court justice, a lot of us feel like we wouldnt be doing our job. So were going to send out a Supreme Court nominee to the Senate, Albo said in an interview before the hearing. House Minority Leader David J. Toscano (D-Charlottesville) highlighted what he called the absurdity of certifying a judge whom House Republicans plan to oust. Theyve now decided she is perfectly qualified to be on the Supreme Court, he said. Then it raises the question: Why would you fire somebody whos been sitting on the court and is perfectly qualified? It doesnt make any logical sense. Well see whether logic prevails. Already on the bench for about six months, Roush formerly served on the Fairfax County Circuit Court for 22 years and was often called on to handle high-profile cases, including the trial of D.C. sniper Lee Boyd Malvo and the recent triple-murder trial of Charles Severance in Alexandria. [GOP senator vows to block efforts to install new Va. Supreme Court justice] Roush did not make direct reference to the controversy but seemed to answer Republican critics who accused her of politicizing the process by appearing alongside McAuliffe at a news conference about the appointment last year. I am an apolitical jurist, neither right nor left, applying the law as you write it, she said. Another surprising moment in her interview came when she was asked if McAuliffe broke the law last fall when he gave her a second recess appointment. At the time some House Republicans argued the General Assembly was still in session because only one chamber had formally adjourned, making her recess appointment invalid. I carefully considered that before accepting the second recess appointment, appointment, she said. In addition to being an honor and a privilege to serve on the Supreme Court of Virginia, its also my job and my livelihood and the livelihood of my family and my staff. So its not something I did lightly. Her current term on the court expires Feb. 12, but McAuliffe has said he will appoint her to another stint if lawmakers take no action this session. Roushs interview was followed by a parade of supporters representing the Fairfax and Alexandria bar associations, her former law clerks and an attorney with the firm whose Virginia office she helped establish. N. Thomas Connally III, a lawyer with the firm now known as Hogan Lovells, gave emotional testimony about Roushs qualifications and said that removing her would show disregard for that service and would discourage similar service from others. Alston, who previously served on the Prince William County Circuit Court, also took questions from lawmakers and was asked about his judicial philosophy. Alston affirmed that its up to judges to interpret not make laws. Seven people should not be rewriting the constitution of the state of Virginia, he said, referring to the states highest court. Alston appeared to be the sure winner of a full term during a special session last year, and at the time when lawmakers refused to even give Roush an interview. That changed when then senator John C. Watkins (R-Powhatan) blocked the vote. We thought it was a done deal, Albo said. And so I was not going to participate in an event where I had my friend Jane come down here for a fake interview. Now its different. Now everybodys in play and nobodys in play. We thought it was a done deal, Albo said. And so I was not going to participate in an event where I had my friend Jane come down here for a fake interview. Now its different. Now everybodys in play and nobodys in play. In December, Virginia announced it would no longer honor concealed-carry handgun permits from 25 states. Now thanks to a bipartisan deal with the governor, that legislation won't got into effect on Feb. 1st. Heres why. (Ashleigh Joplin/The Washington Post) In December, Virginia announced it would no longer honor concealed-carry handgun permits from 25 states. Now thanks to a bipartisan deal with the governor, that legislation won't got into effect on Feb. 1st. Heres why. (Ashleigh Joplin/The Washington Post) Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Republican leaders will announce Friday they have reached a deal on Virginias gun regulations in a surprising moment of compromise on an issue that had threatened to poison the remainder of the governors term in office. McAuliffe (D) agreed to legislation that says the state must recognize concealed-handgun permits from nearly all states a reversal of Attorney General Mark R. Herrings decision last month to sever the reciprocity rights of gun owners in 25 states. In exchange, Republicans softened their stances on issues that have long been non-starters in the GOP-controlled General Assembly. Under the deal, the state would take guns away from anyone who was under a two-year protective order for domestic-violence offenses. And State Police would have to attend all gun shows to provide background checks for private sellers if they requested the service. [From December: Va. to stop recognizing gun permits from 25 states] This is a bipartisan deal that will make Virginians safer, McAuliffe spokesman Brian Coy said. It also demonstrates that Democrats and Republicans can work together on key issues like keeping guns out of dangerous hands. The agreement marks the first break in a logjam over gun rights and gun control marked by heated rhetoric and could bolster McAuliffes legacy as he begins the second half of his term. Bipartisanship requires give-and-take by both sides, said Matt Moran, a spokesman for House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford). This agreement restores reciprocity for law-abiding Virginians while sending a clear signal about domestic violence. Theres a lot to like here. Both sides framed the deal as a win for Herring (D), whose decision on concealed-carry reciprocity motivated both sides to hammer out a deal. Herring said he was glad to provide the momentum for an apparent compromise but reserved judgment on the legislation, which is still working its way through the General Assembly. Im encouraged to finally see a bipartisan conversation about how we can reduce gun violence and keep guns away from dangerous individuals that shouldnt have them, he said. At the end of the day, the measure of success for this package will be whether the final product that emerges from the legislative process makes Virginians safer. Last month, Herring said he was enforcing a Virginia law that says the attorney general must review reciprocity agreements with other states. If lawmakers pass and McAuliffe signs a series of bills changing state law as part of the deal they plan to announce Friday, Herring would have to adhere to a new set of laws. As political leaders applauded a rare bout of consensus, reaction from activists was mixed. The National Rifle Association had panned Herrings move last month but applauded McAuliffe and GOP lawmakers for coming to an agreement. The National Rifle Association commends leaders in the Commonwealth for moving forward on a bipartisan package that will benefit Virginia citizens, Chris W. Cox, executive director of NRAs Institute for Legislative Action, the organizations lobbying arm, said in a statement. But the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence reacted bitterly in a message on its Facebook page. The group said McAuliffe has bragged about his administrations aggressive new approach to confronting the National Rifle Association. Now hes preparing to cave to them, the message said. As far as we are aware, there is not a single gun violence prevention advocate in Virginia who was informed about this deal before it was done. We all stand in opposition to it. Thats just the sort of rancor that McAuliffes public safety secretary, Brian J. Moran, and state Sen. Bryce E. Reeves (R-Spotsylvania) said they strived to avoid as they quietly negotiated a compromise taking into account diverging personalities and political realities. The pair traded messages and phone calls at all hours, starting two weeks ago around the time when lawmakers returned to Richmond for the legislative session. A key moment came Tuesday night when the tentative agreement appeared ready to unravel. Reeves, Moran and two NRA lobbyists met at Rappahannock Restaurant for an oyster dinner and to remind themselves what was at stake. In walked Secretary of the Commonwealth Levar Stoney, a McAuliffe confidant. Together they figured it out. Anybody who says the Virginia Way is dead. Its not dead. Its alive and well, Reeves said. We can find compromise on the most contentious issues if we can shelve the politics and work together. Moran said: This is a historic agreement for its bipartisanship. Virginians will be truly safer today than they were yesterday because of this agreement. The policy changes will come in the form of bipartisan legislation before the General Assembly. A Senate panel Wednesday evening passed Reevess bill restoring reciprocity. It includes an amendment offered by Sen. Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax City) that says Virginia will not honor an out-of-state concealed-carry permit held by a person whose Virginia concealed-carry permit was previously revoked a practice known as state shopping. The domestic-violence bill will be carried by Sen. Janet D. Howell (D-Fairfax) and Del. Kathleen Murphy (D-Fairfax). It would require individuals subject to a permanent protective order to sell or transfer their guns within 24 hours of the judges order. State law currently prohibits the purchase or transport but not possession of guns by such individuals. Federal law prohibits all three. Sen. John S. Edwards (D-Roanoke) and Del. L. Scott Lingemfelter (R-Prince William) are carrying the background-checks bill, which would be funded by $100,000 included in McAuliffes budget proposal. Unlike licensed dealers, private sellers are blocked from accessing the federal guns database to conduct background checks. Student and professor sat across a desk from each other one October morning in a Georgetown University office. The subject was an essay assignment in Professor Elizabeth Velezs Feminist Theory class, in which she tasked her 19 students with writing a five- to seven-page paper explaining and supporting their own personal theory of feminism. Velez had invited all the students to visit during her regular office hours to go over their theses. This particular meeting did not go well. Feminism is not a political movement, said Madeline Budman, a sophomore English major from Norfolk, bouncing her thesis off her professor. Velez, a veteran of feminisms Second Wave, was dumbfounded. Of course its a political movement, she recalled thinking. I was never going to dismiss her point of view, but I was certainly going to push her to think it through more. Part of me feels very strongly: How can you see it otherwise? Budman left Velezs office that day feeling disheartened, she said. It was like, Wow, my definition of feminism is wrong. She didnt say that, but I felt like it was implied. And through that exchange, student and teacher had arrived at one of the central tension points confronting feminisms modern age, and the one that may define it going forward: the growing tendency of younger generations of women to untether feminism from its political and activist foundation. Young women (and, increasingly, men) are still coming to the movement in strong numbers, but this feminism looks different, in many ways, than that of earlier generations. This New Wave feminism is shaped less by a shared struggle against oppression than by a collective embrace of individual freedoms, concerned less with targeting narrowly defined enemies than with broadening feminisms reach through inclusiveness, and held together not by a handful of national organizations and charismatic leaders but by the invisible bonds of the Internet and social media. This feminism stresses personal freedom as much as it does equality and, when infused with the younger generations bent toward inclusion, has the capacity to make room for both Carly Fiorina and Beyonce even though older generations might permit neither. [Quiz: What type of feminist (0r anti-feminist) are you?] Feminism is still a vibrant part of todays culture:47 percent of the public (and 60 percent of women) identified themselves as feminists in a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll of 1,610 American adults. Thats up six percentage points from a Feminist Majority Foundation poll conducted 20 years ago. But within the same poll data are signs of fundamental disconnects, both old ones and new ones. Professor Elizabeth Velez teaches a Feminist Theory class at Georgetown University. Velez considers herself a veteran of feminisms Second Wave. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Georgetown University junior Gaby Walker, 20, of Irvine, Calif., right, listens during a Velezs class. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) The word itself feminist still is a sticking point for many, loaded with negative connotations, thanks at least in part to the efforts of influential right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh, who popularized the pejorative term feminazi with his listeners. When half the Post-Kaiser polling sample was asked whether feminism has a good or bad reputation, 55 percent of the respondents chose bad with little difference between women and men while 32 percent chose good. But when the other half was asked the same question, except with the womens movement substituted for feminism, the results were essentially reversed: with 54 percent choosing good and 35 percent saying bad. In contrast, 94 percent embraced feminisms bedrock principle: that men and women should be social, political and economic equals. Clearly, people believe in feminist ideals just not feminist labels. [Poll: What Americans think about feminism today] I believe women should have equal rights to everything in the workplace, equal pay, said Ashley Huber, a 24-year-old college student from St. Petersburg, Fla., in a telephone interview after she answered the poll questions. What I dont want to be is the hard-core feminist: extreme and radical. . . . Its not that I dont believe in feminism at all. Im just not one of those radical people who obsess over it. Broken down by age groups, the poll results illuminated differences in generational stances toward feminism. Millennial women (defined as ages 18 to 34) identified as feminist in numbers, 63 percent, that approached those of baby-boomer women, 68 percent of whom identified as feminists, and to a greater degree than the women in between: those aged 35 to 49. Fifty-one percent of that Generation X age group identified as feminists. When asked whether the word empowering accurately describes their view of feminism, 83 percent of women 35 or younger said yes, compared with 56 percent of women 65 or older. Through a closer look at the poll data, as well as dozens of interviews, it is clear there is one central disconnect: Although millennial women, as a whole, view themselves largely as feminists a logical notion, given their proximity to issues such as workplace equality and reproductive rights their view of what it means to be a feminist is often far different than that of their mothers and grandmothers. To me, its about women being able to do what they want within legal boundaries and about being people not defined by what genitalia you have, said Jamie McLaulin, 25, a fast-food worker in Hampton Roads who identifies herself as a feminist. My feminism is more personal, because Im not going to meetings or rallies or anything. If feminism is more personal than collective now, then each womans experience has its own meaning. And within Budmans journey in a single essay assignment a process that essentially carried Budmans thesis from feminism is not political to the more nuanced feminism is not ONLY political one can see larger truths: that there are more similarities than differences between the politicized feminism of the 1960s and 70s and the more individualized version practiced by todays generation. Its kind of a cliche, Budman said, comparing her brand of feminism to that of her professors, but she grew up with the civil rights movement. We grew up with Facebook. Keep Talking Which is the best way to create equality for women? Legislation Shaming Education Social media Advocacy Self-reflection Already equal Other Legislation Shaming Education Social media Advocacy Self-reflection Already equal Other This is a non-scientific user poll. Results are not statistically valid and cannot be assumed to reflect the views of Washington Post users as a group or the general population. Submit answer Join ... people talking about this View Results Contrasts to the Second Wave Ninety-six years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment gave American women the right to vote, marking the unofficial end of feminisms First Wave, and 53 years after the publication of Betty Friedans The Feminine Mystique ushered in the Second Wave, modern feminism has entered some new place. Far from the largely monolithic feminism that came of age amid the upheaval of the 1960s and 70s, it is splintered and amorphous. It fits varied interests and groups under one massive umbrella. Where women of the Second Wave found their entree into feminism in a rousing speech, a book, a march, a copy of Ms. Magazine or a womens group, now young women are frequently introduced to it through a Beyonce video, a season of HBOs Girls or a website such as Jezebel all of them occupying wildly different plots on the vast, untamed feminist landscape. While there was never much question as to who were the prominent faces of the Second Wave Friedan and Gloria Steinem among them the new feminism is largely leaderless and faceless. Asked to name a figure who represents feminism, for example, 58 percent of participants in last summers Post-Kaiser poll chose no one or offered no opinion. Only Hillary Clinton, named by 22 percent of the public, was cited by more than 3 percent of those taking the poll. From left: Entertainers Jennifer Lawrence, Beyonce and Taylor Swift are among the most visible feminists of this era. (Lawrence by Jordan Strauss/Invision via Associated Press; Beyonce by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters; Swift by Mark Ralston/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images) In conversations with people for whom feminism continues to resonate, it increasingly is taking place not in a political space but a cultural one, a sphere dominated by powerful young women Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Jennifer Lawrence and others who identify publicly as feminists. This version of feminism is, by definition, more inclusive than the versions that came before. It is more in tune with what academics call intersectionality gender, race and sexuality coming together to inform a single identity and less concerned with womens-only spaces, in part because gender is increasingly viewed as something that is fluid, as opposed to binary. Being black and a female, I often find Im asked to choose between being black and a woman. I cant separate my race from my gender in my lived experience. They operate in tandem, said Kishonna Gray, 32, an assistant professor of criminal justice and womens and gender studies at Eastern Kentucky University and one of the countrys leading voices on intersectionality. The feminist community is still so divided. Its like there are different branches. We have queer studies, black feminist studies, traditional feminism. . . . We have isolated pockets of leadership; as far as grand leadership, we dont have that anymore. Like much of American society, the feminist agenda has migrated to the Internet, making it at once less centered and communal, but more accessible and democratized. Its not really one singular wave but multiple waves because there are so many different lines of thought, said writer Jessica Valenti, 36, who co-founded the popular website Feministing. That doesnt mean its not doing its job or that feminism isnt working. It just means that we dont necessarily need . . . a handful of organizations or one cohesive platform in order [to reach people]. At the end of the day, all of those waves are moving in the same direction. For a generation that came of age online, joining a Tumblr discussion or sharing an article link is as natural as joining a womens circle or attending a rally were to the movements pioneers, who often question the effectiveness of this new hashtag feminism. I dont know that our generation is any more or less political. I just think our view of what it means to mobilize has shifted dramatically, said Tiffany Sun, of Rockville, Md., a senior government and gender studies student at Georgetown and one of Velezs current students. The Internet is the medium where people assemble now. Within the shifting media environment, modern feminism is blossoming most vividly, from the wealth of provocative feminist writing found online to the popularity of television shows such as Girls, Orange Is the New Black and Transparent that might have been unimaginable even 10 years ago. [Poll: What Americans think about feminism today] Whos who now The most influential feminist in America just might be Beyonce, who, at the 2014 MTV Video Awards, famously performed in front of a giant banner reading FEMINIST all while wearing a sequined leotard and fishnet stockings, and gyrating through a 16-minute set that included hits such as Blow and Drunk in Love. Such a notion may have been anathema to earlier generations of feminists, but for younger women, Beyonces projection of sexual confidence and self-reliance resonates. She also backs up her messaging with economics, filling her management company with female executives and staff, and touring with an all-female backing band. From the red carpet to the couches of talk shows, female celebrities can be sure they will be asked some version of the ubiquitous question, Are you a feminist? and increasingly, the answer is yes. If we look back at some of the popular movies from the past, in the late 70s there was Looking for Mr. Goodbar, which was about a single woman who ends up getting killed because shes out on the singles scene, which was considered very racy, said Candace Bushnell, the writer behind Sex and the City. And then in the 80s, we had Fatal Attraction, where the message was, if youre a single woman and you have sex, youre going to go crazy and boil a rabbit. So there were a lot of negative messages about single women. And I think that has really changed. The younger generation certainly sees itself as part of an active feminist movement. In the Post-Kaiser poll, 69 percent of women in the 18-to-34 age category said yes to the question of whether there is an active movement in the United States today. Forty-six percent of women 65 or older agreed. Another large intergenerational gap in the poll came in regard to the true-false question of whether feminism accurately reflects the view of most women. Overall, 53 percent of women chose true, but a trend line was clear: Younger women chose true in much larger numbers than older women including 64 percent of women in the youngest category, compared with 44 percent of women in the oldest. This divide may reflect the long-standing criticism of feminism as being overly focused on the needs of white, upper-class women. It is a perception that has endured, suggested the poll, in which 77 percent of respondents agreed that feminism has helped white women, while 64 percent said the same for black women, and 55 percent for Hispanic women. About half said feminism has helped poor women, while about 7 in 10 said it has helped middle-class women. The notion of a divide within feminism is nothing new. Over the years, some have complained that it was a zero-sum game that sought to diminish men, or that women were too often guilty of eating their own by being hypercritical of one another. But as feminist author Rebecca Traister said, Its a social movement trying to create opportunities for 51 percent of the population that means you are going to be inevitably riven by discord. From left, Second Wave feminists Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan and Mary Jean Collins. (Steinem by Tom Allen/The Washington Post; Friedan by Charles Del Vecchio/The Washington Post; Collins courtesy of Mary Jean Collins ) Criticism from elders The personal is political, went one popular slogan for Second Wave feminism, and some younger feminists have revived the slogan to reflect their belief that pursuing individual freedoms is very much a political exercise and to defend themselves against criticism from older feminists that they arent political enough. I think the critique that our generation is very individualistic is misguided, said Alyssa Peterson, 23, an associate editor for the Center for American Progress and a former student of Velezs at Georgetown. The conversation surrounding feminism in pop culture and about femininity as a construct is very political. Were negotiating the political landscape in different ways, because previous generations already achieved so much. Our battles are against more subtle forms of discrimination. Its odd to me that the personal is political, as feminists have been saying for years, but somehow [feminism within] pop culture is a separate thing. Where that leaves the political facet of feminism is open to interpretation. It is not as if todays generation has abandoned it completely. Awareness over sexual assault, for example, has given rise to a period of intense activism on college campuses to the point where there has been an equally intense backlash against it. And its not as if full equality has been achieved: not when women make up 20 percent of members of Congress and 5 percent of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies; and not with women earning 78 cents for every dollar earned by men. Its a long and everlasting battle, said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), 48. We have not achieved full equality. We certainly dont have political parity. We havent achieved the level of success in corporate America that our talents would dictate. . . . We really should have 51 percent [representation] of women in Congress. Despite those realities, the Post-Kaiser poll reflected feminisms lack of political will or any visible momentum at the grass-roots level. Asked to choose their top priorities for improving womens lives, 84 percent of respondents selected reducing domestic violence and sexual assault, making it the top choice, and 75 percent selected equal pay for equal work. Thirty-two percent chose getting more women elected, making it the lowest-rated of the 11 available choices. Its hard to talk women into actually getting [into politics] because politics is so unappealing sometimes and made so unattractive, said Mary Jean Collins, 75, a prominent Second Wave feminist who was president of the Chicago chapter of NOW in the 1970s and a national vice president in the 1980s. But I think to [make progress], it really requires that we get more women into political office. Collins isnt interested in kicking the younger generation of feminists. In the cacophony of voices and media today, she sees signs of progress. She acknowledges the effectiveness of hashtag feminism in connecting like-minded women. She notices college students organizing around the topic of sexual assault. I see young women trying to make a difference for their generation, and I applaud them, she said. But it is only when she describes the past that Collins becomes animated. We actually thought we were making a revolution, she said. We said we were making a revolution. We wrote books as though we were doing that, or poems, or songs. We made it explicit. Left unsaid was the contrast between then and now. Whatever feminism is today, even those who identify as feminists would probably say it is not a revolution. Madeline Budman, 19, a sophomore from Norfolk, says, Part of the reason people are having trouble connecting to feminism is because everything you do in your life has to be a big feminist stance. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Grace Smith, 20, a sophomore from Troy, N.Y., says, I think being a feminist takes all different forms, and at the core of it is being inclusive and not excluding. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Bridging the gap In Velezs Georgetown classroom, where some 50 years of life experience separates teacher and students, the disconnect between the new view of feminism and that of Second Wave is something to be dissected, debated and in many cases bridged. Velez, 70, is a product of the 1960s and 70s and a self-described Second-Waver the brand of feminist who fought the political battles of that era and endured the type of discrimination that would be unfathomable to her students today. A native of Alabama, where her introduction to social causes was through the civil rights movement, Velez arrived at Georgetown, a Jesuit university in Northwest Washington, in 1981 as a graduate student in the English department. She has been teaching the Feminist Theory course for the womens studies department for 30 years. But Velez has noticed something changing in the past few years, a shift in attitude that has forced her to revamp her syllabus and rethink the way she steers the classroom discussion. Largely unburdened by the type of outright discrimination Velez and her peers faced at the same ages, her students often see feminism as equating to personal freedoms such as sexual expression, gender identity and the choice to have both a career and a family. At a recent session of her Feminist Theory class in a room at Healy Hall adorned with paintings of the Founding Fathers and a Bible verse from Isaiah, Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn 16 students (15 women and one man) discussed readings by Virginia Woolf, a discussion that at times veered into pornography, video-game culture and the current Hollywood film industry. [Poll: What Americans think about feminism today] The last 15 minutes of the 2-hour class, though, were devoted to Fiorina, the lightning-rod former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard now running a middling race for the Republican presidential nomination. Of particular interest to Velezs class was Fiorinas identifying herself as a feminist, trumpeting her own triumphs in the business world and espousing a view that all women have the internal strength to fight their way to the top. A feminist, Fiorina once wrote, is a woman who lives the life she chooses. However, Fiorina also opposes abortion rights an essential plank in the feminist platform since the movements earliest days and has spoken out in favor of defunding Planned Parenthood. The question Velez put to her class: Could Fiorina legitimately claim to be a feminist while fighting against abortion rights? The majority opinion seemed to be no. It is one thing to be opposed to abortion, students argued, but yet another thing to actively seek to ban it. But there was another, smaller faction in the class that wasnt ready to exclude a powerful woman and role model who wanted to identify herself as a feminist. We have this weird and often damaging tendency to [divide people], where youre either one thing or youre not, said sophomore Grace Smith, a government and womens and gender studies double-major from Troy, N.Y. Youre either a man or a woman. Youre either a feminist or youre not. And I think there is a gray area, and I think being a feminist takes all different forms, and at the core of it is being inclusive and not excluding. Velez mostly keeps her own views to herself in class, in the interest of sparking the students own discoveries. But here, she spoke up. One of the things I am struck by is your desire to be inclusive, she said, addressing the class collectively. Yall are saying: We dont want to exclude somebody. We want feminism to be broader and inclusive. [But] the thing I want you to focus on for a minute is [that feminism] is not about breaking through barriers in your own life. Its not about being successful as a CEO. Those are personal goals we might have. [But] the word has to mean something. Its got to have some boundaries. Because otherwise its just this feel-good kind of word that [means], Hey, were all feminists; were all in this together. Velez had touched a nerve, and one student quickly fired back. I feel like the personal is also a part of feminism, said junior Victoria Riley, a womens and gender studies major from Hyattsville, Md. Being assertive and all the things [Fiorina] mentioned, even though theyre not everything, theyre still important to recognize, as well. And not just say, Thats not feminism, this is feminism. You make a very good point, Velez said. But at the very end of class, as the shadows out the window grew long across the Dahlgren Quadrangle, she left her students with this thought. Let me just say this: There are a lot of people I dont want on board, Velez said. If we were talking about race instead of gender, and someone said, Listen, I really am a supporter of civil rights but I dont support voting rights Im sorry, I dont want you in that particular group. Victoria Riley, 20, a junior from Hyattsville, Md., says, I feel like the personal is also a part of feminism. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Tiffany Sun, 21, a senior from Rockville, Md., says, I dont know that our generation is any more or less political. I just think our view of what it means to mobilize has shifted dramatically. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) In her office days later in the New North building, Velez acknowledged that her activist roots inform her teaching. Theres no question, as a professor, I have a point of view in this class, she said. Its not as if Im neutral politically on feminism. At the same time, the students in my class are coming from other places. And I accept that and respect that but I have to push them. Thats what the academic process is all about. The essay assignment describing ones personal theory of feminism was the first major writing assignment of the class, and one of the first to visit Velezs office to discuss it was Budman, the sophomore from Norfolk. A self-described feminist who serves on the board of H*yas for Choice, an abortion-rights campus organization, Budman nonetheless rejects what she sees as the rigidity of Second Wave feminism. Part of the reason people are having trouble connecting to feminism is because everything you do in your life has to be a big feminist stance, she said in an interview. And I dont think thats the case. . . . I think I speak more for people who dont identify as a feminist even though I do. In Budmans recollection of her initial meeting with Velez, she argued, Women can define feminism for themselves. Velezs response: Well, then what is it? It made me really think hard about what I was saying, Budman recalled. I basically deleted everything I had. A Jew who is considering a career as a rabbi, Budman had a breakthrough when she hit upon the idea of using the story of Lilith as a narrative device. According to Jewish folklore, Lilith was created from the same earth as Adam, and simultaneously, but rejected the subservient role God ascribed to her making her, in a sense, the original feminist. In this folklore, Lilith was cast out of Eden as a demon, and Eve was created to replace her. Budman decided to call her brand of feminism Lilithian Feminism one predicated upon an unflagging dedication to equality, inclusion and personal choice. Another breakthrough came when she decided to tweak the old feminist credo, The personal is political, by arguing the converse. The idea, she said later, was that the personal was also personal. Yes, its political, and we need those political gains to further the movement, and nothing can happen without political change. But also, nothing can happen without personal change. In a subsequent office visit, Budman presented Velez with her new thesis essentially saying, feminism is not only political and her outline. Velez listened closely and said, according to Budman: This is much more nuanced. Youre getting there. Good job. On her third visit, Budman handed in her paper. Its title: Before Eve, There Was Lilith: A New Take on Feminism and the Original Woman. Before feminists can work to empower other women, they must work to empower themselves through their own choices, she wrote. (Budman shared a copy of her paper with The Washington Post with the condition that any excerpts be cleared with her in advance.) While its also important to attend rallies for [abortion rights] and sue companies for workplace discrimination, a womans strongest impact is living her life and expressing her womanhood on her own terms. Looking back, both teacher and student agreed the academic process worked. The student presented an initial argument that lacked nuance and historical awareness, and the teacher pressed her to think deeper and more critically. And in the end, both teacher and student gained awareness about the others viewpoint. Velezs students received their essay grades on the first Monday in November. Budmans received an A. A lot of thought went into this, for both of us, Velez said. The essay she turned in was well-written and thoughtful, and she went through a difficult intellectual process to get there. For me, Maddy is on a journey. I think shes still thinking about it. And Im still thinking about it. I certainly listen to my students and learn from them. And I think thats crucial. Their ideas continue to evolve, as all of ours do. The great gift of feminism, Velez said, is its always in some kind of evolution. Georgetown University senior Eman Abid, 22, of Sarasota, Fla., listens to a Feminist Theory class discussion. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Peyton M. Craighill contributed to this report. Photo illustration by The Voorhes. Illustrations by Olimpia Zagnoli. As the conversation about making Hollywood more equitable has intensified, one of the proposed solutions has been to storm the gates of some of the movie industrys biggest products. Cast Idris Elba as James Bond! Make a woman the titular alien in the long-running British fantasy series Doctor Who! And among the most celebrated developments have been opportunities for women to be the leads or at least part of the core ensemble in action movies. Heres the potential downside, though. Theres value in suggesting that on-screen, at least a woman can do anything a man can do. But if that means telling stories about women who behave exactly like men, focusing on making women the stars in action movies could produce more jobs for women without expanding the kinds of stories and perspectives that appear on our screens. The turn of the century saw a proliferation of these sorts of movies. Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie), the main character in the Tomb Raider movies, a globe-trotting adventurer with the same absent-father issues that have plagued so many strong and silent types. Selene (Kate Beckinsale), the Underworld franchise vampire caught up in a war between her people and a race of super-powered werewolves, had the same fancy weapons and dramatic romances that a male action hero might have had in her place. Men in the audience for action movies might have wanted to be James Bond or John McClane of Die Hard. The directors of the Tomb Raider and Underworld movies were careful to make Lara Croft and Selene characters those men would want to possess. They might have been as tough as the men who traditionally played those roles, but they wore alluring if impractical skin-tight outfits and exhibited the kind of sexual appetites that would give their devotees plenty of fantasy fodder. Something far more intriguing can happen when an action movie puts a woman at the center and the action changes as a result. The recent wave of action movies that have focused on women often have stories that emphasize collaboration rather than the acts of a lone hero. And at times, these stories can be uneasy rather than triumphant, asking uncomfortable questions about the social conditions that made violent action necessary, rather than simply celebrating the hero who puts the world back to rights. Keep Talking Does a female action hero have to act like a man to be a box office hit? Absolutely Probably Undecided Probably not No way Absolutely Probably Undecided Probably not No way This is a non-scientific user poll. Results are not statistically valid and cannot be assumed to reflect the views of Washington Post users as a group or the general population. Submit answer Join ... people talking about this View Results In The Hunger Games series, both the novels by Suzanne Collins and the movies adapted from them, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence in the films) is as adept as any man at fighting her way through the brutal reality competitions organized by the dictatorial government of the dystopian Panem. But she takes no joy in her capacity for violence. And although she becomes a symbol of the rebellion against the Panem government, Katniss comes to believe that there is less difference than she might have hoped between the old regime and the new. Rather than ending the series as a conquering hero, she withdraws into private life, creating the peace and safety for her family that she couldnt achieve on a national level. From left, Kate Beckinsale as Selene in Underworld; Daisy Ridley as Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens; Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa in the Mad Max: Fury Road. (Beckinsale by Screen Gems; Ridley by Disney/Lucas Films via Associated Press; Theron by Warner Bros/ ) While The Hunger Games has always focused on Katnisss experiences, the Mad Max franchise was defined by Mel Gibsons iconic performance in the title role until 2015, when director George Miller turned his eye in a different direction. Max, now played by Tom Hardy, was captured in the opening sequence of Mad Max: Fury Road, and the action shifted to Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), an agent of the dictatorial Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). Furiosa betrays her boss to help rescue his wives, who have come to connect Joes brand of hyper-masculinity to the post-apocalpytic destruction that has surrounded them. Miller told the Guardians Paul MacInnes that once he conceived the story, he knew the person helping Joes wives escape had to be a woman, because otherwise thats a different story, the man stealing five wives of a tyrant. She had to be female, she had to be an experienced road warrior. Of course with that simple idea the rest came organically. The feminist notions of the film simply came out of the character and her behavior. [Quiz: What type of feminist (0r anti-feminist) are you?] Between her gender and the prosthesis that has replaced one of her arms below the elbow, Furiosa is far from a typical action heroine. And the action that surrounds her isnt typical either. In Fury Road, Miller has made a movie that emphasizes cross-gender and cross-generational collaboration rather than lone heroism. Furiosa frees Max; Max helps her steady a gun and fire; the older women who raised Furiosa team up to help the young wives fight for their freedom; and the wives help one of Immortan Joes brainwashed, suicidal War Boys, Nux (Nicholas Hoult) break free of Joes influence and find a cause he genuinely wants to fight for. At a moment when the world has been destroyed on-screen with such frequency and grandiosity that the sight of a destroyed city skyline is more enervating than unnerving, Mad Max: Fury Road cared as much about solidarity and character growth as the fate of Immortan Joes citadel. And most recently, Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens broke with the tradition of the previous six installments to focus on a young woman Daisy Ridleys Rey with great power in the Force, rather than a young man like Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) or Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). Like her predecessors, Rey grew up on a desert planet, knowing nothing about her talents until visitors from far away thrust them all into galaxy-wide conflicts. [Poll: What Americans think about feminism today] But where Luke Skywalker yearned for adventure, Rey is reluctant to leave her home planet of Jakku. And if the Force has traditionally been a way to tell stories about the struggle to be a good man, Reys presence in the center of the new Star Wars trilogy gives the franchise an opportunity to explore what it means for a woman to step up to an unexpected destiny. The critical and commercial success of these movies doesnt necessarily mean that the old-fashioned, dude-centric blockbuster is a thing of the past. The Fast and Furious franchise, populated by muscley dudes, ride-or-die chicks, and fast cars is still going strong and finding new places to stage seriously reckless driving. Michael Bays 13 Hours tells the story of Benghazi through the rippling muscles and extravagant facial hair of a group of ex-CIA contractors who are characterized mostly by their extreme skill at shooting guns. But the contrast between these old-school action flicks and the new, innovative projects suggests that whats good for women in action movies might also be whats good for action movies themselves. Any requirement that action heroes be stoic, hyper-competent tough guys who act alone places just as many restrictions on men as on women. Daisy Ridley as Rey, left, in a scene from the film, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." Her presence in the center of the new Star Wars trilogy gives the franchise an opportunity to explore. (Disney/Lucasfilm via Associated Press) Illustrations by Olimpia Zagnoli. In rural Ohio, teens from Guatemala are found debeaking chickens at an egg farm while living in horrible conditions, the government says. (Lee Powell/The Washington Post and Investigative Reporting Program) In rural Ohio, teens from Guatemala are found debeaking chickens at an egg farm while living in horrible conditions, the government says. (Lee Powell/The Washington Post and Investigative Reporting Program) The Obama administration failed to protect thousands of Central American children who have flooded across the U.S. border since 2011, leaving them vulnerable to traffickers and to abuses at the hands of government-approved caretakers, a Senate investigation has found. The Office of Refugee Resettlement, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, failed to do proper background checks of adults who claimed the children, allowed sponsors to take custody of multiple unrelated children, and regularly placed children in homes without visiting the locations, according to a 56-page investigative report released Thursday. And once the children left federally funded shelters, the report said, the agency permitted their adult sponsors to prevent caseworkers from providing them post-release services. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) initiated the six-month investigation after several Guatemalan teens were found in a dilapidated trailer park near Marion, Ohio, where they were being held captive by traffickers and forced to work at a local egg farm. The boys were among more than 125,000 unaccompanied minors who have surged into the United States since 2011, fleeing violence and unrest in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. [Overwhelmed federal officials released immigrant teens to traffickers in 2014] Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) initiated an investigation after several Guatemalan teens were found in a dilapidated trailer park near Marion, Ohio, where they were being held captive. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) It is intolerable that human trafficking modern-day slavery could occur in our own backyard, Portman said in a written statement. What makes the Marion cases even more alarming is that a U.S. government agency was responsible for delivering some of the victims into the hands of their abusers. The report concluded that administration policies and procedures were inadequate to protect the children in the agencys care. HHS spokesman Mark Weber said in a statement that the agency would review the committees findings carefully and continue to work to ensure the best care for the children we serve. The report was released ahead of a hearing Thursday before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which Portman co-chairs with Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). It detailed nearly 30 cases where unaccompanied children had been trafficked after federal officials released them to sponsors or where there were serious trafficking indicators. HHS places children with individuals about whom it knows relatively little and without verifying the limited information provided by sponsors about their alleged relationship with the child, the report said. For example, one Guatemalan boy planned to live with his uncle in Virginia. But when the uncle refused to take the boy, he ended up with another sponsor, who forced him to work nearly 12 hours a day to repay a $6,500 smuggling debt, which the sponsor later increased to $10,900, the report said. A boy from El Salvador was released to his father even though he told a caseworker that his father had a history of beating him, including hitting him with an electrical cord. In September, the boy alerted authorities that his father was forcing him to work for little or no pay, the report said; a post-release service worker later found the boy was being kept in a basement and given little food. The Senate investigation began in July after federal prosecutors indicted six people in connection with the Marion labor-trafficking scheme, which involved at least eight minors and two adults from the Huehuetenango region of Guatemala. One defendant, Aroldo Castillo-Serrano, 33, used associates to file false applications with the government agency tasked with caring for the children, and bring them to Ohio, where he kept them in squalid conditions in a trailer park and forced them to work 12-hour days, at least six days a week, for little pay. Castillo-Serrano has pleaded guilty to labor-trafficking charges and awaits sentencing in the Northern District of Ohio in Toledo. The FBI raided the trailer park in December 2014, rescuing the boys, but the Senate investigation says federal officials could have discovered the scheme far sooner. In August 2014, a child-welfare caseworker attempted to visit one of the children, who had been approved for post-release services because of reported mental-health problems, according to the report. The caseworker went to the address listed for the child, but the person who answered the door said the child didnt live there, the report added. When the caseworker finally found the childs sponsor, the sponsor blocked the caseworker from talking to the child. Instead of investigating further, the caseworker closed the childs case file, the report said, citing ORR policy which states that the Post Release Services are voluntary and sponsor refused services. That child was found months later, living 50 miles away from the sponsors home and working at the egg farm, according to the report. The childs sponsor was later indicted. VanSickle is a reporter for the Investigative Reporting Program, a nonprofit news organization at the University of California at Berkeley. ILLINOIS Officers wife indicted in theft, staged suicide A grand jury in Illinois on Wednesday indicted the widow of a police officer who authorities later said had staged his suicide after years of stealing money from a police program. The death of Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz, a Fox Lake, Ill., police officer, last year prompted a large-scale manhunt, as police scoured the region near the Wisconsin border for days. Gliniewicz, 52, had reported that he was pursuing three possible suspects. He was found with a fatal gunshot wound. On Wednesday afternoon, officials in Lake County, Ill., said that Melodie Gliniewicz, 51, the officers widow, was indicted by a grand jury on six felony counts, including money laundering and misusing charitable funds. The police investigation found that she had a role as a supervisor with the program her husband had overseen, and that money from the program was used for personal expenses, including a trip to Hawaii and charges at more than 400 restaurants. Lawyers for Melodie Gliniewicz said she is a victim of her husbands secret actions and looks forward to her day in court to show the world her innocence. Mark Berman WISCONSIN FBI: Man in attack plot wanted to kill Israelis A Milwaukee man arrested on a charge of trying to buy machine guns to carry out an attack on a Masonic temple to defend Islam had first wanted to travel to the Middle East and kill Israelis but abandoned that plan as unworkable, federal agents said in court documents. Federal prosecutors charged Samy Mohamed Hamzeh, 23, on Tuesday with unlawfully possessing a machine gun and receiving and possessing firearms not registered to him. The FBI recorded conversations between Hamzeh and two federal informants talking about an attack on a Masonic temple in Milwaukee, according to an affidavit setting out the evidence against Hamzeh. Masons are members of a fraternal organization that carries out a variety of activities, including charity work. Associated Press FLORIDA Ex-deputy is indicted for excessive force A former Florida sheriffs deputy has been indicted by a federal grand jury for using excessive force during a 2014 arrest where five white law enforcement officers were involved in the beating of a black man, Justice Department officials said Wednesday. Former Marion County sheriffs deputy Jesse Terrell, 33, was indicted late Tuesday on a charge of depriving the man of his civil rights. The other officers previously pleaded guilty to that offense, court records show. The officers have all either resigned or been terminated from the sheriffs department in central Florida, said a spokeswoman for the agency, who confirmed the victim was black. Court records did not identify him by name. Four deputies, including Terrell, struck the man during the August 2014 incident, prosecutors said in court records, and it was captured on videotape. The fifth officer watched and did not try to stop them. Reuters Tornado causes damage in Florida: A possible tornado picked up a southbound vehicle on Floridas Turnpike near Fort Lauderdale and dropped it in the northbound lane as a line of severe storms hit the area, officials said Wednesday morning. They said the storms tossed cars and trucks, knocked down trees and damaged some roofs in South Florida. A Broward Fire Rescue spokesman said one person was hurt on the turnpike. Associated Press SEN. BERNIE Sanders (I-Vt.) is leading in New Hampshire and within striking distance in Iowa, in large part because he is playing the role of uncorrupted anti-establishment crusader. But Mr. Sanders is not a brave truth-teller. He is a politician selling his own brand of fiction to a slice of the country that eagerly wants to buy it. [Katrina vanden Heuvel: Bernie Sanders is the realist we should elect] Mr. Sanderss tale starts with the bad guys: Wall Street and corporate money. The existence of large banks and lax campaign finance laws explains why working Americans are not thriving, he says, and why the progressive agenda has not advanced. Here is a reality check: Wall Street has already undergone a round of reform, significantly reducing the risks big banks pose to the financial system. The evolution and structure of the world economy, not mere corporate deck-stacking, explained many of the big economic challenges the country still faces. And even with radical campaign finance reform, many Americans and their representatives would still oppose the Sanders agenda. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), spoke about climate change, the Islamic State, racism and his vision for the country at Georgetown University on Nov. 19. Here are the key moments. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) Mr. Sanderss story continues with fantastical claims about how he would make the European social model work in the United States. He admits that he would have to raise taxes on the middle class in order to pay for his universal, Medicare-for-all health-care plan, and he promises massive savings on health-care costs that would translate into generous benefits for ordinary people, putting them well ahead, on net. But he does not adequately explain where those massive savings would come from. Getting rid of corporate advertising and overhead would only yield so much. Savings would also have to come from slashing payments to doctors and hospitals and denying benefits that people want. He would be a braver truth-teller if he explained how he would go about rationing health care like European countries do. His program would be more grounded in reality if he addressed the fact of chronic slow growth in Europe and explained how he would update the 20th-century model of social democracy to accomplish its goals more efficiently. Instead, he promises large benefits and few drawbacks. [Why Democrats would be insane to nominate Bernie Sanders] Meanwhile, when asked how Mr. Sanders would tackle future deficits, as he would already be raising taxes for health-care expansion and the rest of his program, his advisers claimed that more government spending will result in higher growth, which will improve our fiscal situation. This resembles Republican arguments that tax cuts will juice the economy and pay for themselves and is equally fanciful. Mr. Sanders tops off his narrative with a deus ex machina: He assures Democrats concerned about the political obstacles in the way of his agenda that he will lead a political revolution that will help him clear the capital of corruption and influence-peddling. This self-regarding analysis implies a national consensus favoring his agenda when there is none and ignores the many legitimate checks and balances in the political system that he cannot wish away. Mr. Sanders is a lot like many other politicians. Strong ideological preferences guide his thinking, except when politics does, as it has on gun control. When reality is ideologically or politically inconvenient, he and his campaign talk around it. Mr. Sanderss success so far does not show that the country is ready for a political revolution. It merely proves that many progressives like being told everything they want to hear. All politicians like to brag about their abilities and achievements. But rarely has a presidential hopeful emerged like Donald Trump, who consistently touts his resume and plans for the nation in sweeping and over-the-top terms. Trump is particularly unique in how he talks about himself. Plenty of would-be presidents make dubious claims about what they have accomplished in elected office (created millions of jobs! slashed spending!). Few make such claims about their personal attributes. Trump has no such hesitation. Just before the Iowa caucuses, here are five of the biggest myths Donald Trump tells about himself. 1. Im, like, a really smart person. Trump is not shy about his intellectual prowess. As he tweeted in 2013: Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please dont feel so stupid or insecure, its not your fault. Of course, smart is a bit subjective. Theres book smarts as well as street smarts. Many would say Trump has run a pretty smart campaign. But clearly hes saying that his brain is very sharp as he puts it, super-genius stuff. At one point, Trump rebutted criticism from columnist George Will and GOP consultant Karl Rove by saying: Im much smarter than them. I think I have a much higher IQ. I think I went to a better college better everything. Trumps college background, in fact, is often his key piece of evidence for his intellectual superiority. But theres less here than meets the eye. Trump did graduate from the Wharton School of business at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League college. But Trump did not get an MBA from Wharton; he has a much less prestigious undergraduate degree. He was a transfer student who arrived at Wharton after two years at Fordham University, which U.S. News & World Report currently ranks 66th among national universities. (Besides, simply going to an Ivy League school doesnt prove youre a genius.) Gwenda Blair, in her 2001 book The Trumps, said that Trumps grades at Fordham were just respectable and that he got into Wharton mainly because he had an interview with an admissions officer who had been a high school classmate of his older brother. And Whartons admissions team surely knew that Trump was from one of New Yorks wealthiest families. For years, numerous media reports said Trump graduated first in his class from Wharton, but thats wrong. The 1968 commencement program does not list him as graduating with any sort of honors. In fact, the Boston Globe reported that he barely made an impression at all: His former classmates said he seemed a student who spoke up a lot but rarely shined in class, who barely participated in campus activities, shunned fraternity parties. 2. I have the worlds greatest memory. One of Trumps most controversial claims is that he saw a television news report about thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheering the collapse of the World Trade Center in 2001. That statement ended up on the Washington Post Fact Checkers list of 2015s biggest Pinocchios. Trump insisted he was right because he has such a great memory. But no television network could find such a clip though extensive searches were made. No news reports were tracked down to validate Trumps claim of thousands. The closest thing ever found was a local newscast at the time, from a CBS affiliate in New York, that reported on the arrest of eight men who neighbors said had celebrated the attack. Thats a far cry from thousands. There were also video clips of several Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories cheering. But that wasnt New Jersey and again, it wasnt thousands. Trump also tried to point to a line in a Washington Post article written days after the attacks that said law enforcement authorities detained and questioned some people who were allegedly seen celebrating . But when one of the reporters, Serge Kovaleski, said the article did not validate Trumps claim, the real estate magnate mocked Kovaleskis disability. (Kovaleski has a chronic condition that limits his mobility.) Here's the answer to one of the most Googled questions about one of the most Googled candidates. (Osman Malik,Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) Trump later denied doing so, claiming that he didnt know the reporter even though Kovaleski had closely covered Trump in the 1980s and 1990s and had interviewed him several times. Maybe Trump should rephrase his boast: I have the worlds most selective memory. 3. Im proud of my net worth. Ive done an amazing job. Trump frequently touts his financial acumen. He often says he is worth $10 billion, though most analysts say that is exaggerated. Bloomberg News closely studied his 92-page financial disclosure report and concluded that he is really worth $2.9 billion. That may sound like a lot of money. But dont forget that Trump inherited a lot of money, too about $40 million in 1974. In 1978, his net worth was estimated by BusinessWeek at $100 million. The Posts Wonkblog calculated that if Trump had gotten out of real estate, put his money in an index fund based on the Standard & Poors 500 index and reinvested the dividends, hed be worth twice as much $6 billion today. National Journal noted that Warren Buffett was also worth $40 million in 1974 and he managed to turn that into $67 billion today. But then Buffett doesnt have a long list of business flops, such as Trump Airlines, Trump Vodka, various Trump casinos, Trump Steaks and Trump University. 4. Im self-funding my campaign. Trump keeps saying that unlike his rivals, hes paying for his own presidential campaign, but thats largely false. At the start of his campaign, he loaned his political operation $1.8 million. As of Oct. 1, he had given his campaign an additional $104,829.27 but he had also received $3.9 million from donors, which accounted for the vast majority of the $5.8 million his campaign had taken in by then. His campaign website features a prominent donate button on its homepage. Trump has spent $5.4 million, and interestingly, about one-quarter of his spending has gone to Trump-owned entities (mainly his private jet company). In January, Trump launched an ad campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire, saying he planned to spend $2 million. He also claimed that his campaign was $35 million to $40 million below budget. Ultimately, all of his spending and where the money came from will have to be disclosed in campaign finance reports. The odds are his personal share of the spending will be less than 50 percent. 5. Im probably the least racist person on Earth. When people have criticized Trump for promising to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border or proposing a ban on all Muslims from entering the country, he has defended himself by saying hes not motivated by racism. Still, he has a pattern of racially tinged remarks and actions. The very first article about Trump in the New York Times it appeared 42 years ago was headlined Major Landlord Accused Of Antiblack Bias in City. Trump was quoted saying the charges in a lawsuit brought by the Justice Department against the company he and his father ran were absolutely ridiculous. The sides settled but three years later, the Justice Department charged Trumps organization with continuing to discriminate against blacks. When five black and Latino teenagers were implicated in a brutal attack on a white woman jogging in Central Park in 1989, Trump took out full-page newspaper ads calling for the death penalty for criminals of every age. The suspects were convicted but later exonerated by DNA evidence and Trump then called their wrongful-conviction settlement a disgrace. Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino President John R. ODonnell, in the 1991 book Trumped, alleged that Trump once said that laziness is a trait in blacks. He also claimed Trump said, of his accountants: Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are little short guys that wear yarmulkes every day. (Trump has called ODonnell a disgruntled employee, but he has not disputed the remarks. The stuff ODonnell wrote about me is probably true, he told Playboy in an interview published in May 1997.) Speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition in December, Trump made a speech riddled with Jewish stereotypes, such as: Look, Im a negotiator like you folks; were negotiators. And: I know why youre not going to support me. Youre not going to support me because I dont want your money. Another Trump observation: A well-educated black has a tremendous advantage over a well-educated white in terms of the job market. . . . If I were starting off today, I would love to be a well-educated black, because I believe they do have an actual advantage. When Trump launched his campaign, he made a broad-brush accusation against Mexico: Theyre sending people that have lots of problems, and theyre bringing . . . drugs, theyre bringing crime, theyre rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. Twitter: @GlennKesslerWP Five myths is a weekly feature challenging everything you think you know. You can check out previous myths, read more from Outlook or follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter. International Holocaust Remembrance Day is always a somber time for Auschwitz survivor Irene Weiss. But this years observance had an additional layer of grief: For the first time, Weiss is worried about her adopted homeland. I am exceptionally concerned about demagogues, the 85-year-old Weiss told me at Wednesdays commemoration at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. They touch me in a place that I remember. I know their influence and, unfortunately, I know how receptive audiences are to demagogues and what it leads to. She knows better than just about any person alive. The Czech-born Jew lost her parents and most of her siblings in Hitlers death camps. Now, when she hears about plans to register Muslims and to ban Muslims from entering the United States, Im worried about the tone of this country, she said. To Weiss, the ugly political environment in 2016 has an ominous precedent in Weimar Germany. It has echoes, and maybe more so to me than to native-born Americans, she said after lighting a candle for Hitlers victims. Im scared. I dont like the trend. I dont like how many people are applauding when they hear these demagogues. It can turn. This years Holocaust remembrance comes at a time when Donald Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, retweets to his nearly 6 million followers a message from @WhiteGenocideTM based in Jewmerica, and a time when his nearest challenger, Ted Cruz, brandishes the endorsement of a minister who says Hitler was a hunter sent after the Jews by God. There has never been a more important time for Americans to heed the moral authority of the Holocaust survivors still among us. Its really frightening, said Al Munzer, hidden as an infant in the Netherlands with a Dutch family and their Muslim nanny. When you see these mass rallies that Trump is able to attract, you really wonder: How are they buying into this message of hate? Munzer, who lost two sisters and his father to the Nazis, said he never thought such things could happen in America, but now hes not so sure. Thinking that Germany was somehow unique is wrong, he said. Wednesdays ceremony was in a hexagonal atrium with the names of death camps on the walls. The participants recited Kaddish, the Jewish mourning prayer, and listened to the Hymn of the Partisans, the Yiddish ballad of resistance: Never say you are walking your final road. At this time of open hostility to Muslims in America, museum staff arranged for Johanna Gerechter Neumann, who fled with her family to Albania after Kristallnacht, to talk about how Muslims protected them from Hitler. Her father, a patriotic German and World War I veteran, certainly thought that it could never happen in Germany, she said. It did happen. Slowly, but it did happen. And now the aging survivors worry it is beginning, slowly, to happen again. It is repeating itself, and it is again the inattention that people pay to real cues that one should understand, said Margit Meissner, almost 94, who fled on foot through the Pyrenees from occupied France. Its not Weimar, she said, but it could become Weimar Germany if you have Mr. Trump here and people keep believing what he says. . . . I think one has to speak up. And thats the one lesson from the Holocaust: Do not be a bystander. In Wednesdays ceremony, German Ambassador Peter Wittig gave a moving tribute to Martin Weiss, 87 this week, who survived Auschwitz as a 15-year-old but lost most of his family. Wittig read aloud Weisss recollections: We could also smell flesh burning, and then we saw the chimneys, the big five chimneys with black smoke coming out. Now an American presidential candidate has made scapegoats of immigrants, Muslims, Latinos, African Americans, the disabled, women. And for the first time, Martin Weiss hears echoes of his youth. The guy scares me, he said after listening to the ambassadors tribute. I dont want to make any comparison to Hitler, but believe it or not his delivery and the way he conducts himself is very similar to Hitlers way of doing things. He discredits everybody who disagrees with him. Hes insulting. He discriminates against everybody. Weiss continued: Sooner or later, you know what happens in a case like this? Thats how Weimar Germany went to hell, because when Hitler came in, if somebody disagreed with him guess what he put them in prison or he had them shot or he opened the concentration camp. We are still far from that in America. But if anybody has the right to make the comparison, it is a man who saw the ovens of Auschwitz. Twitter: @Milbank Read more from Dana Milbanks archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. Michael Bloombergs epiphany about the 2016 presidential proceedings is that what is missing is a second bossy, big-government billionaire from Manhattans East Side another candidate with malleable party loyalties. Bloomberg, whose net worth in 2015 was estimated by Forbes at $38.6 billion (eighth on the list of richest Americans), is again exploring an independent presidential candidacy. In 2001, he spent $74 million to become New Yorks mayor. He had been a registered Democrat but ran as a Republican to avoid a competitive primary. Reelected in 2005, he left the GOP and in 2009 won a third term as an independent, spending $102 million $174 per vote to eke out a 50.6 percent victory against a negligible opponent. He had persuaded not a herculean task the city council to alter the law, enacted and reaffirmed in two referendums, limiting mayors and city council members to two terms. Make no mistake about it, Bloomberg said then, I still think term limits are a good thing. Intermittently. A Bloomberg presidential run might complete a repudiation trifecta for New York mayors. In 1972, John V. Lindsay, after three terms in Congress representing the Silk Stocking District on Manhattans Upper East Side, was in his second disastrous term as mayor. He had run in 1965 on the Republican and Liberal Party lines. Defeated in the 1969 Republican primary, he won reelection on the Liberal and Fusion lines. In 1971, he sought the Democrats 1972 presidential nomination, winning 1.23 percent of the votes cast in primaries. In early 2007, former mayor Rudy Giuliani had a 20-point lead in polls for the Republican presidential nomination and a third more money than Mitt Romney and John McCain combined. He was, however, like Donald Trump, thrice married and, like Trump until his various conversions of convenience, favored abortion and gun control. Giuliani left the race Jan. 30, 2008, having spent more than $65 million, having won one delegate (a Nevadan) and having generated one good joke: Giulianis momentum-proof national polling lead, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny all walk into a bar. Youre right. None of them exist. As mayor, Bloomberg adequately guided the city through traumatic revenue losses when the Great Recession clobbered Wall Street. He was an energetic education reformer, favoring charter schools, but he did not really try to tame rapacious government employees unions. He dislikes the Second Amendment and large servings of sugary sodas. He likes trickle-down progressivism, or what Walter Russell Mead calls a Downton Abbey vision of Americas future. As mayor, Bloomberg said: If we can find a bunch of billionaires around the world to move [to the city], that would be a godsend, because thats where the revenue comes to take care of everybody else. The perpetually dependent would doff their cloth caps and tug their forelocks, grateful to be taken care of. Most successful independent candidates have three things in common a vivid personality, a burning issue and a regional base. And they lose. Strom Thurmond in 1948 and George Wallace in 1968 had all three and won 39 and 46 electoral votes, respectively. In 1992, Ross Perot had a sandpapery personality and the deficit issue but he lacked a regional base, so his 18.9 percent of the popular vote won zero electoral votes. Bloomberg is bland agreeably so, compared with some of the others and his issue is who he is not (the others). His base is New York, former incubator of presidents. In 1868, the state had a higher percentage of an electoral majority than Californias 55 electoral votes (10.2 percent) represent today. Between 1868 and 1948, New Yorkers appeared on more than half of the two major parties tickets, and five times won the presidency. However, Americans have not elected a president from the Northeast for 56 years (Massachusettss John Kennedy in 1960). Voters have subsequently rejected three nominees from Massachusetts (Michael Dukakis in 1988, John Kerry in 2004, Romney in 2012). This years political cafeteria might serve up four Northeasterners Bloomberg, Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Bloomberg, a self-made billionaire, would be preferable as president to Clinton, who has forfeited the nations trust. And to Sanders, who has never run anything larger than the Burlington, Vt., mayors office. And to Trump, whose comprehensive ignorance and boundless confidence demonstrate that he does not know what it is to know things. Conservatives, however, remembering Barry Goldwaters 1964 promise of A choice, not an echo, would rightly regard a contest featuring Bloomberg, Trump and Clinton/Sanders as three echoes and no palatable choice. Read more from George F. Wills archive or follow him on Facebook. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu is seeking to remove the 60-foot tall monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee in his city. (Jonathan Bachman/Reuters) Born in 1821 in South Carolina, James Longstreet graduated from West Point in 1842 and served with distinction in the Mexican War. As the officer corps split along sectional lines, he joined the Confederacy in 1861, eventually rising to join Gen. Robert E. Lees inner circle. But it was after Appomattox that Longstreet truly distinguished himself as the rare ex-Rebel to accept the Souths defeat, and its consequences. He urged fellow white Southerners to support the federal government and help rebuild their region on the basis of greater racial equality. He joined Abraham Lincolns Republican Party. In the 1870s, he commanded a biracial state militia loyal to Louisianas Reconstruction government, aggravating an old war wound while fighting alongside his troops against violent white supremacists in the streets of New Orleans. Today, this illustrious American is famous only to Civil War buffs. He remains obscure, even as the country struggles anew with the legacy of the Civil War and Reconstruction from the removal of the Confederate battle flag at South Carolinas state capitol, to this weeks flap over Hillary Clintons remark implying Lincolns successors were too rancorous toward the defeated South. Yet ending Longstreets obscurity, and properly honoring him, can and should be a part of the discussion. Indeed, its hard to imagine a full and fair reckoning with the past in which such a personality gets no more than a footnote. The historical-reckoning hot spot at the moment is New Orleans, where the Democratic mayor, Mitch Landrieu, and the city council have decided to remove four monuments on public property honoring Confederates or, in one case, Reconstruction-era white supremacists. On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled against various groups trying to preserve the monuments, which include a 12-foot statue of Lee, atop a 60-foot Doric column, that has towered over a downtown traffic circle since 1884. This is not uncomplicated; a case can be made that such statuary has been around so long that it has itself acquired educational value in the great outdoor museum that is the Crescent City. Yet Landrieu emotionally, and accurately, argued that the Lee statue and the others had been built not as historical landmarks, but as ideological devices. They were integral to past efforts by Southern white supremacists to put the lost cause of the Confederacy on a pedestal. Nor were Southern apologetics confined to the South; by the middle of the 20th century, mainstream academic consensus held that Reconstruction had been a misguided project that collapsed due not to white Southern resistance, often violent, but to a purportedly vindictive and extreme federal government led by radical Republicans. This is the tale that high school textbooks still told until historians revised it during the civil rights movement and which Clinton, probably unthinkingly, fished out of her 68-year-old memory. Under fire from journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates and others, her team issued a follow-up statement more reflective of historical truth and, the campaign said, her own beliefs. Longstreet played a key part in the Lost Cause myth as villain. White ex-Confederates could never forgive his postwar racial and political treason, so they set about tarnishing his wartime military record. In particular, they scapegoated Longstreet for the Rebel defeat at Gettysburg, though the true story was complex and included the fact that Longstreet warned Lee, in vain, not to attempt the disastrous Picketts Charge. Longstreet had to be smeared so Lee could occupy his pedestal metaphorically and, in New Orleans and elsewhere, literally. As it happens, one monument that the city proposes to remove celebrates the very same white supremacist uprising against which Longstreet commanded African American militia on Sept. 14, 1874. Ostracized by former comrades, Longstreet died in 1904 in Gainesville, Ga.; the large block on his grave there was the only monument to him until supporters managed to get a modest equestrian statue installed at the Gettysburg battlefield in 1998, along with plaques recording his Confederate military service (not his postwar activity in New Orleans). If New Orleans, and the country, wants to correct the balance of honor in public spaces, it will have to do more than subtract Lee and company. We should also repopulate cityscapes with underappreciated Civil War-era figures such as Longstreet, whose Reconstruction-era service has never properly been recognized. Heres a thought: If and when New Orleans does take Robert E. Lee off that pedestal, it should put a statue of Longstreet on it. The James Longstreet Monument would not only help make certain specific points about what really happened in the 19th century, it would also prompt reflection on broader truths. Longstreet risked his life for the worst cause Americans ever espoused, then for the best one. In short, he epitomized this nations saving grace, and humanitys: the capacity to learn from our mistakes, and to change. Read more from Charles Lanes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. Two supporters of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) wear matching T-shirts to a campaign event in Ottumwa, Iowa, on Tuesday. (Jae C. Hong/Associated Press) Awaken the body of Christ that we might pull back from this abyss. When Texas Sen. Ted Cruz closed his prayerful plea to a crowd of about 150 people here late Tuesday night, the abyss he had in mind was something larger than the prospect of a Donald Trump victory in Mondays Republican caucuses. But the final days of the battle for Iowa have come to resemble political Armageddon. In fact, it involves two overlapping struggles, beginning with the one for the ideological souls of conservative white evangelical Christians. Are they still motivated, as Cruz hopes, by traditional issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage and religious liberty? Will solidarity push them toward a candidate who uses evangelical language and comfortably invokes scripture? Or has Trump redefined social conservatism by returning to a harder form of backlash politics that shaped the late 1960s and early 70s? Trump draws in evangelical Christians on the basis of shared anger and resentment rather than shared faith. Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz started out complimentary toward rival Donald Trump. But, as Cruz's numbers have gone up in the polls, things have changed. (Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post) Both Trump and Cruz, of course, are playing identity politics. But a Trump triumph here could mark the end of the religious right as we have known it since the Reagan era by splitting this important GOP constituency in half. At the same time, there is the larger fight within the Republican Party over Trump himself. A profound fear has gripped many of its elected officials: With apologies for paraphrasing Frank Sinatras hymn to the New York values Cruz has condemned, the worry is that if Trump can make it here, he can make it anywhere. The anxiety and trepidation over Trump among old-line evangelical Christian political leaders but also among conservative intellectual elites and what passes for the party establishment could turn Cruz into a temporary savior. Many in the party who dont like Cruz at all may still hope he wins here for a very practical reason. Stopping Cruz in later contests could be far easier than derailing a Trump juggernaut. Many aspects of the new dynamic were on display in this city of about 1,000 people near the Missouri border. An unscheduled speaker at Cruzs rally was Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), who is not even a Cruz supporter. In the final hours before the first votes are cast, Sasse who combines establishment and tea party credentials with a Yale Ph.D. in history has made stopping Trump a personal cause. He took a page from Trumps playbook Sunday night by issuing a series of hard shots at the front-runner on Twitter. Sasse is calling on Iowa Republicans to vote for anyone except Trump, and he spoke Wednesday at an event for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). His central concern, he told me here, is Trumps authoritarian side. Hes a strongman with a will to power, Sasse said. Trump has been the only guy on the Republican side of the aisle that regularly campaigns and says things like If Im elected president, Ill be able to do whatever I want. Republicans like himself who are critical of President Obamas use of executive orders, Sasse said, should apply the same standards to Trump. In the meantime, supporters of socially conservative candidates in the single digits, such as Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Ben Carson, are beginning to move to Cruz. Troy Scheuermann, a 43-year-old chiropractor who attended the rally, cited principled pragmatism for his own switch. I was in Camp Huckabee until last week, he said. I decided that if I voted for Huckabee, its a vote for Donald Trump. Its now a two-man race. A rallying to Cruz, of course, could weaken Rubio, who is looking for a strong third-place finish here to strengthen him in the Feb. 9 New Hampshire primary. So Rubio, too, as The Posts Sean Sullivan reported, is now invoking God a great deal, hoping to move at least some of the evangelical Christians his way. Trump seems confident hes on a path to win Iowa. His attacks on Cruz have been reinforced by sharp jabs from Rubio, who has reason to hope that if Trump wins here, he would dispose of Cruzs candidacy right at the start. But Cruz may yet profit from a form of political providence if horror over the specter of a Trump nomination becomes the dominant emotion between now and Monday. Iowa has thus come down to this: Who do the states swing voters fear and loathe more, Trump or Cruz? You can imagine the choice will drive even the most secular Republicans to rounds of intense prayer. Read more from E.J. Dionnes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. Former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley is a Democratic contender for the White House in 2016. Here's his take on gay marriage, income inequality and more, in his own words. (Julie Percha/The Washington Post) Former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley is a Democratic contender for the White House in 2016. Here's his take on gay marriage, income inequality and more, in his own words. (Julie Percha/The Washington Post) Danielle Allen is a political theorist at Harvard University and a contributing columnist for The Post. Well, somebody has to do it. Somebody has to write about Martin OMalley. Hes a serious person, with serious things to say, and its a travesty that he hasnt gotten more coverage. In this election, two big issues are colliding: broadly diminished economic opportunity and concerns about growing federal power, which in some forms battles over excessive surveillance, the war on drugs, police violence and the No Child Left Behind Act, for instance have shaken up long-standing left-right splits. On the surface, wage stagnation and income inequality appear to be Democratic turf, while worries about big government belong to the Republicans. For the latter half of the 20th century, tackling both issues simultaneously would have been like trying to square the circle. The antidote to poverty and inequality was government, requiring more taxes, more programs, just plain more. The antidote on the other side was less. Lower taxes, austerity, sequestration. If this presidential race had quickly resolved to the candidates we expected to have, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, wed more or less be getting the usual conversation. But thanks to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Donald Trump and an anti-big- government Republican chorus that has included Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), weve got something far more interesting in the works. Republicans are finally waking up to the issues of the working class, even while continuing to decry big government. The editors at National Review last week called on the GOP to advance a compelling working-class agenda that doesnt leave the working class vulnerable to a demagogue. If the candidates listen, the pieces are in place to force the party to think through both halves of the dilemma facing the country. What about the Democrats? Are they ready to face the fact that we have to figure out how to tackle inequality without further feeding the growth of state power? As Ive watched the campaign unfold, Ive come to the conclusion that OMalley is the only voice on the Democratic stage with the potential to resolve the dilemma. In recent years, economists and political scientists have routinely pointed out how municipal and regional decisions about transportation, mobility, housing, communications infrastructure and finance powerfully affect the distribution of opportunity. We often use zoning regulations, housing and transportation policy, and municipal funding structures in ways that generate socioeconomic and ethnic segregation. These policies reduce the likelihood that bridging ties connections between people across demographic cleavages form within our population. Significant bodies of research suggest that the more a society is characterized by bridging ties, the more egalitarian will be outcomes across economic, health and educational domains. To maximize these ties, we need policies that push in the opposite direction from those we have now. The good news is that this doesnt require adding services and programs, only smarter choices about the things that governments already do and will always need to do. One can have a dramatic impact on the distribution of opportunity without increasing governments footprint. One just needs to use the existing levers differently. This, it turns out, is just what OMalley, the former governor of Maryland, wants to do. OMalley consistently says that one of his most important efforts as president would be a new agenda for our cities. (Full disclosure: I donated $100 to OMalley in 2015, along with $250 each to Clinton and Sanders.) This is worth paying attention to. Cities are places, OMalley told me when I traveled to hear him at one of his New Hampshire town halls, where we see still the most entrenched structural unemployment. Structural unemployment doesnt solve itself. We have to solve these things. You see in places like Flint, Michigan, the results of our underinvestment in infrastructure and underinvestment in our city centers. You see the gap in terms of criminal justice. So the opportunity gap and the justice gap is the greatest in Americas cities and yet we havent had an agenda to invest in cities since Jimmy Carter. To address entrenched unemployment, OMalley, who is also former mayor of Baltimore, wants to invest in mobility, transportation and infrastructure. He wants investment in workforce housing so our cities remain economically diverse places so that we dont simply move poor families out of gentrifying neighborhoods. And he sees retrofitting cities for environmental sustainability as a major potential source of jobs. Doing this, he points out, would give us a chance to take advantage of new efficiencies that have developed in cities. As he sees it, the levers and the mechanisms are already in place for doing many of these things. Mayors have become entrepreneurial and better at creating public-private partnerships that leverage those dollars many times over. He adds, Cities on their own have for the most part been improving how they govern and how they deliver services, but we have not yet really harnessed them for the economic engine and their potential. So why do I think OMalley can help the Democratic Party reconsider its approach to the scale and scope of governmental power? Its true that OMalley does want to raise taxes on high earners, but the point of pride on which he distinguishes himself from Clinton and Sanders is his record of having balanced a budget 15 years in a row, including during a recession. He cares about fiscal discipline, and he wants to use resources from taxes as investments to be allocated by mayors and, presumably, governors. He places emphasis here rather than on expenditure through federal agencies. OMalley is right. We could do a lot to reverse current economic patterns if we took seriously the infrastructure projects needed in our cities. We could use such projects to reconnect isolated groups to opportunity, and we could do this without expanding the administrative state. Theres a lot more to be said about how a federally supported, municipal-level agenda could rebuild an egalitarian economic structure for our country. But if were going to hear about it, I cant be the only one asking OMalley serious questions. HAVING ANNOUNCED in November that Syria could be weeks away from a big transition, Secretary of State John F. Kerry appears determined to force the launch of something resembling peace negotiations this week. To do so, he and United Nations envoy Staffan de Mistura have given up a lot. They are no longer proposing head-to-head discussions between the government of Bashar al-Assad and rebel groups but merely proximity talks, in which the U.N. mediator would shuttle between them. Nor has the Assad regime been required to allow full humanitarian access into civilian areas it keeps under siege, though that was part of the negotiations road map endorsed by a Security Council resolution last month. It remains unclear whether this watered-down process will get off the ground Friday in Geneva. Rebel representatives remain undecided whether to accept Mr. de Misturas invitation, in part because of the regimes failure to respect the terms of the U.N. resolution. Even if the convocation goes forward, the concessions already made to the Assad regime and its backers in Russia and Iran probably will ensure that there is no progress in the foreseeable future. This is not to suggest that Syrian diplomacy should not be pursued. While the big transition Mr. Kerry foresaw is likely a mirage, a simple cease-fire between the regime and the non-jihadist rebels would be a major success. U.N. officials, for their part, are hoping the Geneva talks will lead to a lifting of government sieges. Yet Damascus and its backers show no sign of interest in a truce with rebel forces. On the contrary, they are pressing ahead with an offensive that has allowed them to recapture several rebel-held towns in both northern and southern Syria. The advances have been supported by heavy Russian bombing of civilian areas though Security Council Resolution 2254 explicitly demanded that such attacks cease. Moscow is meanwhile making demands likely intended to slow or sabotage the process. It has tried to exclude some Islamist groups backed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey, while pressing its own opposition delegation composed of figures acceptable to the Assads, including Syrian Kurds. In his zeal to start the talks, Mr. Kerry has repeatedly accommodated Russias demands such as dropping the requirement that the Assad clique be removed from power while failing to insist on even those conditions mandated by the Security Council, such as an end to the besiegement and bombing of civilians. Yet those are also the prerequisites for a workable political settlement. Rather than seeking to start the talks at any price, the United States should be working to create the conditions under which they can succeed. That will require giving the opposition the military support it needs to stop and reverse the Syrian-Russian military offensive. And it should mean insisting that as a starting point, the regimes starve-or-surrender blockades, and Russias bombing of hospitals and food stores, stop once and for all. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during a campaign event at at Roosevelt High on Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa. (Joshua Lott /for The Washington Post) Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders is in very good health, according to a letter from the attending physician in Congress released Thursday by Sanderss campaign. Brian P. Monahan, who said his office has served as the 74-year-old senators physician for 26 years, detailed a history of relatively minor medical procedures, including hernia repairs and the removal of a cyst from his vocal cord, and said Sanders has no history of cardiovascular disease. You are overall in very good health and active in your professional work, and recreational lifestyle without limitation, Monahan wrote in a single-page letter to the senator from Vermont dated Jan. 20. [Sanders says hes very healthy amid reports that Clinton ally is seeking medical records] If elected president, Sanders would be 75 on Inauguration Day, the oldest man to take the oath of office. Ronald Reagan, who currently holds that distinction, took office in 1981 a few days before his 70th birthday. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during a campaign event at at Roosevelt High on Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa. (Joshua Lott /for The Washington Post) Hillary Clinton, Sanderss chief Democratic rival, released a summary of her health records in July that concluded that the 68-year-old was in excellent physical condition. Earlier this month, Sanders pledged to release his records before the Iowa caucuses, which take place Monday. [Poll: Clinton leads nationally by double digits, but margin shrinks] In his letter to Sanders, Monahan said he had last examined the senator in November, at which time Sanders was 6 feet tall and weighed 179 pounds. The examination was normal, the doctor wrote. Monahan noted that over the years Sanders has been treated for conditions such as gout, mild hypercholesterolemia, diverticulitis, hypothyroidism, laryngitis, lumbar strain and superficial skin tumors. Sanders does not use tobacco and drinks alcohol infrequently, the letter said, also noting that his last colonoscopy was normal and that he is up to date on his vaccines. Ammon Bundy's attorney Mike Arnold, second from left, walks at the Narrows roadblock near Burns. Ore. The last four occupiers of a Malheur National Wildlife Refuge surrendered to authorities. The holdouts were the last remnants of a larger group that seized the wildlife refuge nearly six weeks ago, demanding that the government turn over the land to locals and release two ranchers imprisoned for setting fires. Feb. 11, 2016 Ammon Bundy's attorney Mike Arnold, second from left, walks at the Narrows roadblock near Burns. Ore. The last four occupiers of a Malheur National Wildlife Refuge surrendered to authorities. The holdouts were the last remnants of a larger group that seized the wildlife refuge nearly six weeks ago, demanding that the government turn over the land to locals and release two ranchers imprisoned for setting fires. Thomas Boyd, The Oregonian/AP The armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge ended after 41 tumultuous days, as the final occupants surrendered. Cliven Bundy, father of the groups leader and himself a veteran of armed standoffs, was arrested as he arrived in Portland. Federal agents on Wednesday sealed off an Oregon wildlife refuge that remained occupied by armed protesters after one of the most prominent occupiers was killed in a shootout with authorities, escalating a month-long confrontation over federal land rights in the West. FBI and state officials set up checkpoints and roadblocks around Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, calling on those still inside to leave. The sudden crackdown followed Tuesdays arrests of eight people who were among a small group of men and women who took control of the federal facility in early January. A ninth occupier, LaVoy Finicum, was fatally shot at a traffic stop after refusing to surrender, authorities said. Even as federal officials defended their response as measured and deliberate, they did not detail what additional steps were being taken to end the standoff in a remote swath of southeastern Oregon, once best known for its birdwatching. Meanwhile, the groups leader, Ammon Bundy, who was among those arrested, encouraged the heavily armed people left inside the refuge to pull out. To those remaining at the refuge, I love you. Let us take this fight from here. Please stand down. Go home and hug your families, Bundy said in a statement read by his attorney. It was not immediately clear whether Bundys words would have any effect. Initially, at least, the remaining occupiers gave no sign of backing down. Right now, were doing fine, Jason Patrick, an occupier who remained at the refuge, told The Washington Post in a telephone interview. Were just trying to figure out how a dead cowboy equals peaceful resolution. Patrick would not say how many people remained there with him. Three hundred miles away in Portland, Bundy and six of the seven other people arrested were brought Wednesday to a federal courtroom, where they heard the charges against them: conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from performing their official duties through force, intimidation or threats. Their attorneys asked the judge to release them on bail. But U.S. Magistrate Judge Stacie F. Beckerman refused, saying that the defendants posed a flight risk and that they should be kept imprisoned to prevent them from rejoining the occupation at the wildlife refuge. They remain held in the Multnomah County jail. The court appearance came nearly a month after the group took over the refuge, aiming to support two local ranchers sentenced to prison over arson charges. The confrontation has drawn new attention to long-standing frustrations with federal management of land in the West, where the government is the main landlord across much of the region. The quiet court hearing belied the violence that erupted Tuesday on a remote Oregon highway after some of the occupiers had left the refuge. Five were arrested, including Bundy. But gunfire erupted, leaving one occupier dead. The FBI and Oregon State Police have declined to say how many shots were fired or who fired them, or to officially identify the deceased. But a government official said LaVoy Finicum, a spokesman for the group who had previously said he would rather die than go to jail, was fatally shot after refusing orders to give up. The occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon continues, even after a shootout with authorities and arrests. These are the key people involved. (Claritza Jimenez/The Washington Post) On Wednesday, a simple sign along that road read Road closed and blocked access to the refuge headquarters about three miles away. About half a mile past the sign, law enforcement officers were gathered. Three other people tied to the standoff were later arrested in Oregon and Arizona. The arrests come amid weeks of mounting pressure from the local community to end the siege, which closed local schools and businesses. Federal officials have not explained why they suddenly chose to act, after weeks with no visible law enforcement presence around the refuge. Occupiers came and went as they pleased, with the groups leaders freely leaving the refuge for meetings with residents and law enforcement officials. The FBI put the blame for the roadside violence squarely on the occupiers. They had ample opportunity to leave the refuge peacefully, Greg Bretzing, special agent in charge of the FBIs Portland division, said at a news conference. And as the FBI and our partners have clearly demonstrated, actions are not without consequences. He said that the arrests constituted the first steps to bring this occupation to a conclusion and that authorities were working to empty the refuge of those who continue to illegally occupy the land. A senior U.S. law enforcement official elaborated on the FBIs thinking, saying the bureau wanted to avoid a repeat of past sieges involving anti-government protesters that ended violently in Waco, Tex., and Ruby Ridge, Idaho. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said there was no need to act more hastily because the occupation involves empty buildings in an isolated area, no hostages and no one being directly threatened. This was a very, very good outcome, the official said. The authorities took action after state and local leaders made it clear that the prolonged standoff was tearing the community apart. As far back as Jan. 6, residents at a town hall meeting asked law enforcement to do more to shut down the occupation, while local ranchers offered to ride to the refuge on horseback and ask the occupiers to leave. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) wrote a letter to federal officials urging a swift resolution to the situation, and Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward seemed Wednesday to channel the emotions of a community exhausted by events. If we have issues with the way things are going in the government, we have a responsibility as citizens to act on those in an appropriate manner, Ward said as he nearly choked up at the news conference. We dont arm up. We dont arm up and rebel. . . . This cant happen in America, and it cant happen in Harney County. But Ward expressed mixed emotions about the results of the roadside arrests and violence. Im disappointed that a traffic stop yesterday that was supposed to bring peaceful resolution to this ended badly, he said. It didnt have to happen. We all make choices in life. Sometimes our choices go bad. The standoff has divided residents and sparked fear after some complained of harassment by Bundys supporters. At least one business shut its doors last night out of concern for employees safety and their ability to navigate roadblocks to get home. They didnt accomplish anything, Primrose Truesdell said of the occupiers. Her husband, Ken, echoed her thoughts between sips of coffee at the Doughnut Hole in downtown Burns. No one wanted them here. They can go back to wherever they came from. Id wave them goodbye, Ken Truesdell said, amid tables that buzzed with talk of the arrests. Conservationists and public officials expressed relief at the arrests, with Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) applauding the law enforcement response. I am pleased that the FBI has listened to the concerns of the local community and responded to the illegal activity occurring in Harney County by outside extremists, he said in a statement. The standoff unfolded as the latest chapter of the Sagebrush Rebellion, a decades-long movement that challenges federal control of public land across the West. The group occupying the refuge calls itself Citizens for Constitutional Freedom and took over the facility on Jan. 2 after a Burns rally protesting the imprisonment of Oregon ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond, who were told to report back to prison after a federal judge ruled that the sentences they had served for arson were insufficient. Ammon Bundy the 40-year-old son of Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher who was involved in a 2014 standoff with federal officials over grazing fees and his supporters had vowed to occupy the refuge until vast tracks of public lands are released to local control. At the court hearing in downtown Portland, seven of the defendants heard the charges against them. Bundy and his 43-year-old brother, Ryan, along with fellow occupiers Ryan Payne, Brian Cavalier, Shawna Cox, Joseph OShaughnessy and conservative YouTube journalist Peter Santilli, appeared in light-blue scrubs. Ryan Bundy greeted the judge with a hearty Good afternoon! How are you today? They are set to appear in court again Friday for a detention hearing, at which the court will decide whether any of them should be released. The eighth defendant, 32-year-old former Marine reservist Jon Ritzheimer, turned himself in to police in Arizona on Tuesday and will appear in court separately. Adam Goldman and Sarah Kaplan in Washington and Leah Sottile in Portland, Ore., contributed to this report. Republican presidential candidates weighed in on immigration, the Islamic State, criminal justice reform and of course Donald Trump at the Fox News debate in Des Moines on Thursday. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) Republican presidential candidates weighed in on immigration, the Islamic State, criminal justice reform and of course Donald Trump at the Fox News debate in Des Moines on Thursday. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) The first Republican debate without Donald Trump unfolded differently than the others. It was quieter, more cordial and far more predictable, as the politicians onstage often retreated into talking points and rehashed bits of stump speeches without a bombastic billionaire to throw them off their game. The nights most interesting moments largely revolved around Sen. Ted Cruz, who played the front-runners role as Trump boycotted the debate because of a running feud with Fox News Channel, which hosted the event. Rival Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) said that Cruzs campaign was built on a lie, because Cruz (Tex.) was not honest about his position changes on the subject of immigration. Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) said Cruz had an authenticity problem. [Debate transcript, annotated: Who said what and what it meant] And Cruz was pressed about an issue where he has been criticized by the popular and long-serving Republican governor of corn-growing Iowa: Cruzs call to phase out the federal mandate to use ethanol in fuels. I dont believe that Washington should be picking winners and losers. And I believe that there should be no mandates and no subsidies whatsoever for any kind of fuel, Cruz said. His call for the elimination of the ethanol mandate, which boosts purchase of corn, brought an attack by Iowas governor, Terry Branstad. Cruz sought to reframe his opposition to the ethanol standard as part of a broader rollback of government regulations, which would eventually boost the corn-ethanol industry along with everyone else. He mentioned an even more obscure issue at least, obscure outside of Iowa which was the ethanol blend wall. That is a limit on the percentage of ethanol that can be blended into fuel, set by the Environmental Protection Agency and supported by oil companies. The logic of the wall is that a greater amount of ethanol may harm auto parts. I will tear down the EPAs blend wall, which will enable ethanol to expand its market share. [Trump wasnt onstage, but he was still front-and-center] Trump himself sought to overshadow the entire event, holding a rival event across town meant to honor veterans. He also dominated the news during the debate, after Fox News charged that Trump had asked for a $5 million donation to his charities in return for his appearance at the debate. Late Thursday evening, Trump responded with a statement that didnt specifically deny he had asked Fox News for what the network called a quid pro quo. The event tonight, which raised more than $6 million dollars, and in many respects turned out to be bigger than the debate, was for the Veterans. If FOX wanted to join in that effort and make a contribution Mr. Trump would have welcomed that, the statement said, in part. It concluded by saying that Mr. Trump won tonight as well, even without showing up. [Undercard debaters lambaste media coverage of no-show Trump] It was unclear whether Trumps boycott will actually pay off: That may have to wait until Monday, when Iowans finally go to the caucuses. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio talk after Thursday nights debate in Des Moines. (Chris Carlson/AP) But his absence showed the rest of the GOP field what their race might have been like, without this bombastic and unexpected outsider. For one thing, there was a lot more of what politicians call pivoting: taking a dangerous, difficult question, and responding with a safe, poll-tested answer. Asked about their own issues, candidates turned quickly to subjects they all agreed on: The Islamic State must be defeated. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton cannot be trusted. One of her very first acts as president may be to pardon herself, Rubio said. The days of the Clintons in public housing are over, said New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Those got good laughs, but they did little to differentiate those candidates in a crowded field of candidates, all chasing Trump. One of the most memorable statements of the night came from retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who had been a largely quiet presence. Carson was asked for a closing statement. He responded by reciting the Preamble to the Constitution, one of the most beautiful and succinct explanations of what America is about. Folks, its not too late, Carson said after that. Enough said. An image from a commercial in which the super PAC Right to Rise, which supports former Florida governor Jeb Bush, compares the positions of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to a weather vane rotating with the wind. The super PAC supporting former Florida governor Jeb Bush plans to keep up its advertising assault on onetime protege Marco Rubio and other establishment-friendly GOP presidential candidates, ignoring calls from many Republicans to focus on Donald Trump instead, according to people familiar with its strategy. The outcome of efforts by Right to Rise which raised a record $103 million in the first half of 2015 will serve as a key test of whether deep-pocketed super PACs can alter the dynamics of a presidential race. The groups spending $64 million so far on ads and mailers has provoked a sharp backlash among allies of the senator from Florida and some top GOP donors, who say it should be aiming its substantial firepower at front-runner Trump or the Democratic candidates. The super PAC still plans to eventually shift its focus to Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who are leading in the polls heading into Mondays Iowa caucuses. But the pair will not become the groups main targets until it can help Bush clear the field of other rivals, officials said. We are the only organization that has spent a considerable sum against Donald Trump, and Jeb Bush is the only candidate who has had the guts to take him on, PAC spokesman Paul Lindsay said in a statement. But this is still a jump ball among the other candidates in the field, and we think its important that Republican primary voters have information on all of their records before making their decision. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush in Des Moines. (Charlie Neibergall/AP) The groups strategy can be seen in a new ad debuting in Iowa this week, which seeks to frame the race as a competition over who is best to take on the two poll leaders. Cant stomach Trump or Cruz? Look at three governors, an announcer says at the start of a spot, which is scheduled to begin airing in some parts of the state Thursday. The commercial goes on to attack the records of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who like Bush and Rubio are vying for the votes of mainstream Republicans. Jeb Bush: a proven conservative you can trust, the ad concludes. It remains to be seen whether Right to Rises muscle will be able to boost Bush. In Iowa, where the group has spent at least $14 million to place ads on TV, radio, websites and billboards, Bush remains mired near the bottom of the large GOP field. The latest surveys of likely caucus participants show Rubio with roughly 13 percent support, unchanged from last month and placing him third, behind Trump and Cruz. Bush stands in fifth place with about 4 percent, down several points from last fall. Nationally, the super PAC claims that it has spent about $5 million so far attacking Trump in television and digital ads, a figure that could not be verified in Federal Election Commission reports. But Right to Rise recently has devoted much of its arsenal to attacking Rubio, whom many Republican donors and activists think is best positioned to defeat Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. The barrage against Rubio began last year and has focused mostly on his frequent absences from the Senate. A recent spot featured a cartoon of Rubio twisting on a weather vane as an announcer described his shifting position on immigration reform. The super PAC began airing an ad in Iowa this week that focuses on Rubios use of a Florida GOP charge card he held between 2005 and 2008 to pay for personal expenses. Rubio later repaid the charges, totaling more than $22,000, and he publicly disclosed the details late last year. The ad charges that because of the spending, Hes just not ready to be president. Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida in West Des Moines. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters) The attacks have caught the attention of some Republican voters here. At a Tuesday town hall in Oskaloosa, the first question that Rubio faced was about the Right to Rise weather-vane ad. A PAC is attacking your involvement in Gang of Eight. Please clarify that, asked Madonna Bowie of Oskaloosa, referring to the bipartisan Senate group, which included Rubio, that pushed for an immigration bill. Rubio responded that, as president, he would not pursue the comprehensive approach he backed in 2013. The attack ads, he said, are designed to get people riled up about something well fix when Im president. In an interview after the event, Bowie said that she plans to support Rubio but she was hoping for a different answer that would assuage her concerns. I wanted him to kind of go into depth about the whole, the Gang of Eight, what the bill was and explaining why he said what he did later. Just to clarify for people, Bowie said. On Wednesday, Rubio said the attacks are almost free advertising for Hillary Clinton. If you add up all the money thats been spent against every other candidate, it does not equal to whats been spent against me over close to $30 million now of attack ads, mostly from Jeb Bush, Rubio told an Iowa radio show. No one else has faced anything close to that, not Donald Trump or Ted Cruz or anyone else. Mike Murphy, a longtime adviser to Bush who serves as the chief strategist of Right to Rise, declined to comment. Exactly how much the group has spent against Rubio cannot be determined precisely from its FEC filings. In all, Right to Rise has reported spending $64 million so far on ads and mailers to bolster Bush and go after his opponents, including at least $15.3 million on spots that swipe at Rubio and other Republican candidates. But the reports do not reflect new ads that may have been swapped on the air for other spots initially reported. As of Tuesday, the super PAC has spent at least $14 million in Iowa, $26.5 million in New Hampshire and $9.5 million in South Carolina. While there has been ambivalence among Right to Rise donors about the groups aggressive hits against Rubio, some of the groups major backers said that they remain confident in its strategy. In campaigns, there is always a lot of second-guessing: They should have done this, they should have done that, said Florida-based investor Howard Leach, a former ambassador to France who gave Right to Rise $100,000. My view is that the professionals running the PAC know what theyre doing. Although Leach said the attacks against Rubio are not attractive, he chalked them up to the typical rough-and-tumble nature of a campaign. My advice to Senator Rubio was, If you want to be president of the United States, you should be governor of Florida, he said. I like and admire Senator Rubio, but I think hes inexperienced. Rubio supporters, though, are bristling at the barrage coming at him from the pro-Bush super PAC. I dont think it has any impact, but I do think its counterproductive, said Marc Goldman, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based investor supporting Rubios campaign, who said the firepower should be aimed at the Democrats. A better approach, he said, would be clarifying what the problems are and how you would be the best one to turn it around, rather than knock somebody. I just think its not helpful. Bush, who helped Right to Rise raise money before he became an official candidate, has focused relentlessly on attacking Trump on the stump, with little success. But voters have taken notice of the super PACs focus on Rubio. Campaigning a few weeks ago in Ankeny, a woman asked him to explain his relationship with the senator. I like Marco. We live almost in the same Zip code, and I admire him: Hes a great politician, a great speaker. Hes a great talent, Bush said. But has he ever had a chance to make a tough decision? I dont know. Think about it. Gold reported from Washington. Sean Sullivan in Oskaloosa, Iowa, and Anu Narayanswamy and Scott Clement in Washington contributed to this report. Boys in Chandauli, India, use laptops at a Community Information Resource Center, which in addition to books provides free Internet access to the rural community. (Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Post) Connecting people to the Internet is not easy in this impoverished farming district of wheat and millet fields, where working camels can be glimpsed along roads that curve through the low-slung Aravalli Hills. So when Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg helicoptered in about a year ago to visit a small computer lab and tout Internet for all, Osama Manzar, director of Indias Digital Empowerment Foundation, was thrilled. But when Manzar tried Facebooks limited free Internet service, he was bitterly disappointed. The app, called Free Basics, is a pared-down version of Facebook with other services such as weather reports and job listings. I feel betrayed not only betrayed but upset and angry, Manzar said. He said were going to solve the problem with access and bandwidth. But Facebook is not the Internet. Zuckerberg launched his sweeping Internet.org initiative in 2013 as a way to provide 4 billion people in the developing world with Web access, which he says he sees as a basic human right. But the initiative has hit a major snag in India, where in recent months Free Basics has been embroiled in controversy with critics saying that the app, which provides limited access to the Web, does a disservice to the poor and violates the principles of net neutrality, which holds that equal access to the Internet should be unfettered to all. Activist groups such as Save the Internet, professors from leading universities and tech titans such as Nandan Nilekani, the co-founder of Infosys, have spoken out against it. Another well-known Indian entrepreneur dubbed it poor Internet for poor people. The debate escalated in recent weeks after Indias telecommunications regulator suspended Free Basics as it weighs whether such plans are fair, with new rules expected by the end of the month. A week later, Free Basics was banned in Egypt with little explanation, prompting concern that the backlash could spread to other markets. More recently, Google pulled out of the app in Zambia after a trial period. An estimated 15 million people are using Free Basics in 37 countries, including 1 million in India. [Indias Modi wants to woo Silicon Valley, but privacy fears grow at home] Its a very important test case for what will be Indias network neutrality regime, said Sunil Abraham of the Center for Internet and Society in Bangalore. Indias debate could affect the way other countries address the question of whether it is fair for Internet service providers to price websites differently. The U.S. Federal Communications Commissions rules on net neutrality went into effect only in June. Officials at Facebook launched an advertising blitz to counteract the negative publicity. Who could possibly be against this? Zuckerberg wondered in a Times of India editorial on Dec. 28. I think weve been a bit surprised by the strong reaction, said Chris Daniels, Facebooks vice president for Internet.org. Fundamentally, the reason for the surprise is that the program is doing good. Its bringing people online who are moving onto the broader Internet. India, a country of 1.2 billion, has the second-highest number of Internet users in the world, but an estimated 80 percent of the population does not have Internet access. Indias tech-savvy prime minister, Narendra Modi, is trying to combat this with an ambitious Digital India plan to link 250,000 village centers with fiber-optic cable and extend mobile coverage. He has turned to the Indian tech community as well as Silicon Valley for help, securing an agreement with Google to provide free WiFi in railway stations. India has 130 million Facebook users, second only to the United States, and is a key market as the social-media giant looks to expand beyond the developed world, where its growth has slowed. If Facebook manages to get another half a billion users in India, thats a valuable set of eyeballs to sell to a political party or corporation, Abraham said. Boys play games on laptops at a Community Information Resource Center in Chandauli, India. (Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Post) The Community Information Resource Center in Chandauli provides free Internet access to the rural community. (Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Post) [Is India the next frontier for Facebook?] Facebook has long said that its program is about altruism, not eyeballs. But it does reap new customers. Those who buy a SIM card from Facebooks local mobile partner, Reliance Communications, are then prompted to pay for additional data. About 40 percent who sign up for Free Basics buy a data plan to move to the wider Web after 30 days, Daniels said. The service is still running despite the India suspension. A Reliance spokesman said it is in testing mode and is not being promoted. The thing people forget about Free Basics is that its intended to be a temporary transition for people to give them a taste of the Internet and sign up. Its a marketing program for the carrier in some sense, said David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect. But he added: The idea that its some kind of alternative Internet thats a discriminatory gesture to the poor is the prevailing view among the Indian intelligentsia. Its fundamentally misunderstood. Facebook has pledged to open up to new scrutiny the selection process for companies with new applications, Daniels said. That is a response to concerns by many in Indias tech community that Facebooks process put Indias fledgling start-ups at a disadvantage. The projects proponents say that Indias needs are so great it cannot afford to suspend one program that could help. Mahesh Uppal, a telecommunications consultant, notes that more than 10 percent of the country does not have mobile phone coverage and that Indias progress in extending fiber-optic cable to village centers is proceeding at a glacial pace. Modi had set a goal of linking all 250,000 by 2016, but only 27,000 have cable so far and it is ready for use in only 3,200, according to a government report. In comparison, some 80 percent of Chinas villages are linked by broadband. [Inside the Indian temple that draws Americas tech titans] A street view of the neighborhood surrounding a small Community Information Resource Center in Alwar, India. (Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Post) Umer Farukh, 43, is a musician who donated space for the small computer center in Alwar, India. (Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Post) Umer Farukhs daughter-in-law Shehnaz Khan, 22, a mother of one, is studying for a liberal-arts degree. (Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Post) In Alwar district in the northern state of Rajasthan, many remember when Zuckerberg came to visit but fewer know about Free Basics. Ive heard its free and by Facebook and you dont have to pay for it, said Umer Farukh, 43, a folk musician. But I dont think Facebook should control it. The Internet should be for everybody. Farukh has only been computer literate for two years, but hes already emailing and using YouTube to post videos and promote his band. Hes become such a proponent that he has donated space for one of Manzars computer centers part of a government initiative to build cyber-hubs in minority communities and encouraged the female members of his family to take classes, which is rare in his conservative community. Farukh says that challenges to connecting India go far beyond data plans and fiber-optic cable or the government broadband that often sputters out. Wages are low, and hours are long. Only about half of the women in his state are literate, and about a quarter of the young women in his neighborhood are kept at home and not educated. This place is very backward, he said. India as a society is lagging far behind in terms of Internet. In the small nearby community of Roja Ka Baas, ringed by fields of blooming mustard greens, residents are still awaiting the opening of their planned WiFi center. They are struggling along on cheap mobile phones with slow 2G spectrum until then, they said. Sakir Khan, 14, said that once the Internet finally arrived in this village, the first thing he would do would be to sign up for Facebook. Farheen Fatima and Subuhi Parvez contributed to this report. Read more: Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world Indias huge need for electricity is a problem for the planet Risk-averse India embraces Silicon Valley-style start-ups Why 2015 will be the year of Indias next technology revolution Sun Wenlin and Hu Mingliang are the first gay couple in China to have their same-sex marriage lawsuit accepted by a Chinese court. Here is their message. (Emily Rauhala/The Washington Post) Sun Wenlin and Hu Mingliang are the first gay couple in China to have their same-sex marriage lawsuit accepted by a Chinese court. Here is their message. (Emily Rauhala/The Washington Post) Cuddled in the back corner of a teahouse, their fingers interlaced, Sun Wenlin and Hu Mingliang tell the story of how they found each other. They connected online in 2014. They met. They knew. It was love at first sight, Sun said. He was lonely, I was lonely, so we got together, Hu said. A year and a half later, they are very much still together. And now their love story may become a legal landmark. Sun Wenlin, left, and Hu Mingliang pose in Changsha, Hunan province, on Wednesday. They are the couple behind the first same-sex marriage case accepted by a Chinese court. (Emily Rauhala/The Washington Post) Sun, who works for a tech company, and Hu, a security guard, want to get married. On their anniversary in June, they walked to the local civil affairs bureau to try to register. They were turned away. Having survived the angst and isolation of growing up gay in central China, having fallen in love, they were not about to give up. So they decided to sue. There have been calls for marriage equality in China, but theirs is the first suit accepted by a court a point of pride for the couple and a milestone for the gay rights movement. Though victory is far from certain a hearing scheduled for Thursday was postponed on short notice their case may pave the way for similar lawsuits. It has also started a national conversation about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. [Chinese textbooks are wildly homophobic. One student is fighting back.] Li Tingting, an activist who held an unofficial marriage ceremony with her partner last year, called the case very inspirational and a good step. Compared to a decade ago, LGBT issues like gay marriage are getting way more attention, she said. Growing up in the Chinese heartland, Hu and Sun could have used gay role models or just basic information about what it means, or could mean, to be gay. Hu was born in 1979 and raised not far from Mao Zedongs home town in a loving but traditional family. He knew he was attracted to men, but he did not know what gay meant. I thought I was the only one in the world, he said. All of his early relationships were secret. Marriage was mandatory, so much so that even his lovers tried to set him up with girls. In 2008, he told his mother he liked men. Her answer: Are you insane? Sun, who is younger, had the benefit of the Internet. At 14, he found his way over Chinas Great Firewall, discovering a vibrant gay community, as well as information about LGBT rights. But he struggled to come out to his family. When he did, his father kicked him. I punched him right back, he said. [Gay activists in China sue over electroshock therapy used to cure homosexuality] China decriminalized gay sex in the late 1990s, but stigma persists. Many people dont discuss their gender or sexual identity with their family, and some feel its safer to play it straight at work. Hu and Sun see their case as a public stand against that silence. We have to be brave, Sun said. They also want to push the courts. Their suit is part of a nascent push to use Chinese law to advance gay rights. Amid an extraordinary crackdown on civil rights lawyers and their associates, the LGBT community is finding creative ways to get cases heard and to get people talking. In 2014, a Chinese court ordered a clinic to compensate a man who underwent electroshock therapy designed to cure homosexuality. Since Chinese law does not protect people based on their gender or sexual identity, it was couched as a commercial dispute. Although the award was small about $550 the impact was huge. News reports challenged the junk science and homophobic assumptions behind gay conversion therapies. The issue was later mentioned at a U.N. review of Chinas torture record, prompting a Chinese official to acknowledge real challenges facing the countrys gay community. [This gay rights activist is suing the Chinese censors who banned his film] In September, filmmaker Fan Popo sued a government body after his documentary about mothers and their gay and lesbian children was pulled from major websites. The case turned on disclosure rule, not gay rights, but by taking on the censors he called attention to the dearth of gay stories in television and film. Another recent case challenged Chinas Ministry of Education on textbooks that treated homosexuality as a disorder. The complaint resulted in a sit-down between LGBT activists and officials in a Beijing courthouse. While they met, a small group of supporters waited outside the court to share their experiences with members of the Chinese and foreign media. The lawyer in that case, Wang Zhenyu, said the strategy seems to be working. Its a trend, and its a good one, he said. But taking on the system isnt easy or safe. Sun and Hu have been visited by police and encouraged, by phone, to drop the case, they said. Their first lawyer resigned because of pressure from his firm. Their new lawyer, Shi Fulong, fought hard to get the case accepted only to see it postponed with two days notice over an apparent scheduling conflict for the defense. Im angry, Sun said. Why couldnt they keep their promise? Hu asked. But if it means securing a future together, they will push ahead. Over the past 10 years, they have seen their family members accept the idea that two men can meet and fall in love. This year, they will spend the Spring Festival holiday with Suns mother, who no longer considers him crazy and plans to welcome her prospective son-in-law by preparing all of his favorite dishes with his preferred type of cooking oil. Suns parents have also come around, he said. If they can change their views, cant China? Sipping the last of their tea, they said they plan to fight until it does. Weve got a lifetime, Sun said. Yes, Hu said, nodding. Gu Jinlu in Changsha and Xu Yangjingjing in Beijing contributed to this report. Read more: Pursuing critics, China reaches across borders. And nobody is stopping it. The last time Chinas economy was growing this slowly, Home Alone was in theaters Christians in China feel full force of authorities repression vijay pindrop Vijay Balasubramaniyan was on vacation in India when he bought a new suit. At 3 a.m., his phone rang. It was the bank, or so the person on the other end of the line told him. They wanted to confirm that Balasubramaniyan made the transaction...but first, he had to give them his account number and Social Security number. He had no idea which transaction they were referring to he'd been using the same credit card his whole trip. And the bank (or a random person calling him in the middle of the night) wouldn't tell him. After 30 minutes of back and forth, Balasubramaniyan was able to get them to cancel the transaction. A few days later, he returned to get his suit, only to find out that the purchase had been reversed. It was infuriating that his bank had no way to verify his identity other than asking him for sensitive information, and he had no idea of verifying the bank's identity either. Balasubramaniyan spent six years working on his Ph.D. at the Georgia Institute of Technology and studying the traits of wanted versus unwanted phone calls. In 2011, he launched Pindrop Security, as the culmination of his experience. "What we're doing here is trying to identify the origins of a call purely from the audio you're receiving at your end," Balasubramaniyan told Business Insider It's now used in three out of the top four banks to help detect fraud, and in a rare move, has received investments from both Google Ventures (now simply GV) and Google Capital. The company plans to announce today a new $75 million Series C investment, led by Google Capital, bringing its total raised to more than $122 million. How phone fraud works Robbing a bank used to mean walking in with a gun and walking out with a bag of money, Balasubramaniyan said. But in 2016, the rules have changed. Now hackers target banks and other organizations to steal people's identities and money. And increasingly, they're doing it over the phone. Story continues "These fraudsters are not only good at getting a lot of this information, but they're also masterful at socially engineering these conversations," Balasubramaniyan said. "One of my favorite calls is that the agent asks 'What is your mother's maiden name?' and the fraudster says 'Well my dad remarried twice, so can I have three guesses?' Even if your dad marries twice, you should only have one mom. It doesn't make sense. But, on the last guess, the fraudster guesses 'Smith' which is right, and so he gains access and wires $19,000 to a bank in Europe." At that point, it's human versus human to get into the system, but Pindrop wants to change that. call center agents The company has spent the last five years building up a digital library of audio traits that can pinpoint where and what kind of call is coming through. If the service or the geography seems like an anomaly, or if it looks like the same kind of phone print that it's picked up over and over again, then Pindrop can flag the call as a possible risk. For instance, banks might see a phone call come in with an Atlanta phone number, but Pindrop can recognize that it's actually a Skype call coming in from Nigeria because it's got "packet loss," so "pindrop"-sized bits of audio drop out. (That's where the name came from.) With its new funding, Balasubramaniyan wants to expand overseas, where phone fraud is both more common and more costly. And he says that Pindrop's next product will focus not on identifying the bad guys, but on verifying the good ones too. Zooey Deschanel Siri iPhone The internet of things industry, including a future of connected watch, rings, and Amazon Echoes, are all increasingly reliant on voice. Giving anyone who can directly access the device license to operate it is only a growing threat. "The biggest problem is, as these things are moving to voice, there's no one providing security, trust, and identity to it," Balasubramaniyan said. NOW WATCH: The biggest security mistakes people make with online banking More From Business Insider Pope Francis leaves at the end of his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican. (Andrew Medichini/AP) The last time Italy tried to grant legal rights to same-sex couples, Pope Benedict XVI helped lead the charge that stopped it. But as Italian lawmakers opened debate Thursday on a new civil unions bill, the Vatican under Pope Francis is taking a very different approach. Passage of the legislation in the nation of 60 million would mark a milestone in the gay rights movement. Italy is the last country in Western Europe other than Vatican City to offer same-sex couples no legal rights, a position based on the Roman Catholic Churchs historic opposition to such unions. As Italy now undertakes its most serious effort yet to legalize civil unions, the more nuanced response of the Vatican in its own back yard is turning the bill into a test case for whether Franciss inclusive tone can translate to change on the ground. Some gay activists are hoping that the Vaticans light touch in Italy could help similar bills in other predominantly Catholic countries including the Philippines and in Central America, where same-sex couples have no legal rights. My impression is that the pope is determined not to be confrontational and fight this law, said Massimo Franco, a Vatican watcher and columnist for Italys Corriere della Sera. In Italy, the Catholic reaction to the measure has been split. Hundred of thousands of Italians including Catholics demonstrated last weekend in an unprecedented display of support for the bill. At the same time, the opposition led by conservative Catholic groups plans to stage a Family Day protest on Saturday aimed at stopping the legislation. [Vatican meeting reveals growing Catholic divide over divorce and homosexuality] Italian bishops and cardinals have largely sided with the opposition, rallying religious conservatives against it. Yet unlike in the last debate on civil unions, in 2007, the powerful Italian bishops conference is not directly sponsoring the protest scheduled for Saturday. More important, the Vatican under Francis has taken a largely hands-off approach. The Italian news media took note when Francis abruptly canceled a meeting with Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa, the president of the Italian bishops conference, after he publicly backed the Family Day protest. Meanwhile, Bishop Nunzio Galantino whom Francis appointed as secretary general of the Italian conference has offered a highly nuanced and somewhat novel position. In an interview with Corriere della Sera, he reiterated the Catholic teaching that marriage is between only a man and a woman, and he said he strongly opposes adoption rights for same-sex couples. But he also seemed to acknowledge societys obligation to recognize the growing presence of unions of a different kind. The state has a duty to give answers to everyone, respecting the common good first, Galantino said. A pope highly skilled at leaving his words open to interpretation, Francis has been hard to read a fact that some say is telling. Last week, Francis said that Octobers combative synod on the family clarified that, for the church, there cannot be any confusion between the family willed by God and other kinds of unions. Conservatives considered his words an endorsement of the opposition, while liberals took them to mean that the church does not view civil unions as marriage, making them potentially acceptable. Other observers noted that Francis who was speaking to a group of Vatican judges who mostly rule on annulments was not actually opining on the Italian debate at all. Pope Francis, right, blesses a newly wed couple at the Vatican. The Italian Senate plunges into a debate on proposed legislation to grant legal recognition to ''civil unions.'' (Andrew Medichini/AP) One thing is certain. Franciss approach differs radically from that of Benedict, his predecessor, who helped thwart the 2007 measure on civil unions in Italy. Back then, the Vatican aggressively lobbied Italian officials to stop the bill even as Benedict called for the Church and every public institution to defend the traditional family with political initiatives. [Not all gay Catholics are pleased about how Vatican priest came out of the closet] After the major synod on family issues last year didnt offer any entree for gay Catholics, gay activists in Italy consider the Vaticans hands-off approach promising. Although bishops and cardinals may be voicing their opposition, some activists argue that they have been undermined by the lack of explicit Vatican support. I believe the new pope has had a meaningful influence on the civil union debate, said Gabriele Piazzoni, secretary general of ARCIGAY, one of the largest gay activist groups in Italy. Its clear to everyone that the Holy See does not intend to openly support the call to arms coming from other Catholics in Italy. Conservative Catholics, however, have been heartened by the open opposition to the bill by influential Italian bishops, including Bagnasco, who heralded the upcoming Family Day protest as an initiative in defense of the family, of the full support of family which cannot be equated to any other institution or situation. Backed by the center-left government of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, the new Italian bill comes one year after the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of several same-sex Italian couples who said that Italy was violating their human rights by denying them legal benefits. Gay rights activists describe the bill as a compromise a pragmatic acknowledgment that full marriage rights probably would still fail in largely Catholic Italy. The law would grant gay couples most of the rights of heterosexual marriage. But adoption rights would be strictly limited to children who are the biological offspring of same-sex partners. In fact, the mere mention of any kind of adoption rights has become the largest point of contention. The government appears to have a comfortable majority on the bill in the lower house. But in the Senate, where a final vote is likely to come by early February, it faces a serious test. A quarter or more of the senators from Renzis Democratic Party appear set to vote against the measure if the adoption clause is kept, although the government could still manage to pass it with members of the opposition. The adoption clause may yet be dropped to save the bill something that gay Italians such as Andrea Rubera describe as a major setback if it happens. He and his partner both Italians living in Rome married in Canada, then worked with a surrogate to become fathers. His partner fathered twins, now 2, and Rubera fathered a 4-year-old daughter. Without adoption rights, however, they have no legal claim on each others biological children should Rubera or his partner become incapacitated or die. If the bill passes without adoption rights, it would be failure for us, a failure for Italy, Rubera said. Italy needs to grant us our basic human rights. Conservative Catholics, however, say Italy should continue to swim against the tide of gay rights in Western Europe. On these great issues regarding family, child-raising, parenthood, Italy should be proud to be what it is, of not necessarily aligning to the opinions and culture of the European countries, said Massimo Gandolfini, president of Lets Defend Our Children, a group sponsoring the Family Day protest. Stefano Pitrelli in Rome contributed to this report. Read more Vatican arrests two advisers over alleged links to leaked documents New books allege mismanagement, excess at the Vatican Yes, the pope has a police force. Heres how the Vatican lays down the law. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Paris on Thursday as part of a European trip to drum up business deals. (Pool photo by Michel Euler/via AP) Wrapping up his four-day trip to Italy and France, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday added French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroen and aircraft giant Airbus to a growing profile of European companies seeking to return to Iran. The quick bids for footholds in Iran less than two weeks after international sanctions were rolled back reflect the eagerness in Europe to tap into the large Iranian consumer market and get a head start on potential rivals from the United States and elsewhere. But the multibillion-dollar deals carved out in Italy and France have also stirred opposition from rights groups and activists. Some claim that Irans crackdowns on political dissent, its anti-Israel diatribes and other internal pressures, such as rising executions, should be addressed as part of any new business outreach. [Irans president asks pope for prayers] Most international sanctions on Iran were lifted earlier this month under a pact with world powers that reined in Tehrans nuclear capabilities. At the same time, under a separate arrangement, the United States freed or cleared 21 Iranians in U.S. sanctions-related cases, while Iran released five American prisoners, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian. Hassan Rouhani, Iran's president, left, speaks during a joint press conference with Francois Hollande, France's president, right, after a meeting at Elysee Palace in Paris. (Christophe Morin/Bloomberg) Rouhani, accompanied by a 120-member delegation of political and commercial leaders, pointed to the business deals as validation of his push for the nuclear accord, which angered some hard-liners in Iran who saw it as too great a concession to the West. In France, Peugeot announced a joint venture with carmaker Iran Khodro to produce 200,000 cars a year at a plant near Tehran that will also get an upgrade. Peugeot had a major stake in Irans car market before sanctions. [Italians are angered by nude cover-up for Rouhani visit. Its not new.] Airbus, meanwhile, said it reached a deal to sell 118 aircraft to state-run Iran Air, including 12 A380 super-jumbos. It gives the Boeing rival a significant jump back into a market in desperate need of new planes. On some routes, Iran continues to fly Boeing models built before the 1979 Islamic revolution. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said other agreements were expected in the health, agriculture and environment sectors, without giving further details. Frances state rail company, SNCF, also announced a deal with Iran. A French diplomatic source, cited by the Reuters news agency, placed the total value of the French pacts at $16 billion. If confirmed, that would bring the total agreements during Rouhanis trip to more than $33 billion. The attraction of the Iranian market is clear. The country, with about 80 million people, has a young and well-educated population, and its middle class is among the most vibrant and product-hungry in the region. Irans needs are enormous, said Pierre Gattaz, head of Frances Medef employers association. The country is not starting from scratch. Its got a very educated workforce, a real development potential. In Italy, companies including steel and industrial firms signed a total of about $18 billion in deals with Iran during Rouhanis visit. Read more: Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world A Red Crescent aid convoy enters Madaya, Syria, on Jan. 14. Since then, additional deliveries of food and medicine have been blocked by President Bashar al-Assads government. (Omar Sanadiki/Reuters) Snow has blanketed the Syrian town of Madaya, and the bone-chilling temperatures have compounded the suffering of thousands of people at risk of starvation there because of a months-long government siege, residents and aid workers say. Earlier this month, Madaya grabbed headlines when a U.N.-backed agreement permitted aid convoys to bring desperately needed food and medicine to the town, a strategically located opposition stronghold about 15 miles west of the capital, Damascus. But additional humanitarian deliveries have been obstructed by the government of President Bashar al-Assad, whose forces have blockaded the more than 20,000 people in Madaya since summer, U.N. officials and aid workers say. And residents say people are continuing to die from starvation-related causes. We were starving before the U.N. came here, and were still starving, and its getting colder and colder, said Abdullah, 25, a resident. [Surrounded by suffering, death in a besieged Syrian town] Humanitarian workers who visited the town with the convoy this month described appalling conditions, including about 400 people identified as requiring urgent medical care. But most of those people have not been evacuated for medical treatment, and some of them are among the nine people who have since died from severe shortages of food and a lack of medical care, Abdullah said. The issue of hundreds of thousands of people across Syria living under sieges imposed by the government and rebel fighters has added another obstacle to ending the conflict. The siege of Madaya has raised more questions about the U.N. humanitarian relief effort in the Syrian conflict, which has left more than 250,000 people dead and displaced millions. Government sieges are more intense and affect more people in Syria than those imposed by the armed opposition. But opposition activists accuse U.N. humanitarian officials of acquiescing to Assads government, which routinely denies permission to deliver aid to besieged opposition areas. In a strongly worded statement to the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, the United Nations humanitarian chief, Stephen OBrien, called out warring parties to the conflict over the sieges. He expressed particular concern for Madaya, which he said represented only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the extent of suffering in Syria caused by the sieges. He also said the government has failed to respond to roughly 75 percent of U.N. requests to deliver aid to besieged areas. As Assads government continues what opponents describe as a long-running practice of attempting to starve disloyal populations into submission, U.N. officials are increasingly questioning the world bodys strategy of providing aid. I think its really time to change our approach. Weve been soft in trying to negotiate deals over the last five years, and it just hasnt been working, said one U.N. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of a lack of authorization to discuss the issue. [Food aid reaches starving Syrian town under siege] For people in Madaya, the failure to end the siege has led to growing desperation. Images on social media purporting to show the towns suffering, including of bone-thin boys and sickly elderly people, have brought international attention to the issue. About two dozen people starved to death before the convoy arrived this month, aid workers and residents said. Now, residents say they are rationing the recently received food aid, which is supposed to last a month from the date of delivery, as prices for edible goods start to soar again. After dropping temporarily, the price of two pounds of rice is more than $100, residents say. Meat, fresh fruits and vegetables are not available. All the women here are suffering from anemia, said Umm Omar, 40, who runs a community group for women in the town. There are so many complications for women who are giving birth. We dont have the right doctors to deal with these issues, said Umm Omar, using a traditional nickname. She asked that her full name not be used, fearing retaliation from the Syrian government. A lack of electricity and diminishing supplies of firewood have raised Jinans concerns for the health of her 12-year-old son, Jamil, and 9-year-old daughter, Rama. They cant heat their home, and they are already rationing the food brought in this month, with each of them eating one meal a day, she said. This food helps, but its not enough to last and its not nutritious. We need meat and vegetables, said Jinan, who because of safety concerns spoke on the condition that only her first name be used. I try to eat grass to get something green like a salad, she said. But I am afraid to let my children eat it because it could be harmful for them. The U.N.-backed agreement that allowed the convoys into Madaya included similar aid delivered to two rebel-besieged villages in a different province where residents also face deteriorating humanitarian conditions. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recently requested permission to conduct a nutritional assessment in Madaya, but the Syrian government has not responded, said Linda Tom, a spokeswoman for the U.N. agency. However, Elizabeth Hoff, the World Health Organization representative in Damascus, said the government recently approved a request to send mobile medical clinics to Madaya. But residents said that only a lifting of the siege would end their suffering. Our bodies are weak right now, and any kind of illness could be a killer, Abdullah said. We need this to end. Read more: Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world Speaking at the official opening of the new Washington Post building on Jan. 28, 2016, Secretary of State John F. Kerry paid tribute to the special effort to free reporter Jason Rezaian from an Iranian prison, and said the day of his release was one he enjoyed the most as secretary of state. (The Washington Post) Speaking at the official opening of the new Washington Post building on Jan. 28, 2016, Secretary of State John F. Kerry paid tribute to the special effort to free reporter Jason Rezaian from an Iranian prison, and said the day of his release was one he enjoyed the most as secretary of state. (The Washington Post) Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and the man who negotiated his release from an Iranian prison, Secretary of State John F. Kerry, lauded the principle of bringing Americans in trouble home, no matter how hard the task, as they shared a stage Thursday at the opening of The Posts new headquarters. Rezaian, who was released with four other U.S. citizens Jan. 16, and Kerry both choked up with emotion while addressing senior Post executives and invited guests in the main conference room at The Posts K Street offices in Northwest Washington. Rezaian occasionally stopped to regain his composure as he recalled his 18 months in captivity and trial on espionage and other charges. His family and The Post had called the charges trumped-up accusations leveled against a journalist just doing his job. For much of the 18 months I was in prison, my Iranian interrogators told me The Washington Post did not exist, that no one knew of my plight, that the U.S. government would not lift a finger for my release, said Rezaian, who was accompanied by his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, his brother Ali, and the mens mother, Mary Rezaian. Today I am in this room with the very people who helped prove the Iranians wrong. In a long list of thank-yous to his family and Post editors who worked to keep his case in the spotlight, Rezaian thanked Kerry and Brett McGurk, currently a special presidential envoy who negotiated with the Iranians for 14 months for a prisoner deal that got most of the imprisoned Americans out. Post reporter Jason Rezaian, recently freed from an Iranian prison, thanks his family, colleagues and government officials at The Washington Posts grand-opening event. (McKenna Ewen/The Washington Post) No other country would do so much for an ordinary citizen, and I know that, Rezaian said. Kerry, a Vietnam veteran who worked as a senator to get an accounting of prisoners of war and other military personnel lost in Southeast Asia, recalled a desperate search for Rezaians mother and wife, who could not be located in Tehran in the final hours before a Swiss plane bearing the group lifted off. U.S. negotiators demanded that the plane not leave without the women, and Kerry enlisted Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to help locate a judge in the middle of the night and ensure that the women were at the airport and authorized to depart. In the military, the most sacred pledge is you can never leave a buddy behind, said Kerry, pausing momentarily until the emotion in his voice came under control. Like most pledges, its a lot easier to say than to do, no matter how great the effort. Kerry said the anxiety Rezaians family felt for his welfare was shared by the families of the other Americans released as part of the prisoner deal. He vowed to continue working to get information on the whereabouts of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who has been missing in Iran since 2007. Kerry noted that across the world, 71 members of the news media were killed on the job last year and almost 200 imprisoned. He said journalists once were usually accidental casualties but now are more likely to be deliberately targeted for the stories they have brought to light. A country without a free and independent press has nothing to brag about, nothing to teach, no way to fulfill its potential, Kerry said. When Kerry arrived, he sat in the front row between Rezaian and The Posts owner, Jeffrey P. Bezos. Kerry said journalism is not a dying enterprise, calling curiosity and the desire to know the truth part of the human DNA. 1 of 25 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Photos from the dedication ceremony of the new Washington Post headquarters View Photos Emotional speeches by Post reporter Jason Rezaian, recently freed from an Iranian prison, John F. Kerry and others helped mark the grand opening. Caption Emotional speeches by Post reporter Jason Rezaian, recently freed from an Iranian prison, John F. Kerry and others helped mark the grand opening. Jan. 28, 2016 Jeffrey P. Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, reacts to applause after a ceremonial ribbon-cutting at Thursdays dedication of The Posts new offices on K Street NW in the District. Bill OLeary/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue. The new building is a neon sign that shows faith in the future of newspapers, and that The Washington Posts storied past in speaking truth to power is one of the reasons that people in the media are prepared to stand up to the powerful, Kerry said. Jan 28 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories from selected Canadian newspapers. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. THE GLOBE AND MAIL ** Bombardier Inc was sued on Wednesday for at least C$14.2 million ($10.1 million) by a unit of Comerica Inc , after the Canadian aircraft maker was unable to find buyers for four planes whose leases had expired. (http://bit.ly/1Sl1L6c) ** Rogers Communications chief executive Guy Laurence is defending the escalating prices of wireless plans, comparing the value customers get from the money cellular carriers pour into their networks every year to the cost of a daily coffee. (http://bit.ly/1Sl1MHk) ** Housing markets across the Prairies are showing major signs of stress as job losses mount in the energy sector and rental vacancy rates soar, Canada's federal housing agency, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp, warned in a quarterly assessment. (http://bit.ly/1Sl1Yqh) NATIONAL POST ** The federal government will take extra time to weigh approvals for both the Energy East and Trans Mountain pipeline projects, and will assess both projects' impacts on Canada's greenhouse gas emissions. (http://bit.ly/1Sl2fcy) ** Canada's top energy regulator, the National Energy Board, forecasts crude oil production in the country to grow 56 percent to reach 6.1 million barrels per day by 2040 from its current level of 4.3 million bpd. (http://bit.ly/1Sl2oge) ** Canadian vehicle sales will be flat in 2016 as weakness in commodity-producing provinces is offset by strength in the industrial heartland, according to a new report from Scotiabank. (http://bit.ly/1Sl2rbX) ($1 = 1.4065 Canadian dollars) (Compiled by Parikshit Mishra in Benglauru) Protesters gather after an announcement that police officer Darren Wilson would not be indicted in the fatal shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in November 2014. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) The city of Ferguson, Mo., has tentatively agreed to improve its policing policies and train its officers to de-escalate confrontations and avoid the use of force except where necessary, according to a proposed consent decree reached by Ferguson officials and the Justice Department. The 131-page agreement lays out a plan by city officials to establish long-term programs that promote interactions between the police and youth, revise the citys municipal code so it does not harm Fergusons most vulnerable residents and ensure that officers are provided the training, supervision and support they need to police effectively but also lawfully and ethically. The city would also require bias-awareness training of all court staff and police personnel, including supervisors and unsworn officers, according to the plan. The Justice Department opened a broad civil rights investigation into Ferguson in September 2014 after the fatal shooting a month before of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African American, by a white Ferguson police officer, Darren Wilson. A grand jury that fall decided not to indict Wilson, and last year, the Justice Department announced it would not pursue federal civil rights charges against Wilson because officials said there was no evidence to disprove Wilsons belief that he feared for his safety. But in March, the department released a report accusing the Ferguson Police Department of racial bias and routinely violating the constitutional rights of black citizens by stopping drivers without reasonable suspicion, making arrests without probable cause and using excessive force. It also released racist emails written by Ferguson police and municipal court officials. The city and the Department of Justice have been able to reach an agreement about which, we believe the entire Ferguson community has reason to be proud, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta said in a statement Wednesday. The agreement fully addresses the breadth of the systemic deficiencies our investigation identified. Before the Ferguson City Council makes its final decision and votes on the proposed agreement on Feb. 9, the council is accepting public comments. Ferguson city officials have been involved in hard fought and good faith negotiations with the Justice Department, according to a statement by council officials. As in all negotiations, neither side received everything that they requested, and both sides made concessions, the statement said, adding that the proposal avoids the time and cost of litigation. Under the plan, the city would be required to create a community engagement strategy that requires meetings between police officers and all segments of the community with a focus on groups and individuals that have not had strong or positive relationships with the police, specifically youth and apartment tenants. The city would also have to implement policies to ensure that the police departments stop, search and arrest practices adhere to the Fourth Amendment and do not discriminate on the basis of race; protect individuals First Amendment rights, including their right to record public police activity and engage in lawful protest; and encourage recruitment and retention of a diverse work force consisting of the highest quality officers. In addition, the police department would also be required to implement a robust accountability system that takes misconduct complaints seriously to collect data on its own operations to improve upon its police and court practices. At the same time, the decree recognizes that policing is a difficult, high-stress job and requires the city to ensure that officers and their families have the support services they need. If the consent decree is agreed to by the Ferguson City Council, an independent monitor would review and report publicly on Fergusons implementation of the agreement. Several employment listings on Craigslist have been linked to scams including mail fraud, bank/check fraud and employment fraud. This fraud manifests in one of two ways: Job seekers respond to postings under various titles including front desk receptionist. They receive a response with an offer for a different position, which is a paid to drive concept for Wounded Warrior Initiative or Wounded Warrior Concept, a subsidiary of woundedwarriorproject.org. Persons who respond to this ad receive a fraudulent cashiers check via mail in exchange for wrapping their vehicle with the WWP logo. The scammer requests a MoneyGram or gift cards in return for the overpayment or rental fee to wrap the vehicle. Authorities investigating this scam, which spans over 15 states, have determined the perpetrators typically go by the names Andy Morgan and Douglas Pierce. The scammers use the names of WWP executive vice president John Roberts with email address exec_drivewarriors@outlook.com, and WWP chief development officer Gary Corless as Director Planning And Research, with email address project@woundedwarriorprojecthires.com There is no Wounded Warrior Initiative or Wounded Warrior Concept, and these are not part of WWP or its programs. This is NOT the real John Roberts or Gary Corless from WWP, nor are those valid WWP email addresses. Morgan and Pierce are neither partners of WWP nor authorized or licensed WWP vendors or representatives. WWP does not advertise potential job openings or solicit job candidates via Craigslist. All legitimate WWP job opportunities are listed on our website under Cool Careers." The second scam offers job seekers to wrap their vehicles with advertising logos for energy drinks such as Monster, XTC, Zipfizz, Bud-Light Energy Drinks or Samsung. The job seeker/victim receives a fraudulent check with WWP banking information, sent UPS 2nd Day Air from Illinois, usually from Dave. The victim is advised to cash the check, keep a portion as their first week pay, and send the remaining balance to a third party (usually by money order) for the cost of the wrap. After the check bounces, the victim is left with a substantial overdraft while the scammers have received money from the victims bank. Monster and other companies have previously confirmed they do not offer any car wrap services and are aware of this scam. Regional and federal authorities have been notified as this scam spans several states and involves online fraud, making it a federal crime. WWP pays only its vendors, contractors, and legitimate employees, and does NOT send unsolicited checks in the mail. If you are the victim of these scams, or if you receive a check purporting to be from WWP and you are unsure of its origins, please contact fraudalert@woundedwarriorproject.org. As the water crisis in Flint, Michigan continues to occupy national headlines in the United States, scientists and environmental officials have revealed a dirty secret of American life: the poisoning of drinking water with toxic chemicals is not unique to Flint, Michigan, but takes place all over the country. Counties in Louisiana and Texas, as well as the cities of Baltimore, Maryland; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Washington D.C. and Boston, Massachusetts all reported that substantial numbers of children have been exposed to elevated lead levels, largely through municipal drinking water. This week, the head environmental regulator in the state of Ohio called national water regulations broken, saying that they dramatically understate the true scale of lead poisoning in American cities. As Virginia Tech researcher Marc Edwards put it, Because of the smoke-and-mirrors testing, Flint is meeting the standard even as national guardsmen walk the street. Many water pipes in the United States are over 100 years old, and a large number of cities still have 100 percent lead plumbing. The reasons are not hard to find. According to the Congressional Budget Office, public capital investment in transportation and water infrastructure, already underfunded for decades, has been slashed by 23 percent since its peak in 2003. The year 2003 is significant as it coincides with the beginning of the illegal invasion of Iraq by the Bush administration. The war on terror has entailed a vast expansion of the military at the same time that spending on anything not directly related to the accumulation of wealth by the financial aristocracy has suffered from continual cutbacks. The response of the political establishment to the poisoning of tens of thousands of people in Flint and potentially millions more throughout the United States has been characterized by indifference. The politicians responsible, from Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to local Democratic Party officials and the Obama administration, pull long faces, pretend to take responsibility or seek to shift blame, while doing nothing to address the issue. Nowhere is there a single politician who has responded to the disaster by demanding what is clearly required: the immediate allocation of a relatively modest sum, $273 billion according to the Environmental Protection Agency, to replace all of the municipal lead pipes in the US. This is equivalent to the annual spending on the US Army, just one of the four branches of the US military. There is simply no money for such a proposal to be considered, much less approved. While politicians pore over any allocation of resources for social spending with a fine tooth comb, almost unimaginable sums are made available to the military without a second thought. How many know that the US military is shelling out over a trillion dollars to defense contractor Lockheed Martin to fund its beleaguered F-35 program? Or that it is spending another trillion dollars to modernize its nuclear arsenal by making atomic bombs smaller and more maneuverable? The US spends more on its military, as Obama boasted in his most recent State of the Union address, than the next eight countries combined. Yet more is continuously demanded. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recently evaluated the Defense Departments so-called pivot to Asia, in which military hardware has been either procured or restationed in the Western Pacific to counter the economic and military rise of China. Strikingly, the CSIS report gave the US military a failing grade. It called for the expansion and development of every aspect of US military capacity in the Pacific if it was to maintain superiority in the event of a shooting war with China. Since the early 1990s, the US military has operated on the basis of a strategic doctrine that it will allow the existence of no other power that can challenge its military authority on even a regional level. That means that the US must be able to field such overwhelming military force that it would be able to defeat another major power, such as China, in a conventional war far away from the borders of the US. This is a recipe for the bleeding white of American society in an insane attempt to maintain its military dominance, which can only end in catastrophe for the population of the US and the entire world. Of course, it would be simplistic to say that war is the only cause of Americas social problems. The most conspicuous element of life in the US continues to be the vast chasm between the rich and the poor. However, the rise of war and militarism are interrelated and have a common root. In response to the the longterm decline in the global position of American capitalism, the American ruling class responded on the one hand by promoting a wave of financial speculation, mergers and acquisitions, wage cuts, and the transfer of social wealth from the great majority of the population to its own pockets. On the other hand, it has sought to use its predominant military power to counteract the consequences of its economic decline by force. In the insane and socially destructive priorities of the American ruling class, one sees in concentrated form the inextricable connection between war and capitalism, and at the same time the inextricable connection between the fight for all the social rights of the working class and the struggle against imperialism. In the lead-up to the NATO summit in Warsaw this July, Polands new right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government is seeking the installation of permanent NATO bases in the country. Polands president, Andrzej Duda, and the minister of defence, Antoni Macierewicz, claim that strengthening the eastern flank of NATO is the main political goal of their current government. Simultaneously, the government is taking steps to build up the military as well as paramilitary units. President Duda, who was elected last May, already announced in an interview with the Financial Times last summer that a permanent stationing of NATO troops in Poland was one of his key goals (see Poland rearms against Russia). After meeting with Duda in Brussels last week, NATOs secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, signaled support for those demands. He said, I trust that after the Warsaw Summit, we will see more NATO in Poland than ever before. Installing permanent military bases in Poland would mean an aggressive provocation against Russia. Last summer, the previous Polish government had also signaled interest in hosting US nuclear arms. Instigating such a move against Russia has the potential of igniting a military conflict on a global scale. In a document entitled About the Strategy of National Security of the Russian Federation, which was signed by Russian president Vladimir Putin on New Years Eve, the Russian government and military described NATO and the United States as threats to national security. The move is also likely to increase the already high tensions with Germany, which has long been opposed to the permanent stationing of NATO troops in Poland. In addition to Stoltenbergs declaration on NATOs intentions to station troops in Poland, British defence secretary Michael Fallon pledged to deploy 1,000 British troops to join a Polish Very High Readiness Joint Task Force in 2020. After meeting Fallon in Edinburgh on January 20, Polish defence minister Macierewicz stated that British troops will be stationed in his country permanently. Also, the warship Iron Duke and the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean will visit Poland as part of NATOs Standing Naval Maritime Group this year. The commitment comes amid discussions over Britains possible exit from the European Union (EU) and Polands opposition to Britains proposal on limiting the rights of immigrants. David Camerons government wants immigrants from the EU to be eligible for unemployment and child benefits only after a four-year work period. An estimated 700,000 Poles live and work in the UK, forming Britains largest immigrant community. Polish foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski stated in an interview with the German tabloid Bild that his country was ready for a compromise on this issue if, in exchange, Britain would agree to increase its military presence in Poland. Simultaneously, the government is escalating efforts to build up the Polish military. Under the former government, Poland declared 2 percent of its GDP to be spent annually on defence as part of countrys 140 billion zoty (33 billion) military modernisation programme, one of the largest rearmament investments by any European NATO member. The new prime minister, Beata Szydo, has declared the governments readiness to raise the amount to 3 percent of the countrys GDP. Defence Minister Macierewicz has also ordered a thorough audit of the Polish army, claiming the PO-PSL government did not do enough to ensure Polands military security. The Ministry of National Defence (MON) and the general staff of the Polish army are working on developing a new model for the countrys territorial defence. According to Macierewicz, three quarters of Polands territory is vulnerable to Iskander missile attack, short-range ballistic weaponry used by the Russian army. Last April, the Civic Platform (PO)-Polish Peoples Party (PSL) government made plans to buy the US-made Patriot anti-missile system and 50 French-made Caracal helicoptersa deal worth an estimated 8 billion. The PiS has called this choice into question, declaring its preference towards supporting a domestic arms manufacturing industry. Developing its own military supply facilities would make Poland independent from foreign, especially Russian, sources. A key component of the PiS military build-up is the arming and promotion of paramilitary militias. The MON is planning to equip them with heavy weaponry, turning them into a national defence army, called Voluntary Home Army, that is modeled after the National Guard in the United States. After backing the right-wing coup in Kiev in February 2014, the former government of the PO and the PSL supported arming Ukrainian far-right paramilitary units and, at the same time, backed the incorporation of such far-right militia units into the Polish professional army. This was accompanied by the systematic fostering of hysteria over an alleged Russian invasion threat. Since spring 2014, these paramilitary formations, which maintain close ties to the countrys far right, were able to triple their membership to now approximately 80,000, according to a report by the magazine Vice. By comparison, the regular Polish Armed Forces include 120,000 soldiers. By comparison, the German Bundeswehr has 177,000 soldiers, with Germany having a population that is twice as large as Polands. There are an estimated 120 separate paramilitary units. They will be equipped with guns and anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons. There are even talks about providing them with tanks and armored vehicles. The first three new national defence (OT) brigades are to be situated in the North-East region of the country, near the border with Russias Kaliningrad exclave. The goal is to create about 380 OT squadrons nationwide, one for each Polish township with one soldier per one thousand citizens. As is already the case with the fascist squads in Ukraine, these right-wing paramilitary organisations are being armed and touted by the state not only in preparation for a potential war with Russia, but also to employ them against the working class. The recruitment for this so-called Voluntary Home Army is scheduled to begin as early as spring 2017. The name of this army is not accidental: it refers to the Home Army (AK), which was subordinate to the bourgeois Polish government-in-exile in London during World War II. The AK based its struggle against the German occupation on a thoroughly nationalist and anti-Communist perspective; many of its units were also notorious for their anti-Semitism and murder of Jews who tried to escape Nazi persecution. Through an aggressive nationalistic agitation throughout the media and the use of literature promoting the AK militia fighters to the status of national heroes (the excommunicated soldiers), the government is trying to increase the support for these right-wing formations. The enticement of candidates is conducted through military training that is organised by the government free of charge. Participants are promised careers in the paid army. Efforts to recruit young people are focused on the rural areas in eastern Poland where poverty and unemployment are particularly high. Over the past months, this training has been propagated widely in a campaign that also targets women and children, depicting it as an opportunity of a lifetime, fun, a patriotic duty and a necessity in case of war. One of these paramilitary groups is the FIAFideles et Instructi ArmisFaithful and Prepared in Arms. The organisation is chaired by Bogusaw Pacek, a plenipotentiary of the MON and retired general who was responsible for improving military training in Ukraine. Numbering more than 200 members, it began an official collaboration with the 1st Warsaw Armored Brigade of Tadeusz Kosciuszko in 2012. Any Polish citizen aged 16 or older can join. Just like members of the World War II-era AK, they will be using pseudonyms instead of their real names. The FIA is also a founding member of the Federation of Pro-defence Forces. In September 2015, hundreds of members of the Federation of Pro-defence Forces held a rally in commemoration of the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland pledging their readiness to defend the country in case of war. A doctor examines an infant born with microcephaly. (Photo: Getty Images) Angela Rocha, a pediatrician in northeastern Brazil, measures the head of a child born with microcephaly, a tragic neurological complication linked to Zika, the mosquito-borne virus sparking a health scare across the Americas. Outside the room, seven mothers cradling infants with abnormally small heads line up for hours for tests. More than 1,000 cases of microcephaly have been reported in just a few months in Pernambuco state, the epicenter of the Zika outbreak. We were taken by surprise, says Rocha, a veteran infectious disease specialist at the Oswaldo Cruz University in the state capital of Recife, where doctors are struggling to care for 300 babies born with the condition. Surprise is an understatement. For a country that for years has battled the Aedes aegypti mosquito - responsible for previous epidemics of dengue, yellow fever and other tropical diseases - the outbreak of Zika has caught the government, public health administrators and doctors entirely off guard. Related: Zika Virus Expected To Spread Throughout Americas A tropical climate, dense cities, poor sanitation and slipshod construction provided ideal conditions for mosquito breeding grounds and the spread of the Zika virus in Brazils northeast, across the country and to more than 20 others throughout the Americas. We just didnt have the conditions or resources necessary to stop the mosquito or the virus, says Maria da Gloria Teixeira, an epidemiologist in the neighboring state of Bahia and a director of the Brazilian Association of Collective Health, a grouping of public health professionals. Amid warnings from governments and multilateral health agencies, pregnant women in Brazil and beyond are now seeking to avoid exposure to the mosquito, at least until contagion is contained or scientists develop a vaccine, which could still take years. Brazilian health officials this week said they plan to reach an agreement with the U.S. National Institutes of Health to work on a vaccine. Some Latin American countries have advised women to delay getting pregnant. Story continues What is the Zika Virus? OVERWHELMED Although a cause has not been proven, microcephaly has been clinically linked by scientists to mothers believed to have been infected with Zika while expecting. Pernambuco has more than one-third of the 3,700 cases of microcephaly reported in Brazil since September, and its hospitals have been overwhelmed. Health officials say the number of newly reported cases is falling in the state even as it rises in other areas. But the crisis will demand special care for hundreds of deformed or neurologically damaged children for years to come, a new burden on already deficient hospitals in a public health system suffering from budget cuts because of government shortfalls and an economic recession. Every day, about five new cases arrive at the Recife hospital, compared to 18 at the peak of the crisis in late November, says Rocha. She and her colleagues are hoping the decline means the worst is over, but they cannot be sure because so little is known about the virus and its complications. There is no cure at present for Zika, which usually appears as a mild fever with temporary body aches. These symptoms can be easily mistaken for a mild case of dengue, a fever that infected 1.6 million Brazilians last year and killed more than 800. To step up its fight against the mosquito, Brazil has deployed thousands of municipal, state and federal workers, including soldiers, to scour cities for mosquito breeding grounds, fumigate and educate residents on the dangers of still and stagnant water, where the female insects lay their eggs. On Feb. 13, the government will deploy 220,000 troops in a one-day mobilization to hand out leaflets and help identify potential trouble spots. Related: 10 Essential Facts About the Zika Virus LONG STRUGGLE In Recife, Brazils seventh largest city, officials are digging in for a long struggle. We are just getting a glimpse of the dimension of a problem likely to remain with us for years to come, said Recifes health secretary, Jailson Correia. In November, Recife asked Brazils federal government for 29 million reais ($7.18 million) in funding to deal with the crisis, and so far has received only 1.3 million reais. Rocha said the emotional and economic cost of the avalanche of handicapped children is incalculable. The babies, many of whom will eventually suffer convulsions, need brain stimulus therapy promptly to improve their chances of survival. As many as 12 babies have recently died in the state because of the condition. Other complications are appearing among some, including impaired vision and hearing, and badly deformed limbs. Some cannot swallow and the most critical ones have serious breathing problems, said Vanessa Van der Linden, one of only five child neurologists in the state. Van der Linden was the first doctor to notice the alarming rise in microcephaly cases last September, alerting public health authorities. The defects surged in November, when three babies were born with microcephaly on the same night at the dilapidated Barao de Lucena childrens hospital where she works. There was panic, Van der Linden said. Things have calmed some. Only 29 new cases of microcephaly were reported last week in all of Pernambuco, compared to a peak of 196 in late November. After selling out of insect repellent during the two most critical months, the product is once more on drug store shelves. For many, of course, the improvements come too late. Gleyse Kelly da Silva, a 27-year-old toll booth worker, recalls having a rash, a light fever and a back ache for three days last April. Her daughter, Maria Giovanna, was born in October with microcephaly. Silva still hopes Maria Giovanna will learn to speak but she is frustrated with the public health system, which has yet to provide any therapy. The quicker therapy starts, the better for my child, she said. They should bring more doctors here, because there are so many babies. Their mothers cant get appointments. More on the Zika virus on Yahoo Health: Read This Next: Do Pregnant Women in the U.S. Need to Worry About Zika Virus? Lets keep in touch! Follow Yahoo Health on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. A group of redditors at a campaign event for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Winterset, Iowa, on Jan. 26, 2016. (Photo: Hunter Walker/Yahoo News) DES MOINES, Iowa They call it Operation Iowa. In the past five days, a group of people on the online forum Reddit have been working to mobilize out-of-state volunteers to flood rural Iowa on behalf of Sen. Bernie Sanders as his presidential campaign heads into the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1. The effort is being led by 26-year-old Sanders campaign volunteer Alexander Rhodes through the SandersForPresident subreddit, as highly topic-specific sections of the website are known. In a phone conversation with Yahoo on Wednesday, Rhodes said he began posting his calls to action on Jan. 22. Since then, he has written multiple times on Reddit and also posted an item on Medium, naming the effort Operation Iowa and describing it as a grassroots project rather than an official campaign initiative. Im acting as a middle-man connector between you and campaign staff on the ground. I have many friends in the campaign and have the ability to get people assigned to field offices really quickly, Rhodes wrote. On Medium, Rhodes explained that the majority of the Reddit volunteers would be used for canvassing and knocking on the doors of voters who are thinking about caucusing for Sanders. Once volunteers arrive in Iowa, the Sanders campaign is helping them find accommodations at the homes of Sanders supporters. We need your help. Were pretty well-off in the big cities, but those make up only a number of caucus events. There are dozens of other caucuses throughout the state, and those regions are currently significantly understaffed, Rhodes wrote. This project is intended to bring much-needed reinforcements into the understaffed rural areas of Iowa. According to the Sanders campaign, as of Monday, at least 160 people had signed up to volunteer through the Operation Iowa form posted on Reddit. By Wednesday, Rhodes said there were more than 200 sign-ups, though he claimed that figure really meant a higher number of volunteers. Story continues These people, some of them are submitting with three-four volunteers at a time. Theyre saying, Hey, I have a car, and Im bringing three of my friends, Rhodes explained. Along with gathering volunteers, the members of the SandersForPresident subreddit claim to have raised more than $1 million for the campaign. When not organizing for Sanders, Rhodes is a Web developer and the founder of NoFap, which he described as an online community dedicated to helping people recover from addiction to pornography. He said he was inspired to create the site based on his own experiences. Rhodes said he hopes to keep recruiting volunteers from Reddit as the primaries continue. Because of this, he has come up with a name for the project as it extends beyond Operation Iowa. Rhodes is calling his Reddit recruitment operation the Sanderstorm. The people who are helping me theyre actually called Sanderstormtroopers, Rhodes said. There were six of those Sanderstormtroopers in the crowd that showed up at an event at the Sanders campaign field office in Winterset, Iowa, on Tuesday afternoon. They were treated to an appearance from Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the founders of the ice cream brand Ben& Jerrys. Brendan Carpenter, a redditor who came to Iowa from Salt Lake City, said he found out about Sanders on the site. They had a post there that said they really needed volunteers out in rural areas, so I asked my boss if I could get a week off to come out here because they were understaffed, Carpenter explained. Carpenter said he was staying in a spare room provided by a Sanders supporter. He wasnt the only redditor from Salt Lake who came to hear Ben and Jerry speak. Clark Newhall, who said he is a retiree, told Yahoo he and Carpenter realized they live in the same city when they met at the event. We didnt know anybody, Newhall said. I figured since Obama didnt get us single-payer health care like I thought he would, then Bernies going to do it. and Im here to help him. Joe Elliott, a 20-year-old student, came down from Michigan State University. It just kept growing. Ive seen posts, buses are coming, you know. People are coming up from Florida, Elliott told Yahoo. Sanders is performing especially well among younger voters. While Reddit is typically associated with millennials, Newhall, who is 66, bristled when we pointed out he didnt seem like a typical redditor. Ive been online all kinds of ways for 30 years, Newhall said. Ive been on Reddit since it started. Sam Hawkins, a 27-year-old forester from West Virginia, said he was able to come to Iowa because his work is seasonal. Hawkins suggested Sanders popularity on Reddit isnt just a demographic phenomenon. Rather, he argued, Sanders benefits from the sites format, which gives premier placing to posts that are popular and widely up-voted by users. People decide what gets shown, and then the people are deciding that Bernie needs to be shown, Hawkins said. I mean that while you could say that thats a demographically related thing to Reddit, I think that its just because I think that if you give America the choice, theyre going to choose Bernie. For his part, Rhodes suggested Sanders appeals to redditors because he has not changed his positions during his career. Redditors come from all walks of life. You cant really typecast them as white males in their teens and 20s anymore. Thats just not the case. Rhodes said, adding, But the Reddit user base, theyre users of the Internet, so they understand that if theres a fact presented by a candidate theyre going to do the research. Theyre going to use the Internet to verify what people are saying. So, I believe that Bernie Sanders is such an incredible candidate in the eyes of the Reddit community because he is the only candidate out there, one of the few politicians out there, who has been saying the same thing for decades. His record is the most consistent record Ive ever seen. Rhodes also attributes Sanders popularity on Reddit to the fact that his democratic socialist ideals dont represent American politics as usual. I think now is the time to really utilize this incredible tool of connection that we have as human beings for the first time in history to win a campaign as a non-establishment candidate, Rhodes said. Sanders, whose campaign has used a digital fundraising operation to pull in a record number of donations, isnt the first unconventional candidate who turned to the Internet to find new ways to connect with supporters. Another progressive Democrat from Vermont, former Gov. Howard Dean, was widely credited with using innovative online techniques to build his army of Deaniacs during his unsuccessful run in the 2004 presidential primary. Republican Ron Paul also took momentum from the Internet as he took on his partys establishment in the 2008 and 2012 elections. Though Rhodes is spearheading the effort to send redditors to Iowa to canvass for Sanders, he is not planning to leave his home in Pittsburgh. I figured I could be way more effective from where I am now just in working to get more and more volunteers into Iowa, Rhodes said. I feel like were so close to the caucus day that eight hours away from my computer eight hours of travel I believe that would be too much time away from getting other people into Iowa. So, right now, Im holding down the fort. Along with encouraging redditors to go to Iowa and connecting them with the Sanders campaign, Rhodes said he has set up a screening program for potential volunteers. Along with his friend Matthew Plummer, Rhodes said he has a group of more than 60 people who are reviewing submissions from redditors who want to canvass for Sanders. Somebody on the Bernie Sanders SandersForPresident subreddit who is offering their home to people I dont want to send them somebody who you wouldnt want in your home, said Rhodes. So we definitely are doing our due diligence and making sure that all of the people who were sending to Iowa are vetted to whatever degree we could vet them. Most of the Reddit contingent that showed up for Sanders in Winterset on Tuesday said they had just arrived in Iowa that day and were not sure where theyd be staying. However, Newhall noted, the campaign said it had room to house all of them. Weve got sleeping bags, Hawkins said. Were ready to crash anywhere. Qatar Airways Boeing 777 200 lr worldliner Qatar Airways may be about to launch the longest flight in the world. Airline CEO Akbar Al Baker told Bloomberg last week that Qatar will add an ultra-long-haul route between the company's hub in Doha, Qatar, and Auckland, New Zealand. Should Al Baker's airline go ahead with the nonstop route, it would be the longest continuous flight in the world, with a distance of 9,034 miles that would last 18 1/2 hours. Currently, the longest flight in the world is Qantas' Sydney-to-Dallas route, which covers 8,577 miles and last 16 hours 55 minutes, according to Statista. Next year, Emirates is expected to beat Qantas for the honor with a new route between Dubai and Panama City, Panama. That flight will cover 8,588 miles and last 17 hours 35 minutes. But all three will be eclipsed when Singapore Airlines relaunches its direct flight from Singapore to New York. The 9,500-mile, 19-hour affair was discontinued in 2013 because of high fuel costs and the early retirement of the A340-500 aircraft used to operate the flight. But Singapore announced in October that it will resume the flight after it takes delivery of the airline's new Airbus A350-900ULR. Although the airline not announced an exact date for the resumption of the route. Qatar is expected to deploy the airline's existing fleet of Boeing 777-200LR Worldliners. The Worldliner can carry more than 300 passengers with a range of 9,845 miles. Here are the longest flights in the world according to Statista: Infographic: The World's Longest Non-Stop Flights | Statista You will find more statistics at Statista NOW WATCH: The glory days of the 747 which is now officially on life support More From Business Insider Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio greets members of the audience after speaking at Wellmans Pub & Rooftop in West Des Moines, Iowa, Wednesday. (Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP) WEST DES MOINES, Iowa At a crowded bar here Wednesday night, Sen. Marco Rubio mock-sternly told the crowd to tip their servers. My dad was a bartender, he said, as the crowd hooted and clapped. Rubio has stressed his humble roots in appearances all over the state in the final days before the caucuses, describing to hundreds of curious Iowans the story of his Cuban immigrant parents working their fingers to the bone to provide for their children. The Democrats cannot lecture me about living paycheck to paycheck because I grew up living paycheck to paycheck, Rubio said. At another appearance in rural Marshalltown, Iowa, Tuesday, Rubio said the fact that his parents were able to go from poor immigrants to homeowners in just 10 years showed him that America is special. To some voters, the senators background stands in sharp contrast to that of real estate tycoon Donald Trump, the frontrunner in the state, whom they see as arrogant about his wealth. Trump has pitched himself as a self-made man whose wealth will make him immune from special interests and lobbyists when in office. Hes not sitting on billions, said Liz Jennison, a 28-year-old Marine Corps veteran, of Rubio. Whereas Trump is like, Look at all this money I have to throw around. Ill say whatever I want because I have money. I dont like that. Rubio is seemingly humble, she added. I like that he didnt come from money, said Bobbie Fontenot, adding that shes 99 percent decided on caucusing for Rubio after his West Des Moines event Wednesday night. Marco has the ability to see and relate to almost anybody in the country, said Fontenots friend Michelle Henamen. Rubios likability thus far hasnt been enough to boost him into the top tier in Iowa; he still trails Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz by more than 10 points in polls of likely caucus-goers. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrives at the Invalides following his official welcoming ceremony in Paris, on January 28, 2016 (AFP Photo/Michel Euler) Paris (AFP) - President Hassan Rouhani hailed a "new relationship" between Iran and France during a visit Thursday that saw the signing of a host of post-sanctions business deals. "Let us forget the resentment," Rouhani said, calling for both countries to take advantage of the "positive atmosphere" following the removal of sanctions over the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme. "We are ready to turn the page" and establish a "new relationship between our countries", Rouhani told a meeting of business leaders. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls responded that "Iran can count on France". "France is ready to use its companies, its engineers, its technicians and its many resources to help to modernise your country," Valls said. Rouhani was welcomed to Paris with military honours and national anthems on the second leg of a trip signalling Iran's rapprochement with Europe since sanctions were lifted. The real business of the visit will come when Rouhani officially signals Iran's intention to buy more than 100 passenger planes from European aircraft maker Airbus. French carmaker Peugeot said it will return to the Iranian market in a five-year deal worth 400 million euros ($436 million) that was announced Thursday. Peugeot will produce 200,000 cars a year in a joint venture with local manufacturer Iran Khodro, according to a statement. The French carmaker was forced to pull out of Iran in 2012 as sanctions began to bite. In another potential bonanza for France, the head of French oil giant Total said his firm would sign a deal to buy Iranian crude. Although the French state is rolling out the red carpet for Rouhani, the Iranian opposition will hold a human rights demonstration and Jewish groups also intend to protest in Paris. Rouhani is to hold talks with President Francois Hollande which are expected to include discussions on Iran's role in Syria, where it is backing President Bashar al-Assad in a war that has killed 260,000 people. Story continues Talks are due to begin Friday in Geneva to take tentative steps towards ending the conflict. After arriving from Italy, where he sealed deals for steel and pipelines worth between 15 and 17 billion euros, Rouhani began his Paris visit on Wednesday by unveiling a scheme to guarantee investment by French firms in Iran. - 'A hand grenade' - A source involved in the deal to buy Airbus planes said that only letters of intention will be signed at this stage, because some sanctions are still in place. However, Iran is keen to bring its ageing fleet of mid- and long-haul aircraft up to date, so the deal is widely expected to go ahead soon, giving a huge boost to the European aviation industry. Rouhani's meeting with Hollande is also expected to touch on Iran's bitter feud with regional rival Saudi Arabia. In a reference to Saudi Arabia, the Iranian president told an audience in Paris that "some countries had wanted to use terrorism for their own means". "But this is a hand grenade with the pin removed," he added. During his visit to Rome, Rouhani dismissed suggestions that Iran should apologise to the Saudis for an attack on its embassy by demonstrators furious over Riyadh's execution of a prominent Shiite cleric, Nimr al-Nimr. "Why should we apologise, because Nimr al-Nimr was executed? We are the ones to apologise because they are killing the people of Yemen? Apologise to them because they are helping terrorists?" he asked. In the Italian capital, Rouhani and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi met at the Capitoline Museum where nude statues were covered up out of respect for the Islamic Republic's strict laws governing propriety. But Rouhani denied he had asked his Italian hosts to cover up the statues and Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini, who accompanied Rouhani on the museum trip, called the move "incomprehensible". Rouhani also visited the Vatican for the first time and met Pope Francis. Rouhani, a 67-year-old former academic and diplomat who is seen as a pragmatist, was elected in 2013 on a pledge to end sanctions and improve relations with the West. RTX21N5C There is "deep concern" about the direction Poland is heading in, one policy expert says. Piotr Buras, head of the European Council on Foreign Relations' Warsaw office, told Business Insider Poland "is going in a quite worrying direction" after a few changes intended at centralizing power with the recently elected ruling party. The country has been under scrutiny since the European Union launched an unprecedented rule-of-law investigation into sweeping changes across Poland, such as the limiting of its highest constitutional court's power and its insertion of a government proxy to head the nation's public media. There have been many recent protests in Warsaw and throughout the country over the changes, but Buras and others agree that it's highly unlikely the European Commission, the group leading the investigation, would levy any sanctions against Poland such as suspending its vote since a unanimous decision would have to be reached to do so. "But it means the conflict between the EC and Poland will exacerbate in the upcoming weeks or months and it will be very difficult to be resolved," he said. "I don't see the Polish government stepping back or backtracking on this, especially on the issue of the constitutional court." The two options the council can pursue are to either push forward or freeze the investigation, which will essentially mean the council accepts the decision-making of the Polish government. Buras said that could backfire and push Poland into an even greater Euro-skeptic position. RTX2335Q Of the recent changes made by the ruling Law and Justice party, which took power in October, Buras said the most important, and dangerous, one was the limiting of the constitutional court's power. The role of the court is to rule on the legality of legislation being passed by the government, and the strains put upon the court by the ruling party render it "inoperable," he said. Story continues "[It's] maybe the most important reason to be concerned about Poland," he said. "But this is accompanied by certain policy steps, or certain reforms which may not even be unconstitutional or illegal, but they do change the way how the public institutions function." "They have a common denominator, which is that they're deeply illiberal," he added. "Which tries to, in the first place, strengthen the power of the executive and give it much more control of all other sectors of power and of public institutions." He said that some of the other changes, such as those involving public media, aren't quite as alarming as some would believe when examined on their own. It's when everything is added up that it becomes a worrying situation. "If you take them altogether and within two months, six or seven completely new laws changing the institutional setup of the country with one particular aim, to strengthen the power of the executive and its control functions," he said. "It cannot be an accident and it is not an accident." The leader of Poland's main opposition party Law and Justice (PiS) Jaroslaw Kaczynski and the candidate for prime minister Beata Szydlo celebrate after the exit poll results are announced in Warsaw, Poland October 25, 2015. REUTERS/Pawel Kopczynski Earlier this month, Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said her country has been wrongly accused of violations. "Its not true. Its slander. Democracy in Poland is doing well, she said, according to The Wall Street Journal. The best proof that democracy is doing well are protests organized by some groups against the government and the changes were introducing. She also said she doesn't think sanctions will be imposed, but did admit the party could've gone about some of the changes in a different way. "I am not saying that we made no mistakes," Szydlo told TVN24. The driving force behind those changes in Poland isn't Szydlo or the new president, Andrzej Duda, but the head of the Law and Justice party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski. The head of the ruling party is arguably the most powerful position in the Polish government, according to The New York Times. No pressure and hollering, no words ... will turn us from this path, Kaczynski told supporters earlier this month, per the Times. We will continue moving forward. A January public opinion poll found just 36% of Poles supported the government, which won election about three months prior. Poland protests An issue at the heart of the current state of Polish politics is the growing rift between Germany, viewed as the model of a "liberal" Europe, and the Polish government, which is embracing more "eastern" values, he said. The border between the countries is becoming a de-facto East-West divide, with a prominent issue being the question of what to do with the influx of refugees into Europe. "There is certain pressure on the Polish government to improve its relationship with Germany, or at least not to escalate it anymore," he said. "There has been very harsh rhetoric." High-level US officials, such as US trade czar Michael Froman, have visited Poland and expressed concerns, Buras said. Recently, Standard & Poor's cut Poland's credit rating somewhat unexpectedly, Reuters reported. "As a fellow democracy we do follow developments here very closely," Froman told reporters during a visit to the Google Campus in Warsaw on Sunday. "We certainly do follow it. As a democracy, we want to make sure that Poland's democracy continues to address the issues." A recent opinion piece in Foreign Policy Magazine said the crisis is "escalating at breakneck speed" and that President Obama should use the "bully pulpit" to make a bold statement by not attending the upcoming NATO summit in Warsaw this summer. That would show Europe that NATO is willing to stand up for democracy, the article argued. However, Buras said accusations made by European Parliament President Martin Schulz that the changes being made in Poland are a part of a "dangerous Putinization" are "completely bulls---" "Of course we don't have any Putinization of Poland," he said. "This kind of criticism is very counterproductive." More From Business Insider It will be implemented across checkpoints by June. Baing a major transport hub with more than half a million people passing through its checkpoints daily, its a necessity for Singapores immigration to constantly step up its efforts against security risks. One of these measures would be the Immigration and Checkpoints Authoritys (ICA) BioScreen initiative across all checkpoints to capture the fingerprints of all arriving persons by June 2016. In a speech by Desmond Lee, senior minister of state for home affairs, he said the records would allow the immigrations body to verify the travellers identity before entry to Singapore, while also facilitating automated self-clearance during departure. Some of the enhanced security measures at the land check points will cause inconvenience to travelers. This is especially so during festive periods and holidays like the upcoming Chinese New Year, when traveller volume is expected to increase, Lee said. Lee added that this investment in technology would facilitate efficient travel while simultaneously maintaining the high level of securityin the check points. Furthermore, Lee added that the police have also enhanced security measures and vigilance with the installation of police cameras at HDB blocks and multi-storey carparks. Police have also stepped up patrols in crowded areas and conducted exercises to raise the level of preparedness of its officers in response to a terrorist attack, Lee said. More From Singapore Business Review Gone South: Latin AmericaFocused Mutual Funds Have a Rough 2015 (Continued from Prior Part) Performance evaluation The Deutsche Latin America Equity Fund Class A (SLANX) fell 4.7% in December 2015 from a month prior. In the three- and six-month periods ended December 31, the fund fell 1.7% and 26.4%, respectively. In the one-year period, the one well be analyzing, it fell 32.2%. Meanwhile, from the end of December to January 25, the fund fell by 9.4%. The fund had a good 4Q15. However, considering the performance in the full year, the fund placed seventh among eight funds in this review. Lets look at what contributed to this funds poor performance. Portfolio composition and contribution to returns Launched in May 2001, SLANX has the third-longest track record among the funds in this review. According to its latest geographical disclosure, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico are the top three regions it invests in, in that order, making up 78% of the funds assets. Since the previous reporting period, Chile overtook Mexico. The key thing to note is that 54% of the funds assets are invested in Brazil. Since the latest complete portfolio of the fund is from November 2015, well consider that as our base. For December, well consider valuation changes for our analysis. All portfolio percentages mentioned from here on refer to weights according to changes in valuation from November to December. Financials led all sectors in terms of negative contribution to returns for 2015. The preference shares of Itau Unibanco Holding (ITUB) and Banco Bradesco (BBDO) were quite close in terms of the scale of negative contribution for the period. Other negative contributors from the sector included Grupo Aval Acciones Y Valores (AVAL) and Popular (BPOP). Grupo Financiero Galicia (GGAL) emerged as the highest positive contributor among the sectors holdings and, along with BBVA Banco Frances (BFR), reduced the drag substantially. The consumer staples sectors negative impact on the fund was shockingly strong, higher than for any other long-only fund in this review. The sector was driven down by negative contributions from the preference shares of Companhia Brasileira de Distribuicao (CBD) and BRF (BRFS). Other negative contributors included Chilean retailer Cencosud (CNCO) and Coca-Cola FEMSA (KOF). There was some support for the sector as sponsored ADRs ( American depositary receipts) of Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) and Fomento Economico Mexicano (FMX) reduced the negative returns slightly. Story continues Reasons for poor performance Since 65% of the funds assets are invested in financials and consumer staples, the fate of the fund pretty much lies in how these two sectors fare. Though there were a few sizable positive contributions, such as that from Globant (GLOB) from the information technology sector, the negative contribution by other stocks was just too much to deal with. Therefore, the fund had a forgettable 2015. It remains to be seen whether fund managers will continue to remain bullish on financials in 2016 and whether they reconstitute the holdings from consumer staples. Well look at the last fund in our review, the UltraLatin America ProFund Class A (UBPIX), in the next article. Continue to Next Part Browse this series on Market Realist: Supply Comes down Hard on Softs: What Oil Has to Do with Sugar (Continued from Prior Part) Watching the fall in cocoa prices Cocoa futures contracts on the Intercontinental Exchange for March delivery fell by 1.8% and settled at $2,819 per metric ton on January 25, 2016. Cocoa futures prices fell due to stronger-than-expected supply from Ivory Coast. Notably, the iPath Pure Beta Cocoa ETN (CHOC) did not change, holding at $42.16 on the same market day. Meanwhile, the Ivory Coast, the top cocoa producing country of the world, could reach cocoa production to 1.01 million tons during the 201516 season. The previous estimates suggested that the cocoa output from the Ivory Coast could be lower, to 1.01 million tons from nearly 1.05 million tons the year before. The steady supply from this top cocoa producer could support supply across world markets. This higher-than-estimated cocoa supply from the Ivory Coast negatively affected the cocoa futures prices on January 25. What this has to do with the weather in Nigeria Meanwhile, the weather conditions in the fourth-largest cocoa producing country, Nigeria, has been hot and dry since October 2015. Precipitation in the country has been near 10% on average. To make matters worse, black pod disease has taken its toll on plants across the nations major cocoa-producing region and has negatively influenced the development of cocoa trees during the primary production season, October 2015February 2016. Adverse weather conditions in this crucial cocoa-producing region are anticipated to remain dry due to the Harmattan, a dry and dusty northeasterly trade wind that comes out of the Sahara. Its been projected that this will unfavorably affect the harvest of the smaller mid-crop season between April and June in calendar 2016. In any case, the speculation of weaker harvest in Nigeria could drive cocoa prices further down in the near term. A concerned cocoa business on our hands? The recent decline in cocoa prices has supported food and beverage companies that use cocoa as an input. Despite this, Dean Foods Company (DF), Hershey Company (HSY), Mondelez International (MDLZ), and Starbucks Corporation (SBUX) saw declines of 2.1%, 1.7%, 3.3%, and 2.4%, respectively, on January 25, 2016. Notably, the iShares MSCI Brazil Index (EWZ) fell by 2.5% with the fall in cocoa prices on the same day. Story continues In the next and final part of this series, well do a broader analysis of apparent trends in cocoa. Continue to Next Part Browse this series on Market Realist: Elon Musk One of SpaceX's competitors could lose a multi-billion dollar contract with the US Air Force. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said that Air Force staff were currently investigating the repercussions of prematurely ending its contract with the launch services provider United Launch Alliance. Under the contract called the EELV (Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle) Launch Capability (ELC) contract the US Air Force agrees to pay ULA $800 million per year from 2006 to 2019 to ferry national security satellites to space. There's just one problem: When the Air Force first awarded the contract to ULA, there was no competition around. But that changed when SpaceX came onto to the spaceflight scene with its first Falcon 9 flight in 2010. And after SpaceX, which is owned and founded by Elon Musk, had demonstrated itself as a reliable launch services provider by the start of 2014, Musk decided he wanted to compete with ULA for opportunity to launch national security missions. At the time, ULA was the only spaceflight company certified to conduct national security launches. Because the US Air Force had not certified SpaceX rockets for national security launches, ULA was enjoying a secure monopoly on the market to ferry sensitive and costly military satellites into orbit. But now, the tables could turn in favor of SpaceX because of a decision that ULA made last year. In May 2015, the US Air Force upped the competition for ULA by certifying SpaceX for those coveted national security launches, making ULA and SpaceX the only two spaceflight companies certified to perform these missions. When the time finally came last November for the two companies to compete for the first time to launch a US Air Force GPS navigation satellite, ULA didn't submit a proposal. That move raised a lot of eyebrows from the US Air Force, who was paying ULA nearly $1 billion a year in tax payer's dollars to perform such launches. And now, it could cost ULA its contract. Story continues I was very surprised and disappointed when ULA did not bid on a recent GPS competitive launch opportunity, James told Defense News. And given the fact that there are taxpayer dollars involved with this ELC arrangement ... I've asked my legal team to review what could be done about this. If the US Air Force decides to cancel its contract with ULA, then ULA will have a harder competing with SpaceX for upcoming national security launches. And it could give SpaceX, which is already scheduled to launch more than half of the world's commercial satellite missions this year, an advantage on the US military spaceflight market. Note: This post has been changed since it was originally published to correct for statements inaccurately implying that SpaceX would hold a monopoly on the military spaceflight market. NOW WATCH: The most difficult space mission in history is coming More From Business Insider US Has Spent $65 B Training Afghan Forces but They're Still Not Ready President Obamas nominee to lead American military forces in Afghanistan has a sobering message for lawmakers on Capitol Hill: Security forces there are not yet ready to stand on their own. This tough assessment comes after more than a decade of U.S. efforts to train and equip the Afghan Army and police -- at a cost of roughly $65 billion. We have years to go before Afghanistans forces can successfully execute many kinds of missions, including air support, intelligence gathering and special operations, Army Lt. Gen. John Mick Nicholson told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Related: Get Ready for a Third US Front Against ISISThis Time in Libya The cost of the U.S. effort since 2001 was put forward late last year by Gen. John Campbell, who Nicholson hopes to replace, and the price tag promises to keep rising. Nicholson said Washington is spending about $3.5 billion annually on the war effort in Afghanistan. Thats in addition to $1 billion from other countries and about $500 million from Kabul itself, with an objective of course, of that increasing over time. The three-star general agreed with panel chair John McCain (R-AZ) that security conditions in Afghanistan are deteriorating despite the presence of about 9,800 U.S. troops in the country. President Obama last year withdrew his plan to reduce troop levels to about 1,000 by the end of 2016, and instead now plans to keep 5,500 soldiers there at least through the end of this year. Related: Where Did $800 Million in Afghan Aid Go? The Pentagon Shrugs Its Shoulders However, Nicholson said if confirmed he would conduct his own review troop levels and make a fresh recommendation to the president within his first 90 days on the job. He could suggest that Obama maintain the current level of 9,800 troops until January 2017 and pass the decision to the next administration. "This is Afghanistan," he told the committee. "There will always be some level of violence in Afghanistan." Story continues The idea of abandoning Obamas timetable altogether garnered bipartisan support, as senators worried about Afghanistan becoming a haven for terrorist groups. Meanwhile, a new audit released Thursday morning by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) found that American forces were unable to achieve the self-imposed goal of making the Afghan National Armys National Engineer Brigade (NEB) envisioned as the countrys natural disaster emergency response unit partially capable by the end of 2014. Related: The Most Corrupt Countries in the World Include Iraq, Afghanistan The Defense Department spent at least $29 million in engineering equipment and vehicles for the brigade, including bulldozers, tractors and cranes, the audit shows. Last year the Pentagon noted that the brigade was still missing much of its required equipment and a defense official told told SIGAR that the Afghan Central Supply Depot, which is managed by the national army, couldnt account for all of the NEBs equipment, according to SIGAR. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: NEW YORK, Jan 28 (Reuters) - The editorial board of the New York Times on Thursday called for a financial transaction tax on the buying and selling of U.S. stocks, bonds and derivatives, an idea that has gained traction in the Democratic presidential campaign. Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Martin O'Malley have both called for a narrow tax on some high-frequency trading firms' activities. Fellow Democratic contender Bernie Sanders has called for a broader tax to raise revenue from Wall Street, but his proposal would likely squeeze investors too hard, the paper said. (http://nyti.ms/1Tpi8j7) Republicans have said that no tax is a good tax. The Times said a financial transaction tax that applies to an array of transactions and is split between buyers and sellers would be a progressive way to raise substantial government revenue without harming the markets. A tax of 0.1 percent could bring in $66 billion a year, with most of the burden falling on the wealthiest Americans, who own the most financial assets, the paper said, citing a study by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. It said a tax rate of 0.3 percent could bring in $76 billion a year, but that any higher a levy would probably lead to less trading and lower revenues. There are already financial transaction taxes in Britain, Switzerland, South Korea, Hong Kong and other developed and emerging markets, generally at rates of 0.1 percent to 0.5 percent on stock transfers, the Times said. It added that 10 countries in the European Union, including Germany and France, have agreed to apply a common financial transaction tax starting in 2017, but said lobbying by investment banks and hedge funds could weaken or even derail the plan. Setting the tax rate low at first and then raising it gradually would help avoid potentially damaging effects on trade volumes, volatility and the ability of markets to determine asset prices, the paper said. (Reporting by John McCrank; Editing by Nick Zieminski) Think You Need to Wait to Purchase Your Next Home? Think Again! By Anthony Wheaton January, 2 017 FMRealtyConsulting.com W... 2000 - 2022 24 .- . focus-news.net, () . 24 . 24 . . 24 . We value your privacy. Focus Taiwan (CNA) uses tracking technologies to provide better reading experiences, but it also respects readers' privacy. Click here to find out more about Focus Taiwan's privacy policy. When you close this window, it means you agree with this policy. To activate the text-to-speech service, please first agree to the privacy policy below. New York, Jan. 27 (CNA) A U.S. scholar said Wednesday that Taiwan should do more, not less, with respect to Taiping Island in the disputed South China Sea, after President Ma Ying-jeou () was criticized by the United States government for deciding to visit Taiping on Thursday. To activate the text-to-speech service, please first agree to the privacy policy below. Taipei, Jan. 28 (CNA) Eighteen incidents of carbon monoxide poisoning had been reported from the beginning of this year as of Wednesday, leading to hypoxic injuries to 55 people, including 13 between Monday and Wednesday, following the strongest cold snap to hit Taiwan in a decade over the weekend, according to statistics released Thursday by the National Fire Agency. Christopher L. Hodapp is the author of Freemasons For Dummies, the worldwide, best-selling introduction to the Masonic fraternity; Solomon's Builders: Freemasons, Founding Fathers and the Secrets of Washington D.C. ; and Deciphering the Lost Symbol. His most recent book, Heritage Endures, was published in January 2018. Since 2009 he has been on the Board of the Masonic Library & Museum of Indiana, and serves as its Associate Director and Treasurer. In 2021, Chris was named as Public Relations and Marketing Director for the Grand Lodge of Free & Accepted Masons of the State of Indiana. Chris is also the co-author with Alice Von Kannon of The Templar Code For Dummies and Conspiracy Theories And Secret Societies For Dummies. As a Freemason, Chris is a Past Master of Broad Ripple Lodge No. 643 and of Lodge Vitruvian No. 767 under the Grand Lodge F&AM of Indiana; he is a member of Indiana's Schofield Lodge 1818 U.D.; and of Internet Lodge No. 9659 in the Province of East Lancashire of the United Grand Lodge of England. Most recently, he was named the Worshipful Master of the Dwight L. Smith Lodge of Research U.D. in Indiana for 2019-21. In 2018 he was awarded the Caleb B. Smith Medal of Honor by the Grand Lodge F&AM of Indiana for his "distinguished service to Freemasonry in Indiana and worldwide." Chris is a 33 Mason in the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite (NMJ), Indianapolis Valley. He is a Past Sovereign Master of Imhotep Council No. 434 of the Allied Masonic Degrees. He is a founding member of Levant Preceptory, a medieval Knights Templar period recreation degree team in the York Rite, and he is an officer of the Indiana College of the Societas Rosicruciana in Civitatibus Foederatis. He belongs to numerous other Masonic appendant organizations. As a Masonic author, in 2012 he was named as Friar No. 101 in the Society of Blue Friars. Chris is a Founding Fellow of The Masonic Society, and was the founding Editor in Chief of The Journal of The Masonic Society. He remains a regular contributor today, and its Editor Emeritus. He was the editor and a contributor in 2004-5 to "Laudable Pursuit: A 21st Century Response to Dwight Smith" by the Knights of the North, a Masonic leadership think-tank focusing on modern lodge solutions. He has written for Indianapolis Monthly, Heredom, Masonic Magazine, Templar History, the Scottish Rite Journal, the Knight Templar Magazine, the Indiana Freemason , the Phylaxis, and numerous other publications. Chris was a commercial filmmaker for twenty-three years with Dean Crow Productions in Indianapolis. Hodapp and Alice Von Kannon developed scripts for the History Channel program, Brad Meltzer's Decoded in 2010, and contributed material on conspiracies and secret societies for TruTV and the American Heroes Channel. They have both appeared on National Public Radio, the History Channel, Discovery, National Geographic, Smithsonian, and the American Heroes Channel - most recently in 2017 on America: Facts vs Fiction. Chris and Alice live in Indianapolis with Sophie the Flying Poodle who has them both answering to basic commands. However, they can frequently be found alarming the wildlife and dazzling the rustics in their Airstream trailer as they crisscross the country. Appropriately, their newest book together is RVs and Campers For Dummies, released in June 2021. It began with an assignment. At the time, Fremonter John Mullen was in a masters degree program at Columbia University in New York City. The program included a workshop where students met weekly to read their poems and give feedback to each other. We had an assignment to write a poem that featured an animal, he said. Mullen wanted to write a different type of poem so he wrote: Grave of the Conjoined Sows in Neligh, Nebraska. I thought it would be a little more over the top, he said. Mullens unique poem now appears in the Winter 2015-16 issue of Ploughshares, an award-winning literary journal based at Emerson College in downtown Boston. He also has two other poems, Luminaries and The City of Fremont Streets Department, which are featured in the January/February edition of the Boston Review literary magazine. These arent the first poems that Mullen has had published. A 2010 graduate of Midland University, Mullen was still a freshman when he took an interest in writing poetry. One of the first classes I walked into was a poetry class and I found a home with that writing form, the English major said in 2011 Tribune article. Mullens first published poem, The Farm, was featured in a 2011 edition of Nebraska Life magazine. In that poem, Mullen wrote about siblings, who are cleaning out a farm house that their late father built, when they find a spade that had belonged to their dad. Alan Bartels, field assistant editor for the magazine, praised the poem, describing it as full of imagery and one that tells the story of something thats come full circle. In Mullens poem about conjoined sows, the poet talks about a sideshow in which people would come to see the unusual animals. In the poem, this has happened years previously and people are coming to see the animals grave. Mullen notes that he could have written about a different type of animal, but chose the sows. I thought it would be a lot more fun to choose an animal that would be in a setting that would allow me to put some Plains imagery on exhibition, he said. Mullen said he was surprised to learn that the nationally distributed Ploughshares had published his poem. Ive submitted there before and its hard to get through, but I was very, very appreciative to learn that theyd chosen one of my poems, he said. Fremonts street department gets a nod in Mullens poem in the Boston Review. Its about how what you do for a job can make you attentive to different things, he said. Mullen, who worked several summers for the department, tells how city workers notice things that other people might overlook such as faded arrow in an intersection or a snow fence. He pays tribute to the work they do, noting that while people might not notice the workers, their work appears in various places. In Luminaires, Mullen sheds a little light on the heads of streetlamps. As a summer helper, hed see new luminaires in a warehouse and old ones that needed to be torn apart for scrap. When I would go on evening runs, I would notice that the streetlamps that were out would sometimes turn on when Id pass under them and so it was kind of an interesting time to see them brand new at the beginning of their lives at work and simultaneously see them at the end when theyre bought for scrap, he said. In the poem, Mullen tells how the luminaires have a vapor that decreases over time and how utility workers search after dark for failing lamps. Mullen plans to keep writing and submitting more poems. PARK CITY, Utah For many people, the JT LeRoy scandal of a decade ago was a passing headline, a story that had lasting resonance to a few publishing insiders at best. But as indie-film director Jeff Feuerzeig discovered, the LeRoy affair was much more than we know a strange, existential and ultimately thrilling story of a woman donning identities with a degree of spy-novel ambition (and, sometimes, Mel Brooks absurdity). Feuerzeig is the director of Author: The JT LeRoy Story, a new documentary about the nearly decade-long invention pulled off by writer Laura Albert. The movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival ahead of playing on A&E and likely in theaters later this year. With vast access to Alberts copious archives and thoughtful on-camera remembrances, Feuerzeig constructs a tightly woven and almost unbelievable yarn. If I didnt live through making the movie, I dont know if I would have believed what happened, Feuerzeig said in an interview at a condo here shortly after the film premiered this past weekend. Albert, the film tells us, was a depressed person struggling with body image and a penchant for calling phone-help lines when she decided to seek out the experimental writers Bruce Benderson and Dennis Cooper in the mid-1990s. Albert had been noodling with some gritty experimental fiction, and soon enough she had accrued some allies and, eventually, a publishing deal. She also created a rather rich biography. Rather than the 30-ish woman living with her boyfriend in San Francisco she actually was, Albert claimed she was Terminator (later Jeremiah Terminator, later JT, later JT LeRoy), a 20-year-old, gender-questioning young man who grew up in truck stops with a prostitute mother and who struggled with drugs and suffered from HIV. Soon her (his) celebrity grew, LeRoys fiction (and back story) attracting a raft of famous fans not just in the publishing world but superstar musical acts like U2 and global celebs including Asia Argento. What follows is the kind of identity-swapping scheme that a Hollywood producer would reject as too fantastic. At first Albert just pretended LeRoy was a recluse (in one of several remarkable bits of video, she attended a reading in which other authors read from the work as she sat anonymously in the audience). Soon, though, Albert needed more characters to feed the beast. Savannah Knoop, the sister of Alberts husband, was enlisted to pose as LeRoy in public appearances, in sunglasses and colorful headwear. Sound crazy? It gets wilder. Albert herself started becoming different people too, including Speedie, an assistant who was always accompanying LeRoy. This was as complicated as it sounded not only because Albert had to find ways to pull the strings, puppeteer-style, with her sister-in-law when LeRoy appeared in public but because she had to keep track of who was saying what to whom. When Knoop met, as LeRoy, with Gus van Sant over a planned film adaptation, Albert had to line up that conversation with what she was saying to Van Sant on the phone as LeRoy. This became even more complicated when Knoop, as LeRoy, had an affair with Argento. My reaction to this story was the same as everyone elses, Feuerzeig said. Its a great literary hoax, and that was that. But as I started reading all these stories I thought, Theres more here; theres something were not hearing. Albert had never told her story in full before, and might have turned down Feuerzeig if he hadnt directed The Devil and Daniel Johnston, a Sundance standout from a decade ago about another notable but tortured artist, the titular songwriter. (She said at the screening she had reservations but was won over by the fact that he was Jewish and he was punk rock, which, she said, meant he rejected certain societal norms.) The movie offers some intriguing theories about why Albert, who had an exceedingly difficult childhood, was so prone to creating these personae. But it also raises universal questions about identity. After all, who hasnt adjusted or even created guises depending on context? Was Albert fundamentally different from the rest of us, the movie asks, or just more ambitious and more public about it? Albert did mislead a lot of people, and the sight on-screen of publishing stalwarts, like the agent Ira Silverberg, coming to terms with what she had done is pointed and wont win Albert any sympathy. But as the director said, its also clear the story was not that of a simple con man as seen here, Albert was less a fame-hungry opportunist than a confused person and artist who, in struggling to figure out who she was, fell backward into fame. This wasnt something she was looking for. The books stood on their own. and the fans including the celebrity fans came to her, Feuerzeig said. Noted Albert at the screening, My motives were not the motives that were attributed to me. (Most of her celebrity relationships, it should be said, were of the superficial sort with two major exceptions. She formed a close relationship with Deadwood creator and resident Hollywood philosopher-poet David Milch, even working on an episode of the HBO show, as well as Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan. Long before journalists began uncovering her deceptions, she spilled all her secrets to both of them; they maintained her confidence.) Whether her books would have been as successful without the LeRoy biography is a question the movie leaves open. Certainly its fair to think they fueled her success. But Albert was also, in the end, a fiction writer. Her books, especially bestseller The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, garnered attention because of its prose. Her biography mattered, but only partly. Author also implicitly raises the question of whether our demands from fiction writers are unfair and contradictory on the one hand, we want them to possess the flair for wild imagination that leads to great work, but we want that imagination to stop short in every other realm of life. The film provides no easy answers, choosing instead to become a more ambiguous meditation on identity and storytelling. I dont blame anyone on the receiving end of what Laura was doing for being upset at her, Feuerzeig said. But I dont want to judge and I dont want to moralize. I just want to show what this woman did, and what she went through. Organizers of MATKA Nordic Travel Fair announced that Turkey will be the partner country of the exhibition in 2017. Turkey attracts Finnish travelers with its warm climate and versatility and next year the country will present a host of different options for all sorts of travelers at the MATKA Nordic Travel Fair. We welcome everybody to Turkey. Families, couples, young travelers, friends of nature and culture are all sure to find what they are looking for in our sunny country only a few hours flight away from Finland, said Attache Arzu Emel Yildiz from the Turkish Tourism Board Helsinki. For years Turkey has been one of the biggest exhibitors at the MATKA fair. As the partner country Turkey aims to attract new travelers to visit the country and being the partner country Turkey will have chance to present the less familiar parts of Turkey to the visitors. Our aim is to strengthen Turkeys position as one the favorite destinations of Finnish travelers. We want to display our rich culture and celebrate our long-term cooperation with the MATKA Nordic Travel Fair, added Yildiz. Tourism is essential for Turkey and it constitutes a big part of the countrys economy. Turkey has also plenty to offer for travelers interested in themed trips. Turkey is one of the key parties in tourism in the world. According to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), Turkey was sixth on the list of the most popular travel destinations in the world in 2014. Last year alone over 210,000 Finns visited Turkey. According to the statistics of the Association of Finnish Travel Agents (AFTA), Turkey was third on the list of the most visited destinations of Finnish travelers. The traditional destinations in Turkey are Alanya, Antalya and Side. We would also like to bring forward such great destinations as Marmaris, Didim and Bodrum. Istanbul is a clear choice for anyone interested in city breaks, Cappadocia is the place to be for those interested in nature, Yildiz said. Being a partner country of the MATKA Nordic Travel Fair is one of the key forms of cooperation. The partner country is visible in many ways and in different channels as the official partner. During the event Turkey will be on the main stage of the event. Attache Arzu Emel Yildiz from the Turkish Tourism Board Helsinki received the partner country diploma on Sunday 24 January at the MATKA fair at Messukeskus Helsinki. The MATKA Nordic Travel Fair is next time organised 19-22 January 2017 at Messukeskus Helsinki. It is the biggest travel event in Northern Europe. According to VisitBritain, the number of visitors from China was up 37% in the first nine months of 2015, smashing previous records. The new two-year visa system for Chinese nationals visiting the UK is expected to boost traffic in 2016. There were 214,000 visits from China from January to September, beating the number of visits for all of 2014, with figures for the last quarter of 2015 still to come. Spend was up 4% over the same period, to 435 million. As Chinese New Year approaches on 8 February, Britain is gearing up to host some of the largest celebrations outside Asia from lantern parades in Manchester and London's Chinatown to festivals and events in Glasgow, Birmingham, Newcastle and Bristol, among others. The Chinese New Year will be another boost from China. Chinese visitors are already some of the UK's highest spenders, spending on average 2,688 a head. VisitBritain has ambitions to double spend from Chinese visitors to 1 billion by 2020. VisitBritain Director Patricia Yates said, "China is the world's largest outbound market and a huge tourism opportunity for Britain. Chinese New Year is traditionally one of the busiest travel times for Chinese travelers and we want Britain to be at the top of their list as a must-go now destination." VisitBritain has forecast that growth in inbound tourism looks set to continue in 2016 for numbers and spend. In spite of the strength of Sterling, spending by overseas visitors is predicted to reach almost 23 billion in 2016, a 4.2% increase on last year. The number of overseas visitors to the UK is expected to rise to 36.7million visits, up 3.8% on 2015. The forecast puts VisitBritain on track to realize its ambition for growing international visits to Britain by more than 20% over the next five years to 42 million visits by 2020, which could see an additional 4.5 billion in visitor spend. Angry Birds creator Rovio has spun out its education operations into a new company under the name of Fun Academy. Fun Academy, according to its website, is a "new start-up company focused on fun learning," and will continue the work being done over at Rovio Learning - the division behind learning game, Angry Birds Playground. The spin-off group, led by Rovio's former VP of Education, Sanna Lukander, has licensed the Angry Birds brand and recruited a number of "key personnel" from the Finnish developer,. According to Rovio, Fun Academy will have more flexibility when it comes to financing and decision-making, allowing it to grow even faster than Rovio Learning. In addition to taking control of Angry Birds Playground, Fun Academy will also develop other products, services, and tools for teachers, students, and parents in an bid to promote fun learning. "As a spin-off from Rovio we can continue from all the work Rovio has done over the past five years developing fun learning, said Lukander. That puts us in a unique position as a start-up. Not only do we have Angry Birds Playground, a product that has real operational customers in Shanghai, Chengdu, Nanjing, Singapore and Saint Paul (Minnesota), but also ongoing major partnerships as well as research co-operation with universities like the University of Helsinki and Beijing Normal University." Capcom reports today that it's seen an uptick in both sales and profits over the past nine months, driven primarily by sales of games -- most notably, the latest Monster Hunter game. According to its most recent earnings report, Capcom saw profits of 7 billion yen (roughly $59 million USD) on 57 billion yen (~$480.1 million USD) in the nine months ending December 31, 2015. That's more profit and significantly more sales than the company saw in the same period a year prior, when it reported 6.5 billion yen in profit on 47.8 billion yen in sales, and the company attributes the rise in profits primarily to strong performance in its Digital Contents business, the division responsible for Capcom's console and mobile game production. Capcom reports Monster Hunter X for the 3DS was a standout success for the division, surpassing sales expectations and selling over 3 million units since its release in Japan (only) at the end of November. The company's Digital Contents business was also buoyed by strong sales of free-to-play mobile game Monster Hunter Explore and the PC/PlayStation console online game Dragon's Dogma Online. The company's Amusement Equipments arm, which encompasses its pachinko and pachislots operations, also did a notable bit of business for Capcom. Its Resident Evil 6-themed pachislot machine continued to sell well, driving an 87 percent uptick in sales and a 3.8 percent rise in profits over the latter nine months of 2015. The performance of Capcom's other divisions, including Arcade Operations (think: arcades and cafes) and Other Businesses (sales of guidebooks, tchotchkes, etc.) were down year-over-year, and despite the overall rise in fortunes Capcom is sticking to its previous forecast to end the year with a profit of 7.7 billion yen ($63 million). Conservative thoughts on the issues of today Are you interested in getting your company, event, or institution noticed? Advertise with the GRC on Global Geothermal News - Contact at dgroves@geothermal.org We do not know if we will ever again see the equivalent of the siberian traps. We can see a super volcano at work, but that is likely to be... What comes to mind when you hear the phrase "endangered species?" I have talked to many who do not know just how many endangered species there are. Sadly, on May 20 and 21, 2015, some of those animals were made to perform yet again -- at the North Iowa Events Center. Two big-name circuses -- Barnum & Bailey and The Ringling Bros. -- announced at the beginning of 2015 that they are phasing out elephant acts by 2018. They realize there is just not a need for it any more. They are not the only ones. Look at what is done to elephants, tigers, camels, etc., in raising pennies for charity. Why do we as a society allow this to happen? There are less than 2,000 tigers, 40,000 Asian elephants and between 400,000-750,000 African elephants left in the wild. Yet, our society claims it as a norm for tigers and elephants to perform daily, be hurt with bull hooks and whips and be kept in inhumane conditions. I am calling out the Mason City Council, North Iowa Events Center and North Iowa Shrine Club for being informed of the improper treatment of endangered species and allowing it to occur anyway. Last year, 117 North Iowans signed my petition to ban the Shrine Circus from coming to Mason City or any other vendor in North Iowa. In 2015, I made my attention more focused on the animals. Ninety percent of the show is done by human entertainers. This year, 166 North Iowans have signed my petition (search Peaceful Protest to Ban The Shine Circus from Mason City on Facebook). It calls for the George Carden Circus to perform but without animals. Humans can choose to perform in the circus; animals cannot. Breanna Flores, Sioux Falls, S.D., formerly of Mason City ST. LOUIS, Jan. 27, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Post Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:POST), a consumer packaged goods holding company, today announced it will host a conference call on Friday, February 5, 2016 at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time to discuss financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2016 and fiscal year 2016 outlook and to respond to questions. Robert V. Vitale, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Jeff A. Zadoks, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will participate in the call. Post also announced it plans to release its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2016 after market close on Thursday, February 4, 2016. Interested parties may join the conference call by dialing (877) 540-0891 in the United States and (678) 408-4007 from outside the United States. The conference identification number is 26176230. Interested parties are invited to listen to the webcast of the conference call, which can be accessed by visiting the Investor Relations section of Posts website at www.postholdings.com. A replay of the conference call will be available through Friday, February 12, 2016 by dialing (800) 585-8367 in the United States and (404) 537-3406 from outside the United States and using the conference identification number 26176230. A webcast replay will also be available for a limited period on Posts website in the Investor Relations section. About Post Holdings, Inc. Post Holdings, Inc., headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, is a consumer packaged goods holding company operating in the center-of-the-store, foodservice, food ingredient, private label, refrigerated and active nutrition food categories. The Post Foods Group spans the center-of-the-store with branded and private label offerings. Through its Post Consumer Brands business, Post is a leader in the value segment of ready-to-eat cereal and offers a broad portfolio that includes recognized brands such as Honey Bunches of Oats, Pebbles, Great Grains, Grape-Nuts, Honeycomb, Frosted Mini Spooners, Golden Puffs, Cinnamon Toasters, Fruity Dyno-Bites, Cocoa Dyno-Bites, Berry Colossal Crunch and Malt-O-Meal hot wheat cereal. The Post Foods Group also manufactures private label cereal, granola, peanut butter and other nut butters, dried fruits and baking and snacking nuts. Posts Michael Foods Group supplies value-added egg products, refrigerated potato products, cheese and other dairy case products and dry pasta products to the private label retail, foodservice and ingredient channels and markets retail brands including All Whites, Bettern Eggs, Simply Potatoes and Crystal Farms. Posts active nutrition platform aids consumers in adopting healthier lifestyles through brands such as PowerBar, Premier Protein and Dymatize. For more information, visit www.postholdings.com. HAMILTON, Bermuda, Jan. 27, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The rising threat of cyber risk to global corporations and ways to mitigate dangers such as data breaches via a Bermuda captive insurance company are the focus of an upcoming webinar hosted by the Bermuda Business Development Agency (BDA). The hour-long free webcast, Cyber risk: the Bermuda captive insurance solution is slated for noon Bermuda/Atlantic Standard Time (GMT -4) Wednesday, February 17. The first of a slate of BDA industry webinars planned for this year, it features an expert panel discussing the hot topic of cyber risk, along with case studies and in-depth practical advice on how to set up a Bermuda captive insurer. Cyber risk is one of the biggest, most costly and fastest-changing challenges facing companies of all sizes today, including global corporations, said Jereme Ramsay, BDA Business Development Manager, Risk Solutions. Our webinar team will discuss dangers such as data breaches and the substantial fallout they can cause to companies, along with practical information about using a Bermuda captive and reinsurance coverage to protect against losses. Bermuda insurance brokers say cyber risk is a growing concern for corporations that face resulting cost factors ranging from temporary closures to reputational damage. Cyber risk is one of the most all-encompassing new perils affecting businesses today, notes webinar panelist Giles Harlow, Assistant Vice President, Financial Services Group, Aon (Bermuda). It is imperative that insurance brokers, carriers and captive managers find solutions to identify, quantify, mitigate and control this rapidly evolving and dynamic threat. Featured webinar speakers with Harlow from Bermuda include: Chris Jansma, Senior Vice President and Bermuda Underwriting Manager, Aspen Bermuda; Oceana Yates, Vice President, Captives, R&Q Quest Management Services; and Thomas Edwards, AVP, Broking, Freisenbruch-Meyer Insurance Services. Two panellists will participate remotely from their PwC (Canada) offices, invited by their PwC (Bermuda) colleagues to take part: Emma J. Purdy, Partner, Financial Services Tax and Technology, and Kara Ann Selby, Partner, International Tax Services. Moderating the session will be George Leite, Executive Vice President, Business Development, Aon (Bermuda). Webinar registrants will receive online access to the live webinar followed by a question-and-answer session, along with a post-webinar download of the presentation. The BDA will also select a winner from among webinar attendees to receive a free registration to this years Bermuda Captive Conference, June 1315. The webinar is the sixth hosted by the BDA since it launched its industry webcast programme last year. These seminars are attracting an ever-larger following of attendees, at no charge, and our choice of topics is evolving and becoming more sector-specific, said Ramsay. We find webinars a cost-effective tool that allow us to reach a global audience, and were thankful to our industry support for sharing their expertise in this type of forum. Questions during the webinar session can be emailed to info@bda.bm or tweeted to @investBermuda #BDAcaptive. To sign up, click here: http://bit.ly/1U9UUM0. CONNECTING BUSINESS The BDA encourages direct investment and helps international companies start up, re-locate or expand their operations in our premier jurisdiction. An independent, public-private partnership, we connect you to industry professionals, regulatory officials, and key contacts in the Bermuda government to assist domicile decisions. Our goal? To make doing business here smooth and beneficial. DGAP-News: SendR SE / Key word(s): Takeover/Merger SendR SE: SendR Group acquires Phonofile AS and is to double revenue 28.01.2016 / 10:10 The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hamburg, January 28th 2016 - Music service provider SendR SE (ISIN DE000A1YDAZ7), headquartered in Hamburg with offices in Berlin, London, Paris, Los Angeles and Singapore, and traded on the Berlin Stock Exchange and in the Marche Libre segment of the Euronext Paris exchange, announces its acquisition Phonofile AS, northern Europe's biggest digital service provider. The result is one of the largest mergers in the recent history of the independent, digital music distribution segment. Under the umbrella of the SendR Group, Phonofile AS will join forces with finetunes GmbH (Hamburg), the German digital service pioneer in the field of digital music rights distribution. The companies will continue to operate autonomously and independently of one another. "Both companies will continue to use their respective strengths in each of their regional territories. The medium-term focus of the acquisition is on developing new, shared strategies and, in connection with this, on establishing a larger global presence. In this way, we can actively play an even more important role in this market in the future," said Henning Thie, Executive Director of SendR SE. The merger not only allows the Group to double revenue directly as part of the consolidation, but will also enable it to expand its global reach for the benefit of music licensers. This merger will make possible a unique and comprehensive approach to managing and marketing the licensers. Henning Thie, Executive Director of SendR SE: "Our many years of trailblazing work has received another vote of confidence. Northern Europe's biggest digital service provider, Phonofile AS, reinforces our unique selling points and the mutual trust between us. Together, we can ensure that we continue to provide our music licensers not only with the support to which they are accustomed and the comprehensive distribution of music titles, but also we can also enable a further, and even more comprehensive, market penetration for ourselves and our clients. In the ever-growing music streaming market, we have now reached a size that allows us to cover every aspect for our artists and licensers." Erling Andersen, FONO: "This merger generates a new, major player in the music licensing market, one that can offer its customers considerable added value. Today, Phonofile AS is the leading independent distributor im Scandinavia, serving nearly 2000 labels. The merger with finetunes is another great step for Phonofile, which will strenghten both the commercial and financial position of the company in a very competitive market. For Norwegian indie companies this will be very good news, as their digital distribution and marketing partner Phonofile will be part of a strong alliance with great potential of market extention and further development of digital label services." Until the integration into the Group has been completed, the parties have agreed not to disclose any information on the purchase price. SendR SE has, however, made known that ~25% of the purchase price will be paid in cash, and the remainder by issuing new shares. About SendR SE: With a catalogue of more than 120,000 artists and over 700,000 titles, SendR, via its wholly owned finetunes GmbH subsidiary, is one of the leading, independent clearing houses for the digital exploitation of music rights. The SendR Group's business model consists of purchasing licensing rights from independent music labels and then selling them on via a broad range of online portals, such as iTunes, and streaming platforms, such as Spotify. The SendR Group provides a range of additional services, ranging from the digitalisation of content, to marketing and promotion solutions, to supplying metadata. About Phonofile AS: Phonofile (since 1999) is a digital pioneer, and the biggest of its kind in the leading Nordic markets. We strive to give independent labels and their artists an overview and knowledge in the constantly changing world of digital music. From offices in Oslo, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Copenhagen and London we distribute music from our innovative and ambitious labels to the whole world. We believe in transparency and fair compensation combined with great knowledge of the new world of digital marketing and communication, and this approach we are constantly developing into features for implementation into our tech system. Disclaimer: This announcement contains forward-looking statements that are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements contained herein are based on the SendR SE Board of Directors' current plans, expectations and estimates as at the date of publication. Such statements constitute neither an assurance nor a guarantee, and are subject to a large number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, some of which cannot be influenced by SendR SE. These risks and uncertainties mean that events that actually occur may differ substantially from the statements made here. SendR SE is not required to update or amend the forward-looking statements contained in this announcement in order to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date of publication. This announcement does not constitute an offer or invitation to purchase any SendR SE securities, and is for information purposes only. All information contained in this announcement is addressed exclusively to persons living or having their place of business in Germany. In particular, this announcement does not constitute an offer or invitation to purchase any SendR SE securities for persons living or having their place of business in other countries, e.g. the USA, Japan and Canada. Only the information contained in the approved securities prospectus dated 24 November 2015, which is published in the Investor Relations section of the company's website at https://sendr.se, is definitive for the purchase of SendR SE shares. 
 Contact Financial press contact SendR SE B B G Capital In Media Klaus-Karl Becker Klaus Niemeyer CFO / Investor Relations Tel.: +49 172 6141 955 Email: kkb@b-bg.de Tel.: +49 40 232 0532-30 Fax: +49 40 232 0532-99 Email: ir@sendr.se https://sendr.se
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 28.01.2016 Dissemination of a Corporate News, transmitted by DGAP - a service of EQS Group AG. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. The DGAP Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases. Media archive at www.dgap-medientreff.de and www.dgap.de --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 432765 28.01.2016 Danish English DONG Energy will release its results for the full-year 2015 on 4 February 2016. The results will be released at around 9:00 CET. A conference call for investors and analysts will take place at 10:30 CET on the same day. Dial-in numbers for the conference call: Denmark: +45 35 44 55 83 International: +44 203 194 0544 The conference call can be followed live: http://www.dongenergy.com/conferencecall Presentation slides will be available prior to the conference call: http://www.dongenergy.com/presentations New business unit names With effect from the Annual Report for 2015, the business unit name for Exploration & Production (E&P) will change to Oil & Gas, Thermal Power will change to Bioenergy & Thermal Power and Customers & Markets will change to Distribution & Customer Solutions. Wind Power keeps its current name. The change solely concerns names, and there is no re-allocation of activities within the business units. For additional information, please contact: Media Relations Martin Barlebo +45 99 55 95 52 Investor Relations Allan Bdskov Andersen +45 99 55 97 69 This announcement does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy or subscribe for any shares or other securities of DONG Energy A/S or affiliates thereof. The announcement is not directed to any person resident in any jurisdiction in which the submission or distribution of this announcement would contravene the law of such jurisdiction. This announcement may not be distributed to persons resident in any such jurisdiction. Accordingly this announcement may not be distributed in any jurisdiction outside Denmark if such distribution would require any registration, qualification or other requirement. Any person acquiring possession of this announcement is expected and assumed to obtain on his or her own accord any necessary information on any applicable restrictions and to comply with such restrictions. DONG Energy is one of the leading energy groups in Northern Europe, headquartered in Denmark. Around 6,700 ambitious employees are engaged in producing energy from offshore wind farms, bioenergy and thermal heat and power plants, oil and gas fields as well as providing energy solutions to residential and business customers. Group revenue was DKK 67bn (EUR 9.0bn) in 2014. For further information, see www.dongenergy.com NEW YORK, Jan. 28, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A groundbreaking story by Reuters global news agency profiled AXIM Biotechnologies, Inc. (OTC:AXIM) and the companys upcoming clinical trials on the worlds first patented controlled-release cannabinoid chewing gum MedChew Rx. The Reuters article documents AXIMs clinical trials in The Netherlands on MedChew Rx to address pain and muscle spasticity in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients and also compares AXIM to UK-based GW Pharmaceuticals Sativex as well as Botox and baclofen. Reuters statistics in the article emphasize: There is no cure for multiple sclerosis, or MS, which affects about 400,000 people in the United States. About 80 percent of patients suffer from spasticity, a condition often treated with the muscle relaxant baclofen. Worldwide, there are about 2.5 million diagnosed with MS. By the numbers, Reuters points out that Sativex costs MS patients on average 5.56 UK pounds, or $8.24 USD per dose, with an estimated use of four doses per day. The U.S. market that MedChew Rx is addressing can then be estimated at more than $4.8 billion annually. The article also clarifies, But state health systems in some countries, including GW's home market, do not consider the drug sufficiently cost-effective to justify coverage. Affordable healthcare is a key initiative for AXIM Biotech. The Company has plans to pass on cost savings to patients through MedChew Rx, which is a patented new cannabinoid-based medicinal delivery method for many indications including pain and spasticity in MS. Reuters reports that, The company says it will be able to price its gum cheaper than a major competitor after securing a significant discount on cannabis made available by the Dutch government, which has a policy of promoting the drug for medicinal use. In addition to the Health Ministry of The Netherlands which is sourcing the pharmaceutical-grade cannabis for AXIM Biotechs product development, the Company has assembled a world-class roster of leading health organizations and professionals. Also supporting the Companys efforts include: Bedrocan The only company in the world producing full bud, standardized medicinal cannabis, Bedrocan is under contract with the Ministry of Health of The Netherlands. Bedrocan provides the base materials for AXIMs clinical trials. Professor John Zajicek The worlds authority on cannabis and neurodegenerative diseases, Prof. Zajicek is a member of AXIM Biotech's advisory board, and also the Chair of Clinical Neuroscience University of St. Andrews U.K., and is entrusted to conduct AXIMs clinical trials on pain and spasticity in multiple sclerosis. Syncom BV A world leader in specialized pharmaceutical chemistry and manufacturing, Syncom BV, is tasked with isolating and purifying the cannabinoid molecules for AXIMs MedChew Rx. QPS A contract research organization specializing in discovery, pre-clinical and clinical drug development, QPS is entrusted to manage AXIMs phase 1-3 clinical trials. Leadership at QPS who are involved in AXIMs MedChew RX development include: Dr. Jan-Bart Hak - Division Director of Clinical Research at QPS, and Dr. Willem J. (Pim) Meijler a Senior Medical Advisor for QPS who is a pain specialist with years of monitoring the effects of cannabis in MS patients. Dr. Meijler will determine proper dosing and efficacy. Wageningen University Dr. Renger Witkamp, Prof. of Nutrition and Pharmacology at Wageningen University and a member of AXIM Biotechs Advisory Board, is researching new applications for cannabis on diseases related to inflammation that AXIM is developing MedChew Rx for. Through these combined efforts, AXIM Biotech is set to unveil the worlds next platform for improved and predictable medicine delivery in a convenient piece of chewing gum. It is important to note that MedChew Rx has multiple health indication applications outside of pain and spasticity in MS. AXIM is very proud and excited to have our efforts open up new drug markets and have the Companys clinical trials on MedChew Rx documented by a top global news agency such as Reuters, states Dr. George E. Anastassov, MD, DDS, MBA and Chief Executive Officer of AXIM Biotech. The Reuters article correctly documents AXIMs fast track to a large share of the market and the Companys place among the very top leaders in the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Anastassov continues, Although certain similarities in APIs with other available or in developmental stage pharmaceuticals exist, what makes MedChew Rx unique and superior is its precise, controlled release mechanism to the oral mucosal capillary circulation, thus bypassing the first-pass, liver metabolism. Second, it provides neuroprotective and neurostimulatory benefits derived from the act of mastication. Professor John Zajicek, a member of AXIM's advisory board, says of cannabis, Chewing gum is a potentially good route as it would avoid respiratory irritations associated with other delivery methods. It will deliver a prolonged dose without peaking too much. AXIM Biotech is focused upon unique proprietary delivery mechanisms for the introduction of cannabinoids (i.e. THC, CBD, CBG, CBN, etc.) and finding solutions for conditions for which there is currently no effective treatment including: MS, spasticity, pain, Parkinsons disease, Alzheimers disease/dementia, ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), psychosis, PTSD, autism, RLS (restless leg syndrome), glaucoma, IBD, IBS, and Crohns disease. Reuters concludes that AXIM Biotech, hopes its mint-flavored gum will be on sale in the United States as early as 2017. This will depend on whether the Food and Drug Administration grants an accelerated development timeline that would allow it to leapfrog GW, which is waiting to discuss with the agency if and how a late-stage study for Sativex will proceed. AXIM thinks its case could be bolstered by research already undertaken by GW, which has established evidence of safety for its drugs derived from natural cannabis. Aside from the clinical trials that are ongoing in the EU, AXIM Biotech has secured the down payment on land to build the Companys manufacturing facility in the city of Almere, The Netherlands. The state-of-the-art, 6,000-square-meter parcel will house a clean laboratory zone, storage areas, offices and technical rooms as well as manufacturing facility equipment. The plans are compliant with the highest European and International standards. AXIM Biotech will produce unique pharmaceutical and nutraceutical products all sourced from hemp. Research shows that the industrial hemp plant can produce more than 50,000 products. Focusing on innovations in health and the environment, AXIM Biotechs Almere facility will include manufacturing in the following product categories: Functional foods Nutraceuticals Pharmaceuticals Cosmetics Clean energy AXIM Biotechs manufacturing plans are to leave a net negative carbon footprint in the environment, setting a major global example for green innovation and manufacturing. In addition to coverage from Reuters, AXIM Biotech has been featured by media outlets including: Yahoo! Finance, Marketwatch, ABC, NBC, CBS, Telemundo, WGN, Univision, Marijuana Investor News, FOX Business, MainStreet.com, MJ Freeway, Chemical & Engineering News, Dental Tribune, Pharmaceutical Commerce, Dental Products Report and MJI News. For more information, visit AXIM Biotechs website. To arrange for media interviews, contact Andrew Hard, Public Relations Spokesperson, at Andrew.Hard@CMWmedia.com or call 888-829-0070. About AXIM Biotechnologies: AXIM Biotechnologies (OTC:AXIM) is an innovative biotechnology company focusing on research, development and production of pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and cosmetic products where we prioritize the well-being of our customers while embracing a solid fiscal strategy. For more information, visit the Company website at www.AXIMBiotech.com. FORWARD-LOOKING DISCLAIMER This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements and information, as defined within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the Safe Harbor created by those sections. This material contains statements about expected future events and/or financial results that are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements by definition involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Axim Biotechnologies, Inc. to be materially different from the statements made herein. LEGAL DISCLOSURE AXIM Biotechnologies does not sell or distribute any products that are in violation of the United States Controlled Substances Act (US.CSA). The company does grow, sell, and distribute hemp-based products. KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa., Jan. 28, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TMG Health, the leading national provider of Business Process Outsourcing solutions to the Medicare Advantage, Medicare Part D and Managed Medicaid markets, announces the appointment of Kathy Dufour as Vice President of Application Development and the promotion of Valerie Cerra to Vice President of Enterprise Project Office. Kathy Dufour, Vice President of Application Development Dufour is responsible for managing all application development services of the company and providing strategic direction in order to maintain TMG Health's success as an industry leader and advance the company's services to continually keep pace with the evolving industry. She has a wealth of experience in service delivery, systems integration, program management, and systems development and maintenance within multiple industries. Prior to joining TMG Health, she served as Vice President of Application Services at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana, Baton Rouge, where she led a team of 250 people that supported more than 300 applications and systems. Her job history also includes notable positions as Vice President and Director of Business Systems Delivery and Assistant Vice President and Director of Application Managed Services with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), headquartered in McLean, Va. Dufour holds a bachelor's degree in Business Administration from the University of North Florida, Jacksonville. Valerie Cerra, Vice President of Enterprise Project Office Cerra will oversee TMG Health's EPMO (Enterprise Project Management Office) and will support the company's strategic plan and execution. She will work with the company's leadership in prioritizing and balancing projects across all TMG Health departments in order to effectively plan and manage enterprise resources and investments, and administer the enterprise project portfolio management system and process. Cerra joined TMG Health in 2007 as a Program Manager. During her tenure with the company, she has also held the positions of Director of Professional Services and Executive Director of EPMO. Prior to joining TMG Health, she was employed as a Manager in the Financial Advisory Services division of PricewaterhouseCoopers. Cerra holds an MBA from California State University and a bachelor's degree in Accounting from The University of Scranton, Pa. She is a certified PMP (Project Management Professional) through the Project Management Institute, a not-for-profit professional membership association for the project, program and portfolio management profession. About TMG Health TMG Health is the leading national provider of Business Process Outsourcing solutions for Medicare Advantage, Medicare Part D and Managed Medicaid plans. With more than 17 years of experience in providing technology-enabled services to the government market exclusively, our knowledge of health plan processes, regulatory requirements, and the daily challenges plans face within the government market is second to none. Our expertise, coupled with a strong commitment to our Clients' success, positions us as a trusted partner who can help solve the challenges of today and prepare for those of tomorrow. TMG Health is headquartered in King of Prussia, Pa. and is a subsidiary of Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC), the largest customer-owned health insurer in the United States and fourth largest overall, operating through its Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. HCSC's headquarters is located in Chicago, IL. The Management Board of Arctic Paper S.A. (Company,Issuer) hereby informs that on January 28, 2016, the Company has received the notification according to art.160 section 4 of the Act on Trading from the Supervisory Board Member Mr. Rolf Olof Grundberg on transactions in shares of the Company in 2015, which amounted to less than 5,000 EUR. According to the notification: -Mr. Rolf Olof Grundberg as at 10th February 2015 sold 102 shares of the Company at the price PLN 4,75 per share. Transaction was executed on Warsaw Stock Exchange during regular session. For additional information, please contact: Wolfgang Lubbert, President of the Management Board of Arctic Paper, tel. 49 405 148 5310 This information is disclosed pursuant to Art. 160 section 4 of the Act on Trading - information on transactions of the persons who have access to confidential information in reference to par. 3 of the Regulation of the Minister of Finance dated 15 November 2005. on the disclosure of information on certain transactions in financial instruments and principles of making a list of persons having access to certain confidential information, and was submitted for publication on 28 January 2016 at 3:00 pm CET, in reference to Arctic Papers current report no. 3/2016 filed with the Warsaw Stock Exchange SACRAMENTO, Calif., Jan. 28, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aerojet Rocketdyne, a subsidiary of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AJRD), has led local efforts to fund and design the Sacramento Challenger Learning Center, and has generously supported the Center since its construction in 1997. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/faeb7870-c06f-41a9-a2ae-5c8aa9b36691 The Challenger Learning Center, a living legacy to the astronauts of the Space Shuttle Challenger, continues to inspire the future 30 years after the accident. The leading science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education organization, founded by the Challenger families, has educated over 4.4 million students at more than 40 Challenger Learning Centers around the globe. The Challenger Center is inspiring todays students to see their full potential and follow a path that leads to a career in the STEM industry, said Dr. Lance Bush, president and CEO, Challenger Center. Never before has this mission been so critical. Just as the Challenger crew demonstrated a true commitment to being innovators, we work to inspire that desire and passion for innovation in our Challenger Center students. The crew members of the NASA Space Shuttle mission STS-51-L included: Teacher-in-Space Payload Specialist Sharon Christa McAuliffe; Commander Francis R. Dick Scobee; Pilot Michael J. Smith; Mission Specialists Judith A. Resnik, Ellison S. Onizuka and Ronald E. McNair; and Payload Specialist Gregory B. Jarvis. To commemorate the 30-year anniversary of the shuttle tragedy, this morning Aerojet Rocketdyne representatives ceremoniously presented a $100,000 check to Sacramento Challenger Learning Center Flight Director Bernta Bechler and Powerhouse Science Center Board President Michele Wong at the Powerhouse Science Center Discovery Campus. The check is an annual installment of Aerojet Rocketdynes $1.5 million commitment made several years ago toward the upcoming expansion and relocation of the Powerhouse Science Center and its new Challenger Center www.powerhousesc.org. We are honored to be a long-time partner with the National Challenger Center and learning centers across the nation, especially on this meaningful anniversary, said Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and President Eileen Drake. Working together, we are helping to inspire and educate the next generation of Americas aerospace leaders, those students who may actually be on future missions to the International Space Station, Mars and beyond. Student astronauts from Silva Valley Elementary in El Dorado Hills, California, and other dignitaries were in attendance. Silva Valley has been flying missions from the Sacramento Challenger mission control simulator since 1998. To date, 72 Silva Valley fifth grade classes have participated in the unique hands-on learning experience field trip over the last 18 years. The Sacramento Challenger Learning Center is located on the Powerhouse Science Center Discovery Campus at 3615 Auburn Boulevard, Sacramento, CA 91521. About Challenger Center As a leader in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, Challenger Center and its international network of Challenger Learning Centers use space simulations to engage students in dynamic, hands-on opportunities. These experiences strengthen knowledge in STEM subjects and inspire students to pursue careers in these important fields. Centers reach hundreds of thousands of students and tens of thousands of teachers each year. Founded in 1986, Challenger Center was created to honor the crew of shuttle flight STS-51L. Learn more at www.challenger.org. About the Powerhouse Science Center Discovery Campus Established in 1951, the Discovery Museum Science & Space Center has been an exceptional science education and recreation resource for students, families, and all members of the greater Sacramento community. In our current location, the Discovery Campus serves more than 80,000 visitors, provides on-site programming to more than 50,000 school children, and delivers more than 300 Science on Wheels outreach programs each year. The Discovery Museum will soon significantly expand and transform to become the Powerhouse Science Center. This new campus will be eight times the current centers size and serve as a dynamic regional hub that engages and inspires people of all ages to explore the wonders, possibilities, and responsibilities of science. About Aerojet Rocketdyne Aerojet Rocketdyne is an innovative company delivering solutions that create value for its customers in the aerospace and defense markets. The company is a world-recognized aerospace and defense leader that provides propulsion and energetics to the space, missile defense and strategic systems, tactical systems and armaments areas, in support of domestic and international markets. Additional information about Aerojet Rocketdyne can be obtained by visiting our websites at www.Rocket.com and www.AerojetRocketdyne.com. Road to Q50 V42 - Calling all April - May GMAT Takers I took my GMAT in February 2013, and I scored a 740 (Q50V40). I remember that my timing was off thoroughly during quant (it was the first time that I had to blindly guess 2-3 questions, and I remember having little to no stamina in verbal). I am an MBA Class of 2017 hopeful, and want to start my journey with as much time in advance as possible. I want to retake the GMAT, not because I think I did not score enough, but because I think I can score higher and because I want to get some structure and discipline in my life outside work. GMAT has always been a hobby and a passion, and what better way than to kick some 99 percentile butt? I want to invite all of you who are planning to take the GMAT, and are applying to the MBA 2016/17 application cycle and we can make a pledge to do the best we can. Below you will find the structure to my GMAT plans, and MBA plans (soon to come). I will post all the resources that I am going to use, and all the question banks that I am going to practice from. Feel free to post yours and we can kill the GMAT/MBA cycle together this year Resources to be used (6th edition) - I am also going to follow the Syllabus. CATs GMAT Club CATs GMAT Club forum tags, timer, and workbook GMAT Club master threads Bunuel's collections GMATPrep Question Pack 1 GMAT Prep Exam Pack 1 Thursdays with Ron Videos GMAT app on iOS for on the go practice (Pretty nifty app but quite expensive - $20) Weekly Breakdown Week 1: 28th Jan - 4th Feb Quant: Resources to be used: Verbal: Resources to be used: Updates Revision Resource Questions Practiced for Critical Reasoning Structure Family Assumption Family Strengthen and Weaken Family Evaluate and Flaw Evidence Family (Inference/Discrepancy/Except) Fractions, Decimals, and Percentage Official Guide: Quant Review 2016 , Bunuel's sets, and GMAT Club tests Critical Reasoning Official Guide: Verbal Review 2016 , GMAT Club resources and sets sets, and GMAT Club tests - I will keep updating this section everyday with resources and questions that I attempt on a daily basis. Watch out for this space. Week 2: 5th Feb - 12th Feb Quant: Verbal: Number Theory - Resources and Question Banks - TBD - Will be updated next week.Sentence Correction - Resources and Question Banks - TBD - Will be updated next week. Week 3: 5th Feb - 12th Feb Day1: CAT (Score: XXX Q XX V XX)Day2: CAT AnalysisDay 3: from Week 1Day 4: from Week 2Day 5: GMAT Club CATDay 6: GMAT Club CAT Analysis Week 4: 13th Feb - 20th Feb Quant: Verbal: Word Problems - Resources and Question Banks - TBDReading Comprehension - Resources and Question Banks - TBD Week 5: 21st Feb - 28th Feb Quant: Verbal: Algebra - Resources and Question Banks - TBDIntegrated Reasoning - Resources and Question Banks - TBD Week 6: 1st Mar - 8th Mar Break for 5 days (Catch up with friends and social life) Day1: CAT (Score: XXX Q XX V XX)Day2: CAT AnalysisDay 3: from Week 1Day 4: from Week 2Day 5: GMAT Club CATDay 6: GMAT Club CAT Analysis Week 7: 14th Mar - 21st Mar Quant: Verbal: Geometry - Resources and Question Banks - TBDAWA and Verbal Revision - Resources and Question Banks - TBD Week 10: 22nd March - 29th March Day1: GMAT Prep CAT (Score: XXX Q XX V XX)Day2: CAT AnalysisDay 3: from Week 1Day 4: from Week 2Day 5: GMAT Prep CAT (Score: XXX Q XX V XX)Day 6: GMAT Prep CAT Analysis Week 11: 30th March - 6th April 7th - 8th April Although, I am making this for my benefit mostly, I hope to help the community as well. I will post daily all the questions that I have practiced and all the topics that I have covered. Please share your plans if you want or any feedback on my plan will also be highly welcome. Solve ALL GMAT Prep problems ever created - GMAT Club tags/GMAT Club CAT - One last time- Take the GMAT_________________ When NYPD Officer Peter Liang entered court this week to stand trial for killing 28-year-old Akai Gurley in November 2014, there was a noticeable absence in Brooklyn Supreme Court. The usual throng of supporters from the Patrolmens Benevolent Association, and its boisterous head Pat Lynch (who rarely misses an opportunity to grandstand) were nowhere to be seen. Instead, just two older PBA members loitered around the courthouse and kept to themselves. This was a stark difference from previous police misconduct trials, where the PBA has put itself directly in the spotlight to broadcast its steadfast faith in the near total infallibility of police officers. The PBA is obviously absent, a former NYPD officer who has been in attendance at the Liang trial told Gothamist. The two guys who showed up were wearing windbreakers, not even suits. They looked like gangsters, and heres a cop in Brooklyn Supreme Court, fighting for his life, and pretty much no one is there. The PBAs lack of support has created a perception among Liangs supporters that the citys largest police union would not be treating a white police officer accused of the same crimes in this manner. After a grand jury declined to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo for fatally choking Staten Island resident Eric Garner, Pat Lynch called Pantaleo "the model of what we want a police officer to be." Asians make up 6% of the NYPD, while they make up 13% of New York City's population. Almost 85% of NYPD leadership are white. Exasperated, Liangs mother, Ho Fong, reached out to Eddie Chiu, the president of the Lin Sing Association, which advocates on behalf of the Chinese community in New York City, to help her son pay for better legal support. His mother kept trying to get through to his PBA attorneys, but they wouldnt answer her calls, Chiu told us on Wednesday afternoon in the Chinatown offices of the 116-year-old organization. Liang, a rookie cop with less than two years on the job, was indicted last year for shooting Gurley while patrolling a dark stairwell in East New York's Pink Houses. NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton called Gurley a "total innocent." After Liang's indictment, and the PBA's unresponsiveness, Chiu says Fong asked him whether they could trust Robert Brown, an attorney and former NYPD officer who had worked with Chiu previously on a number of cases involving the Asian community, and he said yes. In November, Liang dismissed his PBA-appointed lawyers. Listen, the PBA lawyers have a lot of cases. A private attorney will see you today and tomorrow, and so far weve raised around $40,000 for officer Liangs defense, Chiu told Gothamist Big and small donations, mostly averaging around $300. Chiu leafed through envelopes containing checks sent in by supporters of Liang, ranging from $50 to $3,000 dollars. He also produced a Christmas letter sent to him by officer Liang thanking him for all that you have done for us during this dark time in my life. A lot of people are asking me why a Chinese officer is getting put on trial when all the other police killings never went to trial, Chiu said. Why everybody else is innocent and only the Chinese man goes to court? People are very upset about that. Eddie Chiu displays a letter of support for Officer Peter Liang (Gothamist) Chiu isnt sure why the PBA hasnt turned out for the trial. The former NYPD officer who spoke to Gothamist believes that some of the reason might lie in bitterness on both sides over the decision by the PBA attorneys to not to have Liang testify in front of a grand jury. His partner, who is white, was granted immunity by testifying. I believe that had officer Liang testified, there would not have been an indictment handed down, said Karlin Chan, the Executive Director of the Chinese Action Network, an organization that has also helped garner support for Liang. But support for Liang in the Asian-American community is not uniform. CAAAV, which formed in 1986 as the Committee Against Asian-American Violence, was one of the first groups to come to the support of the Gurley family, and has acted as the main liaison between them and the media. In 1995, CAAAV supported the family of Yong Xin Huang, a 16-year-old who was shot in the back by the NYPD when he was playing with a BB gun in Brooklyn, CAAAV Executive Director Cathy Dang told Gothamist. It led to massive disobedience all over the city, with the community demanding the DA convict the officers. For the thirty years that weve been around, even in instances that dont involve the Asian community, weve always stood in solidarity with the black and Latino community, who are also dealing with police violence. We see this as a systemic issue, not that of an individual, and that the larger problem is the NYPD and state violence. Sitting in CAAAVs Chinatown office following the second day of the trial on Tuesday, Dang explained how CAAAV members went out to East New York for one of the earliest vigils that were put together for Gurley at the Pink Houses. All of our members agree that what officer Liang did was wrong. He took a life and he needs to be held accountable. From older Asian immigrants, to youth, to staff, theyre all in agreement, Dang said. But theres been pushback in some parts of the Chinese community, and weve gotten calls, emails, and even one person coming here to speak to me. Initially, they were saying CAAAV was on the wrong side, and he was being used as a scapegoat. Our response is very clear, we believe those demands are misguided and hurtful to the family. Everyone should come together and hold the entire system accountable. Yes, we know white officers werent indicted, but this just means we need to keep pushing to hold white officers accountable as well. Chiu, the president of the Lin Sing Association, said he doesnt feel any ill will towards those who support the Gurley family. Several of the letters he showed Gothamist contained mentions of sadness and heartbreak for the family of the slain man. We cant tell everybody to stand behind him. This is America, Chiu said. A lot of Chinese-Americans support the deceaseds family. Theres nothing wrong with that. We just hope the court gives him a fair trial, because thats all we we really want. The PBA did not respond to repeated attempts from Gothamist for comment. Liangs trial resumes today. The feds found about 100 pounds of heroin hidden in car parts in Queens on Tuesday. Police said that a team made up of Drug Enforcement Administration agents, NYPD detectives, and state police was running surveillance near Northern Boulevard and 84th Street in Jackson Heights at around 8 p.m. when they say the drivers of a blue and a silver pickup truck circle the block several times, the silver truck towing a trailer. A DEA spokeswoman said the drivers were looking for a place to park. "It was a monster pickup truck driving around the streets of Queens looking for a place to park in the snow, so it really stood out," Erin Mulvey told the New York Post. The two trucks kept going around and around in the same area. Forty-five minutes passed before law enforcement moved in. Police searched the trucks with a drug-sniffing dog, and when the dog signaled the presence of narcotics in one, cops arrested the drivers, both natives of Guatemala. Cops say Peter Omar Garcia-Romero, 33, has lived in North Carolina, and that his counterpart, Jose Gudencio Lantan-Vela, 65, came into the U.S. on a travel visa on January 15th. Back at DEA headquarters in Manhattan, search warrant in hand, NYPD Emergency Services Unit officers and DEA agents took apart car parts found in the bed of the silver truck. Sawing apart a partially disassembled car axle, and peering into drive shaft casings, they hit the dope mother lode. Photos show the packages in the axle pressed into round cylindrical shapes to better fit the circular container. Officials said the drive-shaft packages were pressed into square shapes. The DEA claims the drugs would be worth $14 million on the street. Both suspects face a charge of criminal conspiracy and two counts of drug possession, each of which carry as many as 25 years in prison. Their arraignment is scheduled for today. The Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor said it's not clear yet whether the defendants have attorneys or who they are. We rely on your support to make local news available to all Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2022. Donate today Last week the MTA canceled weekend track work, which would have been very exciting had not a) most of us been trapped inside thanks to the blizzard and b) aboveground trains been forced out of service thanks to all the snow. And it looks like we'll all be housebound once again, since the MTA's gifting us with service changes on 15 lines this weekend. Well, at least you'll get to finish all those shows you got too drunk to binge-watch. Here's what's on tap: South Ferry-bound 1 trains run express from 14 St to Chambers St from 11:45 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday. Van Cortlandt Park-bound 1 trains run local from Times Sq-42 St to 96 St from 10 p.m. Saturday to 10 a.m. Sunday. Flatbush Av-Brooklyn College bound 2 trains run express from 14 St to Chambers St from 11:45 p.m .Friday to 6:30 a.m. Sunday, and again from 6:30 a.m. Sunday to 5 a.m. Monday. 3 trains will operate to/from New Lots Av from 11:45 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday, replacing the 4 in Brooklyn. They will continue to make express stops in Manhattan, though Harlem-138 St bound 3 trains will run local from Times Sq-42 St to 96 St. from 10 p.m. Saturday to 10 a.m. Sunday. 4 trains will not run in either direction between Crown Hts-Utica Ave/New Lots Ave and Bowling Green, starting at 11:45 p.m. Friday and ending at 5 a.m. Monday. Pelham Bay Park-bound 6 trains will run express from 3 Av-138 St to Hunts Point Av from 11:45 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday. A trains will not run in either direction between Euclid Av and Ozone Park-Lefferts Blvd from 12:01 a.m. Saturday to 5 a.m. Monday. Brooklyn-bound A trains will run express from 59 St-Columbus Circle to Canal St from 11:45 p.m. Friday to 6:30 a.m. Sunday, and again from 11:45 p.m. Sunday to 5 a.m. Monday. Brooklyn-bound C trains run express from 59 St-Columbus Circle to Canal St from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Jamaica Center-Parsons/Archer bound E trains skip 75 Av and Briarwood from 11:45 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday. On that same track, trains will run express from Queens Plaza to Forest Hills-71 Av from 11:45 p.m. Friday to 6:30 a.m. Sunday, and again from 11:45 p.m. Sunday to 5 a.m. Monday. World Trade Center-bound E trains run local from Forest Hills-71 Av to Queens Plaza from 12:01 a.m. Saturday to 5 a.m. Monday. Coney Island-Stillwell Av bound F trains will reroute via the E local from Forest Hills-71 Av to W4 St-Wash Sq from 11:45 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday. Jamaica Center-Parsons/Archer bound F trains will skip 75 Av, Briarwood, and Sutphin Blvd during that time. Coney Island-Stillwell Av bound F trains will also run local from Forest Hills-71 Av to Queens Plaz from 12:01 a.m. Saturday to 5 a.m. Monday. J trains will not run in either direction between Hewes St and Broad St from 11:30 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday. M trains will not run in either direction between Myrtle Av and Essex St. from 6 a.m. to midnight on Saturday and Sunday. L trains skip Atlantic Av in both directions at all times until Winter 2016. Astoria-Ditmars Blvd bound N trains skip 86 St, Avenue U, Kings Hwy, 20 Av, 18 Av, New Utrecht Av, and Fort Hamilton Pkwy, with this change in effect at all times until Spring 2017. N trains will stop at Bay Pkwy and 8 Av. Q trains are suspended in both directions between 57 St-7 Av and Kings Hwy, with that change in effect from 11:30 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday. Forest Hills-71 Av bound R trains run express from Queens Plaza to Forest Hills-71 Av from 6 a.m. to midnight on Saturday and Sunday. As the trend watchers predicted, New York City is in the midst of poke-sanity, with multiple new restaurants dedicated to the Hawaiian fish dish open now or in the near future. Check ya later chicken! The poke trend has already exploded over Los Angeles, so now it's time for New Yorkers to get in on the fish party. But what exactly is poke (poh-kay)? In the simplest terms, it's a raw fish salad, similar to a tartare or even ceviche, though poke is typically less acidic. Raw tuna, typically, is marinated in soy sauce and sesame oil then tossed with onions, jalapenos and wasabi, for example, though the combinations are myriad. Regardless of the protein source, another poke standout is the cubed shape of the meat, as the word comes from the Hawaiian for "to slice or cut." Some restaurants offer pre-set poke creations, but a popular choice is a DIY version, where diners are in charge of their own destiny. Regardless your predilection, here are a few options for experiencing a little bit of Hawaii amidst the NYC snowscape. Pokeworks This fast casual spot opened late last year in Midtown West and offers both "Signature Works" and the opportunity for guests to create their own poke bowls, burritos or salads with proteins including ahi tuna, shrimp, chicken and organic tofu. Neophytes should opt for the Hawaiian Classic, a blend of ahi tuna, green and sweet onion, ogo seaweed, cucumber, Hawaiian salt, chili flakes and roasted sesame oil. 63 West 37th Street Wisefish Poke Another NYC newcomer, this Chelsea restaurant also offers counter service poke dishes like the Heat Wave, with salmon, cucumber, house herb mix, jalapeno, scallion and a spicy citrus shoyu. Diners can also design their own poke bowls with fish sourced from local purveyor Greenpoint Fish & Lobster Co. or opt for a vegetarian creation made with tofu. 263 West 19th Street Noreetuh There's a lot more than poke on the menu at this East Village newcomer, but naturally the Hawaiian eatery is also serving their own version of the fish dish. Their Big-Eye Tuna Poke includes macadamia nuts combined with pickled jalapenos and seaweed, for a spicy, crunchy umami bomb of fish flavors. 128 1st Avenue Sons of Thunder (via Yelp) Onomea Over in Williamsburg, Onomea is also celebrating the many cuisines of Hawaii including a simple but flavorful version of poke. Their offering is a starter of ahi tuna with white onions, seaweed, green onions and sesame, in very classic style. 84 Havemeyer Street Suzume Also in Williamsburg, Suzume offers several ways to indulge in raw fish alongside steaming bowls of ramen. Their poke comes wrapped in nori, like a piece of sushi, in salmon (in a calamansi ramp vinaigrette) and tuna (sweet onion, sesame, chili oil) varieties. 545 Lorimer Street Mother of Pearl This new Avenue A Polynesian tiki bar employs savory miso and seaweed furikake for their tuna poke, which is studded with soy tapioca and macadamia nuts. Instagram it alongside the bar's bloody shark cocktail. 95 Avenue A Sons of Thunder Brave Murray Hill for a taste of West Coast cuisine, which to the minds at Sons of Thunder means hot dogs and poke. They're offering five different versions of poke here, all served over white or brown rice and some tortilla chips. opt for traditional ahi tuna, salmon, tako octopus and more, tossed in either shoyu or a spicy marinade with the option to add mix-ins like avocado, edamame and nori. 204 East 38th Street On the horizon, a fleet of fast casual poke bars dubbed Sweetcatch Poke Bar are set to debut later this year. Behind the restaurants, Korean barbecue vet Deuki Hong (Kang Ho Dong Baekjeong) and Lee Anne Wong, whom you'll recognize from Top Chef. Yesterday morning, a sanitation worker told the police that he was pistol-whipped and robbed while shoveling snow in Queens. By the evening, police had arrested him for filing a false police report after they determined he was beaten up after trying to solicit prostitute. While on-duty. Michael Morelli, 31, had told cops that two men attacked him and took his cell phone while he was removing snow from a fire hydrant at Liberty Avenue and Guy Brewer Boulevard. The Daily News reports that his story "fell apart when someone found his phone and turned it in." Morelli reportedly admitted to investigators that he was attacked by two men after trying to solicit a prostitute. The assailants' connection to the prostitute is unclear. NBC New York spoke to Morelli's girlfriend, Jaclyn Francin, and her father Rudy, shortly after the initial report that he was attacked while working. She said, "Anytime you get called in the middle of the night, the first thing you're concerned about is safetyis he OK, is he alive, what actually went down? So of course I was terrified." Her father added, "Comes in, working like 14 hours a day, leaves 7 at night, comes back in the morning." NBC New York also reported, "When reached on the phone for comment after Morelli's arrest, Rudy Francin was in shock and said he couldn't believe it. He declined further comment." On Facebook, Jaclyn Francin later wrote, "Apparently responsible journalism isn't a requirement for the media today- as long as those political hire ups are satisfied and wrote the script themselves - obscene isn't even part of it." She also posted this image: Morelli was charged with filing a false report and received a desk appearance ticket. News 84 per cent of Indians think global warming is happening: Survey The survey also revealed that 54 per cent of Indians either know just a little about global warming or have never heard of it while 9 per cent stated that they knew a lot about global warming. A recent article on the CNN Politics website by Ted Barrett entitled "Senate Democrats block Syrian refugee bill" reported that Democrats blocked a bill that would curb the flow of Middle Eastern refugees to the US. In effect this decision by the US Senate was a vote to uphold President Obama's plan to accept refugees. Like the Senate, the American public is split into two camps on this issue. Frances Fuller, award winning author of 'In Borrowed Houses' believes this move will help improve relationships with the Middle East, as hospitality is an important cultural value throughout the region. In an Arab village the failure of one family to receive a stranger or offer water or shelter to one in need, brings shame on the whole community, while hospitality honors both the host and the guest."Right now a lot of people in the Middle East see the U.S. as responsible, directly or indirectly, for the chaos in their region. They see that we depose leaders for our own reasons. They observe that we talk about democracy but try to impose our will on other nations. They know that we torture and humiliate prisoners of war like everybody else. And if we now refuse to offer a home to desperate refugees, we have not only deserted our founding principles, which they know well, but we have dishonored ourselves in the world community. This would be the final proof that we cannot be trusted. In fact, harsh words from our politicians on this subject are already creating a negative impression of who we are.By showing kindness now, making a way for displaced families to have a home and giving their children hope for the future, we will recover some of our lost image and begin creating a path to peace.Frances puts a face on the Middle East many Americans have not yet seen. Her award-winning memoir, 'In Borrowed Houses', gives readers a penetrating glimpse of the Middle East from the inside. Fuller spent many years as a Christian publisher in Lebanon during the Lebanon civil war. As the result of her time and experience there, Fuller wrote an award-winning book entitled 'In Borrowed Houses'.Told in short episodes, Fullers book reveals the alienation, confusion and courage of civilians in the Lebanese civil war, introducing to the reader a variety of real people with whom the author interacts: editors, salesmen, neighbors, refugees, soldiers, missionaries, lawyers, shepherds, artists, students. With these people she works, studies, plays games, prays, laughs and cries, all to the accompaniment of gunfire. Together these small stories tell what war is like for civilians caught on a battlefield, and they create the impression of the Lebanese as a fun-loving, witty, patient and resilient people. Fuller's stories compose not a political history, but a historical document of a time and a place.Critics have praised In Borrowed Houses. A judge in the 22nd Annual Writers Digest Self-Published Book Awards called 'In Borrowed Houses' . . a well written book full of compassion . . . a captivating story . . . . Another reviewer described the book as Wise, honest, sensitive, funny, heart-wrenching . . .. Colin Chapman, lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Near East School of Theology in Beirut said, . . . western Christians and Middle Eastern Christians need to read this storyfull of remarkable perceptiveness and genuine hope.Frances Fuller is available for media interviews and can be reached using the information below or by email at frances0516@att.net. Fuller's book is available at Amazon and other book retailers. A free ebook sample from 'In Borrowed Houses' is available at http://www.payhip.com/francesfuller . Frances Fuller also blogs on issues relating to the Middle East on her website at http://www.inborrowedhouseslebanon.com Frances Fuller spent thirty years in the violent Middle East and for twenty-four of those years was the director of a Christian publishing program with offices in Lebanon. While leading the development of spiritual books in the Arabic language, she survived long years of civil war and invasions.Frances Fullerfrances0516@att.net BILLINGS -- In the days before casinos and karaoke, teen clubs were thriving across Montana and the rebellious spirit of rock sprouted from basements and garages as dozens of bands formed in the 1960s. Bands with names like The Missing Lynx, Beauregard Mansion, the Chosen Few and The Frantics were rocking hard as players emulated the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Doors. Many of those Montana bands have been forgotten, but thanks to Havre disc jockey Dave Martens, their music is back and sounding better than ever. A two-album set, Long Time Comin: Lost Sounds from the Treasure State will make its Billings debut Feb. 6 at Smiling Dog Records, 2702 Minnesota Ave. It is already available for purchase online. Musicians featured on the album are invited to be introduced at the event, which is the grand opening of the record store. Martens became interested in 1960s bands when he worked as a volunteer DJ in Missoula in 2011. Locating Billings recording engineer Larry Faught and Billings musician David Weyer helped boost his project, especially when he got his hands on a 1958 recording of Chan Romeros Hippy Hippy Shake. Faught, who still lives in the same Clark Avenue home where he recorded Romeros hit song, remembers enlisting his daughter, Kyle, to clap on the recording. Faughts son, Lon, stood outside the basement recording room, too young to be trusted to keep quiet during the recording. Faught had session guitarist Thumbs Carllile play backup on the song. Carllile later played with Roger Miller. That really helped Chan out, having Thumbs play backup. That gave him a bigger sound, Faught said. Faught opened Faught Recording Studio in the mid-1950s, using a portable recorder he bought for $750. He charged musicians like Romero and Kostas $10 an hour for studio time and used his own equipment to cut the grooves in the 45 rpm records, selling them for 98 cents each. A square dance caller since the early 1950s, Faught taught himself how to use all the electronic recording equipment. Kostas was 15 and his voice hadnt yet changed when he recorded Something We Call Love at Faughts studio. Kostas would sell the 45s from his locker at Senior High, and if he made some good sales, hed take his buddies out to lunch. Without the 45s and reel-to-reel tapes that Montana musicians provided, Martens said there would be no two-album set. The title of the album comes from Missoula band Initial Shocks first 45, Youve Been a Long Time Comin, and a picture of the band, which formed under the name The Chosen Few, is on the cover of the album. To make the music more accessible, when you purchase the album, youll also get the CD. Some musicians say they are saving the vinyl records as souvenirs. National scene The amazing part of the musicians featured on the album is that some of them had the talent to get noticed on the national level. The Billings band The Frantics, formed in late 1964 at Eastern Montana College, toured with the Yardbirds when Jimmy Page, who later co-founded Led Zeppelin, played bass, and Jeff Beck played guitar. Kostas and Romero also got national attention and continue to write music and perform. The Great Falls band The Missing Lynx, had one of its singles played on American Bandstand. It was awesome, absolutely awesome, said Dean Snow, who performed with The Missing Lynx. "'American Bandstand' was a big thing. My cousin called me and said, You just missed your record on American Bandstand. Turns out the Helena recording engineer who produced the record sent it to Dick Clark, who took a liking to it. It made the rate a record portion of the show and won. One thing is, it sure boosted the sales, Snow said. Musicians, most of whom are now in their 60s, are thrilled to hear their songs remastered and available again on vinyl. The extensive liner notes tell the history of each of the 17 artists featured in the set. Pearl Jams Jeff Ament, who is originally from Big Sandy, praised the music and the project, saying, Who knows what might have happened if any one of these bands had moved to L.A. But heading to New York or Los Angeles to record, even with an invitation from a record label, was a scary proposition for a Montana teenager. When The Missing Lynx got an offer to record with MGM, after they recorded a demo at Helena's Valtron Studio, they turned it down. All they said was come to New York, you passed the audition, Snow said. We thought, How are we going to get there, it takes money.' It was sad; we were close. I wasnt going to risk it. 'Beatle maniacs' Not everyone appreciated the loud music coming out of basements and teen clubs and the long hair that went with it. Snow said the administration at Great Falls High School made him cut his hair when it grew long enough to touch his eyebrows and rejected his senior picture for the yearbook. A bandmate shaved his eyebrows to avoid the hair cant touch the eyebrows rule. The school officials hated us long-haired Beatle maniacs, Snow said. We thought, Fine, well never play your school. Then, senior year came up and guess who they asked to play at their school? We told them we were booked. Martens wanted to showcase the 60s in his project, but when he discovered Hippy Hippy Shake, recorded in Billings in 1958, and later covered by the Beatles in the 1960s, he changed the parameters. So the period he featured became 1958-1969, even though most of the recordings on the album are from the 1960s. Montana doesnt have a recorded history of bands, Martens said. You either had to be in a band or have a family member in one or you were unaware. Martens said his motives were partly selfish he wanted to find these 60-year-old records so he could play them on his Tuesday radio show at KNMC in Havre. We dont have a station library, so Im always looking for old Montana stuff. Martens also works as a speech pathologist for rural schools across the Hi-Line. Billings, Great Falls and Missoula were hotbeds for rock bands, Martens said. Billings had three teen clubs where up-and-coming bands would play. That was important. As the venues faded away, so did the bands. But there were other factors, too. The drug scene was escalating, alienating some band members, and teenage players were being drafted to serve in Vietnam. The social revolution kicked up the rebel-side and some of the bands began incorporating more revolutionary lyrics, like Missoulas The Gross National Product, which formed in 1967. The band disbanded just a few years later when member George Crowe was drafted into the army. The Billings band Beauregard Mansion developed a reputation for tight vocal harmonies and an incredibly loud sound. Bruce Jensen, a member of Beauregard Mansion, remembered playing the Whats Happening club in the Heights and being inspired by the Beatles Sgt. Pepper album to write music. A lot of us high schoolers were caught up in the movement of the 60s and there was some great music coming out. We wanted to be rock stars, Jensen said. Jensen went into radio and became the first program director for Kat Country in Billings. In 1964, The Billings Gazette covered a show by the Missoula band The Vulcans in the Hart Albin parking garage. The reporter, Addison Bragg, wrote, The point to remember is that five college students in red coats kept 2,000 teenagers happy for three hours and sent them home tired with no comment from grown-ups standing around except that they were a well-behaved bunch of kids no matter how raucous their music sounded, no matter how strange their dancing appeared. Two years later, The Vulcans opened shows for Paul Revere and the Raiders and Gary Lewis and the Playboys before they disbanded. As the 1960s came to a close, many of the Montana rock bands ended as well. Some of those musicians still question whether they could have been the next big thing. But its hard not to cut and run when you have no visible means of support, other than a paid-for 48 Hudson, Jensen said. The most important character in the long story of the American West has always been the landscape itself. Though human beings have played a significant role here since the last ice age, there is still a powerful sense, particularly in Montana, that the elemental forces and natural beauty of the place somehow outweigh the influence of people. Much of this feeling is derived from the ability to physically experience mountains, forests, prairies and rivers intimately and more or less how we choose. The conservation movement in the United States began in earnest well over a century ago, fueled by two groups of individuals passionate about wildlife and the landscapes they inhabit. It was hunting and birding organizations, outraged by unregulated pillage of wildlife and other natural resources that galvanized the idea of conserving species as well as places where human beings can enjoy nature on its own terms. Lands began to be set aside for conservation in the West, like Yellowstone in 1872 and as subsequent Forest Reserves and game sanctuaries followed, a Public Commons emerged as the physical manifestation of Americas most important and egalitarian concepts. A system of vast public holdings became powerfully representative of personal freedom, wildness, sustainable use, conservation, natural beauty and more. This era, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, saw the creation of the first national parks, national forests, grasslands, monuments and national wildlife refuges. For many Montanans, outdoor pursuits rank as among the most important reasons for living, and it should be remembered that much of our ability to partake in that life is due in large part to an abundance of federally owned and managed, public lands. In addition to providing critical ecosystem services like clean water and diverse habitat for wildlife, these landscapes offer a multitude of outdoor experiences for all American citizens regardless of socioeconomic background. It is impossible for me to conceive of a Montana without that vast public estate of mountain woods, grass and waters to get lost in. We must always remember that in addition to the conservation of native flora and fauna, these national lands provide a lasting refuge for our souls. Alas, there are misguided individuals in the world who would see to it that this inheritance is undone. While conflicts will always exist between the public and the government as how to best manage national lands, a seditious, armed takeover is not a productive way to resolve problems. The current standoff at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon is a criminal act aimed, according to the militia occupying its headquarters, at turning the nearly 190,000-acre refuge and nearby 1.4 million-acre Malheur National Forest over to county control. Collaborative efforts between local communities and federal agencies to find solutions to complex land management issues occur throughout the West, including at Malheur, but seem to have no meaning to Ammon Bundy and his followers. Their way is to sidestep compromise or reform and head straight for armed insurrection. However this circus ends, its perpetrators, who have demonstrated no regard for the rule of law or the value of our public estate, must be held accountable for their actions. Still, even as the Oregon standoff has dominated the media, the more quiet and sinister threat to our legacy of public lands goes largely unreported. The divestiture movement, which aspires to transfer millions of acres of federal land to state or county control, has unfortunately been gaining political traction. In recent years, many bills have been introduced in the legislatures of Western states calling for some implementation of this dark vision, ostensibly it seems, to promote local economic development. Various groups and individuals are pushing this agenda, which gravely threaten landscapes that we Montanans love, work and recreate in. Many of these places form the background of our lives and are viewed from our windows on a daily basis. Neither counties nor states have the capacity to manage millions of acres of mountain, forest and grass or the natural resources they support. The selling of these lands to offset the cost of their management, is rightly cited as an inevitable consequence of divestiture by public lands supporters. Poll after poll, including the recent Conservation in the West paper, published by Colorado College, demonstrates strong popular support for maintaining federal ownership and management of public lands; this study showed 59 percent of Montanans polled opposed any land transfer. Yet there remain legislators, industry groups, wealthy individuals and in the Malheur case, unbalanced and armed fanatics who continue to call for a wholesale disposal of federal lands. It starts to look more like a handout and tragic giveaway when all the implications are considered. If you cherish national public lands, let your legislators know; hunters, birders, walkers and outdoor enthusiasts of all stripes should do so. And we should each be ready to rally support for our favorite piece of ground and the larger Public Commons, a spiritual refuge for many, when the time comes and as many times as it takes. David Cronenwett writes this column on behalf of Montana Audubon. BILLINGS -- Last weeks euthanizing of a female deer has stirred up controversy in the Forsyth area and lit up social media across the state, but its also provided a public education reminder. The brouhaha revolves around a Rosebud County incident. On Jan. 19 Fish, Wildlife and Parks wardens tranquilized the doe and removed it from property where the homeowners had taken care of the deer since it was orphaned about six years ago after its mother was struck and killed by a vehicle. The deer captured by FWP was later euthanized in Miles City by a veterinarian. The couple who had adopted the deer, Daryl and Brenda Duncan, are now facing two charges each in district court: obstructing a peace officer and unlawful possession of a game animal, both misdemeanors. The obstruction charge has a standard bond amount of $335 while the possession amount is $535, although the court can go lower. The Duncans are scheduled to appear in court in Forsyth on Tuesday at 10 a.m. on the obstruction charges. A separate date of Feb. 8 at 10 a.m. has been set for the possession charge, although the court could decide to combine the hearings. Its the law The Duncans could not be reached for comment on the incident and FWP warden Capt. Jack Austin said he would not jeopardize the case by talking about specifics. Nevertheless, plenty of people have called The Billings Gazette, written letters and posted comments on Facebook about the incident, many of them criticizing FWP for its actions and saying the deer was free to roam not captive. There are a lot of people around here who think that the situation could have been handled a lot differently, said David Wyrick, a Forsyth resident. FWP has a long history of attempting to educate Montanans about why helping wildlife even apparently abandoned youngsters is not a good idea. There are concerns about disease transmission or an emboldened animal used to people becoming aggressive. In 2010 near Roundup a warden shot a buck deer after it charged him. The buck had been habituated to humans, evidenced by its sawed off antlers. Leave Bambi A common occurrence is people finding what appear to be abandoned fawns in the spring. People are trying to do the right thing, we love that they care so much about wildlife, but a lot of time people dont understand that the fawns arent orphaned, said Laurie Wolf of the MT Wild Education Center in Helena. The fawns have no scent, she said, so the mother will leave the baby while it goes elsewhere to feed, thereby keeping a predator from finding the fawn. The does have been known to stay away from their fawns for much of a day. Fawns develop pretty quickly to process grass, within six weeks they can survive on their own, Wolf said. Wolf said she has also seen orphaned fawns adopted by other does. Wildlife rehab The MT Wild Center rehabilitates orphaned or injured predators and raptors for later release into the wild. The facility doesnt take ungulates, like deer, because of concerns about disease. Plus, the animals dont do well in captivity where they are easily stressed, Wolf said. Likewise the Washington-state group PAWS, which operates a wildlife rehab center, advocates against keeping wild animals as pets calling it unsafe, illegal and inhumane. Stories about wild animals who have been kept as pets attacking and injuring people, often fatally, are frequently in the news, the website said. The city of Billings has an ordinance banning the keeping of wildlife. Dont feed them Austin, the Miles City warden captain, said that statewide his agency often runs into problems with people unlawfully caring for wildlife, especially deer, but also feeding bears. Of late theres been quite a rash of feeding bears to the point that they become habituated, he said. That includes an incident last October in the Kalispell area where an emboldened black bear, who had been repeatedly fed by humans, killed an elderly woman. FWP tried to trap the bear, killing two others before ending the hunt. Each report of or concern about habituated wildlife or illegal feeding of wildlife is considered on a case-by-case basis, Austin said. Even a bird feeder, if it's causing deer or bears to unnaturally congregate and pose a threat to humans, could be seen as an attractant and the person asked to take it down. Deer coming into haystacks or an alfalfa field is not considered an attractant since its a normal part of agricultural practices, Austin said. He pointed to an FWP news release quoting wildlife veterinarian Jennifer Ramsey as well said. Paraphrasing, Austin said, People have a hard time understanding that we are managing wildlife as a population, not a single pet. And the threats are really high. The department has to draw a firm line on wildlife. Morrison1977/iStock/Thinkstock(HAMMONTOWN, N.J.) -- A series of sonic booms that rattled part of the Eastern seaboard Thursday afternoon -- felt from southern New Jersey to Long Island -- may have been caused by Naval aircraft testing in the area, the Navy said. The Naval Test Wing Atlantic, based out of the Naval Air Station in Patuxent River, Md., was conducting routine flight testing in the Atlantic Test Ranges this afternoon "that included activities which may have resulted in sonic booms," the Navy said in a statement. Other military aircraft, including both the Navy and Air Force, frequently use the ranges for testing and training. "The test wing is critical to the safe test and evaluation of all types of Navy and Marine Corps aircraft in service and in development," the Navy said. Some initially believed that it was an earthquake. Not an earthquake but a sonic boom in New Jersey: https://t.co/eUr4sB28Wm pic.twitter.com/TQFlkGr633 USGS (@USGS) January 28, 2016 The boom was centered north of Hammontown, NJ, around 1:30 p.m. It was the first of nine booms reported in southern New Jersey and along the Eastern Seaboard to Long Island, New York in the hours following the initial boom, the USGS said. The National Weather Service in Mount Holly said it contacted researchers at Columbia University who confirmed that the trembling was not an earthquake. We contacted Lamont Doherty Observatory @ Columbia University who confirmed that it was not an earthquake & likely result of a sonic boom. NWS Mount Holly (@NWS_MountHolly) January 28, 2016 A sonic boom is the thunder-like noise a person hears when an airplane, travels faster than the speed of sound. The boom travels through the air with the plane, so it arrives at different ground locations at different times, the USGS said. Since many have asked: A sonic boom travels through the air w/ the airplane so it arrives at different ground locations at different times. USGS (@USGS) January 28, 2016 A military facility in Trenton, the Joint Base McGuireDixLakehurst, said it doesn't house any aircraft capable of supersonic flights. The base also said it wasn't conducting any ground artillery training. "It wasn't us," a spokesperson for the Joint Base McGuireDixLakehurst said. The 177th Air National Guard, which flies F-16 jets, also they were not conducting any flights in the region. The Federal Aviation Administration and the North American Aerospace Defense Command confirmed to ABC News that there were no planes commercial or military operating in the area that could have caused a sonic boom. Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. As reported Jan. 26, Helena schools are doing better to identify homeless students and connect them to services. I applaud the effort. To go behind the scenes, the district has invited Family Promise to train school counselors, para-educators and new teachers (three separate trainings) on the role of Family Promise and how to connect families of perceptibly homeless students with needed support. This kind of intervention demonstrates the districts sensitivity and proactive leadership. Family Promise is a single point of entry for services to homeless children and their families, and when it comes to homelessness there is no wrong door. To that end, we are grateful for Lewis and Clark Countys Consented Referral System. Again, Superintendent Denise Juneau and the Helena School District are to be commended for supporting the conscientious efforts of teachers, counselors and para-educators to identify and respond to childhood homelessness. And the report of 176 homeless students challenges homelessness stereotyping. Helena children experience homelessness! They sleep in cars, shelters and abandoned buildings. They are forced to relocate constantly and are pulled out of school and away from friends. Homelessness impacts children in countless ways. Therefore, every citizen should be hyper-vigilant when it comes to childhood homelessness. Nick Zullo Helena WASHINGTON (AP) Few neighborhoods can match the perks of Adams Morgan in Washington, D.C. a reality that reflects a broader problem for the U.S. housing market. Residents of Adams Morgan enjoy a bevy of bars, restaurants, exercise studios and shopping, just steps from their row houses and condo buildings. Home values are reasonable relative to neighborhood incomes. And in general, the area schools rate as better than average nationally. Across the country, just 14 percent of neighborhoods manage to be at once affordably priced, walkable and near decent schools. And many of those neighborhoods exist in only two cities: Washington and Seattle, according to a new analysis released Wednesday by the real estate brokerage Redfin. The findings suggest a substantial mismatch between the neighborhoods where people say they want to live and the homes actually available to them. "Cities have not kept up with consumer tastes," said Nela Richardson, Redfin's chief economist. The analysis examined 170 neighborhoods in 20 cities, comparing home sales and income data with rankings from the organizations Walk Score and GreatSchools. Some cities, such as Baltimore, Boston and Philadelphia, contained balanced neighborhoods where people of different income classes could afford to live but their schools performed poorly. Others, such as Phoenix, San Antonio and Columbus, Ohio, enjoy above-average neighborhood schools. But their communities pretty much require cars for doing basic errands. Homebuyers have long sought high-quality schools. But a rising emphasis on walkability reflects a generational shift. Compared with older generations, millennials, ages 18 to 34, disproportionately prefer walking, according to a survey released in July by the National Association of Realtors and the Transportation Research and Education Center at Portland State University. Nearly a third of millennials commute to work or school by foot, compared with 13 percent for the post-World War II baby boom generation. The popularity of walkable neighborhoods has led to higher prices for certain residential and commercial real estate. A 2012 report by researchers at the Brookings Institution found higher retail sales and home values per square foot in the most walkable neighborhoods in Washington D.C. In the Redfin report, only 24 neighborhoods in eight cities met all three criteria of walkability, affordability and schools. Seven of the neighborhoods were in Seattle. Three of the top neighborhoods were in Washington, D.C. But the increased popularity of walkable neighborhoods could mean that many will eventually lose their affordability. The Redfin analysis shows that few walkable communities also have access to better-than-average public and charter schools meaning that their home values might rise and cause affordability to drop. SPRINGFIELD -- What Central and Southern Illinois legislators heard during Gov. Bruce Rauners State of the State address Wednesday depended on which side of the House chamber they were sitting. Rauners staff and Republican lawmakers billed the speech as an attempt to highlight areas of possible bipartisan compromise amid a monthslong deadlock with the Democrats who control the General Assembly. Democrats, however, largely heard more of the same from the first-term Republican, who has insisted on passing portions of his policy agenda before agreeing to raise taxes to balance the budget. In the speech, Rauner pointed out areas where compromises have been reached, such as changes to unemployment insurance and law enforcement reforms, and areas where he believes further compromises can be reached, including a pension reform plan proposed by Democratic Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, and changes to the states education funding structure. But for Democratic Sen. Gary Forby of Benton, there was too much talk of changes to collective bargaining rights and other issues on which his party has made its opposition clear. If youre going to be a governor, youve got to be able to work with people, Forby said after the speech. Its not, My way or the highway. Republican Sen. Jason Barickman of Bloomington thought Rauner did a good job of continuing to present his ideas for reform, including term limits and changes to the way legislative districts are drawn, while underlining the areas for compromise. Barickman said it was telling that the governor singled out Cullerton as the person with whom he can compromise on issues such as pensions. If deals are reached, that could put pressure on Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, to reach agreements as well, he said. If theres an agreement between the governor and President Cullerton on pension reform, then theres only one person whos going to stop that, and thats Speaker Madigan, if the Democrats allow it, Barickman said. Despite his repetition of points of his turnaround agenda, some Democrats took it as a good sign that Rauner mentioned school funding reform in his speech, something Cullerton stressed earlier this week in his own speech at the City Club of Chicago. State Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, has been leading the charge for the Senate Democrats on school funding reform. He introduced a bill last year that would send more money to districts with higher poverty rates and lower property values. During the speech, we heard many of the things that weve heard from the governor now for 12 months, but I think one clear difference is that hes embracing the idea that, without a doubt, school funding in the state has to change, Manar said. I heard that in a very strong way from the governor today. Democratic Rep. Sue Scherer, D-Decatur, a former teacher, also was pleased to hear Rauner talk about the issue. Reading between the lines, I felt that there was support for Senate Bill 1, she said, referring to Manars bill. However, Republicans werent reading the governors remarks the same way. Sen. Dale Righter of Mattoon said he doesnt believe Rauner was endorsing Manars plan. He was very specific that we needed to try to find a way to direct more funds into the lower-income, lower-property value areas without taking money from other areas, Righter said. The plans that have been put out by Sen. Manar, supported by the Senate president, did exactly that. Righter said he believes Rauner was talking about new money for education, which the senator believes could come from cuts to Medicaid and other public assistance programs, where the spending has grown immensely over the last decade. Now that Rauner has laid out his priorities, Republican Rep. Dan Brady of Bloomington said, its time for rank-and-file lawmakers to put forward legislation that presents options for moving forward with the budget and other issues. Thats what its going to take to undo this logjam, he said. The Illinois House and Senate have passed a bill that would fund grants for low-income college students and send money to community colleges. Democratic supporters say the bill will help community colleges keep their doors open and will allow students to stay in school. The bill, which comes with a $721 million price tag, doesnt deal with funding for four-year public universities, which also have been caught up in the states budget impasse. Republicans opponents say the bill wont have its intended effect because theres no money to pay for it. Theyve offered their own plan, which would fund universities and community colleges at reduced levels and fully fund grants through the Monetary Award Program. Its tied to a plan that would give Gov. Bruce Rauner new authority to move money around within the state budget to cover shortfalls. Rauner has indicated that he will not support the Democratic-backed plan. Illinois State University, Eastern Illinois University, Southern Illinois University and Western Illinois University, among others, have expressed their support for the bill funding MAP grants and community colleges. A separate bill has been introduced in the Senate that would fund public universities. This story will be updated. The following is a press release issued by the Ofice of the President of Armenia. On the occasion of Army Day in Armenia, a group of servicemen received high state awards and military distinction for their dedication, courage and outstanding service rendered in the course of their military duty. The award ceremony took place today at the Presidential Palace. The President of Armenia, Commander-in-Chief Serzh Sargsyan, sent a congratulatory message on the occasion of Army Day and congratulated the awardees. Congratulatory remarks by President Serzh Sargsyan on the occasion of Army Day Dear Compatriots, I cordially congratulate you on the occasion of Army Day. This year, we will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of independence of the Republic of Armenia. Its been a quarter of a century that we have a free and independent statehood. Throughout this time, we never doubted that our twenty-five year long journey would be possible without the Army which we created. The Armed Forces of Armenia became the cornerstone which was laid in the foundation of our statehood. It was the dictate of the time and the region we live in. We knew all too well who we are and where we live. We are Armenians, and as one of the ancient nations of the Middle East and Western Asia, we had the millennia long experience. Tragic events which are taking place today in the Middle East and in the areas which generally are very close to us, are painfully familiar to us and have been repeated regularly. We were the witnesses, contemporaries and chroniclers of similar events. They occurred right before our eyes in last centuries and during two millennia. Twenty-five years ago, when we assumed the responsibility for our own destiny, we were well aware that it was tantamount to entering a battlefield. And we did. We entered the battlefield for the human and peoples rights, for freedom. We had already seen the smoke rising from the Armenian Church in Baku, and it was the last and most convincing sign for those who still had doubts. Later, in our days, the smoke rising from the burnt and blown up religious sites shuddered and astonished the world. We shuddered in 1988, and the spontaneously formed self-defense units were our first steps in the struggle for survival. We also knew that the Fidayi movement would be doomed to failure, unless it became a regular army. The Armenian regular Army, our victorious Army, withstood the test of war because in those days Artsakh and Armenia, the entire Armenian nation became what a historian called the Askanazian nation, while the Holy Book calls it the Askanizian regiment, which represents the country, the nation and the armed forces. Dear Soldiers and Officers of the Armenian Army, distinguished Veterans, This glorious holiday is certainly a state and national holiday, but first of all it is your holiday. We trust in your dedication, in your professional skills, in your high combat spirit. We wish that from now no soldier is killed on the border. To you and our entire nation, I wish peace for our countrys freedom, for diligent work, which is a prerequisite for any progress. Dear Awardees, I congratulate you on the occasion of Army Day and on receiving Motherlands high awards and distinctions. It is thanks to you and your comrades-in-arms that the Armed Forces of Armenia are carrying out their mission, and fulfill the tasks set before them. You are doing it with honor and you are doing on a high professional level. You are the worthy followers of those who in the fires of the heroic Artsakh war laid the foundation of our future Army. Many of them died, giving us life and freedom. Today, on this sacred day, we bow to their blessed memory. You are their worthy followers who are true to the behest of the martyrs and to the values they entrusted. God bless the Armenian Land! Long live the Armenian Nation and it warrior sons! Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less. Dave Zweifel is editor emeritus of The Capital Times. dzweifel@madison.com and on Twitter @DaveZweifel A Cedarburg woman sits in the Sauk County jail after allegedly stabbing a man at Christmas Mountain Village. Jennifer L. Butcher, 31, faces a tentative first-degree charge of recklessly endangering safety, a felony punishable by a fine up to $25,000 and imprisonment up to 12 years. According to the Sauk County Sheriffs Department, it was an acquaintance who faced the business end of Butchers steak knife. At about 6:30 p.m. Monday, the Sheriffs Department received a report of a stabbing at Christmas Mountain in the town of Dellona. The report indicated a man had been stabbed by a female acquaintance with whom he had been staying at the resort. Dells-Delton EMS and Sauk County deputies and detectives were dispatched to the scene and found the man with a significant stab wound to the chest. The victim was transported to Reedsburg Area Medical Center and later transferred to University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison for treatment. The female acquaintance, identified as Butcher, was located and interviewed. Butcher allegedly admitted she and the victim had an argument, during which she stabbed him with a steak knife. Butcher was found to have no injuries consistent with a physical altercation or struggle. Alcohol is believed to be a factor in the incident. According to online court records, Butcher has faced scrapes with the law in various Wisconsin counties. These include a drunken driving as a second offense conviction in Jefferson County in 2013, bail jumping in Ozaukee County in 2011 and disorderly conduct in Ozaukee County in 2010. JUNEAU A 34-year-old Reeseville man was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he was found guilty of 20 counts of possession of child pornography. Judge Steven Bauer sentenced Adam E. Rogers to 10 years in prison and 10 years of extended supervision for each of the 20 counts of possession of child pornography. The terms will be served concurrently. Bauer also ordered Rogers to pay $5,000 of restitution to his victim. He will also pay $500 for each image of child porn, totaling $10,000 in fines. Rogers was ordered to register for the sex offender registry for the rest of his life and will not be eligible for programs while in prison. He was given 1,006 days of pre-sentence credit. ADistrict Attorney Kurt Klomberg expressed sympathy to members of a jury who were forced to view some of the most disturbing images one could imagine. A Wisconsin Department of Justice analyst testified that Rogers had approximately 40,000 provocative images of children, the majority of which met the definition of child pornography. Assistant District Attorney James Sempf prosecuted the case for the Dodge County District Attorneys Office. Klomberg expressed his gratitude to Sempf for his hard work in handling a difficult case. He also said, I feel bad for the members of the jury who were forced to view these images before they could render their verdict they have my deepest thanks for their service. According to the complaint, Dodge County detectives, with the assistance of a Division of Criminal Investigations computer crimes analyst, served a warrant to search Rogers residence. A computer was found in the bedroom. The complaint states that Rogers told officers he and his roommate both used the computer and he had built the computer from old parts. He said he owned the hard drive containing the images for four or five months, but had only installed it a couple of weeks before. He told officers he hadnt reformatted it, so the images were left from the person who had the drive before he got it. The computer analyst found the data in the files had been viewed in May, June, July and August, during the time when Rogers had said the drive was not in use. Capitol Lakes, a prominent, Downtown complex that houses more than 300 senior citizens, has filed for bankruptcy reorganization. Officials say, though, the senior housing, at 333 W. Main St., just off the Capitol Square, will not close and its services will not be negatively impacted. I want to assure our residents and their families that our goal is for Capitol Lakes to emerge from this process as quickly as possible as a financially healthy entity with the long-term ability to provide the quality amenities and services to which they are accustomed, executive director Tim Conroy said in a statement. Attorneys for Capitol Lakes filed a petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Madison a week ago, saying a breakdown in efforts to restructure a 2008 loan involving two banks, in Belgium and Spain, forced the move. About $52 million was borrowed to buy the complex and renovate it, Conroy said in an email. Capitol Lakes facilities which include a 15-story independent apartment tower, as well as assisted-living and skilled-nursing-care rooms, some of which date back to 1975 will remain open and will operate as usual, Conroy said. With 95 percent occupancy, there is no cash flow problem, he said. Our residents are our highest priority, Conroy said, in a letter sent to residents and their families. Day-to-day operations including dining and transportation services, care and support activities, and nursing and wellness programs are planned to continue as usual during the reorganization process. Formerly known as Meriter Retirement Services and affiliated with Meriter Hospital, the connected buildings stretching a full city block, from Henry Street to Broom Street were sold to Pacific Retirement Services, of Medford, Oregon, in 2008. Capitol Lakes is now a separate nonprofit and Pacific is its parent firm. Pacific is Capitol Lakes largest unsecured creditor, with $3.1 million in management fees owed, according to the Chapter 11 petition. McGann Construction, Madison, is the second-largest unsecured creditor, owed $186,609. Capitol Lakes lists assets of $50 million to $100 million and liabilities of $100 million to $500 million, with money owed to more than 100 creditors. Residents were surprised to hear of the bankruptcy filing, said Paul Gohdes, president of the Capitol Lakes Residents Association. But he said staff members have met with residents and answered their many questions. I think that has allayed most of the anxiety, said Gohdes, a retired pathologist from Neenah who moved to Capitol Lakes with his wife, Dolores, in 2012. He said about 15 residents attended a court hearing Tuesday. In court, they emphasized there is no problem with management here. (They) were meeting expenses but the debt from 2008 has been insurmountable, Gohdes said. He said residents have received strong assurances their services will continue and employees will not lose their jobs. Ald. Mike Verveer, 4th District, who represents the area, said he, too, was surprised by the filing. On the surface, it sounds very alarming that Capitol Lakes by all observations, an extremely prosperous, highly regarded, well-run institution would be filing for Chapter 11 protection. But as employees and residents have been fully briefed by management, there seems to be acceptance and understanding of the financial situation, Verveer said. He said Capitol Lakes officials noted that some big U.S. automakers filed for Chapter 11 and now are stronger than ever. Everybody hopes Capitol Lakes will emerge from this ... stronger and better than ever, he said. EatStreet will not just take your order for a restaurant meal but will bring the food to you, as well at least, if you are a customer in Chicago through an arrangement with the Uber ride service. The Madison mobile and online restaurant ordering business says it will launch a pilot program in Chicago next week that involves choosing your food off EatStreets website and getting it delivered by UberRUSH. In a large city like Chicago, getting the fastest delivery, even within less than a mile, is paramount, said EatStreet CEO and co-founder Matt Howard. EatStreet has signed up restaurants in 250 cities across the country. Initially aimed at college towns, EatStreet began operating in Chicago about a year ago and also is in big cities such as New York and Los Angeles. We want to make sure (customers) keep ordering, post-graduation, Howard said. Up to now, EatStreet has focused on meal ordering only, leaving the food delivery up to restaurants or their third-party delivery vendors. This is the first time EatStreet will provide deliveries itself, through UberRUSH. That will let the Madison company work with eateries that dont have delivery service, Howard said. We can get restaurants that weve never had before, he said. If the partnership with UberRUSH works out well in Chicago, EatStreet plans to roll it out in more cities, Howard said. The delivery service also puts EatStreet more head-to-head with competitors such as Chicago-based GrubHub, he said. The fact that we have it as part of our platform were on a level playing field, Howard said. In December, EatStreet finalized another $15 million in funding from investors, bringing the total to $28 million since the company began in 2010. EatStreet has 130 employees, with more than 100 of them in Madison, at 131 W. Wilson St. A bill to make it easier for private companies from outside Wisconsin to buy ailing public drinking water systems is coming under fire from critics who say it would hamstring the ability of citizens to block sales of vital public assets. The proposal, scheduled for a vote in a state Senate committee Thursday, would make a public referendum on the sale of water and sewage disposal systems optional instead of mandatory as is currently the case. And if residents gathered enough signatures to force a vote, it would take place before the terms and conditions of a sale are known. I dont know why we would want to go out of our way to make it easier for private, for-profit companies to come in and own our water utilities, said Amber Meyer Smith, a lobbyist for Clean Wisconsin. I would think we would want the highest and best level of accountability with something as important as water quality. The legislation was introduced at the request of a private water and sewer corporation based in Pennsylvania that may wish to acquire water utilities here, said Rep. Tyler August, R-Lake Geneva, the proposals lead author. August said he was surprised by opposition because the state would continue to regulate water quality, sewage discharges and rates paid by customers for private systems just as it does for public ones. This idea that these companies can come in and do whatever they want to is just factually incorrect, August said. August said he wasnt aware of any municipalities that are interested in selling, but this would streamline a path for any that wanted to unload failing systems that required costly maintenance and repairs. Making votes by the public optional would cut down on the wasteful expense of having a referendum even when there is no opposition to a sale, Tyler said. But opponents noted that the state provides loans and grants to municipalities that need to make repairs, and they scoffed at the idea that private owners would simply absorb costs instead of passing them on to ratepayers. If a private utility is going to buy a municipal system, they arent doing it to break even, which is what these systems do, said David Lawrence, executive director of the Wisconsin Rural Water Association. They are going to do it to make money. Aqua America representative Jim Bilotta told legislators the company can be especially helpful to smaller communities because its assets create economies of scale that can result in lower rates. The Assembly has already passed its version of the legislation, Assembly Bill 554. Senate Bill 432 goes before the Senate public works committee Thursday. Passage would pave the way for a vote of the full Senate. A spokeswoman for Gov. Scott Walker didnt respond to a request for comment. Republicans control both houses of the Legislature, but a Democratic member of the committee said he would fight the bill. This means that out-of-state water barons and corporations could control our shared, public water, Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, said in a statement. Larson noted that loss of local control preceded lead-poisoning of water in Flint, Michigan, but August said the Flint case was irrelevant because a state-appointed emergency manager, not a private water company, had taken control from locally elected officials. Under current law, a municipality that wants to sell a water or sewer utility goes to the state Public Service Commission, which sets the terms of sale. Then the deal must be approved by the majority of voters. Current law allows Wisconsin companies to buy utilities, but there are none in the market now, August said. PSC records indicate Superior has the only major water system in the state that is privately owned. There are about 100 major publicly owned systems. Beloits water system was owned by Alliant Energy until 2005 when the city purchased it, said PSC spokeswoman Elise Nelson. Aqua America Inc., Associated Builders and Contractors and the League of Wisconsin Municipalities registered in favor of the legislation. Curt Witynski, assistant director of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, said the group supports the legislation because it typically pushes for laws that put decision-making in elected officials hands instead of referendums. Investor information published by Aqua America indicates that the corporation increased earnings 15 consecutive years through 2014. It operates water and sewer utilities serving 3 million people in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, Illinois, North Carolina, New Jersey, Indiana and Virginia. Access to data from so-called vehicle black boxes, capable of tracking how a motorist drives, would be restricted under a bill being circulated by a trio of GOP state lawmakers. Sen. Duey Stroebel, R-Saukville, and Reps. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum, and Romaine Quinn, R-Rice Lake, are seeking support for the bill among fellow lawmakers. It gives vehicle owners control of data collected by their vehicles black box known in the industry as event data recorders, or EDRs specifying that others could access it only with the owners permission. Most newer vehicles have such boxes, capable of tracking things like a vehicles speed, whether the driver brakes or accelerates and whether that person is wearing a seat belt. Currently, the boxes record such data only in the seconds before, during and after a crash. But critics worry about how much more information the devices might collect as they become more sophisticated. As EDRs develop in complexity and interactivity, this legislation will ensure that Wisconsins motorists are sufficiently protected from unauthorized data access and transmission, the lawmakers wrote in a memo to their colleagues. Who owns EDR data is a state-by-state question. Wisconsin law is silent on the matter, bill supporters told the Wisconsin State Journal. Kremer said its a typical case of state law not keeping pace with technology. At least 23 other states have passed laws defining who owns EDR data, according to Steve Panten, a spokesman for ABATE of Wisconsin, a motorcyclists rights advocacy group that supports the bill. We need to start addressing some of these privacy issues, Kremer said. The bill says insurance companies would not be able to link the issuance or renewal of a liability policy to whether the vehicle has such a box, or whether the motorist allows the insurer to access or use data it collects. Some insurers have begun offering safe driver discounts contingent on motorists installing a device that tracks how they drive. The bill lifts its data-access restrictions for motorists who consent to share the data with their insurer for such a policy. The bill faces a steep climb to become law this year, as its on course to be introduced near the close of the current two-year session. If nothing else, Quinn said he hopes the bill makes more Wisconsinites aware that their vehicles may collect data on how they drive and that they should be conscious of who obtains it. Technology today really can be more invasive than you think, and potentially can be used against you, Quinn said. If you attend a presidential campaign event, you may come across someone wearing colonial garb or an Uncle Sam costume or body paint. But a Ted Cruz rally in Iowa last weekend featured something possibly unprecedented: guys dressed up as Royal Canadian Mounted Police. This was not a random choice of attire. The guys in scarlet tunics were protesters, who passed out copies of Cruzs Canadian birth certificate to highlight the questions about his eligibility for the American presidency. The Constitution says the president must be a natural born citizen of the United States. There is no dispute that the Texas senator was a U.S. citizen from birth, since his mother was an American. Donald Trump has raised questions, though, about whether Cruz, being born in the great state of Alberta, qualifies as a natural born citizen. Cruz dismisses the issue. Its settled law, he says. As a legal matter its quite straightforward. In fact, its never been settled, its not straightforward and some experts dont agree with his reading. That Trump raised the issue made it deeply suspect. But though its unlikely that anything coming out of Trumps mouth is true, its not impossible. And his claim that this is an unresolved question that could end up throwing the election into doubt happens to be correct. When it comes to parsing the crucial phrase, Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe has noted, No Supreme Court decision in the past two centuries has ever done so. In truth, the constitutional definition of a natural born citizen is completely unsettled. Tribe says that under an originalist interpretation of the Constitution the type Cruz champions he wouldnt be eligible, because the legal principles that prevailed in the 1780s and 90s required that someone actually be born on U.S. soil to be a natural born citizen. Cruz retorted that this is just what youd expect from a left-wing judicial activist. But Tribe, an eminent constitutional scholar, is not so predictable. He surprised gun-rights advocates years ago, before the landmark Supreme Court decisions on the Second Amendment, when he said it protects an individual right to own firearms. Even if hes a judicial activist, the Supreme Court might agree with him. Cruz should know as much, because he has denounced the court for its lawlessness, imperial tendencies and, yes, judicial activism. Nor is Tribe alone among experts. University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner says, The ordinary meaning of the language suggests to me that one must be born on U.S. territory. Chapman Universitys Ronald Rotunda, co-author of a widely used constitutional law textbook, told me a couple of weeks ago he had no doubt Cruz is eligible. But when he investigated the issue, he concluded that under the relevant Supreme Court precedents, Cruz simply is not a natural born citizen. Catholic University law professor Sarah Helene Duggin wrote in 2005, Natural born citizenship is absolutely certain only for United States citizens born post-statehood in one of the 50 states, provided that they are not members of Native American tribes. Steven Lubet, a Northwestern University law professor, spies another possible land mine. Cruz qualified for citizenship because his mother was an American citizen (unlike his father). But under the law in effect in 1970, Cruz would only have acquired U.S. citizenship if his mother had been physically present in the United States for 10 years prior to his birth, including five years after she reached the age of 14, Lubet wrote in Salon. That raises two questions: Did she live in this country for the required amount of time? And can the Cruz family prove it? Whether the justices would take the case is another question. Unless some state election official bars him from the ballot on constitutional grounds or a rival candidate goes to court, its unlikely a lawsuit would get a hearing. But if that happens, the court may elect to resolve the matter and no one can be confident of the ultimate verdict. Trump, believe it or not, is onto something. Cruzs candidacy suffers a potentially fatal defect. If Cruz is nominated or elected, he could be disqualified. When Republican voters cast their ballots, they have to ask themselves: Is he worth the risk? by dailyhealthpost Just because a substance is illegal does not mean it is bad. In fact, many legal substances are responsible for a variety of ailments, prescription drugs alone are responsible for killing over 100,000 people each year. Cannabis mightve been considered a harmful drug for many decades but all of this is about to change. Dozens of peer-reviewed studies have shown the health benefits of cannabis ranging from weight-loss, to cancer-killing capabilities. Heres a breakdown of the ten most important (and groundbreaking) studies published in recent years. 1. THC May Treat Inflammatory Diseases and Cancer By Altering Genes A government funded study published by the Journal of Biological Chemistry found that THC may actually alter certain genes in our body, which can result in a positive effect on a number of conditions, especially cancers and inflammatory diseases. This is the first study of its kind to find such a direct link between cannabinoids, and the alteration of genes. 2. Cannabis Combats Brain Degeneration and Increases Stamina A study conducted at the Institute of Molecular Psychiatry at the University of Bonn in Germany found that cannabis triggers the release of antioxidants, which acts as a cleansing mechanism, resulting in the removal of damaged cells and improving the efficiency of mitochondria, the energy source that powers cells, potentially increasing stamina. These discoveries shed new insight on how natural marijuana cannabinoids hold the capacity to literally kill the brain inflammation responsible for causing cognitive decline, neural failure, and brain degeneration, says Gery Wenk, a professor of neuroscience, immunology and medical genetics at Ohio State University. 3. Cannabis Can Stop Seizures A study published by the British Journal of Pharmacology found that cannabis can stop seizures due to its significant anticonvulsant effects. 4. THC Provides Protection from Heart Attacks Research published this year in the journal Biochemical Pharmacology found that even minuscule amounts of THC can provide protection from heart attacks, as well as reduce the potential cardiovascular damage associated with suffering one. For the study researchers administered extremely small amounts of THC; 0.002 mg/kg, which is up to 10,000 times less potent than the average joint. Despite how small the dose was, researchers found it to be effective at protecting against heart attacks when administered 2 to 48 hours before an attack, and found it to help relieve the symptoms when administered afterward. [THC] is a safe and effective treatment that reduces myocardial ischemic (heart attack) damage, states the study. It concludes: [O]ur study provides novel evidence for the beneficial use of extremely low doses of THC, doses that do not elicit any psychoactive side effects, in order to protect the heart from ischemic insults. THC can be used as a pre-conditioning drug in cases in which ischemic insult to the heart is anticipated, such as during cardiac surgery or percutaneous coronary intervention. 5. Cannabinoids Found to Reduce 90% of Skin Cancer in Just 20 Weeks Researchers at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Public Health had a study published in the Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, which found that cannabinoids can reduce up to 90% of skin cancer in just a 20 week period in animal models. 6. THC May Be Helpful in Combating HIV A study published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology found researchers infecting white blood cells with the HIV virus, before then exposing the cells to synthesized THC. After doing so, the cells saw a drastic decrease in the rate of HIV-1 infection. 7. Cannabinoids May Be Best Medication For Those With PTSD A study conducted by researchers at the New York University School of Medicine, and funded by the National Institute of Health, found that those with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) had a lower number of active cannabinoid receptors in the brain. According to researchers, this study paves the way towards using cannabis as an effective medication for the condition, given that cannabinoids activate the bodys cannabinoid receptors. 8. Cannabis Can Treat Osteoarthritis A study published in the journal PLOS One, as well as by the National Institute of Health, found strong evidence that activation of our bodys cannabinoid receptors something done naturally by cannabis can treat osteoarthritis (OA), which, according to the studys researchers, is a prevalent disease accompanied by chronic, debilitating pain. Its the most common joint disorder. 9. Cannabis May Prevent Organ Transplants From Being Rejected An importand study published in the Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology found that cannabis may actually prevent organs from being rejected during transplant, which often leads to death. The irony in this is that in most countries, people are refused organ transplants if their blood tests positive for cannabis, even if theyre a qualified medical cannabis patient in an area where its legal. 10. Cannabis May Grow Stem Cells, Repair the Brain After Injury A study published in the December issue of the journal Biochemical Society Transactions, and published online early by the National Institute of Health, found that the brains endocannabinoid system which is activated through cannabis use has neuroprotective and immunomodulatory capabilities, and may actually lead to the growth of stem cells. Bottom Line Humans and animals alike naturally synthesize endocannabinoids, chemical compounds that activate the same receptors as THC, the active component of marijuana. This is the main reason why ingesting cannabis is so good for the body. PREVIOUS POST A story about appreciation[ A young man went to seek an important position at a large printing company. He passed the initial interview and was going to meet the director for the final interview. The director saw his resume, it was excellent. And asked, ' - Have you received a scholarship for school?' The... WASHINGTON - The Americans for Legal Immigration PAC endorsed Illinois' GOP challenger James Marter over incumbent U.S. Senator Mark Kirk this week, saying Kirk is a "target for removal from office" because he supported the Gang of Eight's infamous amnesty bill in 2013. "Thank God the true American conservatives stopped Senator Mark Kirk's illegal immigrant amnesty bill in the U.S. House," said William Gheen, President of ALIPAC. "Kirk listens to the voices of the Democrats and Chamber of Commerce instead of his Republican constituents on the issues of amnesty and illegal immigration." BARRINGTON HILLS - Republican voters in the 26th Senate district have three choices in the upcoming primary to succeed retiring Senator Dan Duffy - Barrington Hills Village President Martin McLaughlin, attorney Dan McConchie and Mettawa Mayor Casey Urlacher. Thursday, McLaughlin announced a list of fourteen local leaders that stepped forward to endorse their colleague. I am honored to have the support of these local leaders who work tirelessly for their communities, said a grateful McLaughlin. In our positions, we cant allow politics to stand in the way of moving our communities forward. As a result, we have enacted many of the reforms that Governor Rauner is looking to achieve in Springfield. Thats the kind of experienced leadership the Governor needs on his side in order to enact his conservative reforms. What was the point of his statement? Could it be President Obama wanted to plant the idea in all our minds that Christians were in for a rude awakening, knowing his campaign message of Hope and Change was not going to prove to be the type of hope and change Christians had in mind? This is a strange statement coming from a President whose populace consisted of 78% Christians, especially so when considering that throughout its history the United States always identified itself as Christian, while being open to all faiths. Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation - at least, not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers. Obama and his administration have continually proved themselves adversarial to Christians and their beliefs. WallBuilders has identified 20 acts of hostility towards people of Biblical faith; 39 acts of hostility from the Obama-led military toward people of Biblical faith; 24 acts of hostility towards Biblical values; and 8 Acts of preferentialism for Islam. The most offensive to people of faith was changing the historical and traditional definition of marriage. Under Obamas leadership, every state in the Union, whether it agreed or not, was mandated to conduct homosexual marriages when requested. Christian businesses, such as florist shops, photographers, bakeries, and caterers were forced to participate in such weddings, when requested by homosexuals. Recently, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that refusing to bake a cake for a gay couple was discrimination not protected by the baker's right to religious freedom. Are we to believe that that specific bakery was the only one in town, that the gay couple would now be unable to order a wedding cake? It's more believable to assume it was the Christian baker who was being targeted? We know the homosexual couple contacted the A.C.L.U., whose lawyers were quick to file a lawsuit against the Christian couple. The State ruled in favor of the homosexuals, which sent the chilling message how Americans are mandated to violate their religious beliefs to obey a law that violates their conscience. What will be next: homosexuals demanding Christian pastors and priests conduct wedding ceremonies in our churches? Elections do Matter Elections do have consequences, which is quite obvious after seven years of Obamas leadership. What is not so obvious is why Christians and Church leaders remained silent while Obama perpetrated numerous attacks that minimized and even criminalized Christian traditions and laws. Since Obama took office membership in churches across America has declined, and polls indicate fewer people identify themselves as Christian. However, statistics indicate the Christian Church has been in a state of decline for about the last 50 years, with a steady decline in church attendance over the last 30. Therefore, Obama cannot be singled out and blamed for creating the decline. However, it is fair to say his Presidency and the new laws enacted under his supervision have and will continue to do excessive damage to people of faith far beyond his time in office. While there are many reasons given for the decline of the Christian Church, there is one that history has proven most significant and which we continue to witness today - It is the quality of leadership. Whether it is a family, a business, an organization, a country, or a church, the quality and direction of its leader will decide its ultimate fate. The impact a leader has cannot be emphasized enough, but equally important are the responsibilities of the people under this leadership. America is somewhat unique in that our Constitution and laws allow citizens to choose their political leaders and hold them accountable for their actions and decisions. When they are untrue to their promises and do not do what is expected of them, they should be rebuked and/or replaced. Instead, we often tend to ignore taking responsibility for our part in keeping leaders accountable and thus allow blatant problems to continue. It is contingent upon voters to choose wisely and then hold leaders accountable to their stated promises. If we want to keep both our Christian Church and America healthy and prosperous, we must choose our leaders wisely; preferring and helping to elect those with a vision we share and with whom we trust. If we are offended by what many are calling a War on Christians, we need to be involved in the election process and do our best to elect proven Christian candidates who will enact moral laws, instead of the current trend of enacting laws that are so grievous they defy the standards of all religions. Absent from duty Unfortunately, most Christians do not vote. They forfeit their right and neglect their responsibility to be a part of determining who will lead them but are the first to complain when politicians disappoint them. Astounding is that only about 39% of Christians have voted in the last few elections. Of these it is questionable as to whether they investigated or knew pertinent facts about the candidates or ballot issues. After all the political advertisements clogging mailboxes before elections impart more spin than truth. It should not be surprising to know politicians lie because they rarely suffer any penalty for doing so. Would our nation look differently today, if the majority of those who profess to be Christians (78%) voted for candidates who represented their beliefs? Obviously it would! How can Christians be encouraged to vote? Many non-voters admit they do not vote because they have been completely disconnected from politics and have no credible information as to the best candidate. What if they had information they could trust about the differences in the political parties and the candidates? It is likely many more would vote if they were given credible information and felt confident in their choices. Our Christian nation was founded largely due to the efforts of the Black-Robed Regiment during the Revolutionary Period. They were pastors and church leaders who were instrumental in Americas independence. They stepped into their pulpits prominently attired in long black robes and fearlessly preached the Word of God, as well as the political issues that impacted their congregation. They understood if their Church and country were to thrive, the people needed to be informed of Gods Word and how to apply Scripture to every aspect of their lives, including the principles they should expect from those who governed them. Ultimately, it was the Black-Robed Regiment who led their members into battle, sometimes with a Christian flag waving. They fought for Americas freedom from England. The pastors and church leaders of today must once again lead us in the battle to win back souls and elections to keep those freedoms. Could the Christian Church save America and the Church itself from further decline? Unquestionably yes, by taking the example of those church leaders who fought for our Independence. They had God on their side in their miraculous defeat of the English Navy, the most powerful in the World at that time. Our enemy is more powerful than any military or government, but with the help of God, through our prayers and action, we can win without physically harming a soul. If a whopping 78% of Americans who profess to be Christians were educated as to the importance of voting, their impact could turn our country around, enact godly, moral laws, and thus have Gods hand of protection back on us again. The law is on our side. Despite a belief otherwise, it is still perfectly legal for church leaders to explain the importance of voting for the best candidate to represent them. They will actually be doing their civic duty by encouraging their people to participate in civil commitments, whether that is to run for a public office, or simply vote for the candidates who will best represent them. Steps for churches to follow The most effective steps a church can take is to help and encourage their congregations to be educated voters. Here are three very simple steps which are absolutely legal and exceedingly helpful: There are still people who do not know they must fill out a voter registration form before being allowed to vote. Others know, but forget to pick one up, fill it out, and/or mail it. Churches can be helpful to their members by setting up a voter registration table in the church courtyard (or an agreed upon place) starting about two months before the election. It should be attended by someone who can be trusted to do some very simple steps. They will need to obtain Voter Registration forms from a post office or a Voter Registrars Office. The table will need to be attended by someone who can answer basic questions, accept registrations no matter which party is designated, and promptly turn in or mail the new registrations to their local Voter Registrar Office. Biblical differences between the two parties can be seen by checking each of the Party Platforms. Most Christians want to know about those differences, so they can make an educated choice as to which party best represents their values. This document , "Political Party Platform Excerpts", shows positions taken by both Parties on important issues. It can be printed out and distributed in churches. It is a monumental task to investigate every candidate and proposition on the ballot. Most people do not even know where to find the necessary information. There are Christian Voter Guides available for churches, which provide essential information and is enormously helpful. They can be accessed at this site . Now available in Illinois at the Illinois Family Institute is its Voter Guide 2016 for the Illinois Primary Election in March. Go here to download . The 2016 election allows us a window of opportunity to make a positive change in our leadership. Christians are the single largest voting bloc in America. If we all voted wisely, we could make positive changes in the direction of America. Educated Christian voters are our hope for the future and are the best way to keep the Church viable and America strong. President Ronald Reagans simple but profound statement must be our guide: If we ever forget that were one nation under God, then we will be one nation gone under. America needs a President who fully understands that basic principle. The Church has an opportunity to elect such a candidate Will you be a part of helping that to happen? The first poll was done at the West Suburban Patriots' morning meeting, the second at the Walsh Freedom event Saturday evening. A week before the Iowa Caucus, northern Illinois conservatives picked Ted Cruz the winner in two straw polls this past Saturday. The polls were conducted in the Chicago area by Illinois Conservatives United and administered by Jan Shaw, a member of the West Suburban Patriots. Poll results from the West Suburban Patriot meeting Saturday morning: While Ted Cruz was the winner, Donald Trump came in second in both polls. Those two combine for close to 80% of the votes. Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, and Rand Paul are in the top five, but not close to the two front runners. From the second poll at the Walsh Freedom rally Saturday night: The Iowa Caucus is Monday, February 1st, with a party to watch the results roll in is being held by Ted Cruz supporters at the Diplomat West Banquet Hall, 681 West North Avenue in Elmhurst, Illinois. It is a free event with cash bar but any contributions for Cruz for President are welcomed. More information call Steve Orlando at 630-309-3344 or Steve Balich at 815-557-7196 or Yvonne Bolton at 815-272-1110. All are welcome. The Greater Noida police will provide a three layer security to the biggest auto expo event in Delhi, with the help of the state police and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF). SIAM officials have assured that all the necessary security arrangements are being made and that they are in full support with the security agencies. By India Today Web Desk: With the Auto Expo 2016 right around the corner, Greater Noida police has made all the arrangements to provide the event with a three tier security. The event, scheduled from February 5-9, 2016, will take place at the India Expo Mart, Greater Noida. The Greater Noida police will provide a three layer security to the biggest auto expo event in Delhi, with the help of the state police and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF). advertisement ALSO READ: EXCLUSIVE: New Gen Toyota Innova teased; to be called Crysta According to a report in Hindustan Times, the first layer will largely comprise of traffic police and other police persons. The state police on special duty will take care of the second layer, while the CISF will handle the security of the innermost area of the venue. In the Hindustan Times report, Sanjay Singh, SP (rural) said, "After the meeting with the Society of Indian Automobile Manufactures (SIAM) and IEM members over security and crowd management at the venue, we have decided to increase CCTV surveillance and install more door frame metal detectors. The innermost security layer will be under the CISF as they have expertise in handling security at big events." With a parking capacity of around 13,000, the organisers have arranged for parking in a spot which is a bit away from the entry points of the Expo Mart. However there are frequent feeder buses which will take people to and fro to the venue. This service is provided free of cost. Moreover, the entrance will consist of X-ray baggage scanner, dog squads on stand-by and women constables at the entry points of the venue, according to Singh. ALSO READ: Getting ready for the Auto Expo More than 5 lakh people visited the Auto Expo in 2012, and this time around the organisers are expecting more than 6-7 lakh visitors. SIAM officials have assured that all the necessary security arrangements are being made and that they are in full support with the security agencies. --- ENDS --- Shares in Daihatsu soared 16 per cent after being overwhelmed by buy orders for most of the day. Full control of Daihatsu could help Toyota leverage the lower-cost brand better and cut procurement costs for Daihatsu. By Reuters: Toyota Motor Corp said it was considering buying out the rest of mini vehicle maker Daihatsu Motor Co, a $3.1 billion deal at current market prices, but denied a report that it was in partnership talks with Daihatsu rival Suzuki Motor Corp. Shares in Daihatsu soared 16 per cent after being overwhelmed by buy orders for most of the day. Shares in Suzuki jumped 11 per cent despite denials from both Toyota and Suzuki. Toyota rose 3.8 per cent. advertisement Full control of Daihatsu could help Toyota leverage the lower-cost brand better and cut procurement costs for Daihatsu, while capital ties with Suzuki would help the world's largest automaker make inroads into India where Suzuki commands around half the passenger car market. ALSO READ: EXCLUSIVE: New Gen Toyota Innova teased; to be called Crysta "We are constantly considering a number of possibilities relating to Daihatsu, such as partnerships or business restructuring, including making the company a fully owned subsidiary," Toyota said in a statement, but added that no decisions had been made. Toyota owns 51.2 per cent of Daihatsu, which like Suzuki, specialises in 660cc mini vehicles, a segment particular to Japan, as well as compact cars. Last year, Daihatsu was the weakest link in the Toyota group, which also includes the Toyota and Lexus brands and truck maker Hino Motors. Global sales for Daihatsu slid 13.3 per cent in 2015, data on Wednesday showed. That pushed total Toyota group sales 0.8 per cent lower to 10.15 million, although the group retained the title of the world's biggest automaker, beating Volkswagen's sales of 9.93 million. ALSO READ: Toyota bets on Lexus flagship revamp to overcome boring image The Nikkei business daily said that Toyota and Suzuki were discussing ties from a variety of angles, including the possibility of cross-shareholdings as they look to capitalise on demand for compact cars in India and other emerging economies. Some analysts noted that greater control of Daihatsu could be at odds with potential cooperation with Suzuki given that the two mini vehicle makers are fierce competitors for the same customers. "I can easily see the Daihatsu brand used in the same way that VW uses Skoda or Renault uses Dacia or Nissan uses Datsun as a low-cost, sub-premium brand to the core brand," CLSA senior research analyst Christopher Richter said. "That could be a very effective weapon against Suzuki in places like India ... if I were Suzuki that would sound like a risk to doing business with Toyota." Still, others noted that a potential Toyota-Suzuki partnership could benefit both automakers. advertisement Suzuki, through its control of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, has a vast distribution network in India that Toyota could greatly benefit from. "Suzuki would meanwhile be getting a stable shareholder in Toyota as well as access to Toyota's HEV/FCV and other next-generation environmental technologies geared toward future vehicle electrification," JPMorgan analysts said in a note. ALSO READ: Toyota to showcase hybrid vehicles at Auto Expo 2016 Suzuki is expected, however, to tread carefully with any new tie-ups. It formed a capital alliance with Volkswagen AG in early 2010 but relations soon soured, leading to a years-long dispute in an arbitration court that ended last year with the unwinding of their cross-shareholdings. --- ENDS --- By India Today Web Desk: Corruption is the tumour that India is trying to get rid of, for ages. The economy takes a hit every time one pays extra money to acquire a service or an object. Many don't understand that even the smallest instance of corruption make a big impact on the country's economy. Every paisa spent in gathering special benefit is an insult to those who work hard and honestly. advertisement According to the recently published Corruption Perception Index 2015 by Transparency International, a global organisation, India stands as the 76th least corrupt country in the world. Here are some points you must know: 1. India's score of 38, measured from the reports gathered by the Transparency International, has been the same as last year. However, it made a 2-point increment from the reports of 2013 and 2012. India's rank in 2014 was 85 and 94 in 2013. 2. The Corruption Perception Index 2015 includes 168 countries in the list and evaluates each, on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). 3. Corruption not only cripples a country's economy, it also gives rise to other inhuman practices such as child labour, human trafficking, child mortality, illiteracy, environmental hazards and most importantly terrorism. 4. If corruption is prevalent in a country, everything that can be bought or sold becomes a means to exploit the poor. 5. The countries at the bottom of the Corruption Perception Index 2015 are South Sudan with a score of 15, Sudan (12), Afghanistan (11), North Korea(8) and Somalia (8). 6. The top-scoring countries are Netherlands (87), New Zealand (88), Sweden (89), Finland (90) and Denmark (91). 7. Although the top-scoring countries are being hailed as the model economic states, some of their foreign policies are contradictory to their corruption-free home affairs. For example, Sweden, the third cleanest country in terms of corruption, is said to bribe its way to multi-million dollar business deals in Uzbekistan. On the other hand, it is reported that a worldwide value of about 1 trillion dollars is wasted through corruption every year; a tremendous sum of money that could be used to eradicate poverty, hunger and solve many global crises. Interested in General Knowledge and Current Affairs? Click here to stay informed and know what is happening around the world with our G.K. and Current Affairs section --- ENDS --- Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar ordered a CBI inquiry against two serving Major Generals in a disproportionate assets case.Major General Ashok Kumar of Army Service Core and Major General SS Lamba of Army Ordinance Core are accused of paying bribe to get promotion. By India Today Web Desk: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today ordered a CBI inquiry against two serving Major Generals in a disproportionate assets case. Major General Ashok Kumar of Army Service Core and Major General SS Lamba of Army Ordinance Core are accused of paying bribe to get promotion. This is for the first time that an inquiry has been ordered by the government against top serving army officers. advertisement Top Defence Ministry sources said, "Action have been taken on the basis of various complaints recieved against these officers." In persuance of zero tolerance policy against corruption, Parrikar has asked the CBI to investigate all movable and immovable assets earned by these officers. According to sources, the promotion board was approved during the tenure of former Military Secretary Lt. Gen R. Bhalla. Questions were also raised against Lt. Gen. Bhalla(Retd) regarding bribary cases pertaining to promotions. --- ENDS --- Dr Anjali Ramkissoon, who had been caught on camera last week, assaulting an Uber cabbie in a drunk state in Miami, has apologised for her actions. By India Today Web Desk: Last week, a video that stormed through the social media was that of an Indian-origin doctor assaulting an Uber driver in the streets of Miami. This week, Dr Anjali Ramkissoon stepped forward to claim responsibility for her actions , sober and sorry about what she did. "I see a person that is not me. I'm ashamed," Ramkissoon said on the news show Good Morning America yesterday, "I still can't watch the entire video." advertisement Ramkissoon, a 30-year-old fourth-year resident at Jackson Memorial Medical Center, said on the show she was ashamed of how she behaved with the cab driver that night, admitting she was acting under the influence of alcohol. "In the moment I was just so angry. I wasn't really thinking and if I could take it back I would," she said. "There is absolutely no excuse for my actions. I am ashamed. I am so sorry. I've hurt so many people with this." Ramkissoon said her father was admitted to the hospital that day and minutes before the incident, she and her boyfriend of two years had split. "I was extremely stressed out that day," she said. "It was probably one of the worst days of my life and I was caught at my lowest moment. Nothing like this has ever happened." The video of the scuffle between Ramkissoon and the driver was posted online by YouTube user JuanCinco, who had booked the Uber cab in the first place. Since its release, Ramkissoon has been at the receiving end of much hatred. "My family was targeted. Their address was leaked," she said in the interview. "I've received messages telling me that I should kill myself, that I should have been raped that night." Jackson Health System, the hospital where she works, has currently placed Ramkissoon on administrative leave. A hospital spokesperson told ABC News that an internal investigation is in process to "determine if any disciplinary action will be taken, up to and including termination". "Yes, I'm on administrative leave from my job right now but at the same time, this has not just affected my career, it's also affected my family. It's affected my personal life," Ramkissoon said. "I get it. I did something extremely horrible and I'm also extremely sorry for it." Ramkissoon also expressed her gratitude for the Uber driver who declined to press charges against her after the incident. "We actually settled while we were out there. I paid for the damages and I apologized to him and he accepted my apology," Ramkissoon said. "I'm so thankful that he did not press charges, that he did not have me arrested." advertisement Ramkissoon added she hopes she can stand as a lesson to others, admitting she's "taking responsibility for it" and "asking for forgiveness". "I did it and I'm ashamed of what I did and this would never happen again," she said. "At the same time, I think that I should also speak out to send a message out to people and the public to be careful and use my story as a lesson to be careful what you do in public because the things that we do can be taped and we will have to suffer severe ramifications for these things." "I made a huge mistake, the biggest mistake of my life, and that person is not me," Ramkissoon said. Here's a peak at how Ramkissoon attacked the Uber driver that night: --- ENDS --- President Pranab Mukherjee has held former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao responsible for the demolition of Babri mosque in 1992, which triggered wide-scale riots across the country. By India Today Web Desk: President Pranab Mukherjee has held former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao responsible for the demolition of Babri mosque in 1992, which triggered wide-scale riots across the country. President Pranab Mukherjee, in the second volume of his memoir - The Turbulent Years: 1980-96 - has said PV Narasimha Rao's biggest failure was his inability to prevent the demolition of Babri mosque in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. advertisement President Mukherjee's book in which he has chronicled some momentous developments of the 1980s and 1990s, including Indira Gandhi's assassination, Babri demolition, operation Blue Star and his ouster from Rajiv Gandhi's Cabinet was released today by Vice President Hamid Ansari. Mukherjee has termed his exit from the Rajiv Gandhi Cabinet and Congress party as a "fiasco" which he himself had created. "I have candidly recognised in the book that I should have not ventured this because I was never a mass leader and I did not have the type of following which rebels from Congress like Ajay Mukherjee in 1960s or recently Mamata and in one sense Indira ji herself had," the President said. He has also shed new light on every major political occurrence of the time - from Rajiv Gandhi's ascendance as Prime Minister to the emergence of P V Narsimha Rao as leader of the nation. "It is for the readers to read and come to their own conclusion. I did not deliberately speak on (matters) which are highly confidential...I had a bit conservative approach. As and when facts will be released by the government, the people would come to know. Not from somebody's account who was in the government," he said. Also Read All you need to know about the Ayodhya dispute How Babri demolition triggered the jihad in Masood Azhar --- ENDS --- The Service you requested is not available at this time Regret the inconvenience caused. Try again after sometime. The Bengaluru Police arrested a youth from Chennai for allegedly uploading pictures of a girl on porn websites and blackmailing her for money. By Mail Today: The Bengaluru Police arrested a youth from Chennai for allegedly uploading pictures of a girl on porn websites and blackmailing her for money. According to the police, Ahmed Ali (21) befriended a girl in Bengaluru over Facebook a few months ago. Over a period of time, they became close friends and exchanged personal pictures. Ali, who lost his job in the meantime, asked her to bail him out of distress. When she refused to pay him money, he threatened to upload her pictures on the Internet. When the girl did not budge, he uploaded her pictures on leading porn websites. advertisement When the girl learnt about Ali's action, she immediately paid him Rs 20,000 and he deleted her pictures. But Ali continued to pester her for more money and threatened to upload more pictures. Unable to bear the pressure, the girl approached the local police, who arrested Ali. The police have registered a case and a probe is on. Also Read: Cyber crimes: Cops to rope in schools --- ENDS --- Pressure mounts on Kerala CM Oommen Chandy to resign after a court ordered filing of an FIR against him and minister Aryadan Muhammed in solar scam case. By India Today Web Desk: A local court in Thrissur today asked the police to file an FIR against Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Minister of Electricity and Transport Aryadan Muhammed in the solar scam case. The prime accused in the case, Saritha S Nair on Wednesday claimed that she had paid bribes of Rs 1.90 crore and Rs 40 lakh to Chandy and Muhammed to set up mega power projects in the state. advertisement Meanwhile, police had to lathicharge protesters demanding Chandy's resignation outside the secretariat. The Congress has asked the Kerala unit for a report on the entire solar scam. According to sources, Chandy will be asked explain his position to the party high command in Delhi. As of now, the state unit has been asked to stand with Chandy so as not to play in the hands of the Left and the BJP. Party's incharge in Kerala has been asked to ascertain views of all senior leaders of the state. "Any decision will be taken on the change of CM after going through all facts and reports. There will not be undue haste," Congress sources said. Alleging "political conspiracy" behind the bribery allegations made against him by a solar scam accused, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy today blamed a section of the bar owners for it. "The new allegations are part of a political conspiracy hatched in connivance with the liquor lobby. The government had taken a bold decision to close down several liquor bars. Because they (bar owners) lost their battle in various courts -- high court and Supreme Court, they have come with new allegations to hit out at the government", he said. "The government has the exact evidence in this regard", Chandy told reporters. The allegations made by Saritha yesterday are part of this conspiracy, he said and criticised CPI(M) stating that as they were unable to topple the government, the Marxist party was making all out efforts to ensure that the Congress-led UDF does not come to power in the coming assembly polls. The Marxist party had lost its face for seeking the government's resignation after another solar case accused Biju Radhakrishnan had stated that he had a CD with incriminating visuals against the Chief Minister, he said. Chandy said former government chief whip PC George had also played a role in yesterday's allegations. Maintaining that there was no truth in the allegations, Chandy said the government had not lost even a rupee as alleged by the opposition in the scam and had not helped a company to gain even a rupee. advertisement Noting that two weeks ago Saritha had told the solar commission that the Chief Minister was like a "father figure", Chandy said, "How has it changed so soon? What happened ?." In 2014, Saritha had alleged that CPI(M) had offered her Rs 10 crore to topple the government. "We had not reacted then," Chandy said. Chandy, who reached here by train, was greeted with black flag-waving protesters of DYFI and Yuva Morcha -- the youth organisations of CPI(M) and BJP respectively. Police had a tough time chasing away the protesters who also shouted slogans against Chandy. The protesters alleged that pepper spray was used against them. --- ENDS --- The move comes after a meeting between the striking doctors and Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Wednesday. By Astha Saxena: Even as cases of doctors being harassed by patients' relatives keep surfacing, there's some good news for the doctors of Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC) and its associated Lok Nayak Hospital. The Delhi government has promised to further tighten security on the hospital premises. The government will deploy around four home guards in departments like gynaecology, paediatrics casualty, main casualty, burns and plastic department in different shifts. Also security alarms will be installed in all-casualty wards of the hospital. CCTV cameras will be put up in casualties and other sensitive areas of the hospital. advertisement The move comes after a meeting between the striking doctors and Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Wednesday. After the meeting, the doctors of called off their strike. "No punitive action should be taken against the resident doctors relating to the incident. The meeting concluded with the resolve to maintain uninterrupted hospital services and patient care in the hospitals, in the larger public interest," a document detailing minutes of the meeting, a copy of which is available with MAIL TODAY, said. Resident doctors at MAMC and its associated Lok Nayak Hospital went on a strike after relatives of a woman who died during treatment during the early hours of Monday allegedly roughed up the hospital staff. After the meeting with the Delhi Health Minister, the doctors have resumed services. The woman died during treatment in the gynaecology emergency ward following which her kin and attendants allegedly went on the rampage. The doctors, who had gone on strike last year over security in government hospitals, claimed that a majority of home guards deputed to hospitals then had been withdrawn. "The strike has been called off," Dr Yogesh Sarin, medical superintendent of Lok Nayak hospital told Mail Today. Even as the strike at Lok Nayak Hospital was called off, patients from various parts of the city continued to suffer due to the strike at MCD-run hospitals. "The number of patients in the hospital were quite high as compared to other days due to the strike going on in other tertiary level hospitals," a senior doctor from Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) hospital said. ALSO READ: Government hospital staff to donate wheelchairs worth Rs 23,000 --- ENDS --- Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images(MASON CITY, Iowa) Actress and activist Susan Sarandon got teary as she introduced Bernie Sanders on the campaign trail Wednesday in front of an overflow crowd of 1,100 people during a town hall in northern Iowa. Sarandon, who has helped raise money for the Vermont Senators presidential bid praised Sanders for his political courage, specifically his vote against the Iraq war and record on gay rights. Gender is not whats important, she said. Issues are what's important. I want a candidate who has the courage to stand to do the right thing when it is not popular. It is one thing to be for gay rights and gay marriage once everybody else is for it, she continued, taking another subtle jab at his primary opponent Hillary Clinton. Sarandon again referred to Clinton without naming her when she blasted another candidates unwillingness to take on the fight for a $15 minimum wage, as Sanders has. That is not pragmatic, that's just cynicism. That's giving up before youve even tried, she said. Later in the evening, the Democratic presidential hopeful blasted Clinton even more directly. I am delighted to be here with you tonight in Mason City, he said. My opponent is not in Iowa tonight, she is raising money from a Philadelphia investment firm. Frankly, I would rather be here with you. Clinton left the state earlier Wednesday to attend a fundraiser that was hosted by executives of Franklin Square Capital Partners investing firm in Philadelphia. In response to Sanders criticism, the Clinton campaign pointed out that she also met with African-American ministers in the city, prior to her fundraiser. The former secretary of state has one more fundraiser scheduled Thursday morning in New York City before she returns to Iowa for campaign events in the afternoon. Less than a week before the voting begins, Sanders took a break from the Hawkeye State as well. He held two large rallies in Minnesota yesterday and then flew to Washington, DC for a meeting with President Obama in the oval office Thursday morning, before returning to Iowa for his evening rally. Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. By India Today Web Desk: Balloon scare in Barmer, Delhi: Is Pakistan planning something sinister? Terrorist outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) are armed with unmanned aerial vehicles and Barmer incident could be a reconnaissance attempt by Pakistan-based terror outfits to test India's preparedness. 1985 Air India bomber Inderjit Singh Reyat released from Canadian prison Reyat, a former resident of Duncan, was charged with perjury in 2006 for repeatedly lying during his testimony at the trial into the bombing deaths of 331 people, mostly Canadians. He was found guilty in 2010 and sentenced to a record nine years in prison, or seven years and seven months after accounting for time served. Airlift: Akshay Kumar would want to do more films like these, but... Akshay Kumar is overwhelmed with the response to his latest film Airlift, which revolves around the evacuation of Indians from Kuwait during the 1990 Iraq-Kuwait war. The actor says such type of films come "almost once in an actor's lifetime". advertisement Saina Nehwal: Padma award recognition of my hard work It was only last year that Saina found herself embroiled in a controversy after she was not recommended for the Padma Bhushan. A harmless tweet in which she enquired as to why she missed out on the award led to a flurry of responses from fans. Cut to 2016 and the shuttle queen was finally conferred with the Padma Bhushan this Republic Day. The Karnataka government has banned the movement of private buses and trucks in Bengaluru city limits from February 1 to 10 in view of the global investors' meet - Invest Karnataka Meet 2016. By Mail Today: The Karnataka government has banned the movement of private buses and trucks in Bengaluru city limits from February 1 to 10 in view of the global investors' meet - Invest Karnataka Meet 2016. The orders issued by the Bengaluru police and Transport Department make it clear that private buses and trucks cannot enter the city limits but they can use the Outer Ring Road (ORR) and the NICE Peripheral Ring Road. All private buses arriving from other cities will have to terminate services at the ORR. advertisement According to the police, the ban on trucks and private buses is aimed at reducing the traffic congestion in the city during the investors' meet. However, exemption has been given to private buses ferrying private sector company employees. Also Read: Bengal Global Business Summit 2016: Mamata seeks and promises support to businessmen --- ENDS --- The incident of a stray dog being ill-treated by some people in Chandigarh was shared today on Facebook. The post that describes what exactly happened has gone viral now. By Vivek Surendran: "Dogs are man's best friends" says a famous quote, but is it true? You would have nodded your head in agreement, but after reading what happened in a residential society in Chandigarh, you will reconsider it. Stray dogs are often feared and thus, ill-treated. Not many take ownership of these dogs and get them vaccinated. And if they're not vaccinated, chances of them getting infected are high, in which case, the fear in people is justified to some extent. advertisement But why can't these dogs be just vaccinated? Don't they have the right to live on earth as much we do? Haardikaa Goswami shared two photos on Facebook today, with a small write-up, narrating the story of a stray dog in a housing colony in Chandigarh. This dog entered her residential society two months ago. Despite him being weak, he was feared and some people even called dog catchers to get rid oh him. But the dog had become a pet to the kids in the colony. Kids provided him with food, water and much care. They even collected money to get the dog vaccinated, hoping post vaccination they will be able to avoid him being killed or taken away. Today, Goswami learned what happened in her colony. The dog was tied to a tree and beaten black and blue using lathis. Kids who were against it tried to save the dog but were pushed away. Helpless, they tried to record what is happening, but some people deleted the video. Someone had informed the police by then. On arrival, even the policemen started thrashing the almost lifeless dog. She also says the dog was taken in a sack and that the kids have no clue whether he's dead or alive. Kids are in pursuit of the dog, hoping to find him alive. Goswami then asks a question. And we need to ask this question to ourselves too. Do we, humans, rule the planet? If you think we do, is this how we should treat fellow living beings? If you think we don't, then who gives us the right to ill-treat other beings? She ends her post saying "it's a matter of shame to the human race," and that this act should be brought into the notice of people in and out of Chandigarh. Here's her post that has already gone viral with over 3,000 shares. Hello peopleShare this as much as you can.. one movement.. one nation.. all human!Today, I am going to pick up one...Posted by Haardikaa Goswami on Wednesday, January 27, 2016 --- ENDS --- Liking Facebook in bed could lead to disturbed sleep pattern according to this new study. By India Today Web Desk: Boss giving you tough time at work? unable to meet deadline? final exams? peer pressure? are all factors that can cause sleeping problems among adults, but now researchers believe that social media is also to blame. Yes! According to a new study young adults who spend their day liking, sharing, loggin in on social media websites are more likely to suffer from sleep disturbances at night. Also read: Lack of sleep can make you grumpy or happy, says study Jessica C Levenson, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in Pitt's Department of Psychiatry says that people who have trouble sleeping at light find social media as a pleasurable way to pass time. "This is one of the first pieces of evidence that social media use really can impact your sleep," she said. advertisement "And it uniquely examines the association between social media use and sleep among young adults who are, arguably, the first generation to grow up with social media,"she added. In 2014, the University of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine examined 1,788 young adults in the US ages 19 to 32, using the Pew Internet Questionnaire. According to a study published in journal Preventive Medicine -- researchers gathered minutes per day each participant were spending on social media and how many times they visited multiple sites in a week. Also read: 5 bedtime yoga asanas that will help you sleep better The questionnaire also asked them about the 11 most popular social media sites during the time of the study, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Vine and LinkedIn. After examining participant' answers researchers found that on an average, participants spent almost 61 minutes a day on social media and visited multiple sites 30 times a week. It also suggests 30 per cent of the participants had high levels of sleep disturbance. Barentz inks Iran deal Ingredients distributor Barentz International has announced that, following the recent acceleration of its business into high growth markets, it has established a joint venture with Future Way Holding in Iran. Ingredients distributor Barentz International has announced that, following the recent acceleration of its business into high growth markets, it has established a joint venture with Future Way Holding in Iran. The new distribution company will focus on distributing ingredients in the food & nutrition, pharmaceuticals and animal nutrition industries in Iran and the Middle East region. Barentz says this acquisition in Iran a logical step in the strong expansion of Barentz outside Europe. With 80 million consumers in the country and 400 million in the surrounding export area, the company believes Iran is a highly interesting market for industrial ingredients. Fuelled by the open attitude towards new food and personal care products of the large young Middle Eastern population, it is expected that the packaged goods market will show considerable volume growth over the next years. "This acquisition is a great first milestone in our continued expansion plan for 2016, said. Hidde van der Wal, CEO of Barentz International. We have a positive outlook on the development of the industrial ingredients market in Iran, and moving into that market with a well-established family company like Future Way Holding was part of our strategic plans. The synergy of our cooperation lies with Future Way's traditional Persian way of doing business, combined with our knowledge of and access to high quality ingredients of our renowned suppliers, which will help local Iranian producers to increase the quality of their products and will enable them to grow their local business." For Barentz International, headquartered in The Netherlands and active in close to 50 countries across three continents, this joint venture is strategically important, the company says, with the well-educated Iranian consumer looking to buy established, good quality international brands for their food and beverage, pharmaceutical and animal nutrition products. Being present in the Middle East fills the geographical gap between the Barentz presence in Europe and in the Asia Pacific region. "Working together with a reputable company like Barentz, with their expertise of food and pharmaceutical applications and access to ingredients from reputable suppliers from around the world, is a real advantage for our customers, said Ali Sabetian, CEO of Future Way Holding. We can benefit from the cooperation with Barentz in more than one way. We will gain more ingredients expertise from our shared knowledge and also, we will have an increased access to more high quality and innovative ingredients from international suppliers. Although the consumption pattern of food products in Iran is still quite traditional, we observe a continuing trend of especially younger people wanting to buy established international brands. We expect these brands to move into our markets gradually, with a long-term aim." The newly established joint venture company will operate under the legal entity Barentz Middle East. Investigative reporting from the inner city to Wall Street to the United Nations This is the blogspot version InnerCityPress.com The Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg has ruled that the European Council was wrong to freeze the assets of five close associates of ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. The ruling on January 28 passed by the EU's General Court concerns former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov Azarov's son Oleksiy, ex-NBU governor Serhiy Arbuzov, former Energy Minister Eduard Stavytsky, and brother of the former head of presidential administration, businessman Serhiy Kliuyev. According to the document posted on the official website of the Court of Justice of the European Union, "a person cannot be treated as being responsible for misappropriation of funds solely on the ground that he is the subject of a preliminary investigation in a third country, without the Council being aware of the matters alleged against that person in that investigation." Thus, in today's judgments, "the General Court upholds the actions brought by the five Ukrainians and annuls the freezing of assets imposed on them for the period from March 6 2014 to March 5, 2015." The ruling can be appealed within two months before the European Court of Justice. To the best of my ability I write about my experience of the Universe Past, Present and Future * PermaKat Eleonora Rosati received the 2022 Adepi Award * PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the World Intellectual Property Review's "Influential Women in IP" of 2020. * PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2018. * IPKat founder and Blogmeister Emeritus Jeremy Phillips listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2005, 2011, 2013, and 2014. * Recommended by the European Patent Office as reading material for candidates for the European Qualifying Examinations, 2013. * Listed as "Top Legal Blog" in The Times Online, March 2011. 2010 ABA Journal 100. * One of the only two non-US blogs listed in the Blawg100. * Court Reporter Top Copyright Blog award winner, November 2010. * Number 1 in the 2010 Top Copyright Blog list compiled by the Copyright Litigation Blog, July 2010. * Selected by the United States Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials related to Legal Blawgs as of 2010. * Top Patent Blog poll 2009: 3rd out of 50 in the "Favourite Patent Blog" poll and 2nd out of 50 in the "Most-read" poll. Blog of the Year, 20 August 2008. * ComputerWeekly IT Law and Governance, 20 August 2008. Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant reports on staff demonstration (Screenshot shows Google translation of headline) ... be sure that you close your eyes."Close your eyes, that is, if you're a member of the Administrative Council. You see, EPO staff were demonstrating (again) today with 900 staff marching from the French embassy to the German embassy. AC members may have a hard time reconciling this unrest (considering also the 1300 who marched in Munich last week) with their promises to restore the social dialogue and sort out the staff disquiet. From what Merpel can see, the "social dialogue" mainly takes place in disciplinary hearing rooms during the final stages of proceedings against staff representatives instigated by Mr Battistelli or those close to him.The protests have been noticed by parliamentarians and by the media. The EPO march was joined by a couple of Dutch MPs (Sharon Gesthuizen, John Kerstens), a French MP (Philip Cordery), and a delegation of FNV, the largest Dutch union. Mainstream media reports have appeared here here and here Mr Battistelli has continued to push through and even intensify disciplinary measures against staff and union representatives, dismissing two union officials and downgrading another ]. Disciplinary actions against at least two other staff representatives are being actively pursued, as far as Merpel can tell.Many of those demonstrating today are also concerned with the hospitalisation of one of the staff representatives, with several commenters and correspondents linking this to stresses arising from a disciplinary procedure which the individual has been prohibited from discussing with colleagues. Merpel can't tell if it is fair to make such a connection, not having any verifiable information one way or another. However, the fact that the EPO makes it a disciplinary offence for a staff member to even discuss any aspect of an investigation of which they are the subject seems to make it difficult to confirm or deny such rumours when they spread widely through the Office (as they have in this case judging from the number of comments that Merpel has disallowed on this blog for various reasons).A further issue underlying the demonstration concerns a different staff representative who, while certified sick by his/her doctor, has not had that certification recognised by the EPO and is thus deemed to be on an unauthorised leave. Merpel's somewhat sketchy understanding of the sickness rules is that this means the EPO's doctor has examined the individual and disagrees with the individual's own physician.It would take a brave person to be an EPO staff representative in the current climate. Happily, being a member of the AC is far less risky. In that forum, outright rebellion is expressed in a more gentlemanly fashion, by abstaining from a vote every now and again, and then, to show that there are no hard feelings, publicly applauding the President for his latest production figures.If the Administrative Council really does want to address the "culture of fear" and the indisputably toxic staff relations within the office, then allowing the management to continually target and pressurise the staff representatives seems counter-productive. As long as the AC limits its actions to public displays of hand-wringing and paternal expressions of concern, nothing will change, and staff relations will continue to dance to Mr Battistelli's rather discordant tune. Merpel suspects that residents of the embassy districts of Munich and the Hague can expect disruptions to their lives to continue for the foreseeable future. I WRITE NEWS ABOUT AND PUT NEWS ARTICLES ABOUT ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM PERTAINING TO BIBLE PROPHESY HAPPENINGS.JOEL 3:20 But Judah (ISRAEL) shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.(THATS ISRAEL-JERUSALEM WILL NEVER BE DESTROYED AGAIN)-WE CHRISTIANS ARE ALL WAITING PATIENTLY FOR THE PRE-TRIBULATION RAPTURE TO OCCUR.SO WE CAN GO TO JESUS AND GET OUR NEVER DYING BODIES.SO WE CAN RULE OVER CITIES OURSELVES.WHILE JESUS RULES FROM DAVIDS THRONE FOREVER IN JERUSALEM. [January 28, 2016] Webroot Strengthens Enterprise Protection with Latest BrightCloud Threat Intelligence Solution for Palo Alto Networks BROOMFIELD, Colo., Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Webroot, the market leader in next-generation endpoint security and cloud-based collective threat intelligence, today announced Webroot BrightCloud Threat Intelligence for Palo Alto Networks v1.5. The latest version will seamlessly integrate with Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall to detect and block malicious incoming IPs. Compatible with nearly any Palo Alto Networks firewall, collective, real-time BrightCloud threat intelligence can be deployed in a series of virtual environments to deliver highly accurate and timely threat data to enterprises. According to the Webroot 2015 Threat Brief, more than 85,000 new malicious IPs are launched every day. Since organizations can often detect malicious activity within minutes of appearance, cybercriminals change hosts and IP addresses frequently. As a consequence of this behavior, new threats emerge constantly and firewalls need accurate and timely updates. BrightCloud Threat Intelligence for Palo Alto Networks v1.5 provides an additional layer of security at an organization's perimeter by complementing Palo Alto Networks native firewall functionality with real-time BrightCloud IP Threat Intelligence. New features for v1.5 include: IP Threat Blocking and Classification: A new reporting feature provides granular details on IP threats, including threat history, geographic origin, and company-specific information. With this information, v1.5 can help determine the appropriate response or course of action, such as blocking all botnets or IPs BrightCloud classifies as malicious. To reduce risks from dynamic threats, the BrightCloud service continuously analyzes threats on individual firewall devices,comparing traffic against the latest IP threat intelligence data from Webroot. Based on threat history and the BrightCloud reputation index, users will be able to compile an IP block list composed of all malicious IPs seen anywhere on their network of firewalls. A new reporting feature provides granular details on IP threats, including threat history, geographic origin, and company-specific information. With this information, v1.5 can help determine the appropriate response or course of action, such as blocking all botnets or IPs BrightCloud classifies as malicious. To reduce risks from dynamic threats, the BrightCloud service continuously analyzes threats on individual firewall devices,comparing traffic against the latest IP threat intelligence data from Webroot. Based on threat history and the BrightCloud reputation index, users will be able to compile an IP block list composed of all malicious IPs seen anywhere on their network of firewalls. Whitelisting: Whitelisting allows security analysts to specify IPs that are regularly used on their network and known to them. This creates the customized intelligence that enterprises demand, without interrupting business operations. Whitelisting allows security analysts to specify IPs that are regularly used on their network and known to them. This creates the customized intelligence that enterprises demand, without interrupting business operations. Future Proof Protection: v1.5 adds future-proof cybersecurity protection to support new Palo Alto firewall models: PA-3060, PA-7000, PA-7050, VM-200, VM-300 and VM-1000-HV. Chad Kinzelberg , senior vice president of business and corporate development at Palo Alto Networks. "Webroot's integration complements the breach prevention capabilities of our platform with extended IP threat visibility." "Since the launch of BrightCloud Threat Intelligence for Palo Alto Networks, companies across many industries have adopted our threat intelligence solutions including organizations in consulting, aerospace and defense, energy and construction, and healthcare. Version 1.5 adds critical research and reporting capabilities so analysts and network admins have better visibility into the volume and type of threats their organizations are being subjected to," said Mike Malloy, executive vice president of products and strategy at Webroot. "Webroot and Palo Alto Networks tackle the challenge of securing networks head on by delivering a solution that offers new granular reporting, complements existing firewall security, and real-time blocking of attacks." For more information, please visit Webroot online at www.brightcloud.com About Webroot Webroot delivers next-generation endpoint security and threat intelligence services to protect businesses and individuals around the globe. Our smarter approach harnesses the power of cloud-based collective threat intelligence derived from millions of real-world devices to stop threats in real time and help secure the connected world. Our award-winning SecureAnywhere endpoint solutions and BrightCloud Threat Intelligence Services protect tens of millions of devices across businesses, home users, and the Internet of Things. Trusted and integrated by market-leading companies, including Cisco, F5 Networks, Aruba, Palo Alto Networks, A10 Networks, and more, Webroot is headquartered in Colorado and operates globally across North America, Europe, and Asia. Discover Smarter Cybersecurity solutions at www.webroot.com. Social Media: Twitter | LinkedIn | YouTube | Facebook 2016 Webroot Inc. All rights reserved. Webroot, SecureAnywhere, Webroot SecureAnywhere, Webroot BrightCloud, BrightCloud, and Smarter Cybersecurity are trademarks or registered trademarks of Webroot Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121016/LA94090LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/webroot-strengthens-enterprise-protection-with-latest-brightcloud-threat-intelligence-solution-for-palo-alto-networks-300211214.html SOURCE Webroot [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 28, 2016] Cloud Connect at Interop Las Vegas 2016 to Uncover the Potential of Disruptive Cloud Options for the Enterprise SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Interop Las Vegas today highlights the 2016 event's full scope of resources dedicated to helping enterprise IT professionals recognize and harness the potential of the cloud. From a dedicated conference track, to a series of hands-on workshops, to an expo floor full of the newest solutions, Interop will explore a range of cloud options and how the disruptive technology is improving business. Interop Las Vegas will celebrate its 30th anniversary as the top independent Networking and IT Conference, returning to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center May 2-6, 2016. For more information and to register, visit: interop.com/lasvegas. As the cloud drives operational innovation for many startups, enterprise IT organizations are facing challenges with legacy application portfolios, new security models and compliance complexities. Determining how to deploy private, public or hybrid cloud for existing and cloud native applications will have direct impact on their business successes or failures. Interop's Cloud Connect track will help attendees select the cloud architectures and services that are best suited for their businesses, and explore how the technology can be integrated into both legacy systems and new initiatives. Cloud Connect sessions present a mix of proven and emerging applications. Highlights include: AWS vs Azure: Understanding the Differences: Bernard Golden , CEO of Navica, CIO thought-leader and author of "Cloud Computing for Dummies", will discuss the similarities and differences between the two leading Cloud Coputing platforms and how to align them to your business needed. , CEO of Navica, CIO thought-leader and author of "Cloud Computing for Dummies", will discuss the similarities and differences between the two leading Cloud Coputing platforms and how to align them to your business needed. True Cloud Security in the As-a-Service World: Jamie Tischart , CTO for Cloud/SaaS at Intel Security, will explain how as-a-service models complicate and compromise security. Learn where security control points need to reside and how to define a perimeter in a complex environment. , CTO for Cloud/SaaS at Intel Security, will explain how as-a-service models complicate and compromise security. Learn where security control points need to reside and how to define a perimeter in a complex environment. IoT: The Heart of Your Customer Dynamic: Salesforce EVP Adam Bosworth shows how every business can leverage IoT data to proactively engage with customers and deliver personalize experiences. Salesforce EVP Adam Bosworth shows how every business can leverage IoT data to proactively engage with customers and deliver personalize experiences. Developing a Cloud Sourcing Strategy: Kent State University's VP of Information Services and CIO, Edward Mahon , will share his experience sourcing cloud options, contrasting two service delivery models. He'll focus on the intersection of an IT premised budgeting model (CapEx) and that of a Cloud consumption based pricing model (OpEx). Brian Gracely , Interop's Cloud Connect Track Chair. Two Days of In-Depth Workshops, including the Container Summit: The full-day Container Summit joins a new lineup of hands-on learning opportunities at Interop Las Vegas. Containers have sky-rocketed into popularity, driving dramatic changes in developer workflow, operational efficiencies, and application architectures. Expert speakers from companies already leveraging containers will explain why containers are poised to become part of the new standard for enterprise agility. Sessions will cover security, networking, orchestration, and more. To see the full schedule of workshops and summitsspanning containers, DevOps, PaaS, OpenStack, Automation, software-defined architecture, the future of networking, security and leadershipvisit interop.com/lasvegas/conference/workshops.php. For more information and to register for Interop, visit: interop.tech.ubm.com/lv/2016 Media Registration: interop.com/lasvegas/media-center Connect with #Interop: Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Instagram | YouTube About Interop Interop is the leading global IT infrastructure event series, offering in-depth education alongside a showcase of emerging technologies in an independent, vendor-neutral environment. For 30 years, Interop has brought the IT community together to explore the latest in network infrastructure, encouraging collaboration, and interoperability. Through dynamic conference programs, Interop helps professionals at all career levels leverage the network, systems and applications that enable business innovation. The Interop Expo and InteropNet Demo Lab provide immersive, hands-on experiences, while connecting enterprise IT buyers with leading suppliers. Interop Las Vegas is the flagship event held each spring, with an annual event in Tokyo and Cloud Connect China in Shanghai. For more information, visit interop.com. Interop is organized by UBM Americas, a part of UBM plc (UBM.L), an Events First marketing and communications services business. For more information, visit ubmamericas.com. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160127/326723LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cloud-connect-at-interop-las-vegas-2016-to-uncover-the-potential-of-disruptive-cloud-options-for-the-enterprise-300211041.html SOURCE Interop [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] License spending is something that responsible companies must watch carefully. Buying too many licenses for software items is unnecessary overspending and wastes resources. Buying too few, meanwhile, invites potential legal trouble or a hefty unexpected bill. Mesa County in Colorado, meanwhile, is turning to SoftWatch to not only help focus its software budgeting but also help drive the use of Google (News - Alert) Apps. Mesa County still has a substantial quantity of Microsoft Office license on hand, and so it needs to keep a careful watch on how much of that is used. It's also looking to move into Google Apps, and so needs to appropriately straddle the gap between the two systems, keeping a foot in each camp. Thus, Mesa County started out with a CloudIT assessment of just how much MS Office and Google Apps were put to work, showing just how much license was needed for what. The county discovered that Word was the most heavily used application by a wide margin, owing in part to various Word templates in the human resources management system, among others. The county expected Excel to be the most frequently used app. With that knowledge in mind, the county could then bring in OptimizeIT, a monitoring system that allowed better ability to bring out Google Apps. The county then focused on new training activities, all in a bid to better understand just what Microsoft (News - Alert) licenses would be necessary down the line. All of that was made possible by SoftWatch systems. It's easy to be thrown by issues of software licensing these days, and those going to ITEXPOnow running at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale through January 28will be able to get a little extra help. On Wednesday, January 27 at 3:00 pm, a presentation called Navigating Software Licensing will take place, giving viewers some necessary insight into just what software licensing is, means, and can do for a company. No one likes to be hit with that surprise bill in the middle of a slow quarter because one person too many was using Word that quarter. Many software providers are going to more flexible licensing systems, including being able to shift licensing as needed over a month or a quarter, but not everyone has caught up to that thread yet. Tools like SoftWatch's, meanwhile, can help mean the difference between having just enough licenses and either wasting money or having new bills show up. That helps keep things running more smoothly, and smooth operations are generally welcome. Software licensing is an important but difficult process that helps ensure the best in software keeps coming our way. Tools like SoftWatch make it that much easier to handle, and easier processes tends to be a good selling point. That should keep SoftWatch a part of not only Mesa County, but operations like it, for some time to come. proxima Un palestino de Jerusalem Este fue condenado a prision por usar Facebook para incitar violencia This page has found a new home It's high time that authorities handle the armed standoff at a national wildlife refuge in Oregon, and on Tuesday night they began that process. I think everyone assumed that someone would die once the rebel ranchers were confronted, and, in fact, one rancher died Tuesday night; but I feared -- and still fear -- there will be more deaths due to the situation. Before I ramble about too much, here's what the Associated Press reported as of midday Wednesday: BURNS, Ore. (AP) The FBI arrested the leaders of an armed group that has occupied a national wildlife refuge in Oregon for more than three weeks during a traffic stop that left one dead. Here is a rundown of what happened and what it means: HOW DID THE ARRESTS HAPPEN? The group's leader, Ammon Bundy, and several others were heading to a community meeting Tuesday night in a small town near the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to discuss their views against federal management of public lands. Police arrested Bundy, his brother, Ryan, and three others during a traffic stop north of Burns, the FBI and Oregon State Police said in a statement. Officers shot and killed a man wanted by federal authorities, but few other details were released. It was not clear what led to the shooting or if he or any of the other ranchers exchanged gunfire with officers. Separately, three others tied to the standoff were arrested: two in Burns and one in Arizona. WHO DIED? Authorities didn't identify the person, but the daughter of an Arizona rancher told the Oregonian that it was her father. Arianna Finicum Brown told the newspaper that Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, 55, of Cane Beds, Arizona, died. He was a public presence at the refuge, often speaking for the group at news conferences. He told The Associated Press on Jan. 5 that he was not going to go to jail. "This is where I'm going to breathe my last breath, whether I'm 90, 95 or 55," Finicum said at the refuge. WHY DID AUTHORITIES TAKE ACTION NOW? The FBI didn't say, but authorities had come under increasing pressure from Oregon's governor, local officials, residents and a nearby tribe to act after having taken a hands-off approach. Bundy's group had been free to come and go. They held frequent news conferences at the refuge, traveled to meet with sympathizers and others, and attended community meetings. At one last week, locals shouted at them to leave. Ammon Bundy had been in contact with an FBI negotiator and local law enforcement. HOW DID THIS BEGIN? The group took over the refuge on Jan. 2 to oppose federal land restrictions and object to the prison sentences of two local ranchers convicted of setting fires. Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven, reported back to prison this month after serving no more than a year on arson convictions. A judge ruled the terms fell short of minimum sentences that require them to serve about four more years. The case led Bundy's group to demand an inquiry into whether the government is forcing ranchers off their land, though the Hammonds distanced themselves from the group. It's a clash over public lands that dates back decades in the West. WHAT'S HAPPENING AT THE REFUGE NOW? It was unclear how many people remained at the refuge, but armed activists still are believed to be holed up there. Jason Patrick, a new leader of the occupation, told Oregon Public Broadcasting that five or six group members are continuing the standoff. The FBI established checkpoints around the preserve out of "an abundance of caution." Only ranchers who live in the area surrounding the preserve will be allowed to pass. WHAT CHARGES DO THE ACTIVISTS FACE? Those arrested face a federal felony charge of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation or threats, the FBI said. *** I've read quite a bit about this situation, and it's a land rights issue that goes back decades upon decades in the West. Farmers and ranchers often have been at odds over water rights and land rights, and government involvement is highly resented by many. That's not to mention the Native American tribes involved in the issues. I sympathize with all parties involved who are tackling these issues peacefully. But the ranchers occupying this refuge are going about it all wrong. Sure, it's the West. You won't see the average person carrying a gun on their hip as they walk down the sidewalk on the square in Charleston. But this isn't uncommon in some states that remain less populated and more wild, settled long after our own prairies, lacking in nearby police, fire and other protection. People have to take care of such services themselves more often in such areas. But taking up arms against the government is the wrong way to solve these issues. And it's just plain asking for trouble. If the ranchers -- or other parties -- believe they've been wronged by the governmental process, there are plenty of legal routes to take. We have systems in place to handle these things. Sure, that largely just keeps lawyers in business, but that's the system we have as a nation. I think the feds have been pretty patient in this case. Imagine if a group of wild-eyed, purple-haired 20-somethings armed with BB guns took over the Burgess-Osborne Auditorium in Mattoon with demands of having the place made into a hangout only for teens and young adults. I don't think the police across the street would stand for that too long. And they shouldn't. I wonder what happened to the American society where there are things that you just don't do? Once upon a time, people didn't feel the need to conceal and carry a gun -- at least, not as many as seem to now. Instead, like most sensible folks, they relied on the police force for which our taxes pay. We have police officers, firefighters and other public servants for a reason. I don't see anyone applying for a conceal-and-carry fire extinguisher permit. Obviously, we rely on the fire department or local fire protection district. Why do so many now refuse to rely on our hard-working police squads? If someone wants to carry a gun hidden in their purse, I really don't care. I just wonder, philosophically, where all this is coming from. Why are so many of us all of a sudden so afraid of what "might" happen? Out West, in the wide open spaces, I can see the need for carrying guns is more pressing: encountering coyotes trying to bring down a calf, for example. But in most of America, this just isn't necessary. Like I said, don't expect me to stop anyone from having their fear and their gun, too. I just wonder when fear is going to cause us to all get EMT certified, or learn how to do surgery and the like. Just how far does this go? Maybe I'll try to find a hip holster for a fire extinguisher. That way, the next time I cook, I'll be ready. Stand back, guys! I've got this one! JIW includes excerpts from many sources using their copyright material for the purpose of education and discussion only, and not for profit. We a cknowledge and link to our sources. We reserve all rights to our own original material, including the excerpted and edited version of the source material. However you are welcome to use JIW material freely for the purpose of education and discussion only, and not for profit, and provided proper acknowledgement is included. Term of Employment: Project Based Duty Station(s): Tgray- Mekele Required Number: One Salary & Benefits: Competitive Application Deadline: February 07, 2016 BACKGROUND: The Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) has been established by the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) to identify and address systemic bottlenecks to Ethiopias agricultural development. The Agency does this through problem-solving, implementation support, and capacity building of stakeholders involved in implementation of interventions that address the systemic bottlenecks. The Agency reports to a Transformation Council chaired by the Prime Minister and whose co-chair is the Minister of Agriculture. The programmatic focus of the Agency responds to a core set of needs identified by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Transformation Council. Within the Agency, issues are divided into three different groups: Production and Productivity which includes Inputs and Crop Protection, Livestock, Research and Extension, Mechanization and Rural Finance; Agribusiness and Markets including Market Support Services, Commercial Farming, Agro-processing & Market Development, and Cooperatives Development; and Environmentally Sustainable and Inclusive Agricultural Growth including Natural Resource Management, Sustainable Land Management, Gender Equality and Nutrition, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management, and Planning and MLE. Across the programs, the ATA engages public, private and non-governmental stakeholders to support strategic planning, manage and strengthen implementation capacity and test innovative models. Our Culture We have an exceptional team of employees with a proven track record of success in managing complex activities and achieving transformational results. Our culture is one where talented individuals are committed to doing their best and work together to achieve excellent results. At ATA, we provide an exceptional platform for people who want to achieve their highest potential and make a meaningful contribution in changing the countrys agricultural sector. We offer rewarding work in a young, fast-paced growing organization with passionate, motivated colleagues and excellent career development and training. We recognize our most valuable assets are our people and are committed to providing our employees with the tools and training necessary to achieve their career goals. POSITION SUMMARY: ATA, in collaboration with Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Regional Bureau of Agriculture, USAID and CNFA, is implementing a three-year Feed the Future Ethiopia Commercial Farm Services Project. The objective of this project is to improve smallholder productivity, food security and incomes through the development of sustainable private sector driven agricultural input supply and services by creating 20 new Farm Service Centers (FSCs) throughout Oromia, Amhara, Tigray and SNNP Regions. These FSCs will serve as innovative and replicable private, retail input supply and farm service businesses model for scaling up private farm supply and service networks in Ethiopia and throughout Africa. Working under the supervision of the Project Lead, the Regional Project Officer (PO) will work on all aspects of promoting the FSC opportunity, identification of potential FSCs, and assessment of inputs demand and supply in selected potential areas, business management counseling, clear guidance on development and implementation of presentable accounting systems, business development initiatives at the FSCs. In collaboration with the Senior Project Officer (SPO) at the Head Office, the PO will provide guidance on Business Plans preparation by candidate FSCs in the course of grant application processes. The PO will be a key player in providing all aspects of business management capabilities to candidate FSCs through business profitability assessment and analysis. In collaboration with SPO at the Head Office, s/he will provide periodic and need based business management skill enhancing trainings; grant utilization and reporting in compliance with USAID policies to FSC staff. The PO will seek, guide & recommend on alternative access to credit financing to the FSC. As a multi-faceted position, the PO will review & monitor clients accounting reports, business performance progress & provide timely technical support wherever necessary. ESSENTIAL DUTIES: The specific duties of the PO will include the following: a) Promote the FSC opportunity to potential private sector actors in potential areas b) Gather, compile and provide information for evaluation of FSC grant applicants, including performance of documentary and in-person due diligence of the applicants historical financial records; c) Assist FSC grantees to access trade credit and commercial finance, to help meet their matching investment requirements and project implementation costs; d) Provide capacity building on financial management and business planning to FSC staff and program beneficiaries over the life of the project; e) Coordinate regional staff, project report and overall communication f) Produce timely and quality periodic reports; g) Other duties assigned to him/her by the Regional Project Manager. If you are walking - slow down.....if you are running, run faster. Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Sen. Adam Morfeld's proposal to allow voters to take selfie photos at their voting precincts that display their ballots and how they voted and show the photos on social media bumped into opposition Thursday from the secretary of state's office. Deputy Secretary of State Neal Erickson told the Legislature's Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee that it would be "bad public policy" to share photos online that "may well influence how others vote" and cautioned that the practice "could be used by partisan activists." The broader concern is "preventing fraud at the voting booth," Erickson said. In response, both Morfeld, a Lincoln senator, and Committee Chairman John Murante of Gretna said people have a constitutional right to express themselves and to attempt to influence how others may vote. "It's no different than orally encouraging people to vote for candidates you support," Morfeld said. "Freedom of expression is a protected fundamental constitutional right." Asked Murante: "Why should we deter Nebraskans (from) 1st Amendment political speech? Why constrain this?" It's no different, he said, than "when I go door-to-door to encourage people how to vote." Morfeld said the bill (LB787) is designed to allow voters to take photos of themselves with their ballots in an effort to "encourage, tech-savvy younger people, and others, to participate in the excitement of the civic process (and) encourage others to do so." Sen. Dave Bloomfield of Hoskins expressed concern about the possibility of photos that might catch the image of others who may be in the process of voting. Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha cautioned that Nebraska would be entering "unplowed ground" if it approved the practice. Bri McLarty, director of voting rights for Nebraskans for Civic Reform, testified in favor of the measure at the public hearing. A New Hampshire federal court decision this summer ruled that a state ban on ballot selfies violates free speech rights. A proposed constitutional amendment that would allow Nebraskans as young as 18 to serve as governor or as a state senator or in any other public office survived its first challenge Thursday in the Legislature. The proposal (LR26CA) demonstrated surprising strength when a motion by Sen. Dave Bloomfield of Hoskins to shelve the resolution for the rest of the session failed on a 5-28 vote. The measure, introduced by Sen. Tyson Larson of O'Neill, would submit the proposed constitutional change to a vote of the people in November. The resolution ultimately will require the support of at least 30 senators to reach the ballot. "Let the people decide," Larson said. "If you're old enough to pull a trigger in the military, you're old enough to push a (voting) button in this Legislature," he said. Larson said senators should "trust voters to elect who they think is best to represent them." Bloomfield said he would not necessarily be opposed to an 18-year-old state senator, but he doesn't believe an 18-year-old should be eligible to be appointed chief justice of the Nebraska Supreme Court. "We need to keep nonsense from happening," he said. "That's why we're here." Wide-ranging debate on the issue led to an amusing suggestion by Sen. David Schnoor of Scribner that the Legislature might want to consider an age limit of 77 -- effectively rendering Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha ineligible -- and spilled over into a couple of salvos fired at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. "If we elect Trump, I give up," Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte said. Groene, a registered Republican, said he'll vote to place the proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot to give the people a voice but then would vote against the amendment as a citizen. The state constitution currently requires a person to be at least 30 to serve as governor and at least 21 to serve in the Legislature. Sen. Laura Ebke of Crete said it makes sense to reduce the minimum age for a state senator to 18 to reflect the reduction in the voting age to 18. "It's unlikely the Legislature would turn into a large student council," she assured her colleagues. Schnoor, reflecting on his military experience, said 18-year-olds are "molded and groomed" when they're in the military rather than placed into positions of authority. But Sen. Tommy Garrett of Bellevue, a former Air Force colonel, suggested that "some (college-age) pages in here are more mature than some of us." In another shot at Trump, Garrett said: "We have a presidential candidate who says some incredibly immature things on a daily basis." Garrett is also a registered Republican. Warning that Larson's proposal might be grounded by the Supreme Court because it contains multiple subjects, Sen. Paul Schumacher of Columbus attempted to amend the measure to divide it into five parts. His proposal was rejected on a 17-21 vote. A negotiated proposal to spur private development of wind energy in Nebraska was presented to the Legislature's Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday with the Nebraska Public Power District on board. The measure will be amended by Sen. John McCollister of Omaha to meet concerns expressed by NPPD that protect its power transmission authority and interests. "We were initially opposed, but we found common ground," NPPD vice president Tom Kent told the committee. NPPD's transmission interests "will be maintained," he said. McCollister said the bill (LB824) will be "a big boost to rural communities" in terms of providing property tax relief and spurring economic development. "It's an idea whose time has come," he said. The bill essentially would deregulate development of private wind energy, McCollister said, "removing barriers that discourage significant investment in Nebraska." Opposition to the proposal was expressed by a number of opponents who pointed to the possible economic risks of deregulation and quality-of-life issues for Nebraskans who live close to the wind turbines. Some opponents suggested that ratepayers may be asked to bear the cost of increased transmission needs. Time is critical for Nebraska to spur wind energy development because a federal production tax credit has just been extended for five more years, the committee was told. "Nebraska has missed out on opportunities" that neighboring states like Iowa already have taken advantage of in terms of wind energy development, Sen. Ken Haar of Malcolm said. "It's time for us to let go now of our fear of change," he said. Regulatory barriers have stood in the way, Thomas Budler, president of Berkshire Hathaway Energy's Wind division, said. A requirement that the developer negotiate a power purchase agreement in advance of approval has been especially burdensome, he said. "Coal has the advantage today," he said, but "a carbon-constrained environment" may mark the future. John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, said renewable energy -- both wind and solar -- opens the possibility of "a new tax base" in rural Nebraska. Thedford cattle rancher Dave Hamilton told the committee that wind energy investment in rural areas points directly to property tax relief. Donald R. Swanson, 93, of Lincoln, died Wednesday, January 27, 2016, at the Journey House. He was born on January 31, 1922, in Table Rock, to Harold and Abbie (Biggs) Swanson. He graduated from Odell High School in 1939 and from the Chillicothe Business College, Chillicothe, Mo., in 1941. He served with the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1946 and from September, 1950, to May, 1952. In August, 1949, he was united in marriage with Mary Lee Johnson. They made their home in Lincoln where they celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary just prior to her death on October 19, 1990. He had a 41-year career as an accountant, executive, and investor with the Lincoln Telephone & Telegraph Company. He retired in 1987 as secretary-treasurer. Don was installed as grand master at the 117th annual convention of the Grand Lodge in Kearney in June, 1974. He was a member of Temple Chapter No. 271, O.E.S. Hiram Club, York Rite of Lincoln, where he was a principal sojourner of the Lincoln Chapter No. 6 R.A.M. Scottish Rite of Lincoln and Sesostris Temple of the Shrine. He was a proficient master mason, invested with the Knight Commander Court of Honor in 1973 and coroneted with 33rd degree, honorary inspector general in 1977. He received a Masonic Achievement Award in 2010 and his 60 Year Award in 2015. Don's philanthropic work included creating scholarships and awards with the Bryan Hospital Foundation and the University of Nebraska Foundation in 1991, shortly after the death of his wife. Always the focus of his "investments" in students reflected his reverence for education and teaching. Don has provided more than 60 regional students with scholarships in a variety of fields. Don will be deeply missed and remembered for his lightning quick wit and love of laughter, his compassionate generosity, and his devotion to family and friends. It may be said, "Generous donor was born. He lived. He gave. He left us laughing. There are no words to express our gratitude." He is survived by his nephew and nieces: Herbert (Warunee) Swanson, Lowville, N.Y.; Marilyn (John) Olson, Elk River, Minn.; Carolyn (Michael) Borkowski, Bedford, N.H.; and Sandra (Stan Schilz), San Rafael, Calif.; five great-grandnephews and nieces, a great-great-grandnephew and niece; cousins; and his Swanson Kids. His parents, his wife Mary Lee and his older brother Roland H. Swanson, preceded him in death. A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday, January 30, at Butherus, Maser and Love Funeral Home, 4040 A St. in Lincoln. A reception will follow. There will be no visitation. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to either Crestwood Christian Church, 8000 A St., Lincoln, NE 68510 or University of Nebraska Foundation, 1010 Lincoln Mall, Ste. 300, Lincoln, NE 68508, to benefit the Donald and Mary Lee Swanson Scholarship Fund. Online Condolences can be left at www.bmlfh.com Butherus, Maser & Love Funeral Home will be handling the arrangements A 32-year-old man who went on a short crime spree that ended with him trying to take a Lincoln police cruiser for a joyride got five to seven years in prison Thursday. Kristopher Koebel pleaded guilty to burglary, criminal trespassing and operating a motor vehicle to avoid arrest in the June 12 incident. Deputy Lancaster County Public Defender Yohance Christie said Koebel became homeless after his mother and grandfather died within a week of each other, and he reached his breaking point. "Around that time he made a huge, huge mistake," Christie said. Koebel's spree started about 11:20 that night when a burglar alarm went off at Muscle Car Memories, 3220 N. 20th St. Police arrived to find the front door shattered, the overheard garage door open and a $100,000 1974 Pontiac Firebird missing. Next, police said, Koebel broke into a Verizon Wireless store at 4740 N. 27th St. Then, at 12:30 a.m., a call came in about a man spotted inside a cruiser parked outside the police substation at 1501 N. 27th St. When an off-duty sergeant in plain clothes approached Koebel, he asked for a key to the cruiser. She refused, and Koebel got away in the Firebird. Police found him at Muscle Car Memories where he had returned to try to steal the owner's truck. He later told police he wanted to steal a cruiser "and have fun driving it around." In court Thursday, Koebel apologized for his actions before Lancaster County District Judge Steven Burns sentenced him to prison and gave him credit for 228 days already served. The Nebraska State Patrol is looking for a driver who fled from a trooper Thursday morning. A trooper was stopped at a light at Northwest 48th and West O streets just before 9:30 when he noticed the 1996 Ford Taurus behind him had expired license plates, patrol spokeswoman Deb Collins said. When the light changed, the trooper and car both turned east onto O Street, and the trooper pulled to the shoulder to let the car pass. The car, occupied by two men, took off at a high rate of speed, Collins said. The trooper tried to catch up, but discontinued the pursuit when he lost sight of the car near Northwest 16th Street, Collins said. The car was found abandoned a short time later near West Industrial Lake Drive and Oak Creek Drive and was towed. The investigation continues, Collins said. Three Cuban-born Texas men have been indicted in Nebraska for a scheme to print fake credit cards that scammed real card holders, some of them Nebraskans, out of nearly $30,000. It happened in Lincoln, Crete, Omaha, Bellevue, La Vista and Council Bluffs, Iowa, over the span of two weeks, said Jan Sharp, chief of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Nebraska. Jasiel Gonzalez Rodriguez, Jose Carlos Terra Izquierdo and Miguel Alfonso Rodriguez face 11 counts including conspiracy to defraud through the use of unauthorized access devices, multiple counts of possession of unauthorized access devices and use of unauthorized access device and possession of device-making equipment. Sharp said the men are believed to be from Cuba but had been living in Amarillo, Texas. In court records, the grand jury alleged that the object of the conspiracy was to use stolen credit and debit card account numbers to get away with merchandise and gift cards from retailers in Nebraska and elsewhere. Between July 23 and Aug. 6 in Nebraska and elsewhere, the men are accused of conspiring with one another and others to use 251 counterfeit credit cards or gift cards, according to the indictment. They allegedly obtained credit and debit account numbers of legitimate account holders, then re-encoded the information onto fake cards. The grand jury alleged they used the re-encoded cards to buy and redeem gift cards. They stand accused of using them to obtain merchandise and gift cards that added up to $28,958.79, and attempting to obtain another $34,771.48, over the two-week period last summer. The three men ultimately were caught with a card encoder on Aug. 6, the grand jury said. It's not clear in the indictment how or where they were caught, and Sharp said Tuesday he wasn't able to provide additional details of the plot. The men are set to make their initial court appearances on the indictment in U.S. District Court in Lincoln on Feb. 2. A handful of protesters gathered outside the Catholic Chancery Wednesday and delivered a letter asking Lincoln Bishop James Conley to remove embattled Bishop Robert Finn from his post as chaplain for the School Sisters of Christ the King convent. The protesters, two of whom represented SNAP -- the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests -- say Finn violated the trust of Catholics and broke the law when he failed to report allegations of child abuse by his priests during his tenure with the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. They say he should be defrocked and not retain the power or prestige associated with the title of bishop. In 2012, Finn was found guilty of the misdemeanor crime of not reporting to police allegations of child pornography against Father Shawn Ratigan, who later was convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison. Finn, the first U.S. bishop to be charged with failing to report child sex abuse to police in a timely manner, was placed on two years probation, which he completed. In 2014, months after the Vatican investigated Finns effectiveness as a leader, he resigned from the diocese and later retired, keeping the title bishop emeritus. In December, Conley invited Finn to Lincoln to be chaplain to the School Sisters of Christ the King, a group of nuns with whom Finn has had a longstanding friendship. As chaplain, Finn celebrates Mass, performs sacraments and acts as a spiritual adviser for the nuns but has no administrative authority, said JD Flynn, spokesman for the Diocese of Lincoln. Conley was out of town on Wednesday; the protesters met briefly with Flynn and had these three demands of the bishop. * Remove Finn from his post. * Publicly explain why he hired Finn and apologize. * Disclose whether he is importing other wrongdoer clerics into his diocese." They asked us to talk," said Elle Hansen, who said she lost two cousins to suicide after they were abused by a priest. "Talk is cheap. I said I will be in to talk as soon as they laicize Finn, Hansen said. SNAP representatives Judy Jones and Steven Spaner from St. Louis said Lincoln diocese representatives were cordial and interested in helping abuse victims, but they got no indication Finn will be removed or defrocked. The diocese has said Finn has paid for his mistake and deserves mercy. First, he made no mistake, Jones said. He repeatedly and brazenly made deliberate choices to put his comfort and career ahead of the safety of kids and the well-being of victims." She called it irresponsible of the Lincoln diocese to place Finn in a position of power and trust, questioning how he would handle any child sex abuse allegation. Mercy has already been extended to him by virtue of his continuing paycheck, benefits and exalted title of bishop," Jones said, reading from the letter. "Mercy has yet to be shown to the dozens of victims hurt on his watch or the hundreds hurt by his actions or the thousands of Catholics betrayed by his selfish choices. According to SNAP, as many as 26 clerics were accused of child molestation under Finns tenure in Kansas City. Speaking for the Lincoln Diocese, Flynn encouraged abuse victims to go to police, and said the diocese wants to help those who are suffering. The Diocese of Lincoln takes protection of children very seriously, he said. Any concerns we can address we want to address. As for defrocking Finn, Flynn said, that is not in the jurisdiction of the diocese, Flynn said. That comes from the Vatican. It is easy to be disappointed by the news that this year's 20 nominees for the Academy Awards for leading and supporting actors and actresses included zero nonwhite actors -- for the second year in a row. It is tougher to figure out what to do about it. The hashtag movement #OscarsSoWhite popped up for the second year on Twitter. Jada Pinkett Smith, apparently miffed that her husband Will Smith's widely praised performance in "Concussion" was passed over, said on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day that she would not attend the Oscars and encouraged others to join her. Spike Lee, whose movie "Chi-Raq" also was passed over, joined in. So did Will Smith, who told ABC News he was out of the country when his wife posted her decision online and that he wished she had given him a "heads-up," nevertheless said he supported her decision. I understand their frustration, but best-actress nominee Charlotte Rampling was not entirely wrong when she complained that the #OscarsSoWhite protest sounded "racist to whites." She later apologized for her inflammatory wording, but let's face it: She said what a lot of other people are still thinking. Yet, rest assured, none of the #OscarsSoWhite advocates for increased diversity has called for racial "quotas," even though Rampling's French interviewer seemed to have that impression. Bold discrimination against whites would further damage the Oscars' already embattled brand and prestige as much as allegations of discrimination against nonwhites have done. I, for one, don't want to see people of color given awards simply because of their race or ethnic group. But I don't want to see them excluded because of their race or ethnic group, either. Yet, as often happens with these clashes between cultures, this Oscar controversy presents both problems and an opportunity to expand diversity beyond race in their judging process. It is shocking, for example, to see the demographic statistics of the approximately 6,000 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members who vote for the Oscars. In 2012 a Los Angeles Times study found 94 percent of the voting members were white, 77 per cent were male and 64 percent were found to be over age 60. Nothing against seniors, especially since I'm one of them, but the academy's voting members appear to be about two generations older than the most frequent group of moviegoers. That could help explain why watching the Oscar ceremonies has become less enjoyable for many viewers than complaining about who didn't win. Seizing this opportunity, the academy's president, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, herself an African-American, announced changes approved by the academy's board of governors with the aim of doubling the numbers of women and racial-ethnic minorities in the academy's membership by 2020. The current Oscar "whiteout," as some are calling it, is particularly disappointing because it follows more than a decade of encouraging racial breakthroughs at the annual ceremonies. In 2005, for example, black actors including Morgan Freeman ("Million Dollar Baby"), Don Cheadle ("Hotel Rwanda") and Sophie Okonedo (also "Hotel Rwanda") earned a record five of the 20 nominations. In that year Jamie Foxx also became the first black performer to receive two nominations in the same year -- for "Ray" and "Collateral." Three years before that, Halle Berry became the first black woman to win the best-actress award -- for "Monster's Ball" -- and Denzel Washington for "Training Day" became the first black winner of the best actor honor since Sidney Poitier in 1963 for "Lilies of the Field." A recent analysis by The Economist points out that as much as blacks may be underrepresented in Oscar nominations, Hispanic, Asian and other nonwhites fare even worse, even though Hispanics are the most frequent moviegoers. "We're not lowering any standards," states the academy in the frequently-asked-questions page on its website. "We're widening our net." That's the spirit. It's not only the right thing to do in our rapidly diversifying society. It's also a smart business move. Sen. Ben Sasse is doing Nebraska and the rest of the country a great favor in stepping to the head of the Dump Trump movement. We wish him success. Let us list a few of the ways in Donald Trump would be a disaster as president. --He exhibits an appalling disdain of facts. His policies could never stand a reality test, starting with his boast that he would make Mexico pay for a wall along the border. --He has unleashed the hounds of bigotry and hatred by demonizing immigrants with skins of a non-white hue. --He has no discernible core of enduring political values; hes simply an opportunist in search of power. In the past he has been pro-choice and in favor of tax increases. Now Trump claims to have flipped by 180 degrees. In the past Sasse made comments that were interpreted as anti-Trump, but he refrained from naming the billionaire reality television star who would be the leader of the free world. Sasses criticism became more pointed in a series of tweets @RealDonaldTrump. Attracting much attention was a tweet in which Sasse asked Trump if he had repented his affairs with married women. (Trump has bragged of his record as a seducer.) Mainly however, Sasse seems more concerned about how Trump would handle his role as president. In his Twitterstorm Sasse employed a device seldom used in this particular form of social media, putting (cont) at the end of a 140-character tweet to show that the sentence would be continued in the next tweet. In Twitterspeak it came across this way Do you agree that exec unilateralism is very bad? Because you talk A LOT about running the country as though (cont) ..as tho 1 man shld run America." Questn5: Will you commit to rolling back Exec power & undoing Obama unilateral habit? In a statement with a more conventional use of the English language, Sasse wrote, We have a president who does not believe in executive restraint. We do not need another. And Im pro-Constitution and that makes me anti-Trump, thats Mr. Trumps problem. Sasses efforts to derail Trump included several campaign appearances in Iowa with Trumps Republican rivals Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. Sasse said he may appear with other constitutional candidates. In recent days the Republican split over Trumps candidacy has become more pronounced, with the National Review magazine devoted an issue to its stand against Trump. "Donald Trump is a menace to American conservatism who would take the work of generations and trample it underfoot in behalf of a populism as heedless and crude as the Donald himself," the editors wrote. The Journal Star editorial board hopeS that the work by Sasse and his allies results in a ballot in Nebraskas May 10 presidential primary on which Trumps name is nowhere to be found. Casey Ricketts, a student at College of Hair Design East Campus in Lincoln, has been named the CC Student of the Month by Cosmetologists Chicago (CC), the largest association of salon professionals in the Midwest. Each month, CC visits a cosmetology school and presents the award. Ricketts was selected because of her commitment to the pursuit of a successful career in the beauty industry. Luis Alvarez of Aquage hair care, an internationally recognized stylist, was in Lincoln to congratulate the student. Though a big fan of hair sculpting and hair color, Ricketts didnt start out wanting to be a cosmetologist. She was a police officer for 13 years before deciding she needed a change of pace and opted for beauty school. She is scheduled to graduate in March 2016. I really want to take advantage of all the opportunities I have and do everything I can to get to where I want to be, said Ricketts. My dream in five years is to be in a position where I could travel, but I would always keep my home base in Lincoln. I love all the avenues for creative expression in this job. MILWAUKEE A Milwaukee man wanted to storm a Masonic temple with a machine gun and kill at least 30 people in an attack he hoped would show "nobody can play with Muslims" and spark more mass shootings in the United States, federal agents said Tuesday after the man's arrest. Federal prosecutors charged 23-year-old Samy Mohamed Hamzeh with unlawfully possessing a machine gun and receiving and possessing firearms not registered to him. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney, Dean Puschnig, didn't immediately respond to a question asking why charges were limited to gun possession. Hamzeh's attorney, federal defender Ronnie Murray, didn't immediately return email and voicemail messages left after business hours. According to an FBI affidavit, agents were tipped off in September that Hamzeh planned to travel to Israel in October to attack Israeli soldiers and citizens in the West Bank. He abandoned those plans due to "family, financial and logistic reasons," the affidavit said, but refocused his efforts on a domestic attack. Hamzeh discussed his plans extensively with two FBI informants. The affidavit said the FBI started recording his conversations with the informants in October. Hamzeh and the two informants traveled to a gun range on Jan. 19 and practiced with a pistol. Afterward they took a tour of a Masonic temple in Milwaukee. The affidavit does not name the temple and Puschnig declined to identify it. Masons are members of a fraternal organization that carries out a variety of activities including charity work. Wisconsin has nearly 11,000 Masons in 180 lodges, according to Frank Struble, grand master of Free and Accepted Masons in Wisconsin. The organization is not a religion. Struble said the allegations were "hard to hear." He said he knew which Masonic center had been targeted but declined to identify it. "Masons are a part of an organization that helped build this country," Struble said. "I can understand from that standpoint where someone who is against this country would target us." The owner of a downtown Milwaukee gym said she recently fired Hamzeh after hiring him as a trainer just a few weeks ago. Delia Luna of 9Round Kickbox Fitness described Hamzeh as "very intense, very militant" as a trainer and said he didn't fit the atmosphere she wanted to create. "He didn't mix well," Luna said. Federal agents said that on Jan. 19 and into the early morning of Jan. 20, Hamzeh discussed his plans to attack the temple with the informants, telling them they needed two more machine guns the group apparently already had one and silencers. They planned to station one person at the temple's entrance while the other two went through the building, killing everyone they saw. They then planned to walk away from the scene as if nothing had happened. "I am telling you, if this hit is executed, it will be known all over the world ... all the Mujahedeen will be talking and they will be proud of us," Hamzeh said, according to the affidavit. "Such operations will increase in America, when they hear about it. The people will be scared and the operations will increase. ... This way we will be igniting it. I mean we are marching at the front of the war." Hamzeh added that he hoped to kill 30 people, "because these 30 will terrify the world. The (expletive) will know that nobody can play with Muslims." He added, "We are here defending Islam, young people together join to defend Islam, that's it, that is what our intention is." According to the affidavit, Hamzeh met with two undercover FBI agents on Monday. They presented him with two automatic machine guns and a silencer. He paid for the weapons and silencer in cash and put them in the trunk of his car. The agents then arrested him and recovered the guns and silencer. Hamzeh's arrest marks the Milwaukee area's second brush with a mass shooting in less than four years. A white supremacist named Wade Michael Page fatally shot six people at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, a Milwaukee suburb, in 2012. Page shot himself in the head after a police officer wounded him. Last month Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, opened fire on a social services center in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 people. They later died in a shootout with police. RACINE A Racine teen remains jailed on $100,000 cash bond after his attorney on Wednesday made a bid to reduce that amount, arguing the case against the high school student is very weak. Joshua J. Vallin Jr., 17, of the 2100 block of Lawn Street, is charged with two counts of attempted second-degree intentional homicide. Hes accused of shooting two people on Jan. 10 outside Rojos Pub. Vallins defense attorney, Robert Meyeroff, said the teens family can post $1,000 to bail him out of the Racine County Jail. The case is very weak, Meyeroff said. At the one point, they (police) say they have video of him shooting the gun. (Police also said) they arrested him because he has a bulge in his sleeve. Racine police responded at 1:38 a.m. to the north-side tavern, 1317 Yout St. There they found a 23-year-old man sitting inside the bar with a gunshot wound to his chest, police said. Police said the man recounted that he was standing outside the bars north entrance when an unknown person shot him, the complaint states. He was treated at Wheaton Franciscan-All Saints hospital. About 20 minutes later, a 21-year-old man entered the emergency room with a gunshot wound to his leg, police said. That man told police he was shot outside the pub, according to Vallins criminal complaint. That man was treated at the hospital and jailed for outstanding warrants, police have said. Shoeprints in snow and a video Outside the tavern, police reportedly discovered a trail of fresh shoeprints in the snow, leading to a home in the 1500 block of Erie Street. Vallins father confirmed to police that his son stays in a flop room there, along with several other family members, according to the complaint. My understanding is that (Vallins uncle) just drove the defendant home from the scene, Meyeroff said during Wednesdays hearing. (Police) say they traced my client home with his footprints and Im saying thats impossible. Meyeroff said he wants to play the video, which police obtained showing the area outside the pub, during Vallins preliminary hearing. That hearing is set for Tuesday. But, Meyeroff said, he still doesnt have that piece of evidence. Ive told Mr. Meyeroff hes not entitled to discovery before the preliminary hearing, Assistant District Attorney Bridget Brave said in court. The video allegedly shows a group of people standing outside Rojos Pub when an argument occurs between a female and a younger Hispanic male, the complaint states. The younger male then ran, stopped and fired multiple rounds from a handgun, the complaint states. Meyeroff said the teen lacked a criminal record, but was on probation about two years ago for carrying a concealed weapon. Brave said that weapons offense was a reduced charge and originally he was accused of carrying a weapon on school grounds. We think that he is a risk to the community, she said during the hearing. Court Commissioner Alice Rudebusch refused to reduce Vallins bond by $99,000, saying he shouldnt even be in a bar. A 17-year-old has no common sense. RACINE A Racine man in the Racine County Jail for unpaid tickets allegedly swallowed a bag of heroin and escaped after police transported him to the hospital Tuesday. Jesus Delvalle, 29, of the 2300 block of Taylor Avenue, left Wheaton Franciscan-All Saints hospital, 3801 Spring St., without the permission of sheriffs deputies while still considered a prisoner Tuesday, court records indicate. Delvalle was charged with a misdemeanor count of escape on Wednesday. According to the criminal complaint, Delvalle, while in jail, reported to deputies that he had consumed a bag of heroin. He was transported to the hospital for medical treatment. The deputy on duty when Delvalle allegedly consumed the drugs told Delvalle that even though he was being treated in the hospital, he was still considered an inmate, police said. The deputy also advised Delvalle that if he left the hospital without police consent, he would be considered an escaped inmate, according to a criminal complaint. Police said that after the deputy left the hospital, Delvalle left without consent. According to the criminal complaint, a Racine city police sergeant contacted the Sheriffs Office indicating that officers had located and arrested Delvalle in the attic of his home soon after his hospital escape. Delvalle was subsequently sent back to jail, police said. Delvalle reportedly said he was stupid for escaping, but wanted to kiss his baby, according to the criminal complaint. Delvalle appeared in court on Wednesday and his bail for the escape charge was set at $1,000. The charge carries a maximum sentence of nine months in prison and fines up to $10,000. He could serve an additional two years because he was charged as a repeater. RACINE A man with a history of burglary convictions has been linked to a 2014 break-in at a local auto body shop through a DNA sample, court records indicate. Angel Luis Cruz, 35, of the 2000 block of Gillen Street in Racine, has been charged with attempted burglary in connection to an October 2014 break-in at A-1 Auto Body, 2040 Memorial Drive. Cruz is incarcerated at the Oshkosh Correctional Institution because of a probation violation, according to Department of Corrections records. Cruz missed his initial appearance in Racine County Circuit Court, which was scheduled for Wednesday, according to court records. Court records also show that A-1 requested a restitution of $677.05 on Jan. 12. According to a criminal complaint, police responded to a burglary alarm at the body shop on the night of Oct. 19, 2014. A window on the north side of the building had been broken and it led into an office, police said. However, police said they did not believe the window was the method of entry for the intruder. There appeared to be blood on the interior of the windows blinds, and an officer took a sample of the substance using a swab kit, according to the criminal complaint. Police said they sent the sample to the Wisconsin State Crime Lab for analysis, and it returned a DNA match for Cruz. According to the criminal complaint, Cruz had been a customer of the body shop three days before the break-in. He faces one felony charge of attempted burglary, which could carry a maximum of 7 years in prison, five years of extended supervision and fines up to $25,000. RACINE Pamala Handrow, who has guided the SAFE Haven of Racine youth shelter for six years, has been appointed executive director of Bethany Apartments, which provides transitional housing for women and children suffering from domestic abuse. Handrow, also a member of the Racine Unified School District Board since 2008, will start at Bethany on Feb. 1. We are very pleased to have Pam at Bethany Apartments, said Racine Dominican Sister Betty Ann Heegeman, president of the Bethany Board of Directors. She is well-connected in the Racine community and brings many valuable skills to further our mission. Bethany Apartments was established in 1990 as a source of sanctuary and strength for victims of domestic violence. The apartments are a program of Catherine Marian Housing Inc. and are sponsored by the Racine Dominicans and Franciscan Ministries Inc. of Wheaton, Ill. Since it opened its doors 26 years ago, Bethany has served more than 270 women and 390 children, according to Bethanys website. For the past six years, Handrow has been the executive director of SAFE Haven of Racine, which provides food, clothing and shelter for youth, and helps them enhance their lives through education, self-esteem, employment, problem-solving and life skills. Handrow has served on the Racine Unified School Board since 2008. This year, the first that will have Unified board members elected by district, Handrow is running as a District 3 candidate against fellow incumbent Michael Frontier in the April 5 election. She has earned a masters degree in library and information science from UW-Milwaukee in 1995, and a law degree from Illinois Institute of Technologys Chicago Kent College of Law in 1987. Handrow has served as a professor of educational law at Carthage College and an instructor in interdisciplinary studies and organizational studies at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. She has worked as an assistant district attorney and private practice lawyer. She also has provided research, consultation, grant-writing and fundraising services to nonprofit corporations for the past 20 years. Additionally, Handrow has served on the Countryside Humane Society Board of Directors and the Racine Park and Recreation Board. RACINE As Sophia Madrid, 11, has heard about the water crisis occurring in Flint, Mich., she has wondered why people stay in a place where they cant drink or even touch the water coming from their faucets at home. Why not just leave? But she found the answer as she listened Wednesday to students from Flint tell their own stories about all of the property, possessions, family and friends they have there loved ones and memories they dont want to leave behind even with dangerous water. I understand, Sophia explained. If I had to move I wouldnt want to, because I have so many memories and so much stuff that I love about being here. She and about 35 fourth- and fifth-grade classmates at Mitchell Elementary School, 2713 Drexel Ave., heard about the crisis in Flint from high-school students living through it during a live video chat Wednesday with Mott Middle College in Flint. The video chat organized by Joan Roehre, head of the local water-education nonprofit Adventure Kids Learning connected classrooms across the country with Flint, including schools in Madison, Kenosha and Chicago in addition to Mitchell. Flint to comes to classrooms The project marks the first time Roehre and her one-woman water-education nonprofit, Adventure Kids Learning will be in a U.S. city to help tell its water story. An environmental education organization focusing on the global water crisis, AKL typically spends its time Guatemala doing about 30 video conferences a year. Despite ongoing technical issues with the online video chat, students and classes were able to pose questions to about a dozen Flint-area students and get local perspectives on the ongoing issues. Scott Miatech and Carmen Janecky, fifth- and fourth-grade dual language teachers at Mitchell, organized getting their classes into the video chat. Miatech explained that the students study the social and environmental connection humans have to water in the science and social studies curricula, but this kind of interaction puts faces to the issues they are studying and hearing about in the news. It makes things more real, they can see the human side of things, which is something thats harder to get from maybe a book or a report on the internet, to actually talk with people live, Miatech said. Fourth-grader Isandro Lopez, 9, explained that he initially didnt believe what he was hearing about the water crisis in Flint, brushing it off as false information. But he was eventually convinced when he looked into it, ticking off the course of events that brought Flint to its current predicament. He noted that he was surprised at the relative calm students in Flint were showing during the video chat though the Flint students clearly showed outrage over the situation. They describe it like its very calm, but for me it sounds very scary, Isandro said. If all of that water is like that, then youve got nothing you really gotta hope for people to donate or something. Flints situation Due to high levels of lead in their tap water, Flint residents have for months been forced to use bottled water to drink, cook and even bathe. Concerns about the water first surfaced in April 2014, when in an effort to save money, officials began drawing the citys water from the Flint River, instead of relying on water from Detroit. The move was considered temporary while the city waited to connect to a new regional water system, but residents immediately complained about the smell, taste and appearance of the water. They also raised health concerns, reporting rashes, hair loss and other problems. It was later discovered that that the river water was corrosive and had caused damage to the citys pipes, allowing high levels of lead to leach into the Flint water supply. BURLINGTON Police are investigating how a phony $50 bill ended up at one of the citys Kwik Trip convenience stores sometime Monday. The counterfeit currency was found at the northside Kwik Trip, 500 Falcon Ridge Drive, on Monday. The note did not pass a pen test, police said: the outside borders were off and missing some security features, according to Burlington Police Investigator Rodney Thurin. Police urged businesses to be vigilant about the currency they accept. If businesses suspect they have received counterfeit bills, they should attempt to safely identify the subject by either noting the time on video surveillance or obtain a license plate number, police said. Businesses should not accept the note or be confrontational with the subject, police said. Businesses should only attempt to obtain identifying information, police said. For more information, contact the Burlington Police Department at 262-763-2406. RACINE Local historic preservation advocates are urging city officials and design consultants to make preservation a guiding focus as they work out how best to replace the citys historic West Sixth Street bridge. Constructed in 1928 and designed by famed bridge architect Charles Whitney, the spandrel arch bridge is still perfectly safe, City Engineer John Rooney has said. But it has structural deficiencies that have caused its rating to fall below what engineers and the state and federal government deem sufficient, he said. In May, aldermen signed off on a three-party agreement with the city, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and Ayres Associates Inc. for design engineering services for the project. The design work, with a price tag of just under $399,000, will pave the way for the actual construction of the new bridge, which could occur sometime in the next two to six years, depending on the availability of state and federal funding. The state will pick up 80 percent of the design engineering costs, with the city paying the remaining 20 percent about $80,000. There will be similar split for the constructions costs, which are estimated at about $2.2 million, Rooney said. Preservation key On Wednesday, more than 30 local residents many of them members of the Preservation Racine organization packed into a committee room at City Hall, 730 Washington Ave., to discuss the proposed project. Several spoke passionately about how losing such a remarkable piece of architecture would affect the city. When you start talking about preserving some of the jewels of Racine, this is one those things you want to preserve, said Deb Monefeldt, 41, a Racine resident and local accountant. It has to be something where people drive past and there is a wow factor, she said of the need for a quality replacement bridge. Proposed designs During Wednesdays meeting, consultants presented a number of possible designs for replacement bridges from an unadorned modern bridge that might be used in an overpass, to more detailed and designs. In a proposed design most closely attempting to mimic the overall look of the existing bridge, the open spandrel structure beneath the deck of the bridge, which currently has columns allowing one to see through parts of the substructure, would be replaced with stamped concrete to give the illusion of that feature. Consultants said it would be too costly to recreate the existing structural element of the bridge one estimated it might add $1 million to the cost. They did, however, provide possibilities for replicating the decorative aspects of the bridge, such as making molded concrete copies of the gargoyles and terra-cotta plaques. Not everyone in the room Wednesday night was happy with those proposals, however. If (famed architect Daniel) Burnham could have built the White City in 21 days, why cant we replicate this? asked Preservation Racine member Victor Schubert, 78, of Racine. Attendees seemed less concerned about proposals to widen the deck of the bridge and switch from an existing four-lane roadway (two lanes in each direction) to a two- or three-lane alternative. Whats next Officials and consultants plan to have another public involvement meeting on the project sometime in the fall. At that time they hope to have designs that reflect both the consultants designs and public input. There is a finite amount of funds that are going to be spent on this project, Im not going to kid anyone in the room here, Rooney said. Withering on the Vine The Demographic Time Bomb is Most Marked in Japan The demographic time bomb whereby the elderly population assumes a greater and ... Government Sexual Libertinism Coming to a Government School Near You Further to our piece yesterday on the promotion of sexual libertinism in government schools, we rep... Some Random Observations The Aftermath of Mass Pre-Mediated Murder A few observations on the murder of 14 people in San Bernadino and the wounding of many more see... Letter From the UK (About State Tyranny) Ta-ta UK freedoms! Miranda matter outs vindictiveness of wounded police state Annie Machon is a former intelligence of... The Big One The Panoptican State Is Actually Operational Yesterday the "big one" dropped. The Guardian reported that the US and UK spy age... Fraud Central German Professor: NASA Has Fiddled Climate Data On Unbelievable Scale by James Delingpole BreitbartLondon A German professor ha... Statist Groupthink More and More Fashionable The Rise of Liberal Intolerance in America Edward Luce Financial Times I t ought to be a triumphal moment for American liberalism .... Vacuous Greenism Anti-Fracking Luddiocy Think of any technology that involves carbon based energy and its utilisation, and the lunatic fringe can be found ... "It is Finished": the Sixth Word from the Cross It is Finished: our Lords Sixth Word from the Cross What is history? That simple question covers a multitude of complexity, profundity... Former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] on Thursday pleaded not guilty to charges of crimes against humanity at the start of his trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website]. Gbagbo faces four charges of crimes against humanity for murder, attempted murder, rape and persecution during a wave of post-election violence between December 2010 and April 2011. He is charged with [JURIST report] former militia leader Charles Ble Goude, who also denies the charges. This is the first time [BBC report] the ICC has tried a former head of state. The ICC confirmed the charges against the former Ivory Coast president and referred him for trial in June 2014, after issuing a warrant for Gbagbos arrest on charges of crimes against humanity [JURIST reports] in November 2011. In November 2010 Gbagbo ran for reelection against former prime minister Alassane Ouattara [BBC profile]. The EU recognized that Ouattara defeated Gbagbo, but Gbagbo refused to concede victory. Gbagbo has been accused [JURIST report] of starting a civil war after losing the presidency, which resulted in 3,000 deaths and one million people displaced. Gbagbos wife, Simone, also faces charges, involving undermining state security [JURIST report]. In May a panel of appeals judges for the ICC affirmed [JURIST report] a ruling against the former first lady that allows the case to go forward to trial. Lithuania began war crime trials for 65 former Soviet military officials on Wednesday. The officials are accused [AFP report] of committing crimes against humanity during the 1991 crackdown by the Soviet Union during Lithuanias independence movement. The action resulted in 14 civilian deaths and over 700 others wounded by the Soviet army. Russian officials are refusing to help with the investigation and many of the accused will not be present during the trial, instead being represented by court-appointed attorneys. Two of the accused, Yuri Mel, a former tank commander and Gennady Ivanov, a former munitions officer, were present [Reuters report] for the start of the trial. Both claim they are innocent. Prosecutors are currently determining whether to charge [Reuters report] former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev [BBC profile] with war crimes, a decision likely to made by this summer. Russias military actions have garnered a lot of international attention over the last few years. Yesterday, the International Criminal Court approved an investigation [JURIST report] into the 2008 Georgia-Russia conflict. Georgia brought a case [JURIST report] before the International Court of Justice in August 2008, shortly after Russia sent troops into Georgia. Last month, Amnesty International (AI) filed a briefing [JURIST report] stating that Russian air strikes in Syria have killed hundreds of civilians and may amount to violations of international humanitarian law. In 2014, AI also found that Russia may be responsible for war crimes [JURIST report] in their ongoing conflict [BBC timeline; JURIST backgrounder] in Ukraine [JURIST news archive]. French Minister of Justice Christiane Taubira [official profile, in French] resigned Wednesday after expressing disagreement with the President Francois Hollandes proposal to strip convicted terrorists of their French citizenship. The plan, proposed as a revision to the French constitution [text], went before the French parliament [official website, in French] just after Taubiras resignation. Taubira was actively opposed to the controversial revision, which originally called for only those with dual nationality to be stripped of their French citizenship, allegedly creating a constitutional reform based on discrimination. Taubira was appointed in 2012, has been characterized as far-left and was an integral proponent in the nations same-sex marriage laws. In a tweet [official Twitter account, in French] sent out that morning, Taubira stated, sometimes staying on is resisting, sometimes resisting means leaving. Taubira was seen as [Guardian report] the greatest barrier to Hollande writing significant emergency measures into the constitution, a move that appears to have wide public approval [BFMTV report, in French]. The amendments [JURIST report] are a response to the terrorist attacks on Paris in November, 2015, which left nearly 130 dead. Organized in three teams, terrorists reportedly connected to the Islamic State (IS) [JURIST backgrounder] perpetrated attacks on six different targets in and around Paris. The attacks began with a suicide bombing at the Stade de France around 9:20 PM local time. Soon thereafter, individuals riding in a Seat brand car opened fire on individuals outside cafes around the city. At around 9:40 PM, assailants fired on concert-goers at the Bataclan concert hall, killing 89. Paris chief prosecutor Francois Molins related that these individuals were using war-type weapons and explosives, further indicating association with IS. Speaking about the attacks generally, Hollande called them [BBC report] an act of war, and vowed that the French will lead the fight, and we will be ruthless. A UN rights expert also commented this week that the attacks may amount to crimes against humanity [JURIST report]. French lawmakers on Wednesday approved [press release, in French] a bill that will allow physicians to keep terminally ill patients sedated until death, opting not to extend the bill to cover physician-assisted suicide. Under the new law, patients will be able to request [AP report] deep, continuous sedation altering consciousness until death, though the request may only be granted when the patients condition is life-threatening in the short term. The bill will also allow for a consultation process with family members of a patient to reach the same relief of pain when a patient is unable to express his or her own will. Parliament [official website, in French] debated [AP report] the proposed law in March, with Prime Minister Manuel Valls praising it as a reform that proclaims the right to die peacefully, in dignity and without suffering, to the countrys lower house of Parliament. The right to die [JURIST news archive] is a contentious issue worldwide. Last month the Court of Appeals of Quebec overturned [JURIST report] a lower court injunction and ruled that Quebecs physician-assisted death law is not in conflict with any elements of the Quebec Criminal Code. In November German lawmakers approved a bill [JURIST report] allowing assisted suicide for altruistic motives but banning the practice in cases where it is being conducted on a business basis. The month before California Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation [JURIST report] that provides terminally ill patients the right to die. In May a Dutch court cleared [JURIST report] a man of all criminal charges for assisting his 99-year-old mother in committing suicide. In April a South African judge ruled [JURIST report] that a terminally ill man had a right to assisted suicide with no legal or professional consequences for the participating doctor. Judges for the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] have approved an investigation into the 2008 Georgia/Russia [HRW profiles] conflict. Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda commented [statement] that the delay in ICC proceedings was prompted by independent investigations conducted by the governments of Georgia and Russia. Under the Rome Statute [materials], the ICC is barred from conducting its own investigation simultaneous to an investigation by national authorities. The Office of the Prosecutor requested authorization for the investigation because investigations in Georgia were indefinitely suspended in March of last year. Bensouda stated that her office continues to monitor relevant proceedings in Russia, which, according to the Offices information, are still on-going. The court will make preliminary findings which will determine whether further investigation or arrests are warranted. Last October Fatou Bensouda sought to open an investigation [JURIST report] into allegations of war crimes committed during the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict, and the matter was assigned to Pre-Trail Chamber I [official decision]. Bensouda filed notice with the court [press release] that she intended to seek authorization to open an investigation because there is a reasonable basis to believe that crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court have been committed in Georgia in the context of the armed conflict of August 2008. In 2010 representatives from Russia met with ICC prosecutors [JURIST report] to discuss claims of war crimes allegedly committed by Georgian soldiers during the conflict in South Ossetia in August 2008. In 2009 Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] issued a report [report] detailing the human rights violations and civilian deaths that occurred during the conflict. That conflict occurred when Russia sent its military into Georgia in response to a Georgian bid to strike South Ossetia, an area heavily populated by Russians. The US has taken the position that both nations committed human rights violations [JURIST report] during that conflict. Georgia brought a case [JURIST report] before the International Court of Justice in August 2008, shortly after Russia sent troops into Georgia. The Supreme Court of Mexico [official website, in Spanish] struck down [press release, in Spanish] language in a Jalisco state law on Tuesday defining marriage as being between a man and a woman. The ruling effectively ends the same-sex marriage ban in one of the largest states in the country and allows for same-sex couples to register for marriage licenses immediately. Previously same-sex couples would have to sue [AP report] for the right to marry as courts decided each case because the state laws still determined marriage criteria. Last year the court ruled same-sex marriage bans were unconstitutional, but the ruling carried no weight to impact state laws. The court stated that in unanimously declaring this provision of Jaliscos civil code unconstitutional, it concluded that the law stood against individual liberty and the freedom of independent personal development of each individual and that it violated the principal of equality by treating same-sex couples differently. The issue of same sex marriage continues to be a controversial international issue. Earlier this month Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore instructed [JURIST report] state judges not to issue same-sex marriage licenses [order] because the Alabama Supreme Court [official website] had previously ruled that the states ban on same-sex marriage is legal. A same-sex couple in Northern Ireland filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] in November to challenge the same-sex marriage ban, arguing that reducing their marriage to a civil partnership is unlawful discrimination. The same month, the Constitutional Court of Colombia [official website, in Spanish] ruled that same-sex couples can legally adopt children because allowing [JURIST report] same-sex couples to form a family upholds equality and is in the best interest of children and teens. Sharing restaurants, events, recipes, & musings from Connecticut, where summer is a verb & happy hour is a state of mind. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) [official website] said Tuesday that Burundian authorities failed to provide entry [press briefing] to independent rights experts dispatched by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate rights violations in the nation. The team, composed of two Special Rapporteurs for the UN and a member of the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights expected entry Monday, but Burundian authorities failed to respond to access requests. The OHCHR released a statement [press release] calling on Burundian authorities to respond to the deployment of the UN experts, [g]iven the [nations] rapidly deteriorating human rights situation. The team is to assess the situation and make recommendations for improvement, and report to the Human Rights Council in March. Violence in Burundi began in the wake of President Pierre Nkurunzizas announcement that he would seek a third term of office, which he was voted into [JURIST report] in July. Earlier this month the UN High Commission for Human Rights, Zeid Raad Al Hussein, warned [JURIST report] of increasing violence in Burundi. Last month the UN Human Rights Council approved [JURIST report] a resolution to dispatch experts to investigate human rights violations in Burundi, condemning violence in the country, use of excessive force by officials and restrictions on freedoms. In November the UN Security Council unanimously adopted [JURIST report] a resolution condemning the political violence and killings currently afflicting Burundi. [JURIST] UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official website] on Wednesday stressed [official statement] the importance of education to prevent new genocides, speaking at an event acknowledging the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. The Secretary-General spoke at an event at UN headquarters in New York City urging the global community to remember the horrors of Holocaust and work to prevent the dark parts of history from occurring again. In his speech, Ban stated that, [t]oday, with a rising tide of anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim bigotry and other forms of discrimination, we must do even more to defend these rights for people everywhere. Ban said that the international community must work to fight xenophobia and prevent new genocides in the modern day. Wednesday marked 71 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi extermination camp. German courts have recently seen a flurry of war crimes-related charges against former members of the German Nazi party. Prior to 2011 German prosecutors often chose not to charge individuals they regarded as simply cogs in, rather than active members of, the Nazi war machine. In November a German court deemed [JURIST report] that a 93-year-old former SS sergeant, charged with 170,000 counts of accessory to murder for allegedly serving as a Nazi camp prison guard, was fit for trial. The 2011 conviction [JURIST report] of former Nazi guard John Demjanjuk may have emboldened German prosecutors to pursue cases against all those who materially helped Nazi Germany function. The most recent person imprisoned for their role in the Holocaust was Oskar Groening. Known as the accountant of Auschwitz, Groening was charged [JURIST report] in September 2014 as an accessory to the murder of 300,000 people. In June, Groening was given a four-year jail sentence for his role at Auschwitz, a sentence Groening said he would appeal [JURIST reports]. Ban welcomes charter amendment United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed Nepal Parliaments vote to amend the constitution and hoped that the positive development would help ease the border blockade. Bus service resumes after 5 mths Public bus service resumed after more than five months in Gaur of Rautahat and Malangawa of Sarlahi on Wednesday. Charter fails to address concerns: Rights watchdog The Human Rights Watch has said Nepals new constitution has left out sections of the population in the lurch. Deepak Thapa has been a fortnightly columnist with The Kathmandu Post since 2009, writing on a range of topical social and political issues. DoC plans Nepal National Single Window system Department of (DoC) is preparing to launch a single digital window system that would enable traders to submit their documents to a single platform which would be electronically available to other authorities concerned. Himalayan goral hides seized from Myagdi village Myagdi District Police Office seized the hides of two Himalayan gorals and a musket from the house of Bel Bahadur Khatri at Arman VDC-2 on Tuesday. KMC to extend fire brigade stations Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC), under its greater Kathmandu project, has come forward with an ambitious plan of installing seven more fire brigade stations to cater to the expanding city and the mushrooming population. Nepal slips 4 places in TIs graft listing Nepals image as one the most corrupt countries in the world has taken a further beating, Transparency International (TI) said in its annual report published on Wednesday. Out of the box Major and Madhesi parties, and Delhi should avoid politics of brinkmanship Sweden 'to expel up to 80,000 failed asylum-seekers' Sweden expects to expel up to 80,000 asylum-seekers whose applications have been rejected, its interior minister was quoted as saying. Taiwan's Ma Ying-jeou visits disputed South China Sea island Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou is visiting a disputed island in the South China Sea, in a show of sovereignty over the territory. TeliaSonera can repatriate cash after submitting paperwork Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) has said that TeliaSonera, the majority shareholder in telecom giant Ncell, can repatriate the dividends it has earned in Nepal after submitting a complete document regarding its capital investment in the country. The privileged world of Thailand's supernatural dolls A craze for eerily lifelike supernatural dolls has swept Thailand in recent months. 1. Yes. Its important to cast my votes early and avoid the lines on Election Day. 2. Yes. With nearly two weeks of early voting, its a more convenient way to take part. 3. No. Its better to wait until Election Day, in case any last-minute information surfaces. 4. No. Im not planning to vote early or on Election Day. It isnt worth my time. 5. Unsure. It depends on how the campaigns are shaping up. Ill play it by ear. Vote View Results A blog on Singapore defence and the SAF that goes Above & Beyond The Obvious -The views expressed on this blog are my personal views and/or opinion and do not necessarily reflect the views and/or opinions of the Advisory Council on Community Relations in Defence (ACCORD). Copyright 2009-2020. David Boey. All rights reserved. Follow us on Twitter @SenangDiri Mike Dunleavy the governor of the US state of Alaska is intending to introduce legislation that will repeal the two state boards which regu... President Yoweri Museveni has waived the requirement for collateral before Ugandans can access government funds aimed at wealth creation. While campaigning in Kiboga and Kyankwanzi district earlier today, Museveni said he had received complaints that some youth had been asked for security before benefiting from the Youth Livelihood Programme. Museveni argued that the collateral for the poor is the individuals trust group. He argued that if the people demanding for governments financial support had collateral, they would have got loans from commercial banks. Museveni also said the newly created Women Entrepreneurship Fund will be allocated Shs 234 billion. He also promised to increase funds into SACCOs which have been at subcounties from the current 44 billion to 180 billion.He said the each village in the country will atleast get Shs 2 million. The President had earlier completed his campaigns with a rally in Bunyoro region with a rally at Kakindo playground in Kyabigambire subcounty in Hoima district. Story By Francis Mugerwa Forum for Democratic Change presidential candidate has castigated police chief, Gen. Kale Kayihuras declaration that he will arm crime preventers to protect the NRM government. Dr.Besigye, who is addressing a rally at Bukomansimbi District grounds, says the IGPs conduct confirms the public long-held concern that he believes more in the survival of NRM than the stability of the country. Besigyes scathing attack on the IGP follows media reports that were attributed to Kayihura that he would not allow the opposition to takeover after the February 18 general elections. Kayihura is said to have made the remarks while passing out a group of crime preventers in Kapchorwa District last weekend, but the police has since rubbished the reports saying they false and ill-intentioned. Addressing a news conference on Thursday afternoon on behalf of the police chief, the Director Inter-pol Uganda has also defended his boss saying he was quoted out of contest. Trollfest '09 Trollfest '07 was such a success that Jackson Jambalaya will once again host Trollfest '09. Catch this great event which will leave NE Jackson & Fondren in flames. Othor Cain and his band, The Black Power Structure headline the night while Sonjay Poontang returns for an encore performance. Former Frank Melton bodyguard Marcus Wright makes his premier appearance at Trollfest singing "I'm a Sweet Transvestite" from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Kamikaze will sing his new hit, How I sold out to da Man. Robbie Bell again performs: Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be Bells and Any friend of Ed Peters is a friend of mine. After the show, Ms. Bell will autograph copies of her mug shot photos. In a salute to Dancing with the Stars, Ms. Bell and Hinds County District Attorney Robert Smith will dance the Wango Tango. Wrestling returns, except this time it will be a Battle Royal with Othor Cain, Ben Allen, Kim Wade, Haley Fisackerly, Alan Lange, and Big Cat Donna Ladd all in the ring at the same time. The Battle Royal will be in a steel cage, no time limit, no referee, and the losers must leave town. Marshand Crisler will be the honorary referee (as it gives him a title without actually having to do anything). Meet KIM Waaaaaade at the Entergy Tent. For five pesos, Kim will sell you a chance to win a deed to a crack house on Ridgeway Street stuffed in the Howard Industries pinata. Don't worry if the pinata is beaten to shreds, as Mr. Wade has Jose, Emmanuel, and Carlos, all illegal immigrants, available as replacements for the it. Upon leaving the Entergy tent, fig leaves will be available in case Entergy literally takes everything you have as part of its Trollfest ticket price adjustment charge. Donna Ladd of The Jackson Free Press will give several classes on learning how to write. Smearing, writing without factchecking, and reporting only one side of a story will be covered. A donation to pay their taxes will be accepted and she will be signing copies of their former federal tax liens. Ms. Ladd will give a dramatic reading of her two award-winning essays (They received The Jackson Free Press "Best Of" awards.) "Why everything is always about me" and "Why I cover murders better than anyone else in Jackson". In the spirit of helping those who are less fortunate, Trollfest '09 adopts a cause for which a portion of the proceeds and donations will be donated: Keeping Frank Melton in his home. The Keep Frank Melton From Being Homeless booth will sell chances for five dollars to pin the tail on the jackass. John Reeves has graciously volunteered to be the jackass for this honorable excursion into saving Frank's ass. What's an ass between two friends after all? If Mr. Reeves is unable to um, perform, Speaker Billy McCoy has also volunteered as when the word jackass was mentioned he immediately ran as fast as he could to sign up. In order to help clean up the legal profession, Adam Kilgore of the Mississippi Bar will be giving away free, round-trip plane tickets to the North Pole where they keep their bar complaint forms (which are NOT available online). If you don't want to go to the North Pole, you can enjoy Brant Brantley's (of the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance) free guided tours of the quicksand field over by High Street where all complaints against judges disappear. If for some reason you are unable to control yourself, never fear; Judge Houston Patton will operate his jail where no lawyers are needed or allowed as you just sit there for minutes... hours.... months...years until he decides he is tired of you sitting in his jail. Do not think Judge Patton is a bad judge however as he plans to serve free Mad Dog 20/20 to all inmates. Trollfest '09 is a pet-friendly event as well. Feel free to bring your dog with you and do not worry if your pet gets hungry, as employees of the Jackson Zoo will be on hand to provide some of their animals as food when it gets to be feeding time for your little loved one. Relax at the Fox News Tent. Since there are only three blonde reporters in Jackson (being blonde is a requirement for working at Fox News), Megan and Kathryn from WAPT and Wendy from WLBT will be on loan to Fox. To gain admittance to the VIP section, bring either your Republican Party ID card or a Rebel Flag. Bringing both and a torn-up Obama yard sign will entitle you to free drinks served by Megan, Wendy, and Kathryn. Get your tickets now. Since this is an event for trolls, no ID is required. Just bring the hate. Bring the family, Trollfest '09 is for EVERYONE!!! This is definitely a Beaver production. Note: Security provided by INS. This blog (launched in 2010) focuses on "ethically-tangled aspects of 21st century societies and cultures: in the vein of Charles Darwins 1859 entangled bank metaphora complex and evolving digital ecosystem of difference and dependence, where diverse humans, extant and emerging technologies, ethics, law, policy, data, and information converge and diverge. Kip Currier, PhD, JD North Korea is eager to attract foreign investment at its special economic zones in areas bordering China, but its latest nuclear test will likely hamper success, experts said Thursday. The North has unveiled an investment guideline written in Korean, English and Chinese for its special economic zone in the northwestern border city of Sinuiju, according to North Korea's portal site Naenara. Sinuiju was designated a special administrative zone in 2002, but it quickly fizzled out. The area was renamed Sinuiju International Economic Zone in 2013 amid North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's push for economic development. In November, North Korea also unveiled detailed plans to develop its special economic zone in Rason into a regional logistics hub close to both China and Russia. North Korea has sought to develop the zone since it designated Rason, formerly known as Rajin and Sonbong, as a special economic zone in 1991. But its ambitious plan has faced serious setbacks as foreign investment remains lackluster due to the North's provocations. Analysts said North Korea will likely face difficulty in luring foreign investment as tension sparked by the North's nuclear test on Jan. 6 has chilled investors' sentiment. The United Nations Security Council is working on a fresh resolution for "stronger and more comprehensive" sanctions against the North. "The North's latest nuke test has further worsened investors' sentiment," said Lim Eul-chul, a professor at the Institute for Far East Studies of Kyungnam University. "Chinese businessmen have said that they cannot invest in North Korea if tension rises on the Korean Peninsula." Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said the North seems to give off the impression that it is more focused on boosting the economy in a bid to water down its nuclear aspiration. The North's leader Kim has been pursuing his signature policy of nuclear and economic development in tandem, commonly known as the "byeongjin" policy. Seoul and Washington have warned that the North's dual-track policy is a dead end. "Financing should be supported if special economic zones operate smoothly," Lim said. "If new sanctions are to target North Korea's financing, the North's move to attract foreign investors will face severe strains." (Yonhap) Alex Kuderas award-winning novel, Fight for Your Long Day (Atticus Books), was drafted in a walk-in closet during a summer in Seoul, South Korea. Auggies Revenge (Beating Windward Press) is his second novel. His numerous short stories include Frade Killed Ellen (Dutch Kills Press), Bombing from Above (Heavy Feather Review), and A Thanksgiving (Eclectica Magazine). Coulee Region art lovers visiting the gallery at West Salems Marie W. Heider Center of the Arts in February will get the chance to see what some of the areas most fearless creators have been up to of late. Art teachers from throughout western Wisconsin have been invited to submit up to five of the best pieces theyve seen from students this year. The West Central Region Youth Art Month Exhibit is sponsored by the Wisconsin Art Education Association. Its a preliminary to the State Youth Art Month Exhibit held in the State Capitol rotunda in Madison in February and March. Of every five pieces an art teacher submits for the show at the Heider Center, three will be chosen to be exhibited in Madison. As the WAEEs vice president for the West Central Region, Lynnae Burns, also an art teacher at Lincoln Middle School in La Crosse, has been busy the past month gathering all the artwork for the Heider show. Burns said there will be at least 170 individual pieces of art on display, chosen by more than 30 area art teachers Were going to fill the halls at the Heider Center, Burns said. One of the unique and appealing things about the show is that it represents all ages. The beauty of this show is that all work is presented as equalkindergarten work is displayed alongside eighth grade and high school work, said Quenten Brown, art teacher at West Salem High School. It shows that no matter what the age, artists possess the power of creation they all go through the creative journey to make the pieces of art hanging on the walls. Just like the adults artists who exhibit during the year at the Heider Center, the young artists are celebrated at a reception (this years reception will be held on Feb. 11). According to Burns, students are often taken aback by having their works chosen by the teachers and then seeing them in an actual art gallery. Sometimes theyre amazed and shocked to see their pieces with the pieces of so many other students from other schools, Burns said. The impact of seeing their work alongside 170 other kids can be kind of mind-blowing. Burns added that the mind-blowing aspect of the whole process can be kicked up another notch if the students art is chosen to be displayed at the Capitol in Madison with works by 500 other students from throughout the state. This years statewide Youth Art Month exhibit at the capitol runs from Feb. 27 through March 11. Students and their parents are invited to a YAM celebration on March 11 from noon to 1 p.m. Awards are presented from each region as well as an overall grand prize (the Sargent Award). A little creativity can go a long way, as the winner of the Sargent Award gets a free trip to New York City with his or her art teacher and a parent. Last years Sargent Award winner was second-grader Aubrey Froman from Harry Spence Elementary in La Crosse. Katie Walshs life was forever changed on Oct. 20, 2014. She got the news that her husband Nathan, a tow truck driver, was struck and killed by a pickup truck along Interstate 94 in Jackson County while he loaded a disabled vehicle onto his flatbed. Its your worst nightmare as a wife, and then having to tell your children, Katie says in a public-service announcement for the state Department of Transportations Move Over Law. Some days it still doesnt feel real. Nobody should have to lose someone like that, because its just senseless. Katies part in the announcement was played Thursday in Jackson County Circuit Court during sentencing for Steven E. Dolan, 51, of La Crosse, who was driving the truck that killed the 38-year-old Walsh. Dolan, who was convicted of negligent homicide in November, was sentenced to five years probation and must serve two weeks in jail every year during probation, reporting to jail the evening of Oct. 19 so that he wakes up on the anniversary of Walshs death. Judge Anna Becker also said she wanted Dolan to work with his probation agent to find ways to create public awareness about the Move Over law and safe driving. This is one of the most extremely difficult cases for the attorneys, for the court I lost sleep last night thinking about what to do, an emotional Becker said while issuing Dolans sentence. Its an absolutely senseless tragedy that could have been avoided. I think its important to have you take an active role in (public awareness) to describe how this has impacted your life, your familys life and particularly the Walsh family. I think its important to have you reflect on that in that way, and that would be a positive way for something good to come out of this tragedy. Dolan was traveling westbound in a 2004 Chevrolet Silverado about 8:25 a.m. near Osseo when the truck crossed the white fog line, struck Walsh and sideswiped his tow truck. Dolan said he did not see the tow truck. The investigation showed Dolan had 39 seconds from cresting a hill until approaching the scene to perceive the disabled vehicle and decide how to react. Dolan, who was not under the influence of illegal drugs or alcohol, has said he doesnt remember what occurred in those 39 seconds. He became emotional during Thursdays sentencing, pulling many bottles of medication out of a bag during his remarks and noting he was taking those and many more around the time of the incident. Dolan whom many credit as a good person with no criminal or traffic violation history told the court and Walshs family he was experiencing some physical side effects from medication in weeks before the crash. He also said his attorney, Eric Sheets, wouldnt pursue using the medication information and medical records during his trial. Sheets reiterated his belief that the incident was an accident and didnt amount to a crime while arguing for only probation. I have no memory of it if I did, Id tell you. Thats why this is so difficult for me, Dolan told the judge and Walshs family. I wish it would have never happened Im just so frustrated that no one was given a chance to know about (the medications). I sure hope you understand I would never, never do this to your loved one. District Attorney Gerald Fox told the court he had a personal connection to Walsh that made the case difficult. Walsh had assisted Foxs wife when she was in an accident while Fox was deployed to Iraq a decade ago and didnt bill her because she was a military members spouse. Still, this was inattentive at a gross degree, Fox said. Dolan also was sentenced to pay just more than $11,300 in restitution to Walshs family. This is one of the most extremely difficult cases for the attorneys, for the court I lost sleep last night thinking about what to do. Its an absolutely senseless tragedy that could have been avoided. Judge Anna Becker, on Dolans sentence Think of it as an interdisciplinary ping-pong match. That isnt quite how La Crescent Middle School seventh-grade science teacher Patty Gurholt labels the science fair projects her students worked on since the second week in September, but its how it sounds when she describes the process. They learn about the scientific method, Gurholt said. They learn about researching, and they do their researching in English class: How to research, how to cite sources; they summarize sources. They use that information, then back in science, to write a hypothesis for how to solve their problem. They design data tables in math class for how to record their data once they experiment. Back in science, they discuss variables and write procedures. Then I turn them loose to do their testing, she said. They come back, learn how to fill in their data tables, create graphs, Google sheets in math class (again), and then they write abstracts with all their information in English class (again). Back again, they put their project boards together in science, and then go back once more to do a dry-run presentation in English class. And then we have Science Fair day, where I get this group of scientists, local people, university people, to come in and go talk with the kids, she said. This years science fair last week the middle school gym had 79 displays. There were 32 judges, including a few high school students who did this with Gurholt when they were in middle school and went to regional and state competitions. So they know what it takes, she said. From La Crescent, she said, the students have a chance to qualify for the regional science fair Feb. 19 at Saint Marys University in Winona. Its totally based on judges recommendations. I have nothing to do with it, Gurholt said. Judges can recommend as many students as they want. If they do well at regionals, they have a shot at the state competition in Minneapolis. Thats why good judges are key. Some have done judging in the past for her (this is the science fairs 19th year), and others are university students in Biology Club, and the chemistry and earth science departments. There are also area doctors, as well as former teachers. Gurholt said the students develop many needed skills, such as writing, speaking, math and organization. Shari Erdmann, a seventh-grade English teacher, agreed. She said the students begin to show real ownership over their projects as the process goes on. Some of the kids dont really see the big picture until its near the end, and today even; then theyre so nervous, Erdmann said. This is a big deal. In the gym, with display boards lining numbered tables, judges passed by the students, noting projects as diverse as a three-song shower method, to arrow penetration and even mummification. Jayden Frederick, 12, had devised something called Pinocchios Arm. It was a way to measure lying, based entirely on the pressure exerted by someones arm. She found a similar project online, she said, but tweaked it to fit what she wanted to do. I wanted to know more, Frederick said. Originally, it was more of a guessing game to see whether someone was lying; she decided to measure arm resistance. Ashtin Holzer, 12, was interested in encouraging people to take shorter showers by listening to music. She developed what she called the three-song method. The idea, she said, was that people who listen to music spend less time in the shower, hence use less water. Her hypothesis was supported. I had a few friends who would listen to music in the shower, Holzer said, and I was confused why they would do that, and then I tried it, and it started to work for me. It coincided with the beginning of her experiment, so she decided to run with it. For the effects of mummification, one had to look no further than 13-year-old Reid Haffner. He put hot dogs in three different materials: Baking soda, salt and kitty litter. He thought the baking soda would be the best of three for the process of mummification (which he recorded each step of the way), but it turned out kitty litter worked the best. Ive always been interested in history for a long time, and one of my favorite history areas is ancient Egyptian history, Haffner said. Newly released data show union membership plummeted last year as Wisconsin adopted "right to work" legislation. The percentage of workers belonging to a union fell from 11.7 percent in 2014 to 8.3 percent in 2015. That 3.4 point drop was the largest decline in any of the 50 states, dropping Wisconsin from 19th to 32nd place, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nationwide union membership was unchanged at 11.1 percent. With a median weekly wage of $776, nonunion workers earned only about 80 percent of their unionized counterparts, although the BLS cautions other variables also contribute to the discrepancy, including occupation, industry, age and geography. Overall, public sector workers have a union membership rate five times that of the private sector. According to the BLS, police, firefighters, teachers and librarians were the occupations with the highest unionization rates. The Wisconsin Legislature in 2015 passed a law that allows workers to opt out of paying union dues even if they are represented by a union. Union representation fell to 9.4 percent of all workers, also the largest drop in the nation. Union membership in Wisconsin has been trending downward for the past 15 years, according to BLS data. The membership rate fell 2.1 points in 2012, the year after the Legislature passed Act 10, which eliminated collective bargaining rights for most public sector workers. Minnesota's union membership remained steady at 14.2 percent. Iowa's fell by 1.1 points to 9.6 percent. MILWAUKEE (AP) The two rivals trying to unseat Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley warned of the influence of partisan politics on the states highest court at a candidate forum Wednesday. Bradley and challengers JoAnne Kloppenburg and Joe Donald appeared together for the first time at a forum hosted by the Milwaukee Bar Association, three weeks ahead of a Feb. 16 primary that will narrow the field to two before the April 5 general election. All three are seeking a 10-year term to replace Justice Patrick Crooks, who died in September. Republican Gov. Scott Walker appointed Bradley in October to fill Crooks seat, making her the incumbent heading into the elections. Bradley pledged to run a positive and nonpartisan campaign and said she welcomes support from anyone who offers it, the Journal Sentinel reported. Kloppenburg, a state appellate judge, said she would accept campaign funds from any groups except political parties. Kloppenburg said her experience makes her best to do justice without fear or favor and to stand up to special interests. Donald, a Milwaukee County Circuit judge, touted his independence. He said the election is important to restore integrity at the Supreme Court and that without a new independent, were stuck with an ideologue on the court for the next 30 years, referring to Bradley. Crooks died in his chambers at age 77, days after announcing he would not seek re-election. Neither Kloppenburg nor Donald applied for the vacancy. The appointment marked the third time the governor had tapped Bradley for a judicial position. He appointed her to the Milwaukee County circuit court in 2012. She won election the following year. Last May, he named her to the state appeals court. Tiny Viroqua is a great base for exploring the Driftless Area, which is not a wasteland of slackers but a region untouched by glaciers, which resulted in some pretty dramatic geological features, including caves, underground streams and prehistoric rock formations (experience them in Kickapoo Valley Reserve and Sidie Hollow County Park). The town itself is renowned for stores and restaurants focusing on fresh and local foods, including the farm-to-table Driftless Cafe and the European-style Viroqua Public Market, where you can find an independent bookstore, antiques and crafts, and a cooperative art gallery. And dont miss the Farmers Market at the Vernon County Fairgrounds: The county boasts the highest concentration of organic farms in the nation, so youre sure to find some pretty impressive produce here. Other solid options include wine-tasting at Vernon Vineyards and Branches Winery, renting bikes or snowshoes at Bluedog Cycles, and taking advantage of top-notch fly-fishing (check in at the Driftless Angler for lessons and supplies). On 21 January Argentinas President Mauricio Macri, met US Vice-President Joe Biden at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. This was Macris first meeting with such a high ranking US official since he assumed office on 10 December 2015. The two reportedly discussed strengthening bilateral relations and opportunities for trade, defence and security, technology and educational exchanges. With Macris recent efforts to reintegrate Argentina into the global economy and attract foreign investment, the two leaders promised to deepen relations in this respect. The pair also touched on issues such as climate change and Argentinas role in increasing renewable energy development and the need to increase foreign investment in Argentinas energy sector. Vice-President Biden offered the USs help in Argentinas fight against drug trafficking, which Macri has said is one of his governments main priorities. End of preview - This article contains approximately 804 words. Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article Not a Subscriber? Choose from one of the following options Thursday, January 28, 2016 TAKEDA Kuninobu examines the Background of the Gazprom Antitrust Case: Internal and external energy policies, and antitrust law enforcement in the EU. ABSTRACT: The European Commission sent a Statement of Objections to Russian state-owned enterprise (SOE) Gazprom, alleging that its business practices breached European Union (EU) antitrust rules. This paper analyzes the case from the viewpoints of EU internal and external energy policies. The Commission has been using competition law as a tool for internal and external energy policies. Until the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the Commission had been applying competition law in order to materialize an internal energy policy. Since the Lisbon Treaty, it has been using competition law for both external and internal energy policies. The Gazprom case, in which Lithuania pressed the Commission to enforce competition law under the name of "solidarity," is the latter case. But using competition law in such an instrumental way can cause a negative side effect such as disincentive for investment in pipelines, and it can also bring about a fierce conflict between con! cerned nations as seen in a Russian blocking statute. https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/antitrustprof_blog/2016/01/background-of-the-gazprom-antitrust-case-internal-and-external-energy-policies-and-antitrust-law-enf.html Thursday, January 28, 2016 We're less than a week away from the reopened postconviction proceeding in the Adnan Syed case. One of the issues that the court will consider is whether Cristina Gutierrez's failure to contact Asia McClain constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. I've written numerous times about case law from across the country standing for the proposition that the failure to contact a known alibi witness constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel. The most recent example involves a case out of Cook County, Illinois. In 1994, Edward Bolden was arrested in connection with a drug-related murder. Clifford Frazier, who was wounded during the drug transaction, identified Bolden as the shooter at Bolden's trial in 1996; Bolden has been incarcerated ever since. Last week, however, Cook County Judge Alfredo Maldonado granted Bolden a new trial. One of Bolden's claims was that his trial attorney was ineffective based upon failure to contact three alibi witnesses. Here was Judge Maldonado's discussion of the law in this area: You might recall the Peterson case that closes this quote. It's the case in which the Seventh Circuit found that trial counsel was ineffective in contacting twelve alibi witnesses but failing to contact a thirteenth. I wrote about it here, and it's been cited by the Fourth Circuit, the Court of Appeals of Maryland, and Adnan's attorney. Like in Peterson, Judge Maldonado found that Bolden's attorney engaged in reasonable efforts to contact two alibi witnesses, who claimed that they saw Bolden "playing video games at the J & J Fish restaurant, at 64th and Cottage Grove, before and during the shootings." While defense counsel never did end up contacting these witnesses, he did contact and call two other alibi witnesses from J & J Fish: Tanesha Gaston and Edna Williams. He did not, however, contact a fifth J & J Fish alibi witness: Todd Henderson. Notably, the versions of events given by Gaston, Williams, and Henderson differed slightly, but Judge Maldonado was comfortable with these inconsistencies: What's also notable is that Judge Maldonado rejected trial counsel's argument that he might not have called the alibi witnesses after contacting them, concluding that trial counsel cannot make a reasoned decision against calling an alibi witness when he has not first contacted the witness to see what (s)he has to say: Readers will note that this is the fundamental issue at the heart of Adnan's current appeal: Whether Gutierrez could have made the reasoned decision not to call Asia McClain as an alibi witness without first contacting her. As in every other case I've seen, the Bolden case answers that question in the negative. -CM https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/evidenceprof/2016/01/were-less-than-a-week-away-from-the-reopened-postconviction-proceeding-in-the-adnan-syed-case.html Attacks from Boko Haram militants are hurting the economies of Chad and northern Cameroon. The militants often attack trucks transporting goods to the two central African nations. Some of the goods come from Borno state in nearby Nigeria. Naffissa Adja works at one of the most popular stores in Ndjamena, the capital of Chad. She says she was not paid last month. She adds that the store has not received supplies from Borno state for several months. Business is slow because of attacks on the stores supply trucks. Tocba Haman is a truck driver. He says he no longer goes to Nigeria for supplies because Boko Haram targets trucks and kills drivers. He says the militants continue to control Nigerian villages, especially around Borno state. They also seize goods and kill traders. He says business activity in Chad will continue to decrease, even with many soldiers on roads and in markets. Abdoul Said is a customs official in Chad. He says Boko Haram attacked trucks last Saturday in Gambarou, a Nigerian town on the border with Cameroon. He says Boko Haram fighters have attacked and seized many vehicles in the past two weeks. He says recently, the militants seized three trucks carrying goods to northern Cameroon and Ndjamena. The Chadian capital is less than 50 kilometers from Borno state, an area currently under the control of the Islamist group. Many goods arriving in Chad and northeastern Cameroon are shipped from Maiduguri, in the center of Borno state. Abba Kabbir is a member of Cameroons national assembly. He says the economies of northern Cameroon and Chad are suffering because the militants control roads in Nigeria. Simple goods and manufactured products like telephones and farming tools enter Chad on these roads. He says if Boko Haram continues to control the border roads, economic activity will continue to be paralyzed in Chad, northern Cameroon and parts of northeastern Nigeria. He says he and others want the military to stop the attacks. Im Christopher Jones-Cruise. Edwin Moki Kindzeka reported on this story from Ndjamena, Chad. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted his report into Learning English. George Grow was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story paralyze v. to make (someone or something) unable to operate, act or move For nearly a year, candidates have been telling American voters that they are best qualified to become the next U.S. president. On Monday, voters will have their say in an evening of discussion and debate known as the Iowa caucus. Mondays caucus in the Midwestern state of Iowa is the first in a series of caucuses and primaries to select a nominee for the Republican and Democratic parties. In the Republican presidential field, businessman Donald Trump expands his lead over the crowded field of candidates. A Fox News poll in Iowa shows Trump leading 23 to 34 percent above Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Another poll by CBS News has Trump with a smaller lead over Cruz in Iowa -- 34 to 39 percent. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is in third place in both polls. Nationally, support for Trump is also increasing, according to a new CNN poll on Tuesday. It shows Trump with the support of 41 percent of Republican voters across the United States. Cruz is in second place with 19 percent. On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont are in a virtual tie among Iowa voters. The CBS poll of Iowa voters shows Clinton leading 46 to 47 percent. But Clinton still has a large lead over Sanders nationally in the new CNN poll. Her lead is 38 percent to 52 percent. As a candidate, Trump has called for deporting undocumented immigrants and for banning Muslims from entering the U.S. On the opposite side, Sanders has called for breaking up large financial institutions. He also wants free college tuition at public colleges. Rival candidates have called their proposals as unrealistic and not serious. But Trump, on the Republican side, and Sanders, on the Democratic side, continue to gain strength among primary voters. There seems to be an extraordinary amount of anger in the United States, both on the left and on the right and maybe even in the center and its a little disconcerting, said political analyst Stan Collender. I dont think anyone saw this coming or anyone predicted it. Will Bloomberg enter the race? Over the weekend, The New York Times reported that former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is considering a run for president as an independent. The paper reported that Bloomberg would run if Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were the Democratic and Republican nominees. Bloomberg, a billionaire like Trump, was mayor of New York City for 12 years. Since he has left office, Bloomberg has spent much of his own money calling for tougher gun control laws. The threat of another billionaire in the race brought quick response from the candidates. On NBC's Meet the Press, Clinton said, Well, Im going to relieve him of that and get the nomination so he doesnt have to. Trump said he would be happy if Bloomberg ran. Trump said he and Bloomberg have been friends, but perhaps were not friends anymore. Sanders candidacy is largely a promise to reduce big wage differences between wealthy and poor Americans. If Donald Trump wins and Mr. Bloomberg gets in, youre going to have two multi-billionaires running for president of the United States against me, Sanders said on Meet the Press. He said Americans do not want to see billionaires control the political process. Obama weighs in Even President Barack Obama felt the need to say something about the race. In an interview this week with Politico, Obama described Clinton as wicked smart, and extraordinarily experienced. He also praised Sanders, but not as much, according to Politico. Obama said Sanders gets the benefit of being a new candidate for president. Clinton also ran in 2008, when she lost the Democratic presidential nomination to Obama. Youre always looking at the bright, shiny object that people havent seen before thats a disadvantage to her (meaning Clinton), Obama said. But he had nothing good to say about Trump and Cruz, the two leading Republican candidates. When I ran against (Senator) John McCain, John McCain and I had real differences, sharp differences, but John McCain didnt deny climate science, Obama told Politico. John McCain didnt call for banning Muslims from the United States. [The] Republican vision has moved not just to the right, but has moved to a place that is unrecognizable. I'm Kathleen Struck. VOA's Jim Malone reported on this story. Bruce Alpert adapted his report for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or share your views on our Facebook Page. ______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story caucus n. a meeting of members of a political party for the purpose of choosing candidates for an election qualified v. having the necessary skill, experience, or knowledge to do a particular job or activity poll n. an activity in which several or many people are asked a question or a series of questions in order to get information about what most people think about something virtual adj. very close to being something without actually being it deport v. to force a person who is not a citizen to leave a country extraordinary adv. very different from what is normal or ordinary disconcerting adj. cause for concern billionaire n. a rich person who has at least a billion dollars tougher adj. stricter, more demanding relieve v., to reduce or remove something replace v. to be used instead of something wicked adj. very much vision n. what conditions a candidate or person wants in the future Today's one-liner: "The shortest way to the distinguishing excellence of any writer is through his hostile critics." Richard LeGallienne Superstar Rajinikanth is riding a tidal wave of popularity. The Republic Day announcement that he has been conferred with Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award in the country cheered not only his fans but the ordinary folk in Tamil Nadu as well. Rajinikanth, 65, is still the biggest superstar in the southern box-office. The actor is currently busy working on two projects, Pa Ranjith's Kabali and Shankar's Robot 2.0, which is sequel to his blockbuster Robot. This is not all; he has more reasons to celebrate. Rajinikanths summer release Kabali seems to be doing brisk business even before its shoot is over. The film has triggered huge expectations among fans and will feature Radhika Apte, Dhansikaa among others. In the film Rajinikanth plays an ageing gangster. Meanwhile, fans of Rajinikanth held a grand function called Malarattum Manithaneyam (Let Humanity Bloom) for distributing welfare measures to the needy in Sholingur, Vellore to celebrate his birthday (December 12) and him completing 40 years in the industry. The function made political parties sit up and notice as it drew massive crowds. The Rajinikanth fan club donated sewing machines, iron boxes and tricycles to the poor and needy. It had all the trappings of a party conference. Rajinikanth has always kept a low profile and has been tight-lipped about his political leanings. The fan club meeting was covered with banners, cut-outs and flex boards highlighting Rajinis larger than life image. It was organised by Rajinikanths long-time friend Raj Bahadur. It's probably important to remember that it is election time in Tamil Nadu and all parties from the DMK to the BJP are wooing Rajinikanth. At the function, veteran producer Kalaipuli S Dhanu (who gave Rajinikanth the moniker Superstar in the 1980s) disclosed that the USA rights for Kabali was sold for a record price. Dhanu said, "I am producing Kabali and it has been sold in the USA territory for a record Rs 8.5 Cr. It shows the power of Rajinikanth at the overseas box-office and even today the new generation audiences are with him. Rajini sir is still the biggest force in Tamil cinema. Even if there is an Income Tax raid on account of this information being shared, I don't mind. But that is the truth." Trade sources say that the failures of Rajinikanths previous films Kochadaiiyaan and Lingaa had hardly any impact on the superstars market. However, the India marketing of the film will start only after the first teaser of Kabali is released on Tamil New Year day (April 14). Rajinikanth is still one of the biggest political forces in Tamil Nadu, though he has not openly been identified with any political party. But politicians across the spectrum always make it a point to pay obeisance to the superstar, especially in an election year. And as far as the box-office is concerned, he is still the emperor. New Delhi: Country's largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel today reported a 22.21 per cent fall in its net profit at Rs 1,117 crore for the three months to December 2015, hit by higher infrastructure and finance costs. The company had posted a net profit of Rs 1,436 crore for the corresponding quarter last fiscal, Airtel said in a statement. The company's total revenue, however, rose 3.7 per cent to Rs 24,066 crore for the stated period as compared with Rs 23,217 crore in the year-ago quarter. Airtel's consolidated mobile data revenue grew 44 per cent to Rs 4,135 crore for the quarter. Its mobile data revenue for India registered a growth of 50.6 per cent at Rs 3,184 crore, led by increase in the data customer base by 29.9 per cent and traffic by 73.3 per cent. The data revenue's contribution is 23.1 per cent to total mobile India revenues vis-a-vis 16.2 per cent in the corresponding quarter last year. Exceptional expenses during the quarter comprise, charge of Rs 1,152 million towards operating costs on network refarming and upgradation programme, Rs 2,313 million towards restructuring activities in a few countries and net tax of Rs 428 million and impact on minority interest of Rs 182 million on the above, it said. "Our focus on acquiring quality customers has resulted in healthy net additions of 8.1 million in mobile. Our strong roll out of 3G/4G sites has resulted in acceleration of data usage growth to 73.3 per cent along with data ARPU reaching Rs 200," Bharti Airtel MD and CEO (India & South Asia) Gopal Vittal said. He added the company's revenue grew by 11.6 per cent in the third quarter on an underlying basis and its smaller businesses continue to perform strongly. "We have launched 'Project Leap' to deliver a truly differentiated customer experience and reinforce our commitment to build a future ready network," Vittal said. The net debt of the company rose to Rs 78,816 crore at the end of December as compared to Rs 70,777 crore as on September-end. In constant currency terms, the Africa revenue, adjusted for the impact of divestment of tower assets, grew by 3.1 per cent. Data average revenue per user (ARPU) in Africa in the quarter increased to USD 3.3 from USD 3.2 in the corresponding period last year and the data segment now contributes 14.3 per cent to overall Africa revenue. "Data consumption and revenues have grown by 111.6 per cent and 40.8 per cent respectively Y-o-Y. Operational efficiencies have resultant in improvement in EBITDA margin for a second consecutive quarter," Bharti Airtel MD and CEO (Africa) Christian de Faria said. PTI New Delhi: To boost waning exports, the Commerce Ministry has suggested that exporters be exempted from payment of service tax in the upcoming Budget. Exemption from the levy could help in reducing transaction cost and boost exports, an official said. Currently, exporters pay service tax and then apply for its refund, which is a cumbersome process, according to exporters body FIEO. "First paying the service tax and then applying for refund increases transaction cost and time. Many times, small exporters do not apply for refund as it takes a lot of documentation and time," Federation of Indian Exports Organisation DG Ajay Sahai said. He said that in case a full exemption is not possible, at least exemption from service tax may be provided for services such as ECGC premium, clearing house agents charges for exports, terminal handling and service charges for conversion of inward remittances. India's exports contracted for the 13th month in a row, dipping about 15 per cent in December to USD 22.2 billion due to a steep decline in engineering and petroleum shipments. The Budget for 2016-17 will be presented on February 29. PTI The first 20 cities to be developed as smart cities will be announced on Thursday, Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said on Wednesday. There are 97 cities in the Smart City Challenge, and the names of the first 20 winners of the competition will be announced on Thursday, Naidu said. These cities will be developed to have basic infrastructure through assured water and power supply, sanitation and solid waste management, efficient urban mobility and public transport, IT connectivity, e-governance and citizen participation. Naidu was addressing about 100 senior officers of Army, Navy, Air Force and civil service, including 25 foreign officials, participating in a course on 'National Security and Strategic Studies' at the National Defence College here. In the subsequent years, the government will announce 40 cities each to be developed as Smart Cities as per Prime Minister Narendra Modi's plan to develop 100 Smart Cities in the country. Rajasthan was the first state to submit Smart City plans last month. The state has proposed total investment of Rs 6,457 crore over the next five years for developing Ajmer, Jaipur, Kota and Udaipur as Smart Cities. The other key states which have submitted their Smart City plans are West Bengal, Kerala, Punjab, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Maharashtra. While Punjab has submitted a Smart City plan for Jalandhar, Jharkhand did so for Ranchi while Kerala handed in the proposal for Kochi. Bengal has submitted plans for New Town Kolkata, Bidhannagar and Durgapur. Karnataka submitted Smart City proposals for Davanagere, Tumakuru, Hubli-Dharwad and Shimoga. Union Territory Puducherry, meanwhile, submitted its proposal for Oulgaret. Maharashtra has submitted plans for 10 cities, including Mumbai, with an estimated cost of Rs 29,647.45 crore. The Mumbai proposal estimate of just Rs 1,118 crore is the lowest among all the 10 cities. The Thane Municipal Corporation's proposal with an estimate of Rs 6,630 crore tops the list, followed by Amravati worth Rs 5,305 crore and Nagpur - Rs 3,409 crore. The other cities to submit their estimated proposals include Pune - Rs 2,932 crore, Solapur - Rs 2,921 crore, Kalyan-Dombivali - Rs 2,057 crore, Nashik - Rs 1,945 crore and Navi Mumbai - Rs 1,734 crore. A total of 98 cities have been included in the Smart City Mission which have a cumulative population of about 13 crore and together account for 35 percent of the urban population in the country. In order to support development of smart cities, the Urban Development Ministry has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bloomberg Philanthropies, which will work as Knowledge Partner and support development and execution of a Cities Challenge under the Smart Cities Mission. The Cabinet had approved the Smart Cities Mission in April this year and subsequently the Prime Minister launched this Mission on June 25, when the Mission Statement and Guidelines were also released. With PTI Apple Inc (AAPL.O) shares fell more than 6.5 percent on Wednesday, the biggest percentage drop in two years, after the company reported its slowest-ever rise in iPhone shipments and forecast that quarterly sales for the current period would post the first drop in 13 years. At least 16 analysts cut their price targets on the stock. The median price target is $135, according to Reuters data. "Cook & Co have a few tough quarters ahead until we get to the buildup around iPhone 7 later this year, which is what bulls are focussed on to turn this ship back into growth waters," FBR & Co analyst Daniel Ives said. Shares fell to $93.42, knocking off more than $36 billion from Apple's market value of about $554 billion. While currently the most valuable publicly traded U.S. tech company, the decline put it closer to Alphabet Inc(GOOGL.O), which ended the day worth roughly $486.5 billion. The March quarter is likely to be the weakest this year in terms of iPhone sales. But analysts said long-term value investors could view the depressed stock price as a buying opportunity. "We are looking for March to mark the trough in year-on-year iPhone unit growth, which should provide an attractive entry point into the stock," Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a note. Tepid demand for the latest iPhones, which succeeded blockbuster sales of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, led Apple to sell 74.8 million iPhones in the first quarter. One analyst estimated, based on the revenue estimates Apple provided, that it will sell 50 million to 52 million units in the March quarter. Apple usually launches new iPhones in September and sells the most devices in the December quarter. Unit sales typically drop over the next few quarters, picking up after the next iPhone launch. Apple said the average selling price for iPhones rose to a record $691 in the holiday quarter. This indicated that despite a saturated smartphone market, consumers were keen to buy the newer and more expensive iPhone versions - good news for the iPhone 7 cycle, Pacific Crest Securities analysts said. The iPhone 7 is expected to sport a new look with features such as waterproofing and wireless headphones, according to media reports. (Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee, Tenzin Pema and Tripti Kalro in Bengaluru; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh, Stephen R. Trousdale and David Gregorio) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Patna: An FIR has been lodged against Congress legislator Sidharth Kumar Singh in Bihar for allegedly kidnapping a woman, police said on Thursday. "The young woman's father has lodged a case against the legislator from the assembly constituency of Bikram," a police official said. "It seems to be a case of a love-affair but an investigation is on to trace Sidharth Singh," police said. Locals informed the police that Sidharth Singh had eloped with this young woman, who is in her early twenties, in the past also. Sidharth Singh, who is in his early 30s, has served a jail term for murder. He is the son of a reputed Patna-based child specialist Utpal Kant Singh. IANS A 25-year-old man, who allegedly stole a mobile phone, was stripped and beaten to death by a mob in Dindoli area of Surat, reports The Indian Express. The newspaper claims that three men broke into the house of Anilkumar Nishad and stole a mobile phone, according to local police. Two of the 'thieves' escaped but local residents caught up with one of the three, tied him to an electric pole, stripped and beat him and left him to die, says the report. According to police, the man had died of injuries, especially to his groin. Mob fury is what took the life of Akhlaq Saifi, 52, in Dadri last September. The man was lynched shortly after he had his dinner the night of 28 September because a mob suspected that he stored beef in his refrigerator at home. Barely a week ago, a Pune teenager Sawan Rathod was burnt to death after he admitted he was 'Hindu'. New Delhi: A Parliamentary panel has decided to visit Pathankot, where terrorists attacked an Air Force base on 2 January, leaving seven security personnel and six militants dead. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs chaired by Congress MP from Rajya Sabha P Bhattacharya has planned to visit the Indo-Pak border areas in Rajasthan and Punjab, and Pathankot will be part of the itinerary, sources said. On 2 January 2016, a heavily armed group, suspected to be from the militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed, attacked the Pathankot Air Force Station, part of the Western Air Command of the IAF. The other site, which the committee members plan to visit in Punjab is Gurdaspur, where three terrorists, believed to be of Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group, had sneaked in from Ravi river along the border in Punjab on the intervening night of 26 and 27 July and attacked a police station in Dina Nagar. Seven people including a Superintendent of Police were killed by the terrorists before they were neutralised by Punjab Police. The visit is likely to happen in the second week of February, the sources said. "We had visited Indo-Bangladesh border last month. This time, the plan is to visit Indo-Pakistan border and assess the situation," sources in the committee said on condition of anonymity. The panel wanted to discuss the Pathankot terror attack in its meeting on 18 January but citing ongoing investigations by the NIA, the Home Ministry had sought some more time from the committee to share details on the attack. Hence, the panel changed the agenda and has decided to discuss the issue at a later date. In the 31-member panel, the BJP has 13 members, Congress 4, BJD 2, Trinamool Congress 2, AIADMK 3, CPI-M, CPI, SP, TRS, TDP, Shiromani Akali Dal and Shiv Sena one each. NDA members have majority in the panel. PTI New Delhi: The imposition of President's rule can be liable to misuse but procedural changes over the years have somewhat reduced that possibility, President Pranab Mukherjee has said in his memoir released on Thursday. The mention assumes significance as the President had on Tuesday signed a proclamation bringing Arunachal Pradesh under central rule on grounds of "Constitutional breakdown". The decision has come under the scanner of the Supreme Court which has sought the report of Governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa recommending central rule in the state. While seeking the report, the court described imposition of President's rule in the north-eastern state as "too serious a matter". Mukherjee says the power of the Centre to override the authority of the states in extraordinary situations is clarified through Article 356 of the Constitution. "There have been times when the provision has been severely criticised due to an alleged misuse of authority by the party in power at the Centre," Mukherjee has said in his book. He said the fact that President's Rule was proclaimed on 108 occasions in different states during the first 50 years of Republic, till March 2001, "seems to lend some weight to this charge". "Though the imposition of President's Rule under Article 356 can be liable to misuse, procedural changes over the years have somewhat reduced that possibility," Mukherjee says. Earlier, President's Rule in a state could continue for three years, subject to Parliamentary approval every six months. However, after the 44th Amendment to the Constitution, President's Rule can be imposed for only one year now, subject to approval of both Houses of Parliament within two months of the proclamation. Mukherjee cited a landmark judgement of Supreme Court which says, "The President could not take any irreversible action under clauses A, B and C of Article 356 (1)-which means that the state Legislative Assembly cannot be dissolved till the proclamation is approved by both Houses of Parliament". The softening of the powers to declare President's Rule notwithstanding, critics continued to suggest a unitary bias in our federal structure, he writes in the book The Turbulent Years: 1980-1996 released on Thursday by Vice President Hamid Ansari. "As evidence, they point to the fact that even in subjects under the state list, the governor may hold back his assent on a Bill passed by the state legislature and reserve it for the assent of the President. "A counter argument to this (which I have mentioned earlier), that it is the Centre which has a nationwide vision and the capacity to consider the interest of the country as a whole. The debate will continue," the President said. PTI Kolkata: A city court on Thursday extended the judicial custody of Trinamool Congress leader and former West Bengal minister Madan Mitra, an accused in the Saradha chit fund scam, by 14 days till 10 February. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Sougata Roy Chowdhury passed the order after Mitra's counsel did not press for bail. The counsel requested the court that Mitra be treated as a division-I prisoner and provided with all necessary medical assistance as he is suffering from various ailments. Mitra, former state transport minister who was arrested on 12 December, 2014, had surrendered before the court after his bail was cancelled by the Calcutta High Court on 20 November. PTI Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Thursday ordered a CBI probe against two serving Major Generals of the Indian Army for allegedly owning assets disproportionate to their known source of income. Maj Gen Ashok Kumar and Maj Gen SS Lamba will face the probe, according to CNN-IBN. This is first such probe ordered against serving officers by the government, India Today said. "The Defence Ministry has forwarded to CBI complaints received against Maj Gen Ashok Kumar and Maj Gen S S Lamba and has sought a reply," defence sources said on Thursday, adding that the government will not tolerate corruption at any level. The CBI will now look into the complaints and report back to the ministry. Ironically both the officers had been awarded the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal (AVSM) last year. It is a military honour given to recognise "distinguished service of an exceptional order". Giving a background to the case, sources said that a meeting of the Special Promotion Board of the Army was held in 2015 to fill up the vacancy of three Lieutenant Generals for which about 33 officers were considered. A set of names cleared by the Board was sent to the Defence Ministry. However, following the meeting of the Board, a series of complaints against some officers surfaced, many of which were being circulated on the social media too. Taking cognizance of the matter, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar himself looked into the issue. It was found that one of the two officers, against whom the ministry has roped in the agency, had faced a CBI inquiry few years back over allegations of corruption in a project undertaken by Border Roads Organisation, sources said. The CBI did not find enough evidence for criminal prosecution. "They suggested that this does not fall in the ambit of criminality, it falls in the ambit of disciplinary procedure guidelines", they added. "BRO is a mixed cadre organisation. The matter came to the Army. The Army said that the act pertained to civilian issues and hence action cannot be taken up by them. The matter got tossed from here to there as army disciplinary proceeding is different from that of the civilians," the sources said, adding the actual proceedings have not started. In the meantime, his promotion came up and he got the Discipline and Vigilance (DV) clearance since there was no formal proceedings against him. With inputs from PTI Tabla maestro Zakir Hussain on Wednesday said that if women in the country want, they can enter Sabarimala, the famous shrine in Kerala where women of reproductive age are banned from entering. "Indian women are strong and they can go to Sabarimala, if they want. That's what Mahatma Gandhi taught us. He didn't pick up any weapon, but walked to the place where he was told not to go. If our woman have the will, they can go anywhere," Hussain said ahead of a performance at Nishagandhi auditorium in Thiruvananthapuram, reports The Times of India. Talking about the raging intolerance debate in the country, he said he believed that India is a very tolerant country, Maybe it is important for some politicians to magnify the intolerance issue because they honestly believe that there is a problem, but I do not believe so. Im a Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist because Im an Indian. For me to think otherwise is totally wrong. For our government to think otherwise is wrong, reports The Hindu. Just this last Monday, in an interview with The Times of India, Hussain had said how proud he feels to be an Indian. "India is a tolerant nation... I am proud to be an Indian. My wife is an American. I can get an American passport I never went for it... No priest or mullah prevented me from doing what I did I was welcomed into every house of God and i felt blessed in each place," he said. Governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa cited cow slaughter to make the case for complete collapse of law and order in Arunachal Pradesh while recommending Presidents Rule in the state, reports The Indian Express. The newspaper says the Governor attached photographs of a cow 'a Mithun' being slaughtered outside Raj Bhavan to justify the proclamation of emergency. This bombshell comes even as a packed courtroom in the Supreme Court Wednesday saw senior sdvocates Fali S Nariman and Kapil Sibal appear for the Congress party and insist on knowing the date when the recommendation for Presidents rule was made. "This fact, they argued, was crucial to determine whether the Central Government had decided to bypass the connected issues that were yet to be adjudicated in a court of law," reports Bar and Bench. The Express reports that the Governors counsel Satya Pal Jain came out with these details in the Supreme Court which asked the central government and Rajkhowa to adduce all relevant materials showing good reasons for imposition of Presidents Rule in the state, and observed that the matter is too serious. The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice to the central government and Arunachal Pradesh Governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa on a plea challenging the imposition of President's Rule in the north-eastern state on January 26. Bar and Bench details some of the highlights of Supreme Court asking the Modi government about the 'sudden' decision. A five-judge Constitution Bench of Justice JS Khehar, Justice Dipak Misra, Justice Madan B. Lokur, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh and Justice N.V. Ramana issued notice to the Central government and the Governor of Arunachal Pradesh over the Congress partys petition challenging the Central Governments decision to impose Presidents rule in Arunachal Pradesh and ordered the Centre to file its response by 29 January and directed further hearing in the matter on 1 February. "If there were developments, it was your duty to tell us," Justice Khehar told the Governor's counsel, Satya Pal Jain, reports The Hindu. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi pushed for the Bench to dismiss the petition outright. He asked how the Congress could have challenged the legality of the President's proclamation when the same had happened only the next day. "What was the status of the proclamation when this petition was filed? How can they challenge something that had not occurred at that time of filing? What is the cause of action under challenge? They are asking for a 'super-injunction'... Unless they file a fresh petition today or tomorrow challenging the President's proclamation, I don't have to even reply to the current petition which is completely misconceived," Mr. Rohatgi argued, reports The Hindu. The court recorded that senior counsel Satya Pal Jain, appearing for Governor Rajkhowa, "undertakes to furnish a copy of the governor's report and other material recommending issuance of a proclamation under Article 356 of the Constitution of India, to the court in a sealed cover". When Additional Solicitor General Satpal Jain, appearing for the Governor, sought to maintain secrecy of the report and the recommendation for the Presidents rule, the bench said, He will only mention the date of report recommending Presidents rule to opposite parties during the course of the day. However, the bench for its own perusal sought in a sealed cover the report and recommendation on imposition of the Presidents rule. Unless we get the grounds for recommending the Presidents rule, we cannot proceed. If grounds are not same in the proclamation then it is totally a different ball game, the bench, also comprising justices Dipak Misra, M B Lokur, P C Ghose and N V Ramana, said during the hearing. The bench was also of the view that no interim order can be obtained unless the parties see the grounds for proclamation for Presidents rule. A battery of senior lawyers including Fali S Nariman, Kapil Sibal, Rajeev Dhawan and Vivek Tankha opposed the plea of governor seeking to maintain secrecy of his report and recommendation, saying that larger bench of more than five judges have already laid down the proposition on this aspect. However, Jain, who was representing Rajkhowa and was asked at the beginning of the hearing to bring to court within 15 minutes the Governors report, claimed that the confidentiality of the document was required to be maintained. He said there are photographs to suggest that the Governor was under threat as slaughtering of animals, burning of tyres and posters took place outside the Raj Bhawan. The fact that the notification of Presidents rule was not challenged in the fresh plea was raised in a big way by the Attorney General who said that they should be asked to file another petition. When Rohatgi said there were reports on which the President has acted, the bench drew his attention to yesterdays notification in which there was reference to only one report. You (AG) have been saying there have been series of recommendations. Look at the Presidents proclamation. It only speaks about one report and informations, it said. At the outset, Nariman explained the sequence of events and said that it was a fit case for an interim relief and the court has to prima facie arrive at a view that a case is made out or not. He said as the report of the Governor was not in hand, it was not known as to what were the grounds taken for recommendation of central rule. His submission was objected to by senior advocates Ashok Desai and Vikas Singh, appearing for opposite side, saying that no interim order can be passed without hearing them. We will not pass any order without hearing all the parties. It is a sensitive issue, the bench said. Desai said that reasons for proclamation may be different from what has been given by the Governor. Yes, that is why we want to see the report and that is why we want to hear the Attorney General, the bench said. Explaining the urgency and importance of the matter, Sibal said that the issue of proclamation of Presidents rule will come before Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha in the coming session for affirmation and they may lose it in the Upper House as the NDA does not have majority there. Further he said even if there is no affirmation, the court has to look into the legality of the actions taken by the Centre and even if there is new Chief Minister, he will have to prove his majority before February 23. While the bench was taking note of the possibilities, Sibal said that if no government is formed then there is no option but to dissolve the house and go for fresh elections. He urged the bench not to declare as infractuous the present petition even if the opposition forms the new government. Earlier during the day, the court agreed to hear at 2 PM the plea challenging the Union Cabinets recommendation to impose Presidents Rule when Nariman and Sibal mentitioned it for urgent hearing. The fresh plea assumes significance as the five-judge bench is examining constitutional provisions on the scope of discretionary powers of the Governor, amid continuing month- long impasse over Nabam Tuki-led Congress government in Arunachal Pradesh. In an earlier plea filed by Nabam Rebia, who was allegedly removed from the post of Speaker by rebel Congress and BJP MLAs in an assembly session held at a community hall in Itanagar on December 16, has listed out legal questions, including the Governors power to convene the assembly session without the aid and advice of the government for adjudication by the apex court. It was also alleged that the Governor had advanced the assembly sitting from January 14 to December 16 without the aid and advice of the Chief Minister and his council of ministers. Congress, which has 47 MLAs seats in the 60-member assembly, suffered a jolt when 21 of them rebelled. Eleven BJP MLAs backed the rebels in the bid to upstage the Nabam Tuki government. Later, 14 rebel Congress MLAs were disqualified. The Governor then called an assembly session on December 16 in which Deputy Speaker revoked disqualification of 14 rebel Congress MLAs and removed Rebia from the post of Speaker - all this happened at a community hall in Itanagar. With PTI & IANS Kerala's ruling Congress-led UDF suffered a blow on Thursday as a court ordered an FIR to be filed in the solar panel scam against Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who claimed innocence and rejected opposition calls to resign. Chandy is all set to challenge with an appeal in the High Court Friday as the Congress high command in New Delhi comes to grips with the "serious" issue. Thursdays court order comes on a petition by an activist after Saritha Nair, one of the main accused, alleged she had paid a bribe of Rs.1.9 crore to the Chief Minister through an aide. In recent days, Chandy has chucked out three official aides after they were named as alleged middlemen in the scam which traces its roots to 2013. Television channels in Kerala on Wednesday aired the audio of a purported conversation between Congress state general secretary Thampanoor Ravi and Saritha S Nair in which Ravi can be heard tutoring her ahead of her deposition before a judicial commission. In the audio, Ravi, a loyalist of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, can be purportedly heard telling Nair that her statement before the commission should be in line with what Chandy had said. In his statement, Chandy had told the commission that he had met Saritha three times. "The Chief Ministers resignation would virtually mean acceptance of guilt. His continuation would fuel the Oppositions agitation, Congress insiders told The Indian Express. And even as Saritha Nair, one of the main accused in the scandal who hurled bribery allegations against the chief minister on Wednesday, threatened on Thursday to prove that Chandy was guilty, the UDF lost a RSP legislator, who said he was disgusted with Chandy's government. Police investigators estimate that around Rs 6 crore has been swindled in this scam. If there is an iota of substance in the allegation, I will quit public life, Chandy said. After holding discussions with party leaders and legal experts in Kochi, Chandy said he would file an appeal in the High Court on Friday against the order of the Vigilance court in Thrissur, reports The Indian Express. A court in Thrissur told Kerala's vigilance department to file a First Information Report (FIR) against Chandy on corruption charges in what has come to be known as the "solar scam". The genesis of the scam goes back to 2013 when a fake solar energy company named Team Solar -- floated by Biju Radhakrishnan and Saritha S. Nair -- duped several influential people of about 70 million rupees by offering to make them business partners. They also allegedly received advance payments by offering to install solar power units . The company used two women to create political contacts with links leading up to the Chief Minister's office. CNN IBN has the lowdown. An editorial comment in The Hindu says Chandy has no option but to fight his case legally. "By doing so politically, and perhaps by pleading his case to his party in the run-up to Assembly elections a few months from now, he would risk drawing Kerala into a constitutional crisis," says the newspaper. The BJP is firing on all cylinders after the latest details blew up: "One cannot hope much from the Congress high command because it has looked the other way on corruption. Congress moves from one issue to another (to target BJP) but will somebody from its high command go to Kerala and speak on corruption?," said Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. "The charges against the chief minister and the power minister are of very serious nature and we demand their resignations." The Thrissur Vigilance Court also directed a FIR to be registered against Power Minister Aryadan Mohammed. This followed a petition by activist P.D. Joseph after Saritha Nair told a judicial commission that she gave Rs.1.90 crore in bribes to Chandy in two instalments. The developments have come at a time when the United Democratic Front faces assembly elections only months away. The opposition Left immediately asked Chandy to resign. CPI-M leader Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said: "The court has made its intentions clear through the FIR, and Chandy has only one way now to go forward and that is to quit at the earliest." Chandy maintained in Malappuram that he had a clear conscience. "I have done no wrong. I will face the probe and cooperate with it," he said. Asked if would resign, Chandy shot back: "For what?" The scam erupted in 2013 when a company, Team Solar, allegedly used two women to weave political contacts and duped several influential people of large sums of money by offering to make them business partners or by setting up solar panels. Saritha Nair said on Wednesday that the money she paid to Chandy was part of the Rs.7 crore demanded by him. She said she also gave Rs.40 lakh to minister Mohammed. Even as Chandy said he had done no wrong, she said the truth was otherwise. "After the unbearable tension of carrying all this on my head for the past more than three years, now I feel very relaxed as I am speaking the truth. I will prove through evidence that Chandy is wrong and I am right." Nair and her live-in partner Biju Radhakrishnan were arrested in the scandal in 2013 on charges of cheating numerous investors, who paid money for solar panels. While Saritha Nair is out on bail, Radhakrishnan is in jail after being accused of murdering his first wife. In Thiruvananthapuram, RSP's Kovoor Kunjumon quit the Kerala assembly, saying he was disgusted with the UDF government, and pledged to rejoin the Left. The Revolutionary Socialist Party has three legislators. With Kunjumon leaving, the strength of the house has come down to 138 and Chandy now has the support of 72 legislators. The Left commands 66 legislators in the 140-seat house. Kunjumon said: "For seven months, I am unable to show my face to cashew factory workers (in my constituency) as all the factories are closed. "Others may not know their feelings, but I know it because I am the son of a cashew factory worker. Along with our supporters, we will form the real RSP and will align with the Left," he said. Kunjumon was elected to the assembly in 2001, 2006 and 2011 when his party was with the Left. Ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, he joined the UDF. With IANS New Delhi: A vigilance court on Thursday ordered registration of an FIR against Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Power Minister Arayadan Mohammed in connection with the solar scam. Inquiry commissioner and special judge, Thrissur, SS Vassan, on a private complaint by one PD Joseph, issued the direction in this regard. The vigilance director has been asked to file the FIR and complete the probe as early as possible. Earlier on Thursday alleging "political conspiracy" behind the bribery allegations made against him by a solar scam accused, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Thursday blamed a section of the bar owners for it. The prime accused in the solar case Saritha S Nair had on Wednesday targeted Chandy and Power Minister Arayadan Mohammed while deposing before the Justice Sivarajan Commission in Kochi, probing the case, and had alleged that she had paid bribes to the tune of Rs 1.90 crore to a close aide of the Chief Minister and Rs 40 lakh to Mohammed. Both had denied the allegations. "The new allegations are part of a political conspiracy hatched in connivance with the liquor lobby. The government had taken a bold decision to close down several liquor bars. Because they (bar owners) lost their battle in various courts high court and Supreme Court, they have come with new allegations to hit out at the government", he said. "The government has the exact evidence in this regard," Chandy told reporters. The allegations made by Saritha on Wednesday are part of this conspiracy, he said and criticised CPI(M) stating that as they were unable to topple the government, the Marxist party was making all out efforts to ensure that the Congress-led UDF does not come to power in the coming assembly polls. The Marxist party had lost its face for seeking the government's resignation after another solar case accused Biju Radhakrishnan had stated that he had a CD with incriminating visuals against the chief minister, he said. Chandy said former Government Chief Whip PC George had also played a role in Wednesday's allegations. Maintaining that there was no truth in the allegations, Chandy said the government had not lost even a rupee as alleged by the opposition in the scam and had not helped a company to gain even a rupee. Noting that two weeks ago Saritha had told the solar commission that the chief minister was like a "father figure", Chandy said, "How has it changed so soon? What happened?" In 2014, Saritha had alleged that CPM had offered her Rs 10 crore to topple the government. "We had not reacted then," Chandy said. Chandy, who reached Kozhikode by train, was greeted with black flag-waving protesters of DYFI and Yuva Morcha the youth organisations of CPM and BJP respectively. Police had a tough time chasing away the protesters who also shouted slogans against Chandy. The protesters alleged that pepper spray was used against them. PTI Islamabad: Pakistan's Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday that representatives from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States will meet in the Pakistani capital Islamabad next month to discuss how to resume the stalled peace process between Kabul and the Taliban. The ministry spokesman, Qazi Khalilullah, said the 6 February meeting would continue the ongoing efforts to lay out a roadmap to peace for the war-shattered Afghan nation. It will be third such meeting in recent weeks. Officials have said that Taliban representatives will be invited when the four countries reach some understanding on the overall roadmap. Khalilullah said Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will soon travel to Qatar as part of that effort, but did not elaborate on that visit. The announcement came days after the Afghan Taliban said its "political office" in Qatar was the only entity authorized to carry out negotiations on its behalf. The peace talks have been on the hold since July 2015, when the Afghan government revealed that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had been dead for years. The Taliban ruled Afghanistan according to a harsh version of Islamic law from 1996 until late 2001, when it was ousted by a US-led invasion launched after the 11 September, 2011 attacks. AP WASHINGTON A Kosovar citizen accused of hacking the personal data of more than a thousand U.S. officials and sending it to Islamic State militants in Syria appeared in U.S. federal court in Virginia on Wednesday. It was the first time Ardit Ferizi, 20, had publicly appeared in the United States since being extradited from Malaysia, where he was detained in October on a U.S. provisional arrest warrant. Ferizi, who is believed to be the leader of a Kosovar Internet hacking group, hacked the computer server of a U.S. online retailer and stole the personal identification information of 1,351 U.S. military personnel, according to charging documents. The criminal complaint says Ferizi provided the list to Islamic State members including the British hacker Junaid Hussain, who linked to the list in an Aug. 11, 2015, tweet titled "NEW: U.S. Military AND Government HACKED by the Islamic State Hacking Division!" Twitter messages from Ferizi to other Islamic State-affiliated Twitter accounts show that he also offered to build the group a computer programme enabling them to post propaganda that would "never get deleted," according to court records. U.S. officials called Ferizi's case the "first of its kind" when his arrest was announced last year, but he is one of at least 79 individuals whom U.S. prosecutors have charged with Islamic State-related crimes in the past two years. An Albanian interpreter has been appointed in advance of his next court appearance on Friday. Ferizi faces a maximum sentence of 35 years in prison if convicted. (Reporting by Julia Harte; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Your digital subscription includes access to all content on our agricultural websites across the nation. Access unlimited content and the digital versions of our print editions - This Week's Paper. Lufthansa (LHAG.DE), British Airways (ICAG.L) and JetBlue (JBLU.O) on Thursday became the latest international carriers to offer rebookings or refunds for tickets to areas affected by the Zika virus, as the World Health Organization expressed concern about the swift spread of the mosquito-borne disease. The virus, which has been linked to birth defects in thousands of babies in Brazil, has provoked concern among travellers holding tickets to affected destinations. The virus is present in more than 20 countries and territories in the Americas, including Mexico, Puerto Rico and Caribbean countries that are popular with U.S. winter vacationers. Lufthansa and British Airways both said they would offer pregnant women the opportunity to change their reservations to another destination or delay travel, although they stopped short of offering complete refunds as several U.S. airlines have. JetBlue, which is offering refunds, so far has seen "no measurable impact" on advance bookings or customer refunds, Marty St. George, JetBlue's executive vice president for commercial and planning, said on an investor call Thursday. Cruise lines and resorts have so far reported little impact from increasing fears about the disease. Still, some cancellations, especially among the main risk group - pregnant women - look inevitable especially as the illness becomes more widely publicized. "We believe there could be a slowdown in bookings during this time of heightened media coverage and general fear until more information is known," airline analyst Helane Becker of Cowen and Co said in a research note on Thursday. However, speaking in terms of the impact of the disease on airlines' performance, she added, "We do not view this virus on the same level as the Ebola outbreak in late 2014 or SARS in 2003 ... We would view a decline in shares as a result of the Zika virus as a buying opportunity." New York-traded airline shares were generally lower, led by a 9.2 percent drop in Panama-based Copa (CPA.N) and JetBlue, down 7.4 percent. Several carriers - from United Airlines (UAL.N) to Latam LAN.SN - have already offered to refund people planning to travel to regions affected by the virus. American Airlines (AAL.O), the U.S. carrier with the largest network of flights to Latin America and the Caribbean, said on Thursday ticketholders to any Zika-hit area could request a refund, broadening its previous list of eligible destinations. Delta Air Lines announced a similar refund policy Wednesday. Brazil's Gol (GOLL4.SA) said it would let pregnant women reschedule flights or receive credit, but would not offer refunds. The World Health Organization warned Thursday that Zika is spreading "explosively" and could affect as many as four million people in the Americas. The virus causes rash, mild fever and red eyes. Some 80 percent of those infected typically do not have symptoms, making it difficult for pregnant women to determine if they have the virus. No vaccine or treatment is available. (Reporting By Jeffrey Dastin in New York; Additional reporting by Rosalba O'Brien in Santiago, Peter Maushagen in Frankfurt and Sarah Young in London; Editing by Frances Kerry) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Doha, Qatar: Al-Jazeera said on Thursday that a three-man news crew for the Qatar-based channel has been freed more than 10 days after being kidnapped in the flashpoint Yemeni city of Taez. Reporter Hamdi al-Bokari, cameraman Abdulaziz al-Sabri and driver Munir al-Subaie went missing on 18 January while covering the conflict between rebels and Gulf-backed forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. The pan-Arab news channel said on its website early on Thursday morning that the three had been freed "a short while ago" after having been kidnapped by "unknown gunmen". In a message posted on his Facebook page, Bokari said he had been held by the Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels, under fire since March from a Saudi-led coalition, of which Qatar is a member. "We heard them repeat 'Death to America'," a slogan the Houthis and Iranian protesters commonly chant, he wrote, adding that he would release more details about the kidnapping in the coming days. The city of Taez is held by loyalists of Yemen's internationally recognised government, but it has been besieged by the Iran-backed rebels for months. The Houthis overran Sanaa more than a year ago, forcing Hadi's government to flee the Yemeni capital. Hadi loyalists backed by a Saudi-led coalition have fought back and have been trying to retake Taez province and pave the way towards the rebel-held capital. AFP BURNS, Ore. The leader of the month-long armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon urged remaining protesters on Wednesday to leave the site and go home, a day after his arrest and the death of a supporter. "To those remaining at the refuge, I love you. Let us take this fight from here. Please stand down. Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. ... Please go home," Ammon Bundy said in a statement through his attorney read to the media following a court hearing. One protester who remained at the refuge following Bundy's arrest on Tuesday told Reuters by phone that some of the protesters were leaving the refuge through checkpoints set up by authorities, but rejected the word "surrender." "I dont know what surrendering looks like," Jason Patrick said. "Theyre walking through the checkpoint and going home. That's what I've heard unless I'm being lied to." Patrick added: "It's getting emptier over time, some people leaving, some people still there holding onto what theyre holding onto." Law enforcement surrounded the refuge and blocked off access roads on Tuesday evening, after Bundy and his group were taken into custody at a traffic stop along Highway 395. Citing the investigation, authorities declined to say what led to the fatal shooting of one member of Bundy's group, identified by activists as Robert LaVoy Finicum, a rancher who acted as a spokesman for the occupiers. Bundy's brother, Ryan, was wounded in the incident. The arrested protesters were each charged in U.S. District Court in Portland with conspiracy to use force, intimidation or threats to impede federal officers from discharging their duties. During a brief hearing on Wednesday afternoon, the defendants were ordered held without bail until a detention hearing set for Friday. (Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles, Daniel Wallis in Denver, Dan Cook in Portland, Jonathan Allen, Melissa Fares, Amy Tennery and Ed Tobin in New York and Andy Sullivan and Julia Edwards in Washington Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bill Trott and Peter Cooney) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. GENEVA The Zika virus, linked to severe birth defects in thousands of babies in Brazil, is "spreading explosively" and could infect as many as 4 million people in the Americas, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday. Director-General Margaret Chan told members of the U.N. health agency's executive board the spread of the mosquito-borne disease had gone from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions. The WHO would convene an emergency meeting on Monday to help determine its response, she said. "The level of alarm is extremely high," Chan told the Geneva gathering. "Last year, the virus was detected in the Americas, where it is now spreading explosively. As of today, cases have been reported in 23 countries and territories in the region," Chan said, promising quick action from the WHO. The agency was criticised last year for reacting too slowly to West Africa's Ebola epidemic, which killed more than 10,000 people, and it promised to cut its response time. "We are not going to wait for the science to tell us there is a link (with birth defects). We need to take actions now," Chan said, referring to the condition called microcephaly in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and brains that have not developed properly. There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is like dengue and causes mild fever, rash and red eyes. An estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms. Much of the effort against the illness focuses on protecting people from mosquitoes and reducing mosquito populations. Developing a safe and effective vaccine could take a year, WHO Assistant Director Bruce Aylward said, and it would take six to nine months just to confirm whether Zika is the actual cause of the birth defects, or if the two are just associated. "In the area of vaccines, I do know that there has been some work done by some groups looking at the feasibility of a Zika virus vaccine. Now something like that, as people know, is going to be a 12-month-plus time frame," he said. U.S. health officials said the United States has two potential candidates for a Zika vaccine and may begin human clinical trials by the end of this year, but there will not be a widely available vaccine for several years. Marcos Espinal, head of communicable diseases at the Pan American Health Organization, the WHO's Americas arm, forecast 3 to 4 million Zika cases in the Americas. As the virus spreads from Brazil, other countries in the Americas are likely to see cases of babies with Zika-linked birth defects, according to Carissa Etienne, regional director for the Pan American Health Organization. Brazil has reported around 4,000 suspected cases of microcephaly, vastly more than in an average year and equivalent to 1 to 2 percent of all newborns in the state of Pernambuco, one of the worst-hit areas. The WHO's Chan said that while a direct causal relationship between Zika virus infection and birth malformations has not yet been established, it is strongly suspected. "The possible links, only recently suspected, have rapidly changed the risk profile of Zika from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions," she said. Health and law expert Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University in Washington, who had urged the WHO to act, welcomed Chan's decision to convene an expert meeting, calling it "a critical first step in recognising the seriousness of an emerging epidemic." OLYMPICS CONCERNS With Rio de Janeiro set to host the Olympics from Aug. 5 to Aug. 21, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said the IOC will issue guidelines this week concerning Zika. "We will do everything to ensure the health of the athletes and all the visitors," Bach told reporters in Athens. Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said there have been 31 cases of Zika infection among U.S. citizens who travelled to areas affected by the virus. "It's possible and even likely that we will see limited outbreaks in the United States," Schuchat said. In Washington, U.S. Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts called on the WHO and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to explain how they were tackling the virus because many Americans visit the affected region and more are expected to attend the Olympics. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama's administration's concern was focussed mostly on pregnant women or women who could become pregnant, given the link to microcephaly. Lufthansa (LHAG.DE), British Airways (ICAG.L) and JetBlue (JBLU.O) became the latest international carriers to offer rebookings or refunds for tickets to areas impacted by the virus. Lufthansa and British Airways said they would offer pregnant women the opportunity to change their reservations to another destination or delay travel. They stopped short of offering complete refunds as several U.S. airlines have. (Additional reporting by Kate Kelland in London; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington and Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Writing by Kate Kelland and Will Dunham; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Frances Kerry) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. PIERRE | The South Dakota Supreme Court decided last year that an injured employee with more than one job should receive workers' compensation payments for all the jobs he or she cant work while hurt. Now the Legislature is moving forward on state laws to put the court's decision into statute. The Supreme Court last May decided the case of Patricia Wheeler, of Sioux Falls, whose injury at one job left her unable to perform her two other jobs. The House Commerce and Energy Committee on Wednesday unanimously endorsed legislation Wednesday that calls for such multiple workers' comp payments, known as aggregation. Rep. David Anderson, R-Hudson, is carrying the measure, HB 1084. It has support from the state Department of Labor and Regulation and a long list of employer and insurance organizations. The aggregation of wages would come into play when the injury prevents the employee from performing duties at the other places of employment. Anderson said information about cases and workers' comp insurance rate data would be gathered and a report would be delivered to the Legislature for the 2019 session. We think Rep. Andersons bill is a great fix, Shawn Lyons, the South Dakota Retailers Association executive director, said. Workers' compensation insurers support the approach, said Mike Shaw, a Pierre lawyer who represents the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America. I was surprised to learn they didnt view it as something unreasonable or unfair, Shaw said. We all recognize the Wheeler decision is a matter of fundamental fairness. Legislators on the House committee said there are many South Dakotans who work multiple jobs to support themselves and their families. Aggregation recognizes that trait, they said. That is a good value, Rep. Al Novstrup, R-Aberdeen, said. Rep. Lee Schoenbeck, R-Watertown added: I cant imagine what would be crueler than to have a system that doesnt account for that. The full House of Representatives will consider the measure next week. Taiwans president, defying a rare criticism from key ally the United States, visited an island in the disputed South China Sea yesterday to emphasize Taiwans sovereignty claims in the increasingly tense region. Accompanied by about 30 staff members, Ma Ying-jeou spoke at a national monument on Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba, and reiterated his call made last year for peaceful coexistence and joint development with other claimants. The island is part of the Spratly archipelago, where China, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and the city-state of Brunei have overlapping claims. Roughly 2,000 kilometers south of Taiwan and 46 hectares in size, Taiping is the largest naturally occurring island in the area. It has recently been eclipsed in size, however, by man-made islands created by China out of reefs and shoals. China has built housing, ports, airstrips and other infrastructure on the newly created islands, drawing accusations from the U.S. and others that it is exacerbating tensions in the strategically vital region. Ma cited infrastructure developments, including a 10-bed hospital and a lighthouse, saying they reinforced Taiwans claim of sovereignty and granted it rights over the surrounding waters. Taiwan is spending more than USD100 million to upgrade the islands airstrip and build a wharf capable of allowing its 3,000-ton coast guard cutters to dock. All this evidence fully demonstrates that Taiping Island is able to sustain human habitation and an economic life of its own. Taiping Island is categorically not a rock, but an island, Ma said. The Philippines expressed concern over the trip, and U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said yesterday (Macau time) that the United States was disappointed, saying it could exacerbate tensions. President Ma Ying-jeou has every right to make his position clear on the South China Sea. We just disagree with this particular action. We view it as, frankly, as raising tensions rather than what we want to see, which is de-escalation, Toner said. During a visit to Beijing, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry encouraged all parties in the South China Sea to clarify their territorial claims, exercise restraint and engage in negotiations on the basis of international law. Taiwan stations about 200 coast guard personnel, scientists and medical workers on Taiping Island. It occupies a number of other islets in the South China Sea, including the Pratas island group to the north. There was no immediate response to Mas visit from China, although a spokesman for the Cabinets Taiwan Affairs Office yesterday (Macau time) repeated Beijings claim to indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands. Safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity and the overall interests of the Chinese nation are the common responsibility and obligation of compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Ma Xiaoguang told reporters. China and Taiwan hold identical claims to the South China Sea, aligning with Beijings one China principle that considers the two part of a single Chinese nation. Beijing has threatened to retaliate to any formal change in Taiwans legal status with military force. Coming near the end of his eight years in office, Mas visit is the second by a Taiwanese leader. Former president Chen Shui-bian visited in 2008 when he delivered a similar message. Ma, who has been criticized at home as weak on foreign policy, must step down in May due to term limits and analysts said he considers the island visit a capstone to his time in office. Opposition party president-elect Tsai Ing-wen declined an invitation to go on the trip. Tsai won a decisive victory over the candidate from Mas China-friendly Nationalist Party in this months election while leading her independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party to a majority in the legislature, casting new uncertainty over the future of Taiwan-China relations. President Ma views advancing [Taiwans] maritime interests as part of his legacy, said Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington. His visit to Taiping will further incite nationalistic fervor in the claimant countries and increase tensions. Ralph Jennings, Christopher Bodeen, AP Cold weather all over the planet is killing hundreds, especially the most delicate: the old, the sick, the homeless, and the lonely. In greater China and southeast Asia temperatures have been unusually low with sudden drops of the mercury. In Macau, we too are having our fair share of the chill. Since temperatures reached a record low of 1.6 degrees Celsius on Sunday, four people have died of hypothermia and all over town people are complaining about the extremes of weather and about how difficult it is to keep their homes and offices warm. When one considers the poor quality of the local housing stock, particularly the appalling lack of insulation, it is surprising there are not more deaths. I call upon the Government to legislate higher minimum standards of insulation for all upcoming residential construction projects. Double-glazing and ceiling insulation is the bare minimum in such a climate as we have in Macau, reads a comment posted on MDTs website this week. What our reader who may as well be into engineering is alerting us to is a structural problem. What our reader is proposing is a solution which demands changing legislation and ancient practices. I couldnt agree more with him, and the government should really look into it. But we all know those changes are time consuming. Old habits die-hard But therere more shocking reasons to be surprised there are not more deaths. According to the health authorities, the fatalities so far concerned old and/or bed-ridden patients. They all arrived at the hospital in precarious states of health some from living alone and/or poor living conditions that the low temperatures dearly aggravated. One of the victims, though, came from an aged care facility. And that makes me feel very uneasy. How come she froze?! After consulting with medical and welfare professionals I realized that most of the care centers conditions heavily subsidized are simply appalling. I was told by insiders that very few institutions, namely Caritas and Obra das Maes, offer conditions beyond reproach for the elderly. Moreover, most of the centers operate without resident medical and paramedic staff against international health and welfare recommendations and best practice. Albeit as structural as the bad construction, the aged care problem would surely take incomparably less time and effort to amend. In a city flooded by easy-money, inaction in this case is not only deplorable, it is criminal. The last known victim of hypothermia was a 105-year-old lady who died yesterday at the central hospital. What an inglorious death for someone who lived to see almost all the momentous 20th century and may even have witnessed the previous lowest temperature recorded in Macau, in 1949. Today, in her memory je suis old, lonely and sick. A preschool in egalitarian Norway has canceled its traditional carnival celebration saying it encourages gender stereotypes, with boys dressing up in macho superhero costumes and girls in frilly princess dresses. Renate Kvivesen, the principal of the Vikaasen preschool near Trondheim, told The Associated Press that we dont think it fits our values to host an event where children feel its important to fit into specific gender roles. The preschool has children from zero to six years old. Parents were informed by email that the annual dress-up for carnival, held just ahead of Lent in the Christian calendar, would not be taking place as usual this year after a split decision by the parent-teacher board. Kvivesen said some parents were disappointed but added the nature of the celebration has changed in recent years so we felt we needed to look again at the arrangements. Norwegians are proud of their record in promoting womens rights. Some 40 percent of Norwegian lawmakers are women, including the prime minister and finance minister, while company boardrooms are required to have a female quota of four in every 10. Still, some are sensitive about letting gender politics affect the upbringing of their children. One of those who disagreed with the decision to cancel the dress-up was Sarah Askim, a Swiss-born mother of three boys, the youngest of which attends the preschool. I appreciate that they try to open the kids minds, she said. I am happy if the girls play with cars and the boys play with kitchen stuff. But I wont dress my boys later on with a skirt. I believe at one point we have to admit that there is difference between girls and boys. While referencing gender-stereotyped costumes, the email to parents also added concern at the commercialization of the holiday. Not all children experience this day as something positive, it said. Hilde Noest, who had planned to send her 18-month-old daughter to preschool in a piglet costume, said some might think of Norway as the crazy equality country, but added the decision would help protect children. Its OK if all of the boys want to be Batman and all of the girls want to be princesses, she said. But maybe some of them feel differently and they should not be made to feel left out. Mark Lewis, Stavanger, AP An Asian Air jet has been refused take off from U-Tapao airport in Rayong, Thailand, after the Central Bankruptcy Court ordered a freeze on the airlines assets, aviation authorities revealed. The aircraft was scheduled to leave the navy-owned airport at 9 a.m. on Wednesday and was due to pick up 200 passengers in Macau, to then fly back to the Philippines, according to the acting director of the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT), Chula Sukmanop. CAAT issued the ban after it received notification from the bankruptcy court. Sukmanop stated that no passengers were left stranded, as it was due to fly empty to Macau. He said the agency has discovered that the airline has unpaid debts and is being sued by its maintenance service provider for bankruptcy. According to the Centre for Aviation, Asian Air is a Thai carrier providing both charter and scheduled services from its base at Bangkok Don Mueang Airport. The airline launched its inaugural service on March 15, 2014, flying from Bangkok to Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan. Asian Air has further plans to expand services to other destinations in Japan and North Asia in the future. Japans economy minister resigned yesterday as he fended off corruption allegations, in a setback for Prime Minister Shinzo Abes effort to rev up growth in the worlds third-largest economy. Akira Amari choked back tears as he announced his resignation in a televised news conference. He denied wrongdoing but apologized for causing concern and trouble and for undermining public trust in the government with a very embarrassing situation. The corruption scandal surfaced last week after the magazine Weekly Bunshun reported that Amari and his aides accepted at least 12 million yen (USD103,000) in cash and hospitality from the unnamed construction company. As economy and fiscal minister since late 2012, Amari has been one of the most trusted members of Abes Cabinet. He also served as Japans top negotiator for the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. Amari, 66, is a career politician and son of a lawmaker who was first elected in 1983. With Amaris departure, Abe has lost a key ally as he is gearing up for an upper house election in the summer. Political donations and their handling are perennial weak spots for Japanese lawmakers. The allegations against Amari have become fodder for attacks by Communist Party, Democratic Party of Japan and other members of the opposition, who otherwise are unable to effectively challenge the ruling Liberal Democrats overwhelming majorities in the lower and upper legislatures. During questioning in parliament, Amari said he did not recall clearly the details of meetings in his office with the construction company. Shukan Bunshun said that on one occasion, a construction company employee met with Amari in his office in November 2013, handing him an envelope containing 500,000 yen in cash and an expensive Japanese sweet called yokan. Asked about the gift, Amari said yesterday that he wasnt sure what was inside the bag, but that it was very heavy. His resignation comes amid mounting signs Japans economic recovery is faltering, raising pressure on its central bank to inject still more cash into the economy on top of its already massive monetary stimulus. Data released yesterday showed weak retail sales in December. Other major monthly data are due for release today. Abe apologized over the scandal and said Amaris resignation was very regrettable. He said Nobuteru Ishihara, a former environment minister, would take on Amaris posts. Elaine Kurtenbach, Tokyo, AP The director of Chinas Liaison Office in Macau, Li Gang, says that the MSAR will face challenges and obstacles during the year, owing to the region experiencing a a deep financial adjustment. Li presided over the Liaison Offices reception to celebrate the forthcoming Lunar New Year, which took place at the Macau Tower yesterday and was attended by hundreds of invitees. The top official highlighted the fact that the 85-square-kilometer sea area to the east and south of Macau now under local administration presents an opportunity to pursue the sustainable development of Macau. Li also highlighted the social stability of the region, praising the local governments efforts. The Chief Executive Chui Sai On addressed the crowd during the reception. Forecasting the next [Lunar] year, we can see significant opportunities for development but also major challenges that result from the coexistence of old problems with an increase of risks and dangers, he stated. Before being appointed to the Macau office, Li was deputy director and spokesman of the Hong Kong Liaison Office from 2003 to 2012. As part of the reshuffle of officials in the Special Administrative Regions, he was assigned to the Macau office in December 2012. PB Recipes, reviews and recreation with the Madhouse Family - one parent, three kids, one dog, all bilingual ! KETCHUM Last summer Wood River Valley residents Nils Ribi and Betsy Mizell spent six days hiking 65 miles in the Chamberlain Basin just a couple of days after President Obama signed legislation creating the White Clouds Wilderness. They and eight others from Boise, Washington and Oregon cleared downfall, fixed trail erosion, cleaned up fire rings and removed ash and dehydrated food bags that campers had tried to burn. They ate Dutch oven meals and appetizers like guacamole and chips prepared by a chef from Costa Rica who was finishing up her masters degree in the U.S. And they used traditional tools like 1930s crosscut saws and Pulaskis. You could hear the crosscut saw singing as they used it to cut logs, Ribi said. The group had volunteered for a work project organized by the Idaho Trails Association, which has a new lineup of projects waiting for volunteers this year. Two Boise women created the association in 2010 to bring together volunteers to construct and maintain Idaho hiking trails after Forest Service budget cuts led to deteriorating trails in the backcountry. Jeff Halligan, a retired Forest Service employee who heads up the ITA, said he witnessed the cuts while working for the Payette National Forest. When I moved to McCall, I had 800 miles of trail and 22 trail crew plus horse packers. The district combined to pick up another 700 miles. Now they have five to six people to take care of 1,500 miles of trails, he said. The ITA is organizing one-day, weekend and week-long projects for summer 2016, which it has just begun to post on its website, IdahoTrailsAssociation.org. The website also includes backcountry cooking tips and descriptions for a Hike of the Month. Clif Bar, which will soon open a plant in Twin Falls, gave the ITA money to hire a trails manager for this summer. REI gave the organization $10,000 for its work. Theres such a backlog of trails in need of maintenance that the ITA has to turn down 70 percent of its requests, Halligan said. The trails it does tackle are very much in need of help. In the Sawtooths, the Alice Lake trail had gotten so bad that outfitters told us they didnt go there anymore the talus was making it too dangerous for horses, he said. We did some reroutes where the trail had migrated downhill. And we resurfaced it, making a nice dirt trail that you can walk instead of having to pick your way through rocks. Most of the projects are headed up by retired Forest Service workers. Theyre open to anyone, even those with no experience. Last year 238 volunteers worked 2,000 hours valued at $50,000. Volunteers have ranged from 6 to 87 years old. The 87-year-old has been on four week-long trips. Its neat because youll see an experienced sawyer on one end of a crosscut saw and an 18-year-old girl on the other end, Halligan said. The work parties take place in some of the most beautiful places in the country, from the Owyhee River Wilderness in southwest Idaho to Idahos Panhandle in the north, where volunteers regularly catch glimpses of caribou. Weve brushed out desert trails so thick with willows that even deer couldnt get through them, Halligan said. Weve built bridges through swampy areas. And weve dug through rocks to build a trail. Mizell, who heads up the Idaho Conservation League in Ketchum, said she learned a lot from her experience last summer. Id never understood about trail building why they build trails in certain places, etc. before that, she said. It gave me an appreciation for what it takes to build and maintain trails. Now I find myself kicking rocks out of the way and removing branches when I go out hiking. It was a good feeling a sense of being unplugged, working hard, having the opportunity to truly enjoy a wild area that we knew would be protected for generations, Ribi added. These guys are providing great opportunities for those who enjoy getting out on the trails and want to give back. JEROME | Gooding County Sheriff Shuan Gough said he'll seek charges in his county against a driver "on a suicide mission" whose passenger was killed in a wrong-way crash on Interstate 84 in Jerome. Gooding deputies were chasing Steve Anthony Pomrenke, 34, of Wendell when got on I-84 the wrong way and crashed his Ford F-250 into a semi trailer about 1:11 a.m. Monday, Idaho State Police said. The crash killed Pomrenkes passenger, 40-year-old Juan Vargas of Wendell, who was pronounced dead at the scene. In Jerome County Magistrate Court, Pomrenke was charged with misdemeanor counts of driving without privileges and failing to provide proof of insurance. I dont know what Jerome is thinking, Gough said Wednesday. I dont want to second guess what theyre doing, maybe theyre waiting on the investigation reports. But Im going to follow up with the Gooding County prosecutor to file charges here. A woman who answered Gooding County Prosecutor Luverne Shull's phone said Shull hasnt yet received any reports and "the prosecutor doesnt have any comments at this time. The chase started in Wendell on Idaho Street where Pomrenke purposely took out a power pole and two road signs, Gough said. At the same time deputies began chasing Pomrenke, a patron at a bar called 911 to report Pomrenke was drunk and had just left the bar. We have every inch of it on video, Gough said. He hit a power pole and two signs, it was like he was on a suicide mission, like he was trying to kill himself. Its the damnedest thing Ive ever seen. Gough declined to discuss what specific charges hell seek against Pomrenke but promised to meet with Shull to figure it out. He said he knows manslaughter charges are out of the question since the crash that killed Vargas happened in Jerome County. John Horgan, the prosecuting attorney in Jerome County, did not return a call seeking comment on the case. Pomrenke was released from jail on his own recognizance, according to online court records. A pretrial conference is scheduled for March 28. TWIN FALLS Its official: New attendance zones in the Twin Falls School District have been finalized, shaping where students will go to school. School trustees voted unanimously Wednesday night and without discussion to approve the changes, wrapping up a four-month process. The decision will affect more than 1,000 elementary-schoolers starting in 2016 and middle-schoolers starting in 2017. Attendance zones are changing to accommodate three new schools, funded by a nearly $74 million bond. Board chairman Bernie Jansen thanked the 26-member committee including educators and parents who drafted the new zones. The group started meeting in October and brought a draft proposal to the board in December. School trustees heard several detailed presentations with updates, including plan revisions, in recent months. Jansen wished district officials luck with getting information out to parents. Even with the best efforts, I can guarantee theres at least 10 percent who didnt get the word until school starts next fall, he said. The district held three community meetings earlier this month to share information, but attendance was sparse. Feedback was also collected via an online survey. Construction is underway for Rock Creek and Pillar Falls elementary schools, with both opening in summer 2016. South Hills Middle School opens in 2017. The new schools will alleviate rapid enrollment growth and overcrowding. BURLEY In another sign of distrust between the city of Burley and Cassia County, commissioners have stalled a joint task force formed to save the regional airport. Cassia County Commissioner Dennis Crane said he distrusts the city, which currently manages the airport, the media and a governors representative who has studied the airports economic impact. I dont think its the countys responsibility to fix the airport, Crane said. I think the city has been negligent in how it was taken care of. I see this as: Do we want ownership as a county and how to pay for it. The city called for forming the joint task force to find a regional solution to save the airport. Expected to lose Federal Aviation Administration funding if it doesnt lengthen its runways or move to a new location, the airport may be forced to close soon, jeopardizing millions of dollars in regional commerce. The task force was to include two appointed members from Cassia and Minidoka counties along with the cities of Burley, Heyburn, Paul and Rupert and the Airport Users Association. The group was asked to review the master plan for the airport, look at new sites and decide how the facility should be governed. The Cassia County commissioners on Monday directed Administrator Kerry Murray to draft a letter to the city asking for clarification on several points before they even consider whether to join the task force. The county will review the letter in two weeks. Despite warnings from the FFA to act soon and pleas from Burley leaders to act quickly Crane and Commissioner Paul Christensen said there is plenty of time for the county to respond to the citys request. I dont think there is a big deadline, Crane said. Christensen distrusts the statistics and the findings that have been presented to date, and he wants the task force to review them, work which was performed by an engineering firm, the FAA and the city. He said it was also unclear if the city was asking the county to sponsor the airport. If county representatives are appointed to a task force, Christensen said, it is their right and responsibility to look at the evidence. Crane said past airport relocation efforts were overloaded with city and airport users representatives. Clearly opposed to his fellow commissioners was Bob Kunau, who said every one of the commissioners questions has been answered in newspaper articles and at the airport meetings. We dont need to ask the task force to start over, Kunau said, reminding the board that the city wants the task force to locate a site within six months. I dont trust the newspaper or the city of Burley, Crane said. Crane said he also does not trust the hotshot from the governors office (Mike Pape, director of the Idaho Division of Aeronautics) who spoke in Burley about the economic impact of the airport. Crane said he was a cheerleader who just wants to throw away the airport and get a new one. The FAA has said it will not continue to fund the airport master plan study, or continue to provide maintenance funding for the airport, unless the community gets on board with relocating the airport. Without the maintenance funding, the city will be forced to close the airport, Burley Administrator Mark Mitton has said. But Christensen said he doubts whether actual abandonment is really an issue. And Crane questioned how much of the business use at the airport is blue sky that is not needed. Crane said loaded agricultural spray planes cant fly out of the airport now, and unlike the UPS planes that fly into the Burley airport, FedEx flies into Twin Falls and transports packages to the area by truck. I dont know if it is really a big deal, Crane said. Kunau attempted to justify the airports significance, mentioning a letter written by Anthony Soto, Burley general manager of DOT Foods Inc., to Burley City Council President Randy Hawkins asking the city to continue to pursue a new airport and the benefits it would bring to the community. Christensen also questioned how much the airport is really needed for medical flights. Fixed-wing medical flights are going out now, Crane said. It must be adequate, he said. Kunau disagreed. We wont be able to use the airport if the FAA wont certify it, Kunau said. BOISE The wife of an American pastor who was imprisoned for nearly four years in Iran filed court documents to legally separate from him the same day he returned home to Idaho, court records show. Saeed Abedini was one of four Americans released in Iran under a negotiated prisoner exchange on Jan. 16. The U.S. agreed to free seven Iranians as part of the agreement. Abedini returned to Boise on Tuesday. Court documents indicate his wife, Naghmeh Panahi, filed the petition for separation the same day. Further details on the filing have been sealed and were unavailable. Panahi was a tireless advocate for her husbands release until November, when she told supporters that he had been an abusive husband and that she planned to step out of the public eye for prayer, fasting and more time with her children. Abedini does not have a publicly listed phone number and attempts to contact him through his church were not immediately successful. On Wednesday, Panahi released a statement through her Facebook account saying that she experienced abuse throughout most of her marriage. She confirmed the posting to The Associated Press. I sincerely had hoped that this horrible situation Saeed has had to go through would bring about the spiritual change needed in both of us to bring healing to our marriage, Panahi wrote. Tragically, the opposite has occurred. Panahi said she hopes counseling will help resolve the marital problems. Abedini was detained in Iran for compromising national security, presumably because of Christian proselytizing. He was sentenced in 2013 to eight years in prison. This appeared in the Idaho Press-Tribune: A good rule of thumb for directors of Idahos state agencies is that it never hurts to ask for more funding that you may realistically expect to receive from lawmakers. Simply put, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Why should you ask for more than you think youre going to get? Because it sends the message that what you do is important, and to do it well, youre going to need more resources. Fiscal conservatives, of course, will make the point that no matter how much you give a government agency, it will never be enough. When was the last time you ever heard a government agency director say, You know what, weve got plenty of money. In fact, we have more than we need. Please, take some of it back. A fair point. And in all honesty, there are some government agencies that could easily do with less particularly at the federal level. For instance, is a federal Department of Education an unnecessary redundancy when we already have state departments of education? We didnt even have the former until President Jimmy Carter created it in 1980, and since then Americas test scores have lost ground to the rest of the world. If the federal Department of Education were eliminated today, your kids and grandkids would still have classrooms to learn in and teachers to teach them tomorrow. But if the Idaho Transportation Department doesnt pave roads and fix ailing bridges, youre going to have much more frequent car repairs driving those kids to school. Theres no redundancy there. So when Idaho Transportation Department Director Brian Ness told the Legislatures joint budget committee earlier this month that his department wouldnt be requesting a budget increase in state funds for our aging roads and bridges, it sent the wrong message to lawmakers. It said that the funding the state will have this year is adequate. It isnt. The Legislature took a step in the right direction last year by increasing the state gas tax from 25 to 32 cents per gallon and raising vehicle registration fees by $21 for passenger vehicles ($25 for commercial trucks, $19 for motorcycles and $75 fees for hybrid cars and $140 for electric vehicles). But even with some additional funding generated by extra revenue to the state via a two-year surplus eliminator, the new money raised is only about a third of whats needed to make up our annual $262 million shortfall. Theres still much farther to go. Yes, this is an election year and lawmakers will be reluctant to raise taxes. So its probably unrealistic to expect them to approve more transportation money. Nonetheless, they need constant reminding that we still have a long way to go. Deferring maintenance which a flat budget like this does is not a good example of fiscal conservatism. Its fiscally conservative to take care of problems now, before they become bigger and even more expensive later. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Schools superintendent Sherri Ybarra made a mistake when her first budget proposal last year turned out to be less than Gov. Butch Otters. ITD made a similar error this year. Most people agree that staying in school until youre finished, which is usually around the age of 18, is a good idea. Idaho code says that young people are required to be enrolled in school until the age of 16 but if a student chooses to drop out at 16 or 17, theres no legal consequence. Teachers work with students who may entertain thoughts of dropping out and demonstrate the advantages of getting a high school diploma. Cassia High School Principal Laurie Heward has seen many students, particularly young men who chose to drop out at 16, come back at 18 to finish the work for a diploma. She observes: They didnt realize how important that diploma was and how many doors were shut because they didnt have one. In fact, she recalls two Marines in full uniform escorting a young man, who had previously dropped out, through the doors of the school one morning. They were there to make sure he finished his credits for a diploma. Whether its getting a job in the private sector or choosing military service, a diploma is a critical attainment for young people. Schools have limited powers for enticing dropouts back to school, but one of the most effective is the ability to hold a drivers license of a minor until he or she is 18. Heward and other educators work to head off decisions to leave school by engaging students as quickly as they can. Of course, its not just Cassia schools that see students drop out. Statewide the statistic is 2.9 percent for known or possible dropouts, which is taken out of the 130,007 students enrolled in secondary schools. There are 291,000 students enrolled in Idaho public schools, K-12. Idaho has a good graduation rate that has been climbing from year to year. The graduation rate for our state, based on numbers from 2014, is 77.3 percent, and Idaho ranks 41st nationally. Ten percent of Idaho students earn a GED (General Education Development) or a diploma under Special Education. The push and focus for students to earn a diploma has always been a task and responsibility of parents and schools. And the reasons to motivate students are simple. Success beyond the classroom setting is the ultimate goal of education. High school dropouts earn less per year and considerably less over a lifetime than those who complete their schooling. Statistics also show that close to 70 percent of those who are incarcerated in Idaho never finished high school. A cap and gown hang in the hallway of Cassia High School, and all schools constantly emphasize the value of finishing and remind students of their ultimate goal. Outside influences of changes in family and economic situations can cause students to contemplate dropping out. Heward noted that lack of support at home contributes to dropping out as can feelings of hopelessness and stress in navigating school systems. Its always surprising when many students choose to drop out right before they graduate. However, the fact that many students and adults decide to return to formal schooling is an encouraging sign and a goal worth applauding. Encouraging students to stay the course and finish is a vital role for peers and mentors. There is also a focus on what comes after high school. That next step can be to seek a college degree or a professional certificate. Whatever the choice, having more education and/or professional and technical training provides more options for long-term success. Students who are engaged in their own success will find abundant support and help along the way. About Me Mohd. Kamal bin Abdullah I am Mohd. Kamal bin Abdullah, who resides in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. I hold a post-graduate law degree from the United Kingdom. I blog to tell MALAYSIANS THE TRUTH. View my complete profile Blog Archive Get realistic folks, we cannot afford Hillary Clinton as the Democratic Party nominee.The new Marquette Law School Poll shows Bernie Sanders significantly outperforming Hillary Clinton against three named Republican opponents the weekend before the Iowa Caucuses.The Poll reads: "[i]n possible matchups for the November general election" in Wisocnsin:leads Rubio by 11 pointsClinton edges Rubio by oneleads Cruz by 12Clinton edges Cruz by oneleads Trump by 18Clinton leads Trump by 9These results track with other national polls and show Sanders a stronger nominee than Clinton, a fact the corporate press is trying to bury. How often do you read the Bible? Daily At least once a week At least once a month Seldom Qatar-based Al Jazeera news network Wednesday launched a lawsuit against Egypt which it accuses of causing a loss of $150 million and crackdown on its journalists in 2013, following the military coup against Islamist President Mohamed Morsi. The network says it is taking legal action against Cairo after Egyptian authorities failed to respond to its complaints. A large number of journalists working for Al Jazeera were subjected to harassment, arrest and detention, either without charge or on clearly spurious and politically motivated charges, the network said in a statement. The network plans settlement of the case through the Washington-based International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID.) The network also highlighted other violations including attacks by soldiers, police and what it described as gangs supporting the military government in addition to the jamming of transmissions and broadcasts which it says are a clear breach of the Qatar-Egypt Bilateral Investment Treaty. Cairo drove serious crackdown on the network and on its reporters following the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi in 2013 by the army. Egyptian authorities raided the networks office in Cairo, arrested some its reporters and revoked the networks press credentials. Three of the networks English service workers namely Australian Peter Greste, Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed were condemned in 2014 up to 10 years in prison but were pardoned and released last year. Their condemnation stirred an international indignation, raising voices of human rights organizations and world powers which urged President al-Sissi to release them. Cairo accuses the network of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood organization which it has banned enlisted as a terrorist organization. President al-Sissi went extra lengths saying it is worse than the Islamic State. At the end of his two day visit to Egypt, Speaker of the Russian Parliament Sergey Naryshkin said he was hopeful that flights between the two countries would resume soon. He said he had a thorough discussion with President Sisi and his Egyptian counterpart Ali Abdel-Aal on the resumption of Russian flights to Egypt and Russian tour operators activities in Egyptian resorts. He said he was confident the problems will be solved soon. Russian flights to Egypt had been suspended after the October 31 downing of a Russian airplane over the Sinai killing all those on board. Aviation and security officials of the two countries have since then been collaborating to boost security at Egyptian airports. The North African country is the second most popular destination among Russian tourists, which explains its keenness to have the 3 million Russians or so back in the country. The Speaker of the State Duma assured officials in Cairo that the terrorist act in the skies over Sinai did not affect the very friendly attitude of Russians to the people of Egypt reiterating that Moscow wants to continue developing tourism ties as he cited the opening of the consular office in Hurghada in 2015. Naryshkin said flights would resume to Egypt after the opening of a Russian consulate in Sharm el Sheikh. Russias Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya) said in a statement that it conducted an audit of the set of measures taken by Egypt following its recommendations and that it forwarded new additional security recommendations, but Egypt replied that the implementation of the new recommendations will take additional resources and time. Bahrain could be privatizing public companies after lawmakers discussed reducing government stakes to not more than 30% thereby opening Gulf Air, Alba, Bahrain Airport Company, Batelco and the National Bank of Bahrain (NBB) to the private sector. The chairman of the parliaments financial and economic affairs committee Abdulrahman Buali said the current capital of all the companies under Mumtalakat, Bahrains sovereign wealth fund, was around BD7 billion. Oil enterprises and Bahrain International Circuit would not be included in the privatization drive. However, there is still controversy over the inclusion of a clause allowing the government to sell off its entire stakes, within three years, in the companies that are being privatized. MP Abdulrahman Bumajeed said reducing governments shares in companies will affect productivity and employment before signaling that the State will not be able to monitor their activities without stakes. He urged his counterparts to wait for recommendations from the ongoing investigations into Mumtalakats affairs before approving the amendments of the Private Companies Law. Committee Chairman Buali thinks that privatization will free up government funds and the parliaments first vice-chairman Ali Al Aradi said it will be a golden opportunity for new revenues and relieve the government from borrowing. A representative of the Industry, Commerce and Tourism ministry at the parliamentary session stated that the amendments will not benefit the economy or the people. The representative explained that the governments main role in companies where it is an important stakeholder is to ensure that those companies are solidly structured and able to strengthen the economy, while allowing investment in support of companies that are beneficial to the economy. Mumtalakat has a 100% stake in Gulf Air, 69.38% in Alba and 45% in NBB. They are among the largest public companies. The number of reported rape cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) courts dropped by 25 percent in 2015, an official source said. The statistics showed that Kinshasa, the capital city had the highest number of rape cases reported in civilian courts. According to the countrys Justice Minister Alexis Thambwe Mwamba, rape cases attributed to soldiers dropped by 34 percent when compared to the figures of 2014. These statistics are real and I want to congratulate the military judicial authorities for handling the cases quickly, he said. Jeanine Mabunda Lioko, the Personal Representative of the President in charge of the fight against sexual violence and child recruitment was equally pleased with the figures, noting that it was necessary to come up with reliable figures on sexual violence. A number of DRC soldiers have been convicted of sexual offenses in the past 18 months, including a general and a colonel. Sexual violence and the enrollment of children into armed groups have plagued the DRC, particularly the war-torn east, for the past decade. Despite national and international interventions, both problems remain widespread. Nigerian telecommunications minister, Adebayo Shittu, on Tuesday, told the South African mobile phone operator MTN to drop its legal action over a $3.9 billion fine imposed on the company to help facilitate talks on a possible amicable settlement. As far as we are concerned there can be no out of court settlement except if the case is taken out of court so that government will not be put under pressure whatsoever. If the case is out of court, if they make further moves, the President will graciously take a decision. For now Im not aware of any out of court settlement, said the minister on Tuesday. According to the Minister, President Muhammadu Buhari will have the final decision on the matter. MTN was slapped with $3.9 billion penalty by the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) in October after it missed the deadline to disconnect 5.1 million SIM cards. The South African telecoms giant, MTN, which makes about 37 percent of its revenue from Nigeria, had filed a suit challenging the Nigerian Communication Commission. A court in Lagos last week gave the company until March 18 to try to reach a settlement with the government over the fine. Thousands of supporters of South Africas Democratic Alliance (DA) took to the streets of Johannesburg Wednesday to protest against the significant rise in unemployment in the country. According to the Democratic Alliance, 8.4 million South Africans are jobless and now is the time to unite behind job creation. Mmusi Maimane, DA leader, gave a speech at the end of the march and explained that its unacceptable that 22 years after democracy, millions of South Africans are still unemployed. Maimane said that creating jobs must be our next national cause because our entire countrys future is at risk. We cannot build a prosperous future for South Africa when millions of people are excluded and have no hope and no sense of belonging. He concluded saying that people are losing hope in the government. In South Africa, unemployment stands at more than 25 percent, with the number rising to near 40 percent including those who have given up looking for work. The DA displayed its unemployment statistics on a huge billboard where the Wednesdays rally was held. Ex-President of Cote dIvoire Laurent Gbagbo pleaded not guilty on Thursday during the opening of his trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC.) He faces charges relating to the countrys civil conflict that erupted after he lost elections in 2010. Gbagbo, 70, is the most senior politician to stand trial at the global war crimes tribunal since it was set up 13 years ago. He remains influential at home and his trial could rekindle tensions in his country. His supporters and many victims of the 2010 clashes have accused investigators of being selective and of mainly targeting the Gbagbo camp. Dozens of Ivorians massed outside the court on Wednesday ahead of the trial, which is expected to last months, to show their support for Gbagbo. ICC Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda told reporters at The Hague that the trial aims to uncover the truth. Laurent Gbagbo was surrendered to the ICC on 30 November 2011 and he first appeared before the Pre-Trial Chamber on 5 December 2011. On 12 June 2014, Pre-Trial Chamber I confirmed, by majority, four charges of crimes against humanity (murder, rape, other inhumane acts or in the alternative attempted murder, and persecution) against Gbagbo and committed him for trial before a Trial Chamber. Sudan decided to open its borders with South Sudan for the first time since southern secession in 2011, allowing a flow of cheaper goods amid an economic crisis caused by civil war in the worlds newest nation. President Omar al-Bashir issued a decree today ordering the opening of borders with the state of South Sudan and ordered the relevant authorities to take all measures required to implement this decision on the ground, Sudans state-run news agency, SUNA, reported late Wednesday. Sudan closed its border with South Sudan in June 2011, one month before the formal declaration of independence. At the time, the decision intervened days after the start of a rebellion in the South Kordofan by the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N). Khartoum accused Juba of supporting the former members of the ruling party in South Sudan. Relations have been tense between the two countries as they failed to agree on borders and the status of several regions that both sides claim sovereignty over. Last week President Bashir agreed to consider lowering the fees paid by South Sudan for the use of Sudanese infrastructure to export oil. The president of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, unexpectedly and unilaterally announced a normalization of relations on Tuesday in response to Bashirs decision to lower oil conveyance fees. Entercom Acquires Podcorn Platform matches brands with the most relevant podcast creators to scale native branded content and drive higher ROI for advertisers. Read more David Field Joins Cheddar Entercom Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer discusses interest in audio from consumers and advertisers, and the rise of social audio platforms. Read more Entercom Launches BetQL Audio Network Network to Serve as Home of Companys Sports-gambling Content, Will Launch Companion Broadcast Distribution Channels in Denver and Los Angeles. Learn more Power, People and Politics Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer bring listeners inside Washington for an unfiltered, non-partisan look at every major issue of the day. Learn more RADIO.COM The Long Shot A new Cadence13 and ThreeFourTwo Productions podcast with Miami Heat Forward Duncan Robinson. Learn more Entercom Teams up with the Ad Council on Coping-19 Mental Health Campaign Providing bilingual audio assets with resources to help Americans address mental health challenges. Learn more INSIGHTS Industry Trends In Streaming Audio & Podcast Performance Learn more about setting goals, measuring success with data and benchmarking KPIs across multiple industries. Download eBook OUR PLATFORM 24/7 sports conversation from coast to coast As the nations #1 local sports platform, we give fans access to teams they cant get anywhere else. Visit our stations Creating the industrys most compelling, curated content. Connecting through the influential voices and conversation keepers our communities trust and love. Leveraging our integrated broadcast, digital, podcast and experiential platform every day, in every major market across the U.S. Delivering better engagement through audio. This is Entercom. 170 Million Monthly Broadcast Listeners 2 Billion Yearly Podcast Downloads 60+ Million Monthly Digital Reach 500+ Per Year Events and Concerts A platform of influence We are leading the way in helping advertisers connect with audiences in meaningful, engaging ways across our integrated platform of iconic broadcast brands, expansive digital assets, premium podcast network and live events and experiences. Our capabilities Serving our communities We are committed to supporting the health and success of the communities at the heart of our business. We use our voice to unite listeners, brands, and employees, and create positive impact around key causes. Learn more As global health experts scramble to understand how the Zika virus spreads and may lead to birth defects, two cases suggest it may be transmitted through sex, not just mosquitoes. In a conference call with reporters Thursday, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention principal deputy director Anne Schuchat was asked about a recent New York Times report on the subject. "There is one reported case of Zika virus through possible sexual transmission," she said. "In another case, Zika virus was found in semen about two weeks after a man had symptoms with Zika virus infection, so that sort of gives you the biologic plausibility of spread." However, Schuchat added that "the science is very clear to date that Zika virus is primarily transmitted to people through the bite of an infected mosquito. So that is really where we are putting the emphasis right now." The World Health Organization has warned that the virus is "spreading explosively" and may cause up to four million cases in the Americas. Meanwhile, Brazil is struggling to cope with a surge in microcephaly casesin which babies are born with unusually small headswith nearly 4,000 suspected cases since the outbreak began last year. In a handful of cases, the Zika virus has been identified in fetuses and babies with birth defects, but health authorities say more work is needed to confirm cause and effect. Researchers believe that if a pregnant women is bitten by an infected mosquito, particularly in the first trimester, she faces a higher risk of having a child with birth defects. On Monday, the Times reported that the only known case of the Zika virus in semen involved a 44-year-old Tahitian man who was exposed during an outbreak of the Zika virus in French Polynesia in 2013. The virus was detected in his semen after it was no longer found in his blood. Still, it remains unclear how long the virus may have persisted after his initial infection. The newspaper also mentioned a second case from 2008, in which a US biologist was infected with Zika while in Senegal collecting mosquitoes for a malaria study. The man developed a rash, fatigue and headache a week after his return to the US. His wife also developed similar symptoms a few days after his return, and after the two had sex. Their blood was drawn and tested negative for malaria, dengue and yellow fever. After some time had passed, a colleague suggested their illness could have been Zika. The blood samples, which had been frozen, were re-tested and came back positive for Zika, suggesting that the wife was infected by her husband since none of the mosquitoes that carry Zika were present in Colorado. Explore further US Virgin Islands reports its first Zika virus case 2016 AFP (HealthDay)Do you worry that forgetting names, or where you put your keys, might be a sign of impending dementia? If you're like most older Americans, you don't bring this up with your doctor, a new study shows. Researchers who looked at federal government data on more than 10,000 people found that in 2011, only 1 in 4 adults aged 45 or older discussed memory problems with a health care professional during a routine checkup. In fact, the likelihood that a person would admit to a memory problem in a doctor's office visit actually declined with advancing age, says a team led by Mary Adams, of On Target Health Data in West Suffield, Conn. The findings were published Jan. 28 in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease. "Routine checkups are a missed opportunity for assessing and discussing memory problems for the majority of older adults," Adams said in a journal news release. Experts agreed that the stigma around memory loss and dementia may hold people back from discussing these issues with their physicians. "Because dementia is unfortunately an all too common illness, older adults are quite familiar with its heralding signs and symptoms, which they have painfully observed in a long time neighbor or a family member," said Dr. Gisele Wolf-Klein, director of geriatric education at Northwell Health in New Hyde Park, N.Y. "This reality leads to denial and avoidance, both on the part of the patient and the physician," she said. "'As long as we don't mention it, maybe it's just normal aging.'" But mentioning memory troubles is important, because it doesn't necessarily have to herald dementia, Wolf-Klein said. "Memory loss may well not be due to dementia, but another highly treatable condition, such as depression," she noted. And if it is linked to dementia, recognizing that fact early is crucial, she said. "Patients can promptly meet with family members and elder law advisers, who can best help them in making individualized decisions for their care, rather than rely on last-minute decisions completed by family members at a time when patients now lack capacity," Wolf-Klein said. Dr. Bruce Polsky is chair of the department of medicine at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. He acknowledged that talking about "memory loss and the possibility of the early development of dementia is a difficult discussion for both the physician and patient, mostly because of the long-term implications." But early diagnosis of dementia can be important, he said. "Even mild memory loss associated with early Alzheimer's disease may be improved with some of the medicines now available, although these medications do not stop the progression of the disease," he said. "Lifestyle modifications, such as smoking cessation, may also be of value in some cases." "Although it is difficult for individuals to assess whether their own subtle memory loss is 'normal' or not, open discussion with their physician and, in some cases, testing may result in answers that could potentially lead to treatment and improved functioning," according to Polsky. More information: Find out more about memory loss and Alzheimer's disease at the Find out more about memory loss and Alzheimer's disease at the Alzheimer's Association Copyright 2016 HealthDay. All rights reserved. Neurons in the brainstem involved in walking are lit up using optogenetics. [Roseberry et al., Cell] Credit: Tom Roseberry, Gladstone Institutes Two secrets of one of the brain's most enigmatic regions have finally been revealed. In a pair of new studies, scientists from the Gladstone Institutes have discovered a specific neural circuit that controls walking, and they found that input to this circuit is disrupted in Parkinson's disease. Walking becomes a major challenge for people afflicted by Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's is caused by a depletion of dopaminean important neurochemicalin the basal ganglia (BG), a brain region involved in fundamental behaviors like movement, learning, reward, and motivation. In Parkinson's, an imbalance arises between two pathways in the BG: the direct or "go" pathway and the indirect or "stop" pathway. Ordinarily, these pathways work together seamlessly to control locomotion, but in Parkinson's the stop pathway overpowers the go pathway, making it difficult to initiate movement. How the imbalance between these two pathways developed remained a mysteryuntil now. Correcting an Imbalance in the Brain Published in Neuron, scientists led by Gladstone associate investigator Anatol Kreitzer, PhD, discovered that dopamine depletion causes a miscommunication between the BG and another region called the thalamus, an area thought to relay sensory information to the brain. This miscommunication results in a loss of input to the go pathway from the thalamus, which consequently disrupts movement. Blocking the connection between the two regions reversed the imbalance between the stop and go pathways and restored normal behavior in a mouse model of Parkinson's. "This study provides strong evidence for a mechanism by which the stop pathway overcomes the go pathway in Parkinson's disease," says first author Philip Parker, PhD, a former graduate student in Dr. Kreitzer's lab at the Gladstone Institutes and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). "Our findings implicate the thalamus in the development of the disease, an area of the brain that has received relatively little attention in Parkinson's research." "Several studies have targeted the thalamus with deep brain stimulation to treat Parkinson's, but the region's role in the disease was not well established," adds Dr. Kreitzer, who is also an associate professor of physiology and neurology at UCSF. "Our findings finally provide a clear picture of how the thalamus can imbalance neural circuits and suppress movement in this condition." Discovering How the Brain Controls Walking In the second study, published in Cell, the scientists discovered that the go and stop pathways from the BG control locomotion by regulating a group of nerve cells in the brainstem that connects the brain to the spinal cord. The researchers revealed that the go pathway selectively activates a type of neuron in the brainstem that releases the neurochemical glutamate, and these neurons are responsible for triggering locomotion. The scientists used optogeneticsan innovative research tool that uses light to activate or inhibit select cells in the brainto stimulate either the go or the stop pathway in mice that were running on a tiny treadmill, while recording neural activity in the brainstem. They discovered that the go pathway selectively activated glutamate neurons, causing the mice to move, whereas the stop pathway inhibited these neurons and made the mice stop. "This is the first time we have been able to demonstrate how the go and stop pathways regulate locomotion," says Tom Roseberry, a graduate student in the lab of Dr. Kreitzer. "We show a very precise connection from the basal ganglia to the brainstem that controls movement." Remarkably, the researchers discovered that the brainstem neurons can overpower the signals from the BGthat is, if glutamate neurons were turned on, the animal moved even if the stop pathway is activated. "In order to understand why walking is particularly disrupted in Parkinson's disease, we need to map out the circuitry that controls locomotion," says Dr. Kreitzer. "Our study shows that a specific set of neurons in the brainstem are both necessary and sufficient to initiate locomotion. This finding could open the door for new treatment targets to help Parkinson's patients walk more easily." Comment Policy Advance Indiana allows you to post comments via this blog subject to the guidelines set forth herein. You understand that any comments you post are your own and are not those of Advance Indiana. You further understand that Advance Indiana is not responsible for the content of any external sites referenced in your comments. Unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive, or otherwise objectionable comments are not acceptable. If you think any content posted or otherwise included in Advance Indiana violates the guidelines set forth herein, then please alert Advance Indiana. Advance Indiana reserves the right to pre-screen, edit, and remove any post as it deems appropriate. You specifically acknowledge that Advance Indiana has no obligation to display any post submitted or otherwise provided via Advance Indiana. (HealthDay)Rosacea is associated with a significantly increased risk of developing glioma, according to research published online Jan. 27 in JAMA Dermatology. Alexander Egeberg, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Copenhagen in Hellerup, Denmark, and colleagues conducted a nationwide cohort study of the Danish population from 1997 to 2011 to examine the association between rosacea and the risk for glioma. Data were analyzed for 68,372 patients with rosacea and 5,416,538 individuals in the reference population. The researchers found that the incidence rate of glioma per 10,000 person-years was 3.34 in the reference population and 4.99 in patients with rosacea. In the primary analysis, the adjusted incidence rate ratio of glioma in patients with rosacea was 1.36 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.18 to 1.58). In an analysis limited to patients with a primary diagnosis of rosacea made by a dermatologist, the adjusted incidence rate ratio of glioma was 1.82 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.16 to 2.86). "Rosacea was associated with a significantly increased risk for glioma in a nationwide cohort," the authors write. "This association may be mediated, in part, by mechanisms dependent on matrix metalloproteinases." Two authors disclosed financial ties to pharmaceutical companies. Explore further Rosacea linked to various comorbid conditions Copyright 2016 HealthDay. All rights reserved. Brain signals representing activity spurred by visual stimuli experienced by the subjects in this study. In this example, images of human faces generated more brain activity than images of houses. (This was not the result in every case.) Credit: Illustration by Kai Miller and Brian Donohue Using electrodes implanted in the temporal lobes of awake patients, scientists have decoded brain signals at nearly the speed of perception. Further, analysis of patients' neural responses to two categories of visual stimuli - images of faces and houses - enabled the scientists to subsequently predict which images the patients were viewing, and when, with better than 95 percent accuracy. The research is published today in PLOS Computational Biology. University of Washington computational neuroscientist Rajesh Rao and UW Medicine neurosurgeon Jeff Ojemann, working their student Kai Miller and with colleagues in Southern California and New York, conducted the study. "We were trying to understand, first, how the human brain perceives objects in the temporal lobe, and second, how one could use a computer to extract and predict what someone is seeing in real time?" explained Rao. He is a UW professor of computer science and engineering, and he directs the National Science Foundation's Center for Sensorimotor Engineering, headquartered at UW. "Clinically, you could think of our result as a proof of concept toward building a communication mechanism for patients who are paralyzed or have had a stroke and are completely locked-in," he said. The study involved seven epilepsy patients receiving care at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Each was experiencing epileptic seizures not relieved by medication, Ojemann said, so each had undergone surgery in which their brains' temporal lobes were implanted - temporarily, for about a week - with electrodes to try to locate the seizures' focal points. "They were going to get the electrodes no matter what; we were just giving them additional tasks to do during their hospital stay while they are otherwise just waiting around," Ojemann said. Temporal lobes process sensory input and are a common site of epileptic seizures. Situated behind mammals' eyes and ears, the lobes are also involved in Alzheimer's and dementias and appear somewhat more vulnerable than other brain structures to head traumas, he said. In the experiment, the electrodes from multiple temporal-lobe locations were connected to powerful computational software that extracted two characteristic properties of the brain signal: "event-related potentials" and "broadband spectral changes." Rao characterized the former as likely arising from "hundreds of thousands of neurons being co-activated when an image is first presented," and the latter as "continued processing after the initial wave of information." The subjects, watching a computer monitor, were shown a random sequence of pictures - brief (400 millisecond) flashes of images of human faces and houses, interspersed with blank gray screens. Their task was to watch for an image of an upside-down house. "We got different responses from different (electrode) locations; some were sensitive to faces and some were sensitive to houses," Rao said. The computational software sampled and digitized the brain signals 1,000 times per second to extract their characteristics. The software also analyzed the data to determine which combination of electrode locations and signal types correlated best with what each subject actually saw. In that way it yielded highly predictive information. By training an algorithm on the subjects' responses to the (known) first two-thirds of the images, the researchers could examine the brain signals representing the final third of the images, whose labels were unknown to them, and predict with 96 percent accuracy whether and when (within 20 milliseconds) the subjects were seeing a house, a face or a gray screen. This accuracy was attained only when event-related potentials and broadband changes were combined for prediction, which suggests they carry complementary information. "Traditionally scientists have looked at single neurons," Rao said. "Our study gives a more global picture, at the level of very large networks of neurons, of how a person who is awake and paying attention perceives a complex visual object." The scientists' technique, he said, is a steppingstone for brain mapping, in that it could be used to identify in real time which locations of the brain are sensitive to types of information. Lead author of the study is Kai Miller, a neurosurgery resident and physicist at Stanford University who obtained his M.D. and Ph.D. at the UW. Other collaborators were Dora Hermes, a Stanford postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience, and Gerwin Schalk, a neuroscientist at the Wadsworth Institute in New York. "The computational tools that we developed can be applied to studies of motor function, studies of epilepsy, studies of memory. The math behind it, as applied to the biological, is fundamental to learning," Ojemann said. Explore further Using network science to help pinpoint source of seizures Municipal workers pause to refill the insecticide sprayer during an operation to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmits the Zika virus at the Imbiribeira neighborhood in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Brazil's health minister Marcelo Castro said that nearly 220,000 members of Brazil's Armed Forces would go door-to-door to help in mosquito eradication efforts ahead of the country's Carnival celebrations. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) The release of new figures apparently finding fewer cases of microcephaly in Brazil than first feared is adding force to calls for more research into the link between the rare birth defect and the spreading Zika virus. Health experts have been looking at 4,180 suspected cases of microcephaly reported since October in Brazil, where authorities said the birth defect could be linked to the virus and announced that 220,000 military personnel were being deployed to help eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito that transmits Zika. But on Wednesday, Health Ministry officials said they had done a more intense analysis of more than 700 of those cases, confirming 270 cases and ruling out 462 others. What this means is hard to say, according to some experts. It does not answer whether the tropical Zika virus is causing the babies to have unusually small heads. Nor does it really tell us how big the problem is. "I don't think we should lower our alarm over the Zika outbreak," said Paul Roepe, co-director of Georgetown University's Center for Infectious Disease. Brazilian officials still say they believe there's a sharp increase in cases of microcephaly and strongly suspect the Zika virus is to blame. The concern is strong enough that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month warned pregnant women to reconsider visits to areas where Zika is present, and officials in El Salvador, Colombia and Brazil have suggested women stop getting pregnant until the crisis has passed. Municipal workers sprays insecticide to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmits the Zika virus at the Imbiribeira neighborhood in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Brazil's health minister Marcelo Castro said that nearly 220,000 members of Brazil's Armed Forces would go door-to-door to help in mosquito eradication efforts ahead of the country's Carnival celebrations. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) But the World Health Organization and others have stressed that any link between Zika and the defect remains circumstantial and is not yet proven scientifically. And the new figures were a reminder of just how little is known about the disease and its effects. The arrival of the mosquito-borne illness in Brazil initially caused little alarm as the virus' symptoms are generally much milder than those of dengue. Then late last year, after noting what they said was a spike in the birth defect, Brazilian authorities for the first time asked doctors to report cases of patients in their care. So there are no solid numbers to compare with the new tally. In 2014, only about 150 cases were reported in Brazil in a yeara surprisingly small amount for a large country with nearly 3 million births a year. The United States, with about 4 million births a year, has an estimated 2,500 cases of microcephaly a year, said Margaret Honein, a CDC epidemiologist. A municipal worker gestures during an operation to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmits the Zika virus in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Brazil's health minister Marcelo Castro says the country is sending some 220,000 troops to battle the mosquito blamed for spreading a virus suspected of causing birth defects, but he also says the war is already being lost. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) Brazilian health officials have dismissed the idea there might have been a large number of unreported cases previously. But the rate of recorded microcephaly cases was only a fraction of what some experts thought it ought to be. In establishing a registry, the Health Ministry cast a wide net, including live births, stillborn and miscarried babies, and fetuses shown to have unusually small heads by ultrasound or other diagnostic tests, the ministry said. In subsequent investigations, tests were done to see if the brain had been affected. Brazilian health officials did not detail what they found in the 462 cases that were ruled out, but many of them were just premature and under-sized, a health ministry spokeswoman said. A health worker shows larvae of the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes found inside a warehouse during an operation to combat the mosquitoes that transmits the Zika virus in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Brazil's health minister Marcelo Castro says the country is sending some 220,000 troops to battle the mosquito blamed for spreading a virus suspected of causing birth defects, but he also says the war is already being lost. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) The birth defect can be caused by factors such as genetics, malnutrition or drugs. Infections are also a cause although Zika-like viruses have not previously been linked to microcephaly. The CDC's Honein said shifts in the numbers reported out of Brazil were not surprising, and much more investigation is needed. She was echoed by Dr. Ganeshwaran Mochida, a pediatric neurologist at Boston Children's Hospital who specializes in microcephaly. He said 270 confirmed cases "is still quite a substantial number" in a country that has been reporting far lower counts. A fumigation brigade spray an area of Chacabuco Park in a Aedes mosquito control effort, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Zika virus is spread by the same Aedes mosquito as dengue fever and chikunguya. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says researchers have found strong evidence of a possible link between Zika and a surge of birth defects in Brazil. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko) A fumigation brigade sprays an area of Chacabuco Park in a Aedes mosquito control effort, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Zika virus is spread by the same Aedes mosquito as dengue fever and chikunguya. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says researchers have found strong evidence of a possible link between Zika and a surge of birth defects in Brazil. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko) Dead insects and larvae float in an empty vase at a cemetery in Cartagena, Colombia, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Local health workers emptied vases during a campaign to destroy potential hatcheries of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmits the Zika virus at the cemetery as part of a prevention campaign that according to the health ministry has already infected more than 16,000 people in Colombia, and could hit more than half a million. (AP Photo/Reinaldo Reyes) This 2006 photo provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a female Aedes aegypti mosquito in the process of acquiring a blood meal from a human host. Scientists believe the species originated in Africa, but came to the Americas on slave ships. It's continued to spread through shipping and airplanes. Now it's found through much of the world. (James Gathany/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention via AP) Young residents run away and others cover their faces as municipal worker sprays insecticide to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmits the Zika virus at the Imbiribeira neighborhood in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Brazil's health minister Marcelo Castro said that nearly 220,000 members of Brazil's Armed Forces would go door-to-door to help in mosquito eradication efforts ahead of the country's Carnival celebrations. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) A municipal worker sprays insecticide to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmits the Zika virus at the Imbiribeira neighborhood in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Brazil's health minister Marcelo Castro said that nearly 220,000 members of Brazil's Armed Forces would go door-to-door to help in mosquito eradication efforts ahead of the country's Carnival celebrations. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) A Brazilian Army soldier inspects a house during an operation to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmits the Zika virus in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Brazil's health minister Marcelo Castro said that nearly 220,000 members of Brazil's Armed Forces would go door-to-door to help in mosquito eradication efforts ahead of the country's Carnival celebrations. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Sokhumi Publishes List of Sanctions Against Turkey The Government in the breakaway territory of Abkhazia has published a list of sanctions against Turkey, which, among others, includes the ban of imported fish products, fruits and vegetables starting from March 1, 2016.The authorities in the breakaway region announced their intention to join Russias sanctions against Turkey on January 11, two weeks after the Russian Presidents aide Vladislav Surkov visited Sokhumi to press authorities there for coordinated action amid tensions in Turkey-Russia relations following the downing of a Russian fighter jet by Turkey in November.Abkhaz PM Artur Mikvabias January 11 decree, which instructed ministries to compile a list of restrictive measures, said that the move was pursuant to the treaty on alliance and strategic partnership between Russia and Abkhazia, which, among others, also envisages carrying out coordinated foreign policy.The new decree of the breakaway regions PM - dated from January 15 and made public on January 19 - lists specific measures, including temporarily banning the registration and suspending activities of those non-commercial organizations and entities, operating on the territory of Abkhazia, which are founded or managed by Turkish citizens, and/or organizations, which are under Turkish jurisdiction and/or organizations controlled by Turkish citizens. The breakaway regions Justice Ministry has been instructed to draft bills within two months setting legislative basis for applying restrictive measures.The list also includes a ban on hiring Turkish companies or other entities controlled by Turkish citizens for implementing infrastructural projects, carried out in Abkhazia with Russian aid funds.Starting from March 1 2016, Sokhumi will also ban the import of fish products from Turkey, as well as potatoes, tomatoes, onion, garlic, cabbage, cucumbers, citrus fruits, grapes, melons, apples, pears, apricots, cherries, peaches and plums.The list does not include building materials, fuel and textiles, which reportedly make up most of the Turkish imports in the breakaway region.Last week, the chairman of the state committee on ecology and environment protection of breakaway Abkhazia, Saveliy Chitanava, said that although initially it the government intended to replace Turkish fishing vessels with Russian boats this year for fishing along the Abkhaz Black Sea coast, the plan was dropped because the Russian fleet had an overall smaller capacity that would not have allowed Abkhaz fish processing facilities to work at their full potential.Saying no to Turkish fishing vessels would have amounted to ruining the fishery sector of Abkhazia which contributed about 200 million rubles to the Abkhaz budget last year, he said.Economic activities in Abkhazia without authorization from the Georgian authorities constitute violations of Georgias legislation, including the laws on occupied territories. At least four Turkish vessels were detained by the Georgian coast guard in 2013 for unauthorized entry to breakaway Abkhazia, but no such cases of detention of Turkish vessels have been reported since then. @ByKristenMClark Despite discord among the states law enforcement officers and passionate efforts to derail it, a National Rifle Association-backed measure to allow nearly 1.5 million people to openly carry guns in Florida is ready for consideration by the full state House. A compromise version of HB 163 -- by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach -- easily passed the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday. The 12-4 vote came after 2-1/2 hours of debate that included mentions of terrorism, God and the Wild West, and four unsuccessful amendments aimed at scaling back the drastic shift in public policy. Tallahassee Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda was the only Democrat to side with Republicans in supporting the measure. If it becomes law, concealed-weapons permit-holders could carry handguns openly wherever they're allowed to carry concealed. Private businesses -- ranging from grocery stores and bars to Disney World -- would be able to decide whether people can carry guns, but no public place -- such as a public hospital -- could ban them, unless guns are banned already under state law. The Senate version -- SB 300, sponsored by Gaetz's father, Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville -- awaits consideration before that chamber's Judiciary Committee, its second of three committee stops. Chairman Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, has said he'll give it a hearing. Matt Gaetz's measure is likely to earn favor in the full House, where 81 of the 120 members are Republicans, but Democrats said they plan to continue fighting. Republicans and gun-rights supporters heralded the proposal on Thursday as one that fortifies constitutional rights, or what Rep. Julio Gonzalez, R-Venice, called a "God-given right to openly carry weapons." But Democrats and gun-control advocates blast the measure because they fear it would jeopardize law enforcement officers' safety as well as public safety. They say it could harm Florida's "family friendly" tourism industry, and some also worry about the ready ability terrorists could have to openly carry handguns. Gov. Rick Scott's office has cancelled the next scheduled meeting of the Cabinet scheduled for Feb. 4 at the state fairgrounds in Tampa. This was to have been the meeting held every year to mark the opening of the annual state fair, but Scott's office pulled the plug on it because state agencies that report to the governor and Cabinet had no urgent pending business. "Given that there is no official voting agency business and all agencies have confirmed that they do not plan to submit an agenda, we should cancel the meeting," Scott's Cabinet aide, Kristin Olson, said in an email to Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam's chief Cabinet aide. "We should save the state the cost for Cabinet aides and staff from traveling to Tampa." The next scheduled Cabinet meeting is March 2 in Tallahassee. It was at the Tampa meeting last year that Scott and Cabinet members held an extensive discussion over the fallout from the ouster of FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey. "I could have handled it better," Scott said, an admission that soon led to reforms in Cabinet oversight of state agencies. @NewsbySmiley Remember the developer that wanted to build a 63-story billboard tower on the outskirts of downtown Miami? The last we saw Michael Simkins, he was leaving Miami City Hall in a rush. City commissioners had just made clear they would repeal the law that allowed him to build a "media tower" in Park West even though he'd already signed a deal with a city redevelopment agency and applied for special sign permits. When city officials declined to process his permit applications, Simkins' Miami Big Block LLC filed a claim under Floridas Land Use and Environmental Dispute Resolution Act in order to force mediation and get Miami planners to consider his project. Since then, silence. Until Tuesday, when Simkins' attorney, John Shubin, met with lawyers for the city of Miami for the first mediation session. Shubin said Wednesday that no agreement was reached, but a future session is in the works. "Miami Big Block remains hopeful that a satisfactory resolution can be reached with the city," he said. Simkins' three-sided, 633-foot tower is the center piece of larger plans for a 10-acre technology district in Park West. From Miami Herald columnist Dave Barry: WEST DES MOINES -- I went to hear Marco Rubio speak, for two important journalism reasons: The event was near my hotel. It was in a bar. Rubio is a classic only-in-America story: The son of Cuban immigrants, he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Florida at the age of 12, and now, at age 14, he is running for president of the United States. Rubios big rival at the moment is Jeb Bush. They used to be friends, but now they hate each other, because they are both vying for the coveted role of Establishment Republican Who Will Probably Not Get Nominated. The other hot Republican battle is between front-runners Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, who also used to get along but now detest each other to the point where there may be, if they can work out their schedules, a duel between their top aides. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have also reached the stage of intense mutual loathing. And were just getting started! By the time we actually elect a president, he or she will be so filled with rage that I wouldnt be surprised if he or she launched a unilateral nuclear attack on Belgium just to let off steam. But getting back to the Rubio event: There was a good-sized crowd of Iowans packing the bar, and when Rubio appeared they showed their enthusiasm Iowa-style, by which I mean they applauded politely. Some of them also went Whoo! In Miami, there would have been gunfire. It would have been positive, friendly, welcoming gunfire, but still. More here. Photo credit: Daniel Acker, Bloomberg @PatriciaMazzei In his first overseas trip as part of a congressional delegation, Miami Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo traveled to Afghanistan for four days last week, visiting U.S. service members stationed at military bases. The trip was kept hush-hush due to security reasons, as most "codels" to dangerous places are, until after Curbelo and the three other members of Congress who took part returned safely home. Curbelo and Democratic Reps. Elizabeth Esty of Connecticut and Julia Brownley of California traveled at the invitation of U.S. Rep. John Kline, a Minnesota Republican who sits on the House Armed Services Committee. They visited the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, the Afghan capital, and three military bases in Bagram, Kandahar and Nangarhar. "I wanted to hear directly from the generals in the field," said Curbelo, a freshman. "When generals go and speak on the Hill and testify, they tend to feel scripted. When you go out to the field and meet with them in their offices, on their bases, you really get a better feeling of what the the challenges are, where we're failing, where we're succeeding." @ByKristenMClark A controversial proposal -- backed by the National Rifle Association and gun-rights advocates -- that would allow more than 1.4 million people in Florida to openly carry guns goes before its third and final House committee this morning. Expect lively debate by the House Judiciary Committee over the proposal from Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach. At least two divergent amendments have been proposed; others might have been filed since last night, but are not publicly available yet. Gaetz is offering a compromise to his bill, in line with what the Florida Police Chiefs Association has requested. His amendment would allow openly carried guns to be loaded or unloaded, but they'd have to be holstered. Also, the language removes restrictions on judges and law enforcement that his original bill included, which would have limited how police investigated people openly carrying and how judges decided cases. Gone is the "strict scrutiny" mandate on judges and inserted is a clarification that the proposed law "is not intended to restrict a law enforcement officers ability or authority to conduct investigations." However, police officers would remain vulnerable to lawsuits if someone accuses the officer of violating their right to bear arms, a penalty that Gaetz's bill still includes. Meanwhile, Rep. Dave Kerner, D-Lake Worth, has filed an amendment that would gut the bill and replace it with provisions sought by the Florida Sheriffs Association. General open carry wouldn't be allowed. The changes aim to target only what the NRA has said is its primary concern: the prosecution of people who accidentally display concealed weapons. But NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer said this morning that solution is off the table. She said lawmakers aimed to resolve that issue in 2011 but it didn't work. She said NRA attorneys believe the only fix is to allow open carry in general. She added: "We're ready to fight." The proposed law would still only apply to people who have concealed weapons permits in Florida. The committee hearing starts at 9. Stay tuned to see what happens. @MichaelAuslen With the pot of money to reimburse hospitals for unpaid charity care shrinking this year, Senate leaders are proposing to heavily weight Low Income Pool spending in favor of the states safety net hospitals. Sen. Rene Garcia, R-Hialeah, said Thursday that the hospitals that see the most charity care patients would be fully reimbursed for treating them with the numbers dropping steadily after that point. What were trying to do is push out the money to those that are providing the most charity care and help those hospitals that really are the safety nets in our communities, Garcia said. Those are the hospitals we rely the most on and we need to make sure they get reimbursed adequately. Under his plan, the second tier would receive reimbursement of 67 percent of their charity care, the third tier 7.5 percent and the bottom tier 1 percent. Federal regulators shrunk the Low Income Pool to $608 million this year. That, plus $400 million in state funds the House and Senate agreed to last year make up much of the pot of money state lawmakers can use to reimburse hospitals as they write the budget. Garcia wants to set aside an additional $7.3 million for specialty childrens hospitals, including $4.6 million for All Childrens Hospital in St. Petersburg and $1.9 million for Nicklaus Childrens Hospital in Miami. Under new federal rules, Florida has to end a longstanding practice of guaranteeing hospital taxing districts investments in the Low Income Pool, which is funded largely by those local taxes and federal money. But Garcia said most of those hospitals will still see a return on their communities investment. The way we do that is to make sure that those that contribute the most and those that provide the most services in charity care are the ones that are going to get reimbursed 100 percent, he said. A breakdown of how much money each hospital would receive under Garcias proposal has not yet been released, and House Health Care Appropriations Chairman Matt Hudson, R-Naples, announces his proposal Thursday afternoon. Garcias proposed health and human services budget also puts $4.4 million into additional forensic beds at the states mental institution, including adding 43 full-time positions after reporting last year by the Tampa Bay Times and Sarasota Herald-Tribune highlighted violence and neglect at the hospitals as a result of understaffing and underfunding. It provides $9.5 million for community health clinics, vetoed by Gov. Rick Scott last year, although it maintains the governors recommended personnel cuts at county health departments. The state budget is far from finished. Negotiations between the House and Senate have not yet begun, and Scott holds the power of the veto pen. @PatriciaMazzei Andrew Korge let it be known two weeks ago that he intended to run for Congress as a Democrat in the Florida district now represented by Republican Carlos Curbelo. But he has yet to file paperwork for his candidacy, and now he's taking a second look at running for Florida state Senate, his spokeswoman said Thursday. "He has been approached by leaders in the community about running for District 39," Helena Poleo told the Miami Herald. "He hasn't made a decision yet." Korge, a political novice and the son of Chris Korge, a prominent Hillary Clinton financial backer, had originally considered a Senate run. After new districts were redrawn and Miami Democratic Sen. Gwen Margolis said she'd seek reelection, however, Andrew Korge set his sights on Congress instead. What's changed in the past two weeks? Two things: Former U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia sounded more serious about campaigning for his old seat again, taking on Democrat Annette Taddeo. And word leaked from Tallahassee that a deal might be in the works between Sens. Dwight Bullard, D-Cutler Bay, and Sen. Anitere Flores, R-Miami, to avoid running against each other. Such an agreement could tacitly signal to other Democrats not to run against Flores. Korge and other Democrats privately panned the notion of a deal, saying it wouldn't make sense for the party not to compete in new District 39, which leans Democratic. So does District 40, where Bullard and Flores live now. Both are heavily Hispanic. Neither Bullard nor Korge are. @NewsbySmiley Miami Commissioners did their best Brewster's Millions impression Thursday, rushing to spend more than $1 million in anti-poverty money before blowing a federal deadline and losing it all, plus more in the future. Only, with just two days to spend the Community Development Block Grant funds, and no wiggle room, they begrudgingly agreed to buy a fire truck. "It's just unsettling to those people who are suffering in these communities that we can't find a way to spend those dollars in a better way," said Commission Chairman Keon Hardemon. Miami administrators said most the money at issue Thursday came to the city in November after the owner of an Overtown apartment complex sold the property and repaid an $800,000 loan received in 1996 for renovations. The sudden influx of funds put Miami's stash of CDBG dollars above an end-year limit that, if violated, would have caused federal authorities to revoke the money and then penalize the city again next year, they said. The deadline is Friday, giving the city two days to spend the money. Hardemon tried to push the city to instead invest the $800,000 on playground equipment in Miami's poorest neighborhoods, but was told a 30-day advertising requirement would make that impossible. George Mensah, the city's head of community and economic development, told commissioners he's proposing changes to avoid the situation in the future, but said the city was left with little time to find places to spend the money from the apartment complex due to the fact that it was sold in late November and the city commission met only once in December. But he said the money will still be spent on efforts within the poor neighborhoods it's intended to serve. "The equipment we buy is supposed to be used in those communities," he said. "It's city of Miami equipment. However, it can't be used in Brickell." @ByKristenMClark With Florida leading the nation in new HIV infections, Democratic lawmakers say now more than ever the Legislature should do away with what's commonly referred to as "abstinence-only" sex education in the state's 4,300 public schools. Sen. Dwight Bullard, D-Cutler Bay, and Rep. Reggie Fullwood, D-Jacksonville, are the leading sponsors of what they've dubbed the "Florida Healthy Adolescence Act" (SB 1056/HB 859). The bill makes comprehensive sex education an option for districts -- which "doesn't force anything on school districts, on schools, on parents," Fullwood said. Those districts that do choose to offer it would have to provide medically accurate, factual and age-appropriate information to students. Information covered by the umbrella of "human sexuality" education would include: family planning, pregnancy and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV and AIDS. Bullard, a teacher for the past 16 years, said "students are going to do what students do," and adults need to give them the tools to make smart decisions, rather than promoting what he described as an outdated and naive policy. "Let's just be honest with ourselves," he said. "We can no longer assume by saying the word 'abstinence' that people will automatically abstain. It doesn't happen in real life; it doesn't happen with adults. Why would we even assume it happens with teenagers?" "A teen that understands the ramifications and the totality of what they're doing is going to be a better prepared adult," he said. Both Bullard's and Fullwood's bills have been referred to the Senate and House education policy committees. But neither are expected to get a hearing in the Republican-led Legislature this session. During their press conference Wednesday at the Capitol, Bullard and Fullwood referenced increasing HIV cases in Florida -- data which was detailed in a Herald/Times analysis this week. 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Something of which to be proud! One of the things I noticed on my trip to Israel was that the people did not waste their money! The government fomented thriftiness and so did the general population. 90 percent of the homes I observed had water heaters and solar panels on their roofs. I often saw people's clothing drying on the porches. In Tel Aviv on the coast where most of these pictures were taken I also observed wide tree-lined promenades where the residents could walk or cycle safely to their destinations. Water is also a most precious commodity and the drip irrigation system was also visible were there were plants and bushes. It made you feel good that people and the government were responsible about making good use of their resources. I loved it! I don't think there is a country in this world where time almost stops. You look at a place and you can travel to the past and you can travel to the future. Of course there are stories of time travel taht you can make up about almost any place, but when these stories take place in a holy book such as the Bible. Well, that is different. To go to Caesarea and know that the apostle Paul left to a distant shore from there, or to see the foot prints of the Romans! It sort of takes your breath away.Not only are there stories reference that already have taken place but there are pending stories yet to unfold. Take the Megiddo Valley referenced in the book of Revelation where a great battle involving several world power that everyday we read how the players mentioned there are setting themselves into place. You gasp because you know that everything that is in the Bible that was predicted to happen in the past, took place, and have been studied and verified. The unfulfilled prophecies will most surely take place as well.So on our way up the coast from Tel Aviv we approached Ceasarea and this is pretty much what we saw with a little side trip to Megiddo and its awesome plains. *** *** As below. The article is the new headline article at "Thinking Taiwan" and is written by one Jonathan Schwartz who is a professor of "political science" at New Paltz in New York. I didn't bother quoting the author this time, as there was no real need to.OK look: I actually live more or less in the epicenter of last year's outbreak, right here in Tainan city's north district. I was here the whole time, and I saw what was done and what wasn't done (and what still hasn't been done). So it's at least possible that I may know a thing or two that a "political scientist" half the world away in New Paltz hasn't got a scooby about.First off the bat (and this should be obvious): it's not enough to point to global trends as an explanation for last year's outbreak. Those trends would explain a nationwide, or scattered rise in dengue, but they cannot be invoked to explain why the outbreak clustered so intensely in a single city (Tainan) and in several areas of the city in particular.Second, the Li Chang system has its' limitations and should in many respects be regarded as a largely redundant cultural curiosity (e.g. if the city government website was half-decent, which it is not, why would we need to rely on our Li Chang for information from the city government?).Third, some real-life observations...(a) Last summer when the outbreak began, the park behind my house would fill up with rain. Probably because the soil is shallow, the park would accumulate large areas of standing water which should have been drained as soon as possible. In actual fact, it took the city government two or three weeks to send a couple of blokes out with a diesel generator and a hose pipe to get it done. That wasted time may have meant wasted lives.(b) For years now there has been a persistent problem of fly-tipping in the local parks. I am not talking about mattresses and furniture and the like. I am talking about food and other household waste. What happens is a number of local people miss the garbage truck (perhaps because they don't work 9-5 hours), and instead of asking a friend, or neighbour, or a Lin Chang for help (or bagging the garbage and keeping it the garage until the next time the truck comes - like I do), they just dump it in the local park. Because the park is cleaned by a single warden with a few formal volunteers (and myself - out of necessity), this garbage is dumped at night and is not picked up and removed until late the next morning, often just before noon. "Wet" garbage like this is an obvious breeding ground for mosquitoes and also happens to attract rats and the possible diseases they bring with them. This is a persistent problem for years in both public parks I use here in North District and I have complained endlessly about it and nothing is ever done. And not for the want of suggestions, either. The mayor of Tainan is either unaware of the problem, doesn't regard it as important, finds it politically inconvenient to allocate proper funding to solve the problem, or is too busy acting the champagne socialist up in Taipei.(c) Although a great effort was made to spray private homes with mild insecticide, this was a somewhat unpopular and often farcical policy that inconvenienced thousands of us, myself included (i.e. I had to take an afternoon off work to look after my dogs while the house was sprayed). From the beginning of the outbreak I began to spend a small fortune on insect repellents and a new washing machine and going through the house cleaning up to make sure it was as mosquito proof as could be. I still had my house sprayed, and lost half a day's worth of earnings which was of course not reimbursed. Other people were forced out of their homes, which they had carefully cleaned and proofed, only to be bitten by mosquitoes whilst waiting around on the streets outside while their homes were being sprayed.To sum up, we need to find a convincing set of explanations as to why the outbreak clustered so intensely in Tainan city and if that requires taking a critical look at the policies of our celebrated mayor, then so be it. Waffling on about global warming and how the Li Chang "straddle the line between society and the state" is just the sort of thing one would expect from academics on the public purse. At the 7-11 outside Shuili train station; I stopped to get a hot drink and check my gear. The mask was absolutely necessary, but not sufficient; I really needed my orange-tinted cycling glasses as well to protect my eyes from the biting cold air. My new gloves, darkened by rainwater. Although there was no water seeping through, the low temperature exacerbated by the airflow over my hands whilst driving meant that my fingers were still freezing cold. Had I not had those gloves, I might not even have got as far as Shuili. Overlooking Minghu reservoir, downhill to the west of Sun Moon Lake. Trails of advection fog were rising from the surface of the water as cold air from the mountains fell upon the reservoir. It was an amazing sight; it was like the visual equivalent of David Gilmour's opening guitar parts to "Sorrow". Along with the numbing sensation in my hands, the dense, low-lying clouds already monstering the mountainsides convinced me that continuing further and further uphill to the Wuchieh area would give me a world of problems I could do without. The downstream face of the gravity dam at Minghu reservoir, with the approach road overlooking the massive spillway. On the east side of the spillway lies the powerhouse fed by gigantic water pipes draped over the mountainside. During the day, water from Sun Moon Lake passes downhill through the pipes and into the turbines to generate electrical power, whilst during the night, when the price of electricity falls, the turbines spin the other way to pump the water back uphill through the pipes and into Sun Moon Lake. Note also the switchyard to the right of the powerhouse. Inside the reception room, there was a large diagram illuminated by a light-box showing a simplified map of the Zhuoshui river, the various hydroelectric plants and associated works. There were three things of particular interest to me. First, the positioning and layout of the 2006 replacement tunnel to divert water to Sun Moon Lake. It does not proceed from Wuchieh reservoir, but directly from the southern tributary which I had taken pains to visit a month ago. Instead there is a new pipe delivering some water away from Wuchieh. This makes much more sense. Second, the pipelines feeding the hydroelectric power plant at Shuili do not come from the Lake, but from Minghu reservoir. Third, there appears to be an additional powerhouse at the back of Minghu reservoir which I don't recall seeing - and I have driven past that area numerous times. So all of that gives me more work to do on my next trip, which will be interesting. Throughout the reception room there were a large number of black and white (and some colour) photographs displayed to illustrate the construction history of the various hydroelectric plants and associated engineering works. I photographed every single one on my phone camera, but there were far too many to show on my blog. These first few show the early stages of construction at Wuchieh (note the alternative spelling: Wujie) in the 1920s. This one shows the larger of the two dams at Wuchieh; the rocky outcrop on which those wooden huts are built is the same place I was standing on just a few weeks ago when I was last there. "Arduous" is no exaggeration; that dam is located in a very tight, steep cleft between two hillsides that is difficult to reach. There would have been a lot of difficult climbing involved at the outset just to set up the winch system and prepare the area for moving materials back and forth. The downstream face of the dam once finally complete. A brilliant photograph, taken either from an aerial position or from an elevated position along the opposing mountainside; it shows the upstream faces of the two dams at Wuchieh and the new reservoir behind them on the Zhuoshui river. A colour photograph showing the then newly completed Minghu gravity dam in either 1984 or 1985. I always like to see the greyish-white of freshly constructed concrete. Today it is stained black by weather-wear. With my motorbike next to an old Northrop F-5 in camouflage, and an old F-104 Starfighter in the background just outside Shuili. This was, without any doubt, the coldest day I've ever experienced in Taiwan; absolutely brass. Last Sunday I went back up to Nantou intending to return to the Wuchieh area on the Zhuoshui river. The top news story throughout all the newspapers and TV stations on the preceding Friday had been the extremely low temperatures forecasted for the weekend by the central weather bureau. Anticipating both the rain and the low temperatures, I had washed and dried my outdoor gear, purchased new waterproof boots and new leather gloves, borrowed a snood, bought a mouth-and-nose mask and I had also packed spare shirts, a spare sweater and a spare waterproof jacket in a backpack.However, none of that was sufficient preparation. By the time I reached the little town of Shuili on my motorbike, I was starting to feel the bite - my hands were freezing, despite the protection they were getting from my (expensive) new gloves. My other problem was that, although my mouth and nose were protected from the freezing wind, my eyes were not - the cold air was whipping through the crevices on either side of my helmet visor and into the whites of my eyes, causing them to water.The realization finally dawned on me; this was not ordinary Taiwanese winter weather I was dealing with. This was actually comparable to many a winter day I remember from England. Biting wind, hands red-raw from the cold, multiple layers of clothes under a heavy jacket... yes, this was exactly the same - except I was now on a motorbike, bombing along in the foothills at fifty to sixty miles an hour! There was nothing for it - there was no way I was going to make it all the way up to Wuchieh, which would likely be under snow in any case - and so I stopped at Minghu reservoir with the idea of spending some time in the reception hall I had briefly visited once before.After taking all the photos I possibly could inside the reception room, and after talking to a tourist group guide while her charges were watching the video presentation (which I had been treated to earlier on my own), I decided to head back to Shuili and thereafter to Ershui and the train back to Tainan. When I got back to Shuili, I had to stop at a red light before leaving the 131 for provincial highway 16. It was there that I noticed a Starfighter and an F-5 Tiger on display along a concourse overlooking the river. I like the fact that Taiwan has these old aircraft put on display in unmarked public locations throughout the country - wherever they could find a bit of open space on the cheap, stick an old aircraft there on display, rather than scrap them. I think this is a brilliant alternative to stacking them all together in a single museum somewhere in Taipei. The Montana Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the city of Missoulas eminent domain lawsuit against Mountain Water Co. and The Carlyle Group at 9 a.m. Friday, April 22, in the University of Montana's University Center Ballroom. Missoula Mayor John Engen made the announcement at a City Council meeting Wednesday afternoon. We had a conversation with attorneys this afternoon, and we view it as a positive opportunity for the city of Missoula, Engen said. And I think its a nice thing for the citizens as well to be able to watch the process continue. Its another step forward in this long process. The city filed a condemnation case against Carlyle in April 2014 after years of trying to negotiate a purchase of the system that provides Missoulas drinking water. In June 2015, the city won its lawsuit in Missoula County District Court and was granted the right to purchase Mountain Water from Carlyle. Carlyle and Mountain Water then appealed the District Court ruling to the Supreme Court. Were pretty happy because we have a date certain when the court will hear arguments, Engen said. Second, they are happening in Missoula where people that are interested can watch the proceedings. I think it will certainly be educational for folks, and I think it will be interesting. Engen said the citys legal fees have topped $5.1 million in the case, but he believes Carlyles legal fees are at least double that, although the global equity firm has yet to declare what its cost of litigation has been. Its an expensive proposition, and it will continue to be an expensive proposition, Engen said. But the alternative is far, far, far more expensive. On Friday, the Montana Public Service Commission will hold a work session to discuss the recent sale of Mountain Water to Liberty Utilities, a subsidiary of a Canadian firm, which happened earlier this year without the PSCs approval. City leaders plan to attend that session in Helena. I and others and certainly our legal team intend to be there, Engen said. This month, leaders of the University of Montana Advocacy Coalition presented a series of concerns, including the possibilities of unfair hiring practices and religious favoritism, to Commissioner of Higher Education Clayton Christian. In a letter following up on a meeting with the commissioner, professors Doug Coffin and Mehrdad Kia raised the possibility of a vote of "no confidence" in Provost Perry Brown and President Royce Engstrom. They also called for a system-wide review of recruitment and hiring practices. "Instead of a campus culture that takes pride in competence and diversity, UM has gained a notorious reputation where personal friendships, perceived loyalties, unquestioning obedience, and rumors of religious associations appear to supersede concerns regarding competence, professionalism, and relevant experience," the professors noted. Coffin is a professor of molecular genetics, and Kia is a professor of history. The coalition is a loosely organized group made up of faculty and community members, and the letter reiterated problems the professors raised with the commissioner at the meeting Jan. 20. Since Brown took the post of interim provost at the University of Montana in 2010, the campus has filled several high-profile positions with people who share his Mormon faith or received their education at Utah State University. Brown is the top academic officer at the flagship campus and second-most-powerful official at UM. He is also a leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And he earned a doctorate degree from Utah State University. Mormons make up just 2 percent of the population in the U.S. and 4 percent to 5 percent in Montana. In Utah, 60 percent of the population is Mormon. In the past few years, members of the campus community have privately questioned the apparent "religious bent" to hires at UM. Former faculty member Dean McGovern, who worked at UM from 1999 through 2014, said the similarity in religious affiliations among some top UM leaders arose off and on in casual conversations and social gatherings. "People were noticing there might be a religious bent to some hiring," said McGovern, who is now the director of the Lowell Bennion Community Service Center, also based in Utah at the University of Utah, a state school. In an interview with the Missoulian, Brown said he has hired 50 or 60 people in his career, and he believes he has hired only two individuals who share his faith. He said he believes he has taken recommendations from search committees, and he values a campus that is rich in intellectual diversity. "I've hired people from virtually every religion that I could think of," Brown said. "It's never been an issue." On Jan. 13, the president announced Brown would retire at the end of this fiscal year, in June. Peggy Kuhr, vice president for communications at UM, said she does not believe there is any factual basis in claims of religious bias. To our knowledge, no one, and Ill repeat, no one has raised a complaint about discrimination in hiring, and if someone wants to file a complaint or has a concern, the university has a formal process to review that if theres a violation of any protected class, Kuhr said. She said UM has a process to investigate allegations, and people who have solid information should file a complaint so the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action can independently review it. They should not be adding to the rumor mill, Kuhr said. Kevin McRae, deputy commissioner for communications at the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education, said his organization works with UM in its hires on a daily basis. He said the office has "never been presented with evidence of religious discrimination," and the coalition did not mention the issue in person. "We don't and can't ask people about their religion," McRae said in an email. "It would be inappropriate and illegal. We hire the most qualified applicants at salaries that fit our institutions' ability to pay." An academic scholar and nationally recognized expert on Mormonism said church members place a high value on education, graduate at a higher rate than the average population, and excel professionally. So it isn't uncommon to see people who are Mormon land top posts in a variety of fields, from the legal profession to higher education, said Patrick Mason, chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University in California. "Even though they're only 2 percent of the national population, they are disproportionately represented at this higher end of the professional (spectrum)," Mason said. *** At least three members of the president's Cabinet of 15 are Mormon, with the provost as one. UM's hiring announcements in recent years include people from Utah State and from Brigham Young University, a private Mormon school: 2012: Kent Haslam, Cabinet member, was promoted to be director of athletics. Haslam attended Brigham Young University and has spoken openly about his LDS mission. 2013: Michael Reid, Cabinet member, was hired as the vice president for administration and finance. He received his masters in business administration and bachelors degree in finance from Utah State University, and the Mormon church has extolled him as a church leader on social media. 2013: Martin Blair was hired as the director of UM's Rural Institute on Disability. He came from Utah State University, and he has served as assistant director of LDS public affairs in Missoula. 2014: Nathan Lindsay was hired as associate provost for dynamic learning. Lindsay has an undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University. Nancy Hinman, professor of geosciences at UM, also applied for the job of associate provost. "I did not interview well online and understand that that is probably a significant contributor to not making the finalist list," Hinman said. However, the finalists for the job were Lindsay, who was selected, and another woman candidate, one from outside UM. Hinman said she does not believe she was inappropriately passed over, but she also called on the administration for assurances of fairness in hiring. "I would like to be certain that the best candidate was hired, the most qualified candidate was hired," Hinman said. "I think it's important that the community and the campus trust the administration is making decisions about hiring that are entirely appropriate." In an interview, Provost Brown said both candidates had different strengths, and he would have liked to have hired both. However, he said he heard much praise for Lindsay from others on campus, and he did not observe the same enthusiasm for the other finalist. *** The coalition is raising concerns at a time UM is in the midst of a budget crisis from a continued enrollment decline and turmoil on campus. Professor Coffin said the group is hearing complaints about hiring practices, including ones of religious favoritism. He said it isnt appropriate for concerned parties to start inquiring about employees religions, but the matter supports a wide review of business and hiring practices at UM in general. "Specifically, that means enacting best and proper business practices when hiring administrative personnel at a public university and naming the most qualified people to the Montana Board of Regents," Coffin noted in an email. This month, the coalition raised concerns to the commissioner about the effects of management decisions on academics; budget and financing issues; and staffing and hiring procedures. "In the past four years, questionable hiring practices at the UM and the MUS have eroded the confidence of university employees in the credibility of the current administration, and forced members of the UM faculty to consider the possibility of a vote of 'no confidence' in the president and the provost," according to the letter. The professors noted that the campus community "feels that greater inclusion of women and members of ethnic minority groups in the present administration are essential to build a university for the global century." It specifically called on the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education and Board of Regents to ensure the process to replace Provost Brown and vice president of student affairs Teresa Branch meet "the high standards expected of a public university." Branch is a black woman and member of the president's Cabinet, and she retires in June. McRae, with the Commissioner of Higher Education, said a system to review hires is already in place at UM. He said the commissioner listened to the group's concerns, but the office stands by its "solid hiring practices." "Effective and sound hiring is what we do," McRae noted in an email. "We know our hiring practices are working as assuredly as our grading practices and advising practices and our research practices. Everything we do is subject to continual review. "The request from the group won't change that. We make sure our practices are sound in all functions of our business." *** Mason, of Claremont Graduate University, said Mormons seek high levels of education, many times at Ivy League schools, and their strong performance translates into a notable presence in top professional positions. The church represents a subculture with a "strong sense of tribalism," and as such, church members may subconsciously feel more comfortable with others who share their faith. "It is true that oftentimes, Mormons hire other Mormons because they trust them. They know them. They get them," Mason said. Jeffrey Breinholt, a lawyer who has compiled court cases linked to the Mormon church since the 1970s, said Mormons are mindful of the way they stand out in the world. One way of handling the dissonance is to help each other succeed, he said. Breinholt has access to cases as a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice, and he tracks them out of interest he developed in the Mormon culture as a former prosecutor in Utah. He said the partiality extends to people of other conservative religions: "What strikes me is the people who do this kind of stuff, if they don't have any applicants who are Mormon, they'll settle for the next best thing." The coalition has called for a review of hiring practices at UM, but the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education stands by its practices. Breinholt, though, said an institution that appears to have allowed bias in hiring dampens the interest of qualified candidates who believe they will be excluded because they are not part of the club. "That's really the pernicious part of this whole thing. When you're labeled as a fiefdom, you chill people who would otherwise apply," Breinholt said. *** Brown is an influential official on campus, but he dismisses any notion that he has used his positions of authority in the church and at the university to push for the employment of fellow church people at UM. He said he has sought in his hirings to support diversity, especially when it comes to intellectual backgrounds. Before becoming provost, Brown was the dean of the College of Forestry and Conservation. When he started, the college had just two women in top posts, he said; when he left, it had seven or eight. "Because the student population is changing, we needed role models," Brown said. "So if you have a really talented woman that is on your list, and you think this would be good for the total college ... that's going to help those students realize the dreams that they have." Bringing together people who hold different world views and have different backgrounds creates a rich environment for discourse, intellectual activity and debate, he said: "And that's what a university is about." "You can't do that if you're all looking the same or all believing the same things," Brown said. CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story contained an error. Utah State University is a public institution. The Clark Fork River has more specialists poking and prodding it like an Olympic athlete as it transitions from a river ruined to a river rebuilt. About 60 experts from state, federal and private agencies gathered Wednesday to compare notes on the upper rivers progress. Their focus ranged from microscopic algae to lunker brown trout and bald eagles. This is the first annual Upper Clark Fork monitoring meeting, said Brian Bartkowiak of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, who convened the meeting in Helena. We finally have enough data to have a meeting to talk about it. And we want to know: What are we seeing in terms of cleanup? Are we trending in the right directions? Is there more information to gather? Can we do things better? The Upper Clark Fork River Basin suffered from more than a century of accumulated toxic waste from the Butte and Anaconda mining operations. Much of it got distributed when a massive flood in 1908 flushed mine tailings from Silver Bow Creek into the Clark Fork headwaters near Galen and downstream. Millions of tons of heavy-metal sediments piled up behind a dam at Milltown, just east of Missoula. But lots more deposited in slickens along the upper reaches, especially between Warm Springs and Deer Lodge. A court settlement between the state of Montana and Atlantic Richfield Co., the legacy mine owner, provided a multimillion-dollar fund to clean up the river basin. About $120 million went to excavating the toxic sediments trapped behind Milltown Dam and restoring its reservoir to a floodplain. Silver Bow Creek got 16 years of work, costing about $125 million. Another $96 million is set aside for rehabilitating 47 miles of the Upper Clark Fork. That project is expected to last another 10 to 15 years. Major work on Milltown ended in 2012, although small crews have been toiling on its streamside vegetation ever since. The first stages of Upper Clark Fork work started in 2013. Determining the health of a river takes a variety of tools and possibly the invention of some new ones. For example, macroinvertebrate expert Wease Bollman of Rhithron Associates said the existing rating system for insect health may be missing crucial information. Mayfly, caddis fly and stonefly populations have changed dramatically between 2010 and 2015, but the system isnt built to reflect that well. Plus, it converts specific measurements, like how much toxic material insects are absorbing, into a report-card grade. Thats like going to a doctor and being told youre at a 7, Bollman said. Should I write my will or book that round-the-world trip for next year? Every index over time has an opportunity for re-calibration. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks biologist Nathan Cook reported another challenge he has found in studying Clark Fork fisheries. For several years, his workers placed special cages stocked with hatchery trout in the river to measure the water quality. But they noticed after a while that dead fish had higher concentrations of heavy metals in their body tissue than live ones that had been in the same water for longer times. They eventually concluded that the fish tissue absorbed copper 10 to 32 times faster after death than living tissue did, which made several years of information from the cages suspect. Cook said hes still not sure what makes that happen. But thats enough to really bias your study, Cook said. We had to throw out all our dead-fish tissue burden data. Meanwhile, Mother Nature keeps complicating the picture. 2014 was a high-water year, while 2015 was one of the lowest on record. A new fungus infection appears to be hurting some trout populations in parts of the river. Ongoing riverbank restoration work changes the amount of shade along the waters edge, which in turn changes stream temperature readings. On the other hand, the removal of slickens and other mine waste deposits has had a noticeable improvement in water quality. Bird species are returning to the area. What were mainly doing now is setting baseline measurements and looking for positive trends as the cleanup moves downstream, Bartkowiak said. Its a great place to visit, and its only going to get better. Our President Barack Obama has produced much more sweeping changes than most of his supporters or detractors realize. Gays can now marry and openly serve in the military. The health industry has been dramatically reformed and modernized. Carbon emissions are dropping, solar and wind energy are booming, and Obama helped forge an international agreement on climate change. Sixty-seven percent of Americans support President Obamas executive actions to expand background checks on gun sales, and his policies have kept us safe; as safe as can reasonably be expected in a world close to chaos. Cuba and Iran show that more talk can cut the use of war. Yes, he will leave a good legacy for a fine president and a good man. James O. Southworth, Billings HAMILTON A Missoula man who allegedly grabbed the steering wheel of the vehicle he was a passenger in and nearly caused a crash was charged this week with felony criminal endangerment. Marty Wayne Rollins, 27, appeared before Ravalli County Justice of the Peace Jennifer Ray on the felony count and misdemeanor charges of unlawful possession of an open alcoholic beverage container and disorderly conduct. A Montana Highway Patrol trooper witnessed the near-crash about 6 p.m. Monday on U.S. Highway 93, according to an affidavit filed in the case. Trooper Shawn Silvan was traveling south when he noticed the vehicle that Rollins was a passenger in traveling in the opposite direction. The vehicle suddenly veered across both lanes of traffic, causing the vehicle next to Silvans to immediately brake to avoid a collision. The vehicle Rollins was in then lost control in the northbound lane, completed a full rotation in the roadway and crossed both lanes of traffic in front of Silvan. The vehicle came to rest in the ditch. When Silvan made contact with the occupants in the vehicle, the two men Joshua Boye and Rollins were yelling at each other. The trooper asked Rollins to calm down. Rollins replied by swearing at him and continued yelling at the vehicles driver, Boye. Rollins refused to sit down when ordered to and told the trooper that he wasnt going to listen to him. At that point, according to the affidavit, Rollins unzipped his pants and urinated on the side of the vehicle in front of everyone, including passing traffic. When Rollins finished, he sat down and the two men began arguing again. When the trooper was finally able to talk with the driver, Boye said he had been talking with Rollins wife on the telephone and that evidently made Rollins mad. Boye said Rollins reached over and grabbed the steering wheel, causing him to lose control of the vehicle. The affidavit said Rollins eventually confirmed that was what had happened. Ray set bail at $5,000. BILLINGS Last weeks euthanizing of a female deer has stirred up controversy in the Forsyth area and lit up social media across the state, but its also provided a public education reminder. The brouhaha revolves around a Rosebud County incident. On Jan. 19 Fish, Wildlife and Parks wardens tranquilized the doe and removed it from property where the homeowners had taken care of the deer since it was orphaned about six years ago after its mother was struck and killed by a vehicle. The deer captured by FWP was later euthanized in Miles City by a veterinarian. The couple who had adopted the deer, Daryl and Brenda Duncan, are now facing two charges each in district court: obstructing a peace officer and unlawful possession of a game animal, both misdemeanors. The obstruction charge has a standard bond amount of $335 while the possession amount is $535, although the court can go lower. The Duncans are scheduled to appear in court in Forsyth on Tuesday at 10 a.m. on the obstruction charges. A separate date of Feb. 8 at 10 a.m. has been set for the possession charge, although the court could decide to combine the hearings. *** The Duncans could not be reached for comment on the incident and FWP warden Capt. Jack Austin said he would not jeopardize the case by talking about specifics. Nevertheless, plenty of people have called the Billings Gazette, written letters and posted comments on Facebook about the incident, many of them criticizing FWP for its actions and saying the deer was free to roam not captive. There are a lot of people around here who think that the situation could have been handled a lot differently, said David Wyrick, a Forsyth resident. FWP has a long history of attempting to educate Montanans about why helping wildlife even apparently abandoned youngsters is not a good idea. There are concerns about disease transmission or an emboldened animal used to people becoming aggressive. In 2010 near Roundup a warden shot a buck deer after it charged him. The buck had been habituated to humans, evidenced by its sawed off antlers. *** A common occurrence is people finding what appear to be abandoned fawns in the spring. People are trying to do the right thing, we love that they care so much about wildlife, but a lot of time people dont understand that the fawns arent orphaned, said Laurie Wolf of the MT Wild Education Center in Helena. The fawns have no scent, she said, so the mother will leave the baby while it goes elsewhere to feed, thereby keeping a predator from finding the fawn. The does have been known to stay away from their fawns for much of a day. Fawns develop pretty quickly to process grass, within six weeks they can survive on their own, Wolf said. Wolf said she has also seen orphaned fawns adopted by other does. *** The MT Wild Center rehabilitates orphaned or injured predators and raptors for later release into the wild. The facility doesnt take ungulates, like deer, because of concerns about disease. Plus, the animals dont do well in captivity where they are easily stressed, Wolf said. Likewise the Washington-state group PAWS, which operates a wildlife rehab center, advocates against keeping wild animals as pets calling it unsafe, illegal and inhumane. Stories about wild animals who have been kept as pets attacking and injuring people, often fatally, are frequently in the news, the website said. The city of Billings has an ordinance banning the keeping of wildlife. *** Austin, the Miles City warden captain, said that statewide his agency often runs into problems with people unlawfully caring for wildlife, especially deer, but also feeding bears. Of late theres been quite a rash of feeding bears to the point that they become habituated, he said. That includes an incident last October in the Kalispell area where an emboldened black bear, who had been repeatedly fed by humans, killed an elderly woman. FWP tried to trap the bear, killing two others before ending the hunt. Each report of or concern about habituated wildlife or illegal feeding of wildlife is considered on a case-by-case basis, Austin said. Even a bird feeder, if it's causing deer or bears to unnaturally congregate and pose a threat to humans, could be seen as an attractant and the person asked to take it down. Deer coming into haystacks or an alfalfa field is not considered an attractant since its a normal part of agricultural practices, Austin said. He pointed to an FWP news release quoting wildlife veterinarian Jennifer Ramsey as well said. Paraphrasing, Austin said, People have a hard time understanding that we are managing wildlife as a population, not a single pet. And the threats are really high. The department has to draw a firm line on wildlife. I saw this piece somewhere on the internet and it got me laughing. This is totally not true!!!HAHAHA Here are few of the reasons ... France has asked its European Union partners to consider new sanctions on Iran for its recent missile tests, European officials say, even as the French welcomed President Hassan Rouhani of Iran for a visit. Two officials from European Union nations said the French proposal was under European Union review. The officials spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly. The ambiguous signals emerging Wednesday from France came after Mr. Rouhani signed new business deals on an earlier stop in Italy. French and European Union officials did not comment on the matter. The United States imposed new sanctions over the firing of a medium-range Iranian ballistic missile shortly before the reported French request. MANITOWOC, Wis. In the tourism office here, where workers are accustomed to cheery inquiries about Manitowoc Countys best jogging paths and beach views, the questions have suddenly turned dark: How could you possibly promote tourism in such a corrupt town? Why would anyone visit here? Fury by telephone, email and on social media has also flooded the Manitowoc County Sheriffs Department, the Manitowoc City Police Department, Manitowoc City Hall and pretty much anywhere else with the name Manitowoc attached to it. Even the Manitowoc County Historical Societys executive director, Amy Meyer, has taken to answering the phones so that volunteers better prepared for gentler inquiries about the regions history of shipbuilding and its claims to creating the ice cream sundae do not have to hear all that yelling, cussing and swearing. A recent post on the historical societys Facebook page read, Too bad your history includes ruining two innocent peoples lives. The release last month of a Netflix documentary series, Making a Murderer, about a decade-old murder case, has upended this county of about 80,000 along Lake Michigan. AL MUKALLA, Yemen A bomb-packed car driven by a suicide attacker exploded at a checkpoint near the presidential palace in the southern city of Aden on Thursday, and security officials said at least eight people were killed. The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the blast, the latest in a series of assaults that underscored the frail security in a part of the war-ravaged country that was triumphantly reclaimed by the government less than six months ago. President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi was unharmed in the explosion, according to a security official and a witness. Officials said that the bomber appeared to have been targeting a convoy of senior officials who were driving toward the palace. Mr. Hadi was forced out of power last year by Yemens Houthi rebels and exiled from Sana, the capital. After spending months in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Hadi and other cabinet members returned to Yemen in September but stayed in Aden, proclaiming that it had been liberated from the Houthis. MDxHealth Announces Conference Participation for First Half 2016 IRVINE, Calif. and HERSTAL, Belgium, Jan. 28, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MDxHealth SA (Euronext: MDXH.BR), announced today that it will be participating at the following key conferences during the first half of 2016: Bank Degroof Petercam Healthcare CEO Seminar on 03 February, Hotel Bloom Brussels, Belgium LSP Biocapital Europe on 09 March, Sofitel Legend Amsterdam, The Grand, The Netherlands European Association of Urology Annual Congress, 11-15 March, Messe Munich International, Germany KBC Securities Benelux Biotech & Healthcare Conference on 22 March, KBC Securities Brussels, Belgium American Urology Association Meeting, 06-10 May, Convention Center of San Diego, California FlandersBio Knowledge for Growth on 26 May, ICC Ghent, Belgium About MDxHealth MDxHealth is a multinational healthcare company that provides actionable molecular diagnostic information to personalize the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The company's tests are based on proprietary genetic and epigenetic (methylation) molecular technologies and assist physicians with the diagnosis of urological cancer, prognosis of recurrence risk, and prediction of response to a specific therapy. For more information, visit mdxhealth.com and follow us on Twitter at: twitter.com/mdxhealth. For more information: Dr. Jan Groen, CEO MDxHealth US: +1 949 812 6979 BE: +32 4 364 20 70 info@mdxhealth.com Amber Fennell, Chris Welsh, Hendrik Thys (PR & IR) Consilium Strategic Communications UK: +44 20 3709 5701 mdxhealth@consilium-comms.com This press release contains forward-looking statements and estimates with respect to the anticipated future performance of MDxHealth and the market in which it operates. Such statements and estimates are based on assumptions and assessments of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which were deemed reasonable but may not prove to be correct. Actual events are difficult to predict, may depend upon factors that are beyond the company's control, and may turn out to be materially different. MDxHealth expressly disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements in this release to reflect any change in its expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based unless required by law or regulation. This press release does not constitute an offer or invitation for the sale or purchase of securities or assets of MDxHealth in any jurisdiction. No securities of MDxHealth may be offered or sold within the United States without registration under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or in compliance with an exemption therefrom, and in accordance with any applicable U.S. securities laws. NOTE: The MDxHealth logo, MDxHealth, ConfirmMDx, SelectMDx, AssureMDx and PredictMDx are trademarks or registered trademarks of MDxHealth SA. All other trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners. To access the PDF version, click here http://hugin.info/137314/R/1981850/726160.pdf HUG#1981850 Aerojet Rocketdyne Commemorates 30th Anniversary of Shuttle Tragedy With Major Donation to Sacramento Challenger Learning Center SACRAMENTO, Calif., Jan. 28, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aerojet Rocketdyne, a subsidiary of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AJRD), has led local efforts to fund and design the Sacramento Challenger Learning Center, and has generously supported the Center since its construction in 1997. (l to r) Tyler Evans, Aerojet Rocketdyne vice president, presents a ceremonial $100,000 check (as an installment toward a $1.5 million commitment) to Michele Wong, Powerhouse Science Center board president and Harry Laswell, Powerhouse Science Center executive director & CEO, at the Sacramento Challenger Learning Center, in support of the regions upcoming state-of-the-art facility set to break ground this year. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/faeb7870-c06f-41a9-a2ae-5c8aa9b36691 The Challenger Learning Center, a living legacy to the astronauts of the Space Shuttle Challenger, continues to inspire the future 30 years after the accident. The leading science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education organization, founded by the Challenger families, has educated over 4.4 million students at more than 40 Challenger Learning Centers around the globe. The Challenger Center is inspiring todays students to see their full potential and follow a path that leads to a career in the STEM industry, said Dr. Lance Bush, president and CEO, Challenger Center. Never before has this mission been so critical. Just as the Challenger crew demonstrated a true commitment to being innovators, we work to inspire that desire and passion for innovation in our Challenger Center students. The crew members of the NASA Space Shuttle mission STS-51-L included: Teacher-in-Space Payload Specialist Sharon Christa McAuliffe; Commander Francis R. Dick Scobee; Pilot Michael J. Smith; Mission Specialists Judith A. Resnik, Ellison S. Onizuka and Ronald E. McNair; and Payload Specialist Gregory B. Jarvis. To commemorate the 30-year anniversary of the shuttle tragedy, this morning Aerojet Rocketdyne representatives ceremoniously presented a $100,000 check to Sacramento Challenger Learning Center Flight Director Bernta Bechler and Powerhouse Science Center Board President Michele Wong at the Powerhouse Science Center Discovery Campus. The check is an annual installment of Aerojet Rocketdynes $1.5 million commitment made several years ago toward the upcoming expansion and relocation of the Powerhouse Science Center and its new Challenger Center www.powerhousesc.org. We are honored to be a long-time partner with the National Challenger Center and learning centers across the nation, especially on this meaningful anniversary, said Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and President Eileen Drake. Working together, we are helping to inspire and educate the next generation of Americas aerospace leaders, those students who may actually be on future missions to the International Space Station, Mars and beyond. Student astronauts from Silva Valley Elementary in El Dorado Hills, California, and other dignitaries were in attendance. Silva Valley has been flying missions from the Sacramento Challenger mission control simulator since 1998. To date, 72 Silva Valley fifth grade classes have participated in the unique hands-on learning experience field trip over the last 18 years. The Sacramento Challenger Learning Center is located on the Powerhouse Science Center Discovery Campus at 3615 Auburn Boulevard, Sacramento, CA 91521. About Challenger Center As a leader in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, Challenger Center and its international network of Challenger Learning Centers use space simulations to engage students in dynamic, hands-on opportunities. These experiences strengthen knowledge in STEM subjects and inspire students to pursue careers in these important fields. Centers reach hundreds of thousands of students and tens of thousands of teachers each year. Founded in 1986, Challenger Center was created to honor the crew of shuttle flight STS-51L. Learn more at www.challenger.org. About the Powerhouse Science Center Discovery Campus Established in 1951, the Discovery Museum Science & Space Center has been an exceptional science education and recreation resource for students, families, and all members of the greater Sacramento community. In our current location, the Discovery Campus serves more than 80,000 visitors, provides on-site programming to more than 50,000 school children, and delivers more than 300 Science on Wheels outreach programs each year. The Discovery Museum will soon significantly expand and transform to become the Powerhouse Science Center. This new campus will be eight times the current centers size and serve as a dynamic regional hub that engages and inspires people of all ages to explore the wonders, possibilities, and responsibilities of science. About Aerojet Rocketdyne Aerojet Rocketdyne is an innovative company delivering solutions that create value for its customers in the aerospace and defense markets. The company is a world-recognized aerospace and defense leader that provides propulsion and energetics to the space, missile defense and strategic systems, tactical systems and armaments areas, in support of domestic and international markets. Additional information about Aerojet Rocketdyne can be obtained by visiting our websites at www.Rocket.com and www.AerojetRocketdyne.com. Contact: Glenn Mahone, Aerojet Rocketdyne, 202-302-9941 Glenn.Mahone@Rocket.com Lynda Walls, Powerhouse Science Center, 916-808-3942 lwalls@powerhousesc.org LocalShares Expands With New Leadership, Divisions Margaret O. Dolan to Serve as President of Knowledge Division; Matthew F. Hayes to Serve as President of Investment Division LocalShares Inc., a community focused investment firm, has attracted veteran leadership to head new divisions of the company: Both divisions focus on advancing the LocalShares mission -- to create meaningful investment opportunities in highly performing economic communities, such as Nashville. LocalShares, which in 2013 established the Nashville Area ETF (NYSE: NASH), America's first city-based exchange traded fund, offers investment in community through funds, conferences, corporate and social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, and civic engagement. Dolan, who also formerly served as the vice president of community relations for Ingram Industries Inc., brings a wealth of experience building and working in partnerships with organizations to capitalize on the interdependence of business and community improvement strategy. Dolan currently serves on the boards of Fifth Third Bank Tennessee, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, the Nashville Business Coalition, the Tennessee Business Roundtable, and is a previous chair and current director for both the Nashville Public Education Foundation and the United Way of Metropolitan Nashville. Dolan, a Certified Public Accountant, is a graduate of the University of Tennessee and received her Master of Business Administration from Vanderbilt's Owen Graduate School of Management, where she received the Dean Martin S. Geisel Leadership Award. Dolan was recognized with the Nelson C. Andrews Distinguished Service Award and in 2015, she was inducted into the prestigious Academy for Women of Achievement by the YWCA of Middle Tennessee. Hayes, who is based in Chicago, Illinois, is a foreign exchange expert who has assessed, evaluated and traded in global markets for more than 30 years. Previously, Hayes, an early investor in LocalShares, also served as Portfolio Manager for Citadel Investment Group in Chicago and was Managing Director and Global Head of Leverage Trading and Head of North American Foreign Exchange Trading for ABN AMRO, a global Dutch bank headquartered in Amsterdam. A graduate of Georgetown University, Hayes is involved in numerous community initiatives, including Misericordia Home and New Trier High School. "Margaret and Matt are proven leaders who understand the importance of aligning business with community through knowledge and investment that elevate the whole," said Beth S. Courtney, a founder and director of LocalShares. "We are proud that Margaret and Matt have joined LocalShares and will help position the company to expand our offerings in middle Tennessee and within other vibrant economies." LocalShares Investment Division is a catalyst for growth and development of funds and other investment products. The division expands distribution channels and identifies future markets where LocalShares funds can be advanced. "The Nashville Area ETF was an industry breakthrough when it launched in 2013, and has demonstrated that a city-based ETF is an intelligent and affordable way to invest in a local economy," said Hayes. "The upcoming 3-year anniversary of the fund is an important milestone in the financial industry, enabling LocalShares to broaden our distribution and fund network. I look forward to working with our team to grow our model." LocalShares Knowledge Division fosters strategic investments in local economies through comprehensive and dynamic educational and engagement opportunities. This includes distinctive investment conferences, technical enrichment presentations, and efforts to coalesce civic and philanthropic engagement to optimize financial and community returns. "Cities like Nashville outpace others because of a deliberate focus around community investments that are value based and structured to produce real outcomes," said Dolan. "At LocalShares, we will heighten community investment by offering and leveraging opportunities that produce results for both the investor and local economies as a whole." LocalShares, Inc. was founded in 2010 by Courtney, President of DVL Seigenthaler, a Finn Partners Company; William S. Decker, CEO of Decker Wealth Management, LLC and Michael D. Shmerling, chairman of XMi Holdings. An active secondary market for the Fund's shares may not exist. Although the Fund's shares will be listed on an exchange, subject to notice of issuance, it is possible that an active trading market may not develop or be maintained. All ETF products are subject to risk, which may result in the loss of principal. Investment in smaller companies typically exhibit higher volatility. The Fund will invest substantially all of its assets in the securities of companies that have their headquarters or principal place of business located in the Nashville, Tennessee region. The Fund may be impacted by events or conditions affecting the region to a greater extent than a fund that did not focus its investments in that manner. The fund is expected to invest a relatively large percentage of its assets in the healthcare sector and negative performance of the sector will negatively impact the fund. Diversification may not protect against investment loss. Carefully consider the Nashville Area ETF's investment objective, risk factors, and charges and expenses before investing. This and other important information can be found in the Nashville Area ETF's Prospectus, which may be obtained by calling 1-855-480-NASH (6274). Read it carefully before investing. ETF shares are not redeemable with the issuing fund other than in large Creation Unit aggregations. Instead, investors must buy or sell ETF Shares in the secondary market with the assistance of a stockbroker. In doing so, the investor may incur brokerage commissions and may pay more than net asset value when buying and receive less than net asset value when selling. SEI Investments Distribution Co. is the distributor for the Nashville Area ETF. SEI Investments Distribution Co., 1 Freedom Valley Drive, Oaks, PA, 19456. Not FDIC Insured, No Bank Guarantee, May Lose Value NOVAGOLD Culminates Successful 2015 with Filing of Donlin Gold Draft EIS - U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the "Corps") published the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), signifying achievement of a major milestone toward permitting Donlin Gold NOVAGOLD RESOURCES INC. (TSX:NG)(NYSE MKT:NG) today released its year-end financial results and project update for its flagship 50%-owned Donlin Gold project in Alaska and its 50%-owned Galore Creek project in British Columbia. Details of the Company's financial results for the year ended November 30, 2015 are presented in the consolidated financial statements and in the annual report filed on Form 10-K with the SEC that will be available on the Company's website at www.novagold.com, on SEDAR at www.sedar.com, and on EDGAR at www.sec.gov. All amounts are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated and all resource and reserve estimates are shown on a 100% project basis. In 2015, NOVAGOLD achieved the following: President's Message This was a year marked by a number of achievements that required tremendous efforts by all parties involved in the permitting of our flagship asset, the Donlin Gold project. As time passes, this unique and industry-leading development asset has only become more valuable, representing an incredible opportunity for all of NOVAGOLD's stakeholders. Our most important achievement in 2015 was the publication of the Donlin Gold draft EIS, a major milestone in the permitting process for the project. NOVAGOLD and its joint-venture partner Barrick Gold are particularly gratified with the professionalism of all the parties involved in the process and the level of constructive engagement of the Native Corporations, local communities, various levels of government and non-governmental organizations. We are all working together to achieve an important common goal of permitting this world-class project. Permitting a major project such as Donlin Gold, within the framework of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), requires collaboration and team spirit from all parties who participate in the process. Now, three years into permitting, with significant and early input by cooperating agencies as well as the public, many issues have been identified and thoroughly considered in the EIS process. The five-month public comment period, which commenced in December, will include public meetings in 15 villages in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region and Anchorage. The Corps will host the public meetings and present an overview of the draft EIS, which considers the potential environmental, social, and economic impacts of the proposed project along with seven alternatives: no action; proposed applicant action; upriver port at Birch Tree crossing; pipeline route alternatives; haul trucks fueled by liquefied natural gas (LNG) versus diesel; diesel pipeline versus natural gas pipeline; and dry stacked tailings. The Corps will accept comments on the draft EIS until the close of the comment period at the end of April and will subsequently review and respond to all the comments in a final EIS, which the Corps' schedule anticipates should be published in 2017. Concurrent with the NEPA analysis, Donlin Gold has been submitting major permit applications to relevant agencies to obtain the more than 100 individual permits required for the project. Beyond permitting activities at Donlin Gold, NOVAGOLD and Barrick remain aligned and committed to also evaluating alternatives to reduce initial owner capital through third-party owner-operator agreements and optimized development scenarios that would increase the project's value and reduce execution risk. With respect to owner-operator agreements, a Request for Expression of Interest (RFEOI) for third-party participation in the natural gas pipeline was issued to potential candidates in 2015. As anticipated, responses came from experienced and responsible bidders. Capital costs matter to both partners who are on record stating that they will not be proceeding with construction without ensuring that the project provides the owners with an attractive rate of return, which, in turn, will largely depend on the price of gold. On that note, our corporate view on the gold price is bullish and predicated rationally on the declining supply and increasing demand for gold. This outlook was further supported by a recent report published by Jeffrey Christian, who is the Managing Partner at CPM Group, where he states that the gold outlook largely depends on two important factors: on the demand side, investor (including central bank) demand and on the supply side, mine production. Based on CPM's assessment of the fundamentals, over the longer-term he sees rising private and central bank demand and a sharp decline in gold production around the world. Such a gold-price environment, coupled with recent dramatic reductions in the cost of energy and other commodities that comprise the individual components of the total capital and operating costs for Donlin Gold, could in our view, give a huge boost to its overall project economics at just about the perfect time. We plan on updating the economic study on Donlin Gold as we get closer to securing permits for Donlin Gold. Relationship-building with our local partners is the foundation for the successful advancement of our projects. The alignment we enjoy on many fronts did not happen by chance. Through our 2015 outreach program in Alaska, approximately 60 project updates to villages in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region, trade organizations as well as State and Federal elected officials were completed. Workforce development is another key element of our outreach initiative; increasing awareness of potential job opportunities for residents and stimulating early career development efforts. NOVAGOLD's collaboration with its Native Corporation and First Nations partners in Alaska and British Columbia, respectively, as well as local communities, has very deep roots. Our tenure in these jurisdictions is sufficiently time-tested, enabling all parties to have common objectives and share the same vision. These stakeholders view Donlin Gold and Galore Creek as promising future profitable businesses capable of providing much needed socio-economic benefits to all parties who share in the success of these projects. At Galore Creek, with our partner Teck, we have advanced project design by gathering additional information to complement earlier work to optimize integrated mining, waste rock and water management conceptual designs. Additionally, we have initiated a generalized tunneling study to assess access and material handling. In 2015 we continued with local outreach efforts in Northern British Columbia, where Galore Creek and NOVAGOLD sponsored local fundraising events and supported the Tahltan literacy camps. Galore Creek also awarded ten bursaries to Tahltan members pursuing post-secondary education in Canada based the following criteria: academic achievement, community involvement, as well as educational and career goals. Over the past four-year period, we have been careful stewards of the Company's financial resources. Our total expenditures of $39 million in 2015 were $6 million lower than planned. Given our current cash and term deposits of $127 million as of November 30, 2015 and anticipated spending of approximately $25 million in 2016, NOVAGOLD is expected to end 2016 with sufficient financial resources to complete permitting of Donlin Gold and conduct necessary activities at Galore Creek. NOVAGOLD and its team see unprecedented opportunity in the years ahead as we continue to advance Donlin Gold. It is a one-of-a-kind asset with all the key attributes you could wish for in a mining project - size, quality, longevity, exceptional exploration potential, great partnerships and the jurisdictional appeal of being located in the United States. With 39 million ounces of gold in the Measured and Indicated resource categories, grading 2.2 grams of gold per tonne (more than twice the grade of a typical project in our sector), and anticipated annual gold production greater than one million ounces per year over a 27-year mine life and multiple exploration targets along the 8-kilometer gold-bearing mineralized trend, Donlin Gold simply has no peer in the gold industry. There is no doubt that the development of a major mine such as Donlin Gold represents a significant permitting, technical, logistical and financial challenge, but I am confident that the hard work, determination, conviction and patience of our experienced team will be rewarded. We feel privileged to have a portfolio of high-quality, company-making assets such as Donlin Gold and Galore Creek. More importantly, we enjoy strong relationships with the Native Corporations, Calista and TKC, in Alaska, and with the Tahltan First Nation in British Columbia. We also appreciate the support of various government and non-government agencies. As always, we thank our shareholders for their faith in the future of this great company and, last but not least, we express our gratitude to a very dedicated Board of Directors for providing us with valuable guidance as NOVAGOLD continues to advance two exceptional projects up the value chain. Financial Results For the year ended November 30, 2015, NOVAGOLD reported a decrease in loss from operations of $6.3 million from $38.0 million in 2014 to $31.7 million in 2015. The decrease resulted from lower general and administrative expense and lower losses from equity investments in the Donlin Gold and Galore Creek projects. General and administrative expense decreased $2.2 million, primarily due to lower professional fees and favorable foreign exchange translation of expenses incurred in Canadian dollars. Our share of losses at the Donlin Gold project decreased by $3.0 million, as 2015 activities continued to focus primarily on permitting. At the Galore Creek project, our share of losses decreased by $1.5 million due to reduced activity and a gain on the sale of surplus equipment. Evaluation expense includes $0.4 million for the Company's share of the Donlin Gold project joint studies with Barrick. Net loss decreased from $40.5 million ($0.13 per share - basic and diluted) in 2014 to $32.0 million ($0.10 per share - basic and diluted) in 2015. The decrease resulted primarily from the $6.3 million reduction in the loss from operations in 2015 compared to 2014. Interest expense decreased by $1.7 million primarily due to the repayment of the remaining $15.8 million of convertible notes in 2015. Liquidity and Capital Resources During 2015, cash and cash equivalents decreased by $28.6 million and term deposits decreased by $10.0 million. The total decrease in cash and term deposits of $38.6 million was primarily related to the $15.8 million repayment of the remaining convertible notes, $11.4 million used in operating activities for administrative costs and interest payments and $11.0 million to fund our share of the Donlin Gold and Galore Creek projects. 2016 Outlook In 2016, we expect to spend approximately $25 million, including $9 million to fund our share of expenditures at the Donlin Gold project, $1 million at the Galore Creek project, $1 million for our share of joint Donlin Gold studies with Barrick, $12 million for general and administrative costs and $2 million for working capital and other corporate purposes. Looking at the year ahead, NOVAGOLD will continue to focus on five key areas: to advance the Donlin Gold project toward a construction/production decision; advance Galore Creek mine planning and project design; maintain a healthy balance sheet; maintain an effective corporate social responsibility program; and evaluate opportunities to monetize the value of Galore Creek. Conference Call & Webcast Details The conference call and webcast to discuss these results will take place January 28, 2016 at 8:00 am PT (11:00 am ET). The webcast and conference call-in details are provided below. The webcast will be archived on NOVAGOLD's website for one year. For a transcript of the call please email info@novagold.com. About NOVAGOLD NOVAGOLD is a well-financed precious metals company engaged in the exploration and development of mineral properties in North America. Its flagship asset is the 50%-owned Donlin Gold project in Alaska, one of the safest jurisdictions in the world. With approximately 39 million ounces of gold in the measured and indicated resource categories (541 million tonnes at an average grade of approximately 2.2 grams per tonne), Donlin Gold is regarded to be one of the largest, highest grade, and most prospective known gold deposits in the world. According to the Second Updated Feasibility Study (as defined below), once in production, Donlin Gold should average approximately 1.5 million ounces of gold per year for the first five full years, followed by decades of more than one million ounces per year on a 100% basis. The Donlin Gold project has substantial exploration potential beyond the designed footprint which currently covers only three kilometers of an approximately eight-kilometer long gold-bearing trend. Current activities at Donlin Gold are focused on permitting, community outreach and workforce development in preparation for the construction and operation of this top tier asset. The Donlin Gold project commenced permitting in 2012, a clearly defined process expected to take approximately five years. NOVAGOLD also owns 50% of the Galore Creek copper-gold-silver project located in northern British Columbia. According to the 2011 Pre-Feasibility Study (as defined below), once in production, Galore Creek is expected to be the largest copper mine in Canada, a tier-one jurisdiction. NOVAGOLD is currently evaluating opportunities to sell all or a portion of its interest in Galore Creek and would apply the proceeds toward the development of Donlin Gold. NOVAGOLD is well positioned to stay the course and take Donlin Gold through permitting. Scientific and Technical Information Scientific and technical information contained herein with respect to Donlin Gold is derived from the "Donlin Creek Gold Project Alaska, USA NI 43-101 Technical Report on Second Updated Feasibility Study" compiled by AMEC with an effective date of November 18, 2011, as amended January 20, 2012 (the "Second Updated Feasibility Study"). Kirk Hanson, P.E., Technical Director, Open Pit Mining, North America, (AMEC, Reno), and Gordon Seibel, R.M. SME, Principal Geologist, (AMEC, Reno) are the Qualified Persons responsible for the preparation of the independent technical report, each of whom are independent "qualified persons" as defined by NI 43-101. Certain scientific and technical information contained herein with respect to Galore Creek is derived from the technical report entitled "Galore Creek Project British Columbia NI 43-101 Technical Report on Pre-Feasibility Study" dated effective July 27, 2011 (the "2011 Pre-Feasibility Study"). The Qualified Persons responsible for the preparation of the independent technical report are Greg Kulla, P. Geo., Principal Geologist (AMEC Americas Limited), and Jay Melnyk, P. Eng. (AMEC Americas Limited), each of whom are independent "qualified persons" as defined by NI 43-101. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release includes certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable securities legislation, including the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including, without limitation, the timing of permitting and potential development of Donlin Gold, statements relating to NOVAGOLD's future operating and financial performance, outlook, and the potential sale of all or part of NOVAGOLD's interest in Galore Creek are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently, but not always, identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "potential", "possible", and similar expressions, or statements that events, conditions, or results "will", "may", "could", or "should" occur or be achieved. These forward-looking statements may include statements regarding the 2016 outlook; perceived merit of properties; anticipated permitting timeframes; exploration results and budgets; mineral reserve and resource estimates; work programs; capital expenditures; timelines; strategic plans; completion of transactions; market prices for precious and base metals; or other statements that are not statements of fact. Forward-looking statements involve various risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from NOVAGOLD's expectations include the uncertainties involving the need to obtain permits and governmental approvals; the need for additional financing to explore and develop properties and availability of financing in the debt and capital markets; uncertainties involved in the interpretation of drilling results and geological tests and the estimation of reserves and resources; the need for continued cooperation with Barrick Gold Corporation and Teck Resources Limited for the continued exploration and development of the Donlin Gold and Galore Creek properties, respectively; the need for cooperation of government agencies and native groups in the development and operation of properties; risks of construction and mining projects such as accidents, equipment breakdowns, bad weather, non-compliance with environmental and permit requirements, unanticipated variation in geological structures, ore grades or recovery rates; unexpected cost increases, which could include significant increases in estimated capital and operating costs; fluctuations in metal prices and currency exchange rates; and other risk and uncertainties disclosed in NOVAGOLD's Annual Report filed on Form 10-K for the year-ended November 30, 2015 with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, Canadian securities regulators, and in other NOVAGOLD reports and documents filed with applicable securities regulatory authorities from time to time. NOVAGOLD's forward-looking statements reflect the beliefs, opinions and projections on the date the statements are made. NOVAGOLD assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law. Cautionary Note to United States Investors This press release has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the securities laws in effect in Canada, which differ from the requirements of U.S. securities laws. Unless otherwise indicated, all resource and reserve estimates included in this press release have been prepared in accordance with Canadian National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") and the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM)-CIM Definition Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves, adopted by the CIM Council, as amended ("CIM Definition Standards"). NI 43-101 is a rule developed by the Canadian Securities Administrators which establishes standards for all public disclosure an issuer makes of scientific and technical information concerning mineral projects. Canadian standards, including NI 43-101, differ significantly from the requirements of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and resource and reserve information contained herein may not be comparable to similar information disclosed by U.S. companies. In particular, and without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the term "resource" does not equate to the term "reserves". Under U.S. standards, mineralization may not be classified as a "reserve" unless the determination has been made that the mineralization could be economically and legally produced or extracted at the time the reserve determination is made. The SEC's disclosure standards normally do not permit the inclusion of information concerning "measured mineral resources", "indicated mineral resources" or "inferred mineral resources" or other descriptions of the amount of mineralization in mineral deposits that do not constitute "reserves" by U.S. standards in documents filed with the SEC. Investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of "measured" or "indicated resources" will ever be converted into "reserves". Investors should also understand that "inferred mineral resources" have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and great uncertainty as to their economic and legal feasibility. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of the "inferred resources" will ever be upgraded to "indicated resource", "measured resource", or "mineral reserve" status. Under Canadian rules, estimated "inferred mineral resources" may not form the basis of feasibility or pre-feasibility studies except in rare cases. Investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of an "inferred mineral resource" exists or is economically or legally mineable. Disclosure of "contained ounces" in a resource is permitted disclosure under Canadian regulations; however, the SEC normally only permits issuers to report mineralization that does not constitute "reserves" by SEC standards as in-place tonnage and grade without reference to unit measures. The requirements of NI 43-101 for identification of "reserves" are also not the same as those of the SEC, and reserves reported by NOVAGOLD in compliance with NI 43-101 may not qualify as "reserves" under SEC standards. Accordingly, information concerning mineral deposits set forth herein may not be comparable with information made public by companies that report in accordance with U.S. standards. Copyright 2022 HT Digital Streams Ltd All Right Reserved DILLON A felon who pleaded guilty to killing a Butte man at a campground near Wise River in 2014 told prosecutors Wednesday he was not lying to the jury and resisting incriminating his alleged partner in crime. During his testimony in Dillon district court, Christopher Lee Stiles, 31, repeatedly said he could not recall previous statements made to investigators after he and Sandra Lee Ann Cantrell, his common-law wife, were apprehended in Missoula for allegedly stabbing and fatally beating Mark Robert Mullen, and then fleeing in his motor home. Cantrell, 51, is facing felony charges of deliberate homicide, assault with a weapon, tampering with or fabricating physical evidence and theft for her part in the grisly crime Aug. 8 at the Bryant Creek Campground adjacent to the Big Hole River in southwest Montana. Stiles, one of the states key witnesses, admitted lying to agents with the state Division of Criminal Investigation during an interview at the Missoula County Detention Center on Aug. 13, 2014, saying he was scared (expletive). I didnt want to incriminate myself. Stiles pleaded guilty to deliberate homicide in March 2015 in the killing of Mullen and received a 100-year sentence to the Montana State Prison with 50 years suspended. Initially he pinned Mullens murder on Cantrell, but then later retracted the allegation and told investigators that Cantrell stabbed Mullen and he hit Mullen with a stick after repeated sexual advances on the couple. On Wednesday, Stiles testified Mullen made an aggressive move toward Cantrell while she was cutting a watermelon on a picnic table at their campsite. Beaverhead County Attorney Jed Fitch asked Stiles if he recalled saying Cantrell was an imminent threat, pressing him about the alleged stabbing. If you want me to say I saw her stab him, I didnt, Stiles replied. Did you see Ms. Cantrell stab Mr. Mullen? Judge Loren Tucker interjected. I saw Mr. Mullen make an advance toward Sandi, and I saw Ms. Cantrell react to that advance, Stiles testified. Fitch called into question the validity of Stiles statements, which led to a 30-minute discussion between counsel and Tucker while the jury was excluded from the courtroom. Fitch referred to Rule 613 of the Montana Code, which applies to prior statements of witnesses. The transcript of Stiles 63-page interview with DCI agents was admitted into evidence despite defense attorney John Huds initial concerns over the legal opinions and conclusions stated in the document. Hud voiced his objection to admitting the transcript of Cantrells interview, to which Tucker replied the court would have an opportunity to review in the event Ms. Cantrell takes the stand. When the jury returned, Fitch, who at times appeared frustrated by the testimony of the prosecutions final witness, continued to question Stiles about his observations leading up to the stabbing and whether he saw Cantrell plunge a knife into Mullens abdomen. I didnt see the knife go into him, Stiles testified, adding that Fitch was making assumptions about statements he made during his interview with investigators. I was the one who pled guilty to murdering (Mullen). I hit him with a stick, continued Stiles despite Fitchs protestations that Stiles refused to incriminate Cantrell. Im trying to make sure I take accountability for what I did, Mr. Fitch. Thats why Im in prison, Stiles said. The jury trial resumes Thursday morning with cross examination of Stiles by the defense. Editor's note: This story was updated Jan. 29, 2016, to reflect a change in the charge for theft. The charge was amended to a misdemeanor because the property value did not exceed $1,500. DILLON Sandra Cantrell did not hedge when defense attorney John Hud asked her reaction when a man with whom she was camping made another alleged sexual advance toward her. I had the knife in my hand, and I stabbed him, she testified in Dillon district court Thursday afternoon. Cantrell continued, saying that Mark Robert Mullen made a verbal sound but did not realize what happened before her common-law husband, Christopher Lee Stiles, dealt lethal blows to Mullens head with a stick on Aug. 8, 2014, at the Bryant Creek Campground near Wise River. Stiles had testified during Huds cross examination Thursday morning that Cantrell was cutting watermelon at the campsites picnic table when it appeared Mullen, believed to be in his early 60s, was ready to go after her again. In my eyes, he basically attacked her. My impulse was to hit him, said Stiles, who pleaded guilty to murdering Mullen last year and is serving a 100-year sentence, with 50 years suspended at the Montana State Prison. Beaverhead County prosecutors rested their case against Cantrell within an hour after trial resumed Thursday. She is accused of felony charges of deliberate homicide, assault with a weapon, tampering with or fabricating physical evidence, and misdemeanor theft in connection with Mullens killing and fleeing with Stiles in the dead mans motor home. Bozeman-based defense attorneys Hud and Christopher C. Petaja carefully queried their two witnesses Cantrell and Linda Sanem, a private investigator and former police officer while attempting to craft a scenario in which Mullens alleged appetite for gay and straight sex fueled their clients fear and need to protect herself. Sanem testified that nearly 300 pornographic DVDs, sex toys and personal lubricant were found in Mullens motor home. Photographs of the items were taken by Montana Division of Criminal Investigation agents and entered into evidence; however, Sanem testified that they were not inventoried until Monday. Petaja also questioned Sanem, who had served on a narcotics task force, on the characteristics of opioid addiction in an effort to illuminate the jurys understanding of Stiles possible reactions to withdrawal from a variety of medications he had been taking. In earlier testimony, Stiles had admitted to a heroin addiction and said he had depleted his medications but was able to obtain enough for two days from a hospital. Sanem testified that individuals could experience various states of being, including violence. Cantrell, who was born and raised in Georgia, testified that she cried hysterically after she stabbed Mullen and Stiles beat him with a stick. I saw Mark on the ground. I didnt see Chris. I saw Mark laying on the ground, Cantrell said. How long did you stand there? Hud asked. It seemed like forever. What I saw, Cantrell said, her eyes misting. What I saw was horrible his face, she said and then began to cry. In his cross examination of Cantrell, Beaverhead County Attorney Jed C. Fitch confronted her about admittedly lying to investigators after she and Stiles were arrested in Missoula on Aug. 13, 2014. She testified that she was angry and scared and that all three investigators were male. Mr. Fitch, when a woman has gone through what Ive gone through, I have every right to defend myself and stop a man from doing it again, she said defiantly. Jurors will hear closing statements Friday and receive instructions from Judge Loren Tucker before beginning deliberations. Editor's note: This story was updated Jan. 29, 2016, to reflect a change in the charge for theft. The charge was amended to a misdemeanor because the property value did not exceed $1,500. In a scene from "To Kill a Mockingbird," a mob gathers outside the local jail, intent on grabbing the black man inside and lynching him. Only one man, Atticus Finch, stands between them and the evil deed. They approach Atticus en masse. The flash point rises. But then Atticuss children emerge from the darkness. One of them, Scout, doesnt understand whats happening, but she does recognize a man in the mob. Its the father of her classmate, Walter Cunningham. At the beginning of the school year, Scout made fun of Walter because he had cooties. That led to fisticuffs, which led to interventions by her father and others to help Scout understand that Walters circumstances were different from hers, but he still deserved the respect of decent treatment. Now she and Walter were friends. Hey, Mr. Cunningham, Scout says to the man in the mob. That angry man gapes at this little girl and sees the classmate of his son. He realizes that Atticus Finch may have the temerity to defend a Negro accused of rape, but Atticus is also the father of a young child, just as he himself is, and he wouldnt want to tell Walter what he was about to do to his friends father. So Mr. Cunningham convinces his buddies to go home. We talk a lot these days about the performance of our public schools, as we should. We dont talk much, though, about one byproduct of the 13 years our children spend together. Its the only time in their lives theyre forced to interact closely with individuals whose backgrounds, beliefs and lifestyles are different from their own. That experience teaches them more about appreciating diversity and building community than any formal curriculum could. As Neal Postman observed, the understandings and relationships forged in our public schools dont just educate a public. They create one. Thats why Im not celebrating School Choice Week this week, as urged by the Montana Family Foundation, which lobbies tirelessly to reward parents for pulling their kids out of public schools. Certainly, parents can and should make choices for their kids education, especially their religious education. But those private choices shouldnt be publicly funded. Its not in the public interest. Our public schools generally do a good job, the MFF concedes, but one size doesnt fit all. Parents need the freedom to choose a school that fits their child. If any institution on earth knows that childrens needs and abilities are infinite in variety, its our public schools. The differentiation in instruction, setting and programming and the variety of opportunities parents will find there are far greater than what theyll find in any private school. Yes, sometimes a kid falls through the cracks or encounters a jarring example of intolerance or indifference. When that happens, the public interest is served by calling the problem out and insisting that it be fixed. The history of public education is an illustration of how our children, our schools and our society are bettered by public insistence on tolerance, understanding and accommodation in their public schools. And that requires the active engagement of as much of the public as possible. I dont oppose the MFFs school choice bills because theyre unconstitutional, although they are. I dont oppose them because theyll weaken the funding and consequently the quality of public education, although they will. I oppose them because, in an increasingly polarized society, so much depends on the bonds and understandings our public schools create. Our publics schools are diminished by every Walter Cunningham or Scout Finch who doesnt attend one. And so are our we. -- State Senator Mary Sheehy Moe, D-Great Falls, a one-time Montana Teacher of the Year, represents District 12. DISTRICT: SWEETLAND IN MUSC WILT FD PARCEL NO. 09-29-100-034 CERTIFICATE NO. 130263 TO: KENNETH J. BROWER, ANGELA K. BROWER, CHASE BROWER, RACHEL LEAH ANDERSON, ALL PERSONS IN POSSESSION; and all other persons who may have an interest in property located at 2017 Geneva Hills Road, Muscatine, Iowa 52761 and legally described as: The 300 feet lying East of Geneva Road of the South 400 feet of the Northeast Quarter of the Northwest Quarter of Section 29, Township 77 North, Range 1 West of the 5th Principal Meridian, in Muscatine County, Iowa You and each of you, are hereby notified that at the regular tax sale publicly held in the City of Muscatine, Muscatine, County, Iowa, on June 17, 2015, and conducted by the Treasurer of Muscatine County, Iowa, under authority of 446.7, 447.9, 446.18 and 446.19 of the Code of Iowa, the following described real estate was sold for delinquent taxes for the year 2011 assessed against said real estate, to-wit: The 300 feet lying East of Geneva Road of the South 400 feet of the Northeast Quarter of the Northwest Quarter of Section 29, Township 77 North, Range 1 West of the 5th Principal Meridian, in Muscatine County, Iowa You are further notified that at said tax sale, the real estate described above was sold to ACC94, LLC/DUTRAC/ITP and the Tax Sale Certificate of Purchase Number 130263 and it is as of this date the owner and holder thereof. You are further notified that THE RIGHT OF REDEMPTION WILL EXPIRE and a tax deed for the above described real estate will be issued to ACC94, LLC/DUTRAC/ITP unless redemption is made within ninety (90) days from the completed service of this notice. Dated at Dubuque, Iowa this 25th day of January, 2016. By: DAVID L. CLEMENS-#000000880 Clemens, Walters, Conlon, Runde & Hiatt, L.L.P. 2080 Southpark Court Dubuque, IA 52003 NOTE: Do not contact the purchaser at the tax sale or his attorney in order to arrange for payment of the amounts necessary to redeem this property. The only means by which you may redeem this property is through payment of the amounts due through the Muscatine County Treasurer, Muscatine County Courthouse, Muscatine, Iowa, 563-263-6764. News Story not available This story has been published on: 2022-10-20. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. This story is no longer available on our site. WATERLOO -- Presidential hopefuls are making clear in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses that theyre fighting for every single vote they can get, but none may prove to be more difficult than those of the elusive youth, the so-called millennial generation. Millennials can be difficult to pin down, even as campaigns work to micro-target each and every demographic. Theyre often defined, in terms of elections, as age 18 to 30, and sometimes, as anyone born after 1980. They are independent, and less likely to affiliate with one of the major political parties, but often lean liberal. They are politically active, but not necessarily inclined to vote. And yet, a high-risk strategy of courting millenials can lead to success on caucus night, most recently and most notably with the 2008 caucus win for eventual Democratic President Barack Obama. We have seen instances where younger voters do get excited about a particular candidate, said University of Iowa political science professor Tim Hagle. The problem, though, is that still, it takes a lot of work. University of Northern Iowa political science department head Donna Hoffman said its a strategy that doesnt always pay off, pointing to 2004 Democratic contender Howard Dean. He was the anti-Iraq War position in the Democratic caucuses and really wanted to reach out to younger voters, and they didnt turn out materializing for him, Hoffman said. Dean ended up finishing third, where he was seen as a favorite in the lead-up to the caucuses. Proving them Wrong Despite the risks, its not hard to find evidence of the 2016 contenders making their pitch to millennials, with varying degrees of success. Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has made no secret of the fact that key to his potential victory over front-runner Hillary Clinton would be to turn out the youth who frequently favor him in polls. In fact, his campaign has launched a website www.provethemwrongandcaucus.com that specifically aims to draw out those who arent expected to show up Feb. 1. Wooing youth has certainly paid off in terms of turnout at events. Sanders drew 1,250 to University of Northern Iowas West Gym on a recent Sunday night, and he regularly draws large turnouts at events across the state. He sort of tapped into that particular strain of voters, the younger voters for Democrats that are more interested in the progressive side of things, Hagle said. They see him as an authentic voice. Hagle said being seen as having an authentic voice is one of the few commonalities among past presidential hopefuls who have done a good job of exciting younger people. But he adds, The key to relying on them is being sufficiently well organized that you get them to turn out. While Sanders name has become almost synonymous with millennials this campaign cycle, hes far from the only one working to win them over and get them to vote. Since millennials tend to lean liberal, the other Democratic contenders Clinton and Martin OMalley also have spent their share of time speaking on college campuses and talking about issues that appeal to youth -- combating climate change, support for marriage equality, making college affordable and addressing economic concerns. On the Republican side, hopefuls Marco Rubio and Rand Paul have made the strongest appeal to young voters. Paul did a campus tour across Iowa, focusing on issues important to them, like criminal justice reform and privacy issues. Rubio, meanwhile, makes the case he understands their economic woes, like living paycheck to paycheck and carrying large student loan debts, as he lived through them himself. But both Republican leaders Ted Cruz and Donald Trump tend to lead in polls among Republican youth, mirroring their overall poll numbers, though neither make particular pitches to millennials. Trump taps into the concerns of those who are disaffected with politics as usual, of which many millennials fit the bill. And when Cruz was asked about millennials at a stop in Oelwein, he said appealing to youth is critical. On substance, what were doing to our kids and grandkids is immoral, but the second piece of it is style. You know, would it kill Republicans to crack a joke? Actually, I think some of them, it might, Cruz said, before explaining ways he has used social media to appeal to youth. Practical problems Neither the candidates nor the experts have found a silver bullet that draws out young people with any particular success or predictability. As more mobile and less partisan voters, they may not be registered to vote or inclined to join a political party to caucus. Plus, showing up at a particular time, as with caucuses, may be difficult for work or class schedules. Theres an irony in the lack of participation, because millennials are one of the more tuned-in and politically active generations. We know they volunteer at pretty high rates, but theyre involved in those issue-specific things, and they dont always connect them then to politics, Hoffman said. Theyve grown up in an atmosphere in which politics has become backbiting and nasty and partisanship has grown. They want to do things, but they dont necessarily see politics as the avenue to get things done. Even if they do show up, Hoffman said there are other practical problems to candidates seeing the fruits of their labor. Because Iowas youth are disproportionately concentrated on college campuses, it presents a problem in the caucus process. Enthused young people could show up at the same handful of precincts and find they win overwhelmingly there, but dont necessarily push their preferred candidate over the top in the county or the state. Sanders campaign and his supporters are promoting a Go Home for Bernie message, to urge millennials supporting him to caucus in their hometowns, rather than concentrating their support on college campuses. I would think, logistically, it would be very difficult to do that, Hagle said, but added, Given that Sanders, at least in one recent poll I saw, that young people supported Sanders by about 2 to 1 over Clinton, so that would seem to suggest he would have a very strong showing in what we would call here, at least in Johnson County, the student precincts. Don't promise the moon Hoffman said theres also a double-edged sword to enthusing young voters, in that theyre also more likely to tune out again when the realities of governing sink in. What we have had is people who look at politics, who hate it and drop out, and they dont become active, and if they do register, they register as no party. They think the politics doesnt matter, and thats not the kind of attitude thats going to bring about change, Hoffman said. Evidence of this effect is most clear in the decreased turnout for Obama between his 2008 victory and his 2012 re-election. Young people still turned out, but not in the record numbers of his historic election in 2008. But Obama also still has his highest approval ratings from young people, with 18- to 29-year-olds giving him 60 percent approval in the most recent Gallup poll. His overall approval rating is 48 percent. Though Hagle acknowledges the challenges of keeping young people involved, he argues for campaigns to make the effort. Maybe (in the future) they take a more realistic approach to this and they understand that a candidate cant go around promising the moon, because hes not going to be able to deliver. Moonshot not included, I guess, Hagle said. But I suppose the short answer is that you shouldnt give up. Whether youre the candidate or the people that are politicos working for the candidate, you want to continue to try to reach out to continue to energize voters and at least get them to participate sufficiently, where theyre taking part in the process. MUSCATINE, Iowa There's good news for "Walking Dead" fans. Negotiations with AMC were successful, meaning AMC and three associated channels remain on MPW Cable's channel lineup In addition to "The Walking Dead," AMC has provided "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul" as well as numerous classic movies. Employee and Communications Director Erika Cox said AMC agreed to far less than the 350 percent increase they originally asked for. "We will be opting in and continuing to carry their signals," she said. EPA standards Compliance with federal clean air standards is easier said than done at Muscatine Power and Water, it seems. EPA revisions to the Cross State Air Pollution Rule would further reduce nitrogen oxide emissions during summer ozone periods by more than 50 percent beginning in May of 2017, Legal and Regulatory Services Director Brandy Olson reported to the Board of Water, Electric, and Communications Trustees on Tuesday. Olson said the EPA revision would force most Iowa coal plants and coal to gas conversion units to be idle most of the summer or to install expensive control technology. "We've been advocating with everyone we can," Olson told the board. "It creates a lot of uncertainty." Olson's report came during a review of 2015 Year End Critical Issues at Tuesday evening's regular MPW board meeting. Also during the critical issues review, Utility Services Director Tim Reed reported the design phase of the $8.7 million Fiber to the Home project continues to run behind schedule. He said construction is expected to start this year and be completed in 2017. Year-end financials All three utilities at Muscatine Power and Water outperformed the budget in 2015, Finance and Administrative Services Director Jerry Gowey reported. A loss of $4,534,575 was budgeted for the Electric Utility, but the actual loss was $3,557,075. Gowey said revenue from wholesale energy sales was down by $13 million, but expenses were also lower by 13.9 percent. But the Electric Utility did not outperform budget for the last month of 2015. A loss of $76,745 was expected, but the actual loss was $293,871. Gowey said December's revenue was down by $2.6 million, driven mainly by lower wholesale sales, and maintenance costs were higher due to year end cleanup projects. The Water Utility also came in under budget for December, posting a profit of $8,558, under the budgeted $14,540. But for the year, the profit of $623,530 was well above the budgeted loss of $63,689. A profit of $1.25 million was budgeted for the Communications Utility for 2015, but actual profit was $1.79 million. For December, actual profit of $214,638 outperformed the budgeted $120,136. Gowey said subscriptions for both cable TV and internet services are higher than anticipated, but expenses ran higher by $142,000, driven primarily by rising cable programming costs. In other business, the board ratified expenditures and transactions for December 2015 totaling $12.9 million. MUSCATINE, Iowa Local community members and businesses will be putting on their bowling shoes to participate in the annual Junior Achievement Bowl-A-Thon on Saturday, Jan. 30. Twenty-four teams of five adults will bowl to support Junior Achievement, raising an estimated $8,000 to help support JA programs in the area. The event will be held from 1-4 p.m. at the Rose Bowl, 1411 Grandview Ave. More than 3,800 kindergarten through high school students in Muscatine and Louisa counties benefit from a JA experience each year. Junior Achievement teaches students the knowledge and skills they need to own their economic success, plan for their future, and make smart academic and fiscal choices. By partnering with area educators and the business community, JA helps prepare students for the 21st century workplace with programs that focus on financial literacy, work-readiness and entrepreneurship. When Donald Trump declared his presidential candidacy, quite a few people, including me, thought "never in a million years will he be the Republican nominee, let alone president." As his poll numbers rose, we thought "he's got a hard ceiling; not a chance he'll carry the race." And "not even GOP primary voters could be THAT stupid." But it looks like I was wrong, and all those other people were too. With the Iowa caucus and then New Hampshire just around the corner, Trump's running as hot as ever. Not even his cowering, sputtering fear of Megyn Kelly, so disabling that he announced his intention to skip this week's Fox News debate rather than face her, seems likely to dent his position as the Republican front-runner. Heck, he might even win in November, proving once and for all the Mencken was right ("democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard"). Are there any consolations to be found in the possibility of a Trump presidency? Yes, I think there are. When you get right down to it, he's not any more especially authoritarian, xenophobic or narcissistic than the other "major party" presidential candidates. He's just less filtered in how he presents himself. The idea of his finger on the nuclear button bothers me, but not any more than the idea of Ted Cruz's, Chris Christie's or Hillary Clinton's. It might not be as bad as it sounds. Especially since the alternatives aren't exactly attractive on their own merits. Maybe a Donald Trump presidency would be right up in our faces enough, more so than the reigns of those other prospects, to get it through Americans' heads: "Let's never do THAT again." I doubt it, but hey, it could happen. More likely, it would just mark the final death knell of the Republican Party. Which, I admit, would make putting up with four years of Trump more than worth it, especially if it produced a whole new political alignment -- Democrats alone on the right instead of splitting that side of the political spectrum with the Republicans, the Libertarians finally giving America a "major party" on the left (no, that was not a typo). Scoff if you like, but don't step on my dreams. As long as we're considering the surrealistic nightmare of a prospective Trump presidency, I'm entitled to them. Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). Recently, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced it was keeping its famous Doomsday Clock at three minutes to midnight. In making this decision, their panel of experts, including 16 Nobel Laureates, cited the growing danger of nuclear war. The danger of nuclear war? For most people today, the threat of nuclear war isnt even on their radar screens. It needs to be. When the Cold War ended most of us started to act as though the danger of nuclear war had gone away. It didnt. There remain in the world today some 15,000 nuclear war heads, 95 percent in the arsenals of the US and Russia. More than 2,000 of these warheads are on hair-trigger alert. They are mounted on missiles that can be launched in 15 minutes. And all nine countries that possess nuclear weapons are actively modernizing their arsenals at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars. For the last quarter century we have been told we dont need to worry about these weapons. The US and Russia werent enemies anymore and they would never be used. The recent conflicts in Ukraine and Syria and the irresponsible nuclear saber rattling by both sides have shown us how hollow these assurances are. There is a real danger that some crisis could spiral into direct conflict between the US and Russia. We also have to worry about the possibility of accidental nuclear war. On at least five occasions since 1979 either Moscow or Washington prepared to launch nuclear war in the mistaken belief that it was already under attack. So what happens if these weapons are used? A 2007 study showed that if even 300 Russian warheads got through to targets in US urban areas, 75 to 100 million people would be killed in a half-hour and the entire economic infrastructure that the rest of the population depends on would be destroyed. If all of the weapons the US and Russia maintain on high alert were involved in the war, the firestorms they started would put 150 million tons of soot into the upper atmosphere creating a new Ice Age in a matter of days. Temperatures around the world would drop an average of 14 to 15 degrees. In the interior of North America and Eurasia, the temperatures would drop up to 50 degrees. Ecosystems would collapse, food production would stop and the vast majority of the human race would starve. Even a much more limited nuclear war, as might take place between smaller nuclear powers like India and Pakistan would be a worldwide catastrophe. The fires from just 100 small nuclear weapons in their arsenals would cause enough climate disruption to cut global food production and trigger a famine that would put some two billion people at risk. Fortunately, there is a growing movement around the world to ban and eliminate these weapons. The International Red Cross/Red Crescent movement has voted unanimously to educate people around the world about the dangers of nuclear war and to work for the abolition of these weapons. The World Medical Association and the American Medical Association have taken a similar stand. Physicians for Social Responsibility and our global federation the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War have launched a worldwide campaign, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons that brings together hundreds of thousands of people in nearly 500 organizations in 95 countries. More than 140 countries have called for a new treaty to close the gap in international law which still does not prohibit possession of these weapons, and the United Nations will convene an Open Ended Working Group next month in Geneva to explore ways to negotiate such a treaty and report back to the UN General Assembly in the fall. All of these efforts are designed to pressure the nuclear weapons states to sit down and negotiate a detailed, verifiable, enforceable agreement to dismantle their weapons under international supervision. This process will not be easy. But we have no other choice. We have been incredibly lucky to avoid nuclear war since Hiroshima. Hoping for continued good luck is simply not an acceptable nuclear policy. The US has not been part of this effort, and has actually tried to block it. It is time to change course. America needs to lead this movement as our highest national security priority and the candidates running for President need to make it clear that they will indeed lead the way to a world free of nuclear weapons. Ira Helfand, syndicated by PeaceVoice, practices internal medicine at an urgent care center in Springfield, Massachusetts. He is a Past President of Physicians for Social Responsibility and is currently the Co-President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the 1985 Nobel Peace Laureate. Yes, you can transfer your domain to any registrar or hosting company once you have purchased it. Since domain transfers are a manual process, it can take up to 5 days to transfer the domain. Domains purchased with payment plans are not eligible to transfer until all payments have been made. Please remember that our 30-day money back guarantee is void once a domain has been transferred. For transfer instructions to GoDaddy, please click here. Les emplois a Rennes sont abondants et varies. Il y a quelque chose pour tout le monde. Que vous soyez a la recherche dun emploi [] Les blattes ou cafards (Blatta orientalis) sont des insectes qui appartiennent a la famille des Blattoptera. Ils se caracterisent par leur forme allongee, leurs ailes [] Icasa plans to launch an inquiry in the next financial year into the impact of over-the-top (OTT) services like WhatsApp, Skype, and Facebook on the data services market. According to SANews, the authority made the statement during Parliamentary hearings into OTT players and their effect on the telecommunications market in South Africa. Icasa COO Willington Ngwepe said they would let the market evolve and continue to monitor the impact of OTTs and, if necessary at a later stage, an intervention could be made. Our plan is that in the next financial year, we will be conducting an inquiry into priority markets, he said. Vodacom and MTN have been vocal about the need for OTT players to face regulation in South Africa, with MTN chief executive Mteto Nyati calling on Icasa to investigate OTTs in October 2015. More on regulating WhatsApp The real reason behind Facebook and WhatsApp regulation talks: DA Qatar Airways plans to launch a record-setting direct flight from Doha, Qatar to Auckland, New Zealand which will have an estimated flight time of 18 hours 30 minutes. Qatar CEO Akbar Al Baker revealed plans for the ultra-long flight 14,539km in an interview with Bloomberg Business. Boeing 777-LR aircraft, which can carry 259 passengers, will be used for the flight. No launch date for the route has been set. Currently, the worlds longest direct flight is operated by Qantas between Dallas-Fort Worth and Sydney. It comes in with a flight time of 16 hours 55 minutes, and covers a distance of 13,804km. Singapore Airlines previously held the record for the longest nonstop flight until 2013 its nearly 19-hour trip between New York and Singapore. More on airlines FlySafair flight FA103: Rapid descent, rapid descent, and then the lights went off Cyber attacks can cost airlines millions Seacom is experiencing multiple outages on its terrestrial network across Egypt, which is affecting its international connectivity. The company announced that all of its international connectivity through Egypt has been affected since 06:00 GMT on 28 January 2016. Repair teams are on site. Seacom continues to monitor the situation closely and will provide necessary updates, the company said. South African ISPs have informed their subscribers that a break in the Seacom international cable is resulting in slow international traffic speeds due to congestion over redundant routes. Massive Internet outage in South Africa South Africa experienced a massive Internet outage on 21 January, caused by Seacom and WACS cable problems. Seacom said its Northern Trans-Egypt route was damaged between Cairo and Alexandri, and its Southern Trans-Egypt route was damaged on the outskirts of Cairo. Both events were caused by civil construction activity, said Seacom. The company said it took 2 hours and 40 minutes to repair the cable breaks, during which time Internet connectivity was affected. More on Seacom Seacom fibre-to-the-home plans South Africa has enough international connectivity: Seacom As owner of this blog, I bear no responsibility to what other contributors/bloggers may post. I encourage all to speak freely without indulging in libel or defamatory content. Anyone who feels offended by any posting can email me and I will remove the offending article if appropriate. Contact me at redbeansg@yahoo.com redbean PARIS Frances government welcomed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday with promises of a new beginning in an old relationship, starting with investments to boost Irans flagging economy that has been crippled by decades of sanctions. Its a new chapter of our relationship, French president Francois Hollande said in a joint news conference following a two-hour meeting with Rouhani at the Elysee palace. I want that relationship to be useful, useful to both countries, useful to the (Middle East) region affected by wars, crises and tragedies. Hollande added that he raised the issue of human rights and freedom during the meeting. France sees the visit also as an opportunity to draw Iran into a role of crisis-solving, notably in Syrias civil war where Iran actively supports the government of President Bashar Assad, which Paris firmly opposes. We must fight terrorism in Syria and Iraq, Rouhani said during the joint conference. We must help the Syrian people so that the Syrian people can build a sustainable future for the country, he said. Rouhani decried the sanctions his country was previously under, saying history has shown that they never worked. He said the nuclear deal that led to the lifting of sanctions this month can serve as a model for solutions in other crises, notably in the Middle East. A total of 20 agreements were signed after Rouhanis meeting with Hollande. Iran Air signed a deal to buy 118 aircraft from Airbus, valued at 22.8 billion euros ($25 billion). PSA Peugeot Citroen also announced a joint venture with Iran Khodro to produce latest-generation vehicles in Tehran by the end of 2017. French and Iranian companies also signed agreements in the sectors of air and maritime transport, airports, health and agriculture. Oil and gas company Total inked a deal with the National Iranian Oil Company to purchase crude oil. The French presidency said the total amount of the deals signed during Rouhanis visit, including Airbus, could reach up to 30 billion euros ($32.8 billion). The historic outreach trip did face some strains, however, in a reminder of the complexities confronting all sides despite the French welcome mat. France has asked its European Union partners to consider new sanctions on Iran for its recent ballistic missile tests, officials told The Associated Press. That highlights continued suspicions between Iran and the West. Iranian opposition group, the Peoples Mujahedeen of Iran, with headquarters outside Paris, held a demonstration, and 61 lawmakers signed an open letter to Hollande condemning Irans human rights record, with executions on the rise, and what it called its strategy of chaos in the Middle East. An activist hung from a fake noose off a Paris bridge next to a huge banner reading Welcome Rouhani, Executioner of Freedom. At the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), Rouhani took digs at the West, notably regarding the migrant crisis. He pointed out that Europe is complaining about the number of refugees arriving on its territory while Iran is hosting 3 million Afghans without complaining. Rouhani, who arrived in France from Italy, was originally scheduled to visit Paris in November, but the trip was called off after Islamic extremists carried out attacks around Paris that killed 130 people. MOSCOW Syrian refugees should be given an opportunity to cast their ballots in the countrys future elections, Russias security chief has told The Associated Press, adding that the international community should focus on creating conditions for a free vote in Syria. However, demands for the immediate departure of Syrian President Bashar Assad would be counterproductive, said Nikolai Patrushev, a longtime associate of President Vladimir Putin who serves as the executive secretary of the presidential Security Council. Lets remember the sad experience of Iraq and Libya, Patrushev told the AP in a written reply to questions Tuesday his first remarks ever to a foreign news organization. Have they succeeded in stabilizing the situation there following a foreign intervention and physical removal of those countries leaders? Russia has recently joined forces with the United States and a dozen other nations to help broker Syrian peace talks set to start in Geneva on Friday, which are intended to pave the way for a new constitution and new elections in a year and a half. The nearly five-year Syrian conflict began in 2011 with protests against Assads rule and has morphed into an all-out civil war, involving a myriad of opposition units. It has seen the Islamic State group carve out a sizeable chunk of the countrys territory and killed a quarter of a million people and displaced millions. Moscow has staunchly backed Assad throughout the war, shielding his government from U.N. sanctions and providing it with weapons. Patrushev reaffirmed Russias longtime stance that its up to the Syrian people to determine Assads fate and the countrys future. What Syria should look like and who should be at its helm tomorrow must be determined by the Syrian people, not Russia or any other country, Patrushev said. Moscow has denied media reports claiming that Russias top military intelligence officer recently visited Damascus to urge Assad to step down. Different assessments could be made of the incumbent Syrian president, but insisting on his immediate departure isnt just political short-sightedness but an open interference into affairs of a sovereign state, Patrushev said. Efforts by the international community must be directed exclusively at creating the necessary preconditions for ensuring a free expression of will of all citizens of Syria, he added. Russia is ready to support the idea to create opportunities for Syrian refugees to vote, naturally under the same strict international control as in Syria itself. SANTA ANA A California man will spend two decades in prison after admitting to a bizarre attack on an acquaintance and fleeing police in a stolen car. The Orange County Register reports that 42-year-old Julian St. John of Orange pleaded guilty Tuesday to assault and other charges. He was sentenced to more than 23 years in prison. Prosecutors say St. John went to the home of the 56-year-old man in 2014 and shot him in the forehead with an arrow lacking a head, then slammed a fire extinguisher over the mans head. Prosecutors say he chased the man into his backyard and shot one of the mans fingers with a gun. Prosecutors say he then stole the mans car, fled police and drove through the fence at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station before running away. SUTTER CREEK Tickets for the Amador Four Fires wine event go on sale Feb. 1, but the Amador Four Fires Ticket Release Party at wineries in Sutter Creek and in Shenandoah Valley, Jan. 30-31, is an excuse to get up to the wine country and secure tickets early at discounted prices. The second annual Amador Four Fires festival, May 7 at the historic Amador County Fairgrounds, invites attendees to explore the regions rich wine and food history dating to the California Gold Rush. Amador Four Fires focuses on the wine regions that give rise to Amadors award-winning varietalsSouthern France, Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, and Heritage Californiapaired with the culinary art of open-fire cooking. It includes three venues with seminars, cooking demonstrations, live music, artisan crafts, locavore tastings of regional goods and a sensory station featuring wine aromas, barrel toasts and soils. The Ticket Release Party in the historic town of Sutter Creek and at several locations in the Shenandoah Valley takes place Jan. 30 and 31 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. with Amador Four Fires discounted tickets available at participating wineries: Yorba Wines, Miller Wine Works, Scott Harvey Wines, Bella Grace Vineyards, Le Moulet Rouge, Baiocchi Wines & Vineyards, and Sera Fina Cellars. Additionally, four wineries in Shenandoah Valley will be participating, Terra dOro Winery/Montevina Vineyards, Vino Noceto Winery & Vineyard, Jeff Runquist Wines, and Renwood Winery. Amador Four Fires ticket prices during the two-day Ticket Release Party are $70 (normally $85 at the door or $75 online); $120 for VIP (normally $155 at the door or $125 online); and $55 for the designated driver ticket (normally $70 at the door or $60 online). For those who cant make the Ticket Release Party, tickets will be available at amadorfourfires.com starting Feb. 1. The Amador Four Fires festival takes place Saturday, May 7, from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. For more information, call 209-418-5707. The Amador County Fairgrounds are located at 18621 Sherwood St., Plymouth. As heir to the Coors Brewery family, Christi Coors Ficeli could probably have built a grandiose temple to her ego. Instead, she vowed to make great wine and created a modest, but efficient, place to do so with the help of a respected winemaker. Part of the reason for the tack she took is precisely because she understood the beverage alcohol business: Not only was she born into the beer-making family, but she worked for Coors and sat on its board of directors. She also graduated from that great university for the wine industry, E&J Gallo. Coors Ficeli and her Coors family bought Goosecross Cellars on State Road outside Yountville in May 2013. The property was ready for rebirth. It was sort of rundown, she admitted. The previous owners had started as growers, and then began making wine as often happens. They had a modest house on the property plus a tired barn with basic winemaking equipment. Coors Ficeli replaced the house with a compact, but welcoming, tasting room and offices. I toured a lot of wineries, she said. I liked small, not ornate. The resulting tasting room is airy and open, with a large bar and high ceiling as well as windows bringing the adjacent vineyards inside. The large window behind the bar can completely open, allowing those on the spacious deck to taste outside under a tree. She built a new barn-like structure, keeping the same footprint and even the existing, slightly worn tanks plus the press, destemmer and other equipment. Were not throwing around money, said Coors Ficeli. We want to do things that enhance the wine. Ironically, the tanks were a find. Tall and thin, they contribute to wine style, she said. An entrepreneurial background Coors Ficeli inherited her spirit of entrepreneurship from her great-great-grandfather, Adolph Coors. She was raised in a family that put a premium on realizing dreams through vision, dedication and collaboration. She learned the wine business production, distribution, promotion and sales working for Gallo in Modesto after graduating from college. She also met her future husband, David Ficeli, there. He remains in the wine business, but isnt active in Goosecross. After Gallo, Coors Ficeli enrolled in business school and got her MBA, then joined the Coors family business as a district business manager in 2002. A new job for her husband and a new sales territory in California for Christi prompted a move to Napa Valley where they lived from 2002 to 2005. The couple loved the foods and wines of the region and the sense of family at the heart of Napas agricultural community. The experience remained with them as new responsibilities took the Ficelis to Chicago and Colorado over the next six years. As their family grew, their dream of returning to Napa Valley with their two children, Luke and Lucy, intensified. A return to Napa In 2012, Coors Ficeli developed a business plan, and with funding from the Coors familys Golden Equity Investments, she began looking for a Napa Valley winery in early November. When she found Goosecross, she knew her quest was over. l sat on the back terrace overlooking the vineyards and tasting Goosecross wines as the sun moved across the autumn sky. She closed the deal and immediately developed plans to raze and replace the existing buildings. She also hired winemaker Bill Nancarrow, who was at Duckhorn Winery. Nancarrow is a native of Hawkes Bay New Zealand, the oldest wine grapegrowing region in New Zealand, and has studied and working in hospitality and winemaking across four continents. It was time for a change after 12 years, he said. I never wanted to work for a large company. Duckhorn had grown by a factor of 10 during his tenure, and the vast growth had impacted the wines and his work. At a large company, youre very departmentalized. I wanted to get back to winemaking. I wanted to hand-prune vines. I wanted to get my hands dirty. At Goosecross, everyone, even office and hospitality staff helped in the winemaking. The estate vineyard The winery owns 9.4 acres of estate vines at State Lane. Its mostly cabernet sauvignon, with some other Bordeaux varieties cabernet franc, merlot and petite verdot. Located in the transition between warm and cool Napa Valley, it was planted in chardonnay until 2003, but produces elegant Bordeaux wines. It receives a cooling breeze in the afternoon. Narcarrow is also working to balance the vines, which may have had too much canopy. Hes also determined different soil conditions and adjusted vine management accordingly. The winery buys grapes from a number of growers. Trimming the offerings The previous owners offered a wide range of wines, including some using grapes from outside Napa Valley, but Narcarrow and Coors Ficeli plan to focus on what they do best. That includes four whites, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and viognier as well as riesling from 46-year-old vines on Manley Lane fermented in a (used) concrete egg, and a blend called Anser. The reds will include pinot noir, merlot, cabernet france, Howell Mountain and estate State Lane cabernet, mountain petite sirah, syran, and some blends. Blends are on the rise and were trying to have fun with some, Coors Ficeli said. Narcarrow picks and ferments in many small lots, some in barrels as well as the egg. The focus is authentic, approachable and food-friendly wines. All the wines are moderate in alcohol, another trend, most under 14 percent. Narcarrow is also sensitive to texture. The biggest problem of Napa wines is the balance of texture, he said. The winerys top wine is $150 Aeros from estate vines. Learning a new skill Coors Ficeli had a strong background in the wine business, but her expertise was in traditional three-tier sales and marketing. Goosecross is largely direct-to-consumer and depends on visitors to its tasting room, its wine club and personal outreach for sales. Production is small, however, and the wines are sold in a few states as well as by Youngs Market in California. Most of all, theyre having fun. I came from very corporate environment, said Coors Ficeli, and Narcarrow said that Duckhorn was headed that way. She added, My family has been very supportive about my returning to our entrepreneurial roots. I want to make a name for myself. TOKYOA plan is under way to lure foreign tourists to the Izu Islands of Tokyo with its rare genshu of shochuan unprocessed alcoholic product extracted from the early stages of shochu production. Characterized by the distinctive aroma of sweet potatoes, the shochu genshu has a high alcohol content of about 60 percent, the same level as vodka or tequila. However, the Liquor Tax Law currently prevents businesses from offering the genshu as a beverage, so the Izu Islands municipalities and the Tokyo metropolitan government are petitioning the central government to include the product in a list of items that qualify for deregulation through the national strategic special zone program. Located about 360 kilometers (224 miles) south of central Tokyo, Aogashima island of the Izu Islands has been experiencing a boom in tourism in recent years. It is not uncommon to see groups of foreign tourists on the island, which became globally known after spectacular aerial photos of the island featuring its impressive volcanic caldera were posted on the Internet. Hopes are high that the genshu of the Aochu brand shochu made from local sweet potatoes and barley koji (barley imbued with special mold) will play an important role as the island welcomes and entertains more visitors. Genshu produced during the early stages of the shochu brewing process is sometimes referred to as hanatare, literally the first drops. World-renowned sommelier Shinya Tasaki, 57, is also well-versed in shochu and gives the genshu his seal of approval. The flavorful bite despite a wonderfully fruity aroma will probably please visitors from abroad who like liquor with high alcohol content, Tasaki said. Under the current law, however, the genshu cannot be served to anyone, including tourists. Aochu maker Tadashi Kikuchi, 69, lamented the situation. Unfortunately, we can use the genshu only for purposes like adjusting the alcohol content of other drinks, he said. According to the Liquor Tax Law, the alcohol content of shochu must be 45 percent or less. To sell liquor like the genshu, which exceeds this limit, one must obtain a license to manufacture and sell a special category of material alcohol. To obtain this license, it is required to operate a facility that manufactures more than 6,000 liters per year. Installing a facility on such a large scale is not realistic for a village like Aogashima, which has a population of about 170. A village official said, The requirement is too demanding for a village that has the smallest population in the country. The village therefore considered applying for the national strategic special zone program, which has been put forth as a pillar of the countrys growth strategy. In June 2015, in collaboration with the Tokyo metropolitan government and eight municipalities in the islands, Aogashima petitioned the national government to allow the limited sale of the genshu on the island within the framework of the national strategic special zone program. Aogashima village head Toshimitsu Kikuchi has expressed hopes for the endeavor. We would be delighted to have many visitors come to the island to enjoy the vast natural scenery while sipping the genshu, he said. Other islands in the Izu chain are also starting to consider the use of shochu as a drawing card to attract more tourists. In Hachijojima island, shochu-making is said to have begun when a merchant of the Satsuma clan, Shoemon Tanso, introduced the technique after being exiled to the island in 1853. On the island today, there are four businesses that are making more than 10 different kinds of shochu. Hachijojima Shuzo President Kiyomitsu Okuyama, 62, whose company makes the potato shochu brand Shimanagashi, also expressed hopes for the genshu: If we can serve the genshu at our brewery, we can also show tourists some of the stages of shochu making, such as fermentation and distillation. It should become a good tourist attraction for the island. Napa County towns will split an unexpected $3.5 million refund from the state Department of Water Resources, with the city of Napa receiving the lions share at $2.4 million. Napa County Flood Control and Water Conservation District Engineer Phillip Miller announced the news Tuesday to his board of directors. He prefaced his remarks by quoting the bystanders in the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon: Now theres something you dont see every day. The directorswho represent local cities and the countyreceived the news with smiles. This is the reason everyones here, county Supervisor Brad Wagenknecht said as he inroduced the item. Since 2001, California has charged local towns too much for State Water Project supplies purchased from the Kern County Water Agency. It recently notified the district of the situation and the refund. The State Water Project is a massive system of reservoirs, canals and pipes that began construction in the 1960s to move Sierra Nevada snow melt to cities and farms. It provides water to about 25 million Californians. Local towns receive State Water Project water supplies from the Delta through the North Bay Aqueduct. Since 1963, the flood control district has held the contract for the state water allocations with the Department of Water Resources. In 2000, the district bought 4,025 additional acre-feet (one acre-foot is about 325,000 gallons) of State Water Project allocations from the Kern County Water Agency. Miller said he isnt certain why the refund is coming. He noted the district often receives smaller refunds because it pays the Department of Water Resources, which later calculates the actual charges. He guessed that the state charged the district for capacity in the state canal and pump stations to transport the Kern County allocation to Kern County, even though it made a far shorter journey to get to Napa County. The State Department of Water Resources also overcharged other water contractors, with the Napa district receiving among the higher refunds, Miller said. The total amount overcharged statewide is about $48 million, with some refunds dating to 1998, he said. Board member and county Supervisor Keith Caldwell asked if more checks and balances are needed with the complex State Water Project system. The amount of the refund coming to Napa County isnt small, he added. The Department of Water Resources is committed to having a finance committee and more financial transparency, Miller said. I think this kind of thing will be a thing of the past, with where were going, Miller said. Before the meeting, city of Napa Water General Manager Joy Eldredge said the $2.4 million due to her city will go into the citys water fund, not its general fund. She said it can pay for such things as upgrading a water line on Third Street and refurbishing filters at the Milliken treatment plant. The city has plenty of water system needs, she said. American Canyon will receive $680,662, Calistoga $240,076, Yountville $74,580 and St. Helena $44,199. Napa bought St. Helenas Kern water allocations in 2006 and Yountvilles allocations in 2009. A new documentary that challenges the meaning of masculinity in American culture was partly filmed in Napa, where both a former high school student and a youth program were spotlighted as part of the filmmakers mission. The Mask You Live In, directed and produced by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, wife of Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, has been making the rounds at film festivals for the past year. It premiered at Sundance and was shown at last years Napa Valley Film Festival, in addition to being screened throughout the U.S. and in 15 other countries, according to Newsom. Distribution deals are in the works, including one with Netflix. Having already examined the underrepresentation of women in positions of power in her first documentary, Miss Representation, Newsom wanted to focus on men. She chose the issue of masculinity because she saw how popular culture drives men, particularly from a very early age, to conform in such a way that they disconnect their heads from their hearts. They become stoic, she said in an interview on Monday night at Vintage High, which screened The Mask You Live in for parents and students thanks to the efforts of the Napa Valley Film Festival, which co-presented the event. They repress their emotions, and they don a mask of masculinity, she said, which often hides the pain and sadness they carry around, but arent encouraged to express. The one emotion that men can express, and is sanctioned in many films, television shows, and in other aspects of U.S. culture, is anger, according to Newsom, and that can lead dangerous results for men, including extreme behavior, drugs and alcohol abuse. The Mask You Live In includes numerous interviews with men and boys of all ages. But it is the stories told by male teens and adolescents that are some of the most powerful and important in the film, because it is at these ages that so many boys first learn to shut down their feelings and go down the wrong road. One example is Luis Vallejo of Napa, who appears in the documentary and was on the Today Show last year to promote it. Vallejo was in his early teens when his father, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, got arrested for DUI and wound up being deported out of the country. Without a father figure around, but with a mother who was struggling to raise and support four kids on her own, Vallejo started banging as he put it, getting into trouble and in fights, and flunking his way off the Vintage campus. Vallejos story might not have been told, or even turned out as well as it did, had it not been for the help of the Legacy Youth Project. Started nearly four years ago at Vintage, the cultural program set out to help a small group of Hispanic boys who were struggling in school and with their lives. One of the most significant things the Legacy Youth Project provides to young men is the chance to talk openly and honestly about themselves. Our youth, they get deep and they get real, and very much in touch with the challenges and issues facing them, said Carlos Hagedorn, a project co-founder, college professor, and Napa school board trustee at a panel discussion following Monday nights screening. The program provides a space for them to do that, he said. Hagedorn became a counselor to Vallejo, helping him to learn how to trust others and express the things he needed to get off his chest. You build trust with your youth, thats it, Hagedorn said in explaining why Legacy is successful. Thats all you need. Its not magic. Its building relationships, its building trust. With Hagedorns mentoring and the help of others in the program, Vallejo got back on track with school. He turned four Fs into four As while attending Valley Oak High School, and graduated with his diploma last year. A conversation with Vallejo today gives no indication that he once was a kid who had trouble expressing himself. Legacy really gave me support at a time I needed it, said Vallejo, now 19, after the screening. I was 16 and in trouble and getting bad grades. But once he got into the Legacy Youth Project, Hagedorn helped him relax and be himself. You dont really have to be mad at the world or something. I was walking around pissed at everybody, Vallejo said. Before he got help, he felt everybody was doing him wrong, so I pushed everybody away. His Legacy meetings gave him a chance to open up, and Hagedorn gave everything he had to me. He taught me to be patient, and more positive. Thats when I started becoming more friendly. At Legacy, Vallejo said, Theres no hate in the classroom, theres no racism, theres no bad comments, theres no negativity. Theres just love, and theres empathy in there, he added. Vallejo was also forthright during the panel discussion he participated in, telling the audience that hes still a work in progress. Im still trying to change, said Vallejo. I still have some anger issues. Thats something I got to learn and understand. He admitted anger cost him his two-year relationship with his girlfriend. During the panel talk, Hagedorn spoke proudly about Legacy, which is still small in numbers, but growing. They currently have 45 students in it, and theyre now working with girls, too, he said. It has expanded beyond the Vintage and Valley Oak campuses and the high school level. Silverado Middle School started a pilot project this year with 15 kids, according to Hagedorn, who added the Legacy Youth Project will be at another middle school next year. He said the Napa Valley Unified School District has been encouraging them to grow, and were doing that in a thoughtful and sustainable way. He especially wanted people to know that the program is completely rooted in the Napa Valley. Were a Napa project. Were from Grapetown. Were from 707, he told the audience. We didnt call anyone from outside Napa to figure out how to do this. This is Napas baby. A high-stakes political poker game is being played in the backrooms of the Capitol over the seemingly motherhood-and-apple-pie issue of building and renovating schools. Business groups, construction unions and school districts, calling themselves Californians for Quality Schools, propose a $9 billion school bond issue for the November ballot, contending that funds from the last bond measure, passed in 2006, are virtually exhausted, leaving a $2 billion backlog. Exhaustion could trigger a 1998-vintage law and allow local governments to sharply increase school building fees on residential and commercial projects, potentially adding billions of dollars to developers costs. Staving off that threat is why the Building Industry Association is one of the bond issues chief backers. Public employee labor unions such as the powerful California Teachers Association, which would ordinarily back a school bond, are worried that its presence on the November ballot could undermine their efforts to persuade voters to extend temporary income taxes on the wealthy, another multibillion-dollar issue. Union-friendly legislative leaders have mounted a desperate effort to write a smaller bond, in the $2 billion-to-$4 billion range, for the June ballot to head off the November measure. However, Gov. Jerry Brown dislikes the decades-long practice of the state borrowing bond money for local school projects, saying its overly complex and creates an incentive for districts to build new schools when they already have the capacity to absorb enrollment growth. Brown also has many objections to how bond money is allocated, such as a first-come, first-served system he says gives wealthy districts an unfair advantage and a lack of flexibility to design school facility plans to reflect local needs. The inherent problems with the current program, along with the billions of dollars in long-term liabilities created by the issuance of state debt, is no longer sustainable, the governor pointedly says in his new budget. Browns complaints that the proposed $9 billion bond fails to make needed reforms imply that he might throw his weight and perhaps his hefty campaign war chest against it. So there we have it, what Brown might call a yeasty mixture of conflicting priorities. Writing a mini-bond measure that would satisfy the Californians for Quality Schools coalition, contain the reforms that Brown says he wants but has yet to specify and get two-thirds legislative votes also faces a looming deadline. State election officials say legislators have until mid-February to act unless they want to go to the expense of printing a supplemental ballot pamphlet, which has been done in the past. But it also stains the Legislatures already dismal reputation for timely action. The situation is very fluid, but Brown shows no signs of intervening to forge a compromise, and in his absence its very unlikely to happen. Dan Walters writes for The Sacramento Bee. MOSCOW Russian companies back talks with OPEC on oil output The head of Russian state oil pipeline monopoly Transneft said talks on output cuts are planned with Saudi Arabia and OPEC. Transneft head Nikolai Tokarev said that Saudi Arabia had taken the initiative and come out with a proposal to discuss the possibility of reducing volumes, in comments reported by Russian news agency RIA Novosti. The negotiations could be within the OPEC format or bilateral, though the Saudis are the main negotiators, Tokarev was quoted as saying by Tass. Speaking after a meeting between Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak and representatives of the countrys leading oil companies, Tokarev was also quoted by Tass as saying that Transneft expected Russian oil exports to decline this summer. PARIS French taxi drivers resume anti-Uber strike, disrupt traffic Paris taxi drivers resumed a strike protesting against rival services such as Uber, and city authorities are warning of roadblocks and traffic disruptions. Paris police and the Paris airport authority cautioned of potential delays around airports and key intersections as the strike entered a second day Wednesday. The day before, taxi drivers lit bonfires and were hit by tear gas when they tried to march onto a major highway, amid nationwide strikes and protests over working conditions. The government promised reforms to the taxi sector in an emergency meeting Tuesday. Traditional taxi drivers say theyre suffering unfair competition from app-based Uber, which has faced legal challenges around Europe. Uber argues the sector needs to catch up with the times. In an illustration of one of the legal battles Uber is fighting, a French court Wednesday ordered the company to pay 1.2 million euros ($1.3 million) to a French taxi union. The penalty stemmed from a 2014 complaint by taxis who argued Uber drivers infringed a requirement to return to their garages between fares. Uber said it will appeal the ruling. LAGOS, Nigeria Suicide bombers kill 13 in Chibok home of kidnapped girls Witnesses say four female suicide bombers killed 13 civilians and wounded 30 in explosions at a market in the Chibok hometown of Nigerias kidnapped schoolgirls. A man at the scene says the blasts began Wednesday when soldiers tried to search a young woman covered in a hijab in the northeast Nigerian town. Then three women inside the market exploded in quick succession. The man insisted on anonymity for fear of reprisals. A Chibok community leader in Abuja, Nigerias capital, said another blast occurred at a military checkpoint in Chibok. Tsambo Hosea Abana says relatives called to tell him his uncle and 15-year-old niece are among the wounded. He blamed Boko Haram Islamic extremists who kidnapped nearly 300 Chibok schoolgirls in April 2014 of whom 219 remain missing. STAVANGER, Norway Norwegian preschool drops carnival over gender stereotypes A preschool in egalitarian Norway has canceled its traditional carnival celebration saying it encourages gender stereotypes, with boys dressing up in macho superhero costumes and girls in frilly princess dresses. Renate Kvivesen, the principal of the Vikaasen preschool near Trondheim, told the AP on Wednesday that we dont think it fits our values to host an event where children feel its important to fit into specific gender roles. The preschool has children up to 6 years old. Parents were informed by email that the annual dress-up for carnival, held just ahead of Lent in the Christian calendar, would not be taking place as usual this year after a split decision by the parent-teacher board. CAIRO Al-Jazeera sues Egypt over arrests, raids and seizures Qatar-owned Al-Jazeera is suing the Egyptian government over its crackdown on the broadcasters activists and journalists. The network said in a statement posted online Wednesday that it had no other option but taking legal action through the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington, D.C. It said the move came months after Cairo declined to respond to the networks complaints. The network says Egyptian authorities have caused it to incur losses of $150 billion. Al-Jazeera was widely seen as a mouthpiece for Islamist President Mohammed Morsis Muslim Brotherhood group. After his 2013 overthrow, Egypt revoked Al-Jazeeras press credentials, raided its offices and arrested several reporters. KANOYA, Japan Zero fighter flies over Japan for 1st time since WWII One of Mitsubishis legendary Zero fighters has taken to the skies over Japan for the first time since World War II. The restored plane took off Wednesday for a brief flight from a naval base in southern Japan. A decorated former U.S. Air Force pilot flew the aircraft. Zero fighters were considered one of the most capable long-range fighter planes in World War II. Only a handful are still in operating condition. This particular plane was found decaying in Papua New Guinea in the 1970s. It was owned by an American until a Japanese businessman purchased it and brought it to Japan last year. - Update and discussion on the Council action taken on Agreement with PG&E to administer the Clothes Washer Rebate Program This agreement will allow PG&E to manage the clothes washer rebate program and provide greater marketing of the program. PG&E will pay $50 of the rebate and overall it would drop the rebate from $250 to $150 with the agreement beginning Feb. 1, 2016 OH! MY! GAWDDDD! Woman's Day has the cutest group of pictures of Keith Urban being surprised by a visit from 3-year-old daughter Faith on the set of American Idol Wednesday. Keith scoops Faith up and then totally makes my heart melt. You can check them all out here. Speaking of Keith, his wife Nicole, who wasn't there for Faith's surprise visit, said in a recent interview that Keith often calls her by her Hawaiian name rather than by Nicole. Apparently the Aussie actress was born on the Hawaiian island of Oahu to Australian parents who gave her the Hawaiian name Hokulani. "My mum called me Hokulani. It means heavenly star. That's something no one really knows. Well, Keith knows it. He calls me Hokulani sometimes.'' Man, I want a Hawaiian name. Oh, and a Keith Urban to call me by my Hawaiian name. Yeah, that'd be nice. Like what we're sharing? Keep up with all the fun by following NashvilleGab on Twitter, Facebook, or subscribe to our feed and be sure to visit our mobile site for all your country music news on the go. If you have something you'd like to share, drop me a line at Shannon@NashvilleGab.com. The year 2015 showed how insecurity abroad directly affects our security at home, but it also showed that the Alliance is responding, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said during the presentation of his Annual Report today (28 January, 2016). Mr. Stoltenberg welcomed Allies progress on defence spending, noting that after many years of substantial reductions in defence spending, the cuts have now practically stopped among European Allies and Canada. And in 2015, defence cuts were close to zero. He emphasised that more needs to be done to increase defence investments in the face of major security challenges. The Secretary General underscored that NATO continues to strengthen collective defence and deterrence. We have visibly increased NATOs presence in the eastern part of our Alliance. And to the south, we have agreed to increase the presence of AWACS early warning aircraft over Turkey, said Mr. Stoltenberg. He pointed out that NATO has tripled the size of its Response Force, with a new Spearhead Force at its core, and is setting up eight small headquarters to facilitate planning and exercises. These measures are part of the most significant reinforcement of NATOs collective defence in decades. The Annual Report gives an overview of NATOs achievements in the last year and considers the challenges that lie ahead. Special mention is made of NATOs deepening cooperation with partners to build stability. NATO is working with partner countries to the east and to the south to build their defence capacity and their ability to contribute to international security. In 2016 and in the years ahead, NATO will remain an anchor of stability. Staying strong, open for dialogue, and working with our partners around the world, said Mr. Stoltenberg. Good morning. Welcome to the launch of my Annual Report for 2015. Last year showed how insecurity abroad can directly affect our security at home. We saw this in the brutal terrorist attacks in our cities. In the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since World War Two. We also saw it in Russias continued actions in Ukraine. And its recent military build-up in Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean. But last year also showed how NATO is responding. We implemented the greatest strengthening of our collective defence since the end fo the Cold War. And cuts in defence spending among European Allies have now practically stopped. Let me start with collective defence. We have visibly increased NATOs presence in the eastern part of our Alliance. And to the south, we have agreed to increase the presence of AWACS early warning aircraft over Turkey, as we continue to augment Turkeys air defences. We have tripled the size of the NATO Response Force to more than 40,000 troops. And at its core is our new, very high readiness Spearhead Force. That is now operational. Ready within days to deploy to wherever it is needed. I was really impressed when I saw it in action at its first deployment exercise in Poland. We are also establishing eight force integration units or small headquarters in the eastern part of our Alliance. They support planning, training and reinforcements, if needed. To combat hybrid warfare, we are improving our intelligence and early warning. Speeding up our decision-making, and enhancing our cyber defences. Last year, we conducted around 300 Allied exercises, including the largest and most complex one in over a decade. With over 36,000 troops, 140 aircraft, and 60 ships from over 30 different nations. Exercise Trident Juncture took place in Spain, Portugal and Italy. A tremendous display of our capabilities and of Allies ability to work together. We will continue to step up our exercises this year, and we will remain transparent in what we do. As you can see from the exercise schedule we have posted online. Over the last two years, Russian air activity close to NATOs European airspace has increased by around 70%. In response, Allied aircraft scrambled over 400 times to intercept Russian aircraft. We have made substantial progress with our new Alliance Ground Surveillance system. Including the first test flight of one of our new Global Hawk drones. This system will provide real-time intelligence to our commanders in theatre. And we have also made important steps for NATOs ballistic missile defence system. The arrival of two more US Aegis ships based in Spain. Progress towards the activation of the missile defence facility in Romania. And this spring, we will break ground for a new site in Poland. This is a defensive system, to protect our European Allies against the real threat of ballistic missiles from outside the Euro-Atlantic area. Of course, boosting our defence posture does not come for free. And that is why in 2014, NATO leaders committed to end the cuts, and gradually increase our defence spending. Over the last year, we have started to move in the right direction. After many years of substantial reductions in defence spending, the cuts have now practically stopped among European Allies and Canada. And in 2015, defence cuts were close to zero. Let me give you some figures. Five Allies now meet our guideline on spending 2 percent of GDP or more on defence. 16 Allies spent more on defence in real terms in 2015. And 23 Allies increased the amount they are spending on new equipment. This has taken a lot of effort. But we all need to do more. Because, to the east and to the south, we face the biggest security challenges in a generation. NATO is at the forefront of the fight against international terrorism. The aim of our mission in Afghanistan has been to deny safe haven to international terrorists. We continue to train, advise and assist the Afghan army and police. They face significant challenges, but they are holding their ground. We decided, in 2015, to maintain our current level of troops this year. And we are looking at how we can contribute to the funding of the Afghan security forces until 2020. Every NATO Ally is part of the Global Coalition to counter ISIL. The Coalitions high degree of interoperability is a key asset. Built through years of challenging NATO-led operations and training. To address the root causes of instability, NATO is working even closer with our partners in the region. We are building the defence capacity of Jordan. We will soon start training Iraqi officers. And we are working with Tunisia on special operations forces and intelligence to help them be stronger in defending themselves. And working with other countries in North Africa and the Middle East. In the Western Balkans, our mission in Kosovo continues to bring much needed security and stability to a region that has been highly volatile. And in 2015, we took another important decision, which will advance stability in the Western Balkans. We formally invited Montenegro to begin talks to become the 29th member of NATO. And accession negotiations will begin in mid-February. In the east, we continue to support Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, to better resist outside pressure. We help them in different ways to build their defence capacity, modernise their institutions and strengthen their reforms. In less than six months from now, Allied leaders will meet at our summit in Warsaw. We will take the next steps to strengthen our defence and deterrence. We will decide on the right balance between a forward presence in the east and our ability to reinforce. We will address the crisis to the south and the support we provide to our partners. And we will review the progress we have made on defence spending. Over the last years, our world has become more dangerous, and more unpredictable. But NATO is adapting to keep our nations safe. In 2016, and in the years ahead, NATO will remain an anchor of stability. Staying strong, open for dialogue, and working with our partners around the world. With that, I am ready to take your questions. Oana Lungescu (NATO Spokesperson): Okay well go to Wall Street Journal. Julian Barnes (Wall Street Journal): Julian Barnes, Wall Street Journal. Mr. Secretary General first how much of the change in defence spending trends do you think is directly related to Russias actions in the east? And what sorts of measures to strengthen deterrence are you queueing up for the Warsaw Summit? What needs to build on the wrap of the, of the last meeting? Jens Stoltenberg (NATO Secretary General): The reason why we decided to stop the cuts in defence spending at our summit back in 2014 was the changed and more challenging security environment and Russia is of course part of that. Because we see a more assertive Russia to the east, a Russia which has invested heavily in defence over several years and which has also shown the will to use military force to change borders in Europe and this is the first time this has happened since the end of the Second World War. But then in addition or moreover we also see instability, violence, turmoil to the south and this is the reason why we decided that we have to stop the cuts and then gradually increase defence spending and now we have seen at least that we are moving in the right direction. The first year after we made the pledge the cuts have practically stopped among European allies and Canada, we have to do more, we have to start to increase but at least this is a first step in the right direction. Then the question was what are we going to invest in. Well we need to invest more in modern equipment. A wide range of different kinds of modern equipment. But for instance to be able to deal with cyber-threats with hybrid challenges and threats we need more surveillance, we need more intelligence, we need more cyber-capabilities but we also of course need more high-end armour equipment - for traditional collective defence. So we need air to air fueling, we need many kinds of capabilities and thats the reason why we have not only focused on the need to spend more but also to spend better and invest in modern equipment. Oana Lungescu: Reuters. Q: Good morning. Robin Emmott from Reuters. My question is about the force posture or the potential posture in the east. You talked about the NFIUs and we know about the Spearhead Force but what more could be done, what more is being discussed? Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg: We have already increased our presence in the east. With the assurance measures, with more planes in the air, with more boots on the ground, with more ships in the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and as you just said we have also been establishing these small headquarters and we have more exercises taking place in the east. So all of this is part of increased presence in the east, in the eastern part of the alliance which has already been decided and which has already been implemented. Then we are as we move towards our summit in Warsaw addressing what more we need to do and that will be to find the right balance between increased presence in the eastern part of the alliance combined with increased ability, capability to reinforce if needed. Its too early to prejudge or to tell you exactly what were going to decide in Warsaw but I can confirm that we are discussing exactly those issues now. Partly about increased presence, that can be of course troops but it can also be equipment, pre-positioning, infrastructure, to facilitate help, reinforcement if needed and a combination. But I would like to underline the following, we dont speak about moving back to the Cold War posture with hundreds of thousands of troops based, combative-based along the borders. We will, theres no way well move back to that posture but we are talking about some increase in military presence and increase in ability, the preparedness, the readiness of our forces to deploy. And this will be one of the key issues we will decide at our summit in Warsaw but its discussed and addressed now among allies and in the alliance. Oana Lungescu: Well stay on this side with Europa Press. No. Q: Thank you Secretary General. In the last military committee there was advanced that NATO allies would discuss possible options to reinforce support for the anti-ISIL coalition. I understand that one of the options thats being discussed is the possible use of AWACS and both the possibility to deploy them in theatre. I dont know if that would cover both Syria and Iraq but theres also a possibility that they would, that they would go to other theatres and then national nations could then send their own national AWACS to the area. I dont know if there is any other kind of possible measures that the allies are discussing in this subject. And then if you could be a little bit more concrete about the NATO training in Iraq, Iraqi Forces, will it be done in theatre? How many people are going to be there? And with Tunis I understand that nothing has formally started, the package is still on the way in preparation, I dont know if you could precise this. And sorry to, very, very last question, sorry. On the defence expenditure Im not sure if Im reading wrong the data but I understand that actually the NATO European allies have cut, have cut and the total NATO spending actually went down by 1.5 % as a whole in 2015. So despite some allies have made efforts others are still cutting quite a lot and the whole NATO total expenditure has actually cut by 1.5 %. Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg: First the AWACS. I can confirm that we have got the request from the US to provide support to the efforts of their coalition and to help them with the NATO AWACS surveillance planes. And we are now looking into that request and this is a decision, a decision which will be taken by 28 allies and we are looking into how we can provide help and how to answer the request from the US. But I would like to underline that all NATO allies are already part of the coalition. So what we are discussing is how NATO as an alliance can provide help to the coalition which all NATO allies are already part of. And then, and then we have this capability, we already have AWACS planes in Turkey and then we are looking into different ways of, of providing help and then we will make the decision as 28 allies. Then we will start training of Iraqi officers in Jordan; they will be trained in Jordan. I think I have to come back to the exact figures because its too early to say anything about exact figures but the training will start soon. We have started the cooperation with Tunisia, we, I met with the Tunisian Prime Minister and I also met with the Iraqi Prime Minister just, it was last week in Davos and they very much welcome the support from NATO. They would like to see even more and we are looking into how we can expand and increase our support for these countries. And I think you have to understand that this is part of a very important way to approach the challenges and instability we see to the south. Because we think very much that, we think that its extremely important that we are able to project stability, not always by deploying large number of NATO combat forces but by training local forces. And in the long run prevention is better than intervention. NATO has to stand ready, to be ready to deploy large number of combat forces also in the future as we have done for instance in Afghanistan but at the same time we are focusing more and more on how can we help build local capacity, train, assist and advise local forces because in the long run its better that they are able to defend themselves instead of we fighting their wars. So this is what we do in Afghanistan and we would like to do even more of it in the Middle East and North Africa. Last on spending, I think we have to distinguish between two things. Yes the United States, they already spend much more than 2 %, so they are at a very high level compared to all other NATO allies. They have reduced, partly because they have reduced their military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq but they remain about 3 % actually. So yes theres been some further reductions in US spending but they remain far above 2 %. And since the United States is so big, so 72 % of NATO defence spending is US defence spending. Of course any change in US defence spending directly affects the total NATO defence spending. The problem has partly been the burden-sharing between European allies and the US or among allies in the alliance and, and partly the total level in Europe. And thats the reason why we agreed to stop the cuts and gradually increase and one year after we made the pledge we are able then to stop the cuts among European allies, its minus .3 % which is practically zero but as I said this is the first step. We need to see more, this is in a way just the beginning but it is a start after one year. Oana Lungescu: Ive got a long list of questions, possible questions down here so I would urge you to please not go beyond one or maximum two. Well go to ABC in the back. Q: Good morning Secretary General. This is Enrique Serbeto from the Spanish newspaper ABC. Im sure you are aware what, of the political problems in Warsaw, the European Commission has started an investigation about the respect of the political rules of European Union for this according with some changes in the, make in the laws, in the constitution and the constitutionality in Warsaw. So are you worried about the possibility that this political conflict can affect the summit? Jens Stoltenberg: NATO and the European Union is based on the same values. Democracy, individual liberty and, and of course these values are human rights and of course these values are of great importance for both the European Union and NATO. But NATO doesnt have the same kind of mechanisms as the European Union so this is an issue and a question which is now addressed in the European Union and I will not go into the process which is taking place inside the European Union. What I can say is that the fundamental values for NATO, they are important and I adhere great importance to them because individual liberty, democracy, human rights are important values which NATO is formed and established to protect. And I met recently with the Polish President and we discussed the importance of these values for the alliance. And these values are important for the alliance also because they form the basis for the unity of the alliance and the unity of the alliance is the foundation for the strength and our ability to act together. Oana Lungescu: ITAR-TASS No, behind, thank you. Q: Thank you. Denis Dubrovin, Tass News Agency. Mr. Secretary General there is already two months since the tragic incident with the downing of Russian air jet in, by Turkey in Syria. My question is, there was said a lot about the need of communication between NATO and Russia to avoid any kind of incidents. So what has been done for those two months to establish such communication? And when can we expect next NATO-Russia Coucil? Thank you very much. Jens Stoltenberg: The downing of the Russian plane which violated Turkish airspace illustrates the importance of strengthening mechanisms for risk reductions and transparency, predictability related to military activity. And thats the reason why we are pushing hard for both strengthening existing mechanisms but also looking into whether we can develop new ones. And just yesterday I met and the NATO Council met with the OSCE, the German chairmanship and the Secretary General, Ambassador Zannier, and we met with him to address exactly the importance of developing more transparency, more predictability for instance related to something called the Vienna Document which is a document which regulates especially military exercises. We have raised with our Russian counterparts several times the need for strengthening these kind of mechanisms and this is an issue which we will continue to discuss both in the OSCE framework but also directly with Russia. We are looking into the possibility of holding a NATO-Russia Council meeting, we have never suspended the council but we think at the same time now its time to have, to look into the possibility of having a meeting. No final decision has been taken but we will also discuss this with the Russian delegation at NATO and then make a final decision on when to have such a meeting. Oana Lungescu: German Radio, Kai Kirchner. Q: Mr. Secretary General, Kai Kirchner, ARD German Radio. Just a quick follow up to the US request to join the anti-IS coalition and the AWACS planes. I think its safe to say that from Berlin there havent been any cries of joy resonating in Brussels since that request. Are you in touch with the German side concerning the AWACS request since German troops are very much involved in this? And do you foresee any date for a decision to be taken? Will that be also a topic for the Defence Ministers meeting in February? Jens Stoltenberg: Of course we are in close contact with Germany. Germany is both part of the coalition and this is a US-led coalition and the US is asking for AWACS to support the efforts of the coalition and Germany is part of that coalition. But at the same time of course Germany is also one of the 28 members of NATO and we are going to take this, this decision as an alliance of 28. So Germany is of course very close on this process and we will look into different ways of providing this support but no final decision has yet been taken. I will not give you an exact date but of course this is an issue which will be also discussed among Defence Ministers when they meet soon but when the decision is going to be taken I will not give you any exact dates. But what I can say is that NATO of course already support the efforts of the international coalition to fight ISIL. We have, so we will start the training of Iraqi officers very soon, the reason why we do that is of course to enable Iraq to be stronger in the fight against ISIL. We help Jordan, an island or a key country in the region already and we have military presence in Turkey already augmenting their air defences and we have for instance Spanish patriot batteries very close to the border with Iraq and Syria where we have ISIL. And let me also add that NATOs presence in Afghanistan is also about fighting international terrorism, different kinds of international terrorism but also in Afghanistan we now see some reports, some presence of ISIL. So I think we have to understand that this is a broad international coalition, NATO allies are part of the coalition and NATO is also playing a key role in the fight against ISIL in different places in the world. Oana Lungescu: And now weve got a cluster of questions right here so well go with ANSA first. Q: Hello good morning. Marco Galdi, Agency ANSA. Secretary General, you welcome the cuts close to zero in defence expenses but I can see in the report that Italy cut by 12.4 % last year. Is, what can you say about that? And in absolute term even Europe actually continued cutting expenses. What is your suggestion to Italian Government? Jens Stoltenberg: First of all I think its important to understand the following. That we have seen over many, many years substantial cuts in European defence spending, among European NATO allies, the important thing with the figures for 2015 is that we are very close to zero cuts. This is not something which is very great in itself because we need much more but compared to continued reductions at least to stop the cuts is the first step, the beginning. And we have also to remember that what we decided in Wales was in a way the three steps. First to stop the cuts, then gradual to increase defending spending, then aim at 2 %. And this is the first year and we are making progress but we still have a very long way to go because its not enough to stop the cuts; we have to also start to increase. Then the picture is mixed but the picture is better because before as I say the total NATO European spending on defence went down substantially over many years. Now we see a more mixed picture, with some allies continuing to cut and others are increasing. But the numbers, the amount which defence spending is increasing within several allies is not, is now bigger so in total we are close to zero and thats at least the first step in the right direction. I would like to see all allies which are spending less than 2 % to stop the cuts and then to gradually increase and that of course also includes the Italian Government. Oana Lungescu: Okay well go to Janes here. Q: Yes Brooks Tigner, Janes Defence. Just one question, you did mention Libya which is in a mess, is there any allied contingency planning for securing future safe havens in the country if decided by the EU or the international community? So in other words are you doing any predictive planning? Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg: When it comes to Libya the important thing is to support the efforts, the ongoing efforts to try to find a political solution, to establish a unity government or a government of national accord and to have a ceasefire. And we have seen some progress but also some setbacks in the UN- facilitated talks. We support them and I think the most important thing we all can do now is to give full support to those talks. If there is a new unity government then NATO stands ready to provide support, to help, assist, build security institutions and to support a new unity government in Libya. But then a new government has to request such support and the conditions on the ground has to be different than they are today. Oana Lungescu: NPR. Q: A follow up on Russia. Could you give us your assessment of the status of the Minsk Agreements now? If youre going back into talks with the Russian representative Id be very interested to hear what, what the status of that is since we have not heard a lot about major withdrawals. The OSCE still has a mixed picture on fulfilment. And also can you talk a little bit about where NATO is headed in terms of thinking about its counter-, its counter-propaganda efforts? There are some indications you are looking at getting a lot tougher on this. Thanks. Jens Stoltenberg: First on Minsk. We have seen some progress and some setbacks and again the picture is mixed when it comes to implementation of the Minsk Agreements. But the only way to a peaceful solution in Ukraine is the full implementation of the Minsk Agreements. Therefore it was encouraging when we - last fall - saw that the ceasefire was respected. Now we have seen more violations again and this was also an issue which we addressed when we met with the OSCE yesterday. The importance of allowing the OSCE monitors full access to the area to be able to monitor, to monitor and to make sure that the ceasefire if fully respected and of course the withdrawal of heavy weapons. And again the picture is mixed, there have been some reporting about withdrawal of heavy weapons but then again some reports about the heavy weapons being moved back again to the front line. So its a fragile, its a mixed picture but we support the efforts of, of all the parties to fully implement the Minsk Accord or the Minsk Agreement because thats the only, only foundation for a peaceful solution in Ukraine. Then on, on the sorry - Russian propaganda. We have seen that Russia is spending a lot, is investing heavily in, in different kinds of propaganda and we will not counter propaganda with propaganda. But we have to stay vigilant, we have to be ready to answer and to provide the truth, facts, figures, because we will not answer propaganda with propaganda, we will provide facts and figures because in the long run we are certain that the truth will prevail. And, and I think that you being journalists you are have also a very important role to play in open democratic societies. To be critical towards governments, NATO, all of us but also to be very aware that there is a risk that people try to inform you with propaganda and then you are aware that you should avoid being used in any way. So we have to be critical regardless of where the information is coming from. Oana Lungescu: Le Soir. Q: Thank you, Phillip Regnier, Newspaper Le Soir. You mentioned that accession talks with Montenegro but how do you see the situation there evolving because there are some popular dissent against this prospect? And do you see any Russian influence in these demonstrations and movements? Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg: Montenegro is a democratic society. Montenegro is a society which has made a lot of progress, they have implemented reforms, they have improved the rule of law, they have fought corruption and we urge them to continue on the path of reform. But since Montenegro is a democratic society there are different views and I think we shall just respect that in any open society there will be different views and opinions about important issues like for instance joining NATO. But Montenegro has decided several times that they will continue on the path towards NATO membership, they have applied through democratic decisions, the parliament and the government, to apply and to stand by their decision to apply for membership and then its up to Montenegro and 28 allies to decide whether Montenegro becomes a member or not, no one else has the right to intervene. Oana Lungescu: Last questions, Suddeutsche. Q: Yeah. Daniel Brossler, Suddeutsche Zeitung. There would be another follow up on the US request for a larger participation of NATO in the anti-ISIL coalition. In Berlin there is a point they make saying that participation of NATO as an alliance might undermine the efforts of the coalition in the Arab world because it then might be perceived as a more western project, is that a concern that you share? Jens Stoltenberg: NATO is already present in the region in many different ways. We, we provide support for Jordan, we provide support for Iraq, we have partnership cooperation with Iraq and we soon will start to train the Iraqi officers. We help Tunisia and of course we are present along the borders of Iraq and Syria with assurance measures for Turkey. So NATO is already there. Second I think its hard to understand how anything can be more western than a US-led coalition with the UK, Germany, France and all the different western allies and actually all NATO allies being part of the coalition. But what I would like to underline is the importance of building local capacity, building and strengthening forces and governments in the region to increase their ability to fight ISIL and thats exactly why I think it is important that the NATO is going to do more or should do more in training, assisting, helping forces and governments in the region because if they are stronger to fight ISIL thats good for them but it is also good for us. And Germany is part of the coalition. The US has requested support, we will look into that and make a decision as 28 allies. Oana Lungescu: Thank you very much. This now completes the press conference. YEREVAN. The matter of the anti-Armenian report, which the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted on Tuesday, is not yet closed, and the Armenian delegation to the PACE needs to restore the real picture and neutralize this report by way of other resolutions. Ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) MP Artak Zakaryan, who is also Chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Relations, told the aforesaid to Armenian News-NEWS.am. As for the anti-Armenian report which PACE rejected, Zakaryan noted that the recent statement by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group, which is the only format that is engaged in achieving a resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, was very important in this respect. The RPA deputy stressed that the dismissal of one of these two anti-Armenian reports was a result of the active work in recent times by the Armenian side. [But] we all need to draw conclusions from these processes to prevent this kind of situation, Zakaryan added. Nothing is impossible in case of great and good wishes, the right work. It should be analyzed why we [i.e. the Armenian side] got to this situation, and what should be done so that it would not be repeated in the future. PACE on Tuesday voted against MP Robert Walters (UK) anti-Armenian report entitled Escalation of Violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and Other Occupied Territories of Azerbaijan, but adopted MP Milica Markovics (Bosnia and Herzegovina) anti-Armenian report about Sarsang Reservoir in Nagorno-Karabakh, and entitled Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water. To note, representatives of the PACE Unified European Left Group, the Socialist Group, and the European Peoples Party voted against both anti-Armenian reports. YEREVAN. People in Armenia do not ask how much the price of gasoline has dropped in Russia, where the oil prices have become so much cheaper. Member of the opposition Prosperous Armenia Party National Assembly (NA) Faction and Deputy Chair of the NA Standing Committee on Economic Affairs, economist Mikayel Melkumyan, told the aforementioned to Armenian News-NEWS.am. He noted this reflecting on the questions as to why gasoline has not become cheaper in Armenia, despite the sharp fall in world oil prices. If they study, they will see that the gasoline prices have not dropped a lot in Russia, the economist said. The price of gasoline cannot drop as much that the price of oil has dropped. We need to see how much the share of oil is in todays price of gasoline; it is [a mere] 10 to 12 percent, maximum. This notwithstanding, Melkumyan agreed that the price of gasoline should reduce to some extent. YEREVAN. A huge place is left in the anti-Armenian resolution, which was adopted in Strasbourg on Tuesday, to deprive the Armenian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) of the right to vote, and the Azerbaijani delegation will probably use this opportunity with great efforts, according to Haykakan Zhamanak daily. Judging by the hysterical reaction of Azerbaijani media regarding the failure of the resolution, Baku will launch a new attack against Armenia. The members of our [i.e. Armenian] delegation have such a concern. The Assembly firmly condemns the lack of co-operation of the Armenian parliamentary delegation and the Armenian authorities during the preparation of this report. The Assembly regards such behaviour as inconsistent with the obligations and commitments of a country which is a full member of the Council of Europe. The Assembly will consider what measures to take in this case and in any similar cases which may arise during the terms of office of its parliamentarians, reads Section 8 of the resolution on the Sarsang Reservoir, Haykakan Zhamanak wrote. PACE on Tuesday voted against MP Robert Walters (UK) anti-Armenian report entitled Escalation of Violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and Other Occupied Territories of Azerbaijan, but adopted MP Milica Markovics (Bosnia and Herzegovina) anti-Armenian report about Sarsang Reservoir in Nagorno-Karabakh, and entitled Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water. To note, representatives of the PACE Unified European Left Group, the Socialist Group, and the European Peoples Party voted against both anti-Armenian reports. YEREVAN. Numerous roads in Armenia are either closed for traffic or difficult to drive as of Thursday 9am, informed the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Emergency Situations. Vardenyats (Selim) Pass and several motorways are closed for traffic. The Dilijan bends and some highways are difficult to pass, and there is black ice on some parts of these roads. A section of the Areni-Khachik motorway in Vayots Dzor Province is open solely for one-way traffic. The road crews are scattering salt and sand on the motorways and are also cleaning them to ensure safe travel. The Ministry advises drivers to travel on these roads only when absolutely necessary, and with winter tires on their vehicles. The Ministry divisions on duty are carrying out their services in enhanced mode. And according to the information received from the Emergency Situations Department of Georgia, the countrys Stepantsminda-Larsi Highway, which leads to the Armenian border, is closed for traffic. Ombudsman of Armenia: I received video materials from EU special representative about Azerbaijanis Armenia Security Council chief, UK army general discuss cooperation in security Armenia and Kazakhstan discuss bilateral military cooperation Iran says U.S. and Israel won't be able to split the republic 201 bodies are identified of Armenia soldiers who died as result of September military aggression by Azerbaijan Iran FM to arrive in Armenia today Turkey, Azerbaijan presidents officially open international airport in occupied Artsakh territory Armenia PM on making EU observation mission permanent: I'm not sure about that US State Dept.: Our ultimate goal is peaceful resolution between Armenia and Azerbaijan Armenia, Qatar to collaborate in tourism sector Turkey president travels to Azerbaijan President of Armenia, mayor of Bulgarias Plovdiv discuss avenues for deepening of cooperation Armenia has new customs attache at Upper Lars checkpoint on Russia-Georgia border Karabakh official: Baku goes for gradual escalation, provocation of situation Armenia to get 33mn grant from EU for police, migration service, business development in Syunik Province Lacote: OSCE observation mission deployment will contribute to respect of Armenia territorial integrity World oil prices going up Russia extends flight restrictions at 11 airports Newspaper: Karabakh delegation to head for Moscow, meeting with Putin considered probable Newspaper: Azerbaijan aggression on September 13 paralyzes Armenia public administration for some time Azerbaijan army opens fire towards Armenia positions at midnight Retired US Air Force general is offered consulting job in Azerbaijan at rate of $5,000 a day White House is puzzling over how to avoid meeting between Putin and Biden at G-20 summit Eduard Aghajanyan: Once again I remind that Armenia was deprived of opportunity to protect rights of people of Artsakh U.S. says that limiting Russian oil prices is not aimed at OPEC OSCE sends mission to Armenia to assess situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border Jeff Bezos warns that U.S. economy may face recession Kiev says nearly 40% of Ukraine's energy infrastructure has been damaged Raisi: Iran will use all its capabilities and potential to end war in Ukraine Qatar gets first pandas in Middle East Armenian president delivers lecture at St. Kliment Ohridski University in Sofia More than half of Britons think Liz Truss should resign Bloomberg: Putin and Erdogan's cordial relationship arouses Western anger Dutch government invests up to 3.5 billion in military procurement Erdogan discusses latest developments in Ukraine with Zelenskyy School in Paris expels student from class for denying Armenian Genocide Germany would like to participate in EU observer mission to Armenia U.S. is considering plan to co-produce weapons with Taiwan Poland to buy K239 Chunmoo from South Korea Air defense system repels several missile attacks by Ukrainian troops at Kakhovskaya HPP Baku court does not definitively terminate criminal prosecution of Yunus spouses Liz Truss has no plans to resign CSTO countries agree on draft agreement on standardization of military equipment EU countries agree to sanction eight people and organizations over Iranian drones Congressman David Price meets with rector of Yerevan State University Chairman of Amsterdam City Court visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex in Yerevan ASPU supports process of unification of universities Deputy Chief of Police on new draft law: 'Citizen of Azerbaijan' is extremely relative notion Benny Gantz: Israel will not supply weapons to Ukraine Saudi Arabia lifts ban on Turkish soap operas Armenia lawyer arrested Remains discovered during renovation of Ministry of Culture building in Tbilisi are transferred to Armenian Pantheon Dollar goes up, euro falls in Armenia IRGC special forces conduct helicopter operations on third day of exercises on border with Azerbaijan MFA: France position on achieving Armenia-Azerbaijan peace is unchanged Foreign Minister: Iran will not allow blocking its communications with Armenia Kremlin: Russia does not intend to close borders amid introduction of martial law in four regions EU mission delegation visits some border communities of Armenias Gegharkunik Province (PHOTOS) Armenias Papikyan attends defense ministers assembly in India Brusov university rector: Armenia education minister offered me a high position in new university, I declined Putin imposes martial law in new territories of Russia Yerevan to host Eurasian Intergovernmental Council meeting Putin holds meeting of Security Council Armenia MOD spox: Azerbaijan still preventing search operations Iran announces retaliatory sanctions against EU Russian Defense Ministry reports on strike on military facilities in Ukraine Artsakh Foreign Minister receives Ruben Vardanyan Israel calls Australia's refusal to recognize Jerusalem as capital of Israel 'pathetic decision' Armenia to tighten penalties for overloading of trucks Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey army elite units conduct demonstration military drills Luxembourg parliament speaker: Azerbaijan aggression is direct attack on Armenia sovereignty Russia Investigative Committee chief confirms theory of Crimean Bridge explosion accomplices Uruguay vice president: We express our solidarity with Armenian people GeoProMining's ZCMC has tripled tax payments to the state budget of Armenia Yerevan judge to be arrested Paul Krekorian unanimously elected as LA City Council President ThePrint: Armenia eyes procuring Akash missiles, loitering munitions from India Armenia MP to international colleagues: Azerbaijan intends to carry out new aggression Ukraine military hits Energodar city hall Armenia PM: We hope Azerbaijan will cooperate in clarifying destiny of our compatriots YEREVAN. - Worsening of the social situation in Azerbaijan and the internal tension in that country may escalate the situation on the border. Ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) MP Artak Zakaryan, who is also Chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Relations, told the aforesaid to Armenian News-NEWS.am. But we are ready for any events. And the fact that Azerbaijans resources will dwindle and that its energy significance for the West and Russia will decrease, is already becoming apparent, Zakaryan said. According to him, after Iran becomes a subject of international economy, Azerbaijans economic influence in the region will also reduce. Besides, Georgia must gradually begin to understand that the harsh dependence from the Turkish-Azerbaijani economic relations can also harm its stable ties with Armenia, the MP added. The Governments of Azerbaijan and Hungary have been asked by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to respond formally to a case brought by the relatives of Armenian army officer Gurgen Margaryan, who was murdered by Azerbaijani officer Ramil Safarov in Budapest in 2004. The European Human Rights Advocacy Centre website has informed the aforementioned. Margaryans relatives are represented by the Centre (based in Middlesex University), Legal Guide (Armenian NGO), and Nazeli Vardanyan. Both men were attending a NATO-sponsored English-language course in Budapest. On 19 February 2004, Safarov murdered Margaryan by decapitating him with an axe. In April 2006, Safarov was found guilty of murder by the Budapest City Court, and was sentenced to life imprisonment, with the possibility of conditional release after 30 years. The court found that Safarov had intended to kill two Armenian participants at the course on the anniversary of the beginning of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. After the Court of Appeal upheld this judgment in February 2007, Safarov began serving his sentence in a Hungarian prison. In August 2012, the Hungarian Minister of Justice approved Safarovs transfer to Azerbaijan with a view to his serving his sentence there. However, a few hours after Safarov was transferred on 31 August 2012, he was granted a pardon by the Azerbaijani President and set free. He was also promoted to major, awarded eight years salary arrears, and offered a flat. In response to this development, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan announced on August 31, 2012 that Armenia is suspending its diplomatic ties with Hungary. Also, Sargsyan instructed the Ministry of Justice to take all measures to petition to the international judicial tribunals, and with respect to the Safarov case. Ramil Safarovs pardoning was condemned by virtually all international organizations. In February 2013, the Armenian party petitioned to the European Court of Human Rights, in connection with the Ramil Safarov case. The complaint was with respect to Articles 2 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The victims family argue that Gurgen Margaryans right to life has been violated by Azerbaijan both because of his murder, and also because Ramil Safarovs pardon has prevented the full enforcement of his sentence. They also argue that Margaryan was the victim of an ethnically-motivated hate crime, which was later endorsed by Safarovs pardon and release. In addition, they argue that Hungary has breached Article 2 of the Convention because it allowed Safarov to be transferred to Azerbaijan, without having obtained assurances that he would be required to complete his prison sentence in Azerbaijan. The case is also brought by Hayk Makuchyan, an Armenian military officer whom Ramil Safarov was convicted of intending to murder during the same incident in Budapest. ALEPPO. Armenians have not suffered any casualties or injuries in the recent shelling of Aleppo, Syria, by the terrorists. The National Prelacy of Aleppo of the Armenian Apostolic Church informed that the city residents are deprived of drinking water for over ten days. They are using water wells for their household water needs, and instead of drinking water, they are consuming mineral water purchased from stores. There is no electricity in Aleppo for more than four months, and the residents are using electrical power generators that work on gasoline and diesel fuel, for heating. Around 60 to 70 thousand Armenians lived in Syria before the start of the civil war in the country. More than half of these Armenians resided in Aleppo, the largest city in Syria, and the rest lived in capital city Damascus and several other towns. YEREVAN. - The members of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Greece, Czech Republic and Cyprus delegations voted in favor of Armenia at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) session. Deputy Speaker of the Armenia Parliament, Eduard Sharmazanov, told the aforementioned to Armenian News NEWS.am correspondent, touching on the debate on two anti-Armenian reports at PACE. In his words, Azerbaijan made a fiasco: Its very important that the report by Robert Walter was neutralized. This was the success of the Armenian diplomacy. The aspiration of the Azeris to shift the discussion of the Karabakh conflict to other platforms was neutralized. Turkey and Azerbaijan didnt achieve their goals. According to him, the European deputies opposed the intentions of Azerbaijan to shift the issue to other platform. As to the report by Milica Markovic, I think the social and humanitarian nature of the problem is likely to have played a role here. But there were political emphases in this social and humanitarian issue. If the discussions were debated separately on different days, perhaps Markovics report wouldnt have been adopted either. But this is the best of a bad bunch, Sharmazanov noted. The Deputy Speaker also said that all the countries, whose friendship groups he chairs, have recorded a positive result for Armenia. First of all, Greece: 4 members of the Greek delegation voted against the anti-Armenian reports at both votings, two members voting for it. And this happens when everyone knows that the Greek delegation includes Dora Bakoyannis, who has a pro-Azerbaijani stance: its not the first year she has been protecting Azerbaijans interests at PACE, Sharmazanov stressed. Secondly, he continued, the delegation of the Czech Republic was earlier completely against the Armenian viewpoint and voted in favor of Azerbaijan. Our achievement was that the Czechs didnt take part in the first voting and during the second voting one of the Czech senators voted against the pro-Azerbaijani report, Sharmazanov said. Referring to the Baltic countries, the Deputy Speaker said that the latter never manifested such united support for the Armenian standpoint. Latvia ensured 100 percent results: 0 votes for and 2 votes against. Estonia voted similarly, and the votes of Lithuania were divided the following way: 2 votes against and 1 vote for, Sharmazanov stated. He also thanked the delegation members of those countries, the chairman of whose friendship groups he is, for support and understanding that the adoption of the two aforementioned reports posed threat to the peace in the region. I would also like to thank all three Armenian ambassadors Ara Ayvazyan (Lithuania), Gagik Ghalatchian (Greece) and Tigran Seyranyan (Czech Republic), as well as the representatives of our Diaspora, the Deputy Speaker said. PACE on Tuesday voted against MP Robert Walters (UK) anti-Armenian report entitled Escalation of Violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and Other Occupied Territories of Azerbaijan, but adopted MP Milica Markovics (Bosnia and Herzegovina) anti-Armenian report about Sarsang Reservoir in Nagorno-Karabakh, and entitled Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water. President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has actually obliterated the formal opposition, famous expert Thomas de Waal writes in his article Azerbaijans Perfect Storm, published on carnegieeurope.eu website. According to the expert, many leading critics of his regimehuman rights defenders, journalists, and youth activists were arrested over the past two years. Only 20 years ago, Azerbaijan had a turbulent and chaotic political life, which was put to an end by the skills of the all-powerful Heidar Aliyev. [However] Ilham Aliyev, Heidar's son and successor since 2003, has never been the dominant monarch that his father was, more of the pivot at the center of the elite, the first amongst equals, and arbiter of disputes amongst top officials, who are also rent-seeking businessmen, Thomas de Waal notes. The Azerbaijani regime is no longer that homogeneous as it used to be, the author writes. In October, Eldar Mahmudov, Azerbaijan's long-serving national security ministerthe head of what used to be the KGBwas sacked, along with most of his subordinates. There are many rumors as to why. One tells of a conspiracy with the former head of the International Bank of Azerbaijana relative by marriage of Mahmudovto defraud the government. Or else, reportedly, Mahmudov was caught carrying out secret surveillance of fellow ministers and presidential officials, de Waal writes. According to him, the international context is worsening too. Azerbaijan is in the middle of a (self-inflicted) row with the United States, after closing down almost all U.S. organizations in Baku and accusing Washington of fomenting a color revolution in the country. A bill threatening sanctions in response to human rights abuses was recently tabled in Congress. The row between Russia and Turkey, its two closest international partners, has put Azerbaijan in an awkward spot. (Only last year, Aliyev was convening a friendly meeting between Putin and Erdogan in Baku.) Lifting of sanctions on Iran is a triple blow. It removes a major card Baku was playing with the West (that it was a bulwark against a hostile Iran), reinvigorates a regional power which has a number of quarrels with Azerbaijan, and depresses oil prices. Moreover, there is talk in Georgia of importing oil from Iran via Armenia, which would end Azerbaijan's monopoly on gas imports, the expert notes. According to de Waal, two more powerful sources of instability add to the picture of distraction and uncertainty. One is the unresolved conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. Over the last few years, the ceasefire regime established in 1994 has deteriorated, Azerbaijan has acquired a fearsome new arsenal of weaponry, and the country has turned up the dial of bellicose rhetoric against the Armenians for occupying Azerbaijani land. The increasing worry is that an Azerbaijani regime that is in desperate straits might choose to play the Karabakh card-the one grievance that can rally all Azerbaijanis around the flagand start a military operation, large or small, to recover lost territory. In that case, the Armenians would be bound to strike back and a new and potentially catastrophic conflict in the Caucasus would break out, the author writes. The other one, according to him, is political Islam. Azerbaijans secular pro-Western political prisoners have captured most of the attention abroad. On December 28, one of the most prominent of them, famous journalist Rauf Mirkadirov, was sentenced to a six-year imprisonment on the charge of allegedly spying for Armenia. But the majority of the prisoners in Azerbaijan are accused of political radicalism. Among them are Shias from the pro-Iranian village of Nardaran or Sunnis accused of supporting the Islamic State. Last year, the Azerbaijani government predicated its budget forecasts on $50-a-barrel oil. Now, President Aliyev faces the near-impossible task of how to buy off very different groups of discontented citizens with oil at little more than half that level, the expert concludes. The moral framework of Azerbaijan is axing a sleeping man. Leader of the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) Naira Zohrabyan, who is also the member of the Armenian delegation to PACE, said the aforementioned at the PACE session today. Two joint reports Strengthening the protection and role of human rights defenders in Council of Europe member States, as well as another one on inappropriate interference into the operation of NGOs were discussed at todays session. The authors of the aforementioned reports referred to the violation of human rights defenders rights and the legislation hindering the operation of NGOs in Council of Europe member-states and especially Azerbaijan. Armenian delegation member Naira Zohrabyan also touched on the mentioned issues. In her speech, PAP MP said: Yes, there are issues related to the human rights violations in different Council of Europe member states, including in our country, and we are ready to discuss them openly and publicly. But there is one country in our organization, which is exceptional in the manifestation of cynicism towards the human rights. That is Azerbaijan, where speaking about human rights and freedom of speech is equivalent to Daniel Harms humoresques, Zohrabyan said. According to her, dealing with human defense and public activity in Azerbaijan is equivalent to suicide. The restriction which the NGOs face for legal registration is like passing through an entire Golgotha. To get registered, NGOs must present facts please pay attention to this - that they respect the national moral values of Azerbaijan. However, respect for the Azerbaijani national moral values is a rather suspicious concept. For instance, when the Azeri military officer Ramil Safarov axed the Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan, the Azerbaijani Human Rights Commissioner, Elmira Suleymanova, announced that that was an example of patriotism for the youth. This is the moral framework of Azerbaijan, she noted. In Zohrabyan's words, the human rights defenders, representatives of the civil society and journalists are sentenced and sent to jail in Azerbaijan only for their reluctance to become slaves of the regime. Lets remember Leyla and Arif Yunus, Khadija Ismayilova and Ilgar Mammadov, as well as dozens of other political prisoners, who are sentenced to slow death in Azerbaijani jails, Zohrabyan said. Airbus 330s fly direct three times a week from Guangzhou The first flight in China Southern Airlines' new direct route between Guangzhou in China's Guangdong province and Nairobi on Aug 5 showed why the Kenya Tourism Board is happy. The inaugural flight on the route, which will run three flights a week using Airbus 330 jets, brought many Chinese tourists to Kenya, with at least two tour groups among the passengers. Flight CZ633 arrives in Nairobi, capital of Kenya, on Aug 5. China Southern Airlines launched a direct flight to Kenya on Aug 5. Photos Provided to China Daily One of the tourists was Fang Fang, who joined a 38-member tour group organized by China's biggest online travel agency, Ctrip. Fang said she would be very hesitant about visiting Kenya if there were no direct flight with a Chinese airline. "I have been looking forward to coming to Africa for a long time. When I saw there was a direct flight, I made a reservation back in May," she said. "If there were no direct flight, I would have to think about where to transfer and I would think twice before coming." Officials with the tourism board, which signed an agreement with the airline on Aug 5, said the route will bring in more tourists. China Southern is China's largest airline in terms of number of aircraft. The Airbus 330 used on the route is a medium to long range, twin-engine jet airliner that Airbus says is one of the most commonly used widebody aircraft in operation today. China is the fastest-growing outbound tourism market in the world, and data shows that the number of annual outbound tourists in China has reached 110 million, said Muriithi Ndegwa, managing director of the Kenya Tourism Board, at the welcome ceremony for the Nairobi flight. He said the development of tourism and civil aviation should happen "hand in hand". "China Southern Airlines has an intensive flight network in China and Southeast Asia. We hope we can make full use of it to attract more and more tourists, not only from China, but also from Southeast Asia and many other countries all around the world," he said. Fang, the visitor, said the direct flight saved her a lot of time and there was no language barrier for her given that all the flight staff members were Chinese. Kenya Airports Authority also welcomed the direct flight, saying it would strengthen Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport as a hub for East Africa. "This route from Nairobi to Guangzhou has a lot of importance. It will strengthen the development of this airport as a hub for this region. It will be a gateway for people all across Africa going to China through Nairobi," said Yatich Kangugo, managing director of Kenya Airports Authority. "We do really want to see more airlines bringing us people from China who are coming here either for business or holidays." Zhang Zifang, the carrier's chief operating officer, said the flight would make it more convenient for Chinese residents to visit Africa, given that they would be able to transfer to about 40 African destinations through the Guangzhou-Nairobi route. Contact the writers through houliqiang@chinadaily.com.cn. (China Daily Africa Weekly 08/07/2015 page3) BENGALURU: For a long time, the world has dreamt about virtual reality. When you picture a VR headset, you probably think of something high-tech and far too expensive to be practical. Developed at the Google Cultural Institute of Paris, Google Cardboard was made public in Google I/O 2014. Part of the 20 percent project, Google Cardboard is a complete virtual reality platform. Cardboard consists of a low-cost, DIY virtual reality headset that anyone can build, and a software platform that makes it incredibly easy for app developers to add VR support to their creations. While the likes of Oculus Rift and Sony's PlayStation, VR are making the most noise about their experiences, Google Cardboard and its apps offer a cheaper and easiest way to experience virtual reality today. Based on the virtual reality experience, we have the compiled list of apps that must be downloaded to get the best virtual reality experience: Google Cardboard App Google Cardboard app goes hand in hand with the VR headset. It helps you to set up the viewer and teaches you the basics of virtual reality. There are a number of things you can do with the app, like get a demonstration of how the Cardboard works, fly to various places via Google Earth, watch videos in your phone's gallery on a massive screen, and many more virtual reality options. Read Also: 10 Notable Inventions By Indian Villagers Will Make You Proud And Happy Almost 1 Mn Devices Were Infected In India in 2015: Report While extremist groups targeted secular bloggers and foreign aid workers, the government cracked down on media and civil society activists, launched contempt of court proceedings or prosecuted them under vague and overbroad laws, it said in a 659-page report. Several commuters were killed or injured during violence that erupted during some Bangladeshi opposition blockades of transport routes, the US-based rights body said. The government, led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, became increasingly authoritarian, with security forces arresting key opposition leaders, often on trumped up charges, and state authorities refusing to prosecute security forces for serious violations, including torture, killings, and enforced disappearances. In 2015, five bloggers with atheist sympathies were hacked to death by extremist groups. Other bloggers, writers and publishers, whose names were published on a hit-list, went into hiding, concerned that government protection was either absent or at best inadequate. A Shia procession and a Hindu temple faced serious attacks, with many wounded. Members of the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) said they feared arbitrary arrest or extrajudicial killings, the report said. Civil society and media faced harsh conditions. Forty-nine people were prosecuted for expressing public support for another journalists right to publish fair criticism of war crimes trials. Media critical of the government continued to face closure, as editors and journalists faced charges and arrest. Two men were prosecuted for social media posts criticizing the government. In a positive development, efforts to shore up support for labour rights in the countrys garment industry seemed to be having an impact, with a rise in the number of labour unions registered, although concerns remain about the capacity of workers to form and participate freely in labour unions, Human Rights Watch said. --Indo-Asian News Service mr/ ( 322 Words) 2016-01-27-17:23:34 (IANS) According to the Dawn, assailants were riding on a motorbike when they attacked the cops and soon fled on their bikes. The injured policeman was rushed to Civil Hospital Quetta for treatment where an emergency has been declared. Police and Frontier Corps personnel reached the spot and an investigation was launched into the attack. (ANI) According to the Daily Star, Sedvet Ramadan Besim is also accused of plotting to chop off a police officer's head. A court heard how the teen planned to carry out the attack on Anzac Day, an Australian remembrance day for those who died in war. Besom allegedly made the plan on his mobile and chatted online with friends overseas about it. He pleaded not guilty to four charges and was sent to the Supreme Crown Court. He was arrested on April 18, last year after cops raided several homes, arresting five teenagers, seizing knives and swords. Cops also said Besim is motivated by an extremist ideology and declared his support for ISIS. (ANI) The Nepal cabinet has given its nod to the General's visit to India, with whose army the Himalayan nation shares close working relations. The army chief's visit comes ahead of the proposed visit of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli to India later in February. As per tradition, the Nepalese Army chiefs are conferred the title of honorary chief of the Indian Army. The Indian Army chief is also conferred the title of honorary chief of the Nepalese Army. "This is a regular and official visit," Industry Minister Som Prasad Pandey said here on Thursday. Though the itinerary of the visit is yet to be unveiled by the Nepalese Army headquarters, officials said Gen. Chettri will be conferred the title of honorary chief of the Indian Army by President Pranab Mukherjee at a special function in New Delhi. This will be Gen. Chettri's first foreign visit after being promoted as chief of the army staff on September 10, last year. Nepal and India have strong military ties and India provides a lot of military equipment, hardware, stores and other logistics to the Nepalese Army. --Indo-Asian News Service giri/pm/dg ( 223 Words) 2016-01-28-18:03:35 (IANS) Metropolitan Magistrate V.P. Adone imposed the fine after rejecting Patel's lawyers' plea seeking another adjournment in a defamation case filed by the former minister against ex-Air India executive director Jitender Bhargava. The defamation case matter revolves around Bhargava's controversial book entitled "The Descent of Air India" in which he had chronicled the diminution of the national carrier through certain "reckless and motivated" decisions taken between 2004-2008. In this period, Patel was the aviation minister while V. Thulasidas was the chairman of Air India. Bhargava had penned the book post-retirement. Irked by the contents of the book, Patel filed a defamation case against Bhargava and the publishers, Bloomsbury, in October 2013. "Though the publishers subsequently withdrew the book from the markets around Janaury 2014, I stood my ground since everything in the book was based on documentary evidence," Bhargava told IANS. Since then, he said that about 10 dates for hearing were fixed by the court, but on each occasion, Patel's side sought adjournments which were granted, said Bhargava, who is fighting his case himself, though not a lawyer. At the previous hearing on November 5, 2015, Magistrate Adone of 62nd Bhoiwada Court rejected another plea for adjournment and fixed January 28, 2016 for the hearing. Again Patel's legal team sought an adjournment which was rejected by Adone, who also slapped a fine of Rs.3,000 on him. Now the matter has been fixed for hearing on February 12, said Bhargava. --Indo-Asian News Service qn/vd ( 283 Words) 2016-01-28-19:03:37 (IANS) Addressing the gathering at the concluding function of 'Dharatirth Yatra' (Battlefield Journey) from Shree Rangana Fort to Shree Bhudargad Fort organised by Shiv Pratisthan at Maunni Vidhyapeeth ground in Gargoti of Bhudargad tehsil of the district, about 55 Km from here, the Chief Minister said, ''My government was making progress by following on the path, ideals, thoughts and works done by the great Maratha king.'' Fadnavis added that Shivaji Maharaj was a good administrator and ideal king, who implemented various schemes for the benefit of ordinary people at that time including in fields of irrigation, water conservation, coastal security and planning. He announced that the government would give every help to erect a life-size statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji in Gargoti and asked the Shiv Pratisthan to undertake varied works that can create pride in the young generation. State Cooperation Minister Chandrakant Patil and Sambhajirao Bhide of Shiv Pratisthan were also present on the occasion. Mr Patil, who is also the Kolhapur Guardian Minister, praised Shiv Pratisthan's campaign about creating pride in the young generation of the country and promised to give all cooperation for this work. The Minister also said that the government would give an outlay of Rs 11 crore for development of Shree Bhudargad Fort. Suresh Halvankar, Sujit Minchekar, Amal Mahadik, Prakash Abitkar, Sudhir Gadgil and Suresh Khade (all MLAs) along with thousands of Shiv Pratisthan workers and citizens were present for the function. UNI SSS SS RSA NS2222 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0171-560231.Xml A division bench, headed by Justice Naresh Patil, issued notice to the state government and FDA Commissioner during the hearing of a public interest litigation filed by retired colonel Chandraskhekhar Unni alleging milk adulteration. The notices have been made returnable after two weeks. The High Court sought to know from the authorities how manyfood inspectors are available and what procedures are being followedto check milk adulteration. The PIL alleged that milk is usually adulterated with water,starch and urea, which becomes detrimental to the health of childrenand people at large.UNI AAA SS RSA 2248 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0171-560393.Xml Air India Kanishka's Flight 182 from Montreal to Delhi was blown off mid-air near the Irish coast on 23rd June 1985, killing all 329 people on board. Reyat served two-thirds of a nine-year sentence for his involvement in one of the deadliest airline attacks in history. A mechanic migrated from Punjab, Reyat bought the dynamite, detonators and batteries that took the lives of the passengers. In 1991, Reyat was convicted of manslaughter in the deaths of two baggage handlers at Tokyo. He served 10 years for that crime. He also got five years for another manslaughter charge in the Air India bombing. (ANI) According to forest officials, last night the forest guards of Tunikati and Phulaguri forest camp heard several gunshots. On hearing the sound, they informed the range office of KNP and immediately rushed towards the site. On searching the area, they found the carcass of the rhino, while the poachers had fled by then. The forest guards recovered 26 numbers of empty cartridges and 2 numbers live cartridges of Insas rifle and M-16 Rifle from the site. Earlier this month, at least three rhinos have been reported to be killed by poachers from the Kaziranga National Park. (ANI) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday accused Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav of politicising the Dadri lynching case in wake of his comments that the latter would reveal names of the perpetrators to the Prime Minister. "That's a very strange comment coming from Mulayam Singh Yadav. Does that mean the law and order machinery is not willing to do their work unless they get a directive from the Chief Minister's office?," BJP leader Nalin Kohli told ANI. "This appears to be patently an attempt to somehow politicize an issue, where there is no scope of political issue. It's clearly a matter that needs to be dealt on the merits of law and order," he added. Mulayam Singh Yadav has claimed that at least three men involved in the killing belong to the BJP and he can reveal the names if Prime Minister Narendra Modi calls him. "BJP had promised to remove discrimination. What discrimination have they removed? A father was killed while his son was posted on border. I had earlier spoken of three names who were involved in the killing. Those are associated with BJP. If PM calls, I will give all names," he said. He further claimed that the lynching was a conspiracy hatched by three persons from a specific organisation who had played a similar role in the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots. He refused to identify the trio, saying his party would first conduct an enquiry. The Dadri lynching took place on September 28 last year, when a Hindu mob attacked a Muslim family, alleging that the family was storing and consuming beef on the occasion of Eid. The mob killed Mohammad Akhlaq and injured his son severely. Akhlaq's other son was serving with the Indian Air Force in Chennai at the time. (ANI) Customs officials at Chennai International Airport terminaltoday arrested a 31-year-old man on charge of smuggling in gold in the form ofbiscuits, valued at Rs 30 laks, from Dubai. According to sources, the passenger, Rahmat (31),a native of Hyderabad, who was acting as a courier for an international group of smugglers, arrived by an Indigo Airlines flight from Dubai at 0530 hrs. On suspicion Customs officials examined his suitcase. They found ten gold biscuits which Rahmat had concealed in a secret chamber. They also wanted to know why Rahmat had taken a flight to Chennai when Dubai was well connected with Hyderabad through many airline services. During further questioning after the gold biscuits were seized, Rahmat informed them that although his ancestors hailed from the Telangana state capital of Hyderabad, he lived in Chennai.UNI XR-VV ADB1057 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-560624.Xml Police said today that the tanker loaded with milk was coming to Mumbai from Chalisgaon. As it approached Malshej ghat, it skidded near the Umbracha village diversion and overturned at 0130 hrs last night. After the accident, the occupants of the tanker were thrown out. The tanker was a total wreck and the consignment was a total loss as milk gushed out of the tanker, the police said. The deceased were identified as Nimba Patil (60) and Shivaji Darade. The injured were being treated in nearby hospital. Police have registered a case under Section 304 of the IPC and the MV Act against the driver of the tanker, police added. UNI XR NV AE RAI1134 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-560608.Xml Talking to media persons yesterday HG Sura Das, national convener for 50th Anniversary Celebrations stated that the festival commences with the famous Lord Jagannath Ratha Yatra from Andheri west to Juhu on the first day (February 5) and will be followed by two-days of activities comprising of spiritual discourses, cultural and musical programmes. All the four ISKCON temples in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai will participate in the festivities along with numerous devotees from India and abroad, he said. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis will visit a special session on February 6. Special guests will include Hema Malini, Ajay Piramal Ashok Hinduja, N D Desai, Suresh Chaturvedi and Dr B K Goenka amongst others.UNI XR NV AE 1130 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-560618.Xml Hundreds of MCD protesting sanitation workers on Thursday piled up garbage outside Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia's residence over non-payment of their dues. "We are very much disturbed. We have not been paid for the last three to four months. If the Delhi Government has paid us, then they should show it to us. Then, we will meet with our MCD officials and demand our money," said one of the protestor. "If the government has released payment of the MCD workers, then where is it? They can ask the MCD officials as to why they are not paying the employees," said another protestor. Over 1.5 lakh MCD employees including sanitation workers and other employees of the three municipal corporations - NDMC, SDMC and EDMC - have decided to go on a three-day strike from today over non-payment of dues. The cash-strapped North and East Delhi civic bodies have been unable to pay salaries to workers for three to four months now. (ANI) The blast, which took place near Kalapahari area of the district, around 170 km from here, was so powerful that it was heard by people in nearby villages. The explosion around 5.30 p.m. on Wednesday hit a vehicle carrying more than 10 policemen. Six policemen were injured and airlifted to Ranchi in the night. --Indo-Asian News Service ns/pr/ ( 96 Words) 2016-01-28-12:15:35 (IANS) A number of dignitaries, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress President Sonia Gandhi condoled his demise. "An accomplished editor who was widely admired, Arindam Sengupta impacted many lives through journalism...pained by his demise," Mr Modi said. Ms Gandhi also expressed shock and grief over the death of Sen Gupta. She said, "the void left behind by his death will be hard to fill". Finance and Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley said, "Arindam Sen Guptas passing away is as great loss to Journalism..,..a complete professional and a perfect gentleman." CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said, "Deeply saddened at Arindam Sen Gupta leaving us..,..a gentleman-journalist, mentored so many young persons, a good friend."UNI SS AE 1230 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0089-560696.Xml The BJP Parliamentary Board will meet here this evening to felicitate Mr Amit Shah, on his re-election as the party chief. Mr Shah has taken over the reins of the party chief for a full three-year term at a critical juncture as assembly elections are due in the next 20 months with the Bharatiya Janata Party in the reckoning in Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Punjab and West Bengal and other states. The party is also trying to spread its wings in southern India including Kerala and Tamil Nadu. After victory in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP suffered humiliating defeats in Delhi and Bihar assembly elections. The 12-member Parliamentary Board meeting will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Ministers, Rajnath Singh (Home), Arun Jaitley (Finance), Sushma Swaraj (External Affairs), M Venkaiah Naidu ( Urban Development) and Nitin Gadkari (Transport) among others. UNI MK AE-RP1335 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0090-560767.Xml Prime Minister Narendra Modi today called upon youths to enhance the feeling of oneness and unity across the country. Addressing the annual NCC rally here, the Prime Minister said the Indian Constitution and aspirations of the people are binding force for the country. "All of you are here from every part of India. What is it that binds us? It is the Tricolour, Constitution & dreams of 125 crore Indians," he said. Talking about the annual month-long NCC camp, which is organised every year on the occasion of Republic Day, he said such forums help connect people from across India create a feeling of oneness. "You have been preparing for the parade for the last month & that even means waking up early in this cold weather. The NCC provides you several experiences, which at your age are invaluable. There is also a spirit of adventure," Mr Modi said. The Prime Minister reminded the NCC cadets of 125th birth anniversary of Dr B R Ambedkar, which is being celebrated this year and asked them to learn from his experiences. "In Dr Ambedkar's life there were hurdles and challenges. But the feeling of revenge or ill-will was absent in him,'' he added. "This is a special year. It is the year when we mark 125th birth anniversary of Dr. Ambedkar, who gave us our Constitution," the Prime Minister said. UNI MK AE 1334 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0090-560810.Xml At least three police personnel were injured in a grenade attack in Haflong town in Dima Hasao district of Assam in the wee hours today, while unidentified miscreants fired at residences of two BJP and Congress leaders. Local reports said miscreants lobbed a grenade at a police patrol party in Haflong around 0245 hrs. Three personnel were injured in the attack and are being treated at the Haflong civil hospital. Earlier at 0045 hrs, miscreants opened fire at the residence of local BJP leader Seven Thousen in Haflong town. Empty AK series rifle cartridges were recovered from outside the residence.In yet another incident, miscreants fired at the residence of Congress leader Mahendra Khemprai. However, no one was injured in the firing incidents.Police have started investigation to ascertain if any militant outfit is involved in the incidents.UNI SG AD AE RK1250 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0108-560705.Xml Water resource committee (WRC) under Nagaland Government with support from the Climate Change Adaptation-North Eastern Region project of the German Development Cooperation has brought out a draft Nagaland Water Policy. In a statement, Nagaland Agriculture Production Commissioner (APC) and WRC convener T Imkonglemba Ao stated that the draft policy document was available online for public viewing on the official state government portal-- http://www.nagaland.gov.in or could be viewed on the website of the Public Health Engineering (PHE)- www.phedngl.nic.in and Agriculture- www.agricoop.nic.in. In this regard, T Imkonglemba Ao has requested the public and all responsible NGOs and CBOs and academicians of Nagaland to study the Draft Nagaland Water Policy document and give their feedback for making the policy document a meaningful one, which would benefit the people of the State. UNI AS AD AE RAI1325 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0108-560770.Xml This move showcases how organisations such as Flipkart areopening opportunities to graduates who have built expertise throughleading online education platforms such as Udacity. With this partnership, Flipkart will redefine the hiring processin the software industry based predominantly on personal interviewsand referrals. Breaking away from convention, Flipkart hired students based ontheir Nanodegree projects and Udacity profiles. There were noin-person interview or group exercises. This 'interview-less hiring'approach enabled Flipkart to hire talent swiftly, shortening thehiring process and giving it an edge in the hunt for talented professionals. The three graduates hired have already started working atFlipkart with the mobile development team. These graduates ofUdacitys Android Developer Nanodegree, moved from New Delhi toBengaluru. They are the first ones to join the team and both companiesexpect more to follow, the city-based company said in a release here today. Udacity, a leading online learning company, is on a mission todemocratize education by giving individuals the skills they need toget the jobs they want to advance their economic potential. Today,the company has over 4 million students in 168 countries.UNI RS VV ADB1305 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0285-560760.Xml Eyeing millions of prospective tourists from India, the Obama administration has sent its top official of the Commerce Department to attract visitors from this country to the United States.Tourism from India to the US has been rapidly increasing. In 2014, more than 9,00,000 Indians applied for visas to travel to the United States. By year end 2015, that number surpassed one million.Kelly Craighead, Executive Director, National Travel and Tourism Office, US Department of Commerce along with US Ambassador to India Richard R Verma will inaugurate the three-day Brand USA pavilion at the South Asia Travel and Tourism Expo (SATTE) beginning tomorrow.Ms Craighead will interact with the Indian travel and tourism sector at the expo, and work with an inter-agency committee at the US Embassy on a strategy to attract Indian visitors to the United States.She will also try to strengthen the partnership with Brand US as Mission Indias official partner to promote travel and tourism to the United States, the US Embassy said here today. Visitors from India spent 9.8 billion dollars experiencing the United States in 2014, representing our seventh largest international market for visitor spending, said Ms Craighead. As such, I am thrilled to be in India for SATTE to celebrate the importance of the Indian travel and tourism market to the United States and to encourage more travel in the future, she said on arrival here. Mark Hutchison, Lieutenant Governor of the State of Nevada, will also be in India to attend SATTE and to hold a series of outreach meetings with leaders in the travel and tourism sector. Nevada has recently appointed a permanent representative in India in order to encourage the continued growth of Indian visitors to Las Vegas and other areas of Nevada.Over half of one million Indians travel to the US for leisure and visiting friends and family.SATTE is one of Indias major annual travel and tourism shows. More than 750 exhibitors from nearly 35 countries will be promoting themselves as tourism destinations, including Brand US, which will anchor a large contingent of exhibitors from the United States at the Pavilion. Brand US is a non-profit public-private partnership whose mission is to increase international travel to the United States and provide useful information to international travelers on US entry policies and procedures.UNI NAZ AJ SW 1435 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0091-560897.Xml Mr Karuppiah represented Harbour in the State Assembly. In a statement here late last night, Ms Jayalalithaa said Karuppiah has been "removed from all the posts including from the primary membership of the party''. She said he had indulged in anti-party activities and had acted in a manner bringing disrepute to the party. She appealed to the AIADMK cadres not to have any truck with him. Meanwhile, Mr Karuppiah told reporters this afternoon that he resigned as MLA. He said he had sent in his resignation papers to Speaker P Dhanapal. Mr Karuppiah's alleged remarks critical of the government in handling the recent floods was said to be the reason for his expulsion from the party. Clarifying on this, he said he had only spoke in general about the present political situation. ''I wholeheartedly accept my expulsion from the party'', he added.UNI GV VV ADB1430 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-560915.Xml Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati, going full throttle for mission 2017, has appealed to Dalits, tribals and backwards to be aware of conspiracy and 'drama' staged by the BJP, Samajwadi Party and Congress in Uttar Pradesh by expressing their fake concern for the community to garner their vote bank. "There is a clear cut nexus between the BJP and the SP in UP due to which efforts to create communal violence for division of votes on the communal lines. The Congress on the other hand is also trying to dent into the vote bank by staging padyatras," she said, addressing a press conference here. Ms Mayawati said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's emotional speech in Lucknow over the Hyderabad scholar suicide was just a drama and his statement on Dr B R Ambedkar was just a mockery. "Intolerance has increased during this BJP regime where the dalits, tribals and backwards are the most targeted people in the country," she alleged adding that the Prime Minister was just shedding crocodile tears on the Hyderabad scholar suicide. Ms Mayawati, attacking the Congress, said the leaders in UP were forcing their 'Yuvraj' in 'paidal' (foot) march and having food in the house of Dalits just for their vote bank politics." But these efforts will not pay off for the Congress at all in the assembly polls," she said. She said the situation has gone to worst from bad in this SP regime and even its president Mulayam Singh Yadav too have admitted that his son's government ministers and party leaders were involved in rampant corruption. She also lambasted the SP government for Dalit atrocities through withdrawing reservation in promotion and other policies. Claiming that due to the BSP's opposition, the BJP government at the Centre could not take some harsh decisions against Dalit/tirbal and backward issue, she said the RSS has already expressed its desire to abolish reservation. "The statement of Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan demanding review of the reservation proves that she has also toed the line of the RSS." The BSP president, demanding revival of the minority status to Aligarh Muslim University(AMU) and Jamia Milia University, said there was no logic behind the reason given by BJP to end the status to these universities. She also demanded that Bharat Ratna should be conferred to Kansi Ram for his dedication towards uplift of Dalits. Congress and BJP were two sides of the same coin,on the issue of Dalits and backwards, she added. "If the BJP as well as the Congress are really concerned for the Dalits then they should support the reservation in private sector besides pass the Act on promotion in reservation," she said, while adding that anti-dalit/tribal mindset of the RSS was a real hurdle in the fulfillment of Dr B R Ambedkar's dream to uplift the oppressed section.UNI MB SW CS1447 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-560841.Xml The Madurai bench of Madras High Court (HC) has directed Tamilnadu government to disburse Rs 60,000 each as compensation to the Dalits who sustained injuries and suffered monetary loss due to alleged police excess during a clash between them and Caste Hindus at Uthapuram village in Madurai district. A Division Bench comprising Justices V.Ramasubramanian and N.Kirubakaran said the amount should be paid within a week by the Madurai district collector to 199 Dalits affected in the clash held on October 2, 2008. The amount ordered by the Division Bench shall be paid apart from interim compensation already disbursed in September 2009 and the entire quantum of money should be recovered from the salaries of the police personnel involved in the incident, the Judges observed. The government has a right and a duty to recover the amount from the officials through appropriate proceedings, they said. The Judges pointed out that a Government Order (G.O) issued on January 20 last fixing an uniform final compensation of Rs 60,000 to 191 Dalits was actually not correct. When the interim compensation had ranged between Rs 3,000 to Rs 25,000, how can the final award be determined at a uniform amount of Rs 60,000 each, the Judges questioned. The petitioner All India Women Democratic Association (AIDWA) in its contempt petition claimed that the compensation announced by Tamilnadu government to the affected Dalits was not calculated as per the Central government gazette notification on the relief to be given to the SC/ST communities. When the Special Government Pleader M.Alagudevan said that it was not possible to given away the full amount immediately, the Judges ordered the district administration to disburse the funds available with it as of now and later send a proposal to the government to avail the remaining sum for disbursal. UNI GSM VV ADB1540 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-561118.Xml According to sources, the deceased, who was identified as Vijay Surwade hailing from Beed district, was staying at Manishanagar and was working in a private firm. He was on the way for his duty, due to rush he stoped his bike in front of Baja gate, when a tipper dashed his motorcycle after the driver loss his control. Surwade was rushed to nearby Government hospital where doctors declared him brought dead, police said. The tipper driver has been arrested and a case was registered against him, police added.UNI VKB RB SW VP1558 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-561053.Xml Police said here that Raj Mani Yadav had received serious head injuries when he was attacked by another inmate Rajeshwar Manjhi over some dispute on January 23. Jail authorities rushed him to the Patna Medical College and Hospital where he died during treatment. Head Warden Shivji Singh and Warden Mangal Hansda had been suspended for laxity in duty. Show cause notices had also been issued to them.UNI DH PL SW CS1516 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0211-560960.Xml According to the Daily Star, the amphetamine, known as Captagon, has been available since the 1960s and was used to treat attention deficit disorder. The drug masks feelings of pain, fear and hunger, while keeping fatigue at bay. The Paris attackers were thought to have taken Captagon before savagely killing 130 people in November. It was put on a list of controlled substances by the World Health Organisation in 1986. The UN office on drugs and crime (UNDOC) said former fighters have given evidence to suggest Captagon is used by all sides of the Syrian conflict. Countries bordering Syria have seized millions of Captagon pills, worth hundreds of millions of pounds in 2015 alone. (ANI) According to ABC News, Myanmar has been ruled by the military junta and is now on the cusp of a remarkable political transition after NLD's landslide victory in November elections. Myanmar's people are hoping her government can reboot a country eviscerated by army rule that battered the economy and repressed dissent. Suu Kyi is barred from the presidency by the junta-era constitution that many believe was designed specifically to exclude her, but has vowed to rule through a proxy, who is yet to be named in public. (ANI) He was 86 years old. Chaliha, who was living in the US for the last 15 years, died of heart failure in the Stanford Hospital, California, his family members said here today. He was formerly, Director of Technical Education of Assam, Vice-Chancellor of Assam Agricultural University and Principal of Assam Engineering College. Eldest son of late Kuladhar Chaliha, prominent freedom fighter and the first president of the Congress in Assam, Chaliha had made pioneering contribution for the growth and development of technical education in the state. He was the founder vice-president of Indian Society for Technical Education and was a leading Assamese educationist involved in the UNDP and UNESCO programmes relating to India. Chaliha was one of the leading personalities in Assam in modeling and designing the curriculum for Engineering education in the state. He is survived by his wife Nilima Chaliha and three daughters. His last rites will be performed in California in the presence of his family members and the Indian diaspora in California.UNI SG AD SW GC1605 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0108-561066.Xml Eco-friendly 25 electric buses and 50 electric cabs will touch the roads of Himachal Pradesh in September this year to help in preserving the environment. Transport Minister GS Bali told mediapersons today that the Centre has principally agreed to fund electric cabs in a ratio of 90:10 and electric buses in a ratio of 75:25. Mr Bali said he was in touch with the government on this issue to push the electric buses to 90:10 ratio. He said Himachal Pradesh was the first state in the country to have this biggest eco friendly project in order to preserve the nature and the climate of this hill state. He added that the electric bus can travel from 75 to 100 kms after every charge and the facility of the electric charging will be available on all the HRTC bus stands. The state government will take up matter with Himachal Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission to provide electricity for this project on cheaper rates. He said for the maintenance of these delicate buses and cabs state government was planning to seek help from the big automobile houses in the country. He said to push the electric buses and cabs on the Himachal roads had become all the more essential because every year 1.04 lakh new vehicles were touching Himachal roads endangering the environment of the state. He said a national-level conference in this state will be held in this district which will be attended by Union Road Transport minister Nitin Gadkari to discuss how the transport industry of the country can help in playing a pivotal role in saving the environment of this hill state. He said the state government as an incentive will provide tax relaxation for the CNG, fully electric and hybrid buses and other vehicles in the state. He said efforts were on to boost river transport and waters of Sutlej and Beas rivers will be used for the purpose. He said that Water Authority of India as a consultant was working for the planning of the river transport in this hill state.UNI XC SW CS1655 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-561161.Xml Earlier, Grand Prix Drivers' Association chairman Alexander Wurz had disclosed that racers wanted tyre supplier Pirelli to supply them with tyres that will support 'maximum-attack' racing. The F1 Supremo always defended Pirelli's heavily-degrading tyres, saying that it is good for the 'show'. However, Ecclestone hinted a re-think in his approach as he agrees 'a million percent' with the drivers, Sport24 reported. Ecclestone also said that he has discussed the issue with Pirelli and confirmed that a meeting will be held at the tyre dealer's Milan headquarters early next week. (ANI) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Kerala President Kummanam Rajasekharan today demanded that Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy release all details contain in the CD, which he possessed, regarding the sensational solar scam. It was the Chief Minister himself , who disclosed that he was having a secret CD with him and since the details in the CD would remove the mask of many gentlemen, it could be viewed only secretly,, Mr Rajasekharan said in a statement here. Since Mr Chandy is the Chief Minister of Kerala, it was his moral responsibility to disclose the details in the CD before the public, he added. If anybody suspected that Mr Chandy was blackmailing with the CD, they could not be blamed, the BJP leader said, adding, that if there were any shocking details in the CD, the same should be disclosed before the public.UNI CGV KVV AK 1715 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0312-560851.Xml Judge Sanchita Sarkar of the Bankshal Court held guiltyAnshar Ali,Saiful Ali Mollah,Animur Islam,Bhola Nashkar,Amin Ali and Imanul Islam. However, Rafikul Islam and Nur Ali were acquitted as the police failed to submit adequate evidence against them. The victim's family, meanwhile, has decided to appeal against the acquittal of the duo. The quantum of punishment would be announced on February 8.Nine people were arrested in the rape and murder case. One if them died in custody of septicemia on August 1. A BA second year student was gangraped on June 7, 2013 and murdered by some local miscreants. Her body was recovered the next day from an isolated area. The people of Kamduni began their protest from the morning of June 8 and the Kamduni Pratibadi Mancha (KPM) was formed which strengthened the protest movement later. Protesters Tumpa Koyal and Mousumi Koyal, on behalf of the entire village, told media that they wanted capital punishment for the culprits. Meanwhile, members of DSO today protested outside the sessions court demanding the ultimate punishment to the conviccts. They attempted to enter the court area which was thwarted by the on-duty police officers. One of the officials was injured in the process. After an argument the gathering shifted to another area. The Democratic Womens Association too gathered demanding capital punishment for the culprits. UNI BM PL CJ GC1725 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0211-561074.Xml School and Mass Education Minister Debi Prasad Mishra told newspersons here that the hike was made after the approval of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. Mr Mishra said as many as 85,000 Sikhya Sahayaks and Gana Sikhayaks both trained and untrained would be benefited due to hike. The hike, he said, would be implemented with retrospective effect from December 1 and would cost the state ex-chequer Rs 925.59 crore per annum instead of Rs 648.64 crore earlier. After the hike 27,645 Sikhya Sahayaks, who were earlier getting Rs 5,200 a month, excluding the EPF would now get Rs 7,400 and 34,846 junior teachers who were getting Rs 7,000 a month excluding EPF would now take home Rs 9,200 per month. Similarly the honorarium of 256 trained matriculation pass Gana Sikhyakas would now be Rs 6,400 instead of Rs 3,700 per month excluding the EPF. The honorarium of trained plus two pass 16,868 Gana Sikhayaks was hiked from Rs 4,000 to Rs 7,000 a month. The untrained matriculate pass 536 Gana Sikhyakas would get Rs 5,600 a month instead of Rs 3,200 and the remuneration of 4,852 untrained plus two Gana Sikhyaks was increased to Rs 6,400 from Rs 3,700 excluding EPF a month earlier.UNI BD DP PL SW 1729 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0211-561349.Xml The Congress government in Mizoram has launched a new economic policy called the Way Forward as a follow-up to its flagship programme New Land Use Policy which has witnessed tremendous success. Even though some beneficiaries of the NLUP have not utilised the fund they received under the programme to see the desired results, a survey conducted by experts from the Mizoram University found that 40-70 per cent in orange farming and about 44.78 per cent in industrial sector who received funds during the first and second phases of the NLUP were successful, leaders of Congress media cell said at a press conference here today. To facilitate market for successful farmers and entrepreneurs under the NLUP, the Congress government has formulated the New Economic Development Programme (the Way Forward), Congress media cell member David M Thangliana said. The ruling Mizoram Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) today said the state government has formulated a new economic development programme called 'the Way Forward'. With the new economic policy in place, the agriculture and allied services would no longer be dependent on marginal farmers, scientific farming would be introduced and agro-business would be encouraged by reining in the educated youths in the agricultural sector, the media department said. "There would be minimum intervention from the government which would only act as a facilitator and arrange market linkage for the surplus products of agriculture and allied services the media department said. The Congress leaders claimed that the debt of the state government, which was 110.44 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) in 2004-05 had went down to 46.91 per cent of the GSDP in 2014-15. The government funds kept in civil deposits to the tune of thousands of crores of rupees have gone down to Rs 729.45 crore in December 2015, they said.UNI ZS KK SW BD1741 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0212-561337.Xml : CPI(M) State Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan today said his party would organise protests in major centres across State against the governments use of police force against the DYFI/ SFI activists for conducting peaceful agitation sat Thiruvananthapuram and Malappuram. Talking to newspersons at Thalassery today, Mr Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said an emergency meeting of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) would be held in Thiruvananthapuram on January 29. The LDF leadership would consult with its alliance partners to chalk out protests to be held in coming days, demanding the resignation of the government and voicing its similar demand inside the Assembly to be convened on February five. Mr Balakrishnan sought the the resignation of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Electricity minister Aryadan Muhammed, following indictment of Vigilance Court against them. If Mr Chandy refuses to resign, the the government would face stringent agitation from the party, he warned, adding, the government would have to pay a huge price, if it remains indifferent to the corruption charges against the duo . The CPI(M) leader said, if the Chief minister continues in power, the Vigilance Court's judgement would pale into insignificance, as the Vigilance Department is under the control of Congress-led UDF Government in the State. He said the UDF government is using police force against protesting DYFI workers, thereby indicating in a crystal-clear manner that the government was trying to cling on to power by using cops as brutal force. The he A group of the Congress was trying to instigate provocation, he alleged. Mr Balakrishnan said LDF would not work for ousting the government, despite the controversy, but the Front would at least expect Mr Chandy to tender his resignation on moral ground, following Vigilance Courts direction to register case against him. He said if the police continues to use force against protestors for staging peaceful protests, government would have to face dire-consequences for their wanton act.The LDF would come to power with peoples mandate, he said, and hastened to add, it has no plans to topple the government. Mr Balakrishnan said Mr Chandy had mentioned that CPI(M) has announced Rs ten lakh to Saritha Nair, who was involved in the scam, while highlighting the interview of the fortnightly magazine 'India today' with Ms Saritha in 2014. If the Chief Minister had read the interview in its face value and in proper perspective , what prevented him from registering a case against his party, he wondered. Mr Balakrishnan revealed that Ms Saritha had earlier issue a cheque of Rs two lakh and that was encashed by the government as a donation to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund. Later, she gave another cheque of Rs 2 lakh and it was dishonoured, he alleged and demanded a case against Ms Saritha Nair for deceiving the government. The CPI(M) lauds the resignation of RSP MLA, Kovoor Kunjumon of the RSP and he has promised to cooperate with the LDF, Mr Balakrishnan said. Unless, the RSP iron-out its shortcomings, there will be mass exodus from the party, he added. UNI AK KVV AK 1815 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0324-561410.Xml The donation made under QNET Indias CSR initiative QNET - WE CARE was handed over in the presence of Telangana Minister for Commercial Taxes, Mr. T Srinivas Yadav at the glittering awards function held here yesterday with an apt theme of Be1for Chennai IIFA Utsavam is the first of its kind awards ceremony from the IFFA stable to honour South Indian Film talent - both young and the veterans. Being held for the first time in Hyderabad, this years theme has been dedicated to the Chennai flood relief and has got wholehearted support from the entire South Indian film industry. Partnering in this event as an Associate Sponsor, the theme strongly echoes QNETs philosophy of Raise Yourself To Help Mankind.UNI KNR KVV AK 1845 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-561232.Xml Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh today challenged Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal to dissolve the Assembly and go for a snap poll if he was really so confident about his partys popularity in the state. Capt Singh also condemned the arbitrary rejection of the independent candidate, Bhai Baldeep Singhs nomination papers saying this was totally dictatorial and undemocratic on part of the Akalis who had only shown their fear and panic. Reacting to Mr Badals statement that the Congress had run away from the election, Capt Singh reiterated, We have boycotted the election on the matter of principle as the issues on which our MLA Ramanjit Singh Sikki resigned still remain unresolved. He said, Congress would have won the by-election in any case since people of Khadoor Sahib endorsed Sikkis decision to resign. But for us retaining a single seat in the Vidhan Sabha, with a leftover life of less than a year, is immaterial and our main concern and priority is to get those responsible for desecration and killing of peaceful protestors, punished, which we certainly will after forming the government in 2017, he clarified.MORE UNI NC SW GC1756 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-561347.Xml : The Congress-led United Democratic Front Government in Kerala today plunged into a deep crisis with a Thrissur Court asking the police to file an FIR against Chief Minister Oommen Chandy in solar scam imbroglio. However, Mr Chandy ruled out his resignation in the wake of adverse court order, saying that he was prepared to face any kind of investigation into the case, as he was innocent. Mr Chandy will approach the High Court, seeking a stay on Thrissur Vigilance Inquiry Commissioner and Special Judge S S Vasan, who issued orders on the basis of a private complaint, which stated that Solar case prime accused Saritha S Nair had paid bribes of Rs 1.90 crore and Rs 40 lakh to Mr Chandy and Electricity Minister Aryadan Muhammed to set-up mega power projects in the state. While the Congress High Command came up in support of Mr Chandy, the Left parties and the BJP demanded his resignation. Pro-Left and BJP activists waved black flags at Chief Minister in Malappuram and staged protest demonstrations at various places. Police burst tear-gas shells and resorted to lathi-charge when a march took out by pro-Marxist DYFI activists turned violent in front of the state Secretariat. Mr Chandy, who was in Malappuram when the court verdict came, cancelled his scheduled programmes in the northern districts and rushed to Kochi to consult legal experts and prepare documents to be submitted to the High Court. However, a major relief for the UDF came from the High Court, which stayed a similar judgement of the Vigilance Court that ordered filing of an FIR against former Excise Minister K Babu in the sensational bar bribery case. He stepped down from the Cabinet last week following the order. The Vigilance Court had issued the order on a complaint filed by one George Vattakulam, who alleged that the Excise Minister had received Rs 50 lakh from a bar owner for re-opening a closed bar. In his plea, Mr Babu said that the allegation does not find mention even in the secret statement of Biju Ramesh and therefore was inconsequential and immaterial for further action. While delivering the order, the Court observed that the Vigilance Court was haste in delivering an order, as the case was under the consideration of the court and should have waited till the pronouncement of the verdict. Talking on the sidelines of an official function at Pookkotumpara in Malapuram district, Mr Chandy said ''I am prepared to facer any kind of investigation into the case as I am innocent.'' ''My conscious is, clear as I haven't committed mistake,'' he said adding ''my conscious is my strength and I attach importance to it than morality.'' He said the issue will be discussed with Congress High Command and constituents of ruling United Democratic Front (UDF), headed by his party. Mr Chandy held the Communist Party of India (Marxist), heading Opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) and liquor lobby in the state behind the allegations. The Chief Minister said that party and the liquor barons hatched a conspiracy against him to defame the government. The liquor lobby was infuriated against the new Abkari policy of the government, prompting them to move against him, adding, they were also annoyed for not getting a favourable court verdict in the alleged bar bribery case. The Chief Minister said he had solid evidence that the conspiracy was framed to prevent the Congress-led United Democratic Front from capturing power again. Earlier, Ms Sarita Nair today deposed before the Commission on her second sitting, said that Mr Chandy had assured her that all cases against her would be withdrawn, with a promise that entire money would be returned to her shortly. Speaking to newspersons after her appearance before the Commission at Kochi, Ms Saritha said, Mr Chandy had contacted her mother through phone personally and asked her to advise her daughter(me) not to disclose details in the scam and assured that all cases against Ms Saritha would be withdrawn and the money, said to be given as bribe, would be returned soon. My mother told me that he (the Chief Minister) contacted her personally through the phone of former Minister K B Ganeshkumar, MLAs personal staff Pradeepkumar and told her to advise me not to disclose details about the scam and assured that all cases against me would be taken care of, apart from initiating measures to return the money and settle all cases outside the court, she disclosed. It was because of my mothers advise and demand, I have decided not to release the 30-page letter in this regard and reduced the details into just four-to-five-page letter, avoiding many important details, as desired by the Chief Minister, Ms Saritha said, adding, Mr Pardeep Kumar had informed her that it was only due to Mr Chandy's request, he was meeting her with the offer on this issue. I took the decision not to release the letter which I wrote, with the expectations that all cases against me would be withdrawn and my money will be refunded, she reasoned. Ms Saritha also said, besides mother the "office bearers of Chief Minister Thampanoor Ravi and Benni Behanan contacted me on several occasions and repeated the same offer. However, nothing had materialised, as they did not keep the promise made on behalf of Mr Chandy, and all the details in this regard would be available from the phone numbers of Benni Behanan and Thampanoor Ravi. Meanwhile, Leader of the Opposition in the Kerala Assembly V S Achuthanandan demanded the resignation of Mr Chandy in the wake of today's Thrissur Vigilance Court order . Talking to newspersons here, Mr Achuthanandan said the continuation of Mr Chandy, who was allegedly involved in Solar Scam, in power is a crying shame to the people of the State. "Ms Saritha raised serious allegations against the Chief Minister and his cabinet colleague. She had deposed before Solar Commission, inquiring the bribe case, that that she had paid Rs 1.90 crore to the Chief Minister's aide and Rs 40 lakh to the Power Minister's aide as bribe in connection with the solar panel business deal," Mr Achutananthan rued. The former Chief Minister said Mr Chandy should resign immediately to avoid protest from Opposition parties, which are planning to stage a series of agitations against the Congress-led UDF Government all over the State. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Kerala President Kummanam Rajasekharan demanded that Mr Chandy release all details contain in the CD, which he possessed, regarding the sensational solar scam. It was the Chief Minister himself , who disclosed that he was having a secret CD with him and since the details in the CD would remove the mask of many gentlemen, it could be viewed only secretly, Mr Rajasekharan, wondered in a statement. Since Mr Chandy is the Chief Minister of Kerala, it was his moral responsibility to disclose the details in the CD before the public, the BJP leader demanded. ''If anybody suspected that Mr Chandy was blackmailing with the CD, they could not be blamed,'' Mr Rajasekharan reasoned, adding, if there were any shocking details in the CD, the same should be disclosed before the public. UNI CR KVV AK 1910 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0324-561714.Xml Speaking at the sixth Indian Student Parliament here, he said, "Intolerance is a self-made situation by certain people for their own selfish reasons. I do not believe in it. India has always been tolerant." "The world says 'Unity in Uniformity' but India teaches 'Unity in Diversity'," he said and pointed out that while protecting one's cultural identity respect should be shown to others cultural identity as well. "This was taught by our eternal religion which has also taught about socialism and secularism since the beginning," said the RSS chief. He said, "Culture is the spirit of the Constitution.And culture is the nature of the people. Our nature is based on tolerance and the acceptance of everyone, hence our constitution reflects it. "Whereas, in case of Pakistan, it is different because their nature is based on religion," Mr Bhagwat added.UNI SP SS SW NS1910 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-561666.Xml Metropolitan Magistrate V P Adone imposed the fine after rejecting Mr Patels lawyers plea seeking another adjournment in a defamation case filed by him against ex-Air India executive director Jitender Bhargava. The matter revolves around Mr Bhargavas controversial book entitled, The Descent of Air India, in which he had chronicled the diminution of the national carrier through certain reckless and motivated decisions taken between the years 2004-2008. At the relevant time, Mr Patel was the aviation minister, while V Thulasidas was the chairman of Air India, and Mr Bhargava penned the book post-retirement. Irked by the contents of the book, Mr Patel filed a defamation case against Mr Bhargava and the publishers, Bloomsbury, in October 2013. "Though the publishers subsequently withdrew the book from the markets around January 2014, I stood my ground since everything in the book was based on documentary evidence," Mr Bhargava maintained. Since then, about 10 dates for hearing were fixed by the court, but on each occasion, Mr Patels side sought adjournments, which were granted, said Mr Bhargava, who is fighting the case without a lawyer. At the last hearing on November 5, last year, Magistrate Adone of 62nd Bhoiwada Court rejected another plea for adjournment and fixed January 28, 2016, for the hearing. Again, Mr Patels legal team today sought an adjournment which was rejected by Mr Adone and also slapped a fine of Rs 3,000 on him. Now, the matter has been fixed for hearing on February 12, added the former AI official.UNI AAA SS SW 1921 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-561861.Xml Former Bihar Chief minister and Hindustani Awam Morcha(HAM) chief Jeetan Ram Manjhi today demanded conviction of criminals through speedy trials, involved in atrocities against Mahadalit community. "Those involved in crimes against Mahadalit community should be convicted within 90 days through speedy trials," Mr Manjhi demanded and remarked that rule of law in Bihar appeared confined to speech of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. The former chief minister, while condemning the acid attack on six people of Mahadalit community in Araria yesterday, said an adequate security arrangement should be made for them. Mr Manjhi said Mr Kumar never failed to claim that he had established rule of law in Bihar but crime graph continued to increase alarmingly in the state. MORE UNI KKS AKM SHS SW 1937 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0213-561808.Xml Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal today paid rich tributes to freedom fighter Lala Lajpat Rai on his 150th birth anniversary and said he fought the British imperialism all his life and acted as a inspiring light for numerous other freedom fighters such as Shaheed Bhagat Singh. Speaking on the occasion, he said history of Punjab is replete with untold number of sacrifices made for the sake of freedom of country undergoing life imprisonments at Andaman-Nicobar and many other embracing martyrdom. He said he salutes village Dhudike which has produced eminent martyrs of Indian freedom struggle. Addressing a mammoth gathering at Lala Lajpat Rai Government College here on the occasion of 150th birth anniversary celebrations, Mr Badal said several initiatives has been launched by the SAD-BJP alliance government like waiving of tubewell bills, enhancing old age pension to Rs 500 from Rs 250, Shagan Scheme, Atta Dal Scheme which has benefitted 40 lakh families, health and accidental insurance for poor people, farmers and traders, pension of Rs 1000 to Sangharshi Yoddhas undergoing prison term during emergency and Punjabi Suba Morcha and 4 and 6 laning of roads. On infrastructural projects, the Deputy Chief Minister said work on 4 laning of Hoshiarpur-Jalandhar-Moga-Barnala-Jind road projects would begin in 15 days costing Rs 2500 crore. He also informed that all major towns of state would be provided with sewerage and water supply facilities at a cost of Rs 4000 crore. More UNI NC SW BD1921 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-561715.Xml Tension prevailed at Villianur near here as the villagers of Thirukkanji near here picketed the Villianur sub-collectors office and three their vioter id and ration card to register their protest. They were protesting against the failure of the government to provide basic amenities in their village. The villagers alleged that over 300 families are living in the village for over 40 years and inspite of repeated please the administration failed to take any action to provide them the basic amenities such as road,drinking water,crematorium etc.To register their protest the villagers gathered infront of the Villainur sub-colelctor office ,picketed it and threw their ration cards, voters ID, and Aadhaar card, among others. The talks held by Villianur police proved futile and the agitators gathered into the office and ghearoed the sub-collector and handed over their cards to the sub-collector. Later,the agitators told newspersons that if the government failed to fulfill their demands forthwith ,they will not allow any candidates for the forthcoming assembly elections to enter into their village for canvassing and will boycott the polls.UNI PAB KVV AK 2054 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-561252.Xml : The city crime station police have arrested a couple -- Ms Esampalli Latha, the proprietor of HK Industries and her husband E Suresh Kumar, who is also the proprietor of Raj Industries , for cheating four branches of Central bank of India in the city with an amount of Rs 3.50 crore. The accused couple, resident of Srungeri Colony, Nagole of Ranga Reddy district, are well educated and since 2010 the accused persons along with their close relatives and friends have colluded with each other, created fake and forged invoices, cash receipts, delivery challans on the names of different fictitious Engineering workshops, produced them as GENUINE before the four branches of Central Bank of India in the city with malafie and dishonest intention and obtained a loan of total amount around Rs. 3.50 Crores on the names of 11 units HK Industries, Raj Industries, Sree Industries, SK Industries, SL Industries, Latha Industries, Om Sreenidhi Industries, Vandana Industries, Mahalaxmi Industries, Venkateswara Industries, Chandana Industries for establishing the units at two rented premises at Tatti Annaram village, Hayathnagar Mandal in R.R. District for manufacturing Paper plates, Paper bags, Jute bags, Lamination Sheets, Note Books, Liner Boxes, Tiffin plates, Tea cups and cheated the bank. The couple obtained loans from the four branches of Central Bank of India by placing the sign boards with different names at the same premises by showing the same machinery to the bank officials individually by suppressing the facts to another branch, Detective Department Joint Commissioner T Prabhakar Rao said in a release here today. Based on the complaint lodged by Vijay Srihari Kohirkar , Chief Manager, Central Bank of India, Nampally in the city, the two accused were arrested in the case and as many as nine accused persons are at large, and the involvement of the then bank officials in this scam is yet to be established, the commissioner added.UNI KNR KVV AK 2035 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-561804.Xml Police sources told UNI that the body was broughtfrom Mundiyambakkam Government Hospital in Villuppuram district with police escort to the Government Kilpauk Medical College Hospital, where the second autopsy wasdone. The second post-mortem began at 1400 hrs and lastedthree hours. A doctor, representing the parents of Monisha, werepresent as per the court order when the fresh autopsy was done. Later, the body of Monisha was handed over to her parents for last rites. Advocate R Sankarasubbu, Counsel for the petitionerTamilarasan, father of Monisha, said the post-mortem report would be submitted to the court.MORE UNI GV KVV AK 2010 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-561811.Xml Meghalaya Governor V Shanmuganathan today said the Union government has accorded top priority for the growth and development of the north-eastern states. Inaugurating the three-day Public Information Campaign organised by the Press Information Bureau at Smit village in East Khasi Hills district, Mr Shanmuganathan also said the centre is bringing the Golden Era to the region in the name of Act East Policy instead of Look East Policy. The various schemes and unique programmes which are aimed at enhancing the livelihood of the common people are launched and the brought to the state with a broad mind. The Golden Era should come to the region, the Governor said. Moreover, he said the centre was focussing all development activities towards the NE statesin as far as health care sector, communication, roads and transport, infrastructure, connectivity is concerned. Stating that the NE states should be benefited from government schemes, Mr Shanmuganathan said the region draws maximum attention from central government even as he mentioned that if north-east is not developed then India cannot developed. Further, he urged the people to play their role in ensuring the growth and development of the region by visiting the government departments and collect the required information and to take advantage of the various schemes. On the economic status of the farmers and women in the state, Mr Shanmuganathan said that as 60 per cent of the people in the state depend on agriculture, it is very important for the farming communities to avail the benefits of the government. As Infant Mortality Rate poses a challenge to the government, he informed that there are various schemes which could help ease the burden and, said, Its up to the people to go to the nearby health care services to take advantage of the schemes. Mr Shanmuganathan also appreciated the contributions made by central government agencies in dissemination of information to the public like All India Radio, Post Office and Doordarshan Kendra Shillong besides other health care services like NEIGHRIMS. The government spends lakh of crore of rupees for all the projects for the benefit of the common people and the people should come forward and avail these benefits, he said while informing the public about the various schemes like the Make in India, Digital India, Smart City, Indra Dhanush, Stand up India and Start-up India which are aimed at empowering the people especially the youth of the country to become entrepreneurs and contribute to the economic growth of the nation. Meanwhile, Hill State Peoples Democratic Party (HSPDP) legislator Ardent Miller Basaiawmoit said it is a known fact that information is power and people should be get access to these information, He said if the people are equipped with the much needed information, the economy of the people will thrive hence contributing to the economic growth of the state and the country as a whole. Echoing similar view, the East Khasi Hills District Deputy Commissioner, Peter S Dkhar informed that the idea of holding this three day programme is to sensitise the rural populace about the various programmes of the government both Centre and state. There are certain programmes which are not known to the people, which need consultation, needs proper scrutiny before the programmes are put into place and hence, this programme provides a platform for the people to gather the much needed information about the various initiatives of the government, Mr Dkhar said while urging the people should take the initiative by coming forward to avail these schemes. Highlighting on the need for government departments and agencies to fill the communication gap between the urban and rural populace in as far as dissemination of information is concerned, the chieftain of Hima Khyrim Balajied Sing Syiem said there is a lack of access of information from government departments and this develops a sense of disappointment to the people especially the youth. Our youth have a lot of potential and there is an emergent need to tap their potential to further enhance the economic growth of the state, Dr Syiem said. UNI RRK BM SHS RSA NS2055 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0214-561827.Xml With Muslim women groups protesting in favour of their demand, seeking entry into the inner sanctum of Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai, trustee of the Dargah, Rizwan Merchant on Thursday said that their entry is prohibited in view of their safety which is 'fair and just'. "A fair and just action has been taken by the trust by not allowing gents and women to mingle together at the inner sanctum of the Dargah for their safety," Merchant told ANI. "The issue is unnecessarily blown out of proportion. Our sisters are not prohibited or stopped from visiting the Dargah," he added. "There is a separate corridor and between the corridor and the Dargah, there is a line of those offertory boxes where devotees come and offer what is required to be offered. Behind that particular portion, an area of nearly 150-200 square-feet has been demarcated only for our sisters," he further said. A Muslim women's rights group is locked in a bitter legal battle with trustees of the Haji Ali Dargah, which barred women's entry into mosque's mausoleum in 2011. While defending its ban on women, the trust had reportedly said that it was a "grievous sin" as per Islam for women to be in close proximity of the grave of a male Muslim saint. The Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) has petitioned the Bombay High Court seeking a ruling that the ban is unconstitutional. (ANI) Kerala's ruling Congress-led UDF suffered a blow on Thursday as a court ordered an FIR to be filed in the solar panel scam against Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who claimed innocence and rejected opposition calls to resign. And even as Saritha Nair, one of the main accused in the scandal and who hurled bribery allegations against the chief minister on Wednesday, threatened on Thursday to prove that Chandy was very much guilty, the UDF lost a RSP legislator, who said he was disgusted with Chandy's government. A court in Thrissur told Kerala's vigilance department to file a First Information Report (FIR) against Chandy on corruption charges in what has come to be known as the "solar scam". The Thrissur Vigilance Court also directed a FIR to be registered against Power Minister Aryadan Mohammed. This followed a petition by activist P.D. Joseph after Saritha Nair told a judicial commission that she gave Rs.1.90 crore in bribes to Chandy in two instalments. The developments have come at a time when the United Democratic Front faces assembly elections only months away. The opposition Left immediately asked Chandy to resign. CPI-M leader Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said: "The court has made its intentions clear through the FIR, and Chandy has only one way now to go forward and that is to quit at the earliest." In New Delhi, BJP leader and union minister Nirmala Sitharaman said: "The charges against the chief minister and the power minister are of very serious nature and we demand their resignations." Chandy maintained in Malappuram that he had a clear conscience. "I have done no wrong. I will face the probe and cooperate with it," he said. Asked if would resign, Chandy shot back: "For what?" The scam erupted in 2013 when a company, Team Solar, allegedly used two women to weave political contacts and duped several influential people of large sums of money by offering to make them business partners or by setting up solar panels. Saritha Nair said on Wednesday that the money she paid to Chandy was part of the Rs.7 crore demanded by him. She said she also gave Rs.40 lakh to minister Mohammed. Even as Chandy said he had done no wrong, she said the truth was otherwise. "After the unbearable tension of carrying all this on my head for the past more than three years, now I feel very relaxed as I am speaking the truth. I will prove through evidence that Chandy is wrong and I am right." Nair and her live-in partner Biju Radhakrishnan were arrested in the scandal in 2013 on charges of cheating numerous investors, who paid money for solar panels. While Saritha Nair is out on bail, Radhakrishnan is in jail after being accused of murdering his first wife. In Thiruvananthapuram, RSP's Kovoor Kunjumon quit the Kerala assembly, saying he was disgusted with the UDF government, and pledged to rejoin the Left. The Revolutionary Socialist Party has three legislators. With Kunjumon leaving, the strength of the house has come down to 138 and Chandy now has the support of 72 legislators. The Left commands 66 legislators in the 140-seat house. Kunjumon said: "For seven months, I am unable to show my face to cashew factory workers (in my constituency) as all the factories are closed. "Others may not know their feelings, but I know it because I am the son of a cashew factory worker. Along with our supporters, we will form the real RSP and will align with the Left," he said. Kunjumon was elected to the assembly in 2001, 2006 and 2011 when his party was with the Left. Ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, he joined the UDF. --Indo Asian News Service team-mr/vd ( 633 Words) 2016-01-28-21:41:34 (IANS) For the first time bands from the State Police and Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) will be performing at the Beating the Retreat ceremony at Vijay Chowk here on Friday, marking the culmination of the four-day Republic Day celebrations. The bands comprising Border Security Force (BSF), Indo-Tibet Border Police (ITBP) and Delhi Police will play tunes such as 'Samvidhan', 'Abhinandan' and 'Carriappa'. The Tri-Services Military Band, Indian classical instruments Sinfonietta and Jazz Symphonic Orchestra playing the tune 'Agyat Youvana' and the Indian Classical Instruments Sinfonietta playing the tune 'Bharat Humko Jaan Se Pyara Hai' will add flavour to the ceremony. As many as 20 out of 26 performances have been composed by Indian musicians. Other tunes are 'Kadam Kadam Badhaye Ja', 'Senani', 'Lounden's Bonnie Woods and Braes', 'the High Road to Linton', 'Mili Juli', 'Grandeur', 'Redetzky', 'Pankhida', 'Galaxy Raiders', 'Inspirato', 'Air Born', 'Admirals Ensignia-II', 'Jai Bharati', 'Sam Bahadur', 'Dhola Re Dhola', 'Taqat Watan Ki Hamse Hai', 'Salam To The Soldiers', 'Marching Through Georgia', 'Drummers Call', 'Abide With Me' and lastly the ever-popular 'Sare Jahan Se Acha'. This year, 15 Military Bands, 18 Pipes and Drums Bands from Regimental Centres and Battalions are participating in the ceremony. Besides, one each of Indian Navy and Indian Air Force band will also form part of the event. The principal conductor of the Beating Retreat ceremony will be Cdr VC D'Cruz, while military bands conductor will be Subedar Major Ramesh Singh and the Navy and Air Force bands commander will be Master Chief Petty Officer (Musician-I) Ramesh Chand and Junior Warrant Officer Ashok Kumar respectively. Buglers will perform under the leadership of Nb Sub Jagdish Giri and pipes and drums bands will play under the instructions of Sub Maj EV Vijayan. 'Beating the Retreat' has emerged as an event of national pride when the Colours and Standards are paraded. The ceremony traces its origins to the early 1950s when Major Roberts of the Indian Army indigenously developed the unique ceremony of display by the massed bands. 'Beating Retreat' marks a centuries old military tradition, when the troops ceased fighting, sheathed their arms and withdrew from the battlefield and returned to the camps at sunset at the sounding of the Retreat. Colours and Standards are cased and flags lowered. The ceremony creates nostalgia for the times gone by. (ANI) A fast track court today convicted and sentenced 19 studentsof Law here to three years of imprisonment, while acquitting 22 others, in connectionwith the 2008 clashes between two groups in the Dr Ambedkar Law College premises. Delivering the verdict, the court convicted 19 students to three years of imprisonmentand imposed a fine of Rs 15,000. They were convicted under Sec 148(causing riots).The court also convicted two other students, B Kannan, who was severely injured in theclash and Aiyyadurai, to three years imprisonment, besides imposing a fine of Rs1000. Bharati Kannan, one of the complainants, was convicted on a counter complaint by the other group. Among the 22 acquitted were BSP functionary, Armstrong and A D V Rajinikant. The Frast Track Court was constituted in September 2014 following the directionof Supreme Court. The apex court also directed the Madras High Court ensure thatthe case was completed in one year. However, after the Supreme Court granted six months more, the Fast Track Court completedthe case in that period of time.UNI GV JK2324 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-562232.Xml It is a matter of immense pride for the state. The National Democratic Alliance Government's novel concept of smart cities will generate a healthy competition among cities to improve civic services in larger public interest, said Mr Chouhan, according to an official release issued here. He congratulated mayors and team of officials of three selected cities whose relentless hard work has paid off. He extended best wishes to them. The Chief Minister called for a resolve to work hard to turn dream of Smart Cities into reality. It will bring about sea change in urban life.UNI PS RSA NS2223 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0044-562190.Xml Researchers from Canada's Universit Laval and Universit de Sherbrooke visited sugar maple forests in Quebec province and found that new shoots of red maple, striped maple, American beech, and two fern species became rarer as earthworm populations increased. "The most likely explanation is that the earthworms consume organic matter in forest litter," said Line Lapointe, a professor at Universit Laval's faculty of science and engineering and the study's lead author. "This results in soils that can't hold as much moisture, and that in turn interferes with seed germination and the ability of some species' plantlets to survive," she added. Earthworms have started to change plant composition in sugar maple forests, according to the researchers. "If nothing is done, these changes could become more pronounced and spread to other forest communities," Lapointe said. "Earthworms used for bait should never be released in the forest," Lapointe said. "Anglers who use them for fishing should pack them back out afterwards, or if that's not possible, throw them into the lake," she added. The study was published in a recent issue of Forest Ecology and Management. --Indo-Asian News Service vr/pku/dg ( 228 Words) 2016-01-28-15:05:52 (IANS) Japan is always gathering and analysing information on movements concerning North Korea's missiles with "great interest", a government spokesman said today. Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Hagiuda told a news conference the government would continue to cooperate with nations such as the United States and South Korea to urge North Korea to refrain from "provocative action" and comply with UN resolutions. North Korea may be preparing to launch a long-range missile over the next week, Kyodo news agency reported today, citing an unnamed Japanese government official. REUTERS JW PR0806 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0364-560522.Xml The head of NATO said today that the United States has requested the alliance's help in fighting Islamic State in the Middle East by providing surveillance planes called the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS).NATO is not directly involved in combating Islamic militants in Syria and Iraq, with the United States leading a coalition of nations that includes all 28 NATO allies. NATO member Turkey also shares a long border with Syria and Iraq."We have got a request from the US to provide support to the efforts of the coalition, to help them with the NATO AWACS surveillance planes, and we are now looking into that request," Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference.Stoltenberg said NATO defence ministers would discuss the US request at their meeting in early February, although there is no deadline for any decision.AWACS monitor airspace within a radius of more than 400 km and exchange information via digital data links, with ground-based, sea-based and airborne commanders.NATO is already sending AWACS to Turkey to strengthen Ankara's air defences on its border with Syria. It was not immediately clear if those planes will play a dual role.REUTERS PS CS1538 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-561120.Xml Donald Trump has figured out how to make the buzz around a today night debate of Republican presidential candidates all about him: by vowing to skip it.But the billionaire's move, days before Iowa holds the first nominating contest of the 2016 election, is a gamble.After Trump said he was boycotting the Fox News-sponsored debate because of his feud with anchor Megyn Kelly, rivals accused him of being too afraid to face them on stage. While some of Trump's fans were supportive of his decision, several undecided voters said they were unimpressed."I was on Trump's doorstep until this whole thing happened. I was disappointed," said Bryan Moon of West Des Moines, Iowa, who was attending an event for Republican Marco Rubio. "If this is how he's going to act, that 'I'm taking my ball and going home,' then that is just not going to work."Voter Jill Ruby, another West Des Moines resident at the Rubio event, was equally put out by Trump's decision. "Are you kidding me, a reporter ticked him off?" she said. "He's a coward. I think it will come back and bite him. That's not how a president acts, you don't just run away."Although Trump leads polls of Iowa Republicans over US Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, many voters remain undecided and are looking to the debate to aid their decision-making."It gives people a reason to be disappointed in him and take a look at the other candidates," said Republican strategist Charlie Black. "It could hurt him with people who might be undecided."Trump's rivals view the debate, which begins at 9 p.m. EST (0730 IST), as a chance to get their own messages across without having to compete with Trump's bomb-throwing rhetoric."It gives us more time at the microphone and more time to talk about answers to substantive issues that Iowa voters are demanding right now," said David Kochel, a senior adviser to Republican candidate Jeb Bush.On the down side, the number of people who tune in could be lower without Trump at center stage."It is undeniable that what he's doing is denying his opponents a large audience as they make their final arguments to Iowa voters," said Eric Fehrnstrom, a Republican strategist who advised 2012 nominee Mitt Romney.Trump's decision to stage a benefit event to help US military veterans instead of participating in the debate was a welcome move for some supporters.Pat Wiltfang, 59, of Grinnell, Iowa, said she is pleased Trump decided to pull out. A lifelong Republican, Wiltfang said she watched all the previous debates but will gladly skip this one."That's a great move," said Wiltfang, who plans to caucus for Trump. "All it is is just everyone trying to attack."While it might be tempting for Trump's rivals to use the debate to criticize him aggressively, some Republican analysts are cautioning against a scorched-earth approach."It's delicate for the candidates because you have to pull back from attacking a man who is not there," said Ari Fleischer, who was White House press secretary for President George W. Bush. "It will be okay to make a passing reference or two, the fact that he's not there. But if you try to beat him up, it won't play well because he's not there to defend himself."But yesterday, at a separate event in West Des Moines, Cruz openly mocked Trump for skipping the debate, calling him a "fragile soul." He renewed his offer to Trump to debate him one-on-one Saturday evening in Iowa."It's not that he's afraid of me," Cruz said to the crowd. "He's afraid of you. He doesn't want to answer questions from the men and women of Iowa about how his record doesn't match what he's selling."No one would be shocked if Trump suddenly decided to participate in the debate."I've got a 20 dollars bet he'll show up," Trump rival Jeb Bush said. Why? "Because it's in his interests," Bush said. REUTERS PS VP1656 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-561269.Xml A Syrian opposition group has called on the United Nations to rethink its decision about who to invite for peace talks in Geneva and has sent UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura a counter-proposal.Haytham Manna, co-leader of the Syrian Democratic Council, had already said he would not take part in the peace talks unless two Kurdish leaders, Saleh Muslim and Ilham Ahmed, were also invited to participate."We received part of our invitations and we are waiting for the other part. It must be, in principle, today," he told reporters in Lausanne, where members of his group were meeting, originally in anticipation of joining the talks tomorrow.Russia, Syria's biggest ally and the main co-sponsor of the peace talks along with the United States, wants Manna and his colleagues at the table. It says the main opposition delegation drawn up in Riyadh is too narrow and includes too many Islamists, including some Moscow regards as terrorists.Turkey, another key sponsor of the peace talks and the biggest host of Syrian refugees, regards the Kurdish leaders as representatives of a terrorist movement and wants them excluded.De Mistura compromised by inviting Manna and several others in a personal capacity, while leaving out the two Kurdish leaders.Manna said his group had drawn up a "democratic secular" list of 15 essential names and 15 alternate members and sent it to De Mistura, Russia and the United States.A spokeswoman for De Mistura said his office had received the list but declined to say who was on it or whether the UN would send out any more invitations. REUTERS PS VP1715 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-561372.Xml The number of foreigners moving to Switzerland fell last year while emigration rose, bringing a second consecutive slowdown in net immigration, although the number of requests for asylum jumped by two-thirds.Nearly a quarter of Switzerland's population is foreign and immigration is a major political issue, especially as Europe grapples with its biggest migrant crisis since World War Two.Last month, the neutral Alpine state threatened to impose unilateral curbs on immigration from the European Union if voluntary limits could not be agreed by March.Switzerland and its most important trading partner are gridlocked over how to implement a binding 2014 Swiss referendum in favour of immigration quotas that would violate a bilateral pact guaranteeing freedom of movement for EU citizens.Government data released today showed net immigration slowed last year to 71,500 people, down 9.4 per cent from 2014.Just under 2 million foreigners lived in Switzerland at the end of 2015, more than two-thirds of whom were European citizens. Italians and Germans were the biggest groups.Most foreigners came to Switzerland last year to work or to join family members already here.Requests for asylum swelled 66 per cent to 39,523. Around 1.4 million people -- most fleeing crisis zones in the Middle East and Africa -- sought refuge in Europe last year, twice as many as in 2014.Around 3 per cent of migrants to Europe sought asylum in Switzerland, the lowest rate since 2008, the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) said. They came mostly from Eritrea, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Sri Lanka.Requests for asylum fell 14 per cent in December from the previous month as applications from Eritreans in particular slumped. Nearly two-thirds of asylum applications in December came from citizens of Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, most of whom reached Switzerland via the so-called Balkan route, SEM said.Swiss authorities granted 6,377 people asylum last year, a quarter of applicants, although that rate rose above half including people granted temporary protection. REUTERS PS VP1718 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-561378.Xml Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, ignoring US criticism, flew to a disputed island in the South China Sea today to reaffirm Taipei's sovereignty and said the trip was aimed at promoting peace.Ma's one-day visit to Itu Aba came amid growing international concern over rising tensions in the South China Sea, especially in the wake of Beijing's rapid creation of seven man-made islands in the Spratly archipelago.Washington, Taiwan's biggest ally, yesterday called Ma's trip "extremely unhelpful", adding it would not do anything to resolve disputes over the waterway.But Ma, who steps down in May, said he had told the United States about his trip a few days beforehand."The US and we (Taiwan), when it comes to the big direction for the South China Sea, are the same," Ma told reporters. "We all hope for peace, hope there is no conflict or war."Beijing yesterday reiterated that China and Taiwan had a common duty to protect Chinese sovereignty in the South China Sea. Beijing, recognised by most of the world as the head of "one China", deems Taiwan a wayward province to be taken by force if necessary.Taiwan has just finished a 100 million dollars port upgrade and built a new lighthouse on Itu Aba, known as Taiping in Taiwan. The island, which lies in the Spratlys, also has an airstrip, a hospital and fresh water.Both China and Taiwan claim most of the South China Sea. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei also have competing claims.Vietnam's top official in Taiwan said Hanoi "resolutely opposed" Ma's visit. The Philippine Foreign Ministry said all parties had a shared responsibility to refrain from actions that could increase tensions.Ma said the visit was now or never."This was the time to go," he said. "If I didn't go now, it would have been too late."Given the tensions over the South China Sea, few senior political officials from any of the claimants have visited the contested region in recent years.Ma's visit follows elections won by the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which declined a request by Ma to send a representative along. The DPP said Taiwan had a responsibility to maintain peace and stability in the area.The claims of both China and Taiwan are based on maps from the late 1940s belonging to the Nationalists, when they ruled all of China. The Nationalists fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the Chinese civil war to Mao Zedong's Communists.China has appeared unfazed by Taiwan's upgrading work on Itu Aba. Military strategists say that is because Itu Aba could fall into China's hands should it ever take over Taiwan.The 46-hectare (114-acre) island supports around 180 people, about 150 of them coastguard personnel.REUTERS PS VP1718 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-561392.Xml A Hungarian court acquitted today 15 people charged with criminal negligence relating to a toxic red sludge spill which flooded part of Western Hungary in 2010, killing 10 people and destroying hundreds of homes across three towns. The spill was one of the worst environmental disasters to hit the central European country of 10 million people. It took years and cost about 40 billion forints (140 million dollars) to clean up toxic red mud that covered the countryside and seeped into rivers as far downstream as the Danube. MAL Corp, the aluminium smelting company that owned the faulty alumina reservoir was taken over by the government, which declared it responsible for the incident and began to close it down. But in its first-instance ruling, the court said executives and top employees of MAL had not been criminal negligent or committed other crimes they were charged with during the 40-month legal procedure. "The defendants had no realistic and objective opportunity to discover the hazards that had formed," the court said in a statement, adding that relevant authorities had signed off on the reservoir's blueprints and operation, and held regular checks. "The authorities had uncovered no shortfalls and prescribed no additional checks. The catastrophe had no predictable, visible, recognisable prior sign," the court said. REUTERS PS GC1750 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-561486.Xml Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said today that air flights from 27 countries, where the Zika virus has been recorded, will be taken "under control''."We know that this epidemic is not a threat to us," Ms Skvortsova told RIA Novosti news agency. However, in order to avoid imported cases, it is necessary to take under control flights from the 27 countries where this problem really exists," she said.Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin asked Ms Skvortsova to commence work on developing a vaccine against the Zika fever, which is linked to thousands of cases of microcephaly among newborns in Latin America.Ms Skvortsova said such work is already underway."We are, of course, developing vaccines in order to have a complete range that would enable us to fight infections," she added.The Zika virus affects primarily monkeys and humans and is transmitted by daytime-active mosquitoes. It can lead to babies being born with microcephaly, which is a case of an underdeveloped brain.The outbreak originated in Brazil and spread across Latin America, causing several deaths and cases of micro-encephalitis and inflammation of the brain that cause deformities in newborns. Recently the first case of the mosquito-borne virus crossing into Europe from Latin America was confirmed in Denmark.UNI XC AJ RP1821 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0109-561563.Xml Islamic State militants claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing today that killed seven people outside Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Rabbu Hadi's residence in the southern city of Aden. Local officials and eyewitnesses reported the death toll and said 10 other people were injured. Officials said Hadi was inside his residence at the time of the attack and was unharmed. "A suicide car bomb targeted a security checkpoint about 500 metres (yards) from the Maashiq palace. The majority of the casualties are civilians," an official told Reuters by telephone. It was the latest in a spate of deadly attacks by Islamist militants on Yemeni government and security targets. In a statement online, Islamic State said the attack was carried out by a suicide car bomber it identified as Abu Hanifa al-Hollandi. The nom de guerre suggested the attacker was a Dutch citizen. Hadi was forced by Shi'ite Houthi rebels to flee the capital Sanaa in 2014 and is now based in Aden, Yemen's second largest city, where his embattled government is trying to project its authority after its loyalists, backed by Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab forces, seized it back in July. Backed by a Saudi-led military alliance of Arab states, Hadi's forces have been battling the Iran-allied Houthi militia and followers of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh who are based in Sanaa. The war has killed 6,000 people. Islamic State insurgents have also stepped up operations, emerging as a forceful rival to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has been the main Islamist militant group in the country in recent years. Suicide bombers from Islamic State killed 15 people in an attack on a hotel housing the government in Aden and seven at a Houthi-run mosque in Sanaa on October 5. Dozens of armoured vehicles and troops from the United Arab Emirates arrived in Aden's port on Wednesday, security officials said, as part of a plan to tackle security chaos.REUTERS SHS PR2142 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0329-562168.Xml A security official told Xinhua that an explosives-laden car struck a military checkpoint near the outer gate of the Presidential Palace in Aden's Cirater area. The IS branch in Yemen released a statement on social media indicating that "a fighter from the Netherlands" carried out the bombing. "About 10 soldiers of the Presidential Guard Forces were killed, including senior officers and more than 20 others injured during the jihadist operation," the statement said. The IS threatened to carry out more attacks targeting Yemen President Abdu-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his government. Yemeni experts said it was the first time the Yemen-based branch used a bomber from a foreign country to carry out attacks in Yemen. Thursday's attack took place just a day after Prime Minister Khaled Bahah held a meeting with local chiefs of Yemen's armed forces and commanders of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Sudan in Aden to discuss the security situation. --Indo-Asian News Service pm/ ( 208 Words) 2016-01-28-22:51:41 (IANS) Donald Trump will draw a ruptured US Republican Party into a prime time TV ratings battle today night, as the billionaire presidential hopeful shuns a Fox News-sponsored debate to star in his own event at the same time. His decision to boycott the Republican debate in a spat with network anchor Megyn Kelly threatens to pit the large conservative base of the party's front-runner against the most powerful media force in Republican politics - in a fight that may overshadow anything that happens on the debate stage. "The 'debate' tonight will be a total disaster," Trump quipped in a Twitter post today morning. "Low ratings with advertisers and advertising rates dropping like a rock. I hate to see this." Trump will host a fundraiser for veterans at Drake University in Des Moines during the Fox debate, according to an invitation circulated by his campaign. A CNN source said the network would likely air parts of the Trump event live. The move places Trump, a former reality TV star, more squarely in the spotlight even as he shuns the stage. But days before Iowa holds the first nominating contest of the November 8 presidential election, it could also cost him votes. Rivals like Ted Cruz have accused the billionaire of being too afraid to face them in the debate, and while some of Trump's fans were supportive of his decision, several undecided voters were unimpressed. "I was on Trump's doorstep until this whole thing happened. I was disappointed," said Bryan Moon of West Des Moines, Iowa, who was attending an event for Republican Marco Rubio. "If this is how he's going to act, that 'I'm taking my ball and going home,' then that is just not going to work." Voter Jill Ruby, another West Des Moines resident at the Rubio event, was equally put out by Trump's decision. "Are you kidding me, a reporter ticked him off?" she said. "He's a coward. I think it will come back and bite him. That's not how a president acts, you don't just run away." Fox News chairman Roger Ailes contacted Trump's daughter, Ivanka, yesterday to gauge Trump's seriousness about dropping out of the debate, but did not seek to change his mind, network officials said, according to The New York Times. While Trump could cost Fox News debate-night ratings, officials at the network said Rupert Murdoch, the executive co-chairman of Fox's parent company, 21st Century Fox, gave Ailes his support over the phone, The New York Times said. Fox News on Tuesday had released a statement that questioned how Trump would handle Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei if he could not deal with Kelly - a statement Trump said was childish. Although Trump leads polls of Iowa Republicans over Cruz, a US Senator from Texas, many voters remain undecided and are looking to the debate to aid their decision-making. "It gives people a reason to be disappointed in him and take a look at the other candidates," said Republican strategist Charlie Black. "It could hurt him with people who might be undecided." OPENING FOR RIVALS Trump's rivals view the debate, which begins at 9 p.m. EST , as a chance to get their own messages across without having to compete with Trump's bomb-throwing rhetoric. "It gives us more time at the microphone and more time to talk about answers to substantive issues that Iowa voters are demanding right now," said David Kochel, a senior adviser to Republican candidate Jeb Bush. Early today, though, Trump tweeted: "Wow, two candidates called last night and said they want to go to my event tonight at Drake University." He did not elaborate and there was no word from other candidates. "It is undeniable that what he's doing is denying his opponents a large audience as they make their final arguments to Iowa voters," said Eric Fehrnstrom, a Republican strategist who advised the party's 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney. Trump's decision to stage a benefit event to help military veterans instead of participating in the debate was welcomed by some supporters. Pat Wiltfang, 59, of Grinnell, Iowa, a lifelong Republican who had watched all the previous debates, said she was pleased with Trump's decision and would gladly skip this one. "That's a great move," said Wiltfang, who plans to caucus for Trump. "All it is is just everyone trying to attack." While it might be tempting for Trump's rivals to use the debate to criticize him aggressively, some Republican analysts are cautioning against a scorched-earth approach. "It's delicate for the candidates because you have to pull back from attacking a man who is not there," said Ari Fleischer, who was White House press secretary for President George W. Bush. "It will be OK to make a passing reference or two, the fact that he's not there. But if you try to beat him up, it won't play well because he's not there to defend himself." Campaigning yesterday in West Des Moines, Cruz mocked Trump for skipping the debate, calling him a "fragile soul." He renewed his offer to Trump to debate him one-on-one.REUTERS SHS PR2252 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0329-562215.Xml Canada will seek closer relations with Russia despite deep tensions over Moscow's actions in Ukraine, new Liberal Foreign Minister Stephane Dion signaled today, marking a major policy shift. Last October the Liberals defeated the Conservatives, who had cut most high-level ties with Moscow and slapped sanctions on Russian firms, officials and business executives in response to the actions of Russian-backed militants in Ukraine. "If we don't engage with Russia we don't help Ukraine (and) we don't help Canada's interests," Dion told a foreign policy forum. Canada and Russia both have competing interests in the Arctic, home to potentially vast reserves of oil and gas. Dion said the United States, which has also imposed punitive measures on Russia, was dealing directly with Moscow on a number of international issues. It would be irresponsible for the two nations not to have such contacts, he said. "So something that is irresponsible for the United States would also be irresponsible for Canada, don't you think? So that is the approach we will have when building a foreign policy," he said. Canada, Dion added, would maintain the sanctions on Russia for as long as necessary and remained a strong ally of Ukraine. He plans to visit Kiev next week.REUTERS SHS PR2300 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0329-562222.Xml A joint news briefing by Foreign Minister Wang Yi and visiting US Secretary of State John Kerry was delayed for about three hours before finally beginning on Wednesday afternoon. Initially, the long-awaited meeting in Beijing of the two top diplomats was tentatively scheduled to begin at 9:30 am and last two hours. After that the two would meet the media. But the talks were prolonged as the two diplomatic teams continued their discussion through a working lunch. Upon arriving at the news briefing venue, Wang first apologized to reporters for keeping them waiting, as he and his counterpart had a "positive, candid and constructive meeting". The two top diplomats elaborated on three key topics of common concern the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, the South China Sea situation and Taiwan. Both expressed their goodwill to the other side and, given the limited chances for questions, addressed top media concerns first. Kerry fended off a US reporter's request that he outline potential punitive measures for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's nuclear test and whether he thought China's words matched its actions in the South China Sea. "I don't want to go into all the specific options" Kerry said, offering that he wanted to keep "space" for them to negotiate further. "I think that's important," he said. When a Xinhua News Agency reporter asked about the strategic significance and roles of cooperation between the two major countries in this year, Wang said: "This is a very good question, but I guess many of your colleagues are not interested in this question." Many reporters smiled. "And to satisfy your needs, I'd like to talk more about the South China Sea issue and the DPRK nuclear issue," Wang said. Contact the writer at zhang yunbi@chinadaily.com.cn Arlena LaBon is celebrating her 108th birthday this week. Shes never had biological children, but she has been a mom for around 50 foster kids over the years, and her unique outlook on life may have helped her reach the age of 108. She is the most remarkable woman, healthy, an insatiable appetite, LaBons great-niece Claudia Martin told Fox 8 Wednesday of the East Cleveland, Ohio, resident, adding that they had another cousin who lived to 114, so longevity runs in their genes. STORY: Meet the Family Who Adopt Babies They Know Will Die The centenarian said she doesnt have any healthy eating secrets, but she does have a caring attitude that has served her well over the years. As a foster parent, LaBon wanted the kids in her home to have a good life and a strong education. I gave them what I didnt get, she said. LaBon grew up in North Carolina, where her family raised cotton and tobacco, and she attended the little red schoolhouse in Snow Hill, according to a 2014 interview with Kinston.com. She left school at 16 and went to Norfolk, Va., where she found cleaning, cooking, and restaurant jobs. I was one of those dropouts, she said. I was tired of farming. STORY: Being a Foster Dad Breaks My Heart and Makes It Whole When she married, LaBon and her husband settled in Ohio. Over her many years, the core value of her life has been one of kindness and generosity. Just love one another, baby, treat one another good, she said. I love everybody and will help everybody that I can. Fox 8 Clevelands Facebook post about LaBon has more than 3,400 likes and lots of heartfelt comments. What an angel. I wish more people would think this way, wrote one person. Another posted, What a tremendous difference youve made in the lives of those kids!! Happy Birthday sweet lady!! Photo: Fox 8 Please follow @YahooParenting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Have an interesting story to share about your family? Email us at YParenting (at) Yahoo.com. Berlin (AFP) - An 11th German victim has died of her injuries from a suicide bombing this month in the heart of Istanbul blamed on the Islamic State group, authorities in Berlin told AFP Thursday. "I can confirm that a woman wounded in the Istanbul attack died Tuesday in a Berlin hospital," a police spokesman in the German capital said. A total of 11 German tourists were killed and another 16 people wounded in the bombing in the historic centre of Istanbul near the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia, the towering former Byzantine church that is now a museum. Turkish authorities have identified the bomber as a 28-year-old Syrian who entered Turkey on January 5 posing as a refugee, with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu saying the man was a member of IS. Although all the victims were German, officials in Berlin have said they do not believe that Germany was specifically targeted in the attack. Turkish authorities have arrested 12 suspects, whose nationalities have not been disclosed. Washington (AFP) - The American general picked to head the US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan warned Thursday it would take years before local forces can independently take charge of what he admitted was deteriorating security. Lieutenant General John "Mick" Nicholson is slated to replace General John Campbell, whose nearly 18-month tour in war-torn Afghanistan is coming to an end. Nicholson praised Afghan troops as "born fighters," but said building aspects of the Afghan military is slow work, especially its air force and casualty evacuation capabilities. "Although we've seen improvements... in some areas we have years to go, in particular the aviation area," Nicholson told senior US lawmakers at a confirmation hearing. Just over a year ago the NATO mission in Afghanistan transitioned into an Afghan operation with allied nations assisting training and equipping local forces to tackle Taliban insurgents and other armed groups. Since then, the Taliban have dealt some stinging blows to Afghan forces, including a short-lived takeover of the northern city of Kunduz. Further complicating the fragile security situation is the emergence of Islamic State jihadists in parts of the country. They are trying to establish a base in Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border. Senator John McCain, who heads the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked Nicholson if he agreed that the overall security situation in Afghanistan was worsening. "I agree with your assessment," Nicholson conceded, adding that the Taliban had gone on the offensive more intensely than military commanders had anticipated. At the Pentagon Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Afghan security forces would grow in strength in the coming years, describing them as "a force in the making." "So we expect the Afghan security forces to be stronger, much stronger this season than they were last season." Story continues Though several senators enthusiastically endorsed Nicholson's nomination, his confirmation still needs to be approved by the full Senate. President Barack Obama in October announced that 9,800 US forces would remain in Afghanistan through most of 2016 -- backtracking on an earlier pledge to pull all but 1,000 US troops from the country. Numbers would then be drawn down to 5,500 by January 2017, under current plans. By Alex Whiting LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - As the Syrian war nears the end of its fifth year, donors need to do more to help victims of the conflict rebuild their lives, an aid agency said ahead of an international pledging conference in London on Feb. 4. As well as life-saving aid like food and medicines, donors should fund areas like education, work and agriculture, Concern Worldwide said. "We're still doing very basic humanitarian relief work - which is necessary but not sufficient," Simon Starling, head of policy and campaigns at Concern Worldwide (UK), said in an interview. "We've got to be talking about people having access to livelihoods, children being in school, and people protected as far as possible," he added. "Six years in, we've got to be moving to a situation where we're recognizing this is going to go on, even if there is peace tomorrow, for another 10 to 20 years." Despite the scale of the crisis, the aid response in Syria and the region is "critically underfunded", Concern Worldwide said. More than one third of funds pledged to the U.N. Syria appeals in 2015 had not been confirmed by early December, the charity said in a report. "Donors must commit funds that match the scale and protracted nature of this crisis and they must honor these commitments," Rose Caldwell, executive director of Concern Worldwide (UK), said in a statement. "Even if a peace agreement was reached tomorrow, the impacts of the conflict will take years, if not decades, to recover from," she added. Earlier this month, the United Nations launched a joint appeal for $7.7 billion to help 22 million people in Syria and across the region. "There's a particularly big challenge to fund inside Syria," said Starling, who wrote the report. Many pledges made at the start of the year are not delivered until the end - "they're effectively too late", Starling said. "We've got to shift out of these annual short-term ... funding rounds which are unpredictable," he added. But it is not all about money, he said. "Without a more coherent ... more ambitious push by the international community to bring an end to the conflict, all this is ultimately a sticking plaster over a wound that's gaping," Starling said. The war has left more than 250,000 dead and sparked the world's worst refugee crisis since World War Two. Some 4.3 million Syrians have fled the country, and 6.6 million are displaced within Syria. Next week's donor meeting is being hosted by Britain, Germany, Norway, Kuwait and the United Nations. (Reporting by Alex Whiting, editing by Tim Pearce.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org) PARIS (Reuters) - Airbus Chief Executive Fabrice Bregier said on Wednesday that he had held talks this month in Tehran with government and Iran Air officials that could lead to the rapid sale of aircraft. "The needs are great. We are discussing at the moment which could lead to a rapid delivery of Airbus aircrafts in the coming months," Bregier said at a business forum in Paris at the start of a visit by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. "We are at the disposal of our Iranian counterparts to help renew the fleet," Bregier added. (Reporting by Bate Felix; writing by Leigh Thomas; editing by Michel Rose) Doha (AFP) - Al-Jazeera said on Thursday that a three-man news crew for the Qatar-based channel has been freed more than 10 days after being kidnapped in the flashpoint Yemeni city of Taez. Reporter Hamdi al-Bokari, cameraman Abdulaziz al-Sabri and driver Munir al-Subaie went missing on January 18 while covering the conflict between rebels and Gulf-backed forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. The pan-Arab news channel said on its website early on Thursday morning that the three had been freed "a short while ago" after having been kidnapped by "unknown gunmen". In a message posted on his Facebook page, Bokari said he had been held by the Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels, under fire since March from a Saudi-led coalition, of which Qatar is a member. "We heard them repeat 'Death to America'," a slogan the Huthis and Iranian protesters commonly chant, he wrote, adding that he would release more details about the kidnapping in the coming days. The city of Taez is held by loyalists of Yemen's internationally recognised government, but it has been besieged by the Iran-backed rebels for months. The Huthis overran Sanaa more than a year ago, forcing Hadi's government to flee the Yemeni capital. Hadi loyalists backed by a Saudi-led coalition have fought back and have been trying to retake Taez province and pave the way towards the rebel-held capital. About Me africanelections www.africanelections.org contact us at africanelectionsproject AT gmail.com View my complete profile One of the prestige titles making its bow at next month's European Film Market in Berlin has taken shape. Embankment Pictures has boarded Submergence, Wim Wenders' next narrative project, which stars current Hollywood "It" girl and Oscar-nominee Alicia Vikander alongside James McAvoy, as international sales agent. The company plans to introduce the film to buyers in Berlin, with UTA repping the film for domestic sales. Adapted from J.M Ledgard's novel of the same name, Submergence will see Vikander star as Danielle, an ocean explorer facing a terrifying, pioneering descent into the Arctic abyss. McAvoy stars as her soulmate James, a contractor accused of being a spy and interrogated by African jihadists. Facing life-or-death ordeals, worlds apart, each must find courage from their deep emotional connection to endure and overcome their extreme circumstances. "I'm so excited to work with these two great young actors on Submergence!" said Wenders. "It is an utterly contemporary story, thrilling and deeply moving at the same time, spanning continents and oceans, facing two big threats to our world today: climate change and terrorism. Alicia and James are the perfect cast for this once in a generation love story: highly sensitive, passionate and fiercely committed." Submergence is produced by Cameron Lambs Lila 9th Productions, together with Backup Media and Neue Road Movies and starts shooting in March 2016 throughout Spain, Germany and France. Read More: BAFTA Awards: Alicia Vikander Earns Rare Double Acting Nomination With the presidential deck about to be reshuffled by a small gaggle of Iowans, now seems the perfect time for a quick round of candidate-spouse trivia. Ready? Without going to the Google, who can tell me: Which candidates wife is the daughter of Seventh-Day Adventist missionaries? Which spouse was such a Sleepless in Seattle fan that her husband-to-be popped the question atop the Empire State Buildingand then temporarily took back the ring because he was afraid shed drop it? Which one holds a Ph.D. from Union Institute & University? (Bonus points if you know which 2012 contenders spouse also has a Ph.D. from Union.) Which spouse is a political consultant whose former clients include one of her husbands current competitors? Who once posed for GQ buck-naked on a fur blanket while handcuffed to a briefcase aboard her husbands jet? (OK. That ones a gimme. But hows this for a stumper): What is the first name of Martin OMalleys wife? Dont feel bad if you had to cheat on a few of these. On the contrary: Wear your ignorance with pride! Not knowing every last freckle and wart on this batch of aspiring First Ladies is a good thingor at least a good start. It is a hopeful sign that Americans are at last on the path to treating political spouses as real people entitled to independent lives and a modicum of personal space rather than as creepy appendages meant to serve as windows to the souls of their high-profile mates. It seems unnecessary to recount the psychological torment to which the election process has typically subjected the wives of presidential candidates: the grinding scrutiny, the unrealistic expectations, the conflicting demands, the flesh-melting vitriol. This is, in many ways, the ultimate abusive relationship. For decades the dynamic had been growing, if not more noxious, certainly more twisted. During the 1992 primaries, Hillary Clinton was pilloried as a scary feminist with a snotty attitude toward stand-by-your-man traditionalists. Fifteen years later, Michelle Obama got scolded by Maureen Dowd for emasculating poor Barack with cheeky stories about his rumpled, smelly dadness, while at the same time voters endlessly discussed her decision to table her career for the sake of his. Plus, there was all the hand-wringing about whether she would tank her mans chances by coming across as too much of an angry black woman, which, ironically, took place more or less concurrently with heavy chatter about whether her more conventional background would be enough to soothe public unease about Baracks exotic upbringing. Story continues Recommended: Is Rush Limbaugh Unaware That He's Part of the Establishment? And on and on it goes. Remember the buzz over whether Judith Dean would be a liability because she wouldnt abandon her medical career to play Howards helpmeet? The anxiety over how Teresa Heinzs wealth and mouthiness would play with voters? As for 2012, I have three words for you: Callista Gingrichs hair. No spouse has yet risen to the level of bona fide controversy or even provoked the kind of widespread buzzfest common in years gone by. Not that the publics spousal obsession is always negative. Consider Laura Bush. After eight years of Hillary as First Lady, Laura was embraced by many as a comforting restoration of the more conventional model: a soft-spoken small-town librarian turned full-time mom. But! Laura was also rumored to be pro-choice with generally more moderate politics than George. For voters searching for signs that W. was a kinder, gentler, more modern breed of conservative, Lauras secret sauciness provided hope. As it turned out, George W. Bush proved a crushing disappointment pretty much across the political spectrum. So perhaps the spousal barometer isnt that accurate after all. But this time around, the mates seem to be drawing less scrutiny than usualand not because the field is any less colorful than previous groups. Spousal resumes this cycle featuring such potentially rousing entries as Miami Dolphins cheerleader, bond-trader, violinist, and supermodel. Indeed, Melania Trump seems made-to-order for public vivisection. But so far, the trolling on this front has been minimal. Recommended: The Case for Considering Reparations There have, of course, been the de rigeur getting-to-know-you profiles, with some spouses getting a more thorough going-over than others. Early on, for the 15 minutes that Jeb! was a contender, the enigmatic Columba Bush was a source of some fascination. More pointedly, Heidi Cruzs status as a Wall Street player of the type that husband Ted is forever railing against has given the campaign an awkward moment or two. Even so, no spouse has yet risen to the level of bona fide controversy or even provoked the kind of widespread buzzfest common in years gone by. Instead, for the most part the spouses have been treated with a fair degree of respect, even gentleness. Oh, sure, there have been incidents. Last July, Donald Trump tweeted out some nugget of ugliness about how Jebs view of immigrants had been skewed by the fact that Columba is Mexican American. Multiple candidates have taken shots at Bill Clintons zipper problems. (Now seems like a good place to offer the caveat that Bill occupies a spousal category all his own.) And, during one of the kiddie-table GOP debates, Carly Fiorina cracked wise about how, unlike a certain other woman in this race, she really loves spending time with her husband. Still, considering the level of trash talk in the airwith the candidates calling one another jackass and clown and idiot and jerksuch jabs seem pretty tame. More to the point, looking beyond the rambunctiousness of the combatants themselves, the media and public have been less intrusive than usual, certainly by the toxic standards of the times. Will the spotlight get hotter as the field narrows? Probably. The mind reels to think of the fun Trump-buddy Sarah Palin might have smacking Bill Clinton. But no one is asking for perfection here, merely progress. And if that means that no one can be bothered to remember poor Katie OMalleys name, so be it. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. A set of ancient Babylonian tablets that describe how to track Jupiter across the sky have revealed an astronomical technique 1,500 years ahead of its time. Jupiter's erratic pace across the sky appearing to slow down and speed up from day to day based on the combination of its orbit and Earth's must have perplexed ancient astronomers and tested their best computational techniques. A newly discovered tablet written in Babylonia's cuneiform script discusses calculating the position of Jupiter. When combined with four other tablets, it suggests that ancient Babylonians used a surprisingly modern technique to calculate how far the bright dot traveled through the sky over the course of months. Their process requires a leap in understanding in how position and speed relate to time, one that wouldn't appear again until 1350 and that was a precursor to modern calculus. [Views of Jupiter, the Solar System's Largest Planet] The new results were detailed in the journal Science today (Jan. 28). The connections between speed, position and time are known to most modern travelers people easily understand speed as a measure of miles or kilometers per hour. Locations are often described in terms of time ("it's only an hour away") rather than distance. The insight that led to calculus demonstrated the connection between a graph of the traveler's changing speed and the total distance traveled. "This is familiar to any student of physics, or math or science," Mathieu Ossendrijver, an astroarchaeologist at Humboldt University of Berlin, told Space.com. But using time as a variable to calculate speed or distance has not been part of human culture forever. Using a graph to understand motion or speed over time is usually traced back to scholars in Oxford and Paris around 1350, and then to Isaac Newton, who developed integral calculus, Ossendrijver said. "What I now found is that this method was already invented in Babylonia more than 1,500 years earlier." Story continues Ossendrijver was an astrophysicist before he began studying the history of science and cuneiform in 2005. In 2012, he published a book of new translations for the known Babylonian tablets that featured astronomical calculations and tables. The procedure Ossendrijver translated from the Babylonian tablets appears to show how to calculate the distance that Jupiter has traveled over a long stretch of time, by using measurements of how fast it was moving across the sky on given days. This calculation might be particularly interesting to the ancient astronomers because of Jupiter's association with Babylon's patron god, Marduk. Under the Babylonians' earlier, arithmetic-based method, astronomers would measure the distance Jupiter traveled every day then, by adding together the "distance per day" for each day from the first through the 60th, they would get the total distance traveled. The newly discovered method instead used a geometric shortcut, and only needed the "distance per day" for the first day and the 60th, not the ones in between, to get the distance overall. Today, that calculation might be done by drawing points on a graph for Jupiter's measured speed on the first day and on the 60th day. Each of those points shows Jupiter's speed across the sky and the day the speed was measured. Drawing lines to connect the points to each other and to the "ground" directly below them, at a speed of zero, creates a geometric shape a trapezoid and calculating that shape's area reveals how far the object traveled. The process of measuring that geometric shape was described on the Babylonian tablets. Although the tablets did not have any visible graphs, the calculations done matched this technique precisely, Ossendrijver said. When Ossendrijver first encountered the Babylonian tablets, he didn't understand why calculations on a trapezoid were included along with tables related to Jupiter's position, he said. Only after he saw a fifth, uncataloged tablet, which showed a different procedure for finding Jupiter's position using the same examples as the trapezoids, did he realize the connection between the figure and the tables, Ossendrijver said. Eventually, he understood a second trapezoid calculation on the tablets, too: dividing it into two trapezoids with equal area, which would correspond to finding when Jupiter had traveled half the distance, he said. The advanced technique has been found only on the four tablets so far, which all use slightly different wording but the same example, he said. There isn't any evidence yet of the process being more widespread, Ossendrijver said. "This would open up new ways of computing motion they could have applied to other planets, other parts of Jupiter's motion," Ossendrijver said. "We don't have [examples of that]. We only have these four tablets, and they all deal with Jupiter and they all deal with the same segment of 60 days. That's quite strange." When Babylonian culture, and the cuneiform script it was recorded in, died out around the year 100, the technique was seemingly forgotten, Ossendrijver said, only to crop up again in the 14th century when scientists and mathematicians began to use graphs to calculate changes to a system over time. Other aspects of Babylonian astronomy, in contrast, made it through the ages: People still discuss signs of the Zodiac, for instance, and use the Babylonian system of degrees, minutes and seconds, in units of 60, to calculate distances across the sky. Babylonian observations and techniques, translated into Greek, offer evidence of that transfer of information, Ossendrijver said. Knowing that ancient Babylonians had access to this newfound technique provides a whole new context for examining previously discovered tablets, as many tablets that are already translated have sections that aren't yet understood, Ossendrijver said. And it also forces science historians to rethink the way astronomical techniques evolved, he said. "In the beginning, I felt insecure myself, because the implications of this, from a history of science point of view, are kind of big," Ossendrijver said. The process shows "a more abstract and profound conception of a geometrical object in which one dimension represents time," Alexander Jones, a historian at New York University said in Science's news article accompanying the work. It's much earlier than these concepts have ever been found before, he said, and "their presence testifies to the revolutionary brilliance of the unknown Mesopotamian scholars who constructed Babylonian mathematical astronomy." Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. Copyright 2016 SPACE.com, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Yet another refugee boat has capsized in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Greece, leaving at least 25 people dead. According to Greece's Hellenic Coast Guard, 18 of those who drowned were children, but the number of casualties may rise, with an official telling Al Jazeera, "The investigations are still ongoing because we do not know the exact number of people on the boat." Authorities were alerted of the crisis after one survivor landed on the shores of the Greek island of Samos on Wednesday night and was able to solicit help. F Greece has shouldered much of the burden of how to manage the the surge of people fleeing war-torn regions of the Middle East for Europe. Since January 2015, almost one million refugees and migrants have arrived in Greece, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. And, in 2016, almost half of those have been Syrians, fleeing a years-long civil war. Greek Islanders as a group were recently named 2016 Nobel Peace Prize contenders for their efforts. But the country's handling of the problem has angered the European Union, which said Greece has "seriously neglected" its obligation to protect the European border and threatened to remove the country from the E.U.'s passport-free zone. Burns (United States) (AFP) - The FBI released a video Thursday showing Oregon state police shooting dead one of the armed protesters who took over a wildlife refuge in a three-week occupation involving ranchers angry over land management policies. The video release came after protest leader Ammon Bundy repeated a call for the last four holdouts to peacefully leave the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to avoid more bloodshed. Eleven people including Bundy have been arrested since Tuesday, when Robert "LaVoy" Finicum -- the movement's de facto spokesman -- was shot dead near the town of Burns in a bloody twist to the drawn-out standoff with the federal government. Greg Bretzing, of the FBI's Portland office, said that they were releasing footage and details of the fatal incident to clear up what he called inaccurate and inflammatory accounts of what unfolded. The video was shot from an FBI plane overlooking a highway on which two vehicles, one of which Finicum was driving, were traveling. "I want to caution you that the video does show the shooting death of LaVoy Finicum," Bretzing told a media conference. "We realize that viewing that piece of the video will be upsetting to some people, but we feel that it is necessary to show the whole thing unedited in the interest of transparency." The footage shows FBI and police vehicles pull up behind a jeep, which stops, and three people -- including Bundy -- get out "without incident." Bundy was arrested. The second vehicle, Finicum's white truck, carries on with officials in pursuit. A few minutes later one man gets out and gives himself up, but Finicum refuses to surrender and drives off again at speed and approaches a road block, before swerving, nearly hitting an FBI agent and getting stuck in a snowbank. "Finicum leaves the truck and steps through the snow. Agents and troopers on scene had information that Finicum and others would be armed," said Bretzing. Story continues "On at least two occasions, Finicum reaches his right hand toward a pocket on the left inside portion of his jacket. He did have a loaded nine millimeter semi-automatic handgun in that pocket. "At this time, OSP (state) troopers shot Finicum." Three remaining people in the truck, including Bundy's 43-year-old brother Ryan, were taken into custody and officials then gave medical help to Finicum. "That happened about 10 minutes after the shooting," said Bretzing, adding that they found three loaded weapons in the truck, including two semi-automatic rifles. - End to the standoff? - Earlier Thursday, a convoy of 30 armored vehicles rolled into the wildlife refuge, appearing to point at an imminent intervention by law enforcement to drive out the last protesters, estimated by the FBI at four. There were about 30 protesters at the refuge last week. Protest leader Bundy reiterated his call for those left to surrender. "Turn yourselves in and do not use physical force," the 40-year-old said in a statement released by his lawyers. Bundy urged his supporters to "continue to defend liberty through our constitutional rights," including through the use of media and social media. "We only had guns for our protection and never once pointed them at another individual or had any desire to do so," he added. "The people have a right to bear arms for their own protection. We never wanted bloodshed." The Bundy brothers are the sons of Cliven Bundy, 69, a vitriolic anti-government activist who in 2014 engaged in an armed standoff with federal authorities over unpaid cattle grazing fees at his Nevada ranch. Cliven Bundy claimed that Finicum was shot "in cold blood" while he had his hands in the air. Bundy and his supporters took over the wildlife refuge on January 2 to protest at the jailing of two local ranchers, Dwight Hammond and his son Steven, who were convicted of arson. Their demands soon grew to include calls for the government to turn over area federal land to local ranchers. In Oregon, nearly 53 percent of the land is federally owned. The Hammonds distanced themselves from the movement and voluntarily began their scheduled prison sentences after the occupation began. Burns (United States) (AFP) - The leader of an anti-government siege at a US wildlife refuge until his arrest in an operation that left one protester dead urged the remaining armed occupiers to go home. Eight people including Ammon Bundy were arrested and one of his group shot dead late Tuesday following a three-week standoff in the northwestern US state involving ranchers angry over federal land management policies. Speaking through his attorney, Bundy on Wednesday appealed to the handful of armed supporters still holed up in the remote area. "To those remaining at the refuge, I love you. Let us take this fight from here," read a statement issued via Bundy's attorney Michael Arnold. "Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is ours for now in the courts." Bundy paid tribute to the dead supporter as his "beloved friend" Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, an Arizona rancher who became de facto spokesman for the motley protest movement. "LaVoy is one of the greatest men and greatest patriots I have ever seen," Bundy said. "I mourn for him and his family. "Right now I am asking the federal government to allow the people at the refuge to go home without being prosecuted." Authorities have blocked the access road leading into the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and the occupiers are free to leave, but will be identified as they do so, Greg Bretzing, head of the FBI's Portland office, said. "We will continue to look for safe, peaceful procedures on how to bring this to a peaceful conclusion," he added. Last week, some 30 people, including women and children, were at the site, but it was unclear how many remain. - 'Kill them' - Local authorities and the FBI also called on the remaining occupiers to end the fight. "It's time for everybody in this illegal occupation to move on. There doesn't have to be bloodshed in our community," Harney County Sheriff David Ward told reporters. Story continues In a livestream that has been broadcasting from the protest site, an armed man was seen urging supporters to join them and to kill any law enforcement officer who tried to prevent their entry. "There are no laws in this United States now! This is a free-for-all Armageddon!" the man yelled into the camera. "(If) they stop you from getting here, kill them!" Ward held a news conference earlier Wednesday at which he appealed for the protesters to leave, and voiced distress that a police attempt to peacefully resolve the crisis ended in bloodshed. "It didn't have to happen," he said. Ward said some of the protesters came to his office the night before with "ultimatums that I couldn't meet." He did not elaborate. The FBI said it and local authorities then devised a plan to arrest members of the group as they drove on a highway, reportedly headed to a meeting with local people. Police stopped them on the way but one man died of a gunshot wound during the operation, Bretzing said. Five others including Bundy were arrested at the scene. The Oregonian reported that shots were fired when two men -- including Bundy's 43-year-old brother Ryan -- disobeyed orders when agents stopped the two cars they were travelling in and resisted arrest. The FBI and Oregon state police later Tuesday arrested two other men in Burns, the town nearest to the refuge. An eighth person surrendered to police in Arizona, officials said. On Wednesday afternoon three other occupiers surrendered and were arrested as they left the refuge, the FBI said in a statement. - 'Force, intimidation, threats' - The Bundy brothers are the sons of Cliven Bundy, 69, a vitriolic anti-government activist who in 2014 engaged in an armed standoff with federal authorities over unpaid cattle grazing fees at his Nevada ranch. Bundy and the others face a federal felony charge "of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats," the FBI said. The gunmen took over the wildlife refuge on January 2 to protest at the jailing of two local ranchers, Dwight Hammond and his son Steven, who were convicted of arson. Their demands soon grew to include calls for the government to turn over area federal land to local ranchers. In Oregon, nearly 53 percent of the land is federally owned. The Hammonds distanced themselves from the movement and voluntarily began their scheduled prison sentences after the occupation began. Several community members, notably the Oregon Cattlemen's Association, expressed sympathy for the Hammonds but condemned the takeover. In a series of tweets, Oregon Governor Kate Brown acknowledged the trauma to local residents: "Please know I am doing everything in my power to restore normal life to Harney County." San Salvador (AFP) - El Salvador's former president Francisco Flores, who faces trial accused of embezzling millions of dollars in aid money for earthquake victims, has irreversible brain damage after suffering a stroke, doctors said Thursday. Flores, who was under house arrest, was rushed to a hospital Sunday after having a stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body and he has been in a coma ever since. "The patient has irreversible neurological damage," a team of specialists at Rosales hospital in San Salvador told the court where Flores faces trial. He has undergone several operations, his lawyers say. Flores, 56, is accused of stealing $15 million donated by Taiwan for victims of a 2001 earthquake. El Salvador's president from 1999 to 2004, he turned himself in in 2014 to respond to the allegations, which he denies. He had previously been hospitalized in December for possible bleeding in the digestive tract, and had also undergone treatment for blood clots. By Ben Makori ELDORET, Kenya (Reuters) - President Uhuru Kenyatta said on Wednesday Kenya was committed to remaining part of an African Union-led peacekeeping force in Somalia, after al Shabaab militants said they killed more than 100 soldiers in an attack on an army base. The Islamist militants attacked the remote base close to the border with Kenya on Jan. 15, killing soldiers and seizing military equipment. Kenya has declined to say how many died. [nL8N14Z07U] "This is not the time to waiver or to listen to the voices of defeat and despair," Kenyatta told a televised memorial service for the dead soldiers, attended by Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud and Nigeria's Muhammadu Buhari. "We fight because our cause is just, because we want to restore a productive peace in Somalia and we also wish to protect ourselves from an enemy that would seek to destroy us." The main opposition party in Kenya has called for the withdrawal of troops from Somalia but Kenyatta said Kenya was committed to bringing stability to the neighbouring country. African Union troops, now numbering about 22,000 from several African nations, have spent nearly a decade battling al Shabaab in Somalia, a country mired in conflict since civil war broke out in 1991. Al Shabaab, which seeks to overthrow the Western-backed government in Mogadishu, often says its attacks against Kenyan targets are retaliation for its participation in the force, known as AMISOM, which also includes Uganda and Burundi. The al Qaeda-aligned militants have been driven out of major strongholds in Somalia by AMISOM and Somali army offensives, but the group still controls some rural areas and often launches guerrilla-style assaults and bomb attacks. Mohamoud repeatedly thanked the Kenyan people for their assistance in his government's fight against al Shabaab, which he called "barbaric devils." "I want to assure you, we will defeat them," he said. Buhari, whose country also faces an Islamist insurgency from the group Boko Haram, expressed solidarity with Kenya, saying Nigerians "share your pain and grief." Newspaper pictures of coffins draped with Kenyan flags bringing back dead soldiers from the attack have increased pressure on Kenyatta and his military chiefs. Al Shabaab has published photos which purport to show the bodies of dozens of Kenyan soldiers. Most appear to have been shot in the head. (Additional reporting and writing by Edith Honan; Editing by Janet Lawrence) (Reuters) - Harman International Industries Inc , whose brands include JBL and Harman Kardon audio systems, reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit, helped by strong demand from automakers. Shares of Harman, which supplies to global carmakers including Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and BMW , rose 2 percent to $81.25 in premarket trading on Thursday. Revenue from Harman's connected car business, its biggest and that includes navigation and safety systems, rose 2.1 percent to $737 million in the second quarter, from a year earlier. Revenue from the lifestyle division rose 20.4 percent to $625 million, helped by new orders from companies such as Audi, BMW, and Volvo. The lifestyle division makes audio and video products for homes and cars under the JBL and Harman Kardon brands. Net income attributable to Harman fell to $113 million, or $1.55 per share, in the quarter ended Dec. 31, from $116 million, $1.65 per share, a year earlier. Excluding items, the company earned $1.84 per share, above the average analyst estimate of $1.80, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Net sales rose to $1.77 billion from $1.58 billion, missing estimates of $1.80 billion. (Reporting by Kshitiz Goliya in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Maju Samuel) By Matt Siegel SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian counter-terrorism police on Friday morning said they had raided multiple properties in Melbourne amid heightened fears of attacks by home-grown militants inspired by Islamic State. "The Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team can confirm it has conducted operational activity in Craigieburn and Meadow Heights, Victoria," the Australian Federal Police said in a press release. Authorities say they have thwarted a number of potential attacks, although there have been several "lone wolf" assaults in recent months, including the shooting death of a police accountant in Sydney in October last year. No further details were immediately available of the raids in the two Melbourne suburbs. (Reporting by Matt Siegel; Editing by James Dalgleish) By Peter Henderson BURNS, Ore. (Reuters) - The leader of a month-long armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon on Wednesday urged remaining protesters to leave the site and go home, a day after his arrest and the death of a supporter. Ammon Bundy, who was taken into custody with several members of his group at a traffic stop along Highway 395, north of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Oregon, urged federal authorities to let his comrades leave the compound without being prosecuted. "To those remaining at the refuge, I love you. Let us take this fight from here. Please stand down... Please go home," Bundy said in a statement read by his attorney, Michael Arnold, following a court hearing. A total of eight occupiers had left the compound by late on Wednesday and three were arrested, including Jason Patrick, who had been with Bundy's group in Oregon since the beginning and was acting as a spokesman for the holdouts, the FBI said in a statement. It was unclear how many people remained inside the refuge. Brandon Curtiss, a member of the Pacific Patriots Network, which has been acting as an intermediary between law enforcement and Bundy's supporters, said the FBI informed him of Patrick's arrest. The three taken into custody face a federal charge of felony conspiracy to impede federal officers. Patrick told Reuters by telephone on Wednesday that some protesters were leaving, but rejected the word "surrender." "I dont know what surrendering looks like," he said. "Theyre walking through the checkpoint and going home. That's what I've heard unless I'm being lied to." Citing the investigation, authorities declined to say what led to the fatal shooting of a member of Bundy's group, identified by activists as Robert LaVoy Finicum, a rancher who acted as a spokesman for the occupiers. Bundy's brother, Ryan, was wounded during the traffic stop. The protesters were each charged in U.S. District Court in Portland with conspiracy to use force, intimidation or threats to impede federal officers from discharging their duties. The defendants were ordered held without bail until a detention hearing set for Friday. The Malheur takeover, which started on Jan. 2 with at least a dozen armed men, was a flare-up in the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion, a decades-old conflict over federal control of millions of acres in the West. 'THIS CAN'T HAPPEN IN AMERICA' At a news conference earlier in the day, state and federal authorities pleaded with the remaining occupiers to quit their protest, saying they were free to leave. "Let me be clear: It is the actions and choices of the armed occupiers of the refuge that have led us to where we are today," said Greg Bretzing, special agent in charge of the FBI's office in Portland. "They had ample opportunity to leave the refuge peacefully and as the FBI and our partners have clearly demonstrated, actions are not without consequences." Federal officials say they had probable cause to arrest Finicum, who told NBC News earlier this month that he would rather die than be detained. At the same news conference, Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward, his voice breaking, said, "I'm disappointed that a traffic stop yesterday that was supposed to bring peaceful resolution to this ended badly. Multiple law enforcement agencies put a lot of work into putting together the best tactical plan they could, to take these guys down peacefully. "This can't happen anymore. This can't happen in America and it can't happen in Harney County," Ward added. Reactions to the takeover from residents in Burns, about 30 miles (48 km) from the refuge, have included sympathy for the imprisoned local ranchers whose plight began the protest, to distrust of the federal government, and dismay at the armed occupation by individuals seen as outsiders. Many residents said an armed protest was taking legitimate grievances too far, and leaders of a Native American tribe have urged the occupiers to leave, saying they were scaring the community and that the protesters ignorance of the regions real history was offensive. (Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles, Daniel Wallis in Denver, Dan Cook in Portland, Jonathan Allen, Melissa Fares, Amy Tennery and Ed Tobin in New York and Andy Sullivan and Julia Edwards in Washington Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bill Trott and Clarence Fernandez) The small, itchy raised bumps that signal bedbugs presence in a home are just the start of aggravations to come. Laundering every piece of clothing and bedding, sealing up mattresses, steam-cleaning floors, and spraying insecticides are all part of the tedious process of eradicating the pests. But a study published Thursday finds the bloodsucking bugs are fighting back. Bedbugs from Michigan and Cincinnati are up to 33,000 times more resistant to neonicotinoids (or neonics), insecticides used to combat the insects, compared with bug populations never exposed to the chemical, researchers from Virginia Tech and New Mexico State University have found. In the past couple of years, neonics in combination with other pesticides have become the industry standard for killing bedbugs chemically, said Alvaro Romero, the studys lead author and an urban entomologist at New Mexico State. This study shows how quickly these bugs are adapting and that non-chemical use could be a more effective approach. Neonics, a systemic class of insecticide widely used on corn, soybeans, and other crops, have been linked to the mass die-offs of bees that pollinate a third of the worlds food supply. Neonics are just the latest pesticide deployed against bedbugs. In the 1940s and 50s, prevalent use of DDT and other toxic insecticides limited the bugs populations; in the 1960s, they developed a resistance. DDTs devastating impact on birds and other wildlife led the U.S. government to ban its use in 1972. RELATED: Neonic-Treated Soybean Seeds Arent Helping Farmers Kill Pests Pyrethroid-based insecticides then were used to fight bedbugs and kept populations down. In 2007, Romero discovered the bugs had developed a resistance to pyrethroids, and outbreaks subsequently occurred in New York and other cities. The response from chemical companies such as Bayer, BASF, and Syngenta has been to lace their bedbug sprays and fogs with more potent chemicals such as neonics. Story continues The study, published Thursday in the Journal of Medical Entomology, tested four neonics (acetamiprid, imidacloprid, dinotefuran, and thiomethoxam) on four populations of bedbugs. One strain, called the Harlan bedbug population, has been in a controlled environment since 1978, with little to no chemical exposure. The bugs belong to Harold Harlan, a retired military medical entomologist who became fascinated with bedbugs. He told ABC News in 2010 that he lets the bugs feed on his leg every few days. That population is key to our studies, Romero said. Without it, we wouldnt have a baseline to test how environmental changes like chemical exposure are affecting bedbugs in cities today. The researchers also tested bugs collected from Jersey City, New Jersey, in 2007before the rise of neonics in pest controland bedbug specimens taken from homes in Cincinnati and Michigan in 2015. Not surprisingly, the Harlan bedbugs were highly susceptible to neonics, with a small dose of 0.3 nanograms of acetamiprid killing half of the bugs exposed. In comparison, it took more than 10,000 nanograms to have the same impact on the Michigan and Cincinnati bedbugs. Romero noted that the Jersey City bugs, which hadnt been exposed to neonic use, still fared better than the Harlan group. That could be because the Jersey City bugs have adapted to resist other chemicals. The Michigan bugs were 462 times more resistant to imadacloprid, 198 times more resistant to dinotefuran, 546 times more resistant to thiamethoxam, and 33,333 times more resistant to acetamiprid. The Cincinnati bugs fared similarly. Indoors or outdoors, pests have been shown to adapt to and resist chemical use over time. Humans have often responded with stronger, more systematic forms of pesticides to protect homes and crops. But there is an increasing level of evidence that suggests those poisons are doing more harm than good and contributing to the worldwide decline in pollinator populations. When you have an insect, particularly one that rapidly reproduces, you have increasing opportunities for mutations that can lead to a population becoming resistant, said Thomas Green, an integrated pest management expert at the nonprofit IPM Institute of North America, which was not involved with the study. But when you ban neonics, that brings in another range of issues, because that can mean other chemicals could be brought in, and those alternatives could be just as risky. Romero said more research needs to be conducted on a larger and more geographically diverse population of bedbugs to determine the scope of the problem. If these chemicals lose their potency, people need to be aware of that, Romero said. And more non-chemical methods, such as vapor, heat, diatomaceous earth, and others, can be used as alternatives. Related stories on TakePart: The Company Behind Neonics Admits It Harms Beesbut Only Sometimes Fighting Pests With Sound Waves, Not Pesticides See Where Wild Bees Are Disappearing Across the U.S. Original article from TakePart By Ron Bousso LONDON (Reuters) - BG Group shareholders overwhelmingly approved Royal Dutch Shell's $52 billion (36 billion pounds) takeover on Thursday, clearing the way for the two firms to create the world's biggest trader of liquefied natural gas (LNG). BG will now merge with Shell on Feb. 15, nearly two decades after the company was born from British Gas and just a few months after it reached record oil and gas output thanks to new projects in Australia and Brazil. At a meeting in London, 99.53 percent of BG shareholders voted in favour of the merger, a day after 83 percent of Shell's shareholders approved the deal first announced on April 8 last year. Shell shareholders are putting their faith in CEO Ben van Beurden's decision to focus the Anglo-Dutch company's operations in liquefied natural gas (LNG) and deep water oil production over the coming decades as the industry undergoes one of its worse downturns in decades. Low oil prices will remain a challenge for the combined company in the short term, however, as crude has fallen 75 percent over the past 18 months to around $30 a barrel. While the oil price is expected to stage a gradual recovery, Shell has said the combined group needs crude to be above $60 a barrel to break even. "I very strongly believe in what Shell is trying to do long term ... The idea that they try to specialise in their strengths being deepwater and LNG is absolutely the right thing to do," BG Chairman Andrew Gould told reporters. NUMBER TWO BG Chief Executive Officer Helge Lund, who joined BG weeksbefore the merger was announced, is set to step down. Shell executive Huibert Vigeveno, who headed the integration planning in recent months, will become transitional CEO. Lund, who previously led Norway's Statoil through a period of spectacular growth, has yet to indicate his plans. BG shares were up 3.4 percent while Shell B shares were trading 5.4 percent higher after the vote, compared with the sector index that 4.2 percent higher. Story continues The acquisition will boost Shell's oil and gas production by 20 percent and bring it closer to challenging the world's top international oil company ExxonMobil. Combined, Shell and BG will overtake Chevron as the world's second-biggest publicly-traded oil and gas company measured by market value. The combined company is also set to topple Exxon as the largest publicly-traded oil and gas producer by 2020, according to analysts at Simmons and Company. Once the two companies merge, Shell will start a complex integration process that will include thousands of job cuts, tens of billions of dollars in asset sales and the harmonising of the companies' trading and production operations as they overlap in many parts of the world. Shell has promised to find $3.5 billion from cost savingsand overlaps by 2018, from various areas including its corporate, administrative and IT operations. BG was created in 1997 when British Gas split into twoseparate companies. In 2000, another change saw the creationof BG Group, focused on international oil and gas production. By Euan Rocha TORONTO (Reuters) - The Canadian arm of mining giant BHP Billiton has signed a letter of intent to help fund exploration at Aston Bay Holdings Ltd's Storm copper project, Aston Bay said on Thursday. Under terms of the preliminary deal, BHP could earn a 75 percent interest in Storm, located in Canada's far north territory of Nunavut, if it spends a minimum of C$40 million on exploration over the next few years. Vancouver-based Aston Bay, a small exploration company, will have no required exploration expenses for four years from the date a definitive agreement is signed. The two sides expect to finalize a deal in the second quarter, said Aston Bay. A definitive deal would be a huge boost for Aston Bay, which like many of its small peers has seen its share price pummeled amid the rout in commodity prices. The price of copper continues to languish around levels not seen since the tail end of the financial crisis in 2009. Such earn-in agreements allow mining majors to secure stakes in promising early-stage projects for relatively limited up-front risk. They were fairly common when metal prices soared through much of the last decade, but have become rare in the last few years for both base metal and precious metal assets. The latest move by BHP comes close on the heels of similar moves by rival Rio Tinto , which recently inked similar deals involving the copper assets of two Canadian juniors. The developments indicate the majors are beginning to be concerned about their long-term copper project pipeline as supply-demand fundamentals in the commodity remain fairly tight despite the slide in the price of copper. In November, Avala Resources Ltd announced an earn-in agreement with Rio on its Lenovac project, located in Serbia, coming days after Rio signed a similar deal with Reservoir Minerals Inc on its Timok Magmatic Complex in Serbia. Both assets are located near the promising Cukaru Peki deposit in Serbia, part of a joint venture Reservoir has with Freeport-McMoRan Inc . That deposit has shown promising results, leading to heightened interest in the region. (Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe) Microsofts Bing search engine is very accurate at predicting things. Whether its sports results, American Idol winners or politics, Bings really good. And Bing already has predictions for the February caucuses and primaries, for both Democrats and Republicans. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are seen as major winners, and itll be interesting to see whether the latters absence from Foxs upcoming debate will hurt his scores in any way. DONT MISS: Essential Gmail hacks from a former Google insider According to Bing, Clinton will win all of the first four races except for New Hampshire where Bernie Sanders will take the win. Trump, meanwhile, is seen as the winner in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, having a comfortable lead in most markets over other Republicans still in the presidential race. Bings latest estimates were posted ahead of the upcoming Republican debate, which Trump of all people is boycotting. While its not clear how this move will affect his numbers overall, Bings prediction technology is definitely something else. As Wired reports, Bing takes data from prediction markets, polls, and its own search data to come up with results. bing-predictions-primaries-clinton-trump Bing was able to predict accurately 34 out of 35 Senate races, 419 of 435 House races and 33 out of 36 gubernatorial races in 2014. Bing also picked the correct Super Bowl winner last year. Bings detailed look at the February presidential primaries is available at this link, complete with scores for each party for the upcoming voting events. Related stories Video: Protestor throws tomatoes at Donald Trump mid-speech How much will the iPhone 8 cost if Trump is elected president? Trump says he'll force Apple to build in the U.S. if he's elected - here's why he's dead wrong More from BGR: 8 reasons I still cant leave the iPhone and switch to Android This article was originally published on BGR.com By Caroline Stauffer SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Beach-side apartments in Brazil may have been used as bribes and to launder money for members of the ruling Workers' Party, police and prosecutors said on Wednesday after ordering six arrests and 15 search warrants. In the latest phase of Brazil's largest-ever corruption probe, investigators are looking into whether construction firm OAS SA used apartments in the Solaris complex in Guaruja as bribes in a corruption scheme involving state-run oil firm Petrobras . Dozens of executives and politicians have been arrested or are under investigation on suspicion of overcharging Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as the company is formally known, and using part of the proceeds to bribe members of President Dilma Rousseff's ruling coalition. The apartments were held in the name of front companies, such as off-shore Murray Holdings LLC that was registered by Panama-based Mossack Fonseca Group, prosecutors said at a news conference, adding Mossack has previously helped hide criminal activity offshore. "There is real evidence of money laundering. We are looking principally at this time at the Vaccari family," said prosecutor Carlos Fernando dos Santos Lima, referring to Joao Vaccari, the former treasurer of the Workers' Party. Vaccari has been convicted and sentenced to just over 15 years in jail. OAS declined to comment. Mossack Fonseca, a law firm, said in a statement it had been "unjustly and erroneously included in matters with which we have no involvement at all." The firm said it was not under investigation and had not been contacted by police or the judiciary. Local paper O Globo said former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also had an apartment held under another name in the complex. Lima did not confirm this. "If there was an apartment that was in his name ... or someone in his family, we will investigate it like any other," Lima said. Police said all the apartments in the complex were under investigation. A statement on the website for Lula's office said the former president repudiates attempts to link his name with the corruption scandal. The statement reiterated that Lula's family bought an option for an apartment in the complex but later decided not to go through with the purchase. Lula has previously threatened to prosecute journalists for smearing his name in connection with the Petrobras case. Neither Lula nor Rousseff is under investigation, though Rousseff's approval rating has suffered from the accusations against her political party. Police only gave the name of one person that had been arrested, publicist Nelci Warken. (Additional reporting by Silvio Cascione, Guillermo Parra-Bernal and Pedro Fonseca; Editing by Andrew Roche, Nick Zieminski and Andrew Hay) LONDON (Reuters) - Britain could impose sanctions on Maldivian individuals if the Maldives' government fails to take action to free political prisoners, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Wednesday. Mohamed Nasheed, the Maldives' first democratically elected president, is serving a 13-year sentence on terrorism charges for the alleged abduction of a judge after a rapid trial last March which drew international criticism. Nasheed and his lawyer Amal Clooney met Cameron at Downing Street in London on Saturday after the former president won permission to travel to Britain for surgery. The Maldives gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1965. "We want to see a change in behaviour from the Maldivian government to make sure that political prisoners are set free and yes we are prepared to consider targeted action against individuals if further progress isn't made," Cameron said in parliament. He was responding to a question by lawmaker John Glen on whether Britain would work to build an international consensus on targeted sanctions. On Saturday, Cameron's office said the prime minister and Nasheed had agreed that a Commonwealth meeting to be held in the Maldives next month would provide an opportunity to press the Maldivian government to engage in "open political dialogue and free all remaining political prisoners swiftly". (Reporting by William James; editing by Stephen Addison) London (AFP) - The British government said Thursday that "good progress" was being made on a vast project to construct the nation's first nuclear power plant in decades. In October, French energy giant EDF signed a historic deal with China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) to build a new plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset, southwest England, with construction costs totalling A18 billion ($25.8 billion, 23.6 million euros). British Prime Minister David Cameron had announced the gigantic nuclear project to coincide with Chinese President Xi Jinping's business-themed state visit to Britain in October. "Good progress continues to be made so that Hinkley can provide clean, affordable and secure energy that hardworking families and businesses can rely on now and in the future," said a spokesperson for the government's Department of Energy and Climate Change. EDF agreed in October to construct two European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs), a third-generation nuclear reactor design, at the Hinkley Point C plant. However on Wednesday, the EDF board took no final investment decision on whether to go ahead with the plan, amid media speculation that the project could be delayed. Cameron's spokesman said Thursday that a further announcement on Hinkley Point was expected "shortly" and noted that discussions "are still ongoing". LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said on Thursday it would take "extremely seriously" the findings of a United Nations report which says British military ally Saudi Arabia could have committed crimes against humanity in Yemen. A United Nations report on Wednesday said the Saudi-led coalition has targeted civilians in Yemen, documenting 119 sorties "relating to violations of international humanitarian law". The report has put political pressure on the British government which provides training to the Saudi military and has approved billions of pounds worth of military exports to the country. British foreign office minister Tobias Ellwood said he had not yet received the report officially from the UN but that he had seen some of its contents. "I will take the report extremely seriously, this absolutely must be the case, and I commit to sit down with the Saudi Arabians at a very senior level ... and discuss the allegations," Ellwood said. In March, a Saudi-led coalition began a military campaign in Yemen to prevent Houthi rebels, whom it sees as a proxy for Iran, from taking complete control of Yemen after seizing much of the north. The Houthis accuse the coalition of launching a war of aggression. Ellwood said the evidence in the report would need to be closely examined, stressing that it had been compiled by a panel that had not visited Yemen and had based its findings on satellite photographs. "We must do this in a methodic way which is based on evidence," he said. According to official data compiled by pressure group the Campaign Against Arms Trade, Britain has granted licences for military goods to Saudi Arabia worth 4.6 billion pounds in the three years to September 2015. The issue was raised in parliament by opposition lawmakers calling on the government to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia while the allegations were investigated. Ellwood rejected that call saying that while British-supplied military equipment was being used by Saudi Arabia in the conflict, the government was satisfied that all its arms exports to the country met with Britain's licensing criteria. (Reporting by William James; editing by Stephen Addison) Brussels (AFP) - Burundi's main opposition grouping on Thursday urged the international community and the African Union to approve plans to send an AU peacekeeping force to the strife-torn country despite President Pierre Nkurunziza's objections. Burundi has been in turmoil since April when Nkurunziza said he would stand for a third term, a move the opposition said was illegal and breached an accord ending a horrific civil war which left 300,000 dead in the former Belgian colony. "The risk is that hesitancy on the part of the international community to support the Burundi people could lead to the resurgence of armed groups," Leonard Nyangoma, head of the CNARED opposition group, told a press conference. "If the international community holds back, then the Burundi people, in a legitimate act of self-defence, will certainly organise against the aggression of Pierre Nkurunziza, who has declared open war on his people," Nyangoma said. The AU said Thursday it was determined to end the crisis in Burundi, with a summit on Saturday due to vote on sending a 5,000-strong peacekeeping force. But Nkurunziza called last month for Burundians to "stand up to fight" if AU troops set foot in the country without permission, dubbing it an "invasion force". The AU charter gives the pan-African bloc the right to intervene in a member state in "grave circumstances" where war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity are being committed. Since Nkurunziza won the presidential elections in July, clashes between loyalists and the opposition have turned increasingly violent. The UN has warned Burundi risks a repeat of the 1993-2005 civil war, with some 400 dead since April and at least 230,000 people fleeing to neighbouring countries. CNARED warned that the international community and the AU must not shirk their responsibilities in Burundi. If they do, they risk instability in the whole central African region, with tribal fault lines very close to the surface. "This instability would only create even more refugees who would almost certainly seek refuge in the West," a statement said, picking up on the current migrant crisis in Europe. Bangui (Central African Republic) (AFP) - Troubled Central African Republic said Thursday it will hold a deferred presidential runoff alongside a new legislative vote on February 14. The presidential run-off, originally due to be held on Sunday but delayed due to organisational problems, will see two former premiers -- Anicet Georges Dologuele and Faustin Archange Touadera -- compete for election. A presidential decree said a December 30 legislative election annulled due to irregularities will be held along with the runoff on February 14. The elections have been widely seen as turning a page on the worst sectarian violence in the traditionally unstable and dirt poor nation. Dologuele won 23.74 percent of the vote in the first round on December 30, trailed by Touadera, who picked up 19.05 percent. Dologuele, a 58-year-old former central banker, came to be known as "Mr Clean" after his attempts to bring transparency to murky public finances during his time as premier. Touadera, also 58, is a former maths professor who served as prime minister under disgraced ousted president Francois Bozize. He was considered an outsider among the 30 candidates running for the top job. The announcement comes after the country's top court on Monday annulled last month's first-round legislative vote over "irregularities", but said the second round of the presidential poll could go ahead. There were more than 1,000 candidates in the legislative election. Nearly two million people were eligible to vote in the polls, seen as the way out of more than two years of sectarian bloodshed that has forced about one in 10 of the nation's 4.9 million people to flee their homes. The violence set mainly Muslim rebels against vigilantes from the Christian majority, with civilians the main victims. The vote was marred by logistical problems including delays in voting material reaching polling centres. By Sharon Bernstein SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - Governor Jerry Brown on Wednesday threw his support behind a proposal to give judges greater discretion on whether minors should be tried as adults in California courts. The measure, which would go before voters in November if enough signatures are gathered to put it on the ballot, would undo a provision of state law that allows juveniles as young as 14 to be tried as adults for numerous serious crimes - including murder, rape and torture - without the approval of a judge. "It's an important step," said Brown, a Democrat, in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. "It puts a juvenile court judge in the position of viewing in totality whether a juvenile is fit to be tried as an adult." Elizabeth Calvin, senior childrens rights advocate at Human Rights Watch, said the changes to the way juveniles are handled in the court system would be dramatic if the measure passes. "This is about putting the decision back in the hands of a judge and giving a judge the tools to really examine the big picture, the seriousness of the crime and what else is going on in that childs life," Calvin said. Since 2003, more than 10,000 minors have been tried as adults in California - nearly three-quarters of them in cases in which a judge had no say, Calvin said. The proposal would also set up a process for making some inmates accused of non-violent crimes eligible for parole earlier, and allow them to earn credits toward parole by engaging in good behavior. Brown said the measure would help ease overcrowding in the state's massive prison system. He said the state's mandatory sentencing system for many crimes had taken discretion away from judges and ultimately contributed to recidivism by providing inmates with little incentive for rehabilitation. Brown signed the law that introduced mandatory sentencing during a previous stint as governor from 1975 to 1983, but has since criticized the practice. "This will dramatically improve the behavior of inmates and set them on a path that would make them be ready to be good citizens when they go back out in the world," Brown said. (Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Leslie Adler) BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron will meet European Council President Donald Tusk in London on Sunday, an EU spokesman said, as officials prepare to reveal details of reform negotiations next week. The meeting will follow Cameron's talks in Brussels on Friday with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, whose staff have worked on proposals to meet London's demands to change the EU before a referendum on Britain's membership. Cameron hopes to agree a package of measures with fellow national leaders at a European Union summit in three weeks. Before then, officials and diplomats expect Tusk, who will chair the summit, to send out a letter to governments as early as Monday that will outline his suggestions for reaching consensus. Of four areas of reform requested by Cameron in November, by far the most difficult to reach agreement on is likely to be a mechanism that Cameron can present to voters as a way to reduce immigration from the rest of the EU. Other leaders insist they will not curb EU citizens' freedom to move in search of work. Cameron's proposal to deny British welfare benefits to EU workers for four years has been widely dismissed as illegal under treaties banning national discrimination. Negotiators have looked at alternatives, including narrowing the definition of employment - only workers would have the right to live in other EU countries - or offering an "emergency brake" giving states the right to halt EU immigration if it puts welfare or other vital national interests in jeopardy. However, they do say they want to help Cameron win a vote to keep Britain, the bloc's second biggest economy, in. The vote could come as early as June if agreement is reached at the Feb. 18-19 summit. It must be held by the end of next year. The prime minister, whose Conservative party is divided on the issue, says he will campaign to stay in if his demands are met but rules nothing out if other states reject them. (Reporting by Alastair Macdonald) By Michelle Conlin and Grant Smith NEW YORK (Reuters) - There were stays at boutique hotels featuring rooftop pools, private soirees at members-only, jacket-and-tie clubs and fundraisers at the Four Seasons, the St. Regis and the Mandarin Oriental. In the world of Jeb Bush, the campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination has at times been a whirl of private planes and high-end affairs, according to the federal filings of Bushs campaign and his Super PAC, Right to Rise, which can raise unlimited funds for Bush as long as it does not coordinate directly with him. It is not unusual for U.S. presidential candidates to fly private or even sometimes stay in luxury hotels. But some disgruntled donors say they are unhappy with Bush's large outlays, which also include big spending on staff and tens of millions of dollars in ad buys. Eleven of 16 major donors contacted by Reuters questioned whether it was money well spent, especially given how the one-time frontrunner has stumbled badly in the polls and is now facing questions about whether he should withdraw from the race. (Graphic on Bush spending vs performance in polls http://tmsnrt.rs/1SKC4O1) In contrast to Bush, Senator Ted Cruz, who is running second in national polls of Republican voters, favors cheaper accommodation options like Holiday Inn and often flies on budget carriers, campaign finance filings through the third quarter show. Several members of the Bush camp vigorously rejected the donor critiques. Bush spokeswoman Kristy Campbell said, We are running a national campaign that is competing everywhere and we have made investments that have allowed us to do what serious campaigns must do to be competitive in the primary and general elections." Ad-tracking firm SMG Delta says Bush's campaign and Right to Rise have spent $82 million on ads, significantly more than the three leading candidates in the Republican race: Donald Trump ($5 million); Senator Ted Cruz ($11 million) and Senator Marco Rubio ($49 million). The tracking firms data is more up to date than what has been reported so far in the federal filings. "There is no return on investment on the Bush ad buys, zero, said one high-dollar donor who asked not to be named, pointing to how the ads have done little, at least so far, to lift Bush in the polls or dent his opponents. On Sunday, donors will learn just how much Bush has spent from his $100 million-plus war chest. That's when Republican and Democratic candidates and their Super PACs release their latest campaign finance reports. What is known so far is that Bush and Right to Rise spent at least $82 million, both in operating expenditures through the third quarter of 2015 and on ad spending through this month. The campaign finance reports also show that between June 2015, when Bush formally announced his candidacy, and September, the Bush campaign spent $1.2 million on private planes versus the roughly $700,000 spent during the same period by Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Cruz spent $158,000 on private planes, and Rubio $293,300. Trump flies around the country in his own Boeing 757. MONEY DOES NOT EQUAL SUCCESS The former Florida governor's spending pattern illustrates the limits of campaign donations: Even in an era when candidates can receive unlimited sums from wealthy donors, money doesn't guarantee success. They are burning money, said a second major donor, who, like all the other high-dollar donors interviewed, asked not be named for fear of displeasing the Bush family. Look, this is not the election cycle to be spending like a silver-spoon Establishment candidate," said a third donor. "It just doesnt look right, the donor said, referring to the way income inequality has emerged as a key theme in the 2016 election. Ambassador Jeanne Phillips, a member of the Right to Rise governance committee, laughed off the criticism. Ive known Jeb for 30 years, so the idea that Jeb would allow anyone around him to be frivolous with money is hilarious, its ridiculous. The man is the most conservative, fiscally responsible person Ive ever worked with. Bushs campaign committee paid for all lodging on the campaign trail and the vast majority of private air charter, while Right To Rise paid for nearly all the known ad spending. Money donated by both large and small donors kept the Bush camp traveling in style. There were stays at luxury hotels including the Wilshire in Beverly Hills, the Viceroy in Florida, the St. Regis in Dana Point, California, and the W in Stamford, Connecticut, the campaign finance filings show. The filings do not offer a complete picture. It is not clear for example, how many nights were spent at each of the hotels or indeed whether it was Bush himself who stayed or staff members. Bush isnt the only candidate spending at high-end hotels, but its a high proportion of his overall hotel spending. He spent $125,000,or 70 percent of his total hotel spending between June and September on hotels defined as luxury or "upper upscale" luxury hotels by STR Global, which tracks supply and demand data in the hotel industry. Cruz and Rubio each spent less on luxury hotels and a smaller proportion of their overall lodging expenses on them, at roughly 56 percent and 61 percent, respectively, federal filings through the third quarter show. Trump flies home nearly every night so he can sleep in his own bed. POSH VENUES The Bush campaign and his Super PAC also spent more than $400,000 on renting facilities and catering at posh venues, including the Union League Club and the upscale beachfront 1 Hotel South Beach in Miami, where the Super PAC spent $60,000 last year. Rubio and Cruz spent roughly $265,000 and $185,000 respectively. Bush defenders said the spending on high-end venues was simply how the donor world operated. "If you can hold an event at a fancy hotel and raise millions, then it's well worth holding it at a swanky hotel said Charlie Spies, counsel for Right to Rise. Spies said Right to Rise had negotiated "below market" rates with vendors and consultants, including an overall compensation cap for staff. Nevertheless the Bush camp has spent more on staff and consultants than any of the leading candidates. Starting roughly in the spring, Bush paid out about $8 million. Cruz spent just $2 million; Rubio, just under $2 million; and Trump, $1.7 million. Overall, Trump, Cruz, and Rubio have spent a small fraction of the $82 million Bush has reported paying out. Cruz spent $18.5 million and Rubio outlayed $32 million, according to the filings made so far. Bush is certainly not the only candidate to spend big on the trail. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, for instance, ran an expensive campaign and burned through nearly $10 million before quitting after three months. Bush's prospects were far brighter last summer. Trump had yet to join the race and Bush was making headlines for the size of his war chest. His Super PAC had just cracked its goal of raising more than $100 million in just six months an unprecedented haul in American politics. To celebrate, Jebs parents and family welcomed their large network of well-heeled donors to their oceanside compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, where attendees were treated to rides in private trolley cars, lobster rolls and group photos with the sprawling Bush clan. (This version of the story was refiled to clarify spending in paragraph 25 to show it was by both the campaign and Super PAC) (Editing by Paul Thomasch and Ross Colvin) Ottawa (AFP) - Canada's environment and resources ministers announced Wednesday a new framework for approving the construction of pipelines that must consider the direct and upstream greenhouse gas emissions linked to the projects. The new requirements will be tacked on to Canada's existing environmental assessment process, and will apply to projects currently being scrutinized by the national energy regulator. This will also allow the government to also consult more broadly with indigenous peoples about projects that cross their traditional lands. "No project review will return to square one," Environment Minister Catherine McKenna told a press conference, alongside Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr. The changes, however, are expected to result in the addition of up to six months to the review of two pipelines -- the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion in western Canada, and the new Energy East connecting the Alberta oil sands to Atlantic Coast refineries. "Projects will only get done if they're done sustainably and responsibly," McKenna added. The new rules do not state how much weight will be given to carbon emissions in the environmental assessment. If a project is deemed to have "significant effects" on the environment, McKenna said it would be presented to cabinet for a decision. She said the cabinet would consider "a whole range of factors" including economic social, environmental factors, and "what's in the public interest." Canada is the fifth largest oil producer in the world and its economy has been hit hard by plummeting oil prices with tens of thousands of jobs shed in Alberta over the past year. Meanwhile, the nation is struggling to get its oil from landlocked Alberta to markets in the United States and overseas amid strong opposition from environmental activists to the construction of new pipelines, as upstream oil and gas extraction is set to soar. A report released earlier by the National Energy Board forecast a doubling of oil production to six or seven million barrels per day by 2040. Ottawa (AFP) - Canada rejected Wednesday US security concerns over its fast-tracked resettlement of thousands of Syrian refugees, as the Senate in Washington prepares to hold a hearing on the repercussions for America. "We have put in place layers of security activity to ensure that our refugee initiative with respect to Syria can be successful," Canadian public safety minister Ralph Goodale told parliament. "The program is working well and indeed it will resolve in something that Canadians can be very, very proud of," he added in response to questions about why the Ottawa government declined an invitation to appear before the US Senate hearing. The US congressional panel is meeting next Wednesday to consider "Canada's Fast-Track Refugee Plan: Unanswered Questions and Implications for US National Security." It is scheduled to hear from a Toronto immigration lawyer who has criticized Canada's Syrian refugee plan, calling it unrealistic, border officials and others. Goodale said US officials have been fully briefed on Canada's refugee resettlement "and they understand exactly the layers of security screening that are in place," including UN assessments of asylum seekers, collection of biometrics and checks against security databases. A spokeswoman for Canada's foreign affairs minister added, "We have emphasized and will continue to emphasize the integrity and robustness of our approach to the selection and screening of the Syrian refugees under consideration." Canada's new Liberal government pledged to take in 25,000 Syrian refugees -- more than double the US intake -- by the end of February. Its initial plan was to bring them to Canada by the end of 2015, but that was pushed back in response to criticism that the government was moving too fast, amid security concerns in the aftermath of deadly attacks in Paris, as well as due to logistical issues. By David Ljunggren OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada has stopped its electronic spy agency from sharing some data with key international allies after discovering the information mistakenly contained personal details about Canadians, government officials said on Thursday. Ottawa acted after learning that the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) agency had failed to properly disguise metadata - the numbers and time stamps of phone calls but not their content - before passing it on to their international partners. "CSE will not resume sharing this information with our partners until I am fully satisfied the effective systems and measures are in place," Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan said in a statement. Sajjan, who has overall responsibility for the agency, did not say when Canada had stopped sharing the data in question. Canada is part of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network, along with the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. CSE, like the U.S. National Security Agency, monitors electronic communication and helps protect national computer networks. While the agency is not allowed to specifically target Canadians or Canadian corporations, it can scoop up data about Canadians while focusing on other targets. Sajjan, blaming technical deficiencies at CSE for the problems, said the metadata that Canada shared did not contain names or enough information to identify individuals and added: "The privacy impact was low." He made the announcement shortly after an official watchdog that monitors CSE revealed the metadata problem. The watchdog said CSE officials themselves had realized they were not doing enough to disguise the information they shared. An NSA program to vacuum up Americans' call data was exposed publicly by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 and prompted questions about the CSE's practices. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Diane Craft) The Magee poem, High Flight, posed a challenge in the text. If the president quoted it [with] the preface, As the poet JG Magee put it... the end of the speech would not have worked and done its job. Clunky, awkward, would take you from RRs thought to Whos Magee? So I thought, its a famous enough poem that some will get the reference. I decided: put the Magee poem in quotes, without citation. Speech went out within WH for comment. All busy, chaos, tension. Didnt know if RR would use the poem, he would if he knew it, if not no. As a precaution I called the press office if reporters ask about the end of the speech it quotes poem by JG Magee, Jr. All set. Then an old friend I worked with at CBS called. Anything we should know about the speech? Stupidly, dumbly, I said yes. I told her the president may quote a poem at the end. Told her name and author. Thinking maybe after the speech they can read poem aloud. The CBS person got the Magee poem and gave it to anchor Dan Rather. But wires got crossed. He read part of the poem before Reagan spoke. I watched, heart in mouth. Oh no! Then the president came on, gave his speech, used the quote. Relief. But I had to tell my boss. An anchor knew part of what the President would say in advance. Break of protocol in those days. I told the boss and was chastised. But in the flurry of the day my CBS mistake was hardly noticed. Went home that night upset about it, and feeling the speech hadnt scoured, which was Lincolns word for what an effective speech does. Anyway, an awkward painful scattered day for all. Beijing (AFP) - China has charged a Canadian citizen with spying and stealing state secrets, the government said Friday. Kevin Garratt was detained in 2014 along with his wife, who was later released on bail, in the northeastern Chinese city of Dandong, on the border with North Korea. "The Canadian citizen Kevin Garratt, suspected of spying and stealing Chinese state secrets, has been indicted," Hua Chunying, a foreign ministry spokeswoman, said at a regular briefing in Beijing. "During the investigation, authorities found that Kevin Garratt may also be involved in gathering information for Canadian information agencies." Before their arrests Garratt and his wife, both Christians, had run a coffee shop in Dandong and been active in helping send humanitarian aid to impoverished North Korea. In 2013 he told a church in Surrey, British Columbia: "God said, in a prayer meeting, go to Dandong and I'll meet you there, and he said start a coffee house. "We're trying to reach North Korea with God, with Jesus, and practical assistance." Garratt's parents have said he was arrested because of his religion. China regularly cracks down on a wide variety of religious expression. Beijing denied the case was religiously motivated. "He was indicted because of spying and stealing Chinese state secrets, it has nothing to do with his religion," Hua said. China's definition of state secrets can be very broad while North Korea is deeply suspicious of Christian proselytising activities, punishing them harshly. The Garratts were detained one week after Canada accused China of hacking, prompting accusations that Beijing was investigating them as retaliation against Ottawa. China passed a new "national security" law in July that was criticised by rights groups for the vague wording of its references to "security", which raised fears it could give police wide-ranging discretionary powers over civil society. Story continues Other foreign citizens have also run afoul of China's powerful security officials. Earlier this month Swedish activist Peter Dahlin was held on suspicion of endangering national security, apparently caught up in a crackdown on human rights lawyers. He was deported earlier this week. Feng Xue, a Chinese-born US geologist, spent more than seven years in a Chinese prison after being convicted on state secrets charges. Australian national Stern Hu, an executive with the mining giant Rio Tinto, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2010 on bribery and trade secrets charges. TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada said on Thursday it was concerned and monitoring developments closely after China indicted a Canadian citizen detained since 2014 on charges of spying and stealing state secrets. Kevin Garratt was detained in August 2014 near China's sensitive border with North Korea along with his wife, who was also detained for months before being released last year. Xinhua state news agency said Garratt was indicted in Dandong, a city in China's northeast where the Garratts had operated a cafe since 2008. "During the investigation, Chinese authorities also found evidence which implicates Garratt in accepting tasks from Canadian espionage agencies to gather intelligence in China," Xinhua reported. The case has inflamed tensions between Ottawa and Beijing. The arrest happened less than a week after Canada accused Chinese hackers of breaking into a key computer network. "Canada finds the indictment of Kevin Garratt by China concerning," said foreign ministry spokesman Francois Lasalle. "The Government of Canada has raised this case with the Chinese Government at high levels .... We remain in contact with Chinese authorities and the family, and are monitoring developments closely," he added. The indictment was announced the day after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and senior cabinet ministers attended a lavish party in Ottawa hosted by China to mark the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. Diplomatic ties began under former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Justin Trudeaus father. China invited Justin Trudeau for a state visit shortly after he won power in October. Garratt's son, Simeon Garratt, a Vancouver resident, said he was waiting for an update from his family's legal team in China. "We don't really have any more word on it other than that. We haven't had access to anything to this point. It's a waiting game to be honest," Garratt said in an interview. He said his mother was still not able to leave China. Julia Garratt was released in February but barred from leaving. Brock University professor Charles Burton, a former Canadian diplomat who served two tours in China, said the indictment could signal the start of a process to expel the couple. The main opposition Conservative Party demanded Ottawa act to secure Garrett's release. "It is the height of irony, that as the Prime Minister ... was) celebrating with Chinese diplomats at an event in Ottawa last night, Kevin Garratt sat in a Chinese jail," it said in a statement. (Reporting by Andrea Hopkins in Toronto, Julie Gordon in Vancouver, David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Bernadette Baum and David Gregorio) Scottish fashion designer Christopher Kane has debuted his own brand's first ever advertising campaign for his spring/summer 2016 collection. Kane's new advertising campaign features UK model Alice Buckingham in a minimalist set. The theme of "Crash and Repair" that inspired his spring/summer 2016 collection is captured through a combination of close ups and full body shots by photographer Harley Weir. Christopher Kane's new ad campaign will be featured in select UK and international publications starting in their March issues. Supermodel Claudia Schiffer is making the transition to designer with the launch of her own fashion line. The German beauty is teaming up with cashmere brand TSEcashmere.com on her own collection, Women's Wear Daily reports. The 40-piece collection will be officially unveiled this week. This isn't the first time that Schiffer has worked with the brand -- in fact, she collaborated with the label last fall on a collection titled "Claudia Schiffer for TSE Cashmere." However, this is the first time has completely overseen the design of the pieces under the title of Creative Director. "My collaboration with TSE was such a positive experience that the obvious next step was to launch my own line, with TSE producing it," Schiffer told the publication, adding that the collection will include: "amazing cashmere yarns with details of multicolor jacquards and Fair Isles, creating a line of casually chic separates for everyday." The collection was inspired by the model's travels in southern Spain, and features bright tones of sky blue and sunset red, with the pieces designed to be simple and worn with denim and accessories. Schiffer is the latest in a long line of models to turn their hands to fashion design -- earlier this month, Heidi Klum announced that she would be developing her successful lingerie business by adding a swimwear line, and in December it was revealed that Gigi Hadid is set to collaborate with Tommy Hilfiger on a capsule collection for Fall 2016. By Aaron Ross KINSHASA (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo will press on with a lengthy overhaul of its voter lists, authorities said on Thursday, fuelling opposition fears that the government is trying to delay landmark elections. The presidential poll currently slated for November is meant to herald the Congo's first-ever peaceful transition of power. But critics have accused President Joseph Kabila of trying to cling onto power by postponing the vote. The president, who can not stand for a third term because of constitutional term limits, has refused to comment publicly on his political future. Organizers said they would launch a tendering process next month to update the voter rolls - a process that their earlier estimates suggested could take up to 16 months to complete. "The goal is to prolong as much as possible," Jose Endundo, the leader of the opposition Christian Democratic Party (PDC), said after the announcement. Opposition parties also want the voter list overhauled to include an estimated 7 million new voters, but say the process should only take up to seven months. Corneille Nangaa, the president of the election commission (CENI), told Reuters that the government had earmarked $200 million for the updating process though he declined to be drawn on the impact on the timing of the vote. "The constitutional timeline ... depends on certain prior actions," he told reporters earlier after a meeting with the interior minister and foreign diplomats. "The priority right now is the revision of the voter list." The vote has to take place this year, according to the constitution. He said that CENI would open bidding on Feb. 10 for the contract to provide equipment for the revision of voter lists. Another $100 million had been set aside for other purposes, he added. Kabila, who succeeded his assassinated father in 2001 and won disputed elections in 2006 and 2011, called last November for a national dialogue to address financial and logistical obstacles to the holding of a slate of local, provincial and national elections, whose cost the CENI originally estimated at over $1 billion. Most of Congo's major opposition parties have vowed to boycott the dialogue, which they say is a stalling tactic, and have called for mass demonstrations on Feb. 16 to pressure Kabila to step down this year. In a document distributed to diplomats earlier this month, the CENI said it would take between 13 and 16 months to revise voter lists at a cost of between $120 million and $290 million. (Reporting By Aaron Ross; Editing by Joe Bavier and Andrew Heavens) The #OscarsSoWhite controversy made its presence felt at the world premiere of FX's The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story at the Westwood Village Theater in Los Angeles Wednesday night. "I refer to what Alejandro Inarritu said, the awards shows are the end of the chain," star Cuba Gooding Jr. told The Hollywood Reporter. "It has to start higher up. It has to start in the casting process. You look at television right now, television is killing it, a rainbow coalition in so many different shows." Read More: #OscarsSoWhite: Academy Chiefs Reveal Behind-the-Scenes Drama That Led to Historic Change (Exclusive) While the actor reunited with fellow cast members John Travolta, David Schwimmer, Courtney B. Vance, Sarah Paulson, Connie Britton and Selma Blair, he continued to defend the Academy, saying, "I was an Academy member since 1993 and I won an Oscar in 1997, so from those four years I cherish my membership. Our president made a decision and I leave our decisions up to our board of trustees to make those decisions. I have to stand by them." Read More: 'The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story': TV Review Added Malcolm-Jamal Warner, "The pleasant surprise is that the Academy has been quick about taking steps to try to fix it." While Spike Lee, Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith will not be attending the Oscars Angel Parker tells THR, "I want a front row seat, all those people who are boycotting tell them to give me their ticket." Read More: Inside TV's Retrial of OJ Simpson: A Saga of Race, Redress and, Yes, Robert Kardashian's Kids Ryan Murphy's new anthology's premise revolves around the famous O.J. Simpson trial, but the cast points out the series is about much more than that one event. "It's really important when we watch this to think about where we are today and ask the big question, have things changed in 20 years?" Schwimmer told THR. "In light of everything that's going on in this country in the last two years in particular, it's unfortunately clear that the experience for black America is very different from the experience of white America in this country." Story continues Tye White, who plays Jason Simpson in the series, told The Hollywood Reporter, "You can't talk about the trial without touching on the L.A. riots and the police brutality because it won't give the full context of how the nation felt at that time." Adds Gooding Jr, "It's a timely issue that we as artists hope to reflect the ills of society through our work so that you can dissect and try to find solutions for certain issues." The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story' premieres Tuesday February 2 at 10:00 p.m. on FX. Nicosia (AFP) - The Cyprus president hosted talks Thursday with the Israeli and Greek prime ministers focused on plans to build a gas pipeline to Europe in what they termed a "catalyst for peace" in a turbulent region. The leaders of Cyprus, Israel and Greece said Thursday that a planned gas pipeline from the eastern Mediterranean to Europe could be a "catalyst for peace" in a turbulent region. Cyprus, which hosted the three-way talks, lies just 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the Syrian coast, and the three countries say cooperation holds the key to stability in a region wracked by conflict. Water resources and tourism were also high on the agenda at the meeting between Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. The three countries will form a trilateral committee to study the plans to build a pipeline between Israel and Cyprus and on to Greece for gas exports to Europe, Netanyahu said. The leaders also discussed plans for an underwater cable to connect the electricity grids of the three countries, he told a news conference after their talks. "We're living through great turbulence," Netanyahu said, referring to the multiple conflicts in the Middle East. Growing cooperation between the three democracies would advance "stability, security and prosperity" for their peoples and the region at large. Netanyahu said they also discussed cooperation in water management, tourism, the hi-tech sector and firefighting as well as search-and-rescue missions in the eastern Mediterranean. - 'Like-minded partners welcome' - "Our partnership is not exclusive in design or nature, and we are ready to welcome other like-minded actors to join our efforts to promote coordination and cooperation, as well as regional peace and stability," the three leaders said in a joint statement. "The discovery of important hydrocarbon reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean can serve as a catalyst for peace, stability and cooperation in the region," they said in the statement. Story continues The leaders also said they were "committed to combating smuggling of people and reiterate our readiness to contribute to efforts designed to address the humanitarian aspects of the unfolding refugee crisis". On Wednesday, after separate talks with Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Tsipras said their coordination "does not go against anyone", in an apparent reference to Greece's NATO partner but historic rival Turkey. Netanyahu, for his part, said after that meeting: "Our cooperation with Greece and Cyprus stands on its own... It does not depend on our efforts to normalise our relations with Turkey." Turkey was a key regional ally of Israel until the two countries fell out over the deadly storming by Israeli commandos in 2010 of a Turkish aid ship, the Mavi Marmara, bound for Gaza. The two countries have reportedly been making progress in secret talks aimed at a rapprochement. However, Turkey, whose troops occupy northern Cyprus, opposes Nicosia's exploitation of offshore energy reserves before a deal is reached on the island's four-decade division. Israel has called for Turkey to respect Cyprus's right to explore for natural gas and avoid sparking additional tension in the region. With Israel finding large reserves of gas close to where Cyprus is drilling, the two countries are looking to cooperate on energy issues such as exporting Israeli gas. Netanyahu, Tsipras and Anastasiades agreed to meet again in Israel in the second half of 2016. He's known for playing characters in the upper echelons of society, including British kings (Wolf Hall) and most recently multi-millionaire hedge-fund managers (Billions), but it was Damian Lewis' own privileged background that became the focus of a petition at a London school. Lewis who was educated at the U.K.'s exclusive Eton college, alongside Tom Hiddleston, Eddie Redmayne and Prince William was invited to take part in 50th anniversary celebrations at a comprehensive, state-funded school near his home in north London. But the move didn't go down well with several former students at Acland Burghley School, who started a petition calling his inclusion a "wholly inappropriate choice." The petition stated that Lewis was educated at Eton, "a school that, more than any other, represents the reproduction of privilege and inequality in the UK." Speaking to the BBC, the petition's founder Rachel Cohen pointed out that she had no issues with Lewis himself. "It's really just about how do you celebrate the anniversary of a really good comprehensive school that has always taken a very radical and socially progressive attitude towards education," she told the news outlet. Despite the protest, Lewis did turn up to the event on Wednesday, and hit back at the critics by saying they were "missing the point," and that the evening was a "celebration of our community... and the role the school has played here." Read More: 'Billions' Star Damian Lewis on 'Wolf Hall' Comparisons, 'Goodfellas' Accent Melbourne (AFP) - Novak Djokovic said his sublime first two sets against Roger Federer were the best he's ever played against the Swiss as he reached his sixth Australian Open final in convincing fashion on Thursday. The world number one, now into his fifth straight Grand Slam final, was on a different level to the 17-time major winner in the opening two sets as he dished out a dominant, four-set semi-final victory. The five-time winner maintained his hold over world number three Federer, winning 6-1, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 in two hours, 19 minutes, and will face either Andy Murray or Milos Raonic in Sunday's final. It was the 45th meeting between two titans of the sport, with Djokovic now edging Federer 23-22 in their head-to-head duels. "These first two sets have been probably the best two sets I've played against him overall throughout my career," declared Djokovic. "I've had some moments against him in sets where I've played on a high level, but this was, yeah, I think a different level than from before. "I'm just very, very pleased that I was able to perform the way I did from the very beginning till the end." Djokovic, who was simply irresistible in cruising two sets up in 54 minutes, said he played "flawless" tennis. "When you're playing one of your top rivals, somebody of Roger's resume, of course it requires a lot of focus, determination, and a different preparation for that match-up than most of the other matches," he said. "I played flawless tennis for first two sets, no doubt about it." - 'Joyful feeling' - Djokovic said he was now going to enjoy his two days off and prepare for his 19th Grand Slam final. "I think it's good for me at this stage. I've played a lot of tennis. Actually it's going to serve me well for my recovery," he said. "Tomorrow's match is going to be interesting to watch. Being in the final and watching the other semi-final, of course it's quite a joyful feeling. Whoever wins I'm going to be ready for the great battle." Story continues Djokovic broke Federer's serve five times, dropped his serve just once, won 115 points to 82 and hit 33 winners with only 20 unforced errors, while Federer committed 51 unforced errors. The 10-time Grand Slam champion was in jaw-dropping form in the opening two sets, carving up Federer in their 15th Grand Slam encounter with his dazzling groundstrokes for the loss of only three games. He broke Federer's first service to 15 and then held his serve to lead 3-0, winning 12 of the first 14 points. The Swiss third seed was broken again in the sixth game, netting a forehand with Djokovic in full cry. Djokovic's 6-1 first set was his easiest opening set win over Federer. He won 24 points to 11, with the rushed Swiss making 12 unforced errors. Federer was broken to love in the third game in a similar start to the second set with the world number one able to do no wrong. Four-time winner Federer probed for a way back in, with the Australian crowd urging him on, and he broke Djokovic for the first time in the match in the sixth game. The Swiss was finally putting pressure back on the world number one and he claimed the third set on his third set point, to a thunderous roar on Rod Laver Arena. But both players had to cool their heels as play was delayed temporarily to enable the stadium roof to be closed ahead of expected rain, making for indoor playing conditions. Djokovic broke Federer for a fifth time in the match in a sensational eighth game of the fourth set, featuring a forehand return winner for the break, and he safely served out for the match in the following game. Donald Trump will appear on Bill O'Reilly's show on Wednesday amid a reignited feud between Fox News and the mogul. The presidential candidate's campaign spokeswoman and a rep for the cable network confirmed the appearance to The Hollywood Reporter. No additional details were given. Further indicating the interview would not be to broker a peace talk between the network and the candidate, Trump hours before airtime slammed Fox News again and sent out details about the event he will be hosting elsewhere while the debate occurs. It was the childishly written & taunting PR statement by Fox that made me not do the debate, more so than lightweight reporter, @megynkelly. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2016 The news comes a day after Trump said he would not be a part of the network's latest debate after it mocked him in a statement. Earlier in the day, Trump criticized Fox News and host Megyn Kelly for their treatment of the GOP frontrunner. Trump, before he dropped out of the debate, insisted Kelly not be a moderator because she was biased against him. On Tuesday, Fox News sent a press release which Trump said was "written by a child" stating: We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings. Read More: TV Ratings: CNN's Democratic Town Hall Fetches 3.2 Million Viewers An irate Trump appeared during a media conference a short time later to shoot back at the network, saying at that time he would probably not participate in the debate. Then, shortly after that, his campaign confirmed he would in fact not do the debate. Late Tuesday night, Fox News released another statement saying the mogul turned presidential candidate was still welcome to take part in the debate, but the network would not bow to his "terrorizations." Story continues The network, in that same statement, also accused Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, of making "threats" toward Kelly. "In a call on Saturday with a Fox News executive, Lewandowski stated that Megyn had a 'rough couple of days after that last debate' and he 'would hate to have her go through that again,'" according to the statement. "Lewandowski was warned not to level any more threats, but he continued to do so. We cant give in to terrorizations toward any of our employees." Read More: Donald Trump Won't Participate in GOP Debate on Thursday, Fox News Fires Back By Jessica Dye NEW YORK (Reuters) - Chemical maker DuPont will face 40 trials a year starting April 2017 involving plaintiffs who say they developed cancer from a toxic chemical used to make Teflon that leaked from one of the companys plants in West Virginia. The schedule laid out by U.S. District Judge Edmund Sargus in the Southern District of Ohio during a hearing Wednesday is aimed at pushing the parties closer to resolving more than 3,550 lawsuits. The outcome could have a material impact on Chemours Co , since liability for litigation connected with the chemical C-8 was passed on to the firm spun-off by DuPont in 2015. The cases have been filed by individuals who say they developed one of six diseases linked to perfluorooctanoic acid, also known as PFOA or C-8, which was found in their drinking water. Their cases are consolidated before Sargus. The initial 40 trials will be selected from between 250 and 300 lawsuits brought by individuals who say they contracted kidney or testicular cancer from C-8. "People shouldnt have to wait ten years for a trial," Sargus said, according to a transcript of the hearing. DuPont spokesman Dan Turner said the company was pleased plaintiffs would go to trial individually, rather than as a group, as plaintiffs lawyers had proposed. In the past, DuPont said "mega trials" would confuse jurors and be unfair to it. A lead plaintiffs' lawyer, Michael London, called Sargus' plan "a good start." The lawsuits center on claims DuPont used C-8 at a West Virginia plant for decades despite knowing it was toxic and had been found in nearby drinking water. While the cancer claims are moving forward to trial, DuPont has said in court filings that 90 percent of the litigation involves less deadly conditions such as high cholesterol and thyroid disease. To help estimate the aggregate value of individual suits in mass litigation, it is common to hold a series of bellwether, or test trials. The first C-8 bellwether ended in October with a $1.6 million verdict for a plaintiff who had kidney cancer. Four other trials are scheduled for 2016. While DuPont was the named defendant, Chemours said it would cover DuPonts liability for the first verdict. Chemours agreed to take on some of DuPont's legal liabilities when it was spun off from the company to house its performance chemicals segment. Chemours has said an unfavorable outcome from the lawsuits could have a "material adverse effect" on its finances. Chemours stock was little changed Thursday at $3.12 on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock has fallen 80 percent since it was spun off. (Additional reporting by Tom Hals; Editing by Andrew Hay) By Edmund Blair ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - The drought relief effort in Ethiopia needs about $500 million to fund programs beyond the end of April to support 10.2 million people facing critical food shortages this year, the U.N. World Food Programme said on Thursday. Ethiopia is battling one of its worst droughts in decades that in parts of the country eclipses the 1984 crisis, when rain failures and conflict caused famine that killed an estimated 1 million people. This time, the Horn of Africa nation is at peace and has an economy that has grown rapidly for more than a decade, helping the government put in place agriculture, health and social programs to build resilience against lean periods. But the scale of this drought, blamed on the El Nino weather phenomenon, is even overwhelming those measures. "We are really on the cliff's edge as we speak," WFP Country Director John Aylieff told Reuters, saying the $500 million had to be raised by the end of February so resources could be in place by the end of April. "It's a really tall order for donors to suddenly mobilize the immense amount of resources needed for the Ethiopian crisis this year. I would also say it is a tall order for the mother in the highlands of Ethiopia to watch her children waste away." The government, WFP and a group of charities such as Save the Children are working on the relief effort. The government is already spending about $300 million and other funds have come from the United States, Canada, European states and others. About $38 million was committed this week, the WFP said. But more is needed when international aid budgets are stretched by crises such as the Syria conflict. An estimated $1.4 billion is expected to be spent in 2016 to cover relief food and other requirements in Ethiopia. But some experts say that estimate may prove inadequate, after rains failed in 2015 and with the 2016 outlook unclear. Ethiopia has tried to prepare for such times, given 80 percent of its people rely on farming, mostly rain-fed. One initiative is the Productive Safety Net Programme, which helps about 7.9 million people deemed to be chronically food insecure by providing food or cash transfers in return for community works. Now an additional 10.2 million are struggling. The government has dug into strategic food reserves, but the cost of the effort is a major burden for a nation which is still one of the poorest per capita in Africa despite a fast growing economy. Aylieff said the relief effort had stabilized the situation from August when there was a spike in new cases of malnutrition, with 43,000 children admitted for treatment for severe acute malnutrition in a single month. "Unless we can sustain a solid relief response in Ethiopia, we risk going back to a situation of spiking severe acute malnutrition," he said. (Additional reporting by Aaron Maasho; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Toby Chopra) Brussels (AFP) - EU president Donald Tusk will meet British Prime Minister David Cameron in London late Sunday, with proposals by Brussels for a reform deal to keep Britain in the union expected early next week, officials said. Cameron is holding a series of meetings with key European leaders as talks on his demands gather pace before a crunch summit next month, and a possible referendum in June. "Tusk will meet PM Cameron in London Sunday evening," a spokesman for the EU president said on Thursday. "The purpose of the meeting will be a discussion before (Tusk) finalises his proposal covering all four (British reform demands). The proposal is expected to be tabled early next week," he said. Cameron's spokesman said the British leader would have a "working dinner" with Tusk at his 10 Downing Street residence. Cameron will also meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel on February 12 in Hamburg, the spokesman said. These meetings are "further evidence of the desire to continue the renegotiations to work towards getting that best possible deal for the British people. "The prime minister has said we're working toward February. We'd like to get a deal in February but ultimately what we want to do is to get that best possible deal. If we don't get it in February, we'll wait until the next time," he said. Cameron is due to have a working lunch with European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels on Friday, after cancelling a scheduled visit to Sweden and Denmark, his office said Wednesday. Friday's meeting will "discuss the UK's renegotiation of its membership" of the European Union (EU), Downing Street said in a statement. The British prime minister is also set to meet European Parliament President Martin Schulz in Brussels on Friday. Cameron has set out a series of reforms he wants from Brussels in return for backing Britain's continued EU membership in a referendum he has promised by 2017. Story continues British officials have said that for a vote in June to go ahead as Cameron wants, then he needs to get a deal by the February 18-19 summit at the latest. However, he has run into fierce opposition against his key demand to restrict access to the British welfare system for EU citizens and the upcoming talks promise to be difficult. Downing Street said Friday's meeting was "absolutely" a positive development. Cameron's spokeswoman told reporters: "Across Europe, we are seeing leaders -- whether in the institutions or other countries -- clear that they want to see a deal secured in February." "The ambition is there. There's clearly more work to do," she said. By Paul Taylor, Alastair Macdonald and Kylie MacLellan BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) - The European Union is offering Britain a new "emergency brake" rule that could help curb immigration from other EU states in a reform package before a British referendum on EU membership, sources close to the negotiations told Reuters on Thursday. The proposal would give any member state that could convince EU governments its welfare system was under excessive strain a right to deny benefits to new workers arriving from other EU countries for up to four years. That has been a key demand of Prime Minister David Cameron and one which many EU leaders have said risks conflict with citizens' treaty rights. It would seem to offer the British leader a headline win in Brussels on which he could campaign to remain in the EU in a vote that may be held as early as June. However, Cameron would still need to persuade EU leaders that a wave of labor migration to Britain over the last 12 years justified applying the emergency brake. Several east European leaders, whose citizens have been the main focus of British unease at an influx of workers benefiting from income top-ups in low paid jobs, have said this month they could support some kind of brake. Importantly, the proposal would not affect Poles, Romanians and others already working in Britain. A spokesman for Cameron, who will meet the heads of European Union institutions on Friday and Sunday, declined direct comment on the proposal and said the prime minister for now stuck by his election campaign pledge to bar EU immigrants from in-work benefits for at least their first four years in Britain. Saying there was "still more work to do", he welcomed the "constructive spirit" in which alternatives have been offered but played down any urgency in reaching a deal, noting that the deadline for holding the referendum is the end of next year. EU spokespeople maintained their public silence on the talks and sources close to the negotiations stressed that no final deal was yet on the table, with a variety of issues unresolved. But if Cameron's talks with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Friday and European Council President Donald Tusk on Sunday go well, a draft package may emerge early next week, raising the prospect of an accord at an EU summit on Feb. 18-19, which Tusk will chair. REFERENDUM TIMING With opinion polls tight and his Conservative party bitterly divided on Europe, many believe Cameron aims to hold the referendum sooner rather than later. Sources familiar with the negotiations said he wanted the option of a vote in late June. He says he wants Britain to stay in the EU but has not ruled out campaigning to leave if he fails to secure changes he wants. Other EU leaders, with their own electoral timetables, are keen to help Cameron win a vote and end the distraction that the "Brexit" debate has entailed for a Union struggling to cope with other divisive crises, including a refugee influx. Cameron laid out in writing in November and in person at a summit in mid-December demands for EU reforms in four areas. The right to deter migration from other member states by withholding in-work benefits is by far the toughest sell and fraught with legal difficulties. Officials have said simply allowing Britain to deny equal treatment on benefits to EU citizens exercising a fundamental right to work in other countries in Europe is flagrant discrimination in breach of treaty rights. But legal language that could protect Britain from EU court action might gain leaders' support if the overall impact appeared limited. Cameron will discuss the emergency brake proposal over lunch on Friday with Juncker, whose executive institution would have to initiate any such legislation, the sources said. One of the sources close to the negotiations said Cameron was keen to have a Commission proposal issued before the referendum, to demonstrate an urgency to voters for whom immigration is a priority issue. "They're looking for something that will be usable quickly," this source said. "Theyd like to claim what has happened already justifies taking emergency measures. They would like to paint the situation as already dramatic. The devil is in the detail." "RED CARD", EURO ZONE If Cameron and Juncker agree, then a broader draft package could be approved at the dinner with Tusk in London on Sunday. Much of the rest of the package has already been broadly agreed, the sources said. Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, would then circulate written proposals on reform to the other 27 EU governments early next week aiming to settle remaining disagreements over the next two weeks. Among the other elements, the sources said, is a mechanism to allow a group of countries like Britain that do not use the euro currency to raise concerns about any measures taken by the 19-nation euro zone that they regard as discriminating against them. There would then be a special deliberation in the council of all 28 EU finance ministers. However, Britain would not have a veto over euro zone decisions. London has said it does not seek one, but wants to defend the vital interests of its global financial center. The draft as it stands also offers a "red card" for groups of national parliaments to block EU legislation. A legally binding statement by EU leaders would spell out that an EU treaty commitment to the "ever closer union" of peoples does not oblige countries to integrate their political and economic systems any further with the bloc. Negotiators say none of the proposals requires an immediate change in EU treaties but the draft will meet British concerns for a legally binding deal by promising to enshrine the text in any future treaty overhaul. (Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Paul Taylor and Peter Graff) (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday the Zika virus, linked to severe birth defects in thousands of babies in Brazil, is "spreading explosively" and may infect 3 to 4 million people in the Americas, including 1.5 million in Brazil. Here are some facts about the virus and the current outbreak. - The virus is transmitted to people through the bite of infected female Aedes mosquitoes, the same type of mosquito that spreads dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. Efforts to control the spread of the virus include eliminating mosquito breeding sites and taking precautions against mosquito bites such as using insect repellent and mosquito nets. - There is no treatment or vaccine available for Zika infection. People who get Zika virus disease typically have a mild fever, skin rash, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain and fatigue, with symptoms normally lasting for two to seven days. Most people never develop symptoms. U.S. health officials say the United States has two potential vaccine candidates and may begin human clinical trials by the end of 2016, but there will not be a widely available vaccine for several years. - The virus has been linked to a devastating birth defect called microcephaly in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and brains that have not developed properly. The WHO said a direct causal relationship between Zika virus infection and birth defects has not yet been established but is strongly suspected. Local health authorities in Brazil in 2015 observed an increase in babies born with microcephaly at the same time as a Zika outbreak. About 4,000 cases of microcephaly have been reported in Brazil since September. Given an estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms, it can be hard to tell if a pregnant woman has been infected. Research by Brazilian authorities indicates the greatest risk of microcephaly appears to be associated with infection during the first trimester of pregnancy. - The WHO said Zika cases have been reported in 23 countries and territories in the Americas in the current outbreak. Brazil has been the nation most affected. The Pan American Health Organization said Aedes mosquitoes are found in all countries in the Americas except Canada and continental Chile, and the virus will likely reach all countries and territories of the region where Aedes mosquitoes are found. - Zika virus is found in tropical locales with large mosquito populations. Outbreaks of Zika virus disease have been recorded in Africa, the Americas, Southern Asia and Western Pacific. The virus was first identified in Uganda in 1947 in rhesus monkeys and was first identified in people in 1952 in Uganda and Tanzania, according to the WHO. - One case of possible person-to-person sexual transmission has been described but the Pan American Health Organization said more evidence is needed to confirm whether sexual contact is a means of Zika transmission. PAHO said there is currently no evidence the virus can be transmitted to babies through breast milk. PAHO said Zika can be transmitted through blood, but this is an infrequent transmission mechanism. - The WHO says that because no big Zika outbreaks were recorded before 2007, little is known about complications caused by infection. Long-term health consequences remain unclear. It is uncertain whether in pregnant women the virus crosses the placenta and causes microcephaly. During an outbreak of Zika from 2013-2014 in French Polynesia, national health authorities reported an unusual increase in Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare disorder in which the body's immune system attacks part of the nervous system. Health authorities in Brazil have also reported an increase in Guillain-Barre syndrome. Other uncertainties surround the incubation period of the virus and how Zika interacts with other viruses that are transmitted by mosquitoes such as dengue. (Compiled by Will Dunham; Editing by Frances Kerry) (Reuters) - Neos Therapeutics Inc's drug to treat a common type of childhood behavioral disorder was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, making it the first of its kind to win U.S. approval. The drug, Adzenys XR-ODT, is approved for the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in patients aged six and older. The drug is an orally disintegrating tablet and a longer-acting version of amphetamine, a commonly prescribed ADHD drug. ADHD is a condition with symptoms such as poor concentration, hyperactivity and learning difficulties. The disorder affects about 4.1 percent of American adults aged 18 years and older in a given year and 9 percent of children aged 13-18 years, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. The company said product launch and shipments will begin in the second quarter of 2016. The approval is backed by certain data which addresses issues raised by the FDA when it rejected the drug in 2013. RBC Capital analysts said the approval is an important event for Neos on a product where they see an adjusted per-share value of $22 versus the existing equity value of about $10. The Texas-based company, which debuted on July 23, is focused on developing longer-acting treatments, particularly to address the ADHD market. As of Wednesday's close, shares of the company were down 37 pct since its debut. (Reporting by Samantha Kareen Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Sunil Nair) Helsinki (AFP) - Finland expects to expel around 20,000 of the 32,000 asylum seekers it received in 2015, the country's interior ministry said on Thursday. "In principle we speak of about two-thirds, meaning approximately 65 percent of the 32,000 will get a negative decision (to their asylum application)," Paivi Nerg, the ministry's administrative director told AFP. More than 20,000 of the asylum seekers Finland welcomed in 2015 came from Iraq. Nerg said the number of people Finland expected to expel was an estimate and stressed that each application was being evaluated individually. "In previous years around 60 percent (of applicants) received a negative decision but now we have somewhat tightened our criteria for Iraqis, Afghans and Somalis," she explained. In 2015 Finland made it more difficult for migrants from Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia to get asylum, concluding the security situation had eased in certain areas of those countries. Nerg said two charter flights to deport Iraqis were planned within the following months. The deportations were to take place gradually, as immigration authorities process applications. Finland is currently in diplomatic negotiations with neighbouring Russia to stop migrants from entering Finland via the Arctic region. After Norway barred migrants from entering the country on its own Arctic border crossing with Russia in December, the flow of migrants turned towards Finland. Personal Trainer Sharny Kieser ups the multi-tasking anti [Photo: Instagram @sharnyandjulius] Theres a new breastfeeding buzzword on the blockbreastercising! Two weeks after giving birth most mums are in the midst of the newborn fog and feel lucky if they manage to make it out of their pyjamas before dinner, but not Sharny Kieser. The 35-year-old personal trainer sent the twitterati into meltdown earlier this week after she was pictured exercising while breastfeeding her two-week-old son, Magnus. Snapped by her husband, Julius, the mum of six, (yes you read that right, SIX!) shared the photo on Facebook with the hashtag #breastercising. I caught Sharny multitasking today. In public, he wrote. I dont get the whole breastfeeding in public problem, he continued. Its not disgusting at all. If anything it can be awkward when making eye contact. And of course were going to look, its a (straight) male instinct. We will try everything not to, but for a brief split second our eyes trick us and look down. Sharna kept up her exercise regime with her fifth and sixth child [Photo: Instagram @sharnyandjulius] Unsurprisingly, the picture and accompanying quote sparked a huge social media debate. Critics warned that exercising so soon after birth was dangerous, with some going so far as to label her actions disgusting. Others came down on the side of Team Sharny, praising her efforts for both bonding with her baby and looking after herself. A lot of people think its gross or strange or that I should be bonding with Magnus, Sharny, from Queensland, told Daily Mail Australia. 'But I feed six times a day, Im not exercising every time and when I do Im also watching the kids ride around on their scooters and play outside. 'Its not like Im running or leg pressing or doing weights, Im doing squats and lunges as they are the easiest things to do while feedingthen at night we sit quietly and feed. Story continues Sharna during one of her fit pregnancies [Photo: Instagram @sharnyandjulius] Its not the first time Sharny has courted controversy. She exercised throughout both this and her fifth pregnancy describing them as fit pregnancies where women stay active and do what they were doing before they were pregnant but just listening to their bodies. This new found fitspo came after she gained weight during her first four pregnancies, which she describes as her fat pregnancies. After the previous four pregnancies I was overweight and I had this enough is enough moment, Ms Kieser told Daily Mail Australia in July, 2015. 'I looked at myself in the mirror and was like oh my God who has eaten Sharny - I felt like this fat old woman and thats how I saw myself it was all in my head but I just felt miserable. Busy mum of six! Sharny with five of her six children [Photo: Instagram @sharnyandjulius] But just how healthy is pushing your body so soon after giving birth? The NHS website advises that if you had a straight forward birth you can start gentle exercising as soon as you feel ok to do so. These gentle exercises can include walking, stretching and pelvic floor exercises. If youre at all unsure it may be a good idea to wait until after your six-week postnatal check before you start to high impact exercise again. If you exercised regularly before giving birth and you feel fit and well, you might be able to start earlier. Talk to your midwife, health visitor or GP. If your birth was complicated (for example, you had a caesarean section), your recovery time will be longer, so talk to your health visitor or GP before starting anything too strenuous. Do you think breastercising is a good idea? Let us know @YahooStyleUK. Kim Kardashian Talks Breastfeeding Struggles: North Hates It When I Feed The Baby Can Taking Paracetamol While Pregnant Harm Your Babys Fertility? The body positive campaign has gone viral [Photo: Instagram @themollygalbraith] How many times do you take a selfie, then quickly delete it in horror when you catch sight of a wrinkle or wobbly bit? Well, now theres a new internet campaign thats hoping to change all that. In part of a Love Your Body challenge, Fitness instructor, Molly Galbraith is encouraging other fitness professionals to post their not-so-perfect selfies. Stretchmarks, cellulite, lumps and all. The 31-year-old from Lexington, Kentucky, originally launched the challenge in an attempt to change the perception of what a perfect body is and encourage people to love themselves no matter what. 'We want women to know that they are beautiful just as they are, and that if they want to change their bodies, thats fine and completely up to them, she said. 'We want to help them do it from a place of love, and because theyre deserving and worthy of care, not because they are trying to fix themselves.' She added: 'In addition we want to remove the shame of having an 'imperfect body and the idea that a 'perfect body exists, because really, what the heck does a perfect body even look like? 'Cellulite, stretch marks, birthmarks, scars, moles, wrinkles, these are part of every single one of us, and they help us tell our story - there is no reason to hide them or apologise for them. Molly wants people to realise the perfect body doesnt exist [Photo: Instagram @themollygalbraith] Since launching the powerful campaign on her website, GirlGoneStrong.com, Molly has since been inundated with un-retouched pictures of women from around the world. One fit pro who took up the challenge, Danny J, shared two photographs of herself side by side to show how different she looked with her back arched. Another, Jen Comas posted her pictures with the caption. So, cellulite? Who cares! The un-retouched image Molly first shared on Facebook that has gone viral [Photo: Facebook Molly Galbraith] Story continues Its not the first time Molly has flown the flag for imperfect bodies. Earlier this year she shared a blemishes-and-all photo of herself on her Facebook page, alongside an empowering message. This is a body that I spent too much time, energy, and mental space wishing would look differently, she wrote. And today? Today this is a body that is loved, adored, and cherished by the only person whose opinion matters ME. Molly, who has battled with Hashimotos disease and polycystic ovary syndrome, both of which can affect weight, decided to share the picture after getting fed up with being body shamed. She hopes her new body positive campaign, which crashed her site when it first went live, will continue to inspire other women to learn to love their imperfections. Molly we salute you! Would you share an imperfect selfie? Let us know @YahooStyleUK. Can Bikini Selfies Really Help You Lose Weight? Parent Sex Mum Empowers Thousands Of Women to Share Pictures Of Flawed Bodies Los Angeles (AFP) - US officials on Wednesday arrested five people in connection with the escape of three inmates from a southern California prison nearly a week ago. The trio rappelled off a roof using knotted bed sheets when they fled the Orange County Men's Central Jail in Santa Ana on January 22. "We have made around five arrests and we are going to make additional arrests throughout this evening and probably into tomorrow," said Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens. The suspects "have some connection to the individuals who have escaped," she said at a press conference. Police say that one of the fugitives, 20-year-old Jonathan Tieu, who was serving a murder sentence, was a member of a Vietnamese gang. The other men who fled were identified as Hossein Nayeri, 37, who was serving time for kidnapping and torture, and 43-year-old Bac Duong, convicted of attempted murder. Police believe the men are dangerous, likely armed, and possibly being hidden by Vietnamese accomplices. "We are continuing to focus on a Vietnamese gangs," Hutchens said. The sheriff said investigators believe the escapees must have had "outside help" in obtaining cutting tools for the jailbreak. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has offered a reward of $20,000 for information leading to their recapture, and the sheriff's department has also offered $30,000 -- $10,000 for each fugitive.. The three prisoners had apparently accessed the jail's plumbing system, used tools to cut through metal bars and made a rope from bed sheets to escape through the prison roof, officials said. By Michel Rose and John Irish PARIS (Reuters) - France and Iran hailed the sale of Airbus planes and the renewal of a decades-old carmaking venture as symbols of thawing relations on Thursday while protesters in Paris tried to get human rights onto the agenda. President Hassan Rouhani was accompanied on his official visit to Paris, the first by an Iranian president since 1999, by ministers and business leaders who announced deals including a joint venture between carmakers PSA Peugeot Citroen and Iran Khodro and plans for Iran to buy 118 Airbus passenger planes to update its aging fleet. His visit after a stop-off in Rome for more deals follows an agreement between Iran and the west on Iran's nuclear program, allowing the lifting of sanctions this month. The deals were signed at a ceremony attended by Rouhani and French President Francois Hollande. Construction group Bouygues and airport operator ADP are set to build an extension for Tehran airport, while Vinci , another building firm, is lined up to design, build and operate new terminals for the Mashhad and Ispahan airports. French oil company Total said it would buy some 200,000 barrels of Iranian crude from the OPEC producer. There were also deals in shipping, health, agriculture and water provision, all signed despite continued diplomatic tensions. DEALS UNFINISHED, BANKS WARY The Airbus deal alone is worth $27 billion at list prices and French government sources put a 15 billion euro ($16 billion) overall tag on the agreements. But most have yet to be finalised or are subject to conditions. Senior French bankers have expressed wariness. Iran's industry minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh said an agreement between French export-credit group Coface and the Iranian central bank signed this week was an important step in the right direction. But he said French banks must support a corporate push into post-sanctions Iran. "If they don't get active, there will be no increase in business," he warned. For Peugeot, the Iranian factory tie up is critical. When it suspended sales in Iran in 2012 it lost nearly 10 percent of global deliveries and interrupted a relationship dating back more than 50 years. Under Thursday's deal, set to be finalised in the middle of this year, Peugeot and Iran Khodro plan to modernize a factory near Tehran and be producing cars by mid 2017. They target an initial 200,000 vehicles a year making Peugeot 208, 2008 and 301 models with a Peugeot investment of 400 million euros ($436 million) over five years. Away from the signing ceremonies and speeches, an estimated 3,000 people marched through Paris seeking to raise awareness about human rights. A protestor from the Femen womens' activist group dangled in a mock hanging from a bridge with an Iranian flag painted across her naked chest. Human Rights Watch criticized Iran on the death penalty and abuse of rights of women and minorities. It also said the state of emergency declared by Hollande after Islamist militant attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 last year threatens rights to liberty and freedom of movement. (Additional reporting by Tim Hepher, Michel Rose, Bate Felix, Gilles Guillaume and James Regan; Writing by Andrew Callus; Editing by Leigh Thomas and Ruth Pitchford) By Susan Heavey WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An American student detained in Iran who was freed this month under a prisoner swap said on Thursday he was accused of trying to overthrow the Iranian government and held for nearly a month in solitary confinement. Matthew Trevithick, who had traveled to Iran to study Farsi, told CNN that interrogators at Iran's Evin Prison also accused him of having access to millions of dollars and knowledge of secret weapons caches. In his first television interview since his Jan. 16 release, he described his 41-day ordeal, including how he was captured and his treatment and conditions at the prison. Asked what he would tell tourists or students considering travel to Iran, he said: "I wouldnt advise that they go, sadly.... Unfortunately, I dont think the time is ready for you to go.... I would not encourage people to go to Iran." The Massachusetts native had traveled to Iran in September, planning to spend four months at a center affiliated with Tehran University, his family has said. Trevithick told CNN he was finishing his studies and making plans to go home for the Christmas holidays when he was picked up and driven straight to prison. He said he spent 29 days alone before being moved to a cell with other prisoners. A jailer asked if he knew Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post journalist who had been held for more than a year in Iran. "I said of course, the whole world knows Jason Rezaian," he told CNN. "And he said 'Hes never leaving and neither are you.' And thats when you know it starts to hit you ... Im a prisoner." Trevithick was freed with four other Americans being held, including Rezaian, in a swap that came just as the United States and other world powers implemented a nuclear deal with Iran. He told his accusers it would be difficult to overthrow the government with the tools he had: "some Farsi textbooks that Id purchased in Iran, a newspaper, some flashcards and some pens.... They said. 'Well its not our plan, its yours'." Story continues He said interrogators tried to videotape a confession admitting to attempts at overthrowing the Iranian government, but he refused. Since returning, Trevithick went to eat a hamburger with his mother and is looking forward to watching the new Star Wars movie, according to CNN. "It's fantastic to be back," Trevithick said. (Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by James Dalgleish) Paris (AFP) - French carmaker Peugeot will return to Iran in a partnership deal with a local manufacturer worth 400 million euros ($436 million), according to an agreement signed Thursday during Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's visit to France. The deal will see Peugeot work with the manufacturer Iran Khodro, with the first vehicles expected to roll off the production line in 2017. It makes Peugeot the first Western carmaker to announce a return to Iran since sanctions were lifted against the country after it signed a deal to limit its nuclear programme. Peugeot and its French partner Citroen will work with Iran Khodro to produce 200,000 vehicles a year using parts manufactured in Iran. The aim is to produce the Peugeot 208, the 2008 sport utility vehicle and 301 compact models. Peugeot pulled out of Iran in 2012 as Western sanctions imposed over the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme began to bite. At the time, Iran was Peugeot's second-largest market after France. With the lifting of the sanctions, Iran has signed a raft of commercial deals and Rouhani is also expected to tie up an agreement to buy more than 100 passenger jets during his two-day visit to France. The Hague (AFP) - A sea of orange hats flooded a blustery Dutch promenade outside a war crimes court Thursday as supporters of fallen Ivorian strongman Laurent Gbagbo loudly denounced a French plot to "kidnap" their hero. Hundreds from the widespread Ivory Coast diaspora bused in from Paris and Brussels, and even from as far away as Switzerland, in a determined bid to get their message across that the wrong man is on trial for the bloodshed that scarred the nation from 2010 to 2011. "This trial is a disgrace because our president was elected democratically before being expelled from power by arms, by the rebels of Ouattara," said one supporter, 58-year-old Colacicco. He was referring to President Alassane Ouattara who was declared the winner of the November 2010 elections, despite Gbagbo's refusal to acknowledge his defeat and step down. Decked out in the colours of the Ivorian flag, orange, green and white, hundreds of supporters enjoyed a rare sunny day outside the International Criminal Court nestled in the dunes by the sea in the Dutch city of The Hague. Inside the fortress-like building, a relaxed-looking Gbagbo, 70, and his ally, former militia leader Charles Ble Goude, 44, pleaded not guilty to four charges of crimes against humanity including murder, rape and persecution. Police estimated there were some 300 protesters, but organisers put the figure at closer to 1,000. The supporters contend that Gbagbo's arrest in April 2011 and subsequent transfer to the ICC was a plot by the French to get their hands on Ivory Coast's riches. The west African nation had been seen at the time as a bastion of democracy. But when Gbagbo refused to concede defeat, its economic capital Abidjan descended into chaos. It was the French government that "concocted the fall of president Gbagbo," said one protester from Paris who identified himself only as Eric. "Truth will trump the lies," said one of the organisers, Abel Naki, maintaining Gbagbo was "kidnapped and deported." Story continues "This reminds us of the years of slavery and colonisation," he said. Large screens were erected on a stage outside in a bid to allow the protestors to watch the proceedings amid singing, chanting and drum playing. - Heros and lions - Inside the public gallery were 50 supporters who were allowed access. They followed the proceedings intently, tutting and even occasionally booing as yet another allegation was levelled against their champion. When presiding judge Cuno Tarfusser closed for the day they remained glued to the glass windows separating the public gallery from the courtroom as Gbagbo was escorted away. They cheered and applauded their fallen leader, who waved back after earlier in the day having blown kisses -- clearly enjoying the attention after five years behind bars far from his African homeland. Gbagbo's supporters are bitterly angry that Ouattara's camp has not been investigated for an alleged string of abuses during the unrest. "My brother was killed by Ouattara's rebels," says Edwige, 20, from Paris. Ouattara "is the real criminal. He's the one who should be on trial." But chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in her opening statement there was "a vast body of evidence" against the accused, earning hisses and catcalls from the public gallery. Bensouda's statements "are dangerous," Naki told AFP. "It's full of lies and based on nothing else than elements provided by Ouattara." Protester Eric from Paris used an old tale to explain how in his view the victor always gets to write history. "When the story is told by the hunters, the lions are always in the wrong," he said. By Ange Aboa and Joe Bavier MAMA, Ivory Coast (Reuters) - Paul Koudou sat, eyes glued to a tiny television in the Ivory Coast village of Mama, as a court clerk 5,000 km (3,000 miles) away in The Hague read out a list of charges - rape, murder, persecution - against former president Laurent Gbagbo. "It hurts me to see him like that," said Koudou, who looks after the now abandoned residence that Gbagbo owns in his home village, a sprawling 10-room villa still scarred by the bullet holes of a 2011 war that led to the president's downfall. "He didn't do any of the things they're saying. Gbagbo is a man of peace," the 51-year-old lamented, expressing a view of the former leader not universally shared in Ivory Coast. Five years after the civil war that killed 3,000 people, the country has emerged as one of Africa's rising stars, held up by many as a model of successful post-conflict reconstruction. Under President Alassane Ouattara, the economy of the world's top cocoa producer has grown rapidly and stability has returned after a decade of violent political turmoil. However, the start of Gbagbo's trial before the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday for crimes committed during the conflict has exposed deep, persisting divisions. While some Ivorians denounce him as an arch-villain who rejected his 2010 election defeat then murdered his own people, others fete him as an unjustly maligned national hero. "Laurent Gbagbo doesn't belong to a family or a political party," said the president's son Michel Gbagbo, who was arrested with his father in April 2011 by rebels who backed Ouattara and received support from France and U.N. peacekeepers. "He belongs to a country. He belongs to a continent. He's part of the legend of individuals like (slain Congolese independence leader Patrice) Lumumba," he said. Much of polarization of the debate surrounding Gbagbo's trial is rooted in a continuing and fundamental disagreement over what actually happened in late 2010 and early 2011. Gbagbo's supporters say he adhered to the Ivorian constitution throughout the dispute that followed the announcement of U.N.-certified, internationally endorsed results showing he'd lost the election. They claim the ICC trial - the world court's first against a former head of state - can only be fair if the events are placed in the context of what they say were Gbagbo's legitimate efforts to fend off an external aggression. "We know this was a French plot to remove Gbagbo from power. We know he won the election," said Arsene Bolou, a member of the pro-Gbagbo Young Patriots movement who watched the trial's opening at a packed bar in the commercial capital Abidjan. "I WANTED HIM KILLED" ICC prosecutors argue that Gbagbo and his supporters conspired to keep him in power by all means necessary, including violence against civilians, no matter the election's outcome. "If it had been up to me, I wanted him killed the day he was arrested. But God did not grant my wish," said Seydou Barro, a 53-year-old craftsman who was picked up by Gbagbo's security forces during a pro-Ouattara march in December 2010. Gbagbo's men killed at least 45 people at the demonstration, according to the prosecution, which has included the attack among five incidents during which it claims crimes were committed. Barro says he spent eight days in detention, where policemen threatened to execute him as they beat him repeatedly. He is now among the victims formally represented at the trial, which campaigners consider a landmark opportunity to hold a man at the pinnacle of power responsible for the harm he has caused others. "Gbagbo's trial is a cautionary tale for those willing to use whatever means necessary to cling to power," said Param-Preet Singh, senior international justice counsel at Human Rights Watch. Not everyone agrees however that justice is being done in The Hague. Though ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda again promised on Wednesday to step up investigations into all sides in the 2011 conflict, none of Ouattara's own backers, who are also accused of committing massacres, are yet facing indictment. "Was Gbagbo fighting this war against himself? Where are Ouattara's supporters. This isn't justice," said Abdouramane Sangare, who heads the hardline faction of Gbagbo's political party, the Ivorian Popular Front. This perception of one-sided victor's justice has tarnished the ICC in the eyes of many, both in Ivory Coast and elsewhere in Africa, where the court was already under fire from governments accusing it of bias against Africans. Former presidents Joaquim Alberto Chissano of Mozambique and Benin's Nicephore Soglo have called for Gbagbo's liberation, claiming the ICC case has "further aggravated the divisions and animosities between Ivorian citizens". But Mariam Kamagate, who says she was beaten by pro-Gbagbo militia fighters because she bears a Muslim name, said Ivory Coast must reject impunity if it is going to move forward as a united country. "Gbagbo ruined Ivory Coast. Why wouldn't he deserve to face justice? All this blood spilled in Ivory Coast, he has to pay for that blood." (Additional reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly in Abidjan; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Giles Elgood) Dakar (AFP) - The groundbreaking war crimes trial in The Hague on Thursday of former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo has rekindled a bitter row across Africa over the international justice system. With Gbagbo the first ex-head of state hauled into the dock at the world's only permanent war crimes court, some in Africa are lashing out at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for allegedly pursuing Africans alone. The continent, they argue, instead should have its own court. "It leaves me a bit puzzled to see former African leaders dragged before the ICC," Babacar Ba, who heads a judicial forum in Senegal, told AFP. "It's as if we Africans are incompetent to decide the law or lack the resources to judge our own people," added Ba. Instead of trying Gbagbo at the ICC, "we could've set up Extraordinary African Chambers as we did for Hissene Habre,", he said, referring to the special court set up in Dakar by the African Union to try the former Chadian leader. Delayed for years, the first phase of the Habre trial for atrocities wrapped up in December, setting a historic precedent as up until then African leaders had been tried in international courts for such abuse. The Habre trial has set a precedent in the struggle to end impunity as it sees a former African head of state forced to account for his actions in another African nation's court under the principle of "universal competence". UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this month said the Habre trial, along with several cases before the ICC, showed "the surge in accountability mechanisms." "The world is witnessing a sea change in ending impunity for atrocious crimes," Ban added in his New Year message. At stake at the Habre trial that opened last year was Africa's "capacity to judge its own children so others don't do it in its stead", said Marcel Mendy, spokesman for the Extraordinary African Chambers. Story continues - Row over Sudan's Bashir - But Babacar Ba said it was key for African states to follow Senegal's lead and adopt the principle of "universal competence" to enable them to hold such trials. Set up in 2002 as the last resort to try war criminals and perpetrators of genocide never tried at home, the ICC has opened probes involving eight nations, all of them African: Kenya, Ivory Coast, Libya, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Uganda and Mali. African leaders have accused it of acting as the judicial arm of foreign powers. The creation of the ICC "was strongly backed by Africa", which now considers it "no longer a tribunal for all," said Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhamon Ghebreyesus, speaking on behalf of the African Union in November. The ICC prosecutor, herself an African, Fatou Bensouda of Gambia, disagrees. "All the cases we have, with the exception of Kenya, Sudan and Libya, were initiated on the request of African states," she told AFP in November. But the case of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who has been wanted by the ICC since 2009 for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, repeatedly reignites the row, with the African Union publicly opposing his arrest several times on the grounds of his immunity as head of state. At an AU summit in Johannesburg in June 2015, a South African court ordered the government to arrest him -- but authorities allowed him to make a rapid exit from the country, triggering a domestic row. The legal battle to force the government to arrest Bashir was launched by the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC), a non-profit lawyers' group. "It is important for South Africa and other signatories to the Rome Statute to support the ICC," Angela Mudukuti of the SALC told AFP ahead of Gbagbo's trial. "The ICC is the only permanent international justice mechanism mandated to handle egregious crimes. "Most importantly," she added, "victims need justice. "Suspected perpetrators of these crimes need to understand that the long of arm of the law will catch up with them." Gbagbo's trial, said his lawyer Emmanuel Altit, will be "an important trial for Cote d'Ivoire and for Africa." BERLIN (Reuters) - It is unacceptable for German Chancellor Angela Merkel to cut deals on Europe's refugee crisis with French President Francois Hollande and the head of the European Commission without involving Italy, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said. Renzi, whose country is on the frontline of Europe's refugee crisis, has stepped up his criticism of the EU on several fronts as he wrestles with Italy's stubbornly low economic growth after three years of recession. Speaking ahead of a meeting with Merkel in Berlin on Friday, Renzi told Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily he would be delighted if the German chancellor and Hollande could solve all Europe's problems. "But that is generally not the case," he said in an interview published in the paper's Thursday edition. "If we're looking for a joint European strategy to solve the refugee question, it can't be sufficient for Angela to first call Hollande and then EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, and that I learn of the result in the press," he added. More than one million migrants have reached Europe over the past year, many of them fleeing conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Africa and elsewhere. The crisis has strained relations between EU member states and tested their commitment to Europe's open-borders Schengen agreement. Renzi recently rejected calls by Juncker, the head of the bloc's executive, to tone down his criticism of EU policies on migration and also on banking and the budget. In a more positive signal for bilateral relations between Berlin and Rome, Renzi said he supported an idea floated by German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel to cut development aid to north African countries that are not willing to take back citizens whose asylum applications were rejected. "Those that do not do so don't get money from the international community," Renzi said. (Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Gareth Jones) By Julie Steenhuysen and Stephanie Nebehay CHICAGO/GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization will hold a special session on Thursday on the Zika virus as the U.N. agency comes under pressure for quick action against the infection linked to thousands of birth defects in Brazil that is spreading through Latin America and the Caribbean. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan was set to address the agency's executive board in Geneva as countries took new steps on Wednesday to try to stop the mosquito-transmitted virus linked to the dangerous birth defect called microcephaly. The United States said it will block people who have visited regions impacted by the virus from donating blood in a bid to fight its spread. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it is working with other federal agencies, blood collection establishments and industry organizations to quickly implement "donor deferral measures for travelers who have visited affected regions in order to protect the blood supply in the United States." Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said her country must wage war against the Aedes aegypti mosquito that spreads the virus, focusing on getting rid of the insect's breeding grounds. The mosquito thrives in dense tropical cities, and Rousseff called for the elimination of stagnant water spots where it lives and reproduces. U.S. researchers called on the WHO to take swift action. Georgetown University researchers urged Chan to heed the lessons of Ebola and called on the WHO to convene a special emergency session of health and infectious disease experts to consider declaring Zika a serious health crisis that endangers international public health. Just convening the meeting would focus attention on funding and research, they said in an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The WHO's leadership admitted last April to serious missteps in its handling of the Ebola crisis, which was focused mostly on three West African countries and killed more than 10,000 people. Some critics have said the WHO's slow response played a major role in allowing the epidemic to balloon into the worst Ebola outbreak on record. AIRLINES OFFER REFUNDS Airlines are reacting to concern among pregnant women about travel to affected countries. Chile-based LATAM Airlines , Latin America's largest carrier, said it would offer refunds or the opportunity to change destination to pregnant women and their traveling companions with international flights booked to Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and other affected countries. U.S. airline United Airlines expanded its program allowing customers with reserved tickets for travel to impacted regions to postpone their trips or obtain refunds with no penalty. A tropical climate, dense cities, poor sanitation and slipshod construction provided ideal conditions for mosquito breeding grounds and the spread of the Zika virus in Brazil's northeast, across the country and to more than 20 others throughout the Americas. There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is a close cousin of dengue and chikungunya and causes mild fever, rash and red eyes. An estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms, making it difficult for pregnant women to know whether they have been infected. Recent models for how the disease is spreading predict "significant international spread by travelers from Brazil to the rest of the Americas, Europe, and Asia," Dr. Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease expert, and Lawrence Gostin, a global health law expert, wrote in the viewpoint article in the Journal of the American Medical Association. (http://bit.ly/1lSlgXa) Lucey said only Chan had the authority to convene an emergency meeting of top experts on the International Health Regulations' Emergency Committee to consider declaring Zika a "Public Health Emergency of International Concern." "That in my view clearly needs to happen, and should have happened already," Lucey said. Convening the meeting would allow for global coordination of travel advisories, research priorities and infection control measures, he said. There was word of more cases outside the affected region among travelers who had been to those countries. Portugal said five people tested positive after recent trips to Brazil. Four similar cases were reported in New York, as well as single cases in California, Minnesota, Virginia and Arkansas among people who had traveled to the affected region. (Additional reporting by Stephen Eisenhammer in Brazil, Anthony Esposito, Rosalba O'Brien and Felipe Iturrieta in Santiago and Jeffrey Dastin in New York, and Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google is asking for sanctions against Oracle Corp after one of the software developer's lawyers discussed confidential details about the search giant's relationship with Apple Inc at a court hearing earlier this month. Oracle's lawyer disclosed sensitive financial information regarding the relationship along with confidential information about Google's finances, which within days became headline news, Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc, said in a letter on Wednesday to U.S. District Judge William Alsup and U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu. In its letter Google requested permission to file a motion seeking sanctions, for a finding of contempt, and asked that Oracle's lawyer not have further access to its confidential information or confidential information of a third party. The disclosure violated a protective order and led to an article by Bloomberg that "opened the floodgates" to more stories, including by Reuters, regarding the closely held information, the letter said. "The severe potential consequences of public disclosure quickly became reality, particularly given the surprising nature of the disclosure," according to the letter. Oracle was not immediately available to comment on the letter. Citing a transcript of court proceedings related to a copyright lawsuit filed by Oracle against the search giant, Bloomberg reported Google paid Apple $1 billion in 2014 to keep its search bar on the iPhone. Google gives Apple a percentage of revenue generated through the iPhone but details of the tie-up have never been made public. Google's Android operating system has generated revenue of about $31 billion and a profit of $22 billion since its release, Oracle's lawyer said at the hearing. In its lawsuit, Oracle has accused Google of not paying for the use of Java software for Android devices. Oracle is seeking royalties for Google's use of some Java language. Google argues it should be able to use Java without paying a fee. (Reporting by Jim Christie; Editing by Stephen R. Trousdale) Facial recognition technology has come a long way over the past few years and now it looks like Google is working on making it a core part of its smartphones. The Wall Street Journal brings us word that Google is working to build smartphones that have facial recognition technology built right into their hardware that dont have to rely on communicating with remote data centers over the web. MUST SEE: A drone racing league took over the Miami Dolphins stadium to film this insane video Google is working with Movidious, which previously assisted the company with its Project Tango 3D mapping initiative, to develop these experimental new phones. The Journal says that Google is eyeing a bunch of different applications for smartphones that can identify faces and objects in real time, including identifying people to authorize transactions, aiding blind people and translating signs. Heres whats really intriguing: Movidius Chief Executive Remi El-Ouazzane says that smartphones using this technology arent something that will come out way off at some later date. Rather, he says that they will be here in the not-too-distant future. That likely means were going to see this new technology in either this years new Nexus devices or the Nexus devices that will launch in 2017. At any rate, this is definitely something thats worth keeping an eye on. Related stories Amazon has a daring 'Plan B' for stealing Android from Google Today's Google Doodle is a silly game about an ice cream cone battling hot peppers People love using Facebook and Google, but they don't trust either of them More from BGR: Report reveals everything Apple will unveil at its upcoming March event This article was originally published on BGR.com Athens (AFP) - Under fire over its handling of the EU's migration surge, Greece cannot hope to manage the influx unless Brussels and neighbouring Turkey keep their side of the bargain, experts say. The European Commission on Wednesday blasted Greece for "seriously" neglecting its border obligations and gave Athens three months to remedy the problem. A damning EU report researched in November found insufficient registering and fingerprinting of migrants entering Greece from Turkey, the main gateway for refugees fleeing war in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. This came after a succession of eastern EU states this week said Greece was failing to protect the exterior borders of Europe's passport-free Schengen zone, with some threatening to make Bulgaria and Macedonia the cutoff point if Athens is unable to staunch the inflow. "If Greece and Turkey fail to protect the outer border and we are unable to cope with strong migrant pressure, we will have to discuss a plan B," Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said on Tuesday. Austria, Poland and Hungary have voiced similar criticism. The pressure rose further with a senior Belgian official floating the idea of Greece being forced to host hundreds of thousands of migrants as punishment. "The Greeks must suffer the consequences," Theo Francken, secretary of state for migration, told public broadcaster VRT. "Hosting 200-300,000 people in camps on external borders is the sole possibility of halting the flow of refugees in the short-term." Greece has reacted angrily to the criticism, with government spokeswoman Olga Gerovassili accusing EU partners of shifting blame instead of working together to end the continent's worst migration crisis since World War II. "This tactic of diverting responsibility is not an effective response to a problem of historic dimensions, which requires joint action," she said Wednesday, pointing to Turkey as key in resolving the crisis. Story continues - 'A game of bluff' - EU border agency Frontex this week acknowledged that the Aegean Sea, which claims the lives of migrants and their children almost on a daily basis, "is not a field that can be fenced." "A game of bluff among EU states is now in the process of blowing up," says Henri Labayle, a law professor at the University of Pau, France. Though Greece has long failed to meet its obligations, Labayle noted the "complete contradiction" of Athens being forced to axe state jobs under its economic bailout, and then being castigated for not having enough border staff. In the last few months, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, France and non-EU member Norway have all introduced temporary controls over the migrant crisis, but with a limit of six months. Philippe Leclerc, acting representative of the UN refugee agency in Greece, warns that border closures would have serious ramifications for debt-hit Greece. "Over 2,000 people cross (from Greece into Macedonia) on a daily basis," he told AFP. "Should this procedure slow or stop altogether, it would have considerable repercussions on Greece." Countries along the Balkan migrant route last year began restricting entry only to refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. And Macedonia last week began intermittently closing its Greek border, only allowing passage to refugees wishing to go to Germany or Austria. Another change of policy on which nationalities to accept could leave tens of thousands requiring winter shelter, Leclerc adds. "There is great fear (in Europe) and it leads to divisive and unilateral moves by nations," Yannis Mouzalas, Greece's junior migration minister, told Skai TV this week. A former senior member of Doctors of the World, Mouzalas says screening centres known as hotspots would be fully operational on five Greek islands by early March. "Its very difficult to build a hotspot when in the same hotspot every day you have 10,000 immigrants," he said. He has insisted that despite the shortages, identification of migrants has been dutifully carried out for months, enabling Greek police to track the passage of at least two men who took part in November's jihadist attacks in Paris. Mouzalas has repeatedly noted that Greece has received far less in staff and equipment than originally pledged by Europe. "The Greeks in August wanted an additional 1,600 staff. Frontex promised 750, and 300 are currently available," says a European security source. Turkey has taken little action to stop the activities of people smugglers on its coasts whilst also placing obstacles to repatriation of economic migrants. "In recent days Turkey took back 123 migrants and sent over 60,000," Mouzalas told Skai TV on Wednesday. "The Turks only take their own back... They refuse 98 percent of relocation demands," says the European security source. Hackers have successfully compromised more Thai government websites in the latest in a series of cyberattacks launched in response to the controversial December sentencing of two Burmese migrant workers to death. Win Zaw Htun and Zaw Lin, both 22, were convicted of murdering David Miller, 24, and raping then murdering Hannah Witheridge, 23 both British tourists on the Thai island of Koh Tao in September 2014. Social-media accounts linked to the global hacking collective Anonymous have reproduced claims that the two were wrongly convicted. Activists say the Thai police obtained confessions from the two Burmese men by torture, and a local forensic expert has backed claims that DNA evidence used in court was questionable. On Thursday, the Facebook page We Are Anonymous posted a list of "all prison sites of Thailand," which had apparently been hacked. A server status check showed that the main page for the Thai Department of Corrections was down. https://twitter.com/Anons4justice/status/692498394774966272 The Facebook post used the hashtags #BoycottThailand and #KohTao, and also included a thank-you message to the Blink Hacker Group, which took credit for hacking almost 300 Thai court and government websites earlier this month. Paris (AFP) - Iran's President Hassan Rouhani and his French counterpart Francois Hollande hailed a "new relationship" between their countries Thursday as the leader of the Islamic Republic visited Paris to seal a host of post-sanctions deals. A commitment for Tehran to buy 118 Airbus aircraft was the most eye-catching of the deals that also included agreements for carmaker Peugeot to return to Iran and for Total to buy Iranian crude oil. "A new era in our relationship starts today," Hollande said at a press conference with Rouhani. The Iranian president called earlier for both countries to take advantage of the "positive atmosphere" following the lifting of sanctions over the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme. "Let us forget the resentment," Rouhani said. "We are ready to turn the page" and establish a "new relationship", he said. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Iran "can count on France". Rouhani was welcomed to Paris with military honours and national anthems before addressing business leaders. Deals agreed Thursday included a $25 billion (22 billion euros) accord under which Iran will purchase 73 long-haul and 45 medium-haul Airbus passenger planes to update its ageing fleet. The countries signed a memorandum of understanding because the aircraft deal cannot be finalised until sanctions are fully lifted. "The sky has brightened for Iranian passengers, and Airbus is pleased to welcome the return of Iran to the international civil aviation community," said the boss of the European aircraft maker, Fabrice Bregier. Carmaker Peugeot said it will return to the Iranian market in a five-year deal worth 400 million euros ($436 million). Peugeot will produce 200,000 vehicles a year in a joint venture with local manufacturer Iran Khodro, according to a statement. The French carmaker was forced to pull out of Iran in 2012 as sanctions began to bite. Story continues In another bonanza for France, oil giant Total agreed to take between 150,000 and 200,000 barrels of Iranian crude a day. French construction firms will also upgrade Iranian airports. - Human rights reminder - While the French state rolled out the red carpet for Rouhani, hundreds of people held a demonstration in Paris protesting against Iran's human rights record. Speakers noted that around 2,000 people have been executed in Iran since Rouhani came to power three years ago. Maryam Radjavi, president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (CNRI), condemned Rouhani's "facade of moderation" and said he was "implicated in all the atrocities of this regime and as a result should be brought to justice for crimes against humanity". Hollande himself said he had reminded Rouhani that France was "committed to human rights". Rouhani's talks with Hollande also touched on Iran's role in Syria, where Tehran is backing President Bashar al-Assad in a war that has killed 260,000 people. With talks on the conflict due to begin in Geneva hanging in the balance, Hollande called for them to start as soon as possible. "We urgently need to put in place humanitarian measures and negotiate a political transition. It is possible," Hollande said. Earlier, Rouhani referred to Iran's bitter feud with regional rival Saudi Arabia, telling an audience in Paris that "some countries had wanted to use terrorism for their own means". "But this is a hand grenade with the pin removed," he said. Rouhani had begun his European visit in Italy, where he sealed deals for steel and pipelines worth between 15 and 17 billion euros and visited Pope Francis at the Vatican. Rouhani, a 67-year-old former academic and diplomat who is seen as a pragmatist, was elected on a pledge to end sanctions and improve relations with the West. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, said on Thursday he will attend an event for military veterans being organized in Iowa by Republican front-runner Donald Trump, CNN reported. New York businessman Trump, who is involved in a spat with Fox News, has vowed to skip Thursday night's Republican presidential debate hosted by the network and instead has said he will hold an event to benefit military veterans. CNN said Huckabee would participate in the Republican debate first and then go to Trump's event. (Reporting by David Alexander, Tim Ryan and Susan Heavey; Editing by David Gregorio) Dakar (AFP) - Senegal on Thursday hailed the discovery of offshore gas reserves estimated at 450 billion cubic metres as a game changer for the west African nation. US firm Kosmos said its Guembeul-1 exploration well, located in the northern part of the Saint Louis Offshore Profond license area in Senegal, had made a "significant gas discovery." The company said it was a "world class gas resource that extends into both Senegal and Mauritania." "This is the best news possible for our country," said Energy Minister Thierno Alas sane Sall on state television. He said this would allow Senegal "to be self-sufficient in energy and also export gas to the rest of the world." Dallas-based Kosmos Energy has since 2014 had exploration rights off Senegal. The government said it was "the biggest gas reserve in west Africa" in an offshore area shared between Senegal and Mauritania. Kosmos said it had signed agreements with the national oil companies of Senegal and Mauritania to jointly develop the offshore field. The company holds 60 percent of the rights to the field, with Timi Corporation owned by Romanian-born tycoon Frank Timi holding 30 percent and Senegal's Petros en national oil company holding the remaining 10 percent. Veszprem (Hungary) (AFP) - Victims of Hungary's worst ever toxic spill, which killed 10 people and injured 150 in 2010, voiced outrage after the boss of the alumina plant that caused the disaster was cleared of any wrongdoing on Thursday. Zoltan Bakonyi, the former director of the MAL alumina plant in Ajka, and 14 employees were acquitted of charges of negligence, waste management violations and damages to the environment. The public prosecutor's office said it would appeal the verdict. Prosecutors had earlier demanded prison sentences for all those on trial over the disaster, which had sent toxic sludge cascading into villages in western Hungary after the plant's holding reservoir burst its walls on October 4, 2010. But the court said the employees -- which also included several senior managers -- could not be held criminally responsible because the disaster had ostensibly been caused by a "loss of stability in the undersoil". The judgment sparked strong reactions in the packed courtroom in the city of Veszprem, with one man shouting "Outrageous verdict! We will protest!" before being escorted out by a security guard. The man had also unfolded a banner showing pictures of destroyed homes, with the words: "This is all 10 people's lives are worth?" A 54-year-old metalworker who lost his parents in the disaster, shook his head at the ruling, saying he would "never get over what happened". "The body of my father was only found a week after the accident, covered in mud on a football pitch, some five kilometres from his home," Gyula Tokolics told AFP. "I discovered my mother's body in the house. She had just served lunch." - River life wiped out - The catastrophe unfolded on October 4, when the plant's reservoir cracked open after weeks of heavy rain, releasing 1.1 million cubic metres (38.8 million cubic feet) of poisonous, red sludge. The mud -- a caustic byproduct of aluminium extraction -- rushed into the nearby villages of Kolontar, Devecser and Somlovasarhely. Story continues Flows of two metres (over six feet) toppled cars and submerged entire homes, leaving hundreds without homes or livelihood. Many of the survivors suffered horrendous chemical burns. The sludge also wiped out almost all life in nearby rivers and even spread to the Danube. In total, the devastation spread across an area of 40 square kilometres (over 15 square miles). Responding to the disaster, the Hungarian government declared a state of emergency and evacuated around 8,000 people from the area. Over the following months, workers worked tirelessly to remove the mud from the flood plain and doused the area with acid. Authorities also slapped a 135-billion forint (430 million-euro, $470-million) fine on MAL in 2011 and moved to nationalise the plant. Last February, Budapest set up a compensation fund for the victims, with many claims still outstanding. - 'Indelible mark' - But despite vast sums spent on depolluting the region, it still bears traces of the tragedy. Hundreds of hectares of land remain sealed off and cannot be used for cultivation. Having lost their homes and loved ones, dozens of local residents moved elsewhere in the aftermath of the accident. In Devecser, church bells ring every year on the anniversary of the spill. The accident was bound to leave "an indelible mark", the village's then-mayor, Tamas Toldi, had told AFP in 2011. For environmental group Greenpeace, Thursday's ruling does little to help bring closure. "We are not necessarily saying that all 15 were guilty but we very disappointed that more than five years after the disaster there is still no one held responsible," spokesman Gergely Simon told AFP. "If you look at the scientific and technical evidence, we believe it is clear that the disaster was not a natural disaster but was due to human error," he said. "Satellite images show that the walls of the dam were moving, and nobody checked the stability of the dam however between 2000 and 2010." By Thomas Escritt THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The International Criminal Court's prosecutor vowed on Wednesday to "leave no stone unturned" in investigating alleged crimes committed by all sides in Ivory Coast's brief 2010 civil war, including by supporters of President Alassane Ouattara. Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda was speaking a day before Ivory Coast's former president Laurent Gbagbo was due to go on trial in The Hague on charges of unleashing the civil war, in which 3,000 people died, after refusing to accept his election defeat. Gbagbo is the most senior politician to stand trial at the global war crimes tribunal since it was set up 13 years ago. He remains influential at home and his trial could rekindle tensions in Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa grower. However, his supporters and many victims of the 2010 clashes have accused the prosecutors of being selective and of mainly targeting the Gbagbo camp, criticism that Bensouda rejected. Prosecutors ramped up their investigations last year after an increase in funding, Bensouda told reporters, adding she could give no details on the status of the confidential probes. "My office will leave no stone unturned as we move to ensure justice and accountability on all sides," she said. "We started in 2015. We intensified investigations into the pro-Ouattara camp and it is ongoing." Ouattara, who won the election, took office after a military intervention by former colonial power France ended the four-month civil war. KEY TEST FOR ICC The Gbagbo trial is a test for the ICC, seen in much of Africa as a European-backed neo-colonial institution. Its last attempt to try an African president, Kenya's Uhuru Kenyatta, failed amid diplomatic lobbying and allegations of witness intimidation. Gbagbo, 70, and his co-accused, youth leader Charles Ble Goude, 44, face four counts relating to an alleged campaign of rape and murder aimed at hanging onto power. Both men deny the charges, which carry maximum sentences of life imprisonment. Ouattara, who was re-elected last year, is accused by his opponents of using the ICC to silence opposition. Gbagbo and Ble Goude - known as the "general of the streets" - were handed over to The Hague after the ICC issued arrest warrants. During his four years in the ICC's jail in The Hague, Gbagbo worked with a French journalist, Francois Mattei, on a book published last year that depicts his prosecution as punishment for standing up to France. Gbagbo's wife Simone, also wanted by the ICC, was sentenced to 20 years' jail by an Ivory Coast court. The ICC has so far convicted just two little-known Congolese warlords. Gbagbo's trial will be closely watched for evidence that it can successfully tackle higher-profile cases. (Additional reporting by Joe Bavier in Abidjan; Editing by Gareth Jones) Washington (AFP) - Speculation mounted Friday that North Korea is preparing a rocket or long-range missile launch to follow its recent nuclear test, with Japan reportedly ordering its military to shoot down any projectile that threatened its territory. With existing UN Security Council resolutions banning North Korea from the use of ballistic missile technology, any launch would be a further slap in the face of the international community which is struggling to find a united response to the January 6 nuclear test. Following a Japanese report that cited government sources as saying a rocket launch could come as early as next week, two US defence officials confirmed ongoing activity at the North's Sohae satellite complex. "The indications are that they are preparing for some kind of launch," one US official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Could be for a satellite or a space vehicle -- there are a lot of guesses. North Korea does this periodically -- they move things back and forth," the official said. The United States regularly monitors North Korea from space, while Japan began satellite monitoring of the country in 2003. North Korea successfully put a satellite into orbit with its Unha-3 carrier in December 2012. Although Pyongyang insisted it was a purely scientific operation, that launch was condemned by the international community as a disguised ballistic missile test and resulted in a tightening of UN sanctions. - Disguised ICBM test - "Our concern is that when they do a space launch, it happens to be the same components that can be used in an ICBM (inter-continental ballistic missile)," a second US official said. Since early 2013, North Korea has been upgrading the Sohae launch complex to handle larger, longer-range rockets with heavier payloads, but most experts say Pyongyang is still years away from obtaining a credible ICBM capability that could threaten the US mainland. Citing an anonymous government source, Kyodo News in Japan said satellite imagery showed increased movement at Sohae that could suggest a launch as early as next week. Story continues The main launch site also appears to have been covered over -- a precursor for launches in the past. Analysts at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University said the activity at Sohae was low-level, suggesting any launch preparations were in the "early stages." "However, it is important to note that there is a high level of uncertainty about this judgement for a number of reasons and Pyongyang may be further along in its preparations," they added. Other observers have noted that North Korea has yet to issue a maritime shipping alert -- a standard procedure it has adhered to with previous long-range tests. Separate Japanese press reports said Defence Minister Gen Nakatani had ordered the shooting down of any missile seen as threatening Japan. Tokyo had issued a similar destroy order at the time of the 2012 rocket launch. Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said he had discussed the situation in a phone call Friday morning with US Secretary of State John Kerry. "We can't deny the possibility that North Korea will take further provocative action," Kishida told reporters afterwards. - UN sanctions debate - The prospect of a rocket launch comes with intense diplomatic efforts already under way to punish North Korea for its fourth nuclear test. Washington is pushing for a strong UN response, including enhanced sanctions, but China, North Korea's chief diplomatic protector and economic benefactor, is reluctant. Pyongyang said the blast was a miniaturised hydrogen bomb -- a claim dismissed by most experts who say the yield was far too low. A US official quoted by CNN said the latest assessment, following further seismic analysis, suggested the test, while not of a full-fledged thermonuclear device, may have incorporated H-bomb "components" such as a detonator. Kerry met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Wednesday and said they had agreed to mount an "accelerated effort" to resolve their differences over a new UN resolution condemning the test. Kerry, who said nuclear-armed North Korea poses an "overt threat, a declared threat to the world," acknowledged that the two diplomats had not agreed on the "parameters of exactly what (a resolution) would do or say." Athens (AFP) - The International Olympic Committee will "do everything" in its power to keep the Rio 2016 Games safe from the Zika virus, IOC chief Thomas Bach said on Thursday. "We will do everything to ensure the health of the athletes and all the visitors," Bach said during a visit to Athens, adding that a circular on the issue would go out to national Olympic Committees by Friday. Borne by tiger mosquitoes, Zika causes flu-like symptoms and a rash, but it has been linked to a rise in birth defects in Brazil, the country hardest hit by the tropical virus so far. Concerns are growing about the Olympics, which are likely to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors to host city Rio de Janeiro in August. However, Bach stressed that August is winter season in Brazil, something which should help mitigate the problem. "The Olympic Games will take place during the Brazilian winter...so we will also have different climatic conditions," he said. "We are in close contact with the World Health Organisation as well as with the (Games) organising committee and the Brazilian authorities," he added. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has called a South American summit on the issue and regional health ministers are meeting in Uruguay on Tuesday. PARIS (Reuters) - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Thursday that oil prices would not stay low for long as producers restore market balance. "The price of oil is at a low level ... I don't think it will last in the long term ... The pressure on oil-producing nations means balance will be restored in the short term," Rouhani, whose country is the third-largest producer in OPEC, said at the French Institute of International Relations. Pragmatist Rouhani arrived in France on Wednesday on the second leg of a state visit to Europe after three days in Italy. Iran is pushing to boost oil exports now that international sanctions against it have been lifted. Reiterating Iran's official stance, Rouhani blamed Shi'ite Iran's Sunni regional rival Saudi Arabia for the drop in oil prices, which have halved since last May as global supply outstrips demand. Oil futures surged on Wednesday after non-OPEC member Russia indicated there was a possibility of cooperation with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to curb output and thus raise the crude price, currently near $33 a barrel. Nikolai Tokarev, head of Russia's oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, said on Wednesday Russian officials had decided they should talk to Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries about output cuts aimed at bolstering crude prices. But Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said Tehran had not been contacted by Moscow over oil output cuts. "I have not received anything," Zanganeh said at a Franco-Iranian summit in Paris, adding that Iran would sign an agreement with French oil major Total . "We will sign an agreement with Total (this) afternoon," he said, without elaborating. Total declined to comment. (Reporting by John Irish and Bate Felix in Paris; Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Dale Hudson and Jason Neely) MOSCOW (Reuters) - Iran said on Thursday it strongly opposed moves by its regional foe Saudi Arabia to allow "terrorists in a new mask" to sit down for talks between the Syrian government and the opposition. Preparations for Syria peace talks, due in Geneva on Friday, have been beset by difficulties, including a dispute over who should be invited to negotiate with President Bashar al-Assad's government as it claws back territory with help from Russia and Iran. "Terrorists with a new mask should not sit down at a negotiating table with the representatives of the Syrian authorities," Deputy Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told a news conference during a visit to Russia. "This is the most important condition." The Syrian government, aided by Russian air strikes and allied militia including Iranian forces, is gaining ground against rebels in western Syria, this week capturing the town of Sheikh Maskin near the Jordanian border. Amirabdollahian called on Saudi Arabia to stop its actions which he said increased tension in the Middle East. He said that Riyadh was trying to raise its influence at the Geneva talks by including "terrorists" in the opposition lists. "We believe that Saudi Arabia's insistence on including recognizable terrorists ... in one list or another, is certainly not a constructive action on its part," he said. (Reporting by Alexander Winning; Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Lidia Kelly) By John Irish PARIS (Reuters) - The Syrian people must be left to decide their own future, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Thursday, adding that defeating terrorism was Syria's main problem and not who is running the country. On the first official visit to France by an Iranian president since 1999, Rouhani also said Tehran would keep to commitments it made under a nuclear agreement with major powers, but that major powers would also have to keep their end of the bargain. The visit came as global diplomats are trying to arrange the first peace talks in two years to end the Syrian civil war. Shi'ite Muslim Iran is the strongest ally of President Bashar al-Assad, while European countries back his mainly Sunni Muslim opponents, and want the Syrian leader to step aside. "It is up to the Syrian people to make decisions for their country," Rouhani said at a news conference with President Francois Hollande when asked whether he was ready to compromise on the future of Assad. "Today, the problem in Syria is not a question of people, but terrorism, Islamic State and the people who are buying oil from it, the same ones who are giving them weapons and supporting them politically." France took a hard line in the nuclear negotiations, has been outspoken in its condemnation of Iranian support for Assad, and has close ties with Sunni Arab states, so the Paris leg of Rouhani's European trip was lower key than his trip to Italy earlier in the week. While Hollande urged French firms to return to Iran and called for a new era in their relationship, he said it did not mean the countries did not have differences which he said was their joint responsibility to help resolve. "We spoke about everything because that's the rule in France," Hollande said, adding he had reminded Rouhani of "France's attachment to human rights and freedoms." Paris has been a key backer of Syrian opponents to Assad. It has been advising them ahead of the talks with the government in Geneva that had been due to begin on Friday. Hollande said it was urgent to put in place humanitarian measures and also negotiate a political solution. "It is possible ... We must support this discussion," he said. In an interview with France Culture radio, Rouhani appeared pessimistic. "I would be surprised if these negotiations succeeded quickly," he said. "I think the solution must be political, but it's difficult to reach a conclusion in a few weeks or a few meetings. It's too complicated." (Reporting By John Irish; Editing by Andrew Callus/Ruth Pitchford) By Stephen Kalin BESMAYA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S.-led coalition forces training Iraqi soldiers to fight Islamic State are applying lessons from last month's recapture of Ramadi to prepare the army to retake the northern city of Mosul later this year. Iraq's elite counter-terrorism forces pushed the insurgents out of most of Ramadi, in the Euphrates river valley west of the capital, after a six-month siege in which roadside bombs laid as densely as conventional minefields slowed the military's advance to a crawl. Now the army's 72nd infantry brigade is receiving training in combined arms breaching - a mixture of tactics used to overcome such obstacles - as part of a 10-week course at Besmaya, a base south of Baghdad. That will make it the army's best-trained brigade and equip it for a key role in the government's promised offensive to retake Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, from Islamic State. If successful, that would mark the biggest military blow against the jihadists since they seized large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014 and declared an Islamic caliphate, where they have carried out mass rape, beheadings and slaughter. The 72nd will set the standard to which others should be equipped, said U.S. Army Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland, the Baghdad-based head of the anti-Islamic State coalition. "One hundred percent this (training) is based on the lessons that we learned watching the challenges in Ramadi and Tikrit and Sinjar and Baiji where the enemy had obstacle belts," MacFarland told reporters this week, referring to cities retaken from IS in recent months. "It's about breaching obstacles just like we do in conventional maneuvers," he said during a visit to observe a live-fire exercise at Besmaya, where most of the coalition trainers are from Spain and Portugal. Soldiers advancing across the training site in armored vehicles stopped behind an earthen embankment and launched a line of explosive charges to clear bombs planted on the other side. After a large blast sent up a dark plume of smoke, they proceeded with a bulldozer to clear remaining obstacles. Using a mix of machine guns and snipers, the forces attacked a simulated enemy before advancing into an urban combat scenario as Iraqi and coalition commanders watched from observation platforms. They used equipment and arms drawn from a $1.6 billion train-and-equip fund that Washington began delivering last summer. Despite billions of dollars in U.S. aid since the 2003 invasion that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and disbanded his army, Iraq's military collapsed eighteen months ago in the face of Islamic State's lighting advance across Iraq's north and west. The government has since relied heavily on Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias, a small group of elite commandos and support from coalition air strikes to secure Baghdad and southern Shi'ite shrines and then push the insurgents out of key cities like Tikrit and Ramadi. ON-THE-JOB TRAINING Hoping to overcome years of corruption and sectarianism that promoted unqualified officers and wore down the army's ranks, the coalition has trained thousands of Iraqi soldiers and police. "We start almost from scratch with the basic individual skills: how to move, how to protect, how to shoot," said Spanish Army Lieutenant Colonel Pedro Erice, a senior trainer at Besmaya. "The period of time is short. You can't try to reach big objectives." Washington last week said coalition countries needed to step up their contributions, including police and military trainers. But with its ranks worn down by fighting and the demands of a fierce existential war showing no signs of relenting, there are concerns that Iraq's army cannot fit in as much training as it needs. "We've got plenty of trainers here. We could do plenty of training. But of course the Iraqis have still got to fight a war and maintain security, particularly in places like Baghdad," said British Army Brigadier General James Learmont, deputy head of the coalition's land component. "It's always a fine balance between what we can actually get into the training sites and obviously what they need to fight the war." Learmont said he also expected battlefield constraints would make it hard for the brigades to periodically refresh their training. It was not immediately clear where the 72nd Brigade will deploy when its course ends, but banners affixed to vehicles read "Nineveh liberation operations command", referring to the province where Mosul is located. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has vowed to retake Mosul, the largest city under Islamic State control, later this year. Falluja, a militant stronghold about 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, could be the next target before that. "They've finished with us and they've gone straight into the fight in Ramadi," Learmont said of previous training classes. "They will finish here and they'll go into the frontlines. One could classify that as on-the-job training." Asked how well the training was preparing the Iraqis, he said they had acquired "lifesaving skills that will help them to defeat Daesh (IS) but also actually to stay alive themselves". "The proof will be in the pudding," he added. "Once they're out on the ground we'll see how they do." (Reporting by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Mark Trevelyan) BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military has a contingency plan to deal with a potential collapse of Mosul dam in northern Iraq which would be catastrophic, the top U.S. general in Iraq said on Thursday. U.S. Army Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland said Iraqi authorities understood "the potential" for the collapse of the hydroelectric dam, whose foundation requires constant grouting to maintain structural integrity. He said the military was working with the government on a plan to protect Iraqi civilians from the impact of a collapse, which would send a surge of water down the heavily populated Tigris river valley. "The likelihood of the dam collapsing is something we are trying to determine right now ... all we know is when it goes, it's going to go fast and that's bad," MacFarland, head of the U.S.-led coalition bombing Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, told reporters in Baghdad. "If this dam was in the United States, we would have drained the lake behind it. We would have taken that dam out of commission," he added. Islamic State seized Mosul dam in August 2014, raising fears they might blow it up and unleash a wall of water on Mosul and Baghdad that could kill hundreds of thousands. Kurdish Peshmerga fighters recaptured the dam two weeks later with the help of coalition airstrikes and Iraqi government forces. While Islamic State militants are no longer a clear threat to the dam, coalition spokesman U.S. Army Col. Steve Warren said they had stolen equipment and chased away technicians. "There was a steady grouting schedule that had been maintained for a long time. When that stopped, obviously the deterioration of the dam increased accordingly," he said. An Italian company, the Trevi Group, is finalizing a contract with Baghdad to upgrade the 3.6-km (2.2-mile) long dam, which has suffered from structural flaws since it was built in the 1980s. (Reporting by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Alison Williams/Ruth Pitchford) Can you catch it? How? (Photo: Yahoo Health/iStock) You cant turn on a TV or go online right now without seeing the latest update on Zika virus. And, now that the World Health Organization has convened an emergency committee to discuss the explosive spread of the disease, people are, well, freaking out. One big question remains for many: Can the Zika virus be passed on like the flu? Nope, board-certified infectious disease specialist Amesh A. Adalja, M.D., an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, tells Yahoo Health. Zika virus is not contagious person to person in any kind of normal sense, he says. Related: Zika Virus Spreading Explosively Zika is a mosquito-borne disease, meaning its transferred to people from mosquito bites. If a mosquito bites someone with Zika, it takes up the virus, explains Adalja. It then goes on and bites someone else. As part of the process, it then transfers the virus to that person. Zika was previously thought of as a relatively harmless infectious disease, Adalja says, especially since more than 80 percent of people who contract Zika have no symptoms at all (the other 20 percent may experience fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis). Related: Do Pregnant Women in the U.S. Need To Worry About Zika Virus? Zika first made international headlines earlier this month when it was linked to severe brain damage in newborns after nearly 4,000 babies were born in Brazil in the past year with unusually small heads, an incurable condition known as microcephaly. Zika is spreading rapidly throughout the Americas and the Caribbean, and is expected to reach the U.S. by late spring or early summer. The World Health Organization recently predicted that the virus will spread to all but two countries in South, Central, and North America (including the U.S.), and officials in Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador Ecuador, and Jamaica are urging women to hold off on having children. Story continues Related: Sex Might Spread Zika Virus The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also urging pregnant women and those who are trying to become pregnant to avoid traveling to any regions affected by the virus. While Zika is a mosquito-borne illness, research suggests that it may be transferred through sexual contact (via semen) as well. There seems to be one case out there in which a man was infected with Zika while traveling and then gave it to his wife, Adalja says. But that seems to be the only case out there, and its not necessarily the main mechanism of how people are getting infected with this virus. Adalja stresses that pregnant women are really the ones who should be concerned about Zika virus. Other people shouldnt be panicking about it, he says. Its a benign illness for the majority of people. More on the Zika virus on Yahoo Health: Lets keep in touch! Follow Yahoo Health on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. The author, deputy director and acting director of the CIA from 2000 to 2004, teaches at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. When it comes to the intelligence profession, surprise is the ultimate enemy and surprise just happens to be the Islamic States specialty. The IS has delivered one after another with wanton brutality, from dramatic, border-busting early successes to urban conquests and the attacks it has planned or inspired around the world. As much as we should resist mongering fear, it behooves us to imagine what surprises are yet to come and whether the IS could take it up yet another notch. One clue worth pondering comes from U.S. military reports, which show that the IS twice used a chemical agent called sulfur mustard once against Kurdish forces and another time against rival rebel groups in August. Its unclear whether the IS was able to manufacture the agent or whether they grabbed Syrian agent at some point. Were the IS to acquire and use unconventional weapons on a broader scale or branch out into biological agents or nukes, it would, of course, be a real game changer. Counterterrorism specialists have long anticipated some group trying this. There are at least two reasons to worry that the IS would consider this route. First, while it remains strong and still draws recruits, its territorial losses have begun to mount, due to coalition bombing and ground operations by the Kurds in Northern Iraq and Syria and by Iraqi forces operating near Baghdad. These ops havent turned the tide yet, but the IS is probably experiencing at least some jitters, if not outright desperation. Its increased attacks outside the Middle East serve to keep its image of invulnerability, impress potential recruits and divide our resources. A startling new means of attack that produced even greater and more horrible casualties would serve the same purposes and at a much more dramatic level. Another reason for concern stems from the fact that the group operates with fewer restraints than any other terrorists weve encountered since 9/11. Al-Qaida leadership in the middle of the last decade scolded the IS predecessor, al-Qaida in Iraq, for killing too many Muslims. The IS seems to have no qualms about killing Muslims. And when it comes to unconventional weapons, even terrorist groups that have sought them may have hesitated because of the certainty that using such weapons would draw sharper retaliation from the U.S. and others. But the IS seems to want nothing more than to pull us into direct confrontation, on the theory that it could draw coalition blood and hasten the violent final confrontation with infidels that its bizarre theology predicts and seeks. Story continues Syria gas attack H 14720721 A young girl carries the scars from a chemical weapon attack on her home in Syria. Source: Bryan Denton/The New York Times How hard would it be for the IS to obtain what it needs for unconventional weapons? More difficult than its other weaponry but by no means impossible. The IS is wealthier than any previous independent terrorist group, and money talks in the black market for illicit goods. Tons of nuclear explosive material are in the offing, scattered around the world in less-than-secure installations. The International Atomic Energy Agency maintains a database that shows more than 2,000 confirmed reports of illicit trafficking in nuclear and other radioactive materials between 1993 and 2014. Though there are no known instances of actual nuclear weapons missing, intelligence officers are trained to worry about what they dont know. Besides, for the purposes of terror, something short of a complete weapon, such as a dirty bomb radioactive material mixed into conventional explosives would serve the ISs purposes just fine. Counterterrorism specialists have long anticipated some group trying this. And producing biological toxins, scientists say, is also no longer very hard to do given todays technology, the available information online and the accessibility of strain cultures. In fact, an IS laptop captured in 2014 reportedly contained a manual for making biological toxins, including a strain of plague. No one confidently knows why terrorists have not gone down this path (although al-Qaida did try unsuccessfully to make anthrax), unless they are just not as competent as we imagine or they have been hesitant to unleash such horrific devastation. Again, though, the IS brutality weve seen so far suggests that it respects no such boundaries. Such nightmares may fall into the category of black swans events that seem improbable but would be game changers were they to occur. Nonetheless, a possible IS /WMD conjunction deserves urgent policy attention, given the ISs record of stunning tactical surprises. The administration should invigorate its ambitious nonproliferation agenda, inaugurated by President Obama at Prague in 2009 but seemingly pushed lower on the priority list by more immediate and apparent emergencies. At a minimum, the 60-plus countries we say are in an anti-IS coalition must quickly tighten their inventory and control of any dangerous materials they possess. This effort also requires a vigorous, broad-based and candid exchange of intelligence and an international effort to develop mitigation measures that could be carried out jointly if the IS ever goes down this horrific path. Related Articles Jerusalem (AFP) - Israel arrested a Palestinian parliamentarian from the Islamist group Hamas, the army said Thursday, raising the number of detained Palestinian lawmakers to seven. Mohammed Abu Tir was taken to custody on suspicion of being "involved in terrorist activities", an army spokeswoman told AFP. He was arrested in an overnight raid in the east Jerusalem village of Kafr Aqeb, just south of the West Bank city Ramallah. Abu Tir is a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council from east Jerusalem. He was previously held by Israel for a year without charge, eventually being released in 2012. Hamas confirmed on the Twitter account of its armed wing, Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, that Israeli forces "re-kidnap Palestinian Legislative Council member" Abu Tir. Six other members of the 132 member Palestinian Legislative Council are currently detained by Israel, according to the Palestinian human rights organisation Addameer. According to Addameer, three of them are Hamas members, one is from Fatah and two others from the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which Israel considers to be a "terrorist organisation". The Hamas-dominated parliament has not met since the Islamist movement took over the Gaza Strip in June 2007, ousting Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas. By Gabriele Pileri ROME (Reuters) - Italy's parliament began debating a proposal on Thursday to give gay civil partnerships legal status, a bill that faces fierce resistance from the Roman Catholic Church and opposition parties in the only major Western country not to recognize such unions. The bill, which also relates to heterosexual partnerships, would give unmarried couples rights including being allowed to adopt each others' children in some circumstances and to inherit their partners' pensions. Last week, Pope Francis appeared to weigh into the debate, defending traditional marriage as "the family God wants". The debate in the Senate, or upper house, was mainly on technical aspects such as whether the law respected the constitution but supporters hailed it as a step forward after several attempts to introduce such legislation since the 1980s. "For the first time after so many attempts ... a draft law that aims to legislate on gay people's rights is finally being discussed," gay rights group Arcigay's national secretary, Gabriele Piazzoni, said. The rights being considered are far more limited than those given to married heterosexual couples and the bill could be watered down further as debate continues. The Senate is due to vote on it next week and it then moves to the lower house. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi promised such legislation soon after coming to office in 2014, but missed self-imposed deadlines due to staunch opposition from his conservative coalition partners. The European Court of Human Rights condemned the delay last July, but the typically glacial pace of Italian parliamentary process was slowed down even further by thousands of proposed amendments. Most of the attention has been focused on a plan to allow gay people to adopt their civil partners' biological children, under certain circumstances. Opponents fear this would lead to full adoption rights and encourage surrogate motherhood, which is illegal in Italy, or in-vitro fertilization, which is strictly regulated. "Any idiot can see this is a Trojan horse," right-wing politician Giorgia Meloni told reporters on Thursday. "It will let people go abroad, if they are a couple of women they can get medically assisted fertilization ... if they are men they can do that barbaric thing of renting someone's womb." Senator Monica Cirinna, the bill's author, told reporters last week that if the "stepchild adoption" provision is amended out of the law "we will have died in battle". Tens or even hundreds of thousands of opponents of the legislation are expected to rally in Rome on Saturday at a so-called "Family Day". Last weekend thousands marched in almost a hundred cities in support of the bill. (Writing by Isla Binnie; Editing by Louise Ireland) LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Po, the "Kung Fu Panda" of the popular animation franchise, returns to cinema screens for a third adventure -- much to the delight of actor Jack Black, who voices the character. "I love the job. If I could just do animated film all the time, I would, because you wake up at 11, you stroll in your PJs, you lay down some hot tracks for an hour and half, two hours, three hours sometimes," he said in an interview. Actress Kate Hudson added: "But then you see the movie and you don't have to worry about what you look like on screen or what that felt like." "Kung Fu Panda 3", which also stars Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman and Bryan Cranston, hits U.S. cinemas on Friday. - The chief of the world's anti-doping organisation says it could take months before Russia re-establishes a credible anti-doping body. Russia was banned from international competitions by the IAAF in November after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) found evidence of "state-sponsored" doping. The country's anti-doping body RUSADA was declared non-compliant by WADA after it was discovered that positive drug tests had been covered up and samples destroyed. "We are asking Russian authorities to re-establish a new agency with proper people in charge," David Howman, WADA director general, told AFP in an interview on the sidelines of a seminar in Tokyo. "It could take months," Howman said. "I have no idea." AFP Japan's economy minister Akira Amari said Thursday he was stepping down over graft allegations, dealing a major blow to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who faces a key leadership vote later this year. "Considering my responsibility as a member of parliament... my duty as a cabinet member and pride as a politician, I will resign my post as of today," the 66-year-old told a packed Tokyo press briefing, choking back tears. The surprise resignation comes a week after the veteran politician was hit by claims in a weekly magazine that he and his staff had improperly accepted a 12 million yen ($101,000) bribe from a construction firm. On Thursday, Amari -- also a key face in Abe's bid to power the economy, dubbed Abenomics -- rejected claims he pocketed the money. He admitted envelopes filled with cash had arrived at his office, but claimed to have ordered his secretary to deal with some of the money according to political donation rules. Amari added that the company refused to accept the return of some of the donations, while his secretary used about three million yen for "private use", without elaborating. He did not say how much was received in total. "The economy is now on the verge of getting out of deflation after 15 years," Amari said. "We need to enact a package of bills as quickly as we can to bring about a strong economy, and we need to avoid any obstacles to that -- I will not be an exception." Abe has lost three other ministers to political funding scandals since he swept to power in late 2012. Such controversies are not uncommon in Japanese politics where the pork barrel reigns and rules on spending tend to be slightly opaque, barring little except explicit bribery and vote buying. In 2014, two female ministers resigned over allegations that they had misspent money in what opponents insisted was an attempt to buy votes. Last year, farm minister Koya Nishikawa resigned after being accused of accepting illegal political funds. The Daily Beast via TelegramRussias war against Ukraine has taken yet another absurd turn as one of Vladimir Putins most devoted cronies took to social media to demonstrate the epitome of Russian military prowess: his three underage sons haphazardly firing off weapons in Ukraine as they are babysit by a top commander.Akhmat, Eli and Adam got right up to enemy positions and provided cover fire for advancing fighters, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov wrote of his sons, aged 14 to 16. The announcement was accompa Love the article on Gaddaf i Samosa Iyoha Hello from Johannesburg I was amazed to find a website for Africans in Hungary . Looks like you have quite a community there. Here in SA we have some three million Zimbabweans living in exile and not much sign of going home ... but in Hungary??? Hope to meet you on one of my trips to Europe; was in Steirmark Austria near the Hungarian border earlier this month. Every good wish for 2011. Geoff in Jo'burg I'm impressed by ANH work but... Interesting interview... My comment to the interview with his excellency Mr. Adedotun Adenrele Adepoju CDA a.i-- B.Ayo Adams click to read editor's mail We must rise above tribalism & divide & rule of the colonialist who stole & looted our treasure & planted their puppets to lord it over us..they alone can decide on whosoever is performing & the one that is corrupt..but the most corrupt nations are the western countries that plunder the resources of other nations & make them poorer & aid the rulers to steal & keep such ill gotten wealth in their country..yemen,syria etc have killed more than gadhafi but its not A good investment for the west(this is laughable)because oil is not in these countries..when obasanjo annihilated the odi people in rivers state, they looked away because its in their favour & interest..one day!I think from what have been said, the Nigerian embassy here seem to be more concern about its nationals than we are for ourselves. Our complete disregard for the laws of Hungary isn't going to help Nigeria's image or going to promote what the Embassy is trying to showcase. So if the journalists could zoom-in more focus on Nigerians living, working and studying here in Hungary than scrutinizing the embassy and its every move, i think it would be of tremendous help to the embassy serving its nationals better and create more awareness about where we live . Taking the issues of illicit drugs and forged documents as typical examples.. there are so many cases of Nigerians been involved. But i am yet to read of it in e.news. So i think if only you and your journalists could write more about it and follow up on the stories i think it will make our nationals more aware of what to expect. I wouldn't say i am not impressed with your work but you need to be more of a two way street rather than a one way street . Keep up the good work... SylviaHe is an intelligent man. He spoke well on the issues! Thanks to Mr Hakeem Babalola for the interview it contains some expedient information.. By Jeffrey Dastin (Reuters) - Lufthansa , British Airways and JetBlue on Thursday became the latest international carriers to offer rebookings or refunds for tickets to areas affected by the Zika virus, as the World Health Organization expressed concern about the swift spread of the mosquito-borne disease. The virus, which has been linked to birth defects in thousands of babies in Brazil, has provoked concern among travelers holding tickets to affected destinations. The virus is present in more than 20 countries and territories in the Americas, including Mexico, Puerto Rico and Caribbean countries that are popular with U.S. winter vacationers. Lufthansa and British Airways both said they would offer pregnant women the opportunity to change their reservations to another destination or delay travel, although they stopped short of offering complete refunds as several U.S. airlines have. JetBlue, which is offering refunds, so far has seen "no measurable impact" on advance bookings or customer refunds, Marty St. George, JetBlue's executive vice president for commercial and planning, said on an investor call Thursday. Cruise lines and resorts have so far reported little impact from increasing fears about the disease. Still, some cancellations, especially among the main risk group - pregnant women - look inevitable especially as the illness becomes more widely publicized. "We believe there could be a slowdown in bookings during this time of heightened media coverage and general fear until more information is known," airline analyst Helane Becker of Cowen and Co said in a research note on Thursday. However, speaking in terms of the impact of the disease on airlines' performance, she added, "We do not view this virus on the same level as the Ebola outbreak in late 2014 or SARS in 2003 ... We would view a decline in shares as a result of the Zika virus as a buying opportunity." New York-traded airline shares were generally lower, led by a 9.2 percent drop in Panama-based Copa and JetBlue, down 7.4 percent. Several carriers - from United Airlines to Latam - have already offered to refund people planning to travel to regions affected by the virus. American Airlines , the U.S. carrier with the largest network of flights to Latin America and the Caribbean, said on Thursday ticketholders to any Zika-hit area could request a refund, broadening its previous list of eligible destinations. Delta Air Lines announced a similar refund policy Wednesday. Brazil's Gol said it would let pregnant women reschedule flights or receive credit, but would not offer refunds. The World Health Organization warned Thursday that Zika is spreading "explosively" and could affect as many as four million people in the Americas. The virus causes rash, mild fever and red eyes. Some 80 percent of those infected typically do not have symptoms, making it difficult for pregnant women to determine if they have the virus. No vaccine or treatment is available. (Reporting By Jeffrey Dastin in New York; Additional reporting by Rosalba O'Brien in Santiago, Peter Maushagen in Frankfurt and Sarah Young in London; Editing by Frances Kerry) Melbourne (AFP) - Seventh seed Angelique Kerber tamed British hope Johanna Konta to reach the Australian Open final on Thursday, where she will face dominant world number one Serena Williams. The 28-year-old, buoyed by a new-found self-belief inspired by fellow German Steffi Graf, proved too hot to handle for Konta as she won 7-5, 6-2 on Rod Laver Arena. The win puts the left-hander into her first ever Grand Slam final on her 33rd attempt, marking the first time a German has got so far at Melbourne Park since 1996. That year, Anke Huber made the final where she lost to Monica Seles. Graf is the last German champion in Melbourne, winning the last of her four Australian titles in 1994. But Kerber now has a momentous task ahead against a player in awesome form, after defending champion Williams swept past fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska 6-0, 6-4 in the other semi-final. The German, who is guaranteed to return to the world top five, beat two-time champion Victoria Azarenka in the last eight and the task facing Konta, ranked 47, was always a big ask. The Briton, who has risen 100 rankings places in the past year, was on her tournament main draw debut having failed to come through qualifying last season. But her defeat of eighth seed Venus Williams in the opening round gave her a huge boost, and against the odds she kept her run going to become Britain's first female Grand Slam semi-finalist since 1983. Konta was bidding to become the first British woman to reach a Grand Slam final since Virginia Wade at Wimbledon in 1977, and the first in Melbourne since Wade in 1972, but it was not to be. - Error count - Both players were tentative as the first game got underway. Konta felt the early pressure as sloppy errors allowed Kerber to snare three break points, but some beautiful winners saved each one. It was all in vain as Kerber broke for a 1-0 advantage when Konta slammed a forehand into the net on the fourth break point. The experienced German, who had never previously gone past the fourth round in Melbourne, kept her nerve to hold serve and then broke again as Konta struggled to control her dangerous forehand, giving away easy points. Story continues Undeterred, she sharpened up and began pushing Kerber around, and with power and precision returning to her groundstrokes, Konta got a break back to be 1-3 behind. The Briton held serve then hauled herself back into the match in a stellar fightback as she reeled off her third straight game in a row, capitalising as Kerber's focus lapsed. Konta stayed on the attack as her serve started to fire and she surged 4-3 in front. It became a tight contest and went with serve until three unforced errors from the Brit in the 11th game, including a crucial forehand into the net, gave Kerber the vital break and she served to love for the set. With the first set under her belt, Kerber came out for the second set aggressively, hitting hard to grab an early break and pile the pressure on Konta. It then went with serve to 3-1 but Konta was fading fast as she struggled to stay in the match. As the Briton's error count climbed, the German pounced to go 4-1 in front, screaming "C'mon!" as her opponent hit a weak forehand into the net. Sensing victory, she made no mistakes to serve for the match and become the first left-hander to make the final since Seles in 1996. DUBAI (Reuters) - Two journalists and a driver working for the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera Arabic TV channel were freed in Yemen on Thursday, the network said, ten days after they were abducted by gunmen in the war-torn southwestern city of Taiz. The Doha-based channel said in a news report on its website that correspondent Hamdi Al-Bokari, cameraman Abdulaziz Al-Sabri and driver Moneer Al-Sabai were released by their captors, whose identity remains unclear. Fighters loyal to Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi are battling Iran-allied Houthi militia and loyalists of the country's former leader in a war that has raged for nine months and in which some 6,000 people have been killed. Al Jazeera, whose reporting of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings won it millions of viewers in the Middle East, has seen several of its journalists detained and killed in recent years in conflicts across the region. Qatar is a member of the Saudi-led coalition backing Hadi, which is seeking to advance on the capital Sanaa through Taiz from its base in the southern port city of Aden, captured from the Houthis in July. Hadi and his government are based in Yemen's second largest city Aden, where gunmen widely believed to be Islamist militants have assassinated dozens of policemen and security officials in recent months. Dozens of armored vehicles accompanied by troops from the United Arab Emirates arrived in Aden's port on Wednesday, security officials said. "The deployment of the vehicles and soldiers is part of a comprehensive plan to combat the security vacuum and the assassination cells who have been operating in the city," a Yemeni security official said. Representatives of the Saudi-led coalition did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the landing. (Reporting By Noah Browning, Mohammed Ghobari and Mohammed Mukhashaf; editing by John Stonestreet) By Ian Ransom MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Johanna Konta's exhilarating run at the Australian Open was finally halted by Angelique Kerber in the semi-finals on Thursday, but the Briton leaves Melbourne Park "hungry" for more grand slam success. On her main draw debut in Melbourne, the world number 47 became the first British woman into the last four of a grand slam in over 30 years and only the third in Australia in the professional era after Virginia Wade and Sue Barker. On the way, she knocked out Venus Williams and last year's semi-finalist Ekaterina Makarova, so she was philosophical about her 7-5 6-2 loss to German seventh seed Kerber at Rod Laver Arena. "I don't think I missed an opportunity. I played against a better player today who earned her right into a grand slam final," the Sydney-born 24-year-old told reporters. "That's how I view it. She played a really, really good match. That's why she is the winner and I'm not today. "But I'm really taking a lot of positive things from it. I'm really hungry to keep improving and keep enjoying what I'm doing. So that's where I'm at." Konta showed nerves early against Kerber with eight unforced errors in the opening two games and conceded a 3-0 lead. But she hit back to win the next four games and battled hard in a tight first set before the German sprinted away to wrap up the match in 82 minutes. Konta's rise over the last 12 months has been a revelation. Her last trip to Melbourne Park ended at qualifying when she was ranked 147th in the world. The Eastbourne resident plans a full schedule to continue her progression but was not getting bogged down in tangible goals. "I look to be the best I can be. Like I keep saying, I don't look at myself in the mirror and say, 'You're number this in the world'," she said. "That's not how I view my career and my life. I just will go back, keep working hard, keep improving the things that I want to improve and keep enjoying what I'm doing." (Editing by Amlan Chakraborty) South Korea on Thursday clamped down on lax safety protocols at low-cost airlines, warning them to mend their ways or face possible closure. The transport ministry conducted a safety review of the country's six budget carriers this month, after one aircraft was forced to make an emergency return due to an unsealed door. The Boeing 737-800 belonged to Jin Air, a budget airline operated by South Korea's top carrier Korean Air. Last month, a passenger jet belonging to another budget carrier, Jeju Air, plunged 3,000 metres (10,000 feet) due to problems with its on-board air compression system. The ministry concluded Thursday that low cost carriers were making an "inadequate" investment in safety given the exponential growth in traffic over the past decade. The six budget carriers accounted for 59 percent of domestic market share last year, mostly centred on the route between Seoul and the southern resort island of Jeju. "Airlines which fail to ensure passenger safety ... will face closure through cancellation of business licences," the ministry said in a press statement. In the specific cases involving Jin Air and Jeju Air, the ministry said pilots and ground crews who appeared to have ignored basic safety procedures would be suspended for 30 days. The government also plans to suspend the operations of the two airlines for seven days or fine them 600 million won ($496,000), it added. South Korea currently has six licensed budget airlines operating in an increasingly crowded market. The latest addition - approved at the end of last year - is Air Seoul, the second low-cost carrier operated by Korean Air's main rival Asiana. Santiago (AFP) - Two Latin American airlines, including the region's largest, will offer refunds to pregnant women booked for travel to areas infected with the Zika virus, blamed for causing severe birth defects, officials said Thursday. Chilean-Brazilian airline Latam, the region's biggest, will refund or rebook expecting mothers with tickets to any of 22 countries or territories with outbreaks of the mosquito-borne virus, while Chilean company Sky will refund pregnant women with tickets to Brazil, the hardest-hit country. The airlines join US carriers Delta and American Airlines in offering refunds for expecting mothers with flights booked to Latin America, where health officials say Zika is linked to a surge in babies born with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads. Latam will allow pregnant women and their travel companions already in a Zika-infected area to advance their return dates free of charge, while those who have not yet started their trips will be allowed to request a refund or a destination change, paying only the difference in fare, it said Wednesday in a statement. Sky, which flies to Brazil, Argentina and Peru, has adopted a similar policy for clients booked to Brazil, spokesman David Fuentes told AFP Thursday. The announcements came as World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan warned Zika was spreading "explosively" in the Americas and the WHO said the region should expect three million to four million cases of the disease. In Brazil, cases of microcephaly have surged from 163 a year on average to more than 3,718 suspected cases since the outbreak, according to the health ministry. Fears that Zika is causing the potentially fatal birth defect have prompted Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Jamaica and Puerto Rico to warn women not to get pregnant, while the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised pregnant women against traveling to affected countries. Two Latin American airlines, including the region's largest, will offer refunds to pregnant women booked for travel to areas infected with the Zika virus, blamed for causing severe birth defects, officials said Thursday. Chilean-Brazilian airline Latam, the region's biggest, will refund or rebook expecting mothers with tickets to any of 22 countries or territories with outbreaks of the mosquito-borne virus, while Chilean company Sky will refund pregnant women with tickets to Brazil, the hardest-hit country. The airlines join US carriers Delta and American Airlines in offering refunds for expecting mothers with flights booked to Latin America, where health officials say Zika is linked to a surge in babies born with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads. Latam will allow pregnant women and their travel companions already in a Zika-infected area to advance their return dates free of charge, while those who have not yet started their trips will be allowed to request a refund or a destination change, paying only the difference in fare, it said Wednesday in a statement. Sky, which flies to Brazil, Argentina and Peru, has adopted a similar policy for clients booked to Brazil, spokesman David Fuentes told AFP Thursday. The announcements came as World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan warned Zika was spreading "explosively" in the Americas and the WHO said the region should expect three million to four million cases of the disease. In Brazil, cases of microcephaly have surged from 163 a year on average to more than 3,718 suspected cases since the outbreak, according to the health ministry. Fears that Zika is causing the potentially fatal birth defect have prompted Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Jamaica and Puerto Rico to warn women not to get pregnant, while the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised pregnant women against traveling to affected countries. By Lanre Ola MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - At least 12 people were killed on Wednesday when two female suicide bombers blew themselves up in a market in the northern Nigerian town of Chibok where Boko Haram militants abducted more than 200 girls almost two years ago, police and residents said. Boko Haram has been waging a six-year armed campaign in Nigeria's remote north to build an Islamic state. Thousands have been killed and more than two million people displaced by the campaign. There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the attack bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram, which has been using suicide bombers since the army expelled the group from much of the northern territory it had captured previously. "Two veiled girls suspected to be suicide bombers entered Chibok market at about 12.54 pm today," a police official said, asking not to be named. "Afterwards we heard an explosion at the heart of the market and people fled. Some minutes later another blast came just at the edge of the market," he said. The official said he had counted eight bodies at the market, while four others had died on the way to the hospital. Some 15 people were treated in hospital, he added. Musa Pagu and Ishaya Ali, members of a civilian vigilante group that helps maintain order in the area, also said 12 people had been killed. In April 2014, Boko Haram militants raided a Chibok school while girls were taking exams. They loaded 270 of them onto trucks and disappeared, though about 50 escaped soon afterwards. There was a global outcry and threats by Boko Haram to sell the girls. Nigeria's then-president Goodluck Jonathan came under heavy criticism for his government's slow reaction. His successor Muhammadu Buhari, who pledged during his election campaign to end the insurgency, said in December he was open to negotiating with Boko Haram for the return of the girls if credible representatives of the group could be identified. Nigerian troops have recaptured most of Borno state, where Chibok is situated and where the insurgency started, helped by forces from Chad, Niger and Cameroon, who themselves were increasingly being targeted by the militant Islamists. Boko Haram has since reverted to raiding villages for provisions or hitting soft targets such as places of worship and markets. The group operates mainly around Lake Chad, the Sambisa forest reserve and the mountainous region bordering Cameroon. (Reporting by Lanre Ola, Isaac Abraq and Ardo Abdullah; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Gareth Jones) Lee Daniels is set to direct The Apollo Film Project, an authorized documentary chronicling the history of the famed theater in Harlem, White Horse Pictures announced Thursday. Born out of the Harlem Renaissance and established in 1934, the Apollo became the most prized venue on the Chitlin Circuit during the time of racial segregation in the U.S. Over the years, it also became Harlem's answer to Carnegie Hall, showcasing such artists as Aretha Franklin, Nat King Cole, Gladys Knight, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Billie Holiday. And it was a launch pad for numerous musical greats, including Ella Fitzgerald, Jimi Hendrix and the Jackson Five. Today, the Apollo hosts more than 100 performances on its stages annually, including artistic offerings from around the globe, robust education and community programs and shows by some of the most celebrated contemporary artists in the world, such as Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Smokey Robinson, Metallica and Sam Smith. Amateur Night at the Apollo has been running virtually every Wednesday since it premiered in 1934, and to this day it remains a centerpiece of the theaters performance schedule. Daniels, creator of the hit Fox series Empire and whose film credits include Lee Daniels' The Butler, is joining Apollo Theater president-CEO Jonelle Procope in appealing to the public to cull through any memorabilia they might have. Read More: Sundance: Why Nate Parker Chose Fox Searchlight Over Netflix for 'The Birth of a Nation' We are asking members of the community who have been to the Apollo, who may have parents or grandparents or other family members or friends who have done so, to help us find any material audience footage, photographs, or other memories that we can use in our documentary film," the duo said in a statement. "We have established a website for anyone who wants to submit. We will, of course, respect everybodys ownership of their property." Story continues White Horse's Nigel Sinclair is producing the doc alongside White Horse director of features and head of documentaries Jeanne Elfant Festa via her Piper Cub Productions banner. StudioCanal, Universal Music Group which will curate the music and Impact Partners are co-financing the project along with The Chicago Media Project. Impact Partners has financed such documentaries as The Cove and The Hunting Ground. StudioCanal will handle international distribution, while Impact and White Horse will rep domestic rights. I am honored to be entrusted with the story of this incredible American iconic institution and work with this team," said Daniels. "I used to go to the Apollo Theater as a kid and never in a million years would I have imagined I would be back to be doing this it is very special for me." Executive producers include Impact's Dan Cogan and Geralyn Dreyfus and StudioCanal chairman-CEO Didier Lupfer and executive vp Ron Halpern. Daniels will direct from a script by Cassidy Hartmann, Mark Monroe (The Cove) and Shola Lynch (Free Angela and All Political Prisoners). We are so proud to be collaborating with Lee Daniels and the entire production team on this documentary that will further illuminate the Apollos legacy and impact, said Procope. As we continue our work with artists and audiences here in Harlem and around the globe today, we are always looking to our shared legacy as a source for inspiration. Read More: 'Empire' Renewed for Season 3 at Fox By Philip Pullella VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - There have been 13 popes named Leo in the history of the Roman Catholic Church but perhaps none of them was as famous as the Leo who entered the Vatican on Thursday - Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio. DiCaprio, who is known as Leo, was received by Pope Francis, the Vatican said, without giving details. But the one-line announcement was enough to send photographers and television crews scrambling to stake out the Vatican's gates to try to catch him coming out. Footage issued later from Vatican television showed that the audience was connected to their mutual concern about the environment and climate change. DiCaprio, speaking Italian, thanked the pope for receiving him and then, switching to English, gave him a book of paintings by 16th century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch. Pointing to one painting, DiCaprio told the pope it had hung over his bed as a boy and said "through my child's eyes it represented our planet." "It represents to me the promise of the future and enlightenment and it is representational of your view here as well," he said. He later gave the pope a check for an undisclosed sum which appeared to be a donation for papal charities. Last week, the 41-year-old Oscar nominee was honored at the 22nd Annual Crystal Awards held at the World Economic Forum in Davos for his foundation's support of conservation and sustainability projects. The pope wrote a major Catholic Church document known as an encyclical last year in defense of the environment and has often said that time was running out for mankind to save the planet from the potentially devastating effects of global warming. The pope gave DiCaprio a copy of his encyclical and asked the actor to pray for him. (Additional reporting by Eleanor Biles, Editing by Jeremy Gaunt) By Emma Farge DAKAR (Reuters) - Mali's elephants, one of just two remaining desert herds in the world, will be gone in three years unless the government does more to protect them, a conservation group said on Thursday. Poachers have taken advantage of the chaos from a growing Islamist insurgency and other unrest in the lawless north to step up ivory trafficking - a trade that the United Nations says funds militants. Sixteen elephants have been killed so far this month, adding to more than 80 slaughtered in 2015, said Susan Canney, director of Mali Elephant Project for the WILD Foundation. "We have 50 rangers waiting to be deployed but they are held up waiting for official approval and firearms from the government," she told Reuters. "Mali is standing by while the elephants are being slaughtered ... If we continue at this rate, they will all be gone in three years." The last aerial census in 2007 showed 350 animals. The West African country's government could not immediately be reached for comment. The army has deployed some forces to the Gourma region in recent weeks to boost surveillance. Malian tusks are thought to be sold on the black market for up to 3 million CFA Francs ($5,000), according to Canney. The African deserts and savannahs stretching between the Gulf of Guinea and the Nile Basin once held tens of thousands of elephants but poaching and loss of habitat has dramatically cut their numbers. Most now live in small, scattered groups. Namibia is home to the world's only other known desert herd. Separately, police in Gabon this week arrested three men on suspicion of ivory trafficking after a search that lasted for weeks, the Conservation Justice campaign group said on Thursday. The three Gabonese men were caught in Tchibanga with 43 kg (95 lb) of ivory, it added. Last month, Gabon seized around 200 kg of ivory in what may have been its largest catch ever. (Reporting by Emma Farge; Additional reporting by Gerauds Wilfried Obangome in Libreville, Tiemoko Diallo in Bamako and Edward McAllister in Dakar; Editing by Andrew Heavens) By Alisa Tang BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The number of severely malnourished children has spiked in northern Rakhine state in Myanmar, a European Union agency said, after floods six months ago dealt a new blow to an area home to a persecuted population with little access to basic services. About 90 percent of the people in northern Rakhine state are Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority that faces discrimination and violence in mostly Buddhist Myanmar. The government does not recognize them as citizens, and many Rohingya are excluded from healthcare, education and employment. Widespread floods across Myanmar six months ago - caused by torrential rains and Cyclone Komen - destroyed crops, damaged rice paddies and contaminated water sources, worsening food insecurity. The number of severely malnourished children under the age of five newly admitted to a European Commission-backed feeding program in Maungdaw district shot up after the floods to more than 1,500 in October, from 1,200 new admittances in August and 500 in July, a regional official of an EU agency said. "The frequency and diversity of foods they were eating had gone down," the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO)'s regional nutrition coordinator, Roselyn Mullo, said of her meetings with beneficiaries in October. "They had reduced meals from three meals to one meal a day, or they were just eating one type of food. Some were relying just on rice and water." The real number of malnourished children is far higher than the number in the feeding program, Mullo said, noting that new admittances in October were only 38 percent of the 4,100 children under five identified as suffering severe acute malnutrition. An additional 19,200 children under five were moderately malnourished, and these numbers may rise further this year. As their situation is unlikely to change, "a similar caseload of acutely malnourished children or even higher could be anticipated in 2016," Mullo said. Maungdaw is home to 712,300 people, including 137,000 children under the age of five. Children with severe acute malnutrition are very thin for their height - "frail and skeletal" - require urgent treatment to survive, and are nine times more likely to die than well-nourished children, UNICEF says. ECHO supports a 60-day feeding program that gives the children weekly rations of high-calorie, high-nutrient food, and includes weekly body measurements and medical treatment of underlying infections. In 2015, a total of about 14,000 children were admitted to the feeding program, including 10,900 under the age of five. (Reporting by Alisa Tang, editing by Tim Pearce. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, womens rights, corruption and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org/) Paris (AFP) - A man carrying two handguns, ammunition and a Koran was arrested Thursday at a hotel in Disneyland Paris, a police source said. The man was "detected upon his arrival at the hotel on the Disneyland site where he had a reservation. Hotel security found two handguns, a Koran and ammunition on him," the source said. Disneyland Paris said the guns were picked up by routine scanning of the man's bags at the hotel entrance. Police arrested the suspect and secured his vehicle. A police source said preliminary investigations did not point to terrorism, and that the man had said he was carrying the guns because he feared for his safety. They then arrested a woman, believing her to be his girlfriend, but released her after realising they had the wrong person, one of the police sources said. Papers found on the suspect indicated that he lived in Paris, but no further details were given. His girlfriend was still being sought. The scene unfolded at the Art Deco-style New York hotel near the theme park, which is situated about 30 kilometres (18 miles) east of the French capital. "Police were immediately warned and the individual was arrested. We are continuing to work closely with the authorities and the safety of our visitors and employees is our top priority," said a spokesman for Disneyland Paris, Francois Banon, in a statement. Disneyland Paris is the most visited theme park in Europe, with 14.8 million visitors in 2015, according to Euro Disney's annual report. The suspect is the joint manager of a brasserie in Paris's 14th arrondissement, according to a source close to the investigation. Staff and regulars there expressed astonishment at his arrest. "For me it's a mistake," a member of the bar staff told AFP by telephone, adding that the phone had been "ringing every two seconds" since the news. "Honestly, I'm taken aback. It's a joke," added the other co-manager. Story continues France is on high alert after a devastating terror attack on Paris in November saw gunmen and suicide bombers target cafes, a concert venue and the Stade de France national stadium, leaving 130 dead and hundreds injured. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the carnage. It was the second major attack in France in a year, as the country has become a prime target for the jihadist group operating out of Iraq and Syria. In January 2015, three days of terror gripped Paris as a series of attacks left 17 people dead, including an attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. France imposed a three-month state of emergency after the November attacks, which President Francois Hollande hopes to extend for another three months despite fierce opposition from rights activists. (Reuters) - A University of Missouri communications professor who called for "some muscle" to get a student journalist to back off during campus protests in November, was suspended by the school on Wednesday, days after she was charged with misdemeanor assault. The university's board of curators said Melissa Click was suspended with pay pending further investigation and it ordered an investigation to determine promptly whether additional discipline would be appropriate. Click, an assistant professor in the university's communications department, was charged on Monday by the Columbia, Missouri, city attorney. She could not immediately be reached for comment. She can be seen on a student journalist's video calling on protesters during an anti-racism demonstration to remove the reporter and a student photographer from a spot in the school quad that demonstrators had claimed as private space. "Who wants to help me get this reporter out of here?" Click yells on camera. "I need some muscle over here." Click's hand can be seen blocking the video image at least twice. She issued an apology for her actions. The student journalist filed a complaint against Click with university police, whose reports were turned over to the city attorney. Interim Chancellor Hank Foley had said on Monday that Click would not teach classes this week and the university would let the criminal court process run its course. The charge of third-degree assault, a class C misdemeanor, carries a sentence of up to 15 days in jail and a fine of $300. (Reporting by David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Peter Cooney) RABAT (Reuters) - Morocco's king has agreed with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on repatriating illegal migrants to Morocco, the palace said, a move that follows sexual attacks on women in the German city of Cologne blamed mainly on North African men. Germany wants to limit migration from North Africa by declaring Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia "safe countries", which would end their citizens' chance of being granted asylum. The initiative follows outrage over attacks on women in Cologne on New Year's Eve blamed predominantly on North African migrants that sharpened a national debate about the open-door refugee policy adopted by Merkel. "Officials in both countries will immediately step up talks in order to prepare and study the cases of those (Moroccans) irregularly staying in the country (Germany) and repatriate them without delay to Morocco," the palace statement, carried by the state news agency MAP, said late on Wednesday. "The recent flows of illegal migrants, some of them falsely claiming to be refugees, were the result of a humanitarian call ... which was widely exploited by human trafficking organizations operating on both sides of the Mediterranean." The German interior minister will shortly hold talks with his Moroccan counterpart, the statement added. Germany, Europe's most populous country and its largest economy, has borne the brunt of the continent's biggest refugee influx since World War Two. Some 1.1 million asylum seekers arrived in Germany in 2015, most of them fleeing war and poverty in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has said Berlin could cut development aid to countries that are not willing to take back citizens whose asylum applications have been rejected. Around 4.5 million Moroccans live abroad, most of them in Europe, and their annual remittances total about $6 billion. (Reporting By Aziz El Yaakoubi; editing by Patrick Markey and Gareth Jones) Rabat (AFP) - Moroccans will go to the polls on October 7 for the second general election since the king made constitutional reforms in 2011 following Arab Spring protests, the government said Thursday. Campaigning will begin on September 24, Communications Minister Mustapha El-Khalfi told reporters. In 2011, the Justice and Development Party (PJD) became the North African country's first Islamist party to win a national election, and the first to lead a government. The PJD, led by Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane, also performed strongly in last September's regional elections, winning 25.6 percent of 678 council seats. The 2011 reforms included a new constitution curbing most, but not all, of the near-absolute powers of King Mohammed VI, the scion of a monarchy that has ruled the country for more than three centuries. Previously the monarch could choose his prime minister, but he must now appoint someone from the party that wins the most seats in parliament. By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most Americans say they back a plan that would allow certain illegal immigrants to stay in the country, but support for the idea slips when President Barack Obama's name is attached to the question, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll. The results underscore the polarized nature of the debate over how to overhaul immigration laws and how to address the estimated 11 million people living illegally in the country. Congress has been unable to agree on reforms for years. In 2014, Obama bypassed the Republican-controlled Congress to issue an executive order to shield more than 4 million undocumented immigrants from deportation and offer them work permits, but he was blocked by court challenges from Republican-governed states. The Supreme Court is set to rule by the end of June on whether Obama had the power to make the change. The decision will come just weeks before Republicans choose their nominee for November's presidential election. Republican front-runners Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have called for a crackdown on illegal immigration, with Trump promising to build a wall along southern U.S. border with Mexico. But Hispanic voters are an increasingly powerful voting bloc, and the debate over Obama's immigration action could hurt Republican attempts to make inroads into the important demographic. The Reuters/Ipsos poll was taken in the week following the Supreme Court's decision to hear the immigration case. The poll shows 61 percent of Americans support the plan to relax immigration policy for some undocumented people when it is described in general terms without using Obama's name, including 42 percent of Republicans. Half of Republicans opposed the idea. But when the same plan was described as being an executive action taken by Obama, support fell to 54 percent overall, with only 31 percent of Republicans supporting it and 62 percent opposing the measures. For Democrats, 78 percent supported the plan when it was described without using Obama's name, and 80 percent supported it when the president's name was attached to it. The online poll of 1,200 people has a credibility interval of 3.2 percentage points, including 5 percentage points for Democrats and 5.4 percentage points for Republicans. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) Last fall, we learned that a former Google employee named Sanmay Ved had managed to purchase the Google.com domain name for exactly one minute before Google realized what had happened and snatched it back. Google on Thursday revealed exactly how much money it paid to Ved as compensation for his time owning its very valuable domain name. This being Google, you wont be surprised to know that it involves a ridiculously geeky joke. FROM EARLIER: 8 reasons I still cant leave the iPhone and switch to Android You see, Google decided to award Ved by paying him $6,006.13. Why this number? Because in traditional leet (a.k.a., 1337), this spells out Google. Google says it then decided to double this amount when Ved announced that he was going to give his reward away to charity, so Google paid out a grand total of $12,012.26 for its own domain name. Amazingly, Ved managed to buy Google.com from Google Domains last fall for the super-low price of $12 before receiving a cancellation notice roughly a minute after the purchase. Regardless, this was a pretty good little investment on his part, even if he did decide to give all the money away to charity. Before today we had no idea how much his reward was, as he would only confirm that it was very Googley in a LinkedIn post. Related stories Google is working on experimental smartphones that can recognize your face Amazon has a daring 'Plan B' for stealing Android from Google Today's Google Doodle is a silly game about an ice cream cone battling hot peppers More from BGR: 8 reasons I still cant leave the iPhone and switch to Android This article was originally published on BGR.com By Tom Esslemont LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - British airports such as Gatwick are increasingly used as entry points to the European Union by Nigerian trafficking gangs seeking alternatives to perilous Mediterranean Sea crossings, Spanish police have warned. BBC News quoted a crime squad officer in Barcelona as saying his team had bust a notorious Nigerian crime organisation running a network of trafficked prostitutes across the city. But the gang, known as the Supreme Eiye Confraternity (SEC), is also "using forged documents and passports to fly its Nigerian victims into places like Gatwick," Xavier Cortes, head of anti-trafficking at Catalonia police, said in a BBC interview. The word 'Eiye' means 'bird' in Yoruba, the main language of southwestern Nigeria where the group originates, the BBC report said. The Home Office, which oversees immigration controls at UK airports, did not respond to the interview remarks. A record one million migrants arrived in the European Union last year, many reliant on criminal gangs to smuggle them out of conflict-ridden countries like Syria and Afghanistan as well as many African countries. The surge in arrivals has heaped pressure on European police and authorities to break a network of organised crime spanning the continent. The number of people identified as potential victims of human trafficking in Britain rose by 21 percent to 3,309 in 2014, the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) said last year. The nationality of the victims was known in only 2,100 cases of which nearly 9 percent were Nigerian, the agency's data showed. The overall rise in trafficking cases may have been due to improvements in the way police and other professionals spotted signs of the hidden crime, the NCA said. Spanish police officer Cortes said the English-speaking SEC and other Nigerian gangs preferred the British trafficking route, suggesting they may have official help in their home country to obtain forged passports. "These (fake) documents are expensive, though, and need co-operation of people working in the government to get," Cortes was quoted as saying on the BBC's website. In 2014 over 240 million passengers passed through UK airports, according to the Civil Aviation Authority. RAPED AND BEATEN The SEC's victims are often approached by traffickers in Nigerian towns and cities, including Benin City, lured by the promise of making money through prostitution, according to the BBC report, which first aired on Tuesday. But one woman said she had no idea of the pain she would have to endure. "I did not know I would be beaten and raped and have to have sex every night of the week," the victim told the BBC. Another woman, speaking after she was freed by a recent Spanish police raid in Barcelona, said she had been hit over the head with a glass bottle after telling a gang member she could not meet his demand for payment. "I had scars all over my body," she told the BBC. The raid on the SEC in Barcelona mentioned in the BBC report took 18 months of planning and resulted in 23 arrests. But the SEC has hundreds of members running operations out of Ibadan, about 100 km (60 miles) northeast of the Nigerian city of Lagos, the BBC report said. In 2014, 70 percent of nearly 900 Nigerian citizens applying for asylum in Britain had their applications refused, government data shows. Nigeria's government has failed to comply with minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking, though it has made some progress, the UK Home Office (interior ministry) said in a report on the country last year. More than 3,770 migrants and asylum seekers died in 2015 trying to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea, according to the International Organization for Migration. (Reporting By Tom Esslemont, editing by Tim Pearce. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, womens rights, corruption and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org) By Ju-min Park and Jack Kim SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea may be preparing to launch a long-range missile as soon as within a week, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported early on Thursday, citing an unnamed Japanese government official. The official cited signs of possible preparations for a missile launch, based on analysis of satellite imagery of the North's Tongchang-ri missile test site on its west coast. The report came as U.N. Security Council members discuss fresh sanctions against the North after it conducted its fourth nuclear test on January 6. The North is already under sanctions for its nuclear and missile programmes. North Korea last conducted a long-range rocket launch in late 2012, successfully putting into orbit an object it claimed was a communications satellite, in what experts saw as part of an effort to build an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok declined to comment on whether there were pre-launch activities at the site, citing a policy of not discussing intelligence matters. However, he said the North had issued no international warnings on navigation, as it has ahead of previous long-range rocket launches. South Korea's Yonhap news agency cited a government source as saying there had been steady activity at the missile base, with screens set up at key areas, probably to deter spy satellite surveillance. Much of the site's operation is automated and rails are set up to move rocket components quickly for final assembly and launch, Yonhap quoted the source as saying. The site was upgraded last year to accommodate the launch of a longer-range rocket, experts have said. Isolated North Korea says it has a sovereign right to run a space programme and its long-range rockets are built to deliver satellites into space. The North is also seen to be working to miniaturise a nuclear warhead to mount on a missile, but many experts say it is some time away from perfecting the technology. In Beijing, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Wednesday agreed on the need for a significant new U.N. security resolution against the North, but there were few signs of progress. U.S. Navy Admiral Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, said before publication of the Kyodo report that he supported reviewing the possibility of converting a U.S. Aegis missile defense test site in Hawaii into a combat-ready facility to bolster U.S. defenses against ballistic missile attacks, an initiative first reported by Reuters last week. Harris also told reporters after his speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that it made sense to put a mobile missile defense system known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense in South Korea. That decision must be made jointly by the United States and South Korea, he said. North Korea said on Jan. 6 it exploded a hydrogen bomb, although the United States and other governments and experts voiced scepticism that it had made such a technological advance. (Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal in WASHINGTON; Editing by Tony Munroe and Clarence Fernandez) By Siva Govindasamy SINGAPORE (Reuters) - China has built a potent military machine over the past 30 years but is struggling to develop advanced engines that would allow its warplanes to match Western fighters in combat, foreign and Chinese industry sources said. The country's engine technology lags that of United Technologies unit Pratt & Whitney, General Electric and Rolls-Royce , said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. China's Defence Ministry, in a brief statement to Reuters, said there was a "definite gap" between Chinese military technology and some developed countries, adding Beijing would continue to strengthen its armed forces. Western restrictions on arms exports to China prohibit the sale of Western engines for military use, forcing China to rely on homegrown designs or engines Russia has agreed to sell. "Chinese engine-makers face a multitude of problems," said Michael Raska, assistant professor in the Military Transformations Programme at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Among the issues, China's J-20 and J-31 stealth fighters cannot super-cruise, or fly at supersonic speeds like their closest rivals, Lockheed Martin's F-22 and F-35 stealth planes, without using after-burners, said two industry sources who follow Beijing's military programmes closely. After-burners remove a warplane's stealthiness, a capability that allows them to escape radar detection. Even the warplane engine that experts consider to be China's best has reliability issues, said the sources, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. SOUTH CHINA SEA A Chinese military expert, who has knowledge of the government's defence policy but who declined to be identified, said Chinese fighter jets could not perform as well as American warplanes because of inferior engine technology. That puts China at a disadvantage should its warplanes be pitted against U.S. jet fighters or those from security ally Japan in Asia's disputed waters, the industry sources and security experts said. Chinese warplanes are likely to come into increasing contact with U.S. fighters over the South China Sea in the years ahead after Beijing conducted its first test flights this month to one of three island runways it is building in the contested Spratly archipelago, security experts said. In any conflict, China would likely rely on sheer numbers of fighters as well as a growing arsenal of sophisticated missiles that can be launched from warships or land, they added. To be sure, China has made warplane engine development a priority in recent years, sources said. The Shanghai-based Galleon group, which provides consulting services to the aerospace industry, estimates Beijing will spend $300 billion over the next 20 years on civil and military aircraft engine programmes. Some sources said China had hired several foreign engineers and former air force personnel to work on engine development, although this could not be independently confirmed. The Chinese Defence Ministry declined to comment. "In 20 to 30 years time, given the amount of work they have done and the effort they are putting into it, they should have a viable military engine," said Greg Waldron, Asia Managing Editor at Flightglobal, an industry publication. ENGINE MAKERS MERGED China first manufactured warplanes under licence from Russia in the 1950s. Its indigenous fighter jet programme kicked into full swing in the 1980s. The country's best warplane engine is the WS-10A Taihang, made by Shenyang Aeroengine Research Institute, a subsidiary of China's biggest state-owned aerospace and defence company, Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), the sources said. In development since the late 1980s, Chinese state media reports say more than 250 have been fitted to some fourth-generation J-10s and J-11s. But the engines don't produce enough thrust, or power, and need frequent repairs, added the sources. "They are trying to improve the Taihang, but reliability is a major problem," said one source. AVIC did not respond to a request for comment while Shenyang Aeroengine Research Institute could not be reached for comment. In October, state media said three engine makers owned by AVIC would merge into one firm. China will do more to integrate other engine-making firms in the coming years, said a Chinese source in the country's aerospace industry. This would help coordination across civilian and military engine research and development and production, said the source. The Defence Ministry declined to comment. To cover gaps for now, China has fitted Russian engines on many of its warplanes. In November, China held talks with Russian state-owned aircraft engine manufacturer United Engine Corp on the possible joint development and production of military engines at the same time it signed a deal to buy 24 Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets, one of Moscow's most advanced warplanes. The Chinese Defence Ministry declined to comment on the status of the discussions. (Additional reporting by Megha Rajagopalan in Beijing; Editing by Dean Yates) * Cuts 2016 capex estimate by as much as 30 pct * Says to raise $160 mln from 34 mln share offering * Shares fall as much as 15 pct (Adds pricing for the stock offering, analyst comments; updates shares) By Swetha Gopinath Jan 28 (Reuters) - Oasis Petroleum Inc launched a stock offering to partly fund a reduced 2016 capital budget, at a time when oil producers are seeing their cash flows shrink due to a steep plunge in crude oil prices. The company said on Thursday it would sell 34 million shares to raise $160 million, excluding underwriter discounts, commissions and estimated offering expenses. At Wednesday's close of $5.32, the offering would have raised $180.9 million, implying a discount. Oasis Petroleum's shares fell as much as 15 percent to a low of $4.55, as investors focused on the offering's dilutive effect. Assuming that underwriters exercise their option to purchase an additional 5.1 million shares, the offering increases Oasis' share count by about 28 percent. Proceeds from the offering were "unlikely to justify this sort of dilution," analysts at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey wrote in a note. Still, the offering is an indication that some U.S. shale oil producers can tap the capital markets even as highly indebted ones struggle to survive. Pioneer Natural Resources earlier this month raised an unexpected $1.4 billion through a stock offering. "This move allows (Oasis') management to fund its 2016 outspend, defer seeking alternative financing for its Wild Basin project to better days, and improves its leverage metrics and liquidity, providing cushion should oil prices remain depressed," Topeka Capital analyst Gabriele Sorbara said in a note. Oasis, which on Thursday cut its 2016 capex estimate by as much as 30 percent, said its development projects in the Wild Basin portion of North Dakota's Bakken shale formation may be contingent upon securing external funding. The company's plans for the area include crude oil gathering lines, saltwater distribution lines and a gas processing plant. Story continues Oasis plans to spend $385 million-$435 million in 2016 and produce 46,000-50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), compared with 50,477 boepd last year. The company, like Pioneer, has extensive hedges that have helped it keep drilling rigs running and avoid paying some expensive breakup fees that are routine across the industry. About 60 percent of Oasis's oil output has been hedged at an average price of $53.36, the company said. Up to Wednesday's close, the company's shares had more than halved over the past 12 months. (Reporting by Swetha Gopinath in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Sriraj Kalluvila) Washington (AFP) - US President Barack Obama on Thursday announced the establishment of a task force headed by his deputy Joe Biden, to propel the quest to treat and cure cancer. In a presidential memorandum, Obama announced the establishment of the "White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force," which will issue findings about how to better detect, treat and cure the killer disease. Obama previewed the move in his final State of the Union address earlier this month. Each year, around 14 million new cases of cancer are detected around the world, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Much of the US panel's work appears to be designed to cut through the politics and entrenched interests that have sometimes stymied research. A panel will make recommendations on a range of issues ranging from how to more wisely spend federal funding to addressing "unnecessary regulatory barriers." DUBAI (Reuters) - OPEC Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia are willing to cooperate for any action to stabilize the oil market, a senior Gulf OPEC delegate said on Thursday. "OPEC Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia are willing to cooperate," the delegate said. He also said the door is open and all possibilities are there. Earlier, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Saudi Arabia had proposed that oil-producing countries cut oil production by up to 5 percent each in order to support weak oil prices. (Reporting by Rania El Gamal, writing by Alex Lawler; editing by Susan Thomas; editing by) Jerusalem (AFP) - A Palestinian teen stabbed and seriously wounded an Israeli man at a petrol station outside a West Bank settlement before being apprehended, police said Thursday. The 17-year-old Palestinian male from Bir Nabala, a village south of Ramallah, stabbed the ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jew twice in the back near the Givat Zeev settlement on Wednesday night and then fled. Bystanders pursued the stabber, who meanwhile discarded the knife, and subdued him until police arrived at the scene and arrested him, a police statement read. Magen David Adom medics evacuated the Israeli to Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem in serious condition, where he was being treated. The Palestinian was taken to Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem with light wounds. Givat Zeev is a short distance from Beit Horon, where on Monday two Palestinians stabbed an Israeli woman to death and wounded another before being shot dead by a security guard. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the army following Monday's attack to submit a "comprehensive plan" to better ensure the security of settlements. A wave of Palestinian knife, gun and car-ramming attacks since October 1 has killed 25 Israelis, as well as an American and an Eritrean, according to an AFP count. At the same time, 159 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, most while carrying out attacks and others during clashes and demonstrations. Washington (AFP) - The Pentagon on Wednesday said it had selected Lieutenant General John "Mick" Nicholson to lead international forces in Afghanistan, amid a fraught security situation in the war-torn nation. Nicholson would replace General John Campbell, who has been in the role for 18 months. He still needs to be confirmed for the position by the US Senate. "He knows what it means to lead a responsive and nimble force, and how to build the capacity of our partners to respond to immediate and long-term threats and remain adaptable to confront evolving challenges," Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said in a statement. Just over one year ago, the US and NATO-led mission in Afghanistan transitioned into an Afghan operation, with allied nations assisting in training and equipping local forces to tackle Taliban and other groups. Since then, the Taliban have dealt some stinging blows to Afghan forces, including a short-lived takeover of the northern city of Kunduz. Further complicating the fragile security situation is the emergence of Islamic State jihadists in parts of the country. They are trying to establish a base in Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border. President Barack Obama in October announced 9,800 US forces would remain in Afghanistan until the end of 2016 -- backtracking on an earlier pledge to pull all but 1,000 US troops from the country. LIMA (Reuters) - Peru's electoral committee said on Wednesday it might bar a leading presidential candidate from the race if a university in Spain verifies plagiarism allegations against him. Cesar Acuna, a wealthy former governor and businessman who is tied for second place in recent polls, has denied claims that he copied the work of others without attribution in his 2009 doctoral thesis on education. The Complutense University of Madrid opened an inquiry after Twitter users accused Acuna of plagiarism based on several pages of the thesis. "If they withdraw or invalidate his diploma or title, obviously that would mean falsehood ... he would be removed if it's falsehood," said Francisco Tavara, the president of Peru's National Jury of Elections. Acuna, who once boasted at a book fair that he never reads, owns three private universities in Peru and has made improving education a central campaign pledge. In December he told Reuters he believed he was gaining in polls because Peruvians want an honest, hard-working leader. Eliminating Acuna from the presidential race could boost the chances of front-running candidate Keiko Fujimori, who competes with him for key votes from the poor. It could also benefit other lesser-known candidates, hoping to garner enough support to face Fujimori in a runoff. "I deny the accusations and the attempt to use this matter to invalidate my candidacy," Acuna told a news conference where he declined to take questions. "All authors consulted for my work are included as bibliographic references." Peruvians will head to polls on April 10 for the first presidential election since a decade-long mining boom ended. Acuna and other candidates have vowed to bolster weak economic growth and crack down on crime that has risen under President Ollanta Humala. Fujimori, the conservative daughter of jailed ex-president Alberto Fujimori, has been drawing about a third of voter support in recent polls but needs at least 50 percent of ballots to avoid a second-round contest in June. Acuna had 13 percent support in an Ipsos survey this month, matching investor favorite Pedro Pablo Kuczynski who has slipped in recent polls. Popular in part because of his rags-to-riches story, Acuna has shaken off previous setbacks ranging from domestic violence allegations, which he denies, to criticism for putting his children and brother on his party's list of congressional candidates. (Reporting By Mitra Taj; Editing by Alistair Bell and Tom Brown) CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian security has found nothing suspicious on board a passenger plane that was held up for searches at Cairo airport on Thursday afternoon following a bomb threat, security sources said. The EgyptAir plane had been due to depart for Istanbul at 1355 (1155 GMT) but was halted after the threat was passed on to Egyptian authorities by a foreign embassy, the sources said. The passengers were evacuated and the plane isolated while the search was conducted. Security sources said the checks had been completed and nothing suspicious had been found. Egypt is under pressure to bolster airport security after a Russian plane crashed in late October in the Sinai, killing all 224 passengers on board and damaging the country's tourism industry. Egypt has hired global consultancy Control Risks to review security at its airports. The Egyptian-led investigation team says it has found no evidence so far of terrorism or other illegal action linked to the October crash, but Russia said in November that the jet was brought down by a bomb. Islamic State, the militant group that has seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility and said it had smuggled a bomb on board hidden in a soft drink can. (Reporting by Abdel Nasser Abou El Fadhl and Ahmed Mohamed Hassan; Writing by Lin Noueihed; Editing by Andrew Heavens) By David Ingram and Jilian Mincer (Reuters) - An aggressive legal strategy pursued by U.S. women's healthcare provider Planned Parenthood may have been critical in turning the tables on opponents who were seeking to prosecute it in Texas for allegedly profiting from sales of aborted fetal tissue. In a surprise move disclosed on Monday, a grand jury in Harris County not only cleared Planned Parenthood's Gulf Coast affiliate but also indicted the two anti-abortion activists, David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, who had prompted the probe in the first place. They have both been charged with using fake driver's licenses and Daleiden for violating Texas' prohibition on the purchase and sale of human organs - the same law he accused Planned Parenthood of breaking - when he sent an email to Planned Parenthood seeking to buy fetal tissue. Their lawyers say they have done nothing wrong. Planned Parenthood's legal strategy was in some ways similar to how corporations facing major white-collar criminal investigations often cooperate closely with prosecutors to try to influence the outcome. From the start, Planned Parenthood and its Houston lawyer Josh Schaffer settled on a strategy of cooperating with investigators, said Rochelle Tafolla, a spokeswoman for the affiliate. It included volunteering documents and encouraging prosecutors to interview employees, as well as giving prosecutors tours of the Houston facility, according to Schaffer. "We certainly began the process as suspects of a crime, and the tables got turned and we ended up victims of a crime," Schaffer told Reuters in an interview. Schaffer was retained by Planned Parenthood last summer when Texas officials demanded it face a criminal investigation after the anti-abortion activists posted videos online purporting to show the organization's employees discussing the sale of aborted fetal tissue, which is illegal in the United States if done for a profit. The videos produced by Daleiden's Center for Medical Progress were secretly filmed at Planned Parenthood clinics, such as its Houston facility, and including at least one conversation in a restaurant. Planned Parenthood said it has done nothing wrong and commissioned an outside study that said the videos had been deceptively edited. According to Planned Parenthood, officials have cleared it of wrongdoing in 12 U.S. states in the wake of the allegations. STARTED A DIALOGUE Schaffer said very soon after he was hired he began a dialogue with prosecutors in Harris County, which includes much of Houston, about the details of the case, and kept that going throughout. The office of Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson declined an interview request. Anderson said in a statement on Monday: "All the evidence uncovered in the course of this investigation was presented to the grand jury. I respect their decision on this difficult case." A Republican who has been the Houston area's prosecutor since 2013, Anderson last summer pledged a "thorough investigation" and a prosecution to the full extent of the law "should we find that laws were broken." Campaign material from her 2014 race for district attorney described her as a "proud, pro-life Texan mother of two." Although what happened during the grand jury's secret deliberations may never be known, Schaffer said it did not vote on whether to indict Planned Parenthood. That is because the grand jurys focus shifted to a case against the anti-abortion campaigners, Schaffer said on a conference call with reporters, citing information he said he received from a prosecutor. Planned Parenthood said that Daleiden and Merritt used fake driver's licenses in April 2015 when they posed as executives from a fictitious company to secretly film conversations at the Houston facility. That led to the charges they used fake government documents with the intent to defraud. One critical juncture in the case may have occurred when Planned Parenthood gave law enforcement an important tip: Merritt's true name, according to Schaffer. Her identity remained unknown from the time she visited Planned Parenthood with a fake California driver's license until about December when Daleiden revealed it during a deposition as part of a separate civil lawsuit in state court in Los Angeles, Schaffer said. As part of his strategy, Schaffer said he explicitly pushed prosecutors to charge Daleiden and Merritt. "I made the argument regarding the charges that the grand jury returned," Schaffer said in the interview, "but I did not have to make them very forcefully because it was self-evident to the prosecutors that they engaged in this conduct." PROTECTING SOURCES Peter Breen, a lawyer on Daleiden's defense team, said the grand jury misapplied Texas law, indicting the two under an anti-fraud statute meant to be used against identity thieves, not against people trying to uncover wrongdoing. Terry Yates, a Houston lawyer representing Merritt and Daleiden, told reporters the grand jurys indictments are legally and factually insufficient and are not going to hold up under the weight of the law. Daleiden, who says he uses journalistic techniques, could not have cooperated with Texas authorities as extensively as Planned Parenthood without surrendering his rights as an investigator, Breen said. He needed to protect his sources and methods, including Merritts name, and he posted what relevant information he had online, the attorney said. "Numerous law enforcement and legislative bodies across the country have reached out to David," Breen said. "He has done everything he can to cooperate with their investigations." Breen said he did not want to speculate as to why an investigation that began focused on Planned Parenthood suddenly turned on its accusers instead, but he said the district attorney should use her authority to drop the charges. (Reporting by David Ingram and Jilian Mincer in New York; Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin; and Ruthy Munoz in Houston; Editing by Amy Stevens and Martin Howell) LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron welcomes discussion of alternative proposals to his plan to curb welfare payments to European Union migrants but his original proposal remains on the table, his spokesman said on Thursday. The EU is offering Britain a new "emergency brake" rule that could give it the right to deny benefits to new EU workers for up to four years, sources close to the renegotiation of Britain's EU relationship told Reuters earlier. "Over the last few weeks we've seen a number of options put forward in this area. We welcome that, it shows the constructive spirit in which people are engaging in talks," Cameron's spokesman told reporters when asked about the EU's proposal. "These discussions will continue, (there is) still more work to do," he added. Cameron is due to meet European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels on Friday. (Reporting by William James, writing by Kylie MacLellan; editing by Stephen Addison) Jeffrey Rosen Jeffrey Rosen Ask Jeff is back! Listeners submitted their questions about the Constitution to Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, on Facebook, on Twitter, and here on our blog, Constitution Daily. After due consideration, the We the People staff selected the following questions for discussion: Is Senator Ted Cruz eligible for the presidency? Was the Second Amendment intended to protect an individual or collective right to bear arms? Why is Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) significant in terms of substantive due process jurisprudence? Do the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment due process clauses prohibit the government from imposing safety regulations on workers, such as limiting the amount of time that truck drivers can drive in one shift? Do license plate trackers at border crossings constitute unreasonable searches or seizures in violation of the Fourth Amendment? What does Buckley v. Valeo (1976) say, and why does it still matter? What constitutional amendments has Texas Governor Greg Abbott proposed? Download this episode (right click and save) This show was engineered by David Stotz. It was moderated and produced by Nicandro Iannacci. Research was provided by Lana Ulrich, Josh Waimberg, Nicandro Iannacci and Danieli Evans. The host of We the People is Jeffrey Rosen. Get the latest constitutional news, and continue the conversation, on our Facebook page and Twitter feed. We want to know what you think of the podcast! Email us at editor@constitutioncenter.org. Please subscribe to We the People. While youre in the iTunes Store, leave us a rating and reviewit helps other people discover what we do. Please also subscribe to Live at Americas Town Hall, featuring conversations and debates presented at the Center, across from Independence Hall in beautiful Philadelphia. We the People is a member of Slates Panoply network. Check out all of our sibling podcasts at iTunes.com/Panoply. Despite our congressional charter, the National Constitution Center is a private nonprofitwe receive little government support, and we rely on the generosity of people around the country who are inspired by our nonpartisan mission of constitutional debate and education. Please consider becoming a member to support our work, including this podcast. Visit constitutioncenter.org to learn more. Story continues Recent Stories on Constitution Daily Constitution Check: Does the Clean Power Plan violate the Tenth Amendment? Who wins in the Iowa Caucuses? Not always the eventual nominee Supreme Court rules in major Eighth Amendment sentencing case VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis is expected to visit the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz during his visit to Poland in July, the Vatican said. The Vatican spokesman, speaking during the presentation of a book by a 90-year-old Italian Holocaust survivor on Wednesday night, said the visit was "highly probable". Francis will be in the southern Polish city of Krakow in July for an international jamboree of Catholic youth. Auschwitz, which is the German name for the Polish town of Oswiecim where the camp is located, is about 65 km (40.39 miles)from Krakow. Both of Francis' predecessors, Pope Benedict, a German, and Pope John Paul, a Pole, visited Auschwitz during their pontificates. Francis visited Rome's synagogue earlier this month and said the Holocaust, in which some 6 million Jews were killed, should remind everyone of the need for the "maximum vigilance" in the defence of human rights. (Reporting By Philip Pullella Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.) By Liana B. Baker (Reuters) - Frank Quattrone, the Silicon Valley investment banker synonymous with several technology deals, is stepping down as chief executive officer of his boutique advisory firm Qatalyst Partners, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. Quattrone, 60, will become executive chairman and will continue to work with clients. At the same time, it was announced that George Boutros, 55, a former Credit Suisse Group AG banker who joined Qatalyst in 2010, will take on Quattrone's former role as CEO of the firm. A top investment banker in the 1990s, Quattrone took some of the biggest names in technology public, including Amazon.com Inc and Cisco Systems Inc. He worked at Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse before founding his own firm in 2008. "I believe now is the right time to implement a new leadership structure designed to ensure that the firm will continue as the leading independent advisor to the technology industry for the long term," Quattrone said in the statement. The bank also promoted bankers Jason DiLullo and Jonathan Turner as co-presidents of the firm. DiLullo will be in charge of the semiconductor, communications and storage groups while Turner will oversee the consumer technology and software groups. In 2003, Quattrone was accused of obstructing justice after charges related to an investigation of IPO kickbacks. Four years later, after two trials failed to resolve his case, charges were dropped against him. Qatalyst is one of several boutique investment banks, such as Moelis & Co, Evercore Partners and Centerview Partners, that have been encroaching on the investment banking turf of bulge bracket firms such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. In recent months, Qatalyst has been an active adviser on semiconductors deals, one of the busiest areas of technology M&A. It recently served as adviser to Atmel Corp, which agreed to be sold to Microchip Technology Inc earlier this month. Last year, it advised KLA-Tencor on its $10.6 billion sale to Lam Research ,and also advised PMC Sierra on its sale to Microsemi Corp. Overall, Qatalyst has worked on 90 transaction totaling more than $165 billion in the past eight years. Qatalyst also said on Wednesday that bankers Marcie Vu and James Kim will lead the consumer technology group, and Adam Howell will lead the semiconductor group. Adam Holt will stay in his role as head of the software group, and Nadir Shaikh will lead the communications and Storage Group. (Reporting by Liana B. Baker in New York; Editing by Diane Craft) Santiago (AFP) - A rare falcon egg stolen from its nest in Chile to be trafficked to Dubai for tens of thousands of dollars survived and hatched a chick, but three others failed to make it. The surviving baby albino peregrine falcon, a species native to the Patagonia region at the southern tip of South America, nearly ended up being smuggled to the other side of the world in the UAE by a confessed wildlife trafficker. But an anonymous caller tipped off Chilean authorities that Jeffrey Lendrum, an Irishman previously convicted of trying to smuggle peregrine falcon eggs out of Britain, was on the continent and preparing to strike again. Swooping into action, the Chileans alerted their Brazilian counterparts, who arrested Lendrum at Sao Paulo airport with an incubator containing four albino peregrine falcon eggs. Officials estimate the eggs would fetch $80,000 in total on the black market. Lendrum, who was sentenced to four and a half years in prison, may have planned to incubate them until they hatched to sell the chicks to falconry enthusiasts. Peregrine falcons are the fastest bird species in the world, capable of reaching speeds of up to 385 kilometers (240 miles) per hour as they plunge toward their prey. They are found throughout the world, but only Patagonia has the rare albino species, which owes its distinct white plumage to a genetic mutation. Chile launched a tricky operation to save the four unborn chicks. "The idea was to repatriate them quickly, before they were born, to avoid the human imprint -- so they wouldn't see a human as their mother, protector or food provider," said Rafael Asenjo of Chile's Agriculture and Livestock Service. In the end, only one chick survived. It was taken to a nursery for birds of prey in the capital Santiago, where it was placed in the nest of two peregrine falcons until it was old enough to survive in the wild. After about three weeks, authorities returned it to Patagonia. Two rock climbers scaled a cliff face to place the chick in an existing nest perched 30 meters (100 feet) high. "The mother came back to the nest, fed the chick and covered it with her wings, which is a sign that she has accepted it in the nest," said Asenjo. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Raytheon Co's international sales hit a record 31 percent of overall revenues in 2015 and should be roughly in the same range in 2016, Chief Financial Officer Toby O'Brien told Reuters. O'Brien said Raytheon sees continued international demand for missiles and missile defense equipment. He said Raytheon still expected to book an order from Qatar for an early warning radar valued at nearly $1 billion in 2016. Raytheon was continuing to look at smaller acquisitions for both its commercial and defense business as it integrated the Forcepoint cyber acquisition last year, O'Brien said. He said the company had no plans for any larger acquisitions at the moment. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal) The Pentagon is considering military action in Libya to counter the growing threat of ISIS, ramping up speculation that the administration could soon open up a third front against the terror group. We're looking at military options, a range of other options as a government that we can engage in to try to be prepared, in the event that ISIL in Libya becomes more of a threat than it is even today, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook told reporters during a Wednesday briefing. Related: Here's Why the 'Successful' Bombing Campaign Against ISIS Is Failing He said a small group of military personnel are on the ground in the North Africa country right now to simply get a better sense of who the players are, who might be worthy of U.S. support and support from some of our partners going forward in the fight against [ISIS]. U.S. officials are extremely worried about the metastasis of ISIL to other locations, Libya being just one of those locations, Cook added, using the other common acronym for the extremist network. Libya has essentially been split in two for the last year, with competing governments in the east and west. A United Nations-backed plan to bring the two sides together to form a coalition was rejected by Libyan lawmakers earlier this week. An estimated 3,000 Islamic extremists have taken advantage of the discord, carrying out brazen attacks on the countrys oil infrastructure and seizing large swaths of territory, reminiscent of the groups march across Iraq in 2014. Related: ISIS Is Working on a Surface-to-Air Missile: Report The possibility of opening another front against ISIS is likely to illicit groans from a war-fatigued American public and contempt for the Obama administration from the Republican-controlled Congress, which has long maintained that the president isnt doing enough to eradicate jihadist forces. A military foray of any kind into Libya could also create headaches for Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton who was President Obamas Secretary of State when an air campaign helped topple dictator Muammar Gaddafi roughly five years ago. Story continues Clinton has been challenged about her decision regarding the terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador that took place just over a year after Gaddafis death. A call for military might no doubt would raise fresh questions about Clintons contributions to a policy that now lies in tatters, especially since she has gone out of her way to wed herself to Obamas policies. Related: The Most Corrupt Countries in the World Include Iraq, Afghanistan Any decision holds major implications for Obamas legacy, too. He campaigned on ending Americas wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but with less than a year left in his term there are 3,700 U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq and roughly 10,000 in Afghanistan who likely will be stationed there long after Obama has left the Oval Office. A battle against ISIS in another country would seriously damage Obamas unstated goal of being remembered as a peacemaker-in-chief. Cooks remarks add to a steady drumbeat of Pentagon officials who have said that action is not only likely, but possibly imminent. Last week Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Gen. Joseph Dunford told reporters traveling with him in Europe that the president could make a decision about Libya in weeks, according to The New York Times. In separate comments, Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Special Operations Command chief Gen. Joseph Votel also expressed deep concerns about Libya. Libya will continue to be a challenge in the year to come, illustrating the new reality where small organizations wield undeserved power, Carter said during a speech in France. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: If you haven't realized it already, there are a lot of moving parts when it comes to selling a home. Not paying close enough attention to any one of them could easily extend the time it takes to sell your house and even decrease your final sale price. You could choose to go it alone, but more often than not, you'll enlist the help of a real estate agent to help you navigate the marketing, contract and closing process. But when it comes to hiring a contractor for fixes you need to make, a home stager to make your rooms look attractive, a photographer for listing photos and finding your next home to purchase, it can be more than a two-person job. That's where the team comes in. Real estate agent teams typically consist of agents who work together on listings to provide increased services to clients. An agent team can be two people or 10, and it's most often associated with brokerage firms that have a large number of agents and multiple locations. Alecia Scott, the lead agent for Scott Team International with Long & Foster Rockville Centre in Maryland, says her team puts equal focus on all its listings, since members can balance the workload throughout the group. "Whether it's a $100,000 property or a million-dollar property, it all gets the same exposure with our [marketing] system," Scott says. It can take "a team effort to get a home sold," says Eleonora Srugo, a licensed real estate saleswoman and partner on the SLS Team at Douglas Elliman in New York City. "Everyone's objective is the same -- it's to get the home sold fast; it's to get the home sold at the highest price point; it's to fulfill our fiduciary obligation to our client," Srugo says. The SLS Team not only works with individual homeowners, but real estate developers as well. It can also take on the task of selling 100 units in a single building. Particularly for those bigger projects, a team offers more creativity and a support system, says Michael Lorber, a license associate real estate broker and partner on the SLS Team. "You want to bounce things off your partners and your team," Lorber says. "There are things that do slip through the cracks, and that's why you have a team." Story continues The variety of roles can differ between teams, and they often depend on the number of members, but you'll often work closely with at least a few people as you prepare your house to go on the market. U.S. News talked with members of the SLS Team from Douglas Elliman in New York City who explained who does what on a real estate team: The lead agent. Typically the most seasoned of the group, the lead agent serves as the face of the team and often meets with the seller in initial meetings to determine his or her needs, as well as the needs of the home. The SLS Team has three partners leading the group -- Srugo, Lorber and licensed saleswoman Maria Velazquez -- one of which is always present in the initial meetings and professional photo sessions and writes the copy for all marketing. Velazquez notes the size of the SLS Team not only allows her to offer her expertise to other agents, but she benefits from the other leaders on the team. "It's very important to rely on the other members' knowledge and experience -- we all have different niches," she says. The licensed salesperson. A team will often have more than one junior real estate agent who will be instrumental in showing your home, providing marketing assistance and, when an offer is made, serving as a guide through the contract and closing process. Licensed salesman Alexander Boriskin is one of three in this role on the SLS Team. He says working with a team makes it possible to show a home whenever an interested buyer calls. "Since we're such a large team, we're able to accommodate every showing so no one's ever turned away, and we never have to reschedule," Boriskin says, adding that "if you try to reschedule, you could potentially lose the buyer." The office manager. With a lot of balls in the air for one listing, let alone all the listings a single team tackles at any given time, you'll typically find someone in the office manager or administrative role to make sure everything runs smoothly. Sarah Orenstein, the director of operations for the SLS Team, explains she touches different areas of the home selling and buying process through the support work she provides. "I get exposed to all different aspects of the industry -- to the marketing, to the photography, to writing the listing descriptions, to doing some showings," she says. Depending on the team you work with, there could be a variety of members in other staff roles that play a part in the sale of your home. Miles Murphy, vice president of sales at Mark Spain Real Estate in Alpharetta, Georgia, explains his team is comprised of roughly 80 people, most of which are real estate agents, with about 20 staff members who work in departments, including photography, accounting and marketing, though clients primarily interact with their agent and a client concierge, who provides the administrative support needed to organize everything else. Other roles. Scott says she has incorporated home staging into her team's services, along with managing contractors for renovations before selling, because it helps alleviate stress for the client. "We actually have our own inventory of staging furniture -- that's something that we do as a value-added service to our clients, rather than have them pay additional money to outside staging services," Scott says. Regardless of whether you choose to work with one agent, a small team or an entire army of agents, the relationship between the professional and the client is invaluable in making the home selling process a success. Murphy stresses the team's goal is not only to provide an array of services to clients, but to foster a close relationship and make home sellers confident in the deal they make. "You have to walk that fine line between feeling like you're just a number," he says, "and having a direct relationship with one person who's going to help you reach your goals." Miranda Otto joins "Straight Outta Compton" star Corey Hawkins in the Fox reboot of "24: Legacy." According to Variety, the Australian actress, seen in season 5 of US TV series "Homeland," will play Rebecca Ingram, the former head of the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU). Now married to a US senator, Rebecca has second thoughts about having left the agency. The reboot will star an all-new cast, with Kiefer Sutherland not returning. In "24: Legacy," Hawkins plays the role of Eric Carter, who escapes a troubled past and becomes a military hero. But back in the US, his former life comes back to haunt him, ensnaring him in a fight for his life and potentially be one of the largest-scale terror attacks on American soil. The series is expected to land a 13-episode order. Jerusalem (AFP) - The life of imprisoned Palestinian journalist Mohammed al-Qiq is in danger from his 64-day-old hunger strike, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Thursday. "Mr. Qiq has been on hunger strike for more than 60 days and has entered a critical stage, his life being at risk," the ICRC said in a statement. It called for his Israeli captors and Qiq himself "to find a solution that will avoid any loss of life." The European Union on Wednesday said it was "especially concerned" about his deteriorating health. Qiq, a 33-year-old father of two and a correspondent for Saudi Arabia's Almajd TV network, was arrested on November 21 at his home in the West Bank city of Ramallah. He is being held under Israel's controversial administrative detention law, which allows the state to hold suspects for renewable six-month periods without trial. He has been refusing food since November 25 in protest against the "torture and ill treatment that he was subjected to during interrogation", according to Addameer, a Palestinian human rights organisation. He has appealed against his internment but Israel's Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to order his release although it said it would follow his health on a daily basis. Shin Bet, the Israeli domestic security service, says Qiq was arrested for "terror activity" as part of the Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. Qiq's wife Faihaa says he is being wrongfully detained. "Mohammed is a Palestinian journalist who was only covering the situation in the West Bank and he was arrested because of it," she told AFP this week. Qiq was jailed for a month in 2003 and then for 13 months in 2004 for Hamas-related activities. In 2008, he was sentenced to 16 months on charges linked to his activities on the student council at the West Bank's Birzeit University. Palestinian prisoner Mohammed Allan, 31, ended a two-month hunger strike in August last year after his detention was suspended. SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Ride-hailing app Grab, which competes with Uber Technologies in southeast Asia, expects some of its services to turn profitable this year, its chief executive said on Thursday. Grab, previously known as GrabTaxi, allows users to book motorbikes, private cars and taxis. It also provides carpooling and last mile delivery in some cities. "Certain verticals will be profitable this year," CEO Anthony Tan told reporters at a briefing, but did not specify which ones. Grab, whose investors include Japanese telecoms firm SoftBank Corp, China Investment Corp, Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Kuaidi and a unit of Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings [TEM.UL], has raised about $700 million since it was launched in 2012. The company operates in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. (Reporting By Aradhana Aravindan; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier) By Anuradha Nagaraj CHENNAI, India (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Police in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh face mounting criticism for delays in registering complaints of rape during operations against Maoist rebels, with Amnesty International India demanding an independent probe into police inaction. One of India's poorest regions, Chhattisgarh has seen major security operations to flush out Maoist rebels who say they are fighting for the rights of poor farmers and landless laborers to land and a greater claim on mineral wealth. According to Amnesty's India office, 13 women from the Adivasi group said they were raped and sexually assaulted by police and security forces during anti-Maoist raids in Nendra village between Jan. 11 and 14. "Two men caught hold of me and dragged me inside my house. They took off my clothes, tore my blouse and pressed my breasts," one woman told the human rights group. "One policeman raped me and said, 'We will burn down your houses. If it wasnt daytime, we would have killed you.'" Despite changes to India's anti-rape laws, which make it mandatory for police to file a case as soon as a sexual violence complaint is brought to them, it took a week for the first information report (FIR) or official complaint to be recorded, a lawyer for the women said. "Instead of helping the women, the police have made it difficult for them at every step," human rights lawyer Shalini Gera told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "And we feel even the filing of the FIR is just a bureaucratic step and the investigation will not be started any time soon, since there is no indication on when the statements of the complainants will be recorded." Rape victims in India have to contend with an archaic, poorly funded and insensitive criminal justice system, campaigners say. Those brave enough to go to the police face numerous challenges such as hostile police officers, unsympathetic forensic examinations, a lack of counseling, shoddy police investigations and weak prosecutions in the courts, they say. The tribal women, who left their children and homes to camp at the district headquarters in Bijapur to ensure their complaint was heard, traveled back to their forest homes after medical tests were done last week. Official statements from the women are required for the probe to proceed. "The team investigating the case must also be sensitive toward the affected women, and ensure that their statements are recorded in a manner that takes their safety and convenience into account," said Gopika Bashi, women's rights campaigner at Amnesty International India. In emailed comments to the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Bashi called for a swift, thorough investigation into the rape allegations. Critics say police have dragged their feet over similar reports of sexual violence in the region last year. "Now that the FIR has been registered in the Nendra case, the Chhattisgarh police must ensure an independent and impartial investigation, since the alleged perpetrators include police officials," she said. Bijapur Police Superintendant K L Dhruv said the investigation would begin once the basic paperwork was completed. "How soon it is wrapped up depends on the investigating officer," Dhruv told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. (Editing by Katie Nguyen and Tim Pearce. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories) By John Miller BASEL, Switzerland (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress may intervene on how much companies can charge for some drugs following a move last year by Turing Pharmaceuticals to ratchet up the price of a treatment for deadly parasite infections by 5,000 percent, Roche's head of pharmaceuticals said. Roche's Dan O'Day is convinced the oncology portfolio at the world's biggest maker of cancer drugs will not be affected, arguing it offers innovative treatments for diseases with few other options. O'Day acknowledged Turing's price hike for Daraprim had galvanized U.S. public concern as well as political will to tackle drugmakers who are perceived as abusing pricing power to gouge patients. "It's really a misuse of the system," O'Day said. "And there very well may be some legislation that stops that from happening." Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have been campaigning on the issue. U.S. prices for the world's 20 top-selling medicines are, on average, three times higher than in Britain, according to an analysis carried out for Reuters for last year. Novartis Chief Executive Officer Joe Jimenez, whose company includes the Sandoz generics unit, said on Wednesday he expects the U.S. pricing environment to grow "more difficult". However, O'Day sees no "short term" U.S. pricing pressure for Roche's cancer drugs. The largest U.S. pharmacy benefit manager, Express Scripts Holding, has said that it has its eye on cancer drug pricing, where treatments can cost more than $100,000 a year. O'Day sees a gulf opening in the drug world. "There will be a bifurcation of the industry," he said. "There will be true innovators that are providing transformational medicines. And then there will be the generic medicines. The excitement you've seen has been around generics, certain kinds of companies coming in and massively raising the price." (Additional reporting by Caroline Humer in New York; Editing by Keith Weir) By Se Young Lee SEOUL (Reuters) - Tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd <005930.KS> warned on Thursday of possible weaker earnings this year due to softer sales of gadgets such as smartphones, a trend that is also hurting rival Apple Inc and major chipmakers. The South Korean firm's warning came a day after Apple shares fell more than 6.5 percent, the biggest percentage drop in two years, as the iPhone maker forecast its first quarterly sales drop in 13 years. Slowing economic growth in China and weaker emerging market currencies are undercutting sales of electronics ranging from televisions to personal computers, spelling trouble not only for Samsung and Apple but also for their suppliers and the broader industry. "Broadly weaker IT demand will make it difficult to maintain 2016 profits at the level of the previous year's," Samsung said in a statement accompanying its fourth-quarter results, adding that "challenging business conditions" would remain for the current quarter and last throughout the first half of this year. The world's No.1 maker of smartphones and memory chips said its October-December operating profit was 6.1 trillion won ($5.05 billion), matching its earlier guidance. Revenue rose 1.1 percent to 53.3 trillion won, slightly better than the 53 trillion won it had guided for. The maker of Galaxy smartphones and tablets reported a full-year 2015 operating profit of 26.4 trillion won, compared with 25 trillion won the previous year. Samsung shares ended down 2.6 percent on Thursday, underperforming a 0.5 percent rise for the broader market <.KS11>. Some investors and analysts believe Samsung will see its profit fall for the second time in three years in 2016, as slack demand for gadgets undercuts prices of memory chips and displays that helped to offset declining mobile profits last year. The semiconductor division was the top earner for the sixth straight quarter in the October-December period, lifting its operating profit to 2.80 trillion won from 2.70 trillion won a year earlier. Mobile division profit slipped 7.3 percent from the third quarter to 2.23 trillion won, its weakest result in four quarters. Samsung said first-quarter mobile profits would improve slightly, boosted by the launch of new smartphones, although overall smartphone shipments were expected to decline slightly. Samsung also said it will buy back and cancel 2.99 trillion won worth of common and preferred shares, marking the second round of share purchases as part of a 11.3 trillion buyback plan announced late last year. It also declared a year-end dividend of 20,000 won per share. Later on Thursday, the firm said it will sell a 37.5 percent stake in Samsung Card Co Ltd <029780.KS> to Samsung Life Insurance Co Ltd <032830.KS> for 1.54 trillion won ($1.3 billion), the proceeds from which will be used to fund new businesses. The transaction will give Samsung Life a 71.9 percent stake in Samsung Card, a step that analysts say furthers Samsung Group's restructuring efforts to streamline its ownership structure and solidify the founding Lee family's control over the smartphones-to-construction conglomerate. (Reporting by Se Young Lee; Editing by Stephen Coates and Muralikumar Anantharaman) By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders had a rare Oval Office meeting on Wednesday with President Barack Obama, days after Obama praised Hillary Clinton, Sanders' rival and front-runner in the race to be the Democratic presidential candidate in the Nov. 8 election. Emerging from the White House after an hour, Sanders said the meeting was "constructive" and that Obama was trying to be as "even-handed" as possible in the race, dismissing commentary that Obama was favoring Clinton, his former secretary of state. "I know there was some discussion the other day about a Politico interview, where he was tipping the scale toward Secretary Clinton - I don't believe that at all," the Vermont lawmaker told reporters on the White House driveway. While Obama has not explicitly endorsed a candidate, he showered praise on Clinton's experience in the interview with Politico while noting that Sanders had the "luxury of being a complete long shot." Obama suggested Sanders had not faced intense scrutiny and would need to broaden his populist message to go further in the race for the nomination. The Sanders-Obama meeting came just before the first contests to pick the Democratic and Republican nominees: Iowa, on Monday, and New Hampshire, on Feb. 9. While Sanders has surged in recent opinion polls, Clinton still has the edge nationally. Sanders said he received an overview of foreign policy issues from Obama and that the two talked "a little politics." Asked whether Obama, who beat Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2008, had given him advice on how to defeat her, Sanders laughed and said: "No, no." Obama said he had a "good meeting" with Sanders and noted that he had previously met with Clinton during the campaign. "The goal is to make sure that all the Democrats, or folks running in the Democratic primary, are focused on continuing the progress that we have made," Obama said in an interview with an NBC affiliate in Richmond, Virginia. Obama and his aides have regular contact with Clinton and her staff, which includes former Obama White House staffers. Clinton dropped by the White House for an informal lunch on Dec. 7 and had an hourlong chat in March. The White House visitor logs show Sanders making only one previous solo visit with Obama in the Oval Office, on Dec. 15, 2014. The White House said the meeting with Sanders had been in the works since Sanders asked Obama for some face time when he saw him a month ago at a holiday party for lawmakers. Former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley is a distant third in Democratic polls. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said he was unaware of any request from O'Malley to meet with Obama but that Obama would try to make time for him, if asked. (Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Susan Heavey, Peter Cooney and Lisa Shumaker) Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont didnt mince his words during last Monday nights Democratic town hall in Iowa when he promised, We will raise taxes, yes we will to pay for the cornucopia of domestic programs hes promised, including Medicare for all and tuition free college. Without spelling out the details of his scheme for financing a revolutionary expansion of government services and programs, Sanders only half-heartedly disputed CNN moderator Chris Cuomos suggestion that the chief rival to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination was asking for one of the biggest tax hikes in history. Related: Bernie Sanders: We Will Raise Taxes. Yes, We Will A new analysis of the democratic socialists tax proposal by the non-partisan Tax Foundation suggests that it would, indeed, be record-breaking. It would also make good on Sanders promise to target wealthy Americans, including Wall Street executives and the billionaire class, for steep hikes in their tax rates. Sanders plan would raise tax revenue by $13.6 trillion over the coming decade using the most conservative estimates, according to the Tax Foundations report. However, because Sanders fiscal policies likely would set back the economy in the coming year, his tax proposals would ultimately collect only $9.8 trillion over the next ten years. By comparison, the January 2013 fiscal cliff budget deal between President Obama and congressional Republicans that is considered one of the largest tax hikes in modern times was designed to raise only $1.6 trillion over ten years. Sanders tax plan for underwriting the cost of trillions of dollars in new programs and health care services include boosting the top marginal income tax rates to 54.2 percent, taxing capital gains and dividends as ordinary income, increasing payroll taxes to expand Social Security benefits, and capturing tax revenues of U.S. capital being sheltered overseas. Related: The Next few Weeks Could Determine the ElectionHere Are the Key Events Story continues The vast majority of the fresh revenue being sought by Sanders would come from a new 6.2 percent payroll tax picked up by employers, a new 2 percent income tax on all households for health care, and the elimination of tax breaks for employers providing health care coverage to their employees. Sanders has eclipsed Clinton in his calls for a massive buildup of government programs and a soak the rich plan for revising the federal tax code. Some estimates have pegged the total cost of Sanderss social programs including replacing Obamacare with a universal government health care plan similar to those in Canada and Europe at $18 trillion over the coming decade. I believe everyone should be entitled to health care as a right, Sanders said in response to a question from the audience during the nationally televised townhall meeting, claiming that his plan would save middle class people thousands of dollars a year on their health care bills. The Vermont senator argued that it was unfair to criticize his proposed tax increases because millions of Americans would eventually see their higher taxes offset by elimination of the premiums on their current private health insurance policies. Related: Study Challenges Clintons Tax Plan for $1 Trillion in New Spending If you are paying $10,000 a year to a private health insurance company, and I say to you, hypothetically, that you are going to pay $5,000 more a year in taxesbut youre not going to pay any more private health insurance, are you going to be complaining about the fact that Ive saved you $5,000 in your total bills? Sanders, who is currently running head to head with Clinton in Iowa and leading her in New Hampshire, has vowed to address a massive income inequality between the middle class and the top one percent of taxpayers in the country by forcing the rich to pay for a large part of his liberal agenda. According to the Tax Foundation, Sanders plan would significantly increase marginal tax rates and the cost of capital, which in turn would lead to 9.5 percent lower Gross Domestic Product in the long term. On a static or conservative basis, Sanders tax increases would effectively reduce all Americans after-tax income by 10.56 percent and by 17.91 percent for the top 1 percent of taxpayers. When accounting for reduced GDP, after-tax incomes of all taxpayers would fall by at least 12.84 percent, according to the report. Clinton, meanwhile, proposed that roughly $1 trillion of new spending that would be paid for with tax increases, largely on wealthy Americans and investors. Her plan would increase federal tax revenues by $498 billion over the coming decade on a static basis, according to the Tax Foundation. Related: Clintons Campaign Promises Total Nearly $1 Trillion With More to Come As for the distributional effects of Clintons tax increases, the after-tax income of the wealthiest top 10 percent of the country would see their after-tax income drop by 0.7 percent while the wealthiest one percent would lose 1.7 percent of their after-tax income. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: Washington (AFP) - White House hopeful Bernie Sanders, the oldest candidate in the US presidential race, released a letter from his physician Thursday stating the 74-year-old is in "very good health." Should Sanders win the Democratic nomination and go on to victory, he would be the oldest person ever elected to the presidency. The senator has stressed in recent public forums that he is in excellent health, and his doctor confirmed that. "You are in overall very good health and active in your professional work, and recreational lifestyle without limitation," Brian Monahan, the attending physician of the US Congress whose office has treated Sanders for 26 years, wrote in a letter released by the campaign. It said a recent physical examination showed Sanders to have normal readings for blood pressure, cholesterol, metabolism and blood glucose. His electrocardiogram was also normal. Over the years he has been treated for conditions including gout, a kind of arthritis, as well as hypothyroidism and the painful colon condition diverticulitis. He has had two hernias repaired. Sanders takes a daily doses of the metabolism regulator levothyroxine, according to Monahan. Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, released her health records last July. She and Sanders are battling to the wire to see who will win Iowa, which kicks off the nominations race with its caucuses on February 1. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum plans to join party front-runner Donald Trump at a rally in Iowa later on Thursday, his campaign said. Santorum, a former U.S. lawmaker, will participate in the so-called "undercard" debate for Republican presidential candidates with less support in the polls before going to the event with Trump, who has vowed to skip Thursday night's debate hosted by Fox News. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee also said he plans to attend Trump's event. (Reporting by Ginger Gibson; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama) Allegations of fiscal mismanagement at a now-defunct charter school in Kansas City. Questions in New Orleans about how taxpayer dollars are allocated and spent at charters. Sweetheart deals among charter officials in Rochester, New York, and charges that a flagship New York City charter is kicking out students who need the most help. Once hailed as a solution for struggling public schoolsand still a favorite, education reform advocates, ambitious politicians, investment bankers, and some parentscharter schools from New York to New Orleans have made for ugly headlines recently, bad news that trails behind the industry like the tail of a high-flying kite. RELATED: Boot Camp or School? Critics Worry Charters for Minority Kids Are Too Militant Given other longstanding problems, including charges of de facto segregation and accusations that charters cherry-pick the best students for more favorable test scores, some public school advocates are asking whether its time for increased oversight of charter schools. Its an ironic idea, given that freedom from bureaucracy was a founding principle of the charter movement. And some education experts say provisions in the new federal Every Student Succeeds Act are a step in that direction. Charter school advocates argued for removing many if not most of the rules and regulations around schools because they saw those as unnecessary impositions, that hindered academic performance, explains Christopher Lubienski, a professor at the University of Illinois. When the movement launched nearly 20 years ago, charter school advocates envisioned publicly funded schools run by independent organizations, particularly in poor and underserved districts, where teachers would be encouraged to innovate in the classroom without asking permission from state or local education authorities. But, as the saying goes, you might not want to tear down a fence until you know the reason why it was put up, explains Lubienski. Story continues According to a report released last year from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a nonprofit advocacy group, more than 6,700 public charter schools enrolled about 2.9 million students nationwide during the 2014-2015 school year. But although 500 new charter schools opened that school year, 200 also closed their doors. These schools closed for a variety of reasons, including low enrollment, financial concerns, and low academic performance. The public charter school model gives charters the freedom to be more innovative while being held accountable for improving student achievement, wrote the reports authors. Charter schools that do not meet the needs of its students should be closed. The school closures during this school year provide evidence that the accountability part of the charter school model is being upheld. However public education advocate Jeff Bryant says charters have a bad record when it comes to self-policing because of the systems own self-interest. RELATED: Whats Really Behind the Drive to Unionize Charter School Teachers? One of the reasons it's been difficult to hold charter schools accountable is because of regulatory capture in the system; that is, people who are responsible for regulating charters are also the most ardent proponents for expanding charter schools, says Bryant, who runs the Education Opportunity Network, a movement committed to student learning. Many lawmakers and public officials who are responsible for regulating charter schools have deep ties to the charter school industry, including John King, the acting U.S. education secretary, who as an educator in the 1990s helped open charter schools in Boston and New York, explains Bryant. Local control of charters can actually sometimes provide an effective check on this regulatory capture, Bryant says, but there is so much money and pressure coming from the top down, including millions from the federal government and charities like the Walton Foundation, that local control can be overwhelmed. Indeed, a report from the National Center for Business Journalism, an arm of the Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University, says charter school oversight varies widely across the countryand while some charter schools have succeeded well, many remain no better (or even worse) than their public school counterparts. Lubienski agrees with charter school advocates who say the bulk of the publicly-funded schools are well-run and effective. At the same time, statistics show charter schools expel students at a higher rate than traditional schools, and a pending lawsuit in Delaware alleges charter schools foment racial segregation. A joint report released in April by two organizations that support traditional schools also found waste, fraud, and abuse in systems nationwide. Thats where the Every Student Succeeds Act, the successor to No Child Left Behind, comes in. It includes provisions designed to increase transparency, promote equal treatment of all students, and align accountability of charters with local traditional public schools. While the new law does provide for more regulation of the charter industry, including financial audits, enforcement could be a problem, says Bryant. To realize this transparency and reduce financial corruption in the charter industry, federal and state officials will need to implement the new law in a way that has some real regulatory teeth, Bryant says. The charter industry and its advocates will likely continue to resist this. At the same time, the financial incentives designed to increase accountabilityper-student allocations from government, along with parents freedom to withdraw their children from ineffective schoolsarent as effective as they should be, Lubienski says. RELATED: Made in America: China Is Importing Charter Schools On the former, the idea behind charter schools is devolution of control, from top-heavy education bureaucracies to local organizations which often dont have the capacity or expertise to run a school effectively, but are politically connected, he says. Professional management organizations, on the other hand, may have more capacity, but are often more susceptible to corporate-style fraud, since they typically use for-profit modelsor have political connections. Despite flaws in the system, both Bryant and Lubienski believe charter schools will be part of the public education landscape for the foreseeable future. I see just as much enthusiasm as ever from policymakers, although I think the people concerned about these policies are becoming better organized, Lubienski says. I dont see the ardor for charters cooling so much as just some natural leveling-off of the rate of growth after some initial waves of rapid proliferation. Related stories on TakePart: No Class for 45,000 Detroit Kids as Teachers Protest Rat-Infested Schools In San Francisco, City Schools Are Focusing on Students With Incarcerated Parents Activist Ignites Heated Debate Over Whether Charter Schools Can Save Baltimore Original article from TakePart Science has discovered a solar system much larger than our own much, much larger. On Tuesday the Royal Astronomical Society announced that a team of scientists from the U.S., the U.K. and Australia had linked a hulking planet 2MASS J2126 to a star called TYC 9486-927-1. The star sits some trillion kilometers away from 2MASS J2126, or 7,000 times as far as we are from the sun. The planet is thought to be between 11.6 and 15 times the mass of Jupiter. "This is the widest planet system found so far, and both the members of it have been known for eight years," the paper's lead author, Niall Deacon, said in the announcement, "but nobody had made the link between the objects before. The planet is not quite as lonely as we first thought, but it's certainly in a very long-distance relationship." With his subtle relationship wordplay, Deacon is referencing 2MASS J2126's previous status as a lonely planet a rogue world without a star to circle, which instead floats freely around the Milky Way. 2MASS J2126 would, the announcement said, take about 900,000 Earth years to complete one orbit of its "sun." The two are so far away from one another that no one had ever connected them. Artist's rendering of a Jupiter-sized lonely planet But now that we know about this tremendous, if mostly empty, solar system, another question arises: Might this formerly lonely planet be home to extraterrestrial life? In a 2014 episode of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, Twitter-savvy astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson discussed lonely planets. "They're orphans, cast away from their mother stars during the chaotic birth of their native solar systems," he said. "Rogue planets are molten at the core, but frozen at the surface. There may be oceans of liquid water in the zone between those extremes. Who knows what might be swimming there?" Story continues In order for a planet to support life, it needs water. Some lonely planets might have that, if they're shrouded in an insulating layer like ice or atmosphere thick enough to trap the heat generated at their cores. But the RAS thinks that the chances of 2MASS J2126 hosting alien life are slim. "There is little prospect of any life on an exotic world like this," the announcement said, "but any inhabitants would see their 'sun' as no more than a bright star, and might not even imagine they were connected to it at all." Once a lonely planet, always a lonely planet. HSINCHU, Taiwan (Reuters) - Shareholders of ChipMOS Technologies Inc on Thursday approved a plan for China's state-backed Tsinghua Unigroup to take a quarter stake in the Taiwanese chip test and packaging company. That would mark the second go-ahead of three deals worth $2.6 billion planned by the Chinese giant to enter into the island's chip supply chain. The approval, which was expected, comes on the heels of national elections that brought to power the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) after eight years under China-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou. The plan still has to win regulatory approval. President-elect Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP, who takes office in May, earlier indicated Chinese investments would come under more scrutiny in future. Tsinghua Unigroup plans to invest T$11.9 billion ($354.11 million) in a quarter stake in ChipMOS Technologies, the two companies said last month. The proposal is now expected to be submitted to Taiwanese regulators for review after the Lunar New Year holiday in mid-February, ChipMOS Chairman S.J. Cheng told reporters after shareholders voted to approve the deal. He added that the review could take 2-4 months to complete. Cheng said the fresh fund injection, if given the regulatory nod, would go towards increasing ChipMOS' production, and research and development in Taiwan, as well as China expansion plans. Earlier this month, shareholders of Powertech Technology Inc, another Taiwanese chip test and packaging firm, approved a similar partial stake sale to the Chinese giant, while a third Taiwanese chip firm, Siliconware Precision Industries Co, has yet to take its plan to shareholder vote. (Reporting by J.R. Wu; Editing by Ryan Woo) By Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate committee approved legislation on Thursday that would broaden sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear program, human rights record and cyber activities, the latest bid by U.S. lawmakers to crack down on Pyongyang after its fourth nuclear test. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed the measure by unanimous voice vote and members said they expected it would be approved by the full Senate within weeks, and signed into law by President Barack Obama. U.S. lawmakers have been clamoring for a clampdown on North Korea since Pyongyang earlier this month tested a nuclear device which it said was a hydrogen bomb. The U.N. Security Council is also discussing more action against the country, although it is not clear what would be supported by China, North Korea's lone major ally and main business partner. The Senate bill would sanction anyone who engages in, facilitates or contributes to North Korea's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, arms-related materials, luxury goods, human rights abuses, activities undermining cyber security and the provision of metals or coal for use in such activities. Penalties include the seizure of assets, visa bans and denial of government contracts. Committee members said they wanted to make Washington's resolve clear not just to Pyongyang, but to other governments. They said they expected the House of Representatives would back the Senate legislation. "We must also send a strong message to China," said Republican Senator Cory Gardner, chairman of the panel's Asia subcommittee and co-author of the legislation. An Obama administration official said the administration does not oppose the legislation, saying it is deeply concerned about North Korea's recent actions and sees the most recent test as a "serious setback." U.S. officials told Reuters on Thursday the United States had seen increased activity around a North Korean site suggesting preparations for a possible space launch in the near future, raising concerns that the country was seeking to develop an inter-continental ballistic missile. North Korea conducted a nuclear test on Jan. 6 that it said was the explosion of a hydrogen bomb, although the United States and other governments and experts voiced scepticism that it had made such a technological advance. The House passed its own, less extensive, bill to broaden sanctions on Jan. 12 by a near unanimous 418-2 vote. The Senate is due to begin considering the bill approved by the foreign relations committee during the week of Feb. 8. (Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Mohammad Zargham, Bernard Orr and Alistair Bell) By Greg Stutchbury MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Serena Williams' break from tennis at the end of last year to "just chill" appeared to have done her a world of good as the rejuvenated American bulldozed her way into the Australian Open final on Thursday. The 34-year-old world number one totally demolished fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska in the first set before she emphatically sealed her place in a seventh Melbourne Park final with three aces in the final game in the 6-0 6-4 win. Every time the American has made the final at Melbourne Park she has gone on to win the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup. "I needed time off just to take a minute and just chill and re-heal, get ready," she said after the 64-minute battering of the Pole. "I felt like I really committed myself ... it's just a great thing to be in the final after taking such a long time off." Williams withdrew from the last four months of 2015 after she was bundled out of the U.S. Open in the semi-finals by Italy's Roberta Vinci, ending her hopes of emulating Steffi Graf's calendar grand slam in 1988. The American, however, can join Graf on 22 grand slam titles, the most in the Open era, if she beats Angelique Kerber, who considers her fellow German Graf as her idol, in Saturday's final. Despite not wanting to tempt fate, Williams added she did not want to repeat last year's memories of the U.S. Open, tacitly sending Kerber a message she better be ready for a similar onslaught that Radwanska faced. "I was one off last year, too," Williams said. "If I don't win on Saturday, I'll still be one off. It took me forever to get to 18. I was so stressed out. I don't want to relive that at all." Kerber, who is in her first grand slam final, will need to hope that Williams does not play like she did against Radwanska. The world number one broke the Pole's serve in the first game with Radwanska's lack of power highlighted by the blistering nature of the American's returns. Radwanska's fastest serve in the first game reached just 140 kph. Williams was returning the ball at over 130. Williams cleaned up the first set in just 20 minutes before Radwanska elicited the largest cheer of the match when she held serve in the first game of the second set, avoiding an embarrassing potential 'double bagel' 6-0 6-0 score. Radwanska managed her first break in the sixth game of the second set to level it at 3-3, giving the crowd on Rod Laver Arena an opportunity to produce a roar of support. Williams, however, Williams broke again in the ninth game and then served out to end Radwanska's agony on Rod Laver Arena. "Going against Aga, you have to be ready or be ready to go home (and) I was able to do everything that I needed to do," she said. "I've always said that when I'm playing at my best, it's difficult to beat me." (Editing by Amlan Chakraborty) (Reuters) - A Virginia family of six is dead in an apparent murder-suicide after an hours-long standoff with police ended early on Thursday, officials said. Police in Chesapeake, Virginia, about 200 miles south of Washington, found five bodies, including the suspected gunman, inside a home shortly after 2 a.m., Chesapeake police said in a statement. The incident began when officers were called to check on a different house on Wednesday afternoon and discovered a dead body. An investigation led police to a nearby residence where the armed man was barricaded inside, police said. Officers gained entry to the home after fruitless negotiations with the gunman. Police believe the suspect killed the relatives before they arrived, the statement said. All of those who died were related, and police have not released their names. (Reporting by John Clarke; Editing by Ian Simpson and Andrew Hay) Aden (AFP) - A suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group killed at least eight people Thursday outside Yemen's presidential palace in the city of Aden, security and medical officials said. IS said that one of its militants, apparently a Dutch national, carried out the attack on a checkpoint outside the palace in the main city of southern Yemen. Both soldiers and civilians were among those killed, while at least 17 others were wounded, a medical source said. A security source said the attack appeared to target the convoy of a local businessman who was entering the presidential complex. Sources had initially said the convoy was carrying Aden's governor, Aidarus al-Zubaidi, but he later told AFP he was not in the area at the time of the attack. Zubaidi survived a car bombing earlier this month, after being appointed in December following the murder of his predecessor, Jaafar Saad, in an Aden bombing claimed by IS. Witnesses said the blast damaged at least six vehicles and a nearby mosque. In statement posted on Twitter, IS said "martyrdom-seeker Abu Hanifa al-Hollandi... detonated his explosives-laden vehicle at the presidential palace". The name used for the assailant implied he was from the Netherlands. President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi was in the palace at the time of the attack but unharmed, a government official said. Military vehicles from the Saudi-led coalition which supports Hadi's government were deployed around the complex after the attack, security sources said. Aden has become the temporary headquarters of Hadi's government as it battles to retake large parts of Yemen from Shiite Huthi rebels. The port city has also seen a growing jihadist presence, with Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, long active in Yemen, and IS apparently vying for influence. Hadi fled to Aden after escaping house arrest in the capital Sanaa, which was overran by the Huthis in September 2014. But he also had to flee the southern port city in March to Riyadh when the rebels advanced on the south, prompting Saudi Arabia to intervene with air strikes. The United Nations says more than 5,800 people have been killed in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state, about half of them civilians, since the coalition air campaign was launched 10 months ago. Stephen Colbert's special post-Super Bowl edition of The Late Show promises to be a star-studded one. Read More: Stephen Colbert Gets Post-Super Bowl Slot on CBS Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Margot Robbie, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele will appear on the live telecast on Sunday, Feb. 7, the late-night hosted announced Thursday on Twitter. Got my Super Bowl squad ready. Hey Tina Fey, @MargotRobbie, Will Ferrell, @KeeganMKey, and @JordanPeele: Aim for the knees! #LSSC Stephen Colbert (@StephenAtHome) January 28, 2016 The official announcement touting Colbert's lineup also promised "special guests and surprises" along the way. The Late Show will air live from New York, followed by a special edition of The Late Late Show With James Corden. Corden has already announced at least one very special guest: Elton John, who will take part in Corden's famous "Carpool Karaoke" segment that has become one of his signature bits. The move towards late-night programming is a clear diversion from the trend of primetime shows, particularly scripted entries, getting the plum time slot in recent years. Colbert, who started in September, has been posting gains across the board from where predecessor David Letterman was last season. Super Bowl 50 airs Sunday, Feb. 7, on CBS. KHARTOUM/JUBA (Reuters) - Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir ordered the opening of his country's border with South Sudan for the first time since the south's secession in 2011, paving the way for better economic links between the two nations. The border was closed in 2011 when relations deteriorated after the south seceded following a long civil war, taking with it three quarters of the country's oil, estimated at 5 billion barrels of proven reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. "President Omar al-Bashir issued a decree today ordering the opening of borders with the state of South Sudan and ordered the relevant authorities to take all measures required to implement this decision on the ground," Sudan's state news agency SUNA reported on Wednesday. Michael Makuei Lueth, South Sudan's government spokesman, said the reopening of the border would boost economic ties. "This is a positive move in a right direction because this is what will lead to the normalization of our relations with Sudan," he told Reuters. Khartoum accuses Juba, the capital of South Sudan, of backing a rebellion in its Darfur region and a separate but linked insurgency in Blue Nile and South Kordofan. South Sudan denies the allegations. "We hope that South Sudan takes its helping hand away from rebel movements that are against our government in Darfur, Blue Nile, and South Kordofan," Sudan's information minister, Ahmed Bilal Osman, told Reuters on Thursday. Osman said he expected commercial relations to be restored and landlocked South Sudan would now be able to benefit from Sudan's sea ports as it had done in the past. South Sudanese President Salva Kiir had unexpectedly and unilaterally announced a normalization of relations on Tuesday in response to Bashir agreeing to cut the transit fees for South Sudanese oil crossing Sudan's territory via pipelines to the Red Sea last week. After the reduced transit fees were announced, Kiir ordered South Sudanese troops stationed at the border to retreat five kilometers, a move that paved the way for the border to be opened, Osman said. Relations have been tense between the two countries since 2011 as they failed to agree on borders and the status of several regions that both sides claim sovereignty over. (Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz and Denis Dumo, writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Toby Chopra and Raissa Kasolowsky) A version of this story first appeared in the Feb. 5 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe. Sundance Film Festival attendees had new transportation options this year with widely publicized helicopter shuttles from Uber as well as Blade, which offered reasonably priced rides to and from Park City. However, the services, which were scheduled to start Jan. 21 and continue through Monday, shut down less than 48 hours after launching following threats from the Summit County Sheriff's Office, which maintains jurisdiction over the area. According to a source, local officials claim that the services didn't have necessary permits to fly over the area, and the county doesn't have a framework in place to deal with helicopter traffic. A spokesman for Blade shrugged off the abrupt stoppage, saying "It was an amazing introduction to the West Coast for our Blade services, including the Sundance jet and our custom Blade lounge. It was mission accomplished for us; we're already talking about doing it again next year." A rep for Uber didn't respond to a request for comment. Summit County Sheriff's Office also didn't return a phone call for comment. Read More: Sundance: How Amazon, Netflix Turned the Market on Its Head &bull&bull&bull A couple of former enemies were spotted rocking out inches from each other to Juliette Lewis and her band at the Insurgent Media party at Cicero's: Turner chief Kevin Reilly and producer Ben Silverman, who once called Reilly a "D girl." The two executives didn't acknowledge each other. &bull&bull&bull John Krasinski owes the casting of Margo Martindale in his directorial effort, The Hollars, to Marshalls, having met the actress on his first job, a commercial for the clothing store. "I said to him at the time, 'I'm not a betting person, but if I was, I would bet all of my money on you,' " Martindale tells THR. Story continues >>>>>>> The packed crowd inside Cicero's on Jan. 22 on hand for Insurgent Media's Sundance bash hosted by Electus chief Ben Silverman, Endemol North American co-chairman and co-CEO Charlie Corwin and musician/filmmaker Donovan Leitch got a surprise treat in the form of legendary rocker Sting. Some big names from the music biz were already scheduled to perform as part of an all-star band of sorts (Leitch alongside Juliette Lewis and Mark McGrath), but it was Sting who stole the show with an impromptu performance that included his "Message in a Bottle." (Sting hit Park City to help support Jim: The James Foley Story, a documentary set to air on HBO on Feb. 6) Also in attendance at Insurgent's bash: producer Chris Smith, Fisher Stevens (who also performed) and KCRW resident star deejay Jason Bentley. Sting performs onstage at Insurgent Media's Sundance bash at Cisero's in Park City on Jan. 22. (Photo by Sonia Recchia/Getty Images) &bull&bull&bull With all the press she's doing as the star of Starz's The Girlfriend Experience, Riley Keough won't be catching Spike Lee's Michael Jackson's Journey From Motown to Off the Wall, though Jackson was briefly her stepfather when he was married to her mother, Lisa Marie Presley. "I have no plans to see any movies. I'm struggling to find time to sleep," says Keough. Still, there's at least one person at the festival who would enjoy meeting Keough: director Kevin Macdonald, who is directing a biopic about the actess' grandfather, Elvis Presley, Fox 2000's Last Train to Memphis. "I should cast her as her grandmother," jokes Macdonald, who was in Sundance with his documentary Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang. "Or Priscilla Presley." For Keough, playing her grandmother would be "really bizarre." "I find it weird playing people that are alive in general, so playing your grandma would be very weird," she says. "I don't think it would be something I'd enjoy. It would make me extremely uncomfortable. But to quote Justin Bieber, &lsquoNever say never.'" &bull&bull&bull Jan. 23 delivered a big night for Ricky Bates Jr. with the premiere of his latest film Trash Fire. But it became an even more momentous event when Bates took to one knee and proposed to his girlfriend of six years, Noelle Cruz, at the beginning of the Q&A portion at the premiere at the Egyptian Theater. And she said yes! Bates tells THR that he decided when he made the film that wherever it premiered, he'd gather his family and hers and make it official with a ring. "Noelle has, in a lot of ways, saved my life and I would never have been able to make this movie without her encouragement," he explains. "All day was pretty nerve-racking. My editor, Yvonne Valdez, flew over with the ring and handed it off to AnnaLynne McCord, who had the ring on her until the Q&A. One of my best pals ever, Matthew Gray Gubler, flew over just before so he could say a few kind words and introduce us alongside AnnaLynne. This was a team effort best night of my life!" Read More: Sundance: Why Nate Parker Chose Fox Searchlight Over Netflix for 'The Birth of a Nation' &bull&bull&bull Keegan-Michael Key is part of the short-film jury at Sundance, but the Keanu star also became one of the busiest party-hoppers during the festival, seen at several splashy events over the weekend. He popped by THR and Sundance TV's event Friday night, the Morris From America party with Craig Robinson at Bar 53 on Friday, the Manchester by the Sea premiere with Casey Affleck at the Chase Sapphire Lounge on Saturday, and giving director-star John Krasinski a big hug at The Hollars party at the Acura Studio Sunday night. &bull&bull&bull Empire star Jussie Smollett accompanied friend Tika Sumpter to the bash for her Sundance premiere of Southside With You at the Rand Luxury Lounge at the St. Regis hotel on Jan. 24. After posing for photos with Sumpter and Parker Sawyers (who play Michelle and Barack Obama in the movie) Smollett told his pal to look around and "take this all in." Suspected Maoist rebels attacked a police convoy in a remote part of eastern India, killing five officers and two civilians, police said Thursday. The attackers set off a powerful landmine blast before opening fire on the convoy, which was on an anti-Maoist operation in the forests of Jharkhand state on Wednesday. "Seven people died in yesterday's landmine blast," police officer Nav Kumar Singh told AFP by phone from Palamu district, 190 kilometres (120 miles) from the state capital Ranchi. "Five were police officers, one was the driver and the other a guard." He said another six police were wounded and a search operation was under way. The ambush is the latest in a simmering conflict that pits the insurgents against security forces in remote areas of India. The rebels, who claim to be fighting for the rights of poor tribal minorities and farmers, have waged a decades-long battle across central and eastern Indian states to overthrow government authorities. They draw recruits from tribal communities whose members are often desperately poor and living in underdeveloped areas neglected by successive governments. The Maoist insurgency has claimed more than 12,300 lives between 1999 and 2014, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal website which tracks separatist trends. They are believed to be present in at least 20 Indian states but are most active in forested, resource-rich areas in the states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra. Their insurgency was described by former prime minister Manmohan Singh as the country's most serious internal security threat. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been seeking to stem the insurgency by earmarking development funds for revolt-hit areas and improving policing. Last year, he urged Maoists to put down their guns and take up ploughs, saying "violence has no future". Government critics say attempts to end the revolt through tough security offensives are doomed to fail, and the real solution is better governance and development of the region. Berlin (AFP) - Germany moved Thursday to toughen its asylum policies, as Finland and Sweden announced plans to deport tens of thousands of people in a bid to contain the migrant crisis. Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel announced that Germany will place Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia on a list of "safe countries of origin" -- meaning their nationals would have little chance of winning asylum. Some migrants will also be blocked from bringing their families to join them in Germany for two years, Gabriel said. The tougher rules come after Germany, the European Union's powerhouse economy, took in some 1.1 million migrants in 2015 -- many of them refugees fleeing conflict in Syria. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has come under fierce pressure in recent months to reverse her open-arms policy to those fleeing war and persecution, including opposition from within her own conservative camp. Finland meanwhile joined Sweden on Thursday in announcing plans to deport tens of thousands of failed asylum seekers. The two Nordic countries are both struggling to cope with an influx of refugees and migrants fleeing misery in the Middle East and elsewhere -- receiving amongst the highest numbers of arrivals per capita in the EU. The Finnish government expects to deport around two thirds of the 32,000 asylum seekers that arrived in 2015, Paivi Nerg, administrative director of the interior ministry, told AFP. "In principle we speak of about two thirds, meaning approximately 65 percent of the 32,000 will get a negative decision (on their asylum applications)," she told AFP. In neighbouring Sweden, Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said Wednesday that the government is planning over several years to deport up to 80,000 people whose asylum applications are set to be rejected. "We are talking about 60,000 people but the number could climb to 80,000," he told Swedish media, adding that, as in Finland, the operation would require the use of specially chartered aircraft. Story continues He estimated that Sweden would reject around half of the 163,000 asylum requests received in 2015. - 31 killed trying to reach Europe - Swedish Migration Minister Morgan Johansson said authorities faced a difficult task in deporting such large numbers, but insisted failed asylum seekers had to return home. "Otherwise we would basically have free immigration and we can't manage that," he told news agency TT. The clampdown came as at least 31 more people died trying to reach the European Union. Greek rescuers found 25 bodies, including those of 10 children, off the Aegean island of Samos, in the latest tragedy to strike migrants risking the dangerous Mediterranean crossing hoping to start new lives in Europe. The Italian navy meanwhile said it had recovered six bodies from a sinking dinghy off Libya -- and in Bulgaria, the frozen bodies of two men, believed to be migrants, were found near the border with Serbia. Nearly 4,000 people died trying to reach Europe by sea last year, according to the International Organization for Migration. - 'Einstein was a refugee' - The new German rules on family reunification will mean migrants with so-called "subsidiary protection", a status just below that of refugee, will be blocked from bringing their families to join them in Germany for two years. The status is granted to some rejected asylum seekers who still cannot be expelled because they risk torture or the death penalty in their own country. The cutoff on migrants from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia follows a chorus of demands in recent weeks to step up expulsions after a rash of sex assaults in Cologne on New Year's Eve blamed by police on North Africans. As Europe struggles to respond to its biggest migration crisis since World War II, a top Dutch politician said the Netherlands was working with some EU members on a plan to send migrants back to Turkish soil. The proposal would see asylum granted to up to 250,000 others already hosted by Turkey, Diederik Samsom said. But rights group Amnesty International blasted the plan, saying it was "fundamentally flawed since it would hinge on illegally returning asylum seekers and refugees". The UN's new refugee chief Filippo Grandi said on Thursday that rich countries have the means to take in the world's refugees, despite the complex political situation in Europe. And he defended the contribution that refugees can play in building Europe's economy, insisting they should not be seen as a burden. "Refugees have skills. They deserve our efforts," Grandi told a press conference with OECD chief Angel Gurria in Paris. "Einstein was a refugee. We should not forget that." Stockholm (AFP) - Sweden intends to expel up to 80,000 migrants who arrived in 2015 and whose application for asylum has been rejected, Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said Wednesday. "We are talking about 60,000 people but the number could climb to 80,000," the minister was quoted as saying by Swedish media, adding that the government had asked the police and authorities in charge of migrants to organise their expulsion. The proposed measure was announced as Europe struggles to deal with a crisis that has seen tens of thousands of migrants arrive on Greek beaches, with the passengers -- mostly fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan -- undeterred by cold wintry conditions. The UN says more than 46,000 people have arrived in Greece so far this year, with more than 170 people killed making the dangerous crossing. Ygeman said the expulsions, normally carried out using commercial flights, would have to be done using specially chartered aircraft, given the large numbers, staggered over several years. Sweden, which is home to 9.8 million people, is one of the European Union countries that has taken in the largest number of refugees in relation to its population. Sweden accepted more than 160,000 asylum seekers last year. But the number of migrant arrivals has dropped dramatically since Sweden enacted systematic photo ID checks on travellers on January 4. Swedish officials on Tuesday called for greater security at overcrowded asylum centres a day after the fatal stabbing of an employee at a refugee centre for unaccompanied youths. The alleged attacker was a young male residing at a centre for youngsters aged 14 to 17 in Molndal near Gothenburg on Sweden's west coast. The employee was 22-year-old Alexandra Mezher, according to Swedish media reports, whose family was originally from Lebanon. A motive for the attack was not immediately clear. Her death has led to questions about overcrowded conditions inside some centres, with too few adults and employees to take care of children, many traumatised by war. In neighbouring Denmark, meanwhile, the government this week approved legislation to seize the valuables of refugees in the hope of limiting the flow of migrants. Some have likened the Danish proposals to the confiscation of gold and other valuables from Jews by the Nazis during the Holocaust. ZURICH (Reuters) - The number of foreigners moving to Switzerland fell last year while emigration rose, bringing a second consecutive slowdown in net immigration, although the number of requests for asylum jumped by two-thirds. Nearly a quarter of Switzerland's population is foreign and immigration is a major political issue, especially as Europe grapples with its biggest migrant crisis since World War Two. Last month, the neutral Alpine state threatened to impose unilateral curbs on immigration from the European Union if voluntary limits could not be agreed by March. Switzerland and its most important trading partner are gridlocked over how to implement a binding 2014 Swiss referendum in favour of immigration quotas that would violate a bilateral pact guaranteeing freedom of movement for EU citizens. Government data released on Thursday showed net immigration slowed last year to 71,500 people, down 9.4 percent from 2014. Just under 2 million foreigners lived in Switzerland at the end of 2015, more than two-thirds of whom were European citizens. Italians and Germans were the biggest groups. Most foreigners came to Switzerland last year to work or to join family members already here. Requests for asylum swelled 66 percent to 39,523. Around 1.4 million people -- most fleeing crisis zones in the Middle East and Africa -- sought refuge in Europe last year, twice as many as in 2014. Around 3 percent of migrants to Europe sought asylum in Switzerland, the lowest rate since 2008, the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) said. They came mostly from Eritrea, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Sri Lanka. Requests for asylum fell 14 percent in December from the previous month as applications from Eritreans in particular slumped. Nearly two-thirds of asylum applications in December came from citizens of Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, most of whom reached Switzerland via the so-called Balkan route, SEM said. Swiss authorities granted 6,377 people asylum last year, a quarter of applicants, although that rate rose above half including people granted temporary protection. (Reporting by Michael Shields; Editing by Catherine Evans) Dubai (AFP) - The head of the Saudi-backed Syrian opposition said Thursday his group would not attend UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva until an agreement was reached on aid entering besieged towns. "The opposition is prepared to go to Geneva if these measures are taken," Riad Hijab, coordinator of the High Negotiations Committee, told Al-Arabiya television on the eve of the planned talks. "Tomorrow we won't be in Geneva. We could go there but we will not enter the negotiating room if our demands aren't met," he said after the opposition held its own talks in Riyadh. Geneva (AFP) - The UN said Thursday that there was no postponement of Syria peace talks due to start Friday in Switzerland, despite uncertainty around whether the main opposition umbrella group would attend. The UN chief negotiator in the almost five-year-old civil war, Staffan de Mistura, issued a message to the Syrian people saying that the planned discussions "cannot fail". There is "no postponement from our side," Khawla Mattar, spokeswoman for the UN-mediated talks between the Syrian government and opposition in Geneva due to begin Friday, told AFP. The planned negotiations are part of a UN-backed plan, agreed in November in Vienna, that envisages talks followed by a transitional government, a new constitution, and elections within 18 months. A source close to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus said its delegation, headed by envoy to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari, would be arriving in Geneva on Friday as planned. But in Saudi Arabia, the High Negotiations Committee -- formed last month in an effort to unite Syria's fractious opposition -- was holding a third day of talks and had yet to decide whether to show up. The Saudi-backed group has asked for "clarifications" after the UN issued invitations to other opposition figures. It also wants assurances from the international community that it will move to end regime attacks on civilians and allow humanitarian aid. Opposition sources said it appeared increasingly unlikely the talks would open as planned. The roadmap is the most ambitious plan yet to end the conflict which has killed more than 260,000 people and forced millions from their homes. De Mistura said that his video message was "meant to reach every single man, woman, child of Syria, inside Syria and outside, in the refugee camps or where ever you are." "You must know also that we count on you to raise your voice to say 'khalas' ("stop" in Arabic)... to say to everyone who is actually coming from Syria and from abroad to this conference that there are expectations on them to make sure that their vision, their capacity of compromise in discussion for reaching a peaceful solution in Syria is now and they need to produce that," he said. Officials have said the talks, only the second dialogue between Syrians since the start of the conflict, would run over six months, with the first round expected to last between two and three weeks. Moscow (AFP) - Syrian defence minister Fahed Jassem al-Freij on Thursday met his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu in Moscow ahead of Syria peace talks due to start Friday in Geneva. "The results of the operation of the Russian air force in Syria, aimed at the destruction of terrorist groups, were discussed," Russian news agencies quoted the defence ministry as saying. "The meeting was held in a friendly atmosphere and confirmed the mutual intention to further expand comprehensive cooperation between the defence ministries," they added. The meeting comes as Syrian opposition members met for a third day Thursday to decide whether to attend UN peace talks, with less than 24 hours before the negotiations were due to begin in Geneva. Opposition sources said it appeared increasingly unlikely the talks would open in the Swiss city on Friday as planned. Shoigu on Thursday also separately met the Jordanian army's joint chief of staff, General Mohammed al-Zaben Meshaal, to discuss the countries' bilateral military cooperation, Russian news agencies reported. Russia is currently conducting a bombing campaign in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad, while the US is leading a separate coalition targeting Islamic State jihadists. Moscow has staunchly supported Assad's beleaguered regime and said that his removal could not be a prerequisite for a deal to end the conflict, which has left more than 260,000 people dead and millions displaced. The West has accused Russia -- whose jets carried out more than 5,000 combat sorties in Syria last year -- of mainly targeting moderate rebels fighting the Assad regime as well as inflicting civilian casualties. The Russian foreign ministry said Thursday it wanted to hold an international meeting on Syria, which would include key players from the West and the Middle East, in Munich next month. Some 17 nations -- including the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran -- have held several rounds of talks last year in the broadest international push to end the conflict in Syria. By Tom Perry BEIRUT (Reuters) - The powerful Syrian Kurdish YPG militia and its local allies have drawn up plans for a major attack to seize the final stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border held by Islamic State fighters, a YPG source familiar with the plan said on Thursday. Such an offensive could deprive Islamic State fighters of a logistical route that has been used by the group to bring in supplies and foreign recruits. But it could lead to confrontation with Turkey, which is fighting against its own Kurdish insurgents and sees the Syrian Kurds as an enemy. After a year of military gains aided by U.S.-led air strikes, the Kurds and their allies already control the entire length of Syria's northeastern Turkish frontier from Iraq to the banks of the Euphrates river, which crosses the border west of the town of Kobani. Other Syrian insurgent groups control the frontier further west, leaving only around 100 km (60 miles) of border in the hands of Islamic State fighters, running from the town of Jarablus on the bank of the Euphrates west to near the town of Azaz. But Turkey says it will not allow the Syrian Kurds to move west of the Euphrates. The source confirmed a report on Kurdish news website Xeber24 which cited a senior YPG leader saying the plan includes crossing the Euphrates to attack the Islamic State-held towns of Jarablus and Manbij, in addition to Azaz, which is held by other insurgent groups. The source did not give a planned date, but said a Jan. 29 date mentioned in the Xeber24 report might not be accurate. The YPG has been the most important partner on the ground of a U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State, and is a major component of an alliance formed last year called the Syria Democratic Forces, which also includes Arab and other armed groups. The alliance is quietly backed by Washington, even as its NATO ally in the region, Turkey, is hostile. The political party affiliated with the YPG, the PYD, has been excluded from Syria peace talks the United Nations plans to hold in Geneva on Friday. The PYD and its allies say their exclusion undermines the process and have blamed Turkey. Ankara fears further expansion by the YPG will fuel separatist sentiment among its own Kurdish minority. It views the Syrian Kurdish PYD as a terrorist group because of its affiliation to Turkish Kurdish militants. The United States and Turkey have for months been discussing a joint military plan to drive Islamic State from the border, but there has been little sign of it on the ground. The border area is being fought over by several sides in the complex, multi-sided civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people and driven more than 10 million from their homes. At the western end of the Islamic State-held stretch of frontier, Syrian insurgents backed by Turkey have been fighting Islamic State near Azaz in a to-and-fro battle that has not yielded major shifts, said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory Human Rights. Tensions between the YPG and its allies on one hand and other insurgent groups backed by Turkey on the other have spilled into conflict near Azaz in the last three months. Separately, the Syrian army and allied militia, supported by Russian air strikes, are meanwhile edging closer to the Islamic State-held town of al-Bab, some 50 km (30 miles) southwest of Manbij in the Aleppo area. (Additional reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Peter Graff) Riyadh (AFP) - Key Syrian opposition members said Thursday they will miss the start of crucial talks in Geneva aimed at ending the devastating war, as the UN warned the negotiations must not fail. The Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee, meeting in Riyadh, said it would not attend the Geneva negotiations until an agreement was reached on aid entering besieged towns. Their absence threatens to derail the biggest diplomatic push yet to resolve the nearly five-year-old civil war, which has killed more than 260,000 people and forced millions from their homes. UN envoy Staffan de Mistura, in a video message to the Syrian people, said the talks could be their country's last chance for peace. "Now we need to hear your voice to everyone who is coming to this conference, and saying this conference must be an opportunity not to be missed," the envoy said. He said that after several stalled peace processes, the Geneva talks "cannot fail". A spokeswoman for the UN talks, Khawla Mattar, said that no postponement was planned. A senior delegate of the High Negotiations Committee told AFP that a decision was expected on Friday on whether to attend the UN-brokered talks. Riad Hijab, coordinator of the High Negotiations Committee, said that aid access was a precondition of attending. "Tomorrow we won't be in Geneva. We could go there but we will not enter the negotiating room if our demands aren't met," he told Al-Arabiya television. Western diplomats have piled pressure on the opposition to participate in the negotiations, which would be only the second dialogue between Syrians since the start of the conflict. The Committee has asked for "clarifications" after the UN issued invitations to other opposition figures, and wants assurances from the international community that it will move to end regime attacks on civilians and allow humanitarian aid. - 'Historic opportunity' - France-based Middle East analyst Agnes Levallois said the opposition was growing increasingly frustrated that the question of President Bashar al-Assad's fate was being put off. Story continues "Assad is feeling stronger and stronger so is being inflexible," she said. Haytham Manna, a longstanding opposition figure who is co-chair of the political wing of a Kurdish-Arab alliance, told AFP in Geneva he did not expect talks to begin until Monday. A source close to the government in Damascus said its delegation, headed by Syria's envoy to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari, would arrive on Friday. The talks are part of a UN-backed plan, agreed by top diplomats last year in Vienna, that envisages negotiations followed by a transitional government, a new constitution, and elections within 18 months. French President Francois Hollande called for negotiations to start as soon as possible. "We urgently need to put in place humanitarian measures and negotiate a political transition," Hollande said at a joint press conference with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. The United States, while expressing sympathy for the rebel demands for aid, also urged the Syrian opposition to attend the talks. "We believe these demands, while legitimate, shouldn't keep the talks from moving forward," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. - 'Russian strikes' kill 54 - Russia said Thursday it wanted another meeting of world powers on Syria in Munich on February 11, when the first round of the Geneva talks could still be taking place. De Mistura's office said on Tuesday it had issued invitations to the talks, but refused to say who had been invited. The Committee, which has named Mohammed Alloush of the Islamist rebel group Army of Islam as its chief negotiator, confirmed it had received an invitation, but so did several other opposition figures not belonging to the body. Former deputy Syrian premier Qadri Jamil told AFP in Geneva that he was part of a second opposition delegation invited to the talks. "We have decided we will not boycott the negotiations, but they will not succeed without the Kurds," he said. Turkey, a staunch opponent of the Syrian regime, has warned against any participation of Kurdish forces it says are linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Asked about Jamil's role, Mattar, the UN spokeswoman, said it was "not our plan or understanding" that his delegation would take part in the talks on an equal footing with the Committee. The peace push comes as Syrian forces have been advancing against rebels in various parts of the country, thanks in large part to Russian air strikes launched in September. Critics have accused Moscow of killing hundreds of civilians in the strikes and on Thursday a monitor said at least 54 civilians had died in suspected Russian air raids in parts of northern and eastern Syria under IS control. LAUSANNE, Switzerland (Reuters) - A Syrian opposition group whose Kurdish members were not invited to peace talks in Geneva has sent a list of "essential participants" to the United Nations, Russia and the United States, one of its leaders said on Thursday. "We finished our list and we have what we can call a democratic secular Syrian list of 15 essential and 15 (alternative members), and we are waiting because (U.N. Envoy Staffan) De Mistura received this list and the Americans and Russians, Syrian Democratic Council co-leader Haytham Manna told reporters in Lausanne. (This version of the story corrects quote to say 'secular' instead of 'circular') (Reporting by Cecile Mantovani Writing by Tom Miles; Editing by Alison Williams) By J.R. Wu TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, ignoring U.S. criticism, flew to a disputed island in the South China Sea on Thursday to reaffirm Taipei's sovereignty and said the trip was aimed at promoting peace. Ma's one-day visit to Itu Aba came amid growing international concern over tension in the South China Sea, especially in the wake of Beijing's rapid creation of seven man-made islands in the Spratly archipelago. The United States, Taiwan's biggest ally, on Wednesday called Ma's trip "extremely unhelpful", adding it would not do anything to resolve disputes over the waterway. But Ma, who steps down in May, said he had told the United States about his trip a few days beforehand. "The U.S. and we (Taiwan), when it comes to the big direction for the South China Sea, are the same," Ma told reporters on his return. "We all hope for peace, hope there is no conflict or war." Beijing on Thursday reiterated that China and Taiwan had a common duty to protect Chinese sovereignty in the South China Sea. Beijing, recognized by most of the world as the head of "one China", the People's Republic of China, deems Taiwan a wayward province to be taken by force if necessary. Taiwan, which goes by the official name of Republic of China, is recognized by only a handful of countries. Ma also said his trip was aimed at bringing attention to Taiwan's stand. Both China and Taiwan claim most of the South China Sea. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei have competing claims. The Philippines has launched an arbitration case against China in The Hague which Ma said could result in a ruling affecting Taiwan. The visit was now or never because of the pending ruling that might rule on land formations that could determine economic zone rights for claimants. "Our diplomatic situation is difficult. On the topic of the South China Sea, we want to talk but have nowhere to file our complaint," Ma said. "This was the time to go. If I didn't go now, it would have been too late." Vietnam's top official in Taiwan said Hanoi "resolutely opposed" Ma's visit. The Philippine Foreign Ministry said all parties had a shared responsibility to refrain from actions that could increase tensions. Taiwan has just finished a $100 million port upgrade and built a new lighthouse on Itu Aba, known as Taiping in Taiwan. The island, which lies in the Spratlys, also has an airstrip, a hospital and fresh water. Given the tensions over the South China Sea, few senior political officials from any of the claimants have visited the contested region in recent years. Ma's visit follows elections won by the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which declined a request by Ma to send a representative along. The DPP said Taiwan had a responsibility to maintain peace and stability in the area. The claims of both China and Taiwan are based on maps from the late 1940s belonging to the Nationalists, when they ruled all of China. The Nationalists fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the Chinese civil war to Mao Zedong's Communists. China has appeared unfazed by Taiwan's upgrading work on Itu Aba. Military strategists say that is because Itu Aba could fall into China's hands should it ever take over Taiwan. The 46-hectare (114-acre) island supports around 180 people, about 150 of them coastguard personnel. (Additional reporting by Manuel Mogato in Manila; Editing by Dean Yates and Nick Macfie) Ottawa (AFP) - Three Canadians have been infected with the Zika virus while traveling abroad, Canadian health authorities said Thursday, raising the possibility of new blood donor restrictions to prevent the disease's spread. "There are three cases in Canada," a spokesman for the health ministry told AFP. Two cases involved people who live in westernmost British Columbia province and were infected in El Salvador and Colombia respectively. Another involved an Alberta resident. Officials did not specify where the person had traveled. None of the three was pregnant and all have recovered. "We have no reason to believe that local transmission is a concern for Canadians," said Health Minister Jane Philpott, while urging travelers to take precautions. Meanwhile, she said Canadian Blood Services, which is responsible for collecting blood donations in the country, is looking into whether to restrict persons who recently traveled to certain countries from giving blood. "Canadian Blood Services is re-evaluating whether there need to be changes to their policy in terms of a possible travel deferral period for this," the minister said. "As you know, the organizations already have intake information about the travel patterns of those who have donated blood. But we expect further modifications to their donor program and will announce those as soon as we can." The mosquito-borne virus has been linked to serious birth defects, including microcephaly, a condition in which a newborn's brain and skull are abnormally small. Developmental problems often result. Earlier in the day, the World Health Organization (WHO) set an emergency meeting for February 1 on the Zika virus, which is spreading "explosively" in the Americas, with three to four million cases expected this year. No cases of direct infection have yet been registered inside the United States or Canada. WHO has previously said that it expects Zika to spread to every country in the Americas except Canada and Chile. By Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) - A Toronto hedge fund manager and his New York firm agreed to reimburse $2.88 million to investors who were misled about the firm's strategy and performance, and suffered losses after their money was plowed into illiquid penny stocks, the top U.S. securities regulator said on Thursday. QED Benchmark Management LLC and its founder Peter Kuperman did not admit wrongdoing in agreeing to settle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Kuperman also agreed to a $75,000 civil fine and a ban from the securities industry. The SEC said QED and Kuperman raised millions of dollars using a misleading mixture of hypothetical and real returns to advertise their performance, and conceal a 78.8 percent loss in the first quarter of 2009. According to the SEC, Kuperman later began working with two Canadian stock promoters, and by 2013 had invested nearly all fund assets in Emo Capital Corp, which traded over-the-counter as NuVitality, and other illiquid common and convertible securities. Kuperman was accused of doing this despite telling investors he would follow more traditional investment strategies, and that their investments would be better diversified. The SEC also said Kuperman played down the magnitude of his fund's health in 2013 when investors sought to redeem their money, and eventually used new money located by the promoters to issue partial redemptions to some of his complaining investors. Andrew Calamari, head of the SEC's New York office, said in a statement that the accord provides "full monetary relief" to QED's investors. A lawyer for QED and Kuperman had no immediate comment. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Grant McCool) By Joseph Ax NEW YORK (Reuters) - A fighter jet from a U.S. Navy base in Maryland may have caused a series of sonic booms on Thursday near the New Jersey coast that prompted hundreds of residents to report earthquake-like tremors. A spokeswoman for Naval Air Station Patuxent River said an F-35C was conducting routine flight testing over the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday afternoon that may have created sonic booms. People from New Jersey to Connecticut posted on social media and called local police departments to report a series of tremors starting just before 1:30 p.m. The U.S. Geological Survey, which monitors earthquake activity, said no quake had struck. The agency reported at least nine sonic booms had been recorded over 90 minutes starting at 1:24 p.m. near Hammonton, New Jersey, about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Philadelphia. A sonic boom is produced when an airplane travels faster than the speed of sound, or 768 miles per hour (1,236 kph). The sound waves can hit the Earth and cause shaking, which is sometimes mistaken for an earthquake, according to the USGS. Two days ago, residents in Charleston, South Carolina, also reported feeling tremors, likely caused by sonic booms from F-18 fighter jets on a training run from a nearby military base, according to media reports. In New York, seismologists at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University confirmed no earthquake had occurred in the region on Thursday. The observatory measured vibrations and low-frequency sound waves consistent with about eight sonic booms from approximately 1:20 p.m. to 2:40 p.m., said Won-Young Kim, a research professor there. He said residents on the ground likely would not have heard the booms but would have experienced 15 to 20 seconds of shaking during each one. The tremors produced numerous emergency calls to local police departments, some of which took to Twitter to ask residents not to flood their lines with more reports. No serious damage was immediately reported. Test aircraft from the naval air station fly almost daily along the same route, according to the base's spokeswoman, but most sonic booms are never heard on land. Certain atmospheric conditions, however, can make the sound travel. Some Twitter users offered a lighthearted response. One person using the handle @VixenRogue quipped: "Aliens are invading New Jersey. What's the best way to let them know the other 49 states are just fine with this?" (Reporting by Joseph Ax; Additional reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Andrew Hay and Sandra Maler) By Megan Cassella, Susan Heavey and Dustin Volz WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday escalated a fight with Fox News, using the word "bimbo" in a derogatory tweet about anchorwoman Megyn Kelly after pulling out of a debate only days before the first nominating contest of the 2016 campaign. Trump on Tuesday withdrew from the televised encounter, scheduled for Thursday night in Des Moines, Iowa, in irritation at host Fox News for allowing Kelly to moderate after her questioning angered him in a debate last year. The real estate magnate, who is the Republican front-runner to win the nomination for the Nov. 8 presidential election, followed up with another round of insults on Wednesday. "I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct," he wrote on Twitter. "Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!" In a later interview on Fox Newss The OReilly Factor, he told host Bill O'Reilly that she was "highly overrated." "I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly. I dont think shes very good at what she does," Trump said. Trump's Republican presidential rivals were quick to criticize the former reality TV star, with U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas blistering him in a series of tweets and accusing him of "trembling at being questioned by Kelly." At an event in West Des Moines, Iowa, Cruz openly mocked Trump, calling him a "fragile soul" and "gentle," and renewed his offer to debate Trump one-on-one Saturday evening. "It's not that he's afraid of me," Cruz said to the crowd. "He's afraid of you. He doesn't want to answer questions from the men and women of Iowa about how his record doesn't match what he's selling." Another Republican hopeful, U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, told Fox News that he welcomed Trumps absence from the debate stage because it means "we dont have to put up with a lot of empty blather and boastfulness and calling people names. Trump's decision means the last televised debate before Monday's Iowa caucuses - which kick off the state-by-state nominating race to choose candidates for the presidential election - will not feature the man who has dominated the Republican race for months and leads many opinion polls. It was seen as a bold gamble. 'A RISKY MOVE' Trump has said that in lieu of his debate participation he will hold a fundraiser for veterans. It will be held at Drake University in Des Moines and begin at the same time Thursday as the Fox debate, according to an invitation his campaign circulated Wednesday evening. "It's a risky move; it's very high profile," said Craig Robinson, a former Iowa state party official. "But I'm not sure it will really change anyone's mind about Trump." Trump has been feuding with Fox News since the network hosted the first Republican debate in August, in which Kelly asked Trump about his treatment of women, prompting a stream of insults from the candidate and complaints he was not being treated fairly. He did not renew his attacks on Kelly during an evening rally in Gilbert, South Carolina, but told supporters to watch a rerun of the Fox interview, which he called a "tough interview," when they got home. Cruz, Trump's main rival in Iowa, used the hashtag #DuckingDonald to make fun of Trump for ducking out of the debate and tweeted a mocked-up picture of Trump's head on Scrooge McDuck's body sitting on a pile of money. Cruz, a conservative and a debating champion in college, tweeted a link to "duckingdonald.com," which asked visitors to sign a petition in favor of Cruz and Trump having a side debate. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, another Republican presidential contender, described Trumps decision at such a crucial time as a big mistake that calls into question his ability to be president. Anytime you get a podium and a microphone and 15-20 million people watching in an election campaign, you should take it, Christie told Boston Herald Radio. Another Republican candidate, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, said he wanted to focus on keeping the party united in order to beat Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, if she becomes the Democratic nominee. "These kinds of theatrics by Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are an entertaining sideshow, but they have nothing to do with defeating Hillary Clinton," Rubio said. Not every candidate was convinced Trump would follow through on his pledge to stay away. "He apparently is not going to come to the debate, although Ive got a $20 bet hell show up, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said at a town hall meeting in response to a question. "Poor little Donald, being treated unfairly, he said. Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said Trump was not afraid to debate his rivals or take reporters' questions. He added that Trump would be happy to debate Cruz if the contest, in which 12 Republicans are vying for their party's nomination, narrows. "If it comes down to a two-person race, Donald Trump would be happy to debate him," Lewandowski told ABC's "Good Morning America" program. Fox News, in a statement on Tuesday, said it would not "give in to terrorizations toward any of our employees," but left the door open to Trump attending the debate. The event will be co-hosted by Alphabet Inc's Google. "At the end of the day, Mr. Trump is going to have the last laugh," Lewandowski told MSNBC. (This version of the story corrects 17th paragraph to say Scrooge McDuck, not Donald Duck) (Additional reporting by Steve Holland and James Oliphant in Iowa and Eric Beech and Dustin Volz in Washington; Writing by John Whitesides and Alistair Bell; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Leslie Adler and Lisa Shumaker) By Steve Holland and John Whitesides DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Donald Trump will widen a rupture between his supporters and the Republican Party establishment on Thursday when he boycotts a presidential debate in a snub to Fox News only days before the 2016 election season starts in earnest. The billionaire front-runner for the Republican nomination will instead host his own event in Iowa during the Fox News debate, likely damaging prime time TV ratings of the most powerful media force in Republican politics. Trump withdrew from the encounter in a spat with network anchor Megyn Kelly who he accuses of treating him unfairly. "The 'debate' tonight will be a total disaster," Trump said in a Twitter post on Thursday morning. "Low ratings with advertisers and advertising rates dropping like a rock. I hate to see this." A Fox News spokesperson rejected Trump's statement, saying "The debate is completely sold out. No rates have changed and there are no advertisers who have backed out." Trump's move might be a risky gamble ahead of Monday's Iowa caucuses, the first nominating contest in the Nov. 8 presidential election. But his support in the polls, much of it from blue-collar males, has not wavered for months despite him insulting Mexican immigrants, threatening to deny Muslims entry to the United States and fighting with Republican establishment figures like Senator John McCain. And Trump won backing on Thursday when two Republican candidates, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, agreed to attend his alternative event, a fundraiser for veterans at Iowa's Drake University, during the Fox News debate. The pair, social conservatives who have long been at odds with the more mainstream Republican establishment, had been relegated to Fox News' "undercard" debate of the candidates with low polling which takes place earlier than the full-blown debate at 9 p.m. EST (0200 GMT). A CNN source said the network would likely air parts of the Trump event live. Trump announced a dedicated website, DonaldTrumpForVets.com, for his supporters to donate funds for military veterans. It is my great honor to support our Veterans with you! Trump tweeted. The website, however, did not specify any particular charity to which the funds would go. Rivals like Senator Ted Cruz have accused real estate magnate Trump of being too afraid to face them in the debate and conservative pundits have criticized the move. While some of Trumps fans were supportive of his decision, others worried that he was wasting an opportunity by snubbing Fox News. "This was valuable time for him. Why is he giving this up?" said Dale Ranney, a volunteer for Trumps campaign in South Carolina. "He could have had veteran fundraising on another night. He doesnt have to make a stand just because he doesnt like Megyn Kelly." Fox News chairman Roger Ailes contacted Trumps daughter, Ivanka, to gauge Trumps seriousness about dropping out of the debate, but did not seek to change his mind, network officials said, according to The New York Times. While Trump could cost Fox News debate-night ratings, officials at the network said Rupert Murdoch, the executive co-chairman of Fox's parent company, 21st Century Fox, gave Ailes his support over the phone, The New York Times said. Fox News on Tuesday had released a statement that questioned how Trump would handle Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei if he could not deal with Kelly - a statement Trump said was childish. OPENING FOR RIVALS Conservative Fox News TV host Bill OReilly told Trump in an interview on Wednesday the decision to boycott the debate could appear "self-absorbed". "People are going to say, you know Trump hes just too self-absorbed to be president. He needs to look to the bigger picture, and the bigger picture is to get your message to the folks, O'Reilly said, asking Trump to reconsider. "Im not walking away, I was pushed away," Trump responded. Trumps rivals view the debate as a chance to get their own messages across without having to compete with Trump's bomb-throwing rhetoric. "It gives us more time at the microphone and more time to talk about answers to substantive issues that Iowa voters are demanding right now," said David Kochel, a senior adviser to Republican candidate Jeb Bush. "It is undeniable that what he's doing is denying his opponents a large audience as they make their final arguments to Iowa voters," said Eric Fehrnstrom, a Republican strategist who advised the party's 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney. While it might be tempting for Trump's rivals to use the debate to criticize him aggressively, some Republican analysts are cautioning against a scorched-earth approach. "It's delicate for the candidates because you have to pull back from attacking a man who is not there," said Ari Fleischer, who was White House press secretary for President George W. Bush. "It will be OK to make a passing reference or two, the fact that hes not there. But if you try to beat him up, it won't play well because he's not there to defend himself." Campaigning on Wednesday in West Des Moines, Cruz mocked Trump for skipping the debate, calling him a "fragile soul." He renewed his offer to Trump to debate him one-on-one. (Additional reporting by Ginger Gibson and James Oliphant in Iowa, Doina Chiacu and Valerie Volcovici in Washington, Richard Valdmanis in Boston and Emily Flitter in New York; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Alistair Bell) By Hanna Knutson BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The leader of Turkey's pro-Kurdish opposition said conflict in the country's largely Kurdish southeast had grown into an international problem, feeding into war in neighbouring Syria, and urged allies to do more to push for a ceasefire. Unrest in the NATO member state, which is negotiating to join the European Union, has turned parts of the southeast into a war zone. Kurdish militants have dug trenches and erected barricades in towns and cities, and the death toll has climbed into the hundreds as the security forces try to flush them out. It is also complicating efforts to stage Syrian peace talks. "The international community should call on both the Turkish government and the PKK for a ceasefire and a return to healthy negotiations, and they must make this call repeatedly," Selahattin Demirtas, co-leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the third largest party in the Turkish parliament, told Reuters. "Turkey's domestic peace is not an issue for Turkey alone. It is directly related to the resolution of the Syrian conflict and to the migration problem in Europe," he said in an interview on Wednesday in Brussels, where he was participating in a Kurdish conference in the European parliament. Ankara's army, the second largest in NATO, is fighting on two fronts, against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters and the threat from Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, both bordering Turkey. The country has seen a series of bombings, most recently an Istanbul suicide attack that killed ten German tourists. CURFEW WIDENED The conflict with the PKK, after the breakdown of a two-and- a-half-year ceasefire, has complicated efforts by a U.S.-led international coalition, of which Turkey is a member, to fight Islamic State. Turkey, the United States and European Union all classify the PKK - which says it is fighting for Kurdish autonomy - as a terrorist organisation. But Washington sees the Syrian Kurdish PYD, which has links to the PKK, as a useful ally. Ankara views it as a terrorist group and does not want it making territorial gains that could stoke Kurdish separatism at home. Demirtas described Turkey's opposition to the PYD taking part in Syrian peace talks planned in Geneva as an "emotional reflex", saying the group was vital to the negotiations. Turkey is sheltering more than 2.5 million Syrian migrants, according to U.N. and government figures, and has agreed with the EU to do more to stop their exodus to Europe. Demirtas, who denies accusations that his party has links to the militants, said the latest military operations had killed around 200 civilians, 70 of them children. Hundreds of thousands of civilians had been affected, many having to leave their homes or shut their businesses. The EU has called for an immediate ceasefire. The government says civilians are not being targeted in the operation and blames the PKK for bringing its campaign, which has killed over 40,000 since 1984, to city centres. President Tayyip Erdogan, who eased some restrictions on Kurdish culture in his early years in power, has vowed to destroy the PKK. Authorities widened a curfew in the region's largest city Diyarbakir on Wednesday. Hundreds, including children and the elderly, fled curfew-bound areas of its historic Sur district as gunfire and blasts resounded. (Additional reporting by Melih Aslan in Istanbul; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Daren Butler) (This January 26 story was corrected to show in second paragraph that Air Force now saying F-35 will fly only at RIAT air show, instead of at Farnborough show as well) By Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force on Tuesday confirmed that it will send a pair of F-35A fighter jets to two air shows in Britain this summer, joining two U.S. Marine Corps jets and at least one British jet that are also slated to appear. The two F-35 jets from Luke Air Force Base will be on static display at both the annual Royal International Air Tattoo and the Farnborough air show outside London in July, and one will participate in so-called "heritage flights" with vintage warplanes at RIAT, said Air Force spokeswoman Major Kelley Jeter. "We're very excited about demonstrating this capability to the world," the Air Force's chief of staff, General Mark Welsh, said in a statement. "The F-35 represents a new way of thinking about data integration, weapons and tactics." Reuters reported on Monday that the U.S. Marine Corps, Air Force and Britain would send F-35 jets to the air shows this summer, but Air Force officials did not confirm the news until Tuesday. British officials have declined to comment. The F-35's planned appearances at the two UK air shows come after a fleetwide F-35 grounding ordered following an engine fire that prevented what would have been the fighters' international premiere at those shows two years ago. Lockheed is developing three models of the jet - also known as the Joint Strike Fighter, or Lightning II - with key suppliers Northrop Grumman Corp and Britain's BAE Systems Plc. Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp, builds the engines. Besides Britain, seven other countries helped fund development of the jets: Norway, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Turkey, Italy and the Netherlands. All but Canada and Denmark have since ordered jets, as have Israel, Japan and South Korea. Story continues Lockheed Chief Executive Marillyn Hewson told analysts on Tuesday that the company expected to deliver 53 F-35 aircraft in 2016, up from 45 in 2015. She said Lockheed was expecting 59 or 60 F-35 deliveries in 2017, rising to around 100 deliveries in 2018. (Additional reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Alistair Bell) By Julie Steenhuysen and Roberta Rampton CHICAGO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday called for the rapid development of tests, vaccines and treatments to fight the mosquito-transmitted Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects and could spread to the United States in warmer months. U.S. health officials are stepping up efforts to study the link between Zika virus infections and birth defects, citing a recent study estimating the virus could reach regions where 60 percent of the U.S. population lives. Obama was briefed on the potential spread of the virus by his top health and national security officials on Tuesday. "The president emphasized the need to accelerate research efforts to make available better diagnostic tests, to develop vaccines and therapeutics, and to ensure that all Americans have information about the Zika virus and steps they can take to better protect themselves from infection," the White House said in a statement. The virus has been linked to brain damage in thousands of babies in Brazil. There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, a close cousin of dengue and chikungunya, which causes mild fever and rash. An estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms, making it difficult for pregnant women to know whether they have been infected. On Monday, the World Health Organization predicted the virus would spread to all countries across the Americas except for Canada and Chile. In a blog post, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins cited a Lancet study published Jan. 14 in which researchers predicted the Zika virus could be spread in areas along the East and West Coasts of the United States and much of the Midwest during warmer months, where about 200 million people live. The study also showed that 22.7 million more people live in humid parts of the country where mosquitoes carrying the virus could live year round. Given the threat, Collins said "it is now critically important to confirm, through careful epidemiological and animal studies, whether or not a causal link exists between Zika virus infections in pregnant women and microcephaly in their newborn babies." Microcephaly results in babies being born with abnormally small heads. There is still much to learn about Zika infections, experts said. For example, it is not clear how common Zika infections are in pregnant women, or when during a pregnancy a woman is most at risk of transmitting the virus to her foetus. Collins said the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease is conducting studies to more fully understand the effects of Zika in humans, and to develop better diagnostic tests to quickly determine if someone has been infected. The NIAID is also working on testing new drugs that might be effective against the virus. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also announced new instructions for paediatricians treating infants whose mothers may have been exposed to the virus during pregnancy. In those guidelines, the CDC made clear that it considers the Zika virus a nationally notifiable condition, and instructs doctors to contact their state or territorial health departments to facilitate testing of potentially infected infants. Dr. Kathryn Edwards of Vanderbilt University, who serves on the American Academy of Pediatrics' committee on infectious disease, said the guidelines were intended to help establish whether Zika causes microcephaly and to help pregnant women who may have been infected with the virus. Microcephaly is a lifelong condition with no known cure, the CDC website said. Symptoms range from mild to severe. In mild cases, infants often have no symptoms other than small head size, but doctors still need to check their development regularly. In severe cases, babies may need speech, occupational and physical therapy. The guidelines for testing infants affected by Zika infections follows CDC guidelines for caring for pregnant women exposed to Zika virus, which were first reported by Reuters. The CDC said last week it is trying to determine how many pregnant women may have travelled to affected regions in the past several months. On Tuesday, the CDC added the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Dominican Republic to its list of countries and territories with Zika transmissions, bringing the total to 24. The CDC has told pregnant women not to travel to countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean affected by Zika. Travel companies, including United Airlines, have begun offering refunds or allowing pregnant women to postpone trips to regions affected by Zika with no penalty. There are no global estimates for how many people in the world have been infected by the Zika virus, World Health Organization spokesman Christian Lindmeier said on Tuesday. He said that because Zika has such mild symptoms, the virus has "not really been on the radar." Lindmeier said it was not yet clear whether the virus affecting Brazil and other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean was a mutated version of the virus that has caused prior outbreaks. He said the WHO was working with the CDC, the Institut Pasteur in France and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to establish that. "There is a lot of effort going into this now, on the ground, in the laboratories, everywhere, Lindmeier said. (Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva; Editing by Grant McCool and Stephen Coates) By Gary Robertson RICHMOND, Va. (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court heard arguments on Wednesday over whether a high school in Virginia should be ordered to allow a transgendered student to use the boys bathroom, even though he was born a biological female. The student, Gavin Grimm, a 16-year-old junior at Gloucester High School, is suing the Gloucester County School Board over its restroom policy. His lawyers want the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to issue an order letting him use the boys bathroom. Joshua Block, the lead attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which brought the case, told the three-judge panel the policy violated constitutional guarantees of equal protection, and Title IX, the federal law that bars sexual discrimination. But school board lawyer David Corrigan contended that "transgender is not a protected class under the Constitution. The question is, what is the meaning of sex in 2016? senior Judge Andre Davis asked Corrigan in the packed courtroom. Our position is that sex is what genitalia (someone) was born with, Corrigan said. Thats all sex is, biology? Davis asked. Corrigan said school policies, with boys using boys restrooms and girls using girls bathrooms and unisex restrooms that anyone can use, did not violate Title IX and equal protection guarantees. The court did not indicate when it would rule. Grimms school allowed him to use the boys bathroom starting in October 2014, drawing complaints primarily from parents. The school approved a policy in December 2014 requiring students to use single-stall unisex restrooms or restrooms associated with their physical sex. Court documents say Grimm has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, which is a mismatch between gender identity and physical sex. The ACLU filed suit in June on Grimms behalf. A federal judge in Norfolk, Virginia, denied the request for an injunction in September and dismissed the discrimination claims. After the hearing, a sometimes tearful Grimm told reporters that he felt humiliated by the school boards decisions. I didnt set out to make waves. I set out to use the bathroom, he said. The case has attracted widespread attention, with gay, transgender and womens rights advocates, school administrators and politicians filing friend-of-the-court briefs. The U.S. Justice Department has filed a friend-of-the-court brief on Grimms behalf. States including South Carolina, Arizona and West Virginia and Republican Governors Paul LePage of Maine and Patrick McCrory of North Carolina have submitted briefs for the school board. By Nate Raymond NEW YORK (Reuters) - The former chief executive of the male escort website Rentboy.com was indicted on Wednesday on a charge of promoting prostitution, in a case that has outraged gay and civil rights activists. The three-count indictment against Jeffrey Hurant, 51, by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn, New York, added money laundering charges not previously filed against the company founder in a criminal complaint in August. Easy Rent Systems Inc, which did business as Rentboy.com, was also named a defendant. The indictment did not name six former employees who were arrested along with Hurant in August when authorities seized the gay website. A spokeswoman for Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Robert Capers said the criminal complaint against the former employees remains pending. The case has prompted criticism among some gay rights activists, who held a protest in September and have questioned why prosecutors are targeting the service after it had operated transparently for nearly two decades. James Roth, a lawyer for former Rentboy sales agent Clint Calero, said he hoped the indictment meant prosecutors had "acknowledged the merits of our defenses and that we will enter into a non-prosecution agreement." Hurant's attorney, Michael Tremonte, said he would contest the charges and looked forward to "full vindication at trial." "The government's charges against Mr. Hurant are unwarranted. He ran his business openly for nearly 20 years, and it makes no sense to single him out for criminal prosecution," Tremonte said. Rentboy.com, founded in 1996, became what authorities say was the largest online male escort website, and even hosted an annual escorts awards show called the Hookies. The website carried disclaimers saying its advertisements for escorts were for companionship and not sexual services. But authorities say Rentboy.com was intended primarily to promote prostitution. Escorts paid at least $59.95 per month and up to several hundred dollars to advertise on Rentboy.com, which attracted 500,000 unique visitors daily and generated more than $10 million from 2010 to 2015, prosecutors said. The new indictment said Rentboy also offered an advertising discount to escort agencies and, despite policies banning escorts aged below 18, did not verify their ages. Critics of the case include The New York Times, which in an editorial in August said prosecutors had not justified shutting down "a company that provided sex workers with a safer alternative to street walking or relying on pimps." (Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Richard Chang and Sandra Maler) CHICAGO (Reuters) - The United States has two potential candidates for a vaccine for the Zika virus and may begin clinical trials in people by the end of this year, but there will not be a widely available vaccine for several years, U.S. officials said on Thursday. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease, said one of the vaccines was based on work done on the West Nile virus. Fauci said that vaccine was never developed because a drug company partner could not be found, but he did not see this as an issue for Zika. "We're already talking to a few companies who are able to partner with us in advanced development," he told a news conference. Zika, a mosquito-transmitted virus, has been linked to severe birth defects in thousands of babies in Brazil. There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is like dengue and causes mild fever, rash and red eyes. An estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms, meaning it can be hard to tell if a pregnant woman has been infected. Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said there have been 31 cases of Zika infection among U.S. citizens who traveled to areas affected by the virus. So far, there have been no cases of transmission of the virus through mosquitoes in the United States, she said. In Geneva, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that Zika is spreading "explosively" and could affect as many as four million people in the Americas. (Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Frances Kerry) By Jeffrey Dastin NEW YORK (Reuters) - While airlines are in no rush to pass on fuel savings to passengers brought by the collapse in oil prices, the Houston travel market has left them little choice. Airlines serving the U.S. oil capital have resorted to steep discounts to lure newly budget-conscious energy executives back into the air, according to an analysis of ticket prices provided exclusively to Reuters. Crude's 70-percent drop in the past 19 months has made the Houston travel market a rare point of downward pressure on airline revenues. Its value, including flights, conventions and related services, was estimated at $2.8 billion in 2014 in a report for the Texas governor's office. The ticket data offers more detail than carriers have disclosed about the challenges they face at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport, the ninth busiest globally by take-offs and landings, according to Airports Council International's 2014 ranking. On average, round-trip business and first class tickets to London sold in September 2015 were 14 percent cheaper than a year earlier, at about $4,600, according to the latest figures from fare clearinghouse Airlines Reporting Corporation. Tickets to Calgary, a gateway to northwestern Canada's vast oil fields, plummeted 59 percent to $1,020. And prices for tickets to top drilling gateways Lagos, Dubai and Scotland's Aberdeen fell 22 percent, 23 percent and 31 percent, respectively. (Graphic: http://tmsnrt.rs/1VsEfUg) "It's a combination of fewer people traveling and not as many people flying business class," said Gary Pearce, chief commercial officer for travel management company ATPI's energy and shipping unit. "Companies are re-negotiating terms with anybody that provides a service to them," he added, such as asking airlines to sell lower fares or waive clauses on minimum bookings. Exxon Mobil Corp, ConocoPhillips and BP PLC, which has its U.S. headquarters in Houston, declined to comment for this story. Story continues BIGGEST LOSER The oil slide has largely helped U.S. airlines, reducing one of their biggest expenses and adding hundreds of millions of dollars to their bottom lines. However, they have forfeited a large chunk of the gain because of fuel hedges they bought as protection against crude rising. Houston's example is another reminder that cheap oil cuts more than one way. United Continental Holdings Inc said last week that it doubled its adjusted fourth-quarter profit to $934 million from a year ago. But slack business in Houston will reduce its passenger revenue as a portion of flight capacity by 1 percent in the first quarter, the airline said. Chicago-based United is the most affected because it schedules more than 80 percent of Bush Intercontinental's flights. About 10 percent of United's flight capacity originated from Houston according to this week's schedules, aviation data and analytics company OAG said. Other airlines adjusting to the oil slump include Delta Air Lines Inc, which recently stopped flights from its Minneapolis hub to Dickinson, North Dakota, near the Bakken shale oil formation. Alaska Air Group Inc reported on an investor call last week that its energy-related sales were "fairly stable" because roughly the same number of workers needed to fly to oil-rich Prudhoe Bay to operate drills and pipelines there, despite lower production. Airlines Reporting Corporation, owned by a group of North American airlines, declined to provide data on Prudhoe Bay flights and other routes that were dominated by a single carrier and therefore market sensitive. LEISURE FARES DOWN Cheap oil has not only lowered corporate travel spending. Greater Houston's 6.5 million residents are cutting back on leisure trips, too. The average low leisure fare is down 25 percent from Houston while only down 20 percent overall in the United States, according to a mid-January analysis of the top domestic routes by Harrell Associates, shared with Reuters. Fares have fallen nationwide, not just in Houston, because lower fuel costs have let the largest airlines chop their fares in stiff competition with budget rivals like Spirit Airlines Inc Still, the lowest refundable last-minute fares from Houston are down 11 percent, but up 5 percent nationwide, Harrell Associates data showed. United said last week it is scrapping plans to grow its Houston operation by 2 percent in 2016 and keeping capacity steady instead. The airline declined additional comment for this story but noted that in January 2015 it shrunk its Houston-Calgary operation to three flights per day from four. The airline's loss could be a gain for budget rival Southwest Airlines Co, which in October started its first international flights to Latin America from nearby Houston Hobby Airport. (Reporting By Jeffrey Dastin in New York; Editing by Joseph White and Tomasz Janowski) London (AFP) - Britain announced Thursday a A250 million (325 million euro, $350 million) package of funding to boost the oil industry in northeast Scotland, which has been hit hard by slumping prices. Prime Minister David Cameron visited the oil city of Aberdeen and met industry bosses for talks on the current situation. "Obviously it's a difficult time for the oil industry because of the oil price decline, but what this shows is that the British government is 100% behind this industry, behind Aberdeen, behind Scotland," Cameron said. "We want to see this port expand, we want to see an energy innovation centre, we want to help Aberdeen to diversify its industrial base," he said. Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon welcomed the announcement and said that the Scottish government would add A254 million in funding to improve infrastructure in the region over the next five to ten years. Global oil prices fell by more than 30 percent in 2015 and have dropped by another 20 percent this year amid increasing production and weaker demand. In London, Brent North Sea crude for March, the European benchmark for crude oil, is currently at $34.24 a barrel, down from highs of over $100 in 2014. "We very much welcome Prime Minister David Cameronas visit to Aberdeen and his recognition of the seriousness of our situation," said Deirdre Michie, head of Oil and Gas UK, an industry body. "While the oil and gas sector is under severe pressure globally, due to the current oil glut and price collapse, it is being felt particularly forcefully on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS), which is a mature basin with its own particular difficulties and cost challenges," she said. "Companies are doing all they can to bring down costs and be more efficient, but many are still having to make difficult decisions," she added. The funding is expected to be used to help the oil and gas industry export its expertise globally as well as encouraging economic diversification in northeast Scotland. Story continues It has been committed equally by the government in London and the devolved Scottish administration based in Edinburgh and led by the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP). Oil and gas production in Britain rose by over seven percent last year, the first increase in over 15 years, Oil & Gas UK said this month. The Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) earlier estimated that the sector has lost 65,000 jobs -- 15 percent of its workforce -- since the start of 2014. London (AFP) - British economic growth slowed sharply last year, dented by global financial turbulence, but showed modest signs of recovery in the final quarter, official data showed Thursday. Gross domestic product -- the total value of all goods and services produced in the economy -- expanded by 2.2 percent in 2015, down from 2.9 percent in 2014, the Office for National Statistics said in a statement. GDP meanwhile grew 0.5 percent in the October-December period compared with the previous three months. That met market expectations and marked a modest acceleration from 0.4 percent in the third quarter. aThese figures show Britain continues to grow steadily," said finance minister George Osborne. "Despite turbulence in the global economy, Britain is pushing ahead. "With the risks we see elsewhere in the world, there may be bumpy times ahead -- so here in the UK we must stick to the plan that's cutting the deficit, attracting business investment and creating jobs." Osborne had warned earlier this month that Britain's economy faced a "dangerous cocktail of new threats" such as falling commodity prices, recessions in Brazil and Russia and rising tensions in the Middle East. Economists meanwhile warn that this year's outlook is clouded by an expected referendum on whether Britain should leave the European Union. "The uncertainty surrounding the vote may prompt a slowdown in the pace of hiring and investment, and as such we may see some weaker growth figures around the time of the referendum," said ING economist James Smith. Prime Minister David Cameron called the referendum after winning last year's general election. Opinion polls currently point to a slender lead for those who want out of the EU. London (AFP) - A local council in London became the first in Britain to endorse leaving the European Union in a vote. Havering Council in east London voted by 30 to 15 in favour of a motion tabled by a councillor from the eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP), led by Nigel Farage. "It is a fantastic result," said the UKIP councillor, Lawrence Webb. "We as local councillors have to make decisions on rules and regulations that come out of the EU. They have a direct impact on local services." Havering Council is controlled by the Conservatives. Prime Minister David Cameron called a referendum on whether Britain should leave the European Union after winning last year's general election. The vote is expected to be held this year and opinion polls currently point to a small lead for those who want out of the EU. Councils are not obliged to take a position on whether they want to remain in the EU ahead of the referendum and votes will only take place where individual councillors table motions on the issue. London (AFP) - Britain will take in an unspecified number of migrant children who have been separated from their parents by conflicts in Syria and other countries, the government said Thursday. Officials will work with the United Nations' UNHCR refugee agency to identify youngsters eligible to take up residence in Britain, the Home Office interior ministry announced. Prime Minister David Cameron announced in September that 20,000 refugees from camps on Syria's borders would be brought in by 2020. More than 1,000, half of them children, have so far arrived. But Britain has opted out of European Union quotas for taking migrants and dispersing them around the 28-nation bloc. "The crisis in Syria and events in the Middle East, north Africa and beyond has separated a large number of refugee children from their families," Immigration Minister James Brokenshire said in a statement. He added that while the "vast majority" of them were better off staying in the region and remaining with extended family members, "we have asked the UNHCR to identify the exceptional cases where a child's best interests are served by resettlement to the UK and help us to bring them here." A Home Office spokeswoman said she could not confirm how many children would be affected by the scheme. "No country in Europe is doing more than Britain to help with the refugee crisis," Cameron told Sky News television. "Last year we took 2,500 children. "We're prepared to take more orphans from the region... not encouraging people to make the difficult and potentially lethal journey to Europe. I think our approach is compassionate, generous and right." A spokesman for his Downing Street office said efforts would be directed towards protecting children from exploitation at the hands of traffickers. Cases could include children with a direct family link to someone in Britain. Pressure increased on Cameron to take more children after pictures appeared of Syrian three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, who drowned last year as his family tried to reach Greece. Story continues Britain has committed more than 1 billion to helping refugees in Syria and the region, meaning it is the second-largest donor to efforts to ease the crisis after the US. It also announced Thursday the creation of a new fund of up to 10 million (13 million euros, $14 million) to support refugee children within Europe. Immigration is one of the most sensitive issues in British politics. Annual net migration hit a record high of more than 300,000 last year and Cameron has failed to deliver on a pledge to cut the figure to below 100,000. The prime minister was criticised by opponents as crass on Wednesday for referring in parliament to "a bunch of migrants" at camps in Calais, northeastern France. By Michelle Price and Saikat Chatterjee HONG KONG (Reuters) - China-focused funds in Hong Kong are adopting measures to improve how they cope with liquidity shocks from Chinese markets after the securities regulator found some investors were unfairly treated during last year's market rout. More than half of the mainland's listed firms suspended trading in their stocks at the height of the slump in July, which made it hard for fund managers to value their portfolios and meet a flood of redemptions from investors eager to cut their losses. Fund managers are once again on notice of potential redemptions. After a brief respite from last years fall, Chinese stocks so far in 2016 have dropped about 25 percent, wiping off 13 trillion yuan ($2 trillion) in market capitalization. Inspections by the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) kicked off last year found many funds did not have rigorous processes for valuing their portfolios in the extreme conditions, people with knowledge of the discussions between the regulator and industry said. "This meant some investors were able to redeem at a higher price than they should have, leaving those left in the fund with a lower price. This is raising alarm bells," said Stewart Aldcroft, chief executive of CitiTrust, which acts as a trustee to several Hong Kong funds and has been involved in industry discussions on the matter. Following the inspections and faced with waning investor confidence, hedge funds, asset managers and exchange traded funds now hold more cash, so it is easier to meet redemption requests at times of stress. Asset managers, including Allianz Global Investors and BNP Paribas Investment Partners, are increasing their use of the stock connect scheme, a trading mechanism that allows funds in Hong Kong to adjust positions in Shanghais stock markets more rapidly than using China's other investment channels. Some funds are also introducing stricter policies on valuing stocks that have halted trading and on managing redemptions. Story continues Chinese stocks dropped around 40 percent in just a few months last year, prompting investors to rush for the exits. An unexpected devaluation of the yuan in August added to concerns that the economy was in worse shape than policymakers had let on. The SFC found that during the slump many funds did not have an orderly process for handling redemptions. They chose not to use measures that could have alleviated liquidity stress, such as capping daily redemptions or suspending them altogether, fearing such action would damage their reputation. This meant investors left at the back of the redemption queue, or who did not redeem their investments at all, were sometimes left holding illiquid stocks - a situation the SFC believes may constitute unfair treatment, fund managers said. "Suspension of trading in a fund when a certain amount of underlying stocks are halted and better market liquidity are necessary to boost investor confidence," said Tobias Bland, chief executive of asset management firm Enhanced Investment Products in Hong Kong. The SFC is expected to make a second round of inspections and issue new guidelines in coming months, industry participants said. An SFC spokesman said the regulator had maintained "close dialogue" with asset managers, but he did not elaborate on the outcome of the inspections. "Management companies are required to have procedures to handle issues related to redemption, subscription and valuation of fund assets to ensure all investors are treated fairly, and they should keep investors informed of such procedures," he said. China's yuan-denominated stock markets are the third riskiest in the world after Egypt and Greece, risk management firm Axioma says. "Liquidity risk management is one of the key concerns for fund managers," said Caroline Yu Maurer, head of Greater China equities for BNP Paribas Investment Partners in Hong Kong. "What if I have big redemptions but I can't sell the stocks?" (Reporting by Michelle Price and Saikat Chatterjee; Editing by Neil Fullick) Washington (AFP) - Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, in his first public appearance since his release by Iran, said Thursday it was humbling to learn of efforts to free him during his imprisonment. "For much of the 18 months I was in prison, my Iranian interrogators told me that the Washington Post did not exist, that no one knew of my plight, that the United States government would not lift a finger for my release," a teary-eyed Rezaian said at a dedication ceremony for the new Washington Post headquarters. "Today I am here in this room with the very same people who helped prove the Iranians wrong in so many ways," he said. "Knowing the lengths you all went to to keep my story alive is truly humbling." Rezaian was among four prisoners freed in Iran earlier this month, hours before world powers sealed a deal with Iran on its nuclear program. In return, the US pardoned seven Iranian prisoners and dropped charges against 14 other Iranians. Rezaian received a standing ovation from the crowd gathered for the dedication, which included US Secretary of State John Kerry and Post owner Jeff Bezos, who according to Rezaian "gave me a ride home to freedom." Kerry, who had been scheduled to speak at the ceremony for some time, said the event was "particularly sweet for everybody now that Jason is home." Kerry said Rezaian's imprisonment "gnawed at us because we sensed the wrongfulness" of it. And he noted that the day of Rezaian's release was "one of the days that I enjoyed the most as secretary of state (but) was also one of the most nerve-racking." He was referring to a 25-hour-ordeal in which the fate of Rezaian's wife Yeganeh Salehi and his mother Mary was not known -- a snag which could have derailed the prisoner exchange. Kerry said Rezaian's captivity underscored the dangers faced today by journalists, who are increasingly targeted for their reporting around the world. Story continues In the Vietnam War era, Kerry said, journalists faced dangers more from accidents or crossfire. But now things have changed. "Journalists then were rarely hunted, today they are," he said. "In our era, roughly two-thirds of the reporters who die violently are killed not in spite of their profession but because of it," Kerry added. Kerry said the US would keep up efforts to ensure the safety of journalists around the world as part of a longstanding tradition defending a free press. "To those who try to intimidate or imprison reporters, we need to stand up and say loud and clear that committing journalism, reporting on the truth, is not a crime," he said. "It is a badge of honor. It is a public service." Baghdad (AFP) - The United States is monitoring Iraq's largest dam for signs of further deterioration that could point to an impending catastrophic collapse, US army officers said on Thursday. The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group seized the Mosul Dam briefly in 2014, leading to a lapse in maintenance that weakened an already flawed structure, and Baghdad is seeking a company to make repairs. "The likelihood of the dam collapsing is something we are trying to determine right now," Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland, the commander of the US-led operation against IS, told journalists in Baghdad. The dam has long been in danger of collapse, which US officials have warned could send a huge wave crashing into IS-held Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city that lies about 40 kilometres (25 miles) away. The US put measuring devices on the structure in December to monitor how much it is "moving or deteriorating over time", MacFarland said. "We're still evaluating that data," he said, but if it does collapse, "it's gonna go fast, and that's bad." The US is sharing the data it collects with the Iraqi government and working with Baghdad on an evacuation plan, MacFarland said. "They understand that there is the potential for the Mosul dam to collapse," he said. "If this dam was in the United States, we would have drained the lake behind it -- we would have taken that dam out of commission." Colonel Steve Warren, the spokesman for the anti-IS operation, said that divers had also assessed the dam. The dam, which was completed in 1984, was constructed atop a foundation that continuously erodes with exposure to water, leaving cavities beneath the structure. Since its completion, the Iraqi government has sought to shore up the foundation by injecting mortar-like grout into the subsoil and cavities and controlling seepage. But that regular maintenance lapsed in 2014 after IS seized the dam, stealing the equipment and chasing off the workers, Warren said. Story continues "After we regained control of that dam, the equipment was all gone, and the workers really never did come back," Warren said. "So the rate of decay increased because they weren't doing that regular maintenance, that regular grouting." In 2007 the US ambassador to Iraq and the top American military commander in the country wrote a letter warning the dam could fail with devastating results. "A catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam would result in flooding along the Tigris River all the way to Baghdad," the letter said. "Assuming a worst case scenario, an instantaneous failure of Mosul Dam filled to its maximum operating level could result in a flood wave 20 metres deep at the city of Mosul," it said. Washington (AFP) - The United States has not decided whether to launch military action in Libya, where the Islamic State group is exploiting political instability to expand its operations, Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said Thursday. Washington is "developing options for what we might do in the future," Carter told reporters. But he added: "We're watching the situation very carefully, and there's a lot going on there right now. But we haven't made any decisions to take military action there." "We're looking to help them (the Libyans) get control over their own country and, of course, the United States will support the Libyan government when it forms," he said. World powers have urged Libya's warring factions to endorse the unity government formed last week under a UN-brokered deal aimed at ending the political paralysis that has fueled the rise of IS jihadists. Libya has been in political turmoil and rocked by violence since the ouster of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in a 2011 revolution. It now has two governments and parliaments, with the recognized authorities based in the eastern city of Tobruk and a militia-backed authority in Tripoli. The internationally recognized parliament on Monday rejected an initial cabinet line-up, in a major setback to peace efforts. A new government is expected to be proposed in 10 days, an official said Tuesday. The Islamic State jihadists have exploited the turmoil in Libya to expand their influence in the country and launch attacks on key oil facilities. The group first appeared in the North African nation in 2014 and has since claimed responsibility for beheadings and suicide bombings. It has established a stronghold in the coastal city of Sirte, Kadhafi's hometown, and is reported to have at least 3,000 fighters in Libya. The United States, reluctant to extend its 17-month air campaign against the IS group in Iraq and Syria to a third country, has repeatedly stressed the importance of finding cooperative local partners in Libya, and international allies such as France and Italy to help lead any operations there. "We don't want to be on a glide slope to a situation like Syria and Iraq," Carter said. "That's the reason why we're watching it that closely." Washington (AFP) - The United States has issued a reminder that products imported from the West Bank or Gaza should not be labeled "made in Israel," the State Department confirmed Thursday. The guidance was issued last week by US Customs but debate erupted after media reports suggested Washington was hardening its stance against Israeli settlement policy. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the decision to reissue the policy had been taken after complaints that some West Bank products had been mislabeled prior to US import. "US Customs and Border Protection reissued guidance on their marking requirements," he told reporters. "It in no way supersedes prior rulings or regulations. "And nor does it impose additional requirements with respect to merchandise imported from the West Bank, Gaza Strip or Israel." The US Customs statement, visible on the agency's website, restates the terms of 1995 and 1997 laws requiring that goods from Gaza and the West Bank be labeled as such. "It is not acceptable to mark the aforementioned goods with the words 'Israel,' 'Made in Israel,' 'Occupied Territories-Israel' or any variation thereof," the statement said. Some Israeli settlers living in the West Bank are known to label products for export as being from Israel, and the European Union recently acted to ban the practice. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has repeatedly condemned the European move, which Israel feels discriminates against Jewish producers and amounts to a boycott. The settlements are deemed illegal under international law, and some supporters of the Palestinian claim on the West Bank have demanded a boycott of settler merchandise. The United States opposes Israel's settlement of the area, but insists its labeling regulations don't discriminate between Israeli and Palestinian producers. "Our understanding is that there were allegations of mislabeling, around nine or ten complaints," Toner said, explaining why US Customs had reissued its guidance. "As you know, US guidelines don't differentiate between products produced in settlements or anywhere else in the West Bank," he said. Miami (AFP) - A small number of doctors make up a big share of malpractice claims in the United States, according to a study published Wednesday. Just one percent of practicing physicians "accounted for 32 percent of paid malpractice claims over a decade," said the study in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers at Stanford University in California and the University of Melbourne in Australia looked at more than 66,000 malpractice claims paid in relation to the work of more than 54,000 US physicians between January 2005 and December 2014. They found that those most likely to be involved in a malpractice claim were more likely to be older, male doctors in the fields of neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, general surgery, plastic surgery or obstetrics-gynecology. Repeat offenders were also common. "Male physicians had a 40 percent higher risk of recurrence than female physicians," said the study. The lowest risks of recurrence were seen in psychiatrists and pediatricians. Also, physicians under 35 showed about one-third the risk of repeated malpractice, compared to their older colleagues, said the study. "The fact that these frequent flyers looked quite different from their colleagues -- in terms of specialty, gender, age and several other characteristics -- was the most exciting finding," said co-author David Studdert, professor of medicine and law at Stanford. "It suggests that it may be possible to identify high-risk physicians before they accumulate troubling track records, and then do something to stop that happening." Nearly one-third of all claims related to patient deaths, and 54 percent related to serious physical injury. Plaintiffs won verdicts in just three percent of the claims. The remainder resulted in out-of-court settlements. The average amount of a settlement or court-ordered payment was $371,054. This story first appeared in the Feb. 5 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe. In late January, geriatric psychiatrist Stephen Read is expected to spend up to an hour evaluating the mental fitness of Viacom executive chairman Sumner Redstone at the frail 92-year-olds Beverly Park home. Only Redstones nurses and speech therapists may be present for the examination ordered by Los Angeles Superior Court judge David Cowan. Read has been hired by former Redstone companion Manuela Herzer, 43, who alleges in court that the aged billionaire did not have the mental capacity in October to drop her as his health-care agent and install Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman in her place. Redstone also altered his will in a manner unfavorable to Herzer, as her detractors note, though she insists she has only his welfare at heart. Whatever Herzers motive, the fact that her lawsuit has gotten this far hardly quieted a growing chorus of Viacom shareholders concerned about Daumans entanglement with Redstones personal life. The investors fear that there is for now no way to pry Dauman, 61, loose from his grip on the faltering media conglomerate, whose shares have plunged more than 40 percent in the last fiscal year. Read More: Michael Wolff: What Will Happen When Sumner Redstones Empire Goes Up for Grabs Viacoms board which seems to be unusually supine among public companies apparently has at best limited knowledge of Redstones condition. The executive chairman hasnt appeared at an annual meeting or actively participated in an investor call since 2014. Herzer alleges that Viacoms chief executive is lying when he claims that Redstone has in recent months engaged in extensive business and personal discussions with him. In that respect, even some of Redstone's top executives find her credible. In response, Daumans attorneys say Herzer is trying to turn the focus on him as a continuation of her legally irrelevant harassment campaign. Story continues The situation is awkward, to say the least, for Redstones daughter Shari, 61, who can take the reins of both Viacom and and CBS if her father is sidelined. No fan of Dauman, she nonetheless is outnumbered on the Viacom board. And she may have reason to support the contention that Redstone is compos mentis. Insiders believe he left not just a few million dollars but enormous wealth to Herzer in an earlier version of his will, which would presumably become valid if a judge determines that he was not competent to make changes in October. Redstone is said to have amassed a personal wealth northward of $5 billion. (The money will not benefit Shari or her children, according to a source, but that hardly would incline her to put it in Herzers hands.) Read More: Sumner Redstone Allowed to Be Examined in Healthcare Dispute Even crediting Herzers insistence that she is motivated only by concern for Redstone, the possibility that a great deal is at stake would seem to be supported by the fact that she has retained an army of costly lawyers. The team includes litigators Pierce ODonnell and Bert Fields, and also the not-inexpensive publicist Allan Mayer of 42West. Dauman insists that Redstone is fine. But Moodys Investors Service analyst Neal Begley is not the only observer to note that Redstone has in the past showed little patience with executives when the stock price faltered. If the company had turned in a comparable performance 10 or 15 years ago, Begley says, I don't think Mr. Dauman would still be running Viacom. He adds: "Without Mr. Redstone taking a firm grasp of the governance, there really is no governance." Others agree. A shareholder lawsuit filed Jan. 19 in Delaware Chancery Court accuses Dauman of failing in his duty to shareholders and questions the boards independence. Activist shareholder SpringOwl Asset Management published an online 99-frame slideshow excoriating Viacom home of MTV, Comedy Central, and Paramount -- for "chronic underperformance against peers" and slamming the board for being too large, too cozy and too overpaid for underperformance." (Viacom describes the suit as without merit.) Now Viacom has drawn further ire for the manner in which it revealed Dauman's fiscal 2015 compensation of $54.2 million. Viacom issued a statement on Jan. 20 indicating that Dauman was paid $36.9 million, encouraging press reports that the executive had taken a cut from the $44.3 million he was awarded a year earlier. But two days later, Viacom revealed in a regulatory filing that Daumans total 2015 compensation was actually $54.2 million thanks to stock awarded as a signing bonus for extending his contract. Viacom said it had no obligation to mention that award in its earlier statement because the stock begins to vest in 2017, and the value will depend on how much shares are worth at the time. Read More: Viacom, CBS Hit With Shareholder Lawsuit Over Loyalty to Sumner Redstone The unusual disclosure left many observers baffled in that it only served to create an appearance that Viacom wanted to distract from the fact its CEO got a hefty raise in the midst of an ongoing stock inferno. And that only provokes SpringOwl managing director Eric Jackson, who tells THR that Daumans egregious" payday, coupled with the confusing way it was disclosed, has strengthened the argument that he should be relieved of his duties. Addressing the stock bonus, he says, "I've never even heard of that. It's like they're saying: 'Wow, Philippe, we know you have so many options to get $40 million elsewhere, so as a token of our gratitude. . . we're going to give you $17 million just for putting your John Hancock on this extension.' (Viacom says its board and management are completely focused on delivering long-term value.) By now, Dauman is characterized by a source with close knowledge of the situation as a man "fighting for his professional life." He may control the board, this person says, but he will not control the trust that takes control when Redstone is out of the picture. Shari Redstone is said to have an agreement to install Leslie Moonves as chairman of CBS, assuming she eventually takes control, but has no such understanding with Dauman. Read More: Sumner Redstone's Ex Wants Appeals Court to Intervene in Health Dispute Meanwhile, Herzers lawyers are hoping to force Dauman to sit for a deposition; a New York court set a March 15 hearing on the matter. Herzer will likely be seeking to demolish Daumans credibility if he is forced to testify. For instance, what Dauman described as an hour-long meeting with Redstone on October 8 actually lasted less than 30 minutes, she contends in a court filing. Herzer adds that she was present throughout that encounter, while Redstone was mostly gazing somewhat vacantly toward the television. As for discussion between Redstone and Dauman, Herzer asserts there was none whatsoever. Redstones ability to communicate, she says, was by then reduced to largely unintelligible grunts and parroting a few simple words or phrases. Her medical experts upcoming examination of Redstone may be largely a formality: Read has already concluded that Redstone lacked the capacity to sign a recent court document based on the moguls peculiar signature. The doctor said in a court filing that his handwriting appeared as if someone moved the paper under his pen." Redstones attorneys have their own experts attesting to Redstone's capacity to sign, including geriatric psychiatrist James Spar. (He's the co-author of a book with Herzers expert, Read, and joined him in finding that Donald Sterling was not competent to be the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers.) Redstones lawyers also submitted a declaration from his general practitioner but the judge was not impressed, finding that the doctor had given equivocal testimony about Redstone's capabilities in a deposition that was inconsistent with the assured opinion presented in his declaration. Herzers team hopes Dauman has overplayed his hand. Aside from his declaration in court, for example, Herzer notes an October 7 statement that Viacom released to the press and the board. Ostensibly provided by Redstone, the statement read that Dauman continues to have my unequivocal trust and said the CEO had articulated a smart, innovative and sustainable path to success for Viacom. She asserts that Redstone can neither speak nor write, and was incapable of communicating the general gist of such a statement. In reality, she says, Mr. Dauman wrote all of the statements heaping praise on himself. Paul Bond contributed to this report. Read More: Philippe Dauman Deposition Uncertain in Sumner Redstone Health Lawsuit LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Viacom Inc Executive Chairman Sumner Redstone will undergo an examination on Friday by a doctor hired by an ex-girlfriend in a lawsuit that challenges his mental competency, a spokesman for the former girlfriend said. Dr. Stephen Read, a geriatric psychiatrist retained by former girlfriend Manuela Herzer, will examine Redstone at his California home at 11:30 a.m. PST on Friday, the spokesman said. Investors are closely following the lawsuit by Herzer, who alleges that Redstone was mentally incompetent when he removed her as his designated healthcare agent last October in favor of Viacom Chief Executive Officer Philippe Dauman. Read, in a declaration filed in November on behalf of Herzer, said he believed Redstone lacked the mental capacity to make that change. He cited testimony from Herzer and other witnesses but he had not examined Redstone in person. Redstone's primary physician, Dr. Richard Gold, told the court Redstone was fully aware of what he was doing at the time. Attorneys for Redstone argue that Herzer has filed the suit for financial gain. They said the billionaire also had revoked a part of his estate plan that left Herzer a "significant sum of money." Read may interview Redstone for up to an hour, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Cowan ruled last week. The executive's nurses and speech therapists may be present, but not Herzer's lawyers, Cowan said. Redstone controls about 80 percent of the voting shares in Viacom and CBS Corp through a holding company. (Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by David Gregorio) Washington (AFP) - The 2016 White House race has turned into a bleeping profanity fest. Rand Paul has used obscenities. Jeb Bush has tested out some four-letter words. Even mild mannered Ben Carson, in a nationally televised debate packed with rival Republicans, dismissed government subsidies as a "bunch of crap." But the king of the curses has been Donald Trump, the celebrity billionaire atop the Republican heap whose trash talk has taken US politics to a new low. Not only has he raised the profile of the outsider candidate, he appears to have made profanity and, more significantly, coarse personal attacks, acceptable elements of the campaign lexicon. In November, Trump said he would "bomb the shit out of" Islamic State extremists, to wild applause. Asked whether he would bring back water-boarding against terror suspects, he leaned on his lectern, looked out at the crowd and said "you bet your ass I would." Senator Rand Paul in November accused defenders of mass government surveillance of touting "bullshit." Bush, seen as a more even-tempered statesman, has gotten in on the act too. "We are Americans, damn it!" he proclaimed, somewhat unnecessarily, in New Hampshire. Even avuncular Senator Bernie Sanders has blurted out salty language, telling Democratic rival Hillary Clinton that he was sick of "hearing about your damn emails." But their foul-mouthed excesses pale in comparison to The Donald's vitriolic personal attacks. Trump's Twitter feed is a perpetual insult generator. This week he called conservative pundit Glenn Beck "dumb as a rock." Others are labeled "clown," "moron" and "stupid." On Tuesday Trump blasted Ted Cruz, his closest GOP competitor, as a "liar" who just "looks like a jerk." His sexist language has been notable, particularly when he said Clinton "got schlonged" by Obama in their 2008 nomination battle -- coining an obscene neologism from a Yiddish term for penis. Story continues The demeaning rhetoric is a worry, according to University of Pennsylvania linguistics professor Mark Liberman. "Those are more striking, frankly, than the (obscenities)," he told AFP. "Those are things that I noticed, and I think many people are like me in this respect." National US publications like the New Yorker readily print the "F" word, and cable television and the Internet has largely desensitized Americans to vulgar language. "Most of these words have lost most of their impact, and so nobody really notices, except maybe to chalk it up to (Trump's) generally more straightforward and unfiltered way of talking," Liberman explained. Machismo could also be playing its part in a crowded race. And Trump's tell-it-like-it-is bluster helps convey an impression of strength in the face of Russia's Vladimir Putin or jihadists. Previous campaigns have seen their share of profanity. Republican 2008 nominee John McCain could turn a phrase, as could president Richard Nixon. But the vulgarity and aggression on this year's campaign trail appear to have reached new heights. Some have been all too eager to fight fire with fire. In December, low-polling Senator Lindsey Graham, fuming over Trump's command of the race, offered succinct advice on CNN for how to make America great: "Tell Donald Trump to go to hell." (Reuters) - Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc, the largest U.S. drugstore chain, said it was immediately suspending laboratory services by Theranos, a blood-testing startup, at a store in California. Walgreens said it has told Theranos to immediately stop sending any lab tests provided through Theranos Wellness Centers at Walgreens to be analyzed at its lab in Newark, California. The news comes a day after the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said that Theranos' deficient practices at the Newark lab posed "immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety". Walgreens said that it will not send any patient samples to the Newark lab until Theranos addresses all issues raised by the CMS. Walgreens has in recent weeks debated whether to also close the 40 Theranos centers in Arizona, the WSJ said on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. (http://on.wsj.com/1PDqcqz) A Theranos spokeswoman said on Thursday that the CMS's findings did not apply to the whole lab in California and did not relate to the its lab in Arizona, where it processes about 95 percent of its tests. The company is working with regulators to fix this issue, the Theranos spokeswoman said in an e-mail. A Walgreens spokesman declined to comment on the WSJ report. Theranos conducts a wide range of tests with one drop of blood from a finger-stick using its Nanotainers, rather than the large vial typically collected. The firm has been in the spotlight after reports in the Wall Street Journal suggested that its blood-testing devices were flawed and had problems with accuracy. (Reporting by Subrat Patnaik and Rosmi Shaji in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza) GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) has called an emergency meeting on Zika virus on Monday partly to ensure that national authorities do not impose inappropriate travel or trade restrictions, a senior WHO official said on Thursday. WHO chief Margaret Chan said earlier that the agency would convene the emergency committee on the international response to the Zika virus outbreak that is suspected of a link to birth defects in Brazil "This is an important consideration of the director-general in calling (the meeting) is to ensure that there are no inappropriate measures taken by member states in terms of travel or trade. That is a major consideration of the director-general," WHO assistant director Bruce Aylward told reporters. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Alison Williams) (Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co and Bank of America Corp are working to integrate Apple Pay into their ATMs, TechCrunch reported. The banks have deployed engineers to build the Apple Pay options, TechCrunch reported on Thursday, citing a person familiar with the matter. (http://tcrn.ch/1QI4WVS) However, it is unclear how Apple Pay will work at ATMs, the technology website said. Apple, BofA and Wells Fargo could not be immediately reached for comment. Jonathan Velline, the head of ATM operations at Wells Fargo, said the bank currently supported Google's Android Pay mobile wallet, TechCrunch reported. "But we're also looking at lots of different mobile wallets and evaluating which ones are going to be appropriate for our customers," Velline told the website. JPMorgan Chase & Co also has plans to roll out card-free ATMs this year, CNBC reported on Tuesday. (Reporting by Rishika Sadam in Bengaluru; Editing by Kirti Pandey) Oregon updates: Following the arrest of eight militants who had been occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and the death of another, federal agents have sealed off the site. Until now, people have been able to come and go freely from the site, where Ammon Bundy had organized an illegal occupation. I have more detail on the arrests and death here. Eichmann papers in Jerusalem: Israel has released papers showing that Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi official executed in 1962, begged for his life after receiving a death sentence, insisting he was innocent and had only been carrying out orders. Eichmann complained the judges had failed to empathize with his situation. The plea was rejected and he was hanged. Wacko Jacko: Who thought this was a good idea? Actor Joseph Fiennes, who is Caucasian, has been cast as the late Michael Jackson in British TV drama. Maybe the producers didnt know whether MJ was black or white, but this idea is bad. News from the morning here. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. The seventh Republican primary debate on Thursday will be missing one podium and, with it, the political pageantry that is Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. On Tuesday, the real estate mogul made it known that he would not be attending Fox News' debate, which is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. Eastern at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa. The primary reason for Trump's absence? Bad blood between the real estate mogul and Fox News' Megyn Kelly, who will be moderating the night and with whom Trump butted heads at the first Fox News GOP debate on Aug. 6. Since then, tension has persisted between Trump and Kelly. "I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct," Trump wrote in a tweet on Wednesday. "Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!" I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct. Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter! "As many of our viewers know, FOX News is hosting a sanctioned debate in Des Moines, Iowa on Thursday night, three days before the first votes of the 2016 election are cast in the Iowa Caucus," said a Fox News spokesperson, in an emailed statement to Mic. "Donald Trump is refusing to debate seven of his fellow presidential candidates on stage that night, which is near unprecedented. We're not sure how Iowans are going to feel about him walking away from them at the last minute, but it should be clear to the American public by now that this is rooted in one thing Megyn Kelly, whom he has viciously attacked since August and has now spent four days demanding be removed from the debate stage," the statement continued. Story continues During the last Fox News debate, Kelly challenged Trump on the rhetoric he uses to describes women he doesn't like, particularly words like "'fat pigs,' 'dogs,' 'slobs,' and 'disgusting animals.'" Trump hit back with a barage of Twitter insults, and the business tycoon has made something of a habit out of waging personal attacks against Kelly, particularly on Twitter. In a recent instance, on Jan. 11, Trump wrote "@megynkelly recently said that she can't be wooed by Trump. She is so average in every way, who the hell wants to woo her!" @megynkelly recently said that she can't be wooed by Trump. She is so average in every way, who the hell wants to woo her! "@RubenMMoreno: @realDonaldTrump The biggest loser in the debate was @megynkelly. You can't out trump Donald Trump. You will lose! "@stinger_inc: @realDonaldTrump @megynkelly's behaviour at the #GOPDebate was astonishingly biased." I liked The Kelly File much better without @megynkelly. Perhaps she could take another eleven day unscheduled vacation! "@ColeHudson68: @megynkelly @FoxNews @theBlaze @greta @OreillyFactor Megyn needs to go back on vacation. What a waste of an hour on Fox." According to Fox News' spokesperson, Trump's campaign staff has been bullish with the network and campaign manager Corey Lewandowski has been threatening with regards to Kelly. "Lewandowski was warned not to level any more threats, but he continued to do so," read the statement from Fox News' spokesperson. "We can't give in to terrorizations toward any of our employees. Trump is still welcome at Thursday night's debate and will be treated fairly, just as he has been during his 132 appearances on FOX News & FOX Business, but he can't dictate the moderators or the questions." Without Trump onstage, seven Republican candidates will debate during the main event former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. Three candidates will participate in an undercard debate, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore. And ahead of the debate, it's possible the Republican frontrunner will discuss his decision not to attend the debate during a Wednesday night appearance on the O'Reilly Factor at 8 p.m. Eastern. Tune in to see if the candidate discloses anything huge. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has been gaining in the polls, and thats worrisome for many Republicans in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz may have a reputation among his colleagues as a jerk, but thats not why establishment Republicans are suddenly coming out en masse against his bid for the White House. The real reason many members of Congress and longtime operatives oppose Cruz is more practical and self-centered: They are afraid the party could lose the Senate if the brash, ultraconservative Cruz sits at the top of the 2016 Republican ticket and rack up a much bigger bill in the process. A prevailing line of thought held by some Republicans the same operatives and politicians who pushed the Senate to pass a bipartisan immigration bill in 2013 is that the GOP always was going to struggle to win back the White House given current national demographics. But these same Republicans courted donors to give to congressional campaign arms by touting that they could win back the Senate in 2014 which they did and then hold the majority there and in the House, turning Congress a continued failsafe against a Democratic presidential agenda should the White House remain out of reach again in 2016. Cruz and fellow candidate Donald J. Trump are messing with that calculus. According to sources familiar with private Republican Senate leadership meetings, either one of those men at the top of the ticket could greatly increase the cost of Senate races in 2016, diverting resources from pivotal contests and turning safe seats into more competitive ones. As the map of closer races expands, so too does the overall cost to run a national campaign to maintain the majority, forcing the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm of Senate Republicans, to spend more in states where it once planned on spending less. In November, Senate Republicans are defending seven seats in states that President Barack Obama won twice. Strategists always expected to have to put up a serious fight and cash to win in what they call first-tier races competitive states like Illinois, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania. But the growing anxiety in Washington is that with a Trump or Cruz as the nominee, Republicans will have to fight in their second-tier races in Nevada, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina or even Arizona. Story continues In any election, but particularly if Trump or Cruz are at the top of the ticket, senators are going to have to work very hard to make sure voters hear their individual voices and platforms and not be lumped in with the top of the ticket, said Brian Walsh, a Republican strategist who spent several elections at the NRSC. I especially look at a state like Nevada right now. Republicans are only firmly on offense in Nevada and you have a candidate at the top of the ticket who is vehemently anti-immigrant, thats a problem no matter how good the candidates are down ticket. Establishment Republicans have taken notice of Cruzs rise in the polls and are becoming more outspoken against his candidacy. (Photo: Rick Wilking/Reuters) In the 2012 presidential election, the top five most-expensive Senate races cost between $30 million and $70.5 million, not even including outside spending, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. At a Republican leadership retreat at the beginning of this year, House GOP leaders were presented with internal polling that suggested Cruz would be a bigger drag on down-ballot races as the partys nominee than the much-discussed and maligned Trump. On the Senate side, leaders have been keeping regular tabs on what a Cruz or Trump nomination might mean for the NRSC, aware that a Cruz nomination could turn off mainstream Republican voters or turn out increased numbers of Democratic ones, especially in purple states. On Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden told congressional Democrats that a Trump or Cruz nomination would be a gift from the Lord and that the party would have a real shot to make gains in Congress for the first time since being wiped out in 2010. Though there is not yet concrete data, anecdotal estimations presented to Senate GOP leaders have suggested that the price tag for Senate races could skyrocket, with seats that might have cost the party $20 million to defend doubling in price. Costs for Senate races during a presidential year, especially for television and radio advertising, where presidential campaigns and outside groups saturate the market and drive up ad prices, already can be structurally more expensive. Not every Republican is moved by such arguments, however. Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, who is up for reelection this year, said he was not worried about the person at the top of the ticket having an effect on his race, either from a political perspective or a financial one. I dont think it matters, Burr told Yahoo News. I could make the case that in presidential years, Senate races are less expensive because youre piggybacking the Get Out The Vote [effort] that the [Republican National Committee] is going to do in a presidential, so the campaign is not assuming the responsibility financially for that. The truth is, if youre going to win a campaign, youre going to do everything you know works, Burr said, noting that in a general election, when you have a Republican and a Democrat, regardless of who they are, voters will turn out. You could probably pick 95 percent of the states that are in play right now without knowing who the nominee will be. But for the operatives and politicians who are less sure, the internal debate over who would be worse for the party overall Cruz or Trump has become a topic of much speculation. Would it be harder for senators to separate themselves from a fellow senator, like Cruz? Would Trump, who has a less conservative history, modify his language in a general election and appeal to more voters? As the establishment has lost control of the primary, these questions have been asked more frequently and yet their answers are more uncertain to the players with stakes in down-ballot races. But as voters start heading to the polls next week, the Republicans who care about keeping the Senate majority are going to learn whether theyll soon have to start answering $40 million questions across the country. Oslo (AFP) - The world's biggest sovereign wealth fund, Norway's state pension fund, said Thursday it had placed Brazilian oil group Petrobras "under observation" because of corruption fears following a kickbacks scandal. The move means that the ethics council that advises the Norwegian central bank on the fund's investments will follow developments closely, which could lead to the fund divesting its holding. "Should further cases of gross corruption be revealed in Petrobras' operations in the future and the company cannot satisfy that the anti-corruption programme is being complied with and effectively improved, the condition for exclusion may be met," the council said in a statement. A Brazilian investigation undertaken in 2014 has revealed a long-running kickbacks scheme in which Petrobras overpaid billions of dollars on construction contracts. The scandal has already seen several elected officials jailed, most of them ex-employees of the state-owned company and former heads of Brazil's most powerful construction groups and the BTG Pactual bank. According to the latest figures available, the Norwegian fund held 0.61 percent of Petrobras' capital at the end of 2014, a stake valued at $297 million at the time. The entire fund is currently worth around 6.96 trillion kroner (734 billion euros, $794 billion). In addition to their financial impact, the fund's decisions are important because they are often followed by other international investors. The fund, which holds stock in more than 9,000 companies and controls 1.3 percent of the world's market capitalisation, follows strict ethical guidelines that bar it from investing in groups accused of serious violations of human rights, child labour or serious environmental damage, as well as manufacturers of "particularly inhumane" arms, and also tobacco firms. Some 65 companies are already on the fund's blacklist, including corporate giants such as Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Rio Tinto, Philip Morris and Wal-Mart. The fund draws investment money from Norway's huge oil revenues, and is intended to finance its generous welfare state indefinitely. MUNICH (Reuters) - A German court has handed Google another legal victory over German performing rights organisation Gema, which had sought to make the company's video-sharing service YouTube pay each time users watch music videos by artists it represents. YouTube has introduced schemes that allow artists to earn money from advertising sold alongside their videos but many in the music business argue this does not go far enough. However, the regional court in Munich on Thursday rejected Gema's demand that YouTube pay 0.375 euro cents ($0.004) per view of certain videos, confirming the ruling of a lower court last year. Google, now part of holding company Alphabet Inc, bought YouTube in 2006 and has faced multiple lawsuits from artists and music labels who say it makes money at their expense, even as it has emerged as one of the most popular for fans to discover new music by their favourite artists. Gema said it intends to appeal the ruling at the federal court. ($1 = 0.9170 euros) (This version of the story corrects paragraph 4 to show Google bought YouTube in 2006, didn't launch it in 2005.) (Reporting by Joern Potz; Writing by Harro ten Wolde; Editing by David Goodman) Corruption perceptions index The scoring is based on expert opinions of public sector corruption and aggregates data from a number of sources that provide perceptions of business people and country experts of the level of corruption in the public sector. While the CPI only measures public sector corruption for a country, the Chamber is very concerned that, given the low score in previous years, there remains a perception that the entire country is plagued with high levels of corruption. In international commerce, ratings and indices are used to assess the risk of doing business in countries. Assessments made are used to guide decisions as to the terms on which business is done, and also margins are included in price tendering. A perception of corruption can result in additional costs that could lead to higher product prices, lower competitiveness and an increased cost of living. The Chamber also recognises that there is both a supply side and demand side to the corruption equation, and urges its members not to contribute to the supply side by participating in corrupt activities or as we are sometimes so prone to - by simply voicing or adding to allegations where no justification or evidence exists at that time. This expectation for ethical standards is manifested in our Code of Conduct to which all our Members should abide. Corruption harms the business sector by facilitating the making of decisions for reasons other than the best value for money. This results in the destruction of capital as honest firms lose out to the dishonest, and the loss of trust and integrity in the marketplace that can add both visible and invisible costs to doing business. The Chamber believes that we can adopt a systematic approach to addressing this problem and joins the Trinidad and Tobago Transparency Institute in lobbying for the following initiatives: 1. Introducing and implementing improved mandatory procurement procedures for the public sector and state owned enterprises. 2. Enacting whistleblower legislation to cover both the public and private sectors. 3. Enacting legislation to regulate political party financing and election campaign financing. 4. Amending the Integrity in Public Life Act to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the Integrity Commission and providing the Commission with greater financial resources. The Chamber, will continue with efforts and work with relevant organizations towards the admirable goal of a corruption free Trinidad and Tobago. The link between social media presence and investment There are many options available including peer-to-peer lending supply chain finance and crowd funding. But it is evident from research we have carried out that there is a low level of financial awareness among those running small businesses. That is not only about their being a lack of awareness of the range of options available, but also about a lack of understanding of how those options work in practice, even after the business becomes aware of them. Although great efforts have been made in many countries to improve financial literacy among the business community, success to date has been very limited. ACCAs work in this area suggests that policymakers need to reconsider their approach to financial literacy, focusing on a business plan first strategy where qualified finance professionals talk entrepreneurs through their plans for the business and provide justin- time training and mentoring for the specific types of finance that might be most effective and explain where to find them. There might also need to be more awareness on how small businesses are judged by potential investors and why they dont get support when they put together what they believe are excellent pitches. It might come as a surprise that financial success might rely on an individuals social media profile and postings. In many countries, crowd funding platforms are assessing credit risk by using a range of alternative measures, such as buyer ratings on trading platforms such as eBay or Amazon, shipping information collected from DHL and even utility consumption, to enable them to verify whether a business is operating as claimed. They also check the business owners online social reputation, which assesses an individuals online presence, number of social networking connections and how close those connections are geographically. This helps to indicate whether a business that seeks to raise money via a crowdfunding site will be successful in fundraising from its own friends and family networks. In addition, platform owners say that the more tightknit a businesss network is in geographical terms the greater will be the social pressure on borrowers to repay their loans. So small business owners need to take more care with postings on Facebook, Linkedin or any other online social sites. For investment to work there has to be trust on both sides. In the absence of trust, the costs of doing business can be prohibitive because the lenders rely disproportionately on collateral; something which small businesses can rarely provide. So ensuring that potential investors can build an accurate and positive picture of a business, and of the individual driving it, needs to take on a new importance in the future. Brenda Lee Tang is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. As head ACCA Caribbean, Ms. Lee Tang leads ACCAs business and key relationships in the Caribbean and is responsible for advancing ACCAs strategy in the region Igor Sergun was asked by Vladimir Putin in 2015 to propose to Bashar al-Assad that he step down. The answer was no Just weeks before his death on January 3, Colonel-General Igor Sergun, director of Russia s GRU military intelligence agency, was sent to Damascus on a delicate mission. The general, who is believed to have cut his teeth as a Soviet operative in Syria, bore a message from Vladimir Putin for President Bashar al-Assad : the Kremlin, the Syrian dictators most powerful international protector, believed it was time for him to step aside. More On this topic IN Middle Eastern Politics & Society Sign up now First FT is our new essential daily email briefing of the best stories from across the web Mr Assad angrily refused. Two senior western intelligence officials have given the Financial Times details of Serguns mission. The Russian foreign ministry referred a request for comment to the defence ministry, which said it was unable to comment. But on Friday, in response to a question from a journalist, asking if the Russian leader had asked Mr Assad to step down, a spokesman for Mr Putin said: No, thats not so. Russias failed gamble in Damascus left Mr Assad more entrenched than before, and hopes for a diplomatic solution to the vicious civil war appear again to be ebbing away. UN officials have spent the past week lowering expectations that the talks between the warring factions planned for January 25 in Geneva will go ahead, let alone produce a breakthrough. It is a dramatic reversal of fortunes. News of the secret proposal delivered by Sergun a choreographed transition of power that would maintain the Alawite regime but open the door to realistic negotiations with moderate rebels added to a growing mood of optimism among western intelligence agencies in late 2015. For the US-led coalition fighting Isis, it seemed that accommodating Moscow could break years of diplomatic deadlock over Mr Assads removal a move Washington views as a precondition to cooling the sectarian tensions in Syria and Iraq that have fed the jihadi insurgency. Moscows military intervention in the conflict in support of Damascus in late September, many in Europe and the US reasoned, had reached its limit. Mr Putin had taken a look under the bonnet of the Syrian regime, one senior European intelligence official told the FT and found a lot more problems than he was bargaining for. However, Russia overplayed its hand, the official said, and Mr Assad made clear to Sergun that there could be no future for Russia in Syria unless he remained as president. In his dealings with the Kremlin, Mr Assad has adopted a strategy of playing one foreign power off against another. His trump card on this occasion was Iran . Russia has been nervous of Tehrans growing regional influence at the cost of its own leverage for months. People close to the Syrian regime say suspicions about Russias intentions have been growing in Damascus for some time. That mood of elation when Russia first got involved lasted for a while, but then people got more pessimistic, said one Damascus businessman. Assads people started to realise that having the big brother defending them meant he could also demand things of them too. Mr Assad has also been scrupulous in rooting out any powerful figures who might one day stand as an alternative to his leadership. The disappearance of Abdel Aziz al-Khair, an Alawite dissident, was a striking example, said Joshua Landis, a Syria analyst from the University of Oklahoma. Mr Khair, a leading member of the National Co-ordinating Body, a political grouping dedicated to negotiating with Mr Assad to achieve democratic change, was from a prominent family in Mr Assads home town, said Mr Landis. He went to Moscow in 2012 and then he went to Beijing. It seemed clear to everyone they were checking him out as a potential Alawite replacement to the current regime that could assure the Alawite community, Mr Landis said. On his return to Damascus he was taken from the airport by security agencies. That seemed to be a sign that Assad was not going to allow Russia to pick the next president, Mr Landis added. Moscow is frustrated. It has become quite clear that part of an eventual political solution is that Assad has to step aside at some point, although we dont think that it has been decided yet when that should be, said a Russian authority on Syria who is involved in Moscows diplomacy. Ever since President Assad was flown in to be received by our president last year, his attitude has been less than satisfactory, and this does interfere with our efforts towards a political solution. But the Kremlin is also pragmatic, note many foreign policy experts, and its intervention is as much about projecting itself on the international stage as it is about determining Syrias leader. Dmitri Trenin, head of the Carnegie Moscow Center, said: For Putin, the intervention in Syria was never about keeping Assad in power, it is about getting the Americans to acknowledge Russias key role in settling this conflict, and thats being achieved through the Vienna process. But it looks premature to engineer a coup in Syria I dont see how that would help the political process as there are not enough opposition people who can accept the regime if it gets just a different figurehead. Meanwhile, says one British diplomat, with no palatable strategy for withdrawal, Russia appears to be doubling down on its military intervention, leaving the prospect of a negotiated peace as far from reality as it has ever been. What you need to know about the Octagon Art Festival on Sunday in Ames news Kangana Ranaut and Shahid Kapoor's Vegetarian Connection Bollywood, Thu, 28 Jan 2016 NI Wire Mumbai, January 25, 2016: Actress Kangana Ranaut is currently shooting alongside co-stars Shahid Kapoor and Saif Alil Khan for their upcoming film 'Rangoon'. The actress who will seen opposite the actors for the first time ever bonded with Shahid on their love for vegetarian food. The two are not only staunch vegetarians but also completely health conscious. Their common taste helped break the ice between the two on the first day of shoot. As source close to the unit members said, In a conversation about food during a sequence where both have to eat whatever is available to them, Kangana said, I hope the food is vegetarian to which a Shahid asked her if she was one. She admitted she had been vegetarian for the last couple of years and had really calmed down since then, apart from losing weight. They even discussed vegetarian meals that give strength and exchanged other food conversations. Heres wishing the actress all the best for Rangoon! The life and times of an American ex-pat family in Bermuda. The poor Moxy Hotel, which since its inception has been shot down by several city agencies and neighborhood groups for not fitting in with its CBD environs. Finally, the proposed hotel got a bit of a break: The Historic District Landmarks Commission earlier this month gave the project its approval. Campo Architects' third stab at a design factored in the HDLC Architectural Review Committee's main qualm with the project, which was that the new addition to the existing property was not set back enough from the building's property line. The latest design is set back nine feet from the property line, and the HDLC granted its "conceptual approval" with the recommendation that it be set back 20 feet. Residents attended the meeting, "which became contentious at times," and "spoke against the project and its revised design," calling it "flashy" and not a good fit for the surrounding Lafayette Square historic district. The Moxy Hotel is either a case study in taking criticism in stride or unabating stubbornness. St. Charles Avenue Moxy project clears HDLC hurdle [CityBusiness] All Moxy Hotel coverage [Curbed NOLA] Newly released government documents paint the clearest picture to date of how the Conservative governments controversial approach to Syrian refugee resettlement played out last year. Before last winter, the previous government had only committed to take in 1,300 Syrian refugees from the millions fleeing the civil war there and spilling into surrounding countries Former prime minister Stephen Harper had been under intense pressure including froinside his own cabinet to increase that total, but only agreed to accept a further 10,000 provided that religious and ethnic minorities were prioritized. The refugees the Canadian government accepts for resettlement are chosen by the UN. They do not use ethnicity or religion as a basis for determining whether someone requires resettlement to a third country. But documents tabled in the House of Commons this week in response to a question from the NDP show how the Conservatives found a workaround. In February 2015, visa officers in Jordan and Lebanon were instructed to track areas of focus for Syrian refugees, which included tracking whether someone was a member of a vulnerable ethnic or religious They applied that criteria to the files they were receiving from the UN. http://www.nydailynews.com/Stephen Harper lost the last election because he catered to his base. He made the niqab a big issue and it backfired on him. But, behind the scenes, the same instincts that drove Harper to demonize the niqab also shaped his position on Syrian refugees. Stephanie Levitz, of the Canadian Press, reports The vast majority of Syrians are Muslims. If Harper wanted to allow only religious and ethnic minorities into Canada, it's clear that Harper's minions were cherry picking the population for Christians. His base wanted nothing to do with either Islam or Muslims, even though that policy flew in the face of United Nations policy:There was a reason we lost our seat at the Security Council. At the UN, they knew that Stephen Harper catered to his base instincts. We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. Tunisian Prime Minister Essid appearing before the Parliament for a hearing over the social situation prevailing in the country called on all segments of Tunisia to support the government in finding solutions to unemployment, main reason of social riots that shook the country over the past two weeks. Habib Essid said that the issue of unemployment is a national concern, and that the responsibility to find solutions does not lie only with the government. Essid explained that even though peoples frustration is normal, the government does not have a wand to change the situation overnight adding that the situation was already chaotic when he took office as Prime Minister. We have tried, as far as possible, to improve the situation, he said. Weve started to find solutions. We dont have solutions for everybody but we do have some solutions, he added. Prime Minister Essids comments were also echoed by his minister of employment Zied Laadheri who told a local media Wednesday that the government cannot afford to employ all job seekers, as doing so will further plunge the government into jeopardy. Laadheri underlined the pivotal role the private sector could play to help get employment for all the youth and graduates on the dole, adding that the role of the government was to guide them. Opposition lawmakers present at the parliament lambasted Prime Minister Essib whom they accused of incapacity and lack of vision. We do not want a government that sells illusions and inspires despair, said Hassouna Nasfi, one former Nidaa Tounes member, now in the opposition. The revolution of dignity has become the revolution of corruption, said Hafedh Zouari of the Afek Tounes party. Social riots in nearly all the regions of the country sparked over the past two weeks with thousands of youth taking to the streets to demand jobs. Following the riots, President Caid Essebsi announced a nationwide curfew in an attempt to take control of the situation which also spiraled into lootings. Unemployment rate has soared to 16 per cent presenting nearly 800,000 jobless people including around 300,000 youth graduates craving for jobs. The countrys economy has badly fared last year with near zero growth recorded. The countrys vital tourism industry has been seriously battered by two major terrorist attacks which killed scores of people including 60 foreign tourists last year. Many tour operators have left the country leading to the closure of several hotels and loss of jobs. The Pentagon is carefully studying military intervention options in Libya against self-style IS, a US official told reporters. Were looking at military options, a range of other options as the situation in Libya unfolds, said Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook. Cook also explained that the expansion of the terrorist group is a major concern to the US and the Pentagon is closely monitoring developments. We want to be prepared, as the Department of Defense always wants to be prepared, in the event that ISIL in Libya becomes more of a threat than it is even today, Cook explained. Reports early this week pointed out that the US, France and other countries were setting up an international military coalition which will take on IS in Libya. According to reports, the coalition is likely to launch hostilities in March this year. Libyan military officials have also confirmed the possibility of an international military intervention in a bid to flash out IS fighters whose number is feared to have grown. I can only say that the Americans, French and Italians are asking how they can help the Libyans to fight IS and that the operation will not take long. We are close to an intervention, Ibrahim Bate el Mal, a spokesperson for the Misrata military council, told Middle East Eye. It is not the first time the US is seeking to intervene in Libya. In November last year, the US claimed it killed top IS leader in Libya Abu Nabil, an Iraqi also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi, in an air strike. In December the same year, Libyan forces kicked out a US military squad described by the Pentagon as troops in Libya to foster ties with their Libyan counterparts. The Pentagon also indicated that the squad travelled to Libya with the consent of the Libyan internationally recognized government. Many voices in Libya fear that an international military intervention in Libyan will worsen instability and further spilt the country. Many argue that the intervention has been late and comes as IS has deeply seated its hegemony. I think we were wrong to wait so long, probably we have underestimated the danger. I think even the Western governments were wrong, Bate el Mal further said. The point is that on the one hand ISs expansion is out of control, but on the other, the danger is that with a military intervention the situation could only get worse. This is the feeling of our people and of our troops. This point of view is shared by many Libyans who believe that the situation can no longer be solved by military air strikes, and that Western countries should have intervened earlier, before ISIS took control of Sirte and large stretches of the Libyan territory including coastal regions. In addition to the terrorist organization which also launched assaults against Libyas main oil terminals at Ras Lanuf and Sidra, fundamentalist militiamen dominate Benghazi, Misrata and Ben Jawal, and sleeper cells and training camps are found in every corner of the country. Following ISs takeover of late Libyan rulers hometown Sirte and other major cities last year, Libyan internationally recognized government canvassed for an international intervention but the call was ignored. Moroccos railway authority received Wednesday a $112.3 million loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB) earmarked for doubling train tracks on the Settat-Marrakech route. The new deal signed in Abidjan, Cote dIvoire, will enable Moroccos National Railway Authority (ONCF) to double train tracks on the 142 km-long Settat-Marrakech route; a project which will help boost activities and yield enormous returns. Reports say the project will end in 2020 and will necessitate $400 million. According to the AfDB, the project will shorten the trip time between Casablanca and Marrakech to 40 minutes instead of 3 hours. It will also increase traffic and number of travelers by 2020 to 7.4 million per year compared to 4.5 million over the 2014-2015 period. The project also provides for an increase in the number of cargo trains and goods shipping between the two major cities. The number of cargo trains will move from 5 to 12 per day and therefore increase freight from 207,000 tons to 504,000 tons. The quality of the railway transport is an attractive element for economic stakeholders. The promotion of the railway meets the will of the bank to invest on effective, sustainable and environment-friendly modes of transports, said Amadou Oumarou, Director of Transports and NTIC at AfDB. In 2010, ONCF received around $396 million from AfDB for the construction of a third 148 km-long Casablanca-Rabat-Kenitra lane. US President Barack Obama praised Wednesday the initiatives made worldwide to enhance the protection of religious minorities, giving as an instance the conference on religious minorities rights in Muslim countries that just concluded its proceedings in Marrakech the same day. In remarks he made at Righteous among Nations Award Ceremony held in Washington on the occasion of the 71th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz camp, President Obama insisted on the role of such initiatives in bolstering rapprochement between people of different faiths and in fighting intolerance, indifference and bigotry. We know that there were Muslims from Albanians to Arabs who protected Jews from Nazis. In Morocco, leaders from Muslim-majority countries around the world just held a summit on protecting religious minorities, including Jews and Christians, President Obama said urging religious leaders to educate their communities that all human beings, as creature of God, are brothers, regardless of their origins or religious beliefs. He also stressed the need for each and every one to speak out and stand up firm against intolerance, otherwise, he said, We know that evil can flourish if we stand idly by. For the US President this means cultivating a habit of empathy, and recognizing ourselves in one another; to make common cause with the outsider, the minority, whether that minority is Christian or Jew, whether it is Hindu or Muslim, or a nonbeliever; whether that minority is native born or immigrant; whether theyre Israeli or Palestinian. This also means taking a stand against bigotry in all its forms, and rejecting our darkest impulses and guarding against tribalism as the only value in our communities and in our politics, He went on to say warning that too often, especially in times of change, especially in times of anxiety and uncertainty, we are too willing to give into a base desire to find someone else someone different to blame for our struggles. In an opening address to the conference on the rights of religious minorities in the land of Islam: the legal framework and the call to action, held January 25-27, King Mohammed VI of Morocco had underlined the leading role played by his country in promoting interfaith dialogue and fostering religious tolerance, pointing out that Morocco has always been an outstanding model of cultural coexistence and interaction between Islam and other religions, particularly Judaism and Christianity. The Jewish community in Morocco was never treated by Muslims as a minority, as its members were actively involved in all fields of activity and were present at all levels of society, stressed the King who noted that Moroccans uphold the same tradition towards Christians, respecting their right to perform their religious rites. As Commander of the Faithful and defender of the faith, I am committed to protecting the rights of Muslims and non-Muslims alike, said the Sovereign, affirming that Moroccan Jews enjoy the same constitutional & political rights as their fellow Muslim citizens, and play a key role in the countrys economy. We, in the Kingdom of Morocco, see no reason for denying religious minorities any of their rights. We do not tolerate a violation of this kind being perpetrated in the name of Islam, nor do we tolerate any Muslim being involved in such an infringement, stressed the Monarch, underlining Moroccos religious policy which focuses on preventing any distorted interpretation of the holy Quran. The Moroccan Sovereign also stressed the importance of common values to nurture religious tolerance and counter extremism and radical ideologies. After three days of interesting debates, representatives of different religious communities adopted the Marrakech Declaration wherein they called for reconstructing the past through the revivification of the common heritage. Participants called the international community to enact laws criminalizing insults to religions, violations of sanctities and all hate and racist speeches, and urged Muslim countries not to deprive minorities of their rights under the pretext of religion. Hi! My name is Boy. I'm a male bi-coloured tabby cat. Ever since I discovered that Malcolm Turnbull's dogs were allowed to blog, I have been pestering Clarencegirl to allow me a small space on North Coast Voices. A false flag musing: I have noticed one particular voice on Facebook which is Pollyanna-positive on the subject of the Port of Yamba becoming a designated cruise ship destination. What this gentleman doesnt disclose is that, as a principal of Middle Star Pty Ltd, he could be thought to have a potential pecuniary interest due to the fact that this corporation (which has had an office in Grafton since 2012) provides consultancy services and tourism business development services. A religion & local government musing: On 11 October 2017 Clarence Valley Council has the Church of Jesus Christ Development Fund Inc in Sutherland Local Court No. 6 for a small claims hearing. It would appear that there may be a little issue in rendering unto Caesar. On 19 September 2017 an ordained minister of a religion (which was named by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in relation to 40 instances of historical child sexual abuse on the NSW North Coast) read the Opening Prayer at Councils ordinary monthly meeting. Earlier in the year an ordained minister (from a church network alleged to have supported an overseas orphanage closed because of child abuse claims in 2013) read the Opening Prayer and an ordained minister (belonging to yet another church network accused of ignoring child sexual abuse in the US and racism in South Africa) read the Opening Prayer at yet another ordinary monthly meeting. Nice one councillors - you are covering yourselves with glory! An investigative musing: Newcastle Herald, 12 August 2017: The states corruption watchdog has been asked to investigate the finances of the Awabakal Aboriginal Local Land Council, less than 12 months after the troubled organisation was placed into administration by the state government. The Newcastle Herald understands accounting firm PKF Lawler made the decision to refer the land council to the Independent Commission Against Corruption after discovering a number of irregularities during an audit of its financial statements. The results of the audit were recently presented to a meeting of Awabakal members. Administrator Terry Lawler did not respond when contacted by the Herald and a PKF Lawler spokesperson said it was unable to comment on the matter. Given the intricate web of company relationships that existed with at least one former board member it is not outside the realms of possibility that, if ICAC accepts this referral, then United Land Councils Limited (registered New Zealand) and United First Peoples Syndications Pty Ltd(registered Australia) might be interviewed. North Coast Voices readers will remember that on 15 August 2015 representatives of these two companied gave evidence before NSW Legislative Council General Purpose Standing Committee No. 6 INQUIRY INTO CROWN LAND. This evidence included advocating for a Yamba mega port. A Nationals musing: Word around the traps is that NSW Nats MP for Clarence Chris Gulaptis has been talking up the notion of cruise ships visiting the Clarence River estuary. Fair dinkum! That man can be guaranteed to run with any bad idea put to him. I'm sure one or more cruise ships moored in the main navigation channel on a regular basis for one, two or three days is something other regular river users will really welcome. *pause for appreciation of irony* The draft of the smallest of the smaller cruise vessels is 3 metres and it would only stay safely afloat in that channel. Even the Yamba-Iluka ferry has been known to get momentarily stuck in silt/sand from time to time in Yamba Bay and even a very small cruise ship wouldn't be able to safely enter and exit Iluka Bay. You can bet your bottom dollar operators of cruise lines would soon be calling for dredging at the approach to the river mouth - and you know how well that goes down with the local residents. A local councils musing: Which Northern Rivers council is on a low-key NSW Office of Local Government watch list courtesy of feet dragging by a past general manager? A serial pest musing: I'm sure the Clarence Valley was thrilled to find that a well-known fantasist is active once again in the wee small hours of the morning treading a well-worn path of accusations involving police, local business owners and others. An investigative musing: Which NSW North Coast council is batting to have the longest running code of conduct complaint investigation on record? A fun fact musing: An estimated 24,000 whales migrated along the NSW coastline in 2016 according to the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and the migration period is getting longer. A which bank? musing: Despite a net profit last year of $9,227 million the Commonwealth Bank still insists on paying below Centrelink deeming rates interest on money held in Pensioner Security Accounts. One local wag says hes waiting for the first bill from the bank charging him for the privilege of keeping his pension dollars at that bank. A Daily Examiner musing: Just when you thought this newspaper could sink no lower under News Corp management, it continues to give column space to Andrew Bolt. A thought to ponder musing: In case of bushfire or flood - do you have an emergency evacuation plan for the family pet? An adoption musing: Every week on the NSW North Coast a number of cats and dogs find themselves without a home. If you want to do your bit and give one bundle of joy a new family, contact Happy Paws on 0419 404 766 or your local council pound. The Secret to Happiness is the Joy of the Lord; and the joy of the Lord is His manifest presence in your life. It is our Privilege and Responsibility to Glorify God; and we glorify God by manifesting His character every moment and in every situation. Humility and Pride You can tell a humble man that he has a problem with pride and he will agree with you; but if you tell a proud man that he has a problem with pride, he becomes your enemy. This one thing I know for sure, that whenever there is a problem with my relationship with the Lord, it is not His fault. Some people are just plain lazy; some people are just overly sensitive to gravity; others are simply economical with their energy. It's not enough to preach the Gospel; you must be the Gospel. If you can describe your life in a nutshell, there's a good probability that you're a nut. As a good Canadian, I'd like to apologize in advance for anything I might say that offends you; sometimes my mouth hits high gear while my brain is still in low. Never allow the thought, "I am of no use where I am"; because you certainly can be of no use where you are not. Oswald Chambers We cannot even begin to approach the Truth until we are willing to go wherever the Truth leads us. The newest object of idol worship is 'my opinion'! Suffering is the only experience we have in common with every other human who ever lived. After months of speculation on what might happen to the historic SS United States, once one of the grandest ocean liners on the water, it looks as if a solution to save the ship has been brokered. The SS United States Conservancy, which owns the ship, sent out a press release today revealing that redevelopment is coming, and that detailsas well as the partner behind those planswill be revealed at a press conference on February 4. The ocean liner is currently docked on the Delaware River in Philadelphia, next to an Ikeaa funny coincidence, considering that one of the redevelopment plans that's been bandied about is bringing the ship to Red Hook and turning it into a mixed-use development. But for now, the conservancy is remaining tight-lipped on where the ship may go or who might be behind its redevelopment. The only details the press release gives are as follows: The SS United States Conservancy will host a press conference to announce that it has signed an option agreement with a major redevelopment partner. At the announcement, an exciting future for the ship will be revealed that envisions the SS United States again as an iconic symbol of America the world over.It's been widely speculated that the ship will move to New York City regardless of whether or not the Red Hook plan, spearheaded by concrete magnate John Quadrozzi, Jr., comes to fruitionand the press conference's location, on Manhattan's west side, could be a nod to that. Say goodbye to the S.S. United States. The ship by IKEA is getting redeveloped and probably won't be in Philly. pic.twitter.com/a3ZTj2Ao3p Billy Penn (@billy_penn) January 28, 2016 The ship seemed to be headed for the scrap pile last year, but last-minute donations campaigns helped the conservancy raise the necessary funds (about $60,000 per month) to keep it docked in Philly. Historic Ocean Liner Won't Be Turned to Scrap Just Yet [Curbed] Deadline Looms for Historic Ocean Liner's Move to Brooklyn [Curbed] Historic Ocean Liner Could Become a Red Hook Attraction [Curbed] All SS United States coverage [Curbed] Hope you got enough of this in the first six debates. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images The first six times we watched Donald Trump were pretty exciting; there were revolts against the moderators, perfectly executed 9/11 slams, and Jeb Bush jabs galore. But as a consummate showman, Trump knew it was time to freshen up the act (also, he might be afraid of Megyn Kelly). Thus, he sent the political and media worlds into a tizzy this week by making good on his threat to boycott the Fox Newshosted GOP debate on Thursday night. As his rivals face off, hell hold a competing event to raise money for veterans, possibly with some cameos from D-list candidates. Heres a guide to get you up to speed, and be sure to tune in later for Daily Intelligencers liveblog and complete coverage of whatever goes down on Thursday night. When and where are the debates being held? Thursday, January 28 at 9 p.m. ET. The undercard starts at 7 p.m. ET. The debates, which will broadcast from the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, offer the candidates one last chance to face off before the Iowa caucus on Monday. How can I watch them? Those who do not have cable access can livestream the debates for free on FOXNews.com, with no login required. They will also be available on Fox News Radio, Fox News Mobile, and the Fox News Go app. Whos still attending? There were some interesting changes in the lineup, but they were completely overshadowed by Trumps announcement. In addition to the real-estate mogul, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Rand Paul qualified for the main debate. Thats big news for Paul, who didnt make the cut for Fox Business Networks main debate earlier this month. He chose to boycott the undercard, declaring that his operation isnt second tier. (He seems to have gotten over his concerns about the subjectivity of polling, and has confirmed that hell be there on Thursday.) Fox Newss criteria was the same as Fox Business Networks: In order to qualify for the primetime debate, candidates must place in the top six spots nationally in an average of the five most recent national polls, or place within the top five in Iowa or New Hampshire in an average of the five most recent Iowa or New Hampshire polls recognized by Fox News. For the undercard, candidates only needed to register one percent in one of the five most recent national polls, and theres a surprise at the kids table, too. Like last time, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, and Rick Santorum qualified for the earlier debate and theyll be joined by Jim Gilmore, who hasnt qualified for a debate since August. Whos moderating? The same team from the first GOP debate way back in August: Bret Baier, Chris Wallace, and of course, Megyn Kelly. The undercard will be helmed by Martha MacCallum and Bill Hemmer. The debates awkward social-media integration will be provided by Google Trends. What will the stage look like? While some speculated that a podium would be left open for Trump, the network confirmed that they arent devoting the middle of the stage to an empty lectern. There will be no empty podiums just as we didnt do an empty podium with Rand Paul when he boycotted the FOX Business Network debate two weeks ago, said a Fox News spokesperson. The network hasnt released many promotional shots of the stage (its almost like they dont think they need more publicity), but Bret Baier did a broadcast from the debate hall. How are the candidates preparing? The other campaigns are holding practice sessions with and without Trump stand-ins, according to the Associated Press, because some are still weirdly confident that hell be there. Ive got a $20 bet he shows up, Jeb Bush told reporters on Wednesday. (Looks like somebody learned from Mitt Romneys $10,000 bet gaffe! On the other hand, Bush went on to compare Trump to a Stradivarius violinist in the Vienna symphony.) Some are expecting Cruz to fill the Trump vacuum in Thursdays debate, and Rubio tried to position himself as the true grown-up on stage. These kinds of theatrics by Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are an entertaining sideshow, but they have nothing to do with defeating Hillary Clinton, Rubio said. We dont have time for these kinds of distractions. Having two hours to speak without being interrupted by his main rival may be good for Cruz, but hes actually itching for another showdown (or at least, wants people to think he is). Shortly after Trump announced his boycott, Cruz challenged him to a one-on-one debate, and he wont let up, despite Trumps Twitter mockery: Even though I beat him in the first six debates, especially the last one, Ted Cruz wants to debate me again. Can we do it in Canada? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2016 Cruz issued a proposal for a two-man, town hallstyle debate, specifying the time, location, and potential moderators. Two super-pacs supporting Cruz have pledged to donate $1.5 million to charities serving veterans if Trump shows up. Inbox: Cruz Invites Trump to Debate Before Iowa Caucus on Saturday pic.twitter.com/85zWUi4wWc Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) January 28, 2016 Even if Trump wont take him on, the Texas senator is trying to score points from the boycott. At an anti-abortion rally in Des Moines on Wednesday night, Cruz kept referring to Trump as gentle Donald. At the end of the day its not really that Donald is afraid of Megyn, Cruz said. Hes afraid of you. He doesnt want to answer questions from the men and women of Iowa about how his record doesnt match what hes selling. Cruz must be doing something right, because Carly Fiorina is trying to snatch some of his publicity: My campaign will also donate $1.5 million to veterans' cause to join debate Saturday in Sioux City, @tedcruz @realDonaldTrump (1/2) Carly Fiorina (@CarlyFiorina) January 28, 2016 Upping the ante, I'm free tomorrow at 8pm, @realDonaldTrump. My campaign will give $2mm to veterans' cause to debate at Drake U. (2/2) Carly Fiorina (@CarlyFiorina) January 28, 2016 What will Trump be up to on Thursday night? On Wednesday afternoon, his campaign sent out inviations to the Donald J. Trump Special Event to Benefit Veterans Organizations at Drake University in Des Moines. CNN reported that the event starts at 9 p.m. ET, with a pre-program at 8 p.m. ET. Trump might get some support from fellow GOP candidates. His campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said on Wednesday morning that he had heard from other candidates proactively about attending Trumps event. He didnt elaborate, but he was probably referring to the candidates participating in the undercard debate. The two venues are just three miles apart, so it wouldnt be hard for them to make an appearance. Its unclear if the event will be televised, but naturally interest in Trumps counter-programming is high. Though it takes place at the same time as Fox Newss debate, the network confirmed its designated Trump reporter will be covering the veterans benefit. A group of more than 20 people marched in Burns, Oregon on Wednesday night to remember Robert LaVoy Finicum, the militant killed in a standoff with the FBI. Photo: ROB KERR Good morning and welcome to Fresh Intelligence, our roundup of the stories, ideas, and memes youll be talking about today. In this edition, the Oregon standoff winds down, Trump sparks debate mayhem, and Santa Claus is out of control. Heres the rundown for Thursday, January 28. WEATHER In a literal calm before the storm, most of the country can look forward to mild weather today and tomorrow before storms sweep across the West Coast and Great Lakes region over the weekend. [Weather.com] FRONT PAGE Three Arrested After Militia Leader Tells Followers Go Home The FBI arrested three more people suspected of occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon on Wednesday evening. Authorities have established check points around the federal building, and eight people were stopped while leaving the refuge. The other five were released. Hours earlier, Ammon Bundy, the groups leader, urged his followers to abandon the building in a statement read by his lawyer during his first court appearance. Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is now in the courts, he said. Bundy was arrested along with seven others on Tuesday following a standoff that left one militia member dead. [ABC] EARLY AND OFTEN There Are Now Debates About Debates Responding to pressure from the Clinton camp to attend an unsanctioned debate on February 4, Bernie Sanders upped the ante, challenging Hillary Clinton to three new debates: One in March, April and May and none on a Friday, Saturday or holiday weekend. Trumps new no debates strategy is starting to make sense. [Business Insider] Theyre Just Like Us: Donald Trump Double-Books Lest you think Trumps refusal to attend Thursdays debate is politically motivated, it turns out the Donald just has other plans namely, hosting a last-minute fundraiser for injured veterans. Veterans groups arent exactly thrilled. [CNN] Fox Aint Too Proud to Beg Fox News host Bill OReilly tried to convince Trump to appear at the debate during a Wednesday night interview. The candidate wouldnt budge unless you count congratulating yourself for not calling Megyn Kelly a bimbo as budging. Racism Does Not Respect Party Lines In a timely reminder that the Republican Party does not have a monopoly on racial insensitivity, MSNBCs own Chris Matthews wondered out loud and on television Whos going to watch a debate between the two Cuban guys? adding, Whos gonna watch a debate between Rubio, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz? Who cares? [Politico] THE STREET, THE VALLEY The Fed Does Nothing As expected, the Federal Reserve has decided to leave interest rates unchanged following this weeks meeting. Still, the language of their statement made it clear that they are preparing to move rates in the near future. [CNBC] Totally Taking Over Lives Very Profitable While PayPal and eBay each released earnings reports today, all eyes were on Facebook. The somewhat creepy behemoth didnt disappoint, posting revenues of well over $5 billion last quarter, up more than 50 percent from a year ago. Stocks of course responded favorably to the news, jumping up 12 percent. [USA Today] Does a Pink Mustache Mean Nothing? In a class-action lawsuit, Lyft, the chauffeur service that isnt Uber, was forced to pay out $12.5 million to disgruntled drivers. Still, the company is celebrating. They have won the right to continue to treat drivers as contractors and not employees, which means no benefits, no vehicle maintenance, and no health coverage. Uber, which is currently dealing with a similar lawsuit, is no doubt quite relieved. [CNET] So Begins the Era of the Dick GIF Tinder is about to get even more graphic. The dating app just released an update that allows users to send GIFs to their matches. Before you even ask, Tinderers will be limited to the GIFs available through Giphy, but its only a matter of time before someone finds the Giphy equivalent of the eggplant emoji. [The Verge] MEDIA BUBBLE An Ominous Departure at Bloomberg Kathy Kiely, the Washington news director for Bloomberg Politics, stepped down yesterday over concerns the news service would not be allowed to fairly report on its owner Michael Bloombergs decision to run for president. Jeez, what good is literally buying the media if people are just going to quit all the time? [HuffPo] Tank-Man Pictures? What Tank-Man Pictures? Corbis, Bill Gatess massive photo-licensing service, has been purchased by the Chinese media company Visual China Group. The sale is ringing alarm bells with activists who question the wisdom of selling the rights to historic images, including the famous Tiananmen tank man, to a Chinese company. It seems most of the concern is misplaced as the images, though licensed to Corbis, are not owned by Corbis. [NYT] Wall Street Journal Prepares for Media to Go Digital Editor-in-chief Gerard Baker announced a thorough restructuring of the Wall Street Journals newsroom yesterday. The changes, including changes at the papers Page One, are intended to reflect an increasingly digital media landscape. Timely. [CapitalNY] PHOTO OP Thursday is the 30th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. NASA is observing its annual Day of Remembrance, honoring the seven-member Challenger crew, as well as the three men killed in 1967s Apollo 1 fire, and the seven astronauts lost when the shuttle Columbia broke apart while reentering the Earths atmosphere in 2003. [Space.com] I was a baby when #Challenger was lost. But the legacy helped to inspire my passion for space. #ChallengerLegacy pic.twitter.com/4VnrzdSgl3 Sarah Cruddas (@sarahcruddas) January 28, 2016 MORNING MEME R.I.P. Adele Hello parodies. You were fun while you lasted, but when Mike Huckabee picks up on a trend, its truly over. [Reuters] OTHER LOCAL NEWS Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer Proves Prescient After decades of breaking and entering, Saint Nicholas has finally been picked up on charges of driving under the influence. The perhaps too jolly Santa Claus of Spokane, Washington, not the North Pole was pulled over for driving the wrong way down a one-way street. Beer Lovers Eyes Too Big for His Stomach A Melrose Park, Illinois, man pled guilty to stealing beer yesterday and was sentenced to three years in prison. Sound strict? Well he stole 43,200 beers, but whos counting? [Chicago Tribune] HAPPENING TODAY Congress Tackles Flint Water Crisis Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, the two Democratic senators from Michigan, are planning to unveil legislation in response to the ongoing Flint water crisis later today. The legislation will be introduced as amendments to an unrelated energy bill, because America. [CNN] Rubio, Cruz to Enjoy a Few Hours in the Spotlight The much-anticipated final Republican debate before the Iowa caucus is set to take place tonight at 9 p.m. ET. Watch out for the fantastically coiffed elephant in the room. Cancer Moon Shot Commences President Obama will create a White House task force on cancer today, fulfilling a promise he made in his State of the Union address. The group will include members from 13 government agencies and will meet officially on Monday for the first time. [NYT] If you see something, say something. Photo: PhotoStock-Israel/Corbis An Israeli vulture drifted into Lebanese airspace Tuesday, where it was intercepted and detained on charges of espionage. Residents of the town of Bint Jbeil became alarmed by the bird after discovering that it was equipped with a homing device from Tel Aviv University. Fearing that the rare griffin vulture might also be carrying a hidden camera, the locals tied the bird to a tree with rope to allow for closer examination, Haaretz reports. However, after examining the bird to make sure it was not carrying listening or spy equipment, the residents returned the bird to nature, according to reports in Lebanese media. This isnt the first time that the deep distrust between Israel and its neighbors has inconvenienced a wild animal. Last year, Hamas apprehended a Zionist spy dolphin off the coast of Gaza. Saudi Arabia detained a (presumably) different Israeli vulture on spying charges in 2011. The bird has yet to return to its home at a wildlife reserve in the Golan Heights, where, if it knows whats best for itself, itll confine its research to pop culture. If you play with fire, youre gonna get Berned. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images To go negative, or not to go negative that is the question facing the Bernie Sanders campaign. With five days until Iowa gets caucusing, the Vermont senator is contemplating two very different paths to victory. Down one road, Americas friendly neighborhood socialist would stick to the issues and nostalgic folk rock on which his political revolution and favorability numbers were built. Down the other, the progressive gadfly would make sure every liberal in the Hawkeye State knows exactly how much money Hillary Clinton has received from Goldman Sachs. On Wednesday night, Sanders advisers met to choose between two different closing ads, one positive, one negative, the New York Times reports. Despite all of the rancorous Twitter exchanges between BernieBros and HillaryMen, the 2016 Democratic primary has been an unusually friendly affair, in no small part because of Sanderss commitment to issue-based campaigning. But as many pundits have argued, sticking to policy positions is fine for a protest candidate who aspires only to expand the terms of his partys debate, but to actually take down a front-runner you generally need to taint their image. Bernie Sanders aint Karl Rove the negative ad his campaign is contemplating would still be fairly substantive: nothing on Vince Foster, Benghazi, or even those damn emails, just a more aggressive attack on Clintons credibility as a Wall Street reformer. Taking it to the streets in Mason City, Iowa. Photo: Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images Sanders gave supporters a taste of that medicine Wednesday night, telling supporters at a rally in Mason City, My opponent is not in Iowa tonight. She is raising money from a Philadelphia investment firm. Clinton was in fact in the Keystone State, raising campaign funds with the help of Franklin Square Capital Partners and Jon Bon Jovi. The Vermont senator also displayed a newfound aggressiveness in his handling of next weeks as-yet-unsanctioned New Hampshire debate. After MSNBC and the New Hampshire Union Leader arranged a debate for early next week, the Clinton campaign put significant pressure on Sanders to join the event. But after months of pushing for more debates, Sanders appeared irked by Clintons sudden appetite for a clash of ideas in the one state where he is the clear front-runner. NBC/WSJ/Marist poll of NH (D) Sanders 57% Clinton 38% O'Malley 2% Was Sanders 50%, Clinton 46% earlier this month Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) January 28, 2016 Sen. Sanders is happy to have more debates but we are not going to schedule them on an ad hoc basis at the whim of the Clinton campaign, Sanderss campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, said in a Wednesday night statement. If Secretary Clinton wants more debates thats great. We propose three additional debates. One in March, April and May and none on a Friday, Saturday or holiday weekend. And all of the three Democratic candidates must be invited. If the Clinton campaign will commit to this schedule, we would ask the DNC to arrange a debate in New Hampshire on Feb. 4. According to the Times, Sanders has yet to decide which ad to run in Iowas final days. But his campaigns increasingly confrontational tone, and clear appetite for victory, suggest Iowans will be hearing less Simon & Garfunkel and more about Clintons fat-cat donors this weekend. We want to win, Sanders told the paper Tuesday night. We think Iowa has a historical role to play in making it clear that the American people want to move this country in a very different direction, away from establishment politics and establishment economics. And thats what we hope will happen. For all their massive differences, Ted Cruz is telling Evangelicals what Jimmy Carter told white Southerners 40 years ago. Photo: Bettmann/Corbis One of the most common comparisons you hear during this strange campaign season is that Donald J. Trump is a latter-day George Wallace, exploiting racial, ethnic, and religious prejudices; baiting the news media and other enemies; telling it like it is; and, most of all, discomfiting the comfortable forces in the Republican Party. It is this latter quality that may be the key to his otherwise-surprising appeal to conservative Evangelicals. The politically active among them feel perpetually used by a Republican Party that pays lip service to their priorities but never seems to pursue them with any degree of seriousness. And so, as Betsy Woodruff noted last year, they dont mind retaliating with Trump as a sort of Scourge of God whose very savagery is part of the GOP Establishments just punishment: Ray Moore, the director of South Carolina-based Exodus Mandate (a Christian ministry to encourage,and assist Christian families to leave Pharaohs school system (i.e., government schools), per its site), held a similar view. He wont endorse a candidate, but said Trumps appeal to evangelicals makes a lot of sense. They get in office and they just give us the back of the hand as soon as they get elected, he said, referring to top Washington Republicans. Look at the Planned Parenthood issue, they cant seem to defund Planned Parenthood, and its just amazing to watch that go on for years. Hes been hard on them, and I like that, he added. Like Wallace, Trump is sending them a message, which doesnt require a coherent positive agenda or even views with which his vengeful fans entirely agree. When one has despaired of real victory, sometimes lashing out at the closest object the GOP makes the most sense. Wallaces ultimate vanquisher in presidential politics was the fellow southerner Jimmy Carter, who in 1976 cleverly argued that instead of sending them a message, the South should send them a president. And to a degree that has largely been forgotten in the wake of Carters reelection loss to Ronald Reagan and his post-presidential career as a progressive peacemaker, Carter inspired great passion among conservative white Southerners and especially his fellow Evangelicals, who saw him as one of their own. After Carter won the nomination, southern reactionaries who had given the national Democratic Party a wide berth for many years came home, including Wallace himself. If Trumps a latter-day Wallace offering to send a message to Beltway elites, then for all his differences from Jimmy Carter, Ted Cruz has adopted a very similar appeal to contemporary conservative Evangelicals, who now operate almost exclusively within the GOP. Robert Draper of The New York Times Magazine has captured it well: On Nov. 13, 2013, one year after his son was elected to the United States Senate, the pastor Rafael Cruz delivered a speech at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. The topic What does the Bible say about why Christians need to be involved in the political arena? was one of his favorites, and notably appropriate for a school founded by Jerry Falwell, who also founded Moral Majority, the once-powerful political action committee. Over the course of a 30-minute speech that touched on everything from the need for school prayer to the similarities between President Obamas Washington and Fidel Castros Havana, the question of why slowly gave way to the question of who. The pastor concluded by telling his audience, God is saying to you: Vote for righteous people. In retrospect, the pastors speech that day might be seen as the first (albeit subtle) public move in the eventual bid for the presidency by his son. Ted Cruz is selling himself to Evangelicals with three simple points: (1) Hes one of them; (2) hes proved he knows how to fight, not just taunt, their Republican and Democratic enemies in Washington; and (3) he knows how to win a general election. Hes telling these Evangelicals to send them a president, not just a message. This is why, of all the attacks recently launched against Cruz by his Republican rivals, the potentially deadliest were those challenging his religious bona fides: one suggesting he had a different message for secular donors in sinful New York, and another showing that according to his tax returns he and his wife are far short of tithing. And thanks to his Ivy League education and his reputation in Washington as a slippery fellow, he may always be vulnerable to claims that hes a mendacious Elmer Gantry rather than an upright young King Josiah sent by God to reform his nation. Jimmy Carter married his conservative southern white following to a broader and largely liberal coalition, and in the wake of Watergate, proving his electability was not a big problem (though in the end he nearly lost to Gerald Ford). Its Cruzs burden to convince his audience that conservatives alone can win in 2016 and no longer have to rely on the perfidious Establishment Republicans or any bipartisan deals (sellouts) in Washington. Thats a heavy lift, but made easier by the passionate desire of conservatives to believe it is true. And belief rather than simple anger is ultimately the one advantage Cruz may have over Trump. Elizabeth Holmes lands in hot water once again. Photo: Kimberly White/Getty Images Theranos Lab, an almost-too-good-to-be-true medical startup aimed at revolutionizing blood testing, first found its legitimacy called into question back in October. Before that, Theranos and its CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, had been media darlings, praised for groundbreaking technology that would make blood testing inexpensive and even relatively painless. But a Wall Street Journal story published that month called the companys legitimacy into question, and now a government letter has cast even more doubt on the labs practices. The letter, dated January 25 and sent by the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), says the labs practices pose immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety and gives it ten days to fix the issue. According to the CMS, the immediate jeopardy designation is given when a lab doesnt comply with the standards mandated by the Department of Health and Human Services. It means that the lab has already caused or is likely to cause serious injury, harm, or death to its patients. Among other things, neither the analytic systems, nor the lab director, nor the testing personnel were up to snuff. This ties in with WSJs allegations that the lab was overstating the results of its Edison machine, which is what makes the pin-prick testing method viable in the first place the Edison is supposed to glean accurate results from just a tiny blood sample. But the machines results were reportedly so janky that Theranos used machines from legacy labs to pass government-regulatory tests. Holmes has defended her company, but its hard to argue with the CMS, even if youve been profiled by the New Yorker. Holmes might rightfully favor scalable statistics over anonymous anecdotes, but the governments allegations are pretty damning. Update: After the DHHs letter was published, Theranos issued a statement saying it has already addressed many of the issues raised in the report and emphasizing that the immediate jeopardy condition applies to only one area (hematology) in its Newark, California, lab. This post has been updated throughout. Buddys face survives on pasta sauce labels. Photo: Tom Herde/The Boston Globe via Getty Images Vincent Buddy Cianci served as the mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, twice from 1975 to 1984 and again from 1991 to 2002 and was responsible for revitalizing the sleepy city and turning it into a tourist destination. Hes also a convicted felon. After four decades in politics (he ran for mayor again as recently as 2014), Cianci died Thursday morning at 74, from cancer. Hes remembered as much for his tenacity, his charisma, and his own musical as he is for his two convictions, each of which forced him out of office. Ciancis first stint as mayor ended in 1984, when he pleaded no contest to attacking his wifes lover, Raymond DeLeo, with such accoutrements as a fireplace log and a lit cigarette. He didnt do any jail time then, but he did leave politics, becoming a radio talk-show host and lambasting his opponents over the airwaves. In 1990 he ran for mayor as an independent candidate and won, but in 2001 he was again indicted, this time for racketeering, bribery, extortion, and witness intimidation. I used my public power for personal reasons. I admit it, he wrote in his memoir, Politics and Pasta (he also created his own line of pasta sauce, with his face on the label). It probably wasnt the right thing to do, but it certainly felt good. According to The New Yorker, a Brown student once asked Cianci if there was anything he would change about his life. He replied, The verdict. Following that conviction, Cianci served five years, after which he was back on the radio. In 2014, issues such as zoning laws and funding for special education drew him once more into the mayoral race. (He lost.) There is no question everyone makes mistakes in their lives, he told a group of supporters at City Hall in 1974. But one I never made is loving the city of Providence too much. Photo: Camerique/Corbis On this weeks Dear Sugar podcast, hosts Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond read a letter from a 34-year-old single urban woman who bemoans the fact that good guys seem to be scarce, wondering if she will have to settle with someone. Strayed and Almond mentioned that theyve recently gotten a steady stream of similar letters from unhappy single women who argue that all the emotionally available men are spoken for. Listening to the show, it sounded at first like your typical advice-column stuff, and like some of those fears must be overblown. But thats when Strayed and Almond brought in Stanford economics professor Paul Oyer, whose 2014 book Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Economics I Learned From Online Dating chronicled his return to the dating scene as a single, 50-year-old man, which he came to understand as being much like the markets hed spent a career studying. Oyer had three observations about the behavioral economics of being (heterosexually) single: Give up on the idea of finding your soul mate, or risk being romantically unemployed. Oyer who was once an unhappily single man has this advice for hopeless romantics: You cant hold out for the perfect man. He doesnt exist, and if he did, someone else might have found him by now. Great. Instead, Oyer imagines the dating game as being more like finding a job. In economics, workers are looking for firms to hire them, and firms are seeking workers, too. But both firms and workers have incentives to find the perfect version of the other, which can lead to unemployment. Oyer carries this metaphor over to people who are holding out for their soul mate, calling them romantically unemployed. He suggests flipping the narrative from settling for someone who isnt perfect to finding a partner who is really great, he said. Perfection, in other words, is overrated. Eligible men are indeed scarcer than available women, especially in major U.S. cities. The women in those letters were not imagining the fact that it seems like there is a dearth of men; this is especially true if you live in urban areas like New York, where females far outnumber males. From Oyers economics perspective, this is a simple problem of supply and demand. Thats why online dating really is a godsend for single people hunting for a relationship. It used to be that you met someone at a bar, a party, or at work. But online dating has drastically increased your available pool of possibilities to include eligible ladies and gents you might not ever have seen or considered and thats a good thing. Oyer, himself a man who met his current girlfriend on a dating site, extols their virtues, saying that for a certain population in his case, a 50-year-old man; in the letter writers case, a 34-year-old woman online dating has made the market thinner. In non-economist terms, that means its created fewer obstacles to entering the market and more possibilities for a person to find their partner. You dont need an economics degree to know thats a lovely thing. Saint Laurents Mondrian dress. Photo: REMY DE LA MAUVINIERE/Corbis Next year is shaping up to be an exciting one for Yves Saint Laurent aficionados. Thats when the Fondation Pierre Berge will open not one, but two museums dedicated to the designers work. The Telegraph reports that the outposts will be located in Paris and Marrakech, since the designer split his time between the two cities. The Paris space, in his original studio on Avenue Marceau, will completely re-create Saint Laurents atelier, and will feature rotating exhibits from the Fondations huge YSL archive (which includes 5,000 pieces of haute couture). The Marrakech branch will be near the Jardin Majorelle, where the designers ashes are scattered, and will include a library and restaurant. It feels perfectly natural, fifty years later, to build a museum dedicated to his oeuvre, which was so inspired by this country, Pierre Berge told the paper of the decision to build a Moroccan outpost. Saint Laurents work has inspired hit exhibits, among them the 1983 Costume Institute retrospective curated by Diana Vreeland and last years YSL: Style Is Eternal show at the U.K.s Bowes Museum. Still, there are innumerable treasures that have yet to be unveiled. If you live near or are visiting either city, this might be your chance to see a Mondrian dress, an original le smoking, or a piece from the notorious Scandal collection in person. SWA calls for further excise cuts for spirits as sales boost Treasury coffers Last years 2% cut on excise duty helped the Treasury increase its take from the tax on UK spirits sales by 4% to 96 million, new figures reveal. The uplift in Treasury revenue from the measure, which was announced in George Osbornes March 2015 Budget, has led the Scottish Whisky Association to call on the government to go further this year. The SWA is calling on the Chancellor to Stand Up For Scotch and to cut another 2% from the excise in his forthcoming 2016 Budget. David Frost, chief executive of the SWA, said: "The Government's own figures tell a simple story: when tax is too high, if you cut it, revenues go up not down. Along with the British public, we believe that the current tax of 76% on a bottle of Scotch is too high. An ordinary drinker will hand over almost ten pounds in tax on each bottle they buy. We would like to see a 2% cut again this year. "George Osborne listened to the industry last year when we said that a cut on duty would increase confidence, safeguard jobs, help consumers, and thereby ultimately benefit the Treasury. "We now have the figures to prove it. That's why this year we are asking the Chancellor to continue what he has started. Deliver fair tax for whisky, free the industry to invest and grow, and feel the benefit through increased revenue. "It really is common sense to stand up for Scotch. The Scottish whisky industry support more than 40,000 jobs in the United Kingdom, many in otherwise deprived rural areas, and is reponsible for some 4 billion in export sales. Last years cut in excise duty was the first for 20 years and has helped drive investment in the sector. There are currently some 117 licensed whisky distilleries in Scotland, but a further 30 to 40 are in the planning stage. Jonathan Isaby, chief executive of The TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "Piling taxes onto spirits hits those on lower incomes the hardest, only adding to the cost of living. "Last year's bold move by the Chancellor helped the industry and the ordinary drinker but also saw a boost for the public finances, which was a clear demonstration that cutting taxes can increase revenues. "Mr Osborne would do well to give taxpayers and businesses another timely boost at the coming Budget." Related articles: Supermajors Shell and Italian Eni could be facing the loss of one of the biggest offshore oil exploration blocks in Nigeria, putting an estimated 9 billion barrels of crude oil at risk. As the new Nigerian government launches a rampaging anticorruption campaign, local media are reporting government recommendations to reclaim block OPL 245 from oil giants Shell and Eni. Nigerian Justice Minister and Attorney General Abubakar Malami is behind the recommendation, and is a key figure advising the government on the case. At issue is how Shell and Eni landed the block in the first placea controversial deal that is now being investigated in the UK, Italy and Nigeria. If newly elected Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari agrees with Malamis recommendation, not only could Shell and Eni lose the block, but they could also face billions of dollars in fines for allegedly bribing corrupt public officials and private citizens. Related: 60 Reasons Why Oil Investors Should Hang On According to Global Witness, Shells and Enis Nigerian subsidiaries had agreed to pay the government $1.1 billion to acquire the offshore block. The watchdog also said that an investigation revealed that at the same time, the same amount was offered to Malabu Oil and Gas, a company widely reported to be controlled by former oil minister Dan Etete. Etete was convicted of money-laundering in France in 2007. There has been a lot of talk about going on the offensive against corruption in the Nigerian oil industry for years, but its mostly been the empty talk of campaign promises. This time around, the new president, elected in March 2015, has shown a drive that threatens to bring down anyone connected to the oil business under the previous government. So far, hes made good on his campaign promises, much to the demise of the industry. Related: Only Recession Can Prevent An Oil Price Spike Nigeria is Africas biggest economy, and it relies on oil exports for 58 percent of the governments revenue. When Buhari officially took office in May, he said the coffers were empty and massive amounts of oil money had been embezzledupwards of $150 billion. Now the country is facing a harrowing economic crisis. Buhari appears to be serious about shaking up the industry. Hes already split up the state-owned NNPC oil company into two entities. He also fired the former oil minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, and had her arrested in London for allegedly facilitating the embezzlement of a whopping $20 billion. New investigations into former officials are being launched at breakneck speed. Things arent looking good for Shell and Eni. On top of the reclamation recommendation that would lose them one of the most lucrative plays in the country, both (along with French Total SA) are now being accused of getting a $3.3 billion extraordinary tax break from the previous government in relation to the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) consortium set up in 1999. Related: Rumors of OPEC-Russia Coordination Send Oil Prices Surging The industry as a whole will balk at Buharis brazen moves, and criticize the new government for destroying the investment climate and putting the last nail on the coffin of Nigerian oil. But the Nigerian oil industry is already in crisis, and a major overhaul was the only inevitability outside of a complete meltdown. The abysmally opaque NNPC needed to be split and reformed. Oil corruption needed to be addressed before the country disintegrated. Shell and Eni have long been under scrutiny for playing by the Nigerian rules of the day. The only question now is if the supermajors lose this key offshore block, who will get it. At the end of the day, Nigeria is Nigeria, and this oil powerhouse can get away with a great deal of house-cleaning without scaring away investors. Anyone who hasnt already been scared away by the industrial-scale oil theft and world class corruption wont do more than bat an eye at the latest developments. By Julianne Geiger of Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Energy of Georgia, Kakha Kaladze, and a top official at the Russian energy giant Gazprom, Yelena Burmistrova, failed to reach an agreement during the latest round of talks in Vienna (Rustavi2, January 21). The Georgian Ministry of Energy issued a statement at the conclusion of the talks that contained more diplomatic declarations than actual information. The subject of the talks has not changed and they will continue, the statement said (Energy.gov.ge, January 20). Earlier, Kaladze repeatedly emphasized that the primary subject of the talks with Gazprom was the Russian proposalessentially a demandto monetize the Georgian payment for the Russian gas transit to Armenia (Civil Georgia, January 12). According to the agreement between Russia, Georgia and Armenia that was signed in 1992 immediately after the disbandment of the USSR, Georgia takes 10 percent of the Russian gas supplies to Armenia as payment for transit. The agreement was regularly renewed every year since, without any of the parties questioning it (Vestikavkaza.ru, October 1, 2015). However, the fall in energy prices and the corresponding fall of the price for transit (a relationship widely accepted worldwide), combined with the lifting of the Iran sanctions and the rise of Russian ambitions in the region, prompted Moscow to change its tactics and deliver a harsh ultimatum to Georgia through Gazprom. Gazprom is rightly considered to be the Kremlins geopolitical tool. Related: Confusion On Saudi Proposed Production Cut See Oil Prices Spike Kaladze never concealed that during his three previous meetings with the head of Gazprom, Aleksei Miller, the latter insisted on the monetization of payment for the transit of Russian natural gas to Armenia. Gazproms CEO cited the European Energy Charter and the World Trade Organizations (WTO) rules to support his claim. Ironically, Miller cited the very international agreements that Gazprom has repeatedly broken by introducing embargos and taking other extravagant steps against Georgia, among other countries (see EDM, March 28, 2006). If the Georgian side fails to accept Gazproms conditions, the company threatens to suspend the transit of gas to Armenia via Georgia entirely, instead, providing supplies to Armenia from Iran via the companys pipeline. According to Kaladze, monetization of the payment for gas transit is not beneficial to the Georgian side, but he is prepared to consider it if Tbilisi has some guarantees that it will not lose part of the natural gas after monetization and retain the energy balance in the country (Ipress.ge, December 10, 2015). However, the problem is that Miller, who represents Moscow, is prepared to sell natural gas to Georgia only in exchange for certain concessions. As independent analyst David Avalishvili stated, Georgia will, of course, receive the payment for the transit of natural gas to Armenia according to the international tariffs, but it is highly questionable whether the country will be able to buy the same 10 percent of transited gas to Armenia from Russia for that money. Moscow will give its consent to that only in exchange for a range of geopolitical concessions, for example, the opening of the railway link via occupied Abkhazia toward the Russian bases in Armenia; giving monopoly status to Gazprom on the Georgian market; or even halting cooperation with NATO and the EU (Authors Interview, January 22). Related: Alberta Hit Hard By Oil Crash As Unemployment Skyrockets A columnist at the news agency GHN, Gela Kalandadze, says that Gazprom has serious trump cards in this game. First of all, Georgia cannot import more gas from Azerbaijan using the two existing gas pipelines at least until 2019, when the third pipeline, Shah Deniz 2, launches. Currently the existing pipelines are operating at the limit of their capacity. Georgia receives about 9 million cubic meters of natural gas per day during winter time through them. In addition, the country receives 2.5 million cubic meters of gas as payment for the transit of Russian gas to Armenia. Jointly it is 11.5 million cubic meters, which is a minimal amount of gas that is needed for the normal operation of the Georgian energy system, the expert said (Authors Interview, January 22). According to Kalandadze, Georgian authorities find themselves between two bad and very bad choices. The expert states, If Gazprom makes good on its threat, suspends gas transit and/or refuses to sell natural gas to Georgia after monetization, it will destabilize the energy balance in the country. Gas and electricity tariffs will inevitably rise, which will produce discontent among the people and the decline of popularity of the ruling coalition Georgian Dream. All of these will happen during the year of parliamentary elections. Gazprom bets on this, demanding geopolitical concessions to the Kremlin from the government of Giorgi Kvirikashvili (Authors Interview, January 22). The expert doubts that the Kremlins threat to stop gas transit to Armenia via Georgia is a bluff, Gazprom can send half of the gas that Armenia needs from Iran already this year. The remaining deficit of energy in Armenia this winter can be alleviated with a quick export of other types of energy via Iran, such as heavy fuel oil that can be used at electric plants that use natural gas. Also, the nuclear station in Armenia may increase its electricity output. When Russian geopolitical interests and a chance to change the foreign policy orientation of the Georgian government are at stake, Moscow is willing to sustain some material losses. The sanctions from Iran have been lifted. The throughput of the gas pipeline from Iran to Armenia can be doubled by next winter. Also it should not be forgotten that another Russian company, Inter-Rao, is the supplier of electricity to Georgia and it is also acting in the interests of the Kremlin. Related: U.S. Plans Airstrikes In Libya To Protect Oil Assets From ISIS Kalandadze states that in the current situation, Georgian authorities have only one choice if they do not want to capitulate before the Kremlin. They should honestly tell the public that we all need to be patient and endure difficulties at least until 2019-2020 when Georgia will be able to receive more natural gas from Azerbaijan via the new gas pipeline that is under construction, the expert told Jamestown. Upon his return from the talks in Vienna, Minister Kaladze told journalists that Georgia still receives 10 percent of the natural gas that flows from Russia to Armenia via Georgia. The Georgian government did not agree to monetization, because there is no guarantee that the country will be able to buy the same amount of natural gas or that Gazprom will agree to sell gas without a change in Georgias foreign policy (Netgazeti.ge, January 20). It appears that Georgian authorities are hoping that Moscow will not take such a radical step as stopping the transit of natural gas via the Georgian territory. However, given how often the Russian government has used Gazprom as an instrument of geopolitical pressure previously, this hope may be excessively optimistic. Russias view of the issue will be clarified in the next few months or even weeks. By Giorgi Menabde via The Jamestown Foundation More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Balancing Irans increasingly closer ties with Russia and China, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is touring Europe to drum up as much renewed business with the West as he can now that his country is free of crippling sanctions. On Friday, Iran and Greece signed what is described as a long-term agreement for Hellenic Petroleum, the countrys largest oil-refining company, to resume buying Iranian crude. Three days later Rouhani, leading a delegation of 120 Iranian ministers and business leaders, renewed business ties with Italy. In Rome, Saipem, a subsidiary of the Italian energy major Eni, signed 13 memorandums of understanding that include potential cooperation on major projects in Iran with the Parsian Oil & Gas Development Co. According to Shana, the news service of Irans Ministry of Petroleum, this would entail making improvements to Irans Pars Shiraz and Tabriz refineries. Shana also cited unconfirmed media reports that Saipem and Iran were considering collaborating on the construction of a pipeline worth at least $4.3 billion. Related: Only Recession Can Prevent An Oil Price Spike Present at Mondays signing were Rouhani and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, as well as Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh. All told, Italy and Iran were expected to sign deals worth as much as $18.4 billion involving not only energy but also Iranian infrastructure and shipbuilding, according to an anonymous source in the Italian government cited by Reuters. This is just the beginning of a journey, Renzi said at the signing ceremony. There are sectors where we must work closer together. The Italian leader said he expects the meeting also will go a long way toward Irans joint fight with the West against the militant group Islamic State, also known as IS, ISIS and Daesh, which has been creating chaos in the Middle East and North Africa. Related: Oil Prices Down As U.S. Crude Inventories Hit 80 Year High I am sure this visit will be a fundamental part of our ability to overcome together the challenge of fighting terrorism, atrocity and evil that we all have to confront together, Renzi said. Rouhani agreed. He had planned to visit Europe in November to set up deals that hed hoped to be able to close once the sanctions were lifted, but postponed the tour after the Islamic State attack in Paris on Nov. 13 that killed 130 people. We have always been in the front line against terrorism, he said. We have to continue [cooperating with Italy] to secure a genuine peace in Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Libya. Related: Rumors of OPEC-Russia Coordination Send Oil Prices Surging Yet many Western nations, particularly the United States and France, remain leery of Irans pledges to fight terrorism and defend human rights. Nevertheless, European countries are eager to resume commercial ties with Tehran in efforts to revive their lagging economies. Rouhani too is eager to demonstrate that the deal to curb Tehrans nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of many Western sanctions, which is opposed by many Iranian hard-liners, is good for Iran because it could lead to a boost in Irans economy as well. Rouhani has long argued that renewed trade with the West will help it secure technologies that arent available elsewhere, such as Russia and China. By Andy Tully of Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Israel is so far managing to counter a potentially crippling cyberattack on its national Electric Authority, but has yet to defeat it completely. Energy Minister Yuval Steinetz told the CyberTech 2016 Conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday that the authority already had moved to lessen the impact of the event, though he conceded that some customers remained without power. [On Monday] we identified one of the largest cyber attacks that we have experienced, Steinetz told the meeting. The virus was already identified, and the right software was already prepared to neutralize it. We had to paralyze many of the computers of the Israeli Electricity Authority, the minister said. We are handling the situation, and I hope that soon this very serious event will be over. Related: The World's Best Oil And Gas Market Just Got 115% Better Steinetz didnt say whether the Israeli government had identified the source of the attack, but added that it demonstrates the vulnerability of the important nationwide service that is controlled primarily with computers. This is a fresh example of the sensitivity of infrastructure to cyberattacks, he said, and the importance of preparing ourselves in order to defend ourselves against such attacks. The cyberattack was discovered as Israelis were cranking up their home and office heating systems to cope with a sudden cold spell in which temperatures fell below freezing and electricity usage reached record levels. Officials at the Energy Ministry immediately shut down computer systems that had been infected by the cyber virus to at least mitigate the attack. Related: Only Recession Can Prevent An Oil Price Spike Israels Electricity Authority is a department in the Ministry of Energy, and is a separate entity to the Israel Electric Corporation, the countrys state-owned electric-power utility. The attack discovered Monday probably didnt come as a surprise to the Israeli government. In July the countrys National Cyber Authority warned that the Jewish state was due for a massive cyberattack. Government offices dealing with infrastructure as well as security were directed to examine their computers and even cell phones for any unexpected changes. At the time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the nation to be vigilant. Cyber threats can paralyze nations, he said. This is a strategic threat that can paralyze and hurt no less than other threats in various fields, and we must be prepared to for it on the national and international levels. Related: Oil Prices in 2016 Will Be Determined By These 6 Factors Israel already has been subjected to several cyberattacks over the past two years, and the government says it suspects they were the work of the Iranian government and/or Hezbollah, the Shia Muslim militant group based in neighboring Lebanon. One of the boldest attacks came in April, when members of the hacking network Anonymous digitally vandalized scores of websites of the Israeli government, private organizations in the country, personal email accounts and even Facebook pages. In its campaign, called OpIsrael, it warned of an electronic holocaust. Israel responded by ensuring its anti-hacking resources are up to date at its National Cyber Authority and, last month, established a new unit in the Israel Defense Forces to oversee the countrys fight against cyberattacks. By Andy Tully of Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Shareholders of Royal Dutch Shell and BG Group have given their final approval to a merger of the companies, despite concern among some Shell shareholders that the Anglo-Dutch energy giant was paying too much for the union. The Shell shareholders, meeting in The Hague on Wednesday, voted 83 percent in favor of Shell's purchase of its smaller rival, and BG shareholders, who will benefit from the high price of the transaction, did the same during a meeting in London on Thursday. The deal will become final on Feb. 15. The merger not only would make Shell the world's largest producer of liquid natural gas (LNG), a position now held by ExxonMobil Corp., but also would make it the largest publicly owned company in Britain. When Shell CEO Ben van Beurden announced his intention to buy BG in April, his offering price was close to $70 billion. But that was nine months after the average global price of oil began its plunge, along with the value of Shell's stock, and as oil prices have continued to fall, the transaction's value has declined to about $51 billion. Related: The World's Best Oil And Gas Market Just Got 115% Better Even that price, though, was seen as a lot to spend by a company, no matter how large, that has been hit so hard by the depressed oil market. Before the vote, one large Shell investor, Standard Life, the savings and investment company, called the purchase value destructive for shareholders, and others have suggested a renegotiation in the terms of the deal. One private investor, Mark Van Baal, who leads a coalition of small shareholders of Shell, said he wasn't backing the deal because [t]here are a lot better ways to spend [$51 billion]. Another small investor told the Financial Times, In a world with $30 [per-barrel oil], the number that will roll out of the model will look terrible. At $100 [oil], this deal will look the steal of the century. Related: Only Recession Can Prevent An Oil Price Spike A third individual shareholder, Gavin Palmer, said the timing was wrong because energy's production costs are now exceeding market price. When you are buying something and the oil price goes down so much that the assets cost more to get out the ground than they are worth, that is not an asset, that is a liability, he said. But such views were in the minority, with most investors evidently convinced that van Beurden's long-term plans of growing its LNG business would pay off eventually. BG is one of the world's leading LNG companies, with generous output from its operations off the coasts of East Africa, Brazil and Australia. Related: Oil Prices in 2016 Will Be Determined By These 6 Factors Van Beurden has said repeatedly that the buying BG eventually will be financially beneficial to Shell, in part because of an expected increase in LNG sales, and in part because Shell can save money by reducing redundancies in the two companies. And shortly before the Shell vote, he said the merger would provide a springboard to reshape his company. It is a tremendous opportunity to create value for BG shareholders and our Shell holders, van Beurden said. It will accelerate and de-risk our strategy. Shell says the persistent plunge in oil prices, which began in June 2014, means the company may have to wait longer than originally expected to profit from its purchase of BG. Last month the company said that if the deal is approved, it wouldn't begin to see profits from the merger until the price of a barrel of oil begins to inch above $60 per barrel. By Andy Tully of Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Donald Trump has no reason to single out Megyn Kelly as his reason to consider a boycott of the FOXNews, GOP debate - but she is the focus of his anger. He obviously doesn't want anymore "gotcha" quesitons about how Donald Trump treats women. FOXNews often creates the news. Yet, now they're terrified about having Donald Trump upstage their own "news event"- the GOP "line up" in the cable news televised debate. Indeed, Donald Trump is almost like the reincarnation of PT Barnam. He didn't fall for the "born every minute" cliche. Consequently, FOXNews is now on the defensive. Once again, Donald Trump is controlling the news while the FOXNews venture has been shut down. Megyn Kelly is one reason Donald Trump says he's boycotting the FOXNews detabe. Seems like an excuse to me and others. It's really Donald Trump controlling the news. all the other news programs to cover the story. It was a brilliant FOXNews strategy - ie., force your news competitors to report on you! Rupert Murdoch , the FOXNews owner, obviously thought putting pretty Megyn Kelly up against Donald Trump as moderator of the GOP debate would push ratings through the roof. Therefore, having Megyn Kelly face off with Donald Trump, would forcethe other news programs to cover the story. It was a brilliant FOXNews strategy - ie., force your news competitors to report on But, so far, it's backfiring because the news coverage threatens to take down the GOP debate. I dont like being taken advantage of, the billionaire businessman and Republican primary front-runner said, repeatedly telling O'Reilly that he'll, instead, hold a veterans event at Drake University, while his GOP rivals debate. Bill O'Reilly is so arrogant, he even had the audacity to write about the Crucifixition of Jesus Christ, as thought he attended the tragedy on the Via Dolorosa the "Way of Sorrows" in Jerusalem. But O'Reilly was uncharacteristically groveling with Donald Trump about bartering for "milkshakes", when he came as close to begging the Republican frontrunner to change his mind about his boycott of the GOP debate, scheduled to be broadcasst, of course, on FOXNews. This political drama is reducing political discourse to the level of a "survival show" television saga. Rather than discussing policies to frame the future of America, the political commentary is about "tit for tat" ego juggling. Nevertheless, the result of this negative political energy is another marketing strategy by Donald Trump to control every single media news cycle. Unfortunately, it's working. Controlling the GOP debate news isn't costing Donald Trump much money, but it's now going to take a fiscal toll on FOXNews. Labels: Bill O'Reilly, Megyn Kelly, Rupert Murdoch The remaining armed militants at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge vow that they will continue to fight until the end. The FBI asked the media to leave the area at approximately 7:45 AM PT. The militants have been running a live stream video from the refuge off and on overnight and into the morning after news of the arrest of Ammon Bundy and crew reached them. They have repeatedly made definitive statements that they are prepared to die at the refuge. While they appear to be scattered around on patrols and at different stations throughout the refuge, one man positioned near the live stream camera could be heard calling his mother, telling her that he loves her and that he believes this is the second American revolution. He noted his wife is there, fighting along with him. He called her a "great American woman." He stopped numerous times to look into the camera and address the people watching the live stream, calling for others to "Get there and get some!" and saying those law enforcement who try to stop them aren't abiding by their oath and are the enemy. He later used even stronger words: "Don't be afraid of those roadblocks, drive up there and shoot them. They are dishonorable." Video of his deadly rant is below. Reprinted from Truthdig The Clintons have no shame, that much you can count on. That stupefying arrogance was on full display in the most recent presidential campaign debate when Hillary Clinton countered Bernie Sanders' charge that she was compromised by her close ties to Goldman Sachs and other rapacious Wall Street interests with the retort: "Sen. Sanders, you're the only one on this stage that voted to deregulate the financial markets in 2000 ... to make the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission no longer able to regulate swaps and derivatives, which were one of the main causes of the collapse in '08." Hillary knows that the disastrous legislation, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA), had nothing to do with Sanders and everything to do with then-President Bill Clinton, who devoted his presidency to sucking up to Wall Street. Clinton signed this bill into law as a lame-duck president, ensuring his wife would have massive Wall Street contributions for her Senate run. Sanders, like the rest of Congress, was blackmailed into voting for the bill because it was tucked into omnibus legislation needed to keep the government operating. Only libertarian Ron Paul and three other House members had the guts to cast a nay vote. The measure freeing Wall Street firms from regulation was inserted at the last moment in a deal between President Clinton and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Phil Gramm, R-Texas, who had failed in an earlier attempt to get the measure enacted. Clinton signed it into law a month before leaving office. Sanders soon figured out that he and almost all other Congress members had been tricked into providing a blank check for the marketing of bogus collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps made legal by the legislation, of which a key author was Gary Gensler, the former Goldman Sachs partner recruited by Clinton to be undersecretary of the treasury. Eight years later, when President Obama nominated Gensler to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, it was Sanders who put a temporary hold on the nomination, stating: "Mr. Gensler worked with Sen. Phil Gramm and [former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman] Alan Greenspan to exempt credit default swaps from regulation, which led to the collapse of AIG and has resulted in the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. history." Click Here to Read Whole Article Today, Gensler is the top economic adviser to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. And the CFMA -- key legislation that was "one of the main causes of the collapse in '08," enabling the great recession -- is an enormous embarrassment that her husband on occasion reluctantly has conceded was drafted by his top aides and signed into law by him with great enthusiasm. In an awkward power-couple footnote, Greenspan, chief prophet of radical banking deregulation, is married to NBC journalist Andrea Mitchell, one of the two debate moderators Sunday night, who pointedly challenged Sanders with questions about his integrity in his call for reform of the economy. But not as awkward as Hillary having been prepped by her debate adviser Gensler to attack Sanders for his vote for legislation that Gensler wrote when working for her husband. Who are these Clintonites who now have the temerity to blame Sanders for the economic hustles they authorized? Gensler in 1999 testified before Congress in support of the total deregulation of toxic derivatives: "OTC derivatives directly and indirectly support higher investment and growth in living standards in the United States and around the world." As for the credit default swaps, the phony insurance packages that brought AIG to its knees and almost destroyed the world economy, Gensler testified that they should be exempted by his proposed legislation from regulation existing under the Commodity Exchange Act: "swap transactions should not be regulated under the CEA." Had they been, the financial crisis could have been avoided. Along with Gensler, Robert Rubin, who was Clinton's treasury secretary and a former Goldman Sachs chairman, and Lawrence Summers, a Rubin aide who succeeded the treasury secretary before the bill was passed, engineered this legislation, which became law and which Hillary Clinton now has the effrontery to blame on Bernie Sanders. The same Rubin-Summers wrecking crew had also destroyed the sensible restraints on Wall Street greed, implemented as the Glass-Steagall Act by the administration of Franklin Roosevelt in response to the Great Depression. Hillary Clinton defends the repeal of Glass-Steagall's separation of commercial and investment banking, while Sanders wants it reinstated. That repeal, as well as preventing any regulation of the toxic mortgage packages and swaps that still hobble the world economy and wiped out the fortunes of black and brown people with particular severity, is Bill Clinton's horrid legacy, and it is one that his wife now attempts to blame on Bernie Sanders. Shame. Copyrighted Image? DMCA The Sanders revolution is not going to be televised and it is not going to be reported in the rest of the mass media either. The revolution is against plutocracy and the plutocracy owns the mass media. Anyone still getting their information from the mass media is missing out on the history being made in an historical political year that rivals any of the past two generations. Yet patriots should still be prepared to answer plutocratic propaganda that issues from the mass media to pollute the information environment. A month ago its propaganda was that Bernie Sanders was losing, when upon closer analysis of the facts he was clearly winning. This month's propaganda is that Hillary Clinton is experienced and pragmatic whereas Bernie Sanders is an inexperienced dreamer who will sacrifice the achievable prosaic reform by reaching for impossibly poetic ideals. It must be said very clearly that this is a complete and total lie, deploying "the big lie" technique of propagandists. It must be called out as such. The most consistent message from Sanders is what he said when he first started exploring a presidential bid and has continued to say down to the last debate when he clearly defined the central issue of the 2016 campaign: "Very little is going to be done to transform our economy and to create the kind of middle class we need unless we end a corrupt campaign finance system which is undermining American democracy." If Sanders does not overcome the plutocracy and restore American democracy he is quite clear that "very little" is going to get done by him as president. That is not the talk of an unrealistic dreamer, but of a very honest, clear-eyed, practical politician who knows exactly what the score is. The difference between Sanders and Clinton is that Clinton assumes that under her presidency, as it has been under Obama's, the plutocracy will be in good hands. Therefore she promises that "very little" will get done by way of "pragmatic" reform based on "common ground" with Republicans. This is code for those reforms that the plutocracy authorizes at the point where the much vaunted partisan polarization suddenly gives way to bipartisan service to plutocracy. When applied specifically for reform of the systemically corrupt system which is American politics, the incremental kind of reform that Clinton proposes is actually counterproductive. It makes the system even more corrupt. It takes systemic reform to overcome systemic corruption. Since systemic reform must start from the top, the precise approach to reform of political corruption by the presidential candidates, whether counterproductively incremental or effectively systemic, is key to the future of American democracy. We have had 40 years of diversionary and piecemeal reforms proposals as the systemic corruption only grew worse. Though this is by far the most important issue, Sanders is not running a one issue campaign. While totally leveling with the people about the limited possibilities for the policy reforms he advocates if the current systemic corruption is not outlawed, he is also informing people about the reforms that he will pursue if democracy is restored. Sanders is very appropriately campaigning on these other policy issues because they could all be done relatively easily, indeed would already have been done, if the United States were a democracy. A democracy is where majorities get the policies they want that are not inconsistent with democracy itself. Policies like single-payer health care, free state college tuition, and virtually all other of Sanders' "middle class" economic reforms have majority backing. In a democracy it is not an impractical dream to think that the majority would be able to enact the policies that they want. Only in a plutocracy is policy that serves the majority a mere impractical dream. By framing his campaign around a platform of majoritarian policy reforms, Sanders is presenting a far clearer picture of what the country would look like under his presidency if he succeeds in his priority task of overthrowing the plutocracy. This provides a richer and truer explanation of the importance of this single decisive issue than if he had run a single issue campaign, as professor Larry Lessig advised. The choice is then quite clear. Hillary Clinton and her mass media backers criticizing Sanders as an impractical idealist are clearly assuming that the plutocracy will continue on her watch, as it certainly would. In her plutocracy, as in Obama's plutocracy, none of Sanders' policies would be anything but an unattainable ideal, as he himself has consistently indicated. Sanders is focused on, and promises to achieve with the continued support of the people, the overthrow of "the billionaire class" plutocracy. Then adopting what are, in Clinton's world, "impractical" reforms would actually become a matter of ordinary democratic politics. The Democratic primary election presents a very easy choice that has nothing to do with pragmatism, dreaming, or more or less experience running the corrupt American system of politics. These are products of propagandists designed to change the subject. The real choice is between someone who is planning on the restoration of democracy and someone who is planning for the perpetuation of plutocracy. (Article changed on January 29, 2016 at 00:28) Ted Trump or Donald Cruz (Image by DonkeyHotey) Details DMCA We can begin with Trump as a flagrant piece of a much bigger picture. Consider what it means that the British parliament lately debated the question of whether Donald Trump should be banned from Great Britain. Britain-- perhaps the United States' greatest friend, our "special relationship" for the better part of a century. And Donald Trump-- the front-runner of one of America's two major political parties. That such a debate would occur sends an inescapable message: Something has gone seriously wrong with the Republican Party. How should we understand what's gone wrong? That Trump is the frontrunner tells us we must look past Trump as an individual, for if he weren't getting massive support from the Republican base, his candidacy -- however distasteful -- would be of no importance. The support Trump gets from the base demonstrates that he is expressing what they feel and how they think. So, in excavating what's gone wrong, the next level down lies in the thoughts and feelings of the base. Trump's basic message is, "Let's beat our enemies." And they applaud his belligerence because they feel besieged and filled with rage. That Trump's pronouncements are detached from reality reflects that this base doesn't think hard to distinguish what's true from what's false, or what makes sense from what's nonsense. But the answer can't stop at the base. The question, "How did the base get that way?" takes us to a bigger picture in which many of the components of the political right play a major role. We can go back to Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich who demonized "librels" and taught that defeating "enemies" -- and not finding ways of working together to achieve a common purpose -- is what the political drama is all about. We can go back to the emergence of Fox News and the rise of the GW Bush presidency, both of which cultivated fear in their followers, and worked assiduously to detach their followers from reality. With phony issues like "the war against Christmas" -- right-wing media taught their people to perceive the world as filled with forces hostile to their basic values. With the denial of climate change, they rendered even scientific knowledge impotent to challenge a political orthodoxy based on lies. We can look to the continuous Republican effort to stir up resentments and fears directed against undocumented immigrants -- even while the influx of such people stopped and even reversed -- and to inflame old racial hostilities by peddling an image of President Obama as a Kenya-born "food stamp president." We can look to the Republicans in Congress whose across-the-board obstructionism led their followers to care only about the struggle for dominance, and not about achieving results to improve the nation. So if Trump is a mirror of the base, and the base has been shaped over decades by a whole network of forces comprising the political right, what's gone wrong in the Republican Party is something much larger and deeper than the man our best friends have found so offensive to basic values of democratic civilization. It is bigger not just because almost the entire rest of the Republican field has vied with each other to tap into the same rage and resentment and fear and lack of constructive orientation as Trump. And not just because the other candidate now seriously in the running -- Ted Cruz -- is a man (disliked, it seems, by most everyone he works with) who has shown no loyalty to anything but his own quest for power. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). The British government, whose foreign policy is overtly hostile to their Russian counterpart, declared last week that their investigation into the killing of a former Russian intelligence agent in London nearly a decade ago concluded there is a "strong probability" the Russian FSB security agency was responsible for poisoning Alexander Litivenko with plutonium. They further declared that Russian President Vladimir Putin "probably approved" of the act. The British investigation, which was likely politically motivated, seemingly raised more questions than it answered. But American corporate media were quick to use the accusations against Putin to demonize him, casting him as a pariah brazenly flaunting his disregard for international conventions. The Washington Post (1/23/16) editorial board wrote that "Robert Owen, a retired British judge, has carefully and comprehensively documented what can only be called an assassination. Mr. Owen found that Lugovoi was acting 'under the direction' of the FSB in an operation to kill Mr. Litivenko - one that was 'probably approved' by the director of the FSB and by Mr. Putin." Actually, Owen did not find that former KGB operative Lugovoi was acting under the direction of the FSB to kill Litivenko. He found there was a "strong probability" this was the case. This means that even in Owens's view, there is not near certainty, which would meet the legal standard of reasonable doubt that would preclude a guilty judgement. There is even more doubt that even if it were the case the FSB ordered the murder, they did so on Putin's orders. The New York Times editorial board (1/21/16) finds the investigation's results "shocking." For the Times, this confirms a pattern of Putin's rogue behavior. They claim Putin's "deserved reputation as an autocrat willing to flirt with lawlessness in his global ventures has taken on a startling new aspect." Mr. Putin has built a sordid record on justice and human rights, which naturally reinforces suspicion that he could easily have been involved in the murder. At the very least, the London inquiry, however much it is denied at the Kremlin, should serve as a caution to the Russian leader to repair his reputation for notorious intrigues abroad. The more hawkish Post says, "This raises a serious question for President Obama and other world leaders whose governments do not traffic in contract murder. Should they continue to meet with Mr. Putin as if he is just another head of state?" Putin's alleged "sordid record on justice and human rights", which is taken for granted without providing any examples, is seen as bolstering the case for his guilt in the case of the poisoning death of Litivenko. This, in turn, adds to his "notorious" reputation as a violator of human rights. The Post draws a line between the lawless Putin and the respectable Western heads of state, such as Obama. Though they frame their call to treat Putin as an outcast as a question, it is clearly intended as a rhetorical question. It is curious that The Post draws a contrast between Putin and Obama, whose government is supposedly above such criminality. The newspaper does not mention the U.S. government's drone assassination program, which as of last year had killed nearly 2,500 people in at least three countries outside of declared military battlefields. Estimates have shown that at least 90 percent of those killed were not intended targets. None of those killed have been charged with any crimes. And at least two - Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son Abdul Rahman - were Americans. Obama himself is personally responsible for those killed by missiles launched from unmanned aircraft over the skies of sovereign countries. Several news reports have indicated that Obama is presented in meetings each week by military and national security officials with a list of potential targets for assassination. Obama must personally approve each target, at which point they are added to the state-sanctioned "kill list." The British government has also assumed for itself the power to assassinate its own citizens outside a declared battlefield. Last fall, Prime Minister David Cameron ordered the deaths of two British citizens in Syria, who were subsequently disposed of in a lethal drone strike. The Washington Post editorial board (3/24/12) claimed that Obama was justified in carrying out lethal drone strokes that kill American citizens "to protect the country against attack." Their lone criticism was that "an extra level of review of some sort is warranted." After it was revealed that an American hostage was inadvertently killed in a drone strike in Pakistan, The Post (5/1/15) said that the issue of whether the American government continues to conduct drone strikes should not be up for debate. "[T]here is little question that drones are the least costly means of eliminating militants whose first aim is to kill Americans," they wrote. While they tacitly accept the legal rationale for Obama's assassination program, the New York Times editorial board at least demonstrated some skepticism. In "A Thin Rationale for Drone Killings" (6/23/14), they called the memo "a slapdash pastiche of legal theories - some based on obscure interpretations of British and Israeli law - that was clearly tailored to the desired result." They say that "the rationale provides little confidence that the lethal action was taken with real care." Yet they do not chastise Obama for his "intrigues abroad" nor do they condemn this as an example of his "sordid record on justice and human rights," language they used for Putin. The idea that relying on what are transparently inadequate legal justifications for killing an American citizen without due process would merit prosecution is clearly beyond the limits of discussion for the Times. Recently Faheem Qureshi, a victim of the first drone strike ordered by Obama in 2009 (three days after his induction as President), who lost multiple family members and his own eye, told The Guardian that Obama's actions in his native lands are "an act of tyranny. If there is a list of tyrants in the world, to me, Obama will be put on that list by his drone program." Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). See original here In speech lambasting big money in politics, "Warren came as close as she has -- or perhaps will -- come to officially endorsing Sanders." With days to go before the critical Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, pundits are abuzz about one potential endorsement in particular -- one they say could actually sway voters: that of progressive luminary Elizabeth Warren. Many are pointing to an impassioned speech the senator from Massachusetts gave on the U.S. Senate floor last week, in which she offered what Salon described on Tuesday as a "not-so-subtle endorsement of Bernie Sanders." The speech, which marked the sixth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, lambasted the "flood of hidden money that is about to drown our democracy." It called for citizen-funded elections, stronger financial disclosure laws, and a "full-blown" Constitutional amendment to restore authority to Congress, individual states, and the American people to regulate campaign finance. But "[t]he most revealing part of the speech was the end," wrote Salon staff writer Sean Illing, when "Warren came as close as she has -- or perhaps will -- come to officially endorsing Sanders." "A new presidential election is upon us," Warren said. "The first votes will be cast in Iowa in just eleven days. Anyone who shrugs and claims that change is just too hard has crawled into bed with the billionaires who want to run the country like some private club." As Illing argued: "The subtext here is clear: do not listen to those who say we have to be prudent and accept that fundamental problems like financial corruption or campaign finance can't be solved in the short or medium term. The knock on Sanders, fair or not, is that he's too idealistic, too detached from the realities of Washington. Part of Clinton's appeal to voters is that she's pragmatic and experienced. She may not be as progressive as Sanders, but she can get more done in Washington." Warren appeared to be rejecting that line of thinking -- to Clinton's detriment -- according to Liam Miller writing at the Huffington Post this week: "Although the occasion for her speech was the anniversary of Citizens United, in mentioning the election and the imminent voting in Iowa Warren leaves no doubt that her closing words are meant for that greater context, even as she identifies Clinton's appeals to pragmatism as a complete betrayal of the Progressivism she had once courted. That may well be the ball game for Clinton; having failed to win over Progressives, Warren's endorsement could have shored up Clinton's eroding support long enough to survive the Iowa Caucuses. Instead, Warren has delivered a scathing rebuke." Reporting on the speech, United Press International noted that Warren "has promised to endorse someone" and "is the only Democratic woman in the Senate who hasn't backed the former New York senator." Her recent remarks suggest she's not going to do so, UPI continued, given that Clinton "has received substantial financial backing for her present bid as well as her 2008 run." What's more, Greg Sargent wrote for the Washington Post earlier this month, "Warren is also surely mindful that a Clinton endorsement would disappoint a lot of Sanders supporters -- who make up her own national base, too -- as well as progressive groups that have backed the Vermont Senator." Watch Warren's full speech below: Donald Reagan (Image by DonkeyHotey) Details DMCA "History repeats itself," wrote Karl Marx in 1852, "first as tragedy, second as farce." He was referring to Napoleon I and his nephew Louis Napoleon. One hundred and sixty-four years later, my subject is Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. People talk about "the Sixties" as a heyday of activism in the U.S., and they're not wrong. I feel so grateful to have come up in a time when social imagination was encouraged, when social experimentation was rampant, when the desire to expand human liberty and human rights pervaded so many communities. But the Sixties lasted more than a decade. Well into the Seventies, social action for justice and equity was going strong. It took a long time for the movement against the Vietnam War to succeed in stopping the war--or at least in exhausting the American people's belief in the wisdom of our war leaders--but finally, the draft effectively ended in 1973 in response to massive protest and civil disobedience, and when Saigon fell in 1975, the war effectively ended too. There was a sizable People's Bicentennial to counter the triumphalist official celebrations in 1976. Through the late Seventies, quite a bit of public money was still being invested in community development, including public service jobs that supported artists working in community to the tune of $200 million a year. It was by no means heaven on earth, but the enormous civil and human rights protests of the Sixties and early Seventies had made an indelible impression, creating the fervent hope and tentative expectation that justice would grow. Back then, I lived in a world of the like-minded: San Francisco in the Seventies had not yet succumbed to the extreme gentrification brought on by high-tech corporate occupiers, and there were legions of organizers working from the micro--block-by-block politics--to the macropolitics of incipient globalization (a term that only began to take hold in the Seventies). Here are two of the things that were widely believed in my circles at the time: Social progress, in the form of the expansion of human rights and increasing equity, would continue. The force of history was unstoppable. It didn't make much difference who was elected President; we didn't feel represented by either major party, and neither acted at all accountable to our values. To say this was naive is drastic understatement. Within a startlingly short time following his election, Reagan had enacted a program that had been carefully planned in collaboration with the far-Right Heritage Foundation, abolishing public service employment and most community development funding, and going on to break unions, cut budgets for every type of social good, and reward his friends and supporters with tax-breaks and sweetheart deals. I was living in Washington at the time, covering cultural politics for a national organization of community arts folks. No one was allowed to possess a copy of the first edition of Mandate for Leadership, the Heritage Foundation report that set out Reagan's agenda, but we were allowed to visit the Foundation's office to sit in a room with a copy of the report and make notes by hand. I still have the first radically alarmed bulletin I wrote about that surreal experience, along with many more that followed. The thing is, everyone I knew was surprised--astonished--that a majority of those casting ballots in the 1980 election thought Reagan worth of their votes. I literally knew no one who had voted for Reagan. (I doubt I know anyone who will vote for Trump either.) Our astonishment was a startling indicator of our own short-sightedness and ignorance. Reagan himself had been a progressive at one point, voting liberal Democrat and rising to the presidency of the Screen Actors Guild. When McCarthyism gripped Hollywood, he aligned himself with the witch-hunters. By 1962, he had joined the Republican Party and opened a lucrative new career track as a spokesman for conservatives. He was elected Governor of California in 1966, cementing his popularity by sending National Guard troops to crack down on student protestors and riding his increasing visibility through two unsuccessful attempts at the presidential nomination before winning it and beating Jimmy Carter in 1980. Reagan was clearly plugged into a meta-trend in U.S. politics that had escaped my notice. It could accurately be described as a backlash against the very movements that my friends and I had mistaken for the pulse of the nation. Many people were frightened by the shifting social boundaries and mass protests that had filled their TV screens. They longed for a society of ordered authority with white men in charge. They had voted accordingly, responding to Reagan's famous "Morning in America" message, which promised that under his leadership the clock would turn back. The tragedy followed. Now comes the farce. Did you see The Daily Show segment featuring members of the U.K. Parliament denouncing Donald Trump as a buffoon? It was like a splash of cold water on a very dry day. My eyes feel more open now than in the Seventies, but still, I am having a familiar type of incredulity flashback. I'm having a hard time making myself believe that the U.S. electorate will allow this racist, sexist, narcissistic clown to become President. The thing is, Ronald Reagan taught me to believe it. And that's not all he taught me. Reagan showed me a truth of postmodern politics: the candidate who speaks most strongly to those who are unhappy with the current order of things has a good chance of winning. Despite all the party-machinery superstitions that push candidates toward what is perceived as the "middle of the road" in the hope of capturing swing voters, it's really hard to excite people with middle-of-the-road platitudes. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). SandstormComing/BernieWeeklyUpdate 01092016_BernieSanders_074_3x2_1080 (Image by iprimages) Details DMCA The latest Quinnipiac University poll shows Bernie ahead in Iowa by 4 points -- 49% to 45%. His organization there put a video up on Youtube to explain the caucus process, and is renting buses and vans to take students to their home precincts where they can caucus for Bernie. Bernie took time out from campaigning in Iowa to go to Minnesota, a March 1st SuperTuesday state. A crowd of 6,000 came out to hear him in Duluth and in St. Paul, the state's capital, the number reached 15,000. On Wednesday, he had a meeting at the White House with 1 person -- President Obama. Did the two discuss Bernie's decision to put a hold on a person who has ties to the pharmaceutical industry that Obama has nominated to head the Food and Drug Administration? "From the beginning of this campaign Sen. Sanders has called for more debates. Secretary Clinton has not. Now she is asking to change the rules to schedule a debate next week that is not sanctioned by the DNC. Why is that? The answer is obvious. The dynamics of the race have changed and Sen. Sanders has significant momentum. Sen. Sanders is happy to have more debates but we are not going to schedule them on an ad hoc basis at the whim of the Clinton campaign. If Secretary Clinton wants more debates, that's great. We propose three additional debates. One in March, April and May and none on a Friday, Saturday or holiday weekend. And all of the three Democratic candidates must be invited. If the Clinton campaign will commit to this schedule, we would ask the DNC to arrange a debate in New Hampshire on Feb. 4." Another way to reach minority-soon-to-be-majority voters is through youtube videos. Check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4-1zHemLrQ, starring Killer Mike, Cornell West, and Nina Turner with an appearance by L'il B. And, of course, Bernie Sanders. A Busy Saturday On January 23, Bernie supporters in 36 cities held marches in support of his presidential campaign. Organized through social-media networks, a thousand people turned out in Chicago; others marched in New Orleans, Auburn (Alabama), San Francisco and Oakland, Philadelphia and Boston. Nary a peep before or after from the MSM. That evening, Bernie spoke with supporters in a live-streaming call to house-party attendees. Urging them to participate in phone banking to SuperTuesday states, he said he believes, "We have a real path to victory." Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Reprinted from Consortium News Comedian-turned-politician Jimmy Morales, who was sworn in as Guatemala's president on Jan. 14, appears to have close ties to some of the country's most notorious death squad leaders responsible for killing thousands and uprooting tens of thousands of indigenous people from the Guatemalan highlands and the rest of the country in the 1980s. Meanwhile, on Jan. 6, eight days before the Morales swearing in, Guatemalan police arrested some 18 former military officers for crimes committed during Guatemala's 36-year "death squad" war from 1960 to 1996 that is estimated to have killed a total of 200,000 people. Included in the sweeps were some of the key participants in the dirty war, including Manuel Benedicto Lucas Garcia, the brother of Guatemala's military dictator from 1978-1982, Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia. The dramatic arrests came as the retrial of another former head of state, Efrain Rios Montt, is scheduled to begin in late January. However there have been repeated delays in the rehearing of the genocide case against Rios Montt who was found guilty in 2013 but his conviction was overturned by Guatemala's Constitutional Court. I spoke about issues with Allan Nairn, the George Polk Award-winning investigative reporter and human rights activist who has done extensive reporting on the Central American death squads and the U.S. support for them. Nairn was scheduled to testify at the first trial of Rios Montt, but was prevented by the judge. DB: Let's start with Rios Montt and work our way forward, to the present. Rios Montt and Rodriguez Sanchez, they were tried in 2013; Montt was convicted. What was he convicted of? AN: Well, Rios Montt was convicted of genocide, and he was sentenced to 80 years in prison. His intelligence chief, Rodriguez Sanchez, was acquitted in that preceding. Rios Montt was placed under house arrest, and then immediately the oligarchs of Guatemala ... went on T.V. and they demanded that the Rios Montt conviction be annulled. So the high court of Guatemala set aside the conviction, suspended the case and only now has it come back again to retrial. And it's a retrial of both Rios Montt and his intelligence chief. But it's being held under special circumstances. It's closed to the public. Only the judge, and the lawyers, and witnesses can watch the proceedings. And Rios Montt is participating from a distance. He has video link up because supposedly his health is not good enough to be present in the courtroom. And, as you said, there have been innumerable delays. It's not clear what's going to happen with this retrial. But, in a sense, the blow has already been struck. The original genocide case against Rios Montt included a full hearing of testimony from victims of the slaughter, thousands of pages of internal Guatemalan army documents were introduced into evidence. The court issued a massive and detailed decision of about 900 pages, justifying the 80-year sentence for Rios Montt. And also, demanding that he and the armed forces pay compensation to the massacre victims. And with that, the acknowledgement was made that this genocide took place, that is was a criminal act, that it was a high crime. And the fact that the sentence has been suspended for the moment is more of a legal technicality. In moral terms, and in political terms, the blow has already been struck against Rios Montt. And there's a pretty fair chance that he will eventually die under house arrest. DB: Let's talk about how close the U.S. government was to these killers. What did the U.S. officials know about the genocide based on the documents? AN: Well, they knew, essentially, everything. But, more than that, they were participating in it. Rios Montt and the Guatemalan army were clients of the United States. Reagan personally endorsed Rios Montt at the height of the terror. He said he was getting a bum rap on human rights. He said he was a man of great integrity. Congress was trying to block U.S. weapons supply to Guatemala, but the administration did a series of end runs to supply weapons, the most important of which involved the government of Israel. The U.S. brought in Israel, which supplied Galils and Uzis and also advisers to the Guatemalan military. There were actual U.S. military personnel in Guatemala, working with the army as they were doing the massacres. I interviewed one of them, a Green Beret captain, Jesse Garcia, and ... I actually went on a maneuver with him. And he described how his instruction included how to destroy towns. The U.S. also had CIA personnel, U.S. North American CIA personnel, working directly inside the G2, the military intelligence service which coordinated the assassinations and disappearances. The CIA built a new operations center for the G2 near the Guatemala City airport. The G2 directors, many of them were carried on the payroll of the CIA. And those included General Perez Molina, who was one of the officers who implemented the Rios Montt massacre policy in the countryside, and who later became president of Guatemala. And who just last year was overthrown by a popular uprising, and is now in jail for corruption. And you mentioned that General Benedicto Lucas Garcia, the former army chief of staff, was one of those just arrested in this recent sweep by Guatemalan prosecutors. Really a very brave move on the part of those Guatemalan prosecutors, and on the part of the victims who came forward to give their testimony, and the human rights advocates in Guatemala, who are pushing these cases. General Benedicto was the favorite of the U.S. embassy. He was the brother, the right hand man, of the dictator who proceeded Rios Montt, General Lucas Garcia. Reprinted from Consortium News For a long time, as he campaigned for President, a wide spectrum of establishment media insisted that Bernie Sanders couldn't win. Now they're sounding the alarm that he might. And, just in case you haven't gotten the media message yet -- Sanders is "angry," kind of like Donald Trump. Elite media often blur distinctions between right-wing populism and progressive populism -- as though there's not all that much difference between appealing to xenophobia and racism on the one hand and appealing for social justice and humanistic solidarity on the other. Many journalists can't resist lumping Trump and Sanders together as rabble-rousing outliers. But in the real world, the differences are vast. Donald Trump is to Bernie Sanders as Archie Bunker is to Jon Stewart. Among regular New York Times columnists, aversion to Bernie Sanders has become more pronounced in recent days at both ends of the newspaper's ideological spectrum, such as it is. Republican Party aficionado David Brooks (whose idea of a good political time is Marco Rubio) has been freaking out in print, most recently with a Tuesday column headlined "Stay Sane America, Please!" Brooks warned that his current nightmare for the nation is in triplicate -- President Trump, President Cruz or President Sanders. For Brooks, all three contenders appear to be about equally awful; Trump is "one of the most loathed men in American public life," while "America has never elected a candidate maximally extreme from the political center, the way Sanders and Cruz are." That "political center" of power sustains huge income inequality, perpetual war, scant action on climate change and reflexive support for the latest unhinged escalation of the nuclear arms race. In other words, what C. Wright Mills called "crackpot realism." Meanwhile, liberal Times columnist Paul Krugman (whose idea of a good political time is Hillary Clinton) keeps propounding a stand-on-head formula for social change -- a kind of trickle-down theory of political power, in which "happy dreams" must yield to "hard thinking," a euphemism for crackpot realism. An excellent rejoinder has come from former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. "Krugman doesn't get it," Reich wrote. "I've been in and around Washington for almost fifty years, including a stint in the cabinet, and I've learned that real change happens only when a substantial share of the American public is mobilized, organized, energized, and determined to make it happen." And Reich added: "Political 'pragmatism' may require accepting 'half loaves' -- but the full loaf has to be large and bold enough in the first place to make the half loaf meaningful. That's why the movement must aim high -- toward a single-payer universal health, free public higher education, and busting up the biggest banks, for example." But for mainline media, exploring such substance is low priority, much lower than facile labeling and horseracing ... and riffing on how Bernie Sanders sounds "angry." On "Morning Edition," this week began with NPR political reporter Mara Liasson telling listeners that "Bernie Sanders' angry tirades against Wall Street have found a receptive audience." (Meanwhile, without anger or tirades, "Hillary Clinton often talks about the fears and insecurities of ordinary voters.") The momentum of the Sanders campaign will soon provoke a lot more corporate media attacks along the lines of a Chicago Tribune editorial that appeared in print on Monday. The newspaper editorialized that nomination of Trump, Cruz or Sanders "could be politically disastrous," and it declared: "Wise heads in both parties are verging on panic." Such panic has just begun, among party elites and media elites. Eager to undermine Sanders, the Tribune editorial warned that as a "self-declared democratic socialist," Sanders "brandishes a label that, a Gallup poll found, would automatically make him unacceptable to nearly half the public." A strong critique of such commentaries has come from the media watch group FAIR, where Jim Naureckas pointed out that "voters would not be asked to vote for 'a socialist' -- they'd be asked to vote for Bernie Sanders. And while pollsters don't include Sanders in general election matchups as often as they do Hillary Clinton, they have asked how the Vermont senator would do against various Republicans -- and he generally does pretty well. "In particular, against the candidate the Tribune says is 'best positioned' to 'capture the broad, sensible center' -- Jeb Bush -- Sanders leads in polls by an average of 3.0 percentage points, based on polling analysis by the website Real Clear Politics." In mass media, the conventional sensibilities of pundits like Brooks and Krugman, reporters like Liasson, and outlets like the Chicago Tribune routinely get the first and last words. Here, the last ones are from Naureckas: Reprinted from Alon Ben-Meir Blog A regular reader of my weekly column recently shared with me a commentary about the brutal murder of Dafna Meir, an Israeli Jew who was stabbed to death by a Palestinian teenager. Needless to say, there are no words to express the anger and revulsion over this atrocious crime -- murdering an innocent woman with six children who had no malice in her heart against any Palestinian. It is rather natural to react with rage and venom, and what often comes to mind is revenge and retribution against the perpetrator for such a heinous, cold-blooded murder. The writer states first that "My initial angry reaction was that we should kill 100 Arabs, 10 each for her, her husband, her children and her parents. But that would have little effect, since, as they [the Palestinians] often remind us, they love death as we love life." As horrifying as the tragic death of Dafna is, it is beyond comprehension that the writer's first thought is to kill 100 Palestinians to avenge her. Since "Palestinians love death," there would be no point in killing 100 Palestinians for one Israeli, because by his own logic they prefer death over life, and therefore the lives of 100 Palestinians are worthless. Instead, he advocates that "collective punishment is appropriate here because there is collective guilt. His [the criminal's] village and his people praise terrorists and make heroes out of them." What is unfathomable is how revenge and retribution could presumably reduce the vicious cycle of violence that has been consuming both sides for nearly seven decades. The sentiment of this writer wanting to kill yet more innocent people stands in stark contrast to Jewish morals, pointedly expressed by the victim's husband, who tearfully stated "I am not angry at anyone. We don't fill ourselves with that. We don't curse Arabs...we're not people who hate." Just like Dafna's husband, the Palestinian father whose son, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, was kidnapped and burned alive in July 2014 by three Israelis, said: "They burned him [his son Mohammed] once, but we burn every day. My Jewish customers ask me if I hate them. I tell them I don't. I hate those who did this. I ask you to punish them in the most severe way." The fact that these aggrieved persons -- Israeli and Palestinian -- could display such humanity and strength in a time of profound pain and agony should provide an example for all Israelis and Palestinians alike. Calling for collective revenge not only demonstrates the moral insolvency of this writer, but also invites other acts of revenge that will only leave behind more Jewish and Palestinian widowers and orphans. By what moral standard can this writer justify the killing of hundreds of innocent Palestinian men, women, and children, even if they praised the killer for his atrocious murder? How would this writer react if the Palestinians murdered in cold blood one hundred Israelis because they cheered the killing of one Palestinian by an Israeli? While the concept of death may be perceived differently among certain Palestinians, the writer completely disregards even the notion that a member of a Palestinian family--a husband, mother, son, or grandparent -- is a human being who feels just as deep as any Israeli agonizing in pain and despair over the loss of a loved one. This writer, like many other Israelis, conveniently ignores the fact that committing horrifying crimes is not an exclusive phenomenon to the Palestinians. What about the 21 year-old Israeli, Amiram Ben-Uliel from the West Bank settlement of Karmei Zur, who threw a firebomb into a house while a family was asleep, killing an 18 month-old baby and his parents? There are no words to adequately condemn the tragic kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in June 2014, which led to the horrifying revenge killing of Mohammed Abu Khdeir a month later. This senseless act of revenge only paved the way for Israel's incursion into Gaza, which resulted in more than 2,000 Palestinian deaths, massive destruction, and dozens of Israeli casualties. These tragic events must also be seen in the context of the dangerously deteriorating relations between Israelis and Palestinians, and the corrupt leaders on both sides who are pursuing their political agendas by inciting the people against one another. Tragically, these revenge killings are not limited to Israelis and the Palestinians who live in the West Bank, but are exported to Israel proper. As much as most Israelis sympathize with the settlers, Israeli Arabs also have a close affinity to their brethren in the West Bank and Gaza. The suffering and discrimination against one side only, because of who they are, has a direct impact on their counterpart. However, by no means can this justify the horrifying murder of three Israelis in Tel Aviv in January 2016 by an Israeli Arab, Nashat Melhem from the Arab town of Arara in Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu is correct to say: "We will demand loyalty to the laws of the state from everyone. One cannot say 'I am Israeli in my rights and Palestinian in my responsibilities.' Whoever wants to be Israeli, must be Israeli all the way, with rights and responsibilities, and the first and foremost responsibility is to follow the laws of the state." Having said that, Netanyahu must also recognize that there is rampant discrimination against Israeli Arabs. Netanyahu and his followers cannot have it both ways. If he wants Israeli Arabs to assume their responsibility and adhere to the laws of the land, then he must also grant them equal rights not only by law but in their day-to-day encounters. Have you heard about Flint, Michigan's contaminated water, poisoning thousands of residents? Children are sick, their future health is compromised from irreversible lead poisoning and there's been a spike in cases, some fatal, of legionnaires disease. The water pipes of the entire city have been destroyed by corrosion such that they must be replaced. (Image by elitedaily) Details DMCA How can this happen, you may ask? The answer is destruction of the deliberative processes of democracy at the local level. Too many of Michigan's citizens stayed home on Election Day and there came into power an extremely conservative legislature that sealed their power in place by gerrymandered districts. While cutting taxes for corporations, that legislature enacted a provision allowing the State to take over cities in financial distress, install a financial manager accountable only to the autocratic Governor, and leave elected city officials completely powerless. Michiganders rightfully hated that law so much that they passed a citizen's initiative to repeal it. However, due to gerrymandered districts, they re-elected the same State legislators who immediately passed the financial manager law again, now with a provision that it couldn't be repealed by the citizens. Flint lost its auto manufacturing tax base and fell into bankruptcy. Almost half its population is gone. The Governor appointed a financial manager who in April 2014, thinking only of cutting costs, changed the source of Flint's drinking water from the clean waters of Lake Huron to the notoriously contaminated (with automotive waste) Flint River. As the contamination became evident, State agencies of environmental quality and public health, also under the control of the Governor, failed to act. And the Governor ignored the reports of illness and death for many months. Elected city officials held office in name only and couldn't do a thing to save their own people, though they tried. It took out-of-state researchers and a courageous doctor who treats the children to force the issue. It gets worse for Flint. Residents now have their contaminated water shut off for not paying the high bills for water they cannot drink. State lawyers cite State sovereignty to block accountability lawsuits. YOUR tax dollars are paying for bottled water to be delivered to Flint residents by that "intrusive" Federal government so many love to hate, because that "over reaching" President Obama sent the National Guard to directly help the people. The Michigan Governor asked the President to use funds for natural disasters to rebuild Flint's infrastructure. The President had to refuse. The same old awful Federal government is investigating the failure of Michigan state government to meet drinking water standards. Meanwhile, our US Senators and Representatives (also from gerrymandered districts) are passing bills to roll back surface water quality standards implemented by the EPA. If you can hardly stand the tediously slow and often contentious battles your local elected officials go through on issues like streets, water, schools and sewage, such that you cannot stand to vote in local elections; if you only vote in years of Presidential elections, if you vote at all, and do not know about or do not care enough to vote for your State and Federal Representatives and Senators"; think of Flint, Michigan. Similar things are happening now in Texas, a direct result of historically low voter turnout in 2014 and gerrymandered districts. Laws to further suppress the vote have been implemented. Texas has NO provision for citizens' initiative to override an off-the-rails State legislature. Legislation was passed blocking cities from limiting fracking within their boundaries. Texas leads the nation in polluting discharges. Texas State government has refused to properly fund public education, its single highest responsibility. They refuse to expand Medicaid to provide millions with health care. The Texas Governor brags about suing the Federal government, promoted scare propaganda that the President would use military exercises to take over the state, and is now pushing a scheme (fortunately going nowhere) whereby states would override Federal laws. Austerity is being imposed with the blessings of corporate wealth all too content with THEIR low-taxes and OUR low-service economy. Elections have consequences. We can only survive as families, communities, as a state and a nation, if we become informed on the issues and use that information to vote in local, state and national elections. Millions have died and millions more are struggling now to achieve what so many of us take for granted and ignore, our citizenship right to vote. Your vote is your voice (su vota es su voz). Use it or lose it! This article is a joint TomDispatch/Nation piece and appeared at TomDispatch.com and in print in slightly shortened form in the new issue of The Nation magazine. Water drips from a leaky roof. The heat brings on a "moldy, rancid odor." A child volunteer is tasked with killing giant roaches. Welcome to the Detroit public school system, which, according to a recent New York Times report, is "run down after years of neglect" and "teetering on the edge of financial collapse." And yet, last Thursday, this was the closest thing to a "good news" story about Michigan on the front page of that newspaper. A companion piece covered the even more dismal "water crisis in the poverty-stricken, black-majority city of Flint," a penny-pinching state "austerity" measure turned public health emergency that has left children there with elevated levels of lead in their blood, putting them at risk of lifelong adverse health effects. How did it come to this? An America dotted with feral cities left to decay into ruin? Man-made catastrophes spawned by harebrained austerity schemes? A country of crumbling roads, unsafe bridges, failing schools, a woefully neglected mental health system whose ample slack has been taken up by a disastrous criminal justice system? Take your pick when it comes to rotten institutions and rotting infrastructure, since the list goes on and on. Presidential candidates are vowing to "make America great again" or talking about "reigniting" its "promise," but perhaps a counterfeit, sepia-tinged trip to the beginning of the road that got us here isn't really the solution to twenty-first-century America's problems. TomDispatch regular Ann Jones has a different idea. In her latest piece, a joint TomDispatch/Nation article which will appear in print in the new issue of that magazine, Jones takes a welcome detour to a place where welfare isn't a dirty word, the social safety net isn't the preferred place for budget cuts, and axe-wielding children are -- believe it or not -- fostered, not feared: Scandinavia. A world citizen who has journeyed across Africa, spent years living in the Afghan war zone, and was most recently a Fulbright Fellow in Norway, Jones examines how a couple of Nixon-era decisions led the U.S. down the road to ruin, while Scandinavian nations charted a different course, embracing principles of uplift, equality, and humanity. Yes, some American-esque values seem to be seeping into the Scandinavian scene of late, from the rise of anti-immigration sentiment in Sweden to a Danish town attempting to stick it to Muslims by way of pork meatballs in school lunches. But even far-right parties in these Nordic nations champion a robust welfare state and a generous social safety net. So let Jones, an intrepid journalist whose latest book, They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America's Wars -- The Untold Story, is already a classic of Iraq and Afghan War reporting, help explain why Norway, Denmark, and Sweden invariably top global indexes when it comes to affordable housing, education, health, life expectancy, and overall citizen satisfaction, while the United States has ended up with failing cities, crumbling schools, and poisoned water. Nick Turse American Democracy Down for the Count Or What Is It the Scandinavians Have That We Don't? By Ann Jones [This is a joint TomDispatch/Nation article and appears in print in slightly shortened form in the new issue of the Nation magazine.] Some years ago, I faced up to the futility of reporting true things about America's disastrous wars and so I left Afghanistan for another remote mountainous country far away. It was the polar opposite of Afghanistan: a peaceful, prosperous land where nearly everybody seemed to enjoy a good life, on the job and in the family. It's true that they didn't work much, not by American standards anyway. In the U.S., full-time salaried workers supposedly laboring 40 hours a week actually average 49, with almost 20% clocking more than 60. These people, on the other hand, worked only about 37 hours a week, when they weren't away on long paid vacations. At the end of the work day, about four in the afternoon (perhaps three in the summer), they had time to enjoy a hike in the forest or a swim with the kids or a beer with friends -- which helps explain why, unlike so many Americans, they are pleased with their jobs. Often I was invited to go along. I found it refreshing to hike and ski in a country with no land mines, and to hang out in cafes unlikely to be bombed. Gradually, I lost my warzone jitters and settled into the slow, calm, pleasantly uneventful stream of life there. Four years on, thinking I should settle down, I returned to the United States. It felt quite a lot like stepping back into that other violent, impoverished world, where anxiety runs high and people are quarrelsome. I had, in fact, come back to the flip side of Afghanistan and Iraq: to what America's wars have done to America. Where I live now, in the Homeland, there are not enough shelters for the homeless. Most people are either overworked or hurting for jobs; housing is overpriced; hospitals, crowded and understaffed; schools, largely segregated and not so good. Opioid or heroin overdose is a popular form of death; and men in the street threaten women wearing hijab. Did the American soldiers I covered in Afghanistan know they were fighting for this? Ducking the Subject One night I tuned in to the Democrats' presidential debate to see if they had any plans to restore the America I used to know. To my amazement, I heard the name of my peaceful mountain hideaway: Norway. Bernie Sanders was denouncing America's crooked version of "casino capitalism" that floats the already rich ever higher and flushes the working class. He said that we ought to "look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway, and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people." He believes, he added, in "a society where all people do well. Not just a handful of billionaires." That certainly sounds like Norway. For ages they've worked at producing things for the use of everyone -- not the profit of a few -- so I was all ears, waiting for Sanders to spell it out for Americans. But Hillary Clinton quickly countered, "We are not Denmark." Smiling, she said, "I love Denmark," and then delivered a patriotic punch line: "We are the United States of America." Well, there's no denying that. She praised capitalism and "all the small businesses that were started because we have the opportunity and the freedom in our country for people to do that and to make a good living for themselves and their families." She didn't seem to know that Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians do that, too, and with much higher rates of success. The truth is that almost a quarter of American startups are not founded on brilliant new ideas, but on the desperation of men or women who can't get a decent job. The majority of all American enterprises are solo ventures having zero payrolls, employing no one but the entrepreneur, and often quickly wasting away. Sanders said that he was all for small business, too, but that meant nothing "if all of the new income and wealth is going to the top 1 percent." (As George Carlin said, "The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it.") Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Reprinted from The Hill Almost all Democrats are praying that Republicans nominate for president Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. From Democratic establishment insiders who support Hillary Clinton to populist insurgents who support Bernie Sanders, there is a virtually unanimous view that Trump or Cruz would lead the GOP to a defeat so devastating Democrats would probably regain control of the Senate and have a fighting chance to take back the House. For the same reasons that Democrats are praying for a Trump or Cruz nomination, the widely held bias of the political and media establishments that the GOP race is becoming a two-man race between Trump and Cruz is almost certainly wrong. Numerous polls suggest Trump's politics of perpetual insults have created negative ratings so high among general election voters that both Clinton and Sanders could defeat him by epic landslide margins. Conservative alarm at the prospect of the GOP nominating the real estate tycoon is so widespread that many Cruz supporters would support almost any GOP candidate above Trump if forced to choose. At the same time, a growing list of Republicans are publicly warning that the Texas senator is so nasty and widely despised he would be a general election disaster. If Trump is now GOP Plan A and Cruz is GOP Plan B, the first month of primary and caucus voting will produce a Plan C candidate who will emerge as a first-tier candidate and be bannered throughout the media as having achieved a surprise surge. The possibilities to become this Plan C champion are, in order of probability, Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Chris Christie. If they all fall short in early-state voting, we could see an intense draft movement calling on Mitt Romney to run on a ticket with Rubio or another original Plan C contender. I omit Jeb Bush, the only true candidate of the GOP political and fundraising establishment, from the GOP nomination equation. Obviously his candidacy has not worked out. If Bush drops out and moves his support and donors to another Plan C contestant he could become a kingmaker -- but not the king -- in 2016. The battle for Plan C primacy will occur in three key stages. The first includes voting in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, which ends Feb. 23. The second stage is the mega-voting that takes place in multiple states on March 1. The third stage begins in the wake of Super Tuesday and lasts until the selection of the nominee. The first big question is whether Rubio, Kasich or Christie can emerge as the uncontested Plan C champion by Feb. 23. If one of them does, that candidate will vault to the top tier with a surge of adulatory media coverage, a massive wave of campaign donations and major endorsements from key Republicans in multiple states. He would storm into the March 1 voting with turbocharged momentum and polls probably showing him tied with or leading Democratic candidates in general election match-up polls, while polls would probably show Trump and Cruz sinking the GOP to a potentially devastating loss. By contrast, if Plan C candidates divide the non-Trump/Cruz vote, cancel one another other out and are left far behind the top two contestants, they will run out of time and money. There will be intense pressure to draft a white knight candidate, probably Romney, to lead a ticket including an original Plan C contender as VP, probably Rubio, to avoid a Trump- or Cruz-led landslide defeat in November. Given the choice between a ticket led by Trump or Cruz that would probably be a political suicide mission for the GOP or a Plan C ticket creating a viable chance of victory for the Republican Party, like most Democrats I am fervently praying for the former and scared stiff about the possibility of the latter! The 12 million Syrian refugees may differ regarding the reasons why they had to flee their homes and country in the last five years. Yet, they are united in their plight and in the collective trauma of the violent dislocation they have all experienced. Half of those refugees are estimated to be children, which complicates the psychological toll suffered by the Syrian people since their uprising-turned war took place. According to a German study released in late 2015, half of the Syrian refugees who made it to Germany are suffering from trauma that has already produced psychological distress and mental illness. The president of the Chamber of Psychotherapists, which carried out the research, said that more than 70 percent of the refugees had witnessed violence and more than 50 percent were themselves victims of violence. Nearly half of them have nightmares and flashbacks as if their terrible ordeals "were happening all over again." These details indicate the short-term effects of such trauma; however, what would take years to verify is the long-term impact of such massive distress and the shattering of the sense of identity which once united the Syrian people. Before the war, Syrians, despite their sectarian, religious or even political backgrounds, saw themselves as part of the same modern national identity. However, the war redefined that identity based on the whims of several actors -- the regional and international war parties -- and the rewriting of Syria's history by various powers that now share control of large swathes of that country. One of these powers is Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). Daesh has relentlessly worked to redefine the Syrian identity by using extreme interpretations of religious texts in its imposed school curricula. Others did the same, by resorting to other frames of reference which, either way, is breaking the sense of national identity of the Syrian people into provisional fragments. While many are focused on who controls what in terms of Syria's physical landscape, few seem to be taking the matter of the fragmentation of the national identity seriously. Apart from these concerns, there is the issue of six million children, many of whom are being raised in other countries, and are learning alternative languages, cultures and other value-systems in order to survive. The impact of that alone shall prove consequential in how the Syrian people are redefined in the future. Palestinian exile is particularly important for Syrians. Its trials and valuable lessons can shed light on the issue of collective identity for a nation that has subsisted for the most part in exile for nearly seven decades. Ebrahim Mahmoud is a 77-year-old man who lives with his family, which includes 11 children, in the Baharka Refugee Camp in Iraq's northern Kurdish region. During his lifetime, he became a refugee twice: Once, when he was nine years old living in Haifa, Palestine, and a second, more recent exile in Mosul, Iraq. Just weeks before Israel declared its independence in 1948, Ebrahim lost his homeland and fled Haifa, along with tens of thousands of Palestinian Muslims and Christians after Israeli militias conquered the city in a military operation they called Bi'ur Hametz, or "Passover Cleaning." Throughout Palestine, over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled the horrors of the militia-instigated war. Those who are still alive, along with their descendants, number more than five million refugees. When Daesh militias swept into Mosul, Iraq, in June 2014, Ebrahim plotted his flight, along with his entire family. Between 1948 and 2014, life was anything but kind to them. At first, they sold falafel, and Ebrahim's children left school to join the workforce at a young age. They all had cards that identified them as "Palestinian refugees," and they have never known any other identity. When the Americans invaded Iraq in 2003, they granted their soldiers and the Shiite-militias a free hand in that country. The once relatively thriving and peaceful Palestinian community of refugees in Iraq was shattered. Now, according to the United Nations Refugees Agency, no more than 3,000 Palestinian refugees are still living in Iraq, many of them in refugee camps. Ebrahim has finally managed to escape Mosul and is living in a dirty and crowded refugee camp within Kurdish-controlled territories in the north. Considering his old age and faltering health, his story could possibly end there, but certainly not that of his children and grandchildren. Ebrahim's tragedy is not unique within the overall Middle East refugee crisis. It is in fact being lived and experienced by millions of Syrians. Nonetheless, if seen within its painfully protracted historical context, Palestinian exile is almost unprecedented in its complexity and duration. Few other refugee populations have struggled with exile and were defined by it, one generation after the other, as Palestinians have. When refugees were expelled from their land in 1947-48, exile then was first seen as a political crisis that could only be remedied with the return of refugees, as instructed in United Nations Resolution 194. When that possibility grew dim, other resolutions followed, all expressing the political contexts of each era: in 1950, 74, 82, 83, etc. Regardless of the nature of the discussion pertaining to Palestinian refugees -- whether legal, political or moral -- the refugees themselves were rarely consulted, except as subjects of selective and sometimes dehumanising poll questions, drawing their conclusion from refugees selecting "Yes" or "No," or checking a box or two in a poll. 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(3 comments) SHARE Israel's Friends at the RNC: "Christian Zionists" Dictate the Agenda of the Republican Party Both Republicans and Democrats head to the November elections with strong pro-Israel sentiments and outright support, completely ignoring the plight of occupied and oppressed Palestinians. Friday, September 4, 2020Both Republicans and Democrats head to the November elections with strong pro-Israel sentiments and outright support, completely ignoring the plight of occupied and oppressed Palestinians. (2 comments) SHARE List of Israeli Targets Leaked: Tel Aviv Fears the Worst in ICC Investigation of War Crimes The fact that a "secret list" exists is an indication that Tel Aviv understands that this era is different and that international law, which has failed Palestinians for over 70 years, may, for once, deliver, however a small measure of justice. Saturday, August 1, 2020The fact that a "secret list" exists is an indication that Tel Aviv understands that this era is different and that international law, which has failed Palestinians for over 70 years, may, for once, deliver, however a small measure of justice. (1 comments) SHARE A Palestinian Guide to Surviving a Quarantine Call it a "quarantine," a "shelter-in-place," a "lockdown" or a "curfew," we Palestinians have experienced them all, though not at all voluntarily. Sunday, April 12, 2020Call it a "quarantine," a "shelter-in-place," a "lockdown" or a "curfew," we Palestinians have experienced them all, though not at all voluntarily. SHARE Tunisia Leads the Way: New Report Exposes Israel's False Democracy In Netanyahu's mind, by the calculation of mainstream Israeli politicians, the participation of Arabs in the democratic process is a threat that must be eliminated, exactly as their increasing numbers are also a demographic threat that has to be thwarted at any cost. Thursday, April 2, 2020In Netanyahu's mind, by the calculation of mainstream Israeli politicians, the participation of Arabs in the democratic process is a threat that must be eliminated, exactly as their increasing numbers are also a demographic threat that has to be thwarted at any cost. SHARE Technology of Death: The Not-so-Shocking Report on Israeli Weapons Exports The Middle East region, battered by wars and adjoining humanitarian crises that have left millions of people stateless, hungry and diseased, is in urgent need for peace, security, and reconstruction. Thanks to the US, Russian, French, Israeli and other weapons manufacturers, however, it is now the dumping ground for military hardware, an ominous sign for the years ahead. Saturday, March 28, 2020The Middle East region, battered by wars and adjoining humanitarian crises that have left millions of people stateless, hungry and diseased, is in urgent need for peace, security, and reconstruction. Thanks to the US, Russian, French, Israeli and other weapons manufacturers, however, it is now the dumping ground for military hardware, an ominous sign for the years ahead. (1 comments) SHARE "Zionist" Biden in His Own Words: "My Name is Joe Biden, and Everybody Knows I Love Israel" "I am a Zionist. You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist," current Democratic Presidential candidate, Joe Biden, said in April 2007, soon before he was chosen to be Barack Obama's running mate in the 2008 elections. Wednesday, March 18, 2020"I am a Zionist. You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist," current Democratic Presidential candidate, Joe Biden, said in April 2007, soon before he was chosen to be Barack Obama's running mate in the 2008 elections. (1 comments) SHARE "The Donald Trump I know": Abbas' UN Speech and the Breakdown of Palestinian Politics The real danger in the "Deal of the Century" is not the actual stipulations of that sinister plan, but the fact that the Palestinian leadership is likely to find a way to co-exist with it, at the expense of the oppressed Palestinian people, as long as donors' money continues to flow and as long as Abbas continues to call himself a president. Saturday, February 22, 2020The real danger in the "Deal of the Century" is not the actual stipulations of that sinister plan, but the fact that the Palestinian leadership is likely to find a way to co-exist with it, at the expense of the oppressed Palestinian people, as long as donors' money continues to flow and as long as Abbas continues to call himself a president. (2 comments) SHARE Breaking with Washington: Arabs and Muslims Must Take a Stance for Palestine If Arabs and Muslims fail Palestine again, then, once more, the Palestinian people will find themselves alone in this desperate fight. And when Palestinians rise, as they surely will, their uprising will challenge not just Israel but the entire regional and international apparatus that allowed the Israeli occupation to go unchallenged for so many years. Thursday, February 13, 2020If Arabs and Muslims fail Palestine again, then, once more, the Palestinian people will find themselves alone in this desperate fight. And when Palestinians rise, as they surely will, their uprising will challenge not just Israel but the entire regional and international apparatus that allowed the Israeli occupation to go unchallenged for so many years. (2 comments) SHARE In The Name Of "Israel's Security": Retreating US Gives Israel Billions More In Military Aid Republican and Democratic Senators have recently ensured just that, passing a bill aimed at providing Israel with $3.3 billion in aid every year. Enthusiasm to push the Bill forward was meant to be an assurance to Tel Aviv from Washington that the US is committed to Israel's security and military superiority in the Middle East. Wednesday, January 29, 2020Republican and Democratic Senators have recently ensured just that, passing a bill aimed at providing Israel with $3.3 billion in aid every year. Enthusiasm to push the Bill forward was meant to be an assurance to Tel Aviv from Washington that the US is committed to Israel's security and military superiority in the Middle East. (2 comments) SHARE Sealed Off and Forgotten: What You Should Know about Israel's "Firing Zones" in the West Bank Harsh "conditions contribute to a coercive environment that creates pressure on Palestinian communities to leave these areas," according to the United Nations. In other words, ethnic cleansing, which has been Israel's strategic goal all along. Saturday, January 18, 2020Harsh "conditions contribute to a coercive environment that creates pressure on Palestinian communities to leave these areas," according to the United Nations. In other words, ethnic cleansing, which has been Israel's strategic goal all along. (7 comments) SHARE Embracing Palestine: How to Combat Israel's Misuse of "Antisemitism" Zionist manipulation and misuse of antisemitism is a phenomenon that will always be there as long as the Israeli government finds the need to distract from its war crimes against Palestinians and to crush pro-Palestinian solidarity worldwide. Monday, January 13, 2020Zionist manipulation and misuse of antisemitism is a phenomenon that will always be there as long as the Israeli government finds the need to distract from its war crimes against Palestinians and to crush pro-Palestinian solidarity worldwide. Page 1 of 13 First Last Back Next 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 View All Articles Listed By Date List By Popularity Search Title Date Between Any 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Any 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 and Any 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Any 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Page 1 of 21 First Last Back Next 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 View All (8 comments) SHARE Texas Republican who promoted mask burning dies of COVID-19 On Aug. 4, the Galveston County Republican Party of Texas posted a sad tribute to H. Scott Apley, a Texas Republican Executive Committeeman who passed away after an acute case of COVID-19. Monday, August 9, 2021On Aug. 4, the Galveston County Republican Party of Texas posted a sad tribute to H. Scott Apley, a Texas Republican Executive Committeeman who passed away after an acute case of COVID-19. SHARE COVID-19 hits Senate, potentially complicating already fraught infrastructure work The most complicating issue is Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham's COVID-19 infection, diagnosed Monday. Graham, who is one of the 22 original group of bipartisan senators endorsing the bill, is now in a 10-day quarantine. Wednesday, August 4, 2021The most complicating issue is Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham's COVID-19 infection, diagnosed Monday. Graham, who is one of the 22 original group of bipartisan senators endorsing the bill, is now in a 10-day quarantine. (8 comments) SHARE COVID-19 hospitalizations are rising. Vaccinatcould fix that, but it's hit a wall High-profile Republicans are ramping up the fight against vaccination as a political ploy. That, more than anything else, is the challenge vaccination efforts now face, even as the warning signs grow. Monday, July 12, 2021High-profile Republicans are ramping up the fight against vaccination as a political ploy. That, more than anything else, is the challenge vaccination efforts now face, even as the warning signs grow. (1 comments) SHARE Trump's Love Letter to Putin Prior to Meeting with Biden is Utterly Demented -- and Treasonous. In his latest statement from exile, Donald Trump made it abundantly clear where his loyalty lies (with an emphasis on "lies"). Friday, June 11, 2021In his latest statement from exile, Donald Trump made it abundantly clear where his loyalty lies (with an emphasis on "lies"). SHARE Biden gives GOP a shock, tells them they have to actually make policy to stay in the game It was all happy talk from both the White House and Senate Republicans coming out of Thursday's infrastructure meeting, with President Biden stressing that everyone was working in "good faith" and telling reporter that he was "prepared to compromise."... Saturday, May 15, 2021It was all happy talk from both the White House and Senate Republicans coming out of Thursday's infrastructure meeting, with President Biden stressing that everyone was working in "good faith" and telling reporter that he was "prepared to compromise."... (1 comments) SHARE McCarthy's role in Cheney ouster isn't winning him support: He "doesn't have the backbone to lead" Kevin McCarthy has "leader" in his title, but the House minority leader is showing what a failure he is on that front. Wednesday, May 12, 2021Kevin McCarthy has "leader" in his title, but the House minority leader is showing what a failure he is on that front. (5 comments) SHARE 'Science Guy' Bill Nye would like a word with anti-vaxxers With over 100 million American adults fully vaccinated, the possibility of our country's public health situation returning to a baseline of normality felt like it was within reach. Key word: was. Unfortunately, the same crew of people thwarting our... Tuesday, May 4, 2021With over 100 million American adults fully vaccinated, the possibility of our country's public health situation returning to a baseline of normality felt like it was within reach. Key word: was. Unfortunately, the same crew of people thwarting our... (1 comments) SHARE New Mexico city sends Trump campaign's $200,000 bill to collection agency Any fundraising done in service of Trump's candidacy was used to pay off everything but campaign costs. The Trump administration tried to leave citizens holding the bag. Saturday, April 24, 2021Any fundraising done in service of Trump's candidacy was used to pay off everything but campaign costs. The Trump administration tried to leave citizens holding the bag. SHARE Midterms shaping up to be test of American democracy as GOP fixates on locking in minority rule Republicans are increasingly dedicating the whole of their party to achieving minority rule status rather than develop policies that woo more voters to their side. Wednesday, April 21, 2021Republicans are increasingly dedicating the whole of their party to achieving minority rule status rather than develop policies that woo more voters to their side. (5 comments) SHARE MAGA world rages after Ivanka gets the Fauci ouchie Ivanka Trump has spent the past five years trying to position herself in the public's mind as the "reasonable" Trump. Granted, that's a pretty low bar For Ivanka, the trick is to tacitly endorse every horrible thing her father does. Friday, April 16, 2021Ivanka Trump has spent the past five years trying to position herself in the public's mind as the "reasonable" Trump. Granted, that's a pretty low bar For Ivanka, the trick is to tacitly endorse every horrible thing her father does. SHARE Rep. Matt Gaetz is out of friends, drugs, and pimps. Might be time to cut your losses, pal Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz has long been a terrible, terrible person, which for the past 10 years has been a near-requirement for Republican officeholders in general. Tuesday, April 13, 2021Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz has long been a terrible, terrible person, which for the past 10 years has been a near-requirement for Republican officeholders in general. SHARE Matt Gaetz's staffers were sending videos of his outrageous behavior to other Republican officials Gaetz explains how the whole series of charges against him are nothing more than fake news from "leftist television anchors" who are after Gaetz because he "loathes the swamp." Tuesday, April 6, 2021Gaetz explains how the whole series of charges against him are nothing more than fake news from "leftist television anchors" who are after Gaetz because he "loathes the swamp." (1 comments) SHARE Caught on Tape: Ted Cruz Says GOP Must Go All-Out to Block HR1 Because Party's Future Is At Stake Cancun Cruz has been caught on tape saying there should be no compromise on implementing harsher voting restrictions, warning that the GOP's future is at stake if the Democratic-backed H.R. 1 legislation becomes law. Monday, March 22, 2021Cancun Cruz has been caught on tape saying there should be no compromise on implementing harsher voting restrictions, warning that the GOP's future is at stake if the Democratic-backed H.R. 1 legislation becomes law. (10 comments) SHARE Dr. Fauci gets real about which COVID-19 vaccine you should try to get On Saturday, the U.S. government authorized a third coronavirus vaccine for emergency use, this one from Johnson & Johnson. This one only requires shipping and storage temperatures of a standard refrigerator, making it more accessible than the other two. Sunday, March 7, 2021On Saturday, the U.S. government authorized a third coronavirus vaccine for emergency use, this one from Johnson & Johnson. This one only requires shipping and storage temperatures of a standard refrigerator, making it more accessible than the other two. SHARE Lindsey Graham's heading to Mar-a-Lago to reason with Trump. It's a master plan It's already doomed, which is why Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is the perfect person to head south on a mission to soothe the mangy ruffled feathers of Donald Trump. Saturday, February 20, 2021It's already doomed, which is why Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is the perfect person to head south on a mission to soothe the mangy ruffled feathers of Donald Trump. SHARE Trump campaign paid at least $3.5 million to planners of the Jan. 6 rally The insurrection on Jan. 6 was planned by Donald Trump and his allies. It did not occur in a vacuum. Trump broadcast long before the election that if he lost he was going to claim the election was stolen from him. Thursday, February 11, 2021The insurrection on Jan. 6 was planned by Donald Trump and his allies. It did not occur in a vacuum. Trump broadcast long before the election that if he lost he was going to claim the election was stolen from him. (12 comments) SHARE It's Happening! 'Proud Boys' And 'Oath Keepers' Get Federal Charges UPGRADED To... CONSPIRACY!! It's not easy being an FBI Agent lately, sorting through mountains of evidence and sifting through tens of thousands of tips; but our intrepid federal officers remain undaunted in bringing those responsible for attacking our democracy to justice.... Tuesday, February 2, 2021It's not easy being an FBI Agent lately, sorting through mountains of evidence and sifting through tens of thousands of tips; but our intrepid federal officers remain undaunted in bringing those responsible for attacking our democracy to justice.... SHARE Donald Trump closes out his time in the White House with very on-brand obnoxiousness Trump is going out as he came in: as a rude, abusive, bullying boor with no ability to even pretend to decency. Tuesday, January 19, 2021Trump is going out as he came in: as a rude, abusive, bullying boor with no ability to even pretend to decency. SHARE Hitting Hannity Where It Hurts: Working the Cable Angle It's time for a concerted effort to defang the hate speakers at Fox. 1. A boycott of Hannity and Carlson-advertisers. Their continual lying-is clear. It's been tried before with hatemeister ... Tuesday, January 12, 2021It's time for a concerted effort to defang the hate speakers at Fox. 1. A boycott of Hannity and Carlson-advertisers. Their continual lying-is clear. It's been tried before with hatemeister ... (1 comments) SHARE 'Lies, lies, lies': Arnold Schwarzenegger's speech about Trump and fellow Republicans goes viral In the days since a group of pro-Trump insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., sending elected officials into temporary hiding and the nation into a period of shock and horror, a number of Republicans have spoken out against... Monday, January 11, 2021In the days since a group of pro-Trump insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., sending elected officials into temporary hiding and the nation into a period of shock and horror, a number of Republicans have spoken out against... Page 1 of 21 First Last Back Next 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 View All Articles Listed By Date List By Popularity Search Title Date Between Any 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Any 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 and Any 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Any 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Page 1 of 10 First Last Back Next 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 View All (9 comments) SHARE Where Did We Go So Wrong In Afghanistan? In his address to the nation, President Biden used the majority of it to try to justify the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, which needed hardly any justification given that after 20 years the US has not come any closer to defeating the Taliban permanently. Friday, August 20, 2021In his address to the nation, President Biden used the majority of it to try to justify the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, which needed hardly any justification given that after 20 years the US has not come any closer to defeating the Taliban permanently. (1 comments) SHARE Time For Kosovo To Secure Its True Independence Every Kosovar citizen should demand that each individual running for office provide a clear and comprehensive socio-economic program that will put the public on a course of economic recovery and growth. Sunday, February 7, 2021Every Kosovar citizen should demand that each individual running for office provide a clear and comprehensive socio-economic program that will put the public on a course of economic recovery and growth. SHARE As A Democracy, Israel Shows No Moral Tenet: El-Halabi's outcry for justice Israel claims to be a beacon of democracy in the Middle East -- yet engages in such cruel, vindictive practices that go beyond the pale of humanity. Sunday, January 24, 2021Israel claims to be a beacon of democracy in the Middle East -- yet engages in such cruel, vindictive practices that go beyond the pale of humanity. (1 comments) SHARE Biden's Opportunity To End The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict For Biden to succeed where his predecessors failed, he must repair the severe damage that Trump has inflicted on the entire peace process and restore the Palestinians' confidence in a new negotiation that could, in fact, lead to a permanent solution. To that end, he must take specific measures before the start of the talks and establish rules of engagements to which both sides must fully subscribe to demonstrate their commitme Thursday, December 3, 2020For Biden to succeed where his predecessors failed, he must repair the severe damage that Trump has inflicted on the entire peace process and restore the Palestinians' confidence in a new negotiation that could, in fact, lead to a permanent solution. To that end, he must take specific measures before the start of the talks and establish rules of engagements to which both sides must fully subscribe to demonstrate their commitme (3 comments) SHARE The Danger To Our Democracy Is The Republican Party Our democracy is broken, as faith in our constitutional system and culture that guided us has been all but shattered. If we continue to ignore this reality, a very ominous future will await this nation. Wednesday, November 18, 2020Our democracy is broken, as faith in our constitutional system and culture that guided us has been all but shattered. If we continue to ignore this reality, a very ominous future will await this nation. (1 comments) SHARE Erdogan's Calamitous Authoritarianism Turkey's President Erdogan is becoming ever more dangerous as he continues to ravage his own country and destabilize scores of states in the Middle East, the Balkans, and North Africa, while cozying up to the West's foremost advisories. Sadly, there seems to be no appetite for most EU member states to challenge Erdogan and put him on notice. Friday, October 23, 2020Turkey's President Erdogan is becoming ever more dangerous as he continues to ravage his own country and destabilize scores of states in the Middle East, the Balkans, and North Africa, while cozying up to the West's foremost advisories. Sadly, there seems to be no appetite for most EU member states to challenge Erdogan and put him on notice. (44 comments) SHARE Trump Is Pushing The Country To The Brink Of Civil War Trump has demonstrated beyond any doubt that he has no respect for American democracy. What the president said about remaining in power is nothing short of treasonous, and may well lead to open violence. Friday, September 25, 2020Trump has demonstrated beyond any doubt that he has no respect for American democracy. What the president said about remaining in power is nothing short of treasonous, and may well lead to open violence. SHARE Serbia-Kosovo Agreement Falls Far Short Of Ending Their Conflict The recent agreement between Kosovo and Serbia, brokered by the US, to normalize economic relations between the two countries fell short of the needed reconciliation process that would lead to full recognition of Kosovo's independence by Serbia. Tuesday, September 15, 2020The recent agreement between Kosovo and Serbia, brokered by the US, to normalize economic relations between the two countries fell short of the needed reconciliation process that would lead to full recognition of Kosovo's independence by Serbia. (6 comments) SHARE Time Is Running Out For The Palestinians The Palestinians understand that their intransigence will only further undermine -- rather than help -- their prospect of establishing an independent state of their own. Wednesday, September 2, 2020The Palestinians understand that their intransigence will only further undermine -- rather than help -- their prospect of establishing an independent state of their own. (1 comments) SHARE The Inevitable Emergence Of An Israeli-Arab Alliance The peace agreement between Israel and the UAE lays the foundation for a future Israeli-Arab alliance, which has been quietly developing behind the scenes over the past several years. Friday, August 21, 2020The peace agreement between Israel and the UAE lays the foundation for a future Israeli-Arab alliance, which has been quietly developing behind the scenes over the past several years. (1 comments) SHARE America's Prisons Are Outrageously Unjust Even a cursory review of our prison system reveals the outrageous inhumanity to which hundreds of thousands of prisoners, especially young adults, are subjected to. Our prison system is bewildering and most alarming. Friday, August 14, 2020Even a cursory review of our prison system reveals the outrageous inhumanity to which hundreds of thousands of prisoners, especially young adults, are subjected to. Our prison system is bewildering and most alarming. (3 comments) SHARE How Did We Get To This Dire State Of Affairs? We are in desperate need of unity, public engagement, and spiritual renewal to rediscover the faith in our ability to overcome any adversity and prevail. Friday, July 31, 2020We are in desperate need of unity, public engagement, and spiritual renewal to rediscover the faith in our ability to overcome any adversity and prevail. (3 comments) SHARE The Pandemic Of Racism In America The rage, desperation, and determination which continue to bring tens of thousands of Americans to the streets in protest against racism and injustice hopefully will be just the beginning. Sunday, July 19, 2020The rage, desperation, and determination which continue to bring tens of thousands of Americans to the streets in protest against racism and injustice hopefully will be just the beginning. SHARE The Pandemic Underlines America's Ingrained Racism It should serve as a warning to every Republican member of Congress that the murder of George Floyd and the horrifying injustice it confirmed is the poison they will have to swallow just before Election Day if they fail to act. Wednesday, June 3, 2020It should serve as a warning to every Republican member of Congress that the murder of George Floyd and the horrifying injustice it confirmed is the poison they will have to swallow just before Election Day if they fail to act. SHARE A Portrait Of A Ruthless Dictator But Turkey's President Erdogan has squandered it all by putting his self-interest and blind ambition before the country. His legacy will be of one who lost his way and left a shattered country in his wake. Friday, May 22, 2020But Turkey's President Erdogan has squandered it all by putting his self-interest and blind ambition before the country. His legacy will be of one who lost his way and left a shattered country in his wake. SHARE Israel And Palestinians: Architects Of Their Own Destruction If Israel proceeds with its plans of annexation and the Palestinians continue to hold onto their dead-end position, the result is all but certain. Continuing and escalating violent conflict will rob the Palestinians of a state of their own for the foreseeable future, which will exact a heavy toll on Israel while making it a pariah state that lives by the gun Tuesday, May 19, 2020If Israel proceeds with its plans of annexation and the Palestinians continue to hold onto their dead-end position, the result is all but certain. Continuing and escalating violent conflict will rob the Palestinians of a state of their own for the foreseeable future, which will exact a heavy toll on Israel while making it a pariah state that lives by the gun SHARE Trump Is The Antithesis Of American Greatness Unless measures are taken by a new President to reverse the consequences of Trump's reckless actions and policies, they will permanently erode America's global standing, degrade our democracy, tear apart our social fabric, and compromise our constitution that held the country together for two and a half centuries. Wednesday, May 6, 2020Unless measures are taken by a new President to reverse the consequences of Trump's reckless actions and policies, they will permanently erode America's global standing, degrade our democracy, tear apart our social fabric, and compromise our constitution that held the country together for two and a half centuries. SHARE The Dire Consequences of Territorial Annexation The prospect of a Palestinian uprising is a given. If Netanyahu and Gantz ignore it, it will be at their peril as they are sowing the seeds of Palestinian revolt; the question will be only when. Thursday, April 23, 2020The prospect of a Palestinian uprising is a given. If Netanyahu and Gantz ignore it, it will be at their peril as they are sowing the seeds of Palestinian revolt; the question will be only when. SHARE The War In Yemen Is A Crime Against Humanity And Islam The proxy war that Saudi Arabia and Iran have been waging in Yemen for the past five years goes beyond the pale of human capacity for extreme cruelty and ruthlessness, and against the spirit and the letter of the Quran. Friday, April 17, 2020The proxy war that Saudi Arabia and Iran have been waging in Yemen for the past five years goes beyond the pale of human capacity for extreme cruelty and ruthlessness, and against the spirit and the letter of the Quran. (2 comments) SHARE Trump's Pandemic Failure: A Missed Opportunity For a man who is a self-absorbed, power hungry narcissist who wants to be recognized as one of the greatest presidents of the United States while desperately trying to be reelected, Trump failed miserably to rise to the occasion precipitated by the unfortunate advent and spread of the coronavirus. Saturday, April 11, 2020For a man who is a self-absorbed, power hungry narcissist who wants to be recognized as one of the greatest presidents of the United States while desperately trying to be reelected, Trump failed miserably to rise to the occasion precipitated by the unfortunate advent and spread of the coronavirus. Page 1 of 10 First Last Back Next 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 View All Articles Listed By Date List By Popularity Search Title Date Between Any 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Any 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 and Any 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Any 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Page 1 of 21 First Last Back Next 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 View All (1 comments) SHARE Westerners live in denial - Convinced they're 'the Good Guys Stark contradictions in West's treatment of the Ukraine war and the occupation and siege of Palestine should serve as a wakeup call. Friday, October 14, 2022Stark contradictions in West's treatment of the Ukraine war and the occupation and siege of Palestine should serve as a wakeup call. SHARE Europe, more than Putin, must shoulder the blame for the energy crisis The same arrogant, self-righteous posturing from the West that fueled the Ukraine war is now plunging Europe into recession. Saturday, September 17, 2022The same arrogant, self-righteous posturing from the West that fueled the Ukraine war is now plunging Europe into recession. (1 comments) SHARE The Queen and her legacy - 21st century Britain has never looked so medieval Black suits, hushed tones, an air of reverence, conceal the panic of an establishment that has just lost the main vehicle for justifying its privilege. Saturday, September 10, 2022Black suits, hushed tones, an air of reverence, conceal the panic of an establishment that has just lost the main vehicle for justifying its privilege. (1 comments) SHARE Those Angry at Rushdie's Stabbing have been Missing in Action Over a Far Bigger Threat to our Freedom 'The Satanic Verses' novelist is championed by western liberals not because he has bravely articulated difficult truths but because of who his enemies are. Thursday, August 18, 2022'The Satanic Verses' novelist is championed by western liberals not because he has bravely articulated difficult truths but because of who his enemies are. (2 comments) SHARE Why is Amnesty apologising for telling the truth about Ukrainian war crimes? Allowing only one side to be criticised for its crimes, reinforcing the loaded western political narrative of good guys versus bad guys is likely to fuel war rather than resolve it. Wednesday, August 17, 2022Allowing only one side to be criticised for its crimes, reinforcing the loaded western political narrative of good guys versus bad guys is likely to fuel war rather than resolve it. (1 comments) SHARE Contenders for Boris Johnson's crown stress fealty to Israel Following Israel's recent savage attack on Gaza the last two Tory candidates for PM are outcompeting each other to offer Israel support. Wednesday, August 10, 2022Following Israel's recent savage attack on Gaza the last two Tory candidates for PM are outcompeting each other to offer Israel support. (3 comments) SHARE How the Pentagon dictates Hollywood storylines New documentary discloses the ways western publics are softened up for aggressive global US militarism through the Pentagon's influence over thousands of films and TV shows. Thursday, August 4, 2022New documentary discloses the ways western publics are softened up for aggressive global US militarism through the Pentagon's influence over thousands of films and TV shows. (2 comments) SHARE By making China the enemy - Nato is threatening world peace Both Russia and China, forced into deeper alliance by Nato hostility, have been seeking to overturn the international trading system by decoupling it from the US dollar, the central pillar of Washington's hegemonic status. Friday, July 8, 2022Both Russia and China, forced into deeper alliance by Nato hostility, have been seeking to overturn the international trading system by decoupling it from the US dollar, the central pillar of Washington's hegemonic status. SHARE If the media can probe Shireen Abu Akleh's death, why not the murder of other Palestinians? An Israeli sniper shot the Al-Jazeera journalist according to four US news organisations but the only investigation the Biden administration will heed is an Israeli one. Thursday, June 23, 2022An Israeli sniper shot the Al-Jazeera journalist according to four US news organisations but the only investigation the Biden administration will heed is an Israeli one. (1 comments) SHARE Israel calls the Nakba a lie - So why do its leaders threaten a second one? While Israel denounces Palestinians and their supporters as liars for speaking of the Nakba its own officials publicly cite the Nakba as a real event that can be repeated if Palestinians do not submit completely. Wednesday, June 15, 2022While Israel denounces Palestinians and their supporters as liars for speaking of the Nakba its own officials publicly cite the Nakba as a real event that can be repeated if Palestinians do not submit completely. (1 comments) SHARE Forget Liberating Ukraine - We First Need To Liberate Our Minds We imagine ourselves under constant threat from any other tribal group that asserts its own tribalism in the face of our more empowered tribalism. Tuesday, June 14, 2022We imagine ourselves under constant threat from any other tribal group that asserts its own tribalism in the face of our more empowered tribalism. (1 comments) SHARE Russia-Ukraine war: George Bush's admission of his crimes in Iraq was no 'gaffe' The former president's confusion over the invasions of Iraq and Ukraine should lead to western soul-searching, not mirth. Tuesday, May 24, 2022The former president's confusion over the invasions of Iraq and Ukraine should lead to western soul-searching, not mirth. (3 comments) SHARE Shireen Abu Akleh was executed to send a message to Palestinians Reporting on Israel and Palestine I learned first-hand that Israel's version of events around the deaths of Palestinians or foreigners can never be trusted. Friday, May 13, 2022Reporting on Israel and Palestine I learned first-hand that Israel's version of events around the deaths of Palestinians or foreigners can never be trusted. (4 comments) SHARE The persecution of Julian Assange According to UN torture expert, the UK and US have colluded to publicly destroy the WikiLeaks founder and deter others from exposing their crimes. Thursday, May 5, 2022According to UN torture expert, the UK and US have colluded to publicly destroy the WikiLeaks founder and deter others from exposing their crimes. (1 comments) SHARE Elon Musk Isn't a Threat to Society's Health - All Billionaires Are We cannot make sense of a world so corrupt, so divided, so harsh. Instead, we are drawn to simplistic narratives of good vs. evil, right vs. wrong. Friday, April 29, 2022We cannot make sense of a world so corrupt, so divided, so harsh. Instead, we are drawn to simplistic narratives of good vs. evil, right vs. wrong. (27 comments) SHARE Why Zelensky's dream of Ukraine becoming 'big Israel' makes Moscow nervous The Israeli government has been trying to keep as low a profile as possible over the war in Ukraine but Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president seems determined to drag Israel on to centre stage. Friday, April 15, 2022The Israeli government has been trying to keep as low a profile as possible over the war in Ukraine but Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president seems determined to drag Israel on to centre stage. (5 comments) SHARE Joe Biden has confirmed to Russia that the US really wants regime change Biden's comment - given the US record in Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere, serves Putin's claim that his Ukraine invasion was pre-emptive. Saturday, April 2, 2022Biden's comment - given the US record in Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere, serves Putin's claim that his Ukraine invasion was pre-emptive. SHARE Palestine is a Loud Echo of Britain's Colonial Past and a Warning of the Future It is a fight to end colonialism in all its forms, to end our inhumanity towards those we live alongside, to remember that we are all equally human and all equally entitled to respect and dignity. Friday, April 1, 2022It is a fight to end colonialism in all its forms, to end our inhumanity towards those we live alongside, to remember that we are all equally human and all equally entitled to respect and dignity. (2 comments) SHARE Social media giants allow hate speech against Russia but silence Israel's critics Silicon Valley's decision to allow anti-Russia threats reveals it as little more than a propaganda arm of the West Friday, March 18, 2022Silicon Valley's decision to allow anti-Russia threats reveals it as little more than a propaganda arm of the West (2 comments) SHARE Russia-Ukraine - Western Media Are Acting As Cheerleaders For War We are always the Good Guys and they are always the Bad Guys and in which our suffering matters and the suffering of others doesn't. Saturday, March 5, 2022We are always the Good Guys and they are always the Bad Guys and in which our suffering matters and the suffering of others doesn't. Page 1 of 21 First Last Back Next 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 View All Articles Listed By Date List By Popularity Search Title Date Between Any 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Any 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 and Any 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Any 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Page 1 of 2 First Last Back Next 2 View All (3 comments) SHARE The Trump in Comey's China Shop Irrespective of the "Russian thing" and the good cause for firing Comey, Trump's pointlessly self-inculpatory explanation of some other motive unnecessarily places him at the mercy of Comey's own testimony. Comey can now define Trump's conversations as attempted bribery of a public official, and therefore as racketeering. Most disturbing about Trump's self-inflicted wound is the question it poses about his mental capacity Tuesday, May 16, 2017Irrespective of the "Russian thing" and the good cause for firing Comey, Trump's pointlessly self-inculpatory explanation of some other motive unnecessarily places him at the mercy of Comey's own testimony. Comey can now define Trump's conversations as attempted bribery of a public official, and therefore as racketeering. Most disturbing about Trump's self-inflicted wound is the question it poses about his mental capacity (17 comments) SHARE The Comey Non-Crisis Contrary to Democrat mouthpieces, Comey's firing is no crisis. Not firing Comey for the same reasons the DOJ gave would have been a crisis because those reasons define how Comey improperly played politics with his powerful position. Those reasons suggest that the new director should resume the Servergate investigation of Clinton. Thursday, May 11, 2017Contrary to Democrat mouthpieces, Comey's firing is no crisis. Not firing Comey for the same reasons the DOJ gave would have been a crisis because those reasons define how Comey improperly played politics with his powerful position. Those reasons suggest that the new director should resume the Servergate investigation of Clinton. (1 comments) SHARE Swamping the Supremes: "Qualifications," New Confirmation Politics, and the Gorsuch Restoration of Judicial Plutocracy The Gorsuch-nomination battle may restore some legitimacy to the Democrats as an opposition party to plutocracy, confront Republicans with the prospect of shooting their own foot by eliminating the filibuster as the cost of restoring the plutocratic Court majority, and set the stage for a 2018 referendum on the Roberts Court's corrupting "money is speech" jurisprudence, for which Gorsuch would restore the essential fifth vote. Tuesday, April 4, 2017The Gorsuch-nomination battle may restore some legitimacy to the Democrats as an opposition party to plutocracy, confront Republicans with the prospect of shooting their own foot by eliminating the filibuster as the cost of restoring the plutocratic Court majority, and set the stage for a 2018 referendum on the Roberts Court's corrupting "money is speech" jurisprudence, for which Gorsuch would restore the essential fifth vote. SHARE No Cloture for Gorsuch Amidst all the smoke-blowing trivia and other effluvia emitted from the Trump White House, it is important that progressives keep their eye on the paramount importance of the Gorsuch nomination, and of the Democrats' necessary filibuster to stop it. Stopping Gorsuch or anyone else like him represents the difference between a chance for democracy and resumed unrelenting descent even deeper into authoritarian plutocracy. Tuesday, March 7, 2017Amidst all the smoke-blowing trivia and other effluvia emitted from the Trump White House, it is important that progressives keep their eye on the paramount importance of the Gorsuch nomination, and of the Democrats' necessary filibuster to stop it. Stopping Gorsuch or anyone else like him represents the difference between a chance for democracy and resumed unrelenting descent even deeper into authoritarian plutocracy. (7 comments) SHARE The State of Massachusetts Should Protest the Warren Gag Rule Massachusetts politicians should step up to defend their U.S. Senator against partisan censorship in violation of the Constitution. The citizens of their state were entitled to be represented on the important question of appointing the nation's chief law-enforcement official. Wednesday, February 8, 2017Massachusetts politicians should step up to defend their U.S. Senator against partisan censorship in violation of the Constitution. The citizens of their state were entitled to be represented on the important question of appointing the nation's chief law-enforcement official. (1 comments) SHARE Inaugural Demagoguery versus Trump's Supreme Court Choices On the day of Trump's historic nomination for the empty seat on the Supreme Court which will shift the Court from its current ideological deadlock it is useful to compare the politics of his choice with the politics of his inaugural address. The contrast indicates that Trump will be foreclosing one of the best strategies for keeping his promise to restore democracy from the country's current corrupt plutocracy. Tuesday, January 31, 2017On the day of Trump's historic nomination for the empty seat on the Supreme Court which will shift the Court from its current ideological deadlock it is useful to compare the politics of his choice with the politics of his inaugural address. The contrast indicates that Trump will be foreclosing one of the best strategies for keeping his promise to restore democracy from the country's current corrupt plutocracy. (6 comments) SHARE Breaking Down the Big Speech Bernie Sanders' Convention speech omitted the essential policy reform that could make his capitulation excuse even relevant, according to the central demand of his own campaign. In this article Rob Hager dissects the speech and what it failed to say. Tuesday, July 26, 2016Bernie Sanders' Convention speech omitted the essential policy reform that could make his capitulation excuse even relevant, according to the central demand of his own campaign. In this article Rob Hager dissects the speech and what it failed to say. (4 comments) SHARE Cornel West and Jill Stein: Campaign Against Clinton and Trump These two voices need to be heard now to let the vacillating Sanders supporters know what the consequences will be from trusting that Bernie Sanders knows what he is doing and make it clear to Democrats that they will be deciding whether or not they will be electing Trump at their Convention. Saturday, July 23, 2016These two voices need to be heard now to let the vacillating Sanders supporters know what the consequences will be from trusting that Bernie Sanders knows what he is doing and make it clear to Democrats that they will be deciding whether or not they will be electing Trump at their Convention. (7 comments) SHARE My Reply to BS Rob Kall has encouraged discussion about Bernie Sanders' capitulation to the corrupt plutocrat who will be the 2016 Democratic Party nominee. This is my public reply, reporting the message I sent in response to the email that BS sent to his mailing list(which was published on OEN yesterday)to justify his betrayal of his supporters. His reasons are unpersuasive. Thursday, July 14, 2016Rob Kall has encouraged discussion about Bernie Sanders' capitulation to the corrupt plutocrat who will be the 2016 Democratic Party nominee. This is my public reply, reporting the message I sent in response to the email that BS sent to his mailing list(which was published on OEN yesterday)to justify his betrayal of his supporters. His reasons are unpersuasive. (10 comments) SHARE Unraveling Comey's Political Fix House Tea Party does a credible job of piercing many flaws in Comey's pretext for the two tiered justice system applied to exonerate Hillary Clinton. Comey overlooked the plentiful evidence of criminal intent and also exaggerated the quantum of evidence needed to prove intent by confusing intent with motive. The FBI legislates to turn the unprecedented nature of Clinton corrupt motivation into a Clinton "no precedent" defense. Friday, July 8, 2016House Tea Party does a credible job of piercing many flaws in Comey's pretext for the two tiered justice system applied to exonerate Hillary Clinton. Comey overlooked the plentiful evidence of criminal intent and also exaggerated the quantum of evidence needed to prove intent by confusing intent with motive. The FBI legislates to turn the unprecedented nature of Clinton corrupt motivation into a Clinton "no precedent" defense. (1 comments) SHARE Supreme Court Legalizes Influence Peddling: McDonnell v. United States The latest SCOTUS pro-corruption decision is worse than Citizens United though it has better PR, due largely to the propagandist media's free pass for John Roberts' dishonest opinion. Understand this opinion and you will understand why the Supreme Court must be the priority target of progressive reform. Tuesday, July 5, 2016The latest SCOTUS pro-corruption decision is worse than Citizens United though it has better PR, due largely to the propagandist media's free pass for John Roberts' dishonest opinion. Understand this opinion and you will understand why the Supreme Court must be the priority target of progressive reform. (1 comments) SHARE Warning -- the sheepdog sellout begins: Sanders seeks company for his party-platform capitulation dance; don't join him. Sanders has now finally unveiled his plan to entice supporters to support his party platform diversion from effective strategy. It appears that this is the dead-end where he intends to lead his supporters. It is time to part from what would most charitably be described as Sanders' strategic incompetence, if it is not fraud, and take the revolution to restore democracy in another direction. Monday, June 27, 2016Sanders has now finally unveiled his plan to entice supporters to support his party platform diversion from effective strategy. It appears that this is the dead-end where he intends to lead his supporters. It is time to part from what would most charitably be described as Sanders' strategic incompetence, if it is not fraud, and take the revolution to restore democracy in another direction. (7 comments) SHARE State Convention: Another Lesson in Strategic Failure by the Sanders Revolution, and How to Recover A close look at the Minnesota State Convention provides another example of strategic failure by the Sanders campaign in organizing for reform of the entrenched state and national Democratic Party apparatus. But it is not too late to use Sanders' considerable political leverage to obtain strategic concessions from Clinton, Obama, the Democratic Party, and the Senate Democratic leader. Saturday, June 18, 2016A close look at the Minnesota State Convention provides another example of strategic failure by the Sanders campaign in organizing for reform of the entrenched state and national Democratic Party apparatus. But it is not too late to use Sanders' considerable political leverage to obtain strategic concessions from Clinton, Obama, the Democratic Party, and the Senate Democratic leader. (16 comments) SHARE Sanders Wins another Purple State, But Is Still Lost in a Haze of Bad Strategy and Rigged Delegate Math Sanders' fairly narrow victory in another purple state, Indiana, continued the pattern that was established in Nevada and Iowa. Barring the unexpected, the future math is predictable. Sanders needs to get real about his convention strategy to change delegate rules concerning closed and corrupt elections such as New York, and applying conflict of interest recusal to superdelegates Wednesday, May 4, 2016Sanders' fairly narrow victory in another purple state, Indiana, continued the pattern that was established in Nevada and Iowa. Barring the unexpected, the future math is predictable. Sanders needs to get real about his convention strategy to change delegate rules concerning closed and corrupt elections such as New York, and applying conflict of interest recusal to superdelegates (4 comments) SHARE The Ides of March Primaries On another Tuesday primary day, an unbiased appraisal of Sanders' returns near the half-way point. Yes, he can win but he needs to wage a winning campaign. Wednesday, March 23, 2016On another Tuesday primary day, an unbiased appraisal of Sanders' returns near the half-way point. Yes, he can win but he needs to wage a winning campaign. (3 comments) SHARE The SCOTUS QUANDARY Obama Nominates a Conservative to Court: Sanders Still Missing Strategic Opportunity Thursday, March 17, 2016Obama Nominates a Conservative to Court: Sanders Still Missing Strategic Opportunity (3 comments) SHARE Michigan and Mississippi: Should Red-state Delegates Vote on the Nomination of a Blue-state Candidate? Maybe Michigan will get people to tune out the insistent mass-media megaphone that keeps sounding the falsehood that Sanders can't win. The media treats Mississippi and Michigan as offsetting primary victories. They are not. The first is irrelevant, or should be; the second is game-changing. Friday, March 11, 2016Maybe Michigan will get people to tune out the insistent mass-media megaphone that keeps sounding the falsehood that Sanders can't win. The media treats Mississippi and Michigan as offsetting primary victories. They are not. The first is irrelevant, or should be; the second is game-changing. SHARE Blue-state Bernie and the DNC's Plutocratic "Victory" Rules The Clinton "victory" is a congeries of "rotten boroughs," conflicted Superdelegates, exclusionary primaries, and disinformation. If the run-off process were conducted in a democratic manner, these devices would all be barred by Democratic National Committee (DNC) rules. Sunday, March 6, 2016The Clinton "victory" is a congeries of "rotten boroughs," conflicted Superdelegates, exclusionary primaries, and disinformation. If the run-off process were conducted in a democratic manner, these devices would all be barred by Democratic National Committee (DNC) rules. SHARE Draft Conflict of Interest Recusal Law - the most easily adopted among the effective solutions to political corruption Corrupt politicians cannot be expected to draft a law that would shut down their common business model of systemic political corruption. This article presents a draft law that could serve as a litmus test demand for any elected official. Please deliberate, and comment on any helpful changes. Thursday, February 25, 2016Corrupt politicians cannot be expected to draft a law that would shut down their common business model of systemic political corruption. This article presents a draft law that could serve as a litmus test demand for any elected official. Please deliberate, and comment on any helpful changes. (1 comments) SHARE Is JEB Defecting from the Plutocracy? Don't get Bushwhacked by Citizens United hype that Jeb exploited to get his bump in New Hampshire. Wednesday, February 10, 2016Don't get Bushwhacked by Citizens United hype that Jeb exploited to get his bump in New Hampshire. Page 1 of 2 First Last Back Next 2 View All Articles Listed By Date List By Popularity Search Title Date Between Any 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Any 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 and Any 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Any 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Page 1 of 153 First Last Back Next 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 View All SHARE Ten Worst National Anthems There's probably not a corner of the Earth lacking talented, creative, and wise composers of lyrics for songs. It's unfortunate that no nation has been able to locate any of them to assist with its national anthem. Sunday, October 16, 2022There's probably not a corner of the Earth lacking talented, creative, and wise composers of lyrics for songs. It's unfortunate that no nation has been able to locate any of them to assist with its national anthem. SHARE Opposing War Together With Libertarians I've just read In Search of Monsters to Destroy by Christopher J. Coyne. It's published by the Independent Institute (which seems dedicated to untaxing the rich, destroying socialism, and so forth). Friday, October 7, 2022I've just read In Search of Monsters to Destroy by Christopher J. Coyne. It's published by the Independent Institute (which seems dedicated to untaxing the rich, destroying socialism, and so forth). SHARE 2022: Nobel Committee Gets Peace Prize Wrong Yet Again The fact that all sides of all wars have always failed and always will fail to engage in humane operations is possibly why Alfred Nobel set up a prize to advance the abolition of war. Friday, October 7, 2022The fact that all sides of all wars have always failed and always will fail to engage in humane operations is possibly why Alfred Nobel set up a prize to advance the abolition of war. (1 comments) SHARE What's Worse Than Risking Nuclear Apocalypse? What is worse than risking the obliteration of life on Earth through nuclear war and the creation of a nuclear winter? What is more important than protecting the world from the climate collapse on fast-forward that would be a nuclear apocalypse? Thursday, October 6, 2022What is worse than risking the obliteration of life on Earth through nuclear war and the creation of a nuclear winter? What is more important than protecting the world from the climate collapse on fast-forward that would be a nuclear apocalypse? (3 comments) SHARE Chris Hedges Is Right: The Greatest Evil Is War Chris Hedges' latest book, The Greatest Evil Is War, is a terrific title and even better text. Monday, October 3, 2022Chris Hedges' latest book, The Greatest Evil Is War, is a terrific title and even better text. SHARE Why Andrew Bacevich Should Support the Abolition of Wars and Militaries I wholeheatedly and enthusiastically recommend Andrew Bacevich's latest book, On Shedding An Obsolete Past, to almost everybody. Friday, September 30, 2022I wholeheatedly and enthusiastically recommend Andrew Bacevich's latest book, On Shedding An Obsolete Past, to almost everybody. SHARE What Would We Do Without Police, Prisons, Surveillance, Borders, Wars, Nukes, and Capitalism? Watch and See! What would we do in a world lacking police, prisons, surveillance, borders, wars, nuclear weapons, and capitalism? Well, we might survive. Tuesday, September 27, 2022What would we do in a world lacking police, prisons, surveillance, borders, wars, nuclear weapons, and capitalism? Well, we might survive. SHARE Get Mad About Nuclear Madness Remarks in Seattle on September 24, 2022: I am so sick and tired of wars. I'm ready for peace. What about you? Saturday, September 24, 2022Remarks in Seattle on September 24, 2022: I am so sick and tired of wars. I'm ready for peace. What about you? SHARE Riotsville In the late 1960s, the U.S. military built a fake town called Riotsville (or a fake "inner city" actually) on the Fort Belvoir base in Virginia, and then another at Fort Gordon in Georgia "- the same state where the Atlanta police are now working on the construction of an enlarged, updated, high-tech Riotsville commonly called "Cop City." Friday, September 23, 2022In the late 1960s, the U.S. military built a fake town called Riotsville (or a fake "inner city" actually) on the Fort Belvoir base in Virginia, and then another at Fort Gordon in Georgia "- the same state where the Atlanta police are now working on the construction of an enlarged, updated, high-tech Riotsville commonly called "Cop City." (1 comments) SHARE As U.S. Ships Immigrants Around, Ken Burns Claims He's Going to Tell the Truth About the Holocaust Is this moment, when the United States is shipping immigrants about like they're nuclear waste, the ideal time for Ken Burns and PBS to claim they're going to tell the truth about the U.S. and the Holocaust? They claimed that about Vietnam too. Friday, September 16, 2022Is this moment, when the United States is shipping immigrants about like they're nuclear waste, the ideal time for Ken Burns and PBS to claim they're going to tell the truth about the U.S. and the Holocaust? They claimed that about Vietnam too. (2 comments) SHARE In This Disaster We Are All, Ultimately, Guilty Telling people that the problem is something other than cultural, telling people the baseless nonsense that it's just the way the whole species is, does not help. Monday, September 12, 2022Telling people that the problem is something other than cultural, telling people the baseless nonsense that it's just the way the whole species is, does not help. (1 comments) SHARE Top 10 Reasons Sweden and Finland Will Regret Joining NATO Friendly advice to my brothers and sisters in Finland and Sweden. Wednesday, September 7, 2022Friendly advice to my brothers and sisters in Finland and Sweden. SHARE How to Oppose Both Sides of a War It's tricky to oppose both sides of a war, and rarer even than supporting both sides. The weapons dealers support both sides. Sunday, September 4, 2022It's tricky to oppose both sides of a war, and rarer even than supporting both sides. The weapons dealers support both sides. SHARE 2022 War Abolisher Awards to Go to Italian Dock Workers, New Zealand Filmmaker, U.S. Environmental Group, and British M World BEYOND War's Second Annual War Abolisher Awards will recognize the work of an environmental organization that has prevented military operations in state parks in Washington State, a filmmaker from New Zealand who has documented the power of unarmed peacemaking, Italian dock workers who have blocked the shipment of weapons of war, and British peace activist and Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn who has taken a consistent Monday, August 29, 2022World BEYOND War's Second Annual War Abolisher Awards will recognize the work of an environmental organization that has prevented military operations in state parks in Washington State, a filmmaker from New Zealand who has documented the power of unarmed peacemaking, Italian dock workers who have blocked the shipment of weapons of war, and British peace activist and Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn who has taken a consistent (1 comments) SHARE Every Single Member of Congress Is Willing to Let Yemeni Children Die Every Single Member of Congress Is Willing to Let Yemeni Children Die. If you want to prove that statement wrong, I think you'll want to start by proving wrong one or more of these five points: Wednesday, August 24, 2022Every Single Member of Congress Is Willing to Let Yemeni Children Die. If you want to prove that statement wrong, I think you'll want to start by proving wrong one or more of these five points: SHARE Neither Dante Nor Caesar Will Save Us Dante wrote bizarre and powerful poetry about Hell and Heaven that united Italians around a non-Latin language and the Western world around various images and misquotations regarding who's destined for which circle. Monday, August 22, 2022Dante wrote bizarre and powerful poetry about Hell and Heaven that united Italians around a non-Latin language and the Western world around various images and misquotations regarding who's destined for which circle. (1 comments) SHARE UK Pushes Mountain Destruction on Montenegro as Green Policy British Ambassador to Montenegro Karen Maddox has now stepped in to fend off the continuation of many centuries of peaceful and sustainable pastoral living on Sinjajevina. Thursday, August 18, 2022British Ambassador to Montenegro Karen Maddox has now stepped in to fend off the continuation of many centuries of peaceful and sustainable pastoral living on Sinjajevina. (1 comments) SHARE This Atheist Begs You to Read the Pope's New Book Pope Francis's new book is called Against War: Building a Culture of Peace. I'm sure some Catholics will recommend it to you. But let this atheist do so as well. Thursday, August 11, 2022Pope Francis's new book is called Against War: Building a Culture of Peace. I'm sure some Catholics will recommend it to you. But let this atheist do so as well. SHARE Roger Waters on War, Peace, and Music A webinar hosted by World BEYOND War on August 8, 2022, with Todd Pierce and David Swanson moderating. Tuesday, August 9, 2022A webinar hosted by World BEYOND War on August 8, 2022, with Todd Pierce and David Swanson moderating. SHARE The People in Hiroshima Didn't Expect it Either Exactly like the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the guinea-pigged human residents of the much larger Pacific island nuclear experiments, and the downwinders everywhere, nobody sees it coming. Monday, August 1, 2022Exactly like the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the guinea-pigged human residents of the much larger Pacific island nuclear experiments, and the downwinders everywhere, nobody sees it coming. Page 1 of 153 First Last Back Next 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 View All Articles Listed By Date List By Popularity Search Title Date Between Any 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Any 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 and Any 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Any 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Page 1 of 9 First Last Back Next 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 View All SHARE Cuomo Resigns Over Sexual Harassment Allegations New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday that he will resign from office in 14 days as he faces an accelerating impeachment push -- over allegations that he sexually harassed multiple women, including current and former government employees. Tuesday, August 10, 2021New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday that he will resign from office in 14 days as he faces an accelerating impeachment push -- over allegations that he sexually harassed multiple women, including current and former government employees. (2 comments) SHARE Rights Groups Urge Ben & Jerry's to End All Sales in 'Apartheid Israel' While welcoming the decision by Ben & Jerry's to stop selling their ice cream in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in Palestine, a coalition of progressive groups on Wednesday implored Unilever, the frozen dessert-maker's parent company, to end all business with Israel. Friday, July 23, 2021While welcoming the decision by Ben & Jerry's to stop selling their ice cream in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in Palestine, a coalition of progressive groups on Wednesday implored Unilever, the frozen dessert-maker's parent company, to end all business with Israel. (7 comments) SHARE "Merciless War Criminal" and Ex-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Dead at 88 Donald Rumsfeld, the former U.S. congressman, aide to several Republican presidents, and two-time defense secretary whose ruinous legacy was defined by his lies in service of an unending war that's killed at least hundreds of thousands of people, died Tuesday at age 88. Thursday, July 1, 2021Donald Rumsfeld, the former U.S. congressman, aide to several Republican presidents, and two-time defense secretary whose ruinous legacy was defined by his lies in service of an unending war that's killed at least hundreds of thousands of people, died Tuesday at age 88. (1 comments) SHARE "This Is the Climate Emergency": Dozens of Sudden Deaths Reported as Canada Heat Hits Record 121F Dozens of sudden-death calls that Vancouver authorities have received this week are believed to be tied to the dangerous heatwave currently scorching Canada and pushing temperatures to record levels. Wednesday, June 30, 2021Dozens of sudden-death calls that Vancouver authorities have received this week are believed to be tied to the dangerous heatwave currently scorching Canada and pushing temperatures to record levels. (1 comments) SHARE Texas GOP Finalizes "Ruthless" Voter Suppression Bill, Sparking Calls for Congressional Action Texas state senators passed a voter supression bill that was condemned by rights advocates and plitical figures across the United States and sparked calls for Congress to urgently combatRepublican attacks on democracy. Sunday, May 30, 2021Texas state senators passed a voter supression bill that was condemned by rights advocates and plitical figures across the United States and sparked calls for Congress to urgently combatRepublican attacks on democracy. SHARE Sanders, Warren Lead Call for Biden to Embrace "Historic" Medicare Expansion "Lowering the Medicare eligibility age is not only the right thing to do from a public policy perspective," stated a letter to Biden on Sunday, "it is also what the overwhelming majority of Americans support." Sunday, April 25, 2021"Lowering the Medicare eligibility age is not only the right thing to do from a public policy perspective," stated a letter to Biden on Sunday, "it is also what the overwhelming majority of Americans support." (1 comments) SHARE Sanders Bill Will Hike Taxes on Big Corporations That Pay CEOs Over 50 Times More Than Median Workers Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont on Wednesday unveiled legislation that would hike taxes on large corporations that pay their CEOs over 50 times more than the median worker, an effort to combat the decades-long trend of skyrocketing inequality in the United States. Wednesday, March 17, 2021Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont on Wednesday unveiled legislation that would hike taxes on large corporations that pay their CEOs over 50 times more than the median worker, an effort to combat the decades-long trend of skyrocketing inequality in the United States. (4 comments) SHARE Millionaire Senators Vote Against Popular Minimum Wage Raise That Would Lift Millions Out of Poverty Eight members of the Democratic caucus joined all 50 Republicans in the Senate to kill an amendment reattaching a $15 minimum wage provision to the Senate's coronavirus relief package. Nearly every one of the lawmakers who voted against the raise for low-paid workers nationwide is a millionaire. Saturday, March 6, 2021Eight members of the Democratic caucus joined all 50 Republicans in the Senate to kill an amendment reattaching a $15 minimum wage provision to the Senate's coronavirus relief package. Nearly every one of the lawmakers who voted against the raise for low-paid workers nationwide is a millionaire. SHARE Role of Climate Crisis "Can't Be Hand-Waved Away": Scientists Say Freezing Texas Linked to Warming Arctic Some scientists are arguing -- the bitterly cold weather currently contributing to suffering and death in Texas and other states accustomed to mild winters is connected to the rapid warming of the Arctic. Wednesday, February 17, 2021Some scientists are arguing -- the bitterly cold weather currently contributing to suffering and death in Texas and other states accustomed to mild winters is connected to the rapid warming of the Arctic. (2 comments) SHARE Threat to Journalism Remains Despite Rejection of Assange Extradition From live.staticflickr.com: Why did a British judge reject the Trump administration's attempt to extradite Julian Assange, despite accepting "virtually all of the allegations" the U.S. government leveled against the WikiLeaks founder? Monday, January 4, 2021From live.staticflickr.com: Why did a British judge reject the Trump administration's attempt to extradite Julian Assange, despite accepting "virtually all of the allegations" the U.S. government leveled against the WikiLeaks founder? SHARE New Campaign Prepares Mass Mobilization Should Trump Refuse to "Leave Willingly" If Defeated in November Since taking office in 2017, Trump has repeatedly floated the possibility of remaining in office beyond his constitutionally allotted term during rallies and on Twitter. Friday, June 12, 2020Since taking office in 2017, Trump has repeatedly floated the possibility of remaining in office beyond his constitutionally allotted term during rallies and on Twitter. (3 comments) SHARE "Corruption": Inspector General Ousted by Trump Was Investigating Whether Pompeo Used Staffer for Personal Chores The State Department inspector general was reportedly investigating whether Secretary of State Mike Pompeo required a staffer to carry out personal chores when President Donald Trump fired him Friday night, a move that sparked widespread outcry and a probe by congressional Democrats. Monday, May 18, 2020The State Department inspector general was reportedly investigating whether Secretary of State Mike Pompeo required a staffer to carry out personal chores when President Donald Trump fired him Friday night, a move that sparked widespread outcry and a probe by congressional Democrats. SHARE Assange's Extradition: Incarceration in the Time of Covid-19 Threatens His Life Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with the world screeched to a halt, the prosecution of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange continues. At the case management court hearing on Tuesday, April 7, Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that Julian Assange's extradition hearing would resume in May as previously planned. Sunday, April 12, 2020Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with the world screeched to a halt, the prosecution of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange continues. At the case management court hearing on Tuesday, April 7, Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that Julian Assange's extradition hearing would resume in May as previously planned. SHARE 'Not Done Yet': Bernie Sanders Campaign Mobilizes Donors for Coronavirus Relief and Raises $2 Million "The Bernie Sanders campaign puts its fundraising prowess to another purpose." "Bernie Sanders supporters have contributed more than $2 million in 2 days to charities helping people whose lives have been impacted by the coronavirus," tweeted political strategist Tim Tagaris. "Not done yet." Sunday, March 22, 2020"The Bernie Sanders campaign puts its fundraising prowess to another purpose." "Bernie Sanders supporters have contributed more than $2 million in 2 days to charities helping people whose lives have been impacted by the coronavirus," tweeted political strategist Tim Tagaris. "Not done yet." (4 comments) SHARE Obama Privately Considered Leading "Stop-Bernie Campaign" to Combat Sanders 2020 Surge: Report Former President Barack Obama reportedly told advisers behind closed doors earlier this year that he would actively oppose Sen. Bernie Sanders if the progressive senator from Vermont opened up a big lead in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race. Wednesday, November 27, 2019Former President Barack Obama reportedly told advisers behind closed doors earlier this year that he would actively oppose Sen. Bernie Sanders if the progressive senator from Vermont opened up a big lead in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race. SHARE Warning Julian Assange "Could Die in Prison," 60+ Doctors Demand Immediate Medical Attention for WikiLeaks Founder More than 60 doctors from around the world Monday called on officials in the United Kingdom to act immediately to ensure WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange receives proper medical attention. Monday, November 25, 2019More than 60 doctors from around the world Monday called on officials in the United Kingdom to act immediately to ensure WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange receives proper medical attention. SHARE Asking Supreme Court to Shield His Tax Returns, Trump Claims He Is "Absolutely Immune" From Criminal Investigation President Trump late Thursday asked the right-wing Supreme Court to block the Manhattan district attorney's subpoena for his tax returns, arguing that he is "absolutely immune from all stages of state criminal process while in office." Friday, November 15, 2019President Trump late Thursday asked the right-wing Supreme Court to block the Manhattan district attorney's subpoena for his tax returns, arguing that he is "absolutely immune from all stages of state criminal process while in office." (3 comments) SHARE Betsy DeVos Held in Contempt of Court for Refusing to Stop Collecting Loan Payments From Defrauded Students A federal judge on Thursday held President Donald Trump's billionaire Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in contempt of court for failing to comply with an order to stop collecting loan payments from former students of Corinthian Colleges, a defunct for-profit college company that defrauded tens of thousands of borrowers. Friday, October 25, 2019A federal judge on Thursday held President Donald Trump's billionaire Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in contempt of court for failing to comply with an order to stop collecting loan payments from former students of Corinthian Colleges, a defunct for-profit college company that defrauded tens of thousands of borrowers. SHARE Merging "Loyalty to the Oil Industry" and "Grudge Against California," Trump Opens 725,000 Acres to Fossil Fuel Drilling The Trump administration on Friday moved to open more than 725,000 acres of California's central coast to potential oil and gas drilling, a decision environmentalists condemned as a disastrous handout to big polluters at a time when urgent action is needed to slash greenhouse gas emissions. Sunday, October 6, 2019The Trump administration on Friday moved to open more than 725,000 acres of California's central coast to potential oil and gas drilling, a decision environmentalists condemned as a disastrous handout to big polluters at a time when urgent action is needed to slash greenhouse gas emissions. SHARE The Amazon Is Burning Because the World Eats So Much Meat While the wildfires raging in the Amazon rainforest may constitute an "international crisis," they are hardly an accident. So, for those wondering how they could help save the rainforest, known as "the planet's lungs" for producing about 20% of the world's oxygen, the answer may be simple. Eat less meat. Monday, August 26, 2019While the wildfires raging in the Amazon rainforest may constitute an "international crisis," they are hardly an accident. So, for those wondering how they could help save the rainforest, known as "the planet's lungs" for producing about 20% of the world's oxygen, the answer may be simple. Eat less meat. Page 1 of 9 First Last Back Next 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 View All As red-hot sales in China show signs of cooling, Apple Inc executives are touting India's growing appetite for iPhones. In an earnings call in which the company reported meager iPhone growth and forecast its first revenue drop in 13 years, the Indian market stood out as a rare bright spot for Apple. Sales of the company's flagship smartphone climbed 76 per cent in the country from the year-ago quarter, Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said on the call. ALSO READ: Apple sees first sales dip in more than a decade as super-growth era falters And Apple CEO Tim Cook suggested more growth is on the horizon, noting the median age in India is just 27. "I see the demographics there also being incredibly great for a consumer brand, and for people that really want the best product," Cook said. "We have been putting increasingly more energy in India." Growth in India is a tantalizing prospect as Apple grapples with the economic downturn in China, its second largest market. While revenue in Greater China rose 14 percent in the last quarter, Apple is beginning to see a shift in the economy, particularly in Hong Kong, Maestri told Reuters in an interview. India cannot immediately offset Apple's woes in China, said analyst Neil Shah of Counterpoint Technology Market Research. The company averaged only about 450,000 smartphone shipments per quarter in India in 2015, compared with more than 15 million per quarter in China, Shah said. What's more, nearly 70 per cent of smartphones sell for less than $150, leaving just a sliver of the market for Apple's high-end phones. The company's smartphone market share stands at less than 2 percent, Shah said. But the Indian market seems to be turning in Apple's favor. With 4G coverage spreading, Indian consumers will likely be more open to investing in smartphones, Shah said. Young consumers are already willing to spend heavily on the device at the center of their digital lives. As in China, Apple products are coveted status symbols. "The love for the iPhone is there," said Carolina Milanesi, chief of research and head of U.S. business at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, a consumer research firm. Apple's next task is expanding distribution in India, where its products are sold through third-party resellers. The company has filed an application with the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion to open its own stores, an Indian official told Reuters earlier this month. (Reuters) Pakistan warned Israeli leaders against continued conflict in the occupied territories UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has warned Israeli leaders to realise that a continued conflict in the occupied territories with the Palestinians will eventually erode the very nature of their state, and the war within will not remain unconnected with the wars raging just across Israels imposed frontiers. Taking part in a debate on the situation in the Middle East including the Palestinian question in the Security Council, Pakistans UN Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi said, The plight of the Palestinian people is one of the core causes of the rise and spread of popular anger and alienation across the Arab and Muslim world. Extremist ideologies and violent groups in the Middle East will be difficult to defeat until the essence of their narrative the injustices against Muslim peoples, especially the Palestinians is justly and effectively addressed. She said recent events had reinforced the conclusion that there would be no peace or stability in the holy land unless Israel accommodated an independent, contiguous and viable Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders and with Al Quds Al-Sharif as its capital. Unfortunately, Ms Lodhi said, Israel has adopted a totally inflexible policy, including the continued takeover of more and more Palestinian land for Israeli settlements. This is increasingly rendering a two-state solution more and more difficult to achieve. We share the secretary generals profound concern at reports of Israels authorisation of the largest land grab in over a year. Ms Lodhi said, The fires that have ignited across the region in recent years in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and beyond cannot eclipse the Palestine question, nor render a solution for its enduring tragedy less urgent or essential. During a half century of occupation Palestine was repeatedly promised statehood. But as we know these promises never materialised and set the stage for its prolonged tragedy. The political injustices and human suffering of the Palestinian people have progressively intensified. She said: The Security Council must mobilise the political will to implement its own binding resolutions requiring Israels withdrawal from occupied Palestinian and Arab territories and fulfillment of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including their right to a sovereign and secure Palestinian state. ISIS has emerged as a rogue threat to the entire region and to the world. It must be confronted and defeated. To succeed in this, the states of the region, with the international communitys assistance, must reach the political decisions to end the civil war and suffering in Syria and build a path to peace responsive to the aspirations of all its people; achieve an inclusive structure for governance where there is a need to accommodate the rights and interests of all religious and ethnic groups; halt the fighting in Yemen and rebuild this impoverished and broken country. Police killed four militants in Karachi KARACHI: Police claimed to have killed four suspected militants in an alleged encounter near Safoora Goth on Wednesday evening. SSP Malir Rao Anwar told media that police conducted a raid in Safoora Goth area after receiving a tip-off about the presence of suspected militants. During the raid, the law enforcers allegedly came under attack and in an ensuing encounter four suspects were killed, he added. Anwar claimed that the deceased men belonged to the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Three suspects were identified as Amirullah Mehsud, Khan Wali alias Khanewal and Khoni Khel. Meanwhile, Sindh Rangers claimed to have arrested three suspects allegedly involved in target killings and other crimes. According to Rangers spokesperson, the paramilitary force arrested Danish from Ramswami area who reportedly confessed his involvement in at least four murders. A suspect Aslam alias Munna was taken into custody from Landhi area who, according to Rangers, admitted his involvement in several murders as a member of the target-killing team of a militant organisation. The third suspect, named Ahsan, was arrested from Usmanabad. He is member of a militant organisation who reportedly confessed to his involvement in various murders, collecting extortion and a number of other crimes. Meanwhile, all army-run educational institutes in the metropolis were closed until Monday over security situation. Students and parents were informed that all institutes under the Army Public Schools & Colleges System in Karachi will remain closed on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and will reopen after the weekend on Monday, officials said. According to the school officials, the step has been taken because all army-run schools across the country followed a combined syllabus and the school closure will enable synchronisation of studies across all schools. However, security sources said the announcement was made in light of the security concerns for schools. In wake of the Bacha Khan University attack, security in schools across the country has been beefed up while mock security exercises were carried out in many others in the past week. Bacha Khan university, which briefly opened on Monday after a terrorist assault that claimed 21 lives, was closed for an indefinite period due to security reasons. Earlier on Monday, the Punjab government announced closure of all public and private schools in the province from Jan 26 to 31, citing extremely cold weather as the reason. Punjab governments last-minute order also spilled over into Islamabad, where a number of private schools remained shut on Tuesday, while others sent students home and closed early. On 1 October 1922, Federated Shan States was formed by British, then the colonial power, with 34 northern and southern Shan states, excluding the Wa state.Again, on 10 October 1922, the Karenni (Kayah) state was placed under the administration of the Federated Shan States.After the co-independence, together with the Ministerial Burma/Burma Proper, from the British in 1948, the Federated Shan States reverted back to Shan State.The point here is to emphasize that the Tai (Shan) states were ruled by their respective Saohpas, while in the same vein, the Palaung, Danu, Pa-O and even Wa, although not in the Federated Shan States at that time, were administered by their own kind. Except that they have to pay tax to their colonial master, all these ethnic territories were left alone to govern themselves on their own. A far cry from the Bamar military regimes military occupation, suppression and exploitation of the ethnic homelands, even when one compare it to the British colonial power.So when a question is asked, what the Bamar could do with the Dawei and Beik tribes, the answer is the Bamar state could decentralize its administration like the Federated Shan States. It is quite simple.It is entirely up to the Bamar to decentralize its administration units the way it sees fit. But not giving, upgrading or empowering the new administrative unit to the level of Division or Region in par with the 7 ethnic states.Well informed ethnic leaders argued but fallen on deaf ears, that if the Bamar could diversified their single territory into 7 Divisions/Regions, the Shan could as well upgrade the 33 Federated Shan States of the colonial days into 33 Divisions or Regions also, each having a say or vote in the national assembly or parliament.What the Bamar military and political class are advocating and thrusting down the ethnic nationalities throat now is: Since we have the population majority, we will upgrade our Burma Proper into 7 Divisions/Regions that will have the level as the 7 ethnic states. You all have to live with it, whether you like it or not.The case in point is fairness in a national state-based federalism. The Bamar cannot have 7 constituent units as one of the ethnic nationalities, even they like to be aloof of the identity label and insert domination on other ethnic groups, while the others only have one unit each..Of course, the Bamar could now argue that the federal union should be territory-based than national state-based, for it will be fairer for sub-ethnic groups within each of the states and divisions.As all have already agreed that it should be according to our unique historical background and appropriate system in forming a genuine federal union, we only need to go back on our historical treaty and documents and base our deliberation in overcoming the constitutional crisis, that has existed since Independence.These historical treaty and documents are none other than the 1947 Panglong Agreement, 1948 Union of Burma Constitution, and 1961 Shan Federal Proposal that was endorsed by all ethnic nationalities in Taunggyi, Shan State.It is time to revisit these historical documents and facts, if informed and fair formation of a federal system of governance is to earnestly pursued. January 28, 2006 Saturday's next Tuesday Photo credit above: "Pedestrians push a stroller through heavy snow on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on Saturday morning." Craig Ruttle / AP. D.C.'s Snow Disasters Have Political Roots. Here's an excerpt of a fascinating story at . Here's an excerpt of a fascinating story at Politico : "...One factor is the climate a border zone that occasionally experiences frigid winter days rivaling New England, but often skews toward the more temperate South which prompts a constant will-it-or-wont-it guessing game about snowfall forecasts that are more straightforward in colder metropolitan areas. (Thats why predicted snowstorms so often turn out to be rain, sleet or the dreaded frozen mix.) Another is the regions rapid growth, which hasnt been accompanied by matching improvements by the regions District, state, county and city governments to their roads, rails and bus systems..." Photo credit above: "A worker with the National Park Service sweeps snow along Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016, after an overnight dusting of snow hit the Washington area." | AP Photo. Photo credit Monster El Nino Probed by Meteorologists. Every El Nino is different - NOAA researchers are using new tools and techniques to understand how El Nino warm phases in the Pacific may evolve in a warming world (and ocean). Here's an excerpt from Every El Nino is different - NOAA researchers are using new tools and techniques to understand how El Nino warm phases in the Pacific may evolve in a warming world (and ocean). Here's an excerpt from Nature : "Climate scientists this week began a research blitz to study El Nino, the climate trouble-maker that disrupts weather around much of the globe. For the next two months, US researchers will use specially outfitted planes, a research ship and hundreds of weather balloons to monitor the region in the tropical Pacific Ocean where El Nino forms. Ultimately, the scientists say, their measurements could help to improve weather forecasts and unlock secrets about how powerful El Nino events evolve..." Study: Man-Made Heat Put in Oceans Has Doubled Since 1997. Here's the intro to an . Here's the intro to an Associated Press story : "The amount of man-made heat energy absorbed by the seas has doubled since 1997, a new study says. Scientists have long known that more than 90 percent of the heat energy from man-made global warming goes into the world's oceans instead of the ground. And they've seen ocean heat content rise in recent years. But the new study, using ocean-observing data that goes back to the British research ship Challenger in the 1870s and including high-tech modern underwater monitors and computer models, tracked how much man-made heat has been buried in the oceans in the past 150 years..." Image credit : earth.nullschool.net. Graphic credit Almost as soon as the news broke that 2015 was the hottest year in the modern record, the conversation quickly turned to how much of the record-breaking warmth was down to climate change and how much to the Pacific weather phenomenon known as El Nino . Carbon Brief has spoken to climate scientists working on this question, who all seem to agree El Nino was responsible for somewhere in the region of 10% of the record warmth in 2015. But while the science seems pretty clear, these numbers got somewhat lost in the media coverage..." Is Twitter a Better Source of Breaking Storm News? I'm sure this will generate howls of protests from TV meteorologists, but Twitter is a powerful tool, if used appropriately. For pinpointing and geolocating storm damage and impacts it's an incredible resource, but will Twitter or Facebook be able to provide context, analysis and perspective? That's where local and national meteorologists can still add considerable value. Here's an excerpt from the UK's I'm sure this will generate howls of protests from TV meteorologists, but Twitter is a powerful tool, if used appropriately. For pinpointing and geolocating storm damage and impacts it's an incredible resource, but will Twitter or Facebook be able to provide context, analysis and perspective? That's where local and national meteorologists can still add considerable value. Here's an excerpt from the UK's Daily Mail : "The US is glued to the news as winter storm Jonas crawls up the East Coast, but a new study finds social media sites might be better sources for storm news. After examining the flood that hit Colorado in 2013 researchers were able to pinpoint distressed areas using remote sensing, Twitter and Flickr data. "By monitoring tweets and other social media posts, these agencies could identify impacted areas in need of help faster than ever before..." Image credit Many multinationals have a blind spot in judging the environmental impact of their suppliers' operations, adding to corporate risks linked to climate change, according to a study published on Tuesday. The report, by non-profit consultancies CDP and BSR working with 75 companies such as Dell [DI.UL], Unilever and Wal-Mart Stores on environmental risks, said that only 49 percent of almost 8,000 suppliers responded last year when asked about their environmental footprint..." Scaling Renewables. Yes, it can be done, and faster than many people believe, with existing technologies, and no material increase in electricity costs on the grid. Here's an excerpt of the paper referenced above at * The NOAA study highlights are Solar Panel Costs Set To Fall 10% a Year. In a related story, here's a clip from Photo credit above: Lance Cheung/Flickr. . Yes, it can be done, and faster than many people believe, with existing technologies, and no material increase in electricity costs on the grid. Here's an excerpt of the paper referenced above at Nature Climate Change : "...Our results show that when using future anticipated costs for wind and solar, carbon dioxide emissions from the US electricity sector can be reduced by up to 80% relative to 1990 levels, without an increase in the levelized cost of electricity. The reductions are possible with current technologies and without electrical storage. Wind and solar power increase their share of electricity production as the system grows to encompass large-scale weather patterns. This reduction in carbon emissions is achieved by moving away from a regionally divided electricity sector to a national system enabled by high-voltage direct-current transmission."* The NOAA study highlights are here , courtesy of NOAA News.. In a related story, here's a clip from Climate Home : "Solar power costs are tumbling so fast the technology is likely to fast outstrip mainstream energy forecasts. That is the conclusion of Oxford University researchers, based on a new forecasting model published in Research Policy . Since the 1980s, panels to generate electricity from sunshine have got 10% cheaper each year. That is likely to continue, the study said, putting solar on course to meet 20% of global energy needs by 2027..."above: Lance Cheung/Flickr. Photo credit Photo credit A swarm of locusts in September in the Lavalle area of Santiago del Estero Province, Argentina. Farmers last year reported seeing swarms that were four miles wide and two miles high. Credit SENASA Image sources TODAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY Graphic credit Image credit NASA Photo credit Graphic credit Map credit Read more at: A high-resolution map based on NOAA solar irradiance data showing one measure of solar energy potential across the United States. Credit: Chris Clack/CIRERead more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-01-rapid-energy.html#jCp Read more at: A high-resolution map based on NOAA solar irradiance data showing one measure of solar energy potential across the United States. Credit: Chris Clack/CIRERead more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-01-rapid-energy.html#jCp Read more at: The United States could slash greenhouse gas emissions from power production by up to 78 percent below 1990 levels within 15 years while meeting increased demand, according to a new study by NOAA and University of Colorado Boulder researchers.Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-01-rapid-energy.html#jCp Read more at: The United States could slash greenhouse gas emissions from power production by up to 78 percent below 1990 levels within 15 years while meeting increased demand, according to a new study by NOAA and University of Colorado Boulder researchers.Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-01-rapid-energy.html#jCp Graph credit Kevin Cowtan / RSS / Met Office HadCRUT4 , Author provided. . high in the Twin Cities Tuesday.. average high on January 27.. high on January 27, 2015.: A record high temperature of 50 degrees is set at the Eau Claire Regional Airport.Hints of a Plowable Snow Next Week?There is no such thing as a "weather expert". I am reminded, daily, of the depths of my ignorance. Just keeping up with emerging science, new papers, trends and breakthroughs is daunting. So much noise - so little wisdom.Today's weather blog includes these nuggets: shoveling snow kills or injures an average of 11,500 Americans every winter. Good incentive to remain on the couch and wait for spring.Hurricane Hunter aircraft probedmega-blizzard off the East Coast, trying to "initialize" NOAA's models with better data. Every El Nino is different; NOAA sent a fleet of planes, ships and weather balloons into the Pacific to get a better grasp on how El Nino warm phases may evolve in a warming world.That same El Nino should, on paper, keep us milder than average into the spring. But there will be spasms of cold and snow though.Models hint at a sloppy southern storm brushing Minnesota with a potentially plowable snowfall. By late next week highs may be stuck in the teens - so enjoy our 5-day thaw.January should wind up milder than average. Again. Atlas Obsura had a few fascinating nuggets in a recent article; here's a clip: "...A few years ago, Ohio researchers clocked around 11,500 snow shoveling injuries and deaths annually in the United States, with over half being cardiac events. (Normally, cardiac problems account for around 10 percent of hospital visits, according to the Washington Post.) Another study, from 1990 to 2006, found over 1,600 fatalities . Another study, from 1990 to 2006, found over 1,600 fatalities ....The connection between snow shoveling and heart attacks is fairly well-documented, but the reasons. behind the correlation go beyond the fact that shoveling snow is intense exerciseit's a very specific kind of exercise..". If you're a frequent flier this may help explain some of the pain waiting at your favorite airport gate, courtesy of Yahoo Finance : "...Ice on the ground makes things tricky, too. Last year, New York's JFK Airport was shut down for several hours when a Delta plane skidded off the runway into the snow. (No injuries were reported.) The problem is that while planes can be de-iced (usually by spraying them with a mix of water and glycol alcohol), getting ice off a runway when the temperatures are low and there's no sunshine is much harder. "There's hardly anything you can do," Jack Gartner, who worked in operations at New York airports for over 30 years, told Business Insider..."So many models, so much noise, so little wisdom. We are drowning in models - but which one to believe, and when? Here's a clip from fivethirtyeight.com : "One of the hardest tasks in weather forecasting is projecting snow totals. We saw its perils in January 2015, when meteorologists wiped egg off their faces because New York City didnt get anywhere near the foot and half or more that was forecast. This weekend, the exact opposite is happening: New York City is getting far more snow than the forecast of 7 to 12 inches from the National Weather Service , which was issued less than 24 hours before the storm hit the city. Its the perfect example of why forecasts that vary based on probability are so important, and why outlier predictions should not be dismissed...". They've been probing major winter storms for years, and last weekend's East Coast mega-blizzard was another reminder of the critical importance of having better data available to feed the models; here's an excerpt from The U.S. Air Force : "The Hurricane Hunters of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron flew a different kind of mission from Keesler Air Force Base Jan. 22 to gather data on the blizzard that hit the Eastern Seaboard. The blizzard began dropping snow on the area early Jan. 22, and was a record-setter for three cities, leaving 29.2 inches in Baltimore, 31.9 inches in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and 34 inches in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, according to the National Weather Service. The 53rd WRS crew flew along the eastern coast from Florida up to the New York City area over the Atlantic Ocean, dropping sondes ahead of the storm to gather information and to send it back to the NWS, where forecasts and predictions are made..."above: "A 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron WC-130J Hercules, based at Keesler Air Force Base, Miss., flies above the record-setting blizzard the morning of Jan. 23, 2016. The crew gathered data on the storm for the National Weather Service." (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Nicholas Monteleone)It will become increasingly difficult to deny rising seas in the years ahead; here's an excerpt from Climate Central : "...Water expands as it heats up, and oceans have been absorbing most of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases released by fossil fuel burning, deforestation and animal farming. A new study blames expansion of warming waters for as much sea level rise from 2002 through 2014 as the melting of all the glaciers and the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets combined. Satellite observations show that sea level rise over the last decade is explained, by about 50 percent, by thermal expansion, said Roelof Rietbroek of the University of Bonn, who led the research, which was published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences...". An estimated 93% of additional heat energy produced by greenhouse gases, mainly CO2, is going into the world's oceans. This not only results in thermal expansion and rising sea levels, but higher water vapor levels, more moisture available for developing storms, especially close to the coast. Graphic above: Larry Hamilton.A post at patch.com caught my eye, showing the extent of flooding along the southern New Jersey coast. Not on the scale of "Sandy" in 2012, but there was disruption: "Severe flooding overwhelmed much of Cape May County over the weekend, as documented in the attached video posted on Facebook by Seven Mile Times. The footage shot by a drone shows a town engulfed by water as of 8:30 a.m. Sunday morning. In Ocean City, much of the flood water has receded, but power outages remain in the county. Flooding delayed Atlantic City Electrics efforts to deal with many of the outages on the coast over the weekend..." (Drone footage: Seven Mile Times). WXshift has an interesting post; here's a clip that caught my eye: "...The high frequency of these flood events may feel very much like climate change. However, its important that we step back and make sure our perspectives are scientifically sound before we slap a climate change label on what appears like a certain pattern. Sea level rise is an important component of these floods, and that is a clear signature of climate change. For most of the U.S. coastline, sea-level rise is a persistent, long-term threat, with surprisingly pernicious impacts. In coastal New Jersey the rate of relative sea level rise is around 1.0 -1.5 feet per century. The graph below shows a rate of 1.34 feet per 100 years at Atlantic City. Although this rate may not sound substantial, the impacts of sea level rise are profound..."above: "The long-term sea level trend in Atlantic City depicts an average rise of 1.34 ft (0.41 m) per 100 years." Credit: Carbon Brief takes a look at new research that tries to provide perspective; here's an excerpt: "above: "Screenshot of CarbonScanner during the 2013 Boulder floods showing filtered and geolocated tweets captured by scanning application in real time (a), and the alert box generated for which remote-sensing data collection was tasked."Here's the intro to a Reuters story : ". Here's an excerpt of an important story at Smithsonian : "...Our idea was if we had a national interstate highway for electrons we could move the power around as it was needed, and we could put the wind and solar plants in the very best places, says study co-author Alexander MacDonald , who recently retired as director of NOAAs Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. Several years ago, MacDonald was curious about claims that there was no technology available that could mitigate carbon dioxide emissions without doubling or tripling the cost of electricity. When he investigated the issue, he discovered that the studies behind the claims did not incorporate the countrys variable weather very well...". Is this looking more and more like a bad sci-fi thriller or is it just me? It's the stuff nobody seems coming that worries me. Here's the intro to a story at The Guardian : "Brazils health minister was warned that the country is badly losing the battle against the mosquito blamed for spreading Zika virus , which has been linked to birth defects. Marcelo Castro said that nearly 220,000 members of Brazils armed forces would go door-to-door to help in mosquito eradication efforts, according to Rio de Janeiros O Globo newspaper. It also quoted Castro as saying the government would distribute mosquito repellent to some 400,000 pregnant women who receive cash-transfer benefits..."above: "A local worker disinfects the famous Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 26 January 2016 in an effort to protect next months Carnival parades Zika-carrying mosquitoes." Photograph: Marecelo Sayao/EPA. Don't sweat the snow and ice. Here's an excerpt from The New York Times : "....Its the worst explosion in the last 60 years, Diego Quiroga, the agriculture agencys chief of vegetative protection, said in a telephone interview. Its impossible to eradicate; the plague has already established itself. Were just acting to make sure its the smallest it can be and does the least damage possible...above: ". If you haven't seen this it's worth your time - a YouTube clip of entrepreneur Casey Neistat "surfing" the streets of Manhattan. It isn't often you get to pull this off (and document it!) And no, don't try this at home.It can't come fast enough for my broken ankle, but here's another potentially game-changing innovation, courtesy of Christian Science Monitor : "For commuters negotiating post-blizzard conditions, take heart: electric snow-melting concrete may be coming to a city near you. Dr. Chris Tuan, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and his team of researchers have developed a concrete mixture prototype that melts away falling snow and ice by conducting electricity. Steel rods beneath the concretes surface connect to electrodes, which connect to a 120-volt AC power source...": Milder, few flurries. Snowy coating up north. Winds: SW 15-25. High: 36WEDNESDAY NIGHT: Mostly cloudy. Low: 29: More clouds than sun, dry. Winds: NW 10-15. High: 33: Next clipper, sloppy mix? Wake-up: 24. High: 37: Overcast, drizzle or flurries. Wet roads. Winds: SW 7-12. Wake-up: 31. High: 37: Mostly cloudy, pretty quiet. Winds: W 8-13. Wake-up: 28. High: 33: Mostly gray, no drama yet. Wake-up: 25. High: 31: Potential for a few inches of snow. Potentially plowable, especially south/east of MSP. Wake-up: 23. High: 25. The conference is in Minneapolis - there are still a few tickets available. If your company, organization or state agency is being impacted a rapidly changing climate you might want to consider signing up. I'm moderating a business panel that includes 3M, Best Buy and General Mills - trying to understand how Minnesota companies are already factoring climate change into business models, supply chain management, deployment and operation of facilities, personnel training, marketing and new product development.The states(CAP) was formed in 2008. This committee is multi-faceted with representatives from state and federal agencies, the business community, academic institutions, county and municipal units of government, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and NGOs. Our purposes are to improve climate literacy; sponsor, produce, and promote educational resources related to climate change and sustainability; and to host an annual statewide meeting that is dedicated to sharing knowledge and experience related to climate adaptation practices that improve the environment and the quality of life in our state. The annual meeting usually draws 250-350 people and is well covered by the media. More information about CAP, including registration instructions for the Third Annual CAP Conference: "Transforming Awareness Into Action" can be found at this web site:Here's a clip from Vice News : "...We expect the Atlantic to continue to warm as we continue to increase greenhouse gas concentrations through fossil fuel burning and other activities," Mann said. "Peer-reviewed scientific studies suggest we are likely to see more of these sorts of coastal storms in the future because of human-caused climate change." In addition to the El Nino, the warm coastal waters may be influenced by a mass of cold water in the North Atlantic. This icy patch south of Greenland contrasts what has otherwise been the warmest year on record and may be the result of freshwater run-off from the country's melting glaciers...". Meteorologist Eric Holthaus has more specifics at Slate ; here's an excerpt that caught my eye: "...There are a lot of reasons for this, including a big boost from a very strong El Nino (and some other factors that are, frankly, probably either random chance or not well understood), but there is clear evidence global warming is boosting the odds of recent big Northeast snowstorms. Among the clearest is Physics 101 : A warmer atmosphere is able to hold more moisture, and thus can produce heavier precipitation (whether rain or snow) in a shorter amount of time. At the moment, exceptionally warm waters off the East Coast (as high as 76 degrees Fahrenheit!) are boosting the amount of water vapor in the air by about 10 to 15 percent , according to Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research..." (File photo: AP).Joe Romm takes a look at ThinkProgress ; here's a clip: "...But the fact is that both East Coast SSTs and sea levels have been rising considerably faster than the global average. Recent research increasingly suggests that this apparent anomaly may not be random but rather driven in large part by global warming itself. Stefan Rahmstorf, Co-Chair of Earth System Analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, has published a summary of that research (some of which he himself conducted) in a must-read RealClimate post , Blizzard Jonas and the slowdown of the Gulf Stream System. Since higher sea surface temperatures helped drive record snowfall for Jonas, Rahmstorf asks why SSTs are so high on the East Coast, as shown in this graphic from Climate Reanalyzer..." above: "Sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies for Sunday, January 24 showing very warm water off the East Coast and a cold blob of water south of Greenland. Recent climate research connects the two.". To use Pentagon jargon, climate volatility is a "threat multiplier". Here's a clip from a story at Chicago Policy Review : "...The authors review 55 papers regarding the relationship between conflict and climate change. They conclude that changes in climate conditions, such as temperature, rainfall, and water availability, influence the conditions under which certain social interactions occur, in both the short and long term, and thus may impact the probability and intensity of conflicts. The study finds that these results hold across geographic regions, different societies, and over time. The increased risk is observed for two categories of conflict: first, for interpersonal conflicts occurring between individuals, such as assault, murder, rape, road rage, or violence at sporting events or by the police; and, second, for intergroup conflicts, describing conflicts between groups of individuals, such as organized political violence, civil conflicts, riots, or land invasion..."Here's a snippet from a Bloomberg Business story : "The odds are vanishingly small that recent years of record warmth arent due to human emissions of greenhouse gases, researchers in the U.S. and Germany said, adding to pressure on world governments to cut back on fossil fuel use. Thirteen of the 15 warmest years ever recorded were registered through 2014, the researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, or PIK, said Monday in the journal Nature. The odds of that occurring naturally range from one in 5,000 to one in 170,000, they wrote. Data showing 2015 is the warmest year ever were published after their study was completed, and would make the odds even slimmer, PIK said in an e-mailed statement..."Here's a snippet from WIRED : "...The UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed on Monday that the global average surface temperature in 2015 shattered all previous records and said 15 of the 16 hottest years on record have all occurred since 2000. We have reached for the first time the threshold of 1C above pre-industrial temperatures. It is a sobering moment in the history of our planet, said WMO secretary-general Petteri Taalas..."above: "A map of temperature anomalies in 2015 compared to the long-term average.". Here's the intro to a story at Naked Politics, in the Miami Herald : "Fifteen mayors from cities in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties wrote the two Miami candidates a letter asking them to meet with local leaders to "discuss the risks facing Florida communities due to climate change and help us chart a path forward to protect our state and the entire United States." "As mayors representing municipalities across Florida, we call on you to acknowledge the reality and urgency of climate change and to address the upcoming crisis it presents our communities," both letters begin. "Our cities and towns are already coping with the impacts of climate change today. We will need leadership and concrete solutions from our next president...". Here's an excerpt from a story at T he Los Angeles Times : "...In the decades to come, thousands more from along America's most fragile shorelines will embark on a great migration inland as their homes disappear beneath the water's surface. Over the last 10 years, the Isle de Jean Charles community in Louisiana has lost two-thirds of its residents to dislocation. In the Chesapeake Bay, Tangier Island's shoreline recedes by about 14 feet a year. On Washington's Olympic Peninsula, the Quinault Indian Nation relies on a 2,000-foot-long sea wall for protection until it can complete its move uphill. For them and the residents of dozens of other American towns and ultimately cities, the question is no longer what will be lost to climate change, but what will be saved..."above: "Two young boys walk along the boardwalk in the village of Newtok, Alaska in October of 2004." (Jedediah R. Smith / For the Times).Here's the introduction to a story at The Guardian : "The worlds run of record-breaking hottest years is extremely unlikely to have happened without the global warming caused by human activities, according to new calculations. Thirteen of the 15 hottest years in the 150-year-long record occurred between 2000-14 and the researchers found there is a just a 0.01% chance that this happened due to natural variations in the planets climate...". Following up on the story above, here's an excerpt of a piece from Penn State climate scientists Michael Mann at livescience.com : "...While the precise results depend on various details of the analysis, for the most defensible of assumptions, our analysis suggests that the odds are no greater than one in 170,000 that 13 of the 15 warmest years would have occurred since 2000 for the Northern Hemisphere average temperature, and one in 10,000 for the global average temperature. Even when we vary those assumptions the odds never exceed one in 5,000 and one in 1,700, respectively..."above: "Historical Northern Hemisphere mean-temperatures (black solid line) along with the estimated natural component alone (black dashed line) and five of the surrogates (colored curves) for the natural component. Temperature departures are defined relative to the long-term 1880 to 2015 average.". A story at phys.org made me do a triple-take; here are a couple of excerpts: "The United States could slash greenhouse gas emissions from power production by up to 78 percent below 1990 levels within 15 years while meeting increased demand, according to a new study by NOAA and University of Colorado Boulder researchers..."Our research shows a transition to a reliable, low-carbon, electrical generation and transmission system can be accomplished with commercially available technology and within 15 years," said Alexander MacDonald, co-lead author and recently retired director of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) in Boulder...above: "A high-resolution map based on NOAA solar irradiance data showing one measure of solar energy potential across the United States." Credit: Chris Clack/CIRE.Cue the conspiracy theories. Here's a clip from The Conversation : "...Enter denial strategy two: that if every scientific agency around the world agrees on global warming, they must be engaging in a conspiracy! Far from being an incidental ornament, conspiratorial thinking is central to denial . When a scientific fact has been as thoroughly examined as global warming being caused by greenhouse gases or the link between HIV and AIDS, then no contrary position can claim much intellectual or scholarly respectability because it is so overwhelmingly at odds with the evidence. Thats why politicians such as Republican Congressman Lamar Smith need to accuse the NOAA of having altered the [climate] data to get the results they needed to advance this administrations extreme climate change agenda. If the evidence is against you, then it has to be manipulated by mysterious forces in pursuit of a nefarious agenda...": " " The mathematical (and other) thoughts of a (now retired) math teacher, Victoria Smith, killed by black adoptive parents at age 3 (Isaiah 62:1) A 19th century Democrat political poster below: Leftist tolerance African immigrants in the Western world Bloomberg JFK knew Leftist dogmatism Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner once turned down a dinner invitation to the Kennedy White House because it was a hundred miles away. Thats a long distance to travel only to get some food. -- Geert Wilders The most beautiful woman in the world? I think she was. Yes: It's Agnetha Faltskog /> A beautiful baby is king -- with blue eyes, blond hair and white skin. How incorrect can you get? Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair Enough said A face of Leftist hate: Cory Booker, (D-NJ) There really is an actress named Donna Air. She seems a pleasant enough woman, though What feminism has wrought: There's actually some wisdom there. The dreamy lady says she is holding out for someone who meets her standards. The other lady reasonably replies "There's nobody there". Standards can be unrealistically high and feminists have laboured mightily to make them so Some bright spark occasionally decides that Leftism is feminine and conservatism is masculine. That totally misses the point. If true, how come the vote in American presidential elections usually shows something close to a 50/50 split between men and women? And in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump won 53 percent of white women, despite allegations focused on his past treatment of some women. Political correctness is Fascism pretending to be manners Political Correctness is as big a threat to free speech as Communism and Fascism. All 3 were/are socialist. A good thought from Thomas Sowell: "The phrase "glass ceiling" is an insult to our intelligence. What does glass mean, except that we cannot see it? In other words, in the absence of evidence, we are expected to go along with what is said because it is said in accusatory and self-righteous tones." The problem with minorities is not race but culture. For instance, many American black males fit in well with the majority culture. They go to college, work legally for their living, marry and support the mother of their children, go to church, abstain from crime and are considerate towards others. Who could reasonably object to such people? It is people who subscribe to minority cultures -- black, Latino or Muslim -- who can give rise to concern. If antisocial attitudes and/or behaviour become pervasive among a group, however, policies may reasonably devised to deal with that group as a whole The American Psychological Association is generally Left-leaning but it is the world's most prestigious body of academic psychologists. And even they (under the chairmanship of Ulric Neisser) have had to concede a large gap (one SD) in black vs. white average IQ. Black lives DON'T matter -- to other blacks. The leading cause of death among young black males is attack by other young black males Leftist logic: There are allegedly no distinctions between groups of humans, yet we're still supposed to celebrate diversity. Identity politics is a form of racism 'White Privilege'. .. Oh yes. .. That was abundant in the Irish potato famines. ... And in the Scottish Highland Clearances. ...And in transportations to Australia. ... And in Workhouses. ... 'White privilege' was absolutely RIFE! Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves. Leftist motivations are fundamentally Fascist. They want to "fundamentally transform" the lives of their fellow citizens, which is as authoritarian as you can get. We saw where it led in Russia and China. The "compassion" that Leftists parade is just a cloak for their ghastly real motivations Occasionally I put up on this blog complaints about the privileged position of homosexuals in today's world. I look forward to the day when the pendulum swings back and homosexuals are treated as equals before the law. To a simple Leftist mind, that makes me "homophobic", even though I have no fear of any kind of homosexuals. But I thought it might be useful for me to point out a few things. For a start, I am not unwise enough to say that some of my best friends are homosexual. None are, in fact. Though there are two homosexuals in my normal social circle whom I get on well with and whom I think well of. Of possible relevance: My late sister was a homosexual; I loved Liberace's sense of humour and I thought that Robert Helpmann was marvellous as Don Quixote in the Nureyev ballet of that name. Bible references on homosexuality: Romans 1:27; Jude 1:7; 1 Timothy 1:8-11; Mark 10:6-9; Matthew 19: 4-16; 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11; 1 Corinthians 7:2; Leviticus 18:22; Leviticus 20:13; Genesis 19:4-8 One may say that the person who gets in trouble with drugs is just as dumb without them I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling. I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take children away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass "In the end every feminism ends up being a machismo with a skirt" -- Pope Francis, February 23, 2019 Racial differences in temperament: Chinese are more passive even as little babies The genetics of crime: I have been pointing out for some time the evidence that there is a substantial genetic element in criminality. Some people are born bad. See here, here, here, here (DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12581) and here, for instance" Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action" Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned! Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are. So why do Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" when backed into a rhetorical corner? They say it because that is the predominant conclusion of analytic philosophers. And, as Keynes said: "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back Children are the best thing in life. See also here. Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter." Consider two "jokes" below: Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals? A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis" Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one: Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban? A. They are both religious fundamentalists" The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth". One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran. It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life. A modern feminist complains: "We are so far from having it all that we barely even have a slice of the pie, which we probably baked ourselves while sobbing into the pastry at 4am." Patriotism does NOT in general go with hostilty towards others. See e.g. here and here and even here ("Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia: A Cross-Cultural Study" by anthropologist Elizabeth Cashdan. In Current Anthropology Vol. 42, No. 5, December 2001). The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin "An objection I hear frequently is: Why should we tolerate intolerance? The assumption is that tolerating views that you dont agree with is like a gift, an act of kindness. It suggests were doing people a favour by tolerating their view. My argument is that tolerance is vital to us, to you and I, because its actually the presupposition of all our freedoms. You cannot be free in any meaningful sense unless there is a recognition that we are free to act on our beliefs, were free to think what we want and express ourselves freely. Unless we have that freedom, all those other freedoms that we have on paper mean nothing" -- SOURCE RELIGION: Antisemitism in the Koran Although it is a popular traditional chant, the "Kol Nidre" should be abandoned by modern Jewish congregations. It was totally understandable where it originated in the Middle Ages but is morally obnoxious in the modern world and vivid "proof" of all sorts of antisemitic stereotypes What the Bible says about the transexual craze: The male-female distinction is the only innate human distinction God cares about: God created mankind in his own image . . . male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27). He created them male and female and blessed them (Genesis 5:2). No ethnic or racial distinction matters in Genesis, only the male-female distinction. What the Bible says about homosexuality: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; It is abomination" -- Lev. 18:22 In his great diatribe against the pagan Romans, the apostle Paul included homosexuality among their sins: "For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.... Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" -- Romans 1:26,27,32. So churches that condone homosexuality are clearly post-Christian Although I am an atheist, I have great respect for the wisdom of ancient times as collected in the Bible. And its condemnation of homosexuality makes considerable sense to me. In an era when family values are under constant assault, such a return to the basics could be helpful. Nonetheless, I approve of St. Paul's advice in the second chapter of his epistle to the Romans that it is for God to punish them, not us. In secular terms, homosexuality between consenting adults in private should not be penalized but nor should it be promoted or praised. In Christian terms, "Gay pride" is of the Devil The homosexuals of Gibeah (Judges 19 & 20) set in train a series of events which brought down great wrath and destruction on their tribe. The tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out when it would not disown its homosexuals. Are we seeing a related process in the woes presently being experienced by the amoral Western world? Note that there was one Western country that was not affected by the global financial crisis and subsequently had no debt problems: Australia. In September 2012 the Australian federal parliament considered a bill to implement homosexual marriage. It was rejected by a large majority -- including members from both major political parties. The tide turned in 2017, however, with a public vote authorizing homosexual marriage in Australia Religion is deeply human. The recent discoveries at Gobekli Tepe suggest that it was religion not farming that gave birth to civilization. Early civilizations were at any rate all very religious. Atheism is mainly a very modern development and is even now very much a minority opinion "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV) I think it's not unreasonable to see Islam as the religion of the Devil. Any religion that loves death or leads to parents rejoicing when their children blow themselves up is surely of the Devil -- however you conceive of the Devil. Whether he is a man in a red suit with horns and a tail, a fallen spirit being, or simply the evil side of human nature hardly matters. In all cases Islam is clearly anti-life and only the Devil or his disciples could rejoice in that. And there surely could be few lower forms of human behaviour than to give abuse and harm in return for help. The compassionate practices of countries with Christian traditions have led many such countries to give a new home to Muslim refugees and seekers after a better life. It's basic humanity that such kindness should attract gratitude and appreciation. But do Muslims appreciate it? They most commonly show contempt for the countries and societies concerned. That's another sign of Satanic influence. And how's this for demonic thinking?: "Asian father whose daughter drowned in Dubai sea 'stopped lifeguards from saving her because he didn't want her touched and dishonoured by strange men' Islamic terrorism isnt a perversion of Islam. Its the implementation of Islam. It is not a religion of the persecuted, but the persecutors. Its theology is violent supremacism. And where Muslims tell us that they love death, the great Christian celebration is of the birth of a baby -- the monogenes theos (only begotten god) as John 1:18 describes it in the original Greek -- Christmas! No wonder so many Muslims are hostile and angry. They have little companionship from women and not even any companionship from dogs -- which are emotionally important in most other cultures. Dogs are "unclean" Some advice from Martin Luther: Esto peccator et pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in christo qui victor est peccati, mortis et mundi: peccandum est quam diu sic sumus. Vita haec non est habitatio justitiae Latina est immortalis On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article. I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age. I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address! Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds Even Mahatma Gandhi was profoundly unimpressed by Africans http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/42197/20121106-1520/jonjayray.comuv.com/ There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here . Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)If the link to one of my articles is not working, the article concerned can generally be viewed by prefixing to the filename the following: Selected pictures from blogs (Backup here Another picture page (Rarely updated)(My frequent reads are starred)Email me here (Hotmail address).The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here In this Nov. 4, 2008 file photo, President-elect Barack Obama and his family wave to supporters as they arrive for his election night party at Grant Park in Chicago. More white Americans now share the view, long held by minorities, that racism is a national problem and should be confronted, according to an analysis of recent public opinion polling. W.K. Kellogg Foundation analysis, obtained by The Associated Press, notes that since President Barack Obama's election in 2008, polls have shown an overall decrease in the number of people who believe race relations are "very or fairly good."(AP Photo/Alex Brandon) More white Americans now share the view, long held by minorities, that racism is a national problem and should be confronted, according to an analysis of recent public opinion polling. The review, compiled by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in conjunction with the Northeastern University School of Journalism, concludes that a majority of Americans across racial groups think more should be done to end racism. To that end, the foundation announced Thursday that it is launching a "Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Commission" to discuss solutions for ending systemic inequality based on race. Media coverage, combined with technology, has helped to make a powerful case for racial bias being more of an abiding pattern than a snapshot of any given moment in time, said Jonathan Kaufman, director of Northeastern's journalism school. "When whites see injustice, they're human, and they understand what it's like to be afraid," Kaufman said. "I think that cuts through people's prejudices and makes them think twice." Kellogg's analysis, obtained by The Associated Press, notes that since President Barack Obama's election in 2008, polls have shown an overall decrease in the number of people who believe race relations are "very or fairly good." In January 2009, a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll showed 79 percent of whites, 76 percent of blacks and 64 percent of Hispanics held that view. The same poll seven years later showed 33 percent of whites, 26 percent of blacks and 38 percent of Hispanics felt the same way. A similar Gallup poll showed a 10-point drop for blacks and 35-point drop for whites on the state of race relations between 2008 and 2015. The increased use of technology in documenting racial incidencessuch as in the killings of unarmed black males by policehas helped drive new attitudes among whites about the realities of racism in America, researchers found. New York Times/CBS polling in 1995 showed only 15 percent of whites believed the criminal justice system was biased against blacks, compared to 51 percent of blacks. By 2015, that number had risen to 44 percent of whites and 77 percent of blacks. Polls from CNN/Kaiser Family Foundation and Gallup showed an increase in the number of whites who believe the criminal justice system is biased against black people. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in July 2015 found that 47 percent of whites said police sometimes treat minority groups more roughlycompared to 81 percent of blacks who felt the same wayand 52 percent of whites think police treat all races and ethnic groups equally. In the same poll, 45 percent of whites said poor relations between police and the public they serve is a major reason for police violence against civilians, compared to 73 percent of blacks. The Kellogg Foundation, one of the country's largest philanthropic organizations, was started by the breakfast cereal pioneer in 1930. In recent years, the foundation has focused on efforts to promote racial equity and has committed $300 million a year to advocate groups to address racial disparities for children of color. Kellogg is committing $35 million over seven years to the commission, which is based on other such efforts implemented in countries like South Africa after the end of apartheid and on a local level in the U.S. It is the first such national initiative since President Bill Clinton commissioned a national conversation on race in 1997. "We're seeing an unprecedented moment in time where the human will is in a place ... for an opportunity for greater shared learning and understanding of one another, a space to create conversation and action," said Kellogg president and chief executive officer La June Montgomery Tabron. Over the next four to six months, more than 70 partner organizations will discuss the commission's design and create working groups focused on issues like employment, health, segregation and housing, Tabron said. Kellogg's analysis was done taking comparative polling data over the past two decades from CNN/Kaiser Family Foundation; PBS NewsHouse and Marist College's Institute for Public Opinion; The New York Times/CBS; The Wall Street Journal/NBC News; The Pew Research Center and Gallup. Poll questions were not identical, but researchers considered them similar enough to draw conclusions and identify trends. 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Apple is recalling some AC power adapters that it sold for use in continental Europe, South Korea and several other countries outside the United States, after concluding that the two-pronged wall plugs may break and cause an electric shock. The company said it's aware of 12 "incidents" of malfunctioning adapters that were shipped with Mac computers and some iPhones and iPads between 2003 and 2015, although it didn't offer details. Some plugs affected by the recall were sold as part of Apple's World Travel Adapter Kit. The announcement comes a week after Microsoft announced its own voluntary recall of certain power cords sold with Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2, and some Surface Pro 3 computers before March 15, 2015. Apple recalls are relatively rare, but the company last summer announced a recall of Beats Pill XL audio speakers, citing a concern that batteries might overheat and cause a fire. Apple has also warned in the past about safety hazards associated with power adapters made by unauthorized "third-party" manufacturers. For several months in 2013, it offered to sell a new USB adapter at a discounted price of $10 to any customer who turned in an old one. The current recall also involves adapters designed for use in Argentina, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand, but not in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, China, Hong Kong or Japan. Apple has posted details at: www.apple.com/support/ac-wallplug-adapter/ Explore further Apple recalls Beats speakers due to fire risk 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. An effort to clean up local elections in Brazil has yielded new evidence about the prevalence of "voter buying" in one of the world's largest democracies. A study co-authored by an MIT political scientist finds that audits of voters reduce the electorate by 12 percentage points in local elections, and lower the chances of mayoral re-election by 18 percentage points. Fraudulent electoral practices are also much more prevalent in small towns than in larger places. While patronage systems are often thought to materially reward existing residents for their votes, such political machines not only "influence actions of the electorate," as the new paper states; they also change the composition of the electorate. In Brazil, contemporary procedures and technology have left political machines unable to invent voters and votes out of thin air. Instead, the electoral subterfuge in question consists of efforts to "import" real voters into places where they do not legally belong, through dubious registration practices. "In Brazil, where they have a good voting system and there is essentially no ballot stuffing, you can still have this other vector for fraud that can have quite large effects on who wins and loses," says F. Daniel Hidalgo, an assistant professor in MIT's Department of Political Science and a co-author of the paper. "In large swaths of the territory, it's a big issue." Yet the results also suggest the limitations of "electoral tourism," as it is sometimes called globally. Compared to old-fashioned ballot-stuffing practices, this form of fraud is more expensive, and thus may be more limited in scope. That may explain why it seems more common in smaller places; importing a given number of voters would have a lesser impact in a larger municipality. "This is a good story, in the sense that cheaper ways of rigging the vote are unavailable," Hidalgo says. The paper, "Voter Buying: Shaping the Electorate through Clientelism" has been published by the American Journal of Political Science. The authors are Hidalgo and Simeon Nichter, an assistant professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego. The 80 percent solution The study uses what social scientists call a "regression discontinuity design" to arrive at its findings. Regression discontinuity designs usually compare social outcomes that fall narrowly on opposite sides of some sort of cutoff, such as one determined by a policy decision. In this case, Brazilian electoral courts order audits of voting rolls when the eligible electorate exceeds 80 percent of a municipality's population. So, by comparing the election results in places where just under 80 percent of the population was eligible to vote, with results in places that triggered audits because slightly more than 80 percent of the population could vote, Hidalgo and Nichter were able to see auditing-related differences between places that were otherwise broadly similar in voting terms. "Because it's fraud, it's hard to measure," Hidalgo observes. In Brazil, he adds, "There are a lot of anecdotes, but it hasn't really been studied systematically." In 2007, about one-quarter of Brazil's 5,564 municipalities exceeded the 80 percent threshold, although a slightly smaller fraction was actually audited. The researchers based the study on a wave of electoral audits conducted in 2007 and 2008, the largest set of such checks Brazil has conducted in decades. About three-quarters of the towns with suspiciously high voter registration numbers had a population of 11,300 citizens or fewer; only two had populations over 90,000. A level playing field for challengers Cleaning up elections has a disproportional effect on incumbents, Hidalgo and Nichter write, because incumbents are likely to have "greater access to resources" than challengers do, which enables to them conduct more voter buying. Those resources can include access to public funds or social programs, or staff that process registration transfers. In all, the proportion of incumbents winning re-election after audits took place dropped from 53 percent to 35 percent. "Mayoral elections in Brazil are incredibly competitive," says Hidalgo, noting that a paradox of sorts exists in the country: "It's a vibrant democracy, but that generates strong incentives for mayors to do this kind of thing [voter buying]." Other scholars regard the work as innovative and interesting. Haracio Larreguy, an assistant professor of government at Harvard University, who has read the paper, praises the study as providing "the first estimates of the extent of this issue in a developing country, which is a context where voter buying is believed to be of big relevance." Larreguy also states that the research "opens the door to more work on voter buying in other countries." Despite the results, Hidalgo emphasizes that in his view, Brazil's electoral system, in all its aspects, generally functions well. "I don't want to overstate and say this undermines the electoral system more broadly," he says, adding: "In some ways I would say their electoral system is better than ours [in the U.S. and Western Europe]," due to the presence of electronic voting, the use of nonelected officials to run elections, and other factors. Still, Hidalgo adds, he thinks studies of electoral malfeasance are always worth conducting. "I'm especially interested in interventions that increase participation, reduce fraud, and clean up elections," Hidalgo says. Explore further Researchers study mindset of Hong Kong voters More information: F. Daniel Hidalgo et al. Voter Buying: Shaping the Electorate through Clientelism, American Journal of Political Science (2015). Journal information: American Journal of Political Science F. Daniel Hidalgo et al. Voter Buying: Shaping the Electorate through Clientelism,(2015). DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12214 This story is republished courtesy of MIT News (web.mit.edu/newsoffice/), a popular site that covers news about MIT research, innovation and teaching. The frilly forms of corals and sponges are biological variations of hyperbolic geometry, as seen here on the Great Barrier Reef, near Cairns, Queensland, Australia. Credit: Wikimedia/Toby Hudson, CC BY-SA We have built a world of largely straight lines the houses we live in, the skyscrapers we work in and the streets we drive on our daily commutes. Yet outside our boxes, nature teams with frilly, crenellated forms, from the fluted surfaces of lettuces and fungi to the frilled skirts of sea slugs and the gorgeous undulations of corals. These organisms are biological manifestations of what we call hyperbolic geometry, an alternative to the Euclidean geometry we learn about in school that involves lines, shapes and angles on a flat surface or plane. In hyperbolic geometry the plane is not necessarily so flat. Yet while nature has been playing with hyperbolic forms for hundreds of millions of years, mathematicians spent hundreds of years trying to prove that such structures were impossible. But these efforts led to a realisation that hyperbolic geometry is logically legitimate. And that, in turn, led to the revolution that produced the kind of maths now underlying general relativity, and thus the structure of the universe. Non-Euclidean clause Hyperbolic geometry is radical because it violates one of the axioms of Euclidean geometry, which long stood as a model for reason itself. The fifth and final axiom of Euclid's system the so-called parallel postulate turns out not to be correct. Or at least not necessarily so. If we accept it, we get Euclidean geometry, but if we abandon it, other geometries become possible, most famously the hyperbolic variety. Euclid could only see one possible straight line through a point that does not meet the original line. Credit: Margaret Wertheim, Author provided Here's how the parallel postulate works. Consider a simple question: if I have a straight line, and a point outside the line, how many straight lines can I draw through the point that never meet the original line? Euclid said the answer is one and there couldn't be any more, which feels intuitively right. Mathematicians, being sticklers, wanted to prove this was true, but in the end such efforts led them to see that there is a logically consistent geometric system in which the answer is infinity. We can represent the situation as follows. This seems impossible and a first reaction is to say it's cheating because the lines look curved. But they only look curved because we're trying to project an image of a curved surface onto a flat plane. It's the same as when we're trying to project an image of the surface of the Earth onto a flat map; the relationships get distorted. To really see countries relative to one another we have to look at a globe. What if the straight lines look curved? Credit: Margaret Wertheim, Author provided So also with hyperbolic geometry. To really see what's going on we have to look at the curved surface itself, and here the lines are straight. One way of understanding different geometries is in terms of their curvature. A flat, or Euclidean plane has zero curvature. The surface of a sphere (like a beach ball) has positive curvature, and a hyperbolic plane has negative curvature. It's a geometric analogue of a negative number. When mathematicians discovered this aberrant geometry in the early 19th century they were nearly driven mad. "For God's sake please give it up," said the Hungarian mathematician Wolfgang Bolyai to his son Janos Bolyai, urging him abandon to work on hyperbolic geometry. How to turn our home planet into a flat Earth. Nature's work Yet critters who'd never studied non-Euclidean geometry had meanwhile just been doing it. Along with corals, many other species of reef organisms have hyperbolic forms, including sponges and kelps. Wherever there is an advantage to maximising surface area such as for filter feeding animals hyperbolic shapes are an excellent solution. There are hyperbolic structures in cells, hyperbolic cacti and hyperbolic flowers, such as calla lilies. In the film Avatar, there is a fabulous CGI grove of giant hyperbolic blooms that curl up when touched. Hyperbolic surfaces can also be built at the molecular scale from carbon atoms. These carbon nano-foams were discovered in 1997 by physicist Andrei Rode and his colleagues at the Australian National University. This image shows straight lines drawn on a paper model of a hyperbolic plane. All the pencil lines that appear to be curved were drawn with a ruler so they are actually straight. Credit: Margaret Cagyle, Institute For Figuring, Author provided That year Cornell mathematician Daina Taimina also worked out how to model such surfaces using crochet, which was a big deal because it's actually hard for humans to construct these forms. For the past 10 years, I've been spearheading a project where we use hyperbolic crochet to make woolly simulations of coral reefs. Our Crochet Coral Reefs are an artistic response to the devastation of living reefs due to global warming and have been exhibited at art galleries and science museums around the world, including the Smithsonian. Here, a ball of wool and a crochet hook become pedagogical tools bringing mathematics out of textbooks, and taking it to people as a living tactile experience. More than 8,000 women in a dozen countries (including Australia, the United States of America, and the United Arab Emirates) have participated in making these installations, which reside at the intersection of mathematics, marine biology, community art practice and environmentalism. The shape of the universe Once mathematicians realised that different geometrical spaces are possible, a question arose as to which one is realised in physical space. What is the shape of our universe? Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton founded modern physics on the assumption that space is Euclidean, but Albert Einstein's equations of general relativity describe a universe that can have complex curved forms. One of the major questions astronomers are trying to resolve, with instruments such as the Hubble Space Telescope, is what shape our universe has. While most of the large-scale evidence points to a Euclidean structure, there is some tantalising evidence that we might just live in a hyperbolic world. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. A picture taken in Wageningen, on January 28, 2016 shows the WEpod shuttle, designed to carry six people without a driver, running during its first test drive The Netherlands started test-driving its first driverless minibuses on Thursday hoping to introduce a full-time autonomous passenger service in a central Dutch province by summer. Dutch Infrastructure Minister Melanie Schultz van Haegen took the first ride in a so-called "WEpod" shuttle, designed to carry six people without a driver between the towns of Wageningen and Ede in the Gelderland province. "Currently two WEPods will drive around the campus" at Wageningen University, where it is being tested, said Jac Niessen, the university's science spokesman. "At the end of a successful testing phase, the route will be expanded off campus," the province said in a press release. The 12-minute route will take passengers along quiet back roads, but the minibus will have to contend with cars, cyclists and pedestrians. It will be programmed with a carefully mapped-out route in which all obstacles including trees and streetlights have been documented. The eventual plan "is to have them drive on a route, within traffic from nearby Ede to Wageningen by the middle of the year," Niessen told AFP. The minibus will be equipped with cameras, radar and laser sensors with on-board computers relaying information to the brakes and steering. Its movements will be carefully watched from a central control room and it can be handed over to a controller if difficulties arise. The French-designed WEPods were delivered to Wageningen in September and research began immediately. Electric-powered, the minibuses are capable of reaching speeds of up to 40 kilometres per hour (25 miles per hour) but will initially travel no faster than 25 km per hour. It has a range of around 100 kilometres (60 miles). Further research is needed into insurance and liability issues, as well as human behaviour, traffic control and legislation, provincial authorities said. "This pilot project will help us shape the future" of transport, said Conny Bieze, Gelderland's provincial infrastructure chief. "This initiative helps to contribute to new forms of public transport," she said. "People will continue to travel, only the way they do it is going to change." Explore further Driverless taxi on Seoul campus offers glimpse of future 2016 AFP In this Dec. 13, 2011 file photo, a sign with Facebook's "Like" logo is posted at Facebook headquarters near the office for the company's User Operations Safety Team in Menlo Park, Calif. After four months of testing outside the U.S., Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, that "pretty soon" multiple new emotions will be added to the social network throughout the world. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File) It won't be long before Facebook's 1.6 billion users have more ways to quickly express their feelings on the world's largest social network. After four months of testing outside the U.S., Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that "pretty soon" six new emotions will be added to the social network throughout the world. Zuckerberg didn't give a more concrete timetable while discussing the new feature with analysts in a conference call Wednesday following Facebook's latest quarterly earnings report. The additional options will expand Facebook beyond the renowned thumbs-up symbol that people click on to show they like a comment, photo or video posted on the social network. The new reactions will include symbols for "angry," ''sad," ''wow," ''haha," ''yay" and "love." "We want people to be able to share all of the things that are meaningful to them, not just the things that are happy and that people are going to like when they see it," Zuckerberg said Wednesday. Facebook is hoping the additional choices will encourage people to share their thoughts more frequently and hang out on the social network for even longer periods than they already do. Facebook has been testing the different reactions in Chile, the Philippines, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Japan and Colombia. Zuckerberg said Facebook's engineers still need to make a few more "tweaks" before the new options are offered in other parts of the world. 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Singapore Trip 2015 (Part 3) : S.E.A Aquarium Hey hey hey! Continuing my Singapore Trip post! Not bad right, compared to last time :p. Hope to be able to finish it soon so i can blog about Japan! Anyway... It's all about S.E.A Aquarium today! Lucky enough to met the mascot and took a pic with it! Is it just me but every time i see a mascot which is that short i always wonder about the person inside the costume. Sometimes they're simply too short and employing kids are forbidden right... LOL. Btw, sometimes Singaporean are too strict that it annoys me, i mean we only put our hands gently on the mascot's back and the handler freaked, say no touching no touching. At moments like this i really wanted to kick the mascot in the back just to annoy the handler *LOLOLOL* #evil. Oh, i have a rather long and tiring background story about this. So this trips was all about Little O, so i wanted to entertain him and take him to all the places he wanted to go. Last time we went to Singapore, S.E.A was not opened yet, so we purposefully set a day to go to S.E.A and another day to USS (both are located in Sentosa). We purchased our tickets from tiket.com (dunno why i keep on insisting to do so when we already met so much troubles multiple times with them zzz, but this time it's our own fault la). CL already mentioned that we should exchange the voucher with actual tickets at Changi, but for some reasons hunny and i thought that we could just do it at the S.E.A (there's a small writing stating that we should exchange it at Changi), i just didn't read it properly while hunny thought it was ok because we did that before in other places (Disneyland HK to be one of them). So we went to Sentosa, paid the gruesome train ticket and all-only to be told that we HAVE to go back to Changi to exchange the tickets WTF. I know it's our own fault, but sadly the S.E.A employees also didn't do much to help us WTF. Other than making us even more panicked, that is. In the end because i am kiasu, we went all the way to Changi (and pretty much waste our whole day) while panicking and was sure that our tickets are as good as gone (because it was already late noon since we went pretty late coz we didn't think we'd spend too much time at S.E.A anyway)-and then the staff at Changi told us that our tickets are actually open and can be used any time WTF *LOL*. Seriously, shouldn't the S.E.A staff know that the tickets' open dates? At first they even insisted that our tickets cannot be used, period-before trying to find out the reason why when we insisted. I also met this kind of problems before in Disneyland Hong Kong, but the employees were a lot more helpful, as they made calls and contact their agents to help us out. Not the S.E.A employees, they told us to call our Indonesian tiket.com agents ourselves and basically told us to scram *LOL*. While it's still our own fault at large, i am totally less than impressed by their staffs' unwillingless to help. If they were friendlier and more accommodating, i would definitely be praising their services to the moon and back. But BLAH. Nope. Nope. Nope. Call me queen of complainers, but Resort Worlds Sento sa 's staffs needs to be retrain for friendliness/helpfulness in general. Oh well, we ended up going back the next day. No more drama, don't worry-now you can just enjoy the photos. Especially if you're into fishes (i am not). S.E.A Aquarium is actually attached to the Maritime Museum (which is a lot more interesting to me than the aquarium itself) and we have to pass the museum before we get to the S.E.A Aquarium. We already went (and spent a lot of time) at the museum a few years ago (before S.E.A opened), while it's actually very interesting for first timer, we didn't want to waste our time looking at the exact same things twice. I have detailed photos from our last visit there in my old folders, just let me know if any of you are interested in a review of the museum! Au should already know by now that when i take pictures, they'd ended up in my blog. It's not my fault if she chooses to act crazy in those pictures, especially because i didn't even know she was there... Before we got in, we (as in CL and i) got distracted by ice creammm... Andddd i just realized that it's called Il Gelato di Bruno. Is it the same as the one in Spazio, Surabaya? Look how happy CL looks when there's ice cream involved... I was in awe because there's a Hello Kitty flavored ice cream... But it's not cute so i wasn't interested *LOL* I have a thing for lollies... But i needed coffee so i settled for this! Okay, let's get in! Love this pic ^^ Sea eels are so ugly... I'm not into fishes, but i must admit that some of them are really pretty! Especially when it's pastel colored... Like this violet fishie! I think that little dude is very funny looking with that "nose" Look, look! Pastel rainbow colored fishie! New species of fishie KC This is slightly inappropriate, but i tend to think about seafood whenever i'm in aquariums/sea worlds. I always wanted to try out sea urchins because people keeps on raving about the fresh, real sea taste. I finally tried one in Japan. HOEKS. Ew. I do have a thing for starfish though. Preferably the fake ones... So colorfullll Again i can't stop thinking about cooked lobsters... Eh, i just have to :p The prettier, clearer and more artistic photos such as this one were taken by hunny with his NX-300. Told ya he's good with non-human objects This little fella is really ugly, don't you think? LOL With my babyyy Whenever i see this kind of fish, i remember Deuce Bigalow and his blended fish... So mesmerizing... Interesting trivia We were waiting for a show (was it feeding or something...) so we sat around and snacked... Only to be told later that the show was changed into some other type of very boring and uninteresting one zzzzz. Hunny always has a thing for turkey leg I think he's obsessed about eating like a barbarian... Yes, we took each other's pic pigging out, we're cute that way *LOLOLOL* My boys are definitely more into fishes than me I like other creatures of the sea though, fishes simply bore me -____- Hmmmm... wonder if this one's also edible... Stingrays are yummy too... These guys are hilarious looking! There were exhibition of some competition I don't remember why i snapped this pic. Btw, i loved the Noah's Ark. Remember to leave a comment if you want to see more of the museum We moved to Universal Studio afterward (which i'm going to blog next) and wrapped out visit to S.E.A Aquarium. I'm honestly not that impressed, it doesn't look any different that the many many Sea Worlds i've been in. I think i'm still most blown away by Thai's Sea Life Bangkok Ocean World, i should totally bring Little O there. If you've never been to neither the museum nor the aquarium, then i'd say it's worth a visit once. But if you've been to the museum before like us, the aquarium's totally skip-able. And i'm still very sore of the staffs. Yes, i do hold grudges. BillPro Adds New Global Payments Products for Merchants Cross-border payments specialist provides 7 new alternatives for EU markets Queensland, Australia (January 26, 2016) BillPro (www.billpro.com), an international merchant processing service provider, is pleased to announce an expanded suite of payments options for merchants selling in the European market. This comes directly on the heels of the recent opening of BillPros local European offices in Amsterdam, which in conjunction with the seven alternative payment services, serve to widen BillPro clients access to popular bank-transfer solutions, local payment options, personalised account management services and real-time reporting tools that improve conversion rates while reducing risk. We are very pleased to provide broader coverage in 13 countries, said Daria Rippingale, CEO of BillPro. Our clients can now offer the preferred online payment methods for tens of millions of European shoppers, while also benefitting from faster settlement times, lower processing fees, and the elimination of chargeback risk. BillPros new offerings are iDEAL, which has 60% of the bank-transfer market in the Netherlands; national online banking service EPS in Austria; Przelewy24 (P24) in Poland, which links to all Polish banks; Giropay in Germany, which partners with EPS to deliver access to 40 million German and Austrian customers; Teleingreso in Spain; and Faster Payments in the UK, which handles more than 100 million online transactions each month. The portfolio expansion also includes Sofort, a part of Swedens Klarna Group. Sofort is connected to many German banks and is also available in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK. The bank-transfer services offer instant alternatives to credit card payments, with real-time transaction notification, assured funds, no chargebacks, and reduced or eliminated refunds or charge reversals in several markets. Merchants also benefit from the marketing support provided by these popular payment methods, which typically have high adoption and conversion rates. About BillPro BillPro is an international online payments provider delivering secure payment solutions for all business types. BillPro offers credit card, eCheck, ACH and international bank payments and secure multi-currency payment options through its network of international banking partners. BillPro protects its merchants with a Level 1 PCI DSS Compliant payment gateway that is fully integrated with many of the worlds largest gateways and shopping carts. With competitive rates and lucrative partner programs, BillPro is a leading provider of merchant accounts for domestic and international merchants. For more information, visit www.billpro.com MORE POS news For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are the instructions how to enable JavaScript in your web browser ALBANY | A federal grand jury has indicted a South Glens Falls woman for allegedly defrauding the Social Security program of $112,072, authorities said. Roberta. L. Rivers, 57, faces charges of theft of government funds, Supplemental Security Income fraud and Social Security fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. She is accused of concealing the fact that she had remarried, which allowed her to receive benefits to which she wasn't entitled. Rivers was arraigned before U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel Stewart and released on bond pending further court action March 28. The charges are punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison. M WAQAR..... "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary.Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." --Albert Einstein !!! NEWS,ARTICLES,EDITORIALS,MUSIC... Ze chi pe mayeen yum da agha pukhtunistan de.....(Liberal,Progressive,Secular World.)''Secularism is not against religion; it is the message of humanity.'' In press statement released today, IFAD said the project will target poor farmers and women-headed households. According to the statement, the total cost of the project is estimated at just under US$53 million. The funding is comprised of a $16.9 million IFAD loan and an additional $16.9 million IFAD grant. The government of DRC will contribute nearly $6 million while beneficiaries will provide an additional $3.5 million. In addition, the Government of DRC is seeking cofinancing of $9.7 million from other donors, IFAD said. The agreement was signed in Rome by Henri Yav Mulang, Minister for Finance of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and by Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of IFAD, according to the statement. Smallholder farmers targeted by the project are those who typically cultivate less than one hectare, own less than five head of livestock, own rudimentary transportation and are widowed or women heads of households, the IFAD explained. The project activities, according to the statement, "will focus on building the capacity of farmers, farmers organizations and provincial agricultural services involved in maize, rice, potato and Arabica coffee value chains." "It will ensure that the agricultural services farmers receive from producers organizations are adequate and meet their needs," the statement added. According to the statement, the project will improve smallholder farmers access to agricultural inputs, such as fertilizers and certified seeds, and their access to markets. "It will assist farmers' organizations in building storage facilities and warehouses to assist farmers in selling their products at a higher price." In a press statement issued in Accra yesterday and signed by the Commuinications Minister, Dr. Edward Omane Boamah, government said: "We acknowledge the singling out of Ghana and Senegal for praise in the report on efforts made by the respective governments on one hand and social partners on the other to combat the menace." Ghana however maintained its 7th position on the African continent, trailing behind Botwana, Cape Verde, Seychelles, Rwanda, Mauritius and Namibia. Given that this is a perception survey, it stands to reason that the views expressed by respondents were based on perceptions about the subject in the year under review, Omane Boamah said. While welcoming Ghana's improved position on the index, Omane Boamah attributed people's perception of corruption in the country to "the repetition of some obviously false allegations against government." Prior to his new role as Managing Director of GGBL, Mr. Agbonlahor was General Manager of Meta Abo Brewery, Diageos business in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for four years, where he successfully transformed a previously government owned company into a high performing, privatised, global business in Ethiopia. He also served for four years as Supply Chain Director and Board Member of Guinness Nigeria PLC until December 2011 and before that he held various senior roles within Diageo, majority of these in Nigeria.He joined Guinness Nigeria in 1990 as a graduate management trainee fresh from the university. Mr. Zhu will arrive in Botswana on January 26 and will meet with President Ian Khama, senior government officials, and representatives of civil society and the private sector. Mr. Zhu will deliver a keynote speech in Gaborone at a regional conference on Small and Middle-Income Countries (SMICs). Participants will include central bank governors, ministers and other senior officials from a number of countries. The conference will speak to the main challenges that SMICs in sub-Saharan Africa are faced with, and the policies required to confront the challenges effectively in order to facilitate their transition to high-income status, Mr. Zhu said. From January 31 to February 2, Mr. Zhu will be in Accra where he will meet with President John Mahama and other senior leaders, along with business leaders, economists, and representatives of civil society. He also will deliver a keynote speech at a conference on the value of Enhanced Data for Better Macro-Policies in Africa. Participants will include senior officials from central banks and ministries of finance, national statistics officers and academics. "We have been very concerned about this figure. Some were even brought in dead. Last year, we had a seminar for men and women of God, spiritually and tried to educate them on what some of the challenges are. Some are due to the space constraints, where women wait for long hours before theatre services are provided," she told GBC News. Dr. Sylvia Deganus made this known after a presentation of medical equipment to the Maternity Block of the Hospital in Tema. Amongst the items donated were resuscitators, drip stands, wheel chairs, professional patient trolleys, and autoclave. The donation of medical equipment worth 48 thousand dollars was by C2YA International, an NGO in collaboration with the Ghana International Bank in UK and RAHA Medical Supply Limited. The Tema General Hospital has been used as a major hospital and a referral centre in the Tema region.However, with increased population, more pressure is being placed on facilities at the hospital. However, almost two months on since the outbreak, efforts to control its spread are yet to show results. The outbreak of the disease which began in December 2015 in the Tain District of the Brong Ahafo Region later spread to Wenchi, Techiman, Bruohan, Kintampo, and Sene districts, all in the Brong Ahafo Region. Bole in the Northern Region has also recorded some cases, with the latest being the Ashanti and Volta regions. One cannot argue that the situation has persisted because of failure on the part of health authorities to tackle the disease at its sources. Pneumococcal Meningitis is a deadly disease in which there is swelling and irritation (inflammation) of the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord (meninges).It is caused by viral or bacterial infection, and marked by intense headache and fever, sensitivity to light, and muscular rigidity. With transmission or spread of the disease happening by direct contact, including respiratory droplets from nose and throat of infected persons or carriers, one would have thought that much education and awareness creation would have been created around communities and towns, especially for people in the rural areas. But, this has not been the case, with the result being a section of Ghanaians not having any knowledge about the disease. What has been done so far since the outbreak The Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Victor Asare Bampoe went to the Brong Ahafo region to assess the situation and ensure the outbreak is well managed. The Ministry has subsequently indicated that government has set aside GHC 150,000 for the fight of the disease. The Deputy Minister of Health also revealed that the Health Ministry is seeking support from the World Health Organisation (WHO) to handle the outbreak. The WHO has already supplied laboratory equipment and has indicated that it will continue to support government with the needed antibiotics to contain the spread, he said at a press conference on Monday, January 25, 2016. Dr. Bampoe further said the Health Ministry is intensifying its education and community-based surveillance in the affected communities. In all the epidemics that we have had, we dont have any established cases of health workers getting the CSM transferred to them. We are confident that if health workers employ the nose mask and the normal barrier nursing methods, then they should not be at risk, so that is not an issue, he added. What is lacking in the fight against the disease Following the outbreak of the deadly Ebola disease in Guinea, which spread to other African countries including Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, one would have expected Ghana's government to take a cue from that and give the deadly Pneumococcal Meningitis all the needed attention it deserved. The following are additional emergency steps I believe Government should have taken to curb the situation: 1. The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Civil Society Organisations, the media and other stakeholders should have been charged by government to offer massive public education on the disease, especially for people living in overcrowded communities and rural areas so they could protect themselves from the disease. 2. What is more, the Health Ministry must adopt the clinical use of Isolation centers, while tracking and increasing surveillance of affected persons and other persons they had had contact with. 3. The World Health Organisation (WHO) which has expressed readiness to help Ghana fight the deadly disease had earlier indicated that vaccination could be used to contain the situation. Most cases of Pneumococcal Meningitis are in children under two years of age, elderly adults and people with risk factors. But, how many have been vaccinated so far against the disease? The Health Minister, Alex Segbefia has subsequently assured that his Ministry will procure vaccines for the deadly disease through sole sourcing. Due to the intensity of the outbreak, I hope that the move for vaccination would be followed to the latter. The way forward Ghanaians in the Greater Accra region and others living in the southern parts of the country should not cross their arms and assume they have been spared. The disease is spreading fast, with seven suspected cases having been reported in the Volta region on Tuesday. This means you and I are all at risk of being infected if government fails to be on high alert. With Ghana's poor Road Naming exercise, there is no denying the fact that health authorities would find it difficult to locate the persons affected so far and track their activities with other persons. Nevertheless, government must be on its toes more than ever to contain the disease and avert future deaths. Its easy to point out Amakye Dedes dark lips, Daddy Lumbas lightened skin, Shatta Wales heavy lips, Dede Ayews balding head hence the Sakora, Saminis fine face, Nikki Samonas thin frame, E.L and Joey Bs awesome height, Obuors pot belly which he is working on, Ama Boahemaas weather induced bleached skin, Wiyaalas sharp features, Joselyns curves, Moeshas melons, Roselyn Ngissahs and Kokui Selormeys plump frame, Kwabena Marfos shrill voice but to what purpose. At a generally well produced and received Live FM launch, a member of the enthusiastic crowd jumped on the stage when twin, Livingstone Etse Satekla simply known as Stonebwoy was performing one of his tunes and tragically mimicked the posture of the entertainer. Tragically once more a furious Stonebwoy released the mic and walked off the stage. Later events have it that Stonebwoys crew sounded the miscreant well well to teach him a lesson. Business manager of Live FM has also we are informed apologized to the entertainer for the unfortunate incident. While it is tasteless what that crazed chap did, I reckon Stonebwoy you ought to have continued your performance, ignored the buffoon and in the end risen above the hate. If there is anyone Stonebwoy you must learn from in managing such uncomfortable situations, it is your mentor Samini. The Dagaati man has fought battles as well as wars and managed to still be relevant today partly because he does not show weakness or pain in the face of attack. I am not in Saminis head but can hazard a guess that he would have continued to perform and eventually the crowd would have booed away the miscreant. Stonebwoy you were just like any non-handicapped chap moving around without restriction till a vehicle knocked you off resulting in the hindrance in your knee requiring metal implants. Growing up with todays Tema music dons including Sarkodie, it is remarkable that you have managed despite the odds to emerge as an in-demand top 3 music act in the country. Sure as the sun shines, there would be haters but in times such as these Livingstone you must let your music guide you. The spirit should have held sway for you to have //comot your eye since you have seen many pass this one// especially for one out of Ashiaman Lebanon. Unless the guys surprise act was a thunderbolt which hit you, you should have displayed the //cant cool..cant quench spirit// since that chap: //cant stop fire from burning// Remember since you are part of the chosen few, much more is required of you. My Dearest Stone, have you forgotten so soon a question yourself and Gappy Ranks asked: //why some people wicked soa me no know o// What that chap did falls right here and the simple answer is certain people are just wicked and mean. You shouldnt have given him the joy to have messed up your evening and surely distort the organizers schedule. Ei my guy so soon you forgot and your smash hit when like a sage you talked about the hate which drove that chap who sought to embarrass you in front of the world and crash your self-esteem but always bear your own words in mind: //dem dey susupon me ei e, dem dey susupon you too//dem dey talk about me ei.. e be your body dem want too o// but I dey pray make I go higher.. because dem dey throw fire..// My guy, what then happens if at another show someone decides to waste all your sound check effort, deprive your loyal fans from seeing you perform to heal them and to generally do what you love doing best? Would you throw away the mic once more? No you shouldnt Etse, rather put in stellar work such that any fellow who attempts this despicable act shall make a fool of himself/herself standing there even as you do your work totally ignoring him or her. I wish you the very best life has to offer but be even more conditioned to see such crass acts. I trust your good self, Blakk Cedi and the team have had a detailed discussion as to how to react in the face of varied eventualities. A notice circulating on social media suggests that the service is undertaking recruitment exercises across the country. "The Police Administration's attention has been drawn to a story making the rounds on social media to the effect that the Police have advertised recruitment into the Service, and wishes to entreat the public to disregard it," a statement from the police administration has stated. Read more: 13 persons arrested over recruitment scam in National Security It said "Police recruitment announcements are not jointly signed by the Vice President and the IGP." Below is the full statement: DISCLAIMER: The Police Administration's attention has been drawn to a story making the rounds on social media to the effect that the Police have advertised recruitment into the Service, and wishes to entreat the public to disregard it. 1. The said advert is not coming from the Police. See also: 10 granted bail over recruitment in National Security 2. Police recruitment announcements are not jointly signed by the Vice President and the IGP. 3. Police public notices are officially by the national dailies before any other medium. The public are hereby advised to disregard this advert in order not to fall victims to schemes of criminals. It is, however, unclear what triggered the latest clashes. The chieftaincy dispute has been in court for eight years but that has not stopped the factions from going at each other from time to time. Numerous deaths have been recorded between Jamong and Jafog clans in the Bunkprugu traditional area. See also: Curfew on Bunkprugu renewed There are have also been attempts for peaceful co-existence in between the two clans. This was announced on Wednesday evening after negotiations with Organised Labour and Government. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Haruna Iddrissu; the General Secretary for Organised Labour, Kofi Asamoah; Terrence Darko for the Ghana Employers Association and James Asare-Adjei, for the Association of Ghana Industries. This means that consumption between zero and 50 units will attract a relief of 45 percent, and those between 51 and three hundred units, 50 percent. However, the percentage increase in water tariffs and taxes on petroleum products remain the same. The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission on December 14, 2015, announced that electricity tariffs had gone up by 59.2% and 67.2% for water tariffs. The Senators, Mark Kirk of Illinois, Roy Blunt of Missouri, James Lankford of Oklahoma and Steve Daines of Montana made this known in a letter to State and Foreign Operations and Related Programs Chairman Lindsay Graham and the Appropriations Committee Chairman, Thad Cochran. According to them, they are concerned about the governments capacity to hold, monitor and ensure these terrorist detainees do not reengage in terrorism against the United States and our allies. They are therefore requesting that the committee reduce assistance to Ghana by $10 million per detainee "in the event either of these detainees escapes from confinement or re-engages in terrorism while in Ghanas custody, a statement on the US Senate website stated. "We are grateful for Ghanas friendship and the strong bilateral relationship between our two countries. As members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, we have consistently voted to support foreign assistance to Ghana. However, with the U.S. Intelligence Community in agreement that 30 percent of the terrorists released from Guantanamo are known or suspected to have re-joined the fight against Americans, it is reckless to release more of these prisoners, particularly when the ability of the host country to hold and monitor these detainees is in doubt, they said. Below is the full letter from the four US Senators Dear Chairman Cochran and Chairman Graham: We are concerned about the Administrations transfer of two Guantanamo terrorist detainees to Ghana on January 6, 2016, and the Ghanaian governments capacity to hold, monitor, and ensure these terrorist detainees do not reengage in terrorism against the United States and our allies. As you know, the Administration transferred Yemeni detainees Mahmoud Omar Mohammed Bin Atef, a Taliban fighter and member of Osama bin Ladens 55th Brigade who threatened to cut the throats of American guards and their families upon release, and Khalid Mohammed Salih al Dhuby, an al Qaeda fighter in Afghanistan who reportedly threatened to kill guards at Guantanamo Bay, to Ghana after President John Dramani Mahama agreed to host them for two years. While the Administrations own Guantanamo task force neither cleared Atef and Dhuby of their involvement in terrorism nor recommend them for outright release, U.S. Embassy in Ghana spokesman Daniel Fennell inexplicably told Ghanaian media the current assessment is that these two people coming to Ghana do not pose a security threat. President Mahama, who also maintains these terrorist detainees pose no threat, asserts they are housed safely on a security compound. The security procedures for the terrorist detainees compound remain unclear, however. What is clear is Ghanas Foreign Ministry says their nation will accept the terrorist detainees for a period of two years, after which they may leave the country. While Ghana has not previously held terrorist detainees, the nations prison system provides an illustrative indicator of the countrys limitations in credibly detaining and monitoring these hardened terrorists. The prison system is plagued by decay and mismanagement. The majority of Ghanas prison facilities were constructed during the colonial era and lack the modern infrastructure required to hold inmates. According to one third-party study, the countrys prison system operates at 145 percent capacity nationally, with some prisons operating up to 300 percent over capacity. In recent years, 30 or more prisoners have escaped from Ghanas prisons annually. It is clear no facility in the world, let alone in Ghana, could detain terrorists as securely as Guantanamo. We are grateful for Ghanas friendship and the strong bilateral relationship between our two countries. As members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, we have consistently voted to support foreign assistance to Ghana. However, with the U.S. Intelligence Community in agreement that 30 percent of the terrorists released from Guantanamo are known or suspected to have re-joined the fight against Americans, it is reckless to release more of these prisoners, particularly when the ability of the host country to hold and monitor these detainees is in doubt. We therefore request the Committee to include in the fiscal year 2017 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs appropriations bill, language that would reduce assistance to Ghana by $10 million per detainee in the event either of these detainees escapes from confinement or reengages in terrorism while in Ghanas custody. Such language would incentivize Ghanaian authorities to allocate appropriate resources to closely and securely monitor the activities of these terrorist detainees. The Doha-based channel said in a news report on its website that correspondent Hamdi Al-Bokari, cameraman Abdulaziz Al-Sabri and driver Moneer Al-Sabai were released by their captors, whose identity remains unclear. Fighters loyal to Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi are battling Iran-allied Houthi militia and loyalists of the country's former leader in a war that has raged for nine months and in which some 6,000 people have been killed. Al Jazeera, whose reporting of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings won it millions of viewers in the Middle East, has seen several of its journalists detained and killed in recent years in conflicts across the region. Qatar is a member of the Saudi-led coalition backing Hadi, which is seeking to advance on the capital Sanaa through Taiz from its base in the southern port city of Aden, captured from the Houthis in July. Hadi and his government are based in Yemen's second largest city Aden, where gunmen widely believed to be Islamist militants have assassinated dozens of policemen and security officials in recent months. Dozens of armoured vehicles accompanied by troops from the United Arab Emirates arrived in Aden's port on Wednesday, security officials said. "The deployment of the vehicles and soldiers is part of a comprehensive plan to combat the security vacuum and the assassination cells who have been operating in the city," a Yemeni security official said. When was the last time you were so frustrated or appalled by something, you took to the streets demanding change? In an age where we are more likely to take to social media to express outrage, Pulse.com.gh journalist Stacey Knott looks at the importance of physically protesting. The District Chief Executive (DCE) of Asante Akyem North, Awerh Aziru said security will be provided for the event in order to prevent any disturbances. This follows a long standing dispute between the residents of the area and the Fulani herdsmen following the latter's continuous refusal to check their cattle from destroying the food crops of the indigenes. The Fulani herdsmen have also been accused of raping the women in the town as well as murdering persons who dare challenge them. In an interview on Radio Ghana after a DISEC meeting on Wednesday, the DCE said his outfit will engage the youth in a series of discussions to enable them reach an amicable solution. "I want the Agogo residents to understand that we understand their concerns. I am one month old in this position and this time, DISEC will solve the problem once and for all," he promised. He indicated that organizing press conferences and issuing threats "is npt the way to go about it." A statement signed by the Secretary of the Greater Accra branch Victor Quarshie Adonoo stated that the MP has apologized for the way and manner he conducted himself after the partys presidential and parliamentary primaries. The Greater Accra regional executive of the NDC suspended the MP and aspiring member of Parliament for the Ningo Prampram constituency, Sam George following allegation of verbal attack on them. But the party said "The Member of Parliament for Dadekotopon in the Greater Accra region Hon. Nii Amasah Namoale has been pardoned after apologising to the Greater Accra Regional Executives of the National Democratic Congress". Below is the full statement: HON. NII AMASAH NAMOALE GRANTED ABSOLUTE PARDON BY GREATER ACCRA NDC The Member of Parliament for Dadekotopon in the Greater Accra region Hon. Nii Amasah Namoale has been pardoned after apologising to the Greater Accra Regional Executives of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). Hon. Namoale was suspended from the party with effect from December 1 2015 pending the hearing by the Discipline Committee in line with the partys constitution for making disparaging comments about some of the Regional Executives of the party after the presidential and parliamentary primaries in his constituency. See related: Suspended Namoale renders apology to NDC He however apologised to the leadership of the party in the region on the 16 of December 2015 for the way and manner he conducted himself after the primaries and has assured the region of his highest respect. He indicated in his letter that Clerics and traditional leaders in my constituency have had a meeting with me to know and understand that my choice of words in the interview I granted to the various media houses was unacceptable as their member of parliament". According to him, "the partys focus has shifted from a collective effort to build the party to the pursuit of positions for fulfilment of personal ambitions." In his resignation letter dated January, 4 2016, to the national chairman of the party, he said "Indifference to the collective good for the cause of the party is pervasive and has subsequently spawned a culture of intolerance and indiscipline that is rooted in reckless factionalism." Read more: Abu Sakara quits CPP to contest as independent candidate A portion of his letter said, "This trend has now reached its peak and I fear it has eroded all CPPs institutions and systems that were built over the years. What is left is the semblance of a personality cult club built around the ambition of an individual. The sole purpose of this seems to begin a process of leadership by dynastic succession." Below is Dr. Abu Sakaras official resignation letter January 4, 2016Dr. Edmund DelleThe National ChairmanConvention Peoples PartyAsylum Down,Accra. ThroughMr. Felix AmoahCouncil of Elders ChairmanConvention Peoples PartyAccra Comrade Chairman, Resignation of Dr. Michael Abu Sakara Foster from the Convention Peoples PartyI resign from the Convention Peoples Party with effective from January 4, 2016. My resignation is because I no longer believe that the Convention Peoples Party abides by the values and principles that drew me to it. Consequently the partys focus has shifted from a collective effort to build the party to the pursuit of positions for fulfilment of personal ambitions. Indifference to the collective good for the cause of the party is pervasive and has subsequently spawned a culture of intolerance and indiscipline that is rooted in reckless factionalism. This trend has now reached its peak and I fear it has eroded all CPPs institutions and systems that were built over the years. What is left is the semblance of a personality cult club built around the ambition of an individual. The sole purpose of this seems to begin a process of leadership by dynastic succession. The fact that several leading members support this dynastic project is a testimony to the fact that we have lost our way and probably the spirit of our cause. Together with others, I have spent the last eight years trying to rebuild the CPP as an alternative political force to the NDC and NPP. I committed resources beyond my means to achieve this as a lasting contribution to the memory of the great sacrifices that were made by the patriarchs and matriarchs that preceded my generation. Success would have been the greatest tribute we could have paid them. I cannot however see or fathom how the current state of the party can justify any further effort on my part. I have concluded that my aim to always work in the national interest will deliver greater results for my country outside of the CPP. I remain grateful for the opportunity to have served with many committed comrades, I am especially grateful to the few of my generation and the majority of elders who stood with me in the 2012 election when I had the privilege of representing the party as its Presidential Candidate. Their widows mite will always remind me of the passion for our dear nation that they carry in their hearts. See related: CPP predicts hardship for Sakara and Ayariga I now go forward to pursue the same aspiration of raising our nation to its rightful place by another path. I wish the many loyal comrades I leave behind best wishes in your endeavour. Perhaps we shall meet again in another place at another time.May God bless you and may you enjoy his peace. Yours Sincerely Dr. Omane- Bomah in response to the allegations, however, denied any such arrangement, maintaining that government has not contracted Afriwave Telecoms Ltd. to monitor international calls. Read More: > 4G For All NCA receives plaudits for opening up 4G spectrum auction In a statement released by the Minister and copied to Pulse Business, the Minister described Kwaku Kwarteng's comments as "unsubstantiated suspicions." Dr. Omane- Boamah stressed that he has no personal interest in Afriwave Telecom Limited, adding that, to his knowledge, no money has been paid to Afriwave Telecom Ltd, hence no double- payment has occured. Read More: >Punishment NCA sanctions Vodafone for poor service The minister found it unfair that the MP for Obuasi West will alleged that he( the minister) personally asked telcos to grant access to Afriwave Telecom Ltd into their facilities, a mandate that is solely for the National Communications Authority. Below is the full statement from the National Communications Authority: According to Kwaku Kwarteng, the contract to monitor international calls placed by telcos for the purposes of audits has already been awarded to Subah Info Solutions, and cannot be re- awarded without abrogating it, and tendering for companies to bid. Afriwave Telecom, a wholly owned Ghanaian company, has however responded to the allegations of their involvement in such a deal with the NCA. In a statement released and copied to Pulse Business, Afriwave said they have taken strong exceptions to the allegations by Kwaku Kwarteng and would like to set the record straight. Below is the full statement released by Afriwave: Afriwave Telecom, a wholly owned Ghanaian companys attention has been drawn to false allegations being peddled in sections of the media by the Member of Parliament for Obuasi West Kwaku Kwarteng. Afriwave takes exception to the misinformation being put out there and would like to set the records straight: Passengers were shocked to see flight attendants collapse in the aisles, sparking fears about contamination in the air conditioning. When Flight AA109 was airborne near Keflavik in Iceland, an announcement in the passenger cabin asked for any doctors onboard to come forward. One passenger, Lee Gunn, told the Mirror: "About 2.5 hours into the flight just as we were passing Iceland we had a tannoy announcement asking for any doctors, nurses or medical professionals on board to report to the boarding doors to assist with unwell passengers. "The lights then came on in the cabin and there was lots of commotion. "It was also reported that seven of the crew - 13 on board in total I believe - had fallen ill, along with 'many passengers'." Another passenger, Alan Gray, told MailOnline: "One of the flight attendants was walking down the aisle when she collapsed. Then up to six other cabin crew members said they felt light-headed and as though they were going to faint. "It was at that point the captain said he was turning the plane around. He said he wasn't willing to take the risk to keep going and hadn't got the crew to do it. "It was just a bit mad. We didn't really know what was going on." The American Airlines flight landed at Heathrow airport, five hours after it had left. Passengers were not allowed to disembark while the plane was surrounded by police cars, ambulances and fire crews. London Ambulance crews checked over six patients who were feeling unwell and discharged them on the scene. A spokesperson for American Airlines confirmed the plane turned round due to a medical emergency and said it was not security-related. The Final Exodus of Assyrians From Syria It was at the gates of Damascus that Saint Paul went through his renowned soul-shaking experience. From there on, he stopped persecuting early Christians and became a devout believer, preaching the new faith throughout the Roman Empire. Six centuries later, Damascus became the capital of the first Muslim Empire, the Umayyad Empire, and for the next 1,400 years Christians and Muslims lived side by side in the land of Syria. The history of this coexistence is far from rosy, but the continued presence of Christians in that part of the world at the turn of the 21st century proves it is not impossible. The ebbs and flows of history have not been kind to Syria's Christians. Suffering persecution and economic catastrophe, many Levantine Christians took to the sea by the end of the 19th century, fleeing Ottoman rule. Wave after wave began arriving in New York's Ellis Island, looking for opportunity in the new world. Some of these exhausted migrants were among the victims of the Titanic. This dark episode came to be the last mass exodus of Syrian Christians before the long secularist, nationalistic and eventually disappointing 20th century. Today, the rise of Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) and other extremist groups have presented Syria's Christians with stark choices. Yet it was political decisions made in Berlin and Ottawa that opened the door for their greatest, and perhaps final, mass exodus. The war in Syria destroyed the livelihood of all Syrians, and Christians are no exception. Many unique Christian communities found themselves right on the erupting frontlines. Daesh, with its distorted interpretation of Islam, targets them simply because of their fate. The self-appointed caliph, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, negated a centuries-old promise made by the second caliph Omar to safeguard the lives of "the people of the book" living among Muslims. One example is the 5,000-year-old Assyrian community of the Khabur river valley in northeastern Syria. Daesh attacked Assyrian villages relentlessly, killing and kidnapping hundreds. The terror campaign pushed thousands to leave their homeland in search of a better life abroad, while others joined against Daesh. The latter choice came with a high price, as Daesh suicide bombers constantly target Assyrian civilians. The latest attack claimed the lives of fifty innocent people in Qamishli a day before New Year's Eve. Dozens of Christian urban and rural communities suffered a similar fate. To most Christians who sought to leave Syria, American and European visas became more difficult to obtain day after day, since contrary to what many thought, Christians did not enjoy any preferential treatment at Western embassies, and there was no deliberate plan to facilitate their departure just yet. In 2014, the number of migrants crossing into Europe via the Mediterranean and Aegean seas began to spike exponentially, and by the summer of 2015, the "refugees welcome" fever had swept across Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel obliged the popular mood; she chided European leaders who wanted to stem the flow of refugees, and called on them to keep their borders open. Thousands of migrants, encouraged by Merkel's open-door policy, took to the sea every day, many of them Syrian Christians. When the trip was too expensive for an entire family to afford, they would send one of their youngsters. Months later, the young man would receive his "permanent residency", which enabled him to bring over the rest of the family via a "reunion visa". Horrific stories from the long journey to Germany soon began to reach Syria. Hundreds drowned in the sea -- at times entire families. Smugglers robbed people of everything they had, while many were stuck for weeks in detention camps in Hungary under horrible conditions. But just as the road to Europe became too dangerous to risk, a much safer one was opened halfway across the world. The new liberal Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced an initial plan to take in 25,000 Syrian refugees. Trudeau claimed that the Canadian government would vet thousands of refugees from camps in Lebanon and Jordan in order to resettle them in Canada. There is, however, another selection method the Canadian government is using to cherry-pick immigrants and refugees from Syria: Christian Churches. Church organisations, with the Canadian government's consent, are financially sponsoring Syrian Christian immigrants and refugees. But the limited resources of such organisations do not allow them to sponsor a great number of people. This has prompted many Syrian-Canadians to pay an organisation the sum required to bring over their relatives, while those who don't have anyone in Canada are transferring money from Syria to the church that could sponsor them. As of December 2015, planes are departing from Beirut carrying entire Syrian Christian families to new lives in Canada. Church officials in Syria still refuse to give exact estimates, but when pressed for an answer in private, many priests and bishops admit that less than half their flocks remains at home. Numbering around two million before the war, some informed sources suggest only half a million Christians remain in Syria today. At the current rate, and with peace nowhere on the horizon, the country might very well lose its centuries-old Christian community by the end of this decade. The pair who got engaged in September, 2015, took time out to celebrate the coming of age with a romantic night out where they gave each other a very passionate kiss. Alimi and Anthony had announced that they are getting married sometime this year and the Nigerian has not stopped extolling the virtues of the man he claims to be the love of his life and the reason he breathes. Alimi shocked his country men when he became the first ever gay man in the to come out and declare his status on national television as a guest on Funmi Iyanda's New Dawn with Funmi, a talk show on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). He also announced his HIV status and in 2009, he had to flee the country to the UK to seek asylum, claiming threats to his life and since then, Alimi has been very active in the advocating for the rights of gay people. The case was brought to public notice by indefatigable human rights activist, Dr Joe Okei Odumakin, who shared the photos of the bloodied woman and also mandated a lawyer working with her foundation, Women Arise For Change Initiative, to take the woman to the hospital for urgent treatment. In a statement released by Odumakin, the woman recounted a pitiable history of domestic abuse in the hands of her husband while his family family and community kept telling her it was a family affair, until she ran to the foundation for help. Meanwhile, the culprit has been arrested and would be charged to court tomorrow. She was even lucky to be alive because the robbers killed some residents of her estate when they went on a door to door raid, including her pregnant neighbour. Read what one of her friends wrote on her Facebook page. "This is a very touching story, please viewers discretion! This lady, Mrs Glory Uzoh, moved from Lagos to Abuja with her two adopted children. Unfortunately armed robbers raided her estate, they went from door to door and killed some of the residents. Her neighbour who was four month pregnant after eight years of waiting, was killed, while the deceased's husband was badly injured and his legs were amputated. Mrs Glory was shot severally and left for dead but eventually survived through the grace of God." Fahonum, who resides at Benseer Street, Owner Occupier, Makurdi, is facing a one-count charge of rape. The Prosecutor, Insp. Terzungwe Kajo told the court that a brother of the victim reported the case at the 'E' Division Police Station, Makurdi on Jan. 1. The prosecutor said that luck, however, ran out on the accused as a passer-by, who saw him defiling the young girl, ran to report the incident to the family of the victim. Kajo said that the matter was subsequently reported to the police, adding that the accused was later arrested after investigation. The prosecutor said that the offence committed contravened Section 284 of the Penal Code Laws of Benue, 2004. However, when the case came up for mention, the court did not take the plea of the accused because it lacked jurisdiction. It was gathered that the Law Diploma graduate of the University of Benin, Edo State, had ambushed the woman on Sunday, January 24, at about 6am while she was passing through the area and attempted to forcefully have sex with her by throwing her to the floor and stripping her of her wrapper. The suspect went further to dip his fingers into the woman's private part and was about penetrating her with his manhood when a man who was passing by, heard her screams for help and rushed to the scene where he rescued the woman and held onto Onochie while the woman rushed to the Ilasan Police Division to report the assault, leading to his arrest. The suspect who was been arraigned before a Tinubu Magistrates Court sitting in the state on one count of sexual assault, pleaded not guilty when the charge was read to him. The presiding magistrate, Mr. L.A. Owolabi, however, granted him bail in the sum of N100,000 while ordering that he be remanded in the prison pending the time he would perfect his bail conditions, which includes providing two sureties in like sum, who must be related by blood to him and must have paid three years tax to the Lagos State Government. Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected! According an eyewitness, the pastor who is very popular in the area, had, on Saturday, January 23, lured the girl to the brothel where he forcefully had carnal knowledge of her and it was screams of pains that attracted some of the prostitutes resident in the brothel. The scarlet ladies were said to have rushed to the room but found it locked and alerted policemen from the Alonge Police Division. The policemen thereafter, forced the door of the room opened where they found the girl in a pool of her blood and the GO who was half naked trying to clean her up. She also called on the Nigerian Army authorities to ensure that salaries of Soldiers fighting against insurgents and those who lost their lives in action, are paid. She said I want to urge the Nigerian Army to hasten in paying the benefits of the deceased soldiers as a way of providing succour to their families. Punch reports that the President of the Nigerian Army Officers Wives Association and wife of the Chief of Army Staff, Kalsum Buratai, and wives of other top military officers, were with her during the visit. The first lady recently donated the sum of N2 million to a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) working for the less privileged in Zamfara. He was released from Kuje Prison today, January 28. It is believed that the PDP spokesman's release came after meeting his bail conditions. Metuh is facing corruption charges for collecting N400million from the embattled former National Security Adviser (NSA), Sambo Dasuki. The sum which is believed to be from the $2.1million meant for the procurement of arms to fight Boko Haram. He was first granted bail in the sum of N400million, with two sureties in the sum of N200 million each. In his ruling on January 19, the trial judge, Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court in Abuja, saidthe two sureties must have landed properties in Maitama District of the Federal Capital Territory. JusticeAbang said the sureties must alsodeposit the Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) to the Registrar of the court, who must verify the authenticity of the title document of the property from the land registry of the Ministry of the Federal Capital Territory. He was later arraigned again by the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on January 22, 2016, on fresh charges bordering on destruction of evidence. Buhari made the comment on Wednesday, January 27, 2016, in Eldoret, Kenya, while speaking at a memorial service in honour of Kenyan soldiers who were killed by Al-Shabaab in Somalia. We must take the battle to the terrorists whoever they are and wherever they are, he said. This requires commitment, sacrifice, resources, collaboration and above all a realization that no country is immune to the scourge, as terrorists do not respect national boundaries, race, colour, religion or creed. Terrorists should not have a place in our communities, villages, towns, cities and countries. We must all rise against the culture of intolerance, hatred and extremist ideologies, which drive terrorism. We must also act with more firmness against radicalization and all those who promote values and principles that threaten our unity and cohesion as a people. "I wish to use this occasion to pay tribute to all the fallen heroes of the El Adde attack and pray for the repose of their souls. In our efforts to collaboratively tackle terrorism, it is our sacred duty as leaders, politicians and compatriots to ensure that the blood of these fallen heroes was not shed in vain," he added. Falana also urged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to release formerNational Security Adviser (NSA), Sambo Dasuki, who has been charged with corruption, and Biafra leader, Nnamdi Kanu, as ordered by the courts The legal practitioner made the comments during a recent interview with Punch. Excerpts below: Has the President Muhammadu Buhari administration shown respect for the rule of law considering the continued incarceration of Sambo Dasuki and Nnamdi Kanu? You cannot judge the human rights record of the Buhari administration on the basis of the detention of a couple of criminal suspects. To the best of my knowledge, President Buhari has never ordered the military invasion of any community or illegal demolition of the homes of the poor. But having promised to end impunity, he has a duty to call every security agency to order whenever the rights of Nigerians are violated. Citizens can be rearrested as many times as possible if there is a reasonable suspicion that they have committed criminal offences. But once such suspects are charged and granted bail by a court of competent jurisdiction, the order should be obeyed. If the government is aggrieved or dissatisfied with the order releasing any criminal suspect on bail, it can challenge the order at the Court of Appeal. Honestly, I sympathise with the government. What do you mean by saying that you sympathise with the government? This is because a few members of the legal profession have consistently pampered the ruling class to manipulate the criminal justice system. It is so bad now that only the poor are railroaded to jail. It can be very frustrating that bail is generously granted by judges to those who commit the worst cases of armed robbery. There is no serious government that will not be embarrassed by what has emerged as judicial cover for big-time crooks. Our judges are yet to appreciate that we are dealing with the worst form of corruption, which is family corruption. By which I mean the act of charging parents and children with stealing. It is the first time that a father and his children are sharing the same dock for allegedly looting the public treasury. Are you suggesting that people standing trial for corruption should not be granted bail? As far as I am concerned, it is illogical for a judge to grant bail to a man or woman who stole billions of naira meant for job creation only to turn round and refuse bail to a young man forced to engage in armed robbery due to unemployment. We are compelled to remind our judges that between 2003 and 2007, no politically-exposed person charged to court by the EFCC was granted bail in Nigeria. Go and check the record. A former governor, who was put on trial, was not granted bail. Before our very eyes, Justice Marcel Awokulehin, now retired, freed the accused and dismissed the 170-count filed against Ibori. But nemesis caught up with him in Dubai from where he was deported to London to the eternal shame of our country. I want to believe the government is worried that the law is being twisted, once again, to accommodate the criminality of the ruling class. What do you advise the FG to do on Dasuki and Kanu? You will recall that the ex-minister alleged that Falana made the statement because she hurt the interests of his corrupt sponsors while she was in office. Falana, in his reply, said Iwealas service to Nigeria was characterised by lies and deceit. He said Her baseless attack is not unusual as she is always quick to deflect criticisms by accusing anyone seeking to hold her to account for her appalling records in government of ulterior political motives. When former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, alleged that about N30tn could not be accounted for under her watch, he was described as an embittered loser in the Nigerian political space. When Governor Adams Oshiomhole questioned the illegal withdrawal of $2bn from the Excess Crude Account, he was accused of having animus towards her because she had blocked Edo State from obtaining a loan. Therefore, instead of exchanging vulgar abuse with the former minister, I shall respond to the diversionary allegations which lacerated her response and the attempt to extricate herself from the mass looting of the commonwealth under her watch, Falana said. Punch reports that the human rights lawyer also faulted claims by Okonjo-Iweala, saying that only $500m was recovered from the Abacha loot. The event was part of activities organized by the Circle of Diplomats (Circle Diplomatique), Geneva to honour Jonathan. GEJ, as he is fondly called, said he chose to keep quiet on the issue, because the case was before the courts. In a series of Tweets obtained from his Twitter timeline, the former President hinted that his government actually bought weapons. The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, about the $2.1b arms purchase scandal. Dr Tony Aziegbemi recently, in an interview, explained why Goodluck Jonathan channelled his 2015 campaign funds through former National Security Adviser (NSA), Sambo Dasuki. This is contained in a statement signed by Hazat Sule, Chief Press Secretary to the Minister and made available to newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday. The statement quoted the minister as expressing regret at the inconveniences the disruption had FCT residents. He assured that the FCT Administration was `assiduously working round the clock to restore normal supply on or before Jan. 29. The statement said that on-going routine maintenance works at the water treatment plant at Lower Usuma Dam would commence on Jan. 25 and end on Jan. 29. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the buildings included commercial banks, hotels, business plazas, filling stations, hospitals, residential homes as well as primary and secondary schools. Mrs Chinenye Okafor, the Head, Human Resources and Administration, Anambra Property and Land Use Charge (APLUC), explained that the closure followed various court judgments obtained against the tax evaders. Okafor said after the exercise, that the affected buildings owed the state government a total sum of N150, 455, 814.59 She said that the agency, in 2014 and 2015, carried out similar enforcement in Awka and Onitsha on 125 buildings, noting that more buildings would be sealed-off as soon as judgments were obtained. We are advising property owners in the state, particularly in Onitsha, Awka, Ogidi and Nkpor, to go and pay their property rates or face the wrath of the law. We had discussion with some of them and they had promised to pay since November 2014, but up till now, we have not seen any positive response from them. We are no longer interested in continuing with appealing or sensitising them because we have tried it for more than two years now and nothing was coming out of it. On a few occasions in the past, both in and out of office as the President of Nigeria, I have agonised on certain issues within the arms of government at the national level and among the tiers of government as well. Not least, I have reflected and expressed, outspokenly at times, my views on the practice in the National Assembly which detracts from distinguishness and honourability because it is shrouded in opaqueness and absolute lack of transparency and could not be regarded as normal, good and decent practice in a democracy that is supposed to be exemplary. I am, of course, referring to the issue of budgets and finances of the National Assembly. The present economic situation that the country has found itself in is the climax of the steady erosion of good financial and economic management which grew from bad to worse in the last six years or so. The executive and the legislative arms of government must accept and share responsibility in this regard. And if there will be a redress of the situation as early as possible, the two arms must also bear the responsibility proportionally. The two arms ran the affairs of the country unmindful of the rainy day. The rainy day is now here. It would not work that the two arms should stand side by side with one arm pulling and without the support of the other one for good and efficient management of the economy. The purpose of election into the Legislative Assembly particularly at the national level is to give service to the nation and not for the personal service and interest of members at the expense of the nation which seemed to have been the mentality, psychology, mindset and practice within the National Assembly since the beginning of this present democratic dispensation. Where is patriotism? Where is commitment? Where is service? The beginning of good governance which is the responsibility of all arms and all the tiers of government is openness and transparency. It does not matter what else we try to do, as long as one arm of government shrouds its financial administration and management in opaqueness and practices rife with corruption, only very little, if anything at all, can be achieved in putting Nigeria on the path of sustainable and enduring democratic system, development and progress. Governance without transparency will be a mockery of democracy. Let us be more direct and specific so that action can be taken where it is urgently necessary. A situation where our national budget was predicated on $38 per barrel of oil with estimated 2 million barrels per day and before the budget was presented, the price of oil had gone down to $34 per barrel and now hovering around $30 and we have no assurance of producing 2 million barrels and if we can, we have no assurance of finding market for it, definitely calls for caution. If production and price projected in the budget stand, we would have to borrow almost one third of the 6 trillion naira budget. Now beginning with the reality of the budget, there is need for sober reflection and sacrifice with innovation at the level of executive and legislative arms of government. The soberness, the sacrifice and seriousness must be patient and apparent. It must not be seen and said that those who, as leaders, call for sacrifice from the citizenry are living in obscene opulence. It will not only be insensitive but callously so. It would seem that it is becoming a culture that election into the legislative arm of government at the national level in particular is a licence for financial misconduct and that should not be. The National Assembly now has a unique opportunity of presenting a new image of itself. It will help to strengthen, deepen, widen and sustain our democracy. By our Constitution, the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission is charged with the responsibility of fixing emoluments of the three arms of government: executive, legislature and judiciary. The Commission did its job but by different disingenuous ways and devices, the legislature had overturned the recommendation of the Commission and hiked up for themselves that which they are unwilling to spell out in detail, though they would want to defend it by force of arm if necessary. What is that? Mr. President of the Senate and Hon. Speaker of the House, you know that your emolument which the Commission had recommended for you takes care of all your legitimate requirements: basic salary, car, housing, staff, constituency allowance. Although the constituency allowance is paid to all members of the National Assembly, many of them have no constituency offices which the allowance is partly meant to cater for. And yet other allowances and payments have been added by the National Assembly for the National Assembly members emoluments. Surely, strictly speaking, it is unconstitutional. There is no valid argument for this except to see it for what it is law-breaking and impunity by lawmakers. The lawmakers can return to the path of honour, distinguishness, sensitivity and responsibility. The National Assembly should have the courage to publish its recurrent budgets for the years 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015. That is what transparency demands. With the number of legislators not changing, comparison can be made. Comparisons in emoluments can also be made with countries like Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and even Malaysia and Indonesia who are richer and more developed than we are. The budget is a proposal and only an estimate of income and expenditure. Where income is inadequate, expenditure will not be made. While in government, I was threatened with impeachment by the members of the National Assembly for not releasing some money they had appropriated for themselves which were odious and for which there were no incomes to support. The recent issue of cars for legislators would fall into the same category. Whatever name it is disguised as, it is unnecessary and insensitive. A pool of a few cars for each Chamber will suffice for any Committee Chairman or members for any specific duty. The waste that has gone into cars, furniture, housing renovation in the past was mind-boggling and these were veritable sources of waste and corruption. That was why they were abolished. Bringing them back is inimical to the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians. The way of proposing budget should be for the executive to discuss every detail of the budget, in preparation, with different Committees and sub-Committees of the National Assembly and the National Assembly to discuss its budget with the Ministry of Finance. Then, the budget should be brought together as consolidated budget and formally presented to the National Assembly, to be deliberated and debated upon and passed into law. It would then be implemented as revenues are available. Where budget proposals are extremely ambitious like the current budget and revenue sources are so uncertain, more borrowing may have to be embarked upon, almost up to 50% of the budget or the budget may be grossly unimplementable and unimplemented. Neither is a choice as both are bad. Management of the economy is one of the key responsibilities of the President as prescribed in the Constitution. He cannot do so if he does not have his hands on the budget. Management of the economy is shared responsibility where the Presidency has the lion share of the responsibility. But if the National Assembly becomes a cog in the wheel, the executive efforts will not yield much reward or progress. The two have to work synchronisingly together to provide the impetus and the conducive environment for the private sector to play its active vanguard role. Management of the budget is the first step to manage the economy. It will be interesting if the National Assembly will be honourable enough and begin the process of transparency, responsibility and realism by publishing its recurrent budgets for 2016 as it should normally be done. Hopefully, the National Assembly will take a step back and do what is right not only in making its own budget transparent but in all matters of financial administration and management including audit of its accounts by external outside auditor from 1999 to date. This, if it is done, will bring a new dawn to democracy in Nigeria and a new and better image for the National Assembly and it will surely avoid the Presidency and the National Assembly going into face-off all the time on budgets and financial matters. Osinbajo made the observation at a meeting of the MDAs involved in the President Muhammadu Buhari administrations social investment plans held in his office. Osinbajos spokesman, Mr Laolu Akande, made details of the meeting available to State House Correspondents in Abuja on Wednesday. Akande said Osinbajo reiterated the resolve of Buhari to ensure effective coordination of the social intervention programmes. He explained that the programme for which the Federal Government had proposed not less than half a trillion naira in 2016 was very dear to the President and the ruling APC. "The bane of some of these projects in the past has been lack of implementation and a great deal of corruption, Osinbajo told the MDAs. According to him, so much corruption exist that so many of the projects did not make sense any more. Osinbajo, therefore, told the officials that the implementation teams of the administration must ensure effective coordination and that money allocated to the programmes got to where they were meant to go to. According to Akande, the vice president reminded them that it was why the administration was very serious with the anti-corruption fight to ensure that those who short changed the poor masses were held accountable. Bebenimibo, who said this in a signed statement issued to newsmen on Thursday in Warri, said that Tompolos lawyers were fine tuning ways for his appearance in court. He debunked rumour that Tompolo had acquired speed boats in preparation for war with the Federal Government, adding that the rumour was the handiwork of mischief makers. Bebenimibo said: "Tompolo has stated in several occasions that he will appear in court at the appropriate time as his lawyers are working towards that. "He has no reason to bomb pipelines because of his case with the EFCC and he will never wage war against the Federal Government. "He has sworn in 2009 when he accepted the Presidential Amnesty declared by late President Umaru Musa YarAdua and has kept faith with Nigeria. "He has promised to work with the present administration unconditionally and he stands by that declaration. Bebenimibo said that the bombing of pipelines was politically motivated. He alleged that some members of the ruling All Progressives Congress in the region carried out the act. "Before the incident, Tompolo alerted the public that some aggrieved APC members in Bayelsa and Delta want to destroy national assets. "Especially oil pipelines in the Delta Niger as a result of the outcome of the 2015 governorship election in Bayelsa, he said. Spokesman for the police in the state, DSP Ahmad Muhammad, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Port Harcourt that there was no report of negative incident after the judgment. "The Commissioner of Police ordered deployments to strategic areas in the state before the judgment. "Police presence had been noticed in strategic areas and spots. We were prepared for any situation and we have not recorded any incident," he said. He also said the command was prepared for re-run legislative elections in the state. "We have held meeting with stakeholders on the need to maintain peace, though no date has been fixed for the elections. Melaye on Thursday, January, 28, who acknowledged his respect for Obasanjo, accused him of corruption. He said the ex-president introduced corruption into the national assembly in his bid to run for a third term in office. I have tremendous respect for president Olusegun Aremu Okikiola Obasanjo. Elder statesman, respected pan Africanist and committed patriot. I went through the letter written to all senators and members of the house of representatives. The letter I can see is a misplacement of anger, he said. Melaye continued; "our leader is mistaking the eighth national assembly as the same senate assembly that defrauded him in 2007. Those who collected his money and refused to implement the 3rd term agenda. I appeal to baba that we are not the ones please. After nine years of that bribery saga, the first of its kind, I expect forgiveness to have taken place. "There was the case of bribery introduced by the Obasanjo regime in the desperate attempt to remove speaker Ghali Umar Naabba from office then. In fact, there was open display of that bribery money on the floor of the house. That government exposed the national assembly to corruption and easy money. "I hope this is not in an attempt to cover up and distract attention from the Halliburton and Siemens corruption allegations. While I am against corruption anywhere in Nigeria, I will not support accusations based on anger and vindictiveness. "The eighth senate should also look inwardly and purge herself of all the deliberate misgivings of the past. Nigeria must work and we must support the anti corruption stand of the Buhari administration. God bless Nigeria. Melaye made the comment on Wednesday, January 27, 2016, during the inauguration ceremony of Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, according to The Cable. I have the privilege to appreciate the best chairman of the best political party in south of the Sahara and north of the Limpopo, former governor, former permanent secretary, the only authentic chairman that produced the most transparent president in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, he said. May I also have the honour and privilege to introduce the representative of the irremovable president of the senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, ably represented here today by the chairman of the committee on works, former governor of Kano state, Senator Kabiru Gaya. May I also have the privilege to introduce the speaker by force of the house of representatives ably represented here by Hon. Pategi, talking about Hon. Yakubu Dogara. Kogi state said yes to Abubakar Audu, the entire north-central said yes to Abubakar Audu but the Almighty voted for Yahaya Bello. Give 3 hehyah to the PDP. Bye bye to jakujaku! Bye bye to WadaWada! Insha Allah! Bye bye to jakujaku! We are here to make history. There is no better time to ameliorate to palliate, to correct all the rubbish and beautiful nonsense that has bedeviled our state for the past 12 years. I want to apologise on behalf of the outgoing government of Kogi state for the rigorous exercise of coming into Kogi state. The roads are bad, students are not in school, salaries have not been paid. Someone told me that even the political appointees of the governor have not received salary in four months. I assure you that the era of change is here. Today a minority in Kogi state is the governor of Kogi state, he said. A cross section of Nigerians also reacted to the incident. You will recall that Faleke refused to abide by the All Progressives Congress (APCs) choice of Bello to fly the Governorship elections, when Prince Abubakar Audu died. However, the man in the eye of the storm, said he was not invited to the inauguration. According to Punch, Faleke, in an interview with Channels Television said I am speaking before Nigerians and I am making it very clear that nobody reached out to me. Nobody from our partys national secretariat or the state secretariat of our party ever reached out to me on this issue. The only time they every reached out to me was on December 31 when the chairman of our party announced the decision of the National Working Committee to all of us to say the NWC had adopted Alhaji Yahaya Bello as the governorship candidate for the December 5 election. He also said Thereafter, there was no consultation until today. I want to make it clear that the party chairman, Chief John Oyegun, that we saw as a father has decided to champion a cause that is anti-people. That is why we were not invited. For me I see what has happened in the party as a civilian coup detat. It is a civilian coup detat because if such a situation happens in the military, those behind it will face the firing squad, he said, adding that the best way forward was to head to the court, Faleke said. The response of the PDP Governors Forum was contained in a Communique issued by its Director General, Earl Osaro after a meeting on Wednesday. It reads: The invasion of the party headquarters on Wednesday by Ahmed Gulak, who reportedly assumed the Chairmanship of the PDP, is regrettable and condemnable. We take cognisance of the judgment by the court in Abuja which ordered the acting chairman to vacate office for any other person from the North-East zone of Nigeria. Our party constitution has enough provisions for that and the necessary process has been put in motion. Gulak earlier named himself Chairman on Wednesday, December 30, 2015, according to a statement released by his spokesman, Ochuba Emmanuel. Peterside stated that he would contribute to the development of the state and also offered to help Wike. It reads in part: Consequently, we shall do our best to work for the peace and development of Rivers State and all who reside in it. We shall creatively offer our help to Governor Nyesom Wike. We will provide a virile opposition, serving as a mirror for the conscience of government, in the interest of Rivers people. When encouragement is needed towards a just and proper course of dealings, we will offer our commendation to the government. Conversely, we will constructively express objection to policies and actions we consider inimical to the overall interest of Rivers people. It is our hope that Governor Wike and his team will appreciate the suggestions and proposals that would be made in the interest of Rivers people. If we sometimes sound strident, he should pay heed to the message of passionate and zealous Rivers people rather than dismiss the messenger. Although we have accepted the Supreme Court verdict, it would be remiss of me not to point out that this is also an opportunity for our people to engage in deep introspection on the electoral process. Beyond party affiliation, must we continue to allow the electoral process to be subject to the whims and caprices of anti-democratic elements, especially those who deploy personal militia to molest and even kill voters? Those who hold the electoral umpire captive or compromised; and thus generally prevent electoral outcomes reflective of the will of the voters, as envisaged by law? It is understandable that an attitude of cynical expediency in some politicians may inevitably conclude that the end justifies the means. However, those who are governed by such a cynical mentality need to be reminded that a huge moral burden would perpetually sour such temporary victories. Like the myth of Sisyphus, it is surely a backward slide in our political evolution. Let us think deeply please. The Word for Today devotional by United Christian Broadcasters (UCB) says: At the Good Will Games in Edmonton, Canada, the Jamaican team was participating in the 4 x 100-metre relay. Those in the third leg of the race had a friend competing in another event nearby. While the sprinter was waiting for the baton, he looked up for a moment to try and see how their friend was doing in his event. Big mistake! In the next moment, the guy running the second leg of the race came up to him with the baton and crashed into him. Needless to say, the Jamaicans lost because one of their runners was looking at the wrong thing. Instead of focusing on his own race, he was looking at someone elses. Hello! Who are you looking at Christ, or other Christians? The Church is like a spiritual hospital: its members are in various stages of treatment, with the aim of becoming whole. So when you look to Christians youll sometimes be disappointed but not when you look to Christ. One day Jesus told Peter what type of death He would suffer, and Peter questioned Him about what sort of death John would face. Lord, what about this man? Jesus said to him, what is that to you? You follow Me (John 21:20-22 NKJV). Have you ever watched a team rowing in the Olympic Games? They cant see the finish line because their backs are towards it, so they keep their eyes on the captain. He guides them. He motivates them. He shouts, Row, row, row!. He gives them a cadence and keeps them on track. So the word for you today is keep your eyes on Jesus. Speaking at the Geneva Press Club in Switzerland during a publicised world press conference on Security, Education and Development in Africa, he said, he did his best to promote education when he was in power. He said, If you peruse the official literacy rates by country, what you will find is that all of the top 10 most literate nations in the world are at peace, while almost all of the top 10 least literate nations in the world are in a state of either outright war or general insecurity. Lower education levels are linked to poverty and poverty is one of the chief causative factors of crime whether it is terrorism or militancy or felonies. With this at the back of my mind, I began the practice of giving education the highest sectoral allocation beginning with my very first budget as in 2011. Jonathan adds, As I have always believed, if we do not spend billions educating our youths today, we will spend it fighting insecurity tomorrow. And you do not have to spend on education just because of insecurity. It is also the prudent thing to do. The lecturer, John Danfulani, in December, launched attack on the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, President MohammadU Buhari and uneducated children in the north. The Facebook comment partly read, " To them, APC is a religious party. Northern leaders under the party are demigods and crusaders of their ways of life. These people living in dusty villages of Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, Kano, Jigawa are quick in calling you Arne or Kafiri (Meaning Pagan) once you express your view on anything their God PMB and his brigade of small Angels are doing. Attack the attacker, and lets the skies fall. He subsequently deleted his Facebook page after receiving backlash when the post went Viral among Kaduna residents. Mr Danfulani, who is currently out of the country, has been accused by the University of making a speech that can be termed divisive, injurious and tantamount to hate speech. In a query dated January 6, signed by the school registrar, Talatu A Kuri, the university said the lecturer should explain why disciplinary action should not be taken against him for a comment he posted on the social media. The content of the publication you authored is divisive, injurious to the University and tantamount to hate speech capable of inciting particular group of students against staff and other students. This behaviour is unbecoming of a lecturer who is supposed to mould students character and impart learning, the letter said. In his response, Mr. John said he was not furnished with details of his offence. It is a large world of dozens of platforms, most of which are yet to be in full practice in Nigeria. I have pages that upload my opinions on multifaceted local and international issues when my conscience and spirit direct me to do so, he wrote. Because of this, I do not know on which of the platforms the piece that generated this query was hoisted because your query did not contain such details. He added: My wall, updates and writings in the social media are all in my private capacity and not in my official capacity as a Lecturer with the University. Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected! Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected! The vulture was arrested after a tracking device from Tel Aviv University was found on it, raising the suspicions of residents of Lebanese town Bint Jbail who captured the bird. Bird ecologist Ohad Hatzofe told CNN that "They were holding the bird in their hands." "It would not be the first time residents of south Lebanon have found birds that serve Israel for research purposes," Haaretz reported. "After examining the bird to make sure it was not carrying listening or spy equipment we returned it to nature." However, Israeli's have claimed that the bird had been allowed to fly freely in an attempt to increase the dwindling vulture population in Israel but residents in Lebanon arrested the bird to make sure there was no foul play considering the history between the two nations. U.S. Army Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland said Iraqi authorities understood "the potential" for the collapse of the hydroelectric dam, whose foundation requires constant grouting to maintain structural integrity. "The likelihood of the dam collapsing is something we are trying to determine right now ... all we know is when it goes, it's going to go fast and that's bad," MacFarland, head of the U.S.-led coalition bombing Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, told reporters in Baghdad. Humanitarian aid should be scaled up in proportion to the escalation of military operations, otherwise the gap between the needs and the aid that is being provided will widen further, the charity said. "The international community is too focused, probably, on the fight against ISIS ... that the importance ... of increasing the humanitarian assistance is not taken into account," Fabio Forgione, MSF's head of mission in Iraq, said in London late on Wednesday. "It is .. important to make sure that humanitarian assistance grows in parallel to the military operations which are carried out," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. Islamic State, also known by the acronyms ISIS, ISIL or Daesh, swept through one-third of Iraq in June 2014 and declared a "caliphate" in territory it controlled in both Iraq and Syria, carrying out mass killings and imposing a draconian form of Islam. Since then, the fight against the group has drawn in global and regional powers, often with competing allies on the ground in complex multi-sided conflicts. More than 3.2 million people have been displaced inside the country, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Forgione said an estimated 2 million to 4 million people in Iraq needed humanitarian assistance, but the real number might be higher. Areas of major concern are Salah al-Din, Diyala, Anbar, Nineveh and the outskirts of Baghdad, he said. Few humanitarian agencies have been able to work in many parts of central Iraq because it is too dangerous, and in most cases only MSF and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) are still at work there, Forgione said. The charity's 'concern number one' is potential cholera outbreaks because of the limited access to clean water, and 'widespread' mental health problems, he said. The official cited signs of possible preparations for a missile launch, based on analysis of satellite imagery of the North's Tongchang-ri missile test site on its west coast. The report came as U.N. Security Council members discuss fresh sanctions against the North after it conducted its fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6. The North is already under sanctions for its nuclear and missile programmes. North Korea last conducted a long-range rocket launch in late 2012, successfully putting into orbit an object it claimed was a communications satellite, in what experts saw as part of an effort to build an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok declined to comment on whether there were pre-launch activities at the site, citing a policy of not discussing intelligence matters. However, he said the North had issued no international warnings on navigation, as it has ahead of previous long-range rocket launches. South Korea's Yonhap news agency cited a government source as saying there had been steady activity at the missile base, with screens set up at key areas, probably to deter spy satellite surveillance. Much of the site's operation is automated and rails are set up to move rocket components quickly for final assembly and launch, Yonhap quoted the source as saying. The site was upgraded last year to accommodate the launch of a longer-range rocket, experts have said. Turning the ship before it hits the iceberg Its a Wednesday night, and Jeannie Jones is skipping church to be at Circa 21 Dinner Playhouse in downtown Rock Island. Its opening night of Phantom and her husband, Eddie, got tickets, so they decided it would be OK just this once. Church will come again next Wednesday, they said. In the moments before the lights go down for the first act, Jones, who is in her 80s, wonders out loud if shell understand the plot points of Phantom and what the characters are singing about. She leaves the seat across from Eddie to sit on a higher row. She sips her iced tea and thumbs through the booklet, reading about each member of the cast. What she doesn't say what doesn't cross her mind is that going to the theater doesn't top everyone's list of an ideal Wednesday evening. She's long been enamored by the lights and the story that unfolds on stage. Wouldnt it be crazy to be on that stage and have that as your job? Jones says, flipping another page. Wouldnt that just be crazy? For Chris Galvan, its just crazy enough. Standing off to the side, Galvans face is covered in makeup, and hes chatting with someone else in the cast. He sees his cue, walks into the bright lights and becomes somebody else. Its almost an out-of-body experience to walk on stage, and suddenly become that character, he said. When you make that move, everything in your daily life kind of melts away. You take on the character, their worries and their goals, and you forget about who you are. Galvan, who is 24, has worked at Circa '21 on the bootlegger staff for two years. Hes spent nights serving meals and checking tickets and soaking in the ornate interior of the theater. He moved from Chicago to attend St. Ambrose University in Davenport, but stayed in town after graduation because of this theater. Playing Count Philippe in Phantom is his first mainstage role at Circa '21. Its hard to get that rush of an experience anywhere else, Galvan said. Not just that, but you get to share a very specific moment with everyone in the audience, whoever they are wherever they come from. Its intermission now, and Jeannie returns to the seat next to her husband. Her raspberry sorbet arrives, and Eddie hands her the spoon. Theyve been married for 61 years, and they always come to Circa '21 when theres a new play. Eddie worked as a lobby host here for more than 20 years and retired last year. Something about the theater thrills them, no matter what the title is. They debrief about the first act, offering a bravo to the bellowing-Soprano notes and the opera-themed costumes. They say theyre never disappointed when they come here. Its just a nice way to spend the evening, and you feel like youre a part of something, she said. You feel like youre seeing something new. Patrick Beasley, who plays the Phantom, has that feeling, too. He doesnt want to see a day where people stop dressing up for a night at the theater. People need to have different experiences, because theres so much happening in the world than whats going on inside your home or your daily life, Beasley, who is from Kansas City, said. This is a cultural experience, and its so much different than sitting at home watching the TV. For a few hours inside Circa '21, no one is sending Snapchats or texting or talking about celebrity news. The Joneses, and the roughly 300 other people sitting in this century-old building, clap and laugh and smile in rhythm. And they seem to be in on the same secret. Thats the special part of this, to tell a story and make people have a shared experience, Beasley said. People can see themselves in the story, even if were all dressed up and playing a part. You tell the story, and hope it connects. Thats why Brett Hitchcock has stayed in the family business of show all these years. He helps run Circa '21, which opened in 1977, with his father, Dennis.. He cant always pinpoint why some people come to the theater and others dont. But as far he can see, its not going out of style. Being around this long, we see multi-generations come through the theater, Hitchcock said. Kids get an appreciation for theater growing up, and that stays with you. And thats the case for Jeannie Jones, too. She can rattle off a number of plays, and dinners at Circa '21, that are crystallized in her memory. Another memory could be forming again, right now. On this Wednesday night, as the final musical number fizzles out, Jones' eyes light up. She leans back in her chair, unfolds her arms and claps. She leans over and whispers her review. How wonderful that was, she says. Being at the theater, its one of those good feelings. Caitlin Russell's career trajectory could have taken her to Colorado, the West Coast or Chicago, but her decision to return to the Quad-City area and work for her fathers construction firm has been a choice she does not regret. Caitlin, 28, grew up in Bettendorf, attending Paul Norton Elementary and Bettendorf Middle School and then graduating from Bettendorf High School in 2005. She enrolled at Arizona State University in Phoenix, where she majored in construction engineering and received her degree in 2009. Jobs were few and far between in 2009, with the economy in recession, but Caitlin had two job offers: one from Waldinger in Des Moines, a mechanical engineering firm, and the other from Pepper Construction in Chicago. She took the Pepper job, but after six months reassessed her career options. A major factor in that job reassessment reflected an ongoing relationship with Nic Brandt, also a Bettendorf High School graduate, who attended the University of Tampa. They had a bi-coastal relationship that began in college and required a commitment decision. After Nic took a job in Moline with Deere & Co., Caitlin decided to return to the Quad-Cities, work for her father, Jim, at Russell Construction, while significantly shortening the commute to visit Nic. They were married in November 2013 in Scottsdale, Ariz. Both Cailtin and her father were excited and a wee bit apprehensive about her decision to join the family firm. Balancing a father-daughter relationship with an employer-employee one can be a challenge, depending on the personalities involved. But they made it work, and six years later Caitlin can say she contributes meaningfully to the companys ongoing growth and prosperity. Cailtin began work as a project engineer for two years, then became a project manager and now works as a director of real estate acquisition and development. She prepared herself for her new responsibilities by completing an MBA in finance at the University of Iowa in 2012. While in college, she also qualified for a real estate license. Her present role calls for Caitlin to deal with numerous issues related to property acquisition, use and management. She works on land purchase terms, lease rates, obtaining necessary bank financing, structuring lease agreements and analyzing construction costs for projects. A background in both finance and real estate has become particularly important for the way Russell Construction now does business. Construction companies, for the most part, do not become investors in the projects they build. Russell, however, has pursued a different business strategy by owning property, custom building to suit client/tenant needs and then leasing back the finished structure to the tenant. An example of this arrangement can be seen in the area surrounding Russell Company headquarters north of 53rd Street, near the Davenport-Bettendorf city line in the area now known as Birchwood Fields. The five buildings built or being built there will be owned and leased back by Russell. Birchwoods Retail, for example, is under construction with 5,200 square feet available for lease. Dunn Brothers Coffee Shop agreed to develop space there. Under similar conditions, Bitco (formerly Bituminous Insurance Co. of Rock Island) will relocate its headquarters to the nearby area off Interstate 74 near the Trinity Bettendorf campus. The Russell Company does not tie their business future solely to the Quad-City area. They worked, for instance, with Deere on projects in North Dakota, Canada, Nashville, Miami and Wisconsin. With 25 projects managers and 25 project engineers, the company has the capacity to manage multiple projects throughout the Midwest. They employ close to 130 staff members with 80 working at headquarters. Business was not only profitable in 2015, but increased 30 percent year over year, the company reports. More recently, Russell Company entered a partnership to explore, in cooperation with the City of Bettendorf, the long-sought goal of redeveloping Bettendorfs downtown district. Russell also announced the acquisition of The Lodge hotel complex and will undertake redevelopment of that 8.42- acre site. Caitlin will be closely involved in these pending projects, which will redefine key commercial corridors in the Bettendorf community. Continuation of the Russell legacy strongly motivates the goals Caitlin sets for herself. Her father founded the company in 1983. His father and mother, John and Margie Russell, owned and operated Russell Electric for many years. Both Caitlins father, Jim, and mother, Terri Kabat, completed construction engineering degrees at Iowa State University. Terris parents also have engineering backgrounds as well. Her brother, Sam, and sister, Kelsie, moved out of state to work for other companies in Seattle and Chicago, respectively. One project Caitlin takes considerable interest and pride in has been the construction of the new building for The Group: Obstetrics and Gynecology Specialist at Eastern Avenue and 53rd Street in Davenport, where she served as project manager for Russell. She carefully inspects the site, during her own appointments at the medical facility. Nic and Caitlin expect the next generation of the Russell-Brandt family to be born later this spring. Richard Pokora is a founder of the Bettendorf Business Network and pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church, Bettendorf. He writes occasional guest columns for the Bettendorf News. The Iowa Court of Appeals has upheld the conviction of a Davenport man in connection with the kidnapping and rape of a woman in 2013. Nathan D. Ronnau, 32, was convicted in March 2014 in Scott County District Court of first-degree kidnapping, first-degree sexual abuse and willful injury causing serious injury. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in May 2014. According to Scott County Attorney Mike Walton, Ronnau attacked a 32-year-old woman on July 1, 2013, when he grabbed her as she walked down Iowa Street, choked her until she was unconscious, dragged her across the street and into some bushes and raped her. Walton said in a media release this week that Ronnau can seek further review of the case to the Iowa Supreme Court. Times staff A roundup of legislative and Capitol news items of interest for Wednesday: EDUCATION FUNDING IMPASSE: The Iowa Senate on Wednesday refused to concur with House changes to an education funding bill, returning it to the House where majority Republicans were expected to send Senate File 174 and Senate File 175 to conference committee. Majority Senate Democrats want to boost state aid to K-12 schools by 4 percent next school year, which would increase state cost per pupil from $6,446 to $6,704 (or $258). House GOP representatives favor a 2 percent raise in state aid, which would increase the state cost per pupil $6,446 to $6,575 (or $129). Senators refused to concur with the House amendments to S.F. 174 by voice vote, but a roll call vote was requested on the S.F. 175 categorical funding to school which resulted in a 23-27 outcome with Sen. Mark Chelgren, R-Ottumwa, joining 26 Democrats in refusing to concur with the House changes. On a related note, a Senate Education subcommittee was slated Thursday to take up K-12 funding bills seeking a 4 percent boost in state aid for fiscal 2018 in an effort to meet the 30-day deadline for action until the states forward-funding law. MANAGED MEDICAID OMBUDSMAN: Deanna Clingan-Fischer, the states long-term care ombudsman, told a Senate panel her office has received more than 400 calls in the past two weeks about the states plan to shift management of its Medicaid program to three private health-care companies. Clingan-Fischer discussed a report from the Health Consumer Ombudsman Alliance that said, among other things, that based on best practices the state should have one ombudsman for every 3,500 Medicaid members, which would mean an additional 160 ombudsman positions. SLOW LEFT-LANE DRIVERS: Legislators shelved a bill that would have provided penalties for drivers who move slowly in left-hand lanes on four-lane highways. Rep. Gary Carlson, R-Muscatine, said the rule would have been too difficult to enforce given the myriad reasons drivers move into left-hand lanes. Carlson also said the state Department of Transportation said it would explore ways to educate drivers on proper multi-lane driving practices. CONDITION OF THE GUARD: In his annual condition of the guard address, Maj. Gen. Timothy Orr, Adjutant General of the Iowa U.S. Army National Guard, said the guard is working within fiscal constraints yet is more accessible, responsive, and capable than ever before. Orr touted Iowas first-ever females in combat positions, the result of a change in federal military policy. We couldnt be prouder of these groundbreaking young women and the example they set for all Iowans, Orr said. He also noted a continued downward trend in deployments; he said the guard has some of the lowest deployment numbers since the start of the Iraq war. Orr said in this downtime, the guard has focused on training. OVERSIGHT PANEL TALKS LGBTQ CONFERENCE: The Republican-led House Government Oversight Committee presented findings on multiple investigations, including into a state conference for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth. Some have charged the 2015 conference contained material that was inappropriate for high school students. The oversight committee on Wednesday presented testimony from a West Des Moines teacher who found some of the conferences material objectionable. Nate Monson, director of the organization that puts on the conference each year, called the investigation a political stunt. Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, chairman of the oversight committee, said he plans to provide an opportunity for Monson to address the panel. QUOTE OF THE DAY: Lets put it out in the open and make it legal and let it go. I think it should be legal. Sen. Wally Horn, D-Cedar Rapids, commenting Wednesday on legislation that would legalize consumer fireworks in Iowa. WAVERLY Former Democratic President Bill Clinton praised his wife and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as someone with the right priorities and best policies. But he said theres something more she offers that makes her the best choice for Iowans. She has the experience and temperament that has led her to be a change-maker all her life, Clinton told a crowd of more than 375 people gathered at Wartburg Colleges Knights Ballroom on Thursday. She knows when to find common ground and when to stand her ground. Clinton offered a history lesson in Hillary Clinton to make the case that she has been a leader throughout her life. He listed more than a dozen instances, starting with her commencement speech in 1969 at Wellesley College and up through her time as secretary of State. The overarching theme of that history, as Clinton made clear, was simply, She just always makes things better. Clinton pointed to his wifes history with the Childrens Defense Fund to ensure the end of discrimination at schools, her efforts to expand health insurance to children and to all Americans, to her understanding of the Pentagons innerworkings as a member of the U.S. Senate, among many other accomplishments throughout her career. He also stressed that Clinton was often the first to recognize the need for changes. Theres one person running for president in either party, only one, who went to Wall Street in 2007, before that crash, and said, If you dont clean up these housing policies and these subprime mortgage securities, youre going to crater the economy. Only one, Clinton said, in a subtle dig at Hillary Clintons main primary opponent, Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, who has stressed his ability to better address issues that deal with Wall Street. Clinton also noted that Hillary Clinton is likely the one person in American politics who could have withstood the 11 hours of questioning by the House Select Committee on Benghazi. He praised both Hillary Clinton and Sanders for raising awareness about the lead poisoning crisis in the water in Flint, Mich., but he stressed how Hillary Clinton used her time at a Democratic debate earlier this month to push Michigans governor to provide needed funds, which he later did. Her immediate instinct is, What can I do to make it better? Clinton said. Clintons message resonated with Waverlys Rachel Wohrlin, who said she supported Clinton in one of her first opportunities to participate in the Iowa caucuses when he ran in 1992 and plans to support Hillary Clinton on Monday. She praised both Clintons for making children and health care a priority throughout their careers. Joanne Jones of Waverly also appreciated Clintons message about Hillary Clinton. Jones said shed seen Bill Clinton speak before but it was important to repeat the accomplishments of Hillary Clinton. I think the way he listed her accomplishments from the time she was a very young woman to the present day is impressive. I think people need to know, because so many of the things that they hear about Hillary are just slanted in a negative way, and shes got so many positives going for her, Jones said. She said she will definitely be caucusing for Hillary Clinton on Monday. I always liked her, and I think shes got a lot of accomplishments, strong, and shes experienced. I think shes going to make a great president, Jones said. DES MOINES State lawmakers launched a new effort Wednesday to legalize consumer fireworks in Iowa. The revised bill that cleared a Senate subcommittee would allow the possession, sale, transfer, purchase and use of fireworks effective on the day the governor signs it into law. Senate File 508 included an opt-out local control provision that would allow cities and counties to issue bans within their jurisdictions. Its my belief that the current law is silly on its face, said Sen. Jeff Danielson, D-Waterloo, chairman of the Senate State Government Committee, who noted that Iowans bring in fireworks from bordering states but cant legally shoot them off. He said Iowa has taken a head-in-the sand approach to the issue for too many years, and he advocated adding more than a dozen consumer fireworks to the list of legal products, which currently includes only sparklers and other small novelties. Lets put it out in the open and make it legal and let it go. I think it should be legal, said Sen. Wally Horn, D-Cedar Rapids. I think as we move forward, we need things like this. It makes Iowa level with other states that have tried this and done it. Representatives of firefighters, emergency medical response technicians, health-care providers and other groups spoke against the measure, saying it would lead to more injuries or deaths especially among young people, fires, property damage and disruptions and noise issues near nursing homes, day cares and schools. Our concerns are public safety with additional fires and additional injuries across the state, said John Pederson, a lobbyist representing the Iowa Firefighters Association. We will expect to have more calls. Other opponents said they would prefer that local jurisdictions would have to opt-in by adopting legalized fireworks ordinances rather than having to vote in prohibitions. Proponents noted the bill includes limitations for exploding fireworks only between 9 a.m. and 10 p.m., with longer hours for certain holidays, such as Memorial Day, Labor Day, the Fourth of July and New Years Eve. They argued that legalized fireworks would generate a minimum of $18 million in annual sales that currently are being transacted in other states and would benefit Iowa retailers. We can balance economic freedom with public safety, said Danielson, who is a career firefighter with the city of Cedar Falls. Sen. Jake Chapman, R-Adel, who is a licensed EMT, said the issue of legalizing fireworks has been around for years and its time to modernize Iowas law and give Iowans more freedom to engage in an activity they already are doing under lax enforcement. I didnt know fireworks were illegal until I came to the Legislature, said Sen. Rick Bertrand, R-Sioux City. Its fairly common in western Iowa. Senate File 508 provides that violations for using fireworks when it is prohibited would constitute a simple misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not less than $250 and no more than $625, but not jail time for a consumer fireworks violation. Also included were penalties for license violations or selling fireworks to minors. Iowans would not be allowed to use consumer fireworks on property other than their own or where they have been granted permission by the owner. Consumer and display fireworks also would be prohibited in state parks and preserves except when authorized by permit. As proposed, the bill would authorize the state fire marshal to establish a fireworks seller license with a schedule of annual fees ranging from $100 to $1,000 for retailers, community groups and wholesalers seeking to sell first- or second-class fireworks to Iowans aged 18 or older. The legislation establishes a consumer fireworks fund to pay for fireworks safety education programs. A fireworks legalization bill passed the Iowa House last session but stalled in the Iowa Senate. Sue German drove from Madison, Wis., to Davenport with the hope of seeing three presidential candidates Republican John Kasich and Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in the next few days. German, 64, listened intently to Kasich, the governor of Ohio, as he held a question-and-answer session Wednesday night at Davenports River Music Experience. Im a Democrat, but I like this guy, German said after listening to Kasich during his hour-long chat with the audience. German, along with 10 or 11 of the 100 people at the event, got to ask Kasich a question. Hers was about how he would bring the Republicans and Democrats together. Im tired of the sniping between the parties, German said after the event, and adding that she liked that Kasich was open-minded and willing to work both sides of the political aisle. Kasich did not approach the crowd as a firebrand. He spoke intimately with those who asked questions, joked a bit with the crowd, and, German noted, kept his responses measured. One woman asked him a question about funding for Planned Parenthood. Kasich said that while he would not like to fund Planned Parenthood, we need to have robust funding for womens health. In answer to another question regarding health care, Kasich said he is not for the Affordable Care Act, saying it has raised health care costs instead of lowering them. However, he added that the country cant ignore millions of people and children who would otherwise not have health insurance. Kasich, 63, currently is in ninth place among GOP candidates in Iowa with the state's first-in-the-nation caucuses on Monday, according to the website realclearpolitics.com. However, he is sitting at third in New Hampshire. He admitted he got into the race late, announcing his candidacy July 21, and has not done as much in Iowa as he would have liked. Iowas a big state, Kasich said, adding that there was not enough time, money and manpower to cover the state as he wished. In meeting the audience at the RME, Kasich told them that solving the issues of Social Security, the budget deficit, immigration, jobs and national security is easy. No one is going to do it alone, Kasich said. The hard part is getting the members of Congress to put aside their egos and partisan politics. Getting people to work together is the key, he told the crowd. Kasich said that when he was representative in Congress he remembered President Ronald Reagan going to Speaker of the House Thomas "Tip" ONeill and the two working together to fix problems. Thats how they saved Social Security, Kasich said. John Morris, 31, of Chatham, Ill., said he drove to Davenport to see Kasich. Hes a straightforward guy, Morris said. Hes not afraid to talk about issues that might be a bit controversial. Kasich said that as president, his job will be to unite people to solve the nations problems, to build consensus. Im a uniter, he said. German said she is sick of the partisan politics, and maybe someone such as Kasich can overcome the political polarization that has taken over the country. I know this is pie in the sky, but my dream would be a Democratic president and a Republican vice president, German said. But I dont think thats going to happen, soon. Imagine that someone you know confides that they are an undocumented worker, that they have been living in the United States for a long time and they want to become a citizen. Then they ask for your help. What do you tell them? You tell them that "there's no way," Amy Rowell, director of the World Relief office in Moline, said at a panel discussion Wednesday night. "Really, unfortunately, right now there is no way, and the longer they are here illegally, the harder it is. That's why our immigration system is broken." Rowell was one of six panelists at the Quad-Cities New Ideas Forum held at St. Ambrose University, Davenport, drawing a crowd of 60-65 people to learn about immigration issues and reform. The panelists represented a group called Bibles, Badges and Business for Immigration Reform, a network of conservative faith, law enforcement and business leadership, moderated by the Rev. Tony Suarez, executive vice president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. Panelists did not offer specifics of what they think an immigration reform bill should contain, but all agreed that reform is long overdue, that the 11 million to as many as 18 million undocumented workers now living in the United States cannot be removed, and that strong border security is important, too. Police Chief Mike Tupper of Marshalltown, Iowa, took several jabs at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for calling immigrants criminals and for stirring up ugly comments. "It seems like the candidates, whether they have a "D" after their name or an "R," are talking to the fringes," Tupper said. "We need something in the middle. We need to bring this discussion back to the middle," he said, drawing a smattering of applause. Tupper also pointed out that Marshalltown has had a large Latino population for 25-30 years and that "economically, we would be crushed if we lost that population." "Our schools and churches would be crushed." Both Rowell and Doug Rowland, pastor of outreach ministries at Harvest Bible Chapel, Davenport, referred to the Biblical command to welcome strangers. Rowland also reminded that the book of Genesis teaches that all people are created in God's image with inherent dignity. Addressing the notion that immigrants come to America just to "take," Greg Aguilar, director of talent attraction and retention for the Quad-Cities Chamber of Commerce, said that the reality is, "people come to work." "Immigration is an incredible tool to help fill those gaps," he said, referring to jobs that go begging for workers. All three law enforcement officials on the panel Tupper; Mark Prosser, public safety director of Storm Lake, and Sheriff Paul Fitzgerald of Story County, all Iowa talked of the need to reach out to immigrants to explain U.S. laws and to build trust. Immigrants often fear police in their home country, and they can bring that fear with them, Fitzgerald said. This makes them easy victims and silences them when they witness wrong-doing. Several panelists noted that immigration reform is "about people, not politics," but as Fitzgerald noted, "it's going to take politics to fix this." The forum is a partnership of the Quad-City Times, the chamber and St. Ambrose, intended to boost Quad-City caucus participation by providing more thoughtful, in-depth discussion of current issues. It was a good year for The Donald in 1987. For those who havent caught up on Trump trivia, that was the year his beloved Art of the Deal was published, a book which Trump has ranked second only to the Bible. Based on Trumps recent comments regarding ethanol and energy, one has to wonder whether Trump ever left the 80s. Recently, during a series of coordinated events perhaps schemed over during a few hours in an Iowa deer stand, Gov. Terry Branstad issued a political fatwa against Sen. Ted Cruz, stating that he hasnt supported renewable fuels, and I think it would be a big mistake for Iowa to support him. Trump later in the day followed up with a call for an actual increase in ethanol use, stating that ethanol reduces dependence on imported oil, which helps energy independence. No doubt this is good ol fashioned politicking on Trumps part. Trump is running behind Cruz ahead of the caucuses, and he needs a new angle from which to attack. Political winds or not, it is mind-bending that Trump would glom-on to an energy narrative that is so, well, 1987. Consider what has changed since then. Gasoline prices are the lowest in about 10 years. My local station is selling gasoline for $1.64 a gallon. How about yours? According to AAA, the national average gasoline price has fallen below $2 a gallon for the first time since March 2009. The United States is swimming in crude oil, the commodity used to refine gasoline. There is so much oil, in fact, that the federal government has ended the oil export ban enacted in 1975. ConocoPhillips and NuStar Energy loaded a tanker with U.S. crude oil just after the ban was lifted to test the export waters, so to speak. Oil prices have fallen below $30 a barrel, which is troubling for drillers but great news for consumers who have seen wages lag behind the economic recovery. Economists say that for every penny decline in the price of gasoline, about $1 billion is freed up to be spent on things other than fuel. That helps to stimulate the economy, which judging from the stock market and the number of Americans who continue to be out-of-work, could be beneficial to everyone these days. Natural gas prices also are at historic lows, resulting in lower heating costs for consumers as well as reduced costs for manufacturers. This, too, is likely to lower the financial burden on American households. This good economic and energy news for consumers is not the result of politics or government mandated ethanol production; rather it is the direct result Americas shale energy boom. By using advanced technologies to produce huge amounts of domestic oil and natural gas, the United States has become the worlds largest oil and gas producer. Due to shale energy development, U.S. crude oil production growth in 2014 was the largest in more than 100 years, increasing by 1.2 million barrels per day to a total of 8.7 million barrels per day. During the past five years, U.S. natural gas production climbed by 13.9 billion cubic feet per day, outstripping both Russia and Saudi Arabia which now are the second and third largest hydrocarbon producers. With shale energy helping to move the United Stated toward energy independence, there is no good reason to continue the ethanol mandate. That doesnt mean it will no longer be used in fuel. Ethanol boosts octane in gasoline and is an excellent additive. But too much of a good thing can cause problems. Consumers worry that gasoline containing more than 10 percent ethanol could void their vehicles warranties, and they are concerned about ethanols impact on food prices and world hunger. In 2012, during the drought, about 40 percent of the corn crop was used to make ethanol rather than feeding consumers. Although Gov. Branstads and Trumps grandstanding about the ethanol mandate might be good politics in Iowa, it is not the best course of action for the country. And presidential candidates should acknowledge the importance of shale development to energy independence; a sentiment Trump will be forced to acknowledge after hes done kissing babies in Iowa. The ethanol mandate should be repealed. When I was a child in grade school, I remember there was always a picture of Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln hung on the wall. We were taught of the honesty and integrity of these two men. We were children and believed these were words of trustworthiness and honor being taught by our teachers. Ironically, the news media of today would probably invade that child-like belief and create a distorted view of what these words mean. Nowadays, these words can be twisted and broken, then put back together again to form a slippery slope meaning. Actually, both Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln would have been somewhat blemished by all the revealing TV coverage and word-of-mouth information supplied up by some misguided investigators. These presidents are of the past. We voters are now being called upon to vote for the next president of the United States. No matter who gets elected in 2016, we the people are the voters. Our voices will be heard. We have the right to vote for the person of our choice. And as individuals, we should be paying attention to the candidates sharing their beliefs concerning issues that are important to all of us. There will be promises that cannot be kept for one reason or another. There are ideas that do not apply to every situation. But, all the issues are important. So, get out and vote. Your vote counts. Let your voice be heard. S. Elaine Persinger Davenport SPRINGFIELD The Illinois House and Senate passed a bill Thursday that would fund grants for low-income college students and send money to community colleges, but it faces a likely veto when it reaches Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's desk. Democrats say the bill would help community colleges keep their doors open and allow students who receive grants through the Monetary Award Program to stay in school. The bill, which comes with a $721.5 million price tag, doesn't deal with funding for public universities. They also have been caught up in the state's budget impasse. Republicans say the bill won't have its intended effect because there's no money to pay for it. They have offered their own plan, which would fund universities and community colleges at reduced levels and fully fund MAP grants. It's tied to a proposal that would give Rauner authority to move money around within the budget to cover shortfalls. The bill that passed Thursday, which would devote $397 million to MAP grants and more than $324 million to community colleges, was approved without any Republican votes. Democratic Rep. Kelly Burke of Evergreen Park, who chairs the House Higher Education Committee and sponsored the bill, said it's a first step toward funding all aspects of higher education. Before the vote, she noted that the majority of House members attended a public university or community college in the state. "The people of the state of Illinois were with us when we were trying to get ahead, when we were trying to become successful, when we were trying to make a path for ourselves," Burke said, "and I think we owe it to the current students to provide that same courtesy and that same boost up." Democratic Rep. Mike Smiddy of Hillsdale, who serves on the House Higher Education Appropriations Committee, said later he hopes the General Assembly passes a bill funding public universities in the near future. "If we don't, we're going to have some serious problems in the next few months," said Smiddy, who voted in favor of the bill. Democratic Sen. Scott Bennett of Champaign, who represents the University of Illinois, has introduced a bill that would fund public universities. Like their Republican colleagues in the House, Sens. Dale Righter of Mattoon and Chapin Rose of Mahomet said Thursday's votes showed a willingness on the part of Democrats to pass bills without funding and a lack of willingness to compromise. Rose said Democrats are taking a "divide and conquer" approach to higher education funding. "We have a bill, too," Rose said at a committee hearing earlier in the day. "Ours actually has a way to pay for some of this stuff." The Republican plan would fund universities at 80 percent of what they received in fiscal year 2015 and community colleges at 90 percent. Tim Nuding, Rauner's budget director, sent a memo to lawmakers Thursday urging them to support that plan. He wrote that the GOP proposal "is far more fiscally responsible as it would help MAP students, community colleges and universities without exploding the deficit, skyrocketing the bill backlog or exacerbating the state's cash flow crisis." Despite its lack of funding for public universities, Illinois State, Eastern Illinois, Southern Illinois and Western Illinois universities, among others, expressed their support for the bill that passed Thursday. Jay Groves, chief of staff to Illinois State President Larry Dietz, said that although getting full funding for the current year is very important, so is supporting community colleges and making sure MAP grant recipients can continue going to school. If Rauner signs the bill, Illinois State would be reimbursed for the $14 million in MAP grants it has committed to fronting to students. "That's a big help," Groves said. Brooke Chilton, a senior in accounting at Illinois Wesleyan University, a private school in Bloomington, is one of 125,000 MAP grant recipients across the state. Unlike Illinois State, her school won't be covering the grants for the spring semester. That's left Chilton uncertain about how she will cover that portion of her school expenses. She said she hopes Rauner signs the bill. "I understand he wants to make a difference and make Illinois better, but I just don't understand why us students have to go through the pain and suffering that we are right now because of other people's mistakes," Chilton said. views and poetry from an anarchist perspective. The name is from the Akira Kurosawa film Kagemusha . Authors in this blog are nizhal yoddha, san, Most people see black, brown or white bears. Sarah Rogers sees red. "I got a lot of comments in the beginning, 'Why is that bear red when bears aren't red,'" Rogers said. "I don't know for sure why I did what I did, but I love hot colors, and if it was unusual when I started, things have changed. It's not just mine anymore." Art greater than reality will be on display at the Dahl Arts Center starting Friday with "Evolution: A Retrospective," a look at Rogers' work over the past 30 years. There will be an artist's reception at 5 p.m. Friday. Rogers said that it was aptly named, looking at her shift from painting on watercolor paper to a board with a palette knife and toothbrushes, her current preference. "The board I use is very smooth, with no texture at all," Rogers said. "I can create my own texture with how I apply paint, how I scrub, how I draw into it." The exhibit also tracks her from the beginning of her career, when she left her New York job as a graphic designer at Wyse Advertising to return to the Black Hills (Rogers grew up in Spearfish and Florida). She took a watercolor class and fell in love with the form, which has led to a wildly successful career in the arts. "I had a degree in art but painted in oil," Rogers said. "You change as you go along. You experiment and find things that work for you better than others. You should always be experimenting." That experimentation sees her painting realistic subjects like bears, wolves, birds and buffalo with vivid, expressionistic colors. "That set me apart in the beginning," Rogers said. "I think maybe I paint the idea, the art of the animal instead of realistic detail. That can be better than reality." Rogers currently lives in Sundance, Wyo., and is a member of the Artists of the Black Hills. Additionally, she was named one of the winners of the 2015 Wyoming Governor's Arts Award. "I'm still kind of in a state of shock about it," Rogers said. "With this and the retrospective at the Dahl, it's very humbling. I'm kind of breathless." With those honors, it will give Black Hills citizens new opportunities to discover a great artist. "I think people see the joy in my work," Rogers said. "I love it when somebody calls or emails to say they purchased a piece of mine years ago and look at it every day when they get out of bed. That's one of the main reasons we make art, so people can feel the same way about it that we do." She has a fascinating story all her own, but when Sister Lorane Coffin met with a curious public Wednesday morning, she seemed determined to focus on something more dear than her biography: the church. Coffin, who spoke at the Morning Fill Up, a conversation series that puts attendees up close with local community leaders, joined the St. Martin's Convent in 1949 when she was only 16 and has been a part of the Benedictine Sisters in the Black Hills ever since. She tried to shift the conversation away from herself. "As a member of the community, one of our values is to live together as a family," Coffin said told the gathering of about 50 people at The Garage in downtown Rapid City. "We do God's work. We don't seek recognition for ourselves. That's our life." She did tell Morning Fill Up's moderator, Matt Ehlman, about her 67 years in service, including eight as the Prioress (head of the house of nuns), touching on subjects ranging from the history of the St. Martin Monastery's work in the Black Hills to the difficult-for-unbelievers-to-understand decision to live a life of devotion. "That's a mystery only God knows," Coffin said. "I felt called by God. I was young and naive, but this is what I thought I wanted. You're young, you fall in love. Today you would be expected to have been in college or have work experience first." What she lacked in experience when she arrived, she soon found elsewhere. Following in the tradition of the first five Sisters to arrive in South Dakota from Switzerland in 1889, the Benedictine women ran St. Martin's Academy, a four-year high school that operated until 1991, and hospitals and schools of nursing in Hot Springs and Rapid City, including what eventually became Rapid City Regional Hospital. Determined though she was to be more church chronicler than personal biographer, Coffin weaved a narrative that intertwined the two. "I think our work flows out of community life," Coffin said. "It comes out of understanding God calling us. The hospitals were a result of us seeing a need, of somebody coming to the sisters and saying, 'We need you to come start a hospital in Rapid City.'" Through it all, she has had an attitude of taking everything as it comes, something she said she learned from her parents, who raised 12 children at the height of the Great Depression. "They were married in 1919, and had seven children when the banks closed," Coffin said. "Their money was in the bank but for a few dollars in my father's pocket. Would they have married if they knew they'd be penniless? It's a good thing they didn't. They took whatever came to them instead." Coffin spoke of the desire of the sisters to focus on people rather than "something as accidental as what church they belong to, or what political party, or what color you are." "No one has one idea that works for everyone," she said. "Keep listening, keep talking to each other, share your ideas." Over the last several years, various states have been considering pension reform to address funding shortfalls. Some have looked at increasing employee contributions. Others have considered raising their retirement age or lowering benefits. Pennsylvania is now attempting to deal with $50 billion in unfunded pension obligations and a funded status of only 60 percent. Their plan is to make cuts that will affect current workers retirement benefits. According to the Milliman Public Pension Funding Study, which evaluates the largest 100 pension funds in the nation, some plans are faring even worse than Pennsylvanias Indiana Teachers at 50 percent funded, Chicago Municipal Employees Pension at 42 percent, Connecticut State Employees at 41 percent, Illinois State Employees at 37 percent and, worst of all, the Kentucky Employees Retirement Fund at 25 percent. South Dakota is among the states considering pension reform this year, but unlike other governments, we arent experiencing a crisis. In fact, South Dakotas Retirement System is consistently among the best-funded retirement systems in the nation. We measure our funded status at the end of each fiscal year. As of June 30, the South Dakota Retirement System was 104 percent funded. Virtually all government employees in South Dakota fall under the South Dakota Retirement System. This includes all public school teachers in our state, all public university professors and employees, all state employees, and many county and city employees all under the S.D. Retirement System. Third grade teachers in Canton, snowplow drivers in Mobridge, social workers in Winner, university professors in Madison, police officers and firefighters in Rapid City all in the one plan. At its December board meeting, the SDRS Board of Trustees unanimously approved a new retirement design for new public employees who begin work after June 30, 2017. The new design accommodates longer life expectancies, adds variable hybrid benefits and eliminates inequitable subsidies. Those who fall under the new design will not be subsidizing members of the current design. Both designs will be self-sustaining. Unlike reforms in other states, this change will not affect current employees not now, and not when current employees retire. It will not impact those who are already retired. And this change will not require additional contributions from employees or employers. The Boards recommendation is under consideration by the Legislature this session. I am proud of how we have responsibly managed the South Dakota Retirement System. Thanks to the conservative management of the Retirement System Board of Trustees, the outstanding performance of the SD Investment Council, and the cooperation and support of all stakeholders, our pension plan is sound. I am equally proud that we are considering reforms now, when we are in a position of strength. South Dakota is not waiting for a crisis to tackle this issue. Were taking this on now so the benefits of our future teachers, social workers and firefighters remain secure. South Dakotans act with responsibility and with foresight. As some would say, Its how we roll. KYLE | Despite a diminishing probability that Alex Tank Vazquez is still alive, his family, friends, community and tribal members have been joined by federal authorities using high-tech means to try to find the man missing since Halloween. His disappearance has so gripped the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that even a mother grieving over her own recent loss showed up on Sunday to help in the thus far futile search. Bureau of Indian Affairs agents, reportedly joined by the FBI and officers from the Oglala Sioux Tribe Department of Public Safety, have used search and cadaver dogs, a South Dakota Highway Patrol airplane and even drones to search on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for the 24-year-old missing man, according to Nedra Darling, a spokesperson for the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs. We have conducted several interviews of potential witnesses, and we have utilized the state Highway Patrol to conduct flyovers of the property where the male was last seen, Darling said Tuesday night from her Washington, D.C., offices. Weve even used a drone to fly over the property, and dogs to search for him. We continue to receive anonymous tips, and our agents follow up on those tips, she added. Darling said BIA agents had become involved at the request of Oglala Sioux Tribe President John Yellow Bird Steele. Alex Tank Gay, also known as Alejandro Tank Vazquez, a 5-foot-7-inch, 200-pound Pine Ridge native, was last seen Oct. 29 near Kyle. More than 50 family members and friends, as well as members of the Grassroots Chapter of the American Indian Movement, for more than seven hours on Sunday formed a large search party, scouring the shoreline and spillway of the Kyle dam, as well as fields north of the reservoir, said Vienna Kills Warrior, Vazquezs cousin and an organizer of the effort. Just knowing that somebody has been gone this long made people willing to come out and help, Kills Warrior said on Wednesday. Some articles of clothes were found, but we werent too sure if they belonged to him. We found a coat and a tank top, but it didnt appear to be something that Alex would have used. Kills Warrior said her entire family was astounded that Lucille White Dress showed up to aid in the search. White Dress is a family friend and the mother of Emily Blue Bird, a young mother of two whose body was found Jan. 21 in a creek near Pine Ridge Village. I think it made my mom and our family feel good, and we couldnt believe that Lucille had come despite what she was going through, Kills Warrior said, adding that she had mixed feelings about the results of search. Im disappointed that we didnt find anything, but I was kind of relieved, she said. We just hope he comes back alive and well. Kills Warrior and her cousin, Misty Hernandez, said recent media attention and Sundays search appeared to have spurred additional canvassing by tribal and federal officers. They had a search party out (Wednesday) on American Horse Creek, said Kills Warrior, who was asked by her husband, a tribal policeman, to show them where volunteers had searched on Sunday, as well as in previous searches. We were told there was FBI out there, BIA agents, Chief of Police Eugenio White Hawk, all searching for Tank. Search parties were planned for this Saturday and Sunday and every weekend until the young man is found, she said. In addition, an online GoFundMe account has been established in the name of Searching for Alex, with the intent of establishing a reward fund for information that leads to the missing man, to help feed volunteers, and to spread the word via the media, Kills Warrior added. She said the family was guardedly optimistic that Vazquez would be found alive, but that those hopes were diminishing with time. As time progresses, we have that feeling that he will not come back alive, because he would have called his dad or his brothers or his aunt or something, Kills Warrior said, pausing to thank all those who had helped in search efforts thus far. Hes never gone this long without talking to his family. Hernandez echoed her cousins remarks. Everybody wants Tank to walk in the door, but with all these rumors swirling around that he was murdered, that might just be the outcome, she said. It breaks our hearts. As of Wednesday morning, a total of 240 bills had been introduced for state lawmakers to consider a clear indication they have a lot on their plates with only 26 days remaining in the 2016 legislative session. Whats missing, however, are two of the most important bills that lawmakers will consider this session and both deserve a rigorous and open public debate. The bills address teacher pay and expanding Medicaid, controversial issues that Gov. Daugaard himself has elevated into topics that already have generated robust discussion in the state. The governor outlined his plan to increase the sales tax by a half cent to raise a $100 million for teacher pay raises and property tax relief in his State of the State speech on Jan. 12. His plan was presented to the public after a 26-member Blue Ribbon task force he appointed met several times to study the problem and recommend a solution, which it did. Given the amount of time and resources dedicated to tackling a problem that many see as critical to the state's future, it is surprising the governors office has not yet filed a bill that clearly outlines his plan to make teacher pay in South Dakota more competitive with every other state in the nation. In the meantime, lawmakers are filling that void by bringing up alternatives to the governors funding plan. For example, 11 lawmakers have co-sponsored House Bill 1130, which dedicates $75 million in video-lottery proceeds to teacher pay. In addition, House Majority Leader Brian Gosch said he doesnt believe a tax hike will get the necessary two-thirds support from lawmakers and is looking at other ways to fund an increase in teacher pay. The problem is not that other funding options are being put on the table; it is just difficult to discuss them without the governors bill as a starting point. The fact that the governor has yet to introduce his Medicaid expansion bill also is a mystery. In January, he met with the Journal editorial board and explained in great detail his plan to have the federal government pick up the cost to provide Medicaid to an additional 50,000 South Dakotans. The key element of the plan, he explained, is to have the federal government agree to cover 100 percent of Native American health-care costs, which would save the state an estimated $69 million, money that would more than cover the states share of additional Medicaid costs. Gov. Daugaard also told the editorial board his legislation would include a provision that the state would only expand Medicaid if the federal government agreed to his plan, a proposal that he showed a great deal of enthusiasm for when he met with the Journal. It is time for the governor's office to introduce these bills to ensure that lawmakers already looking at a stack of legislation have the time to study them, hear from their constituents about them and then make informed votes. Both measures have significant implications for the entire state and the clock is ticking on a session that ends on Feb. 11. It's time to make sure the process moves forward so these bills are not resolved behind closed doors in the waning hours of the session. What are you waiting for governor? Bribery case against ex-head of Rosbank closed - report MOSCOW, January 28 (RAPSI) A criminal case against former CEO of Rosbank, Vladimir Golubkov, who was accused of commercial bribery, was closed in the late 2015, Vedomosti newspaper reported on Thursday. According to the newspaper, a criminal case against Rosbanks vice-president Tamara Polyanitsina is still being investigated. Last May, the police arrested Golubkov, who had headed the bank since 2008, while he was accepting 5 million rubles ($137,149) as part of a larger $1.5 million kickback from the representative of a private company. The executive was allegedly trying to extort the money from Andrei Kovalyov, a former member of the Moscow city legislature and a rock musician, in order to restructure an $80 million debt. Rosbank is a private universal bank within the Societe Generale banking group. It provides banking services to private and corporate clients and has over 600 offices in 340 cities and towns across Russia. It is one of Russia's top 10 banks in terms of assets. Top EU court says that freezing of ex-Ukrainian officials assets was groundless MOSCOW, January 28 (RAPSI) Europe's highest court in Luxembourg ruled on Thursday that sanctions imposed on five ex-Ukrainian high-ranking officials were groundless. An application seeking removal from the European blacklist was filed by Nikolai Azarov who once held the position of Prime Minister; his son Aleksei Azarov who used to be a lawmaker in the Ukrainian parliament; former Vice Prime Minister Sergei Arbuzov; former minister of Energy and Coal Mining Eduard Stavytskyi; brother of the ex-head of Presidential Administration of Ukraine Sergei Klyuyev. Assets of the officials have been frozen from March 6, 2014 until March 5, 2015. The Council of the European Union introduced sanctions against ex-Ukrainian officials as they were suspected of being involved in the embezzlement of governments funds. Their assets were frozen shortly after receiving a letter from the office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine saying that the officials were under investigation. The General Court ruled that officials could not be responsible for misappropriation of funds solely on the basis of a letter which did not specify details concerning the matters specifically alleged against the five Ukrainians. GRANTSDALE A coffee tasting event at Hamilton Christian Academy on Tuesday was one of 16,000 creative events happening this week across the country to highlight a movement by parents to promote a positive light on effective education options for children. Everybody likes their coffee different, said HCA Public Relations Director Kim Taylor. Every parent should be looking for the right educational recipe for their child as well and thats the reason that we do this, to show our gratitude that we live in a country where we have choices. Taylor said the National School Choice Week is a non-partisan group trying to empower parents to craft the best education for their child, whether thats public schools, charter schools, private schools, homeschooling or tutoring. Parents, especially those with children with special needs, want to find educational tools that will help their children reach his or her potential, Taylor said. Very few children fit well into a single educational mold. For example, at Hamilton Christian Academy, every student has math at 10:15 in the morning. During that time the hallways fill as kids scatter to the place that best fits their abilities. Its a powerful thing to see seventh graders working with fourth graders, for example, and learning from each other in a no-fail environment. Rhoda Mullet from Corvallis recently enrolled her three children at HCA after homeschooling for many years. I was concerned about the transition, but its gone well, she said. We wanted a Christian education and we wanted smaller class sizes. That was a big deal for me. Katie Wyatt, a mother of a HCA first-grader said she was frustrated after two weeks of kindergarten in public school. I tried to be fully involved as a parent, but it wasnt well received, she said. Here I love the environment and love being involved. My daughter was very excited about coming to school here. Taylor said, Many students are here because of our smaller class sizes. Our teachers have the heart and the time. Most public school teachers have the heart, but may not have the time or class-size to tailor-make those educational opportunities. But we find that its really a confidence builder for our kids. The HCA event was open to parents, community members with special invitations delivered by students to residents of Grantsdale. For more information about National School Choice Week, go to www.schoolchoiceweek.com. In little more than a week, five people have died in avalanches in four western states, including two in Montana. While the danger of an avalanche in the mountains surrounding the Bitterroot Valley isnt as high as others areas in the state, Bitterroot National Forest Hydrologist Ed Snook said people still need to be aware of local conditions. In some of the most avalanche-prone areas in the west, Snook said an early snowfall followed by dry cold air set up a weak layer close to the ground that doesnt bond well with the snowpack that came later. The gradient between ground and air temperature caused the snow crystals to change shape over time, Snook said. They became faceted little cubes that dont bond well. Snook said some of the snowpack surrounding the Bitterroot Valley has a similar weak layer, but generally its not quite as deep and the snowfall that followed did bond better than other places in the west. The mountains in the Bitterroot have not received a large amount of snow at one time for several weeks, but Snook said there have been smaller amounts coming at frequent intervals. The Bitterroot Mountains can sometimes pick up a continuous light snowfall that we dont see in the valley, he said. The mountains are kind of scraping whatever moisture there is in the air thats passing by. While those smaller amounts of snowfall might lessen the widespread danger of avalanche, wind-pushed snow can create its own issues for the backcountry traveler. You spend any time outside in the winter and youll see how quickly wind can transport snow and create a buildup, he said. That wind-transported snow can quickly load a slope and create a dramatic situation. Weve seen a lot of variability in the snowpack this season, Snook said. It kind of makes you anxious. Conditions can quickly change within a short distance. Its a situation of the buyer always needs to be aware, he said. People travelling in the backcountry need to be able to assess the dangers on their own. Avalanche danger advisories can be obtained at www.missoulaavalanche.org When considering those advisories, Snook reminded people those are made for a relatively large area from information gathered in several different ways, including from reports offered by the public. Im an advocate for people filing reports on the website, Snook said. It helps them develop a better report of local conditions. People need to remember that theres variability, even in the avalanche forecasted areas, he said. While the snowpack might generally be stable here, you zip over the east side of the state to do some snowmobiling, youre entering a totally different world. Sagarmatha Network Pvt. Ltd. is the organization dedicated in the field of printing, publishing service since 2001. As part of media, we've been publishing Review Nepal, an English medium weekly registered at District Administration Office (DAO) Kathmandu with registration number 130-162-163 and reviewnepal.com as an online digital newspaper, with registration number 849-075-076 at Department of Informational and Broadcasting (DIB) from Kathmandu, Nepal since 2003. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TO ADVERTISE ON OUR BLOG The above are paid ads. To place yours for just $25/month, call Jim Keyworth at (928) 517-1103 or e-mail peoplesgazette@gmail.com. Banner ads are also available across the bottom and top of the blog. (The Rim Country Gazette Blog is currently averaging over 5,000 visits per month. Our readership survey shows Gazette readers are better educated and more affluent than the average newspaper reader. Gazette Blog ads reach the people most likely to vote and to use your services and products.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Big trips or small trips, not even all road trips, with Bob! Thursday, January 28, 2016 DESPITE issuing a news release yesterday, which gave no indication that the date for the next general election will be announced, the Jamaica Observer understands that Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller will on Sunday tell the people of the nation when they may vote. The long-awaited announcement is set for Half-Way-Tree Square in St Andrew, and should end ongoing speculation about when Simpson Miller will call it. Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller The Peoples National Party will be hosting the first in a series of national meetings on Sunday, 31st January, 2016 in Half-way-Tree Square, starting at 6:00 pm, the party said in a statement late yesterday. The meeting is part of the partys national mobilisation effort as it prepares itself for general election. The party leader and prime minister, the Most Honourable Portia Simpson Miller, along with other officers will address supporters, the news release said. It is likely that the election, which is constitutionally due by the end of March 2017, will be held by February at the earliest, based upon the stipulations laid down by the Constituted Authority, or early March. The law now allows for Nomination Day to be held no less than five days and no more than seven days from the time of the announcement of the general election. Similarly, voting must be conducted no less than 16 days and no more than 23 days between Nomination Day and Election Day. An early sign that Simpson Miller would announce the election date emerged last Sunday when the PNP placed full-page newspaper advertisements of its 63 candidates. Another signal popped up during a sitting of the House of Representatives in Gordon House on Tuesday, when Simpson Miller, in an off-microphone comment aimed at the Jamaica Labour Partys (JLPs) spokesman on finance and planning, and Member of Parliament for Manchester North Eastern Audley Shaw, said that she had now been touched by the master a reference to her earlier pronouncement that she would only give the election date when God touches her and instructs her to announce it. It was also hardly a secret that Simpson Miller was awaiting the findings of the latest opinion poll conducted by the Don Anderson-led Market Research Services for the RJR Communications Group, which yesterday found that the PNP held a slim 4.3 percentage point lead over the JLP among committed voters. This is a blog by a former CEO of a large Boston hospital to share thoughts about negotiation theory and practice, leadership training and mentoring, and teaching. Intro Greetings! I am a political scientist , specializing in International Relations , my research and teaching focus on ethnic conflict and civil-military relations . I watch way too much TV, and I like movies as well so I tend to write about both and find IR stuff in pop culture. I rant alot about American politics and sometimes about Canadian politics. I like to take ideas I once learned a long time ago and apply them to whatever strikes my fancy. Arab Coalition Leaders' Paradoxical Statements Back in the Media Once Again Former Yemeni President denies asking for Saudi-led military intervention. Assiri photo courtesy: arabnews.com Hadi photo: voanews.com (SALEM, Ore.) - Despite what the Arabic coalition forces spokesman Brig Ahmed Asiri stated regarding Hadis request to start the Saudi military intervention in Yemen, former Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi said he was surprised at the launching of the Saudi-led Arabic coalition military operation in Yemen as he was leaving the country. As Hadi was flying out, the Ansar Allah movement forces were arriving in Aden. Hadi said in a television interview with Abu Dhabi TV "...they arrived to the airport and cut off the road on us and we came out in different ways and they were confused. "We got to the town of al-Ghaydah in the morning and they told us that the decisive storm had begun. So I wondered, Is this reasonable? Because Americans told me we wont let anyone intervene." _________________________________________ Ex-officer was a churchgoer & family man. Police say he may be a serial rapist. The Allen family lived on the northwest side of Hutchinson, less than two miles from Rice Park, where several women said they were accosted. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. The Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD) is a human rights organisation and movement dedicated to achieving equality and justice for all Guyanese, especially those suffering discrimination based on their sexuality, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. We support similar work in Latin America and the Caribbean, Americas, Commonwealth, Global South and worldwide. Click On Our Advertisers Ads Most of our ads have links to take you directly to their Websites. Just click on an ad and away you go. Keeping track of the civil rights opinions of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Brought to you by Bergstein & Ullrich. "Judicial Power to Regulate Plea Bargaining" | Main | New poll shows that, even among younger voters, support for the death penalty remains solid January 28, 2016 California Gov Jerry Brown proposes state ballot initiative to expand parole and make other reforms As reported in this Los Angeles Times article, headlined "Gov. Brown to seek November ballot initiative to relax mandatory prison sentences," the chief executive of the largest state in our Union is asking voters to give certain executives and judges more power to reduce state sentences after their imposition. Here are the basic details: Almost four decades after he signed a law mandating strict sentences for the most serious crimes, Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday moved to ease its effect, proposing inmates convicted of nonviolent offenses be given a chance at early release. Let's take the basic structure of our criminal law and say, when you've served fully the primary sentence, you can be considered for parole, Brown said in announcing a November ballot initiative to streamline the rules one he estimated could affect thousands of current inmates. Rather than change sentencing policy, the proposal would allow corrections officials to more easily award credits toward early release based on an inmate's good behavior, efforts to rehabilitate or participation in prison education programs. It's well-balanced, Brown said. It's thoughtful. The effort is largely in response to the lingering effects of a 2009 federal order for California to reduce its prison population, Brown said. But he made clear that it also is meant to improve a criminal justice system that offers too few chances at rehabilitation. By allowing parole consideration if they do good things, the governor said of some inmates, they will then have an incentive to show those who will be judging whether or not they're ready to go back into society. Brown had been hinting for months that he was considering a key change in criminal justice policy, and consulted with a number of academics and inmate advocates on how to proceed. He was joined Wednesday by a handful of prominent law enforcement and religious leaders. While it was unclear whether they were ready to fully embrace each detail of the measure, they praised Brown's focus on weeding out those serving time for nonviolent offenses. I think this will effectively open bed space for those who richly deserve to be there, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said. The initiative also would authorize the state parole board to consider early release for nonviolent inmates who complete a full sentence for their primary offense and it would require a judge to decide whether felons as young as 14 should be tried in juvenile or adult court. That final element of the initiative would undo a system approved by voters in 2000 that handed that power to prosecutors. Once the measure is given a formal title and summary by the attorney general's office, Brown and his political team will need to gather more than 585,000 valid voter signatures to qualify it for the Nov. 8 statewide ballot. The governor likely has the needed resources: Campaign funds left over from his 2014 reelection bid and previous successful ballot measures total some $24 million.... Patrick McGrath, district attorney of Yuba County, said Brown's plan by offering more pathways to parole also may send the wrong message to crime victims who believe their perpetrators received a certain punishment. Now, down the line, they're told 10 year [sentences] are not really 10 years, he said. I think this is very, very corrosive to the faith that the public has ultimately in the criminal justice system. Loyola Law professor Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor, said the proposal would make a judge's sentence only a starting point. People could be released from prison years earlier based on what the parole board wants to do, she said.... Of particular interest will be how Brown shapes the narrative of the political campaign in support of his parole initiative. The fall statewide ballot already is expected to be one of the longest in more than a decade, which will mean voters are deluged with a flood of advertisements, mailers and messages. The ballot also likely will feature other high-profile public safety debates, including a gun violence initiative promoted by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and perhaps dueling initiatives to either eliminate or strengthen California's death penalty. Prof David Ball, who has researched and written a lot about California sentencing realities, provides a deeper dive into what all this could really mean in this Reality-Based Community post. Here is how this post starts: Governor Jerry Brown introduced the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016 (link to initiative text), a sentencing reform ballot initiative slated to appear on the November ballot. This is potentially huge news if nothing else, it may signal that the political calculation on crime could be changing but I have some caveats about how significant it could end up being. The PRSA expands the potential for parole release, expands good-time credits, and puts judges, not DAs, in charge of deciding whether a given juvenile offender can be tried in adult court. The most significant part of the PRSA, in my opinion, is the expanded role of parole. California never quite did away with indeterminate sentencing, as I have written about here, reserving X-years-to-life sentences for non-capital murder, three strikes offenses, and some sex offenses. This proposal is definitively not a return to the Indeterminate Sentencing Law of the early 1970s, where sentences could be as vague as one year to life. Instead, it makes all those who have served their primary (determinate) sentence eligible for parole. The key here is how primary sentence is defined: it exclude[es] the imposition of an enhancement, consecutive sentence, or alternative sentence. As I wrote about here, (see this page for a link to the article and the data on sentencing), there are many people serving very long consecutive sentences (100 years plus). More importantly, the tail-wagging-the-dog enhancement structure of the California penal code means a lot of time actually served is from enhancements. I expect this to be the main source of pushback, since so much of plea bargaining is, in fact, charge bargaining, and so much of charge bargaining is about enhancements. January 28, 2016 at 10:15 AM | Permalink Comments Extend parole, is that like probation where every sentence has a ten year probation and here in Texas we have a DA that admits putting probation for ten years so that he can revoke it whenever he feels the need? Posted by: LC in Texas | Jan 29, 2016 2:47:37 PM Parent of 24 year old sentenced to 14 years (at age 19) with 10 years of gun enhancement. Mental health issues and chronic health issues currently on dialysis for end-stage kidney failure. Posted by: Jessica Wright | May 15, 2016 1:18:40 PM Mother, of 22 year old son...no criminal background offered 25 years with a deadline to make decision to take or leave, or take a chance on 50-years. There is no such thing as negotiating, or barganing with DA, all beacuse of enhancements! Rediculous to give them so much power! Actually all power. Posted by: Carol | Sep 22, 2016 2:22:53 PM Post a comment My travels in Serbia through Princeton's Bridge Year Program and Dale Fellowship This well-established Blog is worth visiting on a regular basis for a wealth of information of interest to Armenian nationals and to the Armenian Diaspora world-wide. Although it has a particular role in promoting international recognition of the Genocide, the Blog encompasses much more and includes many articles of general appeal to all those concerned with Armenian affairs. Much of the content is difficult or impossible to find elsewhere and the long list of links provided gives easy access to a plethora of material on social, political, religious, educational and cultural matters, and many news items from around the world. We've heard probably too much about street level security for the upcoming Super Bowl and Super Bowl City, but what about threats from above. Don't you worry, the government has thought it all through, and there is going to be a lot going on above all our heads starting next week including fighter jets running extensive drills out of Oakland International Airport. It seems the Air Force is worried someone might try to crash a plane into San Francisco or Santa Clara the week of the big game, and so will be running intercept drills. The largest of which is set to take place on February 3, reports CBS 5, when the Civilian Air Patrol will fly Cessna 182 airplanes into what will be restricted airspace. The opportunity to ensure safe skies around Levis Stadium is a mission CAP takes very seriously, explained CAP Maj. Gen. Joe Vazquez. Our aircrews are trained to simulate either threat or duress flights that inadvertently or purposely enter into restricted airspace. The channel notes that U.S. Air Force pilots will divert the CAP planes after making radio contact. This exercise, we are told, is called "Falcon Virgo" and is part of "Operation Noble Eagle." On the day of the Super Bowl itself, the area around Levi's Stadium will become restricted airspace. Related: Blue Angels To Take Over SF Skies, Eardrums This Afternoon (And The Rest Of The Week) As taxpayer costs related to Super Bowl City continue to increase, we learn today that at least one city department is working hard to keep expenses off the books. SFMTA officials, it seems, have asked employees to "volunteer" as "ambassadors" for Super Bowl City. This "volunteering" would be done during work hours, on the clock, and the employees would be paid by SFMTA. Costs associated with this volunteer work are not included in city officials' $5.3 million (and growing) estimated bill to taxpayers for Super Bowl 50 celebrations, however, allowing overall costs to appear lower than they really are. So reports the Examiner, who uncovered emails via a public records request detailing the agency's plans. While it is not clear exactly how many employees were asked to volunteer, an email obtained by the Examiner written by Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin helps explain the scope of the agency's plan. To be successful, we need every employee at the SFMTA to pitch in and help on this event, wrote Reiskin.We are looking for staff to volunteer as ambassadors." According to the paper, he specified the shifts lasted from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m., and from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and they would be needed from January 20 to February 9. An SFMTA employee told the Examiner they're looking to fill 250 shifts. So, a quick calculation: 250 shifts at 4 hours per shift equals 1,000 man hours. That's 1,000 man hours not being accounted for in the overall Super Bowl City costs to San Francisco taxpayer. SFist reached out to Reiskin in an attempt to find out how much the agency expects to pay out for this volunteer time, and to confirm if the volunteer time estimate is correct. As of press time, we have received no response. While the unaccounted SFMTA hours may be a drop in the bucket when compared to the overall scope of the mismanaged Super Bowl 50 deal, it speaks to a pattern of unaccounted for costs. Supervisor Aaron Peskin told the paper that this strange volunteer plan "is going to add to the millions of dollars of unreimbursed taxpayer costs, or its going to lead to a reduction in Muni services and productivity, period. Supervisor Jane Kim agrees, and made her opinion clear in an email to the Examiner. If any staff is being diverted from providing needed services to San Franciscans in order to volunteer their time, thats absolutely unacceptable, noted Kim. Thats exactly the type of shell game with city resources that we have to scrutinize. Update, January 29: SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose returned our request for comment, but managed to not answer our question. We asked the agency how much they expect to pay out to employees during this "volunteer" time. "There are no additional costs," writes Rose. "This is part of the volunteers' regularly scheduled work time. It saves costs of having professional ambassadors during regular work hours and it is a common way that transit agencys support customer service during big events and disruptions." Remember, the issue here is that city officials are able to hide the true cost of hosting Super Bowl City if paid, on-the-clock employees' time is not counted toward total Super Bowl costs. So while paying SFMTA employees to "volunteer" on the clock during normal work hours may not cost the SFMTA any "additional costs," as Rose writes, it means that the true cost of hosting the Super Bowl City remains unknown. As Supervisor Kim noted, it's a shell game one the citizens of San Francisco are sure to lose. Related: Supervisors Now Demanding City Hall Renegotiate Super Bowl 50 Deal "Love thy neighbor" isn't typically the guiding principle on Nextdoor.com, the private, free social network for neighborhoods which launched in San Francisco in 2011. Since then it's raised, per Crunchbase, over $200 million in funding as well as thorny questions like: How much racism coded and explicit can you pack into one website? Nextdoor has fairly readily copped to the fact it has a racial profiling problem. The company's CEO even promised changes to the site's rules and guidelines back in October and now those seem to be falling into place. "Don't be racist" is obviously not much of a credo, so after meeting with Oakland city officials, according to ABC7, Nextdoor announced in a blog post that it's introduced an option for flagging a post as "Racial Profiling." Here's an example, provided by Nextdoor: "Suspicious car in neighborhood: Black male in blue ford sedan doing drive-bys on Shelby Street, near my house at 52 Shelby. Didn't get a photo of the car. Never seen this car before. Keep eyes open." "If you saw this post," Nextdoor asks, "how would you know who to be on the lookout for?" Exactly. "1. It doesn't give your neighbors much to go on (and) 2. It casts suspicion on every person of that sex and race who may legitimately be in or live in your neighborhood." Now when you move to post about suspicious behavior in a neighborhood on Nextdoor, you'll be encouraged to focus on activity rather than vague, often racial descriptors. Focus on behavior, not appearance reads a new pop-up you see before you post. But perhaps most efficacious will be the option to flag posts. "When a post is flagged as 'racial profiling,' it is immediately escalated to the Neighborhood Lead and Nextdoor Support Team so that offensive content can be removed." So, got that? Don't engage in racial profiling, and flag it when you see it. As they say, good Nextdoor posting etiquette makes good neighbors. Previously: Nextdoor Knows It Has A Racial Profiling Problem, CEO Promises Changes After all, if the birthplace of the Roman Empire is hiding its statues, as if they are shameful or improper, why should others respect them or take notice? Empowering medieval ideologies is Europes latest error of judgment and there will be a hefty price to pay down the road. A very good summary of the shameful decision by Italian hosts to cover the statues during the visit of Iranian President Rouhani, by Nervana Mahmoud, a Doctor and Commentator on Middle East issues.The post ends with a prophetic warning:But read the whole article, by all means. It would be a long shot to happen, but the Saturday campaign event by Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz in Sioux City could get really interesting. Perhaps a $1.5 million offer sweetens the pot. Republican candidate Donald Trump has pulled out of the final candidate debate prior to the Monday Iowa caucuses, which plays out Thursday night in Des Moines. Trump is feuding with Fox News, and since that news network is hosting the debate, Trump won't take part. Cruz had previously set a Saturday event at Western Iowa Tech Community College in Sioux City. Now, he has asked Trump to come to WIT and debate one-on-one. If it happened, Sioux City would be at the epicenter of national politics in two days. In a letter to Trump, Cruz wrote: "We owe it to the men and women of Iowa to ensure that they hear jointly and directly from the two leading Republican candidates so that they may contrast our positions on the critical issues we face as a nation as they make their final choice leading up to Mondays caucuses. "Accordingly, please accept this invitation to join me at an in-person, two-hour Town Hall event at Western Iowa Tech Community College in Sioux City this Saturday, January 30th at 8:00 p.m. Central. This venue is already reserved and I would propose that our campaigns evenly divide available seating/ticketing." There is a new wrinkle Thursday morning. A super political action committee, Keep The Promise, has offered to donate $1.5 million to veterans charities if Trump takes Cruz's debate offer. Keep The Promise hashtagged a tweet with the phrase #greatdeal : "@realDonaldTrump: debate #TedCruz one-on-one in Iowa before the caucuses and we will donate $1.5M to vet charities." Trump had a tweet to respond to the Cruz offer: "Even though I beat him in the first six debates, especially the last one, Ted Cruz wants to debate me again. Can we do it in Canada?" Trump's schedule shows he will be campaigning in Davenport about the time Cruz will be in Sioux City on Saturday. DES MOINES | The Iowa Court of Appeals next month will hear the former Argosy Sioux City riverboat casino's appeal of a series of rulings that led to its replacement. Attorneys for the Belle of Sioux City, a Penn National Gaming Co. subsidiary that operated the floating casino, and the Iowa Attorney General's Office will present their arguments Feb. 23 in Des Moines. The Belle is challenging the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission's actions when granting a state gaming license in 2013 to the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Sioux City and its local nonprofit partner, Missouri River Historical Development. The case had initially been appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court, which transferred the case to the appeals court last month. Belle of Sioux City filed its notice of appeal a year ago, challenging District Judge Eliza Ovrum's Nov. 7, 2014, ruling in Polk County District Court that the IRGC had acted within its authority when it granted the gaming license to the Hard Rock and MRHD. That case was a result of a lengthy contract dispute between Argosy and MRHD that led to the IRGC's decision to accept bids for Woodbury County's first land-based casino. Belle claims the IRGC's actions were "unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious" and violated state law and the company's rights of due process. The IRGC ordered the casino to close in July 2014 because it was in violation of a state law that requires casinos to partner with licensed nonprofit groups. The Argosy's license lapsed after MRHD, its then-nonprofit sponsor, refused to sign off on a license renewal application. Ovrum upheld that IRGC decision, and the floating casino was closed July 30, 2014, two days before the $128 million Hard Rock opened in downtown Sioux City. The Argosy riverboat and accompanying structures on shore have been removed from the Missouri riverfront. The riverboat was sold to an Illinois shipyard. Todays top picks from our online calendar. Find more events at siouxcityjournal.com/calendar. Wine Bottle Bird Feeders: Make a bird feeder out of a used wine bottle 6:30-8 p.m. at Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center, 4500 Sioux River Road. Items to decorate your bird feeder and some wine to sip while you enjoy designing your project will be provided. Limit 25. Please pre-register by calling 712-258-0838 or email tkruid@woodburycountyiowa.gov. Cost is $10. Vietnam: Service With Honor Exhibit: A photo exhibit honoring veterans of a conflict that deeply divided our nation is on display at Betty Strong Encounter Center, 900 Larsen Park Road through Jan. 31. Call 712-224-5242 for more information. Chance Greaves: Opening reception and artist talk 5-7 p.m. today at Pearson Lakes Art Center, 2201 Highway 71 N., Okoboji, Iowa. This work, on display through March 4, is a result of an ongoing fixation with discrete images and objects. Visit www.lakesart.org or call 712-332-7013 for more information. SIOUX CITY | A Native American artist has finished a mural at the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center that pays homage to Chief Blackbird of the Omaha Tribe. Native to Winnebago, Nebraska, Henry Payer Jr., 29, of Ontario, Canada, completed the acrylic painting in three weeks. It depicts explorers William Clark and Meriwether Lewis planting a flag at Blackbird's grave. Payer said the scenic landscape, with trees overlooking the Missouri River, is depicted between Winnebago and Decatur, Nebraska. "It's my admiration for the Omaha Tribe," said Payer, an enrolled member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. "It pays a homage to them." The 20-by-12 mural titled "Chief Blackbird's (Wazhinga Cabe) Grave: An Indigenous View" joins Payer's two other murals at the center, "The Buffalo Dance" and "Encounters." Marcia Poole, the center director, said Blackbird died from smallpox in 1800, along with hundreds of Omaha Tribe members. She said Lewis and Clark planted a flag as a sign of respect at Blackbird's grave. In Sioux City, Payer attended West High School for one year and focused on art, photography and print making before transferring to Winnebago High School. Payer attended the Oscar Howe Summer Art Institute at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. In 2008, he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He received a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2013. Payer said he strives to incorporate the culture of the Ho-Chunk Tribe, also known as Winnebago, into his artwork. "It's adding our indigenous perspective to an educational facility like this," Payer said. "It's our collective history as Americans." Poole said the mural will help educate people about Native Americans during the Lewis and Clark Expedition. "We're evolving in telling our story," Poole said. Thumbs up Launch date for USS Sioux City nears A contingent of local leaders will travel to the shipyard in Marinette, Wis., for launching of the USS Sioux City on Saturday. Construction of the ship began in June 2013. A littoral combat ship, the 378-foot-long Sioux City will have an ability to operate in both shallow and deep waters and will support mine, undersea and surface-warfare missions. The ship is expected to be commissioned by the Navy in 2017 and will be based in Mayport, Fla. "This ship has proven to be a source of community pride," Chris McGowan, the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce president who will be among local dignitaries in attendance for the launching, told The Journal's Nick Hytrek for a Wednesday story. We couldn't agree more. Enjoy your retirement, chief After 42 years on the South Sioux City, Neb., Police Department, Scot Ford retired last Friday. He spent his last 26 years on the force as police chief. The 65-year-old Ford first pinned on a South Sioux City police badge on Jan. 22, 1974. His last day on the job was also Jan. 22. We wish Ford the best in his well-deserved retirement from a lifetime of police work in the community. Happy places HomeSnacks, an Internet site, ranked Orange City as the "happiest city in Iowa," The Journal's Tim Gallagher reported on Sunday. Sioux Center was second, Sheldon was ninth and Le Mars was 10th. "We threw a lot of criteria at this one in order to get the best, most complete results possible," according to the website. "Using FBI crime data, the government census, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Sperlings Best Places, and Twitter, this is the criteria we used, looking at the states 50 largest cities": - Percentage of residents with a college degree. - Average commute time. - Employment. - Cost of living. - Crime. - Sunny days. - Percentage of married couples. - Percentage of homeowners Thumbs down Call center closes CenturyLink closed its call center in Sioux City, resulting in the loss of its last 47 jobs, The Journal reported on Jan. 20. When Qwest Communications announced plans for the call center in March 2005, company officials pledged to create 468 jobs in return for $2.5 million in local and state incentives. At one time, employment at the call center exceeded 400. By the time CenturyLink took over the call center in 2012 following its acquisition of Qwest, employment had fallen to 275. Good grief According to a story in Sundays Journal, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump - at a campaign appearance in Sioux Center, Iowa, on Saturday said this about the depth of supporter loyalty for him: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose anyone." The mind reels. CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa | U.S. Rep. Steve King said he had hoped the contest between Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and businessman Donald Trump for the top spot in Iowas Feb. 1 Republican caucus wouldnt get personal. However, that didnt stop him from taking a couple of shots at Trump during an appearance in Iowa City on behalf of Cruz. He called Trump erratic, (someone) who seems to want to attack everybody all of the time, anybody that threatens him, King told about 70 people who filled the Hamburg Inn No. 2 Wednesday afternoon. This isnt the ring in the WWE, King said. This is the presidency of the United States, you know. Its not a one-sided war of words. Trump took a swing or two at Cruz during a visit to the University of Iowa Field House Tuesday night. Cruz is a nervous wreck because hes dropping like a rock in the polls, Trump said. The sparring started even earlier, according to King. After the last GOP debate Trump decided to just unload. Its like hes obsessed to sit down and put streams of insults out on his Twitter account, King said outside the Hamburg Inn. Thats pretty irrational and erratic. King was joined by former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has endorsed his fellow Texan. Until recently, Perry was better acquainted with the people of Iowa than Cruz, who was his solicitor general while Perry was governor, he said. I know the people of Iowa rather well, Perry said, adding he thinks they want a president who has humility and gratitude, and is courageous. Its up to Iowans to put that candidate -- Ted Cruz -- on the path to the presidency, he said. The future of America is in your hands. Thats a pretty heavy thing, but Im pretty sure you're up to it, Perry said. Karen Fesler of Coralville, who supported Perry while he was seeking the GOP nomination, said Perry's support may help Cruz with former Perry supporters who remain undecided. However, she added, endorsements are fine for a news cycle or two, but I dont think people go to caucus trying to remember who endorsed who. Its decision time for Iowa Republicans, King said, because its going to be Cruz or its going to be Trump. If you like the other candidates and you believe in the Constitution, its time to send them a thank you card for their candidacy and vote for Cruz, he said. DES MOINES | State lawmakers launched a new effort Wednesday to legalize consumer fireworks in Iowa. The revised bill that cleared a Senate subcommittee would allow the possession, sale, transfer, purchase and use of fireworks effective on the day the governor signs it into law. Senate File 508 included an opt-out local control provision that would allow cities and counties to issue bans within their jurisdictions. Its my belief that the current law is silly on its face, said Sen. Jeff Danielson, D-Waterloo, chairman of the Senate State Government Committee who noted that Iowans currently bring in fireworks from bordering states but cant legally shoot them off. Most fireworks are legal in South Dakota and Nebraska, which encourages many residents in Sioux City and other areas of Northwest Iowa to buy pyrotechnics at stands just across the border. I didnt know fireworks were illegal until I came to the Legislature, said Sen. Rick Bertrand, R-Sioux City. Its fairly common in western Iowa. A fireworks legalization bill passed the Iowa House last session, but stalled in the Iowa Senate. Danielson said Iowa has taken a head-in-the sand approach to the issue for too many years in advocating adding more than a dozen consumer fireworks to the list of legal products, which currently includes only sparklers and other small novelties. However, representatives of firefighters, emergency medical response technicians, health-care providers and other groups spoke against the measure, saying it would lead to more injuries or deaths -- especially among young people -- fires, property damage and disruptions and noise issues near nursing homes, daycares and schools. Our concerns are public safety with additional fires and additional injuries across the state, said John Pederson, a lobbyist representing the Iowa Firefighters Association. We will expect to have more calls. Other opponents said they would prefer that local jurisdictions would have to opt-in by adopting legalized fireworks ordinances rather than having to vote in prohibitions. However, proponents noted the bill includes limitations for exploding fireworks only between 9 a.m. and 10 p.m., with longer hours for certain holidays like Memorial Day, Labor Day, the Fourth of July and New Years Eve. They argued that legalized fireworks would generate a minimum of $18 million in annual sales that currently are being transacted in other states and would benefit Iowa retailers. We can balance economic freedom with public safety, said Danielson, who is a career firefighter with the city of Cedar Falls. Sen. Jake Chapman, R-Adel, who is a licensed EMT, said the issue of legalizing fireworks has been around for a number of years and its time to modernize Iowas law and give Iowans more freedom to engage in an activity they already are doing under lax enforcement. As proposed, the bill would authorize the state fire marshal to establish a fireworks seller license with a schedule of annual fees ranging from $100 to $1,000 for retailers, community groups and wholesalers seeking to sell first- or second-class fireworks to Iowans aged 18 or older. The legislation establishes a consumer fireworks fund to grants or offer fireworks safety education programs. WATERLOO, Iowa | Presidential hopefuls are making clear in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses theyre fighting for every single vote they can get, but none may prove to be more difficult than those of the elusive youth, the so-called millennial generation. Millennials can be difficult to pin down, even as campaigns work to microtarget each and every demographic. Theyre often defined, in terms of elections, as age 18 to 30, though sometimes, as anyone born after 1980. They are independent, and less likely to affiliate with one of the major political parties, but often lean liberal. They are politically active, but not necessarily inclined to vote. And yet, the high-risk strategy can lead to success on caucus night, most recently and most notably with the 2008 caucus win for eventual Democratic President Barack Obama. We have seen instances where younger voters do get excited about a particular candidate, said University of Iowa political science professor Tim Hagle. The problem, though, is that still, it takes a lot of work. And University of Northern Iowa political science department head Donna Hoffman added its a strategy that doesnt always pay off, pointing to 2004 Democratic contender Howard Dean. He was the anti-Iraq War position in the Democratic caucuses and really wanted to reach out to younger voters, and they didnt turn out materializing for him, Hoffman said. Dean ended up finishing third, where he was seen as a favorite in the lead-up to the caucuses. Potential to prove them wrong Despite the risks, its not hard to find evidence of the 2016 contenders making their pitch to millennials, with varying degrees of success. Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has made no secret of the fact that key to his potential victory over frontrunner Hillary Clinton would be to turn out the youth who frequently favor him in polls. In fact, his campaign has launched a website www.provethemwrongandcaucus.com that specifically aims to draw out those who arent expected to show up Feb. 1. And wooing the youth has certainly paid off in terms of turnout at events. Sanders drew 1,250 to University of Northern Iowas West Gym on a recent Sunday night, and he regularly draws large turnouts at events across the state. He sort of tapped into that particular strain of voters, the younger voters for Democrats that are more interested in the progressive side of things, Hagle said. They see him as an authentic voice. Hagle said being seen as having an authentic voice is one of the few commonalities among past presidential hopefuls who have done a good job of exciting younger people. But he adds, The key to relying on them is being sufficiently well organized that you get them to turn out. While Sanders name has become almost synonymous with millennials this campaign cycle, hes far from the only one working to win them over and get them out to vote. Since millennials tend to lean liberal, the other Democratic contenders Clinton and Martin OMalley also have spent their share of time speaking on college campuses and talking about issues that appeal to youth -- combating climate change, support for marriage equality, making college affordable and addressing economic concerns. On the Republican side, hopefuls Marco Rubio and Rand Paul have made the strongest appeal to young voters. Paul did a campus tour across Iowa, focusing on issues important to them, like criminal justice reform and privacy issues. Rubio, meanwhile, makes the case he understands their economic woes, like living paycheck to paycheck and carrying large student loan debts, as he lived through them himself. But both Republican leaders Ted Cruz and Donald Trump tend to lead in polls among Republican youths, mirroring their overall poll numbers, though neither make particular pitches to millennials. Trump, however, taps into the concerns of those who are disaffected with politics as usual, of which many millennials fit the bill. And when Cruz was asked about millennials at a stop in Oelwein, he said appealing to youth is critical. On substance, what were doing to our kids and grandkids is immoral, but the second piece of it is style. You know, would it kill Republicans to crack a joke? Actually, I think some of them, it might, Cruz said, before explaining ways he has used social media to appeal to youth. Practical problems persist Neither the candidates nor the experts have found a silver bullet that draws out young people with any particular success or predictability. As more mobile and less partisan voters, they may not be registered to vote or inclined to join a political party to caucus. Plus, showing up at a particular time, as with caucuses, may be difficult for work or class schedules. But theres an irony in the lack of participation, because millennials are one of the more tuned in and politically active generations. We know they volunteer at pretty high rates, but theyre involved in those issue-specific things, and they dont always connect them then to politics, Hoffman said. Theyve grown up in an atmosphere in which politics has become backbiting and nasty and partisanship has grown They want to do things, but they dont necessarily see politics as the avenue to get things done. Even if they do show up, though, Hoffman noted other practical problems to seeing the fruits of their labor. Because Iowas youth are disproportionately concentrated on college campuses, it presents a problem of concentration. Enthused young people could show up at the same handful of precincts and find they win overwhelmingly there but dont necessarily push their preferred candidate over the top in the county or the state. Sanders campaign and his supporters are promoting a Go Home for Bernie message, to urge millennials supporting him to caucus in their hometowns rather than concentrating their support on their respective college campuses. I would think logistically it would be very difficult to do that, Hagle said, but added, Given that Sanders, at least in one recent poll I saw, that young people supported Sanders by about 2 to 1 over Clinton, so that would seem to suggest he would have a very strong showing in what we would call here, at least in Johnson County, the student precincts. Moonshot not included Hoffman said theres also a double-edged sword to enthusing young voters, in that theyre also more likely to tune out again when the realities of governing sink in. What we have had is people who look at politics, who hate it and drop out, and they dont become active, and if they do register, they register as no party. They think the politics doesnt matter, and thats not the kind of attitude thats going to bring about change, Hoffman said. Evidence of this effect is most clear is the decreased turnout for Obama between his 2008 victory and his 2012 re-election. Young people still turned out, but not in the record numbers of his historic election in 2008. But Obama also still has his highest approval ratings from young people, with 18 to 29 year-olds giving him 60 percent approval in the most recent Gallup poll. His overall approval is 48 percent. Though Hagle acknowledges the challenges of keeping young people involved, he argues for campaigns to make the effort. Maybe (in the future) they take a more realistic approach to this and they understand that a candidate cant go around promising the moon, because hes not going to be able to deliver. Moonshot not included, I guess, Hagle said. He continued, But I suppose the short answer is that you shouldnt give up. Whether youre the candidate or the people that are politicos working for the candidate, you want to continue to try to reach out to continue to energize voters and at least get them to participate sufficiently, where theyre taking part in the process. Migration Migration has been a common occurrence in all of human history, people carrying out conquest or fleeing from it, or from religious or ethnic persecution, or from natural disasters, or just seeking a better life. Under current global conditions this has reached unprecedented scale - according to recent UN figures, there are almost 60 million people forcibly displaced, including almost 20 million refugees, not even counting many unregistered or others wanting to flee but currently unable to do so. Additionally there are millions of economic migrants fleeing into Europe and the United States. Migration The overarching challenge is to outline what an acceptable global migration pattern would look like and then assess how to get there. Ideally, there would be zero migration, no forced movement of any large groups. Migrations can be very disruptive to the receiving countries and they drain source countries of some of their most dynamic and dedicated individuals. In addition, they often cause extensive suffering as well as local conflicts. Eliminating migration does not mean eliminating international movement. There will always be individuals attracted to move to other countries temporarily or permanently, and such movement spreads ideas and promotes innovation. Eliminating migration means eliminating large scale movements of people in distress. Obviously the first requirement is to improve the situations in the source countries, to buttress failed states, to promote global prosperity. Essentially this recognizes that globalization means the Industrialized World canno longer prosper unless the whole world does. It means finally addressing the lingering effects of colonialism and the subsequent plunder of resources by the Industrialized World, as well as a plunder of labor either by importing it for menial wages or simply paying minimal wages to manufacture goods or provide services from outside the Industrialized World. It is these grossly unequal economic ties that are fueling the current migrations. Just as obviously such major realignments of the global economy will not happen overnight. In the longer run, grass roots development and population control are both important. But for the immediate future, it is necessary to focus efforts on the most attractive opportunities, countries that are the source of major refugee flows and where significant progress is possible in the short term. Successful actions there can serve as models for wider application in the future. Immigration for years was a positive element for the American economy and to some extent also for Europe. The United States was a Beacon of Freedom, welcoming those fleeing hunger and repression with the words chiseled into the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." Not only did the United States welcome these huddled masses, but the Melting Pot made them Americans and helped stoke America's rise as a world power. Unfortunately the two critical conditions that made immigration attractive to America are gone. First, the open lands, especially in the West, that helped to absorb millions of immigrants have not been open for a hundred years. Secondly, the growing economy that needed unskilled immigrants and then gave them new skills to move up and open space for even newer immigrants is gone. Partly as a result of automation and partly because of foreign competition, new jobs for the unskilled have all but disappeared. Those that remain are dead end jobs that Americans are reluctant to take because the pay is so poor. Seasonal immigrants doing these jobs are grossly exploited, while illegal aliens are consigned to a permanent underclass of economically distressed people, exactly the group most likely to fuel social unrest. For the United States, the immediate challenge is clearly to support development of the adjacent Latin American countries which are the major source of immigrants. Conditions in a number of Central American countries are now chaotic, fueling a significant crisis in early 2014 when thousands of unaccompanied minors flooded across the US southern border. The Administration responded with a media campaign in Central America seeking to persuade families of the dangers of the journey north, with pressure on Mexico to restrict transit routes, and with a request to Congress (largely rejected) for development funds for the area. With renewed pressure from young immigrants, renewed development efforts are essential. Mexico is a more difficult case since its government has historically been strongly resistant to American influence. But its biggest challenge now is the drug trade, fueled by American demand, in turn at least partly due to domestic economic conditions; heroin overdoses have reached a historic peak. This is all the more reason to address domestic economic inequality, as well as to promote increased cooperation with the Mexican government on drug suppression and development. These countries are still heavily agricultural, so support for agricultural development and associated light industry is most important. Some relatively simple measures, like tax breaks for US investors, could bring prompt results. For Europe, the challenge is more pressing. The sheer volume of new refugees is overwhelming the system. Even countries historically supportive of refugees are seeing a significant increase in segregated areas of permanently lower class immigrants and are implementing a wide range of anti-immigrant measures. Jobs for newer arrivals are simply not there. The immediate cause of the current crisis is the destabilization of the broader Middle East, initiated by the US removal of established governments in Afghanistan and then Iraq, but a failure to replace them with stable regimes, based at least partly on a total failure to promote economic development. The situation was then exacerbated by the Arab Spring, a grass-roots movement promoting core Western values of freedom and democracy. Yet the main Western involvement in this effort was the destruction of another established government, this time, in Libya, and again without any replacement by a stable regime. As Libya descended into chaos an even more difficult situation arose in Syria where the government of Bashir Assad grimly hung on to power while mercilessly engaging rebels with widespread bombing of civilian areas. This has been the source of the largest refugee flow, and is now exacerbated by Russian military support of Assad. But the most distressing development was the rise of the Islamic State in the chaos of Syria, spreading into Iraq, and greatly exacerbating the Sunni-Shiite divide. For its own sake, Europe has to address this Middle Eastern turmoil. In addition, development efforts could help dispel Muslim skepticism on Western motives. The Yahoo Gemini interface has slowly but surely been gaining speed over the last year. Although Gemini is still small scale in comparison to Google or Bing Ads, it puts a focus on mobile and on native advertising and is continuing to be innovative and creative. With a new CEO, Yahoo Gemini could be the next major player for Yahoo now that Firefox is in the mix and the Microsoft partnership is in its final years. The question is then, as always, obvious: Is Gemini something that small businesses should be using? If so, why? What is Gemini for Yahoo? Yahoo Gemini was introduced one year ago this month, and it has resurfaced back into the news in the SEO sphere. For those who are unfamiliar, Gemini is the only marketplace that brings together mobile search and native advertising. It is now the default option when using Yahoo Ad Manager. The official Yahoo Gemini announcement explained it best: Advertisers get the performance and ease of search, combined with the scale and creativity of native advertising. By bringing the two together, advertisers can now buy, manage, and optimize their mobile search and native ad spending one placedriving greater performance and higher impact for their businesses and brands. In other words, with Yahoo Gemini search ads will show up on Yahoo.com and partner sites on tablets and smartphones. The idea here is that buying together, both mobile search and native ads, will allow for better performance metrics for marketers because there will be a higher reach. Again has quite a bit to do with the success of native advertising, which you can learn more about here. In the past, Bing Ads served all of Yahoos mobile search traffic. As you might imagine, this has led to some opinions that the partnership was great for Yahoo and terrible for Bing (but more on this in the next section). You can get started with the Yahoo Gemini interface by setting up a Gemini account. This is where you set up and manage campaigns and budgets and see all of your results. The system will build and deliver your ad to the right audience on its own. Below is a screenshot that might help explain how it works: The Bing and Yahoo Partnership, Where Yahoo Gemini Comes Into Play According to a Search Engine Land article, Gemini went from serving roughly 4 percent of mobile search traffic on the Yahoo Bing Network at the beginning of Q3 to 27 percent by the end of Q4 2014. In other words, it has been successful so far, although still small. So what does this mean in terms of Bing Ads? According to a Search Engine Land article, the traffic and success of Yahoo Gemini is at the expense of mobile ads served by Bing. Yahoo says that Gemini will eventually serve all of its mobile search traffic instead of Bing (currently users see both thanks to the search alliance). Its going to take a lot of work for Yahoo to take over any of the traffic from Google, but it seems as though moving away from the Microsoft partnership once the 5 years is up is going to be a step in the right direction. Yahoo is clearly being innovative, so it will be interesting to see where they go in the future. I also recommend checking out this article from Wordstream for more information on how it all works. What It Means to You Yahoo has over 800 million users per month, so its something to consider. In combination with that statistic, you also have to consider the growth of mobile and the effectiveness of native advertising. According to CopyPress, Although native advertising isnt widely accepted by advertisers and publishers, it is supposed to be THE way of advertising by 2016. Thats three huge benefits all wrapped into one. If youre interested in advertising with Yahoo on mobile, then Gemini is an easy to use interface that can help you get there. Its something to be aware of and try to help get your business coverage on search engines that arent Google. Have you used Yahoo Gemini in the past? What do you think about Gemini in relation to Bing Ads? Republished by permission. Original here. A 53-year-old SEO pro will spend more than three years in prison for attempting to extort money from a Dallas firm. William Stanley (a.k.a William Laurence, Bill Stanley, William Davis, William Harris, and William L. Stanley) has been sentenced to 37 months in prison after threatening to write negative reviews and comments about the company unless paid. The court has also ordered that Stanley pay $174,888 in restitution to a dozen victims. In an official release, the United States Attorneys Office, Northern District of Texas said Stanley had attempted to extort money from Dallas-based mergers and acquisition firms Generational Equity. Officials say Stanley was originally contracted by the firm for SEO services and reputation management. The company then tried to fire Stanley when it was discovered he had also created sites aimed at damaging the companys reputation by attempting to link it to a scam. Stanley then extorted an additional $80,000 from Generational Equity to sever his contractual relationship with the company and give its officials access to the fraudulent websites. He also sent emails and made phone calls under the aliases of William Davis and William Laurence threatening negative reviews damaging the companys reputation and was paid another $29,556. Stanleys sister, Lynn Faust (a.k.a. Lynn Michaels) was indicted in 2014 and faces a maximum of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine for assisting in her brothers criminal activities. Positive and negative reviews have become big business online both as a way to promote new products and services and to negate bad reviews from others. In 2013, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced a deal with 19 businesses agreeing to pay $350,000 in fines following an investigation by Schneidermans office. The attorney generals office said the businesses had been involved in recruiting and hiring freelancers to write fake reviews on a number of review sites including Yelp. As recently as October 2015, Amazon filed suit against 1,114 users. The company identified the individuals during an investigation in which Amazon representatives attempted to buy fake reviews from gig site Fiverr. Even after the suit was filed, ads for both positive and negative reviews could still be found on Fiverr. Meanwhile some members of the SEO community didnt appreciate the characterization of Stanley as primarily an SEO professional. They didnt appreciate being associated with what many consider an unethical way of gaining attention online. There are many fitness goals out there that we desire. Some of us want to be leaner and others wish to put on muscle mass. The thing is, for you to achieve your fitness goals, you need to The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless. The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well. By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism. John Kevin Wood, with his wife Melissa. (Photo: Thomas More Law Center) CALLAWAY, Md. (Jan. 28, 2016) The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) yesterday afternoon filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of former Marine, John Kevin Wood, and his wife, Melissa, who "refuse to allow their teenage daughter to be subjected to Islamic indoctrination and propaganda in her high school World History class." The lawsuit was filed against the Charles County Public Schools, the Board of Education, and the Principal, Evelyn Arnold, and Vice-Principal, Shannon Morris, of La Plata High School located in La Plata, Maryland.Katie O'Malley-Simpson, spokesperson for the Charles County Public Schools, told somd.com that school officials were aware of the lawsuit, but they have yet to be officially served. O'Malley-Simpson said that she was not at liberty to comment further on the case.The Woods reside in Newburg in Charles County.TMLC identifies itself as a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which "defends and promotes America's Judeo-Christian heritage and moral values, including the religious freedom of Christians, time-honored family values, and the sanctity of human life."According to a TMLC press release: The Woods' daughter was forced to profess and to write out the Shahada in worksheets and quizzes. The Shahada is the Islamic Creed, "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." For non-Muslims, reciting the statement is sufficient to convert one to Islam. Moreover, the second part of the statement, "Muhammad is the messenger of Allah," signifies the person has accepted Muhammad as their spiritual leader. The teenager was also required to memorize and recite the Five Pillars of Islam.TMLC identifies the Woods as devout Christians and cited their beliefs as such: "believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and our Savior, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, and that following the teachings of Jesus Christ is the only path to eternal salvation. The Woods believe that it is a sin to profess commitment in word or writing to any god other than the Christian God. Thus, they object to their daughter being forced to deny the Christian God and to her high school promoting Islam over other religions."According to TMLC, when Woods learned of the Islamic subject matter being taught, he immediately contacted the school to voice his objections and to obtain an alternative assignment for his daughter.Wood maintains that the school ultimately refused to allow the Woods' daughter to opt-out of the assignments and subsequently had a No Trespass order issued against him."Defendants forced Wood's daughter to disparage her Christian faith by reciting the Shahada, and acknowledging Mohammed as her spiritual leader," said Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, in a prepared statement. "Her World History class spent one day on Christianity and two weeks immersed in Islam. Such discriminatory treatment of Christianity is an unconstitutional promotion of one religion over another."The plaintiffs filed the following two exhibits with their complaint, which appear to show some course materials and a worksheet, presumably completed by the couple's minor child. (Note: document will not display on small screens. Click the link to view on Scribd if your device supports it)Thompson added, "The course also taught false statements such as 'Allah is the same God worshipped by Christians,' and Islam as a 'religion of peace.' Parents must be ever vigilant to the Islamic indoctrination of their children under the guise of teaching history and multiculturalism. This is happening in public schools across the country. And they must take action to stop it."TMLC said the Woods' lawsuit seeks a court declaration that Defendants violated their constitutional and statutory rights, a temporary and permanent injunction barring Defendants from endorsing Islam or favoring Islam over Christianity and other religions, and from enforcing the no trespassing order issued against John Kevin Wood.The entire complaint , which was filed in the United States District Court for the District Of Maryland, is included below (except for small screens): CALLAWAY, Md. (Jan. 28, 2016)Leyla Samadi, 54, of St. Mary's County, pleaded guilty Wednesday to illegally obtaining controlled substances by fraud. The case was heard in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York in Buffalo. The former Buffalo nurse was arrested on June 2, 2005 in her then home in Germantown, Maryland. Assistant U.S. Attorney George C. Burgasser, who is handling the case, stated that according to the complaint, between November 22, 2014 and January 7, 2015, the defendant tampered with pain medications Demerol and Hydromorphone while working as a registered nurse at Sisters of Charity Hospital in Buffalo. The complaint states that Samadi, while working in her capacity as nurse, would log into a Pyxis machine which is used to automatically dispense liquid pain medications using her username and fingerprint scan. The defendant would identify the narcotic and patient it would be administered to. Samadi would remove the medication, take it to the patient, scan the patient's wristband and scan the medication. But rather than administer the medication to the patient, the defendant would instead inject herself with the narcotic. Samadi then replaced the missing medication with saline solution and return it to the Pyxis machine. Once she returned the vile to the Pyxis machine, the defendant would cancel the transaction claiming that she had selected the wrong medication or the wrong patient. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the complaint is the culmination of an investigation by the Food and Drug Administration, Office of Criminal Investigations, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey Ebersole, the New York State Attorney General's Office, under the direction of Eric T. Schneiderman, New York State Department of Health, Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, under the direction of Joshua Vinciguerra, and the New York State Office of the Attorney General, Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, under the direction of Chief Upstate Investigator Upstate William Falk. The charge carries a maximum penalty of four years in prison and a $250,000 fine. LA PLATA, Md. Disclaimer: In the U.S.A., all persons accused of a crime by the State are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. See: http://so.md/presumed-innocence. Additionally, all of the information provided above is solely from the perspective of the respective law enforcement agency and does not provide any direct input from the accused or persons otherwise mentioned. You can find additional information about the case by searching the Maryland Judiciary Case Search Database using the accused's name and date of birth. The database is online at http://so.md/mdcasesearch . Persons named who have been found innocent or not guilty of all charges in the respective case, and/or have had the case ordered expunged by the court can have their name, age, and city redacted by following the process defined at http://so.md/expungeme. (Jan. 28, 2016)The Charles County Sheriff's Office released the following incident and arrest reports.FIRST-DEGREE ASSAULT: On January 26 at 4:16 p.m., officers responded to a car dealership in the 2100 block of Crain Highway in Waldorf for the report of an armed subject. Upon arrival, officers learned that the suspect, an employee, had entered the business armed with a handgun and began arguing with a manager. After threatening several employees, the suspect fled prior to officers arriving. On January 27, the suspect Brian Dominique Wilson, 24 of Fort Washington, was located by members of the Warrant Unit in Prince George's County. Wilson was arrested and charged with first and second-degree assault and use of a firearm during the commission of a crime. Cpl. K. Gross, Cpl. T. Hemsley, and POII C. Gustafson investigated.TIP TO CRIME SOLVERS LEADS TO RECOVERED STOLEN TRAILER: On May 26, 2015, the victim reported his 42 trailer stolen from the 9500 block of Massey Place in Nanjemoy where he was renting a space from Lisa Sutphin. The victim left the trailer at the location due to weather related issues, and when he returned, the trailer was gone. On November 17, 2015, Charles County Crime Solvers received a tip that the trailer was located on Jovita Jesse Place in Nanjemoy. Members of the Auto Theft Unit responded and recovered the stolen trailer, and an investigation revealed that Sutphin was responsible for bringing the trailer to the Jovita Jesse Place location. On January 25, Sutphin, 53 of Nanjemoy, was located and served a criminal summons for theft of property valued at $10,000 to under $100,000. Detectives D. Savoy and E. Weaver investigated.ACCIDENTAL INJURY: On January 27 at 3:48 p.m., officers responded to the 3300 block of Patapsco Place in Waldorf for the report of an accidental shooting. A preliminary investigation revealed that the victim, a two year-old boy, obtained his father's unsecured handgun while his father was asleep and accidentally shot himself in the leg. The victim was transported to a hospital for treatment of non-life threatening injuries. Det. J. Elliott is investigating.DEATH INVESTIGATION: On January 27 at 1:25 p.m., officers responded to the 2900 block of Marshall Hall Road in Bryans Road for the report of a subject not breathing. Upon arrival, officers found an adult male deceased in the wooded area. There were no obvious signs of injury. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore will perform an autopsy. Det. B. Buchanan is investigating. The South Florida AIDS Network (SFAN) functions as the networking/advisory body for the Ryan White Care (RWC), Part B grant in Broward County. Its monthly meetings are open to the public This meeting consisted of reports, followed by a presentation on Broward Addiction Recovery Center (BARC). Neil Walker, Broward County RWC, reported on its current social media campaigns. These campaigns include public service announcements on Channel 4 and social media. These social media campaigns are located on Facebook (Broward Ryan White), Twitter (@get care Broward), YouTube (Get Care Broward), and a Hotline (954-357-9797). Broward Addiction Recovery Center (BARC) had a $150,000 contract to provide residential and detoxification services to RWC clients. In the past BARC had failed to serve the number of RWC clients required by its RWC contract. As a result, its budget has been reduced to $100,000. Some SFAN members had reported difficulties with getting their clients admitted. BARC has since decided to send a representative to SFAN to resolve some of these issues. Andrea Pollack, BARC, reported that this agency serves indigent substance users throughout Broward. Detoxification refers to a medically supervised withdrawal from drugs. According to Pollack, not all drugs require a medically supervised detoxification, but alcohol, benzodiazepines, and heroin may require it. Withdrawal from these drugs can result in seizures or other serious complications. A medical examination will determine if a given user requires a medically supervised detoxification. The detoxification program lasts for five to twelve days, depending upon the medically stability of the client. If a client is too sick for the BARC detoxification program, the client will be referred to Broward General Hospital. Pollack reported that the detoxification program has only thirty-four beds. These beds are located in two sex-segregated wards. Patients in a sex-segregated ward lack privacy. Like the bathroom issue, sex-segregated wards can become another flashpoint for transgender rights and access. Unlike the bathroom issue, this flashpoint occurs in a chronically underfunded and highly stigmatized context, involving highly vulnerable and marginalized people on all sides. The intake involves an assessment of comfort with that transgender client in that sex-segregated ward. If the assessment of comfort results in a determination that the transgender client would be uncomfortable, Pollack said that BARC would refer that client to Broward General Hospital. BARC has plans to move into a new facility that will admit patients in the fall of 2017. As this new facility will have private rooms, transgender clients should not have to face this problem in the future. Pollack responded to charges that clients faced admission difficulties at BARC. She stressed that BARC does not have the capacity to serve all indigent substance users needing its services. Joey Wynn, SFAN Chair, pointed out that SFAN members would generally use case managers to refer clients to BARC. Pollack stated that case manager referrals would be most helpful. Broward HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report From January through November, a noticeable difference emerged in age distribution by race in Broward. More young Blacks, than Whites or Latinos, were being diagnosed with HIV (see chart New HIV Cases In Broward Jan to Nov 2015). Announcements February 5, 2016, the Black AIDS Institute will host The Broward County PrEP Summit from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Sheraton Fort Lauderdale Airport and Cruise Port Hotel, 1825 Griffin Rd, Dania. To register go to www.broward-prep.eventbrite.com. Broward House is offering tests for syphilis, penile gonorrhea, and penile chlamydia at 2800 North Andrews Ave. Next SFAN Meeting: Friday, February 12, 2016, at 10:00 a.m., at the Holy Cross Healthplex, 1000 NE 56th Street, Ft. Lauderdale. Newcomers are encouraged to attend. To see the full Broward HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report, please visit http://broward.floridahealth.gov/programs-and-services/infectious-disease-services/hiv-aids/hiv-aids-surveillance/_documents/11-2015.pdf Protestors call for destruction of Israel Queer anti-Israel protestors disrupted the opening reception of the National LGBTQ Task Forces annual Creating Change Conference last weekend in Chicago chanting from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. Hava Holzhauer, the Florida regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, called the protest hateful and was shocked at how out of control it got. At one point hotel security called police to break up the event. [That chant] is a very anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statement. It calls for replacing the state of Israel with Palestine, Holzhauer said. This wasnt a peaceful protest. This was a hateful protest. They used words that were chilling. Calling for the destruction of Israel, those are words of hate. Some people reported one protestor calling a Jewish man a kike, a historically offensive and derogatory term. In another incident video footage showed one protestor covering a Jewish mans face with a Palestinian flag. After he removed the flag by grabbing it out of the protestors hand others appeared to lunge at him, but were pulled back. The protestors then shifted their focus on the Jewish man chanting in loud angry voices Shame on you, shame on you. In a strongly worded statement after the conference wrapped up the Task Force condemned anti-Semitism. I want to make this crystal clear: the National LGBTQ Task Force wholeheartedly condemns anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic statements made at any Task Force event including our Creating Change Conference. It is unacceptable. Hate speech of any kind is unacceptable whether its directed at Jewish or Muslim people. Earlier in the week the Task Force had cancelled the opening reception after some activists complained that the Task Force was promoting pinkwashing at their conference. Pinkwashing is a term describing a public relations strategy that uses Israel's good record on LGBT rights to deflect from its treatment of the Palestinians. After the abrupt cancellation other activists and groups complained and the Task Force reversed course. I have decided to reverse our decision to cancel the Beyond the Bridge reception hosted by A Wider Bridge with guest speakers from the Jerusalem Open House, said Rea Carey, executive director of the Task Force. It is our belief that when faced with choices, we should move towards our core value of inclusion and opportunities for constructive dialogue and canceling the reception was a mistake. The reversal though only fanned flames of discontent resulting in a 200-person protest at the opening reception. Holzhauer said the protest was misguided. Jerusalem Open House is a community organization not just for Israelis and Jews but Muslims, Christians, Palestinians everyone regardless of religion, ethnicity, or nationality, Holzhauer said. Carey promised things would change before the next conference. In light of all that has happened, I have already started a review of the Conference so we can make needed changes in the future, she said in a statement. Among them are: inclusiveness and program content review; safety and security; and promoting conversation and peaceful protest. Many of the Jewish attendees told other media outlets that once the protest started they didnt feel safe. Bashar Makhay of the group Tarab-NYC told the Windy City Times he was disappointed with the Task Force. Disappointed that they choose to stand up for racism, colonialism and imperialism, and not for human rights. By inviting A Wider Bridge they did just that, and they threatened to arrest us. Enough is enough. We won't stand for injustice." Faith Cheltenham, president of BiNet USA, who took part in the protest told the Windy City Times: "It's wonderful because we're seeing people be represented. There are many LGBT people who think treatment of Palestinians is incorrect. Many people. There are very few people who'd say, 'You know, they're getting everything they want. ... It is cultural apartheid, so much so that the Obama administration recognized that. They actually said recently that this is unjust. So when you come here to the LGBTQIA gender non-conforming queer community and you deal with us, that's our movement. That's our intersection." Holzhauer though sees it much differently saying that using intimidation to shut down other peoples voices goes against everything the conference is meant to stand for. They prevented the speakers from speaking, she said. Its ironic and hurtful and disappointing. This is a conference about creating change. Police arrested and charged a Chicago man with fatally stabbing his boyfriend during a heated argument Sunday, after the suspect was accused of cheating on his partner, DNAinfo Chicago reports. Clifton Hooker, 32, was at his home when his boyfriend Alphonzo Guinyard, 26, came home around 8:34 a.m. Sunday, Assistant State's Attorney Lesley Gool said during a bond hearing Tuesday. During the incident, Guinyard reportedly accused Hooker of cheating and wanted to see his phone. The couple argued and Hooker asked Guinyard to leave the house, according to Gool. He refused, however, and Hooker allegedly called police to report an "unwanted person" inside the home. The incident escalated and turned physical, according to prosecutors. Hooker eventually went upstairs to a second-floor kitchen and allegedly grabbed an 8-or-9-inch knife, Grool said. When Hooker returned, the men got into a physical altercation that ended with Hooker fatally stabbing Guinyard in the back, prosecutors said. The knife wound was about 12-centimeters deep and tore through Guinyard's spinal cord, aorta, esophagus and the lower lobe of his left lung, Gool said, according to DNAinfo Chicago. The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office said significant force would be needed for that kind of wound. The officials added the angle of the wound was very straight forward. Guinyard died at the scene, DNAinfo Chicago reports. Hooker called 9-1-1 and admitted to authorities that he stabbed his boyfriend, who was unarmed, prosecutors said. Hooker and Guinyard knew each other for six years, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. The newspaper writes Guinyard was a native of Titusville, Florida. He graduated from Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Missouri, and worked at Macy's, according to his Facebook page. Hooker was charged with first-degree murder and has a separate pending case for battery, criminal damage to property and criminal damage to a motor vehicle. He is currently being held on a $1 million bail. The saga of former gay male escort website Rentboy.com continued Wednesday when its founder and CEO, Jeffrey Hurant, 51, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn on charges of money laundering and promoting prostitution, Reuters reports. According to The New York Daily News, the indictment contains several new allegations against the now-defunct mega escort website, including a claim that the company was not stringent about verifying escorts who were over the age of 18. It is also alleged Rentboy.com did business with an escort agency indicted in Florida for luring Hungarian men into sex slavery. "The government's charges against Mr. Hurant are unwarranted," Hurant's lawyer Michael Tremonte said in a statement. "He ran his business openly for nearly 20 years, and it makes no sense to single him out for criminal prosecution. Mr. Hurant plans to contest the charges and looks forward to full vindication at trial." Rentboy.com, which was founded in 1996, grew to be what authorities are calling the largest online male escort website. The website flew above the radar during its time in business and even presented and hosted an annual escorts awards show called "The Hookies." According to The News, the indictment also seeks forfeiture of more than $1.5 million seized from Rentboy's Manhattan office and various bank and brokerage accounts. Additionally, authorities intend to permanently seize the Rentboy.com domain name. Trans folks are speaking out against a Pennsylvania State Police practice of categorizing anti-transgender hate crimes by male or female portrayal. State police recently posted on its website an anti-trans hate-crime incident in Philadelphia, categorized as female portrayal. Were trans people, were not portraying anything, said Julie Chovanes, a trans woman and attorney. How can we get accurate hate-crimes reporting from the police if they see us playing a role? Trans peoples humanity is denied by the language used by state police, Chovanes said. They dont even give us personhood, she added. Since they dont give us personhood, how can they recognize crimes against us? To them, we are portrayals, caricatures. And theres no such thing as a crime against a portrayal or a caricature. Trooper Adam Reed, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania State Police, said the states uniform crime-reporting programs definitions and guidelines mirror those of the FBI, adding that, if the FBI issued recommended changes to those guidelines, state police would certainly adhere to those. This includes any changes that may result from the working group being looked at by the FBI. Chovanes expressed concern that some trans victims wont report hate crimes due to perceived insensitivity by police. Im concerned of a possible deterrent effect due to this practice, but I hope there wont be one, she said. State police collect hate-crimes data from local police departments and convey the data to the FBI. FBI spokesperson C. Michael Riley said the FBI doesnt recommend that anti-trans hate crimes have portrayal categories. He also said the FBI doesnt convey its hate-crimes data to the public in such a manner. The FBIs uniform crimes-reporting program is currently collaborating with a government working group to address specific issues on reporting anti-transgender bias crimes, Riley added. A decision to release additional information on working with and/or reporting data on transgender victims will be addressed at a later date. Harper Jean Tobin, policy director at the National Center for Transgender Equality, echoed Chovanes concerns. Its great that Pennsylvania is trying to report anti-trans hate crimes, but do it in a way that shows sensitivity to victims, Tobin said. [The portrayal categories] suggest our gender isnt real. If police dont get that, theyre going to have a hard time talking to victims and witnesses.We already have some community-trust issues. Id be concerned this [language] would be another chilling factor, discouraging people from reporting hate crimes. She said reporting the number of anti-trans hate crimes on the state-police website would be sufficient without adding portrayal categories. Wed be happy if theyd just accurately collect data on anti-trans hate crimes, without insulting the very people whove been victimized, Tobin concluded. For Bruce Vilanch, controversy is a laughing matter. The writer and comedian is bringing his one man show to The Rrazz Room in Coral Springs on Saturday and he has no plans to shy away from any of those traditionally taboo topics of polite conversation. SFGN caught up with him on the phone while he hurried to finish up the script for the Producers Guild Awards last weekend. While the Producers Guild is incredibly diverse, he said, its also neither televised nor immune from the after effects of the controversy surrounding the Oscar nominations a couple of weeks ago. Its Hollywood, he said. Its the town industry and the city is full of people who dont want to be branded as racist. Its a lighting rod for publicity. Nobody understands the nominating process. Vilanch, who has also written 25 Oscars ceremony scripts, attributes much of the anger to sour grapes from people who were eligible but not nominated. That makes it sound petty. Theres certainly a problem in the industry and the Academy is trying to address it, he explained. Were talking about art, not industry. He pointed out that while the 20 nominees in the acting categories were white, they were nominated by 1150 actors who are members of the Academy and still more diverse than the other branches, such as the writers and directors who also select the nominees in their professions. Ive written the show 25 times and every year theres something, Vilanch said. This issue just wont go away. He also plans to talk politics. Not surprisingly, Vilanch is a proud Democrat: Ill wind up voting for Hillary like everyone else with a brain. The Republicans are not an option, he explained. South Florida audiences should expect to hear Vilanchs opinions about the current crowd of hopeful Republican candidates. Theyre all such clowns. You dont have to say anything, they write their own material, he said with a hearty chuckle. And there is Sarah Palin standing up and blaming Obama for her son being a lunatic. Imagine if Obamas kids were as cracked out as hers. Of course, Vilanch will be armed with plenty of dishy Hollywood stories, too, although he warns he is not a conventional stand up comic. Im a storyteller and Ive been party to a lot of stories, he again chuckled. I was a child actor, you know. I never became a child star or wed be talking from rehab. I love telling these stories about the behind the scenes in Hollywood and the ridiculous jobs Ive had. Its so hard to choose now. The Coral Springs appearance will be a homecoming of sorts. Vilanchs grandparents lived in Miami Beach and he vacationed here as a child. Years later, his first job out of college was at the Miami Herald. His 95-year-old mother, who just passed away this year, was a snowbird in Boca Raton. He sighed, Ive often thought maybe I could just pick up a little place there, but life gets in the way. The Rrazz Room at the Coral Springs Museum of Art, 2855 Coral Springs Drive, presents Bruce Vilanch and Jessica Kirson (Comedy Central, NBCs Last Comic Standing) at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 30. Tickets are $39 and $60 at CoralSpringsCenterForTheArts.com. In conjunction with The Will Rogers Follies: A Life in Revue the Maltz Jupiter Theater will hold its Seventh Annual Gay Pride Night on Saturday, Jan. 30. Tickets for the event may be purchased for $39.00 by calling 561-575-2223. The password is COWBOY. Regular seating starts at $55. Pride Night guests will enjoy hors doeuvres in the conservatory at 7 p.m. They will adjourn to the theatre a little before the 8 p.m. curtain. After the show, they will join the cast for a post-show dessert meet-and-greet featuring ice cream provided by Pride Night supporter Kilwins of Jupiter. In addition to Kilwins of Jupiter, Pride Night is sponsored by Morgan Stanley and supported by South Florida Gay News, Get Out! South Florida on WBZT, and Compass Communiy Center. As a business leader in our community, we feel its extremely important to welcome everyone to the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, said Andrew Kato, the Maltz Jupiter Theatres producing artistic director and chief executive. When we started our annual Pride Night initiative seven years ago, we wanted to take that invitation to the Theatre one step further by creating an annual event. Pride events in the northern Palm Beach County area are rare, so we created an exciting yearly event that mixes socializing with a show. Theater is the sort of place that should always be welcoming everyone, and we love welcoming members of our LGBT community each year for Pride Night. Related Story: Theater: Will Rogers Follies PARIS (AP) _ France's charismatic justice minister unexpectedly resigned Wednesday after objecting to President Francois Hollande's push to revoke citizenship from convicted terrorists with dual nationality. Hollande announced Christiane Taubira's resignation just ahead of a Cabinet meeting and hours before a Parliament commission takes up the citizenship bill. Taubira, a leftist best known for championing the legalization of gay marriage, tweeted that ``sometimes to resist is to remain, sometimes to resist is to leave.'' As a black woman from French Guiana on the Caribbean coast, she has been a pioneer for women and minorities in French politics but sometimes a target for racist slurs by far-right militants. ``I'm leaving the government on a major disagreement,'' Taubira told journalists. ``The terrorist threat is serious and unpredictable but we have learned to hunt it down. ... I think we cannot concede it any victory, whether it's a military, diplomatic, political or symbolic one.'' Taubira is being replaced by Jean-Jacques Urvoas, a Socialist lawmaker from Brittany considered a specialist on security issues who is seen as close to Prime Minister Manuel Valls. The citizenship bill, prompted by the deadly Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, is popular among conservatives and the far right but is especially divisive for the governing Socialists. Polls show most French support the idea, but opponents fear it would unfairly target Muslims. Some critics compare it to the revocation of citizenship of French Jews during World War II. French and Belgian extremists linked to the Islamic State group, some of them of Moroccan descent, were behind the Paris attacks, which killed 130 people and wounded hundreds. French anti-racist organization SOS Racisme on Wednesday praised the ``courage of a great lady.'' ``As a justice minister, despite racism she has faced too often in the silence of her peers ... Christiane Taubira has been able to stand up for her values and try to change the justice system,'' it said. Taubira was supposed to travel Wednesday to the United States, where she was to meet with Attorney General Loretta Lynch and members of the Black Lives Matter group and receive an honorary degree from the University of Wisconsin. But her office said the trip was canceled. The bill presented by Valls on Wednesday includes a range of measures for convicted terrorists that would go from the depriving them of the right to vote and the right to become a civil servant to revoking citizenship. The prime minister, however, made a last-minute modification to it to find a consensus that would satisfy both the left and the right. Valls said no mention of dual nationality would appear in the constitution and France would respect its obligations under international law that prevent it from leaving a person stateless. Opponents of the measure say it would create two classes of citizens _ dual nationals who could lose their citizenship and others who cannot _ in opposition to the principle of equality in France's constitution. The bill is to be debated next week in France's lower house of parliament, the National Assembly. ___ Angela Charlton contributed from Paris. Astronaut Scott Kelly (foreground) and Tim Peake load a pair of nanosatellites inside the Japanese Kibo lab modules airlock. Credit: NASA. NASA The six Expedition 46 crew members today prepared for the deployment of a pair of nanosatellites, loaded trash in the Cygnus cargo craft and reviewed timelines and procedures for a Feb. 3 spacewalk. The International Space Station will also raise its orbit ahead of Marchs crew swap and cargo delivery activities. Commander Scott Kelly and British astronaut Tim Peake were inside Japans Kibo laboratory loading a satellite carrier and its deployer mechanism in the lab modules airlock. After the Japanese robotic arm extracts the deployer from the airlock the Aggiesat4 and BEVO-2 nanosatellites will be deployed on Friday. The student-built nanosatellites will help further develop and refine autonomous navigation, rendezvous and docking software and procedures. Peake then joined NASA astronaut Tim Kopra loading trash inside the Orbital ATK Cygnus supply ship. The private space freighter is due to leave the station Feb. 19 ending its stay at the Harmony module. Next, Kopra moved on to a combustion experiment testing how well different samples resist burning in microgravity. Cosmonauts Yuri Malenchenko and Sergey Volkov are a week away from the second spacewalk of 2016. The veteran spacewalkers reviewed the timeline and procedures they will use to install hardware and science experiments outside the stations Russian segment on Feb. 3 at 8:10 a.m. EST. On-Orbit Status Report Burning and Suppression of Solids Milliken (BASS-M): Yesterday Kopra completed reconfiguration of the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) Facility and started setup of hardware for BASS-M. Today he completed the BASS-M setup. During the setup, there was an issue with the data from the power/video unit. He was able perform troubleshooting and recover the data, however due to the extended time the first BASS-M run had to be deferred. The BASS-M investigation tests flame-retardant cotton fabrics to determine how well they resist burning in microgravity. Results benefit research on flame-retardant textiles that can be used on Earth and in space. Low Earth Orbiting Navigation Experiment for Spacecraft Testing Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking (LONESTAR): Today Kelly and Peake opened the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Airlock inner hatch and extended the Airlock Slide Table into the JEM. They then installed the Cyclops deployer on the Slide Table, installed a Small Fine Arm (SFA) Plate on Cyclops, and then installed the Lonestar on Cyclops. Lonestar contains satellites AggieSat4 (built by Texas A&M University students) and Bevo-2 (built by University of Texas students). Deployment is planned for Friday, January 29. After free-flying safely away from the ISS, AggieSat4 will eject the BEVO-2 satellite. Both satellites then perform cross-linking communications, exchange data, link to GPS, and transmit to ground radio stations. LONESTAR is used to further develop and refines autonomous navigation, rendezvous and docking software and procedures. Future NASA missions to destinations such as asteroids and other celestial bodies require the use of autonomous navigation systems. Cognition: Peake performed his Flight Day 46 session of the Cognition experiment today. The Individualized Real-Time Neurocognitive Assessment Toolkit for Space Flight Fatigue (Cognition) investigation is a battery of tests that measure how spaceflight-related physical changes, such as microgravity and lack of sleep, can affect cognitive performance. Cognition includes ten brief computerized tests that cover a wide range of cognitive functions, and provides immediate feedback on current and past test results. The software used allows for real-time measurement of cognitive performance while in space. Dynamic Surf 3: Peake exchanged the Video Recording Unit (VRU) hard disk drive within JAXAs Image Processing Unit (IPU) for the Dynamic Surf 3 investigation. A disk drive filled with data generated from the experiment was replaced with a fresh drive for continued recording. The Dynamic Surf 3 investigation is part of a series of JAXA experiments designed to provide insight into the underlying principles of Marangoni convection. These experiments demonstrate in microgravity the flow transition phenomena from steady to oscillatory, chaotic, and finally turbulent. Observations are made of fluid convection during formation of a silicone oil liquid bridge that is generated by differential heating of two discs within the Fluid Physics Experiment Facility (FPEF). The results of this investigation could ultimately drive the design and development of more efficient fluid flow based systems and devices. Ras Labs-CASIS-ISS Project for Synthetic Muscle: Resistance to Radiation (Synthetic Muscle): Peake took a set of historical photos of the synthetic muscle samples. The purpose of this investigation is to measure the effects of radiation on proprietary synthetic muscle materials in space and earth environments. Robots made of these materials could provide assistance to humans in space, enhance survivability of robots during deep space travel, and provide support in extreme radiation environments on Earth. Fine Water Mist Portable Fire Extinguishers (PFE) Deployment: Kopra deployed two Fine Water Mist PFEs today. Once the Fine Water Mist PFEs were stowed in the USOS Portable Emergency Provision (PEP) locations, Kopra attached new instruction cue cards to the exterior of each location. Fine Water Mist PFEs are the preferred type of fire extinguisher for open cabin fire scenarios, but cannot be used behind racks. In the event that a Fine Water Mist PFE is unavailable, a CO2 PFE may still be used. Orbital ATK (OA)-4 Cargo Operations: All three USOS Crew will continue transferring Cygnus cargo to ISS today. As of yesterday afternoon, approximately 22 hours remain to be completed. Cygnus is scheduled to unberth from ISS on February 19th. ISS Reboost: ISS performed a reboost this afternoon using the Progress 61P thrusters. This reboost is the second in a series of reboosts to target the planned conditions for the Soyuz 44 landing on March 2nd, Soyuz 46 four orbit rendezvous on March 19th, and Progress 63 four orbit rendezvous on March 31st. ISS Reboost. Payload Multiplexer/Demultiplexer (MDM) #2 Loss Of Communications: Overnight Payload MDM #2 experienced a High Rate Data Link (HRDL) card latch up, which prevented communications with the MDM and ISS Payloads. Flight Controllers attempted to command a reset of the card twice without success. They then commanded a MDM transition to Payload MDM #1 and have restored communications to ISS Payloads. Later, Ground teams powercycled Payload MDM #2 in order to recover communications with the unit. The MDM is currently serving as a backup to Payload MDM #1. Todays Planned Activities All activities were completed unless otherwise noted. Environmental Health System (EHS) Microbial Capture Device (MCD) In-flight Microbiology Water analysis and data recording Cygnus Cargo Operations TV conference with participants of the 10th S.P. Korolev Russian National Youth Readings SYN_MUSCL Photography CYCLOPS Big Picture Overview Video Of Greetings Video Footage for Roscosmos Press Service VEG-01 Plant Photo JEMAL Slide Table extension CYCLOPS P/L Installation on JEM Airlock Slide Table Study of cardiovascular system under graded physical load on VELO Pumping brine and urine from EDV-U to Progress 429 (SM Aft) Rodnik H2O Tank and Flushing Connector Operator assistance in study of cardiovascular system under graded physical load on VELO Replacement of ??2 Filter Unit (??) ??0501 (Install No.166 (00068062R, ??1??_4_449_1 bag 249-17). Dismantled ??2 Filter Unit 00068061R for disposal. Reflect changes in IMS) Verification of ??-1 Flow Sensor Position Operator assistance in study of cardiovascular system under graded physical load on VELO Study of Cardiovascular System Under Graded Physical Load on VELO JEMAL Slide Table Retraction BASSM Preparation Operations Part 1 [Deferred] Image Processing Unit (IPU) Hard Disk Exchange Life On The Station Photo and Video DOSETRK Medication Tracking Update ??? Maintenance Closing window 6,8,9,12,13,14 shutters Review airlock ops procedure per RODF EVA from DC1? BASSM Experiment start [Deferred] Gathering EVA equipment DOSETRK Medication Tracking Update BASSM BASS Hardware Installation and Test [Deferred] IMS Delta File Prep BASSM Experiment end [Deferred] USOS Window Shutter Closure JRNL Journal Entry TV Session with NTV Channel Emergency Water Mist Portable Fire Extinguisher Deployment CONTENT. Experiment Ops Cygnus Cargo Operations Tagup COGNITION Experiment Ops and Filling Questionnaire Completed Task List Items None Ground Activities All activities were completed unless otherwise noted. System commanding associated with ISS Reboost Three-Day Look Ahead: Thursday, 01/28: Cygnus Cargo Transfer, PS120 J Install, JPM Int Port Camera Relocation Friday, 01/29: Cygnus Cargo Transfer, BASS-M Ops, Lonestar Deploy, Kelly Off Duty Saturday, 01/30: Crew Day Off, Weekly Cleaning QUICK ISS Status Environmental Control Group: Component Status Elektron On Vozdukh Manual [???] 1 SM Air Conditioner System (SKV1) On [???] 2 SM Air Conditioner System (SKV2) Off Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab Operate Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 Override Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab Idle Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 Operate Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) Process Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) Standby Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab Full Up Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 Off LOW-COST airline Ryanair is launching a new service from Bratislava to the main international airport in Brussels - Zaventem from April 1. Font size: A - | A + Ryanair also announced that it would operate the service to Brussels also during the winter schedule, in place between late October 2016 and the end of March 2017, Veronika Sevcikova, spokesperson for Bratislavas M.R. Stefanik Airport, informed. The flights will be operated six times a week throughout the year. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement The airline currently operates flights to Brussels South Charleroi Airport, which is smaller and further away from Brussels city centre. Slovak customers can look forward to further improvements in the coming months, including new aircraft interiors, new uniforms and more new routes, under our Always Getting Better programme, as we continue to offer much more than just the lowest fares, Ryanairs Olga Pawlonka said. AROUND 40 members of the Slovak Armed Forces will take part in the Tank Challenge international military exercise in Germany in May, as the government approved a proposal for the deployment of Slovak soldiers to the exercise on January 27. Font size: A - | A + It also approved the deployment of Slovak military personnel to other international exercises, including in Hungary, where an exercise for military divers will be held, and in the Czech Republic, where sniper training will take place. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Slovak military helicopter pilots will be sent to the Amadeus exercise in Austria in April to practise flying in mountainous areas. Up to 135 special forces soldiers will go to Poland in May to train in tactical procedures during the Anakonda 2016 exercise. Moreover, soldiers from abroad will be dispatched to Slovak training areas, the TASR newswire wrote. An exercise involving toxic chemicals will take place in Zemianske Kostolany in the Trencin Region, with military chemists from Belgium, Austria, the USA, the Czech Republic and France all participating. The Lest training area in the Banska Bystrica Region will be the site of a special forces exercise including around 20 American soldiers and also an exercise in urban area combat, with approximately 100 Polish soldiers taking part. In total, Slovak soldiers will participate in 24 exercises abroad and several aviation days, while 34 various exercises with foreign armies participation is slated to take place in the first half of 2016, the SITA newswire wrote on January 27. NURSES organised a march from the Faculty Hospital and Polyclinic (FNsP) in Zilina to the citys St. Marys Square on January 27 in an effort to draw attention to the impending exit of 181 nurses from the hospital. Font size: A - | A + The march seeks to highlight the fact that, despite our prodigious efforts, nobody has talked to us, Labour Union of Nurses and Midwives head Monika Kavecka told the TASR newswire. So were leaving. No agreement or offer has been made, so the nurses are simply going to take a break. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Read also: Read also: Nurses leave hospitals Read more An analysis into the letters of resignations of nurses indicating that the nurses will effectively be gone as of Monday, February 1 implies, according to Kavecka, that there will be a shortage of operating room nurses, the entire anaesthesiology and resuscitation department will be rendered inoperative and the intensive care unit won't have specialised, critical care nurses. There are simply not enough of us, said one of the marching nurses. We want new nurses to join the health care system in order to ensure care for patients. When were gone, therell simply be nobody to look after people, and the government is still not taking this on board. Hospital spokesperson Viera Jurciova said that health care will continue to be provided as required after February 1. If need be, hospitals in nearby towns are ready to lend a hand. Aside from the hospitals 181 nurses who are still planning to leave in a few days, 31 nurses have withdrawn their resignations while another 20 nurses have been hired. Health Minister Viliam Cislak said on January 26 that 668 nurses country-wide are sticking to their plan to leave. Another 594 of their peers have withdrawn their resignations, while another 161 new nurses have been hired. Nurses and midwives embarked in November with en masse resignations over their dissatisfaction with a law amending their salaries in late November. This law changed their incomes as of this January even though Slovak President Andrej Kiska did not sign it. Medical workers claim that this law does not consider their demands, which involve blanket coverage throughout the nursing field in the new pay package rather than more money. A BRATISLAVA I District Court judge, Juraj Mihal, who is facing prosecution on suspicion of judicial misconduct, is retiring in late March. This may complicate more than 100 pending court cases the judge has been hearing. Font size: A - | A + The judge had 119 unresolved cases involving 183 people as of the end of 2015, Bratislava Regional Court spokesman Pavol Adamciak informed the TASR newswire on January 27. It seems now that the judge will be tried by the Trencin Regional Court after the Trencin District Court halted the prosecution in June 2015, which had been filed by the Prosecutor-Generals Office in late March 2015. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement In the aftermath of the judges retirement, it may be that court proceedings in dozens of lawsuits some of which have even attracted media attention and have been dragging on for a number of years may need to be launched anew. This includes the taking of evidence, and witness or expert testimonies. Mihal has handled a number of as yet unfinished high-stakes cases that involve alleged mafia murders, the so-called cash-point mafia, car theft gangs and the purported orchestrators of a double murder in the village of Most pri Bratislave near the capital that goes back as far as 2004. Last year, the Supreme Court cut the judges salary in half for a period of six months. The judge confessed to conduct prejudicial to the expeditious administration of court cases in a total of six cases. Seven judges, including him, currently handle criminal lawsuits at Bratislava I District Court. Another judge has previously announced his plans for retirement in 2016. Yet another judge, Stanislav Dutko, who is facing disciplinary action for judicial errors, has requested to be transferred to a different court and, meanwhile, the courts head has filed a motion to strip the judge of his judicial gown. The Trend weekly connects top Smer politicians to an international carousel fraud scheme, while Kalinak promises to sue for libel. Font size: A - | A + SHORTLY before the elections two ministers and top politicians of the ruling Smer party face allegations of involvement in an international VAT fraud scheme from 2007-2011. The fraud committed by the group of businesspeople cost the state at least 75 million. The main organiser of the so-called carousel model, lawyer Milan Chovanec, was charged for the crime that the police uncovered in 2012 and who admitted committing the fraud in November 2013. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement In carousel fraud, the fraudster charges VAT on goods in a multi-jurisdictional transaction without paying the tax owed to the state. Such schemes often involve transactions of agricultural products, like grain, sugar and sunflower oil, as well as mobile phones. The Sme daily noted that journalist Tom Nicholson wrote about the VAT fraud scheme back in 2014 on his blog. There were at least 40 people charged in the case, while other dozens are suspected of participation. Chovanec made the accusations of high-ranking Smer representatives during police hearings in January and February 2014, according to Nicholson. More than 100 Slovak, Czech, Polish, Latvian, Hungarian, but also Irish and American companies were making fictitious transactions, mainly with bricks, platinum, or investment gold. At the centre of the scheme was the Tatra Trade Corporation (TTC) company. The Trend weekly reported January 27, 2016 that it had a document in its possession resembling an investigation file. The file, which Trend cannot vouch to be 100-percent true, contains a record of interviews with Chovanec in which he mentions the current Interior Minister Robert Kalinak and Transport Minister Jan Pociatek as involved in the fraud. The two men, who served as ministers also in 2006-2010 government, were allegedly helping to cover up the fraud. The document records a Chovanecs detailed account of how the carousel scheme worked. Trend also reports to have documents resembling two reports of the intelligence service SIS, on corruption in tax administration in 2007-2010. One of the reports states that the SIS had informed the finance minister (at that time Pociatek), the Police Corps president, and the interior minister (at that time Kalinak). Despite that, it took the investigators five years to press charges against Chovanec, Trend wrote. Pociatek in reaction for Trend said that he has never been involved or contacted to handle anything for the benefit of the companies mentioned in the scheme. Also Kalinak denied the information in the file. The day after Trend broke the story, on January 28, the Interior Ministry sent a statement to journalists entitled Trend weekly: The bog of VAT mafia. In the statement, the ministry accuses Trend of protecting the VAT mafia with its article, which the ministry writes is based on fiction without any real basis and which only cites a man accused of VAT fraud. The ministry believes Trend has entered the election campaign in an attempt to harm Kalinak. According to the ministry, the police started dealing with the TTC case in 2009 and launched the prosecution of Chovanec in May 2012, when Kalinak was interior minister. There are 50 people accused in the case, with 15 different investigation files. The interior minister has nothing in common with the TTC and its case, has never met these people and has never been in any contact with them whatsoever, the ministry said. Kalinak has never sued any media for libel, but he is now ready to make an exception and pledges not only to file a libel lawsuit against the publisher of Trend, but also criminal complaints for perjury against concrete persons, the statement reads. Trend is published by News and Media Holding owned by Penta financial group, which also has a 45-percent share in Petit Press, the co-owner of The Slovak Spectator. Phase two of project includes tram line in Petrzalka. Font size: A - | A + Construction work on the new Old Bridge finished in mid December and even though Bratislava Mayor Ivo Nesrovnal promised to open it for pedestrians in early January, it has yet to happen. With final inspections underway January 20, the City Council is reticent to say when it will. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement We are pushing so that the final building approvals are over as soon as possible; so that Bratislavans can use the Old Bridge not only for passing on foot but also for tram transport, Nesrovnal told the Pravda daily. But until final building approvals are complete, the bridge will be not accessible to the public. This is true also for the tram transport from Old Town to Petrzalka and car transport via Sturova Street. Bratislava City Council Spokeswoman Ivana Skokanova told Slovak Radio that the bridge might be opened for pedestrians through February, but that it is premature to speak about the launch of tram transport via the bridge. What used to be the oldest bridge in Bratislava is a major part of the planned transport system connecting the city centre with Petrzalka on the opposite bank of the Danube River. The first part of the project was divided into two phases included rebuilding of the bridge and laying down new rails on Sturova Street and Safarikovo Square via the bridge up to Janikov Dvor in Petrzalka. The second phase will include building the tram line via Petrzalka. During the re-building of the bridge, two pillars were replaced by one, which extended the shipping lane on the Danube River to 140 metres. This will enable to sailing ships to move under the bridge. The whole reconstruction project costs nearly 59 million excluding VAT, of which 85 percent is financed from the European Union funds, 10 percent from the state budget, and 5 percent from the city budget. In order to receive the EU money, it was necessary to complete the bridge and invoice the works by the end of 2015. Searching for the new name The Old Bridge is now actually the newest bridge in Bratislava. But as its original name referred to its age, there are proposals to rename it. It was opened as the Bridge of Franz Joseph I in 1891. Later it was the Bridge of M. R. Stefanik, the Bridge of Red Army and only from 1990 was it called the Old Bridge. Among proposed names is the Bridge of Ludovit Stur but also the Bridge of Emil Gallo, the man well known from the iconic photo by Ladislav Bielik, on which Gallo stands with bare chested in front of a tanks cannon on Safarikovo Square, where the bridge ends. The city council has opened a petition for people, who can by the end of January send their proposals for the new bridges name. Afterwards a commission will choose the name. Bratislava councillor Ondrej Dostal recalled that leaving the selection of the new name to the public is not the best solution when some years ago people in an internet petition named a bridge over the Morava River in Devinska Nova Ves as the Cyclobridge of Chuck Norris. In the end councillors chose the Cyclobridge of Freedom. Tram in Petrzalka In the meantime the city council is working on the second phase of the transport infrastructure project. The tram line [in Petrzalka] will be installed into the existing infrastructure and joined to already existing city public transport so that tram transport from Petrzalka to Old Town is maximised [by passengers], said Skokanova as cited by the TASR newswire. The city council is preparing a meeting with citizens in February at which they will introduce the project. It is not clear when the tram line will be completed but it must be until the end of 2020 so that EU funds can be used. The tram project in Petrzalka is for now the latest public transport project in Petrzalka. During the communist regime, Bratislava planned to build a subway system, but later this project was evaluated as too expensive and cancelled. Former mayor Milan Ftacnik as well as current mayor Nesrovnal indicated that tram-trains, a light-rail public transport system, might run in Bratislava. THERE are several commodities, activities or services that can lure tourists to Slovakia. One of them is having a beer in a cosy pub or bar in its lively capital, Bratislava. Font size: A - | A + Evaluating local night spots from an outsider's view, Agata Mazepus of the culturetrip.com website offered a host of popular downtown bars. It lists: - the mostly student pub Cierny Pes /Black Dog - the more posh Drink In Gallery Andy under the Bratislava Castle - intellectual-elite Pod Kamennym Stromom and Lemon Tree Sky Bar - wine-y Pinot u Bruna close to St Martins Cathedral - the more plebeian First Slovak Pub - the Omama Shop Cafe with vintage Soviet-era signboards and ads - the pub connected with a brewery Zamocky pivovar - the peculiar Papichulo Bar rebuilt from public restrooms - and the KC Dunaj social and cultural hub Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Given the variety of choice, there is something to please everyone, all within walking distance due to the compact size of Bratislava centre. The Varga family, and indeed the whole village of Petrovce, endured suffering, fires, and deaths to protect Jews hiding in the area, rather than cooperate with the Nazis. Font size: A - | A + Jan and Anna Varga have received the Yad Vashem (Righteous) title on January 27, 2016. Read also: Read also: Israel honours 10 Slovaks for heroism Read more Frantisek Neumann, whose Hebrew name was Efraim, was originally from Stropkov. In 1944, during his military service, probably in Bardejov, he was enlisted in the "6th battalion", where only Jews served as assisting forces to the army. After the battalion's dismantle, its members were moved to work camps across the whole of Slovakia, among them Efraim. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement One evening a commander in the work camp revealed to Efraim and other Jews that they were to be deported to Auschwitz the next day. He advised them to run away and find a hiding place wherever they could. A group of 20 Jews decided to listen to his advice. Efraim settled in the village of Petrovce, whose residents were Evangelicals, and where a few Jews and partisans were already hiding. He turned to the house of Jan and Anna Varga, following the recommendation of Jan Varga's sister Anna Peterova, and offered his services to them. The couple, who had four children, took him on as a farm hand. They would call him Jozef in order to not look suspicious in front of the others. As they had a farmstead, Efraim was helping wherever it was needed. He worked as a cowherd and also helped around the house, in which he was living with the family. In his testimony he says: "When I arrived there it was hard for me to adjust, because I had never done such work before. I got used to it with time. As everybody in the village was against the Nazis, we were able to stay there. I was given completely different clothes, the same kind of clothes local people in the village used to wear, so that the Germans wouldnt recognize that I'm Jewish if they passed through there. The couple knew I was Jewish. The whole village knew I was Jewish." In his testimony, Efraim describes the different household jobs he did along with the rescuers' family members. When the German soldiers were searching for Jews and partisans, he would hide in the attic in hay or would escape to the woods. With the increasing amount of searches, Efraim and several of his friends decided to move to a hiding place in the nearby forest where they entrenched themselves in a bunker. They came to the village to get food, and for which he would return to the Varga's house. One day the mayor of the village came to the bunker to warn them that the Germans were coming. Even though the Germans were already in the village, they managed to escape. The residents of the village weren't so lucky. Two of them were shot, nine were taken away. The whole village of Petrovce, comprising 38 houses, was burnt down. The house of the Varga family was completely burned down. The family continued to live in the basement, the only part of the house which remained. Later, they built a new house in the same place. Efraim remained with the family also after the burnout, until the end of the war. After the liberation, Efraim returned to his hometown, but he didn't find anyone from his family. His mother, brothers and sisters were sent to the extermination camps, except for one brother who joined the partisans but was killed as well. After the war, Efraim opened a store and kept in constant touch with his rescuers, also helping them financially. After the war he invited Anna, the oldest daughter, for holidays to Stropkov. In 1949 he immigrated to Israel, but remained in contact with his rescuers, they corresponded and he even visited them twice. He met with Anna Vargova, although Jan was no longer living, together with his wife who survived Auschwitz and a cousin from Bratislava and also visited their children - Anna, Jan and Jozef (Maria was living elsewhere). They visited Jan Varga's grave. He invited Mrs. Vargova to come and visit him in Israel, but she replied that she was too old to travel. The family of the rescuers exchanged post cards with Efraim's cousin and it was she who informed them of his death. Privacy statement: This blog does not share personal information with third parties nor do we store any information about your visit to this blog other than to analyze and optimize your content and reading experience through the use of cookies. You can turn off the use of cookies at anytime by changing your specific browser settings. We are not responsible for republished content from this blog on other blogs or websites without our permission. This privacy policy is subject to change without notice and was last updated on January 1, 2017. If you have any questions feel free to contact Springfield Vermont News directly here: ed44vt@gmail.com On Tuesday, February 2nd the city of Kansas City, Missouri will play host to The Coffeewoman, an event aimed at empowering and inspiring women in the American professional coffee community. Directly inspired by events like Barista Connect in Europe, The Coffeewoman founder Laila Willbur has gathered together an extraordinary list of guests for the event, organized in two distinct panels focused on professionalism and competition. Opening remarks will be presented by Hailee Bland Walsh, the owner of City Gym in Kansas City and an advocate for gender equality. Tickets to The Coffeewoman are sold out, and the event is at complete capacity. Prospective attendees left out of the ticket rush or interested parties from around the world who cant attend, dont worrywere sponsoring video coverage of The Coffeewoman and will be filming all the talks live on-site. Look for more Coffeewoman content coming soon on Sprudge. In in the meantime, and to learn more about the event, we sat down with founder Laila Willbur to talk goals, inspirations, and how you can get involved to throw an event like this of your own. Tell us about how this program came about. Sexism in the coffee industry, specifically surrounding competitions, is a debate that comes up every year, multiple times. It always seems to happen on Twitter or Facebook, which are horrible mediums for this. In those settings, they are often times strongly driven by male opinions. Not that there is anything wrong with their opinions, I guessI just became more interested in hearing the thoughts of those it directly effects. I wanted to create a safe place, that was filled with the voices of strong woman, and sort of hash it out. Im inspired by other woman, and having read some of the recent Sprudge articlesyour interview with Cerianne Bury and the write up on Barista Connectit really pushed me to make it happen. The qualifiers seemed like the perfect opportunity. Thus The Coffeewoman was born. How did you get such an incredible list of speakers? I can tell you it wasnt easy. I ran into an issue directly related to this event right away: finding woman who could fill those chairs. I needed job diversity for The Coffee Professional: sales, ownership, education, roaster, coffee buyers=, and so on. It was even harder for The Coffee Competitor. There just isnt a whole lot of female competitors! In the end I got a wonderful group of ladies, all brining their own unique perspectives to the table. They all were so excited to participate. I have no doubt that their discussion will be honest and raw, and that their struggles and ultimate success, will leave attendees inspired. Our opening speaker Hailee Bland-Walsh kindly signed on to this event through the help of Jason Burton of The Lab. As a KCMO local he offered to find the opening speaker spot that I hoped to fill with someone directly involved in gender studies or womens rights. Hailee is an incredible advocate for equality and I am so honored to have her a part of our event. What do you hope comes out of this evening? The mission is to unify women. To encourage them to find and strengthen their voices. Its a challenge to be brave. Secondary to that, I hope to build some key points and take aways that we can share with our greater community. This event is first and foremost for women; however that doesnt mean that men are exempt from the content. We are lucky to work in a fairly young and progressive industry. I would hope that our male peers will be eager to hear our thoughts. Other people are inspired by this program. What advice do you have for those who wish to put together an event like this in their region? Based on how this event goes I would love to host more. Ive heard from a number of women asking how to host in other cites. Ive also had sponsors reach out and want to get involved. After this first event I will put together a how to host template and make myself available to offer advice and help to those interested. I think the next step would be to host another at Expo. I also think its the perfect topic to feature at a further Bloom event. The Coffeewoman is a free event made possible by Pacific Natural Foods, La Marzocco, and Barista Magazine. It takes place at The Drugstore on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2016. Tickets are sold out. Breaking news today as our friends & partners at Verve Coffee Roasters have revealed plans to open their first cafe in Tokyo, Japan. This is part of a wider revitalization project happening at Shinjuku Station, the worlds busiest train station, fielding an average of 3.7 million travelers a day. The 700 square foot cafe will open in April of 2016, and will be a fully Verve owned and operated project, as opposed to a franchising agreement. Thats an important detail: franchise projects for American coffee companies in Tokyo are nothing new, but this model of expansionlike Blue Bottle Coffees self-directed projects in Tokyooffers a considerable degree of quality control and intent. Its also a massive undertaking, and feels like an exciting sign of the times in the increasingly global world of New Wave coffee brands. Verve was selected for this project through a rigorous secret shopping effort on behalf of the project in Tokyo, which visited several cafes across the United States in search of a potential partner. Verve was then offered the opportunity, and development of the project is now underway in Tokyo. But its not the only project theyre planning for Japan. Sprudge co-founder Jordan Michelman spoke with Verve co-founder Colby Barr by phone from Santa Cruz to learn more about the projects genesis and where this takes Verve next. If we may borrow from the California surfer parlance, the whole thing sounds pretty chill. Hello Colby Barrthanks for speaking with me about your Tokyo cafe plans. To start, please give our readers like a 500 foot overview of this project. Colby Barr: Our first space in Tokyo will be part of a wider project, taking place at the Shinjuku train stationits their new south station, which theyre kind of retrofitting and rebuilding in anticipation for the 2020 Olympics. The station currently it has like 3.7 million people in and out of it each day [laughs] which is pretty chilland that means its actually the busiest train station in the world. Its used mostly for commuters and localsit isnt like one of the bullet train stations. Our space will be along the outside-facing part of the building, facing this whole new giant outside park that will overlook the rail system that goes below itit kind of reminds me of the High Line in Manhattan. Tell us more about the neighborhood. The station is right smack dab in the middle of Shinjukuthere is so much incredible stuff going on there. That train station is so busy, which is fascinating, and theres all this new development, new buildings go up to serve especially the tech community in that part of Tokyo. Imagine a huge shopping center full of amazing brands, 13 stories tall and 3 blocks wideShinjuku has stuff like that. But aside from all this crazy dense commercial the whole neighborhood is just super rad, really a street photographers heaveneverybody goes there and shoots street photography. Theres night life, theres little udon and ramen places, theres neon signs, little alleywaysits a really culturally rich and multifaceted part of downtown Tokyo scene. Shinjuku hasa lot of different reputations, if you know what Im saying, but I like it. It kind of reminds me of Downtown LA in a way, although its hard to compare it to anythingits like DTLA on steroids, or ecstasy or something. How many square feet will the cafe be? It will be around 700 square feet, which by Tokyo standards is either 3 times bigger than the average store, but not the biggest shop in town by any means. A lot of Tokyo coffee spaces are quite small. I would say its a solid size by Tokyo standards. How did this plan come about with the train station? Some people that were involved in the planning and designing of this entire new wing of the train station had been looking for a coffee brand, and they really wanted to bring an American west coast lifestyle coffee brand into Japan. And so they actually came over from Japan and did a ton of recon on coffee brands across the west coast, and throughout the United States. Unbeknownst to us, they had toured several of our spaces, and it turned out they really liked our brand. So they hit us up and wanted to come talk to us; we had no idea what to expect. But when we met with them and learned about the opportunity, we just thought it was super interesting and amazing, this particular location. It was just such a huge opportunity to be offered one of these retail spots for this particular location. In the past, particularly back in the 90s, it was not uncommon to hear of American coffee brand selling their franchise and branding rights to outside companies in Japan. Is this Verve location a franchise? Thats a great question and I totally know what you meanI too am familiar with those old franchise arrangements, and I can tell you that this is 100% not that. Its something that we are doing as Verve. We have a rad team were working with, and well have help in japan putting that together, but it is 100% not a franchise situation. This is being done with Verve staff, the Verve brand, our Verve style of service, the Verve vibe, and with Verve coffee. How will the logistics work? Will you be roasting from Japan? For the moment well be shipping coffee from Santa Cruz to Japan each week. The plan is, honestly, to treat this in many ways like any of our other cafesalthough of course its more complicated, because of the international date line and the big ass ocean between us and Tokyo. But we wont change the way we operate our stores and how we work with our product, and we want our staff and our cafe culture to be representative of who we are as Verve. The idea of roasting in Tokyo is totally attractive, and we have looked at spaces, but you know, honestly, the way the timeline cards are falling, this Shinjuku cafe is whats coming first. I would be surprised to learn of an American company expanding to Japan and just opening *one* location. Are there future plans to expand in Tokyo? Yes, there are plans for the future, and we are currently looking at additional retail opportunities in Tokyo, in several of the neighborhoods here that offer a good lifestyle. This opportunity with the train station in Shinjuku really sparked us thinking: why would we go there? What does this mean? Were in it for the long run with Verve, so there were hard questions we had to ask in thinking about this expansion, for our brand and for our lives. But since we decided to go for it, we want to go and do it right. We want opportunities beyond this, to see if our brand is a good fit for Japan. The Verve lifestyle meets the Tokyo lifestyleis it a good marriage? We think it is. Have you been given an assigned you must serve coffee by this date deadline from the the Shinjuku Station project team? Yesin my experience the business culture in Japan, in addition to being friendly and humble, is so on point with how they pursue projects. The current goal for our opening date has been set to work with the aims of the entire projectremember, this is a 3.7 million person a day train station, so everything has to happen on time. Theyre shooting to have this whole project live by the middle of April, and well be ready. What will you do for food in the space? Well work with a pastry maker in Tokyo that were just starting to talk to, and weve done some food tastings already to get prepped for that. Itll be in the vein of how weve rolled in the past, you know, really nice baked goods, keep it simple, offer good croissants and danishes, and try to find high quality seasonal offerings. The space is small and theres no kitchen, but well have a solid baking program made for us. Can you share info with us about the cafes design elements? Theres nothing we can share yet, but I can tell you it will feel like a Verve storeitll have an open feeling, and rely heavily on residential aesthetics. All our stores are a little different, and thats very much how Ryan & I and the Verve team like to do it. Tokyo of course offers a whole new style to play with, but were approaching it with an imagination of how our brand can fall into that, in the Verve quiver of how we design things. How about menu planning? Can you share what gear will be in the cafe? Were just getting there now internally, and will be able to announce more soon. The menu will reflect the menu choices were making back here in the States, but were looking really closely at likewhere is fresh juice at as an option in Tokyo? Are people into fermented drinks like kombucha over there? Were looking into all of that now. Why are you undertaking this project? Why now? Its really interesting, I think, that this opportunity shook out the way it did, because weve talked and dreamed about working in Asia for like the last five years. Weve talked about this for as long as weve talked about Los Angeles, which is now a reality for our brand. I think that, in so many ways, being based in Santa Cruz informs everything that we do, from the partnerships weve worked on with folks like ONeill and Santa Cruz Bicycles, that theres a really strong cultural pull here from across the ocean. Ive always been so fascinated personally with Japan and especially the food culture thereI know its cliche, but I just think its so impressive how intentional and quality-focused it is. Food is amazing in Japan everywhere you go. Tokyo as a market is so premium-minded and curious and into lifestyle and neighborhoods, and we justit feels good for us. Me personally, as a coffee buyer and a green coffee travelerI just got back last night from GuatemalaIve spent all this time traveling with coffee professionals from Japan, and me and the Japanese buyers are always loving the same coffees, and trying to buy the same coffees. Ive traveled with coffee pros from Japan for years, and Ive noticed that the coffees we love, the other folks buying those coffees are often Japanese premium buyers, so Ive always thought, hey, maybe we have similar tastes. There is a possibility for connection there and I cant wait to see how deep it goes. All photos courtesy Verve Coffee Roasters. Read more Tokyo coffee coverage on Sprudge. Steinberg also warned that Soros remained deeply committed to a concept of what he called "the open society" that encouraged the destabilization of traditional religious and political systems around the world, and that his support for human rights groups encouraged them to attack such structures too. "Soros support for drug legalization is part of his twisted notion of open society and he uses his vast network of NGOs [non-governmental organizations] to destabilize regimes that he sees as opposing Western liberal open society, Steinberg said. "For Soros, the open society is the permissive society, in which a kind of hedonistic calculus prevails." But Soros was also adamant about keeping the sources of his wealth outside the control of the US and British governments, Steinberg observed. "He carefully keeps his hedge funds offshore, and does not allow for American investors, so as to keep out of reach of the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] and other American regulatory agencies," he explained. However, Steinberg also noted that in recent months, the Hungarian-born financier seemed to be retreating from his previous position of adamant hostility toward Russia and President Vladimir Putin. "Soros is backing off from his staunch anti-Putin stances of recent years, as the European elites conclude that they need Russian help to turn back the hordes of refugees, something that requires ending the Syrian war and beginning an actual reconstruction," he pointed out. At this years World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, Soros even supported an international Marshall Plan to rebuild the Middle East that was carried out in partnership with Russia, Steinberg noted. However, Steinberg urged governments around the world to retain their caution and distrust in dealing with Soros, whose worth is now estimated at $24 billion. "Soros is not to be trusted. His philanthropy is all about color revolutions, regime change and drug culture," he added. Since 2010, Soros is believed to have approved at least $100 million in direct funding for Human Rights Watch. "What could possibly go wrong? We might ask the widows and orphans of the September 11, 2001 attack that question," she said. The New York Times report revealed that the scale of US military and Saudi financial assistance to the Islamists in Syria was vastly greater than anything the Obama administration had previously admitted to, US author and Middle East affairs expert Dan Lazare told Sputnik. "In the famous talk that [US Vice President] Joe Biden gave at Harvard's Kennedy School in October 2014 he said that the Gulf states poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of military weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad," Lazare noted. However, according to the New York Times report, estimates have put the total cost of the arming and training effort at several billion dollars, Lazare pointed out. "So the Saudi contribution alone was on the order of ten times greater than what Biden had indicated. That's huge," Lazare emphasized. Cobban further noted that US diplomats openly fanned the flames of rebellion and civil war in Syria. "There were the blatantly incendiary actions of Ambassador Robert Ford during the spring of 2011, when he gave a lot of moral and political support to very activist figures in the opposition," Cobban recalled. According to the New York Times report, Lazare observed, the US government was well aware how much Saudi citizens continued to support terrorist groups, but maintained their close intelligence partnership with Riyadh anyway. These were the same forces that bombed the World Trade Center in 2001, killing nearly 3,000 Americans, he concluded. Earlier in January, the European Union, the United Nations, and partially the United States lifted their sanctions against the Islamic republic after the International Atomic Energy Agency verified Tehrans compliance with a nuclear agreement reached last July. The lifting of sanctions allows Iranian oil producers to re-enter the energy market. "Supply may recover in a short term very quickly with a geopolitical event or an unexpected supply disruption. But in terms of long term decrease in the price, I think we will be looking into at least another 12 months," del Maestro said. According to the researcher, a number of US producers, who will suffer from lowering oil prices, are likely to cause "a more dramatic drop" in the US oil production, which could lead to the weakening supply. Denton Cinquegrana, the chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service, does not expect any significant increase in oil prices in 2016. "My forecast for WTI futures for 2016 is $37.50. Do not see WTI futures getting much higher than say $46/bbl this year and Brent should average $2-3/bbl better than WTI," Cinquegrana said. US, IRANIAN OIL ENTERS MARKET Del Maestro does not believe that the appearance of the US or Iranian oil at the European market is due to be blamed for further prices decline, but rather the sentiments around it. In the first week of January, the United States sent its first two shipments of light crude oil after the 40-year oil export ban was officially lifted in December. At the time the ban was lifted, WTI prices nearly converged with Brent crude prices. That narrow spread has remained through January. "The critical reality is that the US is unlikely to export a large amount of oil now, given the low prices. And likewise with Iran. There will be some time lag for Iran is able to bring more infrastructure to the degree to be able to produce and export a much larger amount of oil," del Maestro said. Cinquegrana warned that any new competition would negatively affect the oil prices. "I do not see many exports from the US going to Europe. Iran is looking to take its place near the top of OPEC [the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries] production again with sanctions lifted they are going to move as quickly as possible to start gaining oil revenue," Cinquegrana said. Iranian oil exports are expected to add 600,000 barrels a day to the market by mid-year, according to the International Energy Agency. DECREASE IN SUPPLY NOT NECESSARILY WAY OUT According to del Maestro, to decrease the oil supply is not the only obstacle on the way to raising oil prices, as the global demand will not necessarily rise. "Historically, China has been the drive of all demand, and their economy is now undergoing quite a radical change. So its difficult to see the demand for oil picking up on the back of China," del Maestro said. Cinquegrana said that "a massive spike" in demand was unlikely. "Innovation or technological advances will only help keep pressure on [oil] prices doing more with less essentially. Other innovations like alternative fuels and electric cars will also keep pressure on oil prices," the analyst said. "Shutting in an oil field will cost money. Expanding production again will also cost. Shutting down production is last resort for most players. Delaying projects and reducing costs are first priorities," the expert stressed. He cited the US experience with shale resources. "We have seen clear examples in the US where it is 'easy' to put production of shale resources on hold at low oil prices. US oil production has declined. So far the reductions have not been large enough to have major influence on the price level," Olsen added. EFFECTS OF PRICE COLLAPSE Oil service companies will see the particular effects of the low oil prices, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, Karen Young, said. "For oil service firms, which work for both large corporates and national oil companies, they have been hit hard and we see this even in the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] oil exporting states. These cuts will have ripple effects in local economies," Young noted. According to her, the situation will eventually balance itself out. "There will be a balance, especially for the GCC producers (namely Saudi Arabia) when the domestic effects of low prices will outweigh the strategic benefits of weakening the competition, whether that competition is regional (Iran) or international (US shale)," Young said. The lack of coordination among the oil-producing states and the Saudi unconstructive position hinder the situation on the oil market from changing, she stressed. CAS political director Mark Lynas vividly illustrated how the pro-GMO propaganda machine functions. Lynas, in a New York Times op-ed piece, blamed the illegality of GMO crop cultivation in over half of EU countries on popular opinion "turning against science," calling those member states a "coalition of the ignorant." The PR tactics of the agribusiness industry, upon which CAS fully relies for its mission, promote a false idea of the safety and necessity of industrial-scale, genetically modified agriculture, according to research detailed in Spinning Food, a new report by the activist group Friends of the Earth. In another twist, Boston Globe journalist Laura Krantz reported that a Monsanto executive told Harvard professor Calestous Juma to write a study detailing the necessity of GMOs in feeding Africa. "Monsanto not only suggested the topic to Professor Calestous Juma. It went so far as to provide a summary of what the paper could say and a suggested headline. The company then connected the professor with a marketing company to pump it out over the Internet as part of Monsanto's strategy to win over the public and lawmakers," Krantz wrote. Juma said his research was not funded by Monsanto, claiming that he received his money from the Gates Foundation, an organization that has long collaborated with Monsanto on advancing GMO projects. According to a 2014 analysis, almost $3 billion of Gates Foundation money, intended to mitigate hunger in Africa, has gone to wealthy countries, mostly to universities and research centers. CAS claims that it's not a publicly-owned business, and is not aware of ties between agribusiness industry PR operatives and scientists who have "contributed to the scientific consensus about the safety of GMOs." Tufts University professor Timothy Wise, in his article "The War on Genetically Modified Food Critics," points to the lack of a scientific basis in the GMO debate, also observing the role of mass media in falsely reporting that GMOs and their effects are a "settled science." "What we're seeing is a concerted campaign to paint GMO critics as anti-science while offering no serious discussion of the scientific controversy that still rages," Wise wrote. One indicator of that campaign, he said, was a Gates Foundation monetary award to Cornell University to "depolarize the charged debate" about GMOs. "The Gates Foundation is paying biotech scientists and advocates at Cornell to help them convince the ignorant and brainwashed public, who may not be well informed,' that they are ignorant and brainwashed It's kind of like depolarizing an armed conflict by giving one side more weapons," Wise claimed. CAS Director Doctor Sarah Evanega, claimed that her group is not linked to, nor does it receive funds from, the agrochemical industry. "We do not write for industry, and we do not advocate for or promote industry-owned products," she asserted. MOSCOW (Sputnik)Russia and India have commenced a joint project to produce 200 Ka-226T light utility multirole helicopters, the Russian Helicopters company said Thursday. "Currently, the sides have begun implementing [the agreement]. Large-scale international deals usually have a lengthy preparation period, with deal details kept confidential. All work is being carried out in accordance with the terms of the agreement. Technical consultations and talks between the Russian and Indian companies involved in the project are already being conducted," the company's press service told RIA Novosti. The contract to produce the helicopters for India's Air Force was signed during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's December 2015 visit to Moscow. The agreement also entails servicing, repair and technical assistance. It's not a random occurrence that the US is employing soft' means to promote its interests in Laos, since Washington has made similar diplomatic-economic overtures in trying to win over other victimized multipolar states in the past couple of years. Washington has been progressively bettering its ties with Myanmar and lifting its brutal sanctions regime against the country since the latter's 2011 elections, and it's currently on course to do something similar with Cuba. As regards Iran, the UNSC sanctions were removed as planned, but lesser unilateral ones were implemented in their place, showing that the New American Way' has its limits and is a mixed bag of success with various ulterior motives in mind. As it regards Laos, the country fell victim to more American bombs during the Vietnam War than the US dropped during all of World War II combined, and the CIA waged the so-called "Secret War" against it for over two decades during the Vietnam era. Just like with the aforementioned countries that Washington previously lost influence in through its history of aggression against them, the US is once more attempting its new "carrot and stick" approach presenting a diplomatic-economic deal to its elite, while simultaneously holding out the implicit threat of a Hybrid War if they don't bite the bait. Hybrid War Rumblings Historical Precedent: It's extremely difficult to acquire information about civil society in Laos due to the country's overall opacity, so one can't exactly get a proper handle on the likelihood of a Color Revolution being fomented there (which is probably the point). However, it's comparably easier to observe the vulnerabilities that Laos has to Unconventional Warfare. In this case, it would be an outbreak of jungle-based anti-communist warfare that follows the exact template of the "Secret War", albeit this time against the communist government instead of their rebel predecessors. Ethnic Uniqueness: One of the most fascinating things about Laos is that it's so rich in identity diversity that the government employs a unique way in categorizing it all. Instead of conventionally singling out each and every single ethnicity, a "terraced" approach is used instead, whereby the groups are broadly categorized as lowland, midland, and upland Lao (the last of which includes the transnational Hmong). Pertaining to this, no outside observer has any reliable information about relations between and within each of these groupings, although it's widely believed that the Hmong have retained the anti-government sentiment that they've traditionally held since the beginning of the CIA's "Secret War" in the 1950s. Recent Violence: All of this is particularly relevant because the US government-financed "Radio Free Asia" had excitedly reported on a progressive uptick in violence in Laos during the last part of 2015. According to them, Vientiane referred to the various killings, shootings, robberies, and other violent acts as having been committed by "bandits" and consequently imposed a curfew. Whether by historical coincidence or symbolic coordination, it's curious that all the disturbances occurred in Xaysomboun Province. The CIA's main "Secret War" base, the mountainous and nearly inaccessible village-town of Long Tieng, used to be located here, and it was the US' primary forward-operating position in the country from 1962-1975. Anti-Chinese Killings: As luck' would have it, two Chinese workers were killed by a bomb attack last Sunday and a third one injured in this very same province, just one day before Kerry's visit. Whether this was timed to achieve maximum symbolism isn't known, but it seems obvious at this stage that the perpetrators are more than just the standard run-of-the-mill "bandits" that the government initially portrayed them as. It's also unmistakable that they were sending a strong anti-Chinese message by purposely targeting that country's compatriots. One would almost be inclined to view the so-called "bandits" as the "stick" to the diplomatic-economic "carrot" that Kerry came to dangle in front of the new General Secretary. If that's the case, then it should come as no surprise that the Prime Minister may have said those perceivably anti-Chinese euphemisms that the Secretary of State had quoted. It's really hard to tell what's happening in Laos right now (just like it's always been), but there's no doubt that all the latest developments are linked to China's ASEAN Silk Road, and it doesn't take a foreign policy specialist to realize how badly the US wants that project scrapped. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik. KIEV (Sputnik) The leaders of the parliamentary coalition in Ukraine have agreed to reformat the Cabinet, Maksym Burbak, leader of Peoples Front faction in Ukraines Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) said. "We will start filling the posts that have long been vacant, people have already submitted applications [for being dismissed]. At a meeting of faction leaders we discussed that there should be a presentation and open public discussion of all candidates for the vacant posts, and for where ministers are obviously weak," Burkbak told reporters after a meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. In December, Ukraine's Parliament Speaker Volodymyr Groysman said that after the adoption of the 2016 state budget, it was high time to raise the question about reformatting the Cabinet. STRASBOURG (Sputnik) ECHR Rule 39 is a request for interim measures to the court. Majority of the cases under the rule concern the applications for the suspension of an expulsion or an extradition. "At the moment the impact of migrant crisis on the court is not significant in quantitative terms, however we have to put in place an action plan in order to anticipate and properly deal with a possible influx of Rule 39 requests," Guido Raimondi told reporters. The European Court of Human Rights has recently received 24 requests from migrants who did not want to be returned to Hungary, he noted, adding that rule 39 was applied in 10 of those cases, which referred to applicants of different nationalities, Afghans, Palestinians, Syrians and others. "In order to maintain support for refugees, these people must be sent back as soon as possible," Timmermans said. An EU Commission spokeswoman told Austrian newspaper Die Presse that migration figures for December had not yet been finalized, but confirmed that economic migration is increasing. "Of course more and more economic migrants are coming to Europe," the spokeswoman said. "A clear difference needs to be made between protecting asylum seekers and economic migrants who will be sent back." @keeptalkingGR He says 60% comes from countries where one normally (unless pol prosec etc) doesn't need to flee from https://t.co/ORcPMzQ1D4 Pieter Cleppe (@pietercleppe) 27 2016 'Timmermans: More than half of refugees have economic motives,' NOS reported. In January German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau reported a sharp increase in the number of migrants arriving in Germany from Algeria and Morocco. According to figures from Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) almost 2300 Algerians and 3000 Moroccans arrived in Germany in December 2015. The number represented a sharp rise since August, when less than 1,500 Algerians and Moroccans combined arrived in the country. In the whole of 2014, around 3,900 people from both countries migrated to Germany, and just one of 59 Algerian asylum applicants and one of 27 Moroccan applicants were granted asylum, BAMF told Die Welt. "Traditionally inhabitants of the Maghreb countries emigrated to Spain or France," UN Refugee Agency spokesman Stefan Teloken explained. "Because the legal route across the Mediterranean has been broken, the movement appears to have moved to central Europe, because people resort to the Balkan route," he told the newspaper. It has also emerged that Italy is set to charge Google US$161 million in back-taxes over its US$1.43 billion revenues equating to 15 percent five times more than the UK. "The Government must restore public confidence that they have acted in the best interests of the public and have secured a good deal for taxpayers across the UK. They must also answer the charges that the methodology used by the HMRC to calculate future liabilities is opaque, and a potential breach of very clear EU regulations on calculating the tax liabilities of large corporations," Hosie told Sputnik. The French are also set to come to a tax deal with Google soon which could yet again show a different rate of taxation, further exposing the shambles of the EU tax system. Despite efforts by the mandarins in Brussels many EU member states are keen to keep multinational companies such as Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon onside with sweetheart deals. Tax Deal Secrecy Commissioner Margrethe Vestager told reporters that if she received a complaint she would open an investigation into the matter. Proposals to ensure #FairTaxation: So many companies pay their taxes all companies should do that #FairCompetiton pic.twitter.com/BP7hHSdf66 Margrethe Vestager (@vestager) January 28, 2016 "If we find that there is something to be concerned about. If someone writes to us and says 'well maybe this is not as it should be' then we will take a look. Hopefully, we will end up in a situation where companies pay taxes in the countries where they also make their profits and these new proposals will take us another step down that road," Vestager said. The refugee crisis exploded in 2015 as more people fled Syria, Iraq and neighboring countries, following an upsurge in airstrikes against Daesh, also known as ISIL, and the proclamation by German Chancellor Angela Merkel that her countrys doors were 'open' to refugees. Greece has struggled to deal with the vast influx of migrants, hampered as it is by a lack of a common immigration policy within Europe, EUs failure to agree a relocation package for refugees and a general collapse of EUs external borders security. Mandravelis told Sputnik that the refugee crisis has a lot in common with the economic crisis. "Brussels doesnt know what to about it and so it kicks the weakest link in the chain, which is, unfortunately, Greece again. The politicians in Europe just because they dont know what to do and are under a lot of pressure from the far-right want something to appease the public. So they shift the responsibility to Greece, which is always a 'voluntary candidate' [for blame]." Greece Neglects Obligations Nonetheless, the European Commission this week berated Greece in a damning report that concluded Greece had "no effective identification and registration of irregular migrants and that fingerprints are not being systematically entered into the system and travel documents are not being systematically checked for the authenticity or against crucial security databases, such as SIS, Interpol and national databases. All you need to know about the under-threat #Schengen zone See full video explainer: https://t.co/M5TgoWI0ia pic.twitter.com/7RMSNIAB2N Chris Harris (@lyonanglais) January 28, 2016 "On this basis, the draft report concludes that Greece is seriously neglecting its obligations and that there are serious deficiencies in the carrying out of external border controls that must be overcome and dealt with by the Greek authorities," a draft report stated. Greece is already suffering under a huge austerity package imposed on it by its creditors the Troika comprising the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission. This has led to widespread strikes over tax rises and major changes to the countrys pension schemes. MOSCOW (Sputnik), Alexander MosesovThe newly-introduced Danish law which stipulates that the authorities may seize refugees valuables to help offset the cost of their time in the country is "very inhumane," a spokesman for the Islamic Society in Denmark told Sputnik. "We strongly condemn the measures that the Danish government has taken to open up for the possibility of confiscating valuables from refugees. This is a very inhumane, and horrent measure which is completely out of proportions This happened before in Germany, a very dark chapter in European history," Imran Shah, who also sits on the board of the Islamic Society, said. The new law was creating an international echo around the reputation of Copenhagen, he said, adding that other countries as well as NGOs should pressure Denmark over the legislation. MOSCOW (Sputnik)The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is set to designate 64.4 million Swiss francs (some $63 million) to help Ukraine's war-torn Donbass region, ICRC Public Affairs Adviser Alexey Potemkin said Thursday. "In 2016, the [Red Cross] budget will amount to 64.4 million francs," Potemkin said at a meeting of the Russian parliament's Support Committee for the South-East of Ukraine. The budget will be used to supply the residents of Donbass with food and medicine, as well as restoring electricity and gas supply, Potemkin added. Some 20,000 people are set to receive aid monthly, including provisions for over 3,000 households to receive support in running small businesses, according to the ICRC representative. The Netherlands, which now holds the rotating six month EU presidency, is the latest country to come up with a plan. Dutch social democrat leader Diederik Samsom said he wants EU countries to accept a "couple hundred thousand refugees per year from Turkey, in exchange for [Turkey] accepting back everyone who enters [the EU] via Greece". And he thinks this could start as soon as March. Samsom told German newspaper De Volkskrant: "I think there is a realistic change that by this spring a leading group of EU countries will have an agreement. The idea is to distribute between 150,000 and 250,000 refugees among EU countries." Samsom might well be able to convince fellow social democrat MPs in Western European countries but its highly unlikely hell change the minds of Eastern European leaders who still refuse to take part in the quota system. "Tres Interessant" France, which has historically been reticent towards Turkeys accession to the EU, has been accused of dodging the issue by Samsom. "When I call Prime Minister Valls [about the plan] he says 'interessant, tres interessant', and hopes I dont ask further." The French government has just renewed the countrys "state of emergency" following the November 13 terrorist attacks. Meanwhile Greece has been threatened by Brussels with exclusion from the Schengen zone if it doesnt officially process all asylum seekers. At the time Cameron was being grilled by opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn about the UKs recent tax agreement with internet giant Google, which has been labelled the "sweetheart deal", due to its perceived soft approach in cracking down on taxing large corporations. SNP spokesperson Alex Salmond said: "A lot of people, including myself, have got a bit of a theory that Cameron does this when hes trying to deflect attention from other things, because he was in trouble on the Google tax deal So all of a sudden he comes out with this phrase. Now most stuff at Prime Ministers Questions is rehearsed, so my charge against David Cameron is not just hes describing people in pretty disgusting terms, but hes doing it deliberately." Bunches to Swarms Camerons decision to label people living in Calais Jungle as a "bunch of migrants" follows on from a further scandal last year where the PM referred to refugees at the camp as "a swarm". The PM was accused of dehumanizing the plight of refugees, while then acting leader of the Labour party Harriet Harman said Cameron "should remember he is talking about people and not insects". Our leaders must use responsible, careful language when talking about this humanitarian crisis: http://t.co/ojES6c7GPK Refugee Council (@refugeecouncil) July 30, 2015 The controversial comments came at a time when the government was under pressure to reverse its planned cuts to tax credits, which many argued would adversely affect Britains poorest people. Terrorist Sympathizers Another example of the alleged use of the 'dead cat' strategy was during the UKs House of Commons vote on whether to extend their anti-Daesh bombing campaign into Syria. On the eve of the Commons debate and subsequent vote in December, Cameron urged MPs not to vote with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in opposing airstrikes, labeling him and his supporters "a bunch of terrorist sympathizers". The hugely controversial comments were widely condemned and came as increased scrutiny was being placed on Camerons claim that there was an army of 70,000 anti-Assad, anti-jihadist forces in Syria that would benefit from British help a claim that was subsequently proven to be false. Back-Stabbing Brother The use of the 'dead cat' strategy was also widely thought to have been used by Conservative party minister Michael Fallon during last years election campaign, when he accused then Labour leader Ed Miliband of stabbing his brother in the back during the 2010 Labour leadership election. Fallon told the Times: "Miliband stabbed his own brother in the back to become Labour leader. Now he is willing to stab the United Kingdom in the back to become prime minister." The comments inferred that Labour would be willing to join a coalition government with the Scottish National Party (SNP) and would subsequently scrap the UKs Trident nuclear defense system. MOSCOW (Sputnik)Some 680,000 refugees have transited through Austria since September 2015, while 90,000 have applied for asylum in the country, Interior Ministry Director for Immigration Police, Crisis Management and Civil Protection Johann Bezdeka said Thursday. "The final figures for 2015 are not yet available, but 90,000 applications for asylum have been submitted in Austria. The real [migration] crisis started in September, 680,000 people passed through Austria," Bezdeka said during a video conference at the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency. Earlier in January, Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said migrants who did not intend to apply for asylum in Germany and would only transit through the country would not be able to enter Austria. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Those asylum seekers whose application has been rejected and who do not want to return to their home countries voluntarily will receive less money from the Swedish authorities than other migrants in the country, Swedish Migration Agency spokeswoman Alexandra Elias told Sputnik. Earlier on Thursday, a spokesperson of Swedens minister for home affairs told Sputnik that rejected asylum seekers facing deportation would stay in special facilities and receive financial aid for several years before being expelled to the countries of origin. "If you get rejected with your application and if you dont want to get back voluntarily, then the financial aid can be reduced," Elias said, without specifying how much less the aid would be. MOSCOW (Sputnik), Anastasia Levchenko Last week, hundreds of Russian-speaking Germans protested the alleged cover-up by Berlin police of the case of a 13-year-old girl from a Russian-speaking community, who had reportedly been kidnapped and sexually assaulted by men of refugee background, weeks after sex attacks on women in Cologne. "We can see that in Russia people think we did not say something because of migrant issue. But it was only the protection of the child that was the reason for the decision," Redlich said. He added that German law enforcement was allowed to disclose information on criminals nationality, in migrant-related cases as well, to reporters upon request. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) has not been invited by the United Nations to the talks between the Syrian government and the opposition that are scheduled to begin in Geneva, Switzerland on Friday. The Kurdish party accused Ankara of throwing its weight behind the UN decision. "Unless you are for a permanent war, you would want to accommodate the Kurds and invite them to the [Syrian] peace talks," Xulam said on Wednesday. "As to the party that doesnt want them in Geneva, namely Turkey, they cannot maintain a state of war with the Kurds the way they did with the Armenians 100 years ago." Xulam added that the Kurds want peace, but peace requires the participation of the groups respective interlocutor in negotiations. He also added that Russia is much more transparent and forthcoming with providing information regarding its actions in Syria than the US-led military coalition, according to RIA Novosti. "The numerous media reports about Russia launching strikes against the wrong targets' dont originate from reliable sources. The Russian Defense Ministry acts in a much more transparent manner that the US-led coalition: the former provides detailed reports about its actions on a daily basis, and even helps organize press tours to the region," Chizhov said during an event dedicated to Russias role in Middle Eastern affairs. The ambassador remarked that the first reports about Russia allegedly bombing civilians in Syria appeared two days before Russian military aircraft were actually deployed in the county. On January 22, Iran's Presidential Chief of Staff Mohammad Nahavandian told Sputnik that finding a solution to the Syrian crisis was directly linked to the fight against terrorism. Syria has been mired in a civil war since 2011, with government forces loyal to President Bashar Assad fighting a number of opposition factions and extremist groups. The next Vienna format meeting on Syria may take place on February 11, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister said. "[The meeting will take place] probably on February 11, though we have not received an invitation yet," Abdollahian said at a press conference in Moscow. According to Abdollahian, Iran is "optimistic about the upcoming intra-Syrian reconciliation talks" as it can become a step forward to the peaceful solution of the conflict. According to Abdollahian no agreements have been reached regarding the lists of terrorist groups. "There are many problems regarding the agreement of terrorist groups lists, there is no consent among the countries," Abdollahian stressed. According to the Iranian diplomat, Tehran insists that Daesh, Nusra Front, Jaysh al-Islam, Ahrar ash-Sham are included as terrorist groups, while some countries consider only Daesh and Nusra Front to be terrorist organizations. ROME (Sputnik)Italian Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti ruled out her country taking unilateral action in Libya, saying efforts to resolve the Libyan crisis must be coordinated internationally, in an interview with local media published Thursday. "In the last month, we have been working more closely with the Americans, Brits and French," Pinotti told Corriere della Sera. She stressed that Rome was not ready to take unilateral action in Libya. "We all agree that we must avoid uncoordinated actions which did not give good results in the past," the minister said. WASHINGTON (Sputnik)The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq will more readily rely on Turkey to keep oil exports and revenues flowing amid financial problems caused by low commodity prices, the US-based geopolitical intelligence firm Stratfor said in an analysis report on Thursday. Persistent financial strain will continue to drive the Arbil government closer to Turkey, whose infrastructure is crucial to the KRG's ability to export its oil," the report stated. Since June 2015, Iraqi Kurdistan has exported oil independently of the central government in Baghdad. However, the Iraqi government legally challenged KRGs actions in an attempt to keep the region under its control. The project to train and equip the US-backed Afghan military, with the existing level of troops, is projected to cost $10 billion alone, and taking on a greater combat role in Afghanistan would cost upwards of $30 billion, Hussain estimated. The presence of US troops is also having an effect on the "stillborn" Afghan peace process, which is hampered by the Taliban's demand for a definite time frame for the withdrawal of US troops before they come to the negotiating table. "On the other hand the Afghan unity government does not want the American forces to withdraw because they think that if the Americans were to pack up and leave, the Afghanistan unity government will be more likely to fall prey to the Afghan insurgency, and then Daesh will strengthen its foothold." "Some of the Afghan Taliban who are fighting the unity government forces are drifting more towards the Daesh element, so this means that Afghanistan will become more vulnerable to a civil war situation." "If that happens I am not sure that the Afghan army is going to stay as a united force, and more likely that they are going to split and throw their weight behind the winning force." The US-led NATO combat mission in Afghanistan formally ended in December 2014, and was replaced by the supposedly non-combat "Resolute Support" mission to train Afghan security forces. MOSCOW (Sputnik) On Thursday morning, he was arrested at his home for "terrorists activities," according to the Israeli military. Previosly, Abu Tir was sentenced to life in Israeli prison for his involvement in Hamas' "terror activities." His most recent arrest was preceded by detention of two other Hamas lawmakers last week. "By arresting Palestinian lawmakers, Israelis are attempting to break our people and stop its rebellion," Sami Abu Zuhri told RIA Novosti. The Israeli government has repeatedly accused the Palestinian Hamas movement, classified by the country as a terrorist group, of attacking Israel from the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. WASHINGTON (Sputnik), Leandra Bernstein The recently proposed authorization for use of military force (AUMF) against Daesh would give the President of the United States virtually unlimited war powers, US Senator Chris Murphy told Sputnik. "There would be virtually no limitations on the president to send US troops to almost any corner of the globe, based on the wording of this resolution," Murphy said on Wednesday. Last week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced a war powers resolution that allows the president to use "all necessary and appropriate force" to defend the United States "against the continuing threat" posed by Daesh, associated forces and possible successor organizations. Therefore, the analyst writes, "spending more money trying to reduce an already small risk of Afghanistan-related terrorism just doesn't make sense compared to spending that money dealing with bigger problems. Even worse, Obama's plan to eliminate the small risk of Taliban-inspired terrorism ensures that the US will run larger and more certain risks by keeping American troops in Afghanistan on a daily basis." Reason #2: The Sunk Cost Trap In addition to the 'zero-risk bias', Thrall notes, US policy planners are caught in what is called the 'sunk cost trap', "unable to recognize that it is time to cut US losses." "Like most people faced with having made massive expenditures without achieving their goals, Obama feels pressure to redeem all the lives and money wasted over the past fourteen years. But as hard as it may be emotionally, the decision to stay in Afghanistan should not be based on how hard we have worked up until now." On the contrary, it "must hinge on whether or not the benefits of staying outweigh the costs moving forward. And since there is little to be gained, staying in Afghanistan is simply an exercise in throwing good money after bad." Reason #3: Delusions of Grandeur "Finally," Thrall suggests, "Obama's decision to stay in Afghanistan reflects a serious miscalculation about the ability of the United States to influence events and the behavior of less powerful actors. Given how often the US exhibits this delusion, we should probably call this the 'superpower bias'. Here, too, history reveals the harsh truth." "Why, after fourteen years during which the United States has enjoyed almost complete military domination in Afghanistan, do policy makers imagine they will be able to influence events now, especially at troop levels far lower than at the height of the [2007] surge? Even in 2010, with 100,000 troops in the country, the US was never able to ensure desirable political outcomes in Afghanistan; nor were its military gains more than temporary. And as time has passed, US influence has only diminished." Majidi said that "the impact (from lifting sanctions) will be huge." For decades Iran was "locked out of the international trade and banking system," and ostracized by many countries, including the US and parts of Europe. "There is a possibility for Iran to strike deals, purchase in particular airplanes and airplane parts, which Iran has been deprived essentially since the early days of the [1979] revolution." Majidi told Loud & Clear's Brian Becker that the Iranian people are relieved now that the treaty has been finalized. Iran was long suspected, incorrectly it turns out, of possessing a nuclear weapons stockpile, and citizens in the country had previously felt threatened by the "possibility of war escalating." "Given the fact that the US, Israel, Britain, France and permanent members of the UN Security Council have nuclear weapons, and lots of them, and tremendous ability to destroy lives, it is highly hypocritical for Iran to have been subjected to such sanctions on the accusations on substations that it may have a nuclear weapons program," he said. LONDON (Sputnik) The three held phone talks on Wednesday, discussing plans for the Syria donors conference scheduled to take place in London on February 4. "They agreed the event would be a major moment in tackling what is now widely accepted as the worlds biggest humanitarian crisis and that all countries in attendance should look to at least double their 2015 financial contribution to the crisis, to better meet the great need identified in the UN appeals," a spokesperson of the British Prime Ministers Office said in a Wednesday statement. Prime minister Cameron also held phone talks with King Salman of Saudi Arabia on Wednesday. The intelligence investigation, Shatilov suggests, basically "amounts to an attempt by the Americans to 'clean out' any European political forces which are more-or-less oriented toward Russia, or even simply opposed to the aggravation of a confrontation with Moscow." Unfortunately, the analyst notes, "none of this comes as a surprise to anyone in the Western democracies, with the US, in the quarter-century since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, selling the public on the idea that Washington has national interests across the entire globe, and that they are free to 'correct' the political course of governments as required." "The US does not hide the fact that it wants to impose its Transatlantic Economic Partnership project on the EU. But if the elite of the Old World proves to be uncompromising, Washington can rustle up another couple million migrants from somewhere" to push its interests through. The truth, Shatilov suggests, is that "the Russian leadership certainly understands the processes taking place in Europe, and naturally is trying to somehow influence them, because this is a region of great importance for us. We do our best to counter US influence in the Old World, but, speaking honestly, have so far achieved only local successes." For a number of reasons, the analyst notes, from financial resources to history to mentality and values, Washington's ability to influence the EU is much stronger than Moscow's. However, even though Russia's real ability to influence European policy on the strategic level is limited, "still, the United States considers Russia's efforts 'provocative' and 'dangerous'. For this reason, it is entirely possible that they will begin a witch hunt in Europe, directed not even against our allies, so much as against those who are simply willing to work with us." When asked why, in a situation where Washington's influence over Europe significantly exceeds Moscow's, the US nevertheless insists on crushing whatever pro-Russian enemies, real or imagined, it has left, Shatilov suggested that "historically, American policy has had a 'cowboy character'; that is, hitting your opponent with so many blows that he won't soon recover, if he recovers at all. In this way, it's possible that Russia may have something to learn from the Americans, in order to better defend our own national interests." Anyway, Biden's visit has indicated clearly that Washington still supports the Erdogan regime and is turning a blind eye to the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Turkish and Syrian Kurds by Ankara "thinly veiled" as a war against PKK (the Kurdistan Worker's Party) and de facto occupation of Iraqi territories near Mosul by Turkey's military. Remarkably, Ankara has no scruples about equating the Syrian leadership, Kurdish PKK and YPG (People's Defense Units), fighting terrorists in Syria, to Daesh (Islamic State/ISIL) and al-Qaeda's affiliate al-Nusra Front. According to Turkish PM Davutoglu, there are three threats in Syria: "One is the regime [of Bashar al-Assad], another is Daesh, and the third is the YPG," he said as cited by Hurriyet, Turkey's mainstream liberal media outlet. "Turkey sees no difference between terrorists groups such as Daesh, PKK, DHKP-C [the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front] or al-Nusra," Davutoglu added. Now, with Harper gone and Justin Trudeau, the young and charismatic son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, taking his place, it seems that a reboot in relations is finally in the offing. On Tuesday, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion told reporters that whatever disagreements Canada and Russia may have, the two countries need to begin a dialogue, focusing on their common interests. The Francophone minister said that even though Canada would continue to stand with Kiev, at the same time, "we are there to work with Russia when we have common interest." "That's the policy that we will do step by step in a very cautious way, because we have a lot of disagreements with the government of Russia, but it's certainly not the way to stop to speak with them when the Americans speak with them and all the Europeans, the Japanese, everyone except Canada [does so]," he added. "Look, Canada was speaking to the Russians even at the tough times of the Cold War, and now we are not speaking almost not because of the former policy of the former government. In which way is this helping Ukraine? In which way is it helping our interest in the Arctic?" Dion asked. "Our policies should facilitate a competitive environment that provides the incentive to scale each component required to access space. This was achieved in the fiscal year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act that was signed into law. But in a last minute maneuver, a provision was tucked into an unrelated spending bill that provides an indefinite lifeline to Russian rocket engines to power American space launches," McCarthy told the Senate Armed Services Committee. It is turn the Air Force says that it has no alternative but to use the Russian engines, Dave Majumdar, the Defense Editor of The National Interest, notes in his article. The service argues that "it is required by law to provide short access to space using commercial services," the journalist points out, explaining that the Pentagon needs eighteen RD-180s "on hand at any time" for its heavy lifters. Whether one likes it or not, right now there is no viable alternative to the RD-180 booster engines. "We must keep in mind the only launch vehicles that can reach the full range of orbit and carry our heaviest payloads today, remain the Atlas and Delta families," Air Force secretary Deborah Lee James told the Senate Armed Services Committee, as quoted by Majumdar. Deborah Lee James, secretary of the Air Force, says service believes it needs 18 RD-180 engines for competition. (NDAA provided nine.) Mike Gruss (@Gruss_SN) 27 2016 Robert Orton Work, the current United States Deputy Secretary of Defense, said in an official statement on Wednesday that the Pentagon regards public-private partnerships as a way to suspend the reliance on Russian boosters. The initiative is expected to be kicked off in fiscal 2017. However, Work added that it is not until 2021 or 2022 that the Pentagon will stop using the Russian-made engines. Moreover, the article suggests, "the situation in the Middle East typifies the results of the monopolistic, cynical, acquisitive and short-sighted policies" of US policymakers. "The gestation of the Islamic State and other extremist terrorist groups is a direct result of American hegemony." "The more [US leaders] drone on about American Exceptionalism, the US's destiny of supremacy, and their confrontation with Russia, the more terrorism will flourish, and the more frequent will be the occurrence of atrocities that discredit the entire idea of American democracy. It's no coincidence that Soviet leaders, too, loved to talk about the unique role of the USSR and its leading role in the international arena. They too talked of Afghanistan as their 'international responsibility', and inveighed against the US in exactly the way the US now browbeats Russia." "What Obama's speech really showed," the newspaper boldly argues, "is why Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump's popularity is advancing by leaps and bounds." "Trump's high ratings," 7or.am contends, come down in part "to the fact that he sees ways to solve America's international relations with Russia and other nations rather than ramping up the rhetoric against them." "Average Americans figured out long ago that the Cold War standoff ended long ago, and what Washington is peddling these days is way past its expiration date. There are many, too, who understand that positive improvements in the world, and success in the battle against terrorist infestation ought to bring Russia and America together as partners, and not as foes. Trump is actively backing this way of thinking." On Wednesday, the High Negotiations Committee demanded that the Assad government should lift its sieges on parts of Syria as a condition for the opposition group's participation in the Geneva talks. Meanwhile, the Syrian leadership has agreed to take part in peace negotiations that are due to start on January 29. "There are political risks. But those political risks and tensions should take into account that our line is clear: no preconditions, at least to start the talks. The rest is open," United Nations Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura told journalists on January 25. While the Syrian government's stance regarding the peace efforts is quite clear, controversy still surrounds the so-called Syrian opposition. Analysts point to the fact that it is hard to separate the wheat from the chaff and decide which groups should be designated as terrorists in Syria. There are myriads of opposition groups which collaborate closely with either al-Qaeda or Daesh (Islamic State/ISIL) in the region, Joe Lauria, a veteran foreign-affairs journalist based at the UN since 1990, writes in his article for ConsortiumNews.com. "A hundred of them were melded together by Saudi Arabia in Riyadh last November. But they want Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down immediately. That's a complete non-starter as the UN plan would allow him to stay on for six months making way for a transitional government until a new constitution is written and a general election held in 2017," he underscores. On today's episode of Loud & Clear, host Brian Becker asks why the one of the groups considered to be among the most effective anti-Daesh militias has been excluded from the next round of Syria Peace Talks set to open tomorrow in Geneva. Becker is joined by a member of the Kurdish Student Union, Elif Sarican, to discuss why the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) has been sidelined in the new round of talks, as well as Turkey's ongoing military assault against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in both Turkey and Iraq. Is Haiti heading toward a death squad government? Or another revolution? In the second segment, Becker is joined by Kim Ives, internationally recognized journalist with Haiti Liberte, for an eyewitness account of the protests that have demanded new elections and have taken aim at President Martin Martelly. Ives reviews the role of Bill and Hillary Clinton that has stimulated the current political crisis. Finally, we turn to role of the federal government in the catastrophe of poisoned water in Flint, Michigan and speak to Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, a whistleblower and former senior policy analyst for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) about the role of the agency in covering up the poisoning of the city's water supply. MOSCOW (Sputnik)Over 1.36 million Ukrainian citizens have arrived in Russia since the start of the conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Russia's Federal Migration Service Deputy Head Nikolai Smorodin said Thursday, citing official statistics on residency applications. "Since 2014, 1.361 million people have applied to have their legal status [in Russia] determined. They have been granted various statuses, which include temporary asylum for around 400,000. Russian citizenship has also been granted, as well as temporary stay, residence and work permits," Smorodin said during a meeting of the Russian parliament's Support Committee for the Southeast of Ukraine. With a total of almost 2.5 million Ukrainians currently residing in Russia, around 1.1 million have come from Ukraine's war-torn southeastern Donbass region, Smorodin added. The new weaponry will include ballistic missile launching systems, armored vehicles, combat aircraft and even new warships, Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta reports The Russian Strategic Missile Forces will be bolstered by new RS-24 Yars mobile thermonuclear weapon intercontinental ballistic missile systems. Along with the launcher itself, a Yars complex includes a mobile command and control unit and specialized escort vehicles outfitted for providing camouflage and electronic countermeasures capable of rendering the entire regiment invisible to enemy radars. Russian ground forces will be supplied with new Tornado-S 300mm multiple rocket launchers, a brigade of Buk-M3 anti-aircraft missile systems and two brigades of Iskander mobile short-range ballistic missile systems. Iskander missiles are virtually impossible to intercept due to their unpredictable trajectory, and are capable of delivering several types of 500kg warheads (cluster munition, penetration, fuel-air explosive and HE fragmentation), as well as tactical nuclear ordnance, at a distance of up to 500 kilometers. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The city of Ferguson has reached an agreement with the US Department of Justice aiming to restore trust between law enforcement and the public, which has expressed massive discontent over the fatal shooting of unarmed African American teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer. "The provisions of this Agreement are meant to ensure protection of the constitutional and other legal rights of all members of the community, improve Fergusons ability to effectively prevent crime, enhance both officer and public safety, and increase public confidence in the Ferguson Police Department (FPD)," the consent decree, released on the city website on Wednesday, says. The agreement stipulates, among other things, the creation of a civilian board to review complaints against the police and allows videotaping when a law enforcement officer asks for consent to conduct a search. Unfortunately, the honest answer to your offer of help is, sadly, you can't, Moore wrote. You can't help. The reason you can't help is that you cannot reverse the irreversible brain damage that has been inflicted upon every single child in Flint. The damage is permanent. There is no medicine you can send, no doctor or scientist who has any way to undo the harm done to thousands of babies, toddlers and children (not to mention their parents). They are ruined for life, and someone needs to tell you the truth about that. They will, forever, suffer from various neurological impediments, their IQs will be lowered by at least 20 points, they will not do as well in school and, by the time they reach adolescence, they will exhibit various behavioral problems that will land a number of them in trouble, and some of them in jail. Instead, Moore explained that what they really need is a nonviolent army of people who are willing to stand up for this nation, and go to bat for the forgotten of Flint. He asked for concerned citizens to demand the removal and arrest of Governor Rick Snyder, make the state pay for the disaster which they created, demand the federal government take over, evacuate all residents who wish to leave, and for FEMA to create a temporary water system in the home of any residents who wish to stay. A crime against humanity has been committed against the people of Flint, making them refugees in their own homes. Tell me honestly: if you were living in Flint right now, and you learned that your children had been drinking lead-filled water for two years, and then you discovered that the Governor knew this and the state lied about it tell me, just how fast would your head be spinning? Moore asked. NEW YORK (Sputnik) Residents of California who developed cancer linked to herbicides produced by Monsanto have filed a lawsuit against the biotech company, attorney Michael Miller said in a statement on Thursday. "Monsantos misinformation campaign is costing lives," Miller, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of California residents Brenda and James Huerta, stated. "Brenda and James lawsuit will force Monsanto to face the human consequences of their lives." According to the lawsuit, Brenda and James Huerta lived on a commercial sod farm in Californias Riverside County where they were frequently exposed to the Monsanto produced herbicide RoundUp. Brenda was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 2013 as a result of the exposure, the suit alleges. NEW YORK (Sputnik) Jailed Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko has started recovering after receiving basic medication following surgery, a representative of the Consulate-General of Russia in New York City told RIA Novosti. On January 21, Yaroshenko underwent an unscheduled surgery in a Trenton, New Jersey hospital after repeatedly complaining of health problems. Since the surgery, Yaroshenkos attorney Alexey Tarasov has claimed that the pilot did not receive post-operative medication in due time because US prison officials had denied the request. On Thursday, representatives of the Consulate-General of Russia in New York City visited Yaroshenko in prison. During the visit, the pilot told the representatives that he was "feeling a lot better and was recovering," a consulate spokesperson told RIA Novosti. MOSCOW (Sputnik)Russia is ready to take part at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)'s meeting scheduled for February together with other non-cartel countries, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Thursday. Head of Russia's Transneft energy company Nikolay Tokarev said Wednesday, following a meeting with Russia's Energy Ministry, that Saudi Arabia had proposed holding a meeting on the situation on global oil market. According to Tokarev, OPEC is likely to hold the meeting in February, with oil production decrease on the agenda. "The OPEC member states are currently trying to convene this meeting in February, which will be attended by both OPEC and non-OPEC members. Certain countries have proposed this initiative. This issue is currently being reviewed. We [Russia] confirmed our readiness to participate in this meeting We can meet at any time. The date is still under discussion with other countries," Novak told journalists in response to when the meeting could take place. ASHKHABAD (Sputnik)On Wednesday, the German Foreign Office handed the Russian ambassador data it had gathered in the case of a 13-year-old girl from a Russian-speaking community, who had reportedly been kidnapped and sexually assaulted by men of refugee background, weeks after sex attacks in Cologne. "I am sure that if the corresponding organs of Germany were to provide us with necessary information there would be fewer misunderstandings," Lavrov told a press conference in Turkmenistan capital of Ashkhabad. According to Lavrov, the girl is a citizen of Russia, therefore Moscow has the right to be informed of the case. Why, An African History Month? sociocultural and political context. It is recognized as a colloquial term that was fashioned as a reactionary concept to derogatory racial epithets in the 1960's. It is offensive when used as a racial classification code word to denote African people. Other such denigrating terminology when made in reference to African culture, heritage or identity are 'Tribe', 'Sub-Saharan Africa', or 'black Africa '. READ MORE The miscellaneous usage of the label 'Black' within this site reflects its contemporary use as a means to denote a specificsociocultural and political context. It is recognized as a colloquial term that was fashioned as a reactionary concept to derogatory racial epithets in the 1960's. It is offensive when used as a racial classification code word to denote African people. Other such denigrating terminology when made in reference to African culture, heritage or identity are 'Tribe', 'Sub-Saharan Africa', or 'black Africa '. The word African specifically relates to the indigenous people of the African continent and their descents in the Diaspora ( Caribbean , Americas , Arabia , etc). The race-nationality model such as that currently employed by African-American, African-Brazilian and African-Caribbean communities more accurately describes the identity whilst fully articulating the history and geopolitical reality The motherland's histories are complex with over 2000 cultures, constituting, different languages, traditions and customs and they all have their own stories to tell. It would be mutually beneficial to have our history to be accessible in one historical umbrella. Each month would address a different topic. This will plant the seeds of knowledge to be harvest for the future generations. Most importantly, "African History Month" would serve as a catalyst to correct the gross misconceptions, omission and distortions of it's history.of African people globally. The Russian newspaper Kommersant believes that US Secretary of State John Kerry 's recent Asian tour proved to be a flop, not least because Kerry failed to convince China to slap harsh sanctions on North Korea. Prodding his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi to join the coalition of supporters of stiff new sanctions against Pyongyang was one of the main goals of Kerry's visit to Southeast and Eastern Asia, something that the US Secretary of State never fulfilled, according to Kommersant. Kerry's talks with the authorities of Laos and Cambodia, which largely depend on China, also proved a disappointment for Washington, Kommersant said. WASHINGTON (Sputnik)The EU countries stopped criticizing the US government for spying on them after terrorist attacks in the French capital of Paris in 2015, US Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson said on Thursday. "Right after Edward Snowden, weve got delegations of Europeans coming in, and that was all they wanted to talk about: how awful America was for spying on their countries," Johnson stated at the American Enterprise Institute. "After Paris attack, you dont hear that anymore. After Charlie Hebdo, you dont hear that anymore." In 2013, former contractor at the US National Security Agency (NSA) Edward Snowden leaked some 1.7 million classified US government documents detailing the widespread secret mass electronic surveillance programs conducted by the NSA and other US intelligence agencies. Er is iets heel griezeligs aan de gang in Nederland. Dat wij geleidelijk aan in een totalitaire 'democratie' wegzinken wordt steeds ... Remains of WW II soldier to be reburied in Fort Smith cemetery John Cooper of Texas died in World War II in Germany in 1945. His remains were identified in June and he will be reburied in Fort Smith Oct. 21. There was a fairly good report and debate on Newsnight about the continuing delays to a final decision by EDF on the proposed Hinkley C nuclear power station in Somerset. To a certain extent, I am as happy as Jenny Jones at this news. Nuclear power is not commercially viable, and the fact that EDFeven though it is 85% owned by the French Governmentthink that the uncertainties are so great that going ahead would risk bringing down the whole company is a sober reflection of economic reality. The problem is that politics, or rather politicians, are involved; and the ones in power haven't quite got the same grip on economic reality. The events of the past year or so should have made it clear to everyone that the Tory Government at Westminster is determined to push ahead with nuclear power at the expense of what they call green crap ... and pig-headed enough to keep throwing money at nuclear until someone is foolish enough to commit to construction. I don't want to see any new nuclear power stations built in Britain, because Britain can generate more electricity than we need on this island by developing renewables instead. However, if politicians are determined to go ahead with nuclear in spite of it not making commercial sense, it is obviously better for Wales that any nuclear power station that does get built is build somewhere other than in Wales. Paradoxically, the worse news would be for EDF to take the decision not to go ahead with Hinkley C, for it would mean that the government's focus of attention would switch to projects like Wylfa B, and similar ridiculous amounts of money would be thrown at it instead. - The EDF/China deal, if it went ahead as planned, would result in three new nuclear power stations: Hinkley B, Sizewell C and a Chinese-designed reactor at Bradwell. We need to be clear that the Chinese have only agreed to finance the first two in return for getting the third. Building their own reactor in a Western country is what really matters to them. They will therefore put tremendous pressure on the UK and France to keep the deal alive. So, for me, the best scenario would be for the Hinkley/Sizewell/Bradwell deal to be kept on "life support" for the time being because, while it remains half-alive, there is no way that the UK would commit to building a fourth nuclear power station. We can all see the mess that the Finns are in over Olkiluoto 3, and that the French are in over Flamanville 3. If these two governments have had so much trouble over building just one new nuclear power plant, does anyone in their right mind think the UK would commit to building four of them? Wales is safe for as long as the Hinkley/Sizewell/Bradwell deal is not killed off. The UK government's decision to rapidly remove subsidies for wind and solar is, of course, a setback ... but only a temporary one. The big picture is that the price of renewable energy is continually coming down, and this will make wind and, especially, solar projects more commercially viable. It's only a question of when, not if. The current low oil and gas prices will almost certainly go back up, probably in two or three years, and when that happens we should expect to see an unstoppable rush towards renewables. At that point neither Chinese money, nor the largesse of a Tory government at the expense of taxpayers and electricity customers, will be able to keep the idea of new nuclear power in the UK alive any longer. One incumbent is running in the five-candidate race for two open seats. Editors note: Todays editorial originally appeared in The Wenatchee World. Editorial content from other publications is provided to give readers a sampling of regional and national opinion and does not necessarily reflect positions endorsed by the Editorial Board of The Daily News. Nobody thought about the smell. When we voted to legalize marijuana production, we naive and inexperienced people assumed that growing the stuff would be like growing anything else. We know about farming around here. We like farmers. Maybe we can live with marijuana farmers, too. What could go wrong? Its the odor. The pungent smell of marijuana in full flower is described as lush skunk or dead skunk on the porch or other skunky metaphors. A marijuana farm (they call them grows) of even modest size can at certain times of the year produce aroma so strong and thick it becomes unbearable for neighbors, the neighbors say. I have not smelled this myself, but testimony of pot farm neighbors is consistent, even from people who were supporters of legalization and voted for Initiative 502. The complaints are so acute that Chelan and Douglas counties adopted moratoria on new marijuana growing and processing. Tonight, the Chelan County Planning Commission will consider a staff recommendation to ban marijuana growing and processing altogether, a serious step with the possibility to scuttle existing businesses and crush large investments already made. There are other issues with marijuana growing, including security, lights and matters not common to other forms of agriculture. The universal thread, however, is the smell. Wherever there is a grow there are odors and complaints, say county commissioners. Some marijuana grows are near residential areas, some not so much. Some are indoors, some out. The curious thing, however, is that smelly farms are nothing new. Live next to a livestock operation, say, or a dairy, and you may get a snootful. The state has nuisance statutes that apply. A business or person does not have the right to deprive you of the comfortable enjoyment of your property through actions offensive to the senses including obnoxious odors. You can take them to court. Farms are a little different. Washington has a Right to Farm statute that says farmers get to farm their established farms, even making smells if necessary, using accepted practices. So you cant move next door to a pig farm and sue them as an offense to the senses. On the other hand, the pig farm cant move next to you. There are farms and there are marijuana farms. The voters approved Initiative 502, legalizing recreational marijuana use, sales, growing and processing, but that raised numerous issues in cities and counties uncomfortable with the idea. Last year the Legislature clarified many matters in House Bill 2136, including a section that allows cities and counties to ban most marijuana growing and processing, said Hilary Bricken, attorney with the Seattle firm Harris Moure, with expertise in cannabis law. The Chelan County commissioners may ban marijuana under their police powers, she said. The growers who stand to be expunged may question whether the complaints of unbearable odor are legitimate and substantiated. It must be more than just the uneasiness of people uncomfortable with marijuana. Transparency is critical, she said, and the stakeholders must have a chance to defend themselves. There are options to consider. Perhaps the commissioners could prohibit outdoor grows, or require odor controls, or setbacks or zoning restrictions, or some grandfathering or other form of partial ban. Any course they take may eliminate a business. I dont envy their position, Bricken said of the county commissioners. There is something every county might consider maybe we shouldnt vote to allow a business like growing marijuana without thinking through the impacts first. Well, we didnt think about the smell. KALAMA Two months after clearing a major zoning hurdle, what could be Kalamas first marijuana growing operation may be hitting a legal stonewall. Two individuals and two couples who live near a proposed 10-acre pot farm and processing center have sued the city and the proponent, claiming that the rezoning move necessary to grow marijuana was illegal and that they werent properly notified about it. The firm, All Natural Products, LLC, was founded by Frank Giese, a contractor from Sultan, Wash. Giese and nine investors want to build the farm on undeveloped land owned by Rochester businessman Robert Laymon. All Natural Products has applied for state licenses to grow and process pot in Kalama. In addition, the project will need a city business license and building permit, and likely will have to submit to a city environmental review. Giese said hell move forward despite opposition from the six residents, who worry that the farm will increase traffic, stink up the area, increase crime and drive down property values in the rural residential neighborhood. The neighbors also argue that allowing an industrial project next to a residential area violates the spirit, and perhaps the letter, of the citys comprehensive land use plan. We had hopes that everyone would embrace us, Giese said Tuesday. Noting, though, that the vote on Initiative 502 to legalize recreational marijuana was close, We cant expect everyone to be happy, he added. On a 3-2 vote Nov. 18, the Kalama City Council approved Gieses request to rezone the 10-acre parcel located a mile north of the Todd Road freeway exit from commercial to industrial. Marijuana cannot be grown in a commercial zone. The six plaintiffs claim they were not notified of this citys planning commission meetings about the rezone request, as required by law with any property owner within 300 feet of a potential rezone. None of the six are on the citys mailing list of notices about planning commission meetings. Vancouver-based lawyer Mark Erikson, who is representing the plaintiffs, called the lawsuit an attempt to stop an industrial use next to a residential area. He notes that industrial zones typically pollute, draw more traffic and lower property values. Whats more important is (the city) violated the comprehensive plan and violated my clients right to comment. Kalama City Administrator Adam Smee declined to comment on the lawsuit, but he said that dealing with proposed pot operations is a learning experience. Our goal is to be a professional organization that follows the code of the state ... and respects both property rights of the owners and the neighbors. In a situation like this, with I-502, you have a new land use, he said. Theres not a lot of precedent on how to balance competing property rights. City Clerk/Treasurer Coni McMaster said the list of property owners who were mailed meeting notices was based on land records at the county assessors office. Under city law, if those records werent accurate at the time the city mailed the notices (typically done 10 days before a hearing), failure to notify those landowners doesnt invalidate the rezone discussion. (All the plaintiffs but one John Schmit have owned their land near the proposed pot farm for at least a year.) Giese said he plans to grow several marijuana strains meant for medicinal purposes. To start, he plans to grow pot only in the summer, when greenhouses are not necessary. He said he will use a carbon filtration system and chemical odor absorbent, but theres debate about how well those control odors. Giese estimated hell spend at least $200,000 to get the operation started. It will employ 12 to 14 people, he said. I believe theres a lot of misinformation about the industry and what we do. We actually reduce crime by taking a portion of the cannabis off the streets and putting it in the legal market, he said. Vicky Close, who lives near the dirt road leading to Laymons property, is on the list of notices the city sent out about planning commission meetings. Close, though, said she never received the notices, but learned about the last meeting from a neighbor. Though shes opposed to recreational marijuana, shes becoming more accepting of medical marijuana. She said she isnt bothered by Gieses plan and his not a party to the rezone lawsuit. If youre my neighbor, as long as it doesnt affect me, Im fine, she said. Travis Buck, owner of Advanced Septic Consulting Inc. in downtown Kalama, is not involved in the lawsuit and doesnt live near the proposed pot grow, but he opposes the rezone anyway. In addition to the nearby residents concerns, Buck says hes worried the city will relegate responsibility for policing the business to the state Liquor and Cannabis Board. Theyve given themselves no real ability to enforce laws, Buck said. Its (the citys) job to take care of making sure the citizens are taken care of in case their property values are screwed up because theyve changed the zoning. Buck said citizens should get to vote on whether grow operations should be allowed in city limits. Smee said there will be more opportunity for public comment when the city does an environmental review once Giese submits a development application. Ultimately, if a business meets state requirements, it will get a state license, said Brian Smith, a spokesman for the state Liquor and Cannabis Board. But the board encourages marijuana business owners to smooth out disagreements with neighbors, he said. Giese said hed like to have such a discussion. Thats all I would ask, that they dont impose (their opinions) on other people, he said. Were in a legal, legitimate business. Nash David This is going to take me some time to come to terms with. Ive been a BlackBerry user for many years now. And today with the BlackBerry Priv being in the news, I recall fond memories of my BlackBerry Curve that helped me type out 2000-word documents at ease. I eventually did get promoted to a BlackBerry Q10. The BlackBerry keyboard always ensured I could type thousands of words without realising it. I didnt feel the need to be in front of a computer. In the true sense it was my productivity device. Ive seen BlackBerry evolve with BlackBerry 10 a cutting edge operating system. It truly is. But somewhere, I feel let down by BlackBerry. And Im not alone. When BlackBerry launched the BlackBerry Z10, and then the BlackBerry Q5 and Q10, it displayed what it could accomplish, if it decided to. Then came along the BlackBerry Passport. These devices had a clear edge over competition, at least on paper. Many kept writing them off, and it always seemed unfair. Many core users I know, including myself, kept harping on the aspect of security. Back then, I did feel the need for it. Today WhatsApp gives you the ability to have read receipts for each member in a group something BlackBerry Messenger doesn't support. I loved the browser on BlackBerry 10. Its clearly among the fastest mobile browsers out there. Besides, its based on WebKit again. So not only is it fast, but also complies with the way most websites are designed. For a user, thats how a browser ought to be. But for a developer, its the other way around. BlackBerry did everything possible to re-invent itself ground up. And then comes along the BlackBerry Priv. From all those I have interacted with who religiously follow BlackBerry, I can place their reactions in two buckets. On one hand, there are those who are absolutely delighted to see a BlackBerry Android device. These are the kind who would stay with BlackBerry as a brand under all circumstances they face. And then there are those who cant see BlackBerry doing an Android smartphone. They probably consider it blasphemy, because Android is the polar opposite of everything BlackBerry stands for. The BlackBerry boys, the purists who are obsessed with their 'crackberrys' wouldn't take it very kindly. And I began this morning in anticipation awaiting the India launch of the BlackBerry Priv. And all I could think of was we finally saw a drastic shift. One of survival and relevance. What has it come down to? The best QWERTY experience on an Android device? Is that what technological merit would be pegged at? And to consider that would be half a lakh? Rs 62,000 to be precise! Is that why companies such as Ryan Seacrest's Typo were asked to cease manufacturing, only to make way for irrationally priced BlackBerry devices that dont run on the BlackBerry operating system? And another aspect of my digital experience was missing out on Instagram, Snapchat, Google+, and so much more. Yes, there are no native apps. And being a core fan myself, I relate to those arguments about sideloading and the virtual Android environment. If you're one of those contemplating such arguments, let me say it they dont hold true. Yes, I have loved, and will always love the email experience on a BlackBerry. I wish our lives revolved only around email. Sadly, that's not true. You need to be stranded in a remote part of the city, and your only hope to finding your way needs to be one of the popular taxi services. Considering that most of them are app-only and specifically Android and iOS only, youd take an instant resolve to switch to either an iPhone or Android device. I've been there, to realise the gravity of the problem BlackBerry has been dealing with. And that is apps. It always has been and will continue to be. I guess I now understand how core users of Palm webOS and Nokia Symbian felt when those brilliant products faced an abrupt end. Theres a common trend in these products. Each had immense potential, but were abruptly put to rest. With BlackBerry again, the new BlackBerry 10 operating system had immense potential, but seems to have been abruptly put to an end. Since BlackBerry has announced that it will launch two devices this year (both being Android devices), it seems the company is headed for a similar fate. Whats contradictory is BlackBerry made a significant announcement today it would push software patches every month to fight malware in Android. Besides, the BlackBerry Hub, which has been one of the unique aspects of the OS UI will now be available on Android with the Priv. Well, as someone who has been using BlackBerry 10, I wish these efforts went towards building its own proprietary OS rather than what a Lumia has ended up becoming. tech2 News Staff BlackBerry launched the anticipated Priv smartphone today in India today. The new Android smartphone by BlackBerry will be available in stores across India from January 30 with a price tag of Rs 62,990. The device will also be available via BlackBerry authorised partners and resellers, and from online partner Amazon India as well. In terms of specifications, the smartphone has a 5.4-inch dual-curved WQHD Plastic AMOLED display similar to the Samsung Galaxy Edge series. The display has a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels with a density of 540 dpi. In addition, the device is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 Hexa-Core, 64-bit processor with an Adreno 418, 600MHz GPU. An 18 MP dual-flash Schneider-Kreuznach certified camera is expected to deliver crisp images. The device has 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage that is expandable up to 2TB via a microSD card slot. A 3410 mAh battery on the Priv gives up to 22.5 hours of battery life according to BlackBerry. The device also pairs its hardware with a tweaked version of Android, to make it a secure Android phone. The company also stated that it will push a software patch every month to fight against malware on Android. The company's Pop-up widgets offers users quick function apps right from the homescreen without launching them. (Also Read: BlackBerry Priv: Heres why I have mixed emotions as someone who has switched from BlackBerry to Android) The Priv also comes with the BlackBerry keyboard. This physical keyboard gives a full screen content along with touch capacitive features, such as, a trackpad. During the launch, the company also previewed a live demo of the DTEK app by BlackBerry. DTEK by BlackBerry basically keeps track of all your apps installed on the smartphone to keep data secure and enhance a user's privacy. It is also said to prevent iCloud-like hacks. The device, which will run Android 6.0 Marshmallow, will also enhance DTEK capabilities and security as well. Prive can also be integrated with the EMM solution, BES 12, which offers cross-platform management of Priv and other devices; providing end security solution and secure collaboration applications for business users. It also comes with speakers and a three-microphone system for a high-quality listening experience. BlackBerry Natural Sound Technology is built in to adapt WiFi and cellular call sound depending upon phone position and background noise, automatically adjusting volume so users dont have to. Nash David 2016 witnessed a new entrant in the Indian smartphone market. LeTV, now known as LeEco, entered India with the launch of its Le 1s and Le Max smartphones on 20 January in Gurgaon. In an already crowded smartphone market, what did get our attention was the approach it took to foray into the Indian market. Unlike Xiaomi, which despite having a wide portfolio of devices in China, has focussed its attention on the smartphone range Mi and Redmi with a couple of accessories such as LED lights, headphones and battery banks. LeTV on the other hand began with smartphones, but looks forward to launching all products under its portfolio in India, according to key personnel at LeEco. In addition to smartphones, LeEco manufactures smart televisions, and also smart bicycles and has interests in smart cars. LeEco could also be referred to as the Netflix of China, which interests from content streaming to film production in China. Now that LeEco has launched in India, the company has already announced 555 service centres to answer the concerns consumers have around any new device manufacturer looking to set up shop in India. During the launch of the LeEco smartphones in India, Atul Jain, COO of Smart Electronic Business, LeEco revealed that the companys plan was to be among the top 3 mobile smartphone players in India. That effectively means in terms of device shipments, it looks forward to rubbing shoulders with companies of the likes of Samsung, Micromax and Intex. In addition, LeEco is contemplating Make in India plans. Jain said, We have been thinking about these plans, and in the direction of Make in India, but it would be too early to discuss at this point in time. Since the Indian market has a deep interest in movie content, Jain added that if the Indian market has a great affinity for Hollywood, LeEco would work towards getting more Hollywood titles in its content pool. Among the other prominent announcements made by LeEco was setting up of a 1000-member strong R&D centre in Bangalore. A lot of the technology used in LeEco devices would be produced by the R&D team from Bangalore. On being asked about software updates for the devices it has launched in India, Jain added that the Le 1s and Le Max should get updated to Marshmallow by March or April 2016. tech2 News Staff Microsoft Edge browser that was announced alongside the Windows 10 OS, has some interesting features vis-a-vis its predecessor, the Internet Explorer, such as Reading List, Cortana Assist and an incognito browsing mode called InPrivate browser. According to a report by researcher Ashish Singh, the Edge browser may not really be an incognito browser. Singh claims that websites visited from the InPrivate mode can be recovered from the user's hard drive by examining the WebCache file. That instead of wiping out the contents of the browsing data, after the InPrivate is closed, the 'Container_n' table stores the list of sites visited as well as tab history from regular browsing according to Singh's research. According to Singh, any hacker can find out your entire browsing history by just examining the Container_n table. "The Container_n table stores web history. There a field named Flag will be available. A website visited in the private mode will have a flag value as 8. Generally the purpose of storing this information is to retrieve crashed private sessions. Therefore any skilled investigator can easily spot the difference and get concrete evidence against a persons wrongdoings," noted Singh in this blog post from 2015. Microsoft has acknowledged the issue to The Verge and stated that it is aware that InPrivate tabs are not working as designed and the company is committed to resolving the issue soon. tech2 News Staff After recently announcing that it will be free for life, Facebook owned messaging app has a new feature coming up its sleeve. According to developer Javier Santos' latest Google Plus post, WhatsApp will now give users the option to get notifications which tells them that the messages they are exchanging are encrypted end-to-end. According to WhatsApp Android version 2.12.413, the messaging apps shows plans to allows users to link their WhatsApp account to their respective Facebook account. Apart from this, WhatsApp has plans to add features such as video calling, information sharing with Facebook and document sharing on WhatsApp as well. You can share your WhatsApp data with Facebook from the Account settings tab. According to the leaks, this is so far an optional features. This move may give Facebook a good idea as to which contact you spend more time talking with. This enables it to populate your timeline with relevant posts thereby letting you spend more time on Facebook. Founded by Ukrainian immigrants to America Jan Koum and Brian Acton in 2009, WhatsApp got acquired by social media giant Facebook for $19 billion in 2014. Both Koum and Acton were former employees of technology company Yahoo. Owing to an overwhelming amount of Spam, we have had to disable Comments. The History Girls are a group of best-selling, award-winning writers of historical fiction and non-fiction. Some of us write for young adults, some for fully fledged adults.Among us, we cover every period from Classical times to World War II.Individual, entertaining, sometimes provocative: on this weekly blog on Fridays we'll share our thoughts on writing, research, reviews, and all aspects of our work. We love what we do and we want to talk about it. We hope you'll want to follow usIf you want a History Girl to appear at an event or write an article or review, please contact her via her website (links are all given on the About Us page) Contact: Mary Hoffman at readers@maryhoffman.co.uk Twitter: @history_girls Facebook Page: The History Girls by Steven Ang | magazine blog reporting on opera, musicals and classical music in Singapore, Southeast Asia and the region Dedicated to the Restoration of Progressive Democracy The 1709 Blog, and some of the choice comments of its blog team on copyright topics, can now be followed on Twitter at . When we last looked, we had over Junkyard Laser Focus Altbier. 5.3 % ABV. Junkyard Brewing, Moorhead, MN. And here we have the first appearance in the Nib of a 16 ounce ... No headway in reducing corruption, admits FM Staff Reporter : Accepting Transparency International's (TI) report on corruption in Bangladesh, Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith said the scenario in country's corruption level has not been improved."I believe that there is no headway in reducing corruption in Bangladesh. In a sense, we could not even start work against corruption," the finance minister admitted. "We have only taken few steps to check corruption," he said. Muhith made the remarks while talking to the journalists after the meeting of cabinet committee on purchase at the Secretariat on Wednesday. Replying to a query of a journalist, the minister said that the TI's report might be the reflection of the image of the corruption. He said, "Digital system in everywhere is very important to reduce corruption and the system is now in undergoing process." "A good number of officials, including Hall Mark and some high-profile bank staffs, have already been arrested in connection with corruption which had never been seen in Bangladesh. It is the part of our initiative against corruption," Muhith said. However, for the second year in a row, Bangladesh ranked 13th from the bottom - and 139th from the top - in 2015, Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman disclosed this at a press conference in the city on Wednesday. According to CPI 2015, Bangladesh is again the second-worst performer in South Asia, better only than war-ravaged Afghanistan, which scored 11 and ranked 166th, the second lowest in the glob. US must stop hostile stance to improve relations: Rouhani France asks EU partners for new sanctions on Iran Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (second left) attend a meeting with French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron (not seen in picture) at Paris on Wednesday. Reuters, Rome :The United States cannot solve any problems in the Middle East without Iran's help and should drop its "hostile" stance towards Tehran, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday.On his first official visit to Europe, Rouhani also took a swipe at regional arch rival Saudi Arabia, saying its military campaign in neighbouring Yemen was a failure and a frustration.Rouhani is midway through a four-day trip to Italy and France, looking to burnish his country's international credentials following the signing last year of a nuclear accord with world powers and the lifting of financial sanctions.While EU firms are lining up to sign lucrative business deals, the United States is keeping some of its sanctions in place, accusing Tehran of funding what it considers to be terror groups, and ties between the two nations remain terse."It's possible that Iran and the United States might have friendly relations. But the key to that is in Washington's hands, not Tehran's," Rouhani told a news conference, saying he would be happy to see US businessmen in Iran."I would like to see the Americans set aside their hostility and chose another way, but inside the US there are some problems, there is no unified voice," he said, noting that "the Zionist lobby" was "very influential".He also rejected accusations that Iran was funding terror organisations. "It is clear that Iran is a country opposed to terrorism and a country that fights terrorism," he said.The United States is the dominant foreign power in the Middle East, sporting close ties with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel, and is militarily involved in both Iraq and Syria, where it is battling the militant Islamic State (IS) group."The Americans know very well that when it comes to important regional issues they cannot achieve anything without Iran's influence or say," Rouhani said, speaking through a translator.Another report adds: France has asked its European Union partners to consider new sanctions on Iran for its recent missile tests, officials have told The Associated Press, even as Paris welcomed the president of the Islamic Republic, which is flush with funds from the lifting of other sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program.The ambiguous signals emerging Wednesday from France came as President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate elected in 2013, signed billions of dollars in business deals on an earlier stop in Italy and met with Pope Francis in the first such Iranian foray into Europe since 1999. Accommodation crisis hampers academic progress of DU students Abir Rayhan : A great number of students of Dhaka University (DU) are facing serious accommodation crisis as the authority failed to provide seats to them at respective dormitories. Most of the students at DU usually come from different districts of the country; hence they don't have other options to reside but halls. The first and second year honours students are facing the worst as after getting admission in the university, they are not provided with accommodation facilities. However, many students who have link with the student leaders can manage seats in halls. But these students are compelled to take part in the processions and other political prorammes set by the leaders. Besides, many students, who completed their post graduation degrees from the university, are still occupying seats in halls, adding salt into the wounds. Apart from them, outsiders blessed by student leaders also grab a large number of rooms of the halls and stay there under the very nose of university authority. As a result, the academic activities of the first and second year students are being affected badly fading their dream away into dark. "I know nothing where I can stay tonight. But I have to attend my classes tomorrow and prepare my study. How and in what way I can run my academic activities? I don't have any relative in city," said Imran Hossen, a second year duel-residence student of Surya Sen Hall. There are 19 residence halls and two hostels in Dhaka University. They provide accommodation facilities for 18.515 thousand to 19 thousand of the total students; therefore, no arrangement for the rest students is available in the university. The number of students in DU is increasing every year, but the numbers of seats are not increasing with the rising demands. As a result, it impacts on study and every day life of the students. They complained, many residential students are suffering from various problems in the halls. Some halls are the same of refugee camps. 20-40 students have to live in the Gonorooms (a big room where many students reside together) instead of 8-10. Many students spend the night on the balcony of the halls and also in mosque. Arafat Rony, a 2nd year residence student of Bangabandhu Hall of the university said, he resides in a ganoroom. "Every day I have to fight for having a space to sleep in the room. Besides, the room is so unhygienic that I can hardly sleep there," he added. According to the university authority, 1 thousand and 225 students reside at Shahidullah Hall; 766 students at Fazlul Haque Muslim Hall; 1 thousand and 722 students at Jagannath Hall; 805 students at Salimullah Muslim Hall; 1 thousand 325 students at Zahurul Huq Hall; 1 thousand and 74 students at Surya Sen Hall; 542 students at Haji Muhammad Mohsin Hall; 769 students at Kobi Jasimuddin Hall; 602 students at Sir F Rahman Hall; 703 students at Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Hall; 934 students at Muktizoddha Ziaur Rahman Hall; 610 students at Amar Ekushey Hall; 1 thousand and 600 students at Rokeya Hall; 1 thousand and 350 students at Samsunahar Hall; 2 thousand and 61 students at Kuwait Friendship Hall; 119 students at Sir PJ Hartog International Hall; 1 thousand and 150 students at Begum Fazilatunnessa Mujib Hall; 160 students are getting residential facilities at Nawab Foyzunnesa Chowdhurani Hall and the latest Bijoy Ekattor hall has 1 thousand and 200 residential students. In addition, many students are staying at the halls as non-resident and dual-resident. They stay in Gonorooms. There are at least 8 Gonorooms at Surya Sen Hall; 3 at F Rahman Hall; 9 at Zahurul Huq Hall; 7 at Muktizoddha Ziaur Rahman Hall; 4 at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Hall; 6 at Kabi Jasimuddin Hall; 9 at Haji Muhammad Mohsin Hall; 2 at Rokeya Hall; 3 at Kuwait Friendship Hall; and 3 at Fazilatunnessa Mujib Hall. Many Students those living in these crowded rooms complained that they are used as the activist of Bangladesh Student League (BCL), a student body of ruling Awami League. They are forced to go procession and give protocol to BCL leaders. If they don't do that they are compelled to leave hall. They are the victims of the discrimination and use politically due to the hall administrations' lack of monitoring on the distribution of seats in the hall, they added. Nipa Akter, a resident student of Samsunnahar Hall, said she has to reside in a gonoroom with more than 10 students. "During examinations I have to go to reading room for study, but very often I don't get any seat there," she added. Mahmudul Hasan Abid, another residence student of Amar Ekushey Hall said, although he is a 3rd year student, he has to stay with eleven students in a four-seated room. Vice-Chancellor of the university Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique said, it is true that there are accommodation shortages. However, it is not possible to solve it to soon. 'We plan to destroy three or five storied building and will build ten or twelve storied building to solve the crisis'. The students who completed their post graduation but didn't leave hall, we asked them to leave hall immediately, he added. Beautiful Bangladesh Photography contest ends Winners of Ajanta Fashion Beautiful Bangladesh Photography Contest -2016 along with Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon, MP, Akhteruz Zaman Khan Kabir, CEO, Bangladesh Tourism Board, Md. Sabur Khan, Chairman, Board of Trustees, Daffodil Campus Report : A 3-day long "Ajanta Fashion Beautiful Bangladesh Photography Contest 2016" from January 24-26, 2016 ended at Daffodil International University Auditorium. To accelerate the tourism industry of the country and make success the tourism year 2016 declared by the government, Tourism and Hospitality Management Department of Daffodil International University (DIU) and 'Chhayabanee' a media communication organization jointly organized this photography Contest. Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon, MP was present at the Closing and Award Giving Ceremony as chief guest. Akhtaruz Zaman Khan Kabir, Chief Executive Officer, Bangladesh Tourism Board was present as the special guest while Md. Sabur Khan, Chairman, Board of Trustees, Daffodil International University chaired the Program. The function was addressed by Prof Dr Yousuf M Islam, Vice Chancellor, DIU, Mahbub Parvez, Head, Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management, DIU, Ajanta Paul, Chief Executive Officer and Arif Russel, Director of Chhayabanee. The photographic contest was based on the natural beauty of Bangladesh, History, cultural Heritage and festival participated by the students of colleges and universities, professional and amateur photographers, nature lovers who love Bangladesh and her Nature. Out of 250 photographs 30 photographs were selected for final contest nominated by the judge's panel. Three best winner of the contest awarded Tk. 30000, Tk. 20000 and Tk.10000 as 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes respectively. Co-Sponsors of this event are Arash and Dhaka Photographic Institute. Addressing as the chief guest Rashed Khan Menon, MP said, a photograph tells about life and lifestyle, a photograph boxed in a frame inspires future generation, photography is the epic of the human life.. He urged the young generation to uphold the beauty of Bangladesh through Photography towards the world community to create a positive image. Anwar Hossains French Diaries Sheikh Arif Bulbon : A solo photography exhibition titled French Diaries: 25 Years, 25 Images by world renowned photographer Anwar Hossain is being held at La Galerie of the Alliance Francaise de Dhaka (AFD) in the citys Dhanmondi area now. The exhibition was inaugurated on January 22. The ceremony was followed by a special slideshow at Auditorium Nouvelle Vague, AFD. Dr Pierre Claquin, photographer and public health consultant, Dilip Das Gupta, Chevalier, Sr General Manager of Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC and eminent photographer Nasir Ali Mamun, among others, were also present in the opening ceremony. Bruno Plasse, Director of AFD, gave the welcome speech on the occasion. In the exhibition, the photographs are Anwar Hossains reflection of a life of 25 years. For the duration of this time, he had been living in France. In that sense, the exhibition is a kind of a photographic biography, though he appears more as a subjective human being than a photo-biographer. One such photograph, titled Cartier Bressons Window, is of rain droplets on the windowpane - from which the viewers will surely establish an understanding, a recollection, or a kind of a sensitivity of their own than the perceptible aesthetics. The impassioned embrace of the lips shared by a couple, as photographed by Hossain, can almost be juxtaposed with the masterpiece V-J Day in Times Square by Alfred Eisenstaedt, albeit the way the photographer portrayed his is unobtrusive and quite in nature. The exhibition will continue till January 30. n 5-day long centenary celebrations of CCCI begins Chittagong Bureau : Five- days long centenary celebration programme of the pioneer trade body of the country- Chittagong Chamber of Commerce & Industry began in Chittagong from yesterday. This was disclosed by the President of the CCCI Mahbubul Alam at a largely attended press briefing at its conference hall in World Trade Centre yesterday afternoon. Chamber officials and the former CCCI President MA Latif MP were present in the press meet. The press meet was held just after conclusion of the Milad Mahafil in the long cherished WTC at Agrabad in the city. President of CCCI and former President and local lawmaker MA Latif MP answered to the different questions of the journalists . The press meet was told that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will formally inaugurate the long cherished WTC within the centenary programs at 3 pm on January 30 next as chief guest. Finance Minister AM Abdul Mohit and the Commerce Minister Tofayel Ahmed will remain present in the inauguration ceremony as special guests. On first day of the centenary programs, a colourful light & sound show will be projected at port stadium ground duly attended by the state minister for land Saifuzzaman Chy as Chief guest. Business conference duly attended by the local and foreign business leaders also arranged for Business Conference at Radison Blue Hotel with Planning Minister AHM Mostafa Kamal as chief guest on January 31 next. Daylong programs on youth conference and eco-tourism will also arranged at Rangamati on February 1 next, sources said. City Mayor AJM Nasiruddin and the Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan MP will grace the occasions at Rangamati as chief guest respectively. The long -cherished demand of the business community for a World Trade Centre in the port city of Chittagong is going to be functioned formally after the inauguration of the WTC by the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina . The pioneer trade body of the country -Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry provided financial assistance to the construction of 25 storied WTC at a cost of Tk.200 crores over 75 kathas of land in Agrabad business hub of Chittagong. Ankhi Chowdhury now and then Sheikh Arif Bulbon : In the mid 90s, who were active in ramp modelling and who were actively worked in media they can easily recall the name of once popular model and TV actress Ankhi Chowdhury. In 1995, within one year she came into limelight in the field of ramp modelling. Later in 1996, she attracted the viewers attention after working in two package dramas under the direction of Lucky Inam. She also became a popular actress in media during that time within a short days. But she left media and went to USA in 1997. Despite leaving country Ankhis mind was concentrated to media of Bangladesh. For this reason, she started to take part in different shows in USA. In the meantime, she was active in choreography. In 1999, she acted in a telefilm titled Obhibashi in USA. Shahin Khan, Lutfunnahar Lata and Salek Khan were her co-actors in the telefilm. Still now Ankhi feels the essence of Bangladeshs media. For this reason, after a long time break, she returned to acting in Bangladesh. Under the direction of Mostafa Kamal Raz she acted in a special play titled Abaro Panch Bochhor Por on the occasion of last Valentines Day. Apurbo worked with her in that play. Last year the play was aired on ATN Bangla. Last week Ankhi has returned to Bangladesh. Only for love and affection to motherland she returns to Bangladesh every year. She will again go to USA on February 12. While talking about herself mother of two daughters, Farisa and Sama Ankhi Chowdhury told this correspondent, I really miss the media of Bangladesh. Though I have been living in USA for last 18 years but I feel my country every moment. I enjoy the traffic jam of Dhaka. I love it. I desire to be regular in acting. But due to reality I cannot become regular in acting. Everybody pray for me as I can work sometimes in Bangladesh. Ankhi was born in Chittagong and was brought up in Barisal. She always wants to introduce herself as a media personality, she said. Kerber ends Konta fairytale to set up Serena final Angelique Kerber of Germany plays a backhand return to Johanna Konta of Britain during their semifinal match at the Australian Open tennis championships in Melbourne, Australia on Thursday. AFP, Melbourne :Seventh seed Angelique Kerber tamed British hope Johanna Konta to reach the Australian Open final on Thursday, where she will face dominant world number one Serena Williams. The 28-year-old, buoyed by a new-found self-belief inspired by fellow German Steffi Graf, proved too hot to handle for Konta as she won 7-5, 6-2 on Rod Laver Arena. The win puts the left-hander into her first ever Grand Slam final on her 33rd attempt, marking the first time a German has got so far at Melbourne Park since 1996. That year, Anke Huber made the final where she lost to Monica Seles. Graf is the last German champion in Melbourne, winning the last of her four Australian titles in 1994. But Kerber now has a momentous task ahead against a player in awesome form, after defending champion Williams swept past fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska 6-0, 6-4 in the other semi-final. The German, who is guaranteed to return to the world top five, beat two-time champion Victoria Azarenka in the last eight and the task facing Konta, ranked 47, was always a big ask. The Briton, who has risen 100 rankings places in the past year, was on her tournament main draw debut having failed to come through qualifying last season. But her defeat of eighth seed Venus Williams in the opening round gave her a huge boost, and against the odds she kept her run going to become Britain's first female Grand Slam semi-finalist since 1983. Konta was bidding to become the first British woman to reach a Grand Slam final since Virginia Wade at Wimbledon in 1977, and the first in Melbourne since Wade in 1972, but it was not to be. Both players were tentative as the first game got underway. Konta felt the early pressure as sloppy errors allowed Kerber to snare three break points, but some beautiful winners saved each one. It was all in vain as Kerber broke for a 1-0 advantage when Konta slammed a forehand into the net on the fourth break point.The experienced German, who had never previously gone past the fourth round in Melbourne, kept her nerve to hold serve and then broke again as Konta struggled to control her dangerous forehand, giving away easy points. Undeterred, she sharpened up and began pushing Kerber around, and with power and precision returning to her groundstrokes, Konta got a break back to be 1-3 behind. The Briton held serve then hauled herself back into the match in a stellar fightback as she reeled off her third straight game in a row, capitalising as Kerber's focus lapsed. Konta stayed on the attack as her serve started to fire and she surged 4-3 in front. It became a tight contest and went with serve until three unforced errors from the Brit in the 11th game, including a crucial forehand into the net, gave Kerber the vital break and she served to love for the set. With the first set under her belt, Kerber came out for the second set aggressively, hitting hard to grab an early break and pile the pressure on Konta. It then went with serve to 3-1 but Konta was fading fast as she struggled to stay in the match. As the Briton's error count climbed, the German pounced to go 4-1 in front, screaming "C'mon!" as her opponent hit a weak forehand into the net. Malala warns of edn gap for Syrian refugees BBC Online : Campaigner Malala Yousafzai has called for more to be done to educate millions of Syrian refugee children displaced within the country and its neighbours. Nearly half the roughly four million children displaced in the region are not in school, according to a new report by the Malala Fund. They risk becoming a "lost generation", Ms Yousafzai warned. The BBC's Lyse Doucet was given exclusive access to the report ahead of its release on Friday. Ms Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban after campaigning for education for girls in Pakistan, has been raising awareness of the lack of education for Syrian refugees. A growing number of Syrian girls are already teenage brides, or working in farms and factories, our chief international correspondent reports from the Jordanian capital, Amman. Major donors are under pressure from Syria's neighbouring countries to provide substantial long-term support if they wish to convince Syrian families to stay in the region instead of heading to Europe. "It's time for the world to match their commitment to get every Syrian child back in school," Malala Yousafzai told me in an email. The 18 year-old campaigner for children's rights will be attending the London Conference with 17-year-old Syrian education activist Muzoon Almellehan, whose family recently settled in the UK. "My generation is not lost," she insists. But the longer Syrian children stay out school, the greater the risk they will not return. BNP leader Annie sent to jail after surrender Court Correspondent :The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Court of Dhaka on Thursday sent BNP Student Affairs Secretary and former MP of the party elected from Laksmipur, Shahid Uddin Chowdhury Annie to the jail rejecting his bail pleas after he surrendered to the court in nine cases.Magistrate Yunus Khan of the CMM Court passed the order rejecting Annie's bail petition in a murder case filed with Sutrapur Police Station in the city. Besides, Magistrate Shahriar Mahmud Adnan rejected his bail petitions in eight violence cases filed with Paltan and Motijheel Police stations. The murder case was filed against Annie during a countrywide shutdown on November 10, 2013. He was made accused in seven cases filed with Paltan Police Station and another case was lodged with Motijheel Police station in connection with violence during the BNP-led 20-party alliance's blockade and shutdown programme. UK to give sanctuary to unaccompanied refugee children The UK will accept children from refugee camps in the Middle East. Internet photo The UK is to accept more unaccompanied child refugees from Syria and other conflict zones - but the government has not said how many.The Home Office will work with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to identify "exceptional cases" from camps in Syria and neighbouring countries. The UK is to take 20,000 refugees from Syria by 2020 - but campaigners want 3,000 children to be taken from Europe.Save the Children said child refugees in Europe were "incredibly vulnerable". The government also said it was giving 10m to help vulnerable refugee minors already in Europe; some could be brought to the UK "where it is in their best interests".Campaigners welcomed the announcement on child refugees, but Labour warned about a "false distinction between refugees in the region and refugees in Europe". UKIP said 10m was a "minuscule amount".The UK has already accepted about 1,000 refugees from Syria under the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Programme, which the government expanded last year. But Prime Minister David Cameron has come under pressure from Labour and the Liberal Democrats, as well as from within his own party, to do more. Sunken trawler located: No victim found UNB, Chandpur : The trawler which capsized in the Meghna River in Haimchar upazila on Tuesday was located on Thursday. Sub-Lieutenant Md Akkas of Bangladesh Navy told UNB that a Navy salvage team traced the trawler about 100 metres off the accident spot. The trawler remains at the depth of about 20 metres. However, no body was found inside the sunken vessel, he added. The Navy officer also added that the salvage team will start the recovery operation after the water subsides. At least six people went missing as 'MV Robin-1' packed with over 60 passengers capsized in Chandpur-Barisal channel of the Meghna River after it was hit by a goods-laden vessel amid dense fog on Tuesday morning. Police said, the trawler-MV Robin-1 -- sank in the middle of the river around 9:30am on its way to Paschim Eshan ghat from Telimor ghat. Police said most of the passengers swam ashore or were rescued by local people after the accident. Haimchar Upazila Nirbahi Officer SM Sarwar Kamal said, the search is still on for the missing people. Moosa agrees to disclose Swiss Bank details UNB, Dhaka :Controversial business tycoon and DATCO Group chairman Moosa Bin Shamsher on Thursday agreed to provide detailed information of his bank account with the Swiss Bank to the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) within a few days, an official said."During today's interrogation, he (Moosa) agreed to provide all information about his Swiss Bank account. He will provide the information within a few days," ACC commissioner M Shahabuddin told UNB.Shahabuddin said if Moosa provides false information or does not help the ACC conduct the investigation into his wealth the anti-graft watchdog would take legal action against him.For now, the commissioner said, they have no plans to question him.Earlier on Thursday, an ACC team, led by its director and inquiry officer Mir Zainul Abedeen Shibly, started questioning Moosa at 11 am and continued until 1 pm at the ACC headquarters in the capital for allegedly amassing wealth in an unexplained way.Talking to reporters in front of the ACC office after his questioning, the DATCO Group chairman hoped that he would get back his money seized by the Swiss Bank."Case proceedings over my money frozen in Swiss Bank are underway in SwitzerlandI hope I will get my money back," he said.About his role during the 1971 Liberation War, Moosa claimed that he was not a pro-Pakistani man, saying that he had stayed at Bangabandhu' s house till March 25, 1971 and later he went to Faridpur.Moosa also claimed that he was detained by Pakistani force on April 21, 1971 and got released on December 9, 1971.On January 13, the ACC had sent a letter to Moosa asking him to face a team of investigators to explain his position about his bank account, said ACC Public Relations Officer Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya. Religious liberty an integral factor of American life Staff Reporter : US Ambassador in Dhaka Marcia Bernicat has said religious liberty is an integral factor of American life, and has been since their nation's founding. "An essential component of religious liberty is the right of people of all faiths to participate fully in society without facing discrimination based on their religion," she said in a statement on Thursday. Bernicat said religious pluralism is an American value and tradition of not merely "tolerating" religious diversity, but embracing it as a national asset, and as an opportunity to build bridges across faiths. "Indeed, many of the first European settlements in America were comprised of individuals and families fleeing religious persecution. Not surprisingly, this fundamental right is the 'first freedom' enshrined in the Bill of Rights of our Constitution," she said. The envoy said each day in every state of their union, diverse groups of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, and others come together as Americans to tackle poverty, combat discrimination, and resettle and provide services to refugees fleeing persecution. "As the U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh, I have the opportunity to tell America's story. This often includes responding to recent events. For example, following terrorist attacks by groups such as ISIL or Al Qaeda, I often hear concerns about the rights of Muslims in America," she added. "Let me be clear: acts of violence or discrimination against Muslims are contrary to American principles and will not be tolerated. This has been and remains the policy of the U.S. Government. As President Obama stated earlier this year, "Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding. Muslim Americans are part of the fabric." The freedom to choose one's faith, change one's faith, dissent from religion, speak publicly about one's beliefs, gather for worship, and teach one's beliefs to one's children are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. A more accurate view of the United States can be found in everyday actions that often do not make international headlines, in part because these regular interactions of tolerance and respect are not newsworthy because they are the norm, the statement said. Fakhrul in S'pore for treatment UNB, Dhaka : BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir went to Singapore on Thursday morning for medical treatment. Fakhrul along with his wife Rahat Ara Begum left Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport for Singapore in a flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines around 8:50am, BNP chairperson's media wing member Sayrul Kabir Khan told UNB. Talking to UNB before leaving for Singapore, Fakhrul said he was going to the country for treatment under a specialist doctor. "I had an appointment to go there last month, but I could not manage time due to tight schedule with party activities," he said. Sayrul said, Fakhrul reached Singapore around 1:30pm (BD time) and went straight to the doctor. He said the BNP leader would receive treatment for various health complexities including blockage in the nerve in his neck. On October 17 last year, he went to Singapore and received treatment at National University Hospital. After being released from jail six months after his arrest, the BNP acting secretary general also went to Singapore for treatment on July 27, 2015. He is expected to return home on February 1. MRP crisis threat to expats` job Shah Alam Nur :Still a large number of Bangladeshi expatriates are out of reach of machine-readable passports (MRPs) as the Bangladesh missions abroad have been facing serious difficulties over the issuance of the latest technology-based passports, official sources said.Earlier, the concerned ministries and organisations have been requested by the Bangladeshis working abroad to make sure that they get MRPs within the set November 24 deadline of last year. In recent times, countries across the world have stopped accepting the handwritten passport for the sake of implementation of the international aviation rules.Shahadat Hossain has lived in Malaysia for 14 years, and now he needs another renewal of his visa. But he is in fear of losing his job for delays in getting a new passport. Talking to The New Nation on Thursday, Shahadat Hossain, who landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) on Thursday, narrated the story of his failure to obtain an MRP from the Bangladesh Mission in Kuala Lumpur. Shahadat, an inhabitant of Tangail district, said three months ago he had applied to the mission office for MRP but did not get it yet."Several times I also wanted help from the government officers in Malaysia but they didn't get any response from them as the MRP project is going on very slowly," he said.The Bangladeshi migrant workers have been going under the threat of losing jobs because of lack of MRPs, which urgently needed for visa issuance.Another expatriate Mohammad Abdullah, who hailed from Kishoreganj district, also said at the airport that he has lived in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) for 7 years. He said durations of visas of many Bangladeshis have been over but for lack of MRPs they cannot apply for visa extension.Although MRP is now mandatory for visa renewal, there is no way to get an MRP on an urgent basis, he said.Fardous Kamal, who has lived in the KSA for 10 years, said, "Now I don't have any way without MRP as the handwritten passport cannot guarantee hassle-free passage or staying abroad." He pointed out that under the set international aviation rules, after the November 24 last year the KSA government doesn't accept handwritten passports. "But the Bangladesh mission totally failed to provide that."He feared that if the Bangladeshi migrant workers could not show MRPs, a large number of them would lose their jobs for want of extended 'akama' or work permit.According to the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), there are 9 million Bangladeshi migrants in different countries, including about 2.6 million in the KSA, 2.3 million in UAE and over 0.7 million in Malaysia.The gulf countries, including KSA and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), are the largest job markets for the Bangladeshi workers and so remittance flow into the country depends significantly on the issuance of MRPs.Four years ago, the government had taken an initiative to provide MRPs to all migrant workers. But, to date, only a little number of migrants has got the latest mandatory requirement for them.With the existing capacity the authorities now could complete procedures for only 13,000 a day to fulfill the MRP demand from local and migrant workers while it needs to process a minimum of 22,000 applications to meet the deadline.Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment sources said the Bangladesh mission in Riyadh at present can handle 700 applications a day for converting the handwritten passports into machine-readable ones while it needs to process a minimum of 8,000 to 10,000 to meet the deadline.An official of the Ministry of Expatriate said for providing MRPs to the Bangladeshi workers they have taken some initiatives. He noted that the MRP project is under the Ministry of Home Affairs, so that ministry could say why the project is proceeding so slowly." "To provide MRPs to all migrant workers the Ministry of Expatriate is now jointly working with the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs," he said.The official said for the lack of adequate manpower and machinery the MRP project is going slow. Corruption unravelling government and inflaming injustices Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) finds no change in corruption level and Bangladesh has been assessed again as second worst performer in South Asia better than only war ravaged Afghanistan. Moreover degraded one notch below globally. The Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith agreed with the TIB report and admitted the government has failed to make any headway in reducing corruption. It must be seen as understatement of the new year. The government is riding on corruption. Poor performance of the government cannot be kept hidden for long through false propaganda and we have been taking risk to point out that the government is disturbingly failing to govern the country. We also cautioned that the government is deluded to have faith in the heavy doses of lies distorting facts and figures of development. The government is telling everybody that never before our country developed so much and so fast. Corruption has complicated the political situation to the extent that, we need international support to emerge from the crisis. Like the people of Haiti over their presidential election we also look equally helpless to solve our own problems. In a tightly controlled country like China veracity of the economic data is being questioned and the Anti-Corruption Commission is investigating the statistics agency for serious violations. The government is spending money without caring about the intense miseries into which the vast majority of people find themselves. The over generous pay increases and costly mega show projects are aggravating suffering of the too many. The poor children are dying because there are not enough medical facilities for their treatment. The government sees around it only those who are the beneficiaries of corruption and have suddenly become awfully rich and talk about dazzling progress of the country. The fact is that the investors are taking their money out of the country for uncertain political situation. Sweet words of invitation for investment go unresponded. The people are not being only victims of official corruption, they are also forced to pay extortion money regularly collected by ruling party's young toughs. The police are unhelpful against the politically connected extortionists. You cannot blame the police if they also join the extortionists. The pious utterances of the government that there will be no tolerance for corruption or extortion have no practical importance. The government is an Orwellian double-speak government. It says one thing and means the opposite. The injustices of corruption are to be found everywhere, including the justice system itself. The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is evidently out of control and innocent people are made victims and harassed for bribe money. ACC officials bring allegations of corruption and then ask people to come to their office to be 'grilled'. It is unconstitutional to ask an accused to be witness against himself. The Supreme Court has warned in many cases that the Commission officials cannot do it. RAJUK is used as a source of corruption by some other service providers also. RAJUK is not alone in the business of tolerating illegal commercial establishments in residential areas of Dhaka. The DESCO and City Corporations are to be equally blamed for their involvement. There is also truth that there is need for extending commercial areas after giving permission for high-rise buildings in residential areas. To sum up the whole situation, corruption has to be seen at the root of all injustices, economic and all. Corruption is also the cause of indiscipline in the government. The Finance Minister is now in search of commercial loans from international agencies, thus adding greater financial burden on an economy in deep crisis. By denying free election the government has been hijacked to make it unaccountable and free for corruption. Now the government of Bangladesh is second worst performer in South Asia. The country must have the democratic system of institutional government with duly enforced accountability for true development. Otherwise corruption will have to be permitted for the survival of the government only to get lost in the midst of total anarchy. Complacency in the government is frightening. The Gay Courier has been established to provide news, information and info on, from and about the gay community, and other social events and happenings from around the world, from all sorts of sources, to all who are interested in this news, information and info! The postings are as is, and all copyrights and or ownerships are and remain with the original copyright-holder and or owner! Ingredients Aioli Sauce (Garlic Mayonnaise) Croquettes Directions Croquettes are traditionally served as tapas in Spain. My Spanish teachers have told me that in many places in Spain, the large meal of the day is around noon and people sometimes take off a couple of hours for lunch. After work, people often go to the bar/restaurants for a drink and a few little bites to eat - tapas. If you live in a small town, you might have to make the rounds of the two or three pubs around you, for fear of insulting one of the innkeepers.Like many places in Europe, bars are not intended as adults-only spots, but as an extension of a family's living room. Kids play on the floor, people take turns singing with the band, teens giggle in the corner, and everyone catches up with their neighbors before going home for a light meal and bed. Doesn't that sound wonderful?The original recipe comes from, a fantastic personal chef and catering service in the Northern Suburbs of Chicago. They gave fun tapas cooking demonstrations for Joe's business clients and friends each year. Sadly, Ellory has passed away and Kim is cooking in New Orleans, but they left behind wonderful memories with us.3 cloves of garlic, minced1 egg, at room temperature1 cup olive oil1 tbsp lemon juice1/4 tsp chili powderIn a blender, mix the egg and garlic for 15 seconds. Gradually add the olive oil while continuing to blend, then slowly add the lemon juice and chili powder while blending. Chill before serving.4 tbsp butter4 tbsp flour3/4 cup milk1/8 tsp nutmeg6 oz cooked turkey, chicken, ham, or fish, finely minced2 oz cooked pancetta or lean bacon, finely minced2 tsp fresh parsley, chopped2 tbsp red or green pepper, minced1/2 tsp salt1/4 tsp pepper2 eggs, beaten1 cup fine bread crumbsFollow the aioli directions above, then refrigerate for 30 minutes before serving.In a small sauce pan melt the butter. Add the flour and stir until well mixed. Slowly pour in the milk and keep cooking until thickened and creamy. Stir in the nutmeg.In a mixing bowl, stir together the turkey, parsley, red pepper, salt, and pepper. Add to the white sauce. Put it in the refrigerator and allow it to cool at least 2 hours.Divide the mixture into 20 balls and dip into the beaten eggs, then roll in the bread crumbs. Return to the refrigerator to cool for 30 minutes more.Deep fry the croquettes until golden brown, or bake on a greased cookie sheet at 375 degrees for 20-30 minutes, until golden and crunchy.Serve with aioli sauce for dipping.Makes 20 croquettes. If you are looking for the new Immoral Minority posts, you should know that they can be found here at our new home Please stop by to get caught up on politics, join the conversations, or simply check out the new digs. Monet rahapelien ystavat ovat viime vuosina loytaneet netticasinot ja olleet ihmeissaan. Verrattuna kotimaisen Veikkauksen kivijalkarahapeleihin puhutaan aivan eri tason palautusprosenteista ja lisaksi pelaaminen on aarimmaisen helppoa ja turvallista. Netticasinoiden maara on tana paivana todella suuri ja niita loytyy jokaiseen lahtoon, suurin ongelma aloittelevalla pelaajalla onkin tehda valinta siita, minka netticasinon valitsee. Kaikkien netticasinoiden mainospuheet naet lupaavat kauniita asioita ja niiden lapinakeminen on tietysti tarkeaa. Nyrkkisaantona voidaan kuitenkin jo kattelyssa todeta, etta jos valitsemasi netticasino on lisensoitu ETA-alueella, sen kanssa ei tule olemaan ongelmia, ellei niita itse jarjesta. Kay tutustumassa parhaisiin netticasinoihin osoitteessa www.ilmaiskierroksia.info! Ensimmainen nyrkkisaanto on siis varmistaa, etta valitsemallasi netticasinolla on ETA-alueen lisenssi. Suurimmassa osassa tapauksista se on Maltan eli MGA:n lisenssi. Myos Viron, Englannin ja Gibraltarin lisensseja nakyy ja naissa valvonta on jopa Maltaa tiukempaa. Lopputulema on kuitenkin se, etta ETA-alueen lisenssi takaa suomalaisille verovapaat voitot seka sen, etta niita valvotaan kontrolloidusti. Maailmalla on iso nippu Curacaon lisenssilla toimivia netticasinoita ja niistakin suurin osa on laadukkaita. Ne eivat kuitenkaan ole suomalaisille asiakkaille verovapaita, joten emme suosittele niita. Tana paivana markkinoille on ilmaantunut paljon ETA-alueella toimiva netticasinoita ilman rekisteroitymista. Jos tarkoitus on vain pelata yksittaisia pelikertoja, on varsin helppo suositella naita. Netticasinot ilman rekisteroitymista tarjoavat palvelun tunnistautumisen verkkopankin avainlukulistan avulla ja saman palvelun kautta tapahtuvat talletukset ja mahdolliset voittojen nostot silmanrapayksessa. Normaaleihin netticasinoihin pitaa asiakkaan rekisteroitya, tehda talletukset ja tunnistautua dokumenttien avulla. Tama on lisenssiehtojen mukainen kaytanto, eika kovinkaan monimutkainen, mutta silti monet asiakkaat haluavat yksinkertaista ja nopeaa palvelua. Toki normaalit netticasinot tarjoavat usein asiakkailleen laadukkaita talletusbonuksia ja erilaisia kampanjoita, joten kannattaa tarkkaan punnita, kumman ratkaisun valitsee. Kannattaa myos muistaa, etta tunnistautuminen tehdaan vain kerran, joten mikaan jatkuva riippakivi se ei ole. Suomalaiset asiakkaat ovat netticasinoille tarkeita, joten kaikilla vahankin laadukkailla netticasinoilla on suomenkieliset sivut seka suomenkielinen asiakaspalvelu suomenkielisyys kannattaakin ottaa netticasinoa valittaessa nyrkkisaannoksi. Vaikka tana paivana englanninkielisyys on harvoille ongelma, on suomenkielisten netticasinoiden maara niin valtava, etta suosittelemme niiden kayttoa. Rahansiirrot ovat tana paivana niin hyvassa mallissa, etta niiden kanssa tuskin tulee mitaan ongelmia. Kolme tarkeinta segmenttia: Suomalaiset verkkopankit, luottokortit (Visa, Mastercard) seka nettilompakot (Skrill, Neteller) loytyvat jokaisesta laadukkaasta netticasinosta. Viime vuosien trendiksi noussut verkkokauppa on kehittanyt rahansiirrot niin laadukkaiksi ja nopeiksi, etta niiden suhteen ei ole enaa vuosiin ollut ongelmia. Luonnollisesti netticasinot kayttavat naita samoja palveluita ja hyotyvat kehityksesta. Naiden isojen linjojen jalkeen netticasinon valintaan vaikuttavat luonnollisesti tarjottavat tervetuliaisbonukset uudet asiakkaat saavat tana paivana kovan kilpailun myota merkittavia etuja netticasinoilta ja niita kannattaa luonnollisesti vertailla. Erilaiset talletusbonukset, ilmaiskierrokset seka ilmaiset pelirahat tuovat suuriakin rahanarvoisia etuja ja niiden vertailu on ehdottomasti kannattavaa. Myoskaan useampien tilien avaaminen ja tervetuliaistarjousten kayttaminen ei missaan nimessa ole huono idea. Kun edella mainitut asiat ovat mieleisia ja vaihtoehtoja on vielakin jaljella, mennaan jo nyansseihin. Toki pelivalikoima on yksi kriteeri, mutta taman paivan netticasinoissa tamakin asia on paasaantoisesti varsin samanlainen. Toki useamman samantasoisen netticasinon vertailussa kannattaa yleensa valita se, jossa on eniten peleja tarjolla. Vaikka omat suosikit loytyisivatkin useammasta, voi tulevaisuudessa mielenkiinto nousta joihinkin muihin peleihin ja silloin on tietysti mukavampaa, etta ne loytyvat valikoimista. Viimeisena voidaan nostaa esiin kaytettavyys joidenkin netticasinoiden sivut ovat vilkkuvia, valkkyvia ja epakaytannollisia. Omaan silmaan ja kaytettavyyteen sopiva sivusto on luonnollisesti aina se paras valinta. Tarjonta netticasinoissa on tana paivana valtava ja jokaiselle loytyy varmasti se oma netticasino onnea matkaan! If you have enjoyed these perambulations of a pensioner, why not support my charity. Updates January 24, 2016: tweeting now, at 9:25 p.m. Central Time -- Local media: At least 60 dead in Taiwan due to record-low temperatures - CCTV News January 24, 2016: earlier this month, SecState John "I served in Vietnam" Kerry announces sanctions lifted on Iran. On Friday, two days ago, largest Iranian mosque with thousands shout "Death To America"; and, today The Art of the Deal is probably a book neither Kerry nor Obama has read. January 24, 2016: the Kennedy clan may be on its/their way to Taiwan just to show the grandkids THERE IS SNOW! First snow in Taiwan in 80 years. Link at iceagenow.com. January 24, 2016: the reports keep coming in from the US east coast -- snowiest day EVER in NYC, apparently. Forty-plus inches in West Virginia. The Kennedys don't believe this; they donated their sleds to charity years ago. Robert Kennedy, Jr, opined back in 2008 most kids in Virginia probably don't even own sleds and may never see snow again, or at least not much. January 24, 2016: it's cold in Hong Kong, also. So cold that they will close schools Monday. It's the coldest recorded in Hong Kong in 59 years. Later, 8:12 p.m. Central Time: it's official. Later, 7:32 p.m. Central Time: ( ). Who wudda thought? How are the Maldives doing? By the way, if atmospheric CO2 hits 402, that's almost a rise of 2 parts per million (0.0002%) change. It's hard to believe that 0.0002% is measurable, repeatable. statistically significant. Just joking. It isn't. : tweeting now, at 9:25 p.m. Central Time -- Local media: At least 60 dead in Taiwan due to record-low temperatures - CCTV News: earlier this month, SecState John "I served in Vietnam" Kerry announces sanctions lifted on Iran. On Friday, two days ago, largest Iranian mosque with thousands shout "Death To America"; and, today The Financial Times provides an update on the news report that Iran will buy 114 commercial jets from .... nope, not the US, but Europe -- 114 airliners from Europe.is probably a book neither Kerry nor Obama has read.: the Kennedy clan may be on its/their way to Taiwan just to show the grandkids: the reports keep coming in from the US east coast -- snowiest day EVER in NYC, apparently. Forty-plus inches in West Virginia. The Kennedys don't believe this; they donated their sleds to charity years ago. Robert Kennedy, Jr, opined back in 2008 most kids in Virginia probably don't even own sleds and may never see snow again, or at least not much.: it's cold in Hong Kong, also. So cold that they will close schools Monday. It's the coldest recorded in Hong Kong in 59 years.it's official. Way over 20 inches in NYC, BWI airport, Washington, DC . Global warming, my foot. it's official -- the snowiest day in NY city history . Atmospheric CO2 at 401+ almost 402, a dynamic link ). Who wudda thought? How are the Maldives doing? By the way, if atmospheric CO2 hits 402, that's almost a rise of 2 parts per million (0.0002%) change. It's hard to believe that 0.0002% is measurable, repeatable. statistically significant. Just joking. It isn't. Original Posts Alcoa Smelters The Intalco smelter was initially slated to be curtailed by the end of the first quarter, but Alcoa on Tuesday announced a delay until the end of the second quarter due to changes in energy and raw materials costs. The smelter is run on hydropower from the Bonneville Power Administration. ********************************* Coal Mine In North Dakota To Close 95 Employees To Lose Jobs The Coyote Station switched suppliers and, in May, will start taking coal from a new North American Coal Corp. operation called the Coyote Creek Mining Co. now poised to dig just to the southwest of Dakota Westmoreland. North American is already the biggest coal operator in North Dakota with the Coteau Freedom mine north of Beulah and the Falkirk Mine near Underwood. ********************************** This Is Not An Investment Site Do Not Make Any Investment, Financial, or Travel Decisions Based On What You Read Here A new report from Sterne Agee CRT analyst Tim Rezvan suggests the situation for oil and gas E&P stocks is not as bad as the market fears for many companies After studying liquidity positions of the E&P names under the firm's coverage, Rezvan concludes that only Chesapeake Energy, Gastar Exploration and Ultra Petroleum face potential credit issues prior to 2018 Conversely, Rezvan says Oasis Petroleum and Whiting Petroleum maintain strong liquidity despite sharp equity underperformance and can withstand the reduction in credit facilities expected this spring from lending banks feeling stress in their energy loan portfolios. The firm has Buy ratings on OAS and WLL, and Neutral ratings on CHK, GST and UPL Canadian Pacific Railway to cut up to 1,000 jobs as rail volume slumps. Shell / BG merger will result in 10,000 jobs cut, reported by Rigzone. Richard Zeits on Whiting, over at Seeking Alpha. Going in 2016, Whiting expects to direct 90% of its capital budget towards drilling and completions. The number of rigs that the company will end up running in 2016 is uncertain, in my opinion, given that drilling new wells in a sub-$30 price environment makes no economic sense. As a reminder, Whiting had 24 operated rigs running at the peak in 2014. By mid-2015, the rig count was reduced to 11. Whiting dropped three additional rigs in September and was running 8 rigs as of December. The capex reduction benefit of the September reduction in the rig count will be felt in Q1 2016, once all the wells drilled by the three released rigs are completed. Whiting has also reduced capital spending on its North Ward Estes EOR project. Lease operating costs were reduced substantially, as the company is now putting in the minimum contractual amount under its CO 2 contracts and is essentially in a cash flow harvest mode. The company has commented that it has the option of canceling two additional rigs at a total early termination fee of ~$10 million. Given the price environment, the cancellation may have already taken place. Whiting has estimated its drilling and completion budget to decline to approximately $200-250 million per quarter, based on an 8-rig program. **************************** Statoil Will Drill The Arctic Bloomberg is reporting: Norways Arctic ambitions just got a $7 billion boost from Statoil ASA. Norways largest oil company was able to halve its expected development costs to keep alive its delayed Johan Castberg development in the Barents Sea. The decision comes as welcome news for an industry thats struggling with a deep plunge in oil prices and tens of thousands of job cuts. Statoils plans will also benefit other companies that have made discoveries in the Barents Sea, such as Lundin Petroleum AB with its Gohta and Alta finds. Statoil announced that the project will proceed after it managed to lower estimated investments to 50 billion kroner to 60 billion kroner ($7 billion) from an earlier estimate of 100 billion kroner. The owners of the oil deposits, which include state-owned Petoro AS and Eni SpA, agreed on using a floating production, storage and offloading facility, with a final investment decision planned for next year and possible production start in 2022. Statoil will seek to make the project even cheaper. The decision breaks a string of delays for the project that has suffered from high costs, a tax increase and, most of all, a plunge in oil prices. It goes against a trend of cancellations of energy projects worldwide, not least in the high-cost Arctic, where Statoil and others have abandoned exploration plans from Alaska to Greenland. Castberg, which holds as much as 650 million barrels of oil, was considered a breakthrough venture to unlock oil resources in the Arctic after Norways crude production has dropped by half since a 2000 peak. Its also a welcome boost to the countrys supplier industry thats being squeezed as spending is due to fall for a third year. ************************* Geico Rock Awards Warmist Meteorologist Eric Holthaus: 'In addition to El Nino, human-caused global warming has helped lift current Gulf Stream water temperatures just off the East Coast to record levels. Sea levels are rising in the Northeast at a faster rate than almost anywhere else on Earth, and climate change is already adding about a foot to each coastal flooding event, as it will with this one. The extra boost from the warmer water is adding even more energy into this storm system, increasing the availability and transport of moisture toward land and producing more efficient wind gusts to the surface. In short, climate change is making this blizzard worse.' Technically, this does not qualify for the Geico Rock Award but rules were meant to be bent. Ask Hillary. Note that he calls it "global warming." I thought we had moved on from "global warming" to "climate change" to "extreme weather." I guess with the record East Coast snowstorm we are back to "global warming." It must be reassuring to the folks living on/in the Maldives, that sea levels are rising in the Northeast at a faster rate than almost anywhere else on Earth. I can't make this stuff up. ******************************** Wasn't Supposed To Happen With All The "Global Warming" Talk Granted, this is likely to be one of top five blizzards in NYC. [To be declared one of the top five, twenty (20) inches of snow must fall before the blizzard stops.] As I was saying, this is likely to be one of the top five blizzards in NYC, but I think what really has "made this storm bigger" in the minds of folks across the country is that "this was not supposed to happen." With all the talk of global warming and the Kennedys telling us our grandchildren wouldn't see snow, a lot of folks just cannot imagine all this snow. It simply doesn't make sense. And, of course, coming on the weekend when news is slow anyway, this is perfect for the media. *************************************** Malaguena Salerosa, Kill Bill CBC News reports that Another Geico Rock Award nomination , though, at best, he might get an honorable mention. We've heard this story so many times it has become a joke. Climate Depot is reporting that "warmist" Eric Holthaus says global warming is making this most recent winter storm worse:Technically, this does not qualify for the Geico Rock Award but rules were meant to be bent. Ask Hillary.Note that he calls it "global warming." I thought we had moved on from "global warming" to "climate change" to "extreme weather." I guess with the record East Coast snowstorm we are back to "global warming." It must be reassuring to the folks living on/in the Maldives, that. I can't make this stuff up. Geico Rock nominations are tracked here Granted, this is likely to be one of top five blizzards in NYC. [To be declared one of the top five, twenty (20) inches of snow must fall before the blizzard stops.] As I was saying, this is likely to be one of the top five blizzards in NYC, but I think what really has "made this storm bigger" in the minds of folks across the country is that "this was not supposed to happen." With all the talk of global warming and the Kennedys telling us our grandchildren wouldn't see snow, a lot of folks just cannot imagine all this snow. It simply doesn't make sense.And, of course, coming on the weekend when news is slow anyway, this is perfect for the media. Alcoa has four US aluminum smelters. It plans to close or curtail output at three of those smelters. If all the cuts go through as planned, Alcoa's only remaining US smelter would be its 130,000 tonne-per-year Massena West smelter, which "received" nearly $70 million in aid from New York state to keep running.A smelter in Washington state, the 279,000 tonne-per-year Intalco smelter, was also on the chopping block. But ... whoa, hold your horses ...The decision to be made will be based on the cost of electricity. And the aid package from Olympia, I suppose. It will be interesting to see what Olympia and Bonneville come up with. I suppose some would call this corporate welfare. 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Williams was murdered by the Seattle Police Department as he walked down the crowded downtown streets while on his normal daily routine of carving small totem poles with a small pen knife, then selling them to the tourists that flock by the Seattle Public Market. Seattle Police Officer Ian Birk noticed Mr. Williams walking down the city streets and deemed him a threat, do in major part I believe - simply because he was Native American. Williams was one of many homeless Native Americans who roam downtown Seattle. These people are usually dismissed and overlooked by Seattles daily bustle of businessmen, the working class, and tourists. When the officer approached Williams from behind, and then ordered him to freeze and drop his small carving knife and a stick of carving wood he was carrying, Williams was hard of hearing in one ear, and failed to hear the police officer over the traffic and pedestrians, thus did not immediately comply; officer Birk then instantly felt that this gave him the right to use lethal force against John T. Williams. No threat was ever given by the homeless woodcarver. Officer Ian Birk coldly gunned down John T. Williams from behind, murdering him in the streets of Seattle, Wash, right in front of many horrified citizens who later professed that they felt no threat from the homeless Native American man whatsoever. The officer was fired thats it, and was allowed to live his life somewhere else, work a steady job, live in a nice house, somewhere out of media sight, and out of the publics mind; smug in the fact that he got away with legal murder with just a slap on the wrist. We must all remember that this type of legal homicide happens every day all over this nation of ours, by those sworn to Serve and Protect us. And that this violent tragedy can happen to anyone, or anybodys family members, especially if they are citizens of color. This makes it everybodys problem who believes in justice, personal safety from unwarranted persecution, and true American freedom in the society they live in. Let us still remember John T Williams, and never forget the fact that he was ruthlessly murdered by the S.P.D. The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now. Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market. In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender. India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex. Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted. But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted? Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner. If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems. I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now. I want more variation in masturbation I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own. If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end. What is sex toys for Indian? Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation. It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms. They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable. Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner. The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner. It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past. In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping. Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order. In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing. Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome. Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own. But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance. More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around. Sextoy situation in India Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years. In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India. Mumbai Kolkata Bangalore Delhi Chennai Hyderabad These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India. In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well. If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too. If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it. What are Sextoys for beginner? Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms. Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy. I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion. I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy. If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma. Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it. Advantages of using sextoy for Indians There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways. Can have stimulating sex Can develop new sexual zones If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern. However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways. You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation. Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever. There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure. This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it. When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems. It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms). For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles [Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou... Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India. Sextoy for beginner men in India So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners. For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men! The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men Masturbator Cock rings Love Doll Sex Lubricants Toys for the prostate Lets check each one in detail. Masturbator The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products. It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands. Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands. They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.) Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much. Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! ! Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa SEXToys India PR (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018 Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood. If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here Really pleasant male masturbation and how to do it Are you in a rut with your daily masturbation routine? I'm going to show you five ways men masturbate that you might ... [For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien... Cock Ring A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis. It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow. It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber. In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection. Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction. It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it. Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time. Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function. Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy. You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect. [Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat... Love Doll Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex. There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women. Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price. The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true. You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste. There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice. You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls. If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to... Sex lubricants Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules. It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution. Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse. There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent. Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent. If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here. What is sex lubricant?Explain the difference and usage of each ingredient The word "sex toy" may seem like a hurdle to overcome, but lotion is actually one of the most familiar sex toys. Many... Toys for the Prostate Another sextoy for men is prostate toys. The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line. Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men. Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men. What is the prostate? The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm. You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus. By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms. Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.) The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation. Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure. sextoy for beinner women in India The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy. The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy. Vibrator. Dildo Electric Masserger Lets check out what each one is in detail. If you want to check out womens toys, click here. [BEST25]Sex Toys for Women in IndiaThat Can Help You Have an Orgasm There are many women who pretend to feel orgasm during sex. But don't worry, you don't have to pretend to feel orgasm... Vibrators A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator. Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy. It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy. Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women. For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators. Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex. Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself. This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual. Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men. When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons. Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most... Dildo A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis. It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass. A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it. They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well. It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device. A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo. Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands. For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis. This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one. To learn more about dildo, please click here. What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th... Electric Masserger A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores. It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low. Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels. Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation. It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure. For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm. It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out. If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager? To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here. What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th... How to choose a sextoy for Indian Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one. Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points: Does the size fit you (the partner)? Does the size fit you (your partner)? Is the environment able to produce sound without problems? Price range First of all, the choice of size is quite important. Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women. For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage. Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems. Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise. If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level. Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it. Finally, there is the price range. The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest. Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy. Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy? I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance. For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics. If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out. How to buy sextoys in India The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping. For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below. Sextoy is one of them. Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping. SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India. They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry. Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card. To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy. ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal. Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on. Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture. Cautions for Indians using sextoy When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind Keep sex toys clean Watch out for electrical leakage Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone. Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there. It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case. In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness. Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful. If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it. You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly. Summary What did you think? In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India. The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future. As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values. However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health. If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try? Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women. I want to read more! If you think its a great idea, please bookmark it. WEST FRANKFORT The Rev. Margaret Toedy Holley-Gray, former Congressman Kenneth J. Grays widow, is happy the museum bearing the congressmans name in Marion has closed. Its contents, on display at the Illinois Star Centre Mall since the Ken Gray Presidential Museum opened there in 2010, are returning to Grays hometown of West Frankfort, Holley-Gray said. Im excited about it. I cant even be sad Im so excited about it, Holley-Gray said, days removed from the museums closing on Saturday. Holley-Gray has donated the congressmans collection to Morthland College in West Frankfort. College officials said some of the materials will be displayed primarily in its library, but not under the auspices of a museum. The colleges goal will be to preserve the artifacts, which includes letters, newspaper clippings and photos of presidents he served under and even those he didnt, including Abraham Lincoln, said Stephanie Parton, the colleges vice president of campus development. Mayor Butler talks future of Marion mall MARION Mayor Bob Butler said he keeps hoping the owners of the Marion mall will take thei There is more to the collection, much more, so much that Holley-Gray has never been able to count it all. It could be a presidential pen used to sign federal legislation into law or trinkets Gray purchased symbolic of the nations history or his own interests, from his days serving in the U.S. Army Air Corps to his admiration of Elvis Presley. Gray was known as the Prince of Pork for securing federal projects in Southern Illinois, including the development of Interstate 57 and Rend Lake. Gray died July 12, 2014, and was buried at East Fork Cemetery in West Frankfort. He was 89. Holley-Gray said time constraints on her outside the museum and limited help has made maintaining its visiting hours difficult. A supporter of Morthland College, she was pleased administrators there agreed to adopt the Gray collection. Kenny loved Southern Illinois, but he loved his hometown of West Frankfort. Thats just where it ought to be, she said. Gray, she noted, had opened several museums in West Frankfort over time, including one showing off his collection of antique cars. The Marion site became available in part because mall officials did not charge the museum for rent. On Wednesday, staff from Morthland College began packing the materials for their move. Parton said one goal for the collection is to seek grants that will enable the college to digitally record the collection for preservation. Gray remembered, revered Kenneth J. Gray was more than a champion of Southern Illinois, those close to the 24-year U. Though there will no longer be a museum, those records would be available to students and the public, she said. We are interested in preserving this history for the community, Parton said. Nick Shelton, a business administration major at Morthland College and a physical plant employee there, said he believes the student body will benefit from the collection. Its still a young school, but as the student population grows I think more people from out of the area will learn more about more than just the man but the community. He was a good man. He did a lot for the area, the 21-year-old Benton native said. CARTERVILLE Southern Illinois Farming Alliance hosted the second in a series of National Good Food Network webinars to explore regional food hubs Wednesday, Jan. 27. Food hubs are a structure or organization that facilitates the aggregation, storage, processing, distribution and/or marketing of regionally-produced foods. The food hubs facilitate moving fresh, local food products from smaller producers to store shelves, restaurants and dinner tables. The webinar looked at four food hubs: Cherry Capital Foods of Traverse City, Michigan; Farm Fresh Rhode Islands Market Mobile; Capay Valley Farm Shop, serving the San Francisco Bay area in California; and Western Montana Growers Cooperative in Missoula, Montana. Farmers spoke about the benefits and limits of each model. After the webinar, Michael Gehman of Benton shared his experience with Double Star Farms, a farmer-owned distribution company aggregating produce from small growers for large customers in the St. Louis area. Gehman wanted to change careers, so he decided to try farming. He grew up in an agricultural family. He started Veggie Boy Produce in 2008, and lost money his first year. Community Supported Agriculture shortens the gap between the farm and table For people who want to use fresh, local produce and herbs or love fresh flowers, Community S I wasnt really discouraged. I just thought I hadnt reached the right market, Gehman said. He made a little money his second year, then started a CSA and made more money. He gradually started selling a little produce directly to restaurants. In October 2014, he bought Double Star Farms from a friend and merged the two companies. Double Star Farms handles sales for eight farms that produce vegetables, eggs and chicken. They sell to restaurants and small grocers in the St. Louis area. We target higher-end restaurants who really appreciate our products, Gehman said. Ive found that a lot of chefs know a lot about gardening themselves. They want to know how their food is grown. Gehman works with farmers to choose crops and varieties that are profitable. He has found it is more profitable for small farms to specialize in a few crops than to try to grow everything. Talking to different chefs is what really channeled our vision, Gehman said. The webinar was the second in the series. Remaining webinars and discussions will be: Talk is Cheap ... and Efficient! Facilitating Value Chain Development Without Costly New Infrastructure, at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 10; and The Million Dollar Question: What is Break-even and Viability for Different Food Hub Models? at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 24. Registration is required. Cost is $10 or free for Farming Alliance members. Visit www.fwsoil.org/webinar for more information about the series and to register online. For more information about the event or Southern Illinois Farming Alliance, call Kathleen Logan Smith or Reanna Putnam of Food Works at 618-370-3287 or email kathleen@eatsouthernillinois.org. There are competing plans at the Statehouse to deal with the funding crisis facing higher education in Illinois. Because Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Democratic-controlled General Assembly havent been able to agree on a budget for the fiscal year that began July 1, public universities and community colleges across Illinois havent received any state funding. Likewise, the state hasnt funded grants to help low-income students at public and private colleges cover the cost of tuition. Just this week, Eastern Illinois University President David Glassman notified the campus community of immediate cuts to expenditures such as equipment purchases and warned of potential layoffs and furloughs if the situation continues. Against that backdrop, an Illinois House committee approved a bill Wednesday that would appropriate more than more than $397 million for Monetary Award Program grants and send nearly $325 million to community colleges. However, it does not address funding for public universities. Meanwhile, Republicans in the House and Senate have introduced bills in both chambers that would fund MAP grants and community colleges as well as public universities, although schools would be funded at reduced levels. The plans, sponsored by Rep. Dan Brady of Bloomington, whose district includes Illinois State University, and Sen. Dale Righter of Mattoon, who represents EIU, are tied to a proposal that would give the governor the authority to move money around within the state budget to cover shortfalls. They said the plans have the governors support. Brady sits on the House Higher Education Committee, which approved the MAP grant and community college funding bill without any Republican votes. He said he voted against the bill because it doesnt include a way to pay for the appropriations and doesnt deal with funding for universities. This bill, with all the good intentions, is not sustainable in funding right now, Brady said, adding that it will face a likely veto from Rauner if it passes both chambers. Democratic Rep. Kelly Burke of Evergreen Park, who chairs the committee, said that higher is a critical service and noted that Comptroller Leslie Munger would have the authority to prioritize payments for MAP grants and community colleges if the bill is approved. Brady and Righter said their bills would offer a more comprehensive approach. Both would spend about $1.7 billion to fund universities at 80 percent of what they received in fiscal year 2015 and community colleges at 90 percent. MAP grants would be fully funded at 2015 levels. That would all be contingent on giving the governor more authority to move money around to fill budget gaps. We may not have $1.7 billion, so someone is going to have to make sure that the most critical areas don't run out of money, Righter said. Someone has got to be minding the shop, and if the General Assembly is not going to do it, then the governor needs to be allowed to do it. Rauners administration has previously said that the state needs to cut waste, root out cronyism, improve outcomes and achieve savings in higher education and that funding should be tied to spending reductions or cost-saving reforms to avoid triggering a cash flow crisis. JG-TC staff writer Jarad Jarmon in Mattoon contributed to this report. CHICAGO A grand jury has indicted the wife of a disgraced northern Illinois policeman who embezzled money from a youth program and then staged his own suicide to look like a homicide. Melodie Gliniewicz, 51, turned herself in Wednesday at the Lake County Sheriff's Office when she learned of the grand jury indictment on charges of helping divert money from a program for teens interested in law enforcement careers. She was taken to the county jail, and was released later in the day after posting 10 percent of her $50,000 bond. Official: Officer, wife exchanged texts about funds CHICAGO The wife of a northern Illinois police officer indicted on charges of helping dive Her husband, Fox Lake Police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz, died Sept. 1. Authorities said he shot himself because he feared discovery of the embezzlement from the Fox Lake Police Explorer Post. The officer's death touched off a manhunt involving hundreds of officers and raised fears that several killers were on the loose. Joe Gliniewicz was initially hailed as a community hero and praised for his work with the youth program. At the time, Melodie Gliniewicz's tearfully told hundreds of people gathered at a candlelight vigil that Gliniewicz had been her "hero" and her "rock." Two months after Gliniewicz's death, authorities announced he had killed himself after stealing from the village's Police Explorer program for seven years, prompting tough questions about why it had taken so long to reach that conclusion. A timeline of events in death of Illinois police officer FOX LAKE, Ill. Investigators announced a felony indictment this week against the widow of The Lake County State's Attorney's office said in announcing the indictment of Melodie Gliniewicz that money from the police explorer's account was used for expenses including more than 400 restaurant charges, personal payments to a Starbucks and a local theater as well as a trip to Hawaii. Melodie Gliniewicz was indicted on charges of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority and for personal benefit. Joe Gliniewicz had run the Explorer program with Melodie Gliniewicz serving as an adviser and in a fiduciary role involving the program's finances, authorities said. In a statement, attorneys for Melodie Gliniewicz vehemently denied that she took part in her husband's scheme. "Melodie is a victim of her husband's secret action and looks forward to her day in court to show the world her innocence," said the law firm Kelleher & Buckley. Unpack your old tie-dyed T-shirts, roll yourself a fat doobie and warm up the ancient VW bus. We're going to do Woodstock and the 1972 presidential election all over again. And this time, the hippies are going to win! Four years of peace, love, and single-payer health care. But do take care to clear the path for Bernie Sanders. Because if he steps in something the dog left behind, he's going to blame Wall Street and start yelling and waving his arms around. And you know how much that upsets Republican congressmen who are otherwise so eager to oblige his plans to soak the rich and give everybody free college, free health care, free Bubble Up and rainbow stew, as the old Merle Haggard song had it. OK, so I'm being a smart aleck. I was moved to satire by a couple of moments from last week's Democratic and Republican presidential debates. First, Sen. Sanders, boasting about a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that shows him beating Donald Trump by 15 points at 54 to 39 (Hillary Clinton tops Trump only 51-41). Both would be huge landslides. In 1972, Richard Nixon defeated George McGovern 61-38. The Democrat won only Massachusetts. The part Sanders left out and that Hillary was also wise enough to leave unmentioned is that the same poll shows her leading him 59 to 34 percent in the Democratic contest nationally. Twenty-five points. She'd have to be a fool to take that to the bank, although it does demonstrate why a lot of the racehorse commentary has it upside-down. See, unless Bernie manages to prevail in the Iowa caucuses, his campaign pretty much goes on life support. A New Englander nearly always wins in New Hampshire, and rarely goes anywhere after that. Almost needless to say, all polls are individually suspect. Also, the national media gives far more play to surveys depicting a close contest. They're better for journalists' careers. That would be true even if you didn't know that bringing Hillary Clinton down has been an obsessive quest in Washington and New York newsrooms for 24 years. During most of which time it's been, "Bernie who?" That Vermont socialist who's all the time yelling? That guy? Yeah, him. The guy with the Brooklyn accent and the Wacky Prof look who says "billionaire" the way some people say "ebola." Not that there's anything wrong with that. The same guy Ohio Gov. John Kasich boldly predicted would lose all 50 states if Democrats were foolish enough to nominate him. Actually, I'm confident Sanders would carry Vermont and probably Massachusetts against any Republican nominee. New Hampshire and Maine could be out of reach. Even against Trump? Well theoretical matchups mean next to nothing this far out. Also, I suspect that Bernie's big advantage hard for politically active readers to believe is that most voters know almost nothing about him. Only that he's neither Hillary nor The Donald. I also suspect that a Trump vs. Sanders matchup would bring a serious third-party challenge. Anyway, let the GOP attack machine get to work on Sanders and I'm guessing we'd soon learn that there's no great yearning among the electorate for socialism democratic or not. Did you know, for example, that Sanders took a honeymoon trip to the Soviet Union in 1988? George Will does. Does that make him disloyal? Of course not, merely a bit of a crank. As Sanders loyalists are quick to remind you, President Reagan went to Moscow to negotiate nuclear arms reductions with Gorbachev that year. Anyway, as a personal matter, I got my fill of Marxist faculty lounge lizards back in the tie-dyed, VW bus era. Disagree, and you're an immoral sellout. That gets old really fast. Writing in Washington Monthly, David Atkins does a manful job of trying to explain away a Gallup poll showing that while 38 percent of Americans say they'd never vote for a Muslim president, and 40 percent wouldn't support an atheist, fully 50 percent said no socialists need apply. Can Bernie persuade them otherwise? I don't see how. Most Americans don't actually hate the rich, and his despairing portrait of contemporary American life doesn't square with most people's experiences. "Against these liabilities," writes Jonathan Chait, "Sanders offers the left-wing version of a hoary political fantasy: that a more pure candidate can rally the People into a righteous uprising that would unsettle the conventional laws of politics." Meanwhile, not only has Sanders presented no realistic political scenario for enacting his vaunted reforms, serious observers also question their substance. Liberal MVP Paul Krugman: "To be harsh but accurate: the Sanders health plan looks a little bit like a standard Republican tax-cut plan, which relies on fantasies about huge supply-side effects to make the numbers supposedly add up." During the recent debate, Bernie accused Hillary of failing to take his candidacy seriously. Fair enough. But has he? Gene Lyons is a columnist with the Arkansas Times. His column is distributed by Universal Uclick. Richard Allen, the founder of the AME Church and its first bishop, will be featured as the next issue in the U.S. Postal Services Black Heritage Commemorative Series. Allen, along with the Rev. Absalom Jones, helped found the Free African Society, a non-denominational religious mutual-aid society dedicated to helping the black community The stamp will be unveiled Feb. 2 at Mother Bethel AME Church in Philadelphia. It is the 39th stamp in the Black Heritage stamp series, which began in 1978 with Harriet Tubman. Others include Martin Luther King Jr., Paul Robeson and Shirley Chisholm. Allen became the nations first black Methodist Episcopal minister when he was ordained by a longtime supporter, Methodist Bishop Francis Asbury, in 1799. However, the new Philadelphia church Allen founded continued to face challenges from white church leaders. In 1816, Allen called for a meeting of other black church leaders, who gathered together to establish the independent African Methodist Episcopal Church. Allen was named the first bishop. The Sixth Episcopal district, led by the Right Rev. Preston W. Williams II, will lead the delegation from Georgia next week for the unveiling of the Allen stamp. We give God the praise for the ministry of Bishop Richard Allen, which has impacted the entire world, Williams said in a statement. This a great honor for someone who is very deserving. When he launched the AME connection, it is unlikely he would have envisioned how it has grown until this day. The church became a stop in the Underground Railroad for slaves seeking freedom in the North. Allen died March 26, 1831. He and his wife, Sarah, are buried in a tomb beneath the church. Mount Carmel United Methodist Church will host its annual Unity Breakfast at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 6,with attorney Bakari T. Sellers as the featured speaker. Sellers, a native of Denmark, is a former member of S.C. House of Representatives for District 90 and ran an unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor in 2014. He has been with the Strom Law Firm, LLC, in Columbia, since 2007, and became a CNN contributor on race, politics and legal matters in 2015. The main event will take place in the church sanctuary, followed by a full-course breakfast in the fellowship hall. The main event is free and open to the public. The meal will cost $7 per person. The Unity Breakfast will take on the 2016 Black History Month theme, "Hallowed Grounds: Sites of African American Memories," reflecting on places where African-Americans have made history throughout the country. Tickets may be purchased in advanced by calling Committee Chair Helene Kirkland at 803-347-6839. All other inquiries may be addressed to Helene T. Carter at 803-664-0080 or email hcarter734@yahoo.com. Aides to Republican president candidate Donald Trump said Wednesday that South Carolina Lt. Gov. Henry McMaster was going to introduce and endorse the billionaire businessman at a rally outside Columbia. McMaster's nod gives Trump the backing of a longtime South Carolina politician widely viewed as an establishment Republican. He previously served as state GOP chairman and has been an ally of Sen. Lindsey Graham a failed 2016 White House hopeful and fierce Trump critic. Polls conducted by Fox News and Winthrop University in early December showed Trump with a strong lead in the first Southern primary state. Two brothers already in jail and a teen have been tied to additional burglaries, according to Bamberg County Sheriff Ed Darnell. Darnell announced Wednesday that Bryan Pierson, 28, of Slab Landing Road in Cope; Kevin Pierson, 19, of Orange Grove Road in Bamberg; and a 16-year-old male have been charged in connection with a string of burglaries. The Pierson brothers are already being held without bail on two counts of first-degree burglary, two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime, one count of grand larceny, one count of petit larceny and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Darnell said the latest charges stem from three burglaries that took place on Dec. 15. Two of the burglaries took place on Hope Road in Branchville. In one of those burglaries, the Pierson brothers allegedly broke into a residence and stole a flatscreen TV and a 12-gauge shotgun. According to an incident report, Bryan Pierson pawned the shotgun in Lexington just hours after the burglary. Investigators recovered the firearm on Jan. 6. The Piersons face one charge each of first-degree burglary, petit larceny and trespassing. For the second burglary on Hope Road, an elderly homeowner discovered that her door was kicked in. Deputies arrived on the scene and saw that someone flipped over a mattress. In that burglary, the Piersons face one charge each of third-degree burglary, trespassing, petit larceny and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Investigators reported that a 15-year-old accompanied the Piersons during this burglary. Also on Dec. 15, the Piersons and the juvenile are accused of breaking into a home on Embree Road in Bamberg. The Piersons face one charge each of third-degree burglary, petit larceny and trespassing. Bryan Pierson is also charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor in this incident. Darnell said the juvenile will face charges through the Department of Juvenile Justice. He has since turned 16. Darnell said the teen is not being charged as an adult at this time. Kevin Pierson is being held at the Bamberg County Detention Center. Bryan Pierson is at the Orangeburg County Detention Center. Bryan Pierson allegedly attacked a nurse at the Regional Medical Center on New Years Day. Hes charged with kidnapping and first-degree assault and battery. He was also charged by the Orangeburg County Sheriffs Office in a first-degree burglary that took place in Norway. Darnell said hes proud of the work his investigators performed in these cases. He noted that most of the stolen merchandise has been recovered. South Carolinians learned in a high-profile way in 2012 about the theft of tax information. Up to 3.6 million returns from as far back as 1998 may have been compromised by international hackers penetrating the S.C. Department of Revenues system. Since that time, awareness and prevention of identity theft have become top priorities for government and individuals. This year, the SCDOR is telling South Carolinians that income tax refunds will take longer to process because of new fraud-detection and prevention measures. Waiting for money wont make people happy, but its a small price to pay for efforts to ensure the protection of the tax system and the key information it possesses about taxpayers. Our No. 1 priority is to make sure your refund ends up in your pocket, SCDOR Director Rick Reames III advised South Carolina taxpayers. We will not simply stand by and allow thieves to prey on hardworking taxpayers and steal from our state. That wont stop people from trying to do just that. Nationally, tax refund fraud people filing false returns to steal taxpayer refunds is growing at an alarming rate. Stolen tax identify refund fraud is a million-dollar business for the fraudsters. In 2013, the last year of available statistics, the IRS identified almost 3 million potential fraudulent returns. That same year there was more than $5 billion paid out in fraudulent refunds. This week is Tax Identity Theft Awareness Week, which comes at precisely the right time with so many focusing on filing tax returns. The IRS wants you to know that it uses your Social Security number to make sure your filing is accurate and complete, and that you get any refund you are due. Identity theft can affect how your tax return is processed. An unexpected notice or letter from the IRS could alert you that someone else is using your SSN, but the IRS stresses that it doesn't start contact with a taxpayer by sending an email, text or social media message that asks for personal or financial information. If you get an email that claims to be from the IRS, do not reply or click on any links. Instead, forward it to phishing@irs.gov. If someone uses your SSN to file for a tax refund before you do, the IRS says it might think you already filed and got your refund. When you file your return later, IRS records will show the first filing and refund, and youll get a notice or letter from the IRS saying more than one return was filed for you. If someone uses your SSN to get a job, the employer may report that persons income to the IRS using your SSN. When you file your tax return, you wont include those earnings. IRS records will show you failed to report all your income. The agency will send you a notice or letter saying you got wages but didnt report them. The IRS doesnt know those wages were reported by an employer you dont know. If you think someone used your SSN for a tax refund or a job or the IRS sends you a notice or letter indicating a problem contact the IRS immediately. Specialists will work with you to get your tax return filed, get you any refund you are due and protect your IRS account from identity thieves in the future. While everyones hope is to be unaffected by tax identity theft, taking immediate action is important if you are. Contact the Internal Revenue Service at 1-800-908-4490 and visit IdentityTheft.gov to report and recover from identity theft. DENMARK -- CNN contributor and former state Rep. Bakari Sellers will be the featured speaker for the Voorhees College Black History Month Kick-off Celebration at 11 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 4. Sellers graduated from Morehouse College in 2005 with a bachelors degree. In 2008, he earned a juris doctorate degree from the University of South Carolina. He was first elected to the S.C. House at the age of 22, becoming the youngest representative in the body. Sellers served as a House member from 2006 to 2014, focusing on issues such as healthcare and education. In 2008, Sellers became a major South Carolina supporter of Barack Obamas presidential campaign, serving on his steering committee during the election. In 2014, Sellers was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in the state of South Carolina. Bakari proves that you can be from a small town such as Denmark and still reach milestones, said Willie Jefferson, director of special events. Students alike can utilize Voorhees to help lead them to bigger opportunities that they too can be proud of. Sellers was named Time magazines 40 Under 40 in 2010 and made The Root 100 list of the nations most influential African-Americans in 2014 and 2015. Sellers is a member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He currently serves as an attorney at Strom Law Firm in Columbia and as a political commentator at CNN. He is the son of President Cleveland L. Sellers, Jr. and Gwendolyn Sellers and is married to Dr. Ellen Rucker-Sellers. This event is free and open to the public. Im tired of hearing our presidential candidates talk about ISIS. Before you phone me in to the Department of Homeland Security, let me clear a few things up. No, Im not a homeland-style sleeper agent, or worse, a peacenik activist. To the contrary, Im a veteran of the U.S. Army. I served and saw combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I have no illusions about the dangers that radical extremists pose to our allies and interests abroad, or the view of the world that the United States holds dear. But my problem with the current slate of presidential candidates is that ISIS is, with few exceptions, the only threat they want to talk about. Whats worse is that so many of the candidates have talked about it for so long without actually saying anything relevant or insightful about the threat it poses. Im glad everyone takes the ISIS threat seriously, even if many of the candidates proposals (carpet bombing until the sand glows) are more bluster than substance. In any case, our would-be commanders-in-chief need to apply a similar level of seriousness to the other critical threats to our national security. I want to hear how they plan to manage the rise of China. How they will stop Beijing from building artificial military bases in international waters, or set the rules of the road for trade in the Asia Pacific region? Keeping things peaceful with our biggest geopolitical rival requires more strategy in engagement than tough talk I want to hear about how were going to rally and lead our allies like Japan and South Korea to stay secure and prosperous. I want to hear how they intend to strengthen our cybersecurity. What is the relationship they would push the government to have with the private sector, and how would they balance the privacy and security of the American people? How and when do we take punitive action when states like China and Russia are found to have supported cyberattacks? Investments in this area can mean everything from preventive steps to safeguard our own networks and data, to offensive measures that shut down the capabilities of our enemies. Every candidate should be well-versed in cyber issues, because the future is no longer a distant, abstract thing. Finally, I want to hear how theyre going to tackle the nuclear question. This administration led a seven-year diplomatic effort to freeze and begin dismantling Irans nuclear program how would the next president build on that non-proliferation success? And how would they deal with North Koreas troubling pursuit of ever more powerful nuclear weapons and the threat that poses to us and our allies in the region? U.S. voters are concerned about terrorism because its an issue that affects us all. So for the time being, I know our candidates will keep talking about ISIS more often than not, and that other security concerns in the region like Iran and Afghanistan will rightfully draw their attention, too. Its a critical and worthwhile debate. But as an electorate, we need to demand more of those aspiring to the highest office in the land. The president doesnt need to be an expert on every issue, but he or she needs to be more than a one-trick pony. Its time we heard more from our candidates on all the ways that the United States can engage and ultimately lead the world. MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa Once again, Donald Trump steals the show. The billionaire Republican's decision to tangle with Fox News and skip the final presidential debate before Iowa's kickoff caucuses all but ensures that he and he alone will dominate the conversation in the closing moments of campaigning in 2016's leadoff state. It's a move that for any other candidate would probably be viewed as un-presidential. But for Trump, it's more likely to serve as fresh evidence that he's successfully redefining the art of presidential politics. "This takes guts, and is the kind mentality our country needs in order to Make America Great Again," Trump's campaign charged in a statement that cited his campaign slogan and confirmed the finality of his decision. Instead of appearing on the debate stage Thursday night, Trump said he will host an event at the same time to raise money for wounded veterans. The move puts the other seven Republican participants in an awkward position. Attack the party's absentee front-runner, and provide him with even more attention? Or ignore him, and leave voters wondering what they think of the national front-runner's hardball play just days before the Feb. 1 caucus? "I think, you know, the media's been handled by him," New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, one of Trump's rivals for the GOP nomination, said in an interview Tuesday night on Fox News. "And I think, you know, folks have allowed him to do things that no other candidate's ever been allowed to do in American presidential history." Trump's presidential run has been defined by such moments. He's questioned whether Arizona Sen. John McCain is worthy of being called a war hero, graphically criticized Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and unveiled a widely condemned plan to bar Muslims from the United States. Each led his rivals, political professionals and pundits to predict his undoing. But instead, Trump has maintained his support in the preference polls he loves to tout a reflection of his ability to capture the feelings of a Republican electorate deeply skeptical of the party's establishment and the country's news organizations. "I think in some ways, we've got to start pushing back. And I think he's just demonstrating that, pushing against the liberal media," said Yvonne Galusha, 57, a Trump backer who works at the University of Iowa and attended his Tuesday night rally in Iowa City. For the past several days, Trump had sought Kelly's removal as a moderator of the Thursday night debate. His back and forth with the network reached a tipping point on Tuesday afternoon, when Fox News mocked Trump with a sarcastic statement that said the leaders of Iran and Russia "both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president." His rivals tried to paint his reaction "Let them have their debate and let's see how they do with the ratings," Trump said as the latest example of why he's unfit for the White House. "If he doesn't want to be there, that's okay with me," Christie told Kelly on her show Tuesday night. "But I'll tell you this: the American people should wonder if you're not willing to show up when everything isn't going your way and exactly the way you want to." That's an argument yet to dent Trump's standing among his supporters, who view such actions as a reminder of what they like most about him: Trump plays by his own rules, even if that means taking on his party's leadership and his party's favorite television network. "With me, they're dealing with somebody that's a little bit different," Trump said. "They can't toy with me like they toy with everybody else." Republican officials tried to hide their disappointment, if not their concern for the tremendous power Trump wields in the 2016 primary contest. "Every candidate has the right to decide not to participate in a sanctioned debate," said Steve Duprey, the official in charge of the Republican National Committee's debate efforts. "Time will tell whether this works to his benefit or hurts his campaign." Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said Wednesday that "Mr. Trump doesn't play games. ... He walks away from bad deals." "At the end of the day," he said on MSNBC, "Mr. Trump is going to have the last laugh." Debates have long been considered critical moments for voters and candidates alike, and Fox News was more pointed than the RNC in its response to Trump's decision to sit their event out. "We're not sure how Iowans are going to feel about him walking away from them at the last minute," the network said in a statement. Marc McGee, a graphic artist who lives in Cedar Rapids and was at Trump's rally Tuesday night, said Trump made the wrong call. "You should show up and go through the motions, you know," he said. "If I was mad at work, I don't just stay home, you know." Still, the 52-year-old voter said the decision didn't really bother him, describing it more likely an attempt to draw attention than anything else. "He's trying to steal the thunder, which is very ingenious," McGee said. Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. Anyone may probably cite a dozen major or less major names in Armenian literature who became victims of the genocide of 1915. Even among scholars, however, the name of Armen Dorian probably does not ring a bell. At the age of 23, he was one of the youngest writers to be caught in the roundup of April 23-24 and sent to death.He was born Hrachia Surenian on January 28, 1892 in the city of Skopje, the current capital of the Republic of Macedonia. At the time, his birthplace was still part of the Ottoman Empire. His father was a contractor of roads and bridges.There was no Armenian community and no school there. Hrachia first studied at a local Greek school and then at the French school of Manastir (current Bitola, also in Macedonia). The family later moved to Constantinople, where the future poet received his higher education at the Mekhitarist School of Pangalti, which belonged to the Viennese branch of the congregation. He graduated in 1911 and traveled to France, where he continued his studies at the Sorbonne.It is not clear why and when he took his literary name. When in Paris, he joined the French literary scene and founded the French newspaperin 1912. Filled with dynamic and progressive ideas in poetry, he followed the current known as paroxyste, first proposed by poet Nicolas Beaudoin (1881-1960) in 1911, which was a French correlative to another avant-garde movement, futurism. He also published poetry booklets.As immersed as he was in French literature, Dorian did not leave aside his Armenian roots. He wrote and published both in French and in Armenian, and did not sever his links with the Armenian literary life in Constantinople.Immediately after his graduation in 1914, he received an invitation to return to Constantinople as headmaster in his alma mater, the Mekhitarist School of Pangalti. He also taught in four other schools, and contributed to local journals with Armenian and French poems. He was arrested at the Modern School in the night of April 24, 1915.Armen Dorian, together with some 150 people, including poets Taniel Varoujan and Roupen Sevag, among others, was initially sent to Cankr. Thirty exiles were able to return to Constantinople in one way or another. From the remaining hundred and twenty, in June 1915 a first caravan of 52 people was dispatched with destination to Deir-er-Zor. One of the fifteen survivors of the entire group of 120, Mikayel Shamdanjian, wrote: At the time, we were not familiar with that name. From the first caravan, only the Protestant bookseller Baronian, as the result of petitions, was excluded and returned to Constantinople. All the other comrades, including the promising and pleasant Armen Dorian, went to become the victims of the roads of Elbistan. . . . Armen Dorian became part of the first caravan because, as someone who had absorbed French humor, was dazzling and had always a song in his lips.Dorians poetry has remained dispersed in the Armenian and French journals of the time. Other poems were posthumously published in the Armenian press. His brother Zenob Surenian, who had settled in Austria, in 1931 published a small collection of poetry entitled(A French Poet of Armenian Origin). Saint Thomas is one of the 12 disciples of Jesus and is also known as doubting Thomas. He is the patron saint of architects and woodworkers/carpenters, which is explained by the apocryphal legend. This legend of Saint Thomas relates that he was sold by Jesus as a slave to a South-Indian king, who wanted to have a palace built. The king gave massive amounts of gold to Thomas for his castle, but he distributed it to the poor. When the king learned of this he was angry and wanted to execute Thomas. However, the Kings brother, who miraculously had returned from death, intervened and told the king that he had seen an enormous palace in heaven. When he asked to whom this palace belonged, he was told that it belonged to his brother, the King. Upon hearing this Saint Thomas was released. Saint Thomas is frequently depicted with a square or a compass as these are the tools of the builders, and with a spear (signifying the wound in Jesus side where doubting Thomas laid his hand in, or the spear that caused his death as a martyr). /By AzerNews/ By Nigar Orujova The Azerbaijani State Customs Committee has introduced a 70 percent-discount on formalizing customs declarations for customs clearance of goods and vehicles, the committee reported. This discount decreased the cost of the customs declaration formalization service up to 50 manats ($30) without VAT, starting from January 27. The decision was made given the president's instructions to create favorable conditions for entrepreneurs, support and improve the quality of services provided to them. The Committee has recently introduced another service to facilitate the custom procedures e-service primary declaration-- that allows entrepreneurs importing goods into Azerbaijan to submit a brief declaration on imported goods and vehicles. This option opens opportunity to speed up the registration process, eliminate various bureaucratic obstacles, as well as save time. Moreover, the Committee will soon transfer several services to the ASAN service centers that already gain a reputation of comfortable and transparent agency fighting bureaucracy and corruption. ASAN will provide its customers with electronic declaration, preliminary electronic declaration, issue of official certificates for import-export operations, and extension of stay in the country of temporarily imported cars. Along with this, information kiosks of the Customs Committee will be installed in ASAN centers in the future. Earlier in December, the Information Technology Center informed that electronic signature will be used while approving customs declaration in the country. The service will allow filling in e-declaration and approving them with e-signature, which in turn will contribute to the transparency of customs declaration. The traditional method of declaration of goods involves the use of hard copy, which does not ensure efficiency. Today, Azerbaijan is developing e-services to ensure both transparency and convenience of a number of services. Providing fast and transparent custom procedures will help to increase business development in the country, that now relying on the non-oil sector development. Moreover, Azerbaijan also offers Tajikistan to facilitate custom procedures for its entrepreneurs. /By AzerNews/ By Nigar Orujova The EU is a large market and Europe would be glad to see the products of Azerbaijan on its market, EU Ambassador to Azerbaijan Malena Mard said on January 28. The EU works with Azerbaijan in the field of food safety, she said, adding that this issue is very important in Europe. Azerbaijan and the EU continue to work on a new agreement on strategic cooperation Mard noted. The agricultural sector is important in Azerbaijan not only to increase export potential, but also to restore and protect the countrys food security. Enjoying advantageous geographic location Azerbaijan has all possibilities to increase food security and production in the country. The EU will continue to support the agrarian sector of Azerbaijan, Mard said at a seminar on e-agriculture in Baku. Azerbaijan and EU were partners on many projects, she said. We attach great importance to food safety and are ready to share our experience in this field with Azerbaijan. Electronic agriculture is an emerging field focused on the enhancement of agricultural and rural development through improved information and communication processes. E-agriculture involves the conceptualization, design, development, evaluation and application of innovative ways to use information and communication technologies in the rural domain, with a primary focus on agriculture. Noting that one of the important components of e-agriculture is the management of subsidies, Mard said that the EU has vast experience in this matter. Yes, we have experience, but at the same time, we can also make mistakes in some points, and therefore we should learn something from Azerbaijan, she noted. We can work with Azerbaijan as equal partners. Our experts have interesting proposals on the project. We need to work all together for the successful implementation of the project. The Agriculture Ministry has allocated 4.8 million manat (about $4.6 million) to create e-agriculture in 2015. EU to finance e-agriculture establishment in Azerbaijan The cost of technical assistance of the EU aimed at the project to create e-agriculture will amount to 1.4 million euros, head of the office at the Azerbaijan Agriculture Ministry Ilham Bayramov said at the event. The project aims to ensure a fair and transparent distribution of agricultural subsidies. Assistance should ensure reliable data for use in policy-making and assessing the impact of policy and contribute to improving the quality of life in rural areas. The work within the first phase of the technical assistance has already started, Bayramov said. The EU has provided the Azerbaijani side with the technical requirements for the development of an information system for agricultural subsidies, IT-infrastructure of e-agriculture, orthophoto (an aerial photograph geometrically corrected, used to measure true distances) system. Bayramov said that the tender has been held to select contractors to undertake the work. A consortium of six companies from Hungary, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Italy and Azerbaijan has been announced a winner, he added. The project presupposes development of the register of farms and the database of used agricultural land, verification of software components and quality control of supply for the information system of subsidies and policy, funded by the Azerbaijani government. Strengthening of the technical capacity of institutions involved in the data collection and information exchange, as well as developing methodologies and guidelines for operation of the electronic system of agriculture, is also envisaged in the project. Test works on the identification system of lands, registry of farms and other modules of the system within the project have already been conducted in pilot region of Khachmaz. The work to transit a system of electronic accounting of all transactions of Aqroleasing Company is also complete. In addition, an automated information system of the technical inspectorate will be put into operation. Adopting the system of e-agriculture in Azerbaijan is believed to solve many problems in the agricultural sector. The e-agriculture system will allow conducting online registration of the farmers, lands, as well as will provide other benefits, ensuring the absolute transparency of the system. /By AzerNews/ By Amina Nazarli YARAT Contemporary Art Centre invites cinema fans to the largest short film festival to be held on February 17-19 at 8:00pm. The screening of the winter films will be organized as a part of YARAT FreeStyle Program, an open platform for everyone who looks to engage creatively with a broad and diverse audience. The festival covers 90 countries, 300 cities, 6 continents and offers 1,400 showings per year throughout the world. During its ten year existence, the festival has gained the attention of movie fans over a huge territory from Finland to Mexico. The festival gives an opportunity for professionals and newcomers all over the world to become a part of an international cinematographic community. The Winter Season of Future Shorts includes seven films. Special guest is Lost dreams by Chingiz Mustafayev The language of the films is original with Russian subtitles. The address of the venue is Bailovo settlement near the National Flag square. YARAT is a non-profit art organisation based in Baku, Azerbaijan. Founded by Aida Mahmudova and a group of artists in 2011, YARAT is dedicated to nurturing an understanding of contemporary art in Azerbaijan and to creating a platform for Azerbaijani art, both nationally and internationally. In 2015, YARAT (which means create in Azerbaijani) commissioned YARAT Contemporary Art Centre in Baku their first permanent exhibition space. YARATs program ARTIM (meaning progress in Azerbaijani) supports young practitioners in the arts providing opportunities to curate and feature their work in exhibitions. Female writers have often found the supernatural a way to challenge and condemn their role in society, explains Hephzibah Anderson. As the nights draw in, theres nothing quite as satisfying as scaring yourself witless with a good old-fashioned ghost story. Nobody appreciated this better than MR James, who wrote spine-tinglers like Casting the Runes and Whistle and Ill Come to You specifically to be read aloud in the run-up to Christmas. But James classic tales also helped solidify another aspect of the form: its essential maleness. James, a bachelor don, was provost of Kings College, Cambridge, where he stridently opposed the admission of female students. He eventually left for Eton, his first all-male alma mater. Its hardly surprising that women feature so infrequently in his stories. When we think of supernatural yarns we think also of HP Lovecraft, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Oliver Onions and others, all of them male. In recent months, a series of books by female authors have been published to challenge this. Gillian Flynns novella, The Grownups, tells the story of a sham psychic, a troubled child, and a house that seems to be home to a malevolent spirit. Reading it is like having an icicle dropped down your back. Lorna Gibbs debut novel A Ghosts Story fictionalises the life of a Victorian seance staple, Katie King, and Catriona Wards Rawblood tells a gothic tale of a cursed family. In The Taxidermists Daughter, meanwhile, Kate Mosse blends a ghost story with a historical mystery. Louise Welch and Audrey Niffenegger, both of whom have written their own spectral fiction, have now edited anthologies the brilliant Ghost: 100 Stories to Read with the Lights On and Ghostly: A Collection of Ghost Stories that are strong on female authors. And having long ago staked her claim to the genre with The Woman in Black, Susan Hills collected ghost stories are now available, proving her to be the grande dame of ghouls. The turn of the shrew Whats interesting is that this is really nothing new. According to some scholarly estimates, in the 19th Century, at the height of the forms popularity, women were contributing around 70% of ghost stories published in British and American magazines. The names of these authors Amelia Edwards, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Charlotte Riddell, Mary Louisa Molesworth have largely faded into obscurity while others (think Edith Wharton and E Nesbit) are remembered for other works. In stories by James and co, male protagonists commonly find their intellectual and scientific ideas challenged by supernatural phenomena. In stories by women, when something goes bump in the night, its often the sound of the author butting her head against societys rigid definitions of her role. It was in the 1970s that critics first began to appreciate how gender affected ghost stories, excavating subversive subtexts in stories that women wrote. One such classic is Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), whose nameless narrator, suffering from post-natal depression, is confined to bed rest under the care of her doctor husband and begins to lose her mind. Gilman herself was diagnosed with neurasthenia (nerve weakness) in her twenties, and treated by Dr S Weir Mitchell, whose rest cure consisted of banishing the patient to bed for months at a time, allowing her only mild foods, and denying all mental, physical, and social activity. Creative pursuits such as writing, painting even reading were strictly prohibited. As Gilman declared, the cure itself nearly drove her insane. In the story, our heroine is confined to an old nursery with ghastly wallpaper in whose pattern shes soon seeing strangled heads and unblinking bulbous eyes. Eventually, a skulking female figure appears, seemingly trapped behind the bars of its design. Is it the narrators own hidden self? When her husband enters to find her tearing down the wallpaper, she tells him Ive got out at last. And Ive pulled off most of the paper so you cant put me back! Appreciated at the time for its horror, it was reappraised almost a century later as a condemnation of Victorian patriarchy. The doctor faints upon finding his wife stripping the walls, leaving her to creep over his inert body to freedom. Again and again, stories by women can be found emphasising the psychological aspects of a characters torment. In Kerfol, a story by Edith Wharton, a woman is falsely accused of murdering her older husband. But what really killed him could that reality be still worse? In the wake of the trial, she goes mad. Restless spirits Along with their fears and anxieties, women use ghost stories to exorcise their re sentments over societal restrictions. The ghost is the ultimate outsider an absent presence, all-seeing and yet unable to partake of life in any meaningful way. As Welch notes, a significant number of the Victorian and Edwardian women authors featured in her anthology were active supporters of the womens suffrage movement, and its not hard to see why the idea of a ghost would have resonated. Of course, some women occupied more marginal roles than others. In the 19th Century, governesses and ladies maids employees who were neither of the serving class nor the served were especially vulnerable and lonesome. Elizabeth Taylors Poor Girl (1958) depicts the lot of one such woman, Florence, whos haunted by an apparition from the future, a flapper who embodies all her pent-up desire for passion. Whereas Florence is unassuming, dowdy, the ghost is fragrant, dressed in a tunic which scarcely covered the knees, a hat like a helmet drawn over eyes intensely green and matching the long necklace of glass beads which swung on her flat bosom. Spinsters are another group whose discontent is given voice by spooky goings-on. Forced to reply on the goodwill of male relatives, they were expected to embrace self-sacrifice and good works. Little wonder they were so prone to feeling haunted by lives that might have been. The Dissatisfied Soul of Annie Trumbull Slossons 1908 story is Maria Bliven, a spinster described by her sister-in-law as being the fittiest, restlessest, changeablest person imaginable, always leaving before she can be thought to have outstayed her welcome. Little wonder that she cant settle in the afterlife either. And yet by continually effacing herself, hadnt she become a ghost even while alive? Unleashed anger Whatever women repress, ghost stories suggest, will eventually come back to haunt if not them, then those who colluded in keeping them downtrodden. Published the same year as Slossons story, Mary Austins The Readjustment conjures up the character of Emma Jossylin, a woman whose lifes achievements amount to a little low house, a common husband and a son who is crippled. She manages all this with a hard, bright, surface competency and yet, Austin observes, Emma had always wanted things different, wanted them with a fury of intentness that implied offensiveness in things as they were. Three days after Emma dies, shes back. These ghost women are often deeply sympathetic characters. What makes them terrifying is that death has enabled them to break free of social mores and fully unleash the anger that their living sisters must swallow. The ghosts become proto-feminist figures who in death at least cast off the traditional roles that society foists upon them, those of obedient wife, doting mother, dutiful daughter. Some decades later, with feminist gains threatened by the rise of the 1950s domestic goddess, Shirley Jackson could be found mischievously railing against convention: I am tired of writing dainty little biographical things that pretend that I am a trim little housewife in a Mother Hubbard stirring up appetising messes over a wood stove. I live in a dank old place with a ghost that stomps around in the attic room weve never gone into (I think its walled up), and the first thing I did when we moved in was to make charms in black crayon on all the door sills and window ledges to keep out demons, and was successful in the main. (The words come from a newly published collection of literary odds and ends, Let Me Tell You, but her 1959 novel, The Haunting of Hill House, has been cited by Stephen King as one of the greatest horror novels of all time.) In writing ghost stories, the authors were exorcising thoughts and concerns deemed unspeakable at the time. Its these women writers themselves who are the real restless spirits. When Wharton confessed that ghost stories made her so uneasy, shed actually burnt books containing them, it was presumably with tongue firmly in cheek, yet there is often a thrillingly dangerous frisson to the ghost stories that she and her sister writers penned. As Gillian Beer so quotably notes, the form depicts the insurrection not the resurrection of the dead, and nowhere is this more true than in works by women. Given their lineage, you might want to double check that youve locked the back door before settling down with one of this seasons phantom-filled yarns by the likes of Gillian Flynn or Susan Hill. /By AzerNews/ By Laman Sadigova Tehran has come out with an offer to mediate in the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hussein Jaber Ansari said that Iran is ready to mediate between Yerevan and Baku in the long-lasting Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Iran, which shares land borders with Azerbaijan and Armenia, and the occupied lands as well, stands by activating the peace process over the Karabakh conflict. The current format of negotiations, being held in the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group involving Russia, France and USA for more than 20 years, did not bring any step towards peace. The rising tension on the contact line of the Armenian and Azerbaijani troops and human fatalities are another proof of failure. The MG co-chairs are jokingly called "tourists" in Baku, and media as well as various experts have repeatedly suggested that the lack of interests in resolving the conflict. Regular monitoring of contact line under the auspices of the OSCE are more symbolic and do not reflect the real situation. The zeal, recently manifested by the OSCE MG to prevent the PACE to adopt reports accusing Yerevans aggressive policy, did not remain unnoticed in Baku. Against this background, the proposal of Tehran to mediate in the conflict is quite timely as Baku seeks to see the real steps to solve the conflict and no doubt, to welcome this initiative with great interest. Azerbaijani political scientist and Professor of Western University Fikret Sadikhov told AzerNews that this is not the first time when Iran expresses a desire to participate in negotiations on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. This initiative indeed can be very perspective. However, the main obstacle is that Iran has tight relations with Armenia economic, strategic and cultural, and all this casts doubt on the objectivity of Iran. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan and Iran also enjoy good neighboring relations but it is not a reason to attract the Islamic Republic to this question. The OSCE Minsk Group members have frozen the conflict, and Azerbaijan, for sure, is interested in attracting more sides to solve it, said Sadikhov. It seems like the Minsk Group tries to diminish the efforts of Azerbaijan, which can return the occupied lands back based on its strong army. /By AzerNews/ By Laman Sadigova PACE has urged Armenia to recall its armed forces from occupeid lands of Azerbaijan in the resolution entitled "Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water prepared by Milica Markovic. Hikmat Hajiyev, the spokesperson of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said that the PACE resolution condemns the humanitarian and environmental problems created for Azerbaijani citizens living in the region as a result of Armenia's occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territories. The Parliamentary Assembly once more reminded all its member states that the right to water is essential, in accordance with the Helsinki Rules of 1966 and the Berlin Rules of 2004 on water resources, and thus constitutes a prior condition for the enjoyment of other human rights. The Assembly considers that the deliberate creation of the artificial environmental crisis should be regarded as an act of hostility of one state against another with the aim of creating ecological aggression and ecological disaster zones, the spokesperson said. The Assembly urges that the creation of an artificial environmental crisis must be attributed to an environmental aggression and must be seen as a hostile act aimed at creating environmental disaster and making normal life impossible for the population. The Sarsang reservoir was built to provide its residents with water and irrigate agriculture in the surrounding border areas. However, after Armenia occupied these lands, it has been using this reservoir as a tool of humanitarian and ecological terror. In winter months, the Armenian side intentionally opens the floodgates and creates conditions for overflooding the surrounding areas. In summer months, Armenia doesnt allow to use the reservoir. As a result, there are serious problems in provision of people with water, irrigating agriculture and preserving biodiversity. The document also underlines the fact that the lack of regular maintenance work for over 20 years on the Sarsang reservoir, located in one of the areas of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia, poses a danger to the whole border region. The resolution calls on the Armenian government to stop using water resources as a tool of political influence or pressure and in view of the acute humanitarian problems urge immediate withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the region, Hajiyev added. Hajiyev also said that the resolution sharply condemns the fact that Armenian parliamentary delegation and Armenian government did not cooperate with the Assembly during the period when the report was being prepared. Such behavior of Armenia does not comply with the obligations undertaken as a full member of the Council of Europe, he added. The spokesperson said that unfortunately, the report "Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and the other occupied territories of Azerbaijan", as well as a draft resolution on the basis of it prepared by Robert Walter was not adopted. Some 66 PACE members voted for the resolution, 70 voted against it, while 45 abstained. Hajiyev noted that due to the absence of any progress in resolving the conflict, Azerbaijan supports any initiatives of other international institutions which can positively contribute to the elimination of the consequences of Armenia's aggression. Azerbaijan will continue its efforts in keeping this issue on the agenda of international organizations and protect the country's fair stance in this regard. Hajiyev said Azerbaijan will further continue efforts to protect its fair stance. The Council of Europe should seriously fight against the reasons of refugee and IDP problem, Azerbaijani MP Ganira Pashayeva, member of the Azerbaijani delegation to PACE stated in her speech she delivered during the discussion of the report titled, The Mediterranean Sea: a front door to irregular migration" at the PACE. Pashayeva accused the PACE of neglecting the problems of refugees, as well as Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs: I met with Syrian and Iraqi refugees in Turkey a few days ago. Turkey is a door of hope and rescue for them. We call Europe, the council of Europe and PACE to support Turkey that hosted the majority of refugees in 2015 as they leave Turkey alone both in material and spiritual means. Turkey must be an example for those countries, she stressed. During our meeting, Turkmen refugees from Syria and Iraq and their representatives asked to make their voices heard at the PACE. Refugees called Europe to fight against the reasons made them to flee from their countries. The number of refugees will rise and more serious problems will arise, if we do not fight against the reasons, she added. The Azerbaijani MP also made remarks related to the report, Escalation of tension in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan, strictly criticizing the case. She said: The attitude was not positive in terms of the voting of the said report. This kind of attitude should not be allowed at the PACE. It is difficult to explain the sadness of one million Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs who cannot return back their homes and watched the discussions at the PACE. They felt bad about this question. My aim is to explicitly emphasize the falsity of the attitudes of the PACE. It is not easy to prevent the outcomes, miseries and tragedies without fighting against the reasons that made people become refugees. Just think, why do they flee from their homes? They flee from death and being killed. Europe and European countries should know that it is the human duty to support the refugees without any discrimination to their ethnic origins and religions, MP Pashayeva emphasized. /By AzerTac/ Azerbaijan, which holds the largest military budget in the South Caucasus, has considerably increased the volume of production of defense goods in 2015 as compared to previous years. Defense Industry Minister Yaver Jamalov said at a board meeting of the ministry dedicated to the results of 2015 that last year the volume of production of defense goods in Azerbaijan increased by 3.1 times compared to 2010. Azerbaijan mastered production of 11 types of products that were recommended to make operational and put into mass production. Last year, the Defense Industry Ministry accomplished work over the creation of night vision devices, prismatic binoculars with a compass, mine fuses of different types and organized their production. The ministry also continued design and experimental work on the creation of sniper rifles of special purpose in accordance with the NATO standards, ammunitions for automatic weapons, and machine guns of special purpose. Azerbaijani domestically manufactures the Istiglal sniper rifle, Mubariz rifle, Orbiter-2M unmanned intelligence drones, Gurza armored patrol car, "Matador" and "Marauder" armored vehicles, anti-tank mines, etc. Since 2009, the Defense Industry Ministry has demonstrated its products at international exhibitions. The ministry is now in the process of preparations for the second Azerbaijan International Defense Exhibition "ADEX-2016" due in Baku this year. More than 100 international companies have passed registration to participate at the exhibition. Today the ministry is working closely with leading companies and firms in various fields of military industry. It plans to produce a new generation of unmanned aerial vehicles, including the UAVs targeting to destroy the enemy army. Azerbaijan, which is in war with neighboring Armenia over the latter's territorial claims, keeps in focus the armament. The country purchased numerous weapons from foreign countries including Turkey, Russia and Israel, to modernize and upgrade its armed forces, and signed military contracts with over 20 countries which envisage a large-scale weapons supply. Azerbaijan's military budget for 2015 was about $5 billion. The country's international purchases and domestic production of military equipment target protecting its territory from continuous aggression and provocations by the neighboring Armenia. Azerbaijan, according to the US-based Global Firepower survey center, leaves behind the CIS and regional countries to take its place among the first 70 strongest militaries of the world. The survey center has ranked the Azerbaijani army as 64 of 126 in the list of world's strongest armies with a GFP Power Index rating of 1.5221. It reports that as of January 18, 2016, Azerbaijan's weapon arsenal possesses 314 tanks, 121 aircrafts, 79 helicopters, 47 naval vehicles to enter the list of countries with well-equipped military forces in the world. /By AzerNews/ An exhibition of young artists dedicated to the Khojaly genocide will be held in London, a press release of the European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS) said Jan. 28. Works of students and young artists from across the UK will be shown at the exhibition. Winners, works of which are the most imaginative and memorable regarding the power of the image to promote peaceful resolution for conflicts and to empathize with the plight of refugees, will be awarded with Khojaly Peace Prize. The event will be held on Feb. 24. On February 25-26, 1992, the Armenian military, together with the 366th infantry regiment of Soviet troops stationed in Khankendi, committed genocide against the population of the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly. Among those 613 killed in the massacre, there were 63 children, 106 women and 70 old people. Eight families were totally exterminated, 130 children lost one parent and 25 children lost both. A total of 487 civilians became disabled as a result of the onslaught. Some 1,275 innocent residents were taken hostage, while the fate of 150 people still remains unknown. /By Trend/ /By AzerNews/ By Aynur Karimova Iran and France are interested in taking huge measures for the interest of their peoples and peace and security. This was stated at a meeting of visiting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and President of France's Senate Gerard Larcher in Paris on January 27. Rouhani arrived in Paris on January 27 after a three-day stay in Italy. During the meeting, Rouhani and Larcher voiced support to enhanced bilateral relations and reviewed regional and international developments, IRNA reported. Rouhani stressed the opportunity of post-sanctions era, saying that both nations - Iran and France -were hurt from "oppressive and unfair sanctions." "Today we have to make up for the past by establishment of comprehensive ties," he added. Naming the nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers as a very significant and rare incident in the world's political history, the president said it once again reiterated the mighty role of diplomacy and negotiations. Adopting such an approach can settle other important regional and international issues, Rouhani said. The Iranian president expressed dismay over recent terrorist attacks in Paris and noted that terrorism is a dangerous virus and a contagious threat which can unsettle the world including European cities. "To fight terrorism, major rifts should be prevented in the region. The foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran follows such an approach," he said. Larcher welcomed the visit of the Iranian president to France and said that Paris sees a bright future before Iran and France for increasing their relations. He said removal of sanctions has provided the opportunity for rapprochement of bilateral ties between the two countries. Also supporting collective measures in the fight against terrorism, Larcher said that France believes in Iran's constructive role in the settlement of regional issues and in the anti-terror fight. The United States has requested the NATOs help in fighting Islamic State terrorist organization (IS, ISIL, ISIS or Daesh) in the Middle East by providing surveillance planes called the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), Alliances Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Jan. 28. "We have got a request from the U.S. to provide support to the efforts of the coalition, to help them with the NATO AWACS surveillance planes, and we are now looking into that request," Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at a news conference presenting the annual report of 2015. He said that NATO defense ministers would discuss the U.S. request at their meeting in early February, although there is no deadline for any decision. He noted that all Alliance members are also the members of coalition against the IS. AWACS monitor airspace within a radius of more than 400 km (250 miles) and exchange information via digital data links, with ground-based, sea-based and airborne commanders. /By Trend/ The Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Azerbaijan has held the first meeting of the working group on preparation of the draft concept of employment in the Republic of Azerbaijan (for 2016-2025 years). The meeting was attended by representatives of economy, culture and tourism, youth and sports, taxes ministries, State Statistics Committee, the Council of State Support to NGOs, Azerbaijan Trade Unions Confederation, World Bank, UN Population Fund and the International Labour Organization. Minister of Labour and Social Protection of Population Salim Muslimov in his speech underlined that according to the relevant instructions of President Ilham Aliyev to build a long-term state policy of employment on the basis of economic trends and priorities, taking into account demographic trends and prospects of the country`s development, the Ministry will develop the concept of employment of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Muslimov also pointed out that due to the positive demographic trends, the population of Azerbaijan continues to grow. This trend, in turn, determines the future creation of new jobs as our main problem. Therefore, assessment of the impact of demographic factors on the labor market will be taken into account during the preparation of the Concept. The priority areas in the drafting of the Concept will be the development of macroeconomic policy and entrepreneurship, employment policy in the new phase of economic development, the creation of competitive human resources and information support for the development of the labor market, the Minister said. /By AzerTac/ A relatively new mosquito-borne virus is prompting worldwide concern because of an alarming connection to a neurological birth disorder and the rapid spread of the virus across the globe. The Zika virus, transmitted by the aggressive Aedes aegypti mosquito,has now spread to at least 24 countries.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning pregnant women against travel to those areas; health officials in several of those countries are telling female citizens to avoid becoming pregnant, in some cases for up to two years. The U.S. Defense Department is offering voluntary relocation to pregnant employees and their beneficiaries who are stationed in affected areas. "That's a pandemic in progress," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. "It isn't as if it's turning around and dying out, it's getting worse and worse as the days go by." Here are five important things to know: 1. What is Zika and why is it so serious? The Zika virus is a flavivirus, part of the same family as yellow fever, West Nile, chikungunya and dengue. But unlike some of those viruses, there is no vaccine to prevent Zika or medicine to treat the infection. Zika is commanding worldwide attention because of an alarming connection between the virus and microcephaly, a neurological disorder that results in babies being born with abnormally small heads. This causes severe developmental issues and sometimes death. Since November, Brazil has seen 4,180 cases of microcephaly in babies born to women who were infected with Zika during their pregnancies. To put that in perspective, there were only 146 cases in 2014. So far, 51 babies have died. Other Latin American countries are now seeing cases in newborns as well, while in the United States one Hawaiian baby was born with microcephaly linked to the Zika virus after his mother returned from Brazil. Several states have confirmed the virus in individuals who traveled to areas where the virus is circulating, including Illinois, where health officials are monitoring two infected pregnant women. The CDC is asking OB-GYNs to review fetal ultrasounds and do maternal testing for any pregnant woman who has traveled to one of the 24 countries where Zika is currently active. A smaller outbreak of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare autoimmune disorder that can lead to life-threatening paralysis, is also linked to Zika in a several countries. 2. How is Zika spread? The virus is transmitted when an Aedes mosquito bites a person with an active infection and then spreads the virus by biting others. Those people then become carriers during the time they have symptoms. In most people, symptoms of the virus are mild, including fever, headache, rash and possible pink eye. In fact, 80% of those infected never know they have the disease. That's especially concerning for pregnant women, as this virus has now been shown to pass through amniotic fluid to the growing baby. "What we now know," said Dr. Lyle Petersen, director of the CDC's Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, "is that fetuses can be infected with the virus. That's not new for infectious diseases, but it is new for this virus." "This is a very remarkable and unusual situation," agreed Fauci, "because the other flaviviruses don't do that to our knowledge. You just don't see that with dengue or West Nile or chikungunya." In addition, the CDC says there have been documented cases of virus transmission during labor, blood transfusion, laboratory exposure and sexual contact. While Zika has been found in breast milk, it's not yet confirmed it can be passed to the baby through nursing. There have been only two documented cases linking Zika to sex. During the 2013 Zika outbreak in French Polynesia, semen and urine samples from a 44-year-old Tahitian man tested positive for Zika even when blood samples did not. Five years before that, in 2008, a Colorado microbiologist named Brian Foy contacted Zika after travel to Senegal; his wife came down with the disease a few days later even though she had not left northern Colorado and was not exposed to any mosquitoes carrying the virus. 3. Where is the Zika virus now? The Zika virus is now being locally transmitted in Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Cape Verde, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Saint Martin, Suriname, Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Venezuela, says the CDC. Zika has arrived in the United States, but only from travelers returning from these infected areas. The concern, of course, is whether these imported cases could result in locally transmitted cases within the United States. The Aedes albopictus, or Asian tiger mosquito, which along with Aedes aegypti transmits Zika virus, is present in many areas of the United States. If mosquitoes in the United States do become carriers, a model created by Toronto researchers found more than 63% of the U.S population lives in areas where Zika virus might spread during seasonally warm months.A little over 7% of Americans live in areas where the cold might not kill off the mosquito in the winter, leaving them vulnerable year round. 4. What can you do to protect yourself against Zika? With no treatment or vaccine available, the only protection against Zika is to avoid travel to areas with an active infestation. If you do travel to a country where Zika is present, the CDC advises strict adherence to mosquito protection measures: Use an EPA-approved repellent over sunscreen, wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts thick enough to block a mosquito bite, and sleep in air-conditioned, screened rooms, among others. If you have Zika, you can keep from spreading it to others by avoiding mosquito bites during the first week of your illness, says the CDC. The female Aedes aegypti, the primary carrier of Zika, is an aggressive biter, preferring daytime to dusk and indoors to outdoors. Keeping screens on windows and doors is critical to preventing entry to homes and hotel rooms. 5. What's being done to stop Zika? Researchers are hard at work in laboratories around the world trying to create a Zika vaccine. Until those efforts bear fruit, health officials are implementing traditional mosquito control techniques such as spraying pesticides and emptying standing water receptacles where mosquitoes breed. The CDC is encouraging local homeowners, hotel owners and visitors to countries with Zika outbreaks to join in by also eliminating any standing water they see, such as in outdoor buckets and flowerpots. Studies show local control is only marginally effective, since it's so hard to get to all possible breeding areas. And since Aedes aegypti has evolved to live near humans and "can replicate in flower vases and other tiny sources of water," said microbiologist Brian Foy, the mosquitoes are particularly difficult to find and eradicate. Another prevention effort is OX513A, a genetically modified male Aedes aegypti, dubbed by critics as the "mutant mosquito" or "Robo-Frankenstein mosquito." The creation of British company Oxitec, OX513A is designed to stop the spread of Zika by passing along a gene that makes his offspring die. Since females only mate once, in theory this slows the growth of the population. Each OX513A carries a fluorescent marker, so he can be tracked by scientists. Key West, Florida, residents gave the genetically modified male his monster nicknames while protesting a trial release of the mosquito in 2012 as a way to combat an outbreak of dengue fever in South Florida. That effort is under review by the Food and Drug Administration. But field trials in Brazil in 2011 were hugely successful, according to Oxitec, eliminating up to 99% of the target population. A new release of males in the Pedra Branca area of Brazil in 2014 was 92% successful, according to the company. The mosquito has also been tested in the Cayman Islands, Malaysia and Panama. Last year, Oxitec announced plans to build an OX513A mosquito production facility in Piracicaba, Brazil, that it says will be able to protect 300,000 residents. /By CNN/ Days after celebrating the long-delayed completion of the Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear plant near Knoxville, the Nuclear Energy Institute was lamenting the closure of the Omaha Public Power's Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant near Omaha, Neb. "The premature closing of Fort Calhoun illustrates the situation in which well-operating nuclear facilities are forced to shut down as a result of weak market conditions. This is especially the case with smaller, single-unit facilities in unregulated markets such as Nebraska where economies of scale make it challenging to generate electricity at a competitive price," Marvin Fertel, the NEI's president and chief executive officer, said. Fort Calhoun operated 43 years, generating 34 percent of the power distributed by Omaha Public Power and 9 percent of Nebraska's electricity. But like other nuclear plants - especially in states with deregulated electricity markets - it is now hard for them to compete against historically low natural gas prices from the new era of fracking, as well as the growth of renewable energy. Fort Calhoun, which shut down on Monday, was licensed to operate until Aug. 9, 2033. Licensed to operate until Aug. 9, 2033, the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant near Omaha, Neb. this week became the nation's latest nuclear plant to shut down because of changing economics brought on by fracking and the growth of renewable energy. Photo credit: Associated Press. The NEI has argued its plants should get market credits for reliability and for not releasing climate-altering carbon dioxide during operations. The nuclear industry touts itself as carbon-free, which isn't exactly true. A lot of carbon dioxide is generated by the uranium mining needed to make nuclear fuel. But even by factoring in that and other cradle-to-grave emissions from construction, transportation, and decommissioning plants, it's hard to argue its carbon footprint is relatively low in comparison to coal-fired power plants or even those fueled by cleaner natural gas. "The negative impacts of its untimely closing make it clear there is an urgent need to prevent this from happening to other nuclear plants at risk of premature retirement," Fertel said. "Without change, there will be more plant closings resulting in similar negative economic and environmental consequences." Fort Calhoun's shutdown came only five days after the NEI put out a statement commemorating the long-awaited opening of Watts Bar Unit 2, a plant which took decades to build. Watts Bar Unit 2 is America's first new plant to come online since 1996, when its companion plant, Watts Bar Unit 1, began operation. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued construction permits for both way back in 1973. Construction for both was put on hold in the mid 1980s. Watts Bar Unit 1 was finished and went online in the late 1990s. Work resumed on Watts Bar Unit 2 a few years ago. The site is not without controversy: The NRC said in a news release Wednesday it has scheduled a Nov. 3 meeting with TVA officials to discuss the agency's concerns over what it has described as a "chilled work environment," one in which the utility may have "unduly influenced" some employees from raising safety concerns. It all adds up to more trouble for the nuclear industry, despite strides it has made in some areas. In recent months, many of the strongest statements about nuclear's future aren't just found in the hyperbole of anti-nuclear groups but in dire predictions from industry figures such as Fertel, who said at a U.S. Department of Energy conference in Washington last May theres a sense of urgency to improve economics of the nations 99 remaining nuclear plants. If the playing field isnt leveled to account more for nuclear powers attributes as a low-carbon, high-output source of electricity, the industry could have as many as 20 more plants shut down prematurely over the next decade, he said. Advocates say that would mean tens of thousands of jobs lost while jeopardizing national security with greater dependence on more intermittent energy sources such as wind and solar power. We need a much, much greater sense of urgency to address the issues that were seeing right now, Fertel said back then. He said the industry was "obviously mistaken" to think the trend would stop with the shutdowns on the Kewaunee nuclear plant in Wisconsin in 2013 and Vermont Yankee in 2014. Since then, Energy Corp. has announced it will retire its FitzPatrick and Pilgrim nuclear plants in upstate New York and Massachusetts, respectively, by the end of the decade. Exelon recently said it cannot continue to incur losses from its twin-unit Quad Cities and single-unit Clinton plants in Illinois much longer. These are not isolated events. We have a systemic problem, Fertel said. This is a serious, systemic problem, and it requires action now. The NEI's Marvin Fertel said in May there is a "sense of urgency" now to save nuclear plants. Matt Bennett, senior vice president for public affairs of Third Way, a Washington think tank that claims to take moderate views on national issues, said at the same event that Americans need to acknowledge the house is on fire. Photo credit: Nuclear Energy Institute. Matt Bennett, senior vice president for public affairs of Third Way, a Washington think tank that claims to take moderate views on national issues, said at that same DOE conference last May that Americans need to acknowledge the house is on fire. In this part of the country, FirstEnergy Corp. has vowed to stick by its aging Davis-Besse nuclear plant east of Toledo and its Perry plant east of Cleveland. DTE Energy likewise has no immediate plans to shut its Fermi 2 nuclear plant north of Monroe. But Ohio and Michigan are among 13 states with deregulated electricity markets where nuclear plants have an especially hard time competing. Those with single units have even more difficulty, officials said. A 2013 Vermont Law School report listed Davis-Besse as one of a dozen plants most likely to close early because of economics. Wind and solar are criticized by nuclear advocates because of their start-up subsidies. But several years ago, a conservative group, Taxpayers for Common Sense, identified $85 billion in subsidies to nuclear power since 1948, of which more than $66 billion was spent on nuclear energy research and subsidies through 1998. While Fertel blamed dysfunctional market conditions for threats to thousands of jobs and steady production of electricity, U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said theres a lot more at stake. Nuclear still provides almost 20 percent of the nations electricity. But a lot of people dont realize it also accounts for 60 percent of the electricity today from low-carbon sources, he said. Without as many nuclear plants operating, America will have a hard time achieving the commitment it made to other countries under last Decembers United Nations climate change treaty in Paris to reduce greenhouse gases 27 percent by 2025, Mr. Moniz said at the DOE event in May. Many of the plants will turn 60 years old around 2030 and they cant be expected to run indefinitely, he said. We are supposed to be adding zero-carbon sources, not subtracting or simply replacing them to tread water, Mr. Moniz said. We need to prevent more closures and get on the trajectory of adding capacity. Ironically, a rule many utilities are fighting the Obama Administrations controversial Clean Power Plan to reduce greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants is becoming one of the potential tools for saving nuclear plants, Mr. Moniz said. Keeping more nuclear around would help states comply with that rule, he said. One suggestion for getting the market to better value nuclears attributes is changing state renewable energy mandates to clean energy standards that would give utilities more incentives to invest in nuclear power. Thirty states have renewable-energy mandates. Ohio lawmakers are deciding whether to keep their two-year freeze in effect indefinitely. The law passed in Ohio several years ago required 12.5 percent of the states electricity come from renewables by 2025 and 12.5 percent from a combination of undefined clean coal and advanced nuclear. Craig Glazer, vice president of PJM, the 13-state regional grid operator that includes Ohio, said market incentives are being created to reward high-performing, low-emitting energy sources but not nuclear per se. If the goal is to just save nuclear, thats another goal, he said at the DOE event in May. Mike Langford, Utilities Workers Union of America national president, said states with deregulated energy markets might have to be re-regulated to save nuclear plants and the thousands of workers they employ. This industry is too vulnerable to be left up to chance, Mr. Langford said at the same event. Energy is the engine of our economy, and were leaving it up to chance. It blows me away. Deals with French companies to help develop Iranian airports are likely to be announced during President Hassan Rouhani's two-day visit to Paris this week, a source close to the matter said on Tuesday. "Cooperation deals on Iranian airports should be announced on Thursday," the source said. Rouhani is heading a delegation of ministers and Iranian business leaders visiting Italy and France this week in a first official visit to Europe after sanctions were lifted on Iran. The visit is expected to see the signing of deals and agreements in various sectors worth several billion dollars as Iran seeks to revamp its economy after the sanctions. Rouhani will arrive in Paris on Wednesday for the two-day visit. According to the Wall Street Journal, French construction group Bouygues and Aeroports de Paris could be chosen to design and build a new terminal at Tehran's international airport while Vinci could develop and operate airports in Mashhad and another Iranian city. Bouygues, Vinci and ADP declined comment. ADP's CEO Augustin de Romanet travelled to Iran last summer to discuss the expansion of Tehran's airport, a project ADP and Bouygues have been eyeing for several years. "At this stage, talks continue but it is much too early for us to anounce anything," an ADP spokeswoman recently said. Reuters The World Health Organization will hold a special session on Thursday on the Zika virus for quick action against the infection linked to thousands of birth defects in Brazil that is spreading through Latin America and the Caribbean. The World Health Organization will hold a special session on Thursday on the Zika virus as the U.N. agency comes under pressure for quick action against the infection linked to thousands of birth defects in Brazil that is spreading through Latin America and the Caribbean. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan was set to address the agency's executive board in Geneva as countries took new steps on Wednesday to try to stop the mosquito-transmitted virus linked to the dangerous birth defect called microcephaly. The United States said it will block people who have visited regions impacted by the virus from donating blood in a bid to fight its spread. The US Food and Drug Administration said it is working with other federal agencies, blood collection establishments and industry organizations to quickly implement "donor deferral measures for travelers who have visited affected regions in order to protect the blood supply in the United States." Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said her country must wage war against the Aedes aegypti mosquito that spreads the virus, focusing on getting rid of the insect's breeding grounds. The mosquito thrives in dense tropical cities, and Rousseff called for the elimination of stagnant water spots where it lives and reproduces. US researchers called on the WHO to take swift action. Georgetown University researchers urged Chan to heed the lessons of Ebola and called on the WHO to convene a special emergency session of health and infectious disease experts to consider declaring Zika a serious health crisis that endangers international public health. Just convening the meeting would focus attention on funding and research, they said in an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The WHO's leadership admitted last April to serious missteps in its handling of the Ebola crisis, which was focused mostly on three West African countries and killed more than 10,000 people. Some critics have said the WHO's slow response played a major role in allowing the epidemic to balloon into the worst Ebola outbreak on record. AIRLINES OFFER REFUNDS Airlines are reacting to concern among pregnant women about travel to affected countries. Chile-based LATAM Airlines , Latin America's largest carrier, said it would offer refunds or the opportunity to change destination to pregnant women and their traveling companions with international flights booked to Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and other affected countries. US airline United Airlines expanded its program allowing customers with reserved tickets for travel to impacted regions to postpone their trips or obtain refunds with no penalty. A tropical climate, dense cities, poor sanitation and slipshod construction provided ideal conditions for mosquito breeding grounds and the spread of the Zika virus in Brazil's northeast, across the country and to more than 20 others throughout the Americas. There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is a close cousin of dengue and chikungunya and causes mild fever, rash and red eyes. An estimated 80 per cent of people infected have no symptoms, making it difficult for pregnant women to know whether they have been infected. Recent models for how the disease is spreading predict "significant international spread by travelers from Brazil to the rest of the Americas, Europe, and Asia," Dr. Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease expert, and Lawrence Gostin, a global health law expert, wrote in the viewpoint article in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Lucey said only Chan had the authority to convene an emergency meeting of top experts on the International Health Regulations' Emergency Committee to consider declaring Zika a "Public Health Emergency of International Concern." "That in my view clearly needs to happen, and should have happened already," Lucey said. Convening the meeting would allow for global coordination of travel advisories, research priorities and infection control measures, he said. There was word of more cases outside the affected region among travelers who had been to those countries. Portugal said five people tested positive after recent trips to Brazil. Four similar cases were reported in New York, as well as single cases in California, Minnesota, Virginia and Arkansas among people who had traveled to the affected region. Reuters Japan's Toshiba Corp plans to sell part of its chip business as it aims to recover from a $1.3 billion accounting scandal, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Saturday. The electronics conglomerate has started accepting bids, with early interest shown by the Development Bank of Japan Inc, said the sources, who declined to be identified because they are not authorized to talk to the media. The state-owned bank has already invested in Seiko Holdings Corp's semiconductor operations. The sale would exclude Toshiba's mainstay NAND flash memory operations, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter and one person familiar with the discussions. On the block are businesses that handle system LSI and discrete chips, which are widely used in cars, home appliances and industrial machinery. The loss-making operations posted sales of 330 billion yen ($2.78 billion) in the year ended March 2015. A Toshiba spokesman told Reuters the company hasn't made a decision yet on the sale of its chip operations, while a spokeswoman at the Development Bank of Japan declined to comment. Following the accounting scandal, Toshiba has been focusing on nuclear and other energy operations, as well as its storage business, which centers on NAND flash memory chips used in smart phones. The Tokyo-based company, which is selling off non-core chip operations, plans to invest heavily in its flash memory production capacity in Japan to better compete with South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.- Reuters GE and the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, the founding partners of the inaugural Emirates Energy Efficiency Summit to be held in Dubai, UAE, have announced details of the speaker programme. After a year of continued global energy crises and with renewed volatility in the crude oil market, the event will provide valuable insights into the key energy challenges the world faces in 2016, said a statement. The invitation-only event, which takes place on February 3 and 4 at the American University in Dubai, will host an informative programme of roundtable discussions and expert presentations. Among the speakers are Dr Mohamed Ahmed Bin Fahad and Dr Meshgan Al Awar, chairman and secretary general, respectively, of Zayed International Foundation for the Environment, who will be sharing their significant insights. Also taking to the stage will be Abdulla Alshahyari, acting director of the Conservation and Efficiency Department at the UAE Ministry of Energy. With the UAE looking to lead the Middle Easts energy efficient movement, Alshahyari will share case studies and examples of best practice, drawing from the ministrys vast experience. The attendees will learn how the country is diversifying its economy towards a future that looks increasingly likely to lie in renewable energy. Working under the overarching theme of Energy Efficiency in the UAE: an opportunity for sustained growth and global leadership,' the speakers will be sharing their understanding of the main components needed for successful engagement with the content organised into three broad streams. The Informed section will consider how to educate and inspire future generations, with a focus on the role of social media in spreading important energy efficiency messages. There will be an emphasis on the increasingly important role technology plays in reducing inefficient energy use, said the statement. The section will touch upon recent findings by the Masdar Group, based in Abu Dhabi, who have identified that sand could play a key role in concentrated solar power and the ramifications this could have for the region, it said. The Motivated content stream will look at the key drivers for behavioral change and the need to tailor communications to encourage consumers and businesses to invest in energy efficiency. This is a particular salient point of discussion for the region after the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) opened avenues for private firms to invest in the states renewable energy market, amid budget constraints. Finally, the Accountable section will consider incentives versus legislation and the effect on the wider society. With the UAE Government's recent decision to abolish water and electric subsidies, in a bid to curb energy usage, speakers will debate whether the legislation will have its desired impact and consider what role measurability - from metering to labelling has on dictating energy use. Erdem Soyal, project sales general manager for GE Middle East, Africa and Turkey (MEAT), said: The overall objective of the EEES is to foster enhanced communication, while educating participants about key energy efficiency issues and provoking a two-way dialogue. "As such, we are keen to bring together a heavyweight program of speakers that can add real value for participants and will ultimately drive tangible action. - TradeArabia News Service Royal Dutch Shell shareholders approved its $50 billion takeover of BG Group on Wednesday, clearing the last main hurdle to creating the biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) trader in the world. BG shareholders are also expected to approve one of the biggest deals in the energy sector in the past decade at a meeting on Thursday, a vote that would allow the two oil and gas companies to merge on Feb. 15. Few investors have openly challenged the deal's strategic benefits for Shell. But with oil languishing near $30 a barrel and only a slow recovery forecast, some had questioned the viability of a deal that would increase Shell's debt burden. Shares in BG were up 1.3 per cent at 1325 GMT (8:25 a.m. ET), while Shell's B shares traded 0.5 per cent lower, both outperforming a 0.9 per cent fall in the European oil and gas index .SXEP and valuing Shell's cash and share offer at about $50 billion. "Our immediate focus is on the successful completion of the transaction and we now await the results of tomorrow's BG shareholder vote," Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden said. In the vote at the meeting in The Hague, 83 per cent of Shell shareholders voted in favour of the deal with 17 per cent against. More than 40 per cent of Shell's shareholders also own about half of BG's stock, according to Reuters data. If the deal is approved by all shareholders Shell will become the world's most powerful LNG trader and gain access to valuable oil resources off Brazil and in Australia. Some shareholders at Wednesday's meeting had expressed concern about Shell overpaying for BG, based on the near halving of oil prices since the deal was announced on April 8 last year. Shell chief financial officer Simon Henry said on Wednesday that every $10 decline in the price of a barrel of oil shaves $4 billion off the combined Shell-BG cashflow. The companies expect to save about $3.5 billion in overlapping costs following their merger. Other shareholders said they were concerned about Shell betting more heavily on fossil fuels through the BG deal, rather than investing in renewable energy. "We have voted against this deal because we think there is a much better way to spend billions: in renewable energy," Mark van Baal, founder of Follow This, a group of Shell shareholders supporting green energy with about 5 million euros of shares. Reuters Iran is planning several projects to expand its oil production and export capabilities, reports said, highlighting a new oil terminal to export one million barrels per day (bpd), and a $1.7 billion development of South Pars Gas Field. The new terminal would be built at Jask Port, on the coast of the Gulf of Oman on the south coasts of Iran, Seyyed Piruz Mousavi, the head of the Iranian Oil Terminals Company (IOTC), was quoted as saying by Irna, Irans official news agency, which cited Shana. In the event of any type of problem in exporting crude oil from the Kharg terminal, the new one can provide backup for exports, Mousavi said. The new terminal would be connected to the Caspian Sea port of Neka using a one million barrel a day pipeline, the report added. According to Mousavi the terminal would have a storage capacity of 20 million barrels and could cost up $2.2 billion to build. South Pars development Meanwhile, Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC) has allocated more than $1.7 billion for the development of South Pars Gas Field in the last nine months, according to a report from Iran Daily, which cited Shana. "Some $10 billion is also needed for completion of the development projects," POGC managing director Ali-Akbar Shabanpur was quoted as saying. "Total eight-month production from the phases exceeded 83 billion cu m and this figure is expected to rise to 130 billion cu m by mid-March," he added. Deal with Lukoil In yet another move, Iran has signed a $6 million deal with Russias Lukoil over two exploration projects in the countrys south-western oil-rich Khouzestan province, according to The Iran Project. Lukoil will look for hydrocarbon reserves in Dasht-e Abadan and the northern parts of the Persian Gulf, Hormoz Qalavand, the director for exploration affairs of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), was quoted as saying. Lukoil has already started the project work, Qalavand added. Dubai welcomed over 14.2 million overnight visitors in 2015, recording a strong 7.5 per cent increase over 2014, according to annual figures released by Dubai's Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism). The figure was double the United Nations World Travel Organisation's (UNWTO) projected 3-4 per cent global travel growth for the same period. Dubai Tourism said the emirate's tourism sector once again proved the tenacity and strength of its economic contribution, as it made steady progress towards the target of 20 million visitors per year by 2020, despite a year afflicted by macro-economic uncertainties, and amidst a particularly turbulent geo-political climate during the second half of 2015 internationally. Helal Saeed Almarri, director general, Dubai Tourism, said: "Under the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, last year was a very strong year for Dubai's travel sector, achieving double the global industry growth levels and our international visitation hitting 14.2 million, which firmly positions us as the fourth most visited city in the world. "Our performance over the past 12 months is undeniably reflective of the resilience of our diversified market strategy, our unified industry-level responsiveness, and ultimately the sustained strength of Dubai's proposition." Through the pursuit of a multi-geography visitation mix strategy, Dubai furthered the performance achieved in the first half of the year to deliver strong growth across key feeder regions, mitigating the downward trends in specific countries. The GCC remained the regional foothold, supporting continued demand from near-markets to Dubai, consequently delivering the highest share of visitor volumes for 2015, with a total of 3.3 million, up 12.8 per cent over 2014. In terms of country-specific volumes from the GCC, Saudi Arabia remained the lead market, contributing 1.54 million visitors, followed by Oman accounting for over 1 million travellers. Kuwait and Qatar were also among the top 20 markets, with the former the only one to register a decline in growth versus 2014 yet retaining its top 10 position, and the latter recovering strongly from mid-year with a high 32 per cent year-on-year increase for the full year of 2015. Despite a sluggish economy and a strong US Dollar constraining Dubai's competitiveness, Western Europe remained the second highest regional contributor to visitor volumes, bringing in nearly 3 million tourists, reflecting a solid 6.1 per cent growth in numbers. The UK remained within Dubai's top 3 source countries with 11 per cent growth, accounting for nearly 1.2 million visitors. Germany also stayed in the top 10 list with 7 per cent growth generating over 460,000 visitors, followed by two others in the top 20 traffic generators - France showing a slight decline primarily in the last quarter of 2015, and Italy remaining flat versus 2014. Northern European markets across the Nordics and the Benelux, while independently small in volume, have been frontier growth generators for tourism traffic in 2015, on the back of growing direct flight capacity from the region. South Asia was the next largest region by volume, bringing in 2.3 million visitors, reflecting a 21.7 per cent increase versus 2014. India dominated the region, becoming Dubai's number one source market for the first time by bringing in over 1.6 million tourists, and the country was the second fastest growing market with a 26% per cent year-on-year growth, followed by Pakistan that ranked just outside the top five, ending 2015 at 11 per cent growth and 513,000 visitors. Efforts to serve highly segment-specific messaging in cities with the highest connectivity and latent capacity, as well as building stronger trade ties in market with digital travel intermediaries, have yielded results and will continue to enable Dubai to capture a share of the growing Indian upper middle-class family and business segments. Over 1.6 million visitors came from the wider Middle East and North Africa region, representing a 1.3 per cent growth - a strong outcome in the face of heightened regional disturbances. Iran delivered a reliable 6 per cent increase to enter the top 10 rankings as a key source market, with much of the remaining volumes attributable to Egypt and Jordan, each independently registering robust 15 per cent growth versus 2014 for the full year. Asian markets (excluding the Indian sub-continent) were the next largest regional contributors with a total of 1.2 million travellers to Dubai - a 17.9 per cent increase for 2015 compared to the previous year. With 450,000 Chinese tourists to Dubai last year, inbound traffic from China dominated the uptake from this region, topping the leader board of year-on-year growth trends with a 29 per cent increase in numbers. The Philippines delivered 325,000 tourists, with a particularly strong third quarter performance raising it to number 11 in the source market rankings. The Americas brought in just short of 1 million travellers, growing at a healthy 8.2 per cent thanks to the strong airlift and increase in point-to-point routes from both east and west coasts. His Excellency Almarri explained: "Through 2016 we will continue to leverage increasing airlift, open and streamlined visa policies, and a broad destination appeal that offers something for all travel segments. Having rolled out its global brand campaign in the last quarter of 2015, Dubai continues to work on building brand awareness in new markets and addressing perception gaps in existing markets where there is limited market share capture, to better penetrate and attract the fast growing, mass affluent segments as future leisure and business visitors. TradeArabia News Service The TransGriot is available for speaking engagements, college lectures, panel discussions, media interviews, conferences or Trans 101 education efforts for your school, business or professional organizations. For local Houston area, Texas or national events, you can e-mail me at transgriot@yahoo.com For events outside the Houston metro area, I ask that my travel and lodging expenses be covered. This is separate from my speaking fee. If you are interested in having me appear as a speaker or panelist, you can e-mail me with the date and details of your proposed event. Please book as early as possible because my speaking and event calendar slots during the year rapidly fill up. U.S. officials on Wednesday cleared the way for a review of two mining projects that would dig up 644 million tons of coal from public lands, despite a recent government moratorium halting federal coal sales. Wyoming, Montana and U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials approved moving forward with a multiyear evaluation of the projects located next to existing mines in the states Powder River Basin, the nations largest coal-producing region. The Jan. 15 moratorium from the Obama administration allows coal sale applications to be reviewed but blocks their final approval pending a sweeping review of the federal coal program, expected to take three years. Industry opponents had urged officials to block the applications. They cited concerns over climate change and other environmental effects from burning coal and questioned if taxpayers were getting a fair deal in a program that has sold more than $2.2 billion of coal since President Barack Obama took office, at prices below $1 per ton in many cases. While the administration has aired similar concerns, Wednesdays vote indicates it remains unwilling for now to shut down a program that gives private companies cheap access to massive coal reserves in the Western U.S. and provides significant revenue to states. Gillette, Wyoming-based Cloud Peak Energy and Lighthouse Resources Inc. of Salt Lake City are seeking the coal applications. Company representatives said it was crucial that work start soon on their applications in order to have coal available for mining in future years, when current reserves are depleted. Lighthouse Resources wants to increase its annual production from 3 million tons to as much as 15 million tons at its Decker Mine in southeastern Montana, environmental manager Jordan Sweeney said. The company wants to export the fuel through new coal ports proposed on the West Coast. Cloud Peaks Antelope Mine produces coal for U.S. markets and would continue to do so with the additional fuel its seeking, said Blake Jones, the mines technical services manager. The company submitted an application involving another federal coal tract in 2005, and it was approved only last year, Jones said. Most of that coal likely will be mined by the time a decision is made on the latest application, he said. With this long of a process, we need to move forward to get it started, Jones said. Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, WildEarth Guardians and other environmental groups said power plants burning the coal sought by Cloud Peak and Lighthouse Resources would generate over 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide gas, the main contributor to global warming. We know the federal coal system is broken. President Obama has called for a deep review of the program, and the world is turning to cleaner options, said Diana Best with Greenpeace USA. A shift in the industrys fortunes reached a critical juncture last year, when cheaper natural gas overtook coal to become the dominant fuel used to generate electricity in the U.S. In response to the declining demand, coal mining companies had sharply scaled back their pursuit of new leases even before the moratorium. In November, Peabody Energy and Arch coal the two largest U.S. coal mining companies withdrew applications to lease almost 2 billion tons of coal in Wyoming. Other companies have asked federal officials to delay sales on three leases totaling 668 million tons. Fundraiser for first baby Kylie Marie Gammon was born at Wyoming Medical Center at 8:07 a.m., on Jan. 1, 2016, the daughter of Paul Gammon and Jeanetta Garmon. She was born at 27 weeks, weighing 2.7 pounds. She is currently in the neonatal intensive care unit at Chldrens Hospital, Aurora, Colo. A silent auction to help her parents with expenses is planned for Friday from 6 to 9 p.m., at the Black Gold Grille, 1650 English Ave. There will be free nachos for all participants and food and drinks available for purchase as well. Children are welcome. To donate to the auction, please call Cassandra Monk at 208-313-5062. In addition, a Go Fund Me account has been established to donate online at gofund.me/KylieMarieGammon Benefit breakfast Feb. 7 VFW Post 9439 and Auxiliary, 1800 Bryan Stock Trail will host a benefit breakfast for NATRONA COUNTY ROTC on Sunday, February 7, 2016 from 8 AM until 11 AM. All proceeds will go to NATRONA COUNTY ROTC . Menu includes ham, bacon, sausage, biscuits with sausage gravy, eggs, hash browns, green chili, pancakes, danish, fruit and beverages. Cost is $7 for adults and $3.50 for children under 10. Please come out and give your support! Public is welcome! Info: 235-4867. Mercedes featured at annual reverse raffle Your investment in Great Futures for youth at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Wyoming could inspire a road trip in a Mercedes convertible. The annual Reverse Raffle and Auction to benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Wyoming will feature the chance to win a 1994 Mercedes 500SL. The black two-door soft top convertible also comes with a hard top for Wyomingswinter, a V8 engine, automatic transmission, and leather interior. Those who donate to the Impact Auction at the event will have the chance to win the car. The more you donate, the more chances you have to win. Even if you cant make it to the event, you can still purchase tickets by donating to support Academic Success, Good Character & Citizenship, and Healthy Lifestyles. In addition to the chance to win the car, each ticket into the event is a chance to win $5,000. Enjoy dinner, bid on over $200,000 in live and silent auction items including exotic trips, furniture sets, original art, exclusive hunting expeditions, golf excursions, firearms and much more! The Invest in a Child Inspire a Future Reverse Raffle and Auction is Saturday, Feb. 6, 2016 at 5 p.m. at the Casper Events Center. Tickets are $125 each or sponsor a table of eight for $1,000. To reserve your tickets or to inquire about the chance to win the 1994 Mercedes, call 235-4079. Concert benefits mission The Central Wyoming Rescue Mission presents Tenth Avenue North on its All the Earth is Holy Ground tour, along with Hawk Nelson and I Am They at 7 p.m., Tuesday, April 5, at Highland Park Community Church. Tickets are $20, $30, $40, and $50 each. For more information, visit CWRM.org or http:www.itickets.com/events/354610.html Help Yourself Stuff to help you. Peoples Law School begins Have you ever wondered how our legal system works? Class is in session! The Peoples Law School at Casper College is back by popular demand. The Peoples Law School is open to anyone interested in learning about the judicial system. Legal topics will be addressed by the Chief of Police, judges, and attorneys in their areas of practice, including: history and structure of the court system, laws of arrest, criminal defense/prosecution, domestic relations/family law, bankruptcy law, estate planning, and personal injury litigation. Dean Michael Shickich himself will teach the class on personal injury litigation. Classes will be held at Casper College on Wednesday nights from 7 to 9 p.m., beginning February 3 through March 9. To sign up, send in a Community Education Registration Form and payment of your registration fee (only $25) to Casper College Enrollment Services, 125 College Drive, Casper, WY 82601. You can find the registration form online at http://www.caspercollege.edu/sites/default/files/documents/communityed/cc-conted-spring16-form.pdf. The Peoples Law School is sponsored by the Wyoming Trial Lawyers Association (WTLA). All speakers donate their time, and the WTLA covers the cost of providing the course materials. For more information, call Michael Shickich or Karyn at the Injury Law Firm at 266-LAWS (5297). Family continues suicide support Good Grief, Support will continue 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., Wednesdays at the 12-24 Club, 500 S. Wolcott, by request of attendees. The family of J.R. Hunter who died from suicide in June 2015 began the support prior to the especially tough holiday season. Anyone who is grieving a suicide, death, or considering suicide is welcome and encouraged to attend. All attending this meeting, as well as the content, will be strictly confidential. The Fresh Start Cafe will be open and you can eat during the meetings. This meeting place was graciously offered by Dan Cantine of the 12-24 Club, you need not be a member to attend our meetings. Celebrate Recovery every Friday Looking for a nontraditional approach to recovery from your hurts, habits and hangups? Celebrate Recovery meets every Friday at 5:30 p.m. at Highland Park Community Church, just south of Elkhorn Valley Rehabilitation Hospital on East Second Street. Join us in a welcoming, positive environment where you can come as you are! We start with a family meal, followed by praise and worship. At 7 p.m., theres either a lesson from Celebrate Recoverys planned curriculum or a testimony by a person who has found recovery through Christ. Then, people go to gender-specific small groups until 8:30 p.m., when dessert and fellowship conclude the evening. Child care is available at no cost. For more information, contact Chris at 265-4073. Using pesticides safely The 2016 private pesticide applicator training is set for three days. Register by phone at least three days in advance. Times are Feb. 8, 2 to 4:30 p.m.; Feb. 22, 2 to 4:30 p.m., and March 9, 2 to 4:30 p.m., all at Extension Agriculture Resource and Learning Center, 2011 Fairgrounds Rd. Call 235-9400 to register. Instructor is Scott Cotton, area extension educator. Facebook Security The Natrona County Library will offer a Facebook Security computer class on Wednesday, February 3 at 10 a.m. in the Tech Center. This class will explain Facebooks basic and advanced security features. In addition, you will learn how to recover a hacked Facebook account and how to avoid scammers. Call 577-READ ext. 2 for more information. Wednesday Writers Would you like to leave a legacy by sharing your memories with the world? Practice writing, share your work and receive constructive feedback from fellow writers Wednesday, February 3 at 10 a.m. at the Natrona County Library. Call 577-READ ext. 2 for more information. Saturday morning watercolor Art 321, Casper Artists Guild has reopened with our first exhibit of the new year, Anything Goes. Saturday morning watercolor classes have begun, 10 a.m. to noon, with the following lineup of classes: January 30, practice session; February 6, trees, instructed by Jennifer Morss; February 13, practice session; February 20, reflections and shadows; February 27, practice session. For more information or questions about these classes, please call Ellen Black at 265-6783. We are looking forward to our next busy year of classes, workshops, exhibits and the making and sharing art! Wedding Showcase Sunday The VOWS Wyoming Wedding Showcase is noon to 4 p.m., Sunday at the Parkway Plaza. VIP tickets are $25, general admission are $15, available only at Christinas, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Vendors will be there and so will Randy Fenoli, fashion and beauty expert and star of TLCs Say Yes to the Dress, and Randy to the Rescue. He will take the stage before or after the 2 p.m., fashion show and be available for questions. VIP tickets include front seating, a meet and greet and photo opportunity with Randy. The show is presented by Chris Reed of Christinas. Marriage Live comes to Casper The Art of Marriage Live featuring Family Lifes Weekend to Remember speakers Bruce and Julie Boyd is coming Casper on February 19 and 20 at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church, 4100 Casper Mountain Road. Through teaching, stories, and humor, the Boyds will address the challenges and beauty of Gods design. The event begins on Friday, February 19, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. and continues on Saturday, February 20, from 8:30 a.m. to noon. Cost is $50 per couple which includes the seminar, workbooks, and refreshments. Child care will be provided. For more information and to register call 235-6363 or visit www.cornerstonefree.org. Workshop at Art 321 ART 321 Casper Artists Guild workshop for February: Upholstery workshop, instructed by Connie Atkinson (Hi-Mark Upholstery), will be held for three consecutive months: First session, Saturday and Sunday, February 20 and 21, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; second session, Saturday and Sunday, March 19and 20, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Third and final session, Saturday and Sunday, April 16 and 17, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fee is $60 for members/$80 for non-members + a $10 supply fee. Open to all levels. Register on line or stop by the gallery please. Order trees from extension office Premium quality seedling trees, shrubs and perennials are available for windbreaks and wildlife habitat enhancement from the UW/Natrona County Extension. Order forms are available at the Agriculture Resource and Learning Center, 2011 Fairgrounds Road, Casper, WY 82604. For more information, call Rose Jones at 235-9400. There are 40 species available: Bareroot species are 25 for $30; large tubed species, 30 for $83; small tubed species, 30 for $70; small trays are 50 for $99; XL potted species are $12 each. Order now for best selection with May delivery. Healing seminar set A Conscious co-creation/self-transformation and healing seminar taught by Cathy Hazel Adams, practitioner in Intuitive Quantum Transformation and Energy Healing, will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Feb. 20-21 at the Agricultural Resources Learning Center, 2011 Fairgrounds Road. Its not too late to receive the Early Bird registration discount! For complete registrations received on or before Jan. 31, $105. Price is $130. For more information or to register, visit www.cathyhazeladams.com or call 307-797-9677. Free tax help begins The Wyoming Free Tax Service (VITA) runs through April 13, 2016. Our hours will be Tuesday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. We will be closed on Sunday and Monday as well as Easter Weekend, Friday March 25, and Saturday, March 26. Our location is the Aspen Creek Building, 800 Werner Court, Suite 180. This is a first come, first serve service so no appointments will be scheduled. Please bring your social security card, photo identification and appropriate paperwork that is needed, or we will not be able to assist you in your tax return. If you have any questions, please feel free to call (307) 315-1830 during our hours of operation. www.wyomingfreetaxservice.org Powerful tools for caregivers free Wyoming Dementia Care is offering family caregivers of those with dementia-related illnesses, including Alzheimers, a new self-care education program called Powerful Tools for Caregivers. The free class will meet each Tuesday for six weeks, beginning Tuesday, February 2 and ending on Tuesday, March 8 from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Central Wyoming Senior Services, 1831 E. 4th St. Powerful Tools for Caregivers is a nationally recognized, evidence-based program that provides caregivers with the tools and strategies they need to better handle the unique challenges of caregiving. The six-week curriculum includes self- care options for relaxation and exercise, ways to reduce emotions like guilt and anger, how to confidently manage caregiving demands and suggestions on how to use local resources. The three hour per week class is provided at no cost to caregivers by Wyoming Dementia Care in collaboration with Powerful Tools for Caregivers, with partial funding from a Wyoming Geriatric Education Center grant. Class size is limited and pre-registration is required. Call Dani Guerttman at Wyoming Dementia Care, 265-4678, for information. Open Sky Meditation Saturday Morning Sits Open Sky Meditation Group is offering a three-hour meditation practice on the second Saturday of each month through May. Meditation will start at 9 a.m. and end at noon. First hour will be meditation instruction. Second hour will be open meditation. Third hour will be a guided meditation. On Feb. 13 and May 14, we will meet in the yoga room 101 at Skelton Energy Institute, Casper College. On March 12 and April 9, we will meet in room 217 of Strausner Hall, Casper College. These sits are open to all. Please feel free to come and leave as your schedule dictates. We hope to see you there. If you have questions, feel free to call Gale Sleep at 307-251-6959. Here and Now: Dementia-focused monthly art class Every third Tuesday of the month from 1 to 3 p.m. There is no charge. Here and Now is a program made possible through a collaboration between Wyoming Dementia Care and the Nicolaysen Art Museum. It is designed to provide a supportive environment for people with dementia and Alzheimers and their loved ones. The class offers a chance to experience sensory and intellectual stimulation, communicate through art and explore various art media including paint, clay, collage and printmaking. To register for class contact Dani with Wyoming Dementia Care 265-4678, ext. 106, or at wyodementia@casperseniorcenter.com or Zhanna Gallegos at 235-5247 or at zgallegos@thenic.org Parent conference on disAbilities 4th Annual Parent Conference on DisAbilities- Expectations: Open Doors, is Friday, Feb. 26, through Sunday, Feb. 28 at noon at the Parkway Plaza, sponsored by the Parent Information Center. $50 for Wyoming families of children with disabilities, $100 for educators, child care providers and others. NCSD #1 is covering the cost of registration for Natrona County families of school-aged students on IEPs. Featured keynote speaker Friday, Feb. 26, will be Paula Kluth, nationally renowned speaker and author on Inclusion and Autism. Other topics over the weekend will include IEPs without conflict, practical assistive technology for everyday use, sensory disorder, studentdirected IEPs; transition to employment and more! Limited number of travel stipends available. Respite available separately through Arc of Natrona County. PTSB and STARS credit available. For more information, contact Teri Dawson at (307) 684-2277 or tdawson@wpic.org Parents Helping Parents The 25th Anniversary Banquet Celebration & Silent Auction for Parents Helping Parents of Wyoming, Inc., is 6 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 27, at the Parkway Plaza. Cost is $35/person or $60/couple; tickets available online at www.wpic.org PHP is celebrating 25 years of helping raise families expectations and opening doors for children with disabilities by increasing family engagement and meaningful partnerships with schools through its projects, the Parent Information Center and the Parent Education Network. We want to say thank you to the families who have honored us with their trust in supporting the ups and downs of their journey. Join us as we celebrate 25 years of educational milestones! No host cash bar begins at 6. For more information, contact Teri Dawson at (307) 684-2277 or tdawson@wpic.org A car collided with horses on a rural northeast Wyoming highway, killing a 57-year-old Newcastle resident. The Wyoming Highway Patrol identified the victim as Tina M. Morris. Morris was a passenger riding in the car when it struck four horses about 11:45 p.m. Monday on U.S. 16 just outside the town of Osage in Weston County. The car made no attempt to stop for the horses, according to a Wyoming Highway Patrol press release. The driver of the car, 39-year-old Timothy J. Dawson, of Newcastle, was treated for minor injuries. He was later arrested and charged with aggravated vehicular homicide, driving while impaired, possession of marijuana, interference and driving with no license, the release stated. Drug use, speed and livestock on the highway are being investigated as contributing factors in this crash, the release continued. Neither Morris nor Dawson were wearing their seat belts. The crash is the fourth highway death in Wyoming for 2016. There were eight fatalities at this time last year. PHOENIX State lawmakers are moving to require government agencies to prove their rules and restrictions for businesses are necessary. On a 5-3 margin Wednesday the House Commerce Committee voted to require every city, county and state agency to review every regulation and detail how each is necessary to protect public health, safety or welfare. The legislation would then mandate that the restrictions be modified or repealed if they do not serve those purposes. Anyone who believes a rule or ordinance is excessive could then sue. And if the government did not prove the rules necessity and the burden would be on the government, not the person challenging the rule a judge would be required to void it. Jon Riches, lobbyist for the Goldwater Institute, said the legislation is a push-back against what he believes is government encroachment on private business. He cited one instance where the state Board of Cosmetology said a woman cannot connect licensed beauticians with home-bound cancer patients because that means there are no premises and equipment for the agency to examine. In another case, a Tempe woman who made a living selling salsa prepared at her house was forced out of business. Rep. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, who agreed to sponsor the measure for the Goldwater Institute, called it long overdue. I can tell you from personal experience theres been an onslaught of regulations in my industry in the last 15 years a ridiculous amount, said Petersen, who owns a real estate brokerage firm. Its time for us to protect individual rights. That means reviewing and curbing regulations, he said. If they dont have a direct nexus with health, safety or welfare welfare principally meaning fraud then those regulations need to be eliminated, Petersen said. Patrice Kraus, lobbyist for the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, said the measure is flawed. For example, she said, a city would have to prove a regulation is necessary to protect health, safety or welfare. Kraus said that would allow a business owner to argue that a retail sales tax permit is illegal because it is not necessary to meet any of those goals. This could lead to a lot of frivolous lawsuits, she told lawmakers. Kraus noted that the law does not allow cities to recover their legal fees even if a judge sides with them. Riches defended that provision ensuring that those who sue face no financial risk, even if they lose. He said it would be wrong to let a city seek legal fees from somebody whos just trying to earn a living. Rep. Stefanie Mach, D-Tucson, said Petersens legislation is built on a fundamental misunderstanding that somehow the people in government are the enemy in regulating business. The big bad government is just a group of people like us who have been elected or appointed or hired to do a job, she said. Mach said oversight of businesses is sometimes needed. There are a lot of businesses that have fraud factored into their bottom line, she said. Standards are necessary, Mach added, citing that case of the Tempe salsa maker. Shelf life could actually be an issue, she said. We need to make sure that people arent dying or getting salmonella because of relaxed practices. PHOENIX Freeport-McMoRan Inc. officials say they hope to sell $5 billion to $10 billion in assets to pay down debt and are looking at all the companys mines and fossil-fuel operations for potential sales. The Phoenix-based copper mining company, which diversified into oil and gas operations in 2013, has been losing money amid falling commodities prices, and officials said they plan to improve the debt position by selling properties that make the most sense. We are looking at all our assets across the company board, said President and CEO Richard Adkerson. Every one of our assets are being considered, and we are going to understand the markets interest. Sales could presumably include Arizona mines such as Bagdad and Morenci, where Freeport owns all or part of the operation. Other than providing the range of $5 billion to $10 billion in asset sales, and the fact that amount would require selling multiple properties, Adkerson didnt say which properties are most likely to be divested. Half of any asset sales will be used to reduce the companys $20 billion in debt, he said. Thats why we are doing it, he said. Well have to deal with our financial situation going forward. We are not going to be restoring investment activities until we solve the balance sheet problem and market conditions improve. Freeport once was Arizonas most valuable company. But the $9 billion bet executives placed on the oil and gas business in 2013 has severely damaged the companys value. That year the company completed the purchase of McMoRan Exploration and Plains Exploration and Production, enriching several executives who had ties to both companies. Freeport later paid $137.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over the conflicts that deal presented, but the oil and gas investment has continued to drag on the company as oil prices have sunk. After paying 31.25 cents a share per quarter as recently as one year ago, plus occasional special dividends, the company suspended dividends in December. During a conference call with analysts Tuesday, some members of the investment community questioned what types of deals would be considered to pay down debt. In the midst of all the concern about Freeport weve got a great set of assets, Adkerson said. Thats why Im still working here. Conductor Keitaro Harada kept one eye on the stage and one on the pit Wednesday night at Tucson Music Hall. It was his first full orchestra dress rehearsal with the Arizona Opera cast performing Bizets Carmen, which the opera will perform twice this weekend. He was looking for missteps a flat note here, a dropped French enunciation there. Little things that if caught early wont run the risk of growing into noticeable flubs once the cast does it for real Saturday, Jan. 30, and Sunday, Jan. 31. The orchestra, from our spot in the audience of a dozen or so, sounded spot-on under Haradas baton. Harada, the Arizona Opera associate conductor, coaxed a richness in Bizets score that reminded you of why Carmen is ranked as one of the worlds most beloved operas. Harada invited the Star to the closed rehearsal, affording us a glimpse at what goes on before the house lights go down for Saturdays opening. We sat right behind the maestro with a clear view of the orchestra, most its members dressed casually in jeans. Its an interesting seat and not just for the view of the open pit. The orchestra from this point in the hall can sometimes create a wall of sound that under lesser voices would diminish the singing. But that was hardly a problem during Wednesdays dress rehearsal. You could hear mezzo-soprano Beth Lytwynec, who sings the role of Carmen on Sunday, well into the hall where fellow Carmen star Daniela Mack was watching the rehearsal play out. During an especially saucy scene in which tenor Scott Quinn Sundays Don Jose had Carmen draped over a table and is kissing and touching her, a group of boys from the Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus sat backstage chattering as boys are known to do. This is a sexually-charged Carmen with love scenes that include Don Jose caressing Carmen and her entourage of fellow seductresses Frasquita and Mercedes (Alyssa Martin and Amy Mahoney) straddling a chair and hiking up their skirts to show bare legs. In the second half of the opera, the boys made their entrance on stage a bit out of sync with the orchestra. Harada stopped the music and waved them back to their spots to begin again. Heres a hint: Those boys are terrific! This production includes towering puppets manipulated by actors who follow the boys onto the stage and scenes of starry moonfilled nights and days with puffy clouds set against blue skies, all projected on a screen at the back of the stage, The set includes a towering guard house and a large wooden building with a staircase that leads to an off-stage bullfighting arena. Carmen is part of the Tucson Desert Song Festival, which continues through next weekend. Click here for a full schedule of events and more information. For the second time in six months, the Tucson Symphony Orchestra will have received a sizable donation to endow a musicians chair. This week, the TSO announced that the Diamond Foundation the philanthropic group behind the Diamond Childrens arm of Banner University Medical Center will donate $1 million to the orchestra to endow the concertmasters chair. The first recipient of the Joan B. Diamond Concertmaster Chair will be current concertmaster Lauren Roth, who joined the TSO in 2013. Its a great opportunity for us to honor my mom in her lifetime, said Joan Diamonds daughter, Helaine Diamond Levy, executive director of the Diamond Family Philanthropies. Joan Diamond, wife of Diamond Ventures Chairman Donald Diamond, grew up in a musical family. Her father played violin and her mother was a concert pianist in Cincinnati, Levy said. Joan Diamond studied piano and voice at the University of Arizona in the 1940s and involved her children in classical music. Music in my family is generation skipping. It passed over me and my sister, but all of my children played musical instruments, Levy said. The Diamond Foundation first began discussing the gift with TSO officials several years ago. At the time, Levy said, it would have been the foundations largest gift to date. But talks stalled with the recession and administrative changes within the orchestra. By then the foundation had pledged $15 million to build the childrens hospital at Banner UMC at the University of Arizona. Levy said they resumed talks when Mark A. Blakeman joined the orchestra as CEO and president in 2014. With Marks arrival, he pretty much picked up the pace and has been out in the community and trying to engage the community with the symphony more, she said, including reaching out to donors like the foundation on creative ways to engage with the symphony. The Diamond family has donated to the TSO over the past 10 years and the family has been season subscribers since 1966, Levy said. She said her mother regularly attended TSO concerts but hasnt recently because of illness. It is especially gratifying to have supporters like the Diamond family recognizing the value of our greatest asset: our professional core of musicians, Blakeman said in a written statement. The shooting death of Kyle Riley three years ago at a house on Tucsons east side remains an unsolved cold case. I miss my son, said Mary Riley, 55, an office worker at a towing and propane business in Sierra Vista. Somebody came into that house and took his life and ran, she said in a recent interview, hoping to bring someone forward who has information about the case. Her son was shot in the chest and killed in a house in the 4800 block of South Lantana Place, near South Kolb and East Irvington roads. Tucson police went to the house after a 911 call reporting a shooting on the morning of Jan. 30, 2013. When officers arrived, they were let in by the homeowner, and Kyle Riley was found dead in a bedroom, authorities said at the time of the slaying. Detectives have exhausted leads in the case and believe there are people who have information about the case, said Sgt. Kimberly Bay, a Tucson Police Department spokeswoman. We will look at any and all new leads that we get, said Bay, urging anyone with information to call 88-CRIME. Meanwhile, Mary Riley is waiting for some news that will lead to the person who shot her son. The pain never goes away, said the mother about her sons death. It is the hardest thing any parent can ever go through. It is something you have to learn to live with. Kyle Riley moved from Sierra Vista to Tucson to look for work. He had experience in construction, but Mary Riley said Kyle told her he had applied to work as a convenience clerk. The mother said Kyle was a renter in the home for about a month before he was killed. She said her son probably had problems with drugs. She said she remembers her son as a caring man who liked to make people laugh. Now she wants authorities to find and arrest the person who killed him. Federal authorities arrested two women in separate incidents at Southern Arizona border crossings that netted a total of $229,000 in drugs. On Wednesday, officers arrested Francisca Cristina Romero, 30, of Nogales, Arizona, after finding nearly 39 pounds of methamphetamine in her car, states a U.S. Customs and Border Protection news release. The drugs were found in Romero's Ford sedan at the Nogales port of entry. The methamphetamine was valued at nearly $116,000, officials said. The other incident occurred on Tuesday at the Douglas port of entry when authorities arrested a Mexican national for attempting to smuggle more than 226 pounds of marijuana. The marijuana was valued at about $113,000. Ana Erika Christian, 39, was taken into custody after officers found more than 200 packages of marijuana hidden throughout her Honda SUV, said officials. Katharine Martinez, the director of the University of Arizona's Center for Creative Photography, has retired, effective Saturday, Jan. 30. Martinez has headed up the internationally-known center for about five years. A national search will be conducted "later this year" to find her replacement, according to an email sent to UA employees from Senior Vice President for Research, Kimberly Andrews Espy. Until then, a "senior management council" will run the center, That group will be made up of Rebecca Senf, newly named the chief curator, senior photograph conservator Jae Gutierrez, archivist Leslie Squyres, and the CCP's Associate Director Denise Gose. The UA's Museum of Art Director James Burns, will serve as acting administrative director. The CCP was started in 1975 with the archives of photographer Ansel Adams. It's holdings include archives of some of the most significant photographers from the last century. Improving student performance is the top priority for Sunnyside Unified School District, its superintendent said. All of our efforts have to be in service to that goal, Steve Holmes said. Thats the core of our business. In a State of the District speech Tuesday night to a crowd of district employees and community members, Holmes emphasized the importance of restoring trust in the district among community members and district staff, ensuring financial stability and boosting academic performance. The district spent the first half of the school year identifying what works and what doesnt, working as a team and defining goals for the future, he said. During that process, the district learned some good and bad things about itself, Holmes said. Among the findings were low morale among staff, communication issues, declining enrollment, a shortage of teachers, low student performance and poor student attendance. This school year the district lost between 400 and 600 students, Holmes said. The enrollment decline was especially an issue at the kindergarten level. Every student we lose, we lose money, he told the crowd. The superintendent also acknowledged that Sunnyside is one of the lowest performing school districts in Pima County. Thats not acceptable, he said. In his proposals for solutions to the challenges that the district is facing, Holmes said it would focus on data-driven practices that ensure that money is being spent on things that are proven to work. Weve got to be much more driven by metrics that actually define what success is, he said. For example, if the district is spending money on resources for a reading program, students reading scores should be improving. But the added accountability isnt meant to be punitive, he said. Its intended to inform the district so that it can make better decisions. Its not a hammer, he said. It really is a tool to support improvement. Holmes also discussed improving communication channels by creating sub-groups within schools and district offices that meet more frequently, developing a districtwide web dashboard to support the strategic plan and involving the people who would be impacted in the decision-making process. Another point of emphasis for Holmes is to establish financial stability. Every superintendent in Arizona knows of schools financial struggles, he said. Not being able to do it all is reality, he said. But the district must find ways to do better with less money and live within our means, he said. Sunnyside has done a budget prioritization process, including reviewing programs for their effectiveness to better align resources. One way the district hopes to save money is to use open-source education content, as opposed to subscription-based content, he said. Subscription-based stuff is going to have to boil down to a few that we know were going to use, he said. Its the right thing to do. Despite all the challenges, Holmes said the district has the capacity to do good things. Theres no doubt that we can have the success that we desire, and that we know we can make happen for our schools, he said, pointing out that the district has a community and staff members who are committed and passionate. His vision is to always put students first and believe that every student is capable of learning at a high level, he said. He wants to raise the bar of expectation for every student and provide the resources necessary. Eddie Islas, principal of Santa Clara Elementary School, said he sees vision in Holmes words. Listening to him, theres hope, he said. On the increasing accountability measures, he said, Accountability has had a negative connotation because there were maybe negative things tied to it, like sanctions or taking over schools. If you want to know how well youre doing, you have to have some way of measuring it, he added. There may still be some residue of mistrust for the district in the community and even among staff, he said. That was evident when the maintenance and operations budget override failed last November. But the district has come a long way with the leadership change first with Eugenia Favela, who took over as interim superintendent when Manuel Isquierdo left the district and now with Holmes, Islas said. Theres a lot more to be done, but its doable, he said. PHOENIX More than two dozen Republican lawmakers want to constitutionally block state and local governments from buying items or investing in any company that does business with the government of Iran, even as sanctions against that country are being eased. The proposal crafted by House Majority Leader Steve Montenegro, R-Litchfield Park, specifically bans investment in any company that does business with the government of a country that is designated by the U.S. Department of State on or after Jan. 1, 2015, as a state sponsor of terrorism. At the moment that includes Syria, Sudan and Iran. And until last year it used to include Cuba until the Obama administration moved to normalize relations with that country. But Montenegro made it clear his measure, introduced just days after the United Nations said Iran is complying with a new nuclear treaty, is aimed at that country. The move is drawing concern from the Arizona State Retirement System which has $34 billion in investments in private companies. Spokesman Nick Ponder acknowledged HCR 2040 is limited to prohibiting investment in companies that do business directly with the government. But he pointed out that many Iranian firms, ranging from the oil industry to Iran Air are partly owned by the government. And he said that would force Arizona to sell off investments in companies like Boeing to Freeport McMoRan if they decide to do business with those Iranian companies as sanctions are lifted. Montenegro said he expects the deal with Iran to slowly loosen the restrictions that now exist. But he said that doesnt mean Arizona should follow suit. I think that its important for us as a state to be able to decide where the public money is going, he said. And that means not having Arizona dollars somehow winding up in the hands of terrorists. Montenegro quoted from a recent statement by Secretary of State John Kerry who said that it is likely that some of the financial relief granted to Iran under the deal will go to groups the United States considers terrorists, like the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps. Ponder said the problems with what Montenegro wants to do go beyond the problem of the Iranian government having its hands in many industries in which American firms would like to invest, like oil and gas. He said he doubts that any of these firms will avoid doing business with Iran solely out of fear that Arizona retirement system will sell off its shares. By contrast, deputy state Treasurer Mark Swenson, whose office has control of various trust funds, said he is hoping it doesnt come to that. Residents of a high-rise student housing complex near the University of Arizona are facing evictions for tossing objects from their north-side balconies. GMH Capital Partners, owners of the Sol Y Luna apartments, identified the students while reviewing video surveillance tapes after similar incidents occurred on the south side of the property, facing the Islamic Center of Tucson, 901 E. First St. Taha Hasan, director of public relations for the Islamic Center of Tucson, said four residents were evicted for tossing objects from north-side balconies not facing the center but Bruce Pilarczyk, the senior vice president of marketing for the company, said the number of evictions cannot yet be determined. The residents connected to the mosque vandalism have not been identified. Were following the lease and the process for evictions (for north-side residents), said Rand Ginsburg, the senior vice president of asset services. Notices have been issued and that process has been started. In the last two weeks, the Islamic Center of Tucson has noted four separate incidents of residents throwing trash, particularly alcohol bottles and cans, from their balconies and into the parking lot of the mosque, Hasan said. A cell phone video by a member of the center captured debris plummeting from a lighted balcony and smashing into the parking lot below. Wednesday night, the property managers discussed shutting down the balconies surrounding the lighted window visible in the cell phone video and interviewing students in nearby units in an attempt to find the residents who were responsible, said City Councilman Steve Kozachik. The Wednesday night meeting included representatives from the mosque, the ownership company, the Tucson Police Department, the University of Arizona, the city and the West University Neighborhood Association. Kozachik said the meeting also included a commitment from the property to implement a round-the-clock foot patrol on the interior and exterior of the building and install cameras that film continuously, not just when motion is detected. I also suggested that because these are annual leases, that they proactively shut down the balconies to the exterior and no longer lease these buildings as buildings with balconies, Kozachik said, adding the company acknowledged the liability issues at the meeting. Ginsburg added that GMH Capital Partners does reserve the right to restrict the students from the balconies. If this continues and we feel the students are mistreating the balconies, its an avenue we will absolutely pursue, he said. The Islamic Center of Tucson first made the issue public in the fall of 2014, after more than a year of dealing with the problem alone. The previous property owner, Cardinal Group Management, instituted a $1,000 fine, potential eviction and the possibility of criminal prosecution for dropping anything from balconies. Last week, GMH Capital Partners sent a letter to parents and students outlining a zero tolerance policy for any such behavior and promising a similar response, including reporting such incidents to law enforcement and the University of Arizona. The Islamic Center has also reported that residents have yelled racial slurs at mosque-goers. Following the meeting, Everybody is on the same page, Hasan said. Were all going to be working to find a longterm solution to make sure this doesnt happen again and make sure everybody is safe. About the dean Joaquin Ruiz is vice president of innovation and strategy; executive dean, Colleges of Letters, Arts and Science; dean, College of Science; and professor of Geosciences. One of the largest colleges at the UA, the College of Science has more than 7,500 undergraduate and graduate students. Its 21 academic departments and schools encompass the range of physical, mathematical, environmental, cognitive and life sciences. Ruiz was honored in 2010 by Mexicos president as an outstanding Mexican researcher, one of the first Mexican scholars living abroad to be so recognized. He is also a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences. Ruiz was president of the Geological Society of America for 2010-11. Ruiz joined the geosciences department in 1983, was named department head in 1995, dean of the College of Science in 2000, executive dean in 2008 and vice president of innovation and strategy in 2013. Ruizs lab discovered in 2002 than more than 40 percent of the worlds gold is 3 billion years old. BURNS, Ore. Three members of an armed group occupying an Oregon wildlife refuge surrendered to authorities, officials said, hours after their jailed leader urged remaining militants to abandon the site and "go home." The three arrests Wednesday at a checkpoint law officers have setup near the refuge, followed the arrests a day earlier of leader Ammon Bundy and seven others. The FBI and Oregon State Police said in a statement that 45-year-old Duane Leo Ehmer of Irrigon, Oregon, and 34-year-old Dylan Wade Anderson of Provo, Utah, turned themselves in around 3:30 p.m. And 43-year-old Jason S. Patrick of Bonaire, Georgia, did the same a few hours later. The men were described as being in contact with the FBI and officials said the men surrendered to agents on a road near the refuge. After Bundy made his first court appearance in Portland on Wednesday, his attorney, Mike Arnold, read this statement from his client: "Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is now in the courts." It was unclear whether the rest of Bundy's followers still holed up at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge south of Burns were ready to heed his advice. It was believed perhaps a half-dozen remained late Wednesday, apparently sitting around a campfire. Meanwhile, details began to emerge about the confrontation Tuesday on a remote highway that resulted in the arrest of Bundy and other leading figures in the group of occupiers, and in the death of militant Robert Finicum. Bundy followers gave conflicting accounts of how Finicum died. One said Finicum charged at FBI agents, who then shot him. A member of the Bundy family said Finicum did nothing to provoke the agents. An Oregon man who says he witnessed the shootout says he heard about a half-dozen shots but didn't see anyone get hit, and that the shooting happened quickly over maybe 12 or 15 seconds. Raymond Doherty told KOIN-TV that he was about 100 feet back and couldn't see who specifically was shooting. But, he added, "I saw them shooting at each other." Authorities refused to release any details about the encounter or even to verify that it was Finicum who was killed. Also on Wednesday, a federal judge in Portland unsealed a criminal complaint that said the armed group had explosives and night-vision goggles and that they were prepared to fight at the refuge or in the nearby town of Burns. Someone told authorities about the equipment on Jan. 2, when the group took over Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, according to the document. Bundy and the seven others are charged with felony counts of "conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats." The criminal complaint stresses that point. It states that the 16 employees at the wildlife refuge "have been prevented from reporting to work because of threats of violence posed by the defendants and others occupying the property." Federal law officials and Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward held a news conference on Wednesday in which they called on the rest of the occupiers to go home. There is a huge law enforcement presence in the region, and the FBI has now set up checkpoints outside the refuge. FBI agent Greg Bretzing said people could leave through checkpoints "where they will be identified." FBI officials said Wednesday night, in addition to the three men arrested, five people left the refuge through the checkpoints and were released without arrest. Bretzing also defended the FBI-led operation that resulted in the arrest of Bundy and other leaders, and in the death of Finicum. "I will say that the armed occupiers were given ample opportunities to leave peacefully," he said. Ward said multiple law-enforcement agencies put together "the best tactical plan they could." Bundy followers took to social media to offer conflicting accounts of Finicum's final moments. In a video posted to Facebook, Mike McConnell said he was driving a vehicle carrying Ammon Bundy and another occupier, Brian Cavalier. He said Finicum was driving a truck and with him were Ryan Bundy Ammon's brother as well as three others. He said the convoy was driving through a forest when they were stopped by agents in heavy-duty trucks. He said agents first pulled him out of the vehicle, followed by Ammon Bundy and Cavalier. When agents approached the truck driven by Filicum, he drove off with officers in pursuit. McConnell said he did not see what happened next, but he heard from others who were in that vehicle that they encountered a roadblock. The truck got stuck in a snowbank, and Finicum got out and "charged them. He went after them," McConnell said. Relatives of Ammon Bundy offered similar accounts, but they said Finicum did nothing to provoke FBI agents. Briana Bundy, a sister of Ammon Bundy, said he called his wife after his arrest. He said the group was stopped by state and federal officers. She said people in the two vehicles complied with instructions to get out with their hands up. "LaVoy shouted, 'Don't shoot. We're unarmed,' "Briana Bundy said in an interview with The Associated Press. "They began to fire on them. Ammon said it happened real fast." "Ammon said, 'They murdered him in cold blood." McConnell had a different perspective. "Any time someone takes off with a vehicle away from law enforcement after they've exercised a stop, it's typically considered an act of aggression, and foolish," he said in the Facebook video. Ammon and Ryan Bundy are the sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a high-profile 2014 standoff with the government over grazing rights. The group they led came to the frozen high desert of eastern Oregon to decry what it calls onerous federal land restrictions and to object to the prison sentences of two local ranchers convicted of setting fires. In the small community of Burns, near the refuge, 80-year-old Bev Schaff said the occupation has "split this town." "Some people are for it and some against it. But I think everyone is ready for it to be over," Schaff said. ___ As the midterm elections come ever closer, it can feel as if were stewing in a cauldron of tribalism, of our side vs. their side with no middle ground and little agreement on much of anything. That makes it a good time to take a breath and realize the consensus weve reached on some issues that were incredibly contentious not long ago. It gives us hope in the angry days ahead. Astronomy is a very visual subject. Most of the students we teach in astronomy and planetary sciences are in general-education courses to fulfill their science requirement. Many of them tend to be visual learners who process information in more concrete, rather than abstract (mathematical), terms. My colleagues who teach at Flandrau Science Center and I feel that the planetariums new full-dome projector suits the learning styles of these students well. We can illustrate many astronomical concepts in three dimensions, allowing students to view from several vantage points. But beyond the pedagogical reasons why the full-dome projector is an effective tool for teaching students, it also stimulates the wow factor. The projection system allows us to employ the conceit of the spaceship of the imagination, which was used so effectively in the Cosmos television series by Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson. My students travel all over the universe in our imaginary spaceship to explore and study the science of astronomy. By raising a students interest and excitement about a subject, we motivate students to pay attention and learn the course material. I have seen an increase in student performance since moving my course to the planetarium theater. For example, the number of students earning a grade of A has increased by 20 percent compared with when my course was taught in a traditional classroom. In August 2014, thanks to the generosity of Linda Lohse and the Tucson Foundations, the EOS Foundation and many other generous donors, the planetarium theater at Flandrau was upgraded to a full-dome, 4K digital projection system, which now puts you at the center of the universe with movie theater-quality sound and images. The computer hardware/software and projectors, as well as the new sound system, was installed by the Swedish company SCISS AB, which installs full domes worldwide. The computer servers literally contain a three-dimensional, digital model of our universe, based on actual astronomical, planetary and geologic/geographic observations and data. These images and other data can be projected onto a hemispherical dome to give the audience a panoramic, surround-view of the data. The audience, immersed in the imagery, can view any part of the universe from any perspective at any time in its history. The old analog planetarium projector, which was in service at Flandrau from 1975-2014, could display a view of the night sky from any place on Earth, at any time, on any date. With the new full-dome projector, the audience can leave the Earth, look down at its surface, and fly out into space to explore our solar system, the Milky Way galaxy, other galaxies and the universe. The impact of full-dome on Flandraus planetarium programs for the public is obvious. We now provide the people of Tucson and Southern Arizona access to state-of-the-art planetarium programs that play in big-city markets such as New York and Chicago. However, there are those of us at the Steward Observatory and the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory who recognize the power of full-dome technology and how it could enhance our teaching and research mission in the College of Science. With an eye to procuring a full-dome projection system, we started teaching college-level astronomy, astrobiology and planetary science courses in the Flandrau planetarium theater 3 years ago. There were challenges in turning a planetarium theater into a classroom, such as students being able to take notes in the dark. Our courses could only meet in the afternoon, so as not to interfere with elementary and middle school field trips in the mornings or public shows at night. The same qualities that make the full-dome projector a useful tool in education makes it useful in carrying out our research mission. Large datasets from telescopes, space missions and theoretical computer-generated models can be projected on the dome, allowing researchers to visualize the data, putting themselves inside the data, more effectively than they could on a two-dimensional computer monitor. The University of Arizonas department of chemistry and biochemistry has long been a research powerhouse and is now a leading producer of intellectual property. Before the creation of Tech Launch Arizona in 2012, the College of Science disclosed about two dozen inventions annually. Last year, the 45 faculty members in the department of chemistry and biochemistry produced 35 of the 213 disclosures Tech Launch Arizona received, of which 28 became or are related to full-fledged patent applications and theyre spinning out one startup company per year. Its the mindset of the entrepreneurial faculty member that moves things toward commercialization, says Roger Miesfeld, head of the department. The departments faculty have historically participated in commercialization, and a number of the departments inventions have had significant impact. Companies such as Selectide (predecessor to the Sanofi unit in Oro Valley) and GlycoSurf are prime examples of companies created from department research. Tech Launch Arizona provides resources to protect inventions by seeking patent protection. That intellectual property is then licensed to existing companies or startups, and the inventors, their laboratories and other UA units receive a small percentage of product sales (royalties) in exchange for the benefits derived from the patent. Tech Launch Arizona has streamlined the whole process, and now that natural entrepreneurial spirit of chemists and biochemists can be manifested at the University of Arizona, Miesfeld says. Miesfeld decided to try the process himself. We had a compound that when put into female mosquitoes diverted blood into her crop (where nectar is usually stored) instead of her stomach and she died, We said, Thats a really weird drug, and it does something weve never seen before. All organisms on Earth are related to one another in a vast tree of life. Some of the best evidence for this lies in the similarities and differences in organisms genomes, the sequence of chemical letters that encode all the information necessary for organisms to develop, function and pass on their traits to offspring. My research combines these two potentially enormous data sets millions of species and billions of letters in each of their genomes to try to understand the place of specific biological species in the tree of life. Lately, we have turned to an icon of the Sonoran desert, the saguaro cactus, to gather genome sequence data and reconstruct where among the thousands of other species of cactus it belongs. Perhaps no plant is as firmly lodged in the imagination of people when they think of the deserts of North America than the saguaro, if for no other reason than their appearance on classic Bugs Bunny-Roadrunner cartoons or in Hollywood westerns. Saguaros are exotic and charismatic creatures, among the largest, longest-lived cactus, and their exact origins remain a mystery. No cactus genome has yet been sequenced. The saguaro genome is relatively large compared with most sequenced plant genomes, with about 1.5 billion letters in its genome. Together with a large consortium of Mexican and Arizona scientists, funded mainly by the University of Arizona College of Science and National Autonomous University of Mexico in Hermosillo, as well as colleagues at Arizona State University and a recent grant from the Tucson Cactus and Succulent Society, we have been gathering genome sequence data from saguaro samples across its geographic range in Sonora and Arizona. The main genome sequence is being assembled from an individual plant from the Tumamoc Hill reserve in Tucson, which has a century-old legacy of studies of saguaros. One small chunk of the genome is now complete, the small separate genome of chloroplasts, which is the site of photosynthesis in plant cells. Surprisingly, this chloroplast genome is the smallest yet found for any flowering plant that still undergoes photosynthesis a fairly baffling finding. In the next year, we will assemble a draft sequence for the whole genome, identify a large fraction of its genes and map how these genes vary across the diversity of habitats found within the Sonoran Desert. For me, much of the pleasure in this work comes from alternating between massive but esoteric computational challenges and the in-your-face biology of such an interesting and extreme organism as the saguaro. Genomes like this are assembled first by breaking them into billions of small pieces, sequencing each of those, and then using algorithms on large computers to put the puzzle together. But, living where we do, all of the members of our team have the singular pleasure of being able to turn their eyes away from the computer screen from time to time and look out their windows at this striking cactus, which is now beginning to give up its secrets. Growth rings of a zircon crystal (only 0.1 millimeter in length!) What was the Earth like early in its history? Was the planet covered by a magma ocean, or was it more hospitable, with continents, oceans and a life-sustaining atmosphere? Answering this question has been difficult, because the oldest rocks found on Earth are about 4 billion years old, but we know from studies of meteorites and the moon that the planet formed about 4.6 billion years ago. Fortunately, geologists are beginning to learn about this mysterious phase in early Earth history, thanks to the Jack Hills sandstone in western Australia, which contains zircon crystals that formed more than 4 billion years ago. But our story begins much more recently, in the fall of 2014, when a group of honors students in the introductory geology course at the University of Arizona signed up for a project that involved dating minerals. They discussed potential projects: How old are granite bodies in the Catalina Mountains? How old is the Grand Canyon? When was Sonorasaurus (our famous local dinosaur) alive? In the end, the students decided to tackle one of the Grand Challenges in Earth science: When did the Earth first become conducive for life? The first step in addressing this question was to acquire some Jack Hills sandstone from western Australia, which was generously provided by Professor Mark Harrison at the University of California, Los Angeles. Step two was to extract mineral grains from the sandstone that could be examined and dated. The ideal mineral for this is zircon, because it is highly durable. It resists melting, abrasion or dissolving. Jewelers will tell you that zircons are forever! And it contains enough uranium that, because of the steady decay of uranium to lead over time, the age of the crystal can be determined. Step three was to determine the ages of several hundred zircon crystals using the mass spectrometers at the Arizona LaserChron Center. Imagine the excitement in the mass spectrometer lab late at night, given that students are in class during the day, when one crystal after another yielded ages greater than 4 billion years, with some as old as 4.2 billion to 4.3 billion years! Like tiny (microscopic, actually) needles in a haystack, these crystals provide the only record of what our planet was like for the first 500 million years. But far better than needles, zircon crystals are time capsules that also contain a lot of additional information. For example, the high silicon and oxygen content of zircon indicates that continents must have existed at the time of crystallization. Sorry, if you like the idea of a magma ocean, that chapter in Earth history must have closed prior to 4.3 billion years ago. And the oxygen isotope composition of these oldest zircon grains indicates that a hydrosphere (e.g., oceans) and an atmosphere were present at the time of crystallization. So it appears that conditions on Earth were conducive to life soon after the planet formed. Who would have guessed that undergraduate students conducting measurements on zircon crystals too small to see with the naked eye would be able to help answer planet-size questions? PHOENIX The leader of an Arizona NAACP branch has offered to resign after coming under fire for his comments about a female reporter. Don Harris, 77, made the comment Wednesday after attending a meeting about Desert Vista High School students who took a photo of themselves spelling out a racial slur on their T-shirts. Phoenix New Times reporter Ray Stern captured audio of Harris making a crude remark to Stern about a female TV reporter's appearance. Harris became president of the Maricopa County branch of the NAACP in 2015. He said he emailed the branch's executive board members after the story broke to clear the air and offer his resignation. Harris told the Arizona Republic that he is leaving the final decision in the board's hands. "If they want me gone, I'm gone," Harris told the newspaper. "I'm not ducking from anything. I did something stupid and wrong and I'm sorry for it. I can't beat myself forever about it. I said it. And I can't be any more sincere." The Rev. Jarrett Maupin was facilitating the talks Wednesday. He called for Harris' resignation in a press conference Wednesday. "I don't know if it was stupidity or white-privilege that caused this white man to say such a sexist and misogynistic thing to or about any woman, particularly a woman of color," Maupin said, according to CBS 5 (KPHO-TV). "Shame on him." Maricopa County NAACP board member Benjamin Taylor would not comment on any action by the executive board Wednesday, but told The Republic that he had spoken to Harris. PHOENIX Abortion foes at the Legislature are trying an end run around a state judge who last year declared some limits on medication abortions enacted by lawmakers illegal. But other legal hurdles to the restriction remain. The proposed new version of the law, like its voided predecessor, seeks to block medication abortions after the seventh week of pregnancy, forcing women who want to terminate a pregnancy after that point to undergo a more expensive and medically intrusive surgical procedure. That flies in the face of the current practice of using RU-486 the abortion pill through the ninth week. But theres an important change. The original 2012 law said Arizona doctors had to follow the label directions for the drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. For the moment, that has the seven-week limit. But last year Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Richard Gama voided that law as an unconstitutional delegation of the Legislatures authority. He said thats because the FDA could change that standard at any time, effectively giving the federal agency the ability to change state law. By contrast, this new version in SB 1324 sponsored by Sen. Kimberly Yee, R-Phoenix, says doctors must follow the FDA label as it existed at the end of last year, even if the agency changes its mind in the future. David Brown, attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said Wednesday that could resolve the state court issue. But he said even if that is approved and signed by Gov. Doug Ducey, an abortion foe, that does not end the legal problems with the restriction. Brown pointed out the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its own order enjoining enforcement of the law on entirely separate grounds, a decision the U.S. Supreme Court refused to disturb. Brown said he expects that injunction to become permanent after a full-blown trial. But Josh Kredit, attorney for the anti-abortion Center for Arizona Policy, which helped get the law enacted in 2012, said it would be wrong to make that presumption. He pointed out that a federal judge in Tucson had refused to block enforcement of the law. Kredit acknowledged the 9th Circuit disagreed. But he said two other federal appellate courts have upheld similar laws in other states. And Kredit said he presumes the Supreme Court ultimately will side with abortion foes. At the heart of the case is the fact that both Planned Parenthood and the Tucson Womens Center have used RU-486, an abortion drug technically known as mifepristone, as well as misoprostol, a drug taken at home 24 to 48 hours after intercourse, to ensure that the fetus is expelled. Attorneys for both organizations said their doctors have determined that combination in certain dosages is effective in terminating a pregnancy through the ninth week. But that 2012 state law says any medication used to induce abortion must be administered in compliance with the protocol authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The FDA has approved RU-486 only for the first seven weeks, and only when given in two doses on separate days, each one administered by a physician. Both organizations sued to have the law declared illegal. While the federal judge said he found nothing improper about the law, the 9th Circuit concluded otherwise. In a unanimous decision, the court said the limits substantially burdened the legal right of women to terminate a pregnancy. Potentially more significant, the judges said attorneys for the state never provided any evidence to show the restrictions were necessary to protect the health of women. In fact, Judge William Fletcher, writing for the court, said evidence suggests just the opposite: Women were more likely to suffer complications if doctors had to follow the law. And in enjoining enforcement, the judges concluded the law likely will be found illegal after a trial. In his ruling for the three-judge panel, Fletcher said there was no medical basis for the restriction. He pointed out the FDA not only encourages off-label use of drugs by doctors sometimes known as evidence-based use but encourages it as a part of the effective practice of medicine. Federal courts have allowed some restrictions on abortions. But they generally have been based on some finding that the limits are necessary to protect the health of women. Kredit said Wednesday the Arizona law fits that requirement. Arizona cant tolerate the abortion industry putting profits above the health and safety of women, he said. What theyre doing is theyre cutting their cost by using less dosage. And Kredit said limiting use of the drug to what the FDA says manufacturers can put on the label protects the health of women. But Fletcher, in the courts opinion, said the states argument that the FDA protocol actually is safer for women does not hold up under closer examination. The on-label regimen requires three times more mifepristone than the evidence-based regimen, the judge said. And he said there was nothing presented to the court showing that any doctor was using the drug in a dangerous manner. Help India! New Delhi: A week after having threatened to commit suicide over not getting his research grant extended, a Jawaharlal Nehru University scholar on Wednesday complained of discriminiation, adding he is still waiting the vice chancellor response. Authorities, however, said he needs to first settle the previous balance, as he was allotted money for a field trip to Brussels (Belgium). But he did not go for that. Support TwoCircles In a letter sent to Vice Chancellor S.K. Sopory on last Thursday, Madan Meher had threatend to commit suicide in front of administrative bloc of JNU if his research grant was not extended for a year within a week. He said he is being discriminated against. The vice chancellor still has neither responded to my letters nor he has taken any steps. I took admission in the university under general category despite belonging to SC (schedule caste) category through hardwork. Ive published two books. Still I am facing discrimination in the campus, Meher told IANS. Sopory, who demitted office on Wednesday (today), said, The matter is being looked after by the School of International Studies. They are looking into the matter and will provide necessary details soon. Meher, a researcher with the International Organisation (ORG) Division at JNUs Centre for International Politics Organisation and Disarmament (CIPOD), was awarded a five-year fellowship in 2011 to complete his Ph.D. He alleged that CIPOD refused to grant him a year-and-a-four-month extension to complete his Ph.D, even though he had submitted necessary chapters. A one-year extension is granted to Ph.D scholars if they have completed 90 percent of their work in the four-year period. Citing an RTI reply, Meher said no Dalit scholar from his department has ever received his/her Ph.D degree. The office of the Controller of Examination had earlier said that Mehers grant was not approved because he had not cleared his finances with the university. He was reportedly granted Rs.66,000 for his field trip to Brussels in Belgium in 2013. But he didnt go. Hanuman Sharma, JNU controller of examination, said, The student was allotted money for a field trip to Brussels but he did not go for that. Later for around a year-and-a-half he de-registered from his Ph.D. He re-registered only last year in July. His SRF from July can be released once he settles the previous balance. He needs to get clearance from his supervisor. Rama Naga, general secretary, JNU Students Union (JNUSU) told IANS, that a meeting would be conducted by the (JNUSU) body to discuss the matter on February 8. As per the scholars letter, sent to the JNUSU as well, he was constantly harassed and discriminated against because of his caste. There are a number of such students who have faced similar harassment in the campus by various centres in JNU. The campus has a history of discriminating against those coming from marginalised communities and women, Naga said. Help India! By TCN News, Boston: Protests have erupted at major universities and cities across the US and elsewhere, expressing shock and outrage at the death of 26-year old Rohith Vemula, an anti-caste activist, student leader and PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) on January 17, 2017. Support TwoCircles On Friday January 22, Indian civil society groups based in the US gathered at Harvard Square, Cambridge for the second time in two weeks to demand punishment for those responsible for the students death. The previous Friday, a protest against the suspension of 5 Dalit student leaders at the UoH attracted about 35 participants at Harvard Square. The following Monday one of the five suspended students, Vemula, committed suicide. Students Protesting For Justice for Rohith Vemula at Harvard Square, Cambridge Vemulas death has resulted in widespread protests with analysts terming this an epochal moment for Indias students similar to the #BlackLivesMatter and #RhodesMustFall movements. On January 25th, 2016 hundreds of activists stormed the UoH campus and organized large demonstrations. Meanwhile, protests outside India calling for punishment of culprits gained momentum with demonstrations outside the Indian Consulate in San Francisco, at Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and at the University of Michigan. Large protests have also taken place in London. Two more are planned on January 30 in Washington DC by the International Commission for Dalit Rights and in New York City by Ambedkar International Mission. A condolence meeting is also planned on Wednesday January 27 outside the Indian Embassy in Rome, Italy. Over 150 academics in the US have signed a letter condemning caste discrimination on Indian campuses. In response to escalating concerns about campus discrimination in India, Harvard University is organising a solidarity meeting and discussion to highlight Vemulas death. Political Pressure and Caste Discrimination Vemulas death has been linked through a chain of emails to direct pressure by two Central Ministers of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the university Vice Chancellor (VC) Appa Rao. The scholars death has turned into a major firestorm for Prime Minister Narendra Modis government with mass demonstrations across the country demanding the criminal prosecution of the two ministers and the VC under Indias anti-discrimination laws. Last week, a major speech by PM Modi was disrupted by Dalit students chanting slogans calling for justice for Rohith. Tensions between Akhila Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) the student wing of the Hindu nationalist sister organisation of the ruling BJP, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and Ambedkarite and minority student groups have increased sharply in public Indian educational institutions in the past years. This is partly because of the caste and class discrimination faced by marginalised students in elite educational spaces and their political organising and assertion against Brahminism and Hindu nationalism. Meanwhile, administrative staff and teachers in top universities remain almost exclusively from the upper castes and Hindus resulting in an often hostile climate for Dalit and minority students. Elite universities have seen a slew of Dalit student suicides in the past 10 years often after students complain about severe discrimination by their professors, advisors, and administration. Vemulas death shot into national prominence because of involvement of Central ministers, the public harassment and intimidation of Rohit and his fellow Dalit students, and two powerful letters written before his death that have since gone viral on social media. In a letter to the VC Appa Rao a month before his death, Vemula asks him to provide Dalit students with poison and a rope as soon as they gain admission or arrange for them to be euthani sed in order to solve the Dalit problem on campus. A month after receiving no response from administration Vemula, an aspiring science writer, committed suicide leaving behind a poignant suicide note that laments societys inability to look beyond peoples most immediate identities a reference to casteism. Outrage in Cambridge Dr. Vidya Karunakaran, a PhD from Dartmouth College who works with #DalitWomenFight expressed anguish at the loss of the promising young scholar and activist. Noting that his death was part of a larger pattern in Indian universities, she said. 80% of suicides in the elite institutions in India are Dalits and Adivasis. Clearly we have a problem of casteism in our State. Dalit student Suraj Yengde, Associate at the Harvard African American Department and a PhD scholar from South Africa compared casteist India to apartheid South Africa and to the situation of the Palestinians. He noted that all systems of oppressions carry within them a genocidal tendency which make it difficult for oppressed groups to live. Tanoj Meshram, a PhD student in Social Policy at Brandeis University and Central Executive Committee Member and International Coordinator of Mulnivasi Sangh (an offshoot of the All India Backward and Minorities Communities Employees Federation) accused educational institutes in India of denying political and civil rights supposed to be guaranteed by the constitution. He said educational institutes are supposed to be instruments of social changebut in India it is shameful to see that they are citadels of the status quo and Brahmanism. Protesters called for the immediate sacking and criminal prosecution of the two union ministers Central Labor Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, and Minister for Human resources Ms. Smriti Irani and the VC of UoH for their role in Vemulas death. Organisers are working on presenting a memorandum to the United Nations to call for a Special Rapporteur on Caste Atrocities and to constitute an independent working group to assess the conditions affecting the victims of the caste system SCs/STs/OBCs and specifically SC and STs who face untouchability and severe oppression based on their social origins. Students protesting at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for Rohith Vemula The organizers, which included Boston Study Group; Ambedkar International Center; Ambedkar International Mission; Ambedkar Association of North India; Alliance for a Secular and Democratic South Asia; Association for Indias Development; issued a joint statement. We mourn the loss of a talented, sensitive, and powerful young Ambedkarite and scientist and extend our deep condolences to his family, loved ones, and to the Ambedkarite student community at UoH. We condemn the open support by UoH administration of extreme right wing groups like the RSS affiliated ABVP who have been carrying out a campaign of terror to intimidate progressive forces in society by using BJPs political networks to protect their cadre and persecute democratic opposition. Rohiths death is a direct consequence of this right wing persecution in partnership with the casteist and corrupt university administration, the statement said. The organisers called on other South Asian and human rights groups to join the protest and said We express our solidarity with the Bahujan and Religious Minorities student resistance movements across all other casteist university spaces in India. Help India! By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter, New Delhi: Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) lead Gujarat governments controversial anti-terror and anti-organised crimes bill has been rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee, making it the third instance when the 12-year-old bill has not received approval from an Indian President. Support TwoCircles The bill was passed after amendment and renaming it as Gujarat Control of Terrorism and Organised Crime (GCTOC) Bill 2015 in the Gujarat Assembly in March 2015, despite strong opposition from Congress. The Home Ministry had sent this bill to the President in September 2015 for his assent. The bill was earlier rejected in 2004 and 2009 by the then President APJ Abdul Kalam and Pratibha Patil respectively, who had suggested some amendments in the provisions related to telephone interception and confession made before police officer being considered as evidence in court. On both occasions, the then UPA government recommended to the President for rejection of the bill, saying several provisions of the GCTOC were not in conformity of the Central law, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Home Ministry will provide the additional inputs to the President after obtaining the same from the Gujarat government, a Home Ministry official told PTI. The Home Ministry has informed the President after his communication that it was withdrawing the bill and will submit a re-worked bill for his consent. The GUJCOC bill is on the lines of the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) that makes statement made before police officer by an accused to be admissible evidence, allows more time to the investigation agency to file charge sheet and also permits police to intercept telephone calls. The bill also puts the onus of proving the innocence upon the accused person and makes securing bail difficult unless prima facie no case is made out against accused or prosecution does not object bail. Clause 16 of GUJCOC gives unfettered powers to the police, making confessions made by the accused to officers not below the rank of Superintendent of Police as admissible before a court of law. Help India! New Delhi : The BJP on Thursday demanded the resignation of Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Power Minister Aryadan Mohammed, after a court ordered an FIR against them on corruption charges in the solar panel case. The charges against the chief minister and the power minister are of very serious nature and we demand their resignations, union minister Nirmala Sitharaman said at a press conference. Support TwoCircles I dont think he (Chandy) has a choice. He has no locus standi to be chief minister anymore, she said, when informed that Chandy has refused to resign, saying he had done no wrong. The BJP leader also asked the Congress leadership to take a call in the matter. Let the Congress high command speak out what they have to say on this. The Congress high command looks the other way when it comes to corruption. Would they go to Kerala and speak about the corruption? Sitharaman asked. The main accused in the scam, Saritha Nair and her live-in partner Biju Radhakrishnan were arrested in 2013 for cheating numerous investors who paid money for solar panels. The Thrissur Vigilance Court on Thursday directed a first information report to be registered against Chandy and Mohammed. Help India! Kolkata : A section of students of the Presidency University here launched a token hunger strike on Thursday in solidarity with the nationwide protests against the suicide of Hyderabad Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula. Students as well as alumni of the varsity are participating in a 24-hour hunger strike that began at 4 p.m. against all forms of minority oppression. Support TwoCircles According to the Independents Consolidation (IC), a campus-based, non-affiliated, independent students body which is leading the agitation, it is imperative we stand up against the ruthless onslaught of Hindutva fascism in whatever capacity we can. and hope to expand the diaspora of constructive political thought in a nation where a research scholar has to lose his gift of life for us to fully comprehend the extent of oppression which minorities are subjected to in the societies of which we call. A section of students of Jadavpur University boycotted classes on Wednesday. Widespread protests have rocked India following the death of Vemula, who committed suicide on January 17 following his suspension along with four other Dalit students over an alleged clash with a leader of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). Help India! New Delhi : The HRD ministry on Thursday appointed former Allahabad High Court judge Justice Ashok Kumar Roopanwal to head the one-man judicial commission to probe the suicide of Dalit scholar Rohit Vemula in Hyderabad. The ministry has appointed Justice Roopanwal to probe the circumstances leading to the Dalit students suicide in Hyderabad, said an official of the human resource development ministry. Support TwoCircles Vemula, a research scholar at Hyderabad University, committed suicide on January 17 after his suspension along with four other Dalit students from Hyderabad University over an alleged clash with a leader of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). The central government had decided to set up a judicial commission to probe the suicide after a fact-finding committee which went to the university submitted its report. The commission will submit its report in three months. The world premiere of the new Dads Army Film at the Odeon Leicester Square in London this week was a red carpet affair that the original Captain Mainwaring would no doubt have whole-heartedly approved of. Despite the traditionally inclement English conditions in January, even as the cast huddled under umbrellas to keep out the damp weather they seemed genuinely enthused by their efforts on the eagerly-anticipated re-make. Zeta-Jones back in the UK Catherine Zeta-Jones may have swapped Britain for the sunnier climes of Los Angeles these days, but the 46-year-old seemed genuinely glad to be back in the UK for the new film. Besides fellow cast members Sir Michael Gambon, Sir Tom Courtenay and Toby Jones (Mainwaring) for the obligatory photoshoot, she simply oozed charm and charisma. The sultry Welsh lass of Darling Buds of May and the Zorro films fame, purred that filming back in Blighty was akin to coming back to a cup of Ovaltine. Surrounded by the classy British cast who all knew their lines, knew what they were doing she was greatly impressed by the re-make of a BBC comedy classic for the silver screen. She plays the part of a reporter in the film. Gambons troubles Gambon did however admit to some problems in remembering his lines during filming. The well-respected 75-year-old pointed out that in order to play the dithering Godfrey he never had more than two lines (of dialogue) at a time. That enabled him to refer to a piece of paper in his pocket and keep reciting it in your head, so you dont have to read. Mainly new cast Besides the requisite replacement of most of the original TV cast (who have sadly passed away in the interim) in the film, there were parts for the last two remaining members. Frank Williams may now be in his 80s, but was able to reprise his virtuoso role as the Rev Timothy Farthing. Williams admitted that his involvement in the new scenes made him feel that it was very much like coming home again. Ian Lavender was perhaps slightly too old to resume his stupid boy part as Private Pike, but took on a cameo role instead in the film to retain some of the nostalgic feel to the production. Domestic dispute The film had ignited a minor domestic dispute last year between Thetford and Bridlington. Both towns believed that they could justifiably claim to be the real Walmington-on-Sea, the fictional location for Dads Army. Perhaps both places can now share in the limelight afforded by the likely surge in interest in the brand in the aftermath of the films release. The film goes on general release in the UK on February 5th. There are only 400 of the critically endangered mountain gorillas left in the Bwindi Impenetrable Park in Uganda. Conservationists are alarmed by plans announced that include the stripping of a nearby rainforest to make way for tea plantations. The forest is part of the buffer zone between human habitation and the UNESCO site. Outside of the buffer zones around the park, the human population is very dense. There are fears that once the buffer zone is removed, humans will be able to encroach into the Bwindi Impenetrable Park to utilize resources. This might place the future of the gorillas at risk. The Gorilla Organization, which works closely with the communities in the area, is particularly concerned. Executive director, Jillian Miller said that the buffer zone is vital. The Ecologist Org quoted him as saying, there is a lot of competition for resources - so the buffer zone is vital for the protection of the Park. The Gorilla Organization holds very strongly to the conservation of the forests, in order to conserve the great apes that live within them. The Kafuga Pocket Forest, that will lose thousands of hectares if the farming project goes ahead, is close to the Park, and whilst it is not a protected area, it forms an ecological island has a great diversity of wildlife and plants. The efforts to conserve this pocket forest include a joint project run by Pro-biodiversity Conservationists in Uganda (PROBICOU) and the ITF Sustainable Community Forestry Programme. The plans to work with the local communities, maintain a tree nursery, plant the nearly thirty thousand seedlings they have grown and identify urgent intervention needs to conserve the forest are now at risk of being wiped out. PROBICOU and the International tree Foundation have launched a campaign online to try and save the forest. Their ITF "Save Ugandas Kafuga Forest" page explains that there is no time, and donations and signatories to sign their petition are extremely urgent. According to their predictions, the situation is dire and could result in the forest being stripped in a matter of months. The tea industry is an important foreign exchange earner for the country of Uganda. Approximately 80% of the crop is exported. The climate conditions are ideal for the plants and Uganda is the third largest producer of the crop in Africa. UK & Ireland Online Poker Rankings: Woodhead and Killeen Are On Top January 28 2016 Matthew Pitt Editor Both the United Kingdom and Ireland online poker rankings have a new number one this week after Stephen woody1234321 Woodhead and Kevin SuitedAcesBaby Killeen enjoyed huge Sundays at the virtual felt. UK & Ireland PokerNews has sung the praises of Woodhead for several months now thanks to his almost unnatural ability to go deep in a major online event on a seemingly daily basis. On January 24, Woodhead secured his largest payday of the year so far, and his fourth-largest online cash of all-time, when he won the TCOOP-17: $215 NL Holdem Re-Entry for almost $119,000. This excellent result not only pushed him to the top of the pile in the UK standings, but also propelled him to a career-high of 13th in PocketFives.coms worldwide rankings. Woodhead pushed Spanish grinder Oscar MendaLerenda Serradell into second place, albeit by a mere 12.75 points. Serradell also won big on Sunday, finishing second in the TCOOP-19: $215 NL Holdem Hyper Turbo for a shade over $63,000. Three more British stars improved their UK and global standings this week, with all three climbing to an all-time high in the world. Ben Fabaz Farrell is enjoying the form of his life right now and secured the second-largest score of his career on Sunday when he won the TCOOP event that Serradell finished runner-up in. The $84,490 that Farrell won helped push him up to seventh in the UK and 57th in the world. Leeds Jamie ExGame89 OConnor has been surging up the tables of late and now resides in 16th in the UK and 120th in the world.OConnor won the PokerStars Big $109 for $13,406 a couple of weeks ago and followed that impressive win up with a victory in the PokerStars $27 NL Holdem 6-Max Hyper for $3,159 and a runner-up finish in the Hot $55 for $9,071. Last of the rising trio is Daniel lucky_scrote Carter. Three outright victories between January 13 and 16 were followed by a runner-up finish in the $320 Saturday Super-Knockout at PokerStars for $20,180, resulting in Carter claiming 17th place in the UK and 136th in the world. UK Online Poker Rankings (January 28, 2016) UK Rank Player Points 1 Stephen woody1234321 Woodhead 6081.46 2 Oscar MendaLerenda Serradell 6068.71 3 Chris moorman1 Moorman 5943.43 4 Andy wiisssppppaa Taylor 5719.98 5 Scott Aggro Santos Margereson 5549.75 6 Christopher NigDawG Brammer 5387.41 7 Ben BenFaz Farrell 5161.25 8 Patrick pleno1 Leonard 5126.75 9 10111420 4927.14 10 Phil philroyal888 Mighall 4835.74 11 Conor 1_conor_b_1 Beresford 4788.69 12 carpediem200 4776.21 13 Tom Jabracada Hall 4745.27 14 Paul Fold Machiii Dando 4677.54 15 William BillyChat Chattaway 4641.34 16 Jamie EzGame89 OConnor 4573.51 17 Daniel lucky_scrote Carter 4464.17 18 Vicent vicenfish Delgado 4463.40 19 Phill Grindation McAllister 4424.86 20 Rhys floppinhel Jones 4369.64 Killeen Reigns Supreme in Ireland It has finally happened, Sergio EV4dGloryOMC Garcia has been knocked off top spot in Ireland after a year of making the rankings his own. Garcia hasnt registered a single cash online since December 27, 2015, which has obviously contributed to his downfall, but take nothing away from the new leader, Kevin SuitedAcesBaby Killeen because hes been playing out of his skin in an attempt to overtake his foe. Killeen now has a near 200-point cushion between himself and Garcia thanks in part to his fourth place finish in the PokerStars Bounty Builder which netted him $6,460, and will push even further ahead once his recent runner-up finish in the 888poker $250,000 guaranteed opening event of the Super XL Series, worth a cool $42,803.22, is added to his points tally. Killeen is now ranked 72nd in the world, a career-high, and could break into the top 50 or beyond once his 888poker haul is credited to his PocketFives profile. It was otherwise a relatively quiet week for the Irish contingent, with the other story of note being Nicholas YerSoLucky Newport returning to the top 20 in his country and 748th in the world, following a string of solid results in mid-stakes inline tournaments. Irish Online Poker Rankings Top 20 (January 28, 2016) UK Rank Player Points 1 Kevin SuitedAcesBaby Killeen 4941.13 2 Sergio EV4dGloryOMC Garcia 4745.46 3 Kursplunk 4480.49 4 Cathal shinerrr Shine 4303.17 5 Tomas luckymo32 Geleziunas 4098.01 6 Dan NukeTheFish! Wilson 4040.74 7 Jude j.thaddeus Ainsworth 3712.47 8 Michael BIGMIKG Graydon 3691.59 9 Conor ccoonnoorr O'Driscoll 3434.14 10 Frank Denman98 Lillis 3389.20 11 myleftfoot 3372.96 12 Dara Doke OKearney 3353.23 13 Daragh daragh999 Davey 3291.02 14 Daniel danielt999 Tighe 3189.97 15 John gruaiggorm Daly 3184.03 16 Toby Jobytoyce Joyce 3137.93 17 David Laois Hammer Scully 3047.56 18 Andrew UlDuffer Sweeney 2942.34 19 James Jaymo Noonan 2881.37 20 Nicholas YerSoLucky Newport 2820.33 Get all the latest PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+! The largest airline of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the flag carrier of the Emirate of Dubai , Emirates , has announced that it will ... Full Monty SG Style Update: 17 May 2020: Woman allegedly flashes herself around S'pore to solicit paying members for obscene telegram group A female f... Singapore Good Old Days Tennessee Waltz related: Singapore Good Old Times Longing for the good old days Singapore in the 1950s to 1990s Singapore at 50: From swamp ... Protect yourself from fraud & scams How to protect your privacy online and why that matters Failing to protect your digital privacy can lead to a host of issues, from identit... 10 Ways to Look 10 Years Younger Without a Facelift Look and feel younger by doing a few simple things There is no way to stop the hands of time and prevent the aging proce... The Hill of Tara also known as Cnoc na Teamhrach which located near the River Boyne, is an archaeological complex that runs between Navan and Dunshaughlin in County Meath, Ireland. It has been in use by people from the Neolithic era, although it is not known if Tara was continuously used as a sacred and/or a political centre from the Neolithic period to the 12th century. It contains a number of ancient monuments, many other Neolithic earthworks and tombs and although commonly associated with the Celts, the site pre-dates their arrival in Ireland by thousands of years and, according to tradition, was the seat of the High King of Ireland. The Hill of Tara is one of Irelands most ancient sacred sites. It is the place where the Tuatha De Danann reigned. These were a God-like people who were said to have arrived in Ireland in mysterious ships and had magical powers. In prehistory and historic times 142 Kings are said to have reigned in the name of Tara. The coronation stone called The Lia Fail or Stone of Destiny has rested here down the ages. And it was here that the most powerful of Irish Kings held their great inaugural feasts and were approved by Earth Mother Goddess Maeve. The Stone of Destiny I believe that communities need a strong agenda for dealing with crime while recognizing that the public safety agenda is often built on a racist foundation, and much more resources need to be put towards community improvement. Yes the document has all kinds of measures for getting tough on criminals, but it does offer an agenda of assistance to individuals and low income communities as well. (Also see "Memphis Commercial-Appeal.) I wonder if the State of Tennessee public safety plan, A Safer Tennessee: Public Safety Action Plan, 2016-2018 , is an adequate foundation for such planning.Yes the document has all kinds of measures for getting tough on criminals, but it does offer an agenda of assistance to individuals and low income communities as well. (Also see " Haslam unveils anti-crime plan in Memphis ,".) Is it perfect or broad ranging enough? Probably not. Will more money be spent on police and prisons and the criminal justice system rather than on "community improvement"? In all likelihood yes. One of the problems that many people ascribe to the #BlackLivesMatter agenda is a kind of "nullification" as it relates to crime (" Black Lives Matter should also take on 'black-on-black crime ,"). To an outsider, it appears as if there is a kind of preconceived notion within the movement that anything "the government" does concerning crime and public safety is anti-Black and moreover, unjustified.While I can see why many people would have strong reason to believe that, it is in fact a stretch or overstatement. There is no question that the current paradigm isn't working (" Police misconduct and grand juries: a separate prosecution and grand jury system is necessary " " How police departments become corrupt ," and " Police officers aren't always the best placemakers ").But at the same time there is no question that there is crime and it disproportionately impacts low income communities and people of color. Labels: crime, law and the legal process, low income households, policing, poverty, public safety, urban revitalization Contact US for US Tax Services in Mexico We are in Mexico to assist our clients at various times during the year even though we provide most services by email, fax, internet and phone. If you would like to see us in Cabo San Lucas Mexico in 2015, call us at our Mexican phone number 624-131-5228 or our US number in Mexico at 949-480-1235. Email us at ddnelson@gmail.com Experts, entrepreneurs make suggestions for gov't work report, 13th Five-Year Plan Updated: 2016-01-28 04:43 (Xinhua) Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (C back) presides over a symposium to solicit opinions on the draft of the annual government work report and the country's 13th Five-Year Plan from leaders of non-Communist political parties, officials of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce and prominent figures without party affiliation in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 25, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] BEIJING -- Premier Li Keqiang on Monday held a symposium to solicit opinion from experts and entrepreneurs on the draft of the annual government work report and the country's 13th Five-Year Plan. "It takes new perspective to observe the Chinese economy, as it has achieved growth with higher quality in terms of new growth drivers, people's income, energy saving and emission-reduction," participants at the symposium said. China should continue promote innovation-driven growth through encouraging mass entrepreneurship and innovation, according to Gu Shengzu, a member of the Financial and Economic Committee of the National People's Congress, and Liu Shijin, an economist with the Development and Research Center under the State Council. Hua Sheng, a professor at Southeast University, said that China should stick to reform and opening up and give priority to institutional and mechanism building. Zhu Haibin, chief China economist at JP Morgan, made suggestions on digesting excess capacity and promoting "new-type" urbanization. Guan Qing, chair of China State Construction Engineering Corp. said China should improve its industry standards and sharp the image of "built by China." Lu Guanqiu, board chairman of China's leading auto-part maker Wanxiang Group, said the government should press ahead with streamlining administration to mobilize the enthusiasm of private enterprises and capital. Cao Guowei, CEO of news portal Sina, suggested that Internet platforms might play a role in upgrading traditional industries. Li exchanged opinions with the experts and entrepreneurs, and said that reform and opening up remains the "magic weapon" for achieving growth. "The most important thing at present is making the economy rely less on natural resources than on talent," he said. He reiterated that the government should take good care of laid-off workers from industries with overcapacity, especially the coal and steel sectors. Li will deliver the final work report at the annual session of the National People's Congress in March. Li: China is not waging a trade war Updated: 2016-01-28 22:03 By Zhang Yunbi(chinadaily.com.cn) The Chinese government "has no intention to boost exports by devaluing the renminbi, not to mention waging a trade war", Premier Li Keqiang told International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde during a telephone call on Thursday morning. Li also said China "is able to maintain continued, steady growth of its economy" in their conversation about economic and financial situation in China and around the world. Observers said Li's comments will help dismiss doubts in the market over the alleged currency manipulation by China and its future economic prospects. The country's economy, which grew by 6.9 percent last year, still faces downward pressure. "The fact is the renminbi exchange rate has remained basically stable against a basket of currencies, and there is no basis for continuous depreciation of renminbi,"Li said. China will "press steadily ahead with the reform of mechanism to formulate the RMB exchange rate", reinforce its communication with the market and keep the RMB exchange rate basically stable at an appropriate and balanced level, Li added. Lagarde said she believed the Chinese government could maintain steady economic growth through measures such as structural reform, keeping the exchange rate policy stable and boosting communication with the market. The IMF is willing to further strengthen communication and cooperation with China, Lagarde added. Addressing a panel discussion in Davos, Switzerland, last week, Lagarde said China's policymakers have shown "unbelievable determination"to deliver reforms in the past, Bloomberg reported. Chen Fengying, a senior world economy researcher at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said Lagarde and the IMF are important channels for China to send signals to the world market in such a critical time. "As uncertainties cloud the market, Li has stated China's confidence in the economy and currency. Without such remarks, the stock and currency markets' confidence could be more vulnerable," Chen said. Two movies making quite a stir - Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Wolf Totem - have surprisingly much in common. Aside from being hits that are beautiful to look at and take viewers to strange undiscovered places, the two tales also intersect in the world of the most powerful kind of myth. Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) was the world's great scholar of mythology and his writings inspired George Lucas's rendering of Luke Skywalker's adventures in the original Star Wars movies. Campbell basically collected all of the world's myths from the beginnings of recorded history and every culture and found the common plots and storylines that they all shared. And the similarities, he argued in his seminal work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), were more than random coincidence. Campbell was building on the previous work of two great thinkers - German anthropologist Adolphe Bastian, who suggested that myths from different cultures seemed to be made of the same "elementary ideas", and Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, who called those building blocks "archetypes" and believed they were hard-wired into every human being's subconscious, which is why everyone enjoys a good story. Campbell called it the "mythic imagination" that all human beings share. And part of the "monomyth" cycle that every hero of a story goes through means going into regions that they know nothing about (which, of course, is a metaphor for the undiscovered inner self), passing the test (slaying the dragon) and coming out alive and better equipped to help society. For scavenger Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (and for Luke in the original) that unknown world begins with the cantina scene and leads into the world of The Force (which, with a great little ironic twist, Rey thought was a myth to begin with). For the two young zhiqing from Beijing in Wolf Totem it is the wild, remote grasslands of Mongolia, and from there into the interlocking, interdependent and delicately balanced world of herdsman, sheep, gazelle and wolf. Both heroes go through Campbell's three-part cycle of Departure (in Wolf Totem, the sea of thousands of identical busses thinning out as they spread out across the countryside, dwindling eventually to just one, is wonderfully done), Initiation to do battle with the bad guys (Chen Zhen getting surrounded by wolves is truly hair-raising) and Return, to heal society. The bogies are always scary, the things that hide under beds and in closets. As Campbell put it: "All the ogres and secret helpers of our nursery are there, all the magic of childhood..." There the hero gives battle to "the nursery demons of his local culture" and "brings back from his adventure the means for the regeneration of the society as a whole." Way back in 1977, after the success of the first Star Wars, George Lucas told a reporter that he had studied anthropology and mythology of dozens of different cultures. "It seemed to me that there was no longer a lot of mythology in our society, the kind of stories we tell ourselves and our children, which is the way our heritage is passed down," he said. "Westerns used to provide that, but there weren't any Westerns anymore." Outer space suited Lucas' imagination; wolf-inhabited Mogolia suited a Beijing student during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76). The payoffs of the two sagas, of course, differ. In any Star Wars movie, Jedi knights and the Force usually win out over The Dark Side. With Wolf Totem, which is based on the best-selling semi-autobiographical novel by Lu Jiamin, the hero survives his "initiation" and after two years returns to life in the crowded city, but the world he got to know is coming apart. Both of these great tales further prove the old saying that the ocean of stories bathes all shores and is fed by all rivers. Contact the writer at chrisdavis@chinadailyusa.com. Although the slowdown in China's economy apparently has reached across the Pacific to San Francisco's residential real estate market, the city's astronomical housing prices also play a major role. "We've seen a sharp drop over the last three years in search activity on Trulia, about 50 percent" by Chinese buyers, Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist for the San Francisco-based real estate search engine, told China Daily. "San Francisco's more pronounced than the drop we've seen on the national level," he said. "Nationally, it's down about 30 percent." Chinese buyers make up between 6 and 10 percent of homebuyers in San Francisco, according to Trulia. A median single-family house price in the San Francisco-San Mateo region, home to Silicon Valley tech titans and venture capitalists, is $1.1 million. "There aren't as many bargains, discounted homes as we've seen in 2012, 2013" in San Francisco, McLaughlin said. "Deals are fewer and far between." Part of it can just be that Chinese buyers see the San Francisco market as frothy, because as McLaughlin noted, the drop-off started three years ago, before China's stock market selloff and currency depreciation. "In the California market, particularly the San Francisco area, the price run-up has been so extraordinary. It's not only the foreign buyers hesitating, but domestic buyers (too)," Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors (NAR), told China Daily. "Larger numbers of people are thinking whether the prices make sense," he said. "They're (Chinese buyers) looking at all the West Coast cities, and the Bay Area has become the most expensive." Still, the economy of China looms large. China recorded its slowest yearly GDP growth in more than 20 years - 6.9 percent - as it transitions from a manufacturing-based economy to one that is more consumer- and service-oriented. China's major mainland stock exchanges, the Shanghai and Shenzhen, are down 23 and 26 percent, respectively, just in January. Yun said an anecdotal NAR survey of Realtors around the country presented a mixed view on interest from Chinese buyers. "Some were indicating that a purchase that was lined up, some people pulled out because they didn't have the finances," Yun said. But "some Realtors have indicated that they are actually getting increased inquiries about being here in the US". McLaughlin also sees a dichotomy. "Because the Chinese economy and stock market have fallen, that has taken some confidence from Chinese investors (but) they may be looking for safer assets, and US real estate tends to be viewed, at least historically, as a safe investment, and we may see Chinese interest actually increase," he said. Also muddling the picture is that "some Chinese buyers of US real estate use intermediaries in the US so the transaction comes up as a US buyer," McLaughlin said. Although many observers see a disconnect between China's stock market and "real" economy in terms of the impact a market selloff has on its overall economy (unlike in the US), the more affluent Chinese investors who buy property abroad do tend to also invest in stocks. "People who are buying in the US have to be in the upper tier of wealth to even consider buying here or even in Canada," Yun said. "In 2014, sales transactions to buyers outside of the US dropped 10 percent, possibly due to the strengthening of the US dollar in relation to international currencies and weakening foreign economies," Yun wrote in a June 2015 NAR report. "However, the amount of money spent has increased; this means international purchasers in the US have become an upscale group of buyers, spending more money on fewer homes." International buyers tend to purchase more expensive properties, with the average purchase price just below $500,000, compared with the overall average US price of $255,600. Chinese buyers typically buy the most expensive properties, at an average cost of $831,800. Chinese buyers prefer the West Coast, with its plentiful education, business and trade opportunities, while Canadians looking for winter getaways gravitate toward the Southwest and Florida. In 2014, for the first time, buyers from China exceeded all other countries in housing units purchased and in dollar volume, buying $28.6 billion worth of properties. "My expectation is that China will continue to hold the lead (in the next survey)," Yun said. "Even though there is some devaluation in the yuan, it's much less devaluation compared to the Canadian dollar or other foreign currencies." Yun mentioned Tampa, Florida, as an emerging market for Chinese buyers. Contact the writer at williamhennelly@chinadailyusa.com China's Global Newspaper Sorry, the page you requested was not found. Please check the URL for proper spelling and capitalization. If you're having trouble locating a destination on Chinadaily.com.cn, try visiting the Chinadaily home page China, US find more to agree on Updated: 2016-01-28 12:10 By Zhang Yunbi and Li Xiaokun in Beijing and Chen Weihua in Washington(China Daily USA) President Xi Jinping hosts US Secretary of State John Kerry for talks in Beijing Top diplomats from Beijing and Washington found more common ground on Wednesday on key issues, including the latest nuclear test by Pyongyang. In a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry, President Xi Jinping said that China-US ties have been smooth and have advanced in the past year, and the two countries have had "timely communication" on topics including the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue. President Xi Jinping escorts US Secretary of State John Kerry in Beijing on Wednesday. Wu Zhiyi / China Daily When China and the United States work together, they can make big things happen that are good for the world, Xi said. Meeting the media with Kerry at the Foreign Ministry, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China will hold "comprehensive and in-depth deliberations with the United States and other parties" on an expected United Nations Security Council resolution on the recent nuclear test by Pyongyang. China and the US have agreed on the broad goal of restarting negotiations on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, Wang said. Kerry said their meeting was constructive, and the two countries had agreed to accelerate their efforts on the issue at the UN. Kerry spoke highly of productive communication and coordination between the two countries, specifically mentioning the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal. Responding to allegations by US media that China's self-defense facilities on some gar-risoned islands and reefs in the South China Sea have "boosted militarization", Wang said China has promised not to engage in that activity. "International law has given all sovereign countries the right to self-protection and self-defense," Wang said. Taiwan also featured in the talks between the top diplomats, with Wang saying, "Taiwan is a core issue affecting China-US ties." He urged Washington to "take concrete action to support the peaceful development of cross-Straits relations". In response, Kerry reaffirmed the US commitment to the One-China policy. Kerry arrived in China on Tuesday after stops in Laos and Cambodia. He also met with State Councilor Yang Jiechi on Wednesday. State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner on Wednesday described sanctions as one of the most effective tools against North Korea, something China has a different view of. The impoverished Democratic People's Republic of Korea is already one of the most sanctioned nations in the world. Toner said China and the US agree that the way forward is through the UN Security Council. "We will continue to work with China on that," he said. Speaking on Wednesday at the Center on Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Harry Harris, commander of the US Pacific Command (PACOM), blamed the Chinese activities of land reclamation for increasing tensions in the South China Sea. But Harris noted that the Chinese have a different view, and he had robust discussions with his Chinese counterparts last October during his visit to China. Harris reminded the audience that the Chinese military "has done positive and good things globally", citing the example of the People's Liberation Army in counterpiracy operations, evacuations from Yemen, removing chemical weapons from Syria, participation in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) naval drills and sending its large hospital ship to the Philippines during Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013. "We didn't send our hospital ship," he said. Harris praised the Chinese for being a "terrific host. They treated me with the greatest respect, and I look forward to continue that dialogue with China," he said. Su Ge, president of the China Institute of International Studies, said China and the US should "grab the wheel firmly", adding that one of the expected political legacies of US President Barack Obama is the steady and healthy growth of the bilateral relationship. Contact the writers at zhangyunbi@chinadaily.com.cn How the rich in China give Updated: 2016-01-28 12:10 By Amy He in New York(China Daily USA) Unlike their Western counterparts, China's richest tend to donate their money to single causes, and many tend to support education, according to a new report from the Harvard Kennedy School. The top 100 Chinese philanthropists donated or pledged $3.8 billion between September 2014 and August 2015, donating for the most part to one cause. Only one philanthropist - Alibaba's Jack Ma - gave to four different causes, while 71 percent of the top 100 donors gave to one cause. "This may be because donors often give to causes in which they have a certain expertise or knowledge, thus narrowing the range of sectors addressed. It may also be that early phases of a philanthropic sector's growth can be characterized by giving that is shaped more by personal experience," said Edward Cunningham in the report. Cunningham is the China programs director for the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, a research center at the Kennedy School. Fifty-nine of the 100 donors support education, and 57.5 percent of all their donations went to that sector, according to the data. Beijing received a fourth of the 2015 education donations, and Chongqing received nearly a fifth. Many of the donors give to this sector "because of the positive role educational opportunities played in their own lives. Interviews with such donors consistently highlighted such motivations, often complemented by a focus on the donor's own children and furthering their opportunities educationally," said the report. China's top donors include Wanda Group's Wang Jianlin ($48 million), Jack Ma ($20 million) and ENN Group's Wang Yusuo ($46 million). The average donation made was $8.2 million. Along with the China's Most Generous: Understanding China's Philanthropic Landscape report released Wednesday, the Ash Center launched an interactive website that tracks the philanthropic activity of China's richest. The site will be updated annually, tracking the biggest donations made every year going forward. Currently it compiles data on Chinese donations within the country, but the project will potentially expand to Chinese donations overseas, Cunningham said. Cunningham said the center wanted to expand on the research already being done on China's wealthiest by examining more closely where they were giving their money. "When you start to think through the impact that private wealth can have in China - socially, politically, economically - we wanted to continue to think about how we would approach it," he said. "There's lots of ways to enter this area and we felt that there's certainly a lot of good work out there, the majority of it was the wealth aspect - understanding and creating lists of top 10, top 20 wealth holders in China." amyhe@chinadailyusa.com North Carolina welcomes Cui Updated: 2016-01-28 12:10 By Dong Leshuo in Charlotte, North Carolina(China Daily USA) The Chinese Embassy brought some Lunar New Year joy down South on Wednesday. "Today's reception is the very first chunjie celebration our embassy has ever held outside Washington DC," Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai said. Charlotte, North Carolina, was chosen because of "the hospitality, honesty, frankness and diligence of the people of North Carolina, and of course, the spirit of Tar Heels. Chinese culture also values these virtues," Cui said. Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai (center) meets with North Carolina Governor Patrick McCrory (left) and John Skvarla, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Commerce, on Wednesday in Charlotte to talk about subnational collabrations between China and the US. Dong Leshuo / China Daily Cui met Patrick McCrory, governor of North Carolina, before the reception. "The governor and I talked about multiple issues in the collaborations between China and North Carolina. He mentioned there are a lot of opportunities moving forward," Cui told China Daily. "We had a wonderful discussion about the current opportunities and the successes we have already had regarding the relationship between the two countries," McCrory said. Cui and McCrory talked about partnerships in education, tourism, energy, technology, biotech and so on, according to McCrory. Trade volume between China and North Carolina in 2014 exceeded $15 billion, according to Cui. China is North Carolina's third-largest international trade partner and is a major buyer of the state's semiconductor, pharmaceutical and agricultural products, McCrory said. "Subnational exchange is a cornerstone of the China-US relationship," Cui said. "It means practical cooperation between cities and states, but beyond that, it is an indispensable part of the big picture - how the two biggest nations in the world work together." "The relationship between China and the US has changed dramatically during our lifetime," said US Representative Robert Pittenger of North Carolina. "Our countries share significant trade and economic ties, which bind our countries as never before." "Trade and people-to-people bonds add to the good prospects of the overall China-US relations," Cui said. More than a dozen well-known Chinese companies have invested in North Carolina, such as Lenovo and China Tobacco. North Carolina has established two sister province-state relations and six sister city relations with Chinese provinces and cities. North Carolina and South Carolina have substantial Chinese communities. "We are so pleased that you chose your first experience of Spring Festival outside Washington - Charlotte, North Carolina," said Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts. "This is just the beginning," she said. "We expect your return, as we know there are many opportunities to unfold." dongleshuo@chinadailyusa.com Finnish company plans to push ahead with Terex deal Updated: 2016-01-29 00:04 (Agencies) The head of Finnish company Konecrane said that it is pursuing its planned merger with Terex, the US-based crane maker that received an unsolicited $3.3 billion bid from China's Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Co. Konecranes Chairman Stig Gustavson on Wednesday questioned how Zoomlion would finance a transaction and whether it would get a deal with Terex approved by US authorities. Terex's government and military business holds contracts with the US Defense Logistics Agency and the US General Services Administration, according to its website. Dutch firm Royal Philips NV last week canceled a planned $2.8 billion sale of its lighting-components unit to a consortium led by China's GO Scale Capital because of resistance from the US regulator charged with vetting foreign acquisitions to protect national security, known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US or CFIUS. Zoomlion said on Wednesday in a statement that it had not signed any binding agreement with Terez and was unable to confirm whether a deal would go ahead. Zoomlion made an all-cash offer for the Westport, Connecticut-based company on Tuesday, offering $30 a share in cash or roughly double what Terex shares were trading for on Monday. Konecranes and Terex agreed to an all-stock merger in August, to create a crane and materials-handling supplier with a combined $10 billion in sales. The enlarged group will be located in Finland and called Konecranes Terex Plc, according to a statement at the time. Zoomlion is China's second-biggest maker of construction equipment by revenue, trailing Sany Heavy Industry Co, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The $4.4 billion company is based in the central Chinese city of Changsha, where late revolutionary leader Mao Zedong attended school. China agrees new UN resolution on DPRK, reiterates call for dialogue Updated: 2016-01-28 05:22 (Xinhua) Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) shakes hands with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Beijing, capital of China, Jan 27, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] BEIJING -- China agrees the United Nations Security Council should take further actions and pass a new resolution on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) following its nuclear test earlier this month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Wednesday. Wang made the remarks at a press briefing after meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is on a two-day visit to China. "The new resolution should aim to bring the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue back to the negotiating table, rather than stirring up tension or causing chaos on the peninsula," Wang said. The latest nuclear test by the DPRK violated the UN Security Council resolution and threatened the international nuclear non-proliferation system. Therefore, China has voiced its opposition against the move, he said. China is willing to maintain all-round and profound consultations with all parties in a responsible way, including the US, Wang said, describing his talks with Kerry as "adequate, profound and conducive to mutual understanding." "We reached a consensus that the Security Council could react to the DPRK nuclear test and pass a new resolution," he said. "We agreed that sanctions are not an end in themselves and it is vital to restart dialogue and negotiation." Wang said China's stance on the Korean peninsula nuclear issue is clear, consistent and responsible, and will not be changed by any single incident or affected by sentiment. China is committed to the denuclearization of the peninsula, maintaining its peace and stability, and resolving the issue through dialog and consultation, Wang said. "China refuses all groundless speculations and misinterpretations on its stance," he said. "China adheres to above-mentioned position and has made tremendous efforts over the years and fulfilled its responsibilities and obligations," Wang said. China has called for the resumption of the six-party talks. The talks were launched in 2003 but stalled in December 2008. The DPRK quit the talks in April 2009. The six-party talks involve China, the DPRK, the Republic of Korea, the United States, Russia and Japan. Please turn JavaScript on and reload the page. Loading... Checking your browser before accessing the website. This process is automatic. Your browser will redirect to your requested content shortly. Please wait a few seconds. Dateline: Idaho A pair of self-confessed drug smuggling dumbasses transporting 20 pounds of weed from Las Vegas, Nev., to Bozeman, Mont., decided to sample their cargo. Unsurprisingly, things went downhill from there, with the pair becoming so paranoid they called 911 to turn themselves in. The Rexburg Police Department in Idaho just released audio recordings of the 911 call made by 22-year-old Leland Ayala-Doliente and 23-year-old Holland Sward early last year. Police say the two men became so paranoid while driving along Idahos Highway 20 they thought police were following them in unmarked cars. Hi, uh, were the two dumbasses that got caught trying to bring some stuff through your border and all your cops are just driving around us like a bunch of jack wagons and Id just like for you guys to end it. If you could help me with that, we would just like to get on with it, Ayala-Doliente told the 911 dispatcher. The paranoid pot smoker went on to say he saw, a bunch of your cops driving around in a bunch of civilian cars not wanting to pick us up. I dont know whats the deal. I was just wondering if you could help us out and just end it. Ayala-Doliente gave the dispatcher directions to the vehicle, and police found the two men waiting there with their hands on their heads. We got caught and were surrendering, Sward told officers, according to court documents. Rexburg Police Capt. Randy Lewis told East Idaho News there were no police officers following the pair at the time of the 911 call. The marijuana the pair had was estimated to have a street value of $16,000. Sward pled guilty last June and was eventually given 30 days in jail and five years probation. In November Ayala-Doliente was sentenced to one and a half to eight years in prison. His sentence was harsher because, according to East Idaho News, he tested positive for marijuana, cocaine and oxycodone on his sentencing day. Dateline: Alaska A man suspected of burglarizing two businesses failed to make a clean getaway after locking his keys in his car. Surveillance video shot Jan. 6 in North Pole, Alaska, a city 14 miles south of Fairbanks, shows a man carrying items from the Forbes Laundry and F & H Fitness to his Nissan Sentra. The man then pulls the car closer to the front door of one of the businesses. Later on that evening, a local cab company named Arctic Taxi was called to help open the door of that car. Theres pretty good surveillance video there, Steve Dutra, a chief of the North Pole Police Department told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. It covers the entire parking lot and the highway. The cab company provided police with the name and number of the man who called them, 27-year-old Joseph Michael Barria. When first contacted by police, Barria admitted to stealing the items from the businesses but later recanted his statement. A police search turned up $3,500 worth of tools taken from the laundry in the trunk of Barrias car. About $2,700 worth of itemsincluding stereo equipment and a portable defibrillatorremain unaccounted for. Prosecutors have charged Barria with burglary while armed with a gun, felony theft and misdemeanor mischief charges. Dateline: Wisconsin Cheesehead thieves in Germantown, on the northwest side of Milwaukee, have reportedly stolen $70,000 worth of cheese from a local distribution warehouse. The extremely Wisconsin crime occurred shortly after midnight of Friday, Jan. 22, at D&G Transportation when a 2012 Great Dane semitrailer went missing. Germantown police were quickly able to locate the semi-tractor used to steal the 54-foot trailer and shared a photo of the missing trailers logo on Facebook. By 10am that day, a citizen reported seeing the trailer. Unfortunately, by the time police got there, all $70,000 worth of cheese and cheese products were gone. Dateline: Kansas A Kansas City man charged with the shooting deaths of three people has married the key witness against him, putting the states case in jeopardy. Jackson County prosecutors said in court documents that they believe the marriage was intended to prevent 20-year-old Shellana Victoria Davis from testifying against 23-year-old Joseph L. Nelson under the states spousal privilege law. The Kansas City Star reports Davis told police she saw Nelson shoot his ex-girlfriend, 17-year-old Bianca Fletcher, during and argument. He then allegedly shot Fletchers boyfriend, 18-year-old Shannon Rollins, to eliminate him as a witness, and then killed his own 1-year-old son because he was afraid the babys cries would attract attention. Nelson has denied any involvement in the case. But on Dec. 7, while jailed on a $1 million bond for three counts of first-degree murder, Nelson married Davis. Prosecutors had sought a court order to formally interview Davis on tape before the couple was married, but the marriage occurred before the court ruled on the motion. Now, legal experts say, the states case against Nelson could be in trouble. Charges against Nelson were apparently filed based on Davis eyewitness account of the crime, and at least one court filing said the state is not aware of any other witnesses to the shootings. Prosecutors say Davis sudden matrimonial actionstaken while Nelson was still in jailwere intentional efforts to hinder the prosecution of a triple homicide. State law appears to allow Davis to decline to testify against Nelsonalthough part of the statute says that spousal privilege does not exist in criminal cases involving murder of a victim under 18 years of age. Two of the people killed Sept. 8 were under 18. I Brands, a liquor start-up in Bengaluru has begun exporting Indian made whiskey to Cambodia and plans to expand in other countries in Southeast Asia such as Vietnam, Laos and Thailand in the year ahead. "You don't find many Indian brands in these markets," said Lisa Srao, chairman and managing director of I Brands Beverages Ltd. "The initial orders are small but would grow." I Brands has hired a local distributor to reach out to local bars, clubs and hotels. It also plans to work with large wedding and event organisers to sell its products. The firm, founded by British-Indian Lisa Srao in 2010, has four products -- two whiskey brands and a dark and French brandy -- sold in 13 states across India including Punjab, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh. In India, the firm says sales have grown over 100 per cent in the last two years due to better product, packaging and competitive pricing against whiskey and brandy brands of larger players such as United Spirits. I Brands did not disclose financials as it was a privately-held firm. Srao and Col Mahinder Singh Khaira, a high networth investor have jointly invested Rs 30 crore in the firm so far. India, the fastest growing spirits market in the world due to its young population with rising income, has seen global players expanding their presence in the country. Diageo, the British liquor firm has majority stake in the market leader United Spirits, Bacardi, which makes rum, Pernod Ricard and ABD have significant presence in the country. At the same time, startups in the liquor space are emerging such as I Brands and Whiskin Spirits are trying to carve a niche with products targeting users in smaller towns. I Brands has strategically remained outside the large metros, focusing instead on smaller towns to build its products. This, Srao said, has helped it gain customers at lower cost than in larger cities. While the firm is financially stable, Srao said, that I Brands is looking at strategic alliances with global firms and local large spirits firms to help grow distribution of its products. Some of US Attorney Preet Bharara's biggest catches in a seven-year insider-trading sweep are clinging to one more hope of clearing their names. The US Supreme Court is set to define more clearly what constitutes insider trading after agreeing to hear a California case and ending a judicial split between appeals courts in San Francisco and New York. In a case called Salman, the San Francisco court said people could be convicted of insider trading if information was passed to a trading relative or a friend as a gift. The New York appeals court, in a case called Newman, set the bar ... The United Nations launched an appeal today for $393 million in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan to help millions of vulnerable people this year. The UN's humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan, Mark Bowden, and the country's chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, launched the appeal in a live national television broadcast. The 2016 Humanitarian Response Plan for Afghanistan targets millions of people in need of food and other essentials, including shelter, health care, nutrition, safe water and other necessities, Abdullah said. He said he was hopeful that donour countries would match their commitments of previous years to assist and support the country's most vulnerable. Bowden called on the community to "redouble" its efforts and deliver "ever increasing levels of assistance" over the coming 12 months. Afghanistan is one of the world's poorest countries, and regularly suffers natural disasters like earthquakes and storms that displace people from their homes and contribute to widespread hunger. Between January and November 2015 more than 300,000 Afghans fled their homes due to conflict, a 160 percent increase on the same period in 2014, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement. On October 26 last year, a powerful earthquake struck northeastern Badakhshan province leaving around 130,000 people in need of humanitarian assistance. What do we do to keep the lights on?, asks Andrews Daniel Andrews at a press conference on Thursday asked "what do we do to keep the lights on?" once coal fired power stations close before insisting his government had a plan to address the question. Were on our own: Flood levee divides Victorian town Residents on the wrong side of Echuca's "great wall" have voiced their frustrations about being left "on our own" as the Victorian town braces for rising flood levels. Palaszczuk responds to review into Australias COVID-19 response Speaking at the Housing Summit in Brisbane on Thursday, Ms Palaszczuk was asked to weigh in on the independent review into Australias COVID-19 response. Went too far: Dutton takes aim at Andrews in response to damning COVID-19 report The Opposition Leader has defended the former government's actions in Australia's coronavirus pandemic response while taking aim at Victoria for its lockdowns, which led to Melbourne being the longest locked down city in the world. A News Aggregator That Covers The World's Major Wars And Conflicts. Military, Political, And Intelligence News Are Also Covered. Occasionally We Will Have Our Own Opinions Or Observations To Make. The Wasatch Weather Weenies blog discusses the weather and climate of the Wasatch Front and Mountains, western United States, and beyond.Readers include aspiring and old-school atmospheric scientists, weather enthusiasts, powder snobs, and poor souls enrolled in classes taught by University of Utah Atmospheric Sciences Professor Jim Steenburgh . Many posts feature content or insights enabled by the support of the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, NASA, NOAA, and the National Weather Service.Comments are encouraged and should be substantive, weather and climate related, and approved for all audiences.Copyright of this website by Jim Steenburgh 20102022 and thereafter. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Any opinions or views expressed on this web site are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Utah or the aforementioned agencies. Teacher: Principal saved school kids INDIANAPOLIS (AP) A third-grade teacher who witnessed an Indianapolis school bus lurch forward onto a sidewalk while students were being dismissed says the principal pushed several students to safety before she was fatally struck. Debbie Thie said she saw Susan Jordan pushed six to 10 children out of the way of the bus. The bus driver also told firefighters she saw Jordan push several students out of the way as the bus suddenly jolted over a curb. Police said an initial investigation found no mechanical problems on the bus and the driver showed no signs of impairment. Obama, Sanders chat at White House WASHINGTON (AP) President Barack Obama and his aides have said a lot of nice things about Bernie Sanders, but not this one: Hes ready to be president. The key omission was noticeable Wednesday as Obama and Sanders met for their first one-on-one since Sanders jolted the Democratic campaign and locked Hillary Clinton in an unexpectedly tight race. The long-discussed meeting between Obama and his sometime critic was a moment for the president to display his public neutrality in the heated primary race to replace him rebutting suggestions that hes in the tank for Clinton. But neither the White House nor Sanders is suggesting the men are kindred spirits, or even close political allies. Racial disparities seen in stun gun use HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) Connecticut officers who drew their stun guns on the job last year were more likely to fire when the suspect was black or Hispanic, according to a first-of-its-kind set of statistics that could stoke the nations debate over race and police use of force. The raw, preliminary data was obtained by The Associated Press ahead of an official analysis expected in the coming weeks. While police and state officials cautioned against passing judgment until then, at least one criminal justice expert said he would not be surprised to see similar findings elsewhere around the country. Some civil rights groups said the statistics confirm what they suspected for years. Texas executes man for killing warden HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) A Texas man was executed Wednesday evening for fatally shooting a game warden nine years ago during a shootout after a 90-minute chase that began when he was suspected of poaching. James Freeman, 35, was asked by the warden if he had a final statement. No, I do not, he replied. The lethal injection was the second in as many weeks in Texas, which carries out capital punishment more than any other state. 5 arrested in search for escaped inmates SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) The investigation of a daring California jail break has led to the arrests of five people, with more expected, but the three inmates who escaped remain at large, the Orange County sheriff said Wednesday. Sheriff Sandra Hutchens said she believes the inmates had outside help and the investigation is focusing on local gang members. Sheriffs officials said those in custody may not all have had direct ties to the escape, but the investigation of the breakout led to their arrest. Hutchens said the men would have needed powerful cutting tools not available to them inside to get through thick metal. WAVERLY Former President Bill Clinton praised his wife and Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as someone with the right priorities and best policies. But he said theres something more she offers, making her the best choice for Iowans. She has the experience and temperament that has led her to be a change-maker all her life, Clinton told a crowd of more than 375 people gathered at Wartburg Colleges Knights Ballroom on Thursday. She knows when to find common ground and when to stand her ground. Clinton offered a history lesson in Hillary Clinton to make the case that she has been a leader throughout her life. He listed more than a dozen instances, starting with her commencement speech in 1969 at Wellesley College and up through her time as secretary of State. The overarching theme of that history, as Clinton made clear, was simply, She just always makes things better. Clinton pointed to his wifes history with the Childrens Defense Fund to ensure the end of discrimination at schools, her efforts to expand health insurance to children and to all Americans, to her understanding of the Pentagons innerworkings as a member of the U.S. Senate, among many other accomplishments throughout her career. He also stressed that Clinton was often the first to recognize the need for changes. Theres one person running for president in either party, only one, who went to Wall Street in 2007, before that crash, and said, If you dont clean up these housing policies and these subprime mortgage securities, youre going to crater the economy. Only one, Clinton said, in a subtle dig at Hillary Clintons main primary opponent, Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, who has stressed his ability to better address issues that deal with Wall Street. Clinton also noted that Hillary Clinton is likely the one person in American politics who could have withstood the 11 hours of questioning by the House Select Committee on Benghazi. He praised both Hillary Clinton and Sanders for raising awareness about the lead poisoning crisis in the water in Flint, Mich., but he stressed how Hillary Clinton used her time at a Democratic debate earlier this month to push Michigans governor to provide needed funds, which he later did. Her immediate instinct is, What can I do to make it better? Clinton said. Clintons message resonated with Waverlys Rachel Wohrlin, who said she supported Clinton in one of her first opportunities to participate in the Iowa caucuses when he ran in 1992 and plans to support Hillary Clinton on Monday. She praised both Clintons for making children and health care a priority throughout their careers. Joanne Jones of Waverly also appreciated Clintons message about Hillary Clinton. Jones said shed seen Bill Clinton speak before but it was important to repeat the accomplishments of Hillary Clinton. I think the way he listed her accomplishments from the time she was a very young woman to the present day is impressive. I think people need to know, because so many of the things that they hear about Hillary are just slanted in a negative way, and shes got so many positives going for her, Jones said. She said she will definitely be caucusing for Hillary Clinton on Monday. I always liked her, and I think shes got a lot of accomplishments, strong, and shes experienced. I think shes going to make a great president, Jones said. WATERLOO | Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will hold a pre-caucus rally in Waterloo on Monday. Trump, the real estate mogul and businessman, will hold a rally at 11 a.m. on Monday at the Five Sullivan Brothers Convention Center, 205 W. Fourth St., in Waterloo. Doors open at 9 a.m. The event is free and open to the public, and people can register online at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/donald-j-trump-in-waterloo-ia-tickets-21034938066. The caucuses will begin at 7 p.m. on Monday across the state. CEDAR FALLS A man who was arrested after allegedly throwing tomatoes at presidential hopeful Donald Trump is a Cedar Falls native who has been cited in connection with protest activities before. University of Iowa police arrested Andrew Joseph Alemao, 28, of Iowa City, on one count of misdemeanor disorderly conduct during the Trump rally at the university Field House on Tuesday night. He was later released from jail. Police said Alemao was asked to leave the event after tossing tomatoes toward the candidate. He declined and was placed under arrest at the request of a Secret Service agent, court records state. Officers found tomato seeds in Alemaos pockets, which were wet from a smashed tomato, records state. Since the incident, Alemao has garnered Facebook support pages, a Twitter hashtag and a GoFundMe site geared at paying his fines. Alemao couldnt be reached for comment Thursday. Courier archives show Alemao graduated from Cedar Falls High School in 2006. In February 2007, Alemao, then a University of Iowa student, was arrested for trespassing after he and others protesting the Iraq war occupied Senator Charles Grassleys Cedar Rapids office. Then in 2008, Alemao was arrested for trespass and harassment of a public official after he entered a U.S. Army recruiting station in Cedar Falls and began throwing pamphlets as part of a protest of military recruiting practices. Back the bonds CAROLE GUSTAFSON WATERLOO As a long-standing resident of Waterloo, I am supporting the funding proposal for the career center and high school renovation plan offered by the Waterloo School District Board of Education. I want to remind everyone reading my words, the board of education is made up of elected community representatives who have been placed in their current policy, administrative and financial oversight roles by us the voters of Waterloo. They and more than 100 community volunteers have been studying this issue for more than four years. Why would they put so much time and effort into something that did not show its potential effectiveness? This is not an us versus them issue. This is not a quick fix, money grab or pie in the sky idea. We cannot continue to live our lives in the past and must move forward to benefit our next generation. We should all want the best for our kids. Vote yes! Dont blame police JIM CHAPMAN WATERLOO We have people running our streets with guns, knives, etc. Then when something bad happens, the first one who gets the blame is the police officer. I feel we should look at how these kids were taught right from wrong. Do they come from a one-parent family or a two-parent family? It does make a difference. Do you know where your kids are and what they are doing? I was raised with my parents wanting to know where I was and what I was doing. My dad always said if you get into trouble I will be at home waiting for you. That showed he cared. I think it is high time the parents take interest in what their kids are doing and where they are, instead of blaming the police. After all, they are out 24 hours a day protecting us. It is time parents take some responsibility for what their kids are doing. Sanders not too old DENIS MONTENEIR HUDSON In a recent guest column Steve Wikert insulted many people with his disingenuous assertion Democrats live in a bubble for supporting Bernie Sanders because hes too old. To back his position, Wikert cites studies that show cognitive abilities decline with age and draws analogies to past examples, particularly Ronald Reagan. Wikert relies heavily on a 2008 study of cognitive impairment in people older than 70 by psychiatrist Brenda Plassman that concluded approximately one-third of the 856 individuals studied suffer some degree of mental decline. Based on that he automatically concludes Sanders at 74 is too old, never mind two-thirds of 25 million people older than 70 dont show any serious decline. Citing Ronald Reagan as proof Sanders will suffer a similar decline in mental abilities, Wikert undermined his own position by saying Reagan looked younger as a candidate, while Sanders appearance belies an older man, never mind the lack of any correlation between looks and cognitive decline. Finally, Wikerts assertion Democrats exist in a bubble doesnt seem to apply to Republicans. At 69, Donald Trump is no spring chicken, and Wikert conveniently overlooks Sen. Charles Grassley who at 82 is still mentally competent enough to represent Iowa. DES MOINES Iowans with gun permits would be allowed to carry a loaded weapon while operating a snowmobile or all-terrain vehicle something currently prohibited even on private property if a bill making its way through the Iowa House becomes law. Gun-right advocates said the change is needed because the current loaded firearms prohibition does not apply to other vehicles, including bicycles and motorcycles, and hunters or landowners could be cited by law officers even on their own property if they are found in violation. I see this as a personal freedom measure, said Rep. Brian Best, R-Glidden, leader of a House Natural Resources subcommittee that considered the issue Thursday. The bill would allow any of the 254,000-plus Iowans who are lawful permit-to-carry holders to have a loaded firearm in their possession whether concealed or not while driving or riding on off-road vehicles. Current law prohibits that practice unless the weapon is unloaded and enclosed in a carrying case. However, a non-ambulatory person may carry an uncased and unloaded firearm while operating an ATV or snowmobile. Rep. Jarad Klein, R-Keota, said he filed the legislation after constitutes of his southeast Iowa district complained current law was an impediment to their farming practices where they may carry a rifle on their off-road vehicles to use to protect livestock In farming, firearms are a tool used like other tools on the farm, Klein said. They should have the same rights they have in their pickups when theyre on their ATVs or side-by-sides. Richard Rogers, a lobbyist for the Iowa Firearms Coalition, said the issue came to light after a 2010 law change to Iowas gun permit law increased the number of permit holders from around 3,000 in 2009 to more than 254,000 now. Some gun owners were being cited for violations with the threat their weapons or vehicles would be confiscated in the process, he told lawmakers. This is an overly broad law, Rogers said. A lot of people werent aware it, he added, noting that a gun owner with a lawful permit could carry a loaded firearms while driving a truck or a car or even a bicycle but if they moved from their pickup to an ATV or snowmobile, they could be issued a citation. Mike Heller, a lobbyist for the Iowa State Snowmobile Association, said his group opposed the measure out of safety concerns and getting access to private lands. He said snowmobile operators already have a difficult time finding places where they are allowed to ride and it would be worse if guns were involved. The safety is a big part of it, he noted. That also was the concern of Rep. Liz Bennett, D-Cedar Rapids, who was worried about roll over accidents where a loaded weapon might be discharged unintentionally but Rogers said those situations would not happen with modern weapons and the number of accidental discharges has declined over the years. Before passing the bill to full committee, the House panel approved an amendment saying a person could carry a firearm on their own property even without a permit. WATERLOO A proposed Black Hawk County budget would cut overall property tax collection next year. The reduction in the countys share of the overall property tax bill is due primarily to lower-than-expected costs for a countywide E-911 emergency radio system, the main reason for a large tax increase the previous year. Members of the Board of Supervisors wrapped up budget deliberations Tuesday and voted 4-0 to hold the annual budget hearing at the 9 a.m. March 1 meeting in room 201 of the courthouse. The budget calls for overall county property tax collection to fall $513,000, or 1.4 percent, for the fiscal year starting July 1. County tax bills jumped more than 10 percent this year when the supervisors agreed to finance a projected $15 million radio system and pay it off over five years. But the bids came in below $9 million after the budget was adopted, which now allows the county to cut debt payments in half in future years. Last year we said that if the public safety radio system came in less that we planned the reduction would be passed on, and were doing that, said Linda Laylin, the board chairwoman. Fiscal year 17 ended up a pretty flat budget year, but there will be no reduction of services, she added. Our department heads need to be given credit for having five-year plans in place and addressing services accordingly. The department budgets were very clean and had very few issues this year. The countys urban property tax rate will fall from $6.75 to $6.45 per $1,000 of taxable value under the proposed budget, while the rural tax rate drops from $9.65 to $9.54 per $1,000. The owner of a home with an assessed value of $100,000 would see the countys portion of their property tax bill fall from $376 to $359 next year. That 4.7 percent tax cut assumes the home did not see its value changed by the assessor last year. It also does not include city and school property taxes, which account for the largest share of the overall tax bill and are set by other boards. Commercial and industrial property owners will see 4.5 percent tax cuts. But owners of agricultural property outside of cities would see a 1.9 percent hike in tax bills due largely to an increase in the percentage of farm values available for taxation and higher gravel costs for county roads. The proposed budget includes 4 percent raises for elected officials, 3 percent pay increases for nonbargaining staff and projects 2.5 percent raises for unionized county workers, although the union contracts are still pending. The budget also projects a 20 percent increase in county health insurance costs, which follows several straight years where the county had been able to reduce its self-insured contributions. The change was due largely to a worsening claims history, county officials said. Meanwhile, the countys property tax contribution for mental health care services dropped substantially for the coming year while, a 10 percent increase in the gas tax approved by the Iowa Legislature last year will boost available road repair funds. The supervisors are planning to use more than $1 million in available reserve funds rather than boosting taxes to pay for a new jail security system and repair of the jail parking lot. The financial condition of the county is strong and the board wants to keep it that way, Laylin said. But we also need to be mindful of taxpayers and not raise taxes when we can utilize other funding sources. Meanwhile, the supervisors had to account for projected lost revenue in the county attorney fine collection program due to changes in state laws and cover more than $100,000 in lost Medicaid funding for Board of Health operations. While I feel good about the budget, we will go into 2017 with challenges, Laylin said. The fine collections of the attorneys office is something we will continue monitoring, but its still too early in the process to know how that will work for us. CEDAR FALLS A 47-year-old metro area furniture store proposes to move into the former College Square Hy-Vee store building, concurrent with reconstruction of University Avenue. Slumberland Furniture, which originally opened in nearby Black Hawk Village in 1969, has been in the former Muellers furniture store space at 4020 University Ave. in Waterloo since 2000. The franchise owner has submitted a proposal to the city to move into the former grocery building, vacant for 10 years since Hy-Vee added on to the mall building. In documents submitted to the city, Jon Davis proposed putting a 40,000-square-foot furniture store, 3,000-square-foot restaurant and 15,000 square feet of retail space in the building. Davis said he will concentrate on developing the furniture store first, tripling the display area of his current location. He hopes to start work in mid-March. Zoning commissioners reviewed plans Wednesday and expect to make a recommendation to the council next month. Its really cool. My dad (Dick Davis) started the store in 1969 where Chuck E Cheeses is, Jon Davis said. Were almost back where we started. Its kind of fun. While Slumberland doubled sales since consolidating its former Waterloo and Cedar Falls stores 15 years ago, were landlocked in our ability to grow, Davis said. The deteriorated condition of University Avenue in front of the existing store is an additional challenge. The new store will be on a section of University scheduled for reconstruction. It will be adjacent to a roundabout planned at Boulder Drive, one of the two main access points off University into the College Square area. Another roundabout will be at Holiday Road, and Valley Park Drive will no longer be a through street. Initially, Davis said, I was not a fan of roundabouts, but the access for his relocated store and the reconstructed road will be major assets. Suffice it to say that was a key ingredient in this happening, Davis said. The Boulder-University intersection will be a key access point to the entire mall. He also noted his store is following the growth of the metro area, to the south and west in Cedar Falls. Davis is purchasing the old Hy-Vee building from GK Development, the Illinois firm that previously owned College Square. Davis plans to sell the 4020 University location eventually. The city planning staff recommends approval the project with conditions, including a landscaping plan. Any time we see reuse of a building, thats great, said Stephanie Houk Sheetz, interim Cedar Falls community development director. All the infrastructures in place, and its very cost effective from a public standpoint. I know he (Davis) is putting quite an investment into that building. Its very exciting to see that investment happening on University Avenue, Sheetz said. Davis said his project will be coordinated with the University Avenue reconstruction. The first phase, in front of College Square and Black Hawk Village, is anticipated to be completed before the holiday shopping season in November. Davis hinted at a store grand opening celebration early next year. This blog is intended to go along with Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues , by, published by Cengage Learning. The latest edition is the 13th (it will be out in January 2020), but this blog is meant to complement any edition of the book by showing the way in which demographic issues are regularly in the news. One of the most versatile and brilliant writers in history, Edgar Allan Poe was an American author who helped to influence scores of other literary greats. Active during the 1840s and 1850s, Poe dabbled in mystery and detective writing, he helped to continue the emergence of the science-fiction genre of literature, and was part of the American Romantic Movement - even becoming the first well-known US-born author to attempt to earn a living through his literary works alone. Best known for his poems "The Raven", "The Bells" and "Eldorado", Poe also wrote several short stories, including "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Gold-Bug" and "The Black Cat". Interestingly though, Poe also tried his hand at other forms of literature - writing one play ("Politian") and one completed novel ("The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket") during his lifetime. But aside from his brilliant works, Poe's life itself also makes for fascinating reading. For this is a man who married an extremely young girl (who also just so happened to be a member of his own family), who lied about his age to enlist into the army only to deliberately get himself court-martialled, and who created the first-ever modern-day literary detective (and provided the inspiration for the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot in the process). 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21 (18) Jan 20 (18) Jan 19 (18) Jan 18 (26) Jan 17 (24) Jan 16 (23) Jan 15 (30) Jan 14 (20) Jan 13 (18) Jan 12 (24) Jan 11 (11) Jan 10 (23) Jan 09 (22) Jan 08 (17) Jan 07 (17) Jan 06 (9) Jan 05 (18) Jan 04 (15) Jan 03 (19) Jan 02 (14) Jan 01 (6) Dec 31 (12) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (15) Dec 28 (11) Dec 27 (7) Dec 26 (10) Dec 25 (16) Dec 24 (13) Dec 23 (16) Dec 22 (11) Dec 21 (26) Dec 20 (28) Dec 19 (14) Dec 18 (25) Dec 17 (23) Dec 16 (19) Dec 15 (22) Dec 14 (38) Dec 13 (26) Dec 12 (25) Dec 11 (27) Dec 10 (31) Dec 09 (15) Dec 08 (30) Dec 07 (31) Dec 06 (27) Dec 05 (38) Dec 04 (25) Dec 03 (27) Dec 02 (15) Dec 01 (36) Nov 30 (23) Nov 29 (17) Nov 28 (23) Nov 27 (13) Nov 26 (16) Nov 25 (14) Nov 24 (18) Nov 23 (21) Nov 22 (21) Nov 21 (24) Nov 20 (20) Nov 19 (23) Nov 18 (17) Nov 17 (17) Nov 16 (34) Nov 15 (25) Nov 14 (17) Nov 13 (21) Nov 12 (18) Nov 11 (9) Nov 10 (15) Nov 09 (9) Nov 08 (9) Nov 07 (12) Nov 06 (8) Nov 05 (4) Oct 29 (1) Oct 01 (1) Jul 29 (1) May 11 (1) Jul 11 (1) I'm Wilma. Girl. No dragon tattoo. I love theatre, fashion, music that makes me orgasm and taking pictures. I have split myself between three places (London-Stockholm-Tallinn), but my current hub is Tallinn. Wherever my circus goes, there's always a party. If the party does end, I watch cat videos and blog about it all. Check out my yearly summaries below to get to know me a bit better. If youre looking to try out an online casino, there are several things that will help you make a decision. Heres what you should look for when choosing an online casino Are they regulated? A lot of the larger ones have licenses issued by the authorities in their respective regions, so its worth checking this first. Do they offer games from different software providers? Some casinos just use one software provider and limit your selection. This is fine if you like playing those types of games but you may want to check other casinos as well. What does their payout percentage look like? The payout rate refers to how much money you can expect to win after every bet. A high payout rate means youll be able to play more often without having to worry about losing all your money. Its also important to know the minimum and maximum bets allowed on each game. If youre going to play roulette, for example, then you probably dont want a casino with a minimum bet of less than $2.50 or even lower than that. The players used to play the game slot online in the land based casinos in the past time. But now with time after the invention of the online casinos players play the game slot online. Online platform provide the players with the convenience in playing and even better winning. Even after keeping a good percentage of the profits, they distribute good funds to players. How many games do they offer? There are lots of different types of games to choose from. Roulette, blackjack and poker are some of the most popular options, but you might find slots, video pokers, video bingo and others as well. You can usually filter these games down to only show the ones that interest you best, so make sure that your list isnt too long! Is there a bonus offer? Many online casinos offer free bonuses as part of their welcome package which includes new players being awarded 100% up to $10 instantly, for example. These offers are great but not everyone has access to them all the time (and some require you to deposit real money). If youd prefer to avoid paying a fee, some casinos offer no-deposit bonuses where you can get a certain amount of funds before you need to put any actual money into the account. These are usually offered alongside welcome bonuses, so make sure you read both parts of the terms and conditions carefully before signing up. Does it offer live dealer games? Live dealers are much preferred by many over regular virtual versions, so it pays to check this option out too. Most online casinos now offer live dealer games in addition to their regular offerings, allowing you to experience the thrill of the real thing without needing to leave home. Now that youve got an idea of what to look for when choosing an online casino, heres some tips for making the right choice It really comes down to personal preference. No two people are exactly alike, so everyone has an opinion on what they like and dislike about each casino. That said, here are some things to consider in order to narrow down your choices Popularity. Check out reviews, forums and Facebook pages to see what other people think of the casino. Also, ask around at work or friends houses who they would recommend to you. You could always take a look at the casinos website too, to see what kind of information they provide about themselves. Reputation. Find out what the general public thinks about the casino. Check out any customer reviews on sites like Trustpilot, Amazon and Google Play to find out more. As far as gaming goes, you can also check out the Better Business Bureau to see whether there have been any complaints against the casino. Security. Make sure the casino uses SSL encryption to secure its transactions, meaning that your private data stays safe during transactions. Other than that, look for security seals on the site itself and verify that theyre legitimate. You can also check out the casinos privacy policy to see how they handle confidential information. Payment methods. Its good to have multiple payment options available, especially if you plan to play frequently. Its also nice to find a casino that accepts cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. If youre worried about safety, you can always opt for a credit card or PayPal instead. With all those criteria in mind, heres our top picks Betway: Betway is a relatively new UK casino offering online gambling to residents of the United Kingdom and European Union. They offer hundreds of games across both land based and digital platforms, with plenty of top software providers like Net Entertainment, Microgaming and Yggdrasil Gaming Network. With a generous welcome offer that gives players 100% up to 100, you really cant go wrong with Betway. Coral Casino: Coral Casino is operated by the same company that runs the famous Caribbean casino, Grand Reef. Like many casinos, Coral Casino offers a wide variety of games, including plenty of video slots and table games. New players can benefit from a huge 100% match bonus up to 1000, while existing customers enjoy 25% cash back on deposits made within 48 hours of opening an account. Ladbrokes Casino: Ladbrokes Casino is owned by the same company as the famous bookmaker that started life in 1921. With more than 500 games from leading software providers such as Amaya, NetEnt and Microgaming, you wont be disappointed by the quality of the games here. New players get a 200% match bonus up to 500, while existing customers can claim 35% cashback on their first three deposits. Paddy Power Casino: Paddy Power is another Irish-owned casino that operates throughout Europe. Not only does Paddy Power Casino offer traditional casino games like blackjack, roulette and slots, but it also provides a full range of sports betting, including football, tennis, boxing and horse racing. New players can receive a massive 100% match bonus up to 200, while existing customers can claim 35% cashback on their first three deposits. William Hill Casino: William Hill Casino is one of the biggest names in the industry, operating in Europe, Asia and North America. Founded in 1984, this online casino has more than 400 games to choose from, including slots and table games, with a wide array of software providers like WagerLogic, Big Time Gaming and Rival. Bonus: 100% Match Bonus up to 100 Register Now Betway: 100% Match Bonus up to 100 Claim Now Coral Casino: 25% Cash Back on Deposits Claim Now Ladbrokes Casino: 35% Cash Back on First 3 Deposits Claim Now Paddy Power Casino: 100% Match Bonus up to 200 Claim Now William Hill Casino: 100% Match Bonus up to 200 Claim Now If youre interested in trying out an online casino but arent quite ready to commit to one, why not try out one of the many no deposit casinos weve reviewed? You can test drive various casinos completely risk-free, so you can feel confident about your choice before you make a single penny deposit. Newscity WIPP Settlement Finalized Robert Maestas As reported here in News City back in November, the State of New Mexico Environment Department has been seeking a large financial settlement with the federal Department of Energy after a radiation leak closed the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in early 2014. Late last week, negotiations between the two agencies were completed, to the benefit of the state. Meanwhile, the nuclear storage facility near Carlsbad, N.M. will remain closed for the foreseeable future. The $74 million settlement relates to events at WIPP and at Los Alamos National Laboratory that led up to the release of radiation. Both sites are under the aegis of the DOE; DOE contractors working at these sites were part of the legal claims arising from the leak, according to published reports. Essentially the agreement tasks the DOE with providing scheduling and funding for supplemental environmental projects in Carlsbad and Los Alamos. $34 million will go toward improving N.M. roads used in the transport of transuranic waste, $4 million will go towards building an off-site emergency operations center near WIPP, $1 million has been earmarked to provide training to local emergency responders and $12 million will be made available to improve federally-owned transportation routes used to ship hot materials to WIPP. Speaking to the settlement, NM Governor Susana Martinez remarked to the news daily in Los Alamos, The funds New Mexico will receive through this agreement will help ensure the future safety and success of these facilities, the people who work at them and their local communities. We look forward to continuing to work with the federal government to ensure the safety and success of both LANL and WIPP. Canl Bahis siteleri sektoru son derece onu ack ve farkl ozelliklere sahip bir sektordur. Elbette bahis secenekleri arasnda yuksek kazanc getiren alan kuskusuz canl bahistir. Peki, canl bahis nedir? Canl Bahis Nedir? Canl bahis adndan da anlaslacag gibi devam eden musabakaya bahis yapmaktr. Bu bahis musabaka devam ederken de yaplabilir olmasdr. Basta futbol olmak uzere voleybol, tenis, hentbol, basketbol, buz hokeyi ve masa tenisi gibi spor organizasyonlarna canl bahisler yaplabilmektedir. Canl bahis siteleri bu oyunlarn hepsine yuksek oranlara bahis yapmanza imkan tanr. En fazla tercih edilen futbol canl bahisleri diger alanlara gore daha fazla on plandadr. Siteden siteye degisen sartlar ve uygulama esaslar soz konusu olsa da kurallar sabittir. Canl bahisi populer klan ve heyecan katan en onemli ozellikle musabakann basladg ana dek bahis yapabilmedir. Canl bahis icerisinde yer alan secenekler kazanma sansnz da dogrudan arttrmaktadr. Ilk korneri kim kullanr, ilk tac, gol, sar kart, krmz kart gibi futbol musabakas icerisinde olabilecek hemen hemen her seye bahis yaplabilmektedir. Normal bahisegore de son derece yuksek oranda olmas avantajl yonlerini ortaya koymaktadr. Nitekim dogru secenek ksa surede kazancl ckmanza etki edecektir. Strateji ve dogru analizle 90 dakika gibi bir surede anaparanzkatlayabilirsiniz. Tabi bunu basarabilmek icin mutlaka musabakaya dair ayrntlar iyi degerlendirmek gerekir. Soz konusu musabakann detaylarn inceleyip, cezal, sakat oyuncu veya performans dusen takm oyunu gibi detaylar bilmek canl bahiste kazanc belirleyen onemli unsurdur. Guvenilir Canl bahis hem heyecanl zaman gecirmeyi hem de musabakalar takip ederken para kazanmay saglamaktadr. Canl Bahis Nasl Oynanr? Bahislerinizi guvenilir sitelerden gerceklestirdiginiz zaman herhangi bir sekilde para cekme de sorun yasamazsnz. Guvenilir bahis siteleri tespit edip sonrasnda da uyelik islemlerini tamamlamanz gerekmektedir. Belirlenen uyelik sartlarn yerine getirip hesabnza da paray aktardktan sonra bahis islemlerini sorunsuz yapabilirsiniz. Peki, canl bahis nasl oynanr? Oncelikle bahis konusunda mutlaka dogru site arastrmas yapmalsnz. Yapacagnz arastrma neticesinde buldugunuz site uzerinden canl bahisislemlerini gerceklestirebilirsiniz. Bunun icin uye olup, hesaba para atp, canl bahis bolumune girmelisiniz. Sonrasnda dahil olmak istediginiz musabakann saatini ogrenip, gerekli analizleri yapmalsnz. Tahminlerinizi belirledikten sonra karsnza ckacak olan bahis sayfasndan istediginiz hamleyi yapmalsnz. Bahis tutarn belirledikten sonra musabaka baslayacaktr. Canl bahis diger normal bahis esaslarna gore farkllklar icermektedir. Bunlardan en onemlisi musabakann gidisatna gore islem yapabilir olmaktr.Ayrca musabakann 2. Yarsna gore hamle yapp ayr bir bahisin soz konusu olmas da ciddi avantajdr. Dogru hamle ile sizde istediginiz bahisi yapp kazanc elde edebilirsiniz. Nitekim canl olarak yapacagnz bahis icin mac oncesi raporlara gore hareket etmek onemlidir. Cunku takmlarn durumlarn analiz etmek tahmin gucunu arttracaktr. Misal tamnn en iyi oyuncusu sakat ya da kart cezals ise takmn performansnda dusus yasanacaktr. Buna ek olarak takmn deplasman performans ile evinde ki performans ayr olacaktr. Burada da takmn musabakay nerede yaptgna bakmak gerekir. Bu ayrntlar da iyice analiz ettikten sonra bahsinizi yapp kazanmann keyfini yasayabilirsiniz. Canl Bahis Siteleri Son derece yuksek getiriye sahip bahis sektoru uzun zamandr faaliyet gostermektedir. Cok ciddi rakamlarn soz konusu oldugu bu sektor zamanla sanal ortamlara donusmustur. Elbette guvenli ve bir o kadar da avantajl olan bu siteler cok yonlu frsatlar sunmaktadrlar. Canl iddaa siteleri gerek yeni uyelere gerekse de hali hazrdaki uyelerine bolca bonus frsatlar vermektedir. Yatracagnz tutara gore belirlenen bonuslar site icerisinde rahat hareket etmenizi de saglayacaktr. 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Canl bahis konusunda beklentileri karslayacak olan bu siteler sizlere kolaylk sunmaktadrlar. Bol bonuslu secenekle de sizlere farkl bahis yonlerini sunacaklardr. Sistemsel etki icerisinde her zaman etkin sonuc alabilmek icin surekli olarak faaliyet icerisindedirler. Canl Bahis Taktikleri Bahis sektorunun en fazla dikkat edilmesi gereken hususu dogru taktik ve dogru tahmindir. Elbette dogru tahmini yapabilmek icin analizi cok iyi yapmak gerekir. Canl bahis taktikleri arasnda ilk sra analiz gelmektedir. Analiz yapamadgnz zaman basarl tahminlerde bulunmanz pek de mumkun degildir. Cunku bahiste onemli olan konu musabakann analizini cok iyi yaplmas gerektigidir. Canl bahisin ozelliklerini iyi bilmek ve nasl bir hamle yapacagnz bilmek gerekir. Ozellikle riskli maclarda yaplacak degerlendirmeler cok daha onemlidir. Canl bahis yapacaklarn takip edecegi degerler takmlarn durumlar ile alakal olmaldr. Performans uzerine kurulu bahis sisteminde takm degerlendirmesine iyi bakmak gerekir. Iki takmn son 5 macta nasl bir sonuc ortaya koyduguna bakarak hareket etmek onemlidir. Ayrca hangi takm evinde daha iyi performans sergiliyor diye de ayrca bakmak gerekir. Analizlerle alakal puan durumlarna da goz atmak cok onemlidir. Puan degerlendirmesinde oncelikle takmlarn ihtiyaclar ile dogru orantl hareket etmek gerekir. Cunku olusturulan performans takmn da durumunu ortaya koymaktadr. Nitekim istenilen sonucu elde edebilmek icin tum ayrntlar bilmek gerekir. Takm ici duzenden tutunda da takmn son durumuna kadar her ayrnt onemlidir. Iki takmn birbirleri arasnda ki sonuclar da incelemek gerekir. Burada dikkat edilecek detaylarn basnda maclarda kac gol oldugu ve gollerin hangi dakikalarda atldgdr. Cekismeli gecen musabakalarda bazen goller ilk yarda daha fazla olurken baz maclarda da ikinci yarda daha cok gol olmustur. Iki takm arasnda ki maclarda gollerin cogunlugu ilk yarda geliyorsa buna gore bahis yapabilirsiniz. Canl Bahis Siteleri Bonuslar ve Kampanyalar Bahis yapanlar veya yapmay dusununler sitelerin sunmus olduklar frsatlar merak etmektedirler. Cunku siteler daha fazla kullancya erismek icin her donem kampanyalar duzenleyerek kullanc odakl hamleler yapmaktadrlar. Canl bahis bonuslar ve kampanyalar oldukca populer olup, siteler bu konuda adeta birbirleri ile yarsmaktadrlar. Birbirinden farkl ozelliklere sahip olan kampanyalar size frsatlar sunmaktadr. Daha cok kazanma ihtimalinizi arttran bu bonuslar daha cesur olmanza da dogrudan etki edecektir. Nitekim bonuslar sitelerin cekiciligini ve avantajlarn arttrmaktadr. En cok kazandran canl bahis siteleri bedava bonuslar ve kampanyalar icin http://www.milano2018.com/canli-bahis-siteleri-2022/ linkinden yardm alabilirsiniz. Hos geldin bonusu ile baslayan ve sonrasnda para yatrdkca bonus veren cok sayda site bulunmaktadr. Canl bahis bonusu veren siteler yeni uyelere sunduklar frsatlar farkl kampanyalarla mevcut uyelerine de sunmaktadrlar. Hali hazrda siteyi kullananlarn da bonus frsatlarndan yararlanmalar icin donemsel kampanyalar olusturmaktadrlar. Boylece baska sitelere gidisler olmayacag gibi site de daha keyifli zaman gecirmek mumkun klnmaktadr. Bu tur eklentiler yapan sitelerde musteri memnuniyeti daha fazladr. Bahis siteleri ozellik ve uygulama bakmndan farkllklar bunyelerinde bulundurmaktadrlar. Verilen bonuslarn olusturulmas ve kullanclar aktarlmasnda yatrlan para miktarlar belirleyici olmaktadr. 1.000 TL yatran bir kullanc yuzde 20 bonus frsat olan bir kampanyadan 200 TL bonus kazanabilmektedir. Yatracag tutar 10.000 TL oldugunda bu bonustutar 2.000 TL olabilmektedir. Gerceklesen ve uygulanan esaslar tamamen donemsel olarak yaplan kampanyalarla alakaldr. Iyi Canl bahis siteleri bonuslar ve kampanyalar icin sitelerin vermis oldugu oranlar takip edebilirsiniz. Canl Bahis Siteleri Para Yatrma Online Canl bahis yapacaklarn merak ettigi konulardan bir digeri de para yatrma islemleridir. Oldukca onemli olan bu konuda hata yapmamak cok onemlidir. Canl bahis sitelerine para yatrma islemi sanlann aksine son derece basittir. Oldukca basit ve uygulama esas dogru etki olusturan bu yapda sizde islemi rahatca tamamlayabilirsiniz. Para yatrma konusunda su yolu izleyebilirsiniz. Guvendiginiz ve herhangi bir sekilde aklnzda soru isareti kalmayan bahis sitesine uye olmanz gerekmektedir. Uyelik islemini sorunsuz sekilde tamamladktan sonra para yatrma islemine gecebilirsiniz. Kullanacagnz siteye uye olduktan sonra karsnza kullanc ad ve sifresini gireceginiz yer gelecektir. Buraya giris yaptktan sonra site icerisine islemlere devam edebilirsiniz. Sitede yer alan para yatrma sekmesine tklayp sonrasnda karsnza gelen sayfay inceleyebilirsiniz. Para yatrma bolumunde yer alan ksma ne kadar para yatracagnz yazp devam tusuna basmalsnz. Yatrmak istediginiz tutar girip sonrasnda da devam tusuna bastktan sonra karsnza kart bilgilerinizi gireceginiz sayfa gelecektir. Kredi kart kullanarak para gondermek isteyenlerin tercih ettigi bu sayfa tum bilgiler girilip islem onaylanmaldr. Canl bahis sitelerine para yatrma islemini gerceklestirmek icin hesaba havale secenegini de kullanabilirsiniz. Site icerisinde musteri hizmetleri ile iletisime gecerek banka hesap numaralarn ogrenebilirsiniz. Belirtilen IBAN numarasna istediginiz tutar havale edebilirsiniz. Havale ederken acklama ksmna yazlacak bilgilere dikkat etmelisiniz. Kredi kart veya banka havalesi ile gerceklesen para yatrma islemi sonucunda site hesabnzdan bakiyenize bakabilirsiniz. Bakiyenize gore dilediginiz sekilde bahislerinizi gerceklestirebilirsiniz. Canl Bahis Siteleri Para Cekme Canl bahiste dogru hamleler ve dogru tahminler sonucunda kazandgnz bedeli geri almak isteyebilirsiniz. Kazanclarnz istediginiz banka hesabnza cekebilmek icin uymanz gereken kurallar soz konusudur. Oncelikle bahis sitelerinden para cekebilmeniz icin uye olurken dogru bilgi paylasmnda bulunmanz gerektigidir. Cunku canl bahis sitelerinden para cekme islemi icin kullanc hesab ile talep edilen banka hesap bilgilerinin ortusmesi gerekir. Yani uye olurken verilen bilgi ile banka hesab kime ait ise o bilgiler ayn olmaldr. Bu uygulama sitenin hem kullancsn hem de kendisini guvene alma politikasdr. Ayrca frsatclarn onune gecerek yeni bir uye olusumunun da onune gecmek amac gutmektedir. Uye olan kisi farkl para cekilme talebi verilen hesap farkl oldugunda para cekme islemi gerceklesmeyecektir. Bahisleriniz sonucunda kazanc elde edebilir ve bu kazancnz da hakknz olarak almak isteyebilirsiniz. Burada son derece basit uygulama soz konusu olurken siteler aras farkl gorunumler soz konusu olabilir. Fakat yine de tum sitelerde uyenin site icerisinde para cekme bolumune girmesi yeterlidir. Burada cekilecek olan tutarn belirlenmesi ve hesap numarasnn girilmesi ile birlikte islem onay gerekecektir. Para cekme taleplerinde sizden gerekli bilgiler istenmekte ve havale islemi istenilen bilgiler esliginde yurutulmektedir. Dogru bilgi paylasmak sorunsuz para cekebilmeniz en onemli kuraldr. Istenilen bilgiler girildikten sonra site sorumlular gerekli kontrolleri yapp herhangi bir sorun yoksa ksa surede hesabnza gerekli paray aktaracaklardr. Canl Bahis Sitelerinden Para Cekmek Icin Istenen Belgeler Bahis sitelerine uye olduktan sonra baz kullanclar para cekme taleplerinin karslanmadg konusunda sikayetlerde bulunmuslardr. Bu sikayetlersektorde uzun zamandr bulunan guvenilir bahis siteleri de yer almaktadr. Fakat sikayetlerin dayanaklarna bakldgnda ise islerin tamamen farkl oldugu gorulmektedir. Yasanan bu durum kullanclarn hatal bilgi girmesi ve uyelik bilgileri ile banka bilgilerinin uyusmamas ile dogru orantldr. Birde canl bahis para cekmek icin istenen belgeler eksik ya da hatal olarak sunulmus olabilir. Ortaya ckan karsklar neticesinde para cekme talebinde bulunan kisi istedigini alamadg icin sikayetci olmaktadr. Oysa ki istenilen bilgiler dogru ve istenilen evraklar eksiksiz sunulsa para cekme islemi sorunsuz olacak. Sitelerin para cekme konusunda dikkatli hareket etmesi hilelerin ve illegal faaliyetlerin onune gecmek adnadr. Cunku baz kullanclar farkl bilgiler vererek ikinci hesap acabilmektedirler. Bazen de bilincsizce hatal bilgi girilebilmektedir. Hatal islemlerin cozumu konusunda islem yaptgnz sitenin musteri temsilcileri ile gorusebilirsiniz. Talepleriniz dogrultusunda para cekme islemlerinde ki sorunlar giderilecektir. Canl bahis para cekmek icin istenen belgeler listesi su sekildedir; Kullanc bilgileri ile banka bilgilerini karslastrmak icin kimlik fotokopisi Banka hesap bilgileri Ikametgah ve kisiye ait herhangi bir fatura. Kacak Iddaa Turkiyede dogrudan bahis yapmak icin resmi kanallar kullanlabilmektedir. Fakat tercih edilen ve oran olarak cok daha fazla frsatlar sunan kacar iddaasiteleri bulunmaktadr. Bu siteler kanunlara aykr sekilde yaplmakta olup, yasal bir dayanag yoktur. Elbette bu sitelerin kurulus merkezi Turkiye olmayp, ds ulkelerdedir ve faaliyetler belirlenen siteler uzerinden yaplmaktadr. Kacak Iddaa oldukca riskli olup, cok dikkatli olunmas gerekir. Kacak Bahis Kanunlar cercevesinde istediginiz gibi bahis yapamayabilirsiniz. Bahis yapabilmek icin ya kanuni olarak sorun olmayan ulke dsnda ki kumarhanelere gitmeniz veya kacak bahis sitelerinden islem yapabilirsiniz. Zira bu durum tehlikeli olsa da cok sayda site guvenli sekilde bu alanda hizmet vermektedir. Kacak bahiste oldukca fazla secenek bulunurken yuksek oranda kazanc sunuyor olmas da ragbeti arttryor. Illegal Bahis Bahisin bircok alanda yasak oldugu Turkiyede bu alanda cok sayda yabanc merkezli siteler hizmet vermektedir. Illegal bahis sektorunde faaliyet gosteren siteler guvenli hizmet anlays ile kullanclarna frsatlar sunmaktadr. Yurt ds merkezli bu siteler sorunsuz sekilde hizmetlerini surdururken bulunduklar ulkelerde kanunlara uygun sekildedir. Elbette faaliyet noktasnda bulunduklar ulkelerde sorun teskil etmese de Turkiyede faaliyet gostermeleri kanunin yasaklanmstr. Yasads Bahis Gerek olusturulan etkenler gerekse de ortaya konulan riskler yasads bahis de oldukca tehlikelidir. Kanunlarn mudahil olduklar bu alanlar da hem kullanclar hem de populer bahis yaptranlar tum riskleri goze almaktadrlar. Fakat yasaklardan uzak sekilde guvenli hizmet sunan siteler de bulunmaktadr. Takipler neticesinde kapatlan sitelerin muhakkak alternatifleri kurularak yollarna devam etmektedirler. Canl Iddaa Siteleri Nelerdir? Dunya genelinde kabul gormus cok sayda guvenli hizmet veren populer bahis siteleri bulunmaktadr. Elbette bu siteler dunyann bircok ulkesinde faaliyet gosterse de Turkiyede yasaktr. Sektorde yer alan cok sayda legal iddaa siteleri bulunmaktadr. Herhangi bir kanunsuzlugun olmadg bu sitelerden hzl ve guvenli islem yaplabilmektedir. Tabi bu sitelerde uygulanan oranlar yasal olmayan sitelere gore daha dusuktur. Illegal sitelerin tercih edilme sebeplerinin en onemli etkeni de olusturulan oranlardr. Peki, Iddaa siteleri nelerdir? Faaliyetleri ve uygulama esaslar nelerdir? Turkiyede faaliyet gosteren yasal iddaa siteleri listesi su sekildedir; Iddaa Bilyoner Tuttur Birebin Oley Nesine Misli Iddaa 2004 ylnda hizmet vermeye baslayan Iddaa Spor toto tarafndan kurulmus olup, ilk etapta bayilik seklinde calsmaya baslamstr. Elbette zamanla gelisen teknolojiye ayak uydurarak internet uzerinde de populer bahis severlerin hizmetine sunulmustur. Kuruldugu donemde devletin resmi kurumu olarak faaliyet gosterirken gelinen yeni donemde ozellestirilmistir. Bilyoner Turkiyede faaliyetine 2006 ylnda baslayan Bilyoner ilk ozel yasal bahis sitesi olma ozelligine sahiptir. Guvenilir bahis siteleri Turkiyede bunlardr. Ksa surede populer olan site halen faaliyetlerini sorunsuz sekilde surdurmektedir. Tuttur Ksa surede adndan bahsettirmeyi basaran Tuttur 2009 ylnda faaliyetlere baslamstr. Guvenilir bahis siteleri arasnda yerini almstr. Gunumuze dek bircok alanda populer bahis yapanlara frsatlar sunarken avantajlar ile de begeni toplamstr. Birebin Kullanc odakl calsmalar surdurse de 2011 ylnda sektore giren Birebindiger sitelere gore daha az ragbet gormektedir. Bahis oynamak ise bu sitede oldukca kolaydr. Elbette farkl yaklasmlara sahip olmasndan dolay ilerleyen sureclerde adndan sklkla bahsettirecek gibi gorunuyor. Oley 2009 ylnda Dogus yayn gruplarnn istiraki olarak kurulmus olup yasal olarak herhangi bir sorunu olmayan sitelerdendir. Bahis siteleri arasnda hzl cks yapms bir sitedir. Oley yapms oldugu yenilikler ile kullanclarn da dikkatini ksa surede cekmeyi basarmstr. Nesine Birbirini takip eden surecte Nesine de yine 2006 ylnda hizmet vermeye baslamstr. Yasal bahis siteleri arasnda yerini almay basaran firma ksa surede sevilen ve ragbet goren bir site olmustur. Misli 2009 ylnda sektore cok hzl giris yapan Misli cok sayda reklam filmi ile on plana ckmay basarmstr. Internet uzerinden hem yasal hem de sorunsuz hizmet veren bahis sitelerinden bir tanesi olmustur. Canl Bahis Siteleri Kayt ve Uyelik Islemleri Her zaman populerligini koruyan ve surekli gelisim gosteren canl bahis gun gectikce daha da gucleniyor. Bahis oynamak icin ise sitelere uye olunmas gerekir. Yuksek getirisi ve begeni toplayan faaliyetleri ile cok sayda site bu alanda faaliyet gostermektedir. Elbette sorunsuz sekilde uye olmanz ve faaliyetler gostermeniz de oldukca kolaydr. Canl bahis siteleri kayt ve uyelik islemleri dakikalar icerisinde gerceklestirilecek yapya sahiptir. Uye olacagnz siteyi belirledikten sonra siteye girmeniz gerekmektedir. Girdiginiz sitenin ana sayfasnda uye ol ya da kayt ol bolumu bulunacaktr. Siteler arasnda degiskenlik gosteren bu alanda temel unsurlar bulunmaktadr. Elbette farkllklar olsa da temelinde benzer bilgiler uye olmak isteyen kisilerden talep edilmektedir. Uye ol bolumune tkladktan sonra karsnza uyelik bilgi formu ckacaktr. Bu formda sizin kim oldugunuzu ogrenmek ve sitenin guvenligini saglamak adna islemler yaplmaktadr. Uyelik formunda yer alan ad soyad bolumunu eksiksiz ve dogru sekilde doldurmalsnz. Sizden bu formda istenen bilgilerin tamamn girmeniz istenecektir. Istenen bilgiler mutlaka dogru ve eksiksiz sekilde olmaldr. Eksik veya hatal bilgi uyelik islemlerinde sorun teskil edebilir. Yine de yanls bilgi girisine ragmen uyelik islemleri tamamlanabilir. Fakat boyle bir yol izleyenler sonrasnda buyuk skntlarla karslasabilirler. Bu skntlarn basnda da para cekme islemlerinde yasanan sorunlardr. Uyelik islemleri dikkatli ve ozenle doldurulmas gereken yapdadr. Canl bahis siteleri kayt ve uyelik islemleri gerceklestirilirken verilen bilgiler site yonetimi tarafndan muhafaza edilmektedir. Herhangi bir sekilde 3. Sahslarla paylaslmas gibi bir durum soz konusu degildir. Bu faaliyetleri surduren sitelerin guven unsurlar arasnda bu nokta onceliklidir. Bahis sitelerine uye olurken hatal bilgi paylasmnda bulunmak size faydadan cok zarar verecektir. Diyelim ki bilgileri hatal girdiniz ve uyelik onayland. Uyelik tamamlandktan sonra siteye para yatrdnz ve kazanc elde ettiniz. Kazancnz sonrasnda hesabnza almak istediginizde karsnza banka bilgileri bolumu gelecektir. Para cekme talebi gerceklestikten sonra site uyelik bilgileri ile banka hesap bilgileri ortusmez ise paranz alamazsnz. Boyle bir durumla karslasmamak adna bu hususa ayrca dikkat etmelisiniz. Jan 28, 2016 | By Kira Romina, a six-year-old Whippet (a medium-size dog breed descended from Greyhounds) is set to become the first dog in Mexico to receive a jointed 3D printed prosthetic leg thanks to specialists from the Universidad del Valle de Mexico (UVM). The 3D printed prosthetic dog leg is part of an ongoing project at UVM that wants to make affordable, customized 3D printed prosthetics available to pets around the world. Romina was involved in a terrible lawn mower accident in Brazil in 2013, completely losing one of her front legs, and seriously damaging the other. Yet thanks to advanced 3D scanning and 3D printing technology, she will join the ranks of Yogo, Derby, Tazo and Tumbles, fellow canine pets whose mobility and quality of life have been greatly improved with 3D printed prosthetic devices. We did a three dimensional scan of Rominas stump, and from that we were able to design a custom-fitted prosthetic through computer software that would perfectly match the size and requirements she has, said Dr. Stantiago Garcia Pasquel, coordinator of large species animals at the Veterinary Hospital at UVM. The final iteration of Rominas 3D printed leg is set to be completed within the next three months. Like the prototypes shown in theses images, it will feature silicone joints that mimic the natural movements of a dogs leg, and will be made from either 3D printed carbon fibre or aluminumextremely durable yet lightweight materials that wont prevent the young Whippet from running and jumping as she used to. The finished leg will also be printed in a color that is close to her natural fur coat. According to Pasquel, the main advantages of the 3D printed animal prosthetics being developed at UVM come down to time, cost, and weight reductions, since the prosthetics can be made from a variety of materials, from plastics to carbon fibre, aluminum or other metals, depending on the animals size and specific needs. 3D printed prototypes and even finished models can also be manufactured from start to finish in as little as 24 hours. Pasquel and his colleagues at the UVM envision a specialized service, in which veterinarians from anywhere in the world with dogs in a similar condition to Romina could contact them, or potentially even log into a website and download 3D files of various pet prosthetics. The 3D models could then be customized as needed and taken to a local 3D printing bureau to be made into functional, life-changing devices. After receiving her 3D printed prosthetic, Romina will receive psyhiotherapy training at UVMs Veterinary Hospital for a period of 2 to 3 months, as the video below shows her walking, but still with some difficulty as she adjusts to the new leg. The doctors are also considering options for treating her second damaged leg. Though the UVM team have yet to specify a cost for a 3D printed prosthetic such as Rominas, they have said that their goal is to produce them at significantly cheaper costs compared to existing dog prosthetics, with the overall aim of giving more of our furry friends the chance at a healthier and happier life. Posted in 3D Printing Application Maybe you also like: Giancalo albarlo wrote at 6/29/2018 11:43:19 AM:sup my dudesjulia kalmon wrote at 2/14/2016 2:18:48 AM:I have a three legged horse in yucatan....are you interested in helping her? Jan 28, 2016 | By Alec Though 3D printing is inherently a very modern making technology, various artists have been showing the world that it can also breathe new life into techniques like ceramic modeling and glass casting which have been around for centuries. The results are often spectacular and artisanal. This can also be seen in most recent project by 3D printing guru and performing veteran the Great Fredini, who has created some spectacular glass figures the result of a combination of glass casting and 3D printed PLA molds. If the name of the Great Fredini sounds familiar, thats probably because he has been behind some very experimental 3D printing projects over the last few years. Remember the world's largest 3D printed installation in Coney Island? His real name is Fred Kahl, and he is a Brooklyn-based artist with a long performing history at Coney Island who discovered his making passion a few years ago. He spent much of 2015 in a flexible fellowship at Wheaton Arts Creative Glass Center of America, where he was working on combining glass casting with CAD-made sculptural forms. I worked extensively with glass many years ago but now create most of my art with 3D scanning and printing, he explains. And the results are pretty impressive. As he explains, he decided to explore a number of casting techniques with the help of 3D printing, leading to some interesting discoveries. I usually begin with 3D scanning, primarily structured light scanning with Primesense/Kinect style devices and occasionally photogrammetry for non human subjects. Other non-organic forms are just modeled directly in the computer using my software of choice Zbrush, he says of his design process. These designs are finally 3D printed, but this time around the 3D print wasnt the last step of the process. In fact, he started out with a technique called lost PLA kiln casting, which is basically a 3D printing version of wax casting. The wax/plastic model is covered in plaster, heated to remove the material and leaving a quality mold that can be filled with glass, metal or whatever other material you fancy. Starting out with a PLA 3D printed positive, he first covered this with a plaster/silicon mold. I began by plugging any holes in the surface of the 3D prints with microcrystalline wax and waxing the prints down to a table, The Great Fredini explains. I mixed a small initial coat of mix with no fiberglass strand to use as a splash coat over the object, then mixed subsequent buckets of mix to fill the molds completely. After at least a day of drying, the resultant molds were loaded into the oven to start heating, but Fred quickly discovered this process wasnt as easy when working with PLA. Wax is generally just steamed out quite quickly, but PLA proved more difficult to shift. Even though PLA is a biodegradable corn starch, the burnout is smoky and not good to be around so it had to be timed to happen overnight when the studio was empty. I would begin by soaking the oven at 300 for about three hours and then pushing it upwards at about 100/hour, he says of the difficult process. At about 450 I would go in (wearing gloves, glasses and a respirator) and use pliers to pull out some big chunks of plastic as it started melting. I had to be careful not to damage the mold in doing so. At about 700, I would go in with a stainless steel turkey baster and suck out as much molten plastic as possible. The smell was terrible. Incidentally, a more useful product exists (Moldlay filament by Kai Parthy), but Fred wouldnt discover that until later. But it did work Fred did end up with plaster molds. These were then filled with molten glass, for which he tried two techniques. The first is what he calls Lacrosse Casting, and involves standard furnace glass passed around from one ladle to another, to remove all bubbles. I would gather a ladle of glass, then dump the ladle into a second ladle someone else was holding. They would rock the ladle side to side so that the molten glass skinned up on the outside a little. They would then dump that back into my ladle and I would go to the oven and gingerly drop this hot tamale of glass into the mold, he explains. Unfortunately, this very time-consuming technique was prone to damaging the molds, though some results turned out pretty good. Fred therefore moved onto the second technique, which revolved around using some crystal glass more expensive, but resulting in far better and clearer casts. After the mold is burned out, I would let the oven slowly return to room temperature so I could carefully vacuum it out and pack it with chunks of glass, he explains. The small chunks could then be loaded in the mold, and the oven slowly brought back up to about 1550 until they melted in completely and the worst of the bubbles came to the surface. At that point the oven was crashed back down to under 1000. This definitely proved to be the best technique for Lost PLA casting, and the results look amazing. Unfortunately, the crystal glass makes the whole project quite costly. With crystal glass. It definitely proves that lost PLA casting can be used to cast custom glass creations, though the results would be far better when using Moldlay filament. Incidentally, Fred further tested CNC-carved graphite molds, which were reusable and thus more cost-effective, but obviously less cool. Lost PLA castings also required extensive work divesting from the mold, then grinding and polishing. I had long wanted to experiment with CNC carving as opposed to 3D printing, he explains. The graphite molds can be seen below. However, one thing is crystal clear: modern computing and making techniques can definitely add a whole new dimension to traditional artisanal manufacturing. Posted in 3D Printing Application Maybe you also like: Jan 27, 2016 | By Andre The second generation Kreator Motion 3D Printer by Polish company 3DKreator made its presence felt with an appearance at last years Euromold conference in Dusseldorf, Germany. They now look to expand further into international markets with the their feature-heavy flagship 3D Printer. Already in its second generation, this machine certainly looks like itll find a secure footing in the busy desktop 3D printer market of today. With the support of seed funding via the Internet Ventures FZI fund, the focus on the Kreator Motion 3D Printer is to offer the highest possible value for your money. As one might expect, the 3D printer is based on fused filament fabrication (FFF) at its core, can print at a 200x200x190mm yet still boasts a relatively compact 519x395x420mm exterior footprint. As a second generation device, its natural to expect upgrades and refinements over the previous model and it seems 3DKreator did just that. New to this release includes general element modernizations, a revamped case, a small clear enclosure door, and filament use detection sensors. Additionally, a perforated heated bed and automatic levelling will excite those that wish to print with ABS plastic or are generally frustrated with the effort required for manual levelling. As an experienced user of 3D printers that need to be hand levelled, I can confidently say the recent explosion of bed-levelling technology in the desktop 3D printer world is a very good thing. Also, the choice to transfer print files via USB, SD card or wirelessly using the Wi-Fi ready module provides a little bit of input flexibility. From a print output perspective, the Kreator Motion 3D Printer boasts capabilities inline - or even slightly improved in some cases - to that of the industry standard. They claim that it can print at the 60 micron (0.06mm) resolution range in a wide range of materials using the proven Cura software bundle. When it comes to pricing, the Kreator Motion 3D Printer runs in at 1749 (plus 59 for optional enclosure door and 59 for an additional heated table). While not on the low-end in terms of cost, this should be expected considering it is a feature-rich, business-orientated 3D Printer. The way I see it, if the 3D printer delivers on its promise of quality and consistency, thats a very reasonable price. While the impact of this second generation model started gaining traction at last years manufacturing and development conference Euromold, the 3DKreator story goes back further still. The team behind this 3D printer includes Przemek Kazanowski, someone that helped with the success another Polish manufacturer Omni3D. Based out of Krakow (the Polish Silicon Valley) since 2014, the team has several design awards under their belt. Going forward with a now proven team, their immediate goal is to enter into new reseller relations with European and American companies to grow the 3DKreator brand. Considering the leg work theyve already done in securing capital and a strong, experienced team, I think theyve done everything needed to expand outward into international markets. All said, if youre in the market for a sleek feature-heavy 3D printer for your workspace, Id recommend taking a look at the Kreator Motion 3D Printer. The example prints seem crisp and artifact free and I cant really think of any one thing missing from the machine that would slow down your 3D print, prototyping ambitions. 3D Kreator Motions basic technical specification: Printing technology: Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) Building area: 200 x 200 x 190 mm Extruder: 0,4 mm Printing quality: up to 0,06 mm Automatic bed leveling: Yes Materials: ABS, PLA, Nylon, PET, PETG, TPE, Laywood, Laybrick and other. CE declaration: Yes Software: supported by Cura; Simplyfi3D optional Connectivity: USB, SD Files: .stl i .obj Dimensions: 519 x 395 x 420mm Printer weight: 18 kg Posted in 3D Printer Maybe you also like: ABU BAKAR wrote at 6/15/2016 12:14:58 PM:Hello sir/miss, Here I want to know is it your company have a re-seller in Malaysia ? if have , please give a contact or some info to me. permata_iltizam@yahoo.com Thank you Best Regards ABU BAKAR ABDUL SHUKORPierre wrote at 1/29/2016 1:41:32 PM:There is still place for other printers beside Zortrax and Ultimaker (Makerbot is actually almost dead in EU). And while 3DKreator have good price and really high quality components, they are the best alternative for Z & U. If I was going to buy new 3D printer today, I would go for Kreator Motion - I think, they fight for a market, so they will try harder!Reinold wrote at 1/29/2016 12:29:52 PM:Josh And for which company you work for? Related to which manufacturer? Your comment is like many others, written on request. RegardsJosh wrote at 1/29/2016 6:19:24 AM:Yeah Michal, you're the workers marketing agency which they used. Cool story!Michal wrote at 1/28/2016 1:19:36 PM:I have one for 4 months now, and I'm very satisfied. The best part is that i can print with every material i want :) And my wife likes the design. Plus this guys are from my country :) #GoPolandJosh wrote at 1/28/2016 8:37:00 AM:Expensive RepRap ? This is the company strategy ? How they want enter the market on which we have such well-known companies such as Zortrax from Poland, Ultimaker from Netherlands and Makerbot from U.S ? I see on the pictures chinese spools so I'm sure they use cheap and low quality materials, the software of course is used by every printer on the market but these printer cost is half cheapest. BTW: The design of this printer is horrible!3DKreator wrote at 1/28/2016 8:02:30 AM:Its an honor to be featured on our favorite 3d printing portal! Thanks a lot and hope to bring you lot of fun with printing on Kreator Morion! In January 2011, days after the first uprising in Tunisia and the protests in Tahrir Square, the Guardian invited leading writers from across the Arab world to reflect on the revolutionary fervour sweeping the region. Then, they expressed great optimism for the future. Here, they revisit their responses and ask, is there still room for hope? Robin Yassin-Kassab, Alaa Abd El Fattah, Ahdaf Soueif, Mourid Barghouti, Laila Lalami, Raja Shehadeh, Khaled Mattawa, Tamim al-Barghouti, Nouri Gana, and Joumana Haddad in The Guardian: Robin Yassin-Kassab British-Syrian writer Five years ago the Guardian asked me to evaluate the effects of the Tunisian uprising on the rest of the Arab world, and specifically Syria. I recognised the country was by no means exempt from the pan-Arab crisis of unemployment, low wages and the stifling of civil society, but nevertheless argued that in the short to medium term, it seems highly unlikely that the Syrian regime will face a Tunisia-style challenge. That was published on 28 January 2011. On the same day a Syrian called Hasan Ali Akleh set himself alight in protest against the Assad regime in imitation ofMohamed Bouazizis self-immolation in Tunisia. Aklehs act went largely unremarked, but on 17 February tradesmen at Hareeqa in Damascus responded to police brutality by gathering in their thousands to chant The Syrian people wont be humiliated. This was unprecedented. Soon afterwards, the Deraa schoolboys were arrested and tortured for writing anti-regime graffiti. When their relatives protested on 18 March, and at least four were killed, the spiralling cycle of funerals, protests and gunfire was unleashed. In 2011, I wrote that Assad personally was popular, and so he remained until his 30 March speech to the ill-named Peoples Assembly. Very many had suspended judgment until that moment, expecting an apology for the killings and an announcement of serious reforms. Instead, Assad threatened, indulged in conspiracy theories, and, worse, giggled repeatedly. I underestimated the disastrous effects of Assads neo-liberal/crony-capitalist restructuring during the previous decade. I was soon to be wrong about many other things too. More here. Quarterly Activities Report Dec 2015 Perth, Jan 28, 2016 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Rum Jungle Resources ( ASX:RUM ) strategic intent is to create shareholder value through the discovery, development and operation of fertiliser and industrial mineral projects, located in close proximity to existing transport infrastructure, focused on the Northern Territory of Australia. CORPORATE SUMMARY - The company's current primary focus is the development of a small scale, low capital start-up to generate an operating cash flow. As such, the Karinga Lakes project is being advanced through pre-feasibility - Rum Jungle Resources was one of the small numbers of resources companies that were featured at the Northern Australia Investment Forum that was hosted by the Australian Federal Government in Darwin in November 2015. A significant number of potential investor companies from various parts of the world were present - Engagement with a number of regional fertiliser industry and financial entities continues with an aim to secure cornerstone project level investment, joint ventures and/or offtake to support the global scale Ammaroo Phosphate project or the evolution of the SOP portfolio of projects - Cash Balance $2.4 million (including secured Term Deposits of $350k) HEALTH, SAFETY, ENVIRONMENT AND COMMUNITY - 1,390 field hours were worked at Karinga and Ammaroo and there were no reportable incidents SULPHATE OF POTASH - An MOU regarding potential future SOP off take was completed with a major Japanese Trading House as announced to the ASX on 9 December 2015 - GHD and Norwest Corporation commenced a pre-feasibility study (PFS) of the Karinga Lakes SOP Project as announced to the ASX on 20 November 2015 - A 2,000 litre evaporation trial of Karinga brine in Alice Springs is on-going. It will provide potassium salts for the next stage of process test-work for the PFS - Eleven deeper RC holes for 1,574 m were drilled at Karinga Lakes during November in order to provide a better understanding of maximum brine depths within a small footprint. This will inform the PFS and provide a modest increase in the in-situ brine resource. The results were released after the Quarter on 19 January 2016 and work on a resource upgrade is currently being undertaken - The first meeting with the Traditional Owners of the Lake Amadeus project was conducted during October 2015. Lake Amadeus is located on Aboriginal Land and therefore the Aboriginal Land Rights Act applies (the Native Title Act applies to the majority of RUM's other projects). Discussions were positive and second meeting is scheduled for March 2015. Lake Amadeus is the largest salt lake in the Central Australian Ground Water discharge zone. It is 130 km long and covers an area of more than 1,000km2. Lake Amadeus has the potential, subject to Traditional Owner support and evaluation of the brine resources, to be a very significant sulphate of potash resource in the course of time. - After a meeting in July 2015, the Traditional Owners of the Northern Territory side of the Lake MacDonald project have instructed the Central Land Council to negotiate an agreement, under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, with Rum Jungle Resources. This agreement negotiation process is expected to take several months to complete. According to Geosciences Australia, Lake MacDonald, located on the WA/NT border, is potentially prospective for both potassium and lithium in brines. - After a meeting in October 2015, the Adnyamathanha Traditional Lands Association (ATLA), traditional owners of the Lake Frome area, have agreed to negotiate an exploration agreement with Rum Jungle Resources. Lake Frome is a large salt lake located in South Australia, proximate to gas and transport infrastructure and the horticultural areas of western NSW and Victoria. According to Geosciences Australia and the South Australian Government, areas of Lake Frome are potentially prospective for both potassium and lithium in brines. It is expected that the exploration agreement with ATLA will be completed during Q1 2016. - The process of amalgamating all potash titles into a single company, Territory Potash Pty Ltd, continued during the Quarter SILICA (HIGH PURITY QUARTZ) - Initial processing test work results were released to the ASX on 23 October 2015. The test work was inconclusive and more work is required to determine whether or not an IOTA standard HPQ product can be produced - The next step is to conduct an initial drilling program over the resource to understand its chemical distribution and conduct a second round of processing test-work on a representative sample from the ore body - Sacred site clearance certificates for the Dingo Hole silica project are pending and will enable drilling to be conducted - Several new Northern Territory exploration applications for silica were lodged during the Quarter and desk-top evaluations are underway To view the full report, please visit: http://media.abnnewswire.net/media/en/docs/ASX-RUM-437485.pdf About Verdant Minerals Ltd Verdant Minerals Ltd's (ASX:VRM) strategic intent is to create shareholder value through the discovery, development and operation of fertiliser and industrial mineral projects, located in close proximity to existing transport infrastructure, with a primary focus on the Northern Territory of Australia. IMGCAP(1)] EY recently announced that its internationally-focused Vantage Program, which sends professionals abroad to support entrepreneurs in emerging markets at no fee, is expanding its global reach for 2016. This year, the program will increase its support by working in new countries including Indonesia and Pakistan, along with new cities in South American countries. There are currently 67 six-week placements in the program set for 2016, bringing with it more than 14,000 hours of service and more than $5 million in value. Since its launch in 2005, the Vantage Program has provided more than 60,000 hours of support to nearly 250 entrepreneurs across 30 countries. Of the entrepreneurs helped by the Vantage program in 2015, 93% said the program was "effective in addressing key business challenges, according to EY, with 94% saying it would have a lasting effect on their business. We are committed to growing the EY Vantage Program on a global scale because we believe high-impact entrepreneurs play an important role in building a better working world," said Nicky Major, EY global corporate responsibility leader, in a statement. "Not only do they contribute to the economic prosperity of their communities, but they also represent the next generation of global business leaders and innovators. EY collaborates with Endeavor, a not-for-profit organization that identifies and supports entrepreneurs in emerging economies, to match the Vantage advisors with a host company. Endeavor recently received the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Nonprofit Leadership for their mentorship of entrepreneurs. We know that high-impact entrepreneurs create more jobs than their peers," stated David Wachtel, Endeavor senior vice president of marketing, communications and partnerships. "The EY Vantage Program is a vital resource. To see the program scale so quickly in the last year is evidence of the commitment EY is making toward accelerating the growth of Endeavor entrepreneurs and the cause of high-impact entrepreneurship around the world. For more on the 2016 Vantage Program, head to EY's site here. The heads of three CPA firms, EisnerAmper, Grassi & Co., and GBQ, discussed some of the trends they have been seeing in the profession, and the struggles they have experienced at their firms at the Winning Is Everything conference in Las Vegas last week. EisnerAmper CEO Charly Weinstein talked about how Eisner has been growing since the New York-based firms 2010 merger with Amper Politziner and has been going global. Were looking at almost 10 percent organic growth this year, which is pretty exciting for us, he said. Well be closing out the year with about $305 million in revenues. We did a lot of exciting things this year to change our platform. We started something called EisnerAmper Global. Its our own network of closely aligned accounting firms. EisnerAmper Global has offices in Ireland, Cayman Islands, Israel, India, and were looking for expansion through Luxembourg and Singapore. Were about 180 partners and our offices in the United States are in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and San Francisco. We recently did a combination in Miami and another one in Sacramento, and were looking for another year of outstanding growth. He noted that Eisners combination with Amper Politziner helped his firm jump to fifth place in the New York market. After the merger occurred over five years ago, the firm involved all the partners in rewriting their partnership agreement to ensure a smooth transition and buy-in from the partners. To help the team learn more about management, the firm also brought in a prominent New York City restaurateur, Danny Meyer, CEO of the Union Square Hospitality Group, to talk to them about managing a business. Weinstein is aiming to eventually grow EisnerAmper into a billion-dollar firm. Panel moderator Allan Koltin, CEO of Koltin Consulting Group, asked him how his role has changed over the years since he became CEO. The firm has changed a lot since I became CEO in 1998 or 1999, said Weinstein. We were about a $60 million firm back then, very hands on, just a single office in New York. Over the years, my role has changed pretty dramatically. I would say I stepped away from all client responsibilities just about three years ago, and up until maybe 2004 or 2005, I was still billing 1,800 chargeable hours. I stepped away from all client responsibilities and weve got a very complex business. Its full time and then some to be the CEO. Grassi & Co. managing partner Lou Grassi said his firm is a firm of entrepreneurs assisting entrepreneurs. The firm is niche-based, servicing clients in industries such as construction, manufacturing and distribution, food services, and nonprofits. He would like to build the financial services niche more. At year end, well probably come in at under $50 million this year, he said. Most of our growth over the years has been organic growth. Each year, each of our niche leaders puts together a business plan on how theyre going to grow their niche so they feel like they have ownership in their niche. Obviously we judge them accordingly, but our plans are to look into different regions. We have offices right now in Manhattan and Long Island and one in Rockland County, which is moving to Northern New Jersey in June. His firm is careful when it hires new talent. Its not worth it to bring in somebody who is going to destroy the culture of your firm, he said. Darci Congrove, an owner and managing partner of GBQ in Columbus, Ohio, said she won her firms first ever contested election to lead it. Her firm is on a growth trajectory, but her number one focus is employee engagement. Take care of your employees and they will take care of your clients, she said. She started at the firm as the first female partner, but she is no longer the only one. She attributed that to a shifting dynamic at firms. Koltin asked what propelled her into a leadership position at her firm and what advice she had for other firms. Why arent there more women leaders, and why was it successful for you? he asked. At GBQ, my experiences in the HR and recruiting area, and subsequently in the marketing area and in dialing into some firm management things, were unique versus anyone else who was a candidate for the job, she explained. I dont think that my partners really thought a lot about the fact that I was a woman and nobody else was. I spent 12 years in the room as a partner being the only female. We have rectified that situation. We promoted someone last January. We just promoted someone else this January, and we have a candidate in mind for next January, all of them female. Change has been slow in the profession overall, though. I think that reflects a shifting demographic that is finally happening, that we as firms across the country have found a way to retain women who want to grow into leadership roles, said Congrove. I think that took some time figuring out what flex time looks like, figuring out how to make flex time a career track as opposed to flex time as a role player, something probably all of us have been on a journey to solve. I think firms across the country are very focused on this. The AICPA has had initiatives on this and there are a zillion womens organizations out there advocating for this. The primary problem, in my opinionand I spent a lifetime talking to womens business organizations and I spent a lot of time involved in womens charity issuespart of the challenge we have right now is that we do have such a robust network of womens only organizations that the women are only talking to each other about the problem. Until we engage men fully in the conversation, were not going to see a significant shift. R. Waidler & Associates P.C., a firm in Boulder, Colo., will become part of Top 100 firm Eide Bailly LLP, effective Feb. 1. As part of the deal R. Waidler & Associates president Rick Waidler and his team will join Eide Baillys Boulder office, expanding Eide Baillys presence in Colorado to 177 people in five offices across the state, with locations in Boulder, Denver, Fort Collins, Golden and Grand Junction. R. Waidler & Associates is a talented CPA firm that is well respected in the Boulder community, said Eide Bailly managing partner and CEO Dave Stende in a statement. Adding this firm continues our promise to our clients and staff to grow strategically so we can offer stronger solutions and service across our firm. Eide Bailly, based in Fargo, N.D., ranked 20th on Accounting Todays 2015 list of the Top 100 Firms, with $195.4 million in annual revenue. Its exciting to be joining the team of experienced and talented professionals at Eide Bailly, said Waidler. As a small firm, were looking forward to the opportunity to expand our resources, devote more time to client service and have experienced professionals available to bounce ideas off of and consult with on client tax matters and strategic planning. Waidler will be working closely with other professionals in Eide Baillys Boulder office, advising clients and providing services such as cost segregation studies, international tax services, wealth management, technology consulting and transaction services. Rick will bring more than 40 years of experience and a hands-on approach to service to Eide Bailly, which fits perfectly with our own firm culture, said Brian Callahan, partner-in-charge of Eide Baillys Colorado offices. Hes become a trusted advisor to many businesses in the Boulder community, and hell join Rudy Rudolph and Bill Pyle in our Boulder office, who also have long, respected histories in Boulder. Clients will be able to tap into decades of experience and involvement in the community, as well as deep knowledge of the local business scene. (Bloomberg) Companies shouldnt be able to get away with paying very low taxesor none at allin countries where they earn profits, EU Economic Affairs and Tax Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said as he introduced a package of proposals designed to curb tax evasion. The days are numbered for companies that aggressively reduce their tax bills, Moscovici told reporters in Brussels ahead of Thursdays announcement on the new measures. The commission has set a June goal for reaching political consensus on its proposals, which would require companies to share their country-by-country bills with tax authorities and would set minimum standards for EU nations when designing tax rules. The plans offer legally binding measures to block common tax-dodging strategies, according to commission documents. The EU commission also seeks to improve transparency and create more fair conditions for companies across the EU. People have to trust that the tax rules apply equally to all individuals and businesses, Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said. The commission plans to offer additional proposals by May for countries to make public their country-by-country tax reports. Moscovici said this step is inevitable but may not be implemented for some time, depending on how negotiations proceed. Moscovoci said the EU faces as much as 70 billion euros ($76 billion) in lost revenues from tax-skirting steps taken by big companies, or about five times what the bloc plans to spend on the refugee crisis in 2015 and 2016. Also as a result of this profit shifting, local EU businesses carry a 30 percent higher tax burden than multinationals, he said. In Belgium, tax breaks for multinational corporations gave big firms an unfair advantage over their standalone competitors that twists the playing field, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Jan. 22 in a VRT television interview. European state-aid authorities have ordered Belgium to claw back as much as 700 million euros in back taxes as a result of this tax arrangement, part of broader efforts to crack down on unfair tax breaks across the 28-nation bloc. Selective Advantage What were trying to do is to show that no company is given a selective advantage which is not available to the next company, Vestager said. Were in the process of analyzing that, because big as well as small member states shouldnt do state aid to businesses like this. Thursdays proposals seek to incorporate and build on last years report on the erosion of tax revenues and profit shifting from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Moscovici says he hasnt yet received any complaints from the EU nations that dont belong to the OECD. Tax changes in the EU must be agreed on by all 28 member states and dont require European Parliament approval. Moscovici said the parliament would be involved and consulted in talks as the measures advance, and a German member of the legislature said the EU needs to live up to its commitments. On past tax proposals, we have seen how member states have watered down the proposals substantiallythis must not happen again, Markus Ferber, vice-chairman of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee in the European Parliament, said in a statement. Large corporates dodging the European tax men by playing off national tax regimes against each other is something that hurts everyones sense of justice as well as public finances, Ferber said. New rules on exit taxation, hybrid mismatches and limits for the deductibility of loan interest must therefore be quickly implemented. With assistance from Stephanie Bodoni and Julia Verlaine. (Bloomberg) European Union competition chief Margrethe Vestager said Thursday morning shes ready to investigate Google parent Alphabet Inc.s 130 million-pound ($185.5 million) tax deal with the U.K. if there are complaints. It didnt take long for the first to surface. "If we find that there is something to be concerned about, if someone writes to us and says, well, this is maybe not as it should be, then we will take a look, she said in an interview on BBCs Radio 4. Within hours, Stewart Hosie, the deputy leader of the Scottish National Party, said hed written a letter calling for a probe into Googles arrangements. Vestagers comments signal that shes willing to open another front in a sprawling probe into multi-national conglomerates tax deals in European countries that has already ensnared Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Starbucks Corp. News of Googles tax settlement with the U.K. was met with outrage given Googles massive sales in the country. Vestagers spokesman Ricardo Cardoso said officials got the letter and will look at it and issues raised. Google representatives declined to immediately comment. Brexit Fears An EU probe into Googles affairs in Britain would risk inflaming tensions over European intervention in U.K. affairs just as the nation prepares for a possible June referendum on its EU membership. Vestager has sweeping powers to order nations to claw back underpaid taxes if she concludes that they gave unfair deals to specific companies. While her language is non-committal, the British public should in principle be in favor of anyone forcing Google to pay more tax in the U.K., said Kai Struckmann, a lawyer at White & Case in Brussels. But one cannot expect the No-campaign to be so rational, he said, referring to campaigners for a British departure from the EU. They may try to present this as yet another interference by Brussels with the U.K.s tax sovereignty." Sensitive Issue The issue of EU investigations into national tax affairs is clearly a sensitive one and the commission is not going to want to get embroiled in an unnecessary dispute with the U.K. in the run up to a referendum on Brexit, said Gregor Irwin, chief economist at Global Counsel, a strategic advisory firm in London. If the commission does investigate, I dont think this will go anywhere as I doubt there is a case to argue here for violation of state aid, he said. Google will adopt a new approach for U.K. taxes, and the settlement covers taxes going back to 2005, the company said Friday. Alphabet, which owns the Google search engine, has been criticized for paying a fraction of the taxes due on sales in the U.K. For example, the tech giant paid $16 million in U.K. corporation tax from 2006 to 2011 on $18 billion of revenue, according to a panel in 2013. Treasury Victory The dispute over Googles tax settlement with the U.K. deepened Tuesday after Labor finance spokesman John McDonnell demanded to know if Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne personally signed off on the deal. One analysis has put the rate down to about 3 percent, which I think is derisory, McDonnell told BBC Radio on Saturday. Osborne initially described the Google settlement as a "victory" for the Treasurys push to reform tax. Within days, he was facing a backlash from the opposition, but also from within Conservative ranks. London Mayor Boris Johnson, a potential rival for Osborne in the race to succeed David Cameron as prime minister, said it was "absurd" to attack Google over the settlement because "you might as well blame a shark for eating seals." Financial Secretary David Gauke defended the governments position in an unscheduled parliamentary debate on Monday and denied the U.K. is giving Google and other multinational companies special treatment over tax. Google will appear before U.K. lawmakers to explain the deal next month. The hearing of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 11 will also feature senior officials from the British tax agency, Her Majestys Revenue & Customs, the panel said Thursday. Vestagers comments came the same day as the EU commission proposed a slate of measures that would make it harder for international companies to dodge taxes by playing national rules against each other (see EU Sets Sights on Forcing Firms to Pay Nations Tax Where Due). EU Measures Tax Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said he aims to get a deal on some of the more binding measures by June. He didnt comment on the Google deal beyond repeating Vestagers pledge to look at any complaints. Billions of tax euros are lost every year to tax avoidance, Moscovici said. Europeans and businesses that play fair end up paying higher taxes as a result. This is unacceptable and we are acting to tackle it. With assistance from Eddie Buckle, Stephanie Bodoni and Rebecca Christie. (Bloomberg) After three years and $1.37 billion in penalties, the U.S. is ending a disclosure program that forced Swiss banks to reveal all the secret ways they helped Americans evade taxes. A final accord announced Wednesday, the 78th by the U.S. with 80 Swiss banks, clears the way for prosecution of other firms excluded from the program. Julius Baer Group Ltd. said last month that it expects to pay about $547 million to settle a separate U.S. criminal investigation into how it assisted American tax cheats. In the final agreement, HSZH Verwaltungs AG avoided prosecution by agreeing to pay $49.8 million and admitting it helped U.S. clients dupe the Internal Revenue Service, the Justice Department said. Through this initiative, we have uncovered those who help facilitate evasion schemes and those who hide funds in secret offshore accounts, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement. We have improved our ability to return tax dollars to the U.S. And we have pursued investigations into banks and individuals. $50 Billion The U.S. reached non-prosecution agreements through the disclosure program with dozens of banks since securing $211 million from BSI SA last March. More deals followed in December when Credit Agricole SA agreed to pay $99.2 million; Bank Lombard Odier & Co. $99.8 million; and Bank J. Safra Sarasin AG $85.8 million. Union Bancaire Privee settled for almost $188 million on Jan. 6. In all, the banks held about $50 billion in U.S. assets in 35,096 accounts from 2008 to 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The total penalties amounted to 2.7 percent of those assets. The program has been very tough for the banks in Switzerland, but after the settlement they are able to look ahead, Daniela Flueckiger, a spokeswoman for the Basel, Switzerland-based Swiss Bankers Association, said in an e-mail. Beat Werder, a spokesman for Switzerlands State Secretariat for International Financial Matters, welcomed the fact that the tax disputes were resolved with banks in accordance with Switzerlands legal system and sovereignty. Treated Fairly In particular, the transfer of client data is not permitted, Werder said in an e-mail. Switzerland is in regular contact with the DOJ, working towards ensuring that Swiss banks are treated fairly and are not disadvantaged relative to U.S. or other banks. Such contact also makes it possible to call for compliance with the Swiss legal system. Banks used an array of ruses to help clients hide assets. All but three held mail to reduce a paper trail, and most offered numbered accounts that concealed identities. Dozens helped clients withdraw untraceable cash, and the vast majority paid external asset managers to bring in clients. U.S. clients also used offshore corporations, trusts and foundations titled in the names of others to cheat the IRS. Panama was cited in 41 of the accords, followed by Liechtenstein at 39 and the British Virgin Islands at 38. Hong Kong and the Cayman Islands were each cited in 10 of the accords. Insurance Wrappers One tactic described in 23 accords was banks offering life insurance policies that held a clients accounts in the name of the insurer. Such insurance wrappers disguised the true owners of accounts. Another 18 accords describe how banks helped clients hold assets in untraceable gold or other precious metals. HSZH admitted in a statement of facts that it targeted U.S. clients who were leaving other Swiss banks that were under investigation by the Justice Department, particularly UBS Group AG, Switzerlands largest bank. HSZH viewed those clients as a business opportunity to be seized immediately rather than a warning to be heeded, according to the statement. The firms bankers also regularly visited clients in the U.S., delivering cash in amounts below $10,000 to avoid triggering reporting requirements, HSZH said in the statement. Gold Bars One client with more than $90 million in an account held by a Liechtenstein foundation got cash deliveries from an HSZH banker at a Swiss hotel or in London, according to the statement. Another U.S. couple with $24 million incrementally took out more than 19 million Swiss francs ($18.7 million) in cash and 55 kilograms in gold bars, worth more than 3 million Swiss francs, when they closed an account in 2012. HSZHs senior managers also approved two pipelines to 83 U.S. clients with undeclared accounts, most of whom left UBS, according to the statement. One top executive sent an e-mail in 2008 saying that discussions of such clients should be verbal and not written. The last thing we need is a paper trail + broadcast throughout the organization, the executive wrote, according to the statement of facts. Most of the accounts were managed by an external asset manager who was indicted in Florida in 2009, according to the indictment. HSZH, which traces its roots to 1889, was once owned by UBS and later by St. Galler Kantonalbank AG, a regional lender. It was wound down in 2014 under the name Hyposwiss Zurich, or HSZH, after parts of the business were sold to various buyers. With assistance from Erik Larson. The most successful of the so-called new media is probably Buzzfeed, but the truth is, they have more to offer than cute cat antics. This week in two separate stories they called out Donald Trump for hypocrisy. In Florida, in a story called Donald Trump vs Sea Level Rise, reporter Peter Aldous points out that Trump is putting millions and millions of dollars of his property at risk by pretending that global warming isnt happening. Located on 240 feet of pristine beach, Trump Hollywood offers spectacular views of the ocean, boasts the Trump Organization on its website. Three-bedroom units in this 41-story luxury development are currently on sale for around $3 million apiece. But by the end of this century, the ocean could be way too close for comfort. According to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 3 feet of sea level rise could turn the building into an island at the highest tides. Six feet would submerge most of the surrounding neighborhood. But Donald Trump doesnt buy any of that. Global warming, he has said, is a total hoax and bullshit. And in Las Vegas, in a story called Trumps Effect on the Latino Vote Has Began, reporter Adrian Carrasquillo finds an effort underway to register Latino voters in Nevada. He writes: How high the ultimate number of newly naturalized citizens will go is unclear, but there is a precedent for immigration rhetoric driving large numbers of people to naturalize and likely affecting decisions at the ballot box in a presidential year. In 1994, former California Gov. Pete Wilson, his restrictionist immigration policies, and his controversial ads about illegal immigration became a high-profile campaign issue in a state home to millions of Hispanic voters. During his re-election campaign, Wilson championed a ballot measure called Prop 187, which denied undocumented immigrants and their children access to public education and health care. The proposition passed (it was later found unconstitutional by a federal district court), but Californias Latino voter registration went up 50%. The reporter includes a memorable quote: We have a new boogeyman, said 20-year Nevada veteran Democratic strategist Andres Ramirez, referring to Trump. Weve had boogeymen in past years but now we have one at unprecedented levels. Go Donald (w/Sarah). Astronaut rescue exercise proves Airmen ready to support space mission It's not common an astronaut must be rescued out of rough open waters after descending home to Earth in a crewed capsule. But when those space race-era days of human space flight return, a small Air Force detachment knows they will be ready. The 45th Operations Groups Detachment 3 joined NASA's Commercial Crew Program; Air Force pararescuemen; combat rescue officers; and survival, evasion, resistance and escape specialists in a simulated astronaut rescue at Patrick Air Force Base Jan. 14. "At the strategic and operational levels of this exercise, we flawlessly met our objectives of effective command and control between our Joint Space Operations Center operating location and the combined Department of Defense and NASA landing support officers for the aircraft launch, relay of mission execution status, relay of astronaut medical status, and systems matter expertise to all players," said Lt. Col. Jason Havel of Det. 3, which is also known as the Human Space Flight Support Office. "The command and control was exercised in accordance with U.S. Strategic Command and Det. 3's concept of operations previously developed during their 2015 war game scenarios." It was a total force effort involving Air Force active duty, Reserve and Guard personnel alongside NASA. The 308th Rescue Squadron, a Reserve unit known as the Guardian Angel Squadron based at Patrick AFB, provided a majority of the jumpers, and the Alaska Air National Guard's 249th Airlift Squadron coordinated the rescue jumpmaster training. The Air Force and NASA teams boarded two Alaska ANG C-17 Globemaster IIIs with pararescue teams rigged for an open water jump mission on a course set for 10 miles off shore at a designated drop zone in the Atlantic Ocean. There, they met up with the life raft representing the space capsule where a simulated downed astronaut would be found after splash down. Four survivors were immediately recovered using life-saving medical care. The ability to abort from any phase of a mission and safely remove astronauts from harm's way is a critical element for next generation of commercial crew spacecraft, according to NASA. Although very unlikely, aborts can occur during all phases of flight and a capsule could land almost anywhere in the world. So, the Ground and Mission Operations Office of NASA's Commercial Crew Program is working with the DOD to ensure rescue and medical personnel can recover astronauts quickly and safely in the event of such an abort. "Exercises like this are extremely important to the development of tactics, techniques and procedures for the DOD forces as well as practicing and refining communication protocols between the flight crew and ground support teams, both NASA and DOD," said Tim O'Brien, who works for NASA's GMO Office. "While Air Force Reserve pararescuemen jumped from the C-17 aircraft and practiced their hands-on skills, real-time coordination took place between those rescue forces, a simulated flight crew, the aircraft, and NASA/DOD command centers in order to execute a safe rescue scenario. Every time we conduct an exercise like this, we learn and improve of our processes." NASA recovery engineers and members of Det. 3 were aboard the life raft acting as astronauts communicating with the aircraft and the 308th RQS with a PRC-112G radio. One of the objectives of the rescue mission was to test the range of an essential line of communication between all parties. At the heart of this vital line was the Det. 3 operations center located at Patrick AFB, thousands of feet below and 40 miles to shore. Members of the unique detachment proved their capability to transmit messages to and from the boat and the C-17. The detachment specifically wanted to test their text and data transmission capability. "Together with exercise participants, we developed tactics, techniques and procedures that incorporate the DOD-standard Quickdraw radio interrogator onto C-17A operations when used as a rescue platform," Havel said. "The Quickdraw (aircraft) and PRC-112G (survivor) radio combination gave us immediate position and identification more quickly and accurately than traditional voice relay. Prior to the execution of the mission, Det. 3 developed a nine-line medevac checklist with the NASA Health and Medical Division specific to the simulated astronaut rescue operation. They anticipate the checklist will become a standard item astronauts will train to use during contingencies. It has already been submitted to NASA's Flight Operations Directorate in hopes of becoming the benchmark for human spaceflight scheduled to return to America in 2017. The small Air Force detachment has served as the liaison between NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the Air Force and DOD for more than 55 years of training men and women of those organizations for launch contingencies and astronaut recovery. Airmen work in concert to execute rapid global mobility It's been raining sideways for hours since he arrived for work on the flightline at 6 a.m. Staff Sgt. Justin Worcester ignores his drenched uniform and plows ahead while inspecting every inch of the 53-year-old KC-135 Stratotanker, because he's a crew chief. His name is on it. "We put everything on the line when we sign our name off," Worcester said. "The aircrew is trusting us to make sure this aircraft is safe to fly." Airmen like Worcester defend their country by making sure the U.S. can quickly move people and equipment around the world at a moment's notice. This is executing rapid global mobility, Air Mobility Command's top priority. Time can save lives in a humanitarian crisis. Alternately, surprise is a principle of war. Whether a KC-135 is creating an air bridge for a 32-hour bomber mission or a C-17 Globemaster III is air dropping pallets of food to earthquake victims, the U.S. can move a large force in a matter of hours, not days. This is made possible by Worcester and a team of approximately 126,000 other mobility Airmen. The best checklist "Teamwork's crucial," said Worcester, who is assigned to the 6th Air Mobility Wing at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. "If I come out here to do a tire change with a couple of Airmen, I expect them to have the knowledge of what to do, what tools they might need," he added. "If we come out here to do an inspection on the aircraft, I expect my other team members to know what they're looking for." From the latest corporate knowledge in Worcester's checklists to his headset and gloves, AMC leaders make sure he has what he needs to do his job. "Executing rapid global mobility is about moving missions, and 18th Air Force has the operational lead on that," said Gen. Carlton D. Everhart II, the AMC commander. "But in order to move, you have to have a sufficiently organized, trained and equipped force." Maintaining a sufficient force to execute rapid global mobility can be challenging with fewer personnel and older aircraft than ever before, but AMC works daily toward that goal. Due to its size, the Mobility Air Forces need to be more agile, or flexible and responsive, according to the 2015 Mobility Air Forces Strategic Vision. Right time, right place Aging tankers require excellent maintenance to be flexible and responsive. Back on the wet Florida flightline, Worcester inspects a KC-135 that was built in 1963. It has responded to conflicts around the world since the Vietnam War. He walks under the wing and taps his knuckles all over the gray metal, making hollow sounds. "You want to hit the diffuser here, because if mounted screws are broken, you'll hear a little jingle," he said. All screws were intact. The aircraft spent most of last year at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, in support of Operations Inherent Resolve and Freedom's Sentinel. The Airmen who deployed it to Al Udeid AB work at 18th Air Force, AMC's component numbered air force and the largest of its kind in the world. Combined with the 618th Air Operations Center, the 18th Air Force executes assigned missions through the employment of airlift, air refueling, aeromedical evacuation, and tailored global air mobility support systems. It provides geographical combatant commanders a seamless and synchronized logistical capability to execute their mission. "We turn the conceptual into air power," Lt. Gen. Samuel Cox, the 18th AF commander, said in a recent interview with The Mobility Forum. "Together, the pieces of the air mobility machine merge under the 18th Air Force umbrella to execute AMC's priority to execute rapid global mobility. To deploy forces effectively, the 18th Air Force commander entrusts tactical execution with the Airmen at the 618th Air Operations Center. Around the clock, they manage the complex sphere of theater clearances, flight planning, mission planning, weather and much more. They make sure air mobility forces arrive on time in the right place for successful hand-off to overseas commanders. In Airmen's hands With every hand off of a KC-135 to an aircrew, Worcester said he gets a sense of satisfaction. The rain is gone, but wind still whips his hair as he watches the KC-135's engines roar to life. He removes the yellow wooden chocks near the landing gear, checks panels near the flight deck, runs out of the way, turns and gives the pilot a thumbs-up as the plane rolls forward. "We have a lot of pride when we've been out here all night; and, right before we leave in the morning, the jet that we've been working on 10 hours taxies out and we get to watch it take off," Worcester said. "The landing gear goes up, and you know that plane made it and is going to come back safe, he added. "If there were no crew chiefs, then the plane wouldn't get up off the ground. Please try to write back Bringing a little holiday cheer to an unknown service member was all an 8-year-old boy was trying to do 25 years ago. A single letter united a pair of Air Force veterans, and the handwritten greeting made its way back to its author -- now an Air Force major -- at Hurlburt Field Jan. 25. It started 25 years ago, when students from Fulmar Elementary School in Mahopac, New York, wrote letters to military members who were deployed in support of Operation Desert Storm. A young Stephen Rausa started his letter anonymously with Dear Any Service Member, and ended it with Please try to write back. As he sealed his letter, he never knew for sure if he would receive a response. He never dreamed that he would get back a letter from someone with such a familiar name. There were a lot of letters boxed up, all addressed to Any Service Member, recalled retired Master Sgt. Ben Rausa. As I dug through the box, a return sender's name caught my eye. He had the same last name as me. Rausa isnt a very common name. Ben wrote back to his new little friend, and they started an unlikely relationship. Getting that letter from someone with the same last name was so cool, Stephen said. "My entire family was sitting at the table, and they were all floored, in that loud Italian way. Everyone thought we must be related somehow, someway. They exchanged a couple of letters with photos, but over time they lost track of each other. They sporadically contacted each other, enough so that Ben knew Stephen was a pilot in the Air Force stationed at Hurlburt Field. Today, Ben lives near Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida. With the anniversary of Desert Storm this month, he was determined to find his little pen pal from so many years ago. It got me thinking about bringing this around full circle and meeting Stephen and letting him have these old keepsakes, Ben said. I guess I never really thanked him for the nice holiday letter." The two finally met over lunch at the Soundside Club on Hurlburt Field. I was so excited to meet Stephen and see how far he has come," Ben said. "The Air Force has meant everything to me. I am happy ... to see he has chosen to be part of the Air Force family, too. As the two caught up, they realized there are so many similarities in their family tree. Both trace their roots back to Sicily. One more notable coincidence is that Stephen's father was a crew chief with the 33rd Fighter Wing, stationed at Eglin Air Force Base in the 1960s. Sometime later, Ben was also a crew chief in the 33rd. Although Stephen has been stationed here for several years, the friendship never fully rekindled until now. I certainly hope I stay in contact with him. I regret not reaching out sooner, Ben said. By the end of lunch, the two made a standing promise is to stay in touch -- whether by email or by telephone. I never really thought much about writing that letter back then, Stephen said. But now it really makes you think about never passing up even the smallest of opportunities, you never know where it will lead 25 years later. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James declared her support of department-wide reforms focused on improving quality of life for military parents, following Defense Secretary Ash Carters Jan. 28 announcement on the next round of Force of the Future initiatives.I applaud Secretary Carter and welcome these announcements as a positive step forward for our Airmen and their families, James said.James has been vocal about her support for extending maternity leave, and the importance of a comprehensive update to the Air Forces current policy, including paternity leave reform as well.This change places our Air Force in the top tier of organizations that offer 12 weeks maternity leave to new mothers, James said. The department will also be introducing legislation to increase paternity leave to 14 days across the total force.The maternity benefit will be offered to the over 200,000 women in uniform today, who comprise 14.8 percent of enlisted personnel and 17.4 percent of the officer corps in the Defense Department.Also included in the comprehensive package of family benefits are the following: expansion of adoption leave; extending childhood development center hours to a 14-hour minimum; modifying or installing mother rooms at each instillation; an examination of additional options for child care; allowing service members to postpone a permanent change of station in certain instances where it is in the best interests of the family; and covering the cost of egg and sperm cryopreservation for active-duty service members.This is the right thing to do, James said. This groundbreaking policy carefully balances our priority focus on mission effectiveness with ongoing efforts to attract and retain talent in a changing workforce.James said more details, including effective dates, will be made available as the services begin planning for implementation.For more information on the next round of Force of the Future initiatives click here Headquarters Air Force Reserve Command received a new Inspector General Jan. 16. Brig. Gen. Allan L. Swartzmiller was sworn in by Lt. Gen. James Jackson, Air Force Reserve Command commander, during a directors meeting here. Swartzmiller replaced Brig. Gen. John J. Mooney, who retired in December 2015. Hailing from Chesaning, Michigan, Swartzmiller is responsible for advising the command's leadership on how to optimize resources and enhance mission effectiveness by upholding standards and influencing positive change. He also ensures the existence of responsive inquiry and complaint resolution characterized by objectivity, integrity, and impartiality. A group of Muslim women launched a protest at Azad Maidan on Thursday, demanding women be allowed to pray in the Haji Ali Dargah. Several activists belonging to Muslim women groups held protest with placards demanding entry in Haji Ali Dargah. Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan member Noorjahan Niaz said, Who gave [the Haji Ali Trust] the right to stop us? A petition filed in the Bombay High Court had challenged the decision of the Haji Ali Trust to ban the entry of women in the inner sanctum of the dargah. Earlier, the Bombay High Court had said it would wait for Supreme Courts ruling on entry of women in Sabarimala temple of Kerala before deciding on a similar plea in case of Haji Ali Dargah. The trustees of Haji Ali Dargah had told the court earlier that entry of women in close proximity to the grave of a male Muslim saint is considered as a grievous sin in Islam. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said he hoped his country could reconcile with fellow Middle Eastern powerhouse Saudi Arabia, but refused to apologise for an attack on a Saudi embassy. We did everything we had to, we condemned the attack, Rouhani said of the torching of the embassy earlier this month by demonstrators protesting the execution of a prominent cleric from Saudi Arabias Shiite minority. We arrested the culprits, it was right to do so and we did, he said, insisting the ball was now in Saudi Arabias court. Why should we apologise? Because (cleric) Nimr al-Nimr was executed? We are the ones to apologise because they are killing the people of Yemen? Apologise to them because they are helping terrorists? he asked. We do not want tensions with Saudi Arabia to continue, he said, but insisted there was no justification for what he described as Riyadhs aggressive policies in the region. They are the ones who should apologise to Muslim people, hundreds of times, he said. The Gulf kingdom and some of its allies severed diplomatic relations with Iran over the January 2 embassy attack. Iran previously said it had arrested 40 people over the incident in Tehran, and another four after Riyadhs consulate in Mashhad was set alight. In an accusation of sorts of PV Narasimha Rao, President Pranab Mukherjee said that the inability to prevent the demolition of the Babri Masjid was the former PMs biggest failures as the head of the nation. In the second volume of his biography, The Turbulent Years: 1980-96, President Pranab Mukherjee shares an insiders account of several significant events during the 1980s and early 1990s. In this extract, he talks about the inability to prevent the demolition of the Babri Masjid was one of PV Narasimha Raos biggest failures as the prime minister. He also talks about how the incident deeply wounded the sentiments of the Muslim community in India and abroad. The demolition of the Babri Masjid was an act of absolute perfidy, which should make all Indians hang their heads in shame. It was the senseless, wanton destruction of a religious structure, purely to serve political ends. It destroyed Indias image as a tolerant, pluralistic nation where all religions have co-existed in peace and harmony. In fact, the Foreign Minister of an important Islamic country later pointed out to Pranab Da that such damage had not been inflicted on a mosque even in Jerusalem, which has seen religious conflicts for centuries. In the late 1980s, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) brought the Ram Janmabhoomi issue to the centrestage of national politics, and the BJP and VHP began organising larger protests in Ayodhya and around the country. Members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) demolished the Babri Mosque (which was constructed by Indias first Mughal emperor, Babar) in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992. The site is the supposed birthplace of the Hindu deity Rama. The destruction of the disputed structure, which was widely reported in the international media, unleashed large scale communal violence, the most extensive since the Partition of India. Hindus and Muslims had indulged in massive rioting across the country, and almost every major city including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bhopal struggled to control the unrest. Later Liberhan Commission, after extensive hearing and investigation, exonerated PV Narasimha Rao. It pointed out that Rao was heading a minority government, the Commission accepted the centres submission that central forces could neither be deployed by the Union in the totality of facts and circumstances then prevailing, nor could Presidents Rule be imposed on the basis of rumours or media reports. Taking such a step would have created bad precedent damaging the federal structure and would have amounted to interference in the state administration, it said. The state deliberately and consciously understated the risk to the disputed structure and general law and order. It also said that the Governors assessment of the situation was either badly flawed or overly optimistic and was thus a major impediment for the central government. The Commission further said, knowing fully well that its facetious undertakings before the Supreme Court had bought it sufficient breathing space, it (state government) proceeded with the planning for the destruction of the disputed structure. The Supreme Courts own observer failed to alert it to the sinister undercurrents. The Governor and its intelligence agencies, charged with acting as the eyes and ears of the central government also failed in their task. Without substantive procedural prerequisites, neither the Supreme Court, nor the Union of India was able to take any meaningful steps. In yet another discussion with journalist, Rao had answered several of the questions on the demolition. He had said that he was wary of the impact of hundreds of deaths on the nation, and it could have been far worse. And also he had to consider the scenario in which some of the troops might have turned around and joined the mobs instead. Regarding dismissal of Kalyan Singh (government), he had said, Mere dismissal does not mean you can take control. It takes a day or so appointing advisers, sending them to Lucknow, taking control of the state. Meanwhile, what had to happen would have happened and there would have been no Kalyan Singh to blame either. P.V.R.K. Prasad, Narasimha Raos confidant, had known Rao since 1971 when he was Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. He reveals unwittingly why Narasimha Rao was inactive in the face of the threatened, rather imminent, demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, and why he was inaccessible while the crime was being perpetrated. He had no heart to stop it. His heart was set on the constructing of a Ram temple, ahead of the Bharatiya Janata Party and thus takes the wind out of its sails. When he began to swim with the tide of popular wrath after the demolition, L.K. Advani, who had formerly called him fantastic, poured on him the vitriol reserved for a turncoat. Yet another book too had earlier levelled an allegation against P V Narasimha Rao that he had connived at the demolition of Babri Masjid claiming that the late Prime Minister had sat in a puja (prayers) when the kar sevaks began pulling it down and rose only when it was over. The charge relating to the demolition on December 6, 1992 has been made by eminent journalist Kuldip Nayar in his autobiography Beyond the Lines. Kalyan Singh, who was heading the BJP government in U P then, made statements which indicated that he had no intention of protecting the Masjid, although the Supreme Court had ordered maintenance of status quo and his government had given an undertaking that it would do so. The climax came when the Masjid was demolished to the last stone on that fateful day by thousands of kar sevaks, egged on by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leadership. Congress cauldron was boiling, not because of the Masjid demolition, but because of internal conflicts. Sonia Gandhi never liked Narasimha Rao, particularly when he assumed leadership of both the Congress party and its government. Many authors especially the one served in Congress party are aggressively attacking Late PV Narasimha Rao for his role in Babri demolition. Everyone wants to shine their political career through this. Satellite imagery analysis suggests North Korea may be preparing a long-range ballistic missile launch, Japans Kyodo News reported today, citing a Japanese government source. Imagery collected over the past several days suggested the launch from the western Dongchangri site could come in about a week, Kyodo said. While the report did not provide any details on the source of the analysis, Japans key security ally the United States regularly monitors North Korea from space while Japan itself in 2003 began its own satellite monitoring of the country. South Korean defence ministry spokesperson Kim Min-Seok declined to confirm or deny the report, saying the ministry did not comment on intelligence matters. He added, however, that South Koreas military was monitoring for any signs of a long-range missile launch. The report came as the international community discusses further sanctions against Pyongyang for conducting its fourth nuclear test earlier this month. The reclusive countrys supposed action could be aimed at flouting the (UN security) council and any plans among its members to tighten sanctions over the latest nuclear detonation, Kyodo said in its report. Washington is pushing for a strong United Nations response, including enhanced sanctions, to respond to the Norths latest atomic blast. But China, North Koreas chief diplomatic protector and economic benefactor, is reluctant, despite their ties becoming strained in recent years as Beijings patience wears thin with its neighbours ambitions for nuclear weapons. US Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing yesterday and said they had agreed to mount an accelerated effort to try to resolve their differences on a new resolution. But Kerry, who said nuclear-armed North Korea poses an overt threat, a declared threat to the world, acknowledged that the two had not agreed on the parameters of exactly what it would do or say. Pyongyang said the blast earlier this month was a miniaturised hydrogen bomb, though experts have largely dismissed the claim. The South Korean defence ministrys Kim added that officials were on guard for any changes in North Koreas previous behaviour. Taiwans president, defying a rare dose of criticism from key ally the United States, visited an island in the disputed South China Sea today and called for peaceful development in the increasingly tense region. Accompanied by about 30 staff members, Ma Ying-jeou (MAH YEENG JOH) left the capital Taipei early on Thursday morning aboard an air force C-130 cargo plane bound for Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba. Taiping lies in the Spratly island group, an area where Taiwan shares overlapping claims with China, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. The city state of Brunei also claims a part of the South China Sea. After arriving, Ma spoke at a national monument on the islet and reiterated his call made in 2015 for peaceful coexistence and joint development. He cited infrastructure developments on the islet, including a 10-bed hospital and a lighthouse, saying they reinforced Taiwans claim of sovereignty and granted it rights over the surrounding waters. Taiwan is spending more than USD 100 million to upgrade the islands airstrip and build a wharf capable of allowing its 3,000-ton coast guard cutters to dock. All this evidence fully demonstrates that Taiping Island is able to sustain human habitation and an economic life of its own. Taiping Island is categorically not a rock, but an island, Ma said. Roughly 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) south of Taiwan and 46 hectares (110 acres) in size, Taiping is the largest naturally occurring island in the area. It has recently been eclipsed in size, however, by man-made islands created by China out of reefs and shoals. China has built housing, ports, airstrips and other infrastructure on the newly created islands, drawing accusations from the U.S. and others that it is exacerbating tensions in the strategically vital region. Taiwan stations about 200 coast guard personnel, scientists and medical workers on Taiping. It occupies a number of other islets in the South China Sea, including the Pratas island group to the north. There was no immediate response to Mas visit from China, although a spokesman for the Cabinets Taiwan Affairs Office on Wednesday repeated Beijings claim to indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands. Safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity and the overall interests of the Chinese nation are the common responsibility and obligation of compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Ma Xiaoguang said at a biweekly news briefing. The Philippines, which occupies a string of islands and reefs near the island Ma will visit, expressed its concern over the trip. As Europe grapples with the wave of migrants, one country expects to expel up to 80,000 migrants whose asylum requests will likely be rejected. Sweden said it expects to expel up to 80,000 migrants as another dozen people including children drowned off Greece in a desperate bid to reach Europe. As the continent grapples with efforts to stem a record flow of migrants, Swedish Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said the mass expulsions of people who arrived in the Scandinavian country last year would require the use of specially chartered aircraft and be staggered over several years. We are talking about 60,000 people but the number could climb to 80,000, he told Swedish media, adding that police and migration authorities had been tasked with organising the scheme. Of the 58,800 asylum requests handled by Swedish migration authorities last year, 55 per cent were accepted. Many of those requests were however submitted in 2014, before the large migrant flow began. Ygeman said he used the 55 per cent figure to estimate that around half of the 163,000 asylum requests received in 2015 would likely be rejected. Sweden, a country of 9.8 million, is among the European Union states with the highest proportion of refugees per capita. More than one million people travelled to Europe last year the majority of them refugees fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in the continents worst migration crisis since World War II. Most, but not all, parents have no hesitation in identifying a vaccination event as the forerunner to their childs gradual withdrawal. With over 1,500 parents taking legal action, in the usually non-litigious UK, during the MMR vaccine episode one would have thought the role of vaccination would have received very close scientific examination. Inexplicably this did not happen. Official focus remained on the need to maintain public confidence in MMR in order to prevent communicable diseases rather than on a thorough examination of parental testimony. Vaccination as a precursor to a childs descent into regressive autism became a neglected vital clue. Over 70 years ago autism was identified as a new condition, and was regarded as rare, that is until about 1990 when its diagnosis began to increase markedly. It is now common. No one in medical science has offered a plausible (one that has survived close scrutiny) explanation for the mystery known as the autism enigma. This is surprising as there are plenty of clues: The latest figures for the UK inform us that over 100,000 schoolchildren have an autism diagnosis. Medical officialdom is quick to re-assure society that there are valid reasons for this significant increase in ASD, including for example better recognition and widening diagnostic criteria. To witness a perfect child gradually lose all his or her skills, regress, and develop distressing behavioural difficulties, often including self injury, should never be visited on any family, but the sad reality is it has been occurring increasingly for over twenty or more years. And as if observing the deterioration of the child is not enough- even worse eventually follows, sometimes years lateran official diagnosis of autism (ASD)! Parents soon discover that lifelong, incurable and genetic are the three words most associated with the condition. Regressive autism is a diagnosis wrapped in bleak negativity. It is difficult to imagine a worse scenario than the one experienced by the many parents I have met. AoA today re-publishes Bill Welshs hypothesis first presented here two years ago, which on Tuesday he spoke about before the Scottish Parliament Petitions Committee (from 1.23.57) raising several important issues concerning the rise of autism, MMR and the possible contamination of vaccine products. A formal publication Bills hypothesis can be read here . Another disregarded clue was the consistent reporting by parents of auditory processing disorders in their child. Much of what is seen and described as autistic symptoms (sound sensitivity, communication problems, language development etc) have a clear auditory component while it is highly likely that other symptoms (behavioural difficulties, social functioning etc) might have too. Auditory processing disorders are common in these children. Is this another neglected clue? A scientific team in the USA carried out a large and important study of twins and concluded that 65% of autism is caused by an environmental factor, leaving only 35% of autism as genetic in origin. This game-changing news, contradicting a long held belief structure, was seemingly ignored! A, later retracted, gastro-intestinal study of 12 autistic children in the UK apparently identified a novel form of bowel disease. The retraction of the study did not dispel the fact that many autistic children experience bowel problems. In a landmark decision in the USA a child (Hannah Poling) was granted compensation for having developed ASD following multiple vaccinations including MMR. The courts decision was complicated by the discovery that Hannah had a mitochondrial disorder which we were told may have contributed to her withdrawal into autism. (It has since been established that many autistic children have mitochondrial disorder). Was this another overlooked lead? Unrelated to the mitochondria connection another team of scientists in the USA identified decreased tryptophan metabolism in autistic patients. Another clue? The clues pile up: an environmental factor as the likely cause; it may be associated (not exclusively) with vaccines; it has a partiality for the auditory tract and could also be associated with bowel disease. And amongst all that- mitochondrial disorder is somehow implicated and also tryptophan depletion! Where to start? Interestingly, asearch of the literature on veterinary vaccines reveals the serious concern that pathogenic mycoplasmas, specifically Mycoplasma Fermentans, have generated over many years which may highlight poor quality control and a lack of sufficient care in the manufacturing process. Laboratory scientists will not hesitate in confirming that Mycoplasma contamination of cell lines is one of the major problems in cell culture technology. This mainly occurs through use of animal cell-based approaches in the making of vaccines (e.g. Measles). Antibiotics are added to the growth medium which tends to stop the more common types of bacteria from replicating (such as streptococcus or staphylococcus species) but are less successful with mycoplasmas as this genus of bacteria lack a cell wall. Without a cell wall they are unaffected by common antibiotics such as penicillins that target cell wall synthesis. Mycoplasmas are in fact a covert contamination of vaccines, and extremely difficult to detect and eliminate. How do mycoplasmas interact in the human body? Mycoplasmas are able to hide inside the cells of the host (patient) or to attach to the outside of host cells. Whether they live inside or outside the host cell, they depend on host cells for nutrients such as cholesterol, amino acids, etc. They compete with the host cells for these nutrients which can interfere with host cell function without killing the host cell. Let us re-visit the clues: Mycoplasma fermentans is a known vaccine contaminant. Limited veterinary research suggests that mycoplasmas may favour the auditory tract. This would not be surprising as mycoplasmas have an affinity for the cilia and stereocilia. Cilia are slender, microscopic, hair like structures or organelles that extend from the surface of nearly all mammalian cells. The stereocilia are the sensory hair cells of the cochlea in the inner ear, they are vital to the function of the auditory system. Mycoplasmas have been the subject of much research in the area of bowel disease, Crohns Disease and also Reflux, a frequently reported problem for regressive autistic children. Interestingly, mycoplasmas affect the function of mitochondria. In fact mycoplasma infection competes with the mitochondria and, as well, infects the cells containing mitochondria and the mitochondria themselves. Mitochondrial malfunction can be a symptom of mycoplasma infection. Tryptophan is one of the amino acids that mycoplasmas scavenge from their hosts tissues. Mycoplasmas. Even a cursory examination of the history of mycoplasmas reveals that they are able to hide inside the cells of the host (patient) or to attach to the outside of host cells. Mycoplasmas are an incredibly malicious and virulent species of bacteria and are not only extremely clever, they are very difficult to trace. Also it is most likely that should mycoplasma enter the human bodys bloodstream they will over time invade virtually any cell they choose, causing a gradual deterioration in the patient. And no doubt, like other pathogens, they will target cells (favoured locations) in the host, e.g. the auditory tract, the gut, and the CNS. It is unlikely that mycoplasma infection will be readily identified using a standard blood test. The nature of the pathogen is that it becomes intracellular; therefore a more sophisticated approach to testing is necessary. (The MELISA test has been proposed by some.) The delay between the childs early regression and the identification of mycoplasma fermentans as the cause may be a significant factor in the progression of this opportunistic bacterial infection leading to medical co-morbidities. Parents will be interested to learn that a treatment expressly for mycoplasma infection is currently in phase 3 of clinical development. Medical herbal remedies already exist. This abridged hypothesis outlines the putative involvement of the pathogen mycoplasma fermentans as a potential aetiological agent and that vaccination is one likely conduit for this covert pathogen and a cause of the symptoms commonly seen in regressive autistic children. It is an abbreviated version of the scientific paper: Mycoplasma Fermentans and deciliation as a precursor to Regressive Autism.(copyright Bill Welsh). -- Bill Welsh is the founder and former Honorary President of Autism Treatment Trust, Edinburgh. WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2016 - Slightly more than half of the nations dairy farms have signed up for the second year of a program that provides a financial safety net for milk producers. According to USDAs Farm Service Agency, about 23,000 out of approximately 45,000 dairy farms nationwide have qualified for coverage under USDAs Margin Protection Program, which allows farmers to recoup money when the margin -- the difference between the price of milk and feed costs falls below a coverage level selected by the farmer. The signup rate is about the same as last years. The program was established by the 2014 farm bill. As with last years signup, California farmers joined at a relatively high rate. Seventy-six percent of the states 1,485 licensed dairy operations signed up. The vast majority of farmers nationwide about 18,000 of the total of 23,328 -- signed up at the $4 coverage level, which requires payment of a flat $100 fee. Higher coverage levels require the purchase of premiums. Last year, about 55 percent of participating operations elected for buy-up coverage. This year, only about 23 percent of dairy farmers who signed up opted for more than basic coverage. Most of those, about 4,000, did so at either the $6 or $6.50 coverage level. According to the National Milk Producers Federation, 77 percent of the nations milk supply will be enrolled in the program this year, down from 80 percent last year. Learn about the benefits of subscribing to Agri-Pulse. Sign up for your four-week free trial Agri-Pulse subscription. Thats obviously still a healthy number, NMFPF spokesman Chris Galen said. The slippage is likely due to current forecasts for 2016 indicating the program wont be generating significant payments which is similar to where payments in 2015 netted out. Low feed prices and higher average milk prices in 2015 created the large margins. For most of 2015, the margin hovered between $7.50 and $8 , but in the last two months, it took a leap that may put it above $10 for December when the final numbers are in. Unless the bottom falls out of margins in December, there will be no MPP-Dairy indemnity payment at any insurable level for the final two-month pay period, observed Dairy Herd Management editor Dave Natzke in a Dec. 30 article. The topics of the day are the upcoming presidential caucuses and primaries. Fighting ISIS. Addressing immigration and refugee issues. And on the East Coast, dealing with Snowzillathe record-approaching January snowfalls that have snarled traffic and halted commerce. But it really is time to begin thinking about the next farm bill. And I intend to raise a number of issues over several blogs to get us to examine farm policy from the broad macro perspective that I think is critical as we move toward a planet with 9-10 billion souls who need to be fed. I know USDA doesnt even have final regulations for some programs and changes from the 2014 Farm Bill in place. Seriously, though we need to begin turning our eyes toward the future and examining whats happening now and what we need to change to meet the needs down the road. For those in environmental, wildlife and nongovernmental organizations, the focus never changespreserving and enhancing the environment, increasing habitat for wildlife, improving water quality, making optimal use of available water and reducing waste. On the other hand, farm organizations and commodity groups have their eyes squarely on the presidential election process, although no candidates are addressing farm policy. And farmers in the midst of running their operations are looking to spring and the next growing season, not at the next farm bill. However, Ive been watching the House Agriculture Committee under the chairmanship of Texas Representative Mike Conaway, and Im impressed with the aggressive pace of oversight hearings on farm issues he has set. Its been long overdue. Id like to encourage the Appropriations Committees and the Senate Ag Committee begin to take a more in depth review of these programs and how they are run as well. To date, neither Congress nor interest groups have really taken the hard look thats needed to inform the policy debate for the committee members and for the agriculture policy community. Its time for committees and subcommittees to roll up their sleeves and really dig into farm policy. Getting involved early in the process assures a well-informed, thoughtfully examined approach that will pay benefits for farmers, taxpayers and world citizens. There are tough questions that demand answers to determine farm policy for the next farm bill and related legislation. We need to look not just at our own short-term needs, but consider long-term global concerns. It amazes me that we as a society are eager to purchase the latest smart phone and to test self-driving cars, but after 20 years were still debating the safety and value of GMOs. All too often left out of that debate is the fact that genetically engineered crops that produce larger yields will be essential in our quest to help feed the world in a more sustainable manner. So we need to know whether or not our programs and approaches to agriculture now support the robust effort it will take to sustain coming population growth on this planet. I know, it is strange to ask this question in todays market. But, how do we sustainably increase production, cut food waste and decrease our environmental footprint? What role can sustainable intensification play in increasing production, when and where is it needed and how do we encourage it? Where can we best invest research dollars to meet these objectives? In future blogs, we will try to explore specific oversight needed on farm programs, conservation, crop insurance, research and USDA administration and structure. I hope you will stay tuned, but even more importantly engage and share your own thoughts with your neighbors and your farm organizations and elected representatives as we begin the debate on where farm policy should go in the next decade. About the author: Bruce I. Knight, Principal, Strategic Conservation Solutions, was the Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) from 2006 to 2009. From 2002 to 2006, Knight served as Chief of Natural Resources Conservation Service. The South Dakota native worked on Capitol Hill for Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, Rep. Fred Grandy, Iowa, and Sen. James Abdnor, South Dakota. In addition, Knight served as vice president for public policy for the National Corn Growers Association and also worked for the National Association of Wheat Growers. A third-generation rancher and farmer and lifelong conservationist, Knight operates a diversified grain and cattle operation using no-till and rest rotation grazing systems #30 For more news, go to: www.Agri-Pulse.com SAN DIEGO, Jan. 27, 2016 As the sun starts to set on two terms for President Barack Obama in the White House, officials with the National Cattlemens Beef Association (NCBA) say they will be keeping a watchful eye on any potential regulatory actions coming from the executive branch. While it is not uncommon for presidents to take a variety of administrative actions on their way out, past Obama administration regulations have rubbed NCBA the wrong way. In the last years of any two-term administration, theres always a lot of regulations that come out, or, in some cases, get repealed, Kent Bacus, NCBAs associate director of legislative affairs, said in an interview with Agri-Pulse during the groups annual Cattle Industry Convention here. I dont think that were going to see a lot of regulations rescinded with this administration. Its important that we stay engaged not only at the grassroots level, but on Capitol Hill and use our friends in Congress to limit the presidents ability to implement so many of these things, Bacus added. Colin Woodall, NCBAs vice president of government affairs, told Agri-Pulse that the administrative actions could come in many forms, but NCBA is primarily watching for designations of grasslands and wilderness areas as national monuments as well as the potential for enforcement actions from the Environmental Protection Agency. We dont have anything off hand that were anticipating, were just preparing ourselves because we think its highly likely that something will pop up, Woodall said. Its more concern than anything tangible. He added that Obama is using the monument designations in a way that was never the intent of the Antiquities Act and NCBA is working with members of Congress on potential reform of that legislation. He said addressing use of the Antiquities Act and the Endangered Species Act are two of NCBAs biggest priorities for the year. Woodall reiterated that there isnt any particular EPA regulation anticipated to come down the pike, but rather the potential for broader enforcement action on existing regulations, similar to the well-known Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule. NCBA and many other organizations have been critical of the EPA for pursuing implementation of WOTUS, which would expand the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act by redefining navigable waters. Agricultural interests have expressed concern that the rule would bring more of their land under the federal governments microscope and create more red tape. Like what you see here? Agri-Pulse subscribers get our Daily Harvest email Monday through Friday mornings, a 16-page newsletter on Wednesdays, and access to premium content on our ag and rural policy website. Sign up for your four-week free trial Agri-Pulse subscription. Woodall said a potential silver lining of a lighter congressional schedule during the 2016 election year is that it gives NCBA and other groups more time to be watchful. Even though I say that Congress is going to spend a lot of time back home campaigning, that doesnt mean that were hanging out in Washington D.C. with nothing to do, Woodall told a group of cattle producers Wednesday in San Diego. We have to watch these agencies and make sure were on top of them and figure out ways to try to usurp the President in his activities. #30 For more news, go to www.Agri-Pulse.com WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2016 Every low-income kid who gets free or reduced-price meals at school would get federal money for eating during the summer, too, under a proposal that President Obama will include in his fiscal 2017 budget due out next month. The budget will call for spending $12 billion over 10 years to provide the aid through the use of EBT cards, which are now used for delivering food stamp benefits, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced during a White House summit on child hunger Wednesday. The proposal comes as the Senate is moving a child nutrition reauthorization bill that contains a more modest expansion of federally funded summer feeding programs. The bill would authorize states to allow use of the EBT cards to reach kids the program may not be benefiting now. The bill came out of the Senate Agriculture Committee last week with unanimous support, and Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, told reporters Wednesday that he may try to pass it on the Senate floor with unanimous consent. Vilsack said the Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children program would provide supplemental food benefits to children in low-income families via EBT electronic debit cards during the summer months when they dont have access to school-provided meals. Currently, almost 22 million children receive free and reduced-price school meals during the school year, but only a small fraction of those students have access to free or reduced meals during the summer. We think the time has come to commit as a country to making sure that not 3.8 million youngsters have access to summer meals, not 5 million, not 7 million, not 12 million, but all 21 million kids that are currently free and reduced, have access, Vilsack said. We believe over the course of the next several years that we can gradually increase the number of youngsters and families that are covered by this (summer feeding) program, so that at the end of the 10-year period, 100 percent of kids will have access to either a (summer feeding site) or to an EBT card that their parents can use to provide additional resources. Watching for stories about food and nutrition? Sign up for an Agri-Pulse four-week free trial subscription to stay on top of this and other ag, rural policy and energy issues. Vilsack also announced his department would allow state agencies that administer the National School Lunch Program to use Medicaid data to certify students for free and reduced priced lunches. This automatic link will allow eligible students to enroll in free and reduced meals with less paperwork for the state, schools and families, USDA says. The department plans to allow five states to begin implementing direct certification using Medicaid data during the 2016-17 school year. Over the next three school years, USDA expects to enroll 20 states in the pilot project. #30 For more news, go to: www.Agri-Pulse.com Assyrian Forces Secure Abandoned Front Line Town Against ISIS In North Iraq Christian militiamen look towards the rubble-strewn altar of the 13th century St. Jacob's Church on November 4, 2015 near the frontline with ISIS fighters in Telskuf, northern Iraq. All of the town's 11,000 predominantly Chaldean Catholic residents fled when it was overrun by the Islamic State in 2014 before being retaken by Peshmerga forces with the aid of American airstrikes. Of the 1,800 families that fled, some 40 percent left Iraq, according to Safaa Khamro, commander of the Nineveh Plain Forces (NPF), Christian militia. Many, he said, have now immigrated to Europe. (AINA) -- The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) captured the city of Mosul, Iraq on June 10. Almost immediately thereafter it began to drive Assyrians out of Mosul and destroy Christian and non-Sunni institutions. On August 7, 2014 ISIS pushed into the Nineveh Plains north and east of Mosul, the last Assyrian stronghold in Iraq, causing 200,000 Assyrians to flee their homes to Arbel and Dohuk. Most have not returned. There are no Assyrians/Christians remaining in Mosul, all have fled to the north, to Alqosh, Dohuk and other Assyrian villages. All Christian institutions in Mosul (churches, monasteries and cemeteries), numbering 45, have been destroyed, occupied, converted to mosques, converted to ISIS headquarters or shuttered. ISIS has killed Assyrians in Mosul. It has snatched Assyrian girls from the arms of their mothers, never to be seen again (AINA 2014-08-28). ISIS has also engaged in the destruction of the Assyrian cultural heritage, both in Syria and Iraq. It destroyed the city of Nimrud, destroyed the walls of Nineveh, destroyed Assyrian artifacts in the Mosul museum. In Syria it destroyed Assyrian churches (AINA 2015-06-18) and archaeological sites (AINA 2014-05-17). The Assyrian town of Telsqof, shown below in the pictures, was completely looted by ISIS (AINA 2014-08-13). The Assyrian residents fled the town, located north of Mosul, on August 7 when ISIS pushed into the Nineveh Plains (AINA 2014-08-07). A Christian militiaman stands atop St. George's Church on November 4, 2015 in Telskuf, near the frontline with ISIS in northern Iraq. All of the town's 11,000 predominantly Chaldean Catholic residents fled when it was overrun by the Islamic State in 2014 before being retaken by Peshmerga forces with the aid of American airstrikes. Of the 1,800 families that fled, some 40 percent left Iraq, according to Safaa Khamro, commander of the Nineveh Plain Forces (NPF), Christian militia. Many, he said, have now immigrated to Europe. Christian militiamen look towards the ISIS frontline from St. George's Church on November 4, 2015 in Telskuf, northern Iraq. All of the town's 11,000 predominantly Chaldean Catholic residents fled when it was overrun by the Islamic State in 2014 before being retaken by Peshmerga forces with the aid of American airstrikes. Of the 1,800 families that fled, some 40 percent left Iraq, according to Safaa Khamro, commander of the Nineveh Plain Forces (NPF), Christian militia. Many, he said, have now immigrated to Europe. A Christian militiaman looks towards the sunset in the abandoned streets of Telskuf on November 4, 2015 near the frontline with ISIS fighters in Telskuf, northern Iraq. All of the town's 11,000 predominantly Chaldean Catholic residents fled when it was overrun by the Islamic State in 2014 before being retaken by Peshmerga forces. Of the 1,800 families that fled, some 40 percent left Iraq, according to Safaa Khamro, commander of the Nineveh Plain Forces (NPF), Christian militia. Many, he said, have now immigrated to Europe. A Christian militiaman patrols through rubble in Telskuf on November 4, 2015 near the frontline with ISIS fighters in Telskuf, northern Iraq. All of the town's 11,000 predominantly Chaldean Catholic residents fled when it was overrun by the Islamic State in 2014 before being retaken by Peshmerga forces. Of the 1,800 families that fled, some 40 percent left Iraq, according to Safaa Khamro, commander of the Nineveh Plain Forces (NPF), Christian militia. Many, he said, have now immigrated to Europe. Christian militiamen leave the 13th century St. Jacob's Church on November 4, 2015 near the frontline with ISIS fighters in Telskuf, northern Iraq. All of the town's 11,000 predominantly Chaldean Catholic residents fled when it was overrun by the Islamic State in 2014 before being retaken by Peshmerga forces with the aid of American airstrikes. Of the 1,800 families that fled, some 40 percent left Iraq, according to Safaa Khamro, commander of the Nineveh Plain Forces (NPF), Christian militia. Many, he said, have now immigrated to Europe. A Christian militiaman passes a broken figure of Christ inside St. George's Church on November 4, 2015 in Telskuf, near the frontline with ISIS in northern Iraq. All of the town's 11,000 predominantly Chaldean Catholic residents fled when it was overrun by the Islamic State in 2014 before being retaken by Peshmerga forces with the aid of American airstrikes. Of the 1,800 families that fled, some 40 percent left Iraq, according to Safaa Khamro, commander of the Nineveh Plain Forces (NPF), Christian militia. Many, he said, have now immigrated to Europe. A Christian militiaman looks towards the ISIS frontline from St. George's Church on November 4, 2015 in Telskuf, northern Iraq. All of the town's 11,000 predominantly Chaldean Catholic residents fled when it was overrun by the Islamic State in 2014 before being retaken by Peshmerga forces with the aid of American airstrikes. Of the 1,800 families that fled, some 40 percent left Iraq, according to Safaa Khamro, commander of the Nineveh Plain Forces (NPF), Christian militia. Many, he said, have now immigrated to Europe. A Christian militiaman looks towards the ISIS frontline from St. George's Church on November 4, 2015 in Telskuf, northern Iraq. All of the town's 11,000 predominantly Chaldean Catholic residents fled when it was overrun by the Islamic State in 2014 before being retaken by Peshmerga forces with the aid of American airstrikes. Of the 1,800 families that fled, some 40 percent left Iraq, according to Safaa Khamro, commander of the Nineveh Plain Forces (NPF), Christian militia. Many, he said, have now immigrated to Europe. A Christian militiaman stands near the broken body of a statue of Christ in the 13th century St. Jacob's Church on November 4, 2015 near the frontline with ISIS fighters in Telskuf, northern Iraq. The figure was smashed by ISIS extremists, according to Christian militia. All of the town's 11,000 predominantly Chaldean Catholic residents fled when it was overrun by the Islamic State in 2014 before being retaken by Peshmerga forces with the aid of American airstrikes. Of the 1,800 families that fled, some 40 percent left Iraq, according to Safaa Khamro, commander of the Nineveh Plain Forces (NPF), Christian militia. Many, he said, have now immigrated to Europe. A Christian militiaman climbs atop a building while on patrol on November 4, 2015 in Telskuf, near the frontline with ISIS in northern Iraq. All of the town's 11,000 predominantly Chaldean Catholic residents fled when it was overrun by the Islamic State in 2014 before being retaken by Peshmerga forces with the aid of American airstrikes. Of the 1,800 families that fled, some 40 percent left Iraq, according to Safaa Khamro, commander of the Nineveh Plain Forces (NPF), Christian militia. Many, he said, have now immigrated to Europe. A Christian militiaman looks over a broken figure of Christ inside St. George's Church on November 4, 2015 in Telskuf, near the frontline with ISIS in northern Iraq. All of the town's 11,000 predominantly Chaldean Catholic residents fled when it was overrun by the Islamic State in 2014 before being retaken by Peshmerga forces with the aid of American airstrikes. Of the 1,800 families that fled, some 40 percent left Iraq, according to Safaa Khamro, commander of the Nineveh Plain Forces (NPF), Christian militia. Many, he said, have now immigrated to Europe. The fascade of St. George's Church stands damaged from war on November 4, 2015 in Telskuf, near the frontline with ISIS in northern Iraq. All of the town's 11,000 predominantly Chaldean Catholic residents fled when it was overrun by the Islamic State in 2014 before being retaken by Peshmerga forces with the aid of American airstrikes. Of the 1,800 families that fled, some 40 percent left Iraq, according to Safaa Khamro, commander of the Nineveh Plain Forces (NPF), Christian militia. Many, he said, have now immigrated to Europe. A Christian militiaman looks out from St. George's Church on November 4, 2015 in Telskuf, near the frontline with ISIS in northern Iraq. All of the town's 11,000 predominantly Chaldean Catholic residents fled when it was overrun by the Islamic State in 2014 before being retaken by Peshmerga forces with the aid of American airstrikes. Of the 1,800 families that fled, some 40 percent left Iraq, according to Safaa Khamro, commander of the Nineveh Plain Forces (NPF), Christian militia. Many, he said, have now immigrated to Europe. January 25, 2016 ALGIERS, Algeria The disclosure of Algerias draft constitution and its content in early January was a way to improve the political and economic situation of the country. I dont believe these constitutional changes will affect the citizens daily life. They are above all concerned that hard-won social gains are not jeopardized, Hocine Bellaloufi, a political analyst, told Al-Monitor. They are also concerned about the increase in prices that is beginning to be felt in early 2016, Bellaloufi added. Ahmed Ouyahia, Algerias former prime minister and now the presidents private secretary, held a press conference on Jan. 5, in which he discussed the draft constitutions final content with journalists for the first time. The drafts key focus is about the consolidation of national unity and democracy, strengthening the rule of law, and improving the organization and functioning of certain institutions (military, finances, etc.). Consultations on the draft constitutions future content, which required an update after being last amended in 2008, began in mid-2014 and ended two months later (June-August). Approved in late December 2015 by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the countrys draft constitution is structured around several main areas: As read in this draft, The state works to promote parity between men and women in the labor market. In addition, freedom of written and audiovisual press is guaranteed. Any form of prior censorship does not restrict it. Aimed at ending the countrys long suffering from corruption, it was decided to create a national body for prevention and fighting against corruption an independent administrative authority under the president of the republic. Ouyahia further added, I can personally affirm that the draft constitution is deep. It is not as deep as to meet the politicians permanent expectations, particularly that of opponents who want a change of the regime, he added. Algerias political sphere contains 75 parties. There are 28 parties represented in the countrys Peoples National Assembly, in addition to 30 other liberal members of parliament. I can ensure that each of the participants to the consultations will find that this new one [the draft] contains at least 80% of the various propositions they made, Ouyahia said. Several pro-government political parties, such as the National Liberation Front (FLN the presidents party) and the Algerian Popular Movement (MPA), expressed their satisfaction toward the draft constitutions content. Both the FLN and MPA are part of an alliance in support of President Bouteflika. Long-term opposition political parties, such as the Rally for Culture and Democracy, said that despite some points, The rest of the content is furnished by advertisements characterized by generalities. The Socialist Forces Front (the opposition party) rejected the entire text, arguing, This constitutional change brings no real response addressing the [political] crisis real causes. Zineddine Tebbal, spokesperson of the Movement for the Society of Peace, an Islamist party, told Al-Monitor, This draft constitution is nonconsensual and nonreformist. He added, It only reflects orientations made by the president and those surrounding him, as it has nothing to do with what the politicians proposed. Contrary to what the pouvoir [power] pretends, democracy isnt the real goal behind this change of constitution. As for proof, note that it took them 14 years to change the status of Tamazight from a national language to an official one, Bellaloufi said. Tamazight, which is a language spoken by North African Berbers (Amazighs), has become one of the countrys official languages. It was first made a national language back in 2003. According to the draft constitution, an Algerian Academy of the Amazigh language will be created and placed under the authority of the president of the republic. According to the draft bill, which cancels the 2008 change of the constitution that allowed the lifting of presidential limits, the president is re-elected for one five-year term only once. This article cant be revised, the 40-page draft constitution reads. I dont really believe that the limitation of presidential terms to two represents by itself a sign of changeover. The issue isnt in the number of presidential terms, but much more in the fact that the power remains the only ultimate master, Bellaloufi said. According to Bellaloufi, after four years of the first announcement, Bouteflika knows that the status quo isnt practicable if the disclosure of the draft constitution is delayed to an unknown date. Thats why Bouteflika disclosed the draft constitution's content. He needed to take political initiatives to give more credence to his democratic showcase, aiming at assuring a population worried by current economic and social turnaround, Bellaloufi added. The fact is, the country has no appetite for any upheaval following its experience of over a decade of bloody civil war, starting in the early 1990s. First elected in 1999, Bouteflika was re-elected for a fourth term in April 2014 amid criticism, mainly by the countrys opposition parties. They considered Bouteflikas re-election as the result of a monarchical government. In 2008, Bouteflika amended the exiting constitution by lifting presidential term limits. His argument back then was that the changes were aimed at deepening democracy in the country. Bouteflika, now 79, suffers from a series of health issues. Speculations over the presidents inability to rule the country went viral lately, forcing Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal to confirm in November 2015, Bouteflika continues to oversee the governments operations as usual. According to Bellaloufi, The existing lack of transparency within the regime encourages the citizens, observers and external political actors to speculate. According to Algeria Bank, the countrys current reserves are $152 billion proof that the country is not yet deeply affected. On the political level, Bellaloufi said, Algerias pouvoir [power] isnt under any threat whether by remaining armed Islamists or by legal opposition parties. Not even the wide-reaching social movements of the past, such as in early 2011 that forced the government to step back on its position, opening doors to political discussions, are able to pose a threat, he argued. The disclosure of the draft constitution is, however, seen as a move by the ailing president to divert attention from recent price increases by the government. Earlier this year, prices of oil, gas, electricity and several essential products increased, including taxes. The parliament and the Senate will discuss whether the draft bill will be rejected or passed by mid-February, putting the country today in a temporary fragile standstill. January 28, 2016 Democrats who supported President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran say it has already defanged that country's nuclear program, and they want their constituents to know about it. A half-dozen pro-deal lawmakers ranging from liberals to pro-Israel hawks took turns Jan. 27 on the Senate floor touting the deal's early successes and urging critics to help make it stronger. This group effort comes as Republicans highlight recent Iranian actions deemed aggressions, such as the detention of US sailors and a ballistic missile launch. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told Al-Monitor that he and other Democrats want to start fighting back against Republicans who want to rewrite the agreement. Republicans continually want this agreement to be about something other than preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, said Murphy, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Near East panel. And I don't want us to be sitting around three years from now, with the nuclear agreement having been fully implemented, and the American public thinking the agreement failed simply because Iran is still funding Hezbollah. According to Murphy, the deal needs a sales pitch, even after its passage, not unlike Obama's health care law. He predicted such an effort could help Democrats in the 2016 presidential election against Republican candidates who have vowed to terminate the deal on their first day in office. The more the American public recognize how successful this agreement is, the less likely they are to support somebody who's going to rip it up, Murphy claimed. If we don't tell the story of the successful implementation, arguments to rip up the agreement would have a lot more purchase. Opponents of the deal say it will give Iran free rein to rush to a nuclear bomb in 15 years, after sanctions lapse. Most of their recent criticism, however, has focused on the more than $100 billion windfall that Iran stands to gain once sanctions are lifted, which explains their desire to highlight Tehran's unsavory actions. Critics have launched several attempts to either unravel or chip away at the deal in recent weeks, including legislation to restrict sanctions on Iranian banks from being lifted and a new law that stops dual-nationals and visitors to Iran from benefitting from visa-free travel to the United States. Today, the Obama administration will begin lifting economic sanctions on the worlds leading state sponsor of terrorism, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said in a Jan. 16 statement as the United States began meeting its obligations under the deal. As the president himself has acknowledged, Iran is likely to use this cash infusion more than $100 billion in total to finance terrorists. This comes just weeks after Tehran's most recent illegal ballistic missile test, and just days after the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] detained ten American sailors. A bipartisan majority in the House voted to reject this deal in the first place, and we will continue to do everything possible to prevent a nuclear Iran. Democrats are pushing back by focusing on the progress that has already been made on the nuclear front. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., touted an extraordinary victory for diplomacy in taking the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran and evaporating it, eviscerating it, pushing it back at least 15 years. In order to get there some pretty extraordinary things have happened, Booker said on the Senate floor. Virtually all of its [uranium] stockpile has been shipped out of the country. Two-thirds of the Iranian centrifuges have been taken off-line In addition to that, we've done the blocking of the plutonium pathway. The heavy-water reactor in Arak has been filled with concrete; it's no longer operational. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., contrasted the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with the lack of good intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program prior to the US invasion. We went to war based on a faulty assessment we didn't have the information we needed, Kaine said. Let's contrast what happened in 2002-2003 with the opportunity we now have before us as a result of the JCPOA. Iran, he commented, is locked into an inspection regime more stringent than that imposed on any other nation. It will provide us with significant intelligence about Iran's nuclear program, Kaine said. Others asserted that Republicans could help restrain Iran by making sure the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is fully funded and Obama's national security nominees are quickly approved. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who called the group together, lambasted an effort led by Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., to link IAEA funding to the disclosure of its confidential monitoring agreements with Iran. Coons said he is working with lawmakers and the White House to try to secure a long-term, reliable source of funding for the IAEA's monitoring activities in Iran, which the agency has pegged at more than $10 million per year. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., urged Republicans to allow votes on three key nominees: Adam Szubin to head sanctions enforcement at the Treasury Department; Tom Shannon to be undersecretary of state for political-military affairs; and Laura Holgate to represent the United States at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria. You can't sound like a hawk around the debate over the JCPOA, Booker said, and then sound like a chicken when it comes to putting the funding forward necessary to prevent them from engaging in destabilizing activities in the region." Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., also defended the deal while calling on Democrats and Republicans to work to make sure it is enforced. Recent polling suggests Democrats have a tough road ahead with a US public that appears both skeptical and misinformed about the deal. A CNN/ORC poll conducted Jan. 21-24 found that 69% of Americans favor diplomacy with Iran but 52% oppose lifting sanctions even though Iran has complied with its nuclear obligations under the JCPOA. January 27, 2016 CAIRO The unprecedented inclusion of nine people with disabilities in the Egyptian parliament raises questions as to whether it will bring about legal advantages for such persons in Egypt. In an interview with Al-Monitor, Khalid Hanafi, a visually impaired representative and one of the 28 parliamentarians appointed by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, said that he was preparing a series of interpellations and briefing requests to submit to the government. These would cover a number of issues, most notably rights for people with disabilities and other social issues. The text of the interview follows: Al-Monitor: Do you think that the inclusion of nine people with disabilities in the Egyptian parliament will help them to address the issues facing this group? Hanafi: This unprecedented number confirms several important messages most notably that Egypt is working to honor the rights of marginalized groups, which were not taken into account before. Eight people with disabilities won the elections, after the various parties were compelled to include them on their lists, and I was among the 28 representatives appointed by the president before parliament convened on Jan. 10. This reflects the clear shift in the way political leaders in Egypt view people with disabilities, following the suffering caused by the previous regimes that looked down on them in past years. Perhaps this change has become clear since Sisi took office and surprised us when he attended the 2014 Special Olympics for People with Disabilities. I believe that our presence in parliament supports our chances to win not only the struggle to resolve the issues of people with disabilities, but also to solve the problems of the various social groups, especially marginalized groups. Al-Monitor: How do you evaluate the people with disabilities dossier? How has their situation been impacted following the January 25 and June 30 revolutions? Hanafi: There are two important problems. First is the work problem, because society perceives people with disabilities as incompetent and inefficient. However, a trained and qualified person with a disability is able to do any job. Second is accessibility, meaning that all buildings, facilities, utilities, streets and roads should be suitable for the use of people with disabilities, which is not the case in Egypt. Therefore, people with disabilities are restricted and [often] unable to leave their homes by themselves, despite the fact that the real estate law requires taking into account [the needs of] people with disabilities. In addition, there is the social security problem, as many people with disabilities are not employed and are in need of a monthly salary. Al-Monitor: People with disabilities have many rights guaranteed under Egyptian law, yet in actuality some of these laws are not enforced. Most importantly, there is a stipulation that there be an employment quota of 5% for people with disabilities. How will this issue be addressed? Hanafi: Any legislation provides the general framework and deterring sentence. Under the current law, people with disabilities should represent 5% of the employment rate in any company hiring at least 50 employees. The current penalty for violating this does not exceed 100 Egyptian pounds ($12.78), which is not deterring. This is in addition to the social culture perception that people with disabilities are unproductive and inefficient. I will be striving with my colleagues in parliament to adopt a deterrent penalty if such a law is not enforced. At the same time, people with disabilities should be committed to enhancing their competences and skills in order to keep up with the labor market. Al-Monitor: The first day it was convened, parliament was subject to strong criticism, including sarcastic remarks on the social media pages in Egypt. Then, a decision was made to stop live broadcasts of parliament sessions. What is your take on this? Do you think that the dissolution of parliament is possible? Hanafi: I hope that parliament will not be dissolved, because it includes categories that were not represented in any of the previous parliaments, and I am a member of one of the categories, namely people with disabilities. There should be a parliament to pass laws that complement the constitution. Unfortunately, some representatives are interested in the media show, neglecting their role as parliamentarians. This is why parliamentary performance has become organized after the sessions live broadcast was stopped. At the same time, bias prevailed on social media, which confirms that we are still a very young democracy. I was subjected to a satirical campaign on Facebook. I was having a light meal with a female member of parliament and I was surprised at a photo of mine posted with a lot of sarcasm, although it was an ordinary photograph. Is it possible for a member of parliament to spend 17 hours in parliament without having any sandwich? The parliamentarian did not put anything in my mouth. Al-Monitor: A large number of independent members of parliament announced having joined the Support Egypt coalition, which now comprises a majority and serves as political support for Sisi. Are you going to join it? How do you evaluate the current governments performance? Are you going to vote for it? Hanafi: I believe that I have a better chance in parliament as an independent member of parliament. As for the government performance, the performance of some of the ministries is good, while others are doing nothing. I have a plan consisting of some interpellations to reveal the truth before naming the prime minister, and the persons with disabilities have a large and important part of it. Al-Monitor: Parliament passed the laws that were issued while it was not convened totaling 341 laws in 15 days, as stipulated by the constitution. Yet doesnt this short period of time indicate that a comprehensive study of those laws was not completed? Hanafi: A large number of these laws were part of those laws issued on a yearly basis, and their approval does not take time for instance, the economic entities final financial statements, which exceed 200 out of the 341 laws that parliament examined. The remaining are the Right to Public Meetings, Processions, and Peaceful Demonstrations; the anti-terrorism law; and the civil servant law, which raised controversy among public opinion. January 27, 2016 GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip As Palestinians hope for a potential windfall of support from Iran's newly restored wealth, some observers are warning them not to hold their breath. Iran has provided financial and military support for some Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, especially Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, since the early 1990s. But Iran dramatically reduced this support in early 2011, when the factions refused to take sides in the ongoing war in Syria. Now that the crippling sanctions that had been in place against Iran since 1979 were lifted Jan. 16, these groups hope to benefit. However, Tehran's stance on Syria hasn't changed, so observers believe Iran isn't likely to increase its support unless the factions side with Iran and they don't appear ready to do so. The only Palestinian faction to even comment publicly on the sanctions removal was the pro-Iran Harakat Al-Sabireen (Movement of Those Who Endure with Patience), which called the agreement a victory for the nation and a sign of pride and strength. Iran's power is the strength of vulnerable people around the world, and all the free people must unite to fight the global arrogance and eliminate the Zionist entity from the land of Palestine, Harakat Al-Sabireen said in an official statement issued Jan. 17. Ahmed Yousef, a Hamas leader and political adviser to former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, confirmed to Al-Monitor that although the financial and military support Iran provides to the movements military wing has never stopped, it has been reduced over the past five years, and the movement has especially distanced itself from the Syrian war. He stressed that all Palestinian resistance forces need Irans financial, political and military support. He said Iran publicly shows its support for them as a challenge to the United States and Israel, which classify these factions as terrorist groups. However, Yousef also reiterated Hamas' position not to intervene in other countries affairs, noting that his movement does not want to rupture relations with any country. On Jan. 10, a column in Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat had claimed Iran would make a generous political and financial offer for Hamas and the Palestinian cause and recognize the movement as a representative of the Palestinian people on the condition that Hamas supports Iran in its conflict with Saudi Arabia. Iran and Saudi Arabia have cut diplomatic ties. Hamas rejected the offer, even though it has lost financial and political support from some other countries over internal disputes and bloody conflicts in Arab countries like Syria, Yemen and Egypt. Hamas considers itself closer to the Sunni Arab countries than to the Shiite Iranian state. Similarly, the Islamic Jihad said that while it considers the sanctions removal a step in the right direction, it doesn't count on the lifting of sanctions to increase support for his movement. Mohammad Saadi, a member of the Islamic Jihads political bureau, told Al-Monitor that despite leaks to the media in early January claiming relations between the movement and Iran have been strained, the two share a good relationship. Iran had largely reduced its support for the Islamic Jihad because the movement adopted a position similar to Hamas stance of distancing itself from the Syrian and Yemeni issues. Despite the yearslong disagreement among Palestinians over the nature and motives of Iranian support, the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian factions agree that it is necessary in this critical period to avoid involving the Palestinian cause in regional conflicts and for Palestinians to remain on good terms with the countries involved. Palestinians need to reduce the tension in their relations with countries around the world as such tension draws the Arab, Islamic and international attention away from the Palestinian cause, Masarat director Hani Masri told Al-Monitor. He explained that Iran through support for Palestinians and groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen aims to expand its influence in the region. However, easing Arab hostility toward Iran would reduce Iran's need to use such groups for that purpose. In an interview with Al-Monitor, political analyst Akram Attallah ruled out the possibility of Iran increasing its support for Palestinians despite the financial liquidity it is gaining now that the sanctions have been lifted. As with other observers, he noted that after the Palestinian factions saw that the conflict in Syria and Yemen was becoming sectarian in nature, they favored their Sunni doctrine over Shiite support. Therefore, Iran is more likely to support other parties such as Yemen, Syria and others in heated areas where it aims to spread its influence. Leaks claiming Hamas made its final decision and refused to stand by Iran against Saudi Arabia reinforced the hypothesis that Iranian support for the Palestinians would be reduced or suspended, said Attallah. He added, however, that Iran still sees Hamas' military wing as an acceptable party to receive support, as it confronts Israel, along with the pro-Iran Harakat Al-Sabireen. January 27, 2016 Ostensibly, the statement released by the Shin Bet regarding the investigation findings of the Palestinian minor who killed Dafna Meir in the Otniel settlement on Jan. 17 was a standard one. The 15-year-old terrorist from the village of Beit Amra close to Hebron was apprehended the day after the killing at his home in the village. He succeeded in infiltrating Otniel and escaping without interference; the Shin Bet got to him within 24 hours. What was unusual this time, was that the Shin Bet released details about what triggered the Palestinian youth to perpetrate the attack. "The interrogation by the Shin Bet revealed that prior to the deadly attack, the minor had watched Palestinian TV broadcasts that portrayed Israel as the killer of Palestinian youths. In addition, the interrogation revealed that on the day of the assault, and under the influence of the contents to which he had been exposed on Palestinian TV, the minor decided to carry out a stabbing attack with the goal of killing a Jew. In light of the proximity of the Otniel settlement to his residence, the minor decided to carry out the terror attack in Otniel." This was, seemingly, a routine announcement. But in actuality, every word in the statement was carefully crafted. The statement emphasized and repeated the fact that the boy had been incited by Palestinian TV to kill Jews. On Jan. 20, the Israeli media had publicized data about a study conducted by experts from the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT). According to this study, incitement is not the main impetus that causes young Palestinians to kill Jews and lose their own lives in the process. The COGAT study exhibits data that is far more nuanced, with numerous characteristics and variables that point to a picture that is far less definitive than the one portrayed by the Shin Bet. It has emerged that not all the terrorists watch Palestinian TV. In general, the official Palestinian TV stations have low ratings, with almost no youths watching. Instead, Palestinian youths are mainly active on social networking sites. They often carry out assaults to avenge the death of a family member or friend, while at other times they are in the throes of a psychological crisis. (For example, on Jan. 23, a 13-year-old Palestinian girl who had an argument with her family took a knife and attacked an Israeli security guard in the Anatot settlement as a way of committing suicide.) At other times, the lone wolves are egged on by an external event or they are seized by a sudden rage that causes them to do something that will evidently lead to their deaths. Behind the scenes, a difficult confrontation is being waged within the Israeli security system in regard to how the current terror wave should be fought and what causes its eruption. Meanwhile, the terror attacks have been ongoing since Oct. 1. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and almost all his ministers and spokespeople hurl scathing accusations at the Palestinian Authority (PA) and President Mahmoud Abbas for the continued incitement broadcasts of the Palestinian media outlets, there are also other voices in the security system. These other views are personified and espoused by Maj. Gen. Yoav Poli Mordechai, coordinator of COGAT, and his people. The Shin Bet and COGAT approach the same issue from different perspectives: The Shin Bet examines the events from what is called in Israel the thwarting perspective a narrow, subjective and localized view that only focuses on preventing the next terror attack, and nothing else. Those at COGAT, on the other hand, attempt to decipher Palestinian society to understand the prevailing state of mind, the deeper currents, the youth and the trends that ultimately determine the way in which the Palestinian winds are blowing. The COGAT findings are not always compatible with those of the Shin Bet. While COGAT preaches that Israel should continue to allow entry to as many Palestinian workers as possible, the Shin Bet cautions against this openness and prefers to limit entry. At this stage, the opinion of Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot is closer to those of COGAT than those of the Shin Bet. Eizenkot uses every opportunity to warn about the potential security deterioration in Judea and Samaria and that it is vital to continue to operate with great restraint, using the carrot (as opposed to the stick): the continued employment of 120,000 Palestinian workers in Israel and the settlements, continued security coordination with the PA security apparatuses and continued economic cooperation, including as many incentives as possible to the Palestinian economy. At this point, these two different approaches are clashing on the highest Israeli levels. The terror continues unabated; last week on different occasions young Palestinian terrorists infiltrated three settlements (Otniel, Tekoa and Beit Horon) and succeeded in killing two women and wounding others. The Israeli security top brass are at a loss. Netanyahu finds himself in a Catch-22 situation. Israels Mr. Security is currently unable to restore a semblance of security to the streets in general, but especially not to the Judea and Samaria settlements where part of his constituency is concentrated. In his frustration, Netanyahu vents his anger on the PA and on anyone else who gets in his way. The last one to be on the receiving end of his ire was UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who said Jan. 26 in regard to Palestinian terror, It is human nature [for oppressed peoples] to react to occupation. Netanyahu subsequently slammed the secretary-general's statement and said it encourages terror. Many Israeli security officials view Netanyahus criticism against the PA as irrelevant and unjustified. First, there has been a noticeable decrease in the incitement levels of the official Palestinian media outlets, a high-placed security source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity last week. Second, security coordination has improved a great deal, and the Palestinians are working indefatigably to thwart terror attacks. Quite a number of Israeli security officials say, in private conversations and only on condition of anonymity, that the repeated attacks of Israels diplomatic top brass on Abbas and the PA is a terrible mistake. The PA is under tremendous pressure, an Israeli security source told Al-Monitor, but Israel must do everything to allow Abbas to survive. The alternative is worse by far. He [Abbas] is committed to the war on terror, and thats the important thing. We cannot expect him to condemn the attacks in the current terror wave that is backed by the entire Palestinian people, without exception. He cant go against his people. We must understand his limitations. At this stage, Eizenkot and Defense Minister Moshe Bogie Ya'alon are succeeding in maintaining stability and averting the attempts of the Israeli far-right, mainly the HaBayit HaYehudi faction, from intensifying punitive steps in the territories that could lead to a further deterioration of the situation. The problem is that this situation is temporary; continued terror strengthens the forces that push for harsher punitive measures, which in turn are likely to cause an escalation of the situation, and even loss of control. January 27, 2016 With all eyes on the lifting of sanctions on Iran, and the countrys upcoming Feb. 26 parliamentary elections, little attention has been paid to the budget bill for the next Iranian year, which President Hassan Rouhani submitted to parliament Jan. 17. A review of the bill shows an intricate move on the part of the Rouhani administration to increase the funding allocated to the cultural bodies under its control relative to those nominally under the control of the supreme leader, but effectively accountable to no one. In a largely state-owned economy that has its roots in the seizing of assets by different factions in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, there are a myriad of cultural bodies that receive all or most of their funding from the government. As a result, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, which is controlled by the executive branch, is allocated less than a quarter of cultural spending. The rest goes to a long list of bodies ranging from seminaries to private foundations to cultural behemoths controlled by various factions. This situation has been highlighted by figures such as well-known public intellectual Sadegh Zibakalam. Decrying the long list of cultural organizations that receive public funding without being accountable in any shape or form to parliament or to the executive branch, Zibakalam has calculated that 87% of last year's spending on culture went to organizations that were not held accountable, with only 13% granted to the Ministry of Culture, with its thousands of employees and its responsibility for vetting all films, book and music works produced in Iran. This is partly the work of the Principlist former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who gave new muscle to the cultural bodies that were most likely to be his allies. However, if the new budget bill is any indicator, the Rouhani administration has started to rebalance things by gradually increasing the Ministry of Cultures share of spending allocations. With a 41% increase, the Ministry of Cultures budget now stands at 10 trillion rials ($335 million). Moreover, the Ministry of Culture-run Islamic Culture and Relations Organization (ICRO) will now get 2.3 trillion trials. Meanwhile, the National Library and Archives of Iran, headed by Rouhani campaign adviser Reza Salehi Amiri gets a dramatic 47% increase in its funding to 950 billion rials. Furthermore, the publishing house associated with the late founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, will also see its budget increased by 50% to 600 billion rials. Of note, the publisher is controlled by Hassan Khomeini, grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who also happens to be a key ally of Rouhani. While the share of these Rouhani-controlled entities as part of total cultural spending has increased in the coming Iranian years budget (March 20, 2016 - March 20, 2017), the reverse is true for the organizations that are controlled by the administrations hard-line foes. The Islamic Development Organization, the Islamic Dissemination Bureau of the Qom Seminary, the Coordination Council of Islamic Dissemination, the Supreme Council of Seminaries, Imam Khomeini Educational Research Institute (notably controlled by hard-line cleric Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi) and Al-Mustafa International University (used as a recruiting ground for foreign allies) have all gotten single-digit increases in their budgets, and thus a lower share of the total cultural budget compared with last year. The same stands true for the Basij, the paramilitary organization that is formally part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), but has a separate budget. Indeed, the Basij will only get a 5% rise in its budget, which in effect means it will get a lower share of the national budget. Of note, at 10.7 trillion rials, the Basij has a larger budget than the Ministry of Culture. Despite Rouhanis efforts to rebalance cultural spending, it is important not to exaggerate them. Billions of rials still go to unaccountable organizations, which will not take an attack on their positions lightly. Indeed, already, the semi-official Mehr News Agency has criticized the new budget bill as illogical". This should come as no surprise since Mehr News Agency is run by the shadowy Islamic Development Organization (IDO). Of note, IDO will continue to receive a staggering 3.140 trillion rials, which is significantly more than the government-controlled ICRO which, as part of its mandate, has the responsibility of running dozens of cultural sections in Iranian embassies around the world, the Saadi Foundation (Irans international Persian-teaching institute) and some key international religious organizations. IDOs head is directly appointed by the supreme leader and its tentacles extend to every corner of the cultural scene in Iran and even abroad. Among the entities under its control are several universities and academic institutions, the English-language daily Tehran Times, the Artistic Center (which, among other things, runs dozens of cinemas) and Amir Kabir publication house. Headed since 2002 by the little-known Mehdi Khamooshi, 53, IDOs inner workings are a mystery even to some of its own managers. Very few people ever meet Mr. Khamooshi, a midlevel manager of the Artistic Center told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. Moreover, according to Ali Asghar Ramezanpour, a former deputy culture minister now based in London, IDOs role has dramatically increased in the last decade. Ramezanpour told Al-Monitor, For instance, the now-massive Council of Quranic Activities didnt exist before. Abroad, IDO is now stronger than some official Iranian cultural representations. IDO is only one example of organizations whose obscure names may hide vast operations. Another such entity is the Coordination Council of Islamic Dissemination (CCID), which has been allocated 360 billion rials in the new budget bill. Among its activities, CCID organizes the Death to America flag-burning demonstrations regularly held around Iran. In addition, some of the most sophisticated cultural organizations are run by another state-funded force whose budget Rouhani will increase by 43% to a whopping 150 trillion rials ($5 billion): the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. There wasnt even any pressure to increase the IRGCs budget, a senior official at the Rouhani-controlled Management and Planning Organization, which is tasked with drafting the budget bill, told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. We want to be on good terms with them, as much as possible, adding with a sigh, not that they stop their outrageous attacks on the government. Rouhani often lashes out against corruption and a lack of accountability. If anything, his new budget bill appears to show that even in the post-sanctions era, he is continuing his approach of opting for gradual change rather than head-on confrontation with his foes. Whether this path will work remains to be seen. January 27, 2016 The recent meeting between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Pope Francis at the Vatican was a historic moment. It was the first time an Iranian president, a Muslim and Shiite cleric, had met with the leader of the worlds 1.2 billion Catholics in 16 years. However, the meeting was overshadowed online and by journalists more concerned with a set of nude statues covered with boxes during Rouhani's meeting with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi at the Capitoline Museums in Rome. According to Italys ANSA news agency, The move was apparently made as a gesture for Iranian culture. The news agency reported also that wine was not served at the ceremonies. Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini denied that he or Renzi made the decision to cover the statues. At a press conference Jan. 27 before leaving for France, Rouhani also denied being involved in the decision to cover the statues. This is a media issue and journalists want to write about this, Rouhani said. I have nothing specific to say about this, and I did not have talks about this with anyone. But I know this: The people of Italy are very hospitable and want their guests to enjoy themselves. Regardless of who made the decision, Italy, which was one of Irans largest trading partners before the nuclear sanctions that crippled Irans economy, has been eager to resume economic ties with Iran. The two countries signed deals reportedly worth $18 billion. When asked by Iranian reporters how he views future ties with Europe, Rouhani said, Not only will the relationship return to what it used to be, it will be better. At the press conference, Rouhani was also asked about tensions with regional rival Saudi Arabia. He said Iran and Saudi Arabia have had issues in the past but the recent execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr was very unfortunate and condemnable. About the attack on the Saudi Embassy in Tehran that resulted in Saudi Arabia cutting diplomatic ties with Tehran, Rouhani said, This act is to be condemned, and I was the first person to condemn this, [just] hours after it happened. Since the early January attack on the embassy, there have been 100 arrests, including a cleric linked to Ansar-e Hezbollah. Rouhani said that in identifying and arresting the individuals behind the attack, Iran has fulfilled its obligations. Our work is done, he said. We are not after conflict with Saudi Arabia and every new difference makes our work more difficult. Rouhani said Saudi Arabias current anger has more to do with its regional failures in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon and a 10-month bombing campaign in Yemen that has not been successful. When told by a reporter that a Saudi official is seeking Irans apology, Rouhani asked if Iran should have apologized when they beheaded Sheikh Nimr. When they help terrorists in the region, should we apologize? When they killed thousands of pilgrims with mismanagement on the hajj, should we have apologized? Without mentioning names, Rouhani said there are countries in the region that are attempting to mediate between Iran and Saudi Arabia. January 27, 2016 Irans President Hassan Rouhani is on a historic tour in the European Union this week. Accompanied by an esteemed entourage of about 100 Iranian businessmen, Rouhani was received with honors in Italy. In Rome he met with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and was received at the Vatican by Pope Francis. From Italy he will continue to France, where hell meet with President Francois Hollande at the Elysee Palace. At each of these capitals, Rouhani will seek to fill a large shopping basket hes brought with him from Tehran, which is now rushing to fulfill the nuclear agreement that went into force Jan. 16, almost two weeks ago. This market, where Iran has been shopping since international economic sanctions have been lifted, is full of hungry buyers and sellers, equally eager to close multimillion dollar deals. When Rouhani smiles at his French hosts Jan. 28, Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will participate at a summit in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades. According to official announcements, the three will discuss a series of weighty topics including the environment, tourism, energy and regional security. But hanging above them all will be Netanyahus frustration at his failure to prevent the lifting of sanctions on Iran and his fear that, under the protection of the agreement, Iran will establish itself as a regional power and supporter of terrorism. A senior Asian diplomat who served in Israel until recently told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that the main motivation of the United States and Russia in backing the nuclear agreement with Iran is disappointment in Washington as well as in Moscow with the alliances both have with the Sunni Muslim states. Shiite terrorists are not attacking Western targets, he said, trying to explain why the powers have ignored the terror Iran is funding and instigating, as Netanyahu has been constantly warning. A senior governmental source in Jerusalem who is involved in the issue and very close to Netanyahu told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that this logic is exactly whats currently moving Israels prime minister toward Turkey. Their common interests in light of the nuclear agreement with Iran and the West's embracing of it, said the diplomat, has made the normalization of relations with Turkey a high priority. Jerusalem feels threatened by what it calls a concept switch that the West and Russia have developed regarding threats in the Middle East. That is, Israels allies see the Sunni Islamic State as the central threat, and Shiite Iran, which supports terrorism, as an ally, so theyve been neglecting cooperation and alliances with the Sunni Muslim states. Iran is a threat, said the source in Jerusalem, emphasizing that Iran in Syria is an existential threat to Israel. The fear in Jerusalem is that Iranian jets would park at military airports, that war ships that arrive from the Persian Gulf would anchor at the ports of Latakia and Tartus, that Iranian anti-aircraft batteries would be spread out throughout Syria, that intelligence and enlistment bases would all become an Iranian front at the northern border of Israel. The diplomatic source added that Turkey, too, which belongs to the Sunni bloc, doesnt want to see Iran in Syria, but is following a different strategy. According to him, the high priority of strategic cooperation between Israel and Turkey against the Iranian establishment in Syria is very important. Turkey is a NATO member and has strong ties with the European Union. A link between the two states would work as a much more powerful lever on the United States. Turkey must be our ally, said the government source. He also noted the importance of normalization of relations with Turkey in order to realize and maximize the natural gas reserves waiting in the depths of the Mediterranean Sea on the coast of Israel. Last week, Netanyahu and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu both attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, where despite reports of significant advancement in the negotiations between the two countries, they didnt exchange a single word. The Turkish news agency Anadolu quoted Netanyahu as saying on the sidelines, We are talking to them and they are talking to us and if we succeed, that will be good for both countries. This sentence describes the situation between the countries since the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, when Israeli soldiers killed 11 Turks in an operation to stop the flotilla to Gaza, after which Turkey downgraded diplomatic relations between the two states. A Turkish diplomat who spoke to Al-Monitor during the conference to gauge the likelihood of a meeting between Netanyahu and Davutoglu expressed misgivings at what he called Israels foot-dragging and at Netanyahus hesitation to sign the reconciliation pact, even though its formulation was agreed on a long time ago. The Israeli governmental source is aware of frustration in Turkey. He estimated that the window of opportunity is closing, but finds it hard to explain Netanyahus continuing hesitation on the issue. At the summit with Anastasiades and Tsipras Jan. 28, Netanyahu will discuss moving gas from Israels coast to Greece through Cyprus, the island divided between the EU in the south and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which only Turkey recognizes. The cost of this pipeline is estimated at $15 billion. On the other hand, the cost of a pipeline to Turkey would be only $2 billion, which can certainly be another incentive for Israel to end the diplomatic crisis with Ankara. But Netanyahu also knows that now that the nuclear agreement with Iran has gone into effect, the importance of normalizing relations with Turkey goes far beyond natural gas. January 28, 2016 BEKAA VALLEY, Lebanon Since it erupted in March 2011, the Syrian war has seen heavy involvement by Lebanese Hezbollah, which has increased its presence there since 2013 to prop up the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Military sources close to Hezbollah estimate that the militant group may have deployed 7,000 to 9,000 fighters in Syria, specifically in areas around Damascus. The civil conflict has caused a large number of casualties among its ranks, with around 1,300 fighters killed in the last five years, according to the news website Ya Libnan. In May 2015, the leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, said in a speech that his fighters would expand their presence in Syria. With the increasing participation of Hezbollah fighters on various fronts from the north to the south of Syria, the militant group is relying more and more on youth from the Bekaa Valley, in south Lebanon and Beirut, the military sources told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. These sources underline that Hezbollah is relying on younger recruits for several reasons, the biggest being that the party does want to focus all its resources on Syria and wants to keep some of its old guard for the protection of the southern front line in Lebanon. Al-Monitor met with one of Hezbollahs young recruits in the Bekaa Valley. He said he was on a brief break in Lebanon from deployment in Syria and spoke under the pseudonym "Abu Ali Karbal," as he is not allowed to talk to the press. The text of the interview follows: Al-Monitor: How old are you and how long have you been with Hezbollah? Karbal: I am 18. I joined Hezbollah a year and a half ago. Al-Monitor: Why did you want to join the organization? Karbal: To wage jihad in Syria. It is my religious duty to fight there. It is the duty of every Muslim. It will also ensure my salvation after my death. Al-Monitor: Why do you want to wage jihad? Karbal: I have always been religious. As a child, I used to attend religious majlis [religion classes at the mosque], where they explained to us the duties of a good Muslim. I think I have been ready to die for a long time, and when the war in Syria broke out, it was clear to me it was a war of good against evil. The takfiris in Syria were attacking our holy sites, our Mouqadassat, which are our most sacred places, such as the Sayyida Zeinab pilgrimage site. We could not let that happen. Al-Monitor: Did you tell your parents you wanted to go and fight in Syria? Did they agree to their son becoming a mujahedeen? Karbal: No, I did not tell them initially and did not seek their permission. They were against the idea of me fighting in Syria when they discovered that I was training for war in Syria. Al-Monitor: Are many of your friends fighting in Syria? If not, do you encourage them to join the war there? Karbal: Yes, many of my friends are fighting there. Actually, from each village, there are dozens fighting. I do encourage my friends to fight in Syria; it is their Muslim duty. But jihad does not necessarily entail a military aspect. There is also "jihad al-nafs" [jihad against oneself]. Some people can only practice this last form of jihad. For example, if you are living abroad and you cant fight, you can send money or aid to the resistance. Al-Monitor: What type of training did you receive from Hezbollah? Karbal: We are submitted to three trainings. The first is a religious training. We are taught about jihad and about the goal of the war in Syria, which is the protection of our holy sites. We are also taught to treat prisoners fairly, to avoid torturing them and not desecrate our enemies bodies. Our religion does not allow it. The second training lasts for 45 days and entails a physical training, during which we are taught fighting techniques as well as the use of weapons, such as the Kalashnikov, the PKC, the Dragunov and the equivalent of B7s, along with other weapons. The third part of our training includes short periods of deployment in Syria. Al-Monitor: How do you treat Syrian opposition fighters when you take them as prisoners? Karbal: We hand them over to the Syrian army. Al-Monitor: Where were you deployed? And where will you be deployed next? Karbal: In the Zabadani area. I cannot divulge where I will be deployed next. Al-Monitor: What is your current role? Karbal: I participate in battles intermittently, but my primary role is to follow my units and ensure they are adequately supplied with weapons. Al-Monitor: How big is your unit? Karbal: It is composed of 1,200 men. Al-Monitor: Are the people in your unit all Lebanese or Syrians, or does it include other factions from other countries? Karbal: I prefer not to answer this question. Al-Monitor: What is the role of Hezbollah in this unit? Karbal: Hezbollah manages and leads military operations; we do the bulk of the work during battles. The Syrians are sort of our GPS; they tell us about the area, its topography and the people who live there. They also fight under Hezbollahs orders. Al-Monitor: Do you trust the Syrians working with you? Karbal: Cooperation has certainly improved, but we do find double agents every now and then. We do not trust them 100%. Al-Monitor: What role do Iranians play in these battles? Have you interacted with many Iranians? Karbal: Personally, no. I know they play a role at a higher level; they are also involved in logistics, especially in the medical field. They have great doctors who have saved many lives. Al-Monitor: When Hezbollah talks about Syria, they say that the rebellion is mostly comprised of foreign fighters. How many foreign fighters have you encountered during battles? Karbal: Very few. There are some, but most fighters are Syrians. Al-Monitor: In Zabadani, where you were previously deployed, most fighters belonged to Ahrar al-Sham, which is a Syrian Muslim faction. Are you fine with fighting other fellow Muslims? Have you ever thought that these fighters might have justified grievances against the regime of President Assad? Karbal: No, those we are fighting are not true Muslims. You cannot be a Muslim and try to burn another Muslims religious site. They carry the Muslim declaration of faith, There is no God but God, and they burn down our mosques. This is not the work of a Muslim. During battles, you fire at them and they keep on coming; they are on drugs. I also dont understand their grievances. President Assad is a very good and fair man. He gave his people free education, free medical care what more do they want? Al-Monitor: Do you think your job is to protect Shiite holy sites or to prop up the regime of President Assad? Karbal: If President Assad wanted to crush the rebellion, he could have eradicated them on his own. But he is trying to do the right thing. There is an international plan to topple Assad because he is good, and because they want to break the Hezbollah-Iranian axis, but we are preventing that from happening. Al-Monitor: What happens when you go back to Lebanon, and more importantly, will you go back to fight in Syria? Karbal: When I am in Lebanon, I go back for the time of my respite to my normal life. I see my family, I hang out with friends. But I have to go back. Also, what is happening in Syria today is a repetition of what happened over 1,000 years ago during the battle of Karbala, which ended with the killing of [Imam] Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Imam Hussein was killed by the Umayyad Caliph, which heralded the schism between Sunnis and Shiites. We will not allow that to happen another time. January 27, 2016 JERICHO, West Bank Despite the rising death toll, with 156 Palestinians killed since Oct. 1, 2015, President Mahmoud Abbas made a point of discussing larger regional conflicts during his Jan. 6 speech in Bethlehem. Abbas exclaimed three separate times, We stand with Saudi Arabia in its clash against Iran. In a wide-ranging interview with Al-Monitor at the Negotiations Affairs Departments office of the PLO, chief negotiator Saeb Erekat adopted a harsh tone against Tehran, saying, The Iranians should stop poking their noses into the affairs of others or exporting their revolution. Ghassan Khatib, former Palestinian minister of labor and director of the Palestinian Authoritys government media center, explained the PA leaderships position, telling Al-Monitor, Saudi Arabia has been one of the most generous and consistent donors to the PA. At a time when the PA is in need of stable support from outside, relations with Saudi Arabia count for the PA and need to be taken into consideration. Khatib said that Irans previous support for Hamas has led PA officials to think that Iran is a factor contributing to a split in internal Palestinian politics, which is bad for the Palestinian cause. After firing Yasser Abed Rabbo on June 30, 2015, as the secretary-general of the PLO, Abbas appointed Erekat to the No. 2 position within the PLO Executive Committee. Erekat is considered one of Abbas closest confidants; after answering a phone call during the interview, Erekat said that Abbas personally contacts him. When discussing the surge in Islamic State attacks, Erekat asked, If IS begins to kill Israelis, who do you think in the Islamic world will condemn them? No one. The senior Palestinian official compared the current violence in the Arab world to the 1848 uprisings in Europe and expects the upheaval to continue in the Middle East for 30 years. In addition to criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for maintaining a PA without any authorities, Erekat defended Fatahs decision to hold the 51st anniversary celebration in Damascus on Jan. 8, with pictures of Abbas alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while praising the Assad regime. Fatahs rally provoked widespread controversy among Palestinians. But Erekat cited the 600,000 Palestinian refugees in Syria in justifying this policy. For the first time in 33 years, the Syrian government reopened an official Fatah office in Damascus on Aug. 13, 2015, after years of mistrust. Khatib was skeptical of Ramallahs recent warming of ties with the Assad regime, saying, This is the wrong calculation and it is like betting on the wrong horse. We did that in Iraq earlier during Saddam [Husseins era] and paid a very heavy price for this. Arafats siding with Saddam during the 1991 Gulf War caused Saudi Arabia and other Arab states to reduce their support for the PLO during this period, isolating the Palestinian leader. When asked why Abbas has not appointed a vice president despite being 80 years old and succession rumors swirling, Erekat replied, I dont know if he can in accordance with our basic laws so far. This decision requires a decision by the Palestinian Legislation Council. However, George Giacaman, a political scientist at Birzeit University near Ramallah, told Al-Monitor that Abbas has still carried out influential decrees, even during the period of the defunct PLC. Giacaman said, Since the PLC is not functional, this has not prevented Abbas from legislating on his own after the breakup between Gaza and Ramallah. Downplaying the PA arrest approximately three weeks ago (an exact date of the arrest was not released) of an alleged Israeli spy who worked from an office in Ramallah over the past 20 years, Erekat noted the widespread use of espionage among nations and compared the situation to rivalry among reporters. He said, Even journalists compete for skoopsionage (a pun on the word espionage). The full text of the interview follows: Al-Monitor: How does the Saudi-Iranian rift impact the Palestinian cause? Erekat: Burning embassies of Saudi Arabia in Tehran is something that is uncalled for. The Iranians should stop this. The Iranians should stop poking their noses into the affairs of others or exporting their revolution. We believe that at the same time Iran is part of our political geography and part of the region. Of course, it will have an impact on us. Al-Monitor: Was holding Fatahs 51st anniversary celebration in Damascus praising Assad with pictures of [him] the correct move given the war crimes allegations against Assad? Erekat: There are 600,000 Palestinian refugees in Syria. When Fatah holds any of its annual support [he means celebrations, but these are Erekats exact words] in Moscow we have Palestinians there it is with President [Vladimir] Putin and President Abbas. We ache for what is going on in Syria. But we are guests in Syria and not citizens. We said from day one that we would not have any interference in the events of Syria. Al-Monitor: President Abbas spoke about establishing an international conference in his recent speech, to focus on Palestine. What practical steps have been taken to set up such an event? Who is backing this initiative outside the Arab world? Erekat: We want the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to be there. We are in the process of discussing this with many countries. So far, we cannot give any response other than that people are looking forward to being part of the peace process, and one of the ideas is the international conference. We want it as soon as we can agree on it. Will Netanyahu agree to it? I dont know. Al-Monitor: How does the violence spreading across the Arab world including in Iraq, Syria and Libya impact the Palestinians? Erekat: My main priority is not to allow IS to raise its flag in Palestine. We must defeat IS and extremism. Judaism to me is not a threat. Judaism is one of Gods religions, like Christianity and Islam. Our conflict is not a religious one. IS today is killing Iraqis, the French and Turks; no one sympathizes with them. If IS begins to kill Israelis, who do you think in the Islamic world will condemn them? No one. What we are trying to do with the resolutions through the Security Council or General Assembly or with the International Criminal Court membership is to say to the world that bringing Palestine back to the map is one of the most important ingredients for stability and peace in the region. On the other hand, Netanyahu is saying, "Im not against two states, but let's wait until [we see] what happens in Syria. In my opinion, what is going on in the Arab world now is what Europe went through in 1848 when Chancellor [Klemens von] Metternich had to flee his palace after three weeks of peaceful demonstrations; it took Europe years for the dust to settle down. What is going on in the Arab world is that the contradictions between good governance and the lack of rule of law, womans rights and democracy will take 30 years to settle down. There will be a lot of bloodshed. Now Netanyahu is saying, lets wait for the 30 years without Palestine being back on the map. What we are saying to Netanyahu is, no, dont be politically blind. The fact here is that Palestine being brought back to the map will limit this period of suffering in this region. Al-Monitor: Palestinian officials have repeatedly threatened to disband the PA, but in President Abbas' recent speech he rejected such a move. Why wouldn't Palestinian leaders consider breaking up the PA if it could increase the pressure against Israel, both economically and militarily? Erekat: I dont recall any Palestinian official speaking about dismantling the PA. We need to redefine the Israeli-Palestinian relations. The PA was born in an international contract between the PLO and Israel in order to move the Palestinians from occupation to independence through peaceful nonviolent means negotiations. What Im saying is that Israel has killed the PA and replaced it with a Palestinian authority without any authorities, because they [Israel] established the so-called civil administration of Judea and Samaria. If Abbas, my president, wants to go to Amman, he needs permission from them. If the Israelis refuse to implement the obligations of the [Oslo] agreement signed, we must redefine our security, economic and political relations with Israel. We want to maintain the PA. The PA can be maintained if we go back to a peace process that will lead to a two-state solution that will lead to a Palestinian state. The current situation is not sustainable. Al-Monitor: Why hasnt President Abbas appointed a vice president given his advanced age? Erekat: I dont know if he can in accordance with our basic laws so far. This requires a decision by the PLC. Today the talk about Palestinian internal politics is very important. We have strong institutions to answer these questions after what happened when Yasser Arafat passed away. I am not really worried about this prospect. Al-Monitor: One of your employees was arrested for spying for Israel. Can you shed light on the story? What was his position? Did he have access to confidential documents? Erekat: The PA intelligence services came to me about six weeks ago and told me that they have evidence they shared with me. I signed on the arrest of my employee who by the way had nothing to do with my advisers, politics or meetings. He was the head of the purchasing department; he looked after the furniture, coffee and tea. This man has a right to a court [hearing] let our judicial system work with it. I still believe that as Palestinians we should stick to the line that people are innocent until proven guilty. I am not digging tunnels in this department. The papers that I prepare in my department are the ones I hand to the Israelis. Lets not stand with our gossip and conspiracies, if someone wants to get back at Saeb Erekat. This man has a wife and two children. Let us not pass any judgment before the court. Whats the big deal? These things happen. Nation-states have industrial espionage, intellectual espionage, and even journalists compete for skoopsionage. Al-Monitor: Isaac Herzog, the leader of the center-left Israeli Labor Party, called Abbas a "frightened and panicking" leader. What is your response? Erekat: He can say whatever he wants about his prime minister; but as far as my president, he is totally unfair. Herzog met with President Abbas and heard from him a commitment to the two-state solution, negotiations and nonviolence. It is unfair and unacceptable. January 28, 2016 On Jan. 26, it was UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's turn to provide Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with justification for his weekly lecture that the whole world is against us and the Arabs want to annihilate us. After US Ambassador Dan Shapiro played into Netanyahus hands by daring to criticize Israels settlement policy in a Jan. 18 speech, the secretary-general took his chances and decided to step on Israels toes. Not only did he call construction in the settlements provocative acts, he also drew a direct link between such activity and Palestinian terrorism. Ban stressed that he does not justify firing rockets from the Gaza Strip or incitement against Israel, but, he said, As oppressed peoples have demonstrated throughout the ages, it is human nature to react to occupation, which often serves as a potent incubator of hate and extremism. Ban noted that Palestinian frustration was increasing under the yoke of half a century of occupation and paralysis of the diplomatic process. In response, Netanyahu claimed, The Palestinian murderers do not want to build a state they want to destroy a state, and they say this openly. They want to murder Jews. He further insisted, They do not murder for peace and they do not murder for human rights. For the sake of this article, let us assume that Netanyahus diagnosis is correct and that the motive of a 13-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy in stabbing Jews was the desire to destroy the State of Israel and annihilate the Jews. If so, then what about the more than 99% of other Palestinians living under Israeli occupation? Do they also not want to build a state of their own? Do they only want to destroy the State of Israel? The answer, and a suggestion for remedying the situation, can be found in comments made Jan. 18 by Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff. The populations are mixed, said the countrys top soldier. Despite the terror wave, we insist on differentiating between terrorism and the population, and 120,000 Palestinians must go out to work each day in Israel and in Judea and Samaria in order to provide for their families. I think this is in Israels interests. Its a moderating force. There is a problem with the remedy proposed by the chief of staff. Modern history, including the annals of the State of Israel, proves that it has a largely limited effect on a population suffering from chronic colonialism. The IDF is deployed in the West Bank not only, and perhaps not even mainly, to protect the residents of the State of Israel. The soldiers, police and Shin Bet operatives are also an inseparable part of the settlement enterprise. There is absolutely no connection between this enterprise and Israels diplomatic and defense needs, not to mention ethics and democracy. The Israeli occupation is a business that generates sizeable revenue for its owners. Colonial capitalist regimes Israel being the only remaining practitioner of this type of system in the world are based on the exploitation of the natives natural resources and their cheap labor. A few more employment opportunities for Palestinians at construction sites in Israel and in the settlements are totally useless. A comprehensive report issued Jan. 19 by Human Rights Watch describes the occupation mechanism to which the UN secretary-general referred. In Netanyahus view, the information laid out in the document is undoubtedly part of the Palestinian incitement that encourages terrorism. Nonetheless, let us examine some of the findings of the report, Occupation, Inc.: How Settlement Businesses Contribute to Israels Violations of Palestinian Rights. Although the exploitation of natural resources in conquered territory is a violation of international humanitarian law, Israel has issued permits to West Bank settlements to operate 11 quarries. According to the authors of the report, even a European company was granted a license to operate a quarry, near the village of Beit Fajr, on Palestinian land that Israel had declared state land. On the other hand, Israel refused to issue operating licenses to nearly all the non-active quarries in Beit Fajr, some 40 total, and to almost every other quarry owned by Palestinians in West Bank areas under Israels administrative control (area C, about 60% of the West Bank). The World Bank estimates that the de facto ban imposed by Israel on licenses to operate Palestinian quarries costs the Palestinian economy some $241 million annually. This is small change compared to the cost of other restrictions Israel imposes on Palestinians living in Area C, most of the measures being directly linked to settlement policy, free movement and land use. The World Bank puts this cost to the Palestinian economy at $3.4 billion a year. Israels illegal and discriminatory policy on land and water allocations has dealt a particularly strong blow to farmers in Area C, robbing many of them of their traditional livelihood. These restrictions have resulted in deepening unemployment and a decline in income. The head of the local council in the village of Marda, which has seen much of its land expropriated for the expansion of the Ariel settlement, told the organization, Once we had tens of thousands of barnyard animals; now you can barely find 100 because there is no grazing land. As a result, many of Marda's residents, like 11,000-13,000 other Palestinians, have no choice but to work in the settlements or in adjacent industrial zones. During a debate in the Knessets Public Petitions Committee in late 2013, Chairwoman Adi Kol of Yesh Atid said that government agencies allow the distress of these laborers to be exploited by turning a blind eye to the violation of the basic rights of Palestinian workers. After all is said and done, Israeli ministers and diplomats shamelessly accuse the European Union of robbing the Palestinians of their meager earnings by deciding to label goods produced in the settlements, allegedly by damaging industries employing Palestinians. They make a mockery of those forced to swallow their pride to (barely) provide for their families, while at the same time filling the pockets of their employer-occupiers. This month, the Israeli Government Press Office invited foreign correspondents to visit a plant in one of the settlements, where they met with Palestinian workers. The workers had to speak in the presence of their employer, so obviously they said how grateful they were for the opportunity to make a living. Perhaps this is what the secretary-general meant when he spoke of the occupation as an incubator of hatred and extremism. As Netanyahu said in response, however, The UN lost its neutrality and moral power a long time ago. He is right. The most powerful international organization, which for two generations has tolerated the existence of a colonial regime and its development, lost its neutrality a long time ago, along with its moral authority. January 27, 2016 The daily Hurriyets magazine supplement posted Nov. 13 a web-only article headlined 13 Reasons for Bad Luck Associated with Friday the 13th. The piece was not political and was illustrated by a photograph of Leonardo da Vincis famous Last Supper. Upon closer inspection of the image, however, one saw it had been digitally altered to have President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seated to the right of Jesus. In a public apology to Erdogan, Hurriyet said it had removed the image from its Web page within minutes of its posting and immediately fired the editor, Aynur Karabel, and the director of Web page content, Sermin Terzi. It also said the use of the photo had been an unacceptable oversight. For the two fired journalists, the ordeal is far from over. News broke Jan. 25 that prosecutors had filed suit against Terzi and Karabel for offending the president. Both assert that they did not realize Erdogans image had been placed into the visual. Because the article had nothing to do with politics, they had no intention or reason to use such an image. The prosecutors claim, however, that the image is offensive regardless of purpose or accidental use. That same day, an investigation was launched against CNN Turk, which had reported on opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu calling Erdogan a sham dictator. In reporting this news, the TV network had put quotation marks around the word dictator when it used the subheadline Dictator Under Investigation. CNN Turk, which was simply trying to report on the word dictator, now finds itself in the crosshairs of the Turkish legal system. These two cases should come as no surprise to regular readers of Al-Monitors Turkey Pulse, given that several columns have reported on how quick to anger Erdogan and his men can be. The cases have naturally generated commentary on social media and among pundits, with sober analysts arguing that it is counterproductive for a politician not to allow anyone to call him a dictator, and that he should instead give up acting like one. Indeed, in October, a court in Eskisehir province acquitted four college students for referring to Erdogan as a dictator. The students had hung a banner stating Dictators Are Toppled in the Streets, with Erdogans image looming in the background. Their acquittal only increased the salience of the D-word for Erdogan and his supporters, who relish defending Erdogan in their overwrought anxiety. Indeed, when Turkish political discourse is examined from a distance, one sees that it has become a vicious circle: The more the Justice and Development Party (AKP) idolizes Erdogan and tries to justify his dominance of the legislative and executive branches, the more suspicious and frustrated they become. Hence, every cartoon, question or social media post becomes a potential source for offending Erdogan. In turn, Erdogan's supporters relentlessly compete among themselves to punish critics. Yet, these two latest events go beyond new and creative ways to silence opposition. There is no political opposition inherent in them. The Last Supper episode was most likely an oversight by exhausted journalists, and CNN Turk employed a standard method of reporting to explain the Kilicdaroglu court case. The latter marks a turning point in Turkish politics from sufficiently silencing the political opposition. Is the next step to control every detail the images, the words and any possible signs of discontent? Pinar Dag, a seasoned journalist and an expert on data journalism, told Al-Monitor, To consider this subheadline on TV as an offense to the president is intervening in news reporting through the threat of the courts. Maybe it is a naive wish given the times, but the president's press advisers should have reacted to this case in the name of freedom of the press. The channel [CNN Turk] has been tarnished for a while, causing changes in its policies. But to turn such instances into court cases is almost like mocking the state of law. Everyone knows those were the opposition leaders words, so why bother with [such petty issues] when Turkey has real deep-rooted problems? This is just muddying the waters, simply an operation aimed at our perceptions. Kerem Efe Sozeri, an analyst who researches the media, emphasized the importance of a growing segment of the population that praises such restrictions on freedom of expression. He told Al-Monitor, We are a society of two parts now: traitors and reasonable citizens. These two images [the CNN Turk subheadline and digitally altered Last Supper] are signs of our transition to authoritarianism. While the AKP was struggling against the military establishment, it was a political struggle. This one now is a cultural one. Gradually we are all getting accustomed to the state's language influencing not only what we should say but how we should think. Yusuf Salman, an independent analyst and media scholar specializing in minority media and speech policies, told Al-Monitor, So far, I have counted about 1,300 court cases for offending Erdogan, and most of them have been rather random and arbitrary. The trend has been to prosecute ordinary citizens. In the coming months, we may see a change whereby more academics, lawyers and politicians are prosecuted. Is there a strategic reason for the AKP to hit the brakes on its rage? Indeed, that might just be the crux of the matter. The angrier Erdogan gets, the more he is revered in Turkey. The more his supporters are convinced that enemies of the state are targeting Erdogan, the more they rally around him, declaring their unconditional support. Now that most of the opposition has been duly silenced, and one rarely hears the voice of opposition leaders on TV from which most of the Turks get their news the focus may now be on eliminating certain words from public usage. News reporting, not only words but also images, is seen as dangerous. One analyst working for pro-AKP media said in confidence, So it doesnt matter whether CNN Turk itself called Erdogan a dictator or [only] reported the news. They had his photo, and underneath it it read dictator on the screen. Do you think the average Turk pays attention to the quotation marks? When asked whether the court cases will bring additional attention to the D-word being associated with Erdogan, the pundit replied, Well, that is good. If the Turkish public sees that their leader is being disrespected, they will stand in front of him and protect him. So yes, everyone should see those who are offending the state. Thus, unsurprisingly, the case was widely reported on pro-AKP outlets. The anonymous pundit is correct, and thoughts similar to hers are echoed daily on numerous TV channels. As the political opposition is muzzled, and ideas sanctioned, the new frontier for the AKPs propaganda machine will be certain words and images. If the words and images are scrutinized harshly enough, the Turkish public will get two messages simultaneously. First, Erdogan is under attack by traitors and must be defended, and second, what is politically correct in the Turkish domain is being redefined. The AKPs public relations experts know well they cannot erase unpleasant words from the dictionary, so for the time being they will shrewdly turn the table for domestic consumption. January 28, 2016 Daily Aksam, one of the many Turkish pro-government newspapers, ran on Jan. 18 a bizarre story titled America did not forgive its academics. The article reported that some 75 academics at universities in the United States who claimed 9/11 had been an inside job were arrested by the FBI, as demanded by the US Senate. The photo that accompanied the story showed renowned American intellectual Cornel West being handcuffed by two police officers. The impressive story was published in almost every pro-government media outlet. Daily Sabah, another passionately pro-government paper, added to its report that US Vice President Joe Biden, who dared to advise the Turkish government on academic freedom during his recent visit to Turkey, voted yes in the Senate to have these American academics arrested. The story was unabashedly fake. Yes, a few of the 9/11 Truth campaigners had problems at their universities, but an FBI arrest never took place, nor a Senate vote that requested arrests. (Hence, Biden never took part in such a vote.) The photo showing a handcuffed West was unrelated to this news story; West was arrested during the Ferguson protests in October 2014. So why did the pro-government media invent such a blatantly fake story? And what does this tell us about the state of affairs in Turkey? The context of the fake story is quite obvious. Turkey has been discussing a petition titled We will not be a partner to this crime" that was signed by some 1,100 academics, including international names such as Noam Chomsky. The text of the petition, which blames the government for various human rights violations during its ongoing anti-terrorism campaign in the southeast, could be criticized for being blind to the other side, which is the terrorist activities of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). But the government, and especially President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, decided to demonize and criminalize the petition's signatories. Prosecutors initiated investigations of these academics for terrorist propaganda; some were detained by the police, albeit briefly, and others were demoted. Meanwhile, the government media has publicly condemned the academics as terrorists and traitors. This wave of intimidation on free speech has naturally brought significant criticism on the Turkish government by Turkish liberals, the European Union and even the US government via a blunt statement by Biden. Apparently, the fake story in daily Aksam was a response to all this criticism. The moral of the story was clear: Do not believe in these hypocritical Westerners who criticize us when we go after the traitors in our nation. In fact, they go after their own traitors even more aggressively. This narrative is not just a passing theme in AKP propaganda; lately, it has become a dominant theme. Erdogan himself said in early 2015, in the face of criticism on Turkeys declining media freedom, Neither Europe nor any other country has as much media freedom as Turkey. In those countries, you cannot attack the president or the prime minister. Since this argument is factually incorrect, it cannot be substantiated by facts. Daily Aksams fake story apparently was designed to close this factual gap. Moreover, this was only one of the many examples of its kind. During the Gezi Park protests of June 2013, for example, daily Yeni Safak had published an interview with Chomsky, putting pro-AKP words into his mouth. However, Chomsky announced shortly after that the interview as reported was distorted and fake. The incident turned into a tragicomic scandal, as Yeni Safak had quoted Chomsky, the eminent linguist, in broken English. In March 2015, Yeni Safak published another ambitious report titled The Freemasonry Documents of Gulen. The article claimed that Fethullah Gulen, the AKP-ally-turned-archenemy, was in fact a covert Freemason a member of the order commonly abhorred by Turkeys religious conservatives. Yet, the never-seen-before documents Yeni Safak ran with great fanfare were declared to be fake, even by a historian who writes for another pro-AKP newspaper. The more common technique in the pro-AKP media, however, is not to fully invent news but to distort it. Oft-repeated examples are the cases of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden that have repeatedly been used by pro-AKP propagandists in the past few years to argue that just like Turkey, the United States also criminalizes journalists who expose state secrets. In regard to Assange and Snowden, however, the accusations were obtaining and leaking classified information, not publishing it. No wonder Assanges WikiLeaks files were freely published in many newspapers in the West, such as The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde and El Pais. Thus, the pro-AKP media is presenting a counterfactual world to its readers, claiming that Turkey is actually the freest country in the world, the country is full of too many spies and traitors, and Western governments are in fact more heavy-handed when it comes to their own spies and traitors. Therefore, all the criticism the Turkish government is facing for its authoritarianism is in fact nothing but a conspiracy against Erdogans glorious New Turkey the hope of the downtrodden and the fear of the wicked. Luckily, Turkey is not North Korea, and individuals have access to information other than the semi-official propaganda. One can search the Internet, fact check or just follow nonpartisan or opposition media outlets and websites to get alternative views. Yet, many people do not bother with all this and happily believe in the pro-AKP narrative that powerful media outlets subject them to. In turn, this helps the AKP preserve enough mandate to keep its political domination intact. Editor's note: This article has been updated since its initial publication. January 28, 2016 With the approval of the state budget for 2015-16 and in accordance with the coalition agreements between the Likud and ultra-Orthodox parties, budgetary funding allocated to yeshivas (seminaries for single men) and kollels (for married men) grew significantly this year. That funding had previously been cut by the last government due to pressure from Yesh Atid. The budget for yeshivas and kollels includes a monthly subsistence stipend for students. This sum grew from 310 shekels ($78) per month (in January 2015) to 477 shekels ($120), while funding for kollel students increased from 558 shekels ($140) per month to 858 shekels ($215). The ultra-Orthodox parties also succeeded in establishing a new precedent by having these stipends paid retroactively, dating back to January 2015. As a result, yeshiva students received a one-time compensatory grant of 1,477 shekels ($317), while kollel students received a similar grant of 2,658 shekels ($668). The yeshiva and kollel system is the hub around which the entire ultra-Orthodox sector revolves. At age 13, virtually every male ultra-Orthodox Israeli enters this system. He will remain immersed in his yeshiva studies until about the age of 20, when he will get married and continue his studies in a kollel. According to data provided by the Central Bureau of Statistics, there were some 83,000 kollel students in Israel in the 2013-14 academic year. Most of these will pursue their religious studies for one to three years, and then leave the kollel to join the workforce. A minority will opt to continue their studies. While most kollels follow an identical regimen of study, they can be distinguished by their distinct focus and approach to learning. They are mainly divided into schools that focus on the Babylonian Talmud (the teachings of Jewish sages from the third through the fifth centuries) and ones that focus on the Shulhan Aruch (a compendium of Jewish law dating from the 15th century). Among those kollels that focus on the Babylonian Talmud, there is a subgroup that applies the classical approach to studying the text page by page, and another subgroup that focuses on the in-depth study of Talmudic topics. The second subgroup is considered more prestigious. Similarly, there are different types of kollels that emphasize Jewish law. Some concentrate on the core laws of the Sabbath, kosher food and family law, while others focus on more advanced studies of torts and other subjects to qualify their students for ordination as rabbis and as judges in religious courts. This subgroup, too, is considered especially prestigious. Then there are a handful of kollels, particularly older, more established institutions, that practice a freestyle type of study without any uniform focus or guidelines. Kollel students receive an average of 2,000 shekels ($500) per month for committing to a full day of kollel study (from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., and again from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.). In its heyday, state support covered about half of this sum, with the rest being raised by the kollels directors, mainly from overseas donors. The majority of kollels maintain strict attendance policies, with students paying a few dozen shekels in fines every time they are late. Successfully passing a weekly test is rewarded by a financial bonus of about a hundred shekels ($25). Studying in kollel is a choice. You might even say it is a difficult choice, Chaim Steiner tells Al-Monitor. Steiner, a 27-year-old father of twins, is a kollel student from Beitar Illit. My family and I pay a steep financial and personal price for it. Even the most basic job that pays minimum wage would earn me at least twice what I make at the kollel, but I see a special value in Torah study and in sharing the knowledge with future generations. It isnt always easy, but I constantly keep this goal in front of me. Steiner believes that the state should provide significantly more support to kollel students. Studying Torah is our culture, our sport, our education. We pay taxes so we deserve to receive funding to support our cultural values. I dont accept the argument that Torah study isn't productive. Large swathes of academia dont necessarily create anything either, but they are nonetheless important, according to a different set of values. We consider Torah study to be a value, and much more than that. I consider it to be the secret of Jewish continuity. Shahar Ilan, the deputy director of the organization Hiddush: For Religious Freedom and Equality, says that while the study itself is not a problem, he calls government funding for it a disaster for the State of Israel." He argues, "There is nothing in Jewish history that compares to this society of learners. It is very serious and very dangerous for us to encourage ultra-Orthodox men to remain in kollels. It causes enormous harm to the economy. Ilan rejects the argument that the ultra-Orthodox have the right to request funding equal to that received by the universities. If the kollels want to receive an academic budget, then they should operate in an organized academic manner, meeting academic standards and student requirements, as would be expected of them in academia. He also notes that unlike kollel students, who are paid for their studies, university students actually pay to attend classes. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the states university investment per student is four times higher than its investment in yeshivas per student. According to an investigative report published by the ultra-Orthodox newspaper HaMevaser, the government invests approximately 40,000 shekels ($10,000) in every university student in Israel, whereas investment in each yeshiva student reaches about 10,000 shekels ($2,500) per year at the very most. The conflict over kollels and their budgets has been part of the Israeli civil discourse for decades, becoming a tool in the hands of governments and politicians. Governments that want to purchase ultra-Orthodox support increase the budgets of the yeshivas, while parties hoping to buy the support of the general population cut them. Caught in the crossfire are tens of thousands of yeshiva and kollel students directly impacted by the frequent political reversals so characteristic of the Israeli political systems. That is why ultra-Orthodox politicians have been fighting for years to make the yeshiva budget a permanent component of the general budget, and it is also why Israeli politicians will never let that happen. After all, if they agree to such an arrangement, they will no longer be able to buy ultra-Orthodox support for each coalition. This story appears in Birmingham magazine's February 2016 Issue. Subscribe today! The familiar thump of a passport being stamped sounds on the counter. Teresa White smiles and hands it back to the waiting patron. Except White isn't wearing a customs agent uniform; she's wearing checkered chef pants and a matching chef cap. She and her son, Craig Casiday, own Customs Cafe (formerly Coffee-ol-ogy) in the Plaza area of the Hoover Public Library. The cafe celebrates the cuisine and cultures of countries around the world, while educating customers on the customs of each place. The cafe, which opened in Hoover in February of 2009, features food from a different country each month. This winter, travel to Cuba in January and Germany in February. There's a standard menu you may always order from, but the cultural menus rotate monthly and normally feature four to five items. Favorites from some of the rotating menus have made it to the regular menu--such as Old Berlin Beer Cheese soup from the German menu and Sicilian Breadsticks stuffed with mozzarella cheese from December's Italian menu. The idea for the cafe was spurred by White's and Casiday's love of travel and interest in food customs. "We're an international family," says White, whose oldest son resides in England. "We love to travel and find the local food. We have an interest in what the locals eat and wanted to see how we could do that in a cafe setting." White and Casiday operated a cafe in the Florence Library for about seven years prior to opening in Hoover (White visited library cafes in England to gain insight on developing the concept). Before that, they owned a gift shop. The international cuisine was something that was developed for the Hoover cafe. About a year after opening in Hoover, White and Casiday began to make their international cafe dream a reality. They worked with Virginia Walker, a local chef who was in the first graduating class of Culinard, to develop the international menus. "We just sat down and brainstormed about food we liked," White says. "We went through as many countries as we could think of, and based it on our travels and backgrounds." They originally began serving a different country's cuisine every week. After about four months, they went to two cuisines each month, and finally in 2012 decided to rotate the cuisine monthly. "We realized that rotating cuisines so quickly didn't give our customers time to enjoy and recommend the dishes," White says. "We selected our favorites based on appeal and popularity. We also needed to look at what's available locally because we don't get this food from a vendor--we buy the ingredients locally and bring it in to cook." As best they can, they serve the cuisines during the months that make sense, such as Creole in March for Mardi Gras, Mexi-Cal in May, and American Classics in July. They also selected cuisines that weren't being represented heavily elsewhere, such as Moroccan, Polish, and Swedish. Customs cafe owners Craig Casiday (left) and Teresa White (right) (Photo by Cary Norton) But White and Casiday don't leave it up to just the food to educate customers; they hold educational presentations the first Sunday of each month in the library to introduce the cuisine and country. These presentations include a brief introduction to the country and its customs from White, and then a guest speaker who is either from the country being featured or well-educated on it. At the end of the presentation, samples of the international food are available. The presentations are well attended (sometimes they have up to 80 guests), and they are supported by the library as one of its educational programs, says Patricia Guarino, Assistant Administrator of the Hoover Public Library. "What we want to continue to do is the cultural expression of the cuisines we represent," Casiday says. "The opportunity to do that within a welcoming public space that's geared toward educational experiences has synced up really nicely with what we want to do, are doing, and want to continue doing." The partnership between the cafe and the library has been a seamless one, but it was a long-time coming. The library opened in 1983, but didn't have a cafe until White and Casiday opened theirs. "When we evaluated our long-range plan, we looked at our Patrons Survey," Guarino says. "The most requested item from the survey was a cafe. We take those requests very seriously." The long-range plan included expanding what was just an open patio area to construct the Plaza, where the cafe is located, as well as a "living room" with a small stage for the presentations, and a newsstand for those who want to browse through a publication while enjoying their food. Guarino was instrumental in the planning of the cafe and bringing White and Casiday here. "We looked at other libraries with cafes and got a lot of input from people," Guarino says. "It took about a year of planning but it has really turned out to be a great partnership." Both Guarino and White agree that they don't know any other library cafes in the U.S. doing something similar to what they do with the rotating cuisine, and the patrons have appreciated and supported the cafe ten-fold. "We have customers that come every single month," White says. The regular customers make sure to bring their "passports," the cafe's version of a loyalty program where they get a stamp for each country they "visit" and an extra five-percent-off stamp for each secondary visit within each month. "What's really great about the cafe being in the library is that you can take the food anywhere in the building," Guarino says. Having an ever-rotating menu keeps things fresh for workers in the library, as well. "One of the reason's we developed the global cuisine was so we could appeal to the employees and staff in this building," White says. "We knew this concept would be suitable for a large office building or somewhere with a food service need. ... Operating in a larger building has its challenges but the opportunity here for conversation with patrons has just been wonderful." White and Casiday have considered expanding with a second location in Birmingham, but for now, the opportunity to be in a place that supports education has been the perfect symbiotic relationship. "What's amazing is the variety of people in this building from around the world every day," White says. "The Hoover Public Library has been amazing and it's leant itself to our creativity and development. It's a cultural meeting place where a lot of cultural exchange goes on and that was one of the founding concepts for Customs Cafe." Customs Cafe's 2016 Cuisines: January: Cuban February: German March: Creole April: Swedish May: MexiCal June: French July: American Classics August: Polynesian September: Greek October: Polish November: Moroccan December: Italian Torch Technologies to expand in Huntsville 3.19.2015 Torch Technologies, an employee-owned small business founded in 2002, will host a groundbreaking ceremony Friday, March 20, 2015, for a major construction project, which includes renovating existing structures and building a new headquarters facility and conference center in south Huntsville. (Courtesy) A technology hardware and equipment business in Huntsville is among Forbes' "small giants" in the magazine's America's Best Small Companies list. Torch Technologies was the only Alabama company to make the inaugural ranking, which includes 25 firms that "have chosen to be great, instead of big." "At most companies, proposals for government contracts are handled by senior managers," Forbes said. "At Torch Technologies, which is 100-percent employee-owned and provides engineering services such as missile-systems modeling and simulation to the U.S. Army, everyone is encouraged to participate." The magazine said Torch's proposal teams vary from one to 50 people who work extra hours to help win contracts ranging from $75,000 to $200 million. Torch, which has 460 employees and $240 million in revenue, broke ground last spring on an expansion project that included renovating existing structures and building a new headquarters and conference center in south Huntsville. Forbes used the following criteria when making the list: walmart-DFR-082213-7.JPG (File photo/Gulflive.com) New Hope Mayor Butch Taylor vividly remembers the Friday morning phone call from Walmart this month, alerting him the retailer would close its New Hope store and eight others in the state. The news was a blow to Taylor, who only 13 months earlier celebrated the grand opening of the Walmart Express on U.S. 431. "I was a little shocked at first like, 'Are you serious?'" he said Wednesday. As word spread about Walmart's decision to cut 269 stores worldwide, he began receiving inquiries about the future of the New Hope building, which he said Walmart owns. Taylor's initial surprise soon turned to hope. Walmart stores in New Hope, Fairfield, Grant, Headland, Ashford, Slocomb, Abbeville, Gurley and Snead will close today, resulting in a loss of 500 to 600 jobs in Alabama. Half of those positions will be cut from the Supercenter in Fairfield, which relied on Walmart as one of its largest sources of sales tax revenue. Taylor said they'll also miss the sales tax dollars Walmart generated for the rural Madison County town of about 2,800 residents. "We're disappointed they're gone, but at the same time, we're excited about bringing somebody else in," he said. "It's not going to totally destroy us or kill us." The small format location in Gurley opened Dec. 3, 2014, followed by New Hope on Dec. 17 the same year. Each store employed 30-35 workers. Walmart has not announced how many employees have been offered jobs at other locations. Associates will receive compensation through Feb. 10, plus an additional 60 days of pay after that. The retailer, which owns most of the closing locations, will likely dispose of the facilities either through sale or lease. When Walmart leases a building, it typically works with the owners and other interested parties to find a suitable use for the site. Taylor said it's still early in the process, but Walmart has a real estate team in the area that will determine what to do with the properties. "There will be something else that comes in there," he said. "That's too nice of a store and too great of a location for it to just sit there and do nothing." Ragland Bros. Retail Cos. operates Piggly Wiggly locations in New Hope, Gurley and Snead where Walmart is closing stores this week. Ward Ragland, owner of the Huntsville-based family business, said he is fortunate his grocery stores were able to survive the "business storm" with Walmart. Local businesses are sometimes forced to shut down when the big-box retailer moves in, offering a larger selection of goods at prices lower than mom-and-pop shops can afford. When Walmart later decides to close, Ragland said communities are left without a store to buy food and other essentials. "Frankly, we were facing that decision ourselves in analyzing our locations in what's going to make sense going forward to remain in that location," he said. Ragland said Piggly Wiggly managed to stay competitive with Wal-Mart by offering a fresh meat department, larger perishable selection, and better customer service. "I'm proud we were able to survive and preserve local jobs in those communities and also continue to serve the small communities with a grocery store," he said. "I've heard of so many other areas that couldn't do that." Walmart said earlier this month it plans to open more than 300 stores worldwide this year. The retailer launched Neighborhood Markets this month in Auburn, Phenix City, Auburn, Montgomery, Theodore and Huntsville. A second Montgomery store will open on March 2 and a store in Dothan will open on March 16. 2016 Honda Pilot Elite U.S. sales of the Alabama-built Honda Pilot SUV rose 25 percent last year. (Special to AL.com/Honda) (Honda) First look at the 2017 redesigned Hyundai Elantra being built at the Hyundai vehicle assembly plant in Montgomery, Alabama. (Joe Songer/jsonger@al.com). U.S. sales of Honda's Pilot SUV jumped 25 percent in 2015, the biggest increase among all models built in Alabama. Produced at the Japanese automaker's Talladega County operation, the SUV went through a major redesign last spring, revealing a sleeker version than its boxy predecessor. Honda sold 136,212 Pilots in 2015, compared to 108,857 in 2014, according to the company's year-end sales report. Volume-wise, the sales winner among Alabama-made vehicles was Hyundai's Elantra compact. The Korean automaker sold 241,706 Elantras in the U.S. last year, up 9 percent from year before. The Elantra went through its own redesign late last year, with the newest model hitting dealer lots early this year. Across the U.S., it was a record year for the industry, as new light vehicle sales reached 17.47 million. Analysts have cited low fuel prices and pent up demand as drivers of the trend, which is expected to continue this year. "The strong exit to 2015 bodes well for next year and we expect the market momentum to continue in 2016, with sales projected at 17.84 million units," said Christopher Hopson, director of light vehicle forecasting for IHS Automotive. January's sales, however, are expected to be a disappointing start to the year, thanks to the blizzard that blanketed much of the East Coast over the past week. Kelley Blue Book forecasts a 3 percent drop in sales for the month, which will be reported next week. But those lost sales are expected to be made up in February. As for the 2015 numbers, combined U.S. sales of the eight model lines made in Alabama last year totaled 944,165, a 7 percent improvement from 2014. Sales grew for all three of the model lines produced at Mercedes' Tuscaloosa County factory. Sales of the M-Class SUV, which was redesigned and renamed the GLE-Class mid-year, rose 14 percent to 53,213, while sales of the GL-Class SUV increased 4 percent to 27,707. Sales also rose for the C-Class sedan, up 15 percent to 86,080. Sales were mixed for Honda's other two state-built products. They rose 4 percent, to 127,736, for the Odyssey minivan, while they dropped 11 percent, to 58,208, for the Acura MDX SUV. Sales fell slightly for the other car Hyundai assembles in Montgomery, the Sonata sedan. The company sold 213,303 Sonatas last year, down 2 percent from the previous year, but the model remains its No. 2 seller in the U.S. Rock the South 012816 John Michael Montgomery and Kelsea Ballerini are set to perform at Rock the South 2016 in Cullman. This artist roster for Rock the South 2016 continues to grow, with the additions of John Michael Montgomery and Kelsea Ballerini. They join three bro-country acts -- Florida Georgia Line, Cole Swindell and Thomas Rhett -- on the lineup of the music festival in Cullman. Organizers plan to release more names this week, filling out an artist roster that typically holds 14-17 acts. Dates for the event -- which focuses on country-pop, traditional country and Southern rock music -- are June 3-4 at Heritage Park, 1705 Lee Ave. Southwest. Montgomery, 51, brings a country balladeer vibe to the lineup, with hits that include "I Swear," "I Can Love You Like That," "Be My Baby Tonight," "If You've Got Love" and "I Love the Way You Love Me." Ballerini, 22, a country-pop newcomer, released her major label debut, "The First Time," in May 2015. She's released two successful singles, "Love Me Like You Mean It" and "Dibs." Tickets for Rock the South go on sale Feb. 4. Organizers have confirmed a 24-hour sale that day, offering two-day passes at last year's prices: $59 general admission, $99 Platinum, $199 VIP, $399 Ultimate VIP. Early-bird tickets go on sale after that, Feb. 5-March 31, via the festival website, priced at $69-$399. Prices then hike to $79-$399. Perks at various levels include seats close to the stage, VIP parking, air-conditioned restrooms and a separate entrance. Information on single-day tickets hasn't been released. Rock the South, in its fifth year, is expected to draw more than 40,000 music lovers over its two-day span. The festival, a country and rock extravaganza, is owned by Shane Quick of Premier Productions, a Cullman-based company, along with Jay Barker and Sara Evans of Birmingham. Previous headliners have included Alan Jackson, Little Big Town, Brantley Gilbert, The Band Perry, Hank Williams Jr. and Lynyrd Skynyrd. h.jpeg Watson with her siblings Kileigh, 11, and Will, 6. (Watson) An Auburn University student is learning about the strong bonds of the Auburn family firsthand after receiving an overwhelming response of support and kindness following the death of her mother. Kasandra Watson, who is studying Pharmacy at Auburn University, said she received the news that her mother, Jennifer Neal Wood, had been killed in a car accident on Christmas Day. It was only a few days later that she learned she would be solely taking on the responsibility of paying for her mother's funeral and raising her younger half-siblings. Overwhelmed with the potential cost of instantly becoming the guardian of an 11-year-old and 6-year-old, Watson decided to create a GoFundMe.com page in hopes of raising the money to pay for her mother's funeral cost. Instead, the 23-year-old received an outpouring of support from the Auburn community. "Their father is not involved and doesn't contribute so all of these needs are going to be put on me," said Watson. "This will help the financial burden of immediate needs, like school clothes and other things, to future needs when they're in high school and even the future beyond that like paying for their college education." While Watson, of Pace, Fla., originally only asked to raise $10,000 and expected little response, she said the donations and words of kindness began flowing in almost immediately. Overall, the Auburn student received nearly $60,000 to help with her family's living expenses. "I was very surprised," said Watson. "It was about 10:30 at night when I actually posted it, and I wasn't thinking I would get anything that night, but even before bed so many people had already shared it." Though the donations have helped ease her stress, Watson said the actions of those around her in Auburn and abroad have also given her a sense of community that she wasn't expecting during this difficult time. "Even more than the donations, it's the kindness," said Watson. "They'll tell me if I need anything or if my siblings need anything, just let them know. I've had people offer assistance with school, and my pharmacy class all got together and made a basket with a hundred plus cards. It's things like that, that people have done that they didn't have to do, that have really helped." chase.PNG An aerial photo shows the end of a chase on Interstate 20 that stretched from Pell City to the Alabama/Georgia line. (Pell City Police) Authorities say a man is in custody after he stole a pickup truck in St. Clair County and almost made it to Georgia before being apprehended. Jeremy Ray McCartney, 32, of Albertville, is charged with two counts of reckless endangerment, theft of a motor vehicle and attempting to elude. McCartney may also face additional charges. The chase began around 11:30 a.m., St. Clair County Assistant Sheriff Billy Murray said. McCartney, while at the St. Clair County Courthouse in Pell City, took a 2007 Dodge Ram pickup truck, Murray said. A courthouse security officer tried to stop the truck, but was unsuccessful. Pell City police made contact on U.S. 78 and Pleasant Valley Road and tried to stop the truck, but were also unsuccessful. The St. Clair County Joint Air Support Unit also took part. The truck went onto Interstate 20, where speeds during the chase reached more than 100 mph. Heflin Police Chief A.J. Benefield said the incident ended about 1 p.m. near mile marker 212 on Interstate 20 not far from the state line. Heflin police, along with Alabama State Troopers, picked up the pursuit. Troopers and police made at least four different attempts using road spikes to stop the man. When the truck finally came to a stop on Interstate 20, all four tires were flat. Pell City police said McCartney was "uncooperative" when he was arrested. Agencies involved in the pursuit include the St. Clair County Sheriff's Office, Riverside Police, Lincoln Police, Heflin Police and the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office. Bond and a court date have not yet been set, Murray said. Women living as refugees in Lebanon reflect on losing love, homes and, in some instances, their sense of themselves. Beirut, Lebanon The UN talks on Syria are due to begin in Geneva on Friday, and an often overlooked aspect of the conflict has been its disproportionate effect on women, who have been caught in a cycle of violence and displacement. The UN talks on Syria are due to begin in Geneva on Friday, and an often overlooked aspect of the conflict has been its disproportionate effect on women, who have been caught in a cycle of violence and displacement. More than 50 percent of the registered Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries such as Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan are women. These are incredibly resilient women, but resilience and the ability to cope are like a rubber band. Each step the sheer brutality of the war, the loss of family and friends, the fear for ones life all of that pushes ones ability to cope to the maximum, Tirana Hassan, Amnesty Internationals crisis response director, tells Al Jazeera. Here, three women living as refugees in Lebanon share stories of love and fear, beauty and brutality. Jenans story: The only thing left to sell is the stove These days, Jenans small rented apartment is almost empty. A few tattered rugs lay on the cold floor. There are some old wooden chairs and dusty cushions in the corner. It means that there is enough room for her three boys to run around, but little for them to hide behind in a game of hide and seek. Jenan is six months pregnant with her fourth child. Her husband, Muhammad, left for Germany four months ago. Her three-and-a-half-year-old son, Hassan, suffers from a congenital disease that requires constant treatment. I have to pay a rent of $250 every month. I have no money left any more. I have been selling furniture, the fridge and whatever is left to sell for food, medicine for my children, she says. The only thing left to sell is, perhaps, the stove, she concludes as her eyes take in the bare room. Before Muhammad set out on the refugee trail from Turkey to Greece, and the longer journey northwards to Germany, he gave Jenan $300 and a promise that he would bring her and the children to join him in Europe as soon as he could. After four years in southern Beiruts Burj el-Barajneh camp, the dangerous journey to Europe was his last desperate attempt to build a more stable future for his family. Muhammad is from Deraa in Syria, but Jenan is a Palestinian refugee from Burj el-Barajneh. They met before the war when Muhammad would come to the camp for construction work. The camp was established in 1948 to house Palestinian refugees, and its residents are among the poorest in Lebanon. Jenans parents died when she was young, so she lived with her uncle. A few days after he saw her in a neighbours house, Muhammad asked Jenans uncle for permission to marry her. He made enough money from physical labour to promise Jenan a life of comfort away from the camp. Growing up, my childhood was rough without parents. I had a general lack of emotion, Jenan remembers. But my heart always craved for someone to evoke those feelings and desires in me. I wanted to feel love. I wanted a family and someone who could care about me. During their two-month-long courtship, Muhammad would buy her gifts; they would talk about their pasts and dream about their future together. To Jenan, he seemed to promise the financial security and stability she never had growing up. Muhammad told me I will make up for what you have lost when you were a child. I will be there for you and take care of you, she says. I decided he is the man for me. The only thing he asked me was to wear a hijab after marriage, and I thought that since I was getting married, I wouldnt mind it at all. After they were married, Jenan and Muhammad moved to Deraa. A year later, the bombings began. The situation in Deraa was very frightening. The children were scared of the constant attacks. Nobody knew who was killing whom. We barely had enough food to eat. They decided to return to Burj el-Barajneh. Now, with Muhammad in Germany, they are only able to communicate through voice messages. Their messages mainly revolve around their frustrations: Muhammad complains about the food and tells her how much he is missing her cooking. She tries to comfort him. But she too is worried particularly about what the future will hold for their unborn child. Her thoughts are interrupted by a loud knock on the door. A woman comes inside and surveys the house. Jenans eyes follow her nervously. The woman leaves and Jenan closes the door behind her. She explains that it was her landlady. She had come to tell her that another family would be coming to see the house that day, and Jenan might soon have to vacate it. Jenan looks worried. Her children have eaten nothing but rice with lentils for days, and she sometimes skips meals altogether in order to feed them. It is taking a toll. My son had a high fever yesterday, and I didnt even have money to take him to a good doctor, she says. I think I need to sell other things for the rent before she kicks me out, but that wont be enough. I dont know where to go. I have three children no one will take me in. The light on her phone blinks. Her face lights up and, for a moment, the worry seems to disappear. It is a message from Muhammad. Muntahas story: My home, my rock Sunlight trickles through a thick web of cables as faint peals of laughter fill the dark, dank staircase. Muntaha and her friends, Rasha and Magdalene, have gathered for their afternoon cup of coffee at her apartment in Muntaha and her friends, Rasha and Magdalene, have gathered for their afternoon cup of coffee at her apartment in Shatila , an old Palestinian refugee camp south of Beirut. It has become home to hundreds of Syrian refugees since the war started. Muntaha smiles easily and laughs warmly as she pours the coffee. The friends swap stories as their children play outside. This small circle makes these women who are from different parts of Syria but share experiences of war and displacement feel at home in a foreign country, where they say they encounter nothing but hostility. Muntaha came from Deraa four years ago. I had only packed for 10 days when I came to Lebanon. I thought I would be here only for a few days because things would be back to normal. But I havent been back since, she says. Her husband used to own a supermarket, but it was destroyed during a bombing. The family lost everything, and her husband has struggled to adjust to their new reality. My husband was very romantic, she remembers. Before our marriage, he used to wait outside the school where I used to teach. One day, he asked my neighbour for my number and called me. He asked me if he could get to know me better, Muntaha laughs. We used to dress up and go out a lot. But since the war began, my husband has always been anxious and nervous. My poor husband I worry a lot about him, she says. You know, I try not think about the past, but Her voice trails off as she tries to hold back her tears. Rasha and Magdalene know her pain all too well. They came to Lebanon around the same time from Yarmouk and Raqqa with just a few bags and the hope of returning soon. It has been three years since Rasha last saw her parents and 10 siblings. Her youngest brother, 17-year-old Muhammad, was imprisoned by the Syrian government. They do not know if he is still alive. Rasha says she is constantly worried about her parents, who are in Damascus. Unreliable telephone connections and safety concerns mean that she can talk to her family only once or twice a month, and when she does not hear from them she spends her days in a state of anxiety. My husband and I dont have time for each other. All we do is worry about our families back home. I have problems with my family and he has problems with his, she says. Magdalene wonders if she can ever go back to Raqqa, which is now the stronghold of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group. We just want to go back. Syria is my home. We want the Syrian air. If I can go back to my country and my home, I will choose that over Europe [any] time, she says. Muntaha does not have a home to go back to. She still remembers the day her house was bombed and how her mother-in-law pushed her and her children into a taxi, urging them to escape to safety in Lebanon. The bombs were pouring like rain, she recalls. But as the taxi started to pull away, Muntaha made the driver turn back. She climbed out of the car, ran into her damaged courtyard, and grabbed a broken piece of concrete from her home. She held it in her hand for the duration of the journey to Lebanon. She still has it now. I didnt take any jewellery with me, she reflects. For me, this rock was everything. Sanas story: The women are so beautiful Every evening, 20-year-old Sana brings her three children with her to Hamra Street, a bustling Beirut neighbourhood lined with offices and roadside cafes. She places pieces of cardboard neatly on the pavement and begins begging. She places pieces of cardboard neatly on the pavement and begins begging. Sana was one month pregnant when her husband died in an explosion in Idlib. At first, I was ashamed, she says. I came only during the night so that people cant see my face properly or recognise me. My neighbours dont know what I do. Somebody has left new toys for Sanas children and they begin to enthusiastically tear off their packaging. Teenage Syrian boys with shoeshine kits stand idly on a corner, exhausted after a day spent persuading tourists to pay for their services. One of them promised Sana that he would find some work for her. If the two rival governments are not reconciled, ISIL and al-Qaeda will strengthen their hold in Libya. When former Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was dragged from a drainage pipe in his hometown of Sirte and summarily executed by rebel forces in October 2011, much of the world looked at the event optimistically as the end of a 42-year dictatorship and a chance for the country to move forward. In reality, however, the power vacuum left by the fall of Gaddafis regime, along with vast stockpiles of unguarded weapons free for the taking, created a security nightmare that not only continues to threaten the region to this day but also has broader implications for the long-term global struggle against violent extremism. Life in Libya under Gaddafi was bad; life in Libya today may arguably be worse. With two rival governments now competing for power the internationally recognised House of Representatives in Tobruk, supported by the Libyan National Army; and the General National Congress in Tripoli, supported by the Libya Dawn militia Libya appears locked in what has become a long and bloody civil war with no end in sight. A United Nations-brokered agreement signed by both parties in mid-December 2015 gave a brief glimmer of hope that a unity government could be formed, only to have it unravel a month later. Fracturing of Libya The consequences of Libyas collapse could not be starker. As we have seen in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and elsewhere, the fracturing of Libya and the absence of the rule of law has allowed violent Islamist extremist groups, particularly the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL) and al-Qaeda, to thrive there. ANALYSIS: Will the West intervene in Libya? Currently, both groups control territory in Libya, where they capitalise on the expansive illicit black market economy, recruit and train fighters, and stage attacks against neighbouring countries. For ISIL, control of Libya is of significant strategic value. by Taking advantage of the chaos and large swaths of ungoverned territory caused by Libyas civil war, ISIL has established three separate wilayat or provinces there since late 2014: Tarablus along the west coast; Fezzan in the southwest; and Barqah in the east, with the key coastal city of Sirte serving as its Libyan capital. Like its parent group in Syria and Iraq, ISIL in Libya has uploaded video proof of its atrocities to the Internet, including mass decapitations of Egyptian, Ethiopian and Eritrean Christians. For ISIL, control of Libya is of significant strategic value. Apart from Syria and Iraq, Libya with its access to ports, large stores of weapons and established trans-Saharan smuggling routes remains ISILs only other territorial holding. Libya also serves as a major recruiting ground for foreign fighters from elsewhere in the region, particularly Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt, who continue to flock there to fight. Some ISIL recruitment videos have even instructed aspiring foreign fighters in the region to travel to Libya instead of its besieged positions in Syria and Iraq. Underscoring Libyas strategic importance to ISIL is the fact that Abu Nabil al-Anbari, a top Iraqi lieutenant and former Baathist official, was sent there in 2014 to oversee ISILs Libyan expansion. Although Anbari was killed near Derna during a US air strike in late 2015, ISILs overall presence in Libya has not been diminished. Hotbed of al-Qaeda recruitment ISIL in Libya is now focusing its attacks on the countrys oil and gas industry in the west and along the coast east of Sirte, with an eye towards making a profit from the illicit sale of oil and gas, much as they do in Iraq and Syria. Barring that, they will probably deny those resources to other rebel groups or either of the two competing governments by destroying the infrastructure. READ MORE: Arabs in the eye of history For al-Qaeda, Libya has been a hotbed of recruiting dating back to the 1990s, and one of its former leaders, Abu Yahya al-Libi, was a Libyan citizen. The eastern Libyan cities of Derna and Benghazi have historically served as solid bases of support for al-Qaeda, and remain so today. The Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade, which controls Derna, and Ansar al-Sharia in Libya (ASL), the group that carried out the 2012 attack against the US consulate in Benghazi, are both aligned to al-Qaeda. ASL is also a component of the Libya Dawn militia supporting the GNC government in Tripoli. Since the fall of the Gaddafi regime in 2011, al-Qaedas North African branch, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), has expanded its base of operations into Libyas southwestern desert, establishing close alliances with the nomadic Tuareg tribes there. The Tuaregs serve not only as AQIM fighters, but also as guides and protection for the AQIM-allied criminal smuggling networks that provide a substantial source of revenue to fund AQIM operations in the region. Libya has collapsed, and without a general reconciliation between the rival governments, ISIL and al-Qaeda will only further strengthen their hold there. The December 2015 UN-brokered agreement was a starting point that proved too contentious for both parties to agree on. Now is the time for the international community to work with both parties to resolve their political differences. As we have seen elsewhere, the consequences for Libya, for the region and beyond are too great. Martin Reardon is a senior vice president with the Soufan Group, a New York-based strategic security and intelligence consultancy, and senior director of Qatar International Academy for Security Studies. He is a 21-year veteran of the FBI and specialised in counterterrorism operations. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy. It seems ISIL has recognised the value of using Palestine to appeal to the hearts and minds of the region. The United States has long treated Palestine as irrelevant to its war against terrorism, a premise that remains in place as the superpower leads a campaign to degrade and defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Last month, however, comments made by key figures on opposing sides of that campaign once again reaffirmed that Palestine remains central to any serious effort to counter extremism in the region. When Rob Malley, the Obama administrations chief adviser on countering ISIL, was asked whether the group had any relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he replied: There are many reasons to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict one of the reasons is that it would help defuse an issue that is fuelling extremism. While admitting that resolving the conflict would not be the magic wand that would put an end to all of the problems that have been plaguing the Middle East, Malley reiterated that the absence of a resolution is fuelling extremism. Released two weeks after Malleys comments, a statement from ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi seemed to confirm Malleys point: The Jews thought we forgot Palestine and that they had distracted us from it. Not at all, Jews. We did not forget Palestine for a moment. With the help of Allah, we will not forget it The pioneers of the jihadist fighters will surround you on a day that you think is distant and we know is close. We are getting closer every day. A continuous pattern Baghdadis threatening message adds him to a long list of Middle Eastern political figures who invoked the Palestinian issue whether sincerely or not as a political tool. Historically, Arab rulers have used the Palestinian cause to build legitimacy for their rule. In 1977, for example, Muammar Gaddafi was central to the establishment of the Steadfastness and Confrontation Front in protest against Egypts negotiations with Israel. The Front included, among others, Hafez al-Assad and Saddam Hussein. Ultimately, however, instead of doing something for Palestine, the members leveraged its plight to legitimise and sustain their iron-fisted rule over their own peoples. Washington must understand that every time it vetoes a UN Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements or Palestinian statehood, it is sabotaging its own efforts to counter extremism. by Nearly 40 years later, the pattern continues as Palestine is still at the centre of the Middle Easts political discourse. A former Iranian diplomat recently told me that the war in Syria is all about preserving Iran, Syria, and Hezbollahs Axis of Resistance that opposes Israel and the United States while supporting the Palestinian cause. From this perspective, the issue is not Bashar al-Assad remaining in power but ensuring that Syria remains a committed member of the Axis. In a recent speech during Friday prayers in Tehran, the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guard, Hossein Salami said, [] we tell the Americans that we will further expedite enhancement of our missile capabilities as long as they massacre the Palestinian children, as long as they bury Yemens oppressed children in their houses, as long as they displace the Muslim nation of Syria In Yemen, the Houthis slogan is God is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews, victory to Islam. Even as they advanced on Yemens capital in 2014, they did not lose sight of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, adopting a secondary slogan of we fight in Sanaa while our eyes are on Jerusalem. Wrong methods to fight extremism The US will never be able to build a credible coalition in the Middle East against ISIL, al-Qaeda or others as long as it continues its open and unconditional support for Israel. What the US touts as a 60-country coalition against ISIL is, at least in the Middle East, a coalition with governments that largely lack legitimacy with their own people. Thus, public support for the fight against ISIL will be difficult to obtain. Governments cannot contain and defeat extremism by themselves. If they could, NATO could have eliminated al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and the US drones could have finished off al-Qaeda in Yemen. Instead, they have failed. Iraqs governmental forces, for their part, collapsed astonishingly quickly when attacked by ISIL. OPINION: Has the West betrayed the Syrian people? It is the people who represent the main recruitment pool for extremist groups who are able to neutralise extremism, and this happens only when their hearts and minds are opposed to it. It is the people, not the governments, who can make any campaign against extremism legitimate. In the case of the Arab world, the people are against the US and its complete bias in favour of Israel. It is very difficult to trust the US while it pours excessive support to Israel and prevents Palestinians from achieving their national aspiration of a state of their own. During a recent visit to Jordan, I repeatedly heard a sentiment of being opposed to ISIL but also being totally against partnering with the US government, which is viewed as the guarantor of a Zionist project in Palestine. This image of the US, along with its history of interventions in the region, foments distrust among Arabs and hampers the formation of a partnership to counter extremism. The great unifier The rise of ISIL has understandably shaken the region, captured the worlds attention, and elicited an urgent response. Since 1948, many crises and incidents have done just that, including Anwar Sadats 1977 visit to Jerusalem, Saddams invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent Gulf War, and more recently the Arab Spring. Yet, as these crises rise and recede, the issue of Palestine continues to cast its shadow over the region. As severely as these and other crises have divided the region along a variety of lines, Palestine remains the great unifier. Sooner or later, the war in Syria will end, but the people of the Middle East, whether Arab or Persian, Sunni or Shia Muslim, secular or Islamist, will still desire justice for Palestine. ISIL may be degraded or defeated, but the extremism that has destabilised the Middle East will continue to feed on the issue of Palestine. Washington must understand that every time it vetoes a UN Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements or Palestinian statehood, it is sabotaging its own efforts to counter extremism. It looks like Baghdadi, currently the worlds most famous extremist, has recognised the value of using Palestine to appeal to the hearts and minds of the region. Let us hope that Malley can convince his boss of the value of Palestine not only for countering extremism but also for the stability of the region in its entirety. Ibrahim Fraihat is Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Brookings Institutions Doha Center and Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University in Qatar. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy. Ten children among those drowned off Samos in latest deadly boat sinking involving refugees trying to reach Europe. At least 25 people, including 18 children, have drowned after a boat carrying refugees capsized in the eastern Aegean Sea, the Greek coastguard told Al Jazeera on Thursday. In the latest boat disaster involving refugees trying to reach Europe, the coast guard said the bodies of five girls, five boys, ten men and five women have been recovered. Ten people were rescued five of whom were found on a wooden plank and were brought to hospital. The investigations are still ongoing because we do not know the exact number of people on the boat, a Greek coastguard official told Al Jazeera. The United Nations says that more than 46,000 people have arrived in Greece so far this year, with more than 170 people killed making the dangerous sea crossing. Authorities were informed of the latest sinking in the Aegean Sea after a refugee made it to the shore alive in the area of Kokkari, northern Samos, on Wednesday night. The survivor, who was in a state of shock, was unable to confirm how many people were on board with him. READ MORE: Greece reacts to EUs hard line on refugees A helicopter and patrol boats from the Greek coastguard and the European border agency Frontex were part of the rescue operations, the official said. There is no information yet about the nationality of the drowned or rescued, or whether they were all on the same boat. As many as 3,000 people continue to arrive in Greece daily, despite high winds and low temperatures. At least 43 people drowned last Friday when two boats capsized in Greek waters, most of them women and children. Reporting by Teo Kermeliotis: @Teo_Kermeliotis Hamdi al-Bokari, Abdulaziz al-Sabri, and Moneer al-Sabai disappeared 10 days ago in the besieged city of Taiz. A group of Al Jazeera journalists who disappeared 10 days ago in Yemen have been freed by their kidnappers. Correspondent Hamdi al-Bokari, cameraman Abdulaziz al-Sabri, and driver Moneer al-Sabai were taken while filming in the besieged city of Taiz for Al Jazeera Arabic. Reporters Without Borders calls Yemen one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, with at least 17 media workers held by armed groups. The identity of the kidnappers was still not clear, but Hamdis Facebook posts after his release suggested they could have been Houthi rebels. The Houthi movement which controls much of northern Yemen, including the capital Sanaa is trying to hold off government forces and troops from an Arab coalition from capturing the strategic city in central Yemen. Yemenis rally for kidnapped Al Jazeera crew Taiz is the latest flashpoint in the conflict, which began in 2015 after Houthi forces swept across the countrys south, taking the port city of Aden and forcing President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to flee. The advance prompted intervention by a coalition of Arab and Muslim states led by Saudi Arabia. Capturing Taiz would allow pro-government forces to advance on Sanaa and further to the Houthi strongholds that straddle the border with Saudi Arabia. The ongoing siege has led to a humanitarian crisis in the city, with hospitals running low on supplies and food scarce. Three decades after space shuttle exploded during liftoff, reusable technology is seen as key to space exploration. Three decades after the space shuttle Challenger exploded during liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the next generation of space technology is building on changes made after the accident. NASAs Space Shuttle was the first largely reusable spacecraft, designed to make flying into space cheap, simple and safe. Each shuttle was designed to complete more than 100 missions and used reusable booster rockets to lift it into space. But 73 seconds after the space shuttle Challenger launched on January 28, 1986, a seal on one of its rocket engines failed, resulting in an explosion that destroyed the craft, killing all seven crew. Changes were made to later missions, and despite the deaths of another seven crew members when space shuttle Columbia broke up on re-entry in 2003, the rest of the shuttle fleet continued flying until being retired in 2011. We shouldnt forget about the legacy of these 14 brave astronauts that gave their lives for the exploration for mankind, Eric Stallmer, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation told Al Jazeera. But youve got to think about the other 135 missions that were a success, the work they did with the Hubble telescope and the interplanetary missions and probes that were sent off from the space shuttle, as well as building and developing the international space station. Achievements and costs Over 30 years (1981-2011) the space shuttle clocked up 135 flights and carried a combined total of 1,593 tonnes of cargo into space. NASAs five shuttles orbited the Earth 20,830 times. But it was the growing cost of the programme that led to its demise: running costs of $4bn a year, and total programme costs of $209bn over 30 years. It was very expensive but it was a good test bed for the technology, Stallmer said. The shuttle disasters exposed a number of design shortcomings and problems with how the programme was being operated. It also helped to seed a commercial space transportation industry that is now developing both passenger and cargo supply spaceships. The shuttle was a government programme and now the government is really depending on the commercial sector to bring a lot of these reusable technologies into the mainstream, Stallmer added. READ MORE: In historic first, SpaceX lands first reusable rocket With the demise of the shuttle, NASA has increasingly looked to private companies for cheaper ways to deliver cargo and crew into space, among them SpaceX, which has been trying not always successfully to land its Falcon 9 booster rockets back on Earth. The company says reusable rockets will reduce launch costs from tens of millions of dollars to only a few million, opening up space to many more companies and countries. Earlier this week another US company, Blue Origin, made history by sending the same reusable rocket into space and landing it back on Earth for a second time. If you can get the cost and access to space down, its going to open tremendous opportunities for what we can do in space, Stallmer said. I think we are only scratching the surface on the possibilities that can happen and the commerce that could happen in space. READ MORE: Reusable rocket explodes after botched landing The shuttle disasters have also resulted in a rethink of the way passengers are carried into orbit. Challengers six astronauts and a high-school teacher had no chance of escaping owing to a spacecraft design decision that is not being repeated on the passenger spaceships now under development. These will launch on top of rockets, not alongside them, and have separate systems to fly crews to safety if a booster falters. Spaceflight is like any other big engineering system, Mike Leinbach, a former NASA shuttle launch director, said. You get smart by successes. You get smart by failures. I just hope that the new entrants into the market learn from the mistakes of the past. With additional reporting from Al Jazeeras Science and Technology Editor Tarek Bazley Hesham Genena alleged $75bn in corruption while commenting on official report undertaken with the United Nations. Egypts top auditor has ignited an uproar after estimating that corruption has cost the country tens of billions of dollars over the past four years, The Associated Press reported on Thursday. Auditor Hesham Genena alleged massive corruption in newspaper interviews last month while commenting on a report his lawyer said was commissioned by the Egyptian Planning Ministry and undertaken with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In December, Genena told local media about $75bn in state funds had gone missing over four years, AP reported. Egypts pro-government media have now branded Genena a traitor and a closet supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is now outlawed as a terrorist group. The countrys state prosecutor has also issued a gagging order on any coverage of the 400-page reports findings. The UNDP, when approached by AP, referred questions to the ministry, which referred them to the presidential commission. Presidential spokesman Alaa Youssef declined to comment on the matter. Al Jazeera is not able to report from Egypt. Several attempts to contact the Cairo office of the UNDP on Thursday were unsuccessful. Official probe Following Genenas allegations, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi appointed a presidential commission that wrapped up its work in two weeks lightning speed for an official probe and accused the auditor of misleading the public with the help of unnamed foreign parties. A presidential decree issued last year that could pave the way for the dismissal of Genena, who enjoys constitutional immunity, was recently approved by Egypts newly seated and strongly pro-Sisi parliament. READ MORE: Egyptian minister arrested over graft probe Genenas lawyer, Ali Taha, told AP that he auditor planned to publicise the results of the study next month. Taha said three-quarters of the alleged graft stemmed from state lands illegally acquired by businessmen. Taha said Genena was already facing seven court cases, including one alleging that he belonged to an outlawed group a reference to the deposed president Mohamed Morsis Muslim Brotherhood in which case he should have been removed from his post. El-Sisi is weak and he cant face the lobby of the corrupt, said Taha. Sensitivity to criticism The furore highlights the governments sensitivity to criticism as it grapples with a worsening economic crisis and lingering unrest five years after the popular uprising that toppled longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak. Genena has endured a barrage of criticism from pro-government media, well-connected businessmen, and senior officials since Morsi appointed him in 2012. Critics say that the campaign against Genena is aimed at silencing one of the last remaining voices of dissent. The message is clear to us: Even if you are a senior official you are not allowed to tell people the truth, Negad Borai, a well-known human rights lawyer, wrote in the independent Al-Shorouk daily earlier this month. Prominent columnist Abdullah el-Sinnawi has said that he fears the campaign against Genena will be used as a pretext to cover up for the corrupt. What is really making me so angry is that those who are implicated in corruption are the ones who are leading this campaign. London-based Transparency International ranks Egypt 94 out of 175 nations in fighting corruption, and anger at influential businessmen was one of the central grievances of the 2011 uprising. Clerics in the Muslim-majority country say the sect taught deviant teachings mixing Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Indonesian authorities have sent about 1,600 members of a religious sect for re-education following a public outcry over their activities, an official said Thursday. Nearly 1,300 members of the Dawn Archipelago Movement (Gafatar) arrived in Semarang in Central Java province from Borneo by ship late on Wednesday, local navy base commander Colonel Elka Setiawan said. The first batch of more than 300 people arrived on Monday. Officials said they would be re-educated before being sent back to their hometowns on Java. The controversy over Gafatar erupted this month after a doctor and her young son disappeared in the capital Jakarta, and were later found to have joined more than 100 other families in the movement. Since then more families have come forward with reports of missing relatives, also believed to have joined the sect. Islamic clerics in the Muslim-majority country said that the sect taught deviant teachings mixing Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and a group of locals attacked and torched homes belonging to Gafatar members on January 19. Former Gafatar leader Mahful M Tumanurung told local media that the group is not part of Islam, but follows the teachings of Abraham and is loyal to Indonesia. Indonesia has six state-sanctioned religions: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Sadr City is turned upside down in search for three US citizens, but when Iraqis get kidnapped, no one seems to care. Baghdad, Iraq Helicopters fly over the capitals Sadr City. The noise is deafening and frightens children. In recent days Iraqi security forces have focused their search for three US military advisers abducted three weeks ago in this neighbourhood. Its an area that is fiercely loyal to Shia clerics and is suspicious of the United States. Deep within the secure international zone, more popularly known as the Green Zone, I asked General Sean MacFarland, the US commander in charge of the coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), about the latest on the operations against the group. When he spoke about the three US advisers he was blunt. We are working with the Iraqi authorities to get them back. READ MORE: Americans reported missing in Iraq Certainly the US has put a tremendous amount of pressure on the Iraqis to find the men who are said, according to one Iraqi source we spoke to, to be held by one of the larger Shia militias. But the abducted Americans represent only a small fraction of the people who go missing in Iraq each day. Accurate figures on kidnappings are impossible to come by as the Iraqi government doesnt keep crime figures. One member of the Iraqi parliament, though, told Al Jazeera that the number of such incidents has skyrocketed over the past six months and is now in the thousands. In Sadr City we spoke to Hussein Sarmad. He has witnessed intense activity in his neighbourhood over the past 10 days. He described to us late-night raids, helicopters buzzing over homes and counter-terrorism forces in the streets. He is angry that when Iraqis are kidnapped from his neighbourhood, no one seems to care. Its funny, all this fuss for three Americans. The security forces are turning our neighbourhood upside down. I doubt that they are even here, Sarmad said. Its a common sentiment among Iraqi families who fall victim to this sort of crime. The search for those kidnappers doesnt involve the military. Often, families of the victims get no help from the police or international community and are left to deal with threats from the kidnappers themselves. Lucrative business Its a lucrative business and, be in no doubt, it is a business. Ransom demands can range from a few hundred dollars to thousands, depending on how rich the family is. The Americans kidnapped represent the ultimate prize. Foreigners in Iraq can be useful as political tools to gain concessions. They can also be worth a lot of money. Perhaps, though, the real worth of kidnapping foreigners, particularly military advisers, is that it sends a message from anti-US forces in the country to the US that it cannot operate here with impunity. Iskander Witwit is an MP in Baghdad. He says the kidnappings are designed to embarrass the government. Such incidents send a negative message to the international community that Iraq isnt in control, that we cannot deal with terrorism and criminality. Perhaps that is why whenever a foreigner is kidnapped in Iraq its a big deal and valuable resources that would otherwise be committed to fighting terrorism and crime are diverted to looking for them. Good luck if you are Iraqi and you are kidnapped. All the anecdotal evidence would suggest that you wont get house-to-house searches. You wont get helicopter patrols. You wont get intelligence-gathering resources. You, it would seem, are on your own to deal with the kidnappers. US kidnap victims are simply worth more in this game of grotesque mathematics. After arrest, Ammon Bundy tells supporters to go home and hug your families following deadly FBI operation. The leader of a month-long armed occupation at a wildlife refuge in the US state of Oregon has urged remaining supporters to leave the site and go home, a day after his arrest and the killing of his second-in-command. Ammon Bundy was taken into custody with several members of his group following a shooting at a traffic stop involving the FBI on a highway north of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Oregon on Wednesday. Bundy, 40, urged federal authorities to let his comrades leave the area without being prosecuted. To those remaining at the refuge, I love you. Let us take this fight from here. Please stand down Go home and hug your families, Bundy said in a statement read by his lawyer, Michael Arnold, following a court hearing. It was not known exactly how many people remained at the compound, which was still surrounded by law enforcement officers on Wednesday as Bundy and his group were taken into custody after being stopped by the FBI and police on the highway. Al Jazeeras Allen Schauffler, reporting from Burns, said it was difficult to tell if Bundys supporters would heed his message. There have been reports out of the refuge that a couple of the higher-profile people that had remained behind have now left, but those reports have not been confirmed by law enforcement, Schauffler said. And weve been watching an occasional live stream on YouTube from five people who are still in that refuge. Theyre saying that they are there and they are going to stay. One militia member, Jason Patrick, told Reuters news agency by phone that some protesters had left through checkpoints set up by authorities, but he rejected the word surrender. I dont know what surrendering looks like, Patrick said. Theyre walking through the checkpoint and going home. Thats what Ive heard unless Im being lied to. Patrick added: Its getting emptier over time; some people leaving, some people still there holding on to what theyre holding on to. Self-styled militia groups sympathetic to the occupiers the Pacific Patriots Network, Oath Keepers, and the III% of Idaho later said in a statement that all women and children had left the site. The groups said they had issued an immediate stand by order to followers. We have inside sources telling us that they have been in contact with the authorities trying to work out a peaceful resolution, the statement said. READ MORE: Deadly shooting during arrest of US militiamen Armed authorities surrounded the compound following Tuesdays shooting and nearby roads remained cordoned off late on Wednesday. They announced that another three people had been arrested in connection with the armed group on Wednesday. The authorities declined to say what led to the fatal shooting during the confrontation of a member of Bundys group, identified by Robert LaVoy Finicum, a farmer who had acted as a spokesman for the occupiers. Bundys brother, Ryan, was wounded in the incident. Bundy followers gave conflicting accounts of how Finicum died. One told the Associated Press that Finicum charged at FBI agents, who then shot him. A member of the Bundy family said Finicum did nothing to provoke the agents. The arrested protesters were each charged in the US District Court in Portland with conspiracy to use force, intimidation, or threats to impede federal officers from discharging their duties. During a brief hearing on Wednesday afternoon, the defendants were held without bail until a detention hearing set for Friday. World Health Organization expects infection of up to four million people as agency assesses level of global emergency. The mosquito-borne Zika virus may infect up to four million people, the World Health Organization said, as the agency convened to decide if the outbreak should be declared an international health emergency. Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, said in a statement on Thursday that the level of alarm was extremely high. Last year, the virus was detected in the Americas, where it is now spreading explosively. As of today, cases have been reported in 23 countries and territories in the region, Chan said. Arrival of the virus in some places has been associated with a steep increase in the birth of babies with abnormally small heads and [with] cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome. The syndrome can cause temporary paralysis. WHO: Zika virus to spread to much of Americas Meanwhile, Marcos Espinal, an infectious disease expert at WHOs Americas regional office, said: We can expect three to four million cases of Zika virus disease. He gave no time frame, the Reuters news agency reported. Chan said a causal relationship between Zika virus infection and birth malformations and neurological syndromes was not yet established, but was strongly suspected. She said the emergency committee would advise her on Monday in Geneva on the appropriate level of international concern and on recommended measures that should be undertaken in affected countries and elsewhere. Chan will also ask the committee to prioritise areas where research is most urgently needed. To step up its fight against the mosquito, Brazil has deployed thousands of municipal, state and federal workers, including soldiers, to scour cities for mosquito breeding grounds, fumigate and educate residents on the dangers of still and stagnant water, where the female insects lay their eggs. On February 13, the government will deploy 220,000 troops in a one-day mobilisation to hand out leaflets and help identify potential trouble spots. All of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean are trying to coordinate so that they take exactly the same measures to diminish not only the breeding grounds of this mosquito, which also carries dengue and chikungunya, but also to prevent it from spreading from one country to another, Al Jazeeras Lucia Newman reported from Santiago, the capital of Chile. The Zika virus was first detected in 1947 in Uganda, and for decades, caused only mild diseases across Africa and equatorial Asia. But Chan noted that the situation today is dramatically different. There is no specific treatment or vaccine for Zika, which is related to Dengue. Scientists have struggled for years to develop a Dengue vaccine but have failed to create a viable shot so far. Refugees who arrive on Greek islands by boat would be returned to Turkey almost immediately under Labour Party proposal. A plan presented by the Dutch Labour Party is proposing to ferry back refugees from the Greek islands to Turkey, in an attempt to control the influx of refugees into Europe. The Netherlands, currently holding the European Union presidency, is gathering support for the plan among several EU member states including Germany, Diederik Samsom, the Labour party leader, told Dutch media on Thursday. According to the plan, which is suggested for implementation this spring, refugees who arrive in Greece would be returned to Turkey almost immediately by ferry. In exchange, European Union member states would accept up to 250,000 refugees residing in Turkey a year. The idea is to discourage refugees from taking the dangerous route by sea. Refugees trying to enter Europe via the Greek islands would be returned within a few days, according to the plan. The express highway for migrants between Greece and Turkey has to come to an end, Samson told Dutch radio. The Aegean Sea has become a mass grave; 3,700 people died there last year, he added. The implementation of the plan, which is said to have the support of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, would depend on Turkey having the status of a safe country for refugees. To reach that status Turkey would have to adopt several laws and improve the situation for asylum seekers. It has to become a safe country, Samson said. Violation of Geneva Convention The proposal is being severely criticised by academics and politicians in the Netherlands. Professor Henk van Houtum, head of the Nijmegen Centre for Border Research Radboud University, described the proposal as an example of a totally topsy-turvy world. First, Europe creates some sort of survival of the fittest by forcing refugees to cross the sea in dangerous circumstances, because they cannot enter legally. Then, once the refugees have reached the other side; you send them back by boat again? READ MORE: Identifying the refugee victims of the Mediterranean This does not solve anything; its just transferring the problem elsewhere, to an unsafe country where they have no future. In fact, it is a violation of the Geneva Convention which says anyone who qualifies for refugee status should be granted asylum in the country where the application is made, Van Houtum said. Be like Australia Samsons plan has similarities with the Australian asylum policy that was introduced in 2013. In Australia, migrants who try to reach the country by boat have no chance of a permanent stay and are immediately sent to detention centres on Papua New Guinea and other surrounding islands. Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders argued in April last year that the Netherlands refugee policy should be more like Australias. At least they have the balls to stop the influx of migrants, he said. But now even Wilders appears to reject the ferry plan proposed by Samsom. What a useless plan, he wrote on Twitter. First we send the fortune seekers by boat to Turkey and then after that by plane to Europe and the Netherlands? The Dutch proposal to force a solution to the refugee crisis came just after Prime Minister Rutte said that the EU had six to eight weeks to reach an agreement on how to tackle immigration. If not, the EU will have to think about a plan B, Rutte said, without elaborating. Additional reporting by Fleur Launspach Beirut At the outset of the Arab Spring, a handful of analysts noted that what started in Tunisia and spread to the rest of the region was just the beginning of a long-term process that would necessarily go through ups and downs revolutionary upsurges and counter-revolutionary setbacks. Five years into the revolts, activists and analysts say that the story is far from over, with a host of complex and difficult issues at stake. But despite all the gloom and doom gripping the region, there is still hope. Gilbert Achcar, a professor of development studies and international relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and author of The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising, was teaching his students about the explosive potential in the Arab world long before the Arab Spring. He believes that the core issues at the heart of the explosion were primarily socioeconomic, and that the revolutionary process is bound to continue for decades to come. Al Jazeera: In your book and in your analyses in general, you do not refer to what happened in 2011 as the Arab Spring or a revolution. Why? Gilbert Achcar: Most people have used the term revolution to refer to the initial sequence of events, like when speaking of the 25 January Revolution in Egypt as one that ends on February 11, or even naming the revolution by the day the autocrat fell, like in referring to the 14 January Revolution in Tunis. What I have been emphasising since 2011 is that we were only at the beginning of a long-term revolutionary process that will go on for years and decades. As in every such historical process, there will be ups and downs, revolutions and counter-revolutions, upsurges and backlashes. My view of the events is predicated on my analysis of the real issues at the heart of this revolutionary process, which are issues that I have been studying and teaching for several years. I saw the explosion not primarily as the result of a political crisis, as it has been widely portrayed, or as one provoked by a thirst for political freedom. This was an important dimension of the uprising, to be sure. However, the deepest roots of the explosion were socioeconomic, in my view. For several decades, the Arab world has had the lowest rates of economic growth of all regions of Asia and Africa and the highest rates of unemployment in the world, especially youth and female unemployment. Those were the crucial ingredients of the big explosion. And they are not issues that can be settled with a new constitution or a mere change of president. They can only be settled through a radical change of the social, political, and economic structures. They request a real social revolution, one that cannot be merely political. The problem is that there were no organised forces representing such a radical goal and pursuing it with a coherent strategy. That is why it was obvious to me that it would take a long time before the process comes to conclusion. And there is no certainty whatsoever that the process will end up with the required progressive kind of change. What is certain is that, short of such a change, the region will keep living through turmoil and violence. The problem is that there were no organised forces representing such a radical goal and pursuing it with a coherent strategy. by Al Jazeera: But what about two months before the Egyptian revolution, when the World Bank issued a report with a positive assessment of the economic outlook in Egypt? Achcar: Well, it so happens that two years before the Egyptian revolution, in 2009, I wrote a critique of the international financial institutions assessment of the Egyptian economy, at a time when economic indicators were showing a positive trend. In my critique, I explained that this was only a result of the surge in oil prices at that time, that it was not going to last, and that social tensions in Egypt were actually worsening. That said, a political explosion of the magnitude of what happened in 2011 must necessarily be triggered by a convergence of various factors. It is never a single issue that produces such a big regional explosion as we have seen. If the uprising was limited to a single Arab country, one could believe that any factor particular to that country was the root cause. But the upheaval engulfed the whole Arab region, a fact that requires us to investigate what explosive factors are common to all of these countries. The most important of those is the structural socioeconomic crisis. Of course, other factors are involved, such as various political factors: for instance, the destabilising effect of the US occupation of Iraq in 2003, which affected the whole region. Al Jazeera: But those depressing socioeconomic conditions existed for a long time. Why did they trigger the change at this particular moment, and not before? Achcar: The question is not why the region exploded in 2011, but rather why it took it so long to explode. I say this because the regional situation has been explosive for such a long time. If we put the question differently and ask Why did it start in Tunisia, why did Egypt follow, what is peculiar to these two countries?, we will find that these are the two Arab countries where the social crisis found its clearest expression in struggle. In Tunisia, there were a number of local uprisings before the one that became the national uprising. The previous uprisings remained regional, but they were quite important nevertheless. The Sidi Bouzid uprising in December 2010 started also as a regional one: It spread nationally as a result of the long accumulation of anger and struggles that preceded it. Tunisia has the strongest organised genuine workers movement in the whole region. At rank-and-file and intermediary levels, it was acting as an opposition force that was not controlled by [former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine] Ben Alis regime. The Tunisian workers union played a key role in organising the extension of the uprising, and then in toppling the president. Egypt, for its part, had seen the most important wave of workers strikes in its history from 2006 up to 2011. So in the two countries where the regional upheaval started, an accumulation of social struggles had prepared the ground for the uprising, a confirmation of the fact that the issue is socioeconomic at the core. Al Jazeera: In your research, you emphasise the role played by the labour movement. Why is the labour movement such an important component in the revolutionary process? Achcar: It would be difficult to call it a movement in Egypts case because it is not organised, so its better to speak of a labour struggle. These struggles are important because they are the most direct expression of the core problem, of the socioeconomic problem. In both Egypt and Tunisia, strikes and social struggles could unfold, unlike in many countries in the region, such as Libya or Syria, that were so repressive that no such struggles were possible in them. In both Egypt and Tunisia, it was possible for a social movement to build up, as well as for a political opposition, albeit within limits. When the uprising started, it could take the form of gigantic mass mobilisations, whereas the logical continuation of the strict prohibition of any social or political struggle by the Libyan and Syrian regimes was in the way they dealt with demonstrations, attempting to crush them in a much bloodier way than what happened in Tunisia or Egypt. But toppling the president in the last two countries left the bulk of the repressive state. Al Jazeera: What went wrong then? Would you say that people were too naive, that the revolutionaries did not study their own societies and did not know what type of state they were up against? Achcar: Well, that is exactly the problem of the leadership, of the political vanguards in social movements that are able to give political guidance. For example, take the 25 January Revolution, as it is called: It was a great moment, a huge historical event, but the uprising was dominated by huge illusions held by the protest movement. Although it was initiated by opposition groups, part of which were very radical, the largest part of that protest movement was composed of traditional political forces that joined the movement, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists. These forces played a key role in fostering illusions about the army in particular. So the protest movement ended up requesting that the army remove [former Egyptian President] Hosni Mubarak. There was a repetition of that in a much shorter sequence from June 30 to July 3, 2013. In both cases, we have seen a gigantic mass mobilisation asking the army to topple the president on its behalf. The terrible illusion is that, whereas the uprisings main slogan was The people want to bring down the regime, very few understood that the army is the backbone of the regime, and that it has been so for decades. The regime could not be reduced to Hosni and Gamal Mubarak and their cronies. These were just the tip of the iceberg. The backbone of the regime was the army, which was transformed since the Sadat era into a big business group and an economic force on top of its political role. One cannot blame ordinary people for holding such illusions and buying into the image that the armed forces projected of themselves, but this is where there was a lack of radical leadership able to explain to the people what was at stake. The hope remains that the vast mass of the people can learn from their own experience, but it is not that easy. The people in Egypt may get to understand that the army is part of the problem, not part of the solution, but the old-new regime is scaring them by asserting that the alternative to the problem that it represents is a worse problem still. That is the ultimate ideological card of all Arab regimes nowadays. They claim: It is either us or Syria, Libya, Daesh [ISIL]. Al Jazeera: Some argue that the very fact that these were leaderless movements was a key reason for their success. How would you respond to this? Achcar: Those who say so confuse the absence of charismatic leaderships with the absence of leaderships in general. The fact, however, is that political and social networks and coalitions have led the uprising everywhere. The problem is that even those forces that I regard as progressive have been oscillating between the old regime and its religious fundamentalist opposition. Ultimately, both the old regime and its religious opposition were deeply opposed to the revolutionary process, and yet the progressive left and liberal forces went switching from an alliance with the latter (the religious opposition) against the former (the old regime) to an alliance with the former against the latter. This oscillation is disastrous. This short-sightedness of the existing progressive movements in the region is the main problem that needs to be overcome if there is ever to be any progressive outcome of the revolutionary process. Short of this, we will see more of this deeply degenerative process that we are witnessing now, with more brutal dictatorial regimes on the one hand, and on the other hand the emergence of Daesh and the like what I call the clash of barbarisms. Al Jazeera: By progressive do you mean the liberal/secular, which is the non-religious opposition? This short-sightedness of the existing progressive movements in the region is the main problem that needs to be overcome if there is ever to be any progressive outcome of the revolutionary process. by Achcar: By progressive I mean all those who are for social equality and for democracy, knowing that there is no true democracy without secularism properly understood. There can be no democracy without a separation between religion and state. Religion should not interfere with the state, and likewise the state should not meddle with religion. Religion should be the sphere of individual freedom: If a woman wants to wear the hijab or not, this is her personal freedom no one should impose that on her, whether state or even family. Freedom goes both ways. So the matter is not religious versus secular, where secular is progressive and religious is oppressive. One can very well be religious and progressive, or secular and oppressive. Al Jazeera: One of the issues raised during the Arab Spring was precisely those binary codes, like secular versus Islamist, and the revolutionaries were bogged down in such polarising debates. Achcar: But these are completely phoney debates. For example, is [Egyptian President] Abdel Fattah el-Sisi secular? Is the Salafi Nour party, which supports him, a secular party? Those who portray Sisi as being secular are in fact seeking an excuse to support him. This includes many of the self-declared progressives who try to justify their stance in support of the military. Neither Sisi nor [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad are secularists. Sisi, like Mubarak before him, relies on the Salafists while Assad allowed Salafism in Syria years before the uprising, because they both believe that the Salafists are conservative forces which can dampen opposition. This is no secularism at all. The issue here is that those who are motivated by a phobia of Islamic fundamentalism for whatever reasons are making a huge error in believing that dictatorship is the remedy or antidote to religious drift. Al Jazeera: Would you agree with those who say that all has not been lost in the Egyptian revolution? Achcar: I would say that not only it is not finished, but it is actually still at the beginning. I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but what I have been saying from the beginning is that this is a long process with ups and downs. Knowing that it is a historical process prevents you from falling into a constant change of mood. The first two years of the revolutionary process were years of upsurge, which were followed by a backlash. There will be many other stages, though. The revolutionary potential is still very much there. Take the case of Egypt: The fact that, in the last election, the participation rate in Cairo was 19 percent according to official figures indicates that the bulk of the people are not adhering to the regime. Of course, a lot of people fall into passivity and resignation because they believe that the alternative to this unpalatable regime would be even worse. Thats precisely what the regime wants them to believe: The war on terror has become the main argument of all repressive regimes. Nevertheless, workers struggles are taking place in Egypt in defiance of an anti-protest law that is more repressive than the legislation under Mubarak. This tells us that the war on terror argument will only work for a while, but eventually, sooner or later, the socioeconomic crisis that led to the explosion in the first place will lead again to new explosions. The recent protests in Tunisia are the best illustration of what I am saying. My only fear is that the dictatorial regimes, on a background of social and economic crisis, will be feeding the form of terrorism that Daesh represents. Young people may seek any kind of force that looks like being radically opposed to the existing order. We know from various studies that many of those who joined Daesh did not join it for religious reasons, but because they were attracted by its radical and violent stance against the old regime, which they came to hate to a high degree. The only antidote to this danger is the emergence of a really progressive radical alternative. Al Jazeera: What do you teach your students about the Arab Spring today? Achcar: I dont call it Arab Spring, but Arab uprising. What I teach is still the same, in part since I need the students to understand the deep structural roots and causes of the regional upheaval in order for them to understand its nature as a historical process, and the nature of the phase that we are presently witnessing. My next book, Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising, which will come out in the spring, analyses the current stage of counter-revolution and backlash. There will be several other stages and episodes until either we see the emergence of really progressive leaderships capable of steering the region towards a progressive alternative to the old order, as I said earlier, or the whole Arab region will sink into civilisational collapse. It happened once in its history with the sacking of Baghdad in 1258, and it may happen again. This should be an inspiration for resolute action to build a progressive alternative, rather than for despair. President tells authorities to take all measures to open frontier for the first time since the Souths 2011 secession. Sudans President Omar al-Bashir has ordered the opening of his countrys border with South Sudan for the first time since the south seceded in 2011 to become an independent nation. Relations have been tense between the two countries since the south declared independence following a long civil war, taking with it three-quarters of the countrys oil. Sudans SUNA state news agency said late on Wednesday that al-Bashir issued a decree ordering the opening of the border and directed the relevant authorities to take all measures required to implement this decision on the ground. The move comes after South Sudanese President Salva Kiir on Monday ordered his countrys military to retreat 5km from the border. He then went on to announce a normalisation of relations between the two neighbours on Tuesday, in response to al-Bashir agreeing to cut transit fees for South Sudanese oil crossing its territory via a pipeline to the Red Sea last week. The decision to close the border in 2011 came shortly after the start of an uprising in Sudans South Kordofan state by the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement North. The two states, which accuse each other of backing armed rebellions against their respective governments, decided in November to revive the demilitarised zone which is on the border and had been agreed upon in 2012. READ MORE: South Sudan marks two years of war South Sudan descended into conflict in December 2013 after Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar, whom he had sacked earlier that year, of plotting a coup. Clashes that followed set off a cycle of retaliatory killings that have split the worlds newest country along ethnic lines, forcing one million people from their homes, and leaving four million hungry. Authorities prepare to deport tens of thousands with failed asylum claims after record 163,000 applications last year. Swedish authorities have asked police and the countrys migration agency to prepare expulsions of up to 80,000 refugees and migrants who arrived in 2015 and whose applications for asylum could be rejected. We are talking about 60,000 people, but the number could climb to 80,000, Interior Minister Anders Ygeman told the Dagens Industri daily business newspaper on Thursday. More than 160,000 people sought asylum in Sweden last year. About 55 percent of applications are expected to be accepted. In 2014, Sweden received half as many asylum seekers 81,000. The same year, about 35,000 people were granted asylum. Sweden, which is home to 9.8 million people, is one of the European Union countries that has taken in the largest number of refugees in relation to its population. Among the asylum seekers were 51,000 Syrians, 41,500 Afghans and nearly 21,000 Iraqis. The EU Commission said that it voiced support for Swedens announcement, with a spokesperson saying member states have an obligation to return people who lack grounds for asylum. Natasha Bertaud told reporters that the EU should beware of giving an impression that the union has an open door, even for people without need for asylum. Ygeman said that the expulsions normally carried out using commercial flights would have to be done using specially chartered aircraft, given the large numbers, staggered over several years. The number of refugee arrivals has dropped dramatically since stricter rules for residence permits were announced and Sweden enacted systematic photo ID checks on travellers on January 4. The latest developments come as Europe struggles to deal with a crisis that has seen tens of thousands of refugees arrive on Greek beaches, undeterred by cold, wintry conditions and deadly seas. The United Nations says that more than 46,000 people have arrived in Greece so far this year, with more than 170 people killed making the dangerous crossing. Overcrowded asylum centres Swedish officials on Tuesday called for greater security at overcrowded asylum centres, a day after the fatal stabbing of an employee at a facility for unaccompanied refugee youths. The death led to questions about overcrowded conditions inside some centres, with too few adults and employees to take care of children, many traumatised by war. In neighbouring Denmark, meanwhile, the government this week approved legislation to seize the valuables of refugees to help pay for resettlement costs. Humanitarian chief says Security Council took action on chemical arms but has not done enough for besieged communities. The United Nations says the number of besieged areas in Syrias conflict has risen to 18, up from 15 earlier this month, with as many as half a million people now affected. As the UN hopes to get Syrian parties to begin peace talks on Friday in Geneva, the organisations humanitarian chief and the head of the World Food Programme on Wednesday called upon Syrias government to allow sustained access to besieged areas and to the estimated 4.5 million people in hard-to-reach areas. Stephen OBrien, the UNs under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, also urged those attending the talks in Geneva this week to put people before politics. You have taken action on chemical weapons in Syria, he told the Security Council. But for the millions of people trapped under siege, malnourished and lacking basic supplies, this Council has simply not done enough. We have left those people with no hope. They believe that the world has forgotten them. Officials said the rare convoys that reached a few besieged communities earlier this month, after images of starved Syrian children were widely shared online, were not enough and that the food delivered would soon run out. The convoys were given access when a deal was struck between the Syrian government and rebels to allow supplies into besieged areas. Trucks reached Madaya, west of Damascus, and later, two towns in Idlib Fouaa and Kefraya. READ MORE: Weakened, cold and starving to d-h in Syrian town Reports and photos of emaciated bodies showed the consequences of a six-month siege on thousands of starving families in Madaya. Aid agencies have said that the food supplies to the three towns were probably enough to last a month, underscoring the need for more aid. One-off access is not the kind of access we need to prevent starvation, OBrien told reporters. He also called for immediate medical evacuations from besieged areas for the sick and wounded. OBrien called the idea of air-dropping aid to besieged areas risky and insufficient, but diplomats said all options were still being discussed. Ertharin Cousin, the WFP chief, told reporters that for airdrops to happen, her agency would need to secure airspace, assurances that the aid gets to the most vulnerable and enough space on the ground to safely drop the large tonnages necessary to be meaningful food aid. The UN says food aid reached less than 1 percent of people in besieged areas last year. About 181,000 are besieged by Syrias government, and about 200,000 are besieged by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group. Cousin said it was just a matter of time before the world again sees the kind of images of suffering Syrians that caused international outrage and the rare aid convoys earlier this month. Negotiators say they will go to Switzerland only if conditions, including an end to air strikes and sieges, are met. The main Syrian opposition bloc has said it will not attend peace talks scheduled to begin in Geneva on Friday, in another setback to diplomatic efforts to end the five-year-long war. The High Negotiations Committee (HNC), an opposition platform created in Saudi Arabia last month, said its delegation would not attend the talks because they had not received convincing answers from the UN to a set of demands for their participation. Their conditions include a lifting of sieges, a halt to air strikes and the release of wrongfully detained prisoners of conscience. For certain we will not head to Geneva and there will not be a delegation from the High Negotiations Committee tomorrow in Geneva, George Sabra, a member of HNC, was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency on Thursday. The already delayed talks have been mired in controversy and disagreements over who should attend representing the opposition. Al Jazeeras James Bays, reporting from Geneva on Friday morning, said that a Syrian government delegation was expected to arrive in Geneva but no actual negotiations could take place in the absence of the main opposition groups. They cannot start negotiating because although there are some opposition players here, none of the main opposition groups the list of opposition political players and fighting groups drawn up in Saudi Arabia are here. They say they want their demands met before they fly to Geneva, so the talks process is starting [but] the actual negotiation is very much delayed and on hold. He added: Most diplomats think probably if there are some concessions in the right language it might be possible to persuade them [to attend the talks[ but its going to be a very difficult decision for the opposition members in Riyadh. Syrians under siege left with no hope: UN official On Thursday, UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura appeared in a video message directly addressing the Syrian people, saying that the talks were expected to start in the next few days. Earlier in the week, de Mistura said the negotiations were expected to last for six months and would push for a nationwide ceasefire for all parties, other than the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and al-Nusra Front armed groups. The Syrian conflict has killed at least 250,000 people, according to the UN, and more than half of Syrias prewar population of 22.4 million has been internally displaced or fled abroad. Students and teachers defy daily threat of violence as UNICEF says one in every four schools has been destroyed. The United Nations has warned that 2.5 million children could be displaced as refugees from Syria by the end of 2016 and that an entire generation risks having their future compromised. School enrolment rates, among the highest in the world before the war, have fallen dramatically, with only 17 percent of children displaced within Syria now in school in some of the areas worst hit by fighting and indiscriminate air strikes, enrolment rates are as low as 6 percent. A total of two million Syrian children are out of school, an annual report released by UNICEF for 2015 said. In Aleppo, Syrias largest city, air strikes and rocket attacks are an almost daily occurrence. The city is controlled by government forces in the west and rebels in the east. Nour, a ninth-grade pupil in the rebel-held part, told Al Jazeera via a local activist that for a long time she had to stop going to school because it was too dangerous. We are afraid of going to school, because many of the schools around us have been bombed and students have been killed while they were in class, she said. Some people are killed instantly and buried under the rubble, but yet we will continue waking up and going to school. Talking about her hopes for the future, Nour said she wants to be a history teacher when she grows up so she can tell her pupils what kind of childhood she had. IN PICTURES: Young Syrians dream of home Aid group Save the Children said in a report released in November that there have been more than 4,000 attacks on schools inside Syria over the past four years. But Abdul Rahman Kanjo, a history teacher in Aleppo since 2009, said he is not afraid of going to work. Just as a fighter is not afraid of going to the frontline, a teacher who educates children in such circumstances should not be afraid of going to work, he told Al Jazeera. It seems that this war will drag on, and we cannot have our children staying without an education. Despite the relentless war, Kanjo has not lost hope. I believe there is a brighter future for the children of Syria. We just need to help them reach it. It is not only violence that is preventing children from getting an education. Many children in Aleppo have left school to help provide for their families by working. Al Jazeera spoke to several children who said they stopped attending classes to help their families to survive. Zakariya Abu al-Noor, a physics and chemistry teacher for high-school pupils, said teachers in Aleppo would continue to teach despite the air strikes. VOICES FROM SYRIA: The safest place is the front line Today we live in a constant state of war. Our whole lives have changed what we wear, what we eat, where we live, he said. I personally was in school when three air strikes took place and I was lucky, but many others were not. The people who really care for Syria, and I dont mean those meeting in Geneva, have to know that we need them to help provide an education for these children and we call for protection of schools and residential areas, Abu al-Noor said. Rose Foley, from the UNICEF media office, told Al Jazeera that some Syrian children of school age have never started school; they do not know what a classroom looks like. She said one in every four schools is destroyed, damaged or occupied. Around 5,000 schools can no longer be used as schools because they have been bombed, destroyed, or damaged, or theyre sheltering displaced persons. Some are being used by armed groups, Foley said. Scared of going to school Ismail, an eighth-grade pupil, said he lost a friend when an air strike hit his school. He was in 7th grade and shrapnel hit his head, killing him instantly, Ismail said. I get so frightened when I hear the sound of warplanes approaching. The air strikes in Aleppo target random places, mosques, schools, public places. He said he had always wanted to become a surgeon. I am not thinking of ever leaving home. I will grow up and be part of the new Syria, he explained. We will rebuild it once we grow up. I hope I can live to see a Syria free of destruction and war. INSIDE STORY: Who is responsible for Syrias malnourished children? Foley said there were more than two million children in Syria living in hard-to-reach areas, including under siege. We are calling for unimpeded, unconditional and sustained access everywhere in Syria to be able to reach the most vulnerable, she said. In 2015, UNICEF gave access to learning material to more than a million children in Syria, including those in hard-to-reach areas, through printing and distribution of textbooks. The war in Syria, which is entering its sixth year in March, has left more than 250,000 people killed and displaced more than half of the countrys prewar population of 22.4 million. Trip to disputed South China Sea islet by President Ma also draws a rare rebuke from staunch ally the US. Taiwans outgoing president visited an island in the disputed South China Sea on Thursday and called for peaceful development in the increasingly tense region. The move was likely to infuriate China and other nations that stake a claim to the area, and drew a rare rebuke from staunch ally the United States. Accompanied by about 30 staff members, Ma Ying-jeou left the capital Taipei aboard an air force C-130 cargo plane bound for Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba. Taiwan is spending more than $100m to upgrade the islands airstrip and build a wharf capable of allowing its 3,000-tonne coast guard cutters to dock. All this evidence fully demonstrates that Taiping Island is able to sustain human habitation and an economic life of its own. Taiping Island is categorically not a rock, but an island, Ma said. Taiping lies in the Spratly island group, an area where Taiwan shares overlapping claims with China, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. The city state of Brunei also claims a part of the South China Sea. Roughly 2,000km south of Taiwan, Taiping is the largest naturally occurring island in the area. There was no immediate response to Mas visit from China, although a spokesman for the Beijings Taiwan Affairs Office on Wednesday repeated its claim to indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands. The Philippines, which occupies a string of islands and reefs near the island Ma visited, expressed its concern. We remind all parties concerned of our shared responsibility to refrain from actions that can increase tension in the South China Sea, Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Charles Jose said in Manila. Ma, who has been criticised at home as weak on foreign policy, must step down in May because of term limits after eight years in office, and analysts said he considers the island visit a capstone to his time in office. READ MORE: China summons US envoy over sale of warships to Taiwan Opposition party president-elect Tsai Ing-wen declined an invitation to go on the trip. President Ma views advancing [Taiwans] maritime interests as part of his legacy, said Bonnie Glaser, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank in Washington. His visit to Taiping will further incite nationalistic fervour in the claimant countries and increase tensions. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the US was disappointed by Mas trip. We view it, frankly, as raising tensions rather than what we want to see, which is de-escalation, he said. Begging has been a feature of life for as long as there have been poor people with nothing, and more affluent people with money to give to them. It is certainly a common sight on the streets of towns and cities around the world today. Its practitioners often ignored, sometimes despised and abused, occasionally helped are frequently the target of official disapproval or legal restriction of some kind, and are moved on, out of view, out of mind. Yet they will always return, hoping and trusting in the charity of strangers. So what lies behind this phenomenon in the globalised 21st century, supposedly richer than all the centuries that preceded it but apparently no better at dividing wealth equitably between the haves and the have-nots? For most who do it, begging must surely be a matter of dire necessity rather than an occupation that a person would readily turn to though, yes, for a few, it may also be a matter of choice. But how do different cultures respond to their presence and their appeals for help? We sent Al Jazeera correspondent Barnaby Phillips and producer Karim Shah in search of answers. FILMMAKERS VIEW By Barnaby Phillips When it comes to beggars, Im confused. If I walk past one on the streets of London, I feel both guilt and embarrassment. Sometimes, Im not proud to say, I feel a flash of irritation at beggars for making me uncomfortable in this way. Occasionally I stop and give one some money, but usually I hurry on by. I suspect most Londoners feel and behave in a similar way. On the other hand, if Im in a poorer country, for example on a work assignment, Im much more likely to fish around in my pockets for some money and give it to a beggar. Perhaps my feelings of guilt in a developing country are stronger; often the fact that the beggar is a child makes it that much harder to walk on by. In other words, my approach to beggars is inconsistent and ill-thought out. So I was intrigued when my editors at Al Jazeera asked me to make a half-hour film about beggars around the world. We decided to choose two very different countries Sweden and the Philippines. We wanted to see how beggars perceive themselves in these countries, and to compare popular and official attitudes towards them. We chose the Philippines, and its capital Manila, as an example of an Asian megacity, a place known to have large numbers of beggars on its streets amid glaring inequalities of wealth. Of course no two places are exactly alike, but we hoped it was representative of the kind of social problems and challenges we might have found in several other such countries. Sweden was a more intriguing choice. Until very recently, Sweden did not have a begging problem. That has changed in recent years as thousands of Roma people, mostly from Romania, have moved to Sweden and started to beg in cities and even small towns across the country. For the Swedes, this has been a profoundly unsettling development. Swedes like to think, with some justification, that they belong to an open and tolerant society. But if Sweden has usually dealt with the outside world under its own terms, for example through its generous aid budget, that is now changing. Today the worlds problems are coming to Sweden, not just in the form of beggars, but, in an entirely separate development, with the arrival of tens of thousands of refugees from Syria and elsewhere. This is causing social tension in Sweden, and there is now a very active debate about whether begging should be made illegal. The right-wing Sweden Democrats Party has made this one of its main policy proposals, and it is rising in the polls. In the Philippines, by contrast, it is difficult to imagine begging becoming a major political issue. Not because the problem isnt shocking in Manila, but because popular attitudes towards beggars are so different to those in Sweden. Beggars, a wealthy Filipino told me with a regretful shrug, will always be there. One great irony is that begging in the Philippines is already illegal, but the law is rarely enforced. Only when Manila comes under the international spotlight, for example during a Papal visit or major summit, do the authorities embark on a frenzied attempt to remove beggars from the streets. Otherwise they are tolerated, and the presence of even young child beggars is apparently accepted as inevitable. In some ways, this was an easy film to make. I had worried that the Roma beggars in Sweden would be closed and suspicious. Often, they are accused of belonging to and being controlled by criminal gangs. In fact, they proved to be welcoming to our cameras, and eager to get their point of view across. In Manila, people living in great poverty and difficulty were extremely accommodating and gracious. So what did we discover? Well, please watch the film. But one or two conclusions are obvious. We live in an age of migration. Unprecedented numbers of people are on the move, looking for a better life. Many of the beggars in Manila have travelled from the poorer provinces of the Philippines, just as the Roma in Sweden have travelled from one of the poorest to the richest countries in the European Union. It is almost impossible to prevent these movements, whether we like it or not. We also live in an age of growing inequality. Just this month the aid organisation Oxfam released a report saying that the richest 62 billionaires own as much as the poorest 50 percent of the worlds poorest population. Or, to put it another way, the richest 1 percent own more wealth than the remaining 99 percent of humanity. It seems to me that this combination of increased migration and inequality makes the presence of beggars inevitable. In the short term we can seek to move them on or lock them up and in the film you will see examples of both but they will always come back. Get used to beggars, because until we deal with the very root causes of poverty and injustice, they are not going anywhere. That brings me back to my age-old conundrum; to give or not to give? I met some truly admirable people in Sweden and the Philippines who work with beggars to improve their lot. Their advice, invariably, was that giving in the street may assuage guilt (and the short-term hunger) of the immediate recipient, but it does little to alleviate the problem. If you really want to help beggars in your local community, find the organisations who are working with them day-in and day-out, offering training, education and so on, and give them your spare change. Poor people, be it in Manila or Malmo, need holistic solutions to structural problems, not passing acts of charity. Gainesville Regional Airport is undergoing renovations after flying a record number of passengers. According to American Airlines and Delta Air, 217,355 people flew out of Gainesville last year, breaking the previous record set in 1990, which was 216,463. To accommodate more passengers, the airport is adding more restrooms to the area past security, said Laura Aguiar, the manager of public relations and governmental affairs at Gainesville Regional Airport. They are also thinking about expanding to have two security lanes and increase parking. I think this milestone is just a reflection on a lot of good things going on in our community, she said. Aguiar said as more people choose to fly out of Gainesville, additional airlines might use the airport, giving access to more cities, she said. Airlines are always looking for people to sell their market to, and locals want a convenient airport that is close to them and flies out of a lot of places, Aguiar said. Construction has already begun at the airport, she said. Right now, there are crews adding more space to hold larger aircrafts. Ultimately, the airport wants to open up a west concourse, Aguiar said. Space is becoming an issue due to larger capacity aircrafts and double the amount of people coming through each day. It can get a little packed, especially early in the morning, she said. Riley Cutler, a UF advertising junior, said she flies out of Gainesville when she goes home to Virginia. She said she has noticed more passengers at the airport now than in the past. Cutler, unlike most out-of-state students, said she chooses to use the Gainesville airport instead of going to larger airports because its cheaper and more convenient. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now By the time you add up how much money it takes to rent a car and get to these other airports, like Tampa or Orlando, its just easier to fly local, the 20-year-old said. The growing number of passengers helps keep the airport in business, said Susan Crowley, the assistant vice president for community relations at UF. Gainesville Regional Airport attracts faculty as well as business and technological leaders who travel all over the world, she said. There could also be more flights during the day in the future. A meeting will take place next month with various airline companies to talk about expanding services, Aguiar said. If our numbers continue to grow, there could possibly be a flight going to New York, Crowley said. That would be tremendous. In 2014, West Africa experienced one of the worst catastrophes in modern history. It was not a civil war or natural disaster of a physical sort, but rather, a virus known as Ebola. What started out as a few unconfirmed reports eventually developed into one of the worst epidemics in medical history. This quickly created fear not only in Africa, but also in the rest of the world. It was thanks to the doctors on the ground and international aid that the virus did not spread farther. The panic surrounding Ebola showed that, when it comes to monitoring and preventing epidemics, the immediate response from the international community leaves much to be desired. It has been nearly two years since the Ebola outbreak, and although it has been successfully contained, it seems we are making the same mistakes with the Zika virus. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Zika virus is usually found in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. At the end of 2015, reports showed that the virus had made its way to Brazil. Since that time, the virus has spread throughout a considerable portion of South and Central America. This rapid spread is probably due to the vector through which the virus is transferred mosquitos. The symptoms of the virus are nothing new, nor are they deadly. Most patients experience fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis. These conditions usually last a few days, but there is a new development that has created a profound cause for concern in the countries already contending with Zika. The virus has been linked to microcephaly, a condition in which babies are born with unusually small heads. In Brazil, nearly 4,000 babies have been born with this condition since the outbreak of the virus. Many experts suggest this is due to pregnant mothers contracting the virus during pregnancy. This article is not meant to spread fear of a virus that has not yet shown up in the U.S. Rather, it is meant to show not only the inability regional governments possess in dealing with pandemics, but also the inability of the international community as a whole. The fears of Ebola were only taken seriously when the risk of transmission posed a threat to Europe and the U.S. Until that time, it was reserved mostly for the back pages of newspapers. The international community spent nearly $4.3 billion to end the outbreak of Ebola in 2014, according to the Save the Children foundation. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now The organization also cited that having the proper health care infrastructure to prevent the spread of Ebola in the first place would have only cost about $1.58 billion. As globalization has made the world smaller, we need to collectively realize that viruses and outbreaks can affect every person on Earth at a frighteningly fast rate, and as such, we should be better prepared. It is clear that countries such as Brazil, which has had over a million reported cases of Zika, could probably use some assistance from the CDC or the World Health Organization. El Salvadors master plan to stop Zika is to ask its citizens to stop having children for two years. This plan is impossible to enforce and impossible to achieve, and it will not only fail to stop the virus, but it will also produce severe consequences for the countrys future. The first step to solving a problem is understanding it. The U.S. and other countries prone to the Zika virus need to educate their respective citizenry and put measures into place in order to prevent infections before they start. At the same time, countries that are already afflicted need to be given assistance in mitigating the crisis at hand. Kevin Foster is a UF political science senior. His column appears on Thursdays. On Wednesday afternoon, the UF Election Commission decided to allow an amendment about online voting to appear on the Spring 2016 Student Government election ballot. This means, in two weeks, UF students will be able to vote for or against online voting for future SG elections. If passed, the amendment would allow students to not only vote on campus, but also online through ISIS. With ISIS already protecting our Social Security numbers and personal information, we at the Alligator are comfortable with the site also handling our election votes. While youll be deprived of your ability to sport an I voted sticker around campus, this does mean youll be able to cast your vote for SG candidates from anywhere you want. Not only does this make things easier for those of us in the city of Gainesville, but it also makes things a lot easier for students still enrolled but not anywhere near a voting station. And we at the Alligator couldnt be happier except for the fact that it took SG this long to give the Student Body the option to consider online voting. Online voting was first shut down in 2008 by the UF Supreme Court for reasons we still dont understand. Ever since then, SG hasnt bothered to consider it, even as Florida State University, the University of South Florida and the University of Central Florida have all managed to successfully implement online voting systems. It brings up the simple question: If they can do it, why cant we? The amendments language on the ballot was challenged by UF Supervisor of Elections Erica Baker. In a memo, she argued against the original petition simply because the wording implied that students in UFs Pathway to Campus Enrollment program, online students and those studying abroad could not currently vote. Right now, they can vote through absentee ballots. As journalists, we completely understand how a single word can completely warp meaning and intentions. But in this situation, the wording of the petition wont affect the amendments outcome. It will still make things much easier for PaCE and off-campus students to vote, regardless of potential misconceptions, and thats what matters. Simply put, the amendment, if approved, would surely help increase our dismal election turnout. When it comes down to it, Bakers duty as supervisor is to encourage students to vote and to make that process as easy as possible. We believe this amendment will give all students equal opportunity to vote. But in two weeks, all of this may not matter. Because if the amendment doesnt receive at least 60 percent of student support, this possibility is gone. And having come so far, it would most likely be very difficult for it to gain traction again. Thats why, readers, its up to you. We cannot stress enough how important it is, more than ever, for you to vote in this years Spring elections. Not only will you be voting for the people who will control millions of dollars in your student fees (a whole other issue entirely), but youll be voting to give your fellow Gators abroad, online and at home the chance to have their voices heard for the first time in UF history. So, on Feb. 16 and 17, we at the Alligator encourage our fellow students to vote in favor of the online voting amendment. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now Because if you walk to the polls then, you may not have to ever again. In September 2011, cartoonists Tom Hart and Leela Corman moved from New York City to Gainesville with their young daughter, Rosalie. Two months later, Rosalie died suddenly and unexpectedly. Rosalie Lightning is a graphic memoir by Tom Hart about the untimely death of his daughter and the series of tragic events and grief that followed. The memoir was released in hardcover Jan. 12. I just wrote to stay sane for a long time. I compiled binders and binders full of notes, Hart said. Hart, having written books before, knew it was likely his notes would eventually become a book. In the comics classes he teaches at both UF and at the Sequential Artists Workshop, the act of helping something internal finds form externally. Turning his grief into a book appeared to be the best way to make sense of the situation. In April 2012, Hart began to draw and turn the binders full of notes into a book that chronicles Harts memories of Rosalie and the journey of grief and rebirth that followed her death. Wild Iris Books, an independent bookstore in Gainesville, hosted a release party Jan. 15 after Rosalie Lightning was released. Erica Merrell, co-owner of the bookstore, said when they found out Hart was releasing a book, it was natural for the store to partner with him to hold the release party. This was actually one of our first author sellings where I totally sold out. Weve done lots of online orders Im even shipping a book to Sweden today, Merrell said. It is one of the bravest, most vulnerable, beautiful things I have ever read, Merrell said. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now She said she thinks Harts honesty about grief, confusion, healing and all the pieces of the human condition that come with tragedy is incredibly brave and beautiful. Many of the characters in the book are people from the Gainesville community. Hart met his wife in the late 1990s when he lived in Gainesville before moving to New York City. Their network of friends in Gainesville was one of the reasons for relocating in 2011. It was also their support system during their grief. One of Harts oldest friends in Gainesville took the couple in for two weeks following Rosalies death. The support and comfort of friendship is heavily featured in the book. Merrell said much of the book is about how the people around you can help heal you and help bring you back to life essentially after something that most of us cant even really wrap our brains around. Im certainly glad it didnt happen in New York City, Hart said. That would have been even harder. One of the dedications in Rosalie Lightning is to the couples younger daughter, Molly Rose. Molly Rose was born after Hart finished chapter five, a series of small panels on black pages that dont have much continuity and are used to portray the worst time in Harts grief. The following chapters about the comfort of friendship and rebirth were drawn during the first months of Molly Roses life. Hart would draw in their bedroom, surrounded by paper and ink, while his wife tended to their newborn daughter. Hart finished Rosalie Lightning during the summer of 2015. It was surprisingly liberating to call it done, Hart said. That day, he went on a bike ride and found himself going down streets he had previously avoided. I was surprised at how much better I felt, Hart said. Harts previous work in comics was often funny nothing as serious as Rosalie Lightning. Ive always had a very serious streak, which is one reason I think that funny comics work so well... I had a sort of seriousness underlying it, Hart said. He has some ideas of where he wants to go from here. His ideas are lighthearted, but they have a serious core. I dont want to lose the depth of storytelling I was able to achieve that I achieved here, but Im not sure exactly what will be next, Hart said. 2005 .. On January 28-29, U.S. Government officials, African energy experts, and private sector companies focused on advancing access to electricity in Africa will convene for the Powering Africa Summit. Power Africa partners will open the Summit with an in-depth conversation about the Power Africa Roadmap, which outlines how they will reach President Obamas goals of adding []http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Appa-sourceTheAfric... AR's Editor Joe Shea Talks About Elections On Iranian TV Bear Stearns Saved By Fed As Lehman Bros. Falters; Major Bank Failure Looms Over Wall Street, Sends Markets Into 200-Pt. Dive Lie Upon Lie Five Years Into the Iraq War The Administration Still Churns Out Lies by Randolph Holhut A Small Tragedy Even at 90, As Friends Turn Cool She Knows the Show Must Go On by Joyce Marcel I'll Take Me Imagine John Wayne or Arnold In Heels, Silk and a Girdle by Elizabeth Andrews Sen. Nelson Calls For New Fla. Primary; Gov Crist Backs 'Do-Over' Who'll Win? Ask Spock Spock.com Engine Predicts Winners By Site Searches; It Can be Wrong by Jay Bhatti Chatting Up The Cat God Gave Me Dominion Over Him But I Think He's a Non-Believer by Constance Daley Death of a Thug The Life and Horrors of Suharto by Andreas Harsono ___________________________ This Just In Sierra Club: McCain Ducked All 15 Key Votes On Green Laws (AR) A Work By AR's T.S. Kerrigan Is Chosen As 'Best Poem' By Wordpress Site Murder At Mile 63 The Deadly Assault and Bush Administration Cover-Up by S. Eben Kirkesby and Andreas Harsono 5427 14th St. West, Bradenton, FL 34207 $6.99 Fish Fridays! Manatee Co.'s Only 24-Hr. FREE Wi-Fi Paid Advertisement On Native Ground AFTER 5 YEARS, WE'RE STILL LIED TO ABOUT IRAQ by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Next week is the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. And it is likely that sometime in the next couple of weeks, the 4,000th American soldier will die in Iraq. [MORE] Momentum OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. - It's 1931, and a 14-year-old girl is standing alone on a stage. She's small and lively with dark curly hair, widespread hazel eyes, slender wrists and an open, eager face filled with the wonder of performing. Her name is Rose, and one day she will be my mother. But now she is performing an Eugene O'Neill monologue called "Before Breakfast" for a ladies' club in a wealthy suburb of Long Island. [MORE] One Woman's World COMFORTABLE WITH MYSELF by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- I'm not sure but I think I may be socially incorrect. [MORE] On Native Ground ENOUGH FOR A WAR, NOT FOR A PEOPLE by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Last week, the National Governors Assn. met in Washington, D.C. One of the tasks the NGA had on its agenda was to ask President Bush to increase federal spending on roads, bridges and other public works projects as a way to stimulate the economy. He rejected their pleas out of hand, claiming that infrastructure projects wouldn't offer any short-term economic boost. [MORE] Brasch Words BEWARE THE SELF-REVERENTIAL PRESS by Walter Brasch BLOOMSBURG, Pa. -- Shortly before the primary votes this past week, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter called Sen. Barack Obama's surge to the Democratic nomination "inevitable." It also called for Hillary Clinton to "start her campaign for Senate majority leader." [MORE] Constance A CONVERSATION WITH MY CAT Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- Normally, when the cat starts his evening rant of meowing continuously until he makes his point, I just take it as long as I can, pick him up, and put him in the garage for the night. He doesn't want to go, but the meowing stops and I don't care if he likes it or not. [MORE] Momentum OUT OF STRUGGLE, ART by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Here we are again at the crossroads of art and social change, having the opportunity to watch good and great films about the lives of women in support of the Women's Crisis Center. [MORE] Campaign 2008 HOW TO PREDICT SUPER TUESDAY II WINNERS? ONLINE SEARCH by Jay Bhatti NEW YORK, March 4, 2008, 7:00PM ET -- With the outcomes of the Texas, Vermont, Ohio and Rhode Island primaries to be decided tonight, how possible is it that online searching can predict who will win tonight's primaries? [MORE] One Woman's World DON'T VOTE; IT ENCOURAGES THEM by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- Call me angry and disgusted but don't call me un-American because I won't be voting come November. [MORE] On Native Ground BUSH AND THE KEYBOARD COMMANDOS by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- As the days tick down toward the eventual departure of President George W. Bush from the White House, it's a hopeful sign that most Americans are no longer moved by his Administration's constant exploitation of terrorism for political gain. [MORE] Momentum WHICH AMERICA DO YOU LIVE IN? by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- It's a little confusing. [MORE] Make My Dat THE LAWYER THAT ATE NEW YORK by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- I used to know a guy who, quite literally, didn't get hyperbole. He didn't understand exaggeration. As a result, he missed most jokes that came his way. [MORE] On Native Ground FIDEL RETIRES: NOW THE COLD WAR IS REALLY OVER by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Maybe now, we can finally say the Cold War is over. [MORE] Make My Dat THE LAWYER THAT ATE NEW YORK by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- I used to know a guy who, quite literally, didn't get hyperbole. He didn't understand exaggeration. As a result, he missed most jokes that came his way. [MORE] One Woman's World POLITICS IS NO PARTY by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- Are you having a hard time focusing your eyes? Do you have faint red spots all over your body? Is there a ringing in your ears and do you see wavy lines when you look at your television set? Do your hands shake when you try to hold a cup of coffee? And have you recently been forgetting what day of the week it is - or what year? [MORE] Make My Day FOR BETTER OR WORSE ... A LOT WORSE by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- "Marriage: It's Only Going to Get Worse." [MORE] Constance YOU CALL THESE RIGHTS? by Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- When you express an opinion you hope to persuade others to your point of view. It doesn't always happen but still, opinion writers try. [MORE] Momentum THE BRIDGE WOMAN by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. - Out there in America - yes, still - is a generation of women who were born in the 1940s, raised in the 1950s, and who came to radical consciousness in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I am one of them. Hillary Clinton is one of them. [MORE] On Native Ground OBAMA AND MY GENERATION by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- I originally planned on voting for Dennis Kucinich in the Vermont Primary on March 4. [MORE] The Willies: WARNING: THIS MEDICATION MAY MURDER YOUR FRIENDS by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla. -- You've heard the warnings, haven't you? Stop Prozac and you may take a shotgun, an Uzi or an AK-47 and mow down your family and friends, or even a whole classroom full of your fellow students. You didn't? Well, that warning is not on the bottle, but like countless mass-murder incidents before it, Friday's shootings at Northern Illinois University, as well as the Virginia Tech shootings that killed 32 last year, was probably precipitated by the effect of stopping medications that suppress anger and other powerful emotions but do not relieve the underlying cause. Isn't it time we started warning people - or stopped prescribing these medicines? [MORE] One Woman's World DON'T KNOCK ON MY DOOR by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- I wish I could feel delight in my poet's mansion being like Grand Central Station all the time, but I can't. And I wish my place was such a place that someone would one day write: "Her door was always open and she always made you feel all fuzzy and warm in her presence. She could make a cup of coffee seem like a banquet." [MORE] Reporting: Panama PANAMA'S VIOLENT LABOR UNREST INTENSIFIES Mark Scheinbaum PANAMA CITY, Panama, Feb, 15, 2008 -- After just one day of relative calm, wildcat construction strikes by some members of Panama's largest union flared up again Friday morning, four days after a police sniper shot one worker. More than 140 demonstrators have been injured and at least 500 arrested, authorities say. [MORE] Brasch Words TO STIMULATE ECONOMY, BUY A CHINESE-MADE U.S. FLAG by Walter Brasch BLOOMSBURG, Pa. -- Walking down Main Street, pushing a grocery cart loaded with clothes, toys, and appliances was Marshbaum. Fastened to the right front corner of the cart was an American flag tied onto a three-foot ruler. [MORE] Make My Day THE TOOTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TOOTH by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- To commemorate the death of noted shark exploder Roy Scheider, and the "Jaws" movies that resulted in Erik never setting foot in the ocean again, we are reprinting this column from 2003. Shark Experts 0, Sharks 1 [MORE] Momentum THE WINTER OF MY DISCONTENT by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. - As I write this, it's raining ice. Maybe a half a foot of snow and ice has already landed up here in the woods of Dummerston. Our cars are encased in it, and the door to the house is blocked. The satellite dish that brings in our Internet service quit about 20 minutes ago - frozen solid. [MORE] The Willies AMERICA TO HILLARY: GET OUT! by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Feb. 13, 2008 -- Sen. Hillary Clinton has adopted the Rudy Giuliani strategy, and it's working - for Sen. Barack Obama. It turns out to be the strategy all Democrats are seeking - an exit strategy. But it's not for Iraq. It's for her exit from the race for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination. [MORE] Constance CONFESSIONS OF A DISAPPOINTED VOTER by Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- A week ago at just about this time, I completed an article and was about to submit it as scheduled to The American Reporter. I was feeling rather elated, ready to show up on Super Tuesday morning, firmly touch the X next to Rudy Giuliani's name and get on with my day. He was my choice; he would get my vote. [MORE] Reporting: Florida SIERRA CLUB SET TO SUSPEND FLA. CHAPTER by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Feb. 10, 2008 -- The national Sierra Club is set to suspend its Florida chapter after years of divisive infighting, the president of the national club told Florida members in a letter delivered to some this weekend. It is the first time in its 116-year history that such a step has been considered by the club, according to news reports. [MORE] One Woman's World PLANT A NEW WORLD THIS SPRING by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- For a little while, the men will just have to toss and turn in their fear-free-women beds. For a small space of time Hillary Clinton will just have to trudge on toward the White House without my faint applause in the background. [MORE] On Native Ground VERMONT AND THE 5 STAGES OF CONSERVATIVE GRIEF by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- First, Vermont tried to convince the nation to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney. [MORE] Make My Day REBEL WITHOUT A TONGUE by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- Kids' brains work in amazing ways. At times, they can grasp complex concepts and make impressive discoveries. Other times, you have to wonder how we ever survived as a species. [MORE] The Willies FOR DEMOCRATS, NOW IT'S ABOUT RACE, INCOME AND GENDER by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Feb. 6, 2008 -- It's not a good time to be a Democrat. As the Super Tuesday results demonstrated, the presidential race between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has divided the partly along clear racial, income and gender lines - the very distinctions the party has sought to erase in principle but has emphasized in its pursuit of diversity. [MORE] Momentum SUPER TUESDAY BLUES by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Super Tuesday has come and gone and I still can't get excited about the upcoming presidential elections. [MORE] The Willies ON THE BRINK OF HISTORY, YOUR PUSH IS NEEDED by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Feb. 5. 2008 -- I'm expecting a sea change tonight. I believe that for the first time in this nation's history we will once and forever banish racism as the deciding factor in the destiny of African-Americans, and indeed adopt diversity as our path to the future. [MORE] Campaign 2008 AT 88, EVERY VOTE REALLY COUNTS by Ted Manna DENVER, Feb. 5, 2008 -- Pearl Turner will caucus for Mitt Romney tonight in Denver. [MORE] One Woman's World STAND BY YOUR WOMAN by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- The black vote. The gay vote. The fundamentalist vote. The Hispanic vote. [MORE] An AR Special SUSPECTS IN BENAZIR ASSASSINATION HAVE TIES TO MUSHARRAF by Ahmar Mustikhan WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When Gordon Brown this past Monday feted coup-leader-turned-President Pervez Musharraf at 10 Downing Street, Britain's new prime minister probably didn't ask the Pakistani dictator a question that is now on many minds: Did you order the murder of Benazir Bhutto? [MORE] Momentum TO THE VERMONT DELEGATION: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR US LATELY? by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. Back when President George W. Bush and Dick Vice President Dick Cheney were building up to their loathsome war in Iraq, very few people were brave enough to call the bullies' bluff. [MORE] On Native Ground IF BUSH HAS HIS WAY, WE'LL NEVER LEAVE IRAQ by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. - In his final State of the Union address on Jan. 28, President Bush cautioned against accelerating U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq, saying that it would endanger the process that has been made over the past year. [MORE] Campaign 2008 CLASH OF COMMENTS AND PROTESTORS AT CLINTON, OBAMA RALLIES IN DENVER by Ted Manna DENVER, Feb. 1, 2008 -- At least four presidential campaigns of both partiers rolled into in Denver this week ahead of the Feb. 5 "Super Tuesday" primaries in 22 states, but it was the Democratic presidential contenders who drew the big crowds and duked it out Wednesday. If sheer numbers are any indication, Sen. Barack Obama - preceded by a buoyant and beautiful Caroline Kennedy - won the round handily. He is the overwhelming favorite to win the Colorado primary next Tuesday. [MORE] The Willies WHY THE FLORIDA PRIMARY STINKS by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Jan. 30, 2008 -- I was with my wife and daughter driving the back way from Miami home to Bradenton when we stopped at a McDonald's in Clewiston, the only big town along the vast shore of Lake Okeechobee, the state's precious freshwater reservoir. The McDonald's had three televisions at a central seating area, each tuned to a different network, and our table was in front of CNN as the very first election results started to pour in around 7:30PM. With them, almost as counterpoint, suddenly came such an overwhelming odor of cow plop that my wife started to throw up as we all ran to the parking lot. [MORE] Passings: Suharto DEATH OF A KEMUSU THUG by Andreas Harsono JAKARTA - A few minutes after hearing that former president Suharto had died in his hospital bed, Marco, a militia leader in downtown Jakarta, raced to Suhartos house, wearing his jungle camouflage and began guarding the Suhartos residence on Cendana Street. [MORE] Constance I REMEMBER YOU by Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga.. -- It seems to be more often lately that the sentiment is spoken but it's always been out there: "You never get over the death of your child." This is true. But the heartfelt expressions come from some who cannot fathom the notion of losing a child; their own child is who is in their mind, not another mother's child. [MORE] The threat of instability in Haiti prompted the Organization of American States on Wednesday to authorize a special mission to help the troubled nation find a way out of a simmering political crisis and set a new date for a runoff election. In Washington, the OAS permanent council reached consensus on sending the mission to Haiti to assist with resolving a stalemate now that elections have been postponed indefinitely and the country's president is due to leave office in 10 days. The regional body, which Haiti belongs to, took up the measure after receiving an urgent request from outgoing President Michel Martelly. The OAS council had only been scheduled to receive a report on Haiti from electoral observers. Antigua Ambassador Ronald Sanders, who holds the rotating chair of the council, raised the specter of "utter bloodshed" in Haiti unless a political agreement was reached. He said their intention was to "not to interfere, but to be helpful." Haiti's ambassador to the OAS, Bocchit Edmond, said the request was not an invitation to "meddle" in Haitian affairs but was intended to help the country avoid "falling into an institutional vacuum and chaos." For days, Haiti's political leaders and others with influence have been working to find a way out of the impasse. Business, religious and civil society leaders have offered possible solutions along with various political factions. But Martelly is scheduled to depart Feb. 7 and political compromise is rare in Haiti. Presidential and legislative runoff elections set for last weekend were called off less than 48 hours before the vote amid a surge of violent protests and deep suspicions of electoral fraud, even though a commission that evaluated Haiti's contested presidential election said most of the irregularities it found in first-round voting were the result of widespread ineptitude by poll workers and not political mischief. The Associated Press The Texas teenager who used his affluenza as a defense in a fatal drunken-driving wreck arrived at a Texas airport following his deportation from Mexico on Thursday, more than a month after he and his mother fled the U.S. as prosecutors investigated whether he had violated his probation. Ethan Couch, 18, arrived at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport late Thursday morning and could be seen walking through the airport escorted by law enforcement. Couch was apprehended with his mother in the Mexican resort city of Puerto Vallarta on Dec. 28, after a call for delivery pizza tipped off authorities to their whereabouts. Authorities believe Couch and his mother fled Texas in her pickup truck after an online video appeared to show Ethan Couch at a party where people were drinking. Couch had been sentenced to 10 years' probation in juvenile court for the 2013 drunken-driving wreck that killed four people and severely injured two others, and the terms prohibit him from drinking or leaving Tarrant County, Texas. During the trial in that case, a defense witness argued that Couch had been coddled into a sense of irresponsibility by his wealthy parents, a condition the expert called affluenza. The condition is not recognized as a medical diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association, and its use drew widespread derision. Couch initially fought deportation, but his attorneys recently dropped the fight. Uniformed Mexican immigration agents put Couch on a commercial flight from Mexico City to Texas on Thursday morning. Couch's mother, Tonya Couch, was quickly deported after she and her son were found in Mexico. She is charged with hindering the apprehension of a felon. She was released on bond in early January, after being fitted with an electronic ankle GPS monitor, to the home of another son. According to an arrest warrant, Tonya Couch is accused of telling her estranged husband, Fred Couch, that he would never see her or their son again before fleeing. A detention warrant was issued for Ethan Couch in December after he missed a meeting with his probation officer. Investigators said he appeared to have tried to disguise himself by dying his blond hair black and his beard brown when he and his mother were found in Mexico. Video released Thursday by the Mexican immigration institute showed Couch wearing a bluish camouflage-print hoodie, being escorted out of the detention center before dawn, and being escorted onto the plane by four agents. He had been in immigration custody for 28 days. Couch is seen with a full, light-brown beard on the institute's video, showing little emotion as he is placed aboard a pickup truck and driven out of the gated detention center. Couch's Mexican lawyer, Fernando Benitez, said Tuesday that Ethan Couch had formally ratified his decision to drop the appeal on Monday. I gave him several options, but he decided to go to Texas to face whatever charges he faces, Benitez said. Ethan Couch will be held in a juvenile detention center in Fort Worth, where a juvenile judge will hold a hearing to decide whether to continue to hold him there, book him in an adult jail or let him go, according to Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson. A separate hearing is scheduled for Feb. 19 to determine whether Couch's case is transferred to the adult system. If it is transferred and Couch violates his probation again, he could face up to 10 years in prison per death. The Associated Press The FBI released video Thursday of the shooting death of a spokesman for the armed occupiers of a wildlife refuge that appears to show the man reaching into his jacket before he fell into the snow. The FBI said the man had a loaded gun in his pocket. Authorities showed the video at a news conference to counter claims that the man killed in the Tuesday confrontation on a remote Oregon high country road Robert "LaVoy" Finicum did nothing to provoke officers. During that confrontation, the FBI and Oregon State Troopers arrested five main figures in the occupation, including Ammon Bundy, their leader. The video, shot by the FBI from an airplane, shows Bundy's vehicle stopped by police on a road. A white truck driven by Finicum was stopped but took off, with officers in pursuit. The video shows Finicum's vehicle plowing into a snowbank when encountering a roadblock. A man identified as Finicum gets out of the truck. At first, he has his hands up, but then he reaches into his pocket and he falls into the snow. "On at least two occasions, Finicum reaches his right hand toward a pocket on the left inside portion of his jacket," said Greg Bretzing, special agent in charge for the FBI in Portland. "He did have a loaded 9mm semi-automatic handgun in the pocket," he said. Bretzing also said Finicum's truck nearly hit an FBI agent before it got stuck in the snow. "Actions have consequences," Bretzing said. "The FBI and OSP tried to effect these arrests peacefully." Meanwhile, Bretzing, said Thursday evening that the bureau believes four people remain on the refuge. "There has been some media reporting that the situation at the refuge is resolved," he said at a press conference. "That is NOT true. Again, we still believe there are occupiers on the refuge. The negotiators continue to work around the clock to talk to those four people in an effort to get them to come out peacefully." Earlier in the day, one of the last holdouts in the armed takeover of an Oregon wildlife refuge said Thursday that the handful of occupiers who remain will leave if they receive assurances none of them will be arrested. In a video posted on the YouTube channel DefendYourBase that the group has been using to issue updates during the nearly four-week occupation, a speaker, believed to be David Fry, said the occupiers have been told by authorities that "out of five people left here, four of us are allowed to leave." The FBI had no immediate comment on the demand. It has said only that it is trying to "empty the refuge of the armed occupiers in the safest way possible." Eight members of the armed anti-government group were arrested Tuesday and three more on Wednesday. Their jailed leader, Ammon Bundy, on Wednesday urged the remaining protesters to abandon the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge building that they have occupied, where they are surrounded by federal agents. After Bundy made his first court appearance in Portland on Wednesday, his attorney, Mike Arnold, read this statement from his client: Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is now in the courts. Bundy also urged federal authorities to let his comrades leave the compound without being prosecuted. On Wednesday evening, the FBI and Oregon State Police issued a statement saying they had arrested Duane Leo Ehmer, 45, and Dylan Wade Anderson, 34, around 3:30 p.m. A few hours later, 43-year-old Jason S. Patrick of Bonaire, Georgia, was arrested. The FBI said the men turned themselves in to agents at a checkpoint on a road near the refuge. As with Bundy and the seven others arrested a day earlier, officials said the men will each face a felony charge. In a news conference, the FBI special agent in charge, Greg Bretzing, told occupiers that although they had been given multiple chances to resolve their standoff peacefully, the opportunity remained. He encouraged them to call negotiators for help in leaving and that they should be prepared to identify themselves. Bretzing said people could leave through checkpoints where they will be identified. He said negotiators were available to talk if they have questions or concerns. FBI officials said Wednesday night, in addition to the three men arrested, five people left the refuge through the checkpoints and were released without arrest. The damaged entrance of rapper and activist Smockey's recording studio, which according to neighbours was attacked by members of the presidential guard, is seen in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Sept. 17, 2015. Joe Penney / Corbis A burly man with a graying goatee and a mellow voice that turns staccato when he raps, Smockey, 44, has long operated at the intersection of art and politics. He filled his studio with posters of Malcolm X and Thomas Sankara, the beloved revolutionary leader who served as Burkina Fasos president for four years before he was toppled in a bloody coup that brought Compaore to power. Over the next 27 years, as Compaore slowly refashioned himself as a reliable Western ally and regional peacemaker, Smockey emerged as a vocal critic. When he was honored at the 2010 Kora Awards for African musicians, in Ouagadougou, Smockey pointedly dedicated his award for best hip-hop artist to Sankaras memory. Compaore was in the audience. Smockey founded Balai Citoyen alongside SamsK Le Jah, a reggae artist who, like Smockey, had already established himself as a Compaore opponent. In the song Ce president la, released in 2011, SamsK Le Jah declared, This president, he must go and he will go. Young people, in particular, responded to the message, flocking to the artists concerts all over the country. They both began this work a long time ago, singing and raising peoples consciousness, said Clement Biouma, a martial arts instructor and music fan in Ouagadougou. At first, Balai Citoyen adopted the ambitious, but rather vague, mission of sweeping away problems namely corruption, impunity and a disregard for human rights. (The groups logo was a clenched fist emerging from a forearm made of strands of a broom.) But by 2014, when Compaore made clear his intention to stay in office despite a constitutional term limit, the group began to mobilize. It started a campaign called Hands Off My Constitution and, when the president scheduled a parliamentary vote to alter the constitution, called for mass demonstrations. In the days before the vote, hundreds of thousands of people braved tear gas and live rounds to flood Ouagadougous streets. As the protests began, Smockey held a concert at which he rapped: We shut down schools and take out signs and banners/Everywhere in the city there is excitement in the air. A few days later, masses of people overwhelmed the security forces, ransacked the parliament building and prevented the vote from taking place. After Compaore resigned, Smockey and SamsK Le Jah appeared before adoring crowds alongside Lt. Col. Yacouba Isaac Zida, who would serve as prime minister during the political transition. Five months later, in March 2015, Smockey released a three-disc album recounting his countrys revolution. On Necessaire Conscience, written before the revolution, he scolds a population he views, at times, as complacent: You are not a sheep. On the final disc, he looks to the future, calling on regular people sentinels to ensure that the new government follows through on its plans to help everyone, not just the countrys elite. Smockey and SamsK Le Jah (real name: Karim Sama) won plaudits from their fellow pro-democracy activists as well as the international press. In an April 2015 profile that was typical of the coverage, Le Monde Diplomatique described their role in the uprising as essential and decisive. For some observers, that attention was justified. They came with a different approach from the older generation, said political analyst Siaka Coulibaly. The older generation accepted more violations; they made more compromises. The youth were radical. But others say that assessment gives Balai Citoyen too much credit. Its because Burkinabe had resolved not to let Blaise Compaore run that a movement like Balai Citoyen was effective, not because Balai Citoyen succeeded in awakening the masses, as we have heard many times, said Lila Chouli, a scholar of social movements in Burkina Faso. She and other experts also point out that Burkina Faso has a rich history of civil protest, dating to 1966 demonstrations over state budget cuts that prompted the resignation of the countrys first president. And opposition leaders and human rights groups had been denouncing the Compaore regime for years; protests grew increasingly fierce after the 1998 killing of journalist Norbert Zongo, allegedly by members of the presidential guard. Smockeys specific proposals have also stirred controversy. He advocated a large role for the military in the transitional government, saying it was necessary to stabilize the country. But Chrysogone Zougmore, president of the Burkinabe Movement for Human and Peoples Rights, says that call betrayed the spirit of the uprising and aided those who had helped Compaore cling to power. (Smockey noted to Al Jazeera America that not long into the transition, Balai Citoyen recognized that some military leaders were not committed to a real democracy, and the group then called for the presidential guards dissolution.) A Palestinian woman holds a picture of Palestinian journalist Mohammed Al-Qeq, who has been on a hunger strike in an Israeli prison since Nov. 21, 2015, during a protest to show solidarity with him, outside the headquarters of the Red Cross in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Jan. 27, 2016. Mohamad Torokman / Reuters A Palestinian journalist on a hunger strike for 65 days has vowed to continue protesting his imprisonment without charge until Israel agrees to release him, a lawyer representing his case said Thursday. The announcement came one day after the Israeli Supreme Court delayed a decision on granting his release. Mohammed Al-Qeq, a news reporter for Saudi channel Al Majd, has refused food and medical treatment since Nov. 24, three days after he was arrested, and is said to be near death. "He's in a very bad situation. He fell into his third coma in recent days, and his weight has dropped to 30 kilograms [66 pounds]," Ashraf Abu Sneina, one of Qeq's attorneys, told Al Jazeera last week. Qeq, 33, is protesting his six-month sentence under Israels administrative detention law a controversial form of imprisonment that allows Israeli authorities to detain individuals indefinitely without charge or trial if they are deemed a security threat. Israel's Shin Bet security agency alleges that the West Bank resident and father of two has incited violence and is involved in terrorist activities linked to the armed group-turned-political party Hamas. However, Qeq has denied the charges. Qeqs health is currently being monitored by doctors at HaEmek Hospital in Afula, Israel. According to Helal Alosh, head of Amnesty Internationals Occupied Palestinian Territories and Anti-Discrimination Campaigns, Qeq has both his legs and one arm cuffed to his hospital bed, and is being watched over by prison guards. Despite a contentious new law that allows Israel to force-feed hunger strikers if their lives are deemed in danger, Qeq has not been force-fed. However, earlier this month he was for days forcibly given liquids intravenously until his legal team intervened, 972 Magazine reported. The practice of his forced treatment is a blatant violation of his human rights, of his bodily integrity, and his individual autonomy," said Sahar Francis, director of Addameer: Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association, a West Bank prisoners advocacy group. Qeqs wife Faihaa has also said that her husband believes that prison guards and medical staff are taking an active part in his torture by constantly bringing him food and eating their meals in front of him, Alosh said. Since Israels occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967, its military has placed thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention. Over 680 Palestinians are currently under administrative detention, out of the total 6,800 in Israeli prisons, according to Addameer. For Palestinians in Israeli prisons, hunger strikes have become a common way of drawing public attention to their plight and challenging their treatment or detainment. "The only way Mohammad al-Qeq feels he is able to challenge his detention, without charge, is with his body, said Sunjeev Bery, Middle East-North Africa advocacy director at Amnesty International USA. Under administrative detention, Palestinian detainees have been imprisoned without knowing why theyre being imprisoned or when they might be released. Other local and international groups, including Reporters Without Borders and the European Union missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah, have also raised concerns over Israels use of administrative detention and called for Qeqs release. Israeli authorities, however, have so far refused. The countrys Supreme Court on Wednesday delayed a decision on whether or not to release Qeq until his health could be properly examined a move slammed by Issa Qaraqe, head of the Palestinian Authoritys Committee for Prisoners Affairs, as careless and potentially deadly. Meanwhile, Faihaa said her husband has passed her a message through his lawyers: "If the worst happens that I die, please forgive me. I had no other choice." The Dominican Republics treatment of people of Haitian descent resembles the discrimination Jews have faced through their history, said a group of U.S. rabbis who visited the Caribbean island Thursday. Hundreds of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian ancestry have been threatened with deportation by the Dominican government, which stripped them of their citizenship through a series of laws and court rulings beginning in 2013. This trip to the Dominican Republic strengthened my ability to stand with oppressed Dominicans of Haitian descent as an ally, said Rabbi Ronit Tsadok, of Los Angeles IKAR synagogue, in a press release. We will raise awareness about the human rights crisis in the Dominican Republic, which echoes some of the most difficult and disturbing chapters of Jewish history. Tsadok and nine other U.S. rabbis toured the Dominican Republic last week, part of a Global Justice Fellowship trip with the American Jewish World Service (AJWS) a nonprofit humanitarian group. The Dominican government says the deportation laws target undocumented Haitians who entered the country illegally. In practice, however, the law has extended to Dominicans of Haitian descent. Many trace their history in the Dominican Republic for nearlt 100 years, when the country allowed thousands of Haitians to cross the border to work in sugarcane and rice fields. Subsequent generations of the immigrants were born on Dominican plantations, but many did not receive proper documentation. Since the new citizenship laws were passed last year and fears of deportation rose, many rights groups have condemned the government and called on it to reverse its decision a plea it has ignored. Some have argued that racism, not undocumented immigration, played a role in the policy change. Since the rulings, anti-Haitian sentiment among Dominicans has increased. Last year, a Haitian man in Santiago was likely lynched. Dominicans have burned Haitian flags amid calls for the government to stop the invasion of Haitian workers, and graffiti reading Haitians Get Out! is a common sight in the capital, Santo Domingo. Some Dominicans of Haitian descent have decided to return to Haiti amid the atmosphere of xenophobia and threat of deportation, according to AWJS, despite better living standards in the Dominican Republic. Its creating an environment so intolerable that many see leaving the only country theyve ever called home as the only solution, Rabbi Joshua Lesser of Congregation Bet Haverim in Atlanta said in the release. The stories we heard from these activists are ones I will never forget, and I will bring them back to my community so we can mobilize American Jews to stand with those who are persecuted in the Dominican Republic, Lesser said. Rape is a violent act used to exert power and control, and it occurs everywhere. However, there are certain environments where this form of violence thrives: patriarchal societies with flawed justice systems that have set precedents of brushing sexual violence under the rug. Whats more, the notion of personal and family honor, which is fastidiously attached to the female body, is stronger in Pakistan than in some other parts of the world. This urges victims and their families to cover up sexual assaults and creates an incentive to use rape as revenge and punishment. In an editorial, Pakistans Dawn newspaper wrote that the rape has drawn the usual reactions. And to a large extent, this is true. There are countless cases of rape victims committing suicide after losing hope for justice in Pakistan; there are just as many cases of people, mostly men, in positions of religious or political privilege indulging in victim blaming. In 2005, Pakistans then-President Pervez Musharraf told The Washington Post , If you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped, implying that Pakistani women were using being sexually assaulted as a means to get rich and obtain asylum in a Western country. The Friday Times, one of the more prominent English language weeklies, covered the rape in its gossip column, dismissing the charges as a fabrication by the victims family. The column, which claimed DNA tests could prove sexual contact between the victim and the main perpetrator was consensual rather than forced, was received poorly on Pakistani social media and was later deleted from the newspapers website. It was then reported that the victim, feeling pressure amid the police probe, attempted suicide by jumping off a balcony at her house. The alleged gang rape of a 15-year-old girl by a group of men in Lahore, Pakistan, made national headlines in the first week of January not least because one of the accused men is a member of the youth wing of the Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz, the political party ruling the country. Pakistans political history is full of unpunished sexual violence. During the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, approximately 100,000 women were raped. Pakistani history books erased the fact that Hindu and Sikh women were raped, and Indian history books ignored that Muslim women were raped. In 1971 scores of war crimeswere committed in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) by members of the Pakistani army and pro-Pakistani militias. Thousands of Bengali women were abducted, kept in barracks described as rape camps and repeatedly assaulted. By choosing not to acknowledge that hordes of Pakistanis committed sexual crimes against women and by leaving them unpunished, Pakistan set a destructive precedent. These sexual assault atrocities are often waved off by journalists and government officials with the strange explanation that rape was not the only crime that occurred in 1971. After 45 years, a tribunal to prosecute those responsible for these war crimes has been assembled in Bangladesh. But there are serious problems with the manner in which the tribunals are being run, one of which is that the tribunal has no power to prosecute Pakistani soldiers. In 1971 and in the 1974 Delhi Tripartite Agreement, the Pakistani government chose its soldiers and commanders over the thousands of rape victims, and today Pakistan is choosing to protect a politician over the 15-year-old rape victim. Decisions that were made in the 1970s on the level of the state are reflected in the way Pakistani society has trivialized justice. In November the Pakistani Foreign Affairs Ministry wrote that the 1974 agreement calls for a forward-looking approach in matters relating to 1971 to foster better relations between Pakistan and Bangladesh. This outlook implies that Bengali rape victims should just let bygones be bygones for the sake of regional peace. Perhaps Pakistan thought 45 years is long enough and wounds have healed themselves. Pakistan has only to glance at the recent talks between South Korea and Japan to realize that the mere passage of time does not erase the scars of sexual violence. Last month the Korean comfort women a euphemism for women whom the Japanese used as sex slaves during World War II received an apology and a financial compensation of $8.3 million, more than 70 years after the crimes were committed. In all probability, it was not historical guilt that caused Japans Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to offer the apology but his desire to improve ties with South Korea and soften his nationalist image. Realpolitik aside, Japan has set an example that should affect the way Pakistan thinks about 1971 as well as every other rape in the country that goes unpunished. 'Religion is a real danger to the survival of civilisation... it will be the death of us all, the end of humanity' - Christopher Hitchens 'Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover...' - Mark Twain Vous venez de reussir votre master 2 ethologie, ecologie, and coe, ce blog est le votre! Il vous permet de retrouver differentes offres de PhD, emplois, stages, et meme post doc pour les "anciens"... Outil de mise en reseau des informations, ce blog offre a chacun de la liberte de participer et ainsi permettre a tous de trouver au plus vite sa prochaine etape professionnelle. Si vous avez une offre a poster, transmettez la a : marine.grandgeorge@univ-rennes1.fr YEREVAN, JANUARY 27, ARMENPRESS. The Republic of Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora mark the 24th anniversary of the Armenian Army on January 28. The formation of the Armenian Army coincides with 1992-1994, when the newly independent Republic of Armenia, along with Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, being in undeclared but de facto war with Azerbaijan, at the same time embarked on the creation of a national army. Declaration of Independence of 1900 however, played a decisive role in the creation of the Armenian army which declared Armenia's independence and opened new legal and practical perspectives for the creation of national army. As Armenpress reports, on January 28, 1992, Armenian government made a historical decision on Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia thus legally announcing on the creation of the Armenian Army. Armenian Defense Ministry fulfilled the first draft in the territory of the Republic creating the tendency on filling the army with recruits. Establishment of the Armenian Army passed through several stages. The first phase lasted from 1988 February until 1992 May. In this period, assuring security of the population of Armenia and Artsakh military became more urgent. Second stage lasted from 1992 June to 1994 May. In this period, significant work has been carried out in the army on raising combat readiness of troops, strengthening discipline, training of personnel and ensuring progress over army-society relations. Special regiment of Yerevan was established in September, 1990. By the decision of government of the Republic of Armenia, State Defense Committee was established under the Council of Ministers in 1991. YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan sent congratulatory address on the Day of the Army to the Republic of Armenia President Serzh Sargsyan on January 28. Armenpress was informed about this by Central Information Department of the Office of the President of the Artsakh Republic. The address runs as follows: "Honorable President Sargsyan, On behalf of the Artsakh people, the authorities and on myself personally I would like to convey sincere congratulations on the Day of the Army, a holiday that is considered very important for all the Armenians. The glorious Armenian army is the offspring of independence, the pride of all Armenian people, who love and cherish it like their child. Its brave soldiers, following the lead of their ancestors, devotedly carry out the sacred duty of defending the Homeland, performing and displaying unique feats and courage. You have had a great personal contribution in the establishment and formation of the Army, its ongoing enhancement and development. You are doing your best for consolidating defense capability of the two Armenian states, solving issues and reaching goals of nation-wide nature. I once again congratulate You and the whole personnel of the Republic of Armenia's armed forces on this cherished holiday and wish peace, good health and great success for the glory of Mother Armenia and the native people". YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. His Holiness Karekin II, the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians addressed congratulatory message on Army day. As Armenpress was informed by Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, the message reads as follows: We grant our patriarchal blessing and warm wishes from the sacred shrine for all the Armenians - Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin to our people, the officers and soldiers of our victorious army. Army formation is the most valuable and cherished achievement of our newly-independent statehood. This is the result of the struggle, devotion and love our brave sons have for their Homeland. Today, thanks to the heroic deeds of our courageous soldiers and commanders, sometimes also sacrificing of life, the borders of our country are safe and protected. The brave spirit of the Armenian soldiers encourages our people, leading us to serve our Homeland with complete devotion, ardor and love towards each other, bringing to life the luminous visions and hopes of our countrys bright future. We pray at Holy Altar of Descend that our Heavenly Father blesses and keeps strong and victorious all the soldiers and commanders protecting our borders, as well as grants peace to the works of our God-loving people on behalf of our welfare and tranquil life. Let the Lord's grace, love and peace be with all of us today, and for all eternity. YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. Armenpress state news agency introduces on the air of Lratvakan.am all that you will read, hear and see on todays news. January 28 is the day of the Armenian Army. It is the 24th anniversary of the Armenian Army. Both the day and the upcoming news are festive. On this occasion, the opening of the Republic of Armenia Defense Ministry Research University will be held. Support for the soldiers in the framework of Thank you, Armenian soldier charity event. The traditional charity event Thank you, Armenian soldier will be held today in the Republic Square. It is aimed at collecting and handing the required items to the soldiers serving in the frontier zones. Today the combatants who have been in the war will speak on the topic of Army formation. Major General Suren Abrahamyan, participator of the Karabakh War, composer Davit Amalyan will share their impressions. Representatives of culture, science, literature will also speak on the topic. The discussions on the Army topic will also focus on the destructive policy conducted by Azerbaijan. President of Artsakh War Veterans Union NGO Yuri Mikaelyan, participants of the Artsakh War, freedom fighters Aragats Mkrtchyan and Rafik Ghazinyan will speak about the Azerbaijani provocations. President of "Eagle Suicide Attackers" Union, Major General Astvatsatur Petrosyan, founder of Women participating in Artsakh War NGO Aida Serobyan and freedom fighters of the Artsakh War will tell their stories connected with army building, Armenian Army formation during the Artsakh Liberation War, as well as will speak about the courage of todays soldiers who are keeping our borders safe. A festive concert in Armenian National Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet after Alexander Spendiaryan will close the day. More on these and other topics is available on armenpress.am. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. The Army Day in Armenia January 28 will be festive for the soldiers who are engaged in the difficult but honorable work of Homeland defense. As Armenia Defense Ministers Spokesperson Artsrun Hovhannisyan told Armenpress, festive events will be held in the military units today. The soldiers usually wake up an hour later and do not do any physical training on this day. There are also changes made to the menu. Many cultural workers, politicians, representatives of the highest command visit the military units. Cultural events, screening of historical films etc. will be held, Artsrun Hovhannisyan said. Many individuals, public groups visit the military units as well as the frontier troops to make the Army Day a festive event for the Armenian soldiers. One of those events is Holiday for soldiers watching Tavush border organized by Fund for Armenian Reliefs Berd office and Facebook user Narek Vardanyan of Nerkin Karmiraghbyur. By Holiday for soldiers watching Tavush border event launched on Facebook the organizers had called on making greeting cards, if possible presenting the soldiers with pastry, warm socks, or anything that the soldiers might need. The group initiating the event will visit Berds military unit in Tavush on January 28 where a concert will be held and a visit to the soldiers watching the borders will paid. The Armenian Army celebrates its 24th anniversary on January 28. YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. The Governments of Azerbaijan and Hungary have been asked by the European Court of Human Rights to respond formally to a case brought by the relatives of Armenian army officer Gurgen Margaryan, who was murdered by Azerbaijani officer Ramil Safarov in Budapest in 2004. As Armenpress reports, Margaryans relatives are represented by European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (based in MiddlesexUniversity), Legal Guide (Armenian NGO) and Nazeli Vardanyan. Both men were attending a NATO-sponsored English-language course in Budapest. On 19 February 2004 Safarov murdered Margaryan by decapitating him with an axe. In April 2006 Safarov was found guilty of murder by the Budapest City Court, and was sentenced to life imprisonment, with the possibility of conditional release after 30 years. The court found that Safarov had intended to kill two Armenian participants at the course on the anniversary of the beginning of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. After the Court of Appeal upheld this judgment in February 2007, Safarov began serving his sentence in a Hungarian prison. In August 2012 the Hungarian Minister of Justice approved Safarovs transfer to Azerbaijan with a view to his serving his sentence there (under the Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Prisoners 1983). However, a few hours after Safarov was transferred on 31 August 2012, he was granted a pardon by the Azerbaijani President and set free. He was also promoted to major, awarded eight years salary arrears and offered a flat. In a report published in December 2012, the Hungarian Ombudsman criticised the Hungarian Government for approving the transfer before any assurances about the treatment of Safarov had been received from the Azerbaijani authorities. The victims family argue that Gurgen Margaryans right to life (Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights) has been violated by Azerbaijan both because of his murder, and also because Ramil Safarovs pardon has prevented the full enforcement of his sentence. They also argue that Margaryan was the victim of an ethnically-motivated hate crime, which was later endorsed by Safarovs pardon and release (in breach of Article 14 together with Article 2 of the Convention). In addition, they argue that Hungary has breached Article 2 of the Convention because it allowed Safarov to be transferred to Azerbaijan, without having obtained assurances that he would be required to complete his prison sentence in Azerbaijan. The case is also brought by Hayk Makuchyan, an Armenian military officer whom Ramil Safarov was convicted of intending to murder during the same incident in Budapest. Both governments are required to lodge their responses with the Strasbourg Court by May. The Court has also invited the Armenian Government to submit its comments, given Margaryans nationality. Yerevan, January 28, Armenpress. The Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan will pay an official visit to South American countries. As Armenpress reports, referring to Turkish Anadolu news agency, the visits are scheduled from January 31 to February 4. The Turkish president will arrive in Chile, and then will leave for Peru and Ecuador. YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Army is one of the key achievements since independence. The Prime-Minister of Armenia Hovik Abrahamyan made such an assessment, while speaking to the reporters at Yerablur Memorial. Since independence we were able to create a structure, which inspires the Armenian nation. We are proud of our army, as it is one of our greatest achievements, it ensures the independence and security of our nation, "Armenpress" reports, Abrahamyan said. The Prime-Minister congratulated all the officers and soldiers. I wish to send greetings to all of those soldiers, who are now protecting the borders of our country, Hovik Abrahamyan concluded. The Armenian Army celebrates its 24th anniversary on January 28. YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. Army Day is a holiday for all of us. There is no such a person who is not proud of the Armenian Army. There is no such a person who does not realize that the number one guarantee for our peace, security, peaceful life is our powerful army, "Republican" (RPA) Faction member Khosrov Harutyunyan told Armenpress. Let us congratulate each other. I congratulate all of us, all the Armenians, especially those young people, command staff who keep our borders safe, as well as their parents, all the mothers who gave birth to hero-sons. I wish achievements, courage, good health and great family happiness to our sons, Harutyunyan said. We live on such days, when the Armenian Army carves its victories daily. We must always remember our deceased heroes, take actions so that all the injured recover quickly, so that only solidarity reigns in the army. Let us keep on having victories with this heroic spirit, Tevan Poghosyan wished. Tevan Poghosyan noted that together with achievements, there are also problems connected with soldiers social condition, recovery of the soldiers etc. that require immediate solutions. He also wished peace, blue sky and good service to the Armenian soldiers. The Armenian Army celebrates its 24th anniversary on January 28. YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. The combat readiness of the Armenian army shows that it is a competitive army in the region, the Defense Minister of Armenia Seyran Ohanyan said, while speaking to the reporters at Yerablur Memorial. Our Army is a victorious army, which passes the exam perfectly every day on the border, in Artsakh and on the line of contact, the Minister said as Armenpress reports. Seyran Ohanyan considers symbolic that the first visit of the country leadership on the Army Day is to Yerablur Memorial, to congratulate the combat friends and relatives. Here, a tremor passes through our bodies, when we hear the names of each of them. The pain and courage turn into pride for our army and combat friends, they also transfer into responsibility for not making mistakes in the future, the Minister concluded. The Armenian Army celebrates its 24th anniversary on January 28. YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. Director of National Security Service of the Republic of Armenia Gorik Hakobyan does not exclude that National Security Service and the Police can be united. Gorik Hakobyan told journalists at Yerablur Military Pantheon Everything is possible, replying to the question whether National Security Service and the Police might be united. Regarding the question as whom he sees as the head of National Security Service of the Republic of Armenia, Gorik Hakobyan responded: Myself. Director of National Security Service did not comment on the journalists questions concerning the criminal gang neutralized in Nork Marash. Director of National Security Service of the Republic of Armenia Gorik Hakobyans term of office expires in mid February, 2016. YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. Yerevan Mayor Taron Margaryan sent a congratulatory message on the occasion of Armenian Army Day. As Armenpress was informed from the Information and Public Relations Department of Yerevan Municipality, the congratulatory message reads as follows, Dear compatriots, Today is one of the most important holidays for our people- the birthday of Armenian Army. The army, being one of the most important achievements of our independence, just 24 years after its creation has become the most efficient army in the region and ensures the stability, peace and safety not only of our homeland but of the whole region as well. This day is another opportunity to remember all those heroes whose devotion and selflessness made it possible to create out army. Hats off to our glorious heroes! We are grateful to them and bow down our heads before them. Dear soldiers, officers, respected veterans of Armenian army and freedom fighters! I want to wish all of you strong health and will, strength and courage. I am sure that you will go on feeling pride of being the soldiers and officers of our glorious army and with the same decisiveness and honour will go on taking your duty for the sake of peace, safety and welfare of our homeland and people. YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. Armenian hackers from Monte Melkonian Cyber Army attacked Azerbaijan government websites for Armenia Army Day. Armenpress reports, that the aforementioned was posted on the Facebook page of Monte Melkonian Cyber Army. Monte Melkonian Cyber Army attacked the E-Government Portal (e-gov.az), website of Ministry of Taxes of the Republic of Azerbaijan (taxes.gov.az), the official Internet resource of the State Bodies (gov.az). Secret data from Civil Service Commission under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan (csc.gov.az) and emails, passwords, IPs, names of 81 thousand Azerbaijanis were released. The data from the website of Civil Service Commission are available for download here, emails, passwords, IPs can be downloaded here: part 1 and part2 . YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. Armenian army has powerful reputation throughout the region, poet Razmik Davoyan mentioned in the interview with reporters on January 28. I paid an exclusive attention to armynot only in the period of national formation but also in Soviet period. From the days of our armys establishment it is clear that the volunteers and the troops, which were established on the patriotism, fulfilled a glorious work. There were great concerns for the establishment of the army in the future. We kept in touch with Monte Melkonian by means of Seda. Seda brought Montes letter which read that if Razmik invited him to Armenia, he will come. Karabakh movement already began; we came to our home with Seda and I told Monte that he must go to Karabakh. He returned a week later and told that he saw great enthusiasm and motivation in young people, but they were unprepared and I would go and deal with those problems, Razmik Davoyan mentioned, as Armenpress reports. The poet recalled the process of Armenian Armys establishment. Our army and people have need for being a joint body and the works over the mentioned direction inspires. Parents do not send their child to the unknown areas as it was in Soviet era. Now they can visit their child and contact with him. If this process is strengthened, people and state will be united, he mentioned. The Armenian Army celebrates its 24th anniversary on January 28. YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. Ararat football team of Yerevan has signed a contract with midfielder Sergei Avagimyan. Armenpress reports the information, referring to the Facebook page of the football club. The 26-year old footballer used to play for FC Baikal and joined the Armenian team during the trainings in Sochi. YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. The Swedish authorities intend to expel up to 80,000 asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected, the countrys interior minister Anders Ygeman announced, as Armenpress reports. The Swedish government will use charter aircraft to send the migrants to the countries of their origin over several years, Anders Ygeman added. "We are talking about 60,000 people but the number could climb to 80.000," Ygeman was quoted as saying by the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper Wednesday. The measure comes amid amid toughening of immigration rules across Europe, including in Sweden, due to an unprecedented influx of refugees fleeing conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The North European country received a total of 163,000 asylum applications in 2015 that was the highest per capita index in Europe, according to the Swedish Migration Agency. YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. The public must not change its attitude towards the army irrespective of economic, social and political conditions. Armenpress reports that Chairman of National Security political party Garnik Isagulyan said the aforementioned during the meeting with journalists. Our negative attitude towards a certain person must by no means be transferred to the army; there must be no mirror reflection towards the army. My ties with the army are of permanent nature: I often visit our borders. The boys keeping the borders may have problems on the first days, during their first combat duties, but in course of time they say that the army is their home, work, Isagulyan said, congratulating on the 24th anniversary of the Armenian Army. According to him, it is important to instill love for the army and the Homeland in Armenian children since childhood. Garnik Isagulyan added that during the first years of independence love among the children for the army and homeland was stronger than it is now. It is necessary to form right attitude towards the army among the society to fill this gap. Nothing can break the spirit of the soldiers protecting our borders, even the casualties, which we unfortunately have. The Armenian Army celebrates its 24th anniversary on January 28. YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. At least 32 people are reported to have been killed after suicide bombers struck a town in northern Cameroon near the border with Nigeria, Armenpress reports, citing BBC. A local official said many of those who died had been in the market in Bodo. At least three suicide bombers were said to be involved. The Nigeria-based militant group Boko Haram is suspected of carrying out the attack. Last month, two female suicide bombers blew themselves up in Bodo. Cameroon is part of a regional coalition fighting Boko Haram, along with Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Benin. Although the militants have been driven from most of the areas they controlled in north-eastern Nigeria, they have continued to carry out suicide bombings and raids into neighboring countries. One witness in Bodo told that at least two of the attackers were teenage girls who had hidden their explosives in sacks of grain. Another witness said two blasts had hit the market and another had targeted a roadblock. "We were in the market at around 10 in the morning when we heard a blast. The second one went off not more than two minutes after and we took to our heels," the witness said. "There is a vigilante roadblock just outside town where another bomb went off and killed six people." YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. On January 29-31, February 1-2 no precipitation is expected. Wind is north-western 5-10 m/s. The air temperature on January 29-31 will gradually go up: at night by 8-10 degrees, during daytime by 4-6 degrees. "Armenpress" was informed from the MTAES that in Yerevan on January 28-31, February 1-2 no precipitation is expected. YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. The Council of Europe hails Armenia for the country has been Eurimages new member since January 1, 2016. Armenpress was informed about it by the Council of Europe. As a result, co-production projects involving a co-producer from Armenia can be submitted to Eurimages for examination at the forthcoming meetings. As Armenia does not have access to the support mechanisms of the CREATIVE EUROPE MEDIA Programme, distributors from Armenia can apply for support. In the same manner, exhibitors from Armenia will be eligible for the Eurimages programme of support for exhibition. Eurimages was founded by the Council of Europe in 1988 as a fund to support film production, theatrical events, and exhibitions. Ever dream of traveling from Asia to Europe on a grand adventure? Now's your chance to get a taste of what that might be like thanks to Daniel and Gina, two travel bloggers from Sunrise Odyssey. According to their website, this couple is "ravenous for adventure and endlessly excited about discovering the world through travel. Determined to not lead a typical Singaporean life, we've decided to take a step out of our comfort zone and to seek off-the-beaten-path destinations to experience life to the fullest." This traveling twosome has created a series of videos on their trip, hoping to keep connected with family and inspire other travelers to follow their own passion. However, Daniel and Gina just completed their 279-day journey from Asia to Europe and compiled the event into a video that's super cute and less than three minutes long. Here's how they describe it on YouTube: Highlights of our memorable 1 year adventure travelling overland from Asia to Europe in 3 minutes. Marvel at the breathtaking changing landscapes as we "traverse" across 12 different countries. Watch till the end to find out how we shot this incredible hyper-lapse video! Footprints left on: China, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, Greece It's a super fun adventure that should inspire wanderlust in any viewer. Check it out. More Like This: Popular Travel Destinations, Travel, VideosSource: WATCH: Travel From Asia to Europe in Under 3 Minutes The Huli High God, Datagaliwabe, was the original Supreme Spirit to come from the sky who created the land and other deities. Datagaliwabe was replaced by Honabi wali, the demiurge from whom all life flowed. Her children, Ni and Hana, are the focus of many Huli fertility rites. The Huli believe that in the beginning, there was land and the deities. The deities, such as sun and moon, the Ni and Hana, live in the sky. Let me take you to Datagaliwabe. The Huli have a mixture of myths and legends that explain the origins of the gods, clan founders, the creation of all living things and other vital components of Huli life. MUCH is talked about Datagaliwabe throughout Hela, nearby provinces and even the entirety of Papua New Guinea. The first goddess to inhabit the land was Honabe wali. She was seduced by Timbu, the male deity, and gave birth to five gods, Korimogo, Heyolabe, Piandela, Ni and Hela, and one goddess, Hana. Many Huli regard all these deities as very powerful beings, but deity Heyolabe as the most dangerously evil of them all. After a time, she gave birth to eight other deities, the first bird, possum and pig, hills, trees, bows and arrows, and fire and water. She is the grandmother goddess of the Huli people and surrounding cultures, the Obene, Duna, Duguba and Hewa peoples. Otherwise, they all speak different languages, have their own spirits and their own styles of worship. The deity Hela married an unknown woman who bore him four sons, Obene, Huli, Duna and Duguba. They had a fight which resulted in Obene fleeing to live in the Magarima area, Duna to Lake Kopiago and Duguba to Mount Bosavi, while Huli remained in the Tagari river basin. They were the first human beings and each founded the cultural group that is known to the Huli by those same names. The Huli calm these deities and seek their assistance through oblation of pigs, red paints, pig fat, cowrie and kina shells, crops and special plant leaves. Some deities like Ni and Korimogo consume the blood and aroma of prepared pigs while the other deities delight in pig fat offerings which are rubbed on sacred stones. Datagaliwabe and Heyalobe cannot be propitiated by any ritual means, although the former is placated by proper moral conduct. The deity Heyalobe was regarded as dama, the Satan. He control the forces of nature and would deceive the Huli people to do evil things. If Huli people did not follow Heyalobes instructions, he would attack them directly causing sickness, accident or death or indirectly through witches, corpses, stones, sticks or other ritual objects that are imbued with their presence. If they pleased Heyalobe, he would help them in their endeavors. To avoid attack, the Huli people would placate and win the favour of Heyalobe by tricking him to protect themselves. Long ago, in order to confuse the deities, Huli men would traverse deep forests and climb mountain peaks speaking a derivative of the Huli language called Tayanda Bi. They also tricked the Heyalobe by constructing symbolic gates to block paths as they walked through the forest. The Datagaliwabe is a unique supreme being, who, unlike Ni and Hana, is not referred to as dama but only by name. He is someone who the Huli people never play around with. They feel his presence more powerfully than other deities. He is a giant High God, who looks down from the sky to punish lying, stealing, adultery, incest, murder of related kin and disregard of ritual taboos. Huli say if you do something evil Datagaliwabe will be watching you. Datagaliwabe was known to the Huli as a bringer of punishment upon those who infringed kinship laws. The only way to please him is proper moral behavior. He would never be placated by pigs as sacrifices and doesnt accept prayers, dances or other rituals. The Datagaliwabe looks favorably upon those who obey kinship rules and helps them in their daily affairs. He speaks directly to whoever pleases him in the form of dreams, visions, prophecies and special insights. He also speaks to Huli needs in term of the good life: salvation and power for living. Only the righteous and holy people are taken to dahulianda, the heaven. The Pari clan in South Koroba (a home to the descendant of the sun god, the Ni), regard the place as dahulianda dogo, the bridge to heaven. The Datagaliwabe uses that place for his holy people to cross to heaven. In the legend of Ira Hari, there is a sacred tree through which all of the earths waters pass into the heavens only to fall again as rain. Men tried to build a bridge to heaven on this tree using rope and timber but were unsuccessful. Their language was confused as they worked on the bridge resulting in the disruption of their plans to reach the house of the deities and this was the creation of various other languages. The Datagaliwabe showed the Huli people dreams and visions of aircraft, truck and also the return of Tahonane, the Hulis long lost white brother. The first Huli man Tagonimabe has two sons, Tahonane born white and Tamindini born black. Tahonane was nursed by a great god, grew quickly and left the Huli area never to die. Tamindini nursed at his mothers breast, and became the father of all the Huli people through his son, Tiliali. The first white men the Huli people encountered were Jack Hides and Peter OMalley. They looked queerly at the two explorers and whispered excitedly among themselves about their long lost white brother who had returned. One of the prophecies that has come to pass is Gigira Laitebo legend called Kwai Topo. In this legend, the wise men of Hela spoke many generations ago that their land possessed the Gigira Laitebo or everlasting fire and that one day this would so shine that the faraway lands would be attracted by it and they would come to their doorstep. Today the people of Hela are seeing the men with the orange legs from faraway lands trying to take the fire from them. The Datagaliwabe transformed himself into the sun god, the Ni, resulting in a combination of the supreme-being with the sun god to form one supreme-being, the Ni. Ni is a creator god who makes the fertility of the earth and increases the abundance of life for his children, Ni honowini. One of the Ni honowini who makes the fertility of the earth is the famous huli legend of Baya Baya. He was regarded as Jesus who stayed among the Huli people. Prophecy states that the descendant from Ni honowini would one day will come and light up the caves and tunnels of Hela Province. The Huli ancestors said that when that day came, it would be the sign of the last days. Many Huli believe that Bible stories are paralleled in Huli legend, to the extent that some became convinced that their ancestors had somehow received the biblical message before even the missionaries came, which resulted in many questions about Church history. Datagaliwabe is still equated with God or Yahweh by many Huli Christians today. Betty Gabriel Wakia, 29, is a scholarship student studying at Tianjin University of Technology and Education in China. She comes from Koroba, Hela Province, and loves travelling, writing and reading non-fiction. Social Security beneficiaries won't receive a cost-of-living adjustment this year, but U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer wants to change that. Schumer, D-N.Y., is supporting legislation sponsored by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren that would provide Social Security recipients with a one-time average payment of $580. The cost of providing the payments would be covered by ending a tax deduction corporations have used to write off bonuses paid to executives. The remaining revenue collected will be used to support Social Security's trust fund, Schumer said. The legislation, the SAVE Benefits Act, has more than 20 cosponsors in the Senate and 45 in the House of Representatives. So far, no Republicans support the measure. "This is the right thing to do," Schumer said. "It's the humane thing to do. It's the appropriate thing to do." Without the bill or some other legislative fix, there won't be a COLA for Social Security recipients. It's only the third time since 1975 that beneficiaries haven't received an increase in their Social Security benefits. One reason why there's no COLA this year is the drop in gas prices. Schumer said the federal government uses a formula that factors in certain costs, including the price of gas. If gasoline wasn't included in the formula, benefits would increase above 2 percent, he said. Schumer recalled efforts in 2009 to provide a COLA after the recession hit. He said Congress intervened and provided beneficiaries with a one-time $250 benefit. "This year, we need to do something similar of even better," he said. As of 2014, there were 1.7 million Social Security beneficiaries living in upstate New York, including 1.2 million seniors. In Central New York, there were 226,00 Social Security beneficiaries. Selma Blair got the 1st perfect score on Dancing with the Stars this season and it was deserved. Announcing she was withdrawing from the competition because she didnt want to hurt her body, Blair danced 1 final time and had the ballroom in tears. SKANEATELES | The seventh annual Polar Bear Plunge might not be as polar this year, but that will not stop Todd Marshall and the Skaneateles Polar Bear Club from leading brave souls into the chilly Skaneateles Lake waters once again. The plunge, which started in 2010 as Marshall's "crazy idea" to raise money for the community as part of Winterfest, is slated for Saturday, Jan. 30 during the 12th annual Winterfest sponsored by the Skaneateles Sunrise Rotary Club. But, because of unseasonable weather and record-breaking temperatures throughout November and December, there is not likely to be much ice on the lake for the plunge, even with colder temperatures in the weeks leading up to the event. The last time a plunge took place without the need to first cut a hole in the ice to give the polar bears a place to jump, Marshall said, was three years ago. "We had one year where it was open water," he said. "It was 50 degrees and windy. It's so much harder when it's open water and waves." It is harder, he said, when one goes into the water and then comes out and gets hit by the wind. And, he said, the hole in the ice sets the Skaneateles polar plunge apart from similar events, including one that takes place on Cayuga Lake in Aurora on New Year's Day, in which participants run off the beach into the water. "Hopefully, it gets cold and there's a little bit of ice because it's more fun," Marshall said. "I think that's one of the great characteristics of our plunge. We have the ability to cut a hole and jump into the ice." He did say there are some precautions that have to be taken for an open water plunge versus one done through a hole in the ice. For one, bystanders including emergency personnel cannot stand on the ice to watch the event. Marshall said having ice allows for a more confined area that creates a safer atmosphere for participants. "Safety is more of a concern when it's open water because people can swim, he said, adding that still is not likely to happen because the cold water is not exactly inviting for such a dip. The plunge is scheduled to start with registration at 11:30 a.m. and the actual event at 12:30 p.m. Marshall said people can find more information on the Skaneateles Polar Bear Club's Facebook page and can sign up through an active.com link on the club's website, skanpolarbear.com. Marshall said the cost is $40 per person for a team of at least three people in advance of the plunge or $60 on the day of the event. As well as registering online, people can mail in their registration or sign up the day of the plunge. He also said the club is still looking for sponsors for its warming tents, which is the club's only real cost to put on the event. Sponsorships cost $250 apiece, and sponsors get their logos on the polar plunge sweatshirt. Interested parties can contact Marshall at marshalltodd@verizon.net. Marshall said he had never done a polar plunge before he came up with the idea to put one on in Skaneateles and presented it to two of his friends, Andy Ramsgard and Michael Glowacki, to see what they thought of it. "It started out as a few guys wanting to do something fun to give back to our community in the middle of winter," Marshall said. "I said, 'I have this crazy idea. We should do a polar plunge and make it a fundraiser. It would be fun. Would you go in?' They both said, 'Sure.'" Another friend, Vitaliy Darovskikh, joined the group as well, telling them that people do that all the time in his native Russia. "Originally, it was us four, and then there were 18 people the first year," Marshall said, adding that now more than 100 people participate each year. Now, the club includes a total of nine people Tyler Watson, Jason Capello, Candy Searing, Steve White and David Aureden joining the group that start planning the plunge two months before it takes place. Marshall said the Boy Scouts help set up the tents that are rented for the event, and the Skaneateles YMCA and Community Center donates some equipment. The village allows the use of the gazebo, and David Lee provides the stairs. The Skaneateles Volunteer Fire Department and Skaneateles Ambulance Volunteer Emergency Service coordinate the safety aspects, and the Skaneateles Education Foundation brings volunteers to help out. Those three organizations in turn are the beneficiaries of the event's proceeds. "One hundred percent of our donations go back to the community," Marshall said, noting that last year's plunge raised $10,000 for a total of $40,000 in six years. "Nothing stays with us." He added that the club members fully participate too with contributions of their own. "Any donation, any sponsorship, goes completely back to the community," Marshall said. "Any sponsorship gives us an opportunity to give back more." This year, he said, the Brain Freeze team from Skaneateles High School will try to defend its trophy as last year's top fundraising team, though the team from Bijou Salon that previously had the trophy wants to get it back. And including club members, he said there are about 10 people who have taken part in every polar plunge. Some of the club members' children will take their first plunge now that they reached or passed the minimum age of 12. The Schweinfurth Art Center's annual "Both Ends of the Rainbow" show always opens in January, but it's more appropriately described as a January-to-December show. More than 1,000 pieces of art by Cayuga County-area students and senior citizens comprise the annual show. It opens Sunday at the Auburn gallery alongside "Three Lakes Sampler," another assortment of student art selected by teachers in the districts of Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES, whose Talented and Gifted Committee sponsors the show. The exhibits will run through March 6. One of 35 seniors in "Both Ends of the Rainbow" is Sharon Dec, of Auburn, who has two acrylics hung on the Schweinfurth's walls: "Still Life With Flowers" and "House on a Hill in Ithaca." The former finds her practicing perspective with the image of a windowsill vase; the latter depicts the domesticated stained glass of the First Church of Christ, Scientist on University Avenue in Ithaca. An Oklahoma native, Dec took art classes in high school before moving to New York City. There, she assisted the head of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art for almost 20 years. However, save the occasional sketch in Central Park, Dec didn't touch a canvas again until she retired and moved to Auburn a few years ago. With plenty of free time on her hands, she took an acrylics class at the Schweinfurth at the suggestion of her husband, a Cayuga County native. "I couldn't believe how much fun it was," she said of the class. "Sometimes those old skills don't fade away. Just to renew that was a great joy." Dec's return to artmaking led to her inclusion in last year's "Both Ends of the Rainbow." She also attended its opening reception, where she saw firsthand how much artistic expression flows in her new home, she said. "Anybody who lives in New York City as long as I did becomes a bit of a snob," she laughed. "But I was dumbfounded by the amount of talent there is up here. Behind all those closed doors in this little community, there are a lot of creative people." Among the children in last year's "Both Ends of the Rainbow" was Addison Lange, now a third-grader at Herman Avenue Elementary School in Auburn. Addison has another piece in this year's show, a watercolor and ink collage of a tiger with kanji lettering. Addison's mother, Donna, said her daughter was "extremely excited" to be in the show again and glad to make her art teacher at Herman Avenue, Jessica Rice, proud. "It's a great thing to have them displayed in a bigger stage," Donna said. "We're glad that this is offered in the community." Dec added, "I hope everyone comes to see how talented their neighbors are." In the world of floriculture, as in any industry, company or group of people, there are a few, sometimes only one person who stands heads above the rest. One who is an innovator or a peacekeeper, one who is not afraid to voice an opinion or to stand up and give of himself. In my years as a florist, I have been fortunate enough to have known or worked with many of the men and women who shaped the growing and the selling of flowers over these past 50 or 60 years. Today, I want to tell you of one of the finest of those people. Al Felly died last week at the age of 90. I first met Al in the early '70s. There was a green plant boom. Everybody was collecting houseplants, filling their homes with greenery with strange names. Plant shops were opening everywhere and mass marketers were cornering the business. Florists were caught short: They were so busy selling flowers they missed a great opportunity, and the other vendors seemed to have a grasp. FTD decided to form a Green Team to travel the nation and Canada and teach floral seminars to florists. Al was chosen to develop the marketing and merchandising aspects, a lady named Jane got to teach florists about water, temperature and diseases, and I was to teach botanical Latin and in-home care. Over the next two years, we did about 25 of these things. And Al and I formed a lifelong friendship. After that program ended, we went on to do many more talks over the next 20 years. We were together on our first trips to Colombia and spent a wonderful week in Belize more about that in a moment. Al spent World War II as a flight engineer on bombers. On discharge, he entered University of Wisconsin as an English literature major. He was interested in Shakespeare. For extra spending money, he delivered for a local florist. The stories vary but by 1949 he owned the store. Over the next 20 years he expanded his store, opened three more, developed departments in grocery stores and then built greenhouses to grow the green plants he needed. He was one of the first florists to realize that if a florists flowers lasted longer, people would be happier and would buy more often. He led the way in the industry to get water tested, use the right flower foods and, most importantly, because flowers were being shipped long distances, he developed systems for cutting stems underwater. His work and that of others who followed doubled the usable length of life of fresh flowers. Al became enamored with using words to help people remember phone numbers and managed to get the number, 1-800-356-7478, or 1-800-FLORIST. Over the years, after Al sold it, the number evolved into todays giant 1-800-FLOWERS. His love of history brought him one summer to Mineral Point, Wisconsin, where he bought a small street of shops and houses and refurbished them into a Williamsburg- like historical village, Shake Rag Alley. It still thrives today, under new ownership. Al loved to fish and frequently went to Belize, Central America. It had been British Honduras when many of us were young. He went frequently, got to love the people and learn about them. And he found that they didnt have a high school. Since the government did not seem to believe that the island of San Pedro needed one, Al decided to build one. With the help of locals who pledged hours if not dollars, with the help of florists who contributed, and with his far and wide connections, the first four rooms were completed in 1981. I was delighted when he told me that the dedication plaque would read, A school is a building filled with opportunity. I had the opportunity. You have the opportunity. She didnt. Julie Anne Cosentino, 1981. With the recent addition of a third floor, it can now accommodate 525 students. In the evening, the facility becomes a junior college. Al taught me, If it is to be, it is up to me. After retirement to Arizona at the age of about 75, Al occupied his time in building wonderful, decorated benches for homes, and then when that got to be too much, he decided to carve, for sale, a Santa for each month and holiday. He couldnt keep up with the demand. He always told me that if you put your mind to it, anything is possible. Rest in Peace, Al. Hillary Clinton and her campaign minions are trying mightily to dismiss the conclusions of the intelligence community inspector general that highly classified Special Access Protocol (SAP) documents were transferred to Clintons unsecured private server. The first line of Clintons defense is (as usual) that the allegations are 1) nothing new and 2) politically motivated. But beyond this usual rote Clintonian response is the additional claim that the documents were also 1) not so classified when Clinton received them and 2) even if they were classified documents the information they contained was public knowledge anyway, so no harm, no foul. As to Clintons first line of defense, what can one say? You support Hillary and accept her mendacious paranoia as part of the package, or you dont. That Charles McCollough (the IG) is an Obama appointee confirmed by a Democrat Senate, thus making the charge of that his actions are political even more absurd than usual, matters not to Clintonistas for whom truth and logic are inconveniences. The first part of Clintons second line of defense is of the bend but dont break variety. Hillary first denied that any classified documents were sent or received over her server. When that proved patently false, she fell back and claimed that such documents were not so marked at the time, so how could she know? That this is not a legal defense under the applicable statutes doesnt matter to the Clinton gang, it sounds okay, so go with it. At least one email reveals that Hillary instructed an aide to delete classified markings on a document and send it on an unsecure machine. But hey, when Hillary actually received it was not marked classified, so she was not lying about that, only breaking the law, and thats just something that Clintons, from time to time, do. And finally we get to the real interesting part, the last line of Clintons defense, that even if the documents were classified at the highest level, it was all a mistake. The information in the documents -- reportedly about the American drone strike program -- was public knowledge anyway, so whoever classified the documents didnt know what they were doing. Now lets take this position to its logical conclusion, which if applied across the board in the intelligence community or the military, anybody handling a sensitive document could determine on their own whether the document should be classified or not. Oh sure an Air Force officer might say I posted a schematic of a new radar for the F-35 on my personal blog, but I hear the Chinese already have it anyway, so its really not classified. Please take off the handcuffs. An apologia for Clintons actions on Media Matters citing various anonymous government officials basically attempts to explain why the SAP classified material was not really classified at all, and so nothing to get excited about. Since the drone strike program was already widely reported in the media, including the New York Times (as Mrs. Clinton pointed out the other day on NPR) how could documents relating to that possibly be secret? Well in fact, there are several reasons that the documents may have been highly classified regardless of the actual information contained within them. The first and most important is sources and methods. Many years ago I worked as an Intelligence Clerk in what was then called the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (BIR), Department of Soviet Internal Affairs. My job was basically to go through thousands of intelligence cables that came into the office every day, and pick out the few that were relevant to my departments mission, to discern what was happening in the top echelons of the Soviet government. I looked at a lot of classified stuff, and ended up rejecting and burning about 90% of it. Almost all of the information in those thousands of classified documents was quite mundane. Often stuff you might read in the newspapers -- and in fact newspapers from the Soviet Union and elsewhere were a part of my daily intel trove. The reason why the documents were classified usually had to do with where they came from and how we got them, not what the documents said. Divulging that information could not only endanger sources but lives, and so is quite serious business. Now the Media Matters article says that at least one of the two documents that were SAP marked did not come from confidential sources or methods, while the other -- well they cant say so they just sort of mumble that part away. If even one of those documents came from a secure source or method, that is quite consequential, for most people handcuff time. But lets assume that neither document originated with confidential sources or methods. Why might the intelligence community still highly classify the documents when the information contained in them about U.S. drone strikes was public knowledge? Well, because the U.S. still does not officially acknowledge the drone program, and an official document that does is by its very nature secret. Now Hillary or her supporters might think it is ridiculous that President Obama does not wish to publicly acknowledge this program, but that is really not their decision to make, is it? Hillary worked directly for the president, and if he and his national security team deemed that having some level of deniability for the drone program was important, even if reporters for the New York Times had already figured out that American drones were killing bad guys, then on what authority does Hillary ignore that? Did Hillary go to the president first and say Hey Barack, why are we denying this drone program when everybody knows you have a disposition matrix and knock these guys off once in awhile? Lets declassify the whole thing. That would have been okay, and then the president could have said yes or no. But Hillary didnt do that, so far as we know. She and her aides just decided -- after the fact -- that this stuff was not worthy of classification so passing it around on an unsecured private email account was perfectly acceptable. Now way back when I was at BIR we might have gotten an embassy cable that said something like Brezhnev and Andropov disagree over Soviet policy in Poland. That might have been something that a prominent reporter (like the late Joseph Kraft who sometimes quietly stopped by the office to chat with my boss) might have already known. But were he to see the classified cable because I had carelessly left it out on a desk, even assuming that the source and method was benign, he would know that this was something that concerned U.S. diplomats which if reported would be known to the Soviets. And while that might not have been disastrous, it would not be something wed wish to share. Not to mention I would have been fired and likely sent to jail. Like Hillary should be. Paul Ryan may not favor Trump, but could not be doing more to help him. Ryan has now been in office long enough to take a number of actions that allow us to judge whether he can be the effective strategist that John Boehner never was. Let's first remember that the most important political problem he faces is the contempt in which most of his party's voters hold its leaders and Washington office holders. The most visible symptom of that contempt is Donald Trump's strength in the polls. Ryan's main job is to convince the party's voters that they should trust the party again in spite of its recent history of torpor, because their turning in disgust to Trump may lead to electoral disaster: the latest NBC/WSJ poll has Trump losing even to Bernie Sanders by 15 points. It's fair to judge Ryan's actions first and foremost by their impact on this crucial point. Take first of all the omnibus budget bill that Ryan negotiated. What was its political impact on the perilous situation within the GOP? It could scarcely have been worse. All the things that the party base really cared about were given away: no money for the border fence, Obama's illegal executive amnesty was funded, his Muslim refugee program funded, sanctuary cities funded, and so on. House Democrats were so delighted by the bill that 90% voted in favor, while only 60% of Republicans voted affirmatively, and many of them not because they liked the bill, but because they didn't want to humiliate a new leader. If Ryan's aim had been to boost Trump's poll numbers still more, he could not have done more to achieve that end. Trump must have been thrilled. If his aim had been to tell his voters to take a hike, he could not have done so more effectively. If the GOP loses the White House, the Senate, and the House in 2016, this could well be the action that made those losses inevitable. Worse yet, when Ryan explained what he thought he was doing, he revealed a mindset that promised an everlasting stream of similar problems for his party. He was plausible when he explained that he gave on some things to get concessions on others, but he became alarming as soon as he spoke of the gains he was so proud of. Ryan was excited at having secured the extension of some relatively circumscribed tax breaks breaks applicable to particular business situations, not to the general public. In exchange for these, he had given away everything his party's voters cared deeply about. Some have called this a betrayal, but the truth is even worse. Ryan showed that he is a policy wonk and number-cruncher so focused on budgetary detail that he loses sight of the big picture. He is politically tone-deaf. It was as if the GOP's huge political problem did not exist. His other recent actions all lead to that same conclusion. When Kevin McCarthy blew up his candidacy for the speakership with his astonishing gaffe concerning the Benghazi committee, it was immediately obvious to everyone that the party must look elsewhere. But not to Ryan, who wrote an op-ed enthusiastically promoting McCarthy's candidacy for speaker, blissfully unaware that the party base would have been in open rebellion had McCarthy been chosen another politically brain-dead act on Ryan's part. McCarthy's promotion would of course have meant more gains for Trump. Another instance was Ryan's public statement rejecting Trump's call for a pause in Muslim immigration after the San Bernardino killings. Politically, what was important here was that Trump was speaking to a widespread public anxiety about Islamic terrorism. A statement from GOP leaders could certainly question the practicality of Trump's solution, but it would also need to give voters a sense that the leadership recognized the seriousness of the problem and the need to deal with it. If they didn't, Trump would own a popular issue, and his poll numbers would soar yet again. Not surprisingly, Ryan did exactly that. He rejected Trump's suggestion on the grounds that it imposed a religious test and said prissily that "that's not who we are." But everyone knows that Islam is not just any religion the concepts of jihad and sharia, so deeply embedded in Islamic history and practice, make very significant claims in the temporal world, and they make Islam much more than a religion. When Ryan shows us that he doesn't understand that (while most of his party's voters do), he sends a clear message: you all may be worried sick, but don't expect me to do anything about it. Trump boosted yet again instead of curing his party's main political headache, Ryan made it worse once more. Ryan impresses everyone as a bright young man, but it is the brightness of someone who has never achieved political maturity and wisdom, and it is hard to imagine him ever developing into a statesman. For all his wonkish cleverness, he is horribly deficient in political judgment and instincts. The GOP badly needed a politically savvy replacement for the tactically and strategically inept Boehner, but sadly, Ryan is even worse than Boehner. Nor should this have surprised anyone: in 2012, Ryan proposed a radical privatization reform of Medicare in the middle of a crucial election year without giving any thought to whether his party was on board, or to the political dimension of injecting it into the campaign to deny re-election to Obama. He had thought up a bright idea and so publicized it, as if the timing and political context were an irrelevance. From Trump's point of view, Ryan must be almost better than a pro-Trump super-PAC. A PAC only makes arguments, but Ryan's political bungling causes the despair of the GOP that drives people to Trump. John M. Ellis is a professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Cruz and chairman of the California Association of Scholars. The symbolic gesture of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton resetting relations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in March 2009 has been engrained in the minds of most people. With the push of a button, all would be made right between the United States and the Russian Federation. Well, not exactly. Russias forays into Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria are all well-documented. However, Russia is on the rise elsewhere and its not where you might think. Russian influence, under President Vladimir Putin, is growing in Latin America and it concerns the United States. Daniel Wiser of the Washington Free Beacon suggests that Russias expansion into Latin America, including Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and, of course, Cuba, is due to President Obamas negligence in the United States own backyard. As the United States pulls economic, and military resources out of the Americas, Putin sees the chance to once again take advantage of American weakness abroad. Putin has established strong relations with the nations of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), an intergovernmental organization established by former Venezuelan dictator, Hugo Chavez. The organization was created in opposition to the United States-backed Free Trade Area for the Americas, which has been seen by many Latin American and Caribbean countries as a form of American imperialism. The Russians send large quantities of weapons to Bolivarian Alliance nations, as well as training their militaries and police forces, share intelligence, and have offered financial assistance to them. In fact, between 2008 and 2011, Russia has sold more than three thousand surface-to-air missiles to Latin American countries, Venezuela receiving the largest share -- no doubt to prevent United States operations against the socialist government of authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro. Argentinas former president, Cristina Kirchner, was one of the few world leaders to support Russias aggression in Crimea. Russia, in an apparently successful attempt to gain favor, has helped Argentina complete a third reactor as part of a nuclear power plant. Putin has forgiven Cubas Soviet-era debt, and has performed naval drills with Venezuela and Nicaragua, and has negotiated arms deals with all three. In Nicaragua, the Russians have established a counter-narcotics training center that some observers say could eventually rival the United States longstanding commitment to anti-drug operations in the region. In an interview with Daniel Wiser, Jose Cardenas, a former George W. Bush administration official and assistant administrator for Latin America at the U.S. Agency for International Development, said in an interview that: On a geopolitical scale, the side obviously with the United States and its allies in NATO overwhelms whatever Putin can assemble on his side of the scale. Its his attempt to pretend that Russia can project its operations into the Western Hemispherejust like the United States can project its power into Central and Eastern Europe. Theres a lot of sizzle and very little steak. Cardenas also believes that Russia, not to mention Iran and China, sees a vacuum in Latin America to fill, brought on by the disengagement of the United States in the region. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R., Fla.), a Cuban-American Congresswoman and former Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also expressed concerns about Putins actions. She has stated that: During his trip, Putin met with the Castro brothers, the worst human rights violators in our hemisphere, and forgave some of Cubas debt, signed a nuclear agreement with Argentina, and reaffirmed economic cooperation with Nicaragua. Russia continues to undermine our foreign policy objectives throughout the world and its presence in our own hemisphere can destabilize the region and is meant to thumb its nose at the United States. According to Dr. R. Evan Ellis, a research professor of Latin American Studies at the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, Russia has sold nearly $14.5 billion worth of weapons to the region between 2001 and 2013, about $11 billion of which went to Venezuela. Large quantities also went to Peru and Brazil. It is arguably Russia whose activities in the region most openly challenge U.S. national security. In addition to seeking access to ports and airfields, Russian leaders have also expressed interest in military aircraft patrols in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, reopening the Russian Signals Intelligence collection facility at Lourdes, Cuba, and providing security for the transoceanic canal that possibly may be constructed across Nicaragua. Make no mistake, Putin is projecting Russian power abroad, not for the furthering of democratic principles, or to simply assist other nations as a moral endeavor. Instead the Russians see an opening to exploit for their national interests. Russia furnishes vast amounts of weapons, intelligence, financial and technological assistance, not to mention providing non-aligned Latin America countries with a voice on the U.N. Security Council, in exchange for having access to ports and airfields in the region. This relationship, like in Africa, gives Russia support in international agreements or conflicts. Of the eleven countries that voted against the United Nations resolution condemning the Crimea referendum after Russia invaded the peninsula, four were in Latin America: Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. In addition to those states, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Ecuador publicly abstained from voting. There is no question that the United States military is concerned about the Russian military maneuvers in the region, as well as other operations and the flow of resources into the region from Russia. Retired Marine Corp General John Kelly, former commander of United States Southern Command, sees a benefit to Russian involvement in the region, but worries that the Russian military activity in the region will eventually be an issue with regards to American hegemony. The general has stated: While Russian counterdrug cooperation could potentially contribute to regional security, the sudden increase in its military outreach merits closer attention, as Russias motives are unclear. Since President Obama has taken office, there has been a precipitous decline in American power and influence around the world. However, it is most concerning in the Western Hemisphere. The Western Hemisphere has witnessed European influence in varying forms for centuries. Since 1823, when Secretary of State John Quincy Adams crafted the Monroe Doctrine, the United States has experienced mixed success in curtailing foreign influence in the Americas. The United States finds itself in an era where failing to project strength in the Americas will cost it in influence that we can ill afford. However, the time of American timidity must come to an end, and we have the chance to plot a new course for our foreign policy and our nation. The United States is the hegemon of the West, not to mention the world. We better start acting like it again. A Rochester appeals court has upheld the conviction of the former Auburn police officer who exchanged confidential information for bribes. On Friday, the Appellate Division's Fourth Judicial Department unanimously affirmed a jury verdict finding Brian Hutchings, 53, guilty of five felonies, 23 misdemeanors and one violation. Hutchings a 19-year police veteran was sentenced to one to three years in prison in 2011 by Judge Mark Fandrich for abusing the public's trust by giving two local contractors the location of state Department of Transportation commercial stops in exchange for doing work on his Auburn home. While working for the Auburn Police Department, Hutchings also pepper sprayed and struck a construction worker after the man's employer refused to forgive a debt Hutchings owed the company for working on his driveway. In his appeal, Hutchings unsuccessfully argued two of his third-degree bribe receiving convictions weren't back up by sufficient evidence. "In each case, the people presented legally sufficient evidence from which the jury could find that defendant accepted free or discounted goods or services from local companies 'upon an agreement or understanding' that defendant's 'opinion, judgment, action, decision or exercise of discretion as a public servant' would be influenced thereby," the court wrote in its decision. The court also ruled Hutchings' failed to prove his contention that he was deprived of a fair trial by alleged prosecutorial misconduct. In a separate 2012 case, Hutchings was found guilty after a bench trial of stealing more than $45,000 from the Cayuga Police Benevolent Association between 2001 and 2008 while serving as the organization's treasurer. For both his bribery and theft convictions, Hutchings is currently serving 2 1/3 to seven years in the Hudson Correctional Facility. According to the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, his earliest release date is Jan. 2016. In parliamentary systems, when a nation like Britain was faced with a deadly threat, competing parties tended to form unity governments because "the prospect of hanging in the morning concentrates the mind wonderfully." In deadly crises, American politics also swings toward unity. In the face of the Hitler/Tojo war, Republicans reluctantly joined FDR and Truman in a united front. Republicans and Democrats also cooperated, at least in public, in the face of the Soviet threat. But with the Vietnam War, our political center broke apart, when the left drove repeated wedges into the American consensus, setting blacks against whites, women against men, gays against families, urbanites against Christianity, everybody against the rich, and so on. That is how the left-Islamist axis has been able to elect an ideological radical like Obama, driving their united phalanx to split the American body politic. Deliberate splitting is what we've seen over and over again in the Obama years. The coming election is therefore much more crucial than any prior election in our lives. Politically conscious Americans might be well advised to consider voting for a genuine unity ticket. These are not ordinary times. We all sense the earth moving under our feet, and constitutional government, which has served Americans so well for 240 years, is now in indisputable danger. If the Trump and Cruz campaigns understand the threat to national survival, they can act by running as a joint ticket. The U.S. Constitution does not govern the play of "political factions," as the Founders called them. Right now, Trump and Cruz are wasting time and energy attacking each other. A Trump-Cruz administration could appoint a genuine unity cabinet, including the strongest patriotic candidates Dr. Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Rudy Giuliani, and even Jeb Bush. That may sound like a formula for chaos, but those are exactly the kinds of people who managed to come together in previous times of national peril the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the world wars, and the Cold War. The GOP candidates represent a great deal of talent and some very strong egos. But a person like Jeb Bush, for example, might accept a cabinet appointment if the national security is at stake. Extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures. Trump and Cruz are imaginative enough to work out a unity government against Hillary and her pet choice, including the controlled media. Right now, Trump would not win a national majority, but add Ted Cruz as V.P. candidate, Ben Carson as the promised head of Health and Human Services, Rudy Giuliani as attorney general, Carly Fiorina as head of Treasury, Jeb Bush at Department of Education, and some patriotic Democrats, like Joe Lieberman and Senator Mark Warner, to help clean out the pigsty in D.C. This election is like the Lincoln-Douglas election just before the Civil War. These are not a normal times. If the voters do not come down hard on the Islamo-left in this election, Hillary and the Democrats will keep pushing Obama's slither toward anti-American and anti-Western policies. Just look at the Muslim Brotherhood characters the Democrats invited to Obama's SOTU address. Obama keeps doing in-your-face provocations to American patriots, like wearing that shahada ring in public and openly using jihadist jargon. "The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam," he said in 2012 at the U.N. That's jihad lingo for "surrender or die, sucker!" It's code language, and every single Muslim in the world gets it. It is also a clear promise to destroy the First Amendment to punish any critic of Islam. Don't ever think those words are empty rhetoric. Symbolic betrayal is one of Obama's first weapons. Our enemies understand the writing on that shahada "wedding ring" which Obama wore long before his actual wedding. Whether Obama is a believer or not is irrelevant. There's no question that he makes deliberate use of jihadist war signals, over and over again. Those signals bring him money from oil powers abroad, as well as promises of future support if he makes a run for U.N. secretary general. Obama is a Leninist, and when he talks about "change," he means a bloody revolution. Obama will not change one little bit when he leaves office. His kind of personality never does. Or why did you think Michelle made a quick trip to Qatar just a few months ago? To celebrate women's lib on the Arabian peninsula, as the media told us? Not bloody likely. Qatar is the biggest money backer for ISIS. Everybody in international politics knows it, and so do the Obamas. Since we are all learning Muslim symbols, we'd better use that knowledge to read the signs. They are not hard to spot; it's only the media that are frantically trying to cover them up. Our Big Media are now wholly owned by only half a dozen transnationals, where characters like Walid Bin Talal can simply buy big shares to control the public discourse. Buying media holding companies comes down to massive legal bribery, in the full light of day. Mexican super-billionaire Carlos Slim now owns a chunk of The New York Times, which means that he owns millions of brain-locked liberals. It's never been clear whether Slim has links to the Mexican mafia, but it's hard to believe that a Mexican billionaire could even survive without Sinaloa protection. Imagine Bin Talal, Carlos Slim, and George Soros playing poker in that famous smoke-filled room, and you can see our national destiny long before it hits the headlines. Add in President Hillary, mullah sympathizer Valerie Jarrett, and attack dog Sidney Blumenthal, and you don't even need a YouTube video of Huma typing out the top-secret emails in Hillary's office. At some point, all that becomes obvious. As Andrew McCarthy wrote recently, Hillary's SecState emails reflect the highest level of espionage and exposure of our national security. Just because the left is filled with useful idiots, that does not mean that the rest of us have to go along. We can see the Hillary-Huma cabal in the clear light of day, and anybody with the guts to say it out loud has a clear obligation to say so. Obama is trying to shut up his fired generals, like Gen. David Petraeus, but patriots know about taking personal risks for national survival. Plenty of American soldiers and marines made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq, because they believed in serving the nation. Their officers swore an oath to the Constitution, not to Obama or the corrupt Democrats. And yes, high officers do play politics in D.C., but not to the point of betraying national security. Admiral James "Ace" Lyons (USN, ret.) is the most prominent general officer to speak out openly in public so far, but 200 field grade officers have signed an open letter of protest against Obama's Iranian surrender. As military people, they know perfectly well who will suffer and die when Iran obtains nuclear weapons: it's our own military, along with our allies. And if our military are defeated, it will be the civilian homeland. Military officers are not supposed to reveal their strategic thinking in public, but at some point the simple act of telling the truth becomes the sine qua non for national security. As for Obama's generals, they might consider the consequences to their careers if a real patriot wins this election. Obama's support for our deadly enemies is not just verbal. He gave Iran a clear path to nuclear weapons and repeatedly exposed the civilized world to jihadist threats in Libya, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, all very vulnerable nations. In the near future we may see Saudi Arabia break apart, when the OPEC price cartel crumbles, as is visibly happening even now. A Saudi coup would inevitably trigger an Iranian blitzkrieg to conquer the Arabian peninsula. Starting with Ayatollah Khomeini, the Iranians have tried to overthrow the Saudis, to gain control over the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina. An Iranian war of conquest might trigger a major war with the 80% of Muslims who are Sunnis, not Shi'ites, including Pakistan, Egypt, and Jordan. Under harsh external pressure, Egypt could also go the way of Islamofascism. Syria is already shattered. Just a little stronger nudge and those countries could fall into Islamofascist totalitarianism, like Iran which used to be our close and reliable ally. We are clearly facing the threat of a new global war; the signs are all over the Muslim world, with more than a billion people. Since 9/11, numerous terrorist assaults have been launched against the United States and our allies. Millions of Muslims are infiltrating Western countries, which are now acting in collusion with the threat, using blackmail, bribery, and vote-buying. The Western response has been one signal of surrender after another. We are therefore already in the early stages of a major jihadist war, and as soon as the self-proclaimed enemy can unite and get WMD, the conflict will blow into the open. They have been threatening mass destruction against the infidel for decades, and during the Obama years we act like a woefully weak horse. Not long ago, the news leaked out of a secret Swiss surrender to Arab terrorists way back in 1973. The Swiss are not the only ones; the EU Ruling Class is so secretive that it could have signed any number of surrenders to Iran, Hamas, Hezb'allah, and the Muslim Brothers. Obama has probably done the same thing, since he doesn't believe in constitutional treaties. Democrats like Hillary are frantically signaling their own Islamofascist sympathies because that's the biggest source of (illegal) foreign money for the Hillary campaign. Suicidal actions like Angela Merkel's open door to jihadists in Germany show the same left-Islamist alliance at work. Those two million (expected) jihadist "immigrant" rapefugees were allowed to come in to strengthen a European Fifth Column, under the direct control of Wahhabi priests, who negotiate with the left and the European Union, greased by oil dollars. European leaders are known to have taken massive bribes before, including former Chancellor Kohl, French presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, Dominic de Villepin, and high-level Eurocrats. The U.N. and the EU are part of the same corrupt international network, as we can see in the global warming fraud. National bureaucracies in Western Europe now form a seamless web of NGOs, the Eurocracy, the U.N., and their completely controlled media. During the Cold War, when America led the Western alliance, we provided a rallying point for Europeans who did not want to live under the Soviet knout. More than once Stalin's USSR came close to taking over Greece, Italy, and France, but each time, Europeans chose democratic capitalism for one thing, they could see which system provided general prosperity. But the American CIA was also involved in shaping European and Middle East opinion during the Cold War. According to Admiral James Lyons, our most authoritative open source on Islamo-leftist infiltration, all that started to fall apart as far back as the 1960s. By the 1970s, the Arab oil embargo showed the political class that they could not survive being whipsawed by fast oil price manipulations just before elections. Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president to empower reactionary Islamists in Iran, a near impregnable nation of 70 million people that has now been given a clear path to nuclear weapons. Obama has done his utmost to bring the radical Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt and now in Jordan. That is not a sane policy for Western leaders, because it greatly amplifies the enemy threat to us and our (former) allies. As a result, the Saudis, Egypt, and Israel see Russia's virtual invasion of Syria as a possible stabilizing factor. Putin does not want to destroy world stability, which would threaten Russia with missiles and nukes; he would much rather be paid off. Other countries can do deals with Putin, who desperately needs cash for development. But Obama is an ideological fanatic, and under him the United States has acted to destabilize the Middle East, time and time again. When supposedly rational leaders promote national suicide, as Angela Merkel and the EU are doing, we have gone beyond normal politics. Something else is going on. Extraordinary threats require extraordinary solutions. We are again facing Abe Lincoln's choice in the Gettysburg Address: Trumps success has been a multifaceted surprise, but one of the more perplexing aspects has been the ability of a man with such a flashy and non-traditional personality to appeal to working-class whites. Historically, rich candidates have trouble connecting with the common man, as the careers of Mitt Romney and Steve Forbes amply demonstrate. Successful rich candidates have tended to direct attention away from their wealth, often playing dress-up as a backwoodsmen and engaging in just-folks routines. Trump, in contrast, flaunts his wealth with reckless abandon, punctuating almost every sentence with, I am very rich. And yet, white voters in the lower middle class adore him. The reason for this break with precedent is that Trump's lifestyle is defiantly non-elitist: it reflects how a lot of lower-class people imagine they would behave if they became billionaires. Joe the Plumber doesnt fantasize about attending fundraisers for the opera, summering in the Hamptons, or even buying impeccably tailored suits; rather, he dreams of limousines, helicopters, beautiful women, and gold-plated everything. Trumps supporters forgive his lifestyle, because they believe that if they had his kind of money they would behave the same way. In truth, any attempt to not appear nouveau riche would be suspect. Because Trumps voters relate to him on a gut level, they are willing to overlook his policy indiscretions. Sure, Trump in the past has supported liberal policies and even invited the Clintons to his wedding, but he gets a pass because he successfully frames this behavior as the necessary evil that comes with deal-making among Americas movers and shakers. Rather than exhibiting any kind of disloyalty to the conservative voters who back him today, Trump was making the Clintons and their ilk dance to his tune and serve his ends -- it is all those liberals in New York he wined and dined over the years who were the rubes and suckers. People were primed to believe this argument because the conservative media has been hammering away for years on the theme of how effete and elitist liberals are. The dirty little secret has always been that the conservative establishment in the Acela corridor has always fancied itself part of the intelligentsia as well. By day they rant and rail about the liberal snobs gallivanting around DC, but at night they attend Georgetown cocktail parties -- and on weekends they go foxhunting in Middleburg. William F. Buckley Jr. famously said that I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University, notably omitting mention of his own Yale education. Republican elites have been playing this game for a long time. With the rise of the Tea Party, however, they began to lose control of the brush that had been so useful in tarring their liberal colleagues. By pegging liberals as elitists for decades, the conservative establishment not only succeeded in making the word liberal toxic, but elite as well. Tea Partiers took this to its logical conclusion in 2010, launching a crusade against elites at large. Republicans and Democrats became equal opportunity targets if they could be pegged as part of the establishment. Some politicians even rode the wave to victory, but most were stopped short by lack of money and name recognition. Trump has neither of those problems. This means that the establishment cant deploy the tools that it historically has used to ensure that one of their favored candidates is the presidential nominee. Trump doesnt need money or publicity. Ironically, rather than needing the establishments support, he benefits from their disapprobation. Their criticisms actually reinforce his bona fides with the GOP base. At first voters were suspicious of Trump and his all brass and class lifestyle, and his poll numbers reflected this. Before his statement that illegal immigrants are rapists, he polled at under five percent. But after the establishment attacked him in the weeks following his remarks, Trump's numbers climbed to fifteen percent among Republicans. This is salient, but the blow up surrounding his criticism of John McCains war record is particularly revealing. One might be tempted to believe that the Republican base was attracted to Trumps blunt rhetoric about undocumented immigrants, and that condemnation from the elites had little to do with his success. But the John McCain incident was a strictly intraparty affair, with the sharpest criticism coming from the GOP establishment. Once again the same dynamic that surrounded his attack on immigrants revealed itself. Before insulting McCain, Trump polled at fifteen percent; after the establishment condemned him, his numbers rose to 24 percent. The GOP establishment clearly thought that they had a silver bullet when Trump attacked John McCain. (A war hero!) Much ink was spilled gleefully bidding Trump farewell. But while the Republican base reveres veterans, John McCain today is more strongly associated with his ties to the Republican establishment than with his military history the same elite establishment that the base no longer trusts. The fact that Trump was willing to call McCain out and then refused to back down in the face of broadsides from the establishment press was proof positive that this rich real-estate mogul was with the base where it counted. Every attack from the likes of Charles Krauthammer and Karl Rove went on to prove that Donald Trump is actually not an elitist. If he was, these guys would be supporting him. These elites are the ones whose conservative credentials are in question, not Trumps. After all, it is they, not Trump, who have stood by and let America fall into the hands of Obama. Trump, despite being from New York and having a record of embracing New York values, does not act like an uptown elite. He may be rich, but he is not sophisticated. By a weird twist, this actually makes him more relatable to the GOP base: first, because he lives the life they fantasize about when they dream of hitting it big, and second, because the odium that the elites reserve for Trump demonstrates that he is not part of the establishment. If Trump is not part of the establishment, then it follows that he must be part of the anti-establishment. And the base of the Republican Party is in a very anti-establishment mood. Robert Nelson is a political commentator living in Nicaragua. His work has previously been published in Salon. He has worked as analyst at the Democratic polling firm Hart Research Associates. The deal with Iran that freed five American hostages two weeks ago contained a secret sweetener that facilitated the release of an Iranian convicted of violating the sanctions regime. A $10-million judgment against Nader Modanlo, an Iranian-born aerospace engineer, was dropped as part of the deal to release the Americans held by Iran. The money was a fee collected by Modanlo for a deal he brokered between the Russians and Iranians to receive the technology that allowed the latter to launch their first satellite. Reuters: A Washington-based spokesman for the Justice Department declined to comment on discussions over the $10 million, which the jury found that Modanlo was paid to help Iran launch its first satellite in 2005. Modanlo says the money was a loan from a Swiss company for a telecoms deal. In the prisoner swap, five Americans held in Iran were released at the same time as seven Iranians charged or imprisoned in the United States were granted pardons or had their sentences commuted. The deal accompanied the Jan. 16 implementation of a landmark agreement that curbs Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Even after receiving the improved offer on Friday, Jan. 15, Modanlo said he didn't budge at first. He wanted a chance to clear his name in court, he says. "I was mostly disappointed that I have to give up my right to appeal," Modanlo, 55, told Reuters in one of his first interviews since being released. "If they believe in their justice system why would they deprive me of it? Let them prove me wrong." As part of their clemency agreements, all of the Iranians had to renounce any claims against the U.S. government. All but one had been accused of violating the economic sanctions the United States has enforced against Iran for decades. Modanlo's reluctance to accept Obama's offer became an eleventh-hour complication to an otherwise carefully staged deal with Iran that had been negotiated in secret for months by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart. He only agreed to accept the clemency offer on Saturday, Jan. 16 as the clock ticked toward what U.S. officials said was the final deadline, according to Modanlo and U.S. officials. He was freed the next day from a federal prison near Richmond, Virginia. The release marked an abrupt conclusion to his case after a sprawling, decade-long investigation into Modanlo's role in brokering Iran's access to space technology. U.S. federal agents had pursued evidence from the suburbs of Washington to Switzerland and Russia. Modanlo was serving the longest sentence of any of the seven Iranians and had the most extensive, established connections to Iran's government. The amount of money is unimportant. What matters is what Iran was able to extort from this administration to get our people back. We already knew that we included a $150-million interest payment on some returned assets to secure the release a ransom that the administration refuses to acknowledge as such. There is absolutely no deterrence whatsoever in this deal to make Iran think twice about taking more Americans hostage. In fact, they'd be fools not to. As long as the administration continues to coddle, to grovel, and to surrender to Iranian threats and extortion, no American who travels to Iran will be safe. Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer's trade association coordinated with the EPA to debunk a federally commissioned study that was critical of the EPA's impact on the power grid. Emails between the agency and the Advanced Energy Economy (AEE), a trade association of about 80 companies, show that there was an exchange of ideas on how to handle the critical report and lessen its impact. Washington Free Beacon: AEE is one of three politically oriented groups run out of and coordinated by Steyers office. While his political and policy efforts garner more press attention, emails obtained by the Energy and Environment (E&E) Legal Institute through Freedom of Information Act requests reveal ways in which his coalition of green energy businesses also affects public policy. Arvin Ganesan, AEEs vice president for federal policy, emailed a handful of EPA and White House staffers in January 2015. Several of us talked last month about rebutting a November study from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a nonprofit tasked by the federal government with monitoring and developing standards for electricity reliability. Critics of the EPAs power plant regulations were already citing NERCs study, which questioned the impact of EPA power plant regulations on electrical grid reliability and suggested they delay the rules implementation. NERCs report underscores the growing reliability concerns with EPAs unworkable plan, Rep. Ed Whitfield (R., Ky.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committees panel on energy and power, said of the reports release. Ganesan wanted to huddle with administration officials about an AEE-commissioned study to push back on the findings of the federally chartered nonprofit group. After the release of the study, hewrote, AEE would enlist member companies to pressure the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which oversees NERC, to discount its findings. AEE, a trade association with more than 80 members, will have [its rebuttal] amplified by our companies at the various FERC technical conferences, Ganesan wrote. After some back-and-forth, the EPA penciled him in for a Feb. 19 meeting with Joe Goffman, one of the lead architects of the agencys power plant rule, and Janet McCabe, the acting chief of the EPAs air quality division. All sounds very promising. We look forward to seeing the results, Goffman wrote. Just months before, Ganesan had been Goffmans and McCabes colleague. He was the EPA deputy chief of staff for policy until October 2014, when he left to join AEE. He will be a tremendous asset as we work with Congress and the Administration to create a prosperous future powered by secure, clean, affordable energy, the groups CEO said of the hire. The coordination may be against administration policy, but it does not violate the law. But what we've seen over the years from the EPA is a reliance on private groups to assist them in attacking their critics. Congress has been looking into the relationship between the EPA and groups like the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, wanting to know how environmental regulations are written with the private groups' assistance. Lawmakers want to determine if the groups involved cross the line from acting in an advisory capacity to coordinating issue advocacy with the EPA a possible crime under federal law if the advocacy is determined to take place in the political arena. But first, there would have to be an investigation by the administration and the Justice Department. Good luck with that. With the memory of the recent slaughter in Paris by Muslim terrorists of various backgrounds still fresh in their minds, plus the recent first anniversaries of the killings at Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Jewish supermarket serving as additional reminders of Muslim terrorism, a surprising coalition of French groups mounted a small demonstration opposing Iranian president Hassan Rouhani's visit to France. (Well, okay, the French being the French, they weren't too upset about the terrorist-caused Jewish deaths in the supermarket, feeling they're understandable. But then again, so does Secretary of State John Kerry.) The opposing demonstration was organized by left-wing groups, labor unions, exiled Iranians, and even some of France's leading papers, according to a report in the Times of Israel. Many of the participants held aloft photos of Iranian activists imprisoned in Iran or activists executed there in the past two years, since Rouhani was elected president. ... The demonstration joins a massive campaign in French media and social networks against Rouhani's visit. The campaign focuses on the violation of human rights in Iran and on its support for terrorism. France's main newspapers Le Monde, Le Figaro and Liberation all published over the past two days editorials stating that Iran has not changed and has not yet become a progressive and liberal country with which France can renew relations, especially against the backdrop of Iranian ties with Hezbollah's military wing and its involvement in the Syrian civil war. Several other demonstrations have been scheduled for Thursday, including a large rally, organized by several Jewish groups, that is set to take place outside of the French senate. NGOs dedicated to human rights and women's rights and student organizations are also planning to hold protests. Not that this will influence the French government. As I mentioned, the French are...well, the French. Thierry Coville, an expert on the Iranian economy, told The Times of Israel that French business people have been waiting eagerly for 10 years for relations with Tehran to be renewed. "When the sanctions were imposed, the French companies left Iran," he said. "Some of them, like Peugeot, had to lay off thousands of workers and even shut down plants. The French automobile and energy sectors relied heavily on the Iranian market, which was the largest one for French exports outside of the European Union." So the lefties and the labor unions will soon come around to Iran with new jobs to offer their members, and forget the recent unpleasantness. And the newspapers will be happy. And if things don't work out, the French can always rewrite history, as they did post-World War ll, twisting their collaboration into resistance. Rumors of intrigue surround Fox News and its treatment of Donald Trump. And now, the king of the News Corporation media empire, Rupert Murdoch, has entered the fray with a tweet encouraging fellow New York billionaire media mogul Michael Bloomberg to run for president: This is Bloomberg's last chance. You never know until your hat is in the ring! Events change everything, especially during elections. At Breitbart, Julia Hahn sees Murdoch as a globalist/open borders guy who is sabotaging Donald Trump: Murdochs support of open borders immigration policies has been identified as a potential conflict of interest for years. As ABC reported in 2013: Murdoch, Australian born and a naturalized U.S. citizen, has become an outspoken advocate for immigration reform and mass legalization of the countrys undocumented immigrants, partnering with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in this cause. Whether Murdochs personal views will percolate through his network, or at least temper criticism on the airwaves of those who dont share it, remains to be seen. In 2013, during the Rubio-Schumer Gang of Eight push, Mickey Kaus similarly pointed out: In 2007, John McCains comprehensive immigrant-legalization bill failed after opponents flooded the Senate with calls, shutting down the switchboard It wont be that easy this time The GOP donor class is asserting itself One of the more influential members of this donorist class is Rupert Murdoch, which means that FOX News has for all intents and purposes switched sides, giving immigration comprehensivists a monopoly in the MSMfive networks to none. Indeed, Murdoch has himself expressed his support for large-scale immigration. In a 2014 op-ed published in the Wall Street Journals open borders opinion pages, titled, Immigration Reform Cant Wait, Murdoch wrote: When I learned that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor had lost his Republican primary, my heart sank. Not simply because I think he is an intelligent and talented member of Congress, or because I worry about the future of the Republican Party. Like others who want comprehensive immigration reform, I worried that Mr. Cantors loss would be misconstrued and make Congress reluctant to tackle this urgent need. That would be the wrong lesson and an undesirable national consequence of this single, local election result. In his Wall Street Journal op-ed, Murdoch echoed Rubios position on granting citizenship to illegal immigrants. Murdoch wrote, We need to give those individuals who are already here a path to citizenship. Murdoch even decried Americans who opposed amnesty as, nativists who scream about amnesty a statement which is perhaps even more significant given the fact that Murdoch is himself a beneficiary of the nations generous immigration policy. Murdoch praised President Obama for showing wise restraint on immigration, even though, at the time of Murdochs writing, Obama had already implemented his first unconstitutional executive amnesty, giving away American jobs to illegal aliens including the jobs of black Americans whose have suffered some of the greatest harms from mass immigration. When civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, more than three and a half million Syrians fled the country to the neighboring countries of Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq, to escape the violence. Overwhelmed by the increasing number of refugees that crossed the borders, the host countries began constructing temporary refugee camps with the aid of the United Nations. One such camp the Zaatari refugee camp, located 10 km east of Mafraq, in Jordan, is gradually evolving into a permanent settlement. Sprawling over an area of 3.3 square kilometers, it is the world's second-largest refugee camp, behind Dadaab in eastern Kenya. Since its opening in July 2012, more than 430,000 refugees have passed through the camp while 83,000 inhabit here permanently, making Zaatari the fourth largest city in Jordan. Photo credit The refugees live in tents and portable tinned-roof shelters some 30,000, in total, provided by the United Nations, which also provide all core relief items such as food and water, health and education. Some 17.8 metric tons of bread and 4.2 million liters of water are distributed daily. In addition, each refugee receives a monthly allowance of 20 JD via debit cards which they can use to buy additional food and other goods at the two supermarkets, operated by two private supermarket chains, Safeway and Tazweed. There are three schools within the camp with an estimated 28,000 school age children enrolled. Medical services are dispersed through three hospitals and numerous clinics, also inside the camp, treating residents suffering from diseases ranging from diarrhea and hypertension to cancer and diabetes. The maternity unit has so far delivered more than 3,000 babies, and thousand more mothers are expecting. About 13 children are born every day in the camp. Photo credit Life inside the camps is harsh, but the refugees have made themselves as comfortable as possible. Entrepreneurial residents have set up more than 3,000 different shops and businesses along the camp's roads selling groceries, wedding dresses and mobile phones. There is even a travel agency and pizza delivery service. These small scale entrepreneurs are generating an estimate 10 million JD per month. The Ministry of Trade and Commerce is now planning to legalize these of shops including gradual integration of environmental and health standards. 60% of the refugee population earns some form of income within the camp. Like any bustling city, Zaatari has its share of internal problems. Gangs are known to operate across the camp and women are particularly vulnerable to violence. Once a new police station set up inside the camp literally disappeared overnight as residents took away the bricks to shore up their own houses. When the camp installed electricity pylons and lights to make the streets safer, residents started stealing electricity to light up their houses. The camp authorities envisage handing over certain responsibilities to the residents by appointing representatives from the camp's 12 districts, to encourage a sense of ownership and more control over their lives. Photo credit Photo credit Photo credit A shop in Zaatari. Residents and aid workers have named the camps main boulevard "Champs Elysee", after the famous shopping thoroughfare in Paris. Photo credit Photo credit Photo credit Photo credit Photo credit Photo credit Photo credit Photo credit Photo credit Photo credit A team of Koreans giving taekwondo classes to children in the camp. Photo credit Photo credit Sources: ABC.net.au / BBC / UNHCR SKANEATELES | Residents heard an overview Wednesday of the school districts fiscal position and how it plans to build the 2016-17 budget. In the Waterman Elementary auditorium, Superintendent Kenneth Slentz spoke to approximately 50 taxpayers at the first of three community forums. Earlier this month, he said, Gov. Andrew Cuomo released his proposed education budget. It referenced a $2 billion allocation to schools, plus introduced new state aid categories. That is not accurate, Slentz said. Its not untrue, but its not accurate. Describing Cuomos projection as misleading and as a two-year figure, Slentz explained the governors plan includes monies already owed to schools via expense-based aid. The model that reimburses schools for monies spent on aidable projects. Last year, for example, the district spent $100,000 on a building maintenance project, for which it receives 63 percent back from the state. The district will realize that money this year. Because the state Legislature has yet to approve the governors budget, Slentz said the district will mete out expense and revenue budgets in coming weeks once Albanys numbers solidify and become more reliable. In the meantime the district will prepare for the budget by turning to the mission to ground the school boards budgetary decisions and actions. The missions critical points demand the district be responsible for providing successful learning experiences for all Lakers. That faculty strives to know how best to serve each students learning style and provide various pathways toward college or workforce readiness. Plus, maintain an emphasis of high expectations that challenge and motivate students and faculty. Despite a 96 percent graduation rate in 2015, the district needs to attend to the 4 percent of non-graduates, Slentz said. What did we miss, he said. What can we do better? Maximizing the districts return on its investment in instruction, facilities and personnel with relationship to the budget keeps the district aligned with prudent business practices, he said. Slentz updated attendees on state audits conducted by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli in the last two years. The state surmised Skaneaeteles was in danger of moderate to low susceptibility of negative financial exposure. DiNapoli didnt find any illegalities, but rather systemic accounting practices requiring improvement. By way of mandated corrective measures, including a realignment of personnel and updated technical assistance, the district is now out of danger, Slentz said. The district can anticipate more efficient use of funds due to a rethinking of replacement schedules for its buses, vehicle fleet and equipment. Instead of owning these items for 10 years and incurring maintenance costs on the aging items, the district will replace them every five years to maximize warranties and resale value. Attendees also learned about the districts six reserve funds established to assist in keeping the overall budget predictable and smooth, Slentz said. The turf reserve fund, for example, boasts a $225,000 balance. When the time comes to replace the turf surface, at an estimated cost of as much as $750,000, a hefty portion of which qualifies for state aid, the reserve fund can cover the balance, he said, with no impact on the taxpayer. With input from its various advisory panels, such as the strategic planning committee, the district will continue evaluating building needs relative to declining enrollment. Aging infrastructure and outdated building features must be managed. We cannot let repairs go unattended, Slentz said. Or we risk loss of value. As war rages on in Syria, its only the people that refugee camps could provide protection to. The homes, the cities, the culture and the historical monuments that Syrians left behind are being systematically destroyed by Islamist militants. In August last year, the entire world watched in disbelief as militants demolished iconic landmarks in the ancient city of Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The destruction of the rich cultural heritage has been an additional blow for the millions of refugees in exile who have already lost their homes, livelihoods and loved ones. Outraged yet powerless to prevent the devastation of their homeland, a group of Syrian artists living in Jordans Zaatari refugee camp have got together to pool their skills and resources and build models of their countrys historical landmarks that have been lost to the war. Using scant materials available at the refugee camp, such as discarded pieces of wood, clay, rocks, polystyrene and even kebab skewers, these artists are working to make sure that their history wont disappear for good. Mahmoud Hariri, 25, building a model of Palmyra using clay and wooden kebab skewers. Hariri was an art teacher and painter in Syria before seeking refuge in Zaatari in 2013. When I first arrived I didnt think I would continue my work as I only expected to be here for a week or two. But when I realised it would be years, I knew I had to start again or lose my skills. Photo credit: Christopher Herwig The artifacts that have been destroyed are a loss to the whole world and not only to Syria, said project coordinator Ahmad al-Hariri. The goal is to define the Syrian people, preserve our heritage, and prove Syrian identity, and the most important message is to stop the war. The project hopes not only to help older generations remember their culture, but also to educate children some of who have never seen their homeland and have no memory of it. Among the models the artists have built so far are the Deir ez-Zor suspension bridge, which spanned the Euphrates River, the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, the Citadel of Aleppo, the Nabatean gate and arch at Bosra, and a statue of famed military and political leader Ayyubid Sultan Saladin. Photo credit: Christopher Herwig Photo credit: Christopher Herwig Ismail Hariri, 44, began sculpting at an early age. He worked as an interior designer before the conflict forced him to flee to Jordan with his wife and children in 2013. Ismail made several sculptures for the exhibition. His favourite depicts the Nabatean gate and arch at Bosra, near Daraa. Like the original, it is made from volcanic stone, which he found in the camp. Photo credit: Christopher Herwig Photo credit: Christopher Herwig The Citadel of Aleppo is one of the oldest and largest castles in the world, towering over the old city from a strategic position atop a 40-metre-high plateau. The 12th century fortress suffered significant damage, the full extent of which is still unknown. Photo credit: Christopher Herwig A replica of the Deir ez-Zor suspension bridge erected for pedestrians in 1927, across the Euphrates River in north-eastern Syria. It was destroyed by shelling in 2013. Photo credit: Christopher Herwig A replica of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, built 1,300 years ago. It is said to be one of the largest and oldest mosques in the world. Photo credit: Christopher Herwig A replica of the Norias of Hama, constructed over 750 years ago along the Orontes River. The wheel used the power of the current to lift pots of water to higher elevation. Photo credit: Christopher Herwig A replica of the huge bronze statue of the famed military and political leader Ayyubid Sultan Saladin who successfully led Muslim opposition to the European Crusaders in the Levant during the 12th century. The has stood in front of the medieval Citadel of Damascus since 1993. Photo credit: Christopher Herwig Sources: CityLab / UNHCR The worlds largest online retailer, Amazon, has had a wonderful 2015, if the companys earlier press releases are to be believed. The company now has more good news to share about its retail business, as it claims that its Exclusives store has done business of over $50 million in just a few months since its launch last year. The Exclusives collection has over 120 brands and over 10,000 products of various descriptions. As the name suggests, the store offers a range of products that are available exclusively on Amazon and nowhere else. Of course, Exclusives isnt the only niche store on Amazon, with Handmade and Launchpad being two of the other notable examples. While the Handmade store offers a vast array of handcrafted articles, Launchpad offers crowd-funded products from startups to Amazon customers. According to the online retailer, its Exclusives platform helps smaller companies judge demand for newer products before expanding their respective businesses. To get their products listed on the Exclusives store, all a willing business-owner needs to do is sign a deal with Amazon, allowing the online retailer to be the exclusive third-party reseller of their products for a specific period of time. While $50 million in itself is a drop in the ocean as far as Amazons multi-billion dollar annual sales are concerned, the company seems highly impressed with its customers response to the novel concept. According to Mr. Peter Sauerborn, director of business development at Amazon, the company is seriously considering stocking more categories of products and expanding the concept to global markets, although, he did not give any time-frame for either. Advertisement Just running through some of the products on Exclusives, the place is a veritable repository of niche, unique and often wacky merchandise, including, but not limited to metallic pillholders from a Seattle, WA-based company called Cielo, paddle boards from San Diego-based Tower Paddle Boards, healthy foods from New Zealand and Australia, along with a whole host of technology, fashion and home improvement products, none of which are apparently available outside of Amazon, at least in the US. It remains to be seen how the worlds largest online retailer scales up this niche store going forward, but it already offers an Exclusive store in some of its global markets like India, although, the selection is neither as extensive nor as varied. Android 6.0, or Marshmallow as it is affectionately called, was released to the public in late 2015, however, it can take months before the manufacturers to release it on their own devices. HTC worked to get both the 2014 flagship HTC One M8 and the 2015 flagship One M9 ready for the update. We have seen the upgrade hit a little over a week ago for the One M8 and then last week there was an upgrade for the HTC One M9 on Rogers, Wind Mobile, Videotron and SaskTel carriers, although customers on Bell and Telus were left off the schedule. That is until today when Bell started pushing out the upgrade to its HTC One M9 owners. Please remember, this a rolling upgrade so you may not be notified right away, but you can always force the software update by navigating to Settings -> About -> Software and check for any software upgrades. Below you can see that it is a 1.24GB upgrade and software number 3.38.66.2. It is a little surprising it has taken HTC so long to upgrade the One M8 and especially the One M9 since their newest model, the HTC One A9, came out with Marshmallow already on the device. Looking at the One M9, this Marshmallow update brings about a few new features. As usual, the new operating system adds new and improved power management features and one in particular is called Dozethe OS can literally suspend applications that are being used infrequently. Those pesky power-consuming features that are not being used when your smartphone is idle with its lock screen, will Doze off. Advertisement AutoSync and location sensors are two prime examples however, pick up your device and these features will be reactivated. You will see a complete visual overhaul, especially if the manufacturer has a light UI. Rather than relying on a manufacturer to add the option the ability to control application permissions are now baked into Marshmallow. Google Now on Tap is also part of Marshmallow and this gives you the ability to ask Google for help with whatever is on your display. According to HTC there will be an overhaul and improvement in the camera software and the usual performance improvements and bug fixes that are always part of an upgrade. We recently reported that Google and the British Government inked a 130 million tax settlement figure, which is being critized for being too lenient. Name, Former cabinet minister Vince Cable, media boss Rupert Murdoch and a former chair of the Commons public accounts committee, Margaret Hodge, have all spoken about the matter, claiming that the British Government and especially Prime Minister David Cameron are too close to Google. Vince Cable explained that Google had a great deal of influence at Number 10 Downing Street and that Googles executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, had good links. He went on to explain that this very close relationship probably made it very difficult for HMRC to be aggressive in its tax settlement with the company. He went on to state that the UKs tax deal with Google undermines the effort to deal with this internationally, citing how the French and Italian Governments have been trying to squeeze higher tax levels from Google. Rupert Murdoch, the boss of British newspapers The Times and The Sun and currently facing accusations that he and his executives were too close to senior British politicians during the UK phone hacking scandal, send several tweets on Wednesday claiming that the posh boys in Downing Street are in awe of Google. He also stated that the UK Government is too close to Google and has settled a deal of paying token amounts for PR purposes. Murdoch controls the Times and Sun newspapers and continued with, Google has cleverly planted dozens of their people in White House, Downing St, other governments. Most brilliant new lobbying effort yet. Rupert has been a Google critic for a number of years and has also seen his business tax affairs investigated in Australia. Advertisement Margaret Hodge explained that Google had targeted all political parties in order to win influence in Westminster: They are very, very clever at building their political links. If I am absolutely honest, they had as strong links with Labour. But their executives realise that these things really do matter, even when negotiating tax deals. In response, Downing Street said that the UK Prime Minister had nothing to do with the deal struck between the HM Revenue & Customs and Google. It could not be said if Cameron and Google had ever discussed Googles tax arrangements and that many of the twenty five meetings were involved with issues such as Internet security. Downing Street also explained that neither David Cameron or George Osborne knew of the tax arrangement deal until shortly before Google announced it, and that George Osborne, the British Chancellor, hailed it a major success. The UK tax office is refusing to explain how the 130 million charge is calculated, citing taxpayer confidentiality. We do not know the effective tax rate and if this 130m includes any fines or interest. Google said this on the matter: After a six-year audit by the tax authority we are paying the amount of tax that HMRC agrees we should pay. Governments make tax law, the tax authorities enforce the law and Google complies with the law. Googles self-driving car project has been going quite well lately. A pilot program in Austin, Texas, handling precipitation a little better and apparently scaring the auto industry just a little bit are just a few sunny points for the project of late. Despite state and federal regulators being a bit at odds with the concept of self-driving cars, testing seems set to expand. Boasting over 1 million miles of road experience, the self-driving car brigade is looking to set up shop in four more cities. According to a report that Google handed over to the FCC, however, those four cities are a secret, for now. The four new cities, as well as the proposed testing radius for each, show as redacted on the official report. Google is keeping very tight-lipped about the whole affair, saying they dont want the competition to know what there up to. The official report states, [REDACTED] is the subject of fierce competition from multiple third parties, and the release of the information provided by Google would provide valuable insight into Googles technology innovations and potential business plans and strategies. In particular, the [REDACTED]. If the list of cities given is alphabetical, Ann Arbor, Michigan may be a good guess for the first [REDACTED] entry. On top of fitting in alphabetical order before Austin, its also home to two fairly big indicators; a job posting related to self-driving cars and Mcity, the worlds largest self-driving car test track, hosted by the University of Michigans Ann Arbor campus. Mcity even bests Googles own campus, but they would still need authorization to operate, even in a specialized setting for self-driving cars. Advertisement Google is showing plans to renew a license for the 76GHz wireless band as of March 1, 2016, so it can be safely assumed that testing will not begin until after this date. Beyond that, however, there has been no information on a timeframe for testing to start. With federal authorities starting to make moves regarding self-driving car regulation and even the Obama administration getting in on the action, wider testing is a great way to gauge reactions to the self-driving cars on a state level. Its quite likely that the results of this testing will be factored into any federal law decisions regarding self-driving cars. Chinas largest consumer electronics and home appliance company, Haier, has been a bit of late starter when it comes to the world of new age connected devices like smartphones, tablets and indeed, smartwatches and activity trackers. While it does have smartphones and tablets in its product lineup, the company has found it tough going in the category even in its home country of China. With the emergence of the wearables industry, however, the company jumped on the bandwagon, and unveiled two versions of its first-ever smartwatch. While one of the variants is meant for children, the other is aimed at senior citizens. Both the models come with specialized features and have integrated microphones and speakers to facilitate phone calls. While both those devices were announced as far back as in April last year, it was only earlier this month that the gadgets were launched at the CES trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada. Now, the company has officially announced its entry into the smart wearables segment, but smartwatches are not the only wearables the company plans to offer to its customers this year. Along with the HaierWatch, the Chinese multinational firm apparently also has plans for an activity tracker called H-Band, which, the company claims, will also work as a Bluetooth headset. The company plans to unveil its latest offerings at Mobile World Congress 2016 to be held at Barcelona, Spain, from the 22nd to the 25th of next month. Advertisement While not much is known at this stage about Haiers upcoming wearables, reports indicate that the company is planning to demo not one but two versions of its second generation smartwatch at the MWC 2016 next month. Dubbed the HaierWatch, the wearable will be an analogue device that will reportedly be offered in two distinct models. While the first version will come with a metallic strap and sport a silver colored bezel, the other version will come in rose gold and have a white face. Both versions, meanwhile are expected to come with features that have become almost ubiquitous these days, like pedometers and vibration alerts, along with incoming call and message notifications. While the company is yet to announce the hardware specs, pricing and availability details of either of the gadgets, the upcoming trade show will likely clear up at least some of those queries. Wherever theres big business, there are big bills, and where tax bills are concerned it often seems like Google and Apple among other big tech firms are happy to dodge them as best they can across the globe. As the UK Government makes the headlines this week for their major success securing roughly 130 Million ($185.86 Million) in back taxes from the Internet giant, Italy seems bent on squeezing more out of Google. As the papers in the UK are reporting this week, Italys Government is looking to secure at least a227 Million ($247.4 Million) in back taxes from Google. Depending on which figures you look at, it appears that Google paid just a2.2 Million tax on a54.4 Million in revenue from 2014, and Italy is wanting Google to pay tax owed from the previous years. The Italian Government, supported by Italys Guardia di Finanza tax authorities are looking for 15% of taxes from Google on a1 Billion in revenue, if figures from The Times are believed. Elsewhere however, it appears Italy has settled on a claim of a227 Million in back taxes from 2009 to 2013, which would still add up to 15% or so, putting the UKs latest deal at just 3% and piling on yet more pressure on the UK Government and Her Majestys Revenue and Customs to explain just how such a paltry figure was decided upon. Advertisement Whether or not these big businesses should be forced to file their earnings in the same nation as theyre operating in, such as Apple UK and Google UK, has been a constant debate for the last few years, but it seems as if the public has finally had enough. This latest deal with Google in the UK has sparked serious debate about whether or not the UK is becoming a tax haven for businesses looking to shave more than a little off of their tax bills. Whether or not the deal in Italy will allow the UK to get more from Google is unclear, but it seems as though the age of publicly dodging big tax bills may be behind the likes of Apple and Google. Its been over a year since Lenovo bought Motorola and the deal become official. Lenovo has allowed Motorola to continue to run as is, while also bringing their portfolio to other countries most notably China. At CES, Lenovos CEO Yuanqing Yang, stated that the Motorola brand would disappear, and instead itll be replaced by Moto along with their Vibe brand. While the Motorola brand is disappearing, the Motorola team is not, at least not yet. Yang mentioned today that his company is going to be releasing a new major smartphone under the Moto brand which will be targeting the US market. Yang also stated that itll be more innovative, more attractive, thats not to say that the Moto X Style from 2015 was ugly, but it could definitely be a bit more attractive. The smartphone is slated to be announced in July, which is a little earlier than Motorola announced the Moto X Style, Moto X Play and Moto G last year. In addition to talking about Motorola, Yang also talked about emerging markets and how he sees plenty of growth for his company in those emerging markets. Stating, In most emerging markets, we still see growth opportunity. Lenovo is already the top PC vendor in the world, and they are looking to have the same success when it comes to smartphones and other mobile products. Yang sees plenty of room for growth in Africa, India and the Middle East, due to the slowdown in the Chinese market. Which most manufacturers in China are starting to feel. Yang says hes still optimistic in emerging-market growth. Advertisement Yang also took a shot at Apple, saying that he thinks Android can improve their market share in the US. Since Apple already has more than 50% here in the US, he believes that the platform as a whole can take back some market share from Apple. And that the Cupertino company has hit the ceiling in the US. Lenovo and their executives clearly have big plans, and its great to see the US as part of that. Mostly due to them buying Motorola, but it will still allow them to expand outside of Asia. With PC sales decreasing at a rapid pace, its something the company really needs to focus on. It is no secret that Samsung is preparing to release their next-generation Galaxy S smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S7. The company typically releases a new Galaxy S smartphone at this time of year and the rumors, leaks, renders, and the rest, have been coming in thick and fast lately. However, what is less clear is how many Galaxy S7 devices will be released. It was initially thought as many as four could be released, although the most recent suggestion is that there will only be two variants, the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 Edge. Speaking of which, the Galaxy S7 Edge has now reportedly been spotted being benchmarked. The benchmark comes from Geekbench and in terms of the main findings, its single-core score came in at 1363 and its multi-core score came in at 4951. However, the benchmark also provides us with some additional details on what some of the likely specs could be. While not greatly informative, the benchmarks do show that the device tested comes with 4GB RAM and also comes running on Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow). It also does seem that this is a device which comes running with Samsungs own Exynos 8890 processor, which could suggest that this is an international version. As it does seem likely that Samsung will be releasing a North American variant of the twin Galaxy S7 devices with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor inside. On a last note, the model number listed for the device is SM-G935. Advertisement Besides the specs, it is the model number which largely is confirming that this is the Galaxy S7 Edge, as the model number was one which was reported some months back as belonging to the Galaxy S7 Edge. For reference, it is largely thought the Galaxy S7 will be the SM-G930. A model number which has since been reconfirmed a number of times and most recently, last week when the Galaxy S7 was also spotted passing through Geekbench again sporting an Exynos processor and specs which seem to be in line with the current Edge variant specs here. Although, it is worth noting that the previous S7 Geekbench results were a little higher than the ones noted now for the Edge version. Either way, you can head through the source link below to see the results in more detail. Verizon, as well as some other companies, like to take care of our military. After all they do put their lives on the line to fight for the United States of America. The discount is for active and retired military members as well as their families. Verizon has had a discount program already in place for military and other people, but today they announced some changes to it. One of those changes is that there is no minimum requirement to get the discount which is 15% off of your monthly Verizon bill. On top of that they are also offering discounts on accessories that they sell in store and online. That accessory discount is 25%, definitely making it worth picking up items from Verizon over other places like Amazon. On top of that, they are also offering a 12% discount on HUM, and select calling features like international travel to Mexico and Canada. The carrier also noted that they are applying this new discount to more than 100,000 customers that are eligible for this military discount. So if you get a nice 15% discount on your next bill, this will be the reason why, and you can also get used to it. Verizons executive vice president of wireless operations stated that he wanted to give military service members and veterans one less thing to think about when doing business with us [Verizon]. And that would be the amount they owe Verizon each month for using their service. Verizon does have the best network around right now, leading many service men and women to choosing Verizon over the other wireless carriers around the US. Advertisement Verizon has been feeling the heat from competitors in the past year or two. With prices dropping at their competitors mainly Sprint and T-Mobile leading Verizon to change up their plans a bit too. Recently the company dropped contracts and went to 5 data plan sizes. Making things a bit easier for those that are confused by the number of plans that are available at other carriers. Verizon also has some great smartphones available including the Droid Turbo 2 which is only available at Verizon with its shatterproof display, as well as its long lasting battery. Two bills proposed in the Arizona House of Representatives would allow students and faculty at public colleges and universities to carry guns and other weapons on campus. In the wake of a fatal shooting on the Northern Arizona University campus, Flagstaff leaders overwhelmingly disapprove. Its not a good idea, said Flagstaff Mayor Jerry Nabours. There is a lot of youth, emotion and sometimes alcohol on or near campus, and those do not mix well with guns. Nabours said he always opposed the idea of guns on college campuses, but said the October shooting at NAU illustrated for him that guns should not be allowed on campus. NAU spokeswoman Cindy Brown said the university could not comment on proposed legislation, and deferred comment to the Arizona Board of Regents, which has publicly opposed the proposed bills. The head of the largest contractor on the Four Forest Restoration Initiative said he is bullish about the companys forest thinning work in 2016. In a presentation to 4FRI stakeholders on Wednesday, Jason Rosamond said Good Earth Power AZ has plans to invest $100 million in equipment and infrastructure and thin 22,000 acres across northern Arizona next year. Thats compared to the 2,405 acres the company thinned from October 2014 to October 2015, the time period the Forest Service uses to track acreage progress on the 4FRI project. This year is a good year for us, Rosamond told about 50 members of the stakeholder group at its monthly meeting in Pinetop. The company will have a new $80 million flagship mill up and operational in Coconino County by May of 2017 that will be able to process the timber from 27,000 acres, Rosamond said. The company didnt respond to follow-up questions about where exactly the mill will be located. If all of those plans come to fruition, that would put the companys thinning and processing operations at 49,000 acres per year for the last five years of its 4FRI contract, which will get the company close to fulfilling the contract's 300,000-acres-in-10-years goal. Read more in Friday's Arizona Daily Sun. PHOENIX -- State lawmakers are moving to effectively stand state regulation of businesses on their head, requiring government agencies to prove their rules and restrictions are necessary. On a 5-3 margin Wednesday the House Commerce Committee voted to require every city and county government and state agency to review every regulation and detail how each is necessary to protect public health, safety or welfare. It then mandates that the restrictions be modified or repealed if they do not serve those purposes. More to the point, it allows anyone who believes any rule or ordinance is excessive to sue. And if the government does not prove its necessity -- and the burden would be on the government, not the person challenging the rule -- a judge would be required to void it. Jon Riches, lobbyist for the Goldwater Institute, said the legislation is a pushback against what he believes is government encroachment on private business. He cited one instance where the state Board of Cosmetology said a woman cannot connect licensed beauticians with home-bound cancer patients because the agency said that left them no premises and equipment to examine. And in another case a Tempe woman who made a business out of making salsa at her house was forced out of business. Rep. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, who agreed to sponsor the measure for the Goldwater Institute, called it long overdue. "I can tell you from personal experience there's been an onslaught of regulations in my industry in the last 15 years, a ridiculous amount,'' said Petersen who owns a real estate brokerage firm. "It's time for us to protect individual rights.'' And that, he said, means reviewing and curbing regulations. "If they don't have a direct nexus with health, safety or welfare -- welfare principally meaning fraud -- then those regulations need to be eliminated,'' Petersen said. Patrice Kraus, lobbyist for the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, said the measure is flawed. For example, she said a city must prove a regulation is "necessary'' to protect health, safety or welfare. Kraus said that would allow a business owner to argue that a retail sales tax permit is illegal because it is not necessary to meet any of those goals. "This could lead to a lot of frivolous lawsuits,'' she told lawmakers. And Kraus noted that the law does not allow cities to recover their legal fees even if a judge concludes that was the case. Riches defended that provision ensuring that those who sue face no financial risk, even if they lose, saying it would be wrong to let a city seek legal fees from "somebody who's just trying to earn a living.'' Rep. Stefanie Mach, D-Tucson, said Petersen's legislation is built on a fundamental misunderstanding that somehow the people in government are the enemy in regulating business. "The big bad government is just a group of people like us who have been elected or appointed or hired to do a job,'' she said. Mach said oversight is sometimes needed. "There are a lot of businesses that have fraud factored into their bottom line,'' she said. And Mach said that standards are necessary, citing that case of the Tempe salsa maker. "Shelf life could actually be an issue,'' she said. "We need to make sure that people aren't dying or getting salmonella because of relaxed practices.'' Two bills before the Arizona House of Representatives aren't getting much traction with local leaders or students. The bills would allow students and faculty at public colleges and universities to carry guns and other weapons on campus. In the wake of a fatal shooting on the Northern Arizona University campus, Flagstaff leaders overwhelmingly disapprove. Its not a good idea, said Flagstaff Mayor Jerry Nabours. There is a lot of youth, emotion and sometimes alcohol on or near campus, and those do not mix well with guns. Nabours said he always opposed the idea of guns on college campuses, but said the October shooting at NAU illustrated for him that guns should not be allowed on campus. NAU spokeswoman Cindy Brown said the university could not comment on proposed legislation, and deferred to the Arizona Board of Regents, which has publicly opposed the bills. Board of Regents Chair Jay Heiler said in a statement that the board had voted unanimously to oppose both House Bill 2072 and House Bill 2338. HB 2072 would allow students and faculty with a concealed carry permit to carry guns on campuses. HB 2338 would prohibit school officials at any grade level from banning guns in vehicles on a public right-of-way adjacent to a school campus. Heiler said the board would be interested in other protective measures, such as enlisting a former law enforcement or military member to act as a campus marshal for extra security. The press release provided no further details. NAU, like the other two state universities, has its own police force with armed officers. However, Heiler said the board plans to discuss the issue with the university presidents and chiefs of police to determine how to increase safety on campus. Nat White, a Coconino Community College Governing Board member, said adding more guns on college campuses would make the area more dangerous, and potentially set the colleges up for legal trouble in the case of an accident. If guns are allowed, accidents happen, mistakes happen, White said. Officials on the campus could be held legally responsible. White, who said he was not speaking for the board, said he never approved the idea of guns on college campuses, but said the NAU shooting was a clear example as to why they should not be allowed. A gun is extremely dangerous, and they are small and easy to use, and they are unforgiving, White said. Why would you want them on campus with young kids who are always put into situations with anxiety and stress and students constantly having to decide to do the right or wrong thing? White said there is very little evidence that allowing guns on campus would actually make students and faculty any safer, adding that the discussion is always a hypothetical one after there has already been a shooting on campus. If even highly trained professionals make mistakes, how can we expect a student or a teacher to make the right decision in an instantaneous, rare and random situation? White said. Unlike NAU, CCC security officers do not carry guns, said college spokesman Scott Talboom. However, Talboom said the college governing board had consistently opposed legislation to permit guns on campus. Certainly there is a lot of controversy surrounding guns on campus, Talboom said. We are always researching ways to keep our students and staff safe. NAU students had mixed emotions about the proposal. I think its totally ridiculous, said Elliot Yount. It just increases the probability for something bad to happen. Student Ricardo Orozco said access to a gun is already very easy in Arizona, and carrying guns on campus would make the school more dangerous. He said he always opposed the idea, but the October shooting on campus affirmed his ideas. Having it happen here on campus just makes it even more scary, he said. However, at least one student said she would feel safer if she could carry a gun on campus. Personally, I would feel safer if I was carrying a gun, said Katelynn Welter. However, I would want to go through training, and I would want everyone else who is carrying a gun to go through the same rigorous training. (ANSA) - Brussels, January 28 - NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday called on Italy to stop reducing military spending. "I want to see all the European allies stop cutting military spending and naturally this is valid for Italy too," Stoltenberg said at the presentation of NATO's 2015 report. The study showed that Italy's miliary spending amounted to 0.95% of GDP in 2015, some distance from the NATO target of 2%. Furthermore, Italian military spending was reduced by 12.4% last year - the biggest cut among the 28 allies. (ANSA) - Rome, January 28 - Sweden is to deport up to 80,000 asylum seekers whose applications have been turned down, Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said Thursday. Ygeman said the failed asylum seekers would be flown out of the country on charter flights during the course of several years, according to a BBC report. Approximately 163,000 migrants and refugees applied for political asylum in Sweden in 2015 - the largest number per capita in Europe, the BBC said. Of the approximately 58,000 applications examined last year 55% were accepted, the source added. Earlier this week Sweden became the latest in a series of countries to have experienced migration-related violence, after a 15-year-old asylum seeker was arrested near Gothenburg for allegedly knifing to death a 22-year-old staffer at an asylum centre. (ANSA) - Brescia, January 28 - A former Bosnian military commander suspected of killing three Italians in 1993 will be extradited from Germany to Italy on February 18, sources said Thursday. Hanefija Prijic, 53, was arrested in Germany in October on an international arrest warrant issued by authorities in the northern city of Brescia in 2000. On May 29, 1993, Prijic and his men ambushed a humanitarian aid convoy from an Italian grassroots volunteer group on the outskirts of the Bosnian town of Gornj Vakuf, stole their supplies, and killed conscientious objector Sergio Lana, 21, builder Fabio Moreni, 40, and journalist Guido Puletti, 40. Lana and Puletti were from Brescia. Moreni was from Cremona. "This is a great success," said Brescia Chief Prosecutor Pierluigi Maria Dell'Osso. Two more volunteers, freelance photographer Christian Penocchio and Agostino Zanotti, aged 26 and 34 at the time, escaped with their lives into nearby woods and then to a United Nations peacekeeping outpost. All five of the men had been working for a Brescia-based center that coordinated missions for various humanitarian organizations. Zanotti said in an interview at the time that their convoy was attacked by a marauding gang of some 30 irregular troops wearing a motley assortment of badges and other identifying marks and who did not appear to belong to any particular faction. A Bosnian court in 2001 sentenced Prijic to 15 years in prison for giving the order to shoot the three Italians. (ANSA) - Berlin, January 28 - Italy should give its OK to three billion euros of EU aid to Turkey to cope with the refugee crisis, the chair of the German Bundestag's foreign affairs committee, Norbert Roettgen (CDU), said in an interview with ANSA Thursday. Noting that the EU was suffering a "crisis of solidarity" over the migrant emergency, he said Italy's participation in the fund "would confirm that this crisis can be seen as a European crisis, which can only be overcome (by acting) together politically and financially". In other remarks, Roettgen said the migrant issue should not be "mixed" with that of banks and economic flexibility, and said Italian Premier Matteo Renzi was "right" on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, when he voiced solidarity with eastern Europe. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier this week the proposed pipeline project with Germany would be mutually beneficial for Russia and Europe. Also on Thursday, German weekly Die Zeit said German Chancellor Angela Merkel will "find a hard nut to crack" in Renzi when he flies in for talks in Berlin Friday. "Renzi's message is clear: we've done our bit, now it's up to others," the weekly said. "When the Italian arrives in Berlin tomorrow, Angela Merkel will try to make him change his mind. And she'll find a hard nut to crack". Referring to Italy's reluctance to OK three billion euros of migrant aid to Turkey, Die Zeit described the transformation of Renzi from "model child of southern Europe" to "angry young man". Renzi said last week that Italy is willing to sign off on the EU refugee fund for Turkey "tomorrow" - if the EU agrees to free Italy's spending on migrant rescue, reception and processing from the Stability Pact. "Juncker and Merkel got angry over Turkey," he said. "We were asked to contribute 200-250 million, I said fine, but I asked for the immigration funds to be freed from the Stability Pact for Italy as well. If they recognize 0.2% of the clause for migrants fine, we'll sign tomorrow morning". Italy is resisting the billionaire package to help Turkey cope with Syrian refugees fleeing a civil war that has now entered into its fifth year over concerns that national governments, and not the EU's common fund, may foot too much of the bill. This ruffled feathers in the EU executive, with European Council chief Jean-Claude Juncker saying governments that are critical should take a look at themselves first. "Without common action and a European policy on migration, Schengen will not survive," said Juncker, who earlier this month traded barbs with Renzi for allegedly offending the EU executive at "every opportunity". Kosovo: European Parliament appeals to solve the crisis Foreign Affairs Committee, future lies in the European Union (ANSAmed) - BRUSSELS, JANUARY 28 - After the serial acts of violence inside and outside the Kosovo Assembly in recent months, the Foreign Affairs Commmittee of the European Parliament in a resolution "appeals to all players to act for the good of Kosovo in a responsible way, supporting a non-violent solution to, and exit from, this crisis" said the European Parliament rapporteur, Ulrike Lunacek (Greens/EFA). The resolution passed by 37 votes to 12, with 9 abstentions. "Today's vote again sends a strong signal that the future of an independent Kosovo lies in the European Union" underlined Lunacek. "MEPs have once more called for the EU to complete its official recognition of Kosovo and urged the five member states refusing to recognise Kosovo (Spain, Cyprus, Greece, Romania and Slovakia, note) to drop their blockade" the EP rapporteur added. MEPs stress that EU-Kosovo Association Agreement, ratified by the European Parliament on 21 January, provides a powerful incentive for reform and paves the way for Kosovo's integration into the EU. Media and judiciary independence, fighting high-level corruption and organised crime and labour market reforms are just a few areas of major concern, the resolution says. The full House will vote on this document in Strasbourg on 4 February. (ANSAmed) Yemen: ISIS Dutch suicide bomber targets presidential palace Kills 7 and injures 15 (ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, JANUARY 28 - In a Yemen torn apart by a civil war, an Islamic State (ISIS) suicide attack on Thursday targeted the Aden presidential palace. At least seven people were killed and 15 injured in the attack, which was attributed by the terrorist group to one of its fighters from the Netherlands. Aden police chief Shalal Shaei told Al Jazeera television that several of those killed were presidential palace guards. The attacker drove a car loaded with explosives into some cement blocks at a checkpoint not far from the entrance gate to the presidential palace in the Mashiq area. President Abd Rabbo Mansur Hadi recently returned to Aden after many months spent in exile in Saudi Arabia, where he fled after advances by the Shia Houthi rebels, who have controlled the capital, Sanaa, since September 2014. Fighting continues throughout the country. Al Jazeera also reported Thursday that a reporter and two other members of its crew that had been kidnapped in recent days in Taiz had been released. The director of the online jihadism monitoring group SITE, Rita Katz, said on Twitter that the ISIS-linked propagandist Amaq News Agency reported that the attack in Aden had been carried out by a Dutch foreign fighter known as 'Abu Hunaifa Al-Hollandi'. (ANSAmed). ILO chief in Amman to discuss Syrian refugees Jordan promises to ease labour restriction on Syrians (ANSAmed) AMMAN, JANUARY 28: Director General of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Guy Ryder on Thursday held talks with top Jordanian officials on streamlining labour market for Syrian refugees in the kingdom, officials said. Ryder held talks with king Abdullah, prime minister Abdullah Nessour and minister of labour Nedhal Qadamin and discussed challenges facing Jordan labour market from an influx of Syrian refugees. They also discussed means to protect Syrian asylum seekers in the labour market, including children from abuse and legal protection, said official sources from ministry of labour. Jordan officials have promised to ease restrictions on labour of Syrian refugees including issuing work permits in certain sectors and allowing residents of refugee camps to leave for work purposes. But government officials are concerned that the arrival of Syrian refugees would lead to increased rate of unemployment among Jordanians, mostly in skilled labour. Official sources said Ryder has proposed establishing "society" schemes by which Syrian workers can integrate in the labour market without causing harm to local communities. According to a recent findings by the ILO , Jordan still lacks domestic refugee legislation and policy to protect refugee population including Syrians. It also found that the labour law does not protect vulnerable workers against abusive practices, The Syrian refugee influx has compounded existing problems associated with large numbers of migrant workers in Jordan. Currently there are large numbers of irregular migrant workers who are subject to discrimination and abuse. A recent survey has showed that Jordan is home to more than 1.2 million Syrian refugees, most of whom are living in major cities. Charles Carrington Chuck Avery died at his home in Flagstaff, Arizona, on January 26, 2016. He was born in Auburn, New York, on July 22, 1933, to Edward Carrington Avery and Elizabeth Boorum Avery. He spent his summers at a family home, Woodside, on the shores of Lake Owasco, where he fished, swam, and hiked. He graduated from the Hill School in Pennsylvania in 1951. He attended Cornell University, then was drafted into the Army and assigned to the Signal Corps in France. He completed his studies in Forestry in 1961 at Utah State University, earned a Fulbright Fellowship, and spent a seasick honeymoon on a ship to France with his new bride, Valeen Tippetts Avery, where he attended the French National School of Water and Forests. He finished his graduate studies at Duke University, then resumed working for the Forest Service around the West, including a stop in Flagstaff, which was interrupted by a Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1971. Following his return to Flagstaff, Chuck was hired as a Professor of Forestry at Northern Arizona University in 1974, and retired from NAU in 2001. Chuck was an early passenger on a Grand Canyon river trip with Hatch Expeditions, and enjoyed hiking the Grand Canyon backcountry with his friend and later colleague, Stan Beus. Some stumbles during those trips would lead to a multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 1968. This disease became a lifelong challenge that he consistently ignored, living his life and pulling himself mile after mile through the NAU pool. We would like to offer our deep and heartfelt gratitude to all of the caregivers and members of the medical community who helped him bear this illness; thanks also to the citizens of Flagstaff who overlooked their bent fenders and dented garbage cans, pulled him out of ditches and snowbanks, and helped him move around long after he should have been sedentary. Chuck enjoyed teaching and mentoring his graduate students at NAU, and loved his time in the woods, especially the Ponderosa Pines surrounding Flagstaff. He was always interested, active, and curious. He built, wired, and plumbed his own three-story house. He owned unruly dogs and gadgets and electronic devices of all shapes and sizes, many of them decades before their time. He survived the death of his son, Nate Avery, in 2012, and his brother, Robert Avery, in 2013. He is survived by his life partner Barbara Phillips, his sister Sybilla Avery Cook, Chris and Nancy Avery, Maureen Avery Meyer, Annette Avery, Thad and Laura Avery, and ten beloved grandchildren. BLE! His family will be hosting an informal open house at the home of Annette Avery, 728 North Bertrand, Flagstaff, on Saturday, January 30, 2016, from 3-6 p.m; feel free to bring and sample his favorite food: chocolate. The family requests that any contributions go to the Charles C. Avery Intern Scholarship with the Arizona Hydrological Society Foundation: P.O. Box 65690, Tucson, AZ 85728. - BEIRUT - In the past few hours, Jabhat Al Nusra militants linked to al Qaida have been returning to Aleppo in droves. Pulling back from the eastern front with Isis, al Nusra said it wants to join the insurgents to defend it from the advancement of government loyalist forces. Their return, described as ''triumphant'' by sympathisers in social media takes place 48 hours after the killing of several leader of the jihadi group Ahrar ash Sham, a rival group to al Nusra. Al Nusra had officially left the eastern part of Aleppo under insurgent control in the summer of 2014. (ANSAmed) - PODGORICA, JANUARY 28 - The Montenegro parliament approved the government chaired by Milo Djukanovic who obtained a confidence vote late last night. According to the local media, out of 62 MEPs, 42 voted in favour and 20 against. The pro-Russian opposition is at odds with the government over its Nato membership request (accepted at the Transatlantic Summit in December) and it submitted a no-confidence motion. Moscow is not happy about Nato's eastern expansion, regarded as a threat to its security. A few hundred protestors supporting the opposition demonstrated against the government in front of parliament. Serbia: European Parliament, lot of work still ahead resolution passed in Foreign Affairs Committee (ANSAmed) - BRUSSELS, JANUARY 28 - The Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament in a resolution welcomes the progress made in 2015 in normalising relations between Serbia and Kosovo and call on Belgrade and Pristina to move forward with the full and timely implementation of agreements reached so far, noting that this is one of the conditions for Serbia's accession to the EU. "There is still a lot of work ahead of Serbia, but the country can be assured of the European Parliament's full support in the endeavour", said the rapporteur, David McAllister (EPP). "Serbia has made substantial progress on its path towards the European Union" and "the opening of the first chapters in December was a well-deserved recognition of the progress made in the last few months, particularly in normalising relations with Kosovo" McAllister added. The resolution on Serbia, passed by 50 votes to 2, with 4 abstentions, calls on Belgrade to pursue its systematic reforms, ensure that the work of judges and prosecutors as well as media is free of political influence and step up its efforts to fight corruption and organised crime. The full House will vote on this resolution in Strasbourg on 4 February. (ANSAmed) The Airbus A330-200F, with a payload of 62-68 tonnes, is a unique opportunity for Hungarian industries to reach out to customers globally through the international network of Qatar Cargo. The cargo plane will fly from Budapest to Prague en route back to Doha.Qatar Cargo freighter flights will complement the existing cargo operations on Qatar Airways commercial daily operations on an A320 aircraft, which this month celebrated five years since the beginning of the direct service between Doha and Budapest. Budapest is also an ideal location for distributing high-value products that are flown in from the Arabian Gulf, South-East Asia and the Pacific region, as approximately 20 European countries can be reached within a 1000 km trucking distance from Ferenc Liszt International Airport. We are delighted to welcome Qatar Cargo to Budapest Airport as a regular customer, said Rene Droese, property director, Budapest Airport, in charge of cargo development. He added: This new cargo route will present yet another strong business opportunity for our Hungarian customers in the automotive, digital, electronic, and pharmaceutical industries. I am sure that this new twice-weekly flight will increase the cargo performance of Budapest Airport substantially. We are delighted to announce our network expansion in Eastern Europe, said Ulrich Ogiermann, chief officer Cargo for Qatar Airways. We have identified a definite gap in the market in this region and we look forward to supporting local businesses with a robust service connecting them to our wider global network. PHOENIX -- Arizona lawmakers want to make it easier for newly minted adults from other states to get a drink at a bar or pick up a six-pack of beer. Without dissent the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday approved legislation to allow those who sell liquor, beer and wine to honor certain out-of-state driver's licenses as proof someone is 21. The measure now needs approval by the full House. Rep. Sonny Borrelli, R-Lake Havasu, said the problem is that the state Department of Transportation issues two different kinds of licenses. The one most familiar to adults is horizontal. But anyone younger than 21 gets a license that is vertically oriented. That's supposed to make it easier for merchants to know who is of legal drinking age. In Arizona, those licenses self-destruct shortly after someone turns 21, replaced by an adult license. The problem, Borrelli said, is some other states which also issue under-21 licenses allow the owners to keep them until they are due to be renewed, perhaps several years later. He said that means someone from another state who is 23 would still have that same vertical license issued before the 21st birthday. But he said Arizona law makes the sale of alcoholic beverages to someone with a vertical license a $1,000 fine -- even if the date of birth shows the person is old enough to drink. "I think that's kind of odd," Borrelli told colleagues. "He can drive with it, he can go purchase a firearm with it, he can do everything with it -- except go get a beer," he said. Borrelli said that results in would-be patrons walking out of Arizona bars and restaurants, taking their friends. "I'm just thinking how much tax dollars is going out the door," he said. PHOENIX -- More than two dozen Republican lawmakers want to constitutionally block state and local governments from buying items or investing in any company that does business with the government of Iran, even as sanctions against that country are being eased. The proposal crafted by House Majority Leader Steve Montenegro, R-Litchfield Park, specifically bans investment in any company that does business "with the government of a country that is designated by the United States Department of State on or after Jan. 1, 2015 as a state sponsor of terrorism." At the moment that includes Syria, Sudan and Iran. And until last year it used to include Cuba until the Obama administration moved to normalize relations with that country. But Montenegro made it clear his measure, introduced just days after the United Nations said Iran is complying with a new nuclear treaty, is aimed at that country. The move is drawing concern from the Arizona State Retirement System which has $34 billion in investments in private companies. Spokesman Nick Ponder acknowledged HCR 2040 is limited to prohibiting investment in companies that do business directly with the government. But he pointed out that many Iranian firms, ranging from the oil industry to Iran Air are partly owned by the government. And he said that would force Arizona to sell off investments in companies like Boeing to Freeport McMoRan if they decide to do business with those Iranian companies as sanctions are lifted. Montenegro said he expects the deal with Iran to slowly loosen the restrictions that now exist. But he said that doesn't mean Arizona should follow suit. "I think that it's important for us as a state to be able to decide where the public money is going," he said. And that means not having Arizona dollars somehow winding up in the hands of terrorists. Montenegro said that's not as far-fetched as it sounds. He quoted from a recent statement by Secretary of State John Kerry who said that it is likely that some of the financial relief granted to Iran under the deal will go to groups the United States considers terrorists, like the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps. "I think that some of it will end up in the hands of the IRGC or other entities, some of which are labeled terrorists," Kerry said in an interview with CNBC. "I'm not going to sit here and tell you that every component of that can be prevented," Kerry continued. But he said that "we are not seeing the early delivery of funds going to that kind of endeavor at this point in time." The 2015C Lieutenant Colonel Chaplain and Major Line of the Air Force and Chaplain Central Selection Boards selected 16 majors and 2,082 captains for promotion.To see the promotion lists, go to the Air Force Portal and select the promotion link, or the officer promotion page on myPers For more information about Air Force personnel programs go to the myPers website . Individuals who do not have a myPers account can request one by following the instructions on the Air Force Retirees Services website Best Business Products and Services Would you like to submit an article in the Business category or any of the sub-category below? Click here to submit your article. Would you like to have your product or service listed on this page? Contact us. David Crayford responds to Wolfgang Struck in a thorough letter...A MUST READ http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=38350 Below is Mr. Crayford's response. Due to RMN limitations, we cannot add italics and bolding, my apologies. Perhaps when Hobie is feeling better we can work on this? Original article posted for Mr. Struck:Below is Mr. Crayford's response. Due to RMN limitations, we cannot add italics and bolding, my apologies. Perhaps when Hobie is feeling better we can work on this? by Nirmala Carvalho Fr Irudaya Jothi sj, a well known social activist, speaks about the legislation that was supposed to eliminate hunger in India. In its original version, its reach was much wider. Under its current form, it excludes various groups. in addition, the problem of corruption still hangs over its implementation. The Church remains on the forefront of the campaign to increase the visibility of the problem of hunger. Kolkata (AsiaNews) Hunger remains a major problem in India. After two years, the National Food Security Act, which was supposed to addressed the issue, has not yet achieved its intended goal. What was supposed to eliminate hunger and malnutrition among 800 million Indians has not had encouraging results, said Fr Irudaya Jothi SJ, a prominent activist and coordinator of the Right to Food Campaign, a network of over 500 NGOs in West Bengal. Sadly, in a country where poverty is still widespread, the food aid programme has reached only two thirds of those in need, so that many people are still going hungry in the country. For the Jesuit, who also heads the Udayani (Awakening) Social Action Centre in Kolkata, the governments much touted policy has had bitter results so far. Launched in August 2013 by the former Congress-led administration, the National Food Security Act was adopted by parliament despite doubts expressed by experts, concerned that its large funds could get lost in the pockets of corrupt administrators in charge of delivering the programme. Under the original draft bill, the government would be required to provide 5kg of subsidised food grain per person per month at a regulated price of 1-3 rupees per kilo as well as free meals for pregnant women, nursing mothers, children between six months and 14 years, malnourished children and the homeless. However, the actual legislation left out some groups. Today, people continue to die of hunger in India. In West Bengal, The 2015-16 National Family Health Survey found that there are more malnourished children under five today than in 2005, Fr Jothi said. "The Catholic Church and civil society groups have campaigned vigorously for the approval of this law, and have tried to raise its visibility through sit-ins and protests, but results fall far short of expectations. Despite this, "the Church continues to work with the disadvantaged, following the example of Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity, the Jesuit clergyman said. Jesus, with his words and his actions, fed the hungry and gave drink to the thirsty. We, as his followers, must continue the work of mercy to provide an improved system and remedies on a large scale." Finally, Fr Jothi has a few words of gratitude for AsiaNews, which helped us raise awareness about these terrible living conditions and draw public attention and that of the authorities about the problem of hunger and malnutrition. by Nina Achmatova The decision follows the meeting of Orthodox Church leaders in Chambesy. The Synod was initially planned for Istanbul. The latter had become 'inconvenient' for the Russians after their row with Turkey, after the downing a Russian jet on the border with Syria. Moscow (AsiaNews) The pan-Orthodox Synod will be held in June 2016 in Crete, not Istanbul, and all the leaders of the autocephalous Churches will participate. The Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill made the announcement at the end of his visit to Chambesy, Switzerland, where Orthodox spiritual leaders met to discuss preparations for the much-anticipated event. "The Council will not take place in Istanbul; the position of the Russian Church was accepted. We had proposed Mount Athos, Rhodes and other places, but the Patriarchate of Constantinople proposed Crete, Kirill is quoted as saying by Interfax. "We accepted it", he added. The Greek island is under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and was proposed because "it offers the most favorable conditions. There are rooms for 400 people, and Crete is a venue for many different conferences, including theological ones," the Russian primate explained. Aleksandr Volkov, spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate, confirmed to Interfax that the Council would start on June 19, the day of the Orthodox Pentecost. The pan-Orthodox council has not convened for over a thousand years, and preparations for its implementation have been ongoing for decades. In 2014, Orthodox spiritual leaders decided to hold the event in 2016 at St. Irene, Constantinoples ancient cathedral, where the second ecumenical council of the undivided Church took place (in 553), and unless there are impediments due to unforeseen circumstances". Now, for the Russian delegation, the Turkish city has become "inconvenient' due to the rising tensions between Moscow and Ankara, after a Russian jet was downed on the border with Syria. In his address to the congress in Cebu on its fifth day, the Archbishop of Manila calls on politicians to stop throwing away peoples taxes for your parties and shopping and start using them as gifts for social services. The International Congress, which ends this Sunday, represents a new challenge, that of the Eucharist as a third world war" against poverty. Cebu (AsiaNews/CBCP) The 51st International Eucharistic Congress currently underway in Cebu, the Philippines, began last Sunday, 24 January, and will end next Sunday, 31 January. Many prelates have already addressed the gathering. In his speech today, Card Luis Antonio Tagle, archbishop of Manila focused on The Eucharist and the dialogue of cultures. With a touch of bravado, he addressed political leaders, asking them, will you throw away peoples taxes for your parties and shopping or guard them as gifts for social services? He also criticised the prevailing throwaway culture. In our time, we see a culture of achievement, of success, he said. However, reality is such that human achievement is often fuelled by materialism, the accumulation, [and] the consumption of goods, even when they are not needed. "Who has something to throw away? Those who have accumulated. And they have accumulated what they do not need; instead, what is needed a culture of giving and receiving. During the inaugural mass, the papal legate Card Charles Bo, archbishop of Yangon (Myanmar), said that the Eucharist is the "third world war" against poverty. For him, growing malnutrition and hunger in the world constitute "mass genocide". This calls for a commitment to a world of justice. The Eucharist calls for a third world war, a third world war against poverty . . . a third world war against a world that produces more weapons while more than half a billion dont have enough food, Card Bo lamented. The Eucharist and poverty are inseparable, he added. The Eucharist is a beacon of human dignity for the poor. No other religion elevates the poor to this level. On the second day, 25 January, the bishop emeritus of Hong Kong Card Zen spoke about the mission to proclaim and witness the suffering. In particular, he call for prayers for the persecuted Christians in China, who are still in deep waters, in burning fire, a terrible reality. In fact, his presence at the congress, he said, is meant to show how our martyrs in China in recent history give splendid witness to Jesus. Delivering the homily during the Mass on the third day of the Congress, Card Gaudencio Borbon Rosales, archbishop emeritus of Manila, reminded IEC participants that the Eucharist is not just a task, but a mission. For the prelate, Do this in memory of me means that as often as one eats the Body of Christ, he or she announces to others the power of the faith of our Lord Jesus. Do the Eucharist, live the Eucharist, release the Eucharist from sheer celebration! he added, and allow the Body and Blood of Jesus in you to roam the streets and byways, in jeepneys, tricycles and buses, stores and cafes, offices and schools, in every dining table, in homes where families engage in dialogue. Mgr Moolachira, archbishop of Guwahati, explains the goal of the annual event for young Catholic students. Seminarians, nuns, novices and postulants visit some of dioceses villages of the diocese to bring help and consolation to families. The idea is the brainchild of Mgr Thomas Menamparampil. This years edition, the eighth, attracted more than 600 people. Guwahati (AsiaNews) Each year, young men and women religious take part in a faith-exposure programme organised by the Archdiocese of Guwahati. Its purpose is to show young people that they "should not believe that they can be missionaries only in organisations and movements, that they are called to serve in the villages where people live, as Jesus did when he sent the disciples among the people, said Mgr John Moolachira, archbishop of Guwahati (Assam). Speaking to AsiaNews about the educational programme his diocese organises each year for young students seminarians, nuns, postulants, novices in the villages within its jurisdiction, the prelate noted that "Those who take the path of vocation must first uphold the interests and needs of their people. Indeed, for him, their job is to be in contact with the poor as well as the sick, and their families, understand their daily needs and make them feel loved. Training helps them renew their priestly choice and fulfils their spiritual and mental hunger." Now in its eighth edition, the programme is the brainchild of Mgr Thomas Menamparampil, the former archbishop, now apostolic administrator in Jowai. Indeed, for him, ideas ought to move into action, even grow into institution and movements; even in the context of anger due to a tragic event, injustice, or absolute poverty. This led to the idea of offering a weeklong training programme, which currently attracts hundreds of people. This years contingent included more 600 young Catholics, supervised by veteran missionaries, social workers and medical personnel. The diocese itself provided the students and their overseers simple accommodations at the diocesan see, including two meals a day, plus snacks for when they travel to villages. The programme showcases the mission, Archbishop Moolachira said. This year, the students travelled to 40 villages scattered across the diocese, visiting families, talking to them and trying to understand how they live and the problems they face. They prayed together, especially for the sick. They also played with children and taught catechism and songs. They provided some health tips on the most urgent needs. Above all, they made the people feel loved." At the same time, the programme stimulates "candidates vocation. It helps them understand that there is so much to do, the prelate explained. Many people in our diocese would like to learn about Jesus but do not have the opportunity. There are kind-hearted young men and women who would like to become priests and nuns, but there is no one to tell him how to. In the villages, many Christians do not know their faith very well and are eager to learn." The missions task is a tall order, Mgr Moolachira acknowledged. "Living conditions are really bad with poverty and disease everywhere. Many people are illiterate, forced to leave school because they were not encouraged to continue, or because they were too poor. Some are alcoholics and do not care about the family, leaving wives with the responsibility of feeding their children. " Accompanied by some of the students, the archbishop himself travelled to the villages. "Visiting families, talking to people, praying with them are some of the things I like the most. Every day I visit someone. I like to spend time with these simple people, in their modest homes." The reason for this interest, which is the aim of the whole programme, is that this way we imitate Jesus who used to send the disciples into the villages, said the prelate. Such visits are not just a token of spiritual mercy for the poor. The archdiocese does not only expect a renewed vigour in the religious life of the people, but also a joyful vision for the future. What is more, we hope that some interest in Jesus and the Catholic Church may emerge in non-Christian families." The Moro Islamic Liberation Front announced the creation of a 12,000-strong task force to counter ISIS distortions of the Quran. For an army spokesman, Any initiative against extremism is welcome." The MILF is discussing with the government ways to prevent extremist groups from undermining peace talks. Manila (AsiaNews/Agencies) The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has set up a task force to counter purported efforts by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to recruit fighters in the restive southern Philippine island of Mindanao, MILF spokesman Mohagher Iqbal told the Filipino Daily Inquirer. The MILF, which has become increasingly concerned about local Islamist groups after they released videos last month in which they pledge allegiance to ISIS, is an armed group that has fought for decades for Mindanaos independence, an island rich in natural resources. Thousands of people have paid the price for a war that has held economically back the region, which is considered a treasure trove in terms of raw materials estimated at US$ 312 billion. On 24 January 2014, the two sides signed a peace agreement, which opened the way for the creation of a Muslim autonomous region in Bangsamoro, slated to be up and running by 2016. The deal provides for Muslim self-government in Mindanao in exchange for a cease-fire and rebel disarmament, but negotiations are currently at an impasse. Iqbal said that the MILF has a 12,000-strong force, including Islamic preachers tasked to counter ISIS' "distortions" of the Quran and Islamic teachings. The creation of the MILF task force is a "welcome development," said Brigadier-General Restituto Padilla, a spokesman for the Filipino military. "Any effort aimed at controlling extremism, especially within their organisation, is a welcome development," he added. Counter-terror expert Richard Javad Heydarian, of De La Salle University, said that the MILF, in creating the task force, may be taking steps to prevent extremists from undermining its peace deal with the government and continue the armed struggle. Earlier Brig-Gen Padilla said that security forces were "well aware of the emerging threat (from ISIS), and have been conducting operations to prevent terror acts anywhere in the country". However, he dismissed as "propaganda" the recruitment videos released by Muslim extremists in the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia in the past month. "There remains no credible and direct connection to the bigger group in the Middle East up to this time," he said. In a Joint Declaration, hundreds of Muslim notables call for equal rights for everyone. The notion of citizenship is the basis of living together. Signatories condemn those who use religion to "attack minorities" as well as the armed struggle when it is used "as a tool for settling conflicts and imposing one's point of view. Educational institutions must engage in a courageous review of the curriculum. The full text of the document is presented. Marrakesh (AsiaNews) - A group of Islamic clerics, intellectuals and religious experts issued a Joint Declaration to revive interfaith dialogue and recognize the equal dignity of religions. At the invitation of King Mohammed VI of Morocco, 250 Muslim leaders including legal scholars and experts met from January 25 to 27 in Marrakesh to discuss the rights of religious minorities in the Muslim world, their protection, and co-existence between majority and minority. In the declaration, the signatories call on Muslim scholars and intellectuals around the world to develop a jurisprudence of the concept of citizenship which is inclusive of diverse groups and rooted in Islamic tradition and principles and mindful of global changes. The aim is to counter those who use religion for the purpose of aggressing upon the rights of religious minorities in Muslim countries. The reason behind the declaration is the fact that conditions in various parts of the Muslim World have deteriorated dangerously due to the use of violence and armed struggle as a tool for settling conflicts and imposing one's point of view. One of the groups behind the initiative is Religions for Peace, a leader since 1970 in promoting peace and dialogue among the worlds major religions, backed by a number of foundations, governments, NGOs, religious communities and rights groups. Here is the full statement. In the Name of God, the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate Executive Summary of the Marrakesh Declaration on the Rights of Religious Minorities in Predominantly Muslim Majority Communities 25th-27th January 2016 WHEREAS, conditions in various parts of the Muslim World have deteriorated dangerously due to the use of violence and armed struggle as a tool for settling conflicts and imposing one's point of view; WHEREAS, this situation has also weakened the authority of legitimate governments and enabled criminal groups to issue edicts attributed to Islam, but which, in fact, alarmingly distort its fundamental principles and goals in ways that have seriously harmed the population as a whole; WHEREAS, this year marks the 1,400th anniversary of the Charter of Medina, a constitutional contract between the Prophet Muhammad, God's peace and blessings be upon him, and the people of Medina, which guaranteed the religious liberty of all, regardless of faith; WHEREAS, hundreds of Muslim scholars and intellectuals from over 120 countries, along with representatives of Islamic and international organizations, as well as leaders from diverse religious groups and nationalities, gathered in Marrakesh on this date to reaffirm the principles of the Charter of Medina at a major conference; WHEREAS, this conference was held under the auspices of His Majesty, King Mohammed VI of Morocco, and organized jointly by the Ministry of Endowment and Islamic A airs in the Kingdom of Morocco and the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies based in the United Arab Emirates; AND NOTING the gravity of this situation afflicting Muslims as well as peoples of other faiths throughout the world, and after thorough deliberation and discussion, the convened Muslim scholars and intellectuals: DECLARE HEREBY our firm commitment to the principles articulated in the Charter of Medina, whose provisions contained a number of the principles of constitutional contractual citizenship, such as freedom of movement, property ownership, mutual solidarity and defense, as well as principles of justice and equality before the law; and that, The objectives of the Charter of Medina provide a suitable framework for national constitutions in countries with Muslim majorities, and the United Nations Charter and related documents, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are in harmony with the Charter of Medina, including consideration for public order. NOTING FURTHER that deep reflection upon the various crises afflicting humanity underscores the inevitable and urgent need for cooperation among all religious groups, we AFFIRM HEREBY that such cooperation must be based on a "Common Word," requiring that such cooperation must go beyond mutual tolerance and respect, to providing full protection for the rights and liberties to all religious groups in a civilized manner that eschews coercion, bias, and arrogance. BASED ON ALL OF THE ABOVE, we hereby: Call upon Muslim scholars and intellectuals around the world to develop a jurisprudence of the concept of "citizenship" which is inclusive of diverse groups. Such jurisprudence shall be rooted in Islamic tradition and principles and mindful of global changes. Urge Muslim educational institutions and authorities to conduct a courageous review of educational curricula that addresses honestly and effectively any material that instigates aggression and extremism, leads to war and chaos, and results in the destruction of our shared societies; Call upon politicians and decision makers to take the political and legal steps necessary to establish a constitutional contractual relationship among its citizens, and to support all formulations and initiatives that aim to fortify relations and understanding among the various religious groups in the Muslim World; Call upon the educated, artistic, and creative members of our societies, as well as organizations of civil society, to establish a broad movement for the just treatment of religious minorities in Muslim countries and to raise awareness as to their rights, and to work together to ensure the success of these efforts. Call upon the various religious groups bound by the same national fabric to address their mutual state of selective amnesia that blocks memories of centuries of joint and shared living on the same land; we call upon them to rebuild the past by reviving this tradition of conviviality, and restoring our shared trust that has been eroded by extremists using acts of terror and aggression; Call upon representatives of the various religions, sects and denominations to confront all forms of religious bigotry, vilification, and denigration of what people hold sacred, as well as all speech that promote hatred and bigotry; AND FINALLY, AFFIRM that it is unconscionable to employ religion for the purpose of aggressing upon the rights of religious minorities in Muslim countries. Marrakesh January 27, 2016 In his message for World Day of the Sick, which will be solemnly celebrated in the Holy Land to encourage dialogue with Jews and Muslims, Francis highlights Marys concern, in which we see reflected the tenderness of God. This same tenderness is present in the lives of all those persons who attend the sick and understand their needs, even the most imperceptible ones, because they look upon them with eyes full of love. Vatican City (AsiaNews) In his message for this years World Day of the Sick, Pope Francis said that he hoped that in the Jubilee Year, a merciful Jesus may have the same readiness to serve those in need, and, in particular, our infirm brothers and sisters that Mary had in Cana, when she was concerned about the spouses, and told the servants, Do whatever he tells you! and carry out immediately and well what you are asked to do, without complaining, without second thoughts. This year, since the Day of the Sick will be solemnly celebrated in the Holy Land, I wish to propose a meditation on the Gospel account of the wedding feast of Cana (Jn 2: 1-11), where Jesus performed his first miracle through the intervention of his Mother. The theme chosen - Entrusting Oneself to the Merciful Jesus like Mary: Do whatever he tells you (Jn 2:5) is quite fitting in light of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy. The main Eucharistic celebration of the Day will take place on 11 February 2016, the liturgical memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, in Nazareth itself, where the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us (Jn 1:14). In Nazareth, Jesus began his salvific mission, applying to himself the words of the Prophet Isaiah, as we are told by the Evangelist Luke: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord (Lk 4:18-19). Illness, above all grave illness, always places human existence in crisis and brings with it questions that dig deep. Our first response may at times be one of rebellion: Why has this happened to me? We can feel desperate, thinking that all is lost, that things no longer have meaning In these situations, faith in God is on the one hand tested, yet at the same time can reveal all of its positive resources. Not because faith makes illness, pain, or the questions which they raise, disappear, but because it offers a key by which we can discover the deepest meaning of what we are experiencing; a key that helps us to see how illness can be the way to draw nearer to Jesus who walks at our side, weighed down by the Cross. And this key is given to us by Mary, our Mother, who has known this way at first hand. The pope highlights Marys role and attitude at the wedding feast of Cana. She recognizes the difficulty, in some way makes it her own, and acts swiftly and discreetly. She does not simply look on, much less spend time in finding fault, but rather, she turns to Jesus and presents him with the concrete problem: They have no wine (Jn 2:3). And when Jesus tells her that it is not yet the time for him to reveal himself (cf. v. 4), she says to the servants: Do whatever he tells you (v. 5). Jesus then performs the miracle. In Marys concern we see reflected the tenderness of God The wedding feast of Cana is an image of the Church: at the centre there is Jesus who in his mercy performs a sign; around him are the disciples, the first fruits of the new community; and beside Jesus and the disciples is Mary, the provident and prayerful Mother. Mary partakes of the joy of ordinary people and helps it to increase; she intercedes with her Son on behalf of the spouses and all the invited guests. Nor does Jesus refuse the request of his Mother. How much hope there is in that event for all of us! We have a Mother with benevolent and watchful eyes, like her Son; a heart that is maternal and full of mercy, like him; hands that want to help, like the hands of Jesus who broke bread for those who were hungry, touched the sick and healed them. All this fills us with trust and opens our hearts to the grace and mercy of Christ. Marys intercession makes us experience the consolation for which the apostle Paul blesses God: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and God of all encouragement, who encourages us in our affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God. For as Christs sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ does our encouragement also overflow (2 Cor 1:3-5). Mary is the comforted Mother who comforts her children. At Cana the distinctive features of Jesus and his mission are clearly seen: he comes to the help of those in difficulty and need. Indeed, in the course of his messianic ministry he would heal many people of illnesses, infirmities and evil spirits, give sight to the blind, make the lame walk, restore health and dignity to lepers, raise the dead, and proclaim the good news to the poor (cf. Lk7:21-22). Marys request at the wedding feast, suggested by the Holy Spirit to her maternal heart, clearly shows not only Jesus messianic power but also his mercy. In Marys concern we see reflected the tenderness of God. This same tenderness is present in the lives of all those persons who attend the sick and understand their needs, even the most imperceptible ones, because they look upon them with eyes full of love. [. . .] But love animated by faith makes us ask for them something greater than physical health: we ask for peace, a serenity in life that comes from the heart and is Gods gift, the fruit of the Holy Spirit, a gift which the Father never denies to those who ask him for it with trust. The message stressed the role played by servants. Jesus wants to employ human assistance in performing this miracle. [. . .] How wonderful and pleasing to God it is to be servants of others! This more than anything else makes us like Jesus, who did not come to be served but to serve (Mk 10:45). These unnamed people in the Gospel teach us a great deal. Not only do they obey, but they obey generously: they fill the jars to the brim (cf. Jn 2:7). They trust the Mother and carry out immediately and well what they are asked to do, without complaining, without second thoughts. May Jesus grant us the aptitude to serve those in need On this World Day of the Sick let us ask Jesus in his mercy, through the intercession of Mary, his Mother and ours, to grant to all of us this same readiness to be serve those in need, and, in particular, our infirm brothers and sisters. At times this service can be tiring and burdensome, yet we are certain that the Lord will surely turn our human efforts into something divine. We too can be hands, arms and hearts which help God to perform his miracles, so often hidden. We too, whether healthy or sick, can offer up our toil and sufferings like the water which filled the jars at the wedding feast of Cana and was turned into the finest wine. By quietly helping those who suffer, as in illness itself, we take our daily cross upon our shoulders and follow the Master (cf. Lk 9:23). Even though the experience of suffering will always remain a mystery, Jesus helps us to reveal its meaning. If we can learn to obey the words of Mary, who says: Do whatever he tells you, Jesus will always change the water of our lives into precious wine. Thus this World Day of the Sick, solemnly celebrated in the Holy Land, will help fulfil the hope which I expressed in the Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy: I trust that this Jubilee year celebrating the mercy of God will foster an encounter with [Judaism and Islam] and with other noble religious traditions; may it open us to even more fervent dialogue so that we might know and understand one another better; may it eliminate every form of closed-mindedness and disrespect, and drive out every form of violence and discrimination (Misericordiae Vultus, 23). Every hospital and nursing home can be a visible sign and setting in which to promote the culture of encounter and peace, where the experience of illness and suffering, along with professional and fraternal assistance, helps to overcome every limitation and division. For this we are set an example by the two Religious Sisters who were canonized last May: Saint Marie-Alphonsine Danil Ghattas and Saint Mary of Jesus Crucified Baouardy, both daughters of the Holy Land. The first was a witness to meekness and unity, who bore clear witness to the importance of being responsible for one another other, living in service to one another. The second, a humble and illiterate woman, was docile to the Holy Spirit and became an instrument of encounter with the Muslim world. To all those who assist the sick and the suffering I express my confident hope that they will draw inspiration from Mary, the Mother of Mercy. May the sweetness of her countenance watch over us in this Holy Year, so that all of us may rediscover the joy of Gods tenderness (ibid., 24), allow it to dwell in our hearts and express it in our actions! Let us entrust to the Virgin Mary our trials and tribulations, together with our joys and consolations. Let us beg her to turn her eyes of mercy towards us, especially in times of pain, and make us worthy of beholding, today and always, the merciful face of her Son Jesus! The Church, although sensitive to the issue of bioethics, does not claim any privileged role in this field. What matters is serving humanity, as a whole, every man and woman, by paying special attention as someone pointed out to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, those who are struggling to make their voice heard, or cannot yet, or no longer can, make themselves heard. Vatican City (AsiaNews) In his address today before the members of the Italian Committee for Bioethics, Pope Francis came to the defence of the weak and defenceless, such as human embryos, sick people and senior citizens approaching death who must not be treated "as disposable material. Science, the pontiff insisted, must serve humanity, and biotechnological applications in the field of medicine "can never be used in a way that is detrimental to human dignity, nor guided solely by industrial or commercial aims". In fact, the Holy Father noted that the Church, although sensitive to the issue of bioethics, does not claim any privileged role in this field. On the contrary, it is satisfied when people, at various levels, are able to reflect, discern and operate on the basis of free and open rationality and the foundational values of the person and society. Such responsible civic mindedness is a sign that the sowing of the Gospel as indeed revealed by and entrusted to the Church - has borne fruit, and endeavoured to promote the search for the truth and what is good amid complex human and ethical issues." "It means in essence to serve humanity, as a whole, every man and woman, by paying special attention - as someone pointed out - to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, those who are struggling to make their voice heard, or cannot yet, or no longer can, make it heard. In this matter, the Church as a community and secular society are called to cooperate, each within its own area of authority. The Pope acknowledged that the Committee "has repeatedly take into account the respect for the integrity of the human being and the protection of health from conception to natural death, always viewing the person in his or her singularity as end and never simply as a means." "This ethical principle is also crucial with regard to biotechnological applications in the medical field, which should never be used in a way that is detrimental to human dignity, nor guided solely by industrial or commercial purposes". Bioethics, in fact, "developed to compare, through critical efforts, the reasons and the conditions required by human dignity to the developments in biological and medical science and technology," which "in their faster pace risk losing any reference other than utility and profit." For Francis, Searching for the ethical truth in a context marked by relativism and the lack of trust in human reason" is "demanding" and "not easy". Indeed, Reaching a harmonious conclusion requires humility and realism and should not fear the interaction between different positions" nor the idea that bearing witness to the truth contributes to a more mature social awareness." Lastly, the pontiff encouraged the committee to make a "greater effort towards an international dialogue in view of a possible" harmonisation "of biological and medical standards and rules to recognise fundamental values and rights". When a Christian prefers not to show the light of God but chooses his own darkness, the latter enters his heart because he is afraid of the light. Since he likes idols, which are darkness, more, he is missing something, and is not a true Christian. However, when one enters the light of Jesus, when one enters into Jesus friendship, when one lets oneself be guided by the Holy Spirit, then the heart becomes open, magnanimous . . ." Vatican City (AsiaNews) Pope Francis led the Mass this morning at Casa Santa Marta. A number of priests celebrating their 50 years of priesthood were present at the service. In his homily, the pontiff noted that a true Christian must be a witness to the "light of Jesus" and be magnanimous like his "magnanimous father, with a big heart." In fact, light is so important, as Jesus noted in todays Gospel, for lamps are not brought in to be placed under a bushel basket or under a bed, but to be placed on a lampstand. Indeed, The mystery of God is light, Francis said. This is one of the traits of Christian who has received the light in Baptism and must give it. That is, a Christian is a witness. Bearing witness. One of the peculiarities of Christian behavior. A Christian who bears this light must show it because he is a witness. When a Christian prefers not to show the light of God but chooses his own darkness, the latter enters his heart because he is afraid of the light. Since he likes idols, which are darkness, more, he is missing something, and is not a true Christian. Bearing witness: a Christian is a witness to Jesus Christ, the Light of God. He has to put that light on the lampstand of his life. In the Gospel Jesus says, The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you, and still more will be given to you. Thus, Another Christian trait, he reflected, is magnanimity, because he is the child of a magnanimous father, with a big heart. The Christian heart is magnanimous. It is open, always. It is not a heart that is turned inward onto its own selfishness. Or one that is calculating: up to this point, up to here. When one enters the light of Jesus, when one enters into Jesus friendship, when one lets oneself be guided by the Holy Spirit, the heart becomes open, magnanimous . . . A Christian, then, does not gain, he loses. But he loses to gain something else, and in this so-called defeat of interests, he gains Jesus; he gains by becoming Jesus witness. Turning to veteran priests celebrating 50 years of service, the Holy Father said, For me it is a joy to celebrate with you today, as you mark the 50th anniversary of your priesthood: 50 years on the path of light and giving witness, 50 years of trying to be better, trying to bring light to the lampstand. Sometimes we fall, but we get up again, always with the desire to give light, generously, with a magnanimous heart, that is. Only God and your own memory know how many people you have received generously, with the kindness of fathers, of brothers . . . How many people whose heart was a bit dark have you given light, the light of Jesus. Thank you. Thank you for what you have done in the Church, for the Church and for Jesus. Finally, May the Lord give you joy, this great joy, of having sown well, of having shown light well, and of having opened your arms to receive everyone with magnanimity. The report notes that civilians were targeted in a "widespread and systematic" manner. People were also being deliberately starved as a war tactic over the past nine months. The panel of experts relied on satellite imagery and other sources of information because its members were not allowed to travel to Yemen. Sanaa (AsiaNews/Agencies) The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthi rebel movement in Yemen has targeted civilians with air strikes in a "widespread and systematic" manner, a leaked UN report says. The UN panel of experts found that civilians were also being deliberately starved as a war tactic over the past nine months. The panel relied on satellite imagery and other sources of information because its members were not allowed to travel to Yemen. It called for an inquiry into human rights abuses. Back in January, the country became embroiled in a bloody conflict between the Saudi-backed, Sunni-dominated government and Iran-supported Houthi Shia rebels. Since March, the Saudis have led of a coalition against the rebels, and launched air strikes against their positions. The coalition is attempting to oust the rebels from Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and restore the country's government. Saudi Arabia says the Houthis, who are allied with forces linked to Yemen's former president, are supported militarily by its regional rival Iran - something the latter denies. More than 5,800 people have been killed in fighting since March, and more than 80% of the population is in dire need of food, water and other aid, the UN says. The UN's experts documented 119 coalition sorties that violated international law, the report says, many of which involved multiple strikes on civilian objects. They also found that civilians fleeing coalition air strikes had been chased and shot at by helicopters. The new report follows intensifying concern over the deteriorating situation in Yemen. Earlier this month, Yemen's government briefly expelled the UN's human rights representative following reports that the Saudi-led coalition had been using cluster bombs. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned at the time that the use of cluster bombs could amount to a war crime. Meanwhile, Dutch diplomats were forced to abandon a proposal in the UN Human Rights Council calling for an international fact finding mission to Yemen, reportedly under pressure from Saudi Arabia. DeLorean Cars To Begin New Production Trending News: You'll Soon Be Able To Buy A Brand New DeLorean Why Is This Important? Because admit it, you still want one? Long Story Short Texas-based DeLorean Motors recently announced that they'll begin producing brand new DeLorean DMC-12s. They currently have parts for about 300 new cars, which will cost about $100,000. Long Story For being kind of a business failure, the DeLorean DCM-12 holds a prominent spot as a piece of car iconography. Sadly, getting your hands on one is nearly impossible. Not many were made and even fewer survive, so your chances of even owning one to have it refurbished are slim. But for Back to the Future fans with deep pockets, there's light at the end of the tunnel: A Texas company says they'll soon begin production on brand new DeLoreans. Its fantastic, Stephen Wynne, CEO of DeLorean Motors in Humble, TX told Eyewitness News 3. Its a game-changer for us. Weve been wanting this to happen. DeLorean Motors is currently the place for current or aspiring DMC-12 owners. The company came to Texas in 1987, and has ever since been home to what's left of the original DeLorean parts and materials inventory. While most of the company's work has been in using replacement parts to refurbish original DeLoreans (which retail for $45k-$55k), the new replicas will be the first DeLoreans produced in over 30 years, and the first ever built on U.S. soil. The new production comes, in part, thanks to a low-volume manufacturing bill approved by the U.S. government. Right now, DeLorean Motors believes they have enough parts to build about 300 new cars at a rate of one per month, eventually ramping up to one per week. The first cars will roll of the line early next year, and will retail for $100k. Part of the sticker price is likely due to DeLoreans being a luxury item, but it's also a supply issue. If demand is high enough, you have to figure that DeLorean Motors (or other OEMs) would start to produce the necessary parts from scratch. Given the success Lyft had with using DeLoreans on Back to the Future day last year, I'd say the demand is there. Own The Conversation Ask The Big Question Are DeLoreans practical as daily-driving cars? Disrupt Your Feed I know what I'd do with my Powerball winnings if I had any. Drop This Fact Only about 9,000 DeLorean DMC-12s were ever produced. A breath of fresh air after the fuming hatred we have been seeing from western media. Conservative Home Leo Docherty is Director of the Conservative Middle East Council and a former soldier. In Cairo last weekend, the prevalent mood among the many politicians, business people, journalists, government officials and taxi drivers I spoke to was a mixture of relief and apprehension; relief that stability has returned to Egypt after five years of unprecedented political upheaval, and apprehension about the huge challenges that face the Arab worlds most populous country. I share the Egyptian sense of relief. Stability is a scarce commodity in the Middle East, and Egypt has emerged from a tumultuous period of political chaos in remarkably good shape. This is especially remarkable given the disastrous outcomes in other countries swept along in the wave of Arab uprisings of 2011. Syria and Yemen are consumed by war. Daesh terrorises a swathe of Iraq and Syria. Egypts neighbour Libya is a failed state riven by warring militias and jihadists. Egypt came very close to going down the same road. The countrys brief period of Muslim Brotherhood rule was a disaster for its economy, its security and its society. That stability and security has returned to Egypt is something for which we should all be very grateful. Egypts Coptic Christian population of some 10 million are particularly grateful that their rights and religious freedom are now respected, which is particularly important at a time when Christians elsewhere in the Middle East are a fleeing their homelands. That Egypt has emerged intact from the chaos of recent years perhaps reveals something about the cultural depth of Egyptian society. Egyptian civilization is five thousand years old. One in four Arabs is Egyptian. It is the cultural and historical lodestar of the Middle East and has the capacity also to be the regions political leader. A stable Egypt that is a friend and ally to the UK and the West is in the best interest of everyone. Stability has returned but huge challenges remain. Security is first and foremost. At the end of 2010, I travelled with a group of friends from Cairo to Gaza a six hour overland drive in an unprotected minibus through the Sinai peninsula. Such a journey today would be unthinkable due to the rise of a Jihadist insurgency in the North-Eastern corner of Sinai exacerbated by Libyas descent into political chaos in 2011, and support from Hamas via tunnels in Gaza and the reported release of hundreds of jihadi fighters from Egypts jails by the Muslim Brotherhood government of 2012-13. Centred on Rafah and the North-Eastern corner of Sinai, the area affected represents only a tiny proportion of the Sinai Peninsulas vast land mass, but it nevertheless represents a significant security challenge and one which the Egyptian military is fighting hard. And we must do all we can through expertise and technology to assist them in this fight, knowing that we face the same jihadist threat on the streets of London and beyond. Most importantly, on the economic front, we must seek to urgently resume British flights to the Sharm el Sheikh resort, suspended in November last year after the tragic downing of the Russia Metrojet over Sinai by a suspected Daesh bomb. The huge importance of British tourism to the Egyptian economy and the painful impact of the suspension cannot be overstated tourism constitutes 25 per cent of Egyptian GDP and British tourists alone make up five percent. The labour intensive nature of tourism in a country with a population rapidly moving towards 100 million and chronic unemployment makes it even more important. Millions of Egyptians depend directly on income from tourism to feed and educate their families. Economic prosperity is a crucial weapon in the fight against terrorism. In a region where jihadist extremists prey on impressionable and jobless young men, economic prosperity and growing employment opportunities for young Egyptians are the foundation of its security. But to grow its economy into the future Egypt need to tackle some very tough dilem mas. For decades, its growing population has been sheltered from market forces by a state that is an overbearing regulatory force and the countrys primary employer. Economic reform is sorely needed to encourage foreign direct investment and to allow entrepreneurialism and employment to flourish. But the risks of freeing up the economy of ending subsidies on fuel, electricity and food stuffs, slashing taxes and, most critically in the medium term, of devaluing the Egyptian pound and letting it float on the free market are significant. If sudden fluctuations in the exchange rate push up the price the price of bread, the Egyptian street will be outraged and if the last five years are anything to go by might take to the streets. President Al Sisi and his government have a fiendishly difficult balancing act to perform: of maintaining stability and order in the short term against taking the risks of necessary longer term reforms. We must do all we can to help Egypt achieve this balancing act, for its sake and ours. Bits and pieces ONLY - From DIAC Procedures Advice Manual (PAM3) Genuine Visitor Policy Current as of 1 December 2012 The genuine visitor requirement Genuine visitor requirements It is a criterion for: Tourist visa - Sponsored Family Visitor visa - and Officers should consider whether the applicant is attempting to obtain the visa: to remain in Australia for a longer period (for example, maintain ongoing residence in Australia on "rolling" visitor visas) or for unlawful purposes (for example, to work illegally). Assessing whether the applicant meets the genuine visitor requirement In establishing whether this criterion is satisfied, relevant considerations may include, but are not limited to: the personal circumstances of the applicant that would encourage them to return to their home country at the end of the proposed visit. the applicant's immigration history (for example, previous travel, compliance with immigration laws of Australia or other countries, previous visa applications/compliance action). the personal circumstances of the applicant in their home country that might encourage them to remain in Australia (for example, military service commitments, economic situation, civil disruption). conditions that might encourage the applicant to remain in Australia. the applicant's credibility in terms of character and conduct (for example, false and misleading information provided with visa application). whether the purpose and proposed duration of the applicant's visit and their proposed activities in Australia are reasonable and consistent (for example, is the period of stay consistent with "tourism"). information in statistical, intelligence and analysis reports on migration fraud and immigration compliance compiled by the department about nationals from the applicant's home country. Such information, developed as profiles, may assist officers in deciding whether closer examination of an application is required to ensure the integrity of the visitor visa program. Personal circumstances that may encourage the applicant to return to their home country ("home country" being country of usual residence) include: on-going employment. the presence of immediate family members in their home country, that is, does the applicant have more close family members living in their home country than in Australia. (Parents not considered as family) property, or other significant assets, owned in their home country and currently residing in a country whose nationals represent a low risk of immigration non-compliance, even though the applicant is originally from a country whose nationals represent a statistically higher risk of non-compliance. Officers should also consider the applicant's economic situation - including unemployment or employment that, based on knowledge of local employment conditions, such as salary rates, would not constitute a strong incentive for the applicant to leave Australia. Consideration of the applicant's immigration history may include but is not limited to: previous travels to Australia, that is: has the applicant previously travelled to Australia and, if so did they comply with the conditions of their visa (or, if not, were the circumstances beyond their control) and did they leave before their visa ceased previous visa applications for Australia, that is: has the applicant previously applied for a permanent Australian visa and previous travels overseas, that is: has the applicant travelled to countries other than Australia has the applicant previously travelled to a country where there would be significant incentives for them to remain, in which case, did they comply with the immigration laws of that country. In assessing this factor, officers may give weight to applicants who had travelled to and complied with the immigration laws of a country(ies) that has significant incentives for the applicant to remain in that country(ies), either for economic or personal reasons. However, officers may have to use judicious discretion if there is a lack of travel history. Conditions that might encourage the applicant to remain in Australia include: the applicant's personal ties to Australia, that is: does the applicant have more close family members living in Australia than in their home country is the applicant subject of adoption proceedings that have not been resolved in their home country military service commitments civil disruption, including war, lawlessness or political upheaval in the applicant's home country and economic disruption, including shortages, famine, or high levels of unemployment, or natural disasters in the applicant's home country. Where consideration of the factors above raise doubts about the applicant's ability to meet the genuine visitor requirement, such as where the applicant's circumstances may suggest the need for greater scrutiny, officers may consider/request additional evidence that demonstrates that the applicant intends a genuine visit. Officers may request further evidence from the applicant, where considered appropriate, if departmental statistical or intelligence reports on migration fraud, or profiles based on such reports, indicate that there is a significantly greater likelihood of nationals from the applicant's home country: staying in Australia beyond the expiry of their visa having their visa cancelled being refused entry to Australia or making asylum claims or applying for a Protection visa (PV). Additional evidence that officers may wish to consider in deciding whether an applicant is a genuine visitor include: evidence that the applicant has been employed for at least the previous 12 months, has approved leave for the period of stay sought and will continue to be employed on their return home or if self-employed, evidence they have owned their own business for the previous 12 months or if retired/non-working have other financial commitments and/or family/social ties that would provide sufficient inducement for them to return to their home country at the end of their visit or good immigration history. Generally, offers of support or guarantees given by family and friends in Australia are not sufficient evidence of a genuine visit. The onus is on the applicant to satisfy the decision maker that they intend only to visit Australia. Guarantees from connections in Australia can, however, be critical in assessing whether an applicant has or has access to adequate funds. When refusing a visitor visa application in relation to the "genuine visit" criterion, delegates should be careful not to confuse the applicant's financial circumstances as an incentive to return and their access to "adequate funds". Slow sales and low profits have compelled Ford to take this decision. Operations are said to close by the second half of the year. Ford has stated that it will cease operations in Japan and Indonesia and pull out of the markets soon. In a statement published on the Ford Indonesia website, local MD, Bagus Susanto said, "Today we have announced a difficult business decision to withdraw from all our operations in Indonesia in the second half of this year. This includes closing Ford dealerships and stopping the official sale and import of all Ford vehicles." Susanto added that Ford dealers will remain open until sometime in 2017 before the brands warranty and repair responsibilities are handed over to a third party. A Ford spokesman was also quoted as saying that there was no "reasonable path to profitability" for the companys operations in Indonesia. The US carmaker will also close down all of its dealerships in Japan and stop selling the Focus, Fiesta, Mustang by the end of this year. Other models offered in Japan include EcoSport, Kuga and Explorer SUVs. The two Lincoln models sold in Japan the Navigator and MKX SUVs will also be withdrawn from the local market. According to Reuters, Ford has managed to sell only 5,000 cars in Japan in 2015, despite having had a retail presence in the country since 1974. It is believed that about 52 dealerships will close and 300 people will be made redundant. The KUV100 is available in both petrol and diesel engine options. Mahindras latest launch, the KUV100 recently claimed a waiting period of over two months. The carmaker has announced today that the hatchback has garnered over 21,000 bookings. This comes barely a month after the cars launch. The KUV100 debuts Mahindras latest range of mFalcon 1.2-litre petrol and diesel engines. It is available in seven variants K2, K2+, K4, K4+, K6, K6+ and the top-spec K8. Prices for the petrol variants start at Rs 4.42 lakh and go up to Rs 5.91 lakh for the top-spec model. The base diesel is priced at Rs 5.22 lakh, going up to Rs 6.76 lakh (all prices ex-showroom, Pune). All variants get ABS and EBD as part of standard kit, while dual-front airbags are available as optional on all variants. Mahindra has left no stone unturned in retailing the KUV100. Apart from its dealer network, M&M has employed various e-commerce platforms to sell the car and has started accepting bookings on Flipkart, as well as its own e-retail platform, M2ALL. M&M had earlier confirmed that production capacity at its Chakan facility would be increased, with numbers going from 9,000 units a month to 12,000 units in less than six months. Speaking on KUV100 booking milestone, Pravin Shah, president and chief executive (Automotive), Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd said, We are delighted with the number of KUV100 bookings received within just a month of its launch and would like to thank our customers. The large number of enquiries and 21,000+ bookings, reaffirm the immense popularity KUV100 has garnered in such short time. With the launch of the KUV100, we have pushed the boundaries to create a new segment of SUVs as a superior alternative to compact cars and that has resonated well with our customers. What is also very encouraging is that almost half of our bookings are for the KUV100 petrol variant. Further, we are putting our efforts to serve the customers faster by increasing the capacity, as was shared during the launch. This is the manufacturers smallest offering yet, and its first foray into the hatchback segment, which includes cars like the Maruti Swift and the Grand i10. SUV According to Fiat Chrysler Automobiles latest business plan, the Alfa Romeo range will only get the Giulia sedan and a new midsizeby the end of 2017. The previous plan for the Alfa Romeo strategy involved launching six other models by 2020.By the end of 2018, the brand was supposed to launch eight different models, but we can only hope for a third or fourth model put on the market in 2018, after the Giulia and the mysterious midsize SUV.The other models planned for the Alfa Romeo portfolio are supposed to be launched between 2017 and 2020, Automotive News informs. The proposed models include a full-size sedan, two SUVs, two specialty models, and a hatchback. Alfa Romeos new models will be designed according to the expectations of European and North American customers, as the company is expecting import restrictions in China.We expect Alfa Romeo to stop making the MiTo subcompact hatchback and to phase out the Giulietta compact hatchback in the coming years. After all, both are based on aging Fiat platforms. However, the 4C and 4C Spider might live impressive lifespans in the Milanese brands portfolio.However, selling the 4C and 4C Spider is unquestionably not enough to keep the premium Italian brand afloat, and the Giulia is being delayed in a dangerous manner to make a serious impact. After all, the Giulia sedan was first shown to the world in July 2015 in its QV performance version, but the production car will first leave the factory in March.The global rollout of the Giulia will only happen in 2017. If things go south for the Italian brand, the Giulia might become their swan song and not their savior.Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has ambitious sales expectations from Alfa Romeo in the coming years, but its models keep being delayed. Even diehard fans of the brand are starting to wonder whether the company will come back to be popular again or it will be slowly killed off in Lancia fashion, by selling its models only in Italy. This custom motorcycle commemorates 150 years since the registration of the Jack Daniel's Distillery, in 1886, and will be on display between January 23 and 31 at the Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale Collector Car Auction. Obviously, this very hot Indian Chief Vintage will also be present at the Daytona Bike Week, March 4-13, and possibly at other bike shows.The 2016 Limited Edition Jack Daniels Indian Chief Vintage will be auctioned in the autumn, and the proceedings will be directed to supporting the Operation Ride Home, a joint effort of Jack Daniel's Distillery and the Armed Services YMCA. Operation Ride Home provides support to young military personnel for spending time with their families during the holiday season.The Limited Edition Jack Daniels Chief Vintage will not be a one-off machine, Indian says in its press release. However, you can't just expect them to make this bike a mass-production item.No exact numbers were mentioned, but we'd rather say that those who want this bike would better have their checkbook at hand and simply pull the trigger when they see one up for grabs.The custom paint and logos, badging, leather saddle and saddlebags are inspired by Jack Daniel's, while other special accessories from the Indian genuine parts catalogue enhanced the build. The final touch belongs to Brian Klock of Klock Werks fame.Details and production schedule, as well as information regarding ordering the 2016 Limited Edition Jack Daniels Indian Chief Vintage, will be offered later, Indian adds. We will also try to find out why the bike will not be available in France, as the press release says. Until then, enjoy the first HD photos of the Jack Daniels Indian Chief Vintage.And don't forget to vote for the best three custom Indian Scout projects , too! Today, the X-2 was unveiled to the public. Wearing a white and red paint job that almost renders its stealth abilities useless since it will be spotted from miles away by anyone possessing a good pair of eyes, the new fighter doesnt look so threatening as it sits in a heavily guarded hangar. Load some missiles on those wings, however, and that could change dramatically.At first glance, the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries-produced stealth fighter appears to be quite small, which will probably mean its also quite agile. The actual figures confirm our initial hunch: at 46 feet in length (14 meters), the X-2 is smaller than a standard jet fighter. Furthermore, those missiles we were talking about will have to wait a little until they can be installed, and the engines are currently underpowered.Yup, the $340 million X-2 is nothing but a sample, something thats still a long way from becoming an actual fighter to be deployed in real battle situations. For that to happen, Japan would need to invest plenty more money into its development, and it would also take more time.Following the Second World War, Japan has entered into a self-imposed era of pacifism, limiting the resources directed towards its military or weapon development and production. With threats developing all around, the countrys Prime Minister, Mr. Shinzo Abe, decided in 2014 to route more money towards military research and development.One of the most prominent results of this decision is the X-2, a stealth fighter some analysts believe is nothing more than a bargaining chip designed to lure the Americans into developing the F-22 successor together with their Japanese counterparts.The launch of the X-2 makes Japan only the fourth country in the world to have stealth-capable aircraft after the US, Russia and China. A partnership between the US and Japan makes even more sense now, as the presence of a strong ally would be invaluable for the much-needed stability of that region. News coverage from Israel is often distorted if measured against the 'Code of Ethics' guidelines of journalism. The origins of bad news about a country thus lie with numerous foreign media. This project exposes one of many methods used.Bad News from the Netherlands has raised major international interest since it appeared on the web in October 2007. Many thanks are due to all those who have contributed news, ideas and financing. Support us to expand this project.Act against the biased media: start a bad news blog about another country. If you want to use this layout, please contact us at the e-mail address below. Do It Yourself The "Bad News Movement" is not a franchise, but consists of independent initiatives of which Bad News from the Netherlands is the first. Yet as the initiator of the movement, we would like to make a few suggestions to those who want to establish similar projects: 1. Always keep in mind the target of the blog: showing only negative items about a country makes its society aware of how some of their media distort the image of Israel. 2. Focus on items from leading sources such as the government, major media, well-known institutions. 3. Do not concentrate on one or a few areas. Deal with as many major aspects of the country as possible: government, politics, justice, media, culture, civil society, etc. 4. Do not exaggerate issues beyond what is mentioned. A collection of bad news is bad enough without blowing up the facts. Let the facts speak for themselves. 5. While one can draw part of the information from the more sensational papers, let them not dominate the blog. 6. Do not emphasize ethnicity of people where it is irrelevant to the issue. 7. When necessary, provide comments on issues which require it, but try to present the majority of issues without comment. Seriously, the unlimited stretches of highway over in Germany would be miles better than, say, a car event. Given the fact that Koenigseggs don't go 1 mph faster than they look, they're not exactly a surprise during the drag races organized at such events, so you'll be much better off enjoying their Grand Tourer assets while getting from one side of Porsche's home country to the other.In fact, we've brought along a video that shows just how velocity-flooded such a ride can get.The footage below, which takes us into the cabin of an Agera R, offers a very good taste of the kind of speeds the Swedish machine is capable of. While we can't see the speedo, GTBoard, the channel that uploaded the clip, explains that the K machine sat between 155 and 217 mph (that's 250-250+ km/h) during the recorded part of the drive.In the process, the Agera R is seen chasing a Porsche 918 Spyder. The driver of the Zuffenhausen halo car gives up after a while and that's when the Koenigsegg goes full throttle.Then again, the 918 wouldn't have stood a chance even if its driver had fully dipped into its hybrid potential. With a few exceptions, the Agera R beats the 918 Spyder in most rolling sprints, while its top speed sits around 50 mph (80 km/h) higher compared to that of the Porsche.We'll remind you that, until the One:1 took over as Angelholm's top performer in June last year, the Agera R held multiple acceleration and braking world records involving speeds of up to 186 mph (300 km/h).Oh, and you shouldn't worry about the broken soundtrack of this clip. The aural side of a Koenigsegg, which comes courtesy of a turbocharged V8, is a little alien anyway. HP The Italian carmaker will only build 40 Centenario units, and it appears that the production will be split equally between coupe and cabriolet versions. The new supercar is said to resemble the Asterion concept car shown at the 2014 Paris Motor Show. The body is made entirely from carbon fiber, so we expect the new Centenario to be pretty light for a four-wheel-drive modern Lamborghini.For now, no images of the new Lamborghini model have surfaced online, but the carmaker did host a series of private presentations in Pebble Beach, California. Other select locations around the world have organized individual displays, so Lamborghini folks have done an exemplary job in keeping pictures of their car to themselves.The new limited-edition car from Lamborghini is being built to celebrate 100 years since the birth of Ferruccio Lamborghini, the companys founder. He was born on April 28, 1916, but the production variant of the car will be shown at this years Geneva Motor Show, held at the beginning of March.According to Wards Auto , the full name of the new Lamborghini model is Centenario LP770-4. Since Lamborghinis naming scheme is rather straightforward, it is easy to figure out that the engine will be placed behind the passenger compartment and that it will have an output of 770. The -4 in the name means that the car will have permanent four-wheel-drive.As Lamborghini previously explained when questioned about an eventual rear-wheel-drive version of the Aventador, they chose the four-wheel-drive solution to make the cars handle better and to provide improved stability in all situations.Currently, Lamborghini does offer a rear-wheel-drive version of one of its models available for purchase, the Huracan LP580-2. As the name states, the cars 580 HP engine only powers two of its wheels. In Brazil, the Red Bull event will take place in Belo Horizonte, the capital of the Minas Gerais state, and the organizers say that they will try to replicate the amazing tough scenarios of the Romanian event. In Romania, the Romaniacs rally is staged in the center of the country, around the city of Sibiu, with most of the course having the competitors battling some of the fiercest Carpathian trails.Martin Freinademetz, the Romaniacs' founder and manager has been in talks with Red Bull the whole past year, knowing that the sport needed to grow and expand with large-scale, thrilling competitions.The Red Bull Romaniacs "recipe" was found to be the most suitable approach, so the Minas Riders will be a four-day competition held between April 17 and 20, with extreme sections that should put it on par with the Romanian rally, including the now famous Prolog.The Red Bull Minas Riders rally will include a prolog section held as the first stage of the competition. Just like in Sibiu, Romaniacs' home, the Mina Riders' prolog will put the riders to the test in an artificial environment in Belo Horizonte.Andy Fazekas will, of course, be the designer of the Brazilian Prolog. He has been creating the mind-blowing layouts of the Romaniacs' debut stage since the first edition, back in 2004, and we can expect that his South American Prolog will be as grueling as ever.Martin Freinademetz spent several months in Brazil last year identifying the most thrilling areas and courses for the Red Bull Minas Riders. Many of the top hard enduro riders have already announced they will be in Belo Horizonte this year, as well as in Sibiu.- Red Bull Minas Riders, Brazil (April 17-20)- Erzberg Rodeo, Austria (May 26-28)- Red Bull Romaniacs, Romania (July 12-16)- Red Bull Megawatt, Polonia (September)- Red Bull Sea to Sky, Turkey (October)- Roof of Africa, South Africa (December).The Red Bull Romaniacs is considered the toughest multi-day hard enduro competition. It kicked off in 2004, and Cyril Despres was the first winner, also clawing the title in 2005 and 2007. The King of the Carpathians is, however, the British Graham Jarvis, who won the Romaniacs no less than four times. Photo of 2016 Jeep Wrangler courtesy of FCA US. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA US) will eventually discontinue the Chrysler 200 and Dodge Dart, increase Jeep SUV and Ram truck production, and roll out additional hybrids by 2018, the automaker announced as an update to its 5-year business plan. FCA US is shifting its product strategy in the U.S. market as a response to persistently low gasoline prices and a shift in demand toward utility vehicles and trucks over passenger cars, CEO Sergio Marchionne said during a Jan. 27 conference call with investors. The company is also dealing with higher recall costs. While discussing the FCA vehicles offered in the U.S., Marchionne said the company has incorporated a "permanent shift in demand" from cars to trucks and utility vehicles. Since 2009, FCA has seen its sales reflect this shift. That year, FCA sold 56% cars, 29% utility vehicles, and 15% trucks. In 2015, FCA sold 46% cars, 37% utility vehicles, and 17% trucks. "There are two cars in particular, the Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200, which will run their course," Marchionne said. "Without creating additional capacity, we need to reutilize those plant infrastructures to try and deal with the development of Jeep and the Ram brand." Marchionne perhaps foreshadowed the announcement about the Chrysler 200 earlier this week, when he said the car was "not up to snuff" because of its cramped rear seating. FCA US executives gave some initial details about their expansion plans for Jeep and Ram. The company hopes to sell 2 million Jeeps globally in 2018. In 2015, FCA US sold 1.2 million Jeep vehicles the most in the brand's history and a more than 50% increase from 2013. Marchionne said FCA US is working to open up production capacity for the Wagoneer and three-row Grand Wagoneer expected to arrive around 2018. FCA plans to introduce the next-generation Wrangler in 2017. A North Carolina defense contractor is now negotiating to return a military-spec Wrangler to the battlefield, the Detroit News reported. The Chrysler 200 is built in Sterling Heights, Mich., and the Dodge Dart is built in Belvidere, Ill. FCA US is expected to move production of its Ram pickup to Sterling Heights and its Jeep Cherokee to Belvidere, reports the Detroit Free Press. To meet increasingly stringent greenhouse gas emissions regulations, FCA US plans to produce gasoline-electric hybrid and diesel-powered versions of its Wrangler, upcoming Chrysler Pacifica minivan, and Ram 1500. The business plan updated a 5-year plan announced in 2014. Photo of Lexus RX 350 courtesy of Lexus. Toyota Motor Sales is recalling approximately 5,000 2016 model-year Lexus RX 350 and RX 450h luxury SUVs, so dealers can inspect the driver's knee air bag modules and replace any defective ones. The involved vehicles are equipped with a drivers knee airbag module that may not have been properly manufactured, Toyota said in a released statement. This could affect the performance of the airbag and increase the risk in a crash. The recall is unrelated to the ongoing Takata air bag recalls. A self-driving electric shuttle took to public roads in the Netherlands Thursday to begin the first of its trials. The shuttle, dubbed the "WePod," took six passengers on a short journey on a 200m stretch of road along the side of the lake in the central Dutch agricultural town of Wageningen, Reuters reported. Jan Willem van der Wiel, the technical director of the project, said that while the pod normally only travels at 5 mph (8kmph), he added that the WePod is the first autonomous vehicle to be used on public roads. "This is a milestone," he said. The test phase will have the shuttle bus take people between Wageningen and Ede, but it will not travel at night or in rush hour traffic, bad weather and other challenging conditions, according to The Telegraph. The WePod team will monitor the vehicle and the passengers' safety from a control room. Additional technical equipment, such as cameras, radar, laser and GPS for tracking the surrounding environment, is planned for the vehicle. Joris Ijsselmuiden, a researcher at Wageningen University which is testing the pods, said that the cameras will map landmarks in order to provide an alternative navigation tool when trees and other road obstacles affect GPS accuracy. Passengers can use an app to reserve seats on the electric pod and specify their starting points and destinations, The Telegraph noted. The WePod was initially designed by French automaker and robotics specialists EasyMile and was developed for Citymobil2, an EU-funded project aimed at providing automated road transport system across urban Europe. Citymobil2 has allowed the shuttles to transport 19,000 passengers in Vantaa, Finland and carry passengers on the EPFL university campus, in Lausanne, Switzerland. The WePod will be able to travel at 15 mph once it is fully operational, according to The Guardian. The team behind the driverless bus is expected to add more routes and regions in the Netherlands starting in May 2016. The Weekender is starting to venture out a little as the SocialFlight calendar includes some fly-ins and fly-outs. On Saturday, Palatka Municipal in Florida will host its sixth annual Community Open House & Fly-In. See warbirds, vintage and modern-day aircraft plus automobiles on display, plus airplane, biplane and helicopter rides. Also Saturday, get a behind-the-scenes look ataviation and spaceartifacts, documents and works of art at theSteven F. Udvar-Hazy Center Open House in Chantilly, Virginia. See items that are not on public display and see what it takes to collect, preserve and restore them. Meet curators, conservators, archivists and other specialists, and participate in activities, special tours and on-stage presentations. Join an early-year fly-out to Millville, New Jersey, Sunday in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Gather at Penn Airways at 9:30 a.m. for a 10 a.m. takeoff. Take a non-pilot or a student along for a fun introduction to the world of general aviation. For a winter warm-up the Maine Aeronautics Association will host its annual Soup Sunday at Wiscasset Municipal Airport, snow or shine. Soups, chili, breads and desserts are all provided for free or a donation, and you can bring your own. For more details on this weekends events, visit SocialFlight. 28 January 2016 10:56 (UTC+04:00) By Anders Fogh Rasmussen The European Union is highly dependent on foreign oil. For every 100 liters consumed within the EU, 90 are imported. Meanwhile, domestic oil production is plummeting, down more than 50% over the last decade. Unless the EU changes course and increases its production of alternative energy including biofuels, an option the EU has long neglected some 95% of its oil will come from foreign sources by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency. The current state of affairs remains the EUs Achilles heel, because it implies dependence on imports from unstable, authoritarian regimes. In 2014, EU member states spent a staggering 271 billion on foreign crude oil more than the combined GDP of Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Roughly half of this money went to Russia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Thus, not only is the EU exposed to global supply disruptions; it is also helping to prop up authoritarian governments and empower hostile regimes, which limits its own ability to provide effective, coordinated responses to threats and provocations. The EUs struggle to devise coherent political and economic strategies to confront the challenges posed by Russian aggression in Ukraine and the inferno in the Middle East is a case in point. The United Kingdoms recent decision to boost defense spending highlights the growing recognition that strong military capabilities will be needed to uphold Europes security and sovereignty. But as long as its dependence on foreign oil persists, the EU will remain far weaker than it needs to be. The proposed Nord Stream II pipeline which would funnel even more gas from Russia to Germany is only likely to aggravate the situation. Europes energy security is likely to gain salience in the coming months, as 2016 shapes up to be another turbulent year in international politics. This year is also likely to see the completion of the EUs Energy Union, established to ensure secure supplies of affordable, climate-friendly energy. Unfortunately, Europes dependence on foreign oil has been left out of the discussion. The European Commission must provide clear direction if EU member states are to develop alternative sources of energy. Renewable energy from wind and sun can certainly play a role in decreasing the EUs energy vulnerability. Such sources are already helping to reduce dependence on coal and gas for electricity production. However, when it comes to energy production from oil most notably fuel for cars it is likely to be years before wind or solar energy can provide viable alternatives. The EU should follow the example set across the Atlantic, where countries have worked to reduce their reliance on foreign oil. The United States, for example, has created incentives for investment in alternative fuels. Indeed, the US is the worlds largest producer of bioethanol, which along with the production of shale gas has helped reduce foreign oil imports by at least 25%, while lowering carbon dioxide emissions and creating local jobs. Brazil, too, provides a compelling example, having worked since the oil crises of the 1970s to reduce its reliance on imported energy. Today, Brazil is a net oil exporter and the worlds second-largest producer of bioethanol, which has replaced more than one-quarter of the gasoline once used in the country. Unfortunately, much of the policy discussion surrounding biofuels in the EU is dominated by outdated arguments linking them with rising food prices. Food should not be used to fuel cars, opponents insist. Today, however, advanced biofuels are not based on food, but on waste from industry, agriculture, and private households. In the words of Jose Graziano da Silva, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, biofuels can be an effective means to increase food security. Done right, their development would mean more fuel, more food, and greater prosperity for all. Biofuel technology kills four birds with one stone: It improves energy security, recycles waste, reduces greenhouse-gas emissions, and produces jobs (often in rural areas). That is why replacing imported oil with homegrown energy is one of the most important and far-reaching legacies todays Europeans could leave to the Europe of tomorrow. Copyright: Project Syndicate: Homegrown energy security for Europe --- Follow us on Twitter: @Azernews 28 January 2016 17:49 (UTC+04:00) By Aynur Karimova Azerbaijan has taken real measures to revitalize its banking system by consolidating two banks and terminating licenses of six banks operating in the market. Expert Vugar Bayramov believes that decreasing the number of banks operating in Azerbaijan is of great importance. He told Azernews that consolidation was crucial for the Azerbaijani banking system where 43 banks were active as of December 31, 2015. "It is enough a big figure given Azerbaijan's economy and banking sector," he stressed. The consolidation of banks will pave the way for improving their liquidity, he added. "Today there are several banks in Azerbaijan, which face difficulties in fulfilling their obligations on deposits. The consolidation will allow these banks to fulfill their obligations before depositors and boost confidence in the banking sector." Since the beginning of 2016, the Central Bank of Azerbaijan has terminated the licenses of the Caucasus Development Bank, Atrabank, Gandja Bank, Bank of Azerbaijan, United Credit Bank and NBCBank. Earlier this week two other Azerbaijani banks - AGBank and DemirBank - have already signed a protocol of intent about merging. Bayramov also stressed the importance to conduct the consolidation process in a transparent atmosphere and based on the independent decision of banks on merging. This process should go on a voluntary basis enabling the banks to make decisions by themselves. "The banks themselves should take a decision on consolidation and this process should be conducted by stimulating the banks," he stated. Bayramov also noted that the consolidation of the banks depends on the policy of the CBA. "The CBA should prevent the banks from becoming a monopoly in the market. The consolidation of the banks should not cause merger of several monopolist banks, but rather increase rivalry in the banking sector," he said. There were good examples of consolidation of banks in the country. For instance, UniBank was formed by the merger of two commercial banks in 2002 - MBank and Promtexbank, where the EBRD acquired a 15-percent share, and 8.3333 percent is owned by the German Investment Corporation DEG. Bank of Baku merged with IlkBank in 2005. The consolidation in Azerbaijans banking sector is a sensitive issue as the populations deposits have been placed in the merged banks. Therefore, the main issue to be resolved now is the insurance of deposits. Azad Javadov, the Executive Director of the Azerbaijan Deposit Insurance Fund, told Trend on January 28 that the total amount of compensation to be paid to depositors of six banks, the licenses of which were terminated by the CBA, is 70 million manats ($42.9 million). "We have no problems with the payment of compensation, because their volume is 70 million manats ($42.9 million), while the funds of the ADIF exceeds 130 million manats ($79.75 million)," he said. Three banks - Muganbank, Rabitabank and Unibank - have already been selected the agent banks, through which the compensation will be paid to depositors. "The amount of compensation on the population's deposits in Bank of Azerbaijan will amount to about 24 million manats ($14.7 million). The exact figure is yet to be determined. Bank customers will be able to get compensation through the Muganbank, and depositors of the bank in Nakhchivan - via the Rabitabank," Javadov added. The payment of compensation will begin seven days after the declaration of bankruptcy of the bank. "The first bank, the license of which was terminated, was the Bank of Azerbaijan, and the payment of the compensation on deposits in this bank will begin the next day. Gandja Bank will be the next, and then the others will follow," he stated. Some 6,599 depositors of Bank of Azerbaijan will receive compensation from the ADIF, according to Javadov. He further added that in case of shortage of funds for payment of compensations to the closed banks depositors, the CBA may render financial assistance to the ADIF. Azerbaijani parliament adopted amendments to the law On Complete Deposit Insurance, on January 19. In accordance with the law, the deposits of population in the banks, which are members to the ADIF, have been insured for three years, regardless of the amount of deposits. Currently, the maximum level of insurance coverage for deposits is 30,000 manats ($18,404). However, this law will not be applied to the deposits of customers of these banks, as this law enters into force on February 1, 2016. Thus, the ADIF will return the deposits of the banks' customers in the amount of 30,000 manats ($18,404). The consolidation of banks is likely to lead to financial recovery of the banks as this process is in the interests of both owners and clients of banks. The consolidation will also allow stable banks, which have deliberately decided to merge, to increase their share in the market and to gain more revenues. This strategy would be more correct if targets growth of profit and market share. The International Finance Corporation and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development support the consolidation of banks in Azerbaijan, regarding it as a way leading to financial recovery of the banks. -- Aynur Karimova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 12:06 (UTC+04:00) By Aynur Karimova A new 10-year concept of employment is being developed at the instruction of President Ilham Aliyev. Salim Muslimov, Minister for Labor and Social Protection of Population said that the concept covering 2016-2025 will be developed in three months by a work group with participation of the representatives of the due state bodies, Azerbaijan Confederation of Trade Unions, National Confederation of Entrepreneurs (Employers) Organizations of Azerbaijan and the nongovernmental organizations, as well as the World Bank, the UN Population Fund and the International Labor Organization. The draft will reflect the necessary steps for the analysis of the current macroeconomic situation and labor market, tendencies and prospects of future development, upcoming challenges and problems, main goals and tasks of policy, employment in the coming years, ensuring balance between demand and proposal on the labor market, etc, the minister said on January 27. The government of Azerbaijan has been taking decisive measures to decrease the level of unemployment to a minimum, and to provide better living conditions for low-income families. Currently, the unemployment ratio is equal to 5 percent. Despite this small figure, the government continues its care for low-income families. A presidential decree on allocation of 20 million manats ($12.5 million) for financing the targeted social assistance is expected to strengthen the social protection of such families. As of January 26, the number of families appealing for the targeted social assistance in various regions of Azerbaijan stood at 22,000. As of December 30, 2015, some 114,000 families or approximately 500,000 people were reported to receive the targeted social assistance. The government provides assistance to each family in the amount of 153 manats ($95.6). Muslimov also pointed out that due to the positive demographic trends, the population of Azerbaijan continues to grow. This trend, in turn, determines the future creation of new jobs as our main problem. Therefore, assessment of the impact of demographic factors on the labor market will be taken into account during the preparation of the Concept, the Minister said. Meanwhile, the government seeks to open new jobs throughout the country. It is planned to create up to 300 jobs in each region of Azerbaijan. This can be achieved by attracting people to labor work based on six-month contracts, Muslimov said earlier. In this regard, the ministry has been collecting information about the available number of employees, employment and number of the unemployed in different regions of the country. "Currently, this process is nearing completion, he told journalists on January 26. One of the main issues on the agenda is to attract employees to the economic life in the different regions of the country. The government is able to deal with creating new jobs, according to him. 28 January 2016 12:23 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Orujova Rome hosts a high-level preparatory meeting for Fourth Global Baku Forum, co-organized by the Italian Society for International Organization and Nizami Ganjavi International Center, on January 27-29. The event brought together participants from over the world under the motto Addressing radicalization and extremism with interfaith dialogue for peace. The event is focused on topical issues of the modern era, the role of interfaith dialogue in the prevention of radicalization, the womens role in the establishment of interfaith dialogue and the factor of religion in the comprehension of common values of different nations and cultures. The meeting was attended by Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev, President of the Italian Senate Pietro Grasso, former Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, former Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, former Romanian President Emil Constantinescu, former Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski, former Croatian President Ivo Josipovic and former Serbian President Boris Tadic. Addressing the event, George Ivanov, President of Macedonia, pointed out that if we want to have peace in the world we must build coexistence, mutually respect and accept own differences, and through the honest dialogue acquaint of and respect the diversities. Ivanov added that integration with assimilation, poverty and lack of deeper meaning and belonging to the West, are the three main reasons for modern radicalism and extremism, and what complicates interfaith dialogue is the abuse of religion by state actors who use their power for their positions to be accepted. He went on to say that contrary to our commitment to unity in diversity there are other who want unity through uniformity. Intolerance, xenophobia and exclusion in the world are drastically increased. Hence, the need for dialogue is drastically higher, he stressed. Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev in his speech emphasized that Europe is a space of sympathy towards those looking for protection, but also of shared rights. In his statement, the Bulgarian leader put an accent on the ways of tackling the challenges connected with extremism and radicalization and the need to stay true to the values. Plevneliev remarked that every religion preached and prayed for peace. Terrorism is not a war of religions, it is not a war between civilizations, it is a war between human civilization and barbarity. Co-Chairs of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center, Ismael Serageldin and Vaira Vike Freiberga also addressed the event. Serageldin said the morality is more important in the world where all the resources and wealth is the criterion of success. In her part, Vike-Freiberga emphasized that each religion has its special role in the search of the absolutism of mankind. Dialogue, education, tolerance and respect for human rights are key weapons in the fight against terrorism and extremism. The role of religious leaders to defeat extremism is huget, she said. Nizami Ganjavi International Center was created with the multiple aims of preserving the reach cultural heritage of the past as well as encouraging and fostering current scholarship, research, cultural activity and social outreach, with aim to be a center of excellence for the production of knowledge and to be a place of dialogue and understanding between cultures and people. The 4th Global Baku Forum will bring together a number of heads of state and government, and well-known political figures on March 10-11. About 300 representatives, including a number of influential political and public figures are expected to attend the forum, which will address ethnic, religious and political conflicts in the world, development of democracy, education, environment and energy security. Albania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Montenegro, Croatia and Georgia have already confirmed their participation at the fourth Global Baku Forum. __ Nigar Orujova is AzerNews staff journalist. Follow her on Twitter: @o_nigar Follow us on Twitter: @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 14:16 (UTC+04:00) By Aynur Karimova Azerbaijan, which holds the largest military budget in the South Caucasus, has considerably increased the volume of production of defense goods in 2015 as compared to previous years. Defense Industry Minister Yaver Jamalov said at a board meeting of the ministry dedicated to the results of 2015 that last year the volume of production of defense goods in Azerbaijan increased by 3.1 times compared to 2010. Azerbaijan mastered production of 11 types of products that were recommended to make operational and put into mass production. Last year, the Defense Industry Ministry accomplished work over the creation of night vision devices, prismatic binoculars with a compass, mine fuses of different types and organized their production. The ministry also continued design and experimental work on the creation of sniper rifles of special purpose in accordance with the NATO standards, ammunitions for automatic weapons, and machine guns of special purpose. Azerbaijani domestically manufactures the Istiglal sniper rifle, Mubariz rifle, Orbiter-2M unmanned intelligence drones, Gurza armored patrol car, "Matador" and "Marauder" armored vehicles, anti-tank mines, etc. Since 2009, the Defense Industry Ministry has demonstrated its products at international exhibitions. The ministry is now in the process of preparations for the second Azerbaijan International Defense Exhibition "ADEX-2016" due in Baku this year. More than 100 international companies have passed registration to participate at the exhibition. Today the ministry is working closely with leading companies and firms in various fields of military industry. It plans to produce a new generation of unmanned aerial vehicles, including the UAVs targeting to destroy the enemy army. Azerbaijan, which is in war with neighboring Armenia over the latter's territorial claims, keeps in focus the armament. The country purchased numerous weapons from foreign countries including Turkey, Russia and Israel, to modernize and upgrade its armed forces, and signed military contracts with over 20 countries which envisage a large-scale weapons supply. Azerbaijan's military budget for 2015 was about $5 billion. The country's international purchases and domestic production of military equipment target protecting its territory from continuous aggression and provocations by the neighboring Armenia. Azerbaijan, according to the US-based Global Firepower survey center, leaves behind the CIS and regional countries to take its place among the first 70 strongest militaries of the world. The survey center has ranked the Azerbaijani army as 64 of 126 in the list of world's strongest armies with a GFP Power Index rating of 1.5221. It reports that as of January 18, 2016, Azerbaijan's weapon arsenal possesses 314 tanks, 121 aircrafts, 79 helicopters, 47 naval vehicles to enter the list of countries with well-equipped military forces in the world. -- Aynur Karimova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 15:31 (UTC+04:00) By Amina Nazarli The past ten years in Azerbaijan, particularly in Baku and Absheron Peninsula have been among the coldest of the century, accompanied with the rising number of blizzards. Although researchers forecasted relatively mild winter in Baku this year, frequent blizzards brought low temperatures, strong winds, and a lot of blowing snow to the city. The sharp deterioration of weather in Baku and around the country since January 25 led the temperature fall to teeth-chattering minus 6-8 degrees Celsius recording snow of up to 64cm in the regions. The coldest weather in Baku was reported in January 1972, while the chilliest January of the past 10 years was recorded in 2008. Experts say the increase in number of blizzards has two possible explanations. Firstly, there may just be better documentation of storms nowadays, or it has something to do with a global climate change. The Geography Institute of the Azerbaijani National Academy of Sciences explained this trend with the climate change around the world. Blizzards are mostly occurred in the eastern part of the country namely along the Caspian Sea. Strong winds, however, are experienced in the western regions, the Institute told Trend. The experts claim the recent strong blizzards and heavy snow in Azerbaijan is the result of air masses originating over the snow fields of Eastern Europe. Western winds coming to Azerbaijan through Georgia are losing their speed reaching to the eastern part of the country. The blizzards in Gazakh, Zagatala, Balakan and neighboring regions are occurred due to the western winds, while in Baku and Absheron because of north and northwest winds, they said. But still, climatological data is volatile. The scientists of the institution are going to conduct studies during 2016-2018 to determine criteria of blizzards, strong winds, hurricanes, heavy rain and downpours typical for Azerbaijan. The studies will be carried out taking into account the nature and climate changes experienced in the country. Azerbaijan has no clear criteria about the occurrence of precipitations. During the Soviet period, we relied on the indicators recorded in the USSR area and formed criteria taking into account the Eastern European Plain, thats why they were not typical for Azerbaijan, the Geography Institution reported. -- Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 14:31 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Orujova Baku expects heads of nearly 50 countries to attend the most anticipated United Nations Forum on April 25-27. The UN Forum considered as one of the largest forums in the world is attended by heads of state and foreign ministers to make important decisions. Holding this issue of the Global Forum of UN Alliance of Civilizations, which was established to eliminate the tension between the West and the Islamic world, in Azerbaijan -- an ancient land located between East and West is, of course, symbolic. The country, that promotes ideas of multiculturalism, named 2016 as a Year of multiculturalism in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is recognized worldwide as a country of tolerance, where many nations live in peace, mutual understanding and respect, and which strives to enhance the dialogue between civilizations. Baku is traditionally hosting humanitarian forums and meetings on intercultural dialogue. One of them is Baku Process initiated in 2008 to exchange and discuss major contemporary challenges pertaining to intercultural dialogue and share related universal values. The Azerbaijani president assessed a decision to hold the high-level event in Baku as a UN appraisal of the work carried out in Azerbaijan." UNAOC High Representative Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser fully trusts the forum will represent an incredible opportunity to harness the multiple perspectives of various actors and to determine innovative solutions to move towards living inclusively together. The hosting of the forum in Baku in 2016 a year between the two major international events is also significant, as this city welcomed the inaugural European Games in 2015 and will embrace the fourth Islamic Solidarity Games in 2017. Baku will host 40 events with a special one to be dedicated to youth with participation of the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Chairman of the Organizing Committee, Culture and Tourism Minister Abulfas Garayev said at a meeting of the Organizing Committee of the Forum on January 27. UN delegation led by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Azerbaijan on February 20. The Global Forum will traditionally feature a variety of high-profile speakers from various different backgrounds and sectors, ranging from academia, politics, NGOs, civil society, and the media. Garayev went on to add that international experts would prepare a special book highlighting the opinions and testimonials of renowned participants of the forum. The Baku Forum has a logo and own website (baku.unaoc.org). The official media partner of the forum is AzTV and Azertag state news agency. The Forum will be held at Baku Congress Center and the Heydar Aliyev Center. The participants of the event should complete online registration form on www.baku.unaoc.org. The initiative to hold forum in Baku was accepted at the annual meeting of the ministers of the UN Alliance of Civilizations in 2014. Last November, Azerbaijan allocated 3.5 million manats for the organization of the Global Forum. __ Nigar Orujova is AzerNews staff journalist. Follow her on Twitter: @o_nigar Follow us on Twitter: @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 17:17 (UTC+04:00) By Laman Sadigova A bill On Repatriation of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons is being developed in Azerbaijan. Hadi Rajabli, the chairman of the Azerbaijani Parliamentary Committee on labor and social affairs announced about this on January 28. Azerbaijan has over one million refugees and IDPs, who were forced to leave their native lands as a result of the Armenian aggression. Azerbaijan, which has been locked in a conflict that emerged over Armenia's groundless territorial claims against the country in late 1980s, is one of the numerous countries that has been burdened with the problem of refugees and internally displaced peoples . Every 8th citizen in Azerbaijan is a refugee as a result of the Armenian aggression. Out of more than 9.6 million population, 1.2 million are refugees and IDPs in their native land. Rajabli further added that bills On the Rights of People with Disabilities and On Tourism will be reviewed during the parliaments spring session. He said the first bill is a modified version of the law On Prevention of Disability, which was passed earlier. This law has partially lose its relevance. Therefore, it was necessary to improve it, he said. The chairman added that a number of changes are also planned to be made in Azerbaijans Labour Code. The Azerbaijanis who were displaced from their homes as result of the brutal war were forced to live in refugee camps, tents, in very difficult conditions. They also lost all of their properties. The Azerbaijani government made the refugee and IDP problem its highest priority and pays enormous attention to improve living conditions of Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs. Currently, the Azerbaijani government successfully implements a program on improving the living conditions of refugees and IDPs and on increasing employment. The people who held refugee status were granted compensations and benefits. Extensive measures were launched to ensure social protection of the refugees Despite all the measures taken by the government, the people who had to leave their native lands and live the lives of refugees and IDPs live with a desire to return home and are waiting for the conflict to be resolved soon. --- Follow Laman Sadigova on Twitter: @s_laman93 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 16:59 (UTC+04:00) By Laman Sadigova London will host an exhibition of young artists dedicated to the Khojaly genocide committed by the Armenian armed forces in early 1990s. The exhibition, which is scheduled for February 24, will showcase the works of students and young artists from across the United Kingdom, the European Azerbaijani Society (TEAS) announced. Winners, works of which will be the most memorable and reflect peaceful resolution for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict solution, and to empathize with the plight of refugees, will be awarded with Khojaly Peace Prize. In 1992, the town of Khojaly, the second largest town in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, came under intense fire by the Armenian armed forces. 613 civilians mostly women and children were killed in the massacre, and a total of 1,000 people were disabled. Eight families were exterminated, 25 children lost both parents, and 130 children lost one parent. Moreover, 1,275 innocent people were taken hostage, and the fate of 150 people remains unknown. Civilians were shot at close range, scalped, and burned alive. --- Follow Laman Sadigova on Twitter: @s_laman93 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 16:25 (UTC+04:00) The Central Bank of Azerbaijan sold $113.260 million to seven domestic banks through an auction, the Bank reported on January 28. "The CBA put up for sale $200 million, but the total requirements of banks amounted to $113.260 million, the statement said. The requirements were fully met." The Bank sold $67.161 million to 18 domestic banks through an auction on January 28. The CBA put up for sale $200 million, but the total requirements of banks amounted to $67.161 million. The CBA holds auctions three times a week - on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 10:00 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Orujova The instability in crude markets, combined with reducing energy revenues highlighted the need to focus on phase-out of import and ensure higher domestic production. The government of Azerbaijan now plans to decrease dependence on import by developing non-oil industry, particularly agriculture sector. Increasing crop productivity and developing animal husbandry, poultry industry and other areas are among the key measures to be taken to reduce dependence on imports, Member of Parliament Tahir Rzayev told Trend. President Ilham Aliyev has touched upon the development of the economy and reducing dependence on imports at the last conference dedicated to the implementation of the State Program on Socio-Economic Development of Regions, Rzayev reminded The MP said that during the speech the head of state noted that Azerbaijan has to become a country that does not depend on imports. This, of course, will happen through increasing the local production, Rzayev said, adding that the matter is not only to meet the needs of the population, but also to export certain products to foreign countries. The parliamentarian noted that this process should be carried out in all regions. We should develop crop production, viticulture, cotton, grain growing and beekeeping. Azerbaijan enjoys such a climate that allows growing many different products, Rzayev said. By developing local production, we can also expand exports to foreign countries. Today, when Azerbaijan is developing its non-oil sector, it can produce and export many products from high technology computers to everyday goods. The state also plans to open new plants and facilities to develop production of medicines. Azerbaijan encourages investors to create joint facilities, which is also favorable for foreigners. At the recent conference, the head of state said that state officials and state bodies should also use local production, including local cars, furniture, shoes. It was noted that this will become a good support to the local entrepreneurs, whose production is as good as those brought to Azerbaijan from abroad. __ Nigar Orujova is AzerNews staff journalist. Follow her on Twitter: @o_nigar Follow us on Twitter: @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 11:14 (UTC+04:00) A delegation comprising members of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank has arrived in Baku to discuss a possible aid package for Azerbaijan, a source in the azerbijani government told Trend on January 28. Earlier, the Financial Times reported that the issue concerned emergency loans package worth $4 billion. The delegation will stay in Baku till February 4. The IMF team will be in Baku for a fact-finding staff visit at the authorities request, an IMF spokesperson said, according to the newspaper. It will discuss possible technical assistance and assess possible financing needs, the Financial Times reported. A World Bank spokesman said the IMF and it were discussing with the government immediate and longer-term measures in response to the pressure on the local currency and low oil prices. Discussions with Baku are at an early stage and the Azerbaijani government may yet opt to go without support from the IMF, the Financial Times said. The Azerbaijani government and the WB started negotiations for funding increase, the banks local office told Trend. At this stage, we conduct pre-consultation and it is too early to talk about the financial parameters, the office said. The negotiations may take several months, as a result of which an action plan will be developed. As the negotiations at an early stage, the specific areas of cooperation are not defined yet, said the office. Credit resources can be presented as to finance investment projects and to support the state budget and reforms, the office added. Cooperation format can be different. The Bank excluded the possibility of concessional lending resumption to Azerbaijan through the International Development Association (IDA), which is a part of Banks group. It is related with the economic development of Azerbaijan, including per capita income, which is one of the main indicators for granting concessional loans, which went beyond the criteria for IDA countries, the office explained. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 17:18 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Orujova The EU is a large market and Europe would be glad to see the products of Azerbaijan on its market, EU Ambassador to Azerbaijan Malena Mard said on January 28. The EU works with Azerbaijan in the field of food safety, she said, adding that this issue is very important in Europe. Azerbaijan and the EU continue to work on a new agreement on strategic cooperation Mard noted. The agricultural sector is important in Azerbaijan not only to increase export potential, but also to restore and protect the countrys food security. Enjoying advantageous geographic location Azerbaijan has all possibilities to increase food security and production in the country. The EU will continue to support the agrarian sector of Azerbaijan, Mard said at a seminar on e-agriculture in Baku. Azerbaijan and EU were partners on many projects, she said. We attach great importance to food safety and are ready to share our experience in this field with Azerbaijan. Electronic agriculture is an emerging field focused on the enhancement of agricultural and rural development through improved information and communication processes. E-agriculture involves the conceptualization, design, development, evaluation and application of innovative ways to use information and communication technologies in the rural domain, with a primary focus on agriculture. Noting that one of the important components of e-agriculture is the management of subsidies, Mard said that the EU has vast experience in this matter. Yes, we have experience, but at the same time, we can also make mistakes in some points, and therefore we should learn something from Azerbaijan, she noted. We can work with Azerbaijan as equal partners. Our experts have interesting proposals on the project. We need to work all together for the successful implementation of the project. The Agriculture Ministry has allocated 4.8 million manat (about $4.6 million) to create e-agriculture in 2015. EU to finance e-agriculture establishment in Azerbaijan The cost of technical assistance of the EU aimed at the project to create e-agriculture will amount to 1.4 million euros, head of the office at the Azerbaijan Agriculture Ministry Ilham Bayramov said at the event. The project aims to ensure a fair and transparent distribution of agricultural subsidies. Assistance should ensure reliable data for use in policy-making and assessing the impact of policy and contribute to improving the quality of life in rural areas. The work within the first phase of the technical assistance has already started, Bayramov said. The EU has provided the Azerbaijani side with the technical requirements for the development of an information system for agricultural subsidies, IT-infrastructure of e-agriculture, orthophoto (an aerial photograph geometrically corrected, used to measure true distances) system. Bayramov said that the tender has been held to select contractors to undertake the work. A consortium of six companies from Hungary, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Italy and Azerbaijan has been announced a winner, he added. The project presupposes development of the register of farms and the database of used agricultural land, verification of software components and quality control of supply for the information system of subsidies and policy, funded by the Azerbaijani government. Strengthening of the technical capacity of institutions involved in the data collection and information exchange, as well as developing methodologies and guidelines for operation of the electronic system of agriculture, is also envisaged in the project. Test works on the identification system of lands, registry of farms and other modules of the system within the project have already been conducted in pilot region of Khachmaz. The work to transit a system of electronic accounting of all transactions of Aqroleasing Company is also complete. In addition, an automated information system of the technical inspectorate will be put into operation. Adopting the system of e-agriculture in Azerbaijan is believed to solve many problems in the agricultural sector. The e-agriculture system will allow conducting online registration of the farmers, lands, as well as will provide other benefits, ensuring the absolute transparency of the system. __ Nigar Orujova is AzerNewss staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @o_nigar Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 12:24 (UTC+04:00) The government of Azerbaijan has requested $3 billion from the IMF and $1 billion from the WB within the framework of the program to support economic reforms in the country, a source in the countrys government told Trend on January 28. Currently, measures to support the economic reforms that the government of Azerbaijan implements and plans to carry out, are being discussed, said the source. These measures may be accompanied by funding to support the state budget. Today, it is scheduled to hold meetings in the Azerbaijani ministry of finance and the countrys Central Bank. The main part of the delegation comprises experts of the IMF. They were also joined by the WB Program Leader for the South Caucasus Rashmi Shankar, who has been in Baku since the last week, as well as Angela Prigozhina, who leads the World Bank's financial and private sector work in the South Caucasus. Azerbaijan joined the WB in 1992. During the cooperation period WB allocated over $3 billion to the country to implement more than 50 projects. Azerbaijan joined the IMF in 1992. The cooperation was particularly intense in the period of 1995-2005. During these years, Azerbaijan often used the advisory and financial assistance of the IMF to support the government's economic programs. The IMF office was opened in Baku in 1992. Despite its staff being reduced since 1999, it remains an important partner of the Azerbaijani government. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 13:10 (UTC+04:00) The delegation of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has arrived in Baku to discuss the package of support to the private sector of Azerbaijan, head of the EBRD local office Neal McCain told Trend on January 28. A part of the delegation headed by EBRD Regional Director for Caucasus, Moldova and Belarus, Bruno Balvanera, has already arrived in Baku, the rest will come in the afternoon, he said. The delegation will hold meetings in the Central Bank of Azerbaijan and SOFAZ, also in the countrys ministries of finance and economy, according to McCain. McCain said that the talks are at an early stage, so it is premature to speak about volumes of support and other details. He went on to add that the peculiarity of the EBRD's work differs from the work of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in the sense that the EBRD doesnt support the state budget but works with the private sector. Therefore, any support provided by the bank is aimed at the private sector, he said. Azerbaijan has requested $3 billion from the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and $1 billion from the WB (World Bank) within the framework of the program to support economic reforms in the country, a source in the countrys government told Trend Jan. 28. Credit resources can be presented as to finance investment projects and to support the state budget and reforms, the World Banks local office told Trend. Cooperation format can be different. Throughout the cooperation with Azerbaijan, EBRD has allocated 2.5 billion euros to the country for implementation of around 159 projects. One of the main tasks of EBRD is to ensure a stable development of Azerbaijans non-oil sector by investing in the small and medium-sized private enterprises. Azerbaijan is the largest recipient of EBRD funds in the Caucasus, as well as one of the largest recipients of this organizations funds in the CIS and Eastern Europe. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 14:58 (UTC+04:00) Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev received Halil Ibrahim Akca, the Secretary General of the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO), on January 28, Azertac state news agency reported. Stressing the importance of Azerbaijan's good bilateral relations as well as political and economic cooperation with member states of the Economic Cooperation Organization, the head of state underlined that Azerbaijan was keen to expand this cooperation even further. Highlighting that Azerbaijan is actively cooperating with ECO, President Ilham Aliyev hailed the importance of holding the organization's first summit in the country. The head of state stressed the significance of economic cooperation among the member states at a time when economic difficulties and crisis dominate in the world. President Ilham Aliyev expressed his confidence that Akcas visit to Azerbaijan would create a good opportunity for holding discussions on the future plans of the organization. Describing Azerbaijan as one of the active members of Economic Cooperation Organization, Akca recalled with satisfaction the last summit of the organization which was held in the country. The sides exchanged views over the prospects for cooperation between Azerbaijan and ECO. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Birthday wishes Call 281-422-8302 or email sunnews@baytownsun.com to wish someone a happy birthday. We will print your birthday wish on Page 2 of The Sun. Happy Birthday Wishes 28 January 2016 17:49 (UTC+04:00) The Azerbaijani Finance Ministry is preparing for holding the road-show bonds for the Southern Gas Corridor on the international market in early February, Samir Sharifov, the Azerbaijani Finance Minister, said at press-conference on January 28. The state bonds are not planned to be placed on the foreign markets in 2016, he said. The bonds will be issued in February for implementing the Southern Gas Corridor project. "Southern Gas Corridor CJSC will place the bonds, he said. This project is of great importance for Azerbaijan. Perhaps, we will deliver a state guarantee for these bonds to raise their interest. He said that the company has attracted a financial adviser to finance the project. "Three bank-managers, namely, Citibank, JP Morgan, Unicredit bank have been chosen for the bond issue, he said. The issue volume will amount to $2 billion. The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority energy projects for the EU. It envisages the transportation of gas from the Caspian Sea region to the European countries through Georgia and Turkey. At the initial stage, the gas to be produced as part of the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijans Shah Deniz field is considered as the main source for the Southern Gas Corridor project. Other sources can also connect to this project at a later stage. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 18:12 (UTC+04:00) By Aynur Karimova Azerbaijan's Finance Ministry predicts oil prices in the world markets not to fall below $25. Finance Minister Samir Sharifov told journalists that the oil price can even increase in the second half of the year. "Therefore, the oil price in the updated budget-2016 has been set at $25 per barrel," he said while addressing a press conference on January 28. The minister noted that taking into account the current processes in the world and the falling oil price, which is the main source of Azerbaijans income, the government has switched to the saving regime. "As a result of the measures, we have saved $2.2 billion for SOFAZ (State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan)," he said. "As of 2015, the balance of the treasury amounted to 1.4 billion manats ($859 million). We are using this amount while reconsidering the state budget forecasts for 2016." Energy-rich Azerbaijan, the national economy of which faced challenges caused by drop in oil prices on the world market, is keen on reviewing the economic plans and taking anti-crisis measures to overcome the difficulties. In this regard, the government plans to revise the state budget and to build the economy based on the oil price of $25-30 per barrel. No loan talks with IMF, WB Sharifov went on to add that Azerbaijan isnt in talks with International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for raising $4 billion in the form of loans. Our condition is not so deplorable to ask anyone for a loan in a short period, he said. On the contrary, we allocate loans to other countries. Sharifov also said the reforms, which Azerbaijan wants to hold, are welcomed by international financial organizations. They have stated that they stand ready to help on the matter, as well as financially, he said. Here the matter rests in a broad privatization program, improvement of business environment and state administration, and decreasing bureaucracy. He added all this is being done for Azerbaijan to be able to create a new model of development that doesnt depend on oil. Finance ministry to place bonds Sharifov also noted that the Finance Ministry begins the placement of bonds in national and foreign currency from February 2016. He said that the issuance of bonds is partly related to the current situation in the market. It should be noted that in connection with the national currencys devaluation the confidence in manat has fallen, Sharifov said. The manat sale and the US dollar purchase have increased. It become difficult to get manats in the banks, because bank assets are mostly in dollars. For increasing trust in the manat, the government decided to start issuing bonds. We are ready to provide bonds to the market at a high rate, said the minister. The ministry also expects to receive 100 million manats ($61.35 million) from the state property privatization in 2016, which will be used to cover the budget deficit. Sharifov has not ruled out the possibility of drawing more funds from the state property privatization. Azerbaijan to issue bonds for SGC According to Sharifov, the Finance Ministry is preparing for holding the road-show bonds for the Southern Gas Corridor on the international market in early February. The state bonds are not planned to be placed on the foreign markets in 2016, he said. The bonds will be issued in February for implementing the Southern Gas Corridor project. "Southern Gas Corridor CJSC will place the bonds, he said. This project is of great importance for Azerbaijan. Perhaps, we will deliver a state guarantee for these bonds to raise their interest. He said that the company has attracted a financial adviser to finance the project. "Three bank-managers, namely, Citibank, JP Morgan, Unicredit bank have been chosen for the bond issue, he said. The issue volume will amount to $2 billion. The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority energy projects for the EU. It envisages the transportation of gas from the Caspian Sea region to the European countries through Georgia and Turkey. At the initial stage, the gas to be produced as part of the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijans Shah Deniz field is considered as the main source for the Southern Gas Corridor project. Other sources can also connect to this project at a later stage. Concessional financing to be increased The Azerbaijani government will additionally allocate 70 million manat to the National Entrepreneurship Support Fund under the Ministry of Economy, Sharifov said. "This has been envisaged in the updated forecasts of the state budget-2016, to be prepared by February," the minister said. -- Aynur Karimova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 11:24 (UTC+04:00) By Amina Nazarli YARAT Contemporary Art Centre invites cinema fans to the largest short film festival to be held on February 17-19 at 8:00pm. The screening of the winter films will be organized as a part of YARAT FreeStyle Program, an open platform for everyone who looks to engage creatively with a broad and diverse audience. The festival covers 90 countries, 300 cities, 6 continents and offers 1,400 showings per year throughout the world. During its ten year existence, the festival has gained the attention of movie fans over a huge territory from Finland to Mexico. The festival gives an opportunity for professionals and newcomers all over the world to become a part of an international cinematographic community. The Winter Season of Future Shorts includes seven films. Special guest is Lost dreams by Chingiz Mustafayev The language of the films is original with Russian subtitles. The address of the venue is Bailovo settlement near the National Flag square. YARAT is a non-profit art organisation based in Baku, Azerbaijan. Founded by Aida Mahmudova and a group of artists in 2011, YARAT is dedicated to nurturing an understanding of contemporary art in Azerbaijan and to creating a platform for Azerbaijani art, both nationally and internationally. In 2015, YARAT (which means create in Azerbaijani) commissioned YARAT Contemporary Art Centre in Baku their first permanent exhibition space. YARATs program ARTIM (meaning progress in Azerbaijani) supports young practitioners in the arts providing opportunities to curate and feature their work in exhibitions. -- Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 13:21 (UTC+04:00) The Baku-based Russian Information and Cultural Center will host the opening of Russia - Azerbaijan: 2015 photo exhibition marking the Day of Russian Diplomats on February 3. The Day was established by the special Decree of the President of Russian Federation on October 31, 2002. The exhibition will be organized by the embassy of the Russian Federation and Rossotrudnichestvo, Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation. Russian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Vladimir Dorokhin is expected to address the opening of the exhibition. Visitors will enjoy rare photographs depicting the most important events for Russia and Azerbaijan held in 2015. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 17:28 (UTC+04:00) The recent negotiations between Georgia's Energy Minister Kakha Kaladze and Russian gas giant Gazprom caused a storm of unrest and accusations both in Georgia and Azerbaijan. Although details of top energy talks were withheld, the observers called them as Georgia's intention to change the rules of game. The move brought many questions as no visible reason was argued for that. Rumors circulating in political circles and society gave birth to ideas that the Georgian government intends to replace cheap and stable Azerbaijani gas with Russian, which is considered much more expensive and less stable. Kaladze urges that Gazprom offers gas to Georgia cheaper than Azerbaijan, adding that if necessary Georgia will balance with Russian supplies a deficit, which SOCAR is unable to refill. Since collapse of the Soviet Union Georgia enjoyed favorable relations with energy-rich Azerbaijan that met its increasing gas demand for many years. Even in a very critical period of relationship with Russia, which left Georgians without warm by for force of 2008 military clashes, Azerbaijan could save the post Soviet nation and its ill economy. Today SOCAR delivers 6 million cubic meters per day in Georgia, which is supposed meet 95 percent of the country's gas consumption. The rest 5 percent of its gas demand Georgia covers though Russian supplies that it receives for "blue fuel" transit to Armenia. SOCAR argues that the natural gas reserves are enough to meet the needs of Georgia and many other European countries for decades. Georgia also expects to receive additional gas volumes from Azerbaijan as a transit country after commissioning Shah Deniz 2 giant field in 2018. So, what are the true reasons of Kaladze's puzzle-game with Gazprom? Based on this reality Baku asked Tbilisi for more precise and detailed explanation for the current strategy of "diversifying the sources of energy". SOCAR, a major gas supplier to Georgia, rebuffed any motives about shortage of natural gas, assuring that the company could meet the country's necessary demand for natural gas and would do it further if needed. The Georgian government seems to be ready to abandon a long partnership with its politically stable supplier and strategic partner, Azerbaijan, and affords entering into negotiations with other countries, such as Russia and Iran. SOCAR, which is operating in Georgia since 2006, is the largest taxpayer in this country. Losing such a partner will be indeed unprofitable for Georgia. After lifting Western sanctions from Iran, Georgia saw a perspective to increase its importance as a transit country in the region. Kaladze's actions indeed cast a shadow on his country's energy perspectives. Renewing the energy policy may take a period to become efficient, while Azerbaijan may refuse to update its energy cooperation with an unreliable partner very soon. But Georgia can face a serous problem if Azerbaijan hesitates to update a deal on supplying natural gas, that expires in 2017. Baku may cancel the cooperation, no longer desiring to associate itself with such an unreliable partner. Azerbaijan, sometimes contrary to its own interests, made concessions to Georgia, taking into account its weak economic position. Azerbaijan's decision not to renew the contract for a reduced price may put Georgia almost in a hopeless situation. In this case it will have to buy natural gas at world prices, while the Georgian economy is built around cheap price. 28 January 2016 10:37 (UTC+04:00) Azerbaijani state oil company SOCARs President Rovnag Abdullayev participated in a meeting of the management board of the consortium of Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), during a visit to Turkey on January 27. SOCAR said the meeting participants exchanged opinions on the upcoming work in 2016 as part of the project. The meeting also approved the necessary documents on the TANAP project for 2016. During the visit, Abdullayev also met with the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Turkey Berat Albayrak. The importance of SOCARs ongoing projects in Turkeys energy sector was noted at the meeting. It was also underscored that the works on SOCARs projects are being carried out in line with schedule. The sides also expressed confidence that the works on TANAPs construction and the projects underway on the Petkim peninsula will be carried out at a high quality and completed in time. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 10:27 (UTC+04:00) By Dalga Khatinoglu Iranian president has kicked off his first trip to EU in post-sanctions era, signing above $18 billion contracts with Italy. He is also expected to ink several multi-billion dollar contracts in France. President Hassan Rouhani arrived in France on Jan. 27, just after visiting Rome. After the West imposed tighter sanctions on Iran in 2012, the Islamic Republics GDP fell from above $590 billion in 2011 to about $425 billion in 2014, according to the World Bank (WB). The countrys GDP growth is estimated to reach 0.5 percent in 2015, while real GDP growth is projected to accelerate to 45.5 percent in 2016/17 and to average 4 percent throughout the medium term, International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated. WBs estimations are more optimistic than that of IMFs, however, coming to investment issue, this body too is very cautious. According to WB, foreign direct investment (FDI) may increase to about $3 billion a year. This is much lower than what Iran expects. Iran plans to reach eight percent GDP growth annually in the Sixth Development Plan (2016-2021) and Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Ali Tayebnia announced earlier that some $233 billion, including $90 billion foreign investment is needed per year to reach an eight-percent GDP growth. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Iran's annual inward FDI was $2.408 billion in average during 2005-2007, while this figure for 2011-2014 was $3.523 billion. Irans total FDI inward from 1995 to 2011 was a little more than $33 billion, according to the UNCTAD. About $400 billion needed in energy sector only As for Irans announced investment opportunities, at least $500 billion investment is needed to use them in five to 10 years. Mohammad Mirzaei, the head of equipment and housing sector at Fuel Conservation Organization, affiliated with Iran's oil ministry, told Trend Sep. 16 that Iran needs a $200 billion investment in total to halve energy intensity by 2021. Iranian officials have warned that without halving energy intensity, the oil-rich country may become net energy importer in mid-term. On the other hand, Iran unveiled a new designed oil and gas contract in November, called Iran Petroleum Contract, offering 50 oil and gas fields to foreigners. Iran is expected to absorb $70 billion investment in these fields. The country also plans to attract $70 billion investment in petrochemical projects to triple the output to 180 million tons per year in 2025. Irans oil ministry put the needed investment in both upstream and downstream oil and gas sector at $185 billion in mid-term. Meanwhile, Iran's Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian said on Jan. 26 that completion of unfinished projects in the water and electricity sector needs about $53 billion of assets, including $30 billion FDI. The country also has planned to double automobile production level to three million vehicles, to import more than 120 passenger planes and other major projects attracting foreign companies and funds. The main part of the needed investment should be put by foreigners in Iran, because the country suffers financially due to low oil price, which is expected to continue in mid-term. Iran reportedly has about $55 billion unblocked assets abroad, which can help the country finance the projects in the upcoming two years. Meanwhile, it may take one or two years for foreign companies to decide to start investing in major projects in Iran. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 12:35 (UTC+04:00) By Aynur Karimova Iran and France are interested in taking huge measures for the interest of their peoples and peace and security. This was stated at a meeting of visiting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and President of France's Senate Gerard Larcher in Paris on January 27. Rouhani arrived in Paris on January 27 after a three-day stay in Italy. During the meeting, Rouhani and Larcher voiced support to enhanced bilateral relations and reviewed regional and international developments, IRNA reported. Rouhani stressed the opportunity of post-sanctions era, saying that both nations - Iran and France -were hurt from "oppressive and unfair sanctions." "Today we have to make up for the past by establishment of comprehensive ties," he added. Naming the nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers as a very significant and rare incident in the world's political history, the president said it once again reiterated the mighty role of diplomacy and negotiations. Adopting such an approach can settle other important regional and international issues, Rouhani said. The Iranian president expressed dismay over recent terrorist attacks in Paris and noted that terrorism is a dangerous virus and a contagious threat which can unsettle the world including European cities. "To fight terrorism, major rifts should be prevented in the region. The foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran follows such an approach," he said. Larcher welcomed the visit of the Iranian president to France and said that Paris sees a bright future before Iran and France for increasing their relations. He said removal of sanctions has provided the opportunity for rapprochement of bilateral ties between the two countries. Also supporting collective measures in the fight against terrorism, Larcher said that France believes in Iran's constructive role in the settlement of regional issues and in the anti-terror fight. -- Aynur Karimova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 January 2016 15:11 (UTC+04:00) Iran is seeking foreign and domestic investment for a project to transfer water from north of the country to central areas, a senior official said. Alireza Daemi, the deputy energy minister for planning affairs, has said that the best way for implementing the project is through foreign and domestic investment, Fars news agency reported. Under the plan, the country will filter and transfer 200 million cubic meters of water annually from the Caspian Sea to the Great Salt Desert (Kavir-e Markazi in Persian, a large desert lying in the middle of the Iranian plateau) including the Semnan Province, he said. Given the amount of water in the Caspian Sea the project will not have a negative impact on its water level, the official added. In October 2012, the Iranian energy ministry received the permission to transfer water from the Caspian Sea to central parts. In December 2013, Iranian deputy energy minister Sattar Mahmoudi said that Iran has finished preliminary studies for transferring water from the Caspian Sea to inland. However, Irans Environment Protection Organization opposed the plan suggesting the project may harm the ecosystem. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz COMMUNIQUE ON THE ELECTORAL MODEL FOR 2016 The National Leaders Forum (NLF) was reconvened in Mogaishu on the 24th of January 2016. The conference was hosted by the Federal Government of Somalia and was attended by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke, the 2nd Deputy Speaker of Parliament Mahad Awad, President of Puntland Abdiweli Ali Gaas, President of Jubbaland Ahmed Mohamed Islam, President of South-West Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, President of Galmudug Abdikarim Hussein Guled, Ministers and respective delegates from the Federal Government and Federal Members States. During the two days of the meetings, the Federal Government and Regional State Leaders continued to deliberate on the negotiations that were embarked on at the recent Kismayo Conference and made every effort to reach a compromise on the Electoral Process for 2016 and its implementation plan. 1. Considering the limited time, the security challenges and the expectations of the public for an outcome, the stakeholders underscored the need to finalize the deliberations on electoral model for 2016. 2. Having acknowledged the expectations of the Somali people that there shall be no extension to the Constitutional mandates of the current Federal Government institutions. 3. Noting that the National Consultative Forum presented the National Leaders Forum sufficient time to contest their positions to allow for more time and space to reach an agreement on the electoral model for 2016. 4. Conceding that the lengthy negotiations had not produced a consensus decision on the electoral model as specified in the Mogadishu Declaration of 16 December, the Federal Government of Somalia recognized the necessity to put forward a balanced position to guarantee an election for 2016. 5. The President of the Federal Republic of Somalia H.E. Hassan Sheikh Mohamud shared the position of the Federal Government of Somalia at the meeting of the participants and in the presence of International Partners on 24th January 2016. 6. The Federal Government of Somalia led by the Prime Minister H.E. Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke today met with the participants of the conference and expressed the need to consider the Federal Government position. The international partners welcomed the proposal while the regional leaders noted with interest and concern. 7. In accordance with the Mogadishu Declaration of 16 December that the electoral process in 2016 shall involve the formation of both the Lower House and the Upper House of Parliament, the Federal Government noted the need for the Parliament as a whole to have representation based on balance between constituency and clan. On this context, the Federal Government shares the below positions as the best scenario for holding elections in 2016; LOWER HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT: The number of parliamentary seats in the Lower House will be 275. Seats in the Lower House of Parliament will be allocated according to the 4.5 formula. A minimum quota of 30% of the seats in the Lower House of Parliament shall be reserved for women. Voting and counting takes place in each of the capitals of the existing and emerging Federal member states (with special arrangements for Somaliland). UPPER HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT: The Upper House of Parliament shall be established before the formation of the Lower House of Parliament. The Upper House of Parliament will consist of 54 members. 48 of the members of the Upper House of Parliament will be distributed equally among Somalias existing, emerging and prospective Federal member states (Somaliland, Puntland, Galmudug, Hiraan/Middle Shabelle, South-West, Jubbaland) The remaining 6 members of the Upper House of Parliament will be divided equally between Somaliland and Puntland, reflecting both their political status and maturity and the fact that they encompass the largest numbers of regions. A minimum quota of 30% of the seats in the Upper House of Parliament shall be reserved for women. Members of the Upper House of Parliament should be elected by the caucuses of the regional assemblies in each existing and emerging Federal member state. The Federal Government of Somalia wishes to express its gratitude to the Regional leaders, the Somalia public and our international partners for their efforts in moving the country forward. We assert that this electoral arrangement will be a measure for 2016 and look forward to the day our people will exercise the right to vote. BAARGAAL.NET News and Information From Somalia Updated frequently The US wheat crop could be the lowest since 2006, according to a report by the Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board (AHDB). Assuming normal conditions, the drop would chiefly be due to the lowest area being planted by farmers for six years, with the area planted with hard red winter wheat down 9% and soft red winter wheat down 5%. However, US wheat stocks are expected to rise 25% over the 2015/16 period, up to over 25Mt, which should offset the predicted drop in this years harvest and ensure availability will be similar to its current level. Helen Plant, senior analyst at AHDB Market Intelligence, said: A US wheat crop of around 50Mt would still mean availability similar to this season in 2006 the US harvested 49.2Mt. Put another way, there would need to be a larger fall in spring wheat plantings and/or below-average growing and harvest conditions for US wheat availability to fall. However, it may well be that certain classes of US wheat see a fall in availability. Stocks of hard red winter (HRW), the largest class by output, are expected to grow by 45% over this season to the highest level since 1999/00. Hard red spring (HRS) wheat stocks are also forecast to increase by 27%. In contrast, soft red winter (SRW) wheat stocks are expected to grow by a more modest 7%. The Midcounties Co-operative has launched a new franchise partnership with coffee chain Coffee Republic. As reported in Talking Retail, the deal has seen Coffee Republic outlets open this month at Co-operative stores in Walsall, West Midlands, and Highworth, Swindon, with the company hoping to open eight more by the end of the year. Coffee Republic is said to be targeting 20 new franchise openings per year at larger stores of the Midcounties Co-operative. Phil Ponsonby, group general manager at the Midcounties Co-operative Food, said: "Coffee Republic is a company which shares our values of providing a quality service to customers, and we are pleased to announce this new partnership as we continue our strategy of introducing outlets into our larger supermarkets. "This agreement will benefit the local communities in which we serve by providing a welcoming environment in which to meet, as we look to further enhance the shopping experience offered in our stores." Richard Shakespeare, head of franchising at Coffee Republic, said: "We pride ourselves on offering a friendly, relaxing and welcoming environment, and we believe that our partnership with the Midcounties Co-operative aligns well with this philosophy. "The opening of these 10 new supermarket cafes forms a fundamental part of our strategy to increase our reach across the UK by focusing on new franchises, and we look forward to inviting shoppers to join the Coffee Republic Revolution." Karl Marx is the most assigned economist in U.S. college classes Jan 28, 2016 In case you had any doubts that America's college campuses are dominated by Godless communists, fresh statistical evidence is at hand. More than 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the onset of market economy practices in China, The Communist Manifesto still ranks among the top three most frequently assigned texts at American universities. By contrast, the Bible doesn't show up at all. That's according to data from Open Syllabus project, which tracks books and other works assigned to students in more than 1 million syllabi. The database is assembled using computer algorithms that scrape the data from publicly available sites. It is still very much a work in progress, according to its web site. The syllabi analyzed are primarily from the U.S. and cover the past decade or so, according to the site. Each text is assigned a count, registering the number of times it appears in syllabi, and a teaching score, a numerical indicator of the frequency with which a particular work is taught, according to the site. Some books show up where you might not expect them. For instance, a search for economics shows Paul Krugman at the top of the list with his iconic Economics, which gets a count of 1,081 and score of 89.4. However, Gregory Mankiws Macroeconomics, doesnt appear at all under the same search, even though it gets a count of 989 and a teaching score of 87.5. Karl Marx's classic receives a count of 3,189 and a score of 99.7. It doesn't actually show up under economics texts either, as it is generally taught along with philosophy texts such as The Social Contract, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes; and On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill. The only books assigned more frequently than The Communist Manifesto were The Elements of Style, the writing guide by William Strunk which was popularized by E.B. White, and The Republic, by Plato. Among other standouts, Mein Kampf, by Adolph Hitler, received a count of 697 and a score of 75.7. What Is To Be Done, by Vladimir Lenin received a count of 361 and a teaching score of 45.9. Here's a look at the most frequently taught works by notable economists (and others) relating to economics and money: The Super PAC Right to Rise up is behind a pro-Jeb Bush television advertisement running in South Carolina that features Terri Schiavo. The images of her last mere seconds, but it's enough to stir up the emotions of those on both side of her controversial case. Schiavo was diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state after her heart stopped in 1990. Doctors thought there was no chance she would recover enough brain function to survive without life support. After years of legal battles between her family and her husband, Michael Schiavo, her feeding tube was allowed to be removed on March 18, 2005. She died at 9:05 a.m. on March 31, 2005. Then the governor of Florida, Jeb Bush sided with Terri Schiavo's parents in the end-of-life dispute and reached for unprecedented authority to intervene. Now, the political ad featuring Bushs efforts is drawing criticism from Michael Schiavo. It is simply disgusting that Jeb Bush and his Super Pac would exploit my wifes tragedy for crude political gain, he told the Tampa Bay Times. We reached out to Terri Schiavos brother, Bobby Schindler. While he wouldnt comment on the advertisement, he directed us to an article he wrote for the Wall Street Journal last year, titled Jeb Bush was Right to Try to Save Terri Schiavo. Dr. Jay Wolfson, Associate Vice President of Health at USF was appointed Terri Schiavos guardian ad litem under Terris Law. Wolfson said he still lectures about the case today. There were a lot of people in this community and around the country that latched onto this as something that really affected their hearts and their heads, he said. Therefore, Wolfson said it is not surprising a political ad would stir up fresh emotions. When you look at the people of Florida and you look at the people of the rest of the United States, this issue divided them right down the middle, said Wolfson. As for whether Terri Schiavo shouldve been featured in a political ad -- Wolfson said its just a part of politics. Governor Bushs Super Pac is putting it out there not to attract the interest and support of people who disagree with that position, Wolfson said, But to remind those who do agree with that position that Governor Bush stood firmly behind them. Here's what you need to know about the weather forecast: Drier air is on the way Sunshine, dry conditions to return Friday Friday's highs in low to mid 60s What a messy day its been. Rain, fog, and clouds have been persistent. A front is on the way that will finally bring in a drier air mass. Expect the rain to slowly wind down this evening from west to east. Skies will still be cloudy tonight, but start clearing out after midnight. Winds will increase from the northwest and cooler air will move in. Friday morning lows will end up in the 40s to low 50s. Friday will feature a return of sunshine and dry conditions. High temperatures will be in the low to mid 60s. Friday night will be mostly clear and chilly with lows in the 40s, and 30s for northern counties. The weekend is looking pleasant as we start a warming trend. Saturday will feature partly cloudy skies with highs in the upper 60s. Detectives are looking for a man suspected of trying to sexually batter a woman in Tampa early Tuesday morning. Police say the incident happened at 2 a.m. in the area of Hillsborough Avenue East and 15th Street. According to police, the woman was standing on her front porch when the suspect approached her, grabbed her and pulled her to the ground. The suspected tried to pull her clothes off and unbuckled his pants, and the woman screamed, causing the suspect put his hand over her mouth. The suspect ran away when a motion light was activated and dogs started barking. Police have released a composite sketch showing the suspect. Anyone with information about the suspect or the crime and who wants to be eligible for a cash reward of up to $3,000 is asked to contact Crime Stoppers of Tampa Bay at 1-800-873-TIPS or online at crimestopperstb.com. Stretch Your Inner Guru on Oregon Coast: Cannon Beach Yoga Festival Published 01/28/2016 at 5:51 AM PDT By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff (Cannon Beach, Oregon) - February 26 through 29 brings the Cannon Beach Yoga Festival to the north Oregon coast, where yoga practitioners of all levels will gather for a weekend of yoga, meditation workshops and even Bollywood dance. All of it under the guidance of renowned instructors. (Photo above: Cannon Beach). It's the sixth year of the festival, an ever-growing attraction that now provides four days of finding your center. An array of workshops, events, and lecture topics will be offered during the festival. Parents or teachers can take part in Imagination Yoga, which includes a free segment for kids as they imagine yoga in the jungle. Beginners can take advantage of classes like Classical Surya Namaskar that focus on fully utilizing important poses like the Sun Salutation. Yoga professionals can benefit from workshops like Anatomy Awareness in Asana, a four-part, rarely available intensive that will provide clear application of anatomy in yoga practice. For something unique, participants can put charcoal to paper in the Yoga Figure Drawing workshop. Festival Director Christen Allsop said this festival works hand-in-hand with the Oregon coast's surroundings in multiple ways. Cannon Beach is a perfect location for a wellness weekend getaway, Allsop said. Our picturesque beach and small town charm really delivers on hospitality. And we have something for everyone from yoga teachers to beginners and children. Im so excited about this years program. Guest instructors include Simon Chokoisky, a teacher at the renowned Ayurvedic Institute in New Mexico and author of The 5 Dharma Types: Vedic Wisdom for Discovering Your Purpose & Destiny; Julie Gudmestad, PT, a certified Iyengar Yoga teacher, physical therapist, director of Gudmestad Yoga Studio in Portland and columnist for Yoga Journal; Sarahjoy Marsh, a yoga teacher, therapist and founder of DAYA Foundation, a nonprofit yoga center in Portland; and Brad Waites, one of a few to be certified at the 2,000-hour level by the College of Purna Yoga, and who is currently a member of the college faculty. Full festival passes for the Cannon Beach Yoga Festival are $375 and include your choice of 10 hours of main-track workshops, morning meditation on Saturday and Sunday, Saturday night Bollywood Dance Party and opening and closing ceremonies. Additional workshops and lectures with the festivals faculty are also available throughout the weekend. Partial Festival Passes are also available and are priced individually. Main Track Workshops will be open for individual registration on February 1 based on availability. Several Cannon Beach hotels and resorts are offering lodging specials and spa packages for the festival. Additionally, local shops, restaurants and wellness businesses will also offer special events during the weekend. A portion of the proceeds from the Cannon Beach Yoga Festival supports the preservation efforts of Cannon Beachs non-profit environmental education organization, Friends of Haystack Rock. Cannon Beach Hotels / Lodging for this event - Where to eat - Map and Virtual Tour For a full schedule of events, instructors, lodging packages or to purchase tickets for the Cannon Beach Yoga Festival, visit www.CannonBeachYogaFestival.com or call Christen Allsop at 503-440-1649. More about Cannon Beach below and at the Cannon Beach Virtual Tour, Map. More About Cannon Beach Lodging..... More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining..... Coastal Spotlight LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles Back to Oregon Coast Contact Advertise on BeachConnection.net All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright BeachConnection.net Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted A daughter of Diller recently marked the end of a career traversing the globe. After 24 years of service in the United States Navy, Diller native Jill Holliger hung up her anchors and retired from the Navy during a ceremony at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Wash., in November. Holliger obtained the rank of Chief Petty Officer during her career while serving in assignments across the U.S. and in several foreign locations. Holliger graduated from Odell Public High School in May 1991 and joined the Navy in January 1992. Her first assignment was with the Naval Security Group Activity on the Aleutian Island of Adak, Alaska. After a long stint of training at the Navy and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center in Dam Neck, Va., she transferred to the Joint Intelligence Center Pacific in Hawaii in January 1995. Holligers next assignment took her to Chinhae, Korea, where she served with a detachment for Commander Naval Forces Korea. She then came back to Nebraska, where she completed a tour as a Navy recruiter in Omaha. Holligers next assignments took her to Bahrain and Spain. While in Spain, Holligers squadron undertook a homeport change to NAS Whidbey Island in Oak Harbor, Wash., and gave her the opportunity to work throughout European, Middle Eastern and South American locations. Holliger took another assignment at NAS Whidbey Island where she voluntarily served as an individual augmentee in Iraq. During this tour she was promoted to Chief Petty Officer and had the unique opportunity of having her Chiefs anchors pinned in a ceremony at the Al Faw Palace in Baghdad. In March 2012, Holliger remained in the Pacific Northwest, relocating to Everett, Wash. Her unit embarked on the oldest active U.S. Aircraft Carrier, the USS NIMITZ, and completed a 10-month deployment to Asian, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean locations. Toward the end of her final tour she accepted a temporary assignment with the Navy Wounded Warrior Safe Harbor Program assisting seriously wounded, ill or injured Sailors and Coast Guardsman with their non-medical care. Holliger described that experience as one of her most rewarding assignments. Holliger said her time in the Navy was rewarding. I truly enjoyed my time in the Navy. Twenty four years is a pretty good haul, which allowed for some unique experiences and travel. I was fortunate to meet some great people and form lasting friendships which I will cherish for years to come. Its time to close this chapter and open a new one in life I just hope this one will be just as exciting! Holligers parents, Bill and Judy Holliger, sister Lisa Culp, brother and sister-in-law Brannon and Gina Holliger, all made the trip from Diller, Fairbury and Omaha to attend the retirement ceremony. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The mosquito-borne Zika virus that causes birth defects and reached Houston this month was identified Thursday as "spreading explosively" in the Americas during a World Health Organization briefing. WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan will convene a committee on Monday to determine whether the outbreak amounts to an international public health emergency. Cases have been reported in 23 countries. The virus first identified in a monkey in the Zika forest of Uganda in 1947 has recently emerged with a vengeance in South and Central America, infecting millions. Zika is suspected in thousands of cases of microcephaly, a birth defect that causes newborns to have abnormally small heads and neurological complications. FOLLOWING ZIKA: Things you need to know about the Zika virus The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Houston's first case this month. A traveler returning from El Salvador in November fell ill with fever, rash and joint pain. The agency determined that she brought the illness into this country following a month of investigation and testing. Zika is part of a family of viruses that includes yellow fever, Dengue virus and West Nile virus. It is spread by two types of Aedes mosquitoes, both of which are found here. Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said in a recent Chronicle story that he predicts that Zika will gain a foothold in our region. "It's just a matter of time before it hits the U.S. and the Texas Gulf Coast," he said. The WHO committee will offer advice about "the appropriate level of international concern" and about "recommended measures that should be undertaken in affected countries and elsewhere," Chan said Thursday. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The Texas Department of Public Safety arrested almost two dozen alleged members of the Barrio Azteca gang on organized crime and drug charges on Monday. A 20-month investigation by the agency's Criminal Investigations Division culminated in the arrest of 21 members and associates of the gang, DPS announced Monday. Investigators found that several of the probe's primary targets had renounced the gang, but had allegedly continued conducting illegal activities such as possession and distribution of heroin and cocaine. RELATED: 40 arrested in Texas cockfighting ring linked to alleged cocaine distributor All 21 suspects were booked into the El Paso County Detention Facility on felony charges of engaging in organized criminal activity to manufacture and deliver controlled substances. Six suspects already in custody also face charges stemming from the investigation, DPS said in a news release. Nine more are considered fugitives. RELATED: 8 facts about the man who runs the Sinaloa drug cartel and it's not Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman Initially formed in El Paso jails in 1986, the Barrio Azteca gang expanded to a transnational criminal organization, allying itself with the Juarez Cartel. The gang is primarily headquartered in El Paso and Juarez but members have also been located in Midland, Odessa and San Angelo, according to DPS' annual Gang Threat Assessment. RELATED: Drugs, burglary, ID theft: 7 charged in Central Texas crime ring bust However, the agency downgraded the threat posed by the Barrio Azteca gang in 2015 after considering it among the state's most violent Texas-based gangs since 2010. The gang's relationship with the Juarez Cartel had long driven that status, according to DPS, but the 2014 arrest of cartel leader Vicente Carrillo Fuentes and the occupation of Juarez by the Sinaloa Cartel diminished the gang's influence there and in El Paso. RELATED: Texas is prepping to license people to grow, sell marijuana. Here are 10 things you need to know DPS also cited the 2014 indictment of 55 Barrio Azteca members and associates as handicapping the gang's effectiveness. jfechter@mySA.com Twitter: @JFreports The group enjoyed an informative presentation by Kathy Erickson from the Blue Rivers Area Agency on Aging at 19th and Court streets in Beatrice. The services area covers eight counties in Southeast Nebraska. The rest of the state is covered by seven other area agencies on aging. The mission of the agency is to assist older adults to remain independent in the home. There is also a care management program to assist the frail elderly to remain at home, as well as respite care for caregivers to allow them time to do what is needed for themselves. Surgical Center of Greensboro (N.C.) and Orthopaedic Surgical Center operate in separate buildings, but the two facilities are working together to open a new, single location, according to a Triad Business Journal report. Here are five things to know. 1. The surgery centers operate as one business entity in separate locations, but with the construction of this new facility they will operate under the same roof. 2. The new facility will be 60,000 square feet and will cost between $23 million and $25 million, according to the report. 3. The consolidated location will house 13 operating rooms and two procedure rooms. It is slated for completion in spring 2017, according to the report. 4. The project earned certificate of need approval in 2014. 5. The Surgical Center of Greensboro and Orthopaedic Surgical Center are affiliated with Surgical Care Affiliates. Accountable care organizations are groups of physicians, hospitals and other healthcare providers who come together voluntarily to give coordinated high quality care. As of December 2015, there are 782 privately-owned ACOs, covering 23 million lives. Here are 12 things for ASC leaders to know: 1. The three biggest ACOs are Advocate Partners in Chicago, Partners HealthCare in Boston and Alina Health in Minneapolis. 2. There are a few advantages for providers to join under an ACO model. There's a lower cost of care, a convenient site of care and physician alignment. Moving some procedures from the hospital outpatient department setting to the ASC setting can contribute to ACO savings. 3. Though ACOs generate savings by limiting avoidable billings, they must still offer superior customer service to effectively compete for patients. ASCs are known as efficient, cost-effective facilities that can provide quality care, therefore serving as a strong competitive asset for ACOs. 4. An independent ASC in a very large multi-hospital system community or a small town dominated by one or two hospitals may not fit into the ACO structure. Powerful hospital systems controlling the ACO could cut ASCs out regardless of potential savings. When independent physician groups manage the ACO, they're more likely to benefit from an ASC's savings. 5. If surgeons in the community join a hospital-driven ACO, they may no longer be able to bring cases to the ASC. One way to minimize these situations is by strengthening the relationships between the ASC and its hospital/physician partners. 6. Released in late 2011, federal enforcement agencies issued two waivers that exempt ACOs from prosecution under existing healthcare regulations and affects ASCs both within and outside of the ACO. The first waiver, involving antitrust laws, allows ACOs to bring together normally competing providers potentially ASCs to coordinate care. The second waiver, involving healthcare fraud and abuse laws, incentivizes physicians to use new approaches to patient care, which might include referrals to ASCs. 7. Federal enforcement lawyers specializing in the different areas of the waivers said, under the first waiver, surgery centers will be able to share certain pricing information that is normally kept confidential. However, even if ASCs do not join their local ACO, the waiver affords them protections against the ACO's market power. According to these lawyers, the second waiver allows the ACO to use its "shared savings" payments to reward providers to use more effective forms of care. 8. ASC owners and operators considering ACO participation first consider: How much does it cost to perform the procedure? If a leader knows the global expense, they'll be able to negotiate reasonable rates. Make sure the profit margin will more often than not cover these costs. Clearly outline with the payer and other ACO partners appropriate patients for the ACO to avoid incurring extra costs. 9. Specialists can currently participate in more than one ACO; becoming exclusive with one ACO limits the potential for future growth. 10. If there are multiple ASCs within the ACO, there are mixed incentives. For example, leaders don't want the ACO to pit ASCs against each other to push payment down too low. 11. If the ACOs target patient population is Medicare or another charity group, it may not be beneficial for the surgery center that currently has low Medicare representation in the payer mix. 12. It's problematic if a leader's center's electronic communication can't communicate with other providers in the ACO. The center may be forced to purchase a new system or additional technical capabilities to communicate within the ACO, which is a considerable expense for most centers, ranging from $15,000 to $70,000 per provider depending on whether the EHR-deployment is onsite or web-based. The Affordable Care Act takes a back seat to other issues American voters consider important in the 2016 presidential election, according the January Kaiser Health Tracking Poll. The poll was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation and was conducted from Jan. 13-19 among a nationally representative random digit dial telephone sample of 1,204. Here are eight findings from the poll. 1. The poll found terrorism (38 percent) and the economy/jobs (34 percent) are the top two issues for voters at this point in the 2016 presidential election. 2. Comparatively, 23 percent of poll respondents said the ACA will be extremely important to their vote, ranking eighth among other issues. 3. Twenty-eight percent of poll respondents described the personal cost of healthcare and health insurance as extremely important to their vote. 4. Only 4 percent of poll respondents chose the ACA as the single most important issue to their vote, ranking behind the economy (12 percent) and terrorism (10 percent), dissatisfaction with government (9 percent), gun control (7 percent), the cost of their healthcare (6 percent), climate change (5 percent), and tied with immigration (4 percent) and the federal budget deficit (4 percent). 5. Thirty-nine percent of the public was aware of President Barack Obama's veto of legislation to repeal the ACA, the poll found. 6. This month's poll found 44 percent of the public have an unfavorable view of the ACA and 41 percent have a favorable view, according to this month's poll. 7. A majority (87 percent) of poll respondents are "very" or "somewhat" satisfied with the choice of physicians in their health plan's network and 4 percent are "very dissatisfied." 8. Most people without health insurance overage under the ACA have not been contacted about signing up for coverage (67 percent) or have not tried to get more information on their own (57 percent). More articles on finance: Tennessee hospitals to make new push for Medicaid expansion: 3 things to know 8 latest CFO moves in hospitals, health systems Millions of millennials may face penalties as ACA enrollment deadline approaches Tennessee hospitals have not given up on Medicaid expansion, according to an Associated Press report published by the Chattanooga Times Free Press. The Tennessee Hospital Association, which was a key supporter of Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's unsuccessful proposal to expand Medicaid, even pledging to fund the entire state share of the proposal, will work to pass the measure again once the 2016 presidential election is over, according to the report. Here are three things to know about the hospitals' plan. 1. THA President Craig Becker said the THA is spending about $400,000 to fund a nonprofit called Tennesseans for a Responsible Future, which will work to gather support for passing Medicaid expansion, according to the report. "It really is to kind of offset some of the misconceptions and certainly to educate our legislators to what Insure Tennessee is and what it isn't," Mr. Becker added, according to the report. 2. Tennesseans for a Responsible Future plans to start gathering support after President Barack Obama leaves office in 2017. 3. In the meantime, the group will work on educational efforts. It is looking for an executive director and plans to hire two or three staffers to work in the field, according to the report. More articles on finance: The force is strong in the Vanderbilt University Medical Center medical staff, who recently worked with a local move theater to coordinate a private screening of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," for a patient who has battled leukemia for nearly five years. The patient, 22-year-old Natalie Seale, had been eagerly awaiting the release of the movie. After undergoing a bone marrow transplant to combat her T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia in June 2015, she was told she would be unable to be in large crowds due to her weakened immune system. One of Ms. Seale's nurses at Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt's Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital Sarah Neumann, RN took it upon herself to call a local movie theater to see what they could do to help her patient experience seeing the movie on the big screen. "Cancer ruthlessly robs our patients of many things we can't control, so as a nurse, I feel that it is important to help patients maintain as much normalcy in life as possible to provide them with much deserved hope and joy during such a difficult time," said Ms. Neumann, who may just be a Jedi knight. Not even a battalion of stormtroopers could stop her from going above and beyond for her patient. Ms. Neumann reached out to Regal Green Hills Stadium 16, a movie theater set in a galaxy not so far, far away. The theater's management set aside an entire theater for a private showing of the movie for Ms. Seale and 20 of her closest friends and family members. "When I found out that my medical care team was working behind the scenes to set up this event, I was shocked! I couldn't believe that they would go out of their way to make me feel so special," Ms. Seale said. "I have been so blessed with the best doctors, nurses and caretakers." Ms. Seale's illness and her experiences in the hospital have inspired her path in academia. This young Padawan, or Jedi-in-training, is currently working on a nursing degree at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., with a minor in Spanish. With roots dating back to 1979, Epic Systems has become a major player in the health IT world. The vendor has achieved this status without going public, and without significant marketing efforts. Epic is one of the biggest EHR providers for hospitals and health systems nationwide. As of March 2015, it was the third most commonly used EHR among hospitals and health systems participating in meaningful use, according to data from CMS. Additionally, a September KLAS report found Epic was one of just two vendors that did not lose any clients in 2014 (athenahealth was the other). Here are 50 things to know about Epic Systems and the woman behind it all. The company 1. Epic's name comes from a meeting with former clients of Judy Faulkner, the company's founder. In the mid-1970s, Ms. Faulkner was a programmer who had developed a clinical data management system; she had no plans to start a company. But, following repeated requests from clients, Ms. Faulkner agreed to create a company around the system she had developed. During a preliminary meeting at her home, one of the company's original clients pulled a dictionary off the shelf and looked up the definition of "epic": "the glorious accounts of a nation's events." The group liked the name, and it would be the story of a patient, not of a nation. 2. The first office of Epic was comprised of three part-time employees in the basement of an apartment in Madison, Wis. Epic was originally named Human Services Computing. 3. Human Services Computing began with a $6,000 investment, part of which came from Ms. Faulkner's parents. Today's Epic is entirely self-funded, as Ms. Faulkner and Epic's early leadership did not raise money from venture capitalists or private equity investors, according to Forbes. 4. Epic remained in Madison, eventually occupying a main office and five satellite sites, until 2005, when it moved to neighboring Verona. 5. In addition to its headquarters in Verona, Epic also has offices in The Netherlands, Dubai, Singapore and Copenhagen. 6. Epic added approximately 1,400 employees in the last year, with a workforce now reaching approximately 9,400 employees, Dana Apfel, an Epic spokeswoman, told Wisconsin State Journal. 7. Epic is privately and employee-owned. In order to ensure the company remains private, Ms. Faulkner created a charitable foundation that her stock will go into and allow the company to remain privately held. The foundation is called the Epic Heritage Foundation. 8. Since Epic remains privately held, full financial and shareholder information isn't available, but Forbes indicates the company's 2014 revenue totaled $1.8 billion. About Judy Faulkner 9. Ms. Faulkner is the founder and CEO of Epic Systems. 10. Ms. Faulkner received her undergraduate degree in mathematics from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa. 11. Ms. Faulkner was ranked No. 256 on the 2015 Forbes 400 list, which ranks the wealthiest individuals in the country list. Her reported net worth is $2.6 billion. 12. In June 2015, Ms. Faulkner joined the Giving Pledge, an initiative launched by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates where some of the world's wealthiest individuals pledge to donate the majority of their assets to philanthropy. "Many years ago I asked my young children what two things they needed from their parents," Ms. Faulkner wrote in her pledge letter. "They said, 'food and money.' I told them, 'roots and wings.' My goal in pledging 99 percent of my assets to philanthropy is to help others with roots food, warmth, shelter, healthcare, education so they too can have wings." 13. Epic and Ms. Faulkner gave a gift last year that will endow three faculty associate positions in the computer sciences department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where Ms. Faulkner earned a master's degree in computer science. The newly endowed positions will center on teaching software development, application design and user interfaces. 14. When Becker's Hospital Review asked Ms. Faulkner what the secret behind Epic's marketing-free success is, she said there really isn't one. "When I started the company, I had no idea how to do marketing, so we just didn't do it," she said last March. "What I did know, because I was a technical person, is to be able to write good software. So we focused on writing good software, and we focused on doing good support. And then fortunately, word of mouth did the rest." The EHR platform 15. The average age of a physician using Epic is 47.7 years old, the youngest average user age among vendors, according to a research report from Wells Fargo Securities. 16. Epic's self-reported numbers indicate the vendor has 355 customers. Some of Epic's latest big-name clients include Allentown, Pa.-based Lehigh Valley Health Network, Burlington, Mass.-based Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, Providence, R.I.-based Lifespan, Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic, Boston-based Partners HealthCare and Chattanooga, Tenn.-based Erlanger Health System. 17. Additionally, CVS Health uses EpicCare at its CVS MinuteClinic locations. And in November 2015, retail healthcare giant Walgreens announced plans to transition its healthcare clinics across the country to Epic's EHR platform. 18. Implementing Epic's EHR is a significant investment, as they are often the most expensive platforms to adopt. Partners HealthCare invested $1.2 billion on its Epic implementation, the health system's biggest single investment to date. EHR vendor competition/market share 19. As of March 2015, Epic was the third most commonly used EHR among hospitals and health systems participating in meaningful use, according to data from CMS. 20. A September KLAS report found just two vendors reported losing zero clients in 2014: Epic and Watertown, Mass.-based athenahealth. Additionally, Epic, athenahealth and Cerner were the only three vendors who posted a gain in market share in 2014, according to the report. 21. The top three states where Epic is the most commonly used EHR system for office-based providers participating in meaningful use are North Dakota (it holds 51 percent of the state's EHR market share for office-based providers), Wisconsin (58 percent) and Washington state (44 percent), according to April 2015 CMS data. 22. The top three states where Epic is the most commonly used EHR system for hospitals participating in meaningful use are Minnesota (it holds 55 percent of the state's EHR market share), Wisconsin (44 percent) and Oregon (42 percent), according to April 2015 CMS data. 23. In February 2015, healthcare marketing firm SK&A reported Epic as the top EHR vendor in the physician practice market, holding 11.6 percent of the market. Recent implementations 24. In 2015, Phoenix-based Banner Health decided to transition two Tucson hospitals Banner-University Medical Center Tucson and Banner-University Medical Center South to Cerner's EHR. The hospitals used Epic's EHR while part of the former University of Arizona Health Network, which Banner acquired March 1. Banner uses Cerner's EHR and decided to switch the Tucson hospitals to Cerner to be on board with other hospitals in the system. 25. Denver Health's CEO Arthur Gonzalez told The Denver Post last year that the system is scheduled to go live on the Epic EHR in 2016, and the project remains under budget. Still, Denver Health's former CIO Gregory Veltri has expressed concerns about the implementation. He resigned due to a disagreement over the decision to switch to Epic. 26. Mayo Clinic also selected Epic's EHR and revenue cycle management platform in early 2015. The switch means the health system will drop its Cerner and GE contracts for certain service lines. The implementation is scheduled to begin in 2017. 27. Four executives of New York City Health and Hospitals Corp., (newly re-branded to NYC Health + Hospitals) were fired over a six-month period, including the hospital's CIO and CTO. The hospital is in the middle of implementing an Epic EHR, with a total implementation and maintenance cost totaling $764 million over six years. The Inspector General's Office has been investigating allegations of improper billing related to the implementation since August 2014, but the hospital told Becker's the firings were not related to the Epic implementation. 28. In late January 2016, Midland, Mich.-based MidMichigan Health announced plans to implement Epic's EHR platform at all the hospitals, physician offices and outpatient care facilities in its 15-county region. 29. South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, Mass., is in the process of implementing the Epic EHR. As part of the process, the hospital is hiring more than 50 people to provide support. Additionally, a number of hospitals working with Epic have posted job listings for new talent, including Boston Medical Center, Detroit-based Henry Ford Health System and Toledo, Ohio-based ProMedica, to name a few. Interoperability 30. Epic claims it is the first vendor to facilitate a patient data exchange between two different EHRs in August 2008 between two facilities in Long Beach, Calif., according to Politico. 31. Much of the flak directed toward Epic relates to the vendor abstaining from joining other marketplace collaborations that claim to be dedicated to interoperability, such as the CommonWell Alliance, whose members include competitors Cerner, athenahealth, McKesson, Allscripts, CPSI and Greenway Health. 32. However, Epic is among the first five vendors to adopt the Carequality Interoperability Framework, a set of standards to make data exchange more efficient. It joined athenahealth, eClinicalWorks, NextGen Healthcare and Surescripts in adopting the framework. 33. As of September 2015, Epic's customers had prevented 219,000 harmful or fatal medication incidents and delivered 860,000 babies in the previous year, Ms. Faulkner said at Epic's annual meeting in 2015 34. According to Epic, 15.3 million patient records were exchanged securely on the Care Everywhere network in June 2015 to and from Epic EHRs, non-Epic EHRs, HIEs and government agencies. 35. In April, ONC announced Epic was participating in CMS' Designated Test EHR Program, a voluntary program that allows eligible hospitals, providers and critical access hospitals participating in meaningful use to demonstrate their ability to exchange data. EHRs are registered on an EHR Randomizer, a software system that matches MU participants with an EHR other than the one they use to exchange data. 36. Epic has a director of interoperability, Peter DeVault. Mr. DeVault testified in front of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in a March 17 hearing defending the vendor's interoperability. He said Epic provides customers with the vendor's source code and developer support, as well as tools to support the free flow of information between systems and organizations. 37. At HIMSS15, Epic announced it was waiving its record-sharing fees for exchanging data between Epic and non-Epic vendors until 2020. In an interview with Becker's Hospital Review, Eric Helsher, vice president of client success at Epic said, "We felt the fee was small and, in our opinion, fair and one of the least expensive, but it was confusing to our customers and others in understanding how it workedThere was logic to it, but it confused people, so we decided to end the fee until at least 2020 when we'll consider reevaluating." Mr. Helsher did not disclose how much the fee was. Controversies and legal issues 38. At the March 17 Senate hearing, Mr. DeVault was asked why Epic did not join the CommonWell Alliance. He said CommonWell is an "aspiring" network that requires significant money to achieve its goal of interoperability. Mr. DeVault also suggested CommonWell intended to sell data downstream, as it requires joining companies to sign non-disclosure agreements. 39. In response to the above comments, Cerner issued a statement defending CommonWell, saying Mr. DeVault's comments were "potshots and false statements" and a "slap in the face" to those working to advance interoperability. Cerner and athenahealth's Jonathan Bush exchanged heated words about Epic on Twitter. 40. Ms. Faulkner has received criticism and questioning for her political ties. She donated to President Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and supports congressional Democrats factors that Republicans suggest played a role in the government's HITECH Act and federal incentives to boost health IT. 41. Ms. Faulkner also served on the Health IT Policy Committee as the representative of health IT vendors, a position to which she was appointed in 2009. She served until 2014. 42. In 2006, Epic came under fire when an employee of Kaiser Permanente accused the nonprofit system of corruption and wasteful spending, with much of the ire directed at KP HealthConnect, the HMO's $3 billion Epic EHR. 43. More recently, Epic the Connecticut State Attorney General began an investigation into Epic Systems' information sharing practices after independent medical groups accused hospital networks of using EHRs to control patient referrals and steer patients back to their networks, according to a Politico. Life at Epic 44. In an interview with Becker's Hospital Review, Ms. Faulkner identified the company's dress code as something that might surprise readers. "Our dress code is when there are visitors, you must wear clothes," she said. "As long as there's nothing objectionable, everything's fine." 45. Epic doesn't follow a budget, Ms. Faulkner told Becker's Hospital Review. "Our philosophy with that is if you need it, buy it. And if you don't need it, don't buy it," she said. "We teach people how to judge things appropriately and make the right decisions, so it isn't chaos by any means. What we did see is that if you have budgets, people spend to their budget." 46. In 2014, Business Insider ranked Epic No. 5 on its list of companies with the best pay and benefits, reporting an average salary for a technical services employee of $72,000 and average salary for a project manager of $82,000. 47. Epic is known for its marketing-free success. Just 1 percent of Epic's employees in 2012 were in sales and marketing, according to a Forbes report. 48. In early 2015, Epic said it plans to add five buildings totaling one-half million square feet of office space to its campus. The first three buildings of the expansion are expected to open this year, according to Wisconsin State Journal. 49. Additionally, Epic is finishing its fourth campus expansion, called Wizards Academy, which is based on the aesthetic of historic university campuses like England's Oxford University and Hogwarts, the fictional school from the Harry Potter series. This expansion features five additional buildings, as well as a full-size cafeteria. 50. In response to employee growth, a main road in Verona is being expanded this year to four lanes. Here are nine recent news updates on key health IT companies. 1. For the third quarter of 2016, McKesson reported revenues of $47.9 billion, a slight 3 percent increase from the $46.5 billion in revenues from the third quarter of 2015. 2. Chronic disease management software and services provide CareSync partnered with athenahealth to offer its solutions in athenahealth's More Disruption Please program's marketplace. 3. Midland, Mich.-based MidMichigan Health will invest $55 million to implement Epic's EHR platform at all the hospitals, physician offices and outpatient care facilities in its 15-county region. 4. Frost & Sullivan recognized eClinicalWorks for capturing the highest market share among cloud-based EHR vendors. The vendor holds 10 percent of the market share. 5. The Military Health System plans to implement McKesson's InterQual solution, a clinical decision support tool, at its military treatment facilities. 6. The U.K.'s National Health Services is launching six remote-monitoring pilot initiatives, partnering with companies including Google's life sciences division and IBM. 7. Neal Patterson, chairman, co-founder and CEO of Cerner, was diagnosed with cancer early in the year. 8. Co-founder, chairman and CEO of athenahealth Jonathan Bush will receive the Ellen M. Zane Award for Visionary Leadership from Tufts Medical Center in Boston. 9. athenahealth and University of Toledo (Ohio) Medical Center are working together to develop the vendor's EHR for deployment in the hospital. More articles on health IT: 10 latest data breaches Whispers around Oscar Health insurance startup hint at $3B valuation 10 recent vendor contracts, go-lives Religious groups arent giving up the fight to keep Nebraskas same-sex marriage ban on the books. On Wednesday, Nebraska Family Alliance and the Nebraska Catholic Conference both came out opposed to measures that would update language in state law to reflect last years U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down bans on gay marriage. Regardless of what a narrow majority of the Supreme Court may declare at this moment in history, the nature of human person and marriage remain unchanged and unchangeable, Greg Schleppenbach, executive director of the Catholic Conference, told members of the Legislatures Judiciary Committee. The groups outright opposed a proposed constitutional amendment (LR389CA) by state Sen. Burke Harr of Omaha that would strike the wording of Nebraskas same-sex marriage ban from the state Constitution. I dont want this kind of hatred to remain on our books for 80 years afterward, Harr said. The Family Alliance and Catholic Conference also voiced concerns about a measure (LB944) from Lincoln Sen. Matt Hansen that would replace the words mother and father with the nongendered term parent in state statute. And the alliance opposed a Hansen bill (LB943) to exchange husband and wife with spouse in the states lawbooks. Hansen and a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska argued those updates could help prevent patchwork litigation down the road. Statutes ought to reflect what the law actually is, ACLU lobbyist Spike Eickholt told committee members during the public hearing. Why allow these things to be decided on a case-by-case, ad-hoc basis? Local authorities in Spokane, Wash., pulled a body from the Spokane River Tuesday morning that appears to be that of the missing Spokane VA Medical Center surgeon John Marshall, MD, according to KREM 2 News. Dr. Marshall, 49, went missing Monday, and was last seen leaving the YMCA at 5:00 a.m. to go for a jog, according to the report. His wife told KREM this was routine for Dr. Marshall, who was a former Marine and served in Afghanistan. At 9:00 a.m. Tuesday, officials pulled a body from the north bank of the river, below the trail Dr. Marshall typically ran along, according to the report. While Interim Spokane Police Chief Rick Dobrow told KREM there are no obvious signs of foul play, Major Crimes Detectives are treating the case as suspicious, according to the report. Bret Bowers, with Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center, provided the following statement, according to the report. "We are deeply saddened to learn that local authorities confirmed Dr. John Marshall's body was found this morning. Dr. Marshall was a fantastic surgeon who will be deeply missed. He began his career at the VA Medical Center over five years ago. Recently, he was serving as the Acting Chief of Surgery, a role in which he excelled. Patients and staff alike talked regularly about his conscientious, empathetic and respectful nature. A Marine, Army doctor, and combat Veteran, Dr. Marshall was an outstanding surgeon and consummate professional who cared about his patients and dedicated team of VA co-workers. We express our deepest sympathies to his family and all those who were close to him," he wrote. More articles on integration and physician issues: Opinion: Why NY hospitals should bring in foreign medical students 17 things to know about medical scribes More geriatricians needed as population ages: 5 things to know Seattle's Group Health Cooperative is expected to cast votes Saturday on a possible acquisition by Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente, according to The Seattle Times. Officials and union leaders of the regional co-op say the acquisition is a smart move for the future of the organization, according to the report. Opponents of the plan believe they don't have enough information to make an informed decision, according to the report. The co-op, which was once called radical and socialist for its integrated care and coverage when it was founded in 1947, has 27,000 registered voting members who must approve the deal by a two-thirds majority. A final vote is due by March 9. If approved, Kaiser Permanente will pay approximately $1.8 billion to create a new nonprofit called Group Health Community Foundation. It would also agree to pay $1 billion over the next 10 years to upgrade facilities, add staff and improve technology and research in Washington, according to the report. Eight town hall meetings have been hosted across the state to answer questions among the co-op's members about the potential deal, according to the report. The acquisition contract is publicly available here. More articles on transactions and valuation: CHI St. Luke's expands footprint in Texas 5 recent hospital transactions and partnerships Jefferson and Kennedy Health explore merger Here three spine surgeons discuss the most challenging moments of their career. Ask Spine Surgeons is a weekly series of questions posed to spine surgeons around the country about clinical, business and policy issues affecting spine care. We invite all spine surgeon and specialist responses. Next week's question: What advice do you have for young spine surgeons, just beginning their careers? Please send responses to Anuja Vaidya at avaidya@beckershealthcare.com by Wednesday, Jan. 20, at 5 p.m. CST. Question: What was the most frustrating moment of your career? Brian R. Gantwerker, MD, The Craniospinal Center of Los Angeles: The day I realized that the salad days of medicine are gone. We are being asked to get used to the new normal. I think partnering with other physicians or carefully negotiating employment contracts can help [maintain] a good quality of life. But in terms of doctors owning multiple homes and on vacation a month or more per year those days are gone. Richard Kube, MD, Founder, CEO, Prairie Spine & Pain Institute, Peoria, Ill.: The most frustrating moment was just prior to opening my solo spine practice. I had spent a year away for my restrictive covenant, and as the time approached to return home and open the practice, I encountered huge pushback from the competition. While it was largely expected, I was surprised at how supposedly neutral parties, such as the hospitals, acted. It was surprising how much politics played into literally every step of the process. I persevered, and it honestly made success that much more satisfying. There was a time however, whether I thought it would be possible to fight the local machine. Neel Anand, MD, Clinical Professor of Surgery, Director, Spine Trauma, Cedars-Sinai Spine Center, Los Angeles: Patients being denied medical care, that is, blatantly being denied care by someone [from an insurance company] with no medical background. To continue following the latest news and information for Bedfordshire and surrounding areas, simply enter your full postcode below Lauren Hughes, HSBC; Lord Rana, owner of Andras House Hotels; Rajesh Rana, director of Andras House Hotels, and Philip Turner, director of IHG, Europe operations UK & Ireland Andras House - one of Northern Ireland's biggest hotel groups - has increased its profits to 3m as it continues to expand its business here. The group - which is owned by Indian-born businessman Lord Rana - saw profits increase by around 12% in the year to April 30, 2015. The business's turnover remained almost flat for the same period, sitting at 16.1m. Andras cut its staff numbers during the last year. Employee numbers fell by 31 to 220 for the same financial period. The value of its assets also remained roughly steady, slipping slightly to just under 79m. Andras House owns five hotels in Belfast, including the Holiday Inn Express, the Ramada Plaza, two Ibis hotels and Holiday Inn, formerly Days Hotel. But just last week the green light was given for another new hotel from the group. Belfast will get a new hotel brand, when the Hampton by Hilton sets up at Hope Street in the city centre. Managing director Rajesh Rana told the Belfast Telegraph he was pleased with the latest results and "cautiously optimistic" that 2016 is "looking very good". "We had a solid year up to the end of April 2015. The hotels' trading assets are generally up on the previous year. "The calender year was pretty strong and we are cautiously optimistic that 2016 is looking very good, with a note of caution." He said some numbers were impacted by work at the rebranded Holiday Inn, and with some tenants moving out of one of the company's office buildings. Mr Rana said he expected work would start on the new Hampton hotel in April, and that the business would see growth in its next set of accounts. "We are on the second phase of upgrading the Holiday Inn and we are also refurbishing the Ramada Plaza." In the latest accounts, the company says it is "confident that the group will continue to grow and seek new development opportunities, subject to the availability of bank funding". The amount paid to the company directors increased in 2015, rising from 222,000 to 301,000. The top paid director received 135,000. The Andras House business began life in 1981, with the refurbishment of a Victorian factory in Belfast city centre, during a time when there was little appetite for investment. Founder Lord Diljit Rana moved to Northern Ireland in 1966 - after spending three years in England, following his move from India. Trained as an economist, he found getting suitable work impossible. He began working in factories and had a stint as a postman before making the move to Northern Ireland. He ran a number of businesses before buying his first hotel. Andras House also invested in hotels during the recession, building two new Ibis Hotels in 2009. Andras is run by Lord Rana's sons, managing director Rajesh, and his brother Ramesh. Northern Ireland had the highest percentage increase in new home starts of any UK region during 2015, according to fresh figures Northern Ireland had the highest percentage increase in new home starts of any UK region during 2015, according to fresh figures. There was a 30% increase in registered new homes, from 2,487 to 3,223 last year, the National House Building Council said today. That outpaced other UK regions, with the east of England having the next highest percentage increase, at 23%. One Northern Ireland-based housebuilder said 2015 had seen the biggest number of developments come up for tender since the housing crash. But the NHBC claimed Northern Ireland's increase came "from a relatively low base" because house-building slumped so drastically in the downturn. Peter Gillan, managing director of Co Antrim housebuilder PG Contracts, said the company had seen a "great turnaround" in both large developments and one-off houses. "Percentage margins on the larger developments remain tight, but a mass volume is there to be had," he added. "We have seen the largest ever number of developments available for tender since the crash." But Conor Mulligan, managing director of Lagan Homes, said Northern Ireland faced barriers to house-building that were not present in England. Those drags on progress included "sewer bonds, gold-plating of EU regulations and demands to upgrade underfunded infrastructure and services". "Thankfully, there appears to be a recognition of difficulties and, I believe, the desire to overcome them," Mr Mulligan added. David Little, NHBC representative in Northern Ireland, said volumes last year were double those in 2012. "In general, builders are now more confident about prospects for house-building and this optimism is shared by potential buyers," he insisted. But he warned that the momentum needed to be maintained and said: "We are still some way off building the numbers of new homes required." Ulster Bank chief economist Richard Ramsey said the house-building recovery "still has a very long way to go", though the pick-up was welcome news. "Even if the industry operates at maximum capacity, the rate at which new homes are built will remain well below what is required for the foreseeable future," he indicated. UK-wide, the number of new homes registered reached 156,000, up 7% on 2014. 30% Increase in number of homes built in NI in 2015 3,223 Total number of homes built in NI during period 7% Rise in UK-wide average of number of homes built 156,00 Number of new homes built in UK during 12 months Find your dream home at propertynews.com Done deal: B4B Telecoms in Belfast paid an undisclosed sum for Quadrant Power Comm in Lisburn. Two firms in Northern Ireland's independent telecommunications sector have joined forces. B4B Telecoms in Belfast paid an undisclosed sum for Quadrant Power Comm in Lisburn. Quadrant, which has been in business for nine years, is a specialist firm offering system sales and maintenance to the small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) and public sector markets. B4B managing director Dominic Kearns said: "In line with our growth aspirations, the acquisition of Quadrant allows us to add an experienced company and team with a proven track record of operational excellence and skill." He added: "Growth by acquisition is very much part of our overall growth strategy, as we see the added value other companies and clients can receive by accessing our in-house product range, support and expertise." A spokeswoman said B4B, which was founded in 2010 and is based in north Belfast, was growing in stature in telecoms. It operates in the UK and Ireland with services including voice communications, cloud applications, multi-site management and broadband and data connections. It's the third major corporate transaction in Northern Ireland during January, and follows a six-figure shareholder buy-out at Keys Commercial Finance last week. The funder has now been rebranded as Upstream Working Capital under the leadership of majority shareholder Judith Totten. And financial software plc First Derivatives in Newry announced it had acquired consultancy firm QuantumKDB (UK) Limited for 2.2m and Chicago insurance giant Ryan Direct Group (RDG) paid an undisclosed sum for Midas Underwriting in Newtownards, which employs 51 people. The deals mark a busy start for 2016. Information firm Experian said the number of big business deals grew more than 50% last year to 165. Carl Davis (pictured with his wife Jean Boht) composed the score for the digitally restored version of the 1927 film Napoleon An 89-year-old film, which could take cinema-goers a marathon seven hours to watch, is returning to the big screen. The new digitally restored version of Abel Gance's Napoleon comes at the end of a 50-year project involving the BFI National Archive. Running at some five and a half hours on screen, the 1927 film demands a huge investment of resources - from projectionists, musicians, conductor and audiences, and in a live performance with intervals the experience adds up to more than eight hours from start to finish. Cinema screenings where there is no live orchestra are estimated to run to around seven hours, as theatres are likely to have a couple of breaks for the sake of viewers' comfort. The film features full-scale historical recreations of episodes from the personal and political life of Napoleon, from the French Revolution to the arrival of French troops in Italy marking the beginning of the first Italian campaign of 1796. From autumn 2016, audiences will be able to experience this cinematic masterpiece with Carl Davis's score - the longest ever composed for a silent film - when the film goes on theatrical release in UK cinemas. The film was first presented, partially restored, at the BFI London Film Festival in 1980. The latest digital restoration of Napoleon will have its premiere screening with a live performance by the Philharmonia Orchestra of Davis's score in early November at the Royal Festival Hall. It has been entirely re-graded and received extensive digital clean-up throughout, all of which offers significant improvements in overall picture quality. It is the most complete version of the film available, compiled by Academy Award-winning film-maker, archivist and historian Kevin Brownlow, who spent more than 50 years tracking down surviving prints from archives around the world since he first saw a 9.5mm version as a schoolboy in 1954. He worked with the BFI National Archive on a series of restorations. Mr Brownlow said: "This is a tremendous step forward for film history." Heather Stewart, creative director at the BFI, said: "Several generations of staff at the BFI have worked on this project. Napoleon is a landmark in the history of cinema and we are grateful to all of the great talents who have helped us along the way but especially, of course, Kevin Brownlow for his indefatigable championing of the film and Carl Davis for his amazing score." The film will also be available on BFI DVD/Blu-ray and BFI Player. Jan. 20 was the final day for bill introduction in this legislative session. In total, 446 bills and 8 constitutional amendments were introduced by senators and committees. Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike Heavican presented his State of the Judiciary address to state senators this last week. He reviewed the work of the Office of Public Guardian, which was created by the Legislature in 2014 to improve the services provided to vulnerable adults in need of guardianships or conservatorships. He touched on the Through the Eyes of the Child Initiative, which focuses on education for judges, guardians ad litem, lawyers, HHS employees and community volunteers. The Chief Justice gave an overview of juvenile justice reform efforts, explaining that with the passage of legislation two years ago, children no longer have to become state wards to access services. He noted a significant increase in the number of children placed on probation and receiving services to reduce recidivism, and likewise a 7.6 percent decline in out-of-home placements in the past six months. Last year, the Legislature passed LB 605, which created significant criminal justice reform. The court system is working towards implementation of the Justice Reinvestment goals outlined in the legislation. The court rules on post-release probation supervision have been adopted and locations were selected for new day and evening reporting centers. These centers average 6,000 visits from probation clients each month and provide services in every major community across the state. Every reporting center has a supervised substance abuse supervision program and Chief Justice Heavican noted that 89 percent of the clients released from the program in 2015 have been drug-free for at least one year and 91 percent are gainfully employed. The Chief Justice confirmed that they have now achieved their goal of developing problem-solving courts in each judicial district. Finally, he noted that total eFilings have increased, with the volume of electronically-filed documents in the trial courts up 30 percent, saving the court staff time and greatly increasing the accuracy of data entry. Public hearings were held on three bills that I introduced this past week. The Transportation and Telecommunications Committee heard LB 732, which would allow reservists to qualify for Military Honor license plates. The way the law is currently written, only federalized reservists are eligible, which means that they had to serve on active duty that is not considered training. I believe that these soldiers served their country, although in a time of peace, and should be eligible for the plates. The public hearing for LB 734 was held before the Education Committee. LB 734 would allow non-resident members of the Nebraska National Guard to receive in-state tuition rates at state educational institutions. Although this proposal would only apply to a small number of student soldiers, it would make a significant difference in their cost of schooling. LB 744 was heard before the Judiciary Committee. It deals with open adoptions. LB 744 recognizes that biological parents and adoptive parents can agree to communication and contact after the adoption of a child in private and agency adoptions, but makes it clear that the failure to comply with such agreement does not affect the legality of the adoption. The goal behind the legislation is to ensure permanency in adoptions. Several of the bills that I introduced this year are the direct result of a constituent contact. I encourage you to continue to inform me of your opinions on legislation and suggestions for change. I can be reached at District #1, State Capitol, Lincoln, NE 68509. My telephone number at the capitol is (402) 471-2733 and my email address is dwatermeier@leg.ne.gov. Following Sunday night's US premiere of The X-Files revival, a difficult week for die-hard fans based in the UK has followed, uncertain as to when the episode will be showing on British soil. It's time to rest easy because Channel 5 have finally announced an airdate - and you don't have too long to wait: episode one will be shown at 9pm on Monday 8 February. Series creator Chris Carter has teased how the relationship between FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully (David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson) is "on the rocks" when we catch up with them for the first time since 2008 film I Want To Believe. The premiere episode of the limited series - which will run for six episodes - received widespread negative reviews from critics, with The Hollywood Reporter hailing it "messy," "tedious" and "limp." The fans' reaction, on the other hand, was less lukewarm with many praising the episode on social media. Critics did note, however, that the following two episodes are a vast improvement with The Guardian even claiming that episode three "is one of the best The X-Files has ever done." Just what UK audiences think will be discerned when The X-Files airs from Monday 8 February on Channel 5. Independent The Prince of Wales took a turn on the stage of the world's oldest surviving grand music hall as it was official re-opened after years of restoration work. Like an old pro, Charles had the audience of Wilton's Music Hall in stitches when he said he was drawn to the attraction after his first visit in 2006 - "I'm afraid I'm rather a sucker for these sorts of projects." Despite its then-dilapidated state, he became Wilton's patron and returned to see the results of the final restoration phase to safeguard the unique building opened in the 1850s by entrepreneur John Wilton. At the time it was described as the "Handsomest Room in Town'' and had a sun-burner chandelier with 300 gas jets and 27,000 cut crystals in its mirrored hall. The building has played host to may famous stars including Champagne Charlie, who played a key role in the 1889 Dockers Strike which resulted in the formation of the UK's first trade union, and it also acted as an evacuation centre during the two world wars. Today it is the only intact survivor of the early grand music hall era and a precursor to the empires and palaces of the late 19th century. It reopened for regular productions in 1999 after restoration work had begun on the derelict site and it is once again a popular venue. In a short speech, Charles told the audience who included impersonator Rory Bremner and lyricist Sir Tim Rice: "It's been a very special morning and I'm thrilled to have had the chance of meeting at least some of the people involved in putting all of this back together again. "I know how difficult these projects can be and the frustration of trying to find the money and everything else." Charles was joined by Camilla for the visit to see the final phase of work, costing 4.5 million, that sympathetically repaired the hall and 17th century houses that make up the front of the building while retaining its faded and weathered appearance. In the famous hall, comic Barry Cryer performed with son Bob in what was dubbed the "Simon Callow Breakfast Show" by Charles after Callow had introduced acts from a bill that could have come from Wilton's heyday. Barry Cryer joked afterwards: "We can boast we were in a royal variety show that was over very quickly. I bet Charles and Camilla were thinking, 'This is good, bang, bang, bang'." Speaking about Wilton's, he added: "It's a hidden treasure that's the cliche, it's just magnificent this place. People can't believe it the first time they come and walk in and I couldn't the first time I came." By the 1960s Wilton's had fallen out of use and was threatened with demolition by a London County Council proposed project to clear much of the area around it for development. A campaign was launched to save the building led by theatre historian John Earl who persuaded the poet John Betjeman and the newly formed British Music Hall Society to back it. They were successful and the attraction in Wapping, London, was saved in the mid 1960s. Comic Spike Milligan also worked to safeguard the building but it suffered more damage as it remained empty, and audiences would have to wait until 1997 to see a production - The Wasteland. The attraction was finally put on a firmer footing with the formation of the Wilton's Music Hall Trust in 2004 and a major programme of works began eight years later to make all areas of the building safe and habitable. Mr Earl, now aged 87, said he did not think he would see this day after first having walked into the building in 1963: "It's taken many many years for this to come about - my goodness - I've lived to see it. "The great thing to me, I know the history of music halls, I know this place is important, I'd never walked into it before that time and it worked on me then and it still works on me. "You walk through a dark hall, from a little alleyway, and you find yourself in an even darker corridor, then you open the door and there's this incredible room - it still works, I gasp every time I walk in." Many of Wilton's walls remain unplastered, with much of the joinery like doorframes and skirting boards missing, creating a faded grandeur to the building. Tim Ronalds, the architect who oversaw the restoration work, said: "If you plaster the walls, it just becomes an ordinary building. We had the principal 'do as little as possible', we didn't do anything that wasn't necessary - we wanted to keep the atmosphere." Speaking about the significance of the building, he added: "During the 20 years from 1850-70, the time Wilton's Music Hall was open, that's when variety theatre was developing. "It came out of places like Wilton's, they exported it around the world and X Factor has come from it." When Charles and Camilla first arrived they were greeted by posey girl Clara Bierman, aged two, whose mother Kate is the attraction's development director. They toured the building and met school children involved with theatre projects from learning music hall songs to making bunting decorations for the attraction. The heir to the throne joined in with a rendition of Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay, a famous vaudeville song, when a group of school children began singing it. Summing up the appeal of Wilton's, Simon Callow said: "In itself it's a beautiful, beautiful theatre, so any actor who walks into this place, and theatre maker who doesn't immediately want to do a show here must be dead - it's just thrilling." Catherine Zeta-Jones and Blake Harrison attend a special preview screening of the new Dad's Army film at Chicksands military base in Bedfordshire Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones added some Hollywood glamour to the Chicksands military base ahead of a screening of her new movie Dad's Army. The 46-year-old oozed elegance in a red dress and black military-style coat as she and her co-star Blake Harrison mingled with soldiers at the Bedfordshire base. She and Harrison happily chatted to soldiers before introducing the film, which was a special screening held for military personnel ahead of its official release next week. She plays journalist Rose Winters in the big-screen version of the hit BBC One sitcom. The original series, set in the Second World War, ran for nine years and its new big-screen incarnation stars Toby Jones, Michael Gambon, Bill Nighy and Mark Gatiss. :: Dad's Army is released in the UK on February 5. The 69-year-old English singer, now living in Paris, on David Bowie, Adele, and the darkness after the terror attacks on the French capital. Q: What music do you listen to? A: I listen to classical music, jazz and the blues, and the few people I really like - Nick Cave and Damon Albarn, say. Q: We've just had the news about David Bowie. Do you have any personal memories of him that stand out? A: We did that thing together called The 1980 Floor Show. Dave and I did I Got You Babe. I was wearing a nun's costume and he was wearing whatever he was wearing at the time. I liked Dave; he was a friend. I'd known him practically since he was a baby. He was at the bottom of the bill on a tour I did back when he was still David Jones. The Hollies were top, I was in the middle: the token chick. Now, the Hollies, they were a proper band. Q: What do you think of today's female pop stars? A: Well, I don't know who they are. Q: How about Adele? A: Not my thing. I respect her, I think she's great in a way. She's got a very beautiful voice for sure. And she's no fool. Q: Do you think things are better for women in the music industry now compared to back when you started? A: Women are much more important in the industry now. When I started, we were just decorative. Apart from Dusty. But most weren't that interesting and they could've been. Lulu had an amazing bluesy voice but she wasn't allowed to use it. Women have basically taken over the industry. Amy Winehouse is a great example, I adored her. I met her at some do in London. I was longing to say "straighten up." But unless somebody wants to change, there's nothing you can do. Q: Do you think there's a problem with artists being chewed up and spat out? A: I think the worst example is Kurt Cobain. He was worked much too hard. He was obviously very fragile. He was pretty much worked to death. Not everybody wants that life. Q: You've had your problems with drugs. Does the music industry have a moral duty to provide artists more support? A: The words music industry and moral don't go together. Some people are lucky and have great management. I'm luckily one of them. Mind you, I don't make much money. I make beautiful records and put on great shows. But they don't drive me like a workhorse. I work when I want to. Q: You lived in London for years. Why did you move to Paris? A: There are many things about the UK that disgust me. The class system for one. It's like going back to Dickensian times. Q: Do you find Paris more egalitarian? A: In its own way it's just as bad. I have a lot of wonderful friends here, which is one reason I stay. But then I have a lot of wonderful friends everywhere. Q: Do you think November's terror attack will permanently scar the city? A: There's still a darkness here, definitely. It was dreadful, especially at the Bataclan, where I've played. They were attacking the things they really hate - music, kids flirting, drinking in cafes. Q: Knowing what you know now, what one piece of advice A: People don't want advice and don't take it. Don't take drugs and drink, I suppose. Q: I was going to say, what advice would you give to yourself at 17? A: Well it was a difficult time to be so pretty, so I'd say be careful not to attract the wrong men. I can't think of anything else. I've had a great life. I've had my ups and downs, but it's been wonderful. And there's more Marianne Faithfulls career has spanned six decades. She had a four-year relationship with Mick Jagger in the Sixties. She will perform at Londons Roundhouse on February 2 as part of a new music series In The Round. For tickets visit www.intheroundlondon.com As a Londonderry schoolboy, Andrew Simpson burst onto the big screen as Cate Blanchett's underage lover in the Oscar-nominated film, Notes on a Scandal. It was an eye-catching performance which wowed the critics and seemed set to guarantee stardom for the teenager. Ten years on, the young actor isn't to be found in London or LA. He sits with a beer at a candlelit table in the Woodworkers' bar on Belfast's Golden Mile, across the road from the hotel of which he is manager. He is serious, charming and disarmingly handsome. If he is to reach the dizzy heights that a decade ago looked a certainty, he is determined to do it his way. "I can't begin to explain how much I love acting, the passion I feel for it, the buzz that it gives me," he says. "But I lived in London for three years and it wasn't for me. It was too big, too overpowering. I felt like a number. I hated the Tube, it made me feel dirty even though I'd showered half an hour earlier. I missed the open spaces of home." He found Hollywood equally awful. "I was there for a Teen Vogue shoot and it was all fake tan, fake faces, fake hair and fake breatss. There was even Botox by the pool. The men walked about like muscular gods and there I was, white-skinned and freckly, with my head in a book," he says. "I became friends with Eddie Redmayne and I remember him saying to me, 'It's all b******* but as long as you know it's b*******, it's good fun.' I didn't take to it at all. It was what you were, not who you were." Andrew (27) is manager of Benedicts Hotel, a family business. "It pays the bills and it's certainly not boring," he says. "Now, a desk job, I couldn't do that." Despite running the hotel, he hasn't abandoned acting. He has just auditioned for a Christopher Nolan movie set during the Second World War. A confidentiality agreement means he can't talk about the film but it's recently been revealed in the media that it's based on the mass evacuation of British soldiers from Dunkirk. And Andrew is currently starring in RTE's Rebellion drama about the 1916 Rising. He plays a young Protestant barrister, George Wilson, who initially opposes the insurgency but then develops republican sympathies. While George's romance with Ingrid - a Belfast woman who dumps her fiance to be with him in Dublin - is part of the story, there is certainly no X-rated action and the focus is on George's changing political allegiances. One person breathing a sigh of relief at Andrew's latest role is his mother, Marian."She's a proper Irish mammy, very religious," he says. "Watching her son as a 15-year-old schoolboy having an on-screen affair with Cate Blanchett was hard on her. "My dad is very liberal but my mum is a lot more traditional. She was sitting beside me at the New York premiere of Notes on a Scandal as I delivered this extremely sexually explicit line to Cate. I was squirming in my seat but she was great and said nothing." In 2011, Andrew played a young Irishman travelling across Africa in the film, All That Way For Love. He hitches a lift with an older married couple and ends up having sex with the woman. He beat Colin Firth, John Hurt, and Stephen Fry to win Best Male Actor at the Rhode Island International Film Festival for the role. "But my mum just raised her eyebrows and said, 'Not another sex scene, Andrew. Can't you act in something more ordinary'?" he laughs. Andrew grew up in Fahan, on the Inishowen Peninsula in Co Donegal, but he was educated in Derry, attending Foyle College. His mother sent her four children to Sandra Biddle's speech and drama school in the city. "We weren't a performing family," he says. "My mum just thought it would be fun and a way of developing our confidence and making friends. "I enjoyed it more than my brother and sisters. "My first memory is of playing a wise man in the Nativity play. Sandra was an inspirational teacher and a second mother to me." Andrew's early career included appearing in the film Song for a Raggy Boy - about the physical and sexual abuse of children in a Catholic school - and a part in a PSNI advert as a young thug who breaks a window. But it was Notes on a Scandal, a psychological thriller based on a Zoe Heller novel, which launched his career. He beat 15,000 boys for the role of Steven Connolly, the pupil in a London school who has an affair with his art teacher. "It was down to three boys in the final audition and Cate felt most comfortable with me," he says. "A week before I heard I was picked, I broke my leg at a funfair. It was in a cast which the hospital told me to keep on for six weeks. "Once I got the part, I was asked to go to London immediately. I knew if they found out about the broken leg, I'd lose the part. So I cut the cast off. I was limping in studio and they asked me what was wrong. I told them it was nothing, that I'd just slipped in Topshop. "But the limp went on for days and the director ordered me to a medical examination by a top Harley Street doctor. Somehow, I passed. I told him my ankle hurt, so he never examined my leg. But I was in agony in the early days of filming." The sex scenes were "obviously daunting" for a sexually inexperienced boy, Andrew admits. "But I didn't think, 'I need to go and practise before I head to London'. I knew it wouldn't matter if I didn't know what I was doing. What 15-year-old boy would? And it would be better if it was raw," he adds. Cate Blanchett really put him at ease. "She was very nice," he says. "Most famous people are. It's only the ones trying to get there who sometimes are jerks." But it was Judi Dench, who played an older lesbian teacher in the movie, with whom Andrew most bonded. "I'd sit in her trailer in the evenings listening to The Archers with her. We became very good friends and we've stayed in touch. I know she's there if I need her," he says. After Notes, Andrew returned to Foyle College. "Nothing changed that much," he says. "Some lads were asking, 'Did you really have sex with Cate Blancett'? Not too many teenage boys are lucky enough to be asked that question. "And no, girls my own age didn't throw themselves at me. Though over the years, a few female teachers whom I didn't know sent me Facebook friend requests. I didn't accept them. I wasn't going down that road." Not everyone who contacted Andrew about the movie was a fan. "I had religious nuts berating me for doing bad things," he says. "One man sent me bags of crucifixes and warned that I had to change my ways. Others said rosaries for me." He earned a "top-end five figure sum" for his six weeks filming. "I wanted to buy a car, even though I didn't drive," he recalls. "But my dad made me see sense and I bought a house which I rented out. That paid my way through university." Andrew remained impressively focused on his school-work, securing four A grades at A-level. He went to the London School of Economics (LSE) to study law. "That was a mistake," he says. "I'd wanted to go to Trinity College in Dublin but my agent told me London was the best place to combine studying and acting. "As it happened, law wasn't a course that left much time for acting. I loved law but the focus at LSE was on the commercial end. Mergers, acquisitions and tax matters just didn't appeal to me. I was attracted to the softer side, like family law, which doesn't really pay." After his three-year degree ended, Andrew fled London. "I didn't even pick up my belongings from my lodgings. I just got on a plane," he says. "I love going over to visit now but after a day or two, I'm glad to come home." For five months after university, he worked on a building site in Derry. "The normality was brilliant. I was so much more relaxed and at ease back living in Ireland. I appreciated the beauty of the place, and the sense of community, far more than I had before I left." Andrew is "very proud" of his part in RTE's Rebellion as George Wilson, who is junior counsel for the prosecution of the 1916 leaders. "I knew nothing about 1916 before then. I'm not in the slightest nationalistic but I found filming very emotional. The extras on set were crying during the executions. "George is a fascinating character. He is against what the rebels did but he's troubled when martial law is brought into Ireland. The rule of law is not applied and the men don't get a fair trial. George starts to develop republican sympathies, he's torn between his career ambitions and what he feels in his heart." Andrew is committed to building his own career and fulfilling all that early promise. "I would have loved more roles than I've had since Notes on a Scandal," he admits. "On my first day on set, Judi Dench said to me, 'Work might seem easy now but it won't always be. This is a cruel business'. "At the time, I thought she was wrong but my older self realises how true her words were. Life is hard for young actors. But I've still a lot of time left. Judi never made it on screen until she was 60. People come and go at different ages. You just have to work at your craft and wait for your time." He was forced to flee war-torn Syria where he worked as a dentist for 23 years. But now a refugee living with his family in Northern Ireland, his qualifications aren't recognised. Mahfouz, his wife and four children were forced to abandon their life in Syria as a result of the conflict and have been living in Lisburn for the past two years. When they arrived, none of the family had any English but they have worked hard to learn it. Mahfouz was a dentist in Aleppo for 23 years and now wants to use his skills in Northern Ireland to support his family as well as contributing to society. But his qualifications aren't recognised and he needs to complete a UK certified Dentistry examination which costs 6,000. Now in a bid to help Mahfouz complete his exams, a Northern Ireland man has decided to help him out by crowdfunding. The campaign hopes that Mahfouz will be able to complete his exams in May. The family were featured on a BBC newsline report on the day that five Syrian families arrived in Belfast from refugee camps in Beirut, where he said he was saving for the exams. He is currently working in a factory making window blinds. He told the BBC: "I found a job here in a factory close to my house for eight hours a day for five days a week. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press Denise Wright from (Refugee and Asylum Forum ) as A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A Belfast Welcome Centre prepares for Refugees to arrive on Tuesday, Families are being forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives from Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press "I find it good for me to busy myself - not stay at home, and to save some money for that exam. "It's manual work for blinds. It's hard work - it's not easy, eight hours standing on your feet. I have been working for 22 years as a dentist and I don't want to lose my skills." Now in a bid to help Mahfouz complete his exams, a Northern Ireland man has decided to help him out by crowdfunding. The man behind the campaign is Mark Feeney a director in the Tech Skills Partnership NI from Lisburn. His Justgiving page says: "Funding this initiative will fast-track Mahfouz's path to becoming a certified UK Dentist, fully utilising his skills base, and providing more opportunity for many in NI to have access to dental treatment. "Any funds raised will be held by the Tech Skills Partnership NI (a not-for-profit, limited by guarantee company) and be spent ONLY in supporting Mahfouz gain the necessary qualifications to practice in the UK. No administration fees - 100% of funds raised will support Mahfouz." Mark told the Belfast Telegraph: "Mahfouz is very grateful of working in the factory. However it will cost about 6,000 to put him through two practical examinations along with with two preparation practicals. "And I've agreed if they were comfortable I would try to raise that money. "Within 40 minutes of launching the page had already generated more than 500." Mark said he was inspired to help because of Mahfouz's skill set going to waste. He said: "Here's a guy with 23 years experience and he needs two pieces of silly paper to say he can do it. He just needs a bit of money to get that done and then he can contribute back to society. "I just think we have to help people like this - it''s crazy. "He's got one son who has been here for two and a half years and has learned English in that period of time, came out with three As in his A-Levels and is now studying computer science at Queen's. "It's a remarkable family who have found themselves in a really unfortunate situation and I just think they should be helped," he added. A senior Assembly official has been accused of abusing his position after refusing to act on a complaint from a DUP MP. Sammy Wilson insisted Commissioner for Standards Douglas Bain should "do his job" without seeking to impose conditions. The East Antrim MP previously blasted Mr Bain as a "wee wimp" after he found Mr Wilson guilty of breaching rules by calling Jim Allister a "thug". But now the public row is escalating into a full-blown dispute involving Assembly procedures, with the prospect that another external commissioner may have to be brought in. Former minister Mr Wilson warned of a "ham-fisted vendetta" against him after Mr Bain asked for assurances the senior DUP man had confidence in him. The MP said: "I expect him to do his duty. He is well-paid for his services and I would have thought that he would do his job without seeking to put down conditions. Why should what I have said in the past, which I do not withdraw, have anything to do with it?" Mr Bain stressed: "Like any judge, the commissioner must not act in any complaint in which he has or could be perceived to have an interest or to be biased." And he argued Mr Wilson's suggestion of a vendetta had confirmed his initial view "that I could not properly deal with his complaint". Mr Bain declined to undertake a complaint from Mr Wilson against Sinn Fein MLA Mairtin O Muilleoir that was linked to the Assembly's probe into the Nama scandal. After the request, the Assembly Commissioner for Standards demanded an unequivocal statement from Mr Wilson that he wanted Mr Bain to deal with the issue. It came after Mr Bain sent Mr Wilson a solicitor's letter following his "wee wimp" attack. Mr Bain declined, however, to comment on any legal action he has pursued since. "In view of what had passed between myself and Mr Wilson, I considered that there was a significant risk that any action I took in relation to his complaint might be perceived - either by him or by the Member complained about - as being biased," Mr Bain said. "In an attempt to address that matter, I wrote to Mr Wilson explaining that unless he confirmed to me in writing that he was content that I should deal with his complaint, I would seek the appointment of an acting commissioner to deal with it." Mr Wilson said he had read the letter with "some incredulity" and replied: "I would point out you are a public servant whose job is to investigate without conditions. "Secondly I would point out I brought the complaint to you with the expectation you would carry it out since that is what you are paid to do." The former Finance and Environment Minister asked Mr Bain to provide examples if his demand was a regular requirement. He also asked whether it was "some ham-fisted attempt to carry out a vendetta against someone who had the temerity to stand up to you". Mr Wilson refused to apologise to Mr Bain last year, insisting it would be hypocritical because any such apology would not be sincere. He had called TUV leader Mr Allister a thug during a meeting of the Assembly's social development committee, which was examining allegations broadcast in a BBC Spotlight investigation of political interference in the running of the Housing Executive (HE). Jenny Palmer, a former DUP councillor who is now in the UUP, said she was put under pressure by DUP special adviser Stephen Brimstone to change her vote on the HE board in relation to contractor Red Sky. The committee backed Mrs Palmer's version of events and accused Mr Brimstone and then minister Nelson McCausland of "inappropriate actions". While Mr Allister questioned Mr Brimstone, Mr Wilson referred to him as a "thug" and SDLP member Dolores Kelly referred the matter to Mr Bain. He then ruled the term contravened the respect principle within the MLAs' code of conduct, concluding it was an "unreasonable and excessive personal attack" on Mr Allister. Mr Wilson hit back, however: "I'm not sorry for what I said. I believe that in the context in which I said it, it was correct." The Assembly Committee on Standards and Privileges supported Mr Bain's finding, but it rejected his assertion that Mr Wilson's behaviour had brought the Assembly into disrepute. Diary of a spat... June 25, 2015 Sammy Wilson refers in the media to Douglas Bain as a "wee wimp" and "faceless Commissioner". Mr Bain said he regarded the remarks as offensive and defamatory and his solicitor sent Mr Wilson a "pre-action letter in the usual terms". He declined to comment on what action he has taken since. December 15 Following his appearance before the Assembly committee examining the NAMA allegations, Mr Wilson writes to Mr Bain asking him to undertake an investigation into south Belfast Sinn Fein MLA Mairtin O Muilleoir. "I know from past experience you are fastidious in ensuring the rules of the Assembly are followed by members," Mr Wilson says. December 17 There is an acknowledgement from Mr Bain and then a reply asking for an unequivocal statement of confidence from Mr Wilson in the Commissioner. "Before I take any action I wish to be sure that you are content in light of your comments about me. "While I would not let these matters influence, I do not consider it would be appropriate in the absence of an unequivocal statement from you that you have no objection to me dealing with your complaint." Mr Bain says if he has not received a letter by January 7 he "shall proceed on the basis that you are not content, and will seek an independent commissioner". January 4 2016 Mr Wilson replies: "It was with some incredulity I read your response...especially your demand for certain conditions to be met before you proceed. I would point out you are a public servant whose job is to investigate without conditions. "Secondly I would point out I brought the complaint to you with the expectation you would carry it out since that it was what you are paid to do." The MP asks if Mr Bain makes such demands "a regular requirement and if so "could you provide some examples," and then asks whether it is "some ham-fisted attempt to carry out a vendetta against someone who had the temerity to stand up to you?" January 19 Mr Wilson again writes to Mr Bain, saying despite a second letter being sent, he still has no confirmation that Mr Bain intends or has begun to carry out any investigation. He suggests if this is the case it would amount to a "very serious breach of your duty as a public official. "I would appreciate within seven days sending me a response as to your intention (because) there is some journalistic interest." January 22 Mr Bain responds saying he has noted the contents of the letter and the issue is now in the hands of the committee for standards in the Assembly. He said in light of Mr Wilson suggestion "that I might be pursuing a vendetta against him... was clear that I could not properly act in relation to his complaint and advised the Committee on Standards and Privileges of my decision". A statement to the Belfast Telegraph added: "I did not in my letter of 17 December 2015 seek an apology from Mr Wilson for his defamatory comments. The only requests for such an apology have been in the correspondence sent to him by my solicitors." January 23 Mr Wilson replies once more, asking Mr Bain, since this matter is in hands of the committee "could you let me know what investigations were carried out by yourself (and) who was interviewed?" An organ donation campaigner has accused the DUP and Sinn Fein of joining up to "kill off" a Bill she spearheaded to change the law in Northern Ireland. The UUP's Jo-Anne Dobson said she has been "deeply disappointed" after DUP and Sinn Fein members of the Stormont health committee voted against a number of clauses in her Bill yesterday. Last year Ms Dobson introduced a Private Member's Bill urging a 'soft opt-out' system where people are presumed to be donors unless they state otherwise before their deaths. This was the latest stage of the process to make the Bill law. Under the new model, family members would still have the final say on whether organs would be donated. However, some of Northern Ireland's most senior clinicians had warned the health committee that the Bill was unhelpful and potentially damaging. Speaking earlier this month, GAA pundit Joe Brolly, who gave a kidney to a friend three years ago, said the Human Transplantation Bill must be simplified. He described it during an evidence session at Stormont as "total gobbledygook." "The problem with the Bill as it stands is that it is very confusing," he said. But he did say it could be saved if a number of amendments were introduced. "I think that Stephen Hawking couldn't understand this Bill. I mean, I am a lawyer, it's what I do, it is my daily bread. It is impossible to understand," he said. In January 2014 the DUP's Alastair Ross confirmed he was bringing forward a Private Member's Bill to the Assembly on organ donation for an opt-in system via drivers' licences. He said he agreed on many issues with Mrs Dobson, but not the new system, which he described as "presumed consent". That Bill, however, has not been pursued. In Northern Ireland around 15 people die every year waiting for an organ transplant. Mrs Dobson, whose son Mark is a kidney donor recipient, said: "This is a missed opportunity to save lives. "Effectively, the DUP and Sinn Fein have joined forces to kill the Bill." Each year, Jan. 22 marks the anniversary of the Supreme Courts 1973 decision in the case of Roe v. Wade. Over four decades later, thousands of Americans gather annually in Washington, D.C., to join the March for Life. This peaceful rally in our nations capital draws attention to pro-life, pro-women policies. It also reinforces the fact that all life, at every stage, is sacred. Many Nebraskans traveled over 1,000 miles to Washington in the face of a historic blizzard to attend the March for Life. They took a strong stand for what they believe in. In fact, several buses of Nebraskans were stranded for days last week as they returned home, and I was relieved to see them arrive safely in Nebraska. These young men and women are powerful witnesses to the country on the importance of this issue. But bringing attention to the March for Life does not end in Washington. There are also ways to rally for life here at home. On Saturday, Jan. 30, I will join our citizens for the annual Nebraska Walk for Life in Lincoln. If you are in town, I hope you will consider joining us at the Capitol. Throughout my time in public service, I have been committed to supporting common-sense, pro-life measures that offer compassion for women and unborn children. Too many women experience despair, pain and judgment from others during an unplanned pregnancy. We should offer assistance for these expectant mothers, and they need to know that we will continue to support them in the challenging years ahead. Over time, views on this divisive issue have evolved toward the side of pro-life policies. A recent Marist poll found that the majority of Americans support restrictions on abortions. In the U.S. Senate, I am a cosponsor of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. This bill prohibits abortions after 20 weeks, which is the point at which science tells us unborn children are capable of feeling pain. I supported this reasonable policy when it passed by a vote of 44 to 5 in the Nebraska Unicameral. It should now be adopted at the federal level. Just last year, Americans were shocked and deeply disturbed by the horrible revelations about Planned Parenthood. This organizations callous role in the harvesting of baby body parts was alarming and potentially illegal. Planned Parenthood receives over half a billion dollars in federal funding each year, and it is abhorrent to think your tax dollars are being used in such a way. In response to these revelations, I joined Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa and several of our colleagues to introduce a bill that would completely defund this scandal-plagued organization. Our legislation would redirect taxpayer dollars to state and local health departments, community health centers, and hospitals that provide comprehensive womens healthcare services. These services include, but are not limited to: diagnostic laboratory and radiology services; well-child care; prenatal and postnatal care; immunizations; and cervical and breast cancer screenings. Here in Nebraska, there are six federally-qualified health centers and 36 clinic sites that serve over 64,000 people. From Omaha to the panhandle, these centers provide the care women and men need. Ultimately, our legislation would provide federal funding for these programs that support womens health. Several committees in the House of Representatives are taking action. In the Senate, the Judiciary Committee and the Finance Committee have launched their own investigations into Planned Parenthood. All life is precious. Nebraskans who take part in pro-life events this year to raise awareness for this issue should be commended. Thank you for participating in the democratic process. I look forward to visiting with you again next week. Executive meetings are to be held in Fermanagh and Londonderry in the coming weeks as the First Minister pledged to extend politics to every town and community in Northern Ireland. Arlene Foster promised to share economic prosperity across the country and said people from every background and walk of life should be valued. She said Northern Ireland had become a place where culture could be celebrated and respected. But she warned politicians needed to listen to their constituents in a bid to better understand the tasks ahead. "I believe that politics should be a feature of every town and every community and that our elected representatives should get out and meet local people in their own constituencies," she said. The Fermanagh and South Tyrone assembly member was recently named First Minister and succeeds Peter Robinson at the head of the Executive and the DUP. Mrs Foster delivered a keynote address at a leadership event in Belfast hosted by the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce on Thursday. She said one of the first suggestions she made to deputy first minister Martin McGuinness was that before the elections in May they should take Executive meetings outside Belfast, and they agreed to hold meetings in Fermanagh and Londonderry in the coming weeks. The senior Democratic Unionist said growing the Northern Ireland economy remains the number one priority of the Executive. She said: "This requires leadership not just from politicians but from everyone with entrepreneurial spirit and business acumen. "During my time in office, I want to see a Northern Ireland where economic prosperity is achieved and shared right across the province and where we value people from every background and every walk of life and make them as proud of this country as we are. "Northern Ireland has become a place where we can celebrate our culture and respect that of others. By working together Government can reform and work for the good of all our people and I will work with everyone to make sure this happens." She said she was proud of Northern Ireland. "As first minister, making our country better for all is not just my duty, it is my privilege. "True leadership is about service not power and I am particularly proud of the role I played as economy minister. "We have brought more jobs to Northern Ireland than at any time in our history and we have secured the power to set our own rate of corporation tax at 12.5% from April 2018. "When others would have walked away from corporation tax because it was too big or too complex we stayed the course because the prize is too great." Holywood superstar Jamie Dornan has made a Co Antrim woman's dream come true by inviting her on to his set. In a real life Surprise, Surprise, Heather Mack met the Co Down heartthrob as he filmed BBC2 crime drama The Fall in Belfast earlier this week. Heather (34), from Maghaberry, is a trainee at Stepping Stones NI, an organisation that provides training towards employment for people with learning disabilities. She is also a trainee wedding stationery crafter in Pink Elephant Cards, a social enterprise of the charity, where she creates beautiful hand-crafted wedding stationery for brides and grooms across Ireland. After hearing about Heather's wish to meet Jamie, the charity made it their mission to find the actor. Chief officer Paula Jennings said: "I always knew Heather was a massive fan of Jamie. "Last week, when I popped into Pink Elephant Cards and got chatting to Heather, she told me of her dream to meet Jamie Dornan. Expand Close Heather Mack with Holywood actor Jamie Dornan on the set of The Fall / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Heather Mack with Holywood actor Jamie Dornan on the set of The Fall "So I said then we would make it happen, not knowing how! "It wasn't until later that I heard Jamie was filming in Belfast, and then I knew we had to make Heather's dream come true." The actor - famous for playing billionaire playboy Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey and serial killer Paul Spector in The Fall - said he was delighted to meet one of his biggest fans. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Jamie Dornan with the painting by Colin Davidson Actor Jamie Dornan with his sister Jessica Dornan Lynas and father Dr Jim Dornan at the launch of the NIPanC at the Mater Hospital in Belfast PA Terrifying tale: Cillian and Jamie Dornan in Anthropoid PA Change of scene: Jamie Dornan in The Siege of Jadotville Gillian Anderson in The Fall Jamie Dornan as Pat Quinlan Jamie Dornan in Robin Hood. Pictured: Jamie Dornan in Robin Hood KARLOVY VARY, CZECH REPUBLIC - JULY 01: Actor Jamie Dornan attends world premiere of Anthropoid movie during the opening ceremony of the 51st Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) on July 1, 2016 in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic. (Photo by Matej Divizna/Getty Images) Getty Images Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan Getty Images Jamie Dornan with O'Connor's staff Leona Dallas, Rebecca McGowan, Coleen Cahill and Jodie Mooney. Pic O'Connor's Bar Ballycastle Jamie Dornan at the Game of Thrones farewell party in Belfast. Picture Colm O'Reilly LOS ANGELES, CA - FEBRUARY 02: Actors Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson attend the premiere of Universal Pictures' "Fifty Shades Darker" at The Theatre at Ace Hotel on February 2, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images) Getty Images Jamie Dornan has been voted a Northern Ireland legend. Pictured Jamie Dornan as Pat Quinlan Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan. Anthropoid Jamie Dornan and Charlotte Le Bon The Fall returned to our screens last night with Jamie Dornan reprising his role as serial killer Paul Spector On the red carpet at the UK premiere of Fifty Shades in Leicester Square last night are Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson with director Sam Taylor-Johnson (left) and author EL James Getty Images Gisele Bundchen and Jamie Dornan Attention fell on Jamie Dornan when he started dated actress Keira Knightley in 2003 Gillian Anderson and Jamie Dornan in The Fall BBC/The Fall 2 Limited/Helen Slo Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson Jamie Dornan in The Fall BBC/The Fall 2 Limited/Helen Slo Jamie Dornan in Fifty Shades of Grey. Photo: Focus Features Universal Jamie Dornan poses for photos with fans as he attends the screening of The Siege of Jadotville at the Savoy Cinema in Dublin. PA PA KINGSBARNS, AL - OCTOBER 05: Actor Jamie Dornan plays during a practice round at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at Kingsbarns Golf Links golf course on October 5, 2016 in St Andrews, Scotland. (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images) Getty Images KINGSBARNS, AK - OCTOBER 05: Actor Jamie Dornan plays during a practice round at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at Kingsbarns Golf Links golf course on October 5, 2016 in St Andrews, Scotland. (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images) Getty Images Paul Spector played by Jamie Dornan. HUNTING SEASON: Gillian Anderson as DSI Stella Gibson and Jamie Dornan as Paul Spector in The Fall PA Big league: Jamie Dornan in the first series of The Fall, a role which helped him land the lead in 50 Shades opposite Dakota Johnson Jamie Dornan as Paul Spector on the operating table Helen Sloan / The Fall 3 Ltd Sally Ann Spector (Bronagh Waugh), Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan). Jamie Dornan with his dad Jim Jamie Dornan attending at the opening ceremony of the 51st Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) on July 1, 2016 in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic. (Photo by Matej Divizna/Getty Images) Getty Images DSI Stella Gibson (GILLIAN ANDERSON), Paul Spector (JAMIE DORNAN) in The Fall. Gillian Anderson and Jamie Dornan take part in Q&A following the screening of BBC Two drama 'The Fall' to launch series three at BFI Southbank on September 7, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images) Getty Images Jamie Dornan on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The Belfast Telegraph article about Jamie Dornan featured on the Stephen Colbert show. Jamie Dornan on the Stephen Colbert show. The BBC's The Fall Jamie Dornan plays serial killer Paul Spector BBC/The Fall S2 Ltd/Helen Sloan Paul Spector, played by Jamie Dornan Jamie Dornan as Paul Spector in The Fall Jamie Dornan as killer Paul Spector Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey and Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele in trailer for Fifty Shades Of Grey ? Universal Studio Jamie Dornan says filming racy scenes with Dakota Johnson for Fifty Shades of Grey was not sexy. Fifty Shades of Grey FameFlynet.uk.com Jamie Dornan has told The Observer Magazine that filming racy scenes for the film Fifty Shades of Grey with co-star Dakota Johnson was not sexy. Ian West/PA Wire. PA Actor and Comedian Bill Murray hugs 50 Shades of Grey actor Jamie Dornan as they walk of the 12th tee during round one of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at Carnoustie PA Northern Ireland model Jamie Dornan and Eva Mendes in their sultry new Calvin Klein advert Jamie Dornan and Gisele Bundchen in an Aquascutum advert. In the band Sons of Jim, with Dave Alexander. Jamie Dornan with Dakota Johnson in 50 Shades of Grey (Dame Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson, Graham Norton, Jamie Dornan and Sigrid (Matt Crossick/PA) PA Wire/PA Images Jamie Dornan in an advert for Calvin Klein Jeans In the band Sons of Jim, with Dave Alexander at a Sports Relief event at Custom House Square in Belfast. Jamie Dornan
Northern Irish actor Jamie has modelled for Calvin Klein (with both Kate Moss and Eva Mendes), Dior, Aquascutum and Armani, among many other brands. He also appeared in in the Sofia Coppola film, Marie-Antoinette. Jamie Dornan, wife Amelia and Dulcie in 2014 NEW YORK - OCTOBER 13: Actors Rose Byrne and Jamie Dornan arrive for The New York Film Festival screening of "Marie Antoinette" at Alice Tully Hall October 13, 2006 in New York City. Jamie Dornan in the Hammer Horror production, Beyond the Rave Jamie Dornan as Sheriff Graham from Once Upon A Time Jamie Dornan as Sheriff Graham from Once Upon A Time Jamie Dornan as Sheriff Graham from Once Upon A Time Jamie Dornan as Paul Spector and Gillian Anderson as DSI Stella Gibson in the TV thriller The Fall BBC/The Fall 2 Limited/Helen Slo Jamie Dornan is being linked to the Christian Grey role Jamie Dornan / Amelia Warner Jamie Dornan / Amelia Warner Jamie Dornan chats to Sarah Travers, host of UTV's The Magazine, on his first visit to Belfast since marrying musician, Amelia Warner. jamie dornan eva mendes, ad for Calvin Klein Jeans jamie dornan eva mendes, ad for Calvin Klein Jeans Shot by photographer Steven Klein in the desert in Palm Springs, California, both the Fall 2009 Calvin Klein Jeans and Calvin Klein Underwear campaigns will feature Eva Mendes and Jamie Dornan together. These dramatic black and white campaigns will be featured in global print and outdoor advertising. The Calvin Klein Jeans campaign will feature the exciting new Calvin Klein Jeans Body, a revolutionary, new jean for men and women, uniquely designed for a more contoured and shape enhancing fit. Jamie Dornan with The Fall co-star Gillian Anderson and Jamie Dornan in a photoshoot for Red magazine Actor Jamie Dornan (L) poses with his wife Amelia Warner as they arrive to attend 'Fifty Shades Freed - 50 Nuances Plus Claires' Premiere at Salle Pleyel in Paris on February 6, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / PATRICK KOVARIKPATRICK KOVARIK/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey and Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele in the first cast photos from the Fifty Shades of Grey movie FRANK OCKENFELS/EW Jamie Dornan, (right) in Fifty Shades Darker PA Johnson and Dornan in Fifty Shades Freed Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey and Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele in the first cast photos from the Fifty Shades of Grey movie FRANK OCKENFELS/EW Leading man: Jamie Dornan on The Graham Norton Show PA Jamie Dornan plays Abe in New Worlds, on Channel 4 Jamie Dornan plays Abe in New Worlds, on Channel 4 Jamie Dornan and Ann Skelly in scene from Death And Nightingales BBC/Night Flight Pictures Ltd 20 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jamie Dornan with the painting by Colin Davidson "It was a real pleasure to invite Heather down to the set of The Fall. She is a fantastic girl and it was wonderful to meet her," he said. Heather was understandably over the moon with the surprise. "I have been a fan of Jamie for a long time, but I never imagined my dream to meet him would actually come true," she said. "It was amazing to meet him and I am grateful to everyone who made it happen." Heather presented Jamie with a gift of a picture frame made by trainees at Stepping Stones NI for his new baby, which is due to arrive in the next few weeks. She also gave him a thank you card she had made at Pink Elephant Cards. Stepping Stones NI is an award-winning charity that is based in Lisburn. It operates six social enterprises which serve as a training facility for adults with a learning disability or difficulty. The closures are likely to lead to hundreds of jobs losses in Sligo Several hundred jobs have been lost with the closure of Xtra-vision and a pharmaceutical plant in Sligo. Some 83 movie rental stores on both sides of the border pulled the shutters down for the last time with about 580 full and part-time staff losing their jobs. Two-and-a-half years after UK investors Hilco Capital tried to secure a new future for the chain, the High Court agreed to appoint Grant Thornton to oversee liquidation of the business. "Our first priority is to meet and brief employees at all 83 locations and process their entitlements for redundancy," the accountancy firm said in a statement. "Over the coming days we will be in contact with all creditors of the company. However, it is important to note that any Xtra-vision gift vouchers will be honoured by HMV which is not affected by this liquidation." Eleven of the Xtra-vision stories are in Northern Ireland, where 60 staff were employed in Limavady, Larne, Magherafelt, Omagh, Cookstown, Dungannon, Lurgan, Armagh, Banbridge, Newcastle and Warrenpoint. The remaining 500-plus employees worked in 72 stores around the Republic, where sales and rentals on both sides of the border have been shattered in recent years with the availability of online and on-demand services. Up until it went into receivership, Xtra-vision had 152 stores, a database of more than 400,000 customers and 1,023 staff. Meanwhile, Elanco, a subsidiary of the Eli Lilly which focuses on animal health and food products, is shutting down its plant in Sligo with the loss of 100 jobs. Alongside the closure of a facility in Dundee, Scotland, the management said there had been an in-depth evaluation of global manufacturing and cost-reduction initiatives at Sligo, including a restructuring last year, but they were not sufficient to make it competitive. Most staff will be made redundant before the middle of the year and a small number will be retained during the wind-down into next year. "The decision to close the Sligo facility is difficult, and we are very aware of the impact this has on our employees, their families, and the local region," said site manager Grace McArdle. "Over the next few weeks, our priority will be communicating with our employees and providing support at this difficult time." A Lithuanian woman was remanded in custody today charged in connection with alleged heroin trading in Belfast. Inesa Poyarkova is accused of possessing Class A drugs and being concerned in their supply. The 23-year-old, of no fixed address, appeared before Belfast Magistrates' Court after being arrested at a location in the city. Police detained her on Tuesday as part of a wider investigation into the availability and supply of heroin in the Greater Belfast area. She is the seventh person to be charged within the last month. A detective told the court he could connect her to the alleged offences. Poyarkova's lawyer revealed that her client only arrived in Northern Ireland from Lithuania around three weeks ago. She confirmed no bail application was being made at this stage. The solicitor added that attempts will be made to secure hostel accommodation. District Judge Meehan remanded Poyarkova in custody to appear again by video-link next month. IRA mole Martin McGartland tipped police off about a plan to bomb the UDAs HQ on the Shankill in 1992 Former double agent Martin McGartland has revealed he helped foil an attack on the UDA's Shankill offices and has cast doubt on claims that police failed to act on intelligence to stop a subsequent IRA bomb which killed nine civilians. Mr McGartland last night told the Belfast Telegraph he had contacted the Police Ombudsman, who is investigating the allegations, to tell him he believes they are "totally untrue". The ex-agent revealed that, 18 months before the IRA bomb exploded in Frizzell's fish shop in October 1993, he warned his handler of an imminent attack by the Provisionals on the upstairs offices where UDA leaders met. Mr McGartland said that RUC Special Branch acted immediately to stop that attack and nearly blew his cover with the extensive measures they took. "When the chief constable says the police had no information which could have prevented the Shankill bomb, I believe him," the former agent said. "I've no love for the Special Branch or any part of the intelligence services over how they have treated me. "But I have to say that they acted on every piece of information I ever gave them. When I told them of an IRA plan to bomb the Shankill in early 1992, they left no stone unturned in their efforts to stop the attack - which they did. "I feel so strongly about this that I've contacted the Ombudsman. I've advised him to check police files to verify how police acted to prevent the 1992 attack." Mr McGartland said he found it "incredible that the same force would then ignore information from another agent about a bomb attack on the same building" a year later. On Tuesday, Chief Constable George Hamilton dismissed claims the RUC had advance warning of the Shankill bombing in which seven men and women, and two schoolgirls, died. One of the IRA bombers, Thomas Begley, was also killed in the explosion. The chief constable was responding to allegations in the Irish News that the IRA's north Belfast commander in 1993, a Special Branch informer known as AA, had told his handlers of the planned attack at Frizzell's fish shop. The Police Ombudsman is investigating the matter. Mr McGartland (46) worked for four years for Special Branch under the codename Agent Carol. He said that in early 1992, a senior Provisional in west Belfast told him that two IRA bombers were set to hurl coffee jar bombs packed with Semtex into the premises where UDA commanders met. The IRA leader confided to the agent how the bombers would be dropped off 20 yards from the building and the driver would remain in the getaway car with the engine running. The men would throw the coffee jars into the first floor offices, then escape. "I wasn't involved in the operation, but I heard all the details," Mr McGartland said. "I called my handler and told him I believed the attack would take place within 48 hours. "I had hardly left the phone box when I heard DMSUs (Divisional Mobile Support Units) racing into the area. "Checkpoints were set up on all roads from nationalist districts into the Shankill. Lanark Way had a permanent checkpoint for days. Police Land Rovers were parked in lay-bys on the Shankill. "The police's response was so big and so quick that I feared it would blow my cover." Mr McGartland, who was later abducted by the IRA but escaped and now lives in England, said the security services had "shafted" him after his resettlement. "But I still have to say that Special Branch were totally conscientious regarding all the intelligence I gave them," he added. "Their first priority was always saving lives and that came even at the price of jeopardising an agent's security,." Mr McGartland was a petty criminal who was asked to join the IRA by Special Branch. His autobiography, Fifty Dead Men Walking, was dramatised in a film in 2008. A senior judge has rubbished claims the Ministry of Defence is not able to properly resource its work on inquests into historic killings carried out by soldiers. Lord Justice Weir, who is conducting a review of more than 50 long-delayed inquests relating to the Northern Ireland Troubles, also questioned the Government's commitment to uphold its international obligations to investigate the contentious deaths. The judge was scathing when told the reason the MoD had missed deadlines for disclosing classified papers to the coroners' courts was due to resource pressures. "The MoD is not short of money," he said. "It's busy all over the world fighting wars and it's about to buy some new submarines with nuclear warheads - so it's not short of money." He added: "This is obviously very low on their list of priorities." Northern Ireland's Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan has asked judge Weir to assess the 56 stalled cases, relating to 95 deaths, to determine why they are still stuck in the coronial system, in some instances almost 45 years after the deaths. Many of the delayed probes involve killings carried out by the security forces. On the ninth day of the two-week exercise in Belfast's Laganside Courts, judge Weir examined the cases of seven IRA men shot by the SAS in two separate ambushes in the early 1990s and the shooting of Belfast father-of-six Patrick McVeigh by the Army's secretive Military Reaction Force (MRF) unit in 1972. The Police Service of Northern Ireland's Legacy Investigations Branch is currently investigating allegations the MRF committed numerous random attacks on civilians over a number of years in the 1970s. Insisting that the MoD put more effort into handing over papers to the next of kin, judge Weir made clear the holding of investigations was not "optional". "It's not like buying a new Jeep or getting a new regimental mascot," he said. "This is not an option - this is an international obligation on the State." He said the MoD argument that it was under resource pressure raised questions over the Government's commitment to its obligations under international human rights laws. "It doesn't suggest any great intent on the part of government to comply with their obligations," he said. He told a lawyer from the MoD: "You want to avoid any suspicions that this approach is designed to prevent the matter being aired in a public arena, that it's a deliberate attempt to delay and obfuscate - you want to avoid people thinking that. The best way to do that is let people see what you have got." Judge Weir was also highly critical of the lack of disclosure from the PSNI in the McVeigh case, branding it "disgraceful" that "not one pick of paper has been given to the next of kin". In the case of IRA men Kevin Barry O'Donnell, Sean O'Farrell, Patrick Vincent and Peter Clancy, who were killed by the SAS in Clonoe, Co Tyrone, in 1992, the judge was told the MoD still had not disclosed documents to the court - more than a year after committing to do so. "The MoD have been rather inclined to think they can thumb their nose at directions from the coroner and that they were quite free to abandon the promises they made," said the judge. "That's not going to go on. There's going to be a row at every one of these meetings if people don't do things when they say they are going to do them." The four men were ambushed moments after they had opened fire on Coalisland police station with an anti-aircraft gun. Judge Weir told an MoD lawyer that the days of "parking" requests from the court were over. "We are not parking anything, any more," he said. He added: "People can expect to be hauled over the coals if they don't do things they say they are going to do. "No more putting stuff behind the clock - and you'd better tell the people in the MoD that." The MoD also faced criticism for its handling of the stalled inquest for IRA men Michael "Peter" Ryan, Anthony Doris and Laurence McNally, who were gunned down by the SAS in Coagh, Co Tyrone, in June 1991. The judge was told one of the reasons the case was being held up was an unresolved issue between the MoD and PSNI about security vetting of papers. Lord Justice Weir likened the apparent lack of action to fix the issue to a car getting a puncture. "Instead of getting out and fixing it, the car just gets pushed into the ditch and left there," he said. Outside court, Patrick McVeigh's daughter, Patricia, welcomed the judge's remarks. "It's been a long drawn-out process, we are trying to be patient," she said. "There is light now at the end of the tunnel after hearing Judge Weir today." Naomi Long meeting Peter Robinson after ousting him in the Westminster election Naomi Long is to be the Alliance Party's Assembly candidate for East Belfast. Ms Long will run alongside current East Belfast MLA Chris Lyttle and councillor Tim Morrow. The current MLAs for East Belfast are UUP Andy Allen, the DUP's Robin Newton, Sammy Douglas, Peter Robinson and Alliance's Judith Cochrane. << Read a full exclusive interview with Naomi Long in tomorrow's Belfast Telegraph >> I am delighted to have received this nomination on behalf of Alliance, said Mrs Long. East Belfast has been my home all my life and I was truly honoured to have represented it for almost 15 years as a councillor, MLA and then MP. I am excited to have the chance to do that once again and I couldnt have asked for better running mates both Chris and Tim are experienced elected representatives and committed to delivering for everyone in East Belfast. It is my privilege to serve the people of East Belfast and I believe passionately a strong Alliance team will help us to build the united community and strong economy we need to deliver for everyone and challenge the status quo, said Mr Lyttle. "I also want to pay tribute to my Assembly colleague Judith Cochrane, who decided some time ago to step down. Judith worked tirelessly on a wide range of issues for her constituents." Councillor Morrow added: There is no doubt East Belfast faces a number of challenges, which can only be overcome if we work together as a united community, focused on building for the future and creating stability. Voters have a chance to contribute to that by taking a step forward for peace, social inclusion and prosperity by voting Alliance in May. I disagree with @naomi_long on most things,but she fought a magnificent campaign last May and will be a great asset to the Assembly this May Alex.Kane (@AlexKane221b) January 28, 2016 So happy @naomi_long is back!! Good luck in East Belfast! #Ginganinja Kieran McKeown (@PoliticalQueen_) January 28, 2016 The party's deputy leader won the East Belfast Westminster seat in 2010 causing a great upset to former First Minister Peter Robinson who lost the seat he had previously held for 31 years. Mrs Long, who is east Belfast born and bred, was a civil engineer before becoming an elected representative. Last year the DUP's Gavin Robinson regained the East Belfast seat lost five years ago by its party leader, Peter Robinson. Read more Read More Ahead of the election Northern Ireland's two biggest unionist parties agreed a general election pact in four constituencies - including east Belfast. Ms Long, who got 16,978 votes, described her term as MP as a "rollercoaster". She said it had been a privilege and an honour to serve the people of East Belfast. She was one of several Alliance members whose home and party premises were attacked in the months following the Union Flag city hall dispute. It began shortly before Christmas 2012 when Alliance voted for the Union flag to be flown on designated days only at Belfast City Hall. This was intended as a compromise between nationalists, who wanted it removed altogether, and unionists, who wanted it kept on permanent display. An attorney and two Wake County voters have filed a lawsuit challenging the state's new law calling for retention referendums for justices of the N.C. Supreme Court, claiming that the referendum, passed this year by the General Assembly, does not meet the definition of an election specified in the state constitution.The attorney, Sabra Faires, who is registered unaffiliated, unsuccessfully ran in 2014 for a seat on the N.C. Court of Appeals. She has been an assistant secretary in the N.C. Department of Revenue, worked on the staffs of both the Democratic and Republican parties in the General Assembly, and worked in the Office of Administrative Hearings and the Rules Review Commission.The two Wake County voters are Bennett Little Cotton and Diane Lahti. Both are registered Democrats.The complaint challenging the new law's constitutionality states that Faires would like to file as a candidate for the Supreme Court justice seat currently held by Justice Bob Edmunds, but cannot do so because of the new law.Edmunds has filed for another eight-year term on the state's highest court. That notice triggers a retention referendum. Based on the new law, he will be the only candidate eligible to run. Edmunds is a Republican, although elections for judicial races are held on a nonpartisan basis.Under the new law, incumbent Supreme Court justices who have won their seats in an election and whose terms are ending can file a notice of intent with the State Board of Elections to seek another term, triggering the retention process.The 2016 general election ballot for the Supreme Court seat simply will list Edmunds' name and ask voters to vote "for" or "against" him. If a majority of those casting ballots votes for Edmunds, he would win another term. If a majority votes against him, he would leave the court at the end of the year and the governor would appoint a successor. A competitive election for a justice to serve a full eight-year term would occur at the next general election - in this case, November 2018.The complaint says that a retention referendum does not meet the constitutional muster for an election and violates the state constitution.the complaint says. A referendum listing only one candidate fails that test, the complaint adds.Rep. Leo Daughtry, R-Johnston, one of the sponsors of the new law, says the new law does pass the constitutional test.Daughtry said.The lawsuit also says that Faires meets the constitutional qualifications to seek the office, but the new law adds an unconstitutional qualification, allowing only an incumbent to run in a retention referendum.Daughtry disagrees.Daughtry said of Faires.The complaint also says that the new law denies the voters the right to vote on justices for the N.C. Supreme Court.Daughtry said he favored retention elections because they should remove some politics from the process of choosing judges.Daughtry said. He said most people have little information about people running for judicial offices.he said.The lawsuit was filed in Wake County. State law requires the chief justice of the N.C. Supreme Court to appoint a three-judge panel of Superior Court judges to hear such cases.The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare the retention law unconstitutional, order the State Board of Elections to conduct an election for the seat Edmunds holds, and award plaintiffs attorneys fees. The number of new homes being registered across the UK hit its highest levels since 2007 The number of new homes being registered across the UK hit its highest levels since 2007 last year, according to an industry body. Meanwhile, the number of detached homes registered over the past 12 months reached its highest levels in more than a decade - while the number of semi-detached homes registered in 2015 was the highest in more than 20 years, the National House Building Council (NHBC) said. A total of 156,140 new homes were registered in 2015, marking a 7% increase on 2014 as well as an eight-year high, according to the NHBC's figures. While the 2015 annual total is still well below the 199,177 new-build homes registered in 2007, it is 75% higher than the 88,993 new homes registered during in 2009. The NHBC is a warranty and insurance provider. The body's registration figures are taken from builders who are responsible for around 80% of homes constructed in the UK. Builders are required to register a house with the NHBC before starting work, which means its figures represent homes that are to be built in the months ahead. The NHBC said that 42,173 detached homes were registered during 2015, while 35,423 semi-detached homes were also registered. The proportion of detached and semi-detached new-build homes being registered has been growing in recent years, while the proportion of new flats being registered has been shrinking. The industry has said the change reflects the demand for more family homes. In 2015, flats and maisonettes accounted for just 31% of all new-build properties registered, down from nearly half (48%) in 2008. Last year, 27% of new homes being registered were detached, while 23% were semi-detached, 17% were terraced and 2% were bungalows. Nine out of 12 UK regions recorded annual growth in the number of new-build homes being registered. London saw a 9% year-on-year decline, although this follows a strong recovery in the capital in recent years. The number of new-builds being registered was up year-on-year by 15% in Scotland, by 8% in South East England, by 23% in Eastern England, by 16% in the North West and by 9% in the South West. Some 39% of new home buyers last year were aged under 34 years old, up from 33% in 2014 - which the industry said reflects the impact of schemes such as Help to Buy to get people onto the housing ladder. Mike Quinton, the NHBC's chief executive, said: "We have seen encouraging levels of house-building across most regions of the country. "The detached home continues its resurgence, with our figures showing that house builders are building the highest number of detached properties for over a decade, with semi-detached homes also at their highest level in more than 20 years. "There is still a way to go before we are building the levels of new homes that were seen before the economic downturn, but 2015 represents consolidation on the growth seen over the last three years." Housing Minister Brandon Lewis said: "Today's figures are good news for anyone who works hard and aspires to own their own home. We've got the country building again and our efforts are paying off with the number of new homes registered across the UK hitting its highest levels since 2007. "We're working closely with housebuilders to ensure they have the skills needed to build even more homes hard-working people want and our initiatives like Help to Buy have helped nearly 270,000 people to buy since 2010." Here are the number of new homes being registered across UK regions in 2015 and the percentage change compared with 2014, according to the NHBC: :: North East, 5,822, 9% :: North West, 13,568, 16% :: Yorkshire and Humberside, 7,633, minus 13% :: West Midlands,13,478, 9% :: East Midlands, 13,236, 12% :: Eastern, 16,871, 23% :: South West, 15,725, 9% :: London, 25,994, minus 9% :: South East, 23,149, 8% :: Scotland, 12,755, 15% :: Wales, 4,686, minus 2% :: Northern Ireland (including Isle of Man), 3,223, 30% A public body is poised to challenge all appeals to a High Court ruling that found Northern Ireland's abortion law is incompatible with human rights. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) said it will "cross appeal" legal challenges to the landmark ruling on Northern Ireland's restrictive abortion law. The news comes as new figures show there were 16 legal NHS terminations in hospitals across the province in 2014/15 - a decrease of seven from the previous year. The NIHRC is preparing to take legal action after Justice Minister David Ford and Attorney General John Larkin said they will lodge appeals against Mr Justice Horner's judgment, made in December. The judge ruled the law does not comply with the European Convention on Human Rights in cases of fatal foetal abnormality or sexual crime. The case was brought by the Human Rights Commission. Mr Ford, however, whose department supports a law change in cases of fatal foetal abnormality, is challenging specific elements of the judgment. He said he was concerned that a lack of "legal certainty" due to that ruling could lead inadvertently to abortion on demand. Mr Larkin is appealing against the entirety of the ruling. NIHRC chief commissioner Les Allamby said: "The commission will now cross appeal both the Department of Justice and the Attorney General. We will reintroduce all of the original grounds brought before the court. "The choice of accessing a termination of pregnancy in circumstances of serious malformation of foetus (including fatal foetal abnormality), rape or incest, without being criminalised for doing so, should be made available in Northern Ireland." There have been over 800 prisoner-on-prisoner assaults in Northern Ireland in three years. Half happened in HMP Maghaberry alone, the BBC Nolan Show revealed today. Paul Frew, a member of the Justice Committee, said: "It's very, very worrying that we have levels of staff that can't control prisoners." "Usually in a well-run prison there would be about four staff for 50-60 prisoners. But on one occasion in 2015 there was one staff member on landing with 80 prisoners. "Staff are leaving, on long-term sick because of the stress, the extra load and pressure being brought to bear on them. We have now got voluntary exit scheme coming up where there would be as many as 360 staff wanting to leave." In November an inspection report described Maghaberry Prison as the most dangerous ever inspected by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons. The Northern Ireland Prison Service has been slammed for imposing a "shroud of secrecy" over the funeral of serial child killer Robert Black. Prison chiefs have refused to reveal if the notorious paedophile's funeral has taken place, if his remains have been removed from Northern Ireland, or provide details of any cost to the public purse. Black died at Maghaberry Prison more than two weeks ago at the age of 68. He was serving 12 life sentences for the kidnap and murder of four little girls. Under prison rules the State has a duty to cover the burial costs of every convict who dies behind bars. Following his death demands were made that his remains not be kept in Northern Ireland, where he abducted and murdered Ballinderry schoolgirl Jennifer Cardy in 1981. Black was expected to be cremated, with his remains discarded outside of the province. However, the Prison Service has repeatedly refused to answer any questions from the Belfast Telegraph relating to the killer's funeral. Ukip MLA David McNarry described the authorities' silence as "outrageous". "We don't need to know all the ins and outs of the funeral arrangements, but the public has a right to know if this man's remains are still in Northern Ireland and what cost there has been to the public purse for his funeral, if it has even taken place," said Mr McNarry. "This shroud of secrecy is just treating the public with contempt. The public has a right to know if this child killer, who caused so much pain and suffering, has been laid to rest here. "We need reassurances that he has not. Just tell us the truth and put an end to all of this. The way the Prison Service is carrying on is outrageous." Justice committee member Edwin Poots said while he had no interest in funeral details, he would welcome confirmation from the Prison Service that the killer's remains were no longer here. "I would be happy to know that his remains are not in Northern Ireland," the DUP MLA added. "After that, the less we know about the whereabouts of Robert Black the better. "Robert Black was a particularly evil individual. He will be getting his true justice as we speak." Black was jailed in 1994 for the murders of Susan Maxwell (11), from Cornhill-on-Tweed, Northumberland, in 1982; Caroline Hogg (5), from Edinburgh, in 1983, and Sarah Harper (10), from Morley, near Leeds, in 1986. In 2011 he was also convicted of the murder of Jennifer (9), from Co Antrim, in 1981. At the same time he was convicted over a failed abduction bid on Teresa Thornhill in Nottingham in 1988 when she was 15. He was finally caught in 1990 when he tried to abduct a six-year-old girl, who was found gagged and stuffed in a sleeping bag in his van in Stow in the Scottish Borders. Following his death, detectives said they were days away from charging him with the abduction and murder of Genette Tate (13), who went missing in Devon in 1978 and whose body has never been found. Black never expressed any remorse and refused to co-operate with police investigating other killings. It recently emerged that he may have murdered up to 16 girls. Storm Gertrude is expected to bring further heavy rain and wind gusts of up to 90mph on Friday. Snow and ice are also forecast in some areas as extreme weather continues to batter the British Isles. A succession of storms since December has seen widespread flooding and major disruption to travel, with the latest misery expected to continue through to the weekend. The Met Office has issued an amber "be prepared" warning for high winds in Northern Ireland, Scotland and north west and north east England. Yellow "be aware" warnings for rain, snow and ice are in place across much of the UK. Forecasters said: "West to south-westerly gales are expected to develop widely across Scotland, Northern Ireland and parts of northern England early on Friday. "Winds are expected to widely gust 60-70mph, possibly up to 80mph along exposed coasts and over hills. "Be prepared for the likelihood of difficult driving conditions and disruption to travel, such as cancellation to ferry services and bridge closures. "Some structural damage is also possible, as well as disruption to power supplies. Heavy rain and surface water will be additional hazards in places." The Met Office said gusts of up to 90mph across Orkney and Shetland are likely. Engineers are on standby to deal with power outages caused by the extreme weather but householders are urged to be prepared for possible disruption. A statement from Scottish Hydro Electric Power Distribution (SHEPD) said: " We have 400 front line and support staff standing by and we have moved engineers to the areas we expect to be hit by the storm. Mobile generators and other resources are also being moved. "Members of the public should not approach fallen or damaged power lines, which may still be live." Around 600 people were evacuated from their homes in the Scottish Borders on Wednesday over renewed flooding fears and f irefighters had to rescue a bus driver caught in water on the B6405 route near Hawick. The Forth Road Bridge is likely to be closed to all traffic except cars on Friday morning and may be shut entirely as winds peak at around 8am. Operator Amey said: "The bridge is expected to be closed to cyclists and pedestrians throughout the day, and remains closed to HGVs while repairs to the truss end links continue. "Public transport is likely to be affected, with winds forecast in excess of the level at which buses would be permitted to cross from approximately 4am onwards." The amber warning means all schools in the Western Isles will close for the day and bus services have been suspended on Friday until noon. ScotRail will operate a limited service on Friday with routes in the Highlands and west coast particularly affected. No trains are expected to run until at least the afternoon between Perth and Inverness; Glasgow and Fort William; Dumbarton and Helensburgh; Kilmarnock and Stranraer; Kilwinning and Ardrossan; Ayr and Girvan; and Glasgow and Dunblane. The routes are likely to bear the brunt of 90mph winds with high tides also forecast. Operators said hundreds of engineers will be deployed across the network to inspect lines, repair damage and reopen routes as quickly as possible. Phil Verster, ScotRail Alliance managing director, said: "We will be withdrawing some services until the worst of the storm has passed. "The safety of our passengers and workforce is our top priority and we cannot run services on these lines until our engineers have thoroughly inspected the network for any damage. "In order to get the most up to date information about their journey, customers should check our website or app before setting out to travel. Leaving more time for travel is also advised. "We will be monitoring the weather conditions closely throughout the day and have specialist teams ready to deploy quickly to deal with any issues caused by the storm. "We are also working closely with our industry partners to limit disruption while maintaining a safe network for passengers." Brothers Brenn (10) and Aodan (7) Doherty sledge along Creggan Hill to the Model Primary School in Derry A woman throws a ball for her springer spaniel on the snowy west strand at Portrush Keeper the German shepherd plays in the snow in Ballycastle yesterday. The adverse weather conditions, however, brought misery to many Aoife beside her first ever snowman in Ballyronan, Co Derry. Pic. Caroline Glendinning 14/01/15 Onlookers record the weather in Portstewart with heavy winds hitting parts across the North Coast in Northern Ireland Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker A solitary figure is framed by the famous trees of the Dark Hedges. January 15. 2015 Ben Hicks throws a snowball on his way home from school in the snow, Co Fermanagh - 14th January 2016 Olivia and Luca Duggan having fun in the snow in Carryduff 15/1/2016. Pic: Aideen Duggan Ponies brave the coldest of weather on at Dundrod just outside Belfast as Northern Ireland woke up to a blanket of snow for the first time this year. Photo Stephen Davison/Pacemaker Press Northern Ireland is set to experience all of the elements in the coming days as there are warnings for heavy rain, wind gusts as well as snow and ice as Storm Gertrude arrives. The UK was braced for the arrival of what was left of the US snow storm 'Jonas' which hit the area from the Gulf Coast to the north-eastern New England states, where the heaviest official report was 42 inches, in Glengary, West Virginia. But it has been hugely modified by the Atlantic. Now the Met Office has named Storm Gertrude which is expected to bring further heavy rain and wind gusts of up to 90mph on Friday. The Met Office has issued an amber "be prepared" warning for high winds in Northern Ireland, Scotland and north west and north east England. The Met Office said today would be windy with showers - some heavy - with a band of rain sweeping east across the country. A yellow warning of rain for Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone has been put in place from 2pm today until 10am tomorrow, with up to 40mm expected. The Met Office today put out a yellow alert for snow and ice in County Londonderry and Antrim from Friday January 29 at 9pm until 3pm on Saturday January 30. A yellow warning for wind and snow will start at midnight on Saturday January 30 until 3pm for County Antrim, Londonderry, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Armagh and Down. People should be on alert for the risk of flooding and travel disruption. The Met Office said: "West to southwesterly gales are expected to develop widely across Scotland, Northern Ireland and parts of northern England early on Friday. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close USA: A bulldozer clears snow on the East Front of the U.S. Capitol January 23, 2016 in Washington, DC. Heavy snow continued to fall in the Mid-Atlantic region causing "life-threatening blizzard conditions" and affecting millions of people. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 24: A snowplow clears snow in front of the U.S. Capitol on January 24, 2016 in Washington, DC. The blizzard that has brought massive snowfall and a standstill to the East Coast and the Mid Atlantic region has stopped. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) Getty Images People walk on Pennsylvania Avenue in near whiteout conditions in Washington on January 23, 2016. A deadly blizzard walloped the eastern United States on Saturday, paralyzing Washington and New York under a heavy blanket of snow as officials warned millions of people to remain indoors until the storm eases up. / AFP / MANDEL NGANMANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images People participate in a giant snowball fights in Dupont Circle in Washington on January 24, 2016. Snowball fights have become a tradition after every major snow storm in the Nation's Capital. A massive blizzard that claimed at least 16 lives in the eastern United States finally appeared to be winding down Sunday, giving snowbound residents the chance to begin digging out. AFP / Olivier DoulieryOLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images People participate in a giant snowball fights in Dupont Circle in Washington on January 24, 2016. Snowball fights have become a tradition after every major snow storm in the Nation's Capital. A massive blizzard that claimed at least 16 lives in the eastern United States finally appeared to be winding down Sunday, giving snowbound residents the chance to begin digging out. /AFP / Olivier DoulieryOLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images A worker clears snow off the driveway of a car wash on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, DC on January 24, 2016. A massive blizzard that claimed at least 16 lives in the eastern United States finally appeared to be winding down on January 24, giving snowbound residents the chance to begin digging out. / AFP / MANDEL NGANMANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 23: A woman walks in strong winds and heavy snow fall in Central Park on January 23, 2016 in New York City. A major Nor'easter is hitting much of the East Coast and parts of the South as forecasts warn of up to two feet of snow in some areas. (Photo by Astrid Riecken/Getty Images) Snow-covered cars are seen on a residential street in the northwest of Washington, DC on January 24, 2016. A massive blizzard that claimed at least 16 lives in the eastern United States finally appeared to be winding down Sunday, giving snowbound residents the chance to begin digging out. / AFP / MANDEL NGANMANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images The clear up continues in New York City following yesterday's record-setting snowfall which left at least 18 people dead and brought much of the US East Coast to an icy standstill. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Ronnie Esplin/PA Wire PA The Spring Street salt shed is filled with salt before an upcoming snowstorm on January 21, 2016 in New York, NY. Winter Storm Jonas was expected to hit New York City between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning and the National Weather Service recently included New York City on a blizzard watch. (Photo by Bryan Thomas/Getty Images) Getty Images Visitors to New York's Central Park pass the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016, in the wake of a storm that dumped heavy snow along the East Coast. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle) AP The New York Skyline is seen from Exchange Place on January 24, 2016 in Jersey City. A massive blizzard that claimed at least 16 lives in the eastern United States finally appeared to be winding down Sunday, giving snowbound residents the chance to begin digging out. / AFP / KENA BETANCURKENA BETANCUR/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp USA: A bulldozer clears snow on the East Front of the U.S. Capitol January 23, 2016 in Washington, DC. Heavy snow continued to fall in the Mid-Atlantic region causing "life-threatening blizzard conditions" and affecting millions of people. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images "Winds are expected to widely gust 60-70 mph, possibly up to 80 mph along exposed coasts and over hills. Be prepared for the likelihood of difficult driving conditions and disruption to travel, such as cancellation to ferry services and bridge closures. Some structural damage is also possible, as well as disruption to power supplies. Heavy rain and surface water will be additional hazards in places. "Winds will moderate from the west later on Friday morning." Laurence Robertson asked how many meetings Tony Blair had with Muammar Gaddafi whilst in office and after leaving office A senior MP has accused Tony Blair of giving "superficial" evidence to his inquiry into links between the IRA and Libya. Mr Blair has declined to appear before a Commons select committee investigating issues surrounding compensation for victims. Instead the former prime minister has in writing strongly denied trying to stop them from receiving recompense. Northern Ireland Affairs Committee chairman Laurence Robertson wrote to Mr Blair. He wrote: "The Committee is disappointed by your reluctance to appear before us, as we are not looking to implicate you in having tried to prevent the UK victims of the IRA from receiving compensation. "We did however find your written evidence to the Committee to be somewhat superficial and there were further questions that it raised to which it would be helpful to have answers." Muammar Gaddafi gave arms and Semtex explosives to the republican group during the Troubles. Semtex from Libya became the IRA's most devastating threat during the Troubles and caused the loss of many lives. The committee is considering how UK victims can be compensated. It had invited Mr Blair to give oral evidence. Mr Robertson asked why Mr Blair's administration did not espouse the claims of UK victims against the Libyan Government. He also asked how many meetings the former prime minister had with Gaddafi whilst in office and after leaving office, and whether compensation was discussed. The committee is exploring options for compensating the bereaved like using the frozen assets of the Gaddafi family. Links between the IRA and Libya date back to 1972 when Gaddafi praised the group. He later provided the IRA with the weaponry to wage an armed conflict which lasted 30 years and claimed many lives. The dictator was ousted from power in 2011 and later killed during an assault on his birthplace. A new timetable which would have meant longer train journeys between Belfast and Dublin has been scrapped, the boss of Translink has said. Chris Conway told MLAs that proposed changes to the cross-border Enterprise service were not workable. Any adjustments will not come into operation before April, and will be "very minor" with no increase in journey time, Mr Conway said. The Belfast Telegraph reported in December how proposed timetable changes would have added 11 minutes to commuters' journeys. An earlier 6.15am Belfast departure time had been due to begin at the end of January. But the Enterprise would not reach Dublin's Connolly Station until 8.41am. That would mean a journey time of two hours and 26 minutes - 11 minutes longer than at present and longer than the two hours and 25 minutes it takes to travel by bus. The Enterprise service is operated jointly by Translink and Iarnrod Eireann (Irish Rail). The proposed changes had been published on the Irish Rail website as part of a consultation with customers in the Republic, but were not made public in Northern Ireland, causing anger. Appearing before Stormont's regional development committee yesterday, Mr Conway confirmed that the changes would not proceed. "I have met with the chief executive of Irish Rail twice in January and the chair of Irish Rail and the chair of Translink have also met, and we've agreed that the proposed timetable by Irish Rail as it was outlined in their consultation is not a workable solution," he said. Mr Conway said the current timetable was the starting point for a discussion. He added that there would be "a genuine attempt to enhance the service offered for cross-border customers. The earliest a new timetable would now be implemented would be early in April," he added. An Enterprise management board has been set up to agree timetables, improvements in journey times and future investment and strategy. Asked by committee chair Trevor Clarke about the new timetable, Mr Conway said it contained "very minor adjustments". There will be no increase in journey time, he confirmed. SDLP MLA John Dallat welcomed the announcement, saying longer train journeys were "not acceptable". "If the timetable in its original format had gone ahead ... we would be setting back for ever and a day opportunities to create that express service that we all want," he said. Mr Dallat added: "A train service from Belfast to Dublin arriving before 9am is absolutely critical in this modern day and age. I can't think of any other cities in Europe where that wouldn't be the case." Currently, the Enterprise service leaves from Central Station. However, MLAs were told the long-term plan is to move this back to Great Victoria Street station, which would knock several minutes off the journey time. The committee also heard that a fault which led doors to open unexpectedly while the train was moving did not put passenger safety at risk. Separate incidents occurred on December 17 and January 6. In the first case, a train manager on a service leaving Dublin heard air coming through the door. The train stopped at the next station, was taken out of service and returned empty to Belfast where it was discovered that a bolt was faulty. On January 6, a door partially opened "momentarily" before the Dublin-bound train arrived in Dundalk. Ian Campbell, Translink's general engineering manager, told the committee: "At no time was there a risk caused by these incidents to our passengers or staff." A Glock Pistol, one of of two firearms recovered from a car at the cemetery (PSNI / PA Wire) Police have seized two firearms during searches at the City Cemetery in Londonderry on Wednesday night. The semi-automatic handguns were intended to kill or cause serious injury to police and members of the local community, PSNI superintendent Mark McEwan said. A military grade assault rifle was discovered in Strabane last week. Supt McEwan said: "While the removal of these weapons is a success it is very worrying to think that, within the district, this is now three firearms we have taken out of circulation this week. "I cannot say if these are linked but violent dissident republican activity is the main focus of our investigations into both seizures." The search of the cemetery grounds was part of a police investigation into violent dissident republican activity. Supt McEwan added: "These are weapons that are made and possessed with one purpose in mind and that is to kill or cause serious injury to people. "Those involved are intent on carrying out attacks on police officers and the local community. "I am thankful this morning to be able to confirm we have taken these weapons out of circulation." Anyone with information has been asked to contact police. Rathlin Islanders have said they would welcome Prime Minister David Cameron with open arms if he decided to visit. The words of welcome, from the owners of two guest houses, follow a quip by Mr Cameron in the House of Commons that if he did visit the tiny island, many would hope he would stay there forever. Speaking during Prime Minister's Questions, North Antrim MP Mr Paisley told Mr Cameron: "Rathlin Island is the only inhabited coastal village/town in my constituency. No British Prime Minister has ever had the honour to visit that part of Ulster. "I wonder when the Prime Minister plans to visit this remote location, which has considerable economic needs and could generate more employment and tourism." Mr Cameron noted he would keep the offer in mind when he next visits the province. "I'm the first British Prime Minister to visit many parts of our country - the first to go to Shetland for about 30 years," he said. "But I fear if I went to this island there might be a number of people who'd like me to stay there. I'll certainly bear it in mind the next time I visit the province." Alan Curry, who owns Arkell House B&B in Church Bay, said he and his wife Hilary would love the PM to visit. "As the top-rated place to stay on Tripadvisor, we would be delighted to see David Cameron on the island and for him to see self-made entrepreneurs who have made a success of a business without any public funding or grant assistance," said Mr Curry. Mr Cameron would hope any visit would go more smoothly than a previous official trip. In 2010, the NIO was left red-faced when the Earl and Countess of Wessex were barred from eating at the Manor House, a National Trust property of which the Earl's brother Prince Charles is patron. On the first official royal visit to the island, they made do with a hastily rearranged pub lunch at the nearby Bruce's Kitchen. Local representatives said it was "an embarrassment" for the island. Damien McFaul, who ran the Manor House at the time, blamed a lack of information from the NIO for the mix-up. Coolnagrock B&B owner, Margaret McQuilkin, said: "We would like to see anybody come to Rathlin, be they the Prime Minister or whoever." "If he comes I'll even give him a good rate," she quipped. Congress spends a lot of time trying to name pending legislation so as to ensure that it will obtain final passage. This means many closed door late night meetings searching for just the right words to name a new bill. This means spending the taxpayer's money on focus groups grinding out the exact hot-button terminology. Think I am being foolish? How dare you! Allow me to prove my foolishness... If a bill were proposed to ensure that big time contributors to Congress' political campaigns are properly rewarded for their donations, it would probably be named Senior Citizens Retirement Protection Act. Do not be too quick to label this as deceptive. These contributors are going to be Senior Citizens someday and they will become feeble and, when they do become feeble, they are going to need to be protected.It is a very brave politician that is going to take the chance that, in an upcoming re-election campaign, he will be labeled as having voted against Senior Citizen Retirement Protection.In the current legislative "environmental" environment the sure things that will sail through our Congress are bills that protect the Earth's Precious Environment. Here is how Congress can eliminate those Closed Door Late Night meetings and all that tax money spent on those repeated very expensive Focus Groups.The next piece of legislation that starts making its way through Congress should simply be named Environmental Protection Act #1. Environmental Protection Act #1 can be quickly followed by Environmental Protection Act #2. Can you guess what the next one will be named? You guessed it ... Environmental Protection Act #3. Need I go on?It is a very brave and stupid politician that is going to take the chance that, in an upcoming re-election campaign, he will be labeled as having voted against Environmental Protection!What a stroke of genius this foolishness is! What a time saver! I'm glad I thought of it.Would I kid u?SmartfellaFoolishness...Or Is It? ... Where Silliness & Common Sense come together to make Funny. Zerna Pake helped to bring up her niece and nephew One of Northern Ireland's oldest women has died at the age of 105. Zerna Pake passed away peacefully at Mount Lens nursing home last Saturday after a life that spanned almost 11 decades. The Belfast woman was born in 1910, the year King Edward VII died and just two years before the Titanic sank on its maiden voyage. Her niece, Doris Clyde, said: "She was well-loved and will be sadly missed by all her family. "She was a very caring and loving person. She was a meticulous housekeeper. She loved cooking, baking and entertaining friends. "She cared about the whole family and did her best to keep everybody happy." At her 105th birthday celebrations, Zerna said the secret to her long, happy life was that she never married, had no children and never drank or smoked but always kept a good sense of humour. Zerna was hugely dedicated to her family and cared for her mother until she died at the age of 99. She was very close to her nieces and nephews. Doris said she owed her aunt an awful lot as Zerna had helped to keep her and her twin brother Dessy alive when they were born prematurely at their home in September 1940. "We were very premature and nobody even knew we were going to be twins," she added. "My brother Dessy weighed 2lb 5 ounces and I weighed 3lb 5 ounces. Thanks to auntie Zerna and her sister, Violet, we made it. "They kept us in a makeshift bed made out of a drawer and fed us with a fountain pen. "My brother was very weak and they were not sure if he was going to survive. They were very patient with him and spent a lot of time helping him." Dessy survived and helped to look after Zerna and her brother, Jim, until Dessy died in January 2010. Zerna moved to Mount Lens Nursing home later that year. She was also very close to her brother and they enjoyed travelling to England, Scotland and Switzerland together until his death at the age of 96 in 2010. She maintained a strong Christian faith throughout her life and had attended Knock Methodist Church in her later years, where her funeral will be held on Friday. Doris said: "She was a very religious and devout woman. In her later years, she was an active member of Knock, but I remember her going to Ormeau Road Methodist Church as well. She was a very active member of the choir and she loved to sing hymn music." The funeral service will begin at 12pm at Knock Methodist Church and Zerna will be buried at Bangor Cemetery at 2pm. Ireland's unique postcode system cost 20 million euro more than originally forecast as the bill for encoding public sector databases was not initially counted, a spending watchdog has been told. The 38m euro and much-maligned Eircode was also set up with the help of three consultants who were hired without a proper, open, competitive tender, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) heard. Among them was a former ESB worker who earned 146,000 euro on the project; a former assistant secretary in the Department of Agriculture who got 158,000 euro; and a retired official from the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation who earned 44,000 euro. Daily rates for some of the retirees were as much as 1,230 euro. The PAC was told one had top level IT skills and contacts across government, another's CV included a lead communications role for the digital switch over and the third had auditing skills. Patrick O'Donovan, Fine Gael TD, said it was convenient retired civil and public servants could be hired and the deals were like running a taxi meter or "winning the lotto". "It stinks. It absolutely stinks that people get this sort of work from the inside having previously worked on the inside at values in excess of 145,000 euro and some of them probably in receipt of pensions of that sort. I think it's absolutely scandalous," he said. Mark Griffin, secretary general of the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, accepted rules were not followed when some of the consultants were hired. "The department was found wanting," he said. Mr Griffin said it was not unusual for retired state employees to be hired for big, complex semi-state contracts. He said their public pensions were not paid during their employment and that they were picked because of their skills, experience and contacts and knowledge across government department. "The history of the civil and public service in delivering large public private IT projects is not great. It was absolutely essentially once the contract was awarded by government that we were in a position to deploy the right resources," he said. The PAC was told costs of about 9m euro for encoding 80 million records from about 20 public sector bodies were not originally put in the 2009 forecasts for the Eircode system. The inquiry heard there has been a significant increase in the use of Eircode by the state in the last seven months. The Department of Social Protection is now sending 400,000 letters a month with the code; Revenue has issued 800,000 letters with it since last October; the Health Service Executive has started using it; ESB Electric Ireland is using it from next Monday; and the Motor Tax database was this month upgraded as was the Register of Electors. Mr Griffin said increasing the role out of broadband would increase demand for Eircode. "It's then you will see a huge and very significant take-up of Eircode because people have stuff delivered to their houses," he said. Eircode, which was introduced last July, gives a unique identifier to the 2.2 million homes in the country but it has been dogged by delays and controversy over its design. Estimates suggest public use of the code is only at about 2% but the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources said the service has seen 3.7 million "look ups" since it went live. Communications Minister Alex White has given assurances in recent days that Google and major satnav companies will start using the data in the coming months. The National Ambulance Service of Ireland is to start using it from the middle of next month. Mr Griffin said he was confident it would not take the 30 years it did in Northern Ireland for codes to be used on 85% of mail. Eircode includes letters and numbers with a three-character routing code which holds the postal area for an address followed by a four-character unique identifier which distinguishes one property from its neighbours. The chiselled good looks of Irish-born celebrities such as Michael Fassbender, Colin Farrell and Cillian Murphy are the exception to the rule, according to an international dating site that has again ranked men from Ireland the ugliest in the world. Fewer than one in 10 single Irish males who applied to put their profiles on elitist site beautifulpeople.com last year were accepted. But there's better news for Irish women, who have scored their best ever rating after being voted the ninth best-looking nationality out of 21. Analysis of last year's statistics found that Sweden is judged to be home to the planet's best-looking men, while Norway has the bragging rights to the world's hottest babes. The LA-based site, which has a worldwide membership of more than five million, makes no apology for only accepting the globe's best-looking singles. There is some small consolation for Irish men, who get to share last place in the handsome table with the UK and Poland. Greg Hodge, who runs the site, said he believes Irish men could fare better if they made more effort with their profile pictures before applying. "A topless selfie shot in a seedy room or an image of them at the pub, pint in hand, does not go down well with women. Men are not just selling themselves, they are selling a lifestyle," he said. "A polished image showing an interesting lifestyle would greatly improve their acceptance rates." Further analysis of the Irish statistics on beautifulpeople.com revealed that applicants from Dublin, both male and female, had the highest acceptance rates on the site, while romance-hunters from Limerick were most likely to be rejected. Nick Bramhill, Herald A committee wants PSNI and Garda officers to be allowed to chase criminals across the border The PSNI and Garda should be allowed to cross the border to catch criminals, a parliamentary committee has found. Cross-party TDs and senators have backed the call for new protocols to allow police incursions into each other's jurisdiction when actively chasing suspects. Sinn Fein TD Peadar Tobin, rapporteur for the committee, said the move would help combat the cross-border black market. "The idea that criminals can pass the border without a second thought, yet the PSNI or the Garda must stop at that invisible line in pursuance of the criminal is completely illogical," he added. The recommendation was among several proposals in a 119-page report on developing an all-island economy drawn up by Dublin's Oireachtas joint committee on jobs, enterprise and innovation. The senior government party Fine Gael-chaired committee includes TDs and senators from Fianna Fail, Labour and Sinn Fein as well as Independents. It says the PSNI and Garda should be allowed to "pursue criminals into the opposite jurisdiction and in keeping with the law of that jurisdiction make an arrest." The study, the first of its kind since the island was partitioned in 1921, also attacks "the reluctance on the part of some Northern Unionist policy makers" to foster closer cross-border trade links. "This makes no sense from a business or economic perspective," it states. Northern Ireland is at risk of becoming "peripheral" to Britain and would benefit more than the Republic from closer cross-border ties, the report claims. "The North is not only separated geographically from Britain but is also weakly integrated into the supply side of the UK's economy," it states. "The North is never central to strategic planning by British firms, and risks becoming both geographically and economically peripheral to Britain." Pointing to a study by University of British Columbia academics, the report says an all-island approach to trade could boost the economy on both sides by almost 36 billion euro over eight years. This would be worth 5,500 euro to every man, woman and child on the island, it is claimed. The committee has urged that a single economic agency for the island be set up, bringing together investment agencies the IDA, Invest NI and InterTradeIreland. It also called for: :: joint economic planning between Dublin and Stormont :: scrapping of north/south roaming charges by mobile phone operators :: hourly rail services between Dublin to Belfast with an early morning service into Belfast :: the axing of transaction costs for banking, telecoms, and administration on cross border trade :: urgent funding for a Dublin to Derry motorway, and possibly a new route between Sligo and Dundalk :: the cutting of haulage levies in Northern Ireland and equalising road tax on both sides of the border :: a new border region economic zone, with investment in roads and broadband and leading business figures championing the area The report also called for a harmonisation of excise duties and VAT on both sides of the border to root out black market trading. Marcella Corcoran Kennedy, Fine Gael TD and committee chair, said the economic benefits from closer trading links between the North and South are "undeniable". The committee held three days of hearings last year to hear submission from academics, business people, trade unions, trade organisations, public representatives, farmers and state officials. Serious assaults against prison staff have more than doubled since 2012 Attacks on prison staff are at their highest level for at least a decade amid soaring levels of violence in jails, new figures reveal. In the year to September inmates carried out 4,568 assaults on officers, a rise of 30% compared to the previous 12 months, according to the Ministry of Justice. Serious assaults against prison staff have more than doubled since 2012, reaching 595 in the most recent period. The figures reflect a rising tide of violence behind bars. The Ministry of Justice data also revealed that: :: In the year to September 2015 there were a total of 18,874 assault incidents - an annual jump of almost a fifth - including 14,247 prisoner-on-prisoner assaults. :: There were 2,606 serious assaults, up 30% on the same period in 2014. :: There were a record 257 deaths in custody in 2015, including eight homicides - more than in any other year since records started in 1978. Some 89 of the deaths were thought to be self-inflicted and 146 from natural causes. :: Reported incidents of self-harm were up by nearly a quarter (24%) to reach 30,706 in the year to September, with around one in 10 prisoners now self-harming. The availability of so-called "legal highs" has been identified as a key factor in the surge of violent incidents behind bars. A report by the prisons watchdog last year concluded that new psychoactive substances are now the most serious threat to the safety and security of jails. Prisons Minister Andrew Selous said: "These figures illustrate the problems facing the Prison Service. Reform is badly needed. "Tackling violence and drugs must be our first priority. "That is why we are introducing new measures like better detection so we can help ensure prisons become places of decency, hope and rehabilitation. "We are also investing 1.3 billion over the next five years to transform the prison estate. "Replacing old prisons with new will better support rehabilitation and design out the dark corners that facilitate bullying, drug-taking and violence." Shadow justice secretary Lord Falconer accused the Government of being "in denial about the crisis in our prisons". He said: " It's shameful and utterly unacceptable that prison staff should have to face this level of threat in the workplace. "Prisons will never be effective in challenge re-offending behaviour and protecting victims of crime while this shocking level of violence continues." Immigration Minister James Brokenshire said Britain is to admit refugee children separated from their families in "exceptional cases" David Cameron has rejected claims the Government is ignoring the plight of thousands of unaccompanied child refugees stranded in Europe after fleeing the fighting in Syria and other conflict zones. The Prime Minister insisted that Britain was right to concentrate on re-settling orphans from the camps in the region rather than those who had made the crossing to Europe. "No country in Europe has done more than Britain to help with the Syrian refugee crisis," he told Sky News. "I think it is right our approach to take refugees from the region, not encouraging them to make the difficult, potentially lethal, journey to Europe. Our approach is compassionate, it is generous and I think it is right." Immigration Minister James Brokenshire confirmed earlier that a new scheme to admit vulnerable refugee children would only apply to those still in the region and would not cover those who have managed to reach Europe. Officials also played down suggestions that many more could be settled in the UK through improved measures to identify migrants - including children - with close family members in Europe with whom they could be reunited. Charities such as Save the Children - which has called on Britain to take at least 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees in Europe - had originally hailed the move, saying it could open the door for "thousands" more to come to the UK. However the Home Office made clear that it was simply a "continuation" of Britain's existing obligations to reunite family members under a European agreement known as the Dublin regulations. A spokeswoman for Save the Children said: "We want the Government pro-actively to seek out refugee children in Europe with family connections in the UK and speed up the process of reunification." Speaking on BBC Radio 4's World At One, Mr Brokenshire said the UK was already following the provisions of the Dublin regulations. "What we want to see is better systems in place to identify connections across the EU. It is about better information to help see that happen," he said. He said Britain would provide additional support in "hotspots" such as Italy and Greece to help identify and register at-risk children when they first arrive in the EU as well as committing 10 million to support vulnerable migrant children in Europe. In a Commons written statement, he also confirmed that the Government would work with the United Nations refugee agency - the UNHCR - to identify vulnerable children in conflict zones such as Syria and Afghanistan who would benefit from being re-settled in the UK. He made clear however that these were likely to be "exceptional cases" as the UNHCR generally considered it was better for them to remain in the region where they could be reunited with any remaining family members. Shadow home secretary Andy Burnham said the announcement did not go far enough and urged the Government to accept the 3,000 child refugees currently in Europe which Save the Children originally called for. "They draw a distinction between children in the camps in the region and children who have made it to Europe. You cannot differentiate between these two groups. They are equally deserving and need our protection," he told Sky News. Steve Symonds, of Amnesty International UK, said that, while the announcement was a welcome "small step" forward, it would not help children stranded in camps like The Jungle in Calais. "It offers little hope to refugee children already in Europe, including the ones living in squalid camps like those in Calais and Dunkirk, who don't have close family members in the UK," he said. The study found no significant link between antidepressants and suicide and aggression among adults - but in children and adolescents the risk doubled Children who are prescribed a common antidepressant could be at a higher risk of suicide and aggressive behaviour, it has been claimed. Researchers said that children and adolescents have a doubled risk of aggression and suicide when taking selective serotonin and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor drugs to combat depression. The authors recommended "minimal use of antidepressants in children, adolescents, and young adults" after releasing their findings. The researchers did stress that there is not enough patient data available from clinical trials to assess the true risk of all associated serious harms. The study, published in the BMJ, examined clinical study reports of 70 trials with 18,526 patients. The researchers, from Denmark, found no significant link between antidepressants and suicide and aggression among adults but in children and adolescents the risk doubled. "We suggest minimal use of antidepressants in children, adolescents, and young adults as the serious harms seem to be greater, and as their effect seems to be below what is clinically relevant," the authors wrote. "Alternative treatments such as exercise or psychotherapy may have some benefit and could be considered." The research led one expert to call for stricter prescribing rules. Shirley Reynolds, professor of evidence-based psychological therapies at the University of Reading, said that only specialist child and adolescent psychiatrists should prescribe antidepressant medication to children and young people. "Obviously these results will make doctors, parents and young people themselves think harder about taking antidepressant medication," she said. "But do the results mean that children and young people should never be prescribed antidepressant medication? No. There are alternative treatments and all young people should be offered an evidence-based psychological treatment immediately. "However, antidepressants should be available when a young person does not respond to psychological treatment or does not want psychological treatment. "Combining antidepressant treatment and psychological treatment is associated with improved outcomes and can lead to more a rapid reduction in symptoms. "But only a specialist child and adolescent psychiatrist should prescribe antidepressant medication to children and young people and all children and young people who are prescribed antidepressants must be carefully and regularly monitored. " However, Dr Mara Parellada, specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry at the Centre for Biomedical Research in Mental Health Network at Complutense University of Madrid, said of the research: "The results from this study do not allow us to state that 'antidepressants double the risk of aggression and suicide in children'. "There was no single death by suicide in children and adolescents in the 70 trials reviewed for the article." Chanda Balakrishnan, the wife of Maoist cult leader Aravindan Balakrishnan, has said his conviction is a "frame-up". He is due to be sentenced on Friday for raping two of his followers and imprisoning his daughter for 30 years. The wife of a Maoist cult leader due to be sentenced on Friday for raping two of his followers and imprisoning his daughter for 30 years has said his conviction is a "frame-up". Chanda Balakrishnan is standing by her husband Aravindan, 75, who faces jail for a string of sex attacks and for cruelty towards his daughter, whom he secretly fathered with another woman. His trial at London's Southwark Crown Court heard harrowing details of how he ruled his tiny sect, the Workers' Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, with an iron fist. Known to his small coterie of female followers as Comrade Bala, he fathered a child with one of his devotees, Sian Davies, a former pupil at Cheltenham Ladies' College. But growing up, the girl, known as Fran, was told she was a "waif" adopted by the group. Shown no affection and relentlessly bullied and beaten, she was banned from going to school, making friends, and even leaving the cult's home unaccompanied. Mrs Balakrishnan told The Times she was "shocked" that her husband had fathered a child with someone else - but brushed it off as a "mistake". She added: "For 99.99% of the time he is loving me and not these other people." Jurors heard that Balakrishnan brainwashed his followers into thinking he was god-like. He manipulated and terrorised them into following his every command, and invented an invisible war machine called Jackie which he said could kill people and trigger natural disasters if anyone went against him. But his wife insisted he is innocent. She told The Times: "It was a frame-up. If (the women) were genuinely in fear, they could have left at any time. They both went out to work every day." Balakrishnan, of Enfield, north London, was found guilty of six counts of indecent assault and four counts of rape. He was also convicted of two counts of actual bodily harm, cruelty to a child under 16, and false imprisonment. Following the guilty verdicts, Judge Deborah Taylor told the grey-haired pensioner he faces a "substantial custodial sentence". Speaking near her home in north London, Mrs Balakrishnan later told the Press Association: "He has been wrongly convicted. It's the truth - that's not just what I feel." She declined to comment further on the case, saying: "I have one thousand and one things to do." Work begins to remove of one of the sperm whales at Skegness Three dead sperm whales which washed up on the Lincolnshire coast have been removed in a five-hour operation. A team of 14 workers started the process at Skegness just after 8pm on Wednesday. The whales, believed to weigh around 30 tons, were found on the beach at the weekend and are believed to be part of the same pod as others found in Hunstanton, Norfolk, and Wainfleet, Lincolnshire. Contractor Jan Smith had said he expected the job to take up to eight hours but it was smoother than expected, finishing at 1.30am. He said: "It's gone very well really. The last one where the flaps had been cut open for the autopsy was hard work. "You can't really plan what you are going to do because you don't know if they are likely to blow up or something. All that you can do is treat them with the utmost respect." Hundreds of people have been to see the whales in the town since they were discovered. Workers spent Tuesday moving the creatures and covering them with sand before their removal. The whales were then put on to low loaders, wrapped in a tarpaulin and taken to landfill sites in Didcot, Oxfordshire, and Sheffield. The UK Government is making 20 million of cash available for surveys in the North Sea in a bid to aid the struggling oil and gas sector. Prime Minister David Cameron announced the funding as he visited Aberdeen to hear from industry leaders about the challenges it is facing. Plummeting oil prices have resulted in thousands of job losses, but now the UK Government hopes the funding for seismic surveys will help uncover new oil reserves, with the data that is uncovered to be made publicly available. A total of 1 million of the fund will then be awarded to innovative uses of the data to help unlock new fields. In addition, an oil and gas ambassador will be appointed to promote the North Sea around the world and boost inward investment. UK Energy Secretary Amber Rudd said the measures show "the UK Government is backing our oil and gas industry, the hard-working people it employs and the families it supports." She also welcomed news that Total is to drill a new exploration well later this year to the east of the Shetland Islands, saying: " This shows the North Sea is open for business and this Government is clear that the broad shoulders of the UK are firmly behind it." To promote new opportunities in the sector, the Oil and Gas Authority will publish a decommissioning plan for the UK Continental Shelf by early summer, which ministers hope will help Aberdeen become a centre of expertise and ensure UK firms can capitalise on this future source of income. The Government is also setting out its own strategy to maximise the amount of oil and gas that can be extracted from the North Sea. Ms Rudd said: "We're stepping in to provide the extra support needed now with 20 million of funding for seismic exploration to help industry find new oil and gas reserves. "But we're also determined to build a bridge to the future and make sure the expertise we hold in areas such as decommissioning can become a UK success story, boosting our economy, supporting jobs and creating more financial security for families." The assistance was announced on the same day as the UK and Scottish governments signed a city deal for Aberdeen and the surrounding area, which includes plans for innovation in the oil and gas industry. Both administrations contribute 125 million to the fund, although the Scottish Government has also pledged a further 254 million to improve infrastructure in the area. Innovate UK, a Government agency to encourage innovation, is also making 1.5 million available for micro and small businesses from outside the energy sector to help them come up with "radical solutions" to the challenges the industry is facing. Affirmative action is before the Supreme Court again this week, as it rehears arguments in. (I've discussed the legal issues in Fisher here .)But perhaps the most important question about racial preferences is one that's not directly raised by the case: do they even work? Do they help underrepresented minorities to achieve their goals, and foster interracial interaction and understanding on elite campuses? Or do large preferences often "mismatch" students in campuses where they will struggle and fail?Scholars began empirically studying the mismatch issue in the 1990s, but in the past five years the field has matured. There are now dozens of careful, peer-reviewed studies that find strong evidence of mismatch. None of the authors of these studies claim that mismatch is a universal or inevitable consequence of affirmative action. But in my view, only demagogues (of which there is, unfortunately, no shortage) or people who haven't read the relevant literature can still claim that mismatch is not a genuine problem.It is helpful to think about mismatch as three interrelated phenomena that could affect a student of any race-let's call her Sally-who receives a large admissions preference, so that she attends a college where her level of academic preparation is substantially below that of her peers.First, "learning mismatch" occurs if Sally learns less than she would at a less competitive school, because the pace is too fast or her professors are pitching their material at a level that's not ideal for her. Others and I have argued that learning mismatch occurs on a massive scale in American law schools, where African-Americans (and some other students) tend to receive very large preferences and then, very often, are never able to practice law because they cannot pass bar exams.Our best estimate is that only about one-third of blacks who start law school in America successfully graduate and pass the bar exam on their first attempt (see my September 2006 blog post here ).A second form of mismatch-"competition" mismatch-occurs when students abandon particular fields, or college itself, because of the practical and psychological effects of competing with better-prepared students.Suppose that Sally dreams of becoming a chemist, does very well in a standard high school chemistry course, and receives a preference into an elite school where most of her classmates have taken AP chemistry. Even if Sally does not experience "learning" mismatch, she is likely nonetheless to end up with a B- or a C in chemistry simply because of the strength of the competition.A long line of studies (e.g., this excellent study by two psychologists) have shown that students receiving large preferences, facing these pressures, tend to abandon STEM fields in large numbers. Competition mismatch thus appears to have large and damaging effects on the number of blacks, in particular, graduating with science or engineering degrees.The third type of mismatch-"social mismatch"-is in some ways the most intriguing.Several studies have now found that college students are much more likely to form friendships with students who have similar levels of academic preparation or performance at college. The phenomenon operates even within racial groups, but when a college's preferences are highly correlated with race (as they are at many elite schools), social mismatch can lead to self-segregation by blacks and/or Hispanics.The result is decreasing social interaction across racial lines. That's particularly relevant to the Supreme Court's deliberations because its tolerance of racial preferences has been based on the idea that a diverse racial campus promotes interracial contact and learning. But if preferences promote substantial social mismatch, then race-conscious admissions actually decrease interracial contact and learning-not only at the school where the preferences are used, but also at the college that the preferenced minority student would have attended in the absence of preferences.Of course, new studies of higher education come out all the time, and one can point to some study to argue almost any point. What makes the evidence of mismatch so compelling is the large number of very high-quality studies that have appeared in the past few years, performed by a wide array of scholars and appearing in the strongest academic journals that exercise the most stringent peer review.For example, the highly-respected Journal of Economic Literature ("JEL") last year commissioned two economists to summarize the state of research on higher education mismatch. To insure an impartial study, the two economists JEL selected started out with different views of mismatch: one was a skeptic, the other the author of research that had found evidence of mismatch. JEL also asked seven other economists, again representing a wide range of perspectives, to peer review the article when it was drafted.The resulting article is circumspect, but unequivocal in finding that much of the evidence on mismatch (especially in law school and the sciences) is compelling.The-one of the three or four top journals in the social sciences-also recently announced that it is publishing a comprehensive study of mismatch in the sciences. It takes advantage of an unusually large database from eight campuses of the University of California ("UC"), covering the period before and after California voters, through Prop 209, made it illegal to consider of race in public college admissions.The study could thus examine how UC students who, through racial preferences, attended the most elite UC campuses before Prop 209 compared with very similar students who attended less elite campuses after Prop 209. Peter Arcidiacono, Esteban Aucejo, and Joseph Hotz conclude unequivocally: "We find less-prepared minority students at top-ranked campuses would have higher science graduation rates had they attended lower-ranked campuses."The gold standard for empirical research is a genuine experimental design, where a group of subjects are randomly assigned to "treatment" and "control" groups. While random experiments are routine in medical research, they are still uncommon in the social sciences. A revealing study of that kind was recently conducted by three economists working with the Air Force Academy.Based on other work, they hypothesized that students entering the Academy with relatively weak academic preparation would learn more and do better if they were assigned to squadrons with particularly academically strong cadets, thus creating opportunities for mentoring and tutoring. The Academy agreed to do a large randomized experiment, assigning some of the targeted students to the experimental squadrons with strong peers, and other students to "control" groups comprised of more typical students.Again, the results were unequivocal: academically weak students in the experimental group learned less and got worse grades. Having much stronger students in the same squadron increased the weaker students' tendency to form study groups with other weak students--a strong demonstration of "social mismatch."All this impressive research-and much more in a similar vein-has had little impact upon educational institutions. Even though many educational leaders will admit in private that the research is compelling, they believe that any public admission that racial preferences are counterproductive would be met with the sort of campus reaction that routinely drives college presidents from office.For the same reason, university presidents and other educational leaders aggressively block the release of information vital to mismatch research-data which could, for example, help determine the border between small, safe preferences and large, harmful ones.All of this should give the Supreme Court pause in assessing racial preferences. Past Court decisions have invoked a traditional deference to the independence of educational institutions. But colleges and universities have demonstrated that they are politically incapable of acting as good fiduciaries for their most vulnerable students. The EU referendum is forming into a battle between economic fears and immigration, a study concluded David Cameron claimed a proposed "emergency brake" to ease pressure from migrants on public services shows that Europe is "taking on board" his concerns. The Prime Minister insisted his own plan for an outright four-year ban on migrants claiming in-work benefits remained on the table unless something "equally potent" was proposed. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker is expected to give details of the "emergency brake" offer w hen the two men hold talks on the membership renegotiation in Brussels on Friday. Reports have suggested the plan would see EU migrants barred from claiming benefits for four years when public services are deemed to be under strain. Speaking on a visit to Aberdeen, Mr Cameron said: "I'm glad that others in Europe are now taking on board this issue and looking at strong alternatives to the proposal I put forward. "The problem is clear, people coming to the UK getting instant access to our welfare system, that's the problem I put on the table and I've said my proposal remains on the table until I see something equally potent being brought forward. "But what's good is that others in Europe are bringing forward ideas to address this problem so we have better control of movement of people into our country. "I'm pleased that people are bringing forward ideas. It's a complex negotiation this, there's a lot of work to be done not just on migration but on the other things I've spoken about. Getting Britain out of ever closer union, maintaining our borders, making the single market work for us, making sure you can do well in Europe outside the euro. "All these issues need to be sorted out, we've got some time now before the February European Council and I'm working as hard as I can to get the best deal for Britain." It is not clear whether EU officials would need to give permission for the emergency brake mechanism to be used. The idea, which the Prime Minister is also thought to have discussed with his Czech counterpart in Prague last week, has apparently gained traction as Mr Cameron struggles to finalise a deal in time for a key summit next month. Mr Cameron cancelled a visit to Copenhagen on Friday in order to meet Mr Juncker and European Parliament president Martin Schulz in Brussels, and is due to have a working dinner with European Council president Donald Tusk in Downing Street over the weekend. The Prime Minister will then fly to Hamburg on February 12, where he will have the opportunity to discuss his plans with Chancellor Angela Merkel as he delivers a speech on EU reform to the annual St Matthew's Day banquet. Mr Tusk is due to publish "concrete proposals" for dealing with the UK's demands within the next couple of weeks, ahead of a crunch summit on February 18-19 at which Mr Cameron hopes to secure agreement with the 27 other EU leaders on a package of reforms. Downing Street denied that the flurry of meetings were an indication of concern within Number 10 that the PM's timetable for an in/out referendum may be slipping. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has admitted that a referendum this summer will be difficult if no deal is struck at the February summit, and "impossible" if it is not agreed at the following meeting in March. Arron Banks, co-founder of the Leave.EU campaign, said: "People watching the slow-motion disaster overtaking Europe don't want an emergency brake on immigration, they want control of the steering wheel so we can avoid the car crash up ahead. "We know the Prime Minister understands how inadequate this new proposal is himself because he dismissed it as 'some arcane mechanism which would probably be triggered by the European Commission and not by us' two years ago." Top Google shareholder James Anderson of Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust says the company should be paying much more in UK tax A Cabinet minister has said he would like to see Google pay more tax in future as Brussels considered demands to investigate the agreement reached by the internet giant with the UK authorities. Chancellor George Osborne has insisted the deal is a "major success" but his Cabinet colleague Patrick McLoughlin said he would "like to see Google making more payments to the country" and suggested Whitehall's financial watchdog could examine it. The controversial 130 million 10-year deal with HM Revenue and Customs on back taxes could be investigated by the European Commission following complaints from the SNP and Labour. EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager indicated she was ready to look into complaints that the settlement breached EU rules. Transport Secretary Mr McLoughlin defended the deal as a "move in the right direction" but said it was open to the National Audit Office (NAO) to examine it. "The truth is it's a move in the right direction. There is more for them to pay and I want them to pay more in future," he said. Appearing on BBC1's Question Time, he said: "We have started to receive tax from Google, which is something that hasn't happened for the 10 years they have so far been established here, so in that position the Chancellor was right to say that it was a move in the right direction. "Of course I would like to see Google make more payments to the country. I would like to see them employ more people in this country. "They do employ 3,000 people, top end jobs, they are doing a lot of investment in this country as well, which is actually good for the long-term economic future of the country. "But I believe in a low tax base, I believe in attracting companies here, but I believe when those companies are here they should pay their tax which is rightly collected. "But companies can and have found ways around paying taxation and we have made a lot of changes to the taxation system that actually will make them pay more over years to come." The Cabinet minister said he expected the NAO to come under pressure to examine the deal. "The direct negotiations between HMRC and the company are confidential, but the NAO can do an investigation, can do an audit, and I'm sure they will do," he said. "I'm sure the pressure will come on them to do it." He added: "If the NAO decided to do it, it wouldn't be something George could stop." Mr McLoughlin said a review commissioned by the NAO into five large tax deals, which reported in 2012, found that HMRC had acted reasonably in each case. Both the SNP and Labour have written to Ms Vestager calling for an EU-level investigation into the arrangement between HMRC and Google. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell suggested the deal could have broken state aid rules by offering Google "favourable treatment". He said: "We believe 130 million to be significantly lower than a fair or reasonable assessment of Google's UK turnover and profits would suggest, with experts suggesting that Google has been levied an effective tax rate of around 3%. "I am therefore requesting an investigation under EU competition law, since we are concerned that, first, the deal is arguably not compliant with state aid rules, creating a favourable treatment for a particular company; second, that if the deal is generalised, it could constitute a serious potential threat to the ability of other EU members to levy taxes in their jurisdiction." Executives from Google and HMRC bosses are to be grilled on the deal by the PAC on February 11 in the latest of a series of hearings by the influential spending watchdog into multinationals' tax affairs. Girls at single-sex state schools in England achieved better GCSE results than those in mixed schools, according to analysts. And all-girls secondary schools slightly outperformed those for boys, an analysis of results in 2015 by education website SchoolDash said. Some 75% of pupils at single-sex schools achieved five good GCSEs including English and maths, compared with 55% at mixed schools. It follows comments by a leading headmaster that pupils at all-girls schools could be at a "huge disadvantage" in later life because they had not socialised with boys. The research looked at results for England's 378 mainstream single-sex state schools, including 161 which are all-boys and 217 all-girls. Around a third are grammar schools. The analysis showed the advantages for girls-only institutions remained when results were adjusted for other factors including social background and selective intake. Single-sex school pupils from poorer backgrounds outperformed those at mixed schools, with 61% of disadvantaged students at all-girls schools gaining five good GCSEs compared with 55% in "similar" mixed schools and just 38% across all mixed institutions. Meanwhile, those with low attainment at primary school made better progress at single-sex schools than their mixed counterparts - 11% compared with 7% - with girls-only students marginally ahead of their boys-only peers. SchoolDash founder Timo Hannay said: "The overall picture that emerges is one in which single-sex secondary schooling for girls does seem to have some benefits, at least when it comes to these particular measures of GCSE performance. "Though it's less clear cut, the same may also be true for poor and/or underachieving pupils - ironically the target groups that single-sex schools tend to avoid. "On the other hand, if you've done all right at primary school, come from a reasonably well-off family, and particularly if you're a boy, then going to a single-sex secondary school is unlikely on its own to improve your grades." He added: " It also raises the interesting question of why girls (perhaps among other groups) seem to benefit more than boys from single-sex schooling - and what, if anything, the majority of mixed schools might be able to learn from this." Earlier this month, Richard Cairns, head of Brighton College, said young women could face difficulties if they did not learn to socialise with the opposite sex as children. The recent findings have deepened the diplomatic row between the UK and Russia The widow of poisoned spy Alexander Litvinenko will meet Theresa May today. Marina Litvinenko will have private talks with the Home Secretary a week after an official inquiry into her husband's death concluded that his killing was "probably approved" by Russian president Vladimir Putin. Following the publication of the inquiry report, which sparked a diplomatic row and calls for the UK to impose sanctions against Moscow, Mrs May said the findings were "deeply disturbing". Ahead of the meeting, a Home Office spokeswoman said: "The Home Secretary made clear that she would meet with Mrs Litvinenko and listen very carefully to what she has to say. "We are not going to confirm details or timings of what is a private meeting." Mrs Litvinenko called on Prime Minister David Cameron to impose "targeted economic sanctions and travel bans" against individuals, including Mr Putin. Moscow has dismissed the findings, describing the inquiry as a political "whitewash". Earlier this week Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov warned it would "certainly worsen" relations between London and Moscow and even suggested that British officials could be sued for slander. The Government has announced financial sanctions against Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun, who allegedly carried out the killing. Both deny involvement. Mr Litvinenko, a Russian dissident who became a British citizen, died aged 43 in November 2006, three weeks after he drank tea laced with polonium 210 at the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair, central London. An NHS trust and an anaesthetist on trial over the death of a mother hours after giving birth to her second son have been cleared after the landmark case against them collapsed. Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust was accused of corporate manslaughter over the death of schoolteacher Frances Cappuccini, 30, in the first prosecution of a health service body since the offence was introduced in 2008. Locum consultant anaesthetist Errol Cornish, 68, was accused of gross negligence manslaughter over his role in the care of the mother of two, who died after postnatal surgery at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury, Kent, in October 2012. But judge Mr Justice Coulson instructed the jury at Inner London Crown Court to acquit both defendants on Thursday, just over two weeks into their trial, having ruled on Wednesday that they had no case to answer. In his ruling, which can be reported for the first time today, he praised the Cappuccini family's "dignity" during the trial and said: "There is no question that Frances Cappuccini should not have died at the trust hospital on October 9. "It's inevitable that her family will want to know why she died and hold someone to account." But the judge outlined a series of flaws in the prosecution case, including evidence that showed some of locum Dr Cornish's actions had been "about as far from a gross negligence manslaughter case as it is possible to be". He also described some of the arguments against the trust as "perverse". The taxpayer could face a bill running into hundreds of thousands of pounds after lawyers for Dr Cornish and the trust indicated they may seek to have the Crown Prosecution Service pay their legal costs. In a statement the trust board said: "The allegation of corporate manslaughter has been consistently denied by the trust and now also comprehensively rejected by the court. "The trust regrets that the Crown Prosecution Service saw fit to pursue the charge in the first place, given the additional stress this will have caused all involved." Mrs Cappuccini's widower Tom, who was in court throughout the trial, was not present as the jury of 10 women and two men returned formal not guilty verdicts. Mrs Cappuccini lost more than two litres (around four pints) of blood after her second son Giacomo was born by Caesarean section at the hospital in Kent. She was subsequently operated on for a postpartum haemorrhage, but never woke up from the anaesthetic. She went into cardiac arrest just over three hours after the operation had finished on October 9 2012, and died at 4.20pm. The trial heard that a second anaesthetist, Dr Nadeem Azeez, 53, was primarily responsible for Mrs Cappuccini's care, but did not face a trial alongside them because he had returned to his native Pakistan. The prosecution had claimed that errors by both men had contributed to her death. It also alleged that the trust had failed in its duty of care by employing them, making allegations about their qualification and the way they were hired. But the judge said there was no evidence presented to the jury to support these claims. In a statement released through the Medical Protection Society, Dr Cornish said: "I am relieved with the court's verdict. I would like to thank my family, friends, legal team and all those who supported me through this difficult time." His lawyer Ian Stern QC had earlier told the court Dr Cornish's professionalism had been in the spotlight during extensive media coverage of the case. He highlighted the fact that the judge ruled Dr Cornish did not breach his duty of care, and referenced the medic's "extremely impressive career", including working under heart transplant pioneer Dr Christiaan Barnard in South Africa. Mr Stern also pointed out that "at the time he left Frances Cappuccini after his short involvement there was no evidence to support the prosecution assertion that she was dying". A CPS spokeswoman said it had decided not to appeal against the judge's ruling, adding: "We appreciate that Mrs Cappuccini's family will be understandably upset by this outcome, but we respect the decision made by the judge that there was insufficient evidence to continue with the trial." Former Sheringham Court school headmaster Bryan Greenhalgh is serving a life sentence for his part in the abuse (Norfolk Police/PA) James Warner has spoken out over the abuse he suffered from a teacher and his headmaster 40 years ago A man abused by a teacher and his headmaster 40 years ago has told how he has never stopped running from the abuse - and even joined the French Foreign Legion to escape his demons. James Warner, 52, now living in Nottinghamshire, has waived his right to anonymity to tell of his suffering at Sheringham Court school in Norfolk from the age of 12. Despite being abused throughout the 1970s, he said he could not find the courage to speak out until 2012 - prompted by the Jimmy Savile abuse claims - and had chosen to never have children of his own for fear he might repeat the abuse. Mr Warner told the Press Association: "When I was a child, I didn't know they were doing it to anybody else. I felt ashamed and that I wouldn't be believed. "You think everybody can tell - like it's tattooed across your forehead that you're dirty." On Wednesday, the school's former housefather Ken Wells, now 78, was jailed for 12 years for a series of sex offences against another boy. That victim came forward in 2014 after seeing Wells convicted of indecently assaulting Mr Warner. Headmaster Bryan Greenhalgh, 65, is serving a life sentence for his part in the abuse. Mr Warner said the abuse started when he was playing in the woods and Wells took him into some rhododendron bushes. The teacher then began coming to his room drunk at night and it was not long before Greenhalgh began abusing him as well. Mr Warner said he continues to suffer to this day - he has self-harmed and spent time on a psychiatric ward. He added he had drifted from job to job, including time as a yacht captain, a builder, a chef, a doorman and even joining the French Foreign Legion. Despite now being happily married, he and his wife chose never to have children after he told her of the abuse. "It has affected my ability to have children because I was told at the time I would probably go on to abuse myself, I was so afraid of it happening that I chose not to have children and I feel like I have lost out now in a big way," he said. "I was running all my life, running away from what happened to me, I was never settled. "It was only very recently that I realised I'm not ashamed any more and hopefully speaking out will help other people come forward, not necessarily just for this case but others as well." He said the growing publicity surrounding abuse by people in authority had created a climate in which more victims feel able to come forward. "When it all came out about Jimmy Savile it brought it back into my mind, I started thinking a lot and getting angry," he said. "I do believe something good has come out of the Jimmy Savile case, it has brought things out into the open now. "Such massive abuse of trust by people in authority over children has to stop." Wells, of Bracken Dale, Leicester, was found guilty of indecent assault and buggery against a boy under 16 after a trial at Ipswich Crown Court. As well as being jailed, he was also placed on the sex offenders register for life. Greenhalgh, 65, previously of Suffield near North Walsham, pleaded guilty to 13 counts of indecent assault and one count of buggery in 2014 and was given a discretionary life sentence at Norwich Crown Court. Detective Inspector Andy Coller, who led the investigation, said: "It has taken an enormous amount of courage for each victim to talk about the abuse, abuse they have had to live with for decades. "It is pleasing that the passing of some 40 years has not hindered the legal process and that Greenhalgh and Wells have both been jailed for these crimes. "Time may make our investigations more complicated, but it will not stop them." Victims are encouraged to contact the force on 101 or contact Norfolk's Sexual Assault Referral Centre on 0845 4564810. Chancellor George Osborne has put on hold the sale of the Government's final stake in Lloyds Banking Group. The Chancellor said he would not give the green light to the sale until turbulence in global markets had subsided. In a tweet, Mr Osborne said: "We'll build a share owning democracy. So British people can buy Lloyds shares but we'll only sell when turbulent markets have calmed down." David Cameron pledged during the general election to sell the final part of the government's stake, which was expected to raise 2 billion. Details of the sale - set be one of the biggest privatisations since British Gas and BT in the 1980s - were announced last October. It was hoped that the sale would happen in the spring, but banks have faced tougher trading in the wake of the market turmoil caused by a slowdown in the Chinese economy. The Government bought Lloyds shares for 74p when it used taxpayers' money to bail out the bank as it looked to bring stability to the industry at the height of the financial crisis. However, the Lloyds share price has fallen from 78p to 64p since October, meaning shares would have been sold at a substantial loss. The Government owns just under 10% of Lloyds and 73% of the Royal Bank of Scotland. The announcement poses questions as to whether the Chancellor will now put on hold any plans to sell its remaining stake in RBS. Laith Khalaf, analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said " This will be a big disappointment for the hundreds of thousands of investors who had queued up for a chunk of Lloyds, but taking a big loss on selling shares when markets are low was always going to be a bridge too far for the Chancellor. "The fall in the Lloyds share price has left them around 10p below what the Government thinks it needs to break even, and together with the planned 5% discount and bonus share scheme would have meant the Chancellor putting his hand in his pocket, so now he looks to be pinning his hopes on a recovery in markets later in the year." The announcement comes as analysis by the Press Association revealed that sales of publicly-owned assets, including Royal Mail and Eurostar, raised more money for the Government in 2015 than any other year in history. RBS and Santander revealed further pain in the long-running PPI scandal on Wednesday, with RBS setting aside 500 million for mis-selling claims and Santander facing a 450 million PPI charge. In his Autumn Statement, Mr Osborne said the Government planned to sell a further 25 billion of RBS shares, as it ramped up its efforts to dispose of taxpayer stakes in high street banks. The Government also reiterated that it would sell 2 billion of RBS shares to retail investors in the spring, underpinned by a nationwide advertising campaign. A spokesman for Lloyds Banking Group said: "The Government has already been able to progressively reduce its stake in the group from 43% to just 9% today, returning over 16 billion to taxpayers at a profit. "This reflects the hard work undertaken over the last four years to transform the group into a simple, low-risk and customer-focused bank. "The timing of any future retail sale is a matter for the Government. Our focus is on moving the group forward so that it can continue to be profitable and deliver sustainable returns to all our shareholders." Mr Osborne insisted: "We will sell Lloyds to the British people but we will do so when the time is right." A Downing Street spokesman said: "It's important that any share sale delivers value for money and we have to take account of current market conditions." Reoffending rates among young criminals are at the highest level for more than 10 years Reoffending rates among young criminals are at the highest level for more than 10 years, new figures show. Of 42,000 juvenile offenders cautioned, convicted or released from custody in 2013/14, some 16,000 - or 38% - went back to crime in the next 12 months. This was the highest proportion since the current data records began in 2002, and an increase of 1.9 percentage points compared with the previous year. Re-offences committed by juveniles fell from 165,000 to 50,000 and the total number of individuals responsible has also fallen, but youngsters who did offend again were responsible for 3.12 new crimes each, the highest rate for a decade. Overall, 26.2% of offenders across all age groups went on to commit a new crime within a year, a level which has remained stable in recent years. Official figures also revealed that criminals who were cautioned, given a non-custodial sentence or released from custody in 2013/14 had an average of 12 previous offences to their name - a jump of more than a third (36.8%) compared with 10 years earlier. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) labelled reoffending figures "shocking" and said they "show why our reforms are so important". A spokesman said: "Reoffending has been too high for too long which is why we have reformed the way offenders are managed in the community. "Almost all offenders now receive targeted support on release, getting the help they need to turn away from crime and keeping communities safer." Although youth crime is down, reoffending rates are "far too high", the spokesman added. He said: "S upervision of young offenders in custody is not good enough. "We are working hard to improve training and education for young people while in custody and on release to make sure they have the skills and self-discipline they need to turn their lives around and stop offending." Other figures showed there were 11,975 sentenced sex offenders in the prison popu lation as of December - 9% higher than 12 months before. It reflects a recent surge in the number of reported sex crimes and a jump in the prison terms given to perpetrators. The data, published on Thursday, also gave an update on the number of criminals who are still at large despite breaking their release terms. A total of 1,247 offenders recalled to custody after breaching the conditions of their licence between 1984 and September had not been returned to custody as of the end of last year. Of these, 16 were originally in prison for murder and 38 were sex offenders. The figures also showed that nearly 3,000 serious violent or sexual crimes were committed by offenders within a year of a caution, non-custodial conviction or release from prison for a previous offence. The number - 2,926 - represents a fall of more than a fifth compared with 2003 but a rise of 5.7% on the previous year. In total 417,000 crimes were committed by those who had been released from jail or a non-custodial punishment last year. It has been far too many years since the Woke theology has interlaced its canons within the fabric of the Indoctrination Realm, so it is nigh time to ask: Does this Representative Republic continue, as a functioning society of a self-governed people, by contending with the unusual, self absorbed dictates of the Woke, and their vast away of Victimhood scenarios? Yes, the Religion of Woke must continue; there are so many groups of underprivileged, underserved, a direct result of unrelenting Inequity; they deserve everything. No; the Woke fools must be toppled from their pedestal; a functioning society of a good Constitutional people cannot withstand this level of "existential" favoritism as it exists now unending. Some 61% said the Government is not spending enough on flood defences in Britain The majority of people are critical of the Government's handling of the floods this winter and want ministers to do more to prevent future flooding, a survey has found. Almost two-thirds (61%) thought the Government had handled the flooding very or fairly badly - including two-fifths (40%) of Conservative voters quizzed in the poll for Greenpeace. Nearly three-quarters (74%) want ministers to do more to prevent future flooding in at-risk areas, the survey by YouGov revealed. And 61% of the 1,694 people quizzed say the Government is not spending enough on flood defences in Britain, agreeing more should be spent, even if it means less cash for other areas. The findings were released as campaigners and people from flood-hit areas set about installing an artwork outside Parliament featuring 500 pairs of wellies which each carry a message from those affected by the recent flooding. The messages tell stories of parents carrying their children out of flooded buildings, older people trapped in their homes and people losing their jobs. A petition with almost 100,000 signatures is being handed into Downing Street, calling on Prime Minister David Cameron to increase funding for flood defences and speed up the switch to clean power to tackle climate change which is driving more extreme weather . Monica Gripaios is one of those whose stories are being portrayed by the wellies artwork after her village, Hovingham, North Yorkshire, was hit by floods over Christmas. She said: "We were away for Christmas but rushed back home when we spotted the flood warnings. "W hat we saw was really scary - many roads were under water, the fields looked like enormous lakes, and the stream by our house was a raging torrent. "It's clear that with climate change this problem is just going to get worse. Our politicians need to start taking this seriously." Greenpeace welcomed the Government's plans for a national flood resilience review to look at how Britain could boost its defences against future flooding. But the green group also called for concrete financial commitments on flood protection, a review of land management and housing policies and the roll-out of clean energy schemes to curb the carbon emissions causing climate change. Greenpeace UK climate campaigner Hannah Martin said ministers had disregarded scientists' warnings that climate change would drive up flood risk across the country. "These testimonies show flood-hit people are tired of ministers springing into action only when disaster strikes. "The vast majority of the UK public want them to do more about preventing future floods. "Unless we cut our dependence on the fossil fuels that are driving more extreme weather, we'll keep pumping water out of a leaky ship whilst punching new holes in the hull," she said. A spokeswoman for the Environment Department (Defra) said the Government's fast, targeted response to record-breaking levels of rain protected 22,000 properties from flooding. "The Environment Agency worked round the clock keeping water ways clear, with 6,000 members of staff on hand and 85% of the country's temporary flood barriers, 40 pumps and 1,500 sand bags deployed across affected areas. "We also mobilised 600 military personnel in record time to support the work of the emergency services and local authorities. "Our investment in recovery from the floods stand at nearly 200 million as we help communities get back on their feet. Recovery grants were paid into people's bank accounts within days." And she said: "Over the next six years we will invest 2.3 billion in protecting over 300,000 homes. Our ongoing national floods resilience review is looking at our defences and modelling, exploring new ways of tackling these types of floods." Record-breaking rain and stormy weather has battered parts of the UK since early December, with Cumbria, Lancashire and Yorkshire particularly badly hit, leaving some 16,000 properties flooded in England. Italy has claimed 227 million in unpaid tax from Google from between 2009 and 2013. Google paid 2.2 million of tax in Italy in 2014 on revenues of 54.4 million generated in the country, Reuters reported. The Italian Communications Authority estimates that Google's Italian revenues are 10 times that. Google is paying back 3 per cent in tax, or 130 million, to the UK tax authority in a deal slammed by MEPs as "not fair competition". Commenters have rubbished Osborne's initial claims that the UK tax deal was a "major success". "It looks like Osborne's 'major success' over Google has made the UK the laughing stock of Europe," said Wes Streeting, Labour MP for Ilford North. Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition, fired four questions about the Google deal at David Cameron during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, including one from a working man in his thirties called Geoff. Geoff speaks for millions of people when he says to me, 'Is there a scheme that I can join that has the same rate of tax as Google?' Corbyn said. Cameron deflected the question, choosing to blame Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling for Google's low rate of tax. Corbyn reminded Cameron that he is the Prime Minister currently responsible for addressing taxes. Eva Joly, vice chair of the Special European Parliamentary Committee on Tax Rulings, said that the deal looked like the UK wanted to become a tax haven. On Wednesday, Margrethe Vestager, the European Competition Commissioner, said she would investigate Google's tax arrangements if someone complained about them. The SNP swiftly released a statement to say that a letter was on its way. The European Commission is due to publish plans on Wednesday that may force Google and other multi-national companies to pay more in tax. The number of job vacancies left unfilled has increased by 130% since 2011 Firms are facing an "unprecedented" shortage of skilled workers, with the threat that thousands of vacancies will be left unfilled, a new report has warned. The number of posts left unfilled has increased by 130% since 2011, according to the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. Vacancies because of skills shortages now make up almost a quarter of the total - around 200,000 positions, a study found. Some sectors were said to be facing an "acute" shortage of skilled workers, including electricity, gas, water and construction. Research among 90,000 organisations showed that more than a third of vacancies in some industries were not being filled because of skills shortages. The financial services sector has seen the biggest increase in skills shortages. Lesley Giles, deputy director of the commission - the Government's skills experts - said: "With global competition intensifying, the UK urgently needs to boost its productivity. "Creating good jobs that produce high-quality, bespoke goods and services is just as important." Douglas McCormick, one of the group's commissioners, said: "The UK has witnessed exceptionally strong job creation in the past few years, creating jobs at a faster rate than any other EU country. "However, this growth has been accompanied by stalling productivity levels. Evidence from the survey suggests that developing the skills of the existing workforce to taking advantage of new technology and digitisation will be critical if the UK is to finally close the productivity gap." Petra Wilton, the Chartered Management Institute's director of strategy, said: "British firms may grumble about talent poverty but it's a direct result of businesses' under-investment in management skills training - especially for more senior roles. "Half of candidates lack professional management and leadership skills because the majority of employers don't offer training to first-time managers. "We know that 43% of workers rate their line managers as ineffective, failing to recognise or support their talents." Dr Adam Marshall, executive director of policy at the British Chambers of Commerce said: "This report highlights what we in the business community have been saying for some time. It is clear that a shortage of skills is preventing businesses from reaching their full potential, and hurts productivity. "Politicians and business will ignore this at their peril. The Government needs to focus on the quality of apprenticeships, not the quantity - which will not help the next generation progress. "Furthermore, this report shows now is not the time to introduce an Immigrant Skills Charge, as recently proposed by the Migration Advisory Committee. "Businesses are currently experiencing acute skills shortages and we shouldn't further handicap them by increasing the cost of recruiting the talent they need." Britain's first female Armed Forces Minister insists women can make the grade - amid a review into whether both sexes should be allowed to fight on the frontline together. Women are prevented from joining infantry battalions, armoured regiments and the Royal Marines. But that could be about to change this year following the end of a six-month review which is overseen by the head of the Army. During a visit to an army training unit near Brecon, mid Wales, Armed Forces Minister Penny Mordaunt refused to be drawn on whether she was in favour of the move. However, Ms Mordaunt, 42 - whose father was a paratrooper - championed women's role in the forces shortly after seeing two female soldiers take part in a firing exercise. She said: "Women are already on the frontline. But clearly there are particular trades that have been closed off. "I think we are doing something a bit different from other nations which have tended to focus on whether women can make the grade. "Well, it's clear they can make the grade in the military across lots of different roles. "We are looking at if you can put women in these trades, can they endure at least the average length of career. "It's no good getting through the training course, passing all of that, if you can't actually can't have a career in the profession that you want to serve in. "We are doing an additional piece of work looking at the physiology of women, why men and women have particular injuries and looking at what we can do to mitigate that and support them better." Ms Mordaunt visited the Infantry Battle School, based at Dering Lines, Brecon, which is the largest military training area in Wales. The Portsmouth North MP wore a flak jacket and camouflage helmet before witnessing a Dismounted Close Combat course in the barren Sennybridge Training Area facility - which saw students use live ammunition. An army spokesman said: "The exercise is designed to be physically and conceptually demanding to reflect the character of modern conflict." Among those taking part in the drill was 28-year-old sergeant Sally Stuart of the Royal Military Police. She said: "There is a study going on and then the Army will decide whether they think it is a good idea. I've been in the Army just over 10 years and I think that what matters is your ability, not what sex you are." However, in the past few weeks some senior British military figures have voiced their unease about allowing women to fight on the front line and calling it a "politically correct mistake". Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander in Afghanistan, previously said women lack the "killer instinct" necessary to fight in close combat. And last month Colonel Mike Dewar, a military historian who served in Cyprus, Borneo and Northern Ireland, told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme that women lack the upper body strength "to pass the stringent physical tests which the infantry require". However, King's College's Dr Christine Cheng, a lecturer in war studies, said countries such as Canada and Australia had women in combat roles and their "ability to fight has improved". Sevdet Ramadan Besim is accused of plotting a terror attack on Anzac Day last year A teenage terror suspect and a 15-year-old British boy discussed packing a kangaroo with explosives then setting it loose on Australian police officers, a court has heard. Melbourne Magistrates Court ordered Sevdet Ramadan Besim, 19, to stand trial in the Victoria state supreme court accused of planning an Islamic State (IS)-inspired terrorist attack at an Anzac Day ceremony last year that included targeting police officers. Besim pleaded not guilty to four charges relating to a plot to attack commemorative services in Melbourne or the neighbouring city of Dandenong to mark Anzac Day, the annual April 25 commemoration of the 1915 Gallipoli landings in Turkey. Besim, who faces a potential life sentence if convicted, and four alleged conspirators were arrested in Melbourne a week before Anzac Day. In court documents, prosecutors said Besim and the British-based youth discussed in online conversations that a kangaroo could be packed with explosives, painted with "the IS symbol" and set loose on police. Besim was also accused of planning to use a car to run over, then behead a police officer. He allegedly said in online communications he was "ready to fight these dogs on there (sic) doorstep". "I'd love to take out some cops," Besim is said to have written. "I was gonna meet with them then take some heads." Police allege Besim was motivated by an extremist ideology and had expressed support for terrorist organisations, particularly the IS movement. In the UK, the 15 year old, from Blackburn, was sentenced at Manchester Crown Court for his part in the Anzac Day plot. Handing down a life sentence with no chance of parole for five years, Judge John Saunders said the teenager would be released only when he was no longer a danger to the public. The Gallipoli campaign was the first major military action fought by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during the First World War and hundreds of thousands attend commemoration services around Australia. One of Japan's legendary Second World War Zero fighter planes has made a rare flight over the country. The restored Zero made a brief flight to and from a naval base in the south, flown by decorated former US Air Force pilot Skip Holm. Zero fighters were considered one of the most capable wartime fighter planes, rivalling the Spitfire. Their long range allowed them to play a prominent role in the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour. Now only a few are still in operating condition. While rented Zeroes have flown in Japan in the past, this was the first for the widely-used Model 22 of Mitsubishi's A6M fighter with its round wingtips. The plane, found decaying in Papua New Guinea in the 1970s, was owned by an American until Japanese businessman Masahiro Ishizuka purchased it and brought it to Japan in September. "I wanted for the people of Japan and especially young people to know about this Zero airplane, as well as those who are old who remember the past," he said. "Each of them should have different thoughts and perspectives on this, but I just want people to know how Japan has developed its technology." Japanese see the aircraft both as a symbol of their country's technological advance and a reminder of the harrowing history of the war. In the last phase of the fighting, they were used for kamikaze suicide attacks. Kamikaze pilots used to take off from the same airfield, Kanoya Naval Air Base on the island of Kyushu, as the latest flight. Under its previous American owner, the plane made an appearance in the Hollywood movie Pearl Harbour and at various events in the United States. Samsung has reported a wider-than-expected decline in its earnings for the final quarter of 2015 as its two core businesses face a slowdown amid weakening world demand for consumer electronics products. The South Korean company also hinted at a profit decline for the first half of this year, citing difficult business environments. Samsung's October-December net profit plunged 40% from a year earlier to 3.2 trillion won (1.9 billion). The result fell short of expectations, even after considering the negative impact from foreign currency exchange rates estimated at 400 billion won. Analysts expected 5.1 trillion won in net income, according to FactSet, a financial data provider. Sales edged up 1% to 53.3 trillion won for the quarter while operating income rose 16% to 6.1 trillion won, in line with its earnings preview earlier this month. The latest results reflect new challenges for Samsung as two core businesses, smartphones and semiconductors, face a slowdown. Weakening global demand for smartphones is taking a toll on Samsung's sales of mobile components to companies like Apple, as well as sales of Samsung's own mobile devices. The company is the world's largest maker of memory chips that are used in PCs and mobile devices and also the world's largest maker of smartphones and TV sets. For the full year, it earned 19.1 trillion won (11 billion), down 19% from the previous year and the lowest level in four years. It was the second year in a row with a decline in annual net income after the company's earnings peaked at 30.5 trillion won in 2013. During the final quarter of 2015, the semiconductor business reported its first quarter-over-quarter profit decline in more than a year. It logged 2.8 trillion won in operating income, about 25% lower than the previous quarter but slightly higher than a year earlier. In addition to the softer global demand for mobile devices and PCs, an oversupply of memory chips that pushed down prices also drove the weaker-than-expected profit growth. The mobile phone business posted its second straight quarterly profit decline with 2.2 trillion won in operating income. Even though Samsung expanded sales of its high-end smartphones, including the Galaxy Edge series with curved displays, consumers flocked to cheaper smartphones, driving down its overall profit. Apparently aware of growing pressure to seek new revenue sources, Samsung gave out some hints about its future plans, pointing to transparent, mirror, automotive and flexible displays as future display business areas. And it singled out home and health as areas it will initially focus on with internet-connected gadgets and home appliances. Samsung reiterated its promise last year to increase shareholder returns, including a plan to buy back and cancel shares. The move did little to shore up its share price. After the earnings release, the company's shares traded 2% lower when the Seoul bourse opened. Samsung is not likely to see a revival in its profit in the near future. "It would be a challenge to maintain the 2015 operating profit level as we expect weak macroeconomic conditions and the IT demand to persist during the first half," Robert Yi, a senior vice president at Samsung, said. "However, we expect the business conditions to improve in the second half driven by the strong seasonality in set businesses," he said referring to mobile phones, home appliances and TVs. N.C. Awarded Grant to Plan Community Behavioral Health Clinics News Release: Clinics to bridge healthcare needs, provide whole-person care Raleigh, N.C. Governor Pat McCrory announced today that the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has awarded a grant to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to plan the establishment of a network of Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics. "Through innovative leadership, our administration is focused on bringing together the right partners to deliver whole-person care to North Carolina citizens," said Governor McCrory. "This grant is a great step forward toward providing increased access to improved care at lower costs. The grant will help us tackle mental health and other important health issues facing our state." The $978,401 grant, part of the 2014 Excellence in Mental Health Act, funds a one-year planning grant for North Carolina and 23 other states. Eight of the states will be selected for two-year pilot programs. "This grant will allow us to develop a plan that could ultimately lead to behavioral health clinics in communities that can provide whole-person, integrated care - an important component of Governor McCrory's Task Force on Mental Health and Substance Use," said DHHS Secretary Rick Brajer, who also co-chairs the Task Force. "This could become a key opportunity to increase resources at the local level that can provide help before a crisis occurs." The proposed community behavioral health clinics would expand access to early intervention, and connect people to other services and supports they may need. The North Carolina Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Services and the Division of Medical Assistance will collaborate on this planning grant. Ultimately, the clinics would become "health homes" and provide a comprehensive array of outpatient mental health and addiction treatment services. The clinics will be unique in that they will integrate medical care and other services with existing mental health and substance use treatment services. Clinics will also offer crisis care, and will establish partnerships with primary care providers, veterans' services and other community resources. Grant funding will also establish fair and accurate payment rates through Medicaid to facilitate the provision of services required by the Excellence Act. Contact: Crystal Feldman govpress@nc.gov Heavy rains caused widespread flooding in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday (AP) Seven Hamas members died when a tunnel into Israel collapsed as they were working on it, the Islamic militant group said. Eleven militants were repairing the tunnel to fix damage sustained from heavy rainfall, Hamas said. The tunnel collapsed killing seven, while the rest were rescued, it said. Mosque speakers in Gaza blared Hamas speeches and eulogies mourning the dead militants after the announcement. Hamas has built a sophisticated network of tunnels that it has used to penetrate Israel to carry out attacks on civilians and soldiers. Israel destroyed dozens of the tunnels in the war with the militant group in Gaza in 2014. Three other Hamas militants were killed in tunnel collapses in Gaza earlier this month. The athletes were running the last miles of the contest when they stopped to help the men, who were struggling to stay afloat Two athletes and a referee participating in a South African triathlon dived into the ocean to rescue two stricken men who were being swept out to sea. After pushing and tugging the men to shore, the athletes finished the gruelling race a little later than they had planned. Athletes Martin Potgieter and Dylan Hartwig said they were running the last miles of the contest when they stopped to help the men, who were struggling to stay afloat off the East London coast. Delayed by 15 to 20 minutes, the athletes put their running shoes back on and finished - Potgieter in six hours and 50 minutes and Hartwig in seven hours and 15 minutes. South Africa's Ironman 70.3 race includes swimming, cycling and running. Republican US presidential candidates will lock horns in the last party debate before the Iowa caucuses, knowing their absent front-runner, billionaire Donald Trump, will be trying to starve them of attention with his own rally. Mr Trump's abrupt decision to boycott the debate has added a new layer of uncertainty to a race that has defied political convention. He cited "unfair" treatment from debate host Fox News as his reason for skipping the contest and holding a rally instead. "I don't like being taken advantage of," he said in an interview on Fox, signalling he was not boycotting the highly-rated network completely. On Monday, Iowa residents will gather in schools, churches and even private homes to choose among the Republican and Democratic candidates battling to be their party's 2016 presidential nominee - the first in a series of state-by-state contests to choose delegates to each party's presidential nominating convention. Some Republican candidates saw Mr Trump's move as a welcome opportunity to emerge from the long shadow the tycoon has cast over the race, while also hoping it might damage his standing with Iowa voters. "I think it'll hurt him that he's not showing up in the Iowa debate four days before the Iowa caucuses," former Florida governor Jeb Bush told CNN. Florida senator Marco Rubio said Republicans "don't have time for these kinds of distractions". Mr Trump has led the Republican race nationally for months, to the surprise of many. In Iowa, however, polls suggest he is locked in a tight race with Texas senator Ted Cruz, a favourite of the conservatives and evangelical Christians who hold significant sway in the state's Republican caucuses. Given Mr Trump's unpredictable nature, some campaigns were preparing for the possibility he could reverse course and take the stage in Des Moines after all. But he moved forward with plans to host a rally just a few miles away that his campaign said would raise money for wounded warriors. With Fox carrying the debate, other cable channels were likely to show Mr Trump's event, stealing away at least some viewers who would have otherwise watched the contest. While earlier debates have been instrumental in the rise and fall of several Republican candidates, they have had minimal apparent impact on Mr Trump's standing. He has preferred to make his case to potential voters in national television interviews and on Twitter, and has often faded into the background in the debates. Mr Trump's absence was likely to turn attention to Mr Cruz, a firebrand conservative disdained by many in his party, and Mr Rubio, who is hoping a third-place finish in Iowa could help him establish himself as the choice of more traditional Republicans. Others on the debate stage will have their eye on New Hampshire, where they are hoping a strong showing in the February 9 primary will jump-start their White House hopes. Mr Bush, Ohio governor John Kasich and New Jersey governor Chris Christie have all devoted the bulk of their campaign resources to New Hampshire. Also on the main debate stage are retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who has a loyal following in Iowa, and Kentucky senator Rand Paul, who was relegated to the undercard event in the last debate. Mr Trump's Fox feud dates back to the first Republican primary debate, when moderator Megyn Kelly took him to task over derogatory statements he made in the past about women. Mr Trump threatened to boycott Thursday's debate if Fox stuck with plans for Ms Kelly to moderate again, but said it was a sarcastic statement from the network that was the final straw. That statement said the leaders of Iran and Russia "both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president" and that "Trump has his own secret plan to replace the cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings". Mr Trump and his campaign manager criticised the statement as taunting and juvenile. The death of Robert Thompson, as reported elsewhere in this newspaper, was a tragedy. He died from an allergic reaction to an antibiotic given to him in Antrim Area Hospital to treat an infection in his mouth following the removal of a tooth The death of Robert Thompson, as reported elsewhere in this newspaper, was a tragedy. He died from an allergic reaction to an antibiotic given to him in Antrim Area Hospital to treat an infection in his mouth following the removal of a tooth. The chances of anyone suffering such a severe reaction was said by one doctor to be one in a million. There is no suggestion that anyone did anything wrong - and in some ways that makes Robert's death seem all the more poignant, even pointless. It points up how slender the thread of life is and that fate can deal a mortal blow at any time, suddenly and devastatingly like a bolt from the blue on even the most routine of days. Consider the circumstances of Robert's death. He drove himself to hospital because the pain from the mouth infection was so severe he could no longer bear it. The prescribed treatment was a course of antibiotics to be taken at home but doctors decided to boost the treatment by first giving Robert the antibiotic intravenously. It was an everyday antibiotic which Robert had taken twice before without any problem. But this time he went into cardiac arrest twice and died an hour after the drug was administered. Meanwhile, his wife and two daughters were going about life as normal, attending a horse show in Omagh. Robert had texted his wife Sylvia that morning to tell her to go on as he was staying in hospital for a little while longer. How little they realised then how their life would change irrevocably within hours. The man who was the centre of their lives would be no more and they would question why he died. Sylvia is to be commended for speaking out about this tragedy after the inquest into Robert's death. She had kept the hearing secret from her daughters to spare them further agony, but decided that she should raise awareness of the dangers of allergic reaction to antibiotics. The inquest had heard this was a well recognised complication when being treated by such drugs, but reaction usually was only mild or moderate. By sharing her story she may help to save other lives. As the inquest heard, only very rarely is any reaction to antibiotics so severe as to endanger life. Yet it is important that even that risk is noted publicly. We often take prescribed drugs for granted but their use is not without danger as this case showed. The German U-boat fleet berthed at Lisahally after the surrender in 1945 Seventy years ago Operation Deadlight was drawing to a close. In this operation the Royal Navy towed surrendered German U-boats from Lough Foyle and Loch Ryan into the Atlantic to be sunk by warships or aircraft. Hitler's once feared Ubootwaffe was consigned to the depths from which it had preyed on merchant ships during the Battle of the Atlantic, the longest campaign of the Second World War. By February 11, 1946 the U-boats had been sunk or, in a few cases, handed over to allies as prizes. The Ubootwaffe had surrendered formally to Admiral Sir Max Horton, Commander-in-Chief Western Approaches, at Lisahally on May 14, 1945. Now, the final chapter in their history was over. But why did Northern Ireland play such a conspicuous part in that final chapter? The reason was quite simple: Northern Ireland, especially the port of Londonderry, had been critical to the success of anti-U-boat operations. After the fall of France in June 1940 convoys had to be rerouted around the north Irish coast to avoid Nazi submarines operating from their new French Atlantic port bases. The Derry shore base, HMS Ferret, provided the Royal Navy with its most westerly base for escort ships. The importance of the base is indicated clearly by the fact that escorts based on the Foyle outnumbered considerably the combined totals at Liverpool and on the Clyde in 1943. At its greatest strength, the escort force in the Foyle numbered 139 ships, with many ancillary vessels also based in the river and the lough. The combined Liverpool and Clyde total was under 100. Each ocean escort group usually included six or more ships, mostly smaller vessels such as corvettes, sloops or destroyers. A group would meet a convoy off the Canadian coast and shepherd it to a point north of Lough Foyle, where a local escort from the Clyde or Belfast would take over, and the ocean escort sailed up the Foyle to await its next task. However, the ships were not alone in defending convoys. Aircraft were increasingly important, and yet again Northern Ireland proved pivotal. Airfields for long-range aircraft were available or built at Aldergrove, Nutts Corner and Ballykelly. Flying boats - Sunderlands and Catalinas - flew from Castle Archdale in Co Fermanagh. To reach their patrol areas they overflew a small stretch of neutral Ireland with the Irish Government's permission through an agreement that created the Donegal Corridor. Aircraft flying into and out of RAF Ballykelly, near Limavady, were also allowed to fly over Donegal. In another little-known aspect of Irish co-operation with the UK, the escort force had an air-sea rescue trawler, HMT Robert Hastie, based at Killybegs in Co Donegal. On arriving in Killybegs, the Robert Hastie was welcomed by a party that included an RAF officer and the RUC head constable from Belleek. Another piece of Irish assistance was the coast-watching service, which reported sightings of suspicious maritime activity to the service's headquarters in Dublin from lookout posts around the entire coastline. Intelligence gleaned from this information was often made available to the British authorities and played an important part in the war against the U-boats. U-boats, even when surfaced, were small targets and difficult to see. When war broke out there were no suitable airborne radars to detect surfaced boats, especially at night, and so the U-boats enjoyed what they called a "happy time". However, a basic airborne radar became available and showed promise. This was developed into a more effective operational set. But the real breakthrough came with the invention of the cavity magnetron, which allowed the development of centimetric radar. Known as ASV III, this was so much more effective in detecting U-boats that it is considered one of the critical factors in winning the Battle of the Atlantic. The cavity magnetron was the work of three UK physicists - John Randall, Harry Boot and James Sayers. Sayers played a major role in refining the invention, which was given free to the US on its entry into the war in December 1941. Sayers, born in Corkey, Co Antrim, attended Ballymena Academy and Queen's before obtaining his PhD at Cambridge. Incidentally, this invention has a place in almost every household today - as the microwave oven. Among those who tested airborne radars was a Co Antrim native. Terence Bulloch, from Lisburn, became Coastal Command's top-scoring pilot of the war. He possessed excellent eyesight and on occasion spotted a U-boat on the surface in such adverse sea conditions that the boat's captain believed himself invisible. Bulloch rewrote the tactical manual on attacking U-boats. His ideas, which differed from those of higher authority, saved convoys HX217 and SC111 from destruction in December 1942. Flying from Reykjavik in Iceland, Bulloch spotted U-611 through a hailstorm, attacked, and sank the surfaced boat. He then spotted, attacked and probably sank another. Although he had no more depth charges, he was able to force other boats below the waves where, slow and blind, they ceased to be a menace. By war's end he had sunk at least four boats, more than anyone else, while No 120 Squadron, with which he served at Aldergrove and Reykjavik, had sunk 14, damaged eight and shared the destruction of another three. More than anything else, Bulloch proved the value of anti-submarine aircraft, especially the excellent American Consolidated B-24 Liberator, which possessed remarkable endurance. Ships based in the Foyle accounted for many U-boats. The turning point of the battle was May 1943, when the U-boats finally lost the initiative. Lieutenant Commander Evelyn Chavasse, from Co Cork, commanded the Canadian C2 escort group out of Derry and, while escorting convoy HX237, his ship HMS Broadway sank U-89, while HMS Lagan and HMCS Drumheller sank U-753. Other boats were beaten off. Attacks on convoys ONS5 and SC129 saw more U-boats destroyed, with ships from the Londonderry Escort Force claiming most of them. Intercepting radio signals to and from U-boats were also vital elements of the battle since such signals allowed the Allied commanders to establish where boats were and which convoys might be their targets. Coupled with the breaking of the German Enigma codes, this signals that intelligence used to advantage the German belief that their communications systems were so secure and advanced as to be unbreakable. That belief helped bring about their defeat. Other factors in winning the battle included training sailors and airmen, in which role Derry also featured with the duplicate Western Approaches Training Unit in the city and training for naval air squadrons at Eglinton. Swordfish bombers that could operate from small, improvised aircraft carriers and provide air cover for convoys right across the Atlantic were based at Maydown. The fragile Swordfish proved their worth by preventing many attacks and saving many lives. In the end, the defeat of the U-boats came about through a combination of operational and scientific research, development of tactics, ships, aircraft and equipment, training of sailors, airmen and support personnel, and strategic insight through intelligence and excellent leadership. All were packaged in a manner that the Germans, in spite of their reputation for efficiency, could never hope to emulate. And Northern Ireland was an important part of the package. Richard Doherty is the author of Churchill's Greatest Fear: The Battle of the Atlantic - 3 September 1939 to 7 May 1945 (Pen & Sword Military) North Carolina Leads Nationwide Improvement in Health Report News Release: Raleigh, N.C. North Carolina improved its overall public health ranking more than any other state in this year's report released by the United Health Foundation. North Carolina moved up six places from last year, and ranks second highest state in the country for child immunizations. This year's report marked North Carolina's highest ranking since the report's first publication in 1990. Overall, North Carolina ranks 31st. "The health of our citizens is the foundation of our quality of life," Governor McCrory said. "As this report indicates, we've made great strides and will continue to work toward making North Carolina one of the healthiest states in the nation." Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Rick Brajer noted that many partners contributed to North Carolina's success. "We greatly appreciate the United Health Foundation highlighting North Carolina's improvement in rank as the greatest among all 50 states in its annual analysis of factors affecting the health of individuals and communities," said Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Rick Brajer. "The endless pursuit by DHHS and its many partners to improve the quality of lives for all North Carolinians is something we can all take pride in." Two highlights of the report focus on North Carolina's success in child immunization rates and physical activity among adults. More than 80 percent of children ages 19 to 35 months are vaccinated and physical inactivity among adults decreased by 13 percent. Additionally, one of the state's strengths is the low prevalence of excessive drinking. "These rankings are a testament to the efforts of Division of Public Health staff, statewide partners and our citizens, and are the foundation for further progress," said Deputy Secretary for Health Services Dr. Randall Williams. "Taking preventive measures, whether getting vaccinated or exercising, shows North Carolinians are committed to improving their health outcomes. Our commitment as a state is to face our remaining challenges head-on and work toward decreasing infant mortality and improving the health of all North Carolinians as we move forward in 2016." For more information on the report please see: http://www.americashealthrankings.org/reports/annual. For more information on North Carolina's Division of Public Health please see: http://publichealth.nc.gov/. Contact: Crystal Feldman govpress@nc.gov ein Google-Unternehmen Google-Dienste anzubieten und zu betreiben Ausfalle zu prufen und Manahmen gegen Spam, Betrug und Missbrauch zu ergreifen Daten zu Zielgruppeninteraktionen und Websitestatistiken zu erheben. Mit den gewonnenen Informationen mochten wir verstehen, wie unsere Dienste verwendet werden, und die Qualitat dieser Dienste verbessern. neue Dienste zu entwickeln und zu verbessern Werbung auszuliefern und ihre Wirkung zu messen personalisierte Inhalte anzuzeigen, abhangig von Ihren Einstellungen personalisierte Werbung anzuzeigen, abhangig von Ihren Einstellungen Wenn Sie Alle ablehnen auswahlen, verwenden wir Cookies nicht fur diese zusatzlichen Zwecke. 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Large users can claim they're using renewables while purchasing from normal sources RALEIGH Two leading legislative critics of tax incentives to the renewable energy industry have not taken issue with an unusual new program used by Duke Energy Progress allowing high-consumption electricity customers using traditional energy to claim their plants are powered by renewable sources.Neither House Majority Leader Mike Hager, R-Rutherford, nor Sen. Bob Rucho, R-Mecklenburg, expressed concerns about Duke Energy's Green Source Rider program during a Jan. 5 meeting of the Joint Legislative Commission on Energy Policy.The initiative, approved by the state Utilities Commission in 2013, allows big electricity users to pay a premium when placing new sources of costlier renewable energy of their choosing on the power grid.Duke Energy either adds renewable power from one of its sources or negotiates a deal with a renewable company. The Duke customer could purchase as much as 100 percent of the energy it uses from Duke's less expensive coal, natural gas, and nuclear sources while claiming its operations instead are fueled by renewable power.Kendall Bowman, Duke Energy vice president of regulatory affairs and policy, told members of the legislative commission.Participants' power bills "will represent the premium associated with renewable energy," Bowman said. "These Green Source Rider customers are willing so that they can offset some of their load with renewable energy, paying a premium for the power."Likely participants in the program include universities, data centers, large manufacturers, and industrial plants, she said. To date, three customers have signed on. Program rules prevent disclosure of the participants' names without their consent. Google is the only customer to go public.The rest of the customer base "is held harmless" from paying the higher rates for new renewable energy sources brought onto the power grid, Bowman said.Duke Energy Carolinas entered into an agreement with Google for Cypress Creek Renewables, a California firm, to build a 61-megawatt solar facility in Rutherford County expected to go online in late 2017, she said. The solar facility would offset the electricity demand for Google's new data center in Caldwell County, 50 miles away near Lenoir.said Hager, a former Duke employee who represents the district where the solar farm is being built."I don't know enough about that to comment. I'm not chairing this committee anymore," Rucho said when asked if he agreed with Hager, who is one of the co-chairmen of the Energy Policy commission.As Carolina Journal has reported , when Google announced the deal it said the agreement allows it to purchase solar power "in enough volume to power one of our data centers."Some critics have said such promotions are deceptive, as they suggest the large facilities are connected directly to the renewable sources but in fact they are getting electricity from the grid that powers other utility customers. Google did not mention that the entire Caldwell County data center complex would not receive any of the new solar power. It will continue to receive all of its power from Duke Energy's traditional fossil fuel/hydro/nuclear mix.Carolina Journal also reported other potentially deceptive claims from large energy users that are not part of this rider program.Amazon says its data center near Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia would be powered by a wind farm under construction near Elizabeth City when, in fact, it will not be connected to that wind farm. Apple claimed its data center in Maiden, N.C., is 100 percent renewable-powered even though it purchases all of its energy from Duke and the utility's traditional fuel mix primarily of coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydro.Bowman said if the green source rider program is successful, it could be rolled out to other customer classes and possibly "other jurisdictions." The program is not offered in Duke Carolinas' South Carolina market.The enrollment period is scheduled to end at the end of December 2016, or earlier if 1 million megawatt hours of new renewable power is brought online. Bowman did not say how many new renewable megawatt hours are currently in use or scheduled, but said it is likely enrollment will extend to the end of the year.Bowman and Sam Watson, general counsel of the Utilities Commission, also gave an update on Duke's rate increase case.Bowman said the typical Duke Energy Progress customer using 1,000 kilowatt hours of power per month would pay $1.59 less when all the increases and decreases of fuel costs, taxes, and various riders are tabulated. Watson said the decrease was $1.52, going from $36.43 to $34.91 per month.Watson said a decrease in fuel costs, mostly in natural gas, resulted in a $5.64 decrease in that average customer's bill.But the cost of the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards that requires utilities to purchase increasing amounts of renewable energy went up 34 cents, from 83 cents to $1.17 per month. A Demand Side Management/Energy Efficiency Rider went up $1.95, from $4.26 to $6.21.Riders allow Duke to pass various allowable costs to customers. The new Joint Agency Asset Rider for Duke Energy Progress's purchase of generating assets from the North Carolina Eastern Municipality Power Agency added $1.83 to the average bill.Rep. Jeff Collins, R-Nash, was critical of the energy efficiency rider, which was part of the same Senate Bill 3 legislation passed in 2007 that enacted the REPS."Yes," Watson said.Watson also said an 8-cent reduction in the average Duke Energy Progress customer's monthly bill was due to tax cuts enacted by the General Assembly rather than energy cost savings.Rucho said.Watson said. Weather Alert ...SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 AM EDT THIS MORNING... * WHAT...Southwest winds 20 to 25 knots and waves 1 to 3 feet. * WHERE...The nearshore waters of Lake Erie from Maumee Bay to The Islands OH. * WHEN...Until 10 AM EDT this morning. * IMPACTS...Conditions will be hazardous to small craft. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Inexperienced mariners, especially those operating smaller vessels, should avoid navigating in hazardous conditions. && Yes, you can! In fact, we have done so for almost a decade without a dime in the budget going to it. It started off that way because I saw the need, we had young men desiring to be trained, but we had no funds to pour into it. We have continued to do our internship this way because well, there is still no money, but we also wanted to demonstrate for other pastors and churches money and resources are unnecessary for this. All it takes is a pastor willing to give his time and young men willing to give their time. We seek in a four-month period to try and take these interns through a crash course in pastoral ministry. Here are some of the details of our pastoral internship, with hopes it will help you see you can design something similar: 1) The Pastors Time The most important resource for a pastoral internship is simply the wisdom, insight, experience, and time of a pastor. Why is this? Because so much of ministry is learned doing it with someone who teaches as they do ministry. As I plan to go the hospital, I try to take an intern with me. When I do a funeral, I take an intern with me. When I go to visit an elderly widow, I take an intern with me. Then, in each of these opportunities, we talk on the way and as we return. I ask them questions leading up to the event, then ask them follow-up questions after we leave. I also meet once a week for one to two hours with the interns, and we talk about all kinds of different aspects of pastoral ministry, discuss books I ask them to read, and expose them to the trench work of the ministry in a way the classroom cannot. Pastors, you and your daily ministry are the only essential resources you need to train young men for ministry. 2) The Pastoral Interns Time There cannot be a pastoral internship without pastoral interns. When there is no money to pay interns, as is the case in our church, a young man must see the value of simply giving his time to it. We ask our interns to commit ten hours a week, but that is flexible depending upon their schedule and availability. Their time is spent in two ways: Time with me doing and discussing ministry, and time the intern does ministry on his own. After they go to the hospital with me, then I send them to the hospital. After they go with me to visit a widow or two, they go back to the same widow and visit on their own. They give time to read books on their own, then meet and discuss them with me. They give time to pray through the membership directory, attend pastors meetings, and attend Sunday evening service review, all required tasks. 3) The Churchs Time If we desire to train young men for the ministry through doing ministry in our local church, then the members of the church must be willing to give their time also. Widows must be willing to allow these young men to visit them and be gracious as they stumble and learn. Sick people must be willing to allow young men to visit them in the hospital, even though the intern may be more nervous than the sick person being visited. The church must be willing to give their time to come Sunday evenings and hear these men preach if given the opportunity. This third piece is necessary for young men to learn how to care for Gods flock. Without real people involved willing to give their time, real ministry cannot be accomplished. Pastors, it is nice to have money to pay interns and different resources to shower upon these training and learning about ministry in our church. But the only essential resource to do a pastoral internship is sharing your time, gifts, experience, and wisdom with them as you do ministry. Embrace your value in these areas. You have much to offer whether you have pastored fifty years or five months. Invest your time and encourage others to do the same, and start that internship or training program you know you need but have waited for the funds and resources to be provided. Brian Croft is Senior Pastor of Auburndale Baptist Church. To find out more, please visit Practical Shepherding. For Immediate Release, January 28, 2016 Contact: Tanya Sanerib, (971)717-6407, tsanerib@biologicaldiversity.org New Study: Obama Administration Has Dramatically Increased Use of Obscure Provision to Weaken Federal Protections for Threatened Species Broad Exemptions Sidestep Endangered Species Acts Intent, Allowing Oil, Gas Drilling, Logging, Other Habitat Destruction WASHINGTON The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has dramatically increased use of an obscure provision in the Endangered Species Act in recent years to exempt activities that harm threatened species, including oil and gas drilling, logging, ranching and development, according to a new report released today by the Center for Biological Diversity. Under the Obama administration, the Service has finalized eight, and proposed two, of the so-called 4(d) rules that exempt primary threats to federally protected species, including the lesser prairie chicken, the American wolverine and, most recently, the northern long-eared bat. Those 10 4(d) exemptions constitute nearly half of all such rules issued in the 42 years since passage of the Act. No single presidential administration has approved more of these damaging, industry loopholes than the Obama administration. We're very troubled that the Service is now using these 4(d) rules which were designed to help protect species to authorize the very activities threatening species' survival, said Tanya Sanerib, a senior attorney with the Center. These damaging exemptions are nothing more than a bow to political pressure from the very special interests that oppose protection of endangered wildlife in order to protect their bottom lines. Called 4(d) rules for the provision in the Endangered Species Act from which they hail, such rules are supposed to put in place conservation measures for threatened species to prevent them from becoming endangered. But the Obama administration has increasingly been using them to allow the very activities that caused species to be at risk in the first place. The Center found that 19 of the 75 4(d) rules enacted for domestic species since 1975 have authorized activities the Service identified as threats to species when listing the species as threatened. Of those 19 rules, eight 42 percent were adopted by the Obama administration. The administration proposed two other problematic 4(d) rules, for the American wolverine and bi-state population of sage grouse. But rather than protecting these species, the agency caved to considerable political pressure and withdrew protection altogether; thus those two 4(d) rules were never finalized. Counting the proposed exemptions for the wolverine and bi-state sage grouse, the administration has been responsible for 48 percent of all problematic 4(d) rules that allow sweeping habitat destruction in areas where imperiled species have been protected as threatened. Our report illustrates that increasingly politics not science or the law is dictating Endangered Species Act decision-making, said Sanerib. The Obama administration is robbing the lesser prairie chicken, American wolverine, streaked horned lark and other endangered animals of critical protections that are a lifeline to their survival. A number of the harmful 4(d) rules issued by the Obama administration have come in direct response to political opposition to protection. In the case of the northern long-eared bat a species experiencing declines of more than 96 percent across much of its range the Service initially proposed the species for protection as an endangered species. But after logging, wind-energy and oil and gas interests complained, the agency downgraded the species to threatened and issued a 4(d) rule that allows virtually all of these activities to proceed in the bats forest habitat. The bat, as well as several other imperiled species, clearly should have received the more protective endangered designation, which would not have allowed use of 4(d) rule exemptions for ongoing habitat destruction. The lesser prairie chicken is left with as little as 8 percent of its historic habitat. As few as 300 wolverines are believed to remain in the lower 48 states. The American public overwhelmingly supports protection of endangered species, said Sanerib. Were very disappointed to see this type of highly political decision-making about protected species under the Obama administration, particularly when the survival of North American wildlife species hangs in the balance. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 990,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places. Many thanks to reader Stewgreen for pointing me to this fascinating look behind the scenes at the Guardian... Just days after getting planning permission to drill 12 monitoring boreholes at its prospective shale pad in Misson, Nottinghamshire, IGas have started installing equipment. Separate planning applications would be required to drill a well and again to frack it, so it's fair to say that there is a long road ahead. In November last year, Gloo@Ogilvy was named Digital Agency of the Year at the Financial Mail Annual AdFocus Awards It's an amazing achievement given that the agency is only a year old. Gloo@Ogilvy was born out of a merger between Gloo and OgilvyOne, and is the success story of a "merger of minds" and what the legendary David Ogilvy termed "divine discontent". This partnership of the very successful, award-winning local agency Gloo, and the equally successful global OgilvyOne was based on a shared vision for the future. "It was the combined strengths of OgilvyOne as a leading customer engagement agency with Gloo digital design - a leading digital agency. We recognised that both skill sets are required to service progressive and class-leading digital customer engagement requirements," explains Ben Evans, managing director: digital portfolio. According to Pete Case, chief creative officer: Ogilvy South Africa group and chairman - Gloo Digital Design: "This was never an acquisition by OgilvyOne, with the intent of Gloo selling out, but rather a merger to produce great integrated work." Holy grail This they have achieved in a very short space of time. Their relentless focus since the merger has been on clients, staff and truly integrated work that is being described as the "holy grail" by clients. The combined agency won a host of new client business including PEP, Capfin, Barloworld, Skip (Unilever), Gumtree, Nestle, Coca-Cola, Virgin Active and Canderel, whilst also expending its remit on key clients such as KFC, BP and Viacom. Gloo@Ogilvy had an unprecedented year of success at the award shows, winning more than any other South African digital agency at the Assegais, Bookmarks, Loeries (securing the only South African Grand Prix) and Apex awards. They were also the only South African digital agency to win at Cannes, picking up the Effective Digital Marketing Award. Beyond creative and effectiveness awards, Gloo@Ogilvy won recognition as the Best Performing Agency at the Bookmarks and was announced as Agency of the Year at the Assegais, in addition to winning Digital Agency of the Year at the AdFocus awards. Knowledge and technology They have achieved all this by consistently leveraging creative ideas, knowledge, data, content and technology to help their clients win more customers and unlock total customer value. The agency's leadership team has also been busy building new capabilities that aim to set them up for the future. Gloo@Ogilvy continues to develop their people and culture through the Ogilvy Digital Marketing Academy, which has been a major force in growing knowledge within their own teams and with clients As technology continues to evolve, the agency recognises that increasingly the ability to leverage data is becoming a key enabler for their business as well as their clients' business, and to that end have launched their data planning and analytics practice. In addition, their Customer Innovation Lab, a working space where emerging technologies are used to inspire and create new work, is being launched to the external market in this year. This facility contains customer insight and UX testing facilities and will expose young South African startups to established client brands. In terms of supporting the wider community, Gloo@Ogilvy has invested in Codex, an organisation that's helping grow the next generation of technical developers in Africa. It is this ongoing drive for "divine discontent", collaboration and striving for excellence that resulted in them being awarded Digital Agency of the year and promises to drive even further growth. For more on Gloo@Ogilvy, follow them on Twitter or visit the Ogloovy website. Four protesters arrested after obscenity-shouting students occupy board table CJ Photo by Kari Travis An unidentified student shouts through the microphone of a UNC Board of Governors member Tuesday morning just before being arrested by UNC Campus Police for disrupting the board's meeting. CHAPEL HILL - Protests turned violent during a Tuesday morning meeting of the UNC Board of Governors as students and faculty gathered once again to call for the removal of UNC president-elect Margaret Spellings, former secretary of education in the George W. Bush administration.Four students were arrested after physically resisting police, and though at press time none has been identified publicly, all face charges for disrupting the meeting, according to Jeff McCracken, chief of the Campus Police at UNC-Chapel Hill.The protests began in silence, but erupted into shouts and demands during the board's discussion about program cuts at East Carolina University. Students swarmed the boardroom table, chanting and shouting before being removed forcibly by police.Several students occupied the board members' seats and used the microphones to shout and chant, "Stand up, fight back," and "No justice, no peace." One student took the gavel at the chairman's seat and pounded it against the table in rhythm with the chants.One student yelled as officers escorted protestors from the room.Law officers, who took several minutes to subdue the frenzy, say they acted well within the boundaries of the law as protestors showed unnecessary resistance.said McCracken.McCracken added.Today's incident follows a protest at the board's Dec. 11 meeting, during which at least four faculty members were removed for disrupting board proceedings during roll call. A discussion about disciplinary action followed, but no action was taken.No faculty members participated in Tuesday's disruption, but professors made their sentiments known in a quiet protest before the start of the meeting.said Zach Robinson, professor of mathematics at East Carolina University.Robinson, who has helped the Faculty Forward Network - a New York City-based coalition of professors, students, and parents affiliated with the Service Employees International Union - conduct a survey of 1,400 UNC faculty members, says that many professors are deeply unhappy with the direction of the system, particularly with the lack of funding for new construction.Robinson said.Examining UNC's construction expenditures in isolation of other factors is a mistake, however, as spending for the system as a whole has increased in the past 10 years, according to Jenna Robinson, president of the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.Jenna said.The Faculty Forward Network and NAACP college division have attempted to request meetings with members of the board to no avail, Zach Robinson said.he said.said UNC spokeswoman Joni Worthington. In 2016, value is more important than ever. Clients are feeling the pressure of economic conditions and need to show ROI on their business decisions. Often bonuses, promotions and the ability to secure future budgets depend on it. Procurement demands it. When looking at the media agency, value is complex. What is it? Cheaper prices without a drop in quality? Yep, for most it's exactly that. Clients would immediately respond with - my agency gets me the best rates as a first response. Yes that's value, but is that enough? Is that the full measure of media agency value? Not by a long way! The fact is, value can be measured across multiple deliverables and is a collective and not just about price. 1. Pricing: This is stretching the gap between what you pay vs what it's worth. It's the normal measure of media value and could include anything on offer that adds value to the client - not necessarily just a discount, or free space. It's about rate paid vs value of the audience to the brand. Another debate that would quickly come up is around full value - with AVBs and preferential media partnerships raising their ugly heads. Like the fabled Loch Ness monster, many agencies and media owners swear it's just an urban legend and doesn't exist. Is there an open discussion between agency and client on the distribution of value received? The fact is, agency volume deals are part of the industry globally and are certainly very prominent in SA. Never an issue if dealt with openly and honestly, but the fact is also part of the collective value equation. 2. Optimisation: No point in having best pricing if you are not leveraging this to the full by sound thinking and the best decision making. As example - there is also no point in pressing the media owner for 2% more in an annual negotiation only to hand over the responsibility of media decision-making to a junior implementation planner who loses you 5% in efficiency by not selecting the best television spots. "Your agency might be cheap but are they working smart?" It's the typical leaking bucket scenario - it's much harder to keep it full if you are always filling it up and not plugging the holes. There's value everywhere - value in insights, value in ideas, value in response time, value in relationship and value in detail and effort, and the list goes on. 3. Results: If you're getting the best prices and your agency is optimising efficiently, is it actually achieving objectives and delivering on business results? Are you adjusting what is done against the results for the business? What is the contribution of media connections to sales or engagement? With digital this is easier to measure, but often this is only 10% to 20% of the budget allocation. Is any of this actually making any difference? The value of the media agency needs to be measured across the collective. It is a long list of things for the agency to get right that determines real value. Yes, price is important, and is the most visible metric and easy to benchmark and track - but it certainly isn't the only thing. Everything a media agency does on a client's business has the potential to add or take away value. Some global clients do this really well, but for many they often don't get past the rates negotiated and agency fee. Let's face it, clients are not always media experts - and why should they be, that's why they have an agency. Some of the larger ones have media managers, which adds a degree of rigour to the value equation. They are the lucky ones. The fact is, most clients rely on their media agency to define what value is and then also to rate that delivery. There is big money at stake and I've yet to meet a media person who wasn't able to polish a turd. The most important cog in the value equation is people. If you do not have the best people working on your business, you are not maximising value. The people contribution makes the most difference in the contribution to value - many pairs of hands involved at different times, with different skill levels. People in agencies drive the collective value. But are they all really driving value? Is their contribution quantifiable? Do they understand what this contribution actually is? It's time more marketers and procurement looked at real value delivery with a broader perspective. At Planit Media we have senior people at MD level, and a value model to ensure we leverage full value for clients with every touchpoint and every level and with every opportunity. We understand that real value is complex, and while important, price is just one of the measures. "I love writing. I write because I need to, because it sustains and energises me. Writing allows me to do everything else that I do." - Kopano Matlwa Mabaso The acclaimed short-film series 21 ICONS has featured the 18th icon of its third season: Kopano Matlwa Mabaso. The 30-year-old is a South African medical doctor pursuing a PhD in public health at the University of Oxford. She is also the author of the critically acclaimed novels Coconut and Spilt Milk. Matlwa Mabaso has been selected for 21 ICONS South Africa Season 3 as a voice for the new generation of South Africans dealing with issues such as race, poverty and gender and coming to grips with their sense of identity. She is also acknowledged for making healthcare more equally accessible and for establishing educational support programmes. On her selection as an icon she comments, "My discomfort provoked me to write. Growing up in post-apartheid South Africa as a black, young South African, I was grappling with my sense of identity in a very complicated country. So I wrote about this discomfort." A University of Cape Town (UCT) and Rhodes scholar, she holds an MBChB from UCT and an MSc in Global Health Science from the University of Oxford. She says, "I could never choose between medicine and writing. Anton Chekhov said, 'Medicine is my wife, and writing my mistress,' and that makes complete sense to me. I love them both." Matlwa Mabaso co-founded Waiting Room Education by Medical Students, a health promotion organisation educating patients and their families on common health conditions in the waiting rooms of mobile clinics. "As a doctor you have the unique privilege of listening to people's stories. They tell you things they would never tell anyone else. I care deeply about people's stories so for me, medicine and writing make sense together," she adds. Pretoria-born Matlwa Mabaso was just nine-years-old when South Africa birthed its democracy in 1994. In her debut novel, Coconut, published in 2006, she writes about her experience growing up as a young black girl in the new South Africa and the complexities associated with finding a sense of belonging. Labelled a "Coconut", a South African stereotype regarded a slur, she tells Van Wyk how the novel unpacks what it means to be young, black and beautiful in the new South Africa, where fitting in can be at the cost of one's own identity. "I write about things that I find difficult. Coconut began when I was in high school, trying to figure out my own identity and often what was considered to be good was everything white and the challenge of finding a place and meaning as a black young South African. Spilt Milk came from grappling with the South Africa that I live in - I write about what bugs me," she says. However, she believes that the commonalities between individuals far outweigh the differences; "We are all more similar than we think we are. People struggle with identity all over the world, which is one of the things we have in common." Coconut earned Matlwa Mabaso the 2007 European Literary Award - of which she was the youngest ever recipient - and the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa, considered by some to be the African equivalent of the Nobel Prize for Literature. In 2012, she founded the Transitions Foundation, an organisation that attempts to improve the performance of young South Africans across the gamut of educational needs. When asked about her thoughts on the recent events surrounding #FeesMustMall she enthuses, "I can't remember the last time I was as excited about South Africa as when I watched those young South Africans who took to the streets to demand free education. It's the South Africa that we've always been and it's great to see that South Africa back again." About the portrait For the portrait 'Imagined Reality', Gary van Wyk describes the visual elements, "Using various props, a colourful 'wonderland' is constructed that echoes Matlwa Mabaso's love for discovering characters, health solutions, and deconstructing embedded cultural ideas, like 'coconut' and 'the rainbow nation'. Seated among multiple palm tree leaves wearing a rainbow charm necklace - a severed coconut to her left and milk spilling to her right - she is imagined as the conjurer of a fantasy world that breaks boundaries through creativity." On the future of South Africa she says, "I am very optimistic about our rainbow nation. Maybe it needs to be re-examined and re-imagined but there's a sense that it is ours. Young people are going to lead and it's such an exciting time." She concludes, "I think it's a misnomer that we go abroad to learn and come back. As South Africans, we have so much to teach the world, and our continent has so much to contribute. This is the place people will be looking toward in the future." View the video About 21 Icons Season 3 The short film-series documents the conversations between Gary Van Wyk as the photographer and filmmaker and the icons. Each short film provides insight into both the subject and photographer's creative approach to the portrait. Behind each portrait lies a carefully planned concept that captures not only the essence of each icon visually, but also in spirit and in terms of their unique legacy. Season three of 21 ICONS South Africa is proudly sponsored by Mercedes-Benz South Africa. Social media: 21 Icons engages with the public through: Twitter: @21Icons Website: http://www.21icons.com Mobisite: www.21icons.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/21Icons Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/21ICONS/ iTunes App Store: http://tinyurl.com/lf3cfzm Google Play: http://tinyurl.com/ovtcy45 Woke Twitter could bring down your campaign and cause severe reputational damage. Here's why this audience should be considered as an essential part of the strategic and creative process. The other day I saw a Corsa Lite in traffic and had a flashback to the award-winning Raj and Raj campaign that flighted in the mid-2000s. I don't think it would last a week in 2016 - a campaign based on two white guys ripping off Indian accents? It wouldn't survive the social media outrage. These days, I assess every campaign and social media post that passes my desk through the eyes of woke Twitter. Here's why brand custodians - on both the brand and agency side - should be doing the same. S/O to woke twitter! this has been an enlightening week, I've learnt so much. - CurateZAR | Avela (@CurateZAR) January 25, 2016 Um... so what's woke Twitter? Most clients are surprised when I mention "woke Twitter" in presentations, so I'm assuming that a lot of readers won't be familiar with the term either. "Woke Twitter" is not a formal term. It can and has been used as a pejorative, and there are a lot of people who don't like it, but it's become widely used over the past six months. Adapted from the expression "Stay woke" associated with the #BlackLivesMatter movement, woke Twitter refers to socially aware, activist Twitter. Woke Twitter is avowedly leftist and feminist, and when they see something they don't like, they are very vocal. How do you know you've found woke Twitter? The best way to find woke Twitter is to look for keywords. White privilege, cishet (short for cisgender heterosexual), #feesmustfall, patriarchy, appropriation and structural racism are a good start. (If you put out a piece of communication that can be interpreted as racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic, woke Twitter will find you and you will soon be trending for all the wrong reasons.) Why pay attention to woke Twitter? Woke Twitter brought down Bic in 2015 for their Women's Day post and played a role in driving awareness of the Appletiser social media disaster. Conversations around #feesmustfall, racism, homophobia, transphobia and social justice are driven by woke Twitter, and this includes brand activities of all kinds. Whether it's Marie Claire advertising an unpaid internship, a Woolworths branch featuring a half-complete Christmas display reminiscent of slave trains, or an Eskel Jawitz listing featuring an old South African flag on display in the lounge, brand reputations are on the line, online, every single day. But, you might say, this is not our target audience, so why does it matter? There are no Chinese walls between target audiences and channels. Twitter is now a prime source of content for mainstream news organisations, which means that any trending topic is likely to be given even greater coverage. What happens on Twitter definitely doesn't stay on Twitter (or Facebook, for that matter, as Penny Sparrow knows only too well). How do I assess creative work through the eyes of woke Twitter? It helps to be familiar with the types of conversations happening online and the type of messages - deliberate or accidental - that are likely to push the wrong buttons. If you're not, find someone who is. Pay attention to imagery, copy, and the interplay between the two. Could your ad be interpreted as victim-blaming? Are you being insensitive to racial nuances? (Appletiser, for example, made the mistake of referring to a black woman as a "brunette".) If you're not sure, don't put work out into the public domain, even if it's just a Facebook post. Should I censor creative work now? It's important to understand that woke Twitter doesn't have to like what you're putting out - this is an audience that is skeptical of brand communication and dislikes most advertising on principle. Woke Twitter is never going to like ads that promote conventional gender roles, for example. It's when there's potential for outrage that brands have a problem. Avoid anything that can be construed as racism, sexism, homophobia or victim-blaming. Cultural appropriation is becoming more of an issue too; Woolworths recently removed a pink feather headdress on a mannequin after being called out. What does this mean for "brave" work? Creativity has never been about being safe. Challenging, even offensive work will always have a role - provided it is relevant. If anything, the increasing scrutiny of woke Twitter opens up the door to communication that challenges norms and creates opportunities for doing things truly differently. Campbell's soup, for example, might have received flak from the Christian right for a 2015 ad featuring two gay dads, but earned praise for featuring a different kind of family. No more relying on cliches or stereotypes - you will be called out for them, as you should be. Brands that get this right are the brands that future-proof themselves. So don't be safe, be smart. The increasingly influential role of social media outrage is inevitably going to impact on brands, from advertising, to in-store displays, to the personal accounts of employees. Rather than being caught on the back foot when a social media crisis arises, brand custodians should understand the new and shifting dynamics of the world in which their communication is disseminated. It's not always possible to predict when something goes wrong - but it helps to know what you're getting into. ICYMI (In Case You Missed It) - the 2016 edition of Grey Trends is out, bursting with facts and foresight on what to expect from the next few months. A selection of Grey Johannesburg's captains shared some background. 2016 is the year of the Red Monkey as well as a leap year, one in which the 45th POTUS or President of the United States will be revealed - luckily it's not all uncertainty and doubt from a business perspective, as Grey Johannesburg has forecast a selection of trends - in our industry in particular -that'll be coming our way. Grey JHB's creative director Glenn Jeffery; as well as Jessica Wheeler, strategic planning director; Francois du Preez, digital creative director; Huibri Schalkwyk, PR and social business unit director; and CEO Peter Jackson each answered a question to give us the context of this trends report, as well as other highlights from the agency. Grey JHBs creative director Glenn Jeffery; Jessica Wheeler, strategic planning director; Francois du Preez, digital creative director; Huibri Schalkwyk, PR and social business unit director; and CEO Peter Jackson. 1. Set the context with a brief overview of Grey's recent high notes. Jeffery: 2015 was a massive year for the Grey Network. The accolades were impressive, from dominating at Cannes to multiple Agency Of The Year awards. However, it's not the 113 Cannes Lions, the 4 Grand Prix Lions or Adweek's Global Agency of the Year for the second year running that was the most special - it's the unwavering pursuit to make culture, not ads. Advertising needs to change. We live in a world where most ads irritate people so we need to find new ways, and 2015 was the year Grey found new ways to connect with people. Ways to be genuinely useful like preventing injury with glow-in-the-dark Life Paint for Volvo. Ways to redefine the medium of radio with the Berlin Wall of Sound. Ways to prevent gun violence by opening a gun store. But Grey's biggest success was taking the chance to do work that matters. 2. Explain the concept of trends and when they become more than just a fad. Wheeler: Where do marketing trends come from? The bad ones come from an internal quest to punt a specific skillset within your agency to further your own personal agenda. The good ones, however, come from plenty of hours spent listening. In South Africa specifically, we look abroad to the big networks to see how their internal cultures are shifting, what specific areas they are investing in, what additional criteria are added to the global awards circuits. Read enough op-ed pieces on Ad Age, WARC and the likes and it's quite clear what is happening overseas. When we map these against our own local challenges, it's easy to see where both agencies and clients should be moving in the year ahead. Fads come and go without much notice or big cultural shifts. When big agencies with plenty to lose start making significant changes, that's when you know it's here to stay. There's a global vested interest to change the industry. That's a trend. Mostly though, it's about giving a damn about making great work and being curious enough to investigate how. 3. Talk us through the origins of Grey Trends 2016. Du Preez: Our industry is fast-moving and ever-changing. As department heads, it is our responsibility to keep up with and set new trends by constantly looking for ways to improve, knowing what's out there and, based on this knowledge, take educated risks. We tend to focus only on our respective disciplines, so compiling our Grey trends document is one way to consolidate our thoughts. This allows us to progress together as a team with clear goals and benchmarks in mind and in the process inform our clients of what's possible. 4. List a few of the trends the local marketing, media and PR industry should keep an eye out for. Visual content's popularity continues to grow. Not only for social media but especially for PR. There will be a drastic increase in images, infographics and especially video content used for PR and social media. Real-time marketing is rising for PR. There is still a need for PR to long lead media but with the information overload at our fingertips, PR teams are required to adapt to real time PR - old news is no news. is rising for PR. There is still a need for PR to long lead media but with the information overload at our fingertips, PR teams are required to adapt to real time PR - old news is no news. A traditional press release is not enough - take advantage of social media channels and building relationships in the industry. 5. Looking ahead, what's next for Grey? Jackson: Grey, as a forward-thinking agency, has embraced the inherent cross-channel mind-set and reinvented their operational models to create more nimble and effective interactive communications solutions for their clients. As a Group, Grey has been experimental, audacious and extremely flexible, progressively adapting its agency culture to the evolving, hyper-fast digi-world by tapping into modern behaviour trends to win hearts and minds of the changing consumers. Acknowledging the change that's taken place, we've gone beyond simple direct response, to engaging faster and more interactively. So to answer "Where to next for Grey?", we'll keep looking ahead, grasping the reality of change and continually adapting using the Darwinian concept of: "I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts and grinding out conclusions". Click here to download the Grey Trends 2016 PDF, here to follow Grey JHB on Twitter, and here to visit the Grey press office. Globalisation, connectivity, and common interests are uniting formerly unrelated groups. But how do you manage reputation in the fast-moving context of digital media, where critical views can make or break a brand in a second? The answer is meaningful and authentic corporate social investment that makes a real difference. In the 21st century, the word 'community' has taken on an entirely different meaning with the advent of new technology. In the past, a community was considered to be a group of people living in close proximity or a group of people who share a similar cultural background. Nowadays, 'community' describes a group of people who share similar interests, and increasingly on digital platforms. These people may not even live in the same country or even know of each other's existence, but the cohesive nature of technology means they all have an eye into what is happening in the sectors of society that matter to them. For many people on the African continent Facebook and Twitter will be their very first exposure to the internet, and the channels through which they connect. This increased proliferation of 'eyes' has shocked many high profile organisations into reactive reputation building exercises - often met with derision by a cynical public. As social media continues to entrench itself into our lives, transparency into the functioning of governments, as well as corporations, is increasing. Giving back responsibly Unfortunately, bad news tends to travel faster than good news and managing this in the digital landscape is a function of being authentic, honest and open about your activities. Authentic good news often centres on giving back responsibly, which is why multinational companies are eager to boost their reputations through corporate social responsibility (CSR). CSR is about developing communities, giving back to those who are less fortunate, and making the world a better place. Just as important is the natural environment; ensuring that the ecology of our habitats is stable and balanced while we drive up production to meet society's needs. Companies can practice social responsibility by donating to national and local charities. Whether this involves giving money or time depends on the individual need. However, there is a difference between building real value into communities and only being seen to do the right thing. In reality, the ecosystem of a global manufacturing business is dependent on the community in which it operates. Not only do businesses need to maintain good relations with the members of local communities, they also often employ the same people in their plants. Employing locals The typical multinational approach is to import skills to maintain continuity of production - but there are actually far-reaching benefits of employing locals in these businesses. The biggest benefit is that no one can bring a better insight into the local market than people from the surrounding community. However long an expat may live in a country, he or she will never have the same level and depth of insight into what makes an economy tick. Ethical labour practices contribute indirectly to the community; by treating employees fairly and ethically, companies demonstrate their commitment to their reputation in the community. Education, employment equity, preferential procurement, enterprise development and management transformation all form crucial elements of CSR. The added benefit is that they align to the government's broad-based black economic empowerment policies. According to the Better Business Journey report by the UK Small Business Consortium, 88% of consumers said they were more likely to buy from a company that supports and engages in activities to improve society. Ultimately community members, and their future generations, are the customers. Not only should companies support the community and create sustainable environments, but they should be working to improve the quality of life of employees and increase their ability to buy the products. It just makes business sense. Integral part of business Increasingly, CSR is becoming recognised as an integral part of doing business. US and UK companies in the Fortune Global 500 spend $15.2bn a year on CSR activities. Research by economic consulting firm EPG found that there was a clear difference in how American and British companies approached CSR. In-kind donations, such as donating free drugs to health programmes or giving free software to universities, accounted for 71% of the $11.95bn spending on CSR. In the UK, while donating goods and services in kind was the largest component of the $3.25bn CSR activity, it totalled just 46% of the total. Employee volunteering and fundraising made up 34% and cash contributions 20%. CSR should be more than just about giving away goods or time to people who are less fortunate. The ultimate goal should be to improve people's quality of life so that they become strong partners over a lifetime. It's less about donation and more about sustainable and meaningful impact that affects generations of people. We need to see people go from being unskilled to highly trained, and occupying leading positions. In particular, at Ford, we also need to encourage entrepreneurs in our automotive sector in order to further nurture the development of new skills and talent; and support initiatives that enable their families to be educated, healthy and productive. Establishing relationships It may seem a lofty ideal, but the community we serve is the world. South Africa has over 52 million citizens, but if we can reach a broader African continent with our Better World message, we establish a relationship with one billion potential customers, employees and partners. We place just as much value on our social function as we do on our core business function, because they are interlinked. At this stage, we may not fully understand just how deeply those connections go or how to properly harness them. But the key is willingness to learn. One community-driven experiment is our Riders-For-Health programme, which aims to bring medicines and healthcare workers to people living in remote and inaccessible areas across Africa. The data driven healthcare project uses Ford Rangers and Everests fitted with Ford OpenXC technology to assist with mobilising rural outreach healthcare and collect data. The spin-off for Ford is that we will be able to use the information for various applications, including infrastructure development, population studies, health research, marketing information and a host of others. This is only one of the long-term social projects that will directly impact on the way we grow our business and the automotive industry to bring smart transport to Africa and the world. Whichever way one views the concept of community, the true meaning is bringing people together to make a better world. Vicinity Media has added the 300 x 250 rectangle ad unit to their range of mobile ad inventory. The larger unit has been developed to take advantage of larger smartphone screens and thus increases performance. Vicinity's version of the 300x250 is unique in that it displays the distance to the offer within the creative space. The unit was tested recently on a campaign for a leading South African Hotel chain with positive results. The campaign CTR was sitting at 0.35% with a traditional banner BUT jumped to 0.65% when the 300x250 was added to the campaign mix. The new unit is already available on a number of Vicinity partner publishers with more to follow in the coming weeks. With the rand falling through the floor, this new ad unit is another reason for media agencies to spend rands with a local mobile network instead of dollars with the global networks. V I C I N I T Y Vicinity Media is a premium mobile advertising network that offers true proximity targeting to advertisers. Vicinity harnesses best-of-breed technology and location expertise to deliver street-level location targeting and driving mobile users into advertiser locations. Vicinity targets users further based on search term, handset type, time of day or day of the week, ramping up the relevance of mobile campaigns to never before achieved levels. Vicinity Media is bringing a Relevance Revolution to mobile. Daryl van Arkel moc.aidem-ytiniciv@lyrad Neil Clarence moc.aidem-ytiniciv@lien +2711 021 8346/7/8 As brands are becoming more and more emotional, thinking about offering consumers complete experiences, they need to enhance their uniqueness beyond a mere logo, a name, a look and feel. Royalty free Sirup Dreamstime.com From now on, brands are exploring multi-sensorial experiences embracing the five human senses: hearing, touch, smell and taste beyond sight, which is already an intrinsic part of brands' identities. Hearing In 2014, the Harvard Business Review noted that sound and music were slightly undervalued resources available for branding. Car brands have been the first ones to use sound as a differentiating element of a brand identity. Think about Ferrari or Harley Davidson and their specific engine sounds. In 2016, the phenomenon is expected to grow. Honda, for example, has added a quick snippet of an engine roaring away at the end of its ads to evoke power, speed, and agility. Touch In today's digital world, consumers feel the need to touch and to physically handle objects and materials. A new era is opening for brands, where both the digital and the tangible reality have to harmoniously co-exist and feed each other. Amazon, for example, opened a bricks and mortar store in Seattle, where consumers can freely browse the books. Mainstream brands are increasingly resurrecting printed catalogues. It is no longer a trend reserved for luxury brands; mainstream brands' consumers also feel the need to feel and browse actual paper. J.C. Penney recently relaunched its paper catalogue while Anthropologie launched its first home catalogue late last year. Printed books are also making a come back as the number of independent bookstores in the United States have increased. Smell Experiencing a scent makes you remember a moment, a brand or a place in quite a visceral way. This is what scent marketing is about: making consumers associate a brand, a store, any place linked to the brand with a special scent. The hospitality and luxury industry are using scent marketing and the phenomenon is expected to expand to other fields. Prada, Chanel, Clarins and Baccarat stores are carefully perfumed in order to create a special atmosphere and ultimately to trigger sales. Hotels like the Four Seasons or Hyatt around the world are also perfumed. Given its strong power of association and reminiscence, a scent is a huge tool for branding. Taste Taste is also a dimension that brands want to explore nowadays. Brands that are not originally in the food business are starting to open restaurants or buy food franchises. What for? Because food makes a brand experience complete and has the power to bond people together. This is exactly what brands are looking for: to bond their consumers together; to make their stores become places for socialisation. Ralph Lauren opened its restaurant in Paris and its Polo Bar in New York to extend the Ralph Lauren experience and to create a genuine place where the whole Ralph Lauren brand concept is rolled out, where products can be displayed and used. Following the same strategy, the American brand Urban Outfitters recently bought several pizzerias under the brand Pizzeria Vetri. The core target of both brands is the same: millennials. The aim, for Urban Outfitters, is to enhance the consumer experience in stores and make the stores become places of socialisation, in order to complement the digital aspect. "Congratulations, today is your day, you're off to great places you're off and away" - Dr Seuss Thursday the 2nd and Wednesday the 9th of December 2015, marked the dates on which OtD graduates gathered at Media Park Johannesburg and OtD Sacks Circle Cape Town respectively for their programme graduation ceremony. The events were hosted by OtD Learning and Development and attended by respective managers from the various divisions. Graduate employees were acknowledged for having completed the Middle Management Development Programme (MMDP), Key Account Management Programme (KAMP) and the Team Leadership Development Programme (TLDP). The MMDP was conducted over a period of 18 months, facilitated by Expert Technologies. The programme comprised of; class participation, individual and group activities, as well as presentations at various points of the learning cycle to embed the knowledge acquired. OtD congratulates the following graduates on their completion of the MMDP: Daniel de La Rey, Ockert Fourie, Godfrey Malinga, Sagran Naicker, Natashia Sirpal, Rajen Naidoo, Hazel Moyo, Jose Kamba, Thando Mqinela, Danzel Davids, Johannes Bell, Marvin Mathews, Roelene Eiberg, Denzil Everts, Vukile Mona and Wilmain Heilbron. Comments from our graduates: "I have acquired a greater awareness of emotional intelligence, and have made use of all learning within my everyday work, especially the ability to manage people according to their values; this has proven to be a catalyst for a performing team". - Natashia Sirpal "A valuable lesson I learnt is that we need to commit to placing the customer/client (both internal and external) first and have the ability to consistently deliver high-quality service. We also need to understand that problem solving is the process of working through details of a problem, and to reach a solution. Strong leadership is one of the things I am using every day, were I want to help each person to develop him/herself and to guide the team to work as a unit that is results oriented and committed to project objectives, goals and strategies". - Thando Mqinela "I have learnt that the next level of managers that attended the programme has the ability to be successful managers within OtD and Media24 in the future. Another valuable lesson learnt was to understand my brain profile and how to adjust my thought preferences to different situations at work. It was a privilege to meet new colleagues with the start of the programme and graduate as friends with a common understanding and goal for the business. Through understanding my natural thought process I am more assertive in my communication and willing to take risks - something which I was uncomfortable with in the past. I am focusing on becoming more strategic with empowering my team to manage the detail. I am more opinionated when I feel I can make a positive contribution and I am firstly true to my own core values before anything else". - Denzil Everts MMDP Johannesburg graduates, from left: Godfrey Malinga, Jose Kamba, Ockert Fourie, Daniel De la Rey, Hazel Moyo, Marietjie Du Plessis (Expert Technologies), Natashia Sirpal, Rajen Naidoo MMDP graduates Cape Town, from left: Denzil Everts, Wilmain Heilbron; Johannes Bell, Vukile Mona, Roelene Eiberg, Marvin Matthews and Danzel Davids The KAMP was facilitated by Ben Spies and Associates at Competence Lab. Graduates' thinking and mindsets were challenged throughout the programme, in order to reach the required results. Some of the critical skills which they had acquired were; Strategic account management, commercial thinking, leading and collaborating. Special thanks are expressed to all stakeholders who helped in sourcing a course fitting for this purpose. OtD congratulates the future leaders who graduated from the KAMP: Lazarus, Travis Moore, Busisiwe Chauke, Dineshren(Dino) Pillaye, Thembi Baloyi, Francois Snell, Kirk Kennedy, Aloise Fullex, Glen Trusell, Evangelia Fonesca, Jacqui Panaino, Eason Govender, Ashraf Hoosen, Deven Pillay, Hazel Moyo, Rudi Pretorius, Sherman Shkaidy, Melt van der Walt, Jayfred Moses, Thandekile Macala, Yvette van der Linder, Jan Hendrick Hurter, Tania Niewenhuizen, Staci Brink and Anthea Abrahams. Comments from our graduates: "The most valuable lesson I have learnt came from the module on the communication and presentation skills, I find that equips me with not only becoming a more professional person within my working environment, but also in my personal time as well. The module on problem solving helped and is currently helping me to a great extent to solve problems, whether system related or publisher related. I found the section on market analysis interesting and am testing ways to incorporate it in my daily work life". - Travis Moore "I value having learnt how to adopt a practical and strategic approach to planning, analysing and implementing a closer relationship with my key accounts/clients. Each day I use the learnings on how to maximise the use of my resources in order to free up my time, to focus on increasing business opportunities". - Eason Govender "The most valuable lesson I have learnt was to develop a trust relationship and deliver excellent service that surpasses our client's expectations, and understanding their short and long term goals for the vision of their media products. Each day I use tactical learning on how to market and drive the growth of the clients' media products and identifying the supply and demand. I communicate more effectively; and I am an open communicator in return as it has a positive projection on your sales targets/expectations". - Kirk Kennedy KAMP graduates Johannesburg, from right: Johan Sadie (Manager), David Lazarus, Ashraf Hoosen, Travis Moore, Hazel Moyo, Busiswe Chauke, Deven Pillay, Rudi Pretorius KAMP graduates, Cape Town from the back left Jayfred Moses, Francios Snell, Jan Hendrik Hurter, Aloise Fullex, Glen Trusell, Anthea Abrahams, Nigel Hartman (Ben Spies), Kirk Kennedy, Staci Brink. KAMP & TLDP graduates, Johannesburg from left: Masana Mathye, Adele Pretorius (Manager), Wiseman Hlongwa, Conrad Stanley (Manager), Eason Govender, Evangelia Fonseca, Delia Sinclair (Manager), Jacqui Panaino The TLDP was facilitated by Training Fundamentals. OtD congratulates graduates on their completion of the TLDP: Dineshren Pillaye, Nuhroeniesa Schalkwyk, Heloise Muller, Denzil Everts, Melanie Adams, Georgina George, Gavin Ludski, Simone Smit, Marlene Fortuin, Ebrenza Jonathan, Lauren Cupido, Natasha Adams, Sharmain Petersen, Elizabeth Botma, Merlin Van Staden, Marcelino Isaacs, Gillian Manuel, Gideon Gerbach, Jan Feyen, Harold Heunis, Richard Cronje, Shaun Butler, Jonathan Minnaar, Charmain Delport, Mamtaz Khan, Avish Matadin, Sibusiso Ndlovu, Jerry Reddy, Brian Masopa, Jayesh Magan, Justine Vilakazi, Masana Mathye, and Wiseman Hlongwa. Comments from our graduates: "I learnt that clear communication with my staff is vital to achieving the departmental goals. Staff must acknowledge that they have understood in order for goals to be achieved. Since completion of the programme, I have become a good listener which allows me to work better with my staff and has created an exciting work environment". - Jerry Reddy "The most valuable lesson that stood out for me was communication and respect. In my everyday work since the programme I'm using accountability, as I believe that my remuneration stems from being accountable for what I'm doing". - Shaun Butler TLDP graduate Gillian Manuel TLDP graduate Sharmain Petersen, Robert Campbell (Manager) TLDP graduates Johannesburg, from Left: Sibussiso Ndlovu, Charmain Delport, Rika Swart (General Manager & guest speaker), Jerry Reddy, and Brian Masopa In concluding; To our guest speaker, Rika Swart (OtD general manager) who provided graduates and attendees with a remarkable journey of truth and the reminder of "2 Steps Forward, 2 Steps back and still not there yet" - Thank you for your courage! LONDON - The Guardian newspaper is to cut running costs by 20 percent over three years and may begin charging for some online content following a 25-percent plunge in print advertising, British media reported on Tuesday. The Times daily said Guardian staff were expecting 100 jobs to be cut, although The Daily Telegraph said any layoffs would be announced in March. Executives from Guardian News and Media, the newspaper's publishers, told staff at a meeting on Monday that the group would be cutting around 54m (71m euros, $77m) in costs. Operating losses in the year to March 2015 were expected to be 53m, the executives said, adding that the aim was to break even in three years. Reserves in the investment fund which supports The Guardian dropped to 735m from 838.3m over the same 12-month period, they said. "Growing the cost base more than revenue is simply not sustainable," chief executive David Pemsel was quoted as saying at the meeting. Pemsel said that the newspaper could even consider moving out of its offices near King's Cross station in London although nothing had been decided. "Are we moving from King's Cross? Nope. Are we looking at everything? Yes," he said. The executives declined to comment on potential cuts to The Guardian's 1,960 staff. The Telegraph said that job losses were due to be revealed in March. Pemsel ruled out introducing a paywall for The Guardian's hugely popular website and mobile apps but indicated that one option would be to make some content available for paying members only. Source: AFP Tom Campbell Governor McCrory's pronouncement that the proposed CSX rail hub in Selma is effectively dead is both good news and bad. Without question this could be a great benefit to our state but the handling of it was not good, especially regarding the use of eminent domain.James Madison is credited with writing the Fifth Amendment to our Constitution, insisting that when private land is "taken" or condemned by eminent domain it was to be used for a public use and that landowners were to receive just compensation. Federal, state and even local governments have historically used that power for projects like roads, public works, buildings, airports and rail lines.What is the definition of "public use?" Over the years governments have expanded eminent domain to include economic development projects, most often in blighted neighborhoods for urban renewal, but in 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Kelo v. City of New London, ruled by a 5-4 vote, that eminent domain's definition could be expanded for economic development if appreciable benefits, such as new jobs and increased tax revenues would result.The proposed CSX intermodal facility will be the East Coast hub for trains, trucks and ships, utilizing our ports at Morehead City and Wilmington, as well as I-95 and rail lines, costing $242 million and employing up to 300 in construction and a projected 1,500 jobs in coming years. It has the potential for making North Carolina a real transportation center.Here's the rub. The state is to provide $100 million of the initial cost of construction in incentives and Johnston County will forego $6 to $7 million in real estate and personal property taxes for seven years, minimizing, at least for the near future, much of the public benefit.Neither the state nor CSX employed good public relations or business sense. Only as the announcement was being made did CSX personnel begin knocking on doors of affected property owners to tell them that they must sell their property or have it taken by eminent domain, if necessary.They could have learned from the past. In the 1970s Firestone Tire and Rubber decided to build a tire plant in Wilson next to the Norfolk Southern line. Firestone hired several different agents to secretly negotiate with landowners for the purchase of their property. Only after all the tracts were under contract did they announce their intentions. Property owners, local government and the citizens of the county were all pleased to get the new employer.It is no wonder residents and Johnston County Commissioners were understandably upset with the manner in which this was handled, especially if the proposal had been under consideration for several years.One of the great tasks of large economic development projects is to assemble needed acreage at reasonable costs to make them viable; secrecy is obviously important or else land prices will skyrocket and, if a small number of property owners balk, it might even be justifiable to invoke eminent domain, but only as the last resort.We hope CSX will not give up on this east coast hub because it indeed sounds like a wonderful boon to our state. But we also hope they will step back and bring it to reality in such a way that people don't feel like they've been railroaded. Czech President Milos Zeman has decorated a policewoman who wrote numbers on refugees' arms 28. 1. 2016 cas cteni < 1 minuta On Wednesday, during his visit to South Moravia, a region of the Czech Republic that borders in Austria and which experienced the arrival of several hundred refugees last year, Czech Prezident Milos Zeman decorated ten members of the Czech immigration police who, as the Czech website Novinky.cz says, "protected the Czech border during the onslaught of immigrants last year". Zeman also decorated a policewoman who wrote numbers on the refugee's arms with a felt tip, which provoked international criticism at the time. Source in Czech HERE 0 Your RSS feed from RSSFWD.com. Update your RSS... Only a few of the outgoing Hluttaw members attended the meeting with their parliamentary successors, Tatmadaw representatives, and the departing Mon State Hluttaw Chairman, U Kyin Pe. At the meeting, discussions reportedly revolved around legislation and activities slated for the first session of the Hluttaw and the transferring authority to incoming members. U Kyin Pe said: Speaking frankly, we are handing Mon States future over to these 31 new representatives. What will the public conclude about the work of these 31 representatives during their five year term from 2016 to 2021? For me, I would suggest that they do their best. I believe they will do their best. I pray for the best to happen. U Aung Kyaw Thu, the State Hluttaw representative for Thaton Township Constituency-2, said that at the meeting the outgoing Hluttaw members talked about areas for parliamentary improvement and mistakes they had made during their term. He said: What they reported is that some projects they implemented encountered long delays due to weak communication between the State and Union levels. He also said that newly elected members from the National League for Democracy would remain grounded in their partys policies. According to Dr. Aung Naing Oo, the only re-elected State Hluttaw MP, the first session of the Mon State Hluttaw is scheduled to commence on the 1st or 8th February. The Mon State Hluttaw is comprised of 31 members: 20 elected representatives; three elected representatives of the Karen, Bamar, and Pa-O ethnic groups; and eight representatives from the Tatmadaw, or Burmese Armed Forces. Edited in English by Mark Inkey for BNI It looks like you have reached this page in error ... The content you are looking for has either moved, or if you typed in the address there might have been a mistake. If you believe there has been a technical error please let us know. Most Popular Destinations (Cartoonist - Pat Bagley) In other news, authorities have set up roadblocks around the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon where a number of terrorists have refused to leave. 7 members of the cell were arrested yesterday. Meanwhile, the terrorists who still occupy the refuge have put out a call to arms to defend property that doesn't belong to them. And finally, Liberty Counsel hate radio host Mat Staver warns us that gay people are imposing a "jizya tax" on Christians. "Deep in the Islamic tradition is jizya, a tax which forces non-Muslims to pay an exorbitant fee for living within a Muslim state," Staver said. "Now, from farmers in New York to those offering wedding cakes, photography and other services, all have been fined thousands, and sometimes more than a hundred thousand dollars for having and acting on a religious belief that is different from homosexuals who demand their services. These fees and fine are in essence a tax on Christians who are living out their faith and beliefs in the businesses that they labored for and have built. In America, we should not fear paying a tax or fee to Muslims, nor to homosexuals, just because our faith is different from theirs." This argument could be used against almost any minority group that is protected by civil rights law, not just gay people. I wasn't alive to see it but I imagine similar arguments were used against people of color who simply wanted to eat lunch or go to school. The struggle for civil rights will never be over because men like Staver will always exist. PHOENIX - School and community college districts violate California law if they hire outside firms to campaign for bond ballot measures or purposely incentivize municipal finance professionals to advocate for passage of a bond measure, the state's attorney general said in a formal legal opinion. Attorney General Kamala Harris released the opinion Tuesday in response to a request from Treasurer John Chiang. California law prohibits using public funds to influence the outcome of an election, including campaigning for the passage of a bond measure. Voter-approved bonds backed by property taxes are the primary method of new school construction in the state, and Chiang sought a clarification on whether some common industry practices might be violating the law. "A practice has developed within the municipal financing industry whereby investment bankers, financial consultants, and bond attorneys offer to contract with a school district to provide the pre-election services that the district seeks," the opinion said. "Under such an arrangement, the firm agrees to provide the pre-election services at no, or reduced, charge to the district in exchange for the district's promise to select the firm as its contractor to provide postelection services, if the bonds are approved by the voters. Naturally, it is within the firm's financial interest to be awarded the contract to provide post-election bond services." Such California attorney general's opinions are advisory, and not legally binding on courts, but are generally considered authoritative by the officers and agencies who have requested them and given respect by judges. Robert Doty, a lawyer and former financial advisor who now runs his own litigation consulting firm AGFS in Annapolis, Md., said the opinion is a significant development. "This is a very important analysis for finance," Doty said. "It is not a general attempt to say that contributions are good or bad, except when they are tied to getting business." A previous Bond Buyer investigation found a nearly perfect correlation between broker-dealer contributions to California school bond efforts in 2010 and their underwriting of subsequent bond sales, and financial advisors have similarly been accused of using "pay-to-play" tactics. Former California Treasurer Bill Lockyer questioned the legality of the practices, and in 2013 twelve dealer firms asked the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board to adopt further restrictions on bond ballot contributions by broker-dealers, which they are required to disclose to the board. Harris' opinion points to a 1976 California Supreme Court case, Stanson v. Mott, in which the court ruled that public money could be used only to provide "a fair presentation of relevant information" related to a bond question. Chiang's request covered several questions, which the opinion dealt with in turn. First, Harris concluded, school districts violate the law if they hire a firm for services that could be construed as campaigning for the bond measure. Second, they also violate the law if they receive services from a firm in return for bond business when the campaign is successful if the district "enters into the agreement for the sole or partial purpose of inducing the firm to contribute to the bond-election campaign" or when "the firm's fee for its post-election bond-sale services is inflated to account for its campaign contributions and the district fails to take reasonable steps to ensure the fee was not inflated." The opinion notes that districts may legally select an underwriter beforehand and essentially guarantee them the business if the campaign is successful, but the motivation of the district would determine the legality. "In the absence of evidence to the contrary, of course, it is to be assumed that a district's actions are proper," the opinion said. "We therefore would not conclude that the existence of a contingent-compensation contract, standing alone, violates the law." The attorney general also concluded that a district runs afoul of the law if it reimburses a municipal finance firm for providing the pre-election services as an itemized component of the fee that the district pays to the firm in connection with the bond sale, as well as if it uses bond proceeds to reimburse the firm. Finally, Harris' office found, an entity that provides campaign services to a bond measure campaign in exchange for an exclusive agreement with the district to sell the bonds incurs an obligation to report the cost of such services as a contribution to the bond measure campaign in accordance with state and local campaign disclosure laws. Lori Raineri, president of independent financial advisory firm Government Financial Strategies in Sacramento, said she was pleased by the opinion and that the attorney general deserved a lot of credit for taking an "important step." Raineri said there are some subtleties and loopholes that will likely to continue being exploited despite the opinion, but that many of the most blatant conflicts of interest have stopped due to increased focus on this issue in recent years. She said she will show the opinion to prospective clients so they are fully informed about the law. Ive been gone a while from the blogging scene. Some of my more regular readers no doubt noticed but did not hassle me about it. Thank you for that. Sinc... 6 years ago Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot team is headed to Asheville, North Carolina, and they are seeking locals who have had bigfoot encounters. If you live in the area, and you have seen bigfoot, you might want to contact them and reserve your spot at their town hall meeting scheduled for February 9, 2016. Animal Planet is coming to Asheville in search of Sasquatch, and the TV crew seeks stories from locals at a town hall event on Feb. 9. The show, "Finding Bigfoot," follows four researchers who track the mythical beast around the world, aided by local lore. The episode featuring Asheville and Western North Carolina will film later this year, approximately four-to-six months after the February filming, said producer Sean Mantooth. "We've done two previous episodes in East Tennessee and are now branching out across the border," Mantooth said. "We only pick areas that have enough Bigfoot activity to warrant filming an episode of the show at. So while I can't elaborate too much, rest assured that the greater Asheville area is Bigfoot Country." In August, the Citizen-Times released a video of a Henderson County Bigfoot sighting that went viral online. "The only thing I can say about the Bigfoot sighting earlier in the summer is that we're aware of it," Mantooth said. For the full article, click here The two men who were arrested in connection with the murder of former Fairground Holdings Chief Executive Officer, Mike Montshiwa were finally released from jail this week. According to the charge sheet, the police arrested the duo, Bampoloki Seeiso of Bobididi ward in Mogoditshane and Tumelo Tshukudu of Phase 1 in Gaborone west, in December following a two months search. Village Magistrate Ike Raphael released them on bail after the State Prosecutor Ernest Mosate told the Magistrate that they have reached an agreement with defence attorney, Enoch Mazonde. Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) has taken a position to release the accused with bail conditions such as reporting once weekly to the police at Broadhurst. This was communicated with the defence attorney, said Mosate. Mosate told the court that investigations are still ongoing. Magistrate Raphael released them on bail under the condition that they provide surety amounting to P10 000 and do not interfere with the investigations. You should surrender all travel documents and do not involve in any criminal activities, said Raphael adding that they should also not communicate with the other accused David Modise who was released in December. Modise was acting as personal lawyer to Montshiwa before his death in October last year. Mazonde said he was happy that the state has finally seen it proper to release his clients. I am happy now that the state has seen the importance of releasing my clients, he said. In the last court appearance the accused were denied bail because the state said they were still investigating the case and looking for another accused person who is said to be a South African. But last week it was reported in several newspapers that the accused came forward and gave evidence voluntarily to the police. During the last court appearance when they were denied bail, the Investigating Officer, Sergeant Marapo revealed that the rifle that was used to kill Montshiwa was bought from Seeiso by another accused, Modise with the assistance of Tshukudu. Marapo said that prior to buying the rifle, Tshukudu and Modise allegedly travelled to Mafikeng in South Africa in an effort to buy a pistol for Modises self protection. The court heard that Tshukudu advised Modise to buy a rifle from Seeiso which he did at a cost of P2500. According Marapo the rifle was delivered on October 17 2015 before the day Montshiwa was shot at his house in Block 6 in Gaborone. When the gun was delivered, another suspect, South African Wilfred Mpolokeng was allegedly in Botswana in the night of the shooting. Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs has signed a shareholder compact agreement with Construction Industry Trust Fund (CITF). Minister Edwin Batshu said at the signing ceremony that the shareholder compact will create a culture of responsibility, transparency and responsiveness. The shareholder compact is not meant to micromanage the institutions or to stifle them but to maximise core principles of accountability and transparency. Batshu said that improved contribution of CITF in skills development to the construction sector depends on effective and efficient implementation of the shareholder compact. I must emphasise that the oversight role extends beyond the usual performance monitoring, it also ensures that the strategic intent of the ministry and its parastatals are aligned, this shareholder compact will be reviewed from time to time said Batshu Board chairperson of CITF Philemon Ramatsu concurred with the minister that the shareholder compact will be a sound framework to evaluate the CITF. Ramatsu said the compact will help in actively achieving CITFs vision of being the best in the provision of service excellence. He said that as CITF they pride themselves in having trainees who are readily absorbed into the market and some self- employed. As CITF we are mandated to accountability and good governance so that we achieve our mission and vision to improve the quality of and productivity of artisans in the building and construction sector said RamatsuCITF is a parastatal of Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs. It was established as a centre for crash skills training to facilitate training of Batswana as artisans or craftsmen and aim to meet the needs of the building and construction industry without having to rely on imported skills. CITF currently provides skills training through the Gaborone Centre and the Kazungula Mobile Training Unit, which was established to provide semi-skilled and skilled artisans for the Kazungula Bridge Project. With just a few days remaining until Sunday's deadline to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, regional officials are encouraging Montanans to make sure they're covered. "If people don't jump on this opportunity, it's unlikely they'll be able to get health insurance," said Kim Gillan, director of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Region VIII, which includes Montana. "It'll take another year." As of Wednesday, 55,891 Montanans had signed up for insurance through the federal Health Insurance Marketplace, at www.healthcare.gov, surpassing the signups for 2015 by about 1,600. Those who don't already have insurance and don't sign up through the marketplace also may face an increased penalty, as mandated by federal law. That increase will be either 2.5 percent of a person's household income or $695 per person and $347.50 per child under 18 in a household up to a maximum cost of $2,085, whichever is higher. Gillan and Jade Jagers, a certified assistance counselor and assistance coordinator at RiverStone Health in Billings, said the signup process this year has been refined after some hold-ups in the past two years. "It only takes about an hour," Jagers said. The Marketplace also will direct eligible Montanans to state programs if they are eligible for Medicaid under the HELP Act, a Medicaid expansion passed by the 2015 Legislature. Counselors and navigators are available at health care organizations across Montana and officials on Tuesday said that Montanans can also get or find help at www.covermt.org, a state website built to provide insurance assistance. According to HHS statistics, about 80 percent of Montanans enrolled in plans are eligible for premium subsidies, with an average tax credit of about $310 per month, which equates to about 73 percent of the pre-tax credit premium. RiverStone still has a handful of afternoon appointments available on Saturday for its counselors to help people sign up or answer any questions, Jagers said. She said it's also important for consumers to think about things like how the different insurance providers fit individual patient or family needs, if their preferred providers are in-network, prescription drug information and how they plan to use the insurance in the coming year. Opposition party members and observers have expressed anger at the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) resolutions to discontinue both the supplementary voter registration and transfers of voters. Made last year, the resolutions followed complaints by the ruling party that the opposition rigged the 2014 general election through voter trafficking. The accusations of election rigging by the BDP against the opposition has caused anger among observers some of whom believe that, such unusual complaints from the ruling party are ominous for the countrys democracy and stability. Although no concrete evidence has ever been produced to support the allegations, the opposition has accused the ruling party of election rigging since the first election in 1965. Supplementary registration, which takes place after the general voter registration, is meant to allow those who became of age immediately after the general voter registration to register. It gives the elections management body, with the benefit of the figures from the general voter registration, an opportunity to target the disinclined regions for further mobilisation. It also targets those who, for diverse reasons including voter apathy, were not able to register during the general registration period. For example, in November 2003 only 425 825 people registered during the general registration for the 2004 general elections. The IEC had targeted 675 000 potential voters. According to the final report of the elections management bodys preparedness to conduct legitimate and credible election in October 2004, during the first supplementary registration which took place between 13th and 21 March, and the second one of 22 March until 4 July 2004, the IEC managed to register another 75 476 potential voters and 46, 406 respectively. The report was sponsored by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) and prepared by Carl Dundas, Dr Zibani Maundeni and Tachilisa Balule in December 2004. Similarly, in the run-up to the 2009 general election, only 343 660 registered during the general voter registration. The three supplementary registrations the IEC rolled out to augment the figures, made it possible for 382 157 more voters to register. By the same token, falling far too short of its target at the end of the general voter registration, the IEC ran supplementary voter registration exercises which raised more potential voters. At the end, the consultants noted that ...the flexibility in the electoral laws enabled the IEC to structure the registration process in such a way that as many people as possible could be registered through different modes of registration. Part of the everything possible done by the IEC is the use of both supplementary voter registration and voter transfers. A total of 825 582 potential voters registered for the 2014 general election. Of this, 494 592 used the general registration period to register. When the IEC was not happy with the numbers, it rolled two supplementary registrations in which 168 844 and 162 146 voters registered respectively. The transfer window is intended to allow those who, after registering for the elections at a particular station, have changed their minds regarding where they want to cast their vote. Indications are that, by comparison, transfers are higher where high-stake wards and constituencies are concerned. A cursory observation reveals that all political parties are guilty as charged! The possibility that the opposition used both the supplementary voter registration and the transfer windows to engage in illegal registrations may not be discounted especially looking at the high-stake election that the 2014 polls were. In fact, primary election losers in both the opposition parties and the ruling BDP have accused the winners of having rigged the elections by way of trafficking voters. When contacted for comment on his party resolution under discussion, the secretary general of the BDP, Botsalo Ntuane, who said the BDP was certain of winning the 2019 polls, indicated that during and after the last elections, with the help of its foot soldiers, the ruling party noticed loopholes in the electoral law that made certain malpractices possible. Remember we also get feedback from our people on the ground who were candidates and also saw the strange practices in the 2014 election. The level of transfers was unprecedented. Why the systematic and coordinated transfers? Clearly, there was a kind of intent. How many democracies permit transfers according to your research? How many allow for supplementary registration? What are their reasons? wrote Ntuane in response to an email enquiry. It remains unclear why the ruling party chose the rather dramatic way of dealing with the problem of vote-rigging instead of doing away with the flexibility in the electoral system, which, if the voter registration data for the 2004, 2009 and 2014 are any guide, has aided the fight against voter apathy. The deputy secretary general of the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), Richard Gudu, believes the BDP is clutching at straws. They are being hypocritical. We know they are the ones who traffic voters because even their own members say publicly that they lost the primary elections because fellow party members, sometimes with the support of some in the leadership, trafficked voters to win the primary elections. If they discontinue these two processes, they should come up with something that will ensure that, for example, a potential voter who was outside the country and could not register when the general voter registration was concluded is not disenfranchised, said Gudu. He added that, as the ruling party, the BDP government, with the mandate to promote and protect democracy, must not be seen to promote self-serving legislations. The publicity secretary of the Botswana Congress Party (BCP), Dithapelo Keorapetse hit back by accusing the BDP of trafficking voters from their strongholds to the marginal constituencies. For example, they brought people from Mmadinare to vote in Selibe Phikwe. The opposition has got neither the resources nor the inclination to cheat in the elections. Some BDP members even confess to us that they get paid to do that. If they even believe what they are saying, why make noise about it without stopping it? In my view, voter trafficking can still take place even if you do away with supplementary registration and transfers because people can still use the general voter registration to register where they are not supposed to register, he said adding that, many transfers are genuine. Keorapetse, who labelled trafficking a crime, challenged the ruling party to enforce the current law. Our position as BCP is that, instead of infringing on the right of the people to vote, the BDP government should introduce Proportional Representation (PR) where there will be no need for voters to transfer their votes because under the PR system, one can vote anywhere because the country is like a single constituency, explained the BCP spokesperson. Professor Zibani Maundeni of the University of Botswana (UB) warns that, by discontinuing the long tested voter registration modes, the BDP risks making a very big mistake. A lot of people will be disadvantaged should the resolution turn into law. If voter transfers are disallowed, what will happen, for instance about workers who will have been transferred elsewhere before the elections by the same government? he asked rhetorically. The academic is worried that the BDP is accusing the opposition of vote-rigging. Such complaints coming from a ruling party are not good for our democracy and the stability of the country. Research has shown that, when a ruling party says that, it means to incite its members so that they refuse to accept the results of an election if it does not favour them, indicated the Professor. Bazezuru living in Francistown are completely ignorant about the much hyped Economic Stimulus Package (ESP) which is intended to empower citizens, Botswana Guardian investigation has shown. One of the Bazezuru elders and church leader, Raphael Panganayi did not hide his disappointment as he explained that most of his tribesmen have been left out in the looming gravy train. I am an elder of the Bazezuru tribe in the church and no one has ever informed us about this good project and I dont know why they decided not to inform us as government has always pre-warned us in the event of any looming government programmes. Although most of us are uneducated, government officials have always worked hand in hand with us without any discrimination and I wonder why they have decided to close us out of the so -called ESP, he charged. When they introduced various poverty eradication schemes, we were involved as government officials approached us during church services to break the good news hence our participation, he explained. Panganayi, who seemed perplexed at the news, vowed to leave no stone unturned in his search for answers saying he would invite area councillor and Member of Parliament (MP) to come to their main church to lecture them on the ESP and other important issues of national interest. Civic leaders know that most of us are not educated thats why they have always been there for us. Even during the past vaccination processes, we cooperated fully with them to have our children vaccinated even though it was against our culture and religion, he said. A majority of Bazezuru tribesmen are very good at construction, carpentry, welding and sewing, according to the elder, but their only undoing is lack of education. I believe that with the right lectures many of our tribesmen can benefit from this programme which sounds brilliant, he explained. Another member of the Bazezuru tribe 34-year old Farai Tseriwa, a reputable tin smith and carpenter based in Area W was also in the dark about ESP as he said that no one has ever briefed them about the looming programme. Whenever the government intends to introduce any programme benefiting all citizens, they normally send a government representative to our main church so that all Bazezuru can be informed with due respect. According to our religion, our church elders are always at the forefront by informing us of important national issues. Even during elections, various leaders on campaign including MPs and councillors always visit us and sell themselves to us in order for them to be voted but I am in the dark as to why they decided to remain mum about this ESP, he wondered. He said that although most of them work from their homes there is nothing wrong for them to be taught how to register companies so that they can also benefit from the programme. Dorica Matsika, who specialises in sewing, metal works and is a tin smith, welcomed the new development even though she also pointed out that she was in the dark about ESP. This sounds like a very good project which will benefit a lot of citizens, but the only problem is that Bazezuru have been left out. I wish the government could lecture us more on this ESP you are talking about, she said. Francistown East legislator Buti Billy was quoted last week during one of his kgotla meetings complaining that a majority of the Bazezuru will not benefit from ESP due to the fact that they are mostly uneducated and left out by government officials. When contacted by this publication on how he is going to go about in lecturing the concerned tribe on the ESP, he revealed that the only best way to have the attention of the elderly among the tribe is following them where they worship. Buti explained that if nothing is done to sensitise the tribe about the looming ESP, a majority of them will be left out since most of them are not educated enough to register companies. Moreover, these people are too religious and for one to win their hearts, one needs to understand what their culture requires. I have worked with them and they have always understood me clearly, hence my intention to follow them and lecture them on the ESP. They are our valuable citizens who have also contributed to the economy of this country as many of them are good welders, builders, carpenters and mechanics, he said. A 23 year old local fashion designer, Thandiwe Jogwe from Borolong has come up with her own fashion that mixes African print with sacker. Jogwe has always dreamed of having her own brand in the fashion industry. Her talent matured after registering for a fashion designer course at Gaborone Technical College where she is currently studying. Ever since starting her studies, she cannot wait to finish the course to join the industry. For her to realise that she had talent, she observed how she would go into her mothers wardrobe, mix colours and come up with great creations. I love vintage and old clothes. Most of the times I wear them to school, Jogwe said. Last September, she held an event called Classy Culture Revolution. It has since been established as an annual event where her range and that of her partner, Itumeleng Mosomane of Bracky label would be showcased. Jogwe says the word Classy signifies the material taken from old clothes, taking the old fashion and mixing it with modern materials. Culture symbolises the African culture and revolution reveals classical and culture mixed together. Although the fashion design market is already saturated, Jogwe believes she is still a catch. My design is different from other fashion designers because I specialise on sacker and nobody thinks to wear a sacker to an event but I take it, modernise it with African print which makes one to look outstanding and unique for occasions, says Jogwe. In her designs she also has urban bride, making wedding gowns mixed with African print material. Someone can just look special on their wedding day without a gown but something different from the normal everyday wear. To make the gown look special Jogwe mixes the silk material normally used for gowns with African print and the net even when the bride wants it puffy they use a slight material that makes the bride to sit comfortably. Jogwe loves fashion, she lives it and spends most of her time researching and reading more about fashion because thats what she is passionate about. She says most tailors fail to meet the standard when they are after money because it is about passion not money and quality instead of quantity. There are a lot of fashion designers and there is competition but I will not allow competition to shatter my dream I will pursue fashion and die as a fashion designer because it is my passion. She says she gets the material from Zambia especially prints and others from Tanzania and locally. Jogwe is currently working with other aspiring designers as well as young women. She takes them to a boot camp to inspire them to pursue their dreams. When Les Love turned 80 last fall, he decided to start a new business based on a product he designed and spent $10,000 having patented. I wont live long enough to see the thing in full swing, he said, but that doesnt bother him. For now, hes as excited as a child at Christmas about spending 30 to 40 hours a week in a basement work room stamping out plastic fishing lure blades for his business, Tackle With Love. Its been almost a dream come true for him, said Darryl Love, his son and business partner. Going slow Les grew up in Billings and has lived in the community his entire life, working for 37 years as a traveling salesman for a plumbing and heating business that sold fittings. Whitlock's wet-fly fishing technique catches trout Labor Day was a learning day for me. Dave and Emily Whitlock had contacted me about fishing He was introduced to fishing at an early age. As a child he would make treks with his father to Martinsdale and Canyon Ferry reservoirs to fish for trout. He still owns one fishing spoon, a yellow lure with red dots, that was hotter than heck for several years at Canyon Ferry. Its a color combination hes now incorporated into his own blades. Always a fan of Macks Lures Smile Blades, which are shaped like tiny boomerangs with a hole in the middle to slide onto fishing line, about eight years ago Les came up with an idea to modify Macks design to fit his own desires. The result was a fatter blade that turns easily in the slowest water currents. We were fishing at .3 mph, Darryl said. We just let the water take them. A lot of times when the waves are really heavy, we just motor up and drift down with the current. To vary the blades actions, Tackle With Loves website recommends folding the blades between 30 degrees and 90 degrees across the fold line. The less the degree of fold the more the blade will spin. Customers can buy a package of five blades for $3 and rig their own hooks, or pay $3.95 for a leader rigged with a hook, blade and embellished with beads and what Les calls bling rings tiny rhinestone-studded rings. There are four blade sizes: .9 inches, 1.125 inches, 1.25 inches and the magnum 1.5-inch blade. They are offered in 100 different colors and designs ranging from chrome scale to tiger, glitter to polka dots. When I first started doing this, I was only going to make the magnums, Les said. But the more we talked to people, they wanted the smaller blades. Ninety-five percent of what we sold at the (Great Rockies Sport Show) were the small ones. Fishing tactics Les and Darryl rig their blades in a variety of styles before they travel to their favorite fishing hole, Lake Sakakawea in North Dakota. On the water they split up, each taking their own boat out in search of fish preferably walleye, although theyve caught every species on their rigs including drum, northern pike and catfish. When one color or size starts working they radio each other. The father and son like to troll with their electric motors through shallow water. Most guys fishing tournaments are in 12 to 15 feet of water, Les said. I catch most of my fish in 6 feet of water. A lot of times its in 3 to 4 feet of water, Darryl said. Were brushing up against the bank. The men rig their single hooks with night crawlers. Theyve never tried leeches or minnows, two other common baits, because theyve always had success using night crawlers. To keep the rig on the bottom they use half-ounce bottom-bouncing weights. Try it, youll like it Darryl has become the companys salesman by default, pitching the blades to tackle and bait shops as well as to fellow anglers. Last summer while camping and fishing at Sakakawea, he gave an angler some blades to try. The fisherman did so well, Darryl said, that he sought the Loves out at the campground and purchased $150 worth of blades. Darryl does a good job for us, going out and talking to people, Les said. Hes really come into his own. Well, youve got to believe in the product, Darryl said. And Im a big believer. Press room Although Les just launched his business, hes been fishing his blades exclusively for the past eight years. He made the first ones cutting the plastic material with dyes that he crafted out of metal from old auto springs. To cut the material he uses a hand-operated one-ton arbor press rigged with a 3-foot-long handle for leverage. Radio personality has steered Montana outdoor show to success Fort Peck Reservoir, where gale-force winds are not unusual, is as smooth as glass. The day Id love to see the day we could automate, Les said. Just myself I can put out 1,500 blades a day. He buys the clear plastic in 52-inch sheets that he cuts down to three-quarters of an inch on an old paper cutter. Onto the cut strips he affixes the different color designs and patterns that come in a roll with adhesive backing, like tape. His workshop is a cluttered office in his basement. Its the same place he designed his business logo and fits the blades into tiny plastic bags for sale. So far hes found three sporting goods stores, one each in Three Forks, Dickenson, N.D., and Scheels in Billings to carry his blades. He also just launched a website www.tacklewithlove.com where anglers can purchase the blades online. Were starting real small, taking baby steps, Les said. I want to be able to control it. Les other son, who lives in Phoenix and is also named Les, praised his fathers new business venture. I look at all that our dad has accomplished with this product, and to now take this opportunity on at the age of 80 is remarkable, he wrote in an email. He is a very humble man who wants to share his passion for fishing. Last weeks euthanizing of a female deer has stirred up controversy in the Forsyth area and lit up social media across the state, but its also provided a public education reminder. Forsyth-area couple arrested after holding deer captive Two Forsyth-area residents were charged Tuesday with obstructing a peace officer after Monta The brouhaha involves a Rosebud County incident. On Jan. 19 Fish, Wildlife and Parks wardens tranquilized the doe and removed it from property where the homeowners had taken care of the deer since it was orphaned about six years ago after its mother was struck and killed by a vehicle. The deer captured by FWP was later euthanized in Miles City by a veterinarian. The couple who had adopted the deer, Daryl and Brenda Duncan, are now facing two charges each in district court: obstructing a peace officer and unlawful possession of a game animal, both misdemeanors. The obstruction charge has a standard bond amount of $335 while the possession amount is $535, although the court can go lower. The Duncans are scheduled to appear in court at 10 a.m. Tuesday in Forsyth on the obstruction charges. A separate appearance at 10 a.m. Feb. 8 has been set for the possession charge, although the court could decide to combine the hearings. Its the law The Duncans could not be reached for comment on the incident, and FWP warden Capt. Jack Austin said he would not jeopardize the case by talking about specifics. Nevertheless, plenty of people have called The Billings Gazette, written letters and posted comments on Facebook about the incident, many of them criticizing FWP for its actions and saying the deer was free to roam not captive. There are a lot of people around here who think that the situation could have been handled a lot differently, said David Wyrick, a Forsyth resident. FWP has a long history of attempting to educate Montanans about why helping wildlife even apparently abandoned youngsters is not a good idea. There are concerns about disease transmission or an emboldened animal used to people becoming aggressive. In 2010 near Roundup, a warden shot a buck deer after it charged him. The buck had been habituated to humans, evidenced by its sawed off antlers. Warden shoots aggressive deer near Roundup An aggressive mule deer buck with sawed-off antlers was shot by a Fish, Wildlife and Parks w Leave Bambi A common occurrence is people finding what appear to be abandoned fawns in the spring. People are trying to do the right thing, we love that they care so much about wildlife, but a lot of time people dont understand that the fawns arent orphaned, said Laurie Wolf of the MT Wild Education Center in Helena. The fawns have no scent, she said, so the mother will leave the baby while it goes elsewhere to feed, thereby keeping a predator from finding the fawn. The does have been known to stay away from their fawns for much of a day. Fawns develop pretty quickly to process grass, within six weeks they can survive on their own, Wolf said. Wolf said she has also seen orphaned fawns adopted by other does. Wildlife rehab The MT Wild Center rehabilitates orphaned or injured predators and raptors for later release into the wild. The facility doesnt take ungulates, like deer, because of concerns about disease. Plus, the animals dont do well in captivity where they are easily stressed, Wolf said. Likewise, the Washington-state group PAWS, which operates a wildlife rehab center, advocates against keeping wild animals as pets calling it unsafe, illegal and inhumane. Stories about wild animals who have been kept as pets attacking and injuring people, often fatally, are frequently in the news, the website said. The city of Billings has an ordinance banning the keeping of wildlife. Dont feed them Austin, the Miles City warden captain, said that statewide his agency often runs into problems with people unlawfully caring for wildlife, especially deer, but also feeding bears. Of late theres been quite a rash of feeding bears to the point that they become habituated, he said. That includes an incident last October in the Kalispell area where an emboldened black bear, who had been repeatedly fed by humans, killed an elderly woman. FWP tried to trap the bear, killing two others before ending the hunt. Woman dies after being attacked by bear in her home KALISPELL The elderly woman attacked by a black bear inside her home west of Kalispell ove Each report of or concern about habituated wildlife or illegal feeding of wildlife is considered on a case-by-case basis, Austin said. Even a bird feeder, if its causing deer or bears to unnaturally congregate and pose a threat to humans, could be seen as an attractant and the person asked to take it down. Deer coming into haystacks or an alfalfa field is not considered an attractant since its a normal part of agricultural practices, Austin said. He pointed to an FWP news release quoting wildlife veterinarian Jennifer Ramsey as well said. Paraphrasing, Austin said, People have a hard time understanding that we are managing wildlife as a population, not a single pet. And the threats are really high. The department has to draw a firm line on wildlife. A man who raped a 10-year-old girl repeatedly for months has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after a lengthy conviction process during which he threatened and harassed the girl and her family. Russell Marc Witcher, 43, was sentenced by Yellowstone County District Court Judge Gregory Todd to 50 years with 25 suspended on one count of sexual assault. Witcher pleaded guilty in September to molesting the girl. Senior Deputy County Attorney Mary Barry recommended the judge consider the aggravating factors in the case. "She was a young child, only 10 years old, not even a teenager when he violated her," Barry said. "(He) has undoubtedly affected how she will trust men close to her for the rest of her life." According to court documents, Witcher raped the girl multiple times from 2012 on. The girl reported the multiple rapes to her father in July 2014. The girl's father testified his daughter had stopped wanting to give him hugs or be close to him as a result of Witcher's sexual abuse. Witcher also violated orders of protection the girl and her mother had taken out against him. He showed up at their house and texted the girl's mother about how clean their living room was and the way the mother looked. For violating the protection orders, Witcher was given a five-year suspended sentence he will serve at the same time as his 25-year parole time for the sex charge. Witcher was designated a level-two sex offender and ordered to complete sex offender treatment at the Montana State Prison as well as pay more than $7,000 in restitution to the family. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 28/01/2016 (2457 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Brandon broke a 40-year record on Wednesday when the mercury climbed above 3 C and bested the previous Jan. 27 high of 2.2 C set in 1976. The balmy weather was the result of a fast-moving low-pressure system that whipped through Manitoba earlier in the day and was flanked by a burst of warm westerly wind, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada. What were dealing with today is this clipper thats gone by really quickly and then the winds behind it are still from Colin Corneau/Brandon Sun Matthew Klaassen wipes down the front window of Fraser Sneath coffeehouse on Rosser Avenue during a sunny Wednesday afternoon as the mercury climbed above 3 C, breaking a 40-year-old record. The warm spell left plenty of motorists wiping their windows from mud, as well. the west suddenly the temperatures are above zero, meteorologist Natalie Hasell said Wednesday morning. North of the city, Swan River was the provincial hot spot yesterday, hitting 4.7 C in the afternoon. While Hasell says its not uncommon to have a melt like this in January or February, the freeze-thaw cycle that is created with below zero overnight temperatures can wreak havoc on road conditions. Anything that melts today, or anything that fell as liquid, will freeze, so your road conditions will continue to be difficult, she said, noting that the midweek weather was also accompanied by high winds. Its not anywhere near warning criteria, but its still uncomfortable. Heading into the weekend, Brandons forecast continues to be mild, with a high of 2 C expected for Friday accompanied by periods of rain or snow. Next week, temperatures should drop back into the minus teens. Wednesdays low-pressure system is also to blame for freezing rain that sprinkled the city early in the morning before making its way to Winnipeg. While road conditions in and around Brandon were mostly messy, highway conditions were another story. For much of the day, Highway 10 between Minnedosa and Riding Mountain National Park was partly ice covered, according to Manitoba 511, causing Alexander School to cancel a ski trip to Minnedosas Ski Valley. Conditions were also icy on Highway 21 from Oakburn to Miniota. In Winnipeg, the freezing rain grounded the STARS air ambulance crew for the better part of the morning. We pretty much have turned down everything today because of the freezing rain, helicopter pilot Andrew Davidson said, adding that the crew turned down at least five calls Wednesday morning. Mostly what were worried about is the control services of the aircraft, and if it builds up ice, it could potentially literally fall out of the sky. Approximately 50 per cent of STARS calls are for traumatic injuries a large part of which are made up by motor vehicle accidents. Despite the crummy conditions, RCMP didnt report any serious collisions in the province. Officers did, however, respond to several incidents where single vehicles had slid off the road. On Wednesday, Brandon Fire and Emergency Services Capt. Ralph Moore had no collisions or accidents to report within his jurisdiction, which includes the city and a 50-kilometre radius. Around here, it was clear all morning, he said, adding that his crews pay close attention to weather warnings and difficult road conditions. Moore had a practical message for motorists who may be dealing with icy roads this week if the forecast keeps up. Know the road conditions, and if it is slippery, reduce your speed and you have to leave more room between you and the car in front of you, he said. Even if your reactions are good, your stopping time isnt good. ewasney@brandonsun.com Twitter: @evawasney Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 28/01/2016 (2457 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. In 1999, Westman Immigrant Services launched services in Brandon and the Westman region by providing English as an additional language classes to adults By 2003, the program grew to include settlement services, followed by an employment assistance program a year later. In 2009, the Brandon Community Language Centres professional interpreter program was added to the services made available to our clients and the community. Submitted Westman Immigrant Services on Pacific Avenue. From its headquarters in the former CP train station, WISs 209 employees and volunteers offer a host of services for new Canadians as they settle into their new country and society. Over time, there has been significant growth in services to accommodate the needs of our immigrant population and our programs now serve hundreds of newcomers each year through language services, settlement services, and community outreach. Language services provides classes where our clients have the opportunity to learn to understand, speak, read, and write English to Benchmark Level 4, the level needed to become a Canadian citizen. Classes are held from September to December and January to June. In our new computer lab, our teachers have begun to incorporate new technologies into their lessons by planning ESL classes that include computer literacy tasks. As computing is now an essential skill for employment, building competence in both English and computer skills will provide our learners with more opportunity in the future. Settlement services provides assistance to our clients in a number of areas, from completing applications for a Manitoba Health card or Visitors Visas to bringing members of their families to Brandon for an extended visit, assisting other family members to become immigrants, assisting with in applying for a Social Insurance Card, and referrals and accompaniment to other government or private sector agencies. Within settlement services, there are a number of programs that are tailored to meet the needs of newcomer families and youth and to assist clients in finding employment. Settlement services also provides a series of information workshops on topics ranging from how to complete your income tax forms, the requirements to be able to fish in the province, to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Volunteers assist in providing services to newcomers. Currently we have 90 volunteers, including 12 board members. Volunteers assist clients in our ESL classes and conversation circles, and also meet with clients one-on-one as settlement partners to help them practise their English skills. Volunteers also assist in our youth and family programs and care for newcomer children. We provide Canadian Language Bench Mark assessments for our clients who wish to improve their level English. The placement test assesses listening, speaking, reading and writing in order to refer the client to the best most appropriate level of English class. In conjunction with Paragon Testing Enterprises, a subsidiary of the University of British Columbia, we provide Canadian English Language Proficiency Index Program (CELPIP) testing. CELPIP is suitable for people who need proof of listening and speaking proficiency for Canadian citizenship. Immigrants have travelled from Vancouver, the Yukon, Toronto and numerous places in between to Brandon to take the test. CELPIP testing is offered once each month. In 2015, Brandon Community Language Centre was placed under the newly created community outreach section. The expansion was as a result of a shift in focus to include raising Westman Immigrant Services community profile through the production and distribution of an organizational newsletter, the provision of workshops on culture shock and cultural diversity, and speaking to community groups about our services. Currently, we provide interpretation services in the following languages: Amharic, Arabic, Cantonese, Dutch, French, German, Gujarati, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Mandarin, Romanian, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Tigrinya, Tagalog, Thai, Ukrainian, Urdu, and Yoruba. Professional community interpreters are available in the languages in italics and our in-house language assistants provide services in all 22 languages. Providing these services to newcomers requires a number of staff, a number of volunteers, and fee for service employees. Currently we have 20 full-time staff, 21 part-time staff, 41 interpreters, 37 language assistants, and 90 volunteers for a total of 209 staff and volunteers. Westman Immigrant Services is a not-for-profit organization that is primarily funded by Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada. The Province of Manitoba funds our employment facilitator. In addition to government funding we raise money within the community to facilitate our programs. The services that are provided are only available to permanent residents (landed immigrants), provincial nominee approved clients, and refugees. F. Richard Bruce is the executive director of Westman Immigrant Services. CHEYENNE, Wyo. A judge has imposed an 15-year prison sentence on a Wyoming man who sought unsuccessfully to have his sentencing on child sex-crime convictions delayed so he could receive a military pension. U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson of Cheyenne sentenced Army National Guard Lt. Timothy Wells on Thursday. Wells, of Cheyenne, was convicted in October of sexual exploitation of a child and other charges. Prosecutors say the crimes occurred at the F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne. Johnson recently denied a request to release Wells from custody temporarily and reschedule his sentencing for April to allow Wells to finish the 20 years of military service necessary to qualify for a pension. Assistant Federal Public Defender James Barrett told Johnson in court that Wells now has lost his military pension. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 28/01/2016 (2457 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Those interested in refugee sponsorship are invited to attend a workshop on Friday, presented by Westman Immigrant Services. The event at McDiarmid Drive Alliance Church is free; however, participants are asked to pre-register by calling 204-727-6031 by 4 p.m. today. The message that we really just want to get across is if theres anybody out in the community, whether youre an individual or group or church group, or anybody in the rural areas that have been thinking about possibly coming together to sponsor a refugee family this is a great opportunity to get the right information, said Wendy Petersen, WIS manager of settlement programs. The event runs from 10 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. and will feature presentations by the Refugee Sponsorship Training Program, a group coming in from Ontario. Petersen said they will be presenting an overview of the refugee sponsorship process, the commitments of a sponsor, how to connect with refugee families, etc. They will be talking about what types of challenges do they have when they come here, what challenges do the sponsors face when they come here, Petersen added. Approximately 80 people had already signed up as of Wednesday, an encouraging sign for Petersen. Weve had a lot of calls from the rural areas, she said. Groups of communities wanting to band together, wanting to bring a family here It just goes to show that that spirit of wanting to help is reaching far beyond the urban areas. Were seeing so many small communities really want to figure out how they can help. The Brandon Sun HELENA Months after a district court judge ruled that the booking photo of a registered violent offender could be released as "public justice information," attorneys are at odds about whether the ruling applies statewide. The Montana attorney general's office cited District Judge Jon Oldenburg's October ruling in declining to issue an opinion on whether booking photos are protected as confidential criminal justice information. Some counties in Montana routinely release booking photos to the media, while others refuse media requests to release the photos, saying they are confidential criminal justice information. Gallatin County Attorney Marty Lambert sought the attorney general's opinion on the matter in September at the request of Bozeman Daily Chronicle managing editor Nick Ehli on behalf of the Montana Newspaper Association. Lambert argued that booking photos should be confidential unless a judge orders them to be released, because they are not specifically listed as public information in state law. The attorney general's office in December declined to issue an opinion, saying Oldenberg considered the same arguments when he found Park County should release to the Livingston Enterprise the booking photo of Jovanne Lee Ashley. "In balancing the public's right to know with the defendant's right of privacy, the Court finds that the defendant's expectation of privacy is greatly diminished as his name appears on the daily jail occupancy roster and the violent offender registry," Oldenburg wrote. Ashley was charged with attempted deliberate homicide and aggravated assault. Montana Freedom of Information Hotline attorney Mike Meloy said Wednesday he believes that the attorney general's decision against writing an opinion is an affirmation of Oldenberg's decision and that booking photos are public records. "Unless the Montana Supreme Court rules otherwise, booking photos should be publicly accessible," Meloy wrote in an email to The Associated Press. Lambert noted that Oldenberg's decision found the defendant's privacy expectation was diminished, in part because his name appeared in the violent offender registry. He also noted the Oldenberg also found his booking photo had no evidentiary value. Oldenberg's decision does not address the law that requires that all copies of booking photos be returned at the request of someone who is never charged or is acquitted, Lambert said, adding that it would be nice if the Legislature clarified the issue. In the meantime, Lambert said he will still require media outlets to file a motion asking a judge to rule, on an individual basis, whether a booking photo should be released. That process can take a week or more, by which time the defendant may have already appeared in court, where a photograph could be taken. Meloy argues that people who have been arrested can't expect their image to be private because it is "readily available" to witnesses, law enforcement, fellow inmates and to anyone who attends an initial court appearance. Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 28/01/2016 (2457 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Four months ago, the body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi washed up on a beach in Turkey after he, his brother and his mother drowned while trying to reach Greece. A photograph of Alan quickly became the defining image of the masses of refugees fleeing Syrias civil war. The picture helped cement a brief consensus the Middle Eastern migrants risking death to get to Europe should be allowed in to apply for asylum. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany announced her country would accept asylum applications from any Syrians who reached its borders. Much of Europe seemed on the verge of joining the project. Europe never joined, though. The task of absorbing the migrants has been left to Germany and Sweden, with a bit of help from the Netherlands and a few other countries. German and Swedish eagerness to welcome so many refugees gradually has been worn down, though, and now the events of New Years Eve in Cologne and other German cities may have buried it for good. That night, gangs of young men, mainly asylum-seekers, formed rings around women outside Cologne station and robbed and/or sexually assaulted them. More than 600 women reported to the police they had been victimized. After Cologne, when Europeans think of refugees, many no longer picture persecuted families or toddlers. Instead, they see menacing young men imbued with the sexism that is all too common across the Middle East and North Africa. Such fears, though overblown, are not absurd, and will not be allayed by pointing out the alleged attackers in Cologne so far identified are mostly Algerian or Moroccan, not Syrian. There really is a cultural gulf between rich, liberal, secular Europe and some of the countries from which recent migrants come. It is impossible to conduct surveys in Syria right now, for obvious reasons, but a 2013 Pew poll of Muslims around the world makes sobering reading. More than 90 per cent of Moroccans and Tunisians believe a wife should always obey her husband. Only 14 per cent of Iraqi Muslims and 22 per cent of Jordanians think a woman should be allowed to initiate a divorce. Although Arab societies take a harsh view of sex crimes, women who venture alone and in skimpy clothing into a public space in, say, Egypt can expect a barrage of male harassment. Migrants are no more likely to commit crimes than native-born residents, but it would be otherworldly to pretend there is no tension between the attitudes of some and their hosts. European women cherish their rights to wear what they like, go where they like and have sex or not have sex with whom they please. No one should be allowed to infringe these freedoms. However, it does not follow from this that Germany was wrong to offer a haven to Syrian refugees. The moral imperative has not changed since Alan washed up on that beach. Half of Syrias cities have been blasted to rubble, hundreds of thousands of people lie dead and tens of thousands are starving in towns under siege. Thousands more refugees arrive in Greece every week. Those who would shut them out must explain where they should go instead. Rather than succumbing to moral panic, Europe needs to work out how to manage the flow of refugees and help them assimilate. A good place to start would be to insist they obey the law. Police in Cologne clearly failed to take on the harassers. Perhaps they did not recognize what was going on quickly enough or were afraid of being accused of racism. It may have been simple incompetence. Women have complained for years German police are slow to stop sexual harassment in the drunken crowds at the Munich Oktoberfest. Whatever the precise nature of the failure, it needs to be fixed. Security cameras in public places would make it easier to convict those who hide in crowds Germans should overcome their queasiness about such surveillance. With luck, the police will learn from their mistakes and work out how to prevent such incidents. Molesters should be punished. Asylum-seekers who flout the law should face prison or deportation. No one can be sent back to Syria, but Merkel is right to argue Algeria and Morocco are safe enough. When it comes to assimilating new arrivals, Europe could learn a thing or two from the United States, which has a better record in this regard. It is not culturally imperialist to teach migrants they must respect both the law and local norms such as tolerance and sexual equality. It also is essential to make it as easy as possible for them to work. This serves an economic purpose: young foreign workers more than pay their way and can help solve the problem of an aging Europe. It also serves a cultural one, though, because immigrants who work assimilate far more quickly than those who are forced to sit around in ghettos. In the long run, most children of migrants will adopt core European values, but the short run matters, too. Migrants who take the most hazardous routes into Europe by crossing the Mediterranean in leaky boats, for example are disproportionately young men. Overall, they make little difference to Europes sex ratio, but in some areas and age brackets, they may skew it. This is a problem, because districts with more young, single men than women are more prone to violence, especially if those men are jobless. That is why it is crazy to restrict the ability of refugees to bring their spouses and other family members to join them, as Denmarks government is now doing. The process of absorbing refugees will be neither quick nor easy, but it is the right thing to do and ultimately will benefit Europe. Ideally all European countries would do their part. It is scandalous so few have agreed to take more than a handful of Syrians and European governments have yet to agree on a beefed-up border agency to police the European Unions external frontiers. Even in Germany, there is a risk Merkel will be forced to abandon her policy of compassion. If she is to salvage it, she must take the lead again, spelling out how Germans can make Willkommenskultur work and how the newcomers themselves must adapt to basic European values. The above column was originally published by The Economist, as well as the Winnipeg Free Press. Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 28/01/2016 (2457 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Tonight is the opening of Brandons beloved Winter Festival. No longer the Lieutenant-Governors Winter Festival, eight pavilions are all set to welcome visitors, now into its 13th year. Last year, more than 30,000 visits were recorded, and with the support of a strong group of volunteers, it continues to grow every year. This year will be a bit different with less support from the city and the namesake lieutenant-governors name off the billing. Translation: fewer dignitaries, less pomp and circumstance and just getting right to the party. Its nice to have the opportunity to travel the world, even just a bit, without having to leave the comfort and convenience of your own city. Not only is travel time drastically reduced, but you dont have to suffer with our weak dollar, and the tedious task of currency conversion, arranging travel itineraries, and the embarrassment of stumbling and fumbling with a language you dont know. Theres nothing more humbling that being in another country, trying to speak a language that you cant understand. Simply asking for directions to the nearest bathroom could have you asking, Do banjos walk on the beach with your one-eyed cousin at Christmas? And its not just misspeaking the language that can be embarrassing local customs can be a landmine, too. In Egypt, using the salt shaker is insulting to your host. If you have to season your plate, it means that you find the meals taste repulsive. And theres one place where being early or on time is viewed as being rude. In Venezuela, if you are invited over to someones home for a meal, be 10 to 15 minutes late. Early or on-time guests are viewed as being too eager, even greedy. How embarrassing. But making a buffet of cultural faux pas is not the worst of the worst when it comes to being embarrassed. Far from it. The worst can happen anywhere, at any time, and we could be in the comfort of our home, or in a foreign land. By ourselves or surrounded by friends. Its accidental bodily offences. And a new survey by Wrangler asked 2,000 people which bodily offences they find most embarrassing. According to the Pee Yoo poll, 69 per cent admit experiencing being embarrassed by some kind of bodily offence at least three times each month. Here are the top 10, based on the disgusting data: No. 1: Loud Farts Fifty-six per cent of survey takers are embarrassed by their loud farts. Im surprised thats not higher. Ive taught my daughter how to do this with pride. There more than one way to keep the boys away. No. 2: Body Odour Fifty per cent of those surveyed find their B.O. embarrassing. If you have B.O., then why arent you doing something about it? This whole topic stinks. No. 3: Bad Breath Forty-five per cent find their bad breath embarrassing at times. I am completely paranoid of this. No garlic at lunch, and no onions on my sandwiches EVER. Nothing like having your hair curled by someones lunch choices aired out for you to enjoy. No. 4: belching Belching and burping embarrasses 39 per cent of survey takers. Smells are bad. Noises are good in my books. In some cultures, a belch is a sign of a good meal. Too bad my wife doesnt see it that way. Her tradition is to smack me on the back of the head afterward. Makes for an interesting musical interlude after a good dinner. No. 5: Runny Nose A snotty, runny nose is embarrassing to 38 per cent. It only happens when Im shovelling snow or have a cold. And, of course, its always when Im shovelling that friends stop by, neighbours come over to say hi, and anyone that can see you does. I quit shovelling. Problem solved. No. 6: Food On Teeth Thirty-two per cent are embarrassed when they get food stuck on their teeth. Oreo cookies and chia seeds. I get so mad at people I work with when halfway through the day, I smile in the mens room and it looks like I was riding a motorbike without a face guard, catching flies in my teeth. Grrrr. Someone tell me please! No. 7: Stinky Feet Twenty-nine per cent are embarrassed by the smell of their own feet. I cant get away from this one. Ive tried everything. It only happens when I wear summer footwear, though. And thankfully I wear sandals 11 months of the year same ones for the last nine years. Oh, I think I solved my own problem just now. No. 8: Urine Drippage Excessive urine drippage is embarrassing to 27 per cent of those surveyed. That all depends. Sorry. No. 9: Snotty Sneezing Snot-filled sneezing is embarrassing to 26 per cent. Close to No. 8, but again, noises are good. I like to sneeze so loud it scares half the office into doing a No. 8. No. 10: Simultaneous Coughing and Farting Twenty-five per cent get embarrassed when they cough and fart at the same time. Why? This should be an Olympic sport. Try not laughing after that one! True talent. And dont think you can count on other people to help you avoid humiliating situations. According to the survey, 87 per cent said if they were unaware they were doing something embarrassing, theyd want other people to tell them. But only 20 per cent say they always tip people off when they see something someone might not know. Please tell me. I want to know. Chances are if you see me at the Winter Festival this weekend, I may fall victim to one or all of the above, at various points of cultural celebration. I guess I should just learn to say, Excuse me, Im sorry in eight different languages. JOKE THIS WEEK This is what happens when your child is exposed to too many commercials on TV. A Baptist pastor was presenting a childrens sermon. During the sermon, he asked the children if they knew what the resurrection was. Now, asking questions during childrens sermons is crucial, but at the same time, asking children questions in front of a congregation can also be very dangerous. Having asked the children if they knew the meaning of the resurrection, a little boy raised his hand. The pastor called on him and the little boy said, I know that if you have a resurrection that lasts more than four hours, you are supposed to call the doctor. It took more than minutes for the congregation to settle down enough for the service to continue. BIRTHDAYS Tina Maureen Kitchkeesick Melissa Krahn Emily Chen Tania Campbell Ginger Mattel Terri McCulloch Debora Lugeet Beaulieu Carolyn Lough Rempel Destiny Dagg Laura McTavish Tyson Gerald Cowan Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 28/01/2016 (2457 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Nearly four years after the federal Conservative government suspended diplomatic relations with Iran and listed the Middle Eastern country as a state sponsor of terrorism, the new Liberal government has decided to soften that hardline stance. And the Liberal reasoning seems to be mostly economical which in this case seems the most logical. In his remarks during question period in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion said Canada would begin lifting sanctions on Iran, now that a deal has been reached to prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Earlier this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it had verified that Iran had completed all the necessary steps under the agreement reached last October that will ensure its nuclear program remains peaceful. As per an announcement on the U.S. White House website, Iran shipped 25,000 pounds of enriched uranium out of the country, dismantled and removed two-thirds of its centrifuges, removed the calandria from its heavy water reactor and filled it with concrete, and provided unprecedented access to its nuclear facilities and supply chain. Because of this, the U.S. government and other international partners have begun lifting nuclear-related sanctions. But several economic and weapons-related U.S. sanctions will remain. And the U.S. will continue to identify Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism. And Canada seems to be following suit, as per the international agreement, a move that is ultimately softening Canadas former hardline stance under the Tories. Dion noted that Canada will reopen diplomatic relations with Iran, and eventually reopen the Canadian Embassy in Tehran that was abruptly closed by the Harper government in 2012. As the CBC reported, the remarks came after Conservative MP Peter Kent asked Dion what the government would do about Iran, a country he called a bad actor and one that supports Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Kent continued to follow his partys official position on Iran, saying that now is not the time to review or remove sanctions against a country that is still not within the world family of nations that co-operates and works with other nations. To this, Dion suggested that Canada would be isolating itself from other nations that are slowly removing sanctions. To do otherwise, he said, would put Canadian businesses at a disadvantage. Why, for example, should Canadas Bombardier, which hopes to sell regional jets to Iran Air, be prevented from selling to Iran while a French company like Airbus could have access? Sanctions, of course, are merely one tool that governments can use to pressure other nations over human rights, military and economic issues. But often diplomacy can be a much more persuasive and useful tool in that arsenal. And in the case of the former Conservative government, the call for sanctions against Iran was more ideologically driven than governed by sound international policy. And thats true in many instances, from Harpers stance on Palestine and its unconditional friendship with Israel, to the former prime ministers sabre-rattling with Russia. It wasnt just U.S. sanctions that ultimately persuaded Iran to agree to dismantle its nuclear infrastructure. According to the New York Times, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry credited patient diplomacy together with those sanctions with accomplishing more than military intervention ever could have. The history of Cuba-Canada relations is also a good example of this rationale. Highly stringent sanctions by the U.S. against the island nation ultimately did little to change the behaviour or political stance within Cuba proper. And interestingly, it was Canada, which had maintained diplomatic relations with Fidel Castros communist regime for decades, that was chosen to help provide neutral territory for talks between Cuba and the U.S., a move that ultimately helped foster renewed diplomatic relations between the two countries. In other words, middle powers like Canada can do more with diplomatic relations and these kinds of soft power tools because we simply dont have the firepower to back up sanctions like the United States does. That doesnt mean Canada shouldnt back up our allies in the case of certain kinds of sanctions, such as those internationally agreed to under the Iran deal. But history has proven that our nation can often achieve more by talking than sabre-rattling. Its a unique position that we have, and one the federal Liberals generally better understand than their Tory counterparts. Ann Cahill Europe Correspondent New rules that would ban countries offering sweetheart tax deals to multinationals would not work against Irelands interests according to the man in charge of drawing up the proposals, Pierre Moscovici. The Economics Commissioner praised the way Ireland has been working on tax measures agreed by the OECD and said the way Ireland was implementing them was quite remarkable. Countries will still be able to set their own corporation tax rate and their own corporate tax rules. We are not calling into question tax sovereignty, he said. The proposals, that need the unanimous agreement all EU member states before they would become law, he believed were "ripe for decision and while he was not optimistic, he was confident of a positive outcome. According to research by the European Parliament, EU countries are losing out between 50 to 70 billion a year though multi nationals taking advantage of loopholes in countries tax regimes. This Anti Tax Avoidance Package includes a list of measures taken by corporations to lower or avoid their tax liability involving inter-company loans, payments for intellectual property, moving ownership of the results of research to low or no tax jurisdictions. The overall result if the measures are adopted would be that companies pay tax where they make their profits - rather than for instance where they are headquartered, or where a subsidiary in one country can charge one in another country large amounts for IP or interest on loans. It would also boost transparency where national tax authorities would exchange information with one another on the operations of multinational companies in their country. This will allow them to see where exactly these companies are paying their tax, on what basis, and how much. The base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) standards agreed by the OECD countries last October - including Ireland - are optional and are being implemented by Ireland, while the EU proposals if and when agreed by the member states at Council level and the European Parliament would be mandatory. The Irish Tax Institute said the proposals would affect companies across the entire EU and were a major step in turning the plans on corporate tax avoidance into actual EU law, and will ultimately impact multinationals and member states. But left-leaning parties in the European Parliament said the proposals were weak and would not stop large corporations shifting their profits to low or no tax jurisdictions to avoid paying tax. HELENA With the economy expected to be a central focus of Montana's governor's race, Gov. Steve Bullock on Thursday laid the groundwork for his re-election by declaring the state's economy strong. Republican challenger Greg Gianforte has made Montana's low wages his campaign's central theme. Gianforte has hammered the incumbent Democrat for not doing enough to produce high-wage jobs to keep Montana's youth from fleeing the state for better economic opportunities elsewhere. During a news conference in the Capitol, Bullock cited the state's 4 percent unemployment rate as a key indicator of Montana's glowing economy. Montana's jobless rate is one point below the national rate. "Our economy is strong," the governor said. "The state's ability to work collaboratively with the private sector has never been better. There is a lot to be excited about." The governor's report, compiled by his economic advisers, cast a mostly rosy light on the state's economy. Bullock's administration cited rankings placing Montana in the Top 10 in the country on various measures, including job growth, the business climate and income growth. "The sky isn't falling," the governor said. Despite Bullock's depiction of the state economy as solid, Gianforte's campaign has nevertheless faulted the governor on his economic record. "I don't know what kind of bubble the governor and his staff are living in," Aaron Flint, Gianforte's campaign spokesman, said in an email. "They need to drive down to Whitehall and talk to the laid off miners. They need to drive over to Deer Lodge and talk with folks who've been put out of work." Gianforte, who officially launched his campaign for governor during a two-day tour of the state last week, has blamed the governor for Montana's status as having among the country's lowest wages. Gianforte says that Montana ranks 49th in the nation. Gianforte's statement is based on an analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which reviewed 2013 tax return data for each state. The study reported Montanans earn an average of $33,180 annually. The U.S. Census Bureau, however, said 17 states in 2014 had lower median household incomes than Montana's $51,102. Patrick Barkey, the director of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana, said it was understandable the governor would paint a glowing picture of the economy. "Our general conclusion was that 2015 was a pretty good year. I think he did a very good job of finding some really good things to say about our state," Barkey said. But he said Gianforte raises legitimate concerns. "Is the governor's report a fair read on the economy? I would say absolutely. Did he spend enough time talking about the challenges? That wasn't the aim of the report. But just because it was a good year for the economy doesn't mean all is right," Barkey said. News broke yesterday that the High Court had appointed a provisional liquidator to Oxtermont Ltd, the holding company of Xtra-Vision. All Xtra-Vision stores have since closed across the country, this lead to more than 500 jobs lost. The closer of these stores also puts all money raised from last years Christmas charity single, When I Grow Up at risk - roughly estimated at 54,000. The single - taken from Tim Minchins award-winning musical, Matilda - had been released by the Association of Irish Musical Societies in aid of the Children's Medical and Research Foundation in Crumlin and the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children and sold at HMV/Xtra-Vision's nationwide. Speaking to breakingnews.ie, producer Stephen Macken said: "The CD was only distributed by HMV/Xtravision on behalf of the Association of Irish Musical Societies, no margin was taken by the company as they were merely collecting money on our behalf. The statement made to the High Court stated that the company was insolvent and unable to pay their debts. Hopeful the liquidator will recognise that the money generated from the sale of our CDs does not belong to HMV/Xtra-Vision." Macken has since spoken to a representative from Grant Thornton who said that they will look into it as a priority. Not only that, this is the second time this has happened as the funds from their 2012 single Tiny Dancer were tied up in the receivership of HMV 2013. The recording of When I Grow Up was included as part of the Encore gala concert in November of last year, a concert that celebrated 50 years of musical theatre in Ireland. Not only did they manage to gather the largest ensemble choir ever to record a charity single in Irish chart history, it also features special guests Shane Filan and ten-year-old, Grace Lee. Grace from the Isle of Man has had ten heart procedures for Congenital Heart Disease and suffers from Chronic Lung Disease. The recording was dedicated to the memory of Jack Lam from Castlebar in Co. Mayo. Jack died in November 2013 from complications arising from his treatment for Neuroblastoma. He was part of the original social media campaign set-up by the team to create awareness of the recording, but sadly he passed away just a month after submitting his When I Grow Up photo. By Eoin English Gardai have sealed off land just outside Cork city following the discovery of a man's body in a slurry pit. The remains were found on farmland in the Whitechurch area on the northern outskirts of the city this afternoon. Arrangements are being made for garda technical experts to conduct a detailed technical and forensic examination of the scene, before the remains are removed for post mortem. Update at 9.43pm: A post-mortem is to be carried out on a man's body found in a slurry pit on a farm near Cork City. The remains, were discovered in in Rahaniskey, near Whitechurch, this afternoon. The scene has been sealed off to allow Gardai carry out forensic tests. A formal identification will take place tomorrow morning. While the cause of death will be established through an autopsy at Cork University Hospital. The Dail has heard calls for Michael Noonan to resign over claims he misled the house about the ECB's stance on burning bondholders. It is after the Banking Inquiry found that the ECB had explicitly threatened to cut off funding for Irish banks if bondholders were burned. Campaigners have given their support to the students union at Trinity College in Dublin, which is to offer sexual consent classes to new students. The objective of the workshops is for students to learn about the issue in a positive way and to get people talking. All non-urgent elective surgeries have again been cancelled at Cork University Hospital because of overcrowding. The hospital is also urging people to stay away from its emergency department, if possible. Revenue officers have seized almost 10 million black market cigarettes in the last week. The Revenue said a string of raids were carried out on the back of intelligence with the latest including the discovery of 7,800 cigarettes and 3.5 kilos of tobacco in three houses in Dublins inner city. Those searches were part of an ongoing operation to target the illegal selling of cigarettes on Moore Street. The single biggest find came on Wednesday evening when 6.6 million cigarettes were found in a warehouse in Co Meath. A container holding the Royale Pacific brand had come into Dublin Port via Rotterdam from Vietnam on Monday and were described as shower room linen baskets on the ships manifest. Also on Wednesday, a search warrant on a house in Cashel, Co Tipperary, led to the seizure of more than 39,000 MG brand cigarettes and the arrest of a man in his 40s. Elsewhere, a week ago 2.9 million Jim brand cigarettes, which originated in Vietnam, were seized at Dublin Port. The Revenue said investigations are ongoing in all cases and the total value of contraband tobacco and cigarettes was five million euro. SIPTU have said they will not accept proposals from Tesco to cut the wages of long serving staff at the company. Tesco intends to change the employment conditions of all staff employed since before 1996. CASPER, Wyo. U.S. officials on Wednesday cleared the way for a review of two mining projects that would dig up 644 million tons of coal from public lands, despite a recent government moratorium halting federal coal sales. Wyoming, Montana and U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials approved moving forward with a multiyear evaluation of the projects located next to existing mines in the states' Powder River Basin, the nation's largest coal-producing region. The Jan. 15 moratorium from the Obama administration allows coal sale applications to be reviewed but blocks their final approval pending a sweeping review of the federal coal program, expected to take three years. Industry opponents had urged officials to block the applications. They cited concerns over climate change and other environmental effects from burning coal and questioned if taxpayers were getting a fair deal in a program that has sold more than $2.2 billion of coal since President Barack Obama took office, at prices below $1 per ton in many cases. While the administration has aired similar concerns, Wednesday's vote indicates it remains unwilling for now to shut down a program that gives private companies cheap access to massive coal reserves in the Western U.S. and provides significant revenue to states. Gillette, Wyo.-based Cloud Peak Energy and Lighthouse Resources Inc. of Salt Lake City are seeking the coal applications. Company representatives said it was crucial that work start soon on their applications in order to have coal available for mining in future years, when current reserves are depleted. Lighthouse Resources wants to increase its annual production from 3 million tons to as much as 15 million tons at its Decker Mine in southeastern Montana, environmental manager Jordan Sweeney said. The company wants to export the fuel through new coal ports proposed on the West Coast. Cloud Peak's Antelope Mine produces coal for U.S. markets and would continue to do so with the additional fuel it's seeking, said Blake Jones, the mine's technical services manager. The company submitted an application involving another federal coal tract in 2005, and it was approved only last year, Jones said. Most of that coal likely will be mined by the time a decision is made on the latest application, he said. "With this long of a process, we need to move forward to get it started," Jones said. Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, WildEarth Guardians and other environmental groups said power plants burning the coal sought by Cloud Peak and Lighthouse Resources would generate over 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide gas, the main contributor to global warming. "We know the federal coal system is broken. President Obama has called for a deep review of the program, and the world is turning to cleaner options," said Diana Best with Greenpeace USA. A shift in the industry's fortunes reached a critical juncture last year, when cheaper natural gas overtook coal to become the dominant fuel used to generate electricity in the U.S. In response to the declining demand, coal mining companies had sharply scaled back their pursuit of new leases even before the moratorium. In November, Peabody Energy and Arch coal the two largest U.S. coal mining companies withdrew applications to lease almost 2 billion tons of coal in Wyoming. Other companies have asked federal officials to delay sales on three leases totaling 668 million tons. Sexual consent classes are being introduced at Trinity College Dublin. The classes, the first in an Irish university, will be part of orientation for first-year students living in university-run accommodation. The move is part of a bid to reduce the number of assaults on campus. A student survey last year found one in four female students at Trinity College who responded had a non-consensual sexual experience. Similar classes are now compulsory for first-year students in England's Oxford and Cambridge universities. One of the college's male students said: "It's a fine line between yes and no. You know when you're on a night out and you're absolutely twatted, you wouldnt know what would happen, so I suppose a bit of clarity (is a good thing)." A female student added: "I think when drink comes into it, the lines are blurred sometimes." Another said: "I think it's a really good idea. It's the kind of thing young girls might not know about, a lot." The jailed leader of an armed anti-government group has urged the remaining militants to abandon the Oregon wildlife refuge they have occupied for more than three weeks. Mike Arnold, a lawyer for Ammon Bundy, read out a statement from the militant leader after he made his first court appearance in Portland on Wednesday. Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is now in the courts, the statement said. It is unclear whether the remnant of Bundys followers still at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge south of Burns are ready to heed his advice. The refuge is now surrounded by US government agents. Meanwhile, details began to emerge about Tuesdays confrontation on a remote highway that resulted in the arrest of Bundy and other leading figures in the group of occupiers and the death of militant Robert Finicum. Bundy followers gave conflicting accounts of how Finicum died. One said he charged at FBI agents who then shot him, but a member of the Bundy family said Finicum did nothing to provoke the agents. Oregon man Raymond Doherty, who says he witnessed the shoot-out, said the shooting happened quickly over perhaps 12 or 15 seconds. He told KOIN-TV that he was about 100 feet back and could not see who specifically was shooting, but added: I saw them shooting at each other. Authorities refused to release any details about the encounter or even to verify that it was Finicum who was killed. A federal judge in Portland unsealed a criminal complaint that said the armed group had explosives and night-vision goggles and that they were prepared to fight at the refuge or in the nearby town of Burns. Someone told authorities about the equipment on January 2, when the group took over the Malheur refuge, according to the document. Bundy and seven others are charged with felony counts of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats. The criminal complaint states that the 16 employees at the wildlife refuge have been prevented from reporting to work because of threats of violence posed by the defendants and others occupying the property. Federal officers and Harney County sheriff Dave Ward held a news conference on Wednesday in which they called on the rest of the occupiers to go home. There is a huge law enforcement presence in the region, and the FBI has now set up checkpoints outside the refuge. FBI agent Greg Bretzing said people could leave through checkpoints where they will be identified. He did not say whether any of them faced arrest. He said negotiators were available to talk if they have questions or concerns. Ammon and Ryan Bundy are the sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a high-profile 2014 stand-off with the government over grazing rights. The group, which has included people from as far away as Michigan, calls itself Citizens for Constitutional Freedom It came to the frozen high desert of eastern Oregon to condemn what it calls onerous national land restrictions and to object to the prison sentences of two local ranchers convicted of starting fires. Don't Miss the Latest News Subscribing is the best way to get our best stories immediately. Another arrest warrant has been issued for a Wyoming man who was recently arrested and charged with multiple counts of animal neglect following the discovery of seven dead horses and another six that were malnourished on his property. Another warrant has been issued for Michael Aaron Wood, 39, of Clark, Wyo., according to Lance Mathess, public affairs officer with the Park County Sheriffs Office. Wood has been charged with three misdemeanor counts of animal neglect for three dead dogs in addition to the 13 he was charged with for the dead and malnourished horses. Each count is punishable by a maximum of six months in prison and a $750 fine. Wood was arrested Jan. 15 on the original 13 counts but has since been released on bond. The Park County Sheriffs Office received a tip Jan. 13 of two deceased dogs in a horse trailer on Woods property on Crossfire Trail. Investigating officers received a search and seizure warrant, leading to the discovery of three dead dogs on Woods property. Now what do you guys want? Wood asked the investigating officers when they arrived Jan. 14 with the search and seizure warrant, according to the affidavit. Sgt. Mark Hartman informed Wood he was there to take the remainder of his animals into custody. When asked how many animals were in his house, Wood said three dogs and three cats. When asked about the dead dogs in the horse trailer, Wood added that there was another dead dog in his house. After entering Woods home, officers were approached by two barking and jumping Labrador retrievers described as excited but not dangerously aggressive. All of these dogs appeared to be underfed and skinny in appearance, but active and playful, according to the affidavit. Wood then led officers to his laundry and utility room where they discovered a dead pit bull-Lab mix, approximately 8 to 9 years old, according to the affidavit. In the horse trailer, an Australian shepherd mix and a Great Pyrenees were found dead, according to the affidavit. Both dogs were estimated to have been 3 years old. In a later interview with Hartman, Wood described the Great Pyrenees as an escape artist that could get out of a six-foot fence and this was why he was kept tied inside the horse trailer. Wood said the Australian shepherd mix had bit him last year and left him hospitalized for a week with an infection. He then told Hartman he had fed the dogs in the trailer about a gallon of dog food every couple days and also gave them water. He said the dogs probably died because of the cold a while ago. Wood said that it was hard to keep weight on both of the dogs inside the house, including the older chocolate Lab because of its bad teeth, but that he fed them and provided them with water every day. The initial anonymous report of six to seven dead horses at Woods residence was called in to the Park County Sheriffs Office Jan. 7. Five dead horses were initially discovered, with six live horses appearing thin and in some cases emaciated. Wood said at the time that he had tried unsuccessfully to get rid of the horses through ads and calling organizations and that he had not had the money to feed them. A search and seizure warrant was executed Jan. 9 the Wood's property, leading to the discovery of two more dead horses in a snow drift at the rear of Woods property and the seizure of the remaining six live horses. The surviving horses are in the care of Park County. The dead horses in the snowdrift were long dead and had been fed upon by coyotes as well as most likely domestic dogs, according to court documents. KARACHI: Bank Alfalah Limited has always been one of the biggest allies when it comes to supporting cricket in... ALMATY: Sensing that Russia has been weakened by its war in Ukraine, some of its closest allies in Central Asia are... TEHRAN: Iran has once again rejected allegations that it has supplied Russia with weapons "to be used in the war in... BURNS, Ore. A member of an armed anti-government group who was killed in a traffic stop in Oregon vowed a few weeks ago that he would die before spending his life behind bars. LaVoy Finicum, a 55-year-old rancher from Cain Beds, Ariz., died Tuesday after law enforcement officers initiated the stop near the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon. It's unclear what happened in the moments before the shooting, or if Finicum or any of the other activists involved exchanged gunfire with officers. Authorities wouldn't say how many shots were fired. Eight occupiers were arrested, including group leader Ammon Bundy. Finicum also was a leader of the armed group that took over the refuge Jan. 2 to oppose federal land restrictions and object to the prison sentences of two local ranchers convicted of setting fires. He was a prominent presence at the refuge and frequently talked with reporters. His affable but passionate demeanor made him a popular subject for on-camera interviews. Finicum seemed to have made up his mind about how his role in the occupation was likely to end with his death. Just a few days into the occupation, he came barreling to the refuge entrance in a federal truck. Rifle in hand, Finicum sat in the middle of the driveway, telling the reporters gathered around him that he learned there was a warrant for his arrest and he wanted to make it easy for federal agents to find him. At the time, he said he didn't know what the warrant charged him with, but he believed agents would try to arrest him soon. "I don't think it really matters. There's enough things they could make a warrant for us, I believe," he said. Finicum said he had neither threatened nor harmed anyone during the occupation. "I have grown up loving the fresh air. I love the elements. And this is where I'm going to breathe my last breath," he said. "... I'm not going to spend my last days in a cell. This world is too beautiful to spend it in a cell." He then gave a message to his family: "And kids, if I don't come, you know I love you and I'm proud of every damn one of you." The rancher was media-savvy and tried to popularize and monetize his political beliefs on his website, www.onecowboystandforfreedom.com. He used the site to sell his book, a 252-page paperback titled "Only by Blood and Suffering," as well as T-shirts, bumper stickers and posters emblazoned with slogans like "Let Freedom Ring" and "Defend the Constitution Original Intent." Anaconda man among militia leaders in Oregon occupation BUTTE A Montana Army veteran who lives in Anaconda is one of the leaders of the anti-feder He described himself as a longtime friend of Cliven Bundy, and he participated in the standoff with federal authorities over grazing fees at the elder Bundy's Nevada ranch in 2014. Finicum and his wife, Jeanette, raised dozens of foster children, though social workers removed the kids from the couple's home a few days after the occupation began. Finicum said the foster kids were the family's main source of income. Catholic Charities paid the family more than $115,000 in 2009 to foster children, according to tax filings. Foster parents are generally paid a small per-child amount by the government. It's intended to reimburse them for the costs incurred in fostering. The money sometimes is disbursed through nonprofit partners. Getting to school could be impossible for a kid who doesnt have an address, whose family moves every week or two and has no car. Montanas public schools fill that gap every school day. Last school year, Montana public schools identified 3,075 students as homeless in 105 school districts, according to the Office of Public Instruction. One in five of those students attended Billings Public Schools. Last school year, Billings counted 633 homeless students. As of Tuesday, Billings schools have identified 485 homeless students so far this academic year, compared with 465 by the same date last year. The tally has increased every year since teacher Sue Runkle became the districts homeless student coordinator 15 years ago. Most of those homeless Billings Public School students are getting a lift to classes, thanks to the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Federal law gives kids the right to continue in their school of origin, Runkle said. Thats the best thing for them, for that stability. They cant learn if theyre not in a (classroom) seat. A McKinley Elementary bus route stops every morning and every afternoon at downtown motels where families with children are staying temporarily. Another bus transports children from the Montana Rescue Mission shelter on First Avenue North to Washington Elementary and Riverside Middle School. Homeless high school students receive free MET bus passes. The district adds bus stops to pick up homeless students. Families that can drive their students across town to school may receive gas cards to cover fuel costs. Runkle usually can arrange school bus service within a few days, but she works to keep students from missing even one day of class. She has a taxi take the kids to school for a few days while the new bus route is developed. Families 'double up' This year people are staying homeless longer because theres not affordable housing, Runkle said. Some of these students and their parents stay at the Montana Rescue Mission Women and Children's Shelter, some stay in local churches with Family Promise of Yellowstone Valley. Both of those programs often are filled to capacity. Many homeless families are doubled up with friends or relatives who let them stay a few days or a few weeks before they have to move on. Doubling up can be a violation of some rental agreements that limit how many people can live in an apartment. Runkle also has referred families to Salvation Army for help covering a night in a motel. Whatever the students need, Runkle tries to help them. Fortunately, Billings has numerous helping agencies. For example, all Billings public middle and high schools have teen pantries that discreetly provide food and other essentials to needy students. The Backpacks for Kids program sends nutritious, easy-to-prepare foods home with needy elementary students every weekend. The hardest thing to provide homeless families is the thing they need most: affordable housing. Runkle doesnt have housing for her students families. All local agencies that aid homeless families try to help them get housing, but often the wait is long because the demand far outstrips supply. As recently reported in a Gazette news story, the Billings Housing Authority has about 2,000 households on waiting lists for subsidized housing. The Montana Office of Public Instruction reported this week that it distributed $149,213 in competitive federal grants to help homeless students in Billings, Bozeman, Belgrade, Browning, Great Falls, Helena, Kalispell, Missoula and Sidney. Thats less than $50 per homeless student on a statewide basis. Community support So community support is critical. If you want to help homeless students in your community, contact your public school and ask what you can do. Community organizations and churches that help the homeless also need support all year long. What do homeless kids need? Anything your kid needs, Runkle said. Snow boots, shoes, coats, gloves, backpacks, school supplies, socks and underwear. Filling the big need for affordable housing will require action from state and U.S. leaders. More housing and higher wages would reduce the homeless student numbers. Meanwhile, as Runkle said, education is the key to lifting these children out of homelessness and poverty in the long run. Virgin Australia has suspended its flights to the popular holiday destination of Vanuatu until it has greater confidence the runway at Port Vila's airport can be maintained appropriately. The move follows Air New Zealand's decision to halt flights and Qantas's decision to suspend its code-sharing arrangement with Air Vanuatu last week. Vanuatu has been looking to revive its tourism industry after Cyclone Pam damaged the country last year. Credit:David Kirkland Virgin on Monday had said it was continuing flights for the time being after having sent safety experts to examine the Port Vila facility last weekend, but it warned flights would be cancelled if it believed the runway was no longer suitable for operations. Virgin offers three weekly flights between Brisbane and Port Vila. The carrier said after a further review of the runway on Wednesday, it had decided it would only operate one last return service between Brisbane and Port Vila on Saturday to return customers to their port of origin. Paris: French justice minister Christiane Taubira, one of the most outspoken and progressive voices in the government, has resigned after a clash over a proposal to strip the citizenship of French-born dual nationals convicted of terrorism. President Francois Hollande's office said that he had accepted Ms Taubira's resignation. A native of French Guiana, she had held the position since Mr Hollande's election in 2012 and had disagreed with his government on several issues. Christiane Taubira leaves the French Justice Ministry on a bike on Wednesday, after her resignation was accepted. Credit:AP The statement said that Mr Hollande had expressed "gratitude" for Ms Taubira's work and that she had overhauled the justice system with "conviction, determination and talent". At a news conference at the Justice Ministry, she said: "I am leaving the government over a major political disagreement." Stockholm: Sweden's government may reject almost half the people who sought asylum within its borders last year as the government looks into the feasibility of sending them back. As many as 80,000 of the 163,000 asylum seekers who entered Sweden in 2015 could be turned away, Interior Minister Anders Ygeman told the business daily Dagens Industri. The development poses a "big challenge" to Swedish authorities, he said. A police officer stands guard at the entrance of a migrant centre in Molndal outside Gothenburg, Sweden, on Monday. Employee Alexandra Mezher, 22, was killed in a knife attack inside the centre. Credit:AP "We will need to use more resources for this and we must have better cooperation between authorities," Mr Ygeman was quoted as saying. Sweden, together with Germany, made headlines at the beginning of the refugee crisis created by the war in Syria by opening its borders to hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers in a policy that stood out in Europe for its generosity. Since then, Sweden has been forced to backtrack after the cost of absorbing so many people threatened budget goals and overwhelmed the country's resources. CASPER, Wyo. A judge sentenced a Casper woman to probation Wednesday for locking her 10-year-old step-daughter in the familys garage for long periods of time. Roberta Helen Shane, a former library worker at Roosevelt High School, previously pleaded guilty to felony child abuse causing mental injury and misdemeanor child endangering. Natrona County District Judge Daniel Forgey sentenced Shane to five years of supervised probation. Shane was afforded first-offender treatment since she does not have any prior felonies. If she successfully completes probation, the felony charge will not be entered on her record. In addition, Forgey ordered Shane to complete 250 hours of community service. He also imposed a suspended one-year jail sentence. If Shane violates her probation, she could be sent to jail. Shane declined to speak at the sentencing hearing. Police began investigating Shane in 2013 after a social worker at Bar Nunn Elementary School reported the 9-year-old girl appeared to be dirty and malnourished. Authorities charged Shane and her husband last February. Prosecutor Stephanie Hambrick said she felt probation was appropriate since Shane does not have a criminal history. However, Hambrick said she is concerned that Shane has failed to take responsibility for what happened. I guess Im still disturbed that when I read the (pre-sentence investigation), she blames the victim, a little girl, Hambrick said before Forgey handed down the sentence. Thats really bothersome to me. Hambrick said the girl has been adopted by a new family and is doing well. At her change of plea hearing in September, Shane said she would periodically force her step-daughter to sleep on a camping cot in the laundry room for days at a time. She said she would keep her daughter in the garage when Shane and the rest of the family left to go to church or out to dinner, locking the door to the house. A psychiatrist who examined the girl said she'd been put through repetitive emotional abuse and not given enough to eat. A Canberra man accused of perjury in the unions royal commission could switch his plea to guilty before a hearing scheduled later this year, a court has been told. Tuungafasi Manase, of Evatt, is on bail from the ACT Magistrates Court on a charge of intentionally giving evidence that he knew to be false or misleading during a commission hearing. Tuungafasi Manase has had his bail continued. Credit:Jay Cronan His defence lawyer, Toni Tu'ulakitau, previously indicated his client would plead not guilty to the allegation. Manase was back in court on Thursday when Special Magistrate Margaret Hunter scrapped a bail condition which required him to report to authorities twice a week. In recent news, a minority sect in Indonesia known as Fajar Nusantara Movement, or Gafatar, had its village burnt to the ground on suspicions it was connected to terrorism. Although this comes just days after a terrorist attack in Jakarta, the incident must not be blown out of proportion. The attack on the village is certainly devastating and a violation of rights, but the link to international terrorism is tenuous if non-existent. The targeting of this minority group represents just one incident in a long pattern of vigilante violence against minority religious communities in Indonesia. Such violence has affected groups ranging from the minority Shiite community to Ahmadiyah, a group that is said to believe in another prophet after Muhammad. The razed Gafatar camp at Mempawah regency, West Kalimantan. Credit:Amilia Rosa Indonesia's concern should not primarily be whether this minority group has links to international terrorism. It is domestic radicalism those who organised the attack on the village that should be the cause for concern. Local mobs cannot be allowed to take matters into their own hands, orchestrating attacks and burning down villages of religious groups that are so-called 'deviant'. This problem can be traced to the introduction of democracy in Indonesia since 1998 that displaced the former centre of power the authoritarian state. This has led to new contests for power and authority including from religious groups. One such source of authority is the informal power of Islamic leaders to issue a fatwa to declare the teachings of a particular group as 'deviant' or outside of orthodox Islamic. Assistant Treasurer Kelly O'Dwyer has dismissed claims by the industry superannuation fund lobby that retail funds have been granted special exemptions from new product disclosure "dashboard" requirements. The updated product disclosure dashboard rules are designed to make it easier for consumers to compare investment performance, fees and costs of super products. Assistant Treasurer Kelly O'Dwyer says no exemption has been granted to retail super funds in new ''dashboard'' rules. Credit:Ben Rushton Industry Super Australia released a statement on Thursday stating that a "carve-out" in the proposed laws mean about 72 per cent of choice super products from retail providers would be exempt from having to produce dashboards. "It is not good enough that the banks want to hide their chronic underperformance from consumers", Industry Super Australia chief executive David Whiteley said. BHP Billiton chief executive Andrew Mackenzie has taken some time away from the pain the company finds itself in to make a "pilgrimage" to the place it all began for the miner Broken Hill. When asked if the visit to BHP's birthplace provided him with some comfort given what the the miner is going through, Mr Mackenzie said: "Yes, very simply put, it is quite uplifting." Andrew Mackenzie standing in front of stone chimney that marks the site of the hut built by BHP in May 1885 to house its first manager William Jamieson. "In the 130 years since we've started here we've faced our fair set of challenges, so I am not going to magnify those today, or the ones that have been faced in the past. "But I think getting a grasp of the heritage and understanding the values as to why this company has grown and lasted for 130 years certainly gives me the courage and belief that we can do it all over again, for another 130 years." Recently, it was revealed that Queensland taxpayers might have to foot the bill for a $40 million environmental clean-up of the polluted Queensland Nickel refinery site if it closed. That toxic, expensive legacy is just one example of a much broader failure which could leave taxpayers, regional communities, workers and our environment to suffer. State governments across Australia, but especially in Queensland, are failing to require the payment of upfront bonds by resources companies to cover the rehabilitation of their sites when they close down. The glitter has come off budget jewellery retailer Lovisa, which was floated by Brett Blundy's BB Retail Capital 14 months ago. Lovisa shares slumped 36 per cent on Thursday after the retailer flagged a weaker-than-expected December-half result and warned that full-year earnings could fall as much as 5 per cent as gross margins were squeezed by the weaker dollar and discounting. Lovisa chief executive Shane Fallscheer. The company's shares slid as much as 40 per cent on Thursday. Credit:Anu Kumar Earnings before interest and tax for the six months ending December rose 3.4 per cent to $17.9 million well below market forecasts above $19 million as gross margins fell 3.3 percentage points, offsetting 13.1 per cent sales growth. The retailer now expects full-year EBIT between $23.5 million and $25.5 million, compared with $24.8 million in 2015 and consensus forecasts between $26 million and $28 million. The women of Sub-Saharan Africa spend about 40 billion hours a year collecting water. The total number of hours worked annually by Australia's entire labour force is about 20 billion hours. Despite the skill of engineers to process clean water and move it to where it is needed, and despite billions of dollars in development aid, clean water is a scarce resource in Africa and the incidence of waterborne illness and its brake on economic development is staggering. The main reason African women spend so many hours fetching water is systemic corruption. African nations cluster at the bottom of the latest annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI). The women of Sub-Saharan Africa spend about 40 billion hours a year collecting water. Credit:Alamy The CPI is produced by Transparency International, which has chapters in more than 100 countries and an international secretariat in Berlin. Australia ranks highly in the CPI, typically in the top 10. Most Australians can turn a tap and get clean water. But its reputation as one of the world's least-corrupt nations has lost some of its lustre. In 2014 it fell out of the top 10, landing at No. 11, and its score fell to 80, from a possible 100. In the latest rankings for 2015 it fell again, to No. 13, with a score of 79, considerably below the high-80s it was getting just a few years ago. But let's leave disgraced former ministers and turn instead to disgraced current ones, starting with Greg Hunt - Minister for the "Environment". Greggles has been on a real environmental tear lately - approving coal mining developments and port expansions under the adorably optimistic belief that the rest of the world will shortly abandon renewable energy generation and their own mining operations and start buying Australia's coal exports instead, despite all of the evidence indicating the exact opposite scenario. So G-Dawg should be chuffed that Australia's been namechecked in what he has previously called "the most credible, scientifically based" environmental analysis in the world, the Environmental Performance Index, in which Australia, among other honours, is ranked 150th out of 180 nations "for its trend in carbon emissions for electricity generation". High praise! Sadly Saudi Arabia is still beating us for the worst climate and energy policies of all of the developed world, but that just leaves Big Greg a goal to aim for in 2016. Maybe a system of federal tyre fires would put us over the top? A triumph for human wrongs! Which lobby group is writing national policy today? And sure, we did go on about this yesterday but look, that whole same-sex-marriage-plebiscite thing. The government are continuing to bicker among themselves about whether or not gay people should have less civil rights than straight people, with Nationals MP Bridget McKenzie confirming that she too has no intention of respecting the outcome of a plebiscite if she disagrees with it. And while there are reasonable questions being asked about why the actual freak we should bother having a plebiscite if Parliament ignore the outcome, here's a better question: why are we letting the Australian Christian Lobby write government policy? That's especially important in this case, since the plebiscite was never intended to determine whether or not Australians want marriage equality, but was calculated purely to derail otherwise inevitable progress. How do we know these things? Well, we know it was the ACL's idea because they were promoting it on their website back in May 2015, months before then-PM Abbott floated it to Cabinet. And we know the intent as the ACL's director Lyle Shelton wrote a piece last September for The Daily Signal, blog of the staunchly right-wing US thinktank The Heritage Foundation (for whom dumped minister Kevin Andrews is skipping the first week of Parliament to go speak for some reason), with the telling quote "[A] people's vote known as a plebiscite would be held sometime after the 2016 election, kicking the issue into the long grass (putting the issue off) and blunting the momentum of same-sex marriage lobbyists." The weird brackets are his, by the way, not ours. Shelton told the Guardian on Thursday that he was merely "making an assessment of the impact what had happened" and definitely not explaining his diabolical scheme in the manner of a Bond villain, but here's a little pro-tip, Shelts: if you want to keep your conspiracy with the government quiet, maybe don't write an article outlining how successful your conspiracy was. The cocktail hour: spreading the poison Look, it's got literally nothing to do with any of the above, but a) you could probably do with a laugh by now, and b) this has been stuck on permanent loop in the V from the S brain for a week now, to the point where it's stopped being a joke and become a legitimate personal hit. It seems an heroic assumption now, but midway through last year, the key players heading into the 2016 election looked to be set in stone. Heroic because it turned out to be wrong, and because for the best part of 15 years, following the 1998-2001 electoral cycle in which Kim Beazley and John Howard had squared off twice, either the opposition leader or the prime minister had been replaced mid-term. Sometimes the leadership baton was passed more than once from Brendan Nelson, to Malcolm Turnbull, to Tony Abbott. Dumping leaders had become standard operating procedure in Canberra, the new normal. Yet suddenly in 2015, all that instability well, it stabilised. Tony Abbott had survived his "near death experience" in February and had conscientiously rebuilt his party-room base in response. Dissenters dwindled and former complainants lauded his wider consultation, a more civilised 2015 budget, a less dictatorial office, and the end of captain's picks. Your sweat is useful for a lot more than just indicating an intense workout session at the gym. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have developed a wearable sensor that can provide real-time information on the users' health and detect problems such as dehydration and muscle fatigue by monitoring their sweat. Professor Ali Javey displays the wearable sensor that can analyse your sweat while you exercise. Credit:University of California, Berkeley The flexible Bluetooth-enabled band, worn on the arms or forehead, measures four chemicals within sweat while also monitoring skin temperature to give information on the wearer's physiological state during exercise. According to the team's research published in the journal Nature, the new technology has commercial potential for tracking athletic performance and also has medical applications for monitoring the physiological health of patients in a non-invasive way. At a time of rising visibility and acceptance of transgender people, the zeitgeist-tapping release of Tom Hooper's film The Danish Girl comes as both blessing and curse for people of the community the film and its makers purport to represent. As a (non-binary) trans woman film critic and a member of the team behind tilde, Melbourne's trans and gender diverse film festival, I have heard responses from my peers that run the gamut of reactions. Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe in The Danish Girl. Credit:Agatha A. Nitecka Some have found it moving and consonant with lived experience, while others have felt affront and disdain that a film about a pioneering trans woman should have been directed by a cisgender male with a non-trans performer as the lead. I believe Hooper and Oscar-nominated actor Eddie Redmayne were well-intentioned in adapting David Ebershoff's novel of the same name. The Liberal Party has set its sights on the federal Labor seats of Chisholm and Bruce, claiming Bill Shorten is now weighing on Labor's Victorian vote almost as heavily as Tony Abbott did for the Coalition. Liberal strategists have mischievously evoked the memory of Mr Abbott - widely regarded as political poison in Victoria - to describe Mr Shorten's impact on his home state. Mr Shorten was previously seen as highly competitive against Mr Abbott in Victoria, where Labor holds 19 seats to the Coalition's 16 (with one Green and one independent). Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has taken a swipe at US presidential candidate Ted Cruz for claiming the rates of sexual assault and rape soared in Australia following the introduction of strict gun laws. Mr Shorten has written directly to Senator Cruz after the conservative Christian who is billionaire Donald Trump's closest rival for the Republican nomination made the claims about the post-Port Arthur massacre laws earlier this month. "As you know, Hugh, after Australia did that [gun buyback program], the rate of sexual assaults, the rate of rapes, went up significantly, because women were unable to defend themselves," he said on high-profile radio host Hugh Hewitt's show. Louis Tomlinson and Briana Jungwirth share first look at their baby boy Freddie Reign Tomlinson. Credit:Louis Tomlinson/Instagram and Briana Jungwirth/Instagram The One Direction star who is on "hiatus" from the British and Irish boyband, shared the black and white photo with his 7.8 million followers and also revealed the newborn's name. Louis Tomlinson and Briana Jungwirth have taken to Instagram to share the first pictures of their baby boy, Freddie. Earlier in the week, it was believed that Tomlinson and Jungwirth, both 24, had chosen the name Sydney Rain. But the fashion stylist, who is not in a relationship with Tomlinson, revealed on her own Instagram account that they have named him Freddie Reign. Louis with his One Direction bandmates Liam Payne, Niall Horan and Harry Styles. Credit:Frazer Harrison/AMA2015 The snap shows the first-time father getting to grips with parenthood as he holds his six-day-old son against his bare, tattooed chest, while resting his chin on his head. Meanwhile, Jungwirth plants a kiss on Freddie's cheek from her hospital bed, describing him in the caption as the "love of my life". Tomlinson himself took to Twitter to confirm that he has become a dad for the first time after his former fling Jungwirth gave birth to a baby boy on Thursday, January 21, in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, daigou shopping, as it is known, occurs quickly and conveniently on sites like WeChat, a social media app developed in China that is a cross between Facebook and Twitter. One daigou shopper said she simply posts a message to her friends asking what they need, who then repost it to their friends and so on. Once people find her to be a reliable source of Australian products, they place more orders. WeChat also has a MyWallet function, which allows users to transfer money to each other. The MyWallet function could not yet be linked to Australian bank accounts, which means the profits from daigou shopping often stay off shore. Meanwhile highly organised daigou syndicates open up "shops" on websites like TMall, a subsidiary of the $US25 billion AliBaba website. The Tmall shops advertise a range of Australian products that were easily available in supermarkets and chemists. The shop owners then recruit shoppers to buy products as they were ordered. One person explained it thus: "Pretty much you buy it, take a photo where you got it, [and] bring a docket. Go to a health food store like the many in Eastwood [Shopping Centre in Sydney's north east] and they buy it off you, and your receipt and off you go. They pay your cost and extra for a tin. You can have the money sent to a relative in China or you can get cash." The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe thunderstorm warning for the Darling Downs and Granite Belt and parts of the Central Highlands and Coalfields, Wide Bay and Burnett and Southeast Coast areas. The bureau warns that the storm is likely to produce strong winds, heavy rain and large hailstones in areas like Warwick, Toowoomba, Dalby, Kingaroy, Stanthorpe and Goondiwindi. It comes ahead of severe storms that are predicted to hit a large swathe of Queensland stretching from the border up to Hervey Bay and west to Roma this afternoon. Earlier the State Emergency Service warned Queenslanders to prepare themselves ahead of Friday's extreme weather. The Electoral Commission of Queensland has distanced itself from election campaign material sent by the Liberal National Party's Brisbane council campaign, which was sent out in envelopes similar to the ECQ's own corporate colours. The material has appeared in multiple Brisbane City Council wards and contain ECQ postal vote forms, along with letters co-signed by Lord Mayor Graham Quirk and the local LNP candidate in that ward. The Electoral Commission of Queensland has distanced itself from LNP election material that was sent to voters in an envelope coloured similarly to the ECQ's corporate scheme. Credit:Cameron Atfield While it was usual practice for candidates to send postal vote forms to electors, the choice of envelope with a similar maroon hue to the ECQ's corporate material had prompted several complaints to the commission. That prompted the commission to publish a Facebook post on Wednesday night distancing itself from the LNP campaign material. Police are on the hunt for a man believed to have been involved in the alleged rape of two teenage girls at a house in Toowoomba. Two girls, aged 14 and 15, left a party at South Toowoomba on Saturday night with two men, both in their 20s. Police are searching for a second man believed to be involved in the alleged rape of two teenage girls. Police said the girls went back to one of the men's homes in Toowoomba where they were allegedly raped by the two men in the early hours of Sunday morning. The two teenage girls filed complaints with police who, subsequently charged a 20-year-old Toowoomba man with rape. Treasurer Curtis Pitt will on Friday announce work will finally begin on one of Labor's flagship election policies - the $25 million Cairns Special School for hundreds of disabled children. It has been heavily backed by Cairns MP Rob Pyne, himself a quadriplegic, as a "must" special needs project for Cairns. Queensland Treasurer Curtis Pitt. Credit:Chris Hyde There are an estimated 800 to 1000 special needs children and young adults in Cairns who education planners anticipate could use the facility to be built at Woree in Cairns' south. "We went through a lot of hard times," Bashiry says. "It was a massive lifestyle change for us. I remember getting teased at school because I had my shoes from Target. As a person you can go two ways, you can be the victim and think, 'Why me', or you can think, 'It's part of the journey'. Why not turn it into a positive and do something into your life?" Bashiry went on to study at Swinburne University "because university is something that is expected in the Persian community", but even then Bashiry knew he was more interested in creating things. Bashiry got his first job at a dial-up internet company through Centrelink for $7.50 an hour working in computer support. "I just learnt on the job," Bashiry says. "I asked a lot of questions and and I came in early and left late. From here Bashiry moved to work at KeyPoint and saw that besides Telstra and Optus nobody was focused on providing internet to small businesses. A gap in the market It is so courageous to make that journey. Timidity cannot be part of that tool kit. Bruce Billson "I saw a niche there," he says. "I just sat down one day and said, 'I'm going to do it'. One of the biggest things holding people back is fear, but coming from where I did and coming to Australia I thought, 'What can go wrong?'". To start off Bashiry shared an office with some university friends and the first challenge was to pay the rent. "We had the smallest office in the whole building," he says. "We were quite embarrassed so the first thing we did was tint the windows so nobody could see in." Bashiry started off selling domain names but realised it was too hard on his own so pitched a half share of the business to former work colleague Brad Hughes. The pair needed a router so found a second-hand one on eBay in Broadmeadows for $1000. "We used that to set up the company and started selling from there." Bashiry says the early days of Broadband Solutions were tough with turnover of about $20,000 a month and "really long hours". "It was difficult and there were times you thought, 'Have I made the right decision?'," he says. "It wasn't about the money though, we were passionate about it." The turning point For Bashiry the turning point was a phone call from what was the Carlton Crest hotel inquiring about an internet connection for an upcoming conference. Bashiry quickly patched together a solution. "I don't think you get lucky, you get opportunities and it depends what you do with them," he says. That first conference led to more work from other hotels and Broadband Solutions had found its market. Now Broadband Solutions supplies hotels directly across Australia and has set its sights on the education market. "We sat down and just talked to schools about how they are dealing with bring your own devices and how they deal with systems upgrades and bandwidth," Bashiry says. "It just took one school to make the jump and now we have 150 schools using our services and it is going to be a really big market for us. There are over 10,000 schools so it's a much bigger market for us than hospitality." The entrepreneurial spirit Former small business minister Bruce Billson is a passionate advocate for Bashiry and says there is a "real entrepreneurship" in the journey of the Bashiry family to Australia. "It's a terrific story about the entrepreneurial spirit that brings people to this country in the first place and the contribution that can be made once they are here," Billson says. "It is so courageous to make that journey. Timidity cannot be part of that tool kit." When a voyage of 40 scientists headed to sub-Antarctic territories earlier this month, they were on the lookout for underwater volcanoes, iron and the life that lies within the southern ocean. Around 20 days in to the eight-week voyage, researchers on the RV Investigator have made some early and exciting discoveries around the Heard and McDonald islands, 4000 kilometres south-west of Perth and 2000 kilometres north of Australia's base at Davis Station in Antarctica. "Abundant with life:" Penguins on Heard Island. Credit:Matt Curnock "We've tentatively identified over 50 hydrothermal vent systems on the sea floor, [which are] areas where hot hydrothermal fluids that are actually cooling hot volcanic rock beneath the sea," said Professor Mike Coffin, from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, who is chief scientist of the voyage. Speaking from on board the RV Investigator, Professor Coffin said his team is yet to see underwater volcanoes, because the water is "extremely turbid," and it is still early days, but he added that the fluids they have observed have big implications. "Those fluids, because they are so hot, they pick up iron and other rare earth trace metals from the rocks and then they expel them into the ocean. Our hypothesis and overarching purpose of the voyage is to see if this solid earth-provided iron is actually nourishing phytoplankton up on the sea surface." Thomas Embling Hospital warned the state government 18 months ago that it needed more resources to manage a growing population at the secure forensic mental health hospital. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court was told a young man who killed a homeless man must spend another three months in prison because there are no beds available in the psychiatric hospital. Thomas Embling is the only Victorian facility to house people who have committed a criminal offence, but who have been found not guilty because they were mentally unwell. In November, Easton Woodhead was found not guilty of murdering Wayne "Mouse" Perry, 42, although he stabbed him to death on January 5, 2014 at Enterprize Park, near the Melbourne Aquarium. Sex workers in Victoria will be able to advertise with full body pictures and spruik their ethnicity under changes to the state's sex-work regulations. But the sex workers' industry body has slammed the draft regulatory changes proposed by the Andrews government as a "missed opportunity". Jane Green, a spokeswoman for sex worker group Vixen Collective, says Andrews government plans to change ways they can advertise their services ignore far more important issues. Credit:Justin McManus Sex-worker organisation Vixen Collective says the government should tackle the real issues facing the industry, including full decriminalisation and an end to mandatory health testing. The changes to the sex-work regulations have been posted by the government and will allow sex workers to advertise with a picture of their full body. Perth's worst-behaved drivers can expect a text message or letter from the WA Police Commissioner next month telling them to wise up. Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan will contact the 14,000 drivers (10,500 metropolitan, 3500 regional) who have committed two or more Category A offences in two years as part of the year-long Operation Communique trial. Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan. Category A offences, known to put drivers at elevated risk of being involved in a fatal or serious traffic crash, include: American Airlines Flight 109, travelling to Los Angeles from London, was more than two hours into its journey and close to Keflavik, Iceland, when several passengers and crew members suddenly and mysteriously became ill. Those aboard were startled, news reports said, and the pilot decided to fly back to London. Passenger Eric Winter, Senior Vice President and GM for UFC FIGHT PASS, tweeted that the plane was surrounded by medical teams and fire engines when it landed. Credit:Eric Winter/Twitter The plane landed safely. But on Thursday, the mystery of what happened on the plane, which captured headlines around the world, remained unclear. Presiding Judge Cuno Tarfusser insisted the court would not be used for political grandstanding during the trial, which will also weigh charges against former youth leader Charles Ble Goude. He pleaded not guilty to four counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo waits for the start of his trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Credit:AP Hundreds of Gbagbo's supporters gathered outside as the hearing began, demanding the release of a man they say is a victim of neo-colonial meddling by former colonial power France. The Hague: Former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo pleaded not guilty to charges of planning post-election violence that left 3000 dead, as his war crimes trial opened at the International Criminal Court on Thursday. "This is not a game," Judge Tarfusser said. "The chamber will not allow this trial to be used as a political instrument in any way whatsoever." Four months of civil war swept Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa grower, in early 2011, after Gbagbo refused to step down despite losing elections in late 2010. The fighting ended when France intervened militarily, allowing winner Alessane Ouattara to take office. Prosecutors say Gbagbo, the highest-ranked politician ever to go before the 13-year-old court, planned acts of murder, rape and intimidation against groups, including Muslims and ethnic minorities, viewed as Ouattara supporters. In one case 38 women attending a pro-Ouattara rally were raped, and at least 20 people were killed in the shelling of a market. The two accused devised and financed the plan that led to the attacks, prosecutors said. Rising stiffly, Gbagbo, 70, said: "I plead not guilty." Ble Goude, 44, known as the "general of the streets" for his fiery speeches during the 2011 crisis, added that he "did not recognise" the charges. Paris: A man who tried to bring two handguns into a hotel at Disneyland Paris has been detained along with his female partner, authorities say. No one was hurt in the incident, and the park - Europe's most-visited tourist attraction - remained open after the arrests on Thursday. The man, 28, was detained at the New York Hotel, part of the Disneyland complex, according to a police official who wasn't authorised to be publicly named. He was also found to have a Koran. The man's motives for trying to enter the hotel with arms were unclear. Latest News Australian Mortgage Awards 2022 broker winners reflect on big night Best of the best celebrate achievements Household Capital enters strategic partnership with Genworth The insurer now has a 22% share of the firm Australias premier property market, Sydney, suffered its sharpest decline in house prices on record, statistics have shown.Sydney median house prices fell by a drastic 3.1% over the December 2015 quarter, according to figures released by Domain. This is the first fall reported by Domain since June 2012 and the sharpest quarterly decline in house prices reported by the city on record.Sydneys median unit prices also fell steeply over the December quarter, dropping by 2.8% to $655,845. This is the first quarterly fall since March 2013 and again, the sharpest decline on record.However, despite the record falls over the December quarter, Sydney house prices increased by 14.8% over 2015 while Sydney unit prices increased by 8.7%.Domain senior economist Dr Andrew Wilson says the Sydney property boom is officially over.The remarkable Sydney boom weve seen over the last three years is now clearly over, with the market unlikely to record any notable house prices growth until at least spring, he said.While the median house price still remains above $1 million, at $1,013,258, if current trends continue it will likely fall below this benchmark by mid-year.According to the figures from Domain, all other Australian capital cities have reported moderate to strong house price growth, except Perth and Darwin which both experienced weakening market activity.Median house prices in Melbourne increased by 1.8% over the December quarter while median house prices in Adelaide increased by 1.8% over the quarter.Brisbane house prices reported their highest results for the year after increasing by 1.5% over the final three months of 2015. Canberra and Hobart also broke records with median house prices up 4.3% and 7.9% respectively. This was the highest quarterly growth rate for Canberra since December 2009 and the highest quarterly growth rate for Hobart in over a decade.Perth house prices declined for its fourth consecutive quarter, recording a fall of 0.8%. Darwin house prices dropped 2% over the final three months of 2015. Responding to the Jan. 21 Gazette opinion on the future of Montanas coal industry, I need to say, lets not be careless with Montanas economic future. Today, all across Montana, when we turn on our lights at home, sit down at our PC at work, fire-up our machinery or printing presses, about half of that power comes from Montana coal. Hydro-power makes up 40 percent of the supply, with wind and natural gas fired turbines rounding out our energy mix. Im not writing to argue for a more ideal energy portfolio or to advocate for more or less coal, Im compelled to write because we cannot afford to be careless about the value of reliable, affordable energy and the jobs that it creates for Montana. Jobs at stake We better care about our economic competitiveness. We should be vigilant about the need for the entire state of Montana to maintain an affordable, reliable source of power. For Billings, we have three of the largest power users in the state our refineries. They provide more than 930 direct jobs and have an estimated $3 billion direct annual economic impact in our community. The refineries are dependent upon having a supply of energy that is cost-effective and always on. It is our responsibility as a community, but especially Big Sky Economic Development, to assure that business and industry can afford to do business here. The EPAs proposed 47 percent reduction in Montana CO2 emissions (Clean Power Plan) has the potential to dramatically increase the cost of power, giving us a very real competitive disadvantage for attracting private investment and new jobs, and sustaining our key industries. From an economic development standpoint we better pay close attention to this plan and advocate for a balanced energy portfolio that includes the reliability and affordability of coal. Both current and future jobs are at stake. Moreover, our role as regional trade center requires us to care about our partners. Billings is in a unique position. We are the regional center for retail and wholesale trade, the health care provider for a 600,000-person catchment area, and the business/supply hub for agriculture and energy development. We benefit greatly from this position and our economy is diverse. In this unique role we have established key partnerships with every single community, business, and family in our region. Our partners in Miles City, Glendive, Roundup, Sidney, Baker, Hardin, Crow Agency, and Colstrip do business with us every day. The coal mines at Spring Creek and Bull Mountain employ Yellowstone county families and trade with our businesses. The 260 jobs at Spring Creek have a $120 million annual economic impact to our region. We feel that impact in our own cash registers and paychecks. So, when our rural partners and key industries are threatened by the political decisions of Washington state, Oregon, or Washington D.C., we should care deeply about what that may mean for the businesses and families in our partner communities both from an economic standpoint and because it is the right thing to do. Clean-coal technology We should lead the nation in new technology. Given Montanas abundance of coal reserves we should be the leader in clean-coal technology, coal-to-liquid fuels, and carbon sequestration. I understand that its not in vogue to consider new and improved uses of coal, but it would certainly make sense, as many have advocated, for Montana to be a leader in this area. If not, were walking away from an abundant natural resource that plays a significant role in our economic future. Maybe its time to invest more coal severance dollars in public/private research and development of these new technologies. It is careless and even reckless for Montana to jump off the coal train at 80 mph and hope that the landing goes well. We have to think strategically about our economic position and understand that affordable power drives our economy. For Billings, we have a greater responsibility than most because we benefit greatly from Montanas coal industry, and our businesses run on an affordable supply of power. Therefore, it is incumbent on us to understand the Clean Power Plan proposal, monitor the Clean Power Plan Advisory Council, and encourage balance, not extremism, in our energy policies. Because what customers want is affordable energy; and they care about our jobs and the jobs, businesses and families in our partner communities. Village Voice: So who is this band Faust? I don't think I've ever read about them on Stereogum. WFMU Music Director Brian Turner: Oh wow....well... I'm just kidding. Oh (Laughs.) I'm sorry... But how did you get them? They don't really tour the States that often. I think they had been wanting to come over for years, but it's fairly involved with them doing a big tour, they drag a lot of stuff around with them, apparently. I think on their last tour they had a sheep as well as tons of heavy industrial stuff. A sheep? Yeah, I think they had a sheep on their last tour that they'd bring out as this symbolic thing of peace. Oh. What did they do with the sheep? I didn't see those shows, I'm not quite sure. I think it just wandered around or something. I know they had a sheep every night. But they would also go down to railroad tracks and get a lot of broken glass and debris and industrial stuff and bring it in. The recent bill (#160016) to amend the "Special Assembly Occupancies" section of the Philadelphia Code poses a serious threat to Philadelphia's vast and thriving music scene. Please don't underestimate the number and variety of people this bill would hurt. If passed, this bill will have a serious chilling effect; not only on the musicians that call this city home, but also on the thousands of touring acts who visit the city every year (and bring in thousands of dollars in revenue). Additionally, there is no reason for the Philadelphia Police to possess a registry containing the personal information of thousands of people, simply because they are musicians. Not only is it unnecessary and likely to cause a massive administrative backlog, it's a gross violation of our civil liberties. Philadelphia is currently one of the best cities in the country for live music-this bill would make it one of the worst. We call on City Council to reject this dangerous, costly, and unnecessary bill, and to continue to protect the civil rights of its residents. After three acclaimed albums with hazy sunshine pop group Candy Claws, Karen and Ryan Hover have now formed a new project, Sound of Ceres. For it, they've enlisted Robert Schneider, Ben Phelan and John Ferguson of the Apples In Stereo, and Jacob Graham of the Drums to help out. The title of their debut album, Nostalgia for Infinity, serves as a good descriptor of their sound which is ethereal, orchestral and lost in space. The album's out March 4 via Joyful Noise and you can get a taste via the effervescent "Hand Of Winter" which premieres in this post. Stream it, and a remix of their song "Bryn Marina," below. Sound of Ceres will be on tour this spring, including a stay in Austin, TX for SXSW and a NYC show at Mercury Lounge on April 3. Tickets for that show go on sale February 5 with an AmEx presale beginning February 3 at noon.. UPDATE: Sound of Ceres also play Sunnyvale in Brooklyn on April 2 with Pick A Piper and Stranger Cat, and other dates which are now all listed below. All announced tour dates are listed, along with album art/tracklist and song streams, below... --- Sound of Ceres - Nostalgia for Infinity tracklist Pursuer Bryn Marina Ember Age My Spiral Arm Hand Of Winter Side A You're Me Kingfisher Antiprism Dagger Only Run The group weblog of the Texas A&M University Germany Biosciences Semester Study Abroad Program latest news October 3, 2022 Dee Gambit Hundreds if not thousands of new and returning TV shows and movies are released every month your options of what to watch are endless. Variety, they say is ... The Bond between a mother and a son can be a strong one, as this Criminal Minds episode shows. So strong, in fact, that it includes picking up where one left off in terms of murder. The BAU has to not only figure out how the UnSub is choosing his victims, but why hes leaving them in truck stop restrooms and how its all connected to his childhood. And when they do, the case ends with an image you may not forget anytime soon. Criminal Minds: The 10 Most Horrifying Moments from Drive >>> No Matter What? Randy visits his mother in a home of some kind, 24 years after they took him from her. He shows her the ring hes planning to use to propose to his girlfriend of three years. She can tell that hes been having nightmares again, and he admits that theyre getting more frequent. Last night, he took a drive to clear his head, and when he stopped for gas, he saw a homeless man and offered him a ride. Later at a rest stop, Randy ties his victim to a urinal. Randy sits against the wall and hit himself in the head, clearly upset. Later, when Randy tells his mother that he feels that something is wrong with him, Flora blames it on him being overwhelmed; between work and the proposal, hes stressed. Mother will love and accept you no matter who you are, she assures him. The Atlanta field office reaches out to the BAU after two victims turn up in truck stop restrooms 147.6 miles apart (a John Doe in Tennessee last night, and 61-year-old Claire Westchester in Alabama the day before). Both were stabbed multiple times and posed postmortem, bound to a urinal with rope. The lack of blood suggests they were killed elsewhere. There are no signs of sexual assault, but the stab wounds suggest systematic torture and that could be what gets the UnSub off. Oh, and he removed their left ears, which could be because hes felt ignored all his life. Theres no obvious connection between the victims other than their ages (both in their early 60s), so is it just that they were possibly easy targets? Could they be surrogates, perhaps for parental figures (one male, one female)? Due to the distance between disposal sites, they think theyre looking for a truck driver, and as Reid shares, a 2009 report attributes around 500 murders over the last three decades to serial killers operating as long haul truck drivers. Truckers see long hauling as a lifestyle, but it is a life of solitude and it can get stressful. With the right kind of pressure, the UnSub could have snapped. Tara talks to Claires husband. When he last spoke to her, she was her usual, upbeat self. However, when he got home before her, he knew something was wrong. And when she didnt answer her phone, he called the school where she worked. They told him that she had been gone for hours. She was loved by her students and made sure each had at least one present on Christmas. Meanwhile, Garcia looks into the trucking companies with routes near the disposal sites, but comes up empty. There are 12 truck stops between Atlanta and the disposal sites, some non-operational, meaning that the UnSub chose to leave the bodies in public places. The truck stops mean something to him. The location and time (3 a.m.) a victim was found tells them that the UnSub knew the pattern of the rest stop. Its not far from a long haul hub, and its close enough to Atlanta that most truckers heading in and out of the city would skip the stop. Its still a high risk, especially since hes staging the body in a public place, so does he get off on the thrill? Pulling off something this complicated and elaborate speaks to his level of experience, which suggests hes been killing longer than they thought. A Major Piece of the Puzzle Falls into Place Randys girlfriend said yes, he reveals to his mother. And since theres a wedding coming up, he wants his entire family to be there including his biological father. Not happening, Flora tells him. Hes the reason Randy was taken from her. They had a complicated relationship, and she hasnt even spoken to him in years. Its best to keep the past in the past. Thanks to his dental records, theyre able to get an ID on the John Doe: Frank Myers. He had been in and out of homeless shelters, but he had some expensive dental work done. The victims ears were removed postmortem, and both were stabbed through bags. There are clear hesitation marks, meaning hes not comfortable killing. Randys fiancee, Chloe, calls him to check on dinner, and he tells her that hes working late again, finishing up a project (aka killing again). And then hes supposed to go see his mother. After he hangs up, he approaches the real estate agent he was watching and asks to see the house she was showing. She agrees, and in they go. How is it possible the UnSub is organized (the disposal sites) and unorganized (the method of killing)? Could he have a partner? This weird dichotomy is also seen in the early stages of becoming a killer, meaning he could have lived with the fantasy of killing for some time, but hes only just now acting on it. When Morgan and Tara check out the latest crime scene, he suggests the UnSub could be getting closer to his ideal target: no hesitation marks, no bag used. Hes more confident. Garcia calls to let them know that the five trucking companies she narrowed the search down to all check out. It looks like the UnSub isnt a trucker, so these truck stops are important for another reason. Is the UnSub connected to someone in the trucking industry? What Garcia can tell them is that there is a connection between Frank Myers and the latest victim, Linda Calvary: he worked as a public defender before he was homeless, and she used to be a nurse and testified at a number of his cases. They were specifically targeted, meaning the UnSub has a kill list. Profiling the UnSub Randy visits his mother again, and this time, shes upset because he didnt stop by to see her the night before. He tells her he was with Chloe planning the wedding, which just makes her more upset. They just got engaged, Flora argues, and now shes trying to take up all his time. She doesnt respect a woman trying to come between a mother and her child and says shes just like the others who tore them apart. She tells him to leave. (Sorry, Chloe, youve made the list.) The UnSub is a rectification killer, targeting people he holds responsible for a major trauma in his childhood, the BAU profiles. The victims interacted with the UnSub as a child in family court, and he was removed from his family for his own safety. However, he was too young to know the severity of the situation. His childhood trauma may have a link to truck stops. Chloe wakes Randy from a dream/flashbacks to his childhood and his mother taking him to a barn. Shes realizes that he hasnt been taking his meds (for months), and when he says his mother thought best, she argues that its not her place to say whats best for him. He doesnt have to spend every waking moment with her. She abandoned him. Oh, Chloe, youre basically telling him to make you his next victim. Randy lashes out, choking her, and says he thinks his mother was right about her before letting her go. Run, Chloe. Run. So how is Claire connected to the UnSub? She couldve been his teacher and reported when she noticed something off at home. But he wouldve been too young to remember the victims names, meaning that information has to come from his partner, who is likely his parent. Garcia looks into the school records of male students of Claires and gets an ID on the UnSub: Randy, a seemingly model citizen. His birth mother, on the other hand, is Flora, who was admitted to the hospital after being raped around the time of conception. She was hitchhiking and assaulted by a truck driver in a truck stop restroom. Randy is a product of rape. Furthermore, Flora is in a prison insane asylum thats where hes been visiting her for the murder of six truckers. The next time Randy goes to see his mother, he shows her photos of his victims. Honey, its perfect, she praises him. Its even better than she could have imagined. O,h boy. And yes, this conversation does go exactly where it seems to be heading: talk of killing Chloe, the woman who has been manipulating him, in Floras mind. Itll make everything better, she assures him. Fortunately, Chloes not stupid and has one foot out the door. Shes packing a bag and on the phone with a friend, staying on the phone when she hears a noise and thinks hes back. Unfortunately, when she doesnt see anything, she makes the dumb decision to hang up as she leaves. Randy grabs her at her car. [WATCH] Criminal Minds Sneak Peek: Are the UnSubs Victims Random or Targeted? >>> Going Back to the Beginning Morgan and Tara pay Flora a visit, and theyre not buying her Ive been locked up for 24 years, I dont know anything about my sons actions since hes been visiting her every day. Tara thinks that shes thrilled he picked up where she left off. Upon receiving word that Chloe and Randy are missing, Tara hopes Flora will be more forthcoming if its just them. She is, in a way. Sure, some parents live vicariously through their children, but for her, its more than just revenge, Tara knows. Its a chance to relive her own crimes. Flora reveals that her rapist cut off her ear so that when she looked in a mirror, shed remember him. So thats why she started killing. But why did she let herself get caught after six murders? She let the authorities find her in that barn. Its because she found her rapist, isnt it? Hes in that barn. And yes, that barn is where Randy takes Chloe, who does a pretty good job of fighting back and actually getting away from him (though she does enclose herself in the barn, which isnt the best place to hide from a killer). He doesnt want to hurt her, Randy calls out to her, a bald-faced lie since hes taken her there to kill her. Just as Morgan and Tara arrive at the barn, Randy grabs Chloe and takes her hostage. They know hes been there before. In fact, his mother not only is using him to do her dirty work now, she did back then too. She forced him to participate in the murder (and burial) of his father. You do not have to be defined by the sins of your father or your mother, Morgan tells him, and he surrenders. But his mother still has a hold on him, even in prison. In their separate cells, they play games and look at the same photo of the two of them. Thats not all; he also cuts off his own left ear. There have been many chilling images over the years on Criminal Minds; Randy holding his ear is definitely one of them. Criminal Minds season 11 airs Wednesdays at 9pm on CBS. (Image courtesy of CBS) On the winter premiere of Suits, Blowback, Harveys resignation complicates Mikes case, Rachel turns to her father for help and Jessica is forced to fend off another attack by Soloff. When we last saw Mike Ross, he was being arrested for conspiracy to commit fraud and dragged off in handcuffs just as he was about to walk off into the sunset with Rachel. Jessica retained her job thanks to Harvey who had finally decided to resign. Mike Does the Math Mike meets the woman that plans to take him down, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anita Gibbs (Leslie Hope) who wastes no time in reminding Mike, and viewers, just how effed he is. Mike worked on 88 cases, and every time he picked up the phone, signed a letter or appeared in court, he was committing fraud. Each instance carries a nine-month sentence. Shes too tired to do the math, but Mike isnt. Theres a cap of one count per case, so Mike could go away for 66 years, and he wont be so pretty when he gets out. If Mike cooperates, Gibbs will go easy on him. Mike says hell confess, but he wants the whole thing on tape. Suits Interview: Creator Aaron Korsh Teases Loyalties are Tested After Mikes Arrest >>> Harvey and Jessica Make a Decision Rachel runs to Harvey and tells him about Mike. Harvey is ready to fund his boys rescue but gets stopped in his tracks by Jessica. She points out that Harvey, Rachel and herself are all un-indicted co-conspirators which means none of them can afford to be near Mike. A frustrated Rachel heads to the jail, leaving Jessica and Harvey to debate how to proceed. Jessica insists that Harvey has to rip up his letter of resignation. Harvey points out that if he crosses Forstman, the guy will join back up with Hardman and pick the firm apart. Jessica says that if whoever is prosecuting Mikes case finds out Harvey resigned the same night he was arrested, they might as well go turn themselves in. Jessica agrees to let Harvey serve as Mikes lawyer, but he needs to be covert, because shes not telling anyone he resigned. Robert Zane Confronts Mike As scared as Mike has been of getting caught, hes not crumbling to pieces. Once Gibbs has set up the videotape, ready to get her confession, Mike balks. He asked to see his lawyer two hours earlier, so anything hes said in the meantime is inadmissible. It also means Gibbs has violated his rights. Now this information is on tape, and Gibbs has to prove she made every effort to contact Mikes lawyer and couldnt. Mike may think he has gained the upper hand, but Gibbs is way ahead of our boy. She lets Mike know that his lawyer has been in the building for a half hour, there was just confusion about what room Mike was in. But when she opens the door, its Robert Zane who enters, not Harvey. Rachel called her dad for help, and all Robert wants to know is if Mike is guilty, knowing full well what the answer is. Robert may not give a shit what happens to Mike, but he does love his daughter, so hes going to try and get Mike out of this mess. Mikes out involves turning on Harvey, and he swears he wont do it. Robert insists this is Mikes only chance to save his miserable life, but Mike wont take the lifeline, and Robert tells him hes on his own. Harveys tries to get in to see Mike and is a bit confused to hear that Mikes already with his lawyer. Things become clear soon enough when Robert runs into Harvey on the way out, and hes got some choice words for the man who put his daughters future in jeopardy. Harvey defends Mike and his own actions, but Robert has nothing to say other than he hopes to never see either Harvey or Mike again. A Privileged Conversation Harvey is ready to fight the good fight, but the bravado Mike showed Gibbs is gone. Not only does he think theres no getting out of this, but the truth is, hes guilty. Harvey is looking at the situation from a different perspective. Mike is in the Harvard database, he has transcripts, hes in the bar and hes a practicing attorney. Those facts are real, just like all the cases he worked and all the people hes helped. They dont need to prove Mikes a lawyer, Gibbs has to prove hes not. Rachel is unhinged, and its up to Donna to try and talk her off the ledge. Louis broke the news, and Donnas first instinct was to rush to Harvey and Mikes aid, but Louis warned her that could do more harm than good. So now shes trying to convince Rachel that Harvey will help Mike. He came through for Donna when she was in trouble, and Donna has no doubt Harvey will save his Boy Wonder. Mike Gets a Warning Mike gets gets put in a cell with a guy in a wife beater who threatens to kick his ass, but the man is actually a Federal Marshal. Mike recognized him from a picture hanging on the wall when he was brought in. Mike knows Gibbs was just trying to strong arm a confession, and he didnt take the bait. That plan may not have worked, and Mike says even if he does get sent away it wont be to pound your ass prison. The Marshal tells Mike that if he thinks hell wind up in Club Fed, he doesnt know Anita Gibbs. Robert Tries to Protect Rachel Robert goes to see Rachel and questions how she could get herself in this situation. Her answer is that she loves Mike. Like Harvey, Rachel tries to convince her dad that Mike is a good guy, but all Robert sees is a criminal. His objective is to get Rachel to cut Mike loose, and when she refuses, he says theres nothing he can do to help her. Harvey Cuts a Deal The next morning, Harvey has his first run in with Anita Gibbs. He tells her off the record that Mike was going to resign, so if her primary interest is getting Mike out of the courtroom, the letter of resignation should be enough to get Gibbs to waive the charges, especially if Mike promises to never do it again. Gibbs is willing to cut a deal but not the one Harvey wants. If Harvey produces the document, shell waive Mikes bail. Harvey pushes for more, but she doesnt budge. Harvey can take that deal, or shell make sure Mike sits in jail. After all, if he can hack into the bar association, whats to stop him from leaving the country? Soloff Prepares Another Attack Jack Soloff just got his ass handed to him but sees another opportunity to dethrone Jessica now that Mikes been arrested. Either she had to know or is clueless as to whats going on underneath her nose at her own firm. He threatens to vote her out, again, but Jessica says attacking the firms leadership during a crisis might not be a smart move. Jack will look like a bottom-feeder, and even if the partners vote her out, they wont vote him in. Donna Learns the Truth Harvey calls in sick, and Donna goes to his apartment. Hes never taken a sick day in his life, much less when his protege just got arrested. Harvey explains that he cant be seen at the office because he resigned, and not because of Mike, because of Forstman. Donna cant believe Harvey would leave under these circumstances, but he assures her he isnt leaving anyone, hes representing Mike. Harvey is concerned the bail hearing isnt going to go smoothly and tasks Donna with retrieving something for him. Harvey Gets Blindsided Gibbs waives bail but still manages to blindside Harvey. She request that the judge remove Harvey as Mikes attorney. Her grounds are that they worked together to defraud the bar association, their clients and the people of the United States. When Harvey demands proof, Gibbs produces Mikes letter, stating Harvey and Mike conspired to fabricate it. The two concocted the story under the guise of attorney-client privilege. Harvey tells Gibbs he gave her the letter in good faith, but she replies Harvey gave her the letter in an attempt to get her to drop the charges against his co-conspirator. The judge calls the squabbling attorneys into her chambers. Mikes photographic memory gets him and Harvey out of this jam. Gibbs denies violating Mikes rights and says theres no tape to prove the allegation, but Mikey remembers the serial number of the camera. Gibbs has no choice but to remove her motion, and Mike is free to go and keep Harvey as his attorney. Donna Takes a Stand Jessica lets Louis into the loop, and hes not happy, but shes got a task to keep him busy. She wants Louis to figure out a way to keep Jack Soloff off her ass. Louis goes looking for Donna and finds her with Mikes employment records. He told her to stay away from Mikes case, but Donna doesnt care. Louis warns Donna there will come a time when she will have to choose between herself and Harvey and Mike, and hes not going to let her throw her life away for either one of them. Until they come for her, if Mike and Harvey need her help, Donna is going to give it to them. And if Louis has a problem with that, he might as well fire her. Jessica Faces Another Foe Robert comes to Jessica and asks her to fire Rachel but she refuses. Robert knows its because it will only make Mike look guilty. Robert paints Jessica a bleak picture when it comes to the future of her firm. People will be coming at her from places she didnt even know existed, and hes going to enjoy every second of it. Now that Mike is out of jail, its time to start playing offense. The first order of business is to sit down in a room and compile a list of every person who knew the truth. Blasts from the Past Harveys first stop on the True Confessions Tour is Scottie. She cant believe Harvey could think she would do such a thing. He doesnt, but Mike isnt convinced, so Harvey promised he would look her in the eye and ask. Scottie is pissed, and things only get worse when she realizes Harvey wants to make sure shes going to keep her mouth shut. Scottie blames Mike for the demise of her romance with Harvey, and shes got some very hard feelings. So shes not willing to give Harvey any reassurance. Mike has a similar conversation with Trevor. Trevor denies turning Mike in, but he doesnt want to lie for him either. Mike suggests Trevor consider it making up for all the ways hes screwed him over. Trevor agrees but just for the good of his own family, not as a way to make amends. Gibbs Gets Closer to the Truth Gibbs finds Harvey at his gym. She wants to know if he still works at the firm, because she went by the office to possibly strike a deal, and he wasnt there. Not to mention Gretchen was cagey about when Harvey would be back. Gibbs now believes that Jessica found out about Mike, and forced them both to resign. Harvey doesnt give her anything to work with, so she goes in for the kill. Maybe Jessica did know, in which case, maybe Harvey will turn on her. Harvey tells Gibbs to get lost, but she doesnt leave without making one final threat. If she finds out Harvey resigned, thats evidence hes a co-conspirator, and shell put him behind bars. Louis Makes a Sacrifice Louis is having a hard time. He suggests to Jessica that he become managing partner to get the heat off her, at least until things calm down. Jessica sees this as a power play pure and simple and it doesnt sit well. She reminds him hes just as guilty as the rest of them. Feeling the sting of Jessicas reprimand, Louis fires Donna. Its the only way she can help Harvey and Mike without compromising herself. Suits Interview: Sarah Rafferty Teases Everyones Life is on the Line After Mikes Arrest >>> Loyalties are Questioned Mike arrives home, and Rachel tells him her father was there.Gibbs offered to drop all of the charges if Mike turned on Harvey. Mike questions if Rachel considered that Mike should take the deal, and she says yes. He questions if Rachel would do that to him, hes disgusted she would even consider stabbing Harvey in the back. Rachel defends herself, stating how terrified she is he could go to prison, but Mike wonders if shes really scared that she might not stick around. Harvey arrives in the midst of the fight and drops the bomb that Gibbs suspects Harvey is no longer working for the firm. He picks up on the tension, and Rachel tells him about the deal. Harvey doesnt blink an eye, informing them Gibbs tried the same tact with him. Harvey wants to focus on how to return to the firm without Forstman finding out. Mike says it doesnt matter if Harvey gets his job back if Forstman doesnt have someone inside. The Tide Begins to Turn Mike goes to see Soloff and gives him an ultimatum. If Jack doesnt stop coming after Harvey and Jessica, hes going admit Soloff knew Mike was a fraud the whole time. This means Soloff cant let Forstman know Harvey is coming back to work, or Mike will follow through on his threat. After hearing that Louis let Donna go so she could help Harvey, they make nice. Rachel swears to Mike that they will get through this, and if he goes to jail, shell be waiting when he gets out.But the biggest news, by far, is that Donna and Harvey are back together again. Suits airs Wednesdays at 10pm on USA. (Photo courtesy of USA) As a new crop being grown for jet fuel in North Dakota becomes more popular, U.S. Department of Agriculture officials have finalized procedures to insure it. For 2016 and succeeding crop years, carinata is only insurable under the federal crop insurance program by written agreement under canola and rapeseed crop provisions. "I think they (USDA) recognized enough producers will likely grow it this year," said Dave Archer, agricultural economist at the USDA Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory in Mandan. Canadian seed producer Agrisoma Biosciences contracted about 6,000 acres to be planted with carinata in western North Dakota in 2015. The crop was insured for farmers at that time, too, but insurance agent confusion over how to insure it prompted USDA to issue a guidance for the future. Agrisoma has a goal to reach 50,000 acres of carinata planted this year, said company representative Garret Groves while farmers were harvesting last year's crop. Archer has overseen the growth of carinata at the Mandan research farm for three years as part of a U.S. Navy initiative to look for alternative sources of jet fuel. In that time, Archer said his yields were good, similar to those seen at the state-funded North Dakota State University Hettinger Research Extension Center, which also planted the crop. For two out of the three years it was planted, Archer said carinata topped the list for yield of mustard-type crops planted. Because of the yields, he thinks planting of the crop could take off. Archer said keeping seed costs low and finding additional herbicides for weed control will be important for the crop's success. "I think the big hurdle is to get cost of production low enough," said Archer, adding the Navy will be looking for the fuel that it can get at the lowest cost. Right now, wood-based fuel and fuel produced from garbage are leading interest, but Archer said feedstock needed for production for those fuels is somewhat limited. "They need something that can be produced on a wider scale," he said. And that's where oilseeds, such as carinata, come in. Archer thinks Agrisoma's efforts to get producers growing the crop will be part of what could lead to its success. Groves said 30 bushels per acre was the average yield seen early in last year's harvest. The carinata planted was expected to yield between 1,800 pounds and 1 ton per acre. That amounts to about 100 to 115 gallons of jet fuel per acre. Archer said finding high-value co-products, such as animal feed, that can be produced alongside jet fuel using carinata could also help. The research farm did not conduct any feeding trials with the carinata it grew but Archer said it was high in protein. Now that the research farm has finished with its field trials, it may continue to plant carinata as part of its field rotation research in an effort to give farmers an idea of where the crop might fit best into a crop rotation, according to Archer. Last year's crop was delivered to the Ray Farmers Union Elevator. Agrisoma was working on adding other elevators to the delivery list for this year in an effort to make the crop even more attractive, Groves said. Norbord has announced a 95m modernisation and expansion of its oriented strand board (OSB) mill at Morayhill in Inverness, Scotland. The investment will upgrade the mill to continuous press technology and nearly double its production capacity, positioning it to meet growing demand for OSB in markets across the United Kingdom and Europe, as well as securing the long-term future of its employees and the indirect jobs it provides across the region. The investment is further supported by a development grant from Highlands and Islands Enterprise of up to 15m. Demand for OSB is increasing rapidly and this investment will ensure we can continue to meet customers needs and remain at the forefront of the European industry, said Karl Morris, managing director, Norbord Europe and a senior vice president of the company. Our SterlingOSB product manufactured in Inverness is the UKs leading OSB brand, and with direct road, rail and port access, the reinvested mill will be in an even better position to efficiently serve our customers across the UK and in continental Europe. This investment underscores Norbords long-term commitment to Inverness and the Highlands region, and we look forward to continuing to play an important role in the community. Built in the early 1980s, the Inverness mill was the first in Europe to manufacture OSB, and was also the first OSB plant in Europe to receive Forestry Stewardship Council accreditation, reflecting its commitment to the environment. The expanded mill which Norbord expects to come online in the second half of 2017, with no disruption to production in the interim will continue its commitment to sustainability, including generating its own heat energy from the biomass wood residue that is a by-product of the production process. Peter Wijnbergen, Norbords president and chief executive officer, concluded: This strategic investment reflects the importance and growth potential of our European operations, and will make our already strong European business an even more meaningful part of Norbords financial results. Bordentown exhibit showcases items belonging to Joseph Bonaparte The Bordentown Historical society is gaining international attention for its Joseph Bonaparte exhibit, former King of Spain and brother of Napoleon. A pet dog has been rescued by fire crews after getting trapped in this upturned car next to a water-filled ditch near Burnham-On-Sea. Fire crews from Burnham, Bridgwater and Taunton were called to the B3141 between East Huntspill and Woolavington just before 10am on Wednesday morning (January 27th) amid concerns that somone was trapped inside. All the occupants had managed to scramble out of the vehicle, but the dog was trapped inside in a cage. A fire spokesman told Burnham-On-Sea.com: Fire Control mobilised appliances from Bridgwater and Burnham-On-Sea, together with the specialist rescue team from Bridgwater and a rescue tender from Taunton. Upon arrival crews confirmed all persons were free and clear, but one dog was trapped in the vehicle that had rolled and was upside down in a water filled ditch. Crews got to work using hydraulic equipment to gain entry to the vehicle. At 10.11am, crews confirmed one dog had been released from the vehicle uninjured. Telekom Romania has reached the height of absurdity, by restricting the calls available to customers who had "unlimited" plans, after they exploited a Vodafone promotion, which rewarded those who received calls on Vodafone phone numbers, with internet traffic or credits to buy new phones. Essentially, customers arbitraged the two offers, demonstrating their innate speculative skills. Specifically, owners of plans and pre-paid cards of the competing providers were invited to call owners of Vodafone pre-paid cards, which meant they would be awarded 10 MBs of traffic per minute and credits to buy new phones from Vodafone (10 credits per minute). The promotion was valid for owners of Vodafone cards and plans as well, except they would only get 1 MB of traffic per minute and 1 credit/ per minute to use for the purchasing of new phones. What happened next? Several owners of cards or unlimited plans from Orange or Telekom (Digi does have a limitation on its "unlimited" plans) started calling Vodafone numbers (possibly their own Vodafone number strategically placed in an older phone), in order to accrue the points that would allow them to get phones for free. And the enthusiasm was so great that some people would brag in the forums of using the conference system, with three or four Orange or Telekom cards set to dial the same Vodafone number continuously, for "efficiency". For instance, in order to buy for free a common Nokia 108 model with keyboard, which would cost 24 Euros in the Vodafone stores, it took 58,050 credits (in other words four days of continuous talking from other networks to Vodafone), and for a Samsung Galaxy A5 with a price of 261 Euros it would take 650,806 minutes from one Vodafone number to another Vodafone number were needed, or 65,080 minutes from other carriers to a Vodafone number (meaning 45 days of continuous phone calls). In other words, in order to get a Samsung Galaxy A5 what was needed was a two month investment in an unlimited plan from Telekom Romania, meaning 2 x 19.31 Euros = 38.32 Euros. The profit would have been almost seven times more than the "investment". Considering that the interconnection tariff was 0.96 Eurocents per minute, Orange and Telekom would start to take losses eventually. For them, the 65,080 minutes of interconnection would cost 624 Euros, money which was supposed to be paid to Vodafone, a nice "return on investment" for the 261 Euros, which is what the phone would have cost when sold without a plan. Overwhelmed by the situation, Telekom Romania couldn't come up with another solution than putting "limits" on the unlimited subscription. A phone conversation between a Telekom customer and an operator of the company, posted on Youtube, took the social networks by storm, causing the hilarity as well as the confusion of web surfers, after the customer complained that the company suspended his plan because he talked on the phone for more than 24 hours in a day. One of the pieces of information that we send to potential aliens is that a day on Earth is 24 hours. The customer in question said that he paid for a plan with unlimited national minutes, therefore expecting, justifiably, to be allowed to talk as long as he wanted. The Telekom operator was unable to explain to the customer what the deal was with "the limited unlimited plan" and told them that they have caused a prejudice to Telekom by making more than 24 hours of calls in a day. Therefore, the customer said that he would take the recording of the customer support call to the Consumer Protection office, (see the transcript in the insert). Following an enquiry by "BURSA", the representatives of the Telekom Romania group of companies told us that several prepaid cards and plans have been restricted, because they have performed daily "an extremely high level of mobile voice traffic". They told us: "Following the occurrence of an unusual traffic of mobile voice calls, Telekom Romania has implemented a series of measures to ensure access to the mobile telephony services for all its customers, within optimal parameters. Some of the measures that were implemented include the identification and placing of restrictions upon a number of prepaid cards and subscribers who made a very high level of daily voice call traffic, particularly through the use of call waiting and conference calling, which indicated an artificial use of mobile telephony. What we mean by unlimited traffic is a significantly higher volume of traffic, up to 80 times higher, in some cases, then the average traffic conducted by customers that benefit from similar plans. Thus, in certain cases, traffic has exceeded 24 hours of calls within a time frame of 24 hours, which was made possible by using services that allow the making of simultaneous calls, by using call waiting and conference functions". By the time the newspaper had gone to print, the representatives of the National Consumer Protection Agency had not yet sent us an official position concerning the situation presented above. Just to remove any doubts, according to the Explicative Dictionary, unlimited = which has no limits; huge, without measure. In other words, the unlimited plan means that the user is allowed to talk even 25 hours out of 24, or as much as they want, without measure. Therefore, it is not possible to abuse an unlimited offer, like Telekom claims. We hereinafter reproduce the full phone conversation between the unhappy customer and Telekom Romania, posted on Youtube: "Customer: I have just received a message that my voice call services will be suspended unlimitedly, as I have paid for my plan and it is clearly stated that it is "unlimited" (ed. note: in the mobile telephony services contract). I am going to record this call as well and I am going to take it to the Consumer Protection Office and then we will how this "unlimited" thing works. If something is unlimited, then legally speaking, that means 24 out of 24 hours, I can call as long as I like. Telekom operator: Mr. ... , more specifically, what are you referring to. More specifically, what does the message you received say. Customer: I am told that my plan is being suspended, I am not allowed to make calls anymore, because I am abusing the service. If something is unlimited, unlimited from a legal point of view, then legally speaking, that means 24 out of 24 hours, 7 days out of 7 says, continuously. Telekom operator: More specifically, you have received a message that your services will be suspended indefinitely, because you have talked for more than 24 hours combined in less than 24 hours, to numbers in the Vodafone network, This has caused prejudice to the Telekom company... Customer: How could one talk for more than 24 hours in 24 hours? Do you realize what you're saying? Telekom Operator: This is the official notification that I have received. Customer: How can someone talk for 25 hours in 24 hours? You really are out of your minds. Alright, I am going to take this and go with it to the Consumer Protection Office and we are going to see from there. Telekom operator: Sure, it is your choice. Customer: I have paid for a service. You terminated my service before the month was up. Telekom operator: As long as you have caused a prejudice to the Telekom company, then the company... Customer: What prejudice? What is the prejudice, I want to know? Telekom operator: You have affected the functioning of the company's network. Customer: I did what?! Telekom operator: You have affected the Telekom network. Customer: If it says "unlimited national minutes", then what does "unlimited national minutes" mean? What does it mean? I want to hear it! Telekom operator: Sir, could you keep your voice down? I can hear you quite well. There is no need to raise your voice. Customer: No, because I've had enough of this mockery! Operator Telekom: Alright. If you are unhappy, file a complaint with any institution you want". North Dakota Tourism is upping its spending by nearly $1 million in 2016-17 with hopes that star power will spark more visitor interest. When Minot native and Hollywood actor Josh Duhamel first lent his voice to Tourism in 2014, traffic to the department's website spiked. Hoping to see similar success in 2016-17, North Dakota Tourism bet on Duhamel once again, this time making him not just the voice but the face of tourism in the state. Tourism will spend $3.3 million running print and TV ads for its latest campaign, compared with $2.5 million spent on the 2014 campaign. Production costs for the print and video ads featuring Duhamel cost $795,000 for the next two years, with $475,000 of that going to Duhamel's salary. Sara Otte Coleman, director of North Dakota Tourism, said more was spent on the quality of the content being produced for this most recent campaign. Otte Coleman said return on in investment from the 2014 campaign was $94 for every $1 spent, with a total of $236 million generated in visitor spending. Otte Coleman said, when Duhamel made his debut with North Dakota Tourism, the Tourism Department website experienced its seventh-highest traffic numbers ever and online visitor guide requests went up 20 percent. Spending will continue to be focused on regional travelers, with ads running in places such as Minnesota, Wisconsin and Canada, but the department also is expanding its reach to Illinois. Otte Coleman said North Dakota's tourism ranks 40th out of the 47 states reporting. The states around North Dakota spend significantly more on tourism, so the department has to be creative in order to stand out, she said. In a webinar with members of the media, Duhamel said this new campaign has more of a sense of humor, making it different than previous efforts. The actor appeared on NBCs "Today" show in New York on Thursday to promote the state. As part of the campaign, Duhamel appears on the 2016 North Dakota Travel Guide and the Hunting & Fishing Guide. He is depicted enjoying various recreation statewide in settings such as Devils Lake, Theodore Roosevelt National Park and Fort Mandan. There are several TV spots, including one shot in downtown Fargo. Ford Motor scientists and engineers are working to integrate wearable devices and vehicles to enable driver-assist technologies to be more aware of the driver behind the wheel, especially when the person is stressed or sleepy. As more consumers embrace smart watches, glasses and fitness bands, we hope to develop future applications that work with those devices to enhance in-car functionality and driver awareness, said Gary Strumolo, global manager for vehicle design and infotronics, Ford Research and Advanced Engineering. Researchers at the new Automotive Wearables Experience laboratory housed in the Ford Research and Innovation Center in Dearborn, Michigan, are examining the potential to link vital health information to in-vehicle technologies, including lane-keeping assist and Blind Spot Information System. Lane-keeping assist could become more sensitive if a smart watch sends data to the vehicle that infers the driver didnt get enough sleep the previous night. Or, if a drivers heart rate increases as traffic intensifies, the adaptive cruise control or Blind Spot Information System could increase the distance between vehicles giving the driver some breathing room. Wearable technology integrated with the vehicle allows for more accurate biometric data to stream continuously and alert active driver-assist systems to become more sensitive if the driver shows signs of compromised health or awareness, added Strumolo. Source : BS Motoring January 27, 2016: Maruti Suzuki, which launched its 100th showroom at Thane near Mumbai, plans to expand its outlets to 250 by next year. Customer feedback and surveys show us that there is a growing segment of car buying Indians who value personal care, warmth and attention in their car buying and ownership experience, said R.S. Kalsi, executive director, marketing and sales, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. Nexa is designed for this segment of customers. It brings together people, technology, showroom ambience and processes to deliver the desired experience to this segment of customers. Indias largest carmaker launched its Nexa brand of showrooms in July last year. It is part of its initiatives to achieve the target of selling two million vehicles annually by 2020. S-Cross, Indias first premium crossover, and Baleno, the premium hatchback, both leaders in their respective segments, are sold exclusively through Nexa. Over 45,000 units of these models have been sold so far. Kalsi said the number of relationship managers at Nexa showrooms will also go up from 2,500 to 5,000. Source : BS Motoring In what can be termed a major setback for Gujarat-based Adani Hazira Port Private Ltd (AHPPL), the Supreme Court on Thursday refused to vacate the cancellation of environmental clearance, which was granted earlier. The court on Thursday directed the Adani group to deposit Rs 25 crore with the Surat collector on the allegation that it had damaged environment while building infrastructure for the Hazira port. The National Green Tribunal had ruled earlier that the project was expanded in an irresponsible manner and quashed the environment clearances. It also imposed Rs 25 crore as penalty. The money deposited at the courts instance will be utilised for demolition of unauthorised structures and restoration of environment. The Adani group challenged the NGT ruling in the Supreme Court. The bench, headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur, has issued notices to the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) and the Gujarat Maritime Board, among others. They will have to reply within four weeks. AHPPL is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ), which, in a media statement, said: AHPPL has challenged the order dated 8.1.2016 passed by the National Green Tribunal, Pune, inter alia, cancelling the EC 3.5.2013 for expansion of facilities. The company also highlighted that the apex court had allowed port operations to continue as usual, and, hence, there is no impact on port operations. The environment clearance (EC) dated May 3, 2013, issued by the MoEF had permitted construction of liquid cargo storage, which is already completed. The company said on Thursday, The court has said we can continue construction activity as per EC dated 26.6.2003, which was anyway not challenged. Thus, there is no impact on further construction as well. Hence, neither our construction nor operations are affected in any manner. Senior counsel P Chidambaram tried to show to the judges that the project was going on with every clearance demanded by law. Every authority has filed affidavits affirming clearances. Ships are docking and 10 miilion liquid cargo is arriving now while the target is 15 million a year. All equipment prescribed by environment laws are in place and functioning, counsel asserted. However, the chief justice pointed out from the reports that the claim of functional set-up has been doubted by the reports of the monitoring committee. Chidambaram submitted that more than a thousand workers will be thrown out of construction works, if the project expansion was stopped. On the other hand, the petitioners, led by Hazira Fishermen Committee, maintain that at least 300 families of the fishermen community in the area would be rendered jobless because of the wanton development. On the allegation that 500 acres of mangrove have been devastated by the project, Chidambaram stated that replacement has been made. He reiterated that the NGT order was wrong on 20 counts as it had not read the evidence properly. Axiata Group Berhad (Axiata) and Bharti Airtel will merge their telecom operations in Bangladesh. Both on Thursday signed a definitive agreement to merge their subsidiaries in Bangladesh Robi Axiata Limited (Robi) and Airtel Bangladesh Ltd (Airtel). Upon completion, Axiata will hold 68.3 per cent controlling stake in the combined entity, while Bharti will hold 25 per cent. The remaining 6.7 per cent will be held by the existing shareholder, NTT Docomo of Japan. The proposed transaction is subject to conditions precedent including receiving applicable approvals from relevant authorities and is expected to complete in the first half of 2016, according to a statement from Bharti Airtel. The agreement follows the announcement in September last year when they had entered into exclusive discussions to explore possibility of combining the business operations in Bangladesh. Gopal Vittal, Managing Director and CEO (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel said, There is a compelling rationale for bringing together the strengths of both entities. The combined entity will be well positioned to leverage the operational synergies to serve customers better with world-class services and contribute to the growth of the telecom sector in Bangladesh. Post-merger, the combined entity operating as Robi will serve approximately 40 million customers. Airtel Bangladesh has a subscriber base of nine million, while Robi Axiata has 28 million subscribers. After the proposed merger, the combined entity will become the second-largest telecom service provider in Bangladesh in terms of number of subscribers. Robi Axiata is currently the third largest telecom operator in Bangladesh, followed by Airtel. There are six operators in Bangladesh with Grameenphone leading the list. The proposed merger is set to strengthen the industry structure, competitiveness and, more importantly, bring greater benefits to customers in terms of network quality and coverage and an improved offering of data products and services, the statement added. It also said the customers will be rewarded through lower within-network (on-net) call rates by being part of the 40 million-strong base. Supun Weerasinghe, Chief Executive Officer of Robi said, The highly competitive and crowded Bangladesh telecom sector solicits consolidation and this merger will form greater economies of scale for both Groups. It will also result in shared investment capacity of the leading two industry players to optimise strategies and deliver enhanced value to consumers, benefitting the industry at large. Dato Sri Jamaludin Ibrahim, President and Group Chief Executive Officer of Axiata said, In line with Axiatas merger and acquisition strategy, in-country consolidation has been one of the Groups key focus in solidifying its position, unlocking profitability of the market and ensuring long term growth. Axiatas track record of successful strategic mergers and integrations in its other markets such as Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Cambodia further qualifies the Group to lead market consolidation in Bangladesh. Higher interest and spectrum costs led to Bharti Airtel, the countrys largest telecom company, posting a 22 per cent decline in its net income at Rs 1,117 crore in the third quarter from Rs 1,436 crore in the same period a year ago. Airtels net interest cost increased to Rs 1,360 crore in the third quarter ended December 2015 from Rs 492 crore in the same quarter of the previous year. The companys non-voice revenue was 36.7 per cent of total revenue during the quarter, up from 30.8 per cent in the corresponding period of the previous year. Consolidated revenue grew 3.7 per cent to Rs 24,066 crore during the quarter from Rs 23,217 crore in the year-ago period. Consolidated revenue grew 5.9 per cent adjusted for the reduction in Indian termination rates and the divestment of the African tower assets, the company said in a statement. Consolidated mobile data revenue stood at Rs 4,135 crore, up 44 per cent year on year. Mobile data traffic grew to 161.3 billion megabytes in the quarter, rising 80.2 per cent year on year. For India, mobile data revenue at Rs 3,184 crore registered a growth of 50.6 per cent with the data customer base increasing by 29.9 per cent and traffic by 73.3 per cent. Mobile data now contributes 23.1 per cent of Bhartis mobile India revenue, up from 16.2 per cent in the corresponding quarter last year. The African region reported narrowed net loss of $74 million from $136 million a year ago. Revenue grew 3.1 per cent to over $1 billion from $995 million in the same quarter of the previous year. In constant currency terms, the African revenue, adjusted for the divestment of tower assets, grew by 4.6 per cent. Data revenue at $146 million grew 40.8 per cent, led by a 37 per cent increase in the data customer base and a 111.6 per cent increase in traffic. Data ARPU increased to $3.3 from $3.2 in the same quarter last year. Data revenue now contributes 14.3 per cent of Bhartis African revenue, up from 10.5 per cent in the same period of the previous year. Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India & South Asia, said, Our focus on acquiring quality customers has resulted in addition of 8.1 million in mobile. Our rollout of 3G/4G sites has resulted in acceleration of data usage growth to 73.3 per cent along with data ARPU reaching Rs 200. Our smaller businesses grew by 15.1 per cent on yearly basis in aggregate. A meeting of the fast-track task force, formed by the Centre to revive the mobile manufacturing ecosystem, has discussed the issues related to the revival of the mobile handset manufacturing unit which was earlier run by Finnish electronics manufacturer Nokia, in Sriperumbudur, near Chennai. The discussion was productive and it may result in a positive outcome, if the state government also acts accordingly, said a source close to the development. The meeting was very productive and Government of India is totally aligned with the requirements (of the revival plan), and it is now up to the Tamil Nadu government to measure up, said the source. The task force might get to a direction on what is going to happen, within the next one or two weeks. The tax issues are expected to be kept aside and will not come in the way of revival plans. A high-level team of the task force, headed by chairman Pankaj Mohindroo, the national president of Indian Cellular Association, has been set up to look at the issues related to revival of the mobile manufacturing ecosystem in the country and also into the issues with the earstwhile manufacturing plant of Nokia. Earlier in August last year, the task forced requested the Tamil Nadu government to set up a similar committee of the state government to help restart the now- defunct Nokia plant at Sriperumpudur as well as to revive the electronic manufacturing ecosystem in the state. The meeting scheduled later this week is a follow up of the earlier meeting. It also asked the Tamil Nadu government to announce a package for the revival of Nokia plant as the state is the highest stakeholder in the issue. Nokia, once an iconic mobile handset maker, in 2014 decided to shut down its plant at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai. The company said it decided to stop production at its Chennai plant from November 1, 2014 in the absence of orders from its new parent firm (Microsoft), which terminated the mobile purchase agreement. Global software major Microsoft bought out Finland-based Nokia's global devices and services business, including assets in India for $7.2 billion on April 25, 2015. The company decided to suspend manufacturing handsets from its Chennai plant though it could not take possession of it due to legal battles over a tax notice from the Tamil Nadu government and the Supreme Court. The government has put a freeze on Nokia's assets due to a tax dispute over an estimated Rs 23,000 crore. Following this, the state government has also slapped a tax demand notice for around Rs 2,400 crore. The factory employed around 8,000 people directly. Financial Technologies has entered into a share purchase agreement with Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) for sell of FTIL's 27.3% stake in Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX) at an enterprise value of Rs 274 crore. Thus, FTIL will get a net realisation of Rs 74.8 crore. DMCC had jointly promoted exchange along with FTIL. The agreement was signed in two parts, said FTIL in a statement. While FTIL sold its 13% stake in DGCS to DMCC at $ 5.23 million, its Mauritius based wholly-owned subsidiary FT Group Investments Pvt. Ltd (FTGIPL) sold 14.3% stake in the same at a total deal value of $ 5.78 million. These transactions, however, are subject to fulfillment of certain conditions including regulatory approvals, if any. Post completion of the above said transaction, FTGIPL would be completely exiting DGCX. The Jaypee group - which is set to sell its cement unit for Rs 21,000 crore enterprise valuation - may have to sell others assets to retire its massive Rs 75,000 crore of debt, which is eating into its earnings and delaying recovery of loans, said bankers. Media reports earlier indicated that the 24.5-million tonnes per annum cement capacity would be sold at zero equity value to the bidders, but top Jaypee group officials said ascribing zero equity for its shares was not correct. Private equity firm, KKR, Aditya Birla group's UltraTech, Dalmia Cement and JSW Cement are among the bidders for Jaypee's cement units - scattered all over north India. The company blamed worsening performance of core sectors and a shaky economy for the fall in its financial metrics. With no signs of the Indian infrastructure sector recovering in the near future, analysts said it would be tough for the company to service its finance cost worth Rs 7,300 crore a year. When contacted, a group spokesperson denied selling any other assets including stake in Delhi Agra Yamuna Expressway. Besides, to make matters worse the two residual thermal plants at JP Power have been operating at low 35 per cent capacity. Post its mine getting cancelled by the government, the group had acquired mines in the auction that will be a drag on its profitability, according to a report by Credit Suisse. Jaypee Infratech has also been facing liquidity crunch even post completion of its expressway project owing to its real estate exposure, it said. Speciality chemicals major Lubrizol Corporation today announced the commencement of its $50 million chlorinated polyvinyl chloride ( CPVC) compounding plant in Dahej. This would be the company's first CPVC compounding plant in the country, and it claimed that it is the first such in India by any global major. The plant has a capacity to produce nearly 55,000 tonnes of compounds annually. The company has invested over $50 million (Rs325 crore) on this facility, Spread over a 100,000 square meter area in the chemical park complex of Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC), the latest plant represents Lubrizol's expansion of FlowGuard, BlazeMaster and Corzan compound manufacturing sites. Eric Schnur, President, Lubrizol Advanced Materials, said here today, "Dahej provides us with excellent infrastructure and also easy access to raw materials. It took us 2.3 million man-hours to complete this facility." This is part of the $200 million (Rs1,300 crore) investment announced by Lubrizol in 2013, which included the opening up of a resin manufacturing plant at Rayong, Thailand and an expansion facility at Louisville, Kentucky, USA. Manoj Dhar, Head, TempRite Engineered Polymers, South Asia, said the CPVC market size in India is nearly 85,000 to 90,000 tonnes annually, and that Lubrizol enjoys the majority share in the market. On an unseasonably warm day in December, a friend invited me and a few other birders to take an early morning trip to the Denbigh Experimental Forest east of Minot on Highway 2. Ron Martin, an expert birder in the state, had reported that a visitor, a black-backed woodpecker, had arrived. This bird has not been observed in the state since 1984. A few years back, I attempted to find these birds at Itasca State Park in Minnesota, where they breed. With no luck at Itasca, I was excited at this new opportunity to perhaps view it closer to home. When we arrived at our destination, a small crowd had gathered. It was not long before the woodpecker flew into a dead tree and began pecking like a miniature jackhammer. He clung to the tree bark with feet that uniquely sported three toes, unlike the majority of woodpeckers with four toes. Shiny, beautiful, black feathers covered his medium-sized body, and a bright yellow cap adorned his head, indicating that he was a male bird. Sawdust flew everywhere, as his beak hammered and peeled at the dead spruce tree that must have been full of beetle larva or other favorite foods. He was going to town" on this poor lifeless tree. Normally, these woodpeckers thrive in burnt forests, but there was no sign of burned trees here. He did not seem concerned by our presence, but, within a few minutes of our arrival, an angry hairy woodpecker swooped in and scared him away. The selfish, hairy woodpecker was probably jealous that the black-backed was helping himself to the abundant food in his territory. I was disappointed that I was only able to shoot a couple of blurry photos of the rare bird. After the black-backed woodpecker left, we searched the forest for other birds. There were many other great things to see, such as golden crown kinglets, abundant pine grosbeaks and red crossbills. It was awesome to see these uncommon species in the state. However, I was hoping for another look at the black-backed woodpecker. After an hour or so, we returned to the site where we first saw the black-backed woodpecker, and he was back pecking away at the same tree. We were delighted to spend more time viewing and photographing the bird. This time, he was also more visible on the tree, which gave us better opportunities to photograph him. On the way home, a friend asked, Do you know that the tongue of this woodpecker and all woodpeckers starts at the back of his beak and wraps all the way around his brain outward, to protect it from the hammering force of his pecking? Please note, this friend often likes to pull my leg once in a while for the fun of it. Consequently, I was a little skeptical until he pulled up an article on his phone from Bird Watching Daily that included an illustration of this phenomenon. I was now a believer. According to this article, they peck with a force of 1,000 times that of gravity. If humans experienced that kind of force, it would kill us. I took a look at this interesting article at www.birdwatchingdaily.com/blog/2013/12/10/woodpeckers-can-hammer-without-gettingheadaches/. I was fascinated with the interesting design of the woodpeckers protective tongue. This long tongue not only allows it to dive into bark and crevices for food, but also shields the brain. Some people argue that it is all evolution. However, this fact illustrates to me the amazing and wonderful designer of nature and our rare visitor to North Dakota. Microsoft India today announced that it has extended the maternity leave for its women employees to six months from the current three months. The new maternity policy will be effective from February 1, 2016 and also benefit all women employees who are currently on maternity leave. The company also said that the new changes were in addition to the company's continued support to its women employees by offering them the option of availing unpaid leave up to three months and flexible work arrangements up to two years. Further, all male employees at Microsoft are eligible for two weeks of paternity leave. Additionally, to care for adopted children, mothers are eligible for eight calendar weeks of paid leave and fathers are eligible for two weeks of paid leave. "At Microsoft, our continual endeavor is to support our employees in the best possible ways so they can thrive both at the workplace and in their personal lives. We understand how important it is for new mothers to not only be able to spend time with their babies but also be able to transition back to work effectively. The enhancements to our maternity benefits are intended to ensure our women employees have the time and support they need to embrace this new phase of life," said Rohit Thakur, Head of Human Resources, Microsoft India. Mobile advertising spends would account for 15 to 20 per cent of the overall media expenditure by 2020, fuelled by growth in mobile commerce, according to a study. At present, the share of mobile advertising spends is two to four per cent of the total media expenditure. Deloitte India's Technology, Media and Telecom (TMT) report also highlights that the boom in m-Commerce will be powered by social media, and is likely to become the need of every business. Mobile advertising in India is the fastest growing among all segments in the digital advertising space, and is gaining momentum through various apps and mobile sites, the report said. "With telecom operators launching 4G and high-speed Wi-Fi services, mobile-based internet connections are set to surge which will also fuel growth in social media users," P N Sudarshan, senior director, Deloitte India said. "At the same time, more and more consumers in India are accepting the idea of buying products online through social media. Accordingly, e-marketers will have to devise their strategies factoring in the digital surge," he added. In the coming years, Deloitte India expects "digital-first brands" (brands that can only be purchased online) to see strong growth across categories such as budget fashion, furniture, jewellery and groceries. These are categories where India has strong design and manufacturing capabilities, thereby allowing companies to set up an efficient supply chain and sell these products at high gross margins, it said. The report also took note of significant adoption of e-Commerce in the retail medicine sales market. Deloitte India expects that the market for pharma e-Commerce will grow "10 times to $400 million in 2017". The estimated number of smartphone users in India will be 651 million by 2019, a near five-fold jump from 140 million in 2014. The sheer number of people who are online and on social media is encouraging companies to invest in India, including advertising. "As a result, mobile advertising in India has expanded from $25 million market in 2011 to $70-$80 million in 2015, growing at 60-70 per cent annually, according to industry estimates," says the report. Mobile advertising is gaining momentum through various apps and mobile sites. It has evolved from SMS and call-based marketing into a more sophisticated phenomenon that includes mobile web, in-app ads, mobile search, and social networks. In fact, Google has used its latest version of the Android operating system, Marshmallow, to deliver customised advertisements on the locked screen of a smartphone, silently pushing the ad while the device is being charged. Mobile applications have paved the way for innovations in mobile advertising beyond banner ads. While they work in pretty much the same way as websites, apps are more intuitive, leading to better targeting. According to the report, users spend significantly more time on apps than on mobile web. India ranks third with respect to app downloads from GooglePlay. "Brands are capitalising on this consumer trend, pushing for larger in-app budgets in the coming years. It is expected that in-app advertisement would be the highest contributor followed by mobile videos and mobile ads. For example, BookMyShow expects to generate up to $4 million in high-margin advertising sales this year and add more video-related content on its website and app," says the report. Another impetus to mobile advertising is coming from video advertising given the increased consumption of short format videos on mobile. As per the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) study, 60 per cent of internet users in India access the internet via their mobile phones now. A recent report from comScore revealed 100 per cent growth in online video consumption in India in the last two years. As a result, companies have started using videos for advertising over the digital and mobile platform as they seem to be more effective than just text and images. Myntra, the online fashion retailer of Flipkart, said it would report profits in the next financial year as it cuts costs, improves efficiency and gets more business from young customers buying clothes on their smartphones. The Bengaluru-based online retailer, who will face fresh competition from the upcoming fashion e-commerce site of Reliance, is pushing for efficiency through improvement in supply chain and and focusing on better gross margins. Our focus for the year will be to attain positive gross profit while maintaining scale during the year. We plan to build on the momentum in the first month to touch $1 billion GMV (gross merchandise volume) by FY2016-17, said Ananth Narayanan, chief executive officer of Myntra. Going ahead, we are hopeful of a further one-two per cent reduction in supply chain costs and another three-four per cent from further reduction of discounting. The company has touched $800 million in annualized average GMV in January, clocking 70 per cent growth year-on-year. In December 2015, it had reported a GMV of $500 million. The spike in annualised GMV has been primarily aided by the festive and year-end sales, he said. Myntra did around six per cent reduction in discounting during the Diwali sales quarter sequentially and about five per cent in January on year-on-year. The supply chain chain costs reduced by five per cent in the last quarter. He said that while Myntra uses a few third-party logistics players as well as Flipkarts logistics arm eKart to meet its delivery demands, the topic of merging Myntra logistics with eKart is out of question. This is because Myntra Logistics will stay focused on providing value added services such as try and buy, alterations, etc to our customers, Narayanan said. Myntras GMV of $800 million has proven that the companys bet on bringing more brands online has been successful. Online fashion consumers are largely brand seeking. Brands will grow and define future of fashion. We expect the branded fashion market to grow twice as fast as the overall fashion market in the next five years. We now plan to be profitable at scale in FY 2016-17, with consistently high growth rates, said Prasad Kompalli, Head eCommerce Platform at Myntra. Myntra has more than 2,000 brands on its platform. The top brands for the year were Roadster, Puma, Nike, Vero Moda & UCB. Myntra Fashion Brands, the companys in-house fashion brands, led by Roadster, has contributed to about 20 per cent of the companys revenue. Myntra looks to increase this to 25 per cent this year. Currently, there are more than 30 international brands on Myntra, including Scotch & Soda, Harley Davidson, Ferrari, Desigual, Forever 21,The North Face, Timberland and Marks & Spencer. The overall contribution by international brands to the revenue was five per cent last year. Myntra looks to increase this to 15 per cent by FY17. Myntra claimed it has about eight million monthly active users with each customer visiting its app at least 12 times a month. Newly-listed Jindal Stainless (Hisar) is aiming to close 2015-16 (Apr-Mar) at 12 percent earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margin by focussing on strong-margin yielding value added products which will also allow the company to overcome the disadvantage it draws from high logistical costs. "The Hisar plant being land locked is high on logistical cost and hence the thrust is on cold-rolled value added products in order to mitigate this cost," Ankur Agrawal, chief financial officer told Business Standard today. Jindal Stainless (Hisar) has earned a 12 percent margin in the first half of the current financial year, up from about 9.6 percent clocked for entire FY15 and much lower than the 16 percent margin it witnessed in FY11. Agrawal was speaking on the sidelines of the 'bell ringing' ceremony held here. Begining today, Jindal Stainless (Hisar) has started trading on the NSE and Bombay Stock Exchange. Shares of the company were trading at Rs 37 on the BSE. Cold-rolled stainless steel forms about 80 percent of the total stainless steel consumption in the domestic market. Currently, Jindal Stainless (Hisar) has a cold rolling capacity of 2.75 lakh tonne which it plans to enhance by 45 percent over next 2-3 years. However, the company has no plans to invest in lowering of logistical costs at the moment. "Currently there are no plans to lower logistical costs, we are only looking to increase capacity and will be investing 150-200 crore via internal accruals. Due to capital constraints, it is not possible to focus on investing in building logistics as of now. We don't want to expand irrationally," explained Agrawal. As on December 31, the company has a net debt of Rs 3,400 crore. "With the current debt level, Hisar can sustain and plus over a period repayment will happen. We don't plan to add any more loan burden on the balance sheet for sometime, since steel industry is also in a downturn phase," he said. While the domestic stainless steel industry is running at an average 48-50 percent capacity utilization, Jindal Stainless (Hisar) is running its plant at 95 percent capacity utilization. Apart from value added products such as coin blanks and razor blades, Jindal Stainless (Hisar) is also looking at the defense segment for increasing its revenue basket in coming quarters. "Currently, we are at a very nascent stage in this defense segment and no orders with us as of now. Product application is at trial stage and this will take some time," he said. Of the total revenue, about 85 percent will come from domestic market and balance from exports, said the management. For any stainless steel producer, nickel and steel scrap are the two major raw material input costs for the company. Jindal Stainless (Hisar) has already made representation to the government to get the 2.5 percent import duty on imported nickel lowered to nil. Nickel is a base metal which is not domestically produced and domestic stainless steel industry relies completely on imports of this metal. Jindal Stainless (Hisar) will be detailing its third quarter results on February 1. Last year, Jindal Stainless Limited (JSL) kicked-off financial re-engineering exercise by distributing Rs 8,580-crore debt among its four firms, a move aimed to reduce interest costs. It also redistributed assets among three entities to leverage idle capacity as well as streamline operations and optimise production. Following the restructuring exercise, Jindal Stainless (Hisar) has been listed and Jindal Stainless' shareholders will be issued shares by the former on 1:1 ratio basis. The National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) would be investing a major share in the Rowghat rail line project in Chhattisgarhs Naxal-infested pocket to facilitate increasing business in the eastern market. At present, the state-run mining major does not have any operations in Rowghat that contains the second largest iron ore deposits in Chhattisgarh after the Bailadila Iron Ore Mine. Rowghat Mines' reserves have been assessed at 731.93 million tonnes while Bailadila has an estimated reserve of 1.343 billion tonnes. In a move aimed at evacuating minerals from Rowghat where the Left Wing Extremists had a considerable sway, a 235-km long rail line has been proposed to be connecting Dalli-Rajhara and Jagdalpur via Rowghat. The project is to be implemented in two phases; the 95 km line linking Dalli-Rajhara to Rowghat Mines in first phase and its extension till Jagdalpur which is located 140 km south of Rowghat in the second. The construction cost of the first phase would be borne entirely by the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), which had been allotted Deposit F having an estimated reserve of 511 million tonne. The mine is crucial for the SAIL as the reserve in Dalli-Rajhara that is feeding raw material to its flagship entity Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP) is fast depleting. The Chhattisgarh government has formed a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to implement the second phase of the project. The NMDC would hold 43% stake in the company while IRCON would have 26%, SAIL 21% and Chhattisgarh Mineral Development Corporation (CMDC) 10%. The project would be built with an investment cost of over Rs 2000 crore. While the SAIL has a business interest in the project that would ferry iron-ore to Bhilai, countrys largest iron ore producer and exporter NMDC would be investing as part of long drawn strategy. As of now, NMDC had a single evacuation route; transporting iron-ore to Visakhapatnam port through the Kirandul-Vizag line. From the port, the mineral is disposed to different destinations. If the NMDC is investing such a huge amount, there must be some plan on card, company spokesperson told Business Standard. The Rowghat rail line (that would finally connect to Howrah-Mumbai rail line) would help NMDC to increase its business in the eastern market. The route would help delivery time consumption. Besides, the company is also setting up 3 million tonne steel plant in Nagarnaar. The rail line would help in the evacuation of steel conveniently to the northern and eastern market, the spokesperson said. The central transmission utility PowerGrid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL) on Thursday indicated that its annual capex for 2016-17 will be higher compared to Rs 22,500 crore for 2015-16. This is largely due to the Centre's plan to pursue transmission projects worth Rs 1 lakh crore to evacuate power from the upcoming coal and hydro and from renewable projects. The company chairman and managing director I S Jha told the Business Standard, PowerGrid will meet its capex target of Rs 22,500 crore for the current financial year. For the nine months, capex of Rs 16,891 crore has been done. The capex for next year will definitely increase, considering the transmission capacity addition being announced by the Centre.'' However, he declined to divulge further details. PowerGrid Corporation's capex for 2013-14 was Rs 23,158 crore and Rs 22,456 crore for 2014-15. He said that the company's net worth stood at Rs 42,465 crore and capital work in progress is of the order of Rs 46,000 crore as on December 2015. According to him, the company's turnover was reported at Rs 15,320 crore. On impact of the cabinet approval for amendments to the national rate policy, Jha said it has made it clear that transmission is important and should be ahead of generation. ''PowerGrid Corporation is in an advanced situation with the policy giving impetus to transmission. The policy is a big positive for transmission sector in general. Earlier people were questioning why you need transmission. Now it is very important, it should be ahead of generation; therefore, plan it and make it. Besides, going by the policy, transmission will be under rate bidding. It is good for PowerGrid Corporation, which is very comfortable with it,'' he noted. Further, Jha said that the policy envisages waiver in transmission charges for renewable energy projects as a whole. It was earlier only applicable to solar energy project. On the Rs 3,500 crore under sea transmission project between India and Sri Lanka, Jha said it has not been called off but there has been slow movement. ''The basic reason is that when there is international project, first link is cost always. Sri Lanka will compare it and look into various issues. It takes time. Even though India had begun supply of power to Bangladesh in 2013, the dialogue was happening since 1990. Similarly, the dialogue is currently underway with Pakistan. In case of International projects it takes time,'' he informed. Automation major Siemens AG is looking at opportunities to implement its digitalisation portfolio for the automobile in India. The digitalisation acitivities in the automobile manufacturing sector in the country is low and there is a huge potential considering that digitalisation would be the future of manufacturing activity across the globe, said Sebastian Israel, Industrie 4.0 and automotive industry specilist of Siemens AG. Industrie 4.0 is a term used to note the development of the organisations and management of the manufacturing industry to the next level from automation, which is into digitalisation, according to experts. The company has started creating awareness about the digitalisation process with various Indian automobile manufacturers and would expect to take it forward to implementation in future, he added. Nitin Nair, chief manager of automotive vertical (India) for Siements Ltd has said that the overall automation in the automobile industry in the country is around 30 per cent and the company has around 65 per cent market share in the automation in the country's automobile industry. "Digitalisation as an entire process would take time to complete and many of the are doing it in different ways. We see a huge potential for digitalisation in India and it is a major market for us," said Israel. Industrie 4.0 would increase the productivity in conversion costs by 20-30 percent, said the company, quoting an analysis by Boston Consulting Group. The total productivity increase in five to ten years would be in the range of 4-7 per cent of total cost and 20-30 per cent of conversion cost, it added. After the anti-dumping duty on imports of cold-rolled flat products of stainless steel last month, domestic stainless steel industry is seeking for anti-circumvention duties on the same product and has already approached the Ministry of Commerce with its plea. "The recently levied duty is on cold-rolled flat products ranging between 600-1,250 mm. But exporting countries are evading this duty by sending cold-rolled flats higher than 1250 mm. Due to this, the imposed anti-dumping duty has not helped the stainless steel industry in any way," Ankur Agrawal, chief financial officer of Jindal Stainless (Hisar) told Business Standard. Agrawal was speaking on the sidelines of the 'bell ringing' ceremony held here. Begining today, Jindal Stainless (Hisar) has started trading on the NSE and Bombay Stock Exchange. Shares of the company were trading at Rs 37 on the BSE. Last month, the Centre imposed an anti-dumping duty ranging from 5-57% on import of cold-rolled flat products of stainless steel for five years. In a notification, the Central Board of Excise and Customs said the duty has been imposed on China, South Korea, the US, South Africa, Thailand and Taiwan, besides the European Union. The highest duty has been levied on steel imports from China at 57.39%, followed by the European Union at 52.56%. Imports from Thailand have the least duty imposition of 4.58%. China, the world's largest consumer and producer of the commodity, has been dumping various grades and varieties of steel across the globe on the back of surplus supply. This was perhaps the main reason why China attracted the highest anti-dumping duty. "Preliminary investigations by the Commerce Ministry is on," said Agrawal. "We do not know when the outcome can be expected but a thorough investigation of the injury to the industry would take atleast another 30-40 days," he added. Apart from Jindal Stainless (Hisar), state-owned Steel Authority of India is also a large producer of cold-rolled flat products of stainless steel. Stainless steel cold-rolled flats, however, largely comprise small unorganised players. Walmart India has partnered with WEConnect International and Vrutti to launch a training program for women business owners. The initiative is designed to help women entrepreneurs achieve higher levels of business growth through training curriculum delivered at workshops and mentoring sessions. In the first phase, 25 women entrepreneurs from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana will take part and applications for entries will be made available on the Walmart India, WEConnect and Vrutti websites soon. "I am extremely delighted to support women-owned businesses as part of our supply chain in India. Enhancing the capacity of women entrepreneurs and providing them with the skills to scale up their business will ultimately help Walmart India continue to offer great assortment and quality local products to our customers," said Krish Iyer, President and CEO, Walmart India. Walmart, in 2011 launched its Global Women's Economic Empowerment (WEE) initiative through which it committed to source $20 billion from women-run-businesses for its US business and double sourcing from women owned businesses internationally. "We are proud of the work that Walmart India is doing to economically empower women. We know that this isn't only the right thing to do, but also good for our business growth," said Jenny Grieser, senior director of Women's Economic Empowerment for Walmart. Republican faithful in districts 30 and 32 in Bismarck each nominated one new House member for their legislative tickets Wednesday night at packed Bismarck district conventions. A crowd of about 130 members of District 30 nominated Glenn Bosch for their open House seat at Solheim Elementary School. Over in District 32, approximately 100 people gathered at Wachter Middle School and took two rounds of voting to pick Burleigh County Sheriff Pat Heinert to fill their open House seat from among three candidates. District 30 Glenn Bosch, 55, is executive vice president for Bismarck-based AVI Systems, an audio-visual electronics systems contractor. Hes worked with the company for more than 30 years. This is Boschs first campaign for office. Bosch received the nomination for the open seat over Roger Kaseman, a retired law enforcement officer. Bosch thanked district members for their votes and said the next step is getting out with the other legislative candidates and be visible. The most important thing for me is to be accessible, Bosch said. Bosch said his goals are to help ensure residents can enjoy a strong quality of life in North Dakota and being a voice for fiscal conservatism in times of budget cuts. He said the state is going to have a good opportunity to better choose its priorities and slow government growth in more lean times. District 30 Republicans also endorsed Rep. Diane Larson for state Senate and Rep. Mike Nathe for House. Larson is running to replace Ron Carlisle, who announced last fall hes retiring at the end of his term. District 30 has 48 delegates and District 32 has 44 delegate positions for the state convention, scheduled for April 1-3 in Fargo. District 32 Burleigh County Sheriff Pat Heinert won the nomination for the open House seat being vacated by Republican Rep. Mark Dosch, taking two rounds to voting to eke out the nomination over two other candidates. Also vying for the nomination were Volunteer Caregivers Executive Director Moira Solberg and Steve Bakken, business development manager for Larson Engineering and owner of SB Productions. Heinert has spent his entire law enforcement career with the Burleigh County Sheriffs Department. He served 27 years prior to his unsuccessful 2002 run for sheriff. Heinert ran again in 2006 and won, winning reelection in 2010 and 2014. Heinert said with three quality candidates he knew it was going to be close. I felt all along I had a pretty good chance, Heinert said. Heinert said now his next step is to meet with the two incumbents in District 32, Sen. Dick Dever and Rep. Lisa Meier, and formulate the team plan for the campaign. Industrial Engineering Expo and Plast Pack Forum 2016, which will start from January 29 in Indore, is likely to attract 30,000 visitors from various parts of central India and business worth Rs 50 crore plus, said organisers. The expo, which is an yearly event, is one of the biggest engineering expos and interaction platforms for industrialists in central India. The event holds importance as the current business environment in central India is progressive. The state government is also working towards simplification of rules to promote ease of doing business and Make in India, said Om Dhoot, President, Association of Industries Madhya Pradesh. The four-day expo is being jointly organised by AIMP, Future Communication and Indian Plast Pack Forum. This year, 200 renowned companies are participating and we expect more than 30,000 visitors from various parts of central India, said said Ameya N Ghokhale from Future Communications. The participants include Bosch, Siemens, SKF, Atlas Copco, Godrej & Boyce, Kirloskar, Crompton Greaves and many start ups. Ex-chief minister Ashok Chavan, who heads the Maharashtra Congress unit, on Thursday said the BJP government was using the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for political vendetta. Chavan was reacting to CBI's move to approach Governor C Vidyasagar Rao for approval for his prosecution in connection with the Adarsh Housing Society scam. "The BJP government is using CBI for political vendetta. We will make our next move considering legal recourse available," Chavan said, adding former Governor K Sankaranarayan in December 2013 had refused sanction to the CBI to prosecute him. Subsequently, the CBI had closed the case against him. Chavan, who had to step down as chief minister after the scam surfaced in November 2010, was among the 12 people chargesheeted by the investigation agency in connection with the case. The chargesheet had alleged conspiracy but also referred to Chavan's individual acts when he was revenue minister and later chief minister. The CBI had alleged that Chavan suggested inclusion of civilian members in the Adarsh Housing Society, meant for war veterans and widows of defence personnel, to secure flats for his relatives. The CBI had first approached a trial court seeking to drop Chavan's name as an accused on the ground that the Governor had refused to sanction his prosecution. As the CBI court rejected it, the agency moved the Bombay high court. However, the high court too dismissed CBI's application but said Chavan could still be prosecuted under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Sixty six eminent academicians, journalists and activists on Thursday welcomed the appointment of senior journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta as the next editor of the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW). EPW is a widely respected academic journal published by the Sameeksha Trust. We are confident that Paranjoy will be a worthy successor to an outstanding editor, Rammanohar Reddy, and keep the EPW flag and the 50-year-old magazine's core secular, democratic, and progressive values flying high, their letter to the Board of Trustees stated. The group complimented the trustees on making the excellent choice in Thakurta. He will succeed Reddy, who quit after 11 years as editor. Thakurta is to begin his stint on April 1. However, the 66, who described themselves in the letter as longstanding readers, admirers, and friends of the journal, said they continued to remain concerned about the governance issues at EPW, which they had raised in their letter to the trustees on January 15. The group stated that they renew their appeal to the Board of Trustees to address these issues at the earliest. Those who signed the letter included Isher Ahluwalia, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Abhijit Banerjee, Ramachandra Guha, Zoya Hasan, Christophe Jaffrelot, N Ram, Abhijit Sen, Pronab Sen, and Yogendra Yadav, among others. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati today demanded reservation for dalit students in the private schools in the country. Attacking the Narendra Modi government for allegedly attempting to deprive Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and Delhi-based Jamia Milia Islamia (JMI) of minority institution tag, Mayawati said the Centre should instead improve the primary education system, where the majority of students studied belong to the dalit and other deprived sections. Earlier, the Attorney General had said JMI was not a minority institution as it was created by an Act of Parliament. He had also told the Supreme Court that the legislature had never intended AMU to be a minority institution. Addressing the media at BSP office here, Mayawati said a large number of people belonging to the deprived and oppressed sections amongst the Hindus had converted to Buddhism, Islam and Sikhism. "The majority amongst the minorities in India were originally lower caste Hindus, who had converted to other religions due to discrimination and oppression. Therefore, we consider them as our brethren," she underlined. Questioning Modi's dalit outreach through express of grief at the suicide of Hyderabad University dalit scholar Rohith Vemula and waxing eloquent on dalit pantheon Bhimrao Ambedkar, Mayawati asserted the talks of allowing dalit students to study in AMU and JMI were only political tactics. She warned that even if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government bestowed Bharat Ratna to BSP founder Kanshi Ram or elevated dalit as top party leaders or nominated them as chief minister candidate, the dalits should be wary of such move. Observing that Congress was on oxygen, she lambasted its vice president Rahul Gandhi for his "theatrics" of staying at dalits' households and breaking bread with them. "All this is pure drama arranged by the Congress party itself." She noted SP had become an alter ego of BJP and RSS. "The ruling SP knows that it would not return to power in Uttar Pradesh next year. Therefore, its cadres are amassing wealth, while the law and order situation is worsening every day." Mayawati announced if BSP came to power in 2017 UP polls, it would put anti-social, mafia and communal elements behind the bars. Apparently, it was an ill-timed boast from Pranab Mukherjee that had soured his relations with Rajiv Gandhi after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in end-October 1984. Rajiv Gandhi not only dropped Mukherjee, considered to be the most powerful politician in the Congress after Indira, from his Cabinet, but he had to quit the party within two years. At the launch of the second part of his memoirs, The Turbulent Years: 1980-1996, at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Thursday, the President said stories about him having aspired to become the interim PM after Indira Gandhis assassination were "false and spiteful and that he was left "shell-shocked and flabbergasted" at his ouster from the Rajiv Gandhi Cabinet. Vice-president Hamid Ansari unveiled the book. The first part, The Dramatic Decade-The Indira Gandhi Years, was released on December 11, 2014. At Thursdays event, the President mentioned his old habit of writing a page in his diary daily. The memoirs are mostly based on his diary entries. The President has written about key events of his political life, including Operation Blue Star and Babri Masjid demolition. Mukherjee has termed his exit from the Rajiv cabinet and Congress party a "fiasco" which he himself had created. "Many stories have been circulated that I aspired to be the interim prime minister, that I had staked claim and had to be persuaded otherwiseAnd that this created misgivings in Rajiv Gandhi's mind, he said. Mukherjee said he had heard no rumours (about his being dropped from the Rajiv Cabinet), nor had anyone in the party ever vaguely hinted at it. As it happened, P V Narsimha Rao, too, was on tenterhooks, calling me several times to check if I had received a call. The President admitted to "have sensed Rajiv's growing unhappiness and the hostility of those around him and taken pre-emptive action". "To the question of why he dropped me from the Cabinet and expelled me from the party, all I can say is that he made mistakes and so did I. He let others influence him and listened to their calumnies against me. I let my frustration overtake my patience," he said. After he was expelled in April 1986, Mukherjee had formed Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress (RSC). He later returned to the party in 1988. "I have candidly recognised in the book that I should have not ventured this because I was never a mass leader and I did not have the type of following which rebels from Congress like Ajoy Mukherjee in 1960s or recently Mamata (Banerjee) and in one sense Indiraji herself had," the President said. He has also written how the opening of Ram Janmabhoomi temple site in Ayodhya was an "error of judgement" by Rajiv Gandhi and the demolition of Babri Masjid an act of "absolute perfidy" that destroyed India's image. "The demolition of Babri Masjid was an act of absolute perfidy...It was the senseless, wanton destruction of a religious structure, purely to serve political ends. It deeply wounded the sentiments of the Muslim community in India and abroad. It destroyed India's image as a tolerant, pluralistic nation," he has written. Recalling the Shah Bano case, the President says Rajiv Gandhi's action eroded his image of a modern man. Mukherjee says Rajiv Gandhi has been criticised for his excessive reliance on some close friends and advisors who installed the so-called 'babalog' government. "Some of them turned out to be fortune seekers." Talking about the Operation Blue Star in 1984 to flush out terrorists from the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Mukherjee recalled that Indira Gandhi "understood the situation well and was clear that there was no other option. Aware that her own life was at risk, she took a conscious decision to go ahead in the best interest of the nation". He writes that while the Punjab situation was an aberration and a crisis of this nature is unlikely to recur, the lesson for future generations is that fissiparous tendencies have to be resisted at any cost. The Punjab crisis provided external elements an opportunity to take advantage of the disunity within India and sow the seeds of anarchy, Mukherjee said. What could resonate in the present context is Mukherjees belief that the instrument of imposing Presidents Rule in states could be liable to be misused. The President had on Tuesday given his assent to the union cabinets controversial decision of putting Arunachal Pradesh under central rule. Mukherjee confessed that he has been a bit conservative in writing about sensitive issues. "It is for the readers to read and come to their own conclusion. I did not deliberately speak on (matters) which are highly confidential...As and when facts will be released by the government, the people would come to know," he said. Mukherjee said some facts from his years in governance will be buried with him "That is why I have advised my daughter who is the custodian of this diary that never release this. You should digitise this but never release it. If you digitise it as and when government will find it necessary to release then they will release. Bidding is likely to remain subdued for spectrum on which the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Wednesday issued its recommendations on reserve prices. Spectrum in the 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz and 2,500 MHz bands is likely to be auctioned by June. The government had earned Rs 1.1 lakh crore from spectrum auctions last year and experts said it could receive Rs 5.5-6 lakh crore this year. The auction will see the government auctioning spectrum in the 700 MHz band for the first time and for which the Trai has recommended a steep reserve price of Rs 11,485 crore per MHz nationwide. Telecom companies will provide their feedback to the regulator on the reserve prices. Even though low frequencies are efficient for 4G cellular services, companies are unlikely to bid aggressively for spectrum in the 700 MHz band because of the reserve price. Analysts expect a significant portion of spectrum to remain unsold in the 700 MHz, 2,300 MHz and 2,500 MHz bands. Telecom companies bid high last year because their spectrum was expiring and they needed more air waves to stay in business. This compulsion does not exist now and telecom companies could focus on filling gaps in spectrum in circles, mainly in the 1,800 MHz and 2,100 MHz bands used for 3G and 4G mobile services. According to Deutsche Bank Markets Research, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have spectrum to ramp up 4G services over the next three years and hence have a minimal utility for the 700 MHz spectrum. Idea Cellular and Vodafone are constrained in some markets but the 700 MHz band will not solve their problems in the medium term. An executive with a telecom company said operators were yet to monetise their 4G spectrum bought earlier and were in the process of rolling out networks. Another auction in a new band with a high reserve price will not make business sense. The industry is battling debt and margins are declining. The government needs to bring down the reserve price significantly, otherwise most of the spectrum will remain unsold. Operators will cherry pick spectrum in a few circles, he pointed out. Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Mukesh Ambanis Reliance Jio in submissions to the Trai had opposed the auction of the 700 MHz band till a device ecosystem was in place. Only Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan offer 4G services in the 700 MHz band. Bidding for spectrum in the 700 MHz, even selectively, has the potential to cause irreparable damage to the industry. There is no business continuity risk attached with the upcoming auctions, except a few cases for renewals, Kotak Institutional Equities said in a note. HSBC Global Research said a nationwide five MHz block in the 700 MHz would cost $8 billion, 30 per cent of the industrys revenue. We expect the final auction outcome to be subdued. Even if the government goes ahead with this, we see limited participation and this may push the regulator to revisit spectrum valuation and revise it down significantly. The 700 MHz band is sought after for LTE deployment around the world due to its efficiency. The lower frequency provides wider coverage, reducing the number of towers needed for setting up LTE networks. The Union government on Thursday announced the top 20 list for the smart city project, but many of these cities would need to upgrade their proposals to qualify for the first round of Central funds. Replying to a question at a press conference, urban development secretary Madhusudhan Prasad said Rs 200 crore for each selected city would be given out this financial year a total outgo of Rs 4,000 crore. This is to be followed by Rs 100 crore each in the subsequent three years as part of the plan to spend Rs 50,000 crore on 100 smart cities in a phased manner. However, he pointed out some of the selected cities have to upgrade their proposals before the Centre disburses its funds in FY16. It is learnt that around 10 cities in the top 20 list have been told to upgrade their proposals to match the yardsticks of smart cities. Till that is done, the promised first tranche of Rs 200 crore each would not come, an official said. Also, while the announcement of the 20 names implies that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) governments signature smart city project has actually been kicked off, theres no deadline given. While announcing Bhubaneshwar (Odisha) as the top name, urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu said the winner was a surprise candidate. The 20 selected cities have come from 11 states, with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Madhya Pradesh getting the highest share of three (Bhopal, Indore and Jabalpur) in the first list. Those with two cities each include Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra (all BJP-ruled) and Andhra Pradesh (led by BJP ally Telugu Desam Party). All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-ruled Tamil Nadu and Congress-ruled Karnataka have also made it to the list with two cities each. Punjab, Assam, Kerala and New Delhi Municipal Council area of Delhi are the other winners. When asked why Varanasi, the constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is not part of the top 20 list, Naidu said, The local municipality should know the answer. Last year, Japan had signed a memorandum of understanding to partner Varanasi as a smart city. In the pecking order released on Thursday, Varanasi is 96th on the list. SMART PLANS Rs 200 crore for each selected city would be given out this financial year for each selected city would be given out this financial year It would be followed by Rs 100 crore each in the subsequent 3 years as part of the plan to spend Rs 50,000 crore on 100 smart cities in a phased manner each in the subsequent 3 years as part of the plan to spend Rs 50,000 crore on 100 smart cities in a phased manner The 20 selected cities have come from 11 states, with Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Madhya Pradesh getting the highest share of three (Bhopal, Indore and Jabalpur) in the first list have come from 11 states, with Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Madhya Pradesh getting the highest share of three (Bhopal, Indore and Jabalpur) in the first list 23 states/Union territories have been given a chance to fast-track their plans by April 15 have been given a chance to fast-track their plans by April 15 The Centres funds have to be matched by money from states and municipalities While West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh (going to polls in 2016 and 2017, respectively) and Bihar have not found any representation in the smart city list, 23 states/Union territories have been given a chance to fast-track their plans by April 15. Arindam Guha, senior director at Deloitte India, said, There are no winners or losers here. The really smart cities will build on the effort already put into developing the Smart City plans and take some of the implementation forward, especially those which do not require significant financial outlays like increasing walkability by improving pavements or are largely supported by private investment like Wi-Fi facilities in public spaces, beautification of public places through corporate sponsorships or advertisements. Funding of smart city project is seen as the most critical. The Centres funds have to be matched by money from states and municipalities. The spend on retrofitting and redevelopment projects will be on areas such as intelligent solutions for transport; the management of water, energy, solid waste; e-governance; smart health and education services; CCTV surveillance, etc. Around 10 cities alone have proposed resources of Rs 8,521 crore from public private partnerships (PPPs) and another Rs 4,539 crore from convergence of different schemes, Naidu said at the conference. For instance, Bhubaneswar has proposed to raise Rs 525 crore from convergence of schemes and Rs 2,563 crore from PPP; Pune Rs 700 crore from convergence; Surat Rs 365 crore from convergence and Rs 795 crore from PPP; and NDMC Rs 797 crore from PPP. Jaijit Bhattacharya, partner, infrastructure and government services at KPMG India, said: KPMG worked with NDMC to come out with one of the most innovative proposals. We are confident that today's announcement will further accelerate the transformation of cities into smart cities and will witness very significant investments coming in. According to Sanjay Dutt, managing director, India, Cushman & Wakefield, the project would require huge fund mobilisation that could be brought about by PPPs for developing smart cities. Incentivising infrastructure development would lead to higher private participation in the formation of smart cities. A few months ago, the Cabinet had cleared Rs 50,000 crore for the project and another Rs 48,000 crore for AMRUT (another city rejuvenation plan) both schemes were part of the election plank of NDA last year. The potential linked credit outlay for the priority sectors in Odisha is pegged at Rs 58,882.39 crore in 2016-17, an increase of 23.3 per cent over the projection of Rs 47,756.44 crore made in 2015-16. A State Focus Paper (SFP) 2016-17, released today, presents a comprehensive picture of the credit potential estimated in various sectors of the rural economy as reflected in the Potential Linked Credit Plans (PLPs) prepared by National Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) for all the districts in the state. The theme of the State Focus Paper 2016-17 is 'Accelerating the Pace of Capital Formation in Agriculture and Allied Sector'. Out of the total credit potential of Rs 58,882.39 crore assessed for 2016-17 for the state under total priority sector, Rs 32,207.90 crore has been assessed under agriculture. The credit potential under the agriculture constitutes a lion's share of 54.7 per cent of the total outlay. Out of total credit estimated under agriculture, Rs 29,710.95 crore (92.2 per cent) is under farm credit, which comprises both crop loans and term loans for agriculture and allied activities. Besides, thecredit potential under agriculture infrastructure and ancillary activities have been estimated at Rs 1,494.38 crore and Rs 1,002.57 crore respectively. Out of the total credit potential assessed under agriculture sector, about 33 per cent is under term loans. It may be noted that erratic and deficient rains has led to severe drought in the state in 2015, affecting 1.53 million hectare of crop area in 235 blocks of 28 districts and 412 wards under 55 urban local bodies. The credit potential for the MSME sector has been assessed at Rs 13,337.62 crore, accounting for 22.6 per cent of the total priority sector. The credit target for the commercial banks is estimated at Rs 726.54 crore to export credit, Rs 1,088.58 crore for education sector and Rs 3,932.40 crore for the housing sector. Similarly, the credit projection of renewable energy, social infrastructure involving bank credit and others are Rs 83.09 crore, Rs 206.04 crore and Rs 7,300.21 crore respectively. It be noted that Reserve Bank of India (RBI), during the current year, has revised the Priority Sector Lending (PSL) norms for the commercial banks. It now constitutes eight sectors - agriculture, MSME, export credit, education, housing, renewable energy, social infrastructure and others. Nabard, while preparing the district level PLPs, has taken into account the various modifications in PSL. "An area which has special mention in the State Focus Paper is the infrastructural requirement for comprehensive development of agriculture in the State. Nabard has state government under RIDF (Rural infrastructure development fund) for providing critical rural infrastructure in areas of irrigation, connectivity, agriculture and social sector. Sanctions during the current year under RIDF to the state have reached an all time high of nearly Rs 3000 crore, with sanction of some big ticket projects and cumulative sanctions have exceeded Rs.14,900 crore", said S K Kale, Chief General Manager, Nabard at the State Credit Seminar. The bank has also sanctioned loan assistance of Rs 1,077 crore to the state for construction of 3,725 rural godowns in PACS for the benefit of farmer members. The short term credit support from Nabard to cooperatives in the state, which was initially sanctioned for Rs 3,200 crore for the year 2015-16, has also been increased to Rs 3900 crore in view of the drought conditions during Kharif 2015. Speaking on the occasion, chief secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi urged upon the banks to achieve substantial increase in credit flow to agricultural sector during 2016-17. He urged the banks to ensure 100 per cent implementation of the subsidy and incentive based schemes announced by government in agriculture and allied sectors. "By December end the achievement is about Rs 30000 crore, 58 per cent of the last year credit plan of Rs 47,756.44 crore for 2015-16. It should exceed 80 per cent by March. The credit flow to the segments covered in state focus paper continues to be pretty low in comparison with developed states", said P K Jena, regional director, RBI. In a significant boost to investor sentiment especially for multinational companies India and the US have solved over 100 transfer pricing disputes for sectors such as information technology (software development) services (ITS) and information technology-enabled services (ITeS) over a one-year period. This is expected to pave the way for greater transfer pricing cooperation between the two countries, a development that is likely to enhance foreign investment flow. More cases are expected to be solved by the end of the financial year, the Central Board of Direct Taxes said in a statement on Thursday. The move is directed towards the broader objective of the government to improve the ease of doing business. India signed the framework agreement with the US revenue authorities in January, 2015, seeking to resolve about 200 transfer pricing cases. The framework was finalised under the mutual agreement procedure (MAP) provision contained in the India-USA Double Taxation Avoidance Convention (DTAC). Encouraged by the success of the framework, the US has opened the bilateral advance pricing agreement (APA) programme to India. Prior to resolution of disputes under the framework agreement, the US bilateral APA programme was closed to India. The US is expected to begin accepting bilateral APA applications shortly, the CBDT said. Amit Maheshwari, managing partner, Ashok Maheshwari & Associates, said this was a very good development from the perspective of bilateral APA, which would give a further boost to the successful APA programme in India and underscores the improving ties between Indian and US MAP authorities. An APA is a multiple year contract between a taxpayer and at least one tax authority specifying the pricing method that the taxpayer will apply to its related-company transactions. Bilateral APAs involve the taxpayer, its local subsidiary, the Indian tax authority and that of the country the company is headquartered. The bilateral APA will re-open an option for US-owned companies to manage their transfer pricing risk in India. The rollback provision combined with a bilateral APA will allow for as many as nine years of transfer pricing issues to be resolved. These are positive developments and would certainly boost MNCs confidence in the Indian market. The developments also lend credence to the belief that the Indian APA programme and a streamlined MAP programme is expected to go a long way in creating an environment of tax certainty and encourage MNCs to do business in India, said Amit Agarwal, partner, Nangia & Co. APAs provide certainty to the company operating in India and avoid conflicts over sharing of taxes between India and the other country and reduce transfer pricing disputes. The first rollback APA was signed last August between a US multinational and the tax department. Up to September 2015, more than 575 applications have been filed with the APA authorities. It is interesting to note that roughly over 40 per cent of APA applications are from the IT & ITeS sectors, consistent with the litigation trends that have been observed. The MAP programmes with other countries like Japan and the UK are also progressing well with regular meetings and resolution of past disputes. The CBDT is confident that a combination of a robust APA programme and a streamlined MAP programme would be helpful in creating an environment of tax certainty and encourage MNCs to do business in India, the nodal department for direct taxes said The CBDT has so far signed 39 (38 unilateral and one bilateral) APAs, with 30 agreements in the current fiscal alone. This is a very positive development in the first month of the new year. A significant number of MAP cases were pending for resolution for some time now. The same within one year of the framework agreement between CAs of India and US is very creditable, said Samir Gandhi, partner, Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP. He added that with satisfactory resolution of IT & ITeS cases, one can now focus on more complex cases for payment of royalty and management charges and cases involving application of profit split method. India is also working to put in place procedures and practices to enable speedy resolution of tax disputes through the MAP route through legislative and administrative changes in compliance with BEPS (base erosion and profit shifting). EASE OF DOING BIZ The State Bank of India (SBI) has clarified it is unable to provide e-voting for shareholders due to the legal position and not because of its unwillingness to utilise such modern tools. In response to a Business Standard report, "Shareholders cry foul as SBI skips e-voting", the bank has reiterated that it cannot provide e-voting unless the SBI Act, 1955, is modified by Parliament. "It is not that the bank does not want to utilise modern tools like e-voting. E-voting is not acceptable as per SBI Act, which requires shareholders to be either physically present or represented as per the laws. The bank cannot change this procedure unless the Act is modified by Parliament," it said in an emailed statement on Thursday. Expressing unhappiness over the shareholders' perception of the bank's investor-unfriendliness mentioned in the report, the bank said: "We deeply resent the attempt made to unnecessarily portray us as investor-unfriendly when the truth of the matter is that we need to be guided by current laws rather than our wishes in any matter." On the poor attendance at its general meetings, the bank said, "We would like to point out that the bank has taken all required steps to communicate the details of the AGM /EGM to all its shareholders and should not be blamed for attendance numbers." "SBI is a government-owned entity and we believe in following the path of transparency as well as adhering to corporate governance and the regulatory requirements, while dealing with all our stakeholders," the bank said. President Obama brought his recent State of the Union message to a close with the words "God Bless America." Since that dark day in January 1973 when abortion was made legal, each time those words have raised an antenna in my head with the question, "How in the world can God bless a nation that destroys the most vulnerable of all of His creation, the unborn child?" In God's word it is plainly written that we are all created in God's image. Nevertheless 43 years ago, not many, only nine men of U.S. Supreme Court, legalized abortion, agreeing with man's idea, ignoring God's way, giving the woman a fundamental right to an abortion. "No topic related to the feminist movement has aroused such passion and controversy as much as the right to abortion." (Internet Roe vs Wade and It's Impact). There are many important issues to consider before the general election in November to vote for a new president. President Obama's legacy is that he is the most pro-abortion president to lead this nation, including casting a yes vote on the gruesome, inhumane partial abortion procedure. President Obama teary-eyed in a public display of emotion recalling the Sandy Hook massacre really? Now the same man who agrees to destroy babies is asking the American people to agree with his idea to allow others into our country with the possibility of some of them destroying us. Is there any wonder our country is in the mess it is? Isn't it time for us to exchange man's idea for God's way? Uday, a scheme rolled out by the power ministry to bail out financially stressed discoms, will be modified soon to accommodate 12 states that don't have their own distribution company. These 12 states are not eligible to fall under the Uday scheme as they dont have their discoms. I am looking at modifying it to accommodate them as well, said Union power, coal and renewable energy minister Piyush Goyal here on Thursday during an event. He said the scheme was not only a bailout programme but a show of collaborative federalism as advocated by the government. While the minister did not cite a deadline for the scheme to be modified, he said, Uday ensures the discoms don't run into losses in the future as well. According to him, since the onus of running the discoms efficiently falls on states, they will ensure its financial health. Since the scheme was rolled out in November last year, 15 states have joined covering 90 per cent of the entire discoms debt of Rs 4.3 lakh crore while three states Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Centre. He said West Bengal had given an in-principle verbal assurance to join the scheme. According to Goyal, the country can save Rs 1.8 lakh crore each year if the states consent to join Uday. The power ministry is stressing on securing fuel-supply agreements and contracts for power generation, tackling the impending problem of loss-making discoms, and increasing power transmission lines in the country. The intense cold wave conditions prevailing over most parts of northern and central India might come to an end in the next few days and temperatures could again gradually rise from then onwards, a top official of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Thursday. Though it might not signal the end of winter and there could be days when the cold wave would return, its intensity might not be as severe as the previous one. "As of today (Thursday), it looks like the intense cold conditions might not return soon," IMD director general L S Rathore told Business Standard. This, experts said, might not have an immediate impact on the standing wheat and mustard crop and the gradual increase in temperature might not actually be very bad. The winter so far has been less intense than 2015. In fact, the September-to-December period had been among the warmest in recent times. A consensus statement by the South Asia Climate Outlook Forum (SASCOF) in December 2015 also shows that from December 2015 to February 2016 winter season, normal to above normal temperatures are likely to prevail over northern most parts of South Asia, while precipitation is expected to remain below normal. However, since the first week of January there has been a sudden change in weather and temperatures have started dropping in the foothills of Himalayas, resulting in the fog and chill to return in the plains. Officials said any tangible impact on the standing wheat and mustard crop in the current season could be judged by end of February and March. In rain-fed areas, any sudden or sharp increase in temperature could lead to withering of crops, while in irrigated areas it would mean more that farmers would have to run their pumps for greater duration. According to the latest data from the department of agriculture, sowing of wheat took place on around 29.25 million hectares till Thursday, around 1.34 million hectares less than previous year. The shortfall was mainly due to less area covered in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, two of the country's main wheat growing states. "It is too early to make any firm prediction on the final wheat harvest. The recent cold wave conditions have been beneficial and if the temperature remains cool till the middle of February with gradual increase then there should not be any problem with the standing crop," P K Joshi, director South-Asia of International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), told Business Standard. He, however, said a steep increase in temperature might impact flowering. Experts said a clear picture on the wheat crop would emerge around end of February and March. Among other crops, mustard had been sown on around 6.45 million hectares till Wednesday, marginally less than last year. Moreover, the crop condition is good, which has raised hopes that the overall crop in 2015-16 could be the best in three years. Pulses have been sown on around 13.90 million hectares, down 0.39 million hectares from last year, while coarse cereals have come up on around six million hectares so far, almost 332,000 hectares more than last year. Data source from the Central Water Commission (CWC) showed that till Thursday, water levels in the 91 reservoirs was less than the corresponding period last year and also lower than the average of past 10 years. 3.16 lakh applications were received by the Banks during the Second Tranche of Sovereign Gold Bonds for a total subscription of 2790 Kilograms of Gold amounting to Rs. 726 crore. . . During the second tranche of Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB) Scheme from 18th January, 2016 to 22nd January, 2016, as per initial figures, 3.16 lakh applications were received for a total subscription of 2790 Kilograms of gold amounting to Rs. 726 crore by the Banks. The actual figure may vary as comprehensive information from all the authorized receiving agencies is under compilation. These Bonds will be issued on February 08, 2016. The top ten receiving agencies in terms of subscription amount are SBI, Indian Bank, Syndicate Bank, ICICI Bank, Bank of India , Punjab and Sind Bank, Andhra Bank , Canara Bank, PNB, and Central Bank of India. . . The trend during the Second Tranche of SGB shows that the scheme is gradually picking-up amongst the investors with increase in awareness and more clarity about the provisions of the scheme. . . The Second Tranche of SGB was kept open from 18th to 22nd January, 2016. The Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley had addressed the CMDs of the banks through video conference on 14th January, 2016 to discuss their preparedness for the second tranche of the Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme. Review meetings were also held with the Banks in Mumbai and Delhi by Shri Shaktikanta Das, Secretary, Economic Affairs. To increase the awareness amongst potential depositors, the Government had also launched the media campaign through AIR, FM radio, Print media, Mobile SMS, facebook and twitter. . . It may be recalled that during the First Tranche of SGB issued during November 2015, 62169 applications were received for a total subscription of 915.953 Kilograms of gold amounting to Rs 246.20 crore by the Banks and Post Offices. . . Earlier, the Government had launched the Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB) scheme on 5th November, 2015. The objective of the scheme is to reduce the demand for physical gold and shift a part of the domestic savings used for purchase of gold, into financial savings. . . Sovereign Gold Bonds are issued on behalf of Government of India in tranches by RBI, from time to time, on payment of the required amount in rupees. The Bonds are denominated in grams of gold and are restricted for sale to resident Indian entities including individuals, HUFs, trusts, Universities, charitable institutions. Minimum permissible investment is two grams of gold, value of which is to be paid in rupees. The maximum amount which could be subscribed is 500 grams per person per financial year. Government has fixed the rate of interest on gold bonds for the year 2015-16 as 2.75 % per annum, payable on half yearly basis. The tenor of the Bond is for a period of 8 years with exit option from 5th year onwards. On maturity, the investor will get the equivalent rupee value of the quantum of gold invested at the then prevailing price of gold. Detailed information about the scheme is also available on the website www.finmin.nic.in/swarnabharat and on the toll free number 18001800000. . . Assam Regiment adjudged Best Marching Contingent on Republic Day Parade 2016 . . The Assam Regiment has been adjudged as the Best Marching Contingent amongst the three Services in the Republic Day Parade held on 26 Jan 2016. The contingent comprising of 149 soldiers from the seven states of Northeast India, was led by Lieutenant Aditya Bisht. The impressive victory comes in the beginning of the Platinum Jubilee year of the Assam Regiment. . . The Assam Regiment was raised on 15 Jun 1941 and draws its troops from the seven North Eastern states. The Regiments insignia, Unihorned Rhinoceros reflects toughness, aggressiveness, determination and martial qualities. Raised through the Japanese invasion during the Second World War in 1941, this gallant Regiment has won six Battle Honours and Theatre Honour Burma in the first three years of its raising. The Fifth Battalion of the Regiment also has the unique distinction of being the only Infantry battalion to have been awarded Battle Honour in Chhamb Sector during the 1971 Indo-Pak war. . . Since its raising, The Regiment has been awarded seven Battle Honours, three Theatre Honours, Nine Chief of the Army Staff Unit Citations, 23 Army Commanders Unit Citations, Two United Nations Citations and numerous other gallantry awards. . . Col Rohan Anand, SM. PRO (Army) Dr. Rafael Reif, President of MIT calls on PM . Dr. Rafael Reif, President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston, called on the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi today. . . He apprised the Prime Minister on work being done by MIT in the areas of education, health, water and innovation. Dr. Reif invited the Prime Minister to visit MIT and interact with the students and faculty. . . The Prime Minister asked Dr. Reif to explore the possibility of using MITs expertise in the Flagship Programmes of Skill India, Digital India and Start-Up India. . . The Prime Minister suggested that senior or retired faculty from MIT could visit India for a few months to teach in an Indian University. Dr. Reif appreciated the suggestion, and offered his assistance in this regard. . . Shri Ratan Tata was also present on the occasion. . . The National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) might suspend registration of clients involved in manipulation of castor seed prices on its platform. Around half-a-dozen clients were involved in that. The exchange's initial findings into castor seed price manipulation started four days ago suggest some irregularities and suspended trading in the commodity with approval from its board. Traders have been asked to withdraw their deposits of goods from the exchange-registered warehouses. Trade sources feared involvement of some large traders and some unknown traders had started taking short position without having adequate quantity underlying stock in warehouses. Especially in the past few days, it has been observed that the castor contract wasnt functioning the way it should be. It had reached the extreme where we felt there is significant risk to market functioning and market integrity would be compromised. It also led to the conclusion that the transparent price discovery process was getting affected, said an exchange official. The official added the exchange had also started investigation in this regard. If found guilty, NCDEX would take harsh measures and recommend the regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India, with stringent actions against the culprit including suspension of membership of such clients or members, he noted. Apprehensions are that a large corporate house has taken huge position at a price significantly higher than the prevailing price of castor seed. Therefore, the corporate house wanted castor seed price to go up to recover its losses. But, a couple of other traders in similar fields played spoilsport by placing short positions orders. This does not give a perfect price discovery in the futures market, which NCDEX is meant for. So, we have decided to not let the trade use NCDEX platform for the corporate war elsewhere, said the official. SpiceJet has rallied 6% to Rs 95.30, its highest level since January 2008 on the BSE, after the foreign institutional investor (FII) bought just over 0.5% stake in the low-cost airline through the open market. On January 27, 2016, The Royal Bank of Scotland PLC as trustee of Jupiter India Fund had bought 3.20 million equity shares representing 0.53% of total equity of SpiceJet at price of Rs 86.43 per share on BSE, the bulk deal data shows. As of September 2015, FIIs held 0.60% stake in SpiceJet, the shareholding pattern data shows. In past three trading sessions, since January 22, the stock rallied nearly 35% from Rs 70.85 after the company reported net profit of Rs 238 crore for the third quarter ended December 2015 (Q3FY16) against a loss of Rs 275 crore in Q3FY15. This is the fourth straight profitable quarter for the company on the back of lower fuel prices. The fuel cost per available seat kilometer (ASKM) for the quarter declined to 1.07 from 1.59 last year, a decline of 33%, SpiceJet said in a statement. In past six months, the stock outperformed the market and zoomed 258% from Rs 26.60 as compared to 11% decline in S&P BSE Sensex. At 09:37 a.m. the stock was up 3.5% at Rs 93.35 with 8.61 million shares changed hands on the counter on the BSE. With the Islamabad High Court dismissing the prosecution's petition seeking voice samples of 26/11 Mumbai Terror attack mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and six other suspects, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Thursday said that the ongoing trial is a test of Pakistan's sincerity in combating terrorism directed towards India. "We see the Mumbai terror attack trial in Islamabad as a test of Pakistan's sincerity in combating terrorism directed towards India. The planning, training and financing of the Mumbai terrorist attack was done on Pakistan, where 99 percent of the evidence is. It is Pakistan's responsibility to unearth and present requisite evidences in the ongoing trial so that the perpetrators are brought to justice," MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said at a press conference. When asked about the possible dates for foreign secretary level talks between New Delhi and Islamabad, Swarup said talks would be held when both foreign secretaries agree on a mutually convenient date. "It is not a question of whether we are considering dates in February, March or April. As soon as the foreign secretaries agree on a mutually convenient date, we will let you know. As of now, we do not have a mutually convenient date," he said. The prosecution had sought Islamabad High Court's permission to compare voice samples of the suspects with the communication intercepted by Indian intelligence agencies. The prosecution wanted to use this evidence against the seven suspects in the Mumbai attack case. The Islamabad High Court on Monday dismissed the petition. For the first time, bands from the state police and Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) will be performing at the Beating Retreat ceremony at Vijay Chowk here on Friday, marking the culmination of the four-day Republic Day celebrations. The bands comprising Border Security Force (BSF), Indo-Tibet Border Police (ITBP) and Delhi Police will play tunes such as Samvidhan, Abhinandan and Carriappa. The tri-services military band, Indian classical instruments Sinfonietta and Jazz Symphonic Orchestra playing the tune Agyat Youvana and the Indian classical instruments Sinfonietta playing the tune Bharat Humko Jaan Se Pyara Hai will add flavour to the ceremony. As many as 20 of 26 performances have been composed by Indian musicians. Other tunes are Kadam Kadam Badhaye Ja, Senani, Lounden's Bonnie Woods and Braes, the High Road to Linton, Mili Juli, Grandeur, Redetzky, Pankhida, Galaxy Raiders, Inspirato, Air Born, Admirals Ensignia-II, Jai Bharati, Sam Bahadur, Dhola Re Dhola, Taqat Watan Ki Hamse Hai, Salam To The Soldiers, Marching Through Georgia, Drummers Call, Abide With Me and lastly, the ever-popular Sare Jahan Se Acha. This year, 15 military bands, 18 pipes and drums bands from regimental centres and battalions are participating in the ceremony. Besides, one each of Indian Navy and Indian Air Force band will also form part of the event. The principal conductor of the Beating Retreat ceremony will be Cdr V C D'Cruz, while military bands conductor will be Subedar Major Ramesh Singh and the Navy and Air Force bands Commander will be Master Chief Petty Officer (Musician-I) Ramesh Chand and Junior Warrant Officer Ashok Kumar, respectively. Buglers will perform under the leadership of Nb Sub Jagdish Giri and pipes and drums bands will play under the instructions of Sub Maj E V Vijayan. Beating the Retreat has emerged as an event of pride when the colours and standards are paraded. The ceremony traces its origins to the early 1950s when Major Roberts of the Indian Army indigenously developed the unique ceremony of display by the massed bands. Beating Retreat marks a centuries-old military tradition, when the troops ceased fighting, sheathed their arms and withdrew from the battlefield and returned to the camps at sunset, at the sounding of the Retreat. Colours and standards are cased and flags lowered. The ceremony creates nostalgia for the times gone by. The Congress on Thursday targeted the Centre and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi for failure to address the grievances of municipal sanitation workers. "This is a repeat drama that has been in existence, Delhi is suffering. We talk about 'Swachh Bharat', we talk about both AAP and BJP interested in Swachh Bharat and what Delhi gets is a very unhealthy situation where the missionary that were supposed to keep Delhi clean have not been paid salaries. Bad finance management and bad unhygienic situation in Delhi is emerging," Congress leader Tom Vadakkan told ANI here. Array In a bid to grab the Delhi government's attention, municipal employees held a protest outside Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia's camp office. The agitators dumped garbage outside his office and raised slogans, demanding the release of their salaries. The municipal employees had called for a complete municipal shut down on Wednesday due to non payment of salaries for over three months, bringing services like sanitation, primary health and primary education to a halt. A North Dakota man accused of storing more than 1,000 pounds of homemade explosives in his garage is now facing criminal charges. Court records show 28-year-old Ross Petrie, of Williston, is charged with a felony called release of destructive forces. An affidavit of probable cause says law enforcement officers began serving a series of search warrants at Petries residence Oct. 10 after being informed that a narcotics lab could possibly be in operation. According to the affidavit, authorities discovered it was actually an explosives manufacturing operation in the garage of a townhouse complex. Officials say they evacuated more than 10 people from the building in which Petries townhouse was located. The Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) members staged a protest here on Thursday against Kerala Chief Minister Oomen Chandy for his alleged involvement in the solar scam. The police had to fire tear gas shells to disperse the agitators. Meanwhile, the Thrissur Court has directed that an FIR should be filed against Chandy in connection with this scam. The Kerala Chief Minister had earlier on Monday appeared before the probe panel in connection with the scam. The scam, which is being probed by a Commission headed by Justice G. Sivaraman, was constituted by the Chief Minister in 2013 following massive protests by the Left-led opposition. Biju Radhakrishnan, the prime accused in the solar scam case, had in December last year alleged that he paid Chandy a bribe of Rs. 5.5 crore, out of which Rs. 5.1 crore was collected personally by the Chief Minister while the rest was paid to his personal staff. The Chief Minister has so far maintained that he has done no wrong and is prepared to face any probe. Array The solar scam pertains to cheating several persons amounting to crores of rupees by Saritha Nair and her accomplice Biju Radhakrishnan by offering solar panel solutions. The case took a political turn with the arrest of one of Chandy's close personal aides, who has alleged links with the accused. Two other employees in his personal staff are also under the scanner in connection with the scam. Indian all-rounder Hardik Pandya has received an official reprimand for breaching Level 1 of the ICC Code of Conduct during the first Twenty20 International against Australia in Adelaide on Tuesday. The player was found to have breached Article 2.1.7 of the ICC Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel, which relates to "Using language, actions or gestures which disparage or which could provoke an aggressive reaction from a batsman upon his/her dismissal during an International Match". The incident happened in the 16th over of Australia's innings when Pandya, after dismissing Chris Lynn, celebrated excessively in close proximity to the dismissed batsman, which could have provoked an aggressive reaction. Following the match, which India won by 37 runs, Pandy admitted the offence and accepted the sanction proposed by Jeff Crowe of the Elite Panel of ICC Match Referees. As such, there was no need for a formal hearing. The charge was levelled by on-field umpires Simon Fry and John Ward, third umpire Paul Wilson and fourth official Gerard Abood. For all first offences, Level 1 breaches carry a minimum penalty of an official reprimand and a maximum penalty of 50 per cent of a player's match fee. Bollywood actor Salman Khan today moved the Supreme Court, saying he should be heard before any hearing on the Maharashtra Government's petition challenging his acquittal in the 2002 hit-and-run case. The Maharashtra Government had on January 22 filed a petition in the apex court against the Bombay High Court's judgement acquitting Salman of 'all charges', overturning the trial court's order sentencing him for five years. Earlier, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had announced that his government would challenge the High Court's verdict on its merits. On December 10 last year, Salman was given a clean chit in the case with the court observing that the main witness was 'wholly unreliable' and that there were discrepancies in the case. The actor is accused of driving a car under the influence of alcohol and killing one and injuring four others in Bandra, Mumbai, in 2002. Joseph Fiennes, just like everyone else, was shocked after the announcement that he would portray music legend Michael Jackson in an upcoming TV movie. The 45-year-old actor spoke out for the first time since the news broke on Wednesday, January 27, and said "he (MJ) was probably closer to my color than his original color," reports Us Magazine. "I'm a white, middle-class guy from London," the 'Shakespeare in Love' actor told."I'm as shocked as you may be." The music legend, who was 50 when he died in 2009, had a chronic condition known as vitiligo, which lightened the color of his skin. Fiennes added that the movie will be a comedic, tongue-in-cheek look at the story of how Jackson, Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor all banded together on a rumored road trip from New York to Ohio post 9/11. TV star Katie Price, who has a failed pop career, recently mocked at talentless people on the upcoming episode of the comedy series 'Room 101.' During her appearance on the series, the 37-year-old TV star said that watching people with no talent on talent shows annoy her, the Mirror reports. The 'Jordan' author, who regretted going for Eurovision Song Contest glory, also mocked people on 'Britain's Got Talent' and mostly blamed the producers. Earlier, Katie had admitted that she sounded awful when she took part in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2005 with dance track 'Not Just Anybody. Sri Lanka T20 skipper Lasith Malinga and Angelo Mathews, who are recovering from their respective injuries, are unlikely to feature in next month's three-match series against India. Malinga, who was ruled out of New Zealand tour with a knee injury, will require another fortnight to regain full fitness, while Test and ODI captain Mathews has been nursing a groin strain that largely prevented him from bowling in New Zealand, ESPNcricinfo reported. In addition, veteran spinner Rangana Herath and fast bowler Nuwan Pradeep were recovering from their respective injuries sustained during the Premier T20 tournament. Meanwhile, Dinesh Chandimal is expected to continue as captain after leading Sri Lanka in the two T20s against New Zealand. Sri Lanka will kickstart their Indian tour from February 9 to 14 before the start of the Asia Cup, which commences on February 24. Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) leader and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati on Thursday described the NDA regime at the Centre as being anti-Dalit, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's emotional reaction to Rohita Vemula's suicide as fake and politics driven. "Most of the ministers of the present Modi government are anti-Dalit and have been spewing venom against them. It is only after the current regime took over, the incidents of harassment on Dalits and Muslims have increased," Mayawati told media here. She further accused the BJP leaders of giving out objectionable remarks against Dalits. "Like the Congress, the BJP too shows an anti-Dalit mentality. Union Minister V.K. Singh made a highly objectionable comment against Dalits and the Central Govt has taken no action against him," the BSP supremo said. "Prime Minister Modi coming to Lucknow and getting emotional on Rohith Vemula's suicide is totally driven by politics. On one hand, Modi ji talks about B R Ambedkar, and on the other, Dalit students are being insulted," she added. She further supported the minority status of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and Jamia Milia. "The move to strip universities of minority status is an effort to make minorities orphans. It is being made an issue for 2017 Uttar Pradesh polls," she added. Irked by the piling of garbage outside his office by the MCD workers, Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday hit out at the BJP and said that this was nothing but a practice of 'politics of garbage'. "It is a 'politics of garbage' I would like to request the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and all the three mayor's of BJP to pay the money to the workers," Sisodia told media here. "The Delhi Government has paid all dues of the sanitation workers before time. It is the BJP which should answer where the money went. The BJP controls the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, having swept the election in 2012", he added. Array Sisodia further said that they (BJP) are trying to manipulate the workers, they are playing politics. BJP's elected members should give an answer as to why the wages are not paid. We have done everything we could.. BJP is playing politics. MCD should tell as to where is the money that we gave?" he added. Array Hundreds of MCD protesting sanitation workers today piled up garbage outside Sisodia's residence over non-payment of their dues. Array "We are very much disturbed. We have not been paid for the last three to four months. If the Delhi Government has paid us, then they should show it to us. Then, we will meet with our MCD officials and demand our money," said one of the protestor. Array "If the government has released payment of the MCD workers, then where is it? They can ask the MCD officials as to why they are not paying the employees," said another protestor. Array Over 1.5 lakh MCD employees including sanitation workers and other employees of the three municipal corporations - NDMC, SDMC and EDMC - have decided to go on a three-day strike from today over non-payment of dues. Array The cash-strapped North and East Delhi civic bodies have been unable to pay salaries to workers for three to four months now. Former Arunachal Chief Minister Nabam Tuki on Thursday filed a fresh petition in the Supreme Court challenging imposition of president's rule in the state. Earlier, the apex court issued notices to the Centre and the Governor of Arunachal Pradesh (J.P. Rajkhowa), seeking their responses to a Congress Party challenge of the Centre's decision to impose president's rule in the state. A five-judge constitution bench headed by Jjustice J.S. Khehar has asked the centre for reasons for the cabinet's decision to impose president's rule. The governor has been asked to tell the court about when he made the recommendation for president's rule. The cabinet on 24 January recommended president's rule in the state which was approved by President Pranab Mukherjee the next day. Pakistan has urged India to stop the alleged practice of hurling "unsubstantiated terror allegations against Pakistan." According to the Dawn, Foreign Office spokesperson Qazi Khalilullah said in a briefing that a practice like that undermines efforts to eliminate terrorism from the region in a collective manner. He said terrorism was not an issue for only India or Pakistan but a global problem that needs to be tackled with joint cooperation. Khalilullah said that Pakistan hopes India would share findings of the Samjhota Express attack investigations with Pakistan. The spokesman also said that India and Pakistan are in touch to finalise the dates for foreign secretary level talks. BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- When the June 1987 issue of Playboy hit the stands, Carmen Berg's secret was out. The 23-year-old Bismarck native had not even told her parents the magazine would feature her as its nude centerfold. "It was so conservative, and there was a lot of backlash from North Dakotans from the beginning," said Berg, now 52. She was the first and only Playmate of the Month to hail from North Dakota. And she'll remain the state's only contribution to the nude playmate pantheon, as Playboy's current issue is its last to include photos of naked women. "At first, when I became a playmate, you know, people thought negatively and they thought that it's pornography and that I am that type of person," Berg said recently by phone from Beverly Hills, where she lives with her husband. But after she did some interviews with local media, she said, people started to embrace her. "It didn't take long, and then I would come back to North Dakota for different autograph sessions," she said. What followed was a lengthy modeling career, a job working for a plastic surgeon, and her current career: real estate agent. Through it all, she said, Playboy was a blessing. It helped her win connections, and fellow playmates and Hugh Hefner have been like family to her. Plus, she's still invited to all the parties. That's why Berg is saddened by the coming changes at the magazine founded in 1953, a move the magazine hopes will distinguish itself in the age of easy-to-access Internet pornography. When the March issue is released, the first to show off Playboy's newfound modesty, it's bound to be a downer for Berg. She believes the nudes had artistic and social merit. "It helped to elevate women to be themselves, whether they wanted to be very sexual, if they wanted to be very conservative; either way, it's fine," she said. "They don't have to be locked into a certain way." 'One of those girls' It started with a few Polaroids. Berg, 20 years old and working as a trainer at the Bismarck YMCA, had her boyfriend snap a few pictures of her, then she sent them to Playboy headquarters. "We would go to people's homes and there would be Playboy," she recalled. "All the guys would always say, 'Look at those girls,' and I'd think, 'I want to be one of those girls.' " She never told her parents anything about it, even after Playboy called up and told her she would be flown to Chicago for a test shooting. Three years later, the issue hit the stands, and some of the reaction was negative. Her parents "were very shocked, very shocked," she recalled. But they got over it. "They came around," she said. It took interviews with the Bismarck Tribune and KYFR to convince people in the area that Berg, a 1981 graduate of Century High School, hadn't "turned into this crazy person," she said. Berg appeared several more times in the magazine. Joining the Playboy family Being Playmate of Month has its perks. Berg said it helped jump-start a modeling career that lasted until she was 29. "It opened many doors for me, and I see it with my other Playmate sisters," she said. "If they present it in the right way, you're able to meet very affluent people, you're welcomed into different social circles and if you use your head, you can use it and really move forward with your life." You also get to party at the Playboy Mansion, which may not be hosting parties for much longer because it was recently listed for sale. Berg lived at the mansion for a time. She said she was "freaked out" in the beginning, but found that she was never pressured to drink or smoke. "I was very conservative," she said, which was fine because the philosophy at the mansion was that "you don't have to do anything you don't want to." "They respected me how I wanted to be and I didn't criticize how others wanted to be," Berg said. The Playboy family, she said, has been with her through breakups and career changes. Berg speaks highly of Playboy boss Hugh Hefner, who she met a few months before her first pictures were published in the magazine. The two clicked over their shared love for animals. Even Berg's 90-year-old mother likes Heffner. "She would go up to the mansion and actually her and Hefner are the same age, so over the years they've had little chats here and there," Berg said. Nudes have merit Eliminating nude pictures from Playboy is a mistake, Berg said. "I believe that the pictures that Playboy creates are very artistic and so completely different than the pornography that you see on the Internet," she said. "To me, it's art." But more than that, the nude pictures helped women define their own sexuality, she said. Hefner, Berg said, "has done so much for women and changing the way people think, and I really believe been on the forefront for women to embrace their sexuality and to be open about being sexual, where before, if you look back, it was pretty conservative for women." Berg ran a fashion photography studio before moving in 1997 to Los Angeles, where she worked for a plastic surgeon. For the past decade, she's been working as a real estate agent in Beverly Hills, and clients still like to bring up her connection to Playboy. "Most of the time, they want me to get them into a party," she said. World number one and defending champion Novak Djokovic produced a nearly flawless performance to overcome arch-rival Roger Federer in four sets and reached his sixth Australian Open final on Thursday. The Serbian claimed a 6-1, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 win over Swiss maestro Federer in the first semifinal that lasted two hours and 19 minutes at Rod Laver Arena. Djokovic got off to a blistering start, clinching the first two sets in mere 54 minutes before Federer provided some resistance to claim a high-quality third set. However, Djokovic broke the 17-time Grand Slam champion to take a 5-3 lead before comfortably claiming the fourth set. With the win, Djokovic edged ahead of Federer for the first time in their head-to-head rivalry by winning 23 of their 45 career matches. Djokovic will aim to win his sixth title at Melbourne Park when he will either take on last year's runner up Andy Murray or Milos Raonic. The past year has been quite a tough one for Ryan Reynolds, balancing his dad's death in October and newly-embraced parenthood with wife Blake Lively in late 2014. Opening up to a leading magazine, the 39-year-old actor discussed how he's coped with the major changes in his personal life, reports E! Online. The 'Deadpool' actor compares raising daughter James to a wild ride, explaining, "During those first six months, it's amazing that you find a way to keep going. Just the lack of sleep, and the hallucinations. F--k peyote. You want to trip balls? Have a kid and see what it's like to be awake for a month straight." "You'll have moments where you're like, 'Did I really ride a unicorn to work?' I'm pretty sure I didn't, but I don't know," he added. World number one Serena Williams remained on course for her seventh Australian Open title after overcoming fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska in the semifinals on Thursday. The 21-time American Grand Slam champion claimed a thumping 6-0, 6-4 win over Radwanska in a one-sided contest that lasted just 64 minutes on Rod Laver Arena, Sport24 reported. With the win, Serena remains only one win away from matching Steffi Graf's Open-era Grand Slam record of 22 titles. Serena will next face German seventh seed Angelique Kerber, who claimed a 7-5, 6-2 win over Britain's Johanna Konta, in the summit clash. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday demanded the resignation of Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy for his alleged involvement in the solar scam. Array "The Congress Party should be speaking out rather than asking for a report, summoning the Chief Minister and everything else. We demand that the Congress High command speak on this matter. We demand that the Chief Minister should resign," Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman told ANI. Array "It is a grave charge of corruption, one after the other, now at the doorstep of the Chief Minister himself," she added. Array The Thrissur Court in Thiruvananthapuram has directed that an FIR should be filed against Chandy in connection with this scam. A petition has asked for a case against the Kerala Chief Minister after one of the two main accused in the case, Saritha Nair, told an inquiry commission that a bribe of nearly two crores was paid to the personal staff of the chief minister. Saritha Nair and her partner Biju Radhakrishnan are accused of collecting crores from industrialists after promising them solar panels at cheaper rates, and using political connections to land big contracts. Chandy had earlier on Monday appeared before the probe panel in connection with the scam. Array The scam, which is being probed by a Commission headed by Justice G. Sivaraman, was constituted by the Chief Minister in 2013 following massive protests by the Left-led opposition. Array Biju Radhakrishnan, the prime accused in the solar scam case, had in December last year alleged that he paid Chandy a bribe of Rs. 5.5 crore, out of which Rs. 5.1 crore was collected personally by the Chief Minister while the rest was paid to his personal staff. Array The Chief Minister has so far maintained that he has done no wrong and is prepared to face any probe. The case took a political turn with the arrest of one of Chandy's close personal aides, who has alleged links with the accused. Two other employees in his personal staff are also under the scanner in connection with the scam. Inspired from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, nearly 500 volunteers from an NGO 'Making A Difference' (MAD) have given a new look to Borivali and Khar Railway Station here. "This is a symbolical message to the people regarding the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The beautification of this railway station has been supported by more than 500 volunteers" said Dharmesh Shah, a MAD volunteer. "Maintenance of railway platforms is of primary importance not only for city dwellers but for those who come from outside," he added. Asserting that approximately Rs. 12 lakhs was used for the beautification of both the stations, Shah said the initiative was started on January 16. Ticket windows, pillars, stairs and overhead bridges of Borivali Railway Station were painted with beautiful colours and representations. Paintings on the ticket booking window of the station, on the eastern end, were given the theme of park and the highway while the west side depicted Gorai and Mandeshwar areas. Shah further said that he has got invitations from Malad, Ghatkopar, Kandivali and many other railway station. "It seems that in next one year no railway stations of Mumbai would be left without beautifications," he added. When asked as to how the Mumbaikars were responding to the initiative, Shah said the people were excited to see the beautifications in the railway station. Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is a campaign, covering 4,041 statutory cities and towns, to clean the streets, roads and infrastructure of the country. The campaign was officially launched on October 2, 2014 at Rajghat, New Delhi, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself cleaned the road. A new report has revealed that the US military warned the Obama administration that thousands of US troops could remain in Afghanistan for decades. According to the Dawn, a senior Pentagon official said that the local need air support, intelligence and help with logistics. He said that they are not going to be ready in three or five years. The report points out that many Republican and Democrat foreign policy advisers, looking beyond the Obama presidency which ends this year, are willing to endorse a long-term American presence in Afghanistan. Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Praveen Togadia has asked the Centre to enact a law and formulate a time-bound action plan to push back Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators. Array "A time-bound action plan to evict all Bangladeshi Muslims, for that the 1952 electoral roll should be based, for verification whether Indian or Bangladeshi paternity test should be done and centre should be established. Foreign Security Act should be amended especially for Bangladeshi Muslims. If any Bangladeshi Muslim is found, because they come to capture India they should be sentenced to death and with first trial court should be established," Togadia told reporters here. Array Togadia, currently on a three-day visit to Tripura, claimed that over 15 million Bangladeshis were living illegally in the northeastern states and equal number was residing in other parts of India. Array The VHP leader demanded that the 1951 electoral rolls must be the base for identifying infiltrators. Array He urged the Centre to set up paternity test centers in all northeastern states to identify the infiltrators. Array "The BJP-led government must enact a 'foreign act' to evict infiltrators, especially Muslims, to Bangladesh or their own country," he added. Array He said that India would set up health and educational centres across the country to provide free health service, education and employment to Hindu Bangladeshi those are persecuted to come to India. Array He further added that the VHP wants Hindus in India to be "protected, prosperous and honoured". Array Togadia added that if time bound initiatives are not take by the state government and the union government to protect Northeast, Assam and Bengal for infiltrated Bangladeshi Muslims then very soon these areas will turn into territory of greater Bangladesh. Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader has warned Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar that they run the risk of losing their respective chairs if they do not stop the infiltration of Bangladeshi Muslims. Array "Be it Tripura's Chief Minister or the Indian Prime Minister, they have to pushback Bangladeshi Muslims to Dhaka or they shall not remain as CM or PM," said Praveen Togadia, who is the VHP international working president. Array He was addressing a meeting of VHP supporters in the Rabindra Satabarshiki Hall here. Array The VHP leader said that it is the duty of the head of the nation and the state to stop Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators from entering the country via porous borders. Array Togadia is on a three-day visit to Tripura. Maruti is all set to enter the compact SUV segment space with Vitara Brezza. With this car, the Indo-Japanese carmaker looks ready to dislodge the current market dominators like Ford EcoSport and Hyundai Creta. As per a source in ETAuto, Maruti might only bring diesel Brezza to India. The petrol variant will be available only for export, at least initially. Maruti has created a fuss among automobile enthusiasts, by releasing teasers for Vitara Brezza. The car is expected to feature projector headlamps with LED daytime running lights, which will be offered for the first time in this segment. The car will compete more closely with TUV300 and EcoSport. Both these cars have got enormous sales in the Indian market and it seems that the competition is going to be more cut throat with the launch of Brezza. Brezza will be powered by the same 1.3-litre diesel mill employed in Marutis hatchback Swift. This engine can generate a maximum power of 74 bhp in Swift with a peak torque of 190 Nm. Petrol variants, which are expected to be available only for export, will run on a 1.5-litre engine. The automaker is ambitious about its future ideas and plans to manufacture 10,000 units per month. It will showcase the vehicle in the upcoming automobile event, the 2016 Expo. The cars price is likely to fall in the Rs. 6-9 lac bracket. Also Read: Locally built Maruti Vitara Brezza to be sold in overseas markets Source : CarDekho Japanese automaker recently teased the upcoming next-generation Toyota Innova MPV on its dedicated Expo page and now by the looks of it, the official moniker of the car for the Indian market has been leaked ahead of the companys 2016 Indian Expo showcase. The revelation came as a courtesy of an official image of the highly anticipated MPV, which a report by The India Today, claims was released by Toyota Kirloskar Motors. The title Crysta was reserved exclusively for special editions of the previous-generation Innova. 2016 Innova finds its foundation in the same ladder-frame platform, which underpins the companys flagship offroader, Fortuner. Under the hood, the next-generation MPV will incorporate a 2.4-liter GD diesel mill, which will deliver a peak power output of 149PS and 342Nm of peak torque. It is also likely that the Japanese automaker will introduce a petrol variant, which in all likeliness will be a 2.0-litre Dual VVT-i unit and will be capable of delivering 139PS of power and 187Nm of peak torque. This could possibly be a move on the Japanese automakers behalf to introduce a variant that is not affected by the Supreme Court's supreme court ban on diesel vehicles which exceed the 2000cc displacement limit. The powerplants are expected to come mated to either a standard 5-speed manual or an option of a 6-speed automatic transmission. Other updates on the car include a complete overhaul of the overall aesthetics of the car and that of the interiors. On the inside, the next-generation Innova will be substantially more luxurious than as compared to its previous iterations. Recommended Read: Toyota Innova Officially Teased Ahead of 2016 Indian Expo Showcase Read More on : Innova india Source : CarDekho Toyota is planning to buy the remaining stake in Daihatsu Motor Company Limited, a mini-vehicle maker. The Japanese carmaker currently owns 51.2% stake in the company and is mulling over to fully own it as a part of its expansion strategy. Toyota has said that it was considering buying out rest of Daihatsu and the decision is likely to be taken on Friday. The acquisition will help the carmaker to enhance its brand value and strengthen the company. It will cost approximately $3 billion to the automaker. The Japanese company recently topped the sales chart for 2015, by selling 10.151 million vehicles. This has happened for the fourth year in a row and the company looks determined to repeat it for the fifth time. Toyotas hegemony will probably not be challenged for the next few years after the big setback for VW, said Zhou Jincheng, a renowned analyst. The gap will only get wider and wider because VW will take time to adjust its strategies for markets such as the US and Europe. The Japanese group faced stiff competition from companies like Volkswagen AG and General Motors, which sold 9.93 and 9.8 million vehicles respectively. The German group was even ahead of Toyota, but the emission scandal in which it got entangled, eliminated all its chances of winning the race. Toyota is pegged to nail the 2016 Expo with its lineup. It will be displaying facelift versions of Innova, Fortuner and Corolla Altis Hybrid at the automobile event. Also Read: Toyota Innova Crysta Might be the Indian Moniker for the Next-gen MPV Source : CarDekho HDFC reported 6.66% rise in net profit to Rs 1520.51 crore on 6.46% rise in total income to Rs 7327.69 crore in Q3 December 2015 over Q3 December 2014. As at 31 December 2015, the loan book stood at Rs 248097 crore as against Rs 219939 crore as at 31 December 2014. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 27 January 2016. On a consolidated basis, HDFC reported 11.01% rise in net profit to Rs 2419 crore on 2.96% rise in total income to Rs 12306.52 crore in Q3 December 2015 over Q3 December 2014. Meanwhile, HDFC's board of directors at its meeting held on 27 January 2016 granted its approval for issuance of Secured Redeemable Non-convertible Debentures (NCD) aggregating to Rs 35000 crore on a private placement basis under a Shelf Disclosure Document in terms of the Sebi (Issue and Listing of Debt Securities) Regulations, 2008. On a consolidated basis, Bharti Infratel reported 11.54% rise in net profit to Rs 565.40 crore on 5.06% rise in total income to Rs 3225.90 crore in Q3 December 2015 over Q3 December 2014. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 27 January 2016. Power Grid Corporation of India reported 31.26% rise in net profit to Rs 1613.12 crore on 22.7% rise in total income to Rs 5504.83 crore in Q3 December 2015 over Q3 December 2014. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 27 January 2016. Neyveli Lignite Corporation reported 84.61% drop in net profit to Rs 47.61 crore on 17.08% fall in total income to Rs 1410.80 crore in Q3 December 2015 over Q3 December 2014. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 27 January 2016. Shares of Engineers India will be in focus. The President of India (acting through the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India, the promoter of Engineers India after market hours yesterday, 27 January 2016, announced an offer for sale (OFS) of 3.36 crore shares of the company, representing 10% of the total paid up equity share capital of the company. The OFS shall take place on the separate window of the stock exchanges from 9:15 IST to 15:30 IST on 29 January 2016. IDFC Bank reported net profit of Rs 242.20 crore on operating income of Rs 604.20 crore in Q3 December 2015. Net Advances grew 3% to Rs 42995 crore in Q3 December 2015 over Q2 September 2015. Deposits stood at Rs 1646 crore, CASA at Rs 324 crore and Term Deposits at Rs 1322 crore in Q3 December 2015. As on 31 December 2015, the bank reported total Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) of 20.3% and Tier 1 CAR of 19.6% under Basel III. The Gross non-performing loan (NPL) and Net NPL of the bank as on 31 December 2015 stood at Rs 1462 crore and Rs 453 crore respectively. Gross NPL as a percentage to gross advances stood at 3.1% and net NPL as a percentage to net advances at 1%. As on 31 December 2015, IDFC Bank has 24 branches (of which 16 branches in Bharat Banking, 7 in Commercial & Wholesale Banking and 1 in Personal & Business Banking), 3 ATMs and 5 Micro ATMs. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 27 January 2016. Crompton Greaves (CG) and CEA (LITEN) have agreed to cooperate for a period of 12 months to investigate market potential and opportunities for Solar Photo Voltaic (PV) system with storage function for Indian Airports. The agreement was formally announced during the recently held India-France Business Summit in Chandigarh. There is no capital investment in the first phase of this collaboration, however following investigation if found suitable, the companies intend to set up manufacturing facilities using CG's infrastructure and expertise in India and technology knowhow of CEA for commercialising the business opportunity. Being a critical infrastructure, Airports need significant energy backup. Use of Solar PV with battery backup is an innovative solution that will enable Indian airports to reduce carbon emissions by moving over the traditional diesel generator (DG) sets, at the same time make it an economical option given the considerable Time of Day (TOD) charges levied, CG said in a statement. LITEN is a major European research institute and a driving force behind the development of the sustainable energy technologies of the future. The institute is spearheading the EU's efforts to limit dependency on fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is a part of CEA Tech, the R&D wing of the innovation giant, the CEA - a French government-funded technological research organisation in the areas of energy, defence and security, information technologies and health technologies. Powered by Capital Market - Live News Sales decline 5.30% to Rs 1036.72 crore Net profit of Hindustan Construction Company declined 28.59% to Rs 19.38 crore in the quarter ended December 2015 as against Rs 27.14 crore during the previous quarter ended December 2014. Sales declined 5.30% to Rs 1036.72 crore in the quarter ended December 2015 as against Rs 1094.69 crore during the previous quarter ended December 2014.1036.721094.6922.5218.90109.5976.0876.2140.5519.3827.14 Powered by Capital Market - Live News WB making great efforts to attract investment through ease of doing biz As the world looks up to India to provide a leadership role in pushing global economic growth, the government has no option but to make some big bang announcements in the forthcoming Budget to resurrect investment in the public projects, or else the Indian economy can soon catch up the Chinese flu with serious consequences, apex industry body ASSOCHAM said. With major multilateral institutions like the IMF and big economies such as the US, Japan, Germany and the UK all betting high on India being saviour of the international economy, stakes are too high for us not to let them and ourselves down, said Mr Sunil Kanoria, president of The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) while addressing a press conference along with chamber's national secretary general, Mr D.S. Rawat in Kolkata. While we are surely reaping the benefit of a big fall in oil prices, as much as 75 per cent in the last 18-20 months, we have enough challenges in terms of checking capital outflows from the stock market, grappling with deflationary trends with a number of areas and a huge setback to the exports, said Mr Kanoria. He said that although an ASSOCHAM Bizcon Survey has polled corporate India's views which expect things to improve in the next two quarters, We cannot take it for granted and need to work really hard on all fronts. To my mind, the Finance Minister, Mr Arun Jaitley should become much more upfront in re-capitalising the stress-ridden banks, find off-Budget financial models for funding big time infrastructure projects and give a boost to the crisis-hit rural economy. Besides, we have to raise substantially allocations for health and education, if we are serious about developing our human resource, added the ASSOCHAM chief. Besides, all-out efforts should be made to get the Goods and Services Tax Constitutional Amendment Bill passed in the Parliament, Mr Kanoria said, appealing to the Congress President Ms Sonia Gandhi to support the important reforms measure, which alone can make a huge difference to the business sentiment. He said as the entire global economy is on the edge and India may also get a big hit like other emerging economies, the government should certainly not implement the seventh Pay Commission because it would not only ruin the health of the Central fiscal structure but also the states which require large allocations for Planned development. Let the Pay Commission be staggered over the next few years, or else the benefits derived out of the cut in subsidy on oil, LPG and fertiliser would be wiped off by the extra salary bill, further said Mr Kanoria. The ASSOCHAM President said, Given the perilous state of financial markets, raising money through disinvestment would be quite difficult for the government, which then is also expecting banks to get some re-capitalisation from the market which is going through one of the most tumultuous times. With the nominal GDP likely to stay muted next year as well, the tax revenue targets cannot be set at ambitious level, while there would be lot more demand for pushing investment. That is why off-Budget innovative financial models like the Railways have to be found, he added. On West Bengal, Mr Kanoria said the state is making great efforts to attract investment by promising land and improving ease of doing business. However, these are difficult times for the private sector which is over-leveraged and is going about in a cautious way. On the other hand, right type of FDI can be attracted from countries like Japan in infra projects such as expansion of the Metro Rail in the state capital like Delhi. Besides, the state needs a few model projects which can lead the way for others, said the ASSOCHAM chief. He said ASSOCHAM would like to work with the state government for attracting fresh investments and act as an effective intermediary between the state and the industry. Powered by Capital Market - Live News Foreign investment of over Rs 12,000 crore is expected to land in the country as more than dozen foreign companies are planning to raise their stake in private sector insurance joint venture this year, an ASSOCHAM study said. These investment deliberations are different stages and foreign funds will flow in during course of the year. The investment push has come as a result of liberalisation of foreign investment ceiling from 26 per cent to 49 per cent last year through the passage of Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill last year. The Bill was passed by Parliament in March clearing decks for foreign entities to increase their stake in private sector insurance companies. Soon after the law took effect, foreign investors started ploughing capital into their Indian joint ventures, raising their equity holdings. Companies including AXA of France, Bupa of the UK, Nippon Life Insurance of Japan announced raising stake in their respective joint venture. This year has begin with Rs 1,705 HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company's proposal getting inter-ministerial panel nod for increase of share of Standard Life of the UK in the insurance joint venture from 26 per cent to 35 per cent. Based on the suggestions of Foreign Investment Promotion Board, the proposal of HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company has been referred to Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) for its approval. The money will flow as the approval from Cabinet comes, said Mr. D S Rawat, Secretary General, ASSOCHAM said. Besides, more than a dozen foreign companies including BNP Paribas Cardif, Insurance Australia Group, Aviva Plc, Standard Life Plc, AIA, QBE Insurance Group and Fairfax Financial Holdings of Canada are expected to raise stakes in their ventures during this year. Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company of Japan also proposed to increase stake to 40 per cent from 26 per cent in Cholamandalam MS General Insurance Company for consideration of about Rs 883 crore. About 9 insurance companies have already applied for regulatory clearances to bring in foreign investment , as per the data compiled by ASSOCHAM. If these proposals get approval, it will lead to inflow of about Rs 6,000 crore of foreign capital. In addition, 10 companies are at different stage of deliberations with regard to increasing stake in their Indian insurance joint venture. So more than Rs 12,000 crore is set to flow in the insurance sector comprising of both life and non-life during 2016. Besides, re-insurance sector would also see some fund flow as it has also get a leg-up through the amended Act, said Mr. Rawat. According to IRDAI, the total FDI in insurance sector as on March 31, 2015, was about Rs 8,031 crore. This figure could well cross Rs 20,000 crore by the end of December this year he said. There are 52 insurance companies operating in India, of which 24 are in the life insurance business and 28 in the general insurance. State-owned General Insurance Corporation (GIC), in addition, is the sole national reinsurer. In order to deepen the re-insurance market, IRDAI permitted UK-based Lloyds to set up business in India. Lloyds India will ensure that the market and the constituents are housed in one location for the conduct of reinsurance business. It is to be noted that AXA raised stake in both life and non-life insurance ventures with Bharti Enterprises, leading to foreign capital inflow of about Rs 1,300 crore. Japan's Nippon Life Insurance, too, announced the acquisition of another 23 per cent stake in Reliance Life Insurance for about Rs 2,265 crore. At the same time, Bupa also announced to raise its stake to 49 per cent in Max Bupa Health Insurance for Rs 191 crore. The Netherlands based Ageon has also increased its stake in life insurance venture Aegon Life Insurance Company to 49 per cent. Powered by Capital Market - Live News Held on 28 January 2016 SQS India BFSI announced that the Board of Directors of the Company at its meeting held on 28 January 2016, inter alia, has: 1. Has allotted 15,210 Equity Shares to 5 Employees of the Company under Thinksoft - Employee Stock Option Scheme 2011. 2. Has accepted the resignation of Dr. Martin Muller, Managing Director and CEO with effect from 31 March 2016. 3. Has approved Notice of Postal Ballot seeking approval from the shareholders towards appointment of Aarti Arvind as Managing Director and CEO and N. Vaidyanathan as Executive Director of the Company with effect from 01 April 2016. 4. Has approved the revised Code of Conduct to Regulate, Monitor and Report Trading by Insiders of the Company. Powered by Capital Market - Live News Receives bids for 46.14 lakh shares The initial public offer (IPO) of Precision Camshafts received bids for a total of 46.14 lakh shares on the second day of bidding for the IPO today, 28 January 2016, as at 17:00 IST, as per National Stock Exchange (NSE). The IPO was subscribed 0.29 times. The company is offering shares in the price band of Rs 180 to Rs 186 per share in the IPO. The bidding for the IPO concludes tomorrow, 29 January 2016. On 25 January 2016, Precision Camshafts raised Rs 123.05 crore by selling 66.15 lakh shares to anchor investors ahead of the opening of the company's IPO. The shares were allotted to the anchor investors at Rs 186 per share, the top end of the Rs 180 to Rs 186 per share price band for the IPO. Among anchor investors, SBI Mutual Fund was allotted 17.74 lakh shares, IDFC Mutual Fund was allotted 17.74 lakh shares, ICICI Prudential Growth Fund was allotted 13.44 lakh shares, HDFC Trustee Company was allotted 8.06 lakh shares, Birla Sunlife Trustee Company was allotted 2.71 lakh shares and Canara Robeco Mutual Fund was allotted 6.45 lakh shares. The IPO is a combination of fresh issue of shares aggregating up to Rs 240 crore and offer for sale by promoters and one of the directors. The proceeds of the fresh issue will be used for expansion. The two promoters Yatin and Suhasini Shah are selling a total of 25.86 lakh shares. Promoter group company Cams Technology has put on block 35.63 lakh shares and Jayant Aradhye, a non-executive director, is selling 30 lakh shares through the IPO. The company proposes to utilize Rs 200 crore from the net proceeds of the IPO for establishment of a new machine shop for ductile iron camshafts at its existing export oriented unit (EOU) situated at Solapur in Maharashtra. The company currently has two state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities - an EOU unit and a domestic unit - both situated at Solapur, Maharashtra. The company supplies over 150 varieties of camshafts for passenger vehicles, tractors, light commercial vehicles and locomotive engine applications. A majority of the company's revenue comes from export of camshafts to various OEMs directly and indirectly. The company has long term relationships with OEMs, including General Motors, Ford Motors, Hyundai, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors and Mahindra and Mahindra. On consolidated basis, the company reported net profit of Rs 34.10 crore on net turnover of Rs 253.37 crore for six months ended 30 September 2015. Net profit stood at Rs 62.36 crore on net turnover of Rs 532.42 crore for the year ended 31 March 2015. Precision Camshafts, promoted by first generation entrepreneurs Yatin Shah and Suhasini Shah, is one of the world's leading manufacturers of camshafts, a critical engine component in passenger vehicles. Powered by Capital Market - Live News Punj Lloyd rose 7.07% to Rs 25.75 at 11:01 IST on BSE after the company said it won a Rs 2780 crore pipeline contract in Turkey. The announcement was made during trading hours today, 28 January 2016. Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was down 4.14 points, or 0.02%, to 24,488.25. On BSE, so far 5.85 lakh shares were traded in the counter, compared with an average volume of 4.82 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 26.15 and a low of Rs 24.05 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 40.75 on 28 February 2015. The stock hit a record low of Rs 20.75 on 20 May 2015. The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 27 January 2016, sliding 13.64% compared with 5.21% decline in the Sensex. The scrip had, however, outperformed the market in past one quarter, falling 8.56% as against Sensex's 10.13% fall. The small-cap diversified engineering, procurement, construction (EPC) conglomerate has an equity capital of Rs 66.42 crore. Face value per share is Rs 2. Punj Lloyd announced winning 459 kilometre of the 48 dia TANAP Gas Pipeline in Turkey worth Rs 2780 crore ($409 million) in joint venture with Limak (50-50 share). Awarded to the joint venture by TANAP Dogalgaz Iletim A.S. Punj Lloyd's value of the project amounts to Rs 1390 crore ($204 million). TANAP, The Trans Anatohan Natural Gas Pipeline Project, will be built to transport natural gas emanating from the South Caucasus Pipeline Company (SCPC) pipeline. In Georgia and terminating Into the TransAdriatic Pipeline (TAP) in Greece. Punj Lloyd's scope of the present project (Lot 4) is Ihe second phase of construction from the new Eskisehir Compressor station to the tie-in point of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). The proposed natural gas pipeline is of 48 diameter and 459 km in length. The scope also includes 10 Block Valve Stations, Pigging facility (two within Compressor stations, two at pigging stations) and Tie-ins with Metering Stations. The proposed pipeline section begins from Compressor Station 5A at Eskisehir in Turkey and travel through the vicinity of major cities like Eskisehir, Bursa, Balikesir, Canakkale and Edirne, passing through a terrain ranging from lowland to high rocky mountain ranges with steep slopes/side slopes, deep forest, agricultural fields, numerous river and road/track crossings, environmental sensitive and archaeological areas. The elevations are up to 1394 m in this section. The TANAP Project aims to bring natural gas produced from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz-2 gas field, and other areas of the Caspian Sea, primarily to Turkey arid also on to Europe. The TANAP Project, along with the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) form the elements of the Southern Gas Corridor. With this win, the group's order backlog stands at Rs 23228 crore. The order backlog is the value of unexecuted orders on 30 September 2015 plus new orders received after that date. The TANAP project is of strategic importance for both Azerbaijan and Turkey. It will allow first Azerbaijani gas exports to Europe, beyond Turkey. It will also strengthen the role of Turkey as a regional energy hub. Punj Lloyd posted net loss of Rs 283.20 crore in Q2 September 2015, higher than net loss of Rs 263.51 crore for Q2 September 2014. Net sales decreased 20.4% to Rs 1003.83 crore in Q2 September 2015 over Q2 September 2014. Punj Lloyd is a diversified international conglomerate offering EPC services in energy and infrastructure along with engineering and manufacturing capabilities in the defence sector. The second largest engineering and construction company in India, Punj Lloyd has operations spread across 24 countries, a mix across the Middle East, Africa, the Caspian, Europe, Asia Pacific and South Asia. Powered by Capital Market - Live News Sales decline 22.62% to Rs 14800.97 crore Net profit of Vedanta declined 98.87% to Rs 17.91 crore in the quarter ended December 2015 as against Rs 1587.50 crore during the previous quarter ended December 2014. Sales declined 22.62% to Rs 14800.97 crore in the quarter ended December 2015 as against Rs 19128.21 crore during the previous quarter ended December 2014.14800.9719128.2120.9832.132430.525639.38660.163311.4417.911587.50 Powered by Capital Market - Live News Vedanta rose 5.25% to Rs 67.20 at 14:58 IST on BSE after the company announced Q3 December 2015 results during trading hours today, 28 January 2016. Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was up 85.31 points, or 0.35%, to 24,577.70. On BSE, so far 27.32 lakh shares were traded in the counter, compared with an average volume of 16.79 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 67.40 and a low of Rs 63.70 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 233.45 on 11 May 2015. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 62.15 on 21 January 2016. The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 27 January 2016, sliding 30.52% compared with 5.21% decline in the Sensex. The scrip had also underperformed the market in past one quarter, falling 39.10% as against Sensex's 10.13% fall. The large-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 296.47 crore. Face value per share is Re 1. On a consolidated basis, Vedanta's attributable profit after tax (PAT) before exceptional items slumped 99% to 18 crore on 23% decline in net sales to Rs 14801 crore in Q3 December 2015 over Q3 December 2014. Profit declined primarily due to lower commodity prices. Revenues for the quarter declined on account of the fall in oil and metal prices, partially offset by higher volumes at Zinc India and Power. Consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) fell 48% to Rs 3212 crore in Q3 December 2015 over Q3 December 2014. EBITDA fell primarily due to weak commodity prices. EBITDA margin was reported at 26% in Q3 December 2015 compared with 43% in Q3 December 2014. The company was able to maintain an EBITDA margin in the weaker commodity price environment, driven by strong optimisation of operating costs. The company's gross debt and net debt were at Rs 80952 crore and Rs 30267 crore respectively, at 31 December 2015, higher than Rs 79433 and 27105 crore at 30 September 2015. Gross debt and net debt were higher over the quarter primarily on account of project capex, unwinding of working capital as guided last quarter, and payments of dividends. The company's cash and liquid investments were at Rs 50685 crore, which is invested in debt related mutual funds, bank deposits and bonds, and undrawn committed facilities of Rs 4800 crore as on 31 December 2015. Meanwhile, the company said that it expects the merger of Cairn India with the company to be competed by Q1 June 2016. Vedanta is a diversified natural resources company, whose business primarily involves producing oil & gas, zinc - lead - silver, copper, iron ore, aluminium and commercial power. The company has a presence across India, South Africa, Namibia, Australia, Ireland, Liberia and Sri Lanka. Vedanta, formerly Sesa Sterlite is the Indian subsidiary of Vedanta Resources Plc, a London-listed company. Powered by Capital Market - Live News In an embarrassment for the opposition Congress in Maharashtra, the CBI could prosecute former chief minister Ashok Chavan in the Adarsh Society scam, officials said here on Thursday. Chavan, 57, is the Congress Lok Sabha member from Nanded and also heads the party's Maharashtra unit. His name had cropped up in the Adarsh Society scam forcing him to step down as chief minister in 2010. In 2013, then governor K. Sankaranarayanan had rejected the Central Bureau of Investigation plea to prosecute him when the Congress-NCP government led by Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan was in office. However, citing grounds that it has unearthed 'fresh evidence', the CBI has again sought permission to prosecute Chavan. The BJP-Shiv Sena government led by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis last week recommended to Governor C.V. Rao to allow the CBI to prosecute Chavan. Chavan, the son of former chief minister and union home minister S.B. Chavan, retaliated by terming it as a vendetta by the BJP-Shiv Sena government. "It's a political vendetta against me. The Congress is raising issues of public importance and highlighting the failures of the BJP-led governments both in the state and the Centre. That's why they are targeting opposition leaders and misusing the CBI," Chavan hit back. He demanded to know that when the then governor had declined sanction after consulting the state solicitor general, on what grounds the state was now going ahead with the prosecution. In the CBI charge sheet, Chavan was listed as an accused and a two-member Commission of Inquiry comprising Justice (retired) J.A. Patil of the Bombay High Court and former chief secretary P. Subramanian had accused Chavan of 'political patronage' and 'quid pro quo'. Following the rejection by the then governor, the CBI moved the Bombay High Court to drop Chavan's name as an accused in the case. Chavan and 12 others are accused of conspiracy, cheating and criminal misconduct in the infamous Adarsh Society scam -- related to a 31-storey plush building in Colaba originally meant to house families of war heroes. After the scam broke out in 2010, and the probe panel found many in the society ineligible to be members, the building was fully vacated a few years ago. The Delhi High Court was told on Thursday by the city government that private unaided schools do not have "absolute autonomy". Justice Manmohan was told by the Delhi government that by way of the January 6 notification, it did not prescribe any criteria, but only asked the private schools to adopt criteria which were "fair, just and reasonable". The private unaided schools have their autonomy but if they misuse it, the government will step in as they do not have absolute autonomy, it said. The court was hearing pleas of Action Committee of Unaided Recognised Private Schools and Forum for Promotion of Quality seeking quashing the January 6 circular that scrapped 62 criteria, including management quota, for nursery admissions. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia also attended the court proceedings. The hearing would continue on Friday also. Hearing the case, the court also remarked that there is no consistency in a policy made by way of circulars or office orders which are passed without statutory backing, as there could be new circular every day, adding that as per law, the lt. governor should have issued the notification. The petitioners said the circular was "absolutely without jurisdiction" and should be quashed as it completely took away the autonomy of schools. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on January 6 said the decision to scrap the management quota was taken to bring in more transparency in the admission process. He said the existing provision of 25 percent seats for students from poor families will however remain in place. Schools were however free to grant admission to children of their employees and could allocate points in their criteria. Currently, the schools keep 20 percent or even more seats under the management quota, while 25 percent seats are reserved for economically weaker sections students. The remaining are open for the general category children. Striking employees of Delhi's three civic bodies on Thursday continued their agitation over non-payment of salaries, with sanitation workers dumping garbage outside Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia's office, even as Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal sought fresh election to the three Municipal Corporations of Delhi. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader, who is undergoing naturopathy treatment for his chronic cough in Bengaluru, said the present MCD, controlled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), should be dissolved and fresh elections held. "Management of an organisation which can't pay salaries to employees doesn't (have the right) to continue," Kejriwal tweeted. Over 1.5 lakh workers of the three wings of MCD, Delhi's main civic body, began a three-day strike on Wednesday over non-payment of salaries. All the three wings of the MCD -- South, East and North -- are controlled by the BJP, the AAP's main rival in Delhi. The MCD says the Delhi government, which is led by the AAP, owes money to it but is not paying up, and this is why salaries are not being paid to corporation employees. The striking sanitation workers dumped garbage outside Sisodia's camp office building in east Delhi. "Many workers are not being paid their salary for two-to-three months. Despite several appeals, our demands are not considered," said Sanjay Gehlot, president of the Mazdoor Vikas Sanyukta Morcha. Gehlot warned of an indefinite strike if their salaries were not paid. "Now it's (Transport Minister) Gopal Rai's turn. We will dump garbage outside his house tomorrow (Friday)," he added. Denying the charge that the AAP government owes money to the civic agencies, Manish Sisodia too echoed Kejriwal's demand. "No money of MCD is due against Delhi government. Leaders of the civic bodies are telling a lie and are getting the garbage dumped outside my (camp office)," he said. "BJP leaders are not able to run the MCD. So we want the central government to dissolve it and conduct fresh elections," he added. "We have already given money to MCD for 12 months. The MCD did not give us an account of the money spent. We should be told where that money has gone...." The employees are seeking payment of arrears, regularisation of employees who have been working on contract, and merger of the three corporations. In October last year, the sanitation employees of East Delhi Municipal Corporation went on strike for similar demands. The MCD is the biggest of the three civic bodies in Delhi. The other two are the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), which oversees the heart of the capital, and the Delhi Cantonment Board. The municipal sanitation workers on Thursday staged a protest against non-payment of their salaries and dumped garbage outside Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia's camp office in east Delhi. The protestors demanded immediate release of funds for their salaries, which they said were pending for months, and threatened to go on an indefinite strike if their demands are not met soon. The sanitation workers gathered at Sisodia's camp office located in Patparganj -- his assembly constituency -- in east Delhi and raised anti-government slogans. They dumped garbage at the gates of his office building. "Many workers are not being paid their salary for two to three months. Despite several appeals, our demands are not considered," said Sanjay Gehlot, president of Mazdoor Vikas Sanyukta Morcha. "We will call off work for an indefinite period if our demands are not met," he added. Over 1.5 lakh workers of Delhi's three main civic bodies went on a three-day strike on Wednesday over non-payment of their salaries. Besides salaries, the employees are seeking payment of arrears, regularisation of employees who have been working on contracts, and merger of the three corporations. Earlier in October last year, the sanitation employees of East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) had gone on a strike with similar demands. Three commandos of the CRPF's CoBRA unit donated blood to save the life of a Maoist guerrilla injured in a gunfight with the paramilitary force in Chhattisgarh, the CRPF said here on Thursday. Officials said the security force is traditionally meant to safeguard the lives of people, and killing the enemy is the last option for them. Troops of the CoBRA (Commando Battalions for Resolute Action) unit, deployed in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district, launched an operation on January 16 after receiving information about the movement of Maoists in forest areas around Korsermetta, Hidmapara and Gotpalli villages, the CRPF Academy in Kadarpur said in a statement. On January 18, in the jungles near Gotpalli, a group of Maoists ambushed the troops, triggered a blast and fired at them. In the exchange of fire, one Maoist was killed and another, identified as Linga Sodi of Itapalli village, was seriously injured as a bullet pierced his thigh leading to severe blood loss. The CoBRA troops immediately evacuated him to the CRPF Field Hospital, at a distance of seven km from the gun battle site. He was later airlifted to the government hospital in Jagdalpur the next day in the Indian Air Force chopper used for anti-Maoist operations. When doctors said the injured Maoist required blood, three commandos -- constables Ratan Manjulkar, Praveender and U. Mehboob Peera -- donated blood to save his life. A section of students of the Presidency University here launched a token hunger strike on Thursday in solidarity with the nationwide protests against the suicide of Hyderabad Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula. Students as well as alumni of the varsity are participating in a 24-hour hunger strike that began at 4 p.m. "against all forms of minority oppression". According to the Independents' Consolidation (IC), a campus-based, non-affiliated, independent students' body which is leading the agitation, "it is imperative we stand up against the ruthless onslaught of Hindutva fascism in whatever capacity we can". "... and hope to expand the diaspora of constructive political thought in a nation where a research scholar has to lose his gift of life for us to fully comprehend the extent of oppression which minorities are subjected to in the societies of which we call." A section of students of Jadavpur University boycotted classes on Wednesday. Widespread protests have rocked India following the death of Vemula, who committed suicide on January 17 following his suspension along with four other Dalit students over an alleged clash with a leader of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). The dates for Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli's forthcoming visit to India are being fixed, an official said on Thursday. "As you know, when the prime minister (Narendra Modi) congratulated K.P. Sharma Oli in October 2015 on his becoming the prime minister of Nepal, he also extended an invitation to him to visit India," external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said at a media briefing here. "Now we have been told that the prime minister of Nepal will be visiting India. The dates for the visit will be fixed through diplomatic channels," he said. His remarks came after Oli said on Tuesday in Kathmandu that it would not be appropriate for him to visit New Delhi as long as a blockade of the Nepal-India border continued. "As far as that comment is concerned, we have not come to know about it through official channels," Swarup said. "Our one and only desire is to see a peaceful, stable and prosperous Nepal and for Nepal to resolve the internal political differences at the earliest by engaging in a dialogue in a genuine spirit of flexibility and compromise." A now more than five-month-old anti-constitutional protest by Madhesis in the southern Nepali Terai has led to a blockading of a major portion of the 1,868-km open border that the landlocked Himalayan nation has with its southern neighbour. Most of the 41 transit and customs points along the southern portion of this open border have been besieged by the Madhesi protestors who are demanding, among others, a redrawing of the boundaries of the provinces in Nepal as proposed in the new Constitution -- promulgated on September 20 last year -- and representation in parliament on the basis of population. Significantly, the Nepal Terai has almost 51 percent of the country's population and yet gets only one-third of seats in Parliament. The Madhesis also seek proportional representation in government jobs and restoration of rights granted to them in the interim constitution of 2007 which the new charter has snatched away. An India visit by Oli, the first foreign tour by him after assuming the office, is likely to take place in late February with preparations apace, according to reports in the Nepali media. But the leftist premier, who has assumed an ultra-nationalist posture and shown unwillingness to meet the grievances of the Madhesi protestors, has often declared his resolve not to visit New Delhi till the agitation in the Terai was over. In an interaction with senior editors at his residence in Kathmandu on Tuesday, Oli expressed the hope that the blockade at key Nepal-India entry points will be lifted within a couple of days. Nepal is falling severely short of fuel, essential supplies, medicines and other stuff due to the prolonged blockading of the border customs points by Madhesi protestors. India has been urging Kathmandu to reach out to the discontented sections in the Nepal Terai as soon as possible. Unnerved by the prolonged Madhesi agitation, the ruling major-Left coalition as also the main opposition Nepali Congress last week approved two amendments to the four-month-old Constitution partly meeting the demands of the agitating Madhesis. Also last week, the government launched an ambitious NRs.5 billion Border Area Development Programme (BADP) in the southeastern Nepali Mahottari district. The five-year development programme shall initially target the development of proposed province number 2 -- the heartland of the ongoing Madhesi agitation -- and will seek to create physical and social infrastructures in the region that borders southern neighbour India. The region chosen for the programme has villages and towns bordering India. It has been lagging behind in life expectancy, literacy and per capita income values as compared to other regions of the country. Oli told the senior editors that his government had fulfilled demands of the agitating parties. "There is no question why the embargo will not be lifted," he said. However, the Madhesi Morcha spearheading the agitation on Monday rejected the amendments to the statute and announced a fresh agitation programme besides calling for a broader alliance among all forces in the Terai-Madhes region. The agitating four-party alliance on Monday resolved that the stir would continue until their demands were met by the ruling elite in Kathmandu. The Madhesi Morcha later asserted that their struggle would continue till all their demands were met in a package. They also demanded the setting up of a high-level judicial panel to probe the numerous instances of killings by the state in the Terai. Egypt received three more Rafale fighter jets from France on Thursday, the second batch of a deal signed in February 2015, said an Egyptian military spokesman. "The deal includes handing Egypt 24 Rafale warplanes and a FREMM multi-mission frigate," Brigadier General Mohamed Samir said in a statement. In June 2015, Egypt received the FREMM frigate from France, and later in July it got three Rafale fighter jets as the first batch of the deal, which is seen by military experts as a real development in capabilities of the Egyptian armed forces. "The new fighter jets represent a massive addition to the fleet of the Egyptian air forces," the military spokesman boasted. Egypt seeks to develop its military capabilities amid the ongoing turmoil in Middle East and growing conflicts in fellow Arab states including Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and South Sudan. The deal signed between Egypt and France in mid-February is worth $5.6 billion. Later in October, the two countries signed another contract to buy two French Mistral warships, whose sale to Russia was cancelled by France over the Ukrainian crisis. Globally popular Lebanese fashion designer Elie Saab added an Indian zing to his Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2016 showcase here by taking inspiration from sari drapes and salwar kameez ensembles. According to fashion-industry trade journal Women's Wear Daily, Saab gave his collection an Indian theme, "adding an exotic tinge to his sparkly gowns and cocktail dresses, swags of fabric over-the-shoulder telegraphing the gesture of a sari". "The collection also unleashed a torrent of new elements, including silky pants, spangled salwar kameez ensembles, and breezy dusters," the online platform reported. The show notes referenced Lilah Wingfield, an Anglo-Irish noblewoman who recorded her travels to Delhi and Udaipur in 1911, when Victorian silhouettes were yielding to the Edwardian period. Saab's world-famous creations have earlier been proudly flaunted by Indian actresses Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Katrina Kaif and Sonam Kapoor at the red carpet of the Cannes International Film Festival. An FIR has been lodged against Congress legislator Sidharth Kumar Singh for allegedly kidnapping a young woman, police said on Thursday. "The young woman's father has lodged a case against the legislator from Bikram assembly," a police official said. "It seems to be a case of love-affair but investigation is on to trace Sidharth Singh," police said. Locals informed police that Sidharth Singh had eloped with this young woman, who is in her early twenties, in the past also. Sidharth Singh, a criminal-turned-politician in his early 30s, has served a jail term for murder. He is the son of a reputed Patna-based child specialist Uptal Kant Singh. A court here on Thursday told Kerala's vigilance department to file an FIR against Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on corruption charges in the solar panel scam. The Left immediately asked Chandy to resign. He refused to, saying he had done no wrong. The Thrissur Vigilance Court also directed a First Information Report to be registered against Power Minister Aryadan Mohammed. The direction followed a petition by activist P.D. Joseph after Saritha Nair, a key accused in the scam, told the judicial commission probing the matter that she gave Rs.1.90 crore in bribes to Chandy. She said on Wednesday that this done in two instalments and was part of the Rs.7 crore bribe demanded by Chandy through his then staff member Jikumon. Saritha Nair said she also paid Rs.40 lakh to minister Mohammed. In response to the court's direction, Chandy told reporters in Malappuram that he had a clear conscience. "I have done no wrong. I will face the probe and cooperate with it," he said. Asked if would resign, Chandy shot back: "For what?" His ministerial colleague Mohammad also said: "We have done no wrong. I will cooperate with the investigation that has been ordered." Meanwhile, CPI-M state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan told reporters that Chandy has to quit immediately. "The court has made its intentions clear through the FIR, and Chandy has only one way now to go forward and that is to quit at the earliest," said the Communist Party of India-Marxist leader. The scam erupted in 2013 when a fradulent company, Team Solar, allegedly used two women to weave political contacts and duped several influential people of large sums of money by offering to make them business partners or by setting up solar panels. Sources close to Chandy told IANS that he was speaking to lawyers to prepare a legal response. The corruption allegations threaten to derail the Congress-led United Democratic Front's (UDF) bid to retain power in assembly elections to be held this year. Congress leader and former Kerala chief minister A.K. Antony and party president Sonia Gandhi are reported to have discussed the issue along with Mukul Wasnik, who is in charge of the party affairs in the state. State Congress president V.M. Sudheeran has held talks with Gandhi while Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala has cancelled all his programmes for the day. Kerala's ruling Congress-led UDF suffered a blow on Thursday as a court ordered an FIR to be filed in the solar panel scam against Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who claimed innocence and rejected opposition calls to resign. And even as Saritha Nair, one of the main accused in the scandal and who hurled bribery allegations against the chief minister on Wednesday, threatened on Thursday to prove that Chandy was very much guilty, the UDF lost a RSP legislator, who said he was disgusted with Chandy's government. A court in Thrissur told Kerala's vigilance department to file a First Information Report (FIR) against Chandy on corruption charges in what has come to be known as the "solar scam". The Thrissur Vigilance Court also directed a FIR to be registered against Power Minister Aryadan Mohammed. This followed a petition by activist P.D. Joseph after Saritha Nair told a judicial commission that she gave Rs.1.90 crore in bribes to Chandy in two instalments. The developments have come at a time when the United Democratic Front faces assembly elections only months away. The opposition Left immediately asked Chandy to resign. CPI-M leader Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said: "The court has made its intentions clear through the FIR, and Chandy has only one way now to go forward and that is to quit at the earliest." In New Delhi, BJP leader and union minister Nirmala Sitharaman said: "The charges against the chief minister and the power minister are of very serious nature and we demand their resignations." Chandy maintained in Malappuram that he had a clear conscience. "I have done no wrong. I will face the probe and cooperate with it," he said. Asked if would resign, Chandy shot back: "For what?" The scam erupted in 2013 when a company, Team Solar, allegedly used two women to weave political contacts and duped several influential people of large sums of money by offering to make them business partners or by setting up solar panels. Saritha Nair said on Wednesday that the money she paid to Chandy was part of the Rs.7 crore demanded by him. She said she also gave Rs.40 lakh to minister Mohammed. Even as Chandy said he had done no wrong, she said the truth was otherwise. "After the unbearable tension of carrying all this on my head for the past more than three years, now I feel very relaxed as I am speaking the truth. I will prove through evidence that Chandy is wrong and I am right." Nair and her live-in partner Biju Radhakrishnan were arrested in the scandal in 2013 on charges of cheating numerous investors, who paid money for solar panels. While Saritha Nair is out on bail, Radhakrishnan is in jail after being accused of murdering his first wife. In Thiruvananthapuram, RSP's Kovoor Kunjumon quit the Kerala assembly, saying he was disgusted with the UDF government, and pledged to rejoin the Left. The Revolutionary Socialist Party has three legislators. With Kunjumon leaving, the strength of the house has come down to 138 and Chandy now has the support of 72 legislators. The Left commands 66 legislators in the 140-seat house. Kunjumon said: "For seven months, I am unable to show my face to cashew factory workers (in my constituency) as all the factories are closed. "Others may not know their feelings, but I know it because I am the son of a cashew factory worker. Along with our supporters, we will form the real RSP and will align with the Left," he said. Kunjumon was elected to the assembly in 2001, 2006 and 2011 when his party was with the Left. Ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, he joined the UDF. Ghana wants to learn from India's experience in harnessing the power of the diaspora, Minister of Environment, Science and Technology Mahama Ayariga has said. At a ceremony to mark India's 67th Republic Day, Ayariga said India's relationship with dates back to 1890 when the first Indian landed on the shores of Gold Coast -- Ghana's pre-independence name. He said that since then the Indian have helped to contribute to the development of New Delhi's economy. Even before a formal diplomatic relationship was established with India after independence in 1957, New Delhi set up a Consul General in 1953, he said, and thanked India for the number of scholarships it provides to both students and government employees from Ghana. Indian High Commissioner Jeeva Sagar said over 25 million Indians in the have helped to enrich culture and economies across the globe. Sagar said since its independence, Ghana had emerged "victorious at every challenge thrown at her", adding the country had become the model of stability, peace and rule of law guided by the spirit of democracy on the African continent. Stating that Ghana had to deal with a few developmental issues in recent years, he said: "Ghana has the resilience and institutional strength to overcome the challenges of recent times. "Such challenges are an inevitable phase in the life of every developing nation that endeavours to build a better tomorrow to her people." (Francis Kokutse can be contacted at fkokutse@gmail.com) The Manipur government will provide security to Thounaojam Herojit, a head constable in a police commando unit who is accused of gunning down an unarmed former insurgent, Deputy Chief Minister Gaikhangam on Thursday. Gaikhangam, who also holds the home portfolio, said the government would provide him security since he seemed to be apprehensive of his personal safety. Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju had earlier said that security will be provided to Herojit. Gaikhangam said the reports that Herojit, who was coming from Delhi to Imphal on Wednesday, went missing from the Imphal airport were being looked into. He expressed the view that the CBI will unearth the truth. On the charge by Herojit that he gunned down an unarmed former insurgent on the orders of Akoijam Jhalajit, now the superintendent of police Imphal West, Gaikhangam refused to comment, saying the matter was sub-judice. After Herojit reportedly went missing from the airport on Wednesday, a reporter got a phone call from him saying he was safe and sound though he did not disclose his whereabouts. Speculation is rife that Herojit was accompanied by a friend on the Delhi-Imphal flight. The friend bought a Delhi-Guwahati ticket, while Herojit bought a Delhi-Imphal one. While Herojit might have got down at Guwahati masquerading as his friend, his companion came to Imphal using Herojit's ticket. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday demanded fresh elections to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), saying it had failed to pay even salaries to its employees. "Management of an organisation which can't pay salaries to employees doesn't (have the right) to continue," the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader tweeted. He said the present MCD should be dissolved and fresh elections held. All the three wings of the MCD -- South, East and North -- are controlled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). MCD sanitation employees have been protesting for weeks demanding timely payment of salaries. Three faculty members of the University of Hyderabad on Thursday launched a hunger strike even as students continued their protest for the 11th day over the suicide of a Dalit student. A faculty member from Osmania University too joined the students on relay hunger strike demanding the resignation of Vice Chancellor P. Appa Rao. V. Krishna, a professor, told IANS that this was an indefinite relay hunger strike to demand the resignation of Appa Rao, who last week went on leave. The forum is also demanding the resignation of interim vice-chancellor Vipin Srivastava as he headed the panel which suspended five Dalit students. One of them, Rohith Vemula, committed suicide on January 17, triggering widespread protests. Students under the banner of the Joint Action Committee for Social Justice-UoH continued their protest on the campus, demanding action against the vice chancellor, central ministers Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya and others responsible for the suicide. The interim vice chancellor's attempt to reach out to the protesting students on Wednesday proved futile as JAC said it was unacceptable as he was part of the decision to hand out punishment to the Dalit students. The umbrella of various students' groups said Srivastava was also an accused in a case relating to Dalit research scholar Senthi Kumar's suicide in 2008. Tension prevailed on the campus on Thursday as students, mostly belonging to Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), staged a demonstration, demanding immediate resumption of classes. The students of life sciences department raised slogans for saving their academic career. The JAC alleged that the interim vice chancellor was provoking one group of students against the other. It made it clear that the protest will continue till justice is done in Vemula's case. She's quite a citizen of the world, having lived in places as diverse as Kano, Antwerp, Singapore, Rochester, Mumbai, Bengaluru and now Hong Kong. Author Shobha Nihalani says she doesn't write to a pattern but that has not come in the way of her churning out five hugely successful novels -- with more to come -- that have mystery and conspiracy as the common theme. "There's no particular pattern, but I am either thinking about the story, or writing it down whenever I have time. It could be a chapter or a page or a character development," Nihalani told IANS in an email interview from Hong Kong, where she is now settled. "I don't have a 9-to-5 job, per se, but I do work part-time in our family-owned company as a book-keeper. I am also a housewife which involves family and social responsibilities," she said. It is perhaps this diversity of existence that has led Nihalani to deliver to the literary world works like "Karmic Blues" (her debut novel that was first published in Danish), "The Silent Monument" (also translated into Danish), two of the "NINE" trilogy and now "Unresolved" (Hachette, pp 286, price Rs.350). "The common thread in all these stories is that they are based on mysteries or conspiracies. 'Karmic Blues' carries references to past life regression, 'The Silent Monument' mentions conspiracies surrounding the historical facts of the Taj Mahal. The conspiracy of 'NINE' refers to the oldest secret society, the protectors of powerful knowledge. And in 'Unresolved', I have implied that there are influential people who kill those who demand transparency using the RTI Act," she said. How did Nihalani get started as a writer? "It was the love for the written word. Back in the 1980s, as a teenager in Mumbai, I would accumulate newspaper snippets of well-written, entertaining articles. In addition, I had a little notebook and wrote down quotes or phrases that were so beautifully written... I had to save them." The snippets, articles and the notebook entries -- all helped in Nihalani's role as a writer. "Later, when I studied in Antwerp for my bachelor's degree, one of the requirements was to write an essay for an economics course. I chose to write an economic assessment of India during British Rule. A family relative helped me gain access to the Fergusson College library in Pune. "While I researched, I also spent many long hours completely lost in the dusty volumes of Indian history inside that architecturally beautiful library. It was one of the most memorable times of my life. I guess that's when the seed was planted to become a writer," Nihalani explained. How did her global journey come about? "My parents loved to travel a lot. My childhood and growing up years were spent in six cities in four different continents. It was only after marriage that I planted roots and settled down," she said. What then has she gained from her global journey? "There are many snapshots of memories that have enriched my life," she replied. In Kano, in Nigeria, she has "memories of bloody feudal wars between ethnic groups". "In Bengaluru, travelling to school on the cycle-rickshaw in the cool mornings, spending time with neighbours as we would cycle around the colony. In Singapore, I was finding it difficult to adjust to school life and spent most of my time reading books". "Next stop, Mumbai, this was the city where I finally felt I had developed roots and made some good friends. There was the laid-back college life. Bunking was part of the scene which meant sitting with friends at Marine Drive, eating street food, discussing the philosophies of life and the changing trends," Nihalani elaborated. The most memorable part of Mumbai "was the monsoon... the smells, the sounds and the cool breeze. Also, from our high-rise apartment, I would watch oncoming sheets of rain forming curtains across the sea... it was a visual pleasure", Nihalani said. On moving to Antwerp, the one thing that really hit her was the quiet. "The sparsely populated streets, as compared to Mumbai, were so empty, it felt strange. The lack of noise was so distinct, it took time to adjust. But then I slowly developed a liking for the solitude and walked for hours exploring the city. "The changing seasons were so distinct it was a marvel to watch the trees blossom in spring and change with the passing months, turning into gnarled branches in the winter. There was many a ghost story that came to mind during the dark cold months. In Hong Kong, my journey took on a new turn with marriage and a whole new life developed from there on," the author said. What of the future? "Definitely more reading and writing," Nihalani concluded. (Vishnu Makhijani can be contacted at vishnu.makhijani@ians.in) Imphal Superintendent of Police Akoijam Jhalajit late on Wednesday denied Head Constable Thounaojam Herojit's charges that he gave orders to kill an unarmed former insurgent. "I deny the allegations against me by Herojit. They are motivated, concocted and baseless. I do not like to make further comments since it is sub judice," Jhalajit said in a statement. Meanwhile, Heroijit who went "missing" from the Tulihal international airport soon after his arrival from New Delhi has confirmed to a reporter of Imphal Free Press that he was safe and sound. The developments come shortly after Home Minister Rajnath Singh promised action on Herojit's claim over the killing of the ex-insurgent, Chungkham Sanjit. A former insurgent, Sanjit had given up militancy. He was allegedly trapped inside a chemist's shop on B.T. Road in Imphal, and a few minutes later his body was dragged out by security personnel on July 23, 2009. Police told the media that he was killed in an exchange of fire. The CBI, which probed the case after public outcry, however accused Head Constable Herojit of killing Sanjit. Herojit later said he committed the killing on the orders of a senior officer. Top leaders of the government, including the chief minister, are tight-lipped over the case that has garnered national headlines. Notwithstanding Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli's raising a question mark over his proposed visit to India, bilateral meetings are proceeding apace to set the stage for his proposed journey to New Delhi towards February-end, officials here indicated on Thursday. Nepali Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel is visiting India during the first week of February to lay the groundwork for the number of agreements that are expected to be concluded during the prime ministerial visit. Earlier, on February 1, Nepalese Army chief General Rajendra Chettri will visit India on the invitation of his Indian counterpart General Dalbir Singh. As per tradition, Gen Chhetri will be conferred the title of honorary chief of the Indian Army by President Pranab Mukherjee at a glittering ceremony in Rashtrapati Bhavan. At present, Kathmandu was hosting a meeting of energy secretaries of the two neighbours to discuss the prospects of power exchange, master plan for installation of six cross-border energy corridors, import and export of electricity, and infrastructure enhancement, among others. Indian Power Secretary Pradeep Kumar Pujari flew down to Kathmandu for the two-day meeting on January 27-28 with his Nepali counterpart Suman Sharma. The meeting also discussed power projects undertaken by Indian private firms and decided to hold a meeting of the Pancheshwor Development Authority in Kathmandu in February ahead of Oli's proposed India visit. The Pancheshwor project is a key power project jointly undertaken by the Indian and Nepali governments and has a 3,240 MW potential besides capacity to provide irrigation facilities to thousands of hectares of land in both countries. Nepali officials said that other stalled meetings like secretary-level meeting of the Inter-governmental Committee (IGC) -- earlier scheduled in September; a joint secretary-level meeting of Joint Committee on Water Resources (JCWR); and a meeting of the Nepal-India Bilateral Consultative Group on security issues were in the pipeline. The third meeting of the Nepal-India Joint Commission -- the highest bilateral mechanism between the two countries -- was also planned, officials here said. Indian Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj had suggested that the meeting be held ahead of Oli's visit when she met her Nepali counterpart Kamal Thapa recently in New Delhi. Nepal Premier Oli has on Tuesday raised a question-mark over his visit to India next month, averring that it will not be appropriate for him to visit New Delhi as long as a blockade of the Nepal-India border continues. A now more than five-month-old anti-Constitution protest by Madhesis in the southern Nepali Terai has led to a blockading of a major portion of the 1,868-km open border that the landlocked Himalayan nation has with its southern neighbour. Most of the 41 transit and customs points along the southern portion of this open border have been besieged by the Madhesi protestors who are demanding, among others, a redrawing of the boundaries of the provinces in Nepal as proposed in the new Constitution -- promulgated on September 20 last year; and representation in Parliament on the basis of population. The Madhesis also seek proportional representation in government jobs and restoration of rights granted to them in the interim constitution of 2007 which the new charter has snatched away. An India visit by Oli, the first foreign tour by him after assuming the office, is likely to take place in late February with preparations apace, according to reports in the Nepali media. (Anil Giri can be contacted at girianil@gmail.com) Calling Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump as the "best hope for America", some Indian-Americans in the New York Tristate area have formed a Political Action Committee (PAC) to support and raise funds for him. Headed by Dr. A.D. Amar, a business professor with Seton Hall University in New Jersey, the 'Indian-Americans for Trump 2016' was registered as a PAC with the Federal Election Commission last week. Its sole goal is "to garner actively the support of all Americans, but particularly Indian-Americans, to have Donald J. Trump become the next President of the USA," the PAC said in a press release. "On realizing that the agenda of Donald J Trump for President 2016 is focused on reviving the American economy, rightly bringing America on the world stage, defeating terrorism and establishing peace through strength; many Indian-Americans believe that he is the best hope for America and the right candidate to be the next president of the United States," the PAC said in a statement. The real estate billionaire has vowed not to take money from individuals or special interest groups, or seek support from PACs. There was no comment from the Trump campaign. Anand Ahuja, an attorney based in New York, and Devendra "Dave" Makkar, a businessman in New Jersey, have been "elected" vice president and treasurer respectively. Dr. Sudhir Parikh, publisher of some community news publications in New Jersey, has been named chair of fundraising and advisory committee of Indian-Americans for Trump 2016. "This is only the first step. We are on the side of Trump for this election," Amar said, citing Trump's policies on illegal immigration and economy in particular as the main reasons for his group to support the Republican contendcer. Meanwhile, South Carolina's Indian-American Governor Nikki Haley asked protestors and supporters of Trump to stay "civil and respectful" as she made a pitch Wednesday for expanding the party's base. "I think what Mr. Trump is doing is continuing to push through this candidacy. I think he's continuing to move forward. All we ask is that everybody stay civil and respectful in the way they do that," she was quoted as saying at a press conference by State newspaper. Asked would having Trump or Texas Senator Ted Cruz as the Repulican presidential nominee hurt efforts to woo young, women and minority voters, Haley called for expanding the party's base. "My goal was coming off after the last election with Mitt Romney (in 2012) was to make sure that I did everything I could to open that umbrella - to make sure we opened it up to Indian-Americans, Jewish-Americans, to make sure Hispanics and women felt a part of the Republican party," the governor said. "What I did with the address was very much start that conversation, which is we need to grow our umbrella. We don't have room to close it," said Haley, who gave the Republian response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address earlier this month. "But what I want Republican specifically to do is to remember that we want to grow that tent out. There's a group of Republicans like me, who have seen that we have a great slate of minorities that are in elected office." Haley, who has not endorsed a 2016 candidate, would not say if she expects Trump to become more civil if he becomes the party's nominee. "We'll find out," she said. (Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in) British author Jenny Balfour-Paul, a world authority on indigo, says the Indian fashion and textile industry has to be really careful as the sector is a major cause for environmental pollution courtesy the use of synthetic dyes. "The fashion and textile industry has to watch it really. Because they are huge polluters," Balfour-Paul told IANS here. Describing indigo as the "perfect green crop", Paul suggests incorporation of natural dyes in textiles (including natural indigo and not the synthetic variant). In addition, the researcher takes a different approach on fashion, advising on opting for timeless pieces of organic textiles and treasuring them instead of throwing them away. "Natural indigo is a perfect green crop. In some places in Bangladesh, people grow indigo not so much for the dye but for the fertiliser. "You can make denim in a complete organic way now. Fashion is changing all the time but we should treasure things, we shouldn't throw things away so much," said Balfour-Paul, a honorary research fellow in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter University in Britain. Her latest book "Deeper than Indigo: tracing Thomas Machell, forgotten explorer" narrates the detailed account of the Victorian explorer and indigo planter in the 19th century who spent most of his adult life in India. Machell was a witness to many important historical events, including the First Opium War and the Indian Mutiny. Balfour-Paul's book is based on Machell's journals chronicling his voyages and experiences in India, Bangladesh, China, North Africa and the Arab world. The author follows him to indigo plantations of rural Bengal and Bangladesh, to coffee estates in Kerala's Malabar Hills, to unexplored regions of central India and to the city of Calcutta (now Kolkata). Machell also travelled up the Indus River to Kashmir and the North-West Frontier and undertook an intrepid sea voyage with Muslim merchants. Talking to IANS at the just-concluded Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet here, Balfour-Paul stresses Machell's relevance today lies in his approach towards different religions and their inter-connectedness. The adventurer was born to a clergyman near York in 1824. He died in India in 1864, aged 39. "Since I started the book in 2000, he has become more relevant. He travels with Arabs for nine months and dresses like them. He says, 'Let's be tolerant of each others religion and study them else there will be trouble in the future.' He sees education is the key and starts a school in his plantation," the author added. The HRD ministry on Thursday appointed former Allahabad High Court judge Justice Ashok Kumar Roopanwal to head the one-man judicial commission to probe the suicide of Dalit scholar Rohit Vemula in Hyderabad. "The ministry has appointed Justice Roopanwal to probe the circumstances leading to the Dalit student's suicide in Hyderabad," said an official of the human resource development ministry. Vemula, a research scholar at Hyderabad University, committed suicide on January 17 after his suspension along with four other Dalit students from Hyderabad University over an alleged clash with a leader of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). The central government had decided to set up a judicial commission to probe the suicide after a fact-finding committee which went to the university submitted its report. The commission will submit its report in three months. Rapper Kanye West will reportedly perform a secret gig during London Fashion Week. West will release new album "Waves", which was previously named "Swish", on February 11 and is said to be hoping to debut the record at an intimate gig here during the fashion extravaganza, which runs from February 19 to February 23, reports femalefirst.co.uk. "Kanye is a big fan of London Fashion Week, and he'll almost certainly be coming over to it this year," Loaded magazine quoted a source as saying. "With his album out the week before, it looks like he'd do a show for his hardcore fans while he's over for fashion week, to give 'Swish' extra underground kudos. He enjoys playing clubs as much as he does the bigger stages when he can," the source added. It is expected any gig he does play in London will be announced at short notice, similar to when he performed at the 1,400-capacity Koko venue in the city last March. The Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), the largest free literary festival in the world, has made it to the classrooms of the Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities (JSLH). The annual literary conglomeration of the finest writers has been inducted as a course which offers two credits to students who pursue the event in Jaipur and follow it up with classes at their Sonipat, Haryana, campus. The idea was conceptualised when O.P. Jindal Global University (JDU) had participated at the JLF last year. It was then that Arjun Puri from JSLH began conceptualising a course on the literature festival. "I thought of this course as JLF is considered to be among the top literary festivals in the world and is one of the biggest in Asia. It also hosts some of the best writers from across the globe. It wouldn't have been possible without the support of the Vice Chancellor C. Raj Kumar and the dean of the university," Puri told IANS. Puri believes that constricting education within the four walls of the classroom will be detrimental to intellectual growth. "Classes must have practical use and that is precisely what this course seeks to accomplish. Volunteering is not part of any curriculum. I feel that it works as an incentive for students and provide them organisational skills too," he felt. Of the 34 students who undertook the course, seven managed to earn three points for interning with the organisers of the event, Teamwork Arts. The seven students who worked for a fortnight with the organisers also handled JLF's social media, while the rest handled verticals like logistics, blogging and volunteering. "The students were in-charge of various responsibilities within the festival. The healthy mix of working at the festival, reading and writing is what will make this course different. They are also expected to create videos and write-ups of the festival now," Puri added. For second-year student Tejaswini Rao, JLF was a life-time experience. It was a dream came true for Rao to meet with her favourite authors Ruskin Bond, Booker winner Marlon James and Shashi Tharoor. "If not for the course, I would have participated in the festival like any other delegate. This was a real challenge for us and I got a first-hand experience of reporting," she said. For first-year student Harjot Singh, the take away was more than just an experience to broaden his perspective. "JLF opened me to books and made them more exciting in a time of social and visual media overkill. Where in the world will you see such range of discussions and diversity of audience? And internship with the team gave me an understanding of how the festival operates," he said. Puri feels that the experience has transformed students into matured individuals and other universities should follow suit. "It was a real experience for students. I can see more camaraderie and they have become more mature," said Puri. With the recent terror attack in Punjab's Pathankot town yet again derailing India-Pakistan peace talks, a group of netizens from both sides of the border have taken to social networking sites advocating peace. With the hashtags 'ProfileForPeace', 'IndoPakKeepTalking' 'KillTerrorismNotTalks, people from various parts of India, Pakistan and even the UK and the US have been changing their profile pictures on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with a little scribble, appealing to the leaders of both the countries to get back to the discussion table. The brainchild of Mumbai-based ad maker Ram Subramanian, the campaign first went viral after threats by the Shiv Sena led to the cancellation of the Mumbai and Pune concerts of Pakistani Ghazal maestro Ghulam Ali last October. With the terror attack at the Pathankot Air Force Base leading to the postponing of the foreign secretary-level talks, people are back with a 'profile for peace' campaign, making passionate pleas to the political leaders of the two countries. Among the many to join the campaign is Pakistani journalist Beena Sarwar, who has changed her profile picture with the message: "Dear leaders don't let the acts of a few violent men write the future of many people like me who want peace." Aman Ki Asha member Ruchhita Kazaria has posted a collage of the profile pictures of her friends, including from across the border, to drive home the point that people on both sides want peace and yearn for friendship. Actress Parul Yadav, too, has lent her voice to the ProfileForPeace campaign and has posted a picture with a message urging "Kill terrorists, not talks". Indo-Pakistan couple Hina Shahid and Vijay Chakravarthy have posted a profile picture with the message: "Dear leaders let there be peace for our future generations. Don't let the act of a few write the future of millions like us." With both Delhi and Islamabad attempting to salvage the peace talks, President Pranab Mukherjee, in his Republic Day address, advocated the need for dialogue but cautioned that "peace cannot be discussed under a shower of bullets". Kerala's ruling coalition on Thursday suffered a blow when RSP's Kovoor Kunjumon quit the legislature, saying he was disgusted with the UDF government, and vowed to join the Left. The Revolutionary Socialist Party, a UDF member, has three legislators. With Kunjumon resigning, the strength of the assembly has come down to 138 and Chief Minister Oommen Chandy now has the support of 72 legislators. The Left, led by the CPI-M, commands 66 legislators in the 140-seat house. Kunjumon, who has represented Kunnathur constituency in Kollam district since 2001, said he and his fellow RSP workers were fed up with the corruption cases plaguing the government. He said he had submitted his resignation to Speaker N. Sakthan. "The RSP has been always with the marginalized and downtrodden, the working class, especially those who work in cashew factories," a visibly upset Kunjumon said. "For seven months, I am unable to show my face to cashew factory workers as all the factories are closed. "Others may not know their feelings, but I know it because I am the son of a cashew factory worker. Along with our supporters, we will form the real RSP and will align with the Left," he said. Kunjumon was elected to the Kerala assembly in 2001, 2006 and 2011 when his party was with the Left Democratic Front (LDF). Ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Kunjumon and present RSP state secretary A.A. Azeez deserted the LDF and merged their RSP with the RSP(B) of Labour Minister Shibhu Baby John, a Congress ally. CPI-M state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan welcomed Kunjumon's decision. "We will certainly allow Kunjumon to be associated with the LDF. This clearly shows that the UDF is in trouble," he said. The Supreme Court on Tuesday extended, till March 18, the interim bail granted to social activists Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand in the alleged misuse of funds collected by their NGO Sabrang Trust for setting up a museum at Gulbarga Society which witnessed one of the worst carnage during 2002 Gujarat riots. While protecting Setalvad and Anand from being arrested, the bench of Justice Anil R. Dave, Justice Fakkir Mohammed Ibrahim Kalifulla and Justice V. Gopala Gowda asked her to make available to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) all the documents including utility certificate of the funds that her Sabrang Communication and Publishing Pvt Ltd (SCPPL) had received from the Ford Foundation. Fixing the next date of hearing on March 9, the apex court gave Setalvad two weeks time to submit the documents sought by the investigating agency by its April 11, 2015 communication. As Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar appearing for the CBI told the court that Setalvad was not co-operating and was not furnishing the documents sought by the investigating agency, her counsel Kamini Jaiswal said that if non-cooperation meant that she was not giving to the investigating agency documents to their liking, then surely she was no cooperating. Senior counsel Kapil Sibal told the court that CBI was seeking documents relating to 2004 to 2006 and under the Income Tax Act and the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, there was no obligation on the part of the recipient of the foreign aid to maintain the records beyond eight years of the transaction under scrutiny. He told the court that even after the statutory bar, he had asked Setalvad to provide whatever documents were there in their custody to the investigating agency, notwithstanding that they were under no statutory obligation to do so. Justice Kalifulla said: "We will examine it", as Sibal said that when they say that statutorily, they are not bound to furnish documents relating to 2004 to 2006, the CBI describes it as "non-cooperation". Ranjit Kumar told the court that all that the CBI was asking is the utility certificate that the Sabrang Communication and Publishing Pvt Ltd had given to Ford Foundation for two grants received by it. Referring to the vouchers submitted by Sabrang Communication and Publishing, the investigating agency in its application has said that these reflect that the funds were not utilised for the intended purposes, namely charitable, scientific, literary or educational purposes for which the grants were provided by Ford Foundation. The CBI has alleged that Sabrang Communications and Publishing run received foreign grants from Ford Foundation which were prohibited under then Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. Setalvad and Anand were granted interim bail by the apex court on February 19 as it restrained the Gujarat Police from arresting them in the case. They had moved the apex court challenging the Gujarat High Court's February 12 verdict declining them anticipatory bail in the alleged misuse of funds case. The second autopsy on the body of T.Monisha, one of the three girl students whose bodies were found near their college in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district last week and had, according to the police, committed suicide, was done here on Thursday, said an advocate. "The second post mortem took nearly three hours. It started around 2 p.m. One doctor representing my client was also present during the autopsy," R.Sankarasubbu, advocate for Monisha's father Tamilarasan, told IANS. He said the post mortem report will be submitted to the Madras High Court and they will have to apply to get a copy of that. The court on Wednesday permitted the conduct of a second post mortem at a government hospital here on the petition filed by Tamilarasan. The bodies of the three girl students -- Monisha, A. Saranya and V. Priyanka -- were taken out of a well in a farm near the SVS Naturopathy and Yoga College in Villupuram, around 170 km from here, on January 23 evening. While police registered a case of suicide, the parents of the girls have alleged the daughters were murdered for protesting against the lack of basic facilities in the college. Police arrested Vasuki, Sukhi Verma and two other top officials of SVS Naturopathy and Yoga College in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district while the Villupuram district administration sealed the college. "Without Tamilarasan's consent and despite his demand for a post-mortem in a hospital in Chennai, police conducted the autopsy in Villupuram," his counsel Sankarasubbu had told IANS earlier. Sankarasubbu said Tamilarasan had petitioned the court to transfer investigations from the Villupuram police to the CB-CID wing of Tamil Nadu Police and order a second autopsy in a Chennai hospital. "Our contention is that the district administration is helping the college management in the case," Sankarasubbu alleged. Police said the three girl students ended their lives after the management demanded higher fees even though the college lacked basic facilities. Nearly four months ago, a few students of the college had allegedly attempted suicide in front of the Villupuram collectorate. A man hurled a shoe at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday, but it missed the intended target. The incident took place during a function at which Nitish Kumar reiterated the ban on sale of liquor in Bihar from April 1, police said. The shoe landed away from Nitish Kumar and the man was detained by police. "A man attempted to throw a shoe at the chief minister at a function in Bakhtiyarpur in Patna," a district police official said. The shoe landed a few metres away from Nitish Kumar. ALSO READ: Nitish Kumar announces liquor ban in Bihar from April 2016 "This incident took place when Nitish Kumar reiterated that he was committed to implementing a total ban on liquor in the state from April 1. A man protested against it by throwing a shoe at him," the police official said. Earlier, Nitish Kumar had made it clear that a total ban on liquor would be imposed in the state in phases. Bihar would first ban country-made liquor and then Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL), he said. Ban on sale and consumption of alcohol was one of the promises Nitish Kumar made during campaigning for the 2015 Bihar assembly elections. Youngster Kynan Chenai registered the best day of his short Trap shooting career,\ when he beat all odds to finish fourth and as a result secured one of the four available quotas for India in the Men's Trap event here on day two of the Asia Olympic Shooting qualifiers on Thursday. Chenai qualified for the quality six-man final field shooting a score of 120 (47/50 on Wednesday and 73/75 on Thursday) at the Karni Singh Shooting Range. In the final round, Kynan tied with three others after the first 15 shots with a score of 12 to reach the semi-finals, thereby assuring his country of her 10th Rio Olympics quota in shooting. He then had to settle for a bronze medal match-up with Kuwait's (now shooting as an International Shooting participant) Talal Al-Rashidi. Talal eventually piped him for the bronze medal having missed just one of his 15 shots while Kynan missed two. Another International shooting participant Abdulrahman Al Faihan won the gold medal in the event and Chinese Taipei's Yang Kun-Pi won the silver medal. The other three quotas in the event went to Kuwait, Chinese Taipei and Kazakhstan respectively. In Men's 25M Rapid Fire Pistol event, India's Olympic Silver medallist Vijay Kumar saw his dreams of securing a quota for Rio fade away after having qualified for the final with a top score of 576 in qualifying. In the six-man final where he had to beat Qatari Oleg Engachev and one out of two Japanese shooters to ensure a quota, Vijay became the second shooter to be eliminated, finishing fifth as a result. The two quotas in the event were bagged by eventual gold medallist Teruyoshi Akiyama and bronze medalist Eita Mori of Japan. Korea's Yong Hoo Choi clinched the silver. South Korea could not claim quotas in this event as they had already exhausted them in earlier competitions. Comentarios y reflexiones sobre la actualidad politica y economica de Espana y del mundo A team of students from Hebrew University of Jerusalem has developed unique pressure-sensing socks that, when linked to a smart phone app, warn diabetic patients of developing foot ulcers. Called SenseGO, the machine-washable socks contain dozens of micro-fabricated pressure sensors. With SenseGO, changes in pressure due to incorrect posture, anatomical deformation or ill-fitting shoes are registered as electrical signals that are relayed to a smartphone app, which, in turn, informs the patient of developing wound risk. Diabetic neuropathy is a type of nerve damage associated with the development of foot ulcers in patients with diabetes. Resulting from anatomical deformation, excessive pressure and poor blood supply, it affects over 130 million individuals worldwide. "This is a significant medical problem that affects the lives of millions. We thought there must be a way to avoid these wounds altogether," said Danny Bavli, the group's lead engineer, in a university statement. Bavli partnered with Sagi Frishman and Dr David Morgenstern, a leading orthopaedic surgeon at Hadassah Medical Center. Together with other members of the Hebrew University BioDesign group, they developed SenseGO. "This is a classic mobile health approach. By giving patients and their families the tools they need to prevent the development of ulcers, we can dramatically reduce health care costs related to diabetes," noted professor Yaakov Nahmias, director of BioDesign programme. Three people have been arrested for trafficking counterfeit Indian currency notes of face value Rs.3.8 lakh, police said on Thursday. Mohammed Nazir, 39; Kabir Sheikh, 22; and Haq Shahib, 22 -- all residents of Malda in West Bengal -- were arrested on January 23 from Ashram Chowk in south Delhi while they were about to deliver the fake currency to prospective buyers. Police said the three used to smuggle fake Indian notes from Bangladesh for circulation in India and destabilise the Indian economy. "A decoy customer was sent to strike a deal for purchasing fake notes of face value Rs.10,000 for which Rs.5,000 in genuine currency was given to the decoy customer," said Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Ravindra Yadav. "All the three were arrested after the deal was finalised. The counterfeit currency was seized from them," he said. Yadav said the recovered fake notes were in the denomination of Rs.500. The officer said the three used to approach vendors and weekly market shopkeepers to change the counterfeit notes of Rs.1,000 and Rs.500 by purchasing small items. "They also used to look out for potential customers and lure them by offering counterfeit notes at 50 percent price," he said. They used code words for fake Rs.1,000 and Rs.500 notes -- "Badi lungi" and "Chhoti lungi", respectively. "The gang used to get fake notes from Bangladesh. Once they succeeded in circulating these notes in the market, they would return to their native place and come back with new consignments after some time," the officer said. To avoid police surveillance, they frequently changed their rented accommodation in Delhi, the officer said. "The gang had earlier circulated fake notes of face value more than Rs.50 lakh in Delhi and NCR (National Capital Region). A consignment of nearly Rs.10 lakh of this gang was seized by Uttar Pradesh Police last month. A hunt is on to nab other members of the gang, said the officer. Defying conventional wisdom, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has refused to reconsider his decision to skip the party debate before the first crucial nominating contests and in the process become the talk of the talk shows. As pundits discussed whether his move to sit out Thursday night's Fox News debate four days before the Iowa caucuses would hurt him or help him, Trump said Wednesday he'd move forward with his own competing event. His "tremendous" rally at Drake University in Des Moines at the same time as his Republican rivals gather for the debate just two miles away will raise money for wounded veterans, he said. Suggesting that television networks have made millions of dollars in advertising on debates he's participated in, Trump said he doesn't mind debating, but "I just don't like being used." "Fox was going to make a fortune off this debate. Now they're going to make much less," said the billionaire real estate mogul on another show on the conservative show as the anchor vainly tried to cajole him to reconsider. Escalating his long-running feud with Megyn Kelly, Trump lashed out at the Fox News anchor whom he has accused of treating him "unfairly" for questioning him on his past derogatory remarks about women at the first Republican debate in August. Calling it a "conflict of interest" Trump demanded that Kelly be not allowed to moderate Thursday night's debate. But Fox News declined to give in. Kelly will be one of the three moderators at the debate. "I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly," said Trump. "I don't think she's good at what she does and I think she's highly overrated. And frankly, she's a moderator; I thought her question last time was ridiculous." Kelly herself weighed in that Trump skipping the debate would "probably be a bad decision" while conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh lauded him for "controlling the media." But despite Trump's continued attacks against her, Kelly said he is a "breath of fresh air" in . "He doesn't care about P.C. culture," Kelly said in an interview with Time magazine published on Wednesday. "It's a breath of fresh air." Kelly who spoke to Time on Tuesday, just hours before Trump announced his plan to skip Thursday night's Fox News debate, said her network can't give in to "terrorizations toward any of our employees." Trump's other Republican presidential rivals also lost no time in criticising him. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said Trump's decision reminds him of "a 13-year-old arguing." Texas Senator Ted Cruz challenged Trump to debate him Saturday night in Sioux City, Iowa. But Trump laughed off Cruz's call to debate, saying in a message on Twitter that if they did it the contest should be held in Canada, where Cruz was born. Florida Senator Marco Rubio called Trump's decision to skip the debate, and Cruz's one-on-one challenge an "interesting sideshow." (Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in) Engineers at a US university have developed wearable sensors that can monitor your sweat in real-time, providing meaningful information about your state of health. "Human sweat contains physiologically rich information, thus making it an attractive body fluid for non-invasive wearable sensors," said study principal investigator Ali Javey, a University of California-Berkeley professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences. The flexible sensor system can measure metabolites and electrolytes in sweat, calibrate the data based upon skin temperature and sync the results in real time to a smartphone. "We have developed a fully integrated system that simultaneously and selectively measures multiple sweat analytes, and wirelessly transmits the processed data to a smartphone. Our work presents a technology platform for sweat-based health monitors," Javey added. Javey worked with study co-lead authors Wei Gao and Sam Emaminejad, both of whom are postdoctoral fellows in his lab. The team then consulted exercise physiologist George Brooks, a University of California-Berkeley professor of integrative biology. "Having a wearable sweat sensor is really incredible because the metabolites and electrolytes measured by the Javey device are vitally important for the health and well-being of an individual," Brooks said. "When studying the effects of exercise on human physiology, we typically take blood samples. With this non-invasive technology, someday it may be possible to know what's going on physiologically without needle sticks or attaching little, disposable cups on you," he added. The device is described in a paper published online on January 27 in Nature. With reference to the article, "The Republic at 66" (January 25), so long as caste reservation in government jobs and educational institutions, and religion as vote bank continue, the notion that all are equal before the law will elude us. Recent incidents at Sabarimala shrine and the University of Hyderabad are reminders that discrimination based on gender and caste continue to take place 66 years after India became a republic. While we commemorate B R Ambedkar on his birth anniversary and celebrate Constitution Day, we have failed to take his legacy forward and stand by the principles of the Constitution that he framed. When two student groups clash on campus, suspending members of only one group on the intervention of a Union minister is unfair. The incident in question is the alleged clash between members of the Ambedkar Students' Association (ASA) and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad on the University of Hyderabad campus, following which Rohith Vemula and four others, all of the ASA, were suspended. After a 14-day strike by students demanding that the suspension order be revoked, Vemula committed suicide. While HRD Minister Smriti Irani admitted the issue had been on the boil for four years, her remark that Vemula's death had nothing to do with his caste belies the truth. The Union minister, who accused Vemula of being casteist, belongs to a party that owes its allegiance to a religious outfit, which acts as a political powerhouse and source of inspiration for political bosses. Caste discrimination against backward classes in academic institutions is a monster that has increased inequality. We are good at firefighting, not at taking pre-emptive steps, but there's a need to take a pragmatic approach to end this malice. As lawmakers, people's representatives should get rid of discrimination. Even though we are a secular country mandated to provide equal opportunities to all faiths, we often pay lip service to this principle. R Prabhu Raj Mumbai can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar MargNew Delhi 110 002Fax: (011) 23720201E-mail: letters@bsmail.in Russia has given shattered oil markets their first piece of good news. Moscow on January 27 opened the door to talks with Saudi Arabia, Iran and the rest of Opec (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) for a possible grand bargain to lift the price of crude. Despite a global glut of the commodity, both sides may only have to give an inch on production to restore calm. Up until now, the big players have signalled that they would rather draw on financial reserves to see out the current spell of low oil prices than surrender market share to competitors. But as prices slide towards $20 per barrel, Moscow has decided that it would rather explore a compromise than risk economic catastrophe. Oil futures jumped five per cent after top Russian oil official Nikolai Tokarev, head of oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, broke cover and revealed that the Kremlin may be willing to strike a deal with Saudi Arabia and the other Opec members on oil output. Opec producers, including the cartel's kingpin Saudi Arabia, have also been feeling the pain acutely of lower oil prices and may be willing to finally give some ground. Although no firm date has been set for formal talks, bilateral discussions already have taken place with Qatar playing an active role, sources close to talks have told Breakingviews. But any deal would require Saudi Arabia to make the largest cuts to output in order to rub out the 1.5 -million-barrel-per-day oversupply that the International Energy Agency has warned for the first half of 2016. Riyadh is reluctant to budge much while regional rival Iran is free to raise output by 500,000 bpd. It may not have to: the rumoured nuclear option of lopping around three million bpd off combined production may not be necessary. Market participants reckon a much more modest cut to Opec group output in coordination with Russia would be enough to change the bearish sentiment of oil traders. A small cut of between 500,000 bpd and one million bpd would be achievable without compromising each side's share of the market. It also would end the dangerous game of Russian roulette they're playing with oil. Honduras has registered 1,000 cases of the mosquito-borne Zika virus since December, which has been linked to a rise in birth defects in Brazil, Deputy Health Minister Francis Contreras has said. Although Contreras did not mention any cases of infants born with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads, he did say that an elderly man may have died after contracting the virus. Between January 1 and yesterday, 949 Zika cases were reported, with authorities being alerted to 51 other cases in December, Contreras told reporters yesterday. Health officials have also reported Zika patients developing Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disorder that can cause paralysis or even death. An elderly male patient at the Tegucigalpa University Hospital School died after contracting Zika, Contreras said. "The elderly man had Guillain-Barre syndrome... But we suspect that he had this before he was affected by Zika," Contreras said. Zika causes flu-like symptoms and a rash, and is so mild that it goes undetected in 70 to 80 percent of cases. There is currently no specific treatment for Zika and no way to prevent it other than avoiding mosquito bites. Zika originated in Africa and also exists in Asia and the Pacific, but has not been associated with microcephaly there. It first came to prominence in Brazil in October. Zika has spread to some 20 countries in Latin America and the World Health Organization (WHO) expects it to spread to every country in the Americas except Canada and Chile. The WHO says no definitive link between Zika and fetal brain damage has been proven, but its director general Margaret Chan called the possibility "extremely worrisome. The bodies of thirteen migrants, including eight children, were discovered off the Greek island of Samos today after their boat capsized, the Greek coastguard said. A search was underway for around 20 people listed as missing after the latest tragedy involving migrant boats crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece. There were "five boys and three girls among the victims, while 10 people were recovered unharmed, but in shock," a coastguard spokeswoman told AFP. Initially the coastguard said at least 12 bodies had been found. Despite wintry conditions, thousands of people fleeing war and poverty continue to make the treacherous sea journey to Europe, many paying with their lives. Yesterday, rescuers found the bodies of seven drowned migrants, including two children, after their boat sank off the Greek island of Kos. The European Commission has hit out at overwhelmed Greek authorities, saying in a report published yesterday that Athens had "seriously neglected" its duty to protect the bloc's frontiers. The UN says more than 46,000 people have arrived in Greece so far this year, with 200 people dying during the voyage. For the second time, four witnesses failed to appear before a Pakistani anti-terrorism court to record their statement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack case, prompting an annoyed judge to re-summon them. "Four witnesses - both official and private - were to appear in the Anti-Terrorism Court Islamabad which held its hearing at Adiala Jail Rawalpindi yesterday. But they did not appear and no reason was given to the court in this regard," a court official told PTI today. "They had also not appeared in a previous hearing. The judge expressed his annoyance and re-summoned them for next hearing," the official said. The court adjourned the hearing till Wednesday. Earlier, aprosecution lawyer said that the prosecution would challenge in the Lahore High Court the rejection of its plea by the trial court to form a commission to examine the boat used by Mumbai attackers. "We are going to challenge the trial court's decision to reject our plea regarding formation of a commission to examine the boat - Al-Fauz - used by alleged terrorists of Mumbai attacks in the Lahore High Court," he said. He said the prosecution believes that the boat is "case property" and it needs a government commission to examine and endorsement in this respect. On January 13 hearing, the court dismissed the plea of the prosecution. According to the Federal Investigation Agency, the alleged attackers used three boats includingAl Fauz to reach Mumbai from Karachi. It said the security agencies had also traced the shop and its owner from where the culprits bought the engine and the boat while a bank and a money exchange company were also traced which were used for the transaction of money. The multiple attacks in Mumbai killed 166 people. Pakistani authorities arrested seven Lashkar-e-Taiba members involved in the planning of the attacks including the terrorist group's operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the mastermind of the Mumbai attack. Six accused -- Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younis Anjum -- have been in Adiala Jail for more than six years in connection with planning and executing the Mumbai attack in November, 2008, that left 166 people killed. Lakhvi, 56, secured bail in December, 2014, and was subsequently released from Adiala Jail on April 10, 2015, after the Lahore High Court set aside the government's order to detain him under a public security act. A case has been underway against them in the ATC since 2009 for their alleged role in the Mumbai attacks. The courts are observing an over a month-long summer holidays and only the cases of very important nature will be heard during the vacation period. According to the Federal Investigation Agency, the attackers used three boats, including Al Fauz, to reach Mumbai from Karachi. It said the security agencies had also traced the shop and its owner from where the culprits bought the engine and the boat while a bank and a money exchange company were also traced which were used for the transaction of money. The 10 LeT militants had left Karachi on the boat on November 23, 2008. En route to their destination, they hijacked another boat, killing four of its crew. They forced the vessel's captain to take them close to the Indian shores. The captain was killed when the vessel reached Mumbai's coast. The Mumbai attack case is facing inordinate delay as no proceedings practically have been held for more than three months. The Mumbai case hearing is scheduled to be held once a week. Mumbai attack mastermind Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younis Anjum are accused of abetment to murder, attempted murder, planning and executing the Mumbai attack. Lakhvi is living at an undisclosed location after he got released from jail on bail a year ago. The other six suspects are in Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi. The case has been going on in the country for more than six years. A generation of Christians has been inspired and challenged by James Davison Hunters popular work, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World 1st Edition. Published five years ago, the book promotes a particular approach to cultural engagement (faithful presence) that stirred a wide and rich conversation across Christendom. Its influence continues to endure, whether in stirring individual imaginations or shaping the arc of institutions. To reflect on that influence, The Gospel Coalition recently rounded up a series of essays on the topic, including a range of voices such as Collin Hansen, Al Mohler, Hunter Baker, and Greg Forster. Titled Revisiting Faithful Presence, the collection is available for free as an ebook. The responses vary in praise and critique, uncovering new insights, posing new questions, and exposing lingering cracks and gaps. In doing so, theyve inspired me to once again return to the book myself. Though each offers its own compelling angle, it was Greg Forsters essay (To Love the World) that stuck with me the most, reminding me of some of the key areas I initially wrestled with, particularly Hunters lopsided elevation of common grace and the embedded materialism in his framing of culture. Such gaps are worth noting not only because they exist in To Change the World, of course. Indeed, each represents a frequent tension in our broader discussions on cultural engagement. Demonstrating the nature of that tension, John Seel points out some of his misgivings with the responses, particularly Forsters essay, the basic points of which he struggles to understand or re-state. Seel is no stranger to these discussions and brings a great deal of weight in his own analysis, so I was a bit startled to find the disagreement starting so far from where it appears to (actually) begin. Forster has since responded in kind. On the topic of common grace, for instance, Seel argues that Forster asserts a quasi-Constantinianism that belies common grace, characterizing Forsters position as salvation or nothing. Having read Forsters essay, the rush to these sorts of absolutes is peculiar. As Forster explains in response, there is, behold, a position of tension somewhere in between. Common grace can take us (i.e. culture) to certain distances by itself. But yes, the power of the Holy Spirit we do, in fact, need: There is a middle ground between believing common grace does everything and believing it does nothing, and Constantinianism is not the only model for how the redemptive work of the Holy Spirit can impact a community beyond the bounds of the church. If Seel thinks that what I wrote constitutes Constantinianism (even of the merely quasi variety) he needs to get out more; I look forward to showing Seels characterization of me to Patrick Deneen the next time I find myself debating him. As C. S. Lewis said in another context, if the Patagonians think me a dwarf and the Pygmies a giant, perhaps my stature is in fact fairly unremarkable. I say common grace is not sufficient by itself to do all we need, and Seel claims on this basis that I believe its salvation or nothing. Apparently for Seel it is, culturally speaking, common grace or nothing. Common grace by itself can maintain some level of order and public justice, such as the order of first-century Rome, and this is certainly not nothing. Jesus and Peter and Paul did not think it was nothing when they taught their followers to obey and honor the emperor. But the Romans did not get rid of slavery, or stop carrying unwanted infants out into the forest and leaving them there to die a slow and painful death of starvation, until the Holy Spirit moved through the church to expose the evil of these practices. Common grace may or may not have been enough, culturally speaking, for Philemon; Onesimus needed more. As for Hunters embedded materialism, the confusion continues. Seel acts bewildered at the notion, when, for me, it presented one of the more glaring misses in my initial reading of Hunter. When it comes to politics and the economy, Hunter places these squarely outside of culture, approaching each as spheres doomed to domination by materialistic forces. As Forster argues in his original essay: Hunters analysis of political action is deeply materialistic. Materialism is the view that there is no reality higher than that of material objects and forces, and if Christianity is true any materialistic analysis must be false. But because Hunter has chosen to treat politics as if it were not a part of culture, his description of it cannot avoid materialism. He defines politics solely in terms of coercion; justice may come in, but only superficially. His treatment of economics elsewhere in the book, such as it is, is equally materialistic and therefore equally false. He thinks economics is about money, and the higher meaning of our stewardship and cooperative labor is peripheral. If we cannot agree that politics and economic exchange are ripe spheres for faithful presence, in severe need of a Christian liberty that actually sets the captives free, we are missing something significant. The pursuit of a rightly imagined Christian vision for cultural engagement involves all sorts of struggle and tension. Were bound to disagree at plenty of points. That sort of disagreement is healthy, and its bolstered by the sorts of essays offered by The Gospel Coalitions book: voices that come together to illuminate strengths, weaknesses, and continuing struggles in the church. Forsters essay, along with the many others, offers a mix of celebration and critical engagement. While I wouldnt expect us to find total unity on these matters any time soon, the actual points of departure and disagreement ought not be as muddled as they apparently are. For more, read Hunters book and the TGC response, Revisiting Faithful Presence. Read Seels review and Forsters response. Three college students allegedly involved in murder of an old couple in Matiyana area of Shimla district on the night of January 26 were arrested today. The deceased Amin Ram (72) and Amlo (70) were involved in sale of hashish and the accused, all college students, were under influence of psychotropic drugs (Nitrosun 10) and attacked the couple after some altercation over money deal, Shimla SP D W Negi said. The culprits attacked the couple with axe, sickle and knife and mutilated their bodies beyond recognition as a consequence. The police traced call records from the mobile of the slain couple and tracked the last call that led to the arrest of Nikhil Chandel (21), a sixth semester BBA student. Following his interrogation, Nitin Verma (18), a first year student of Hotel management and Rakshak Khachi (20), a BBA first semester student were arrested. In another case, police arrested a woman, known popularly known as Sirmauri Aunty for selling charas to school and college students and other customers in small quantity. A case under relevant sections of NDPS has been registered, police sources said. At least three policemen were killed today in an attack by unknown gunmen in Pakistan's Quetta city in the restive southwestern Balochistan province, police said. The attackers ambushed a police mobile vehicle on Munir Mengal Road and fled. Police said that two policemen were killed on the spot and two were injured who were rushed to a hospital. "Later one of the injured men died while other is stable," police said. Pakistani Taliban militants have claimed responsibility for the attack which comes after the deadly assault on the Bacha Khan University in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on January 20 that killed at least 21 people. Balochistan has faced persistent separatist and ethnic violence. A suicide bomber attacked a polio center earlier this month in Quetta killing 15 people which included 12 policemen. Three employees of a call centre run by Wipro for UK telecom firm TalkTalk have been arrested over security breach allegations, according to British media. The Kolkata-based workers were arrested earlier this month following a data security review by the London-based firm, which then alerted Indian police. The arrests came months after TalkTalk was hit by a high-profile hacking in October last year when personal details of its customers were compromised. But the company have indicated that the latest arrests in India are not related to last year's data breach. "Following the October 2015 cyber-attack, we have been conducting a forensic review to ensure that all aspects of our security are as robust as possible - including that of our suppliers. Acting on information supplied by TalkTalk, the local police have arrested three individuals who have breached our policies and the terms of our contract with Wipro. We are also reviewing our relationship with Wipro," TalkTalk said in a statement. "We are determined to identify and deal effectively with these issues and we will continue to devote significant resource to keeping our customers' data safe," the phone and broadband service provideradded. of the arrests was first reported on Britain's 'Channel 4 News' last evening. It reported that Indian police had made the arrests over the last fortnight in relation to allegations of theft of customers' data and using it to con them out of thousands of pounds. "Wipro is committed to maintaining the integrity and confidentiality of all customer data and has a zero tolerance policy on securitybreaches," Wipro said in a statement. "Wipro is working closely with the customer in the investigation and will continue to extend its full cooperation to the investigating authorities. We are unable to comment on the matter that is currently under investigation," it added. A three-year-old girl in Nihal Vihar area of west Delhi was sexually assaulted by her 38-year old neighbour who was later arrested, police said today. The incident took place around 11 am yesterday but police received information later in the evening following which the accused was arrested. The girl was playing along with her 9-year-old brother and 11-year-old sister outside her house in Shiv Ram Park Extension in Nihal Vihar area at around 11 am on yesterday when when she was picked by the accused, said a police officer. The accused, who is known to the parents of the victim, took her to his accommodation and locked the door of the room from inside. Later, alerted by the shrieks of the girl, neighbours reached there and forced opened the door, he said. "The accused was found with the girl in a suspicious position. The neighbours thrashed him and called victim's parents who work as labourers," said the officer. Later in the evening police were also informed and the accused was arrested. The girl was admitted to the Sanjay Gandhi hospital where she was visited by the chief of Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) in the morning today. Also, the locals staged a protest in Shiv Ram Park Extension area demanding strict punishment for the accused. "A case under POCSO Act and Section 376 has been registered in the incident and accused Gautam has been arrested," said Pushpendra Kumar, DCP(West). Five people who were infected with the Zika virus while travelling abroad have returned to France since the beginning of the year, the French health ministry has said. "None of the patients presented a severe form of the infection," the ministry said in a statement, without naming the regions where the five had been travelling. The mosquito-borne virus has been linked to serious birth defects, including microcephaly, a condition in which a newborn's brain and skull are abnormally small. Developmental problems often result. The Zika virus is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. The insect can also carry dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. "There is no actual risk of transmission of the Zika virus in mainland (France)," the ministry added. "We are not in a period of activity for the Aedes mosquito, the vector of the virus, which falls between May and November." The World Health Organization (WHO) set an emergency meeting for February 1 on the Zika virus, which it says is spreading "explosively" in the Americas, with three to four million cases expected this year. ALSO READ: All you need to know about the Zika virus France earlier yesterday urged pregnant women not to travel to French overseas territories in South America and the Caribbean, including Martinique and French Guiana where epidemic have been declared. Guadeloupe and Saint Martin have also each reported one confirmed case. The health ministry has said that mainland France would be sending medical staff to Martinique and Guiana in the coming days to evaluate the needs of hospitals and doctors. Activists, academicians, artists and civil society organisations will hold a protest march here on January 30 against alleged "assaults and discrimination" in the country on the basis of caste. "Activists and civil society organisations are coming together to register their concern through a people's march in defence of the Constitution," said social activist Shabnam Hashmi. The march will begin from Mandi House and culminate at Jantar Mantar. "The atmosphere in the country is very disturbed. Students are being assaulted, public at large is facing discrimination on basis of race and caste and there is no one to hold accountable for the situation. We want the government to pay attention to this," said Annie D Raja, Secretary, National Federation of Indian Women. Annie Namala from Wada Na Todo Abhiyan, an NGO, said, "Women are still being targeted, Dalits are still being harassed. How can we claim to be a free country?" Aruna Roy, Prabhat Patnaik, Vrinda Grover, John Dayal, Syeda Hamid are among the prominent people who have signed a statement in support of the 'People's March'. "The alliance of religious fanatics and neo-liberals want nothing less than an overthrow of the state's constitutional commitment to social welfare, affirmative action for women and Dalits and subversion of criminal justice system," the statement said. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) today signed a pact to provide USD 80 million for improvement of urban infrastructure in Agartala and Aizawl. "The Asian Development Bank and the Government of India signed here today an USD 80 million loan agreement to continue improving infrastructure in the two north eastern state capital cities," Finance Ministry said in a release. The loan is the third tranche of a USD 200 million financing facility under the North-Eastern Region Capital Cities Development Investment Program and will be used for investments in water supply, solid waste management and sanitation in Agartala and Aizwal, state capitals of Tripura and Mizoram, respectively. It will also support urban reforms, benefiting nearly a million people in the two cities, the statement said. Previous program tranches have provided assistance to cities like Shillong (Meghalaya), Kohima (Nagaland) and Gangtok (Sikkim). The loan agreement was signed by Raj Kumar, Joint Secretary, Finance Ministry and Teresa Kho, Country Director, ADB's India Resident Mission. Separate sub-project agreements were also signed by state government representatives. The loan has been granted from ADB's ordinary capital resources and carries a 20-year term. The Urban Development Ministry is responsible for implementing the third tranche activities and overall program, which are both due for completion by June 2019, it added. For private sector to fill the remaining gap (3 per cent of GDP), it must increase investment from about USD 63 billion today to as high as USD 250 billion a year over 2016-2020, ADB said. Covering 45 countries under the report, ADB said infrastructure has grown drastically over recent decades. However, a substantial infrastructure gap remains. Over 400 million people in developing Asia still do not have sufficient supply of electricity. Moreover, 300 million have no access to safe drinking water, while about 1.5 billion go without basic sanitation. Many economies in the region lack adequate ports, railways, and roads that could connect them efficiently to larger domestic and global markets. "Private sector is crucial to fill infrastructure gaps, ADB will promote investment friendly policies and regulatory and institutional reforms to develop bankable project pipelines for public-private partnerships," Nakao said. Bharti Airtel and Malaysia-based Axiata Group will be merging their operations in Bangladesh to form the second largest operator in that country. Axiata Group Berhad and Airtel today signed a definitive agreement to merge their respective telecom subsidiaries -- Robi Axiata Ltd and Airtel Bangladesh Ltd -- in Bangladesh, Airtel said in a statement. According to industry sources, the enterprise valuation of the merged entity is estimated to be around USD 2 billion. Upon completion of the merger, Axiata will hold 68.3 per cent controlling stake and Bharti Airtel 25 per cent, while the remaining 6.7 per cent will be held by the existing shareholder NTT Docomo of Japan. The proposed transaction is subject to conditions precedent including receiving applicable approvals from relevant authorities and is expected to complete in the first half of 2016. The agreement follows the September 9, 2015 announcement of both parties entering into an exclusive discussion to explore possibility of combining the business operations in Bangladesh. Post-merger, the combined entity operating as Robi will serve approximately 40 million customers. "The joint strengths of Robi and Airtel will deliver the widest mobile network coverage across Bangladesh, strengthening its position in the mobile internet segment as well as consolidating its position as the second largest operator in the country," the company added. Airtel had entered Bangladesh by acquiring 70 per cent stake in Warid Telecom in 2010, and it picked up the remaining 30 per cent too in 2013. "The highly competitive and crowded Bangladesh telecommunications sector solicits consolidation and we believe this merger will form greater economies of scale for both Groups," Robi CEO Supun Weerasinghe said. The merger will result in improving the cost of operations and business viability that will lead to greater returns to the shareholders resulting in the ability to further invest towards expansion of services. "Axiata's track record of successful strategic mergers and integrations in its other markets such as Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Cambodia further qualifies the Group to lead market consolidation in Bangladesh," Dato' Sri Jamaludin Ibrahim, President and Group CEO of Axiata said. Bharti Airtel MD and CEO (India and South Asia) Gopal Vittal said the combined entity will be well positioned to leverage the operational synergies to serve customers better with world-class services and contribute to the growth of the telecommunications sector in Bangladesh. Al-Jazeera today said that a three-man crew for the Qatar-based channel has been freed more than 10 days after being kidnapped in the flashpoint Yemeni city of Taez. Reporter Hamdi al-Bokari, cameraman Abdulaziz al-Sabri and driver Munir al-Subaie went missing on January 18 while covering the conflict between rebels and Gulf-backed forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. The pan-Arab channel said on its website early morning today that the three had been freed "a short while ago" after having been kidnapped by "unknown gunmen". In a message posted on his Facebook page, Bokari said he had been held by the Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels, under fire since March from a Saudi-led coalition, of which Qatar is a member. "We heard them repeat 'Death to America'," a slogan the Huthis and Iranian protesters commonly chant, he wrote, adding that he would release more details about the kidnapping in the coming days. The city of Taez is held by loyalists of Yemen's internationally recognised government, but it has been besieged by the Iran-backed rebels for months. The Huthis overran Sanaa more than a year ago, forcing Hadi's government to flee the Yemeni capital. Hadi loyalists backed by a Saudi-led coalition have fought back and have been trying to retake Taez province and pave the way towards the rebel-held capital. An alert Pakistani villager today saved lives of many people on a train when he alerted police about a terrorist planting a bomb at a railway track in Punjab province. The incident occurred in Jhelum district when a villager alerted police about a terrorist digging a railway track. The terrorist was allegedly targeting the Rawalpindi to Lahore Pakistan Express and tried to plant explosives on railway tracks near Grand Trunk Road when a villager reported the suspicious individual, police official Zulfiqar Virk said. On seeing the police, the suspect tried to flee but he was surrounded by police and asked to surrender. However, he blew himself up, Virk said. "The dead body was sent to hospital for autopsy and probe launched. Four hand grenades and two pistols, as well as two National Identity Cards and a vehicle were recovered from the terrorist's possession," said Virk. He said timely alert by the villager saved many precious lives as the attempt to plant the bomb was foiled. Pakistan railway had been targeted several times by the militants in recent months. The weekend forecast calls for sunny skies, so you decide to have a picnic in a national park with your family. After finishing your meal you throw away your trash. Your son, however, isnt so careful he leaves behind a few leftover items. As you leave your picnic area, a park ranger asks if you or your family has left trash in the area. You tell him that youve cleaned up after yourself. Youve just committed an arguable federal felony: False Statements to a Federal Official. Any false statement made to a government official even when it is made in conversation and not under oath nor in writing can leave a citizen vulnerable to a false statement charge. That many seem absurd, but as civil rights lawyer Harvey A. Silvergate notes, this hypothetical example has real-life parallels. Overcriminalization and an increase in vague regulations have made most of us unknowing and unintentional felons. This wasnt always the case. Under the common law, criminal intent an intention to commit a crime or violate a law was a necessary element of every crime. Most statutory laws also require criminal intent. However, as William J. Sloan explains, [B]ecause of the complicated nature of modem society, the legislatures of the states have found it necessary, in order to protect the public safety and welfare, to pass laws which make the mere performance of certain prohibited acts, or the failure to perform other commanded acts, unlawful, regardless of the actors intention. These laws, variously defined as police offenses and as public welfare offenses, are justified as a proper exercise of the police power. [] Because of the nature of these offenses, it would be almost impossible to secure conviction if the state were required to prove the criminal intent of persons who violated the law. And yet, in order to protect the public health and safety, it is necessary that violations of these regulations be kept at a minimum. That was the standard when Sloan wrote his law review article . . . in 1942. Since then both state and federal laws and regulations have increased exponentially. Many of us are now committing state and federal feloniessometimes several a weekwithout even realizing we are violating the law. Some states, however, are making it harder to unintentionally break state laws. Last month Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed into law a bill that requires prosecutors unless a law explicitly states otherwise to prove that a defendant intended to commit a crime. Ohio passed a similar law in 2014. These types of mens rea (criminal intent) protections are commonsensical, as the proponents in Michigan realized: It was pretty common sense around here, McBroom told The Daily Signal of the effort he led to reform mens rea in Michigan, which he began at the end of 2014 and saw through until the legislation passed last month. After learning about it, I quickly realized that this word, this mens rea, is exactly describing the problem so many of us have been after. People cant follow or keep up with all these regulatory burdens. [] The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Michigan think tank that advocates for free market policies, reports there are more than 3,100 criminal offenses in state statutes, along with other penalties created by regulatory agencies without legislative approval. Mackinac, which testified in favor of McBrooms bill alongside the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan, says that 26 percent of felonies and 59 percent of misdemeanors in the state lack an adequate mens rea provision, meaning a judge or jury doesnt necessarily need to be convinced that the accused knew they were committing a crime. Without adequate mens rea protections that is, without the requirement that a person know his conduct was wrong or unlawful everyday citizens can be held criminally liable for conduct that no reasonable person would know was wrong. This is not only unfair; it is immoral. No government that purports to safeguard the liberty and the rights of its people should have power to lock individuals up for conduct they didnt know was wrong. Only when a person has acted with a guilty mind is it just, is it ethical, to brand that person a criminal and deprive him of liberty. Since the Roman era a key legal principle has been ignorantia juris non excusat ignorance of the law excuses not. Presumed knowledge of the law is the principle in jurisprudence that one is bound by a law even if one does not know of it. But this principle is undermined when we have so many criminal statutes and regulatory offenses that no one could possibly be aware of them all, much less know when they are committing a crime. Other states should follow the lead of Ohio and Michigan and put protections in place that prevent us citizens from becoming unwitting scofflaws. All police stations in Delhi will have specialised cells in around two more weeks for investigating online fraud whose number is rising, Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi said today. Citing the rising number of cases of online fraud, Bassi said that all police stations will have the specialised cells for investigation of online fraud by mid-February. "Online frauds are rising. By the middle of Feb 2016, all Delhi Police Stations will have specialist electronic/online fraud investigation cells," he wrote on twitter. Delhi Police are also revamping its Cyber Cell which comes under the jurisdiction of its Crime Branch. So far, the Cyber Cell is the only specialised unit which looks into all the cases of online fraud. Punjab Congress Chief Amarinder Singh today challenged Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal to dissolve the Assembly and go for a snap poll if the Akalis were confident about their popularity in the state. A day after announcing the Congress was "boycotting" the Khadoor Sahib bye-poll, Amarinder reacted sharply to Sukhbir's yesterday's comment that they had run away from the field. "I'd be glad if Sukhbir, who is claiming so much popularity, announces a snap poll. I assure him, we'll not disappoint him. We'll contest and defeat him," he said. Punjab's Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal had yesterday said the Congress party "has fled the Khadoor Sahib field out of fear of certain and humiliating defeat". Amarinder however said they boycotted the bye-poll on principles as the issues of sacrilege, on which Congress MLA Ramanjit Singh Sikki resigned necessitating the bye-poll, still remain unresolved. He claimed Congress would have won the bye-poll anyway since people of Khadoor Sahib endorsed Sikki's decision. But retaining one Assembly seat, with a life left for less than a year, is immaterial for us, he said. "Our main concern and priority is to get those responsible for desecration and killing of peaceful protesters, punished, which we will certainly do after forming our government in 2017," Amarinder said in a statement here. The PCC chief also took a dig at the Aam Aadmi Party for accusing Congress had an understanding with the Akalis over boycotting the by-election. "I've only one question for the AAP. If we've an understanding with the Akalis on the matter of principle, why did it (the AAP) not contest itself?" he asked. AAP has decided not to field its candidate as it wants to concentrate on the 2017 Assembly polls in the state. The last date for filing of nominations ended yesterday and ruling Shiromani Akali Dal candidate Ravinder Singh Brahmpura is the only prominent nominee in the fray. After scrutiny today, the last date for withdrawal of nominations is January 30. Counting for the February 13 election will be held on February 16. The seat had fallen vacant after Congress' Ramanjit Singh Sikki had resigned over incidents of sacrilege in his constituency last year. Actor Arjun Kapoor has confirmed that he will be seen in Mohit Suri's next "Half Girlfriend". Earlier this month, broke that Shraddha had been signed to play the female lead in the movie, which is an official adaptation of Chetan Bhagat's novel of the same name. Arjun said he is preparing for his character and will start shooting for the film soon. "I've committed to doing Half Girlfriend. I am prepping for it for the next two and a half months and then start it," Arjun said in an interview. "Half Girlfriend" is a love story of a Bihari boy and an upper society girl. Based on the backdrop of how English defines a class system, it talks about Madhav, who wants a relationship with the high society, urban and English speaking Riya, but the girl is not interested in commitment. Hence she becomes his half girlfriend. The movie is expected to go on floors this year and will be shot in varied locations from Bihar, Delhi to New York. Meanwhile, Arjun is excited as he is set to make his TV debut as the host of the new season of "Khatron Ke Khiladi". "I was very excited when they offered me the show. I did ask them why me.. They said it's a fact that I am young enough to evolve into any format they need me to be. It was very exciting for me that they thought I was mouldable." The actor, however, said his biggest fear was if he could host a show successfully as it is a big challenge. "My biggest fear was will I able to host... I used to fear if I can interact (as a host) but even that isn't there anymore. Hosting is a challenging thing because you have to be yourself. When you are doing a film you masquerade as a character. As a host I am just Arjun Kapoor while staying honest and entertaining at the same time." The reality game show, based on Americas "Fear Factor", was previously hosted by Akshay Kumar, Priyanka Chopra and Rohit Shetty. The 30-year-old "Gunday" star feels Akshay took the show to a next level as he is a true "Khiladi". "The show is internationally renowned for its stunts. With Akshay sir coming in he took it to the next level because he is the true Khiladi. "He makes stunts look easy and beautiful. He has the body language and personality for it... He is not bound by the show. He is already a person known for his stunts." Arjun, who has featured in action movies like "Tevar" and "Gunday", says action on TV has an "emotional thrust". "In films, if you look scared, the director will ask for a retake. In TV, you are not playing a character, you are yourself. Films are designed, have lots of cuts, but here if you're doing a stunt it is survival of the fittest and facing your fear. It has an emotional thrust. The bodies of twelve migrants, including eight children, were discovered off the Greek island of Samos today after their boat capsized, the Greek coastguard said. A search was underway for around 20 people listed as missing after the latest tragedy involving migrant boats crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece. So far, ten survivors have been found. A teenage suspect discussed with a British accomplice packing a kangaroo with explosives before setting it loose on Australian police officers, prosecutors alleged today. Sevdet Ramadan Besim was ordered in the Melbourne Magistrates Court today to stand trial in the Victoria state Supreme Court on charges that he planned an Islamic State group-inspired terrorist attack at a Veterans' Day ceremony that included targeting police officers in April last year. Besim, 19, pleaded not guilty to four charges relating to a plot to attack commemorative services in Melbourne or the neighboring city of Dandenong to mark ANZAC Day, the annual April 25 commemoration of the 1915 Gallipoli landings in Turkey. The campaign was the first major military action fought by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during World War I and hundreds of thousands attend commemoration services around Australia. Besim faces a potential life sentence in prison if convicted. Besim and four alleged conspirators were arrested in Melbourne a week before ANZAC Day. He has been in custody since. Prosecutors alleged in court documents that Besim discussed with a British-based accomplice in online conversations that a kangaroo could be packed with explosives, painted with "the IS symbol" and set loose on police. Besim was also accused of planning to use a car to run over, then behead, a police officer. Besim allegedly said in online communications he was "ready to fight these dogs on there (sic) doorstep." "I'd love to take out some cops," Besim is alleged to have written. "I was gonna meet with them then take some heads." Police allege Besim was motivated by an extremist ideology and had expressed support for terrorist organizations, particularly the Islamic State movement. A British court in October sentenced a 15-year-old boy from Blackburn, northwestern England, for his part in the ANZAC Day plot. In passing sentence in the Manchester Crown Court, Judge John Saunders said the teenager, who can't be named because of his age, would only be released when he was no longer a danger to the public. Saunders handed down a life sentence with no chance of parole for five years. The Barpeta Road - Manas National Park road in lower Assam was blocked today in protest against its "deplorable" condition. The road condition was affecting the movement of tourists to the UNESCO Natural World Heritage site. All Assam Minorities Students Union (AAMSU), All Bodo Minority Students Union (ABMSU), Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP), Gariya Mariya Deshi Jatiya Parishad, Popular Front of India among others protested against "the indifference of PWD to repair the road". The organisations also accused the local MLA of failing to develop the northern part of Barpeta and alleged that he did not stand by the side of the people suffering from erosion and flood. Manas National Park, 176 km from Guwahati, is a project tiger reserve, an elephant reserve and a biosphere reserve known for its rare and endangered endemic wildlife such as rhinos, pygmy hog, hispid hare, the Assam roofed turtle, golden langur and wild water buffalo. Tracking a weak trend overseas and muted demand from consuming industries at domestic spot market, base metal prices fell up to Rs 5 per kg at the non-ferrous metals market today. Traders said sentiment remained bearish on the back of weak global trend as Barclays Plc said it expects Chinese demand to grow at its slowest pace since 1998. Meanwhile, copper for delivery in three-month fell by 0.8 per cent to USD 4,552 per metric tonne on the London Metal Exchange. In the national capital, copper mixed scrap and nickel plate (4x4) declined by Rs 2 and Rs 5 to Rs 343 and Rs 822-827 per kg, respectively. Zing ingots, lead ingot and lead imported were also edged down by Rs 2 each to Rs 94-100, Rs 78 and Rs 84 per kg, respectively. Following are today's metal rates (in Rs per kg): Zinc ingot Rs 94-100, Nickel plate (4x4) Rs 822-827, Gun metal scrap Rs 227, Bell metal scrap Rs 229, Copper mixed scrap Rs 343, Chadri deshi Rs 295. Lead ingot Rs 78, lead imported Rs 84, aluminium ingots Rs 142, aluminium sheet cutting Rs 138, aluminium wire scrap Rs 138 and aluminium utensils scrap Rs 136. Kishore Biyani's food firm Future Consumer Enterprise Ltd (FCEL) today said it has raised over Rs 300 crore from Private Equity fund Black River. "The company has entered into an investment agreement with Black River Food 2 Pte. Ltd dated January 25, 2016, for the proposed issue of compulsorily convertible debentures (CCDs) and equity shares to Black River," Future Consumer Enterprise said in a BSE filing. "Black River has agreed to subscribe to CCDs and equity shares proposed to be issued by the company for an aggregate amount of Rs 301.50 crore ($45 million)," it added. In December, Future Consumer had said it plans to raise around Rs 368 crore from promoters and PE fund Black River Food 2 Pte Ltd to finance expansion and business initiatives. Besides, the move will help improve costs and maturity profile of existing debt. Black River will have right to nominate one director on the Board of Directors of the company. FCEL is an integrated food company with operations that range from sourcing of basic food items such as (rice, wheat, spices and pulses) grading, processing, packaging and turning these and more categories (dairy and bakery, juices, frozen foods, snacks, ready to eat meals, dips and sauces) into brand. Brazil urged its neighbours to unite in fighting the Zika virus, blamed for a surge in brain-damaged babies, as airlines offered refunds to pregnant mothers afraid to travel to the region. As alarm rose over the latest world health scare, US President Barack Obama called for faster research on the quick-moving virus, which has infected travellers from the United States and Europe. Brazil has been the country hardest hit by the outbreak of the mosquito-borne virus, which is blamed for a sharp rise in infants born with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads. The outbreak is particularly concerning officials as the country prepares to host the Olympics, which will bring hundreds of thousands of travellers from around the world to Rio de Janeiro in August. Zika has spread to some 20 countries in Latin America and the World Health Organisation (WHO) expects it to spread to every country in the Americas except Canada and Chile. Denmark and Switzerland joined a growing number of European countries to report Zika infections among travellers returning from Latin America. There is currently no specific treatment for Zika and no way to prevent it other than avoiding mosquito bites. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said yesterday she had asked a summit of the 33-member Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to launch "cooperative action in the fight against the Zika virus." An American Airlines spokesman said the company was offering refunds to pregnant women with flights booked to Brazil and 10 other countries and territories affected by the virus. Another US airline, Delta, said some its passengers may also qualify for a refund or a change to their tickets. Zika originated in Africa and also exists in Asia and the Pacific, but has not been associated with microcephaly there. It first came to prominence in Brazil in October. Microcephaly can cause brain damage or death in babies. In Brazil, cases of microcephaly have surged from 163 a year on average to more than 3,718 suspected cases since the outbreak, according to the health ministry. Sixty-eight of the babies have died. Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador and Jamaica have warned women to avoid getting pregnant for the time being. Costa Rica said yesterday it was introducing health questionnaires for travellers entering the country to detect possible carriers of the virus. A new Pew Research Center survey examines how voters feel about the religiosity of presidential candidates. Here are seven figures you should know from the report: 1. More than half of Americans (51 percent) say they would be less likely to vote for a presidential candidate who does not believe in God. (This is down from 63 percent in 2007.) 2. About half of U.S. adults say its very important (27 percent) or somewhat important (24 percent) for a president to share their religious perspective. This view is particularly common among Republicans, among whom roughly two-thirds say its at least somewhat important to them that the president share their religious beliefs. 3. Relatively few Republicans think Trump is a particularly religious person. Overall, 44 percent of Republicans and those who lean toward the Republican Party say Trump is a very religious (5 percent) or somewhat religious (39 percent) person, while 47 percent say he is not too religious or not at all religious. By contrast, fully eight-in-ten Republicans say Ben Carson is a religious person, three-quarters view Ted Cruz as a religious person, and seven-in-ten say the same about Marco Rubio. 4. More people view Clinton as very or somewhat religious than say the same about Sanders. This is true among both the public as a whole (48 percent vs. 40 percent) and those who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party (65 percent vs. 47 percent). 5. Fully half of religiously unaffiliated registered voters (51 percent) think Sanders would be a successful president, while four-in-ten (42 percent) think Clinton would be a good or great president. Among black Protestant voters, about six-in-ten (62 percent) think Clinton will be a good or a great president, while 36 percent say this about Sanders. Among both groups (religious nones and black Protestants), just 15 percent or fewer think any of the Republican candidates would be good presidents. 6. Within their own party, more people in their own party than the opposing party view presidential candidates as religious. The biggest partisan gap is about Hillary Clinton: two-thirds of Democrats say she is very or somewhat religious, while two-thirds of Republicans say she is not too or not at all religious. 7. Half of Americans (51 percent) believe religious conservatives have too much control over the GOP, and more than four-in-ten (44 percent) think that liberals who are not religious have too much control over the Democratic Party. The British government said today that "good progress" was being made on a vast project to construct the nation's first nuclear power plant in decades. In October, French energy giant EDF signed a historic deal with China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) to build a new plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset, southwest England, with construction costs totalling USD 25.8 billion. British Prime Minister David Cameron had announced the gigantic nuclear project to coincide with Chinese President Xi Jinping's business-themed state visit to Britain in October. "Good progress continues to be made so that Hinkley can provide clean, affordable and secure energy that hardworking families and businesses can rely on now and in the future," said a spokesperson for the government's Department of Energy and Climate Change. EDF agreed in October to construct two European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs), a third-generation nuclear reactor design, at the Hinkley Point C plant. However on Wednesday, the EDF board took no final investment decision on whether to go ahead with the plan, amid media speculation that the project could be delayed. Cameron's spokesman said today that a further announcement on Hinkley Point was expected "shortly" and noted that discussions "are still ongoing". Troubled Central African Republic said today it will hold a deferred presidential runoff alongside a new legislative vote on February 14. The presidential run-off, originally due to be held on Sunday but delayed due to organisational problems, will see two former premiers -- Anicet Georges Dologuele and Faustin Archange Touadera -- compete for election. A presidential decree said a December 30 legislative election annulled due to irregularities will be held along with the runoff on February 14. The elections have been widely seen as turning a page on the worst sectarian violence in the traditionally unstable and dirt poor nation. Dologuele won 23.74 percent of the vote in the first round on December 30, trailed by Touadera, who picked up 19.05 percent. Dologuele, a 58-year-old former central banker, came to be known as "Mr Clean" after his attempts to bring transparency to murky public finances during his time as premier. Touadera, also 58, is a former maths professor who served as prime minister under disgraced ousted president Francois Bozize. He was considered an outsider among the 30 candidates running for the top job. The announcement comes after the country's top court on Monday annulled last month's first-round legislative vote over "irregularities", but said the second round of the presidential poll could go ahead. There were more than 1,000 candidates in the legislative election. Nearly two million people were eligible to vote in the polls, seen as the way out of more than two years of sectarian bloodshed that has forced about one in 10 of the nation's 4.9 million people to flee their homes. The violence set mainly Muslim rebels against vigilantes from the Christian majority, with civilians the main victims. Canada rejected US security concerns over its fast-tracked resettlement of thousands of Syrian refugees, as the Senate in Washington prepares to hold a hearing on the repercussions for America. "We have put in place layers of security activity to ensure that our refugee initiative with respect to Syria can be successful," Canadian public safety minister Ralph Goodale told parliament yesterday. "The program is working well and indeed it will resolve in something that Canadians can be very, very proud of," he added in response to questions about why the Ottawa government declined an invitation to appear before the US Senate hearing. The US congressional panel is meeting next Wednesday to consider "Canada's Fast-Track Refugee Plan: Unanswered Questions and Implications for US National Security." It is scheduled to hear from a Toronto immigration lawyer who has criticised Canada's Syrian refugee plan, calling it unrealistic, border officials and . Goodale said US officials have been fully briefed on Canada's refugee resettlement "and they understand exactly the layers of security screening that are in place," including UN assessments of asylum seekers, collection of biometrics and checks against security databases. A spokeswoman for Canada's foreign affairs minister added, "We have emphasised and will continue to emphasise the integrity and robustness of our approach to the selection and screening of the Syrian refugees under consideration." Canada's new Liberal government pledged to take in 25,000 Syrian refugees -- more than double the US intake -- by the end of February. Its initial plan was to bring them to Canada by the end of 2015, but that was pushed back in response to criticism that the government was moving too fast, amid security concerns in the aftermath of deadly attacks in Paris, as well as due to logistical issues. A Canadian arrested in China two years ago on suspicion of stealing state secrets has been charged. The Canadian government confirmed yesterday Kevin Garratt has been indicted. China's official Xinhua Agency Xinhua said Garratt has been charged in Dandong city, Liaoning Province, which neighbours North Korea. The agency reported Chinese authorities found evidence which implicates Garratt in accepting tasks from Canadian espionage agencies to gather intelligence in China. Garratt and his wife, Julie, were arrested in August 2014 by the state security bureau. Francois Lasalle, a spokesman for Canada's Global Affairs department, said Canada finds the indictment of Garratt concerning. "The Government of Canada has raised this case with the Chinese Government at high levels," Lasalle said. He said Canadians consular officials are providing assistance to Kevin and Julia Garratt and they remain in contact with Chinese authorities and the family. He declined further comment. Simeon Garret has said his parents ran a coffee shop and did Christian aid work for North Koreans and said there must have been a mistake. The couple had worked with North Star Aid, whose website said the British Columbia-registered charity seeks to help North Koreans primarily through providing humanitarian aid. Simeon Garratt has said his parents made no secret of their faith but did not flaunt it in China, where proselytizing is against the law. He has said they worked on getting school supplies, cooking oil and food into North Korea. The coffee shop, Peter's Coffee House, is located within sight of the Friendship Bridge linking China to North Korea. It was known for its North American cuisine and attracted a mix of tourists, students and locals. The accusations against the couple came about a week after Canada accused a China-sponsored hacker of infiltrating Canada's National Research Council, the country's top research and development organisation. China's Foreign Ministry had expressed strong displeasure over the allegation, urging Canada to withdraw the "groundless" accusation. Lesbian romance "Carol," transgender drama "The Danish Girl," music series "Empire" and comedy "Master of None" are among the films and shows that have nabbed nominations for the 2016 GLAAD Media Awards. The nods also include the wide release pics "Dope," "Freeheld" and "Grandma." Outstanding film nominations also went out to five movies in limited release, including "Tangerine," which follows two transgender prostitutes, reported Variety. The GLAAD Media Awards honour television, film and journalism that accurately, fairly and inclusively represents the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. The LGBT advocacy group announced 101 nominees in 20 English-language categories and 46 nominees in 11 Spanish-language categories. On the TV side, the drama series nominees are "Arrow," "Black Sails," "Empire," "The Fosters," "Orphan Black," "Sens8," "Shameless," and "Grey's Anatomy," "How to Get Away With Murder" and "Nashville." In comedy, GLAAD nominated "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," "Faking It," "Looking," "Modern Family," "Transparent," "Vicious," "Please Like Me," "Grace and Frankie," "Master of None" and "Orange Is the New Black." "How to Get Away With Murder" and "Transparent" won the TV prizes last year. Reality programs up for an award are "I Am Cait," "I Am Jazz," "New Girls on the Block," "The Prancing Elites Project" and "Transcendent." The five nominees for outstanding music artist include Miley Cyrus and Adam Lambert, as well as Ricky Martin in a Spanish-language category. TV, newspaper, magazine and digital journalism honorees were also announced. "For nearly three decades, the GLAAD Media Awards have propelled inclusion in media and driven LGBT acceptance forward," said GLAAD CEO and President Sarah Kate Ellis. "This year's nominees have raised the bar for creating thoughtful and diverse LGBT images and storylines, deepening audiences' understanding of LGBT people and accelerating acceptance across the world." The 27th annual GLAAD Media Awards will be held in Los Angeles on April 2 at the Beverly Hilton, and in New York City on May 14 at the Waldorf Astoria New York. Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett is poised to make her long-awaited Broadway debut in acclaimed drama "The Present". Following a sold-out run in Australia last summer, "The Present", adapted by Blanchett's playwright husband Andrew Upton from Anton Chekhov's first play, "Platonov", will have a limited engagement on the Great White Way later this year, reported Guardian online. Blanchett, 46, originated her performance at the Sydney Theatre Company, where Upton serves as the artistic director. Also joining her from the Australian production is actor Richard Roxburgh, who appeared alongside the "Carol" star in the 2012 Sydney Theatre Company production of "Chekhov's Uncle Vanya", also adapted by Upton, at the New York City Center. "The Present" is set in the mid-1990s at a country house, where friends gather to celebrate the birthday of a widow, played by Blanchett. One of the most prominent guests is the sarcastic and witty Platonov (Roxburgh). The Broadway production of "The Present" will be directed by "Brooklyn" filmmaker John Crowley. CBI has started questioning gangster Chhota Rajan in Tihar prison in connection with journalist Jyotirmoy Dey murder case. The sources said the agency team today reached Tihar Jail where Rajan is lodged after being deported from Indonesia and started questioning him after completing necessary formalities. They said Rajan's questioning in the case is likely to continue for some days. A special MCOCA court in Mumbai has granted the CBI permission to interrogate Rajan in the case. Special Judge A L Pansare had allowed the CBI to question 54-year-old Rajan for 10 days starting January 27 before adjourning the case till February 5. The murder of crime and investigation editor of MidDay is one of the prominent cases in which Rajan's hand is suspected. The 56-year-old Dey was shot dead by motorcycle-borne shooters in June 2011, allegedly at the behest of Rajan. Four persons on two motorcycles fired at least four to five rounds at Dey, who was also riding a bike, from behind near Spectra Building at D Mart in Hiranandani area of Powai in Mumbai. Police had said Rajan, who was upset with two articles written by Dey that purportedly portrayed him in "bad light", is suspected to have ordered his elimination. In 2012, police had filed charge sheet against journalist Jigna Vora in the case. According to the 3,055-page charge sheet, Vora allegedly instigated Rajan to execute Dey owing to professional rivalry. Mumbai Police had filed charge sheet against Chhota Rajan and his aide Nayan Singh Bisht, shown as absconding, Rohee Thangappan Joseph alias Satish Kalya, Abhijeet Shinde, Arun Dake, Sachin Gaikwad, Anil Waghmode, Nilesh Shendge, Mangesh Agawane, Vinod Asrani, Paulson Joseph and Deepak Sisodia under Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) in 2011. Rajan is facing around 70 cases in Maharashtra, including the one related to the murder of Dey. Maharashtra government has handed over all the cases against him to the CBI. Government is likely to come out with its recommendations as well as assessment of losses due to floods in Tamil Nadu within a fortnight as a central team constituted for the purpose has submitted its report, a Parliamentary panel was told today. Briefing the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs chaired by Congress MP from Rajya Sabha P Bhattacharya on the issue, Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi informed that the eight-member inter-ministerial team deputed by the Centre to assess the flood damage in Tamil Nadu has given its report, which is being examined, the sources said. They said that the Home Secretary told the panel the government is likely to come out with its assessment of losses and measures to deal with it within a fortnight as the Parliamentary committee urged the Centre to give liberal assistance to the rain-ravaged state. The eight-member team, led by Joint Secretary in the Union Home Ministry T V S N Prasad, had met Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa after touring the state. The Chief Minister asked them to make an "in-depth assessment" and submit its report to the Union Home Ministry "expeditiously". Jyalalithaa, who has demanded a Central assistance of Rs 25,912 crore, had told the visiting team that the requirement of funds for relief and restoration of infrastructure "are well beyond the resources available with the state". Following the disaster that claimed about 280 lives, the state government submitted a demand for Rs 25,912 crore. The team had earlier also visited the state and made an assessment of damage last year. Besides Chennai, Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur, Cuddalore, Tirunelveli and Tuticorin districts had bore the brunt of the torrential rains during the North East monsoon last year. The panel meeting in which representatives from Home Ministry, Finance Ministry, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and Tamil Nadu government briefed members about the flash flood and the steps taken in the aftermath, members raised a number of questions on the government's preparedness to meet such a crisis and about the quantum of central assistance. The members also wanted the Centre to do more in situations saying Centre cannot abdicate its responsibility during such massive disasters. In the last meeting of the panel on December 18, the Home Secretary had to face the ire of members for leaving the panel's deliberations midway with two TMC MPs even walking out of the committee's meeting, resulting in its postponement. Following this, chairman of the panel and Congress MP from Rajya Sabha P Bhattacharya called Mehrishi again and advised him not to do so in future. In the 31-member panel, the BJP has 13 members, Congress 4, BJD 2, Trinamool Congress 2, AIADMK 3, CPI-M, CPI, SP, TRS, TDP, Shiromani Akali Dal and Shiv Sena one each. NDA members have majority in the panel. Software firm CFCL Technologies, a US-based subsidiary of Chambal Fertilisers and Chemicals, today signed a pact to sell part of its BPO business for about Rs 88 crore. Of the existing subsidiaries of CFCL Technologies, ISGN Corp and ISG Novasoft Technologies today entered into an agreement to sale, said Chambal Fertilisers in a BSE filing. ISGN Corp has entered into a stock purchase agreement to sell and transfer its entire shareholding in its wholly-owned subsidiary ISGN Solutions to the US-based firm Firstsource Group for USD 12.56 million (about Rs 85 crore). ISG Novasoft Tech has entered into a slump sale agreement to sell and dispose off part of its BPO business to Bangalore -based firm Firstsource Process Management Services for Rs 3 crore, the filing said. On January 21, Chambar Fertilisers's Board had approved CFCL Technologies to sell and dispose off the business it is carrying through its subsidiaries and step down subsidiaries. CFCL Tech provides information technology solutions, outsourcing and other services through its subsidiaries. Former Minister of State for Coal Santosh Bagrodia today opposed a plea before a special court by businessman Manoj Kumar Jayaswal, an accused in three coal scam cases, seeking joint trial in the matters pending against him. The counsel appearing for Bagrodia, an accused in a coal scam case along with Jayaswal, Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Darda and others, told the court that he opposed the clubbing of the three cases. The lawyer told Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar that he will not file a written reply on Jayaswal's plea and argue orally. Besides Bagrodia, retired public servant L S Janoti also opposed Jayaswal's plea and his counsel said he would advance oral arguments on it. However, other accused, including former Coal Secretary H C Gupta who is also an accused in these three cases, supported the plea, saying they had no objection if the proceedings in these cases were clubbed. The court has now fixed the matter for arguments on the plea seeking joint trial in three cases for February 10. The court had earlier issued notices and sought responses of all the accused, who are facing prosecution in these three cases, on Jayaswal's plea. Jayaswal is accused in three cases pertaining to alleged irregularities in allocation of coal blocks to AMR Iron and Steel Private Limited, JLD Yavatmal Energy Private Limited and JAS Infrastructure and Power Limited, which is now known as Jas Infrastructure Capital Private Limited (JICPL). In his application, filed through advocate Vijay Aggarwal, he has sought joint trial in these cases saying the FIRs were "closely knit" and the alleged offences pertained to the same transaction. Aggarwal had earlier told the court that all the three cases were at the stage of arguments on framing of charges and if these matters are heard separately, it would be a time- taking process. In the AMR Iron and Steel Pvt Ltd case, Bagrodia, Vijay Darda, his son Devendra Darda are accused along with others. The Dardas are also accused with Jayaswal in JLD Yavatmal's case, while ex-Coal Secretary H C Gupta is facing prosecution in all these three cases. During earlier hearing, Jayaswal's lawyer had told the court the three firms AMR, JICPL and JLD, and the Dardas had no objection to his plea seeking joint trial in these cases. In his plea seeking joint trial, Jayaswal said his defence in the three cases was the same and if these matters are not tried jointly, then it would prejudice him. The AMR's case pertains to the alleged irregularities in allocation of Bander coal block in Maharashtra to the firm while JLD's case relates to allocation of Fatehpur (East) coal block in Chhattisgarh. JAS was allotted Mahuagarhi coal block in Jharkhand. All the accused in the three cases were earlier granted bail by the court and the matters were fixed for commencement of arguments on framing of charges. Where's the Coverage? Israeli Women Being Murdered by Terrorists | Main | Where's the Coverage? Palestinian Official Praises Hitler, Says Goal of 2 States is Elimination of Israel January 28, 2016 Before Huge Diaa Hadid Correction, Signs of Bias Recently on Twitter, we shared a pithy summary of the broader context to the massive Editors' Note The New York Times had to append to Diaa Hadid's hit piece on Jerusalem evictions. Our readers who don't use Twitter might not have seen it, so here it is: We also shared this graphic showing some of the hostile comments Hadid made before being hired by the New York Times: There have been a number of corrections over the past year to inaccurate or misleading reporting by Hadid that consistently skewed against Israel. And the corrections hardly tell the whole story. There are plenty of other examples of bad reporting to be found, including Hadid's description of a Palestinian stoning attack that led to the death of a Jewish driver as an "accident," and her absurd reference to the assailants stoning not the driver, but merely pelting "the road he was driving on." In another article, Hadid interviewed two witnesses to an security incident in Hebron. One of the witnesses claimed a Palestinian shot by security forces was not carrying a knife. According to Hadid's account, the second witness did not say otherwise. But that same second witness actually admitted, in a conversation with another organization, to seeing a knife. Hadid failed to get, or failed to share, this essential information from the witness. Posted by GI at January 28, 2016 09:21 AM Guidelines for posting This is a moderated blog. We will not post comments that include racism, bigotry, threats, or factually inaccurate material. Post a comment Congress today dismissed demands for the resignation of Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy in the wake of a vigilance court ordering registration of an FIR against him and Power Minister Arayadan Mohammed in the solar scam. "It is election time in Kerala, mischievous and malicious allegations will continue to fly... No need for the Kerala Chief Minister to resign now," Congress chief spokesman Randeep Surjewala told reporters. In reply to a volley of questions, he made a spirited defence of Chandy insisting that already a judicial commission has been set up on the issue and the chief minister has subjected himself to the inquiry, undergoing a day-long interrogation. Claiming that there has been "no wrongdoing by the chief minister or any other minister", he said that the party was "open to conduct of any inquiry". "Not a rupee of benefit was given by the Congress government in Kerala to any member of so called solar team. Not a rupee of loss has been cost, proved, even alleged as having been caused to exchequer of Kerala," Surjewala said. Noting that the party would like to await the report of the judicial commission which was set up after consultations with the Opposition, he said that the finding of the Commission "will be acceptable to us". "Congress party is of the opinion that there is no need for Kerala CM Oommen Chandy to resign at this stage. Chandy will discuss issues with all coalition partners as also with his colleagues,leaders of the Cong party," Surjewala said. Besides, he said a detailed report will also be submitted to Congress party leadership in this regard. He said that all legal recourse will be sought to deal with the issue. Seeking to cast doubts on the charges made by prime accused Saritha S Nair, Surjewala said that she had claimed in the past that Chandy was "like my father" and that she was offered Rs 10 crore by Opposition if she levels false allegations against him. Besides, he said in the past, she had not raised a "single question" against the chief minister. The AICC reaction came within hours of the party's coalition government in Kerala suffering a a major embarrassment with the order of the vigilance court. Rattling the government, the prime accused had yesterday targeted Chandy and Arayadan while deposing before the Justice Sivarajan Commission in Kochi, probing the case, and had alleged that she had paid bribes to the tune of Rs 1.90 crore to a close aide of the chief minister and Rs 40 lakh to the power minister. The two ministers have denied the allegations. (Reopens DEL 78) Surjewala said that terms of reference of the Commission were based on all the sets of allegations leveled on the floor of the assembly as also by the Opposition outside the Assembly. The chief minister and all the ministers of the coalition government have "respected" the proceedings of the judicial commission so much so that chief minister himself submitted willingly and answered questions put by both the Left parties as also by counsels for all the accused in solar scam for hours together. All Congress legislators in Punjab assembly today endorsed the party's decision to boycott the Khadoor Sahab assembly bypoll. In a joint statement, all legislators, including Congress Legislative Party leader Charanjit Singh Channi, senior vice president Lal Singh, former CLP leader Sunil Jakhar and vice chairman of the PPCC campaign committee Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, supported the "right decision" of the party to boycott the February 13 Khadoor Sahib bye-election. "All the sitting Congress legislators in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha today supported the boycott of the Khadoor Sahab assembly bye-election decided by the party yesterday," a statement issued on behalf of PCC chief Amarinder Singh said. "Since the issue of desecration and killing of peaceful and innocent protestors by the police, in protest against which our colleague Ramanjit Singh Sikki resigned, continues to remain unresolved, there is no point in contesting the election," they said as per the statement. It quoted them as saying further that "contesting the bye-election when the issues remain unresolved would have defeated the very purpose of resignation for which it was submitted". The boycott decision has been criticised by senior party leader Jagmeet Singh Brar, who accused PCC chief Amarinder Singh of taking the call "unilaterally" without consulting senior party leaders. He had yesterday termed the decision a "blunder" and accused Amarinder of "playing fraud". "I wonder, if AmbikaJee, Bhattal, Lal singh, Jakhar, Channi, Bajwa were consulted before Amarinder unilaterally boycotted Khadoor Sahib bypoll," Brar said today. Criticising the decision of party MLAs endorsing the move, he said that "by getting 20 signatures of 2015 model Congress leaders, turn coats, another self goal, self defeating, foolish move. Attacking Amarinder, Brar tweeted, "I have not spoken against High command, nor floated Jat Mahasabha, never said, I don't recognise PCC President. Truth is bitter." He was taking a dig at Amarinder for having formed the Jat Mahasabha when he was ousted as Punjab Congress President after losing the assembly polls to Akalis. "Khadoor Sahib Sonia Gandhi approves Congress candidate, we run away from contest. Humongous fraud, betrayal, Amarinder backstabs again," Brar said. Rajinder Kaur Bhattal has issued a separate statement already supporting the party decision to boycott the by-election, a party statement said. Brar also said "we must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. This mindset kills democracy." Continuing his attack on Amarinder, he said, "His excellency, Never criticise anybody until you have walked a mile in his shoes. My life struggle, your power. Congress MLA Siddarth was today booked for allegedly kidnapping a 20-year-old woman here, police said. Abhay Singh, a resident of Sonkukra village, complained that the Congress MLA from Bikram constituency here, this morning kidnapped his daughter from their village, Superintendent of Police (East) Dhrut Saayli told PTI. On the basis of the complaint, an FIR has been registered under section 363 (punishment for kidnapping) of the IPC at Masaurhi police station, the SP said, adding the matter is being investigated. The MLA did not respond to calls on his mobile phone. A contractor allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself with his licenced weapon following a heated arguement with his wife over his drinking habit in the wee hours today at Shiv Vihar area of north east Delhi. Police said that Harendra Singh was a supplier of building construction material. At around 1.30 am today, he returned home in an inebriated condition which led to a heated argument him and his wife. Harender later locked himself in his room. After some time, the family members heard a gunshot and broke open the door to find him in a pool of blood. He was taken to a nearby hospital with a gunshot injury in his head where doctors declared him brought dead. Police reached the hospital after receiving information and sent the body for autopsy. "No suicide note was recovered from the spot where Harender committed suicide. A licenced pistol was found although," added a police officer. Copper futures traded 0.36% lower at Rs 315.45 today on speculators reducing their positions amid weak global cues. At Multi Commodity Exchange, copper for delivery in far-month April fell Rs 1.15, or 0.36%, at Rs 315.45 per kg, in a business turnover of 31 lots. Similarly, the metal for delivery in February was down Re one, or 0.32%, at Rs 311.25 per kg in 1,386 lots. Analysts attributed the fall in copper futures to weak cues from global market as Barclays Plc said it expects Chinese demand to grow at its slowest pace since 1998. Meanwhile, copper used in power infrastructure and home appliances, retreated from three-week highs by dropping 0.8% to $4,552 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange. A Paris court today ordered rock legend Eric Clapton to hand over USD 16,400 to the family of a painter for modifying a picture used on the cover of a collector's edition of the iconic album "Layla". Clapton, one of Britain's most influential musicians in recent decades, was taken to court by the family of French-Danish artist Emile Frandsen, who died in 1969. They accused Clapton of using an altered version of Frandsen's painting as part of a collector's edition in 2011, the 40th anniversary of the album's initial release by the musician's band Derek and the Dominos, the court sentence read. The cover of the anniversary edition featured a new three-dimensional, cardboard pop-up version of the original work named "La Jeune Fille au Bouquet" (Young Girl with Bouquet), which the painter's son had given to Clapton in 1970. "It's a clear distortion of Emile Frandsen's work," the court said. The original had been used on the album cover of "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs" several months later. The court meanwhile struck down the family's demands for compensation over the musician's use of the painting on the original cover. Antoine Gitton, the lawyer for Frandsen's daughter, said she would appeal the decision. He said she believes the court should punish Clapton more severely for using the painting in the first place without the artist's consent. "Layla" is one of Clapton's signature songs, along with other hits such as "I Shot the Sheriff" and "Tears in Heaven." The 70-year-old was named by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the greatest musicians of all times in 2004. DCW chief Swati Maliwal today expressed dismay over Lt Governor Najeeb Jung deciding against chairing the high-level coordination committee on women safety and asked why was he shirking the responsibility. "LG wrote to me dat he wont chair committee on women safety in Delhi. Instead he wants Del Govt Chief Secretary to chair it. Shocking. "LG is head of Police. How wil Chief Secretary who has no control over Police ensure safety of women? Y shirk from this imp responsibility?(sic) Maliwal tweeted. In a letter to Jung, Maliwal said: "Thousands of women that live under the shadow of fear come to the DCW for help. In some cases, the Delhi Police has done a commendable job but in many, it has not cooperated with them, thereby exposing the systemic issues that must be tackled. Therefore, your leadership for the Coordination Committee becomes extremely crucial." "As the administrative head of Delhi Police, only you can ensure the accountability of Delhi Police," she said. She also said the minutes of the high-level committee meeting headed by Jung on November 10 have not yet reached her office till date. Maliwal rued that since the inception of the committee three years ago, only one committee meeting has been conducted. She also pointed out that "no Thana-level committee, which is extremely important for the provision of women's safety at the ground level, have been constituted in Delhi". "In addition, the DCW had written a letter to the Delhi Government to increase the compensation for rape victims and acid attack victims under the Victim Compensation Scheme 2011, from Rs 3 to Rs 7 lakhs, which was subsequently approved by the Delhi Government. However, this scheme is yet to be notified," she said. The 14th edition of Mumbai International Festival for Documentary, Short and Animation Films (MIFF 2016) was inaugurated by the Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore here today. Veteran film-maker Shyam Benegal was also present. Speaking on the occasion, Rathore said, "Digital technology has ushered in a new era in film making and is greatly contributing to the documentary film movement." The Government would consider making one of the Doordarshan Channels, perhaps DD Bharati, a platform to promote documentary films, he added. "It is heartening to note that our film makers, despite great financial hurdles, have gone ahead and made excellent films, displaying a mature approach while dealing with social and economic issues. Such films should not remain unseen," he said. The minister asserted that the Government has no interest in curbing the creativity of film makers. Chief Minister Fadnavis in his speech announced that the state government was ready to allot land in the Film City here for a national institute of animation and short films. MIFF brand ambassador Jackie Shroff said, "Documentary films are close to my heart, I want to make a documentary film tracing my mother's journey from Turkmenistan to India." Veteran wildlife film maker Naresh Bedi was honoured with V Shantaram Life Time Achievement Award on this occasion. It comprises a trophy, shawl and cash prize of Rs 5 lakh. Bedi, an FTII graduate, is the first Asian to receive the prestigious Wildscreen Red Panda award. His films have been shown'on National Geographic, Discovery Channel, BBC, etc. His film 'Cherub of the Mist' is the opening film of MIFF. Delhi Police is looking into a complaint regarding Kerala solar panel scam seeking probe into prime accused Saritha S Nair's claims that she gave Rs 1.1 crore to a close aide of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. "We have a received a complaint at Chandni Chowk police station today and are looking into it. No FIR has been registered in this regard yet," said DCP(north) Madhur Verma. Deposing before the Justice Sivarajan Commission probing the alleged scam in Kochi, Nair yesterday alleged that she had given Rs 1.10 crore to the close aide of Chandy in Chandni Chowk in New Delhi. "I handed over Rs 1.10 crore to Kuruvilla at the parking ground of a shopping mall in Chandni Chowk," she told the Commission. A 45-year-old doctor was today killed and five other doctors were injured when the vehicle carrying them collided with a bus near Kalpi on Ambala-Jagadhari road here, police said. Dr Rajesh Pandey, Head of the biology department of a private medical college, died on the spot in the mishap, they said. Another doctor, Harpreet Singh (43), sustained serious injuries and was referred to PGIMER, Chandigarh, while the remaining were admitted to a hospital here, police added. Before Huge Diaa Hadid Correction, Signs of Bias | Main | Iranian Leader Marks Holocaust Remembrance Day with Denial Video January 28, 2016 Where's the Coverage? Palestinian Official Praises Hitler, Says Goal of 2 States is Elimination of Israel Tawfiq Tirawi, a senior Fatah official and former intelligence chief of the Palestinian Authority, this month defended Hitler's morals and praised him as brave, and asserted that a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with Jerusalem as its capital would be "just a phase" toward eliminating Israel. The Guardian's Peter Beaumont and Reuters' Luke Baker decided it was important to publish about some offensive statements made by an Israeli who, while over a decade ago had been an aid to Benjamin Netanyahu, is currently working in the private sector. But not about the much more outrageous statements by Tirawi, who is still today a high-ranking member of Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party. Why not? Where's the coverage? Posted by GI at January 28, 2016 04:42 PM Guidelines for posting This is a moderated blog. We will not post comments that include racism, bigotry, threats, or factually inaccurate material. Post a comment The son of a RJD MLA and a police official allegedly thrashed two doctors in separate incidents in Gaya and Madhepura following which the medical fraternity in the state today observed a strike in Madhepura. In Gaya, son of RJD MLA from Aatri Kunti Devi allegedly thrashed doctor of a Primary Health Centre at Neemchak Bathani in Gaya district yesterday. As per complaint registered by the victim doctor Satyendra Kumar Sinha, the MLA's son Ranjit Yadav and his accomplices allegedly asked the doctor to show them the attendance register of employees and when it was not shown to them, they severely beat the doctor hurling furniture at him. The victim is undergoing treatment at a government hospital in Gaya. Officer in-charge of Kotwali police station Nihar Bhusan where FIR has been registered against Ranjit Yadav said search is on for the absconding MLA's son. Secretary of Gaya unit of Indian Medical Association (IMA) Bihar chapter Umesh Verma said a meeting of doctors has been called this evening to decide going on strike if the MLA's son is not arrested. Ranjit Yadav has been earlier booked in 2012 in connection with killing of a JD(U) district level leader Sumrit Yadav. In another incident at Madhepura, an officer in-charge of a police outpost allegedly beat up a doctor of an Additional Primary Health Centre (APHC) for arriving late for unfurling of flag on Republic Day at the APHC yesterday. Officer in-charge of Belari out post Krityanand Paswan joined the agitated public over delayed arrival of the doctor Shrawan Kumar Yadav for hoisting of flag yesterday and mercilessly beat him up. The victim doctor is undergoing treatment at Sadar hospital. The Officer in-charge of the outpost has been suspended by Madhepura Superintendent of Police Kumar Ashish. The accused is absconding. Domestic airlines have bolstered measures to deal with unruly passengers on board aircraft following a recent spate of such incidents. Aviation regulator DGCA had in November, 2014, mandated the airlines to apply restraining devices to tackle an unruly passenger when all conciliatory approaches had been exhausted, including verbal communication. It had also asked the carriers to properly train their flight and cabin crew as well as ground staff to handle such cases. "We at IndiGo carry a restraint device on all our domestic flights. IndiGo complies with the government guidelines and we have a standard operating procedure (restricted) to restrain passengers only when all the conciliatory approaches have been exhausted," IndiGo said. This has been incorporated in IndiGo's safety and emergency procedure manual, it said. IndiGo also said that prior to employing the restraining technique, a very useful industry-developed procedure is used by it for determining the seriousness of an unruly or assaultive-passenger incident, and the responses thereby warranted. It said the procedure pertains to a four-tiered scheme of threat levels. IndiGo had last week offloaded 70 passengers from a Raipur -bound flight from Hyderabad alleging "unruly behaviour". The passengers have in turn filed a police complaint alleging "harassment" by the airline's staff. Global airlines body International Air Transport Association (IATA) has on several occasions expressed concern over the rising number of cases of unruly passengers reported by airlines. Airlines from around the world had announced they would work jointly to devise steps for checking the menace at the 70th IATA Annual General Meeting in Doha in 2014, which had also adopted a resolution calling on governments and the industry to work together on a balanced package of measures to address the problem of unruly air-passenger behaviour. "SpiceJet has been following the DGCA guidelines, including on keeping restraint devices to deal with unruly passengers on board since 2014 itself," an airline official said. According to the DGCA guidelines issued on November 18, 2014, unruly behaviour could be the result of unsatisfactory service/condition or effect of a series of such events that build up. "Airline staff should observe early signs of potential unruly behaviour. Airlines shall focus and act on these early signs rather than dealing exclusively with escalated events. At no stage, the airline staff/crew member shall show discourteous behaviour during redressal of genuine passenger (grievances)," it said. Besides, crew members must attempt to defuse a critical situation until it becomes clear that there is no way to resolve the same through verbal communication and written notice to passenger, the guidelines state, adding that "restraining devices should be used when all conciliatory approaches have been exhausted". An Egyptian F-16 fighter jet has crashed during a military exercise at an undisclosed location in the country, killing two pilots. "An F-16 aircraft has crashed during an exercise, killing the crew," the army said in a statement, which did not give the location of the incident. Reports said that two military pilots were killed after the aircraft crashed in Ismailia city. Egypt's well-equipped military was boosted by recent deliveries of F-16 warplanes by Washington and Rafale fighter jets from France. Last year in November, an Egyptian military helicopter crashed due to a technical error. The crew suffered injuries in the crash. The helicopter was engaged in routine scouting when the technical error occurred. Essar Oil UK, which owns and operates the Stanlow refinery, today reported nearly four-fold jump in its December quarter net profit as it entered the UK's fuel retail market with opening of first Essar branded service station. Net profit of USD 35 million in October-December was 285 per cent higher than USD 9.1 million profit in the same period a year ago, the company said in a statement issued here. Revenue was, however, 38 per cent lower at USD 1.09 billion due to lower oil prices. In the nine months to December 31, 2015, Stanlow, which produces about 15 per cent of the UK's road transport fuel demand, processed 6.77 million tonnes of crude oil, a 7 per cent increase on the previous year's 6.35 million tonnes. Gross revenues for the period stood at USD 4.04 billion, a 35 per cent drop from the USD 6.25 billion in the same period a year ago, largely due to the lower crude oil price which fell 52 per cent year on year average, it said. Net profit in April-December was its highest ever at USD 179 million, against USD 35.3 million in FY15. The company reported its best ever current price hydrocarbon margin at USD 10.1 per barrel, a 20 per cent increase from the USD 8.4 in FY15, primarily due to refinery reconfiguration and improved benchmark margins. "Stanlow again saw the benefits of operating as an optimised single train site, which has increased the yield of high margin products such as gasoline and middle distillates and also reduced production of lower margin products such as fuel oil and naphtha," the statement said. Essar said it entered the UK retail market, with opening of service stations at three sites - Coalville in Leicestershire, Walkden in Manchester and Middleton in Lancashire. Essar Oil UK Executive Chairman Naresh Nayyar said, "This is a strong performance which reflected the many margin improvement projects undertaken by Essar at Stanlow." "We are seeing the benefits of running as a single train optimised site, with robust operational delivery enabling us to take advantage of a supportive market environment. We continue to focus on further widening our crude slate to capture additional value, which has recently seen the processing of high pour point grades," he said. The company, he said, is looking forward to add more retail outlets over the next few years. Essar Oil UK Chief Financial Officer Sampath P said: "Our EBITDA and PAT are both record figures for a nine month period since Essar acquired Stanlow in 2011 and have been supported by strong product cracks. "The business is in a healthy financial position, with no long term debt and ongoing margin improvement plans in place to deliver an even stronger bottom line. The European Union could investigate the USD 186 million deal for back taxes struck between Britain and Google, after furious opposition lawmakers suggested the Internet company should have paid more. EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager told the BBC today it was too soon to say whether a probe would be launched. She said the EU "will take a look" if appropriate concerns are brought to her attention. "If we find there is something to be concerned about, if someone writes to us and says this is maybe not as it should be, then we will take a look," Vestager said. The Scottish National Party asked for such an investigation on Wednesday, with deputy party leader Stewart Hosie arguing that the public was skeptical about the settlement. "Considering the lack of transparency in the settlement reached between HMRC (the U.K. Tax and customs authority) and Google, and the growing concerns of an opaque methodology having been employed, it is my view that an independent verification of this settlement would establish confidence that the settlement is within the boundaries of state aid regulations and is a fair deal for the taxpayers of the United Kingdom," he wrote. Vestager's spokesman, Ricardo Cardoso, said later that "we will look into it and then decide where to move from there." Writing in the Financial Times, Google's vice president of communications, Peter Barron, insisted the company paid tax at the standard corporate rate of 20 percent. "Governments make tax law, the tax authorities independently enforce the law, and Google complies with the law," he wrote. The anger of lawmakers has been stoked by reports that France and Italy were in talks to squeeze more out of the company. In Italy, the financial police confirmed reports today that Google was under investigation for allegedly avoiding up to around 300 million euros (USD 326 million) in taxes. Italian daily La Repubblica reported that the investigation stems from Google activities in Italy from 2008-2013, when Google allegedly declared its fiscal headquarters in Ireland. Italy has brought several cases against global technology companies that have headquarters in low-tax nations like Ireland to avoid paying higher taxes in other countries, like Italy. In December, Apple agreed to pay Italy 318 million euros in back taxes covering the same time period now contested against Google. A former Allahabad High Court judge Ashok Kumar Roopanwal was appointed by the Centre to probe circumstances leading to suicide of dalit scholar of Hyderabad Central University(HCU) even as its teachers went on a hunger strike today backing the protesting students. The appointment of the judge to head the one-man Judicial Commission was announced at a time when the Joint Action Committee for Social Justice spearheading the agitation over Rohith Vemula's suicide on January 17 said that students would intensify the "struggle" till all their demands are met. Senior Union Human Resources Development(HRD) ministry officials said in Delhi that Justice (retd) Roopanwal will review the entire sequence of events, the circumstances and to establish facts and correctives in the context of the incident in an university. The Commission has been asked to submit its report within 3 months, it is learnt. Earlier, a Fact Finding Committee constituted by the HRD Ministry had submitted its report on the events in the University after which it was decided that Judicial Commission will be set up to look into the matter. In Hyderabad, three teachers of the HCU sat on a one-day hunger strike demanding that Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao Podile be removed and in-charge VC Vipin Srivastava step down, in order to resume academic and administrative activities. The protest by teachers came a day after a second batch of students on an indefinite fast demanding justice for Vemula were shifted to hospital following concerns over their health condition. A teacher from the Osmania University also joined the protesting teachers in the fast on HCU campus under the banner of SC/ST Teachers' Forum and other concerned teachers. Earlier, a group of seven students had also been taken to hospital following their deteriorating health condition. The agitating students yesterday refused to hold talks with Srivastava, who came to the protest site. They alleged that Srivastava was equally responsible for the "wrong affairs" and demanded that he step down from the responsibility of interim VC. The demands of the Joint Action Committee for Social Justice include Podile's resignation, and also Srivastava's from the post of in-charge VC, "sacking" of HRD Minister Smriti Irani, employment to a family member of Rohith and Rs 50 lakh compensation to his family. The selection of Srivastava as interim VC was earlier opposed by the students and SC/ST staff forums as they claimed he headed the Executive Council sub-committee whose decisions were "responsible for the death of Rohith" and that he was one of the accused in the death of another Dalit student in 2008. Students of most universities in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana yesterday boycotted classes in solidarity with the agitators as they sought "justice" for Rohith. (REOPENS DEL52) An HRD Ministry official said the one-man Judicial Commission would look into whether the UGC guidelines for grievance redressal were implemented. A day after he was expelled from AIADMK for "going against" its principles, Harbour constituency MLA Pala Karuppiah today said he was resigning his assembly membership. "I wholeheartedly accept the decision of party chief Amma (Chief Minister Jayalalithaa)," Karuppiah told reporters here adding since was removed from the party's basic membership he was resigning his membership of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly. "I have sent my resignation papers (to the Assembly Secretariat)," he said. He acknowledged that it was due to "Amma, the party and its workers he could win the election and become an MLA representing the Harbour constituency (Chennai)." Karuppiah said he still has respect for Jayalalithaa. "She is a talented person," he said. He, however, made several criticisms and allegations against the ruling regime including alleged corruption charges. In an interview in a Tamil magazine "Ananda Vikatan", he had strongly hit out at the State government alleging corruption. He, however, had not said anything against Jayalalithaa or made any reference to her. On previous occasions too he had criticised the government. Earlier this month, in the anniversary function of Tamil weekly "Thuglak" here he had criticised the Ministers of the AIADMK regime. Yesterday, Jayalalithaa said Karuppiah was removed from all posts including primary membership for "going against party principles and bringing disrepute to it. An elderly farmer was hacked to death while his house was set ablaze by unidentified persons in Sahatwar area, police said here today. Nand Kishore Yadav (65) was hacked to death by a sharp weapon while he was sleeping in a field in Rajauni village last night, they said, adding that his house was also set ablaze. Superintendent of Police Aneer Ansari said the motive behind the murder was not clear but they are probing the matter. He said that the farmer's body has been sent for post-mortem. Fighting between army troops and extremist militants in the restive northeastern part of the Sinai Peninsula killed four children and wounded eight other minors today, Egyptian medical officials said. The Rafah hospital said in a statement that the children were killed and wounded during clashes using heavy weapons, with some buried under rubble when buildings were hit and collapsed. The fighting took place close to the border with the Palestinian Gaza Strip. Egypt has been hit with a wave of suicide bombings and militant attacks that intensified after the military's ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in 2013. The local Islamic State affiliate has claimed responsibility for most of the attacks. Earlier today, IS claimed responsibility for the roadside bombing of an army convoy in northern Sinai yesterday that killed at least four soldiers. In a statement distributed by IS sympathizers on social media, the militant group said that it had killed and wounded more than 20 soldiers, including senior officers, during the attack. The Associated Press could not independently verify the claim, but its design and logo resembled previous IS claims. Egyptian security and health officials had said the attack, just south of the coastal city of el-Arish, killed an army colonel and three soldiers and wounded another 12 soldiers, several of whom were in a critical condition. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Yesterday, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in its annual report that militant attacks across Egypt had increased dramatically in 2015, despite Egypt's commitment of additional security forces. "The government claimed that the army killed thousands of 'terrorists' in the Sinai but allowed no independent observers into the conflict area, and residents said the army had killed an unknown number of civilians," it said in the report. Egypt received three Rafale fighters from France today, the military said, six months after Paris delivered the first three of a consignment of 24 of the warplanes. The delivery is part of a 5.2 billion-euro (USD 5.6 billion) deal Cairo signed with Paris in February 2015 to purchase 24 Rafale multi-role combat jets, a frigate and missiles. "Egyptian armed forces have received the second batch of three Rafale fighter jets," the country's military spokesman said on his Facebook page. The sale of Rafales to Egypt was the first such export order for French manufacturer Dassault Aviation. In July, France also delivered a 6,000-tonne multi-mission frigate to Cairo as Egypt seeks to boost its military capability in the face of instability in Libya and a jihadist insurgency in its Sinai Peninsula. In October, the two countries signed another contract to buy two French Mistral warships, whose sale to Russia was cancelled by Paris because of the Ukraine crisis. France today asked pregnant women not to travel to French overseas territories in South America and the Caribbean where the mosquito-borne Zika virus has led to a rise in birth defects. "This is a serious epidemic (that) can have neurological effects and complications for pregnant women and birth defects for their baby," Health Minister Marisol Touraine said on France Info radio. "So I want to very strongly urge women planning to go to Martinique, French Guiana or the overseas territories that, if they are pregnant... They postpone their trip." Touraine announced mainland France would be sending medical staff to Martinique, a French island in the Caribbean, in the coming days to evaluate the needs of hospitals and doctors. The Zika virus is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. The insect can also carry dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. Zika was first reported in Africa, Asia and the Pacific before leaping to the Americas, where it has been linked to a jump in the number of babies born with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads, particularly in Brazil. Zika has spread to some 20 countries in Latin America. The World Health Organization (WHO) expects it to reach every country in the Americas except Canada and Chile. A small number of European tourists have been diagnosed with the disease upon their return from Central or South America. Around 20 schools in France and Britain were placed on bomb alert today following another round of telephone threats, the second in a week. Police were sent to secure five of the most prestigious schools in Paris after bomb threats were phoned in, and British police said they were probing threats at 14 schools in central England believed to be "false and malicious." "At this stage there is nothing to suggest there is any credible threat to any of the schools," said Detective Inspector Colin Mattinson of the West Midlands police, the force that covers the city of Birmingham. British media said four schools in London had been evacuated, although this was not confirmed. The threats come two days after six Paris schools and 14 in Britain were evacuated on Tuesday following hoax bomb threats. Those threats were claimed by a Twitter account calling itself the Evacuation Squad, with a profile picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The account featured previous messages in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "We are 6 individuals based internationally," reads the profile blurb, advertising its services to call in bomb threats. The account has since been suspended. French carmaker Peugeot will return to Iran in a partnership deal with a local manufacturer worth 400 million euros (USD 436 million), according to an agreement signed today during Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's visit to France. The deal will see Peugeot work with the manufacturer Iran Khodro, with the first vehicles expected to roll off the production line in 2017. It makes Peugeot the first Western carmaker to announce a return to Iran since sanctions were lifted against the country after it signed a deal to limit its nuclear programme. Peugeot and its French partner Citroen will work with Iran Khodro to produce 200,000 vehicles a year using parts manufactured in Iran. The aim is to produce the Peugeot 208, the 2008 sport utility vehicle and 301 compact models. Peugeot pulled out of Iran in 2012 as Western sanctions imposed over the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme began to bite. At the time, Iran was Peugeot's second-largest market after France. With the lifting of the sanctions, Iran has signed a raft of commercial deals and Rouhani is also expected to tie up an agreement to buy more than 100 passenger jets during his two-day visit to France. Nicolas Sarkozy's lawyers are asking France's highest court to throw out evidence obtained through wiretaps of phone conversations between the former French president and his main lawyer. It is one of several legal cases in which Sarkozy's name has appeared, but the most potentially damaging to his political future. He's expected to seek the conservative nomination to run for president again next year. Sarkozy is under preliminary charges for active corruption and influence-peddling based on information gleaned from the phone taps in 2013-2014. His lawyers have said they were carried out in breach of a lawyer-client privilege. A lower court ruled the phone taps didn't break any laws, and Sarkozy appealed. The Cour de cassation is hearing the case Thursday and will rule at a later date. A Frenchman, his Filipina wife and their four-year-old son were found dead inside a pickup truck on the popular Philippine tourist island of Palawan, police said today. The French embassy in Manila told AFP it was in contact with the local authorities over the death of Jean Marc Messina, 54, his wife and their son, but the cause of death had yet to be confirmed. The bodies of Messina, his 25-year-old wife Jewelyn Venturillo, and their son Guiliano, 4, were found Wednesday in a pickup truck on a street in Narra, a small town of 65,000 people on Palawan, Filipino police said. "A local teacher called up the police about the pickup. We sent a team to the area and they discovered the bodies inside," Palawan provincial police spokesman Inspector Ric Ramos said. Ramos and the Narra police both told AFP the bodies had been sent to the police laboratory for autopsy and the cause of death was being investigated. Ramos said the family lived in Puerto Princesa, the provincial capital about 70 kilometres northeast of Narra. Locals told police the truck had been parked in the area for several days before the discovery of the bodies, he added. Many Westerners live on Palawan, one of the country's major tourist draws and famed for its wildlife, white-sand beaches, scuba diving sites and archaeological sites. Camille Conde, press attache of the French embassy in Manila, said the local authorities notified its consul over the deaths. "We're still figuring out what happened to the family," Conde told AFP. The government is hopeful of resolving today issues related to stuck highway projects worth Rs 40,000 crore, and in case some problems still persist then the PMO and the Finance Ministry will look for "out of the box" solution, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said today. As many as 19 projects entailing a capital investment of Rs 40,000 crore are stuck for long and "we are expecting a solution tonight...", Road Transport and Highways Minister Gadkari said. Addressing the media after jointly chairing a meeting of bankers and developers of these stuck projects with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Gadkari said the government has already terminated 41 projects. As many as 384 projects were stuck for the last 10 years due to various issues such as land acquisition, forest and environment clearances, railway over-bridge problems, utility shifting, litigations, delayed decisions and financial problems, he said adding that his government has "terminated 41 projects and solved problems related to all these projects barring 19". Gadkari said the government had decided that "under no circumstances any project should be pending before January 31" and I expect the problems to be solved before night". These projects include key national highways in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and West Bengal. The stuck projects belong to players like Larsen & Toubro, HCC, Gammon, Madhucon, Soma and Essel Infra, among others, while the list of lenders includes top names like State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank and Bank of India. "There are only 19 projects where no solution could be found out. Secretary, bankers and contractors sat today. Under no circumstances any project should be pending. Out of the box solution will be arrived at by the Finance Ministry and PMO if any issue remains unresolved today," Gadkari said. "If meeting is going to solve the problems we don't need a committee but we will recommend to the Cabinet that a Committee is needed under the Finance Minister, which comprises Finance Secretary and Highways Secretary for out of the box decisions," he said adding problems pertaining to five or six projects have already been solved. He said that in case a committee is formed it will take decisions regarding assistance to projects by NHAI since at present the NHAI can provide aid to only those projects where 50 per cent work is completed. Seeking bankers and developers cooperation to translate "highways building into a success story", Gadkari said atmosphere is positive and the Ministry will launch a website for cooperation, coordination and communication where bankers and developers could post their problems, to be reviewed by Highways Secretary personally. Gadkari said Finance Minister Jaitley's presence in the meeting has instilled confidence among the bankers and now the projects would be fast-tracked. Earlier, running out of patience for stalemate over these 19 projects, the government already has warned non-serious developers and bankers of terminating these contracts. A top official last month had said that the government was "reaching a stage of impatience" over the stalled projects. "The concessionaires and bankers are not realising that we are reaching a stage of impatience, and people who are users of these roads are not going to be waiting any more," the then Road Transport and Highways Secretary Vijay Chhibber had said. "If developers and bankers fail to mend their ways and initiate correctives to roll out projects by January-end, the government will start terminating contracts in PPP mode and repackage them," he had said before his retirement. The government recently "offered a full package", which among other steps extends the concession period of projects where delays are not attributable to developers. He said the daily road construction average has reached 18 km a day from 2 km a day and the government was committed to achieve the target of 30 km a day by March. "We are trying to build up a capacity to construct 100 km of roads a day. We want to build more than 10,000 km of roads in a year. This is difficult but not impossible. This is not a commitment but a target," Gadkari said. He said the government has taken a number of steps to reduce cost of construction and improve its quality including building of concrete roads for which 95 lakh tonne cement has already been booked for three years. Besides, construction standards will be upgraded to the standards of the UK and the US and a report by a committee was expected soon in this regard. He said massive employment will be generated as the government has so far awarded projects worth Rs 1.5 lakh crore and as per a World Bank study 800 people get employment on award of projects worth Rs 1 crore. Also, construction equipment makers have reported sales increase of 15 per cent in last two months which also is a positive indication, he said adding that road sector will contribute at least 2 per cent to India's GDP. The Chief Electoral Office of Goa has proposed that the State Legislative Assembly elections can be held from December 11 to 18 as the current term gets over in March next year. "We have submitted the proposal listing December 11-18 as the dates to hold the election. It is for the Election Commission of India to approve the proposal," said a senior official from Goa CEO office. The current legislative assembly with 40 members was formed in March, 2012. Goa CEO has suggested that the assembly elections can be held along with four other states- Manipur, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. Goa dates are recommended considering Christmas holidays and examinations of college and schools in January and March, coming year. The ECI has already reviewed the electoral roll for the state which has 10,84,271 eligible voters. The term of current assembly is getting over on March 3, 2017 before which fresh elections will have to be held. The 2012 election saw BJP winning a handsome majority. The BJP had won total 21 seats while MGP had gained three, GoaVikas Party (GVP) two legislators, Congress nine members and five independents. The government is pushing Coal India to liquidate about 40 million tonnes of unsold coal piling up at pitheads of mines. "Coal India is unable to sell more coal. Evacuation of coal is a problem as we are unable to stock further. I have talked to Coal India chairman and discussed how to liquidate the coal stock," Union Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal said here. "I have said get this coal out so that production does not fall," he said at a function organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce. The Minister indicated that he would not mind if price of pithead coal was reduced to liquidate the stock, but added that he does not want to intervene in the pricing decision of CIL. Goyal did not revise the coal production target of 1.5 billion tonnes by 2020. Of this, CIL is expected to produce one billion tonnes, but production may be affected if there is lacklustre demand of coal from the industry. The minister said he was able to reduce stress in the power sector by resolving issues facing thermal power plants with 30,000 MW capacity. Goyal said that government was working on structural and fundamental changes in the economy. Speaking about the cancelled fourth round of coal mines auction, the Minister said he would wait till market sentiments revived. Regarding the power sector, he said the 'Uday' scheme will solve the problems facing state discoms. He said the ministry was exploring ways to extend the benefits of 'Uday' to states which are unable to unbundle their utilities. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had verbally assured him that the state would join the scheme, he added. Appealing youths in Pune, Goyal said being an intellectual city, entrepreneurship and technology hub and epicentre of education, Pune has the potential to become thefirst city to go 100 per cent cashless by adopting e-payments options. "I was speaking to youths today and an idea came into the mind that why we should not form an action committee for digital payments and set up a target of 15 days to go about the transformation. "Through this action committee, youths can reach out to the society and arrange camps and help small traders, merchants, small time vendors and shop keepers to adopt digital payment options which are available in the market and lead towards the first 100 per cent cashless city," he added. The government is expected to impose anti-dumping duty of up to 44.7 per cent on imports of certain kinds of plastic processing machines from four countries, including Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. The move is aimed at protecting the domestic industry from cheap in-bound shipments from these countries. The Directorate General of Anti-dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD) during its investigation has concluded that the 'Plastic Processing Machines or Injection Moulding Machines' are entering the Indian market from these countries at "dumped prices" and performance of the domestic industry has deteriorated due to that. The injury suffered by the domestic industry is significant and material, DGAD said in a notification. "Accordingly, anti-dumping duty as a percentage of the landed value of the goods... Is recommended to be imposed on all imports of the products originating in or exported from these four nations for a period of five years," it added. The restrictive duty recommended was in the range of 6.06 per cent to 44.74 per cent. While DGAD recommends the duty, the Finance Ministry imposes it. The Plastics Machinery Manufacturers Association of India, along with its members including Toshiba Machine (Chennai), Ferromatik Milacron India and Windsor Machines, had filed the application for the investigation. Countries start anti-dumping probes to determine whether their domestic industries have been hurt because of a surge in cheap imports. As a counter-measure, they impose duties under the multilateral regime of WTO. The duty is aimed at ensuring fair trading practices and creating a level-playing field for domestic producers vis-a-vis foreign producers and exporters. India has already imposed an anti-dumping duty on several products to tackle cheap imports from countries, including China. The government has received subscription for 2,790 kg gold amounting to Rs 726 crore under the second tranche of sovereign gold bond scheme, three times more than what it had received earlier. "Second tranche of Gold Bond Scheme: About 3.16 lakh applications for 2,790 kgs gold involving subscription of Rs 726 crore received," Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das tweeted. The first tranche of the scheme, which was launched in November, had received a subscription for 915.95 kg of gold worth Rs 246 crore. As many as 62,169 applications had come for the first tranche. "Second tranche of Gold Bonds: Outcome significantly better than first tranche. Scheme picking up," Das said in another tweet. The second tranche of gold bond scheme, which opened for subscription on January 18, closed on January 22. The bonds would be alloted on February 8. The gold bonds are issued in denominations of 5 grams, 10 grams, 50 grams and 100 grams for a term of 5-7 years with a rate of interest to be calculated on the value of the metal at the time of investment. The scheme has an annual cap of 500 grams per person. In order to hard sell gold bonds, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had earlier this month asked banks to make their best efforts to reach out to potential investors to invest in the second tranche of sovereign gold bonds. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on November 5 launched gold schemes to wean investors away from physical gold. India imports about 1,000 tonnes of gold every year and the precious metal is the second-highest constituent of the import bill after crude oil. The scheme is aimed at reducing demand for gold in physical form by encouraging people to buy the commodity in demat or the paper form. During April-December this fiscal, gold imports increased to USD 26.45 billion as against USD 25.85 billion in the same period last year. (Reopens DEL20) The government has fixed the rate of interest on gold bonds for the year 2015-16 as 2.75 per cent per annum, payable on half yearly basis. The Finance Ministry, in a statement, said the top 10 receiving agencies in terms of subscription amount are SBI, Indian Bank, Syndicate Bank, ICICI Bank, Bank of India, Punjab and Sind Bank, Andhra Bank, Canara Bank, PNB, and Central Bank of India. "The trend during the second tranche of gold bonds shows that the scheme is gradually picking up amongst the investors with increase in awareness and more clarity about the provisions of the scheme," the statement added. To increase the awareness amongst potential depositors about the scheme, the government had also launched the media campaign through AIR, FM radio, print, Mobile SMS, Facebook and Twitter. "The objective of the scheme is to reduce the demand for physical gold and shift a part of the domestic savings used for purchase of gold into financial savings," it added. The statement added the actual amount garnered through the scheme may vary as comprehensive information from all the authorised receiving agencies is under compilation. The Madras High Court today allowed 24 students, detained by police, to attend the funeral of one of the three girl students, who committed suicide last week in Villupuram, upon furnishing their respective addresses and undertaking not to indulge in any form of protest. They shall peacefully attend the funeral and disperse, a division bench comprising Justice S Nagamuthu and Justice C T Selvam said in its order on a habeas corpus petition by one M Ramu, a fellow student of the 24 detained. The Additional Public Prosecutor submitted that the persons detained were members of Revolutionary Students Youth Federation (RSYF) an organization frequently engaging in acts allegedly detrimental to public law and order. On information that they intended to gather unlawfully at the place of conduct of second post-mortem of the three girls and indulge in acts of solganeering against the state, the 24 persons were taken into custody this morning. He further submitted that they refused to furnish their addresses and that the intent of the police in detaining them was only to avoid any untoward incident. They would be released immediately after the funeral, he added. Counsel for the petitioner said all 24 of them intended only to attend the funeral and would conduct themselves in a peaceful manner. He further submitted that they would furnish their addresses to the concerned police authorities. Recording the undertaking and the affidavit filed by the detenues, the bench allowed them to participate in the funeral of Monisha. The three girl students of SVS Medical College of Yoga and Naturopathy at Villupuram committed suicide by jumping into a farm well after 'harassment' by the management demanding 'exorbitant' fees, triggering protests. The Delhi High Court today dismissed a plea of AAP leader Somnath Bharti seeking contempt action against the police officials for not filing their reply before a trial court in a case of alleged molestation of some African women during his purported midnight raid in 2014. A bench comprising Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath held that a single judge of the court has correctly dismissed Bharti's plea seeking contempt action against police officials. "The petition is dismissed as it is not maintainable," the bench said. Appearing for Bharti, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani argued that the trial court in its order dated October 27, 2014, after noticing thirteen defects in the probe conducted in the case, had directed Delhi Police to file a reply on the plea for further investigation in the case. He said that till now the police despite direction from the trial court has not filed its reply on the plea which was moved by Bharti. On December 17, 2015, a bench of a single judge of the high court had dismissed Bharti's plea seeking action against the cops, saying the act of not filing the reply by the police officers does not constitute civil contempt. On October 27, 2014, Bharti, a former Delhi Law Minister, had claimed bias in the probe against him and had sought further investigation into the matter. The trial court had then sought a reply from the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) and the SHO of Malviya Nagar Police Station within a month on Bharti's plea seeking a further probe in the case. Delhi Police had filed a final report against Bharti and 17 other accused. They have been chargesheeted for various offences under the IPC, including sections 354 (outraging women's modesty), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 147 (rioting). The police, in its charge sheet, has said, "Nine African women were victims of molestation and manhandling by a mob led by the then law minister Somnath Bharti." The police had arrayed 41 persons as prosecution witnesses in the case, including nine Ugandan women who were allegedly beaten up and molested by the mob led by Bharti on the intervening night of January 15-16, 2014. The Madras High Court today issued notice to the censor board on a petition seeking to remove "incriminating" dialogues and some scenes against washermen community in Pandiaraj-directed Tamil film "Kathakali". Justice K Ravichanra Babu ordered notice to the CEO of the Central Board of Film Certification among others, seeking their reply within a week. Petitioner K P Manibaba of Tamilnadu Vannar Peravai, a body of washermen, claimed some dialogues in the film were against his community, which was already an oppressed community, and caused mental stress to them. He sought court direction to remove the dialogues and scenes that were critical of the washermen community. Holding Odisha government "vicariously" liable for the June 2012 custodial death of Kuldeep Mohapatra of Bhubaneswar, the Orissa High Court today ordered the government to pay damages of Rs five lakh to the youth's family. Based on the reports submitted by CBI and a local magisterial inquiry, Justice B R Sarangi ordered the compensation to be paid to the youth's father within four months. Kuldeep's father Rabindranath Mohapatra had approached the HC demanding damages of Rs 20 lakh. He had alleged that Kuldeep was picked up by Saheed Nagar police on charges of extorting money from public posing as a police officer and was declared dead at the Capital Hospital following custodial torture. Police had, however, denied the allegations saying the people had thrashed him mercilessly before police rescued him. Following Kuldeep's death, Odisha government had ordered a magisterial inquiry into it. But the HC on a prayer by the father in August 2014 had ordered CBI's Superintendent in Bhubaneswar to submit a report to it after conducting an independent inquiry into the incident. Both CBI as well as magisterial inquiries held Saheed Nagar police of Bhubaneswar responsible for the untimely death of the 27-year-old man. Two policemen of the police station had been suspended after the youth's death because instead of shifting the injured Kuldeep to hospital immediately, the policemen had detained him inside the police station for long and allegedly tortured him. The Madras High Court today declined to interfere with a notice issued by Tamil Nadu School Education Department directing film star Rajinikanth, his wife and the Principal of a school run by the actor to appear in person in a lease matter related to the educational institution. Disposing of a petition by Vandana Tugnait, Principal of Ashram Matriculation Higher Secondary School, challenging the January 16 last notice, Justice M M Sundresh said that instead of approaching the court the school could have put forth its case before the concerned official. The notice was issued by the Joint Director of School Education Department to the three asking them to appear in person for an inquiry after the school, being run on a leased land in the city, was unable to furnish the lease deed for a period of 30 years for renewal of permission to run it. The land owner had in 2011 filed a civil suit for eviction after a dispute over rent paid by the school and the matter is pending in a court. Though Rajinikanth and his wife Latha were also called for their personal appearance, they have not challenged the notice and only the principal filed the petition. On its part, the school has moved the high court seeking processing of its application for renewal of its approval without insisting on the 30-year lease deed from the land owner and this is also pending. Refusing to grant stay as sought by the petitioner, the Judge said "there is no material available before this court to hold that there is lack of jurisdiction of the Joint Director. The school can very well put forth its case before the joint director instead of approaching this court. The Bombay High Court today asked the Maharashtra Government, Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB), state Ministry of Environment and 3 others to file their response to a petition seeking introduction of odd-even rule for private cars on Mumbai roads on the pattern adopted in Delhi. A bench of Justices V M Kanade and Reveti Mohite-Dere asked the respondents, including state Ministry of Environment, Regional Transport Office and Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), to file affidavits by February 9. As per the odd-even pattern, vehicles with registration numbers ending with even figures and those with odd numbers would run on alternate days respectively. The public interest litigation, filed by Sadaab Patel, contended that the residents of the mega-polis are facing health problems due to air pollution caused by carbon monoxide emitted from vehicles and by burning and other ways of disposal of solid waste by the civic body. Recent studies conducted by experts show that the pollution levels are steadily rising and hence there is a need to introduce the odd-even rule for private vehicles on roads, the petitioner contended. Counsel for MCGM, Anil Sakhare, sought time to address the court on the issue. Advocates Armin Wandrewala and Ravi Gadagkar appeared as intervenors. The petitioner contended that Mumbai, which has lesser number of vehicles than Delhi, tops in vehicular emission due to congested roads, lack of space to expand because of sea coast and rising number of diesel vehicles. The PIL said that Delhi implemented the odd-even traffic pattern because of poor air quality. A similar exercise should be undertaken in Mumbai also to bring down the air pollution levels, it said. To begin with, the odd-even rule could be implemented in Mumbai for 15 days, the petition said and prayed that a committee be formed to adopt this pattern on a permanent basis. Currently, vehicles belonging to police, ambulance and fire brigade do not arrive in time when their help is sought in a situation of emergency. By introducing odd-even pattern, movement of such emergency vehicles would become faster, said the petitioner. Along with these petitions, the high court would also take up hearing a notice of motion pending since 1999. The motion was taken out in a petition filed by Debi Goenka of Bombay Environmental Action Group about a scheme proposed in 2004 to restrain vehicles by 20 per cent on any day in a week. The Maharashtra government had then said that this scheme cannot be implemented. It would have to take a stand now when the notice of motion comes up for hearing on February 9. A local branch of HDFC bank here today alleged it has been defrauded of Rs 21.15 crore by some people who used "fake" firms to procure loan between 2011 and 2014. The bank's Panipat Manager Anubhav Pasreeja, who oversees the operations of the Jind branch, today filed a complaint with the Jind Police alleging that the accused had produced documents of "firms" that never existed. On the basis of the complaint, the police registered cases against 45 "firm managers". Investigating Officer Jagbir Singh said the loans were procured using "fake" firm documents and the bank has been asked to produce relevant papers for further action. A Hizbul Mujahideen militant was today arrested during a search operation conducted jointly by police, Rashtriya Rifles and CRPF in a forest area of Shopian district, about 60 kms from here. Farooq Ahmad Hurra, a resident of Naninpora village of Shopian, was nabbed in Ringward forest in Kellar area, about 60 kms from here, a police officer said. He said a Chinese pistol, a magazine and two rounds of ammunition were recovered from the captured militant. The joint search operation was launched in the forest area following specific information about presence of some militants, the officer said. Eyeing 300 per cent growth in its India smartphone sales, Chinese telecom major Huawei today launched two new 4G phones under the Honor brand. "We have seen good response in India. This year we expect a large number of feature phone users to convert to smartphone and that is where our focus is. We are looking for 300 per cent growth in smartphones sales in India and Honor 5X and Holly 2 Plus are crucial for this," Huawei India President of Consumer Business Group Allen Wang told PTI. Huawei sold one million smartphones in 2015 that includes 8,00,000 Honor branded phones. Globally, Huawei shipped 108 million smartphones in 2015 and became the third largest player after Apple and Samsung. The company today launched first metallic Honor phone 5X with expandable storage of up to 128 GB for Rs 12,999. It has Qualcomm's octa-core processor, 3,000 mAh battery, 13 megapixel main camera and 5MP front camera. "The phone comes with a premium aircraft grade metal that offers 5 layer heat sinks with copper shielding cover. It is full HD phone can be unlocked in 0.5 seconds. Honor 5X is a dual-sim phone where one slot is from nano-sim and other micro sim," Huawei India Vice President Sales Consumer Business Group P Snajeev said. The company also launched Holly 2 Plus 4G smartphone for Rs 8,499. It has 4,000 mAh battery that support high-speed data service like video, music etc. "Holly 2 Plus can deliver up to 48 hours of continued usage with 4,000 mAh battery. It can support 20 hours of usage with 10 per cent battery by switching the phone to ultra power saving mode. This phone features reverse charging technology so it can charge another smartphone or tablet using a micro-B USB cable," Sanjeev said The phone supports both GSM and CDMA network as well and is specially designed for India market. "Today what we are launching, our competitors will launch similar products in 5-6 months but we are not entering into price war. We are looking experience of customers and with Honor our strategy at present is to catch youth and convert feature phone user to smartphone," Wang said. He said that company will keep the price at levels where it gets enough margin to plough it back in to research and development. "A mobile can be made just by a team of 10 people but we have look at customers experience. We have our own chipsets, our own emotion UI and many patents. There are about 1.7 lakh Huawei employees working in R&D so you can imagine the effort we make in creating a product," Wang said. In India, Huawei has around 3,000 people in R&D and 500 work on phones exclusively. (Photo: http://photos.Prnewswire.Com/prnh/20160828/401936 ) "This center demonstrates how India with its vast technologically skilled manpower can help address the requirements of the global market. This center also adds value to the Indian Information Communication & Technology (ICT) industry and helps strengthen the industry eco-system in India," he continued. Located within Huawei's Research and Development (R&D) campus in Bengaluru, the GSC is currently home to over 1,000 engineers, network operations specialists and support staff. The India GSC currently handles more than 50 projects, supporting over 30 countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, serving over 350 million subscribers. The new GSC will support operators digital transformation and help meet market demand for synergies between services and technology, as well as improve operations capabilities. The inauguration ceremony was graced by Guest of Honor - Mr. Li Baijun, Economic and Commercial Counsellor, China Embassy; as well as customers, business partners, Huawei senior leaders and employees. Commenting on Huawei's new GSC, Mr. Jay Chen, CEO, Huawei India said, "India has always been a priority market for us and we have been investing here right from 1999 when we opened our R&D center in Bengaluru - the first one outside China. The inauguration of this center, our largest GSC, further reaffirms our commitment to India. The new GSC supports the 'Make in India' vision by harnessing local talent, coupled with the infusion of hi-tech R&D expertise and knowledge into the country, to play a pivotal role in creating a collaborative framework that will help our customers reach the next level of business performance. In the fast-changing digital world, Huawei will cooperate extensively with key partners across India to solidify a thriving ecosystem, and work closely with its customers to drive digital transformation that meets their specific industry needs while building a better connected world. About Huawei: Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider with the vision to enrich life through communication. Driven by customer-centric innovation and open partnerships, Huawei has established an end-to-end ICT solutions portfolio that gives our customers competitive advantages in telecom and enterprise networks, devices and cloud computing. Huawei's 150,000 employees worldwide are committed to creating maximum value for telecom operators, enterprises and consumers. Our innovative ICT solutions, products and services have been deployed in over 170 countries and regions, serving more than one third of the world's population. Founded in 1987, Huawei is a private company fully owned by its employees. For more information, please visit Huawei online: http://www.Huawei.Com Media Contact: Huawei Bhawna Singh Bhawna.Singh@huawei.Com Saurabh Saggi Saurabh.Saggi@huawei.Com Fleishman Hillard India Contact: Veer Berry Veer.Berry@fleishman.Com +91-9999331173 Shruti Makharia Shruti.Makharia@fleishman.Com +91-9769634753 Account Manager Fleishman Hillard Photo: http://mma.Prnewswire.Com/media/452481/ PRNE_Huawei_Enterprise_ICT_Summit_2016.Jpg Source: Huawei. Two Republican presidential candidates -- Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum - today said they would attend the event for US veterans being organised by their GOP front-runner Donald Trump after he decided to boycott a nationally televised debate. Running an unconventional election campaign, Trump has said that he would not attend the Republican presidential debate organised by Fox and Google alleging that the popular American channel is playing games with him. The decision by Trump has surprised many as in American electoral political system, debate is considered an integral part of the campaign. It is one of the rarest of the rare occasion that a candidate has not attended a presidential debate. In a series of tweets this morning, Trump lashed out at the Fox and claimed that his boycott of the debate would affect the ratings and revenue of Fox News. Instead, he announced a rival event to benefit Veteran Organisations in Des Moines, just three miles away from the venue of the presidential debate, exactly at the same time as the debate begins, injecting a sense of chaos into the contest. In turn, Fox News shot back accusing Trump of "terrorising" the network after he pulled out of the last televised debate four days before voting begins in presidential primary polls. The network has said it will go ahead with the debate as scheduled. On Tweeter, Trump today announced that two other presidential candidates would be attending his parallel event. Later both Huckabee and Santorum confirmed it. Both would join the Trump event after attending the undercard debate. "It's to honour the troops, it's not an endorsement of Donald Trump's candidacy. I'm still running for president, we have got the caucuses Monday night, but I'm delighted to join with Trump in an effort to salute the veterans," Huckabee told CNN in an interview. A spokesman of Santorum confirmed that he would be attending Trump's event. "I have always believed that the best thing to do is show up at every opportunity you can to meet with people, talk to them and try to paint the vision. This isn't just about an election of winning the election. It's about changing the course of America. It's about creating a vision and creating some momentum so we can get some great things done for this country," Santorum told the Fox News. Meanwhile, the entire US media was abuzz with Trump's latest political decision not to attend the GOP presidential debate organised by Fox News. "The Trump-less debate will still be all about Donald Trump," The Washington Post said. Actor Hugh Jackman is the latest star to open up about the lack of diversity among the Oscar nominations and says the issue needs to be addressed. When the Academy nominations list was revealed last month, the lack of black actors among the names was quick to be recognised, reported People magazine. "It never flagged in my head that this was an issue, and that gave me pause later. So this is something that we need to talk about," Jackman said. The 47-year-old actor went on to add that this issue of diversity in Hollywood is not just about race. "Not just race - sex, sexuality, every front, films are there to tell the stories of our time. They need to reflect the world, the real world, and so it's a great conversation to have. "I think actually Hollywood's in a great position right now to be able to lead the way." Several big names in Hollywood, including Will and Jada Pinkett Smith and director Spike Lee have already revealed they will be boycotting the awards and not attend. There had also been calls for Chris Rock to step down as host of the ceremony, but Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs insists she trusts Chris to tackle the issue in a comedic, yet sensitive, manner. The high-profile trial of former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo opened today five years after post-election violence wracked his nation, with supporters and foes aiming to shed light on the turmoil that left 3,000 dead. Gbagbo becomes the first ex-head of state to stand in the dock at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, in a case which will test the tribunal's avowed aim to deliver justice to the victims of the world's worst crimes. Looking relaxed in a dark suit with a light blue shirt, the one-time west African strongman shook hands, smiling, with his defence team. Prosecutors accuse Gbagbo of devising a plan to cling to power in the world's top cocoa producer after being narrowly defeated by his bitter rival Alassane Ouattara in November 2010 elections. Gbagbo, 70, and his close ally and former militia leader Charles Ble Goude, 44, will enter pleas to four charges of crimes against humanity, accused of being responsible for a campaign of widescale murders, rapes, and persecution. Both the prosecutors and defence lawyers vowed on the eve of the trial - which could last three to four years - that they will seek to lift the veil on the bloody five-month crisis. "The purpose of the trial is to uncover the truth through a purely legal process," said ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda yesterday. Abidjan, one of Africa's most cosmopolitan cities, was turned into a war zone between 2010 to 2011 as clashes flared between the rival forces in a deadly power struggle. But the international community, including former colonial power France, backed Ouattara as the winner, and Gbagbo was eventually arrested by Ouattara's troops aided by UN and French forces, and extradited to the ICC in 2011. Gbagbo's defence lawyer, Emmanuel Altit, insisted Wednesday it was "an important trial for Cote d'Ivoire and for Africa" and would help "clarify and understand the tragic events that occurred in that country." Gbagbo's supporters accuse Paris of plotting to oust him, and charge that Ouattara's camp has not been investigated for also carrying out a string of abuses. Prosecutor Bensouda said her investigations into other crimes committed during that period were launched last year and "intensifying." Rights groups say crimes were committed by both sides, and highlight that no charges have yet been brought against the camp of Ouattara - just elected to a second term as president. "In village after village in the far west, members of the Republican Forces loyal to Ouattara killed civilians from ethnic groups associated with Gbagbo," Human Rights Watch said in a statement. "The ICC's ongoing investigation into crimes by the Ouattara side remains a critical avenue for victims to see justice," stressed Param-Preet Singh, senior counsel for HRW. A paramotor expedition team of Indian Air Force, which aims to cover a distance of 10,000km and create a new world record, was today flagged off here. As the name of the expedition, 'Pradakshina', suggests, it will cover most of the boundary of the nation. The expedition will head to Kalaikunda in West Bengal from where, on February 1, it will proceed down the eastern coast to Kanyakumari. It will then turn north and fly along the western coast till Gujarat. The expedition will move through the deserts of Rajasthan, enter Punjab and go up till the foothills of the Himalayas at Jammu. They will then take the southerly direction to come to New Delhi. Thereafter, the expedition will move through Uttar Pradesh and Bihar before concluding at Kalaikunda on March 15. Upon successful completion, the team will not only be setting a national record but also script a new world record by surpassing the current record of 9,132km for such an expedition. The team consists of 14 air warriors, including paramotor pilots, ground vehicles and support staff, and is being led by Wg Cdr MPS Solanki from the Directorate of Adventure, Indian Air Force. Paramotor flying includes open cockpit flying where the pilot is not protected and is exposed to the elements. During the expedition, the team will cover a distance of 10,000km and face difficult weather conditions. It will cross terrain ranging from mountains and forests to coastlines and the desert and will attempt to achieve standards that not only remain unbeaten for years to come but also place India on top of the world in the field of aero-sports, a press release said. International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said today her office has collected a "vast body of evidence" against former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo, accused of fomenting post-poll violence in his west African nation. "We have obtained a vast body of evidence against the two accused," Bensouda told the Hague-based court as the trial of Gbagbo and former militia leader Charles Ble Goude got underway five years after 3,000 people died in political upheavals following the bitterly disputed 2010 elections. Gbagbo, 70, and 44-year-old Ble Goude earlier pleaded not guilty to four charges of crimes against humanity including murder, rape, and persecution. Violence broke out when Gbagbo refused to stand down after losing elections in November 2010 to bitter longtime rival Alassane Ouattara. "The Ivory Coast descended into chaos and was the theatre of unspeakable violence," some of which was orchestrated by Gbagbo, Bensouda said. The former strongman had "intended to stay in power by all means." "Nothing would be allowed to defeat Mr Gbagbo, and if politics failed, violence was seen as politics by other means." Armed forces, mercenaries and youth groups transformed into militias were "used to attack civilians," Bensouda said, adding that Gbagbo had exercised control through "formal and parallel chains of command." Gbagbo "laid the foundations of the use of violence. When he understood that the presidency was going to escape him ... he began a campaign of violence orchestrated against those considered opponents," she added. Despite being "in a position to do so," Bensouda maintained Gbagbo "never ordered the violence to stop." Bensouda also reacted to criticism that she was only prosecuting crimes committed by Gbagbo's camp during the violence. "We are investigating both sides of the conflict. It takes time and I encourage the people of Cote d'Ivoire to be patient," she said. Over 450 cartons of illicit liquor were seized from two separate places in Shamli district while being allegedly smuggled into the state, police said today. 458 cartons of illicit liquor were seized in two places in Shamli district during checkinglast evening, SP Vijai Bhushan said. The police intercepted a vehicle during a checking procedure and seized 330 cartons of liquor. The accused, however escaped from the scene, he said, adding a case has been registered against unidentified persons in this connection. In second incident, police seized 128 cartons of illicit liquorallegedly smuggled from Haryana at Bidoli check-post in Shamli district last evening. Police have registered a case and arrested two men, identified as Dilbag Singh and Pertap Singh in this connection. North Korea may be preparing a long-range ballistic missile launch, Japanese media said rsday, following a nuclear test this month that raised international alarm and sparked a diplomatic clash between Washington and Beijing. Imagery collected over the past several days suggested the launch from the western Dongchang-ri site could come in about a week, Kyodo said, citing a Japanese government source it did not identify. Increased movements of people and vehicles were seen around the launch site, which has now apparently been covered over, national broadcaster NHK said, citing a source familiar with Japan-South Korea relations. The United States regularly monitors North Korea from space while Japan itself began its own satellite monitoring of the country in 2003. North Korea is banned under UN Security Council resolutions from carrying out any launch using ballistic missile technology, although repeated small-range missile tests have gone unpunished. The development parallels events in December 2012, when Pyongyang put a satellite into orbit with its Unha-3 carrier. Eight days before the 2012 launch, the North also put up a covering over the facility to hide the work from the view of satellites, NHK said. The international community condemned the 2012 launch as a disguised ballistic missile test, resulting in a tightening of UN sanctions, despite Pyongyang's claim that it was a scientific mission. The reported preparation of a missile launch came amid a flurry of diplomatic activity over possible further sanctions against Pyongyang for conducting its fourth nuclear test earlier this month. Pyongyang said the blast was a miniaturised hydrogen bomb, though experts have largely dismissed the claim. Washington is pushing for a strong United Nations response, including enhanced sanctions. But China, North Korea's chief diplomatic protector and economic benefactor, is reluctant, despite ties becoming strained in recent years as Beijing's patience wears thin with its neighbour's ambitions for nuclear weapons. US Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Wednesday and said they had agreed to mount an "accelerated effort" to try to resolve their differences on a new resolution. But Kerry, who said nuclear-armed North Korea poses an "overt threat, a declared threat to the world", acknowledged that the two had not agreed on the "parameters of exactly what it would do or say". Satellite imagery analysis suggests North Korea may be preparing a long-range ballistic missile launch, Japan's Kyodo News reported today, citing a Japanese government source. Imagery collected over the past several days suggested the launch from the western Dongchang-ri site could come in about a week, Kyodo said. While the report did not provide any details on the source of the analysis, Japan's key security ally the United States regularly monitors North Korea from space while Japan itself in 2003 began its own satellite monitoring of the country. South Korean defence ministry spokesperson Kim Min-Seok declined to confirm or deny the report, saying the ministry did not comment on intelligence matters. He added, however, that South Korea's military was monitoring for any signs of a long-range missile launch. The report came as the community discusses further sanctions against Pyongyang for conducting its fourth nuclear test earlier this month. "The reclusive country's supposed action could be aimed at flouting the (UN security) council and any plans among its members to tighten sanctions over the latest nuclear detonation," Kyodo said in its report. Washington is pushing for a strong United Nations response, including enhanced sanctions, to respond to the North's latest atomic blast. But China, North Korea's chief diplomatic protector and economic benefactor, is reluctant, despite their ties becoming strained in recent years as Beijing's patience wears thin with its neighbour's ambitions for nuclear weapons. US Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing yesterday and said they had agreed to mount an "accelerated effort" to try to resolve their differences on a new resolution. But Kerry, who said nuclear-armed North Korea poses an "overt threat, a declared threat to the world", acknowledged that the two had not agreed on the "parameters of exactly what it would do or say". Pyongyang said the blast earlier this month was a miniaturised hydrogen bomb, though experts have largely dismissed the claim. The South Korean defence ministry's Kim added that officials were on guard for any changes in North Korea's previous behaviour. Marking a "historic" change at Monetary Fund (IMF), India, China and other emerging economies will now have more voting rights at the multilateral funding agency with the implementation of long pending quota reforms. For the first time, the four emerging economies -- India China, Brazil and Russia -- would be among the 10 largest members of the Monetary Fund. Besides, more than 6% of quota shares would shift to dynamic emerging markets and developing countries. It would also mark the shift in shares from over-represented to under-represented IMF members. The much-awaited quota reforms, pending for many years, were approved by the US Congress in 2015. The 2010 Quota and Governance reforms were approved by the IMF's Board of Governors in December 2010. In a statement, IMF said the conditions for implementing its 14th General Quota Review, "which delivers historic and far-reaching changes to the governance and permanent capital of the Fund, have now been satisfied." The statement issued on Wednesday said: "For the first time four emerging market countries (Brazil, China, India, and Russia) will be among the 10 largest members of the IMF. "The reforms also increase the financial strength of the IMF, by doubling its permanent capital resources to SDR 477 billion (about $659 billion)." Currently, India has voting rights of 2.34% at the IMF, which has 188 members. In terms of quota, India has a share of 2.44%. Others in the top 10 largest members are the US, Japan, France, Germany, Italy and the UK. Noting that the reforms would reinforce its credibility, effectiveness and legitimacy, IMF said that for the first time its Board would consist entirely of elected Executive Directors. This would do away with the category of appointed Executive Directors -- currently members with the five largest quotas appoint an Executive Director. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said these reforms would ensure that the fund is able to better meet and represent the needs of its members in a rapidly changing global environment. "The scope for appointing a second Alternate Executive Director in multi-country constituencies with seven or more members has been increased to enhance these constituencies' representation in the Executive Board. "As a result, 13 constituencies -- including both African constituencies -- are currently eligible to appoint an additional Alternate Executive Director," IMF said. Advanced European countries have committed to reduce their combined Board representation by two chairs. Besides, the quota shares and voting power of the IMF's poorest member countries would be protected, it added. "With the entry into force of the Board Reform Amendment and all other general effectiveness conditions met, members can now pay for their quota increases to make them effective. This process is expected to be substantially completed within one month," the statement said. According to Lagarde, the reforms also mark a "crucial step forward and it is not the end of change as our efforts to strengthen the IMF's governance will continue". Further, the multilateral lender said it would now focus on working towards the 15th General Review of Quotas and securing the necessary broad consensus, including on a new quota formula. There is an "optimism and excitement" regarding the Indo-US defence cooperation, a top American commander has said ahead of his visit to the country, underlining that improving military-to-military ties is his top priority. "I see nothing but optimism and excitement with our military-to-military relationship with India on almost every level," Admiral Harry Harris, Commander of the US Pacific Command said in response to a question at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) here yesterday. Harris, who is scheduled to visit India in March, said India-US military to military relationship is important not because it's a counter to China. "It is because we share democratic values and we share a common view of the imperative in the Indo-Asia Pacific region," he said. Harris said that before this job he was Pacific Fleet Commander and had the chance to go to India and visit Delhi and Goa, to see aviation training facilities there. "They're very capable, very exciting. And the relationship between our President and their Prime Minister has moved the overall relationship forward in ways that are actually surprising. And in a good way," he said. The PACOM Commander said he has made improving India-US military-to-military relationship a formal line of effort at the PACOM. "Each of my commanders have gone or will go, I will go as PACOM Commander in March," he said. "So I've started to talk the last two years -- I may be the commander of PACOM, but this is really the Indo-Asia Pacific region and I try to use that acronym as much as I can," Harris said. Indian alternative medical treatments like Ayurveda are gaining acceptance worldwide and the UN will again celebrate June 21 as World Yoga Day, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said today. Speaking at the silver jubilee celebrations of Ayurveda Kendra, he said India with its diversity has tremendous amount of ingenuity and alternative form of medicines are getting accepted. "People across the country has benefited from this idea (Ayurveda) and now of course the world outside is also accepting it as an additional accepted science," Jaitley said. He said from Ayurveda to homoeopathy to other Indian lifestyle treatments are all being accepted worldwide. The United Nations has accepted yoga and June 21 is celebrated as international yoga day. "I am told that they are going to repeat the exercise," Jaitley said. Using Ayurveda, various diseases from cardio vascular to weight loss can be treated and the treatment also brings in a sense of discipline in a person's life, he added. Indian-American Muslims have appealed to President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to maintain the minority character of Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Milia Islamia, saying the move to question the status of the institutions is "discriminatory". "In the post-independence India where the educational backwardness of Muslims has increased substantially as documented by the Sachar Committee report, AMU and Jamia have made huge contribution in shoring up higher education in the Muslim community," said Kaleem Kawaja, executive director of the Washington DC based Association of Indian Muslims of America (AIM). He said that the recent actions of the government's Law ministry and Human Resources ministry "to oppose AMU's appeal in the Supreme Court by reversing the same central government's 2006 support to the AMU appeal is a very discriminatory and prejudiced anti-Muslim action." "Indian-American Muslims object strongly to this action of the BJP-led government," the statement said, adding that it will end up pushing back the minority Muslims into severe educational backwardness at a time when they are already backward. "We appeal to the President and Prime Minister of India to take quick steps to stop these discriminatory actions of the Law and HRD ministries against AMU and Jamia, reverse the said actions, and provide support to both Muslim community universities in their quest for justice," the association said in the statement. The issue of restoration of minority character of AMU is at present pending with the Supreme Court. On January 11, Attorney General Mukul Rohatagi, during the hearing of this case, had told the court that the NDA government did not support the idea of a state-funded minority institution in a secular state, sparking off a controversy. The Attorney General has told the government that Jamia Milia Islamia is not a minority institution as it was created by an Act of Parliament, days after he told the Supreme Court that the legislature never intended the Aligarh Muslim University to be a minority institution. The wife of an Indian-origin cult leader in the UK found guilty ofrape and child cruelty has defended him alleging he was framed. Chanda Balakrishnan lived with Aravindan Balakrishnan as part of a secretive extremist Maoist sect in London for nearly 30 years. Aravindan Balakrishnan, or Comrade Bala as he was known, wasconvicted of six counts of indecent assault, four counts of rape and two counts of actual bodily harmlast Decemberand now faces life in prison when he is sentenced next week. "It was a frame-up,"his wife told 'The Times' today. She realised he had raped womeninside theWorkers' Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought Collective and even fathered a child with one of the women only during the court proceedings at Southwark Crown Court, London. "I was shocked. We lived in small privately rented accommodation, so we were always on top of each other. I couldn't see how it happened. He is loving me all the time. It was a mistake that happens. For 99.99 per cent of the time he is loving me and not these other people," she said outside her north London home. Balakrishnan fathered a daughter with devoted follower Sian Davies and kept her imprisoned in a London flat for years. But his wife believes that the women involved had coerced him into having sex. The couple met in 1964 while Aravindan was a student at the London School of Economics and Chanda, who was born in India and grew up in Malaysia, was a student activist. "He was very attentive to me and I used to like listening to him. I would rather listen to him than anybody else because he is an intellectual giant," she told the newspaper. They were engaged in 1964 and married in 1969, at about the time he began his collective. Scotland Yard raided the couple's flat in Brixton, south London, in November 2013 after two followers called a charity seeking help. Following a lengthy trial, he was convicted and is currently being held at Wandsworth prison in London where his wife recently visited him. "He looked as if he had shrunk, he was lost. I don't allow myself to think about the sentencing. I suppose I am still hoping that he will come home," she said. Following the guilty verdict last year, Judge Deborah Taylor had told Balakrishnan: "You should expect a substantial custodial sentence". Inox Wind Limited today announced commissioning of 220 KV sub-station and 220 KV transmission line at its Nipaniya site in Madhya Pradesh. The sub-station and transmission line are part of the common infrastructure facility at the site and capable of supporting power evacuation of 200 MW, the company said in a statement. Many of the leading independent power producers of the country like Sembcorp Green Infra, ReNew Power and Mytrah Energy have invested in wind projects at the Nipaniya site. ****** Utkal Alumina launches Computer Literacy Project * Utkal Alumina International Ltd, a flagship company of Aditya Birla Group, has launched an ambitious Computer Literacy Project in Odisha's Rayagada district. The project, undertaken as part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of the company, is expected to supplement to the Digital India Initiative besides playing a significant role in spreading computer literacy among people in the region, a company statement said today. ****** Flipkart partners with Udacity to hire graduates * E-commerce giant Flipkart today announced a partnership with online learning company Udacity to hire graduates based on capabilities they have built through Udacity's Nano degree programs. With the partnership, Flipkart would redefine the hiring process in the software industry based predominantly on personal interviews and referrals, the company said. Flipkart hired students based on their Nano degree projects and Udacity profiles, it said, adding, there were no in-person interview or group exercises. Amkette launches EvoTV 2 for Rs 6,999 * IT peripherals maker Amkette today launched the new version of 'EvoTV' for Rs 6,999 as it looks to cash in on the growing adoption of content streaming services like Netflix and Hungama in India. The 'EvoTV 2' will allow users access movies, TV shows, music, videos and games on the Internet through their TV sets. First launched in 2012, the EvoTV saw two new versions being introduced, bringing the total variants to five. "EvoTV was well accepted by early technology adopters... In the last few months, India has witnessed launch of multiple national and international services like Netflix, HOOQ and Wynk and people are actively using these streaming services," Amkette Director Rajiv Bapna told Gupshup launches 'bots' platform for ecommerce firms * Messaging platform Gupshup today launched a new platform for helping enterprises build 'bots' to enhance productivity and increase user-consumer engagement. A 'Bot' is a software that has been programmed to give responses to queries. It performs automated tasks that could be repetitive or time-consuming and hence, improves productivity for enterprises deploying these bots. Many e-commerce companies have already deployed bots to assist consumers to transact on their platform. ************** Atul Ltd, AkzoNobel mull JV for chemical manufacturing * Chemicals manufacturer Atul and paints major AkzoNobel today entered into an agreement to explore feasibility of setting up a monochloroacetic acid (MCA) plant at the former's facility in Gujarat. The two companies have signed a letter of intent, under which they plan to install a world scale MCA plant at Atul's facility in Gujarat subject to regulatory approvals, Atul Ltd said in a BSE filing. The partnership intends to build on Atul's status as a leading supplier of crop protection chemicals, which uses MCA as a key raw material and AkzoNobel's leading global position in MCA, with plants in the Netherlands, China, Japan and the US, it added. ************** Footwear maker SSIPL launches Sports Station * Footwear manufacturer SSIPL today launched 'Sports Station', a chain of multi-brand sports stores, to bring international sports brands under one roof. Its portfolio includes brands like Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Puma, Sketchers, Converse, Crocs, Solomon and Lotto, along with its in-house brand Mmojah. Sports Station also showcases specialty brands like Speedo and Wildcraft at its stores, the company said. (REOPENS DCM 95) Reliance Group's Unlimit partners Cumulocity for IoT solutions * Unlimit, the Internet of Things (IoT) venture of Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Group, has partnered Cumulocity to deliver IoT solutions in India. IoT refers to a network of inter-connected devices that can be accessed through the internet. For instance, with IoT, street lights will automatically go off when they sense no traffic on the roads and consequently, save power. "The combined offering enables Unlimit's customers to benefit from rapid machine, sensor and device integration and data collection and real-time analytics for condition monitoring," the companies said in a statement. It further offers predictive maintenance and supply chain automation, comprehensive device management and remote control, it added. ****** Roborace unveils 'Robocar' at Mobile World Congress * Roborace has unveiled its 'Robocar' -- a self-driving electric car -- at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The car has been designed by Daniel Simon, who created vehicles for Hollywood sci-fi films like 'Tron: Legacy'. It uses a number of technologies to drive itself, including two radars and six AI cameras, and makes up to 24 trillion AI operations per second. ****** Paalak.In raises funding to expand ops * Agri-tech startup Paalak.In today said it has raised an undisclosed amount from a clutch of investors. Paalak.In is a platform that provides unique supply chain of farm-fresh produce directly from farmers to end consumers and B2B buyers. A farmer app is also scheduled to be launched by mid-March. "Paalak.In has secured an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Vishwadeep Bajaj, Harsh Kundra, Nandkumar Rane and Anupam Tyagi," the company said in a statement. The funding would be utilised to develop a new consumer web-platform and android app, add more collection centres in villages, and hire critical manpower in technology, supply chain and operations departments, it added. VDSS Agri Tech Pvt Ltd, the parent company of Paalak.In, is a for-profit company with a mission to make agriculture a profitable business for farmers. The venture is co-founded by two MIT Sloan alumni Swapnil Tripathi and Vishal Salgotra. Viswadeep Bajaj, CEO, Valuefirst said: "Given the fact that 70 per cent of rural household in India depend on agriculture as their principle means of livelihood, I believe agri-tech has the power to bridge existing gaps in the market. Canada's major province Ontario has invited Indian companies to invest there, saying it has competitive corporate tax rate, strong financial sector and a talented workforce besides being a gateway to USD 20 trillion North American market. Ontario's Premier Kathleen Wynne, who is here on a visit to encourage Indian companies to invest in her province, identified Information and Communications Technology, life sciences, agri-food, auto and film sectors as possible areas for business. Wynne, who is here mainly to attend Global Business Summit later this week, also evinced interest in cooperation in sustainable development and urban renewal projects. She will also meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss "shared priorities and areas for future collaboration". "Ontario and India have a lot in common. We not only share a commitment to invest in sustainable infrastructure and urban renewal projects, we also share an interest in developing our key business sectors," Wynne told PTI. She observed that India is growing due to strengths such as a young and increasingly-educated population, established knowledge-economy sectors and ambitious plans to develop its social and physical infrastructure. "There is much we can learn from each other, especially in sustainable development, clean technology and infrastructure," she said. Presenting her province, which has a huge and vibrant capital in Toronto, as a perfect place for Indian investment, Wynne said, "Ontario's competitive and stable business environment makes it an ideal place for Indian companies to start a new business or expand an existing one. "We are one of the world's best places to do business because we have a competitive corporate tax rate, a strong financial sector and a talented workforce." She said investing in Ontario will also give Indian companies access to the USD 20 trillion NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) market. Besides Delhi, the Premier of Ontario will be travelling to Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Mumbai to meet political and business leaders and discuss ways to build "stronger relationships that will generate jobs and economic growth" in India as well as her province. Talking about the 'Make in India' initiative, she said the programme will make it easier for companies of her province and India to do business together, which will benefit both the sides. "To keep up with the world's changing economy and foster new economic opportunities, Ontario will continue looking for new ways to expand its trade network. India is a priority market for Ontario," Wynne said. With regard to sustainable development and urban renewal, the thrust areas of the Modi government, she said Ontario has valuable expertise that can help India achieve its goals. "Our experience in building urban transportation systems, developing green and green-efficient projects and creating renewable energy infrastructure makes us a natural partner for India as it works to achieve the goals of its Smart Cities Initiative," she said. Wynne said Ontario also has valuable expertise in sustainable low-carbon economy which it can share with India. "We have already eliminated coal-fired generation... And we are investing in new infrastructure to increase the province's supply of clean, renewable energy," she said. The Premier also expressed readiness to work with India in the field of clean urban transport. The Jagatsinghpur district administration has detained two publicity vans of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) on charge of using the picture of Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan with that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Supreme Court had ruled that ministers' pictures cannot be used along with the Prime Minister in publicity material. The IOCL has set rolling its publicity vans under 'Jana Amantran Karyakram' (public invitation programme) ahead of a function when Prime Minister Modi will dedicate to the nation the company's refinery at Paradip on February 7. "While the police had yesterday detained a publicity van at Balikuda, another vehicle was today detained at Tirtol,"Jagatsinghpur district collector Bijay Ketan Upadhyaya told PTI over phone today. "The district administration had asked police to detain the publicity vans carrying the Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister's pictures which is against the Supreme Court direction," he said. The collector said that the district administration had already "cautioned" the IOCL authority in this regard. He also said that the company did not take required permission from the police for playing loudespeakers. Acting on the collector's directive, police detained the two vans while they were publicizing the dedication of Paradip refinery by the Prime Minister and various welfare schemes of the Union government. Earlier on January 25, Odisha Information and Public Relations Secretary Manoranjan Panigrahi had asked the Collector to look into the issue and take necessary action. The IOCL has rolled out 30 such publicity vans in different districts on January 23. All the 30 vehicles had similar designs and pictures of Pradhan on them along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The ruling BJD in Odisha also strongly opposed Pradhan's pictures being displayed, along with the Prime Minister's photos, on the vans. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate the refinery to the nation on Feb 7, 2016. The state-of-the-art Rs 35,000 crore refinery with 15 million MT capacity is IOCL's largest refinery ever. When contacted, IOCL's refinery project officials did not to react over the development. Iran's state-owned newspaper is reporting that several European airlines will resume their flights to Iran after nearly five years. The report in today's Iran daily quotes Mohammad Khodakarami, deputy head of Iran's civil aviation authority, as saying British Airways officials visited Tehran on Tuesday to discuss resumption of flights. He did not elaborate. Khodakarami also said both Air France and Dutch flagship KLM have already announced their readiness to resume flights to Iran. European carriers stopped their flights to Iran after the West imposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear ambitions. Currently Iran's national carrier, Iran Air has three weekly flights to London as well as two weekly flights each to Paris and Amsterdam. President Hassan Rouhani hailed a "new relationship" between Iran and France during a visit today that saw the signing of a host of post-sanctions business deals. "Let us forget the resentment," Rouhani said, calling for both countries to take advantage of the "positive atmosphere" following the removal of sanctions over the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme. "We are ready to turn the page" and establish a "new relationship between our countries", Rouhani told a meeting of business leaders. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls responded that "Iran can count on France". "France is ready to use its companies, its engineers, its technicians and its many resources to help to modernise your country," Valls said. Rouhani was welcomed to Paris with military honours and national anthems on the second leg of a trip signalling Iran's rapprochement with Europe since sanctions were lifted. The real business of the visit will come when Rouhani officially signals Iran's intention to buy more than 100 passenger planes from European aircraft maker Airbus. French carmaker Peugeot said it will return to the Iranian market in a five-year deal worth 400 million euros ($436 million) that was announced Thursday. Peugeot will produce 200,000 cars a year in a joint venture with local manufacturer Iran Khodro, according to a statement. The French carmaker was forced to pull out of Iran in 2012 as sanctions began to bite. In another potential bonanza for France, the head of French oil giant Total said his firm would sign a deal to buy Iranian crude. Although the French state is rolling out the red carpet for Rouhani, the Iranian opposition will hold a human rights demonstration and Jewish groups also intend to protest in Paris. Rouhani is to hold talks with President Francois Hollande which are expected to include discussions on Iran's role in Syria, where it is backing President Bashar al-Assad in a war that has killed 260,000 people. Talks are due to begin Friday in Geneva to take tentative steps towards ending the conflict. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will today agree a host of commercial deals during a visit to France that offers the clearest demonstration yet of the Islamic Republic's post-sanctions buying power. Rouhani was formally welcomed to Paris by Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius with military honours and national anthems, for the first visit to France by an Iranian president for 17 years. It is the second leg of a trip signalling Tehran's rapprochement with Europe following the lifting of the punishing sanctions imposed over its nuclear programme. The real business of the visit will come when Rouhani officially signals Iran's intention to buy 114 passenger planes from European aircraft maker Airbus. Rouhani will also rubber-stamp a deal paving the way for the return of French carmaker Peugeot to Iran, according to a French government source. Although the red carpet is being rolled out for Rouhani, the Iranian opposition will hold a human rights demonstration and Jewish groups also intend to protest in Paris. Rouhani is to hold talks with President Francois Hollande which are expected to include Iran's role in Syria, where it is backing President Bashar al-Assad in a war that has killed 260,000 people. Talks are due to begin Friday in Geneva to take tentative steps towards ending the conflict. After arriving from Italy, where he sealed deals for steel and pipelines worth between 15 and 17 billion euros (USD 18.5 billion), Rouhani began his Paris visit yesterday by meeting top French business leaders. France's economy minister Emmanuel Macron said Rouhani had unveiled a new scheme to guarantee investment by French firms in Iran. A source involved in the deal to buy Airbus planes said that only letters of intention will be signed at this stage, because some sanctions are still in place. However, Iran is said to be keen to bring its ageing fleet of mid- and long-haul aircraft up to date, so the deal is widely expected to go ahead soon, giving a boost to the European aviation industry. Under the Peugeot deal, it will produce 200,000 vehicles a year in Iran from 2017, in partnership with Iranian manufacturer Khodro. The French carmaker pulled out of the country in 2012 as sanctions began to bite. In another potential bonanza, French oil giant Total is said to be interested in buying Iranian crude. Rouhani's meeting with Hollande is also expected to touch on Iran's bitter feud with regional rival Saudi Arabia. At a press conference rounding off his Rome visit, Rouhani was defiant when asked whether Iran would apologise to Saudi Arabia for an attack on its embassy by demonstrators furious over Riyadh's execution of a prominent Shiite cleric, Nimr al-Nimr. Is safety of the people of Delhi, especially women, children and elderly, not a priority for the Centre? Delhi High Court posed this question to the Centre, saying it has not yet approved enhancing the strength of the city police and was rather focused on whether technology would suffice. Even on the technology aspect, a bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva came down heavily on the Ministry of Finance (MoF) saying a huge majority of cops did not have bullet-proof vests and in some cases, not even a 'lathi', and wondered whether the Centre wants Robocops. "You talk of technology, but you are not even able to set up CCTVs," the bench said and added that the more time MoF takes to decide these issues, the more crimes would be committed as "criminals are not bound by red-tape". It also asked the Centre whether lack of money was the reason for not approving additional manpower sought by Delhi Police, which at present has a total strength of about 84,500. "Initially they (Delhi police) required 64,000 personnel, which they cut down to 89 proposals for 46,949 personnel of which around 15 proposals for around 15,000 personnel was a priority. "But you (Centre) put even the priority proposals on the back-burner. Delhi police is crying for it. MHA has approved it, but MoF is not doing anything.. "How do you promise safety to people of Delhi? What are your priorities? Is safety of people, especially women, children and elderly, in the national capital not a priority," the court asked. "You talk of using advancement in technology, but most of the cops do not even have a bullet-proof vest. You are not even providing the basic infrastructure, like 'lathi'. Will the official in MoF decide what the person on the ground needs," the court asked and said in a jocular vein: "They probably want Robocops". It asked Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain to convey the court's concerns to the MoF with regard to providing police personnel as requisitioned by Delhi police and approved by Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and to get back with instructions on next date of hearing, February 9. The court made it clear that if no answer was forthcoming from the Centre, then it will "close this chapter" of more personnel and put down in its order that the government does not have the money to carry out the exercise nor the intent for better policing of Delhi. As per a Delhi Police affidavit, it had sent a comprehensive manpower proposal in 2015, containing 89 proposals for 46,949 additional personnel, which is pending before the Centre. "The glaring reality is that we are under-staffed," said senior advocate Chetan Sharma, appearing for Delhi Police. Meanwhile, Delhi government senior standing counsel Rahul Mehra told the court that if the Centre does not have funds, the AAP government can provide funds to Delhi Police. During the hearing, ASG Jain that while 4227 manpower has been approved, the remaining priority proposals for additional 11,000 (approximate) personnel was being considered by a high -powered committee. He said increasing the manpower on the rolls of Delhi police would have a cascading effect on infrastructure and housing and considering all these aspects takes time. Moreover, the government has to also deal with manpower requests from various authorities, not just Delhi Police. The ASG also claimed there were thousands of vacancies in Delhi Police which the agency was not filling up. He further said that even if there were two lakh cops in Delhi, it would not lead to end of crimes. He said the MoF has to see how the priority proposals can be implemented and how soon, adding that the proposals have not been thrown into the dustbin. The court, however, was not swayed by the contentions as it said the MoF's conduct amounts to not providing adequate treatment to "a patient -- Delhi -- who has been prescribed a certain medication by the doctor--Delhi Police--and the specialist--MHA." "MoF has cut down the medication to a tenth of what was prescribed. What will happen to the patient, to Delhi? It will keep on suffering. Can you give an answer to this," it asked. "We conveyed everything to your expenditure secretary earlier, but nothing has happened. It appears that the two ministries are at loggerheads," the court said. It said "MoF cannot say Delhi Police does not require more cops, when MHA says it is needed. MoF cannot decide requirement, they only have to find the funds or say they do not have funds." On the last date of hearing, the court had asked Delhi Police to place on record its manpower requirement and what the Centre has done regarding that till date. The Centre had recently filed an affidavit indicating it has sanctioned 4,227 posts in Delhi Police and that these posts would be operationalised in two phases, half in 2016-17 and rest in 2017-18 after a review of the scheme. The court was hearing a PIL initiated by it after the December 16, 2012 gangrape incident in which it has been giving directions on the issues of appointing more police personnel, setting up additional forensic labs and a victim compensation fund. Israel arrested a Palestinian parliamentarian from the Islamist group Hamas, the army said today, raising the number of detained Palestinian lawmakers to seven. Mohammed Abu Tir was taken to custody on suspicion of being "involved in terrorist activities", an army spokeswoman told AFP. He was arrested in an overnight raid in Kafr Aqeb area near to Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, she added. Abu Tir is a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council from east Jerusalem. He was previously held by Israel for a year without charge, eventually being released in 2012. Six other members of the 132 member Palestinian Legislative Council are currently detained by Israel, according to the Palestinian human rights organisation Addameer. According to Addameer, three of them are Hamas members, one is from Fatah and two others from the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which Israel considers to be a "terrorist organisation". The Hamas-dominated parliament has not met since the Islamist movement took over the Gaza Strip in June 2007, ousting Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas. Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi today criticised Franco-German dominance in EU decision- making, especially on the refugee crisis, speaking on the eve of a Berlin visit. Renzi stressed that he holds German Chancellor Angela Merkel in high esteem, but also made the case for a bigger role for Italy and other European Union members in jointly tackling European crises. One point of contention was "Germany's attitude that all EU initiatives start with a bilateral meeting with the French," Renzi told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily. "Of course I would be delighted if Angela and Francois (Hollande) were able to solve all the problems," he was quoted as saying. "But most of the time this is not what happens. "If we are seeking a comprehensive European strategy to address the refugee issue, then it's not enough if Angela calls first Hollande and then European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, and I then read about the outcome in the press." Renzi, a 41-year-old who has pushed reforms to revitalise a debt-stricken economy, has in recent months repeatedly criticised both Germany and the European Commission on issues ranging from Berlin's perceived dominance to EU budget constraints to energy policy. Merkel hosts Renzi tomorrow for a working lunch to discuss "the refugee crisis, the international situation and current European issues," the chancellery said. In the refugee crisis, Italy is a frontline state along with Greece, as the first ports of call for many fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa in perilous journeys across the Mediterranean. Renzi called the mass influx an "epochal problem for which there are no easy solutions". "We are doing our part by rescuing, almost every day, children from capsized boats in the Mediterranean," he said, while calling for an end to EU rules that oblige refugees to apply for asylum in the first EU country they enter, saying "away with it". Renzi pointed at Italy's economic reforms and a reduced public deficit since he took power in 2014, saying that "Italy is no longer a problem for the EU" and vowing he was "hungry for more reforms". "Now I can report progress in Berlin," he said ahead of his meeting with Merkel tomorrow. "I have delivered, and today I can argue from a different position about points of disagreement, even if the areas of agreement dominate by far. Former Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao has been appointed as Additional Independent Director of the diversified group ITC Ltd. The appointment would be effective from April 8, the Kolkata-headquartered firm said today. "The board of directors of the company appointed Nirupama Rao, IFS (Retd), as an Additional Independent Director of the company with effect from April 8, 2016," ITC informed the BSE. However, the appointment would be subject to the approval of the members at its next general meeting, it added. Rao was Indian Foreign Service officer of 1973 batch, who served as India's Foreign Secretary from 2009 to 2011. During her career, she also held the post of India's Ambassador to the United States, China and High Commissioner of Sri Lanka. Madras High Court Judge Justice R Sudhakar, the Portfolio Judge for Coimbatore, today instructed the judicial officers to take effective steps for speedy disposal of cases. The Judge, who inspected courts in the district, looked into pendency of cases and gave instructions to the judicial officers for clearing them, an official release said. He also formed a 'Task Force Team' consisting of work knowing staff members to guide other staff members to rectify the defects found during the inspection and to continue it in future. He instructed the PWD officials to provide ramp facility for the differently abled in the combined court campus. The Judge held a meeting with the District Collector, city Police Commissioner and Superintendent of Police for early disposal of new cases and FIRs and also recovery of fine arrears, the release said. An air ambulance helicopter carrying a baby girl with suspected leukaemia to hospital has crashed in Kazakhstan, killing all five on board, the emergency ministry said today. The bodies of the pilot, a doctor, paramedic and the baby and her mother were recovered Thursday after the plane went missing in the Almaty region of southern Kazakhstan at around 5:00 pm local time (1100 GMT) on Wednesday, a spokesman for the emergency ministry told AFP. Kazakh media reported that the baby girl was two months old and had been hospitalised on Monday but required treatment at a larger regional hospital after receiving a preliminary diagnosis of leukaemia. Air traffic control lost contact with the helicopter about 15 minutes before it was due to land. The search for the helicopter was hampered by snow and strong winds, the emergency situations ministry said in a statement. The McDonnell Douglas-600 helicopter was taking the baby from the town of Usharal to hospital in the regional centre of Taldykorgan, a distance of around 240 kilometres (150 miles). Chief Minister Arvind Kerjriwal today demanded fresh polls to the BJP-ruled civic bodies, alleging total failure in their management as several areas in the city reeled under stench of uncollected garbage due to the strike by sanitation workers. Coming down hard on the three municipal bodies, the Deputy Chief Minister alleged that striking sanitation workers were "instigated" to throw garbage in front of his residence and office. Alleging financial bunglings and mismanagement, Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia launched a two-pronged attack on the three municipal corporations as workers' strike entered the second day leading to garbage pile up in areas across the city. "Management of an organization, which can't pay salaries to employees, doesn't have right to continue. MCD should be dissolved. Hold fresh elections," Kejriwal, who is on a 10-day-long medical leave at Bengaluru, tweeted. Addressing a press conference here, Sisodia slammed the office bearers of the civic bodies for engaging in "garbage" politics, claiming sanitation workers had been "instigated" to throw garbage in front of his official quarters. "We paid them funds before time without even adjusting the loans amounting to around Rs 6,000 crore extended by us. Despite this the workers were being instigated to throw garbage in front of our houses and offices," Sisodia told reporters. Sisodia reiterated ruling AAP's claim that Delhi government released the entire fund under the non-plan head to MCDs and "yet their employees are not being paid their salaries". The three corporations have themselves admitted having received Rs 892.92 crore for North MCD, Rs 465.53 crore for East MCD and Rs 668 crore for South MCD, under the non-planned head for the current financial year, which will come to an end on March 31, the government said. The erstwhile unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) was trifurcated into North, South and East corporations (NDMC, SDMC and EDMC) in 2012. "Those who cannot run the municipal corporations, cannot pay salaries to the employees and fail to manage accounts need not hold their posts," Sisodia said, referring to the mayors and other elected office bearers of MCDs. "I appeal to the Central government to dissolve the municipal corporations and hold elections. This team has failed to keep Delhi clean, pay salaries to employees and keep accounts. "They have bungled the funds and when we order inquiry into it they do not allow it," Sisodia complained, referring to a two-member probe team formed by the government to look into accounts of the municipal corporations. "The elected BJP leaders have failed to run the municipal corporations. There is no management of money, no utilisation certificates of funds given by Delhi government have been submitted, accounts show unspent balance under different heads yet we continued to release funds," he said. Sisodia also claimed that the municipal corporations had "failed" to get tax dues amounting to Rs 1,250 crore purportedly owed by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA). Senior officials in the government are in touch with the mayors and commissioners of the municipal corporations as well as police so as to ensure that garbage collection does not get hit due to the strike, he added. The Delhi High Court had yesterday asked the Centre to ensure that civic agencies keep the national capital clean as per the 'Swachh Bharat' policy and directed the police to ensure there was no hindrance in garbage removal by the municipalities. The nomination of an Independent candidate, backed by Yogendra Yadav-led Swaraj Abhiyan, for the Khadoor Sahib by-poll was rejected during scrutiny today on the grounds that he was not a registered voter in Punjab. Sub Divisional Magistrate-cum-Returning officer Ravinder Singh said Baldeep Singh had left the relevant column in this regard blank in his nomination form. Baldeep is not a registered voter in any constituency in Punjab which is mandatory for a candidate contesting Assembly election, he added. While the Swaraj Abhiyan said it will approach the Election Commission in this regard Punjab Congress condemned it as an "arbitrary rejection". Baldeep, currently a registered voter in 41-Jangpura of Delhi, alleged his nomination was rejected at the instance of ruling Akali Dal "because my victory was almost certain". With Congress "boycotting" the bye-polls and AAP not contesting, today's development virtually leaves the ground open for the SAD candidate, Ravinder Singh Brahmpura. After rejection of Baldeep's nomination, Yogendra Yadav tweeted, "Shocked that @bhaibaldeep nomination rejected on technical ground. Hope ELection Commission will intervene and save democratic process (sic)." Swaraj Abhiyan suspected the ruling party's pressure might have worked. "Baldeep was emerging as principal contender against the ruling Akali candidate. This gives rise to a suspicion that ruling party's pressure may be at work here. "Swaraj Abhiyan appeals to the Election Commission to intervene and ensure that the democratic spirit is not thwarted and Bhai Baldeep gets his due chance to contest elections," Abhiyan said. Baldeep had unsuccessfully contested the parliamentary elections from Khadoor Sahib on AAP ticket in 2014. In a bid to empower the differently-abled and make them feel able enough, Enactus KIIT University here joined a country-wide campaign on clubfoot by setting off sky-lanterns enmasse. A large number of flying lanterns illuminated the skyline after getting airborne during the campaign organised by Enactus KIIT at KIIT University here in collaboration with the Rotaract Club of Bhubaneswar last evening, organisers said in a statement today. The noble mission was undertaken here as a part of a nationwide 'Clubfoot Awareness Campaign' organised by Enactus St. Stephen's College. Under the campaign, sky-lanterns were set off enmasse in different places across the country, contributing Rs 50 for every lantern released, it said. In appreciation of the movement, a large number of people from different spheres turned up for the event to support the noble cause, as KIIT Enactus members explained to them about the objective behind the whole campaign. Clubfoot, also called Congenital Talipes Equinovarus (CTEV), is a congenital deformity involving one foot or both feet. The affected foot appears to have been rotated internally at the ankle. "Here at Enactus, we know that every individual is capable and it is no different for the differently-abled. Getting a chance to help them is special, because when you work with them, you realise the potential they have. With the government also taking steps to empower the differently-abled, we definitely see a bright future for them", said Saurav Ku. Sahoo, President, Enactus KIIT University. Earlier, Enactus St. Stephen's College through their maiden social entrepreneurship venture - Project Kadam have impacted the lives of 1500 differently abled people and further 6200 people indirectly. The clubfoot awareness campaign was in continuation of their endeavour, it said. Enactus, known before October 2012 as Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE), is an international non-profit organisation that works with leaders in business and higher education to mobilise university students to make a difference in their communities while developing the skills to become socially responsible business leaders, organisers said. Participating students form teams on their university campuses and apply business concepts to develop outreach projects that improve the quality of life and standard of living for people in need. Civil society groups in Sri Lanka today demanded a policy statement from the government on the UNHRC resolution on involving foreign judges to probe alleged atrocities committed during the civil war with the LTTE, days after President Maithripala Sirisena backtracked on the issue. Expressing concern over withdrawal from the obligations specified in the UN Human Rights Council resolution, the civil society said the government must be held accountable. "We feel that it is time that all stakeholders, both within the country and in the international community, hold the government accountable to its Geneva commitments," several rights organisations said in a statement. Sirisena, in an interview to BBC Sinhala last week, had said he will never agree to "international involvement" as Sri Lanka has "more than enough" experts and knowledgeable people to solve internal issues. He had even expressed full confidence in the existing judicial system and in Sri Lanka's investigative authorities. However, in October 2015, the Sirisena government had co-sponsored the UNHRC resolution calling for a special judicial mechanism to prosecute war criminals - with support from foreign judges, prosecutors and investigators. The civil society alleged the resolution was a compromise, "much to the disappointment of many victims and activists". "The government now appears to be backtracking from even these compromised commitments," they said. Following the Sirisena interview, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in another interview appeared to be engaging in damage control when he stated that the government will abide by commitments given to UNHRC in Geneva, they said. They said that these contradictions between the President and the Prime Minister are not new and have been a constant feature of the government's commitments. The civil society demanded that the government release a policy statement, clarifying its position on the UNHRC resolution, in particular its stance with regard to the commitment to institute a hybrid process. Sirisena has also come under fire from international rights groups, who allege that the victims of the 26-year war consider a purely domestic investigation to be untrustworthy. Up to 100,000 people are believed to have died in the war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The final months of the war were the most bloody. The government has been accused of repeatedly shelling safe zones set up to protect civilians. Pucker up, get your brushes and line your eyes -- sanctions on Iran are out, and cosmetics from France are in. Or at least, that's what some of France's biggest, best-known cosmetic brands are hoping, with a huge market opening up as Iran comes in from the cold after a landmark nuclear deal. While cosmetics weren't barred from entering the Islamic republic under the sanctions regime, restrictions on banking transactions made it hard to do business there. For several months however, as anticipation mounted around a November nuclear agreement, "we were approached more and more by people" who were keen to break into the Iranian market, said Virginie d'Enfert, economic affairs director at the French Federation of Beauty Companies (FEDEA). "'Made in France' gives (brands) a real competitive edge" in Iran, she said, adding that cosmetics companies nonetheless have a lot of work to do to win over the country. In 2014, German company Beiersdorf and Dutch Unilever dominated in Iran, according to London-based market research company Euromonitor. Other foreign cosmetics brands, mainly from the United States and South Korea, are also vying for space on Iranian shelves, she added. French giant L'Oreal -- which owns luxury brands Lancome and Yves Saint Lauren Beauty -- came seventh place in Iran, overshadowed in the rankings by local brands and Procter and Gamble from the United States. L'Oreal's CEO Jean-Paul Agon isn't discouraged, as he opts for a slowly-but-surely seduction strategy. "Things are going to be done progressively" in Iran, he said. "But it's a country where, in the future, things might get interesting." Despite years of sanctions and a conservative Islamic regime, Iran's cosmetics market is still the second-biggest in the Middle East after Saudi Arabia, grossing some USD 3.5 billion in 2014 -- and that's without counting perfumes. Now, as Iran opens up to the world economy, that figure is expected to triple by 2019, Euromonitor says. The nuclear deal comes at a time when Iranian women, who are still required to wear at least a loose headscarf, are forcing a gradual change in the dress code. Many women, particularly in the cities, wear stylish and colourful coats and headscarves and often trousers instead of the traditional one-piece, head-to-toe black chador. "Facial appearance is very important for women in Iran, because that's the only part of the body that can be seen when they go out wearing the veil," said Sahar Jamali, director of Aria Chic, an Iranian distributor of foreign perfumes, make-up and cosmetics. One of the suspects arrested by Maharashtra anti-terrorism squad during the crack-down on ISIS-affiliated group had visited Panvel area in neighbouring Raigad district a few months ago, the investigators have learnt. "We are yet to find out why he had gone there," an ATS officer said on condition of anonymity. NIA and other agencies have arrested about 20 suspected terrorists this month all over India. Other terror suspects too had visited Panvel subsequently, the officer said, without revealing any names. Last week, the state ATS, in a joint operation with the National Investigation Agency, arrested three men: one from Mazgaon area of Mumbai, another from Mumbra area in Thane and the third from Aurangabad. COLUMBIA, South Carolina -- Two relatives of an 82-year-old woman who authorities say died after she sat in the same chair for six months have been charged with neglect, according to warrants obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press. The documents show that David Scott Howell, 43, and Carole Beam Howell, 74, were arrested on Jan. 21 and charged with abuse or neglect resulting in the death of a vulnerable adult. Neither the warrants nor online court records listed an attorney for either of them. Barbara Beam died Jan. 2, 2015, at her Greenville home. She lived with her sister Carole Howell and Howell's son David. At the time of her death, police said that Beam's sister told them the woman couldn't move on her own, "stays in the chair located in the bedroom and that she had not moved out of the chair for approximately six months," according to a report. The sister told police Beam refused to eat a few hours before her death and they watched a soap opera together in her bedroom before she went to the kitchen. When the sister returned, Beam was slumped in her chair, and didn't have a pulse, police said. Paramedics took Beam from the chair and put the 200-pound woman on the floor. Her legs were still bent in a sitting position when the officer arrived and she was not wearing pants, according to the report. Officers noted indentions on the back of Beam's legs and body fluids staining the chair, saying the home's smell was so bad that firefighters set up a fan at the door as they worked. The Greenville County Coroner's Office ruled Beam's death a homicide by neglect, saying that she died from a blood clot in her lung. Beam also had deep vein thrombosis, which are clots caused by sitting for long periods of time, and a serious infection that started in her kidneys, according to the coroner. Prosecutors have been reviewing the case for a year. David Howell was listed in jail Wednesday, and Carole Howell was released on a personal recognizance bond. A woman who answered the phone at a home number listed for Carole Howell said she did not know the woman and hung up on a reporter. David Howell has been arrested more than a dozen times since 1991, including charges for drug possession, underage drinking and making obscene phone calls. There are also several arrests for criminal domestic violence, assault and stalking, although some of those charges were ultimately dropped, according to state police records. The Maharashtra government has decided against amending the Rent Control Act (1999), which would have made certain commercial establishments and tenants in residential homes, mostly in island city, pay market rates, apparently after buckling under pressure ahead of civic polls. The amendment would have excluded all commercial establishments occupying more than 500 sq ft from the protection under the Act that prohibits landlords from levying market rents. Besides, it would have also made all those, who have taken such commercial establishments on rent and also those living as tenants in residential homes that are bigger than 862 sq ft, pay contemporary rates as sought by landlords. State Housing Minister Prakash Mehta has clarified that no proposal will be moved for amending the Act, BJP Mumbai president Ashish Shelar said here today. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis yesterday assured a delegation of tenants' associations that his government will not make any amendments to the Act, said state unit BJP President Raosaheb Danve. Danve said the CM has assured that the government has no plans to make any changes in the Rent Act and that government would stand by the tenants. "There was no such proposal before the government to hike the rents of tenanted properties," said BJP MLA Raj Purohit. BJP MLA Mangal Prabhat Lodha, who represents Malabar Hill seat in South Mumbai, said the government had rejected the proposal to hike rents way back in May 2015. "Following the atmosphere of fear created in people by the opposition, the Minister for Housing Prakash Mehta has assured that there will be no hike in rents and that no tenant will be evicted from their tenanted homes," he said. Lodha and Purohit accused rival political parties of creating a "fear psychosis" among tenants by exaggerating the issue. Lodha denied that the move had anything to do with the polls to Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), slated for next year. Purohit said the 'Mumbai Bhadekaru Ekta Sangh' was pursuing a case in Supreme Court over the issue of rent and ownership. He said the state government had last year rejected the Centre's Model Rent Control Act. "BJP would fight for granting ownership rights to the tenants," Purohit added. Besides NCP and the Congress, the legislators of Shiv Sena and even BJP have welcomed the development as victory for Mumbaikars. In a statement released here today, Mumbai unit NCP president Sachin Ahir said the government's move not to amend the Rent Act is a victory for Mumbaikars. "It was NCP which first launched the agitation which forced the government to retract," he claimed. Leader of Opposition in Legislative Assembly, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil said, "whether the BJP and Shiv Sena are running the government or they are indulging in a child's play." "The issue has been on the boil for last four to five days and yesterday all of a sudden the government announced that there was no proposal before it to hike the rents," he said. State unit NCP president Sunil Tatkare said the government has of late developed a habit of not taking note of future consequences before taking decisions and then retracting them. Yuva Sena president Aaditya Thackeray tweeted that the Opposition from Sena and other political parties forced the government to scrap the policy. After voicing Sena's opposition and holding demonstrations on streets and launching a signature drive against the unjust amendments the government has scrapped the policy. Aaditya, son of Sena president Uddhav Thackeray, stated that the proposed changes in the Act would have made it non- affordable for lakhs of Mumbaikars to live in the city. Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao has accepted the invitation from actress Juhi Chawla to watch her latest film "Chalk n Duster". The 48-year-old actress met the Governor at Raj Bhavan here today and invited him to watch her film which deals with certain issues pertaining to education, a Raj Bhavan release said. "We are delighted ..!!! Honourable Governor of Maharashtra Shri C V Rao will be watching Chalk N Duster very soon," Chawla tweeted. Wife of the Governor Vinodha and Governor's Secretary Venugopal Reddy were also present. Directed by Jayant Gilater, the film stars Juhi, Shabana Azmi, Zarina Wahab, Divya Dutta and Upasana Singh. The Maharashtra government was today refused permission by the Bombay High Court to hold a mega event at Girgaum Chowpatty (beach) in south Mumbai to kickstart the 'Make in India Week' programme in February. The state government had filed an application before the high court after a committee appointed by HC in 2001 to monitor activities on the beach asked the government to seek the court's permission. The HC-appointed committee had in 2005 submitted guidelines on what activities and functions can be permitted to be held at the Girgaum Chowpatty. A division bench of Justices A S Oka and C V Bhadang today, while refusing to grant permission to the state government, observed that permitting the government to hold such functions on the beach will be "faulty" to the guidelines of the committee. In the application filed by deputy secretary V Loke, the state said it proposed to host a mega 'Maharashtra Night' on February 14 at Girgaum Chowpatty, to showcase its art and culture and industrial development. The event will end with a laser show and fireworks display. Advocate General Shreehari Aney said, "Earlier the committee had made an exception and permitted the government to hold a function at the beach celebrating the 50th year anniversary of Maharashtra." "This 'Make in India' event is much more grand and important. At least three Prime Ministers of different countries are excepted to attend the event along with several other VIPs and foreign delegates. The function will be open to the public also," Aney said. The court, however, refused to accept the state's contention and said, "Make in India programme cannot be equated with the solemn function of celebrating the existence of Maharashtra for 50 years. The presence of VIPs and foreign delegates does not mean the guidelines accepted by the high court earlier have to be modified. The high court also noted that the state government never objected to the committee's guidelines when it was recommended and even when it was accepted by the HC in 2005. "When the high court accepted the committee's guidelines in October 2005, the state government was a consenting party. Permitting such a function will completely defeat the purpose of the guidelines and the orders passed by this court," the bench said. Aney had informed the court that while the function will be held on February 14 for four hours in the evening, the government will start construction of stage, back stage, toilets and other temporary structures from February 1 itself. Around two lakh sq ft area on the beach will be used for the function with 500 to 600 chairs for VIPs and other guests after which the place will be open to public, he said. When the court questioned as to why the function has to be held on the beach, Aney said, "It would be picturesque to hold such a function to showcase Mumbai with the Marine drive and sea in the backdrop. If the court refuses permission then the government will look for some other place. A protest was held in the district's remote Korchi taluka bordering Chhattisgarh over the suicide of a dalit research scholar in Hyderabad Central University (HCU). The protest was organised yesterday jointly by Congress, CPI, Buddhist Society of India, Bharip Bahujan Mahasangh and Samyak Vidyarthi Andolan. A protest march passed through the Weekly Market Square of the town, where the shopkeepers shut shops following request from the marchers, and ended in front of the tehsil office after covering a distance of 2 km. A meeting was held in front of the tehsil office where leaders of the parties and groups demanded immediate arrest of those responsible for the dalit scholar's death. A memorandum addressed to the President of India was then submitted to naib tehsildar Vikas Hatwar. Despite denial of permission by the local police to take out a morcha, people from remote areas in the taluka participated in the protest and expressed their anguish over the incident. The body of Rohith Vemula was found hanging in a hostel room on the HCU campus on January 17, sparking strong reactions on the campus and across the country. Rohith and four other students, all from the dalit community, were suspended last year by the varsity for allegedly attacking an ABVP leader. The suspension of the four students was revoked last week after the issue snowballed into a major political row, with the agitation drawing support from parties other than the BJP. A petition launched by Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai urging a Syria donors' conference to give millions of dollars for educational causes had reached over 70,000 signatures. Addressed to US President Barack Obama, the petition, published on the change.org website, calls for world leaders to commit $1.4 billion at the London conference "to make sure all Syrian children affected by the conflict get an education". Britain, Germany and Norway are co-hosting the event on February 4 with the United Nations and Kuwait. A string of world leaders are expected to attend. They will discuss how to help 13.5 million people who are either vulnerable or displaced inside Syria, as well as 4.2 million people who have fled to neighbouring countries like Jordan and Lebanon. British Prime Minister David Cameron's office said Wednesday that participating countries would be asked to double the amount of money they are giving to tackle the humanitarian crisis. Last year, UN agencies asked for $8.4 billion (7.7 billion euros) from governments worldwide to fund the Syrian aid effort but received only $3.3 billion. Malala now lives in Birmingham, central England, after being shot by the Taliban in her native Pakistan 2012 and is expected to take part in the conference, according to the BBC. A man, accused of stalking and molesting a woman doctor at AIIMS, has been let off by a Delhi court which gave him benefit of doubt saying the prosecution could not prove its case. Metropolitan Magistrate Pooja Aggarwal acquitted the man, who was also an employee at the hospital, saying the alleged message sent by him to the doctor, which was primary evidence, could not be proved. "While the woman has deposed as to the accused sending her text message, butforreasonsbestknowntotheprosecution themessagewasnot relieduponbythecomplainantduringher examinationinchief. "Theallegationslevelledagainsttheaccusedweretobe proved onlybyleading thebestevidencei.E.theprimaryevidenceandinthis case itwasthemessageitselfwhichhasnotbeen provedbythe prosecution," the magistrate said. It also noted that the prosecution neither seized the phones of the complainant and accused nor placed on record their call detail records to prove the allegation. "Ihavecarefullyconsideredtheargumentsraisedandthe entireevidenceon record.Fromtheentireevidenceonrecord, itisseenthattheprosecutionhas failedtodischargethe burdencastuponittoproveoffenceunderIPC. "Thetestimonyofnoneofitswitnesseselucidatesthe date ortime whentheaccusedallegedlyfollowedthe complainant at thewards," the magistrate said. According to prosecution, the pediatrician at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here, had lodged a complaint alleging that the accused, a worker in the hospital, stalked her and followed her repeatedly. She had alleged that he obtained her mobile number from the OPD card and sent her text message confessing that he loved her, it said. During the trial, the accused had denied the allegations and claimed he was falsely implicated in the case. "Thus,fromtheentireevidenceonrecord, asprosecution hasfailedto provetheingredientsofoffence,ithasfailed to proveitscasebeyondreasonabledoubtandthe accused isgiven thebenefitofdoubtandheisacquitted..." the court said. A 35-year-old marble mason was today arrested from Dumdum area here for allegedly threatening to blow up a railway station in Pune, police said. Acting on an information received from Pune police, that a call was made from a number here to a GRP constable threatening to blow up a railway station in the Maharashtra city, Kolkata police arrested the mason, Mohammed Zakir. Zakir, during interrogation, denied making the threat call and claimed he had been trying to contact his son, who stays in Mumbai, and the call went to a wrong number. "He (Zakir) said he had an argument with the GRP constable but he had never threatened that he will blow up a railway station," a city police officer said. Police have started a probe into the background of Zakir, who hails from Jharkhand. A team of Pune police officers would reach the city tomorrow to take custody of Zakir. BSP supremo Mayawati today charged the Narendra Modi government with attempting to strip AMU and Jamia Millia Islamia of their minority status and termed the move as "communally and politically motivated". "The BJP-led central government is out to strip these institutions of their minority status which they got after a lot of struggle and this narrow mentality lowers the prestige of the country...This is like an attempt to make students belonging to religious minorities orphans," Mayawati told reporters here. "This communally motivated step of the BJP government is actually politically motivated," she said, adding it was aimed at polarising its vote bank before the coming Assembly elections in some states, including Uttar Pradesh. By dividing the votes on caste and communal lines, BJP wants to serve the purpose of Samajwadi Party along with its own, she alleged, contesting the rationale being given for depriving these institutions of minority status. "We disagree with the logic that by doing so Dalits and OBCs will get reservation in these institutions," she said, adding Dalits consider religious minorities as their own because they are the ones who had converted in protest against the disparity in Hindu system and BSP always favoured reservation for them. The BSP chief said if the BJP government is so concerned about the welfare of Dalits and OBCs, it should improve the condition of primary and secondary schools all over the country so children from these sections get education. "If they are so concerned about children of these sections they should introduce reservation in private sector schools so that they are uplifted, but, instead of taking positive steps they are out to follow the policy of confrontation with a view to polarising votes," she said. It is unfortunate and shows the difference between "kathni and karni" (words and deeds) of the prime minister and the BJP government, she added. Meanwhile, referring to the agitation by women against ban on their entry in Shani Shinganpur temple in Maharashtra, Mayawati said it was reflective of "wrong mentality". "It is because of wrong mentality that women are not allowed entry in some temples and an agitation is going on in Maharashtra," she said. It is an irony that priests and pujaris opposing this forget that they too were given birth by a woman, she said. "Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar had wanted to pass Hindu Code Bill for providing equal rights to women but failed," she said. Mayawati alleged that while on one hand the prime minister is making announcements in the name of Ambedkar, on the other Dalits are being humiliated in the country. "Atrocities on Dalits have increased ever since no action was taken against Union Minister V K Singh who made objectionable comments on Dalits. RSS and other saffron organisations are playing their game from the background," she alleged. "A Dalit student, Rohith Vemula, was forced to commit suicide because of this...If he does not get justice even after a judicial probe was ordered, it will be taken that the Prime Minister getting emotional in a Lucknow function over this was merely a political move and he had shed crocodile tears," Mayawati said. The BSP chief expressed apprehension that Rohith's family will not get justice, alleging that the government has been trying to save some people connected with the case since the very beginning. She claimed that BJP ministers having RSS background have anti-Dalit, anti-OBC and anti-minorities and especially anti- Muslim mentality which is "most dangerous, casteist and inhuman". The BSP leader claimed that it is for the first time that such an atmosphere has been created in the country where BJP MPs are openly making a mockery of the Constitution. "The prime minister who has taken oath to protect the Constitution has let them loose...Such conduct of the BJP is not in the interest of the country," she said. Referring to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan's statement on reservation, she said, "She has openly come out against reservation...This is reflective of her anti-Dalit stance." "She should know that in India where at every stage casteism is the dominating factor, talking about ending reservation amounts to encouraging injustice and atrocities on Dalits and other weaker sections," she added. She also warned Dalits, OBCs and minorities against falling prey to allurements. (REOPENS DEL 43) Mayawati said even "nexus between BJP and SP" will fail to prevent BSP from coming to power in UP this time. She also took aim at Congress and Sheila Dikshit, saying the party has projected an "elderly lady from Brahmin community who has destroyed Delhi" as its chief ministerial candidate to garner upper caste votes. "For a long time, they ruled at the Centre and in UP. They were ousted from power due to their wrong policies," she said. The BSP supremo said Congress was now talking about 10 per cent reservation for economically backward among the upper castes. Moreover, many jobs were in the private sector where there is no reservation, she said. "If their intention was good, they could have already done it in their 54 years' rule. I requested them several times, but they didn't take any cognisance," she said. She said that once BSP comes to power, the dream of 'sarvjan hitay, sarvjan sukahey' (happiness and prosperity for all) would become a reality. The BSP chief also sought to take the wind out of Congress party's rath yatra and padayatra, saying people would not be befooled by these gimmicks. Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to take out a yatra from Deoria, also in eastern UP, in the first week of September to highlight the plight of farmers and other issues. She also criticised the recent tiranga yatra of BJP to pay tributes to martyrs. Mayawati, who had kicked off her UP poll campaign from Agra last week, said BSP alone could deliver the goods in the state which had been reduced to 'apradh (crime) pradesh' where women are insecure in all its 75 districts. (REOPENS DES 40) Mayawati said a "desperate" BJP had no option but to accept BSP's "rejected maal (stuff)" as it was facing a shortage of candidates. "BJP is in a desperate position in Uttar Pradesh and is ready to accept people 'rejected' by our party," she said referring to the recent desertion by two senior BSP leaders Swami Prasad Maurya and Brijesh Pathak, who joined BJP. "BJP has no candidate in UP, that is why they are including people who have either left BSP or have been expelled," she said. "Like in Bihar, the BJP does not have any candidates for the upcoming Vidhan Sabha elections in the state. They (BJP) are depending on the 'rejected maal' of the BSP and other parties," she said. She said under the BJP government, minority communities were living in fear and were being threatened by 'Gau Rakhaks' (cow vigilantes). Accusing Samajwadi Party of being incapable of controlling crime, she also said cases of rape were soaring in the state. An F-16 fighter aircraft of Egypt's military has crashed in an undisclosed location in the country during a training drill, killing its entire crew, the army said today. "These details only concern (them). Why does it interest the media or anyone else?", Army spokesperson Brigadier General Mohamed Samir said in a statement. He said that all the crew were killed in the crash. The incident took place yesterday. However, the spokesperson did not specify the number of casualties and the place where the incident took place. Earlier, the reports said that two military pilots were killed after their aircraft crashed in Ismailia city. In a similar incident last year, the crew of a military helicopter suffered injuries after it crashed on the Cairo-Ismailia road due to a technical error. The helicopter was engaged in routine scouting when an unexpected technical error occurred. Mizoram Health Minister Lal Thanzara today said that international or state boundaries should not destroy the spirit of unity among the Mizos. Addressing a function, Lal Thanzara urged all Mizos to remain united. The former Lok Sabha member said that the union government should take steps to protect the rights of the indigenous people like the Mizos living in the country. PASCAGOULA, Mississippi -- Longtime Jackson County Chancery Clerk Terry Miller, described as a soft-spoken and well-respected public servant, died Tuesday at the age of 72. Miller, who retired last year after serving as chancery clerk for 18 years, was remembered this week by friends and colleagues as a good-natured fishing buddy and a kind-hearted boss. "I just think of how well respected he was, not only by the public, but also his staff," said Josh Eldridge, who was elected to replace Miller after his retirement. "I'm constantly hearing about how big of a heart he had and how good he was to work for," Eldridge said. "And that's not just in Jackson County, but around the state." The Ocean Springs native was a Mississippi Power Co. retiree and active member of Pascagoula Rotary Club, Ocean Springs Lions Club, Ocean Springs/Jackson County Chamber of Commerce and the Jackson County Homebuilders Association. "Terry was a guy who was always willing to work with you," retired Jackson County Circuit Clerk Joe Martin said. "We teamed up so many times. He just was a good friend. I called him 'Mr. Clerk' and he called me 'Mr. Clerk.' We had good times together at Rotary Club and as we retired together." Miller attended First Baptist Church in Ocean Springs, served in the Mississippi Army National Guard and was a life member of American Legion Post 160 in Pascagoula. He was a former Jackson County Port Authority commissioner and past director of the Jackson County Economic Development Foundation. He was also involved with the Jackson County USM Alumni Association, National Association of Accountants and United Way. Jackson County Supervisor Melton Harris remembered Miller as "soft spoken and very knowledgeable" and said he was admired by the community. "He often ran unopposed, and that's clearly an indication that he was well thought of by the citizens of the county," Harris said. When Miller announced his retirement in August 2014, he said, "My desire is to spend more time with family and friends." He was well known as an avid fisherman who enjoyed spending time with his two grandsons. "I went to see him last week and told him that me and him never caught many fish, but we had fun trying," Eldridge said. "He told me, 'Hopefully I'll get a wall hanger in Heaven.'" Miller is survived by his wife, Thelma Hire Miller; his son, Lee Jordan Miller (Arlene); and grandsons Hayden Lee Miller and Wesley Jordan Miller and their mother, Monica Miller Marlowe. Visitation will be held on Friday from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at First Baptist Church, 602 Washington Avenue in Ocean Springs. The service will begin at 11 a.m., and interment will follow at Evergreen Cemetery. China's controversial campaign to hunt down alleged white-collar criminals living abroad netted 857 fugitives last year, the country's public security ministry said. Beijing's secretive "Operation Fox Hunt" has ruffled feathers in some countries that say Chinese law enforcement agents have been operating covertly on their soil without the approval or consent of local authorities. Few details of what extradition procedures are involved, if any, were given. The drive largely focuses on suspected economic criminals, including corrupt officials, who have also been targeted by President Xi Jinping's much-publicised anti-graft campaign. Of those repatriated last year, 366 turned themselves in, the ministry said in a statement on its website late Wednesday -- implying that nearly 500 were seized against their will. It did not make clear who carried out the arrests. The wanted individuals were returned from 66 countries and regions, the ministry said, including the United States, Spain and Italy, and over 70 percent had lived outside China for five years or more. The ministry also announced the creation of a department of overseas fugitives affairs to oversee Operation Fox Hunt this year. Last August, the New York Times reported that Chinese agents were entering the United States on tourism or trade visas and using "strong-arm tactics" to compel their targets to return. Concerns over extra-territorial Chinese activities have been heightened in recent weeks by the disappearance of five Hong Kong booksellers known for salacious titles critical of Beijing leaders. Among them Lee Bo, a British passport holder, disappeared from a book warehouse in Hong Kong and resurfaced in China weeks later saying he was "assisting an investigation". Pro-democracy lawmakers and activists believe mainland agents kidnapped him despite having no right to operate in the city, which has a separate legal and political system from the mainland. Swedish national Gui Minhai vanished from Thailand, reappearing in custody on Chinese national television, confessing that he had come to the People's Republic to "take legal responsibilities" for a fatal accident that occurred 11 years earlier. Delighted over Bhubaneswar topping the list of 20 cities selected as part of first batch of the Smart City initiative, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today congratulated the people and said all efforts would be made to achieve the goal. "I am delighted that Bhubaneswar has topped the list of Smart Cities prepared by the Government of India. We will make all efforts to see this is fulfilled. I also congratulate the Bhubaneswar team that is working so hard for this," Patnaik said. Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said he was proud to find Bhubaneswar topping the list of 20 cities announced as part of the initiative. Odisha's Urban Development Minister Puspendra Singhdeo said it would be a challenge to ensure proper implementation of the projects and remove problems relating to drainage, sewerage disposal, and water logging during monsoon. Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation mayor Anant Narayan Jena said it was a matter of pride that Bhubaneswar has secured the top position in the list. These 20 smart cities will be developed for basic infrastructure through assured water and power supply, sanitation and solid waste management, efficient urban mobility and public transport, IT connectivity, e-governance and citizen participation. Senior officials from India and Nepal today kicked off a meeting here to discuss cooperation in power sector including implementation of a bilateral power trade agreement signed in 2014. They are expected to discuss matters relating to cross- border electricity transmission, grid connectivity and power trade between both the neighbouring country, officials said. The implementation of power trade agreement that the two countries signed in 2014 will mainly be discussed in the two- day meeting, they said. Besides expediting works relating to construction of cross border transmission lines between Nepal and India, the meeting will discuss matters which include importing electricity from India to ease Nepal's current power shortage and to provide market access for Nepal's power producers in India for future export of surplus hydropower, Nepalese officials said. Nepalese delegation was led by Energy Secretary Suman Prasad Sharma while PK Pujari, Power Secretary, led the Indian delegation. This is the second time that these joint mechanisms are holding a meeting since their formation in October 2014, when the historic Nepal-India Agreement on Electric Power Trade, Cross-Border Transmission, Interconnection and Grid Connectivity was signed. Meetings of these joint mechanisms were previously held in New Delhi in November 2014. Officials said a meeting of the Pancheshwar Development Authority in Kathmandu is expected to be held in February. The 5,600 MW Pancheshwar Multipurpose Project falls under the integrated treaty on Mahakali River, bordering both Nepal and India. The project is expected to provide irrigation facilities to thousands of hectares of cultivable lands in both the neighbouring countries. Upadhyaya said the officials in New Delhi need not to panic and think that Nepal might turn to China for help, which is just impossible. "We cannot change history and change our neighbour, he pointed out. We must establish good relations with India for the supply of essentials as well as attaining economic prosperity," Upadhyaya said. India has accorded high importance to her relations with Nepal, said Upadhyaya, recalling his experience as the Nepalese ambassador to India. "We should not complicate our relations with India by talking irresponsible things and Indian authorities should also trust their norther neighbour," he said, underlining the need to move forward by maintaining a balanced relations between the two neighbours. He also praised India for providing immediate help to Nepal during the earthquake and providing huge support for Nepal's reconstruction efforts. "There was a breakthrough in the relations between the two countries after the visits paid by Prime minister Narendra Modi to Nepal, though unfortunately we had to face blockade for some time due to the misunderstandings surfaced in both sides of the bilateral relations," he said. Over 50 people lost their lives during months-long agitation by the Madhesis which also saw blockade of Nepal's all trading points with India, resulting in huge shortage of essential commodities and souring Indo-Nepal ties. The major demands of Madhesis, mostly of Indian-origin, include re-demarcation of the seven province model of federal structure, inclusiveness and proportionate representation of marginalised groups and ethnic minorities including the Madhesis, indigenous groups and dalits in all the state bodies. Nepalese Army chief General Rajendra Chettri will visit India next week, his first trip abroad since assuming command of the country's military. Chhetri will visit India from February 1 for a six-day official trip on the invitation of his Indian counterpart General Dalbir Singh, Nepal Army headquarters sources said. This will be Chhetri's first visit abroad after assuming the top army post in September last year. This will be a "regular visit" of the Nepal army chief to India, sources said here. There is a tradition of paying a visit to India by the Nepal army chief after assuming office. The detailed programme of the visit is yet to be worked out, an official at the Public Relations Directorate of the Nepal Army said. As per tradition, the Nepalese army chief is likely to be conferred the title of honorary chief of the Indian Army. Chettri has received Field Artillery and Air Defence Artillery training in the early years of his service from India, Pakistan and China. He is a graduate of the Command and General Staff College, Ft Leavenworth, Kansas, US. He is also a qualified Psychological Testing Officer from the Defense Institute of Psychological Research, New Delhi. The army chief's visit comes ahead of the proposed visit of Prime Minister K P Oli to India in February. However, Oli has expressed reservations about making the India visit amid the border blockade. Oli had said it would not be appropriate to visit India until the "border blockade" ends, linking his maiden foreign trip next month to the normalisation of situation at the border. The National Green Tribunal has issued bailable warrant against a Lucknow-based five-star hotel for its failure to appear before it and not filing reply to a show-cause notice issued to it on a plea relating to illegal extraction of ground water. "Hotel Clark Awadh is not represented today. It is seen that it has not appeared on earlier posting dates also and has also not even filed any reply. The presence of the hotel is absolutely necessary. "Consequently, we issue bailable warrant for production of General Manager, Hotel Clark Awadh to be executed by SSP, Lucknow in the sum of Rs 20,000 to the satisfaction of the arresting officer...," a bench headed by Justice M S Nambiar said. The green panel also issued notice to Moradabad-based Hotel Holiday Regency to show cause why environmental compensation should not be imposed on it for extracting underground water without necessary permission from Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA). "It is clear from the admitted facts that the Hotel was functioning and utilising the underground water from the bore-well without the necessary permission from CGWA for all those years... The hotel is directed to show cause within seven days why environmental compensation shall not be imposed," the bench said. The matter is listed for next hearing on February 12. The directions came while hearing a plea by an environment activist which had alleged that various hotels in Uttar Pradesh were using groundwater without requisite permission from the authority. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today strongly criticised a message on social media regarding Jawaharlal Nehru allegedly calling Subhash Chandra Bose a "war criminal" and said this is "character assassination" of the national hero (Nehru). "These days a message is being run on social media in which Jawaharlal Nehru called Subhash Chandra Bose a war criminal. This is character assassination of the national hero," he said, addressing a function to mark the death anniversary of freedom fighter Sheelbhadra Yaji at his native Bhakhtiyarpur. "Pandit Nehru's contribution to the freedom movement and nation building cannot be forgotten," the senior JD(U) leader said. Former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupendra Singh Hooda was also present at the function to mark death anniversary of Sheelbhadra Yaji. In an apparent attack against BJP, he said "Those ruling in Delhi at present had no role in the freedom movement." Nitish said there were different streams in the struggle for country's Independence. On the one hand was Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent agitation while on the another side there were revolutionaries like Bose, Sardar Bhagat Singh and Khudiram Bose. Yaji was an associate of Netaji and had been called to Singapore by him to spread the message of freedom, Hooda said while paying respect to the freedom fighter. (Reopens CES3) Kumar reiterated the commitment of his government to make every village a "smart village" by enhancing civic facilities so that nobody felt the urge to move out to urban centres for want of these. He dwelt at length on the programmes like free WiFi in every college and universities, monthly allowance of Rs 1000 for two years to youths in between 20-25 to find jobs without bothering family, Rs 4 lakh interest-free loan for pursuing higher studies and 35 per cent reservation for women in all state government jobs which are part of his seven resolves. The CM harped on prohibition and counted the advantages of liquor ban in terms of improvement in environment at home and community and also reeled out figures to highlight how money saved after prohibition is being used in consumption of milk, sweets and other household items. India and Pakistan have not been able to agree upon a "mutually convenient" date for Foreign Secretary-level talks so far even as New Delhi today asserted that Mumbai attack case trial was a "test" of Pakistan's sincerity in combating terrorism directed against the country. "As of now, we don't have a mutually convenient date," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said. He was asked about the status of Indo-Pak Foreign Secretaries-level talks and reported remarks of Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit during an interview here on the possibility of the parleys in the first week of February. On the progress of probe by Pakistan in Pathankot terror strike, he said the two governments were in "continuous communication" regarding the matter but refused to give any further details. He also added that while it was decided that the issues pertaining to terrorism would be handled by NSAs of the two countries but it was obvious that when the foreign secretaries will meet, the Pathankot attack would be raised by India. Noting that it has seen media reports about the Pakistan High court dismissing government's petition seeking voice samples of 26/11 mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Swarup said but India has not received any word on this through official channels. "We see Mumbai terror attack trial in Islamabad as a test of Pakistan's sincerity in combating terrorism directed against India. The planning, training and financing of the Mumbai terrorist attack was done in Pakistan where 99 per cent of the evidence is. "It is Pakistan's responsibility to unearth and present the requisite evidences in the ongoing trial so that the perpetrators are brought to justice," the Spokesperson said. Pakistani government had filed an application in the Islamabad High Court seeking voice samples of the suspects to compare it with the communication intercepted by Indian intelligence and then present it before the anti-terrorism court (ATC) as evidence in the Mumbai attack case but the petition was dismissed by the Court on Monday. The Goa Human Rights Commission (GHRC) has issuednotice tothe state police chief and two other officers and asked them to appear before it in connection with a complaint filed by an elderly Goan NRI alleging harassment by a Mumbai-based gang. The Director General of Police, Superintendent of Police (North) and the Police Inspector of Mapusa town have been asked to remain present before the Commission on February 1. The complainant, 73-year-old Francis de Souza, represented by advocate Aires Rodrigues, had petitioned GHRC after police allegedly failed to act on his complaint against the gang. The senior citizen had complained that the gang had been threatening him to vacate his house at Siolim village in Mapusa police jurisdiction, which he had bought in 2011. He also alleged that police had failed to take cognizance of his complaint. In his complaint, the NRI said that while he was on a holiday in November last, the gang members trespassed into his property breaking open the doors and threw out all hismovableandimmovableitems, and illegally took possession of the house following which a complaint was lodged at Mapusa police station. He alleged that the police not only failed to protect his property but also connived with the accused. Commandant Chandra Shekar Joshi, a Coast Guard Officer who intercepted a suspicious Pakistani boat which later blew up on December 31, 2014, was awarded the President's Tatrakshak Gallantry Medal by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today. Commandant Abhay Ambetkar, who coordinated the air-to- surface operations that led to spotting the location of the boat, was also awarded the Tatrakshak Gallantry Medal. Joshi, who joined ICG in 1997, was commanding Indian Coast Guards Ship (ICGS) Rajratan and was deployed on the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) off the Gujarat coast. The ship was around 170 nautical miles from the spot where the suspicious boat was but proceeded with "maximum speed" to intercept it. However, the vessel exploded and caught fire before sinking along with four occupants. Parrikar had then said the "circumstantial evidence" indicated that the Pakistani boat had suspected terror links. "The current situation in and around the country continues to revolve around complexities and bring forward new challenges. Our security forces require to maintain 24X7 vigil along the land and maritime frontiers of the country. Ensuring maritime security of such a vast expanse, especially in maritime domains calls for seamless energy, coordination and pro-active approach from agencies," Parrikar said at the function. According to the citation with the award, "The boat was unlit and expressed hostile intent by trying to evade and taking advantage of the dark hours and weather. Despite repeated calls on VHF Channel 16, loud hailer and indication by search light, the crew of the suspected boat was defiant and refused to surrender. However, persistent efforts by the Officer and his team led to successful interception of the suspect boat." "The crew set the suspect boat on fire. Subsequently, the boat was engulfed in massive fire following an explosion. The boat finally sank at about 0633 hours on Jan 1 2015. Thereafter the ship assumed extensive search operations for locating survivors," the citation read. When asked by reporters whether it was a "terror" boat, Joshi said, "It was terror related, which is why it exploded." Parrikar also presented awards to 32 other officers for their gallantry or services. The Special US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Olson would travel to Brussels and Belgium to continue consultations with NATO allies and other international partners. Olson in Brussels this week will participate in a North Atlantic Council briefing for NATO Allies, partners and other donors focused on a secure future for Afghanistan, the State Department said in a statement. He will meet with senior NATO and European Union officials to discuss continued support to the people and Government of Afghanistan ahead of the July 2016 NATO Summit in Warsaw and the October 2016 Afghanistan development conference in Brussels, it said. From Brussels, Olson would travel to Berlin to participate in the meeting of the International Contact Group, the primary international forum for political coordination focused on bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan. The Government of Afghanistan, group member states, and multilateral institutions will meet to discuss shared commitments to Afghan security, governance, and reconciliation efforts, the Department of State said. IMG_3525.jpg Newly elected president of the Singing River Health System Board Jeffrey Belk, CEO Kevin Holland, and Don Barron are pictured as they participated in the Board of Trustees first open meeting. (Tyler Carter/Gulflive.com) PASCAGOULA, Mississippi -- During Wednesday's State of the County Address, Jackson County supervisors president Melton Harris took a brief moment to address Singing River Health System Hospital and its importance to the county. "Singing River Health System has been appraised at $35 million, which is a surplus of about $3 million," Harris said. "We hope that progress continues because we know that it is a major issue in our county, but we hope for the very best. "SRHS is the second largest employer in our county and we can look and wish for nothing more than to see them continue to get back to the point where everyone can say, `that is my hospital.' That is a future dream for all of us." The dream for retirees is transparency, and Wednesday afternoon represented a step in the right direction as the newly elected SRHS board of trustees held its first general meeting that was open to the public. As part of the pension settlement agreement, the health system had to replace nearly all of its trustees. Three vacant positions remain to be filled by the board of supervisors. The first order of business was the election of officers to serve in the positions that had to be vacated. Jeffrey Belk was elected president; Don Barron, vice president; Larry Cosper, secretary/treasurer. Board members discussed ways in which they can make the hospital better and the state of the hospital's finances. Chief of Staff Dr. Steve Demetropoulus offered three suggestions in areas in which the hospital could improve. "We have started collaboration groups assigned to every area of the hospital to try to have close communication in every decision making that is taking place," he said, "so instead of things happening without one party knowing about it, we are collaborating together to make the best decision available." Chief Financial Officer Lee Bond discussed the financial state of SRHS and how they are doing good in some areas and poor in others. In spite of the financial woes of the past, high clinical quality is what keeps patients coming back to SRHS. According to Bond, SRHS is recognized as number one in the state of Mississippi in many areas such as patient safety and vascular surgery, medical excellence and pulmonary care, medical excellence is heart failure treatment, and number one on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in medical excellence and hospital care. Pakistan's interior minister today criticised his PML-N party's government in Punjab province for shutting down schools over fears of terror attacks saying it only emboldened the militants. "Security can be improved while schools are still on. We should give a message of strength and unity and fight against the atmosphere of fear and terror," Nisar Ali Khan said. Punjab ordered closing of schools for the entire week citing extreme winter as the reason but media reports suggested that threat of militant attacks forced the government to take the decision. "The terrorists are desperate so they are attacking the softest targets. There are hundreds of thousands of schools in Pakistan. Securing each is a difficult job, but it must be done," Khan said. He said he has taken up the issue of closure of schools with the Punjab government. Khan said that he rejected a proposal to close schools in capital region of Islamabad. He said that if the trend of closing buildings continued then a day would come that "we close all our educational institutions, hospitals, streets, neighbourhoods and hide ourselves in our houses" to the satisfaction of terrorists. The minister said that the Pakistan was winning the war against militants but it needs to face them in the area of psychological warfare. "I think at this point we are not winning the psychological war and we need to address the part," he said. The minister criticized his opponents for creating confusion in the country. "Whenever there is an attack, a storm begins. We behave exactly how our enemies want by creating an atmosphere of fear. People criticise the government saying no progress has been made," he said. The minister said that National Action Plan (NAP) adopted after the 2014 Peshawar school attack was being successfully implemented under the civilian government while army was carrying out Operation Zarb-e-Azb. "Networks of terrorism have been broken. The terrorists are on the run so they hit the softest targets," he said. Pakistan will host the third meeting of four-way talks next week aimed at reviving the stalled peace process between the Afghan government and the Taliban, a top official said today. Foreign Office spokesman Qazi Khalilullah said that the meeting of quadrilateral group involving Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the US will be held on February 6 in Islamabad. Khalilullah said that the meeting would discuss the road map for reconciliation in Afghanistan. It would be third such meeting in recent weeks. The group of four was set up in December to facilitate the talks with the Taliban which were stalled in July after of Taliban chief Mullah Omar's death. The dates and venue of the third meeting was announced at the end of the Kabul meeting. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will soon travel to Qatar as part of that effort, Khalilullah said, without giving more details about the trip. Today's announcement came days after the Afghan Taliban said that its "political office" in Qatar is the only entity authorised to carry out negotiations on its behalf. Members of the Taliban's Qatar office are believed to be directly linked to Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, who officially became the group's chief after Omar's death last year. Officials from Pakistan, China and US were present when representatives of the Taliban and the Afghan government met in Murree near Islamabad during the first round. It is believed that the process of peace in Afghanistan will be a test for all parties due to strong opposition within Afghanistan towards any peace with the Taliban. The Taliban, who were ousted in 2001, remain split on whether to take part in talks. The outfit has stepped up attacks since the US and NATO formally ended their combat mission in Afghanistan a year ago, and the fighters are battling local Afghan security forces on several fronts. The expansion of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan has fueled regional and international concerns that the upcoming spring fighting season may lead to even more bloodshed and instability in the war-shattered country. A Parliamentary panel has decided to visit Pathankot, where terrorists attacked an air force base on January 2 leaving seven security personnel and six militants dead. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs chaired by Congress MP from Rajya Sabha P Bhattacharya has planned to visit the Indo-Pak border areas in Rajasthan and Punjab, and Pathankot will be part of the itinerary, sources said. On 2 January 2016, a heavily armed group, suspected to belong to militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed, attacked the Pathankot Air Force Station, part of the Western Air Command of the IAF. The other site, which the committee members plan to visit in Punjab is Gurdaspur, where three terrorists, believed to be of Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group, had sneaked in from Ravi river along the border in Punjab on the intervening night of July 26 and 27 and attacked a police station in Dina Nagar. Seven people including a Superintendent of Police were killed by the terrorists before they were neutralised by Punjab Police. The visit is likely to happen in the second week of February, the sources said. "We had visited Indo-Bangladesh border last month. This time, the plan is to visit Indo-Pakistan border and assess the situation," sources in the committee said on condition of anonymity. The panel wanted to discuss the Pathankot terror attack in its meeting on January 18 but citing ongoing investigations by the NIA, the Home Ministry had sought some more time from the committee to share details on the attack. Hence, the panel changed the agenda and has decided to discuss the issue at a later date. In the 31-member panel, the BJP has 13 members, Congress 4, BJD 2, Trinamool Congress 2, AIADMK 3, CPI-M, CPI, SP, TRS, TDP, Shiromani Akali Dal and Shiv Sena one each. NDA members have majority in the panel. Members of a standing committee of Parliament will be visiting Karnataka and Goa next week to discuss important issues related to environment and forests with NGOs and other stake-holders. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science & Technology, Environment and Forests will be in Bengaluru on February 4-5 and in Goa on February 6-7. The panel is headed by Congress MP and former Union minister Ashwani Kumar. The committee will go through the environmental status of Karnataka, including Bengaluru, and Goa, according to an official note. "The committee will study status of air and water quality, waste management, management of hazardous & bio-medical waste, plastic waste and e-waste of industries in both States," it said. The compliance status, number of industrial units under red, orange and green categories, capacity of sewage treatment plants, status of vehicular pollution and other aspects will also be studied by the Parliamentary body. The Pollution Control Boards of the respective states have been asked to provide relevant data. In Bengaluru, the panel will hold discussion with representatives of NGOs, civil society organisations, experts and other stakeholders on "The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill, 2015" and environmental issues of Bengaluru in participial and Karnataka in general. The panel will have similar discussion in Goa, too. The committee will meet representatives of Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and officials from Karnataka Government on the Bill. It will also visit ISRO Satellite Centre, Bengaluru, and discuss functioning of the organisation with authorities there. The House panel will visit National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research in Vasco town, about 25km from here. A meeting of PDP's senior party workers and zonal heads in Jammu, convened by party chief Mehbooba Mufti for February 3, has been postponed indefinitely. "The meeting in Srinagar will be held as per schedule on Janaury 31 but the Jammu sitting has been postponed for the time being," sources in the PDP said today. Fresh date for the Jammu meeting has not been finalised yet, the sources said. Mehbooba had convened the two meetings with the aim of getting a feedback from the grass root levels of the party workers and office bearers on government formation in the state. The party is also expected to launch a membership drive after the meeting in Srinagar. The meeting has been convened three weeks after Governor's Rule was imposed in the state after the death of then Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed on January 7. Sayeed was heading a coalition government with BJP since March 1 last year after the Assembly elections threw up a fractured verdict. Mehbooba was seen as the successor to her father as the Chief Minister but she has maintained suspense over the issue and not yet staked claim to form the government. Days back, she held a meeting with senior leaders who authorised her to take a decision on the formation of the next government but she has still not revealed her cards. Some PDP leaders had said that Mehbooba wanted a review of the work done during Sayeed's 10-month tenure, especially with regard to implementation of 'Agenda of Alliance' framed with BJP. BJP, with 25 MLAs in the 87-member Assembly, has made it clear that it wants the alliance to continue and were waiting for 27-member PDP to elect its Legislature Party leader. The Pentagon has named Lieutenant General John "Mick" Nicholson as the new commander of international forces in Afghanistan, amid concerns about setbacks in the fight against Taliban in the war-torn nation. Once confirmed by the United States Senate, Gen Nicholson who is currently the US Army commander of NATO land forces, would replace Gen John Campbell, who has been leading the Afghan operations for nearly 18 months. "I am confident that Gen Nicholson will build upon Gen Campbell's hard work to secure a bright future for the Afghan people, and help the government of Afghanistan strengthen a professional and capable security partner to the American people," Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said in a statement yesterday. "He knows what it means to lead a responsive and nimble force, and how to build the capacity of our partners to respond to immediate and long term threats and remain adaptable to confront evolving challenges," Carter said. "He understands the importance and complexity of our mission in Afghanistan," the Defence Secretary said. Nicholson has served in multiple capacities including chief of staff of operations for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and US Forces - Afghanistan, director of the Pakistan/Afghanistan Coordination Cell for the Joint Staff, and deputy commander - Stability of ISAF Regional Command - South. Carter thanked Campbell for his extraordinary leadership and dedication in his dual role as commander of United States Forces - Afghanistan, and as commander of the NATO Resolute Support mission. "While many challenges remain, we have made gains over the past year that will put Afghanistan on a better path, and much of the credit for that progress rests with Gen Campbell," Carter said. The transition comes amid growing concern about the security situation in Afghanistan, where Taliban militants have caused large numbers of casualties among Afghan troops and Islamic State affiliates have made some inroads. President Barack Obama in October announced 9,800 US forces would remain in Afghanistan until the end of 2016 -- backtracking on an earlier pledge to pull all but 1,000 US troops from the country. The Madras High Court today dismissed a petition seeking to declare as void a judgement written in English by a lower court convicting 16 persons of various offences, including murder, and sentencing them to varying terms of imprisonments. A division bench, comprising Justice R. Sudhakar and Justice P.N.Prakash, rejected the habeas corpus petition by one Sugania who also sought to sought free the 16 convicts. "We cannot hold that just because the Judicial Officer has translated her thought process into English and written the judgment, her entire judgment is void and the detention of the prisoners is illegal," the bench said. The court said the entire trial had been conducted in Tamil language by the I Additional District and Sessions Judge, Thiruvallur, who had convicted the accused on December 21, 2015 and awarded jail terms. Counsel for the petitioner contended that when the judgment had been delivered in English which was not known to the accused, the same would be void. Therefore, their further detention pursuant to such a judgment was illegal. Rejecting the argument, the bench said the accused were quite aware of the pronouncement of the judgment. When the Judge announced pronouncement of the judgment, the counsel for the accused requested its postponement on various grounds. "In fact, we find that the accused have been putting spokes and preventing the Judge from proceeding with the pronouncement of the judgment," the bench said. The pressure on Pakistan to crack down on terrorism has to be kept up and the US remains strongly engaged with India to tackle the menace which is affecting regional peace, US Ambassador Richard Verma said today. Appreciating Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Lahore outreach, Verma said there was a need to work with the moderates in Pakistan and that the US was working with Islamabad on the issue of terror. "We have to keep the pressure up, keep the leverage up work with moderate forces, work with Prime Minister Sharif and that's exactly the US President has done, Secretary (John) Kerry has done and we will continue to do it," he told NDTV. The envoy said India's engagement with Pakistan was important and that US President Barack Obama was appreciative of Modi's outreach in Lahore last month. He said Obama has appreciated decisions by Modi and Sharif to stick to talks despite the Pathankot terror attack. On reports about the US negotiating a civil nuclear deal with Pakistan similar to the one it had with India, Verma categorically said no such proposal was on the table. Asked why US was not putting enough pressure on Pakistan to come down hard on terror infrastructure, the envoy said Washington has different relationship with both the countries and that its counter-terrorism cooperation with India was expanding rapidly. He said there was a need to strengthen democracy in Pakistan while putting pressure on the country to tackle terrorism and bring to book perpetrators of terror attacks. On Afghanistan, he said there was a need for political solution to the Afghan problem and that elements within Taliban have to be engaged for reconciliation. Verma said year 2015 saw a significant progress in Indo-US ties in diverse areas including nuclear energy, defence and trade and commerce. Asked whether there has been ease of doing business in India as claimed by the government, he said, "we were in a much better position then we were before." At the same time, he said there was need to have reforms in tax and land acquisition among others. He said the two-way trade story has been very positive in the last one year, adding US hoped to commence nuclear commerce soon with India. The envoy said US will do its bit to ensure India's membership to various export control regimes. "This type of terrorism is an existential threat to all who share our values. It must be defeated. The need for a strong America is greater than ever, and we must rise to the challenge. "When America retreats or shows weakness, the entire world shudders. We must redouble our efforts with Pakistan to identify and eliminate terror groups, which Pakistan now recognises pose a dire threat to its own national security as well," Kasich said. "Let us remember the victims and their families in our thoughts and prayers as we gather strength and resolve to defeat all who threaten our values," he added. The horrific terror attack on Easter Sunday in Lahore targeting Christians and children deserves special condemnation in a seeming never ending stream of terrorist events, said Jonathan A Greenblatt, CEO of Anti-Defamation League. "It reminds us that terrorism is a threat to all civilization and that nations must all stand together if we are to defeat it. And, while the mass killing of Christians on Easter Sunday is particularly pernicious, we should not lose sight of the fact that the greatest number of Islamic terrorist attacks are directed atMuslims and often at their religious institutions and on religious holidays," he said. "Whether in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East or North America, terrorism has no place in a civilized society and that good people need to stand up whenever innocents are slaughtered for no reason other than to spread violence and promote hatred," Greenbelt said. Pride Group of Hotels plans to invest Rs 1,000 crore to add 13 hotels in its network by 2020 as part of expansion plans across the country. "We have planned to invest approximately Rs 1,000 crore to add 13 hotels with around 1,400 rooms taking the total to 25 hotels by the end of 2020," Pride Group of Hotels Managing Director S P Jain told PTI. The upcoming hotels will be under both -- ownership and on management models, he added. The hospitality chain launched a 385 room property under upscale 'Pride Plaza Hotel' brand recently at the Aerocity here. "We have 12 hotels operational as of now ,including the one launched at Aerocity, totaling 1,600 rooms," Jain said. When asked how the company was planning to raise finances for the expansion, Jain said: "We are raising funds from internal accrual and term loan from the bank. We also have plans for an IPO in next 2-3 years." The company has all its hotels under three brands -- Pride Plaza Hotel, Pride Hotel and Resort and Pride Biznotel. "While the hotels at New Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai are under the Pride Plaza Hotel brand, the Pune, Nagpur, Chennai, Bangalore, Goa, Jaipur and Dharamshala properties are under Pride Hotel and Resort brand. Vadodara, Bangalore, Nasik and Indore hotels are under the Pride Biznotel brand," he added. On the first phase of expansion, Jain said: "By the end of 2016 we are looking at expanding the Pride Plaza brand to Ahmedabad and Kolkata." Pride Hotels are have been already set up in cities such as Pune, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi, Goa, Dharamshala, Jaipur and Vadodara. A Qatar Airways passenger who, along with his wife, was flying to Doha from here today alleged the airline staff did not call a doctor to examine his spouse when she complained of dizziness and instead offloaded them. "The commander of the flight QR-571 did not come to see us despite repeated requests when my wife Sufia complained of dizziness. No doctor came to the aircraft to examine her. Instead, they offloaded us," Mohammed Sabih Bukhari said. Accusing the airline of "not caring" about his wife, Bukhari said the doctor came 50 minutes after the flight had departed. "It seemed the airline was in a hurry to take off," he said. An e-mail query sent to Qatar Airlines headquartered in Doha and its public relations manager in New Delhi did not elicit any response. The airline has now, booked him and his wife, in the same flight tomorrow, he said. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat today said reservation policy should continue till there is "social discrimination" in the country. "Till social discrimination exists, reservation must be there. But it should be implemented honestly," he said in reply to a query at a 'students' parliament' organised by Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT) here. The RSS has no disagreement with the country's Constitution, Bhagwat said, adding reservation policy with regard to government jobs and admission to educational institutions, however, must be implemented honestly. He said the duties of citizens enumerated in the Constitution should also be followed. Describing Lord Ram as an "ideal of Hindu culture", he favoured construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya. Asked whether the poor would start gettting their daily bread if the temple is constructed, Bhagwat retorted, "Have rotis come to them till now when it has still not been constructed?"To a question regarding the perception about growing intolerance, Bhagwat said, "Tolerance and acceptance is the soul of our culture," and added selfish sentiments are wrong. When asked about based on religion, he said, "This should be asked of those who do it. This question is not for me." "We should practise what we preach and embrace the good," he said. Bhagwat said culture is the soul of Indian Constitution, which has the provision for effecting necessary changes to it to suit the changing times. Bhagwat was speaking on 'Culture and Constitution' at the event. He said when the country gained freedom a new nation came into existence of those who felt India was not their country. While the Indian Constitution accepted all and was formed on consensus, the Pakistani Constitution was based on one religion and community, he said. "The mindset of Pakistan had no scope for tolerance or acceptance," the RSS chief said, adding India always accepted and honoured diversity in which lay its unity. "Unity in diversity is our value and Sanatan dharma," Bhagwat said. Yoga guru Ramdev's guru, Acharya Baldev, passed away at Rohtak today at the age of 84 after suffering a fall during morning walk. "Acharya Baldev was rushed to PGIMS at Rohtak when he suddenly lost balance and fell down during a morning walk at 4 am today. As he fell down, due to the impact, his artificial denture set got struck with great force against the upper jaw causing serious injuries. "He suffered heavy loss of blood and breathed his last at PGIMS at Rohtak during treatment, where he was rushed after the incident," Haryana Arya Samaj Pratinidhi Sabha, Rohtak's Secretary, Master Rampal told PTI over phone. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar expressed grief over the demise of Acharya Baldev, who was former President of Haryana Arya Samaj Pratinidhi Sabha. In a condolence message issued here, the CM described Acharya Baldev as a noble person who remained associated with Arya Samaj and Gurukul. It was in the year 1959 that Acharya Baldev renounced his home and began to generate awakening among the masses about Vedic values. He also used to look after cows. For many years, he served Gurukuls at Kalwa and Jhajjar as Acharya, an official release said. Realtors' body CREDAI today hailed the selection of first 20 cities for 'Smart City' programme, saying the initiative would provide great opportunity for the real estate development, particularly in the affordable home segment, with improvement in infrastructure of these towns. "Its a good initiative by the government. Satellite towns around these smart cities will be good opportunity for the real estate development especially affordable housing," CREDAI President Getamber Anand said. Welcoming this step, CBRE South Asia Chairman & MD Anshuman Magazine said: "While this initiative will involve large-scale retrofitting as well as redevelopment; these cities could become showcases of urban infrastructure development, encouraging others to follow suit." Cushman & Wakefield MD Sanjay Dutt said the Smart City initiative would further boost the affordable housing, which is already a priority for the government. The Smart City initiative would be a game changer in raising the standard of infrastructure in the cities in the country, said Shubhranshu Pani, MD - Infrastructure Services, JLL India. "Adequate attention is paid to sustainability, infrastructure and improving the life of inhabitants," he said, adding that JLL has supported two of the cities which have been shortlisted in the first list -- namely Bhubaneshwar and Chennai. CREDAI Western UP Vice President Amit Modi said the smart city would greatly enhance the much needed infrastructure requirement of these cities. Pune Real estate sector will be impacted positively with an impetus to the infrastructure growth as well as the economic activity for Maharashtra, said Rohit Gera, MD of Pune-based Gera Developments. Bhubaneswar emerged on top among 20 cities, including Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Bhopal, that have been selected as part of the first batch of the Smart City initiative for which the NDMC area of Delhi has also made the grade. Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu announced the first list of 20 cities today that will be developed to have basic infrastructure. Assured water and power supply, sanitation and solid waste management systems, efficient urban mobility and public transportation, IT connectivity, e-governance and citizen participation are some of the highlights of the initiative. Jaipur, Surat, Kochi, Jabalpur, Visakhapatnam, Solapur, Davanagere, Indore, Coimbatore, Kakinada, Belagavi, Udaipur, Guwahati and Ludhiana are the other cities selected in the first batch. Queries were received about the country's indigenous Light Combat Aircraft Tejas for possible export, during the recently held Bahrain air show, HAL chief T Suvarna Raju today said but refused to identify the interested countries. He also asserted that the first upgraded Tejas with better radar, missiles system, mid-air refueling capability, would be handed over to the force by 2018. "We have got inquiries for LCA already," Raju said as he lauded the aircraft's performance at this month's Bahrain air show. Asked for the names of countries which have evinced interest, Raju told PTI, "Believe us when I say there are inquiries for LCA." The aircraft is expected to replace the ageing fleet of MiG-21 fighter planes in the Indian Air Force. Talking about the LCA programme, he said HAL and others are working on the "requirements" needed to make the aircraft useful to the operator, which in this case will be IAF. IAF plans to acquire 120 Tejas aircraft, with 100 of them having some major modifications. It wants better radar, new electronic warfare suit, refuelling capacity and beyond the vision range missiles. "The series production has started. We are increasing the capacity from 8 to 16 per annum. We will be rolling out good numbers. "The requirements which are are required for this aircraft to be useful to the operator would be complied by HAL," he said. Raju said that the first aircraft with all required modifications would be handed over to IAF in 2018. As per the production plan, six aircraft will be made this year (2015-16) and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd will subsequently scale it up to eight and 16 aircraft per year. It is estimated that 20 aircraft will be built by 2017- 2018 to make the first squadron of the plane. The LCA programme was initiated in 1983 to replace the ageing MiG-21s planes in IAF's combat fleet but has missed several deadlines due to various reasons. As India aims to market the Tejas, it will face competition from Pakistan's JF 17, built in collaboration with China. The aircraft has already been placed in the open market and it was speculated that one Asian country had evinced interest in the aircraft. Sri Lanka had recently denied reports that it had evinced interest in the Pakistani plane. Meanwhile, talking about the indigenous light attack helicopter, Raju said IAF has selected it weapons and HAL is in the process of integrating it. "By September, we will prove it. From March, we will be flying with weaponised helicopter," he said. Inderjit Singh Reyat, the only person convicted for the 1985 Air India Kanishka bombing, has been released from a Canadian prison under tough conditions, including one that he will have to live at a halfway house until August 2018 when his perjury sentence will expire. Reyat was found guilty of perjury in 2010 after he lied during the trial of two men accused in the Kanishka bombing that killed all 329 passengers on the plane, in Canada's worst terror attack. Air India Flight 182 from Toronto to Delhi via London was destroyed by a bomb at an altitude of 31,000 feet. The Boeing 747 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean while in Irish airspace. Reyat was sentenced to a record nine years in prison, or seven years and seven months after accounting for time served. He previously served over 15 years in prison for making the bombs that were stuffed into two suitcases and planted on planes leaving Vancouver. The bombing of Air India 182 occurred at the same time as the Narita Airport bombing in Japan. Investigators believe that the two plots were linked. Under Canadian law, offenders must be granted statutory release after they have served two-thirds of their sentence. However, Parole Board of Canada spokesman Patrick Storey said Reyat must abide by several conditions as part of his release, including not possessing any extremist propaganda or possessing any components used to build an explosive device. He is also not allowed to contact victims' families or anyone who is believed to hold extremist views. He will be monitored by a parole officer and must complete counselling, The Canadian Press reported. Reyat is set to serve the rest of his sentence, which ends in August 2018, at a halfway house. Halfway houses are meant for reintegration of persons who have been recently released from jail. Storey said he could not disclose the location of the residence due to privacy legislation. The parole board ruling for Reyat's release said a psychologist's assessment in 2013 found the man's risk was "relatively high" for future group-based violence and that he lacked remorse for the victims of the bombings. "The loss of life had a profound and long-lasting impact on the families who lost their relatives in these incidents, and had far-reaching impact on people around the world," the decision said. "Until recently, you took limited responsibility for your role in this catastrophic disaster, you lied in court and protected others involved." If Reyat breaches any of the conditions, he can be sent back to prison, Storey said. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat today fielded blunt questions from college students - ranging from job reservation to Ram Mandir - during an unusual interaction for a head of the Nagpur-based Sangh Parivar fountainhead. Bhagwat, whose statement on the need to review reservation system had sparked a controversy ahead of Bihar elections last year, came out in support of quota for downtrodden castes in government jobs and education institutes. Reservations must continue till the time "social discrimination" was going on in society, but should be implemented honestly, he said when asked about his views on quota policy. The occasion was "Students' Parliament" organised by the Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT), an annual event happening for last many years, showcasing diverse political views of various party leaders aimed at promoting a mature democratic thought process among the youths. It was perhaps the first such interaction with students by the RSS chief. When a student asked Bhagwat about mix of religion and politics in the country, he came out with a repartee, "Ask those who do it. This question is not for me." This drew applause from the audience. And then came a question on Ram Mandir, laced with sarcasm as another student wanted to know "Can building of Ram temple put rotis in the plates of the poor?" Unruffled, Bhagwat quipped, "Have the rotis come without construction of the Mandir," as he averred that Lord Ram was the ideal man of the Hindu sanskriti (culture) and therefore ideals should be installed for inspiration. On the reservation issue query, he added, "The RSS had no points of disagreement on the Constitution which was flexible enough to incorporate necessary changes warranted by changing times." Striking a rapport with the students' gathering from various states, Bhagwat used Hindi, English and Sanskrit to communicate his thoughts on the symposium theme "Culture and Constitution" and ended his discourse with a gracious "Thank You". Russia said today it wanted to hold an international meeting on Syria -- including key players from the West and the Middle East -- in Munich next month. "There is an agreement in principle between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Secretary of State John Kerry, and now we will propose to all the other participants of the international Syria support group a time and place -- Munich, February 11," state agency TASS quoted deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov as saying. South Korea today clamped down on lax safety protocols at low-cost airlines, warning them to mend their ways or face possible closure. The transport ministry conducted a safety review of the country's six budget carriers this month, after one aircraft was forced to make an emergency return due to an unsealed door. The Boeing 737-800 belonged to Jin Air, a budget airline operated by South Korea's top carrier Korean Air. Last month, a passenger jet belonging to another budget carrier, Jeju Air, plunged 3,000 metres (10,000 feet) due to problems with its on-board air compression system. The ministry concluded today that low cost carriers were making an "inadequate" investment in safety given the exponential growth in traffic over the past decade. The six budget carriers accounted for 59 per cent of domestic market share last year, mostly centred on the route between Seoul and the southern resort island of Jeju. "Airlines which fail to ensure passenger safety ... Will face closure through cancellation of business licences," the ministry said in a press statement. In the specific cases involving Jin Air and Jeju Air, the ministry said pilots and ground crews who appeared to have ignored basic safety procedures would be suspended for 30 days. The government also plans to suspend the operations of the two airlines for seven days or fine them 600 million won ($496,000), it added. South Korea currently has six licensed budget airlines operating in an increasingly crowded market. The latest addition - approved at the end of last year - is Air Seoul, the second low-cost carrier operated by Korean Air's main rival Asiana. Bollywood superstar Salman Khan has filed a caveat in the Supreme Court seeking to pre-empt any ex-parte order in the appeal filed by the Maharashtra government challenging Bombay High Court verdict acquitting him in the 2002 hit-and-run case. The actor, whose five-year jail term awarded by a trial court was overturned by the high court, said in his plea that no order should be passed in the matter without hearing his counsel. The Maharashtra government had on January 22 moved the apex court against Bombay High Court's verdict freeing Salman Khan in the hit-and-run case in which one person was killed and four others were injured. The special leave petition (SLP) contained 47 grounds to assail the high court's verdict and sought restoration of the trial court's decision by which the 50-year-old actor was convicted and sentenced to five-year-jail term. The high court, in its verdict passed on December 10 last year, had held that the prosecution had failed to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that the actor was driving the vehicle at the time of the accident and was drunk. The judgement by the high court had come on an appeal by the superstar, seven months after he was pronounced guilty by trial court of running over five people sleeping on a pavement in suburban Bandra with his Toyota Land Cruiser, killing one and causing injury to four others on October 28, 2002. On May 6 last year, a sessions court had convicted Salman in the case in which one person was killed and four others were injured when his vehicle had crushed them when they were asleep on a pavement outside a laundry. Santa Claus has been arrested in the US state of Idaho and that too for drunk driving. However, there is a catch as the person in question is not the world famous red and white clad Santa riding a sledge but a 67-year-old man whose legal name is Santa Claus. He has hit headlines for his uncanny name while for the other Santa Claus it is off season after the busy Christmas time. Court documents stated that police officers in Post Falls, Idaho, arrested the Washington man named Santa Claus after he was spotted driving the wrong way. Claus ended with a driving under the influence (DUI) arrest, KREM-TV reported. The charge was reduced last Friday to misdemeanour reckless driving when Claus appeared in court. He pleaded guilty and paid a USD 700 fine. Officers arrested Claus a day before. Claus stated he was not from the area and was unfamiliar with the streets. Police said they could smell alcohol coming from the vehicle when they spoke to Claus. Court records showed Claus admitted to having three or four beers. Officers at the scene conducted a field evaluation of Claus and said he had difficulty maintaining his balance. He later agreed to submit a breath test. Police arrested Santa Claus for DUI but noted he was "cooperative throughout". State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur (SBBJ) today reported a 26.16 per cent rise in its net profit at Rs 206.13 crore for the December quarter on higher income from retail operations and fall in bad loans. The SBI associate SBBJ had registered a net profit of Rs 163.39 crore in the October-December quarter of the previous fiscal. Total income of the bank increased to Rs 2,636.56 crore for the third quarter ended December 2015-16 from Rs 2,476.69 crore earned in the same quarter of 2014-15, it said in a BSE filing. Bank's income from retail banking operations shot by 52.6 per cent to Rs 1,517.28 crore during the quarter. Net interest income (NII) rose by 16.25 per cent to Rs 869.09 crore for the quarter under review, as against Rs 747.60 crore a year ago. Also, the net interest margin (NIM), a key gauge of profitability, improved by 6 basis points, or 0.06 per cent, to 3.53 per cent as on December 2015 from 3.47 per cent a year ago. On the asset quality front, bank's gross non-performing assets (NPAs) or bad loans slightly improved to 4.22 per cent of gross advances during the quarter from 4.38 per cent a year earlier. Net NPAs were trimmed to 2.2 per cent of net advances from 2.64 per cent. The bank had made provisioning of Rs 236.20 crore for bad loans and contingencies for October-December period of 2015-16, as against Rs 244.51 crore in the same period a year ago. "...Despite pressure on the NPA front, the bank has posted an impressive performance in third quarter of current financial year. "The bank has achieved consistent growth with its business level reaching a figure of Rs 1.62 lakh crore, an increase of 9.53 per cent over the corresponding period last year," SBBJ MD Jyoti Ghosh said in the statement. Scrips of the bank closed 2.66 per cent lower, at Rs 485.60 apiece on the BSE. The Supreme Court today directed the Centre and the states to set up within six months exclusive storage facilities for seized contraband, saying the menace of drugs in the country had "alarming dimensions and proportions". A bench headed by Chief Justice of India T S Thakur said that to prevent theft, pilferage or replacement of the seized drugs, agencies should set up exclusive storage facilities. "The menace of drugs in this country...Has alarming dimensions and proportions. Studies based on conferences and seminars have often shown that the menace is deep-rooted not only because drug lords have the money power and transnational links but also because the enforcement agencies like the police and, at times, politicians in power help them in carrying on what is known to be a money spinning and flourishing trade," the bench also comprising Justice Kurian Joseph said. It said, "the central government and its agencies and so also the state governments shall within six months from today take appropriate steps to set up storage facilities for the exclusive storage of seized Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic and controlled Substances and Conveyances, duly equipped with vaults and double locking system to prevent theft, pilferage or replacement of the seized drugs." The bench in its 58-pages order asked the Chief Justices of High Courts to appoint a Committee of Judges on administrative side to supervise the progress made by the respective states with regard to compliance of its directions. The order came on an appeal filed by Mohanlal and others with the court appointing senior advocate Ajit Kumar Sinha as Amicus Curiae, to take a realistic review of the procedure for search, disposal or destruction of the narcotics and the remedial steps needed to plug loopholes, if any. Issuing a slew of directions for disposal of seized contraband substances, the apex court said that no sooner the seizure of any Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic and Controlled Substances (NDPS) and Conveyances is effected, the same shall be forwarded to the officer in-charge of the nearest police station or to the officer empowered under the Act. The bench said that cumulative effect of the reports submitted by the states and the central agencies show that only 16 per cent of the contrabands seized between 2002 to 2012 have been actually disposed of. "What happened to the remaining 84 per cent of such seizures is anybody's guess and if it is still lying in the police malkhana, why has nobody ever bothered to apply for their disposal according to the procedure established by law is hard to fathom," the bench said. The apex court said the Centre and the state governments should designate an officer each for their respective storage facility and provide other measures to ensure proper security against theft, pilferage or replacement of the seized drugs. The bench said the Centre and the states shall be free to set up a storage facility for each district in the states and depending upon the extent of seizure and store required, one storage facility for more than one district. It directed that disposal of the seized drugs, currently lying in the police malkhanas and other places used for storage, shall be carried out by the concerned Drug Disposal Committees. The bench directed that disposal of contraband shall be carried out in cases where the trial is concluded and proceedings in appeal or revision have all attained finality. It said, "we only hope that the failure of the Central Government agencies and the State Governments in providing what is the bare minimum in terms of infrastructure required to arrest the growing menace and prevent pilferage and re- circulation of drugs back into the market is not on account of any unholy connect between the drug traffickers and the enforcement agencies." The apex court said it presumes that failure of government agencies is only relatable to "apathy and indifference and hope that the system does not get corrupted by continued neglect, lest all hopes are lost in the fight against drug menace which are eating into the vitals of our society. Supreme Court today recalled its December 16 order appointing controversial Justice Virendra Singh, a former judge of Allahabad High Court, as Lokayukta and named another retired judge as new ombudsman of Uttar Pradesh, terming the state government's statement on the issue as "somewhat inaccurate". Appointing Justice Sanjay Misra as new Lokayukta, the apex court bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi termed as "unfortunate" the inability of constitutional functionaries like the Chief Minister and the Chief Justice of the High Court to arrive at a consensual name as head of ombudsman. "We are persuaded to hold that our order appointing Justice Virendra Singh (Retd) as Lokayukta was on the basis of the statement made on behalf of the state of Uttar Pradesh which now appears to be somewhat inaccurate. "The picture that emanates from the above narration of facts is hazy, unclear and uncertain and we are left in serious doubt as to whether the constitutional/statutory functionaries or at least two of them had, at all, agreed on any name or names. "It is unfortunate that constitutional/statutory functionaries, in spite of prolonged and extended meetings, continued to have serious differences on a relatively simple issue i.E. Appointment of the Lokayukta," the bench, also comprising Justice P C Panta, said. The bench picked out Justice Misra for the post as his name figured in the list of probables prepared by the Chief Minister and the Chief Justice of the High Court. While recalling its order appointing Justice Singh as Lokayukta, the court considered its 2002 judgement that had accorded "primacy to the opinion of the Chief Justice in the consultative process for appointment of Lokayukta". "...We are inclined to recall our order dated December 16, 2015 and instead appoint Justice Sanjay Misra (Retired Judge of Allahabad High Court) as the Lokayukta of Uttar Pradesh. In making the aforesaid appointment, we have taken note of the fact that the name of Justice Sanjay Misra appears in the common list of names that were discussed as mentioned in the letters of the Chief Justice of the High Court and the Chief Minister referred to above," it said. The court, in its order, also observed that the reservation of the High Court Chief Justice on the name of Justice Singh with regard to his suitability for the post of Lokayukta was not brought before it when the last order was passed. "However, we now have on record the subsequent reservation of the Chief Justice of the High Court with regard to the suitability of Justice Virendra Singh (Retd) as Lokayukta as expressed in the Chief Justice's letter dated 16th December, 2015 to His Excellency the Governor of Uttar Pradesh. "We can only wish that the above reservation of the Hon'ble Chief Justice had been placed before us before we had passed our earlier order dated December 16, 2015 in Writ Petition... Particularly when the High Court was represented before us on the said date," it said. Disposing of various pleas on the issue, it asked the authorities to pass within a week the "consequential orders" in terms of its direction appointing Justice Misra as new Lokayukta. It also asked the state to file "compliance report". The order came on pleas seeking quashing of Governor's notification, passed in pursuance of the verdict the apex court, to appoint Justice Singh as the new Lokayukta. Earlier on December 16 last year, in an unusual order, the apex court had exercised its constitutional authority and appointed Justice Singh as Uttar Pradesh Lokayukta, while expressing dismay that its several orders directing that the appointment to the post be made had not been "heeded" by the constitutional functionaries -- the Chief Minister, the Leader of Opposition and the Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court. However, the appointment was later stayed by the apex court itself after it was told by a UP resident Sachidanad Gupta that the state government has played a "fraud upon the apex court" by hiding the fact that the Chief Justice had expressed his reservations to the name of Justice Singh. Protests by students from varsities across Delhi and a hunger strike by their JNU counterparts over alleged delay in justice to Hyderabad Central University scholar Rohith Vemula continued today even as the Delhi Police detained 40 of them from outside the HRD Ministry. Police said 40 students were detained from outside Shastri Bhawan when they tried to enter the premises of the ministry. Students of Left-backed All India Students Association (AISA) and Congress-affiliated National Students Union of India (NSUI) marched to the HRD Ministry, demanding resignation of Union Ministers Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya and the Vice-Chancellor of Hyderabad Central University. 150 protesting students, who were detained yesterday and went on an indefinite hunger strike at Parliament Street police station, today dispered to JNU and the protest venue near the HRD Ministry. They, however, continued with their hunger strike. Protests by students from varsities across Delhi and a hunger strike by their JNU counterparts over the alleged delay in justice to Rohith Vemula continued today even as police detained 40 of them from outside the HRD Ministry. Police said 40 students were detained from outside Shastri Bhawan when they tried to enter the premises of the ministry. Students from left-backed All India Students Association (AISA) and Congress-affiliated National Students Union of India (NSUI) marched to the HRD Ministry, demanding the resignations of Union ministers Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya and the Vice-Chancellor of Hyderabad University. 150 protesting students, who were detained yesterday and had went on an indefinite hunger strike at Parliament Street police station, today dispersed to JNU and the protest venue near the HRD Ministry. They, however, continued with their hunger strike. Meanwhile, a former Allahabad High Court judge Ashok Kumar Roopanwal was appointed by the Centre to probe circumstances leading to suicide of dalit scholar of Hyderabad Central University(HCU) even as its teachers also went on a hunger strike today backing the protesting students. The appointment of the judge to head the one-man Judicial Commission was announced at a time when the Joint Action Committee for Social Justice spearheading the agitation over Rohith Vemula's suicide on January 17 said that students would intensify the "struggle" till all their demands are met. Seven members of Hamas' military wing were killed when a tunnel collapsed this week in the Gaza Strip, the Islamist movement said today. "Al-Qassam Brigades declare seven Qassam members were martyred in a tunnel collapse in the Gaza Strip," a statement from the group on Twitter said. A Hamas source also confirmed the figure to AFP. The tunnel collapsed late Tuesday in the northeast of the Palestinian enclave after several days of rainfall. Sarangi Mahajan, wife of Praveen Mahajan who killed his brother and senior BJP leader Pramod Mahajan in 2006, has come out in support of Shani Shingnapur Temple trust's stand to disallow women from entering the sanctum sanctorum. "Both men and women have been disallowed at the chauthara (platform) of the Shani temple since centuries. It is a tradition," Mahajan said. On January 26, women members and supporters of the Bhumata Brigade had arrived from Pune in six buses with an aim to enter the temple's sanctum where the idol of Lord Shani is placed on an open-air platform. However, the group led by Trupti Desai was stopped from marching towards the temple by police near Supa. They were also detained and released later. "Those seeking to violate this tradition and wanting entry for women there have perverted thinking," she told PTI. "I support the stand of the Temple's trust not to allow women from entering the sanctum sanctorum," Mahajan added. Asked of she was making a foray into politics through the Shani temple issue, Mahajan said, "I am a BJP member and belong to a family which is a well-known political family." "I have requested a meeting with (Maharashtra Chief Minister) Devendra Fadnavis on the Shani temple issue and to express my support to the age-old traditions of the Shani temple," she said. At a meeting of the Gram Sabha of Shingnapur village yesterday, a resolution condemning the brigade and its chief Desai was passed. Sarangi's husband Praveen Mahajan died in a Thane jail while serving his sentence. "I want to strengthen BJP in Thane district," she added. A Bengali film based on the sensational Sheena Bora murder case will hit the screens this February. "Dark Chocolate", which stars Mahima Chaudhry in the role of Indrani Mukherjee and Riya Sen as Sheena Bora, is a fictional adaptation of the incident. The film has been shot in the city and other parts of Bengal. "I did not want to make a documentary so there has to be fictional inputs. But the story has been adapted for the film since it has many twists and turns. One character after another pops up in the plot," director Agnidev Chatterjee told PTI. "The Sheena Bora murder is one of the most shocking and diabolical crimes of our times. I have done a lot of research on the case based on reports and other sources and while I have tried to remain true to most of the events, some parts have been fictionalised for cinematic reasons and since the case on it is still going on," Agnidev added. "No one Killed Jessica" actor Rajesh Sharma enacts the role of Indrani's driver while actor Kaushik Sen essays Peter's role and Shataf Figar that of Sanjeev. Agnidev said a leading Bengali film actress was signed first to play Indran's role but she opted out of the project. "It seems Kolkata actresses don't wish to portray out and out negative roles. And the moment I broached the topic to Mahima, she agreed. I know her for 4-5 years and she had come to my residence to watch Charulata 2011," Agnidev said. Mahima said she had never been offered such a layered character in Bollywood. "I gave lots of emphasis on eye expressions since that was important to portray the different shades in my character. Expressions are important to convey change in one's state of mind. I tried to understand why someone should take to crime despite having romance, wealth and everything else in life," she said. Two jail officials and a policeman were today suspended after "item songs" performance by a woman dancer in the dargah prison campus here on the Republic Day triggered a controversy. Action had been taken against the jail in charge P S Ambekar, Warden Sampat and Head Constable Gundalli based on the report from Vijayapura District Superintendent of Police Siddaramappa, DGP (Prisons) Satyanarayana Rao told reporters. In the video footage aired by some TV channels, currency notes were seen showered on the dancer by a few people around. The event was reportedly held before releasing 38 prisoners from the jail for good conduct. The dance show was held before the district in charge minister M B Patil and other dignitaries arrived at the function and presented release certificates to the convicts. Rao said Bengaluru police team would investigate the incident thoroughly to find out as to who arranged the item songs and for what purpose. He said it should not have happened and instruction would be given to jail officials not commit such mistakes in future. Rao said officials have been asked to keep a vigil on bad elements and illegal activities of prisoners. He said jammers would be installed in the jail campus to stop misuse of mobiles by prisoners. Rao came to the city soon after some TV channels aired video footage of the programme. He said he had given instructions to Belagavi Jail Superintendent to inspect the Vijayapura jail and also asked SP to send report on the incident. Sonalika International Tractors aims to double its revenue, which stands at USD 660 million (around Rs 4,500 crore), by 2020. The company, which produces tractors between 20 HP to 120 HP, is among the top three tractor manufacturers in the country with a market share of around 12 per cent. "The continuous trust of our patrons has made us one of the fastest growing tractor manufacturing companies in the country. We are aiming to double our revenue from USD 660 million by 2020," Sonalika International Tractors Executive Director Raman Mittal said. With its customer centric approach, the company's focus has always been to empower the farmers by providing solutions/products that will enhance their agricultural productivity, he added. The company said it is the leading brand in Haryana and Himachal Pradesh and is amongst the top three leading firms in Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Assam and Odisha. "It is a proud moment for us at Sonalika ITL as we are amongst the top three tractor manufacturing companies today. We have been able to achieve this position in a short span of time due to the support of our dealers, farmers, suppliers and employees," Mittal said. The company's manufacturing facility in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, has an installed capacity to produce two lakh tractors annually. Sonalika also exports to over 20 European countries besides selling in Algeria, Nepal and Myanmar. Sterlite Technologies Ltd today reported around 81.74 per cent jump in standalone net profit to Rs 41.91 crore for the quarter ended December 31, due to increase in revenue from power and telecom businesses. The company's profit in the same period a year ago was Rs 23.06 crore, Sterlite Technologies said in a BSE filing. "This is the best-ever quarter for us till date. The telecom business contributed to the growth in net profit. We are now running our fibre plant at full capacity and continue to invest for debottlenecking as need arises. We have seen power business coming back to normal level. Earlier it was underutilised," Sterlite Technologies CEO Anand Agarwal told PTI. The total income of Sterlite Technologies increased to Rs 1,134.42 crore in the reported quarter compared with Rs 894.53 crore in the year ago period. Agarwal said the company has an order book of Rs 4,400 crore where about Rs 2,400 crore is from telecom business and rest from power. Sterlite's revenues from the telecom products and solutions business for the quarter under review were Rs 496 crore as against Rs 412 crore in 2014-15. Similarly, revenue from the power products and solutions business for the quarter was Rs 621 crore in third quarter up 35 per cent, against Rs 461 crore in year ago period. Sterlite Technologies is in process of demerging power business from it. Agrawal said that court convened meeting in this regard was held on December 15, and the proposal to demerge the Power business into a separate undertaking was approved with significant majority by the shareholders, creditors and lenders. "We expect transaction to get complete around April," he said. He said that India continues to be top contributor in the telecom business of the company followed by China. The company operates in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Mix between domestic revenues and exports was at 29 per cent for the business, main export markets were China and Europe, he said. Sterlite produces glass for optical fibre, optical fibre cables, which are used for broadband services and power cables. It has optical fibre production capacity of 22 million fibre kilometer (fKm) and scaling up cable production, which cover put over OFC, to 15 million fKM from 8 million fKm. Shares of Sterlite Technologies closed at Rs 83.3, down by 1.42 per cent compared to previous close on BSE. Following an MoU between Survey of India (SOI) and a Thai agency as part of an agreement between the two countries in 2002, an 'Indo-Thai Geo Spatial Cooperation Programme' will be launched here on February 1. The launch will take place at the Indian Institute of Surveying and Mapping (IISM) here. UN Gurjar, additional surveyor general, said that under the 2002 agreement, a Programme of Cooperation (PoC) in the field of science and technology for the period 2012-14 was signed by the two governments which includes mapping on 1:4000 scale of a town in Thailand with expertise from SOI. Currently, mapping is underway of U Thong town in Supanburi province of Thailand. The second part of the project concerns strengthening of Geo Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA), Thailand, under which SoI will provide training to its officers. The objective is to provide knowhow to GISTDA about processes for large scale mapping, he said. Seven officers from GISTDA will undergo training for one month here from February 1, he added. Gurjar said that the institute has so far trained over 30,000 Indiansand 600 foreign nationals. Recently, SOI did urban mapping of 152 towns in India under the National Urban Information Scheme, he said. The aim was to provide large scale maps of towns, which are required for the preparation of master plan and detailed plans by urban bodies. This project will be completed by October, 2016, and will cover, among other cities, Adilabad, Dharmavaram, Madnapalle, Nalgonda and Tadipalligudam in Telangana. SOI is also planning to develop Virtual Reference System which can act as an input for traffic management, etc., he said. A suspected operative of Al Qaida in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), who was arrested for allegedly radicalising youths for terror activities, was today remanded to police custody for two days by a Delhi court. Maulana Mohd Abdul Rehman Kasmi, who was earlier remanded to judicial custody, was produced before the court and Special Cell of Delhi Police said his further custodial interrogation was required in connection with the case. The police told Additional Sessions Judge Reetesh Singh that Kasmi was needed to be confronted with two other arrested accused, Abdul Sami and Syed Anzar Shah, who are currently in police custody till February 1. It said confrontation of these three accused was necessary to unearth the entire conspiracy and ascertain the funding of the outfit. Advocate Akram Khan, who appeared for Kasmi, opposed the plea saying his client has already been quizzed at length by the police and no new facts have been told by the Special Cell which requires further custodial interrogation. The court, after hearing the contentions, remanded Kasmi to two days police custody. According to the Special Cell, Kasmi is suspected to have links in countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Dubai. Besides, Kasmi, Sami and Shah, the other arrested accused in the case are Mohammed Asif and Zafar Masood. The police had earlier alleged that Kasmi ran a madrassa in Uttar Pradesh where several students were enrolled and he was purportedly trying to radicalise them for terror acts. It had claimed that Masood was also propagating the terror agenda of AQIS among the youth and trying to attract them towards the terror outfit. According to the police, the other arrested accused were also propagating the terror agenda of the outfit in India. All these accused have been booked under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. At least 44 civilians have been killed in suspected Russian air strikes in parts of northern and eastern Syria under the control of the Islamic State group, a monitor said today. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes on Wednesday had killed 29 civilians, including nine women and three children, in IS-controlled villages in the eastern Deir Ezzor province and its provincial capital of the same name. The strikes killed another 15 civilians, including five young brothers, in and around the city of Al-Bab, an IS bastion in the northern province of Aleppo, the Observatory said. Dozens of people were also wounded in the strikes, it said. The Britain-based monitor relies on a network of activists on the ground and says it distinguishes between Syrian, Russian and US-led coalition aircraft based on flight patterns, as well as the type of planes and ordnance used. Russia launched air strikes in Syria in September in support of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, a key ally. The US-led coalition has been carrying out strikes against IS targets in Syria and Iraq since the summer of 2014. Russian backing has helped Assad's forces make significant advances in recent months and the Observatory said Thursday that regime troops had moved to within eight kilometres (five miles) of Al-Bab. It was the closest pro-government forces had been to the city, a key IS stronghold in Aleppo, since 2012, it said. Al-Bab, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of the Turkish border, fell to rebel forces in July 2012 and was taken over by IS in November 2013. Regime forces are seeking to sever IS-held territory in Aleppo province from that held by the group in neighbouring Raqa. The Observatory said last week that Russian strikes in Syria had killed more than 1,000 civilians, including some 200 children. Russia has denounced accusations that its raids have killed large numbers of civilians as "absurd". The Observatory says the US-led strikes have killed 322 civilians, including more than 90 children. Suspected Russian air strikes killed at least 54 civilians in rebel- and jihadist-held areas of Syria in the past 24 hours, a monitoring group said today. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said strikes on Wednesday had killed 29 civilians, including nine women and three children, in villages controlled by the Islamic State group in the eastern Deir Ezzor province and its provincial capital of the same name. The strikes killed another 15 civilians, including five young brothers, in and around the city of Al-Bab, an IS bastion in the northern province of Aleppo, the Observatory said. Ten more civilians, including seven children, were killed in Russian strikes in Ghanto, a town held by Islamist rebels in the central province of Homs, it said. The Britain-based monitor relies on a network of activists on the ground and says it distinguishes between Syrian, Russian and US-led coalition aircraft based on flight patterns, as well as the type of planes and ordnance used. Russia launched air strikes in Syria in September in support of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, a key ally. The US-led coalition has been carrying out strikes against IS targets in Syria and Iraq since the summer of 2014. Russian backing has helped Assad's forces make significant advances in recent months and the Observatory said Thursday that regime troops had moved to within eight kilometres (five miles) of Al-Bab. It was the closest pro-government forces had been to the city, a key IS stronghold in Aleppo, since 2012, it said. Al-Bab, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of the Turkish border, fell to rebel forces in July 2012 and was taken over by IS in November 2013. Regime forces are seeking to sever IS-held territory in Aleppo province from that held by the group in neighbouring Raqa. The Observatory said last week that Russian strikes in Syria had killed more than 1,000 civilians, including around 200 children, since September. Russia has denounced accusations that its raids have killed large numbers of civilians as "absurd". The Observatory says the US-led strikes have killed 322 civilians, including more than 90 children. Disregarding the orders by the ministry of home affairs pertaining the suspension of two special secretaries, the Delhi government has issued a fresh order declaring they will only be entitled to a subsistence allowance instead of their full salary. Delhi Home Minister Satyendar Jain had on December 29 put under suspension Special Secretary (Prosecution) Yashpal Garg and Special Secretary (Prisons) Subhash Chandra for allegedly refusing to sign a file pertaining to the Cabinet decision to increase of salary of public prosecutors. Since the Centre had declared their suspension as "null and void", Garg and Chandra have been working in their offices at Delhi Secretariat. In an order dated Januray 27, Jain said: "In exercise of the powers conferred upon me under FR 53(1) hereby order that Yaspal Garg, special secretary (Home) under suspension shall be entitled to a subsistence allowance at an amount equal to the leave salary which the government servant would have been drawn, if he had been on leave on half pay and in addition dearness allowance, as admissible on such leave salary, till revocation of his suspension." The same order has reportedly been issued for Chandra. The move to suspend the officers had led to yet another tussle between the government and the lieutenant governor, as only the he can suspend senior Andaman and Nicobar Islands Civil Service (DANICS) officials with permission from the home ministry. Protesting it, around 200 Delhi, DANICS officers had on December 31 gone on a one day mass-leave. To support the protest, the Indian Administrative Service officers had also worked half-day that day. Finland joined Sweden today in announcing plans to deport tens of thousands of failed asylum seekers in a bid to contain the migrant crisis, as at least 31 more people died trying to reach the European Union. The two Nordic countries are both struggling to cope with an influx of refugees and migrants fleeing misery in the Middle East and elsewhere -- receiving amongst the highest numbers of arrivals per capita in the EU. The Finnish government expects to deport around two thirds of the 32,000 asylum seekers that arrived in 2015, Paivi Nerg, administrative director of the interior ministry, told AFP. "In principle we speak of about two thirds, meaning approximately 65 percent of the 32,000 will get a negative decision (on their asylum applications)," he told AFP. In neighbouring Sweden, Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said yesterday that the government is planning over several years to deport up to 80,000 people whose asylum applications are set to be rejected. "We are talking about 60,000 people but the number could climb to 80,000," he told Swedish media, adding that, as in Finland, the operation would require the use of specially chartered aircraft. He estimated that Sweden would reject around half of the 163,000 asylum requests received in 2015. Swedish Migration Minister Morgan Johansson said authorities faced a difficult task in deporting such large numbers, but insisted failed asylum seekers had to return home. "Otherwise we would basically have free immigration and we can't manage that," he told agency TT. The clampdown came as 25 bodies, including those of 10 children, were discovered off the Greek island of Samos, in the latest tragedy to strike migrants risking the dangerous Mediterranean crossing in a bid to start new lives in Europe. The Italian navy meanwhile said it had recovered six bodies from a sinking dinghy off Libya -- and in Bulgaria, the frozen bodies of two men, believed to be migrants, were found near the border with Serbia. More than one million people travelled to Europe in 2015 -- the majority of them refugees fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan -- in the continent's worst migration crisis since World War II. Nearly 4,000 people died trying to reach Europe by sea last year, according to the International Organization for Migration. As Europe struggles to respond to the unprecedented influx, a top Dutch politician said the Netherlands was working with some EU members on a plan to send migrants back to Turkish soil. The proposal would see asylum granted to up to 250,000 others already hosted by Turkey, Diederik Samsom said. Sweden intends to expel up to 80,000 migrants who arrived in 2015 and whose application for asylum has been rejected, Interior Minister Anders Ygeman has said. "We are talking about 60,000 people but the number could climb to 80,000," the minister was quoted yesterday as saying by Swedish media, adding that the government had asked the police and authorities in charge of migrants to organise their expulsion. The proposed measure was announced as Europe struggles to deal with a crisis that has seen tens of thousands of migrants arrive on Greek beaches, with the passengers -- mostly fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan -- undeterred by cold wintry conditions. The UN says more than 46,000 people have arrived in Greece so far this year, with more than 170 people killed making the dangerous crossing. Ygeman said the expulsions, normally carried out using commercial flights, would have to be done using specially chartered aircraft, given the large numbers, staggered over several years. Sweden, which is home to 9.8 million people, is one of the European Union countries that has taken in the largest number of refugees in relation to its population. Sweden accepted more than 160,000 asylum seekers last year. But the number of migrant arrivals has dropped dramatically since Sweden enacted systematic photo ID checks on travellers on January 4. Swedish officials on Tuesday called for greater security at overcrowded asylum centres a day after the fatal stabbing of an employee at a refugee centre for unaccompanied youths. The alleged attacker was a young male residing at a centre for youngsters aged 14 to 17 in Molndal near Gothenburg on Sweden's west coast. The employee was 22-year-old Alexandra Mezher, according to Swedish media reports, whose family was originally from Lebanon. A motive for the attack was not immediately clear. Her death has led to questions about overcrowded conditions inside some centres, with too few adults and employees to take care of children, many traumatised by war. In neighbouring Denmark, meanwhile, the government this week approved legislation to seize the valuables of refugees in the hope of limiting the flow of migrants. Some have likened the Danish proposals to the confiscation of gold and other valuables from Jews by the Nazis during the Holocaust. The Indian mythological tale of the birth of the North Star (Dhruv tara) will be retold in a German dance-drama through the unique medium of the performing art form of eurythmy on January 29 here. Organised by city-based Aarambh Waldorf School in collaboration with Zorba the Buddha, an eco-village, the show will see a group of Swiss eurythmists performing the unique art form. Pioneered by Austrian philosopher and social reformer Rudolf Steiner in the early 20th century, eurythmy is an expressive movement art that uses the human body for its expression. The form of movement also finds use in the fields of education and medicine where it is believed to enhance coordination and strengthen the ability to listen. "Eurythmy is an art of movement which can be described as visible speech and visible music. Besides, being a performing art, eurythmy is taught in Waldorf Schools for better balance, co-ordination and concentration. Therapeutic eurythmy as part of anthroposophic medicine is also used in healing," Aban Bana, President, Anthroposophical Society, India said. The production by Light Eurythmy Ensemble titled, "Bhakta Dhruva" will depict the story of how the North Star came about, while analysing the gradually evolving relationship between human beings and stars. Dance dramas involving the art of eurythmy usually have major references to nature. According to Steiner, its purpose is "to awaken and strengthen the expressive capacities of children through movement and stimulating the child to bring imagination, ideation and conceptualisation to the point where they can manifest these as vital, moving forms in physical space." The Swiss team of eurythmists will present the tale of "Bhakta Dhruva" in brand new costumes, enhanced and moulded by the artistic means of eurythmy, interspersed with music composed especially for this form of art. The central musical instrument used in such acts is piano, in the absence of which the performers usually use an e-piano. Other attractions of the evening will include a more serious dramatic act with musical compositions concluding with a humorous act titled, "Mr Spoon and Mrs Fork" which will include limericks that characterise the four temperaments of human nature. Syrian opposition members met for a third day today to decide whether to attend UN peace talks, with less than 24 hours before the negotiations were due to begin in Geneva. Opposition sources said it appeared increasingly unlikely the talks would open in the Swiss city tomorrow as planned. The Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee - formed last month in an effort to unite Syria's fractious opposition - said it was waiting for answers from the United Nations before agreeing to attend the talks. Western diplomats have piled pressure on the opposition to participate in the negotiations, part of the biggest push yet to resolve Syria's nearly five-year civil war. But after two days of meeting in the Saudi capital the Committee, which was formed to lead negotiations and insists it alone must represent the opposition, had yet to agree to participate. The Committee has asked for "clarifications" after the UN issued invitations to other opposition figures and wants assurances from the international community that it will move to end regime attacks on civilians and allow humanitarian aid. Salem al-Meslet, a Committee spokesman, said it was waiting for an answer from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the application of a Security Council resolution adopted in December that endorsed a roadmap for peace. He said UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura had already assured the opposition that two of the resolution's articles - calling for immediate access for humanitarian aid and an end to attacks on civilians - were non-negotiable. Security Council members "must take their responsibilities and commit to applying resolution 2254. We are waiting for an answer," Meslet said. "We are serious about participating in the negotiations. The ones who are hindering the start (of talks) are those who are bombing and starving civilians." France-based Middle East analyst Agnes Levallois said the opposition was growing increasingly frustrated that the question of President Bashar al-Assad's fate was being put off. "Assad is feeling stronger and stronger so is being inflexible. He wants to be sure there are no longer talks on his future so is putting forward the humanitarian issue," she said. Haytham Manna, a longstanding opposition figure who is co-chair of the political wing of a Kurdish-Arab alliance, told AFP in Geneva he did not expect talks to begin until Monday. "There are a lot of issues that were not resolved," he said, pointing to the dispute over invitations to the opposition. Syrian opposition members meeting in Riyadh have postponed until tomorrow a decision on whether to attend peace talks due to start in Geneva the same day, delegates said. "I believe tomorrow we will take a decision" on whether or not to attend the UN-brokered negotiations, said one delegate from the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee. "We will not be in Geneva tomorrow," said another opposition source. The Committee was formed in December when the main Syrian political opposition and armed factions came together in Riyadh for an unprecedented bid at unity, after months of Saudi effort. It insists that it is the sole permitted representative of Syria's opposition, despite objections from others. The Committee has met for three days in the Saudi capital to discuss whether or not to participate in the Geneva process. It had said it was waiting for UN "clarifications" after the UN issued invitations to other opposition figures. But delegate Monzer Makhos told AFP that members "would not be there" in Geneva for the planned start of talks "as we have yet to make a decision". The Committee wants assurances from the international community that it will move to end regime attacks on civilians and allow humanitarian aid. The Riyadh discussions were to resume at 0600 GMT tomorrow, the delegate said. Khawla Mattar, spokeswoman for the UN-mediated talks between the Syrian government and opposition, said today there would be "no postponement from our side". President Ma Ying-jeou is visiting Taiwan's largest island holding in the South China Sea, defying criticism from his country's biggest ally, the United States. Ma departed the capital Taipei early today aboard an air force C-130 cargo plane bound for Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba. Taiping is the largest naturally occurring island in the highly disputed Spratly island group, an area where Taiwan shares overlapping claims with China, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. However, the island has been eclipsed in size by China's ongoing program of creating man-made islands out of reefs and shoals. Taiwan stations about 200 coast guard personnel, scientists and medical workers on the island. The US State Department said yesterday the visit could exacerbate tensions in the strategically vital region. Three teachers of Hyderabad Central University today sat on a one-day hunger strike demanding that Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao Podile be removed and in-charge VC Vipin Srivastava step down, in order to resume academic and administrative activities. The protest by teachers comes a day after a second batch of students on an indefinite fast demanding justice for Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula, who allegedly committed suicide on January 17, were shifted to hospital following concerns over their health condition. A teacher from the Osmania University also joined the protesting teachers in the fast on HCU campus under the banner of SC/ST Teachers' Forum and other concerned teachers. Earlier, a group of seven students had also been taken to hospital following their deteriorating health condition. The agitating students yesterday refused to hold talks with Srivastava, who came to the protest site. They alleged that Srivastava was equally responsible for the "wrong affairs" and demanded that he step-down from the responsibility of interim VC. Meanwhile, the Joint Action Committee for Social Justice, spearheading the agitation over Rohith's suicide, said that students would intensify the "struggle" till all their demands are met. Their demands include Podile's resignation, and also Srivastava's from the post of in-charge VC, "sacking" from Union Cabinet of HRD Minister Smriti Irani, employment to a family member of Rohith and Rs 50 lakh compensation to his family. The selection of Srivastava as interim VC was earlier opposed by the students and SC/ST staff forums as they claimed he headed the Executive Council sub-committee whose decisions were "responsible for the death of Rohith" and that he was one of the accused in the death of another Dalit student in 2008. Students of most universities in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana yesterday boycotted classes in solidarity with the agitators as they sought "justice" for Rohith. Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao today said eating habits depend on availability of food but some political parties are trying to turn beef eating into an issue. "Beef eating is there everywhere in the world. In China, they eat snakes and frogs too. Whatever they want to eat they will eat. Why there is a fuss about it I don't understand. Political parties are making it an issue and politicising beef eating. It is unfortunate. People will eat whatever is available to them. This is a non-issue," he said. "It is unfortunate that politics in this country is centering around this issue," Rao added, responding to a question about AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi's remark that if his party lost the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections, beef eating would be banned in the city. On the campaign by TDP leader and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu for Hyderabad civic polls, Rao said it was a "futile" exercise and he should concentrate on his own state. "Chandrababu Naidu was CM (of united AP) for nine years. Why all the problems (of Hyderabad) I mentioned now were not solved? Why power supply has not improved? He can do a lot of work in his state...Campaigning in these elections is irrelevant to him. TDP was in power for 17 years. People do not believe if they say they would develop the city," he said. Rao expressed confidence that Hyderabad citizens will vote for TRS for the development works his government has undertaken. TERI has selected a team of 50 "youth ambassadors" from various colleges across the country who will take the NDA government's ambitious Swachh Bharat Mission to local level starting next week. The Energy and Resources Institute selected the "youth ambassadors" by conducting competitions on the theme 'Strengthening Water and Sanitation in Urban Settings: Inter-University Competition on Water Resources Management'. The final leg of the competition was held in the national capital today. "These students were selected through regional competitions we held on the theme. They were picked on the basis of their projects and presentations on the issue. "The youths will now work with TERI for six months from February 1 onwards, implement best ideas which came up during the competition in their respective areas," Ragini Kumar, associate fellow with TERI, said. Earlier in the day, the students from various states including West Bengal, Assam, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi and Punjab presented "action-oriented, practicable and community participative proposals to address water and sanitation problems in their regions", TERI said in a statement. TERI's senior director (sustainable development outreach and youth education) Dr Annapurna Vancheswaran and acting vice chancellor of TERI University Dr Rajiv Seth were among those who attended the event. Police in Visakhapatnam district today said the five persons who were detained on the suspicion of being terrorists were tourists from Iran who had entered the country with valid documents. Superintendent of Police (Rural) Koya Praveen said here the group comprised two couples and a 20-year-old youth. They had been detained last night following an alert issued by Odisha police at a check-post at Nakappalli in the district and were allowed to leave today after due probe. The scrutiny of documents and verification with the Indian embassy in Iran confirmed that they were tourists and had visited India twice before. "They have valid documents like, visa, passport and immigration certificate. After through interrogation we allowed them to proceed to Bengaluru," the SP said. Reaching India in the last week of December, the group visited Delhi, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, Kolkata and reached Bhubaneswar on January 25. At a hotel in Bhubaneswar, the staff asked to see their passports. The group left because they didn't like the hotel; but the hotel staff didn't understand this and alerted the police thinking they were fleeing, Pravin said. Since it was the eve of Republic Day, Odisha police who were on high alert traced their Delhi-registered car to the border with AP, and alerted the police here. The group proceeded to Srikakulam in AP and the police stopped them at Nakkpalli. A team of Odisha police too came here today and was satisfied about their credentials, the SP said. Describing terrorist safe havens in Pakistan, which is home to the Taliban and the Haqqani network, as a major challenge, a top US general nominated to be the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan today said it is difficult to destroy enemy having sanctuaries like this. "When an enemy enjoys sanctuary like that, it's very difficult to defeat them," General John "Mick" Nicholson, who has been nominated by the Pentagon as Commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, during confirmation hearing. Nicholson said he views the terrorist safe havens inside Pakistan as a serious problem. "This (terrorist safe havens) has been one of the principal challenges. It's a sanctuary that our enemies, in particular the Haqqani Network, have enjoyed inside Pakistan," he said responding to a question from Senator John McCain, Chairman of the Senate Committee. Critical of the Af-Pak policy of the Obama Administration, McCain also demanded an immediately halt to US troop withdrawals and eliminate any target date for withdrawal. Responding to the question, Nicholson said it is difficult to defeat the Taliban and Haqqani network when they enjoy terrorist safe haven, and as such, it is important to "enlist" Pakistan. "In this case, Pakistan, to go after those sanctuaries, and then the other important piece is to build up the defence capacity of the Afghans so that they can keep that level of violence down to a manageable level," the general said. Earlier, in a written response to questions, Nicholson asked Pakistan to take persistent action against the Taliban, particularly the Haqqani Network. "Pakistan's pressure on the Taliban combined with its support to the reconciliation process are mutually reinforcing," he added. Haqqani network, which is linked to al-Qaeda has also been blamed for several deadly attacks against Western and Indian interests in Afghanistan, including the 2008 bombing of the Indian mission in Kabul. Terrorist safe havens inside Pakistan, providing shelter to terrorist outfits like the Taliban and the Haqqani network, is a serious problem, a top US general nominated to be the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan said today. "I view it (terrorist safe havens inside Pakistan) as a serious problem," Gen John "Mick" Nicholson told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing. If confirmed by the Senate, he would replace Gen John Campbell as Commander of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan at a time when serious concerns have been raised about the security situation in Afghanistan, where Taliban militants have caused large numbers of casualties and Islamic State affiliates have made some inroads. "One of the biggest problems has been the sanctuary, particularly for the Haqqani Network, particularly the involvement of the ISI in Pakistan, which in many cases have been supporting the Haqqani Network. Have you seen any progress in this whole problem?" Senator John McCain, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked Gen Nicholson. In response, Gen Nicholson said continued presence of the terrorist safe haven has been a major problem. "This has been one of the principal challenges. It's a sanctuary that our enemies, in particular the Haqqani Network, have enjoyed inside Pakistan," he said. "I note that the Pakistanis have also suffered significant casualties in the tens of thousands in terms of their security forces and their civilians," he noted. However, the US is not satisfied that there's adequate pressure put on the Haqqanis, he told the Senators. The recent operations in northern Waziristan have helped, as well as stationing of additional soldiers in tribal areas. "Some of this has pushed some fighters into Afghanistan, which has contributed to some of the issues there," he said. "So, it's a mixed story, and it's one that requires continuous engagement by the Pakistan military. And then, increasingly, we want to encourage the Afghans and the Pakistan military forces to work more closely together against their common enemies," Nicholson said. Earlier, in a written response to questions, Nicholson asked Pakistan to take persistent action against the Taliban, particularly the Haqqani Network. "Pakistan's pressure on the Taliban combined with its support to the reconciliation process are mutually reinforcing," he added. Haqqani network, which is linked to al-Qaeda has also been blamed for several deadly attacks against Western and Indian interests in Afghanistan, including the 2008 bombing of the Indian mission in Kabul. Three policemen were injured, one of them critically, when unidentified persons hurled a grenade at them during patrol duty in Assam's Dima Hasao district in the wee hours today, a police officer said. The grenade was hurled at the policemen at 2 am while they were on duty in Ram Nagar under Haflong police station here injuring three of them, the officer said, adding, the condition of one of them was said to be critical. The injured have been identified as Dharmendra Das, Tilak Nath and R K Rajesh Singh, whose condition, doctors said was critical. They have been admitted to Haflong Civil Hospital. Investigations are on and a search has been launched to nab the miscreants, the officer added. Ruling Trinamool Congress today hailed the Kamduni verdict and said it showed that the police administration has worked impartially to get the culprits of the gangrape and murder case booked. The opposition has, however, questioned why it took so long for the police to place the charge sheet and why it failed to get evidence against the two who were acquitted by the court. "When Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee visited Kamduni in 2013 after the incident, she had promised that the culprits will be arrested and punished. Today six accused have been convicted. The conviction itself has proved that the police administration has worked impartially in this case to get the culprits booked for the crime," Jyotipriyo Mullick, state Food Minister told PTI. A city court today pronounced six accused in the Kamduni gangrape and murder case guilty, while two others were acquitted. The CPI(M) and Congress questioned what took so long for the police to find evidence against the culprits. "What took so long for the police to book those criminals? If police had acted impartially then the two who were acquitted could have also been booked," CPI(M) Politburo member Mohammed Salim told PTI. WBPCC president Adhir Chowdhury too welcomed the conviction of the six accused but questioned the role of police in the probe which led to acquittal of two others. A 21-year-old student was gangraped and brutally murdered when she was returning home alone at Kamduni, about 50 km from Kolkata, in North 24 Parganas district after appearing for an examination at her college on June 7, 2013. She was pulled into a farm by the accused when she was walking along a deserted road after alighting from a bus. Her mutilated body was found next morning near the farm. The incident had led to outrage in the state and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had faced protests by angry villagers when she went there to visit the family members of the victim. Tamil Nadu is yet to respond and send the proposal for demarcating Eco-Sensitive Zone in the Western Ghats, while proposals were received from all other states, Environment and Forest Minister Prakash Javadekar said today. Speaking at the Silver Jubilee Celebrations of Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON) situated at Anaikatty, some 25 km from here, Javadekar said that the whole sensitive zone of Western Ghats was reviewed to conserve its bio-diversity, while ensuring sustainable development. "Though all other states have sent their proposals, Tamil Nadu is yet to respond," the minister said. "India has 1,200 of the 10,000 birds found world over and only 100 are here. And 80 per cent of them are endemic to our country. Hence nature should be put to sustainable use by people's participation and not exploited," he said. "Scientists can only find methods for conservation, but it can be done only by involving people," he said. Stating that the government may consider giving autonomous status to SACON, he called upon the researchers to rediscover and reinvent their strategies by involving public for a sustainable growth in conserving nature. Javadekar released three SACON publications to commemorate the event and also unveiled a plaque to mark inauguration of a hostel building. Later replying to a question on the proposal for revisiting the forest policy taking into account the growing complexities in conserving nature, Javadekar said Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) bill needed to be passed in Parliament as soon as possible to unlock Rs 40,000 crore lying idle. "This is a huge fund lying idle over the last 10 years. It needs to be unlocked and given to states for preserving nature," he said. Post Master General, Western Region (Tamil Nadu), Manju Pilla released a special postal envelope observing the silver jubilee celebrations of the institution. The top US general in Iraq warned today of the potential collapse of Mosul Dam in the country's north, saying that such an event could prove "catastrophic." The US-led coalition is still determining the likelihood the hydroelectric dam could collapse but has developed a contingency plan alongside the Iraqi government, US Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland said today. Built in the early 1980s, the dam is made largely of earth and situated on soft mineral foundations, which are easily dissolved by water. A report by the US Army Corps of Engineers in 2006 called Mosul Dam "the most dangerous dam in the world" because of its propensity to erode. Since the Islamic State group extended its territory across Iraq in the summer of 2014 maintenance teams have at times struggled to gain access to the site. In July 2014 IS seized the dam, but Iraqi forces and Kurdish fighters took back the structure with coalition air support within weeks. The US-led coalition and Iraqi forces have drafted plans to move civilians to safety should the dam collapse, Lt. Gen. MacFarland said, warning that "when it goes, it's going to go fast and that's bad." Speaking to The Associated Press by phone, Riyadh Izeddin, the director general of Mosul Dam, said he had not been informed by the US about any such contingency plan. "The Americans didn't tell us anything," he said before countering the US-led coalition's claims that the structure is in serious danger. "There is nothing to be afraid of. There is nothing seriously wrong with the dam," he said. The 2006 US Army Corps of Engineers report said the dam's collapse would put the city of Mosul under 20 meters of water and kill up to half a million people. "If this dam was in the United States we would have drained the lake behind it," Lt. Gen. MacFarland said. Situated on the Tigris River, Mosul Dam is the fourth largest in the Middle East and one of the largest in Iraq. It once supplied electricity and water to much of the country, but is now only operating at partial capacity. French energy giant Total will sign a contract with Iran to buy crude oil, the company's chief executive said today after meeting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during his visit to France. "We plan to sign a contract which will allow us to take between 150,000 and 200,000 barrels of crude a day," Patrick Pouyanne said. The deal will be signed at the French presidency later today. With the end of economic and financial sanctions, Iran has decided to increase its oil production to 500,000 barrels a day, a decision which further weakened oil prices last week. The price of crude oil is currently around USD 32 (29 euros) a barrel, about 70 per cent less than it was in June 2014. Iran, which has the world's fourth-largest oil reserves, currently produces 2.8 million barrels a day, about a million of which are destined for export. Pouyanne said other French projects were also in the pipeline with Iran. "Total has been very present in Iran, very loyal to Iran. We have obviously envisaged other projects but they need to be discussed," he said. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's feud with a top American news network has intensified just days ahead of the crucial Iowa caucus, as the controversial billionaire announced a rival event against a nationally televised debate he boycotted. Trump last night refused to reconsider his decision of not attending the face-off on Fox News tonight even as he was being slammed by opponents for his relentless barrage against the network's anchor Megyn Kelly. The 69-year-old real-estate Mogul's criticism of Kelly has continued in retaliation for the tough questioning she submitted him to in the first Republican debate last summer. Trump announced a rival event to benefit Veteran Organisations in Des Moines exactly at the same time as the debate begins, injecting a sense of chaos into the contest. In an interview with Fox News, Trump said he would move forward with his own event and would not attend the debate -- the last one before the Iowa Caucus on February 1, which would formally begin the already unconventional presidential race. "We're going to raise a lot of money for the vets," Trump said at a rally in South Carolina. Trump also continued his criticism of Kelly, who he has accused of bias against him. "I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly. I don't think she's good at what she does and I think she's highly overrated. And frankly, she's a moderator; I thought her question last time was ridiculous," he alleged. In turn, Fox has shot back accusing Trump of "terrorising" the network after he pulled out of the last televised debate four days before voting begins in presidential primary polls. The network has said it will go ahead with the debate as scheduled. In a testy interview, Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly told Trump: "I submit to you that you need to change and get away from the personal." "I don't like being taken advantage of," Trump said, referring to Fox's refusal to dump Kelly from its panel of moderators. "I'm not going to let our country be taken advantage of." Trump's gamble has likely paid off as he was again dominating the airwaves and making his rivals and the party squirm, all this while consolidating his lead among voters. The White House, meanwhile, appeared critical of Trump's decision to skip the debate, saying President Barack Obama never backed out of such a debate. "In (the recent) Politico interview, the President himself noted he was not a big fan of participating in presidential debates, but he never backed out of a debate two days before it was scheduled to be held. I think that demonstrates his own commitment to the process, and making good on one's commitments," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said. "We have seen that over last several months that Mr Trump has repeatedly chosen to kick reporters out of the room for asking tough questions. It appears he's taking that approach to a new level by avoiding those questions entirely," he told reporters. As global health experts scramble to understand how the Zika virus spreads and may lead to birth defects, two cases suggest it may be transmitted through sex, not just mosquitoes. In a conference call with reporters today, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention principal deputy director Anne Schuchat was asked about a recent New York Times report on the subject. "There is one reported case of Zika virus through possible sexual transmission," she said. "In another case, Zika virus was found in semen about two weeks after a man had symptoms with Zika virus infection, so that sort of gives you the biologic plausibility of spread."However, Schuchat added that "the science is very clear to date that Zika virus is primarily transmitted to people through the bite of an infected mosquito. So that is really where we are putting the emphasis right now."The World Health Organization has warned that the virus is "spreading explosively" and may cause up to four million cases in the Americas. ALSO READ: All you need to know about the Zika virus Meanwhile, Brazil is struggling to cope with a surge in microcephaly cases -- in which babies are born with unusually small heads -- with nearly 4,000 suspected cases since the outbreak began last year. In a handful of cases, the Zika virus has been identified in fetuses and babies with birth defects, but health authorities say more work is needed to confirm cause and effect. Researchers believe that if a pregnant women is bitten by an infected mosquito, particularly in the first trimester, she faces a higher risk of having a child with birth defects. On Monday, the Times reported that the only known case of the Zika virus in semen involved a 44-year-old Tahitian man who was exposed during an outbreak of the Zika virus in French Polynesia in 2013. The virus was detected in his semen after it was no longer found in his blood. Still, it remains unclear how long the virus may have persisted after his initial infection. The newspaper also mentioned a second case from 2008, in which a US biologist was infected with Zika while in Senegal collecting mosquitoes for a malaria study. The man developed a rash, fatigue and headache a week after his return to the US. His wife also developed similar symptoms a few days after his return, and after the two had sex. Their blood was drawn and tested negative for malaria, dengue and yellow fever. After some time had passed, a colleague suggested their illness could have been Zika. The blood samples, which had been frozen, were re-tested and came back positive for Zika, suggesting that the wife was infected by her husband since none of the mosquitoes that carry Zika were present in Colorado. The AAP government today told the Delhi High Court that Uber, Ola, other aggregators of taxis or any operator, ought to be regulated in law to ensure security and safety of the users. The submission was made before a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath, which is hearing Uber's plea that Delhi government be restrained from interfering with its business. The AAP government, however, said that Uber's plea is "not maintainable as they have not approached this court with clean hands and are not entitled to any discretionary remedy for they are running their business illegally and are blatantly flouting the ban order dated January 1, 2015 passed by them and upheld by this court". The AAP government in its affidavit filed through advocate Prabhsahay Kaur also said that on December 5, 2014 a female passenger was raped by the driver of a car which was booked through the petitioner Uber platform. "The accused driver of the car has now been convicted by the trial court for rape. The said driver of Uber was known to be a habitual offender and was earlier accused for molestation and robbery. "These facts vindicate the stand of answering respondent (Delhi government) that Uber do not apply a proper screening process for selection of drivers which eventually led in the culmination of such an unfortunate and dastardly incident, which could have been avoided had the petitioners applied for a license under the prescribed procedure," the affidavit said. "The petitioners as well as other aggregator of taxis, and as a matter of fact any taxi operator, ought to be regulated in law to ensure the security and safety of the users of such platforms," it added. Government was responding to a court notice issued to them on October 13 last year seeking their replies on the petition of Uber, which runs an app-based taxi service in the national capital by using All India Tourist Permit (AITP) cabs running on diesel. Uber BV, the parent company based in Netherlands, as well as its two Indian arms--Uber India Technology Pvt Ltd and Uber India Systems Pvt Ltd--have in their petition also challenged rejection of their application for licence to ply in the city. Uber had applied under the modified Radio Taxi Scheme, but the government rejected their application on September 1, 2015, saying they have to apply under the new City Taxi Scheme, its petition has said. The company, in its plea, has challenged the new scheme of Delhi government as well as the September 1, 2015 order and sought directions to the city government to issue them a licence to ply. Defending their stand, the AAP government said on December 16 last, the apex court had in its order directed that all taxis including those operating under aggregators like Ola and Uber in Delhi, plying under city permits shall move to CNG not later than March 1. "The petition is also liable to be dismissed on the ground of issue estoppel and because the petitioners are indulging in forum shopping," the affidavit added. It further said the challenge of Uber to City Taxi Scheme, 2015 is completely misplaced as the scheme has been specifically drafted to bring in aggregator of taxis within its ambit. "The concern of companies such as the petitioners that being aggregators of taxis they are not the vehicle owners, has been suitably addressed in the 2015 Scheme and no such requirement of ownership of vehicles has been imposed on the aggregators. "For the petitioners and other similarly placed companies to now refuse to come in the realm of the scheme, only in a bid to prevent their costs from being increased, is absolutely unacceptable. The fact of the matter is that the petitioners wish to operate in an unregulated sector and do not want any regulation whatsoever to apply to them, which cannot be permitted or sanctioned," it added. The government affidavit also stated that the petitioners be "directed to immediately apply and obtain a license under the City Taxi Scheme 2015, and in the meantime discontinue all their operations in NCR". (Reopens LGD40) The Delhi government in its affidavit also brushes aside Uber's claim that new scheme was ultra vires to the Constitution as the government did not have the jurisdiction to regulate cabs and only the Centre could legislate on the issue. "It is respectfully submitted that the petitioner's petty attempt is to create an impression that the state government is trampling over the powers of the central government whereas this is not the case at all and all the applicable Rules and Laws are all operating in tandem with each other... Under the provisions (of the scheme), the state government is authorized to make Rules for the purpose of these sections," Delhi government said. Uber has contended that the new scheme is "targeted" at companies like it as it requires them to share their location, whereas radio taxis do not have to. Under the new scheme, the definition of 'clean fuel' is limited to CNG and LPG and Uber has contended that such a restriction is "unreasonable". The scheme also caps the number of taxis per licence at 2500 apart from making it mandatory that cabs operated by app-based companies to obtain a contract carriage permit as well as have public service vehicle badges, all of which according to Uber are also "unreasonable restrictions". Uber has also opposed various other requirements, like providing a printed bill, displaying name of licensee (Uber or Ola) and displaying in the cab the details of the driver, stipulated under the 2015 scheme. On July 29 last year, the high court had upheld Delhi government's January 1, 2015 order by which all app-based cab services which did not conform to the Radio Taxi Scheme 2006 were banned from operating in the city. ANI Technologies, which provides app-based taxi services in the city, had challenged the July 29, 2015 order of a single judge before a division bench. On August 11 last year, the high court had dismissed Ola's appeal against the single judge's order saying the company was "factually incorrect" to contend non-CNG commercial vehicles, like diesel cabs, were not barred from plying in the national capital. Britain announced today a 250 million pounds package of funding to boost the oil industry in northeast Scotland, which has been hit hard by slumping prices. At the same time, Prime Minister David Cameron is to visit the oil city of Aberdeen and meet industry bosses for talks on the current situation. Global oil prices fell by more than 30 per cent in 2015 and have dropped by another 20 per cent this year amid increasing production and weaker demand. In London, Brent North Sea crude for March, the European benchmark for crude oil, is currently at USD 33.10 a barrel, down from highs of over USD 100 in 2014. "Oil and gas is a crucial sector not just for the northeast of Scotland but for the whole of the UK," Britain's Scottish Secretary David Mundell said, confirming the move. "I know it's a very tough time for people who work in the industry and their families and I am determined the UK government will do what it can to support them." The funding is expected to be used to help the oil and gas industry export its expertise globally as well as encouraging economic diversification in northeast Scotland. It has been committed equally by the government in London and the devolved Scottish administration based in Edinburgh and led by the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP). Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Cameron vowed that the falling oil price would not affect Scots thanks to the "broad shoulders of the United Kingdom". But he warned that it would have been "a very, very dark day indeed" if prices had fallen this much and Scotland had voted for independence from Britain in a 2014 referendum. Oil and gas production in Britain rose by over seven percent last year, the first increase in over 15 years, trade body Oil & Gas UK said this month. But its chief executive Deidre Michie warned that "times are really tough" for the industry. "We will continue to see job losses as we move into 2016," she added. Ban Ki-moon renewed his criticism of Israel's "stifling" occupation of Palestinian territories, a day after similar hard-hitting remarks by the UN Secretary-General angered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The UN chief yesterday made clear that he would not retreat from the broadside he directed at Israel over its expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. UN diplomats said privately that Ban had upped the pressure on Netanyahu in a final bid to revive hopes for peace before he steps down as secretary-general at the end of the year. "After nearly 50 years of occupation -- after decades of waiting for the fulfilment of the Oslo promises -- Palestinians are losing hope," Ban told a UN committee on Palestinian rights. "Young people especially are losing hope. They are angered by the stifling policies of the occupation." Netanyahu on Tuesday accused Ban of "encouraging terror" after Ban said that it was "human nature to react to occupation." Speaking to the UN committee, Ban reiterated that "nothing excuses terror," but added that a security clampdown will not succeed in settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The UN chief called for a return to negotiations, saying it was the "one and only path to a just and lasting solution -- an end to the occupation that began in 1967" and a Palestinian state. "You can count on me to continue to speak up and speak out -- to push and to prod -- to do all in my power to achieve long-overdue Israeli-Palestinian peace," he said. Ban said Palestinians had heard "half a century of statements" condemning Israel's occupation, but that their lives had not improved. "We issue statements. We express concern. We voice solidarity. But life hasn't changed. And some Palestinians wonder: Is this all meant to simply run out the clock? "They ask: Are we meant to watch as the world endlessly debates how to divide land while it disappears before our very eyes?" The UN chief's sharp criticism of Israel came amid ongoing Israeli-Palestinian violence and recent Israeli decisions to build new Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The United Nations has branded Israeli settlement expansions illegal, arguing that they are an attempt to undermine plans for a Palestinian state by absorbing land earmarked for the new country. Assembly elections slated for 2017 is likely to have a clear bearing on the budget session of Uttar Pradesh legislature beginning tomorrow with opposition seeking answers to people problems and government poised to present a populist budget. As all the main political players are already in election mode, they will try to nail the government on all people's issues to gain maximum mileage. Issues like law and order, drought, the failure of the government to revise sugarcane prices for the third successive year, prevailing dissatisfaction among farmers and alleged neglect of arid Bundelkhand region will be used to the hilt by the opposition parties to corner the government. The Samajwadi Party government, which will present its last full budget of its five-year term, will leave no stone unturned to lure the electorate. Governor Ram Naik will address the joint session of both the houses tomorrow. Keeping in mind the practice of opposition parties protesting during Governor's address every year, Governor Ram Naik has appealed to leaders of all the political parties to listen to his address patiently. In a letter, he has urged that his address be heard with patience in the same manner as the address of the President of India was heard in the Parliament. According to the schedule, the budget for the 2016-17 will be presented in the House on February 12. The session is likely to conclude on March 11. The US is gearing up to fight the dangerous Zika virus as President Barack Obama calls for development of vaccines and therapeutics to fight the deadly mosquito-born infection. The move comes as Zika virus, which is linked to a birth defect where babies are born with smaller heads which limits brain growth, has spread to countries in the region. One case of the Zika virus has been identified in Arkansas and another in Virginia, Center for Disease Control (CDC) said, adding that one case was also confirmed in a girl in California, but she has since recovered. ALSO READ: All you need to know about the Zika virus As of now there is no vaccine to prevent Zika. The best way to prevent diseases spread by mosquitoes is to avoid being bitten, it said. "The President is himself concerned about it.That's why he convened a meeting here at the White House yesterday to discuss it," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said. "In the days ahead you'll see more of a conspicuous, concerted effort on the part of US government to communicate with the American people about the risks of this virus and the steps that they can take to protect themselves," Earnest said, a day after Obama held a meeting to review preparedness for the virus. In his meeting with senior health official and National Security team, Obama emphasised the need to accelerate research efforts to make available better diagnostic tests, to develop vaccines and therapeutics, and to ensure that all Americans have information about the Zika virus and steps they can take to better protect themselves from infection, the White House said. While Ebola is a deadly disease, Earnest said the Zika virus poses a different set of risks that are most serious for pregnant women. "That explains the kind of reaction you've seen from the federal government and the kind of guidance that the CDC has shared with Americans who are considering travel to a variety of tropical areas in the Western Hemisphere," he said. In a statement early this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned pregnant woman from travelling to countries hit by Zika Virus. Prior to 2015, Zika virus outbreaks have occurred in areas of Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands. ALSO READ: Zika spreads its tentacles CDC said no locally transmitted Zika cases have been reported in the continental US, but cases have been reported in returning travelers. Locally transmitted Zika virus has been reported in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. With the recent outbreaks, the number of Zika cases among travelers visiting or returning to the US will likely increase, it said. CDC said Zika is a disease caused by Zika virus that is spread to people primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito. The most common symptoms of Zika are fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis (red eyes). Senate candidates Left to right: Democrats John Fetterman, Katie McGinty and Joe Sestak; Incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Toomey. (File photos) Good Thursday Morning, Fellow Seekers. If you're a student of public affairs, then you know that this year's U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania is among the most closely watched in the nation and could well determine who controls the chamber in the next Congress. Three Democrats: Former U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, ex-Wolf administration aide Katie McGinty and Braddock, Pa. Mayor John Fetterman are each vying for the right to face U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., come fall. And thanks to a new Harper poll, we now have some idea of where that race stands -- maybe (because another poll presents a contrasting result). Sestak leads the field with 33 percent support, according to the new Harper poll, compared to 28 percent for McGinty. Fetterman trails at 11 percent, but more than a quarter of voters (28 percent) are still undecided with more than three months to go before the primary. With his entrance to the race, Fetterman tightened up the contest. Sestak led McGinty 40-30 percent in Harper poll released last September, with nearly three in 10 voters undecided (29 percent). Here's more from the poll: "McGinty's image strength among Somewhat Liberals translates to a lead for her among this group (32-30 percent, Sestak) as well as among Moderates (32-28 percent). Sestak leads among Very Liberals (40-28 percent, McGinty). Geographically, Sestak converts his image advantage in the Philadelphia/Southeast region to a lead on the ballot (36-23 percent, McGinty) and also leads in the Northern Tier (36-27 percent). Sestak and McGinty are tied in Pittsburgh/Southwest (27-27 percent) and Scranton/Lehigh Valley (33-33 percent) regions while McGinty has a lead in the South Central region (39-29 percent, Sestak)." Fetterman remains a wild card. According to the poll, his share of votes peaks among very liberals (14 percent); in his home region of Pittsburgh/Southwest (19 percent) and among younger voters (18-39: 16 percent). Among people with a very favorable opinion of tattoos, he pulls into second place behind Sestak (29-35 percent Sestak). Fetterman, as you might have gathered, is heavily tattooed. Now compare that to a Franklin & Marshall poll, where there's no clear favorite among the Democratic primary challengers, as PennLive's Wallace McKelvey reports. Nearly two-thirds of registered Democrats still don't have an opinion of the U.S. Senate primary hopefuls, that poll found. Elsewhere in the Harper poll, Democratic Attorney General Kathleen Kane - despite her legal problems - leads an increasingly crowded Democratic primary field. Though it remains to be seen whether she'll actually be able to stand for re-election, given her current issue. Kane takes 31 percent support in the poll, compared to 18 percent for Allegheny County District Attorney Steve Zappala, 13 percent for Montgomery County Commissioner Josh Shapiro and 9 percent for Northampton County DA John Morganelli. Critically, three in 10 voters (30 percent) are still undecided. Without Kane in the race, nearly half of voters (49 percent) remain undecided, with Zappala and Shapiro running neck and neck (20-19 percent), while Morganelli trails at 12 percent. The survey of 640 likely Democratic primary voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.81 percent. The rest of the day's news starts now. A vote to remove Attorney General Kathleen Kane from office could go to the full Senate after all, our Capitol colleague Wallace McKelvey reports. More Pennsylvania voters blame the Legislature than Gov. Tom Wolf for the state's ongoing budget stalemate in a new poll, The Tribune-Review reports. PennLive's Charlie Thompson has more on that poll, too. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are shaking up the normally staid Iowa caucuses, The Post-Gazette reports. PhillyMag looks at the safety of the city's drinking water supplies. The Inquirer updates on the latest on winter storm clean-up efforts. Hospitalizations for drug overdoses jumped by more than 200 percent in Pennsylvania, WITF-FM reports. Delaware's state Senate has passed a minimum wage increase, NewsWorks/WHYY-FM reports. The Allentown Parking Authority has been subpoenaed as a part of that ongoing FBI probe, The Morning Call reports. The Clinton Foundation is on a collision course with Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, Politico reports. The frustrations of divided government are playing out in the Iowa caucuses, The National Journal reports. What Goes On (Nakedly Political Edition). 5 p.m.: Evening reception for Lehrman for Lancaster. 5:30 p.m.: Reception for U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta 5:30 p.m.: Reception for state Sen. Guy Reschenthaler 5:30 p.m.: Reception for Rep. Frank Dermody 5:30 p.m.: Commonwealth Club reception for U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly Ride the circuit and give at the max and you'll part with a mere $14,700 today. Heavy Rotation. The band members may have a few more miles under their belts. But this song never gets old: And now you're up to date. See you all back here in a bit. The United States will provide thousands of rooms for military mothers to breastfeed their babies, Defence Secretary Ashton Carter announced as part of a package of family-friendly initiatives. Carter, who has long said the US military must look for ways to attract and retain top talent, said yesterday he got the idea from his friend Sheryl Sandberg, the Facebook executive who wrote the best-selling female leadership and empowerment book "Lean In." We can "make relatively inexpensive improvements so that our workplaces are more accommodating to women when they return from maternity leave, with a focus on making it easier for them to continue breastfeeding if they choose," Carter told reporters at the Pentagon. New rules mean every military facility with more than 50 women will be required to provide a mother's room -- about 3,600 in all. Carter, who is President Barack Obama's fourth defence secretary, has spoken frequently about the need for the vast US military to be more inclusive. He has ushered in major reforms such as by opening up all positions to women, including specialised commando roles. He also said yesterday that the Pentagon would implement 12 weeks of paid maternity leave across all military services while increasing paternity leave to two weeks. The move represents a doubling of maternity leave for the Army and Air Force, but will come as a disappointment for members of the Navy and Marine Corps, which currently allow 18 weeks. Women comprise about 15.6 percent of the 1.34 million active-duty personnel now in the US military. The latest changes are generous by US standards. Unlike almost every other industrialised country, the United States fails to guarantee new mothers paid time off. Carter announced other changes too, including better access to child care and in-vitro fertilisation treatments for couples trying to have a baby. Migrant children in the government's care were placed in US homes and left vulnerable to human trafficking due to sometimes non-existent screening by the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a congressional report released today. The investigation says the department failed to run background checks on the adults in the sponsors' households, failed to visit sponsors' homes and failed to realize some sponsors were accumulating multiple unrelated children, which can be a sign of human trafficking. Lawmakers contend the government weakened its child protection policies as it was overwhelmed by tens of thousands of children crossing the border from Central America. A Senate subcommittee held a hearing today to release the report and examine weaknesses in the department's placement of migrant children. At the hearing, HHS officials declined to fully answer many of the senators' questions, at times saying they did not have the legal authority from Congress to follow up on the children. The investigation by the panel echoes the findings of an Associated Press investigation that found more than two dozen unaccompanied children were sent to homes across the country where they were sexually assaulted, starved or forced to work for little or no pay. Sen. Rob Portman, the Republican chairman of the panel, says the HHS placement program for migrant children suffers from "serious, systemic defects." The congressional investigation and hearing are in response to a case in Portman's home state of Ohio, where six Guatemalan unaccompanied minors were placed with human traffickers, including sponsors and their associates. Lured to the US with the promise of an education, the teens instead were forced to work up to 12 hours a day on egg farms under threats of death. The report says the department did not conduct any home visits in the Ohio case and performed visits in less than 5 per cent of cases overall from 2013 to 2015. Mark Greenberg, acting assistant secretary for HHS's Administration for Children and Families, testified at the hearing that the Ohio case is a "deeply dismaying event" but said he is not able to discuss details due to an ongoing criminal investigation. He said policies in place at the time were followed. Lawmakers from both parties bristled at the officials' answers, saying they weren't adequate when the lives of children had been endangered. The panel's top Democrat, Claire McCaskill, said she is "disgusted and angry" by the results of the investigation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi today failed to make it to the list of 20 cities selected for the ambitious Smart Cities project. The historic city of Uttar Pradesh ranked 96 among 97 cities across the country which competed for inclusion in the first list that was announced by Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu. "The (Urban Development) Ministry has no role in the selection. The result is based on a competition," said a senior Urban Development Ministry official while explaining why Varanasi is not in the list. Each state was given a quota of nominations on the basis of size, population and the number of notified cities. Uttar Pradesh had got the maximum quota of 13 cities for nomination but only 12 cities including Jhansi, Moradabad, Saharanpur and Bareli participated in the contest. However, none of them qualified in the first list. With regard to the 13th city, the remained indecisive on choosing between Rae Bareli (Sonia Gandhi's constituency) and Meerut. Jammu and Kashmir, which had to send name for just one city, did not send any nomination as it did not take a call on whether it should be Srinagar or Jammu. Altogether 97 cities participated in the competition for the first list. The list was topped by Bhubaneswar while Dehradun was at the bottom. The states which have not found a place in the list of first 20 are Bihar, Haryana, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana and Chhattisgarh. Vedanta today posted a steep 98.9 per cent fall in its consolidated net profit at Rs 17.91 crore for the December quarter as the metals major battled a subdued commodities market, which saw prices hit over 10-year lows. The firm led by NRI billionaire Anil Agarwal had reported a net profit of Rs 1,587.50 crore in the year-ago period. The record decline in crude and metal prices impacted the mining and metal conglomerate's total income, which fell 22.6 per cent to Rs 14, 876.55 crore in October-December of 2015-16, from Rs 19,218.90 crore during the same quarter in 2014-15. However, markets cheered its cost optimisation efforts, which helped Vedanta post an unexpected profit at a time when metals and oil companies globally have seen their sales and profits dry up due to high production and subdued demand. Vedanta stock rose 5.64 per cent to close at Rs 67.40 on NSE while they settled at Rs 67.25 on BSE, up 5.34 per cent from their previous closing. Analysts attributed the better-than-expected performance to its cost reduction drive in the wake of price crashes in the metals and crude market amid a subdued demand. Vedanta CEO Tom Albanese said the commodities market is passing through "very challenging times" with a steep drop of 60 per cent in crude prices, 40 per cent in iron ore, 28 per cent in zinc, 21 per cent in copper, 18 per cent in silver as well as aluminium and 8 per cent in lead. "Under such conditions, we did well. The cost reduction programme gained momentum and I believe that this relentless focus on efficiency will not only make our business more resilient through the cycle, but position us favourably for any future improvement in market conditions," he told PTI. Vedanta's total expenses fell 12 per cent to Rs 13,541.18 crore, from Rs 15,400.27 crore during the reported quarter. On price crash, he said: "What we are seeing is that in many commodities the prices are as low as during the financial crisis in 2008-09 and in many, it is as low as before the boom in China. We are seeing conditions last experienced around the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s." On the outlook for the March quarter this fiscal, he said: "I think in an environment where the market continues to stay weak for the next quarter, we are continuing, and in some cases, will intensify our cost reduction efforts." The metals-to-oil group said it is actively managing balancesheet, with a focus on optimising opex and capex to maximise free cash flow, refinancing and terming out maturing debt and simplifying the group structure. "Our financial position remains robust with cash and liquid investments of Rs 50,685 crore, which is invested in debt-related mutual funds, bank deposits and bonds and undrawn committed facilities of about Rs 4,800 crore as on December 31, 2015," it added. Gross debt and net debt came in at Rs 80,952 crore and Rs 30,267 crore, respectively, as of December 2015, higher than Rs 79,433 crore and Rs 27,105 crore as of September 2015. Albanese said: "We have to be prepared for a period of sustained market weakness. So you can see the focus on opex, capex and of course, free cash flow." On cost rationalisation, he said the firm's businesses are focused on what needs to be done for the future. "I think it is important to recognise that with every single item of spend, we have to look at them doubly hard. We have to look at the number of people in the workforce. From time to time, we have to make some difficult, but realistic decision about how many people we need," he added. On the outlook for the market, he said most metal prices have dropped to a point where a quarter of the world's producers are losing money. "Then you begin to see supply disruptions and you begin to see that it equalises inventories. When inventories begin to drop, prices begin to recover. So we better watch very carefully the supply-demand situation on a metal to metal basis," he added. Right now, inventories in zinc are dropping and that is "very encouraging", he said, adding the worse for the metal is almost over and the coming months will be "more optimistic". On copper, he said the prices did not drop that much, but some new mines are coming in the market, but there is also the issue of global copper supply beginning to fall in some areas. "So I think the market has been expecting large copper surpluses in calender year 2016. But revised numbers for surpluses are a bit small, maybe in deficit. So copper could turn during the course of this year," he added. On aluminium, he said about half of the world's capacity is losing cash flow. The demand for the metal is "very strong", but there has been large increases in production, particularly in China over the past three years. There is pressure on Indian producers as China is exporting its aluminium products to the country, he added. On oil, he said there could be a period of extended weakness in crude prices. "In oil, I'd say half of the oil producers are losing cash flow in this market. But we also see anticipation of Iran coming in the market. There is also an increase in the floating stocks. So, we could see a period of extended weakness in oil and it is probably more related to geo-political events than to supply-demand issues. "I don't think oil prices will be down for ever. They could be down here for a couple more months. The turnaround in oil and metal prices is just around the corner," he added. On Vedanta-Cairn merger, he said the shareholders and creditors meetings are expected to be convened in the current quarter (January-March). The company continues to work towards completion of the merger by April-June 2016. Vedanta said during the quarter, rupee depreciation led to a forex gain of Rs 136 crore on dollar-denominated investments, advances and trade debtors. On the outlook on aluminum business, Albanese said: "We see more and more aluminum being produced at China...When that material is exported from China its dampens the overall aluminum market and particularly dampens aluminum premium. That has had a negative effect on our business." "For our purposes in this current market environment we will continue to ramp up our own smelter potlines," he said. He further said that the rising capacity of the aluminum production in China is one of the challenges in the sector that will keep the market under stress for the next few years. On the ongoing mines auctions in India, Albanese said that many of the leases that are being auctioned are very small. "I use the term postage stamp and if lease is too small in size its generally not capable of having a large operation, he said, adding that there have been cases "were we chose not to bid because the lease were postage stamp size". Venezuela has recorded 4,700 suspected cases of people infected by the Zika virus, which is thought to cause brain damage in babies, the health ministry said. The estimate followed thousands of other suspected cases in Latin America which have raised a world health scare over the mosquito-borne virus. "We have reports of 4,700 patients suspected of being infected with the Zika virus" based on their symptoms, Health Minister Luisana Melo told reporters yesterday. It was the first such toll from the government in the South American country of 30 million people, which is struggling with an economic and political crisis. Melo said there were likely far more cases of Zika than the suspected cases so far recorded because most patients do not realise they have the virus since the symptoms are usually mild. World health authorities suspect that the virus is to blame for a recent rise in the region in cases of microcephaly, a condition in which babies are born with abnormally small heads. The World Health Organisation said yesterday that Zika is "spreading explosively" in the Americas and the region may see up to four million cases. ALSO READ: All you need to know about the Zika virus Venezuela is among more than 20 countries and territories that have reported cases. Melo said Venezuela had not yet identified any cases of microcephaly linked to Zika. She said the government was launching a program to eliminate the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the insect that carries Zika and other tropical fevers. Melo insisted the authorities were equipped to treat the disease, despite recent shortages of medical supplies due to the country's severe economic crisis. She added that Venezuela had also recorded 90 cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disorder that can cause paralysis or even death. That disease has also been linked to Zika but Melo said there was so far no evidence to link the cases in Venezuela with that virus. In a jolt to Congress-led UDF government in Kerala, a court today ordered registration of an FIR against Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Power Minister Arayadan Mohammed in the solar scam, sparking fresh demands by opposition CPI-M for their resignation. Chandy, a senior Congress leader, on his part said he was prepared to face any probe. "Both of us are ready to face any probe. Our strength is we have not done any wrong," Chandy, who is facing the heat in the solar scam following prime accused Saritha S Nair's deposition before the Commission probing the case, told reporters at Malappuram and Kozhikode. Inquiry Commissioner and Special Judge (Vigilance), Thrissur, who ordered the vigilance director to register an FIR against Chandy and Arayadan and six others in the case, observed that everyone was equal before law, "be it a village man or a chief minister." Judge S S Vassan in the order stated that he was not making any comments on the merits of the case. "I have to bear in mind Article 14 of the Constitution. Be it a village man or the chief minister, law is equal to all public servants. Therefore the complaint is forwarded to Director VACB (Vigilance and Anti Corruption Bureau) for investigation under sect 156(3) CrPC," the judge said. A report has to be submitted by April 11, the next hearing of the case, the judge said. Alleging that the charges against him were part of a 'political conspiracy' against him by a section of bar owners and CPI-M, Chandy said he was ready to face any probe. "I have not done anything wrong. My conscience is clear on that.....," he said, adding, he would soon hold talks with coalition partners of the UDF. Saritha had alleged yesterday that she had paid bribes to the tune of Rs 1.90 crore to a close aide of Chandy and Rs 40 lakh to the power minister. Chandy and Arayadan have denied the allegations. Coming out in support of Chandy, AICC fully backed him saying there was no need at this stage for Chandy to resign. AICC chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surejwala said in New Delhi that "Congress is of the opinion that there is no need for Oommen Chandy to resign at this stage." "Chandy has said more than once that they are ready for any kind of enquiry....We will seek appropriate legal remedies," he told reporters at Delhi. Slamming Chandy, CPI-M veteran V S Achuthanandan said Chandy had no moral right to continue while party state secretary, Kodieryi Balakrishnan, said the opposition will launch massive agitations to oust him. Walmart India, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Walmart Stores, today announced an entrepreneurship development programme for women-owned businesses to enhance their skills, capability and sustainability. The company is working with non-profit organisation WEConnect International, and Vrutti, a centre for sustainable livelihood, to implement the training programme, it said in a statement. "I am extremely delighted to support women-owned businesses as part of our supply chain in India. Enhancing the capacity of women entrepreneurs and providing them with the skills to scale up their business will ultimately help Walmart India continue to offer great assortment and quality local products to our customers," Walmart India president and chief executive officer Krish Iyer said. The initiative is designed to help women entrepreneurs achieve higher levels of business growth through a training curriculum. The curriculum will be delivered through workshops and mentoring sessions with technical experts, established women-owned businesses, academic experts and business managers, it said. The first phase of the programme will include participation of 25 women-owned businesses in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. In September 2011, Walmart launched its Global Women's Economic Empowerment (WEE) initiative, using its unique size and scale to improve the lives of under-served women and help women-owned businesses. As part of the initiative, Walmart committed to source USD 20 billion from women for its US business and double sourcing from women-owned businesses internationally. With Bollywood stars being targeted for their views on intolerance and free speech, director Rajkumar Hirani says celebrities have become cautious about what they say in public. The debate on intolerance has taken over the industry with Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, filmmaker Karan Johar facing flak for their comments. When asked if he feels freedom of expression is at risk in the country, the "PK" director said he has become careful with words now. "Every filmmaker, everybody now speaks very carefully because they are worried how they will be quoted and if they are misquoted then there will be a lot of slamming on the social media," Hirani told PTI in an interview. The director said while every opinion can and should have a counter point of view, there is growing tendency of giving knee-jerk reactions that get magnified on social media. "If there is one opinion then there should be a balanced and dignified point of view from the other side. But what if other side's point of view is not balanced and is 'Ok, you say this. I am going to send you to Pakistan'. "From where does this communal thing get into it? 'I am going to slam you' cannot be the reaction. And that is primarily coming from small social media forces." The director said he was worried as this kind of hatred would end up creating more divisions in society. "We as human beings try to find scapegoats, pass the blame... It is an environment which is being created. And I hold media responsible for it. Its repercussions will be seen after 10 years... We will end up creating a society where people are hating communities. It has already started." Hirani's last film "PK" had to face objections and protest from certain sections for its depiction of godmen. "During 'PK', some people would go to theatres and protest and they would inform TV channels and if they didn't come then they won't protest. "I think as a policy, journalists should not report something if it is being done for personal attention. When things get reported slightly wrong, then the venom spreads, hatred spreads. I can see that within social media, which was not there earlier. We as citizens should be blamed. No individual should be blamed. Appealing to students to not resort to the extreme step of suicide, DMK chief M Karunanidhi today wondered why Tamil Nadu government has not come forward to hold a judicial probe into the suicides of three students of a yoga and naturopathy college. Referring to the recent suicides in Tamil Nadu, Karunanidhi appealed to students in a statement, "Do not shatter the confidence reposed by your family members in you." "Dear students, not only your country, but your parents, and siblings trust and believe you. Do not forget your family, tell me your grievances and continue with your studies," he said. "Ensure that there are no more of students committing suicide in Tamil Nadu, this is my humble appeal," he said, adding, like students, farmers too should avoid suicidal tendencies considering the future of their families. "Do those in the government bother about the families of the dead students? Were they murdered or killed themselves, what is the reason for not coming forward to hold a judicial inquiry into it," he questioned. Besides the triple suicide in Villupuram district, a nursing student of Government Stanley Medical College and Hospital and another arts college student in Thanjavur district were among those who killed themselves in Tamil Nadu. Recalling his meeting with the mother of Priyanka - one of the three yoga and naturopathy students who had committed suicide - during his visit to Tiruvarur district, he said, "The image of that mother seeking her daughter and justice haunts me still." Soon after the suicide of three students, Karunanidhi had demanded a judicial probe by a sitting High Court Judge. He had alleged attempts to 'cover-up' the deaths of Saranya, Monisha and Priyanka, who had allegedly committed suicide by jumping into a farm-well after tying themselves with dupatta on January 23. A pair of women suicide bombers killed four people and left a trail of injury in north Cameroon today, the second such attacks this week in a region targeted by Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamists. Only two attacks in the town of Kerawa were successful and three others were foiled, a member of a local vigilante group said. "There were new suicide attacks this morning in Kerawa," said a regional security source contacted by AFP. "Four civilians were killed. Many others were hurt." The member of the vigilante committee set up to ward off such attacks said the assailants were both women and confirmed that six people had died in all, including the bombers. "Five women planned to blow themselves up in Kerawa today but two of them were arrested and the fifth is on the run," the member said, adding that one of the arrested women "is the wife of a Boko Haram chief in the Kerawa region." The security source said the attacks were carefully timed as members of the vigilante group had been called to a nearby town to receive silver medals from the local governor for their role in pre-empting Boko Haram attacks. The attacks took place next to a school sheltering people displaced from their homes by Boko Haram's six-year campaign of terror. The jihadists initially confined their war to Nigeria but last year saw a sharp increase in cross-border attacks in Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Kerawa was the scene of one such assault in September in which 20 people were killed. And on Monday, at least 37 people died in four suicide attacks at a market in Bodo, also in Cameroon's extreme north. Nearly 1,200 people have been killed since 2013 when Boko Haram began attacking Cameroon's Far North region bordering the Islamist group's stronghold in northeastern Nigeria, according to government spokesman, Communications Minister Issa Chiroma Bakary. The Islamic State affiliate in Yemen has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing targeting the presidential palace in the southern city of Aden. In an online statement posted on Twitter by the group's supporters, IS identified the attacker as Abu Hanifa al- Hollandi, an Arabic nom de guerre that suggests he was Dutch. The last name in militants' pseudonyms usually indicates their nationality or place of origin. His real name was not immediately known. It was not possible to verify the claim. The group posted pictures that appeared to show the car bomb speeding toward barricades manned by presidential guards. Both IS and Yemen's al-Qaida affiliate have a strong presence in Aden, which descended into lawlessness after Saudi-led coalition forces and government fighters retook the city from Shiite rebels in 2015. A youth has been sentenced to ten years in prison by a fast-track court here for raping a 22 year-old girl in 2009. Manish was convicted last evening by judge Gulab Singh, who also imposed a fine of Rs 27,000 on him, according to the prosecution. The girl was gangraped after being abducted on September 8, 2009 in Babri area in neighbouring Shamli district. Police had registered a case against four accused -- Salar Singh, Naresh, Sanjay and Manish. The other three accused were convicted earlier. The court also directed Manish to pay half of the penalty amount to the victim's familyas compensation. The Zika virus is "spreading explosively" in the Americas and can infect upto four million people, the World Organisation (WHO) warned today as it issued a warning to all countries, including India, who have the vector of Aedes mosquito that also causes Dengue and Chikungunya. The Zika virus is caused by the aggressive Aedes aegypti mosquito that also causes Dengue and Chikungunya -- both the viral diseases are of great public concern to tropical countries like India. The outbreak began in Brazil last year and has now spread to 24 countries in the Americas, causing serious birth defects and other neurological problems like microcephaly, a condition that causes babies to be born with an abnormally small head. Marcos Espinal, director of communicable diseases and analysis at WHO, warned that Zika "will go everywhere the mosquito is. We should assume that. We should not wait for it to spread." Zika originated in Africa and also exists in Asia. Meanwhile, WHO Chief Margaret Chan warned that the virus "is now spreading explosively," and the global health body expected up to four million cases of the disease. She also expressed concern over the potential of global spread of the disease, owing to the large geographical spread of the Aedes mosquito. Bruce Aylward, assistant director-general, WHO, also warned that the virus could spread to other places wherever there is Aedes mosquitoes. "What we have to assume is anywhere where they have the Aedes (mosquitoes), they could have the Zika virus and they should have the tools to be able to look for it," he said. "So, that's part of the reason we are trying to get the information out to countries that have got the vector but may not yet have the virus -- look now for the virus," he added. Such is the level of alarm that many American countries like El Salvador, Colombia and Ecuador have urged women to postpone pregnancy till 2018. Complicating matters further, the Olympics in 2016 is to be held in Rio, the epicenter of the virus outbreak. The concern is also related to lack of immunity of the population that are unexposed to the Zika virus. Additionally, there are no vaccines, specific treatments or rapid diagnostic tests available to combat the virus. The Zika virus is "spreading explosively" in the Americas, the head of the World Health Organization said today, as the global health body warned that it expected up to four million cases of the disease. WHO chief Margaret Chan called for an emergency meeting on February 1 on the outbreak of the virus, which has been blamed for the birth defect microcephaly, a condition that causes babies to be born with an abnormally small head. "The level of alarm is extremely high," Chan said, adding that the meeting of WHO's Emergency Committee on Monday will seek to determine if the outbreak qualifies as an international public health emergency. The virus "is now spreading explosively," in the Americas, where 23 countries and territories have reported cases, the WHO chief said. Marcos Espinal, the head of communicable diseases and health analysis at the WHO's Americas office, said the region should expect "three to four million cases" of Zika, without proving a timeframe for the outbreak to ramp up to that level. Following its initial discovery in a monkey in Uganda's Zika forest in 1947, the disease "slumbered" and "occasionally caused a mild disease of low concern," in humans, Chan said. "The situation today is dramatically different." Chan highlighted the growing concern over Zika's possible link to microcephaly and a neurological disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome. "A causal relationship between Zika virus infection and birth malformations and neurological syndromes has not yet been established, but is strongly suspected," Chan said. The emergency meeting will seek advice on the severity of the outbreak and what response measures might be taken. It will also aim to identify priority areas for urgent research, Chan said, after US President Barack Obama called for swift action, including better diagnostic tests as well as the development of vaccines and treatments. Espinal warned that Zika "will go everywhere the mosquito is." "We should assume that. We should not wait for it to spread," he said. Drawing a contrast with Ebola, Espinal stressed that Zika needs a carrier to spread and that controlling the mosquito was therefore crucial to controlling the outbreak. WHO has previously said that it expects Zika to spread to every country in the Americas except Canada and Chile. Brazil has been the country hardest hit so far, and concerns are growing about this summer's Olympics, which is likely to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors to host city Rio de Janeiro in August. Zika originated in Africa and also exists in Asia and the Pacific, but has not been associated with microcephaly there. It first came to prominence in Brazil in October. Microcephaly can cause brain damage or death in babies. 2016 marks the 25th year since disinvestment first began in 1991. In his Interim Budget speech on 24th July 1991, Dr. Manmohan Singh, then Finance Minister, said It has been decided that Government would disinvest up to 20 per cent of its equity in selected public sector undertakings, in favour of mutual funds and financial or investment institutions in the public sector. The disinvestment, which would broad base the equity, improve management and enhance the availability of resources for these enterprises, is also expected to yield Rs. 2,500 crores to the exchequer in ... By Francesco Guarascio BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission proposed on Thursday allowing EU countries to tax corporate profits at home in some circumstances even if the money has been transferred elsewhere to avoid such payments. Weighing in on a row about business responsibility and fairness, the Commission proposed a set of measures to tackle some of the most common tax avoidance schemes used by multinational companies to reduce their tax bills. Business warned that the measures could hurt competitiveness and deter investment. Big corporations legally avoid taxes of up to 70 billion euros ($76.10 billion) a year in Europe, a study of the European Parliament estimated, with global losses from such schemes ranging between $100 billion and $240 billion. "Billions of euros are lost every year to tax avoidance. This is unacceptable and we are acting to tackle it," the EU tax commissioner Pierre Moscovici said in a statement calling "for fair and effective taxation for all Europeans." Responding to such criticism in Britain, Google agreed last week to pay 130 million pounds ($185 million) in back taxes, but it was seen by many as too little compared with the profits made by the company in Britain. Among the Commission's proposals - which would have to be approved by all European Union member states - is one to deter multinationals from shifting their profits from parent companies to subsidiaries in low or no tax countries. EU countries would be allowed to tax profits generated in their territories after they are transferred somewhere else, provided that the effective tax rate in the country where the profits are transferred is less than 40 percent of that of the original country. Loopholes that allow companies to use dividends or capital gains to skip taxation would be closed and national mismatches in the tax treatment of some complex instruments would also be eliminated, the EU executive said. Ceilings would also be imposed on the amount of interest a company can deduct from its taxable income. Currently companies can shift debt to subsidiaries based in countries that allow higher deductions. The proposed measures aim at turning into binding rules some of the voluntary guidelines against tax avoidance, known as anti-BEPS (base erosion and profit shifting), agreed by the G20 group of the world's largest economies and by members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. "These important proposals will close a number of the scandalous loopholes that have enabled companies to avoid and evade tax across Europe," Michael Theurer, an EU liberal lawmaker in charge of tax avoidance, said in a statement. POSSIBLE LOOPHOLES Corporations will have to reveal their taxes, profits, revenues and other financial data to the administrations of all countries where they operate, which then will exchange data among themselves, the proposed rules say. By increasing transparency, the measure is expected to deter aggressive tax planning, but it falls short of a fully public disclosure that may have exposed companies to further scrutiny. The Commission did however not rule out that such a measure may be proposed in the future. Markus Beyrer, head of EU companies' lobby group BusinessEurope, said the proposed measures could hurt business. "The EU must not act as lone front-runner in implementing the BEPS agreement, and must not undermine the competitiveness of EU industry or damage the EU's attractiveness as an investment location," he said in a statement. ($1 = 0.9199 euros) ($1 = 0.7013 pounds) (Editing by Jeremy Gaunt) The world's biggest online social network bucked the trend of underwhelming tech results from Apple Inc and eBay Inc, in the face of economic uncertainty around the world and a strong U.S. dollar depressing the value of overseas sales. "It's phenomenal at these (currency headwind) levels that they're accelerating to that level of growth," said Rob Sanderson, an analyst at MKM Partners. Facebook's dominance in mobile advertising helped to allay Wall Street concerns over its heavy investments in messaging service WhatsApp and virtual reality unit Oculus, which have not yet generated profits. "I don't think there's going to be too many people crying for them to start monetizing other properties anytime soon because the core business is so strong," said Sanderson. Facebook shares rose almost 12 percent in after-hours trading to $105.32. They were helped by Chief Financial Officer David Wehner's comment on a call with analysts that he expected operating expenses to increase by 30 to 40 percent over the course of the year, a slower clip than last year. Total revenue rose to $5.84 billion from $3.85 billion a year earlier, with ad revenue increasing 56.8 percent to $5.64 billion in the holiday shopping period, when spending on advertising typically spikes. Excluding some items, the company earned 79 cents per share. Analysts on average had expected earnings of 68 cents per share and revenue of $5.37 billion, according to Thomson I/B/E/S. Apart from focussing on mobile, Facebook has been ramping up spending on what it calls "big bets," including virtual reality, artificial intelligence and drones to connect the remotest parts of the world to the Internet. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, who returned from two months of paternity leave on Monday, has said virtual reality represents the next major computing platform. In January, Facebook began taking orders for a consumer version of the Oculus Rift, a head-mounted virtual reality unit. The company has also begun monetizing some of its other units, such as photo-sharing app Instagram, which surpassed 400 million users last year and began selling ads in September. Facebook said mobile ads accounted for 80 percent of total ad revenue in the quarter, compared with about 78 percent in the third quarter and 69 percent a year earlier. "It's much stronger ad growth than we were expecting," said Ken Sena, an analyst at Evercore ISI. Facebook's service is not available for users in China but it can sell ads to companies there. "It signifies the importance of what they're providing to advertisers," he said. "They're making big investments and evidenced by their quarterly performance it seems to be working." The company, which has the world's most popular smartphone app, has also been benefiting from a surge in video views that has attracted advertising dollars. Facebook said it had 1.59 billion monthly active users as of Dec. 31, up 14 percent from the end of 2014. Of those, 1.44 billion used the service on mobile devices, an increase of 21 percent. Analysts had expected the company to report 1.58 billion monthly active users, with 1.43 billion accessing the service through smartphones and tablets, according to market research firm FactSet StreetAccount. Up to Wednesday's close at $94.45, Facebook's stock had risen nearly 25 percent in the past 12 months. (Reporting by Abhirup Roy in Bengaluru and Yasmeen Abutaleb in San Francisco; Editing by Ted Kerr, Stephen R. Trousdale and Bill Rigby) PARIS (Reuters) - Iran was putting the finishing touches on Thursday to a deal to buy over 100 Airbus passenger jets, French officials said during a visit to Paris by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani aimed at reviving business ties despite diplomatic differences. Rouhani told French business leaders after arriving in France on Wednesday that Iran was open for investment as he continued his first trip abroad since Iran's sanctions-ending nuclear accord with world powers took effect. Rouhani is due to deliver a speech to business leaders on Thursday at a Franco-Iranian forum. Pierre Gattaz, head of France's Medef employers association, said he expected four major contracts to be agreed with the Iranians, including the Airbus order and a joint venture between carmakers PSA Peugeot Citroen and Iran Khodro. French national railway operator SNCF and aluminum company Fives are also expected to unveil deals, Medef said. "Iran's needs are enormous," Gattaz told reporters. "Iranians need everything. The country is not starting from scratch, it's got a very educated workforce, a real development potential." Gattaz said the Airbus contract could involve 114 aircraft, calling it a "very significant order". Iran's transport minister said an agreement had been reached to buy Airbus jets. (Reporting by Tim Hepher, Michel Rose, Bate Felix; Editing by Andrew Callus) By Supantha Mukherjee and Sai Sachin R (Reuters) - Chinese consumer electronics maker LeEco <300104.SZ> plans to start selling virtual reality headsets and launch smart TVs in India in the June quarter, months after entering the country with its smartphone range, a company executive said. LeEco's VR headset, Le 3D Helmet, will come equipped with a 5.5 inch, 2K resolution screen with a 70 degree field of view. It was launched in China in September. Virtual reality (VR) is seen as the next big thing in technology but not many devices are available for sale in India. Oculus, the VR company Facebook Inc bought in 2014, started accepting pre-orders this month for its much-awaited headset, Rift, which is priced at $599. Atul Jain, India chief operating officer of LeEco, declined to disclose the price of the company's VR device. LeEco, formerly known as LeTV, entered India earlier this month with the launch of two smartphones - Le 1s, priced at 10,999 rupees ($162), and Le Max, priced at 32,999 rupees. The company, which got more than 300,000 registrations for a flash sale of the phones scheduled for Feb. 2 on e-commerce website Flipkart [IPO-FLPK.N], said it doesn't expect any supply glitches even if all those registrants convert into customers. "I'm actually expecting a much bigger (registration) number by the time the flash sales begin," Jain said. The company's China-based rivals, OnePlus and Xiaomi, had faced problems as demand outstripped supply, leading to a delay in deliveries. LeEco sells roughly half a million smartphones in China every month, Jain said. "There is a huge amount of production capacity available." Founded in 2004, LeEco started selling smartphones in China in April last year and has sold 4 million of them so far, said Jain, who earlier worked at Samsung Electronics <005930.KS>. LeEco also plans to gradually bring all its products, including Netflix-like streaming service and electric cars, to India. The company has already tied up with ErosNow and YuppTV for providing online content and is in talks with others companies for possible partnerships. Jain declined to comment on any partnership talks with RelianceJio, telecom arm of Reliance Industries Ltd , which is building India's biggest 4G telecommunications network. (Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee and Sai R Sachin in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty) (Reuters) - French luxury goods maker Chanel said on Wednesday that Chief Executive Maureen Chiquet will leave the company by the end of January, the New York Times reported. Chiquet, who has been CEO since 2007, is leaving "due to differences of opinion about the strategic direction of the company," the NYT quoted Chanel as saying. Chairman Alain Wertheimer will take over operational responsibilities as the company seeks a new leader, the Times reported. The of Chiquet's departure came just a day after Chanel exhibited its latest haute couture collection in Paris. Chanel could not immediately be reached for comment outside regular business hours. (Reporting by Ankush Sharma in Bangalore) By Darya Korsunskaya and Rania El Gamal ST PETERSBURG, Russia/DUBAI (Reuters) - Russia said on Thursday that OPEC's largest producer Saudi Arabia, had proposed oil production cuts of up to 5 percent in what would be the first global deal in over a decade to help clear a glut of crude and prop up sinking prices. Benchmark Brent futures jumped as much as 8 percent on Thursday to nearly $36 a barrel on of the potential deal, which if implemented would immediately reduce surplus global output exceeding demand by 1 million barrels per day (bpd). Brent was trading at $34 a barrel at 1540 GMT. A turnaround in oil's fortunes would be welcomed by oil-rich countries where the price collapse has caused budget squeezes and political turmoil with some even forced to devalue their currencies. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Saudi Arabia had proposed that oil-producing countries cut production by up to 5 percent, which for non-OPEC member Russia - the world's top producer - would represent around 500,000 bpd. "Indeed, these parameters were proposed, to cut production by each country by up to 5 percent," Novak said. "This is a subject for discussions, it's too early to talk about." Saudi Arabian officials did not immediately comment on the proposal but a senior Gulf OPEC delegate said: "Gulf OPEC countries and Saudi Arabia are willing to cooperate for any action to stabilise the international oil market." The proposal did not come directly from Saudi Arabia but rather from OPEC members Venezuela and Algeria, one Gulf OPEC source said. Oil sank to 12-year lows of around $27 a barrel earlier this month, from as high as $115 some 18 months ago, because of a U.S. shale oil boom and a decision by OPEC to pump more to fight for market share against higher-cost producers. But cheap oil has caused economic pain in many producer countries. In Saudi Arabia it has pressured the currency and opened up a record state budget deficit of around $100 billion. In Russia, the rouble hit an all-time low, street protests have flared in Azerbaijan and investors are concerned about a potential debt default by OPEC member Venezuela. PUTIN SILENT Novak also told reporters there was a proposal for a meeting between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-OPEC nations at the oil minister level and that Russia was ready for such talks. "There are lots of questions about the oversight over cuts," he added. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly called on non-members to contribute to output cuts if they want the organisation to help producers deal with the oil glut with the world running out of space to stockpile unwanted crude. Russia has long rebuffed the idea of cuts saying its fields were different from those in the Gulf and are difficult to shut. President Vladimir Putin, who has yet to comment on the idea of joint cuts, sees the oil sector as an important bargaining chip in relations with the West that have become tense due to disagreements over Russia's annexation of the Crimea region and over the conflict in Syria. "You have to take this seriously now. Key will be if Russia can deliver," said Gary Ross, a veteran OPEC watcher and founder of U.S.-based Pira group. Brenda Kelly, head analyst at London Capital Group, said the proposed cuts were unlikely to happen. "There have been attempts in the past that have come to (nothing). Saying something about the oil price and doing something are very different things, and it seems like panic given the price drop," she said. A global deal could also be complicated by the position of OPEC member Iran. It wants to raise output after the lifting of Western sanctions which had curtailed production for years. "Because of the international sanctions, we lost 1.1 million barrels per day of our exports. So we have to go back to our share of the market," a source familiar with Iranian thinking said on Thursday. (Reporting by Darya Korsunskaya; Writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Christian Lowe and Anna Willard) By Simon Falush LONDON (Reuters) - Oil surged as much as 8 percent to above $35 per barrel on Thursday, hitting a three-week high and bouncing sharply away from a 12-year low set this month, as expectations built that major producers may cooperate to cut output. Oil is up around 30 percent from its lowest since 2003 set earlier in January. Gains have gathered pace this week on speculation that Russia and OPEC may agree to reduce production. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Saudi Arabia had proposed to cut oil production by up to 5 percent by each country in order to support weak prices. "If there was a cut it would be very bullish and there's a reaction that's pushing oil higher," said Brenda Kelly, head analyst at London Capital Group. Brent crude was up $2.03 at $35.13 a barrel by 1425 GMT, more than 6 percent higher after gaining 4.1 percent on Wednesday. A session peak of $35.84 marked its highest level since Jan. 6, and represented a gain of more than 8 percent. U.S. crude was up $1.82 at $34.12 a barrel. It settled the previous session up 85 cents, a 2.7 percent gain. Russia's Novak said on Thursday that it was reasonable to discuss the situation on the oil market and that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was trying to organise a meeting with other producers next month. Kelly said the proposed cuts were unlikely to happen. "There have been attempts in the past that have come to (nothing). Saying something about the oil price and doing something are very different things, and it seems like panic given the price drop." Some OPEC members including Venezuela have called for cuts to bolster the oil price, which has halved since last May. Until this week, however, there were few signs that the biggest producers were ready to make such a move. The Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday that U.S. crude inventories climbed by 8.4 million barrels last week, higher than analyst expectations for a rise of 3.3 million barrels. That brought crude inventories to the highest level since the EIA began tracking the data. However, investors overlooked this seemingly bearish data and focused on crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery hub, which fell by 771,000 barrels. "Cushing was a crisis zone because it was getting close to capacity, so there is some relief for the inventory overhang," said Dominic Haywood, analyst at Energy Aspects. (Additional reporting by Meeyoung Cho in Seoul, Osamu Tsukimori in Tokyo and Henning Gloystein in Singapore; editing by Dale Hudson and Jason Neely) Qualcomm forecast current-quarter profit below analysts' expectations as demand weakens for its chips used in mobile devices in a slowing market. The company, whose customers include Apple, said it expected its mobile chip shipments to fall by 16-25% in the second quarter from a year earlier. Qualcomm also expects 3G and 4G device shipments to decline by 4-14%, hurting its licensing revenue. The chipmaker's weak outlook comes a day after Apple forecast its first quarterly revenue drop in 13 years and reported the slowest-ever rise in iPhone shipments as the critical Chinese market shows signs of weakness. Qualcomm shares fell 3% in extended trading on Wednesday. The company trimmed its estimates for "premium tier shipments" due to "slower than expected sell-through at a large" customer, it said on a post-earnings conference call. Qualcomm's mobile chip shipments fell 10% in the first quarter, pulling down its equipment and services revenue by 21.6%. Revenue from licensing declined 10.4%. "I think on licensing it's getting really fuzzy; they're not suggesting any upside to licensing, which I think is what people really wanted to see before getting excited in the stock again," Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon told Reuters. Qualcomm said in December it had decided not to split its slowing chipmaking business from its technology licensing business. Weak Outlook Qualcomm forecast an adjusted profit of 90 cents to $1.00 per share for the second quarter, below the average analyst estimate of $1.01, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Its revenue forecast of $4.9 billion-$5.7 billion was also largely below analysts' expectations of $5.68 billion. The net income attributable to Qualcomm fell 24 % to $1.50 billion, or 99 cents per share, in the quarter ended December 27. Excluding items, the company earned 97 cents per share, topping the average analyst estimate of 90 cents, as it aggressively slashed costs. Revenue fell 18.7 % to $5.78 billion. Qualcomm shares were trading at $47.07 after the bell. Up to Wednesday's close, the stock had lost a third of its value in the past 12 months. (Reuters) - Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC's Chief Executive will on Friday announce job cuts from his 2,000 strong senior manager team, the Financial Times reported. Most of the "few dozen" job cuts will affect those who report directly to CEO Warren East or his main executive team, the FT reported. Warren East faces intense pressure to reverse the fortunes of the British jet-engine maker, not only because of four profit warnings, but also because U.S. activist investor ValueAct, which has amassed a 10 percent stake in the company, is pressing for a board seat and divestment of the company's marine engine business. Some of Rolls-Royce's biggest investors have indicated that they would welcome ValueAct as a board member, although others remain opposed, the FT said. In November last year, East said it was a matter for the board to decide whether the hedge fund would be given a seat. San Francisco based ValueAct has been pushing the company to focus on its main aero-engine business, which contributes about half the firm's profits. (Reporting by Ankush Sharma in Bangalore; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle) By Darya Korsunskaya and Rania El Gamal ST PETERSBURG, Russia/DUBAI (Reuters) - Russia said on Thursday that OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia had proposed global oil production cuts of up to 5 percent in what would be the first universal deal in over a decade to help clear a glut of crude and prop up sinking prices. Benchmark Brent futures jumped as much as 8 percent to nearly $36 a barrel on of the potential deal, which if implemented would immediately reduce surplus global output exceeding demand by 1 million barrels per day (bpd). Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Saudi Arabia had proposed that oil-producing countries cut production by up to 5 percent, which for Russia - the world's top producer - would represent around 500,000 bpd. "Indeed, these parameters were proposed, to cut production by each country by up to 5 percent," Novak said. "This is a subject for discussions, it's too early to talk about." Novak also told reporters there was a proposal for a meeting between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-OPEC nations at the oil minister level and that Russia was ready for such talks. "There are lots of questions about the oversight over cuts," he added. Oil sank to 12-year lows around $27 a barrel earlier this month, from as high as $115 some 18 months ago, on the back of a U.S. shale oil boom and a decision by OPEC to pump more to fight for market share against higher-cost producers. The repercussions of oil's plunge are huge, with some oil-rich nations forced to devalue their currencies - Russia's rouble hit an all-time low. Street protests have flared in Azerbaijan and markets remain jittery over a potential default by OPEC member Venezuela. Saudi Arabian officials did not immediately comment on the proposal but a senior Gulf OPEC delegate said: "Gulf OPEC countries and Saudi Arabia are willing to cooperate for any action to stabilise the international oil market." "You have to take this seriously now. Key will be if Russia can deliver," said Gary Ross, a veteran OPEC watcher and founder of U.S.-based Pira group. Brenda Kelly, head analyst at London Capital Group, said the proposed cuts were unlikely to happen. "There have been attempts in the past that have come to (nothing). Saying something about the oil price and doing something are very different things, and it seems like panic given the price drop." (Reporting by Darya Korsunskaya; Writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Dale Hudson and Christian Lowe) By Se Young Lee SEOUL (Reuters) - Tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd on Thursday warned of possible weaker earnings this year due to softer sales of gadgets such as smartphones, a trend that is also hurting rival Apple Inc and major chipmakers. The South Korean firm's warning came a day after Apple shares fell more than 6.5 percent, the biggest percentage drop in two years, as the iPhone maker forecast its first quarterly sales drop in 13 years. Slowing economic growth in China and weaker emerging market currencies are undercutting sales of electronics ranging from televisions to personal computers, spelling trouble for not only for Samsung and Apple but for their suppliers and the broader industry. "Broadly weaker IT demand will make it difficult to maintain 2016 profits at the level of the previous year's," Samsung said in a statement accompanying its fourth-quarter results, adding that "challenging business conditions" would remain for the current quarter and last throughout the first half of this year. Samsung said its October-December operating profit was 6.1 trillion won ($5.05 billion), matching its earlier guidance. Revenue rose 1.1 percent to 53.3 trillion won, slightly better than the 53 trillion won it guided for. The maker of Galaxy smartphones and tablets reported a full-year operating profit for 2015 of 26.4 trillion won, compared with 25 trillion won the previous year. Samsung shares were down 2.4 percent as of 0322 GMT, underperforming a 0.2 percent rise for the broader market. Some investors and analysts believe Samsung will see its profit fall for the second time in three years in 2016, as slack demand for gadgets undercuts prices of memory chips and displays that helped to offset declining mobile profits last year. The semiconductor division was the top earner for the sixth straight quarter in the October-December period, lifting its operating profit to 2.80 trillion won from 2.70 trillion won a year earlier. Mobile division profit slipped 7.3 percent from the third quarter to 2.23 trillion won, its weakest result in four quarters. Samsung said first-quarter mobile profits would improve slightly, boosted by the launch of new smartphones, although overall smartphone shipments were expected to decline slightly. Separately, Samsung said it planned to buy back and cancel 2.99 trillion won worth of common and preferred shares, marking the second round of share purchases as part of a 11.3 trillion buyback plan announced late last year. The firm would also pay a year-end dividend of 20,000 won per share. ($1 = 1,207.5800 won) (Reporting by Se Young Lee; Editing by Stephen Coates) Tech giant Samsung Electronics warned of possible weaker earnings this year compared with 2015 due to softer sales of gadgets such as smartphones, a trend that is also hurting rival Apple Inc and major chipmakers. The South Korean firm's warning came a day after Apple shares fell more than 6.5 %, the biggest percentage drop in two years, as the iPhone maker forecast its first quarterly sales drop in 13 years. "Broadly weaker IT demand will make it difficult to maintain 2016 profits at the level of the previous year's," Samsung said in a statement accompanying its fourth-quarter profit results, adding that "challenging business conditions" would remain for the current quarter. Samsung said its October-December operating profit was 6.1 trillion won ($5.05 billion), compared with 6.1 trillion won it guided for earlier in January. Revenue rose 1.1 % to 53.3 trillion won, compared with 53 trillion won it guided for. The maker of Galaxy smartphones and tablets reported a full-year operating profit of 26.4 trillion won, compared with 25 trillion won in 2014. Samsung shares were down 1.9% as of 0028 GMT, underperforming a 0.5% fall for the broader market. Slowing economic growth in China and weaker emerging market currencies are undercutting sales of electronics ranging from televisions to personal computers, spelling trouble for not only for Samsung and Apple Inc but for their suppliers and the broader industry. Some investors and analysts believe Samsung will see its profit fall for the second time in three years in 2016, as slack demand for gadgets undercuts prices of memory chips and displays that Samsung leaned on to cope with its mobile profit decline last year. The semiconductor division's operating profit rose to 2.80 trillion won from 2.70 trillion won a year earlier, remaining the top earner for the sixth straight quarter. The mobile division's profit climbed to 2.23 trillion won from 1.96 trillion won a year earlier. Samsung said first-quarter mobile profits would improve slightly from October- December due to the launch of new smartphones, although overall shipments were expected to decline. Separately, Samsung said it planned to buy back and cancel 2.99 trillion won worth of common and preferred shares, marking the second round of share purchases as part of a 11.3 trillion won buyback plan announced late last year. The firm would also pay a year-end dividend of 20,000 won per share. By Manolo Serapio Jr and Rajendra Jadhav MANILA/MUMBAI (Reuters) - Physical gold demand in China was slow this week in the run-up to the Lunar New Year holiday, its biggest festive season, while Indian sellers increased discounts amid weak appetite for the metal. A spike in the price of global spot gold to its highest since November, at near $1,130 an ounce, also discouraged buyers in the two countries, the world's biggest gold consumers, traders said. "Demand is not exciting, I didn't see substantial demand. Some manufacturers are starting to close their factories for the Chinese New Year," said Dick Poon, general manager at Heraeus Precious Metals in Hong Kong. The Chinese holiday will fall on Feb. 8-12 this year. Gold in Hong Kong sold at a premium of 70 U.S. cents to $1.50 an ounce over the global spot benchmark this week, said Poon. That compares with a premium of $1.20-$1.50 last week. On the Shanghai Gold Exchange, the world's largest physical gold exchange, the premium stood at between $2-$4 earlier this week before flipping to a modest discount on Thursday, said a trader at a bank in Beijing. "It's getting closer to the Spring Festival so physical demand will go slow," he said. In India, discounts widened to their greatest in three months amid a rally in prices and expectations of a reduction in import duty.Dealers were offering discounts up to $6 an ounce to the global spot benchmark this week, compared with a discount of up to $2 last week. "Jewellers, retail consumers, all are postponing purchases," said Mayank Khemka, managing director of Khemka Group of Cos, adding that most of them are anticipating a decline in prices.Indian gold prices have risen more than 7 percent this year, hitting a three-month peak of 26,867 rupees ($395) per 10 grams on Thursday. Khemka said prospective buyers were waiting for a possible cut in India's gold import duty. The Indian government will present the 2016/17 budget on Feb. 29. India raised the import duty on gold to 10 percent to curb demand, but it instead boosted smuggling of bullion and industry groups are urging a tax cut. Many trading firms were also trying to unload huge inventories of gold, hence the discounts. "They imported around $1,070 per ounce in December. Now they are making profit even after offering discounts of $5-$6," said a Mumbai-based dealer with a private bank.India's gold imports surged to 107 tonnes in December from 35.7 tonnes a year ago, industry officials estimate. ($1 = 68.0750 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Manolo Serapio Jr. in MANILA and Rajendra Jadhav in MUMBAI; Editing by Tom Hogue) By Zeba Siddiqui MUMBAI (Reuters) - Indian drugmaker Wockhardt hid the results of failed tests and deleted data from its systems at a plant in western India, according to a report by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration sent to the company earlier this month and seen by . Issues around "data integrity", maintaining accurate and consistent databases, are key to the U.S. watchdog, which regulates the world's largest market for generics producers. Wockhardt is the latest of several major players in the $15 billion Indian drugs industry to be hit by U.S. regulatory action over the past few months. It makes around a fifth of its $670 million in annual revenues from the United States and had said the Shendra plant, the site that prompted the FDA report, would boost its U.S. business. Shendra makes lucrative injectable medicines, which analysts say are key to Wockhardt's U.S. plans. Wockhardt did not return several telephone calls and emails requesting comment on the detailed report. The FDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its report. It issues such reports, known as a 'Form 483', when its staff believe that conditions at a manufacturing site could lead to products that are harmful to human health. In the report, dated Jan. 12, the FDA said that among other violations, the audit showed that the results of 22 failed tests had not been recorded. It also found multiple data files had been deleted from some machines. The FDA did not detail whether the files or tests related to specific drugs, or whether the violations could impact the quality of medication produced at a plant which still exports to Britain and Ireland. FDA inspectors also reported finding pharmaceutical ingredients that were not stored or labelled properly. A rejected drug batch was stored in the "approved material" area, and some batches did not carry expiry dates, the report said. Wockhardt will now need to tell the FDA how it plans to fix the problems underlined in the report. It cannot ship any products from the plant to the United States until the FDA is satisfied, a blow for its recovery plans. Wockhardt told investors earlier this month that it had been issued a notice from the FDA about manufacturing violations at the Shendra plant. But Chairman Habil Khorakiwala told reporters he believed none of the FDA's observations concerned the integrity of the company's data. He said then that all the issues raised would be resolved within two months. Two of the company's eight plants in India are separately banned by the FDA from exporting to the United States, the world's biggest market for generics, over quality concerns. obtained a copy of the FDA report through the Freedom of Information Act, which allows the public to ask for the disclosure of unreleased information. (Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in Mumbai; Editing by Miral Fahmy and Clara Ferreira Marques) By Alex Lawler and Rania El Gamal LONDON/DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran, boosting oil exports after the lifting of sanctions, is talking of a need to recoup its market share, making the OPEC member a challenge to any deal among producers to fix a supply glut, OPEC sources said on Thursday. Russian officials have decided they should talk to Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries about output cuts, the head of Russia's pipeline monopoly said on Wednesday, hinting Moscow may be softening its steadfast refusal to cooperate over supplies. The prospect of supply restraint by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and rivals has boosted oil prices to almost $36 a barrel from a 12-year low close to $27 last week, despite widespread scepticism that a deal will happen. Iran wants to recover its position as OPEC's second-largest producer behind Saudi Arabia, which it lost in 2012 to Iraq when sanctions over its nuclear work forced Tehran to cut exports. Now, the recovery of market share is central, sources say. "Because of the international sanctions, we lost 1.1 million barrels per day of our exports. So we have to go back to our share of the market," a source familiar with Iranian thinking said on Thursday. With sanctions lifted this month, Iran says it is increasing its oil output by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) and boosting exports, a plan that other OPEC sources say makes any global cut agreement harder. "Any deal is difficult to reach," said a non-Iranian OPEC source, who added Iran would need to keep output flat or raise it by, say, 100,000 bpd "since higher prices would mean more revenue without the need to raise production. But I doubt it, really." OPEC officials are holding bilateral talks aimed at persuading Russia to participate in cuts alongside OPEC and for Iran to soften its position, industry sources say. Venezuela and Algeria are among those holding these conversations, sources say. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Thursday OPEC was trying to organise a meeting with other producers next month. No date has been set yet. Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh, attending a Franco-Iranian summit in Paris on Thursday, said Iran had not been contacted by Russia about any cuts in output. It is too early to say whether a deal will occur or whether Iran's position would scupper any agreement. Some of OPEC's Gulf members, in any case, are not overly concerned by the extra barrels from Iran. United Arab Emirates Energy Minister Suhail bin Mohammed al-Mazroui said on Wednesday the glut would decrease even if Iran boosted output by 500,000 bpd due to expected growth in global demand of at least 1.3 million bpd. (Additional reporting by Bate Felix in Paris; Editing by Dale Hudson) The government is considering rationalising tax deducted at source, according to recommendations made by the R V Easwar Committee. Officials said the changes in tax deducted at source (TDS) rates and thresholds would not have a significant revenue impact. Revision of the tiny annual limits, which were long overdue, would, however, benefit small depositors and pensioners, they added. "For the Budget, we will be looking at recommendations that do not have large revenue implications. For the rest, we will have to do the math on the tax revenue foregone," said a government official.. Read our full coverage on Union Budget 2016 . . The panel has suggested reducing the short-term capital gains tax on annual earning of less than Rs 5 lakh from trading of shares and not treating it as business income. This will have a significant revenue implication when the government is trying to lower the fiscal deficit to 3.5 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016-17 from the projected 3.9 per cent in 2015-16. ALSO READ: India and US settle 100 tax disputes "The thresholds are unfair to pensioners and widows, who have all their savings in fixed deposits. The average rate of tax has fallen, but these thresholds have not gone up. Why should they suffer tax at 10 per cent when the average rate of tax is somewhere at five per cent," Easwar told Business Standard. The 10-member panel has recommended a hike in the TDS threshold for payments in respect of NSS (National Service Scheme) deposits to Rs 15,000 from Rs 2,500, and reducing rates from 20 per cent to five per cent. The panel has also suggested raising the TDS limit for payments to contractors from the current Rs 30,000 for a single transaction and Rs 75,000 annually to Rs 1 lakh annually. The TDS limit on rent income is proposed to be raised from Rs 1.8 lakh annually to Rs 2.4 lakh. The committee has submitted only a draft report to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and is likely to present the final one in a few days. Sources said the final report would not be drastically different from the draft. Jaitley said on Monday at an Income Tax Appellate Tribunal event the government was looking at the recommendations to come up with a neater tax regime to reduce litigation. The committee has said nearly 65 per cent of personal income tax collection in India was through TDS and the government should consider making its provisions less tedious. The panel was set up by Jaitley in October to identify provisions and phrases in the Income Tax Act that led to litigation over interpretation. It was asked to suggest alternatives to ensure predictability in tax laws without substantially impacting the tax base or revenue collections. It's high caffeine content has made made it a firm favourite for people needing to kick start their day. But there have long been fears that coffee can trigger dangerous heart palpitations, deterring some people from drinking it. Now, however, scientists say drinking a strong coffee in the morning can deliver a much-needed boost without setting the heart racing. New research has shown that regular caffeine consumption does not trigger potentially dangerous heart palpitations - and can actually be good for cardiovascular health. The scientists found consuming caffeine does not lead to extra heartbeats, which although common, can lead occasionally lead to heart or stroke-related deaths. Instead, scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, suggest people are missing out on some of the potential health benefits of caffeinated food and drinks, such as chocolate and tea. Dr Gregory Marcus, behind the study, suggested it was time for the guidelines to be reconsidered. "Clinical recommendations advising against the regular consumption of caffeinated products to prevent disturbances of the heart's cardiac rhythm should be reconsidered, as we may unnecessarily be discouraging consumption of items like chocolate, coffee and tea that might actually have cardiovascular benefits." John and Doris Naisbitt, authors of international bestseller Megatrends, in their latest work Global Game Change: How the Global Southern Belt will Reshape Our World published by Sage Publications, talk about the rise of the Global Southern belt and its impact on the world. The husband-wife duo tells Sarika Malhotra that the rise of the Global Southern Belt is a great opening up for Indian entrepreneurs, as their playground is no longer only India, it is the world. Edited excerpts: BT: Even as you mention that the western hegemony is diminishing, for most from the developing world, New York is and will be the dream city, and they will go all out to chase their American dream.What explains this paradox? Authors: In many talks we have with young people, we notice that their picture, especially the one from the US, is of the booming America it once was, not the struggling America it is now. When we speak from a diminishing Western World, it is a process, not a sudden death. We live in Austria, and Vienna is one of the most liveable cities in the world - not only by rankings but on the ground. The West is declining from and on a still high comfort level. It also is not an averaged-out decline. Declining countries can have companies positioned very successfully in global markets. And there is, of course, always the possibility of a U-turn. It is not the potential of the West that causes the problems. It is the lack of leadership and the gridlock in party-political quarrels blocking necessary reforms. What had made America so attractive was its social mobility. It was the land where dreams could come true. Almost every immigrant had the chance to rise to middle class and even further up with hard work. This has changed in the past years. Now we sadly witness a decline in America's middle class and many families whose members have more than one job to meet basic needs. Many young graduates are struggling to find a job despite good education. Compared to hurdles in India, the caste system, access to education to just name two, the West many might still seem to be the Promised Land, but only if you blend out the reality of an increasingly harsh economic climate. BT: What is the time frame you estimate it will take for the rise of the Global Southern Belt? Authors: The time frame in which we expect the countries of the Global Southern Belt to collectively become the drivers of the global economy will be the first half of the 21st century. There are still large economic gaps among them and great differences in the speed in which they develop. We also have to take into account this will not be a smooth ride. Like other historical shifts, there will be ups and downs on their paths. Asian nations are ahead of African countries. Brazil, like other Latin American nations, had promising starts, but keep making three steps forward and two steps back. If you listen to local entrepreneurs it is always the same complaint, competiveness in global markets depends on local conditions. And if they are not entrepreneurial-friendly, most companies will suffer. This is the main cause for the different speed in which countries rise. BT: In the Global Southern Belt... What will be India's and China's role and position? Which out of the two will be stronger and why? Authors: We love India and its people. But the reality is that India has to make dramatic changes to have the same basic opportunities as China. The most difficult is a change in the mindset of the average Indian. While well-educated Indians blend in with any other global thinking citizens, India's lower classes are still caught in caste and class thinking. Corruption is another huge hurdle and while it is on the agenda of Premier Modi, it needs results to bring forth change. India's education system is poor and any private initiative to jump in and improve it are blocked rather than supported. While China can proudly announce its good results in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) studies, India has decided to go into denial and pull out of the tests. To achieve real change, it is necessary to face and accept reality. As the world's so-called largest democracy, India has a lot of sympathy from the West. That's nice, but does not bring India one step further. There is no question that China is far ahead of India in almost every regard. China's weight in the global community is rising because of what has been achieved and not what have been the announced goals. Of course it does help that China's governing model is result driven. This allows long-term strategic planning without worrying about the next election. On the other hand that put enormous pressure on the government to achieve economic progress. Social mobility is a key pillar on which the justification for the rule of China's Communist Party is resting. BT: 2016-17 is being predicted as being as bad as 2008... Is it the next recession? How will the Southern Belt cope with it? Authors: It is very dangerous to make conclusions based on a few bad months. It is also a reality that the stock markets are increasingly detached from the real economy. To make a judgement of future developments, we have to look at substance and potential. This is true for companies as well as countries. Many of the nations of the Global Southern Belt are developing from a very low point. Many of the small and one-person businesses are at first addressing local markets and needs. While in the past large multinational corporations were large drivers of economic progress, today app developers, freelancers, small businesses and individuals can participate in the global economy. This opens countless doors for the young and ambitious populations in Africa and of course also in India. There are many domestic opportunities for much less spoiled and more diligent entrepreneurs. That's a big asset of the nations of the Global Southern Belt. In regards to China's slowdown to 6.9 per cent growth, it is significant that China's leadership announced the goal to slow down growth in favour of sustainable industries and a real hit on corruption. The fight against corruption is estimated to be accountable for around 2 per cent less in GDP. China is not only shifting from low price manufacturing to high tech industries but also from an export-driven to a domestic consumption-driven economy. It would be nave to think such profound shifts would take place without problems. BT: What are the big things for India to worry and address, if it has to live up to the potential it holds? Any lessons that India can learn from China? Authors: The most worrisome condition is that India seems stuck in obsolete and blocking mindsets. In any culture it was the spirit of the people that brought forth change. That was the case in the Reformation and Enlightenment in Europe as well as in the 1980s in China. China's change was not achieved top down but bottom up. The reform and opening up under Deng Xiaoping was based on the will to make U-turns to create the conditions that allowed entrepreneurs to chase their dreams. This was including accepting a shadow economy and many unorthodox methods. But at the end they all contributed to a changing mindset from communism to market economy and from being stuck in social orders to opportunities for all. There were winners and losers, depending on their flexibility to change. But the country achieved to fight poverty in unprecedented speed never seen before. It is not only India that can learn from China, from its impressing economic progress as well as from its mistakes. The West could, just as China did and does, choose and pick from its successful trial-and-error method: to create experimental zones to see what works and what does not before implementing it nationwide. India's governing system, of course, is very different and China's strongest advantage, long-term strategic planning might be the hardest for India's leadership to achieve. So far in our experience, great excitement for political change and promising plans and announcements were followed by the disillusion of the slow pace of execution and implementation. Nevertheless, the rise of the Global Southern belt is a great opening up also for Indian entrepreneurs. Their playground is no longer only India, it is the world. Farmers applying for EU financial assistance under the Common Agriculture Policy are being unfairly penalised for genuine errors when filling out official forms, Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioner Phil Hogan has claimed. Inconsistencies uncovered in applications for direct financial support can lead to farmers suffering penalties including cuts in payments. Now, the former Fine Gael minister is calling for fair play for farmers with the introduction of a more lenient penalty system and a yellow card procedure for first-time offenders. Farmers apply for their entitlements in good faith, the Commissioner writes in his online blog. Thus, to treat an honest mistake as an offence is not in the spirit of fair play. Moreover, it is not proportionate, especially if the error is minor and occurs for the first time. It is for this reason that I proposed a new, fairer system of penalties for errors, as well as a yellow card system for first time mistakes. This should hopefully end the stress and anxiety that many hard working farm families feel when filling out detailed forms. Furthermore, this simplification is not about letting farmers off the hook. In fact, an additional simplification, namely the opportunity for preliminary checks of aid applications to be made by authorities before the application is formally closed, will see errors reduced, as farmers are proactively helped to ensure that their applications are accurate. Source: www.businessworld.ie About Us The EU Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM) has sided with McDonald's in its trademark battle with Supermacs over the Irish companys plans to market its products throughout Europe. The OHIM ruled that allowing Supermacs a trade mark would lead to confusion among consumers over the different brand names, declaring there is a likelihood of confusion for the English-speaking part of the public in the European Union .Supermac's can still use its brand name and trade name in the EU, but not to sell hamburgers, chips or chicken nuggets. "It is difficult to understand why they would allow the brand name but not allow us to sell the food we sell," said company founder Pat McDonagh. "We are quite surprised." The Irish company has the right to appeal the decision which may have implications for its planned expansion into Australia. Source: www.businessworld.ie About Us UPDATED The Every Student Succeeds Act may be an honest-to-goodness law, but it wont be fully in place until the 2017-18 school year, when well have a new president and secretary of education. Between now and then, the feds, states, and school districts are in a sort of no-mans land between the previous version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, plus the Obama administrations waivers and ESSA. ESSA will make the waivers null and void on August 1 of this year, making the 2016-17 school year a time of big transition. So how will that work? The U.S. Department of Education already gave states some specifics , and Thursday, they put out some more detailed information . Some highlights of the latest guidance: Choice and Tutoring for States Without Waivers States that dont have waivers from the NCLB law (including California) have been asking the department if their districts will still need to set aside 20 percent of their Title I money for tutoring and school choice , for schools that dont meet achievement targets. The short answer: Nope, they wont have to do that anymore. Instead, non-waiver states will have a choice. They can either a) stick with tutoring and school choice, or b) come up with another plan that targets schools that have missed achievement targets for multiple years. If they go with Option B they dont have to set aside 20 percent of their Title I funds for tutoring and school choice. That piece of guidance affects just the eight states that dont have waivers from the NCLB law: California, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Washington, Wyoming, and Vermont. Those states can look forward to additional guidance from the department on how to craft their interim plans. Test Participation Under ESSA and a recent budget law, formula grants, like Title I, stay under No Child Left Behind Act rules for the 2016-17 school year, with some exceptions that well get into below. So what does that mean for testing-participation rates? Under both ESSA and NCLB, schools will still need to meet the requirement that 95 percent of students take state tests for the next two years. ESSA allows states to decide what happens in schools that miss that target, while under NCLB they were automatic failures. But, since were still in a transition period, the ESSA language on participation rates wont kick in until the 2017-18 school year, when the new plans are approved and fully in place. So between now and then, the feds get to enforce the 95 percent requirement, just like they did under NCLB and its waivers. Teachers States no longer have to continue to ensure that teachers meet NCLBs highly qualified definition (which calls for teachers to have a bachelors degree and state certification in the subject theyre teaching). That makes sense because ESSA gets rid of the requirement anyway. But importantly, states will still be expected to implement the plans for equitable teacher distribution that they submitted earlier this yea r. Many of those plans rely partly on HQT, but also other factors, including teacher effectiveness. School Improvement The 42 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, with waivers from NCLB can focus just on their 5 percent lowest-performing schools (priority schools) and those with really big achievement gaps (another 10 percent focus schools). States can either stick with their current lists of those schools, or come up with a new list in March. To make sure the transition to ESSA goes smoothly, the department is allowing states to target their Title I funds for school improvement in essentially the same way they did under waivers. English-Language Learners ESSA and NCLB handle accountability for these students differently. (More on ESSAs approach here ). For now, states can freeze their lists of schools that have been identified as not meeting targets for these students and continue to help them improve, just like they are doing with low-performing schools. GSK has announced the appointment of Brian Fox as Site Director of GSK Dungarvan. In his new role, Mr Fox will focus on ensuring that GSK consistently delivers over-the-counter and oral care products of value to customers and consumers right around the world. He will also become a member of GSKs Global Manufacturing leadership team. GSK has five businesses across Ireland, including three manufacturing sites. GSK Dungarvan is a world class manufacturing site which has a long tradition of innovation, technical brilliance and dedication," said Mr Fox. "Our mission is to improve the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better, live longer and the extremely loyal and highly skilled workforce in GSK Dungarvan ensure that we deliver on this mission day in and day out." Source: www.businessworld.ie About Us A new work safety strategy aimed at increasing the focus on job-related health risks has been launched. The new strategy lays particular emphasis on the need to protect workers from the harmful effects of workplace chemicals. Launching the strategy, Business and Employment Minister Ged Nash said: Every worker in the country is entitled to a safe and healthy place of work and to return home to their families safe and well. Its vital that we continue to prioritise the safety and health of all workers in a way that promotes business growth, aids competitiveness and protects workers. A safe and healthy workforce is an essential component of any successful enterprise. Martin OHalloran, Chief Executive of the Health and Safety Authority said: Our strategy has been developed for a period where we expect to see the continued recovery of industry sectors that were badly affected by the recession. Its important that this recovery is not jeopardised by poor standards of workplace safety and health. We will continue to work with all our partners and stakeholders to support economic growth, meet our goals and deliver effective use of our resources. Source: www.businessworld.ie About Us Five hundred girls and their teachers today descended on the Convention Centre in Dublin for a one day STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) extravaganza organised by Accenture. Transition year students from all over Ireland came together to explore the world of maths, science, coding, app development and digital innovations through a series of workshops. The occasion is part of a series of events taking place across Ireland and the UK aimed at getting girls excited about a career in STEM. Girls tried their hand at STEM experiments throughout the day and learned about what they can expect from a career in an effort to demystify STEM. Cutting-edge technology and demos were showcased, including Oculus Rift, Google Cardboard and 4D body scanning technology. Paula Neary, Managing Director at Accenture said: Evidence shows that many girls are put off by STEM subjects due to perceptions of these subjects being 'too hard' or 'for boys.' The career options linked to them are still seen as 'boy jobs' as demonstrated by a study undertaken by Accenture in 2015. "This event, bringing together business and academia, aims to dispel that myth for girls and their teachers. Source: www.businessworld.ie About Us Amarenco Solar, the Irish developer of solar energy assets in Europe, is to relocate its international headquarters from Dublin to Cork. In the process, the company will establish 10 new jobs. Amarenco was recently granted its first planning permission in Ireland by Waterford County Council. The company is actively looking to develop 40 solar projects in Ireland that will output 200 MW of solar energy. It is currently awaiting planning permission from Cork County Council for six projects in the county. Amarenco Solar is providing both rooftop and ground-mounted solar solutions and will use local suppliers and contractors for its projects in Ireland. 40 construction jobs are required for each installation. John Mullins, Founder and CEO of Amarenco Solar said: It is great as a Corkman to announce the expansion of Amarenco and the siting of our international head office in Cork city. The new jobs we are creating will be in business development, administration and technical support. Source: www.businessworld.ie About Us Google is asking for sanctions against Oracle Corp after one of the software developer's lawyers discussed confidential details about the search giant's relationship with Apple Inc at a court hearing earlier this month. Oracle's lawyer disclosed sensitive financial information regarding the relationship along with confidential information about Google's finances, which within days became headline news, Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc, said in a letter on Wednesday to U.S. District Judge William Alsup and U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu. In its letter Google requested permission to file a motion seeking sanctions, for a finding of contempt, and asked that Oracle's lawyer not have further access to its confidential information or confidential information of a third party. The disclosure violated a protective order and led to an article by Bloomberg that "opened the floodgates" to more stories, including by Reuters, regarding the closely held information, the letter said. "The severe potential consequences of public disclosure quickly became reality, particularly given the surprising nature of the disclosure," according to the letter. Oracle was not immediately available to comment on the letter. Citing a transcript of court proceedings related to a copyright lawsuit filed by Oracle against the search giant, Bloomberg reported Google paid Apple $1 billion in 2014 to keep its search bar on the iPhone. Google gives Apple a percentage of revenue generated through the iPhone but details of the tie-up have never been made public. Google's Android operating system has generated revenue of about $31 billion and a profit of $22 billion since its release, Oracle's lawyer said at the hearing. In its lawsuit, Oracle has accused Google of not paying for the use of Java software for Android devices. Oracle is seeking royalties for Google's use of some Java language. Google argues it should be able to use Java without paying a fee. (Reuters) Source: www.businessworld.ie About Us Controversial proposals for a substantial residential development at the former Smurfit printworks in Glasnevin have been given the go-ahead despite strong objections from local residents. Dublin City Council has given the green light to IDV Developments to construct 43 three and four bedroom houses, 76 apartments, 12 duplexes along with a cafe and creche at the five-acre site on Botanic Road on the northside of the city. Two years ago the council rejected proposals for a similar residential development at the location citing reservations about design and the likely impact the planned construction would have on existing buildings in the area. Several local residents registered objections to the newly-approved plans on similar grounds. Source: www.businessworld.ie About Us Irish global connectivity provider Cubic Telecom has partnered with Japanese internet services company Rakuten to deliver an international connectivity solution. The Rakuten Global Travel SIM will go on sale in March. The partnership promises to offer users competitive rates as they travel from country to country, connecting to the Tier 1 networks. The deal promises a new era of global connectivity options for Japanese consumers travelling abroad. The SIM pack, which is compatible with Rakuten Mobiles wide range of mobile devices, can be purchased online and through the Rakuten Mobile shops. The connectivity service allows users to choose from a range of price packages on voice, text and data to suit their travel plans. Barry Napier, CEO of Cubic Telecom commented, We are very excited to be able to provide connectivity to the customer base of one of Japans largest internet services companies. The product is so easy to use and provides predictability and cost control to the end user. Source: www.businessworld.ie About Us Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has been battling real estate mogul Donald Trump at the top of GOP presidential polls for a little while now. With the Iowa caucuses coming up Monday, where does he stand on public education? In a few ways, Cruz epitomizes several Republican positions regarding education, particularly when it comes to the federal governments role in public schools. He hasnt made many waves when it comes to K-12 policy in the Senate, but he has backed notable legislation while opposing the biggest K-12 bill to come down the pike in 15 years (more below). Read on for the five facts you should know about Ted Cruz and education. 1. Ted Cruz is no fan of the U.S. Department of Education. Hes one of several Republican presidential candidates whove said theyd either consider drastic cuts to the Education Department, or abolishing the agency outright . During one debate, in fact, when he was naming five federal agencies hed like to eliminate, Cruz slipped up and forgot to mention the Education Department , instead naming the Department of Commerce twice. (He later corrected his error to include the Education Department.) Cruz pitched it as part of a broader plan to cut $500 billion in federal spending. 2. The Common Core State Standards? Imagine a world without them. Thats pretty much exactly what Cruz has to say about the standards. In his campaign kick-off speech at Liberty University last year, Cruz said to his audience, Instead of a federal government that seeks to dictate school curriculum through common core ... imagine repealing every word of common core. Its tough to square Cruzs words with the fact that states, not the federal government, adopt curriculum standards. Cruz is one of several candidates using the common core to attack the federal government, which has supported the standards, but didnt pay for, write, or mandate them. Congress could send a future President Ted Cruz a bill that bars states from using the common core, but how would state officials and others react to that idea? 3. The federal government should pretty much stay out of everyones way on accountability, according to Cruz. Earlier this year, Cruz, along with fellow GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, co-sponsored the A-plus Act that would have allowed states to opt out of any federal accountability requirements altogether. (Its not the only thing the rival Republican senators have in common when it comes to K-12.) Basically, whether it involves, standards, curriculum, or assessments, Cruz doesnt want the federal government anywhere near what states or districts want to do. 4. Cruz does not like the newest version of federal education law. When the Every Student Succeeds Act came up for a vote in the Senate, Cruz gave it a thumbs-down. Meanwhile, Rubio, his rival for the GOP nomination, did not vote on ESSA, while fellow GOP candidate Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky voted no. The consensus view is that ESSA shifts more decisionmaking to state and local education officials, which is what Cruz and other candidates want to see. But it maintains federal testing mandates for grades 3-8 and high school, and does place certain requirements on states when it comes to K-12 oversight. 5. Whats the civil rights issue of our era? If you guessed school choice, then Ted Cruz agrees with you. Last year, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision that marked the official desegregation of American public schools, Cruz said the meaning of the Brown decision was being undermined by President Barack Obama because his administration has opposed voucher programs in the District of Columbia and Louisiana. Too many children, the senator said, are trapped in underperforming schools and are entitled to an escape route. School choice gives low-income children the same choices and opportunities that children from wealthy families have always had, Cruz said in his statement. And school choice improves the public schools, making them stronger and more effective. Watch a video accompanying Cruzs statement below. BONUS: During the 2013 shutdown of the federal government, Cruz donated his congressional salary to YES Prep , a network of 15 charter schools serving 10,000 students. Photo: Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks during a town hall event at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa, last year. Nati Harnik/AP Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 . After COP 21: have we sold out or is there another end? Published on January 28, 2016 Story by Valeria Mazzagatti en fr es it de pl The Paris Agreement on climate change was broadly considered as a success. But the devil is in the details. Countries must scale up their ambitions and put them into practice if they really want to avoid the "burning flames" of global warming. The Tragical History of Doctor Faust can be interestingly interpreted as a metaphor for climate change, as George Monbiot pointed out in his book HEAT. Faust is a brilliant man who wants to go beyond the limits of human knowledge. To break into a world of profit and delight, he strikes a deal with Mephistopheles, the Devils servant. In exchange for his power, Faust gives away his soul and after 24 years is dragged away to burn in the flames of hell. There is another end for Fausts story, which was written by Wolfgang von Goethe. In this version, Faust would be redeemed by his relentless work for the rest of the humankind. Is the Paris Agreement on Climate Change the path to follow for a happy ending or a deal with the devil? Outcomes of COP21 The Paris Agreement reached at the COP21 in December 2015 was broadly considered as an historic success.196 countries approved a universal agreement to keep the rising of global temperatures well below 2 C. The text is legally binding and contains commitments by most countries to reduce their greenhouse gases emissions. These commitments will be reviewed every five years. The agreement, however, does not introduce any mechanism to sanction countries who do not respect their obligations. On top of this, the national pledges currently set up strategies that would cause an increase of temperatures of almost 3 C provided pledges are thoroughly implemented. The Paris Agreement tops international agendas As a follow up to Paris, last week moment shifted to discussions at international level about its implementation. In Abu Dhabi Governments of more than 150 countries met for the first intergovernmental meeting after COP21: the Assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). 500+ leaders gathered last night @ IRENA HQ to discuss scaling up renewables as the cornerstone of #climateaction https://t.co/lOBySOltG4 IRENA (@IRENA) 18 Janvier 2016 Few days after French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg. He called on the European Union to serve as a role model and sign the agreement before April. Climate change was also discussed in the World Economic Forum of Davos, from 20 to 23 January. Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, also said that COP21 was a success, but that was the easy part, adding that now Governments have to move from good words to action. The @UN's @CFigueres says getting the #ParisAgreement was the easy part. Read why https://t.co/8Dx0SkzEHn #COP21 pic.twitter.com/JXtFxXb7iP UN Climate Action (@UNFCCC) 24 Janvier 2016 The concerns of the industry Despite Governments declarations, climate change is not the biggest concern for business leaders, according to a survey published at Davos. Over-regulation, geopolitical uncertainty and other key threats such as cyber-attacks came out on top. Renewables and energy efficiency: two possible solutions At Abu Dhabi IRENA analysis showed that reaching 36% of renewables in the global energy mix by 2030 can provide roughly half of the emissions reductions needed to limit temperature rise to below 2 C. Energy efficiency can do the rest. On top of the clear environmental benefits, this would also increase global GDP by up to 1.3 trillion US dollars and create 210,000 jobs by 2030. Its a typical win-win situation, said IRENA Director General Adnan Z. Amin, because an investment in mitigating climate change is also an investment to achieve other socio-economic targets. Now we will have to wait and see whether or not the COP21 countries will take these opportunities to redeem themselves through ambitious actions and escape the burning flames of global warming. Story by Valeria Mazzagatti Political joke parties: Using humour to change the world Published on January 27, 2016 Story by Gergely Karoly en fr es it de Lets face it, Europe has had a pretty tough year. Some believe that the best way to a brighter future would be to trust in our historically established political systems. This article is not about them. Instead, lets focus on those approaches that are offering us a chance to laugh, shaking Europe out of its seriousness. Frivolous and joke political parties have their own long history. The Rhinoceros Party of Canada (who appeared again in 2015 with a "1000-year plan"), The McGillicuddy Serious Party of New Zealand and their "great leap backwards", and the Danish Union of Conscientiously Work-Shy Elements have all long been known as famous some would say infamous prankster political parties. Its not hard to discover a pattern economic downturns and disillusion with the political system have always produced parties that used sarcasm to highlight their particular disagreements. Due to their methods, they were often not taken seriously as a political alternative. What if their aim was not just to make a good joke and walk away, but also to draw attention to real issues via innovative methods? Since they are not bound by the usual rules of political correctness and "fair play", they can use this power to open our eyes to previously unnoticed problems. This is exactly what is happening in numerous countries around the world in the era of global terrorism, climate change and conflict. Founded in Poland in 2001, The Party of Good Humour claims to have one simple aim: "To make people happy, no matter where they live." Their symbol is a cardboard model of a skyscraper that anyone can print online. If you send in a photo of the mascot in your town you immediately become a member of the party, so long as you pay the membership fee of three big smiles a day. With this activity, the party not only brings people from all over the world together, but also try to draw attention to the importance of happiness in a stampeding, profit-oriented world. The most famous British joke party has different aims. The Official Monster Raving Loony Party tries to highlight the ridiculous rhetoric of today's professional politicians, attempting "to do all the things the other parties say they are going to do when they dont do it. They also make the suggestions of their rivals look ridiculous by giving them new meanings, therefore trying to show how politicians will say anything they want get votes. There latest list of proposals includes, for example, the statement: "We shall keep the Falklands and give Jeremy Corbyn to the Argentinians." In Belgium, the NEE party (Dutch for no) rebelled against the compulsory voting law by promising that their representatives would leave their seats empty in parliament. NEE also ran a campaign which made fun of the "promise-race" conducted by their opposition, by claiming that they would give the people 400,000 jobs 140.000 more than other parties suggestions whilst failing to specify the form these "jobs" would take. It is also important to mention Vermin Supreme, currently a prominent figure in U.S. elections. He makes a joke of the classic Democratic-Republican division, by making fun of the impossible promises politicians make he claimed that he would provide a free pony for every U.S. citizen as well as the low viewership in candidate debates. In Hungary, the Two- Tailed Dog Party became more active as a political force after the governments recent billboard campaign, infamously warning refugees to "respect the Hungarian culture" and to "not take the job of Hungarians". In response to this, the party ran a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for an alternative billboard campaign that made fun of the official message. By giving said message a satirical slant, they succeeded in articulating their opinion about the refugee crisis while loudly expressing their disapproval of government actions. The majority of the Hungarian opposition had been failing to do this for years and a joke party managed it. Speaking in the Guardian, a member of the organisation, Suzi Dade, stated that the message of the party should be one of "neither hatred nor despair, towards which people are all too inclined here. Instead we should know how to laugh at something together. Then a solution becomes possible." In this authors opinion, these partys limitations are exactly their strengths. If people are able to understand sarcasm and irony, then it is possible for such movements to affect public opinion as has been the case with the Two-Tailed Dog Party. However, if their message is not clear enough or they cannot reach enough people, then their work remains only a prank, one that will not affect serious political decisions or politicians actions. Yet they are still able to loudly articulate the voice of a minority, and they look beyond the petrified political structure of todays world. In the current global climate, we all need help to see the funny side. Sometimes, all you need is a good laugh. --- This article is from our local writers at cafebabel Budapest. Story by Gergely Karoly Hungarian freelance reporter (Magyar Nemzet, Magyar Hang and Cafebabel Budapest). He works as a reporter for The International Cybersecurity Dialogue and is currently enrolled at the Univerity of Oxford, reading Russian and East European Studies. A Massachusetts coalition of parents and business leaders have sued to block a statewide ballot measure that would ask the states residents whether they want to keep the Common Core State Standards. It argues that the ballot question does not seek to make a constitutional amendment or new law. Late last year, End Common Core, an activist group based in Worcester, got more than enough signatures (64,750 of the 80,000 needed) to get a question on the ballot this November that asks whether voters want to keep the states common-core standards. The group argues that the standards were secretly put in place by a board that wasnt elected by the people (the states Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, also known as BESE). Since the state adopted the common standards in 2010, the group claims, the states educational outcomes have slumped and local educators no longer control whats taught in the classroom. (Heres a fact-sheet on common-core standards from the Massachusetts Department of Education.) The lawsuit was filed Friday, Jan. 22, by a group of 10 people and is directed at the states attorney general. The plaintiffs argue that scrapping the common-core standards would undo years of work by the states schools to prepare for the new standards and would revert the state to outdated standards. We think theres a very strong legal case to be made the question shouldnt have been certified, Tricia Lederer, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education told the Telegram & Gazette . (The Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education is not named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, but has long fought to keep the common-core standards in place.) Donna Colorio, the chairwoman of End Common Core, said in a press release that the lawsuit is a desperate ploy to stall the petitions positive momentum. They already tried to stop this last summer and they failed, she said. Now they are trying to tie this matter up in court and deny citizens the right to vote on this important question. Attorney General Maura Healey said the measure has passed the hurdles necessary to get on the states Nov. 8 ballot. We certify ballot initiatives based on the law, to see if they meet certain constitutional requirements, a spokesperson for the Attorney Generals office said in an email to the New Boston Post Monday. We work cooperatively with parties who wish to challenge our rulings. The most important thing is to get the right result. Massachusetts has been held up as the gold standard by common-core advocates because its public school system traditionally outpaces most other states academically. In November, the states school board voted for its students to take a hybrid standardized test in 2017 that would include material from both the states own assessment and one aligned to the common-core standards. Many saw that as the state moving away from the common core, though the states longtime education commissioner, Mitchell D. Chester, disputes that. Dont miss another State EdWatch post. Sign up here to get news alerts in your email inbox. And make sure to follow @StateEdWatch on Twitter for the latest news from state K-12 policy and politics. COURTNEY SACCO/CALLER-TIMES Defendant Travis Magill on the first day of arguments doing his trial Tuesday. SHARE By Krista M. Torralva of the Caller-Times The doctors who treated two wounded Corpus Christi police officers and the man accused of shooting them are expected to testify Thursday. Travis Magill, 24, was hospitalized about a week after the March 20, 2014, shooting from which he is charged with two counts of attempted capital murder and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. He is also charged with possession of a controlled substance after hospital staff found methamphetamine in his clothing. Officer Amador Gonzalez, who suffered a gunshot to his thigh, is credited with saving retired officer Michael Scott Goodman, who was shot in the shoulder and calf. Gonzalez used a tourniquet from his car to cinch Goodman's wound before tending to his own. Both officers testified Tuesday at the start of the trial in 347th District Judge Missy Medary's court. Magill's attorney, Mark Stolley, asserted his client shot only twice in self-defense after Gonzalez fired his weapon first. A bullet hit Gonzalez and the other missed and struck Goodman's police Tahoe. Several neighbors who testified Wednesday said they saw Magill first draw a pistol from his waistband. Magill, who was shot in the chest and leg, hopped into a police vehicle and drove from the corner of Pebble Beach Drive and Congressional Drive to the intersection at Everhart Road, where he crashed into a utility pole, according to testimony. Twitter: @CallerKMT Here's why the Nueces County judge race is one to watch Here's everything you need to know about Nueces County's top race, including the candidates and their top campaign funders. SHARE Hi Leva, Propel Financial Services San Antonio Property taxes support vital services Heads up, Texas property owners: More than 3,500 taxing entities across the state are expecting you to come up with the money to pay your property tax bill by Feb. 1. And they mean business. They collectively levied more almost $49 billion in property taxes in 2014 according to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Ever wonder where all that tax money goes? More than 1,000 school districts across Texas levied almost $27 billion in property taxes in 2014. That's about 55 percent of all property taxes levied statewide. Counties and cities were far behind at $8 billion and $7.8 billion, respectively, last year. More than 1,200 special districts levied more than $6 billion in 2014, according to Texastransparency.org, a Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts website that provides extensive data on the state's finances. No one loves paying taxes but that's the price of essential services like fire protection, public hospitals and schools, roads, flood control, parks, transit and so many others. Paying property taxes on time helps ensure that local taxing authorities can keep providing those services at the lowest possible cost to the taxpayer. Depending on where you live, your property tax bill may arrive in several pieces. The state's 254 counties house an average of 14 taxing entities each. Some combine their tax bills. Some don't. If you own a home, you and your fellow homeowners are providing the biggest slice of the property tax pie. Homes make up about 42 percent of the total property tax value in the state. It's time to make sure you can pay your property tax bill by Feb. 1. The penalties and interest that kick in if you're late will only make the bill bigger. If you can't pay it, call your county tax office and try to work out a payment plan. What weve seen is people in digital marketing tend to change jobs faster than traditional marketers, said Wendy Heng, associate director for sales and marketing at Robert Walters Singapore. Instead of the traditional three year stint, the timeframe is around 18 months. According to her, companies stating that they wanted to focus on digital but not translating over to reality, or another employer offering a more technically advanced or challenging proposition, were some of the most common reasons given for job jumping. Heng added that it is not to say digital candidates are short-term thinkers in terms of career paths, but because the field of digital marketing is continually evolving, most candidates are more focused on the scope of work and room for growth when evaluating opportunities. They are more concerned about how serious the company is about digital, the kind of investments being made in platform, people and marketing budget commitments, she said. One thing that strikes me about digital practitioners is that theyre very passionate about their work, and are really into advancements in technology and tools. Heng added that due to this passion for knowledge and taking on interesting challenges, it also means that talent retention is also more difficult. Even if the company offers a clear path for career progression and growth over five years, there is no guarantee that the candidate will stick around, she said. Because things change and when the next big thing hits the market and new avenues open up, they will gravitate towards it. No digital, no prospects On the flip side, companies looking for suitable candidates, will want those with proven track record said Heng, with many of the positions the firm has recruited for around companies that are just starting to go in to digital marketing. So they look for people who have done something disruptive in marketing and technology, she added. If youve worked on something that has changed the way consumers interact with a brand, that is something that companies, especially in sectors that are just catching up are looking for. Heng said that its not about hiring someone to maintain a Facebook Page or company website. Theyve all gone beyond that, she added. Every company is looking for things that will set them apart from competitors, give them the edge and it is easier to achieve via digital means. Heng reported that overall, the increase in number of digital marketing roles has been quite tremendous over the last 2-3 years. These positions range from generalist digital marketing roles to specialised skillsets such as SEO, social media and analytics. Ive had many clients say I have to hire marketing manager, it would be great if they also had a lot of social media experience as well, Heng added. Its that pow ka leow [everything all in] mentality in the search for candidates. In terms of where the talent lies, Heng said that when it comes to filling the digital marketer ranks, the most viable candidates tend to come from technology companies and advertising agencies. I personally find that theres better talent on the agency-side versus the brand marketer side, especially if youre looking for very niche skill sets within digital marketing itself, she said. They have some really, really good people within agency ranks, and I wont be surprised if we see a huge shift moving forward. But agency or not, Heng added that it is safe to say that any marketer that doesnt have some sort of experience in this area, will find it difficult moving forward. Because every client is looking for it. Its more than just name change; it represents a few major milestones for the brand, Cheryl Goh, group VP of marketing told Campaign Asia-Pacific. We started out as a taxi booking app in Malaysia but now offer taxis, private cars, bikes, deliveries and carpooling across Southeast Asia. Its an umbrella brand for a bigger vision. Goh added that it's commonplace for startups focus on growth marketing in their early years and find disproportionately greater value in brand marketing as they scale and mature. Were no different, and were reaching that maturation point, she said. The rebrand has given us a crystal clear idea of who we want to be and what our brand stands for. From now on, all of Grabs campaigns will reflect our brand personality to be daring, positive and genuine. Grab currently offers services across 28 cities in 6 countries: Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. The company claims that as of January 2016, the app has been downloaded onto more than 11 million devices regionally, with more than 200,000 drivers in the network. In addition to GrabTaxi, the companys taxi-hailing service, the product platform now includes: GrabCar (private car services) GrabBike (motorcycle taxis) GrabHitch (social carpooling) GrabExpress (last mile delivery) Goh described the rebrand as a celebration of our journey as a small startup that has become one of Southeast Asias biggest tech successes. However, we cannot afford to rest on our laurels, she added. Growth has to be our only constant in a sector thats constantly growing. In explaining the new branding, Goh said the company chose chose freedom as its core message to reflect Grabs ultimate goal to make safe and reliable transportation accessible to everyone. It is something so simple, yet so many people in Southeast Asia have limited mobility. Its about making our brand stand for something meaningful in the price-elastic, cut-throat world of transport, she added. Grab stands for a belief that we can improve the lives and livelihoods of both passengers and drivers. Focus for 2016 Asked about the companys marketing priorities for the coming year, Goh sai that the focus will be on building brand loyalty in the app transportation space. The big marketing hypothesis in our space is what role can brand loyalty play in a sector that operates like a commodity marketprice elastic, supply-demand driven and fast-moving, she said. Goh added that it is the teams belief that consumers make choices both on functionality and based on a desire for corporations to play a positive role in the society they live in. With transport being such a hot topic socially and politically, we believe that we can build brand preference for a transport platform that is actually solving Southeast Asias core problems, she said. I want people to think of Grab as the choice when it comes to transport, and that we are a caring and committed brand who is there for them, she added. Goh declined to disclose how much the company spends on marketing annually, or how much has been invested into the rebrand. Rebranding campaign Goh said that the rebranding campaign is an an integrated 360 degree regional marketing and branding campaign that will roll out in all countries the company operates in. We are working with various agencies to ensure a successful outcome in all the local markets, she added. It is important for us that we get our messages through in the right localised context and at the right time. According to Goh, the rebranding campaign will comprise of three key components, the first being an OOH campaign featuring Grabs signature green lines that will be placed prominently on billboards, buildings, highway pillars and specially wrapped taxis. Grab will be taking visual ownership of each citys transport routes to reaffirm who we are and what we do underneath this new umbrella brand, she said. The second will be a customer engagement programme, that will see the company deliver GrabSwag to its most loyal users. They will be the first few to get their hands on the new Grab merchandise, said Goh. It is our way of thanking them for putting their faith in a young startup and believing in what we do. The final component will be Grab Freedom Day, an extension of the companys CSR efforts and employee outreach programme where all senior and middle management experience at least once, being a driver for a day. Grab Freedom Day is an extension of this initiative to remind us of what it means to be a driver, said Goh. It will be our biggest region-wide on-ground activation with the Philippines to roll out first on 29 January followed by Singapore and Malaysia the next day, Goh added. Vietnam launches on 2 February and Thailand and Indonesia will follow suit a day after. Passengers will stand a chance to win free rides in vehicles driven by Grab employees, celebrities and elite drivers. The company will donate the value of the rides to local charity organisations that are progressing transport-related causesan amount that the company estimates will be around SG$50,000 (US$34,945). | BY Lynchy | adidas Originals has launched its new global Spring/Summer 2016 integrated campaign, under the creative direction of Johannes Leonardo, New York, co-led by Aussie expat Leonardo Premutico. Spearheaded by a :75 hero film, the campaign features a new squad of eight upcoming artists and cultural influencers from around the world who are shaping their own path through their craft: Luka Sabbat, Kyu Steed, Aleali May, Ikwa Zhao, Reese Cooper, Design Butler, Yuki Matsuda and Iman Shumpert. The campaign continues the iconic brands narrative about challenging the status quo of the next generation of creators. After the Superstar campaign, which challenged the notion of fame, the new future campaign is a global effort that challenges the dominant perception of the future being dystopian by inspiring a new generation to create their own, and not simply accept the one they have been presented with. Much like the Originals brand itself, with its unique point of view on creating the future by re-inventing the past, the artists are known for their creative optimism. From Luka Sabbats self-driven stance on style, to Ikwas polymathic skill set, to Design Butlers irreverent transformation of personal influences, the message each one of them communicates is clear: your future is yours to create. The team here at adidas Originals is thrilled to launch the future communication campaign for 2016. Its the very first umbrella campaign for the trefoil in many years, and under which all product stories will stem from during the course of the months, said Alegra OHare, Senior Director of Brand Communications for adidas Originals. 2015 has been fantastic for our brand, from both a business and communication point of view, and we are looking forward to this new progressive campaign which embodies all of our brands values, like community, courage and creativity. This is the next chapter as adidas Originals continues to inspire creative people to challenge the status quo, says Leo Premutico, the Aussie expat co-founder and chief creative officer of Johannes Leonardo. First we reframed the notion of superstardom, now were calling into question a key topic in todays culture, our conceptions of the future. In the powerful :75 film, director Terence Neale captures this new generation of creators as they confidently march towards an optimistic tomorrow, dismissing hurdles of the negative future they seem to have inevitably inherited. Underscored by an original track by Los Angeles-born artist Daisy Hamel-Buffa, the protagonists walk to the beat of the chant that defiantly states, Your future is not mine, occasionally looking back as if to invite the viewer on the journey. The words of the mesmerizing chant feel like a powerful generational anthem, strategically placed visual references nod to the current world climate and topical issues facing todays society. As in the previous adidas Originals campaigns created by Johannes Leonardo in 2015 which challenged the notion of Superstar and featured Pharrell Williams, among other influencers SS16 again adopts the iconic design language of the three serrated stripes. The lines striking through the word Future aim to become a symbol for a new generation. This campaign will support Tubular, ZX Flux and the launch of the new NMD franchise. | BY Ricki Green | Oroton has just launched its new autumn/winter 2016 campaign starring renowned actress, local talent and Oroton ambassador Rose Byrne. Byrne lends her star appeal to a refined and romantic campaign. Aimed at conjuring a freedom and uplifting spirit, the enthralling images are a testament to Orotons heritage and commitment to luxury and quality. Shot on location at Los Angeless milk studios, renowned photographer Giampaolo Sgura joined the creative team that comprised Hollywood power-stylist Penny Lovell, known for her work with Anne Hathaway and Taylor Schillng, along with Richard Marin on hair and Kate Lee on make-up, both of whom have worked extensively with A-list clientele. Sgura brings with him a wealth of experience regularly working with celebrities and the worlds best models like Karolina Kurkova, Irina Shayk and Caroline Trentini among others for work that has appeared on the pages of French, German and Spanish Vogue as well as Teen Vogue and GQ. Byrne transmits a sense of optimism in the images that show the actress at her lighthearted best. In a series of poses, Byrne appears effortlessly at ease, Oroton Metropolis Mini hanging from her hand or new Matilda bucket slung over one shoulder. Low-key make-up and lightly tousled hair pushed to one side, all say relaxed glamour for which Oroton can always be depended on. Shot against a black background, the focus is squarely on Byrne and the pieces as she showcases fine pearl jewellery, leather apparel and sunglasses. The bold background also emphasizes the new season colour palette of classics hues and updates in raisin, while lending a sleek polish to the photographs. Then, organically, the leather pieces take centre stage showcased again against the midnight background to highlight their luxurious finishes and superb craftsmanship. A glimmer of gold hardware is seen in one, the expertly sewn stitching in another, while the fine lines of the signature golden Oroton emblazoned on the front of a bucket bag capture the brand spirit. The play of light against dark highlights the luxurious texture of the surfaces and the quality of the materials used. These are elevated pieces, everyday essential and one-off collectables, styled by Oroton creative director Ana Maria Escobar and Sgura, coming alive in their own right. | BY Ricki Green | In 2016 Beyond Productions and Ensemble will partner to bring sophisticated technology and storytelling techniques to Australian Virtual Reality production, a space that is likely to grow significantly for marketers who value the role content can play in their marketing mix. Says John Luscombe (left), EVP and general manager at Beyond Productions based in Sydney: This new partnership, Beyond Ensemble 360, brings Ensembles brand storytelling experience in long-form content together with Beyonds global production capabilities and VR experience. We were early adopters of 360 video content to enhance our television series such as MythBusters. We release exclusive behind the scenes VR content with premiere episodes of MythBusters on the US Discovery Channel. We are excited to expand this fully immersive story telling expertise to stand alone branded content. Ensemble and Beyond recently collaborated on an Australian first VR experience, producing a seven-minute video featuring one of Australias prime pieces of maritime military history the submarine HMAS Onslow. The businesses are also collaborating on a large virtual reality project for a major Australian insurance brand expected to go into production in February. Says Tim Hodgson, managing director, Ensemble: We believe virtual reality offers unique and significant value for brands if it is done well. But it has a time and a place. VR can offer truly immersive engagement into a brand experience that is not feasible through other technologies. Partnering with the pioneers in VR technology at Beyond is truly exciting, ensuring we can push the innovation boundaries whilst telling stories effectively. Since its establishment in 1984 the Beyond Productions has produced more than five thousand hours of television programs for broadcast internationally including the Emmy nominated Mythbusters series, Taboo, Deadly Women, Beyond Tomorrow and Selling Houses Australia.. | BY Ricki Green | 303 MullenLowe in Sydney has created a virtual ad-within-an-ad for Budget Direct, which gives audiences the chance to ride with Captain Risky as he performs a spectacular double helix jump stunt. This VR campaign follows the recent launch of Budget Directs Jumping The Double Helix Divide TVC, which has now been reworked so viewers can experience what its like to be a passenger in Captain Riskys car as he performs one of his infamous stunts. The latest instalment is best viewed using a Google Cardboard device, or via a 360-degree version thats accessible online from any browser. For iPhone users, open the link inside the YouTube app. Says Jonathan Kerr, director of marketing and digital, Budget Direct: At Budget Direct we continue to try and shake things up in our sector by bringing together Service, Value and Innovation in all that we do, hence our slogan Simply Smarter Insurance. So with that said Budget Direct is the first company in the world to make a TV advert that the public can then take part in, via a mobile phone and a Virtual Reality viewer. The VR campaign kicked off with a promotion to find a hidden entry code buried within the visuals, while inviting the audience to literally ride along with the brand. As part of the campaign, Budget Direct is giving away 1000 Google Cardboard 2.0 Virtual Reality Viewers, with entry details at www.budgetdirect.com.au/win. 303 MullenLowe, visual effects house Alt.vfx and Goodoil Films worked with Budget Direct to bring the idea to life. Client: Budget Direct Director of Marketing & Digital: Jonathan Kerr General Manager Brand and Media Marketing: Warren Marsh Marketing Manager New Customer Acquisition: Catherine Harty Agency: 303 MullenLowe ECD: Richard Morgan Copywriter: Sean Larkin Art Director: Adam Whitehead Agency Producer: Sean Ascroft Head of Business Management: Tony Dunseath Business Director: James Lammert Production Company: Goodoil Films VFX Director: Jesse Bradstreet ALT.VFX Director: Hamish Rothwell Executive Producer: Sam Long Producer: Claire Richards Liberal Politics from the Heart of Bluegrass Country | BY Ricki Green | Daniel Mitchell has joined Rabbits roster of directors. Previously a senior editor and partner at high-end post house MRPPP (now Method) and having moved home from working in the US marks Mitchells transition to focus on directing with Rabbit. Much in demand for his keen eye for detail and innovative editing, Mitchells problem solving abilities and people skills made him a favourite with directors and creatives alike. Adapting these skills to his short films demonstrate his further strengths in cinematic storytelling and performance direction and in turn, his films have garnered prestigious awards. These include a Hollywood Discovery Award for Direction and many invitations to screen at international film festivals with wins that have qualified his work for the Academy Awards Narrative Short Film Category and recognition as a BAFTA professional member. Straight out of the gate, JWT London awarded Mitchell a global brand campaign for the InterContinental Hotel Group shooting over four weeks through the UK, the Middle East, China and Vietnam with producer Mike Salter and DP Danny Ruhlmann. A US shoot is also slated for next month. Says Lucas Jenner, co-EP, Rabbit: Were so happy Dan has joined us. In addition to his wealth of post experience, Dan has already proven to be a natural visual and narrative director and respected as much for his personal attributes as his professionalism. Hes one of the nice guys. Says Mitchell: As an editor, Ive worked with great directors and production companies and while Ive been flattered by offers from some really good companies, I think Alex and Lucas have done a wonderful job building their company and it felt like the right fit for me. Record I bond rates will drop soon. You can still get in but act fast. In 'House of the Long Shadows,' Desi Arnaz, Jr. that's right, the son of famed music entertainer Desi Arnaz and legendary comedienne Lucille Ball stars as cocky American Kenneth Magee, a naive young writer still looking for his big break. Within minutes of his arrival in England to meet with his publisher (Richard Todd), Mr. Magee exudes an air of self-importance and pretentiousness, batting eyes with a lovely blonde stranger at a restaurant with whom he crudely admits he'd much prefer to sleep with than romance. Arnaz, whose only other notable performances are in 'Billy Two Hats' and 'The Mambo Kings' where he plays his father, is surprisingly good in the role, revealing a talent for making the character unappealing yet likeable enough for audiences to want to see the guy's conceited pride taken down a peg. That opportunity arises during the meeting where the height of his arrogance is laid bare and serves as the plot's catalyst. Magee boldly bets $20,000 that he can churn out a horror novel that rivals Wuthering Heights, if not surpass it, in one single night. The publisher arranges for Magee to spend the night at a deserted Welsh estate known as Baldpate Manor so that he can write through the entire twenty-four hours without interruption. Conveniently, the mansion has been abandoned for the last forty years, which in cheesy, low-budget B-horror terms means a large stately house decorated in cobwebs, adorned with creepy statues and oil paintings, everything swathed in dust, inhabited by random, unexplained creaking noises, antiquated furniture draped in white sheets, and fittingly lacking modern conveniences such as electricity. It is the perfect setting for any aspiring young writer to lock themselves in isolation and from which to draw inspiration for creating the next horror masterpiece. Admittedly, the manse provides just the right amount of spookiness and the unadulterated gothic atmosphere that's reminiscent of classic Hammer and AIP films, which is one of the production's stronger and best features. Director Pete Walker takes full advantage of the location, imbuing an otherwise humdrum tale with an eerie feel. It doesn't take long before strange happenings begin disturbing Magee's hubris writing project, starting with John Carradine and Sheila Keith as Elijah and Victoria claiming to be the estate's caretakers, but their oddball behavior and sneering stares, of course, leave a different impression. This is quickly followed by the same blonde from the restaurant, named Mary Norton (Julie Peasgood), dressed as an old, disheveled hag straight out of Snow White. But instead of offering poisoned apples for our would-be prince trapped in a dark, ominous castle, she comes bearing more suspicions, a potential love interest and the damsel in distress trope that finally sets the plot into motion. However, the movie only really becomes exciting when Peter Cushing, Vincent Price and Christopher Lee make an appearance in that order, with each given a magnificent, deliciously sinister entrance that bestows them with the sort of reverence they deserve. With Magee now effectively sidetracked, the unannounced shindig turns into a murder mystery dinner when the house's history and secrets are slowly revealed and the uninvited guests start dying. Inspired by Earl Derr Biggers's 1913 novel Seven Keys to Baldpate, Pete Walker's 'House of the Long Shadows' is best remembered as the one and only film in which the three horror legends Price, Lee and Cushing starred in the same production and appeared on screen at the same. And seeing the celebrated, dearly beloved actors together, playing off each other with superb rhythm and humor is a stupendous treat. That alone is reason enough to watch, although the ending leaves a very sour note to all the devilish fun preceding it. But for cult enthusiasts, the production is also remembered for being a pet project of Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan, the two infamous Israeli filmmakers who owned The Cannon Group in the 1980s. The script was written by Michael Armstrong, writer and director of cult classics 'Mark of the Devil' and 'The Haunted House of Horror,' a very early predecessor of the "slasher" film formula. In spite of the main character's dismissiveness of Emily Bronte's literary masterpiece, Armstrong's tale enjoys a Wuthering Heights type of vibe and eeriness that makes Walker's film a fun and memorable footnote in the careers of several cinema legends. The Blu-ray: Vital Disc Stats Kino Lorber brings 'House of the Long Shadows' to Blu-ray on a Region A locked, BD25 disc inside the standard blue keepcase. At startup, viewers are taken directly to a static main menu with music. According to an eyewitness, last week the Ray Myaeshin company delivered equipment to his village of Ahngumaw in southern Rathedaung Township. He said: We had never seen such machines in our area. Now many officials, some of them possibly Chinese nationals, have also arrived in our village." The local authorities said that officials from Ray Myaeshin are in the area to conduct tests, which will continue for one year and that the Union Mining Ministry of Burma (Myanmar) had given them permission to do so. U Maung Maung, chief administrator of Rathidaung Township said: "The company will examine the mineral sands from the shore near to Ma Kyi Chung in Rathidaung Township. It will work for in the area for a year, The machines and equipments for the sand-testing project piled up at Ahngumaw village A Burmese geologist, who is helping to test the shore sand at the villages of Ahngumaw and Alaethankyaw said that heavy minerals such as Titanium and Aluminium had been detected in the sand there. He said that the hoped that the country would financially benefit from the work because there is a high demand for such mineral sand in Singapore. Many local residents have, however, expressed worries that the area might face negative impacts from such experiments and any follow-up work. They argued that the local villagers should be given adequate compensation from the project. Edited in English by Mark Inkey for BNI Thursday, January 28, 2016 at 9:52AM Microsoft today released the long-awaited firmware updates and fixes to its premium Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 2-in-1's. These devices have experienced various wake-from-sleep issues as well as general reliability problems no one should expect from such an expensive and high-end machine. The latest firm ware update for the newest Surfaces should quell these niggling issues. Hit jump for the details. System Firmware Update 1/27/2016 includes the following updates: Surface Embedded Controller Firmware (v88.899.256.0) adds battery charging enhancements and thermal tuning. Wireless Network Controller and Bluetooth driver update (v15.68.9037.59) improves access point compatibility and throughput on 5Ghz networks. Surface DTX driver update (v1.3.202.0) improves detection of the Surface keyboard to the clipboard. NVIDIA GeForce GPU update (v10.18.13.5914) improves stability only on those Surface Book models with an optional NVIDIA GeForce GPU discrete graphics chip. Source: Thurrott.com "It is the only item of food that is at its best when it is at its cheapest, but we haven't had that for years, there isn't the abundance of lambs." "The proposal, however, to recognise him in a way that traduces the recognition of another great Australian and someone close to the hearts of Canberrans is, I think, quite odious," he said in a submission after the proposal was unveiled in September. Well, that epidemic didn't take long to start scaring the crap out of America. The first confirmed case of the Zika virus in Los Angeles County was reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control today. Separately, cases have been confirmed over the past 48 hours by state agencies in Virginia and Minnesota. No known transmissions of Zika have taken place inside the US. The virus isn't contagious between humans but is spread by mosquitoes. These 3 new U.S. victims are said to have acquired Zika abroad. The California patient is a young girl from Los Angeles County who traveled to El Salvador last November, where she apparently became infected. She has since recovered. The infection usually has no symptoms, but is of great concern because it appears linked to a recent spike in Brazil of a serious birth defect. Health officials in the U.S. are warning female travelers of child-bearing age in particular to take special precautions when visiting other countries, or cancel trips abroad entirely for now. The hunt is on for a vaccine. Zika cases have also been identified in Virginia and Minnesota over the past couple of days. The travel history of the Virginia patient hasn't been disclosed (that I can find, anyway). The Minnesota patient recently traveled to Central America, just like the LA patient. All three of these newly reported cases are expected to make a full recovery. From Liz Szabo's USA Today piece: About a dozen Americans in a handful of states have been diagnosed with Zika after visiting outbreak zones, but there is no evidence the virus, which is linked to an outbreak of birth defects in Brazil, is spreading in the USA. The virus doesn't spread from person to person, like the flu. It's spread by mosquitoes, like malaria and West Nile Virus. The mosquito species that is known to spread Zika, the Aedes, doesn't live in Minnesota, making it unlikely the disease will spread in that state. The new case was diagnosed in a woman in her 60s from Anoka County, Minn., according to the Minnesota Department of Health. Her symptoms began Jan. 1, after she returned from Honduras. She was not hospitalized and is expected to make a full recovery, health officials said. [USA Today, the Los Angeles Times'] The Super PAC has $417,250 to spend on the upcoming election. $400K of that came from Robert Mercer, a white billionaire hedge-fund titan who is the major funder of the Ted Cruz campaign. Mercer's fellow "Black Americans" are also all rich white men, who made donations from $250 to $10,000 to cover the remaining 4% of the "Black American" war-chest. BABF appears to exist solely as a vehicle for Washington, D.C. consultant Raynard Jackson, who is African American. Jackson is quoted on his firm's website stating that "You have a fundamental right to pursue business interests with the least amount of interference from the government." Jackson has elsewhere accused Barack Obama of "relentless pandering to homosexuals." At an event in November 2015 at the National Press Club, which cost the BABF $13252.79 for the venue and catering, Jackson said that "Having well trained, credible, experienced African-Americans constantly challenging the liberal orthodoxy in the media will create a tectonic shift in the perception of the Republican Party within the Black community." As of its current FEC filings, BABF has spent a total of $172,424.69, including $38,983.45 in net salary payment to Jackson for the last five months of 2015. Together with $26,952.55 disbursed for payroll taxes, this indicates Jackson is receiving an annual salary of $155,000. The Super PAC's remaining spending has been mostly for travel, hotels and food, including about $5,000 at New York's famous Morton's Steakhouse on Fifth Avenue. ""Black Americans for a Better Future" Super PAC 100% Funded by Rich White Guys" [Jon Schwarz/The Intercept] [Your Business Name] Contact Info Phone: Fax: Email: Web: CAPITOLHILLCUBANS.COM Business Overview Geographic Area Line of Business Brands We Carry Products and Services Discounts Offered Additional Information Business Hours Timezone We Accept Three college students who first met while attending a Catholic high school in Florida have launched a scholarship fund to help others experience faithful Catholic education at a Newman Guide college. As we went off to different colleges, we kept in touch and found time to catch up whenever we returned [] Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact. Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here. Care2 Stands With: humanitarians, animal lovers, feminists, rabble-rousers, nature-buffs, creatives, the naturally curious, and people who really love to do the right thing. You are our people. You Care. We Care2. Univision, a hugely successful Spanish language broadcaster, bought humor newspaper/site The Onion two weeks ago, and in so doing, transferred control over a site that has produced scathing comedy at Hillary Clinton's expense to Haim Saban, millionaire financier and Democratic power-broker, who calls Clinton "pristine plus" and "great for the country and great for the world." Saban has previously made bids for the Los Angeles Times and New York Times. Saban describes himself as a staunch zionist and partisan for Israel ("I'm a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel"), which also has implications for The Onion, given its long history of scathing commentary on the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory and the system of Apartheid enforced by the Israeli state. The Onion has refused to comment on whether Saban's ownership will influence its editorial policy. But what's gotten no attention at all is that Haim Saban, Hillary Clinton's biggest fan and financial supporter, is Univision's co-owner, chairman, and CEO. Saban and his wife, Cheryl, are Hillary Clinton's top financial backers, having given $2,046,600 to support her political campaigns and at least $10 million more to the Clinton Foundation, on whose board Cheryl Saban sits. The Sabans are also generous supporters of the overall Democratic Party infrastructure, donating, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a total of $16.1 million since 1989 to Democratic and liberal candidates, party committees, leadership PACs, and federally focused 527s. Saban badly wants Hillary Clinton to be elected president this year, vowing to provide "as much as needed" to see it happen, since "she would be great for the country and great for the world," and "on issues I care about, [Clinton] is pristine plus." Ha Ha: Hillary Clinton's Top Financial Supporter Now Controls "The Onion" [Jon Schwarz/The Intercept] Mumbai, January 28, 2016: Tata Trusts has tied up with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) to upskill rural secondary school students in four states using digital interactive tools. The Connected Learning Initiative (CLIx) will offer access to interactive and hands-on learning experiences to advance their knowledge and skills and also seeks to instill values to help them succeed as professionals and citizens, a statement said today. "We have the strength of a large and young population, an entrepreneurial population, (but) the one thing that they don't have is the chance of and the ability to be educated," Tata Trusts Chairman Ratan Tata said at an event here. The programme will be carried out in over 1,000 schools in Mizoram, Telangana, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and benefit an estimated 1.65 lakh students in classes 8 to 11 and 4,400 teachers till fiscal 2019. Tata said the initiative will focus on English, Science and Mathematics. Details with regards to investment in the programme by the entities were not immediately available. CLIx will align technology-integrated offerings with the school curricula, and aims to enhance professional development for teachers, apart from helping the students by leveraging new technologies, the statement said. As part of the tie-up, a Centre for Education Innovation and Action Research has been created at TISS to incubate CLIx and will serve as the Indian collaborator with MIT. "We believe online learning technologies can offer teachers (and learners) everywhere the tools to transform the educational experience by engaging students in active learning that stimulates their curiosity, makes every lesson more memorable and helps build skills relevant to students' experiences," MIT's president L Rafael Reif said. The programme will also have a component, which will focus on research, measurement and impact assessment that will help in the future scale-up of CLIx, the statement said. PTI You may have noticed a surge of articles criticizing the Federal Trade Commission for its innovation-stifling, headline-chasing, out-of-control attacks on business. The timing of these articles, op-eds and jeremiads isn't an accident. The FTC has spent the past decade ramping up its enforcement against privacy-invasive practices, trying to bridge the gap between the privacy norms espoused by business-leaders and the privacy expectations of the American public. FTC critics have argued that companies should only be punished when their use of stolen data, or leaks of data, cause actual harm to customers, and their version of "actual harm" is pretty extreme. One FTC-basher says that banks shouldn't be punished if they reveal your sensitive financial information to fraudsters who call up and impersonate you. Companies that use and trade in personal information rely on the people involved not discovering what's going on. For example, one data-broker sells its services to retailers as a means of getting the home addresses and other information of their customers in secret, avoiding "losing customers who feel that you're invading their privacy." Why is it so important to characterize privacy violations as harmless? The business lobby desperately wants to limit the FTC's powers so that the agency does not investigate or pursue information practices. For the FTC to pursue the most problematic and structural challenges in privacy, such as data brokers, the agency has to conceive of how a loss of control over information and sale of it to others constitutes a harm. Understood in this way, objections about "harm" are a mask for an underlying ideological commitment against privacy rights. Swindle was honest enough to admit this underlying interesthe lamented that protecting consumers against pretexting would lead to a "foray into broader privacy regulation." While the business community funds FTC critics, it does not understand how radical these advocates are. If the FTC were defanged according to its critics' tendentious reading of law and history, the agency could bring common law consumer fraud cases only. The FTC would have to prove specific intent to mislead the consumer, actual consumer reliance on the deception, and only cases involving economic harm could be remedied. In short, consumer protection would be left to the market. The market approach did not work in the 19th century and was rejected by state and federal legislators and even the business community itself. Businesses are invading your privacy [Chris Hoofnagle/The Hill] (Image: Three Card Monte, Jaffa, Israel , Ziodave, CC-BY-SA) Its been rumored for a while now that Malaysias national automaker, Proton Holdings Bhd, is looking for a partner while recently it also became known that the company is considering selling the Lotus brand. After certain reports on GMs interest in one of the firms Malaysian plants appeared on the local media, Proton came out with an official statement confirming that it is in preliminary talks with General Motors to sell it a stake in its Tanjuing Malim factory. The Board of Directors of PROTON Holdings Berhad wishes to inform that talks with GM are only at a preliminary stage and as such warrants no announcement at this point in time, the Malaysian firm said in a statement. Should there be further developments that warrant an announcement, the Company hereby undertakes to make necessary disclosure in accordance with the relevant requirements, the company added. In a separate statement, the Malaysian firms board of directors also confirmed another report saying that Protons chairman, Datuk Mohd Nadzmi Mohd Salleh, is bidding buy a 42.7 percent stake in the automaker held by state investment company Khazanah Nasional Bhd. The full statement follows below: With regards to the above statement, the Board of PROTON wishes to maintain that Dato Sri Mohd Nadzmi Mohd Sallehs bid for PROTON is a bid in his own personal capacity as an individual. Dato Sri Mohd Nadmi had earlier informed the Board of his intention to make a bid for Khazanah Nasional Berhads 42.7% stake in PROTON. Dato Sri Mohd Nadzmi would like to clarify that Management had merely expressed its concern about the persistent take over rumours which were hampering the strategic direction of the Company, especially those which involved potential collaborations with foreign OEMs. As stated earlier, the decision to submit the bid was made entirely in his own personal capacity as an individual. The reference to a Management buyout in a sense is correct only insofar as Dato Sri Mohd Nadzmis intention to retain most of the current Management team in the event his bid is successful. Following the teaser rendering released earlier this month, Skoda has now shown the first photos of the VisionC study, scheduled to debut at the Geneva Motor Show . Skoda says the VisionC is its first five-door coupe, but the carmaker doesnt give up its practical side though, as the study features a large hatch. With the VisionC Skoda says its design language becomes more expressive, dynamic and emotional. Furthermore, the study also demonstrates the possibilities in innovative and emotional chassis design, always according to Skoda. The study features sharp lines combined with soft, slightly contoured concave and convex surfaces. The front end plays with the triangle shape, which can be seen in the design of the headlights and fog lights, while at the rear the boomerang-shaped taillights appear to push the car to the ground. The tailights also form a triangle together with a crease in the bodywork and they reveal another triangle when they are viewed from the side. No photos of the interior were released, but Skoda says the VisionC study offers room for four people and their luggage, with the large boot featuring an excellent loading capacity. Based on VW Groups good-for-all MQB platform, the VisionC is powered by a bi-fuel 1.4 TSI turbocharged four-cylinder engine that can run on petrol or CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) and produces 109 hp (110PS). Average fuel economy is 3.4 kg or 5.1 cubic meters of CNG per kilometer, with CO2 emissions of 91 g/km. The study already meets the stringent EU2020 CO2 emissions standard. No details were given about the VisionCs size, but we can assume its a C-segment vehicle just like the Octavia. Whether it will be produced or not it remains to be seen, but it would make an interesting addition to the range, positioned between the Octavia and Superb sedans. By Dan Mihalascu PHOTO GALLERY More SUVs and trucks are coming to Fiat Chrysler Automobile brands at the expense of cars, as the group realigns its product portfolio in North America to meet shifting consumer demands. In an announcement that also included a two-year delay in the introduction of new products for Alfa Romeo, FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne said that the new North American strategy is a response to lower gas prices that are currently hovering around $2 a gallon and which are now seen as permanent condition, as well as a permanent shift in US demand for SUVs, CUVs and trucks instead of cars. The revised plan calls to realign installed capacity to produce more pickups and Jeeps by end of 2017 to match shift in demand, instead of building a new factory as some unions had hoped for. FCA will place its focus on the Jeep and RAM marques over the next few years. New products planned for Jeep are a new Wrangler with next-gen powertrains, including diesel and hybrid units in 2017, a Grand Wagoneer and a pickup truck, while RAM will get a next generation 1500, also with new powertrains, such as a mild-hybrid variant. Marchionne cast a definite shadow over the future of the groups compact and mid-size sedans, admitting that the Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200 will go away, but hinted that the company may turn to other automakers to find opportunities to maintain market presence in these segments. There will be a number of things that will be put in place in the next 18 months things that have been agreed and detailed, that will effectively withdraw the Chrysler 200 and Dodge Dart from the marketplace, for a long period of time, during which we will be continuing discussions with potential partners, Marchionne said, according to the Detroit Free Press. Photo Gallery Land Rover has teamed up with luxury travel partner Abercrombie & Kent in order to launch the most luxurious road trip on Earth. The idea behind this campaign is to take customers on a once-in-a-lifetime trip over multiple continents from behind the wheel of the Range Rover SV Autobiography, the most luxurious version of their entire range. Customers will be spoiled for 21 whole days, while also experiencing some of the greatest driving routes the world has to offer, both on regular roads as well as off the beaten track. The entire trip will take place across five continents, eight countries and nine of the worlds best hotels with locations handpicked not only for their exclusivity, but also to provide guests with excellent off-road experiences at locations only accessible to SUVs such as the Range Rover. We set out to design a trip worthy of the ultimate luxury SUV and thanks to our partners at Abercrombie & Kent we have achieved just that, said Mark Cameron, LR marketing exec. From Europe to Australia, this trip is all about the epitome of luxury but done so in a Land Rover way the unexpected, the off-the-beaten-track and the once-in-a-lifetime experiences. This itinerary represents the definitive drive adventure, achieved in the definitive vehicle. The trip starts at 100,000 per person based on two travelers, and is fully customizable according to the customers preferences. The first leg will cover the twisting mountain of Monaco, the coastal highway to Portofino, followed by the vistas of the Italian lakes which are truly spectacular, more so probably from the luxury of your personal SVAutobiography. Speaking of which, this particular model features unique exterior design enhancements, a detailed interior and of course the most powerful engine ever offered in a Range Rover, able to accelerate this very large SUV from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in a little over 5 seconds. After theyre done with the European leg, clients will be transferred to the United States where theyll visit certain locations in Arizona, Utah and Nevada (specifically Las Vegas), before embarking on a flight to Chile to take on the Atacama Desert the driest non-polar desert in the world. The final non-European leg will include an overnight flight to Sydney, Australia where clients will stay at the Park Hyatt and experience both a VIP bridge climb as well as behind-the-scenes access to the landmark Opera House, before flying over to Tasmania. Finally, after 22 days of non-stop traveling, theyll return to London where they originally set out from. PHOTO GALLERY For the second time, a group of angry taxi drivers have blocked a large road in the heart of Paris to protest ride-sharing apps like Uber. The BBC reported that the taxi drivers joined with millions of other French public sector workers protesting against labor reforms. At least 20 local taxi drivers were arrested by authorities over their involvement in the protests. According to the police, they were carrying weapons and started a fire in the middle of the eight-lane road. Police had to use tear gas to control them. This cluster of protesters were among 1,200 other taxi drivers protesting across Paris, Lille, Marseilles and Toulouse. Rachid Boudjema, a spokesman for French taxi drivers, commented that Uber drivers vandalize professionals who are paying taxes, who respect the rules. Video Toyota has revealed that it is considering taking full control of Daihatsu in a potential deal valued at $3.1 billion. The Japanese giant currently holds a controlling 51.2 per cent stake of Daihatsu, which in 2015, was the weakest performing company within the group after sales for the minivehicle maker dropped by 13.3 per cent. Nevertheless, it is reported that Toyota is interested in purchasing the rest of the small manufacturer in its attempts to capitalize on rising demand for small cars in India and a number of other rising economies. Additionally, taking full control of the firm would it to slash procurement costs. In a statement, Toyota said: We are constantly considering a number of possibilities relating to Daihatsu, such as partnerships or business restructuring, including making the company a fully owned subsidiary. While speaking with Reuters, Christopher Richter, a senior research analyst at CLSA, said: I can easily see the Daihatsu brand used in the same way that VW uses Skoda or Renault uses Dacia or Nissan uses Datsun: as a low-cost, sub-premium brand to the core brand. Note: Daihatsu concepts at Tokyo Motor Show pictured. PHOTO GALLERY Photo: Contributed News that ex-cop Keith Wiens' appeal had been denied was welcomed by the family of his victim, Lynn Kalmring. Brandy Cummings, Kalmring's daughter, said Wednesday that she felt major relief when her husband told her what had happened. "I cried pretty good then, and this morning, too," she said. "You know, I miss her. It's been like a massive hole in my life. And with all this going on, I don't have a chance to heal. It keeps coming back." Wiens had been fighting his second-degree murder conviction and 13-year minimum sentence before parol eligibility for the August 2011 shooting of 55-Year-old Kalmring in the couple's Penticton home. In a decision Tuesday, a B.C. Court of Appeal panel unanimously rejected overturning his conviction. Cummings, a Penticton tattoo artist, said the family has waited for a decision since October. "It was like a ripping the scab off the wound and putting lemon juice in it. It was pretty rough, like going back to day one," she said, of attending court when the appeal began. "We didn't have to do it it, but I wanted the judges to see us." She said the hardest part was "waiting to see if we had to sit through another trial. The thought of that was scary and very intimidating." The family also has a civil suit against Wiens that has been on hold because of the appeal. "When someone dies in a couple's relationship, everything goes to the other spouse," she said. "So there's a civil suit, which is stalled because he's in prison. But one of my aunts is still working on it." Wiens could possibly file an appeal with the Supreme Court. "There is no end to it, until he has all his options taken away, and the next option is parole. That will probably come up a lot sooner than I want, but you can bet I'm going to be there." Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer The former boyfriend of a woman accused of burning down three homes in Princeton took the witness stand in her trial, Wednesday. Robert Cormack told the court he and Ashley Gallagher were living together at the time of the fire in March 2014. He said the relationship was "up and down" and they were constantly fighting. On the afternoon of March 27, Gallagher had hinted she would be returning from her mother's home, but he didn't rely on her and went to his parents' home in Tulameen. While there, he said he received several calls from Gallagher, who was upset he had left. He admitted to being scared, because Gallagher was quite angry. Gallagher eventually arrived, but was convinced to leave by Cormack's stepfather. Cormack then had a beer with a friend, who was also at the home. It was the next morning that he saw the home he had been renting from his parents had been destroyed by fire, along with two neighbouring homes. There was nothing left of a snowmobile or an ATV. During questioning by Crown counsel John Swanson, Cormack said during one of the conversations he heard what sounded like gas being poured and a sound like a lighter flicking. Defence lawyer Don Campbell questioned Cormack about differences between his preliminary inquiry testimony and what he said in trial. Campbell suggested a police officer planted the notion of hearing pouring. Cormack testified Gallagher was "not all there" and had "gone crazy" before. Darlene Humbird had just got home from work and was watching a movie with her husband when they heard an explosion. Her husband, James, said the neighbour's home was on fire, and they heard other, smaller explosions. They fled the home when two men came and told them to get out. The couple has since left town. Photo: Contributed - RCMP Kamloops RCMP is seeking the publics assistance in locating a missing 17-year-old female. Sydney Beckley was reported missing from her home on Jan. 16. Beckley is known to frequent the North Shore and downtown business areas of Kamloops. Beckley is described as: Caucasian Female 59 tall 160 lbs Long brown hair Green eyes Tattoo on right wrist that says Strength and Love Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Beckley is urged to call Kamloops RCMP at 250-828-3000, or call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477(TIPS) to remain anonymous. Photo: Contributed - Bombardier Bombardier shares closed below $1 for the first time in 25 years on Wednesday as the plane and train maker struggles to regain its footing. The Montreal-based company's shares lost two cents or almost two per cent to reach 99 cents. That's the lowest level since 1991, adjusting for stock splits. Over the past year, its shares have dropped from $3.05 as the company has struggled to deliver its over budget and delayed CSeries commercial jetliner, win new orders and maintain a healthy financial footing. Analyst David Tyerman of Canaccord Genuity said the decrease isn't likely tied to one event but rather to disappointment over Bombardier not winning an order from United Airlines and cumulative concerns about whether the company can withstand a macroeconomic downturn. Tyerman who has a $1.30 price target for Bombardier said it doesn't really matter if the shares are a few cents above or below $1, except in the case of some institutional investors who won't own shares of a company that are below that threshold. Unlike other stock exchanges, TSX rules don't have a set minimum share price but the exchange monitors the price as part of a broader set of criteria, said spokesman Mathieu Labreche. Meanwhile, analysts don't have high hopes when Bombardier's reports its fourth-quarter 2015 results Feb. 17. The company is expected to show two cents per share in adjusted net earnings on US$5.5 billion of revenues, down from four cents on nearly US$6 billion a year earlier. Photo: Contributed - Google Street View Temporary barricades will be erected along 3rd Avenue in Kamloops, near the CP Rail right-of-way, to meet safety concerns recently outlined by Transport Canada. The barricades, manned by RCMP and city bylaw officials will be in place following major events at the Sandman Centre and Riverside Park. Sidewalks will remain open for pedestrian access along 3rd Avenue while the railway crossing is clear. Once warning systems are activated, RCMP and bylaw staff will prohibit passage until the crossing is clear. The city, RCMP, Kamloops Blazers and CP have agreed to work together to review options and potential alternatives for barricading to meet the intent of safety audit recommendations made by Transport Canada. Alternatives will try and minimize impact on event attendees. The goal, said the city, is to ensure public safety while addressing the consultant's recommendations. The principle recommendations require CP to eliminate standing trains in the railway crossing and for the city to barricade 3rd Avenue at Lorne Street after major events at both the Sandman Centre and Riverside Park. Photo: Contributed - 3dmentat The buzz coming out of Ottawa this week is talk of a national unity crisis. This comes after Montreal Mayor Dennis Coderre announced strong opposition to the proposed Energy East pipeline project, a project that is supported by the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and New Brunswick. The opposition from the mayor was particularly not well-received in Alberta, which has, for decades, diligently paid into the Canadian equalization program that annually pays out billions of dollars to Quebec and none to Alberta, or, for that matter, to British Columbia or Saskatchewan. Well-known CBC comedian Rick Mercer entered into the debate, focusing a rant segment entirely in support of the Energy East project while lambasting the stance taken by Mayor Coderre. As a result, the subject of pipelines has featured prominently in Ottawa this week. On Wednesday, the Liberal Government announced a new pipeline review process, and on Thursday, the Official Opposition Conservatives will table a motion calling on the Liberal Government to express support for the Energy East project, along with a number of other conditions. At the time of my writing this weeks MP report, it is unknown what the new pipeline review process will be, or what the outcome of the motion on Thursday will be. Also occurring this week is debate on the response to the Throne Speech, a debate in which I was honoured to participate. One of my reasons for speaking was to raise the importance of resource industries in rural communities. Here in Central Okanagan-Similkameen-Nicola, there are multiple lumber mills and a number of mines that are large-scale regional employers. I also raised the subject of civic infrastructure, as well as the importance of a new softwood lumber agreement to our British Columbia economy, including the need to focus on inter-Provincial trade. Before I close this weeks report, I would like to invite citizens to hold me to account at a public forum I will be hosting in West Kelowna on Saturday, January 30th, at 6 p.m.. This forum will be held at the Westbank Lions Community Centre. There is no admission to attend, and no advance registration required. For those who cannot attend this forum, I will be hosting more forums in other communities. As well, I always welcome your calls and emails. I can be reached via email or by phone at 1.800.665.8711. This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet. Its mission is to help all manner of pets, and now the SPCA could use a little help itself. The Vernon shelter is in need of wet food for cats and dogs. Chelsea Taylor, branch manager, said it is not very often the shelter runs low on both wet cat and dog food at the same time, but that is where the shelter currently finds itself. Canned food is good to mix in with their dry kibble to stimulate their appetite, said Taylor, adding animals can be stressed when they arrive at the shelter and may not want to eat. Canned food is also handy when giving animals medications and also to hydrate them. This is our quieter time of the year, but it's a good opportunity to make sure we will be well stocked for the spring, she said, adding it is usually late spring when an influx of kittens is expected. It doesn't go bad so we can keep it until we get busy. We also help out less fortunate families when they run out of pet food. The shelter currently has 20 cats including five kittens and four dogs, but things will get busier as the year progresses. People can drop donations off at the shelter, 4800 Haney Rd. off Old Kamloops Road, and if they bring in their till receipt, the SPCA will provide a tax receipt. Cash donations can also be made online, over the phone at 250-549-7297, or by mail. Photo: Contributed - Flickr/BC gov't British Columbia's Transportation Minister Todd Stone says he'll be listening carefully for any details as he meets with his provincial, territorial and federal counterparts in Ottawa. Stone says he's ready to hear how the federal Liberals plan to share the $10-billion committed in a promised infrastructure spending program. He predicts the bulk of the cash will go toward transit projects and green infrastructure. But Stone is also hopeful Thursday's one-day meeting will provide direction on several shovel-ready projects waiting for approval in B.C. He says other issues on the table cover a range of topics from distracted driving to safer vehicle technology. The ministers may also have time to discuss ways to harness innovations that could cut greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. To all the kind hearted drivers in Kelowna who are stopping for pedestrians to cross the road when they are not at a crosswalk. Please stop before you kill with kindness. It has happened to me on many occasions, someone driving in the right lane will stop to let a pedestrian cross when there is no crosswalk while I am driving in the left lane. Their vehicle obstructs my view of the pedestrian and the pedestrians view of me. The pedestrian begins to cross traffic and is as surprised as I am as they begin to clear the stopped vehicle and enter the left lane just as I am about to drive past. After I recover from my near heart attack I shake my head at the very kind person whom almost caused a possible fatality. Folks, please, there are crosswalks for a reason. Crosswalks are signed so we know where they are and we know what to expect. If people make their own rules they are the only ones who know them. Also, at the Crosswalks with the pedestrian controlled lights, please do not stop if the lights are not flashing. Some pedestrians (I have done it) will decide not to stop traffic by pushing the light because they see an opening in traffic coming soon. If you stop for that pedestrian, the person behind you or the one coming the other direction may not be prepared for the person to cross. The lights are there for a reason. Its very easy to stay safe if we all know the rules and follow them. Please dont make it up as you go along. Lorne Truden Photo: Darren Handschuh Politicians in the North Okanagan and Shuswap are to begin a lobbying campaign to get grant funding from senior levels of government to buy a portion of an abandoned CP Rail line. There are hopes it will one day be used as a multi-use recreational corridor, similar to the CN line between Vernon and Kelowna. The lobbying effort comes at the same time a technical team, made up of representatives from the Splatsin First Nation, North Okanagan Regional District and Columbia Shuswap Regional District, negotiates agreement details for the land sale. The team was set up earlier this month. Discontinuation of the 50-kilometre Canadian Pacific Rail line between Sicamous and Armstrong was announced in 2009. In Dec. 2014, the Splatsin announced it had acquired 11.7 hectares of the abandoned railway line. We are pleased with these next steps taken toward acquiring the abandoned CP Rail lands as a contiguous corridor, said Splatsin Chief Wayne Christian, commenting on the joint effort. Talks with CP Rail officials have taken place several times over the past year however there is no deadline for a land deal. A formal purchase and sale agreement for the railway lands will need to be finalized, funding approvals secured from the respective jurisdictions and grant funding from provincial and federal sources will also likely need to be obtained for a viable business case, according to a press release. The technical team will work with CP Rail on moving forward with the purchase and the development of a business model to oversee the corridor on a go-forward basis, said Rhona Martin, chairperson of the Columbia Shuswap Regional District. There is strong support among the partners to acquire the rail line as a contiguous corridor as this will provide our communities with a wide range of recreational opportunities and provide an enduring legacy for the North Okanagan Shuswap. If you have just started your journey in an online casino or are looking for a new site to play,... An honest essay has numerous characteristics: original thinking, a good structure, balanced arguments, and plenty more. 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The excellent news is that there is much stuff you can do to create your essay more attractive, while youll be able only to do such a lot while remaining within the formal confines of educational writing. Lets study what theyre. Have an interest in what youre writing about Dont go overboard, but youll be able to let your passion for your subject show. If theres one thing bound to inject interest into your writing, its being fascinated by what youre writing about. Passion for a subject matter comes across naturally in your essay, typically making it more lively and fascinating and infusing an infectious enthusiasm into your words within the same way that its easy to talk knowledgeably to someone about something you discover fascinating. Include fascinating details Another factor that may make an essay boring maybe a dry material. 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Read through your essay objectively and eliminate the bits that arent relevant to the argument or labor the purpose. employing a thesaurus isnt always a decent thing Avoid using unfamiliar words in an essay; theres too great a likelihood that youre misusing them. You may think that employing a thesaurus to seek out more complicated words will make your writing more exciting or sound more academic, but using overly high-brow language can have the incorrect effect. Avoid repetitive phrasing Please avoid using the identical phrase structure again and again: its a recipe for dullness! Instead, use a variety of syntax that demonstrates your writing capabilities and makes your writing more interesting. Mix simple, compound, and complicated sentences to avoid your paper becoming predictable. Use some figurative language Using analogies with nature can often make concepts more accessible for readers to know. As weve already seen, its easy to finish up rambling when youre explaining complex concepts mainly after you dont know it yourself. One way of forcing yourself to think about a couple of pictures, present it more simply and engagingly is to form figurative language. This implies explaining something by comparing it with something else, as in an analogy. Employ rhetorical questions Anticipate the questions your reader might ask. One of the ways ancient orators held the eye of their audiences and increased the dramatic effect of their speeches was by using the statement. A decent place to use a statement is at the top of a paragraph, to steer into the following one, or at the start of a replacement section to introduce a brand new area for exploration. Proofread Finally, you may write the top interesting essay an instructor has ever read. Still, youll undermine your good work if its plagued by errors, which distract the reader from the particular content and can probably annoy them. Aaron M. Harris, MD1; Kashif Iqbal, MPH1; Sarah Schillie, MD1; James Britton2; Marion A. Kainer, MBBS3; Stacy Tressler, MPH4; Claudia Vellozzi, MD1 (View author affiliations) View suggested citation Summary What is already known on this topic? The national incidence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection has remained stable during 20062013 at 1 case per 100,000 persons. Currently, as many as 2.2 million persons are chronically infected with HBV. Injection drug use is a risk factor for HBV transmission. What is added by this report? Since 2009, three states in the Appalachian region have reported an increase in cases of acute HBV infection, among non-Hispanic whites, persons aged 3039 years, and injection drug users. Compared with cases that occurred during 20062009, a significant increase in the proportion of cases in which injection drug use was reported during 20102013. What are the implications for public health practice? The increase in incident HBV-infections has the potential to impede the nations hepatitis B elimination strategy. Evidence-based prevention strategies, including increasing hepatitis B vaccination coverage, testing and linkage to care, and implementing education campaigns that target persons who inject drugs are urgently needed. Article Metrics Altmetric: Metric Details Table References Related Materials pdf icon As many as 2.2 million persons in the United States are chronically infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV) (1), and approximately 15%25% of persons with chronic HBV infection will die prematurely from cirrhosis or liver cancer (2). Since 2006, the overall U.S. incidence of acute HBV infection has remained stable; the rate in 2013 was 1.0 case per 100,000 persons (3). Hepatitis B vaccination is highly effective in preventing HBV infection and is recommended for all infants (beginning at birth), all adolescents, and adults at risk for HBV infection (e.g., persons who inject drugs, men who have sexual contact with men, persons infected with human immunodeficiency virus [HIV], and others). Hepatitis B vaccination coverage is low among adults: 2013 National Health Interview Survey data indicated that coverage with 3 doses of hepatitis B vaccine was 32.6% for adults aged 1949 years (4). Injection drug use is a risk factor for both hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HBV. Among young adults in some rural U.S. communities, an increased incidence of HCV infection has been associated with a concurrent increase of injection drug use (5); and recent data indicate an increase of acute HCV infection in the Appalachian region associated with injection drug use (6). Using data from the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS) during 20062013, CDC assessed the incidence of acute HBV infection in three of the four Appalachian states (Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia) included in the HCV infection study (6). Similar to the increase of HCV infections recently reported, an increase in incident cases of acute HBV infection in these three states has occurred among non-Hispanic whites (whites) aged 3039 years who reported injection drug use as a common risk factor. Since 2009, cases of acute HBV infection have been reported from more non-urban than urban regions. Evidence-based services to prevent HBV infection are needed. Data from confirmed cases of acute HBV infection reported to CDC from Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia during 20062013, including demographic and risk characteristics, were obtained from NNDSS. These states used the CDC/Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists case definition to identify cases of acute HBV infection. Cases of acute HBV infection were categorized as urban if the infected person lived in a metropolitan county with a population 50,000 and as non-urban if the infected person lived in a nonmetropolitan county with a population <50,000. Data were analyzed by year of report and urban/non-urban county resident status to assess annual incidence (per 100,000 persons), demographic characteristics, and injection drug use in persons with reported acute HBV infections during 20062013. To calculate annual incidence, the number of cases reported through NNDSS was used as the numerator and midyear (July) population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau were used as the denominator. Statistical significance of a monotonic trend in annual incidence of acute HBV infection by urban/non-urban status was tested with the Spearman rank correlation test. A 20% increase in incident HBV infections was observed from 2009 to 2010; therefore, the data are presented for two reporting time periods: 20062009 and 20102013. Chi-square tests were used to determine whether cases reported during the two time periods differed significantly by demographic characteristics and reported injection drug use. Statistical significance was defined as p<0.05. During 20062013, a total of 3,305 cases of acute HBV infection were reported to CDC from Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia. During 20092013, incidence of acute HBV infection increased 114% in these three states, but remained stable in the United States overall (Figure 1). Comparing the number of cases of acute HBV infection reported during 20062009 and 20102013, the proportion of cases among whites and persons aged 3039 years increased during 20102013 (Table). Among cases in which at least one risk factor was reported, the proportion of persons reporting injection drug use as a risk factor was significantly greater in 20102013, compared with 20062009 (75% versus 53%; p<0.001). Among 3,185 of 3,305 (96%) total cases where urban and non-urban classification for HBV-infected persons could be determined, 1,344 (42%) were classified as residing in non-urban counties. During 20062013, the incidence of acute HBV infections from both urban and non-urban counties increased, but the increase was statistically significant only among cases occurring in non-urban counties (Figure 2) (p-value for trend <0.001). Discussion Population-based surveillance data from Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia indicate a 114% increase in acute HBV infection during 20062013; this increase occurred after 2009, among whites, aged 3039 years who reported injection drug use. In an analysis of 6 years of enhanced surveillance data for hepatitis B, Tennessee reported similar findings, including a large increase among white adults, with both injection and noninjection drug use as a commonly reported risk factor during 20062011 (7). Forty-two percent of cases of acute HBV infection in this report occurred among persons residing in non-urban counties, which is where the largest increases in incidence of acute HBV infection occurred. A similar increase of acute HCV infections occurred among young adults residing in non-urban areas in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia (6). The concurrent increase in reports of acute HBV and HCV infections, as well as an increase in injection drug use reported among this population is concerning. Together, the increase in cases of acute HBV infection among persons who reported injection drug use and the typically low hepatitis B vaccination coverage among young adults are likely contributing to the increase in acute HBV infection incidence in Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia. A concomitant increase in the number of substance abuse treatment admissions for opioid dependency in Appalachian states during 20062013 was also observed: admissions for prescription opioid and heroin abuse increased among young adults by 17.1% and 7.4%, respectively (6). In 2015, a rural county in Indiana was the site of a large outbreak of HIV infection and HCV infection among young (median age = 32 years) injection drug users (8). Hepatitis B vaccination is recommended as primary prevention for adults who are at increased risk for HBV infection, including injection drug users who were not previously infected (9). Data from the National Health Interview Survey indicate that hepatitis B vaccination coverage is low among adults in the general population (4), and it is likely to be lower among injection drug users. Routine hepatitis B vaccination has been recommended for infants since 1991 and for children aged 18 years since 1999; thus, adults aged 33 years in 2013 would be too old to have benefited from routine hepatitis B vaccination recommendations, and would be susceptible to HBV infection. In response to this increase in acute HBV infections, state health officials are employing various prevention strategies. Since 2012, Tennessee has partnered with county jails to increase hepatitis B vaccination coverage among incarcerated persons. West Virginia has collaborated with addiction centers and harm reduction services to provide viral hepatitis prevention trainings. West Virginia is establishing an adult hepatitis B vaccination pilot project in the 17 counties with the highest incidence of acute HBV infection. To enhance viral hepatitis surveillance in Kentucky, reporting of HBV infection among pregnant women and children aged <5 years, in addition to all acute HBV infection cases, is mandatory. Kentucky has also increased hepatitis B awareness campaigns through annual statewide hepatitis conferences, health care provider education, and legislative amendments allowing syringe exchange programs. The National Viral Hepatitis Action Plan recommends full vaccination of adolescents, as well as ensuring that injection drug users have access to viral hepatitis prevention, care, and treatment services (10). This can be accomplished by mobilizing community resources to identify persons at risk, increase hepatitis B vaccination coverage among all adolescents and adult injection drug users, screen and test for HBV, HCV, and HIV infections, and link persons with viral hepatitis to care. A goal for hepatitis B elimination is vaccination of all vulnerable youth and adults; thus, the delivery of hepatitis prevention and care should be expanded to include correctional facilities and abuse treatment centers. The findings in this report are subject to at least five limitations. First, NNDSS is a passive surveillance system, and therefore, unreported cases might have been missed. Second, the current case definition for acute HBV infection captures only symptomatic persons and excludes persons with asymptomatic HBV infection, and therefore might result in underreporting of total acute HBV cases. Third, acute HBV infection case reports typically originate from past or present medical care; thus, certain populations at high risk (e.g., persons who are incarcerated, homeless, and uninsured) with limited access to care could potentially be underrepresented. Fourth, increased reporting and changes in testing practices might have contributed to the increase in HBV incidence observed in the three Appalachian states in this report. However, an upward trend in incidence was not seen in other areas of the country, and began before the release of the CDC HCV testing recommendations that might have affected HBV testing and reporting. Finally, risk factor data, including injection drug use, were not available for all reported cases. A hepatitis B epidemic is emerging in Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia. The increase in incident HBV-infections might contribute to future increases in liver-related morbidity and mortality. Evidence-based prevention strategies, including increasing hepatitis B vaccination coverage, testing and linkage to care activities, and education campaigns targeting persons who inject drugs are urgently needed. Corresponding author: Aaron M. Harris, AMHarris@cdc.gov, 404-718-8541. 1Division of Viral Hepatitis, CDC; 2Kentucky Department for Public Health; 3Tennessee Department of Health; 4West Virginia Department of Health and Human Services. TABLE. Demographic characteristics and injection drug use behavior for 3,305 reported cases of acute hepatitis B virus infection, by reporting period Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia, 20062013 Characteristic* Reporting period 20062009 (n = 1,243) No. (%) 20102013 (n = 2,062) No. (%) p-value Age group (yrs) <0.001 018 6 (0.5) 7 (0.3) 1929 290 (23.3) 371 (18.0) 3039 354 (28.5) 763 (37.0) 4049 356 (28.7) 537 (26.0) 5059 153 (12.3) 254 (12.3) 60 83 (6.7) 128 (6.2) Sex 0.582 Male 736 (59.4) 1,196 (58.4) Female 503 (40.6) 851 (41.6) Race <0.001 Non-Hispanic black 128 (12.5) 128 (7.6) Non-Hispanic white 869 (84.6) 1,503 (88.9) Hispanic 13 (1.3) 20 (1.2) Other 17 (1.7) 39 (2.3) Injection drug use <0.001 Yes 180 (52.9) 342 (75.2) No 160 (47.1) 113 (24.8) FIGURE 1. Incidence of acute hepatitis B virus infection, by yearUnited States and Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia, 20062013 Abbreviations: KY = Kentucky; TN = Tennessee; US = United States; WV = West Virginia;. FIGURE 2. Incidence* of acute hepatitis B virus infection by urban/non-urban county of residence Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia, 20062013 * With 95% confidence intervals as error bars. Trend significant among non-urban residence data at p<0.001. Suggested citation for this article: Harris AM, Iqbal K, Schillie S, et al. Increases in Acute Hepatitis B Virus Infections Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia, 20062013. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2016;65:4750. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6503a2external icon. The DOHMHs active monitoring program was successful in monitoring travelers returning from Ebola-affected countries; however, maintenance of the active monitoring program required sustained effort and resources drawn from core public health functions. Public health authorities should continue to work together and identify best practices to enhance information sharing and minimize duplication of efforts for future public health emergencies. The Ebola virus disease (Ebola) outbreak in West Africa has claimed approximately 11,300 lives (1), and the magnitude and course of the epidemic prompted many nonaffected countries to prepare for Ebola cases imported from affected countries. In October 2014, CDC and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) implemented enhanced entry risk assessment and management at five U.S. airports: John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport in New York City (NYC), OHare International Airport in Chicago, Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, and Dulles International Airport in Virginia (2). Enhanced entry risk assessment began at JFK on October 11, 2014, and at the remaining airports on October 16 (3). On October 21, DHS exercised its authority to direct all travelers flying into the United States from an Ebola-affected country to arrive at one of the five participating airports. At the time, the Ebola-affected countries included Guinea, Liberia, Mali, and Sierra Leone. On October 27, CDC issued updated guidance for monitoring persons with potential Ebola virus exposure (4), including recommending daily monitoring of such persons to ascertain the presence of fever or symptoms for a period of 21 days (the maximum incubation period of Ebola virus) after the last potential exposure; this was termed active monitoring. CDC also recommended direct active monitoring of persons with a higher risk for Ebola virus exposure, including health care workers who had provided direct patient care in Ebola-affected countries. Direct active monitoring required direct observation of the person being monitored by the local health authority at least once daily (5). This report describes the operational structure of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygienes (DOHMH) active monitoring program during its first 6 months (October 2014April 2015) of operation. Data collected on persons who required direct active monitoring are not included in this report. DOHMH began planning for the possible importation of an Ebola case in August 2014 and activated its Incident Command System on October 3, 2014, after the first importation of Ebola into the United States occurred in Texas (6). On October 23, a humanitarian aid worker who had recently returned from Guinea was hospitalized in NYC and received a diagnosis of Ebola (7). On October 25, DOHMH, having been informed that CDC would be issuing guidance on monitoring travelers on October 27, opened the Active Monitoring Call Center (AMCC) to monitor personnel who had contact with the NYC patient or with laboratory specimens and medical waste originating from the patient. Active monitoring also was implemented for travelers who had been in an Ebola-affected country within the preceding 21 days. Almost all of these travelers were designated as at low (but not zero) risk for an Ebola virus exposure because they had been in countries with widespread Ebola virus transmission but had no known exposures (8). DHS personnel at ports of entry collected information about travelers requiring active monitoring for Ebola, which was entered into a database and then transmitted to DOHMH through CDCs Epidemic Information Exchange (Epi-X),* a secure notification system (3). Additional information could also be collected through other domestic public health investigations. Risk classification of travelers (i.e., high risk, some risk, low [but not zero] risk, or no identifiable risk) (4) was generally performed by CDC staff members at ports of entry and was included in the Epi-X notification. DOHMH assigned a unique identification number to each traveler and sent an e-mail to the traveler with instructions for contacting the AMCC. DOHMH then assigned travelers who required active monitoring to AMCC phone operators, who made at least two call attempts to all available telephone numbers, including to telephones issued to incoming travelers by CDC. Operators asked travelers to report two separate temperature recordings from the previous 24-hour period, any episodes of vomiting, diarrhea, or unexplained bleeding or bruising, and any plans for overnight travel outside of NYC. Any traveler who reported a temperature 100.0F (37.8C) or symptoms was referred to the DOHMH physician on call for Ebola monitoring for evaluation. Possible outcomes after referral included continuing to monitor the traveler per usual protocol, increasing the frequency of monitoring (with or without restriction of movement), or transporting the traveler to a health care facility for further evaluation. AMCC operators documented all call attempts regardless of outcome. A daily report was generated for AMCC leadership review; the report indicated which travelers did not provide monitoring data for 2 calendar days, including monitoring data collected previously, if any, and which travelers had incorrect contact information. For those travelers who did not respond to multiple contact attempts over 2 days, AMCC leadership decided to either make additional call attempts that evening, or refer the travelers records to the NYC Police Department Missing Persons Squad to conduct a database search for additional contact information or the DOHMH Field Surveillance Unit to visit any addresses listed, including those of emergency contacts. Daily monitoring reports for the NYC Office of the Mayor and weekly reports for CDC also were generated (Figure). During October 25, 2014April 30, 2015, CDC referred 2,452 travelers to DOHMH for active monitoring. The number of travelers referred each day ranged from 1106 (mean = 13 travelers, standard deviation [SD] = 10). Travelers arrived from all the Ebola-affected countries, with 47.4% originating in Guinea. Among all travelers, 44.0% were female; the mean age was 39 years, and 28.3% were U.S. citizens. Only 57.7% reported feeling comfortable communicating in English for the purpose of active monitoring (Table 1). Overall, 2,407 (98.1%) referred travelers required active monitoring. The 45 (1.9%) travelers who did not require monitoring were either transiting to another jurisdiction or had errors in their itineraries. The number of travelers called by AMCC operators ranged from eight to 301 per day (mean = 192, SD = 53). Whereas some travelers were monitored for the full 21-day period, a travelers monitoring period could be <21 days if, for example, the traveler spent time in another jurisdiction between leaving an Ebola-affected country and arriving in NYC. During October 25, 2014April 30, 2015, monitoring data were successfully collected for >75% of the travelers monitoring period for 2,138 (88.8%) travelers, for 50%75% of the monitoring period for 100 (4.2%) travelers, and for <50% of the monitoring period for 61 (2.5%) travelers. For 108 (4.5%) travelers, no monitoring data were collected (Table 2). Successful collection of monitoring data for travelers requiring active monitoring improved over time. For example, during October 25, 2014December 31, 2014, data were successfully collected for >75% of the travelers monitoring period for 556 of 796 (69.8%) travelers compared with 1,582 of 1,611 (98.2%) travelers during January 1, 2015April 30, 2015 (p<0.01). Among the 2,299 (94%) travelers reached for monitoring, 785 (34.1%) left NYC during their monitoring period, including travelers who left the country or were transferred to another local health authority to continue active monitoring. Approximately 98% of monitored travelers reported no fever or symptoms. Twenty-six (1.1%) reported fever only; 27 (1.2%) reported symptoms including diarrhea, vomiting or unexplained bleeding or bruising but no fever, and one (0.04%) reported fever and symptoms. All travelers reporting fever or symptoms were evaluated by the DOHMH physician on-call for Ebola monitoring to assess the evolution of illness and provide recommendations for any additional steps to take while the traveler remained ill. No cases of Ebola were detected among travelers reporting fever or symptoms during their monitoring period. On January 22, 2016, this report was posted online as an MMWR Early Release. Lavinia Schuler-Faccini, PhD1; Erlane M. Ribeiro, PhD2; Ian M.L. Feitosa, MD3; Dafne D.G. Horovitz, PhD4; Denise P. Cavalcanti, PhD, MD5; Andre Pessoa2; Maria Juliana R. Doriqui, MD6; Joao Ivanildo Neri, MD7; Joao Monteiro de Pina Neto, PhD8; Hector Y.C. Wanderley, MD9; Mirlene Cernach, PhD10; Antonette S. El-Husny, PhD11; Marcos V.S. Pone, PhD4; Cassio L.C. Serao, MD12; Maria Teresa V. Sanseverino, PhD13; Brazilian Medical Genetics SocietyZika Embryopathy Task Force14 (View author affiliations) View suggested citation Summary What is already known about this topic? An outbreak of Zika virus infection, a flavivirus transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, was first recognized in northeastern Brazil in early 2015. In September, a sharp increase in the number of reported cases of microcephaly was reported in areas affected by the outbreak. What is added by this report? The Brazil Ministry of Health developed a case definition for Zika virusrelated microcephaly (head circumference 2 standard deviations [SD] below the mean for sex and gestational age at birth). A task force and registry were established to investigate Zika virusrelated cases of microcephaly and to describe the clinical characteristics of cases. Among the first 35 cases of microcephaly reported to the registry, 74% of mothers reported a rash illness during pregnancy, 71% of infants had severe microcephaly (>3 SD below the mean), approximately half had at least one neurologic abnormality, and among 27 who had neuroimaging studies, all were abnormal. Cerebrospinal fluid from all infants is being tested for Zika virus; results are not currently available. What are the implications for public health practice? The increased occurrence of microcephaly associated with cerebral damage characteristically seen in congenital infections in Zika virus-affected areas is suggestive of a possible relationship. Additional studies are warranted to confirm the association and to more fully characterize the phenotype. In addition to removing potential breeding areas for mosquitoes, pregnant women in Zika-affected areas should wear protective clothing, apply a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-approved insect repellent, and sleep in a screened room or under a mosquito net. Article Metrics Altmetric: Metric Details Table References Related Materials English pdf pdf icon French pdf pdf icon Portuguese pdf pdf icon In early 2015, an outbreak of Zika virus, a flavivirus transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, was identified in northeast Brazil, an area where dengue virus was also circulating. By September, reports of an increase in the number of infants born with microcephaly in Zika virus-affected areas began to emerge, and Zika virus RNA was identified in the amniotic fluid of two women whose fetuses had been found to have microcephaly by prenatal ultrasound. The Brazil Ministry of Health (MoH) established a task force to investigate the possible association of microcephaly with Zika virus infection during pregnancy and a registry for incident microcephaly cases (head circumference 2 standard deviations [SD] below the mean for sex and gestational age at birth) and pregnancy outcomes among women suspected to have had Zika virus infection during pregnancy. Among a cohort of 35 infants with microcephaly born during AugustOctober 2015 in eight of Brazils 26 states and reported to the registry, the mothers of all 35 had lived in or visited Zika virus-affected areas during pregnancy, 25 (71%) infants had severe microcephaly (head circumference >3 SD below the mean for sex and gestational age), 17 (49%) had at least one neurologic abnormality, and among 27 infants who had neuroimaging studies, all had abnormalities. Tests for other congenital infections were negative. All infants had a lumbar puncture as part of the evaluation and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples were sent to a reference laboratory in Brazil for Zika virus testing; results are not yet available. Further studies are needed to confirm the association of microcephaly with Zika virus infection during pregnancy and to understand any other adverse pregnancy outcomes associated with Zika virus infection. Pregnant women in Zika virus-affected areas should protect themselves from mosquito bites by using air conditioning, screens, or nets when indoors, wearing long sleeves and pants, using permethrin-treated clothing and gear, and using insect repellents when outdoors. Pregnant and lactating women can use all U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-registered insect repellents according to the product label. An outbreak of Zika virus infection was recognized in northeast Brazil in early 2015 (1). In September 2015, health authorities began to receive reports from physicians in this region of an increase in the number of infants born with microcephaly. In October, the MoH confirmed an increase in birth prevalence of microcephaly in northeast Brazil, compared with previously reported estimates (approximately 0.5/10,000 live births), which are based on review of birth certificates and include descriptions of major congenital anomalies. The MoH rapidly established a microcephaly registry in Brazil. On November 17, 2015, the MoH reported the increase in microcephaly cases, and possible association of microcephaly with Zika virus infection during pregnancy on its website;* and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) published an alert regarding the increase in occurrence of microcephaly in Brazil (2). In December, PAHO reported the identification of Zika virus RNA by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in amniotic fluid samples from two pregnant women whose fetuses were found to have microcephaly by prenatal ultrasound, and the identification of Zika virus RNA from multiple body tissues, including the brain, of an infant with microcephaly who died in the immediate neonatal period (3). These events prompted new alerts from the MoH, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (4), and CDC (5) concerning the possible association of microcephaly with the recent outbreak of Zika virus infection. A comprehensive protocol for notification and investigation of all infants with microcephaly and all women with suspected Zika virus infection during pregnancy was developed by the MoH and implemented nationwide. In addition, the Brazilian Society of Medical Genetics established the Zika Embryopathy Task Force (SBGMZETF), which includes clinical geneticists, obstetricians, pediatricians, neurologists, and radiologists, to review all incident cases of microcephaly as well as all infants born to mothers with suspected Zika virus infection during pregnancy. Task force members collect data concerning the pregnancy (including exposure history, symptoms, and laboratory testing), physical examination of the infant, and any additional studies using a standardized spreadsheet. Microcephaly was defined as neonatal head circumference 2 SD below the mean for gestational age and sex of the infant at birth. Infection with Zika virus is difficult to confirm retrospectively because serological immunological tests might cross-react with other flaviviruses, especially dengue virus (6). Therefore a mothers report of a rash illness during pregnancy was used as a proxy indicator of potential Zika virus infection. Although 37 infants with microcephaly were evaluated, only 35 cases are included in this report. Two infants with microcephaly were excluded from the original cohort of 37 babies: one had autosomal recessive microcephaly with sibship recurrence, and one had cytomegalovirus infection. Overall, 26 (74%) mothers of infants with microcephaly reported a rash during the first (n = 21) or second (5) trimester (Table). Residence in or travel during pregnancy to areas where Zika virus is circulating was confirmed for all mothers, including women without a history of rash. Twenty-five (74%) infants had severe microcephaly (head circumference >3 SD below the mean for gestational age). Computed tomography scans and transfontanellar cranial ultrasounds showed a consistent pattern of widespread brain calcifications, mainly in the periventricular, parenchymal, and thalamic areas, and in the basal ganglia, and was associated in approximately one third of cases with evidence of cell migration abnormalities (e.g., lissencephaly, pachygyria). Ventricular enlargement secondary to cortical/subcortical atrophy was also frequently reported. Excessive and redundant scalp skin, reported in 11 (31%) cases, also suggests acute intrauterine brain injury, indicating and arrest in cerebral growth, but not in growth of scalp skin. Four (11%) infants had arthrogryposis (congenital contractures), indicative of central or peripheral nervous system involvement (7). All 35 infants in the cohort tested negative for syphilis, toxoplasmosis, rubella, cytomegalovirus, and herpes simplex virus infections. CSF samples from all infants enrolled in the cohort were sent to a reference laboratory in Brazil for Zika virus testing; the results are not yet available. Discussion Microcephaly usually results from abnormal brain development. The long-term consequences of microcephaly depend on underlying brain anomalies and can range from mild developmental delays to severe motor and intellectual deficits, like cerebral palsy. In addition to congenital infections, microcephaly can result from chromosomal abnormalities; exposure to drugs, alcohol, or other environmental toxins; premature fusion of the bones of the skull (craniosynostosis); and certain metabolic disorders. The sudden increase in the number of infants born with microcephaly associated with cerebral damage characteristically seen in congenital infections in a region where an outbreak of a newly circulating virus has recently occurred is suggestive of a possible relationship. The association between maternal infections and congenital anomalies has long been recognized, especially when infection occurs during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy (8). Brazils vaccination program has eliminated some infections that result in congenital anomalies, such as rubella. Congenital infections can affect multiple organ systems, and many are associated with specific brain damage, including microcephaly, calcifications (predominantly periventricular, but also in the basal ganglia and in cerebral parenchyma), ventriculomegaly, neuronal migration disorders (pachygyria, polymicrogyria, lissencephaly, and schizenchephaly), cerebellar hypoplasia, and white matter anomalies (8). Ongoing surveillance and evaluation of new cases are important to describe the phenotypic spectrum of potential Zika virus-associated congenital infections. In addition, special studies, including case-control studies, are needed to confirm the association, determine the magnitude of the potential risk, and identify other possible risk factors. CDC recently tested samples from two pregnancies that ended in miscarriage and from two infants with microcephaly who died shortly after birth. All four cases were from Brazil and were positive for Zika virus infection, indicating that the infants had become infected during pregnancy. Zika virus was present in the brain of the full term infants, and genetic sequence analyses show that the virus in all four cases was the same as the Zika virus strain currently circulating in Brazil. All four mothers reported having experienced a febrile rash illness during their pregnancies. Prevention strategies established by the MoH include aggressive efforts to eliminate mosquito breeding areas by removing standing water containers, as well as recommendations for personal protective measures, including preventing mosquito bites among pregnant women by applying insect repellents, wearing long-sleeved shirts and long pants, and using mosquito nets, as well as risk communication and community mobilization (3). Pregnant and lactating women can use all EPA-registered insect repellents according to the product label. This findings in this report are subject to at least four limitations. First, historical birth prevalence of microcephaly in Brazil, approximately 0.5 cases per 10,000 live births, calculated from birth certificates, was lower than expected estimates of 12 cases per 10,000 live births (9), which might indicate general underascertainment of microcephaly in Brazil. However, during the second half of 2015 alone, >3,000 suspected cases of microcephaly (approximately 20 cases per 10,000 live births) were reported to the MoH through the special notification protocol, suggesting a sharp increase in birth prevalence, although the special notification protocol might have also increased case reporting. Second, before the November MoH alert, although descriptions of congenital anomalies were reported, infant head circumference was not routinely recorded. Hence, it is possible that mild cases of microcephaly might not have been reported. Since the MoH alert and the attendant media coverage of the outbreak, surveillance for microcephaly and physician reporting of suspected cases have increased. Third, because Zika virus infection was not laboratory-confirmed in infants or their mothers, the history of a nonspecific rash illness during pregnancy is subject to recall bias and might have resulted in misclassification of potential Zika virus exposure. Finally, this report does not comment on other features characteristic of intrauterine infections such as hepatosplenomegaly, rash, and chorioretinitis, or on some features that have been reported in cases with presumed Zika including hearing loss, pale maculas, and swallowing difficulties. As of January 2016, there has been confirmed autochthonous transmission of Zika virus in 19 countries in the Americas outside Brazil (10). Although other countries in the Americas, including Uruguay and Argentina, have not reported autochthonous Zika virus, the presence of a competent vector, Ae. aegypti, in these countries poses a potential risk for further spread of the virus. Acknowledgments Patricia S. Sousa, Luciana S.S. Melo, Elza C.C.S. Barros, Brazilian Medical Genetics SocietyZika Embryopathy Task (SBGMZETF), Maranhao; Tirzah Lajus, SBGMZETF, Rio Grande do Norte; Bethania F.R. Ribeiro, SBGMZETF, Acre; Luiz Carlos Santana da Silva, Gloria Colonelli, SBGMZETF, Para; Larissa S.M. Bueno, Angelina X. Acosta, Joanna G.C. Meira, Manoel Sarno, SBGMZETF, Bahia; Liane Giuliani, SBGMZETF, Mato Grosso do Sul; Cynthia A.M.S. Pacheco, Claudia N. Barbosa, Sheila M. Pone, Patricia S. Correia, SBGMZETF, Rio de Janeiro; Antonio F. Moron, Amelia M.N. Santos, Ana Beatriz Alvarez Perez, Rayana E. Maia, Victor E.F. Ferraz, SBGMZETF, Sao Paulo; Tani M.S. Ranieri, Andre A. Silva, Fernanda S.L. Vianna, Alberto Abeche, Julio Cesar L. Leite, SBGMZETF, Rio Grande do Sul; Mariela Larrandaburu, SBGMZETF, Uruguay. Corresponding author: Lavinia Schuler-Faccini, lavinia.faccini@ufrgs.br, 55-51-9975-6770. 1Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; 2Hospital Infantil Albert Sabin, Fortaleza, CE, Brazil; 3Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil; 4Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; 5University of Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil; 6Hospital Infantil Juvencio Mattos, Maranhao, Brazil; 7Universidade Potiguar, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil; 8University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil; 9Secretaria de Estado da Saude do Espirito Santo, Brazil; 10Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo, Brazil; 11Centro Universitario do Estado do Para, Brazil; 12Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; 13Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre, Brazil; 14Brazilian Medical Genetics SocietyZika Embryopathy Task Force. TABLE. Main phenotypical findings of the first 35 patients enrolled in the Brazilian Society of Medical GeneticsZika Embryopathy Task Force Registry Brazil, 2015 Characteristic n (%) Reported maternal rash during pregnancy First trimester 21 (57) Second trimester 5 (14) Not reported 9 (26) Sex Female 21 (60) Male 14 (40) Gestational age at birth (34)* Term 31 (91) Preterm 3 (9) Weight 2,500g 26 (74) <2,500g 9 (26) Defect Head circumference >3 SD 25 (71) Head circumference >2 SD to 3 SD 10 (29) Excessive and redundant scalp skin 11 (31) Talipes (clubfoot) 5 (14) Arthrogryposis (contractures) 4 (11) Other defects (microphthalmia) 1 (3) Abnormal funduscopic examination (11) 2 (18) Neurologic examination Any abnormality 17 (49) Hypertonia/Spasticity 13 (37) Hyperreflexia 7 (20) Irritability 7 (20) Tremors 4 (11) Seizures 3 (9) Neuroimaging (27) Any abnormality 27 (100) Calcifications 20 (74) Ventricular enlargement 12 (44) Neuronal migration disorders (lissencephaly, pachygyria) 9 (33) Abbreviation: SD = standard deviations. Suggested citation for this article: Schuler-Faccini L, Ribeiro EM, Feitosa IM, et al. Possible Association Between Zika Virus Infection and Microcephaly Brazil, 2015. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2016;65:5962. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6503e2external icon. On January 26, 2016, this report was posted online as an MMWR Early Release. Please note: Updated guidance has been published. To view the update, please click here. J. Erin Staples, MD, PhD1; Eric J. Dziuban, MD2; Marc Fischer, MD1; Janet D. Cragan, MD3; Sonja A. Rasmussen, MD4; Michael J. Cannon, PhD3; Meghan T. Frey, MPH3; Christina M. Renquist, MPH3; Robert S. Lanciotti, PhD1; Jorge L. Munoz, PhD1; Ann M. Powers, PhD1; Margaret A. Honein, PhD3; Cynthia A. Moore, MD, PhD3 (View author affiliations) View suggested citation Article Metrics Altmetric: Metric Details References Related Materials pdf icon CDC has developed interim guidelines for health care providers in the United States who are caring for infants born to mothers who traveled to or resided in an area with Zika virus transmission during pregnancy. These guidelines include recommendations for the testing and management of these infants. Guidance is subject to change as more information becomes available; the latest information, including answers to commonly asked questions, can be found online (http://www.cdc.gov/zika). Pediatric health care providers should work closely with obstetric providers to identify infants whose mothers were potentially infected with Zika virus during pregnancy (based on travel to or residence in an area with Zika virus transmission [http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices]), and review fetal ultrasounds and maternal testing for Zika virus infection (see Interim Guidelines for Pregnant Women During a Zika Virus Outbreak*) (1). Zika virus testing is recommended for 1) infants with microcephaly or intracranial calcifications born to women who traveled to or resided in an area with Zika virus transmission while pregnant; or 2) infants born to mothers with positive or inconclusive test results for Zika virus infection. For infants with laboratory evidence of a possible congenital Zika virus infection, additional clinical evaluation and follow-up is recommended. Health care providers should contact their state or territorial health department to facilitate testing. As an arboviral disease, Zika virus disease is a nationally notifiable condition. Zika virus is a mosquito-borne flavivirus primarily transmitted by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes (2,3). Aedes albopictus mosquitoes also might transmit the virus. Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus mosquitoes are found throughout much of the Region of the Americas, including parts of the United States, and also transmit dengue and chikungunya viruses (4). Zika virus infections have also been documented through both intrauterine transmission resulting in congenital infection and intrapartum transmission from a viremic mother to her newborn (5,6). Zika virus RNA has been detected in breast milk, but Zika virus transmission through breastfeeding has not been documented (5). During outbreaks, humans are the primary host for Zika virus. An estimated 80% of persons infected with Zika virus are asymptomatic (2,7). Symptomatic disease generally is mild and characterized by acute onset of fever, maculopapular rash, arthralgia, or nonpurulent conjunctivitis. Symptoms typically last from several days to 1 week. Based on information from previous outbreaks, severe disease requiring hospitalization is uncommon and fatalities are rare (6,7). During the current outbreak in Brazil, Zika virus RNA has been identified in specimens (i.e., brain tissue, placenta, and amniotic fluid) from several infants with microcephaly and from fetal losses in women infected with Zika virus during pregnancy (6,8,9). The Brazil Ministry of Health has reported a marked increase from previous years in the number of infants born with microcephaly and intracranial calcifications in 2015, although it is not known how many of these cases are associated with Zika virus infection (6,811). Zika Virus Testing Considerations and Classification The diagnosis of Zika virus infection is made through molecular and serologic testing (2). This includes reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for viral RNA, and immunoglobulin (Ig) M ELISA and plaque reduction neutralization test (PRNT) for Zika virus antibodies. Because it is currently not known which type of testing most reliably establishes the diagnosis of congenital infection, CDC recommends both molecular and serologic testing of infants who are being evaluated for evidence of a congenital Zika virus infection (Box 1). No commercial tests for Zika virus are available; Zika virus testing is performed at CDC and some state and territorial health departments. Health care providers should contact their state or territorial health department to facilitate testing. Zika virus RT-PCR testing should be performed on serum specimens collected from the umbilical cord or directly from the infant within 2 days of birth (12). In addition, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) obtained for other studies, and frozen and fixed placenta obtained at delivery, should also be tested by RT-PCR. IgM ELISA for Zika virus and dengue virus should be performed on infant serum, infant CSF, and maternal serum; however, results of these assays can be falsely positive because of cross-reacting antibodies (9,12). PRNT can be performed to measure virus-specific neutralizing antibodies and to discriminate between cross-reacting antibodies from closely related flaviviruses (e.g., dengue or yellow fever viruses). Finally, immunohistochemical staining to detect Zika virus antigen on fixed placenta and umbilical cord tissues can be considered. An infant is considered congenitally infected if Zika virus RNA or viral antigen is identified in any of the samples submitted, including testing of amniotic fluid and testing of the placenta or umbilical cord. In addition, Zika virus IgM antibodies with confirmatory neutralizing antibody titers that are 4-fold higher than dengue virus neutralizing antibody titers in the infant serum or CSF constitute evidence of a congenital Zika virus infection. If Zika virus neutralizing antibody titers are <4-fold higher than dengue, results are considered inconclusive. Recommendations for Infants with Microcephaly or Intracranial Calcifications Detected Prenatally or at Birth Whose Mothers Were Potentially Infected with Zika Virus During Pregnancy For the purpose of evaluating an infant for possible congenital Zika virus infection, microcephaly is defined as occipitofrontal circumference less than the third percentile, based on standard growth charts (e.g., Fenton, Olsen, CDC, or WHO growth curves) for sex, age, and gestational age at birth (13). For a diagnosis of microcephaly to be made, the occipitofrontal circumference should be disproportionately small in comparison with the length of the infant and not explained by other etiologies (e.g., other congenital disorders). If an infants occipitofrontal circumference is equal to or greater than the third percentile but is notably disproportionate to the length of the infant, or if the infant has deficits that are related to the central nervous system, additional evaluation for Zika virus infection might be considered. When an infant is born with microcephaly or intracranial calcifications to a mother who was potentially infected with Zika virus during pregnancy, the infant should be tested for Zika virus infection (Figure 1) (Box 1). In addition, further clinical evaluation and laboratory testing is recommended for the infant (Box 2). The mother should also be tested for a Zika virus infection, if this testing has not already been performed during pregnancy. An ophthalmologic evaluation, including retinal examination, should occur during the first month of life, given reports of abnormal eye findings in infants with possible congenital Zika virus infection (11). For infants with any positive or inconclusive test findings for Zika virus infection, health care providers should report the case to the state, territorial, or local health department and assess the infant for possible long-term sequelae (Box 3). This includes a repeat hearing screen at age 6 months, even if the initial hearing screening test was normal, because of the potential for delayed hearing loss as has been described with other infections such as cytomegalovirus (14). For infants with microcephaly or intracranial calcifications who have negative results on all Zika virus tests performed, health care providers should evaluate for other possible etiologies and treat as indicated. Recommendations for Infants without Microcephaly or Intracranial Calcifications Whose Mothers Were Potentially Infected with Zika Virus During Pregnancy For an infant without microcephaly or intracranial calcifications born to a mother who was potentially infected with Zika virus during pregnancy, subsequent evaluation is dependent on results from maternal Zika virus testing (Figure 2). If the test results for the mother were negative for Zika virus infection, the infant should receive routine care (e.g., newborn metabolic and hearing screens). If the mother received positive or inconclusive results of tests for Zika virus infection, the infant should be tested for a possible congenital Zika virus infection (Box 1). If the results of all of the infants tests are negative for evidence of Zika virus infection, then no further Zika virus testing and evaluation is recommended. If any of the infants samples test positive or inconclusive, then the infant should undergo further clinical evaluation (Box 2). The infant should also be followed to assess for possible long-term sequelae (Box 3), and the infants case should be reported to the state, territorial, or local health department. Infant follow-up should include a cranial ultrasound to assess for subclinical findings, unless prenatal ultrasound results from the third trimester demonstrated no abnormalities of the brain. Ophthalmologic examination and a repeat hearing screen are also recommended, as previously described for infants with microcephaly or intracranial calcifications. Developmental monitoring and screening during the first year of life is recommended for all children with congenital Zika virus infection. If the mother has not undergone any previous testing for Zika virus infection during pregnancy, CDC recommends that she receive testing only if she reported symptoms consistent with Zika virus disease during or within 2 weeks of any time spent in an area with ongoing Zika virus transmission while she was pregnant (1,15). If the mother has any positive or inconclusive findings from tests for Zika virus infection, then the infant should undergo testing for evidence of a congenital Zika virus infection (Box 1). If the mother has not received any previous testing for Zika virus, and did not report clinical illness consistent with Zika virus disease during pregnancy, no further testing of the mother or infant is recommended (Figure 2). Management and Prevention of Congenital Zika Virus Infections No specific antiviral treatment is available for Zika virus infections and no vaccine against Zika virus is available (2). Treatment of congenital Zika virus infection is supportive and should address specific medical and neurodevelopmental issues for the infants particular needs; investigations are ongoing to better understand what services will be most effective for these children as they grow (16). Mothers are encouraged to breastfeed infants even in areas where Zika virus is found, as available evidence indicates the benefits of breastfeeding outweigh any theoretical risks associated with Zika virus infection transmission through breast milk (5,17). The only way to prevent congenital Zika virus infection is to prevent maternal infection, either by avoiding areas where Zika virus transmission is ongoing or strictly following steps to avoid mosquito bites (15,18). Mosquito-bite prevention includes using air conditioning or window and door screens when indoors, wearing long sleeves and pants, using permethrin-treated clothing and gear, and using insect repellents. When used according to the product label, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-registered insect repellents are safe for pregnant women (18). Corresponding author: Cynthia Moore, ZikaMCH@cdc.gov, 4046393286. 1Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, CDC; 2Division of Human Development and Disability, National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, CDC; 3Division of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, CDC; 4Division of Public Health Information Dissemination, Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services, CDC. BOX 1. Recommended Zika virus laboratory testing for infants when indicated* Test infant serum for Zika virus RNA, Zika virus immunoglobulin (Ig) M and neutralizing antibodies, and dengue virus IgM and neutralizing antibodies. The initial sample should be collected either from the umbilical cord or directly from the infant within 2 days of birth, if possible. If cerebrospinal fluid is obtained for other studies, test for Zika virus RNA, Zika virus IgM and neutralizing antibodies, and dengue virus IgM and neutralizing antibodies. Consider histopathologic evaluation of the placenta and umbilical cord with Zika virus immunohistochemical staining on fixed tissue and Zika virus RT-PCR on fixed and frozen tissue. If not already performed during pregnancy, test mothers serum for Zika virus IgM and neutralizing antibodies, and dengue virus IgM and neutralizing antibodies. *Indications for testing include 1) infants with microcephaly or intracranial calcifications born to women who traveled to or resided in an area with Zika virus transmission while pregnant, or 2) infants born to mothers with positive or inconclusive test results for Zika virus infection. FIGURE 1. Interim guidelines for the evaluation and testing of infants with microcephaly* or intracranial calcifications whose mothers traveled to or resided in an area with Zika virus transmission during pregnancy * Microcephaly defined as occipitofrontal circumference less than the third percentile for gestational age and sex not explained by other etiologies Areas with Zika virus transmission are listed on CDCs webpage. http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices. Laboratory evidence of Zika virus infection includes 1) detectable Zika virus, Zika virus RNA, or Zika virus antigen in any clinical sample, or 2) positive Zika virus immunoglobulin M with confirmatory neutralizing antibody titers that are =4-fold higher than dengue virus neutralizing antibody titers in serum or cerebrospinal fluid. Testing would be considered inconclusive if Zika virus neutralizing antibody titers are <4-fold higher than dengue virus neutralizing antibody titers. BOX 2. Recommended clinical evaluation and laboratory testing for infants with possible congenital Zika virus infection For all infants with possible congenital Zika virus infection, perform the following: Comprehensive physical examination, including careful measurement of the occipitofrontal circumference, length, weight, and assessment of gestational age. Evaluation for neurologic abnormalities, dysmorphic features, splenomegaly, hepatomegaly, and rash or other skin lesions. Full body photographs and any rash, skin lesions, or dysmorphic features should be documented. If an abnormality is noted, consultation with an appropriate specialist is recommended. Cranial ultrasound, unless prenatal ultrasound results from third trimester demonstrated no abnormalities of the brain. Evaluation of hearing by evoked otoacoustic emissions testing or auditory brainstem response testing, either before discharge from the hospital or within 1 month after birth. Infants with abnormal initial hearing screens should be referred to an audiologist for further evaluation. Ophthalmologic evaluation, including examination of the retina, either before discharge from the hospital or within 1 month after birth. Infants with abnormal initial eye evaluation should be referred to a pediatric ophthalmologist for further evaluation. Other evaluations specific to the infants clinical presentation. For infants with microcephaly or intracranial calcifications, additional evaluation includes the following: Consultation with a clinical geneticist or dysmorphologist. Consultation with a pediatric neurologist to determine appropriate brain imaging and additional evaluation (e.g., ultrasound, computerized tomography scan, magnetic resonance imaging, and electroencephalogram). Testing for other congenital infections such as syphilis, toxoplasmosis, rubella, cytomegalovirus infection, lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus infection, and herpes simplex virus infections. Consider consulting a pediatric infectious disease specialist. Complete blood count, platelet count, and liver function and enzyme tests, including alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, and bilirubin. Consideration of genetic and other teratogenic causes based on additional congenital anomalies that are identified through clinical examination and imaging studies. BOX 3. Recommended long-term follow-up for infants with possible congenital Zika virus infection Report case to state, territorial, or local health department and monitor for additional guidance as it is released. Conduct additional hearing screen at age 6 months, plus any appropriate follow-up of hearing abnormalities detected through newborn hearing screening. Carefully evaluate occipitofrontal circumference and developmental characteristics and milestones throughout the first year of life, with use of appropriate consultations with medical specialists (e.g., pediatric neurology, developmental and behavioral pediatrics, physical and speech therapy). FIGURE 2. Interim guidelines for the evaluation and testing of infants without microcephaly* or intracranial calcifications whose mothers traveled to or resided in an area with Zika virus transmission during pregnancy,,** * Microcephaly defined as occipitofrontal circumference less than the third percentile for gestational age and sex not explained by other etiologies Areas with Zika virus transmission are listed on CDCs webpage. http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices. Laboratory evidence of a Zika virus infection includes 1) detectable Zika virus, Zika virus RNA, or Zika virus antigen in any clinical sample, or 2) positive Zika virus Immunoglobulin M (IgM) with confirmatory neutralizing antibody titers that are =4-fold higher than dengue virus neutralizing antibody titers in serum or cerebrospinal fluid. Testing would be considered inconclusive if Zika virus neutralizing antibody titers are <4-fold higher than dengue virus neutralizing antibody titers. If mother reported clinical illness consistent with Zika virus disease during pregnancy and testing is indicated, perform Zika virus reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction testing on serum specimen collected =7 days after illness onset when possible. Perform Zika and dengue virus IgM and neutralizing antibodies on serum specimens collected =4 days after illness onset. ** Clinical illness is consistent with Zika virus disease if two or more symptoms (including acute onset of fever, maculopapular rash, arthralgia, or conjunctivitis) are present during or within 2 weeks of any time spent in an area with ongoing Zika virus transmission. Suggested citation for this article: Staples JE, Dziuban EJ, Fischer M, et al. Interim Guidelines for the Evaluation and Testing of Infants with Possible Congenital Zika Virus Infection United States, 2016. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2016;65:6367. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6503e3external icon. JK Cement halts production from Bagalkot unit, India 28 January 2016 JK Cement Works, in Bagalkot in Karnataka, has stopped production due to the damage caused by the roof of the clinker silo suddenly caving in, the company told the exchanges yesterday. To ensure safety and avoid collateral damage, the company has temporarily stopped clinker extraction and cement production at the unit, it said. Cement available in depots will serve the market for the time being and an alternative arrangement for operation of kiln has been initiated, which is expected to normalise clinker and cement production from the unit within 15 days, JK Cement said. "However, restoration of clinker silo is expected to take six months' time," it added. Published under Parade steps off Audio Article For the first time since 2019, marching bands, classic cars, dance troupes, scouts and politicians made their way along Midlothian Turnpike for the annual Midlothian Day Parade on Saturday, Oct.... Cheryl Mostowski of Algonquin feels misled by her new insurance company after she found out in January 2016 that it's dropping her doctor from its network. (John Konstantaras / Chicago Tribune) Some Chicago-area consumers were surprised to learn this month that insurance companies can at any time limit their access to doctors and hospitals in health plans. Land of Lincoln Health announced last week on its website that it will drop the University of Chicago's top-flight medical center from its network as of March 1, after the two sides couldn't agree to terms on reimbursement rates. Advertisement The removal blindsided people who began coverage with the Chicago-based insurer Jan. 1. Customers thought their U. of C. doctors would be covered all year long because the doctors were listed in Land of Lincoln's network directory when the customers bought plans during open enrollment in the public marketplace under the Affordable Care Act. Trimming networks after enrollment season ends is not uncommon in Illinois and other states, highlighting glaring holes in state insurance regulations, consumer advocates say. In Illinois, rules don't prohibit health insurers from changing their networks after people enroll in either employer-sponsored or marketplace plans, forcing consumers to find new doctors or pay more of the bill if they receive care outside their network. Advertisement "There aren't a lot of standards across the states on how to handle a provider dropping out of a plan," said Claire McAndrew, private insurance program director at Families USA, a national health care consumer advocacy group. "But that doesn't mean states can't put standards in place." Land of Lincoln customers still have time to switch insurance carriers on or before Jan. 31, the end of enrollment season under the Affordable Care Act. But their choices are limited. The University of Chicago's hospital and physicians group are in-network with only two other marketplace-based PPO plans, Coventry Health Care of Illinois and Harken Health. Concerns about the availability of health care providers in medical plans have been around since before the Affordable Care Act. But they are amplified since adoption of the law in 2010 because limited networks are a feature of many insurance policies offered in the public marketplaces. Such "narrow networks," consumers say, restrict their choices for specialized care for themselves and their children. The ACA included a provision requiring insurers to maintain an "adequate network," one large enough to ensure patients have access to a sufficiently broad range of providers and can get appointments within a reasonable time. Health plans are also required to check their provider directories at least once a month for accuracy. But there's no requirement that a consumer be guaranteed a specific provider throughout the year. Since the dawn of managed care, insurers have enjoyed great freedom in devising networks as a means of controlling costs or coordinating health care services. Last year, Humana dropped University of Chicago Medicine from its network, ending a 20-year relationship. In 2013, UnitedHealthcare dropped thousands of doctors in Connecticut and nine other states from its Medicare networks. Network participation is a two-way street between insurers and providers. Negotiating and establishing a network relationship is not a one-time event but rather an ongoing and continuous effort. Both parties have financial incentives to maintain a stable relationship once one has been established. Conflicts that result in contract terminations can harm their reputations. Even consumer advocates agree that balancing the interests of insurers, providers and consumers is tricky for policymakers. States remain the primary regulators of insurance, despite new standards in the Affordable Care Act. Advertisement "What insurers will tell you is that providers come in and out of their networks throughout the year, so states shouldn't require them to be locked in to a specific provider for a full calendar year," said Sabrina Corlette, consumer advocate and professor at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute. But when a large health system is dropped from a network during the year, consumers feel misled. Cheryl Mostowski, 61, of suburban Algonquin said she bought a Land of Lincoln plan so she could go to the University of Chicago. She sees specialists at the Hyde Park-based medical center to treat an autoimmune disease. "They're the ones who specialize in systemic lupus," Mostowski said. "When I go to doctors in the suburbs, they don't have a clue." Judging by social media, customers are more upset at Land of Lincoln than at the University of Chicago for the breakdown in contract negotiations. One wrote on the insurer's Facebook page, "You will not remain in business very long by treating customers in this manner." Land of Lincoln, a federally funded startup, faces financial difficulties after millions of dollars in promised government aid wasn't delivered. In response to questions about changes in its network, company spokesman Dennis O'Sullivan said the insurer "is constantly working to expand its network of providers and also keep premiums competitive. As a result, networks can sometimes change, as health care provider contracts are constantly being negotiated for the most competitive rates for services provided." Land of Lincoln members who are undergoing treatment may be eligible, under state law, to continue care at the University of Chicago at in-network rates for up to 90 days. Any pregnant woman in her second or third trimester, for instance, may be allowed to deliver at the medical center, the insurance company said. Advertisement The Illinois Insurance Department is reviewing Land of Lincoln's decision to drop the University of Chicago from its network to ensure compliance with network adequacy regulations as well as rules that address consumer "misinformation," spokeswoman Alissandra Calderon said. The department's acting director, Anne Melissa Dowling, declined to be interviewed. A few states have moved to protect consumers from financial harm when providers abruptly leave networks or insurance companies inaccurately list doctors in their directories who no longer accept coverage. In Washington state, for instance, new rules went into effect this year that require insurers to notify the insurance department of a potential contract termination with a provider that could affect access to care. McAndrew of Families USA applauded the new state regulations. "It can be very challenging for consumers when insurance companies and providers are struggling over issues such as reimbursement rates," she said. "Consumers usually are not privy to such information." asachdev@tribpub.com Twitter @ameetsachdev Mondelez International's decision to lay off 600 workers at its Chicago bakery was "driven by the desire to eliminate its largest workforce population made up of people of color and those over age 40," according to a union complaint filed Thursday with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. This accusation of discrimination filed by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers is the latest counterpunch from the largest union at the Southwest Side plant, where Oreo cookies and other snacks have been made for decades. The union has vowed to fight the looming job cuts in advance of negotiations for a new contract and filed a lawsuit last week in federal court against the company. The labor contract expires Feb. 29. Advertisement "No other group of employees in the (Mondelez) production system has received this treatment or had demands placed on them to cover capital expenditures to save their jobs," Jethro Head, international vice president of the BCTGM, said in a statement. "Not coincidentally no other group of employees has the numbers of employees of color and over age 40 as the South Kedzie Plant location." Mondelez spokeswoman Laurie Guzzinati said in an email that the company had not "been served with a charge and, as such, we're not in a position to comment on the substance or merit." Advertisement Mondelez, a global snack food manufacturer with facilities in China, Bahrain and India among other countries, would save about $46 million per year by upgrading a facility in Mexico rather than the Chicago bakery, executives have said. Some production lines and about 600 jobs would remain in Chicago. In May, Mondelez met with its unions to entertain proposals for how to close that $46 million gap in Chicago, which the bakers' union contends was unfair and unreasonable. In its news release Thursday, the union alleges that Mondelez's decision singled out the Chicago workforce because it's largely non-white and over 40. Similar upgrades at plants in New Jersey and Virginia didn't call for "concessions," the union said. In the lawsuit filed last week, the bakers' union alleged that moving the production to Mexico violated various clauses in the collective bargaining agreement. Since the layoffs were announced, Mondelez has been filling jobs within the bargaining unit at the bakery with contracted nonunion workers in a deliberate attempt to weaken the union, the lawsuit said. Mondelez has not commented on the suit. Last week, 277 workers at the Chicago bakery received the 60-day layoff notice required by state law. The remaining cuts are expected later in the year. gtrotter@tribpub.com Twitter @GregTrotterTrib Shorts Brewing, which has a brewpub in Bellaire, Mich., above, and production facility in Elk Rapids, will begin selling its beers in Illinois, by mid-March, if not sooner, the company says. (Michael Murphy IV) Short's Brewing Co. has long pledged never to sell beer outside its home state of Michigan, and the pledge has been so fervent as to include a sticker for sale on the Short's website declaring, "Michigan Only, Michigan Forever" across an outline of the Mitten State. But an increasingly competitive craft beer landscape has led the Bellaire, Mich.-based brewery to announce that it will start distributing beer and cider in Chicago during the coming months. Advertisement After announcing on its website Thursday that Short's would sell beer outside of Michigan, brewery founder and CEO Joe Short confirmed during a phone call that the Chicago area, along with Pennsylvania, will get the first shipments of Short's. Short said his company is still choosing a Chicago distributor, but that the beer is likely to arrive by mid-March, if not sooner. Advertisement The Chicago area initially will receive three of the Short's Brewing's year-round offerings: Huma Lupa Licious (an India pale ale), Soft Parade (a fruit rye beer) and Space Rock (a pale ale). (Michael Murphy IV) "When we started talking about this, it was sentimental and difficult for us to wrap our heads around," Short said. "But the more we talked about it, the more it made sense, especially as flush as the industry is." With what seems to be a decent number of Chicagoans already heading to southwest Michigan to buy his beer, Chicago was an obvious place to begin, he said. Though the craft beer boom has also flooded Chicago's shelves, Short said he won't need to sell a lot of beer here to make distribution worthwhile. Short's made nearly 40,000 barrels of beer last year, but still has the capacity to make 10,000 to 15,000 more. That's the beer that will start heading across state lines. "It'll be interesting to see how it goes," Short said. "We have a lot of Chicagoans who make their way to Michigan already, and we know we have a pretty decent fan base there. But we'll see how things go and if it's sustainable." Short's Chief Financial Officer Brian Beckwith said the Chicago area will initially receive three of the brewery's year-round offerings: Huma Lupa Licious (an India pale ale), Soft Parade (a fruit rye beer) and Space Rock (a pale ale). Short's also began making cider last year under the name Starcut, and will distribute two of those in Chicago: Pulsar ("a semi-dry cider with soft fruit and white wine-like aromas," according to the Starcut website) and Octorock ("a semi-sweet cider with delicate fruit and yeast aromas"). Other year-round Short's beers, such as Bellaire Brown, and specialty and seasonal beers, may also ultimately get Chicago distribution, Beckwith said. Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. > Beckwith said the craft beer industry has grown so dramatically in Michigan that restricting Short's distribution to its home state as New Glarus has done in Wisconsin was no longer viable. The brewery had 24 percent growth in 2015, but the figure was about 40 percent at the beginning of the year and down to about 15 percent by the end of the year. "When it slowed, we started to analyze the Michigan market and ask ourselves about saturation," Beckwith said. Short's Brewing has always vowed to keep its beer within its home state of Michigan. But now facing saturation, Short's has announced it will send beer to Chicago. "We've always thought Michigan could consume all the beer we could create, but in the last couple of years so many breweries have opened and Michigan has such a vibrant scene. The question became, did we want to make less beer or go into more markets?" Advertisement The answer was to forget about that sticker, and enter new markets. Said Short: "Consumers are looking for the new best thing, and we want to be the new best thing in new markets." jbnoel@tribpub.com Twitter @joshbnoel "What is significant is that indeed the area he's been in charge of has always been part of the DNA of the Art Institute. Equally important is his having an understanding and interest in the full breadth of our encyclopedic collection, particularly Asia, as is the desire to become more global in our representation of modern and contemporary art." "They might say, 'Yes please, that's kind of you,' and then when the tea arrives they actually don't want the tea at all. Sure, that's kind of annoying as you've gone to all the effort of making the tea, but they remain under no obligation to drink the tea. They did want tea, now they don't. Some people change their mind in the time it takes to boil that kettle, brew the tea and add the milk. And it's OK for people to change their mind, and you are still not entitled to watch them drink it." Taking a pre-baby trip has become a tradition for some expectant moms. But a new health risk, the Zika virus, has some of them thinking twice. (quintanilla / Getty) Pregnant with her second child, Stephanie Coad feels much more at ease about the things that made her nervous the first time around. She drinks the occasional glass of wine (though always with a meal). She'll eat some types of lunch meat. She orders sushi at restaurants that she trusts. Advertisement But step on a plane bound for Puerto Rico? No way. Coad, who is five months pregnant, canceled a "babymoon" trip to San Juan planned for early February after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a warning about the Zika virus, which is carried by mosquitoes and believed to be linked to significant birth defects.The World Health Organization will hold an emergency meeting next week to address the virus, which officials said is "spreading explosively" in the Americas. Advertisement Puerto Rico is among the locations that the CDC has warned pregnant women to avoid, along with Mexico, Samoa, Cape Verde and countries in Central America, South America and the Caribbean. "It's just too big of a risk for not enough of a payoff," Coad, 31, said. "The stress that you might get this horrible virus that might affect your unborn child just wouldn't make it fun anymore." Coad, who lives in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood, first heard about the virus from her mother, who called immediately after a report on the national television news in mid-January. Coad presumed that her mother was overreacting, and pledged to consult her doctor and make a rational decision. But when the CDC issued its advisory the next day, Coad didn't even bother checking in with her doctor. The CDC was clear: Pregnant women should "consider postponing travel to any area where Zika virus transmission is ongoing" due to the possibility of microcephaly, a birth defect in which a fetus' head and brain do not grow to full size. The next day, Coad canceled the six-night trip she had planned to take with her husband and 2-year-old daughter. Canceled "babymoons" appear to be on the rise as word spreads about Zika and pregnant women think twice about what was intended to be a relaxing warm weather escape before life becomes profoundly hectic. Coad said a pregnant friend in Denver pulled the plug on a trip to Puerto Vallarta, and Karen Howland, manager of business development for Lake Shore Travel in Glencoe, said her agency has had "a few" cancellations due to Zika virus. She speculates that she would have seen even more if travel insurance covered CDC health warnings. "We will certainly be hesitant to recommend these areas for our honeymooners and young singles in child bearing years when planning upcoming trips," Howland said. Cases of Zika virus have already been confirmed in residents of Illinois, Florida, Virginia, Arkansas, Hawaii and Texas who have traveled to affected countries. At least one baby was born in Hawaii with signs of microcephaly, and two of the people who have tested positive in Illinois have been pregnant women, according to the state Department of Public Health. In addition to the CDC, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has also recommended that pregnant women avoid traveling to countries affected by Zika virus. When such travel can't be avoided, women are urged to try to prevent mosquito bites by using repellent with DEET and wearing long pants, long-sleeved shirts and shoes and socks when outside. Advertisement The primary issue, said Jeff Ecker, chair of ACOG's Obstetric Practice Committee and chief of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Massachusetts General Hospital, is how little is known about the association between Zika and microcephaly. Though there appears to be a connection, it has not yet been proved; further, it is unclear what percentage of women exposed to Zika wind up with affected pregnancies. "In retrospect, when we have better data, we may know the risk was vanishingly small or in retrospect, maybe people should have been even more worried," he said. "It's the absence of data that makes it difficult." In the meantime, pregnant women who can avoid traveling to countries with Zika should undoubtedly do so, he said. The possible threat emphasis on the word "possible" is not just another prohibition along the lines of soft cheese or sushi (and in fact, Ecker said he doesn't counsel his patients to avoid sushi during pregnancy). "It's not equivalent at all," he said. "You're talking about different outcomes and data." Zika is not a new virus, said Robert Amler, a former CDC investigator and the vice president and dean of the School of Health Sciences and Practice at New York Medical College in Valhalla, N.Y. For a healthy nonpregnant adult, the worst outcome is usually a fever, rash, red eyes and joint pain. "It doesn't seem to be a serious illness," Amler said. "Most people who get it don't even know they have it." Advertisement But fueled by record numbers of Zika and microcephaly cases, especially in Brazil, the CDC has "greatly ramped up its attention" to the current outbreak, he said. "It'll take a while to investigate and tease these things out," Amler said. "Meanwhile, the prudent thing is to be cautious and be careful." Summer Hull, founder of family travel blog mommypoints.com, said word is spreading quickly about Zika on parenting and pregnancy web sites. In the midst of "babymoon" season and with several popular "babymoon" destinations affected by Zika outbreaks the demand for information is growing, she said. A blog post about Zika has been her most popular article for more than a week. "So many things about pregnancy get hyped or overhyped, but this one hasn't registered on everyone's radar yet," she said. "I think this is the beginning of an upward trajectory." Hull said many pregnant women discussing Zika online haven't hesitated to cancel trips. The primary hurdle is the disappointment of skipping a warm weather getaway and money. "There's a barrier of cancellation fees," she said. "Ultimately, most people who are worried will cancel, but it's harder to pull the plug when you're going to be out hundreds or thousands of dollars." Advertisement Coad was fortunate that the CDC recommendation came one day before the deadline to get back most of the money she had spent on a condominium rental on VRBO.com more than $2,000. American Airlines agreed to refund her three $360 plane tickets, but minus a $200 penalty per ticket. With Puerto Rico off her list, Coad immediately went to work on finding another "babymoon." She and her husband briefly considered Hawaii, but opted instead to stay close to home: a day at the Shedd Aquarium, a visit to Navy Pier and a couple of nights in Lake Geneva, Wis. "A little bit of this and that," Coad said. "We'll still get our vacation, but we won't really go anywhere." The best thing, she said, about not going anywhere: There won't be any mosquitoes. jbnoel@tribpub.com Twitter @joshbnoel "Then I was the criminal courts reporter of the Chicago Tribune during the Nuccio trial," Judge said. "I said it was crazy and it was. You had all that going on with the convention, and the protests and in the middle of it all was this case. Nuccio showed up for trial wearing his gun. That's how it began." Police officers stand outside a home where a man was shot by police after they responded to a domestic disturbance Sept. 25, 2015, on the 900 block of North Central Park Avenue in Chicago. (Brian Nguyen / Chicago Tribune) A Chicago police officer fatally shot an unarmed, mentally disturbed man in front of his mother after she summoned officers to her Humboldt Park home last year for help because her son had stopped taking his medication, according to a wrongful-death lawsuit filed in federal court. Police have said an officer shot 33-year-old James Anderson on the evening of Sept. 25 after he lunged at officers with a "knifelike" object in his hand. Before the shooting, other officers had tried to subdue Anderson with a Taser, but he continued to advance in a threatening manner, police said at the time. Advertisement But in a lawsuit filed Friday, Anderson's mother, Pamela, said her son was unarmed and had made no threatening moves before he was shot seven times. According to the suit, Pamela Anderson called police to her home in the 900 block of North Central Park Avenue because her son had stopped taking his medication for a "mild mental illness" and she wanted them to escort him to a hospital, as police had done in the past. She explained that her son was unarmed and not violent, and when officers arrived she was waiting on the porch to let them know he was in his first-floor bedroom listening to music, the suit alleges. Advertisement Still, the lawsuit alleges, one officer drew his gun, walked to the bedroom and knocked on the door twice. The officer then positioned himself in a shooting position against the rear door of the kitchen, according to the suit. When Anderson emerged from his bedroom, he was "suddenly and without warning" shot seven times in front of his mother, the suit says. Anderson was pronounced dead a short time later at Mount Sinai Hospital. After the shooting, Pamela Anderson told a WBBM-Ch. 2 news reporter that her "whole kitchen was lit up from (the officer) shooting." "I had to run to my room for cover to keep them from shooting me," she said. The account given in the suit differs sharply from statements given by police immediately after the shooting. At the time, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said officers had responded to a domestic disturbance at the residence. They encountered a group of adults and saw a man in the group holding a "knifelike object" in his hand who refused orders to drop the weapon, he said. An officer twice tried to use a Taser on the man, but the device's prongs didn't reach him, he said. The officers again ordered the man to drop the object. When he did not, one of the officers shot him at least once , Guglielmi said Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. > Guglielmi said a "box cutter-like" object was found at the scene. Advertisement Chicago police said in a statement Wednesday that the "use of force" in the case remains under investigation by the Independent Police Review Authority, which probes all police shootings. "Individuals will be held accountable should the investigation reveal any violation of departmental policies or procedures," the statement said. In addition to excessive force, the lawsuit alleges that the Chicago Police Department operates under a code of silence that routinely covers up the misconduct of officers and allows them to act without fear of discipline. Fred Truglio, the attorney representing Anderson, did not return calls seeking comment Wednesday. jmeisner@tribpub.com Twitter @jmetr22b The Rev. Larry Dowling, third from left, of St. Agatha Catholic Church says a prayer with Loyola University students, from left, Lilly Osbourne, Melinda Bunnage, Michael Fasullo and Sofia Sturla after a news conference Jan. 25, 2016, on the sidewalk near Loyola University in Chicago. The four students will defend their actions of support for unionized campus dining hall workers before entering a disciplinary hearing with the university administration Tuesday. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune) On the same day nontenured faculty members at Loyola University Chicago elected to form a union, the Roman Catholic university's student government faced sanctions for a demonstration of solidarity with dining hall workers trying to negotiate a new union contract. The four students who organized the demonstration have been found not responsible for allegations of disruption and harassment. But the student government, which was listed on forms for the scheduled demonstration, has been found responsible for disruption. Advertisement "The organization will receive educational and developmental sanctions to help strengthen their internal processes and procedures, but they will not be placed on probation of any kind," said university spokeswoman Kristin Trehearne Lane, adding that the group has three days to appeal the ruling. The sanctions stem from a Nov. 20 demonstration that started on a lawn and ended inside a dining hall, where students confronted a supervisor during business hours to express their solidarity with employees. Advertisement Organizer Lillian Osborne, a member of the student government's executive committee, said that after explaining their rationale to a manager for Aramark, the food service company negotiating with workers, students cheered and peacefully disbanded. The student government later received word that as an organization it faced allegations of harassment and disruption, even though many of its members didn't participate in the demonstration. Michael Fasullo, the student government president, was censured for helping organize the protest and resigned. Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. > "I pledged to fight for the empowerment of students and betterment of our Loyola community," Fasullo wrote in his resignation letter. "Trying to fulfill this pledge has been difficult. Though our university has made strides, our campus remains entrenched in a culture that often neglects student voice, community concerns and worker rights." Fasullo and other student organizers were not immediately available to comment Wednesday. Lane said the school did not disapprove of the students' demonstration or its subject matter, but questioned the disruption the protest might have caused. "As a Jesuit, Catholic university, we strongly believe in, and welcome, debate and differing views on campus," Lane said. "We support students who express their views through respectful and responsible means." In December, Loyola dismissed student conduct charges against three students who organized an unsanctioned protest on campus in solidarity with student demonstrations at the University of Missouri. The private university has considered revising a demonstration policy that requires students to obtain approval before holding a demonstration anywhere on campus other than a particular lawn. mbrachear@tribpub.com Advertisement Twitter @TribSeeker Chicago has begun the year with the most murders since 2002, according to data compiled by the Tribune and the Chicago Police Department. With the fatal beating of a student Thursday on the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology, the city has seen at least 47 violent deaths so far this month, data show. Two of those deaths teens shot to death while robbing a liquor store are not being listed as murders because the shooting was considered justified by police. That so far brings the official total of deaths this year classified by police as murders to 45, matching the total for all of January 2002. Monthly breakdowns of violent crime in the city are readily available only to 2001. With three days left in the month, including a weekend of mild weather, the number of murders may rise well above 45. Since 2001, murders in the first month of other years have reached 40 or more four other times: 45 in 2002, 42 in 2001, 41 in 2013 and 40 in 2012, according to data provided by police. More than 500 people were killed in 2012, but the number dropped significantly the next year. Police departments throughout the country count what they consider to be murders for the purpose of submitting crime data for the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports. Although any intentional killing of one person by another is considered a homicide, and courts traditionally determine whether a homicide is a murder, the FBI and most police departments classify intentional, unlawful killings as murders for the purpose of compiling statistics. Advertisement Interim police Superintendent John Escalante has blamed gang disputes for the spike in violence so far this year. He has noted that the conflicts often escalate through social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, where gang members threaten and taunt each other. Some law enforcement officials have mentioned the "Ferguson effect," a supposed tendency by some officers to second-guess themselves for fear of getting caught doing something perceived as criminal. The term was coined after the 2014 killing of an unarmed African-American teen by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., sparked national protests. But criminologists have said there's no empirical proof that this is contributing to a rise in Chicago's violence. Escalante has denied that officers are being less proactive on the streets. The department reports that there has been a 29 percent increase in murder arrests so far this year, a 12 percent increase in robbery arrests and a 9 percent increase in criminal sexual assault arrests. The interim superintendent has temporarily moved 380 officers from foot patrols and 70 of their supervisors to vehicle patrols to enhance visibility in crime-plagued neighborhoods, police officials have said. The shift from foot patrols comes at a time when the department is being investigated by the U.S. Justice Department for the way its officers handle police-involved shootings and how they interact with citizens, particularly in African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods. The patrols were initially put in place in 2013 by former Superintendent Garry McCarthy to give graduates of the police academy more positive interactions with those people in crime-plagued communities. In January, the department also started going on missions with Cook County sheriff's officers on the West Side to combat gang violence and confiscate illegal guns. In addition, Escalante has ordered the department's 22 district commanders to increase home visits to known gang members in the neighborhoods they oversee. At an event on Thursday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel was asked by a reporter whether the police are being less aggressive on the streets because of the release of dashboard camera video showing Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times, killing him. "Those responsible for the shootings are the gangbangers. Those responsible for the shootings are the illegal guns that are coming into the streets of the city of Chicago in the hands of gangbangers," Emanuel said. "And there's not comprehensive gun legislation throughout the state that would actually stop that. "So the people responsible are not the police officers. I put the onus and responsibilities on the gangbangers who are pulling the triggers. They don't get a pass on accountability." SPRINGFIELD Money for community colleges and scholarships for low-income students became the latest front in the political battle at the Capitol, as Democrats on Thursday pushed through a measure to free up money, but Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner vowed to veto it. This time, the election-year political maneuvering could cut against Rauner, as Democrats will be able to tell the public they tried to pry loose education money tied up in the state budget impasse, but the governor said no. Rauner has largely opposed the piecemeal approach to getting a budget, arguing it'll only add to the growing pile of bills Illinois can't pay. Advertisement The funds are tied up because the state hasn't had a full budget since July 1. Rauner wants ruling Democrats to approve his pro-business, union-weakening agenda in return for a budget and potential tax hike to help the state's shaky finances. Around 90 percent of state spending is still going out the door through a patchwork of laws and court orders. Democrats have been passing smaller spending plans, and that was the case Thursday as the General Assembly considered a measure to provide $721 million for community colleges and scholarships for low-income students called Monetary Award Program, or MAP, grants. Advertisement Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly said the governor will veto the bill when it reaches his desk. Ahead of the vote, Rauner's budget chief sent a memo to lawmakers warning that if the measure were to become law, it would force the comptroller to put off payments for other services. Democrats were not deterred, quickly passing the bill in both the House and Senate. Two Democrats voted against the bill, Rep. Scott Drury of Highwood and Rep. Jack Franks of Marengo. Eight Republicans voted "present," a way to avoid looking like they voted against funding for schools without bucking Rauner. Democrats said that while a complete budget was preferable, it was their responsibility to put students first while colleges and universities struggle to make ends meet as they enter an eighth month without financial help from the state. Most schools were able to cover the cost of the scholarships for low-income students during the fall semester, but many have said they would be unable to do so this spring. On average, students who qualify receive about $2,782 a year. "This is not ideal," said sponsoring Rep. Kelly Burke, D-Evergreen Park. "We've made a commitment to our students and our universities that these grants be funded. I wish this were a more comprehensive bill. But we're trying to narrow this down to areas, at least in theory, where we were close to being on the same page." Republicans countered that it was a hollow gesture, saying the state does not have enough money in its checkbook to cover the costs and noting the bill did not funnel operating money to universities like Chicago State, which has warned it may no longer be able to cover payroll beginning in March. "This is an opportunity for some people to go back home and say, 'Hey, we passed this bill for $721 million for you, just don't look under the hood and realize that we don't actually have $721 million,'" said Sen. Matt Murphy, R-Palatine. "It's an empty gesture without the money to back it up." Republicans instead argued in favor of a different bill that would provide $1.6 billion for higher education but also would give Rauner broad control to cut spending and shift around dollars as he sees fit. Democrats balked at the suggestion, with Rep. Lou Lang of Skokie saying it was akin to giving Rauner "imperial" powers. "Many who are going to say we need a complete budget are perfectly willing to give the governor of the state of Illinois unprecedented and kinglike powers to play around with the budget any way he wishes," Lang said. "So stop the silliness about you want a full-and-complete budget. It's a bunch of nonsense and you know it's a bunch of nonsense." Advertisement While Democrats were able to pass the legislation, it'll be a tougher battle to override a Rauner veto. On Wednesday, House Speaker Michael Madigan acknowledged he does not have a "working" supermajority, a reference to the difficulties he's had in wrangling all 71 of his Democratic members to remain united to override vetoes. cbott@tribpub.com A protester keeps watch this month during the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. The FBI kept a low profile but monitored statements the protesters were making on social media and elsewhere. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images) As the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon dragged on for most of January, local law enforcement was spread thin and federal agents were nowhere to be seen. Behind the quiet facade, however, the FBI was running surveillance on the occupation and recording the activists' public statements, mostly drawn from media reports and the activists' use of social media, while FBI agents encouraged locals to report their experiences with the new strangers in town. Advertisement According to the allegations in an indictment and supporting affidavit, the FBI was collecting information that confirmed the occupiers were armed, angry and willing to die. The court documents detail how a source told a Harney County sheriff's officer that the protesters "had explosives, night vision goggles, and weapons and that if they didn't get the fight they wanted out there they would bring the fight to town." The documents show that authorities grew concerned as the occupiers used increasingly heated rhetoric when discussing their plans and the occupation. Advertisement One activist, Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, 55, was shot and killed Tuesday in an altercation between some of the occupiers and authorities. Ryan Bundy suffered a gunshot wound to his arm. On Wednesday afternoon, U.S. Magistrate Judge Stacie F. Beckerman unsealed the government's criminal complaint against two brothers, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, and Jon Ritzheimer, as well as five others arrested in connection with the occupation. All stand accused of conspiring to use threats, intimidation or force to stop federal officers from doing their duty, a charge also used against tax protesters Edward and Elaine Brown, a New Hampshire couple who holed up in their home in 2007 and engaged in an armed standoff with federal agents for months. It eventually ended peacefully with their arrest. A significant amount of the FBI's information used to charge Ammon Bundy came from an activist named Pete Santilli, who was living inside the refuge and broadcasting live his conversations with fellow activists. To demonstrate a conspiracy, the government has a lower burden than it would with similar charges, such as aiding and abetting, or solicitation. A conspiracy charge in federal court does not require the underlying offense to have taken place, so prosecutors can charge the defendants based on their statements, without proving they actually committed a crime. That is where Santilli's broadcasts proved so useful to the FBI. "We're continuing the stand at the Malheur National Wildlife Reserve," Ammon Bundy told Santilli in a conversation on Jan. 2, the day the occupation began. "Let everybody know that." Later, Bundy was recorded telling Santilli, "Malheur, Malheur," at which point, the FBI affidavit says, Santilli nods and then introduces Bundy, who gives a speech. Advertisement At one point in a video, Santilli's cameraman is recording Bundy speaking to another activist when the cameraman seems to realize he shouldn't be broadcasting it. The cameraman steps away and bumps into someone. "I was trying to get away from that conversation," he explains. The charges filed Wednesday detail activists' behavior in the media and the behavior reported to the FBI by federal employees who said they endured threats from the protesters in town before the occupation. One employee with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, a prime target of the protesters, said Ritzheimer, an anti-Muslim activist who led an armed protest at a mosque last May, and another man accosted her in a grocery store for wearing a BLM shirt. "When she turned around, the second individual shouted 'you're BLM, you're BLM,' at her," FBI Special Agent Katherine Armstrong wrote in the affidavit. "That person further stated to [the BLM employee] that they know what car she drives and would follow her home. He also stated he was going to burn [her] house down." Then activists began targeting her, she said. A vehicle matching one she saw Ritzheimer and the other man driving began to appear parked in front of her home and in front of her workplace, she said. Advertisement A week later, a white truck with a Confederate flag sticker in the rear window tailgated her and flashed its lights, the affidavit says. The documents are also sprinkled with repeated references to the occupiers' principle concernsupholding the Constitution, protecting the rights of individuals and crushing socialism. It also quotes various protesters using social media to urge "good patriots" to join the occupation. Twitter: @nigelduara As the Iowa caucuses near, Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have released TV ads that together echo a popular theme in the mainstream media. Clinton's ad depicts the job of the presidency as tough and change as hard. You need someone experienced who can face down foreign adversaries and stand up to reactionary Republicans. Sanders's ad with Simon and Garfunkel's "America" stirring memories offers the romance of the United States coming together. Many of the pundits agree this is a choice between head and heart. If Democrats think with their heads, they will go with Hillary; with their hearts, with Bernie. But this conventional wisdom clashes with the reality that this country has suffered serial devastations from choices supported by the establishment's "responsible" candidates. On fundamental issue after issue, it is the candidate "of the heart" who is in fact grounded in common sense. It wasn't Sanders' emotional appeal, but his clearsightedness that led the Nation magazine, which I edit, to make only its third presidential endorsement in a primary in its 150-year history. Advertisement For example, foreign policy is considered Clinton's strength. When terrorism hits the headlines, she gains in the polls. Yet the worst calamity in U.S. foreign policy since Vietnam surely was George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq. Clinton voted for that war; Sanders got it right and voted against. Clinton has since admitted her vote was a "mistake" but seems to have learned little from that grievous misjudgment. As secretary of state, she championed regime change in Libya that left behind another failed state rapidly becoming a backup base for the Islamic State. She pushed for toppling Bashar Assad in the Syrian civil war and lobbied for arming the Syrian opposition, a program that ended up supplying more weapons to the Islamic State than to anyone else. Now she touts a "no fly zone" in Syria, an idea that has been dismissed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as requiring some 70,000 troops to enforce, and by President Barack Obama as well. People thinking with their heads rather than their hearts might well prefer Sanders' skepticism about regime change to Clinton's hawkishness. The worst economic calamity since the Great Depression came when the excesses of Wall Street created the housing bubble and financial crisis that blew up the economy. Clinton touts her husband's economic record, but he championed the deregulation that helped unleash the Wall Street wilding. The banks, bailed out by taxpayers, are bigger and more concentrated than they were before the crash. Someone using their head not their heart would want to make certain that the next president is independent of Wall Street and committed to breaking up the big banks and shutting down the casino. But Clinton opposes key elements of Sen. Elizabeth Warren's, D-Mass., rational reform agenda for the banks, and her money ties to Wall Street lead any rational observer to conclude she's an uncertain trumpet for reform. Advertisement Americans continue to suffer from a broken health care system that costs nearly twice per capita as those in the rest of the industrialized world with worse results. Obama's health reforms have helped millions get health care particularly through the expansion of Medicaid and by forcing coverage of pre-existing conditions. But millions continue to go without care, millions more are underinsured and unable to afford decent coverage, and even more are gouged by drug companies and insurance companies that game the system's complexities. Eventually the United States will join every other industrial nation with some form of simplified universal care. Sanders champions moving to "Medicare for All." Clinton has mischaracterized his proposal, erroneously claiming it would "basically end all kinds of health care we know, Medicare, Medicaid, the Chip Program. It would take all that and hand it over to the states." She says she would build on Obamacare but has yet to detail significant reforms that would take us closer to a rational health care system. Sanders supported Obamacare but understands we can't get to a rational health care plan without leaders willing to take on the entrenched interests that stand in the way. It isn't romantic to think that it is long past time for the United States to join every other industrial country and guarantee affordable health care for all. Similarly, Clinton, like every Democratic politician, decries the big money that is corrupting our politics. But though she offers a reform agenda, she vacuums up big contributions and dark money in a complex of super PACs, saying she can't "unilaterally disarm." Sanders knows that the billionaires get what they pay for. He not only makes getting big money out of politics a centerpiece of his agenda, he has proved his commitment by refusing to set up a super PAC and raising his funds from millions of small donors, proving that he can raise enough to be competitive in the process. It isn't romantic to think that this gives him the independence and credibility to actually reform the system if he is elected. In the face of the Sanders surge, Clinton supporters have resorted to the "electability argument": that Sanders can't be elected because he's too far left. Put aside the irony of Clinton dismissing the electoral viability of someone she might lose to. Clinton has inevitable baggage of her own that raises doubts about her electoral prospects. And Clinton's decision to present herself as the candidate of continuity in a time of change is problematic. In contrast, the positions Sanders champions Medicare for All, cleaning up politics, curbing Wall Street, a less-interventionist foreign policy, rebuilding the United States, tuition-free college, fair taxes for the rich and corporations are all extremely popular. Furthermore, Democrats have a natural electoral majority if they turn out. Even the Clinton campaign worries about her ability to rouse the young and people of color as Obama did. In contrast, Sanders has clearly electrified millennials with his message and integrity. A voter using his head rather than his heart might well be conflicted on the question of electability. Clinton's closing ad before Iowa makes her central argument clear: Trust her. She's experienced and committed. She'll keep Republicans from taking away the progress we've made. Sanders' ad makes his argument clear: Trust yourself. Come together, take back the country and make this nation better. The first appeals to the head; the latter to the heart. But even the most hard-headed pragmatist might think the latter has as good a chance at getting elected and a better chance of forcing change than the former. Washington Post Katrina vanden Heuvel is the editor and publisher of the Nation magazine and writes a weekly column for The Post. NEW YORK If teenagers were planets, our cell phones would be the sun. If we're not Snapchatting our friends silly faces or texting our crushes heart emoticons, we're scrolling through Instagram or checking the latest tweets from our favorite celebrities. As soon as we come home from school, we're texting our friends who we just saw an hour ago. Even when we're not doing anything, we're checking our phones. On any given day, teens in the United States spend about nine hours using media for enjoyment, according to the report by Common Sense Media. My friends and I sleep fewer hours than that. Seventy-eight percent of us have phones, and nearly all of us use some kind of social media. It feels like anyone not plugged into social media or texting constantly will be hopelessly lost in conversation at school the next day. Advertisement My parents tease me about how much I use my phone. It's always in my hand at home. Even at the dinner table, my phone is right next to me. My parents always say I can't go without my phone and I always answer back with yes I can. One day I thought to myself, can I? For a whole week, I, a 16-year-old girl living in New York City, gave up my iPhone. I use a laptop at home, so I could check the news and do my homework. I wasn't giving up communication, I was giving up instant communication. I wanted to see if our phones really were our lifeline. Advertisement My parents did not immediately grasp that I was actually going to go without my iPhone for a week. My dad didn't believe me. My mom instantly grew worried at the thought of me traveling on the streets of Manhattan without a way to contact her. I promised her I would only go to school and back without my phone. She calmed down. My friends were less calm. Why, they demanded, would I do this? Some asked if I were grounded. Some asked if this was my New Year's resolution. It was unfathomable that a teen would purposely give up her phone for a week. But as an aspiring computer scientist eager to work in the world of technology, I am aware of the role technology plays in our lives. I often question why we need thousands of apps at our fingertips. The basic uses of a phone are valid, but how about everything else we spend hours surfing, tweeting off of, or posting pictures on? The world of technology controls our conversations, and I was purposely taking myself out of the loop. Here's what happened. The first day was the toughest. It didn't hit me that I was truly doing this until 6:30 Monday morning when I woke up to what sounded like a fire alarm but was really the ancient alarm clock I never use. It took what seemed like an eternity to figure out how to stop the beeping. I usually wake up to the sound of Taylor Swift coming from my iPhone. I sighed. This was going to be a long week. On my 25-minute daily subway ride to school, I usually listen to my music on my phone and doze off. Having no music turned out to be the hardest part of the whole experiment. At first, I was so bored. Everyone around me had their earphones in except me. I had to resist the urge to rip out someone's earphones and put them in my ears so I could listen to anything besides the clattering of the train cars. I tried singing the songs in my head but it didn't work. (I couldn't capture Beyonce's voice perfectly.) I ended up doing some reading for my book club. "The Martian" turned out to be a pretty interesting book, and now I won't have to worry about reading it the day before my book club meets. Without music, I was forced to get actual work done, and I found I was more awake for school. Once I arrived, I saw everyone sitting in the hallway, flipping through their phones or listening to music, even while they chatted with their friends. Those who weren't using their phones kept it right next to them. Even during class, many students had their phones on top of their desks like a security blanket, though we're obviously not allowed to use them during class time. Advertisement Before my experiment, I did the same thing. I always had my phone on my desk during class. I used to excuse myself and go to the bathroom to check my phone or text my mom about my latest test grade. But for what? Why the urgency? The rest of my first day without a phone wasn't that hard. I felt myself at multiple times subconsciously reach for my phone like a phantom limb. It was weird but manageable. The rest of my week was surprisingly easy. The need to have my phone on me at all times went away. I felt no desire refresh my Instagram feed between classes. Even when I came home and had access to my laptop, I stopped immediately checking Facebook. My morning train rides were filled with productive thinking and reading time instead of sleepy music listening. The need to constantly have my phone out was dwindling. Going into this experiment, I thought I would prove how much a teen needs her phone. But now I was realizing the exact opposite. Being out of the loop with my friends didn't alter my social life drastically. I was able to catch up with any group messaging I missed fairly quickly -- in real life conversation. Once in awhile, I did miss the thing. When PSAT scores came out, I had to wait until 9th period when I had access to a school computer to check while everyone else was able to check on their phones in about a minute between classes. And when everyone was obsessed over the latest new app craze (called Stop), I had to wait until I got my phone back to download it and play it with my friends. But besides those inconveniences, I really didn't need my phone at all. Now that my experiment is over, here's what I learned. Advertisement Our phones are like our coffee. Coffee gives us energy and the ability to function and we're made to believe we can't go without it. But if one day you forgot to go on your morning coffee run to Starbucks, what would really happen? Sure, you'd feel groggy and tired that first day, but a couple days later and suddenly, the need for coffee goes away. The one who suffers is Starbucks. It's the same with a phone. To keep us holding on to them 24/7, the technology world gives us more games, more apps, more reasons to swipe and click and look. We're not addicted to our phones; they're addicted to us. The technology world holds so much power over what teenagers see and do. But when we put our phones down, the power comes back to us. Since the end of my experiment, I don't touch my Buzzfeed app or Facebook app as much as I used to. I don't feel the need to look at the articles on my feed now or take a mindless quiz. I still Snapchat and text my friends like crazy; some things just don't change. But I read and study more on the train; I find myself doing Sudoku or crossword puzzles instead of playing games on my phone. I've taken the power back from my phone and I have more control over it than it does over me, exactly the way it should be. Washington Post Leslie Landis is a 16-year-old living in New York City. House Speaker Mike Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton shake hands with Gov. Bruce Rauner after Rauner delivered his second State of the State speech Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016 at the Illinois State Capitol House Chambers in Springfield, Ill. (Anthony Souffle/Chicago Tribune) (Anthony Souffle / Chicago Tribune) With his first year in office behind him, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner touted some of his accomplishments during his State of the State message Wednesday. He pointed to some genuine spending reductions, reform of an easily abused business tax incentive program, the start of some welcome efficiencies in human services administration. But let's face it. The impasse over a state budget, which is putting more pressure every day on those who rely on state government, still dominates discussion. And with good reason. A lot of people in Illinois are feeling the pain. Advertisement But in highlighting the positives, Rauner didn't point to one particular accomplishment: He didn't surrender to the status quo, to the political leaders who have run Illinois into the ground. Let's quickly review the terms. The Illinois legislature sent the governor a budget last spring that was wildly irresponsible. It promised $4 billion more in spending than the state would have in revenue. Rauner vetoed that budget. The legislature did not go back and approve a balanced budget for the current fiscal year. The governor has suggested he's willing to increase taxes to reach a balanced budget, in exchange for reforms he wants. The legislative leaders have not been willing to meet any of his demands. Advertisement As that story has unfolded, the narrative has become: Is Rauner so stubborn that he'll extend this budget impasse even if it hurts the disabled, the sick, the elderly and others who rely on the state? The same, though, must be asked of House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton: Are they so stubborn that they'll extend this budget impasse even if it hurts the disabled, the sick, the elderly and others who rely on the state? Rauner, in his speech, brought up two of his demands: a commitment for House and Senate votes on term limits and redistricting reform. Both ideas are popular with voters. We watched Madigan and Cullerton, standing behind Rauner. Stone-faced. Term limits, redistricting reform. That comes at no risk to anyone except them. It puts their power at risk. Rauner has not surrendered to them. Meanwhile, he has quietly been moving to bend the cost side of Illinois government. A number of public employee unions have reached reasonable contract agreements with the governor. Then there is the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents 35,000 state workers. AFSCME whose members, as Rauner noted, are well-compensated compared to public employees in other states wants $3 billion more in overall compensation for its next contract. Rauner asks that AFSCME members work a 40-hour week before they start to get overtime. The union refuses. There are some faint signs that Rauner could find common ground with Cullerton, the president of the Senate. They've apparently made progress on a pension plan proposed by Cullerton. Rauner sounded open to changes in the state school aid formula, an initiative led by Senate Democrats. Advertisement Rauner conceded Wednesday that his tenure has been rocky. "All of us in this chamber had a difficult year together in 2015 as we debated a budget with structural reform. But it is not too late for this General Assembly to make historic progress for the people of Illinois," he said. It is not too late. In fact, it really needs to happen now. People are feeling the hurt. But that will require the two gentlemen who have a combined 82 years in Springfield to acknowledge that the future vitality of Illinois requires a lot more than a balanced budget. To acknowledge that they have to deal with a governor who won't surrender to the status quo. And that they for many, many years have been the status quo. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @Trib_Ed_Board and on Facebook. Rep. Ken Dunkin, D-Chicago, argues in favor of SB777 on the floor of the House at the State Capitol on Springfield Saturday, May 30, 2015. (E. Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune) "We should not hold citizens of this state hostage to Mike Madigan's political shenanigans." Where have you heard that before? Probably not from a Democratic lawmaker who reports to Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan. But those words erupted Wednesday from a Chicago legislator who was either bold and sincere or phony and opportunistic. Advertisement Rep. Ken Dunkin, a member of Madigan's caucus, brought a sleeping bag, backpack, lunch box, bar of soap and bottle of water to a Springfield news conference, saying he planned to camp out in Madigan's Capitol office until the legislature solved the budget mess. The state has been without a spending plan since July 1. "This mess is not going to go away," Dunkin told reporters. "You can't just say 'No.' I'm calling on all of my colleagues to get in a room and craft our own budget. Let's lock ourselves in the room, let's bring our soap, our water, take a shower in the speaker's private suite in his private bathroom. I'm ready to stay until we get the job done." Advertisement He didn't actually stay overnight. But if he does, maybe he could borrow the speaker's toothbrush? Dunkin added: "We still have a long way to go in our very own House of Representatives as we wait on Speaker Michael J. Madigan to decide on when he will stop holding the citizens of Illinois hostage to his political shenanigans and actually get business done. Seems everyone wants a solution except for one person. One person." Dunkin, a 13-year lawmaker representing parts of downtown and the South Side, broke ranks with his leader last fall, failing to show up for a vote that would have empowered union negotiators bargaining with Gov. Bruce Rauner's negotiators. Dunkin deprived Madigan of the 71st vote Madigan needed to override a bill Rauner had vetoed. That humiliated Madigan, who rarely bungles a roll call. The override failed. In recent months, Dunkin has been aligning himself more closely with Rauner, a Republican whose policy positions contrast sharply with Dunkin's voting record. Their marriage of convenience is built on their shared distrust and frustration with the speaker. And on their shared interest in re-electing Dunkin. Illinoisans for Growth and Opportunity, an organization affiliated with Rauner, filed campaign finance paperwork this week indicating it would spend $240,000 toward Dunkin's re-election effort. Madigan likely will match that amount and then some in his effort to oust Dunkin. Madigan's team recruited Juliana Stratton, a juvenile justice advocate and former top aide to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, to run against Dunkin. Expect fireworks. Dunkin is known as outspoken and unpredictable. He missed the landmark vote to impeach Rod Blagojevich because he was on vacation. He defiantly defended a legislative scholarship program that was rife with abuse. He blocked a tough-on-crime initiative that had the support of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez. Advertisement If you have the sense that we agree with some things Dunkin says about Springfield yet we're perplexed by how he acts, you're right. He's a peculiarity. So it's hard to tell whether his split from Madigan is legitimate or merely temporary, driven by his need for Rauner's resources. Dunkin's answer is that he's had enough of partisan politics hurting the state. "The special interests under the direction of Speaker Madigan have been after me because I'm off the political plantation of the Democratic Party in the state of Illinois," he said. Hmm. An African-American colleague accusing Madigan of "plantation politics" is a demand for liberation or a death wish. Maybe both. Dunkin's news conference immediately spawned reaction on social media. A Twitter account called "Dunkin Sleepin' Bag" started tweeting to public officials and the media within hours. Perhaps someone could counter with an account for "Madigan's Private Bath." This is a House race to watch. Advertisement Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @Trib_Ed_Board and on Facebook. It would be an assault, in other words, if the diminutive Click's call for "muscle" was an appeal for a group of protesters to come and administer a beating or some other kind of physical abuse to the student with the video camera. But was it? Given the nonviolent nature of the protests to that point and the subsequent gentle bum's rush Schierbecker received students were calling him "bro" as they tried to block his camera with their hands that contention is dubious. An environmental contractor pumps gasoline out of the ground Wednesday morning after a gas line break was found at the Mobil station in Barrington at East Main Street and Route 14. (Todd Shields, Pioneer Press) After opening for just six hours, a Barrington gas station had to be shut down again Tuesday after another neighbor complained of a gasoline smell in their home. Village officials shut down the Mobil station at East Main Street and Route 14 at 3 p.m. Tuesday, just six hours after it re-opened for business that morning at 9 a.m following Monday's gas leak. Advertisement The station was scheduled to reopen late Thursday after work crews repaired the sewer and tested the surrounding area for petroleum products, said Greg Summers, village director of development services. Village Manager Jeff Lawler said a homeowner called Village Hall after the station re-opened Tuesday and reported gas odors in their home on the 500 block of East Main Street. This is similar to how the leak was found on Monday. Advertisement "The village went back to the gas station and determined petroleum was still found leaking into the sanitary sewer," Lawler said, adding the Illinois State Fire Marshall and Illinois Environmental Protection Agency also returned to the business. Lawler said the gas station's owner hired an environmental contractor to pump water and fuel from under the parking lot into a tanker truck for removal and testing. Summers said work crews installed plastic lining inside the entire sewer line, preventing gas from seeping into it again. He said that plan was approved by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. Lawler said no nearby homes were evacuated because testing equipment showed no hazardous levels of gasoline in their homes. "And then more sophisticated equipment was brought out for readings. The equipment showed zero levels in the two homes (that complained of the smell)," Lawler said. Workers tried to gain access to other nearby homes, but many residents were not home. Based on "spiller pays" legislation in Illinois, Lawler said the owner of the gas station is required to pay for village costs in responding to the leaks. "The spiller also pays for remediation, meaning cleaning the soil from petroleum products. This is state and federal law," Lawler said. "It's a very expensive proposition to fix this problem." Advertisement Kim Biggs, IEPA spokeswoman, said clean up costs for this type of contamination could be between $10,000 and more than $1 million, a huge range, because it's possible the "leak could be small and well-contained." "There are things to look at, such as soil contamination around the tank and off-site contamination, depending on what's found on-site," Biggs said. The gas station could qualify for reimbursement from the IEPA of up to $1.5 million to cover the cost of the clean-up, Biggs said. tshields@pioneerlocal.com Twitter: @tshields19 Domingo "Sonny" Garza, a two-term member of the Waukegan Public School District 60 Board of Education who once ran for alderman in Waukegan, died Wednesday afternoon following a "brief illness," according to a statement from district officials. "It is with deep regret that we must announce untimely passing of Board of Education member Mr. Domingo 'Sonny' Garza," the district announced through its Facebook page. "Our heartfelt sympathy goes out to the Garza family, friends, and the entire District 60 family, as we mourn this tremendous loss." Advertisement Garza, 56, was first elected to the board in 2007 on a slate that included Mark Hawn and future Illinois State Rep. Rita Mayfield. Garza was the board's first Latino member since the death of Miguel Juarez in 2003. In 2011, Garza sought to move on to the Waukegan City Council and challenged incumbent Edith Newsome in the 5th Ward. He fell short after getting only 27 percent of the vote and looked to re-join the school board in 2013. Advertisement Garza finished last in a six-way race for four open seats, but staged a political comeback in 2015, finishing third in a nine-candidate race for three open seats on the school board. "Mr. Garza was a valued member of our community and a respected member of the School Board, as well as a good friend. He will be missed," Board of Education President Michael Rodriguez said in a statement. During his 2011 race for alderman, Garza, a 1977 graduate of Waukegan High School and a retired customer service representative for AT&T, discussed his devotion to his hometown. "Waukegan has many obstacles that we have to overcome, but the one we must overcome is the perception or stigma of Waukegan within and outside its boundaries, as we must start believing in ourselves," he said, adding that he hoped to "promote the positives in our city, which will help us attract and promote all of these aspects, (and) eventually lure not only businesses but new residents into moving here and being part of diverse city." District officials said no funeral information was available on Wednesday, but would post details as they became available. danmoran@tribpub.com Twitter: @NewsSunDanMoran But the state has spent at least eight years stiffing all those private and church-related charities in every budget cycle. Payments come late on agreed payments. The budget gets cut without consultation or appeal. Those agencies borrowed to stay upright, reorganized, cinched belts, cut their services, sliced their staff and sought as many new donors as they could. Jeffrey Scott Doebler, of Valparaiso, is the conductor of Valparaiso Community/University Concert Band and Valparaiso Luce Concert Band, which both perform Jan. 30 at the Community Band Festival at Valparaiso University. (Valparaiso University / Handout) Musicians from throughout the region converge Saturday at Valparaiso University's Chapel of the Resurrection. That is when the 21st annual Community Band Festival takes place. Advertisement "This event is a model of what I call music education in action," said Jeffrey Scott Doebler, conductor of Valparaiso Community/University Concert Band and Valparaiso Luce Concert Band, which will perform at the free event. "As far as I know, everybody in all of these community bands got their start in their school music programs way back when. There's a great example of lifelong learning that's been involved with these folks that have been playing these instruments their whole lives." Advertisement Valparaiso Community/University Concert Band consists of 120 members, with half being Valparaiso University students and the other half being from the community, while Valparaiso Luce Concert Band features 40 members including Dyer and Portage residents. "This gives folks the opportunity to study the art of music so they're able to participate in the arts which, of course, helps them to have a well-rounded education and well-rounded life," said Doebler, of Valparaiso. "The folks in our community band also contribute a lot to our community. We have a concert series that goes through the school year. Our community band also plays throughout the summertime." Doebler also conducts the Windiana Concert Band and co-conducts with Quincy Ford the Michigan City Municipal Band, which have members guest performing at the festival. Guest conductors include Michael Baum, director of bands at Boone Grove High School and Boone Grove Middle School, and Philip E. Hahn, retired data warehouse manager for Porter Township Schools and minister of music at First Christian Church in Valparaiso. Thomas W. Miller, a bank processor in computer services, and Joanne Pesavento, the OneCard manager at Valparaiso University, are among other guest conductors. "We used to have one entire band that might come and perform on our program with us," said Doebler, noting that 2015's festival marked the first time individuals from community bands were invited to perform. "This was a way to get more people to be able to participate. We just tell community bands in the area that anyone from the group is welcome." Advertisement Other guests are from Highland Community Band conducted by Greg Jasek, Hobart Area Concert Band conducted by Susan Williams, La Porte City Band conducted by Charles Steck, South County Community Winds conducted by Paul Wagner and South Shore Brass Band conducted by Charles Mann. The program includes pieces by Michael Boo, Frank Erickson, Magne Furuholmen, Ralph Hultgren, Daniel Kallman, W. Francis McBeth, Cole Porter, Pal Waaktaar, James Clifton Williams and John Williams. "I try to pick a variety of music," said Doebler, professor of music and director of music education and bands at Valparaiso University. "There will be something on the program that everybody likes. It's a great part of our American heritage, the community band." Jessi Virtusio is a freelance writer. Community Band Festival When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday Advertisement Where: Valparaiso University's Chapel of the Resurrection, 1700 Chapel Drive, Valparaiso Admission: free Information: 219-464-5454 or www.valpo.edu/music Youlena Zaia, Iraqi refugee and Skokie resident, stands beside old photos of herself in pre-war Iraq. "What We Carried: Stories By Iraqi Refugees" is a new photography exhibition at the Illinois Holocaust Museum capturing the few objects Iraqi refugees took with them. (Mike Isaacs / Pioneer Press) Some brought delicate dishes that had been in the family for years, others snapshots that reflected a different time in their lives, one even a small collection of well-maintained Barbie Dolls. What few things would you bring if you had to flee the only country you knew as home? Advertisement A new Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center photography exhibit, "What We Carried: Stories By Iraqi Refugees," begs this interactive question. Along a narrow hallway of the museum's upper floor are 30 photos mostly of objects that carry far more importance to their owners than just the possessions themselves. Shot by Oregon-based photographer Jim Lommasson, the photos include the owners' words directly on them some in Arabic, some in English, some in both. Advertisement Museum officials say the exhibit, which will be on display through June 26, is their first that includes Arabic language. Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events is also showcasing 10 additional photographs larger in size through April at the Daley Center Concourse Gallery in the Pedway in downtown Chicago. "It's not us and them," Lommasson said of the exhibit's refugees at the Jan. 24 opening in Skokie. "It's not as if they are different from our grandparents. They are just like our grandparents." Among project goals, Lommasson said, is breaking down stereotypes about refugees and immigrants. His collection looks to reflect "a common humanity," he says. "Refugees are all over the country and they all have stories to tell, and they're so much like us," he said. "We exoticize people, we demonize people. I want to allow people to tell their stories give voice and also show how connected we are to one another." According to the Illinois Holocaust Museum, more than 4 million Iraqis have fled their homes since the American invasion of their country in 2003. More than 140,000 have landed in the United States, the museum states. Illinois Holocaust Museum CEO Susan Abrams said the exhibit relates to the museum's everyday mission in "teaching the lessons and the history of the Holocaust in a personal way and applying those lessons to present day." Museum Chief Curator of Collections and Exhibitions Arielle Weininger said she immediately knew the museum would have interest in the project. "When I think about the collection of 25,000 objects the museum holds, not all of them speak to that refugee experience," Weininger said. "Many people couldn't get out of Europe. For those who did, they had to make these same decisions and had some of the same kind of challenges." Advertisement Lommasson's project evolved differently than originally planned. He said he got the idea when working on another project about soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. He similarily began taking photos of his subjects in this case Iraqi refugees but he found this time it didn't work. Only when he captured the objects they brought with them, and allowed their own words to describe why they cherished the objects, did their stories come alive, he said. Skokie resident Youlena Zaia, an Iraqi refugee and director of child and family services of the Iraqi Mutual Aid Society, owns one of those stories. During the opening, she stood beside framed snapshots of her pre-war life in Iraq. She would have lost the photos forever, she said, had her daughter not taken them when they fled their country, arriving in the United States in 2008. A photo from her college days at Mosul University shows her on a picnic with fellow engineering classmates in the city of Nimrud. "Nimrud City was destroyed in 2015 by ISIS bulldozers because ISIS government says Nimrud City does not (have) Islamic nature," she writes above the photo. In a later photo, she is on the job site, overseeing projects when she was "chief of concrete laboratory"; another shows her smiling, fishing pole in hand, as she sits by serene waters. Advertisement Since Zaia came to the United States, she said, she has not continued her engineering work nor has she gone fishing. "I miss these things so much because they are my core," she said. The exhibit is about such loss, according to Lommasson; it's not just what refugees brought with them, but also the tangible and intangible things they had to leave behind, he said. One photo captures a set of fragile tea cups used for so long that the design has somewhat faded. Zaia said her sister protected the family's treasured dishware under her clothes when fleeing Iraq. Next to the photo of a refugee family's Barbie Dolls reads: "We all have had a childhood...But it differs for everyone." A photo of a Quran includes this message: "When I left my country Iraq in 2000, I left everything behind, my photos, my personal stuff, my memories, because I just wanted to forget everything about my life but the only thing I couldn't leave behind was my faith." "What We Carried" also includes heartfelt poems written by children and teenagers under the guidance of the Iraqi Mutual Aid Society, which immediately got behind Lommasson's project. Advertisement "We really wanted the opportunity for our clients to tell their story in a way that's honest about who they are and what they lost," said Iraqi Mutual Aid Society Executive Director Laura Youngberg. "It was an opportunity for them to reflect, and to share what was safe for them to share." Refugee Ali Ali did just that by allowing a miniature Iraqi flag to be captured by Lommasson's camera. "Shall we spend tears on our current circumstance or should we cry for the past?" Ali writes beside the photo. "We are tired, we are tired, and we want to get some rest." misaacs@pioneerlocal.com Twitter: @SKReview_Mike Examined from a certain angle, Chinas trade and business relationship with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is in a state of flux. A number of important questions currently face the two: as Chinas workforce ages and labor costs rise, will the Middle Kingdoms role as the worlds factory be surpassed by its ASEAN neighbors? As Chinas growth slows, will this have a knock-on effect on ASEANs ten member nations? And how will this affect western companies doing business in the region? Chinas Economy and ASEAN Businesses: the Short Term Outlook Chinas 6.9 percent GDP growth rate in 2015 its slowest in 25 years ostensibly didnt have an impact on ASEAN countries. Dun & Bradstreets ASEAN Business Confidence Index for Q1 2016 indicates that business confidence (measured by six metrics along nine sectors) is largely on the rise in the ten-nation bloc. Indonesia and Malaysia, which had previously shown low business confidence, have bounced back this quarter on all but one metric. Confidence in Thailand has also risen in all but one metric, while the Philippines grew on all counts. The main countries breaking this trend are Vietnam and Singapore, which have both seen a drop in business confidence. Singapores current slump ongoing from the previous quarter is due to continuing problems in the city-states manufacturing sector. In Vietnam, however, the issue is expected to simply be a seasonal adjustment that will correct itself in the next quarter. This healthy business confidence should provide a strong foundation for continued international trade. RELATED: Dun & Bradstreet: ASEAN Business Confidence Unfazed The Long Term Outlook: Will Chinas World Factory Status Shift to South East Asia? The idea that Chinas low-end manufacturing industries will move to Southeast Asia is important. Chinas relative percentage share in low-end exports has been falling slightly since 2010, and countries like Vietnam have become more attractive as outsourcing locations in recent years. Nevertheless, the scope of this shift should not be overestimated. Reasons for low-end manufacturing relocating to Southeast Asia include: Rising wages in China; Worker demographics: China has an ageing population problem that many SEA nations do not; Countries like Vietnam are relatively close to South China (i.e., close to other components of the manufacturing-related global supply chain); ASEAN policies like the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) aim to improve intra-regional connectivity and trade over the long term; Tariff barriers in trade between ASEAN nations have been greatly reduced in recent years. However, there are also many reasons to doubt that ASEAN will totally replace China for manufacturing capacity. For example: With the obvious exception of Singapore, the infrastructure in Southeast Asia is lacking. This is reflected in the World Banks Logistical Performance Index, which often scores ASEAN nations poorer than China ASEAN countries collectively have a population of 600 million less than half of Chinas Chinas manufacturing relies on unskilled laborers moving en masse from the poorer central and western provinces to the manufacturing clusters along the coast. Something similar will be difficult in Southeast Asia due to border controls Non-tariff barriers in ASEAN remain prominent. Most important are restrictions on foreign ownership, but other measures exist, such as export bans for certain industries in certain countries. Critics of the AEC policies (which are designed to turn ASEAN into a unified trading bloc) claim that the AEC will face strong political opposition when ASEAN member states try to apply them in their domestic political systems. In summary, more low-end manufacturing clusters are likely to appear in the ASEAN region, and Chinas relative share of overall low-end manufacturing will decrease. However, China will still maintain a strong presence in global manufacturing. Trade between China and ASEAN will increase over the long term, as supply chains of certain globalized products become more stretched between China and Southeast Asia. The implication for international businesses is that, when they are looking at investing or sourcing in the manufacturing sector, they are not simply looking at a China-ASEAN either/or question. Rather, they need to examine which specific parts in their supply chain would be better suited to China and which parts to Southeast Asia, which will affect their long-term product sourcing strategy. The Long Term Outlook: China and ASEAN infrastructure One of the difficulties in economic development in Southeast Asia is the regions lack of effective infrastructure. This can be seen in the poor logistical efficiency of many ASEAN nations even coastal countries like Vietnam and the Philippines rank poorly in the World Banks logistical performance index. Infrastructure exporting is an area where China is able to excel. A recent example of this can be seen in the Indonesia-China joint venture high speed rail project in Java, Indonesia, which was launched January 21, 2016. Individual projects like this are related to wider policies that aim to connect China to its neighbors, such as the Maritime Silk Road and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Chinas exports of infrastructure projects will continue to be a feature of their trade with ASEAN. The Business Optimism Index, released every quarter by Dun & Bradstreet, is considered a leading economic indicator for turning points in business activity and measuring business sentiment. The Index captures business expectations for the quarter ahead based on six parameters: sales volume, net profit, selling price, new orders, inventory, and employment. Sampling in the Index represents key business sectors including manufacturing, construction, wholesale, transportation, services, finance, mining and agriculture, according to their GDP contribution in each nation. The ASEAN Business Optimism Index for Q1 2016 is out now and available as a complimentary download in the Asia Briefing Bookstore. An Introduction to Doing Business in China 2015 Doing Business in China 2015 is designed to introduce the fundamentals of investing in China. Compiled by the professionals at Dezan Shira & Associates, this comprehensive guide is ideal not only for businesses looking to enter the Chinese market, but also for companies that already have a presence here and want to keep up-to-date with the most recent and relevant policy changes. How to Restructure an Underperforming Business in China In this issue of China Briefing magazine, we explore the options that are available to foreign firms looking to restructure or close their operations in China. We begin with an overview of what restructuring an unprofitable business in China might entail, and then take an in-depth look at the way in which a foreign company can go about the restructuring process. Finally, we highlight some of the key HR concerns associated with restructuring a China business. Adapting Your China WFOE to Service Chinas Consumers In this issue of China Briefing Magazine, we look at the challenges posed to manufacturers amidst Chinas rising labor costs and stricter environmental regulations. Manufacturing WFOEs in China should adapt by expanding their business scope to include distribution and determine suitable supply chain solutions. In this regard, we will take a look at the opportunities in Chinas domestic consumer market and forecast the sectors that are set to boom in the coming years. Cuba and China will begin shooting their first-ever film in collaboration in March on the Caribbean island, the Cuban News Agency reported Wednesday. A co-production of China's Moshan film company and Cuba's RTV Commercial, the film "Amores en la Habana" or "Loves in Havana" revolves around a young Chinese student's love story in Cuba. It explores trials and tribulations of relationships between people of different cultural backgrounds. The film, to be on shooting from March 10, marks the first project to emerge from an agreement between the production houses to jointly create movies that touch on social and cultural aspects of the two countries, said RTV General Director Joel Ortega. "Most importantly, this project will bring together Chinese and Cuban talent to make a movie that unites us," said Ortega. Jorge Gomez, director of the Cuban musical group Moncada, musical director Roberto Perez and choreographer Juan Gomez will be arranging the film's music and dance numbers. You are here: Home A new agency has been set up by the Ministry of Public Security to handle fugitives who have fled overseas. The Department of Overseas Fugitives Affairs will help China to bring fugitives hiding overseas to justice and to retrieve stolen funds, the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. It added that the "Fox Hunt" campaign, launched last year to hunt such fugitives, will continue this year. The ministry said 857 fugitives were brought to China from 66 countries and regions between April and the end of December. Law enforcement authorities launched the "Fox Hunt" campaign in April as part of the "Skynet" operation targeting suspected economic criminals. Of the 857 suspects, 366 turned themselves in to Chinese police, 477 were caught by local law enforcement officers and 14 were prosecuted in local courts. A total of 212 suspects allegedly embezzled or took bribes of up to 10 million yuan, according to the statement. Fifty-eight of these suspects were allegedly linked with cases involving more than 100 million yuan ($15.2 million). The statement said 39 of the suspects had been living overseas for more than 10 years, with one of them being at large for 21 years. The ministry said 122 fugitives were linked with vocational crimes, a term usually used by Chinese authorities to refer to corruption. The ministry and regional police sent more than 50 teams to overseas countries and regions to work with local law enforcement bodies and Chinese diplomatic missions to track and seize the fugitives. Two suspects were sent back from the United States and a total of six were returned from Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Spain and Hungary. Another 283 fugitives were captured in Southeast Asian countries including Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia. The China International Publishing Group (CIPG), along with its affiliated China Report magazine, held a promotion for the recently launched China Report ASEAN, a national monthly periodical published chiefly in English and targeted at the ASEAN member countries on Jan. 15 in Nanning, capital of south Chinas Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Officials from the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee and from the local government information office attended the promotion and delivered speeches. Also at the scene were representatives from the consulate-general of Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia, among other ASEAN countries. China Report ASEAN will be available mainly in English and will be supplemented by issues in the local languages of different ASEAN countries. Its website and mobile APP were also launched along with a paper-copy magazine. The promotion attracted the attention of up to 20 media agencies, including Xinhua News Agency, China Central Television, the People's Daily Online, Hong Kong Commercial Daily, and the Hong Kong Wen Wei Po and China-ASEAN Panorama magazine. [By Zhai Haijun/China.org.cn] China has ample reasons to stay confident in face of speculators. Far from some speculators' claims, China is not a source of trouble but an important engine of global economic growth with its growing demand and investment. Here are the numbers. China registered a growth rate of 6.9 percent last year amid a sluggish global economy, contributing more than 25 percent of global economic growth. Chinese tourists spent 1.2 trillion yuan (182.4 billion U.S. dollars)overseas, while the country's investors pumped 735 billion yuan (111.7 billion dollars) into other economies. Speculators claimed they see a hard landing for China. It is true that the growth of the world's second largest economy is experiencing a relative slowdown compared with the blistering growth of the past decade. But as we know, decision makers have now opted for a slower pace in order to make the country's growth more sustainable in the future. Moreover, a growth rate of 6.9 percent is the envy of most other economies. China's added economic output last year was more than the GDP of Sweden or Argentina. George Soros, who recently claimed he saw a hard landing for China at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, has made the same prediction several times in the past. It's an exaggeration to say that China increases global deflationary risks. Imagine the world without the demand and growth from China, global economic growth would have been much worse, possibly at higher risk of deflation. The world economy is having trouble because of the sluggish growth and slow recovery of many economies. International investor Jim Rogers said recently that the monetary policies of the U.S. Federal Reserve and the expansion of government debt are the original sources of the problems. Meanwhile, China's economic transformation is currently underway. Figures show that foreign investment in China's service sector saw robust growth in 2016, and the country attracted 136 billion U.S. dollars of foreign direct investment. Thanks to government policies encouraging innovation and the streamlining of procedures, entrepreneurship is flourishing and bringing fundamental change to Chinese society. In the first half of 2015, the number of newly registered businesses exceeded 10,000 on a daily basis. Employment creation is strong too, which, coupled with a sound growth rate and strong capital formation and innovation, means that the world's second largest economy is unlikely to experience a hard landing. So why do speculators make claims that run counter to reality? Analysts said it is because either the short-sellers haven't done their homework or that they are intentionally trying to create panic to snap profits. [By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn] As U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry raised "concerns" about the South China Sea during his Asia tour, he may have been unaware of one thing: the U.S. meddling in the issue is an ill-considered move, which could boomerang and escalate regional tensions. Before visiting China, Kerry stopped in Laos -- the 2016 chair of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) -- and Cambodia, two important neighbors and trade partners of China. Kerry's calculated decision to visit Laos and Cambodia demonstrates the U.S.'s ulterior motives in counting on ASEAN to pressure China on the South China Sea issue, mere wishful thinking on the part of Kerry and Washington. Western media reports only quoted Kerry's remarks after meeting with Lao Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong and Thongsing's words that were paraphrased by Kerry. Vientiane Times, Laos' English-language newspaper, reported Kerry's visit, but did not mention one single word about the South China Sea. In Cambodia, Foreign Minister Hor Namhong stressed his country's position on the South China Sea issue was unchanged, saying that Cambodia believed individual countries should settle disputes among themselves without the involvement of ASEAN. It is questionable whether the United States has managed to rope Laos and Cambodia in on the South China Sea issue. But one thing is clear: a growing number of sober-minded governments -- not only those of Laos and Cambodia -- know that the United States, a self-proclaimed bystander on the issue, intends to meddle in the region and expand its own influence in a bid to counter China's peaceful rise. Although Washington says it supports a peaceful resolution, its actions -- from criticizing Beijing's construction activities on Chinese-owned islands to signing a military deal with the Philippines -- only serve to undermine regional peace and stability. The Chinese government has repeatedly called on all related parties to solve any maritime dispute through negotiations and earnestly implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea. Disputes in the South China Sea should not be of concern in a China-U.S. relationship, one of the world's most important. Together, the two countries play a significant role in safeguarding world peace and stability. This is why Mr. Kerry put China on the agenda of his first overseas trip in the new year. There is wide expectation that his visit would enhance mutual trust, avoid strategic miscalculations, manage and control differences and expand cooperation between China and the United States. Therefore, it is highly advisable that Washington plays a constructive role in promoting peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, of which the United States is an important part, instead of sowing discord, because muddy the waters in the South China Sea could blow up in Washington's face. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) shakes hands with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 27, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] The importance of the U.S.-China bilateral relationship has never been more evident as the world economy once again teeters on the brink of crisis while security matters in global hot spots continue to heat up. Nearing the end of the Obama administration's eight years in office, the United States has dispatched Secretary of State John Kerry to Asia for one of his last official visits to the region. His agenda reveals both strategic divergence between the two powers, and the opportunities to construct a new model of great power relations. Secretary Kerry visited Cambodia and Laos before arriving in Beijing, where he met with Foreign Minister Wang Yi. On the trip, he emphasized issues like nuclear weapons in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and maritime disputes in the South China Sea . While the Korean issue presents opportunities for shared solutions between China and the United States, Sino-U.S. strategic interests in Southeast Asia suggest a more confrontational turn for the two great powers. Although China and the United States publicized their commitment to pursuing a new United Nations Security Council resolution to address the DPRK's announcement of its most recent test of a nuclear device earlier this month, little substantive agreement was reached toward a more rigorous approach to the government of Kim Jong-un . In this regard, little has changed over the past twenty years since the death of the DPRK's founder Kim Il-sung, when DPRK nuclear provocations really expanded. Each American administration, from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Barack Obama, has essentially faced the same dilemma: there is no good solution to the DPRK's saber-rattling. No president has seen a reasonable opportunity for a military solution; the risks to regional stability, American forces deployed to the area, and civilian casualties are far too great. Thus, each president has sought to engage China through the Six-Party talks to pressure the DPRK to comply with its obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and sundry UN Security Council resolutions and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections. China has steadfastly opposed DPRK efforts to develop and test ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, and sought to moderate the behavior of the governments of Kim Jong-un and his deceased father Kim Jong-il. Xi Jinping has maintained the consistent position of past Chinese presidents in opposing DPRK brinkmanship and blackmail but through dialogue and informal channels rather than condemnatory and hostile rhetoric as is often practiced by American political leaders. While China is perhaps the only country in the world with leverage over the DPRK, American expectations of what can be achieved are overly optimistic. Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation. Flash Shanghai is one of the biggest cities in the world, and yet sometimes it's hard to find what you're looking for. Its size is larger than the US state of Delaware a sheer 6,340 square kilometers, to be precise but if you want to go for a hike in a natural environment within the Metro's reach, there's few options. Besides the few popular forest parks in Shanghai and small, man-made greenbelts in downtown, there is also the ecological corridor of New Jiangwan City () that's waiting to be discovered. It's naturally beautiful and located right at the end of Metro Line 10 in the city's northeastern Yangpu District. New Jiangwan City's name, which translates to estuary, stems from its location right by the Huangpu River. The area used to be a military field built and used by the Japanese during World War II. The airfield was operational for several decades, but saw its last planes take off in 1994. The land was then handed over to the municipal government. "For a long time the military airfield was closed to the outside world. As a result, the natural environment was well preserved as a whole, and at that time it was not easy to find such land in this city without too much human influence," Yao Li said. Yao has been watching and studying birds in Shanghai for more than a decade, and the ecological corridor in Jiangwan City is one of his favorite places to do so. Sheltered from the surrounding development of Shanghai and protected from human disturbance, about 280 wild plant and about 40 water plant species flourished in the area, which became a natural haven for wildlife. Once the military vacated the land, property developers eyed up the prime real state location and tried to move in. Real estate development started, and Fudan University extended its campus in the area. "Back then, this place was like a gem in the city," Yao said. Now, there's residential buildings and shopping complexes. "Before there were these buildings, many birds stopped by here on their migration path south. Now, there are fewer," said Yang Deqing, a lecturer at Fudan University's school of computer science and enthusiastic bird watcher. "Though the campus has fewer people than a park would have, it's still an islet, and a few rows of tall buildings outside the campus have blocked the birds' path," he said. There's much that has changed for the worse, and the area is now a small fraction of what it used to be. And yet New Jiangwan City didn't develop as rapidly and as aggressively as many other parts of Shanghai. A corridor for the wildlife remains. It's a narrow strip of habitat, but it's crucial to maintaining biodiversity in the city. "Relatively speaking, this place is more intact. A lot of green zones in Shanghai are not connected, which is a deadly problem. The birds may be able to fly, but small mammals simply can't walk across the roads," Yao explained. Even though New Jiangwan City has seen enormous changes to its landscape, a lot of the area was preserved. From West Nanjing Road, its only a 40-minute metro ride to Jiangwan City, where various species of birds, especially those breeding in forests, frogs, insects and occasionally small mammals like the Chinese hare and Siberian weasel can be found. "There is a good variety of wildlife to discover, and people who live in the area also enjoy to take walks along the river," Yao said. There's two easily accessible locations to enjoy nature in Jiangwan City. One is the Fudan University campus, situated by a small creek and dotted with tree, while the other is the corridor along Zhengyue Road (), right across Jiangwan Road. The Fudan University's Jiangwan campus is home to its law school and school of biological sciences. The campus plans to expand in the future, but for now, it's a nice retreat from the hustle and bustle of downtown Shanghai. A natural creek runs through the university with reed and bushes by the bank that provide shelter for animals and also serve as a food source. "During holidays, people rush to large parks like Gucun Park and Gongqing Forest, but around us there are also natural landscapes worth a visit," Yao noted as he walked nearby the creek. The natural hiking trail by Zhengyue Road is also located along the creek and surrounded by trees. Birds and frogs linger here and dragonflies hover over the water. In the early morning and as the night falls, small mammals like hedgehogs and weasels venture to the creek's edge to drink water. Daurian redstarts, songbirds the size of a sparrow, fly above their heads and zoom down to catch insects or spiders. Some rest on a branch to nibble on some berries. Flash Ukraine will open a new checkpoint to civilian traffic and shipment of humanitarian goods on the frontline in the country's eastern region of Luhansk. That was disclosed by Martin Sajdik, special envoy in Ukraine for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) after a meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group held in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, Wednesday. It will be the second such crossing point in Donbas, which covers both Donetsk and Luhansk. Sajdik said the Ukrainian side had declared readiness to open the checkpoint in the Luhansk region on the frontline by Feb. 12, the anniversary of the Minsk Agreements. Participants in the security subgroup at the meeting in Minsk focused on the issues of mine clearance and the ceasefire, which was still being breached, said Sajdik. "The participants in the security working group shared information on the progress of mine-clearing efforts. Special attention was given to the security of people who are engaged in these efforts. The issue of working out joint mechanisms to ensure security of mine-clearing efforts and the prevention of ceasefire violations in general were discussed. You have also seen these violations, this is deplorable," said Sajdik, adding the parties still cannot agree on the next swap of prisoners in Donbas. The self-proclaimed Donbas republics had submitted the proposals regarding the amendments into the Ukrainian Constitution. The modality of local elections in the self-proclaimed republics was discussed, but special attention was given to the role of political parties, media, the administering of elections and security issues, Sajdik said. Darya Olifer, the spokesperson of Ukrainian representative -- the second Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma -- in the Trilateral Contact Group, said that the position of Kiev to resolve the situation in the east of Ukraine remains unchanged. "Elections in the uncontrolled part of Donbass must be held under the Ukrainian legislation and with the participation of Ukrainian parties, Ukrainian journalists and international observers," she said. The ceasefire and the pullback of heavy weaponry remain prerequisites to solve humanitarian, economic and political issues, as well as for the implementation of the Minsk agreements in general, she said. According to Sajdik, the Ukrainian side participated in the discussion on initiatives of Russian representative in the Contact Group Boris Gryzlov on the issues of political settlement in Donbas. Earlier Gryzlov told journalists that Donbas should legislatively be granted a special status on a permanent basis under the formula offered by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The Contact group was scheduled to meet on Feb. 10, but the date of the meeting was still preliminary, according to the OSCE special envoy. Christian Today Mark Woods 26 January 2016 The influential pastor of Chinas largest church has been removed from his position in what is thought to be retaliation for his outspoken opposition to the countrys crackdown on Christianity. Gu Yuese served as pastor of Chongyi Church in Hangzhou, which attracts around 10,000 people every Sunday to multiple services. He has publicly opposed the government campaign to tear down the crosses that identify church buildings. The advocacy group China Aid says his removal may be connected to this and described his dismissal as an abuse of religious freedom. According to the local Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and the China Christian Council the aim of the dismissal was to move one step closer towards the proper self-establishment and management of church locations by the two Christian organisations in Hangzhou, promote the normal rotation of the principal Christians in charge of churches and sort out the interpersonal relationship between the province and the two municipal [Christian] organisations. Gu will be replaced by Pastor Zhang Zhongcheng, vice-chairman of the Hangzhou Chinese Christian TSPM Committee. Reacting to the announcement, Gu Yuese and and his wife Zhou Lian Mei, who teaches Bible classes at the church, issued a statement thanking the congregation for its support and affirming their commitment to the church. One of the church cross demolitions in Zhejiang, against which Gu Yuese protested. China Aid They say: Regardless of how the situation will be after this, we will inevitably continue serving at Chongyi Church if there is no other guidance from the Lord himself! Of course, the manner [of service] may change, but our love of the Lord and his flock will never change, because we are the Lords servants! Thank God! The statement continues: Increasingly, we feel Gods good intentions in this storm. It will refine every impurity in our ministry team to the greatest extent and compel us to love the Lord and people more purely. The demolition campaign against crosses on churches in Zhejiang province has seen hundreds removed or damaged. Journalists covering the story have been intimidated and arrested and at least 20 Christians, including pastors and deacons, are being held in prison. Also held is human human rights lawyer Zhang Kai, who provided legal advice for churches in their resistance to the campaign. He had represented more than 100 churches fighting orders to remove their crosses. Zhang wrote and distributed a Cross Activists Handbook, advising church leaders on how they can use Chinas own constitution which guarantees religious freedom to defend their rights. China Aid Media Team Cell: (432) 553-1080 | Office: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Other: (432) 689-6985 Email: [email protected] For more information, click here UCA News January 28, 2016 Church members describe delicate balancing act in maintaining good relations with party officials When Zhengding Cathedral held a Mass on Sunday, Dec. 13, so many people showed up, filling the church compound, that many had to stand on the roof of an adjacent building. Roughly 10,000 Catholics came to church that day in this northern suburb of Shijiazhuang, the smoggy provincial capital of Hebei. People traveled from as far as Beijing 300 kilometers away. But most striking was almost all of those who attended were members of Chinas underground church, and despite the presence of police, no one was detained. It was a miracle, said a layman. Seminarians in class at Shijiazhuang seminary in Chinas Hebei province. (Photo by ucanews.com reporter) While Christians and rights groups criticize President Xi Jinping for overseeing the worst religious persecution in more than a generation, Catholics in Hebei appear to enjoy a certain leeway at least by Chinese standards. Home to an estimated 3.9 million Catholics, according to Hong Kong-based Asia Harvest, Catholics in Hebei have seen relatively few recent cases of persecution. Only two incidents have been recorded over the past 30 months by China Aid, a U.S.-based group tracking abuses against Christians in China. In Zhejiang province, whose 2.35 million Catholics represent the second-largest population in the country, dozens of cases were recorded over the same period as authorities removed 1,500 crosses from both Protestant and Catholic churches. The Zhejiang and Hebei difference is evidence of the disarray in the Chinese Communist Party religious policy, said Fenggang Yang, director of the Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University in the United States. Xi is due to lead a meeting of the central government to draw up a uniform, nationwide program for managing religions but this has apparently been delayed. Even if Beijing does centralize policy managing Christians and other religions, differences in practice remain inevitable, added Fenggang. Guanxi At every administrative level in China, what you can and cant do typically depends on guanxi, or relations, with the Communist Party. Faith Press, based in Hebeis capital Shijiazhuang, is estimated to print the largest circulation Catholic newspaper in China. In 1997, it claimed a readership of 43,000 across the country. A man prays inside the chapel Shijiazhuang seminary in Chinas Hebei province. (Photo by ucanews.com reporter) Operating out of the same office building, Jinde Charities calls itself the first Catholic charitable organization registered by the government since the communists took power in 1949. In a sign of just how good Jindes guanxi is with the government, staff have in recent years appeared at HIV/AIDS seminars with Xis famous opera-singing wife Peng Liyuan, a goodwill ambassador for the World Health Organization. By contrast, Xi has regularly urged ordinary Chinese to shun faiths deemed foreign such as Christianity and Islam in favor of traditional Chinese religions. Hebei has a strong Catholic population. People of strong faith can also be good citizens of China, said Father Robert Carbonneau, executive director of the U.S. Catholic-China Bureau in Berkeley, California. Getting to the bottom of how exactly the church in Hebei manages relations with party officials remains difficult. Priests in cities including Shijiazhuang and Xianxian told ucanews.com relations are good but few are willing to explain how this delicate balancing act is maintained. Often the church appears to play the party at its own game. At one old-age home run by authorities in Hebei, conditions used to be awful. The more than 100 elderly living there were not properly cared for, said a priest. So he started to give the head of the old age home regular gifts to gain access and help out caring for the elderly. Meanwhile, the priest has carried out dozens of baptisms. About one-third of the homes inhabitants have already been confirmed Catholics. Staff at the home dont know we are baptizing people there, its done in secret, the priest said. The church hasnt always managed to work with the system in Hebei. A school tucked behind Xianxian cathedral had been mixing the national curriculum with religious instruction. But an education inspector acting on an apparent tip-off told the school to stop in May. Although unregistered church faithful have largely escaped persecution in Hebei in recent years, clergy have not a sign of the limits of religious freedom across China. The entrance to Shijiazhuang seminary in Chinas Hebei province. Catholics in Hebei have been allowed some freedoms amid a wider crackdown on religious activity. (Photo by ucanews.com reporter) Bishop Cosmas Shi Enxiang of Yixian was thought to have died last January after spending about half of his 94 years in detention, sources close to his family told ucanws.com at the time. But a government authority later denied he had passed away, refusing to confirm his location. The bishops punishment included hard labor in freezing Heilongjiang province after continually refusing to join the state-sanctioned Catholic Patriotic Association. The only two other bishops in secret detention in China also languish somewhere in Hebei. Bishop James Su Zhimin of Baoding was first arrested 20 years ago after he too refused to join the CPA and has not been seen since 2003. Coadjutor Bishop Cui Tai of Xuanhua disappeared after his arrest in August 2014. Relations between the Vatican and Chinese government reached a recent low in November, 2010, when Hebei authorities proceeded with the episcopal ordination of Joseph Guo Jincai in Chengde without papal approval, the first in four years. Pope Benedict received the news with deep regret, said a rare Vatican statement taking issue with Chinas government. Trying times A new Catholic retreat and martyrs graveyard in Xianxian serves as a reminder of the trying times the church has faced, and how it has prospered more recently in Hebei. The tombs of two French missionaries stand here following their deaths at the hands of the Boxer Rebellion that swept violent anti-foreigner and anti-Christian feeling through China around 1900. The head of St. Remi Isore was hung at the entrance of Wuyi village in a warning to other Catholics. During the Cultural Revolution ending in the mid-1970s, the graveyard was desecrated and the bodies of around 100 priests lost. Their gravestones were found years later, smashed after being used for flooring in a nearby factory and road junction. In 2010, when the church was looking to build the center and cemetery, relations with Hebei authorities were so bad amid the spat over ordinations that permission was declined. Finally, last year, the center was built and the cemetery inaugurated in November. Relations with authorities are now good, said a priest, explaining the graveyards turbulent history. We do have some freedom here. China Aid Media Team Cell: (432) 553-1080 | Office: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Other: (432) 689-6985 Email: [email protected] For more information, click here Voice of America Joyce Huang January 27, 2016 9:21 AM Upon arrival back in Sweden, expelled rights activist Peter Dahlin, says he is concerned about the safety of three colleagues and close friends, all of whom remain in custody in China. Im obviously quite happy to be back, but three of my colleagues and close friends are still incarcerated without a quick solution in sight, Dahlin told Swedish Radio. Dahlin did not specify their names and also voiced his gratitude to the Swedish Embassys for their help in his case. After being held for three-weeks, the 35-year-old says his girlfriend has been released with no allegations against her while he himself was released on medical and diplomatic grounds. This means that the allegations against me remain and if I return to China I will be put on trial for this crime, he added. Dahlin was arrested on January 3 and accused by the Chinese government of operating an unlicensed rights group in China to endanger the countrys national security and interfere in its sensitive legal cases. This undated photo at an undisclosed location provided to AFP by the Chinese Urgent Action Working Group shows Swedish human rights activist Peter Dahlin. Prior to his arrest, Dahlin was co-founder of the non-governmental organization Chinese Urgent Action Working Group, which says it was established in 2009 to promote the development of the rule of law and human rights through training and the support of public interest litigation in China. Unexpected release Until his colleagues are released, they remain a hostage to Dahlins freedom to speak, which will make it harder to interpret the cases significance, according to Jerome Cohen, professor of law at New York University. Cohen, in a blog post Tuesday, argued Dahlins unexpected release and preferable treatment mostly reflected his cooperation in detention via a televised confession on the state-run CCTV last Tuesday. On his TV appearance, Dahlin admitted the alleged wrongdoings of his group, which he said had paid and supported Chinese rights lawyers Wang Quanzhang and activist Xin Qingxian, the latter of whom brought the son of detained rights lawyer Wang Yu across international borders. David Bandurski, a researcher at the University of Hong Kongs China Media Project, however, calls Chinas public spectacles of shaming political bullying a form of punishment and ritual humiliation for the victims, and a powerful way for the party state to communicate which behaviors it finds unacceptable. Ultimately, the aim is to crush dissent and the supposed crimes are of middling importance relative to the act of submission itself, the researcher added. Still room for NGOs to operate in China Simon Chang, associate professor of politics at National Taiwan University, agrees, saying China has made its point clear that Dahlin and his other peers from foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have crossed a red line. The red line apparently has been drawn tighter along with tightened policies. That has a direct impact on [foreign] NGOs in the political [service] field, in particular, with relation to human rights issues, Chang said. It also sends a warning to NGOs in other fields that: dont you come meddling in our sensitive affairs, he said. The professor added that China recognizes the role NGOs play in public governance, which it believes complements the states declining ruling capacity. Yet, he said, authorities adopt a hard line when it comes to sources which they see may undermine the Communist Partys legitimacy and trigger social unrest. Thus, there is still room for NGOs to operate in China although some that are unregistered will be treading in risky waters, he said. Earlier estimates by Tsinghua University showed that there were more than three million NGOs operating in China, of which only 15% were officially registered. The number of foreign NGOs was estimated to be around 10,000. Sarah Brooks, East Asia program manager of the International Service for Human Rights, said Dahlins case showcases the long arm of China, whose influence now appears to have extended beyond its borders after neighboring countries such as Thailand assisted in the arrests of Chinese dissidents. You see the willingness of the Chinese public security apparatus to really disregard borders, in terms of implementing their mandate to uphold the will of the party, Brooks said. She said such intimidation, however, will only end up hurting Chinas own development of civil rights, be it labor rights or education for migrate workers and financially-challenged children. Policies and laws, and frankly, outright intimidation that prevent NGOs from organizing or human rights defenders from doing their work undermines the very effort to realize the rights that the country claims to preference, the Geneva-based manager concludes. China Aid Media Team Cell: (432) 553-1080 | Office: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Other: (432) 689-6985 Email: [email protected] For more information, click here The Washington Post By Emily Rauhala and Simon Denyer January 26 at 11:45 AM Beijing Chinas campaign against dissent is going global. Amid extraordinary moves to rein in criticism at home, Chinese security personnel are reaching confidently across borders, targeting Chinese and foreign citizens who dare to challenge the Communist Party line, in what one Western diplomat has called the worst crackdown since Tiananmen Square. A string of incidents, including abductions from Thailand and Hong Kong, forced repatriations and the televised confessions of two Swedish citizens, has crossed a new red line, according to diplomats in Beijing. Yet many foreign governments seem unwilling or unable to intervene, their public response limited to mild protests. The European Union is divided and appears uncertain about what to do. Hong Kong is in an uproar, with free speech under attack, activists looking over their shoulders and many people saying they feel betrayed by a lack of support from Britain. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV in Beijing on Jan. 17 showed Gui Minhai, a Swedish national and co-owner of a Hong Kong publishing house, weeping. Gui went missing late last year. (CCTV/AFP/Getty Images) China seems bent upon broadcasting to the world its disdain for the rule of law, said Jerome A. Cohen, a China legal scholar and professor at New York University. With Secretary of State John F. Kerry in Beijing, where he landed late Tuesday, the leaders of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, an independent U.S. government agency, have voiced alarm. The bodys chairman, Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), said Friday that President Xi Jinpings push toward hard authoritarianism threatens U.S.-China ties, a view echoed by his co-chairman, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). On Xis watch, Hong Kongs autonomy is under threat, and Beijings reach is ever-expanding to include foreign soil and foreign nationals living, working and doing business in China, said Rubio, a presidential candidate. President Xi is ruling by fear, not by the rule of law. Before this became a story about cross-border abductions, televised confessions and Chinas long, throttling reach, it was a story about a book a gossipy work on Xis love life. The book, which has not been published, is said to allude to the alleged girlfriends the president had before he took office. It was to have been issued in the semiautonomous Chinese city of Hong Kong by a small publishing house, Mighty Current Media, whose name seems to foreshadow the rush of abductions by Chinese security forces that has swept up five men associated with the firm, including two foreign nationals. On Oct. 17, Gui Minhai, a Hong Kong-based publisher and naturalized Swedish citizen, vanished from his 17th-floor vacation condominium in Thailand. Days later, three Mighty Current employees disappeared while visiting the Chinese city of Shenzhen. In late December, Lee Bo, a British citizen, was apparently abducted from a warehouse in Hong Kong an action that appeared to violate the one country, two systems principle Beijing pledged to uphold after taking control of the city from Britain in 1997. In a series of odd communications with his wife, Lee said he was assisting with an investigation in China and that everything is fine. That proved unlikely. Months after Lees colleague Gui went missing, he reappeared on Chinese television last week to deliver a choreographedconfession for a car crash that took place in 2003. Within the week, in an unrelated case, a second confession by a Swede was broadcast on state television. It featured Peter Dahlin, who has worked to support Chinese lawyers. He disappeared on his way to the Beijing airport on Jan. 3 and was held for nearly two weeks before being given access to consular officials. He was finally released Monday evening and deported, colleagues said. A Chinese journalist, two dissidents and the son of a jailed civil rights lawyer also have gone missing or been forcibly repatriated from Thailand and Burma in the past three months, heightening the perception that for critics of the Chinese Communist Party and their families, nowhere is safe. The U.S. State Department expressed concern about the confessions and the use of extra-legal means to bring foreign nationals to China. And the German Foreign Ministry voiced really serious concern that Britain and Sweden had either not been granted access to their citizens or were granted access only after an unacceptable delay. This is clearly and undoubtedly not in accordance with the international obligations of the Peoples Republic of China with regard to the Vienna Conventions, spokesman Martin Shaefer said Friday, referring to a 1963 international accord on consular relations. But the response from other European countries has been anemic, say critics who note that many are keen to court Chinese investment. When the European Union issued a statement calling on Chinese authorities to review their decision to expel a French journalist at the end of last year, many European embassies in Beijing declined to even publish the comment on their websites. The Global Times, a nationalist Chinese newspaper published in Beijing,argued that the mild response from France and the European Union proved that the Chinese were right to throw the reporter out. Many European nations also have not republished E.U. statements on the abductions of the booksellers and the arrest of Dahlin. China, critics say, has realized that Europe is weak and divided. The international reaction, from the E.U. in particular, should be a lot stronger than this otherwise they will get more cases, said Nicholas Bequelin, East Asia director for Amnesty International. China has seen through the hypocrisy of Western countries with respect to human rights. On a visit to Beijing this month, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammondwarned that if Lee had been abducted, it would represent an egregious breach of promises made in 1997. But Hammond also played down such reports as pure speculation. Hong Kong people feel increasingly that Britain is not honoring its moral and legal obligation to Hong Kong, said Anson Chan, who served as the territorys top bureaucrat directly after the handover. Britain is desperate to do business with China almost on any terms. Chinas apparent disrespect for Hong Kongs autonomy and Lees British passport is a threat to the hundreds of thousands of residents who hold foreign passports, Chan said. If tomorrow you say something that someone doesnt like, will you be spirited away and taken to mainland China? she said. That fear may be precisely Beijings point. It also may signal worry at home, experts said, citing concerns intensified by a stock-market collapse and economic slowdown. As the economy begins to slow down, the leadership anticipates that the popularity of Xi Jinping and the party will take a body blow, said Willy Wo-Lap Lam, an expert in Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In the middle of last year, China began a campaign against illegal publications that could poison the hearts and minds of its youths. Among the targets: reactionary publications out of Hong Kong and Taiwan. Mighty Currents works appeared to strike a particular nerve, because the publication suggested that Xis Communist Party rivals are leaking gossip to undermine him, and because the salacious subject matter might shatter the aura of invincibility he has cultivated. The people around Xi Jinping are furiously creating a Mao Zedong-style personality cult around him, Lam said. The book published in Hong Kong would have made a dent in that. China Aid Media Team Cell: (432) 553-1080 | Office: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Other: (432) 689-6985 Email: [email protected] For more information, click here A WeChat booth at an industry expo in Beijing.PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY Be it mobile payment or e-commerce, WeChat, the most widely used instant messaging application in China, has successfully branched out into various industries with its advantage in user numbers. The messaging application from Tencent Holdings Ltd is looking to launch a new feature that will allow WeChat users to enjoy services without the need for downloading and installing applications. Zhang Xiaolong, senior vice-president of Tencent responsible for WeChat, said on Monday that the company is considering launching a subscription-based feature called Yingyonghao, which can be directly translated into application accounts. "As long as users subscribe to the accounts of certain applications in WeChat, they can access the services via functional HTML 5 sites rather than downloading separate applications," he said at a WeChat event in Guangzhou. Zhang said both WeChat users and startup companies can benefit from the new feature. "Applications that are not used frequently need not be downloaded any more. In addition, the service is beneficial for startups as it can significantly lower the cost of building up a business as launching an HTML 5 site is cheaper than launching a functional application," he said. Rather than replacing application developers or building itself into an app store, the move to launch application accounts is expected to help WeChat further establish itself as the super application in China and speed up its commercialization. Mi Yier, an analyst with the Beijing-based Internet consultancy Analysys International, said WeChat is already the most visited application in China's mobile Internet industry. "By launching the new feature, WeChat can monetize its huge traffic. Some of the applications with strong user loyalty may not need help from WeChat but for apps with low usage frequency, they can certainly use WeChat to reach more potential users," she said, adding some users are reluctant to download home remodeling applications because no one wants to remodel their home that often. WeChat had 650 million active monthly users by the end of the third quarter of 2015, which is almost equal to the size of China's Internet population by June 2015. But for now, WeChat mainly makes money by posting advertisements on its Moments timeline. Ren Bin, chief executive officer of Yaogeili, an application that offers door-to-door prescription drug delivery, said he will certainly use the new service once it is launched by WeChat. "I don't think the service will replace my app but it can be real help to make sure more users can find what we offer," he said. "Many of the potential users we find are reluctant to download our app when we do on-street promotions as it uses up their time and data. It is much more easier to persuade them to follow our WeChat account," he said. Depreciation of RMB and increased terror fears cited as reasons China's outbound tourism industry seems have lost its explosive growth amid concerns including the depreciation of the yuan and a world under the shadow of terrorism. The China Tourism Academy, a think tank under the China National Tourism Administration, forecast that the country would see 133 million outbound visits in 2016, a rise of 11 percent year-on-year. While that is close to the 12 percent growth seen in 2015, it is down significantly from rates of 18 to 22 percent experienced from 2010 to 2012. Zhang Lingyun, a tourism professor at Beijing Union University, said that China will continue to make rapid strides in trips and overseas consumption, but such explosive growth would not happen again. "The deprecation of the yuan will not dampen the mainland's outbound tourism business in the short term. However, when it comes to the long term, it's a different story," Zhang said. Kuang Shi, chief analyst at BOCI International (China) Limited, used South Korea as an example to show the negative effect posed by weaker currency on outbound tourism. "From November 2007 to March 2008, the depreciation of the South Korean won was as high as 37.4 percent. During this period, outbound visits by South Korean travelers dropped by 34.9 percent," Kuang said. Zhang also said that terrorism is overshadowing overseas tourism destinations. "In the past, Chinese tourists knew that they could avoid the potential risk if they didn't go to places they were not familiar with. However, after the terrorist attacks in Paris, many began to believe the whole terrorism situation was different. Compared with other countries, the situation in China is better. China is a relatively safe place." At the same time, there are other factors influencing outbound tourism. Zhang said the improvement of domestic tourism products as well as more duty-free shops and diverse products would keep more Chinese tourists at home. "Many would agree that China still has a profound natural and cultural heritage," said Zhang. "After I visited Yellowstone National Park in the United States, I would say we also have such magnificent natural scenery in China. One of the reasons behind the outbound boom is the lack of proper facilities, tourism products and services in China." Zhang said the domestic tourism industry has been forced to adapt to the fast-changing market and more "picky" tourists. Overseas consumption is the same story. Zhang said that many Chinese shopped overseas because of lower prices or product availability. This situation would also change if more duty-free stores opened in China. "Chinese would not bother flying to Japan for toilet seats if they could buy the same products in China," Zhang said. suzhou@chinadaily.com.cn SAIC Motor Group's joint ventures made six out of ten best selling automobile models last year on Chinese mainland. SAIC GM Wuling's Hongguang, launched in 2010, was crowned again for a fourth consecutive year the best selling autmobile, according to China Association of Automobile Manufacturers' data released this month. The popular compact MPV's upgraded model, Hongguang S, replaced its predecessor in August, and the sales volume was combined. The model proved its wide acceptance in tier-2 and tier-3 cities as a choice for carrying both passengers and cargos. No 10, SAIC Volkswagen Tiguan Sales volume about 255,800 An employee walks into the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in Hong Kong.[Photo/Agencies] Stock investors are finally seeing value in domestic shares, but there's a twist: instead of wading back onto battered onshore exchanges, they've gone shopping for bargains in Hong Kong. By doing so they are exploiting a long-standing market distortion that means the average share price of a dual-listed Chinese mainland company is currently 40 percent lower in Hong Kong than in Shanghai or Shenzhen. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index now trades at an average price-to-earnings ratio of slightly more than 6, much cheaper than broader Asian markets, which trade around 13, and the cheapest the HSCE has traded since December 2001. The index of so-called H-shares is also trading below book value, meaning the average company's shares are pricing the business below its accounting value. "Investing in HK stocks is the right choice, because the Hang Seng's current valuation is near historic lows; the kind of opportunity which has generated handsome returns previously," said Zhu Haifeng, a 31-year-old investor in Hubei province. Zhu, who left his construction business to become a full-time stock investor, told Reuters he had boosted his Hong Kong equity exposure this year by roughly 70 percent to more than 6 million yuan ($912,100), while slashing his exposure to onshore stocks. His Hong Kong portfolio, focused on dividend-yielding shares in mainland companies such as China Shenhua Energy and Television Broadcasting Ltd, now accounts for roughly 65 percent of his total equity exposure, he said. Zhu is not alone. A number of measures show mainland money flowing into Hong Kong stocks, in part an unintended consequence of Beijing's extraordinary efforts to prop up its domestic market. The E Fund Hang Seng China Enterprises Index ETF for example, an onshore exchange-traded fund managed by a quota system tracking the HSCE, has seen huge inflows from mainland investors this year. Even as the HSCE has slumped roughly 15 percent year-to-date, the ETFs' assets under management have jumped 15 percent during the period, to 5.7 billion yuan. And the number of fund units, which eliminates the effect of price fluctuations on fund value, has surged 37 percent this year, to 6.8 billion units, making it the second-largest ETF in Shanghai by that measure. Yang Jun, fund manager at E Fund Management Co Ltd, said that typically ETFs grow in assets when the market is rising, but that has not been the case with HSCE Index ETF so far this year. "Unit prices may be declining, but assets under management are growing rapidly," he said. In another sign of change, the flow of money into Hong Kong from the mainland via the Hong Kong-Shanghai Stock Connect pilot program exceeded flows from Hong Kong into Shanghai last week for the first time since April. The long-running price difference between Hong Kong and mainland exchanges reflects vastly different regulatory regimesmainland's closed capital account means its markets are driven by sentiment among the domestic retail investors who dominate there, while open Hong Kong is more driven by international money managers and follows moves in global capital markets. Lufax, a Chinese peer-to-peer lender and broker, is seeking to list itself as early as the second half of this year either in Hong Kong or Shanghai, Chairman Gregory Gibb said. The company, which recently rebranded its business as lu.com, doesn't have a specific fundraising target for the initial public offering, Gibb said in an e-mail, adding it would depend on valuation at the time of the sale. Lufax could raise as much as $5 billion from its IPO, the Wall Street Journal reported Jan 26, citing people familiar with the deal. "Our target window is as early as the second half of 2016 or 2017; Our ultimate decision will take into account broader market conditions," Gibb said. With cash already amassed from earlier fundraisings, the company "is not under any pressure to list by a specific date," he said. Lufax hasn't yet appointed banks to advise it on the deal, he said. The company said earlier this month that it gathered about $1.2 billion from investors including units of Bank of China Ltd and China Minsheng Banking Corp in a fundraising that valued the company at $18.5 billion. The money will be used to support Lufax's existing peer-to-peer lending operations, and to diversify into new areas such as wealth management, Gibb told reporters in Shanghai at the time. Shanghai-based Lufax, whose official name is Shanghai Lujiazui International Financial Asset Exchange Co, was valued at $10 billion in March, when it raised $500 million in a private placement that already made it the most valuable financial startup, according to data compiled by CB Insights. China's finance sector has been going through changes after years of government control, with new Internet finance companies mushrooming to provide innovative and cheaper services. A giant "block train" left Dalian in Northeast China's Liaoning province on Wednesday morning, headed for the first time to Kaluga in Russia. The new international freight service was carrying 100 standard containers packed with goods produced by Samsung Electronics Co, which had arrived at Dalian Port from South Korea. The train is expected to take half as long as a conventional maritime service to reach its destination. It will arrive at Manzhouli, a Chinese border city in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, on Thursday. Officials said the departure marked the launch of a new international logistics channel jointly developed by China, South Korea and Russia, which will help diversify regional trade and multi-model transportation. Dou Guangpeng, deputy-general manager of Dalian Jiyi Logistics Co Ltd, a subsidiary of Dalian Port Group Co, said even though the cost of the new sea-rail service is similar to just maritime, it takes 20 days fewer to deliver goods to destinations in either Russia or Europe. It is claimed that other major companies, including Daimler AG, LG Electronics, Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motor Co, are already lined up to use the service. Dalian Port now plans to build three more such "sea-rail channels" to allow direct connections to Europe. "The port will not only connect with Pusan Port in South Korea, but other major ports including those in South Korea, in Japan, and some Southeast Asian countries, to deliver this multi-model transportation service," said Dou. Considered Northeast China's cross-border frontier entry point, Dalian Port deals with 90 percent of the region's foreign trade goods. It services 107 domestic and international shipping lines that connect with some 320 major ports around the world. The port handled in excess of 440 million metric tons of goods last year. Lee June-young, executive vice-president at Samsung's procurement team for visual display products, said South Korea is promoting its own Eurasia Initiativesimilar to China's Belt and Road Initiativeto encourage mass entrepreneurship and seek new growth markets overseas. The Belt and Road Initiative, proposed by China in 2013, is a trade and infrastructure network that includes the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. The planned network connects Asia, Europe and Africa and passes through more than 60 countries and regions. "With more products and parts expected to be shipped to Russia and Europe through this route, South Korean companies can seek investment opportunities and be more inclined to establish regional headquarters, branches and manufacturing facilities in both China and Europe," said Lee. Alexey Laptev, deputy governor of Russia's Kaluga regional government, said the new route will help the city become a major logistics center, and that his office is in talks with a number of European countries to further extend the route to other foreign markets. The 28-story Edificio Espana, Spain's tallest building when it was built in the late 1940s, is a central landmark in Madrid and used to house a hotel, though it has been vacant for several years. [Photo/IC] Chinese real state giant Dalian Wanda denies claim by Spanish media that the company has cancelled a multi-million-euro project to convert a landmark building into a luxury hotel and shopping mall in central Madrid. In a statement published on the group's website, Wanda rejected the rumors of rising tensions between property tycoon Wang Jianlin and the mayor of Madrid Manuela Carmena during the negotiations on the future of the iconic landmark Edificio Espana in the Spanish capital. Last week, frictions between the two parties were reportedly escalating after Spanish website El Priodista Digital wrote that Wang had bitterly commented his 'dog like' treatment by Spanish officials. "I have never been treated as badly by anyone in my entire life", the Spanish website quoted him as saying to his negotiation team in Madrid. This morning, the company published a press release denying those comments and its intention to sell the building. "Wanda's chairman Wang Jianlin never made such statements" said the press release, adding that, "the company will now conduct a new comprehensive assessment of the Edificio Espana project." Meanwhile, on Tuesday this week, Mayor Manuela Carmena confirmed that Wanda was not withdrawing the Madrid project. "I think Wanda Group is reflecting on the conversations and proposals that we have had recently," said Carmena during a press conference. "The city is interested in doing everything possible to allow a hotel to be built." Since the approval of the project, the two parties have disagreed on the future of the building because Madrid authorities refused to allow the Chinese property developer to dismantle the facade of the protected landmark. An employee counts yuan banknotes at a bank in Huaibei, Anhui province June 22, 2010.[Photo/Agencies] BEIJING - China's central bank has made a big injection of funds into the financial system for the second time this week to ease a short-term liquidity strain before the Lunar New Year holiday. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) pumped 260 billion yuan ($39.7 billion) into markets through 28-day reverse repurchase agreements (repo) and 80 billion yuan of seven-day reverse repo, a process in which central banks purchase securities from banks with agreements to resell them in the future. The injection, following Tuesday's 440-billion-yuan reverse repo operations, the largest single-day liquidity injection in three years, has resulted in a net 590 billion yuan being pumped into the market this week. The 28-day reverse repo was priced to yield 2.6 percent while that of the seven-day reverse repo was 2.25 percent, unchanged from Tuesday's operations, according to a PBOC statement. In Thursday's interbank market, the overnight Shanghai Interbank Offered Rate (Shibor), which measures the cost at which Chinese banks lend to one other, fell slightly to 1.992 percent. China's financial markets and business operations will be closed from Feb. 7 to 13 for the Lunar New Year holiday, when a surge in cash demand is expected because of travel expenses and holiday shopping. The PBOC usually pumps extra funds into the financial system ahead of the holiday. Guiyang in China's Guizhou province will host a big data expo from May 26 to 29 as the country's first big data pilot zone is further tapping into the cutting-edge industry to boost economic growth. "This year's expo will focus on bringing both international corporations and local startups together to discuss the latest trends of big data technology and applications," said Liu Chuncheng, deputy mayor of Guiyang. According to Liu, there will be a 60,000-square-meter exhibition area for enterprises to showcase their innovative big data application technologies. Last year, the Guiyang International Big Data Expo attracted about 500 enterprises from the all over the world. Tech tycoons such as Jack Ma, chief executive of Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd, and Terry Gou, chairman of Foxconn Technology Group, were present at the meeting. Guizhou is already making significant progress in promoting the application and commercializing big data which is seen as a future asset for society. It's also established the world's first big data exchange market. Over 1,200 big data companies have set up their offices or branches in Guiyang in the first half of 2015. China's big three telecom operators - China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom - are devoting 15 billion yuan ($2.4 billion) into constructing three big data centers in Guizhou, which are expected to house 2 million servers. An investor walks past an electronic display showing prices of shares at a brokerage house in Fuyang, Anhui province, Jan 28, 2016. [Photo/IC] Stocks slumped on Thursday over concerns that a slowing economy will put a dent on corporate profitability. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed at 2,655.66, down 2.9 percent, while the Shenzhen Component Index tumbled 3.6 percent to 9,082.59. Steel, telecommunication and computer service sectors led the decline. Beijing Kunlun Tech Co and IRICO Display Devices Co dived by the daily limit of 10 percent. Telecommunication giant China United Network Communications slipped 4.9 percent. The plunge came as the country's GDP grew at a 25-year low of 6.9 percent in 2015, according to the latest official data. The International Monetary Fund projects a 6.3-percent growth this year. The recent bill frauds and capital outflow have sparked market concerns, said Guojin Securities in a note, adding that liquidity strain often appear before Chinese New Year holiday. Two employees of the Beijing branch of Agricultural Bank of China were reported on Friday to be under investigation for allegedly taking 3.9 billion yuan ($592.8 million) of bank's acceptance bills out of the branch's safe and cashing the same through repurchase transactions. Bloomberg on Thursday uncovered another fraud case in CITIC Bank involving about 1 billion yuan bill-financing late last year, said the agency citing people familiar with the matter. The Agricultural Bank and CITIC Bank slumped 1.4 and 2.9 percent on Thursday. The CSI Index tracking some of the largest-cap stocks in Shanghai and Shenzhen tumbled 2.6 percent to 2,853.76. Chinese employees are seen at the reception desk of Alibaba Health Information Technology in Hong Kong, November 24, 2014.[Photo/IC] Alibaba Health Information Technology Ltd share prices witnessed a plunge of more than 20 percent on Thursday after news reports saying it is likely to lose its operational rights to China's Drug Electronic Regulation Platform. The project led by the China Food and Drug Administration as an effort to protect patients from counterfeit pharmaceuticals is one of the major powerhouses that drive the Hong Kong-listed digital healthcare company's business. According to media reports quoting industry sources a deputy director of the CFDA said in an internal meeting on Tuesday that the administration will take back the operational right of the drug electronic platform from Alibaba Health. CFDA was not able to be reached for comment. A spokesperson of Ali Health said it hasn't received any notice regarding the issue from CFDA. The Hong Kong-listed Alibaba Health said in a statement on Thursday that it has noted the unusual movements in the price or trading volume of the shares. And it confirms it is not aware of any reasons for these price or volume movements or of any information. A Chinese drug retailer brought a suit against the CFDA, accusing the administration of giving the operational rights of a national drug regulation platform to a commercial organization. Gaby-Luise Wuest is appointed president of Dongfeng Infiniti Motor Co, Jan 27, 2016. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] Gaby-Luise Wuest was appointed president of Dongfeng Infiniti Motor Co on Wednesday to replace Daniel Kirchert "who has decided to leave the company to pursue other opportunities", said premium automaker Infiniti. Wuest, who was COO of Infiniti, will be dedicated to the Chinese market as the country is of utmost importance to the marque and Kirchert will help ensure a smooth transition, the automaker told China Daily. Infiniti said Wuest has extensive experience in the premium car segment. She worked for BMW before joining Infiniti in September 2014. Roland Krueger, president of Infiniti, thanked Kirchert for his contribution in the past three years but said there will be no change in the brand's strategy in the Chinese market after his departure, adding that Infiniti will continue its localization plan and expand its dealership network as scheduled. Lei Xin, deputy general manager of Dongfeng Infiniti, said Kirchert's resignation will not have much influence as the 2016 plan had been worked out. Infiniti sold 40,188 cars in 2015 on the mainland, a 33.8 percent surge year-on-year, six times the overall growth rate of the premium car segment in China. Models produced at Dongfeng Infiniti - Q50L and QX50 - accounted for nearly 60 percent of Infiniti's total sales in the Chinese market. Chinese-developed app eyes expansion to more cities in the US A Chinese-developed challenger to Craigslist and Wallapop has secured $30 million in new funding as it celebrates its first year in business this month. 5miles is a Dallas- and Beijing-based mobile-app startup that has more than 5 million users, averaging 30,000 downloads a day. Its goal is to become a major factor in local classified advertising, an area dominated by Craigslist. "5miles is a community and not just a marketplace," Liang Lu, founder and president, said in an interview on Tuesday. "We will use this funding to expand to other US cities." 5miles currently serves Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio in Texas and also Miami, Florida, and Oakland, California. Lu is a native of Luoyang in Henan province. After attending college in China, he moved to the United States, where he gained a graduate degree in 2005 from Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He then worked in a series of technology- and e-commerce-focused positions with BlogDrive.com, LightInTheBox and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. "At Alibaba, I was exposed to mobile and e-commerce applications," Lu said. In 2014, he noticed that mobile penetration was growing rapidly in the US and Europe. "I studied Craigslist and decided to do a similar business," he said. Craigslist features free online merchandise listings but charges a fee for job listings, apartment-rental offerings and automobile ads in certain cities. Many observers believe Craigslist played a big part in making the classified advertising sections of US newspapers obsolete. Lu said 5miles is different from Craigslist in that it is mobile-based and offers a more service-oriented product. "We enable you to take advantage of your smartphone and communicate with pictures, words, GPS and social media and instant messaging instead of relying on e-mail," he said. "We verify users with a valid e-mail, phone number and Facebook account," Lu said. Clients will also be able to access reviews on a user. Buyers are not allowed to sell pets, weapons or pharmaceuticals on 5miles, said Lu. It does not charge buyers or sellers a fee and earns revenue from online advertising. Investors in 5miles include venture capital funds like Blue Lake, IDG, Morningside and SIG-China (part of the Susquehanna Investment Group). In addition, individuals with ties to Alibaba and eBay Inc have invested in the company. "Right now we use the latest funding to focus on US expansion," said Lu. "If that goes well, we will then look at Europe and maybe Brazil. We are letting Alibaba work on a China application." 5miles has 15 marketing and administration employees in Dallas, and its Beijing office has 30 employees working on engineering and product development. The latest financing brings total investment in 5miles to more than $50 million. In its first year, 5miles gained 4 million users and generated $1 billion in gross merchandise volume. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) shakes hands with visiting United States Secretary of State John Kerry in Beijing Jan 27, 2016.[Photo by Feng Yongbin/chinadaily.com.cn] Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China "cannot accept the allegations" that China's words are not being matched by actions in the South China Sea as it has promised not to engage in militarization. Wang made the comments when addressing a joint press conference with visiting United States Secretary of State John Kerry following their prolonged talks starting in the morning. "China has already committed to not engage in the so-called militarization, and we will honor our commitment. We cannot accept the allegations that China's words are not being matched by actions," Wang said. The press conference was delayed for around three hours, and Wang said they had a "positive, candid and constructive meeting". On the islands and reefs stationed by China in the South China Sea, Wang said China has built up quite a few civil facilities that are able to provide public services, and in addition to that, there are some necessary facilities for self-defense. "But international law has given all sovereign countries the rights of self-protection and self-defense," Wang said. "If one equate such rights to militarization, then the South China Sea may have been militarized long ago, and China may not be the first party to start the militarization," Wang added. On the South China Sea issue, Wang said he told Kerry that the South China Sea islands have been Chinese territory, and China has the right to protect its own territorial sovereignty and lawful and legitimate maritime rights and interests. "At the same time, China is ready to uphold peace and stability in the South China Sea, be committed to managing differences through dialogue and seeking a peaceful settlement of the disputes through negotiations and consultations," Wang said. It is important that the "two sides manage these sensitive issues in a constructive way so that they (the issues) will not detract from the overall interests of China-US cooperation," Wang said. President Xi Jinping escorts US Secretary of State John Kerry in Beijing on Wednesday. WU ZHIYI / CHINA DAILY Top diplomats from Beijing and Washington found more common ground on Wednesday on key issues including the latest nuclear test by Pyongyang. In a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry, President Xi Jinping said that China-US ties have been smooth and have advanced in the past year, and the two countries have had "timely communication" on topics including the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue. When China and the United States work together,they can make big things happen that are good for the world, Xi said. Meeting the media with Kerry at the Foreign Ministry, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China will hold "comprehensive and in-depth deliberations with the United States and other parties" on an expected UN Security Council resolution on the recent nuclear test by Pyongyang. China and the US have agreed on the broad goal of restarting negotiations on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, Wang said. Kerry said their meeting was constructive and the two countries had agreed to accelerate their efforts on the issue at the United Nations. Kerry spoke highly of productive communication and coordination between the two countries, specifically men-tioning the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal. Responding to allegations by US media that China's self-defense facilities on some garrisoned islands and reefs in the South China Sea have "boosted militarization ",Wang said China has promised not to engage in militarization. "International law has given all sovereign countries the right to self-protection and self-defense," Wang said. Taiwan also featured in the talks between the top diplo-mats, with Wang saying, "Taiwan is a core issue affecting China-US ties". He urged Washington to "take concrete action to support the peaceful development of cross-Straits relations". In response, Kerry reaffirmed the US commitment to the One-China policy. Kerry arrived in China on Tuesday after stops in Laos and Cambodia. He also met with State Councilor Yang Jiechi onWednesday. A visitor takes a photo of the Statue of Venus in the exhibition. [Photo by Huang Zhiling/chinadaily.com.cn] Visitors to the Jinsha Site Museum in Chengdu, Sichuan province are in for a treat, as priceless cultural relics from ancient Rome in Italy are on display in the exhibition "The Eternal City, Splendor of Ancient Rome." "I didn't expect to see so many fine relics from the Roman Empire which I had only seen in books and on TV," said Liang Zhao, a smiling 28-year-old resident from Taiyuan, Shanxi province on Wednesday. Borrowed from Italian museums by the Jinsha Site Museum, Tianjin Museum, Shandong Museum and Yunnan Museum, 233 pieces (sets) of cultural relics of ancient Rome will be on display in the Jinsha Site Museum till April 8 on the first leg of their China tour. The next three legs will be in Tianjin municipality and Shandong and Yunnan provinces. Rome, set up in 753 BC, is known as the eternal city. Some of the most impressive monuments of antiquity are standing along its busy, modern streets bearing silent witness to the vicissitudes of history. Rome was not built in a single day, but over the course of many centuries. To present the ancient Roman civilization to Chinese audiences, organizers are exhibiting the relics of ancient Rome collected in museums including Palatine, Coliseum, Domus Aurea, National Roman Museum, Baths of Diocletian, Palazzo Massimo, Siena Archaeological Museum and National Archaeological Museum of Florence. "Many of the exhibits are being shown in China for the first time. The insurance for all the relics is nearly 100 million yuan ($15 million)," said Huang Yujie, an official in charge of relic display in the Jinsha Site Museum. Parallel to the history of the Roman Empire from the first century BC to the fourth century, the exhibition follows a chronological progression along a symbolic route stretching from the Imperial Forums of Caesar Augustus to the Arch of Constantine. All the objects in the exhibition are meant to reconstruct the lives and everyday scenes of the Romans from the emperor to the intellectuals and ordinary people over a period of 500 years, organizers said. Experts call for other solutions to tackle air pollution, traffic congestion Traffic grinds to a standstill during the peak rush hour on Monday morning, Sept 22, 2014 near Liujiayao Bridge, Third Ring Road South in Beijing. [Photo/Xinhua] A controversial proposal to ban half of Beijing's vehicles from the roads on alternate days during the winter would only be a stopgap measure, experts have warned. No decision has yet been made on whether to permanently adopt the odd-even car ban, which would apply each year during the city's "winter heating season" from Nov 15 to March 15, Li Shixiang, Beijing's executive vice-mayor, told deputies of the People's Congress of Beijing last week. Previously implemented during international events such as the 2008 Olympics, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in 2014 and on other heavily polluted days, the ban is still under discussion and it is not yet known if the policy will be applied in time for next winter, Rong Jun, spokesman of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport, told a news conference on Wednesday. "Automobiles produce a lot of emissions to the detriment of residents' health and the problem is compounded in winter when the municipality's central heating systems are switched on. We have to choose between heating fueled by coal and the use of cars," Rong said. Under current traffic rules, a fifth of the city's vehicles are obliged to be off the roads each weekday based on their license plate number, else face a penalty. Rong said Beijing had only enforced the full odd-even car ban six times since its first use in 2008. According to the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, vehicle emissions were responsible for 31 percent of the city's smog. Previous bans successfully reduced airborne pollutants by 30 percent and lowered PM2.5, particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 microns that is hazardous to human health, by 20 to 25 percent, said Cheng Shuiyuan, professor in environmental and energy engineering at Beijing University of Technology. Yet some transport experts described the ban as merely a stopgap measure and have called for other solutions to be found. Chen Yanyan, a professor in transport at Beijing University of Technology, said traffic congestion is a common problem in big cities all over the world, but Beijing can learn from some other cities for better management. "For example, in San Francisco, car owners can reserve parking spaces in advance or find out about parking conditions in central areas through an intelligent system, so they will not drive into the city if there is no space, which reduces traffic congestion." Yang Guangwu, chief engineer of the Beijing Major Projects Construction Headquarters Office, said the capacity of the city's public transport system had been enhanced as more subway lines were opened. The aim is for residents to be able to find a subway station within 750 meters of their homes or offices by the end of the decade, according to Huang Yan, director of Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning. "By 2021, the city will have 29 subway lines and 999 km of track, 80 percent more than its current length," Yang said. "It is more environmentally-friendly, convenient and efficient to take the subway than drive a car." Wang Xiaodong and Zheng Jinran contributed to this story. China's top medical authority will investigate and punish the scalping of hospital bookings, a spokesperson announced on Wednesday. A video clip went viral on China's social network this week recording a young girl weeping inconsolably while claiming that hospital staff colluded with scalpers. The girl said she had been waiting in the hospital for an outpatient appointment for two days, and still could not get a ticket. Contact cards promising to schedule a doctor's appointment for patients are seized by police from a woman near Beijing Children's Hospital in January. Cao Boyuan / For China Daily She complained that an appointment slip in Guang'anmen Hospital that originally cost 300 yuan ($45) was being offered by scalpers for more than 4,500 yuan. She later called the police to intervene. The hospital is known for traditional Chinese medicine. Mao Qun'an, spokesman of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said the Beijing municipal health department would look into the incident, and any medical staff found hoarding appointment tickets or selling them to scalpers would be severely punished. Mao said the commission requires healthcare providers to cooperate with the police. Guang'anmen Hospital said it has no evidence that staff colluded with scalpers. In China, paying for a medical appointment in advance is common in many hospitals, and most patients get there early in the morning to guarantee themselves a spot. The country's top public hospitals are always full of patients, and getting an appointment with a department director is extremely hard, making the illegal trade of appointment slips a popular business. Many dealers wait outside the registry at 3 am or earlier to get an appointment, and will later sell their slip number to legitimate patients at a much higher price. On Friday, a total of 32 dealers were caught by the police in Beijing's Haidian district. "Currently, there are no laws or regulations on such a trade, and most dealers are held in custody for a few days. The lack of punishment provides a loophole," said Zheng Xueqian, a law committee member of the Chinese Hospital Association. Since 2015, many hospitals in Beijing have made more appointments available via online channels, including hospital apps and social media. Appointments should be made with the patient's name and identity number to prevent secondhand sales. Xinhua contributed to this story. China's tax system is a burden on companies and should be reformed, Liang Jianzhang, economist and co-founder of online travel service Ctrip.com argued at a recent symposium held at Tsinghua University. He said his company, the country's largest travel website, paid its employees 10,000 yuan ($1,520) a month on average, but after tax deductions and social insurance payments this figure was reduced to less than 6,000 yuan. Liang said taxes should be cut to benefit workers, but the idea was called into question by Gao Peiyong, director of the National Academy of Economic Strategy under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who doubted any ordinary consumer would benefit from such a move. 90 percent of Chinas tax revenue derive from corporate. Unlike western countries, more than 80 percent of Chinas tax revenue derives from indirect taxes, taxes that could easily passed on from companies to consumers without later notice. The divide is a showcase of the huge perception gap between ordinary people and experts when it comes to taxing in China. Any proposal to cut tax is hugely popular, but cooler heads should ask: such a move is desirable, but is it feasible? Right now the single largest source of tax revenue in China is the VAT, or value-added tax, which in 2014 accounted for 22 percent of the total, or 3.085 trillion yuan. In a bid to prevent repeat taxation, since 2012 the government has moved to replace business tax with a VAT in the economy's service sectors, effectively cutting taxation by 484 billion yuan. Yet this reform has not been applied to the property, construction, financial or consumer services sectors of the economy - despite a previous target to achieve this by the end of 2015. Deteroriating fiscal conditions and "technical difficulties" were cited as reasons for the delay. "VAT reform was planned to cut taxes by as much as 1 trillion yuan, but the reform stalled well below this target," Gao said. "There are many technical reasons for this but in essence it was because public finances may not be able to take the hit," he said. Besides VAT, another two pillars is business tax and consumption tax. When the trinity is important, finance officials feel heartbroken when either of the three is cut, according to Gao. In a system such as China's, which is dominated by indirect taxation, even substantial cuts may not directly benefit end consumers. But in other economies such as the United States where income and corporation tax - known as direct taxes - dominate, tax cuts can directly benefit individual households. "In the US, taxation can be a powerful tool to narrow the gap between rich and poor, but in China the role of taxation in redistributing income is minor. In some ways the tax system is unfair to the poor," said Lyu Wangshi, a researcher with the Fiscal Research Institute. For example, indirect taxes are usually incorporated in the price of a commodity so the burden is transferred to buyers ---no matter what their income is. But when it comes to direct tax such as individual income tax, threshold is so low (3,500 yuan per month) that it has become a de factor tax on average wage-owners. Rich have ample rooms to bypass the tax as much of their income does not go through payrolls. Experts have called for years that only when direct taxs share is raised does reducing indirect taxes feasible. But anytime when they propose to levy property tax or estate tax, they are quickly engulfed by public outcry. An image of a Siberian tiger taken with an infrared camera in Hunchun, Jilin province. [Photo/Xinhua] Jilin province cooperates with Russia to protect endangered Siberian tigers, Amur leopards Jilin province is planning a series of measures to protect endangered Siberian tigers and Amur leopards, some of which inhabit territory along China's border with Russia, according to a provincial forestry official. The province plans to invest an estimated 12.8 billion yuan ($2 billion) in the project, making use of advanced technologies and collaborating with Russia to protect the two species, said Lan Hongliang, director of the Jilin Forestry Department, at a symposium in Beijing on Wednesday. According to Lan, unmanned aerial drones will be used to keep an eye on the tigers and leopards in the future. About a dozen drones will be purchased to monitor the animals' activities. "We have also cooperated with Russia on the establishment of protection zones and personnel exchanges," Lan said. "We hope to further that cooperation in the future." Joint monitoring by China and Russia found that there are at least 35 Siberian tigers and 70 Amur leopards in an area around Russia's Land of the Leopard National Park and China's Hunchun, Jilin province, near the borders of China, Russia and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. But the area, which measures no more than 4,000 square kilometers, is isolated - blocked on the north, south and east. The tigers and leopards are unable to enter the Russian interior. What's more, the number of the animals in the area has exceeded its ecological carrying capacity, said ecologist Ge Jianping. "Under such circumstances, the tigers and leopards can only come westward to the large forested areas in Northeast China," said Ge, who is also vice-president of Beijing Normal University and vice-president of the Central Committee of China Democratic League. "It is a great opportunity for China to have more wild Siberian tigers and Amur leopards." To seize the opportunity, Lan said measures should be taken to reduce grazing and other human activities around Hunchun to make space for the big cats. "In this way, the tigers and leopards could enter the forests of Changbai Mountains and Heilongjiang province's Lesser Hinggan Mountains," Lan said. "It's important for the living and breeding of these endangered species in China." From 2012 to 2014, at least 27 Siberian tigers were found active in Northeast China, all along a 5-kilometer corridor on the China-Russia border. The number of wild Siberian tigers in Russia was reported to have reached 540 last year. Su Zhou contributed to this story. A community worker takes a profile photo for a resident who is covered by the basic pension insurance system in Mengcheng, Anhui province, in December. Hu Weiguo / For China Daily Easing companies' social security payment obligations would reduce business costs and encourage hiring, according to experts who have studied the issue. The annual Central Economic Work Conference, a tone-setting meeting for the 2016 national economic agenda, called for reducing companies' social security expenses and for studying ways to streamline other administrative payments, according to a statement issued afterward. For Chinese economists, the statement is an overdue acknowledgment of a problem businesspeople have complained about for years: the high costs of running a business. Lowering those costs is a central piece of China's supply-side reform. Liang Hong, chief economist at China International Capital Corp, who has followed the issue closely, said that unlike Western countries, taxes in China are just part of the corporate burden, which also includes various administrative fees and social insurance obligations. There is lots of room to alleviate the burden on companies by cutting payments, she said. Chinese employers must disburse 20 percent of an employee's monthly payroll to the pension fund, compared with the global average of a little over 10 percent of the combined contribution of employers and employees. Adding other funds, total payments by employers amount to 44 percent of an employee's monthly payroll. In 2014, total social security payments grew 13 percent to 3.98 trillion yuan ($605 billion). By comparison, the combined profits of China's industrial firms was 6.8 trillion yuan. High social insurance fees have deterred companies' hiring or forced them to devise ways to circumvent the leviesespecially during economic downturns. Michael Lan, president of Chinahrs, a national human resources service company, said a common practice is to make a cash payout to employees before the monthly salary disbursement. Employers might also pay part of the wage while having remaining wages paid by human resources companiesto keep the payroll base artificially low on the books. "Unlike the United States, Chinese retirees' pensions are not directly linked with their pension payments before retirement, which reduces employees incentives to participate. Employers also feel overburdened by the obligation," he said. China has already eased some obligations. However, analysts said such moves are patchwork: Unless pension fund obligations are lowered, they will not change much because pension payment takes up about 70 percent of total payments. If the pension payment ratio were to be substantially cut, say from 20 percent to 10 percent, the problem would shift to how to make up the losses, especially in face of an aging society. Economists have long suggested two ways to plug the hole: raising the retirement age and diverting more profits and equities of State-owned enterprises. Both have been accepted by the government and listed as a reform direction. But neither is easy job. "Raising the retirement age inevitably faces public resistance; the other encounters resistance from SOEs. A key reform blueprint urged the diversion of 30 percent of an SOE's dividend to the public coffers but did not specify how much equity should be diverted," Liang said. "You can see the difficulties." A report by China International estimated that if SOEs converted 10 percent of their equities to pension funds every five years, the government could afford to reduce the corporate contribution ratio to the funds by 5 percentage points. "If the obligations were reduced, companies undoubtedly would like to hire more, and more would sign labor contracts with employees," Lan said. JINAN - A shortage of donkey hides used to produce the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) "ejiao" has resulted in a deluge of imitations, with around 40 percent likely to be fake. Donkey-hide gelatin, known as ejiao in Chinese,is made by boiling the donkey's skin and refining the results into a tonic. Ejiao is mainly taken by women who suffer from anemia, dry coughs or dizziness. The name was coined in Dong'e County in east China's Shandong Province, where it was originally produced. Around 5,000 tonnes of ejiao is produced annually in China, according to figures released this week by Shandong Ejiao Trade Association. To realize such production, around 4 million donkey hides are needed each year. Annual supply in China is less than 1.8 million, meaning as much as 40 percent of the products claiming to be ejiao are counterfeit, according to the figures. "With the current donkey hide supply, only 3,000 tonnes of ejiao can be manufactured each year," said Dong Shuguang, an ejiao consultant with more than 20 years experience in the industry. Production of donkey hides has dwindled in China due to the animal's low fertility rate and long rearing period, prompting a 23 percent annual price hike. Last year, the average price for a complete donkey skin exceeded 2,600 yuan (395 U.S. dollars). As a result, people have began using the skins from mules, horses, pigs and oxen to produce counterfeit tonics. In some cases, people have even used shoes, according to Bu Xun from Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences. "A donkey skin can cost up to 3,000 yuan, while horse and mule hides are only 200 yuan each. Pig skins and shoes are even cheaper," Bu said. "Some products don't even have any ejiao in them." An industry insider said on condition of anonymity that some manufacturers sell the fake products to supermarkets or drug stores in remote counties or townships, or through online shops. The revelation has shocked many, eliciting more than 16,000 comments on web portal 163.com by 8 a.m. Wednesday. Many commenters said they were surprised counterfeits were so common. "Can we buy anything real these days?" wrote user "jsrggyx." "We should be happy it is not made from rubber tires," another user mocked. LHASA - Political buzzwords being added to a new Mandarin-Tibetan dictionary reflect positive progress in Tibetan society, according to the official linguists advising the publishers. On Wednesday, the Tibetan Language Advisory Committee (TLAC) in the rapidly developing Chinese region released a list of nearly 900 new words and phrases. Translated into English, the list includes "precision in poverty relief" as well as more esoteric entries. "Maker" refers to tech entrepreneurs, a new breed across China, while "Internet plus" is the campaign to strengthen Internet infrastructure and get traditional industries working online. "Three stricts and three earnests" is a political phrase urging officials to be disciplined in six aspects of their work and life. "With the fast development of society, many words have been coined to meet people's need to talk about novel things," said Yeshe Sangpom, an official with TLAC. "The new words are an indicator of Tibet's modernization in politics, the economy, culture and education," said Yeshe Sangpom. "They show the vitality of the Tibetan language." Featuring 8,000 new entries added since the last edition in 1985, the dictionary is being published in 30 volumes by Minzhu Press in consultation with the TLAC. Three volumes have already been released of a work that will be three times as thick as the 1985 version. Degyi Yangzom, a dissertation student at Tibet University is relieved. "I used these buzzwords in my paper, but I didn't know how to translate them properly," she said. "Now we have a standard translation, I feel safer using them." Tibetan is one of the most ancient languages in China, dating back to the seventh century. It is used by about 8 million people in Tibet and the neighboring countries of India, Nepal and Bhutan. According to renowned Tibetan translator Wangchug, the top three buzzwords in the years around Tibet's emancipation in 1959 were "slave," "landlord" and "class enemies." How times have changed. It's easy to see why the Internet, technology and official discipline are being much discussed by Tibetans. About 2.17 million households in Tibet have access to the Internet, and nearly 85 percent of Tibetan transactions via payment platform Alipay came via mobile devices last year. Tibet has also been very involved in China's campaign against corruption, with the former Party chief of the Qinghai-Tibet railway company under investigation for graft. LHASA - The discovery of a new Himalayan forest frog clade in Tibet has been confirmed. It will join 12 other Chinese amphibian families. After five years of field research, scientists from Kunming Institute of Zoology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences confirmed the discovery of the rare frog that can breed without the help of water, as well as new species of reptiles on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The frogs were categorized under the oldest available generic name for this clade -- Liurana, and divided into three effective species -- Liurana alpine, Liurana medogensis and Liurana xizangensis. Based on morphological and phylogenetic data, they were believed to be "close relatives" of the family of Ceratobatrachidae that live on the south Pacific islands. Che Jing, an analyst with the institute, told Xinhua that the discovery means the definition of Ceratobatrachidae must be reviewed and this is the first record of this family in China. "The family's distribution range has now increased from the south Pacific to include the Himalayan region. This offers valuable insight into biogenetic evolution and geological history," Che said. The smallest frogs known to reside in China, an adult Liurana frog is 3-cm long at most, while a Liurana medogensis is less than 2 cm. The frogs live around moss in forests over 3,000 meters above sea level. Ceratobatrachidae frogs have also been spotted in the southeast Asian countries of Myanmar and Thailand. Che said a survey across the Indo-China Peninsula in southeast Asia would be necessary. In addition, Chinese scientists identified a new genus and species of tree frog, a new species of the genus Scutiger, and a new species of the genus Amolops in Modog County, southeastern Tibet, as well as two new species of Japalura on the Hengduan Mountain Range, according to findings published by the institute. Ranging from tropical forest to alpine conditions, Modog is a biodiversity-rich area in the eastern Himalayan region. Home to 47 nature reserves, Tibet Autonomous Region boasts China's largest conservation area. Children aged from 6 to 18 should receive safety education that will benefit them for a lifetime, lawmakers and political advisers said in Shanghai. "We must make sure that when disasters happen, kids can protect themselves with the knowledge and skills that they've gained," Jing Ying, a local political adviser, said during the ongoing annual sessions of the municipality's legislative and advisory body, which opened on Saturday. Tragedies such as traffic accidents, safety incidents, food poisoning and drowning took the lives of roughly 16,000 children around the country annually in the several past years, according to a report by People's Daily. At least five stampedes in elementary schools were covered by media reports. The tragedies resulted in 12 deaths and more than 140 injuries. The China Youth and Children Research Center said in a report that lack of safety had become the top cause of death of children under age 14 in China. "However, 80 percent of the accidents could have been prevented with proper knowledge," said the report. Jing suggested that students in different age groups receive regular and compulsory safety education in rescue, first aid, fire escape and traffic safety. "A panel of experts outside school, including professionals from disaster prevention and relief, police, sports, health, environmental protection as well as firefighters, emergency care personnel, lifeguards at swimming pools, electricians and elevator repairmen are suggested as possible lecturers," said Jing, who is deputy counsel at the Shanghai Municipal Foreign Affairs Office. "Safety education should also be carried out with actual exercises and on-site visits to ensure that it is practical and operational," she said. Guo Xiong, a deputy to the Shanghai People's Congress and principal of Shanghai Yan'an High School, said it is important to give intensive and repeat training to children and let them develop automatic responses. Guo said the city's education authority attaches great importance to safety education and requires all primary and high schools to regularly talk about safety in and out of school. All the students at the Yan'an boarding school participate in an evacuation drill once a week, according to Guo. "It'll be better that such education can be developed into as a fixed course every week. In Japan, students have textbooks on safety education," he said. Hanan Alexander, dean of students and head of the International School at Haifa University, speaks of the university's plan to enhance exchange with universities in Chengdu.[Photo by Huang Zhiling/chinadaily.com.cn] Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan province, established its first sister city in 1981, and in the years since, it has added 28 more. It's ties with Haifa, Israel's center of scientific research, and Horsens, Denmark, are focused something all three value education. Lin Jingting, who is studying for a master's in molecular biology at the University of Haifa, is delighted by the increasing exchanges between Chendgu and Haifa, which established sister city ties in 2013. Each month brings new visitors from Chengdu, where Lin, 23, a native of Yibin in Sichuan, had been an undergraduate before enrolling at Haifa as an exchange student in 2014. At the Haifa City Hall, Hedva Almog, the municipality's deputy mayor, shows documents recording the exchanges between the cities. She said Haifa has closely cooperated with Chengdu in education since 2013. A high school in Haifa has forged ties with a counterpart in Chengdu so that lsraeli students can learn more about Chengdu and students in Chengdu can learn about Haifa. The student exchange program between the University of Haifa and Chengdu University is also proceeding smoothly, Almog said. Hanan Alexander, dean of students and head of the university's International School, said the program is an effective way to enhance exchanges with different countries. "Thanks to the program, 10 Chengdu students are studying at the University of Haifa and two or three students from the University of Haifa go to Chengdu as exchange students each year," he said. "Exchanges of teachers for academic purposes and cooperation in training teachers are on the agenda on both sides, and a Confucius Institute will be built at the University of Haifa in the near future." Lin, who majored in food quality and safety at Chengdu University, said she found information on the student exchange program with Haifa on her university website after the two became sister cities. In October 2014, she became the first exchange student from Chengdu to the University of Haifa. Upon completion of her undergrad studies, she stayed on for her master's. Lin said Israeli students have expressed an interest in learning more about Chengdu thanks to the exchange program. "When I cook in my dormitory, the Israeli students show a keen interest in Sichuan food and they wanted to visit Chengdu after I told them more about the city," she said. People stroll under cherry blossom trees during Chinhae Cherry Blossom Festival in Chang Won, southern city of South Korea, on April 7, 2015. [Photo/Xinhua] South Korea will from Thursday for the first time issue 10-year multiple entry visas to Chinese tourists. But only if they are specialized professionals such as a lawyer or professor or hold a Master's degree or above, Yonhap News Agency, citing the South Korean Ministry of Justice, reported. Application requirements for multiple entry visas will also be relaxed, with the age restriction starting from 55. Previously the restriction was set at 60 or above. The Yonhap News Agency estimated that there will be 80 million potential applicants eligible for the new multiple entry visas. At the same time, the length of stay for each visit will be extended from 30 days to 90. The move means that South Korea becomes the latest country to further open its door to Chinese tourists under the stimulus of the latter's strong spending power. Chinese tourists contribute 1.6 percent of S Korean GDP in 2015 The number of Chinese tourists to South Korea was estimated to reach 6.11 million in 2015, accounting for more than 40 percent of foreign tourists, China Central Television reported. Most importantly, Chinese tourists spend more. According to data from the Korea Tourism Organization, Chinese tourists averagely spent $2,200 (14,469 yuan) in South Korea last year, twice the average of all foreign tourists. The data shows more than 70 percent of Chinese tourists visit South Korea for shopping, about 20 percent for experiencing Korean Wave, or Korean popular culture, and others for plastic surgery and sightseeing. The Korea Tourism Organization estimated that Chinese tourists generated $22 billion of economic benefits in accommodation, transportation and shopping among other fields, which is equal to contributing 1.6 percent of the country's GDP last year. Police in Beijing have arrested 12 scalpers who sell tickets for hospital visits after a scalping incident in a hospital trigged widespread public outcry. The Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau announced on Thursday that they had detained seven suspects at Guang'anmen Hospital following the report of a scalping incident there. Four of them are still in police custody, and the bureau has set up a special working group to further investigate the incident, it said. Police said they also arrested five suspected scalpers at Peking Union Medical College Hospital and Xuanwu Hospital, two renowned medical institutions in China, and they pledged to clamp down on such practices in Beijing. A video clip that caught the public's attention on China's social media last week showed a woman at Guang'anmen Hospital in downtown Beijing on Jan 19 denouncing collusion between security staff at the hospital and scalpers. She said she had waited in line only to be told the tickets were sold out, but scalpers in the line next to her later got tickets and offered to sell her one for 4,500 yuan ($690), far above the original 300 yuan. Most hospitals require patients to reserve tickets to determine the order they receive nonemergency treatment from doctors. Patients can book online or by telephone, but the tickets through these channels usually have to be booked months in advance. Tickets for seeing an expert doctor can be only bought at the registration window in hospitals. Patients who want to see a well-known doctor or want to have an immediate medical check have to buy registration tickets in person. In some cases, scalpers put a chair and a glass bottle in front of the registration window to keep a place in line. The National Health and Family Planning Commission, China's top medical authority, pledged to investigate and punish the scalping of hospital booking tickets after the video was made public. Guang'anmen Hospital said it has no evidence that its staff colluded with the scalpers. Last Friday, 32 scalpers were caught by police in the city's Haidian District at the Air Force General Hospital of the People's Liberation Army. Taiwan leader Ma Ying-jeou visited Taiping Island, the largest island in the Nansha Islands in the South China Sea on Thursday. Ma said the sovereignty of Nansha, Xisha, Zhongsha, Dongshan and surrounding waters is beyond doubt. He appealed all parties in the South China Sea dispute to suspend their disagreements and develop the area together. The island has the naturally largest landmass in the South China Sea. Islands in the South China Sea had been included in the coastal defense system since 1721 during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), and had been inspected and managed since then, Ma said, adding the current goal is building Taiping Island into a maritime rescue hub and an environment friendly area. Commenting on Ma's visit to the island, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Thursday that the Nansha Islands are historically Chinese territory and Chinese people living on both sides of the straits have the responsibility to safeguard the heritage. The Chinese government has always dedicated itself to making the South China Sea a place of peace, friendship and cooperation and will continue efforts to make positive contributions to maintaining the navigational freedom, peace and prosperity of the South China Sea, Hua added. Ma Xiaoguang, spokesperson at the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, said on Wednesday that China owns indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands. Both sides across the Straits have the responsibility to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and safeguarding the overall interests of the Chinese nation and the fundamental interests, Ma Xiaoguang said. Zhang portrays the Monkey King in the hit 1986 TV series Journey to the West.[File photo] For CCTV's Lunar New Year's Eve gala that heralds the Year of the Monkey, one "monkey" is widely considered by Chinese to be indispensable. He is Zhang Jinlai, whose stage name Liu Xiao Ling Tong means The Little Six-Year-Old the age at which he made his stage debut 51 years ago. Zhang starred as Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, in the 1986 television adaptation of Journey to the West. The 25-episode fantasy series, complete with the crude special effects of its day, was given repeat airings every summer. While people have taken Zhang's appearances in the nation's highest-rated variety show for granted, this year he has been invited to the "opera show", a companion event with a much lower viewership. This implies that he will miss the gala. The avalanche of criticism leveled against decision-makers at CCTV, China's only national TV network, has been unrelenting. "Even Americans know the importance of this actor. How can you be so blind?" one critic asked, referring to the Pepsi Cola television spot featuring Zhang that celebrates Spring Festival. Many critics said that if Zhang failed to appear at the gala, they would tune out of the show and watch repeats of past ones. Many actors have played the famed monkey, including Donnie Yen who starred in 2014's The Monkey, Aaron Kwok in the upcoming The Monkey King 2, and Huang Bo in Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons. Kwok, who spent up to eight hours a day putting on the monkey makeup, said, "There will be no regret for a Chinese actor if he can play the Monkey King at least once in his career." BEIJING -- President Xi Jinping has underscored the need to implement the "strictest" measures to ensure food safety. Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks in an instruction published Thursday. Noting the impact that food safety has on people's livelihoods and public confidence in the government, Xi called on all authorities to perform their due duty with the people at the forefront of all work. The reputation of food safety in China is grave, Xi said, adding that there needs to be a more unified, authoritative supervision system as well as supporting regulations. He said the strongest measures were needed, featuring rigorous standards, strict supervision, serious punishments and an authoritative accountability system. In a separate instruction, Premier Li Keqiang pledged "zero tolerance" to food safety violations, promising timely and harsh punishment for guilty parties. He urged government agencies to continue tackling the big issues related to food safety and to remember that the interests of the people were their top priority. Li also stressed reform and adherence to rule of law in this regard. The food safety supervision system, Li said, should cover the whole food production process, "from farm to table." The State Council Food Safety Commission held its third plenary meeting on Thursday. The meeting was presided over by Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, who also heads the commission. Zhang said supply-side structural reform is needed to improve food safety. GEORGE SOROS, who claimed he was seeing a hard landing for China at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last Thursday, had made the same prediction several times in the past. Doomsayers about China are intentionally trying to create panic to snap up profits as much as possible, Xinhua News Agency commented on Wednesday: Far from some speculators' claims, China is not a source of trouble but an important engine of global economic growth with its growing demand and investment. The world economy is having trouble because of the sluggish growth and slow recovery of many economies. The monetary policies of the US Federal Reserve and the expansion of government debt are the original sources of the problems. By Zhong Nan In Beijing And Zhang Xiaomin In Dalian | China Daily | Updated: 2016-01-28 08:42 A giant "block train" left Dalian in Northeast China's Liaoning province on Wednesday morning, headed for the first time to Kaluga in Russia. The new international freight service was carrying 100 standard containers packed with goods produced by Samsung Electronics Co, which had arrived at Dalian Port from South Korea. The train is expected to take half as long as a conventional maritime service to reach its destination. It will arrive at Manzhouli, a Chinese border city in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, on Thursday. Zhang portrays the Monkey King in the hit 1986 TV series Journey to the West.[File photo] For CCTV's Lunar New Year's eve gala that heralds the Year of the Monkey, one "monkey" is widely considered by Chinese to be indispensable. He is Zhang Jinlai, better known by his stage name, Liu Xiao Ling Tong, meaning The Little Six-Year-Old, which marks the age he made his stage debut some 51 years ago. Zhang starred as Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, in the 1986 television adaptation of Journey to the West. The 25-episode fantasy series, though filmed with the crude special effects of the day, was aired every summer, familiarizing several generations to the charm of the world's most idolized monkey. While the public had long deemed it a no-brainer that Zhang would be a shoo-in for the nation's highest-rated variety show, Zhang recently divulged that he was invited to the "opera show" instead, which is a companion show with a much lower viewership. It also implies that he would not be on the all-important gala. The avalanche of criticism leveled against decision-makers at CCTV, China's only national TV network, has been unrelenting. "Even Americans know the importance of this actor, how can you be so blind?" asked one, referring to Pepsi-Colas television spot that celebrates the Chinese New Year. It stars Zhang. "Without Brother Monkey, we would tune out the gala and tune into another repeat of the old show," many said in theironline comments that followed the news report. "There are a thousand Hamlets in the eyes of a thousand people, but there is only one Sun Wukong in our eyes and that is The Little Six-Year-Old," said another remark. Dish presented by Waldorf Astoria Beijing at the Taste of Waldorf worldwide competition. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] Eggs Benedict, Red Velvet Cake, and the Waldorf Salad ... To commemorate Waldorf Astoria as the birthplace of these iconic culinary inventions, the brand has teamed up with the James Beard Foundation, the US' foremost culinary organization based in New York City, for a global culinary program Taste of Waldorf Astoria to find out new iconic dishes. Waldorf Astoria Beijing is participating in the second year of the event, bringing in its Beijing-inspired dish to the stage of a worldwide competition. Benoit Chargy, executive chef of Waldorf Astoria Beijing, partners with visiting JBF-recognized chef Erik Bruner-Yang from the United States, and they have created a dish full of Beijing-flavored inspirations Pan-Seared Wagyu Beef with ingredients including Chinese cabbage, black mushroom, hoisin sauce and salted duck eggs. In the latter half of 2015, five Beard-recognized star chefs were dispatched to five Waldorf Astoria properties in Amsterdam, New Orleans, Jerusalem, Orlando and Beijing, to collaborate with local Waldorf Astoria master chefs to create a new iconic dish. On Feb 24, the chef duos will bring their creations to New York to a panel of culinary luminaries, who will ultimately decide the winning dish. The winner will be featured at each of the brand's 25 hotels and resorts worldwide, joining its storied culinary legacy. President Xi Jinping's visit to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran, was an important part of President Xi's all-round diplomacy, showing that China's "circle of friends" is growing. From great powers to neighboring countries, from developed countries to developing countries, over the past three years President Xi has made great efforts to expand China's "circle of friends". During his just-concluded visit to the Middle East this time, China signed more than 50 cooperation agreements with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran, which includes agreements on the construction of railways, investment and space cooperation. China's diplomacy and initiatives for cooperation have won widespread respect in the international community. The Belt and Road Initiative advocated by Xi has made substantial progress, and the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has attracted many countries to become members. China has also announced the China-UN Peace and Development Fund and an assistance fund for South-South cooperation, which have won wide praise. US Secretary of State John Kerry delivers remarks on the United States foreign policy agenda 2016 at the National Defense University in Washington January 13, 2016. [Photo/Agencies] China and the United States have seized the opportunity of US Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to Beijing this week to exchange views on issues of mutual concern, especially those that have stood out between them of late, such as the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the South China Sea disputes. Both countries need to lay a good foundation for bilateral ties as the relationship between Beijing and Washington has assumed a significance that goes far beyond the bilateral scope, and they are yet to have a meeting of minds on a number of issues. In his joint news conference with Kerry on Wednesday afternoon in Beijing, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China does not seek to militarize the South China Sea and it will honor its word. This should help eliminate wild speculation and unwarranted accusations about China's strategic intentions in the waters. As a country with the right to protect its territorial sovereignty in the South China Sea, China's pledge of not militarizing the waters highlights its commitment to regional peace and stability. The US also needs to clarify its strategic intentions in the waters, as its so-called freedom of navigation operations have become a new source of friction between the two countries. As for the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, both sides have agreed to make "accelerated efforts" to reach an agreement on a new United Nations Security Council resolution on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. China has said it supports necessary responses from the council as both the authority of the world body and the international nuclear non-proliferation regime should be upheld. China's stance on Pyongyang's nuclear program is always consistent: It opposes to Pyongyang's nuclear tests and says denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula needs to be achieved through negotiation and dialogue. For the two countries to properly handle their differences, they need to show the spirit of flexibility and gradually bridge the gaps in a constructive manner until consensuses can be reached. Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao was giving a special address injecting confidence into global leaders of politics and businesses at the annual meeting of World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday. [Photo by Fu Jing/China Daily] GEORGE SOROS, who claimed he was seeing a hard landing for China at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last Thursday, had made the same prediction several times in the past. Doomsayers about China are intentionally trying to create panic to snap up profits as much as possible, Xinhua News Agency commented on Wednesday: Far from some speculators' claims, China is not a source of trouble but an important engine of global economic growth with its growing demand and investment. The world economy is having trouble because of the sluggish growth and slow recovery of many economies. The monetary policies of the US Federal Reserve and the expansion of government debt are the original sources of the problems. Meanwhile, China's economic transformation is currently under way. Figures show that foreign investment in China's service sector saw robust growth in 2016. Thanks to government policies encouraging innovation and the streamlining of procedures, entrepreneurship is flourishing and bringing fundamental change to Chinese society. In the first half of 2015, the number of newly registered businesses exceeded 10,000 on a daily basis. Job creation is also strong, which, coupled with a sound growth rate and strong capital formation and innovation, means that the world's second-largest economy is unlikely to experience a hard landing. So why do speculators make claims that run counter to reality? Analysts say it is because either the short-sellers haven't done their homework or that they are intentionally trying to create panic to snap up profits as much as possible. It is true that the growth of the world's second largest economy is experiencing a relative slowdown compared with the blistering growth of the past decade. But as we know, decision-makers have now opted for a slower pace in order to make the country's growth more sustainable in the future. Moreover, a growth rate of 6.9 percent is the envy of most other economies. China's added economic output last year was more than the GDP of Sweden or Argentina. And Chinese tourists spent 1.2 trillion yuan ($182 billion) overseas, while the country's investors pumped 735 billion yuan into other economies. WASHINGTON - The Pentagon announced on Wednesday that US President Barack Obama had nominated a veteran of the Afghan war to command US and allied troops in Afghanistan. If confirmed by the Senate, US Army Lt. Gen. John Nicholson would succeed Army Gen. John Campbell, who has served as commander in Afghanistan since the middle of 2014 and is expected to finish his term around March 1. "For nearly 18 months, Gen. Campbell has given his all to the mission as our top commander in Afghanistan," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook quoted US defense chief Ash Carter as saying at Wednesday's briefing. Nicholson currently commands NATO's Allied Land Command, and had held several high-profile Army roles, including the commanding officer for the 82nd Airborne Division, and deputy commanding general for operations in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2012. Currently, there are 9,800 US troops in Afghanistan who advise local security forces and conduct counter-terrorism missions. In a major departure from his promise to bring all US troops home before leaving office, Obama announced last October he would keep 5,500 US troops in Afghanistan into 2017 and maintain the current 9,800 forces through "most of 2016." During Wednesday, Cook said so far there had been no change in the drawdown plan though the pace of reducing down 9,800 troops to 5,500 "will be determined by commanders on the ground." KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said here Thursday that the country will grant visa exemption for Chinese tourists as a measure to boost tourism. When announcing the revised Budget 2016, Najib said that subject to certain conditions, visa will not be required for Chinese tourists to Malaysia for a period of no more than 15 days beginning from March 1 to Dec 31, 2016. This is among the efforts of the Malaysian government to lure the Chinese tourists to prop up its tourism, with the country's economy hit by the weak oil and international commodity price since last year. Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said that the country aims to draw annually 8 million Chinese tourists over the next five years with RM22.1 billion (about 5.24 billion US dollars) spending power. Acknowledging the arduousness of the target, Zahid said that the average spending of Chinese tourists on food, lodging and shopping has reached RM3345 (about 792.4 dollars), and by taking proper planning and effective promotion, the aim could be realized. China voiced its deep concern over the developing Korean Peninsula situation on Thursday after media reports speculated that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea may conduct a missile launch in the near future. Beijing is paying great attention to the current situation, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told regular news conference in Beijing on Thursday. Earlier on Thursday, Japan's Kyodo news agency quoted an unnamed Japanese government source as saying that an analysis of satellite imagery indicated North Korea might be preparing for a missile launch. "We hope that, under the current situation, all the relevant parties could tackle the current situation in a calm manner, not resort to overreaction, and avoid escalation of the already tense situation," Hua said. All the relevant parties are expected to jointly ensure the peace and stability of the peninsula, Hua added. The spokeswoman reiterated China's commitment to achieving the denuclearization of the peninsula and safeguarding the peninsula's peace and stability, and she also called for dialogue and reconciliation for a proper tackling of the issue. President Xi Jinping's The Governance of China in Chinese, Arabic and English is displayed at the book exhibition in Cairo, which was held by China Intercontinental Press on 19th January. [Photo by Hou Liqiang/chinadaily.com.cn] China's leading foreign language press is making more efforts to promote cultural exchanges between China and Arab world using of both traditional media and new media as the Chinese government carries out its Belt and Road Initiative. While translating and publishing Chinese books into Arabic, China Intercontinental Press has also built up a digital platform on Arabic books. In 2013, the Chinese government put forwarded the Belt and Road Initiative, which includes most Arabic countries. "The initiative meets well with our work in the Arabic countries," said China Intercontinental Press. As of January, the press has published more than 120 varieties of Arabic books featured with Chinese and has authorized Arabic publishers to publish more than 130 varieties of books in Arabic in the last two years. "With the press' work in the Arab world, it has built up contacts with Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Lebanon and so on. With this advantage, it built up a digital platform on Arabic books in the end of 2014," China Intercontinental Press said. According to China Intercontinental Press, it has reached agreements with 70 percent of publishers in digital publishing industries of the Arabic world and has been authorized to publish 6,500 varieties of books on its digital platform. In May 2014, with the Arab Publisher Associations, China Intercontinental Press launched a translation project that will translate books of each side. China Intercontinental Press has translated and published five Arabic literary classics in China and translated five Chinese books into Arabic. China Intercontinental Press also plans to publish another 100 varieties of books featured with Chinese contents in the following three years. Jing Xiaomin, vice-president of China Intercontinental Press, told China Daily that the press will put fixed bookshelves in bookstores in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates for its publications that have been translated into Arabic to help Arabic people get to know China. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, right, meets with Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani in Beijing on Jan 26, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] A timetable for peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban could emerge from a roadmap to be finalized at a meeting next month, Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani told China Daily in an exclusive interview in Beijing on Wednesday. The third round of the Quadrilateral Coordination Group meetings, involving Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States, will be held in Islamabad on Feb 6. The meeting will finalize a peace and reconciliation roadmap, Rabbani said. The Afghan government feels "a sense of urgency" for negotiations with the Taliban and has been calling for the militants to join peace talks and "become a responsible political movement", Rabbani said. Peace talks have been stalled since Taliban founder Mullah Omar was confirmed dead in July, an event that brought into sharp focus the divisions within the organization. The Taliban's response to the Afghan government's calls for talks has been varied, Rabbani said. "Some of them are positive. Some are still considering. Some of them have their own preconditions," he said. "But what I see is that the Afghan government has always said that no precondition at this time is acceptable, because we cannot start talks by preconditions." Restarting the talks is also important for containing terrorism in the country, the foreign minister added, saying there are "other threats that are emerging". "As soon as we talk with the Taliban, we will be able to focus our energies and capacities on tackling these newly emerging threats, such as Daesh (the Islamic State group). ... If we see peace and stability return, these newly emerging threats can be fought against and prevented from becoming really big and major threats to Afghanistan and to the region," he said. Daesh has increased its presence in the country in recent years. It is reported to have clashed with both the Taliban and the Afghan police in Nangarhar province in September. China has worked to facilitate the resumption of the talks, and Rabbani said his government welcomes China's role in pushing the peace process. "China's policy has been to support an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process. We very much want that, and we very much welcome any support that will bring peace and stability to Afghanistan as soon as possible," he said. China is also involved in assisting Afghanistan in improving its infrastructure and economy, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a news conference on Tuesday. Wang Xu contributed to this story. French President Francois Hollande (R) and Iran's President Hassan Rouhani attend a joint news conference at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, January 28, 2016. [Photo/Agencies] TEHRAN -- Bagging deals worth billions of US dollars, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani concluded his four-day trip to Italy and France on Thursday. In his first foreign trip since the European Union (EU) and the United States lifted sanctions against his country, Rouhani arrived in Italy on Monday for a two-day visit during which the two countries signed several agreements. Rouhani held meetings with his Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni. Among the deals from Rouhani's stay in Italy, a series of four commercial agreements were signed between Iranian companies and Italian steel firm Danieli worth at least 4 billion US dollars. Iran also signed a 4-billion-US-dollar contract with infrastructure development firm Condotte. "Italy was Iran's leading European economic and trade partner before the sanctions," Italian Minister of Economic Development Federica Guidi said in a press briefing before Rouhani's visit, adding that Italy was eager to rebuild the relationship. On Wednesday, Iran and Italy released a joint declaration on development of ties in political, economic, cultural, tourism, scientific and technological areas. As for political cooperation, they agreed to engage in enhanced and systematic consultations, exchanges of visits and any purposeful cooperation within an institutionalized framework. They also stressed support for the fight against Islamic States (IS) militants and affiliated terrorist groups, and the UN-sponsored political process and intra-Syrian dialogue toward a peaceful solution to the conflict in Syria. Both states urged the expansion of economic relations in all areas of common interest, particularly in energy, agriculture, transportation and environment sectors. They also agreed to encourage bilateral banking and credit relations, to establish an appropriate executive mechanism to boost mutual investments, and to introduce new projects and areas of possible cooperation between small and medium enterprises. On Wednesday, France rolled out red carpet to Rouhani, in a bid to open a new chapter on bilateral ties and seal worthy investment deals. Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) holds talks with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi at Quba Palace in Cairo, Egypt, Jan 21, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's recent visit to the Middle East has put final touches on the country's new diplomatic push and is leading the world's second largest economy back to the world's central stage. The brief tour to the three nations -- Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran -- brought to a close a globetrotting Year of the Sheep which saw the President travel to 17 countries in less than 12 months. The number takes the total to over 40 in 34 months. Pressing flesh and brokering deals, Xi's diplomacy has brought China closer neighbors and distant friends alike, setting a new global agenda for peace, progress, prosperity and stability. BREAKING FREE FROM THE PITFALL Since taking office in 2013, Xi has spent 138 days overseas, trekking nearly 400 thousand kilometers across the world. He has carried with him a vision of a new model of international relationship and put China firmly in the vanguard of the fight against climate change. Some amiss took Xi's words and deeds for a shift from the long-standing policy of "keeping a low profile" put forward by late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, and spoke of the Thucydides Trap, an academic theory that sees a risk of rivalry between a rising and an established power turning to conflict. But they have underestimated China's determination to seek peaceful development and win-win cooperation, and to break from past pitfalls of confrontation. Sino-Russian relations are in the best time of history. In March 2013, just days after he assumed office, Xi paid his first state visit to Russia, the first of many meetings between himself and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Xi then attended the opening ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympic Games in 2014 and the 2015 Victory Day parade in Moscow's Red Square, while Putin joined a host of foreign dignitaries at Beijing's own victory parade last year. So far, the two leaders have met on more than ten occasions, reflecting the high level of bilateral relations officially defined as comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership. On the other side of the globe, some encouraging signs are also visible in China-US relations. There has been plenty of agreement between Xi and US President Barack Obama. They have worked hard to topple the Thucydides Trap with exemplary cooperation on major affairs such as climate change and the Iran nuclear issue. (Photo : Reuters) North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (above) watches a drill by the Korean People's Army (KPA) at an undisclosed location in North Korea. Citing an unnamed Japanese official, Japan's Kyodo news agency has reported that North Korea may be preparing to launch a long-range missile even as the UNSC prepares fresh sanctions against the already impoverished country. Advertisement Beijing has again resisted calls to impose tougher sanctions against North Korea even as US Secretary of State John Kerry warned on Wednesday that the United States is prepared to take all necessary actions to end Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions. "Sanctions are not an end in themselves," Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said at a joint press conference with Kerry, echoing a theme that Beijing's diplomatic officials have been repeating throughout the week. "Our goal should be to bring the nuclear issue on the Korea Peninsula back to the negotiating track." Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Wang and Kerry emerged after a five-hour meeting to speak to reporters at China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The US state secretary is believed to have pressed the Chinese government to foist heavier economic penalties on Pyongyang for its latest nuclear test during the talks. Contrasting Tones Both men appeared tense as they smiled and shook hands before the press cameras. Wang drummed his fingertips on the side of his podium when a visibly vexed Kerry took his turn to address the press. "Kim Jong Un's actions are reckless, and they are dangerous," said Kerry in an unusually grim tone. "Whether or not he achieved the explosion of a hydrogen weapon is not what makes the difference. It's that he is trying." Kerry and Yi said they agreed to hasten the completion of the UN Security Council's draft resolution concerning North Korea's latest test blast, but admitted that they have yet to decide the actual content of the document. "The United States will take all necessary steps to defend the American people and to honor our security commitments to allies in the region," Kerry told the press. "I say that, making clear we do not want to raise military tensions, we are not seeking additional steps other than UN Security Council resolutions, but we will not walk away from any actions necessary to achieve the goal." Wang's words were, in contrast, more measured and subdued. "Our position will not be swayed by specific events or the temporary mood of the moment," the Chinese diplomat said. Another Test? China has strongly condemned North Korea's nuclear weapons program, but analysts have suggested that Beijing is reluctant to enforce tougher sanctions against Pyongyang out of a concern that instability in the impoverished country may spill into Chinese territory. Noting the tone and language Kerry used during the press conference, Yanmei Xie, senior China analyst at the International Crisis Group in Beijing, said the US may have realized the need to use a more assertive approach when dealing with Beijing. "Now they appear to be trying a different approach, raising the stakes for China for what the US sees as inaction over North Korea," she told the Washington Post. "I think the US is not pretending anymore." Even as the two diplomats spoke, rumors were already swirling that North Korea was preparing to test yet another weapon. Citing an unnamed Japanese official, Japan's Kyodo news agency has reported that North Korea may be preparing to launch a long-range missile. The official reportedly made the assumption based on an analysis of satellite imagery of the North's Tongchang-ri test site along the country's west coast, according to Reuters. The official claims that the rocket may be ready for test launching within the week. Advertisement TagsJohn Kerry, North Korea, China-North Korea relations (Photo : Getty Images/Ashley Pon) Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou (middle) is seen in the above photo inspecting a naval facility in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Advertisement Taiwan's outgoing chief executive has ignored criticisms from key ally the United States and departed for a disputed island in the South China Sea Thursday morning. Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou, accompanied by about 30 members of his staff, left Taipei aboard a C-130 cargo airplane plane headed for Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Taiping lies among the Spratly Islands, where Taiwan has overlapping claims with China, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. Ma's destination is the largest natural island in the area, but it is smaller in size to the artificial islands built by China out of reefs and shoals in the contested waters. Shared Responsibility The US, Vietnam and the Philippines have criticized Ma's trip, which Washington has said could heighten tensions in the region. "We remind all parties concerned of our shared responsibility to refrain from actions that can increase tensions in the South China Sea," Charles Jose, a spokesman from the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, said when asked by ABC News Australia to comment on Ma's visit. Taiwan has stationed about 200 coast guard personnel, scientists and medical workers on the disputed island, where the government maintains an airport. Taipei has government personnel scattered in other island groups in the disputed waters, including the Pratas Islands, which lies to the north of Taiping. Ma -- who cultivated closer ties with China during his presidency -- is coming to the end of his eight-year term as Taiwan's leader, and has said that his trip is a demonstration of Taiwan's sovereignty over the territory. Rising Tensions Tensions in the South China Sea have approached boiling point over the past few months even as China completes work on seven artificial islands in the region. The US has argued that the islands do not fall under claims of sovereign territory, and sent a guided missile cruiser, the USS Lassen, within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef, the site of one of China's maritime constructions, in October last year. The move drew strong criticism from Beijing, who described the US action as "a coercive action that seeks to militarize the South China Sea region." Ma's trip comes barely two weeks after his Nationalist Party was soundly defeated by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) led by Taiwan's president-elect Tsai Ing-wen, who is said to have refused the outgoing chief executive's invitation to join the trip. China sees Taiwan as a breakaway province that will eventually be reunited with the mainland -- by force, if necessary. Advertisement TagsChina-Taiwan relations, Ma Ying-jeou, Territorial disputes in the South China Sea (Photo : Getty Images) Didi and Uber have announced plans of expanding their service in China after receiving new funding. Advertisement Competition in the taxi-hailing service market in China is taking business to the next level. This week Didi and Uber announced that they have obtained new funding and are planning to expand in the market. In a statement on Tuesday, Uber revealed that it will now be stretching its services to more than 55 counties including the central and southern provinces of Guangdong, Hebei and Hunan. The company had earlier expressed its desire to serve 100 cities in China this year. If this plan is realized, China will surpass the United States as Uber's biggest market worldwide. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Meantime, Didi also announced that it has received funding from China Merchants Bank. Through this partnership, the two companies revealed they will be working closely on areas including auto finance and mobile payment. The company has also cooperated with a local lender allowing Didi drivers to buy vehicles on credit via its online auto marketplace, a platform the establishment will launch soon. This initiative is a fulfillment of the company's desire to expand into e-commerce and auto-services. Over the past years, Didi and Uber have shown intense competition and aggressiveness in expanding. After two major companies merged to create Didi early last year, the firm has already gathered funds amounting to billions of US dollars. The company is well supported by both its local and international investors including early backups like Alibaba, Tencent and Temasek and new joiners such as China Investment Corp. as well as Ping An Ventures. On the other hand, the American ride request company has been seeking aids for its China opeartions. Among its backers are Baidu, HNA Group, Vanke and Guangzhou Automative Group. In Uber's press release on Tuesday, the company said that its operation in China is now worth $8 billion, this is more than half the value of its rival Didi at $16.5 billion. Furthermore, it has raised $2 billion from its Chinese investors to fund both its China and international enterprise. Despite the fact that the industry is booming - a recent study revealed that almost 97 million people utilized cab-hailing services - the government is blaming such platforms for the notorious traffic jam in big cities such as Beijing. However, "Their success reflects the emergence of shared economy as an inevitable trend in China," said Sandy Shen, a research director at Gartner, a tech consultancy firm. Advertisement TagsUber, Didi, taxi hailing app, ride-hailing app, China Merchants Bank (Photo : Lintao Zhang/Getty Images) Committee members for the annual winter festival in Harbin city have released guidelines for snowman-making. Advertisement After experiencing an unusually heavy downfall of snow from the past week, residents from a northern China city now have a reason to rejoice: making snowmen out of the massive amounts of snow. The organizing committee for the annual Ice and Snow festival held in China's Harbin City, in Heilongjiang province, has released guidelines for everyone who wants to participate in making snowmen, reported Chinanews.com on Thursday. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement According to the committee's guidelines, before a snowman can be considered real, it should reach a height of at least 2 meters and weigh more than 250 kilograms. More than that, a snowman's head should be the equivalent of at least the size of about six and a half human heads. Committee members also said that a snowman should be able to withstand melting for up to two months from the date that it was made. In addition, the guidelines also require that a snowman's body should be tough, strong enough to be bumped by a car running at a speed of 100km/h and not get a scratch. The committee said that snowmen who are not able to meet the said criteria should not be classified as snowmen. Instead, they should be considered mere snowballs. Southern counterparts The committee for the festival in Harbin city reportedly scorned the snowmen that were created by those living in the southern parts of China in the past week. Residents of Guangzhou, in Southern China, made snowmen of their own after they were hit by cold weather on Sunday, reported the South China Morning Post. Some of their creations, which can be seen via social media site Weibo, show bizarre and odd-looking snowmen, quite different from those in Harbin. One snowman, for example, wore a cooking pan for a hat, and a broom for an arm. Other snowmen were just simply overweight. In Chongqing, drivers paraded their snowmen on top of their cars, and were warned by authorities. The drivers were cautioned that they will be required to pay 50 yuan, and will be given one penalty point on their license should they fail to remove it, reports the Chongqing Evening News. Advertisement TagsSnowman, snow, Harbin, Guangzhou, Chongqing (Photo : ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images) There have been several instances of people looting overturned trucks in China. Advertisement Hundreds of people rushed to loot a truck that crashed on a road in eastern China. Their prized loot? Approximately eight tons of grain. The truck was transporting 45 tons of wheat through Jingjiang city in Fujian province. It was running on wet roads when it crashed into a flower bed and tipped over, reports People's Daily Online. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement As the truck spilled its contents along the road, hundreds of people eager to get their hands on the wheat ran to the scene with buckets, bags and other items that they could use to carry the looted grains. The chaos that the crowd created blocked the road and caused a disruption in traffic. Police were called to the scene at about 9:45 a.m. local time to disperse the crowds. Although police were able to stop the looters from what they were doing, some still wanted another try. A crowd of about 50 people remained, waiting for another chance to get more wheat, reports the South China Morning Post. Police then cordoned off the area and started cleanup operations. The road was cleared at about 1:00 p.m. Reports say that about 10 people returned to pick up leftovers from the scene. Police say that the looters were able to get an estimated eight tons of wheat from the crash. Other Vehicle Lootings This incident is one of many where crashed vehicle have been looted in China. Earlier this month, a truck that carried 30 tons of oranges crashed in Yunnan province and was looted by villagers. Additionally, back in August 2015, people from the eastern city of Binzhou, Shandong province, quickly rushed to loot a truck that contained about 10,000 chicks. In the same month, another truck tipped over outside Chengdu, Sichuan province, reports Huaxi.com. Nearby villagers then helped themselves to the 20 tons of pears that were spilled. Advertisement Tagscar crash, looting, wheat, Fujian Province, Jingjiang city Jeb Bush tells reporter he wishes Trump would accept 'we're all imperfect under God's watchful eye' 28 January, 2016 by Gregory Tomlin , | NEW YORK (Christian Examiner) With a new poll showing a faint pulse for the Jeb Bush campaign, the former Florida governor is making new waves with his assertion that the Christianity espoused by billionaire real estate mogul and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump might not be an authentic. Responding to a question by an ABC News reporter about Trump's claim to be a faithful follower of Jesus, Bush said Trump was "playing this for political purposes, for sure." "I'd rather him actually at least accept the fact that we're all imperfect under God's watchful eye, and that we should seek forgiveness. And ultimately, to be a believer is to accept Christ as your savior," Bush said. Bush then said Trump seems to identify as a Christian because of the circumstances into which he was born, though he didn't mention Trump's Presbyterian lineage specifically. That, however, doesn't define one's faith, he added. "It's your relationship with the Lord. If you can get to that, I'd feel more comfortable about it," Bush said, seeming to clarify his own view about what it means to be a follower of Christ. When asked specifically if he knew whether Trump was a Christian, Bush responded: "No, I don't know what he is. I just don't think he has the kind of relationship he says he has if he can't explain it any way that shows he is serious about it." News of Bush's negative portrayal of Trump's faith quickly gained traction, but within hours the Bush camp was walking the statement back. The "no" voiced by Bush was in response to the premise of the question, the campaign said, and not meant to speak to whether or not Trump was "saved" in the biblical sense. Prior to leaving the interview, Bush affirmed his original comment that the candidate's faith is not in line with traditional Christian understandings. Trump said in an interview last year that he could not recall a time when he asked for forgiveness. He didn't need to, he said, because he tried to be a good person. "Just accepting the fact that we make mistakes and seek forgiveness that's one of the tenets of the Christian faith I think everybody can agree on. We're all sinners. Some of us more than others," Bush said. Trump recently received the endorsement of Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University. Just prior to that affirmation, Trump spoke at the Lynchburg, Va., school. There he quoted "Two Corinthians." In the past, Trump has been unable or unwilling to quote Bible verses, claiming they were too personal to trot out in public. That hasn't stopped Trump from calling into question the sincerity of other candidates' faiths. In October, Trump hit at the Seventh Day Adventist Ben Carson while on the campaign trail in Iowa. "I love Iowa. And, look, I don't have to say it, I'm Presbyterian," Trump said. "Can you believe it? Nobody believes I'm Presbyterian. I'm Presbyterian. I'm Presbyterian. I'm Presbyterian. Boy, that's down the middle of the road folks, in all fairness. I mean, Seventh-day Adventist, I don't know about. I just don't know about." Then, in December, Trump lashed out at Cruz when he told a conservative Iowa audience that he like Ted Cruz, but "not a lot of evangelicals come out of Cuba. I'm sorry, but not a lot come out." Candidate's religious affiliations have always been issues in presidential campaigns. Mitt Romney, a Mormon who ran for the Republican nomination in 2008, addressed his faith in a public speech on religious liberty. President John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, did the same thing. COMMENTARY: Does the ERLC represent the SBC? 28 January, 2016 by Will Hall/Baptist Message , | ALEXANDRIA, La. (Baptist Message) When an unnamed staffer "boasted" to the online media outlet Think Progress in October 2014 that Russell Moore had "completely rebranded" the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, few could have imagined what this meant. However, Moore's all-in campaign against presidential candidate Donald Trump, highlighted by his most recent attacks on Liberty University for hosting Trump at a student convocation, reveals something quite unexpected about Moore when he was elected to lead the ERLC in 2013a penchant for disdain for Christians who think differently than him. Moore rightly points out Trump's moral flawsand character should countand he has a right and responsibility to comment on Trump's policies and to share his view of what these might mean in terms of Christian values. But Moore's dislike for Trump goes beyond the pale, translating into disrespect and even contempt for any Christian who might weigh these considerations differently than Moore when comparing the range of personal beliefs and behaviors as well as public records of ability and achievement within such a large field of candidates for the White House. DISRESPECT FOR OTHERS In an editorial for the New York Times, Moore called evangelicals' support for Trump "illogical" and declared "these voters must repudiate everything they believe" in backing Trump. He even ranks the spirituality of evangelicals according to the candidate they support. Roll Call, a Washington, D.C., newspaper, reported Moore as saying, "Ted Cruz is leading among the 'Jerry Falwell' wing, Marco Rubio is leading in the 'Billy Graham' wing and Trump is leading the 'Jimmy Swaggart' wing." "He was suggesting that Cruz appealed to Moral Majority types like Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, who has endorsed him," Roll Call observed. "And Trump, Moore said, attracts 'the prosperity wing of Pentecostalism,' who tend to believe God will 'financially reward believers.'" But Moore's scale for assessing one's biblical bona fides appears politically calculated to raise his own stock at the expense of other evangelical conservatives: Jerry Falwell, Jr., president of the Liberty University his father founded, called Trump "a breath of fresh air" when introducing Trump to students and faculty Jan. 18. Robert Jeffress, pastor of the 12,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, wrote in an editorial for Fox News that evangelicals back Trump for his strong leadership: "They are not under any illusion that Trump will be conducting Bible studies in the Oval Office, nor do they feel like they are abandoning their Christian values to support Trump," he said. Franklin Graham, president of his father's Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, also seems to invalidate Moore's hierarchy of righteousness. Although, Graham has said he will not comment on the presidential race, he has announced support for Trump's position on U.S. nuclear negotiations with Iran. He also agreed with Trump's objection to bringing Syrian refugees into the United States: "For some time I have been saying that Muslim immigration into the United States should be stopped until we can properly vet them or until the war with Islam is over," he wrote in a Facebook post. DOUBLE STANDARD While Moore stridently opposed Trump's appearance at Liberty University, he did not object to the self-described Socialist Bernie Sanders who spoke there only three months ago (Sanders is pro-abortion and strongly supports gay marriage). For that matter, Moore has held his own candidate forum, managing to grab a prime slot during a Southern Baptist missions conferencewith 13,000 in attendance, July 2015, in Nashvilleto interview Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. He also confessed he had invited Hillary Clintonwho has a raft of personal convictions and public positions which contravene Southern Baptists' stated consensus beliefsbut that she declined. Moore said he was disappointed Clinton did not attend because he felt "he could have modeled our disagreements with her with civility." But he offers no such civility for Trump or his supporters. Importantly, Moore failed to invite three White-House-seeking Southern Baptists to his question and answer timeLindsey Graham (now withdrawn from the race) Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee. Huckabee, who served 10 years as governor of Arkansas was educated at a Southern Baptist college and a Southern Baptist seminary, pastored Southern Baptist churches and served as president of a Southern Baptist state convention (helping to raise millions of dollars for Southern Baptist causes)and he has already experienced the highs and lows of running for president as a proud Southern Baptist. If Moore was looking for someone to explain the issues and politics of the 2016 presidential campaign in context of the vision and values of Southern Baptists, he missed the mark. SOUTHERN BAPTIST SNUBS Obviously, Huckabee was not the face of evangelicals Moore wanted to project to the audience, and on that note, Moore has shown apparent disdain for traditional Southern Baptists: During a Sept. 2015 meeting, he told ERLC trustees "We must see to it that the future of the SBC is not a bunch of old, angry white men who have around us a few people that are African American and Latino and Asian Americans." Yet, four out of five of his first top hires were white malestwo of the five were not even members of Southern Baptist congregations but four of the five had ties to the Calvinistic network The Gospel Coalition. This theme continued at the ERLC "Gospel and Politics" conference held in conjunction with "Send North America," when one panel discussed how the era of "white, angry evangelicalism" was over. Yet, the overwhelming faces who appeared on stage for the whole of the event were white and malejust not men like Huckabee or Jeffress. He has even declared the Bible Belt (a map marked in Southern Baptist red) as populated by "almost Christianity" a kind of "God-and-Country civil religion that prizes cultural conservatism more than theological fidelity." TROUBLING DEVELOPMENTS During his young tenure at the ERLC helm, other actions have been equally as troubling: An ERLC research fellow published an article in Christianity Today asserting "gay marriage remains an act rooted in love" and arguing Christians should affirm homosexuals' "longing to be loved and belong." His team played a major role in drafting "An Evangelical Statement on Responsible Care for Animals," with a key member concluding in an accompanying article that the "entire biblical witness" suggests "animals may very well be co-inheritors with us of the new creation." He signed an Evangelical Immigration TableSyrian Refugee Letter to Congress, arguing among other points against increasing security checks or enhancing the vetting process of those seeking to come to the United States from countries with a known ISIS presence. The 1,000-word missive cites Christian duties multiple times, but mentions Jesus only once to describe Him as "a refugee," not as Savior, Lord or King. In a public flap perceived to be directed at Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, Russell Moore suggested Christians in public office should resign rather than resist after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned traditional marriage (despite an SBC resolution urging the opposite). He dismissed as a "utopian idea" the belief that "if you come to Christ and if you go through our program, you're going to be immediately set free from attraction or anything you're struggling with" in reference to reparative therapy and change from homosexuality (causing at least one national figure to suggest Moore should confer with actual experts on the matter.) For the record, former lesbian Jackie Hill-Perry, now a Christian lyricist and hip hop performer, celebrates being completely changed, attractions and all. "We've made God very little if we believe He cannot change people," she says. "If He can make a moon, stars and a galaxy that we have yet to fully comprehend, how can He not simply change my desires?" DISDAIN FOR LIBERTY While Trump was speaking at Liberty University, Moore tweeted a stream of comments, each one more acerbic than the last: "Trading in the gospel of Jesus Christ for political power is not liberty but slavery ... This would be hilarious if it weren't so counter to the mission of the gospel of Jesus Christ ... Evangelicals can love a golden calf as long as Aaron promises to make Mexico pay for it." Afterward, he tweeted, "This is unofficial, I know, but Trump is apparently winning HUGE in the demographic of folks with eggs or cats as their Twitter avatars." QUESTION REMAINS Shortly after Moore's election to his ERLC post, Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Moore's mentor, offered an interesting observation to the Wall Street Journal regarding Moore's future in context of the gravitas of his predecessor. "When Richard Land spoke to most issues, he was certain that Southern Baptists were behind him and he was their mouthpiece," Mohler said. "Russ will need a deft touch to make sure that Southern Baptists stay behind him." In the end, it's a rhetorical exercise to ask whether the ERLC represents the SBCorganizationally, it absolutely does. But the question many Southern Baptists are asking is whether this ERLC represents them. Does it represent you? Will Hall is the former executive editor of the Christian Examiner who now serves as the editor of the Baptist Message in Louisiana where this column first appeared. It is used with permission. Joseph Fiennes on 'Risen' movie, 'I think we got it right' Guest Reviewer | 28 January, 2016 by Michael Foust CHICAGO (Christian Examiner) The New Testament doesn't reveal Pilate's reaction when he learned of Jesus' resurrection, although Christians throughout the centuries have wondered what he would have done. A new movie that hits theaters Feb. 19 surmises that Pilate likely would have ordered a region-wide search for the body of Christ, dismissing claims of the resurrection and fearing an uprising against his leadership. The film is "Risen" (PG-13), and it follows a Roman military officer by the name of Clavius (Joseph Fiennes), an unbeliever who is tasked by Pilate to find the body before Christ's followers exploit what Pilate thinks is a hoax. "You will track down each and every one of these disciples," Pilate orders him. Clavius, though, finds not a lifeless body but the living Christ, forcing him to re-examine his entire worldview. "Risen," of course, is biblical fiction, but it's a story its creators hope will encourage and inspire Christians in their faith, a mere five weeks prior to Easter. Fiennes has more than 25 films to his credit but may be most well-known among the Christian audience for his portrayal of Martin Luther in the 2003 film "Luther." The Christian Examiner spoke recently with Fiennes about "Risen." Following is a transcript, edited for clarity: Christian Examiner: How did you get involved in this project? Joseph Fiennes: I got a phone call saying (director) Kevin Reynolds was in Spain and would like to meet me; I was in Spain at the same time. I flew over and met him in an airport lounge, and we had at least a two-hour chat. In the end, he very kindly offered me the part. We hit it off. We spoke at length about the balance between Scripture and the fictionalized character of Clavius, which you could say is derived from certain historical characters. I think we got it right, and it seems there's an overwhelmingly positive reaction from theologians and Christian ministers from whom we sought council during filming and the editing process. I'm just a small component in that. It's like a detective story. Clavius goes on this mission, and on that mission, his conditioning and his understanding of the world as he knows it is undone, irrevocably. That was a big challenge, really, to get that believability to the character and also to remain true to Scripture and also to make it a great cinematic event. CE: So how many years did it take to make this film? Fiennes: I believe the actual writing process took several years, in terms of the idea and then developing the idea. For my part, the filming itself was three and a half months between Malta and Spain. With the cinematography and the locations and the casting, you really feel as you've been picked up and dropped off in this very authentic landscape. That's a huge success with the film. CE: This is at least your second film about the history of Christianity. What attracts you to these types of faith-based films? Fiennes: I never really look at them as faith-based. I just look at them as films which speak to me, and somehow it strikes a chord. I don't know why I gravitate toward them or them to me if it's coincidence or if it's conscience. And I recently played Eric Liddell (in the yet-to-be-released "The Last Race"), a missionary who died in a Japanese internment camp. He was famously remembered in the film "Chariots of Fire." Maybe, if I really examined it, I am very drawn to the integrity that someone has. As soon as you raise the bar of your integrity, you are challenged, and I have great respect for those who do that and weather all the storms and remain true to their faith, remain true to their mission. "Risen" is rated PG-13 for biblical violence and some disturbing images. Visit Risen-Movie.com A recent survey of the religious landscape of the U.S. by Pew Research Center showed a decrease in the number of those who identify themselves as Christians (a decrease of 7.8 percent), while those who do not affiliate themselves with any religion -- religious nones -- saw an increase of 6.7 percent. In response, a group of Christian leaders of diverse backgrounds -- ethnically, denominationally, etc. -- will be coming together in February at the Institute for the Study of Asian American Christianity (ISAAC)s 7th Symposium to discuss what factors may be coming into play in this day and age that results in such a phenomenon. The symposium, called, Christianity Next: Dones and Nones? will feature an opening address by Richard J. Mouw, the president emeritus of Fuller Theological Seminary, and a panel discussion with various speakers including Kay Higuera Smith, a New Testament scholar of Azusa Pacific University; Steve Choi, the lead pastor of Crossway Community Church; and Edwin David Aponte, the executive director of Louisville Institute; among others. The Pew study hands us a missiological question, said Dr. Young Lee Hertig, the executive director of ISAAC. How do we translate the gospel to the millennial generation, who face very different circumstances demographically, culturally, and economically? In my generation, the church spoke to our need, and against the lies of racism, said Elder Oscar Owens of West Angeles Church of God in Christ. Owens is also the co-chair for the upcoming symposium. Youre a child of God, God has a purpose for you. These are the things that they spoke to us through the gospel. So for this generation, how do we get in touch with the liberating forces in the gospel that is for everybody? What internal structural barriers impede churches from adapting to shifting religious demographics? What cultural and sociological forces do Christian churches generally remain oblivious to? What are the barriers blocking intergenerational, racial, sexual, denominational dialogue? These are among some of the other questions organizers hope to address during the symposium. According to Hertig, a lack of a space to dialogue about such issues may be one of the reasons that some may be compelled to leave the church or shy away from it. Genuine dialogue is saying, Im willing to be impacted by this dialogue, and Im wiling to put myself in your shoes, Hertig explained. This is what millennials are craving for. At this symposium, we want millennials, pastors, ministry leaders, anyone who is interested, to come. We want to hear from them and dialogue together, said Hertig. We want to create an intersectional space, a dialogue across generations, races, and genders. The symposium will be taking place on February 27 from 9 AM to 4 PM at Young Nak Celebration Churchs Jefferson Campus. For more information, visit www.eventbee.com/v/isaacweb/event?eid=119932851. Heading into the thick of the 2016 presidential campaign season, weve heard plenty from the candidates about the meaning and purpose of America. Donald Trump, to take an especially colorful example, is fond of issuing forceful, if somewhat vague, promises to make America great again. Which implies, of course, that America has been great in the pastand that, by one reckoning or another, it ought to be great once more. But even that leaves many questions unanswered. What does it mean for a nation to be great? And is national greatnesseven if we could agree on a consensus definitionreally something to be prized? It wont surprise anyone familiar with our campaign-season squabblesmuch less our fractious, rambunctious national historythat the answers to these questions are anything but settled and uncontroversial. As a guide through this tangle of issues, were fortunate to have John D. Wilsey, author of an excellent new study called American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion: Reassessing the History of an Idea. Wilsey, who teaches history and apologetics at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, asks how faithful Christians can think through the claimspopular throughout our historythat America is an exceptional nation, blessed by God and given a unique role in to play in world affairs. God and America At least one conclusion is clear: most citizens affirm some kind of relationship between God and America. Polling numbers show that even today, in a nation wracked by the forces of globalism, big banks, terror plots, gun violence, and racial tensionsnot to mention the effects of seemingly irreversible climate changeroughly ... 1 Several faith leaders were asked to write brief comments about the future of Roe. I was glad to see that I was not the only person asked who sees life as beginning at conception and who is ready to see Roe overturned. The Turkish government neglected its duty to protect three Christians who were tortured and killed in 2007, a Turkish court ruled on Tuesday. The Malatya Administrative Court has ordered the government to pay damages to the victims families, ruling that the Turkish interior ministry and Malatya governors office ignored reliable intelligence that Turkish nationalists were targeting the three Christians days prior to their murder. The Christians were killed by five young men with alleged links to Turkish nationalists on April 18, 2007, in the office of the Zirve Publishing House in Malatya in southeastern Turkey. Ugur Yuksel, 32, and Necati Aydin, 36, both Turkish converts from Islam, and Tilmann Geske, 45, a German national, were bound, interrogated about their Christian activities, and then mutilated and killed with knives, according to court evidence. According to several Christians close to the victims, one or more of the accused suspects had cultivated relationships ... 1 Where have you been? Why havent you helped us? Mavis shouted at us. Twenty years ago my husband and I found ourselves in the British city of Birmingham, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom, and home to a large number of Jamaican residents. We had been traveling in England for three weeks with a group of African American seminarians and church leaders. It was exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure. We lectured on issues pertaining to the black church in classrooms, preached in churches, dialogued with police, gave radio interviews, talked with civic and community leadersall in partnership with the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies. I thought this meeting in the Jamaican community would be the place where we would receive our warmest welcome. We were going to be with other black people! It would be a chance to rest, rejuvenate and let down our guard. I had imagined that we would be laughing and relaxing together in no time over good food and good music. We pulled up at the church building in our rundown van, and a large group of Jamaican young people were waiting for us outside. But after we filed into the church and sat through some brief introductions, a young woman stood up and literally began shouting at us. Why didnt you come sooner? Didnt you know what we were going through? We sat in complete silence, dumbfounded. We had no idea of their struggle and no sense of their expectations coming into this gathering. So we listened as this passionate Christian woman educated us on the history and the plight of the black British people. We learned from Mavis that after World War II, the British government had encouraged mass immigration from ... 1 Christian Standard and the Lookout Magazines Will Continue to Offer Their Popular Treatment of the International Sunday School Lesson (ISSL) The Renewed Relationship Between the Committee on Uniform Series (CUS) and Magazine Owner, Christian Standard Media, Attracts Over 2 Million Page Views Per Year Contact: Teresa Callahan, CINCINNATI, Ohio, Jan. 27, 2016 / The Lookout weekly magazine continues to feature verse-by-verse commentary on each Lesson in the series for the coming Sunday, along with Daily Bible Readings. A devotional, topical article offers practical help for Christian living based on these Daily Bible Readings, which correlate with each lesson. A like treatment also appears on the websites of Christian Standard Media's magazines, "We're excited to extend our agreement with CUS so that millions more can join the wave of those who turn to our magazines for insight and inspiration based upon the Uniform Series Lessons. Our continued partnership amplifies our mission of promoting both biblical understanding and deepening relationships with Jesus Christ," said Peter M. Esposito, CEO, Christian Standard Media. The Uniform Series is a 6-year plan for reading and studying the Bible that takes at least 1 lesson or Bible reading from each book of the Bible over a 6-year span. Through this study sequence, followers of the series are led through every part of the Bible. Due in part to the strong support given by the National Council of Churches, the Uniform Series remains the standard across the nation's major Christian denominations. Christian Standard Media has been publishing resources based on this outline for more than 13 decades. "We're pleased to continue to passionately serve church communities and Christ followers with our tried and true approach to Bible study through our magazine websites and the pages of The Lookout magazine," said Mark Taylor, Editor of Christian Standard magazine and Publisher of both Christian Standard and The Lookout magazines. The founder and first editor of Christian Standard magazine, Isaac Errett, was himself named to the ISSL committee at the Fourth International Convention in Louisville in 1884. Today, the long-acclaimed Christian Standard magazinealso available as a mobile appalong with The Lookout magazine, the growing Christian's weekly resource, continue to offer their popular treatment of the ISSL to tens of thousands of readers each week at each of their two sites: . Both magazines are available as individual, church (bulk), or digital subscriptions. Christian Standard Media LLC is committed to continuing the nearly 150-year tradition as a Christian mission-driven leader in true-to-the Bible resources that educate, encourage, and enrich adults, youth, and children. From the founding of a journal devoted to New Testament Christianity in 1866 to the first publication of Vacation Bible School (VBS) materials with a five-week, all day program in 1923 to its contemporary publication of its award-winning 2015 VBS Christian Standard Media will continue the legacy of serving church communities worldwide. The mission, "to provide true-to-the Bible resources that inspire, educate, and motivate people to a growing relationship with Jesus Christ," has guided the company's rich history and now infuses Christian Standard Media's drive to remain a trustworthy Christian ministry partner in a rapidly changing world. The company is based in Cincinnati, Ohio. For more information, visit ChristianStandard.com, Share Tweet Contact: Teresa Callahan, Christian Standard Media , 513-728-6852CINCINNATI, Ohio, Jan. 27, 2016 / Christian Newswire / -- Christian Standard Media, formerly Standard Publishing, has signed an agreement with the Committee on the Uniform Series (CUS) to extend their historic relationship in support of International Sunday School Lessons (ISSL) through their popular magazines.The Lookout weekly magazine continues to feature verse-by-verse commentary on each Lesson in the series for the coming Sunday, along with Daily Bible Readings. A devotional, topical article offers practical help for Christian living based on these Daily Bible Readings, which correlate with each lesson. A like treatment also appears on the websites of Christian Standard Media's magazines, ChristianStandard.com and LookoutMag.com , and receives well over 2 million views per year."We're excited to extend our agreement with CUS so that millions more can join the wave of those who turn to our magazines for insight and inspiration based upon the Uniform Series Lessons. Our continued partnership amplifies our mission of promoting both biblical understanding and deepening relationships with Jesus Christ," said Peter M. Esposito, CEO, Christian Standard Media.The Uniform Series is a 6-year plan for reading and studying the Bible that takes at least 1 lesson or Bible reading from each book of the Bible over a 6-year span. Through this study sequence, followers of the series are led through every part of the Bible. Due in part to the strong support given by the National Council of Churches, the Uniform Series remains the standard across the nation's major Christian denominations. Christian Standard Media has been publishing resources based on this outline for more than 13 decades."We're pleased to continue to passionately serve church communities and Christ followers with our tried and true approach to Bible study through our magazine websites and the pages of The Lookout magazine," said Mark Taylor, Editor of Christian Standard magazine and Publisher of both Christian Standard and The Lookout magazines.The founder and first editor of Christian Standard magazine, Isaac Errett, was himself named to the ISSL committee at the Fourth International Convention in Louisville in 1884. Today, the long-acclaimed Christian Standard magazinealso available as a mobile appalong with The Lookout magazine, the growing Christian's weekly resource, continue to offer their popular treatment of the ISSL to tens of thousands of readers each week at each of their two sites: christianstandard.com/category/sunday-school-lesson and www.lookoutmag.com/category/biblestudytools/sundayschool . Both magazines are available as individual, church (bulk), or digital subscriptions.Christian Standard Media LLC is committed to continuing the nearly 150-year tradition as a Christian mission-driven leader in true-to-the Bible resources that educate, encourage, and enrich adults, youth, and children. From the founding of a journal devoted to New Testament Christianity in 1866 to the first publication of Vacation Bible School (VBS) materials with a five-week, all day program in 1923 to its contemporary publication of its award-winning 2015 VBS Christian Standard Media will continue the legacy of serving church communities worldwide.The mission, "to provide true-to-the Bible resources that inspire, educate, and motivate people to a growing relationship with Jesus Christ," has guided the company's rich history and now infuses Christian Standard Media's drive to remain a trustworthy Christian ministry partner in a rapidly changing world. The company is based in Cincinnati, Ohio. For more information, visit ChristianStandardMedia.com LookoutMag.com or call 800.543.1353. Bombshell: Houston Grand Jury Never Voted on Planned Parenthood Charges Same Assistant District Attorney that failed to indict another abortionist in 2013 also directed the grand jury that indicted Daleiden and Merritt Contact: Troy Newman, President, 316-841-1700; Cheryl Sullenger, Senior Vice President, 316-516-3034; both with Operation Rescue, 734-680-8007, info.operationrescue@gmail.com HOUSTON, Jan. 27, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- Operation Rescue has learned new information, some published in a report today by the Associate Press, which indicates the grand jury indictments against David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt were likely in retaliation against Operation Rescue for filing a complaint against Houston abortionist Douglas Karpen, which led to a grand jury investigation of him in 2013. Josh Schaffer, attorney for Planned Parenthood, informed the news organization that "the grand jury never even voted on possible criminal charges" against Planned Parenthood, according to the AP report. "No vote means no investigation," said Cheryl Sullenger, Senior Vice President of Operation Rescue. "The people are entitled to an unbiased investigation into the serious allegations of illegal conduct by Planned Parenthood. That does not appear to have happened." Based on Operation Rescue's 2013 complaint, a grand jury investigated allegations that Houston abortionist Douglas Karpen had murdered babies born alive during shoddy abortions by twisting their heads nearly off their bodies. Photographic evidence supported those allegations. Chip Lewis, Karpen's attorney, falsely accused Operation Rescue of paying three former Karpen employees to testify against him and of "doctoring" grisly photographs of babies Karpen had allegedly murdered, according to witnesses. Lewis threatened Operation Rescue after no true bill was returned against Karpen. Lewis told the Houston Chronicle, "Those responsible for bringing these wholly unfounded allegations against Dr. Karpen will be held responsible for their crimes." He further threatened an investigation of Operation Rescue, which never materialized. Lewis has tight connections to District Attorney Devon Anderson. He is a long time personal friend of hers and her now deceased husband, former D.A. Mike Anderson, and is the largest political donor to the Anderson family. It could be assumed that Anderson owes Lewis for his friendship and political favors. Lewis told the AP that after the Karpen grand jury, he helped "soften the fallout" for Anderson in "Republican circles" by telling them falsehoods about Operation Rescue, who he wrongly accused of paying witnesses to testify against Karpen. The AP article also noted that the same female Assistant District Attorney that handled the Karpen investigation also directed the grand jury that indicted Daleiden and Merritt. Of that prosecutor, Lewis said, "I don't think she forgot what she uncovered," referring to bogus allegations against Operation Rescue during the Karpen grand jury. Her bias, based at least in part on Lewis' falsehoods, likely tainted the grand jury process, turning it against Daleiden because of his association with Newman. Because the grand jury was contaminated by bias, Operation Rescue is calling for three specific remedies: Drop all charges against David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt or appoint a special prosecutor that is in no way affiliated with Devon Anderson, the Harris County District Attorney's office or Chip Lewis. Empanel a new, untainted grand jury to investigate Planned Parenthood criminality under the direction of a separate special prosecutor also unaffiliated with Devon Anderson, the Harris County District Attorney's office or Chip Lewis. Reopen the murder investigation against Douglas Karpen, with a new grand jury directed by another special prosecutor who is not affiliated with Devon Anderson, the Harris County District Attorney's office or Chip Lewis. "Anderson said that she would let the evidence take her where it would, and we say the evidence reveals an agenda in the District Attorney's office, under the influence of Chip Lewis, to get even with pro-life whistleblowers who have reported evidence against abortion providers of serious crimes, including murder," said Sullenger. "In order for there to be justice, we need to stop dipping from a poisoned well and seek unbiased people to push forward with investigations against the real culprits." About Operation Rescue Operation Rescue is one of the leading pro-life Christian activist organizations in the nation and has become a strong voice for the pro-life movement in America. Click here to support Operation Rescue. UNC excavation crew in Galilee region of Israel uncover first known depictions of biblical heroines An excavation team in Israel has discovered the first known depiction of two biblical heroines from the Old Testament. World to reach 8 billion people in November, India to unseat China as most populous in 2023: UN By Nov. 15, the worlds population is projected to reach 8 billion, and by 2023, India is projected to surpass China as the worlds most populous country, according to a new report from the United Nations. Single, non-religious young adults are most unhappy Americans post-COVID-19: report Young adults under 35 who are single and non-religious report the highest levels of unhappiness since the COVID-19 pandemic began and since 1972, when the General Social Survey began measuring levels of happiness among Americans, a new analysis from the Institute of Family Studies suggests. 120,000 people are starving in Syrian city besieged by ISIS At least 120,000 people are starving in the Syrian city of Deir al-Zor, a senior Church leader has warned, as ISIS continues to lay siege on the town. Armed groups including ISIS, the Syrian Armed Forces and the Free Syrian Army have clashed in Deir al-Zor, in eastern Syria, since the beginning of the civil war in 2011. Islamic State is now in control of the majority of the province, but some areas of the city remain government-held. Archbishop Jaques Behnan Hindo of Hassake-Nisibis in Syria said that ISIS could be considering the city as its new stronghold, fearful that Raqqa could fall. For over a year now, "jihadists have intensified the siege by not bringing food", he told Fides news agency. "The few products that are still found tomatoes, canned sardines, some tea are sold on the black market with prices more than tenfold," he added. The Archbishop also said that before war broke out there were around 1,000 Christians living in Deir al-Zor. Now there is just one left. Earlier this month, ISIS militants killed 300 civilians in the city, in a massacre that was condemned as "horrific" by the Syrian government. The majority of the victims were elderly people, women and children. Some reports suggested that a number of those killed were beheaded. The UN released a report this month warning of severe food shortages and sharply deteriorating conditions in Deir al-Zor. Between 15 to 20 people including four children died of starvation in the Syrian city last year, according to unconfirmed reports, and residents only have a water supply for three hours each week. An estimated 70 per cent of those under seige are women and children, the report added. Many of them are living in temporary shelters after being displaced from their homes. 3 Islamic terror groups ISIS, al-Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood seek 'mega-merger' in Libya The Libyan branches of Islamic State (ISIS), al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood are finalising a "mega merger'' that would include the formation of a joint council of sages, according to London-based newspaper Al Sharq al Awsat. Citing leaked documents, the paper said the Islamist organisations are considering an alliance, which comes on the heels of an international effort to unite Libya's various factions and warring militias under one government, the Arabic language daily reported, according to WND. "The three terror groups want to send a message that 'all the Islamist opposition elements speak in one voice and should be treated as such,'' a source told the Arabic newspaper, according to Breitbart. Negotiations among the three Islamic groups were reportedly prompted by reports of "a rapprochement between the internationally recognised government based in Tobruk and the unrecognised government in the capital Tripoli." According to the paper, the Muslim Brotherhood is considering a united Islamic front even though the movement is officially in favour of forming a unity government. But sources within the movement told the paper that their support for the international endeavour is merely tactical, and that they're waiting for it to collapse, Breitbart reported. The parties have agreed to form a joint Shura (advisory) council and territories that are currently under Islamic control will be divided among them, said the report. An al-Qaeda representative was quoted as saying that the move would inspire Islamist in Algeria and Egypt to follow suit. Moreover, Breitbart Jerusalem also disclosed of mediation efforts between the Muslim Brotherhood-aligned Hamas and Salafists aligned with the ISIS. A previous report by the paper indicated that Shadi al-Menai, one of the leaders of Wilayat Sinai, the ISIS branch in Sinai, visited Gaza in a bid to mediate between Hamas and local Salafi groups after clashes erupted that resulted in the arrests of dozens of jihadists by Hamas forces. Britain First is corrupting the message of the cross, and we need to claim it back It might seem obvious that extreme right-wing party Britain First is not a Christian group. Its scaremongering policies, widely considered to be racist, are hopefully not the first thing that spring to mind when you think of Christianity. However, Britain First seems to think otherwise. The group recently held a "Christian Patrol" in Luton, during which members brandished wooden crosses and claimed to be defending "Christian values" while handing out anti-Islam newspapers to Muslims. Although this "Christian Patrol" and others like it have only attracted marchers in their tens, a video of the Luton march has been viewed 21 million times on Facebook. Britain First is disrupting communities, harrassing Muslim neighbours and doing so in the name of a "Christian Britain". It's time we said: "not in my name." It may seem superfluous to defend the Christian faith from such a group, but its online popularity (the Britain First Facebook page has 1,280,406 likes more than the Labour and Conservative Party pages combined), and a quick look at historical cases of the appropriation of Christianity by far-right groups (think the Nazis and the KKK) suggest otherwise. Britain First is a far-right and British nationalist party that was formed in 2011, as a splinter group from the BNP. It fights against immigration, multiculturalism and what it describes as the "Islamisation" of the UK. On its Wikipedia page, the group is also described as having a "Christian" ideology. Deputy leader Jayda Fransen has declared that the UK is heading for a "civil war" between those who hold "British values" and Islamists. In the nine-minute clip of the Luton march, Fransen argues ferociously with a Muslim man, shouting "our country, not your country. It's a Christian country." When challenged, she continues, saying: "You think you can take over a town and say 'It's your country, you're taking over'... not for long, see this cross? It will prevail." Britain First has "corrupted the message of the cross, which for us is a symbol of reconciliation, forgiveness and selfless love," Peter Adams, a member of Luton's St Mary's Church, told Luton Today. He was among a group of local Christians and Muslims who stood together to hand out flowers in a show of unity following the march. Britain First's "method, their provocative actions, their carrying of white crosses, very angry [and] abusive words were not the message that the church in Luton had towards our Muslim neighbours", Adams said. It is difficult to equate the Jesus of the Bible with the message of Britain First. Scripture calls us to welcome the orphan and the alien, and that needs to be central to Christianity, particularly in this current climate. Speaking to Christian Today in 2014, Paul Golding, leader of Britain First, said: "Jesus Christ did use physical violence according to the Gospels in the temple in Jerusalem, and he met a very violent end. He preached love and forgiveness etc, but he also said he didn't come to bring peace; he came to bring division and a sword, he came to bring fire upon the world to sort the world out." But though Jesus did clear the Temple, to take this story out of context, manipulate it and use it to justify prejudice is not OK. The true face of Christianity is found not by brandishing crosses in hate, but in those living by Jesus' example: building, not breaking communities. Although only a few people are showing up for these "Christian patrols" at the moment, Fransen claims that membership of Britain First is "swelling by the thousands". The group has planned another Christian Patrol, this time through Dewsbury, which Fransen described as having "Islamic extremists coming out of the woodwork". The deputy leader, who is of foreign descent herself, said that, "the indigenous people in Britain don't want their own towns turned into Muslim ghettos. It doesn't look like Britain any more." Tell Mama, a charity that monitors Islamophobia in the UK, shared the concern that "these inflammatory actions continue with Britain First trying to pain themselves as 'defenders of Christian values', something that they are far from". The fear is that people who are on the receiving end of this violent action, into whose communities Britain First storm brandishing white crosses, will begin to equate this hate-filled action with Christianity. We need to stand against their appropriation and distortion of the cross. Follow Florence Taylor on Twitter: @Flo_Taylor Canada must do more: #FreePastorLim petition now over 125,000 Thousands have signed a petition calling for the release of a Canadian pastor sentenced to life imprisonment in North Korea. The campaign to free Hyeon Soo Lim, a Canadian-Korean pastor in his 60s, now has over 128,000 signatures and calls for his immediate release. The petition on change.org criticises Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for failing to do more. "The Canadian government needs to express more than mere hope and dismay," the petition read. Lim was sentenced to a life of hard labour on December 16, 2015 after at least 10 months in detention. He was charged with 'harming the dignity of the supreme leader,' 'trying to use religion to destroy North Korea' and 'assisting North Koreans escape.' The pastor pleaded guilty to the charges. "Since 1997... Lim has been supporting where help is most needed, including an orphanage, public schools, and a nursing home in North Korea," the petition read. "He's made more than 100 trips to North Korea during the last 20 years, supplying food, textbooks, and agricultural tools to civilians. His trips were not political in nature." Very little is known about conditions in North Korea although persecution charity Open Doors estimates at least 70,000 Christians are imprisoned for their faith. "Christians face arrest, torture, imprisonment and death for daring to believe there is a higher authority than the nation's leader, Kim Jong-un," the charity claims. "Many follow Jesus in secret; parents often don't even tell their children about their faith for fear they will be revealed." For the last fourteen years North Korea has topped Open Doors' World Watch List for the worst countries to live as a Christian. Although the new Canadian Prime Minister has expressed his "tremedous" concern at the sentence, there has been little evidence of pressure being applied on the dictatorial state. "We certainly hope to be able to engage with this individual and stand up for his rights," Trudeau said. Diana Khaddaj, a spokeswoman for Canada's Global Affairs Department, said Canada is "dismayed at the unduly harsh sentence... particularly given his age and fragile health." The petition's authors say this isn't strong enough. "How will Prime Minister Trudeau and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon respond to a humanitarian imprisoned - and most likely abused and tortured - in the world's most atrocious regime?" the petition asks. China: Call for churches to be banned in city of Confucius' birth A Chinese political advisor has called for a ban on churches in the city of Qufu, the birthplace of philosopher Confucius, because he believes they cause "intense controversy". Zeng Zhenhu, a scholar in Qufu, Shandong province, wrote an article on January 21 claiming local officials were "secretly" building a Protestant church close to a Confucius Temple in the city. He said that all church buildings should be banned in Qufu. According to the Global Times, the building of this church designed to hold 3,000 worshippers was actually contested by 10 scholars in 2010, who claimed it "would trigger religious and cultural conflicts". A local official denied Zeng's claim that the church had been built anyway, telling the Global Times that he had no knowledge of it. According to the Qufu Gazette there are at least 8,000 registered Protestants living in the city, and there are expected to be thousands more unregistered Christians. Christianity in China is experiencing unprecedented growth, with some experts estimating that up to 10,000 people are turning to the faith every day. The Communist Party is believed to be becoming progressively more suspicious of the influence of Christianity, however, and has begun to crackdown on believers most notably in Zhejiang province, south of Shangong. Up to 1,700 churches there have been targeted for demolition or had their crosses removed. President Xi Jinping has called on China to return to traditional beliefs, such as Confucianism, rather than 'western' religions, and has introduced a hard-line approach to various parts of civil society, including religion. Sebastien Billioud, associate professor in Chinese civilization at Diderot University in Paris, has suggested that there is a 'Confucian revival' in China. He told UCA News that some Chinese people believe "China needs Confucianism as a counter-current to the rise of Christianity". Though Chairman Mao fiercely opposed Confucius' teachings, branding them "feudal", they have been gradually reintroduced in the years following his death in 1976. In 2011, an 8m tall statue of Confucius was erected in front of the National Museum of China located in Tiananmen Square, though it was removed overnight four months later without explanation. The Global Times reports that Zeng has received significant support online for his call to ban churches, particularly in the place of Confucius' birth. "It is inappropriate to build mosques or churches on a large scale in the holy city," one user wrote on an online forum. "Authorities should work to promote Confucianism and avoid turning the holy city of the East into a city of foreign religion." Christian homeless charities among more than 20 in campaign to help people off the streets Christian charities are among those calling on the next Mayor of London to tackle homelessness in the capital. Housing Justice and the West London Mission are among more than 20 charities who have called for the new Mayor who will succeed Boris Johnson after elections in May to do more to help rough sleepers. Last year at least 7,500 people slept on the streets of London and tens of thousands more are technically homeless, housed in hostels and elsewhere. Latest figures show that 2,862 people were found sleeping rough in London in the last three months of 2015, an increase of 12 per cent on the same period last year. More than 1,500 people have already signed the petition organised by the charity Crisis. A new report by Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation this week found that local authorities across England are struggling to cope with rising numbers of single homeless people. The report says that nine out of 10 English councils find it difficult to help single homeless people aged 25-34, while nearly as many find it difficult to help people aged 18-24. As many as 275,000 cases of homelessness were recorded nationally in the past year, many of them involving families with young children. The Lead London Home manifesto states: "Homelessness is a devastating experience with significant impacts for an individual's health and wellbeing. Mental and physical health problems can be caused or exacerbated by rough sleeping. Homelessness is also dangerous, with homeless people 13 times more likely to be a victim of crime than the general public. Shockingly, the average age of death for a homeless person is just 47 30 years younger than the national average." Even in the 21st century, homeless people who ask their council for help can still be turned away to sleep on the streets, the manifesto says, because most single homeless people are not considered to be a "priority", meaning the local council has no legal duty to find them housing. Jon Sparkes, chief executive of Crisis, said: "London is one of the wealthiest cities in the world the fact it is facing such a rise in homelessness is nothing short of a scandal. By pledging to Lead London Home the next Mayor will be pledging to arrest this rise and to help the thousands of people who find themselves homeless each year." Rick Henderson, chief executive of Homeless Link, said: "The priority after May must be prevention, including helping those with the most complex needs and providing specialist support for vulnerable and minority groups. For those already homeless it is vital to ensure that there is a clear route off the street, as well as investment in new homes." Jon Kuhrt, head of social work at the West London Mission, said: "Churches and Christian groups are doing a huge amount to alleviate the homelessness crisis. Here in Westminster, where the numbers of rough sleepers is the highest in the country, the West London Mission coordinates 13 churches and a synagogue in the Westminster Winter shelter which runs between October and May. Our Day Centre for rough sleepers has been operating for over 40 years and sees up to 100 homeless people every day. "But alongside all this help, we must speak out about the issues which are causing so many to feel the pavement, the park or the night bus is their only housing option. We need to be both practical and political. This is why the Lead London Home campaign is so vital churches, charities and the general public need to get behind this campaign and send a clear message to the new mayor that housing is the number one issue for Londoners and that speedy action is urgently needed to stem the flow of people sleeping rough on our city's streets." 'Evolution is not a fact,' says Church of England head teacher A Church of England primary school website has been taken down and its head teacher's account removed from Twitter after she was deluged with angry complaints for tweeting: "Evolution is not a fact." The website of St Andrew's in Oswaldtwistle, which is in the Blackburn diocese, was removed due to the amount of traffic. The Twitter account of Tina Wilkinson @wilkinsonhead was also described by Twitter as one that "doesn't exist". However it was still possible to view the angry reactions on Twitter. Wilkinson, who has seen her school Ofsted rating fall from "good" to "needing improvement" in under two years, tweeted: "Evoution is not a fact. That's why it's called a theory! There's more evidence that the Bible is true." She had been responding to an article by another head teacher, Tom Sherrington from London, of the National Baccalaureate Trust, who had written about evolution and the "young creationists". He wrote: "For me, it is critical that teachers do not water down the science to accommodate religious perspectives if that means sacrificing the acceptance of evidence. This applies to science and RE teachers. New Earth creationism and more subtle variants of Intelligent Design are a denial of science and I think all teachers need to be conscious of that." He referred specifically to Muslim pupils, saying: "I could tell that I had stirred up some animosity from some Muslim boys during my assemblies. This was confirmed by other students. "For some, I am an authority figure directly contradicting the teachings of their families and imams. That's going to be hard to take. There may be teachers who fear that this has every chance of strengthening a sense of alienation or of rejecting certain Western values two elements often associated with radicalisation." Wilkinson's biblical rebuttal to Sherrington's promotion of his "evolution assembly" itself prompted many angry retorts on the social media platform. James Taylor tweeted: If this is what @WilkinsonHead thinks, she should resign as a headteacher, leave education & join the clergy. https://t.co/e7Y0ib9z8L James Taylor (@JadedPhilosophy) January 27, 2016 Stephen Knight tweeted: I explain the definition of 'theory' to @WilkinsonHead & make an offer to the young students of @standrewscep https://t.co/ekF2jjAuBQ Stephen Knight GS (@GSpellchecker) January 26, 2016 Christopher Anton tweeted: @WilkinsonHead please can OFSTED come & inspect this school's science now. Headmaster hasn't a clue about scientific process. Christopher Anton (@GBRChris_A) January 26, 2016 Local councillor Ken Moss, who holds an education brief, told the Accrington Observer: "Whilst there are many unanswered questions regarding human evolution, I don't think we should be promoting religious texts as more factually accurate than hundreds of years of detailed scientific study." Graham Jones, Labour MP for Hyndburn, said: "It is a Church of England school and as such I understand the teachings of the Bible are important. The national curriculum requires more broad-based perception of evolution and a balance of opinions has to be struck so pupils can make up their own minds." A Blackburn diocesan education spokesman said: "In relation to what should be taught, as a diocese we state all schools should teach the full national curriculum which includes adaptation of plants and animals and that adaption may lead to evolution." Wilkinson said: "I'd like to make it clear that we teach the full national curriculum in school and that our pupils receive a fully rounded education. "The comment in question was made using my personal twitter account and represents my own views." Government offer to child refugees is 'absolute minimum', say campaigners The UK will accept more unaccompanied child refugees in response to pressure from opposition parties and charities. Although the Home Office has not said how many the UK will take, it has confirmed the extra children will be on top of the 20,000 figure already pledged to be taken by 2020. However they have confirmed that the refugees will not be from Europe but UN refugee camps in Syria and neighbouring countries, to the frustration of campaigners. Both Save the Children and the Labour party have expressed their disappointment the government will not be accepting child refugees from among makeshift camps in Europe such as Calais' 'Jungle'. Alongside the children's charity and Labour, Tim Farron, the evangelical Christian leader of the Liberal Democrat party, who has long campaigned for Britain to take at least 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees from Europe, said the reponse was"pitiful". "The government is managing to do the absolute minimum to alleviate the biggest humanitarian crisis facing our world in the last half century," he said. Many refugee children disappear when they arrive in Europe, according to Save the Children, and they are at risk of traffickers, drug dealers and other forms of abuse. Home Office minister James Brokenshire defended the government's decision not to take children from Europe, saying those in Syria are the most vulnerable and it was right to focus on them. "The vast majority are better off staying in the region so they can be reunited with surviving family members," he said. "So we have asked the UNHCR to identify the exceptional cases where a child's best interests are served by resettlement to the UK and help us to bring them here." But Labour were not convinced. Yvette Cooper, chair of Labour's refugee taskforce and former rival to Jeremy Corbyn for the party leadership, said the country "cannot turn our backs on children who are already in Europe and desperate families who have already come to Europe because they are fleeing persecution". Her comments came after Corbyn visited the 'Jungle' camp in Calais over the weekend. "We have to do more," he said after his trip. "As a matter of urgency, David Cameron should act to give refuge to unaccompanied refugee children now in Europe as we did with Jewish Kindertransport children escaping from Nazi tyranny in the 1930s. "And the government must provide the resources needed for those areas accepting refugees including in housing and education rather than dumping them in some of Britain's poorest communities." However not all within the Labour party are on board with Corbyn's stance. Frank Field, the senior Labour MP for Birkenhead and a former minister, warned Labour faced a "walloping" in the 2020 election if they did not take a firmer stance on immigration. "On the big issues, sadly, which will decide the next election, which is about defending our borders and defending us as a nation, the Labour opposition looks as if it is walking in the opposite direction," he told Sky News. "Clearly that is going to have to be sorted out before the next election if we are not to get a walloping yet again." Hundreds of Muslim clerics say religious freedom is essential With much of the Middle East in meltdown from the carnage in Syria and Iraq through to continued violence in Israel/Palestine and the horrific campaign of violence targeted at Yemen, it seems there is little reason to be positive. That's before we even consider violence against Christians in Pakistan, Egypt and elsewhere. However, this week saw a ray of hope emerge. Not from any of those trouble spots but from Morocco, where hundreds of Islamic scholars had gathered. The three-day summit brought together experts from both sides of the Sunni/Shia divide and produced a statement saying Muslim countries must respect the rights of other faiths. The Marrakech Declaration and Call to Action makes for encouraging reading in the light of the atrocities carried out by ISIS in Syria and Iraq, Boko Haram in Nigeria and other extremist groups. The Muslim scholars and intellectuals called upon "representatives of the various religions, sects and denominations to confront all forms of religious bigotry, villication, and denigration of what people hold sacred, as well as all speech that promotes hatred and bigotry". However, the pronouncement went a step further and specifically addressed Muslim countries: "We affirm that it is unconscionable to employ religion for the purpose of aggressing (sic) upon the rights of religious minorities in Muslim countries." The participants in the event said they were drawing upon a foundational document of their faith, the Medina Declaration, which was written by the prophet Mohammed 1,400 years ago. In it he is said to have granted religious liberty to non-Muslims living in Medina, which by then was under his control. Significantly, both Shia and Sunni scholars attended the gathering, which breeds hope that there will be an increased chance of its success. Shia minorities have been repressed in majority Sunni countries and vice versa. Christians have borne the brunt of a lack of religious freedom in many Muslim countries in recent years, from misuse of the blasphemy laws in Pakistan to arbitrary imprisonment in Iran, through to the kidnappings and beheadings perpetrated by ISIS. Other smaller faiths have also suffered, including ancient sects like the Yazidis in Iraq, or more modern religions like Bahaism. It's therefore very encouraging to read of renewed calls by the scholars to "establish a broad movement for the just treatment of religious minorities in Muslim countries and to raise awareness as to their rights, and to work together to ensure the success of these efforts". In addition to the more than 300 Islamic voices heard at the event, there were 50 observers from other faiths. Among them was Cardinal McCarrick, the former Archbishop of Washington. He said: "I was privileged to have listened to the declaration of our final gathering. It is truly a great document, one that will influence our times and our history. It is a document that our world has waiting for and a tribute to the Muslim scholars who prepared it." Similarly, evangelical pastor Bob Roberts was in a positive frame of mind, describing himself as "blown away" by the declaration. "This is a Muslim conference put together by the top sheiks, ministers of religion, the grand muftis of the top Muslim majority nations," he said,"and they came up with a declaration, literally using the language of religious freedom to declare that violence cannot be done in the name of Islam." It remains to be seen how the declaration is received, especially by the media-savvy extremists who run ISIS' propaganda. But amid the carnage being wrought by their co-religionists, this comprehensive and significant declaration will inspire hope for better treatment of minorities around the world. Nigeria: Two pastors kidnapped and held for ransom Two pastors have been abducted this month in Kogi state, Nigeria, the Morning Star News reports. Pastor David Onubedo of Deeper Life Bible Church was abducted by gun-point on January 25 in Okene on his way home from a Bible study. This incident follows the kidnapping of pastor Ayo Raphael during a worship service of the Redeemed Christian Church of God church in Lokoja on January 10. The kidnappers have demanded 50 million naira (175,000) for each of the abducted pastors. Onubedo, who is a minister at a church in Kebbi city, had been visiting his home town of Okene when he was kidnapped, a church member told Morning Star News. His church has called for people to pray for his safe return in a text message: "Please, begin to pray and send prayer requests to others for the release of Pastor Onubedo, a state overseer in Deeper Life Ministry who was reportedly kidnapped at his residence immediately after the Bible Study tonight [Monday]," the text message said. "The pastor wants us to immediately enter prayer closets both as individuals, families and in groups for his immediate safe release." Raphael was kidnapped during a worship service in the state's capital. Masked gunmen disrupted the service and abducted him by gunpoint, according to a member of the congregation. "The gunmen attacked the church while Pastor Ayo was preaching," a member of the church said. "They ordered us to lie down and close our eyes as they shot into the air and dragged our pastor away at gunpoint." Phyllis Sorto, an American missionary from the Free Methodist Church USA, was kidnapped on 23 February 2015 in the same state as both Onubedo and Raphael, in a village called Emi-Oworo. She was released on March 6 in the same year. Nigeria is number 12 on the OpenDoors watchlist for Christian persecution. Boko Haram, working predominantly in the north of the country, has declared its own caliphate, while Islamic Hausa-Fulani herdsmen are frequently attacking Christian villages in the middle-belt of the country, often taking over farmland and depriving Christian villagers of their livelihood. Resurgence of Lord's Resistance Army strikes fear across Central African Republic A terrorist militia responsible for around 100,000 deaths before being hunted out of Northern Uganda is regaining strength in the Central African Republic (CAR), according to a senior Roman Catholic bishop there. The Lord's Resistance Army, headed by Joseph Kony, imposed a reign of terror on the Acholi region of Northern Uganda in the 1980s and 90s. It specialised in the abduction of women into sexual slavery and the recruitment of child soldiers, often in the most brutal circumstances: a favoured tactic was to force children to kill their parents or siblings so they believed they would never be able to return home. The LRA caused disruption to the region out of all proportion to its size, with terrified villagers becoming "night commuters", walking miles to places of safety rather than remain in their vulnerable homes. The pressure saw the group hounded from its base in Northern Uganda into South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and then the CAR. It was thought to have been reduced to only around 200 fighters. However, according to RNS, a Roman Catholic bishop, Rt Rev Nestor Desire Nongo-Aziagbia, has said the LRA has become one of the biggest threats to peace in the CAR. "They continue to enslave villagers, making them load carriers and sex slaves," he said. "They are also burning down villages." The CAR has seen an extended period of unrest, with tensions between the Christian and Muslim communities leading to conflict. Pope Francis visited the country last year against the advice of his security advisers and urged an end to hostilities. The LRA has taken full advantage of the unsettled state of the country. Nongo-Aziagbia said: "We are concerned there's no political will to defeat the rebels." "This [resurgence] is of great concern to us," said Sheikh Musa Khalil, vice chair of the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI), a peace-building organisation in northern Uganda. "The group is still holding our children who it abducted. A resurgence complicates their return." The LRA Crisis Tracker website documents a string of attacks on villages in the north of the CAR, involving the killing and abduction of adults and children. Sheikh Khalil's concern reflects one of the most intractable issues around dealing with the LRA that it is not just a military problem but a social and ethical one as well. During the last 20 years it has abducted many children who have grown up to become fighters and commanders in its ranks, and are themselves responsible for atrocities and massacres. However, the Acholi community and its religious leaders have generally been opposed to the use of extreme military force to deal with them as they regard them as victims as well as perpetrators. The LRA itself began as a resistance movement against forces loyal to President Yoweri Museveni who conducted a terror campaign against the area after he came to power in 1986. The LRA suffered a blow last year with the capture of one of its senior commanders, Dominic Ongwen, himself aformer child soldier taken from his family by the group. He was handed over to the International Criminal Court at The Hague over allegations of crimes including rape, murder, sexual enslavement and torture. It has not yet decided whether there is enough evidence to charge him. However, while some of his victims and their families want him punished for what he has done, others urge forgiveness. Bishop Nelson Onono-Onweng, who has been active in seeking a peaceful end to the conflict with the LRA and undertook a dangerous meeting with its leader Joseph Kony and with Ongwen in the Congo in 2006, has said that Ongwen himself was a victim. "The world betrayed this child. The state, which had the instruments to protect him, did not. The international community also took too long to act [against the] LRA. The world can see how things conspired against him." Others have argued against bringing even high-profile terrorists like Ongwen to the ICC at all, saying that if they know they will face international justice it is harder to persuade them to lay down their arms. Retired Bishop Baker Ochola, a member of the ARLPI, said on Ongwen's arrest last year: "The government should not jeopardise the lives of children and women still in LRA captivity. We appeal to the government to forgive and set him free. He should be given amnesty as any rebel who surrenders, renounces and abandons rebellion." Sierra Leone: Ebola's back, and faith leaders are on the front line A fortnight ago, West Africa breathed a collective sigh of relief as the World Health Organisation declared that Liberia was officially Ebola-free, having gone 42 days without a new case. The announcement signalled the long-awaited end of a two-year battle against the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history: one that devastated communities in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Nobody could have imagined that our joy would be so short-lived: hours later, officials announced a new Ebola death here in Sierra Leone. Over 250 people are now in quarantine and one person is receiving treatment, as emergency measures come back into force. This a shattering turn of events for my country, which received the all-clear in early November 2015 after 4,000 people lost their lives to the virus. But whatever lies ahead, I am quietly confident that Sierra Leone is much better equipped to cope this time around: while challenges remain, we have learnt many lessons since the outbreak began. One key lesson is the need to recognise the vital and often sacrificial role played by local communities, civil society groups and faith leaders in the emergency response and subsequent recovery work. This role has rightly been recognised by the House of Commons' International Development Committee (IDC). In a report published last week, the committee recommended that the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) "engage communities earlier in future outbreaks, especially through trusted local, tribal and faith leaders, established voluntary organisations and civil society". The value of community engagement in humanitarian crises such as the Ebola epidemic was consistently emphasised that during the committee's inquiry process, including by interested parties such as Christian Aid. In our submission to the IDC, Christian Aid stressed that: "More involvement of communities at the beginning of the response would have reduced their fear of ambulances, protective suits and health facilities, and would have mitigated the effects of Ebola." This has certainly been my experience. Soon after Ebola reached Sierra Leone, it became very clear that major factors in transmission included: denial, fear, lack of understanding and deeply embedded local customs, such as the burial rites that involve touching corpses that are highly contagious. Religious and deeply ingrained traditional cultural beliefs permeate the very fabric of our society. In a country with a weak healthcare infrastructure (it had just two doctors and 17 nurses per 100,000 people before the outbreak), reliance on traditional healers remains strong in many quarters. While many overseas agencies focused predominantly on clinical work in the outbreak's early days, for home-grown NGOs and civil society organisations, it was painfully apparent that the biggest battle was behavioural, social and cultural. We knew the response had to be supported in a way that made it locally owned and locally driven. That's why Christian Aid in Sierra Leone worked with local partner organisations, whether it was equipping health teams, feeding quarantined families, caring for orphans or mobilising thousands of volunteers to give life-saving advice on infection prevention and control. Our partners shared a common characteristic: they all had longstanding positions of influence and trust in the places where they worked. This was particularly the case for faith-based groups. Sierra Leone is a deeply religious nation, roughly two thirds Muslim and one third Christian. Churches and mosques are rooted in and respected by communities, giving faith leaders a unique platform to create social and behaviour change: they understand local contexts and can empathise accordingly. We saw their faith in action when we trained 1,000 religious leaders to promote safe practices, challenge Ebola myths and misinformation, speak out against stigmatisation of survivors, and provide psychosocial care to trauma-hit people. Indeed, there is growing recognition that the religious and the secular must work in sync to advocate on global issues. One minister with whom we worked Rev Christiana Sutton Koroma, Director of the Council of Churches in Sierra Leone noted: "In every town you enter in Sierra Leone, you find a mosque or a church: they have a presence everywhere...religious leaders have a great constituency." Faith leaders and grassroots groups have proved themselves crucial to the fight against Ebola. When faced with humanitarian crises, the international community must harness their potential as agents of sustainable change. Having said this, their impact will never be fully realised while public spending on medical staff, clinics, equipment and ambulances remains inadequate. As last week's report notes, the "weak state of health systems" in Ebola-hit nations played a major role in the outbreak reaching an "unprecedented state". This was certainly the case in Sierra Leone, where investment is desperately needed to strengthen health infrastructure. One way to mobilise funds for healthcare services is to review the excessive tax breaks given to multinationals operating here. In 2012, Sierra Leone gave some 158m in tax exemptions to foreign investors: an astounding 10 times the national health budget that year. This money could have helped tackle the epidemic. That's why Christian Aid is urging the UK government to help the Sierra Leone government resist pressure to grant such huge tax incentives, and to help it negotiate fairer tax arrangements with multinationals. Not only would this move Sierra Leone closer to a future free of aid dependency, but it would also leave local organisations and faith leaders much better equipped to fight side-by-side with the international community, when the next humanitarian disaster strikes. Jeanne Kamara is Country Manager for Christian Aid in Sierra Leone. Sweden may expel up to 80,000 asylum seekers Sweden is preparing to deport up to 80,000 of last year's record number of asylum seekers, Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said in an interview with business daily Dagens Industri on Thursday. Ygeman said he estimated about 60,000 to 80,000 of the 163,000 people who sought asylum last year would be expelled and either leave voluntarily or be forcibly deported. The government fears many of those will go into hiding, Dagens Industri reported, and police are increasing their work to find and expel those. "We have a big challenge ahead of us. We will need to use more resources for this and we must have better cooperation between authorities," Ygeman was quoted as saying. This week, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven promised more resources for police to deal with the increased workload because of the refugee situation. Sweden reversed its open doors-policy on immigration late last year and has introduced border controls and identification checks to stem the flow of asylum seekers. Prior to that policy reversal, the Scandinavian country was the top European destination for refugees other than Germany. Approximately 58,800 asylum cases were processed last year in Sweden and 55 per cent were accepted. Syria's al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra poses 'greater threat' to U.S. than ISIS experts A new report is criticising the United States for its "misguided" strategy of focusing on the Islamic State (ISIS), saying al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, is much more dangerous in the long run than the latter. The report released last week by the Institute for the Study of War and American Enterprise Institute describes both al-Nusra and ISIS as "existential" threats to the U.S. It was authored by Fred Kagan, considered an architect of the 2007 "surge" strategy in Iraq, which boosted American troops and engagement with local tribes to stabilise that country, and Kim Kagan, a former adviser to Gen. David Petraeus on Afghanistan strategy and the president of the Institute for the Study of War. "Any strategy that leaves Jabhat al-Nusra in place will fail to secure the American homeland,'' the report said. "While ISIS is flashier ... both represent an existential threat, both wish to attack the homeland, both seek the mobilisation of Muslim communities against the West," it added. The report cautioned that al-Qaeda's Syrian branch represented "a longer-term and more intractable threat than ISIS" and is "quietly intertwining" itself with the Syrian population and Syrian opposition to expand their reach. In a speech delivered on Wednesday, U.S Army Gen. Mark Milley clarified that only Moscow constituted a potential "existential'' threat due to its possession of a large nuclear arsenal capable of striking the U.S. But the report argued that ISIS and al-Nusra attacks "could threaten the global economy and provoke Western societies to impose severe controls on ... freedoms and civil liberties," thereby endangering "American values and way of life.'' Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is set to meet with select rebel groups this month in Geneva, Switzerland for peace talks. ISIS and al-Nusra will not be participating, CNN reported. Al-Nusra emerged in late 2011 during the early days of the Syrian civil war and was initially largely made up of battle-hardened Syrians who had traveled to Iraq to fight U.S. troops during the American engagement there, CNN said. Since its inception, the group has already attracted foreign fighters and gained control of northwestern Syria. It has reportedly emerged as one of the most effective groups fighting the Syrian regime. Nick Heras of the Center for a New American Security said the group holds "coercive power" over several opposition groups, serving as a sort of "kingmaker.'' Despite al-Nusra's potential threat to the homeland, the DNI's 2015 threat assessment report to the Senate Armed Services Committee only listed the group under regional threats and not named in the global threats section. The State Department's 2014 Country Reports on Terrorism also labels al-Nusra a threat to "the Syrian opposition, Syrian civilians, and other states in the region.'' "Al-Nusra has made a tactical decision not to attack the West for the time being because its leadership's priority is preserving success in Syria and avoiding being targeted by the U.S," the authors said. The EU and Christianity: Questions of religious identity dominate debate on the Union The relationship between Islam and European identity clouded a robust debate tonight as audience members and panellists clashed over the future of the European Union. The discussion, hosted by think tank Theos, focused on a vision of what Europe should look like and coincided with the launch of a report entitled "A soul for the union". Author Ben Ryan argued that in order for the EU to survive, it must "discover a soul". The EU must have "its own identity and moral mission" rather than just existing for economic ends, Ryan said. However questions of faith and European identity proved controversial as Dr Dave Landrum, head of advocacy at the Evangelical Alliance, asked whether it was possible for Europe to survive without its original Christian identity. Europe was initially defined as being non-Islamic, said Landrum in an audience question. A number of audience members objected to the statement including Andrew Brown, author and religious editor at the Guardian. "It is really extraordinary to see Dr Dave Landrum defining Europe to exclude Muslims," he wrote on Twitter. However Landrum defended his comments and insisted what made European identity distinctive was "obviously Christianity". "Unless the European parliament acknowledges its Christian identity in some way, it is bound to fail because it is running against the grain of history," Landrum told Christian Today after the debate. "The EU has departed from its own identity," he added. "Unless it embraces its essential identity then it won't be able to integrate and engage moving forward." Brown was contacted for a comment but did not respond. However Ryan told Christian Today that Landrum was "right in a sense". "It depends how you understand what it means to be European," he said. "What defines Europe is an intellectual space it's an idea. That idea has historically always been a mixture of Greek philosophy and Christianity. "That is its history and is never going to go away," he said. "However other people can join in." The distinguished panel included Sir Simon Hughes, former leader of the Liberal Democrats and Dr Helen Szamuely, head of research at the Eurosceptic Bruges Group. They discussed a number of topics surrounding the upcoming referendum on Britain's membership of the EU, including national sovereignty and the purpose of the Union. Hughes, an open advocate for Britain's continued membership of the EU said: "Because I believe in a generous God who loves all people equally I believe we should not be selfish. I passionately think we should work closer together with EU." "We haven't lost sovereignty, we have just shared sovereignty," he said. "That is actually a gain of sovereignty." However Professor Brendan Simms, founder of the Project for Democratic Union, went further and argued for "one single state" as the only practical solution. "The EU speaks to deep yearning in continental Europe," he said, arguing that it was cultural differences that made a single super-state even more imperative. Szamuely was more sceptical and said her vision was of a "network of individual states". She argued that freedom wasn't possible in a system of large centralised government. The wide range of visions expressed, both for Britain's continued membership and for its exit, reflected the complex nature of this debate and the difficulty both sides have in making their case coherently. The hateful rhetoric about refugees being terrorists has GOT to stop There are times when the sort of coolly measured tone of a standard opinion piece for Christian Today is just not appropriate. You just have to say, "Look, you're wrong, and someone needs to break your computer so you can't email this stuff to anyone any more." A letter to the Alabama Baptist news service by the pastor of Arbor Springs Baptist Church in Northport, Alabama, is the perfect example. Rev Ted Sessoms decided to pronounce on the Syrian crisis, which has seen an estimated 9 million leave their homes. To remind readers: we have seen harrowing scenes of children starving, families bombed out of their homes and forced into freezing and insecure refugee camps, the horrifically injured and the inconsolably bereaved. Against the fierce opposition of many in his country who are unconvinced of the effectiveness of security checks, President Obama proposed to accept 10,000 of them into the US. Evangelical leaders, to their credit including many from Sessoms' own Southern Baptist Convention said that this was a good thing, as long as they could be reasonably sure they weren't importing terrorists. For Sessoms, though, this doesn't go nearly far enough. He expresses his "disappointment" with his denomination's leaders, following this with an unwittingly self-revelatory sentence: "I am against allowing the refugees the rights to America's soil and my neighborhood. These are the same people that hate America, hate Christians and have vowed to take over the world by destroying our way of life." He suggests SBC leaders study Old Testament examples of herem, the total destruction of whole communities including women, children and animals. "It is not a matter of loving your neighbor," he says. "My neighbors are the people that value the same standards of life and way of life that I value." Really? Even leaving aside the truly sinister reference to "America's soil", I'd have thought Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan, where in answer to the question "Who is my neighbour?" he mentions a traditional enemy of Israel, was enough to answer that one. Sessoms continues: "We owe it to our children and grandchildren to make good decisions for their future in America. And opening up our country to tens of thousands of refugees with their unknown background but known hatred for Christianity and America will destroy any future our children may have. "These are the same people that are willing to give their lives to carry out their commitment to Allah. They don't have to be considered terrorists to hate Christians. Their religious conviction cause them that hatred." Apart from the fact that it's 10,000, not tens of thousands, and that the idea of this number posing a threat to a nation of 320 million is utterly absurd, the pastor's rhetoric is, once again, revelatory. It doesn't matter that these refugees might be traumatised by the loss of everything they possessed. They might be injured and in pain, bereaved, frightened of starting life as strangers in a strange land. None of this matters: they are, or so he assumes, Muslims (the notion there might be Christians among them has not occurred to him) and that's enough for Sessoms to assume they are his mortal enemy. As such, the right to freedom of religion surely an American value if anything is can be abrograted, because Islam is just different. In the normal way of things Sessoms' arguments wouldn't be worth the trouble of a response, several have and have roundly condemned him. Quite simply this is an embarrassment to the gospel and the one who told us to love our neighbor and our enemies. https://t.co/vExlBjdyAD Daniel Akin (@DannyAkin) January 27, 2016 But put his rant together with the improbable rise of Donald Trump, and there's a problem. Trump could very plausibly win the Iowa primary. A Bloomberg poll of polls shows him ahead nationally. And Trump's rhetoric is from the same playbook as Sessoms'. It demonizes, divides, misrepresents and excludes. Trump's public attitude to Muslims may, in truth, be due to a political calculation rather than a heart-felt conviction (of which he appears to have very few) but that's not the point: it's his anti-Muslim rhetoric and his hardline stance on immigration (seriously, a wall along the entire southern border) that are helping to drive his popularity. So, ignorant and offensive as his letter is, does Sessoms actually speak for a sizeable minority of Americans? And if so, has he, again unwittingly, performed a public service in revealing the dark heart of the Trump phenomenon? Evangelicals are voting for Trump in large numbers, in spite of the trenchant criticisms of him expressed by the highly respected conservative figure Russell Moore, among others. Maybe this horrifying vision of the company they're keeping will appeal to their consciences where his reasoned arguments don't. Follow Mark Woods on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods Tiny mosquitoes carrying brain-deforming virus now pose threat to entire Western Hemisphere The threat of a new potential epidemic is already real: the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned over the weekend that the brain-deforming Zika virus can spread from Brazilits country of originto the entire Western Hemisphere. This menacing virus is carried around the world by tiny, white-speckled mosquitoes called Aedes aegypti, which used to thrive only in the African continent. How did these insects manage to travel across continents from Africa? They are believed to have hitched a ride with colonists traveling to the West, according to a report by NBC News. Even before carrying the Zika virus, the Aedes aegypti mosquito already caused the death of thousands of American troops due to yellow fever during the Spanish-American war. During the mid-20th century, these mosquitoes were almost completely wiped out in the Western Hemisphere owing to concerted eradication programme, but were able to return. This happened "due to lack of commitment and financial backing necessary to maintain the eradication programme," according to a 2005 study by researchers from the University of Florida. Now, Brazil's health minister admitted that his nation is having a difficult time battling the Zika virus, which is believed to have caused mental deformities to hundreds of Brazilian babies. "The mosquito has been here in Brazil for three decades, and we are badly losing the battle against the mosquito," Brazilian health minister Marcelo Castro said, as quoted by Yahoo! News. More than 220,000 members of Brazil's Armed Forces are being deployed across the country to help out in the door-to-door effort to eradicate the mosquito. In the United States, President Barack Obama urged the medical and scientific communities to work extra hard to find a vaccine or treatment against the Zika virus. "The president emphasised the need to accelerate research efforts to make available better diagnostic tests, to develop vaccines and therapeutics, and to ensure that all Americans have information about the Zika virus and steps they can take to better protect themselves from infection," the White House said in a statement, as quoted by Reuters. UKIP former leader criticised for suggesting reading Bible in public may be illegal A UKIP peer has been heavily criticised for asking if it will be illegal to read the Bible out loud in public. Lord Pearson of Rannoch, former leader of the UK Independence Party, submitted a question in the House of Lords asking if Christians are at risk of committing a hate-crime against Muslims by "preaching the divinity of Christ or by reading aloud sections of the Bible in public". The peer praised Cameron as "brave" for saying Jesus was the only son of God, because "this will not have gone down all that well with the Islamists". In response, Home Office minister Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon rebuked him saying: "Bigotry has no place and any kind of hate, be it based on race, sexual orientation or religion, has no place in British society." He assured Pearson free speech would be protected and added: "Muslims also regard and revere the Prophet Jesus as a prophet of God." Pearson also received flak from the Bishop of Worcester who said comments phrased in this manner were "not conducive to building positive relations between faith communities, in particular with Muslim communities, as we are endeavouring to do in the Church at a time when Muslims are feeling unfairly stigmatised". He added: "Muslims, and people of all faiths, greatly enrich our society and make a significant contribution to the common good." It is not the first time Lord Pearson has caused controversy with comments about Islam. In 2014 he was reported to the speaker of the Lords for suggesting the Qu'ran had inspired the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby on the streets of London. Pearson made the comments yesterday in a debate on the government's anti-extremism strategy in the House of Lords. The debate coincided with Holocaust Memorial Day and the release of new research showing hate crime in the UK had soared. Over a quarter of those questioned had witnessed a form of hate crime in the UK, with a fifth having seen abuse on the basis of religion. Picasso: A visual autobiography One of the 20th centurys foremost artists, Picasso was renowned for producing works as varied in media as they were in style. Here, we trace the artists life through seven of his most distinct periods, ahead of a series of sales featuring works from across his career In 1923, Picasso was quoted in an interview explaining that the several manners he used in his art must not be considered as an evolution or steps towards an unknown ideal of painting If the subjects I have wanted to express have suggested different ways of expression, I have never hesitated to adopt them. He returned to themes and ideas time and again, re-working them and exploring them in different ways. Art critic Arthur Danto said Picassos work constitutes a vast pictorial autobiography a quality reinforced by the artists habit of dating his works, often to the day they were made. As Picasso himself once explained, I want to leave to posterity a documentation that will be as complete as possible. Thats why I put a date on everything I do. Here, Meredith Etherington-Smith tells Picassos story through works many precisely dated representing seven of his most significant periods. All pieces are taken from the Impressionist & Modern Art and The Art of the Surreal sales at Christies London on 2 February, and the Impressionist & Modern Art Works on Paper sale on 3 February. The Blue Period (1901-1904) Pablo Picasso, circa 1904, Montmartre Photo RMN-Grand Palais (musee Picasso de Paris) / Jacques Faujour Succession Picasso/DACS, London 2016 Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Deux surs, drawn in Barcelona circa 1902 . Pencil on paper. 24 1/2 x 18 3/8 in. (62.2 x 46.7 cm.) Estimate: 120,000-180,000. This work is offered in the Impressionist & Modern Works on Paper sale on 3 February at Christies London Deux surs (above) is one of six drawings relating to the painting LEntrevue (Les Deux surs) in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, which is one of the seminal works of Picassos Blue Period. Of these drawings the example above is the largest, and is most similar in composition to the oil. In a letter to his friend Max Jacob on 13 July 1902, Picasso said, Its a picture of a St. Lazare whore and a mother. Picasso often visited prison to search for free models, drawing women who had been incarcerated for offences relating to prostitution. Pablo Picasso (18811973), Jeune fille accoudee, 1903-04 . Blue crayon on paper. 14 1/2 10 1/2 in. (36.8 26.7 cm.) Estimate: 800,0001,200,000. This work is offered in the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 2 February at Christies London An exquisite drawing, Jeune fille accoudee (above), in blue crayon, also comes from the period in which Picasso pictured sad, reflective people in gloomy settings, and then circus and harlequin subjects. As the title of this period suggests melancholy, haunting blue is the dominant colour. Rose Period (1904-1906) Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Nu se coiffant, circa 1905-1906 . Charcoal on paper. 24 1/4 x 18 3/8 in. (61.6 x 46.5 cm.) Estimate: 120,000-180,000. This work is offered in the Impressionist & Modern Works on Paper sale on 3 February at Christies London Picasso emerged from the chill of his Blue Period into a more optimistic view of life. Spring-like sensuality had begun to resurface in his painting by 1902. Not yet 25 years old when he made this drawing, he had been living with his mistress, Fernande Olivier who has been identified as the model for this drawing for nearly two years. Other works from the Rose Period are romantic and lyrical, portraying subjects such as saltimbanques (acrobats) and clowns in pale pink. However, in the winter of 1909, Picasso would start to move away from this essentially lyrical outlook and, influenced by Georges Braque , shift towards the typical geometric shapes of Cubism. Cubism (1907-25 including Proto-Cubist, Analytical and Synthetic Periods) Pablo Picasso (18811973), Femme nue debout, 19101911. Oil on canvas. 18 12 7/8 in. (45 7 32.8 cm.) Estimate: 800,0001,200,000. This work is offered in the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 2 February at Christies London Cezanne was the precursor of the Cubist movement, in which natural shapes though still recognisable were fragmented to give the appearance of multiple viewpoints and overlapping planes. These distorted and multi-view figures were mainly painted in muted colours, as in Femme nue debout (above), and in Picassos case in particular there is a subtext of African tribal-art influences which would erupt in Les Demoiselles dAvignon. Pablo Picasso self-portrait, 1909, Horta-de-Sant-Juan, Tarragona, Spain. Photo RMN-Grand Palais (musee Picasso de Paris) / Droits reserves Succession Picasso/DACS, London 2016 Neoclassicism (1920-30) Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Monument avec horloge a Paris, 1923 . Pen and India ink and red crayon on paper. 4 3/4 x 8 1/4 in. (12 x 21 cm.) Estimate: 15,000-20,000. This work is offered in the Impressionist & Modern Works on Paper on 3 February at Christies London After the horrors of the First World War, which witnessed the decimation of a whole generation of artists, many leading survivors sought reassurance in a gentler, more mythic past, producing images of the Mediterranean littoral, scenes from classical literature, or depictions of voluptuous goddesses pursued by satyrs. Picasso, who was married to the Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova by this time, was among them. Surrealism (1926 onwards) Pablo Picasso (18811973), Arlequin, Painted in Juan-les-Pins in 1926. Oil on canvas. 18 1/8 15 in. (46 38 cm.) Estimate: 1,500,0002,500,000. This work is offered in the Art of the Surreal Evening Sale on 2 February at Christies London Andre Breton , the Pope of Surrealism, adopted Picasso early as a member of his group, despite the fact Picasso had submitted Cubist works in the first Surrealist group show in 1925. Arlequin (above), a compelling oil on canvas from 1926, shows that Picasso had become captivated by this new art movement, as other works, such as Drawing for Guernica, made 10 years later in 1937, attest. Pablo Picasso (18811973), Nature morte, Painted on 25 April 1937 . Oil on canvas. 15 24 1/8 in. (38 61.1 cm.) Estimate: 4,000,0006,000,000. This work is offered in the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 2 February at Christies London Nature Morte (above), represents a return to a modified Cubism in the late 1930s, in which Picasso combines elements of the fragmented approach of Cubism with Surrealism. Expressionist elements (1938 onwards) Pablo Picasso (18811973), Buste de femme, Painted on 5 June 1941. Oil on canvas. 21 7/8 13 1/8 in. (55.5 33.3 cm.) Estimate: 1,300,0001,800,000. This work is offered in the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 2 February at Christies London These are subjects that anticipate Picassos terror at the approach of war and reflect his conflicted state of mind. His relationship with the artist Dora Maar is also revealed in Buste de Femme (above), painted in 1941 during the occupation of Paris, when Picasso was virtually confined to his studio in rue des Grands Augustins. Dora Maar took the photograph of Picasso that appears at the top of this article. Pablo Picasso (18811973), Compotier et verres, Painted on 14 June 1943. Oil on canvas. 28 3/4 21 1/2 in. (73 54.5 cm.) Estimate: 1,000,0001,700,000. This work is offered in the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 2 February at Christies London Later, Compotier et verres, painted in Paris in 1943, refers back to what has been termed The Crystal Period (1915-1917). During this much earlier phase Picasso had begun a series of paintings of highly geometric and minimalist objects heavily outlined in black. In the photograph below, a section of the work can be seen directly below the skylight of Picassos Grands Augustins studio. Pablo Picasso in his Grands Augustins studio, July 1944. Photo RMN-Grand Palais (Musee Picasso de Paris) / Frank Raux Succession Picasso/DACS, London 2016 Post-war influences After the war, Picasso settled into a happy family life with Francoise Gilot in Vallauris, on the Cote dAzur. In the South of France, besides discovering a renewed fascination with the faunes and minotaurs of antiquity and the matadors of the corrida, the artist developed a passion for working in ceramic and so began a 20-year relationship with the Madoura Pottery in Vallauris; a quiet sanctuary he could escape to each day; leaving behind his celebrity and becoming one of the local artisans. Pablo Picasso (18811973), Grand vase aux femmes nues. Conceived in 1950 and executed in a numbered edition of 25. Painted and engraved terracotta vase. eight: 26 1/4 in. (66.5 cm.) Estimate: 250,000-450,000. This work is offered in the Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale on 3 February at Christies London Right up until the day he died Picasso produced a stream of works, many of which returned to themes that had been abandoned years before. Picador et Personnage (below) harks back to the matadors of an early phase and is a pen and brush work with Indian ink and wash on paper, executed in 1960. Pablo Picasso (18811973), Picador et personnage, Executed 46 June 1960. Pen and brush with India ink and wash on paper. 19 5/8 12 3/4 in. (50.2 32.4 cm.) Estimate: 300,000500,000. This work is offered in the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 2 February at Christies London During this period, Picasso also embarked on many works which referenced the art of the past, paying homage to the works of his heroes. These include Les femmes dAlger by Eugene Delacroix and Las Meninas by Velazquez. Les Dejeuners (below), dating from 1961, is one of a series of radical reinterpretations of Edouard Manets landmark Le Dejeuner sur lherbe of 1863 , which hangs in the Musee dOrsay in Paris. Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Les dejeuners, Executed on 26 July 1961 . Coloured crayons on paper. 10 5/8 x 16 5/8 in. (27 x 42 cm.) Estimate: 450,000-650,000. This work is offered in the Impressionist & Modern Works on Paper sale on 3 February at Christies London Finally, in 1961, comes a unique work from his studio. This painted sheet metal piece (below) owes something to Picassos Crystal Period, but also to the double images of his Expressionist work. Pablo Picasso (18811973), Tete, Executed in 1961 . Painted sheet metal. 10 3/4 9 1/4 3 1/8 in. (27.3 23.5 8 cm.) Estimate: 400,000600,000. This work is offered in the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 2 February at Christies London Just as he experimented in the medium of ceramics, Picasso was always willing to try new materials and new approaches. Main image at top: Picasso in the strong room at the BNCI bank, photographed by Dora Maar in 1939. Photo RMN-Grand Palais (Musee Picasso de Paris) / Franck Raux. Succession Picasso/DACS, London 2016 A 95-year-old World War II veteran who was assaulted and robbed last week in her Sunnyside home remains in the VA hospital while relatives, community members and activists express outrage. Ophelia Outley was headed to bed for the night on Martin Luther King Day when a man broke into her home, assaulted her and demanded money but left with a television. The great-grandmother was discovered the morning of Jan. 19 when a neighbor brought breakfast to her South Houston home. The Houston Police Department has classified the incident as an "ongoing investigation" and a "potential sexual assault," according to spokeswoman Jodi Silva. Investigators are also looking into the case as a robbery and assault, but have not been able to interview Outley fully or get an adequate description for a suspect sketch. "We are still pending a statement from her," Silva said Thursday morning. At a news conference on Wednesday outside the woman's home in the 5000 block of Higgins Street, granddaughter Nicole Sherman said the attack was senseless. She described Outley as a "strong and vital woman" who raised or assisted in the upbringing of three generations of descendants. "Someone came in the house. She was in the kitchen returning to her bedroom. They grabbed her, twisted her arm, broke her shoulder, put her on the floor and tried to cover her head and in the process gave her a black eye and a busted lip," Sherman said. "It's ridiculous that somebody would feel the need to touch her. If you want to take what's in the house, take it, but there was no reason to put your hands on her. None at all. It's not acceptable." There was no money in the house for Outley to offer the perpetrator, relatives said. Sherman said her grandmother has described her attacker, in general, as a tall, slender man who "smelled of smoke" and "had a little hair on his head." According to Army service records from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Outley enlisted in the Women's Army Corps in March 1943 in Houston. At the time, she was a single woman in her early 20s who was working as a maid, the record shows. Quanell X, who called the news conference, offered strong words for the person responsible for sending Outley to the hospital. "This is not a human being. This is a piece of vermin lower than the spit on the side of your mouth on the hottest day," the activist said. He believes the attacker is someone from the neighborhood who knew the older woman's routine and waited until she was alone to enter the home. He called on men in the area to assist in the search and asked anyone with information to turn over those details to authorities. "If you're smart, the jail is the safest place for you because if we find you, you won't need a jail cell. If we find you, you won't rob nobody else's grandmother. We will deal with you where we find you," Quanell said, adding that preying on an elderly woman is a crime that won't be tolerated by community members. "I want to make it real crystal clear [to the] brother who did this: You like beating up old women? You like robbing old women? Well I'll tell you what: If we find you, we're going to give you your chance to prove how much you want to fight real men. Because we're not playing today. This must stop." Sherman said she wants peace for her recovering grandmother, who will be headed to rehabilitation soon, and consequences for the attacker. "She is on edge when anybody approaches her and she doesn't see them coming. I don't want her to be fearful. She was never a fearful woman before and I want her to go back to her old self confident and feeling safe in her own home," Sherman said. "I want them to be fearful. I want them to pay." After years of being criticized for its lack of diversity, a photo spreading across social media suggests toy giant Lego will unveil a first-of-its-kind figurine. Though the company has yet to confirm the release, a photo of a figurine in a wheelchair was captured in the Promobricks blog while it was on display at the Nuremberg toy fair in Germany. The beanie-wearing figure is even rumored to have a dog. Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business announced Thursday that Peter Rodriguez will become its new dean starting July 1. William H. Glick, dean for the past 11 years, will return to the faculty. Rodriguez is currently senior associate dean for degree programs and chief diversity officer at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. He's an economist who specializes in the study of international business and trade, with an emphasis on understanding and alleviating the effects of corruption on economic development, according to a news release. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The Heights Clock Tower, a century-old warehouse turned into office and residential lofts, and the Navigation Esplanade received the top honors in this year's Urban Land Institute's Development of Distinction Awards. Cross Creek Ranch, the Fulshear-area master-planned community by Johnson Development, won the People's Choice Award with 34 percent of the votes. Honorable mention went to KIPP Connect Houston and the TMCx Accelerator, both real-estate renovation projects. A theme among the finalists for the competition, put on by ULI's Houston District Council, was renovation and reuse. The annual award recognizes developments and public open spaces that exemplify best practices in design, construction, economic viability, healthy places, marketing and management. The Heights Clock Tower won in the "for-profit" category. The 23,000-square-foot building was one of the first industrial centers in the Houston Heights. The owners turned it into office and residential space. The inaugural award for "Urban Green Space" went to the Navigation Esplanade by the East End Management District and the city of Houston. The 3-block-long, 44-foot-wide gathering space was inspired by Santana Row in San Jose, Calif., and La Rambla in Barcelona. It is set up for street cafes, seven kiosk retail outlets, 40 vendor spaces for popup tents and six food trucks. The Kipp Connect Houston campus in the Gulfton area of west Houston serves 1,800 pre-K through 12th-grade students. The three-story, 155,000-square-foot charter-school campus previously was a hospital. The TMCx Accelerator by the Texas Medical Center is a business accelerator located in the former Nabisco cookie factory in the Texas Medical Center/Museum District and intended to help early-stage companies. The awards were handed out at a banquet Tuesday night. Finalists were selected by a nomination panel of Houston real-estate leaders. An international jury traveled to Houston last November to tour all projects and select the winners. The jury included Anthony Abbate, an architecture professor at Florida Atlantic University; Paul Bedford, former chief city planner of Toronto; and Cassie Wright, project manager at Urban Ventures and a former urban planner and sustainability manager in Denver and Boulder, Colo. "This idea of building places that are walkable in addition to being environmentally sustainable is really important and that's been demonstrated in every project that we've seen here," Wright said. Other finalists were the G.T. Mickey Leland Federal Building by General Services Administration; the JW Marriott Houston Downtown by Pearl Hospitality; and the South Heights Mixed-Use by RE:VIVE Development. Romano's Macaroni Grill's international franchise expansion continues. The restaurant chain opened its newest franchise in Saudi Arabia on Dec. 27. The restaurant is in Jeddah's in the Thaliya Street fashion and retail district. Tarfeeh, a company owned by the Saudi Economic Development Co., operates the franchise. "We intend to expand the brand to all the important regions of the country, which will also create good job opportunities for Saudi youth in this exciting and growing industry," Kamran Khan, Tarfeeh's vice president of business development and marketing, said in a statement. "We are very keen on hiring Saudis and providing them opportunities to build a career in the hospitality sector." Tarfeeh also operates two Macaroni Grill restaurants in the Saudi capital city of Riyadh, according to the company. Macaroni Grill CEO John Gilbert told the Chronicle last year that the Middle East is an attractive market for the eatery because of its growing middle class, and that the company looks to expand in Europe, Mexico and enter South America. In December, a franchise also opened in Muscat, Oman. Macaroni Grill owns 150 restaurants in 33 states and has 26 franchise locations in the U.S. and overseas including in Germany, Japan, Mexico, the Middle East and Taiwan. Mexican authorities have released new images of the rearrest of drug cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, showing the infamous fugitive posing for a booking photo in his street clothes and being fingerprinted. In these photos, he still has his full head of hair -- unlike the buzz cut in his official mugshot some hours later -- but not much swagger. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The creator of Saturday Night Live will soon appear in Dallas at the Bush Center with former President George W. Bush to discuss the way his long-running sketch show has skewered the holders of the highest office in the land for the past 40 years. The event, An Evening with Lorne Michaels: Live from Dallas, Its Saturday Night, is set for the night of Feb. 27 at the the George W. Bush Presidential Center on the campus of Southern Methodist University. Michaels has helmed the weekly NBC staple since 1975. Hes helped bring countless comedic legends into the homes of Americans, beginning with first bedrock cast of folks like Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, John Belushi, and Gilda Radner. SNL taking on the presidents dates back to the day of Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. Cast member Chevy Chases President Ford involved lots of falling down. The show shaped how many Americans viewed the presidents and the impersonations blurred into real life at times. RELATED: 'Saturday Night Live': Tina Fey returns as Sarah Palin, you betcha Later on Dana Carvey would inhabit the role of President George H.W. Bush and even bring his portrayal to the Bush White House. The man who followed Bush into office, President Bill Clinton, was portrayed by Darrell Hammond for years and he even comes back from time to time to cameo as Clinton. Will Ferrell had a ball playing Dubya for eight years and even brought his portrayal to Broadway for a limited one-man show. Jason Sudeikis and Will Forte subbed in for Ferrell when he couldnt play Bush after he had left the cast. President Barack Obama was portrayed by former cast member Fred Armisen until he left the show. Jay Pharoah then took up the mantle. RELATED: Will Ferrell returns to 'Saturday Night Live' to remind us we might miss George W. Bush Hartman, Hammond, and Taran Killam have all played Donald Trump. It appears from here forward that Killam will be Trump . Current cast member Kate McKinnon has played Hillary Clinton for the past few seasons. Up to six regular cast members have played Mrs. Clinton dating back to the late Jan Hooks in 1994. Of course if by some chance Bernie Sanders wins the election, we could be seeing Larry David a lot more. Hes a natural at playing Sanders to say the least. Tickets for event with Michaels will be available to Bush Center members on Friday and to the public on Monday. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate This year's Mardi Gras! Galveston festivities kick off Jan. 29 and run through Feb. 9. That's when crowds of locals head to the island to laissez les bon temps rouler for just a weekend or two. Other Texans, however, live in true New Orleans style every day. Get in the Mardi Gras spirit by touring some of the the Lone Star State's most beautiful New Orleans-style houses: Bartonville, Texas property: Out in Bartonville is a mansion that exudes Big Easy charm throughout every inch of the 11,466-square-foot interior. Dramatic staircases, generous use of exposed brick walls and distressed-wood accents contrast with sparkling chandeliers to pull together a true-to-Louisiana aesthetic. The Creole structure is ornate and opulent, much more detailed than a Cajun design might be. RELATED: Mansions for sale in small Texas towns 230 Paseo Encinal in San Antonio: This Olmos Park home features the elaborate iron railings and double-gallery facade that are typical of elegant New Orleans-style estates. The interior is as true to the style as the exterior, with vaulted ceilings and vibrant pendants filling the spaces. 714 Rutland in Houston: The Heights home is a newer addition to this neighborhood, which has welcomed rows of shotgun-style houses and double-gallery townhomes. This particular property is unique because it has a swimming pool and another double-gallery set of porches in the backyard. Elegant pendants and paneling feature prominently throughout the interior. 74 North Bay in The Woodlands, Texas: At one year old, this beautiful New Orleans-style property's interior is filled with brick walls, door frames and fireplace mantles. The exposed brick in this home is distressed to create a rustic appearance. The house also includes a pub with walls and floors made of tan-colored bricks. RELATED: Exotic opulence in Sugar Land listed at nearly $7M 4015 Chatham in Houston: Highland Village is home to a stunning, classic New Orleans-style estate. The Big Easy design extends to the home's backyard area, where a brick courtyard and wrought iron features make the space an ideal place for entertaining. The interior strays from the Louisiana aesthetic to include eclectic modern spaces. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The Houston Health Department has confirmed the region's second case of traveler-acquired Zika virus. According to health department spokeswoman Kathy Barton, the second case involved a woman returning from Central America. The woman was not pregnant. READ MORE: Zika virus, already in Houston, poses global health threat The infection occurred around the same time as a case identified by Harris County Health Department officials in January in a woman returning from El Salvador. Most people infected with the Zika virus will have no recognizable symptoms, although complications may arise in a small percentage of cases. The virus, which has been spreading rapidly through Central and South America, has been linked with birth defects and neurological problems, although it's not certain the virus causes these conditions. Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have recommended pregnant women avoid travel to affected areas. The Houston Health Department will hold a meeting with health providers Friday to talk about Zika virus and steps that can be taken locally to minimize its impact. The New York times has published a useful q-and-a on Zika virus. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The unemployed mechanic who was arrested and charged in a gruesome triple-slaying in League City in 1983 was transferred this week to the Galveston County jail, where he will await a first court appearance in two weeks. Jesse Dean Kersh, 58, of Spring was being held Thursday on $150,000 bond on the murder charges. Kersh was arrested Tuesday at a Spring restaurant and charged with the 1983 murders of Beth Yvette Wilburn, 25, who was then co-owner of Corvette Concepts in League City; her 28-year-old boyfriend, Thomas Earl McGraw Jr., an oil field worker who'd just returned from Bolivia; and 22-year-old James Craig Oates, an electrician from Houston, who had been hired to install a fluorescent light at the shop. Kersh was working at the shop as a mechanic at the time of the killings, authorities said. He was moved Wednesday from the League City jail to Galveston. Kersh declined a request for comment Thursday through a Galveston County jailer. He's scheduled to appear Feb. 10 in the 122nd District Court in Galveston. The case, which startled the then-small Galveston County suburb, had been cold for decades as police, the FBI and Texas Rangers investigated. Many suspects were considered over the years and ruled out. Authorities have shared few details about what led to the recent break in the case, including a possible motive, but have said witness interviews, ballistic reports and DNA testing of material under Wilburn's fingernails all provided clues. Police also said in a probable cause affidavit that a witness had come forward in 2013 and disputed Kersh's assertion that he had never owned a .22-caliber handgun like the one used in the slayings, and in fact said that Hersh had asked for his assistance in manufacturing a silencer. Investigators also found that some of the bullets recovered from the crime scene had markings that were consistent with being shot through a device like a silencer, the affidavit said. A magistrate judge in La Marque read Kersh the accusations and asked him if he understood his rights Wednesday. Kersh then declined a court-appointed attorney, according to Galveston County Chief Assistant District Attorney Kevin Petroff. District clerk records indicate that Kersh does not yet appear to have an attorney. The three victims were slain on the evening of Nov. 2, 1983. Police said autopsy reports indicated Wilburn had been stabbed 114 times and had four gunshot wounds, McGraw was stabbed 15 times and had seven gunshot wounds and Oates had 10 gunshot wounds. Wilburn's business partner, Bob Currie, discovered her bloody body on the office floor after he came to open the shop the next morning. Kersh, whose only prior convictions were for public intoxication and drunken driving decades ago, has mostly lived in and around the Houston area in recent decades, public records show. Staff writer Cindy Horswell contributed to this report. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The Texas Workforce Commission issued a $135,839 Skills Development Fund grant to train 148 new and incumbent workers in advanced technologies now being used in production facilities. San Jacinto College, DuPont Bayport Plant and PolyOne Corp. are using the grant to train the workers. Trainees throughout the Workforce Solutions Gulf Coast area will include forklift operators, mechanical and chemical engineers, production and quality operators, warehouse associates and maintenance technicians, according to a SJC news release. "Companies come to us and tell us how their employees need specific training and for which skill sets," said Allatia Harris, SJC vice chancellor of strategic initiatives, workforce development, community relations and diversity, in the news release. "The Texas Workforce Commission provides the funds that enable businesses to move quickly, utilize these training opportunities to upgrade the skills of their employees, and ultimately, increase their efficiency." According to SJC, industry partner workers who complete their training courses at the college through this grant are expected to receive a salary increase with an average wage of $24.26 per hour. "Skills grants deliver customized training solutions that help Texas employers and workers succeed in the marketplace," said Andres Alcantar, Texas Workforce Commission chairman, in a TWC news release. "This investment builds not only employee skills but the capabilities of our community colleges to the benefit of employers and the community. We are pleased to make this investment." The Skills Development Fund grant program was initiated by the Texas Legislature in September 1995 and began awarding contracts in 1996. During that time, the Skills Development Fund grants have created or upgraded more than 329,333 jobs throughout Texas. The grants have assisted 4,141 employers with their customized training needs. The Texas Legislature allocated $48.5 million to the Skills Development Fund for the 2016-17 biennium. Employers seeking more information about the Skills Development Fund may visit www.texasworkforce.org/skills. Perry family opens Baybrook steakhouse The new Perry's Steakhouse and Grille in Friendswood pays homage to the restaurant's history, which dates to the late 1970s. The 10,000-square-foot restaurant opens Jan. 28 at Baybrook Mall, 700 Baybrook Mall Drive, Suite H110. Among the restaurant's amenities are a butcher's steak display and bar designed in tribute to the restaurant's roots. The family business didn't start out as a steakhouse. In 1979, Bob Perry opened the first location in Southeast Houston as a meat market and deli shop. It was his son, Chris Perry, who convinced his father to add dining tables and eventually expand into an adjacent space. A second market also was opened. The two markets became popular in the Houston area. In 1993, Chris opened the first Perry's Steakhouse and Grille in Clear Lake. The new Friendswood location features a butcher's steak display that harkens back to the Perry family's original butcher shop. The new restaurant also features Bar 79, named for the year the family's Southeast Houston location opened. Perry's Steakhouse and Grille Friendswood can accommodate 400 guests and features four private rooms and a patio. The main dining room offers diners a glance of chefs in the kitchen and Bar 79. A wine wall is another fixture of the new location. In addition to USDA-aged steaks, the restaurant's menu also includes the company's popular seven-finger-high pork chop, Chateaubriand carved tableside, Symphony Kabob, fried asparagus and flaming desserts. To learn more about the restaurant, visit www.perryssteakhouse.com. A Jan. 21 ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the restaurant's opening was held by the Friendswood Chamber of Commerce. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The 22nd annual Cypress-Fairbanks ISD Livestock Show Association Show and Sale will be held Feb. 4-6 at the CFISD Exhibit Center, 11206 Telge Road. The CFISD community gave a combined total of nearly $890,000 during the 2015 show through the premium sale, freezer sale and in donations to students. Students from all CFISD high schools will participate in the event. Approximately 690 student exhibitors and 900 student projects and animals will be exhibited and judged. Feb. 4 will see the poultry and ag mechanics shows and Feb. 5 has the swine, rabbit and horticulture shows. The buyers' luncheon will be at 11 a.m. Feb. 6 at Arnold Middle School, 11111 Telge Road, followed by the premium auction. THEATER Off-Broadway musical revived Stuart Ross' "Forever Plaid" is one of the most internationally popular off-Broadway musicals to hit the stage, and it's coming to the Houston Family Arts Center. This nostalgic, 1950s revue opens on the Garza Main Stage on Jan. 29 and runs through Feb. 21. Frankie, Jinx, Sparky, and Smudge are The Plaids. One the way to their first big gig, their cherry red 1954 Mercury collided with a school bus, and The Plaids were killed instantly. Now, they've come back to Earth for one final performance. The Plaids will sing some of the greatest hits of the 1950s, including "Three Coins in the Fountain," "Chain Gang," and "Heart and Soul." Performances of "Forever Plaid" are Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30 p.m., with Sunday matinees at 3 p.m. Tickets are $26 for adults, $22 for seniors and $15 for students. Tickets are on sale now and may be purchased online at www.houstonfac.com, or by phone at 281-587-6100. Special pricing is available for groups of 10 or more. The center is located at 10760 Grant Road in Houston. DRAMA Play shows impact of loss Playhouse 1960 will present "Rabbit Hole" now through Jan. 30 on Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 p.m. This play, written by David Lindsay-Abaire, was the recipient of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Becca and Howie Corbett have everything a family could want, until a life-shattering accident turns their world upside down and leaves the couple drifting perilously apart. The play deals with the ways family members survive a major loss, and it includes comedy as well as drama. Mature language is used. Tickets are available at www.playhouse1960.com. Prices are $18 for adults and $15 for seniors (55&) and students. Tickets can also be purchased at the door prior to the performance. Playhouse 1960 accepts credit cards, cash or check. Playhouse 1960 is a nonprofit community theatre located at 6814 Gant Road in Houston, one mile south of FM 1960 on Cutten Road. DANCE School teams show off skills CFISD dance teams from all 10 district high schools will showcase their spring contest routines at CFISD Dance Showoffs, a one-time event on Jan. 30 from 4-6:30 p.m. at the Berry Center. Gates open at 3 p.m. and tickets may be purchased at the door for $10. For more information, call 281-897-4080. The Berry Center is located at 8877 Barker Cypress in Cypress. FLOOD MAPS Residents invited to open house Homeowners, renters and business owners in the Addicks Reservoir watershed of Harris County are encouraged to look over newly released preliminary Flood Insurance Rate Maps in order to determine their flood risks and make informed decisions. The Harris County Flood Control District, county and community officials, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are presenting the preliminary maps for the Addicks Reservoir watershed. The open house will be 2-6 p.m. Feb. 2 at the Richard and Meg Weekley Community Center, 8440 Greenhouse Road, Cypress. Additional information is available, including links to the interactive mapping website, on www.riskmap6.com. POLITICS Cy-Fair Dems plan meeting The Cy-Fair Area Democratic Club will meet Feb. 3 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Manuel's Mexican Restaurant, 13012 FM 529 in Houston. In anticipation of the primary elections, the speaker will be Mustafa Tameez of Outreachstrategists.com, who will speak on reaching out to voters. Mustafa is founder and managing director of Outreach Strategists. He has advised successful election campaigns for state legislators, mayors, members of Congress and various public institutions. He is a regular contributor and news analyst for Fox 26 and the Texas Tribune. Texas Monthly Magazine named Mustafa one of 5 political players to watch in Texas. EDUCATION Catholic school holds open house To celebrate National Catholic Schools Week, Jan. 31-Feb. 6, Christ the Redeemer Catholic School will host an Open House from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. on Feb. 4 at the school. For the next school year, 2016-17, the school will welcome students for seventh grade. All interested families and community members are welcome to come by the school for a tour of the building and to see the students at work. For those who have never visited, this is an opportunity to experience firsthand how the school uses technology in the classroom and integrates S.T.R.E.A.M. (science, technology, religion, engineering, arts and math) into the curriculum. Visitors will also be able to get a feel for the environment at the school. All who attend have the opportunity to meet Principal Betty Sierra and ask the teachers questions while in a classroom setting. For more information, call 281-469-8440. The school is located at 11511 Huffmeister Road in Houston. MUSICAL 'Meet Me in St. Louis' staged In celebration of the 10th anniversary of Cypress Woods High School, the Fine Arts Department and Crimson Cadettes will join the Theatre Department in presenting the classic musical comedy "Meet Me in St. Louis" from Feb. 4-6 at the school. Tickets are on sale now at cwtc.weebly.com or at the door. They range from $10-$15. This classic, romantic musical comedy focuses on the Smith family, specifically the four sisters, on the cusp of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. The musical spotlights the sisters' education in the ways of the world, which includes learning about life and love, courtesy of the boy next door. Performances will be at 7 p.m. Feb. 4-6, with an additional 2 p.m. show on Feb. 6. Runtime is 113 minutes with one intermission, and the musical is rated PG. NORTHWOODS Crystal Gayle to sing classics Classic country performing artist Crystal Gayle will perform at 8 p.m. on Feb. 5 at Northwoods Presbyterian Church. Tickets are $40. The younger sister of Loretta Lynn, Gayle is best known for her hit song "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue," among the more than 20 hits she had on the country music charts in the 1970s and 1980. Gayle's performance is the second to last in the 2015-2016 Northwoods Concert Series. Northwoods Presbyterian Church is located at 3320 FM 1960 West in Houston. Learn more at www.northwoodsconcertseries.com or call 281-444-8861. SPORTS Youth track club hosts orientation The Northwest Flyers Youth Track Club will celebrate its 29th anniversary season by hosting its annual free Registration/Orientation Breakfast on Feb. 6. The breakfast starts at 8:30 a.m. at the Cypress Creek Christian Community Center Forum, 6823 Cypresswood Drive in Spring. The Northwest Flyers Track Club is a youth (ages 6 -18) track club, affiliated with USATF, that provides a full program of sanctioned "track" events such as sprints, hurdles, middle distance, distance and relays, and "field" events such as long jump, triple jump, high jump, pole vault, shot put, discus and javelin. For more information on the Northwest Flyers Track Club, visit the team website at www.northwestflyers.org. CENTRUM Jazz legend to perform Feb. 6 The Cypress Creek Foundation for the Arts and Community Enrichment presents "An Evening with Branford Marsalis" at 8 p.m. on Feb. 6 at The Centrum. Tickets start at $35. Best known for his active role in the groundbreaking Branford Marsalis Quartet, which won Grammy awards in 1993 and 2001, the American saxophonist and composer has enjoyed a career at the forefront of the art form. Marsalis has also collaborated with other musical legends like Herbie Hancock, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker and Harry Connick Jr. Marsalis was the band leader for "The Tonight Show" band from 1992-95, during the beginning of the Jay Leno years. His latest release is the quartet's 2015 live performance of John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" recorded in Amsterdam, in which he breathes new life and interpretation into the classic genre-defining piece. The Centrum is located at 6823 Cypresswood Drive in Spring. Learn more at www.cypresscreekface.org or call 281-440-4850. TEXAS A&M Aggie moms to host meeting The Northwest Harris County Aggie Mom's Club will meet Feb. 9 at Houston Distributing Company, 7100 High Life Drive, near Willowbrook Mall at the intersection of High Life Drive and Cutten Road. Social hour with light snacks and drinks begins at 6:30 p.m., followed by the meeting at 7 p.m. Guest speaker will be Porter S. Garner III, president of the Association of Former Students. For more information, visit www.nwhcaggiemoms.org. Submit your events to cyfairneighborhoodnews@gmail.com. The efforts of a few Klein residents to save a historic oak tree have been successful. The Circle K Corp., which owns a section of the land now occupied by the Strack Farms Restaurant that closed in 2013, has agreed to make changes to their construction plan for a new convenience store in an effort to save the 135-year-old tree. "We planned on saving that tree," said Circle K Human Resource Director Troy Beatty. Tim Peters, who is the real estate director for Circle K, said the convenience store giant is re-submitting its plans to Harris County for approval and will save the tree from destruction. The new plans will involve widening of a center median by the county and the Texas Department of Transportation, as well as narrowing the width of the store's driveway from 40 feet to 30 feet. Peters said Circle K also plans to add more trees and shrubs to the area near the site of the tree, as well as bring in an arborist to design a mitigation plan to save the tree. Harris County Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle said a lot of progress has been made, and that the county has been involved in the process since it was brought to their attention. "We are going to widen that median where they don't have to cut down that tree," he said. "Normally we would not agree to thisbut we feel that saving the tree is important enough." The county will also bring in its own arborist to ensure the tree root system is stable and healthy as the county and Circle K move forward with plans. In December, the Klein community became aware of the initial plans to remove the tree after retired Klein ISD teacher Mary Beth Kreml launched a grass-roots effort that included a letter writing campaign by Klein Oak High School students. The land where the tree is located, is near the intersection of TC Jester and Louetta, and was the original site of the Hermann Strack farm established in 1848, not long after the first Klein settlers arrived from Prussia. Sian Gibson, a teacher at Klein Oak High School and chairwoman of the school's English Department, is a friend and former colleague of Kreml's. Gibson said after hearing about the tree she decided to launch a letter-writing campaign with her students. "I have multiple students who are related to the founding families of the Klein community," she said. A few short days after launching the letter writing campaign, the class received a written response from Peters, which included a pledge to preserve the tree. Gibson said the students were not only thrilled with the response, but thrilled with the fact that a part of their own history will be saved. "Clearly Circle K must have concern for our community, and they are in fact, acting in good will," Gibson said. Klein history Members of the Klein community rallied in December to save a live oak tree that many believe dates back to the original settlement: 1845: Hermann Strack and his family arrive from Prussia and help establish the Klein community along Cypress Creek 1970s: Original 1,300 farm is parceled off with some of the land sold to Klein ISD which resulted in the construction of Strack Intermediate in 1978, and another segment of land that became the Terravista subdivision in 2010. The site of the restaurant was a farm, a market and later a restaurant. 1982: Strack's Farm Restaurant opens 2014: Strack's Farm restaurant closes and the property is sold. 2015: Circle K purchase one of those sections; plats are submitted and accepted by Harris County. December 2015: the Klein community rallies to save the tree, and launches a letter writing campaign to Circle K and other property owners. January 2016: Circle K representatives respond to letters from Klein Oak students, and vow to save the tree. Klein Independent School District is on the hunt for a new superintendent and is seeking help from the community in making the selection. The district's board of trustees has contracted Thompson and Horton, an executive search firm specializing in placing superintendents, to lead the search. On Feb. 2, the firm will hold meetings with focus groups made up of district employees, students, parents and community leaders. The following day, a special website will be available for community members to voice the qualities and expertise they want to see in a new superintendent. The firm will incorporate these insights to craft a list of specific skills and traits for prospective candidates. Klein ISD's current superintendent Jim Cain has served the district for 35 years and has spent a total of 47 years in public education. He announced his plan to retire during the Sept. 14 board of trustees meeting. "The time to retire seems right for my family and for me as I open a new chapter in my life," Cain said. "I want to offer my services as a community volunteer, travel with my wife Susan and leave my options open for opportunities that might be interesting to explore." Cain has watched the district grow substantially during his time at its helm. "I am proud of our teachers, administrators, and support staff for the quality of their work on behalf of our students," he said. "It is easy to be passionate when you have an opportunity to work with such fine people as I have over the years." He offered advice for his successor: "Continue the focus we have placed on character education and academic excellence, and offer new and innovative ideas that will take the school district to even higher levels." David Thompson, partner in the firm, said that while the job listing is still being drafted, certain attributes are a given. "Experience that reflects success of students at all levels of ability will be important," he said. "Also, experience with growth will be helpful." He added that the next superintendent will have to continue Klein ISD's proven track record as a high performing school district with leadership stability. "Continued growth in the area will be both a positive attribute and a challenge to manage appropriately," he said. Thompson said that the board will remain apprised of all the individuals the company recruits. "Currently, the search is in the advertisement and recruitment phase," he said. "We have contacted over 170 individuals asking them to consider applying or asking them to nominate individuals for consideration." Thompson has already received several completed applications. "We are finding very strong interest in the position," he said Klein ISD board president Steven Smith noted that Cain is stepping down after his 12th anniversary of becoming the district's superintendent. "During his tenure the district has seen tremendous growth in student body size as well as significant shifts in demographics," Smith said. He added that Cain has led the district to increase academic performance and to make substantial increases in the use of technology in the classroom. "Dr. Cain has cultivated a sterling reputation as a leader not only in the district but in the community at large," he said. Smith said that the new superintendent will need to be able to manage rapid growth and continue to improve student performance. "As in almost every district in the state, Klein ISD continues to see increasing numbers of English Language Learners as well as evolving performance requirements mandated by the State's legislature," Smith said. "Increasing student performance, a high board priority, in this environment, while maintaining the hometown Klein culture, will be a significant challenge for the new superintendent." Smith explained that the board hopes to approve an employment contract with the successful candidate during its May 9 board meeting. The application deadline is March 11, and interviews will be held from the end of March through early April. The new superintendent would assume his position on July 5. Timeline Feb. 1: Thompson and Horton meets with individual board trustees to review profile and establish interview protocol Feb. 2: Thompson and Horton meets with focus groups Feb. 3-12: Thompson and Horton seeks community input through district website March 11: Deadline for candidate applications March 28-April 2: First round of interviews April 4-9: Second round of interviews April 18: Finalist named April 18-May 9: State law requires 21-day period to finalize contract May 9: District approves contract July 5: New superintendent assumes position In a coup for conservation, a historic and ecologically significant 31-square-mile mosaic of East Texas upland and riverine forest, wetlands and grasslands hard against the Neches River in Houston and Trinity counties will forever remain an unbroken tract devoted to education, research and sustainable use of the area's rich natural heritage. This past month, Lufkin-based T.L.L. Temple Foundation announced it had donated a conservation easement on the more than 19,000-acre property known for almost a century as Boggy Slough to The Conservation Fund. The gift is part of a plan to permanently protect the tract from fragmentation or other environmentally damaging uses and develop the area as a working laboratory devoted to protecting and enhancing the land's natural resources while sustainably using those resources. The donation of the conservation easement, a binding legal agreement tied to the property's deed, ensures the land, recently renamed Boggy Slough Conservation Area, will continue being what it has been for much of the past century: one of the largest, best managed, ecologically diverse, wildlife-rich and historically important intact pieces of East Texas' natural history. "There aren't many, if any, properties like this - properties on this scale - remaining in East Texas," said Julie Shackelford, Texas program director for The Conservation Fund, an organization that works to protect properties that have significant ecological value and one of the parties involved in the decade-long effort to permanently preserve the tract. "Boggy Slough is hugely important, and the conservation easement is a statement of the owners' commitment to protecting it." While the land will remain in private hands, owned by the T.L.L. Temple Foundation, it will see expanded use as a site for wildlife and forest management research, with a strong emphasis on education, said Ellen Temple, a nationally known conservationist whose late husband, Arthur "Buddy" Temple III, had lifelong ties to Boggy Slough and was instrumental in preserving it. "What we see is this becoming a place where people - families - can come to learn about the forest, learn about wildlife, and connect with the land. That personal connection is crucial to building support for conservation," she said, noting plans are for the area to be used as an outdoor classroom for public school students as well as a place where landowners and wildlife managers can learn how to apply knowledge gained from research conducted on Boggy Slough. That effort will build on Boggy Slough's already considerable history as an important place in East Texas' wildlife and forest management history. Rich history The land, which holds about 4,500 acres of some of the state's most intact and oldest bottomland hardwoods along its 18-mile boundary with the Neches River, thousands of acres of upland pine and hardwood forest, patches of open grassland, and a smattering of lakes and natural wetlands, was purchased by T.L.L. Temple's Southern Pine Lumber Company soon after 1900. Most of the property's virgin forest was logged soon after, but portions were left relatively untouched. The tract was used as a cattle ranch for decades after initial logging and was one of the first areas where reforestation and other active management and conservation of forests was developed and practiced in East Texas. It also was one of the first areas in East Texas where wildlife management and conservation took hold. Because the tract's owners and employees enthusiastically protected wildlife from the poaching rampant during the early 1900s, Boggy Slough held some of the last remaining stocks of native white-tailed deer. In 1926, the Southern Pine Lumber Company (which became the Temple forest products empire) leased 30,000 acres of its land, including much of the Boggy Slough tract, to the Texas Game Fish and Oyster Commission as a "game preserve." For a decade, the nascent state game and fish agency used the preserve as a stocking and management site for quail, deer and turkey in what eventually proved a successful effort to rebuild much of the region's decimated native wildlife. Much of the Temple family's moves toward responsible forest and wildlife management were driven by their interest in recreational hunting and the ties they recognized between a healthy, diverse forest and a healthy, diverse wildlife population. Boggy Slough was the site of one of the first large private hunting clubs in East Texas, with the first hunting club built on the property in 1922. The property continues to be home to two private hunting clubs, both of which employ professional wildlife biologists who maintain a decades-long commitment to science-driven management of the area's game and non-game wildlife and work in concert with forest mangers to maintain a healthy, sustainable and economically profitable property. During most of the 20th century, large timber companies operating in East Texas had areas similar to Boggy Slough, where they practiced cutting-edge, conservation-driven wildlife and forest management on large tracts of land and maintained hunting lodges for guests and employees. But almost all of those areas have disappeared, victims of the cataclysmic changes in the forest products industry over the past couple of decades. Those changes, driven by Wall Street investment firms, have seen timber companies broken apart, merged, bought and sold, and bought again. Millions of acres of land have changed hands, with large, contiguous tracts like Boggy Slough often broken into smaller parcels. This fragmentation of the landscape, and with it the diminution of natural diversity, is one of the most challenging issues facing conservation efforts in the state. A bright future That's what makes places such as Boggy Slough so valuable, something easily seen on a recent morning. A pair of wood ducks streaked overhead, silhouetted against the deep cobalt sky ahead of a January dawn as they twisted through a seemingly endless picket of towering pine trees. In a nearby patch of grassland, a pair of white-tailed deer does nipped and nibbled a breakfast of forbs while a group of whitetail bucks, antlers showing the busted tines and other wear from battles during the recent breeding season, eased from the edge of the surrounding forest and nosed for any remaining acorns under the red oaks and white oaks along a ridge. Nearby, a pair of bald eagles hunted fish on a lake where, along a drain feeding the wetland, endangered Neches River rose mallow grows and a river otter left a calling card suffused with fish scales. In the Neches River bottom, kingfishers flitted above the water and a slick patch of mud on the bank, near where a beaver-chewed tree stump stood, marking an alligator's sunning spot. In the uplands, not far from where what may be the largest loblolly pine in Texas grows, you can hear the calls of red cockaded woodpeckers near a stand of trees where the endangered birds have hammered resin-rimmed nesting holes in living pines. A coyote slinks across a trail that bisects a century-old tram road and passes near a spring oozing cold, clear water, following a route his ancestors have trod for eons. Boggy Slough is a place where you can still see glimpses of East Texas' past and, thanks to recent moves to protect the area, a brighter future. A former Houston Independent School District police officer is accused of engaging in what authorities are calling "an inappropriate relationship" with a student at the school where he works. Jacob Ryan Delgadillo is now facing a felony charge of indecency with a child, HISD officials said. A member of a controversial armed citizen's militia that roams the South Texas-Mexico border is headed to federal prison for illegally having a firearm. John F. Foerster, a Brownsville resident who belongs to Rusty's Rangers, was sentenced Wednesday to nearly three years behind bars over a handgun which he was not legally allowed to carry since he was previously convicted of a felony. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate HUNTSVILLE James Garrett Freeman, a Wharton County man who nine years ago shot and killed Texas Game Warden Justin Hurst, was executed Wednesday evening. At 6:14 p.m., Freeman was asked if he had any last words. He replied, "No, I do not." Moments before the pentobarbital began flowing into his veins, he could be seen grimacing slightly. As the drugs were administered, Freeman struggled to keep his eyes open. His chest rose and fell several times, he gasped slightly several times, and his eyes closed. The revving of engines from motorcyclists who support law enforcement filtered into the death house, where several game wardens and Wharton County District Attorney Ross Kurtz clustered by the observation window and watched the color slowly drain out of Freeman's face. At 6:30 p.m., 16 minutes after the drugs were administered, he was pronounced dead. Afterward, Greg Hurst, Justin's brother, thanked the approximately 100 game wardens and other law enforcement officers who on Wednesday had gathered and stood vigil outside the prison. "Nine years ago - It's been nine long years," Hurst said, tears trickling down his face as he addressed his brother's former colleagues. "These men and women provided more support to my family ... and I really can never repay that. From the deepness of my heart, I love every one of you guys and gals, so thank you very much." In the days prior to his execution, Freeman spent his time sleeping, speaking with his family and friends, cleaning his cell, and reading. On two separate occasions, he refused breakfast. Around midday Wednesday, Freeman was transferred to a holding cell outside the execution chamber in the Huntsville Unit from his former cell in the Polunsky Unit in Livingston. Earlier in the day, he visited with family and friends. Jason Clark, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice who visited with him, said he seemed "unemotional." Freeman's execution was the second of nine scheduled in Texas in the first half of 2016, following the Jan. 20 execution of 43-year-old Richard Masterson. First execution of 2016: Female impersonator's killer put to death Freeman's execution closed a series of events that began in 2007, when a game warden tried to stop Freeman, now 35, for illegally hunting at night. "Tonight we saw the end of the legal aspect of this case, and the legal closure," said district attorney Kurtz, who witnessed the execution. "But obviously, for the family, there is no closure." Two weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review Freeman's case, according to federal court records. There were no new developments or potential filings, Don Vernay, one of Freeman's post-sentencing attorneys, said in an email. A lower court in December declined a motion from Freeman's attorneys seeking additional time. On Monday afternoon, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles turned down a commutation request from Freeman in a unanimous 7-0 vote, said Raymond Estrada, the board's director of public information. Long-awaited Freeman and his attorneys had argued in his appeals that in 2008 he received inadequate legal counsel. The then-26-year-old Freeman fled, leading the warden and half a dozen other officers on a circuitous chase on paved and gravel roads through Wharton and Colorado counties, which ended 90 minutes later by a cemetery in his hometown of Lissie, after a Department of Public Safety trooper punctured Freeman's tires with a spike strip. In a brief firefight that lasted less than a minute, Freeman fired nearly 40 shots from a Glock pistol and an AK-47 at the pursuing law enforcement officers - including Wharton County sheriff's deputies and constables, DPS troopers and game wardens, according to court records. Two of the shots struck Hurst, who was pronounced dead soon after being flown to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center. He had been a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department employee for 12 years, five as a game warden, and died on his 34th birthday, leaving behind his wife and 4-month-old son. Texas Game Warden Col. Craig Hunter, who was among the dozens of law enforcement gathered outside the prison, called Hurst a "consummate professional" and "selfless servant." "This evening marks a moment that many of us have been waiting for since we first heard of Justin's death," he said. READ THIS: As the world watches, Texas killers speak their minds Hurst's murder tore through rural Wharton County, home to some 40,000 residents, and which had not been site of a death penalty case in almost 30 years. In trial, Josh McCown, then-district attorney of Wharton County, and Kelly Siegler, a former Harris County prosecutor acting as special prosecutor, portrayed Freeman as quick-tempered, and jurors heard testimony that Freeman was prone to outbursts of anger, after which he could not remember his actions. His defense attorney, Stanley Schneider, argued that Freeman had been trying to commit "suicide by cop" and had been depressed following a series of alcohol-related offenses that had caused his driver's license to be suspended for two years. In court proceedings, Freeman and his attorneys asked that the trial be held in a county other than Wharton, where they said he would be unable to get a fair trial. He also argued the evidence presented to the jury was not sufficient enough to prove he was a "future danger," one of the thresholds required for a death-penalty sentence. 'Down to our heart' Hurst is one of 18 game wardens to die on the job since 1895. Among the dozens of law enforcement officers gathered at the execution was Wharton County Sheriff Jess Howell. "Justin was a very good friend to everybody, to law enforcement in our community," said Howell, who was sheriff at the time and who was accompanied by five officers from his department. "When this happened, it's just a tragedy that hurt every one of us down to our heart, it's just unbelievable," he said. At the time, three of his officers were involved in the chase. Hurst's parents and brother also were among those who were at the prison but did not witness the execution, Clark said. Freeman's parents, brother and sister-in-law attended the execution but did not address the media. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully returned at just the right time, because weve had another UFO sighting here in San Antonio. For those who believe the truth is out there, the sighting allegedly occurred Saturday, when the viewer saw a white object moving through the sky. SAN ANTONIO The man who found Lauren Bump's body on a trail at O.P. Schnabel Park testified Thursday that he thought someone was filming a movie when he came upon the gruesome scene on New Year's Eve in 2013. Edward Wagner testified on the third day of the murder trial that he tried to keep his son from seeing the jogger, who was stabbed more than 20 times in the Northwest Side park. He called 911 shortly after. As NASA aims for Mars, the risks of space flight still weigh heavy on the minds of all involved in the agency. This year Americas space program will mark 30 years since the space shuttle Challenger explosion that occurred on Jan. 28, 1986. See the gallery above for images from that ill-fated mission. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and other senior officials will head to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia for the annual Day of Remembrance to commemorate fallen members of the space agency. At other NASA sites, including at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, officials will hold their own memorial ceremonies. Check out the Houston Chronicle's Cruz News each morning for fresh updates from the Houston-based presidential campaign of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. 'Mano a mano' Ted Cruz pushed ahead full-throttle with his call for a two-man debate with Donald Trump on Wednesday, setting a time and reserving a location for a 90-minute showdown between the two primary front runners, according to a letter released by the Cruz campaign. In a statement to ABC News, the Trump campaign agreed to the debate without committing. "If [Cruz] is the last man standing, and it comes down to a two-person race Donald Trump will be happy to debate him," a campaign spokesperson said Wednesday night. If that debate happens, it will be yet another a badge of drama in this already unprecedented election cycle. On Tuesday evening, Trump withdrew from Thursday night's GOP presidential debate, citing his distaste for Fox News anchor and moderator Megyn Kelly. Cruz, sensing a last-minute chance to improve his second-place standing in the polls, pounced. Within hours of Trump's announcement, the Cruz campaign launched the website DuckingDonald.com, where supporters could sign a petition to get Trump in the two-man debate. Also on Wednesday, the Cruz campaign posted a $25 spoof of Trump's famous "Make America Great Again" hat. "Make Trump Debate Again," it says. And Cruz launched a dense spree of verbal attacks, calling Trump soft and questioning his resolve to stand up to foreign officials. Cruz was a star debater in high school and at Princeton University. He also litigated and argued cases before the U.S. Supreme court. He is very confident in his argumentative skills on stage, and probably sees this as a win-win scenario: if the debate happens, Cruz is sure he'll win; if it doesn't happen, the Cruz campaign will seize the opportunity to call Trump a chicken. A Trumpless debate Thursday Regardless of whether Trump and Cruz program their own showdown, all signs on Thursday morning indicated that Trump would make good on his vow to ditch the evening debate in Iowa. That means Cruz will take the center podium, and that he'll likely face a firing squad from the other contenders. This debate will be the last chance for the fledgling candidates to take their best shots at the front runners, with hopes of pulling them from their top spots. Plenty of critique will be lobbed at Trump, but he won't be there. Expect the other candidates to come out full-force with attacks on Cruz. Expect Cruz to dwell on Trump's absence. A churchgoing man Cruz published an article Wednesday morning in the Christian publication Charisma News, describing his take on his faith. Evangelical Christian voters make up the GOP's most reliable voting bloc, and Cruz has made every effort to court them accordingly. That's not to say his faith is an act: The Texas senator grew up at Christian schools in Houston, and those who knew him decades ago attest that his devotion is sincere. In his recent article, Cruz described how his parents became Christians when he was a toddler, and so saved the family from an impending breakup. At eight years, with "tears streaming down my face," he and a friend "gave our lives to Jesus" at a church summer camp. "I couldn't run for president without relying heavily on my faith," Cruz wrote. "From the day we launched the campaign, [my wife] Heidi and I have prayed simply that His will would be done." And he wrote that he would "lead the fight for Israel" to honor the scripture in Genesis 12:3, which says God promised the Israelis "I will bless those who bless you." Shot or poisoned? It's clear senior GOP officials don't like how this race has turned out. As South Carolina GOP Senator Lindsey Graham put it last week, party officials see the choice between Trump and Cruz "like being shot or poisoned." "What does it really matter?" he said. Politico made another spin around the Senate Republican Conference on Wednesday and found much the same old story: grieving senators wish neither of the front runners would be the nominee but are increasingly pushed to concede that one will be. They're foregoing endorsements Trump and Cruz have zero official backers in the Senate until a victor emerges. A handful of GOP senators downheartedly told Politico they didn't think Cruz or Trump could stand up to a Democratic challenger in the general election. Moreover, both candidates have campaigns based largely on thrashing tirades against the party establishment, calling its leaders corrupt or stupid. That rhetoric has not been well-received by party officials. This week saw some of the first high-profile Washington D.C. Republicans offer support to Cruz (joining the Texas Republicans now supporting him on the trail). More may come forward before the Iowa caucuses on Monday. As that day nears, the Republican establishment is going to have to decide which undesired candidate is more likely to win the White House for the GOP. Wife to the rescue Heidi Cruz, wife of Ted, appeared Wednesday morning on CNN to give her take on her husband's personality. Interviewer Dana Bash mostly harped on allegations against Mr. Cruz's character levied by rival Trump and other GOP officials, who have called Mr. Cruz hard to get a long with. Mrs. Cruz defended her husband's likability and brushed the personal attacks as part of the political game. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate AUSTIN -- Facing growing impatience from legislative leaders, state police officials were told Tuesday to quickly devise solutions to address chronic complaints that a controversial traffic-fine program is unfairly targeting hundreds of Texas drivers with hefty penalties. Members of the Senate Transportation Committee, in the latest criticism of the Driver Responsibility Program operated by the Texas Department of Public Safety, demanded that officials overseeing the program come up fixes for the problems by the panel's next meeting on March 29. "The program has problems and has had problems since Day One," said Committee Chairman Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville. Noting that lawmakers have aired grievances about the program for several years, he added, "we have given you enough direction to work on the problem." Other committee members were more blunt, underscoring legislators' growing impatience with the program that levies state fines, in additional to local fines, for a variety of traffic offenses. Thousands of Texas drivers who are never made aware of the state fines, and never pay them, later get arrested and go to jail for penalties that can run into thousands of additional dollars. Critics, including local judges, lawyers and drivers complain the program unfairly targets Texas' poorest, who often end up behind bars because they cannot pay hefty fines that accumulate without their knowledge. Drivers who don't pay the fines can have their licenses suspended until the fines are paid. At Tuesday's hearing state Sen. Don Huffines, R-Dallas, said the current program leads to" a debtor's prison." Sen. Sylvia Garcia, a Democrat from Houston where many of the complaints about the program have originated, said the program "just makes poor people poorer." Elizabeth Henneke, a policy attorney with the Austin-based Texas Criminal Justice Coalition that has lobbied for changes in the program, testified that one Travis County woman convicted of drunken-driving in 2004, racked up more than $20,000 in fines. Unable to pay, she spent four weeks in jail and is now homeless, Henneke said. "My client at this point was fed up," she said. "She said: 'I'm done. I don't to know that to do any more. This one DWI case has ruined my life'." DPS Assistant Director Joe Peters, whose division oversees the program, and Cheryl Garrin, manager of enforcement and compliance at DPS, said the agency is working to make adjustments on an amnesty program that could lower some of the outstanding fines. Nichols and other committee members, however, hinted their patience has run short, especially after hearing similar promises before. Peters asked the committee for suggestions on how to grant some drivers amnesty from payments that are in arrears without affecting revenues from the fines. Part of the revenues from the programs go to fund trauma care in Texas, and trauma hospitals have steadfastly opposed any changes that would shrink their funding through the program. The program provided more than $100 million in funding to hospitals, officials have said. Glenn Robinson, CEO of Waco's Baylor Scott and White Hillcrest Medical Center, said his hospital received about $340,000 last year. And while acknowledging that the program has its problems, he said the funding for the hospital is "vital." Representatives from hospitals in Houston and San Antonio that receive funding through the program could not immediately be reached for comment. Despite the benefits, Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, advised Robinson and his hospital colleagues to start looking for alternative funding sources "Because this program does not need to keep going. "At some point, you just go to the moral issue in determining whether to continue a program with so many problems," he said. "This one is moral." " The summers final Live on the Waterfront concert was held Wednesday evening at Prince Arthurs Landing. The popular series in Thunder Bay has completed nine weekly shows that began on July 13. Wednesdays concert was unique as it was held one hour later in the evening to mesh with the 10 p. Its hard not to take a fiendish delight in Donald Trumps scourging of the Republican establishment, even as he continues to roil the political waters by brushing off tonights Republican primary debate. For decades, that establishment suppressed any expression of dismay regarding low-skilled mass immigration; establishment commentators have even started playing the racism card of late, accusing opponents of unskilled mass immigration of engaging in white identity politics. Now, we are witnessing the return of the repressed in the wildly enthusiastic support for a candidate who is unashamedly ignorant of most matters (including immigration) that will come before a president and is likely to lose against Hillary Clinton, but who has staunchly refused to shut up regarding illegal immigration. Trumps dominance is also a reminder of the conservative policy worlds limited relevance. Last year, a group of young reform conservatives crafted wonky proposals involving arcane tax credits and the like in the name of winning a broader, middle-class base of Republican voters. None of it matters, it turns out, compared with the attraction of someone bellowing that America is going to be great and is going to win again, as guaranteed by the fact that the speaker himself is great and a big, big winner. While the Republican establishment deserves its comeuppance, the fallout to the country at large of a Trump presidency would likely be as dire as his critics predict. Trumps fans dont appear to be dissuadable by argument, having concluded that Trump must be the answer to whatever ails the countryrecalling another bout of campaign idolatry eight years ago. But Trumps conservative supporters should consider at least this: his likely effect on civilized mores. Trump is the most gratuitously nasty public figure that this country has seen in living memory. He is the very definition of a bully: at every opportunity to kick someone when hes down, Trump takes it, while shamelessly trumpeting his own dominance. Long after former Texas governor Rick Perry had withdrawn from the primary race, Trump was still sneering at Perrys glasses and intelligence during campaign rallies and gloating about how he had forced Perrys withdrawal. New York governor George Pataki held out longer in the campaign, but he was never a threat to Trump. Yet nearly every Trump stump speech still includes a mean-spirited reference to this nonentity. Trump followers defend his penchant for ceaseless, obsessive attack on the ground that he lashes out only when he has himself been criticized. But there is virtue in proportionality. Trump escalates a conventional campaign sally into the excuse for nonstop, self-aggrandizing war. Trump is the embodiment of what the Italians call maleducatopoorly raised, ill-bred. Indeed, judging by the results, his upbringing seems to have involved no check whatsoever on the crudest male instincts for aggression and humiliation. Trump is unfailingly personal in his attacks. Nor is his comportment merely a refusal to be politically correct. Trump was on solid ground when he responded to Fox Newss Megyn Kelly during the first Republican debate that he had no time for political correctness. A repudiation of political correctness means truth-telling, however. Trumps personal sneers are not truth-telling but merely the self-indulgent gestures of someone who makes no effort to control his desire to humiliate. Conservatives, of all people, should understand the preciousness and precariousness of manners. Boys in particular need to be civilized. That task will be more difficult with Trump in the White House. There is no reason to think that Trump will change his tone should he get elected; he shows no sign of a capacity for introspection and self-correction. Any parent trying to raise a boy to be respectful, courteous, and at least occasionally self-effacing will have a hard time doing so when our national leader is so reflexively impolite, just as it is harder to raise girls to be sexually prudent when they are surrounded by media role models promoting promiscuity. The culture has been coarsened enough already. It doesnt need further degradation from a president. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images Women in Online Work program pentru femeile care isi doresc sa munceasca in companii internationale, de la biroul de acasa The first question for Bernie Sanders in a Democratic primary debate was asked by CNNs Anderson Cooper on October 14. By then, the senator from Vermont had climbed from obscurity to within 20 points of Hillary Clinton in national polls. A Gallup poll says half the country would not put a socialist in the White House, Cooper said. You call yourself a democratic socialist. How can any kind of socialist win a general election in the United States? Well, were going to win because, first, were going to explain what democratic socialism is, Sanders promised. Fast forward more than three months to CNNs January 25 town hall debate in Iowa, where Sanders is neck and neck with Clinton ahead of the February 1 caucuses. The first audience question came from a middle-aged woman named Gerry Ohde, an undecided voter. Some of your detractors have called you a socialist on occasions, and you dont seem too troubled by that, and sometimes embrace it. I wondered if you could could elaborate on your definition of it, she asked, so that it doesnt concern the rest of us citizens. Sanders jumped in to say, sure, as if to forgive her confusion. But Ohdes concern is a sobering progress report for his campaign. For Sanders to achieve the political revolution he says is necessary for his radical vision to be realized, the media would have to facilitate a substantive, protracted discussion of whether socialism is a viable political identity. The public may very well reject whatever Sanders means by democratic socialism, but it would be an accomplishment for his campaign and American journalism if that decision came from understanding, rather than stigma. Too often, Sanders hasnt given a satisfying definition of what actually distinguishes his version of socialism, and journalists have missed chances to press him. Sanders says he wants to demystify socialism, but reporters have allowed him to try to do so by blurring lines, not explicating them. Sign up for CJR 's daily email Sanders is still 15 to 20 percent behind Clinton in national polls. Granted, national polls dont say much about how a primary will play out, but they do reflect the influence of national media. Despite extensive analysis of Sanders socialism since he declared his candidacy last spring, it takes a sustained discussion to shift public opinion, especially about such a deeply entrenched bogeyman; the label itself is widely considered a disqualifier. Campaigning at a Des Moines pub on Wednesday, GOP contender Marco Rubio drew laughs when he said, Bernie Sanders, hes a socialist, BuzzFeeds McKay Coppins reported. Im not attacking him. Its not a slur. Hes, like, a card-carrying socialist! He is, indeed. A 1985 profile in The Atlantic carried the headline: Bernie Sanders, the Socialist Mayor, referencing his time in charge of Burlington, Vermont. In Congress, he caucuses with the Democrats and draws their fundraising support but maintains his status as an independent. Early in his presidential candidacy, Sanders embraced socialism to emphasize that hes cut from a different cloth of liberalism. But while he demonstrates fierce devotion to principle, hes a reluctant political philosopher, making it hard to pin down the intellectual foundation of his values. In November, Sanders attempted to pull back the curtain in a major speech at Georgetown on Democratic Socialism in America. He began by describing many of Franklin Roosevelts reforms, from Social Security to Medicare, as socialist initiatives. He compared them to popular policies in European welfare states today. This is not a radical idea, he likes to say. He prefers to define socialism through examples of what it is and, perhaps more importantly, what it is notnamely, unchecked income inequality. In that speech, Sanders offered only glimpses of a true definition: proactive, robust government initiatives to ensure economic and social justice and democratic participation. The hang up for many Democrats, subsequently, is not whether Sanders is a socialist, but whether thats actually a substantive distinction. Sanders is a Democrat in every way but name, Harry Jaffe, a Sanders biographer, wrote for Salon. Charlie Rose asked Sanders on his PBS program in October, Does it simply mean youre more liberal or more progressive than other candidates? The host seemed determined to get to the bottom of this ambiguity, eventually pleading, Im the first person trying to argue you away from the idea that youre a socialist. That month, on Meet the Press, host Chuck Todd asked Sanders if he was backing away from the socialist tag. No, no, not at all, its not a question of , Sanders stammered in response. Look, when one of your Republican colleagues gets on the show, do you say, Are you a capitalist? Of course not. American politicians are presumed capitalists, and its disingenuous of Sanders to challenge his own novelty. In the first debate, when Cooper asked Sanders if hes a capitalist, the senator replied, Do I consider myself part of the casino capitalist process by which so few have so much and so many have so little by which Wall Streets greed and recklessness wrecked this economy? No, I dont. Again, to point to a system run amok doesnt clarify opposition to the system in principle. Cooper followed up: Just let me just be clear. Is there anybody else on the stage who is not a capitalist? The surrealness of that question at a presidential debate in 2015, to which Clinton and Martin OMalley predictably said no, shouldnt be understated. How will you win a general election labeling yourself a democratic socialist? NBCs Lester Holt asked Sanders at the fourth debate earlier this month. Sanders blew by the question, returning to the trope of billionaires versus working people. Holt didnt follow up. When Sanders dismissed the practicality of reparations for descendants of racial injustice last week, The Atlantics Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote a searing condemnation. What candidates name themselves is generally believed to be important, Coates writes. Is shy incrementalism really the lesson of this fortuitous outburst of Vermont radicalism? Every presidential primary features an assessment of what makes a true liberal and conservative. An alliance of conservatives against Trump in National Review last week indicates the intensity of that debate within the Republican party. But Sanders has reintroduced a political label thats been dormant in presidential politics since Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas ran on the Socialist Party of America ticket 11 times collectively in the early 20th century. Socialist was among the most common descriptions of President Obama in his first term, Pew tabulated, clearly as a slur. Carrying the socialism banner helped Sanders stand out. Now, as he becomes a serious contender, he may be trying to downplay the extent of that radicalism. To undo the taboo of democratic socialism, Sanders needs to be direct in explaining it to the media, and journalists must push back on ambiguities. Otherwise, his political revolution will be derailed by semantics. Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Danny Funt is a senior editor at The Week and a former CJR Delacorte Fellow. Follow him on Twitter at @dannyfunt After his factory worker father died a painful death from kidney cancer at age 68 in 2013, Michael Hickey made it his mission to find out why so many people in his hometown along the Hoosic River were getting sick. Two years later, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has warned residents of Hoosick Falls not to drink or cook with water from municipal wells, and a plastics plant has agreed to install a $2 million carbon filtration system at the village water treatment plant. Hickeys campaign began with suspicion about industrial pollution in the factory village near the Vermont border. His father had worked for 35 years at a plant that made high-performance plastics similar to Teflon, so Hickey searched online for cancer and Teflon. What he found: PFOA. Perfluorooctanoic acid, a water and oil repellent, had been used since the 1940s in products including non-stick cookware, stain-resistant carpeting and microwave popcorn bags. Manufacturers agreed to phase it out by the end of 2015 shortly after DuPont reached a $16.5 million settlement with the EPA over the companys failure to report possible health risks associated with PFOA. A scientific panel that conducted health studies as part of a DuPont settlement of a West Virginia class-action lawsuit concluded there was a probable link between PFOA exposure and kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis and pregnancy-induced hypertension. In Hoosick Falls, nobody has ever scientifically documented that the village has an unusually high cancer rate, but Hickey and a local doctor had heard enough anecdotal evidence that they felt it should be addressed. Theres always been talk around town about how theres a lot of cancer, Hickey said. When my dad, who didnt drink or smoke, was diagnosed with kidney cancer, that made it more personal. Dr. Marcus Martinez, the family doctor for many of the villages 3,500 residents, added there certainly seemed to be a high rate of cancer there, particularly rare, aggressive forms. The 44-year-old Martinez himself is in remission from aggressive prostate cancer. When the two men suggested testing the village water supply, part-time Mayor David Borge at first refused, citing state guidelines. New York state classifies PFOA as an unspecified organic contaminant and doesnt require testing for it. The EPA has a non-enforceable guidance level of 400 parts per trillion roughly 4 teaspoons in enough water to fill a 10-mile string of rail tankers. Hickey used his own money in summer 2014 to have water from his kitchen tap and other sources tested. The results showed PFOA at 540 ppt from Hickeys home, exceeding the EPAs guidance. Village officials subsequently tested the municipal supply and found PFOA at similar levels. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, part of a Paris-based global conglomerate, in 1999 became the fifth owner of a plastics factory in Hoosick Falls. It conducted tests in the summer of 2015 and reported a PFOA level of 18,000 ppt in groundwater under its plant, 500 yards from the villages main water wells. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics is committed to helping the village of Hoosick Falls with this situation, company spokesman Carmen Ferrigno said. While the source of the PFOA contamination hasnt been identified, Saint-Gobain has been paying for bottled water for residents since November and has agreed to pay for filtration to remove the chemical from the public water supply, he said. Hickey and Martinez, along with Albany environmental lawyer David Engel, werent satisfied. They wanted people to be told not to drink the tap water, along with a full investigation and remediation. Engel contacted Judith Enck, who heads the EPA region that includes New York. She issued a statement in December warning residents not to drink or cook with village water. Until then, state and village officials had told residents the water was unlikely to cause health problems. On Jan. 14, Enck and a panel of leading EPA scientists addressed a standing-room-only crowd at Hoosick Falls high school auditorium. The same day, New York officials asked the EPA to add the Saint-Gobain plant and other possible sources of contamination in Hoosick Falls to the Superfund priorities list. The state health department also recently announced plans to study cancer rates in the village and vicinity. We are giving this contamination problem a high priority, Enck said. A very detailed study of groundwater is needed in Hoosick Falls to know what we are dealing with and how to best address it. Engel said that the villages plan to install filters at the water plant is a good first step, but that the long-term solution should be to establish new wells to replace the contaminated ones. Kevin Allard, 58, who worked at the plastics plant in the 1980s, said his mother died of pancreatic cancer at 54 and his father died of thyroid cancer at 81. In 2006, a 25-year-old friend of Allards son died of pancreatic cancer. Now, he worries about the health of his children, in their early 30s. They grew up on that water, he said. Thats what concerns me. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Focus on the election year, federal interest in state workers compensation programs and changes to the employee health and claims models are all issues to watch in 2016, according to industry experts. On Tuesday, January 11, Safety National hosted a webinar on the top issues to watch that could affect workers compensation in 2016. The hosts of the Out Front Ideas webinar, Mark Walls, vice president of communications and strategic analysis at St. Louis-based Safety National, and Kimberly George, senior vice president and senior health advisor for Sedgwick, discussed the trends, market conditions and concerns facing the industry. According to Walls, this election year will have an impact on the insurance line. Currently, 11 states elect insurance commissioners, while 39 have appointed insurance commissioners. He said the industry should pay attention as these changes can have a significant influence on the workers comp market. George added that while the Affordable Care Act Cadillac tax extension has been pushed to 2020, health reform will likely be revised by a new president. She said industry consolidation in the area of the ACA will continue, noting that there was over $700 billion in mergers and acquisition activity last year by pharma and health insurers. There is a movement by employers to a new employee health model, where the patient is viewed as a consumer, said George. Insurers are taking notice of the value of healthcare and tying extra benefits into it. The idea is to provide consistency and tie in health and productivity in order to increase engagement. George also pointed to an evolving claims model where patients deal with advocates to ensure they understand the issues surrounding their medical condition, treatment and claim. She said this is an important step for the viability of the workers comp system. Theres growing debate regarding whether workers comp remains a grand bargain, George said. Insurers can expect stakeholders to evaluate its viability. The Padgett case in Florida is considered one threat to the concept. There are workers comp exceptions or gaps in protection in 14 states with companies that have five or fewer employees. In addition, 17 states dont offer workers comp to agricultural workers. Critics point to occupational disease and the problem of tolling statutes before a disease can be identified. Walls said this is another area where the federal government could get involved. While some areas of the federal government already have a tremendous impact on the system think OSHA and Medicare Secondary Payor there has been some action by legislators to federalize in-state workers comp systems. Some government officials think there are too many benefit differences among states. In addition, there is growing concern that some on workers comp are being shifted to Social Security disability. As a result, Walls expects minimum benefit recommendations from the government. Also, in Texas and Oklahoma employers have the ability to opt out of the workers comp system and offer a private benefit plan. Walls said there are bills in Tennessee and South Carolina seeking this option despite oversight concerns. The industry will continue to be impacted by OSHA, Walls said, as a result of the increased reporting and recordkeeping requirements as well as increases in fines and penalties. In Florida, there are four workers comp cases arguing constitutionality set to be heard by the Supreme Court: Padgett (Florida Workers Advocates v. State of Florida), Bradley Westphal v. City of St. Petersburg, Marvin Castellanos v. Next Door Company, et al., and Daniel Stahl v. Hialeah Hospital. Walls expects the states high court to address the cases in 2016. States are taking action too. According to George, states are retroactively conducting audits, going back several years and fining insurers. According to Walls, employers in New York are pushing for additional workers comp reforms. In Florida, changes to the state system will depend on the decisions in the previously noted cases. Currently, governor reforms to reduce employers costs have been blocked by legislators. In California, legislators are attempting to undermine reforms already in place. Another area of concern is talent acquisition and retention, according to George. Citing McKinsey data, she said 25 percent of the insurance workforce will retire by 2016. And while 2.3 million people currently work in the insurance industry, one million workers are expected to retire within the next four years. The concern here is that there are few college insurance programs to educate incoming adjusters. In addition, according to George, many adjusters are generalists, responsible for a broad range of workers comp claims in multiple jurisdictions. With respect to predictive analytics, George said the industry needs to move away from an intervention model where limited outcomes and results are shared. This can be improved by adding new resources to improve outcome and utilizing smart analytics to learn, rather than push out statistics. The real time information smart analytics provides can streamline the claims process and improve outcomes. Other issues to watch include utilization review, the erosion of exclusive remedy, ICD 10, marijuana and the on demand economy. The founder of Bikram yoga on Tuesday was ordered to pay nearly $6.5 million to his former legal adviser who said he sexually harassed and wrongfully fired her for investigating another womans rape allegation. The punitive damages are in addition to the compensatory damages he was ordered to pay to a lawyer who said she was fired for investigating allegations of sexual harassment against the guru. A Los Angeles jury ordered Bikram Choudhury to pay the attorney $924,500 in compensatory damages after finding he had subjected her to harassment and retaliation. The jury is considering whether to award the attorney, Minakshi Jafa-Bodden, with punitive damages on Tuesday. Its an enormous vindication, said Jafa-Boddens attorney, Carla Minnard. She said Choudhury sexually harassed Jafa-Bodden, inappropriately touched her, and tried to get her to stay with him in a hotel suite. Choudhury fired her in June 2013 when she began investigating claims from other women of sexual abuse, Minnard said. Choudhurys attorney, Robert Tafoya, did not return a call for comment. Choudhury, 69, has built an empire around Bikram yoga, a rigorous, 90-minute routine performed in a room that can reach more than 100 degrees. The technique is taught at more than 650 studios worldwide and has drawn a throng of devoted followers. Mondays verdict is just the latest bad news for Choudhury. In October, the guru lost a court appeal to copyright his sequence of 26 poses and two breathing exercises. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the sequence used in hot yoga classes is a process intended to improve peoples health, so copyright law does not cover it. Choudhury is also facing lawsuits by six women who claim he sexually assaulted them, the first of which is set for trial in April. The most recent lawsuit, filed Feb. 13, accuses Choudhury of raping a Canadian woman who had she used $10,000 from her college fund to pay for a nine-week class so she could teach Bikram yoga to others. Choudhurys lawyers have said he never sexually assaulted any of the women suing him and that prosecutors had declined to bring charges in their cases. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Jazz Pianist David Paquette Finds $300,000 Steinway Piano in Wairoa, New Zealand A woman tests an older piano, one of the thousands of surplus items for sale at The Great California Garage Sale August 28, 2009, in Sacramento, California. (Photo : Photo by Robert Durell/Getty Images) What do you do when you find a $300,000 Steinway piano from 1893 in a community hall cupboard? You play it, of course! That's what happened Saturday, Jan 23rd at the Gaiety Theater in Wairoa, New Zealand, after American-born jazz pianist David Paquette was asked to arrange a concert in the small New Zealand town, but needed a piano for the event. Told by the town council that there was an old piano hidden away in the community hall, Paquette did not expect to find a barely-used 8 ft. grand intended for concert hall use. The American jazz pianist David Paquette (who moved to Auckland 30 years ago and only last September to the small town of Wairoa, New Zealand) has made a name for himself by sharing his unique style of playing throughout the world. He has toured with notable individuals such as Tony Bennett and Phil Collins, he has traveled the European jazz circuit, and he has established the 17-yr. running annual Jazz Festival on New Zealand's Waiheke Island. A musical treasure in his adopted nation, Paquette became a prominent figure in the Auckland and Waiheke Island jazz scenes and is now teaming up with the town council in his new home of Wairoa, New Zealand to organize local music events. After planning the Long River Swing concert for a Jan. 23rd event (for which a piano was required), jazz pianist David Paquette was instructed by the town council to browse the Wairoa community hall where he had expected to find a much humbler instrument. Instead, what he found was an 8-ft. concert grand dating from 1893, which, according to David, had only been played "a handful of times each year, on Anzac Day and for the occasional funeral". The piano, confirmed to be a Steinway Model C by David Paquette's friend and piano technician Daniel Stabler, is expected to be worth $300,000 after refurbishing. Stabler admitted his astonishment at the rarity of the find, especially in such an unassuming town: "It just seems crazy that there was any old Steinway in Wairoa, especially a Model C. It's very rare to find a piano like this. The only other ones around are in the big concert halls. A piano like this will last virtually forever, it just needs regular maintenance." Jazz Pianist David Paquette hopes that the $300,000 Steinway Piano found in Wairoa, New Zealand will remain in the town and entice world-class musicians from afar to visit and perform for the townsfolk. Despite being un-refurbished, after a mild tuning the $300,000 Steinway piano made its first appearance in a large-scale setting last Saturday for the Long River Swing concert with jazz pianist David Paquette at the keys. To rest assured the piano was in good hands, check out David Paquette's performance of Irving Berlin's "My Walking Stick" below... with a modern twist. 2016 The Classical Art, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. TagsSteinway, Steinway & Sons, piano, New Zealand, David Paquette, Swing Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8 to be Performed with 450 Musicians at Cathedral of St. John NY The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, in collaboration with the Manhattan School of Music and Oratorio Society of New York, present an exciting new show, as 450 musicians will gather together over two performances to perform a very powerful version of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8, in what is sure to be a sonic phenomenon. Kent Tritle, director of Cathedral Music, will lead work which, since its premiere in 1910, when 1,030 musicians first performed it together, has the nickname "The Symphony of a Thousand." Gustav Mahler was more pleased with the 8th over all of his others. Conductor Tritle envisioned the Cathedral as the perfect place to stage such a grandoise masterwork. From the Cathedral's press release, "From the moment Tritle first visited the Cathedral with the idea of serving there, he dreamed of conducting musical creations on the grand scale befitting the world's largest neo-Gothic space. Mahler's Symphony No. 8, weaving together the text of a medieval hymn and the closing scene of Goethe's Faust, draws together essential redemptive themes of Western culture and is one of the most ambitious and thrilling of such works." The two performance will happen February 24 & 25 at 7:30 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Avenue (at 112th Street), Manhattan. Tickets for the performance start at $8 for both performances. If you wish to purchase tickets for the 24th, go here. If you wish to purchase tickets for the 25th, go here. For a list of future events happening at the Cathedral,follow this lead For those of you interested here is a little bit about the Cathedral, via the press release, "The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is the Cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. It is chartered as a house of prayer for all people and a unifying center of intellectual light and leadership. People from many faiths and communities worship together in services held more than 30 times a week; the soup kitchen serves roughly 25,000 meals annually; social service outreach has an increasingly varied roster of programs; the distinguished Cathedral School prepares young students to be future leaders; Adults and Children in Trust, the renowned preschool, afterschool, and summer program, offers diverse educational and nurturing experiences; the outstanding Textile Conservation Lab preserves world treasures; concerts, exhibitions, performances, and civic gatherings allow conversation, celebration, reflection, and remembrance-such is the joyfully busy life of this beloved and venerated Cathedral." Coupled with Mahler, it sounds like quite an exciting evening. 2016 The Classical Art, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. TagsGustav Mahler, Symphony No. 8, The Symphony of a Thousand, The Cathedral of St. John the Divine Jon Snow is Dead: Game of Thrones Kit Harington Cast in London Production of Doctor Faustus Just like the inevitable Winter, Game of Thrones Season 6 is coming and we will final find out if Jon Snow is dead or alive. However, live or die, Kit Harington has already found his next role. The Stark that you just cant seem to quit is making his return to the stage in an all new London production of Doctor Faustus. Harrington will be playing the titular role in the Christopher Marlowe play based on the story of Faust. No word yet on if Harrington had to sell his soul to land the role. UPDATE: Tickets are available now. For more information go to thejamielloydcompany.com Kit Harington recently spoke about making his return to the stage (via Playbill): "I have been away from the theatre for six years, so the combination of Colin Teevan's inventive version of Marlowes extraordinary play in the hands of the visionary director Jamie Lloyd all felt like the perfect reason to come back. Faustus' journey is exhilarating and the idea of playing a magician -a showman - is hugely exciting." Director Jamie Lloyd also opened up about Haringtons casting, adding: "Kit Harington is one of the most dynamic young actors around and he's eager for a new challenge. This version of this legendary play combines the very best of Marlowe's text with thrilling work by Colin Teevan, which replaces the notorious central acts, long-suspected to be of spurious origin. I am excited to be presenting our company's first production at the Duke of York's, whilst The Maids with Uzo Aduba, Zawe Ashton and Laura Carmichael runs at Trafalgar Studios." What do you think about Kit Haringtons casting? Are you excited to see him return to the stage? Let us know your thoughts on the subject in the comments section at the bottom of the page. Two acts of the new production have been written Colin Teevan, given the uncertainty about whether Christopher Marlowe actually wrote the acts in the original production. Doctor Faustus begins previews onApril 9 and opens on April 25. Doctor Faustus will be performed at the West End's Duke of York's Theatre. Tickets are availble now. For more information go to thejamielloydcompany.com 2016 The Classical Art, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. TagsJon Snow, Dead, Game of Thrones, GoT, Kit Harington, Cast, London, Production, Doctor Faustus, West End Stephen Hough Talks Justin Bieber and David Bowie Sure there were no lack of performers willing to wax poetic about the recent passing of David Bowie, but not many serious artists were willing to weigh in on Justin Bieber's impromptu performance of Beethoven's miniature Fur Elise on the lobby piano of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Interestingly, famed classical paints Stephen Hough had no problem complimenting the Biebs playing as complimenting his vocal style. For those interested in hearing Hough play, the 55-year-old Brit returns for to the 92nd Street Y for chamber music with cellist Steven Isserlis March 15. It came as little surprise when world famous pianist, Stephen Hough, wrote an article about how much David Bowie's music meant to him in an article for The Guardian: "The orange hair, the sparkling costume, the boyish physique, the girlish smile - a bizarre imaginative companion for a Cheshire schoolboy. "David Bowie filled my time as I wasted my time, staying home from school, my whole life a three-day week." It was a little more shocking, however, when the respected British composer took the time to critique Justin Bieber's informal performance of Beethoven's miniature Fur Elise in the lobby on the Beverly Hills Hotel (via ClassicFM): "Well, there's not much Beethoven there, but there's a nice, loose sense of improvisation, a teasing of the phrase. "It actually sings like he does - rather than sounding like someone playing the piano. "It's only a tiny snippet, but I'd be interested in hearing more." For his fans that would rather see Hough at the piano, Shuman Associates announces that Hough will be performing several concerts in the New York region in March: "The prodigious range of British pianist Stephen Hough's talent will be on display March 15-23, 2016 when he appears in solo recital and chamber music performances in New York, and as soloist with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra in Newark and New Brunswick, New Jersey." For tickets to Stephen Hough's concert at the 92nd Street Y be sure to contact their official website or call at (212) 415- 5500. 2016 The Classical Art, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. TagsStephen Hough, Justin Bieber, David Bowie, Steven Isserlis Louis Armstrong Museum Opens New Hot Five Exhibit For Black History Month Jazz Celebration In celebration of Black History Month, the Louis Armstrong House Museum are honoring Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five with an all new exhibit: Hotter Than That - 90 Years of Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five. The Hot Five has been lauded as the most influential band in jazz history and their recordings stayed a favorite with Armstrong throughout his storied career. Director of Research Collections at the Louis Armstrong House Museum, Ricky Riccardi, opened up about the Hot Five recordings, touting (via Press Release): "Louis Armstrong's Hot Five recordings are the most important recordings in jazz history, bar none. Everything stems from them and from Louis specifically. We hope this exhibit pays proper tribute to this landmark group but most of all, we hope it will make visitors further explore their music." Louis Armstrong himself praised his recording with the Hot Five, starting in 1970: Aint nothing like it since, and cant nobody play nothing like it now. My oldest record, cant nobody touch it. The Louis Armstrong House Museum is located at 34-56 107th Street in Corona, Queens, New York and iis open Tuesday - Friday from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm and Saturday/Sunday from 12:00 noon - 5:00 pm. For more information check out LouisArmstrongHouse.org What do you think about the new exhibit? What is your favorite Louis Armstrong recording? Let us know your thoughts on the subject in the comments section at the bottom of the page. 2016 The Classical Art, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. TagsLouis Armstrong, Museum, Opens, New, Hot Five, Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five, Exhibit, Celebrating, Jazz, Black History Month AKRON, Ohio -- A Summit County jury on Thursday acquitted an Akron man of rape and found him guilty of attacking a woman and holding her inside his home against her will. Ladan Watson, 41, raised his clenched fists after Summit County Common Pleas Judge Paul Gallagher read the jury's not-guilty verdicts on two counts of rape. He lowered his hands after the jury found him guilty of felonious assault, a second-degree felony, and abduction, a third degree felony. "He always had a special problem with the sex offenses. He's always denied those," defense attorney John Greven said after the hearing. "He admitted to the beating, so we were not necessarily surprised by that outcome and we will accept it." Watson faces from three to 11 years in prison when he's sentenced March 9. The jury of seven women and five men began deliberations about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday and returned their verdict about noon Thursday. Watson admitted to Akron detectives that he attacked the 31-year-old woman when she came to his home on Aug. 28. He also said that the two later had consensual sex at the home in the 200 block of Crosby Street. Defense attorney John Greven told the jury to find Watson guilty of simple assault, but not felonious assault or rape. Assistant Summit County Prosecutor Thomas Kroll told the jury that Watson admitted the two had sex after a "savage" beating in which the woman suffered a mild concussion and a blow to her right eye that swelled shut. The injuries left the woman hospitalized for two days. Kroll said that alone showed she would not consent to sex with Watson. Both sides disagreed on what brought the woman to Watson's home. The woman told police that she went there to clean his home. Greven said during closing arguments she went to use cocaine with Watson. A fight broke out because Watson thought the woman stole drugs from him, according to testimony. Watson punched, kicked and stomped on her for about a half-hour. He held her inside the home without her being able to leave. The woman eventually jumped out of a bedroom window wearing only a bed sheet. She ran to her mother's home and called police, Kroll said. Akron police searched the home and never found a gun. The woman had reported that Watson struck her with a gun during the incident. "She was savagely beaten, she ran out of the house in the early morning hours in a bed sheet, and in between she felt amorous for him," Kroll said during closing arguments. "That's implausible." AKRON, Ohio -- An Akron woman is accused of providing fentanyl to a Cuyahoga Falls man who died after injecting what he thought was heroin. Elizabeth Ulrey, 37, is charged with involuntary manslaughter, corrupting another with drugs and trafficking in heroin. She was arrested Wednesday and is scheduled for a court appearance on Thursday. Ulrey is accused of providing the drugs to Reggie Dernbach, 27, on April 22, according to police reports. Dernbach injected the fentanyl at Ulrey's home in the 600 block of Upson Street, a known drug house, according to medical examiner records. Akron police found Dernbach unconscious on the front porch of the home. He was taken to Akron City Hospital, where he died. Akron police found fentanyl and drug paraphernalia at Ulrey's home, according to court records. Dernbach had a history of heroin use, according to medical examiner records. Ulrey's criminal history includes convictions for misdemeanor crimes of drug possession and obstructing justice. MACEDONIA, Ohio -- Facing the possibility of testifying at trial, Macedonia officials on Wednesday dismissed theft charges against 82-year-old Fred Quigley, who removed Mayor Joe Migliorini's campaign signs in October. Migliorini had asked police to press charges against Quigley in November, two weeks after declining to press charges against another sign thief. Quigley and the mayor had previously clashed over a flag pole in Quigley's yard in a retirement community owned by Migliorini. In the current case, Quigley agreed to make a $100 donation to the local American Legion post and cover court filing fees. Summit sheriff warns about 'Shop with a Cop' scam: Over 40 people in Summit County have been hit up by a scam mimicking the Summit County sheriff's 'Shop with a Cop' charity program, the West Side Leader reports. Sheriff's Inspector Bill Holland told the newspaper that victims received a call asking for donations to the Shop with a Cop program, which provides shopping assistance to needing families during the holiday season. Callers are told a sheriff's deputy will pick up the donation. The scam is unrelated to an investigation into Richfield's program of the same name. After exhausting appeal on Rothrock Road case, Copley gets 2 miles of road: Rothrock Road, Rothrock Loop and the Springfield Connector are now property of Copley Township, the West Side Leader reports. The county handed over the roads after Copley exhausted its final appeal in a case against a roadblock the city of Fairlawn erected a road block on Rothrock Road. With Rothrock Road now severed permanently, the county has no interest in operating the two roads since they do not connect different municipalities, the newspaper reports. Acme Chairman founds Republican PAC: Steve Albrecht, the chairman of Acme supermarkets, has formed a political action committee to funnel money into local Republican campaigns, the Akron Beacon Journal reports. Albrecht was a major supporter of Republican Eddie Sipplen in the last campaign, and told the newspaper that Republican resources have been directed away from Akron candidates toward statewide contests. Albrecht named his PAC the "Committee to Elect Summit County Republican Candidates." AKRON, Ohio -- A murderer on Wednesday admitted to killing his girlfriend's 69-year-old ex-boyfriend during the woman's murder conspiracy trial. Paul Reed, 39, who did not testify at his own 2015 trial, told a Summit County jury that he killed James Harris, a retired father of 10. Reed is in the midst of appealing his murder conviction. His attorneys argued self-defense during the trial. He is serving a sentence of life in prison with parole eligibility in 15 years. His co-defendant and girlfriend at the time of the April 26, 2014 killing, Tiffany Powell, is on trial for conspiring to commit murder. Reed answered questions although his appeal attorney Jason Wallace repeatedly advised Reed to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Reed answered every question anyway. "Do you know who killed James Harris?" defense attorney Kerry O'Brien asked. "I did," Reed said calmly. Reed testified that he was somewhat aware of Powell's plan to get Harris to their home. He said the goal was to get Harris arrested for violating a protection order. Powell incorrectly believed Harris had a protection order that was supposed to keep him away from her. Harris had custody of their five children. Prosecutors argued during the trial that Powell and Reed lured Harris to their Akron home because she was going to trial against Harris in Stark County that could have resulted in Harris having permanent custody of the kids. Harris had temporary custody of the kids at the time. The duo used a 19-year-old woman Powell had befriended at a battered women's shelter to help lure Harris to the home. That woman was not criminally charged. The other woman told Powell she had a car and washing machine to sell. Harris fixed cars and appliances in his retirement after 30 years as an Akron school teacher. Reed said they never planned to hurt Harris. Harris drove to the home and fought with Reed in the basement. Reed testified he fought with Harris when he saw Harris carrying a gun. Reed said he acted in self-defense when he knelt on Harris' back and slammed his head against the floor 15 times, killing him. Assistant Summit County Prosecutor Jon Baumoel pointed out inconsistencies in Reed's statements to Akron police at the time of the killing and his testimony on Wednesday. He also questioned why Reed would be in the basement of the home doing laundry when he knew Harris, a man whom he had previously fought with over Powell, would be arriving at the home shortly. Reed agreed with Baumoel that it was a coincidence that he happened to be in the basement and not upstairs with Powell, who was eight months pregnant at the time. Baumoel also pointed out that Reed never called police during other fights and interactions he had with Harris, despite testifying that he believed Powell had a protection order against Harris. Powell later testified that Harris physically abused her and some of their children during their years 10 years together. She said she devised the plan to get him arrested after she came to believe Harris hurt one of their children. Powell said she never intended the plan to include hurting Harris. "Not a hair was to be touched on his head," Powell said. "He was never supposed to be touched." Powell also testified that she lied to Akron police because she was scared and because she wanted to shield the 19-year-old woman from getting into trouble with police. "We had a plan and it went wrong," Powell said. Powell will return to the stand Thursday for cross-examination by Baumoel. The attorneys will give closing arguments and the jury will likely begin deliberating later in the day. Richfield police The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is investigating Richfield police union's "Shop with a Cop" program. (File photo) RICHFIELD, Ohio -- State investigators are probing the finances of the Richfield police union's "Shop with a Cop Program." Richfield Police Lt. Joe Davis said two officers, a full-time officer and a part-time officer, have been placed on administrative leave while the investigation is pending. The full-time officer will continue to be paid while the investigation is pending. The part-time officer will not be paid, since he is not guaranteed regular work hours, Davis said. The village did not release the identities of the officers. "Because this is a charitable program and has such an effect on so many people, we want to ensure the highest amount of integrity and trust with the program's funding," Davis said. Davis declined to say how the issue came to the police department's attention. He said they asked for the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation to probe the program's finances in order to ensure no wrongdoing with the program. The program is sponsored by the Richfield FOP Lodge No. 66. Richfield officers participate in the program, Davis said. They hold fundraisers throughout the year then uses the proceeds to give those in need money to shop during the holidays. The program has helped hundreds of families over the years, Davis said. "It is imperative an independent probe be conducted to insure the operation of the Richfield 'Shop with a Cop' program meet the highest standards of accountability and transparency," he added. LABOR 3 The Labor Department today released its annual report on union membership. (New York Times file photo) CLEVELAND, Ohio - The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics released its report Thursday on union membership in the United States in 2015. Here is a look at the report, which comes out annually. 7 Things You Need to Know about Union Membership 1. Union membership rate unchanged - In 2015, about 11.1 percent of U.S. workers belonged to unions, which was about 14.8 million people. That number was unchanged from 2014, but down considerable from more than 30 years ago when comparable data first began being kept. In 1983, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent, which was 17.7 million people. "In 2015, 30 states and the District of Columbia had union membership rates below that of the U.S.average, 11.1 percent, and 20 states had rates above it, " state the BLS news release. "Union membership rates increased over the year in 24 states and the District of Columbia, declined in 23 states, and were unchanged in 3 states.," the release stated. South Carolina had the lowest union membership rate at 2.1 percent. New York had the highest at 24.7 percent. "Roughly half of the 14.8 million union members in the U.S. lived in just seven states (California, 2.5 million; New York, 2.0 million; Illinois, 0.8 million; Pennsylvania, 0.7 million; and Michigan, Ohio, and New Jersey, 0.6 million each), though these states accounted for only about one-third of wage and salary employment nationally," the release stated. 2. Union membership rate remained about the same in Ohio - Ohio's union membership rate was 12.3 percent in 2015, or about 606,000 workers. That is down slightly from the year before when it was 12.4 percent with about 615,000 workers. "Despite unrelenting attacks by extreme politicians on the collective bargaining rights of Ohioans and working people across the country, our collective voice remains strong and these numbers reflect that, wrote Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga in an email. "We are committed to raising wages for all and giving working people a voice as they speak up together and work towards a better life." 3. Workers represented by unions have higher wages - The median weekly salary for union members was $980 in 2015. Workers not covered by collective bargaining agreements only had median weekly earnings of $776. 4. Union membership higher in public sector - The union membership rate for public sector workers in the U.S. was 35.2 percent in 2015. For private sector workers, it was 6.7 percent. 5. Membership rate higher among men - In 2015, the union membership rate for men in the U.S. was 11.5 percent. For women, it was 10.6 percent. "The gap between their rates has narrowed considerably since 1983 (the earliest year for which comparable data are available), when rates for men and women were 24.7 percent and 14.6 percent, respectively," the release stated. 6. African Americans have highest union membership rate - In 2015, black workers had a union membership rate of 13.6 percent. White workers were next at 10.8 percent. The rate for Asian workers was 9.8 percent and 9.4 percent for Hispanic workers. 7. Union members tend to be middle age -- "By age, union membership rates continued to be highest among workers ages 45 to 64," the report stated. "In 2015, 13.6 percent of workers ages 45 to 54 and 14.3 percent of those ages 55 to 64 were union members." CHAGRIN FALLS, Ohio - Lockout, Coy Lane: A neighbor called police after a nanny was locked out of the house by an 18-month-old child 11:14 a.m. Jan. 24. The nanny had taken another child outside to meet a parent for visitation when the younger one closed and locked the door. The fire department was able to open the locked door. Harassment, Walnut Street: A woman, 56, parked her car in her garage and shut the door before being surprised by an ex-boyfriend waiting there. She talked to him and later called police, seeking advice on Jan. 24. The man, 60, had also left a bouquet of flowers in her garage several days before that and had sent her text messages. False Information, Chagrin Boulevard: On a traffic stop a passenger was cited for giving police a false name, having an open bottle of liquor, not wearing a seat belt and concealing a digital scale for drugs in his shoe Nov. 22. The Cleveland Heights man, 21 was wanted on other charges and had given the officer his brother's name. He was transported to Mayfield Heights police for an earlier arrest warrant there. The Willoughby Hills driver was stopped for not having her rear license plate illuminated. She was cited for that as well as for not using her seat belt. Suspicious, Hillside Avenue: Seeing footprints around her home that suggested someone was looking in her windows, a woman called police 7:43 a.m. Jan. 20. She requested that an officer patrol the area later in the night in case the trespasser returned. Fire Call, West Street: A smoke alarm detected a problem at the Inn of Chagrin Falls 8:21 a.m. Jan. 19. The smoke detected was actually steam from a guest taking a shower. Harassment, West Washington Street: A Michigan man, 39, violated an out of state protection order by contacting family members up to five times per day. Police in Michigan were alerted to the complaint Jan. 20. The man is also due to appear in Chardon Municipal Court for harassing family members in Geauga County. ORANGE, Ohio -- Aggravated menacing, Orange Place: Police were dispatched about 9:30 p.m. Jan. 21 on a report of a man being held at gunpoint at Red Robin restaurant, learning upon arrival that an employee had apparently looked the wrong way at two customers while they were ordering food. As they were leaving, they told the Garfield Heights man, 24, "we got something for you." When he went outside to his car a short time later, they rolled up in a a green-colored SUV with one of them brandishing a gun and pointing it at him before he ran back inside. The suspects were described as being 18-20 years old and there were two females in the car as well. The case has been turned over to detectives, and as of Jan. 25, restaurant management was collecting video evidence. Fight, disturbance, Orange Place: Orange and Woodmere police responded around 9:30 p.m. on Jan 23 to Wasabi Japanese Steakhouse after an initial 911 hangup call with a lot a screaming in the background. This was followed by another call from an employee stating there was a fight with 10-12 people inside and outside the restaurant and some of them had walked out on their check. A vehicle parked in the lot may have been struck during the fracas, but police quickly settled the "verbal" dispute and all parties paid their bills within the hour. Followup investigation, Lander Road: Police received a phone call shortly after 1 a.m. from officers in Cleveland's 2nd District, regarding a stolen gun they'd recovered with accompanying persons of interest. Theft from building, East Meadow Lane: A resident, 45, filed a report of a stolen wallet on Jan. 23, although she was not sure where it had been taken from her. The wallet contained credit cards as well as her Social Security card, and police gave her information on protection against identity theft and fraud. Disorderly conduct, Orange Place: Police were called to the Extended Stay North motel shortly after 1 a.m. on Jan. 24 by a Mississippi man whose brother, 67, was highly intoxicated and belligerent. He remained uncooperative when an ambulance crew arrived for a physical evaluation and wound up being taken to the Beachwood Jail and being issued a summons for drunkenness. Unruly juvenile, Brainard Road: Police responded to a 911 call on the evening of Jan. 26 from a boy, 16, who threatened his parents after his mother disciplined him over an ongoing problem with getting to school in the morning. The boy said he overreacted and would handle the situation better in the future, with no further action taken by police. MORELAND HILLS, Ohio -- Suspicion, damage to property; Miles Road: A resident initially reported that two windows had just shattered in their home shortly before 4:30 p.m. on Jan. 23, and requested an officer to make sure that nothing had hit them. The responding officer spoke with the homeowner, and everything appeared to be clear in a check of the premises, at least until the next morning shortly before 9 when the resident again called 911 to report a wild turkey in the house that they couldn't get out. Then about five minutes later, the resident reported that the turkey had been removed from the house, and without crashing through any more windows in the process. Police concluded that the wild turkey had managed to conceal itself after the original ruckus, remaining in the house overnight. Other damage listed by officers included torn curtains and turkey droppings throughout the living room. Motor vehicle accident, South Woodland Road: At least one woman was sent to Hillcrest Hospital with a possible head injury after police and firefighters responded to a car accident around 10:45 a.m.on Jan. 24 at Route 87 and Hogsback Hill. A caller reported that the vehicle in front of her had spun out and to avoid going into the ravine, a collision ensued. There was also damage reported to a power pole, and officers from Hunting Valley were called in to assist by closing off both ends of the road and directing traffic for about an hour. Fire call (utilities), SOM Center Road: Emergency crews responded to an initial report of a blown transformer around 7:15 p.m. that was revised to a falling tree having brought down power lines on Route 91 near Mitchell Lane and causing a power outage in the area. Chagrin Falls firefighters remained on the scene blocking the roadway until a crew from the electric company arrived within about 45 minutes. Attempt to locate, Chagrin Boulevard: Within about 20 minutes of leaving the New Directions drug treatment facility, a female runaway was picked up just before 6 p.m. on Jan. 23, having covered some ground southbound on Lander Road near Harper. Looking at the world through the eyes of the Web Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, which became effective December 20, 2019. By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. 280116METEN CALLS FOR COMMUNITY SUPPORT By Aloysius Laukai The Officer in Charge of the Community Auxiliary Policing on Bougainville, Senior Constable Leslie Meten today called for community support from the people of Bougainville. Speaking on New Dawn FM, MR. METEN said that the Community Auxiliary Policing was established to help regular Police in maintaining law and order in the communities. He said regular Police cannot be everywhere at the same time therefore the Community Auxiliary Police officer represents them in the communities. MR. METEN said that the concept has worked well in Bougainville and he urged COE and village leaders to support and work with their local Community Auxiliary Police to maintain law and order in their communities. He said Policing work was the work of everybody but Police presence also helps stop small crimes from happening in the communities. MR. METEN also announced the 35 Community Auxiliary Police Officers are now undergoing a three-week training at the Hutjena Police Training facility. He said these 35 were selected from more than 100 applications throughout Bougainville. Ends Swooning Chinese stock markets have cast a pall on Asian equities this year but how are investors positioned? According to Goldman Sachs, money managers are still overweight Indian stocks relative to benchmarks, while concerns over capital outflows and worries about market positioning have dented demand for Chinese stocks. Asian stock markets have suffered hefty outflows since last summer when anxiety over the health of the Chinese economy started to rise. Year-to-date, Asian equities have seen a cumulative $7.7 billion-worth of foreign selling, with outflows across markets. Foreigners have sold $40 billion worth of emerging market (EM) Asian equities since the start of June, according to Goldman Sachs. India remains the largest overweight in Asia, although funds have reduced allocations recently. Still, the fact that a large section of the market still thinks Indian stocks will go just one way is a worry. "With India being a 'consensus long' and a strong overweight within regional/EM funds, investors are worried about potential positioning risks if 'flow pressure' persists, particularly in the light of elevated stock valuations and negative sentiment around EM assets," Goldman says. According to the investment bank, public sector banks and investment cyclicals are some of the Indian sectors with the strongest ownership levels. Investors of embattled commodities trader Noble Group on Thursday approved the sale of the company's stake in Noble Agri to Cofco for at least $750 million. Noble chief executive Yusuf Alireza told a shareholder meeting in Singapore that the unit had been making losses and that the sale would improve the liquidity and balance sheet of the company. Chinese food giant Cofco owns the remaining 51 percent of Noble Agri, which it bought for $1.5 billion in 2014. Cash proceeds from the sale of Noble Agri will be used to repay debt, Noble said in December. Moody's Investors Service and Standard and Poor's recently cut the company's credit rating to junk due to liquidity concerns amid a wider commodities rout. Fitch still has an investment grade rating on the firm. North Korea might be preparing for a long-range ballistic missile launch from its northwestern launch site, Kyodo News reported on Thursday, citing a government source familiar with the matter. According to the report from the Japanese news agency, the government source cited satellite imagery analysed over several days, and added that the launch could take place as soon as in a week's time. A possible test would follow close on the heels of the detonation of what North Korea claimed was a hydrogen bomb this month, a move that was condemned by the U.S., Britain, Japan, and China. The White House had said at the time that the initial analysis of the test showed not consistent with a successful hydrogen bomb detonation. The supposed action could be North Korea's response to the international sanctions expected to be imposed on the already impoverished country after its previous test, Kyodo News reported. At a meeting on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi agreed on the need for a significant new U.N. Security resolution targeting North Korea after its Jan. 6 nuclear test, Reuters reported Wednesday. North Korea's nuclear test violated a Security Council resolution and threatened the international nuclear non-proliferation system, Wang said, according to China's state-run news agency Xinhua The Kyodo report can be read here Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook. A worker stands next to a pump jack at an oil field Sergeyevskoye owned by Bashneft company north from Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia. Sergei Karpukhin | Reuters Russian officials have decided they should talk to Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries about output cuts to bolster oil prices, the head of Russia's pipeline monopoly said on Wednesday, remarks that helped spur a sharp rise in world prices. Oil futures surged more than 5 percent after the comments by Nikolai Tokarev, head of oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, which gave the strongest hint yet of possible cooperation between the top non-OPEC oil producer and the cartel to try to reverse a record glut. Brent crude rose by over $2 to $32.95 a barrel, after a session low of $30.83. It was also boosted by U.S. demand following a blizzard. But there was still a long journey from starting discussions to actual cuts by Russian oil producers, with many of them saying reducing output was technically very difficult and could lead to Russia losing market share to its competitors. Tokarev said oil executives and government officials meeting in Moscow on Tuesday had reached the conclusion that talks with OPEC were needed to shore up the oil price. "At the meeting there was discussion in particular about the oil price and what steps we should take collectively to change the situation for the better, including negotiations within the framework of OPEC as a whole, and bilaterally," Russian news agencies quoted Tokarev as saying. watch now "The main initiative is being shown by, of course, our Saudi partners. They are the main negotiators. That means that they are the ones we need to discuss this with first of all." He said output cuts would be on the agenda for talks with OPEC countries: "Yes, that is one of the levers or mechanisms that would allow us to in some way balance the oil price." An energy ministry representative confirmed to Reuters that possible coordination with OPEC had been discussed at the meeting, which the ministry hosted. "The meeting participants discussed the possibility of coordination of actions with OPEC members amid unfavorable market conditions on the global oil market," the Energy Ministry official said. Low prices pressure Oil prices have fallen from around $115 in the middle of 2014, causing problems for Russia's cash-strapped budget and pushing the Russian economy into recession. Some members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries want coordinated output cuts to push up the price, and they have been pressing Russia to play its part. watch now If discussions with OPEC begin in earnest, that would be a major reversal in Russia's stance. Russian production reached a new post-Soviet high in December of 10.80 million barrels per day. That puts it on par with Saudi Arabia, OPEC's biggest producer, which also pumps more than 10 million bpd. OPEC, which collectively accounts for a third of global output, failed to agree any cuts at a meeting last month, with the Saudis apparently determined to maintain their market share and drive out high-cost producers in the United States. Iran, previously kept from international markets by sanctions lifted this month, is also planning to increase its production rapidly into a world that produces 1.5 million barrels per day more than it consumes and has been running out of capacity to store it cheaply. So far, within OPEC, only Algeria and Venezuela have clearly expressed support for a production cut. However, Iraq, OPEC's second biggest producer after Saudi Arabia, also showed signs on Wednesday of softening its stance. Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters in an interview that Baghdad was ready to take part in an extraordinary OPEC meeting and even reduce its oil output if all OPEC members and non-OPEC producers agree. "It's interesting to see how the positions from both Russia and Iraq seem to be softening slightly - but I don't think it means a thing because the Saudis continue to say that they will only take action with collaboration from Russia, Iraq and Iran," said Societe Generale oil analyst Michael Wittner in New York. Industry reluctant Considerable obstacles remain to cutting Russian production. Speaking to Reuters before the meeting at the energy ministry took place, two senior officials said no groundwork had been laid for cooperating with OPEC on output. "There are not any measures on possibly cutting production being discussed now," said one of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Another official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, echoed that. "It is impossible to coordinate the process and stop production in Russia," the second source said. A manager at a top-four Russian energy firm said coordinated cuts would not be welcomed by an industry that was fighting the possibility of declining production because of a rising tax burden and ageing fields. "Russia has too much risk of seeing a natural decline anyway, without any agreed special steps," the manager said, playing down the possibility of agreed action. Another oil company source said: "We've heard nothing of any specific actions." * Agreement amending the mutual support agreement of mutual logistic support, supplies, and services between the United States of America and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, signed The watch now Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba's third-quarter revenue rose 32 percent, beating analysts' average estimate, helped by strong holiday sales. Alibaba's U.S.-listed shares were down about 1 percent Thursday. Oppenheimer's Internet analyst Jason Helfstein told CNBC's "Squawk Box" that the stock is moving down on concerns about the yuan. "It was a revenue and EPS beat, but the issue is that they got there on a higher take rate. The gross merchandise value in local currency is slowing. The growth rate has basically been cut in half versus a year ago," said Helfstein. "I think investors were looking for some more metrics around the stability of the business given concerns about the macro economy in China," Helfstein added. watch now RBC Capital Markets' lead Internet analyst, Mark Mahaney, told "Squawk on the Street" that he remains bullish on the stock despite concerns about China's economy. "I think the real key here is mobile monetization levels are really gapping up, and that's the new growth engine for Alibaba," Mahaney said. However, he said overarching China concerns will continue to weigh on the stock. "Even with the better-than-expected numbers, people may not want to make an aggressive bet on China right now," Mahaney added. Gross merchandise volume, or the total value of goods transacted on its platforms on China retail marketplaces, rose 23 percent to 964 billion yuan ($147 billion), its slowest annual growth rate in more than three years. Alibaba is trying to replace decelerating volume growth in online shopping by expanding in other areas. It offered $3.7 billion to become sole owner of Youku Tudou, known as China's YouTube. Online video users in the country are beginning to cough up money for high-quality online streaming services. But the majority of Alibaba's revenue still comes from China's online shoppers buying from domestic businesses, a business driven by growth in GMV. watch now Zmeel | Getty Images As if tax season wasn't already stressful enough, consumers increasingly have to contend with the possibility of fraud or identity theft involving their tax return. Tax-return fraud is a mounting problem. In 2013, according to a Government Accountability Office report released last year, the Internal Revenue Service thwarted $24.2 billion in fraudulent refunds requested but paid out $5.8 billion. That's before thieves filed a wave of fake returns last year, prompting Intuit to temporarily halt the transmission of all state e-file returns filed through its TurboTax product. Before hackers got their hands on more Social Security numbers through breaches, including the government's Office of Personnel Management and health insurers Anthem and Premera and before the IRS discovered a breach last spring in its own record-keeping application that exposed the records of an estimated 334,000 taxpayers. Scammers have whipped consumers into more of a panic, renewing efforts to steal data and cash by masquerading as IRS officials. Some scams play off the risk of fraudulent returns. Others threaten audits, fines, arrests and all manner of other dire consequences to victims who don't wire cash immediately or click through a link to confirm their personal information. You might see official-looking seals and language in an email that have been pulled from legit IRS communiques, or hear background noise in a voice mail meant to resemble a call center, said J.J. Thompson, co-founder and chief executive of Rook Security, an IT security firm. "This is people trying pretty hard to be successful at this," he said. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration last week went so far as to release a list of phone numbers known to be tied to tax scam calls. Even if you're not a victim, safeguards put in place at the federal and state level to thwart tax fraud could delay your refund or otherwise snarl your return. Last year, 36.2 percent of returns the IRS flagged for potential identity theft were legitimate returns, according to a new report from the IRS National Taxpayer Advocate. It took 18 weeks, on average, for those taxpayers to receive their refunds. Phishing calls and emails are the easiest tax fraud to avoid. Your best defense: Keep calm and think it through. "People see something from the IRS and they start to freak out," said Melanie Lauridsen, senior technical manager for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. "Panic sets in instead of thinking through things rationally." The IRS has said repeatedly that its first point of contact with you is going to be by mail. Not an email and not a phone call. Threatening a lawsuit or arrest isn't going to be a first, or even second or third, course of action, Lauridsen said. Don't click on any links in emails or call back any numbers left for you in a voice mail, said Thompson. That can compromise your computer and may increase the phone calls from scammers. The best bet if you think there's a legit threat or request that the government, your tax preparer, etc., needs you to address would be reach out to that entity directly through an email or phone number you know is legitimate. Heading off tax-return fraud is harder. Consumers who have previously been victims of tax-return fraud can obtain an IP PIN from the IRS that would make it more difficult for someone else to file using your information, said Lauridsen. For the rest of us, the only option is to file as early as you can. Dragging your feet until the April 18 deadline gives a thief more time to file and snag a tax refund in your name, and it delays any action to unravel the problem. Get all your receipts and documents in order so that you're ready to file as soon as all your W2s, 1099s and other records arrive, Lauridsen said. For the record: When April 16 is a Saturday, the District of Columbia observes Emancipation Day on April 15. This makes Monday, April 18, the regular due date for filing 2015 income-tax returns. But some taxpayers can't or shouldn't move fast, she said. While the bulk of forms must be issued in early February, some have later deadlines or could be corrected closer to the filing deadline. S-Corporations have until March 15 to issue Schedule K-1 forms to shareholders, for example. Diageo 's chief executive said the drinks giant was seeing good growth momentum across the business as it reported growth in first half sales, but the figure was weighed down by foreign exchange rates and the impact of the disposal of assets. Diageo, whose brands include Guinness, Smirnoff vodka and Johnnie Walker whisky, said organic net sales in the six months ending December 31 grew 1.8 percent, on 1 percent organic volume growth. The London-headquartered drinks giant said the weakness of many currencies against sterling, in particular the euro, the Venezuelan bolivar and the Brazilian real were only partially offset by the strengthening of the U.S. dollar. Shares of Diageo were trading 0.1 percent lower on Thursday. Speaking to CNBC on Thursday, Diageo's Chief Executive Ivan Menezes told CNBC on Thursday that he was pleased with the group's progress. "We've got very good momentum in the business and I'm pleased with these results...If you look under it, it's very broad-based. Our top six brands are all in growth and these are about half our business and they're growing about 4 percent." Menezes said that the Scotch whiskey part of the business was back in growth, its beer business grew 7 percent and the emerging markets grew 4.5 percent. As such, he noted that there was "resilience and momentum and that's why I have the confidence that this momentum will improve as we go into the second half and into the medium-term." watch now Japan's prime minister hastily ushered in a new economy minister on Thursday after the surprise departure of Akira Amari over bribery allegations but analysts expect little change in the government's stimulus plan. Nobuteru Ishihara, a former executive of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), is to take over as new economy minister following the surprise resignation of Amari over allegations that he pocketed bribes from a construction company, an accusation he denies. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he wanted 58-year old Ishihara, who has held several ministerial posts in a former government, to continue with structural reforms and revitalizing the economy. Speaking to the press, Ishihara said he intended to guide economic policy to spread the benefits of "Abenomics" to the real economy and small businesses, Reuters reported. "Abenomics" is the economic policy to boost competitiveness, spearheaded and named after the prime minister, that involves fiscal stimulus, monetary easing and structural reforms. Now all eyes are on the Bank of Japan's monetary policy meeting on Friday at which it is also expected to present its inflation outlook, with questions being raised over whether the central bank could up its stimulus measures. The committee's decision comes amid a period of tumult for Japanese assets, a strengthening yen hurting Japanese exports and low inflation forecasts amid a global slide in oil prices on top of the latest surprise to the economy with Amari's departure. Richard Cocchinos, director and FX strategist at Citi, told CNBC that there was a lot of market concern about the strength of the yen, currently trading at 118.88 against the dollar, and that analysts were watching whether the Bank of Japan could announce more stimulus when it outlines its latest decision on monetary policy and outlook for inflation on Friday. "There's a lot of concern about it (about the level of the yen) and, with the Bank of Japan on Friday, it's increased the market attention and focus," he said. "Ultimately, 'Abenomics' has set some very high bars and it's been moving towards them but it's been moving at a rate that most people just feel is too slow. and so while it's not the base case view of our in-house or even on the street there are some expectations on the street that the BoJ really needs to ramp up to help meet these goals that Abe has laid out so that's really the event risk we're facing on Friday," he added. David Bloom, global head of foreign exchange strategy at HSBC, told CNBC on Thursday that the new appointment would not change the Bank of Japan's strategy at all. "The Japanese experiment with quantitative easing (QE) is in full flow, their (the Bank of Japan's) balance sheet is nearly 75 percent of GDP, they're not turning their backs on it. They're going full out and it's not just one or two members (of the bank's monetary policy committee)," he said. "The big question is coming up on Friday when the Bank of Japan is meeting. Are they going to do more quantitative easing (QE)? When Mario Draghi, (the head of the European Central Bank) said the ECB would do more (by increasing stimulus), people started thinking that Japan would do more and markets started to rally and went risk-on. But I think Japan has also curtailed (that expectation)." Akira Amari Tomohiro Ohsumi | Bloomberg | Getty Images Ride-hailing start-up Lyft this week settled a proposed class-action lawsuit. The settlement offered drivers some concessions, but stopped short of reclassifying the drivers as employees. Identifying drivers as employees is a key sticking point for ride-hailing companies including Uber. The new crop of transportation companies recruit freelance drivers, essentially, who don't enjoy traditional workplace benefits such as health-care and work-related expenses. And despite Lyft's decision to settle on Monday, experts say the broader issue of potentially reclassifying drivers and workplace protections is far from settled. "None of these companies are going to shift the classification until they are forced to," says Catherine Ruckelshaus, general counsel at the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group. "It's too lucrative of an arrangement for the companies." Eduardo Munoz | Reuters Read More Uber, Lyft put pressure on taxi companies The Lyft deal still needs to be approved by a federal court in the northern district of California. Both the Uber and Lyft class-action suits were filed on behalf of drivers, who want to be considered employees. The reclassification would mean employee perks including benefits and reimbursement for related expenses. The reclassification of drivers as employees would also mean big tax implications for the start-ups. Uber's class-action suit is set for trial in June in California. Attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan, partner at Boston-based Lichten & Liss-Riordan, is representing drivers in both cases, and said the Lyft case was smaller in scale and impacted fewer drivers than the pending Uber class-action suit. "We have been contacted by thousands of drivers who are very upset with Uber, but I've only received a trickling of concerns or complaints about Lyft," Liss-Riordan said in an email message to CNBC. Uber declined to comment for this story. watch now A nation with technology at its heart, Japan is already home to a dizzying array of high tech gadgets, gleaming skyscrapers and even restaurants staffed by robots. When it comes to transport the country can also boast a proud record of innovation. Its Shinkansen network is famous for electrified, high-speed -- and safe -- train travel. Since 1964, the original Tokaido Shinkansen has carried around 5.6 billion people between Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka at top speeds of 285 kilometers per hour (177 miles per hour). On parts of the Tohuku Shinkansen, which runs between Tokyo and Shin-Aomori, trains can reach speeds of up to 320 kph. "The Tokaido line has always been Japan's main artery," Kousei Nakazato, from the Daiwa Research Institute, told CNBC's Sustainable Energy. "However, after the war, this line reached its full capacity of transport. It was decided that they needed to increase the capacity," Nakazata added. "Among many technologies, electric rail systems are very energy efficient: it is vastly better for both energy consumption and CO2 emissions," he said. According to the Network Rail which runs and maintains rail tracks in Britain electric trains are quick, reliable and "cause 20-35 percent lower carbon emissions than diesels," helping to boost air quality in urban centers. watch now Drugmaker Roche on Thursday reported full-year earnings and a dividend slightly below forecasts and said it expected sales to grow low- to mid-single digit in 2016. Shares in the group fell 2.7 percent in early trade. Severin Schwan, chief executive officer Roche Holding. Scot Eells | Bloomberg | Getty Images Core earnings came in at 13.49 Swiss francs per share for 2015, against forecasts of 14.1 Swiss francs per share and down 6 percent. The group said net income declined in Swiss franc terms due to a "major negative currency impact". Core earnings were expected to grow ahead of sales this year. The group also said it expected to further increase its dividend from 8.10 Swiss francs per share in 2015. CEO Severin Schwan said he was "very pleased" with the results, adding the group made significant progress in its product pipeline. It has the potential to launch eight new drugs over the next three years. Group sales increased by 5 percent, driven primarily by pharmaceutical sales in the U.S. - 47 percent of pharmaceutical sales are derived from the United States - and by strong demand for immunodiagnostic products. Turning to medicines which are coming off patent, resulting a reduced revenue streams, Schwan said in oncology the group saw promising data for cancer therapy but it is also entering new fields such as multiple sclerosis and asthma. "Overall I think the prospects are very good to replace the upcoming patent expiries," Schwan told CNBC. A logo of the Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Roche. Fabrice Coffrini | AFP | Getty Images Donald Trump is involved in yet another Twitter feud. This time it's with Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, a Saudi business magnate and owner of The Kingdom Holding Company. The Republican presidential candidate retweeted a photoshopped image of Al-Waleed and Fox news anchor Megyn Kelly on Thursday which included the following text: "Most people don't know that the co-owner of Fox News is Prince Al-Waleed of Saudi Arabia here with his sister and with host Mygan Kelly [sic]. In case you only watch Fox News and you missed it everywhere else. Google it." Tweet Representatives for Al-Waleed did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment. Al-Waleed, who is listed as one of the largest holders of 21st Century Fox stock, responded to Trump's post on Twitter. "Trump: You base your statements on photoshopped pics? I bailed you out twice; a 3rd time, maybe?" he wrote on the social media platform. Tweet In 1995, Al-Waleed's investment group bought a stake in Trump's Plaza Hotel in New York City a purchase valued at $325 million, according to the International Business Times. Previously, the Republican candidate's yacht was sold to a creditor and then bought by Al-Waleed. Shares of Xerox whipsawed in extended trading Thursday after The Wall Street Journal reported the technology company would split into two companies. Xerox would be divided into separate hardware and services companies in the split, which could happen as soon as Friday morning when Xerox reports earnings, sources told the Journal. Investor Carl Icahn would get three board seats at the services arm of the company, the sources said. "We think this is a major move and will greatly enhance shareholder value," Icahn told CNBC. "I have had several meetings with [CEO] Ursula Burns and applaud and respect her for doing what she believes shareholders want just as John Donahoe did with eBay and PayPal ." Xerox shares were down 1 percent in after-hours trading trading Thursday. Fayettevillebased COR Development Company is currently building the Aloft Syracuse Inner Harbor hotel. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: HOT) on Tuesday announced the hotel will open June 1. It also announced Element Syracuse, Starwoods second hotel at the Inner Harbor, will open in May 2018. (Eric Reinhardt / BJNN file photo) SYRACUSE, N.Y. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: HOT) has announced its Aloft Syracuse Inner Harbor will open June 1. Starwoods second hotel in the Inner Harbor, the upcoming Element Syracuse, will debut in May 2018, the company said in a news release issued Tuesday. Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the second hotel during the July 2014 groundbreaking for the Aloft hotel at the Inner Harbor. Stamford, Connecticutbased Starwood announced the opening dates in its release outlining its plans to grow its portfolio in New York from 12 to 22 hotels by the end of 2018 across its Aloft, Element, and Four Points brands. Fayettevillebased COR Development Company is currently building the Aloft hotel as part of the overall development project in the Inner Harbor. It will also handle construction of Starwoods Element hotel as well. The construction of the Starwood Aloft hotel continues as the City of Syracuse sues COR Development after COR had secured a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes deal with the Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency (OCIDA). COR had sought the tax deal for its ongoing Inner Harbor development project. The city contends COR deliberately sought a tax-relief deal from OCIDA to allow the company to avoid a community-benefits agreement with the city that would have required COR to provide project-related jobs to Syracuse residents, according to a Dec. 30 statement from the office of Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner. Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com Space News space history and artifacts articles Messages space history discussion forums Sightings worldwide astronaut appearances Resources selected space history documents advertisements Space shuttle Challenger's fallen flags and mission patches, 30 years later NASA distributed flags and patches flown on the ill-fated STS-51L space shuttle mission in 1986. Thirty years later, those plaques are not easily located on public display. (Smithsonian) January 28, 2016 The flags and patches were found the next day, floating in the Atlantic Ocean, among the debris from the fallen space shuttle Challenger. The nylon banners and embroidered emblems, packaged in watertight pouches, were intended for NASA employees and other supporters of the 51-L mission, to be distributed after Challenger and its seven-member crew returned from orbiting the Earth for six days. Instead, 73 seconds into the flight, a problem with a solid rocket booster resulted in the Challenger breaking apart. Originally put on the orbiter as mementos of NASA's 25th space shuttle mission, the flags and patches now took on a different role as memorials for the astronauts lost in the U.S. space program's first tragedy during flight. "This flag and patch were flown as part of the Official Flight Kit aboard orbiter Challenger, STS-51L January 28, 1986," read the walnut and aluminum plaques on which the flags and patches were mounted for presentation. Along the top of the plexiglas-covered displays were inscribed the words "In Commemoration" above portraits of the astronauts who died: Francis "Dick" Scobee, Michael Smith, Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka and Ronald McNair, Gregory Jarvis and S. Christa McAuliffe. NASA's STS-51L crew members pose for photos during a break in countdown training for their January 1986 launch. (NASA) Eight months to the day after the loss, NASA announced it would distribute a flown STS-51L patch, an American flag and a state or territory banner to each of the 50 U.S. states and territories. The space agency did not direct where the plaques had to go, but made a request that the mementos be "displayed appropriately in memorial to the crew." Now, 30 years later, where are those plaques today? Presenting the plaques NASA had the STS-51L flag and patch displays produced in time for the first anniversary of the accident in January 1987. Plaques were then distributed to the states over that next year. For example, astronaut Manley "Sonny" Carter presented the Challenger mementos to his home state of Georgia on Dec. 11, 1986. Governor Frank Harris accepted the plaque and said that it would be put on permanent display in the Capitol building in Atlanta, according to local news reports from that day. An example of the STS 51-L flags and patch plaques presented by NASA to the U.S. states and territories. (NASA) Two months later on Feb. 19, 1987, NASA astronaut Ken Cameron traveled to Hartford, Connecticut to present Gov. William O'Neill with the state's STS-51L flags and patch. "This plaque ... helps represent the spirit of exploration the spirit the crew lived by, believed in and gave their lives for ultimately," said Cameron, who as a boy spent a part of his youth in Connecticut, reported the Associated Press. The next month on March 23, astronaut Richard Richards was in Salt Lake City to present a plaque to the governor of Utah. "These flags will serve as a reminder of the tremendous sacrifice made by the seven astronauts," Utah's Governor Norman Bangerter said, noting the plaque would be held in his office until it could go on display in the Capitol building. A similar presentation was held in Idaho on May 1, 1987. "It will be put in an appropriate place where it will be seen by the people who come to the Statehouse to visit," stated Gov. Cecil Andrus after astronaut Jim Adamson presented the plaque during a ceremony held in Boise. Three decades later Despite statements about permanent displays at the time, it is not clear where many of the Challenger flag and patch plaques are today. Renovations to the buildings and just the passage of time may have contributed to some of the 51L memorials being relocated, statehouse representatives said. The curator for Utah's Capitol, for example, said that the plaque may have been exhibited in the building in the past, but after a 2004 restoration was no longer there. A recent search for the Challenger plaques located only a few on public display, including: New York : In Garden City, at the Cradle of Aviation Museum Ohio : At the Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta New Mexico : At the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo (currently in storage as the area where it previously hung is being renovated) The Challenger memorial flags and patch plaque presented to New Mexico, as temporarily held in storage at the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo. (NMMSH) NASA prepared similar plaques for organizations that flew items on board Challenger. For example, a small "Learning and Liberty" flag that was to have been flown in space for the National School Public Relations Association is now at the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas, Texas. Similarly a plaque displaying flown STS-51L and Air Force Satellite Control Facility patches was at one time displayed at the Onizuka Air Force Station in California until it closed in 2010. (The base, which was earlier known as Sunnyvale Air Force Station, was renamed in 1986 for the Challenger astronaut, a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force.) Perhaps the best known example of the memorial plaques is at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. On exhibit in the "Moving Beyond Earth" gallery, which is devoted to the history of the space shuttle, it was joined by a similar flown patch plaque after the loss of space shuttle Columbia on Feb. 1, 2003. Do you know where a Challenger memorial flag and patch plaque is displayed today? Please contact collectSPACE. 2022 collectSPACE.com All rights reserved. Her health was at risk. But in Missouri, doctors could do nothing. Best of Business 2022: Learn Who Won Our 15th Annual Reader Poll Local professionals chose their favorite business and professional services, products, healthcare, dining and more. Find out who their top picks are. January 26, 2015 Pediatric emergency medicine physician Dr. Yaser Alsaek treats 6-year-old Corterius Woods in the Emergency Department of the Spence and Becky Wilson Baptist Childrens Hospital. Parents Courtney Woods (left) and Tamasha Adams complete paper work. The hospital has been open for one year. SHARE Anita Vaughn, RN, CEO of Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women. January 26, 2015 The waiting room at the Spence and Becky Wilson Baptist Childrens Hospital features a diffused lighting. January 26, 2015 Unit Coordinator Cheryl Artis completes restocking supplies in the Emergency Department at the Spence and Becky Wilson Baptist Childrens Hospital. By Kevin McKenzie of The Commercial Appeal When the Spence and Becky Wilson Baptist Children's Hospital opened one year ago, plans called for 18 children a day arriving in its emergency room. In fact, "from the moment we opened, we averaged 40 a day," said Anita Vaughn, chief executive officer of Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women and the children's hospital that was added to it last year. Since September, when the "respiratory season" stoked by flu and other ailments arrived, the 10-bed pediatric emergency department has averaged 55 patients. It hit a one-day peak, so far, of 85 in early December, Vaughn said. From seeing about 7,000 children a year when pediatric emergency services were part of the adult Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis on the same East Memphis campus, Spence and Becky Wilson Baptist Children's Hospital will see about 16,000. "So I think we've definitely demonstrated there's a need," Vaughn said. That need has led to work underway to install two pediatric intensive care beds by April on the third floor of the women's hospital, transferring two of six adult slots for children's use, she said. "You just have to be able to have that service to be able to do some extra monitoring of kids and respiratory help," Vaughn said. Baptist Memorial Health Care Corp. officials also are counting on that need to convince state regulators soon that it's time to open the second floor of the children's hospital for pediatric intensive care unit beds. It was designed for a dozen, but data on demand will guide how many Baptist seeks. "It depends on the need, but it could be six or more," Vaughn said. The question was when, not if, the children's hospital would expand on the $14 million project completed a year ago, which included opening the first-floor pediatric emergency department and pediatric diagnostic area. With a total of four stories, the floors above are currently vacant. Longer term, Vaughn said more inpatient pediatric beds will be needed. Currently, there are 12 on the third floor of the women's hospital. Meanwhile, the Baptist Memorial Health Care Foundation has given $1 million to buy a two-patient transport van that will transfer children from all of the Baptist system's 14 hospitals in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi. It will take about five months for the ambulance-like van to be delivered, Vaughn said. The children's hospital startup, in combination with a women's hospital that delivers 5,000 babies a year, is seeing patients from "everywhere," she said. About 72 percent have health coverage through Medicaid, the federal and state government-funded program known as TennCare in Tennessee. The children's hospital has led to about 50 more positions, she said. It's recruiting for more doctors, such as pediatric intensivists, as well as nurses, among others. Baptist children's hospital startup is "a general hospital with some signature services," such as its ophthalmology program, Vaughn said. That's in contrast to the acute-care, regional trauma and academic Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, which first opened in 1952 and is part of the Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare system. Gillian Ray, vice president of external relations for the Children's Hospital Association in Washington, said that the models for children's hospitals are diverse. About 220 nationwide are members of the association. "There's a saying in the children's hospital community and that is if you've seen one children's hospital, you've seen one children's hospital," Ray said. Michael Gravois and Kim Justis in The Other Place at Circuit Playhouse through Feb. 21 SHARE By Jon W. Sparks The adage that suggests things are not always what they seem gets an intriguing examination in "The Other Place," opening this weekend at Circuit Playhouse. It tells the story of Juliana Smithton, a razor sharp drug company scientist whose life is spinning out of control. She's facing a divorce and her daughter has eloped, but worst of all, she's having lapses. For a controlled, smart and driven woman, it's more than disturbing. "She's worked very hard and climbed her way to a high rung of a ladder that's difficult for women to ascend," says Kim Justis who plays the role of Juliana. "To have achieved that amount of success in that world and suddenly find her strengths are disappearing is more than she can handle. She is in extreme denial that anything could be wrong with her." The play, written by Sharr White, won critical acclaim in its run off-Broadway and later on Broadway. The Circuit performance is helmed by veteran director Dave Landis, whom Justis credits for guiding her through the complexities of the play. "He's wonderful at working with actors and helping them get to scary places, because this play goes to some scary emotional places," she says. "The mystery starts at the very beginning. She's speaking directly to the audience and trying to work something out, but the audience has to go on the journey with her, through the confusion, and not until the end is it clear what's going on." Justis researched science and scientists to get to the core of her character. And the story itself presents mysteries as challenging as any scientific inquiry. "The way the story is told is not straightforward at all," she says. "It's like a vortex and you're traveling to an end point but having to go in circles to get there. It's dealing with the brain and with memory, and the way the audience receives it gives a feeling of disorientation. You'll get a truth, some fact, but then something will contradict that, so you're not sure whether what you're seeing is true or a memory or a fantasy or pure emotion. Juliana the narrator has welcomed you on this journey, but as you travel along, you're not sure who your guide is supposed to be." 'The Other Place' Jan. 29-Feb. 21 at Circuit Playhouse, 51 S. Cooper. Showtimes: 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays Tickets: $22 Opening Weekend (January 29, 30, 31), $30 Thursdays and Sundays, $35 Fridays and Saturdays. $22 Seniors/Students/Military. $10 Children under 18. Info: playhouseonthesquare.org and 901-726-4656. Juneteenth on stage A few years ago, Larry G. Batchlor created a short story and activity book for youngsters "The Juneteenth Storybook" that tells of several historic events during and after slavery in the United States. He joined forces with Levi Frazier, Jr., an Associate Professor of Communications, Graphics and Fine Arts at Southwest Tennessee Community College and a founder of the Blues City Cultural Center, to turn it into a stage play. This year's production is a limited run at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts with some 20 local actors in the cast playing roles from Abraham Lincoln to Barack Obama. "The stories of our ancestors who were snatched away from their homeland in chains of bondage has been told before," says director Jackie Murray, "but not in the way that these two playwrights have done it. They take us past that moment and propel us to today." 'The Juneteenth Story Musical Play' 10 a.m. and noon Feb. 4 and 10 a.m., noon and 7 p.m. Feb. 5 at Cannon Center for the Performing Arts, 255 N. Main. Tickets: $15; $10 students Info: thejuneteenthstory.com and Ticketmaster. Midori's brilliance Midori, the remarkable violinist who played with the New York Philharmonic when she was 11, continues to take the breath away. She played the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto last weekend with the IRIS Orchestra at the Germantown Performing Arts Center and from the first notes, there was something electrifying going on. I think I've figured out her superpower: She takes a note and carefully shapes it, investing it with exactly the right timbre, pitch and intensity, puts some polish on it and launches it out. Then on to the next one. But she is very, very fast. Her precision and luminosity made the beautiful Mendelssohn even more lovely and you knew you were hearing an extraordinary performance. The orchestra opened the concert with the rarely heard Symphony in C by Bizet, written when the composer was a mere 17 and showing a refreshing youthful exuberance but with plenty of sophistication. The second work was the stunning Symphony No. 1 by Elliot Carter, written in the middle of World War II, thoroughly American, never obvious and entirely glorious. Punk-Idiot It's not for me to judge Green Day, the rock band that turned out some catchy tunes and achy ballads, managed to affix the label "punk" or one of its hyphenates to itself and has marketed itself with considerable savvy. If you like its music, you ought to love "American Idiot," based on the hugely successful album and turned into a rock (punk-rock) opera. The story of three purposeless, angst-ridden dudes who make questionable choices plays out the eternal theme of disaffected teens through the filter of the generation that finds joy in Green Day tunes. There is no particular brilliance that makes it a musical for the ages, but the production at Playhouse on the Square does have oodles of existential hormonal energy, sex, drugs, punk-rock and roll, war and a nice resolution in the suburbs. Gary John La Rosa directs with an eye to detail and it's often a three-ring circus tableau with whirling dancers stirring up the onstage litter. Nathan McHenry carries a big vocal load as Johnny, the first among the singing threesome. Alexis Grace (the girl who's too good for him) and Dane Van Brocklin (evil St. Jimmy) give strong performances. There is a band stashed onstage, barely audible over the drums and there are lots of bright lights that are turned into the audience, apparently to annoy theatregoers. Otherwise, the punks rocked. Hawaiian Rib-Eye at Houston's SHARE By Michael Donahue of The Commercial Appeal I learned about the Hawaiian Rib-Eye while swimming in ravioli, lasagna and Italian sausage. Antonio Rossitto, a manager at Houston's restaurant, told me about the steak at the recent Italian Winterfest fundraiser. I asked Rossitto, one of the guests, to name one of Houston's most popular dishes. I don't think he blinked. "Hawaiian Rib-Eye," he said. "A 16-ounce prime rib eye marinated in pineapple, soy and ginger." That did it. I had to try it. It sounded great. This was a steak that tasted like I hoped it would taste. The sweet-and-savory tastes were perfectly balanced. I usually order my steaks rare, but I ordered this one medium-rare, and it was excellent. It came with a loaded Idaho baked potato. "Loaded" meant "butter, sour cream, bacon, cheese and chives," said my server Leslie Roby. The marinade also includes turbinado sugar, said Houston's general manager Ryan Gianola. The steaks are marinated for 72 hours, he said. Hawaiian Rib-Eye has been on the menu "forever," Gianola said. "It's one of our staple recipes." I wasn't the only fan of the steak that night at Houston's; former city mayor Willie Herenton also likes it. "The special glaze is what makes it different," he said. Delores Migliari, who was at a table near mine, said she orders the Hawaiian Rib-Eye once a month. She takes the leftovers home to her chihuahuas Buster and Puppy, but she washes off the sweet marinade and dries the meat with a towel before she serves it to them. I debated about taking the leftover pieces of my steak to my dogs, but there wasn't that much left. I ate just about everything on my plate, including the parsley garnish. When I was through eating, I felt like my potato stuffed. "That rib-eye steak will do it to you," said server Kat Smith. Houston's is at 5000 Poplar, 901-683-0915. Tom Courtenay and Oscar-nominated Charlotte Rampling are a long-married couple in a moment of crisis in 45 Years. IFC Films SHARE By John Beifuss of The Commercial Appeal For her work in "45 Years," Charlotte Rampling was named best actress of 2015 by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Society of Film Critics. She also is an Academy Award nominee. She was a smart underdog bet for the Oscar until this past week, when her unsympathetic and impolitic comments in reaction to the #OscarsSoWhite imbroglio scuttled her chances and cast something of a pall over the arrival of her new move in Memphis. (In an interview on European radio, Rampling said the controversy over the lack of diversity among Oscar acting nominees was "racist to whites.") But if Rampling the person disappoints, Rampling the professional does not. The British screen and fashion icon is present in every scene in "45 Years," in which she is a figure of aged elegance and quiet authority who commands attention even during the long, wordless shots that transform her face into a sort of Rorschach test for the attentive moviegoer to interpret. Adapted by British director Andrew Haigh (known for the 2011 romantic drama "Weekend") from "In Another Country," a 2001 short story by David Constantine, "45 Years" introduces viewers to the childless Mercers, Kate (Rampling) and Geoff (Tom Courtenay), a sophisticated (they read Kierkegaard and listen to Lee Hazlewood), comfortable, more or less healthy and apparently happily married couple preparing to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary in their picturesque home village in England. (The party will take place in a historic hall that the party planner tells Kate is "full of history ... like a good marriage.") Tension is introduced when Geoff receives news that the preserved body of his former girlfriend "my Katya," in his words has been discovered in the once inaccessible Alpine ice fissure where the woman plunged to her death in 1962. The information sends Geoff into a sort of reverie, as if he were unconsciously trying to recover the "heedless" days of his youth (he begins to smoke again); Kate becomes worried, annoyed and then distressed by her husband's reaction. From her behavior from Rampling's acting, in other words we become aware that Kate has begun to question the very meaning of her marriage (which is to say, her life). Was it an illusion? A compromise? A deception? A settling? A mistake? Although Geoff is often with Kate (and Courtenay gets a couple of tour de force monologues of his own), he is usually an indistinct or uncertain presence. He is sometimes off-screen, even when he's conversing with Kate, or he is photographed from angles that hide his face. His eyes often are obscured by his glasses, making him hard to read. The suggestion is that Kate is losing sight of Geoff, even as he sits in front of her. (Appropriately, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is the couple's theme song.) In general, "45 Years" is so understated that its few moments of overt commentary seem silly (Kate switches off her radio's oldies station in sudden anger when Gary Puckett & the Union Gap begin to sing "Young girl, get out of my mind," echoing her own thoughts about Katya). The most powerful scenes are hushed, and almost spooky in their civility and reserve. The emotional climax occurs when Kate discovers some old slides of Geoff's travels with Katya, and the woman's image at last materializes, like a ghost, forever young. Kate doesn't say anything, but her silence is a scream. '45 Years' Opens Friday exclusively at the Malco Ridgeway Cinema Grill. Rated R for profanity and brief sexual content. SHARE Tyrone Galloway By Stephanie Norton of The Commercial Appeal A Memphis man faces aggravated rape and aggravated kidnapping charges stemming from an assault that took place on April 10, 2015 in North Memphis. According to an affidavit, a woman was walking on Hollywood near Dexter when a car blocked her path. A man got out and grabbed her by the arm and forced her into the vehicle. The man drove the woman to a vacant home in the area of Harrison and Hollywood. Police say the man then forced the woman out of the car, struck her in the head and sexually assaulted her. After the assault, the man drove away and the woman walked to a friend's home, police say. The woman was treated at the Regional Medical Center for facial fractures, cuts and bruises. A sexual assault kit was collected at the Rape Crisis Center. Memphis police developed Tyrone Galloway, 39, as a suspect in a separate rape. His DNA was collected and sent to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation where it was matched to the April rape. The woman also identified Galloway from a photo lineup. Galloway was arrested Wednesday and is in jail on a $100,000 bond. October 12, 2015 - Shelby County chairman Terry Roland By Linda A. Moore of The Commercial Appeal Hoping to find a way out of Shelby County Schools' $1.3 billion retiree benefits obligation, County Commission chairman Terry Roland has called for an ad hoc committee that will include officials with the school system and county government. But the Memphis City Council, in a letter from its chairman Kemp Conrad, declined the invitation to join that committee. In the letter dated Jan. 21, Conrad said he appreciated the continued dialogue and applauded Roland for initiating a study of the issue. "Since the city of Memphis is not responsible for the OPEB obligations of the Shelby County Schools for its retired employees, we believe that you have aptly selected representatives of the entities that are directly impacted by the Shelby County Schools' OPEB liability," Conrad said in the letter. Council members also felt "strongly" that decisions about the OPEB liability would best be made by SCS and its only local funding body, the County Commission, he said. An opinion from the Tennessee Attorney General issued earlier this month stated that Shelby County was not responsible for the $1 billion OPEB (Other Post-Employment Benefits) obligation that originated with the defunct Memphis City Schools unless its legislative body voted to assume that responsibility. The opinion did not assign responsibility, although some in county government believed it should fall to Memphis. The city's legal officer Bruce McMullen has said the city would fight any legal actions to force it to pay. Conrad also noted in the letter that participating in the committee could prejudice the city's trial strategies in the event of litigation. Roland said he thinks it's best for the city, county and school officials to try to find a solution and believes the city and the school system might be able to combine OPEB obligations and find a way to shrink them. Still, he respects Conrad's position. "I'm not trying to back them into a hole. I'm just saying it would be to their advantage. We could turn around and walk away from it. The county and Shelby County schools could say 'Hey, this ain't ours'," he said. The committee will be chaired by Commissioner Melvin Burgess, who is audit committee chairman and a manager in SCS's business operations. "It's not about us and them," Burgess said. "You've got to look at the whole picture because it's a responsibility that the governments are going to have to deal with. If you go to get your tires checked you don't get one tire checked because it takes all four tires to run the car." Burgess would also like to bring in Tony Saunders, the chief restructuring officer for Wayne County, Michigan, and a member of the Detroit Financial Review Commission, to the committee. He expects to present an outline on committee operations next week. Harvey Kennedy, county CAO and an ad hoc committee member, said finding who is responsible for the OPEB debt may be the "billion dollar question," but other questions also need to be answered. "It would be nice to finalize whose responsibility that unfunded liability is, but the bigger issue is how we're going to deal with it," Kennedy said. "It's such a huge liability that paying our way out of it is out of the question." Follow more politics and policy coverage from the InforMemphis team on Twitter and Facebook. SHARE Lee Harris Steve Cohen Steve Basar By Ryan Poe of The Commercial Appeal Tennessee Senate Minority Leader Lee Harris announced Thursday that he wont challenge U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen for the District 9 seat in the Nov. 8 election. That could open the door to other challengers, including Republican Shelby County Commissioner Steve Basar, who said hell decide in late February or early March whether to run for the office. Harris, who has represented District 29 in Memphis since 2014, said he was approached late last year by several Memphians who wanted a new generation of leadership. Harris and Cohen, both Democrats, have supported each other in past elections. But after talking to voters, family and colleagues at the state-level, he said now is not the time for me to run for Congress. Instead, he said, hell focus on making progress on a Democratic agenda that includes education, criminal justice and public infrastructure reforms. Asked if he would seek federal office in the future, Harris laughed and said hes trying to get out of politics, but keeps getting sucked back in. I dont necessarily believe its in my best interest, or anyones best interest, to spend a very long time in politics, he said. Harris resigned his Memphis City Council seat in early 2015 to take Ophelia Fords former seat in the General Assembly. He faces reelection in 2018. Cohen was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006 after 24 years in the Tennessee Senate. He took 75 percent of the vote in the 2014 general election. Asked about Basars chances, Harris said he likes both Basar and Cohen, but would support the Democratic nominee. I think Cohen has been around for a long time, and I think hes going to be ready for any challenge, probably, Harris said. Basar, who doesnt face reelection until 2018, said Cohen has done a great job of beating back anybody who tries to run against him. From what Ive seen, it would be a very difficult race to win at this time, he said. For now, Basar said hes focused on local issues like education, and a murder rate thats going through the roof this year. Basars home on Kirby, south of Poplar, was moved out of District 9 in the last district redistricting. Basar said he would probably move into the district if elected. U.S. representatives are required to live in the state but not their districts. Follow more politics and policy coverage from the InforMemphis team on Twitter and Facebook.

August 25, 2015 - Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam leaves the Bert Bornblum Library at the Macon Cove campus of Southwest Tennessee Community College following an event to celebrate the Tennessee Promise program. (Mike Brown/The Commercial Appeal)

SHARE By Richard Locker of The Commercial Appeal NASHVILLE While Tennessee has reduced the percentage of its public college freshmen needing remedial help, large numbers of high school graduates still arrive inadequately prepared for college work, a report released Wednesday by the state comptroller's office concludes. In 2014, 75 percent of freshmen at the state's community colleges, 48 percent at the six Tennessee Board of Regents universities and 28 percent at the three University of Tennessee campuses did not meet their schools' criteria for college readiness in math, reading and/or writing, based on an analysis of available ACT scores, the comptroller's office of research and education accountability found. Public colleges and universities in Tennessee primarily use ACT scores to assess students' academic readiness for post-high school secondary education. UT Knoxville had the lowest percentage of freshmen 18 percent not meeting college-readiness guidelines, and Tennessee State University had the highest at 82 percent. At University of Memphis, 45 percent of freshmen were not college-ready. Among the state's 13 community colleges, Southwest Tennessee Community College in Memphis had the highest percentage of freshmen not meeting readiness guidelines at 90 percent, according to the report. The study analyzed college readiness of Tennessee students and the efforts underway to reduce the need for, and improve the effectiveness of, remediation on the state's public campuses. Remediation may be specific coursework to address weaknesses or supplemental assistance tied to a college-level course. TBR community colleges require additional noncredit coursework for students assessed as underprepared. Since 2010, Tennessee public universities cannot offer remediation courses but may include learning support as part of college-level courses. The report says Tennessee has several initiatives underway in K-12 schools focused on reducing the need for remediation by addressing students' academic weaknesses earlier. Programs are underway on college campuses to improve the effectiveness of learning support. The report says the state has shown progress in reducing the percentage of college freshmen assigned to remediation. In 2014, 68 percent of Tennessee community college freshmen were assigned to remediation courses, a decline from 77 percent in 2011. Thirty-three percent of TBR university freshmen in 2014 were assigned to entry-level college courses that included some form of learning support, a decline from 43 percent in 2011. The full report is online at http://www.comptroller.tn.gov/OREA/ Rep. Jeremy Durham, R-Franklin (right) speaks with reporters following a House Republican caucus meeting on the opening day of the second session of the 109th General Assembly Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016, in Nashville, Tenn. Durham has survived an effort to oust him from his leadership role among state House Republicans. House Republicans voted to eject the media from their caucus meeting Tuesday before a motion to remove Durham as majority whip failed to receive two-thirds of the vote in a secret ballot. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey) SHARE State Rep. Jeremy Durham awaits the start of a House Republican Caucus meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, in Nashville, Tenn. Durham announced that he would withdraw from the GOP caucus to avoid distractions amid a sexual harassment investigation. (AP Photo/Erik Schelzig) By Erik Schelzig NASHVILLE State Rep. Jeremy Durham is taking a leave of absence from the Tennessee General Assembly amid calls for his resignation and the Senate speaker's allegation on Thursday that he had an affair with another lawmaker. House Speaker Beth Harwell also asked the Tennessee attorney general to launch an independent investigation of Durham that could become part of an effort to vote the second-term Franklin Republican out of the House. Durham earlier this week stepped down as House majority whip and later withdrew from the House GOP caucus altogether amid several women's allegations of inappropriate behavior by the lawmaker, both in person and via text messages. No formal complaints have been filed by the women. Durham has denied any wrongdoing, but has received permission from Harwell's office to take up to two weeks of leave from the Legislature to seek unspecified treatment. Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, on Thursday added to the growing furor surrounding Durham by alleging that the married lawmaker had an affair with another lawmaker, causing her to resign last month. He criticized Durham for trying to blame news media coverage for the negative attention he has received. "The press didn't force somebody to send text messages after midnight asking for pictures. The press didn't force somebody to have an affair with another state rep, and force them to resign," he said. Republican Rep. Leigh Wilburn of Somerville Wilburn resigned just one year into her first term due to unspecified "unforeseen circumstances." She hasn't spoken to reporters about her decision to step down, and through a relative declined comment on Ramsey's claims. A Durham spokesman said in an email that the lawmaker "categorically denies having any physical relationship" with Wilburn. Harwell, who has called for an overhaul of the House guidelines on sexual harassment, said Attorney General Herbert Slatery's report could become part of the record "if and when an expulsion resolution comes before the House of Representatives." She told reporters earlier in the day that she hopes it doesn't have to come to that. Harwell has been joined by several other prominent Republicans urging Durham to consider resigning from the Legislature, including Gov. Bill Haslam, state GOP Chairman Ryan Haynes and Ramsey. The sexual-harassment allegations followed earlier revelations of Durham's questionable behavior. In 2014, Durham wrote a character reference on behalf of a youth pastor who pleaded guilty to child porn possession and statutory rape of a 16-year-old parishioner. Earlier that year, prosecutors had sought prescription fraud charges against the lawmaker, but a grand jury declined to indict Durham. Haslam told reporters after a Tennessee Press Association speech Thursday that it's time for Durham to go. "I don't know how Jeremy can serve his constituents under the current conditions," the governor said. "I think it'd be better for him and better for the state if he would resign." Durham graduated from the University of Memphis School of Law in 2008, according to his LinkedIn profile. 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CW Developer Network API series - MongoDB: Overcoming the API dilemmas of the real world Adrian Bridgwater This is a guest post for the Computer Weekly Developer Network API series written by Vivek Bhalla in his position as senior manager of market intelligence at enterprise open source 'developer data ... IT workers are challenging the replacement of U.S. employees with foreign visa holders. Lawsuits are on the rise and workers are contacting lawmakers. Disney workers who lost their jobs on Jan. 30, 2015, are especially aggressive. There's a reason for this. The Disney severance package offered to them did not include a non-disparagement clause, making it easier for laid-off workers to speak out. This is in contrast to the severance offered to Northeast Utility workers. The utility, now known as Eversource Energy and based in Connecticut and Massachusetts, laid off approximately 200 IT employees in 2014 after contracting with two India-based offshore outsourcing firms. The employees contacted local media and lawmakers to pressure the utility to abandon its outsourcing plan. Some of the utility's IT employees had to train their foreign replacements. Failure to do so meant loss of severance. But an idea emerged to show workers' disdain for what was happening: Small American flags were placed in cubicles and along the hallway in silent protest -- flags that disappeared as the workers were terminated. The utility employees left their jobs with a severance package that included this sentence: "Employee agrees that he/she shall make no statements to anyone, spoken or written, that would tend to disparage or discredit the Company or any of the Company's officers, directors, employees, or agents." That clause has kept former Eversource employees from speaking out because of fears the utility will sue them if they say anything about their experience. The IT firms that Eversource uses, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, are major users of the H-1B visa. But staying silent is difficult, especially after Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) co-sponsored legislation in January 2015 that would hike the 65,000 H-1B base cap hike to as high as 195,000. The measure, known as the I-Squared Act, left some of the former utility IT employees incredulous. They were far from alone. The 200,000-member engineering association, IEEE-USA, said the I-Squared bill would "help destroy" the IT workforce with a flood of lower paid foreign workers. Eventually, Blumenthal's staff did learn, confidentially, about the experiences of former Eversource IT workers. In November, Blumenthal co-sponsored new H-1B legislation by longtime program critics, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), designed to prevent the replacement of U.S. workers by H-1B visa holders. Nonetheless, Blumenthal remains a co-sponsor of the I-Squared Act, which raised questions among those laid off about his intentions. "He is still co-sponsoring everything," one former Connecticut utility worker said about Blumenthal. The worker asked not to be identified because of severance package limitations. "He is totally unbelievable." Blumenthal was not immediately available for comment. Leo Perrero, an IT worker at Disney who was laid off after training his foreign replacement, says non-disparagement agreements hinder the debate over the H-1B visa. Without such agreements, "you would have a lot more people speaking out - real human beings with real stories, not just anonymous persons speaking out," said Perrero. "Their freedom of speech is being taken away from them with the non-disparagement agreements," he said. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee wanted to hear, last year, from IT employees who had been displaced by H-1B workers. It also wanted them to testify. It reached out nationally to affected employees, but had to settle for written testimony that was kept anonymous by the committee. The workers were too afraid to speak publicly. In December, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who is also the chairman of the Immigration subcommittee, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), introduced an H-1B reform bill that includes a prohibition against non-disparagement clauses. The bill "would prevent employers who seek access to the (H-1B) program from requiring American employees to sign so-called non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements." The agreements can prevent "American employees from discussing potential misuse of the program publicly." Non-disparagement clauses are common in severance agreements. But the Disney severance did not have one, and had no prohibition against any claims or lawsuits, said Sara Blackwell, an attorney representing former Disney IT workers. It is unclear why the company went this route. Fear of jeopardizing new employment also keeps many displaced IT workers quiet. But lawsuits alleging discrimination and racketeering are being filed on behalf of displaced IT workers. Brian Buchanan, a former Southern California Edison IT worker, is another who trained his foreign replacements. He is now part of a lawsuit alleging discrimination by Tata Consultancy Services, one of the IT services firms used by Edison. He is also included in a lawsuit challenging the U.S. government's decision to allow spouses of some H-1B workers to seek employment. That lawsuit argues that the added workers will hurt the job market for U.S. workers. Buchanan, who has contacted lawmakers about the impact of the H-1B programs, sees "little progress" in the past year. "Americans are going to have to act and they are going to have to act in mass, because we are fighting a huge, unseen force," said Buchanan. Eversource was asked about the non-disparagement agreement, and had this response: "These are private arrangements between affected employees and our company that were made more than two years ago during a period of transition and change in support of our merger. We have successfully moved on to form a new organization focused on providing superior service and value to our customers." But many IT workers hurt by offshore outsourcing have not been able to move on. Former employees at Disney, Edison and Eversource tell of financial strains, tapped retirement funds and an inability to find a job, or to find one that pays close to what they once made. Workers will say, anecdotally, that they know of many former co-workers who are now struggling. The H-1B workers tend to be younger, and the displaced ones, older, they say. "It's hard to start over at 50 when no one wants you," said one former Edison IT worker. That worker is still searching for a job. A SECURITY exercise has been condemned as 'irresponsible' after a dummy bomb sparked a major security alert at Charles de Gaulle airport. The alarm was raised when FedEx workers discovered a pressure cooker filled with screws and bolts in a freight package from America that was destined for Tunisia, Le Parisien reports. A search revealed more devices, along with what appeared to be detonators. But the devices were decoys bound for the US embassy in Tunisia that were being used for a training exercise, a security source at the airport told the newspaper. This kind of transit is not common but sometimes place, the unnamed source said. It's just the first time that a parcel has been opened. Frederic Petit, the CGT representative for FedEx at the airport, was unimpressed. It is irresponsible", he said, "especially in the very state of emergency" declared after the November attacks. "Nobody was aware of this cargo." He added that FedEx employees were demanding answers from their bosses, and also said they were calling for such parcels to be banned from France. Photo: Eric Salard / Flickr What Briton has ever been called so many different kinds of Tsar? The press cant decide, just now, whether to confer on Louise Casey the title of Equality Tsar or Integration Tsar. Both titles have been used this week as this most unusual and outspoken civil servant presses ahead with David Camerons mission to end the segregation of British Muslims, and thereby, it is hoped, the propensity of some of them to join ISIS. Casey is also Troubled Families Tsar, and under Tony Blair, served as Homelessness Tsar, Respect Tsar and ASBO Tsar. Like the Tsar of All the Russias, she doubtless possesses a number of subsidiary titles which are less often used. When a Prime Minister finds himself faced with an intractable social problem, he sends for Casey. The exception to this rule was Gordon Brown, who at first declined to recognise her abilities. For as Casey told Decca Aitkenhead of The Guardian: I was seen and it isnt true as Blairs girl. Blair and the Social Exclusion Unit was of its moment for me, and I had an awful lot of access and power. That wasnt the same under Gordon, cos I was seen as Blairs girl. But thats life, isnt it? By the end of his time in office Brown saw the error of his ways, and made her Victims Commissioner. But this week it is her work with Muslims which is attracting attention. The Sun was so impressed by her remarks on Monday evening, at the launch of Policy Exchanges Demography, Immigration and Integration Unit, that on Wednesday it printed extracts from them: We need to talk about the elephant in the room. We need to talk about equality. I am not happy that women growing up in this country are not treated as equals by ANYBODY. They can be a Muslim imam, they can be a bloke they just met on the bus I dont really care. I am a woman in the 21st century and I am equal to any man. That is the message we need to have. And if there is a particular religion or party that isnt prepared to sign up to that, why does that trump what we fought so hard for here in this country to make sure every woman has a vote? For me, this isnt a Muslim issue. This is an equality issue. I spent an hour yesterday with one of the leading experts on forced marriages. These are happening and it is appalling. Yet we let some of it happen because we are so politically correct in wanting our multicultural Britain that we forgot to talk about equality. We forgot to talk about womens rights. We forgot to talk about the fact girls should not, from the age of eight, be promised to somebody else. I dont care if it is only five girls. That is five too many. This is not just about particular communities needing to integrate. It is about people on the other side who have been hand-wringing and I will come at that with some force in our review. I am not going to ignore the fact there are evil people paedophiles, internet groomers, IS who go for our children. We need to talk about that. This is a characteristic intervention by Casey. We find here her crudity of tone; her spontaneous and good-hearted emotional engagement, prompting her to say what others would only think; her indignation with hand-wringing liberals who have let down vulnerable people; and her ruthless clarity about the way to integrate Muslim communities, which entails deploying one liberal value (equality) against another (multiculturalism). She has simplified an almost impossibly complex problem, and cut through the inhibitions which would immobilise a more polite, gentle and sophisticated person. As a man of conservative instincts, I cannot help feeling a twinge of sympathy for the conservative-minded British Muslim leaders against whom Casey, with her vulgar but inconveniently perceptive and fashionable insights, has now been deployed. She meets them with the full backing of the Prime Minister. They decline to shake her hand. She inquires, in the course of their conversation, why they have refused to shake her hand. Is it that they regard women as inferior? Is that why she was shown in round the back, via a flight of exterior steps? They know they cannot reply that they regard women as inferior. They do not even know how to explain that they regard women as different. And they do not have a sufficiently confident knowledge of English society to throw the question back at Cameron. He went to a school which to this day only admits boys. Oxford and Cambridge only admitted, for about seven centuries, men, and have only in the last few decades opened their ancient colleges to women. The Church of England has only just discovered that women can be priests, and the Church of Rome has yet to take that view. Not, these conservative-minded Muslims might argue, that English society can be regarded as in any serious way religious. Look at the depravity with which so many young people behave! Surely young Muslims, whether male or female, need to be protected against that? None of this can the Muslim elders express, especially as they find themselves in the humiliating position of not being in full control of their own young people. Instead they are exposed to the blow-torch of Caseys self-righteous feminist liberalism. And behind her stands Cameron the muscular liberal, who declared with implacable self-righteousness in his New Years message: When our national security is threatened by a seething hatred of the West, one that turns people against their own country and can even turn them into murderous extremists, I want us to be very clear: you will not defeat us We will take on the underlying poisonous narrative of grievance and resentment And we will have greater confidence in, indeed we will revel in, our way of life. Because if you walk in our streets, learn in our schools, benefit from our society, you sign up to our values: Freedom. Tolerance. Responsibility. Loyalty. In an earlier period, one would have called Cameron a muscular Christian. His active Anglican faith gives him the confidence to speak with such marked asperity and conviction: that and his even more important knowledge, inherited from a long line of Mounts (his mothers family), of what constitutes good behaviour, and how outrageous it is to have the sheer bad manners, the ingratitude, to try to blow us all up. Casey is the perfect instrument for Blair and Cameron to attempt (in a way that they half hide even from themselves) to remoralise English society (I leave Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland out of this, for despite their Scottish connections, Blair and Cameron are essentially English figures). She cannot be dismissed as a priggish, over-privileged public schoolboy who is preaching at the rest of us. There is nothing in the slightest bit priggish about her: in her way, she is a bit of a roaring girl, foul-mouthed and irrepressible and generous. She grew up in Portsmouth, started out in life as a benefits administrator, made her name as deputy director of Shelter, and in 1999 became head of the Rough Sleepers Unit: the Blair governments instrument for getting homeless people off the streets. Casey declared that giving money to beggars was misplaced goodwill, since 86 per cent of them were on drugs. Nor was there any point in giving them soup and sleeping bags, so they could live a little more comfortably on the streets: that just perpetuated the problem. Her brilliant career as a provider of tough love to the disadvantaged had begun. In 2005, she nearly sank herself by giving an ill-advised after-dinner speech to some police officers. Casey amused them by insisting that government ministers make better decisions when pissed: doing things sober is no way to get things done. She went on: If Number Ten says bloody evidence-based policy to me one more time Im going to deck them one and probably get unemployed. A recording of this speech became public and there were demands that she be sacked. But Blair stood by her and her reputation for saying out loud what others would only think became unassailable. A Conservative who has had much to do with her over the last few years told ConHome: She may be the best single civil servant Ive ever met. Whats so brilliant about her is shes actually completely unlike a civil servant. She doesnt care about structures and processes and hierarchies. She believes in getting things done. And shes quite critical of the over-socially-conservative elements that are holding those Muslim communities back how victim culture, blame culture, isnt good enough, and we need to start being brave enough to say when things arent acceptable, arent right. Some more orthodox civil servants detest her. They regard Caseys ability to charm people as no compensation for her brutishness. They complain that she ingratiates herself with influential women by taking them out to breakfast and becoming best buddies with them. And they regard her as quite unsuited to investigating the delicate and complicated question of what relationship there is, if any, between the social conservatism, and the isolation, of some Muslim communities, and the recruitment of terrorists. But Casey, who is now 50, would not still be around if she were useless to the powers that be. Last July, Cameron gave a speech in Birmingham about how to defeat Islamist extremism, in the course of which he said: I can announce today I have charged Louise Casey to carry out a review of how to boost opportunity and integration in these communities and bring Britain together as one nation. She will look at issues like how we can ensure people learn English; how we boost employment outcomes, especially for women; how state agencies can work with these communities to properly promote integration and opportunity but also learning lessons from past mistakes when funding was simply handed over to self-appointed community leaders who sometimes used the money in a divisive way. Louise will provide an interim report early next year. And we will use this report to inform our plans for funding a new wider Cohesive Communities Programme next year, focusing resources on improving integration and extending opportunity in those communities that most need it. The language is liberal, but the intention is to build one nation: as in the 19th century, liberalism and nationalism are regarded as allies, each of which strengthens rather than contradicts the other. Cameron is much more serious about this than some of us have realised, and so is Casey. Garvan Walshe was National and International Security Policy Adviser to the Conservative Party until 2008. In Barcelonas El Born market, the visitor is treated to an exercise in nation building that would make Alex Salmon proud. Now a museum, the old market halls floor has been excavated to show the outline of old city streets: rough stones piled perhaps five feet off the ground trace grand merchant houses and butchers shops that stood before they were razed following the Bourbon victory in the War of Spanish Succession, to provide clear fields of fire from the citadel constructed to the citys north west to, as the phrase of the time had it, overawe Barcelonas populace. Crisp modern displays explain the Borbonic repression of Catalans, their institutions, culture and language. Their struggle had commanded the hearts of Europe, even prompting unsuccessful military intervention by, among others, Englands Whig administration; their failure would usher the Tories back to power in London for the first time since the revolution of 1688-1689. The romantically inclined might find this historically incomplete story of freedom-loving Catalans futile struggle for independence against austere Counter-Reformation Castile echoed in later conflicts and finally in the notorious Civil War of 1936-1939. A conflict won, once again, by the forces of Catholic reaction led by the generalisimo Francisco Franco. Needless to say, no army of occupation, conscripts fingers hovering over triggers, grim-faced officers hovering over them sets road blocks on the Ramblas, any more than the Queens dragoons patrol Glasgows George Square. This time the dispute is about money. Cataluna, to use its Castillian name this time, is one of Spains most prosperous regions. Independence-minded Catalans see themselves as more advanced and efficient than the rest of Spains inhabitants and resent bailing out what they consider to be the corrupt and backward Madrid elite. Since democracy returned to Spain in 1978 however, Catalan nationalism has been a conservative, business-minded force. So conservative indeed that in the 1990s, the Catlan Convergencia i Unio (now Convergencia Democratica) party saw fit to support the government of the conservative Partido Popular. No leader of the SNP would contemplate doing the same thing for a Tory administration. Their difficulty lies in producing a conservative constitutional revolution. Unable to obtain enough support for independence on the centre-right they have been forced to make a pact with the decidedly left-wing stream of republican Catalan nationalists, who these days go by the name of CUP. Together with the CUP, Convergencia won a slender majority of seats in a snap regional election called last November, after the supreme court in Madrid ruled an independence referendum unconstitutional. At this point, the CUP, very much the junior partner in the nationalist coalition, turned the screw, and prevented the regions parliament from nominating Arur Mas, Convergencias leader, as the regions president. The ostensible reason was Mass role covering up allegations of corruption by the previous Convergencia leadership, involving suitcases of cash being deposited in secret accounts located in the tiny Pyrennean principality of Andorra. Though Mas did not succeed in being appointed president, his replacement, Carles Puidgemont, is very much Mass man. Divisions between Convergencia and CUP extend to the constitutional question on which they are supposedly united. The more radical CUP want to begin the process of independence immediately. Convergencia would prefer to negotiate terms of independence, and, sensing they lack a democratic mandate, seek support in a referendum before going any further. Pro-independence parties won only 47.8 per cent of the vote: as the unionist opposition has noted, they called a plebiscitary referendum, which they then lost. That is not perhaps a problem for the radicals of the CUP, but the attack tells against the conservative Convergencia. To go for independence without a referendum would be illegitimate even to themselves; but to hold an illegal referendum is equally difficult. To be sure, the flags scattered on balconies and behind windows and planted atop hills are Catalan independence ones red and gold stripes fringed by a white star on triangular field of blue but the silent or indifferent majority is still for staying put. With a power vaccuum in Madrid (where an inconclusive election has yet to produce a governing coalition), now might appear to be the nationalists chance, but its one they are unlikely to be able to seize. The lesson here, as in Quebec and Scotland, is that this kind of luxury nationalism, undertaken to fulfil a sense of identity, not to protect people from colonial oppression, struggles to get across the line. With no Bourbon troops to impose daily humiliation, the nationalists risk losing their opportunity for ever. You, as a consumer, no doubt think cheap oil is great. It has reduced the price of gasoline to levels not seen in nearly a decade. But perhaps nothing so perfectly illustrates the gulf between the interests of Wall Street and Main Street as falling oil prices, because Wall Street definitely doesn't see it the way you do. In recent weeks, stock prices have moved in tandem with oil prices. Oil prices plunge, so does the stock market. Oil prices rally and stocks surge. Bloomberg News does an excellent job of explaining why Wall Street has such a different view of oil prices, and it boils down to this: too many institutions made big bets that oil prices would keep going higher. You could say they bet the bank on it. Shale producers had to borrow a lot of money to fund their operations. That debt paid high interest rates and was eagerly purchased on Wall Street. Sound familiar? Remember the housing bust? A similar thing happened during the early 2000s housing boom, when subprime mortgages in particular were prized for their high interest rates. At the time, very few people thought home prices could actually go down. But they did. In 2008 bad mortgage bets nearly sank the economy. Today's nervousness is due in part to the fear that bad oil bets pose their own systemic risk. So when oil prices get so low that U.S. producers can't be profitable, the people who have bought their debt get very nervous. Making matters worse, in Wall Street's eyes, consumers are saving lots of money at the gas pump but aren't spending it. Instead, they're saving it for heaven's sake, or paying off their credit cards. So the complaint is that consumers are benefiting from low oil prices but aren't sharing the wealth, so to speak. Economists rightly point out that this can be a problem. Since the Great Recession, the one area where the U.S. economy has enjoyed strong growth has been in the oil industry. Now that industry appears to be going down for the count, and with it the huge contributions it has made to the nation's economy. It was hoped that the extra money flowing to consumers through lower gas prices would get spent elsewhere, providing a lift to the economy. That isn't happening, so the net effect is the slowdown in the oil industry has produced a drag on the overall economy. Weak growth But instead of blaming consumers for socking away the money they are saving at the gas pump, perhaps economists might better explain why the U.S. economy, absent the recent contribution from the oil industry, is so weak. Why haven't other sectors recovered? And why is it up to consumers to take up the slack? Maybe one of the reasons Wall Street has been so volatile this month is the realization that there doesn't seem to be much there to backstop the economy when the oil industry isn't providing the economic growth it has over the last few years. Was it always this way? Definitely not. But in the first quarters of the last two years, the U.S. economy has contracted. Will it be the same this year? If so, there may be a lot of blame to go around. But it may not be fair to blame American consumers who have finally caught a break in the form of lower gas prices. Limited company contractors failing to take action over pensions auto-enrolment face steep fines even if they believe that their business is exempt. Contractor Wealth's pensions and investments expert Angela James warns contractors that by ignoring letters from the Pensions Regulator regarding auto-enrolment, they could be fined 400 for a first offence, rising into the tens of thousands for ongoing offences. The vast majority of limited company contractors are exempt from pensions auto-enrolment but they still need to tell the regulator, highlights James. This means contractors should be proactive and, if they have not received a letter already, tell the regulator about their companys status. How can contractors be exempt from pensions auto-enrolment? According to James, the exemption criteria are quite straightforward: A contractors limited company will be exempt from auto-enrolment if: There is only one director and there are no employees working for the company The only people working for the company are directors and no one has an employment contract The only people working for the company are directors and only one person has an employment contract The company has ceased trading For any other reason the contractor believes they do not have auto-enrolment duties. In James experience, nearly all classic contractors, including both one person companies and husband and wife/civil partnership teams, are exempt. Only those with growth ambitions who have hired employees will need to take action. Every business in the UK has whats known as a staging date, which is the deadline by which the business must have taken action on pensions auto-enrolment. For many UK businesses, that means setting up an approved pension scheme, but for most contractors it means telling the Pensions Regulator that they are exempt. Contractors must be proactive, if the regulator does not make contact In theory, the Pensions Regulator should write to every business to tell them the staging date and ask what actions they plan to take about auto-enrolment. However, James urges contractors who have not heard to be proactive: It is the company owners responsibility to comply with the legislation, not the regulators. So, contractors should go online and find out their staging date. Having determined whether they are exempt or not, and what action they plan to take as a result, they should then write the regulator informing it of their status and plans. For most contractors, this will be a letter confirming they are exempt and the reasons why. What happens if a contractors company is not exempt? Businesses that are not exempt may have to set up a group scheme for their employees, such as the Governments NEST workplace pension scheme and the employer must subsidise the scheme. This is costly and requires a payroll system and middleware that can regularly report to the regulator that auto-enrolment is up and running. There is little cost to running a personal pension arrangement, as an alternative to a group pension scheme, continues James. There are no benefits to the employer of running a group scheme, except that the costs and contributions made to employees are tax deductible. An employer can use personal pensions that are paid for by the company, tax deductible, are much more flexible for the worker and do not have the costs of a group scheme. Contractors who do not already have a personal pension funded by their limited company should take advantage of the tax breaks pension contributions enjoy, as well as planning for a comfortable retirement. James concludes: The key thing is knowing what their staging date is and what action they need to take. Contractors cant ignore auto-enrolment and it is the company owners responsibility to comply. Failure to take action could be very costly. Kashmiris As Hostages! By Mohammad Ashraf 28 January, 2016 Countercurrents.org (M J Akbar, the well-known journalist turned politician has spoken the Truth, Kashmiris have to be kept as hostages for the safety of Muslims in Secular India!) Before one comments on the assertions of Mr. Akbar, let us examine if India is really a Secular State. This fact can be straight away ascertained from the Constitution of the Republic. The concerned part of the constitution which deals with religion, Article 25 is reproduced below: 25. Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion. 1. Subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions of this Part all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion. 2. Nothing in this article shall affect the operation of any existing law or prevent the State from making any law:- (a) regulating or restricting any economic, financial, political or other secular activity which may be associated with religious practice; (b) providing for social welfare and reform or the throwing open of Hindu religious institutions of a public character to all classes and sections of Hindus. Explanation I:- The wearing and carrying of Kirpans shall be deemed to be included in profession of the Sikh religion. Explanation II:- In sub-clause (b) of clause reference to Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to persons professing the Sikh, Jain or Buddhist religion, and the reference to Hindu religious institutions shall be construed accordingly. The most important question is how the State has constitutionally empowered itself to throw open religious institutions of Hindu character only unless it was sure that it would always be a Hindu State? Apart from this, the State itself uses Hindu customs and rituals for starting various official functions. Hinduism is overtly and covertly reflected in all institutions and the actions of the State especially of those at the helm right now! Till the last government set up, the discrimination of Muslims was more or less a covert operation. There were few overt incidents like the demolition of the Babri Masjid. However, the new State set up is brazenly anti-Muslim in most of its actions. They are simply an extension of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or the RSS whose founder Golwalkar was rabidly anti-Muslim. Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, also known as Shri Guruji. Golwalkar was the supreme leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, He wrote, Bunch of thoughts and We, or Our Nationhood Defined. Narendra Modi has written a biographical profile of Golwalkar in his book, Jyotipunj. He considers Golwalkar to be one of his inspirations. According to Rajeshwar Dayal, the Chief Secretary of the United Provinces in 1947-48, Golwalkar had planned to carry out a Pogrom of Muslims. Golwalkar in his book writes about non-Hindus : The non-Hindu people of Hindustan must either adopt Hindu culture and language, must learn and respect and hold in reverence the Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but of those of glorification of the Hindu race and culture ... In a word they must cease to be foreigners, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatmentnot even citizens' rights. RSS is now giving practical shape to these ideas of Golwalkar through their nominee, Narendra Modi. There is a certain class of Muslims in India who by their actions and speech try to be proverbially More loyal than the King! They have probably not seen the report about the state of their fellow Muslims. The most authentic report has been given by Rajinder Sachar. He says in his report that the Muslims in India are in a condition worse than even the Dalits, the lowest caste among Hindus. A paragraph about the report given in Wikipedia is reproduced: The report showed the growing social and economic insecurity that had been imposed on Muslims since independence sixty years earlier. It found that the Muslim population, estimated at over 138 million in 2001, was under-represented in the civil service, police, military and in politics. Muslims were more likely to be poor, illiterate, unhealthy and to have trouble with the law than other Indians. Muslims were accused of being against the Indian state, of being terrorists, and politicians who tried to help them risked being accused of "appeasing" them. One need not recollect the story of Kashmiris as it is universally known. They are in no way related to the happenings in the sub-continent except by being accidentally dragged into the Hindu-Muslim divide of the sub-continent at the time of the partition by the manipulation of the British and some Indian leaders. However, in view of their history, their right to self-determination has been accepted not only by the Indian leaders at the time of the partition but by the whole world through various resolutions, declarations and actions of the UN Security Council. Connecting this with the fate of Muslims in India is the most ridiculous thing and a virtual blackmail indulged in by these so called Muslim supporters of Modi! It is really unfortunate that a person who was earlier a staunch supporter of the rights of Kashmiris has now turned against them and is advocating their retention even against their will for the pseudo-secular image of India to safeguard the future of the Muslim minority. There cannot be worse commentary than this for the worlds so called largest democratic and secular republic! Mohammad Ashraf, I.A.S. (Retired), Former Director General Tourism, Jammu & Kashmir Rohith Vemula Is Not A Depression Story Mr. Manu Joseph! By Shubhda Chaudhary 28 January, 2016 Countercurrents.org Poverty then is a factor, not a cause. Farmer suicide is a depression story, not an economics story. Tibetan monks who immolate themselves in protest against China are a depression story, not a political story. Suicide bombers are a depression story, not a radical-Islam story. Rohith Vemula, from all evidence in plain sight, is a depression story, not a Dalit story, says Manu Joseph, the noted Indian journalist. With an egregious statement like this, he revokes the same obnoxious contempt caused by historical masterpieces like The End of History and the Last Man is a 1992 book by Francis Fukuyama or Samuel Huntington in The Clash of Civilizations, which academicians are still trying to refute. Joseph becomes the typical organic intellectual described by Antonio Gramsci who speaks for the interests of a specific class, seeking to win consent to counter-hegemonic ideas and ambitions. Foucault rightly states that a theorising intellectual . . . is no longer . . . a representing or representative consciousness. The intellectuals role is no longer to place himself somewhat ahead and to the side in order to express the stifled truth of the collectivity. And Manu Joseph, unfortunately has failed, miserably, in being the right intellectual that India wants. To start with, what is a Dalit story? Isnt it quite iniquitous to reduce the worth of a human, into a story, a narrative which is not indelible, just a casual occurrence, incapable of empowerment or emancipation? Its like re-creating The Other in terms of political dialectics, which can be sneered, tormented or berated without understanding the context of it? On December 18, Vemula had written a letter, by hand, to the vice-chancellor, stating, Please serve 10 mg of Sodium Azide to all Dalit students at the time of admission. With direction to use when they feel like reading Ambedkar and Supply a nice rope to the rooms of all Dalit students. Cant we understand the context of it? Joseph writes that people tend to give an inordinate importance to the suicide note. Well, if it was not the suicide note, how would we know about the malpractices being carried out against Dalit students in Hyderabad University? How would have we known the prejudices and the influence of extraneous forces, apart from the utter ineptitude of the administration. He even asks But, as unpleasant as this question might be, did Vemula face such an extraordinary atrocity or tragedy? Perhaps, for Manu Joseph, the fact that Rohith along with four other comrades were expelled from the struggle, were surviving in the make-shift tent in the campus, just because of alleged assault on one Nandanam Susheel Kumar, the president of the HCU unit of the ABVP, which was never established. All the official inquiries, doctors testimony and the witnesses confirmed that it did not take place. So, what happened to him, was it justice? Or in his own words, what is an extraordinary tragedy anyway? Or is it justice to what happens with thousands of farmers who commit suicide, especially in Vidarbha in Maharashtra, every year? Trying to dispel their agony behind the case of depression or alcoholism, the government has anyway been trying to render them invisible. No one talks about the land grab, the corruption of allocation of government funds, the politics behind the very nomenclature of who can be a legitimate farmer or why they are unable to repay their loans? No one talks about thousands of widows who are left behind, incapable of any government support after her husband suicides, just because, he might, in the governments eye, be a farmer or was suffering from depression. There are millions of stories like these, which are never uttered or believed because its easier to dispose them. Quite erroneously he states that In a country where most people can be termed farmers, it is not anomalous that most people who kill themselves would be farmers. Well, perhaps he does not know that after the farmers suicide, the family needs to fill up a 40 page questionnaire that question his identity and even if, on one single point, there is a loophole, the government denies money to the family, irrespective of how meager the amount might be. Leave the suicide, does Joseph understand the tribulation and agony that a family needs to undergo in order to establish that the deceased was a farmer? Manu Joseph also compares the case of Rohith with that of Deepika Padukone who recently openly accepted that she was suffering from depression. Comparisons like these call for an utter laugh. On one hand, you have a celebrity, having all the facilities, paparazzi and limelight, who has control over her life and her decisions, who above all is not a victim. On the other hand, you have Rohith, who was a Dalit activist, who in his entire life had weighed the burden of his identity, who did not have control over how his identity is perceived, who was an outcast. How can an aberrant comparison like this even have an iota of intellectual thought? Meanwhile, Manu Joseph comes from a state (Kerala) that has the highest suicide rates in India. Also, he should not reduce depression and suicides to only Dalits. Its just a tremendous attempt for Dalitisation of politics because it is nothing beyond it. The notion itself tries to manufacture consent that suicides take place within Dalits, as if the upper castes do not commit suicides. Dont they? Clearly dogmatic about his view, Joseph further reiterates that the fact that thousands like him who face far worse do not end their lives, points to one dominant influence. The nature of clinical depression is that it is in constant search for reasons to bring the pain to a close. One must ask him, how many so-called Dalit stories has he heard which were emancipated? Officially, does the state even reveal the deaths of Dalits or farmers or suicide bombers, be it in context or numbers? Its the misfortune of todays era, especially in Indian context, that to cause a protest, an agitation, or for that matter, to be taken seriously, someone needs to die. Death, here rewards, only posthumously. It's sheer shame that Manu Joseph could have been so insensitive when scholars like P. Sainath, Meena Kandaswamy, Subhash Gatade, Ravichandran Bathran are voicing their support, lamenting at the death of a bright student intellectual who loved science and stars, idolized Carl Sagan and thought minutely about his own existence. It reveals how deep-rooted casteism is indoctrinated within our mental faculties that even the idea of the other can agonize it to the level that it can create its own fabricated Dalit Story. Along with dealing with Rohiths death, Joseph also casually talks about clinical depression as if its just another disease, reducing its deep-rooted scars and pain that it causes to a human soul. He certainly does not understand what clinical depression is, a fact that is quite evident from his superficial reading of it, perhaps accidental or occasional. Research worldwide, including in India, suggests that at least one in five women and one in 10 men suffers from major depressive disorder at some time in their lifetime, states Dr Shamsah Sonawalla, consultant psychiatrist. There are thousands of Indian citizens, in fact 1 in 10 Indians, who navigate through jagged decades of health and work, tormented by troubled moods and disturbed brains, alternating between full-blown agitation and wakeful lucidity, causing heartbreak to their loved ones and challenges to their doctors. Does the nation care? Perhaps, not! So then, Manu Joseph, if Rohith Vemula, from all evidence in plain sight, is a depression story, not a Dalit story, we would be truly unfortunate to witness when a Dalit story in your vocabulary does take place. P.Sainath has rightly French writer Victor Hugo wrote that there is nothing on earth that can stand in the way of an idea that has come. In India in 2016, I think that time has come. And the idea, is justice: social, economic, cultural, gender and for Rohith and a billion other Rohiths. So, Mr. Joseph, this is a desperate attempt to pawn your idea and gain attention. Nothing else. Nothing can be so disappointing than your disparaging remarks to the unfortunate suicide of Rohith Vemula. My argument is, instead of trying to fit the episode in your own fabricated theory, please come with a solution. Nothing else really matters because India would soon forget Rohith, as it did with Nirbhaya. The chaos, views, rebuttals will suddenly end. If we need to more forward and make a concrete change, we dont need your recycled verbatim but a solution. Shubhda Chaudhary is a PhD scholar in International Relations at JNU. She is also working with think tanks in Abu Dhabi and South Africa. Email Id : shubhda. chaudhary@gmail.com Report Of The International Peace Delegation To Syria Led By Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate 28 January, 2016 Countercurrents.org Our Peace Delegation spent five days with the people of Syria, visiting the cities of Damascus, Homs, Tartus, Qara, and Maaloula. Our Delegation was led by Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate, who jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976, for her work in helping end the violent ethnic/political conflict in Northern Ireland. The purpose of our visit was to meet and listen to the people on the ground and see the situation for ourselves. The invitation was from the Melkite Greek Church Patriarch Gregorious III and the Church acted as our hosts. We also received an invitation from Mother Agnes Mariam, the Superior of St. James the Mutilated Monastery, and Sheikh Sharif al Martini, the Senior Leader of the Al Nuaim Tribe in Aleppo and a member of the Syrian League of the United Nations in Syria, and an active member of the National Reconciliation Initiative. During the visit, we met hundreds of people, local and national political leaders, government and opposition figures, local and national Muslim and Christian leaders, members of reconciliation committees, and internally displaced refugees. We also met numerous people on the streets of towns and cities Sunni, Shia, Christian, Alawite all of whom feel that their voices are ignored and under-represented in the West. Our Delegation were very thankful to our host Patriarch Gregorios III Latham, and his very good friend Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun. We were received most graciously by both clerics and their stories and insights helped our Delegation get a deeper and new perspective on Syria and the ongoing violent conflict inflicted on the Syrian people. Patriarch Latham explained that Syrian Muslims and Christians not only dialogue with each other but their roots are inter-twined with each other as they have lived together over l436 years. He believes that Syrians can offer something the West urgently needs: The whole world is losing a model of people living together. We Muslims and Christians have been living together over l436 years without wars, despite disagreements and conflicts..over the years peace and co-existence have outweighed controversy. In Qara, Christians and Muslims live peacefully side by side, and Muslims helped to rebuild the churches after the occupation by Daesh. In Syria we saw that Christians and Muslim relationships can be more than mutual tolerance, they can be deeply loving. We learned too that Syrians do not describe themselves as Sunni, Shia, Christian, Alawite but first and foremost they are Syrian and proud of their Secular State which is made up of so many diverse religions and traditions. We experienced this in the village of Qara, when we visited the Mayor and City Councilors, Red Crescent, Church and Mosque, and people who witnessed to the co-existence of Muslims and Christians. They told us that the Syrian conflict is not a religious war, or a civil war as portrayed in Western Media. It is a proxy war fuelled by outside intervention and carried out by foreign fighters from over 80 countries and rebels, as was witnessed by their own village which was invaded and partly destroyed by Daesh (IS) fighters. In Qara they witnessed to the invasion and destruction of their village by Daesh (IS) foreign fundamentalist extremists who killed many people and destroyed homes, church and mosques. It was nearby Qara, in the Monastery the delegation spent 3 nights where only 8 km to the west and 23km to the East, Daesh fighters operated, and our sleep was disturbed each night by artillery and gunfire just fifty yards away, in an exchange between soldiers and Daesh fighters. To travel in Syria, and listen to the Syrian people is to hear a different narrative from that heard in the West. The Western main stream Media continues to demonize President Bashir Al-Asad- and continue with their policy of Regime Change, as they did in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan. In Syria, we talked to politicians, of all parties, Imams, Christians, the Majors of local towns and people in the streets. Some fervently supported their President. Others were critical, but everyone agreed that at the moment he is the key to Syrias survival. Even his opponents accept that around 70% of Syrians support Assad. Imposed regime change would bring chaos and a victory for fundamental extremists, undermining Syrias neighbours, Lebanon and Jordan, as the anarchy of Libya has brought instability to Egypt and Tunisia. Our delegation learned from the Grand Mufti of Syria, (who is known for his peacemaking and love of Christianity), that he continues to be refused a visa to visit the UK and he appealed to us to help in this regard. He offered to pay his own way in order to be able to visit the UK and other countries to speak about the situation in Syria and encourage peace and reconciliation in solving the crisis. He invited Spiritual Leaders of all faiths to visit Syria to see the situation for themselves. (During our visit the Archbishop of Canterbury supported the UKs war call to strike Syria, much to our Delegations disappointment when meeting so many Religious leaders in Syria all calling for peace and a nonviolent solution to the Syrian crisis and looking to their Religious/spiritual brothers/sisters around the World, to support them in their call for peace and reconciliation. We also visited the Christian Town of Maaloula, where Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is still spoken and it is one of the oldest Christian towns in the Middle East. We visited the Catholic Church of St. George and the priest explained how after their church was burned to the ground by Western backed rebels, and many Christians killed, the people of Qara, carried a table onto the ruins of the Church, and after praying started to rebuild their church and homes. Sadly also in this place some muslim neighbours also destroyed christian neighbours homes and this reminded us all of the complexities of the Syrian conflict, and the need to teach nonviolence and build peace and reconciliation. It also brought us to a deeper awareness of the plight of not only moderate Sunnis from Daish, but the huge nos. of Christians now fleeing from Middle Eastern countries, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, etc., and that if the situation is not stabalized in Syria and the Middle East, there will be few Christians in what is called the cradle of civilization and birth of Christianity and where followers of the three Abrahamic Faiths lived and worked as brothers and sisters. The middle east has already witnessed the tragic and virtual disappearance of Judaism, and this tragedy is now happening at an alarming rate to the Christians of the Levant. In the old city of Homs, we had a meeting with members of the reconciliation committee, which is led by a priest and a sheikh. Meeting by candlelight because of regular power blackouts, we heard how Christians and Muslims in the town had been instrumental in the rehabilitation of fighters who chose to lay down their arms. In Conclusion: Before leaving Syria on 29th November, 2015 our delegation issued the following call to the International Community, and we reiterate this call in the hope it will help bring closer the day of Peace and Reconciliation for Syria. What gives us great hope for the future of Syria are elements that still exist in the country after nearly five years of war. These include: 1) The active participation of women in the affairs of the country; 2) the fact that education is greatly valued and so is free; 3) the freedom of religion and the strong cohesion as a result; 4) the respect shown for the two mainstream faiths, namely Islam and Christianity, evidenced by the fact that Eid Festivals as well as Christmas and Easter are all national holidays. 5) the commitment of Syrians to preserving ancient relics and a common heritage they are custodians of. We call on the International community to protect the territorial integrity of Syria and to respect the fundamental rights of Syria as a Soveriegn State. We deplore any intent to breach the integrity of Syrias frontiers or to damage the unity and rich diversity of the Syrian people. We recognize the legitimacy of the aspirations of the Syrian citizens for change, reforms and an end to all violence and we support those working for the implementation of a democratic life that respects and protects the fundamental rights of all citizens and we believe that effective and lasting reforms can only be achieved through nonviolent means. Our primary appeal is that all countries stop their interference in Syrian affairs, more specifically, that they halt the supply of arms and foreign combatants. If foreign countries agree to stop the influx of arms and fighters, we are confident that Syrians can finds their own solutions to their problems and achieve reconciliation. We consider it beyond debate that the Syrian people have the right to determine their own government and their own future. Foreign interference is currently preventing the Syrian people from exercising their right to self-determination. We are concerned that such pernicious intervention is tearing apart the fabric of the country itself, with long-term consequences that can only be imagined. The cautionary examples of Iraq, Libya, Yemen and other countries serve to remind us of the dire consequences of such international folly. This humanitarian crisis is already spilling into neighbouring countries. A collapse of Syrian society will destabalize the entire region. We appeal to the international community that it can learn from history and make better choices in the case of Syria which will spare further tragedy for the courageous Syrian people. Secondly, we appeal to the international media to stop the flow of misinformation regarding the Syrian conflict. The bias in reporting on Syria means that the vast majority of Syrians who support peaceful change are rarely given a voice in the outside world although their concerns and fears would be shared by many of us. The strength of Syria, as well as its weakness, is its rich mosaic of faiths and ethnic groups. All of these need to be heard and reflected in the international coverage of this crisis. Mendacious reporting can contribute to the tearing apart of the fabric of Syrian Society, just as it would own own, wherever we are. Thirdly, we urge the international community to review and reconsider the crippling sanctions that are taking such a heavy toll on Syrian people. It is well-known that sanctions led to the death of hundreds of thousands of children in Iraq. As a result of sanctions, people die and communities are impoverished. Like the people of Iraq, the people of Syria have done nothing to deserve such cruel collective punishment. Fourthly, we urge the international community to take seriously the vast number of refugees and persons who have been internally displaced by this conflict. They need to be given support, a tolerable life and hope if the vast haemorrhage of refugees from Syria is not to destroy the future of this country. We appeal to the entire religious community to call the faithful to nonviolence and peacemaking, and to reject all forms of violence and discrimination, and we express our admiration and respect for the many Syrian religious leaders who have refused to endorse the use of violence and have dedicated their lives to working for a peaceful solution to this conflict. In conclusion, we pay tribute to the Patriarch Georgios III Latham and Grand Mufti Ahmad Bedridden Hassoun for their inspirational work for peace and reconciliation for Syria, and the Patriarch for his kind invitation to our delegation. Our delegation would like to express to Mother Agnes Mariam and Sheik Sharif Martini, our deep gratitude and appreciation for their help and assistance to our delegation. Our delegation agreed that the Syrian people are exhausted and traumatized. Everyone wants an end to the war. Only an inclusive political solution that involves all parties to the conflict, particularly the Syrian President and Government, will solve this conflict and bring Peace and Reconciliation, so urgently needed by the courageous Syrian people. Signed by all Members of the Delegation as follows: Mairead Maguire Ireland; Ann Patterson, Ireland ; Rev. Andrew Ashdown, UK; Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, UK; Marco Santi, Belgium; Feroze Mithiborwala, India; Justinya Bajer, Poland; Shrikant Ramdas, India; Sharmine Narwani, Canada/Iran; Maria Monomenova, Russia. (Alan Lonergan, Ireland, was also a delegate but due to unforeseen circumstances was unable to accompany the delegation to Syria. However, he remained in Beirut and acted as Press Officer, on behalf of the Delegation). Mangrove Cells Hasty Actions Risking Several Thousand Slum Dwellers Housing Rights In Mumbai By National Alliance of Peoples Movements 28 January, 2016 Countercurrents.org Bhim Chhaya slum in Kannamwar nagar, Mumbai Mumbai | 28th January, 2016: The Mangrove Cell of Maharashtra Forest Department was formed in the year 2012 with an objective to conserve and replenish the mangroves in the state of Maharashtra. This was a welcoming step taken by the Maharashtra Government; however, the few actions being taken by the Cell to realize its objectives are arbitrary and disappointing. The Cell is following an order of the Bombay High Court as the basis to target slums near mangrove areas. After clearing all these slums, the Mangrove Cell comes up with fancy headlines in the newspapers crediting itself for the increase in the mangrove cover in the state. Unfortunately, the Cell forgets to acknowledge the atrocities committed against all those citizens including the women and children, whose houses it demolishes. It is destroying decade old shanties without giving any thought to the fact that their action would render thousands of people homeless and severely affect their livelihoods. It is much more objectionable and unacceptable that the Cell does not even spare those slum dwellers that are currently protected by the law and have a claim on that land. The Bombay High Court, on 6th October, 2005 passed an order in the PIL filed by the Bombay Environment and Action Group, an NGO, that all mangrove areas and the land within a distance of 50 meters from the mangrove areas be declared as protected forests (Govt. lands) and forests (private lands). The Court also directed the government to immediately stop all construction and development activities taking place on all such land. The order was to come to effect immediately after its issuance, which means that all the structures standing on such land after the issuance of the order are illegal. However, the Mangrove Cell is targeting even those slum dwellers that are protected by the cut-off-date of 1.1.2000 set by the Maharashtra Government Resolution dated 2nd July, 2014. This means that the Cell is trying to demolish all those shanties which came into being more than five years prior to the issuance of the order, which is not what the Hon. High Court directed the state to do. The Court had ordered that all the mangrove areas be declared as protected forests and forests under law, however, it may be possible that in order to implement the order effectively, the state government decided to declare such lands as reserved forests instead of protected forests. In case of protected forests, as per Indian Forest Act, 1927, such land can have that status for a maximum period of 30 years and certain amount of human interference can be allowed but in case of the reserved forests, such provisions are unavailable. In other words, in case of protected forests, every activity except those specifically prohibited, is permitted, while for reserved forests, every activity except those that are permitted, are prohibited. But before declaring any land as reserved forests, it is the duty of the Forest Settlement Officer to settle the rights of the people who have been occupying that land which is to be so declared. Ensuring the prima facie legality of the rights claimed by the occupants of that land, the Forest Settlement Officer can exempt that part of the land on which the rights are claimed, from being declared as reserved forests and take over the rest of the land as per the Land Acquisition Act. Without letting the Forest Settlement Officer exercise his power, the Mangrove Cell is hell bent on evicting the people on land notified as reserved forests. This hasty action of demolishing the slums by the Mangrove Cell is depriving people of their housing rights, while the people could claim their right on that land before the Forest Settlement Officer if the procedure under law was followed. Bhim Chhaya slum in Kannamwar nagar, Mumbai We had trusted the Chief of the Mangrove Cell in one case of slum demolition at Malvani no. 8, Malad, Mumbai, where he said that he would not let those shanties which were in existence prior to the issuance of the order be demolished. The Chief is relying on the maps prepared through a satellite study by the Maharashtra Remote Sensing Application Center, specifying mangrove areas in the year 2005. However, when his staff had come down to demolish the shanties in the notified regions as specified in the maps; they evicted the whole slum at Malvani. An official, who was asked about this wrongful act, had shamefully admitted that once in action, they cannot distinguish between the old and the new houses or those lying perfectly on the boundaries of the forest and outside. This indicates that they are also incapable of locating the notified regions on the ground from the maps. So when there is a high risk of peoples housing rights being affected by this action, why is the Cell not allowing the Forest Settlement Officer to exercise his power, which would ascertain the legal and illegal occupants of land before the Mangrove Cell takes any action against the unjust encroachments? It shows the political expediency and the callous attitude of the Cell towards the poor toiling masses and their rights. The inappropriate action taken by the Mangrove Cell has been pointed out to the Chief of the Cell himself, the Collector, Mumbai Suburban District, the Nayab Tehsildar of the Divisional Commissioner Office, Konkan Bhavan and the Sub Divisional Officer of the Eastern Suburban, Mumbai who is a Forest Settlement Officer of this region. However, little cognizance has been taken so far and because of no proper communication among these authorities, the Mangrove Cell freely taking actions. Several thousand slum dwellers are still under threat of eviction but the exact numbers are still unknown as the Cell is not revealing those. Around 2500 shanties have been demolished in Navi Mumbai as was repoted in the Indian Express on 5th December, 2015: 36-sq-km growth in mangrove cover in 2 years: FSI report. 600 homes demolished in Malvani, Malad in June 2015. More slums in Kannamwar Nagar, Cheetah Camp, Colaba are under threat of eviction. There could be several other such instances near the mangrove areas. The Cell is unable to put forth all the facts and its plans which also indicate its biases and flaws. On the other hand, Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan had submitted a report to the Collector, Mumbai Suburban District, who is the chairman of the District Coastal Zone Monitoring Committee, specifying several structures which have come up on the mangrove areas after the issuance of the Courts order. On questioning the Cell on such a discrepancy and discrimination, as also enquiring about any action against elite structures over the past ten years, there is almost no response. No information is received about the action taken against non-slum structures as gross encroachments even after six months of submission of the report! These actions by the state government clearly expose its callous and biased attitude towards the poor. On one hand the Government is showering chunks of land to celebrities and for cow shelters but on the other hand it considers the poor of the city too insignificant to get any land for housing, neglecting and disrespecting their valuable contribution to the life and services to the city and its economy. Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan will continue its struggle for the housing right of the urban poor in Mumbai and against the anti-people approach and structured discrimination by the State. Medha Patkar, Bilal Khan, Uday Mohite, Poonam Kannaujiya Contact: +91 9958660556 UP Police Is Sabotaging Justice To Shivam Victim Of Brahmanical Hatred By Vidya Bhushan Rawat 28 January, 2016 Countercurrents.org The family of Eight Years old Dalit child Shivam whose left arm was crushed in sugarcane crusher by a local Brahmin family in Janupur in Uttar Pradesh is suffering in humiliation curtsey Jaunpur police which refused to file an FIR in the case when the incident happened on December 28th. The police officers scolded the mother of Shivam when she went along with two local activists Ms Shobhna Smriti and Ms Renu singh, both of whom were responsible for getting the FIR filed in the Maharajganj police station. The SP of Jaunpur actually insulted two women activists terming them as if they were middle women. It is shameful that the Jaunpur police and high officials rather than admitting their own grave mistake are trying to cover up things and humiliating those who are trying to help the vulnerable family. The people in village Gaura Khurd of Maharajganj district are tight lipped as both the police as well as the local feudal lords have made their life difficult. The family of Shivam also has gone elsewhere to unknown place as they know police is not helping them and they can't get justice anywhere. Most of the Dalits here are landless and work on the land of either the Brahmins or Thakurs and hence the communities are tight lipped on the issue as none want to lose their economic dependency. There is story that is being circulated is a video of Shivam, which was taken by one of the accused about the accident. In the video Shivam says that he was trying to fly the wasp and bees which were roaming around the sugarcane and trapped into the machine himself. This argument is absurd to say the least. Sad part is that even if that argument is accepted, one needs to ask why he was there at first place. Whose machine was it? What did they do if there was an accident? Why didnt the Tiwaris file a case with the police and take the boy to the hospital ? Shivams mother says that when his father had gone to buy medicine, Anikt Tiwari came to the Nursing Home which is also run by some other Tiwari (you can always find the connect) and threatened the boy to speak on his mobile video. The frightened boy said that he met with the accident himself. The story is not that simple. History of feudalism and bonded labor in that region is not a co-incident. None take a boy from another family that conveniently. The facts that are coming to light is that for over two generations the Shivams family (grand father and great grand father) had been working in the field of Tiwaris agricultural labors, to be candid like bonded labors. Once you are bonded, your home, children become their territory and any denial of work to the feudal lord will result in high repercussion. However the parents of Shivam made it clear that they do not work at the field of Tiwaris perhaps reasons better known to them. They might have resisted, sought full wages for their work. It is clear that they took Shivam forcibly against his wish. They promised they would give him sugarcane. The child went along with them. Perhaps after taking the sugarcane the child ran away only to be followed by the Tiwaris. They caught him, scolded him and slapped him which resulted his falling on the running Sugarcane-crusher. It is a sad story of how Indian administration which has caste mind, absolutely play in the hands of upper castes refused to lodge the complain. Shivam was not taken to government hospital but to private. We dont know why it was done but it is sad because it was the work of police who did not help. Now, with all the evidences gone, it is easier to finish the case as there is no medical done that time and already police and Tiwaris have not allowed any witness to come forward. Indias village still live in the brahmanical grip even if they are a minority there but rural power scenario is that all feudal are united against Dalits and oppressed as they provide cheap and free labor. Shivams family is being blamed that they had taken the land on lease and that he was going to his field and met with the accident. It is so painful that the landless family is a daily wage worker and does not have anything in their hut. It is painful how the family who should have got more help is being hounded and insulted by the authorities. When the police officer scolded them that they have taken the land from Tiwaris on lease, Shivam's mother told him that if that had the land on adhya i.e. share cropping in half share, they would not have been fighting for their daily survival and their home would have enough flour and rice for the family. Shivams story has not got any attention in the din of other pressing stories in the media. It is the story that many families pass through daily but do not come to the police station. It is a sad story of failure of Indian state. The Prevention of Atrocities against SC-ST Act has been passed now with amendments. The rules are also framed but those who will implement it are mostly the individuals who have no faith in Ambedkars constitution but Manuwad. India stands at the cross roads at the moment when justice is being denied to people on the basis of their caste identity. Shivams case is a classic case and asking every government institution including chief minister of Uttar-Pradeshs office to pitch in. Sack the corrupt police officials, order an impartial inquiry and honorably rehabilitate the family including free treatment to child. Vidya Bhushan Rawat is a social and human rights activist. He blogs at www.manukhsi.blogspot.com twitter @freetohumanity Email: vbrawat@gmail.com Petition Campaign: 8 Year Old Dalit Boy Thrown Into Sugarcane Crushing Machine By Shivangi Joshi The Seeds Of Spin: Decoding Pro-GMO Lies And Falsehoods By Colin Todhunter 28 January, 2016 Countercurrents.org If you are in some way critical of genetically modified food and agriculture or have some concerns that remain unaddressed, here is a brief interpretive (satirical) guide for navigating the seedy world of pro-GMO spin. 1) We are pro-science and objective. Meaning: We are industry supported and dismiss out of hand this type of anti-GM nonsense that suggests our science is somehow tainted. 2) Our critics are anti-science Luddites. Meaning: Unlike us, they rely on 'pseudo science', labelled as such because it is not funded by the industry and its conclusions challenge the commercial interests of it. 3) Our critics are human haters because they deny GM food to the hungry. Meaning: We learned to say this in our seminars about dealing with anti-GMO campaigners. 4) We are humanitarians, while they are ideological elitists. Meaning: We learned this also in our strategy seminars and meetings. 5) This academically unqualified anti-GM gang are hurting the poor. Meaning: Critics of GM with valid concerns are hurting profit margins. 6) All that people like you know is to stop progress and US agriculture is doing fine and thanks to the absence of scientists like Seralini and Pushpa Bhargava. These two so-called scientific jokers will not allowed set foot in the real world of science in North America . They have a heyday in countries like India because of ignoramuses" (Shanthu Shantharam in comments thread here). Meaning: Poisoned, de-nutrified food,degraded soil and unsustainable agriculture is ideal and anyone who challenges this will be ridiculed and smeared. 7) These anti-GM campaigners are murdering bastards. (Patrick Moore) Meaning: Cant hold an objective debate? Insults will suffice. 8) You are presenting anti-capitalist twaddle. Patrick Moore@EcoSenseNow @colin_todhunter @GMWatch How about "anti-capitalist twaddle" or "anti-globalization twaddle" or "Occupy-twaddle"? 11:33 AM - 11 Apr 2015 Meaning: Who needs rational debate when baseless cliches will suffice? I dont want to hear about the destruction of indigenous agriculture by the West with its aid, structural adjustment and agribusiness companies because this analysis does not suit with my agenda (the above tweet was in response to this analysis). 9) Glyphosate is harmless and I will drink it. Meaning: No it isnt and I wont, but you are a jerk for calling my bluff. 10) I dont take money from Monsanto. Meaning: OK, maybe it happened but they were advised not to make the cheque out to me. 11) You are just victimising me and I am scared. Meaning: I got caught out but will play the sympathy card. 12) Preventing GM will hold back Indian agriculture and the availability of cheap food. Meaning: I spout uninformed personal opinion but my expertise as a molecular biologist qualifies me to speak as 'an expert' on anything. 13) People with authoritarian personality types anda political agenda are harming the poor by imposing their views on everyone - similar attitudes have killed millions under totalitarian regimes. Meaning: Highly emotive. But, hey, as a molecular biologist, I am a self-appointed expert on psychology, politics and history. 14) There is a scientific consensus on the safety of GMOs. Meaning: No there isnt, but if I repeat the mantra often enough people will believe it. 15) The debate on GM is over. Meaning: No it isnt, but if I repeat the mantra often enough people will believe it (instruction to lobbyist: employ same tactic regarding no risks, better yields, GM is no different from conventional and so on). 16) With so much land under GM, farmers are actively choosing this technology. Meaning: We love free market platitudes about choice and everyone should just ignore US intimidation tactics to get GM into countries, the closing-off of choice as GM becomes the only available option, strings-attached loans in Ukraine to force through GM agriculture, the buying-up of seed companies , financial incentives to plant GM, etc. 17) We care about the poor and hungry. Meaning: Benefits for the poor should be cut and these people should rely on food stamps and food banks but we really, really do care about the poor in Africa or India! 18) Labelling GM food will confuse people and send out the wrong impression. Meaning: People do not have any right to know what they are eating if they knew, they wouldnt buy it! This article discusses the corporate spin behind GMO and this one is another satirical take on the GM lobby. Colin Todhunter is an Independent writer. His website is here Crimes Against Humanity In Kashmir: Silence At International Level By Abdul Majid Zargar 28 January, 2016 Countercurrents.org More than two months have passed since three young men from Kupwara went missing .Lured by Army into employment through an intermediary, the trio left their homes 17th November only to remain untraced till date. The police, even after having arrested the Army man, who acted as an interceder between the concerned Army unit & the victims, remain clueless. The family of the victims allege that Police, under pressure from top, is not performing its lawful job. In view of the disclosures of barbaric & savage killing of innocent human beings on borders by Indian security forces for monetary rewards & citations as exposed by Kishalay Bhattcharjee in his book Blood on my hands-Confessions of staged encounters, there is every chance that the three abducted persons have been traded off for monetary gains bringing alive the memories of Machil fake encounter , in which three innocent persons, after having been enticed for a job were killed by Army to earn personal rewards & citations. While we can only pray for the safety of three persons of kupwara , we mourn our own helplessness to save these innocent lives. While such killings go unabated in Kashmir, an unwritten cooperative agreement exists between Military, Judiciary, executive & some sections of media which pre-empts any action against the perpetrators of crime. Let us take the instance of Judiciary . On 26th November, a case of extra-judicial killing in North-East came up for hearing before the social justice bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justices Lokar & U Lalit. The attorney General of India, Mukul Rohtagi pleaded for trying guilty Army men under the Army Act. But the bench was not moved by the plea and expressed concern about how an institution that had not even followed the established guidelines could conduct an independent and effective investigation into the cases of fake encounters or extra judicial killings. Now Compare this with the Pathribal case. Even after CBI proved beyond doubt the killing of five kashmiri Muslims as a cold blooded murder by Army, the Supreme court still allowed the guilty army men to be tried under the Army act and results are for all of us to see. The guilty were set free by the Army court on the pretext of no evidence against the accused. The Supreme Court didnt even bother to question the army that if there was no evidence against the accused personnel, then on what grounds, basis or material, did CBI initially conclude the case as a Cold blooded murder. At executive level, sanctions are not accorded to prosecute the accused security personnel despite compelling evidences against them. Be it an officer like Major Avtar Singh who killed human rights defender Jaleel Andrabi or ordinary BSF sepoy Gorak Nath of 88 Battalion who burned alive Nazir Ahmad of Nadihal, Baramulla to fake his own death to claim insurance amount of Rs. 26 Lakhs or countless other security force personnel duly identified by J&K Coalition of civil society in its land mark publications Alleged perpetrators & Structures of violence , Sanctions are deliberately not accorded on the misplaced notion that it may demoralize security forces reducing the whole exercise to a blood sport. Since a permanent impunity has crept up in the system, the gruesome incidents are occurring at regular intervals. A large section of the obedient & crass media, instead of confronting the State to unearth truth, acts as another AFSPA shield over the accused. The glue which binds all these so-called democratic institutions of India is the contrived concept of National interest. But what is intriguing is the silence against these crimes at international level. UN which came into being to replace the ineffectual league of Nations in 1945 was expected to uphold human existence with dignity but has miserably failed in Kashmir like its other failures to prevent the Cambodian genocide in the 1970s or the Rwandan genocide in 1994 or the Srebrenica massacre in 1995. The present secretary General, Ban Ki-moon had been high on expectations but has proved to be low on delivery. In 2012 When he , was in Delhi on an official visit, Human Rights Watch, an international watchdog body appealed him to raise the large-scale violations of human rights in occupied-Kashmir during his talks with Indian leaders. But instead of fulfilling his duties, he spent more time in visiting places & houses in New-Delhi where he had spent time as Vice Consul of South Korea to India (His first diplomatic assignment)in Seventies or the residence of his daughter who is married to an Indian which he happily boasts as successful Indo-Korean joint-venture. There are strong reasons to believe that he has been extra-ordinarily lenient towards India with which he has some personal ties. But it is never too late. He needs to pick a pen & paper and seek explanation from India about its dirty & murky business of abducting & killing innocent persons in Kashmir without allowing it to bury the grave crimes under the rubric of "the world's largest democracy . In case of failure to do so, he will go down in history as yet another collaborator & accomplice to crimes committed against humanity in Kashmir. (The author is a practicing chartered Accountant. E mail: abdulmajidzargar@gmail.com) George Soros Finally Suspends His Lifelong War Against Russia By Eric Zuesse 28 January, 2016 Strategic-culture.org On January 21st, George Soros, who has throughout his life been passionately opposed not just to communism but also to Russia, finally stated in a Bloomberg News interview at the World Economic Forum, that the United States (and possibly the EU, but he says that the EU is in terrible economic shape itself) must now fund a new Marshall Plan for all of Europe, including, this time, even his bete noire: Russia. However, is he ending, or merely suspending, his lifelong war against Russia? Let's look at the evidence, including the background for his comments. The crucial background in order to understand his statement is provided in the links here: ). That link presents the great Janine Wedel reporting that, as a result of one particular insider-rigged auction, "H.M.C. [Harvard Management Company] and Soros became significant shareholders in Novolipetsk, Russia's second-largest steel mill, and Sidanko Oil, whose reserves exceed those of Mobil. His comment attributes, as being the precedent for his current support of a taxpayer-bailout for Europe including Russia, his prior, 1989, support of a bailout of Eastern Europe including Russia. However, at that time, he was looking for public funds to create debts that those then-communist nations would have toward Western taxpayers. His proposal was rejected, because democracy was, at that time, strong enough in the West, so that the public's rejection caused his proposal to be politically impossible to achieve. The situation is drastically different now, after the Harvard Economics Department and George Soros guided the Russian government into a capitalism' that's crony-capitalism or fascism, from which Harvard University and George Soros extracted billions in give-aways of state property from formerly communist countries that were insider-dealt to not only Russia's and Ukraine's (etc.) insiders, but also to America's, including especially Soros himself (and that link is also here The post-Soros, post-Obama, coup-government of Ukraine is essentially bankrupt after all of their anti-corruption' verbiage has collided with their total-corruption policies in Ukraine , just as had happened under Yeltsin in Russia, so that, notwithstanding Soros's urgings for $20B+ of Western taxpayer funds to be contributed to that government, it simply won't happen. Soros therefore now is urging his new proposal for a Marshall Plan, not only to get Eastern Europe deeper into debt to Western governments, but, perhaps, also to enable Soros' own investments in Eastern Europe (including Russia) to turn profits for him. Only with taxpayer assistance can such investments now be made profitable. Here is the transcript of this brief interview-segment, from a Bloomberg segment interviewing Soros, which cannot be accurately understood without reference to the links that were provided in that restatement here of his statement those links document the reality behind what he is here asserting: The European Union is in an existential crisis, and it needs to get out of that because of the migration problem [which] is effectively distressing the European Union it's falling apart, and that's a time when you need to have a major initiative, a Marshall Plan. It's absolutely appropriate. It's amazing that it comes from Schaivo, who has been one of the proponents of Bundesbank orthodoxy, but I have been in favor of it all along. I was propose [ing] a Marshall Plan for Eastern Europe more than twenty-five years ago [before the end of the USSR], in 1989 in Potsdam, when Potsdam was still in Eastern Germany, and I said this would be a Marshall Plan for Eastern Europe including Russia, and it should be financed by the Europeans for a change, and actually led by the representative, who started laughing, and the front of the Algemeine [Zeitung] reported that my proposal was greeted with amusement. Now I think this proposal should not be treated with amusement. This should be taken very seriously. It's going to have a very difficult time passing, because there's a lot of dissension now, part of the disintegration, but I think it needs public and enthusiastic support. But I think that most people know that something has gone catastrophically wrong and it has to be put right. INTERVIEWER: Is there a danger of break-up. Last year we were worried about Greece, what should we be worried about this year? SOROS: I think Greece is still a problem. It's the one problem that has no solution, because it has been so messed-up that you can only muddle along. But there is no solution, and actually that problem is now coming to the boiling point again. You can see it on the face of the press, but [it] is not a major problem in the scheme of things. SHARE Mike Hartz / Courier & Press Carson's Brewery released Braggot recently. This is a new style for the big board at the brewery. Mike Hartz / Courier & Press Yazoo Brewery in Nashville, Tenn. has a unique set of flight boards and a variety of good beers. Mike Hartz / Courier & Press Jackalope Brew House in Nashville, Tenn., made my day with the Snowman stout (far right). New beers are my thing. I love trying all types of brewed goodness. I was at Carson's on Monday and ran across something completely new to me. On the big board I saw Braggot. They only serve it in 5-ounce pours, because it clocks in with a 15 alcohol by volume. Braggot style drinks are old, like 13th-century old, meads which include malts. Carson's Braggot is 50 percent honey and goes down very easily. After that sweet treat you should balance it with a glass of the Barrel Reserve Club 22 a barrel-aged sour stout it is in my top five BRC releases. I am not the biggest sweet or sour beer guy, but both of these offerings balance the flavors very well. I was not overwhelmed by the sweet flavors in the Braggot. The small amount in a pour helps reduce the side effects of the super high ABV. The sour in contrast is a dark beer with souring that complements the dark roasted flavors of the stout and at a 9.3 ABV it is a good follow up after the Braggot. I know most people don't walk into a bar or brewery and always try new stuff, but if you are like me, trying multiple flavors and style is better done in flights or 5-ounce pours. Then, when you find your favorite, there is still room for a pint. I enjoy experiencing new flavors, so having small amounts allows me to try more beers and avoid a wheel barrow ride out of the brewery. 20 year celebration continues Turoni's is continuing to honor two decades of craft brewing with the release of Turoni's Wee Heavy. Wee Heavy's are Scottish ales and often referred to as the Scottish version of an English barley wines. It is very malty, and Turoni's version isn't as smoky as others I've tried but has a pleasant malty sweet flavor with a piney finish I really enjoyed. This is a must have if you are stopping in for a pizza or, better yet, a steak sandwich. This was only a half batch so go try it soon before it's gone. I sure hope it makes another appearance on the rotating tap. If you are looking for more of a stout, they also have Ol'Merl's Milk Stout, which would also pair well with a steak sandwich. I haven't had any misses on the celebration releases, and I can't wait to see what is next. Beer-cations are super fun I recently went to Nashville, Tennessee, for a weekend with a small group. It was a no-kids weekend so we went to breweries on Saturday afternoon. Our first stop, was Yazoo Brewery. My favorite was their Sly Rye and Dos Perros. They were both good dark beers. If you want to try a Yazoo beer, it can be found on tap under the name Gerst beer. Yes this is the same Gerst that is found at Gerst Haus. Whether you knew it or not, many of you have already had a Nashville original right here in Evansville. Our second stop was my favorite, Jakalope Brewing Company. They have a Snowman Porter that warmed us up very nicely. I also enjoyed their Bearwalker Brown ale. Our third and final stop of this trip was Tennessee Brew Works and unlike the others, I decided against another flight and picked up a pint of Country Roots a sweet potato stout. This is the only way to ingest sweet potatoes. It was a very fun afternoon, and the ability to walk to all these breweries made it more fun. If you get a chance to take a beer-cation in Nashville, go for it. The beer was great, the live music was better and the weekend with some of my favorite people was something I hope to repeat. Until next time, you can get more Pints at courierpress.com/pints, follow me on Twitter and Instagram by searching for @mike_hartz or drop me a line at michael.hartz@courierpress.com. Mike Hartz is the Publications Editor for C&P Media and a beer lover. SHARE Feb. 1, Des Moines, Iowa: Tonight's Republican Iowa caucuses have been plunged into turmoil after front-runner Donald Trump shot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue. Trump refused to apologize for the shooting, saying he felt compelled to test his previously expressed belief that such an attack wouldn't cost him any votes. "I realized that simply not showing up for the debate wouldn't be sufficient proof, so I decided to do something dramatic to show everyone how strong my support really is." Reaction to the unprovoked attack was immediate from both sides. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared that the shooting convinced him to announce his candidacy. "My belief is that there are plenty of voters who oppose randomly shooting people on Fifth Avenue. And I want to be a voice for those voters. These aren't just New York City values but embraced by many others throughout the United States. And under a Bloomberg administration, we will aggressively vet New York City billionaires before allowing them to get a handgun permit." Trump scoffed at Bloomberg's statement, saying he was a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. He questioned the point of having a Second Amendment if you weren't going to use it, adding that he was confident his many supporters would have no problem with his actions. Polls conducted by the Des Moines Register immediately after the shooting seemed to confirm Trump's faith. Of a random sample, 68 percent said the shooting would have no effect, and 26 percent claimed their support was even stronger. However, 4 percent said they were now undecided and the remaining 2 percent said it would cost Trump their vote. That slight erosion among his supporters appears to be offset by defections from the other camps. One former Ben Carson supporter said, "This is the kind of bold action by a bold leader that's been lacking. Putin poisons people. Trump shoots them. And all Obama seems to want to do is talk them to death." Perhaps the most encouraging reaction for Trump came from the victim himself. "I was just walking down the middle of Fifth Avenue, minding my own business, when I see this man with a gun, and he's shooting from the hip. "It's Donald Trump, and he's firing at me. Most of his shots were wild, but he got me once. I think it's only a flesh wound, but until it heals, I'll wear it as a badge of honor. "Whether I agree with shooting people in the street is unimportant. I can't help but admire the guy for saying what he thinks and then backing it up. And he's not taking a dime from special interests," the victim said as he was being wheeled onto an ambulance. Based on the poll results, The Register concluded that Trump was still likely to prevail tonight, while cautioning that anything could happen. That's what makes this primary season so interesting. Stan Levco is a freelance satirical columnist. Email him at sml@evansville.net. JASON CLARK / COURIER & PRESS Linda White of Deaconess Hospital announces that Junior Achievement is launching a $1.2 million campaign so it can help more students in the region during a news conference at the Junior Achievement of Southwestern Indiana office in Evansville Wednesday. The organization has already raised $811,000 in a silent phase of the campaign, and it hopes to meet its $1.2 million goal by June 30. SHARE JASON CLARK / COURIER & PRESS Old National Bank representative Kathy Schoettlin (left) speaks with North Posey senior Jordan Wells who built her own business with the help she received from Junior Achievement of Southwestern Indiana after a news conference at Junior Achievements office in Evansville Wednesday. By Susan Orr of the Courier and Press In second grade, Jordan Wells took part in a Junior Achievement project in which students ran an imaginary doughnut shop. From that experience, she learned that she could grow up to run a business of her own. Now Wells, a North Posey High School senior, is the owner and baker at Two Sweet Girls, a cupcake-focused bakery. The 18-year-old said her home business makes enough money that she could support herself on its earnings. And Wells credits Junior Achievement of Southwestern Indiana with helping her get to this point. "They know how to mold our ideas into reality," Wells said. "Junior Achievement has just been such a big deal for me." On Wednesday, Junior Achievement announced it's launching a $1.2 million campaign so it can help more students. The organization has already raised $811,000 in a "silent" phase of the campaign, and it hopes to meet its $1.2 million goal by June 30. Major corporate donors to date include Old National Bank, Deaconess, Evansville Teachers Federal Credit Union, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana and Vectren. Junior Achievement programs teach work and career readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy skills to students in kindergarten through 12th grade. Junior Achievement serves 34 percent of students within the organization's 11-county footprint in Southwestern Indiana and Southeastern Illinois. The fundraising campaign will help the organization reach more students, with a focus on lower-income schools and on middle- and high-school students. "It is all about the students," said Deaconess Hospital President Linda White, who also serves as chair of the Junior Achievement campaign. Part of the money raised will also establish an endowment to help improve the organization's long-term sustainability. Also on Wednesday, Junior Achievement announced a new component of its Business Hall of Fame, which honors current and past members of Evansville's business community. In April, a new permanent Business Hall of Fame exhibit will open at the Evansville Museum. The exhibit will use augmented reality technology to honor the Business Hall of Fame laureates, as well as to provide interactive financial education and work readiness experiences. The Business Hall of Fame is a joint project between JA and the Evansville Business Journal, an Evansville Courier Company publication. SHARE By Len Wells of the Courier and Press Two Hamilton County, Illinois, residents are being treated for stab wounds after an alleged domestic violence incident Tuesday night. The alleged victims have been identified as Thomas C. Garrison, 34, and Mitzi M. Willis, 34, both of McLeansboro. Police responded to the 600 block of South Pearl Street shortly before 9:30 Tuesday night on a report of a stabbing, according to Chief David Filkins. The suspect, Duane G. Carlson, 37, of Percy, Illinois, fled the scene in a red Chevy Blazer, according to police. He was located late Tuesday night in the small Hamilton Community of Dale, Illinois, and taken to the emergency room of Hamilton Memorial Hospital for treatment of minor injuries. Garrison and Willis were transported to Hamilton Memorial Hospital in McLeansboro. Willis was later airlifted to Deaconess Hospital in Evansville. Carlson has been formally charged with aggravated domestic battery, aggravated battery, home invasion and unlawful use of a weapon by a convicted felon. "You couldn't tell if anyone was in the Mafia. Sure, there were some people shooting others, and you would see it in the papers every once in a while. All of that was when I was growing up, though. When I worked the Sands, I wasn't getting paid by a mobster. It was Hughes. My grandchildren always ask if I broke the fingers of a card counter or if I was connected with the Mafia, and the answer is no. It never happened. If the Sands ever tried that when I was there we would have heard about it." Acme Newspictures And they wouldn't have gotten their Christmas bonus of an extra box of tissues. Continue Reading Below Advertisement The unassailable business logic "beating up customers = bad" has stood the test of time: It's still Vegas policy today. So what did casinos do if hammers and power saws were off the table? "Many casinos just dragged you to the cashier, cashed you out, and threw you out. Cheaters? Just thrown out. A few guys I had to get cars for were caught cheating, and they came out with no broken bones. They just looked downtrodden and told people around them, 'Yeah, they caught me.' It was that casual." The WaPo has several articles on the Oregon wildlife refuge occupiers: Sarah Larimer and Niraj Chokski on the eight in custody, Michael Miller on LaVoy Finicum, who was killed, and Sarah Kaplan, Adam Goldman, and Mark Berman on efforts to recover the refuge from the remaining occupiers. In the WSJ, Jim Carlton and Devlin Barrett also cover the latter point.Personally, I have little use for people who protest by occupying property that is not theirs and has nothing to do with the dispute. That goes for the Occupy movement of a few years ago, the current protest, and all the way back to the Vietnam War when protesting students staged sit-ins at campus facilities that had nothing to do with the war.The sit-ins at segregated lunch counters during the civil rights movement were different. The lunch counter operators were perpetrators of the injustice at issue.The main beef of the current occupiers is the violation of their constitutional right to graze cattle on land that does not belong to them without paying fees to the owner of the land, i.e., the federal government. I don't recall reading that in the Constitution, but maybe it's part of the "living document." If a person is convicted of burglary of a home, has prior convictions for rape and murder, and had a gun in his waistband when he broke into the home, how long should we keep him in prison?Under California sentencing law, the violent priors and the gun use result in major sentence enhancements that extend the term far beyond that for burglary alone. Yet Governor Jerry Brown has proposed an initiative that would make this career criminal eligible for parole after he has served his term for the burglary alone, which could be 2, 4, or 6 years. (Penal Code 461(a).) That is insane.John Myers has this story in the LA Times. It quotes me on a version of the above example, although the quote is a bit truncated.Is it an answer to say we can trust the parole board not to let him out too early? No, our experience from an earlier era when the parole board had nearly unlimited power demonstrates that we cannot. That was why we needed to pass the tougher laws in the first place. Cloud computing company MOQdigital has appointed former Hewlett-Packard Asia-Pacific sales director Ryan Millar as New South Wales state director. Millar, who has been in the job since 5 October, fills a newly created role. I was approached for the role as I have a long-standing friendship and relationship with [MOQdigital chairman] David Shein, who has been a significant mentor for me over the past 15 years, Millar told CRN. MOQdigital is an ASX-listed company that provides services and solutions around data, applications and infrastructure for digital businesses. The firm was founded last year after a reverse listing and merger of Technology Effect and Breeze. Millar told CRN his responsibilities at MOQdigital include ownership of the NSW profit and lost statement, achieving our sales (revenue and gross profit) objectives in line with MOQs strategy communicated to the market, achieving growth targets, people leadership, strategic planning, MOQs IoT product and commercialised IP. Before joining MOQdigital, Millar worked at HP for close to two years and was responsible for inside sales, sales engineering and marketing. Prior to that, Millar had been working in various technology companies in Sydney and the UK, including as the London-based chief executive for start-up eDiamond - a provider of cloud-based trading platform for diamond producers. "We are privileged to have Millar join the team in NSW," MOQdigital chief executive Nicki Page told CRN. "With his vast experience and strong people culture, I have no doubt the team will thrive under his leadership and our customers will continue to enjoy exceptional service as we assist them with their digital strategy. The Australian Securities Exchange has again interrogated national IT provider Empired, after its shares began to fall two weeks ago. Last week, Empired was forced to defend itself after the ASX enquired if the company could account for its falling share price and a significant increase in stock trading activity. On Friday, the solutions provider revealed transitional difficulties had impacted the first half of financial year 2016, and that stated it was not responsible for any leaks. Included in the transitional costs were a restructure of the Australian sales team, costing $4.1 million; delays in commencement of new contracts, costing $1.1 million; and a once-off plant and equipment write-down of $2.3 million after consolidating nine offices to three. The latest enquiry from the ASX asked when Empired became aware of the transitional costs outlined on Friday. Company secretary Mark Waller said that Empired was aware of the transitional costs in November, but had not revised its earnings forecast until January. However, the additional costs were made public in Empireds annual general meeting presentation on 16 November He added that the company only became aware of the need to revise its earnings forecast on 21 January after the earnings reports from Empireds New Zealand and US subsidiaries were reviewed. Empired finalised its accounts for the Australian operations on 20 January, but the New Zealand and US business accounted for 35 to 40 percent of total revenues Whilst the [transitional costs] have together had a material effect on profitability, at all times prior to 21 January 2016 the company still expected to deliver EPITDA for H1 FY16 in line with what the company understood to be market expectations, said Waller in his reply to the ASX. Empireds shares have fallen to just 34 cents at 11:55am Wednesday morning - a drop of 54 percent in less than two weeks. On Friday's update, Empired narrowed its financial year 2016 earnings forecast to a range between $159 million and $169 million, a revision that the company asserted was not a downgrade from the previous range of $155 million to $175 million. Despite the first-half difficulties, Empired had a bumper year in new contract wins and a healthy revenue stream. The 2015 fiscal year saw it rake in $128.3 million in revenue, up 92 percent from $67 million in 2014. Empired also scored 13th position in the 2015 CRN Fast50. CSIRO research fellow Craig Mudge received the Officer for the Order of Australia (AO) for his work in science, particularly through pioneering initiatives in the information technology sector as a researcher, author and a mentor of young scientists. Mudge was founder and CEO of Austek Microsystems, which was spun out of CSIROs microelectronics research group. The company's signal processing chips formed the basis of CSIROs wireless LAN patent. He also worked in Silicon Valley as director of the famous Xerox Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC) computer science lab. Austek was a micro-chip spinout from CSIRO in the eighties. It had several breakthroughs: the first single-chip cache for a personal computer, the worlds fastest Fourier transform chip, and the first asynchronous multiplier, all part of a series of products for the global market, Mudge told CRN. The Order of Australia award is a recognition of the teams of scientists and engineers who worked with me at Austek and at CSIRO. I am most grateful for that. In addition, my wife Maureen has encouraged me all the way on my journey, which at times appeared to be crazy." Another IT figure who made the list was IBM Australia & New Zealand board director Karen Lee Koomen. She was named a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her service to the IT and communication sectors, through business, executive roles and education. I have worked in the ICT industry for almost all of my career and at IBM for almost 12 years. I feel incredibly lucky to live at a time where IT and the internet are leading to a more social, economic and political change than at any other time since the invention of the printing press," Koomen told CRN. "To have had the opportunity to serve on many boards to help government, industry and young people to maximise the benefits of technology has been an absolute privilege. To be recognised with an AM for doing what I love is truly overwhelming. I am looking forward to continuing my work with IBM to secure Australia's place in the global technology landscape. Other technology people recognised with AMs included former CSIRO figure John Wright for "significant service to science and engineering, particularly to renewable energy technology", NBN satellite engineer Mark Thompson for "significant service to science as a satellite communications engineer", Wallace Taylor of Rockhampton for "service to the IT sector, and to rural development" and NSW chief scientist Mary O'Kane for "promotion of technology research and future energy supply." Nano technology leader Professor Chennupati Jagadish received the Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) for "service to physics and engineering, particularly in the field of nanotechnology" for communications, data storage, solar cells and medical applications. Storage News Pivot3 To Acquire NexGen Storage, Bring Storage QoS To Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Joseph F. Kovar Share this Ron Nash Hyper-converged infrastructure technology developer Pivot3 is acquiring storage vendor NexGen Storage in a move that could be the first to bring dynamic quality-of-service capabilities to the hyper-converged infrastructure market. Austin, Texas-based Pivot3 on Wednesday said it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Boulder, Colo.-based NexGen for an unspecified amount. The deal is expected to close in February. It is a match that will work on many levels, said Pivot3 CEO Ron Nash. [Related: StorageCraft Gets $187M Investment, New CEO Plans To Make It A $500M Data Protection Powerhouse] The two companies' technologies are complementary, with no overlap, and they have almost no overlap in terms of their customer and channel bases, Nash told CRN. "Pivot3 has hyper-converged infrastructure technology, but NexGen has high-performance storage with PCIe cards," he said. "Before the combination, our technology was good for about two-thirds of customer workloads. With NexGen's high-performance storage, that rises to maybe 90 percent. So this expands our market." One key part of NexGen's technology is the fact that it does dynamic tiering and performance adjustments, providing a quality-of-service capability that one would have to otherwise go to very high-end storage solution to get, Nash said. "This makes sure the right data is in the right place at the right time," he said. "For example, in a hospital, if there's data important to saving a life, you want it in the high-performance storage tier. But accounting data doesn't need that performance. We see adding this capability to our on-premises and cloud storage a no-brainer." NexGen CEO John Spiers told CRN that NexGen offers all-flash array, hybrid flash array and all-flash storage capabilities that address the three fastest-growing parts of the storage industry. "We address quality of service across all these markets," he said. Storage quality of service is important to NexGen customers, and will be to Pivot3 customers going forward, said Stewart Sonneland, principal and CEO of Strategic Hardware, a Spokane, Wash.-based solution provider and NexGen's first channel partner. "No one else has that kind of QoS capability unless you go to the very high end, like Hitachi Data Systems," Sonneland told CRN. John Spires Sonneland said that while his company may have done a one-off deal with Pivot3 for a customer, the vendor is still a relative unknown to him. "Today's our first real exposure to Pivot3," he said. "I've been trying to read up on it, and I like what I read." Bringing NexGen's storage technology to Pivot3 will mean a big boost to both companies' sales, as together they offer a combination that will reach more customers than most vendors can touch, Sonneland said. "Pivot3 and NexGen will have an attractive offering across the storage spectrum," he said. "Hyper-converged infrastructure, hybrid storage, all-flash arrays. Few companies can do that. If I go in with Pure Storage, I can sell all-flash arrays, but if the customer needs hybrid flash storage, Pure will try to sell all-flash. I completely understand the rationale of this merger. I'm feeling positive about it." The acquisition by Pivot3 marks the latest in the lifespan of NexGen, which has seen multiple owners in the past few years. Before its 2013 acquisition by Fusion-io, NexGen was a stand-alone developer of tiered storage solutions combining PCIe flash and spinning disk technologies. Fusion-io, in turn, was last year acquired by SanDisk. In January 2015, NexGen was spun out from SanDisk to form an independent storage vendor. Pivot3 and NexGen came together as a result of conversations with S3 Ventures, an investment firm with an investment in Pivot3, Nash said. "S3 Ventures was looking at investing in NexGen, and had already invested in Pivot3," he said. "They thought it makes sense for us to join together. So John [Spiers] and I got together, and saw how our technology and culture fit together. We decided that, together, we were better." Sonneland said that NexGen early Wednesday did a WebEx presentation for its strategic partners. "Our takeaway was, we thought the best course for NexGen would have been to secure another round of VC funding," he said. "But it's tough, as some storage vendors have not done well since their IPOs." Together, Pivot3 and NexGen have about 200 channel partners, with almost no overlap between them, Nash said. While NexGen does not have any OEM relationships, Pivot3 works with Lenovo on the latter company's Hyper-Converged One line of appliances. Those appliances are available only in Europe as part of a pilot program, but are expected to be available in North America, he said. He declined to say when. "That's Lenovo's choice," he said. NexGen is still in its growth phase, and planned to be cash-flow positive within the next couple of years, Spiers said. Before the NexGen acquisition, Nash said, Pivot3 had been funded to profitability. With additional funding that will come to help with the NexGen acquisition, the combined company is still funded to profitability, he said. While the acquisition has yet to close, the two have already started working together, Nash said. "The integration started today," he said. "One NexGen sales rep will be making a sales call in 10 minutes, and we have already trained him on Pivot3. Another NexGen sales rep is going to Korea next week and will present the Pivot3 solution." That's the kind of speed that companies in most acquisitions cannot match, Spiers said. "It's nice when both of us are startups," he said. Imagine a country where literally no Christians believed that God had a hand in creating the Earth. No, its not an imaginary tale of a parallel universe, but the results of an actual survey taken of young adults in Iceland. Exactly zero percent of respondents said they believe that God created the Earth. Yes, Icelanders have been part of the Western slide into secularism. A mere 20 years ago, nearly 90 percent of all Icelanders were religious believers. Today, less than 50 percent are. Now heres whats fascinating: Despite the trend, the Evangelical Lutheran Church is still the country's declared state church. In an interview with the Washington Post, Solveig Anna Boasdottir, a professor at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Iceland, notes that scientific progress has changed religious attitudes in the country. But she said that about 40 percent of the country's younger generation still consider themselves Christian but none of them believe that God created the Earth. "Theories of science are broadly accepted among both young and old. That does not necessarily affect peoples faith in God," she said. Result? A science-based sense of belief. This is a key insight into our day. A growing number of people who espouse Christianity do so only through the lens of a settled secularism and the presuppositions of naturalistic science. In other words, they use secular values and dispositions as the filters through which they embrace their faith. Whatever comes out on the other side approved and accepted by those filters is what they embrace as Christianity. Rather than revelation standing over and above knowledge, perceived human knowledge stands over and above revelation. So Christianity becomes whatever secularism will accept, whatever naturalistic science that excludes any sense of God-involvement will allow. So yes, these Icelanders and their kindred spirits around the world would say, I am a Christian. But of course I do not believe in a Creator God. This despite the clearest declaration of the very first verse of the Bible: In the beginning, God created. No, it doesnt say how, but it does say that. But never mind. Forget the thoughtful blends of science and faith that uphold the Scriptures, such as the idea of intelligent design, the implied Instigator behind the Big Bang, or even theistic evolution. Those are not ideas to be entertained in a secular worldview. God must be excluded from creation altogether. In other words, we are to believe about God what a secular worldview and a naturalistic approach to science gives us permission to believe about God. Which, as it turns out, is not belief in the God of the Bible at all. James Emery White Sources Rick Noack, In this country, literally no young Christians believe that God created the Earth, The Washington Post, January 23, 2016, read online. About the Author James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and the ranked adjunctive professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, The Rise of the Nones: Understanding and Reaching the Religiously Unaffiliated, is available on Amazon. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church and Culture blog, visit ChurchAndCulture.org, where you can view past blogs in our archive and read the latest church and culture news from around the world. You can also find out more about the 2016 Church and Culture Conference. Follow Dr. White on twitter @JamesEmeryWhite. Terminal operator agreements for the Manhattan and Brooklyn cruise terminals are expiring at the end of this year, and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) will award the new bid to one company, as opposed to dueling firms as is the current situation with Ports America overseeing Manhattan and Metro Cruises in Brooklyn. This is a great opportunity to secure one operator and eliminate competition, said Elizabeth Shearin, director of cruise operations. There will be operational cost efficiencies to pass on to our partner cruise lines. Before that happens, 2016 is shaping up to be another strong year with roughly a million passengers and 220 vessel days in the Big Apple. Among the highlights will be the new Carnival Vista in Manhattan this November, and maiden calls from Ponant and Viking Cruises. Disney Cruise Line is also returning for a handful of calls in the fall, sailing from Manhattan. The peak of the New York cruise season continues to run from September to November as ships sail north for fall foliage. Wed love to expand that and have a Canada/New England run through the summer, said Shearin. It shouldnt just be seen as an itinerary for the fall. There are a lot of great opportunities (during the summer) from Quebec all the way down. Excerpt from Cruise Industry News Quarterly Magazine: Winter 2015/2016 Chinese market growth will continue to through 2017, based on known ship movements announced by the cruise lines. The market will account for just under 3 million passengers come 2017, according to the 2016-2017 Cruise Industry News Annual Report. Costa will remain the market leader through 2016 and into 2017 based on announced deployments by the Italian brand. The second biggest brand in the Chinese market will continue to be Royal Caribbean. By 2017 both Dream Cruises and Princess will also post significant capacity gains based on new tonnage. The year (2017) will also include vessel introductions in the Chinese market from Norwegian, Carnival and AIDA. About the Annual Report: The Cruise Industry News Annual Report is the only book of its kind, presenting the worldwide cruise industry through 2025 in 350+ pages. Statistics are independently researched. Learn more by clicking here. The report covers everything from new ships on order to supply-and-demand scenarios from 1987 through 2021+. Plus there is a future outlook, complete growth projections for each cruise line, regional market reports, and detailed ship deployment by region and market, covering all the cruise lines. New for 2016-2017 based on customer feedback are detailed Chinese market statistics and projections. Order the 2016-2017 edition today. The SS United States Conservancy, the group behind the SS United States ocean liner, is set to announce major news at a press conference at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal on February 4. After years of working to rescue and revitalize America's Flagship, the SS United States, the SS United States Conservancy will host a press conference to announce that it has signed an option agreement with a major redevelopment partner, said a statement released to media. At the announcement, an exciting future for the ship will be revealed that envisions the SS United States again as an iconic symbol of America the world over. An artist rendering of the redeveloped ocean liner will also be unveiled. Conservancy Executive Director Susan Gibbs will join the CEO from the development partner to provide details on the agreement and plans for the ships future. A brief question and answer session will be held immediately after the announcement. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The last home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright hits the market at $3.6M Lifestyle site Thrillist set out to find the most beautiful building in each state and Philip Johnson's New Canaan Glass House got the nod for Connecticut. Click here for the full list Started in 1949, Johnson built the glass dwelling on his 47-acre property as his own home. The house is iconic for its glass exterior, leaving a completely exposed interior. Among the first of its kind, New Canaan's Glass House inspired many modern homes. Johnson was part of a group of architects known in the 1950s as "The Harvard Five." The group also included Johnson M. Johansen, Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores and Eliot Noyes. Together, they ushered in a modern architecture movement, and made New Canaan a mid-century modern mecca. "The Harvard Five was so well known, and well respected that young architects wanted to be here too to work for those architects," New Canaan Historical Society Executive Director Janet Lindstrom told Hearst in 2014. "Even if you go now to look at the telephone directory, you'll see there are really a lot of architects in New Canaan, because it's still a place people know as a hub for it." Other iconic buildings on Thrillist's list include the Hearst Castle, San Simeon in California, the Capitol building in Washington DC, the Empire State Building and the Breakers mansion in Rhode Island. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The Bridgeport-based company that signs off on the removal of asbestos in Stamfords 20 schools may have an inappropriate relationship with the company that assigns the work. AMC Environmental is responsible for testing for asbestos before and after remediation. The company is located at 622 Clinton Ave. in Bridgeport, the same address as AFB Construction Management, the firm that handles maintenance and repair contracts for Stamford schools. The Bridgeport building, which displays both companies names on a sign in the front yard, is owned by an eponymous limited liability corporation registered to Alfonso Barbarotta, AFBs chief executive officer. Barbarotta also is well known in Trumbull through his contracts managing school facilities. He recently won a $20,000 settlement from the town after claiming Trumbull First Selectman Tim Herbst blackballed his business as part of a political vendetta. AFB and AFC In Stamford, Barbarotta rejected suggestions earlier this week that it was improper for AMC to work in that citys schools on jobs assigned by AFB. They were established for years and years before we got here, said Barbarotta, who has worked with the Stamford school district since 1999. We didnt bring them in here. They were here long before us. Barbarottas contention is supported by district finance chief Hugh Murphy, who previously answered questions about AMC by email. AMC was hired years before AFB arrived by the city engineering department, Murphy wrote. However, records on file with the Connecticut Secretary of the State show AMC Environmental was incorporated in 2007. Barbarotta said the company was purchased by its current owners, Jason and Erin Pringle, from Anthony Vuozzo, a contractor who died in 2008. State records show Vuozzo as the owner of AMC Technologies, a Stratford firm that went defunct in 2009. Most recently, AMC has worked in the Stamford district as the on-site consultant for asbestos abatement at Stamford High School and Rippowam Middle School. The firms work is funded through the districts 420 account; a line item for facilities maintenance managed by Barbarotta and AFB. City payment records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act state that AMC was paid about $291,000 over the past five years. Not all of that money was for work in the schools, Stamford officials said. Lou Casolo, the citys top engineer, said Tuesday that his department has hired AMC in the past for small projects. A review conducted by Hearst Connecticut Media of the past five years of invoices filed by AMC to various city offices, however, showed that about 90 percent of the work AMC was paid for was handled by the districts facilities department which AFB is contracted to run. Asked if AMC Environmental, owned by the Pringles, was affiliated with any of his companies, Barbarotta said no. They pay the rent to 622 Clinton Avenue Associates, in Bridgeport Barbarotta said, adding that AMC under Vuozzo had longtime contracts in Stamford. In addition to Stamford schools, AFB manages schools in New Haven, East Haven and West Haven, Barbarotta said. AMC has no contracts in those districts. Murky relations A woman who answered the phone at AMCs office last summer confirmed that AFB was her companys landlord. The woman, who declined to identify herself beyond indicating she and her husband owned the company, said the couple had worked on Stamford projects since 2007 Murphy told Hearst that three other firms Hygenix Incorporated, Fuss & ONeill, and Belfor Property Restoration have done similar work in the district over the past five years. The bulk of that work, however, has been conducted under the auspices of capital projects run by the city engineering department outside of Barbarottas authority. Hygenix, based in Stamford, has done a significant amount of work in city schools on the removal of toxins such as asbestos and PCBs. Each of their invoices bears the stamp of city engineering and the date the documents were received. Similarly, Manchester-based Fuss & ONeill, which worked with the city on some of its Hurricane Sandy cleanup, has been contracted by the engineering department to oversee the removal of hazardous materials from schools such as Dolan, Cloonan, Turn of River and Northeast. Belfor, a Wallingford firm, has done mold remediation at Westover Magnet School and Westhill High School. When Barbarotta was asked if he had helped AMC secure any contracts in Stamford, Barbarotta gave an emphatic, God, no. Barbarotta has been accused of murky relationships with subcontractors in the past. Trumbulls Herbst, a perennial Barbarotta foe, accused the contractor in a 2013 report of concealing his relationship with Conveo Energy, a company Barbarotta pitched to the Trumbull Board of Education. In the defamation suit Barbarotta filed against Herbst last month, he said his affiliation to the energy company was well known and in no way concealed. Barbarottas involvement with the company, the complaint reads, was apparent from the distributed materials, which listed Conveos business address as AFBs own. Barbarotta insisted Monday that theres no conflict of interest between AFB and AMC, which now rents out Conveos old offices. The firm is simply his tenant, Barbarotta said. The blackballed settlement, between Trumbull and Barbarotta averted a jury trial in a 2013 lawsuit Barbarottas firm, AFB Construction, brought against Herbst in state Superior Court. In the lawsuit, Barbarotta alleged that Herbst strong-armed a local child care center into reneging on a $100,000 contract it offered to Barbarottas company, damaging the firms reputation. Barbarotta is close to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat. Herbst is a Republican with statewide ambitions. I feel like Tim Herbst broke the law in this specific case in Trumbull and believed he could get immunity because hes the first selectman, Barbarotta said Wednesday. He interfered with a contract. The loser pays. They paid us $20,000, so I consider it a win. ESimko-Bednarski@scni.com; 203-964-2215; stamfordadvocate.com/news Advocate staff member Justin Papp contributed research to this report This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate DERBY - The demolition of Derbys oldest house has created a buzz on social media on why a more than 320-year-old landmark was allowed to be destroyed. All that remains of the house at the top of Academy Hill Road is a stone chimney and part of its foundation. A post by John D. Poole, a restoration project director, at the David Humpreys House in Ansonia was published on the You Must Have Grown Up in the Valley Facebook page, created a flurry of comments from Valley residents. Poole wrote, The Samuel Bowers-John Durand house, c. 1686, locally known as Brownie Castle, and the oldest surviving house in Derby, was demolished on Tuesday, 26 January 2016, by its owner, despite local efforts to save it. Unfortunately, this home had no legal protections as an historic resource: it was not situated within an historic district, nor listed on National or State Registers, nor subject to any preservation easements. The City of Derby now has some work to do it if it's serious about conserving its remaining historic building stock, including implementing a demolition delay ordinance, as well as a municipal-wide historic preservation ordinance, similar to the one recently enacted by the City of Milford. And hopefully, private owners of historic properties will give consent to National or State register nominations for their buildings, which, in addition to affording better long-term protection against future demolition, also carries other benefits, such as eligibility for state or federal historic tax credits. The house on Academy Hill Road was more than 320 years old. It was was built by Samuel Bowers, the son of Derby's first minister, the Rev. John Bowers. According to the Derby Historical Society, many families have occupied the house through the year's including Dr. John Durand. James Baird may have had the longest tenure living in the house from 1755 to about 1792. British troops disrupted Baird's stay when they supposedly used the house as headquarters during the Pork Hollow invasion. Baird also held office in the state Legislature, but was described by Derby historian Albert Sherwood as a "grafter" for some shady real estate transactions that lead to his expulsion from the local church. Durand, a French Huguenot physician who came to Derby about 1680, also lived in the house. Derby was sparsely settled with only a few families. It was mostly wilderness, the history society said. Dr. Durand missed the fragrant Lilac shrubs that grew in France, and upon making a return voyage back to France, he returned with a large number of Lilac roots which he planted on the grounds around his home. Thus, the first French Lilac bushes appeared in the United States. With that historical connection, the liliac is Derbys official bush. The name Brownie Castle came from W. S. Brown who worked as a bookkeeper in a Derby bank for 50 years. Browne bought the house and renovated it. The houses razing has brought both anger and disbelief. What a horrible thing that has happened here. No respect for history. A sad sad day indeed, wrote Dawn Sotir. I saw them tearing it down.. What a shame.. Broke my heart. I shake my head now when I pass it.. Why would someone want to tear it down, posted Andrea Viens. I suppose one might ask why it wasn't listed in any Historical Registry, wrote Lucius Sorrentino. In any event, a shameful act by its owner. So sad , taking down our past not right beautiful home, Anne Walkinshaw Morrow. Time to change thinking habits. Why didn't the owner contact CT Historical Society and see if there are funds to move the building. asked Wendy Camp. Sandy Galicki commented, So sad. Once these places are gone they are gone forever. My cousins' house in Derby that was built pre-1776 is gone too, When we came down a few years ago & saw it was gone, it broke our hearts. I remember some of the history my relatives had told me about it. That is what is called progress unfortunately. That's terrible, I hope all the Valley towns now make an effort to better protect the historical sights within their borders ...research is needed, said Terry Riordan. Ned Gerard / ST STRATFORD The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking volunteers to serve as stewards at the Great Meadows Unit of the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge off Long Beach Boulevard in Stratford. Great Meadows is one of the most significant wetlands left in our state. The noted ornithologist and artist Roger Tory Peterson considered the area to be one of the best coastal bird habitats in the United States, with over 270 species using it at various times of the year. This unit of the McKinney Refuge is also open to the public, with 1.5 miles of trails, viewing platforms, informational kiosks, and other improvements that allow visitors to see wildlife 365 days per year. 'Joe Biden can have them': Mastriano vows to bus migrants to Delaware politics Psychology major Jennifer Rice and foreign language major Michelle Sauceda hand out information to interested students Brianna Palomaes and Katherine Camarna at the study aboard fair Wednesday in the University Center Ballroom Mia Hairston Psychology major Jennifer Rice and foreign language major Michelle Sauceda hand out information to interested students Brianna Palomaes and Katherine Camarna at the study aboard fair Wednesday in the University Center Ballroom Despite warnings about abroad travel due to terrorist attacks and disease, U of M students are not halting their study abroad dreams. Central America has a level two alert issued to travelers because of the rapidly spreading Zika virus, via the Center for Disease Control. The Zika virus is spread by mosquitoes and, if bitten, causes someone to have a fever with a rash, joint pain or red eyes that could last several weeks. aWhat is good about the Zika virus is that it is not lethal, itas just flu systems,a Roxane Coche, journalism professor, said. aThe only thing that is bad is if you are pregnant. Your baby would be born with potential deformities. There may be other problems we donat know about, so the fact that we donat know what it might do in the future to unborn children is a problem.a The virus can be spread from a pregnant woman to her unborn baby, according to the CDC. There have been reports of a serious birth defect of the brain called microcephaly and other unfortunate pregnancy outcomes in babies of mothers who were infected with Zika virus while pregnant. Knowledge of the link between Zika and these outcomes is still evolving. aIf the federal government in every big country participating in the Olympic games is not concerned about the virus, then why should we?a Coche said. Katie Flynn studied abroad in Costa Rica, one area being affect by the Zika virus.A However, she does not believe that people should be worried. aI think people definitely should still go,a Flynn said. aI think they should take precautions, whether that is shots or mosquito repellent, but I donat think it should detour them from going because there is a lot to be learned and experienced from going abroad.a Along with the Zika virus, terrorism is another concern. A The world witnessed the beloved city of Paris fall victim to a brutal attack by the Islamic State group. Proximity to recent terrorist attacks would usually send others away, but not Bradley Starnes, a U of M student who traveled Lille, France. aIf I was going to France tomorrow, as long as they would let me in, I would go,a Starnes said. aThe point of terrorism is to spread terror, and we have to show them that they can not bother us. It is as much their job to spread fear as it is our job to spread hope and show that we are not afraid of them just because they attack one of our friends.a French professor Denis Grele has noted that the number of applications for the European summer program held at Lille Catholic University in Lille, France, only two hours away from Paris, has not seen a drop at all. A aToday students realize that, no matter where you are going, you can be attracted anywhere,a Grele said. The U of M study abroad office takes note of all the dangers going around and does their best to make sure students who study abroad are safe, said Rebecca Laumann, assistant director of international programs and study abroad. A aIn our office we are connected to the U.S. Department of Stateas website, where they send us alerts if there is a travel warning or advisory or a disease,a Laumann said. aWe monitor sites like the CDC. Thereas a lot of things going on in our office to make sure students are safe. We have a large orientation to tell students about traveling. You have a small program-specific orientation, where we really focus on where students are going and address any questions and concerns. We also stay in touch with students while they are there. A coordinator like us will be there to help the students and make sure they stay safe.a Two state legislators have filed a bill that would freeze tuition and mandatory fees at Tennessees public universities until the 2018-2019 school year. The bill would also require all members of the Tennessee Board of Regents to unanimously vote for any increase that was greater than two percent the consumer price index. Freshmen entering college in 2018 would not see their tuition or fees raised unless they dropped below a full-time student at a Tennessee public university. The tuition-freeze program would allow these freshmen to pay the same rate for tuition all four years. They would only have one opportunity to utilize the tuition-freeze program. If the student drops below full-time status or is no longer enrolled as a student at a state college or university, that student will never be eligible for the tuition-freeze program again. The "Tuition Stability Act, filed by state Sen. Dolores Gresham, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, and Rep. Martin Daniel, seeks to control the rapid rate at which tuition is increasing at Tennessees state colleges and universities. College tuition is out of control in Tennessee, and everyone knows it, Gresham said in a press release issued by her press secretary Darlene Schlicher. Any college student or their family who attended a Tennessee college or university during the last decade understands all too well the problem this bill addresses. If the present rate of tuition increases were to continue, an affordable college education would soon be out of reach for all but the most affluent Tennesseans. The proposed bill would affect fees such as maintenance fees, course fees, program service fees, student activity fees, registration fees and any other fee a student is required to pay in order to attend a state college or university. However, fees like late registration fees, returned check fees, parking fines, library fines or any other fee that could be avoided by the student would not be affected. In 2014 the University of Memphis approved a 3.7 percent increase in tuition for the 2015-2016 school year, causing tuition to rise to $7,320 per year with mandatory fees of $1,583. Freshman nursing major Terica Jones is one of the students who noticed the increase when it was time to pay her tuition. Its not fair for students to have to pay so much money to build new buildings, Jones said. I would only consider paying a tuition increase to help renovate existing buildings on campus because some of them dont have proper air conditioning or heat. While some students agree that tuition should never increase for any reason, others think there are some instances where a tuition increase is acceptable. Psychology senior Katie Brick is one of them. A tuition increase is never good for students, Brick said. If the increase was something that would be beneficial to students and bring positive attention to the school, I think that would be acceptable. BAILEY CLARK Student parking fees will likely increase. A third of general parking at the University of Memphis will be eliminated when construction of the new recreation center and pedestrian bridge are completed. As a result, the per semester parking fee will increase from $42 to $69 to cover the cost of a parking garage to replace the lost spaces. Some University of Memphis students are unhappy with the prospect of higher student fees after news that parking permits will likely increase by about 65 percent. aWe already pay through the roof to go to school here, and a lot of us have to pay out of pocket,a aid junior Shawn Mufti. aI had to pay an extra amount for the new recreation center, and I donat like the idea of having to pay more to only add about 200 more spaces.a Student fees were increased by more than $300 a semester in 2014 to pay for the $62 million recreation center and pedestrian bridge. As of now, most full-time students pay $42 per semester to park in general lots at the U of M, which will likely jump to $69 per semester starting fall 2017 to fund the parking garage. Priority parkers will have to pay $95. Some Student Government Association senators thought that the money they paid for the new recreation center would have covered the new garage. A A A A A A A A A A A aOne problem I do have is that the administration led us to believe that this was part of the recreation center fee that was passed two years ago,a former student senator Charles Uffelman said. aI was really disappointed to find that wasnat the case.a Even some U of M officials assumed the recreation center fee hike would go toward paying for parking as well. A aWhen the fee increase was discussed for the new rec center and land bridge a I wasnat a part of those conversations a we thought that the fee that was voted on included the cost of a garage,a Angela Floyd, director of Parking and Transportation Services at the U of M, said. aIt did not.a A A A A A A A A A A A The plan to build a garage to make up for the 1,489 general parking spaces that will be lost after the brand new recreation center and land bridge are built will cost the students $18.6 million. A A A A A A A A A A A aThe campus master plan does have several facilities that are supposedly going to be built on our parking lots to the north and the south,a Uffelman said. aI think we are lucky to have these opportunities to expand our campus.a A A A A A A A A A A A If the plan goes into place, parking fees for most full-time students would increase by 65 percent, while the average student would pay $27 more per semester, and the main campus would add 245 more parking spaces. If fees do not go up, the campus would lose 695 spaces as a result of the construction of the rec center and the bridge, according to U of M officials. A A A A A A A A A A A While many students are upset about the hike in fees, they know a new parking garage is basically a necessity the University cannot go without. A A A A A A A A A A A aParking is already very limited right now,a sophomore Brianna Palomares said. aIad much rather have more parking available and pay money than lose that many spaces.a A A A A A A A A A A A While the student senate does not have the power to increase student fees, they are expected to vote Feb. 4 on whether or not they agree with the fee hike during their 7:30 p.m. meeting. A A A A For now, it seems likely that many senators will vote in favor of the parking garage fee. A A A A A A A A A A A aStudents, including myself, are constantly complaining about the lack of available parking,a current student senator Daniel Stevenson said. aI understand that construction plans along with predicted costs can change over time, so I donat find it too surprising that an additional fee was needed. Itas a necessary cost.a As countless people clamour for a recipe they think might bag them a mate, others are starting to wonder: do we need to worry if our partner leaves the house with cookware? by Samantha Selinger-Morris The headmistress of a primary school in Darlington has sent out a letter asking parents to refrain from wearing pyjamas when dropping off their children. 'I have noticed there has been an increasing tendency for parents to escort children to and from school while still wearing their pyjamas and, on occasion, even slippers,' wrote Kate Chisholm. This is not the first time the net has tightened around pyjama wearers. Six years ago, in January 2010, a Tesco store in Cardiff posted a new dress code for its shoppers. 'To avoid causing embarrassment to others,' announced posters at the store's entrance, 'we ask that customers are appropriately dressed when visiting our store.' For clarification, they added: 'No nightwear is permitted.' The headmistress of a primary school in Darlington sent out a letter asking parents to refrain from wearing pyjamas when dropping off their children (pictured, one of the schoolchildren's parents) Overnight, as it were, British society has turned pyjamaphobic. Sadly, this puts me in an uncomfortable position. For some time now, I have been an 'out' pyjama-wearer, or, to put it another way, I am openly pyjamist, a pyjama-alarmer from way back. Operating from home, I remain in my pyjamas until I have finished my work for the day. Then, and only then, do I slip into something more formal, like an old T-shirt and a pair of jeans, and I really only do so to avoid raising eyebrows in the street. I rarely get out of my pyjamas until the afternoon. This makes me prey to disapproving glances from people who come to the door, such as delivery men. Polite though it was, headmistress Kate Chisholm's broadside against the pyjama-dwelling community will, I'm afraid, have the effect of lowering our status still further in the eyes of most people. The internet is already chock-a-block with extremist comments in support of her pyjamaphobia. 'Totally agree with her. Let them be named, photographed and shamed,' writes Colin from Birmingham. 'I don't even put my dustbin out without getting dressed,' boasts Plum from Cornwall, while Jan from Leeds complains of 'bone-idle slobs', adding: 'What's going on in this country?' 'What ever happened to personal pride?' writes Dom from the Cotswolds. 'And how can they still be in jammies at that hour?' Headmistress Kate Chisholm (pictured) wrote: 'I have noticed there has been an increasing tendency for parents to escort children to and from school while still wearing their pyjamas and, on occasion, even slippers' It dawns on me that, like so many others, I am now a member of a persecuted minority, destined to live my life in the shadows. My only hope is that those of us wedded to our pyjamas will eventually be accepted by other outsiders, and that, together, we can fight for LGBTPJ rights. Why have we pyjamistas got such a bad name? It can't all be put down to the loud-mouthed, platitude-spouting vicar on Gogglebox in her jim-jams and fluffy slippers. There must surely be a deeper reason. Certainly, there are hazards to wearing pyjamas. Men's pyjamas, in particular, are often made with a perilously wide V in the fly area, making the wearing of them in public without the back-up of a robust pair of underpants a potentially imprisonable offence. This could be remedied by the development of a new Code of Conduct for manufacturers, allowing for the provision of less panoramic PJs. On the other hand, it's not as though we have been short of good role-models. Most Sundays over the past five or six years, the Earl of Grantham has been graciously parading about in his pyjamas in Downton Abbey, and no one has ever called him a slug-a-bed, or complained that they ever glimpsed more of his body than was artistically valid. Likewise, Morecambe and Wise often appeared in pyjamas together, and it seemed to make them all the more lovable. 'Pyjamas are the most peaceable of clothes. No one in pyjamas has ever called for a bomb to be dropped or a country to be invaded,' writes Craig Brown Yet we continue to be marginalised and sidelined from places of influence. Even though it is transmitted late at night, I have yet to spot a single person on the panel of BBC1's Question Time in pyjamas. Or are some of them secretly wearing pyjama bottoms? Is that what the Question Time desk is for? Surely it's the case that if all the panellists were encouraged to wear pyjamas, they would undoubtedly feel less tense and more relaxed. This, in turn, would make their opinions less forthright, their tone less bullish. It is impossible to take yourself too seriously in a pair of stripy pyjamas. To take just one example: if the contenders for the Republican U.S. presidential nomination were all obliged to swap their stiff blue suits for pyjamas and dressing-gowns, then this would be followed by a marked downturn in their testosterone levels. Boris Johnson's great hero is Winston Churchill. To a large degree he models himself on him, and in his own mind compares himself to the great war leader. A little over a year ago, he wrote a biography extolling him. There are certainly some striking similarities. From an early age Churchill was convinced that he would be a man of destiny. Boris also believes that the gods have fashioned him to do something great for this nation. Churchill had Promethean energies. So does Boris. Churchill had a way with words. So, albeit not as remarkably, does Boris. Churchill was an outsider who was accused by his enemies before his passage of glory of being an insufferable egotist. So is Boris. Boris wants to be loved. He shuns unpopularity. Unlike Churchill, he does not seem prepared to put principle and belief and conviction before his overweening ambition But if the two men have much in common there is at least one startling point of difference. Winston Churchill was a man of boundless political courage. Boris I hate to say it has the look of a political coward. Admiration The distinction may be that the man who saved our country nearly 76 years ago did not crave love and admiration from his peers. Again and again, he was prepared to put himself in an unpopular, and often very small, minority. Sometimes he was right, sometimes he was wrong. He was wrong to oppose home rule for India during the early 1930s, and wrong, too, in the context of the times to plead that Edward VIII should delay his abdication after marrying the divorced Wallis Simpson. He was right, in a visionary way, when warning of the dangers of German rearmament even before Adolf Hitler came to power. Boris, by contrast, wants to be loved. He shuns unpopularity. And, unlike Churchill on a number of crucial occasions, he does not seem prepared to put principle and belief and conviction before his overweening ambition. In short, he wants to play it safe. Winston Churchill was a man of boundless political courage. Boris has the look of a political coward How else can we explain his refusal so far to place himself at the head of the Brexit campaign to take Britain out of the EU? As a journalist, Boris was a true Eurosceptic, whereas Prime Minister David Cameron applied the description to himself in order to keep the Tory Right on side. Unlike Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne and most of the Cabinet, Boris is not frightened by the prospect of Britain leaving the EU. He has recently said this country could have a 'great, great future outside the EU'. He knows the organisation is economically sclerotic, and he has confidence in the British people to flourish if our national sovereignty is restored. Why doesn't he seize the opportunity? Because he is frightened the Brexit movement may lose. He is perfectly aware that David Cameron is going to extract some very paltry concessions from the EU yet attempt to represent them as significant. But Boris doesn't fancy standing up to the great and the good the Cabinet ministers, BBC, CBI, governor of the Bank of England and the titans of 'big business' who will be filling our ears with scare stories. Boris. Churchill was an outsider who was accused by his enemies before his passage of glory of being an insufferable egotist. So is Boris What would Boris's hero, Winston Churchill, do? It is surely obvious. He would put his country and his principles before narrow ambition, and take on dull orthodoxy with a vengeance Here, I submit, Boris is in danger of making two grave mistakes. The first is that he underestimates the growing chances that Brexit will happen as more and more people realise that staying in the EU will render us incapable of controlling our borders against the ever increasing torrent of migrants. The second mistake is perhaps even more serious. Boris believes, as do many political pundits, that being part of an unsuccessful Brexit campaign would tar him with failure, and amount to virtual political suicide. I'd say that the opposite is much more probable. If Boris Johnson led a Brexit campaign that fought an honest fight and went down to an honourable defeat, he would enhance his reputation in the country. And by attracting the admiration of the Tory Right, and the respect of his opponents in the Conservative Party, he would increase his chances of succeeding Mr Cameron when he steps down (which I suspect may turn out to be later than 2019, the date indicated by the Prime Minister before the last election). In other words, by showing courage and leadership even in a failed cause (and, as I say, it may not fail), Boris would transform himself from the transparently calculating and over-cautious politician he is at the moment into an almost Churchillian figure. Let me also inform Boris that if he follows the Cameron-Osborne line, and enthusiastically endorses pretty meaningless concessions, he will find himself shunted into some unglamorous Cabinet post where he will grow quickly bored. He will be their creature rather than his own man. They will patronise him. Rudderless So I am not asking Boris to go over the top only to be cut to pieces. I am suggesting that if he embraces the cause in which he believes he will, whatever the outcome, do his political standing no end of good and his country a great and vital service. Irreverent though I may have sometimes been towards Boris, it's surely obvious that I believe there is no one else who can pull together the at present rudderless movement to leave the EU, dominated as it is by a motley collection of fairly obscure and not very formid-able individuals. If Boris Johnson led a Brexit campaign that fought an honest fight and went down to an honourable defeat, he would enhance his reputation in the country Nor are there any other plausible big beasts lurking in the undergrowth. Nigel Farage is too manifestly associated with Ukip, and therefore a potentially divisive figure who is not trusted by many Tory-voting Eurosceptics. Besides, he is growing ever more eccentric and unpredictable. Among the diminishing band of Cabinet Eurosceptics, Theresa May would hardly be convincing heading a national campaign of this sort, effective Home Secretary though she has been. The Justice Secretary, Michael Gove, seems to me to have lost the will to fight, though I hope I am wrong. Destiny And although I'm sure that Iain Duncan Smith will go down in his history as a great welfare reformer, I don't think he has the necessary leadership qualities for this task, though he can still make a valuable contribution within the Brexit camp. No, it has to be Boris. There is no one else but him. Of course he has his flaws a tendency not to be on top of the detail of an argument, and sometimes too much larkiness but he has the inestimable virtue of reaching out far beyond the Tory tribe. That, of course, is why Cameron and Osborne still fear him. The more I think about it, the surer I am that the choice in front of Boris is not really a choice at all. He can trudge along supporting a cause in which he does not really believe, and accept whatever ministerial bauble the Prime Minister and Chancellor deign to toss in his direction. Or he can establish himself as a statesman far above the common run, not merely concerned with petty calculations of personal advancement, as I am afraid nearly all modern politicians are. Between them they represent the cream of the fashion industry, boasting ad campaigns for the likes of Burberry, Versace and Louis Vuitton. But if you needed further proof that they are a force to be reckoned with, supermodels including Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Lara Stone have joined forces for a sizzling short film celebrating the career of one of Britain's fashion greats. In a new campaign produced by Beats By Dre headphones, the beauties have dressed up to embody the seven deadly sins - with Moss depicting lust. Scroll down for video Kate Moss reclines in a scarlet throne posing as 'lust' in a short film created in honour of fashion giant Edward Enniful. The full version of the film will premiere on a billboard in New York's Times Square on 29 January Karlie Kloss poses in a golden gown and bangles as 'greed' in the 10-second clip produced by Nick Knight Karlie Kloss, Jourdan Dunn and fellow models Karen Elson, Mariacarla Boscono and Anna Ewers are also in on the act posing as the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth. The short clip, which lasts just 10 seconds, was produced by renowned British fashion photographer Nick Knight to celebrate the career of fashion tsar Edward Enninful who is celebrating 25 years in the industry this year. His career includes stints i-D magazine, W magazine, Vogue Italia and Vogue US where he worked alongside editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. Edward has been teasing his 350,000 Instagram followers with short gifs taken from the video. He wrote: 'Seven sins, seven colors, seven sounds and eight muses (gluttony required two).' The models pose as the seven deadly sins - pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth - in the video Anna Ewers, left, and Lara Stone, right, both pose in a sea of pink as they take the part of 'gluttony' It sees the seven deadly sins reimagined as supermodels in a variety of sultry poses, each dressed decadent costumes. While Kate Moss poses in a red encrusted jacket with a red wig and, what looks like a red crustacean resting on her groin, as lust, Naomi Campbell plays the part of pride, dressed in a sweeping Yohji Yamamoto gown. Karlie Kloss is wrapped in gold to play greed, Jourdan Dunn has long green hair to embody envy, and Lara Stone and Anna Ewers languish in a sea of pink to play gluttony. Italian beauty Mariacarla Boscono represents sloth, with Karen Elson as wrath. Each model is set against a different colour backdrop with a different piece of short music, as chosen by Beats By Dre. Edward Edinfull (pictured with Naomi Campbell, left and Kate Moss, right) is celebrating 25 years in fashion Supermodel Naomi Campbell poses in a sweeping black gown by Yohji Yamamoto as she plays 'pride' While Kate, 42, reclines on a throne wearing lacy scarlet lingerie, stockings and a matching wig, Karlie stuns as greed in a golden dress and bangles. Lara Stone and Anna Ewers both pose against in a sea of candyfloss pink as gluttony, while Naomi Jourdann Dunn makes a fleeting appearance as envy. Flame-haired Karen Elson wears a flowing yellow gown as wrath, while Mariacarla Boscono dons a dark blue wig and gown as sloth. Jourdan Dunn is green with envy, left, while fellow model Karen Elson dons a yellow gown as she plays 'wrath' Mariacarla Boscono dons a dark blue wig and gown as sloth. The short film will be screened on a giant billboard in Times Square on 29 January, before being rolled out globally online ShowStudio.com on 13 February Edward told the Telegraph: 'Ive known Kate [Moss] since I was 16 and she was 14. Ive known Naomi [Campbell], my gosh, forever. Shes like a sister to me. All the others Ive seen since they started. He added: 'Straight away Kate said, Im lust. She claimed it.' While fans have been granted only sneak previews in gif form, producers are planning a premiere of epic proportions, debuting the short film on a giant billboard in Times Square on 29 January. She's known for her prowess as an athlete and a party planner, and last year she turned her hand to fashion design, creating a dress and scarf in collaboration with Tabitha Webb. Pippa Middleton's tea dress and matching scarf have long been sold out, but now fans have a chance to get their hands on the items in a charity auction. The lot is part of the British Heart Foundation's Roll out the Red auction which launches today. Scroll down for video Pippa Middleton, 32, designed a 295 silk tea dress in collaboration with Tabitha Webb last year and the sold out item goes on sale as part of a charity auction for the British Heart Foundation today Other exclusive items up for grabs include a Keepsake sleeveless coat belonging to The Saturdays Mollie King, who hosted the charity's Roll Out The Red Ball in 2015. Pippa, who is an ambassador for the British Heart Foundation, joined forces with Tabitha Webb last year to create the two-piece limited edition collection. She described being involved in the design process as both 'fun and creative' and the results, a 295 dress and a 95 scarf, drew heavily on her own pretty and preppy wardrobe staples. The profits from the sale of the items, which were available on Tabitha Webb's website and her London store, went towards Pippa's 54-mile London to Brighton bike ride in aid of the BHF. A matching scarf, which cost 95, is also up for grabs in the Roll out the Red auction. Pippa's designs were originally sold to raise funds for her London to Brighton charity bike ride 'As an ambassador of the British Heart Foundation, Im delighted that all the profits of the sales will go towards their lifesaving research into heart disease,' she told Hello! magazine at the time. 'Creating the limited edition pieces was a fun and creative way to fundraise for the BHF London to Brighton cycle challenge.' Pippa did her bit to promote her designs by making an appearance at Wimbledon in the tea dress. Sure enough silk frock and cashmere-blend scarf, both of which featured a bespoke floral pattern designed by print-specialist Tabitha, went on to sell out. A Keepsake sleeveless coat belonging to The Saturdays Mollie King (left), is also up for grabs; Made In Chelsea fans can bid for the opportunity to go on a date with Ollie Locke, one of the show's original stars If neither takes your fancy, Made In Chelsea enthusiasts have the chance to win a date with Ollie Locke. And Downton Abbey followers can bid on the chance for a Valentines Day weekend in Highclere Castle. The online auction closes at midnight on Thursday, 11 February and the money raised will go towards life saving research into heart and circulatory disease. Its finish coincides with the charity's annual Roll Out The Red ball, which will be hosted by Natasha Kaplinsky. Pippa will give a welcome speech at the event. This is the secret men's product that women are using to make their makeup last all day. Beauty bloggers and makeup aficionados are swearing by a $12 men's Nivea Men's post shave balm instead of high end primers. The product- which is available in most chemists and some supermarkets- supposedly makes makeup apply smoothly and last all day. 'I've used a lot of primers from more high end brands such as Benefit and Illamasqua to drug store brands such as Rimmel and Elf, and this is the first thing that has actually helped my makeup stay.' 'I used to find that my foundation would be gone within a matter of hours and it now lasts for the day!' makeup addict Meg Sowersby wrote in a beauty-themed Facebook group. Secret use: Women are using the Nivea Men's post shave balm as an alternative to high end primer The trend appears to have been started by YouTube beauty vlogger NikkiTutorials, who uploaded a video in March 2015 talking about the product. Nikki stumbled onto the men's post shave product by accident, when she forgot to bring her regular primer and moisturiser to her boyfriend's house. She saw her boyfriend's Nivea post shave balm in the bathroom and decided to give it a try. Later in the day she realised that her makeup hadn't moved and still looked perfect. 'I tried it on and did my makeup. I realised how my makeup looked flawless all day long and thought is this because of the Nivea Men's after shave balm?' Nikki said in her video. Beauty bloggers claim because the product contains glycerine, it helps makeup stay on much better than traditional primers. 'I looked up the ingredients and the second most used ingrediant in the after shave balm is glycerine. What does glycerine do? It's going to make whatever you put on your face stick to it;' Nikki said. 'The thing that makes the difference is essentially it has heaps of glycerine in it, which acts as a glue for your make-up which most other primers barely have,' makeup obsessive Mulder Galvani said. It's a bit of a distinctive male smell, but it's by far the best primer I've owned. I've tried pretty much every high end primer there is, and it is definitely a winner,' she continued. Wow: Makeup artist and Instagramer Amandadle is a fan Social media buzz: Twitter user Jo says the balm is the 'best primer ever' The balm has been getting lots of attention on social media, with women on Twitter and Instagram posting selfies of their makeup after using the balm. Other makeup bloggersare wondering if cosmetic companies will realise how well the balm works and develop their own similar primers specifically for use with makeup. 'I'm really excited to see what the reaction will be from the makeup industry,' Brooke Jamieson told Daily Mail Australia. One woman is collecting the sad, heartbreaking, and even angry messages people would like to deliver to the first people they ever loved - and turning them into beautiful art. Sacramento, California-based artist Rora Blue, 19, asked strangers to share with her the things that they would really like to say to their first loves, if they had the chance to send a text message without repercussions. She also had them each suggest the color that they thought best represented that person. The result was the 'Unsent Project', a collection of printed notes in varying hues, each baring the raw and emotional message, which Rora is sharing on her Instagram account and has also arranged into a stunning collage. Emotional outpouring: California-based artist Rora Blue, 19, asked people to submit the messages that they would send to their first loves, if they had the chance Heartbreak: Some of the messages, like this one, express feelings of heartbreak, or sadness Unanswered questions: Others simply give the person the opportunity to ask something that they might have often wondered during their relationship The messages range in tone, from the tragic and heartbreaking, to the angry and frustrated, but what each one has in common is the level of honesty put across in such a small number of words. It was last year that Rora first put out her missive, asking strangers for contributions, and they soon began flying in from thousands of different people. State your first loves name and type what you would say if you sent them a text message,' she prompted. 'Also include the color that you think of when you think of your first love. Over 2,000 people responded. From there, the artist narrowed those submissions down to 400 and arranged them by color, creating a 4' by 7' collage. The messages, many of which are addressed to the first name of the intended recipient, came from people who are incredibly sad and heartbroken, hurt and angry, and, in some cases, still in love. The artist: Rora, who lives in Sacramento, has been collecting the messages since last year Rainbow of emotion: Many of the messages have been used in a collage, which Rora said she wanted to be 'visually appealing from a distance but emotional and meaningful up close' Witty: Not all of the messages contain sad sentiments, others, like this one, are sweet and funny all at once All about the background: While photographing some of the individual messages that stood out to her, Rora used settings which seem to reflect the sentiment of the message 'Try and look me in the eyes and tell me what we had wasn't real,' reads one red square, which is addressed to a man named Russ. 'We were just two different people that became too different people,' another witty one says. One blue square contains the message: 'I still love you, a**hole.' But for all of the negative emotions, a few people proved it is possible to hold on to your first love - and the sweet sentiments that are involved with that unforgettable romance. 'I'd shave my legs for you,' wrote one woman, who is presumably still with her boyfriend. 'You went out last night. You smelled nice,' wrote another. 'A roller coaster that never stopped': Each person taking part in the project was asked to suggest a color that they thought best reflected the person they were sending the message to Passionate: The person behind this message appears to be convincing his former love that their romance could perhaps continue Heartbreaking: Some of the messages included are sent from people still in relationships with their first loves, such as this very poignant one And then there are those that express devastation and sadness, sent both by those still in relationships, and those whose hearts have been broken by a former lover. 'You tell me you love me,' one particularly poignant message to 'Steven' reads. 'But when you're sound asleep and I'm still up, you say you love her.' Others are slightly more aggressive, no doubt providing the sender with a means of getting out their anger and resentment towards a person who hurt them. 'Your d**k is so small,' one reads, while another says: 'Got my money yet?' The messages are made all the more poignant by the striking, and often beautiful, backgrounds that Rora shoots them against, with many images of the small paper cutouts featuring the California coastline, or a snowy scene. Expression: 'The collage is a tangible representation of the fearlessness to speak ones mind that people have when sitting behind a screen,' Rora explained on her website Feeling blue: Many of the blue messages seem to contain feelings of sadness and confusion Sensing a pattern: A lot of the messages featured in the project appear to have been sent to men - and only a few feature women's names 'Everything is blurry': A few of the messages appear to have been sent while the person was under the influence of alcohol And then there is Rora's collage, for which she collected a series of the notes and arranged them in rainbow order, creating a bright and bold pattern that looks happy and colorful from afar - but begins to mean so much more as the viewer approaches. 'I wanted to create something that was visually appealing from a distance but emotional and meaningful up close,' Rora explained on her website, adding that the collage is currently on display at The Ice Blocks in Sacramento. 'The collage is a tangible representation of the fearlessness to speak ones mind that people have when sitting behind a screen. 'The collage also reveals the immense amount of people who have something left unsaid to their first love whether that person is part of their past, present, or future.' a torrent of abuse from his fans on Twitter - and was shocked Last week I bumped into Harry Styles of One Direction. He was at Kenwood House in North London and when I said hello, he gave me a big smile and said: 'Nice to meet you.' Not the tale of the century, admittedly, but it's not every day you exchange pleasantries with someone who makes seven to 70-year-olds swoon. I couldn't resist sending Harry a message on Twitter afterwards. 'It made my day,' I wrote. 'You are a sweetheart.' Saira Khan bumped into Harry Styles at Kenwood House in North London and he gave her a big smile I expected a few gushings of envy and to be quizzed on the exact shade of his eyes/shoes / shirt. What I didn't see coming was a shocking lesson in the almighty power of the internet and the terrifying cult of celebrity. For with that message, I found myself the victim of a baying mob of trolls. I was a little giddy when I engaged in some banter online about Harry's predilection for older ladies. (A few years ago, he dated TV's Caroline Flack, 14 years his senior. ) I am 45 - a decade older than Caroline - and happily married with two small children. But to the Directioners (as the fans are known), I'd put my head above the parapet, and they took aim. It started with a trickle of messages, then a flood. Abuse and menace, calling me names, accusing me of sex crimes and wishing I was dead. These fans were not the variety found in playgrounds across the country. This was the militant wing. From the grammar and style of the tweets, I would guess their ages were between 13 and 16. For a moment it was almost funny, but I wasn't laughing for long. Never underestimate teenagers' capacity for bile. They were into their stride, with tweet after tweet decrying myself and Caroline Flack as 'gross pedos' (sic). Many were so littered with profanities I cannot reproduce them here. 'I'm ashamed your father didn't wear a condom,' is one of the more printable. 'If cancer was a person it'd be you.' One called me an 'ugly, fat, failed abortion'. You get the measure of what I was up against. Fans of One Direction abused Saira mercilessly on Twitter and she was scared enough to go to the police After a few hours of this, I was reeling. Soon my anger was replaced by hurt. When tens of thousands of people turn against you, even the strongest will be challenged. And this is what really troubles me. I am a successful adult who has made it her life's mission not to be cowed by bullies and negativity. One thing I am not is a pushover. But these trolls got to me. How would a vulnerable young girl react when faced with similar torrents of abuse? We have all read stories about teenagers driven to suicide by online trolling. Yet only now do I understand how it happens. This is not about a minority. This is the world our teenage children live in and it is sobering when you realise just how removed you are from modern youth culture. As these teenagers delighted in taunting me: 'Welcome to the internet, grandma.' This is not about a minority. This is the world our teenage children live in and it is sobering when you realise just how removed you are from modern youth culture Fighting back is futile because they simply come back at you in greater numbers with ever greater venom. Those who commit the slightest offence against the invisible army of trolls have no other option than to turn the other cheek or risk social destruction. It may sound melodramatic, but the reality is that these days teenagers live almost their entire lives online. This is how they communicate, learn, work and play. And it provides them with a world where they, not the adults, are in charge. Think Lord Of The Flies on a global scale. Parents know little or nothing about this. How could we? We kid ourselves that we understand social media, but we are in a foreign land compared to our teenage children. Teenagers accept that being bullied is part and parcel of this online life. You put up, shut up and just get on with it. I have never been one to do that, so I threatened them with the police. And this was when I learned just how out of control the situation has become. The trolls seem blissfully unaware of the fact that what they are doing is illegal, under the Malicious Communications Act, and that they can be prosecuted for it. 'How the f*** is cyber bullying real?' wrote one troll. 'Haha, haha. N***** just walk away from the screen like n***** close your eyes. Haha.' Once you have unravelled the erratic grammar and put aside the fact that this stranger saw fit to call me, as a woman with brown skin, the N-word, the message is clear. To these trolls, calling the police was an act of betrayal - like a criminal informing on their fellow crooks. One particularly unpleasant character, who goes by the name of Jaiden, wrote that my Wikipedia entry needed to be updated to include the occupation 'full-time grass'. Thankfully, the police couldn't have been kinder and took my complaint very seriously. I have kept records of every tweet and passed them on to officers, who are investigating as I type this. But the problem is identifying the offenders. Barely any of the offending accounts featured a photograph of the person behind it and names are changed on a daily basis. My tormentors disappeared like smoke. It left me with the impression that there are a lot of teenagers out there who have two lives: their real existence, where they behave like good citizens, and the virtual world, where they can unleash their anger and do all the outrageous things they can't in daily life. And I don't believe their parents have any idea what they're up to. However, on the third day, a sliver of light emerged. I began to receive a growing number of private messages of support, with youngsters confiding that they, too, had received this kind of abuse and saying I had given them the courage to report their experiences to the police. Then a handful spoke out publicly in my support, taking time to apologise for the behaviour of what they called 'a minority of Directioners'. Many admitted they were too scared to do so openly, for fear the mob would turn on them. So how do we move on from here? If anything good has come of the trauma, it is that I have a strategy for how to deal with my own children when they reach their teens. I have vowed not to let them go anywhere near social media until they are 16. When the little girl pointed at the sweets at the checkout, her mother said: 'No, they're bad for your teeth.' So her daughter, who was no more than two, did what small children often do at such times. She threw a tantrum. What happened next horrified me. The embarrassed mother found her iPad in her bag and thrust it into her daughter's hands. Peace was restored immediately. This incident, which happened three years ago, was the first time I saw a tablet computer used as a pacifier. It certainly wasn't the last. Since then, I've seen many tiny children barely able to toddle yet expertly swiping an iPad - not to mention countless teenagers, smartphone in hand, lost to the real world as they tap out texts. Sue Palmer, a psychologist, has seen countless toddlers who can barely walk swiping at screens (stock photo) It's ten years since the publication of my book, Toxic Childhood, which warned of the dangers of too much screen-time on young people's physical and mental health. My fears have been realised. Though I was one of the first to foresee how insidiously technology would penetrate youngsters' lives, even I've been stunned at how quickly even the tiniest have become slaves to screens - and how utterly older ones are defined by their virtual personas. Indeed, when my book came out, Facebook had just hit our shores and we were more concerned with violent video games and children watching too much TV. Seems like ancient history, doesn't it? Today, on average, children spend five to six hours a day staring at screens. And they're often on two or more screens at once - for example, watching TV while playing on an iPad. Because technology moves so fast, and children have embraced it so quickly, it's been difficult for parents to control it. And when it comes to spending a childhood in front of a screen, this generation are like lab rats. The long-term impact is not known. Even before iPads hit the market in 2010, experts were warning that 80 per cent of children arrived at school with poor co-ordination, due to a sedentary lifestyle. Along with colleagues in the field of child development, I'd seen a rise in prescriptions for Ritalin, a drug for attention deficit and hyperactivity - a four-fold increase in less than a decade. Sue Palmer, above, believes that excessive screen time can lead to obesity, sleep disorders and aggression And we'd collected a mass of research showing links between excessive screen-time and obesity, sleep disorders, aggression, poor social skills, depression and academic under-achievement. It's little wonder, then, that the boom in iPads and smartphones has coincided with further deterioration in the physical and mental health of children of all ages. Sadly, we're seeing the rise of the 'techno-tot' for whom iPads have become the modern-day equivalent of a comfort blanket. Recent research found 10 per cent of children under four are put to bed with a tablet computer to play with as they fall asleep. One study of families owning them found a third of children under three had their own tablets. Baby shops even sell 'apptivity seats' into which a tablet can be slotted to keep toddlers entertained. Few know that the late Apple boss Steve Jobs didn't let his own children have iPads. I wish he had gone public on this as other parents might have followed suit. Few know that the late Apple boss Steve Jobs didn't let his own children have iPads. I wish he had gone public on this as other parents might have followed suit Because the earlier children are hooked on screens, the more difficult it is to wean them off. This is not the only worry. It's not just what children get up to onscreen that affects their overall development. It's what screens displace - all the activities they're not doing in the real world. Today's children have far fewer opportunities for what I call 'real play'. They are no longer learning through first-hand experiences how to be human and are much less likely to play or socialise outdoors or with others. One of the most depressing examples of a totally screen-based childhood involved a ten-year-old in London. The overweight, pasty-faced little lad told me: 'I sit in my room and I watch my telly and play on my computer . . . and if I get hungry I text down to my mum and she brings me up a pizza.' The change in children's play has happened in little more than a couple of decades. While many parents feel uneasy about all that screen-time, they haven't tackled it as they've been so busy keeping up with changes in their own lives. And anyway, it's happening to children everywhere - so surely it can't be bad for them? But real play is a biological necessity. One psychologist told me it was 'as vital for healthy development as food or sleep'. Toxic Childhood by Sue Palmer explores the effects of screen time on children If the neural pathways that control social and imaginative responses aren't developed in early childhood, it's difficult to revive them later. A whole generation could grow up without the mental ability to create their own fun, devise their own games and enjoy real friendships - all because of endless screen-time. It's getting out and about - running, climbing, making dens and so on - that allows little children to gain physical skills. Playing 'let's pretend' is a creative process requiring lots of personal input. Real play develops initiative, problem-solving skills and many other positive traits, such as a can-do attitude, perseverance and emotional resilience. It's vital for social skills, too. By playing together, youngsters learn to get along with other people. They discover how others' minds work, developing empathy. And, as real play is driven by an innate desire to understand how the world works, it provides the foundation for academic learning. Real play is evolution's way of helping children develop minds of their own - curious, problem- solving, adaptable, human minds. The American Academy of Paediatrics recommends no screen-time for children under two and a maximum two hours a day there-after. This is not just due to a proven link between screen-time and attention disorders, but because it eliminates other activities essential for building healthy bodies and brains. Babies are born with an intense desire to learn about their world, so they're highly motivated to interact with people and objects around them - the beginning of real play. That's why they love it when we play silly games with them, such as peekaboo, or they manage to grasp some household object. This is what helps them develop physical co-ordination and social skills. But when little ones can get instant rewards from high-tech devices, they don't need to bother with real play. Images on a screen can be just as fascinating as the real world, and even a very small child can learn to control the images with a clumsy swish of podgy fingers. Each time babies or toddlers make something happen on screen, they get the same sort of pleasure hit as they would from a cuddle or a splash in the bath. When they can get instant rewards by swiping a screen, why bother with play that demands physical, social and cognitive effort? Neuroscientist Susan Greenfield says: 'We cannot park our children in front of screens and expect them to develop a long attention span.' She also worries about the effects of technology on literacy. 'Learning to read helps children learn to put ideas into logical order,' she says. 'On the other hand, staring at a screen puts their brains into suspended animation.' Dr Aric Sigman, who has amassed a huge database of research linking children's screen-time to ADHD, autism and emotional and behavioural disorders, also points to the conflict between screen-based activity and reading. 'Unlike screen images, words don't move, make noises, sing or dance. Ultimately, screen images render the printed word simply boring at a crucial phase when the child's mind is developing,' he says. Yet another problem with too much screen-gazing is that it doesn't develop resilience. Real play gives children opportunities to learn how to cope with challenges for themselves. Finding how to learn from their mistakes, picking themselves up when they take a tumble and sorting out squabbles with playmates all help develop the self-confidence that makes children more emotionally resilient. This is vital for mental health, especially in our high-pressure world. So I wasn't surprised when this month Childline warned Britain is producing deeply unhappy youngsters - sad, lonely, with low self-esteem and an increasing predilection to self-harm. The charity painted a bleak portrait of our children's emotional state, blaming their unhappiness on social networking and cyber-bullying. It's understandable parents feel unable to tackle their children's social media use. After all, it has spread like a virus. In 2012, just six years after Facebook arrived here, it was the favourite website of ten-year-old girls. That year I interviewed three 15-year-old girls in Yorkshire who have been on Facebook since the age of ten. They said they didn't enjoy it as much as 'when we were young' because 'running our own PR campaigns' - as they wittily described the constant need to make their lives sound glamorous and exciting - was exhausting and they often felt miserable when others seemed to be having more fun. But they couldn't give up the social media site as it would put them out of the social loop. 'There's lots of cyber-bullying,' one said. 'So you've got to try to be like everyone else.' But we can't go on letting our children 'be like everyone else' when it's damaging them. If the next generation is to grow up bright, balanced and healthy enough to use technology wisely, parents need to take action. And that means limiting screen-time, spending time together as a family and making sure get children out to play. Some say children need to use technology because that's the way the world is going. But there's no need to give little children high-tech devices. Modern technology develops at a phenomenal rate - any IT skills that children learn before the age of seven will be long past their sell-by date by the time they reach their teens. But self-confidence, emotional resilience, creative thinking, social skills and the capacity for focused thought will stand them in good stead whatever the future brings. TABLET ADDITION WRECKED A CHRISTENING Rosie Corriette is one parent who gave in and bought her young daughter an iPad. Elizabeth, four, would use it to watch Peppa Pig videos on car journeys or while Rosie made important phone calls. Then came a family christening. Rosie and the other parents invited to the ceremony at St George's church in Ashstead, Surrey, tried to agree on the etiquette for technology in advance, worried their children would stare at screens all day. They agreed a tablet amnesty. So days beforehand, Rosie reminded Elizabeth that she wouldn't be able to take her iPad to church. Elizabeth was disappointed, but agreed to leave it in the car. Rosie Corriette, left, 26, a writer from Carshalton, Surrey, with her daughter Elizabeth, four, right, had a christening ruined by the use of an iPad in church. Immediately lots of children clustered round noisily At first, all was well. All of the children played quietly with crayons and building blocks at the back of the church. 'They were enjoying colouring in, and then we saw it,' says Rosie, 26, a writer from Carshalton, Surrey. One mother, it seems, had been unable to persuade her four-year-old to leave their tablet at home. Explaining that he was having 'a tough time', she had allowed her son to take along his iPad Mini. The minute he pulled it out of its cover, the other children clustered round him, before loudly and insistently begging their parents for their own tablets. The crayons and building blocks were cast aside and a sacred occasion was ruined by techno-tots. Advertisement An American couple are giving their herd of Highland cows a good start in life - by cuddling them. Adam Hopson, 31, and his wife, Emily, 30, are hopelessly in love with their herd of 22 Highland cows which live on their farm in North Carolina. The pair have even built up a following of 5,000 on Instagram after posting impossibly cute pictures of them cuddling bemused-looking calves. Scroll down for video Smile: Adam and Emily Hopson, from North Carolina, have built up an impressive online following thanks to the images they post of themselves cuddling their cattle Say cheese! Many of the animals in the images look somewhat bemused, but both Adam, 31, and Emily, 30, insist that the Highland herd is being brought up in the most loving environment possible Going for a ride: In this image, Adam can be seen hefting a calf over his shoulders, with the young animal looking more than content to sit aside his neck The snaps show Adam sat with a Highland calf on his lap and holding one over his shoulders. In one picture he cradles a newborn which will eventually grow to weigh almost a ton. Other pictures show a baby cow in the back of their car after the farm truck broke down, and in another Adam perches atop a massive bull. The pictures are so popular that people from as far away as Russia, Saudi Arabia and Australia have shared them. And Adam revealed that all the calves they have sold went to people who had contacted them via their Instagram page or Craigslist. All of the cows raised on their Happy Hens and Highlands farm - 3,600 miles from their ancestral homeland - are sold for breeding, to hobby farms and for pets. 'Our herd is composed of Scottish Highlands and Scottish Highland crosses,' they explain on their website. 'All of our cattle are hormone and antibiotic free. They are primarily grass fed but occasionally receive local beer grains as treats. They live outdoors in harmony with nature. They are interacted with daily, so they are very docile. Online star: The account also features some of the couple's adult cattle, including this large bull Close bond: 'Most of the cows are really gentle... we name every one of them. All of our customers send us photos and updates of the babies they have bought from us,' Adam said of the animals Getting close: Adam believes that the animals are so docile because they interact with people every day 'We originally planned on raising cattle for beef but recently we shifted our focus to raising cattle for registered breeding stock, pets, and to sell to hobby farms.' The couple, who live 45 miles north of Asheville - describe the animals as 'big babies' and are able to pick them up and cuddle them until they are about a month old. Adam said: 'People love the photos, we have people contacting us all the time wanting to see the babies. 'Most of the cows are really gentle... we name every one of them. All of our customers send us photos and updates of the babies they have bought from us. 'Our herd is composed of Scottish Highlands and Scottish Highland crosses. They are primarily grass fed but occasionally receive local beer grains as treats. 'They are interacted with daily, so are very docile. Currently we don't do farm tours but hopefully in the near future we will start doing that.' Favorite breed: The couple's herd is composed of Scottish Highlands and Scottish Highland crosses Finding them a good home: The couple made the decision not to sell their cows for meat, but rather to send them to homes where they will be loved as pets, or used for breeding Have a heart: 'We love animals and care about their quality of life,' the couple explained on their website The farm was set up in 2014 despite the couple having no cattle trailer, no experience and no pasture. The idea has been years in the making - Emily saw a picture of a Highland cow when she was young and decided that one day she would own one. 'We love animals and care about their quality of life,' the couple added on their website. 'We have been actively involved with dog rescue for over six years. We stopped eating factory farmed meats after discovering the inhumane conditions in which the animals were raised. We wanted to know firsthand where our food comes from and how it is raised. 'The best way to accomplish this was to begin farming; raising our own meat and eggs. Our ancestors had been farming this area for many years, so it was only natural we would follow in their footsteps. 'By doing this, we are now free to eat meat with a clear conscience, knowing that our animals were always treated with love and respect. Our animals have enjoyed happy lives, free of stress and fear.' The couple also currently have 300 chickens which they sell to upscale restaurants for meat. Both Adam and Emily have Scottish ancestry, but have never visited Scotland themselves. Advertisement Sleeping in squalid conditions, queuing for hours on end for food and struggling to care for a newborn baby are just some of the horrifying challenges girls in Iran's grim prison's face. Dozens of juvenile offenders - some of whom are just nine years old - are languishing on death row for crimes such as murder, drug trafficking and armed robbery. In Iran, the second-biggest user of capital punishment in the world, young women can be hanged for crimes, following unfair trials, including those based on forced confessions extracted through torture and other ill-treatment. The frightened girls are imprisoned in a Juvenile Delinquents Correction Centre after their sentence verdict and a large number of the inmates are then killed when they reach 18. Last year there was a disturbing escalation in the use of the death penalty in Iran, with at least 830 people executed between 1 January and 1 November 2015. There were reports that at least four of these were juvenile offenders. Scroll down for video Mahsa is 17. She falls in love with a boy and intends to marry him, but her father is against the marriage. One day she has an argument with her father, gets angry, and kills her father with a kitchen knife. Mahsa's brothers are requesting death penalty or lex talionis for her Female inmates can keep their newborns with them in prison until they are two years old. Zahra has married in 14 and has two children. She is 17 now and she is in jail because of stealing women's mobiles. She has been in prison for the same reason three times Shaqayeq, 15, has been in prison for almost a year on charge of armed robbery from a chain store in Tehran. Her grandmother had come to visit her after a year. Her death sentence has been issued and she must reach 18 so the verdict can be carried out Award-winning photographer Sadegh Souri, who lives in Tehran, has given an insight to the harsh conditions young people face in these grimy institutions as they anticipate their fate. Mr Souri, documentary winner at the 2015 Lens Culture visual storytelling awards, shot 17-year-old Mahsa. She was imprisoned after killing her father with a kitchen knife in a dispute over her future husband. Her brothers have requested the death penalty or lex-talionis - an 'eye for an eye' - for her. Another convict is 16-year-old Nazanin. She was arrested six months ago for the possession of 621 grams of cocaine. She is left to anxiously wait the judge's verdict. The clergy goes to the correction centre every day for the congregational prayer. After prayers, he talks about the correct upbringing methods for girls and prays to God to forgive them The female inmates can come to the prison yard for one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening to exercise The girls are photographed waiting in the queue for food. They sometimes have to stand there for hours before they are served Nazanin is 16. She was arrested about six months ago for the possession of 621 grams of cocaine. The judge has not issued a verdict Meanwhile, Shaqayeq, 15, has been imprisoned for almost a year on charge of armed robbery from a chain store in Tehran. Although she carried out the crime with her boyfriend, he managed to escape from the police leaving her to take the blame alone. Shaqayeq's grandmother visited her 12 months after she was sent to the facility. Her death sentence has been issued and she must reach 18 before the verdict can be carried out. One of the most heart-wrenching images is that of 17-year-old Zahra and her newborn baby. Female inmates can keep their babies with them in the prison until they are two years old. Zahra, who married at 14 and has two children, is in jail for stealing women's mobile phones. She has been in prison for the same reason three times. Mr Souri's pictures also show the more mundane aspects of life in the correction centres. In the black and white photographs the inmates are pictured waiting in line for hours on end for food, in the yard where they are allowed to spend just two hours outside a day and praying. The clergy goes to the correction centre every day for the congregational prayer. After prayers, he talks about the correct upbringing methods for the girls and prays to God to forgive them. Another inmate is 16-year-old Sowgand. While she was home alone, officers entered her house with a search warrant and found 250kg of opium, 30g of cocaine and 20g of heroin. The narcotics belonged to her father, but as only Sowgand had been at home at the time, she was arrested and detained. It is almost one year on and none of her family members have visited her. Mahshid is 15 and her charge is an illegitimate relationship and carrying drugs. Her parents are in prison too for having and using drugs. Mahshid will be released in eight months after finishing her sentence Khatereh is 13. Police officers found her unconscious on the ground after a gang rape. After treatment she was transferred to Juvenile Delinquents Correction Centre Mahshid, 15, is charged with having an illegitimate relationship and carrying drugs. She will be released in eight months after finishing her sentence. Her parents are also in prison for drug offences. Meanwhile, Khatereh was forced to run away from home because her uncle raped her. One week after she escaped she was attacked and gang raped by a group of youths in a park. To save herself the 13-year-old wounded her arm with a knife. Police officers found her unconscious on the ground, and after treatment, she was transferred to Juvenile Delinquents Correction Centre. Dozens of juvenile offenders are languishing on death row in Iran, a damning new report by Amnesty International has revealed - despite Iran's claims to have 'reformed' the way it deals with alleged capital crimes by under-18s. In 2014 Iran is believed to have carried out the highest number of executions anywhere in the world except for China. The Iranian authorities or state-controlled or state-sanctioned media officially announced 289 executions (278 men and 11 women), though reliable sources reported at least 454 more executions in addition to those officially announced, bringing the total number of executions in 2014 to at least 743. Of those officially announced, 122 involved individuals convicted of drug-related offences and 29 were carried out in public. The vast majority of executions in Iran are for crimes such as drug-related offences where international law clearly prohibits the death penalty as the offences are not 'the most serious crimes'. Sowgand is 16. Police found 250kg of opium, 30g of cocaine, and 20g of heroin in her home. It is almost one year since she was detained and none of her family members have visited her Amnesty International Middle East Deputy Director Said Boumedouha said: 'The report sheds light on Iran's shameful disregard for the rights of children. Iran is one of the few countries that continues to execute juvenile offenders in blatant violation of the absolute legal prohibition on the use of the death penalty against people under the age of 18 years at the time of the crime. 'The report paints a deeply distressing picture of juvenile offenders languishing on death row, robbed of valuable years of their lives - often after being sentenced to death following unfair trials, including those based on forced confessions extracted through torture and other ill-treatment. 'Despite some juvenile justice reforms, Iran continues to lag behind the rest of the world, maintaining laws that permit girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 to be sentenced to death. 'Instead of introducing half-hearted reforms that fall woefully short, Iran's authorities must accept that what they really need to do is commute the death sentences of all juvenile offenders, and end the use of the death penalty against juvenile offenders in Iran once and for all.' Journalist Mr Souri was born in 1985 in Nahavand City, Hamedan Province in Iran. He has a BA in Photography and Cinematography from the University of Applied Science and Technology. A couple transformed a dark cave in Cornwall into a beautiful alternative wedding venue with more than 500 twinkling candles. Bride and groom Micha, 27, and Phillip Trim, 36, from Romford, Essex, had to accessorise with hard hats and put up with lots of uninvited guests - in the form of a large population of bats. However they were determined to tie the knot in the picturesque Carnglaze Caverns, in the Loveny Valley, near the village of St Neot. Micha and Phillip Trim, from Romford, Essex, on their wedding day inside the picturesque Carnglaze Caverns, in the Loveny Valley, near the village of St Neot The bride and groom, Micha and Phillip, with their 40 guests - who all had to wear hard hats for the big day as the unique venue is located beneath a slate quarry The couple invited 40 guests to the underground ceremony, all of whom had to wear hard hats to accompany their elegant outfits. The magical venue is underneath a slate quarry and boasts a crystal clear lake, along with its unique wildlife. The bride wore her veil over a hard hat as she walked down 60 slate steps to reach the ceremony 200ft underground. To capture their special day, Micha and Phillip enlisted the help of photographer Colin Paul, who had to rise to the challenge of shooting without using a flash, so as not to disturb the sleeping bats. Colin, 55, from Redruth, Cornwall, said: 'When I was first asked to photograph a wedding in the caverns, I knew it would be challenging, but I didn't realise just how hard it would be.' Illuminated with 500 candles, the cave in Cornwall was transformed into a unique underground wedding venue Micha wearing her veil over a hard hat, makes her way down 60 slate steps to the picturesque cave 'I visited the cave before the wedding and casually mentioned to the owner that a flash would help to lighten things up a little bit,' the photographer explains. 'It was then that they dropped the bombshell that I couldn't use a flash because camera and phone flashes can disturb the sleeping bats. 'After investing in some extra lighting, I was able to take some photographs by the underground lake that look like they were taken in a studio. 'Luckily the bats aren't disturbed by constant, gentle lighting.' The cavern can hold up to 40 people, including the bride, groom, photographer and members of Carnglaze Cavern staff. The bride poses beside the lake. The cavern ceilings are lower in this part of the cave so hard hats can be taken off Inside the magical venue, which is underneath a slate quarry in the Loveny Valley, is a crystal clear lake Colin said: 'Hard hats need to be worn by all the guests, the registrars and the photographers when entering and leaving the caverns. 'But beside the lake, the cavern ceilings are lower so hard hats can be taken off during the ceremony. 'I advise to tell guests about this restriction beforehand - there's not much point in spending a fortune on a special hairstyle only to stick a hard hat on it when you arrive.' The caves are a constant ten degrees Celsius all year round and feel cool in the summer and warmer in the winter. Colin explained: 'Depending on the time of year, the roof can sometimes drip with water. But I still really enjoyed taking photographs at this venue. 'I already have more bookings lined up for cavern weddings this year.' Photographers are not allowed to use a flash so as not to disturb the large population of bats in the cave. Colin Paul from Cornwall was given the challenge of capturing the ceremony on camera Inside the stunning candle-lit cave where the ceremony took place. The venue fits a maximum of 40 guests The hard hats worn inside the Cornish cavern are not the best accessory and guests are warned ahead of the ceremony so they do not waste time on an elaborate hairdo The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall were won over by a young girl as they arrived at Wilton's Music Hall on Thursday. The royal couple, who toured the world's oldest surviving grand music hall, were left beaming as the little lady greeted them with a bright bouquet of flowers outside the attraction. Charles and Camilla learned about the restoration work, now completed, carried out on the famous East London attraction, Wilton's Music Hall. The Prince of Wales, accompanied by Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, were gvisit Wilton's Music Hall in Wapping, east London Featuring: Prince Charles, Camilla Duchess of Cornwall Where: London, United Kingdom When: 28 Jan 2016 Credit: WENN.com During the visit actor, musician and writer, Simon Callow hosted a small performance from a variety of music hall acts. The production included Victorian magic from Morgan and West, a cabaret number from Gwyneth Herbert and Frances Ruffelle, and a music hall number from Bob and Barry Cryer. Wilton's dates back to the 1850s and in its heyday could seat more than 1,500 people. Rumour has it that the first ever can-can was performed there and promptly banned. The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall were won over by a young girl as they arrived at Wilton's Music Hall on Thursday The royal couple, who toured the world's oldest surviving grand music hall, were left beaming as the little lady greeted them with a bright bouquet of flowers outside the attraction The Duchess of Cornwall was presented with a vibrant bouquet of flowers by the little girl The Prince of Wales, accompanied by Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, visit Wilton's Music Hall in Wapping Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, wait to sign a notice of their visit, at Wilton's Music Hall, as he officially opens the venue in East London Prince Charles makes a speech on stage with Camilla at Wilton's Music Hall, as he officially opens the venue Prince Charles speaks on stage about the hall, which reopened in January 1999 after work was done on the semi-derelict site and has undergone phases of work since that time Prince Charles and Camilla also met children from St Paul's Primary school who are taking part in an educational program at Wilton's Music Hall In the mid-19th century, classical overtures, opera and operetta, choral, contemporary and folk songs were enormously popular at the hall It was built by John Wilton behind his pub The Prince Of Denmark in 1858 in Graces Alley. Wilton's Music Hall was described then as the "Handsomest Room in Town" and had a sun-burner chandelier with 300 gas jets and 27,000 cut crystals in its mirrored hall. It reopened in January 1999 after work was done on the semi-derelict site and has undergone phases of work since that time. Camilla talks to British lyricist Tim Rice at Wilton's Music Hall as she sips on a glass of water The Duke and Duchess met with historians and architects involved in the venue's recent repair project Prince Charles and Camilla Duchess of Cornwall, right, react, as they watch an act on stage at Wilton's Music Hall The royal couple look impressed after watching an on-stage performance at the music hall Camilla looked resplendent in a chic brown suit jacket and her signature chunky pearl necklace The production included Victorian magic from Morgan and West, a cabaret number from Gwyneth Herbert and Frances Ruffelle, and a music hall number from Bob and Barry Cryer Charles and Camilla learned about the restoration work, now completed, carried out on the famous East London attraction, Wilton's Music Hall It was an altogether more cheerful visit for the Duchess of Cornwall, who was yesterday was moved to tears by the harrowing stories of women who have survived domestic abuse and those who have lost their lives at the hands of violent partners. Camilla, red eyed and visibly moved, listened intently as, one by one, each woman stepped forward to recall their devastating experiences. Among them was the mother and best friend of Joanna Brown, who was killed by her violently manipulative husband, British Airways Captain Robert Brown, in 2010. He sensationally went on to be cleared of murder, despite admitting bludgeoning his estranged wife to death with a claw hammer within yards of their children and burying her in a grave he had dug weeks previously, but was found guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. The Duchess of Cornwall was left in tears yesterday after meeting victims of domestic violence at a charity event Camilla struggled to hold back the tears as she heard from women about their harrowing experiences The best friend of Joanna Brown also told Camilla of the shocking catalogue of emotional abuse she suffered in the years leading up to her brutal killing at the hands of her estranged husband, airline captain Robert Brown. With Joannas quietly weeping mother sitting next to her, Hetti told of the many anguished phone calls she shared with her friend who was also threatened at knifepoint by Brown, desperate to retain a slice of his wealthy wifes fortune. After months of harassment and intimidation he battered the warm, caring and selfless mother her over the head with a hammer he had hidden inside his childrens homework bag. The youngsters, aged just ten and nine, were in the house when their mother was killed. After hearing the shocking account, Camilla immediately walked over to Joannas clearly emotional mother, Diana, to comfort her and vowed she would do anything within her power to help. Camilla spent time chatting to Diana Parkes, who daughter Joanna was killed by her husband Robert The mother of a 13-year-old girl who acts as a carer for her mum and two siblings has told how, despite running the household, she 'never complains'. Susan Barbour, 40, has two brain aneurysms as well as a serious neurological condition, while her eldest child has bipolar disorder and her youngest may have autism. Amy, who looks after her mum when she's ill and helps maintain the running of the household, got a heartwarming surprise on This Morning today when she received a phone call out of the blue from hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield as part of a special item to mark Young Carers Awareness Day. Scroll down for video Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby were visibly moved by Amy's selfless care for her family Holly wiped her eyes as Amy told their reporter that their gift of books and a tablet was too generous after they surprised her at school during a segment on young carers on today's This Morning Amy, second right, with her mother Susan, left, sister Neveah, two, and Aiden Phillip said, 'Amy has sacrificed so much, that we thought she deserved something of a treat herself so we are phoning her head teacher right now.' Amy Barbour, who was at school at the time, was stunned as Holly told her: 'We think you're amazing,' before the youngster was presented with a tablet and books by reporter Michael Underwood. Amy said: 'Im definitely missing out, but its a part of my life, and thats the way it is I love my family more than I can say. I dont know what Id do without them.' When she insisted that her gifts were 'too much', Michael told her: 'Honestly Amy, you don't understand how amazing you are. All the work you put in to look after three members of your family, it's totally selfless. It's just incredible, you deserve this.' Holly and Phil, watching from the ITV studio in London, were reduced to tears. Amy from Saltcoats in Scotland, dedicates all her free time to helping look after her family. The youngster helps care for her mum Susan, 40, who has two brain aneurysms, as well as her 17-year-old brother and two-year-old sister. Speaking about her daughter, Susan said: 'Amy is extremely mature and responsible. She never complains' Mum Susan also suffers from idiopathic intracranial hypertension - an excess of cerebral spinal fluid exerting pressure on the brain, which leaves her with severe debilitating pain - while her brother Aiden has type 2 diabetes and bipolar disorder. Meanwhile, two-year-old Neveah is also awaiting a diagnosis that they believe will show she has autism. Amy, who spends all her spare time caring for her family, is one of more than 700,000 young carers in the UK. When she's not at school, Amy is constantly looking after the rest of her family and helping her mum to run the home including budgeting, health care and many domestic chores. Amy is a young carer for several hours every day. This means she cannot take part in after school activities and has to rush home every night to look after her family, as well as trying to squeeze in her homework. She has been caring for her older brother since she was three years old because of his physical health, then as he grew older, his mental health issues surfaced. Holly and Phil, left, were reduced to tears as they watched Amy, right, get a surprise at school in Scotland Amy was identified as a young carer by her brothers social worker when she was just 10. She was referred to a local young carer support group in Ayrshire, Scotland. Amy said: 'There are lots of opportunities to do things after school, but I cant. 'If I dont get home straight away, I wont have time to help mum make tea for everyone, tidy up and help with jobs then do my homework. I miss out on lots of things but dont mind spending time with my family. 'Im doing something every minute at home to help. When Im not at home Im worrying about my family. Since nine years old Ive been helping plan the family budget with my mum and now I still continue to help organise my family.' She explained: 'Since my little sister was one, Ive had to take care of her changing her nappies, feeding her, getting her washed and dressed - every day. Im like a little mother because my mother is too ill a lot of the time. Reporter Michael Underwood, right, told Amy: 'All the work you put in to look after three members of your family, it's totally selfless. It's just incredible, you deserve this' Amy received the surprise visit as a reward for all her hard work looking after her mum and two siblings 'My mum is turning 40 this year. I was worried she wasnt going to make it. She has had three big operations and is in lots of pain because of her condition. Sometimes she has migraines so bad that she loses her vision.' Amy's mum Susan added: 'Amy also assists with ordering prescriptions from the pharmacy and medical supplies from Medtronic as my son is on an insulin pump. 'He has a cannula attached to his stomach which needs to be changed every two-to-three days and Amy often assists with this. 'My son has been on 750mg of Quetiapine/day, an antipsychotic drug which makes him extremely lethargic. Amy actively participates in motivating him every day and trying to keep his mood levels up. Amy is one of more than 700,000 young carers across the UK who sacrifice their free time to look after family 'He relies on Amy heavily for social cues, particularly when out and about and she often has to curb and explain away any unwanted behaviour. 'Last year I underwent operations to treat a cerebral aneurysm at risk of rupture. During this time, Amy stayed with my mother and still undertook her caring duties as my other children must keep a rigid routine. 'When I came out of hospital, I struggled to walk for two weeks and Amy took care of the entire household, whilst still attending school every day. 'Amy is an absolute rock to me. She has sacrificed much of her childhood as she always has to put others before herself. Amy is always the one who has to put what she wants to do to one side and compromise for the benefit of her siblings. 'Consequently, Amy is extremely mature and responsible. She never complains.' Appearing on This Morning, a spokesperson for the Young Carers' Trust warned that some youngsters were 'missing out on their childhood' and that most young carers missed out on 48 days of school a year. People watching on this morning were full of praise for Amy. Sabrina Crowther wrote: 'I am in tears watching this morning today! How amazing for that young little star! Awareness.' Gaynor Rees wrote: 'Lovely to see Amy being rewarded with so many gifts for all her hard work looking after her family.; One viewer said her signature bake should have been an 'austerity cake' She dazzled the judges with her 'beautiful' vol-au-vents and fondant smoothing skills. But Samantha Cameron, wife of Prime Minister David Cameron, has found herself at the centre of an angry social media backlash following her victory on last night's The Great Sport Relief Bake Off. One viewer claimed the inclusion of the 44-year-old mother-of-three in the charity programme - alongside fellow contestants Jason Manford, David James and Maddy Hill - had put them 'right off watching it'. While another made a cruel dig and said she should have made an 'austerity cake'. Samantha Cameron, wife of Prime Minister David, has found herself at the centre of an angry social media backlash following her victory on last night's The Great Sport Relief Bake Off One viewer claimed the inclusion of Samantha in the charity programme - alongside fellow contestants Jason Manford, David James and Maddy Hill - had put them 'right off watching it' Samantha seemed genuinely surprised to come out victorious on the BBC1 show - much to the dismay of some viewers at home who aired their views on social media However, others were quick to leap to the defence of Samantha saying she came across 'brilliantly' on screen and looked like 'a bit of a babe'. Samantha showcased her kitchen skills from the get-go and the Signature Challenge clearly paid to her strengths. The businesswoman was seen effortlessly whipping up vol-au-vents containing 'Cornish crab and shrimp curry with black mustard seeds, fresh chilli, garlic, and ginger'. Mary Berry stared in awe at the delicate puffs of pastry as Paul Hollywood commented: 'Ive seen a lot of vol-au-vents in my time. And they are absolutely perfect ! The kick from the chilli is there but it doesnt overwhelm the shrimp or the crab. Its a beautiful texture. Style icon Samantha continued to impress and shown during the Showstopper Challenge. I am by trade a designer and I did Fine Art for my degree, she pointed out. So, in theory I should be good at this. The wrath continued as Carrie Gough commented: 'Anyone on @sportrelief #bakeoff asked #SamCameron why she's there when it's her husband who is forcing the vulnerable into poverty & need?' A fired up David Burns wrote: 'Tonight on #bakeoff, millionaire #samcam asks for donations whilst her husband destroys the welfare state forcing more to depend on charity' While Joe Hudson commented: '"My husband hasn't mastered clearing up as you go along" You can say that again #SamCam.#bakeoff' The Great Sport Relief Bake Off contestants, pictured from left, Samantha Cameron, David James, Jason Manford and Maddy Hill with host Mel Giedroyc, centre Rabia Barkatulla said: '#bakeoff #sportsrelief Sam-please-like-me!-Cameron, hearts bleed as she accepts flowers because of who she is married to. Difficult job' Meanwhile. Steve Dunstan added: 'Samantha Cameron being on #BakeOff has put me right off watching it' She duly knocked up a cake adorned by what looked like a German flag, mini surfboards made of sugar paste, and a blue wave effect that even Mary Berry had never seen before. Paul gushed: Each sponge is very well baked and its very well executed. You should feel very proud of yourself, well done. Samantha seemed genuinely surprised to come out victorious on the BBC1 show - much to the dismay of some viewers at home. Taking to Twitter, an outraged user called Thomas CW wrote, 'Samantha Cameron's signature bake should be an austerity cake with working class families tears sprinkled on top #BakeOff.' While an angry Jess Green added: 'How lovely of Sam Cam to be doing charity work to support some of the most vulnerable people forced in to poverty in this country. #bakeoff.' Social media user Laur Evans quipped: 'What a surprise that Sam Cam went for something traditional, but not well thought through. #BakeOff.' The wrath continued as Carrie Gough commented: 'Anyone on @sportrelief #bakeoff asked #SamCameron why she's there when it's her husband who is forcing the vulnerable into poverty & need?' Many annoyed Twitter contributors embroiled their opinions on David Cameron into Samantha's television appearance. A supporter with the online user name Shiner hit back at the criticism, said: '#bakeoff people need to get over SamCam winning bake off FFS grow up she's not the devil #pathetic #itsnotpolitics' An admirer called Rebecca wrote: 'Sam Cam came across brilliantly on #bakeoff I don't know who David or maddy are though.' Samantha Cameron appeared in high spirits as she got to work on her cake creations during the Bake Off While another fan, Miranda, said: 'Thought #SamanthaCameron was the perfect winner on @sportrelief #BakeOff' Richard Mills gushed about the fashion figure, saying: '#SamCam - bit of a babe #sportrelief #bakeoff' A fired up David Burns wrote: 'Tonight on #bakeoff, millionaire #samcam asks for donations whilst her husband destroys the welfare state forcing more to depend on charity.' While Joe Hudson commented: '"My husband hasn't mastered clearing up as you go along" You can say that again #SamCam.#bakeoff.' One viewer was unimpressed with how Samantha reacted to her win - joking she only usually gets flowers for being the Prime Minister's wife - while another said her appearance was a turn off. Rabia Barkatulla said: '#bakeoff #sportsrelief Sam-please-like-me!-Cameron, hearts bleed as she accepts flowers because of who she is married to. Difficult job.' Meanwhile, Steve Dunstan added: 'Samantha Cameron being on #BakeOff has put me right off watching it.' But it wasn't all bad news for Samantha with many fans leaping to her defence, saying the show isn't about politics. A supporter with the online user name Shiner, hit back at the criticism: '#bakeoff people need to get over SamCam winning bake off FFS grow up she's not the devil #pathetic #itsnotpolitics.' Samantha is seen talking through her Showstopper cake with presenter Mel Giedroyc Other said she 'came across brilliantly' and 'was the perfect winner'. An admirer called Rebecca wrote: 'Sam Cam came across brilliantly on #bakeoff I don't know who David or maddy are though.' While another fan, Miranda, said: 'Thought #SamanthaCameron was the perfect winner on @sportrelief #BakeOff.' Richard Mills gushed about the fashion figure, saying: '#SamCam - bit of a babe #sportrelief #bakeoff.' The Great Sport Relief Bake Off cooked up 4.6 million viewers on Wednesday night. The programme has three more episodes to air over the coming weeks. Unlike in the regular series of The Great British Bake Off, each of the 16 participants in the charity version only appears once, with a star baker crowned during each of the four episodes. Samantha chats to former England goalkeeper David James during filming for the Bake Off Even when he's lounging around in his casuals, David Beckham still manages to look good. The father-of-four, 40, has unveiled his latest bodywear designs for H&M - and shows off his best blue steel pose in the campaign shots. The former footballer says he wants to 'push the definition of bodywear' with his range of cosy knits and casual white T-shirts. David Beckham shows off his biceps and growing tattoo collection as he unveils his latest designs for H&M Speaking about the range, which will land in-store in February, David said: 'Everything about my Bodywear for H&M has to be authentic. If I wouldnt wear it then it doesnt go in the collection! 'I want to choose a range that has great quality and design but is affordable. Im always trying to evolve the Bodywear collection, and include classic pieces like sweaters and track pants that I would wear out or at home.' The range, which has been in production since 2012 and one of the store's most successful to date, ties in with his underwear brand. It was revealed this week that young men are feeling under pressure to match sexualised images of male models - like Beckham - and their perfectly sculpted pecs and six packs. The father-of-four, 40, has unveiled his latest bodywear designs, which were created to allow men to look cool whilst looking casual The range, which has been in production since 2012, is one of the store's most successful to date The idea of using men as sex objects to sell everything from underpants to cars has been labelled Hunkvertising'. Historically, advertising images of beautiful women wearing very little have become vilified as sexist and oppressive. But the advertising industry is now routinely using men in campaigns that idealise the male form, are deliberately sexy and a bit of fun. Examples include David Beckham in his H&M or Armani underpants and David Gandy in his swimming trunks for Marks & Spencer. Research by Mintel found more than a quarter of Britain's males complain that men are sexualised in adverts. And one in six - 17 per cent - of men aged 16-24 agree that ripped male models featured in advertising campaigns have made them more self-conscious. Mintel said one quarter of all males find it hard to identify with men that are shown in adverts, whilst 22 per cent say the images are an unrepresentative stereotype. Many women who've tried online dating - especially with apps like Tinder - will be able to share at least one horror story of a man's crude, rude, or otherwise inappropriate messages. Clueless, offensive guys have been known to send some pretty awful things to women they want to hook up with - particularly when they get rejected. But though these men seem to find that kind of behavior appropriate online, most would never think to use it in everyday interactions. If they did, though, their conversations might look something like the fictional ones dreamed up by Twitter user @pharmasean, a 34-year-old man from Boston who decided to imagine what it would be like 'if men interacted with everybody the way they interact with women on social media'. A Boston man wanted to draw attention to the 'creepy', 'sexual' and 'abusive' messages that men send women on social media Chill out, bro: He imagined exchanges in which men were that offensive in real life, like this made-up guy who gets belligerent when he is politely rejected for a job By now, the abundance of rude men who lurk on dating sites is no longer a sad secret known only to those who use those platforms. Instagram accounts, Tumblrs, and Twitter profiles have all turned up to shame these men, posting the disgusting ways they try - ineffectively - to get a date. Tinder Nightmares and Bye Felipe are two Instagram accounts that share grabs of terribly bad pick-up lines and 'dudes who turn hostile when rejected or ignored', while Tumblr accounts Dudes of Tinder and Straight White Boys Texting also capture the vulgar, nasty things some men say to women online. Most of these messages see men immediately asking for nude photos or offering to show women their own genitalia, or else getting belligerent and calling women 'ugly' or 'w****s' when they get turned down. Change your tactics, duded: He also pointed out and some disgusting men can be quick to push sexual interactions - and then get offended when women don't recipricate Twitter user @pharmasean was horrified by conversations like these, and thought it would be funny to draw attention to them by dreaming up what it would be like if men talked to everyone that way. 'The screengrabs in my tweets are all based on real interactions - I essentially transcribed the mens parts from real conversations Ive seen on the web, countless times,' he told BuzzFeed. One sees a made-up man named Chris getting crude after notification from his local library about an overdue book - before turning nasty when he doesn't get what he wants. Chris responds to the library by messaging back: 'ay do you wan to see a picture of my sick,' before correcting his typo to 'd*ick'. When he doesn't get a response, he adds: 'whavetevr, u know what, nvm [sic].' You think that'll work? The fact that this fiction man requested a specific sex act without preamble mimics some real tactics men use on dating apps like Tinder Another made-up exchange sees a man named Jackib texting to apply for a job. When he gets a response saying that position has been filled - and thanking him for his interest - his demeanor (and grammar) completely changes. 'No worries, i dont want to work for u anyway. Youre "business" is a piece of s***. Your stuck up and i hope that the idiot you hired burns your multinational firm down,' he writes. 'i've got a better job anyway - it pays $3million an hour and all i do all day is wash supermodels. i'll see u n hell, retrad. [sic]' Another sees a fabricated man named Guernsey Tomkins responding to a Facebook message from a housemate. The original message politely asks all housemates to be 'more careful when parking' because people are getting blocked in and made late to work Guernsey responds: 'That sucks, but I just wanted to let you know that not all housemates are like this. I just wanted to mention it because it seems like your painting us all with a pretty broad brush.' No big deal: This made-up man didn't get nasty, but he was incredibly whiny about a perceived slight In yet another fake exchange, a man names 'Scort Warlikins' gets a message from is local pizza place that his order is on the way. Scort replies: 'Sweet!' before asking in another message 'Anal?' The creator of the made-up messages said that real-life men can be 'subtly sexual', 'creepy', and even 'abusive and criminal' when talked to women online, and it needs to stop. 'Theres been a long ongoing conversation on the web about how we treat each other, how we treat people who are different than us, and how we treat women in particular on social media,' he told BuzzFeed. Bristol Palin and her siblings wore Alaskan kuspuks to celebrate their great-grandmother's heritage at her memorial service on Wednesday night. The 25-year-old and her sisters Willow, 21, and Piper, 14, donned the colorful tunic-length hooded overshirts that are commonly worn among Alaska Natives to mourn their father Todd's grandmother, Helena 'Lena' Andree, who passed away last Wednesday at the age of 95. Willow took to Instagram that night to share a photo of herself with her sisters at the memorial service, writing: 'Celebrating our Great Grandma's 95 years of life.. We loved and cherished every moment spent with you Gg, and know you were smiling ear to ear looking down at everyone being together today. See you soon Gg. [sic]' Unbreakable bond: Bristol Palin (left) posed with her sisters Willow (center), 21, and Piper, 14, at their great-grandmother's memorial service on Wednesday Long life: Their father Todd's grandmother Helena 'Lena' Andree (pictured) passed away last Wednesday at the age of 95 Bristol also snapped a photo of the event, sharing a photo of her seven-year-old brother Trig, who has Down syndrome, pursing his lips while her 14-year-old sister Piper looks behind him. 'Mood. always,' she wrote when she posted the image on Instagram. The day after Lena's death Bristol took to her blog to show her gratitude for having her great-grandmother in her life. 'I always admired my great grandmother GG. This week, she passed away at the age of 95,' she wrote. 'She is in a better place and feels no more pain. Were all at peace at having witnessed a life lived to the fullest. 'Thanks, GG, for all of the lessons you taught us most of those lessons which were taught without any words at all.' Family time: Bristol shared this photo of her Piper and her seven-year-old brother Trig, who has Down syndrome, pursing his lips at the memorial service Honoring tradition: Bristol, Willow, and Piper wore kuspuks, hooded overshirts that are commonly worn among Alaska Natives She also took to Instagram to share an old picture of herself with Willow and Piper as they posed with Lena, writing: '5 generations under my beautiful great grandma Lena, rest in paradise we love you GG [sic].' Before Lena's memorial service, Bristol's mother, former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin shared old photos of Lena, a picture of the program from the event, and a snapshot of her daughters on her Facebook page. 'Celebrating a Great life tonight in Alaska [sic],' she captioned the series of four images. In the images, Lena can be seen wearing a buffalo plaid vest as she happily holds a large fish that has been caught. Happy family: Before the memorial service, former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin shared this photo of her younger self with her grandmother-in-law Five generations: Bristol took to Instagram to post this old photo of herself (far right) and her sisters Willow (far left) and Piper (second from left) with their great-grandmother after she passed away last week Another photo sees a young Sarah and two of her children posed with Lena. It has been a busy week for Bristol, who returned to work on Monday only a month after giving birth to her daughter Sailor Grace. The mother-of-two revealed earlier this week that she was leaving her daughter for the entire day for the first time since her birth in order to head back to work. To commemorate the end of her short maternity leave, Bristol shared a photo of herself holding her newborn in a car seat as she posed with Tripp, her seven-year-old son with her ex-boyfriend Levi Johnston. 'Back to real life today! I was fortunate enough to take the last month off to stay home with my babies, today marks the first time I've left SailorG, but I could not be more thankful she's in the best of hands!! [sic],' she captioned the family photo. Paying homage: Sarah snapped this photo of the memorial service program that details Lena's long life and death Remembering: Helena was the grandmother of Sarah's husband Todd. The pair are pictured together at Billy Graham's 95th birthday celebration in 2013 In the image, Bristol is wearing a black long sleeve shirt, black pants, taupe ballet flats, and a chunky gold necklace. Her hair is pulled half-way up while her Louis Vuitton bag sits open in front of her with her water bottle peeking out. Tripp is pictured in a neon green Nike sweatshirt, camouflage cargo pants, and red Nike sneakers, presumably heading off to school, while Sailor is bundled up in her pink carrier with only a bit of her head peaking out. And while some people may think a one-month long maternity leave is too short, Brisol's mother Sarah Palin only took three days off after her youngest son Trig was born with Down syndrome in 2008. Despite her reality show and appearances on Dancing with the Stars, the daughter of the former Republican vice presidential candidate has apparently been working at Dr. Michael L. Cusack's office at Alaska Dermatology Laser and Skin Cancer Center in Anchorage for years. Family photo: Bristol shared this snapshot of herself posed with her son Tripp, seven, and her daughter Sailor Grace on Monday to commemorate her return to work one month after giving birth to her baby girl Pretty in pink: The 25-year-old posted this precious photo of Sailor sitting in her pink car seat a week ago Bristol is currently embroiled in a custody battle with her ex-fiance and Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer, 27, who is making a bid to get joint custody of her one-month old daughter Sailor. The former reality star, who often shares photos of her children and family adventures on Instagram,announced her daughter's birth on social media on December 24 with a photo of her cuddling her newborn in bed. Meanwhile, her ex-fiance shared his own precious snap of the mother with her newborn on his Twitter account on Christmas Eve, after months of speculation over whether he is in fact Sailor's father. Dakota is now being forced to take a paternity test as part of the former couple's increasingly bitter custody battle over her new baby. Overjoyed: Bristol announced the birth of her daughter in December by sharing this photo on Instagram, however, some believe the baby was actually born on November 4 because of the date scribbled on her IV line Broken romance: Bristol got engaged to marine Dakota Meyer (pictured), 27, in March, but eventually called off their wedding. They are now in a custody battle over Sailor Grace Court documents seen by Daily Mail Online reveal that Meyer's bid for joint custody in a suit filed in Kentucky and Alaska has stalled pending the results of the paternity test. A question has also been raised over the actual birth date of Bristol's baby. The Instagram photo posted by Bristol announcing the birth of Sailor on December 24, places the birth date one day earlier. The date of birth on court papers filed in the custody case is also given as December 23. But the same Instagram picture posted by Dakota with the caption 'Best Christmas present ever!!' reveals a detail whited out in Palin's account the date scribbled on her IV line. Alisha maintained that she only put her arm up to keep the girl out of her personal space, however, she has been charged with assault When Alisha went to speak with the ringleader of the bullying, she said a ninth grade girl got in her face and took a swing at her The mother claims that she reported the bullying to the school repeatedly, but the situation was never rectified Alisha Morton, 31, from Ankeny, Iowa, admitted to going to Northview Middle School to confront her daughter Morgan Seller's alleged A mother has been charged with assault after she claims she was forced to protect her 14-year-old daughter from a bully. While Alisha Morton, 31, from Ankeny, Iowa, admitted to going to Northview Middle School to confront an eighth grade boy who has been allegedly tormenting her 14-year-old daughter Morgan Sellers, she claimed the school's inability to rectify the situation gave her no choice. 'For my child to come home and tell me that she wants to die because this child is still doing something that Ive confronted this school and this superintendent about - it kills me inside,' Alisha told WHOTV. Protective mom: Alisha Morton (R), 31, from Ankeny, Iowa, has been charged with assault after confronting the accused bully who allegedly tormented her 14-year-old daughter Morgan Sellers (L) Morgan, who is a ninth grader at the school, said a group of her peers have been making fun of her and calling her names since last fall, particularly a male student who is a grade below her. 'Its been stressful because I never know what name theyre going to call me each day,' she told the news outlet. 'It makes me feel bad about myself, like Im not good enough.' After Morgan told her mom that the situation at school was so stressful that she wanted to 'just die', Alisha visited the school on Monday January 11 to confront the ringleader targeting her daughter. However, went she went to go speak with the boy, she said a ninth grade girl intervened and allegedly threatened her. 'She had stood up and gotten in my face and said, "I am going to beat your a**. Get the hell out of here,' Alisha claimed. 'I said, 'You are a child. You are not involved in this. I am talking to [him] sit back down.' Ongoing issue: Morgan said a group of her peers have been making fun of her and calling her names since last fall, including an eighth grade boy who is allegedly the ringleader Morgan's mother went on to say that the young girl 'got in my face' and that is when she put her arm up to block her. 'I put one arm out. Its not like I took two hands and aggressively pushed her,' Alisha maintained. Alisha said the student wouldn't back down, and eventually 'took a swing' at her. That's when Morgan stepped in. 'I told her when I grabbed her hands, I'm like "You're not going to hit my mom,"' Morgan explained. According to the complaint, Morton was charged with assault 'by admittedly shoving [the student] during a verbal altercation'. Physical altercation: Alisha alleged that she was confronting Morgan's bully when a ninth grade girl intervened and allegedly took a swing at her. The mom said that was when she put her hand up to block the girl One side of the story: Alisha maintained that she only put her hand up, stating that it wasn't like 'took two hands and aggressively pushed her' The Ankeny School District told WHOTV in a statement that it does 'not comment on the specifics of student discipline matters', while noting that all inquiries regarding adult conduct and/or criminal charges should be directed to the Ankeny Police Department. 'Ankeny Community School District has a policy of investigating all bullying and harassment charges brought forth,' the statement continued. 'There are currently no Ankeny Community School District Harassment/Bullying Complaint forms filed in the district, or open reports in the phone/web-based incident reporting tool TIPS.' Meanwhile, WHOTV reported that the Ankeny Police Department declined to comment. Daily Mail Online has reached out to both the Ankeny School District and the Ankeny Police Department for comment. No help: Alisha said she asked the the principal, the teachers, and the superintendent at Northview Middle School (pictured) to put an end to the bullying but claimed the situation was never rectified Trying to stay strong: In November, Morgan took to her Facebook Page to stand up to her bullies and thank her family for their love and support In November, Morgan took to her Facebook page to stand up to her bullies and thank her mother and her family for supporting her. 'Hi, my name is Morgan as you all know. A little information about me. I have a mother who loves me so much. I have a step-father who at times can get on my nerves but I know he loves me very much,' she wrote. 'I have a lot of siblings who I love but the best thing of all I am loved and I know I am loved. I am beautiful and no matter who sits there and calls me stupid immature names. Getting cast as 'the most beautiful woman in the world' can be very flattering but also incredibly daunting. That's what Nikki Reed felt when she landed the role of Rosalie in the Twilight saga, a character that is described as stunningly beautiful even for a vampire, a race that is already better looking than average. In fact, the 27-year-old told Yahoo that taking on the part made her feel self-conscious, because it opened her up to a ton of pressure to meet those high beauty standards. A lot to live up to: Nikki Reed said playing the character of Rosalie in Twilight (pictured) made her doubt if she was pretty enough A major breakthrough: The 27-year-old actress was cast in the first of the four films at 19 'This role was supposed to be characterized as the "most beautiful woman in the world". Thats how the part was written,' the actress explained. 'And when youre cast to play that character with that description, theres an inevitable amount of external and internal criticism. 'Suddenly, youre wondering if youre able to play that, and youre listening to the rest of the world say, "Thats not who I would describe as the most beautiful woman!"' It took her some time to get past that pressure and realize that, as she says, 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder'. Nikki added that she really was just a regular girl who could be self-conscious like everyone else, so it took some soul searching to overcome her own insecurities as well as those newly imposed by Twilight fans. Naysayers: She said that there were a lot of people saying she wasn't right for the 'beautiful' part Take that, haters! Those doubters made her wonder if she really wasn't pretty enough but she soon overcame her worry For example, when she was younger, she wasn't a fan of the distinctive mole on her face. But she eventually learned to prize it - kind of like Cindy Crawford, who was teased for her mole as a kid but found that it later became her trademark. 'When I was a kid, I hated this mole thats by my lip. I hated it so much,' she said. 'But now, as an adult, its one of the things that kind of creates that uniqueness. People see it they know that mole.' She started finally feeling better when she stopped caring so much about what she looked like, focusing on other things that make her beautiful and sexy like by being smart, and feeling like she is always learning and growing. Now, looking back, she wishes she wasn't so hard on herself in the first place. Striving for perfection: Nikki also worries about how images on social media are effecting kids' self-esteem, since everyone has a photo-editing app in their phones these days More than a pretty face: Nikki, who is married to actor Ian Somerhalder, said she focuses more on non-physical things that make her beautiful, like being smart 'If I could talk to my younger self, I wouldve told myself to be gentler to myself,' she said. 'Because there comes a time when everything you thought mattered, in terms of physicality or standards all of that stuff becomes so irrelevant and unimportant. And you start realizing what youre actually meant to do on this Earth.' Nikki also talked about how the pervasiveness of unattainable beauty standards is becoming worse with social media. 'Social media has also changed our perception of body image, of whats real,' she said. 'We have such a distorted perception of whats real, and thats even more so now that we have the ability to basically Photoshop from our phones.' Beyond the thousands of flavours and coffee combinations at Starbucks, according to those in the know there is also a 'secret menu', one which features exclusive concoctions and a slew of quirky recipes. Online food bloggers are claiming that there's more to the chain than even a grande, hot, decaf, triple five-pump vanilla, non-fat, no foam, whip cream, extra hot, extra caramel, machiato this Valentine's Day. As well as the classic hot drinks, there's another batch of tasty tipples on offer that only those in the know can currently order. If you're bored of your bog standard flat white from Starbucks, you may well be enticed by a pistachio and rose mocha, left, or burnt caramel latte, right, which feature on Starbucks's new menu and can currently only be ordered by 'those in the know' If you're bored of your bog standard flat white, you may well be enticed by a pistachio and rose mocha or burnt caramel latte - both new offerings from the coffee chain in the UK. Whilst the store are saying the drinks will be available to everyone in time for Valentine's Day, only their most loyal customers can currently order them. So what on earth are these curious winter warmers? The Pistachio and Rose Mocha is apparently made with mocha sauce and a rose and pistachio syrup, swirled with steamed milk and rich espresso. Its finished with pistachio and rose whipped cream and pistachio crumb. The Burnt Caramel Latte, meanwhile, is crafted with steamed, velvety milk, infused with freshly drawn espresso and topped off with whipped cream and burnt caramel drizzle. The store will also be bringing back a customer favourite: the Triple Hot Chocolate, which contains chocolate milk and fresh milk, steamed together with dark or white mocha sauce. The Triple Hot Chocolate will be brought back onto the menu and contains chocolate milk and fresh milk, steamed together with dark or white mocha sauce When asked by FEMAIL about the existence of the mysterious drinks, which have been whispered about in online forums, a spokesperson for the chain said: 'Theyre not currently being advertised yet so are only available for those in the know right now. 'While Starbucks doesnt offer an official secret menu, there are a wide variety of ways customers can personalise their drinks. In addition to the beverage options included on menu boards, there are more than 170,000 ways baristas can customise beverages at Starbucks, selecting from a variety of milk selections, combination of syrups, coffee/espresso options and toppings. 'If customers would like to order a beverage that is not listed on our menu, we recommend they know the recipe so that their barista can handcraft the beverage perfectly for them. 'These are new drinks available nationwide for a limited time from 2nd Feb, however from Tuesday 26th January, these drinks became available to My Starbucks Rewards customers to try in advance.' At the end of last year, the coffee chain unveiled a Christmas-themed secret menu, which offered unique drink mash-ups such Apple Pie, Butterbeer, Biscotti and Christmas Cookie frappucinos. Earlier this month, after a successful trial run in the US, Starbucks introduced coconut milk lattes to its UK menus. But the coffee chain's decision to include the plant-based milk alternative has been met with derision from those on Twitter, who have been flooding social media with their negative feedback. Many said the drink was 'garbage' and 'not nice', and claimed to instantly regret purchasing it. Prad Patel tweeted: 'Work colleague orders a Starbucks Coconut Milk Latte out of intrigue. He now knows what regret tastes like.' Earlier this month, after a successful trial run in the US, Starbucks introduced coconut milk lattes to its UK menus but it wasn't a hit with everyone Echoing the regret was Rosie, who wrote: 'Ordered a Starbucks coconut milk latte. Filled with regret from the first sip. Just in case you were thinking of ordering one.' Another customer, Bill Dann, agreed, posting:' Just had a coconut milk latte in Starbucks to see what it tasted like - absolutely disgusting, threw most of it away. But despite the negative feedback, there were a few who were full of praise for the drink. Ally wrote: 'I am so excited about the coconut milk latte at Starbucks.' Jo Yo claimed to be so happy with the new offering that they were unsure as to how to react, writing: 'Starbucks has coconut milk now and idk [I don't know] what to do with my life.' Prad Patel tweeted: 'Work colleague orders a Starbucks Coconut Milk Latte out of intrigue. He now knows what regret tastes like' GPs are being urged by their union to stop providing care such as home visits, blood tests and follow-up appointments GPs are being urged by their union to stop providing care such as home visits, blood tests and follow-up appointments. The British Medical Association is advising family doctors to reduce their workload at surgeries by slashing 'inappropriate services'. This would also include providing nursing care for the bedbound elderly, prescribing some medication and going out to care homes. The BMA's leaders claim GPs are not responsible for these services as they should be carried out by hospital staff or community nurses. They argue such tasks are creating extra work and bureaucracy for doctors and diverting them from seeing patients. But campaigners say many elderly and vulnerable patients rely on the care the union deems to be 'inappropriate'. The advice is part of a handbook produced by the BMA that will be sent to 9,000 practices in England and Wales next week. Under the heading 'Protecting quality care by reducing inappropriate demands', it lists 17 services it says GPs or their staff should not have to do. These include 'wound care management', 'nursing care of leg ulcers' and prescribing medication for housebound patients. Family doctors are not obliged to go out to care home residents who are not bedbound or to visit patients at home if district nurses could go instead. But Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, said: 'Many of the services the BMA have suggested that GPs could cut are vital to the health and wellbeing of vulnerable patients. If GPs were to stop visiting care homes, treating ulcers or arranging follow-up meetings after hospital operations, the likely result would be that more patients would go to hospital for treatment. 'This places further pressure on hard-pressed acute and emergency services.' Tory MP Andrew Percy, a member of the Commons health select committee, said: 'This is completely wrong. Care home visits, wound care, minor injury services should be done by GP practices. 'It's a core part of the service. It's exactly what we need as we are trying to divert patients away from A&E.' The British Medical Association is advising family doctors to reduce their workload at surgeries by slashing 'inappropriate services' The BMA is the trade union and professional body for doctors and medical students in the UK, which organised the ballot on strike action over plans for weekend working. It describes itself as 'apolitical' but earlier this month it was revealed that a number of those on its council were supporters of the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn. GP surgeries are in crisis and struggling to meet the demands of Britain's rising and ageing population just as growing numbers of doctors are quitting. Yesterday figures revealed that 72 practices had been forced to close last year, with 200,000 patients having to register elsewhere. This Saturday up to 360 senior GPs will hold a summit in Central London to debate taking urgent action to help reduce their pressure. Representatives from the BMA's local medical committees will vote on certain controversial measures, such as stopping home visits completely or resigning en masse unless they get more money. he BMA is the trade union and professional body for doctors and medical students in the UK, which organised the ballot on strike action over controversial and bitterly opposed plans for weekend working The new handbook, entitled 'Urgent Treatment to Ensure GP Survival', is being sent to all surgeries where GPs are members of the BMA. It highlights 'growing workload demands' that 'should be delivered by a more appropriate provider'. The pack contains template letters for GPs to send to managers at Clinical Commissioning Groups, explaining they plan to stop providing these services. But Dr John Cormack, a GP near Chelmsford, in Essex, said he would not be following the advice. He said: 'We will resist to the best of our ability.' Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chairman of the BMA's GP committee, said: 'The guidance gives practical advice on how GPs can focus on providing essential services to their patients and challenge some of the inappropriate and unsustainable demand on practices.' Research: A major study has concluded teenagers who take common antidepressants are more likely to feel suicidal and aggressive (file photo) Teenagers who take common antidepressants are more likely to feel suicidal, researchers say. A major study concluded children and adolescents have a doubled risk of aggression or suicidal behaviour when taking one of five common drugs to combat depression. The experts accused drug firms of failing to record the risks properly and warned young peoples antidepressant use should be minimal. Experts said the deeply worrying findings, published last night in the British Medical Journal, should make doctors think hard about whether to rely on the drugs. Others, however, insist antidepressants are vital and effective in fighting mental illness. Use has doubled in the past decade to 57million prescriptions in England and Wales in 2014, according to the NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre. Authors of the latest study looked at five drugs, including Prozac, which together make up more than a third of all antidepressant use in the country. The Danish researchers examined 70 previous trials, involving 18,500 patients. They found teenagers or children who took one of the drugs were twice as likely to become aggressive, severely restless or suicidal, as those on placebo pills. None were reported to have taken their own life, but many were recorded as attempting or threatening suicide. The absolute risk of a young person harming themselves was still very small, the study showed. The researchers also found that among adults the drugs did not significantly increase suicidal behaviour or aggression. The Copenhagen University team analysed fluoxetine (often sold under trade name Prozac), paroxetine (Seroxat), sertraline (Zoloft), venlafaxine (Effexor) and duloxetine (Cymbalta). They warned that existing trials, including those led by the manufacturers, had seriously underestimated the harms and that suicidal events had often been wrongly classified as emotional problems in the past. They cited summary reports of trials by pharma giant Lilly, maker of Prozac and Cymbalta, in which the researchers claimed records of suicide attempts were missing in 90 per cent of instances. The true risk for serious harms is still unknown because the low incidence of these rare events, and the poor design and reporting of the trials, makes it difficult to get accurate effect estimates, the authors wrote. We suggest minimal use of antidepressants in children, adolescents and young adults, as the serious harms seem to be greater. The NHS recommends antidepressants should not usually be given to under-18s, acknowledging the drugs can trigger suicidal thoughts and self-harm in the age group. But it suggests they can be given to young people if therapy has not helped. Reading Universitys Professor Shirley Reynolds said the startling results will make GPs, parents and young people think harder about use of antidepressants, but added: Combining antidepressant treatment and psychological treatment can lead to a more rapid reduction in symptoms. Lucie Russell, of charity Young Minds, added: This new study is deeply worrying, and its very concerning that some clinical trials have been misreported or poorly designed We believe that prescribing antidepressants should never be the only course of action. A Lilly spokesman said: The medical issues about these antidepressants have been addressed in our data submissions for more than 20 years Lilly is committed to sharing the results of our clinical trials and ensuring this information is available to the people who need it. Virginia Acha of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry said: Any allegation against medicines produced by our members is treated seriously not only by our members but by our regulators. People should never come off antidepressants without consulting their doctor. The Connecting with People organisation has published an online safety guide for people with suicidal thought which can be accessed here. Scientists today warned the Zika virus has 'explosive pandemic potential'. The World Health Organisation said the mosquito-borne disease had gone from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions and admitted up to four million people could be infected. The agency will convene an emergency committee of disease experts on Monday. It comes after US experts claimed WHO was not taking a leadership role in the Zika pandemic. They said the organisation needed to learn lessons from its handling of the Ebola epidemic where the 'agency's failure to act decisively cost thousands of lives'. The WHO says it has set up measures to fight the spread including surveillance, laboratories for testing, clinical care and vector control - killing off the mosquitoes spreading the infection. The mosquito-borne Zika virus - thought to cause a birth defect where the brain does not develop properly - has rampaged through the Caribbean and Latin America. Now, pregnant Britons planning trips to areas affected by the Zika virus are being urged to reconsider their travel plans because of the risk Today it said it expects the virus, which is spreading through the Americas, to affect between three million and four million people. Marcos Espinal, an infectious disease expert at the WHO's Americas regional office, said: 'We can expect 3 to 4 million cases of Zika virus disease'. He gave no time frame. Scientists had accused the agency of failing to take 'a leadership role in the Zika pandemic'. They said this is particularly urgent given the forthcoming 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the article in the Journal of the American Medical Association said. The virus has recently rampaged through the Caribbean and Latin America. In particular, there is an unprecedented outbreak in Brazil, where in the past 12 months there have been nearly 4,000 cases of babies being born with abnormally small heads. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan told WHO executive board members the level of alarm is 'extremely high'. 'As of today, cases have been reported in 23 countries and territories in the (Americas) region,' she said at a meeting in Geneva. Brazilian President, Dilma Roussef, has urged Latin America to pull together to combat the virus. Sharing knowledge about the disease is the only way it will be beaten, she told a summit in Ecuador. A meeting of regional health ministers has been called for next week. Meanwhile, pregnant women have already been officially warned to avoid travelling to South America. Dr Dipti Patel, of Britains National Health Network and Travel Centre, said: All travellers, especially pregnant women going to an area with active Zika virus transmission, should ensure they seek travel health advice from their GP or a travel clinic well in advance. We strongly advise all travellers to avoid mosquito bites and urge pregnant women to consider avoiding travel to areas reporting Zika transmission. The US and other world leaders have called for swift action in developing a vaccine for the virus but warned it could take up to a decade. Scientists Daniel R Lucey and Lawrence O Gostin said an emergency committee should be convened 'immediately' to decide whether to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Zika virus is common in parts of Africa and South East Asia, but since 2007 there have been various outbreaks outside of the disease's comfort zone. It spread to South America in 2014, before reaching Mexico and the Caribbean last year. The first US case was reported in Texas at the start of January The Zika virus has been blamed for causing severe brain damage to newborn babies. Gleyse Kelly da Silva holds her daughter Maria Giovanna as she sleeps in their house in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, 'A national declaration of a public health emergency can focus political attention, while financing a surge in resources,' they wrote. They called on WHO to heed lessons from the Ebola outbreak - in which the organisation was widely criticised for its failure to act decisively. 'The World Health Organization (WHO) Ebola Panel in July 2015 said that urgent warnings 'either did not reach senior leaders or senior leaders did not recognise their significance.' 'By many accounts the agency's failure to act decisively cost thousands of lives.' By many accounts the agency's failure to act decisively cost thousands of lives Scientists Daniel R Lucey and Lawrence O Gostin There is currently no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is a close cousin of dengue and chikungunya, two viruses that cause mild fever and rash. Approximately 80 per cent of people who are infected with Zika have no symptoms. The other 20 per cent experience 'mild' symptoms, such as fever, rash, joint pain, and red eyes. Dr Amesh Adalja, senior associate at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, told Daily Mail Online that officials shouldn't expect any fast results. Dr Adalja told Daily Mail Online: 'There wasn't any vaccine development being undertaken prior to this outbreak in Brazil. 'It will be quite a while and this is on the scale of about a decade for a vaccine to be developed usually.' The WHO has warned it will soon spread to all countries across the Americas, except for Canada and Chile. The disease is carried by mosquitos, pictured here in a laboratory of control of epidemiological vectors in San Salvador, El Salvador The Zika virus has been blamed for causing severe brain damage to newborn babies. Pictured is Alice Vitoria Gomes Bezerra, 3 months, who has microcephaly, is held by her father Joao Batista Bezerra in Recife, Brazil Dr Adalja explained that the public incorrectly assumes a vaccine will be available shortly because of the rapid vaccine that was made available shortly after the Ebola crisis struck. He said: 'A lot of people might be thinking that all of the sudden they had an Ebola vaccine. 'This is different from Ebola that vaccine had been in development for many years.' But now that Zika has become a public health concern, researchers are going into overdrive. First off, scientists will have to do 'some basic science' to see if parts of the virus can be presented to the immune system, according to Dr Adalja. A lot of people might be thinking that all of the sudden they had an Ebola vaccine. This is different from Ebola that vaccine had been in development for many years Dr Amesh Adalja, senior associate at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center That phase of the research may involve animal studies in the laboratory and will involve investigating different ways that the immune system may react to the virus. And once the first step is completed, scientists will next have to determine whether the vaccine is safe or if it has a high burden of side effects. They will also have to look into if the vaccine triggers any autoimmune reactions. The virus is spread by the same type of mosquito that spreads dengue fever which has been reported in Florida since 2009. Professor Laura Rodrigues, a fellow of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, warned the virus could potentially affect areas where dengue fever is present. This again could have implications for pregnant women travelling to tropical and sub-tropical climates. A hot-headed plastic surgeon told a patient she was a 'f***ing stupid b*tch' in a foul-mouthed email after she complained about her botched breast implant surgery. Italian doctor Amedeo Usai, 48, snapped and fired off the angry message to the woman after she told medical watchdogs his poor aftercare led to her being admitted to hospital for three days with a severe infection in one of her breasts. The shocking email - littered with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors - started 'I trust you are well' before firing a volley of insults. 'This is to tell you that you are a lier (sic) a stupid f***ing lier (sic) who reported me to the GCM (sic) for no reasons (sic). 'Shame on you stupid b*tch! I offered you my sincere help: you f***ing butch (sic) have reported stupid f***ing things that are out of minds!! (sic) 'Do you have a brain? Do you have a soul? I bet you are just full of sh*t. F*** off.' Usai, based in Preston, Lancashire, was struck off the medical register after being found guilty of misconduct at a disciplinary hearing of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service. He has since quit the UK to move back to his native Rome. Amedeo Usai sent the abusive email to a patient after she reported him to the General Medical Council for her botched breast implant surgery. The Italian surgeon's message was littered with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors The tribunal heard an unnamed woman, from Bolton, known only as Patient E, was said to be 'shocked' at the contents of the abusive note. Later when a female General Medical Council investigator confronted Usai following complaints from the patient and four other women, he referred to them all in Italian as 'wh*res, b*tches and sl*ts'. He subsequently fired off a further email to the investigator - again in Italian - saying: 'Hello nice p*ssy.' Usai was investigated after a string of complaints from five women over his face lift, liposuction, and breast augmentation treatments at private cosmetic clinics across Greater Manchester between 2009 and 2013. On a woman's magazine forum, a number of posts discuss Usai's work after someone asked if people would recommend him for a nose job. One woman, writing under the name Farrell 275, said her breasts had been 'butchered' by Usai. She said: 'The scars r (sic) disgusting and I have had two ultra sounds and MRI scan and they (implants) both have leaked and very painful.' Many women claimed to have taken legal action against him, alleging his surgery left them with leaking implants and needing corrective surgery. The tribunal heard how Patient E had undergone a breast enlargement in July 2013 at Bridgewater Hospital in Manchester. Do you have a brain? Do you have a soul? I bet you are just full of sh*t. F*** off Dr Amedeo Usai But Usai failed to record full details of the two silicone implants she was given - instead writing illegible scrawl about them in his medical notes. The following September, the woman had a follow-up meeting to discuss the operation in which she complained of swelling and pain in left breast consistent with an infection. But he failed to appreciate how serious it was or take swabs and wrote a handwritten note saying: 'To be seen (..illegible words x 2) next (...illegible word) clinic.' Usai later had a further consultation with her and, although her breast was leaking, she was given a prescription for cream. She was subsequently admitted to Bolton Hospital on December 28 2013 and was put on three days of intravenous antibiotics. The hearing was told Usai should have urgently arranged to remove Patient E's left breast implant when it was clear she had an infection. But instead he went abroad without giving the woman contact details for an alternative surgeon to help her. She recalled how she 'did not know what to do and felt alone'. Amedeo Usai was suspended by the General Medical Council before the hearing took place and has now been struck off. The tribunal said his actions demonstrated a 'deplorable attitude' One patient known as C said Usai wrongly told her there was a 'one in several thousand risk of raised scarring' following breast reduction surgery - when it was in fact a possible one in 10 chance. She later complained her stitches were 'overgrowing with skin' after Usai left them in too long and said her left breast was 'full of lumps like a beanbag.' A third woman known as Patient A, who underwent a facelift and neck liposuction, complained about her 'lower eyelid drooping'. But Usai recorded a note saying she was 'doing fine' and adding: 'Pt, quite happy'. These emails demonstrate Dr Usai's attitude of contempt for his patients Chitra Karve, tribunal chairman He later even wrote: 'doing much better' when the patient said she could not close her eyes properly. A fourth woman known as D, whose incisions opened after breast surgery, had to be admitted to hospital for treatment after Usai checked the open wounds, prescribed cream and told her to 'let her body heal naturally'. In his email to the GMC investigator in August last year, Usai referred to the four women and the fifth patient known as B as the Italian word 'troie' which was translated by an interpreter as 'b**ches/wh*res/sl*ts.' His subsequent email to the official read: 'ciao bella fica' which translated as 'Hello, nice p*ssy'. Usai did not attend the Manchester hearing and instead fired off another email to the GMC saying: 'Why you want to extend your investigations when I am already dead? I am now a poor unemployed doctor in this poor country called Italy. The woman who was sent the abusive email had undergone a breast enlargement in July 2013 at Bridgewater Hospital in Manchester (pictured). She complained after one breast became infected and needed three days of intravenous antibiotics after Usai only gave her cream 'May be (sic) I do not deserve anymore (sic) letters from you. Please leave me alone.' Tribunal chairman Chitra Karve said: 'The Tribunal was appalled that a medical practitioner would use such language in emails to, and about, patients. 'Doctors occupy a position of privilege and trust in society, and members of the public are entitled to place complete reliance upon doctors to act at all times with absolute respect for their patients. 'These emails demonstrate Dr Usai's attitude of contempt for his patients. 'Patient E was shocked when she received this email. She said that she had felt at risk and was worried about attending this hearing in case Dr Usai was in attendance as she feared for her safety. 'Dr Usai's actions demonstrated a deplorable attitude to Patient E. 'He has little or no insight - in fact when faced with these proceedings Dr Usai continued his inappropriate behaviour. The risk of repeated similar behaviour remains high.' The United States has two potential candidates for a vaccine for the Zika virus and may begin clinical trials in people by the end of this year, but there will not be a widely available vaccine for several years, U.S. officials have admitted . Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease, said one of the vaccines was based on work done on the West Nile virus. Fauci said that vaccine was never developed because a drug company partner could not be found, but he did not see this as an issue for Zika. Scroll down for video An infectious disease expert told Daily Mail Online that a vaccine for the fast-moving Zika virus - which has been linked to birth defects - will not be developed for close to a decade. That's because, unlike other viruses that have had recent outbreaks, Zika was assumed to be 'mild' and no vaccine had been in development 'We're already talking to a few companies who are able to partner with us in advanced development,' he told a news conference. Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said there have been 31 cases of Zika infection among U.S. citizens who traveled to areas affected by the virus. So far, there have been no cases of transmission of the virus through mosquitoes in the United States, she said. In Geneva, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that Zika is spreading 'explosively' and could affect as many as four million people in the Americas. It said the mosquito-borne disease had gone from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions and admitted up to four million people could be infected. The agency will convene an emergency committee of disease experts on Monday. It comes after US experts claimed WHO was not taking a leadership role in the Zika pandemic. They said the organisation needed to learn lessons from its handling of the Ebola epidemic where the 'agency's failure to act decisively cost thousands of lives'. The WHO says it has set up measures to fight the spread including surveillance, laboratories for testing, clinical care and vector control - killing off the mosquitoes spreading the infection. But Dr Amesh Adalja, senior associate at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, told dailymail.com that officials shouldn't expect any fast results from vaccines. Before the current outbreak which is linked to a surge in babies being born with abnormally small heads Zika was not considered to be a public health risk. Dr Adalja told Daily Mail Online: 'There wasn't any vaccine development being undertaken prior to this outbreak in Brazil. 'It will be quite a while and this is on the scale of about a decade for a vaccine to be developed usually.' There is currently no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is a close cousin of dengue and chikungunya, two viruses that cause mild fever and rash. Zika virus is common in parts of Africa and South East Asia, but since 2007 there have been various outbreaks outside of the disease's comfort zone. It spread to South America in 2014, before reaching Mexico and the Caribbean last year. The first US case was reported in Texas at the start of January Approximately 80 per cent of people who are infected with Zika have no symptoms. The other 20 per cent experience 'mild' symptoms, such as fever, rash, joint pain, and red eyes. As a result, there weren't any Zika vaccines in the pipeline, according to Dr Adalja. But in recent months, the virus has been linked to a rare birth defect called microcephaly in which a newborn's head is smaller than normal and the brain may not have developed properly. The virus has been found in 24 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The World Health Organization has warned it will soon spread to all countries across the Americas, except for Canada and Chile. A lot of people might be thinking that all of the sudden they had an Ebola vaccine. This is different from Ebola that vaccine had been in development for many years Dr Amesh Adalja, senior associate at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Dr Adalja explained that the public incorrectly assumes a vaccine will be available shortly because of the rapid vaccine that was made available shortly after the Ebola crisis struck. He said: 'A lot of people might be thinking that all of the sudden they had an Ebola vaccine. 'This is different from Ebola that vaccine had been in development for many years.' But now that Zika has become a public health concern, researchers are going into overdrive. First off, scientists will have to do 'some basic science' to see if parts of the virus can be presented to the immune system, according to Dr Adalja. That phase of the research may involve animal studies in the laboratory and will involve investigating different ways that the immune system may react to the virus. And once the first step is completed, scientists will next have to determine whether the vaccine is safe or if it has a high burden of side effects. They will also have to look into if the vaccine triggers any autoimmune reactions. The virus is spread through the Aedes mosquito (pictured). As a vaccine won't be available anytime soon, the medical community should focus on wiping out the mosquito that transmits the disease, the expert said Dr Adalja said: 'It takes time, and there are a lot of steps where the process can fail, but it seems to me that because of Zika's ability to affect fetal abnormalities, it will become a priority.' He noted that the vaccine won't work just to limit the disease in adults but also to limit the effect it can have on fetuses. However, for the time being, there is no cure for Zika. The doctor said: 'Once a person is infected, there is nothing that you can do. It takes time, and there are a lot of steps where the process can fail, but it seems to me that because of Zika's ability to affect fetal abnormalities, it will become a priority Dr Adalja 'If a pregnant woman is infected, there is no treatment that can be done to protect the fetus it either happens or it doesn't.' The best way to prevent a fetus from getting infected right now is for pregnant women to avoid travelling to regions that are affected by the virus. Dr Adalja added: 'While we wait for a vaccine, people really need to focus the battle on the mosquitoes that are transmitting the virus.' A developer recently revealed it created a genetically modified mosquito that reduces the number of mosquitoes spreading Zika. Oxitec, a UK-subsidiary of US synthetic biology company Intrexon, said it developed a self-limiting strain of the Aedes aegypti mosquito. The male mosquitoes were modified so that their offspring will die before reaching adulthood or being able to reproduce. The company said it saw strong results in controlling the population of the Aedes vector that carries Zika and also the dengue virus. Worldwide first for someone to undergo the procedure for needle phobia Said she was terrified of the twice-daily injections and pinprick tests Diabetic Sue York, 55, was so scared of needles it was putting her health at risk. She became the first woman to have a pancreas transplant because of a phobia A British woman has become the first patient in the world to have pancreas transplant because of her needle phobia. Sue York, who has suffered from type 1 diabetes since she was a child, claims she would shake uncontrollably and vomit at the thought her twice-daily insulin injections. This is despite the fact she has had a belly-button piercing for 20 years - a procedure she claims 'felt completely different' as needles are 'far more intrusive'. Type 1 diabetes causes a person's blood sugar, or glucose, level to become too high because the pancreas doesn't produce any insulin. Insulin allows glucose to enter the tissues and be used as energy so people with type 1 diabetes must inject it. But Ms York says her extreme phobia of needles meant the process was always a terrifying ordeal. Usually, transplants are only available to patients with a physical medical condition such as kidney failure. After several consultations with a board of doctors, she was finally placed on the transplant list for a pancreas on account of her phobia. On February 13 last year a suitable donor became available and she underwent a full pancreas transplant at Manchester Royal Infirmary. The three-hour operation was a success and Ms York, 55, of Mablethorpe, Lincolnshire, became the first person in the world to have such a transplant because of a phobia of needles. Yesterday she told how the operation had transformed her life. And when asked about her naval piercing, she said it felt 'completely different'. 'I had a piercing done for my 35th birthday. It was a present from my husband,' she said. 'For me it is totally different (than a needle phobia).The piercing felt completely different when it was put in. Needles are far more intrusive.' The grandmother-of-six told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme the anticipation of the injection twice a day would leave her feeling physically sick. 'I would measure the insulin up by distancing myself from it and switching myself off but when it came to actually putting the needle into my body that was a very different issue,' she said. 'Sometimes I would shake uncontrollably and I would have to put it down and walk away. The piercing felt completely different when it was put in. Needles are far more intrusive Sue York, 55 'Other times because I would start to feel extremely sick I would vomit. 'It got to a point when I was beginning to seriously struggle to actually maintain doing two injections a day. 'I did because you know your life depends on it, you have no option, you have to do it but it was becoming just horrendous.' Since the operation, she says she now feels 'incredible' and full of energy and doctors say her life expectancy has now doubled. She has even had to get a new pair of glasses because her eyesight has improved. Diabetes also causes nerve damage and loss of sensation but Ms York said she had regained some feeling again since the operation. She said: 'No longer am I struggling to walk up a flight of stairs, getting breathless walking into the wind. No longer is my skin yellow or grey. 'No longer do I look constantly exhausted. Ms York had to wait more than two years to be given the go-ahead to be placed on the transplant list. She was found a match within three weeks and underwent a successful transplant in Manchester Ms York shows off her scar - and belly button piercing which she's had for 20 years. Today, she argued: 'The piercing felt completely different when it was put in. Needles are far more intrusive' She first applied for a pancreas transplant in 2012, after the DVLA changed its rules insisting diabetic drivers checked blood glucose levels by way of a finger prick test before getting behind the wheel. Terrified by the prospect of more injections, she thought it was easier to give up driving. THE ROLE OF THE PANCREAS IN TYPE 1 DIABETES Type 1 diabetes causes a person's blood sugar, or glucose, level to become too high because the pancreas doesn't produce any insulin. Everyone diagnosed with type 1 is treated with insulin. Insulin allows glucose to enter the tissues and be used as energy so people with type 1 diabetes must inject it. Scientists don't know why the insulin-producing cells are destroyed in people with the condition. It is thought to be caused by an abnormal, autoimmune, reaction to the cells, which could be triggered by a virus or other infection. Experts believe there is a genetic element to type 1 diabetes. It is more common in some parts of the world than others. Unlike type 2, type 1 diabetes has nothing to do with lifestyle or weight. The condition can develop at any age, but is usually diagnosed before the age of 40, most commonly in late childhood. Around 10 per cent of the 2.9 million people diagnosed with diabetes in the UK have type 1. Source: NHS Choices/Diabetes UK Advertisement She said: 'It was just too many needles, too many invasions into the flesh, I couldn't bear to do it so I gave up driving. 'If I got into an accident and was unable to take a finger prick test I may have been committing a crime. I didn't want that kind of pressure. 'I became virtually housebound because I was too weak to walk long distances. I was trapped and desperate. 'I tried hypnotherapy to cure my phobia but it never worked.' She asked her doctor for help and was referred to a diabetes expert at Manchester Royal Infirmary. It took two-and-a-half years, and three transplant panel meetings, before she was finally accepted onto the transplant list. But after just 21 days, the life-changing call came to say a suitable donor had been found. 'I don't know who my donor is, but I thank them and their family from the bottom of my heart. 'The doctors said it was an excellent donor and I was an excellent match. 'For me, my phobia had a physical effect on me and I was just as in need of a transplant as someone with kidney problems.' Ms York now faces blood tests every three months and undertakes a weekly finger prick test to make sure the pancreas is still working. Surgeon Dr Raman Dhanda, from Manchester Royal Infirmary, said guidelines were currently in place nationally and internationally to ensure those with the greatest need received transplants. HOW NOT TO DISAPPEAR by Clare Furniss HOW NOT TO DISAPPEAR by Clare Furniss (Simon & Schuster 12.99) Furniss's stunning young adult debut, The Year Of The Rat, was one of my favourite books of 2014, so I approached this follow-up with nervously high expectations. I need not have worried. This is a beautifully executed story in which 17-year-old Hattie, juggling babysitting her younger siblings for her widowed but soon-to-be remarried mother, working in a diner and studying at school, discovers she's pregnant from a one-night stand with her best friend Reuben, who is spending his summer travelling in France. When she receives a phone call asking her to visit her dead father's aunt Gloria, whom no one knew existed and who suffers from dementia, she feels pulled in conflicting directions. But as the relationship between the teenager and elderly relative develops, and Gloria's tragic but fiercely defiant backstory unfurls, Hattie takes control of her own destiny with life-affirming and joyous consequences. This isn't the first YA novel to incorporate dementia as a plot device, but it's gloriously funny, deeply emotional and a triumph. ANNA AND THE SWALLOW MAN by Gavriel Savit ANNA AND THE SWALLOW MAN by Gavriel Savit (Bodley Head 9.99) In Krakow, 1939, seven-year-old Anna's widowed father, a university linguistics professor, is called away. He never returns - taken, we understand, by the Nazis. Left alone, Anna attaches herself to a mysterious, tall stranger whom she calls Swallow Man, who teaches her swift lessons in survival - she must pose as his daughter and he will call her only Sweetie: names themselves can be dangerous in this war. For years they wander across Poland's countryside, dodging danger, using their multiple languages, mutually dependent. Who is Swallow Man and what sadness lies behind the single, embroidered baby shoe he treasures? As Anna grows, she learns harsh truths about conflict and humanity - and ultimately about sacrifice. This wonderfully original concept, enigmatic in style yet grounded in brutal reality, is written with deceptive power and grace. Although it leaves questions hanging long after you turn the last page, this is a debut that promises great books from Savit. MARESI by Maria Turtschaninoff MARESI by Maria Turtschaninoff (Pushkin 10.99) Maresi's parents sent her to the isolated Red Abbey on a remote island to escape the Hunger Winter famine that killed her sister. Here, in the exclusive company of women, she devours library books, worships the Mother Goddess deity and feels safe. But when silent, secretive fugitive Jai arrives and follows Maresi's every move, the two girls form a special bond. Jai is fleeing the violence of her father, who has sworn to track her down in revenge for her rebellion against his terrifying exertion of power and control - which threatens the Abbey's survival. This is the first book in a very unusual fantasy/fairytale trilogy, bristling with feminism, inner darkness and intellectual questions and has been hugely popular in its native Finland. THEY LAUGHED AT GALILEO by Albert Jack THEY LAUGHED AT GALILEO by Albert Jack (Constable 12.99) The 20-year-old Guglielmo Marconi wrote in 1894 to the Italian Minister of Post and Telegraphs, Pietro Lacava, to outline his plans for wireless telegraphy and request government funding. Lacava never replied. He scrawled a suggestion that the young man should be sent to a lunatic asylum across the top of the letter and consigned it to the depths of his ministry's filing system. By the time it resurfaced, Marconi's 'wireless' had transformed the world's communications. As Albert Jack's entertaining ragbag of stories about the history of innovation shows, there have always been plenty of people eager to believe that would-be inventors are mad. They've been outnumbered only by those prepared to tell inventors that their plans won't work. No sooner had Marconi's ideas been presented to the British public in an 1897 lecture, than Lord Kelvin, the president of the Royal Society, stepped forward to announce that: 'Radio technology has no future.' (Kelvin had a spectacularly bad record as a prophet. At different times he also declared that, 'X-rays will prove to be a hoax' and that 'heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible'.) Kelvin was a great scientist. For a less talented man, the risk of making a fool of oneself in front of posterity was even higher. Dionysius Lardner, a 19th-century writer on science, stated categorically that: 'Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, will die of asphyxia.' He then had to watch as railways criss-crossed the globe and millions upon millions of passengers travelled on them, all breathing freely. Today, he's remembered solely for his one fatuous remark. It wasn't just big inventions like radio and railways that were ridiculed when first proposed. What now seem entirely commonplace objects were initially met with hoots of derision. The American entrepreneur King Gillette was told that his safety razor was a joke. No one would use a blade a few times and throw it away. In the first year of production, he sold 51 razors by mail order. A century later, the company Gillette founded changed hands for $57 billion. When Ron Hickman had the idea for what became the Black & Decker Workmate, one company he approached predicted sales 'in the dozens'. At the time of its inventor's death, the Workmate had shifted 100 million units worldwide. Many of the inventors in this book faced worse than ridicule. Theirs was a dangerous trade. In Jack's account of the early parachutists, it's noticeable how often the dates of the pioneers' deaths coincide exactly with the dates of their most daring experiments. 9,874 Greatest number of inventions patented by one person - Australian Kia Silverbrook Advertisement Wan Hu, a Chinese official of the Ming Dynasty, had plans to become the original spaceman when he attached 47 gunpowder-based fireworks to a chair and prepared to blast into the wide blue yonder. When the dust and smoke of the resulting explosion settled, there was no trace of Wan Hu, although he now has a crater on the Moon named after him. And the American Thomas Midgley is considered one of the great, creative chemists of the 20th century, but he poisoned himself with his experiments and eventually lost the use of his legs. He invented his own invalid bed but, in 1944, succeeded only in strangling himself in the mechanism he had devised to haul himself upright. And the difference between success and failure - between fame and riches, and obscurity and a wasted life - depends on chance and serendipity. The idea for the microwave oven first occurred to engineer Percy Spencer when he was standing in front of a radar unit and noticed that the chocolate bar he kept in the top pocket of his white lab coat had melted. A few months later, in October 1945, he applied for a patent for his Radarange oven. The earliest machines were 5.5 ft high and weighed half a ton. The more uplifting side-effects of Viagra, which was originally intended to relieve chest pains in angina sufferers, were discovered by chance. Sales from the drug are now at the $2 billion a year mark, though no one has yet found a means of making money from another property researchers accidentally found it possesses - it reduces jet lag in hamsters. Rival politicians have launched a severe attack on Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (TMC) over its 'appeasement' politics. The opposition claims that the TMC is targeting 28 per cent of the Muslim voting population ahead of the 2016 Assembly polls. Sharpening their verbal assaults against the party's leader, also known as Didi, opposition politicians claimed that the chief minister was not taking action against some people accused of heinous crimes within the minority community. Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has been accused of trying to win Muslim votes ahead of the election Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah also took potshots against Mamatas 'appeasement politics' during a rally on Monday. He accused her of resorting to 'vote bank politics' in West Bengal. Shah said: 'Mamata ji has turned Bengal into a centre of anti-national activities for the sake of vote-bank politics. She is playing vote bank politics.' He continued: 'The Trinamool government has failed to check the inflow of fake Indian currency notes and weapons. 'The recent violence in Malda was also due to the inability of the police to provide protection as their morale has hit an all-time low owing to the appeasement politics of the Trinamool Congress.' On Wednesday, Mamata boasted: 'West Bengal has topped the chart in giving scholarships to minority Muslims in the country. We are number one in that.' After storming to power in 2011, the West Bengal government had taken a series of development drives to uplift the minority community in Bengal. It included offering honorarium of Rs 2,500 for mosque imams and Rs 1,500 for muezzins through the state Waqf Board, which was later stopped after the Calcutta High Courts intervention. It also started giving free land to 'homeless, landless imams' under her pet 'Nijo Bhumi Nijo Griha' (Own Land, Own House) scheme or making Urdu the second official language in areas where 10 per cent of the population is Muslim. But in the past five-year term, it's alleged that the Trinamool administration had failed to take prompt action against accused if they belonged to the minority community. State Pradesh Congress Committee president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury told Mail Today: 'The politics of competitive communalism is being played between Trinamool Congress and BJP in Bengal. 'Everything is eyewash. Muslims are being used as mere fodder for electoral gains. The state government has not done anything to fundamentally develop the Muslims.' It's alleged the administration failed to arrest the key accused Kader, who is still absconding, in the infamous Park Street gang-rape case - even after the court had pronounced its verdict on the matter. Banerjee had referred to the case as a 'cooked-up matter', while opponents accused her of shielding the rapists. In the Kamduni gang-rape and murder, six of the eight accused were from the minority community and the administration had allegedly taken delayed action against them. During her visit to Kamduni village, Banerjee had also accused the villagers of 'politicising the whole matter like the CPI-M' when they came to vent their grievances about general law and order to her. It's 31 years since the angry, old man of Saaransh exploded onto the big screen - and his career has now reached a new milestone. Anupam Kher, who was just 28 when he played the rebellious, angry headmaster, is no less of a rebel after all this time. The actor, who led the charge against those who said intolerance was rising in India, spoke to Mail Today on Wednesday in an exclusive interview after receiving the Padma Bhushan on Republic Day. Anupam Kher, who played the unforgettable headmaster in Saaransh, will be honoured with the Padma Bhushan this year Did he get the award - as some alleged, particularly on social media - because he is close to the ruling BJP? 'That means in the last 67 years, whoever got it must have got it because of their proximity to governments. It includes Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan, Shivaji Ganesan. Can one nullify their work? These great performers are the reason why we became actors,' Kher said. 'If I had got an award for dancing, painting or singing, one could understand the criticism. I am one of the finest actors of this country. I have great sympathy for this lot [his critics and trolls]. They have no life.' On whether his campaign against the intolerant India narrative would have a professional backlash, he said: 'The backlash could be subtle. Some may not want to work with me. Thats all right. I came to Mumbai with Rs 37 in my pocket. Ive risen from the gutter, and not taken favours. You cant demolish a self-made man.' He said he didnt fear being overlooked for jobs either. 'If I go to the streets playing a dugdugi, people will throng.' He hit back at critics who said the honour was related to his relationship with the ruling BJP Kher made it clear that he would not accept government positions. 'No, I will not. They did offer me one or two positions. They offered me NFDC chairmanship. I declined. Taking up a post is an obligation. But an honour, anytime,' he said. 'When I agreed to head the Censor Board, I thought it was offered because of my capability. I didnt realise it was a political position which was taken away when the Congress came to power.' On intolerance, Kher took a sharp jibe at some of his co-actors. 'Today, all those who said India was intolerant are saying "I never said that". Thats because the country has not accepted that statement.' He stressed the importance of speaking up, even if it risked damaging popularity. He said: 'Why should I be made to feel self-conscious about putting a teeka or wearing gerua as a Hindu in this country? Why shouldnt 26 years of Kashmiri Pandits exile be the theme of my talks?' Kher said no party, including the BJP, did much for the Pandits. 'But I would like to give this government five years,' he commented. He describes, laughing, how he changed his voice when he got a call from an unknown number during the Jaipur Literary Festival while travelling in a bus with actor Abhishek Bachchan. 'When he said he was from the home ministry, I said: "This is Anupam Kher speaking". He broke the award news to me and asked: "Kya aap isko sweekar karte hain [do you accept the award]?" I said, "Main bus mein leyt ke sweekar karta hoon [I accept it rolling on the bus floor]".' Kher, arguably the first to tell his own story on stage, had got a Padma Shri in 2004. 'This country has allowed me to be what I am. My father was a clerk in the forest department. He got Rs 90 a month and with 14 in the family to support. I went to a municipal school.' The star has made 419 films during his illustrious career and has now been honoured with the Padma Bhushan In Class V, Kher acted in his first play. 'It was a disaster', he said. 'I didnt get an award. My father plucked a bunch of yellow flowers in Shimla and told me: "This is your award".' After a three-year course at National School of Drama and teaching theatre in Lucknow, Kher arrived in Mumbai on June 3, 1981. 'I was on the streets on Mumbai, looking for work, compromising with my dignity, sleeping on railway platforms sometimes. But those yellow flowers my father brought every time I failed kept me going.' He recalled his first rented house in Mumbai. 'My landlady was a washerwoman. I shared a small room with four others; she and her children slept in the kitchen. 'Ironically, my address was Anupam Kher, 2/15 Kherwadi, Kher Nagar, Kher Road.' Then came the fateful role in Saaransh. 'For that, I didnt get a National Award. Again my father landed up, this time with a woollen muffler made by my mother. He was this magic box, and he created this amazing feeling.' So, when 31 years and 419 films later he got the Padma Bhushan, he wished his father was there. 'Every time I get something, I think about that small town where I lived.' Does he see himself in active politics? 'If you are saying all these movesMarch for India etcare a precursor, they are not. The day I want to join politics, Ill announce it from the top of the world,' he said. ' Narendra Modi's government is working on a Rs 13,800 crore plan to save a large population forced to consume groundwater containing excess arsenic, which can lead to ailments including cancer. About 10,000 habitations in India with 1.20 crore people, mostly poor, have sporadic sources of groundwater containing arsenic more than 10 parts per billion (PPB), the latest government data shows. Drinking such water leads to skin problems, hits the nervous system, and reduces IQ level among children. It can even cause cancer. Consumption of groundwater containing arsenic can cause cancer Arsenic contamination, first reported in West Bengal in 1983, is a major threat to Indias groundwater resource, on which 80 per cent of rural domestic needs, 50 per cent of urban and industrial needs, and 65 per cent irrigation water requirements depend. Depletion of groundwater levels, due to excess use and destruction of recharge systems, leads to contamination. Based on sub-plans given by five affected states (Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Punjab and West Bengal), they need about Rs 4,000 crore for both short and long-term actions. Other states, mainly Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Karnataka and Manipur, facing similar problems, are also submitting their plans. Central ministries, mainly the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MoWDS), need Rs 9,800 crore for similar actions on their part. 'For better operation and maintenance, it has to be done with private and community participation on a mission mode over five years. 'Its yearly execution will be monitored by an empowered and unified body. Old, defunct systems need to be set right,' said a senior official. Each affected state will form a cross-department task force to map risk areas, set up labs, build, preferably, surface water supply and rainwater storage systems to recharge fast contaminating and depleting groundwater reserves. High-tech water cleanup, both underground and after extraction, is also high on the agenda. Healthcare facilities in these areas are very poor. As per the cross-ministry plan, the health ministry will fight the health-related challenges, including diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of patients. The agriculture ministry is working on plans to push arsenic-resistant crops. The idea also is to tweak irrigation practices to keep arsenic content from fields. Funds are also going to be an issue. The MoDWS got only Rs 2,700 crore for 2015-16, compared to Rs 11,000 crore for the previous fiscal year. 'Such reductions would hamper the task at hand unless funds are mobilised from various other sources and given to the ministry,' said an official. However, Dunu Roy of NGO Hazard Centre however, said: 'The governments faith in the investment capacity of the private sector and the efficiency of technology remains unshaken in spite of a long history of demonstrated failures on both counts in several PPP projects.' As a short-term measure, the government is looking at 10,000 community water purification plants (CWPPs) in as many habitations by 2019. Most populous Uttar Pradesh, densely inhabited West Bengal, and laggards like Bihar and Jharkhand have missed the Centres Smart City bus. But Delhis NDMC area, spanning a minuscule 42.7 sq km and housing the countrys top political leadership, bureaucrats, judges, and generals in sprawling bungalows - finds a place in the grand urban face-lift scheme. Odishas capital Bhubaneswar tops the list of 20 cities in the first batch of the Smart City initiative, that will attract investment of over Rs 50,000 crore for modernisation. A whopping Rs 50,802-crore investment has been proposed for development. (Picture for representation.) Congratulating the winners, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: I wish the cities the very best as they move forward with implementation and transform urban India. Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu clarified that the final selection of cities was based on bottom up approach with the involvement of citizens in the formulation of plans. Urban local bodies and state governments piloted the mission. He added that the ministry did not play any role in the selection. It was for the first time in the country and even in the world that investments in the urban sector are being made on competition-based selection of cities, Naidu said. Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said 23 states and UTs that have missed the first chance will be given an opportunity to participate in a 'fast track competition'. Pune, Jaipur, Surat, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Jabalpur, Visakhapatnam, Solapur, Davanagere, Indore, Coimbatore, Kakinada, Belagavi, Udaipur, Guwahati, Chennai, Ludhiana and Bhopal are the other cities selected in the first batch. Three cities from Madhya Pradesh, two each from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan, and one each from the remaining five made it to the winning list. Naidu said 23 states and UTs that have missed the first chance will be given an opportunity to participate in a fast track competition. Each top-ranking city from these left out states can upgrade their smart city proposals and submit them by April 15, 2016, for inclusion in the mission. But the clarification was not enough to stop political backlash. Former J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah said the ruling PDP and BJP had let down the state as no city figures in the first list, even though the alliance partners had agreed to have Srinagar and Jammu in it. So much for the Agenda for Alliance being a sacred document. Once again, the PDP-BJP let down the state. No smart city for J&K today, Omar tweeted. The non-inclusion of Dehradun drew a sharp reaction from the Uttrakhand government which termed it as a decision which reflects the Centres attitude of neglect towards the Congress-ruled state. Investment of Rs 50,802 crore has been proposed for the development of these cities over five years with public-private-partnership as a major vehicle of resource mobilisation. Connaught Place set for 'smart' uplift this time By Baishali Adak in New Delhi After spending Rs 671 crore and 10 long years on redeveloping Connaught Place, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) will utilise the Smart City fund to improve it further. As part of its dossier submitted to the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), the NDMC has proposed to upgrade the Rs 550- acre Connaught Place and extended CP area. This is called the Area-Based Development, or ABD, programme. The NDMC will utilise the Smart City fund to improve Connaught Place and its extended area further Under its two-pronged approach, the rest of its area will be smartened under the Pan-NDMC programme. Under ABD, CP and its extended region will get proirity. Under Pan-NDMC, smart features and citizen-friendly services will be introduced everywhere. This includes smart electricity poles, video surveillance, Wi-Fi, interactive education in NDMC schools, hi-tech hospitals and toilets, automated parking, etc. Lutyens Delhi is one of Indias 20 smart cities to be developed under the Centres flagship scheme. It figured at rank 12 in the list released by Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday. NDMC will be the executing agency and will soon receive Rs 200 crore, the programmes first instalment. NDMC chairperson Naresh Kumar has already listed a slew of plans - including 3D digital mapping, solar city projects, waste-to-energy plants, and intelligent urban mobility - to make it world-class. Though NDMC governs just 43.7 square km - about 3 per cent of the National Capital Territory - it houses vital installations like the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House, Supreme Court and various foreign diplomatic missions. Pictured: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. The ministry has referred its inquiry into the generals to the CBI Two serving Army Generals will face a Central Bureau of Investigation probe over allegations of corruption. The Generals are in the dock after the defence ministry asked the CBI to probe the allegation that the officers amassed wealth beyond their known sources of income. As first reported by Aaj Tak, Major General Ashok Kumar, General Officer Commanding Kolkata sub area, and Major General SS Lamba, posted in Delhi as additional director general Ordnance, are in a fix. An allegation was made against the Generals in September last year that they paid bribes for promotion to the rank of lieutenant general. The defence ministry noted that despite the allegation, the Army headquarters cleared them for promotion. A final approval on their elevation was pending with the Appointments Committee of the Union Cabinet. Both of them are decorated officers. Kumar was awarded the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal and Lamba was a recipient of Sena medal last year. The allegation pertains to the time when Lieutenant General R Bhalla, who retired recently, was Military Secretary, who is responsible for promotions and postings. Sources said that Lieutenant General Bhalla (retired) can also face CBI questioning. An internal inquiry was conducted by the defence ministry on the allegation, stating that the officers had paid bribes to get promoted. The ministry had then decided to refer the matter to the CBI for a detailed investigation. In September the ministry red-flagged the promotion of certain officers following allegations of impropriety. The Armys promotion policy has been under the scanner for some time. The manner of selection of certain officers had raised eyebrows in Armys internal circles. The issue was debated intensely on social media as well. There is a glimmer of hope for Indias gay and lesbian community after a wait of almost two years. The Supreme Court on Thursday listed for hearing on February 2, the curative petition (the last legal recourse after the review plea for decriminalising Article 377, which makes gay sex, irrespective of age and consent, a punishable offence, was dismissed) for legalising homosexual acts. The petition has been filed by the Naz Foundation, the leading gay rights NGO, and several eminent personalities, including film director Shyam Benegal, on February 23, 2014. Activists are hoping the Supreme Court will heed the curative petition against Section 377, as many gay Indians have suffered at the hands of criminal gangs and police since the court made homosexual acts illegal The case, titled Naz Foundation Trust Vs Suresh Kumar Koushal, has been listed as item 12 in the advance list of cases on February 2 published on the Supreme Court website www.supremecourtofindia.nic.in. Allocation of a bench for the case is still awaited. Community members, meanwhile, are keeping their fingers crossed. The past two years have been a harrowing time for many of them. Some time back, when Rocky (name changed), a gay rights activist, was returning home from a Christmas party, he was trailed by three men and forced inside an abandoned building near Dhaula Kuan and forced to perform oral sex on them. He realised that the law that protected those like him was no longer there, and he had to give in. It was his fourth such experience in the past two years. They said they knew I was gay. One of them was filming the act and they threatened to inform the police. They took away Rs 2,000 I was carrying, he said. The 34-year-old IT professional is taking counselling sessions after his traumatic experiences. Rockys suffering symbolises the difficulties Indias gay and lesbian community have passed through ever since the Supreme Court re-criminalised homosexual acts in December 2013, sanctioning up to 10 years in jail for the offence. This came four years after the Delhi High Court had legalised homosexual acts. The community is aware that only two such curative petitions have succeeded so far in the history of the apex court. In March 2013, the SC allowed a curative petition against its 2009 judgment which held that if a woman kicked her daughter-in-law or threatened her with divorce, it would not amount to cruelty under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code. In April 2010, the SC also corrected a mistake in its verdict that had led to wrongful detention of four accused in a 21-year-old murder case without any hearing. Naz claims that since the re-criminalisation of gay sex, blackmail to extort money (in many cases threatening to complain to police or parents after filming a sex act), intimidation, and harassment of gay and lesbian community members by organised gangs and the police, have increased manifold - as have rapes and other kinds of torture. The 2014-15 report recently released by Naz proves this. Based on the calls that flood their helpline seeking counselling, the report has categorised the kinds of harassment faced by members of the community and their grievances under various heads. According to the report, 38 per cent of callers were confused or had problems with their sexuality and feelings. Thirty-five per cent of them suffered blackmail and intimidation from gangs and police, who extorted money. They also had problems dealing with break-ups and were not able to find a trustworthy partner. Twenty-eight per cent of them wondered if they could have safe sex, and were under the fear that they would contract HIV after engaging in homosexual acts. Highlighting the fundamental principles of justice is above all and no party should suffer because of mistake of the Court, the curative (which means a plea filed in the court to give it a chance to correct its earlier error) petition points out that this remains a fit case for the exercise of curative jurisdiction by the Supreme Court. Just a month ago, the world was celebrating the deal hammered out during the Paris round of climate change talks. Now we are inundated with reports of extreme and erratic weather events, and their possible connection with climate change. It is official that India was significantly warmer in 2015 than the normal, with the annual mean surface air temperature averaging 0.67C above the long-term average, making 2015 the third warmest year on record. The blizzard in America has disrupted life, and some scientists have blamed it on anomalies in a phenomenon called Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which is partly caused by the warming of the seas due to greenhouse gas emissions. The melting ice is opening up opportunities ranging from tourism to natural resource extraction in the Artic region Hong Kong and parts of South Korea have seen heavy snowfall this past week. As regards the polar caps in the Arctic, there is sufficient evidence of permanent ice cover shrinking. Since the Arctic is central to global weather patterns and the long-term warming trend, it has been under the scanner of scientists and policy makers for some years. However, the Arctic discourse now appears to shift from environment to economy with countries in the polar region getting prepared to adapt to a warmer Arctic. This is the impression I got while listening to experts and leaders of indigenous communities from the Arctic region at the ongoing Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromso, the Northernmost town of Norway. While the reasons for warming and shrinking of ice cover are perhaps global, the impacts will be first felt locally. The melting ice is opening up opportunities ranging from tourism to natural resource extraction in the region. Politicians as well as community leaders are in favour of exploring these opportunities. Possibilities of new trade routes and extraction of natural resources are opening new doors in High North, but the challenge is to strike a balance between environment and commercial interests, pointed out Borge Brende, foreign minister of Norway. About 10 per cent of the countrys population lives in the Arctic Circle, and 90 per cent of its exports come from sea-based economic activity. Human dimension in the Arctic discourse has been neglected so far, as if the Arctic is a wildlife sanctuary. The world must realise that it is much more than icebergs, ice sheets and wild animals. People here have traditions, knowledge and skills, and they should be involved in any discourse about future of the Arctic, felt Vittus Qujaukitsoq, minister for natural resources and foreign affairs of Greenland. It is felt that development of the oil and gas industry, tourism, mining and fisheries can help boost the livelihoods of four million people who live within the Arctic Circle. But given the high environmental costs and the fact that oil prices are very low, it may not make economic sense to exploit oil resources in the Arctic in the present scenario. Meanwhile, polar countries are preparing the ground for the future as more and more areas of the Arctic sea become navigable and accessible. Why India needs a polar vessel: India has been pursuing research in polar regions for more than three decades, but its focus has been on the Antarctica. The interest in the Arctic is relatively new. Now India has a research station in the Arctic in Norwegian territory and is also an observer in the Arctic Council, a body of counties around the Arctic sea. Several other countries, including China, have the observer status and are rolling out ambitious research programmes. China has its own ice breaker and polar vessels. India too has been planning to buy a polar vessel that can cater to the needs of Indian scientists in both the poles, but the matter has been hanging fire for more than two years. Our engagement with the council is very important because what happens in the Arctic has an impact on weather patterns in South Asia including the summer monsoon. This engagement should be deepened by bringing more assets like a polar vessel to the table, feels N A K Browne, former IAF chief and Indias ambassador in Norway. He suggests that India should acquire a polar research vessel soon as it will boost its research efforts in the Arctic and also further strengthen its position in the council as an observer. Clearing the air on Khesari Dal Dr Vijay Nath Mishra in a Khesari dal field Khesari dal, which was banned for causing cases of a neurological disorder called lathyrism in the 1960s, has hit the headlines again due to new varieties of it developed by agricultural researchers. It has been claimed the new varieties are toxin-free. This raises questions of whether the disease has changed its pattern or the seeds of Lathyrus sativus have become toxin-free. Even when this pulse remained banned it was being consumed in some parts of India. I visited villages near Nagpur in the early 1990s and met people who were consuming this dal. Is it that the disease has changed its profile, or the bodys defence against toxins of lathyrus has got genetically modified? Dr Vijaya Nath Mishra, professor of neurology at the Banaras Hindu University, conducted a field study a couple of years ago to assess knowledge, attitude and practices relating to khesari dal. We observed that lathyrus intake is common in eastern Uttar Pradesh and also in adjoining parts of Bihar, because of its low cost, easy cooking and typical taste. Of 500 people surveyed, 100 were regularly eating khesari dal and 82% of them did not report any illness related to the nervous system, says Mishra. Junk food tax to cut childhood obesity WHOs commission on childhood obesity has concluded that many children are growing up in environments that encourage weight gain and obesity. The marketing of unhealthy foods and non-alcoholic beverages has been identified as a major factor in the increase in numbers of children being overweight and obese, particularly in the developing world. Dejected and traumatised after a protracted legal battle against the allegations of their daughter-in-law and her family, an elderly couple have sought mercy killing from the President. The couple, retired central government employee DD Sharma and his wife Shakuntla who are both 68, are unable to meet their daily expenses thanks to court proceedings which have dragged on for a decade now. Please give me the permission for mercy killing or send me some poison so that I can free myself and my wife from the wrath of the draconian law of domestic violence, pleaded Sharma in a letter to the President and the Chief Justice of India (CJI). The couple's daughter-in-law has alleged that they used to torture her - a claim which they vehemently deny The couple wrote to the President on January 14 this year, but are yet to get a reply. Sharma, a resident of Yamuna Vihar in Delhi, said he and his wife have been falsely implicated in the case. He said there has been no development in the case despite it dragging for 10 years. He further alleged that despite lodging a complaint with the National Commission for Women (NCW), nobody has come to their rescue. We are bearing the brunt of an offence not committed by us and no authority has come forward to help us, Sharma said, adding: Our daughter-in-law, who is the main source of this harassment, is moving around freely, why this discrimination against us? In her complaint, the couples daughter-in-law has alleged that they used to torture her by hitting her and throwing hot water on her. However, the senior citizens claimed they couldnt have assaulted their daughter-in-law as she never lived with them for several years. Our son is in the Air Force. After the marriage, our daughter-in-law went to live with him at the location where he was posted. After just a year of marriage, she started forcing us to transfer our house to our sons name. Her parents also started pressuring us to transfer our property in our sons name. We told them that after us, our son is the legal heir of our property, but we would not transfer it under any pressure. "While the issue was settled for a while, we did not know that it would again come to haunt us. A case of domestic violence was filed against us. Whenever our daughter came back to Delhi, she barely visited us and instead lived with her parents. In such a situation, when she never lived with her in-laws, how can she file a case of domestic violence against us? Sharma asked. He claimed that when they approached police officers and the NCW, they returned disappointed. The law to protect women is being used against a woman. Is there no law in India to protect the interests of the senior citizens? My wife and I have faced immense pain in handling this issue. People who are at fault need to be punished, but those who have been falsely implicated should be rescued, he said. Surprisingly, this is not the only such case. Six similar petitions have been filed before the President where harassed men and their families have sought mercy killing. Mail Today spoke to more such families. Lucknow-based petitioner Jitendra Gupta called it legal terrorism while seeking permission from the President to kill himself. In his plea he said the harassment of dealing with a false case is equivalent to a slow death. The 33-year-old is facing a case of Section 498A. Although my family and I are out on bail, we are puzzled with the kind of allegations levelled against us. Despite a complaint against me, I have been fulfiling all my responsibilities towards my wife. This fake case has caused me immense humiliation in the society with no way to get out of this legal mess, Gupta told Mail Today. Activists too, blamed it on the slow progress in court cases and said it led to acute mental torture. Toxic: Fred Goodwin left RBS in tatters and dependent on the taxpayer By now, you might have thought, Royal Bank of Scotlands kitchen sinking operation would be well and truly over. But the toxic 50billion plus eight-year loss legacy of Fred Goodwin and his cohorts goes on. Taxpayer and investors can only by frustrated that the authors of this banking disaster have paid no price for their hubris, reckless behaviour and lies. The 2015 results will be the first since Sir Howard Davies took the helm from Sir Philip Hampton now at Glaxo. The choice of Davies as chairman was almost certainly that of the Chancellor, and his orders will be to get all the dross off the books quickly. There is a view that for all his calming virtues and retail experience, the chief executive Ross McEwan was not the person to drive dramatic change. What is fascinating about some of the charges is that they could possibly have been avoided in the year just ended if the intention was not to clear the decks. In this category is the decision to help plug the hole in the pensions fund by RBS making a 1.6billion contribution. Money, incidentally, which will ensure that Goodwin and his cohorts can continue to enjoy their comfortable retirements. Similarly, the goodwill write-off at Coutts could possibly have waited. The more interesting charges include those against the selling of rotten US mortgage securities and payment protection insurance. One of the worries at RBS has been that it is close to the bottom of the list when it comes to US mortgage settlements. So the fact that it setting aside 1.5billion to satisfy the Federal Housing Finance Agency suggests that this is finally crystallising. Earlier this week JP Morgan Chase coughed up a further 1.6billion to bring an end to the mortgage securities saga that already has cost it billions of pounds. PPI continues to haunt the banks and a further 500million has been set aside by RBS. Santander has added 450million to its provisions. With the guillotine on PPI claims likely to fall in 2018, banks are expecting a final blizzard of claims. So where does RBS go from here? One can expect it to trim its sprawling branch network (beyond the Williams & Glyns chain which is to be divested), offering banking services through the Post Office if it happens to be the last bank in town. It recognises the huge advances of online banking but, as a result of decades of neglect, is a huge distance from having the kind of systems that can cope. This is where challenger banks such as TSB, building systems designed by its new owners Sabadell, can have competitive advantage. George Osborne has been reluctant to sell RBS shares at a loss for fear of the outcry which should follow. One only has to look at AIG in the US, nationalised at the time of the crisis, returned to the market and now dishing out $25billion (17.4billion) to shareholders, to know this is the right thing to do. Flat taxes The great debate about taxation of the Silicon Valley behemoths continues on both sides of the Atlantic. Apple, which disappointed with a forecast of the first revenue drop in 13 years, is estimated to hold $200billion in offshore accounts to keep it out of reach of the Internal Revenue Services. In the US, as in Europe, the battle to get big business to pay more tax, is ferocious. The idea that this is anything new needs to be scotched. Anglo-American group Hanson, whose founder Sir James Hanson was a great confidant of Mrs Thatcher, paid virtually no UK tax at all because of accounting which funnelled income through Panama and other havens. A smart way of dealing with this would be for the major OECD countries to agree on a single, low rate of corporate taxation of say 10 per cent, against the UKs current 20 per cent, and the elimination of most of the deductions that companies claim. It would end the ridiculous cat-and-mouse game played with the tax authorities and a competition between governments which only poisons relations. Clear view The choice of Charles Gurassa as the next chairman of Channel 4 is a strong signal that the Government is determined to be rid of the terrestrial broadcaster and pocket the 1bn price the City has placed on the enterprise. Gurassa is deputy chairman of EasyJet and has media experience at Virgin Mobile and LoveFilm that made him a better bet than his main rival, Mark Price of Waitrose. If Richard Desmonds 450million sale of Channel 5 to Viacom is the marker, then caution is required because of the cross-media promotions by Northern & Shells newspaper titles. Solicitor Rachel Croft, 34, and her husband Richard, 36, an accountant, thought they were clued up when it came to hiring a car on holiday. Car rental firms have a bad reputation - despite six of the biggest firms in Europe agreeing to clean up their acts six months ago as a result of an inquiry into bad practices led by the Competition and Markets Authority - with tales of disputed payments, petrol tank rip-offs and confusing insurance policies not uncommon. At the end of the Crofts' Spanish holiday in September they dutifully returned the car to the depot and received a signed document to confirm that no damage had been done to the vehicle during the hire period. Happy couple: Rachel and Richard on holiday in Spain were unable to resolve a payment dispute with Hertz until This is Money stepped in. Unfortunately, this wasnt enough to stop Hertz from chasing them for a payment demanding 155euros (approximately 122) for damage just a few weeks after they returned from holiday. When Rachel challenged them using the document that she was given by the hire company in Spain as evidence that there was no damage to the car when they returned it, she was told that the charges were correct. A few weeks later Hertz tried to take a payment from her American Express credit card for the damage. Rachel reported the issue to AMEX who after investigating refunded her on the basis that that she had a form to prove no damage had been done to the car. The couple who live in Islington, London, with their one-year-old daughter Abigail completely deny that the car was damaged and that if it had been it would have been picked up when they had the car inspected on its return. Despite this, Hertz continued to chase them for payment. Rachel, who is also pregnant and due with her second child in June, then contacted This is Money. Proof: The document that the Croft's received at Murcia airport from Hertz when they returned the car, which clearly states that the car was returned with 'no new damage'. We contacted Hertz on her behalf to see if the issue could be resolved. They told us that the damage to the car, which had been booked through Firely - a low-cost car rental brand owned by Hertz - wasnt detected before the document was signed. A spokesperson said: After having investigated this case, we have contacted Mrs Croft to offer her a full explanation and to apologise for the distress this matter caused her. Given that the damages found in the car after the rental were not detected at the point the vehicle documents were signed, the charges have been cancelled in full. A situation of this nature is extremely rare as usually any damage is detected with both the employee and customer present. Firefly has stringent measures in place to ensure that customers are not unfairly or unduly billed for damage. Car rental: Firefly is a low cost car hire website that is owned by Hertz. Rachel said: It was like banging a head on the wall. They never acknowledged our complaint. I genuinely think that if you had not stepped in they would have continued to threaten us with debt collectors.' WHAT TO DO WHEN CAR HIRE GOES WRONG Complain to the car hire company In the first instance you should complain to the car hire company. Keep a record of your complaint and give them a reasonable amount of time 14 working days usually - to reply and rectify the situation. Escalate your complaint If that doesnt work then you can use a free service provided by The European Car Conciliation Service (ECRCS) which will help you with complaints about vehicle rentals in Europe. It only deals with complaints about member companies, which includes big names like Hertz, Budget and Avis. To use the service you must be a resident in the EU and the rental must have taken place within an EU country which you are not a resident of. Your claim must also relate to the refund of charge. If they have broken the law - You can contact the European Consumer Centres Network to investigate. Separately, Rachel had already made another complaint to Firefly about the service they received when picking up the car. She told This is Money: We had booked a car seat, giving them our specifications but instead of having one for a 12 month old baby they had supplied one that was appropriate for a four year old. The representative was very unhelpful. They didnt know how to fit the child seats and offered us a range of battered and broken seats out of the back of a transit van. We did our best to fix the car seat and checked instructions online once we got to our apartment. It was really worrying and could have put our child at risk. A spokesperson for Hertz said: Our number one priority is the safety of our customers and their families. Safety measures are consistently carried out at all our branches, and a thorough inspection on all our child seats is being conducted at this time. Whilst it is Fireflys policy for staff not to fit child seats, all branches have staff who are trained to assist parents when installing the seats. Given this, Mrs Crofts case has been addressed with all staff at Murcia to avoid similar situations in the future. Not guilty: Danny Wilkinson was one of five stockbrokers cleared of plotting to fix the Libor rate Five stockbrokers including one nicknamed Lord Libor have been cleared of plotting to fix the banking rate in a bid to make millions of pounds of profit. The gang were accused of teaming up with crooked trader Tom Hayes in the dishonest scheme to manipulate Libor the rate used when banks lend to each other. Hayes, a former UBS and Citigroup trader, was jailed for 14 years last year since cut to 11 on appeal for conspiracy to rig the global Libor rates. In a major blow to the Serious Fraud Office, Colin Goodman, 53, Danny Wilkinson, 48, and Terry Farr, 44, were cleared of two counts of conspiracy to defraud following a four-month trial at Southwark Crown Court. James Gilmour, 50, Noel Cryan, 49, were cleared of one conspiracy charge. Darrell Read, 50, was cleared of one charge of conspiracy to defraud but the jury are yet to reach a verdict on a second conspiracy charge. They were accused of using their influence with panel banks a group of 16 banks that together decide the rate to swing the numbers in Hayes favour. Goodmans daily analysis was so influential in setting the final rate he earned the nickname Lord Libor. Read was known as Big Nose while Wilkinson was nicknamed Serg by Hayes, the court heard. They received lucrative commission from Hayes currency bets on the Japanese yen and admitted he favoured them because he believed they were helping him cheat. But the brokers insisted that trails of incriminating emails and texts were them just bullsh****g Hayes. Farr denied ever doing anything to rig the rate, saying they had just let Hayes believe they were doing so to keep the money coming in. Read, Goodman and Wilkinson were all employed by New Zealand-based firm ICAP, while Gilmour and Cryan worked for British company RP Martin. Before the jury retired to consider their verdict, Mr Justice Hamblen said: You would need to be satisfied that any involvement was not merely transitory, but something which establishes significant involvement in the conspiracy. Busy: But Britain is still not building enough homes House building in Britain has reached its highest level since the financial crisis but remains too low to solve the chronic shortage. Figures from the National House Building Council show there were 156,140 registrations for new homes in 2015 the most since 2007 and 75 per cent higher than during the depths of recession in 2009. But it is some way short of the 200,000-plus homes that need to be built every year for Britains growing population. There is still a way to go before we are building the levels of new homes that were seen before the economic downturn, said NHBC chief executive Mike Quinton. Insurance and pensions giant Legal & General yesterday launched a build to rent partnership with Dutch pension fund manager PGGM. The deal will see them invest 600m 3,000 new homes for families to rent. Paul Stanworth, managing director of Legal & General Capital, said: The UK rental market is dysfunctional, with ever-increasing rents and increasingly poor accommodation. For this to change, and renting to become more affordable, we need to build new homes to rent, and stop inflating the prices of old housing stock. A report by the National Association of Estate Agents showed the supply of homes for sale has nearly halved in ten years. Rugged appeal: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles recorded forecast-beating Jeep sales The car giant behind Fiat, Jeep and Maserati posted stronger than expected sales for the past three months, triggering it to raise annual profit targets. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), which recently spun off its Ferrari supercar marque, said strong performance in America, Europe and forecast-beating Jeep sales was behind the boost. The firms American arm, which accounts for more than 85 per cent of profit, also benefited from favourable currency moves. The upgrade surprised financial markets because most analysts thought its turnaround plan would fall short. Experts had been concerned about delays to new models, investments taking longer than expected to come through, and slowing demand in Asia and Latin America. FCA posted a 39 per cent rise in fourth-quarter adjusted operating profit to 1.25billion, beating forecast of 900million. Sales rose 11 per cent to 22.96billion, also above expectations. Britains biggest banks are braced for a further 5billion bill for the PPI mis-selling scandal. Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander yesterday became the first High Street giants to set aside more money as they prepare for a deluge of claims triggered by a crucial High Court ruling. In an unscheduled announcement to the stock market, RBS revealed it had made a 500m provision, taking its total costs for the scandal to 4.3billion. Spanish-owned Santander also said in its annual results that it has put aside another 450million to compensate customers mis-sold payment protection insurance, taking its total cost to 1.52billion. Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander yesterday became the first High Street giants to set aside more money as they prepare for a deluge of claims triggered by a crucial High Court ruling Experts warned other banks will follow suit over the coming weeks. Analysts at Investec predict Lloyds could be forced to make another 2.5billion provision, having already set aside 13.9billion, while Barclays could make another 1billion provision, having booked a 6billion charge already. HSBC is expected to take a fresh hit of up to 500million, topping up its 2.63billion provision. The new round of payouts follow City watchdog order that banks must compensate customers for secret commission charges on PPI policies. It follows a High Court victory by widowed college lecturer Susan Plevin. She was not told that almost 4,200 of the 5,780 she paid out in PPI premiums was commission paid to the lender, Paragon Financial Services, and the broker that sold her the 34,000 loan. The court ruled in November 2014 that this breached the Consumer Credit Act 1974. The ruling has serious implications for Britains biggest banks, which pocketed large commissions for selling PPI policies through branches or paid brokers to sell their products. A controversial two-year time bar on PPI mis-selling complaints is also set to be introduced in the spring, with the final deadline likely to fall in 2018. This will be accompanied with a major national advertising campaign paid for by the banks which is expected to generate a fresh wave of complaints. Richard Lloyd, executive director of consumer group Which?, said: News of these staggering new provisions for PPI mis-selling from the banks clearly show just how many consumers are yet to be compensated. If a time bar is to be introduced, banks must redouble their efforts and prove their customers are receiving fair and speedy compensation. The mounting bill for RBS over PPI is just part of a fresh 2.5billion clean-up bill announced by the bank yesterday. Chief executive Ross McEwan confirmed it is now on course to register its eighth consecutive annual loss when it publishes its results at the end of the month. The bulk of the misconduct charges or 1.5billion covers mis-selling toxic bundles of US mortgages before the financial crisis. It has set aside 3.8billion so far to cover settlements, although the final figure is likely to be much higher. It has yet to tuck away money for investigations by the US Department of Justice or other agencies. RBS said it had written off 498million from the value of its private banking arm Coutts as it expects the business to continue to struggle. Tougher accounting rules means it will also have to book a 1.6billion charge to plug a black hole in its final salary pensions scheme. This will not affect its profits and will be included in its financial accounts this year. Former bosses of HBOS may be banned from working in the City as financial regulators announced an investigation into certain former senior managers, seven years after the bank's collapse in 2008. The Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority did not reveal the names of the former HBOS executives concerned but said they would look at whether any prohibition proceedings should be commenced against them. The decision follows last years damning report into the HBOS collapse by barrister Andrew Green, who lambasted the decision by regulators to punish just one former executive Peter Cummings, who has been fined 500,000 and banned for life from working in the City. Collapsed: HBOS former executives are facing a new investigation, seven years after the bank's collapse. The FCA and PRA also published a report last year, in which they blamed the collapse of HBOS on former executives, although the regulators failed to investigate them more broadly. Too much time has passed since the collapse of HBOS during the 2008 financial crisis for regulators to be allowed to impose fines - the limit for that is six years. However, they could decide to ban former bank bosses from working in the financial services industry, while the Insolvency Service has the power to ban them from being directors of any company. In his report, Mr Green called on regulators to launch further probes into 10 senior executives including ex-chief executives Andy Hornby and James Crosby, as well as past chairman Lord Stevenson, so they could be among the executives to be probed. Other former executives mentioned in the Green report include Mike Ellis, former finance director, Colin Matthew, ex-head of the international division, and Lindsay Mackay, former boss of the treasury division. Investigation: HBOS's former chairman Lord Stevenson, left, and former chief executive Andy Hornby, right, could be among the executives to be investigated by the financial regulators Mr Ellis is currently chairman of Skipton Building Society, while Mr Mackay is a director of Alpha Bank. Mr Hornby is chief operating officer of Gala Coral, which is in the process of merging with rival Ladbrokes to create a 2.3billion gambling giant. Lord Stevenson has a number of positions, including at book group Waterstones Holdings where he is a non-executive director, And Mr Crosby has retired - he gave up his knighthood in 2009 and has surrendered part of his pension. HBOS had to be rescued in a government orchestrated takeover by Lloyds Banking Group, which subsequently needed a 20billion taxpayer-funded bailout of its own. The collapsed bank was in the news last week after the UK accounting watchdog, the Financial Reporting Council announced a preliminary enquiry into whether KPMG committed misconduct when it gave HBOS a clean bill of health before the financial crisis. The ex-wife of a leader in a polygamous church teared up in court Wednesday when recalling how she was isolated from her children and feared even authorities would help hide them from her. Charlene Jeffs, who was married to ex-Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints leader Lyle Jeffs, testified at a trial in Phoenix in which the federal government alleges that two towns in Arizona and Utah served as an enforcement arm of the sect. This discrimination trial is one of the federal government's boldest efforts to crack down on polygamous towns on the Arizona-Utah border. In court, Charlene Jeffs said she was kicked out of a sacred group within the church called the United Order in 2012. 'I was exiled into a trailer,' Charlene Jeffs said. 'I was not allowed to see my children, talk to them or associate with them in any way.' Emotional: Charlene Jeffs (left), the estranged wife of Lyle Jeffs (right) of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints sect, arrives to testify in the federal civil rights trial against two polygamous towns on the Arizona-Utah line January 27 Charlene Jeffs is the former sister-in-law of Warren Jeffs, church leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints sect. She said she was kicked out of the group and isolated from her children The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints operated in Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah. Both cities are now accused of aiding Jeffs's evasion of police forces She left the community altogether in October 2014 and pursued custody of three children. Charlene Jeffs says Curtis Cook, a member of the Colorado City Marshals Office, approached her at an April 2015 custody hearing and told her 'the way I was going about getting my children was illegal'. Warren Jeffs (pictured) is a convicted felon serving a 20-year sentence. He is also the former President of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints According to her, Cook said she should have notified marshals that she wanted custody. 'I said: 'We both know what would've happened.' They would've disappeared, and I never would have seen them again,' said Charlene Jeffs, who says Cook nodded in agreement. Colorado City attorney Jeff Matura disputed Jeffs' testimony, getting her to confirm two instances in which Cook and another deputy helped her. They included a welfare check and the day Jeffs was to receive her children after a judge ruled she was entitled to custody. Cook even escorted Jeffs and her children to the county line to make sure they left without interference, Matura said. 'He acted as you hoped he would act as a police officer,' Matura said. Lyle Jeffs is a brother of church leader Warren Jeffs, who was on the run from charges of arranging marriages between girls and older men before being captured during a 2006 traffic stop outside Las Vegas in an SUV with $50,000, cellphones, a police scanner and wigs. He is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison for sexually assaulting one of the 24 child brides. Colorado City and Hildale, Utah are accused of discriminating against nonbelievers by denying them housing, water services and police protection. The communities deny the allegations and say religion isn't motivating their decisions. Willie Jessop (above) is the former spokesperson and head of security of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He left the sect in 2011 U.S. Justice Department attorney Sean Keveney, left, and Jessica Clarke, center, and another attorney on the team arrive to court Wednesday in Arizona Federal investigators say Colorado City officers claimed to have had no information on Warren Jeffs' whereabouts while he was on the run, though it was later discovered that some of them had written letters to the church leader during that time. Willie Jessop, the former spokesperson and former head of security of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, also testified in court. He rattled off a list of elaborate steps used to assist the sects leader while he was a fugitive a decade ago and explained how towns in Arizona and Utah took orders from the church. Jessop, who left the church in 2011, said those who assisted church leader Warren Jeffs used disposable cellphones and encrypted radios to communicate. Out of fear that authorities were monitoring their phones, they drove 40 miles to make calls. The former security chief said he would fly to places around the country to serve as a decoy and throw law enforcement off the trail while Jeffs was being moved to a new hiding place. Nader Modanlo, 55, was released from prison January 16 as part of a prisoner swap with Iran When one of the Iranian-Americans who were due to be released from federal prison as part of the January 16 prisoner swap refused the offer to have his sentence commuted, the U.S. administration sweetened the deal by dropping a claim against the man for $10 million authorities say he received in an illegal payment from Iran. Aerospace engineer Nader Modanlo initially rejected the offer because it would force him to give up an appeal to clear his name, Reuters first reported on Wednesday. Modanlo, 55, who grew up in Iran, became an American citizen as an adult and ran a space engineering company, Final Analysis, before being accused of selling missile technology to his native country. In 2013, Modanlo was convicted of violating the sanctions against Iran and sentenced to eight years in prison. The nuclear agreement with Iran was a landmark achievement for U.S. president Barack Obama Nader Modanlo, who was released from prison January 16, maintains he is innocent of selling missile technology to Iran His conviction was based on evidence prosecutors say showed Modanlo brokered a deal in 2005 between Iran and Russia to launch a satellite in exchange for a $10 million fee. Modanlo claims the $10 million was payment by a Swiss company for a telecoms deal. Last year, Modanlo's lawyers filed an appeal that charged that prosecutors and the trial judge had communicated in secret, preventing Modanlo from receiving a fair trial. Modanlo was hopeful he would win the appeal. But when his lawyer presented him with the clemency offer on January 14, he learned that he would have to give up the appeal if he wanted to walk free two days later. 'I was mostly disappointed that I have to give up my right to appeal,' Modanlo told Reuters. 'I waive my right to bring a claim against you, but your claim continues for God knows how many years against me?' Secretary of State John Kerry brokered the nuclear deal, which involved the lifting of sanctions against Iran and a swap of prisoners, with his Iranian counterpart After Modanlo declined the U.S. administration's offer, the U.S. administration tried to get him to change his mind by allowing him unlimited, unmonitored phone access from prison, and also offered to drop the $10 million claim on his assets. After speaking with Iranian officials and his officials, Modanlo said it was a conversation with his sister in Iran that made him change his mind on January 16. 'If it was for me, I would never have taken the deal,' he said. The prisoner swap was part of an agreement brokered by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, which resulted in the lifting of U.S. sanctions against Iran and curbed Iran's nuclear program. Modanlo was one of seven Iranian prisoners released through the deal; Iran released five Americans. The Justice Department and representatives for Iran declined to comment to Reuters on discussions over the $10 million. US Secretary of State John Kerry, left, at a negotiation session with Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, right, over Iran's nuclear program in Lausanne, Switzerland, March 20, 2015 A dead male humpback whale that weighed approximately 15,000 pounds washed up in the surf at Kure Beach south of Wilmington, North Carolina, this week. The whale was reported about 6 a.m. Wednesday, local media outlets reported. The mammal was about nine meters (29.5 feet) long, according to North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher. Scroll down for video Discovered: A dead male humpback whale washed up in the surf at Kure Beach south of Wilmington, North Carolina, this week Investigation: Members of the Center for Marine Science at the University of North Carolina Wilmington prepare to do a necropsy on a humpback whale Wednesday On hand: University of North Carolina Wilmington biologist Ann Pabst and other members of the Center for Marine Science at the university prepare to do a necropsy on the humpback whale William McClellan of the University of North Carolina Wilmington says the whale was a baby humpback between 1 and 2 years old. He says the whale was very thin and appeared to have been sick for some time. He told TWC News: 'North Carolina is one of the highest standing sites on the East Coast. 'So, humpback whales have become a really common event here in North Carolina, we had one on the Outer Banks just a couple of weeks ago.' The whale was moved for a necropsy to determine the cause of death. North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher posted photographs of the necropsy on Facebook Wednesday. William McClellan of the University of North Carolina Wilmington says the whale was a baby humpback between 1 and 2 years old McClellan says the whale was very thin and appeared to have been sick for some time North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher wrote on Facebook: 'Estimated at 1-2 years old, the whale measured about nine meters and weighed roughly 15,000 pounds' The aquarium wrote: 'A juvenile male humpback whale washed ashore in Kure Beach early Wednesday morning. 'Estimated at 1-2 years old, the whale measured about nine meters and weighed roughly 15,000 pounds. 'Aquarium staff assisted researchers from the UNCW Marine Mammal Stranding' Program during a necropsy on the beach to determine cause of death. Aquarium spokeswoman Robin Nalepa told JDNews.com its intestine contained a tapeworm. She told the website: 'They don't know for sure what may have caused the death, but they do know that the animal had significant parasites in the kidneys and that could have been a contributing factor in the animal's death.' A house explosion left one man dead in eastern Ohio, authorities said Wednesday. Tuscarawas County coroner Dr. James Hubert said the man who died in the explosion Tuesday night in the village of Newcomerstown is believed to have been alone in the home. Hubert said tests will be needed to confirm his identity. Investigators are trying to determine what caused the blast, state fire marshal's spokesman William Krugh said. He said no other details were immediately available. Scroll down for video Blaze: The house that exploded in the village of Newcomerstown became engulfed in flames (pictured) Debris was strewn about as emergency crews worked at the scene of a fatal house explosion on Wednesday Columbia Gas Co. said in a statement that it believed natural gas was involved but also noted the investigation wasn't complete. It later said it had confirmed the safety of its facilities in the area and that its investigation indicated 'our facilities that serve the community did not contribute to the incident.' A message seeking further clarification was left for a Columbia Gas spokesman. In a Wednesday statement to 10TV, Columbia Gas said: 'Columbia Gas of Ohio was called to the scene at 540 Beaver Street in Newcomerstown, Ohio. The first priority for our crews at the scene was to ensure the safety of our customers and the community by completing safety checks on our system. 'While we believe natural gas was involved in the incident, the circumstances leading up to and ultimately causing the incident are still being investigated. At this time, there is no indication that Columbia's system is at fault. State fire marshal's spokesman William Krugh says investigators are trying to determine what caused the blast. He said no other details were immediately available Tuscarawas County coroner Dr. James Hubert said the man who died in the explosion Tuesday night in the village of Newcomerstown is believed to have been alone in the home. Hubert said tests will be needed to confirm his identity 'Columbia Gas will continue to work with authorities investigating the incident. We understand that our customers and those affected by the incident want answers about the cause of the incident, as do we. Time is needed to conduct a thorough investigation to understand the circumstances that lead to, as well as the actual cause of, the incident.' Lanny Warner, who lives two houses down from the one that was destroyed, told The (Dover-New Philadelphia) Times-Reporter: 'I was sitting here eating and all of a sudden my house started shaking and I was like "Oh my God, what happened." 'I ran outside and saw sparks and stuff flying everywhere and the house was totally engulfed in flames and disintegrated really quick. 'It was a heck of a blast. It rattled our windows and pictures fell off the walls.' The Newcomerstown Exempted Village Schools District canceled classes Wednesday due to debris on school property. Two schools near the explosion were checked for structural damage, and classes were expected to resume Thursday, the Times-Reporter said. Medics in Brazil investigating head-shrinking birth defects linked to the Zika virus revealed last night there were just six cases from more than 700 children examined. Researchers have been probing 4,180 suspected microcephaly cases reported since October - and doing intense analysis on 732 of those cases which has confirmed 270 and ruled out the other 462. However Brazil's Health Ministry said only six of the 270 confirmed cases were found to have the Zika virus - with two being stillborn and four live births, three of whom later died. Concern: Gleyse Kelly da Silva, 27, holds her daughter Maria Giovanna, who was born with microcephaly, outside their house yesterday in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil Combating the problem: Municipal workers spray insecticide to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmit the Zika virus at the Imbiribeira neighbourhood in Recife Operation: Municipal workers refill the insecticide sprayer during an operation to combat the mosquitoes Experts say it is hard to say what the figures mean, because they do not answer whether the tropical Zika virus is causing the babies to have unusually small heads - or explain the size of the problem. Paul Roepe, director of the Center for Infectious Disease at Georgetown University in Washington DC, said: I don't think we should lower our alarm over the Zika outbreak. Brazilian officials still say they believe there's a sharp increase in cases of microcephaly and strongly suspect the Zika virus, which first appeared in the country last year, is to blame. The concern is strong enough that the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month warned pregnant women to reconsider visits to areas where Zika is present. Meanwhile officials in El Salvador, Colombia and Brazil have even suggested women stop getting pregnant until the crisis has passed. But the World Health Organization and others have stressed that any link between Zika and the defect remains circumstantial and is not yet proven scientifically. Working: A municipal worker in Brazil gestures during an operation to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes Probing: A health worker shows larvae of the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes found inside a warehouse in Recife And the new figures were a reminder of just how little is known about the disease and its effects. The arrival of the mosquito-borne illness in Brazil initially caused little alarm as the virus' symptoms are generally much milder than those of dengue. I don't think we should lower our alarm over the Zika outbreak Paul Roepe, Georgetown University Then late last year, after noting what they said was a spike in the birth defect, Brazilian authorities for the first time asked doctors to report cases of patients in their care. So there are no solid numbers to compare with the new tally. In 2014, only about 150 cases were reported in Brazil in a year - a surprisingly small amount for a largest country with nearly 3 million births a year. The United States, with about 4 million births a year, has an estimated 2,500 cases of microcephaly a year, said Margaret Honein, a CDC epidemiologist. Brazilian health officials have dismissed the idea there might have been a large number of unreported cases previously. Insect problem: Aedes aegypti mosquitoes sit in a petri dish at the Fiocruz Institute in Recife yesterday Protection: Residents run away and others cover their faces as municipal workers spray insecticide in Recife But the rate of recorded microcephaly cases was only a fraction of what some experts thought it ought to be. In establishing a registry, the Health Ministry cast a wide net, including live births, stillborn and miscarried babies, and foetuses shown to have unusually small heads by ultrasound or other diagnostic tests, the ministry said. In subsequent investigation, tests were done to see if the brain has been affected. The condition can cause lasting developmental problems. Brazilian health official did not detail what they found in the 462 reports that were ruled out, but many of them were just premature and under-sized, a health ministry spokesman said. The birth defect can be caused by factors such as genetics, malnutrition or drugs. Infections are also a cause - in the US, one of the leading causes is cytomegalovirus - although Zika-like viruses have not previously been linked to microcephaly. The CDC's Ms Honein said shifts in the numbers reported out of Brazil were not surprising, and much more investigation is needed. Big effort: Brazil's health minister said that nearly 220,000 members of Brazil's Armed Forces would go door-to-door to help in mosquito eradication efforts ahead of the country's Carnival celebrations Armed forces: A Brazilian Army soldier inspects a house during an operation to combat the mosquitoes She was echoed by Dr Ganeshwaran Mochida, a paediatric neurologist at Boston Children's Hospital who specializes in microcephaly. He said 270 confirmed cases is still quite a substantial number in a country that has been reporting far lower counts. He also said that health official will have to watch for other problems, including far less obvious issues that can be caused by congenital infections - for example, deafness. Brazilian officials said the babies with the defect and their mothers are being tested to see if they had been infected. On Tuesday, Brazil's health minister, Marcelo Castro, announced that 220,000 military personnel were being deployed to bolster efforts to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito that transmits Zika, dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. Mr Castro said the government also would distribute mosquito repellent to some 400,000 pregnant women. His murals are 'highly prized' and he has done lots of charitable artwork A street artist, infamously known as 'Brisbane's Banksy', has been charged with graffiti despite his murals contributing to the 'beautification' of Queensland's capital. Anthony Lister faced one count of wilful damage by graffiti at Brisbane Magistrates Court on Wednesday. The charge was brought by Brisbane City Council and relates to incidents at five different places during a period between 2009 and 2014. Scroll down for video Anthony Lister, 36, is an Australian-born painter and installation artist However, the court heard that Mr Lister and his work should not be prosecuted for beautifying the city, as it is a 'credit to Brisbane.' Former Brisbane deputy mayor David Hinchliffe described Lister's work as contributing to the 'beautification', not degradation, of the city. 'His murals are highly prized,' Mr Hinchliffe told the court. 'Anthony's whole body of work has been to create beautiful, interesting things in the cities that he is painting in.' Mr Lister is an Australian-born painter and installation artist who is notable within the 'lowbrow' art movement with punk music and 'underground comix' influences. He is notable within the 'lowbrow' art movement/'pop surrealism' with 'underground comix' and punk music influences A Brisbane City Council worker paints over Anthony Lister's wall art Lister was one of the first artists to paint Brisbane's traffic signal boxes in a project launched by Mr Hinchliffe in 2000. 'I have a great envy for the career that he has been able to establish - he is a credit to Brisbane.' Lister had also completed a number of works for charitable causes, including a children's hospital, was featured in Australian art and fashion magazines and had been offered an artistic residency in Vienna. Police allege he applied paint to walls to property in the Brisbane CBD, Paddington and Fortitude Valley. The hearing continues. Lister has been charged with graffiti despite his murals contributing to the 'beautification' of Brisbane Police allege he applied paint to walls to property in the Brisbane CBD, Paddington and Fortitude Valley His murals are highly prized by members of the community Lister had also completed a number of works for charitable causes including a children's hospital He was featured in Australian art and fashion magazines and had been offered an artistic residency in Vienna Lister was one of the first artists to paint Brisbane's traffic signal boxes for a project The bodies of four people, including a couple and their one-year-old grandchild, have been found at the scene of a house explosion and fire in southern Kentucky, according to Kentucky State Police. Two people were found inside the home and two outside, Trooper William Gregory said on Wednesday. Police have identified the four as 60-year-old Mitchell Coomer; his 52-year-old wife, Lori Coomer; their one-year-old granddaughter, Kinley Rodgers; and 32-year-old Steven 'Aaron' Keltner. The house was reportedly owned by Mitchell Coomer, who was also the brother of Backyard Oil's Travis Coomer. Scroll down for video The bodies of Mitchell Coomer, 60, and his wife, Lori, 52 (seen together on the left), as well as their one-year-old granddaughter, Kinley Rodgers (right) were found at the scene Also killed in the house explosion was 32-year-old Steven 'Aaron' Keltner, pictured left and right An aerial photo of the destroyed house. Trooper William Gregory said two of the victims were found inside the home and two outside Police said Jason Coomer, Mitchell Coomer's son, was in the basement on the opposite side of the house to the blast when the explosion happened Police said identifications were made using evidence at the scene and from 34-year-old Jason Coomer, Mitchell Coomer's son. Jason was in the basement on the opposite side of the house to the blast when the explosion happened Tuesday and escaped with minor injuries, according to police. Gregory said the cause of the blast remains unknown and under investigation. He told WDRB: 'There is a gas well on the property but we don't have any information that would lead us to believe that there was something connected to that that led to the explosion.' The family's basement contained natural gas truck and tractor pulls, LEX18 reported. The explosion happened at a log house several miles east of Columbia in Adair County Police said identifications were made using evidence at the scene and from 34-year-old Jason Coomer, Mitchell Coomer's son Mitchell Coomer was the brother of Travis Coomer (pictured), who has appeared on Discovery Channel's Backyard Oil series The explosion happened at a log house several miles east of Columbia in Adair County. The residence had 6,000 square feet, WAVE reported. Neighbor Margaret Antel told WLKY: 'We heard a boom. A big boom. And we both jumped. 'And my husband just barely got out the door and he could see it was their house. 'So he just yelled for me to call 911, and I did.' Episode: The explosion happened at a log house several miles east of Columbia in Adair County. Kinley Rodgers is pictured left and right with her grandmother Lori Coomer The house before the blast in an undated Facebook photo. Trooper William Gregory says the cause of the explosion remains unknown and under investigation Local 8 named Mitchell Coomer as the homeowner. A GoFundMe page called Heather's Angels said: 'Heather Rodgers lost her precious baby girl Kinley Rodgers, her loving mother Lorie Coomer and step-father Mitchell Coomer yesterday in a home explosion in Adair County Kentucky. 'Although no words can take away Heather's pain and suffering, please help me to help her financially during this difficult time of loss. 'There will be many unexpected expenses in the coming months and Heather needs to focus on healing instead of financial concerns.' According to WAVE, Mitchell Coomer was the brother of Travis Coomer, who has appeared on Backyard Oil on the Discovery Channel. Stephen Furst, of Animal House fame, says the Academy has been ageist and sexist in blaming the #OscarsSoWhite Since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said it was altering membership rules in response to an outcry over the diversity of its voters and nominees, another uproar has erupted around Hollywood. Many academy members are protesting that the new measures unjustly scapegoat older academy members and imply they're racist. Fiery letters have poured into the academy. Trade magazines are littered with critical op-eds from members. Meanwhile, civil rights leaders and others say the academy's actions didn't go far enough. More steps are needed, they say, to make the Oscars and the industry more inclusive. Reforms meant to calm a crisis seem to have only further enflamed it. This year's February 28 Academy Awards are looking less like a glitzy gala and more like a battlefield. Host Chris Rock has sidestepped calls to step down as host of the night, amid rumors he has torn up his original monologue and started anew to reflect the #OscarsSoWhite row. Scroll down for video Controversy continues: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been accused of ageism in light of the recent race row. Chris Rock (pictured) said this week he will stay on as host of the February 28 gala 'We all have to calm down a bit. The conversation has become unduly vitriolic,' says Rod Lurie, the writer-director of 'Straw Dogs' and 'The Contender' and a member of the academy's directors' branch. 'Nobody in the academy should dignify any accusations of racism,' Lurie said in an interview, 'but there obviously are biases that are created by the demographics of the academy.' The typically slow-moving academy acted swiftly last week, holding an emergency meeting of its Board of Governors. In the wake of a second straight year of all-white acting nominees and calls for a boycott of the Oscars broadcast the 51-member board unanimously voted to revamp membership rules in an effort to change the makeup of the largely white, male and older association of some 7,000 exclusive members. Though Oscar voting was previously for life, it will now be restricted to members who have been active in the industry within the past 10 years, with a few exceptions like for previous Oscar nominees. The academy also set a goal to double minority and female members by 2020. Some academy members, while applauding efforts to diversify the academy, said taking away voting rights from older members smacks of ageism, and that they aren't to blame for the dearth of minority nominees in the past two years; the industry is. Jada Pinkett Smith (left), along with her husband Will Smith and Spike Lee, will be boycotting the Oscars. Charlotte Rampling (right), nominated for Best Actress, said that 'perhaps the black actors did not deserve to make the final list' Jada Pinkett Smith tweeted and issued a video explaining her boycott of this year's Oscars event on February 28. The Academy President has since released a statement announcing a plan to diversify membership Studies have proven that minorities remain underrepresented in all levels of the movie business, from protagonists on screen to executives who can green-light a film. But the last two years are something of an aberration in recent Oscar history. In the 10 years prior, 24 of the 200 acting nominees were black. (Far less is the rate of nods for Hispanics or Asian-Americans, however.) William Goldstein, a composer and longtime academy member, chastised the academy in a Los Angeles Times editorial for 'capitulating to political correctness' while missing the bigger picture. He believes outreach and mentor programs will make a difference, not manipulating demographics. 'The set of voters that they're going to get rid of have seen more movies and have more context in which to judge something than any newbie coming into the academy,' Goldstein told The Associated Press. 'You can bring in more women, you can bring in more anybody. Everybody's a human being. They're going to vote what they're going to vote. Nothing's going to change.' In a letter to the academy, Stephen Geller, a member of the writers branch and screenwriter of 'Slaughterhouse-Five,' accused academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs of 'grey-listing' its older members. Something to say: Sir Ian McKellen has waded into the Oscars' diversity debate, saying on Monday: 'No openly gay man has ever won the Oscar; I wonder if that is prejudice or chance' Julie Delpy (left), was also criticized for saying: 'I sometimes wish I were African American because people don't bash them afterward.' Delpy starred alongside Chris Rock in 2012 romantic comedy, 2 Days in New York Stephen Furst, the 60-year-old actor and academy member best known as Flounder from 'Animal House,' wrote to the academy lamenting 'the insulting and unfounded generalities the academy has made about the character and judgment of older academy members.' In an oped to Variety, Furst said it was disturbing that 'the Academy Board of Governors has chosen to scapegoat the older members of the Academy in order to deflect the criticism about the lack of diversity this year in the nominees for Academy Awards'. He said he feared he, and fellow older, male members, would now be branded 'irrelevant'. 'The Academy can't fight issues with diversity by engaging in ageism and sexism,' he said. James Woods, the 68-year-old, twice-nominated actor, went further: 'The motion picture academy announced separate bathroom facilities today: one for Members and one for Old White People,' he mocked on Twitter. Upset: Actor Stephen Furst, known for Animal House, has publicly hit out at Oscars organizers for 'scapegoating' older male members in an attempt to deflect the racism controversy Stephen Furst is best known for the 1978 comedy National Lampoon's Animal House (pictured center) The academy indirectly responded to the furor in the 'frequently asked questions' section of its website on Monday. 'We're not excluding older members,' it reads. The Academy has been accused of being ageist and sexist in blaming its membership for race drama 'These rules are not about age. In fact, under the new rules many veteran Academy members will retain voting privileges.' Others, though, maintained that the academy's steps don't address the real problems of the industry. Directors Guild of America president Paris Barclay in a statement said 'structural changes' were needed in Hollywood to change hiring practices. 'Many times, with the best of intentions, a subject that is a symptom of this industry plague, but not the root cause, is targeted,' said Barclay. 'This alone will do little to create more choices and get more films and television made that reflect the diversity we all deserve.' In a letter to Isaacs requesting a meeting, Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, Rev. Al Sharpton and Melanie Campbell, president of the National Coalition on Black Civil Participation, called the academy's plan 'anemic and inadequate.' Part of their frustration, Morial said in an interview, is that he's seen previous declarations made on diversity come and go. He specifically cited conversations that didn't lead anywhere with Sony Pictures after leaked emails led then co-chairman Amy Pascal to apologize for private comments denounced as racist. Morial is seeking wider, systemic change from the academy and the studios. A known Islamic terror suspect was placed in charge of Hillary Clinton's local security detail during a trip by the US Secretary of State to Libya, Daily Mail Online can reveal. The shocking security blunder occurred in October 2011 when Clinton made an unannounced visit to Libya following the toppling of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Ironically the Secretary of State's trip was shrouded in secrecy due to security concerns. The trip was intended as a triumphant tour to show Mrs Clinton's support for the Libyan people and build diplomatic ties at a torrid time. During her visit fierce fighting erupted in Sirte the last stronghold of the country's former leader. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO Her for the cheers: Hillary Clinton traveled to Libya in a secret visit on 18 October 2011 to celebrate the fall of Gadaffi - but it is now revealed that her local security detail was overseen by a known terror suspect Acclaim: The Secretary of State went to Libya when it was thought that the fall of Gadaffi was a triumph for the Middle East. The country is now partly in the hands of ISIS Heroes' welcome: Clinton was greeted with smiles and flowers. The Libyan government head of her security detail had been considered so dangerous by the British authorities that his movements were legally restricted Detainee M: The Libyan who is known only by an initial because of British court laws and went on to guard Hillary Clinton (picture posed by model) Unwittingly flanked by a man known to British security forces as a member of the banned Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and considered a threat to British and US national security Mrs Clinton held talks with top officials from the National Transitional Council (NTC) and spoke of her 'pride' at standing 'on the soil of a free Tripoli.' The revelation of the extraordinary vetting oversight at the heart of the Clinton camp comes in a new book, 'Jihadi John: The Making of a Terrorist,' by Robert Verkaik published today. It is bound to be seized upon by Mrs Clinton's critics as evidence of the State Department's inadequate concern with security in Libya a paucity that culminated in the horror of Benghazi, a travesty that clings to Mrs Clinton to this day. The attack on a US outpost in Benghazi, Libya came on 12 September 2012, less than a year after Mrs Clinton's proud visit to Tripoli. Four Americans were killed in the attack, including US Ambassador Christopher Stevens, and questions have continued to be raised over the role played by the then Secretary of State or rather over her potential failure to ensure the security of American nationals on Libyan soil. The investigation into just what Mrs Clinton did and did not know regarding the violent events that day is ongoing and recently exploded into the infamous Servergate scandal when it transpired that Mrs Clinton maintained a private email server while working in President Obama's administration. The release of Michael Bay's, '13 Hours: the Secret Soldiers of Benghazi' has only added to the controversy that continues to swirl around the hideous events and Mrs Clinton's role in them. Now, with the release of his book, Verkaik has brought to light the new and disturbing security fail in Libya on Mrs Clinton's watch. Author Verkaik is the only journalist to have interviewed Mohammed Emwazi, the man who went onto become the notorious ISIS butcher, Jihadi John. Back in 2010, when the two men met, Emwazi was a 26-year-old IT student who claimed he was being harassed by security services who had already approached him, his family and his fiancee. Verkaik goes onto trace Emwazi's disturbing evolution into the nightmarish figure of Jihadi John who came to define ISIS's particular brand of terror with a string of brutal beheading videos. Murdered: The aftermath of the attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi on September 11 2012 - less than a year after Clinton's triumphal tour. Her ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three others were murdered Burned out: The US Consulate building in Benghazi was looted by a mob and set on fire during the attacks Questions: The investigation into what went wrong at Benghazi when Clinton was Secretary of State has led to the discovery of her secret email server and the Servergate scandal which is dogging her White House run He also explains how a British terror suspect managed to travel to Libya with the help of MI5 - Britain's domestic spies - when Britain decided to support the overthrow of Gaddafi. For years the man had been on a 'control order', a restriction on his movements obtained by the British government under anti-terrorism laws because they believed he was a terrorist but did not have enough evidence which they could present in open court to obtain a criminal conviction. He was known only as 'Detainee M' because British courts allow such suspected terrorists to be anonymous, with their real names never entering the public record. The British government never named him fully. Other subjects of 'control orders' included a man who was suspected of being involved in a plot to blow up flights to America using liquid bombs, a terrorist scheme which resulted in the restrictions on bringing liquids on planes, and a man who was suspected of plotting a Mumbai-massacre style atrocity in the UK. Verkaik states: 'I have been told of three British residents born in Libya who were on control orders in the UK because they were suspected of terrorism but who found support from some very unlikely sources.' He continues: 'According to my sources, MI5 helped them travel to Libya to join the rebel forces and when two of them got into trouble with rebel militias outside Tripoli, agents from MI6 [Britain's equivalent of the CIA] were on hand to extricate them from their predicament. 'One terror suspect under a control order for many years, who is known as 'Detainee M,' even went on to head up the government security unit in charge of guarding Hillary Clinton when as US Secretary of State she made an unannounced visit to Libya in 2011. 'One woman's terror suspect is another's trusted bodyguard.' It is believed Detainee M had come to Britain fleeing Gaddafi but as a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group was placed on a control order. Court documents seen by Daily Mail Online reveal that Detainee M was born in Libya in 1966 and raised in Sibrata. He obtained a degree at Benghazi University in geology and geological engineering with a view to working in the oil industry. But in 1991 he traveled to Saudi Arabia where he attended Medina University to concentrate on Islamic studies. Famous image: The picture of Hillary Clinton using her Blackberry which became famous worldwide - and subsequently highlighted her servergate crisis - was taken as she flew to Tripoli on a C-17 transport plane New questions: Michael Bay's, '13 Hours: the Secret Soldiers of Benghazi' has added to the spotlight on what went wrong at the US compound in 2012 when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State He told British immigration officers who interviewed him when he sought asylum in Britain in 1994 that his opposition to Gaddafi's regime had seen him detained and that, in 1992, he traveled to Pakistan and fought with the Arab mujaheddin against the Communist regime in Afghanistan. Doubt was later cast on these claims and he attracted the interest of British anti-terror police who noted that he 'claimed that he was part of an anti Gaddafi organisation involved in illegal arms dealing, demonstrations and general stirring of anti Gaddafi feeling in mosques.' His claim to asylum was rejected on multiple occasions and in 2002 he was labelled an 'Islamic extremist' and placed on a control order. He was one of a number of Libyans on similar orders as the LIFG had carried out a number of terror attacks in the past. The restraints of the order meant that he should have been under tight surveillance in the UK, had to surrender his passport, stay at the same address and report to a police station. But everything changed when Britain decided to support the overthrow of Gaddafi and these Libyans were allowed to leave Britain. Many of these fighters, Verkaik reveals, are now serious jihadists who have helped turn Libya into the terror state it is today and some have even sought a common cause with the Islamic State. Parts of the country are now in the hands of ISIS and it has become the scene of some of its notorious propaganda victims featuring Daily Mail Online has asked the State Department for comment. A Danish nightclub boss facing prosecution for banning all migrants who don't speak his language says he would rather go to jail than back down - because they 'need to learn a smile isn't an invitation for sex'. Tom Holden Jensen has excluded all men from Syria and Afghanistan who cannot speak Danish, English or German from his Buddy Holly club in Senderborg after a number of women said they felt threatened and intimidated by sexually aggressive men who groped and 'raped them with hands' on the dance floor. The problem was compounded by no one being able to explain to the men that what they were doing was wrong - which led Mr Jensen to ban the men, for the good of his female customers. Controversial: Tom Holden Jensen has barred men from Afghanistan and Syria from his club if they don't speak English, Danish or German - saying too many girls have been harassed or assaulted, but can't make themselves understood when they tell the men 'no' Questions: But there are questions about whether the policy - which has been adopted by two other clubs in the town of Senderborg - is legal, while some of the girls argue Danish men are just as bad But the decision means he could face as long as six months behind bars for breaching Denmark's racial discrimination laws, yet he has vowed to uphold the controversial policy. 'The challenge we face is that we can't communicate with refugees, they don't understand what I am saying at all.'' said Mr Jensen. 'We reserve the right to operate our business as we have done all the years, also before there was a war in Syria, and we intend to continue that also after the war ends. And if someone thinks differently they are welcome to try it in court.' Security staff complained to Mr Jensen that migrant men don't understand Denmark's sexual etiquette and need to learn that a woman smiling isn't an invitation for sex. Mr Jensen, a councillor for the right-wing Venstre party, Denmark's third largest political group, said bouncers who tried to intervene as women were sexually assaulted on the dance floor claimed the men don't understand when they are told it is wrong. 'We have experienced episodes where Syrians have danced too close to women occasions when they have put their hands on their bottoms,' Mr Jensen told MailOnline. 'They continued to do so even though the women told them to stop and leave them. 'But it's too much of a challenge when they don't speak a language we understand so we and the women cannot communicate with them.' He added: 'We have these challenges with all men, whatever their nationality, not only the Syrian refugees, and we have always had those challenges. 'But it makes it a the challenge and more difficult to solve the situations with men in larger groups who act inappropriately towards women when they dont speak a language we understand. 'In those situations we will have to be physical rather than verbal to them, and we have no desire to be. And we have actually had this language rule since 1997.' Buddy Holly is not alone in banning migrants in Senderborg as Den Flyvende Hollender ('The Flying Dutchman') has done the same. And Den Flyvende owner Glenn Hollender is just as convinced he has made the right decision. 'A large number of men who come from the asylum centre have a very hard time respecting the opposite sex,' he said. 'In my eyes, it is harassment when one or more men continue to touch a young woman after she has said 'stop'. 'It Is clear that if we ask one of our male guests to stop pulling on a girl, so they must be able to understand what we mean. 'There were simply too many examples of how they ignored the recommendations that we came by to let the female guests in peace.' Fear: These migrant men living among the community in Senderborg have done nothing wrong, yet under Mr Jensen's rules find themselves banned from his Buddy Holly club because they can't speak the language Innocent: Refugees living in the university town bordering Germany feel it's unfair that if they want a night out in Senderborg there are some bars and clubs they are not allowed to go in The club owners' decisions are being mirrored across Denmark in different ways, as it struggles to cope with the thousands arriving every month. The Danish government raised eyebrows internationally when it passed a package of measures this week which allow officials to confiscate asylum seekers' assets over 1,025 on arrival. Some likened the plan - which they claim is to help pay for the migrants stay - to something like the Nazis' confiscation of gold and other valuables from Jews during the Holocaust. The government - which has already shut the open borders - hope this will stem the flow of people crossing into the northern European state, where officials have been quite clear that they do not want to become the 'new Sweden'. The decisions were made after more than 21,000 migrants and refugees arrived in the country last year, with 3,000 now living in Senderborg, a town of just 27,000 residents. The influx has led to an increase in sexual offences committed on women in pubs and nightclubs and women complain they are afraid to go out alone at night in a town where an innocent smile can be misinterpreted. That's exactly what happened to Marlene, a supermarket cashier, who smiled at a Syrian man in his 20s, only to have him walk up and put his hands on her face. 'Since then he started following me where ever I went,' she told MailOnline. 'I tried to push him away but he just wouldn't give up. I was scared. 'Later he turned up at the supermarket with his friend. I should never have smiled at him.' She added: 'Now I don't dare walk around in the town alone at night.' Unfair: These men have done nothing wrong - but Mr Jensen told MailOnline they are not welcome because some migrant men have caused trouble and so he has banned all migrants from the club Disgust: Critics have likened the policies of confiscating refugees assets over 1,025 to those enacted against Jews by the Nazis during the Holocaust But others are less convinced by the catch-all approach. Michael, who works in a clothing store in the town centre, admits 'we keep an extra eye on them', but added: 'It is only few of them who do so and it is no different from the 'black sheeps' among the native Danish residents in our town. But them we know who are.' Back in the clubs, Charlotte, Sanne and Sarah are also not convinced that it can all be blamed on the refugees. WHAT DANISH LAW SAYS 'Whoever in commercial or public utility undertaking because of a person's race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion or sexual orientation denies service to the same conditions as others, punishable by fine or imprisonment up to 6 months.' Advertisement 'It is not uncommon here that the [local] men touch us women when they get drunk, but we just punch them with our elbows in their stomachs when it happens,' they told MailOnline. 'We heard about the incidents in the city with refugee men, but we never experienced it ourselves from them.' Tine Birkelund Thomsen, who works as a lawyer at Institute for Human Rights in Denmark, says club owners are using complaints as an excuse to keep a group of people out of their establishments. If his fears prove to be true, he believes they may face prosecution for discrimination. 'The law is not black and white, but it is a question about whether it is proportional what they do at the discotheque when they reject the Syrians,' he said. 'But if it is because they do it as an excuse to keep a specific ethnic group out of the discotheque which it seems like it is discrimination and against the law.' However, there has yet to be a complaint made against the club owners, according to the police - but if there were, they would investigate. On the town: Women in the university town close to the Germany border say they have felt threatened and intimidated on nights out by migrant men surrounding them and making them feel uncomfortable Venue: Mr Jensen told MailOnline his language policy had been in place since 1997 and that his rule to ban people on the basis of the language they speak is 'nothing new' Defence: It is unclear if banning someone for their language skills is included under Denmark's anti-discrimination laws. Mr Jensen is unrepentant, however. He says he is sensible, and not racist A police spokesman said: 'I am not be able to tell if the language part in the law refers to the nationality part in the racism law at present. 'It is up to legal experts to assess if it illegal to reject refugees because they don't speak Danish, English or German, .' However, Mr Jensen says it is nothing to do with race, but simply a decision to ensure the club can continue to make money while not spending large amounts of time dealing with problems on the dance floor. 'There have been no charges filed against me at all and when a lawyer says they think it might be illegal it says to me that he is also not on safe ground in his judgements,' he said. Trooper Jacob Fields is recovering in a hospital after being shot Wednesday afternoon A state trooper in Georgia is recovering from being shot by the driver of a truck involved in a high speed chase, who was also shot but died later at hospital, officials say. Trooper Jacob Fields was patrolling Interstate 75 southbound in Cobb County shortly after 3.30pm when he saw a black Chevrolet Silverado traveling at a high rate of speed, State Patrol spokesman Capt. Mark Perry said. Fields recorded the pickup truck going 98 mph on the highway. When he tried to pull the driver, who was later identified as Vladimir Rodriguez, over, he fled. The trooper chased the Silverado for about 10 miles with two other troopers joining in to try to execute a 'box-in maneuver,' where they flank the vehicle and try to get in front and bring it to a slow stop, Perry said. Before they could complete that, the Silverado hit another civilian vehicle and came to a stop, Perry said. Rodriguez, a 26-year-old from Israel who was living in Acworth, got out of the truck holding a handgun and began shooting at the troopers. Fields and two other troopers immediately returned fire on Rodriguez. Perry said that Fields was shot in the leg and abdomen just below his vest and above his gun belt but the three-year veteran was alert and in stable condition, with family around him. Scroll down for video First responders are pictured working on Vladimir Rodriguez, the suspect that was shot following a chase on Interstate 75 in Cobb County. He died later Wednesday night at a local hospital from his injuries. Trooper Jacob Fields is recovering in a hospital from his gunshot wounds Police work at the scene of an officer-involved shooting on I-75 in Cobb County after they were trying to stop a speeder following a 10-mile chase Rodriguez was hit multiple times in the abdomen area and was listed in intensive care after undergoing surgery, Perry said. He died at 10.30pm at Kennestone Hospital, WSB-TV reported. Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman Scott Dutton said that Rodriguez was going to face numerous charges, including aggravated assault on a police officer. While speaking to his family, the Fields sounded 'very lucid, very awake, very alert, and he was very coherent and speaking, explaining what happened,' Perry noted. The GSP said Fields underwent surgery Wednesday evening and was expected to make a full recovery. He was expected to remain in the hospital for two or three days. Perry said all three troopers who exchanged fire with Rodriguez were placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation, which is standard procedure Perry said all three troopers who exchanged fire with Rodriguez were placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation, which is standard procedure. Marietta Police spokeswoman Brittany Wallace said the shooting caused all but two lanes of the busy highway to shut down. The southbound lanes were completely blocked off for several hours with numerous police cars, firetrucks and an ambulance parked at the scene. Police diverted traffic off I-75 heading south to clear the way for the investigation. Dutton said the GBI is investigating the incident at the request of the State Patrol. A young hoon who filmed himself speeding at 180km/h and posted it on his personal Instagram account last month is now being investigated by police. The 14-second video shows the man travelling 70 kilometres over the 110km/h speed limit along Albany Highway, which links Perth to the port city of Albany on the south coast of Western Australia. The footage is accompanied with the caption: 'shortened the 4.5hrs to 4hrs driving back to Perth #Albany #AlbanyHighway #180kmh #timeshortened #sleepinthecar #Without #plan.' Great Southern Police District Superintendent Dom Wood told The West Australian police would investigate the footage, and that the driver was an 'idiot.' A young man filmed himself speeding at 180km/h on Albany Highway in Western Australia 'We have already had four people killed on Great Southern roads since New Year and if he carries on driving so recklessly and stupidly, it is only a matter of time before this young fool kills himself or someone else on our roads,' Superintendent Wood told the publication. 'The reason why so few deaths occur on race tracks is because they do not have trees, side roads, kangaroos and other vehicles travelling in the other direction.' 'This idiot clearly does not have the experience and capability to understand that and is putting his and other lives at risk.' The man's Instagram account, which is now private, shows other videos performing similar dangerous stunts in the same white car. In one clip he drifts his car into a 180 degree handbrake turn on a dusty road. The captions on his account appear to be written in Chinese. Great Southern Police District Superintendent Dom Wood said the driver was an 'idiot' Syrian children who make it to Greece or Italy and have family in Britain will be flown here, it emerged today. Britain is to spend 10million to help improve Europe's system for dealing with migrants fleeing war in the Middle East. Part of the money will be spent on making the UK 'more proactive' in finding unaccompanied children who have family in the UK. The announcement comes despite David Cameron repeatedly insisting he would not support any policies to relocate refugees already in Europe to Britain because this would create a 'magnet' for more people to try and make the journey. David Cameron last night rejected calls for Britain to take in 3,000 migrant children who have made the journey to Europe (pictured, migrants arriving on the Greek island of Lesbos) David Cameron (pictured) said caving in would encourage thousands of youngsters to undertake dangerous boat journeys across the Mediterranean Under the so-called Dublin convention, refugees have to claim asylum in the country where they first arrive in the European Union. But the rules allow for families to be reunited if a new refugee can show they have a relative legally in another country - including Britain. The process is automatic for a parent while aunts, uncles and grandparents can also trigger the rule. The announcement was part of a package aimed at easing pressure on the government after Mr Cameron ruled out taking 3,000 unaccompanied Syrian children identified by Save the Children as already in Europe. Instead, Britain will ask the UN to identify the most vulnerable children in refugee camps on the border of Syria so they can be brought to the UK - over and above the 20,000 resettlements already promised. Immigration Minister James Brokenshire today said Britain was taking a 'measured' approach to the migration crisis in Europe. And he told MPs: 'We have asked the UNHCR to make an assessment of the numbers and needs of unaccompanied children in conflict regions and advise on when it is in the best interests of the child to be resettled in the UK and how that process should be managed. 'The UNHCR has already been clear that these are likely to be exceptional cases.' The minister added: The UK Government will also commit to providing further resources to the European Asylum Support Office to help in hotspots such as Greece and Italy to help identify and register children at risk on first arrival in the EU. 'And we will, of course, continue to meet our obligations under the Dublin Regulations.' The Prime Minister's official spokesman today confirmed Britain will be 'more proactive' in identifying children in Greece and Italy who have a family link to the UK. Mr Cameron's refusal to take in the 3,000 unaccompanied children mirrors a decision last summer not to take a fixed number of the refugees arriving in Europe from Syria and elsewhere (pictured, migrants in Macedonia) Cameron said 'no country in Europe has been more generous than Britain in funding refugee camps, whether they are in Syria, Turkey, Lebanon or Jordan' (pictured, migrants in Macedonia) The spokesman said: 'We are looking at the areas where you have the largest amount of refugees arriving and what were trying to do is protect children as much as possible from exploitation, from traffickers and so on. 'The clear driver from the Government has been to keep people in the region and that remains our core goal. 'But where people have made have made that perilous journey and travelled across where people we want to dissuade further engagement between children and traffickers who might want to take them across Europe. 'This is very much about trying to identify those children who have arrived in Greece and Italy who have a direct family link with the UK.' HOW HIS AID MINISTER JUSTINE GOT IT SO WRONG David Cameron's decision on child refugees comes only days after the International Development Secretary dropped a heavy hint that the UK would take in 3,000 youngsters from Europe. On Sunday, The Observer newspaper claimed the PM was close to giving in to demands by charities and taking children directly from the continent. No 10 insiders dismissed the report, insisting that no decision had been taken. But Justine Greening told Dermot Murnaghan on Sky News: 'We've steadily evolved our approach as this crisis has evolved, we've been right at the forefront, frankly, of helping children who have been affected by this crisis and will continue to look at how we can do that over the coming days and weeks.' Her comments followed a visit to refugee camps in France on Saturday by Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader called on Mr Cameron to offer children not just a refuge in the UK but proper homes and education, saying: 'We must reach out the hand of humanity to the victims of war.' Advertisement Mr Cameron's refusal to take in the 3,000 unaccompanied children mirrors a decision last summer not to take a fixed number of the refugees arriving in Europe from Syria and elsewhere. The Prime Minister was under pressure to throw open the UK's doors when photographs were published of the body of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi on a Turkish beach after an overcrowded boat carrying his family capsized. But he said this would only make matters worse, which has been proved correct by the chaos triggered by Germany's decision to say the country would accept a million asylum seekers. Instead of helping to solve the humanitarian crisis, it has led to even more people trying to flood into Europe. Yesterday, Mr Cameron faced down his critics saying 'no country in Europe has been more generous than Britain in funding refugee camps, whether they are in Syria, Turkey, Lebanon or Jordan'. He added: 'We said that we would resettle 20,000 people in our country, and we promised to resettle 1,000 by Christmas. We achieved that. 'If we add up all that Europe has done under its relocation and resettlement schemes, we find that all the other 27 member states have done less than we have done here in the United Kingdom, because of those 1,000. 'Yes, we should take part in European schemes when it is in our interests to do so, and help to secure the external European border; but we are out of Schengen, we keep our own borders, and under this Government that is the way it will stay.' Rather than taking children direct from mainland Europe, the UK is to work with UNHCR on an initiative to identify and resettle unaccompanied refugee children direct from conflict regions such as Syria. Officials will look for the most vulnerable cases but check they are genuinely on their own without relatives to look after them. Meanwhile, the Department for International Development will use the aid budget to create a fund of up to 10 million to support the needs of 'vulnerable' migrant children in Europe. Extra funds will also be ploughed into the European Asylum Support Office to help Greece and Italy identify migrants, including children, who could be reunited with family members elsewhere in Europe. In a small number of cases, this could involve allowing them to move to Britain. The Prime Minister's wife Samantha is an ambassador for Save the Children, which has been leading the campaign to let in unaccompanied children. She spoke recently of her horror at the tragic stories of Syrian mothers and children living in refugee camps in Lebanon. This led to speculation at the weekend that Mr Cameron would agree to take children direct from Europe. It was further fuelled by Justine Greening, the International Development Secretary, who said the Government was 'looking at whether we can do more over the coming days and weeks'. Tory MPs have cautioned against the Government making the same mistakes as other EU countries, which have suffered a backlash after letting in large numbers of migrants. A female Romanian lorry driver has been jailed for four and a half years for killing a biker while she was using her mobile phone. Stana Caltun, 35, pleaded guilty at Basildon Crown Court to causing death by dangerous driving and was also given a six-year driving ban. She hit father-of-two Paul Garner, 53, after swerving across a lane on the A282 near West Thurrock, in Essex, while on her phone. Mr Garner, from Maidstone, in Kent, was taken to hospital but later died from his injuries. Stana Caltun, 35, has been jailed for four and a half years for killing biker and father-of-two Paul Garner, 53, while she was using her mobile phone on the A282 West Thurrock, in Essex At the time of the fatal collision, on September 18 last year, Caltun was using her phone during a seven minute call. She had made other calls while at the wheel. Caltun deleted data from her phone after the crash to try and hide details of the call. She was also found to have used a device in her cab which interfered with the records of her driving activities. Senior Investigating Officer Detective Inspector Scott Egerton said after the hearing: 'The use of a mobile phone whilst driving an articulated goods vehicle was utterly irresponsible and dangerous. 'As a result of this, Mr Garner's family have been left devastated. I hope that the guilty plea today is some small help to them. 'This case must serve as a warning to any driver who uses their mobile phone of the risk they take, the consequences they face and the hurt they can cause.' Paying tribute to Mr Garner after his death, his family said in a statement: 'Paul was a loving husband, father of two and life-long car and motorcycle enthusiast. 'He was a keen reader, excellent in the kitchen and with a wicked sense of humour. Paul lived and worked in the Kent area all of his life.' Former Liberal frontbencher Jamie Briggs has blamed his hectic ministerial schedule, which saw him spend 165 nights away from home last year, for his booze-fuelled 'indiscretions'. Mr Briggs resigned as a Minister in the Turnbull Government after an incident with a female public servant at a Hong Kong bar last year. 'I've found the pace and the intensity ... not the work but the being away ... I probably too often used alcohol as a way to deal with that so I think,' he told Adelaide Hills newspaper, The Courier. He told the paper he was away from home 165 nights last year and flew '150-odd times.' Scroll down for video Former minister Jamie Briggs said his absence from home led him to use alcohol too much Jamie Briggs resigned as a Minister in the Turnbull government after an incident with a female public servant at a bar in Hong Kong Mr Briggs, 38, was forced to resign in December after he reportedly made a comment about the public servant's piercing eyes, placed his arm around her and gave her a kiss on the cheek as they left the bar. He apologised to the woman and described his actions as an 'error of professional judgment.' However, he came under fire again after he admitted he sent 'a few people' a photograph of the young woman. The pictures were then published in a major newspaper. The controversy wasn't the first that saw Briggs hit headlines. Jamie Briggs arrives in a wheelchair at Parliament House in Canberra on September 15 after being hurt while tackling former PM Tony Abbott the night before The smashed marble table that Jamie Briggs said he had no involvement in the night of Tony Abbott's party He is the same Liberal MP who rolled into Parliament House in a wheelchair following Tony Abbott's raucous farewell party in September. He admitted that he sustained the embarrassing injury - which many believe was linked to the 'marble table incident' - after he attempted to tackle the former PM that night. But Mr Briggs originally said it was a jogging accident that caused him to show up to work with a nasty knee injury following his former boss' rowdy farewell bash. However, two months after the incident Mr Briggs changed his tune and admitted he sustained the knee injury in 'hi-jinks' with the former Prime Minister. Mr Briggs has served in federal parliament in the Adelaide Hills seat of Mayo since 2008, and told The Courier he plans to recontest the seat this year. Jamie Briggs originally said it was a jogging accident that caused him to show up to work with a nasty knee injury Turnbull later appeared in an Archibald Prize painting in 2007 Miller is said to have destroyed the painting and all of the then merchant banker in the Archibald Prize When artist Lewis Miller painted a portrait of then merchant banker Malcolm Turnbull in 1994, he hoped it would win him an Archibald Prize. However, according to the The Art Magazine, Turnbull complained to art critic Ray Hughes at a function that the painting made him look like a 'big, fat, greedy c***'. 'That artist of yours is no good; he's made me look like a big, fat, greedy c***', Turnbull reportedly told Hughes at the time. Malcolm Turnbull is said to have criticized a portrait of himself from 1994 apparently saying the artist made him look like a 'big, fat, greedy c***' Lewis Miller, pictured here with his painting of Ronald Dale Barassi in 2000, was so upset he destroyed the painting of Turnbull and any photographs of it 'He is a realist painter, you know', Hughes responded. Miller was so upset by this criticism he took to the portrait with a knife and tore it to shreds, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. 'The message from Malcolm was that he didn't like it, obviously,' Miller told the publication. 'I think he was taken aback because I had started it without consulting him.' The Prime Minister's office declined to comment when contacted by Daily Mail Australia. The revelations about Turnbull come after Ray Hughes' son announced he would be running contesting the PM's seat at the next federal election for the Australian Labor Party. Miller said he suspected this was the reason the story had been brought to life over two decades since it occurred. Turnbull later featured in Vivian Falk's 2007 Archibald Prize portrait, 'A moment with Malcolm' Miller was a finalist in the 2011 Archibalds for his painting 'Small self portrait' He said that he did not believe the current prime minister possessed any of the qualities the anecdote portrayed him as having. Despite destroying the 1994 painting, Miller later won an Archibald Prize in 1998 for his portrait of Allan Mitelman. In 2000 he took out the Sporting Portrait Prize for 'Portrait of Ronald Dale Barassi', and he was also a finalist in the 2011 Archibalds for his painting 'Small self portrait'. This is the moment Joaquin El Chapo Guzman was forced to dutifully give his fingerprints and pose for mugshots as he was told he faces extradition. The recaptured drugs lord appears stoic as police officers walked him through the police station, filming his undignified return to jail. The video's release comes days after Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto announced he is trying to fast-track Guzman's extradition to the United States. For now, the Sinaloa cartel leader, 61, is back in El Altiplano, a maximum-security jail outside Mexico City. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, pictured being booked into Altiplano jail on January 8 after being recaptured The undignified drugs lord gave fingerprints, a blood sample, and posed for a mug shot for the officers He appeared stoic throughout the process, which was filmed and released online on Wednesday The new footage was released on Wednesday as part of a 19-minute video from Mexican officials to show 'the investigation and detective work' that went into recapturing Guzman. The first 14 minutes describes his escape, but features nothing new. The final five minutes focuses on his detention. A voiceover regales how El Chapo broke free from El Altiplano through a tunnel underground. The investigation, it says, was two-pronged. One half focused on the 'corruption and collusion inside the prison and police force with criminals'. The other was an intelligence effort to locate El Chapo. The video shows El Chapo being told he faces imminent extradition to the United States The clip was part of a 19-minute video from Mexican authorities describing the official account of his escape It does not mention his meeting with Kate del Castillo and Sean Penn, despite some officials' claims that this meeting exposed him. In fact, the video, which was posted on the Mexican officials' Facebook page, omits any detailed description of how authorities honed in on El Chapo's hide-out. The only new detail in the official video comes in the final moments when they show El Chapo getting his fingerprints, mug shot, and blood tests taken to confirm his identity. The 'child refugee' accused of murdering a Swedish aid worker may have been an adult posing as an orphan, it emerged yesterday. Alexandra Mezher, 22, died after being knifed at a shelter for unaccompanied young asylum seekers. But she is said to have earlier warned that she was caring for 'big powerful guys' aged up to 24. Miss Mezher's mother Chimene said 'orphans' at the centre often lied about their age. Alexandra Mezher (right, with her mother Chimene) , 22, died after being knifed at a shelter for unaccompanied young asylum seekers She said her daughter worked there alone on night shifts because she wanted to help 'mother' the supposed youngsters, some of whom in reality were grown men. It came as police last night charged Youssaf Khaliif Nuur, a Somalian '15-year-old', with murder and attempted murder but admitted they may not know his true identity. Mrs Mezher, 42, said: 'Alexandra knew how to handle children including violent ones. But those she was working with were big powerful guys she could see it in their eyes and their bodies. 'A few were maybe under 18, but the rest were older, maybe 23 or 24.' She said her psychology graduate daughter had been warned four hours before she started her last shift that a knife had been stolen from the kitchen, but nothing was apparently done. The shelter was set up in Molndal, a suburb of Gothenburg, to house migrants aged 14 to 17. Some 4,000 arrived without their parents in the past year alone in Molndal, which has a population of just 60,000. Alexandra's mother said her daughter (second from left) had been warned four hours before she started her last shift that a knife had been stolen from the kitchen, but nothing was apparently done Miss Mezher's mother Chimene said 'orphans' at the centre (pictured) often lied about their age Mrs Mezher said: 'She said she had two from Somalia there, but never mentioned any trouble with them. Alexandra never said she was afraid of working there I think she was protecting me, she did not want to scare me. 'But a friend from the centre called her four or five hours before she started work that day to say a knife had been stolen from the kitchen. I heard her talking. No one was allowed to say anything to their bosses at that place, they were too frightened, so I don't know if the missing knife was reported. 'The boss of the company has not even been here to see the family.' Mother-of-four Mrs Mezher, who migrated from Lebanon 25 years ago, said: 'Immigration has destroyed Sweden, they are coming in more than the country can accept. The kids that are coming here are criminal.' She later wept bitterly as she remembered her 'angel' daughter at a church memorial service attended by 100 mourners who brought pink and white roses, Miss Mezher's favourite flowers. Alexandra (right) is said to have earlier warned that she was caring for 'big powerful guys' aged up to 24 Flowers and candles (pictured) were left outside the refuge centre in Molndal, near Gothenburg, where Alexandra was killed Staff at the centre where the aid worker was stabbed in the back and thigh on Monday morning were allegedly ignored when they repeatedly warned a 'serious' incident would happen, it was claimed. A therapist at the shelter said: 'The management was not listening. All staff complained they were extremely understaffed and often had to work alone. We [said] it was only a matter of time before something serious happened.' Asylum centre inspectors recently wrote that supervisors had been warned 'several times' about cutbacks leading to staff being left alone, and Mrs Mezher yesterday vowed to sue those responsible. Patrick Sjogren, boss of HBV, the company that runs the centre, is a former wine company chairman also involved in internet poker. He said: 'We follow all the rules. It is true, I have worked in other areas, but that does not make me less suited to working with unaccompanied refugee children. We have had several indications from (the inspectors) that we are doing it right.' National police chief Dan Eliasson sparked controversy by expressing sympathy for the alleged attacker, saying: 'Who knows what horrors he has been through?' Asylum centre inspectors recently wrote that supervisors had been warned 'several times' about cutbacks leading to staff being left alone (pictured, the psychiatric unit where murder suspect, 15, is being held) Last night Swedish police named their suspect who is due in court today but added in a statement: 'The identity is not proven.' Meanwhile, national police chief Dan Eliasson sparked controversy by expressing sympathy for the alleged attacker, saying: 'Who knows what horrors he has been through?' He said he was 'distressed' by the tragedy, but added: 'Under what circumstances has he grown up? What is the trauma he carries? This entire immigration crisis shows how unfair life is in many parts of the world.' n A Danish teenager who claims she was sexually assaulted near a centre for migrants has been told she faces a fine for using pepper spray on her attacker. Two businesswomen have expressed outrage after an Australian official allegedly asked them to take off their Arabic dresses and put Western clothing on instead because it could offend locals at a Dubai business expo. Debbie Black and Sue Lamb said they were just trying to be respectful to local customs when they wore headscarfs and long-sleeved black Abaya dresses to the Arab Health Exhibition and Medical Congress in the United Arab Emirates this week. 'We're in someone else's environment so we should be respectful to the people that we're in,' Ms Black told Daily Mail Australia. 'It's common sense'. Sue Lamb (pictured left) and Debbie Black (right), from medical device company Elanra, initially wore abaya dresses to the Dubai exhibition in what they said was a bid to respect local customs The pair (far left and far right) said they wore their headscarfs and abayas while they attended the Gold Coast pavillion at the Arab Health Exhibition and Medical Congress in Dubai this week Ms Lamb (left) refused to remove her abaya while she appeared at the Gold Coast area of the exhibition. She is pictured with a businessman at the expo But Ms Black and Ms Lamb, senior personnel for healthcare company Elanra, were shocked when an official from the Gold Coast City Council allegedly labelled their 'classy' Arabic clothing 'inappropriate'. The pair claimed a council trade official told them they should only wear Western dress, Western businesswear. 'He asked us to leave the stand immediately and go back to the hotel and get changed into Western clothing.' The council funded the space at the exhibition in a bid to provide opportunities for Gold Coast businesses in the Middle East. Ms Black, who returned to her hotel room to get changed, said the clothing rule had impacted her business: 'It has caused a lot of problems with the Muslim culture.' 'When I wear my Western suit and I'm on the stand here I will only have people approach me who are mostly people who are wearing Western type clothing. 'The local Arabic men will not talk to me. As soon as I wear the Abaya and headscarf the local men will come and talk to me. 'And they will have much different conversations because they can see I'm respecting what their desires are for women to appear like to dress like,' she said. Her colleague, Ms Lamb, refused to remove the abaya, saying being asked to remove the classy dress was 'discrimination against her personal beliefs'. Ms Lamb (at the pavilion in her Arabic style dress) said she had the right to wear whatever she chose 'as every Australian woman does' Ms Lamb said being asked to remove the 'classy dress' represented 'discrimination' 'I have the right to wear whatever I choose as every Australian woman does, and every woman around the world if they chose to do so, she said. In a statement, council spokesman Warwick Sinclair said: 'The Council employee did advise a visiting Gold Coast exhibitor, who was wearing a hijab, that wearing such attire could be considered offensive unless the person was a practising Muslim. 'The exhibitor obliged and consequently, removed the Hijab and dressed in western attire. 'This was done out of respect to the religion, not in offense'. The council claimed a second employee of the company 'confirmed to (their official) she was a Muslim'. 'As such, our City officer apologised for any misunderstanding and advised she could continue to wear appropriate headwear.' 'No Gold Coast City employee would ever ask a Muslim to refrain from wearing clothing appropriate to their religion.' Ms Lamb said she was not going to disclose whether she was Muslim or not and disputed the council's version of events, calling them 'liars'. The Arab Health Exhibition and Congress is described as the largest healthcare event of its kind in the Middle East. This year's event was held from January 25 to 28. The Gold Coast City Council had funded the area at the exhibition in Dubai President Barack Obama posthumously honored four people on Wednesday for risking their lives to protect Jews, and warned that antisemitism is on the rise. Obama spoke on Wednesday evening at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, the first sitting president to speak at the embassy. He was introduced at the event by Steven Spielberg, the Oscar-winning director of the Holocaust film Schindler's List and the founder of a Holocaust history foundation. 'Too often, especially in times of change, especially in times of anxiety and uncertainty, we are too willing to give in to a base desire to find someone else, someone different, to blame for our struggles,' Obama said. President Barack Obama speaks at the Righteous Among the Nations Award Ceremony at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC. Obama spoke as four people were being honored posthumously for risking their lives to protect Jews during the Holocaust President Barack Obama, right, and filmmaker Steven Spielberg, left, embrace at the ceremony on Wednesday Spielberg, who founded a Holocaust history foundation and directed the Holocaust film Schindler's List, introduces Obama at the ceremony 'So here tonight we must confront the reality that around the world antisemitism is on the rise. We cannot deny it,' he added. Obama said all nations that value diversity and tolerance must speak out when Jews and other members of religious minorities are attacked. The United Nations has designated Wednesday as International Holocaust Remembrance Day to commemorate the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in 1945. Six million Jews were killed by Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust. Recognized posthumously for protecting Jews from harm during the Holocaust were Roddie Edmonds of Knoxville, Tennessee; Lois Gunden of Goshen, Indiana; and Polish citizens Walery and Maryla Zbijewski of Warsaw. The honors were bestowed by Yad Vashem, the world's Holocaust education and research center, based in Jerusalem. Each was designated Righteous Among the Nations, an official title awarded by Yad Vashem on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Edmonds, a master sergeant, participated in the landing of US forces in Europe and was taken prisoner by the Germans. Roddie Edmonds (left) and Lois Gunden (right) were two of the people honored at Wednesday's ceremony. Edmonds, master sergeant, defied the order by figuring out how to keep the Jewish POWs from being singled out for persecution. Gunden, a French teacher, established a children's home in southern France that became a haven for children, including Jews she helped smuggle out of a nearby internment camp Polish citizens Walery and Maryla Zbijewski (pictured center) of Warsaw hid a Jewish child in their Warsaw home until the girl's mother could take her back The girl the Zbijewskis hid in their Warsaw home, Elzbieta Fester, spoke at Wednesday's ceremony in Washington When the Germans ordered all Jewish prisoners of war to report, Edmonds defied the order by figuring out how to keep the Jewish POWs from being singled out for persecution. Gunden, a French teacher, established a children's home in southern France that became a haven for children, including Jews she helped smuggle out of a nearby internment camp. She protected the children when French police showed up at the home. The Zbijewskis hid a Jewish child in their Warsaw home until the girl's mother could take her back. The girl they hid, Elzbieta Fester, spoke at Wednesday's ceremony, according to the US Polish Embassy. In televised remarks during the ceremony, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel remained indebted to those being honored because of the Jewish soldiers and children saved by their bravery. He also praised the United States and said there was an unbreakable bond between the two countries. 'We know we have no better friend than the United States of America,' Netanyahu said. Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, Chairman of Yad Veshem, speaks at the Righteous Among the Nations Award Ceremony which takes place on International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 71st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz at the Embassy of Israel Fears the Zika virus could strike Britain were fuelled after an insect expert claimed mosquitos that can carry the disease have been found here. Howard Carter said there have been several sightings of the Aedes Aegypti flying around in the countryside. The mosquito can carry the Zika virus which is gripping Brazil and the Americas and can cause babies to be been with abnormally small heads and brains. Pregnant women have been advised not to travel to countries affected by the disease and some holiday companies said they would refund customers unable to travel over fears of the virus. A mosquito of the Aedes species, which has been known to transmit the Zika virus, has been reported on the Kent coast and in West Sussex Now Mr Carter, one of Britain's leading bite protection experts, said the Aedes species had been reported on the Kent coast and in West Sussex. He said: 'They are here already and I have seen them myself north of Chichester in West Sussex. 'I am aware of sightings on the Kent coast which have been reported to me so it is not a matter of if or when - they are here.' He said they are getting into the country in the grooves of car tyres where females lay their eggs in trapped water in the rims. They are also able to arrive in stagnant water in container ships carrying coffee, according to Mr Carter. He added: 'They are not here in any great great numbers yet. 'But in my view it is only a matter of time before that becomes the case. 'It may be a year or it may be 10 but it will be here because of global warming creating a warmer and more attractive climate.' The Zika virus has spread like wild fire across 20 countries in south and central America in the past year. Mr Carter's claims are lent support by a report by Public Health England exper Jolyon Medlock last year which warned northern Europe would become increasingly threatened by mosquito and other insect borne diseases. Heartbreaking: The Zika virus has been blamed for causing severe brain damage to newborn babies Three British people have already caught the Zika virus after traveling in South America. A Danish tourist returning home from Latin America has been diagnosed with the virus. Brazil - which is set to host the Olympics this summer - is the worst-hit nation with around a million feared to be infected. United Airlines will allow customers who planned to travel to Zika-affected countries to postpone or cancel their trips with no penalty, it announced this week. The news comes as airlines, hotels and cruise operators serving Latin America and the Caribbean facing growing concerns among travellers regarding the mosquito-borne virus. American Airlines tweeted to one concerned traveler, whose wife is pregnant, that it is currently refunding tickets to cities in El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, and Guatemala. But some Twitter users lamented their ruined vacations and their inability to get a refund from tourism operators. ZIKA VIRUS: WHAT IS IT AND HOW CAN IT BE PREVENTED? The Zika virus is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito (inset), which is also known to carry yellow fever. The terrifying virus has now started to spread across the Americas How it spreads: Zika virus is spread to people via mosquito bites. The most common symptoms of Zika virus disease are fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivtis. Infected patients are typically ill for a few days to a week. While the illness is generally mild, some experts in Brazil have suggested a possible link between the virus in pregnant women and subsequent birth defects. The CDC said recently it is aware of reports of increased numbers of babies born with microcephaly, or smaller than expected head size, in Brazil. The Ministry of Health in Brazil is concerned about a possible association between the Zika virus and increased numbers of babies born with microcephaly. How to prevent it: There is no vaccine to prevent, or medicine to treat Zika virus. Travellers can protect themselves by taking steps to prevent mosquito bites, such as using a mosquito net and wearing insect repellent. Pregnant women are being warned to avoid travelling to 22 countries were outbreaks have been reported. Source: CDC Advertisement Stu Privett, an HR systems specialist for the Royal College of Nursing in London, tweeted about cancelling a trip to Barbados with his wife, who is in her first trimester. Privett said he was unable to get a refund from Virgin Holidays. 'They basically said it was our choice not to go on the holiday,' Privett told Reuters. 'Basically (it's) a case of 'we just lose all the money we've spent.' A Virgin Holidays spokesperson said the company would look into the claim. The National Travel Health Network and Centre also urges rethinks on trips to the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Colombia, Guadeloupe, Panama, Guyana, Suriname, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Martinique, French Guiana, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Barbados, Puerto Rico and Haiti. Zika symptoms are similar to flu including fever, joint pain, rash, headache and muscle pain. However, many people show no signs. It's only in the past few months there's been evidence to link infection in pregnancy and birth defects, microcephaly (a small head). Cosy chats: Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood (pictured) has held two meetings with Google under fire for paying far too little in British tax Tax-dodging web firms Google and Facebook have been invited to a series of cosy meetings with the head of the civil service, it can be revealed. Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood has held two meetings with Google under fire for paying far too little in British tax. The senior mandarin, known as Sir Cover-Up because of his attitude to freedom of information, has had three sessions over the past four years with Facebook, which is also accused of not paying enough in tax. The Cabinet Office said Sir Jeremy and unnamed Google representatives had held general discussions on policy issues. Google stands accused of paying an effective tax rate of only 3 per cent after it reached an agreement with HMRC to pay back just 130million to cover a decade of back taxes. Facebook is resisting attempts by the authorities to claim back tax despite the fact the web firm paid just 4,327 in corporation tax in 2014. Last night Tom Watson, Labours deputy leader, said: Taxpayers deserve to know if internet giants like Google and Facebook discussed the size of their tax bills in private meetings with the countrys most senior civil servant. Paying tax on UK profits is an obligation, not a choice. This Government claims to be the most transparent in history, so it should tell us without delay who was present at these meetings and what was said. The Government has long been accused of being too close to firms such as Google and Facebook. Since 2010, ministers have met with Google on average once a month. During that period, David Cameron led talks with the internet giant six times and George Osborne five times. In April 2013, Treasury minister David Gauke flew to Los Angeles, where Google has offices. Culture minister Ed Vaizey visited its London HQ last week, where he spoke about the creative industries to Google and Facebook executives. Questions have also been raised about close links between senior Conservatives and top Google executives. Rachel Whetstone, former political secretary to ex-Tory leader Michael Howard, became Googles global head of communications and public policy. She is married to David Camerons former chief of staff, Steve Hilton. Naomi Gummer, ex-adviser to Jeremy Hunt, became public policy analyst at Google. And Joanna Shields became Mr Camerons digital adviser after years of leading Googles Europe division. She is also a former managing director of Facebook in Europe. Two years ago, the Prime Minister raised her to the peerage as Baroness Shields, and after the election she was made minister for internet security. Official figures show ministers have held 73 meetings with Google since 2010 the equivalent of one a month. Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch yesterday accused ministers of being easily awed by Google, and wrote on Twitter: Google has cleverly planted dozens of their people in White House, Downing St, other governments. Most brilliant new lobbying effort yet. Since 2010, David Cameron has led talks with Google six times and George Osborne five times. Former Google CEO and now executive chairman Eric Schmidt chats to the Prime Minister at a drinks reception in 2012 PM GURU: FIRMS 'ABOVE LAW' Giant corporations like Google appear to be operating above the law, David Camerons former policy guru warned yesterday. Steve Hilton said he understood public anger about the power of huge multinationals and urged ministers to rein them in. Mr Hilton, whose wife Rachel Whetstone is a former Tory adviser and Google executive, warned failure to tackle crony capitalism would drive voters to the Left. He said: There is a growing sense that companies that are so big and so dominant really are above the law. In this particular case they have made clear they were abiding by the law then, when the arrangements caused anger, and now that they have new arrangements. He added: Those of us who really believe in the power of business and capitalism to do good things have really got to make clear to businesses that they have a responsibility to behave in a way that earns public trust. Advertisement Downing Street yesterday defended ministers close contacts with Google, saying many of the meetings related to issues such as online safety. Mr Camerons official spokesman said: I think protecting our children online and the safety of our country and the risks online are more than enough reason to justify meetings. Sir Jeremy is the most powerful figure in Whitehall. He works so closely with the PM that Mr Cameron sees him as his right-hand mandarin. He was also one of Tony Blairs key aides, working as his Principal Private Secretary from 1999 to 2003. Details of the meetings between Sir Jeremy and the two web firms come from transparency records published by the Cabinet Office. They show he held a general discussion with Google in April 2012, months after he was made Cabinet Secretary. In October 2014, he held a discussion on policy issues with Google. The papers show Sir Jeremy had a general discussion with Facebook in May 2012, and a discussion on the digital industry in December 2013. In February 2015, he met the firm to discuss national security issues. Bernard Jenkin, of the Commons public administration select committee, said: I dont know whether taxation affairs were discussed. But it would seem a bit odd if the Cabinet Secretary is taking over the role of HMRC. Last night a Cabinet Office spokesman said tax was not discussed at any of the meetings. Google said it did not negotiate tax deals at the meetings with Sir Jeremy, as tax matters are settled by HMRC. A Facebook spokesman said the meetings were not about tax, adding: We are compliant with UK tax law and in fact in all countries where we have employees and offices. Last night Google vice-president Peter Barron hit back at critics, writing in the Financial Times: Corporation tax is paid on profits not revenue, and is collected where the economic activity that generates those profits takes place . State-backed lender has already earmarked 4.2billion to plug a black hole in its final salary pension scheme Taxpayers have been saddled with a 1.6billion bill to prop up generous pensions paid to thousands of current and former RBS staff. The state-backed lender revealed it has already earmarked 4.2billion to plug a giant black hole in its final salary pension scheme. It had planned to meet the shortfall in annual instalments, but tougher accounting rules means it now has to pay it in one lump sum. In an unscheduled announcement to the stockmarket, the High Street giant said this will result in an extra 1.6billion charge, although it insisted that this will not affect its profits. One campaigner said last night that taxpayers should not be forced to plug RBSs monstrous pension deficit. The bank also revealed it had racked up another 2.5billion in clean-up costs, meaning it will register its eighth consecutive annual loss when it announces its results later this month. This includes a 500million provision for mis-selling PPI and a 1.5billion charge for mis-selling toxic bundles of mortgage debt in America before the financial crisis. The announcement caused the banks share price to fall 2 per cent to 255.7p, in a setback to the Chancellors plans to sell off more of the states remaining 73pc stake in RBS later this year. Ian Gordon, an analyst from Investec said: I dont think even Osborne could justify selling shares at 2.50. I doubt they will any future sales for a considerable period of time and certainly not this year. George Osborne came under fire last April when he sold an initial 6 per cent stake in RBS at 330p each, resulting in a 1billion loss for taxpayers. The previous government paid more than 5 per share when it rescued the bank with a 46billion bail-out during the financial crisis. The huge bill to support RBSs gold plated final salary scheme will ensure it can continue to pay a generous retirement income to 222,000 members, including 35,000 current staff. Jonathan Isaby, chief executive of the TaxPayers Alliance said: This bank continues to be a millstone around taxpayers necks as it announces plans to plug a monstrous deficit in its hugely generous final-salary pension scheme. The vast majority of private sector firms have been forced to shut down their final salary pensions which pay a guaranteed income based on length of service and salary at retirement - because they are so expensive. Insiders at RBS stressed that former executives including disgraced former boss Fred Goodwin are members of a separate company pension scheme although it is still backed by taxpayers. The bank also revealed it had racked up another 2.5billion in clean-up costs, meaning it will register its eighth consecutive annual loss when it announces its results later this month Mr Goodwin enjoys a 342,500 annual income from his executive pension, despite steering RBS to the brink. RBS closed its final salary pension to new staff in 2006, meaning none of its bosses including chief executive Ross McEwan - are members. Insiders at the bank stressed that the vast majority of beneficiaries of the pension scheme are ordinary workers rather than fat cat bosses, with average annual pay-outs 10,700. A man has denied that he is the former host of a children's television show who went by the name 'Mr. Wonder' and is wanted in Louisiana on charges that he sexually abused children during a camping retreat nearly four decades ago. A man identified by authorities as Frank John Selas III contested that he is the 76-year-old fugitive Cub Scout leader. San Diego Superior Court Judge David Szumowski ordered him to be held without bail and scheduled a hearing for February 11 to establish his identity. Scroll down for video A man going by the name Frank Szeles (left) was arrested in San Diego this week, and authorities believe he is a former Louisiana children's television host wanted on molestation charges for more than 35 years (right) The man arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service at his home Monday in Bonita, near San Diego, goes by Frank Szeles and advertised swim lessons and other activities for young children. Authorities say the former television host changed his name. In the late 1970s, Selas hosted the 'Mr. Wonder' show on KNOE-TV in north Louisiana. In 1979, the Rapides Parish Sheriff's Office fielded complaints from parents who accused Selas of abusing their children, following a Cub Scouts camping trip in the Kisatchie National Forest. Selas, then 39, allegedly then fled the country before investigators could arrest him. His car was found abandoned in Dallas, Texas and it's believed he traveled to Rio de Janeiro Brazil. The 76-year-old man claims he is not the wanted Frank John Selas IIII. A judge ordered all pictures of Szeles taken in court on Wednesday not to show his face until his identity is proven Eventually he returned to the U.S. in the early 1980s, where he was allegedly joined by his wife, and they moved around the country often, living in Chicago; South Royalton, Vermont; Sheffield, Massachusetts; his hometown of Darien, Connecticut and most recently San Diego where a neighbor says he has been living since 1999. 'He always had a lot of kids around him,' neighbor Haywood Gammon told ABC News He is charged with two counts of obscene behavior with a juvenile. Authorities have not said whether Selas' wife, Maria Magdalena Aranda Selas Szeles, will face charges. Selas hosted a children's television show in Louisiana in the 70s as 'Mr Wonder'. He was also a Cub Scout leader. He fled the country with his family in 1979 after a few Cub Scouts accused him of sexually abusing them on a camping trip The family of the man arrested Monday appeared in court on Wednesday, but didn't speak with reporters. The man's attorney, Marc Carlos, read a statement from the family that pleaded for privacy. 'Despite the allegations, for 37 years, Frank Szeles has been a husband, father and grandfather and has always provided for his family,' the family said. 'He is well-loved, respected and supported by his family and friends and the community here in San Diego.' Carlos said the developments were 'a shock to everyone'. Szeles Enterprises advertised swim lessons, Cub Scouts and Saturday field trips for boys 5 to 11 years old in the San Diego area. Neighbors said Wednesday that parents often took their children to play in his backyard pool. 'He always had a lot of kids around him,' said Haywood Gammon, who lives next door and said the man had been living there with his wife at least since he arrived in 1999. The Boy Scouts of America said Frank Szeles was Cubmaster of Pack 888 in Bonita but was 'removed from Scouting several years ago for non-compliance with our youth protection policies and procedures'. Without elaborating, it said his removal followed a complaint from a parent who was not involved in the group and was unrelated to scouting. Lt. Tommy Carnline, a spokesman for the Rapides Parish sheriff's office, said investigators identified seven alleged victims. Steve Jurman, supervisory deputy U.S. marshal in San Diego, said there have been no reports of victims in the San Diego area, where authorities believe he has lived since the 1980s. One million more migrants will arrive in Europe this year with increasing numbers of economic migrants coming from Asia and Africa, the United Nations warned yesterday. A joint report by refugee agencies said the conflict in Syria will continue to be a source of refugees seeking asylum in the European Union. But an increasing number of people will also come from south west Asia and northern and western Africa adding further pressure to Europe's worst migration crisis since World War Two. 'Continued arrivals will most likely put strain on affected communities and their willingness to accept refugees and migrants,' it said in the report compiled by the UN Refugee Agency, the International Organization for Migration and 65 other organisations. Scroll down for videos One million more migrants will arrive in Europe this year with increasing numbers of economic migrants coming from Asia and Africa, the United Nations warned yesterday (pictured, migrants arriving on Greek island of Lesbos) The warning came as Greece was warned it could be sealed off from the rest of Europe within three months after the European Commission found it 'seriously neglected' its borders during the migrant crisis last year. A snap investigation found Greece was failing to screen those arriving on its islands and simply waving them through towards the rest of Europe. It said Greece could be suspended from the EU's border-free travel-area, Schengen, for its failure to control the numbers of people coming in. Commission vice president Valdis Dombrovskis said: 'Greece is seriously neglecting its obligations. There are serious deficiencies in the carrying out of external border controls that must be overcome and dealt with by the Greek authorities.' In an unannounced visit to the Greek islands Chios and Samos in November, inspectors found arrivals were not being checked before being allowed to continue their journeys. At least two of the jihadi terrorists who took part in the Paris attacks came through the Greek island of Leros posing as Syrian refugees. The said the conflict in Syria will continue to be a source of refugees seeking asylum in the European Union (pictured, migrants in Serbia) Mr Dombrovskis added: 'Whilst acknowledging that the Greek authorities are under pressure, the report notably finds that there is no effective identification and registration of irregular migrants and that fingerprints are not being systematically entered into the system and travel documents are not being systematically checked for the authenticity or against crucial security databases.' The EU has already started sending border guards to Macedonia to patrol its border with Greece and stop people being able to continue their journeys up through Europe. More than 850,000 people arrived in the country last year, with most hoping to get to northern Europe. Once the European Commission's report is endorsed by a majority of EU member states, Greece will be given three months to take 'remedial action' or face losing its place in the travel zone. EU officials this week began taking steps that could lead to border checks being brought back between Schengen countries for up to two years. Greece is supposed to be setting up migrant processing centres on its islands to screen arrivals, but so far it has only managed to open one on Lesbos. According to EU figures, only 121,325 of the 492,744 migrants who arrived in Greece from 20 July to 30 November 2015 were fingerprinted. The EU has already started sending border guards to Macedonia to patrol its border with Greece and stop people being able to continue their journeys up through Europe (pictured, migrants in Macedonia) Despite the wintry conditions, the numbers of people reaching the Greek islands is still high and around 30 times higher than this time last year. An EU source said 4,000 people had arrived in Greece on Friday alone. The Schengen Agreement is named after the town in Luxembourg where it was signed in 1985, a decade before the borders were removed. Apple made enough money in just two hours to pay its entire UK corporate tax bill. The California-based technology giant raked in record profits of 12.9billion on its worldwide operations in the last three months. This was equivalent to 5.9million an hour meaning it could cover the 11.8million UK tax bill it paid last year in just 120 minutes. Profits: Apple made enough money in just two hours to pay its entire UK corporate tax bill, it has emerged The figures from Apple will fuel anger over the tax arrangements of big multinational technology firms, such as Google and Facebook. Apple, whose tax affairs in Europe are being investigated by Brussels, has also been criticised in its homeland amid claims it is holding vast sums in offshore tax havens to avoid taxes in the US. Campaigners yesterday warned that faith in the tax system is at an all-time low and said that politicians need to take action. The comments came as the Prime Minister was forced to defend the deal that HM Revenue and Customs struck with Google, which will see it pay just 130million to cover a decade of back taxes in Britain. George Osborne declared the agreement with Google a victory but it was dismissed as derisory by critics. And in a further embarrassment to Mr Osborne, Apple has lavished the Chancellor with gadgets worth thousands of pounds in the past five years. The corporate might of Apple was underlined as it reported global sales of 53.3billion for the three months to December 26, 2015. The incredible haul resulted in profits of 12.9billion reinforcing its status as the worlds biggest company. Apple did not reveal how it performed in Britain. But separate filings show Apple raked in 37.5billion of profits worldwide in the 12 months to September 2015, and accountants estimate that the UK accounted for around 2billion of those. This would have resulted in a UK corporation tax bill of around 400million but Apple in fact paid just 11.8million of tax in Britain last year. This is because the company funnels its vast sales in Britain and in much of Europe through Ireland to whittle down its tax bills. Corporation tax in the Irish Republic is just 12.5 per cent compared with 20 per cent in Britain. The figures from Apple will fuel anger over the tax arrangements of big multinational technology firms, such as Google and Facebook Apple has two UK divisions Apple UK Limited and Apple Retail UK Limited which are registered as service companies and are paid a fee to handle items sold in Britain. They then declare a profit on this and pay tax. However Dia Chakravarty, political director at the TaxPayers Alliance, said: When the tax code is more than 21,000-pages long, its hardly surprising theres so much confusion over what the right amount of tax is for any company. With peoples faith in the tax system at an all-time low, the need to make it more simple is more pressing than ever. It is high time our politicians actually took action to make this happen rather than just posturing and playing to the gallery. Apple has lavished the Chancellor with gadgets worth 2,886 in the past five years. This included an iPad 2, iPad 3, and two iPhone 6 handsets plus cases. The Treasury has an upper limit of 140 on gifts to its ministers, meaning in each instance the freebies from Apple were recorded as being retained by the department. It is not known what the Treasury does with such gifts, and the Cabinet Office said it did not know what the rules were regarding luxury presents. Apple declined to comment but chief executive Tim Cook insisted last month that Apple pays every tax dollar we owe. after his new book was released Beatrix Potter was involved in a creative dispute with an artist because she felt his paintings of her characters were too bold, an exhibition has revealed. The tensions are explored in a display at the Victoria and Albert Museum, called The Tale of Beatrix Potter and Ernest Aris. It describes how in 1916 Miss Potter, then aged 50, was struggling with her eyesight and decided to commission an artist to illustrate a book called The Oakmen, imagined by her niece. This is one of the black and white drawings Bextrix Potter sent to artist Ernest Aris after deciding to commission him to illustrate her book - although she hid her idenitity She sent Mr Aris a set of pencil designs with instructions for colour and composition but concealed both her own identity and the plot of the story. Initially, she seemed pleased with his efforts but at some point between receiving the paintings in September 1916 and Christmas 1916 she decided to ditch his work and do the illustrations herself. Mr Aris, who probably knew he was corresponding with Miss Potter, told her that her proposed colour scheme was a little on the sombre side and that bright colours were essential for children. Miss Potter had praised his work and did use some of suggestions when illustrating the book herself, such as giving the oakmen red clothes. But the relationship between author and artist soured further the following year when Miss Potters publisher dramatically accused Mr Aris of plagiarism. Mr Ariss latest book, The Treasure Seekers, featured a rabbit called Peter. At around the same time Miss Potter wrote to her publisher and referring to Mr Ariss drawings she said his animals are not good. Emma Laws, Frederick Warne Curator of Childrens Literature at the V&A ,said: Beatrix Potters drawings have a very distinct look and what she had in her mind was clearly very different to what Aris produced. Ariss drawings are much bolder and more colourful than Potters and lack that all-important sense of place that characterises her best work. But I think he had a difficult job as he was working in the dark with only a few sketches and no knowledge of the story. But the relationship turned sour when Aris, who had produced six pictures for Potter, was accused of plagiarism by the famous author's pulbisher, after she decided not to use his work after all She added: If the book had been published it may have been an incongruous collaboration. Miss Potter was forced to abandon The Oakmen over doubts about its originality and the book and both sets of illustrations have, until now, never been viewed by the public. Despite dying in 1943, Miss Potter remains one of the worlds best-loved childrens authors and illustrators. She is best known for her Peter Rabbit books which she wrote between 1901 and 1913. A complaint was made to the police and The owner of a rural coffee shop has been flooded with death threats after posting a sign which said they would be open on 'national d***head day'. A blackboard sign was put up at the Mister Jones cafe on Monday, the day before Australia Day which said: 'Yes, we're open on national d***head day.' Outrage at the cafe in Bermagui, five hours south of Sydney, had grown after a photo of the sign was shared to a popular Facebook page and went viral. The owner of Mister Jones, Matt, outlined in a Facebook post that he was receiving 'graphic and explicit' death threats through his voicemail. The threats ranged from 'vandalism, arson, murder and mass violence', while vandals drilled his door locks and glued the store windows shut to prevent him from re-opening. A blackboard sign was put up at the Mister Jones cafe on Monday, a day before Australia Day which said: 'Yes, we're open on national d***head day' An image of the sign was posted to Meanwhile in Australia on Monday, and has since been liked and shared more than 7,000 and 3,500 times, respectively. The majority of the 1,900 comments on the post have chastised the Mister Jones cafe, while some have hijacked the Facebook page for the business and left poor reviews with a one star rating. 'Over the last days, messages have been cascading through my email account, containing unprintable abuse and describing group plans for physical attacks,' Matt, owner of Mister Jones, said. 'My voicemail account has mercifully reached capacity and I've long stopped listening to the graphic and explicit death threats. These messages have been much more chilling than the thousands posted online.' Some outraged at the sign appear to have made up seeing 'rats and cockroaches scurrying away' and being served coffee that tasted like 'diarrhoea' or 'bong water'. Many called the cafe 'disgraceful' or 'un-Australian'. Outrage at the cafe in Bermagui, five hours south of Sydney, has grown after it a photo of the sign referring to Australia Day as 'D***head Day' was shared to a popular Facebook page and went viral The image of the sign referring to Australia Day as 'D***head Day' was also shared to pages including Truthophobes Exposing the Truth about Islam and Aussie Infidels, who also shared pictures of the owners. Matt, in his Facebook post continued to say that Australia Day was a 'singular atrocity.' 'Celebrating January 26 at best trivialises - and at worst glorifies - the invasion of this continent, declaration of terra nullius, massacre and attempted genocide of its 30,000 year old indigenous population.' According to one customer who wrote in support of the Mister Jones cafe, owners have since taken the sign down 'just in case some pissed hoons wanted to throw bottles'. The customer also said there was a 'queue out the door' for the coffee bar, unaffected by those outraged at the sign. Keith Dowden, Bermagui Chamber of Commerce president, confirmed the sign had been removed, Bega District News reported. The same cafe reportedly had a sign at its entrance on Australia Day last year which said: 'Strictly no patriotism beyond this point'. A NSW police spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia that a complaint was lodged with Bermagui police on Monday. Investigations are continuing. Up to a quarter of England's pharmacies could close because of funding cuts, the Government has admitted. As many as 3,000 out of 11,674 chemists may have to shut, said health minister Alistair Burt. Those most at risk are smaller, family-run pharmacies, described as the 'salt of the earth' for serving local communities. Their annual funding is being slashed by 170million 6 per cent as part of efficiency savings across the NHS. Up to a quarter of England's pharmacies could close because of funding cuts, the Government has admitted (file photo) Each chemist is allocated a pot of money each year depending on how many prescriptions it dispenses and additional services it provides for the community. On average, up to 90 per cent of their income comes from the NHS while the remainder is generated by sales of over-the-counter remedies and toiletries. The cuts have been proposed just as patients are being repeatedly told to make better use of their pharmacies as an alternative to seeing the doctor. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, NHS England head Simon Stevens and other senior officials have urged the public to go to chemists instead of A&E or a GP. The Government has not earmarked particular pharmacies for closure, meaning the exact number will depend on how they cope with the cuts. But this month, Mr Burt told MPs on the All Party Pharmacy Group that between 1,000 and 3,000 may shut. The minister promised money to keep pharmacies in areas where closures would leave patients without help, according to minutes of the meeting revealed by the magazine Chemist and Druggist. On average, up to 90 per cent of pharmacies' income comes from the NHS while the remainder is generated by sales of over-the-counter remedies and toiletries Sandra Gidley, from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, said: 'We have a number of concerns. We have spent a lot of time and energy encouraging people to come to pharmacies for health advice to cut pressure on A&E departments and GP services. 'Under the plans, pharmacies could be forced to cut staff and have less capacity to give important health advice. The Government must consider the capacity that the community pharmacy network provides to relieve pressures on GPs and A&E.' 'WE ARE THE SALT OF THE EARTH' The owner of the Ruislip Manor Pharmacy in West London fears the cuts may force him to close. Sanjay Doegar already had to make one employee redundant this month as he could not afford to keep him on full time. This is a bombshell for the profession, he said. Ive already had to let one member of staff go and thats been upsetting and heartbreaking. We are the salt of the earth. We know the people, we have personal relationships, we deliver medicines to vulnerable patients. We are the fuel that keeps the NHS burning. Small pharmacies will be the ones that suffer but this is an attack on all pharmacies. Its completely bizarre when pharmacies are meant to be doing more and more for the NHS by stopping people from going inappropriately to GPs and A&E. We have so much armoury to help the local community. How can this make sense? He said his pharmacy takes medicines to 30 to 50 people a day and smaller pharmacies give a much more personal service than chains. Advertisement Chemist closures would ramp up pressure on buckling hospital A&E units. This month, it emerged that a string of casualty departments closed as they were overwhelmed, diverting patients and ambulances to other units. NHS figures showed how trusts have used 89 such A&E 'diverts' since the end of November. Closures would also hit the accessibility of out-of-hours GPs, who face picking up the slack. A leaked report revealed problems at the NHS out-of-hours hotline, with a shortage of doctors and other staff putting patients at 'serious risk'. Sanjay Doegar, who owns a chemist in West London, said local pharmacies are 'the salt of the earth' because of their vital role helping patients. Ministers want more pharmacists to work in GP surgeries and A&E to reduce doctors' workload. They also believe that some areas have too many as businesses tend to cluster together. At the same time, the NHS is urging patients to order more prescriptions online, reducing the need for high street outlets. A pharmacy typically receives 220,000 a year depending on the number of prescriptions it issues and what extra services it offers, such as carrying out flu jabs. Pharmacists are medical experts with four years of training at university. The Government believes they could carry out some tasks undertaken by GPs and A&E doctors. Sir Kevin Barron, chairman of the parliamentary group, warned that the Government was engineering 'a crisis where people are going bust because income is taken off them'. Rob Darracott, chief executive of industry body Pharmacy Voice, said: 'We're extremely concerned. It's a massive shock. Some are really going to struggle.' Keith Ridge, chief pharmaceutical officer at NHS England, said: 'We are looking at ways to make greater use of pharmacists in GP surgeries, A&E, care homes and other settings, and make better use of technology. She was given 700 t appear on BBC1 show This Week on December 17 The BBC has been accused of breaking its own rules by paying Labour MP Diane Abbott to appear on a late-night political show even after she was appointed to the Shadow Cabinet. Miss Abbott - who was promoted to the front bench in September - was handed 700 to join the panel on BBC1's This Week on December 17, despite a previous run-in with the BBC Trust for just this sort of payment. According to the BBC guidelines, MPs should not be paid to appear on shows where they are 'speaking as a member of their party or expressing political views'. The BBC has been accused of breaking its own rules by paying Labour MP Diane Abbott (pictured) to appear on a late-night political show even after she was appointed to the Shadow Cabinet The broadcaster is allowed to pay them a 'disturbance fee' to compensate them for the inconvenience, but only if it is 'limited and realistic'. Even so, Miss Abbott accepted her standard 700 fee as she joined This Week's regular host Andrew Neil, and former Conservative minister Michael Portillo, for a Christmas special. Together they looked back 'at a busy year in politics, from the general election to the rise of Jeremy Corbyn', the BBC said on its website. However, a spokesman for the broadcaster argued yesterday that the payment was actually a 'disturbance fee' rather than a fee for her appearance. He said: 'Diane Abbott has appeared on This Week once since joining the Shadow Cabinet when the programme reviewed the year in politics. For that she received a one-off inconvenience payment which is consistent with our editorial guidelines.' That argument is likely to rile other politicians, who are frequently paid just 100 or 150 for the intrusion on their time. It is also raises questions about why This Week paid only 350 to fellow Labour MPs Liz Kendall and Margaret Hodge for their appearances on the show last year. Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said: 'The BBC has broken its own rules and now it is trying to cover it up. But I do have some sympathy with Diane Abbott because school fees are very expensive.' He added that the BBC's governing body, the BBC Trust, should investigate. It would not be the first time that the Trust has had to look into the BBC's payments to Miss Abbott. It ordered the broadcaster to stop paying Miss Abbott appearance fees in 2012 after a strikingly similar series of incidents whilst she was shadow health minister. The BBC had been paying her around 839 a time to appear on This Week, despite her frontbench position. At the time, the Corporation tried to argue that the payments were justified because This Week is 'not a traditional' political programme. Miss Abbott (centre) - who was promoted to the front bench in September - was handed 700 to join the panel on BBC1's This Week on December 17, despite a previous run-in with the BBC Trust for just this sort of payment However, the BBC Trust rejected their argument, saying that - as a front bench MP - Miss Abbott should be paid a 'disturbance fee' rather than an 'appearance fee' for her efforts. It also ordered the BBC to restrict her appearances to 'once or twice a year on a special occasion'. The programme's editor agreed that it had paid Miss Abbott too much, and a BBC spokesman said at the time that it 'noted' the Trust's ruling. But according to an official parliamentary register, the MP for Hackney and Stoke Newington has been paid 12,000 for appearances on the BBC over the last 12 months helping to boost her already generous MP's salary of 74,000 a year. Almost all the payments were for This Week, but she also took home 1,500 for joining the panel on Have I Got News For You in October. But it is the payment for her December appearance on This Week which is likely to land the BBC in trouble. A spokesman for Miss Abbott said yesterday: 'Since being appointed to the Shadow Cabinet Miss Abbott has made a guest appearance on Have I Got News For You. 'She no longer appears regularly on This Week but came back to do a Christmas Special. Both appearances were registered according to the rules of the house.' Miss Abbott has run into a number of controversies during her political career. She was labelled a 'sell-out' for sending her son to a private school despite being a staunch socialist. A memorial to the victims of Nazi atrocities is to be erected beside Parliament, David Cameron has said. The Prime Minister gave details of the scheme as he marked Holocaust Memorial Day at question time in the Commons. It is to be put up in Victoria Tower Gardens, alongside the Thames next to the Palace of Westminster, and would 'show the importance Britain places on preserving the memory of the Holocaust', he told MPs. A memorial to the victims of Nazi atrocities is to be erected beside Parliament, David Cameron has said (pictured, Royal British Legion stand next to the Soviet War Memorial during a service to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day) Downing Street said an international design competition will be launched in the coming weeks and the memorial built by the end of 2017. 'It will stand beside Parliament as a permanent statement of our values as a nation and will be something for our children to visit for generations to come,' Mr Cameron said. 'It is right that our whole country should stand together to remember the darkest hour of humanity.' The national memorial was one of the recommendations of a report published on last year's 70th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Mr Cameron has promised 50million towards the monument, as well as the establishment beside it of a 'world-class' education and learning centre, details of which are still to be announced. Chairman of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation, Sir Peter Bazalgette, said: 'The task of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation was to find a site that would allow a striking, prominent and iconic memorial to be built. 'There is nowhere better to achieve this than beside Parliament. The new memorial is to be put up in Victoria Tower Gardens, alongside the Thames next to the Palace of Westminster (pictured, a man lays a wreath during a Holocaust Memorial Day) 'It will stand beside Parliament as a permanent statement of our values as a nation and will be something for our children to visit for generations to come,' Mr Cameron (pictured) said 'I stood there with a Holocaust survivor earlier this week and I will never forget his reaction when I told him of our plans. It demonstrated how we are doing the right thing for Britain's Holocaust survivors in preserving the memory of humanity's darkest hour. 'But just as importantly, we're doing the right thing for our country by creating a permanent reminder of the need to fight hatred and prejudice in all its forms.' Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said the memorial would be 'warmly received' by the Jewish community. Sweden intends to fly 80,000 immigrants out of the country on chartered jets after they arrived in the country last year but had their asylum applications rejected. Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said the Swedish government had asked the police and authorities in charge of migrants to organise their removal. The proposed measure was revealed as Europe struggles to deal with a crisis that has seen tens of thousands of migrants arrive on Greek beaches, mostly fleeing war in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Movement: A group of migrants getting off an incoming train are escorted by Swedish police officers as they gather on the platform at the Swedish end of the bridge between Sweden and Denmark in Malmo in November Killing: Officials in Sweden on Tuesday called for greater security at overcrowded asylum centres a day after the fatal stabbing of an employee at a refugee centre for unaccompanied youths outside Gothenburg (above) About 55 per cent of asylum seekers in Sweden are seeing their application approved, while 45 per cent are being rejected at the moment, according to the Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri. The United Nations says more than 46,000 people have arrived in Greece so far this year, with more than 170 people killed making the dangerous crossing. Mr Ygeman said the expulsions, normally carried out using commercial flights, would have to be done using specially chartered aircraft, given the large numbers, staggered over several years. Sweden, which is home to 9.8million people, is one of the European Union countries that has taken in the largest number of refugees in relation to its population. On a journey: More than 46,000 people have arrived in Greece so far this year, with these migrants pictured on the deserted Greek island of Pasas waiting for the coastguard to transport them to Oinousses island last week Support: People hold a banner as they take part in a demonstration in solidarity with refugees in Stockholm Sweden accepted more than 160,000 asylum seekers last year, but the number of migrant arrivals has dropped dramatically since it enacted systematic photo ID checks on travellers on January 4. Announcement: Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said Sweden wants to kick out up to 80,000 migrants Officials in the country on Tuesday called for greater security at overcrowded asylum centres a day after the fatal stabbing of an employee at a refugee centre for unaccompanied youths. The alleged attacker was a young male residing at a centre for youngsters aged 14 to 17 in Molndal near Gothenburg on the west coast. The employee was 22-year-old Alexandra Mezher, according to Swedish media reports, whose family was originally from Lebanon. A motive for the attack was not immediately clear. Her death has led to questions about overcrowded conditions inside some centres, with too few adults and employees to take care of children, many traumatised by war. In neighbouring Denmark, meanwhile, the government this week approved legislation to seize the valuables of refugees in the hope of limiting the flow of migrants. Measures include confiscating migrants' valuables in order to finance their upkeep while they seek asylum, and making it harder to bring family members to Denmark once they have a right to remain. Actress and progressive activist Susan Sarandon lent her star power to Bernie Sanders at an Iowa rally this evening, passing over Hillary Clinton a second time for the nation's top job. A decider for Sarandon, who has known Sanders for more than two decades, was Clinton's 2002 vote for the Iraq War as a New York senator, a military conflict that Sanders did not support. 'That's where Hillary Clinton lost me,' she told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview, 'because there was plenty of information that even I had that said there was a real problem with the logic involved.' Clinton went on to be secretary of state and has more experience in the foreign policy realm than Sanders, who has has focused his legislative career on fighting for economic justice. 'But what is experience without judgement,' Sarandon said tonight after a Sanders rally in northern Iowa. 'She's had a job but what has she done that we're bragging about. How has she led?' Actress and progressive activist Susan Sarandon formally lent her support to Bernie Sanders at a Mason City, Iowa rally this evening, passing over Hillary Clinton a second time for the job A decider for Sarandon was Clinton's 2002 vote for the Iraq War - which Sanders was against. 'That's where Hillary Clinton lost me,' she told DailyMail.com tonight Clinton, seen here today in Des Moines, Iowa, is a former secretary of state and has more experience in the foreign policy realm than Sanders. 'But what is experience without judgement,' Sarandon said tonight. 'She's had a job but what has she done that we're bragging about. How has she led?' Continuing the actress said of Clinton, once the nation's top diplomat, 'She's had that job, and he's had a job, too, and she went overseas, but what I'm saying is the biggest foreign decision that had to be made in terms of foreign policy was whether or not to go into Iraq and go into war, and she failed that test.' 'I'm sorry, but for me, you can't get a bigger decision than that and we've been paying the price ever since. And I think she has to be held accountable for that.' In 2008 Sarandon got behind Barack Obama at a critical time in the primary. Now, she's hitting the trail for Sanders a week before Iowans cast their ballots - the start of the 2016 election. 'I've come here because for me gender is not what's important. Issues are what's important,' she said as she introduced the U.S. senator at tonight's event in Music Man Square in Mason City Iowa. Her support for Sanders and the visit to Iowa on his behalf is more than just a response to Clinton's war record. Sarandon said her endorsement was an affront to the 'machine' which is 'run by Wall Street, by big pharm, by Monsanto and that it was an ode to a man she believes is 'consistent...principled' and 'incredibly brave.' 'I want a candidate who has the courage to stand and do the right thing when it was not popular,' she said ahead of his speech. In her exclusive with DailyMail.com Sarandon expounded on that point and said that Sanders is 'untainted.' 'If you want to know how people are gonna react and where they really stand, you have to look at who's giving them their money.' In her praise of Sanders, Sarandon said, 'The fact that he has managed to consistently be on the right side of every issue the correct side of every issue that reflects my concerns, and he has done it without being connected to Wall Street, big pharm, Monsanto, Goldman Sachs.' 'I don't know of anyone who has managed to have a career that's been so effective without owing their soul to one of the major financial and corporate institutions,' she said of the 25-year veteran of Congress. Reflecting on the 2016 election she said, 'I think this is the last chance we're going to get to see somebody that can have that kind of change.' 'I don't know of anyone who has managed to have a career that's been so effective without owing their soul to one of the major financial and corporate institutions,' Sarandon said of Sanders, a 25-year veteran of Congress. 'When you have the other candidate taking money from Goldman Sachs, speaking to Goldman Sachs, getting a lot of money from Monsanto, I think it's really naive to believe that that's not going to have some kind of influence over policy,' Sarandon said, referring to Clinton. During the rally she also made a not-so-thinly veiled jab at Clinton over gay marriage. 'It's one thing to be for gay rights and gay marriage once everybody else is for it. That's not difficult,' Sarandon stated. Clinton did not say she was for it until 2013.That was after President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden threw their support behind it in 2012. Sanders put his position on record in 2009. Sarandon is a longtime supporter of gay rights. In 2003 she appeared in a commercial promoting the cause. Clinton's husband signed laws implementing bans on benefits for same-sex spouses and military service of homosexual individuals. She now says her husband signed the Defense of Marriage Act to prevent the Republican Congress from banning gay marriage altogether and has been embraced by national figures in the gay rights movement, including the Human Rights Campaign. Sarandon, who gave to Clinton in 2000 when she was running for Senate but not since, according to donation tracking website Little Sis, indicated tonight that it wasn't enough. Clinton is a johnny-come-lately on a gay marriage, she suggested. 'Yeah, she was,' the movie star said after DailyMail.com asked if that was a reasonable interpretation of her rally remarks. 'There's a number of issues where she has come around but she very clearly equivocated or was not there in the beginning. 'She was not, and that's a matter of record, and yes she has come around,' Sarandon said, 'but my point is, it's great that she came around, but wouldn't it be great to be a leader instead of a follower, especially if you're going to hold the highest office in the land?' Sarandon further pushed back on the argument made by Clinton and others that Sanders policy ideas are 'too difficult' to implement. A 91-year-old woman has died in hospital after she was struck by a 63-year-old driver who then crashed into a wall where a man was sitting, which left both pedestrians and the driver in hospital. The silver Toyota sedan had veered off Boronia Road in Greenacre, western Sydney, around 11am on Thursday, and struck the 91-year-old woman after mounting the footpath, witnesses told police. The 63-year-old motorist then allegedly continued driving along the road for about 200 metres before again veering off and smashing a power pole and wall where a man was sitting. The 91-year-old woman suffered critical injuries to her head, chest and limbs, but later died at Liverpool Hospital. Scroll down for video Two women have suffered severe injuries after a 63-year-old driver ploughed her silver Toyota sedan into a wall on Boronia Road in Greenacre around 11am on Thursday. A 77-year-old man is in a stable condition The driver was trapped inside the wreckage of her car for an hour until emergency services could free her. She was then transported to Liverpool Hospital in a serious condition The 77-year-old man injured was taken to the same hospital in a stable condition with minor injuries to his head and limbs. He'd been sitting on the wall when the silver Toyota sedan struck. The 63-year-old woman driving was trapped inside her silver Toyota sedan for an hour before emergency services managed to free her. She was taken to Liverpool Hospital in a serious condition with injuries to her head, chest and limbs, the NSW Ambulance spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia. At about 5pm on Thursday, NSW Police said the 63-year-old remained in a serious but stable condition. The crash, near the intersection at Highview Avenue, has caused road blockages along Boronia Road between Hume Highway and Hillcrest Avenue, Live Traffic Sydney said. Bus routes 913 and M90 are experiencing delays and have been diverted from Boronia Road to Rawson Road. Investigations are continuing by Crash Investigation Unit and a report will be prepared for the Coroner. A NSW Ambulance spokesperson said the woman in her 90s who was struck suffered injuries to her head, chest and limbs A 63-year-old woman has been trapped in her silver Toyota sedan for an hour in Greenacre, western Sydney, after the car struck two pedestrians and smashed into a wall The driver and a female pedestrian in her 90s, have both been taken to Liverpool Hospital. The driver is in a serious condition and the female pedestrian is in a critical condition A 90-year-old pedestrian struck was transported to Liverpool Hospital in a critical condition A 77-year-old male pedestrian was sitting on the wall when it was struck and has been taken to hospital with minor injuries to his head A woman has been trapped in the wreckage of her car for an hour in Greenacre, western Sydney, after she struck a woman in her 90s and smashed into a wall where a man was sitting A young mother who pleaded guilty to filming herself sexually abusing her one-year-old boy and then selling the footage for $300 has avoided jail. The 23-year-old, who has two children, was handed eight months of home detention and 100 hours of community service as a New Zealand judge did not think jail would not be beneficial to her, One News reported. A young mother who pleaded guilty to filming herself sexually violating her one-year-old boy and then selling the footage for $300 has avoided jail Judge Philip Recordon described her crime as 'repellent' and the crime was premeditate because she had thought it out and 'did it for the money' knowing the man who bought the video was going to upload it to the internet. Judge Recordon said the mother, who appeared in Manukau District Court - south of Auckland on the North Island, had taken advantage of her child. 'The victim was vulnerable. It was a breach of trust at the highest level,' Judge Recordon said, according to stuff.co.nz. The court also heard the mother had spent the money she earned from the video to purchase a laptop after the August 10, 2014 incident. The woman's lawyer, Annabel Maxwell-Scott, said her client, who had spent her childhood living in a series of foster homes and had an 'extremely difficult upbringing', was aware of the seriousness of her actions and knew she had 'brought this on herself'. Ms Maxwell-Scott said the man had 'actively groomed' the mother 'over a series of months' and issued her a number of requests over that period before offering her money to film the footage. 'It's obviously a repellent crime. It makes us feel uncomfortable even talking about it,' the lawyer said. Crown prosecutor Nick Dobbs had recommended the woman be given a sentence of at least six to seven years. But Ms Maxwell-Scott thought a sentence of at least four years was suitable. When he handed down his sentence, Judge Recordon said he had taken several reductions into consideration for the woman who was a first-time offender. Social media groups have been set up to push for a more severe sentence for the mother (pictured), with members of the public threatening violence against her and calling for the death penalty She will be required to be monitored for another 12 months after she completes her home detention, One News reported. The woman's family had successfully applied to lift her name suppression but it was reinstated on Thursday by the court. The child's grandparents were in court at the time of the sentencing and expressed their disappointment at the penalty. 'She's not shown any remorse,' the grandmother told stuff.co.nz. The mother of the woman said her daughter had 'got away with far too much'. 'I think it's disgusting. My grandson would not have known what was going on. He was so vulnerable and she's meant to love him and take care of him, not use him as a sex object,' she said. Judge Philip Recordon said the mother, who appeared in Manukau District Court (above), had taken advantage of her child but her lawyer said her client had a tough childhood The woman's sentenced had outraged many people across New Zealand and the world. Social media groups have been set up to push for a more severe sentence, with members of the public threatening violence against her and calling for the death penalty. 'All this piece of s*** deserves is a bullet,' one woman wrote. 'Filthy cow! I do hope all her close friends and family have washed their hands with this money hungry sick dog! Lock her up and throw away the key,' another woman said. A third woman said the mother deserved something worse than jail time. 'I vote send her to death.... Not just prison,' she said. An investigation into the online remarks has been launched by local authorities. On Thursday the ad watchdog ruled it to have breached the code of ethics The Advertising Standard Bureau received a number of complaints over it A lingerie chain that used a half-naked woman standing over a bound and gagged Santa for a raunchy Christmas ad campaign has been found to have breached the advertising code of ethics. Honey Birdette, which sells lingerie and sex toys, was investigated by the Advertising Standards Bureau after complaints were made about the suggestive sexual violence content of its adverts. The boutique chain has 44 stores across Australia - many of which are found in popular family shopping centres - and parents complained that the ads were on display for their children to see. In a decision made public on Thursday, the ad watchdog ruled that one of the two adverts 'featuring a bound and gagged Santa' suggested a sexual scene that was inappropriate to a broader audience. Scroll down for video A raunchy Christmas advertisement for an Australian lingerie chain was canned after it was found to have breached the code of ethics The adverts, which aired through Christmas in stores and online, showed a scantily-clad woman standing over a bound and gagged Santa Honey Birdette, a boutique lingerie chain which has 44 stores across Australia, received a number of complaints on its Facebook page. Many were from parents concerned for their kids Honey Birdette ran two versions of the advertisement during Christmas - displayed in its stores, online and on radio. The first version shows Santa lying flat on his back as a scantily-clad woman with her hands on her hips stands over him. The caption reads: 'knock Santa's socks off!' The second version shows Santa tied up by the hands with rope and with a red gag over his mouth, as the same woman bends her knee into him, with the accompanying text: 'Silent night' 'The connection between Santa and sex is so wrong,' wrote one complainant. 'Santa is bound and gagged in a somewhat demeaning activity (bondage), which is displayed at my children's eye-level.' 'The ad uses an easily recognisable childhood icon - Santa Claus - to draw attention to advertising for a sex shop which masquerades as a high end lingerie store,' wrote another. Parents also took to Facebook to express their frustration that the 'sexualised' posters and window displays were in full view of their young children. 'You guys should be ashamed. This image is in Rundle Mall for my nine year old daughter to see. A shop like yours should not be in a family shopping precinct,' an Adelaide woman wrote on Facebook. 'Children everyday walk past your shop and see an extremely sexualised woman dominating Santa. Do you not believe that children have a right to be safe and protected from these images?,' another woman wrote. Honey Birdette responded to the advertising watchdog's decision by agreeing to remove some of their signage. 'The signage at our Rundle Mall, Charlestown and Chermside stores have all been removed. All of the stores are receiving new signage today. The image will no longer be visible.' Complaints were made by to both the Advertising Standards Bureau and Honey Birdette's Facebook page Honey Birdette disagreed with claims that their advertisements objectified women, saying their products were made by women with the 'aim being to empower them - not depict them as a sexualised objects' Not the first time: A poster of this woman (on show in Honey Birdette stores), wearing a red corset and bra, skin-coloured tights and opaque nipple protectors was banned back in 2012 One objection Honey Birdette were unable to agree with was that their advertisements objectified women. 'Is it so difficult to see that your santa ad is objectification of a woman rather than a positive expression of sexuality?,' one woman wrote on their official Facebook page. 'A great sex life doesn't come wrapped in expensive lingerie or idiotic poses. That ad is not sexy it is messed up. Celebrate sexuality NOT the objectification of women.' The lingerie retailer responded by saying their products were made by women for women, with their 'aim being to empower them not depict them as a sexualised objects.' 'In order to market and advertise lingerie, we need to show a model wearing it, however we do this in a way that empowers women rather than demean or degrade them. The image in question actually shows a very confident and composed woman in control of her environment.' It's not the first time the retailer has been the subject of public scrutiny for their controversial marketing schemes - in 2012 a poster of a lingerie model with her nipples covered by opaque pasties and headlined 'It's burlesque baby,' was banned. Two other complaints regarding posters aired in 2013 and 2014 were also investigated by the Advertising Standards Bureau, but both were dismissed. In 2012 a PR firm staged a fake protest in Sydney's Pitt Street Mall to advertise Honey Birdette. Models dressed in lingerie marched down the popular street holding placards reading: 'I heart HB', 'Spoil me rotten' and 'Happy wife = Happy life.' One woman believed the Christmas campaign celebrated the objectification of women rather than sexuality A teenager allegedly planned to pack a kangaroo with explosives, paint it with an Islamic State symbol and set it loose on police officers in an Anzac Day terror plot, a court has heard. Sevdet Ramadan Besim, 19, is also accused of plotting to run down and behead a police officer at a Veterans' Day ceremony in Melbourne last year. He has been ordered to stand trial in the Victorian Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to four terror charges. Besim, from Hallam, in Melbourne's outer south-east, was arrested along with four alleged conspirators in April 2015 - a week before Anzac Day. He has been in custody since. Sevdet Ramadan Besim, 19, (pictured) allegedly planned to pack a kangaroo with explosives, paint it with an Islamic State symbol and set it loose on police officers in an Anzac Day terror plot, a court has heard Prosecutors alleged on Thursday that he was discussing the planned attack with a British accomplice as well as doing online searches about Gallipoli landings commemoration events. He allegedly said he was 'ready to fight these dogs on there [sic] doorstep', according to court documents. 'I'd love to take out some cops,' Besim is alleged to have written. 'I was gonna meet with them then take some heads.' The ABC also quoted a document presented by prosecutors that summarised the alleged conversation about the kangaroo bomb. Multiple photos of Besim on his social media pages show him posing with one raised index finger, a symbol that other ISIS supporters have also frequently used He has been ordered to stand trial in the Victorian Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to four terror charges Besim allegedly sent an image on 20 March 2015 saying 'look what I got ahaha', the court documents said. 'The conversation continues with BESIM detailing what he did that day and they have a general discussion around animals and wildlife in Australia including a suggestion that a kangaroo could be packed with C4 explosive, painted with the IS symbol and set loose on police officers.' Besim allegedly also said: 'Main thing I guess is that I send the dog to hell'. The 19-year-old has been in custody since 18 April, when 200 heavily armed officers swooped on the city's south-east, arresting five teens and seizing knives and swords. He will appear in the Supreme Court charged with planning an Islamic State group-inspired terrorist attack at services in Melbourne and the neighboring city of Dandenong to mark Anzac Day. He will appear in the Supreme Court charged with planning an Islamic State group-inspired terrorist attack at services in Melbourne, pictured is the Dawn Service on Anzac Day in 2015 The campaign for the 1915 Gallipoli landings in Turkey was the The campaign was the first major military action fought by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during the First World War. Police have alleged that Besim was motivated by an extremist ideology and had expressed support for terrorist organizations, particularly the Islamic State movement. Besim faces a potential life sentence in prison if convicted. A British court in October sentenced a 15-year-old boy from Blackburn, northwestern England, for his part in the ANZAC Day plot. In passing sentence in the Manchester Crown Court, Judge John Saunders said the teenager, who can't be named because of his age, would only be released when he was no longer a danger to the public. A team of five super-recognisers from Scotland Yard have been sent to help German detectives find the New Years Eve sex attackers in Cologne. The Metropolitan Police analysts are helping the citys police force identify the suspects from 400 hours of grainy video footage taken on mobile phones and CCTV security cameras. The super-recognisers, whose skills cannot be learnt, are believed to be members of a tiny part of the population who have advanced powers of memory and recognition. Tension: People gather in front of the main railway station in Cologne on New Year's Eve. Almost 1,000 criminal complaints have been filed over the New Year's Eve events, more than half alleging sexual assaults On guyard: Police officers survey the area in front of the main train station and the Cathedral in Cologne on January 6, where apparently coordinated sexual assaults were perpetrated against women on New Year's Eve 'Recogniser' Sergeant Eliot Porritt told Bild: In London, there are now over one million surveillance cameras. We have many years of experience in collecting and evaluating the recordings. The report by Times Berlin correspondent David Charter follows a court officers announcement that a Moroccan and a Tunisian have been charged over a theft on New Year's Eve in Cologne. These are the first indictments related to assaults blamed largely on foreigners that caused public uproar and heightened tension over Germany's migrant influx. The two men were charged over the alleged theft from a man of a bag containing a camera near the city's main station and are now in custody, news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported. 'Have respect and nice sex': A woman holds a written sign during a demonstration in Cologne on January 5 Protest: Women hold up signs that read 'Mrs Merkel: Where are you? What are you saying? This worries us!' Almost 1,000 criminal complaints have been filed over the New Year's Eve events, more than half alleging sexual assaults. Authorities have identified 35 suspects, of whom 32 are from North Africa. We have many years of experience in collecting and evaluating the recordings Sergeant Eliot Porritt Meanwhile, it was revealed migrants arriving in Germany are being given an instruction manual telling them not to grope women. In the series of 14 cartoons intended to promote integration, migrants are also told to look women in the eyes rather than any other part of their body when talking to them. One warns that women should be respected no matter what they are wearing. A picture of a man touching a womans bottom has a big cross through it. Demonstration: People wave German flags next to a banner saying 'Rapefugees Not Welcome' as supporters of anti-immigration Right-wing movement Pegida and other groups protest against the sex attacks in Cologne Also yesterday, the German Cabinet approved measures meant to make it easier to deport foreign criminals - a package that ministers drew up amid outrage over the Cologne assaults. Justice Minister Heiko Maas said the measures approved yesterday, which must still be passed by Parliament, are also in the interest of hundreds of thousands of migrants in Germany. Anne Frank's stepsister who survived Auschwitz has compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. Eva Schloss, now aged 86, met Anne in Amsterdam where both their families took refuge after fleeing from Nazi Germany. After the war, Eva's mother Fritzi married Anne's father Otto Frank. Now, in an interview to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Schloss has reflected on the traumatic period - and she sees little difference between Hitler's rhetoric and that of aspiring president Donald Trump. 'If Donald Trump become[s] the next president of the US it would be a complete disaster. I think he is acting like another Hitler by inciting racism,' Schloss told Newsweek. Anne Frank's stepsister who survived Auschwitz has compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler Anne Frank was 15 when she died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945. Schloss, the co-founder of Anne Frank Trust UK, was detained at the same time and sent to Auschwitz. She survived and now lives in London. She also takes aim at America for resisting calls to take more refugees from Syria - comparing the migrant crisis to her own experience during the Holocaust. Trump has been vocal about his beliefs that America should place a ban on Muslims entering the country, and vows he would implement such a ban if he were to be elected president. He also vows to build a wall along the Mexican border. In his bid to promote this idea, he released a campaign video using footage of a war zone in Morocco. Pointing to America, Schloss says: 'If countries as big as the U.S. and Canada would take in more people, then we would get much closer to a solution.' Eva Schloss, now aged 86, met Anne in Amsterdam where both their families took refuge after fleeing from Nazi Germany. After the war, Eva's mother Fritzi married Anne's father Otto Frank She adds: 'The situation today is worse than it was under Hitler because at that time all the Alliesthe U.S., Russia and Britainworked together to combat the terrible threat of Nazisim. If we don't work together, the world will never be able to resolve the threats it faces today.' Her words come as Trump heads for the crucial Iowa caucus, which could make or break his run for the Republican nomination. The controversial real estate mogul has come under fire for his comments about immigrants, his vows to ban Muslims from entering the United States, and to build a wall on the Mexican border 'that Mexico will pay for'. Susan Jordan (pictured), principal of Amy Beverland Elementary School for 22 years, died saving six to ten of her students on Tuesday by pushing them out of the way of an oncoming bus An Indianapolis elementary school principal sacrificed her life to save six to ten of her students by pushing them out of the way of an oncoming bus, a teacher who witnessed the incident estimated on Wednesday. Susan Jordan, the principal of Amy Beverland Elementary School for 22 years, is being hailed a hero after she was killed when a school bus suddenly lurched forward, fatally striking her. Third-grade teacher Debbie Thie said she was standing on a sidewalk outside the school on Tuesday in front of a line of buses at about 2.45pm when the incident occured. As students filed out, she saw a bus, which had a driver aboard, heave forward toward the children. Two ten-year-old students were injured and Jordan was killed in what authorities believe was an accident. 'It was as if the bus wouldn't stop,' Thie said. 'The bus came up on the curb and kept going, across the sidewalk and into the grass. Susan immediately started saving the children. She backed up toward the school trying to beat the bus. She's grabbing kids and scooting them out of the way.' Thie said she lost sight of Jordan and didn't see her get hit. Thie said she thought Jordan pushed six to ten children out of the way but she couldn't be certain because 'it all went so quickly'. 'There weren't as many under the bus as some of us thought we saw,' she said. The female driver of that bus said 'in the instant that the accident occurred' she witnessed Jordan's heroism as the principal push several students out of the way. Scroll down for video Amy Bilyeu, left, and Deanna Renbarger speak during a news conference on Wednesday following Jordan's death Denna Renbarger (center, with Amy Bilyeu [left] and Jamie Strebing [right]), director of early childhood education for the school district, added that Jordan 'owned that school. She loved that school with every inch of her' Third-grade teacher Debbie Thie said she was standing on a sidewalk outside the school on Tuesday at about 2.45pm when the incident occured. The scene of the crash can be seen above Thie said she lost sight of Jordan and didn't see her get hit, but thought Jordan pushed six to ten children out of the way The unnamed school bus driver (pictured) told firefighters that she doesn't know what caused the bus to accelerate Two ten-year-old children were hospitalized with serious but non-life-threatening injuries thanks to Ms Jordan's fast action. 'At some point, the stationary bus lurched forward and jumped the curb. The bus was not moving at the time directly before it jumped the curb,' Reith said. The bus driver told firefighters she was not sure what caused the bus to accelerate. The driver and 25 students on the bus were examined by emergency responders but did not require treatment. Police Sgt Kendale Adams said he didn't know whether there were any other witnesses. Hours later, after the students had gone home with parents and the staff was waiting with grief counselors and clergy, Thie said she was holding out hope that Jordan somehow survived. 'I kept thinking, she's going to pop up here,' she said. 'She has been our rock through everything. She always made things better no matter how bad it was.' Two ten-year-olds went to the hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injures due to Jordan's heroism The driver and 25 students on the bus were examined by emergency responders but did not require treatment School in the district has been canceled for Wednesday but four locations were said to be open for counsling Several officials were on scene at Amy Beverland Elementary School where Jordan was killed on Tuesday Colleagues said Jordan, who had been principal at the school, Amy Beverland Elementary, made it a point to get to know every student and bring out the best in each. She 'was going to do everything in her power to make sure that any child that attended that school is going to be successful,' Amy Bilyeu, president of the school's parent-faculty organization, said during a news conference. Denna Renbarger, director of early childhood education for the school district, added that Jordan 'owned that school. She loved that school with every inch of her'. Jordan was loved by her staff and the school community, Lawrence Township Schools Superintendent Shawn Smith said at a news conference. 'This is a great example of an educational leader in our state and our city,' Smith said. 'Just a phenomenal individual that truly cared about children. 'This is a tragic situation that we have. This loss is going to ripple across our district of 15,000 students.' The female driver of that bus said 'in the instant that the accident occurred' she witnessed Jordan's heroism as the principal push several students out of the way Children are picked up by their parents after the bus accident that killed principal Jordan. Two students (not pictured) suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the incident Lawrence Township school district officials canceled classes at all of the district's schools on Wednesday, but some students chose to go to the elementary school to make banners and write messages to remember their principal. Four facilities, including a transportation center, were kept open to provide emotional support to staff and families. Police said an initial investigation found no mechanical problems on the bus. The investigation is ongoing, but authorities are 'going off the premise this was a tragic and unfortunate accident,' Adams said. The bus driver, whose name has not been released, showed no visible signs of impairment, Adams said. She was given a blood test, which is standard procedure in collisions involving fatalities, but results from the toxicology test aren't expected for weeks, Adams said. School officials said the bus driver has no history of moving violations or discipline issues, and described her as a model employee. They wouldn't say how long she has been driving for the district. Gov Mike Pence ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in Marion County on Saturday, the day of Jordan's funeral. Officers from the Indianapolis area secured the site where Susan Jordan was killed after saving students Jordan had been the principal of Amy Beverland Elementary School in Indianaplis for 22 years The child migrant centre where a young social worker was stabbed to death may face corporate manslaughter charges over her murder. Alexandra Mezher, 22, died after being knifed at a shelter for unaccompanied young asylum seekers in Molndal, Gothenburg. Miss Mezher was working alone on a night shift in the housing block, home to ten teenage asylum seekers, when she was attacked by a boy believed to be 15 years old and from Somalia. Alexandra Mezher (right, with her mother Chimene) , 22, died after being knifed at a shelter for unaccompanied young asylum seekers Miss Mezher's mother Chimene said 'orphans' at the centre (pictured) often lied about their age A boy is in police custody being held at a high security psychiatric unit being quizzed by murder detectives over the killing. Prosecutors are also investigating where the migrant centre where Miss Mezher worked is responsible for her death, it has emerged. The management company that runs the centre HVB Living Nordic may be charged with violating work environment law and involuntary manslaughter, Goteborgs Posten reports. In addition to the police murder investigation, Swedens Work Environment Administration has launched a probe into whether HVB Living Nordic broke work environment law by letting Miss Mezher work alone. Miss Mezhers employer is a private company which is paid by the local authority to provide housing and care for unaccompanied minors. In 2014, Molndal received 276million SEK(22.6m) to provide housing for unaccompanied minors the most state funding per capita than any town or city in Sweden. HVB Living Nordic reported a profit earning 67,250 profit for the year. Her mother revealed yesterday she complained she was caring for 'big powerful guys' aged up to 24, at the centre despite it being for children aged 14-17. Alexandra's mother said her daughter (second from left) had been warned four hours before she started her last shift that a knife had been stolen from the kitchen, but nothing was apparently don She said her daughter worked there alone on night shifts because she wanted to help 'mother' the supposed youngsters, some of whom in reality were grown men. It came as police last night charged Youssaf Khaliif Nuur, a Somalian '15-year-old', with murder and attempted murder but admitted they may not know his true identity. Mrs Mezher, 42, said: 'Alexandra knew how to handle children including violent ones. But those she was working with were big powerful guys she could see it in their eyes and their bodies. 'A few were maybe under 18, but the rest were older, maybe 23 or 24.' She said her psychology graduate daughter had been warned four hours before she started her last shift that a knife had been stolen from the kitchen, but nothing was apparently done. The shelter was set up in Molndal, a suburb of Gothenburg, to house migrants aged 14 to 17. Some 4,000 arrived without their parents in the past year alone in Molndal, which has a population of just 60,000. Mrs Mezher said: 'She said she had two from Somalia there, but never mentioned any trouble with them. Alexandra never said she was afraid of working there I think she was protecting me, she did not want to scare me. 'But a friend from the centre called her four or five hours before she started work that day to say a knife had been stolen from the kitchen. I heard her talking. Alexandra (right) is said to have earlier warned that she was caring for 'big powerful guys' aged up to 24 Flowers and candles (pictured) were left outside the refuge centre in Molndal, near Gothenburg, where Alexandra was killed No one was allowed to say anything to their bosses at that place, they were too frightened, so I don't know if the missing knife was reported. 'The boss of the company has not even been here to see the family.' Mother-of-four Mrs Mezher, who migrated from Lebanon 25 years ago, said: 'Immigration has destroyed Sweden, they are coming in more than the country can accept. The kids that are coming here are criminal.' She later wept bitterly as she remembered her 'angel' daughter at a church memorial service attended by 100 mourners who brought pink and white roses, Miss Mezher's favourite flowers. Staff at the centre where the aid worker was stabbed in the back and thigh on Monday morning were allegedly ignored when they repeatedly warned a 'serious' incident would happen, it was claimed. A therapist at the shelter said: 'The management was not listening. All staff complained they were extremely understaffed and often had to work alone. We [said] it was only a matter of time before something serious happened.' Asylum centre inspectors recently wrote that supervisors had been warned 'several times' about cutbacks leading to staff being left alone, and Mrs Mezher yesterday vowed to sue those responsible. National police chief Dan Eliasson sparked controversy by expressing sympathy for the alleged attacker, saying: 'Who knows what horrors he has been through?' Asylum centre inspectors recently wrote that supervisors had been warned 'several times' about cutbacks leading to staff being left alone (pictured, the psychiatric unit where murder suspect, 15, is being held) Patrick Sjogren, boss of HVB Living Nordic, the company that runs the centre, is a former wine company chairman also involved in internet poker. He said: 'We follow all the rules. It is true, I have worked in other areas, but that does not make me less suited to working with unaccompanied refugee children. We have had several indications from (the inspectors) that we are doing it right.' Last night Swedish police named their suspect who is due in court today but added in a statement: 'The identity is not proven.' Meanwhile, national police chief Dan Eliasson sparked controversy by expressing sympathy for the alleged attacker, saying: 'Who knows what horrors he has been through?' He said he was 'distressed' by the tragedy, but added: 'Under what circumstances has he grown up? What is the trauma he carries? This entire immigration crisis shows how unfair life is in many parts of the world.' n A Danish teenager who claims she was sexually assaulted near a centre for migrants has been told she faces a fine for using pepper spray on her attacker. The distraught father of a 16-year-old schoolboy who drowned in a flooded quarry has said he will not leave the site until his son's body is found. Duncan Wilmott, 16, did not resurface after he jumped from a ledge into a water-filled former mine near Ipswich, west of Brisbane, on Monday while playing with friends. His father, Ryan Wilmott, has reportedly been holding a waterside vigil at the Collingwood Park quarry with other family members as divers continue to search for the body in depths of up to 80m. 'It's horrible, he's been in there two nights, you can't imagine what it feels like to have your son in the water for that long,' Mr Wilmott said on Wednesday, according to Fairfax Media. Duncan Wilmott, 16, went missing after diving into a flooded quarry and his father Ryan (pictured together) has said he will not leave the site until the his body is found Duncan did not resurface after he jumped from a ledge into a water-filled former mine near Ipswich, west of Brisbane 'I'm not leaving here until they find him. We'll be out there every day until he comes up.' A devastated friend who was swimming with Duncan when he disappeared in the water has written an emotional tribute, saying how he tried to save the teenager. 'I just wish everyone knew how hard I tried,' Shane Alston wrote on his friend's Facebook tribute page. 'We should of had more people with us bro. I'm sorry I turned around and went back to the surface. I'm sorry I let you sink bro. Duncan dived into the water, briefly resurfaced, then disappeared below at around 10.45am on Monday A dive squad is continuing to comb the flooded quarry for the body, but the search has been hampered by submerged car bodies, trees and large boulders 'I cry all the time. This time I wasn't quick enough.' Duncan dived into the water, briefly resurfaced, then disappeared below at around 10.45am on Monday. It is understood when he resurfaced, a friend was immediately aware that something was wrong and phoned emergency services. They were believed to be part of a group that trespassed on private land at Collingwood Park to go swimming at the old mine site. A dive squad is continuing to comb the flooded quarry for the body, but the search has been hampered by submerged car bodies, trees and large boulders. The boy's distraught family reportedly watched on as the search entered its fourth day on Thursday. Mr Wilmott, an estate agent, posted an emotional tribute (shown) to his 'best mate' on Monday The boy's distraught family reportedly watched on as the search entered its fourth day on Thursday Duncan's mother, Nicole Kable, has asked anyone visiting the quarry to avoid throwing anything else into the water as it could hinder the search. 'We just want a better chance at finding our son,' she said. She has been watching the progress of the search at the waterside vigil along with Duncan's sister and father. Mr Wilmott, an estate agent, posted an emotional tribute to his 'best mate' on Monday. 'Today my 16 yo son passed away (sic). We will keep everyone informed of when and where the funeral will be. 'God bless my son. Duncan Cameron Wilmott. R.I.P my best mate.' A devastated friend who was swimming with Duncan when he disappeared in the water has written an emotional tribute, saying how he tried to save the teenager Sonar equipment has been used in the search, but police said divers were having to battle with difficult and hazardous conditions. 'The site itself is very hazardous for the divers, it's a very deep site, well past their depth range and the inside of the mine site is full of water, which is quite cold down there, being fresh water,' he said. Friends have also paid tribute to the teenager who was due to start his final school year at Ipswich State High School on Wednesday. Blake Lewis said: 'I miss you brother. I would give anything to hear your voice once last time. 'I need you back brother I can't do this with out you. You will always be in my heart.' A daughter of Britain's most married man has pleaded with his ninth wife-to-be to 'run, run quick' after he proposed despite still being married to his eighth wife. Sue Feldt, 48, is urging Cristal Marquez to avoid marrying her father Ron Sheppard, 67, claiming his string of marriages over the years have already caused 'so much pain and stress, so many tears'. Mr Sheppard had proposed to Cristal, 27, in a karaoke bar in her hometown in the Philippines at New Year, amid plans to leave his current wife, Weng, who he shares a home with in Somerset. However, after going public with his new engagement, the father-of-eight has now claimed he may stick with his eighth wife after all claiming they patched up a domestic dispute with a McDonalds. Sue Feldt, 48, is urging Cristal Marquez to avoid marrying her father Ron Sheppard, 67 (pictured together), claiming his string of marriages over the years have already caused 'so much pain and stress, so many tears' Mr Sheppard, 67, got down on one knee and proposed to Filipino call centre worker Cristal Marquez in a bar in the Philippines on New Year's Eve, despite still being married to his current wife - number eight - Weng, 37 The pair had come to blows over his plans to marry Cristal, who is 40 years his junior, when Weng, 37, learned of the news on Sunday after reading about it in a national newspaper. They apparently had an explosive row at their home in Somerton, Somerset, which resulted in the police being called. Mr Sheppard, a retired holiday camp entertainer, told the Daily Mirror: 'We had a big row. Weng went out of the room, came back with a hammer and smashed my phone. 'We were struggling and I pushed her neck to get away. It's all in the police report. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing and it just got all over-heated.' He added: 'At the moment we're in the process of getting divorced but it's looking like we might get back together. 'She's bought me a new tablet, we've had lunch together at McDonalds, she's told me she loves me and I've said I love her.' Following the row, two of the serial bridegroom's daughters have spoken out to condemn their 'embarrassing' father's antics and to claim they want nothing more to do with him. Ms Feldt, who is one of three children from his first marriage to ex-wife Margaret, said: 'I am ashamed to call him my dad. I have disowned him and he will die a lonely old man because he has destroyed his family who used to worship him.' Weng Platino, pictured with Mr Sheppard (left, on their wedding day) and (right, celebrating their 10th anniversary in 2014) is said to have 'brandished a hammer' at him after his recent proposal came to light The twice-divorced mother-of-four, who has moved to Australia, also urged his new fiancee to avoid marrying her father, claiming he is a serial dater who will never be happy with just one woman. She told the Mirror: 'What I would say to Cristal is: '"Run! Run quick in a different direction to my dad". I want the world to know this man is not what he claims to be.' Another of his daughters, married mother-of-two Kelly-Marie McMullen, 32, from St Austell in Cornwall, described him as 'Britain's worst father' and said he has 'let me down all my life'. She told the newspaper: 'I think he is vile. 'I haven't seen him since last summer and our relationship is finished now.' Avon and Somerset Police confirmed officers were called to a disturbance at the Mr Sheppard and Wengs property in Somerset at about 1pm on Sunday. Cristal Marquez shows off her engagement ring after Mr Sheppard popped the question over New Year A spokesman added: Both parties have been spoken to. Neither wish to make a complaint so no further action will be taken at this time. Mr Sheppard, who has written a book on his life called Lord of the Wedding Rings and is set to have a film made about him, has married eight women since his first ceremony aged 19 in 1966. He tied the knot with first wife Margaret 47 years ago and the pair had two children together before divorcing two years later. He then met second wife Jeanette and they wed in 1973, but it only lasted one year and Mr Sheppard has since described the marriage as a 'business transaction' which enabled them to receive a bigger house from the council. Shortly after their divorce, Mr Sheppard met third wife Lesley and in 1976 they tied the knot. They went on to have two children together and he said he thought she 'was for keeps', but he left five years later following a string of arguments. He went on to meet 18-year-old blonde Kathy at Pontins holiday camp in Somerset and the pair married in 1982. They had a daughter together and lasted four years, despite Mr Sheppard claiming it was a 'rebound relationship' following his split from Lesley. It wasn't long after that split that he met his fifth wife Sue at a bingo hall. Despite claiming he wasn't 'swept off his feet by her', he moved in to her two-bedroom home and they married in 1986. They had two sons together but she threw him out after he was offered a job in Bournemouth. He then went on to marry Usha in 1999, after the pair met while he was on a stop-off trip to Singapore. They lasted four years but split after Mr Sheppard cheated on her during a holiday alone to Thailand. With divorce number six behind him, he met seventh wife, Wan, in Bangkok in 2003 during a trip to visit an old friend. However, after returning to the UK, the pair stayed together for just eight months before the bride announced she was returning to her native country in 2003. Mr Sheppard first walked down the aisle in 1966, when he married his first wife Margaret, at the age of just 19 Mr Sheppard married third wife Lesley in 1976 and they had two children together but left her five years later It was then that Mr Sheppard met his current wife, trainee nurse Weng, after reaching out online and sparking up a friendship with her. He said he had finally settled down after finding his 'true love' and 'soul mate', and on their tenth wedding anniversary in 2014 said he hoped they had 10 more years together. However, less than two years later he fell for Filipino call centre worker Cristal after secretly chatting her up online. Mr Sheppard fell for Filipino call centre worker Cristal after secretly chatting her up online. The couple first met more than ten years ago, when Cristal was 15 or 16, while he was married to Wan, wife number seven, and living in Thailand. Mr Sheppard met Weng after splitting from his seventh wife, Wan (together above), when she returned to her home in Bangkok after eight months He was said to have grown distant from his current wife Weng after 11 years of marriage following his antics on a recent trip to the Far East, which included him sharing a bed with young female masseuse Iza Samontes, 27. Parkinson's sufferer Mr Sheppard, who denied misbehaving, proposed to mother-of-one Cristal on New Year's Eve and previously said he intends to adopt her seven-year-old son Miggs. Speaking of meeting Cristal, he said: 'I was invited out there for Christmas to spend it with her family. She is absolutely adoring and very, very caring. 'She looked after me so well when I was over there. With my Parkinson's she took really good care of me - she even showered me to make sure I was ok. 'When I proposed I did get down on one knee - I managed to do it. She said 'yes' straight away. She loves me to bits, same as I do her. I think we'll be married by September.' Mr Sheppard has spent 44 of the last 47 years married. His longest union lasted 13 years, while the shortest was just 10 months. He married Weng on the Isle of Wight in November 2004 and he said she was 'the one' when they celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary last year. He admitted that nine months ago he started messaging other women via a dating website but claimed he 'didn't know what he was doing' due to medication he takes for Parkinson's. He said he messaged 'one or two people' sending them around 300 and Weng was upset when she saw the messages. In November, he went to the Philippines alone for a four-week charity trip, and ordered a leg massage in his hotel room, which was carried out by Iza. Mr Sheppard said there was a security lock-down due to President Obama attending a nearby economic meeting forced her to stay in his hotel room. He denies they had sex, and simply slept in the same room, but Weng demanded a divorce. Unemployed Cristal, lives in Pampanga with her mother, and Mr Sheppard said she was married previously, but split up with her husband six years ago. Mr Sheppard married Weng in 2004 and is now contemplating whether he wants to stay with her or marry Cristal. He said: 'We're in the process of getting divorced but it's looking like we might get back together' Mr Sheppard said previously: 'She doesn't want me just for a visa because she actually wants to stay in the Philippines, but because of my medication it would be too expensive, so she has agreed to come over here in about six months. 'When I arrived at the airport Miggs ran up and gave me a cuddle and said 'hello daddy Ron, I love you daddy Ron'. 'It was so lovely. 'I'm going to adopt Miggs. It will take some time, but we'll do it. His English is brilliant and he prefers to speak English - it's fate.' They had planned to get married in England in September, although Mr Sheppard is now said to be deciding about whether to go ahead with the union or stay and work it out with current wife Weng. Cristal said: 'I want to marry Ron - definitely. He is a very loving person and so sweet. I'm attracted to him. I've fallen in love with him. Police in a German town were ordered not to prosecute migrants for certain crimes - just two months before the New Year's Eve sex attacks in Cologne, it has emerged. Documents show officers in Kiel, northern Germany, were told to forego prosecuting migrants for theft and criminal damage amid fears there was little chance of succeeding. The guidelines were issued by the police directorate in the town in October 2015 just months before hundreds of women reported being robbed and molested by migrants in Cologne on December 31. Scroll down for video Police in a German town were ordered not to prosecute migrants for certain crimes two months before the New Year sex attacks in Cologne, it has emerged (file picture) German police have now been accused of 'surrendering' in the face of refugee crime. Documents published by the Bild newspaper on Thursday show that an official guideline issued by the police directorate in Kiel in October 2015 let asylum seekers effectively live outside the laws of the land when it comes to minor theft and criminal damage. Officers were told there was little chance of success because so many of the arrivals in Germany do not have papers, and often if they do, they are false. Kiel decided that the costs of pursuing asylum seekers for these low-level offences were too high, the chances of success in court too low. Kiel's police authority stated that its guidelines should become a 'statewide applicable rule' whereby 'simple/low-threshold offences (shoplifting/vandalism)' by migrants should not be followed up because of the low chance of identifying suspects and gaining a successful prosecution. But 'higher order' offences are to be treated the same, 'especially serious cases of theft and personal injury,' regardless of whether the perpetrator is a German citizen or a refugee. The guidelines were sent as a circular to all police stations in Kiel urging restraint if the ID of a migrant suspect could not be ascertained within 12 hours of a crime being reported. Documents show officers in Kiel, northern Germany, were told to forego prosecuting migrants for theft and criminal damage amid fears there was little chance of succeeding (file picture) 'The reason for the orders is apparently the high effort at the same time as low chances of success, since many refugees carry no identification documents with them,' commented news magazine Focus. Under pressure after the document surfaced, Kiel's police authority said a new circular dated December 23 last year made the earlier one 'outdated' - but media reports that it contains no references to petty crimes. The news is cannon fodder for Germany's far right which accuses the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel of letting in 'rapists and thieves' among the million-plus asylum seekers who have come into the country over the course of a year. One Kiel businesswoman told Bild that the police edict in her city was a 'carte blanche for immigrants to steal.' Karolina Hofmann, 37, CEO of the household goods shop Kochfest, is outraged. 'For what exactly, please, are we paying our taxes for? 'Police officers should not engage in prevent theft? Offenders in our city are simply getting a free pass.' Furious locals in Papua New Guinea have cast doubts on a British man's claims he and his US girlfriend were tied up and attacked by hostile tribesmen during a remote jungle trek. Matthew Iovane thought he would be 'eaten by cannibals' when he and American Michelle Clemens were tied up, stripped naked and beaten during the ordeal. But police have now begun looking at the pair's story, which occurred while they walked the country's famous Kokoda Trail. Scroll down for video A trekking guide in Papua New Guinea has cast doubts on the claims of Matthew Iovane and Michelle Clemens, who claimed they were tied up, stripped naked and attacked while walking the country's famous Kokoda Trail During their ordeal, Mr Iovane, 31, said he was shackled to a tree while Miss Clemens, also 31, was repeatedly attacked and had her fingers sliced open. He said they had no idea why they had been targeted and the only thing they could understand their captors saying was 'kill you'. And the couple only finally managed to escape while they were being force-marched through the jungle and ran naked back to safety. In the days following the attack, police confirmed the pair were stripped of their belongings including mobile phones, shoes, backpacks and 15,000 kina (3,500) in cash. They added Mr Iovane was tied to a tree while Miss Clemens was repeatedly attacked before three of her fingers were chopped. In an apparent backtrack, Dominic Kakas, constabulary chief superintendent of the Royal Papua New Guinea, now says: 'We are doing our own checks on what we have been provided,' ABC reported. 'We are now trying to re-establish the facts and what has happened.' Mr Iovane (pictured) is from Shoreditch, London, and in 2008 appeared on the reality TV show Shipwrecked Locals, furious at being labelled 'cannibals' and the damage the story may have caused to the country's vital tourism industry, have also begun making their own inquiries. Charlie Lynn, an experienced Australian outdoorsman who operates a trekking business along the remote 60mile trail, questioned key aspects of the couple's story. It was only after an hour-long ordeal that the two said they were either freed or escaped, and claimed they had made a desperate dash through the jungle to safety at a nearby village. Mr Iovane, from Shoreditch, London, had claimed his t-shirt was used to blindfold him during the attack and the pair were virtually stripped naked. But in a blog on his website, Mr Lynn said the couple were photographed boarding a rescue helicopter after the attack. In this image, they were allegedly wearing the same clothes as they wore into the jungle, according Alfie Jack and George Kavanato, two drivers who saw the couple prior to the trip. He wrote: This begs the question as to how the clothing they were wearing on the helicopter at Alola village miraculously reappeared after their semi-naked trek from Templetons Crossing when, according to their own account, all their possessions had been stolen.' Mr Lynn - who has walked the Kokoda Trail 79 times - also said the two would have suffered terrible cuts to their feet had they made the 15 km journey they claimed they had. He wrote: 'This would have been a difficult and painful trek for semi-naked expatriates without shoes. 'Their feet would have been seriously lacerated during the 8 12 hours it would have taken them to complete it under the conditions they described.' Furthermore, he rubbished details Mr Iovane provided about the rugged jungle environment, where he had claimed the couple lived like 'Tarzan and Jane' in the days prior to the attack. Danger: The pair thought they might be eaten after they were tied up and threatened by the tribe (file photo) The Kokoda Trail (pictured) is a stunning 60mile jungle trek that takes travellers from Kokoda to Port Moresby, passing by remote villages and famous Second World War battlesites Mr Iovane had originally told The Sun: 'The first five days were among the most amazing of our lives. 'We lived like Tarzan and Jane on nuts packed into our rucksacks and bananas, papaya, wild spinach and exotic tree tomatoes found only in this jungle.' But Mr Lynn said fruit and nuts do not grow wild along the jungle trails - they are only available when sold by villagers located near the track. And he also dismissed their suggestion they encountered a pack of wild dogs during their terrifying journey through the jungle to safety. He wrote: 'There are no wild dogs on the Kokoda Trail because there is nothing for them to eat. There are small dogs in villages along the trail which are kept as domestic pets.' Mr Iovane could not be reached for comment, though he discounted Mr Lynn's investigation when contacted by News.com.au. He told the website: 'He is trying to clearly protect his business. The truth is on the global news and from the police officials describing what happened. Charlie is merely a blogger looking to create skepticism to protect his business - maybe try looking at the evidence from the police.' MPs fear they could lose their hair salon, flower shop and car park as part of the multi-billion revamp of Parliament. As Parliamentary authorities search for ways to minimise the estimated 4bn bill for taxpayers, MPs have begun lobbying to save their facilities from being turned into tourist venues. The cheapest and quickest option for refurbishing the Palace of Westminster would require MPs to temporarily move out of the building for up to six years. MPs have started to privately lobby the committee overseeing the plans to ensure that they do not lose their on-site hairdressers, flower shop and car park MPs will have to move out of the House of Commons chamber temporarily while the refurbishment takes place A specially-made chamber built in the courtyard of the Department of Health just 100 yards down the road from the Palace of Westminster is the preferred option among MPs. But they have started to privately lobby the committee overseeing the plans to ensure that they do not lose their on-site hairdressers and flower shop while they are away, according to The Times. Remaining close to the Palace of Westminster would be the most convenient option for government ministers, who would continue to work in Whitehall departments and must be held accountable to Parliament. MPs will have to move out of the House of Commons chamber for at least six years while essential repairs take place. The Palace of Westminster is riddled with asbestos, leaking ceilings, rodents and moths and was described as a 'death trap' by one close to the refurbishment plans. MPs could be moved from their current home, left, to a temporary chamber built in the Department of Health courtyard, right, as part of plans to refurbish the decaying Palace of Westminster The proposal to move to the Department of Health is among the most popular because it is housed just 100 yards from the Commons entrance and many MPs' offices are in the adjacent building at 1 Parliament Street An independent report commissioned by Parliament estimated that the revamp would cost more than 7bn and take 32 years to complete if politicians did not move out of the building temporarily. But the costs could be halved to an estimated 3.5bn and take just six years if MPs and peers agree to a temporary new home. Plans to rehouse MPs in Whitehall was discussed by Labour's Shadow Leader of the Commons at Monday's Parliamentary Labour party meeting, according to reports in the Guardian and Huffington Post. Mr Bryant told his colleagues that Parliament's Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster had all but ruled out the idea of relocating MPs outside London. Chris Grayling, the Leader of the Commons and chairs the cross-party committee overseeing the refurbishment plans, is expected to tell Tory MPs of the plans later this week. Where to relocate roughly 800 peers is proving more difficult. Chris Bryant, the Shadow Leader of the Commons, briefed Labour MPs about the plans to relocate MPs at a meeting on Monday. He told them that the idea of rehousing MPs outside London had been all but ruled out One idea is to move MPs to the House of Lords, pictured above. The last time MPs debated in the upper chamber was after bombing damaged the House of Commons chamber during the Second World War Similar courtyards in the Treasury or the Foreign and Commonwealth Office could be used as part of the refurbishment, which is expected to begin following the 2020 general election. MPs moved to the House of Commons during the Second World War after bombing damaged the chamber. Moving MPs to a courtyard in the Department of Health is popular with some MPs because it could easily be integrated into the current Parliamentary estate. It is located next to 1 Parliament Street and Porcullis House, where many MPs' offices are housed, meaning MPs could go to vote in the temporary chamber without leaving the estate and avoiding security concerns. Department of Health staff would have to move out of the offices in Richmond House at 79 Whitehall while a temporary chamber is built. Previous proposals for relocating MPs caused controversy, with a plan to house politicians in an underground car park generating outrage because it was the spot where Tory MP Airey Neave was killed by an IRA car bomb in 1979. A suggestion to rehouse MPs in an underground car park on the estate caused outrage because it was the spot where Tory MP Airey Neave was killed by an IRA bomb in 1979 Tory MP Stuart Andrew told the Mail on Sunday that the plan was 'bonkers'. 'The very idea of us holding debates in an underground car park especially that location will be anathema to most of us,' he said. Moscow secret services is warning that Russian tourists in Turkey are in danger of abductions and 'public executions' by jihadist group ISIS. Travellers could also be used as 'human shields' after being smuggled into rebel-held regions of Syria, according to official sources. The claim citing 'competent agencies' in Moscow comes from Russia's Federal Agency for Tourism. The agency issued a warning to Russians visiting Turkey that ISIS is planning to capture tourists in the country then move them back into its territory to be used as human shields in airstrikes (pictured) The chilling warning follows the shooting down of a Russian Su-24 bomber by the Turkish air force, which has sent relations between the two countries plummeting to an all-time low 'The leaders of the international terrorist organisation ISIS - banned in the Russian Federation - plan to take Russian citizens hostage in the Republic of Turkey,' says a statement. 'According to the available information, these hostages may be moved to territories controlled by rebels in order to organise public executions and use the hostages as 'human shields' during combat actions with the Syrian governmental and coalition armies. 'With this regard, we appeal to all individual tourists heading to Turkey and remind them of the necessity to take all possible measures and make sure in personal security.' The chilling warning follows the shooting down of a Russian Su-24 bomber by the Turkish air force on the Syria-Turkey border in November. Turkey has been Russia's leading holiday destination for years but Moscow has already banned organised tours to the country over the incident. The stark warning appears to be aimed at tourists on individual trips and those travelling via third countries to reach Turkey. No additional information was given on the warning nor was there a direct statement from the 'competent agencies', seen as a euphemism for the security services. There is currently a deep crisis in relations between Moscow and Ankara. Russia reintroduced entry visas for Turks and slapped sanctions on several Turkish products. Russia has been conducting air strikes in Syria, its ally in the region since Soviet times, since September. Turkey meanwhile is part of a parallel US-led coalition targeting jihadists in the country. Manufacturer of Sophie's Pill gave condolences but said warnings in place The pair said: 'No parent in the world should have to bury their own child' Her parents are now calling on pharmaceutical firms to make more of risks Sophie Murray, from Accrington, Lancashire, had been taking the Pill for eight months when she started to complain of breathing difficulties and chest pains following a family trip to Gran Canaria The parents of a 16-year-old girl who died from a rare blood clot after taking the Pill are calling on pharmaceutical companies to make women more aware of the risks of oral contraception. Sophie Murray, from Accrington, Lancashire, had been taking the Pill for eight months when she started to complain of breathing difficulties and chest pains following a trip to Gran Canaria. The 'happy and healthy' schoolgirl died after 'suffering a fit' on November 8 last year, with doctors ruling her death was the result of a pulmonary embolism caused by deep vein thrombosis (DVT). An inquest at Blackburn Coroners Court last week that she developed DVT after returning from Gran Canaria, with her contraceptive pill deemed to be a contributory factor in her death. Her parents, Billy and Shelly, are now calling on manufacturers and doctors to issue clearer warnings as they said they were previously unaware the Pill had potential side-effects involving flights abroad. Speaking from the family's terraced home, Sophie's stepfather Billy Dearden said he believes the flight triggered a reaction as she had been on the Pill - without prior issue - for a number of months. The 39-year-old painter and decorator said: 'If not [the flight] then why has it not happened straight away when she started taking it? '[The risks] should be made aware to all women using the Pill and especially youngsters. A lot of mothers do put their daughters on the Pill because of their cycle and they should be made aware that it can happen to healthy young girls as well. 'We don't want anyone to have to go through what we've gone through. 'No parent in the world should have to bury their own child.' Sophie's mother Shelley Crichton, who works with adults with learning difficulties, said she was happy for her daughter to go on the Pill in a bid to help control her heavy period cycles. She said: 'Sophie developed really early and did have really bad pains in her stomach and her cycles were really heavy. There must be loads of girls like that. 'They should be given a bigger leaflet with bigger writing and clearer information for the Pill and doctors should stress to you to read it.' Sophie's parents, Billy and Shelly (pictured), are now calling on manufacturers and doctors to issue clearer warnings as they said they were previously unaware the Pill had potential side-effects involving flights abroad Sophie had been taking the Pill for eight months when she started to complain of breathing difficulties and chest pains following a family trip to Gran Canaria. She died after 'suffering a fit' on November 8 last year Only six out of every 10,000 women on the contraceptive pill develop DVT, compared to only two in 10,000 without the pill, and Sophie's inquest was told that fatalities are 'extremely rare'. Bayer which produces Microgynon, the type of Pill which Sophie was taking, offered its condolences to her family but said it had complied with regulations to update packaging information. RISKS ON WOMEN TAKING THE PILL Like most contraceptives, there are pros and cons to taking the Pill, with most doctors agreeing the benefits outweigh the risks. It been shown to protect against ovarian cancer, and cancer of the womb lining, as well as pelvic inflammatory disease - a major cause of infertility in women. It can also shorten a woman's periods and make them less painful, as well as provide relief from the symptoms of endometriosis and PCOS. However, research suggests the drugs slightly increase the risk of breast, cervical and liver cancer, as well as strokes, heart attack and blood clots. Bleeding in between periods, mood swings and headaches are other commonly-cited side effects. It can also increase blood pressure. Only six out of every 10,000 women on the contraceptive pill develop DVT, compared to only two in 10,000 without the pill. Fatalities as a result of the Pill are deemed to be 'extremely rare'. Natika Halil, chief executive of the Family Planning Association, said: 'For most women the benefits outweigh the risks but its really important to talk through the benefits and risks with a doctor or nurse.' Advertisement A spokesman said: 'At this sad time, our thoughts are with Sophie's family. 'Bayer takes the safety of its products very seriously and continuously reviews the safety profiles of its products. 'Bayer has also complied with regulations to update the product information provided on the combined hormonal contraceptives (CHCs), including the package leaflet, to help women make informed decisions about their choice of contraception together with their healthcare professionals.' The pharmaceutical firm also said the 'slightly increased' risk of developing blood clots for women taking the oral contraceptive pill was well-known and clearly stated on all information leaflets. The spokesman added: 'Microgynon is considered effective and overall, has a favourable benefit-risk profile when used appropriately. 'Risk of blood clots is slightly increased for women taking CHCs when compared with non-users. 'This is a well-known class effect of all CHCs as is clearly stated in the patient information leaflet of CHCs. The risk however of blood clots in a woman taking a CHC is smaller than the risk of clots associated with pregnancy.' Sophie had been prescribed the 'common' Microgynon pill for around eight months prior to her death in a bid to regulate her heavy periods. When she returned to the UK from the family holiday to Gran Canaria, she visited her doctors four times after complaining of aches, breathing problems and tightness in her chest. She was eventually prescribed an inhaler following tests, however her mother says after using it for a week it 'wasn't doing anything at all' and she was given a different inhaler on November 5. Three days later she woke up saying she couldn't breathe and shortly after had a 'fit' and her 'lips turned blue'. She was rushed to hospital but passed away later that day. The 'happy and healthy' schoolgirl (pictured with her younger brother Dominic, developed DVT after a return flight from Gran Canaria, with her oral contraceptive pill deemed to be a contributory factor in her death Sophie's mother Shelley Crichton (pictured together above) said she was happy for her daughter to go on the Pill in a bid to help control her heavy period cycles but wants more warnings on oral contraception packets Her devastated parents are now coming to terms with the loss of their 'loyal, friendly, strong-minded and ambitious' daughter, who was studying for her GCSEs at Accrington Academy. She was looking forward to studying A Levels before training to become a paramedic. Ms Crichton said there are 'no words to describe' the loss of their daughter, who was a sister to 12-year-old Dominic, and said she 'had her head screwed on' with 'everything to live for'. She added: 'Your kids are part of you. They are you. Dominic has been really strong. Whenever he sees me upset he comes and gives me a hug. 'Sometimes I just don't want to get out of bed in the morning because it's a longer day. 'I've always been a worrier anyway but I'm worrying and panicking more and more.' She described Sophie as a 'typical teenage girl' who enjoyed music, dancing, exercise DVDs and socialising with friends. 'We had lots of fun, she really enjoyed it and liked the sun, getting a tan and going shopping,' she recalled. Mr Dearden added: 'She knuckled down and knew what she had to do. She wasn't one of these kids that hangs around on street corners. She knew what she had to do and was dedicated. 'She had the drive and ambition of someone a lot older. We are trying to focus on one thing at a time, each day at a time. 'On that day Shelley lost a lot of herself as well as Sophie. 'It's left her a shell of her former self. It's left a hole in all our lives. Her brother, step-sister and step-brother all miss her terribly and still get sad.' Sophie Murray is pictured on a family holiday with her mother Shelley and her younger brother Dominic, 12 Sophie (wearing black vest) is pictured with her stepbrother Lynk Dearden and stepsister Lexy Dearden The couple, who spoke from the living room of their terraced home, are now planning on redecorating after beginning the process just before Sophie passed away. The walls of the room are stripped bare and it is sparsely decorated except for a large picture of their beloved daughter propped on a side table. Ms Crichton said: 'Sophie felt the living room was really cold and not comfy. This year I was going to [redecorate it] anyway but what happened has just prompted me to get it done sooner rather than later. 'It's getting the motivation and energy to go back to work and trying to do all these thing that Sophie wanted. 'It's quite difficult to focus on one thing at once. She chose the sofa she wanted from DFS and I had to order that because I was worried about it getting discontinued. The husband of a healthy young mother who died in the care of hospital staff only hours after giving birth was left without justice last night after the collapse of a landmark trial. Both consultant anaesthetist Dr Errol Cornish and the health trust he worked for were on trial over the death of primary school teacher Frances Cappuccini at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Kent. They were accused of failing the 30-year-old who never woke up from an emergency operation following the birth of her second son Giacomo by caesarean section in 2012. Primary school teacher Frances Cappuccini (left) died at Tunbridge Wells Hospital, Kent, in 2012. Dr Errol Cornish (pictured leaving court today, right), a consultant anaesthetist, was today cleared of gross negligence manslaughter But a High Court judge instructed the jury at Inner London Crown Court to acquit both of unlawfully killing the mother-of-two after ruling that they had no case to answer. He said there was no question that Mrs Cappuccini should not have died, praised her familys dignity and said it was inevitable they would want to hold someone to account. But, after two weeks of evidence, he outlined a series of flaws in the prosecution case. It means the young mothers husband Tom is still waiting for answers about who is to blame for the death of his wife more than three years after he lost her. Mr Cappuccini, 35, has been left to raise their two boys Giacomo, three, and Luca, five, on his own. He had turned up for each day of the trial and at times wept as the jury heard about the death of his beloved wife. After the case was thrown out by the judge on Wednesday, he left visibly upset. He was believed to be too devastated to return yesterday to hear the jury formally hand down the verdict clearing Dr Cornish and the Trust. A second anaesthetist, Dr Nadeem Azeez, would have been charged but fled to Pakistan before he could be arrested. Kent police have issued an arrest warrant but Britain has no extradition deal with the country. Frances Cappuccini, 30, known affectionately as Mrs Coffee to her pupils, died hours after giving birth Mrs Cappuccini left behind her husband Tom (pictured) and their two sons Giacomo, two, and Luca, five. Mr Cappuccini had attended court throughout the trial but was not present when the verdicts were read out The Crown Prosecution Service is now likely to face a legal bill of hundreds of thousands of pounds after defence lawyers indicated they may seek to recover costs. The death of Mrs Cappuccini known affectionately as Mrs Coffee by her pupils came just hours after the birth of her second son by caesarean section at Tunbridge Wells hospital in Pembury on October 9, 2012. After a lengthy investigation, Dr Cornish was charged with gross negligence manslaughter and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust with corporate manslaughter the first health trust to be charged with such an offence. Dr Azeez would have been charged had he been in the country. Dr Cornish's junior colleague, anaesthetist, Dr Nadeem Azeez, 53, (pictured) was also accused of gross negligence manslaughter, but did not face a trial because he had returned to his native Pakistan The trial began two weeks ago, but after adjourning for a day and a half this week, Mr Justice Peter Coulson allowed applications from both defence counsels to dismiss the case over a lack of evidence. He told Inner London Crown Court: Im firmly in the view that it would be unsafe and unfair to everyone including the family of Mrs Cappuccini to leave this case to the jury. He said the prosecution had not presented a credible case to show Dr Cornish was negligent, adding: It is as far removed from a gross negligence manslaughter case as it is possible to be. However, he acknowledged: There can be no question that Mrs Cappuccini should not have died. It is inevitable that her family want to know why it was that she did die, and they want someone to be held accountable. They have shown restraint and dignity. But, as I am sure they understand, this trial is not a public inquiry into her death. Dr Cornish and Dr Azeez are under investigation by the GMC and could still be struck off. The case will also be referred back to the coroner. The prosecution had claimed that both Dr Azeez, 53, and Dr Cornish, 68, failed to take the most basic steps to save the life of Mrs Cappuccini after she was unnecessarily anaesthetised, and that her death had been wholly avoidable. It was claimed that the men should have re-inserted a breathing tube and placed Mrs Cappuccini on a ventilator immediately when it became clear she was struggling to breathe. But the judge pointed out that both doctors had followed the Trusts guidance when they used a face mask and air bag instead. The Trust had been accused of failing to ensure Dr Cornish and Dr Azeez who received his basic qualifications in Lahore were properly qualified and trained. Mrs Cappuccini suffered heavy blood loss following the birth of Giacomo who was born by Caesarean section at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Kent (pictured) EVENTS WHICH LED TO DEATH OF TRAGIC TEACHER FRANCES CAPPUCCINI Mrs Cappuccini suffered heavy blood loss following the birth of Giacomo who was born by Caesarean section at the hospital in Kent October 8 8.30pm: Mrs Cappuccini's waters break and she is admitted to Tunbridge Wells Hospital. She is monitored overnight - the birth of her first son, Luca, by this time aged three, had been complicated and required a Caesarean section. October 9 8.25am: Mrs Cappuccini undergoes a Caesarean section and at 8.28am Giacomo is born. 9.13am: Mrs Cappuccini returns to the labour ward from the operating theatre. 11.35am: Mrs Cappuccini returns to the operating theatre for surgery to remove a remaining part of the placenta after suffering postpartum haemorrhage. She is given a general anaesthetic and is 'intubated' - a tube is inserted into her throat and her breathing is controlled by a ventilator. 12.20pm: The surgery is successful and the surgical team leave her with Dr Nadeem Azeez and theatre technicians to allow her to wake up. 12.30pm: Dr Azeez records that Mrs Cappuccini has started to open her eyes and he 'extubates' her - he removes the endotracheal tube (ETT) helping her breathe. He then 'bags' her, helping her breathe with a face mask and hand-operated oxygen pump. 12.35pm: Dr Azeez administers a second dose of reversal agents - drugs intended to lift the paralysis Mrs Cappuccini had been under. 12.45pm: Dr Gabriella Gray, a registrar in obstetrics, comes into theatre and asks Dr Azeez if everything is OK while he hand-ventilates. He nods and she leaves. Shortly before 1pm: Rebecca Shaw, the operating department practitioner, asks a colleague in a neighbouring operating theatre to call anaesthetist Dr Errol Cornish in to help Dr Azeez. 1pm: Dr Cornish, who had been caring for another woman having a Caesarean section, comes to help Dr Azeez. The prosecution and defence clashed over how long he stayed but Mr Justice Coulson ruled that he stayed for at most 40 minutes. 1.20pm: Dr Gray and another consultant obstetrician return to the operating theatre, having been told there may be a problem. 1.20pm-1.30pm approximately: Dr Raymond Chung, the on-call emergency consultant anaesthetist, speaks to the operating theatre and tells someone he believes is Dr Azeez to reintubate Mrs Cappuccini. 1.30pm-1.35pm: Consultant anaesthetist Dr Garth Sommerville arrives and from the door tells Dr Azeez to insert a laryngeal mask - a half-way measure less invasive than reintubation. He returns two minutes later after scrubbing up and finds it has not been done so does it himself. 1.30pm-1.40pm: Dr Chung arrives and finds Mrs Cappuccini has not yet been intubated. Dr Azeez then does so but her vital signs do not improve. Dr Chung told the court he may have passed the tube into her oesophagus instead of her windpipe and he later successfully did it himself. 1.40pm approximately: Dr Cornish leaves the operating theatre, leaving Mrs Cappuccini in the care of Dr Sommerville. 2pm approximately: Mrs Cappuccini is moved to 'theatre recovery' for further care as there are no spare beds in the hospital's intensive care unit. 2.10pm: Mrs Cappuccini is reintubated, according to medical records, although Dr Chung told the court he believed he did it earlier. 3.16pm: Mrs Cappuccini has a cardiac arrest. 4.20pm: Mrs Cappuccini is pronounced dead. Advertisement But the judge said it was perverse to have questioned the employment of Dr Cornish who he described as having an impressive career with a CV of a high standard. Following his formal acquittal Dr Cornish, from Bromley, said: I am relieved with the Courts verdict. He can still practise, under supervision, but faces a GMC investigation. Dr Azeez who wasnt formally on trial is still banned from practising medicine in this country, pending an investigation by the GMC. The court heard how the Trust had allowed Dr Azeez to continue to care for women in the maternity ward despite a woman almost dying in his care just seven months before Mrs Cappuccinis death. In March 2012, he was investigated after the new mother had to be urgently resuscitated because of his failings in almost identical circumstances to the death of Mrs Cappuccini. Mrs Cappiccini taught at Offham Primary School, near West Malling, Kent, (pictured) before she died. Pupils had affectionately given her the nickname 'Mrs Coffee' High walls surround the family home of Dr Nadeem Azeez, from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, who has now left the country and is believed to be in Pakistan Maidstone and Tunbridge wells NHS Trust Chief Executive Glen Douglas (left) and Medical Director Paul Sigston (right) arrive at court yesterday. The Trust was today cleared of corporate manslaughter charges The collapse of such a high-profile case will also raise questions about the CPS decision to bring the prosecution in the first place. It was the first time a corporate manslaughter offence has been enforced since it was introduced in 2008. Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust said it regretted that the CPS saw fit to pursue the charge, given the additional stress this will have caused to all involved. The Trust has however recognised, that there were aspects of Frances care that fell short of the standards that the Trust would expect. A CPS spokesman said: We appreciate that Mrs Cappuccinis family will be understandably upset by this outcome, but we respect the decision made by the judge. Friends of the popular teacher known as Frankie have set up the Frances Cording-Cappuccini Prize in her memory with the hope of saving the lives of young mothers like her. The MTA has banned hoverboards from the New York City transit system for safety reasons. Transit officials announced on Wednesday that riders will not be allowed to bring the two-wheeled motorized devices on buses, subway platforms and trains, the Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad and the Staten Island Railway. Officials say the ban is being issued because the lithium battery devices are a fire risk. MTA board vice chairman Fernando Ferrer says: 'There have been reports of exploding batteries, and certainly you dont want anything like that in a crowded subway car or a train.' The MTA will launch an ad campaign reminding riders of the band using their signature bubble people along with the saying, 'no hoverboards allowed'. Scroll down for video Ban: MTA officials announced on Wednesday that riders will not be allowed to bring the two-wheeled motorized devices on buses, subway platforms and trains, the Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad and the Staten Island Railway Announcement: MTA chief safety officer David Mayer compared the use of hoverboards to 'skateboards or other personal wheeled vehicles,' which are also banned from the MTA. Lithium batteries also pose a potential fire risk MTA chief safety officer David Mayer compared the use of hoverboards to 'skateboards or other personal wheeled vehicles,' which are also banned from the MTA. 'Were equally concerned about the safety risk of bringing devices that pose fire hazards into the confined spaces inside trains and buses,' Mayer said. In recent weeks, Amazon offered refunds to anyone who bought hoverboards on its website as safety concerns continue to grow. The move comes amid growing concerns that the two-wheeled balance boards are not safe and continue to remain a fire hazard. SAFETY TIPS FROM THE CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION 1. Have a working fire extinguisher nearby while charging or using these boards in and around your home 2. Charge in an open area away from combustible materials 3. Gear up before riding, which means putting on a skateboard helmet, elbow and knee pads and wrist guards 4. Do not use a hoverboard on or near a road Advertisement The e-retail giant has agreed to provide full refunds on all hoverboards purchased through its online store at any of the company's sites including the U.S. and in Britain. The CPSC said it was looking into at least forty blazes involving in 19 states the smart boards, thought to be caused by lithium-ion batteries and the hoverboards' electronic wiring. Over the last couple of months, countless videos have been produced and posted to YouTube of the products bursting into flames for no apparent reason. In the very worst cases, entire homes have been burned down and users have received burn injuries. CPSC chairman Elliot Kaye said that the boards also sent a serious falling risk. 'The current designs of these products might not take fully into consideration the different weights of different users, potentially leading to the units speeding up or lurching in a manner that a user would not have reason to anticipate,' he said. The CPSC welcomed Amazon's decision to offer refunds, and has called on other retailers and manufacturers to do the same. Amazon stopped selling many models in December but despite this latest decision, The Everything Store is still selling hoverboards on its site including a model from Swagway, which is listed as one of the 13 companies whose products are being investigated by the CPSC. The MTA will launch an ad campaign reminding riders of the band using their signature bubble people along with the saying, 'no hoverboards allowed.' Pictured here is a tweet of the announcement HOW TO SPOT A SAFE HOVERBOARD Consumers are advised to check the packaging has a manufacturer's name and contact details In the past few months, hoverboard companies have come under fire for issuing products that can suddenly explode. Many of these occurrences were found to be a result of counterfeit devices. One consumer found instructions that include: 'Get off the bus, get off before you stop intelligent drifting scooter balance state, one foot down, the other one foot in the left drifting scooter again.' KCC Trading Standards Operations Manager James Whiddett said: 'The first thing consumers should do is check the packaging. 'They won't have manufacturer details on them. 'Plugs won't go into your socket properly and without a fuse, they're very dangerous. 'The product itself should have a CE mark on it and the ones we have found have nothing on them at all. 'These things have batteries in them that can overheat and catch fire and we've seen that happen in the county already. Remember the golden rule, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.' The instructions should contain all the information you need to use the product safely and the manufacturers name and address should be included so you can contact them if anything goes wrong. Check for spelling mistakes on the box; this is a giveaway for counterfeits. They also often copy safety marks, so take a close look to be sure they are genuine. Advertisement Amazon's refund offer is the latest in a series of hiccups for hoverboards, which have been banned by all three major U.S. airlines, along with smaller airlines. 'Poorly labeled, powerful lithium-ion batteries powering hoverboards are the issue,' Delta Airlines said in a statement at the time. 'Delta reviewed hoverboard product specifications and found that manufacturers do not consistently provide detail about the size or power of their lithium-ion batteries.' Colleges have also banned them and the U.S. Postal Service will only agree to transport the devices by ground. A leading manufacturer, Swagway, has been hit with a class-action lawsuit. Some hoverboards contain lithium-ion batteries that top 160 watt hours, exceeding regulatory limits. Its possible, therefore, that the devices could overheat and spontaneously combust. Hoverboards, which consist of a self-balancing board between two small wheels, were among the must-have Christmas gifts of 2015. However, the devices, which range in price from $200 to $2,000, have become notorious for starting fires - with at least 17 of 50 states reporting at least one over the holidays. Meanwhile, Australian consumer affairs minister Kelly O'Dwyer has been asked to consider a country-wide ban on the devices following a fire in Victoria. While the exact cause of the fires has not been established, it appears the fault lies with the lithium-ion batteries mounted inside. Millions of devices, from laptops to phones and e-cigarettes, are fitted with the batteries which are preferred to older nickel-cadmium units because they are more powerful, last longer, and do not develop a 'memory' if not fully charged each time. While the batteries are perfectly safe if undamaged and wired properly, there is concern that some hoverboards are being manufactured incorrectly, leaving them at risk. Good quality devices have special circuits that prevent the batteries from overheating or being overcharged, dramatically reducing the chance of catastrophic failure. However, poorly manufactured, non-branded units, often from China, usually do not have these additional safety systems. Some hoverboards contain lithium-ion batteries that top 160 watt hours, exceeding regulatory limits. Its possible, therefore, that the devices could short-circuit, overheat and spontaneously combust In the UK, National Trading Standards said 15,000 of the 17,000 or nine in ten - of the gadgets it has examined since October have been detained, mainly for having non-compliant electrical components that could explode or catch fire. And New York City has officially banned hoverboards. Anyone found riding the two-wheeled electric vehicles on the street or sidewalk could face a $500 fine and have their hoverboard impounded. Illegal immigrant from Gambia who had lost right to stay in Austria but was living in same apartment as Mann being looked for But family are furious at leak from investigation and said they were 'heartbroken' at her death that Colorado au pair was victim of kinky sex 'game' gone wrong Police are looking into series of theories - including The family of 'murdered' American au pair Lauren Mann, 25, have been left 'devastated' by her death in Austria - and are furious at a police leak that it could have been the result of a sex game gone wrong. Her sister Ashleigh Doutis spoke out after it was revealed the theory was one of the lines being pursued by invesitgators in Vienna after the part-time student was found dead. The theory had already been met with skepticism by the University of Colorado graduate's friends in Vienna. Doutis, 30, who still lives in the family's home town Grand Junction, Colorado, strongly implied the family also doubt the theory. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO Lauren Mann (pictured in a Facebook photo) was discovered lying half-naked, face-down on a mattress at her fourth district address on Tuesday Police and firefighters had to force open the door to Ms Mann's apartment inside this building in Vienna, pictured, after her employers became concerned by her unexplained absence from work on Tuesday Investigation: A forensic examination of the 550-euro ($600) a month studio apartment where the student lived was carried out after he body was found 'We are heartbroken to tell you our daughter and sister Lauren Mann has been found dead in her apartment in Vienna, Austria,' she said. 'An investigation is in progress. It has been released in Austria to the media and is being sensationalized. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.' Her mother Shelly Hyde, 63, was still too upset to speak when approached at her upscale home in Grand Junction earlier today. Vienna police have told media that one theory being pursued is that Lauren, whose half naked body was discovered on Tuesday night, died during 'a kinky sex game gone wrong'. Autopsy results released earlier today showed that the 25-year-old language student died from suffocation and was discovered with her face pushed into her mattress. Lauren didn't show up for work today without any notice and her phone is flat. This has never happened before and therefore we are a bit worried. Did anyone hear from her or see her today? ... and Lauren, please give us call when you see this. Thank you! Facebook post by her concerned employers on Monday The alarm was first raised on Monday when she failed to show up to her au pair job at the home of her employers, a husband and wife couple. While the husband alerted authorities, his wife began a frantic social media search for the 25-year-old. In a post made on Facebook on Monday, she wrote: 'Lauren didn't show up for work today without any notice and her phone is flat. 'This has never happened before and therefore we are a bit worried. Did anyone hear from her or see her today? ... and Lauren, please give us call when you see this. Thank you!' Friends quickly began voicing their concern about her whereabouts with one, John Duz Dusenbury, saying she hadn't been heard from since the previous Tuesday. Lauren is thought to have been killed at some point over the weekend and was discovered in her Wieden apartment with a sweater over her head. Along with the sex game gone wrong theory, police hunting a Gambian illegal migrant who was believed to be sharing her studio apartment at the time of her death. His right to stay in Austria had expired. Meanwhile, friends have paid tribute to the murdered au pair, with many highlighting her love of music, generous personality and kind heart. Writing on Lauren's social media pages, Ross Gullo, from Parkside, Illinois, described her as 'a great friend.' He added: 'Always nice with something interesting to say. You were a fantastic musician. Your intelligence and brilliance always amazed me. 'I will cherish the time we spent together and the memories we had. I'm thankful for knowing you. I will be praying for your family. Take care, friend.' Another, Peter Pyotr Petrovich Mathys, from Boulder, Colorado, added: 'I'm sorry you had to leave this world so soon. Debris: Some of the items left by forensic investigators outside the studio apartment where the 'murdered' student and part-time au pair lived Sealed: The apartment where Lauren Mann was found dead has been shut by police and its landlord has not been allowed access to it 'You were a fantastic, kind, intelligent, unique person that had lots of potential and lots to offer. 'I've realized that you were one of my first and closest friends my freshman year at CU. We shared our love of music and languages and we had many fun moments and deep conversations. I can't thank you enough for making that year special for me. Your passing is extremely tragic and heartbreaking. You will be missed, yet never forgotten.' Close friend Alexandra Nguyen, also from Boulder, added: 'This is heartbreaking... Lauren was a bright, kind, generous, and luminous young woman. What a terrible loss.' The case is being treated as a 'possible' murder and the Austrian state attorney - the prosecuting authority - will decide if a full-scale murder investigation is to be carried out by police. Investigators are focusing on questioning her friends and family, following suggestions that a 'sex game' led to her death. But neighbors on the peaceful Wiender Hauptstrasse were skeptical of the theory and insisted that Lauren was 'a very lovely girl' and a 'model tenant . The theory is uncannily similar to a claim made by police after the death of an American artist in Italy earlier this month that she was also involved in a kinky sex game. Police there dropped the theory after less than 48 hours and charged an immigrant man she had taken home from a nightclub with her murder. In Vienna today Lauren's landlord cast doubt on the sex-game theory and told Daily Mail Online: 'She was a lovely girl, and I have never had a problem with her. She had a nice character and was a model tenant.' The landlord, who wished to remain anonymous, added: 'She was a quiet and conscientious member of the community.' Cafe and shop owners on the street, which has the character of a small town, also insisted that although they were not close with the American nanny, they had always been struck by her 'warm personality'. 'She came in here a few times,' said the owner of a tobacconist opposite Lauren's apartment building. Austrian police are looking for an illegal immigrant from Gambia who was living with Ms Mann in the apartment complex, pictured, who has vanished following her death 'She was not much of a small talker, but she seemed to be a nice person.' The owners of the Sebastiano restaurant, directly below Lauren's flat, insisted that they would not play along with the 'wild' allegations until they 'knew what happened'. Austrian police spokesman Thomas Keiblinger said his colleagues were now also waiting for the results of toxicology tests. A full forensic search of the apartment took place after the discovery of Mann's body. When police entered the apartment, they found that every light bulb in it had blown out and the room was lit only by candles. The landlord said he has not yet been allowed access to the studio by police, but added: 'She was not a very handy girl. 'She called me recently because she had a problem with the heater and said it was broken, but all she would have had to do to fix it was press a button to turn it on. 'What is most likely is that she didn't change the bulbs because she didn't know how or couldn't be bothered, as she would have needed a ladder to do it. 'There's not a problem with the building or the lights. It was only a problem in her apartment. 'The man living in the flat opposite her is the building's superintendent, so all she would have had to do to sort it out was knock on his door and ask.' He also said that he was unaware of the presence of a man in the apartment. The man, an illegal immigrant from Gambia, is being hunted by police. He has not been since since the discovery of her body on Tuesday. The landlord said that a Gambian would have stood out in the almost exclusively-white area. 'I know the people living here, I talk to the people who live here,' he said. 'I'm sure they would have told me if there was a black man living in the apartment.' Police have sealed off the apartment after they were forced to break in to recover Ms Mann's body Police are looking for a man from the Gambia who was also living in the apartment with Ms Mann Authorities say the 25-year-old's body was found surrounded by a 'considerable amount of blood' as police confirmed they are treating her death as a homicide Mann, a nanny from Paonia, Colorado (pictured in Facebook photos) had been studying and working in Vienna Neighborhood: The area in Vienna where Mann was living before her death Mann paid 550 ($600) a month for the studio. She was one of the few tenants in the building who was not a friend of the owner as she had taken the apartment over from a university friend who is the daughter of a Greek diplomat in Vienna. Mann was studying at the University of Vienna, where she had enrolled in October 2014. She was a high-flying student who had got the top grades, 1s and 2s, in the three courses she had completed towards her degree, for which she had to complete a minimum of 23 courses. Her au-pair work had meant that she was effectively studying part-time. Mann had studied piano and French at the University of Colorado-Boulder's music school before moving to Europe to study German in Vienna. The 25-year-old described herself as an avid reader and lover of art, and literature and music. The U.S. Embassy in Vienna confirmed her death and said it was working with Austrian authorities on their investigation. 'We extend our deepest condolences to her loved ones,' the embassy told NBC News. The sex game theory has parallels to the investigation into the death of American artist Ashley Olsen in Florence earlier this month. She was found in her Italian apartment and had been strangled with a USB cord. Actress Kate del Castillo is said to be furious over Sean Penn's Rolling Stone article about their meeting with Mexican druglord El Chapo - which she knew nothing about. Sources say that the actress, whose meeting with escaped prisoner Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman aided his capture, was told nothing about it until Penn blurted it out moments before the meeting. Del Castillo, who met him on the auspices of making a film about his life, said the sudden revelation could have put her life in danger, and came as a total shock. Scroll down for video Actress Kate del Castillo (right) is said to be furious over Sean Penn's (left) Rolling Stone article about their meeting with Mexican druglord El Chapo - which she knew nothing about Sources say that the actress, whose meeting with escaped prisoner Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman (right, with Penn) aided his capture, was told nothing about it until Penn blurted it out moments before the meeting Soldiers escort Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman Loera upon his arrival to the hangar of the Attorney General's Office in Mexico The sources say she was also furious as the journalists had a legal immunity in Mexico, which she did not have as she was left in the dark, reports TMZ. Guzman, who led the ruthless Sinaloa cartel, escaped from prison down a mile-long tunnel in 2015 but was caught in Los Mochis on January 8, six months after his escape. His capture is believed to have been brought about by his obsession with the American actress, who he met with as he wanted a 'Mexican Godfather' biopic made about him. Del Castillo brought two film-makers, Espinoza and El Alto Garcia, along, as well as Sean Penn, who sources say she had hoped would lend credibility to the project. But she wasn't made aware of the interview, which he had arranged with Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner, until minutes before they sat down with the druglord. The sources say that Rolling Stone gave the three men a letter making the assignment official, giving them immunity for any legal issues created by meeting with the criminal. But the actress is said to be furious as she did not have the same legal protection. The sources claim that she was totally blindsided by Penn, who exposed her to extreme danger, and she said he spent six hours on the article which she thought was an attempt by Penn to aggrandize himself. El Chapo when he was originally captured overnight in the beach resort town of Mazatlan in February 2014 However, Penn is adamant that she knew about the interview from the beginning, and was even involved in the fact-checking process. Penn's people also say that he never had any interest in making a movie about El Chapo. The Mexican Government said last week that it has no plans to investigate the actress, Penn, or the filmmakers for any crimes, but would be looking into the circumstances of their meeting. And Mexico's attorney general, Arely Gomez, said the meeing was 'essential' to recapturing Guzman. Rolling Stone magazine published an article the following day by Penn, based on a secret meeting with Guzman while the Mexican was on the run. The sensational meeting took place deep in the Mexican jungle in October and was arranged by Penn, Mexican actress Kate del Castillo and a fixer, with the permission of the Sinaloa cartel. The Sinaloa cartel leader was on the run from Mexican authorities after escaping jail New look: Mugshots of Mexican drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman Loera. Since his recapture, authorities have shaved his head and mustache FLIRTATIOUS TEXTS BETWEEN DRUGLORD AND GLAMOROUS ACTRESS El Chapo and Del Castillo exchanged hundreds of fiery texts in September to organize a meeting with actor Sean Penn The full transcript of the highly-flirtatious text messages between Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman and soap actress Kate del Castillo has emerged - and reveals the drug lord had never heard of Sean Penn before meeting with him. El Chapo and Del Castillo exchanged hundreds of fiery texts in September to organize a meeting with the actor as they planned to make a Narcos-style movie about his life. Though El Chapo likes the sound of the meeting, he has no idea who Sean Penn is, and keeps asking whether he is an actor, director, producer, or even famous at all. The pair also plan their own wine- and tequila-filled weekend together at his jungle hide-out, as El Chapo gushes that she is 'beautiful', 'the best in the world', and that 'I will care for you more than I care for my own eyes'. The twice-divorced actress responds: 'It makes me so emotional to hear you say that, no one has ever cared for me, thank you!' Throughout the texts, released late on Tuesday by Mexican newspaper Grupo Milenio, El Chapo goes by the name Papa, and Del Castillo by the name 'Hermosa'. It sheds yet more light on how Penn came to meet with one of the most wanted fugitives in the world. 'If you bring wine Ill try it - I like tequila and Bucana but Ill try the tequila that you bring, and champagne,' El Chapo says to Kate del Castillo in one of the texts, name-dropping her own branded tequila El Bucana. 'As Ive told you Im not a drinker but I will because you being here will be so beautiful, Im very excited to meet you and come to be great friends. 'Youre the best in the world. Were going to be very good friends. You will agree by the time youre heading home. I wish it could be sooner.' Later, Kate hands the phone to El Chapo's attorney who tells him Kate wants to broker a meeting with Sean Penn. El Chapo has no idea who Sean Penn is; the attorney is not too sure either. 'He was in the movie 21 Grams,' the attorney writes, referring to the 2003 movie made by The Revenant director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Advertisement Yellow tape around the house at the end of the tunnel through which Mexican drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman could have escaped from the Altiplano prison El Chapo admitted in the bizarre interview to being the biggest drug trafficker in the world and said he sent engineers to Germany to learn how to build the tunnel he would eventually use to escape a maximum security prison. The cartel boss was captured earlier this month in a daring 4am raid by Mexican marines and was returned to Altiplano jail. 'I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world. I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats.' Despite his notoriety, up until this point the Mexican gangster had always insisted he was 'just a farmer'. Penn wrote that El Chapo sent engineers - who were already accomplished in tunnel-building from the multitudes of underground paths they have built beneath the U.S.-Mexico border - to Germany to learn how to construct the tunnel he fled down as he escaped from prison in July last year. The actor claimed the cartel leader was concerned about the low-lying water table beneath the jail. The Mystic River star said he did not turn El Chapo in because the drug lord's trust 'was not to be f***ed with'. More Germans are arming themselves in the wake of the Cologne sex attacks on New Year's Eve, it has emerged. Also on the increase is enrollment in self-defence courses - particularly among women - and sales of pepper sprays that are commonly used by police against protests. It comes as several other countries claim to have seen gun sales increase just weeks after hundreds of women reported being robbed and molested by migrants in Cologne on December 31. Some areas of Germany have reported a threefold increase in gun sales following the sex attacks that occurred near Cologne train station on New Year's Eve. Pictured are revellers at the New Year celebrations Two policemen stand guard outside the train station in Cologne in the days following the sex attacks More than 200 women claimed to have been attacked during the night of chaos, while hundreds more reported similar crimes across other European cities One gun seller in North Rhine-Westphalia - the state to which Cologne belongs - said: 'People no longer feel safe, otherwise they would not be buying so many products here,' German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported. He claims sales of weapons have increased three-fold since December 31. While gun laws are stringent for the purchase of revolvers and pistols, they are less so for gas-guns and signal pistols which are allowed to be carried outside the home and can be bought by anyone aged 18 and over. Felix Beilharz, a social media expert from Cologne, told DW: 'There has been an increase of at least 1,000 percent or more in Google search queries for gun permits since January.' Courses in self defence are booked out in Cologne and other cities for weeks in advance - something that was not the case this time last year. Gun sellers say that most would-be buyers want a small weapon that can fit into a bedside table or a handbag. Two weeks ago it emerged gun sales had jumped 350 per cent in Austria amid 'unease' over increasing numbers of migrants following the Paris terror attacks, firearm dealers claimed. The final months of 2015 showed increases in gun permit applications, while dealers reported huge demand for self defence weapons such as tasers, pepper spray and blank firing-guns. Migrants outside the main train station in Salzburg, Austria, in a bid to cross into Germany and claim asylum Hundreds of migrants who arrived at the Hungarian-Austria border by train make their way into Austria. Many Austrian residents have been purchasing weapons amid increased fears of break-ins and crime It comes just months after shotguns were reported to have sold out across the country as residents became increasingly paranoid about refugee numbers. And Czech Independent TV has also reported on an arms upsurge. A few months ago it was revealed most rifles in the country were out of stock. A central weapon register was introduced in June 2014 to record all legal firearm sales and this year more than 14,000 new weapons were purchased. An Israeli special forces soldier has been jailed for killing a camel in a drive-by shooting as his friend filmed him. The soldiers, from the feared Duvdevan Unit, were charged with animal cruelty and firearms offences after a video of the incident surfaced. Filmed by one of the men, the clip shows the off-duty pair driving past a camel by a sand dune near the Dead Sea while one of them fires at the helpless animal. Video of the incident appeared to show one of the men shooting the camel with a handgun (pictured) The soldier fired one shot at the animal, which later died, sparking hysterical laughter from inside the car According to the Times of Israel, the soldier who fired the shot was sentenced to four months while the comrade who filmed it was jailed for two months. Both have reportedly been demoted to the rank of private. As the bullet hits the unsuspecting camel - which later died - hysterical laughter can be heard coming from the car. At a preliminary hearing, the soldier who fired the fatal shot was asked about the laughter and admitted: 'We were in a kind of euphoria. It was exciting.' The incident took place in November while the two men - now suspended from duty - were on leave before they began officer training in the commando unit. The two men, from Israel's feared Duvdevan Unit, have both been jailed and demoted to the rank of private An Israeli army spokesman said: 'This was a serious incident that does not meet the standards expected from IDF [Israel Defence Force] soldiers.' Lawyers for the pair acknowledge the severity of the incident, but said they should be credited for confessing their actions. The Duvdevan Unit, part of Israel's West Bank is one of the most feared throughout the Middle East and often works as an undercover plain clothes squad fighting terrorism. Tragic Swedish social worker Alexandra Mezher was killed after she tried to break up a knife fight at the adolescent migrant centre where she worked, MailOnline can reveal. Miss Mezher, 22, intervened when Youssaf Khaliif Nuur allegedly launched an unprovoked attack on another resident at the juvenile asylum seeker hostel in Molndal, Gothenburg, on Monday morning. But the psychology student suffered two fatal knife-wounds to the back and thigh and died from her injuries in hospital. Killed: Alezandra Mezher, 22, was stabbed to death when she stepped in to stop a fight at the adolescent migrant centre in Molndal, Gothenburg, where she worked Argument: A boy in police custody had allegedly attacked another person at the housing centre (pictured) and Miss Mezher was trying to break up the fight The murder started with an attack on another boy, source at Gothenburg Police told MailOnline today. There was an argument between the suspect and another resident at the hostel. I dont know the reason for the argument between the two residents. But in some way this woman got between them. She was trying to break up the fight. Miss Mezher tried to separate them and told the suspect to stop but then he [allegedly] stabbed her. The source dismissed any suggestion that the killing had a sexual motive. He added murder suspect Nuur, 15, had had complained of feeling unwell the night before and had not slept at all in the hours before the alleged attack. It has been suggested that Nuur has psychological issues and had a breakdown in the hours before the attack and complained of hearing voices in his head. The source revealed: 'The knifeman may have had some kind of breakdown. He may have suffered some trauma previously in his life.' The source said he was heard pacing around the his bedroom for most of the night before the attack at 8am on Monday. The teenager is currently being held at a secure psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Gothenburg. Young: The 22-year-old psychology student, pictured at her university graduation in June last year, suffered two knife wounds to her back and thigh and died from her injuries in hospital Tragedy: A police officer in Sweden has told MailOnline the psychology graduate (right) died trying to break up a fight between two migrants The Gothenburg Police source told MailOnline: There was no sexual motive in the murder. This Somali boy did not have a motive for the attack other than he was not feeling well. This lady tried to separate them and told him to stop but he stabbed her. The suspect had been up all night. He had said he was not feeling well the night before. Managers of the child refugee centre should not have let Miss Mezher work the night shift on her own if they knew one of the residents was suffering a mental health breakdown, the Gothenburg Police source claimed. He told MailOnline: If the management of the centre knew that one of the residents was not [mentally] well should have got in extra staff to help her that night. Nuur will appear at Gothenburg District Court this afternoon charged with one count of murder and one count of attempted murder. It remains unclear whether proceedings will be held in public or in a closed court session due as the suspect is 15. Court papers: Youssaf Khaliif Nuur, 15, will appear in court in Gothenburg today charged with murder and attempted murder Locked up: He is being held at the high security psychiatric clinic at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg. The facility is for patients with psychotic illnesses The source, who has worked for Gothenburg Police for over 30 years, has detailed the explosion in crime in the Swedish city since the country threw open the doors to mass immigration. He told MailOnline: We have experienced an explosion in crime, particularly violent crime, since our politicians threw open the doors to immigrants from all over the world. I have worked in Gothenburg for more than three decades and I have never known anything like it. The city always had a bit of trouble, but it was usually amongst people who were drunk and knew each other. But now I will not let my children go into the city after 2pm and especially not at night. There are violent gangs roaming around the streets and the use of knives and other weapons have become normal, rather than a rarity as it used to be. There are 20 robberies in Gothenburg every day usually with violence or the threat of violence. This week an 83-year-old lady had a gun put in her face when she was mugged on her way to play bingo. They got away with just 50 Kroner [about 4]. In the summer there were mass shootings with lots of people killed, including a little girl. He added the city streets were now at the mercy of gangs of young men mainly from North Africa. The source revealed: In the past couple of months we have noticed a dramatic increase in street robbery. This is a new phenomenon. Hard working: Psychology graduate Miss Mezher who was a Lebanese Christian whose parents were from Beirut, was today described by her mother Chimene as an 'angel' Candles and floral tributes fill a table at a memorial service for Miss Mezher in her home town of Boras, some 40 miles from Gothenburg, on Wednesday They will do anything to get money steal a persons wallet, iPhone, jewellery. And then they will attack their victim and kick them half to death. Drug crime has gone through the roof. Every drug is available on the street nowadays, even in broad daylight. A vicious Russian mother has been caught on CCTV kicking her six-year-old son before throwing him into the street after discovering she had less money than expected when visiting an ATM. The shocking footage shows Zhanna Voytishek, 35, take her frustrations out on her innocent young boy when she realises her child welfare benefit has not yet reached her bank account. After checking the machine, she cruelly pushes the schoolboy by his head, toppling him to the floor of the convenience store they are visiting in the town of Labytnangi, in the northern Urals. Once down, Voytishek - dressed in a thick winter jacket - then lands a brutal kick into his midriff as the helpless boy tries in vain to protect himself. When passers-by try to intervene, the cowardly mother drags her injured son out of the shop on to a snowy pavement. With her tensions still running high, she then grabs the tiny boy by the back of his neck and waist, lifting him in the air and tossing him like a rag-doll into the deep snow. Zhanna Voytishek, 35, is seen on CCTV standing alongside her son as she checks her bank balance in a convenience store in the town of Labytnangi, in the northern Urals, Russia After checking an ATM and finding she has less money than expected, Voytishek cruelly pushes her son by his head, toppling him to the floor Once down, the woman - dressed in a thick winter jacket - then lands a brutal kick into her son's midriff as the helpless boy tries in vain to protect himself Without a second thought - and her son writhing in agony on the freezing tarmac - she then walks off, leaving a concerned member of the public to care for the boy. It is not known how the boy was aided thereafter. The horrifying CCTV film - recorded in November last year - was uploaded to social media earlier this week. Its emergence prompted Russian law enforcement services to launch an investigation. When passers-by try to intervene, the cowardly mother drags her injured son out of the shop on to a snowy pavement With her tensions still running high, she then grabs the tiny boy by the back of his neck and waist, lifting him in the air and tossing him like a rag-doll into the deep snow Without a second thought - and her son writhing in agony on the freezing tarmac - she then walks off, leaving a concerned member of the public to care for the boy It was then reported that the woman's rage was caused by the late deposit of her child's welfare payment - 2,000 rubles (18) - into her bank account. Local news have since reported that the woman has a psychiatric disorder. Despite the recorded abuse, Russia's Children's Rights Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov stated the boy will not be taken away by social services. He said: 'The boy is from a complete family. He has a father with whom we have no complaints, so he hasn't been taken from the family.' Cuong Nguyen, 42, in a recent booking photograph A registered sex offender was thrown in jail after attempting to kidnap a three-year-old girl at Miami airport on Tuesday. A family arrived from Argentina to Miami International Airport and were renting a car when it crossed paths with the sex offender. Cuong Nguyen, 42, approached the three-year-old girl as she was walking toward a water fountain with her siblings, aged six and nine, and the children's father following close behind, the Miami Herald reports. Nguyen grabbed the little girl by the wrist, but she broke free and ran to her mother. After Nguyen was arrested, he told detectives he was homeless and admitted he had grabbed the child. Nguyen told police he 'thought she was cute' and that he would 'kiss the victim', according to the Herald. He was charged with two felony counts of attempted kidnapping and false imprisonment of a child under 13, according to the Miami-Dade County clerk of courts. Nguyen was convicted in 1996 of lewd and lascivious behavior on a child under 16, according to a Florida sex offender registry. Video courtesy of NBC Miami The attempted kidnapping happened at Miami International Airport in Florida on Tuesday Two Ted Cruz-aligned super PACs are offering Donald Trump a $1.5 million donation to veterans if the GOP frontrunner will debate their guy one-on-one before Monday night's Iowa caucuses. The families who run Keep the Promise I and Keep the Promise II issued the challenge in a statement last night, according to the Texas Tribune. 'Senator Cruz and Mr. Trump both respect the veterans and hold them in the highest regard, but Senator Cruz respects the process, and we are calling on Mr. Trump to do the same, and debates are the purest form of democracy,' read a statement from the Mercer and Neugebauer families, the principle donors of the two PACs. 'Iowans and Americans deserve to hear from the frontrunners in this "two-man race" one last time,' the statement said. Scroll down for video Donald Trump pulled out of tonight's Fox News Channel debate, so two super PACs supporting Ted Cruz stepped up and said they'd give The Donald $1.5 million to give to vets if he debated Cruz one-on-one Ted Cruz was out-polling Donald Trump in Iowa for a bit, before The Donald took back the lead. Cruz's allies are convinced a one-on-one debate would propel their guy to the front of the pack During last month's Republican debate things finally got heated between Trump and Cruz as Trump brought up the 'birther' issue with Cruz's candidacy, that he was born in Canada to an American mother, and Cruz brought up Trump's 'New York values,' as a way to expose the billionaire as a flip-flopper on the issue of abortion. In the first instance, Cruz was able to defend his citizenship. In the latter, Trump used Cruz's 'New York values' comments to mount a defense of his home city and how its citizens braved the aftermath of 9/11. Cruz was robbed of a rematch when Trump decided Tuesday night to pull out of the Fox News Channel debate. Trump said he was angry about some of the statements that came out of Fox's PR shop after he complained about 'biased' anchor Megyn Kelly once again being chosen to moderate. Instead of attending the debate, Trump rented out a room at nearby Drake University and is now hosting a competing event in which any money raised will go toward veterans and wounded warriors. When Donald Trump heard that Ted Cruz was challenging him to a debate, he joked about Cruz's formerly Canadian citizenship This announcement got the Mercer and Neugebauer families thinking and so the $1.5 million offer was made. In order to get the donation, Trump would have to go one-on-on with Cruz before Monday night. At a campaign stop in West Des Moines, Iowa earlier on Wednesday Cruz suggested he already had a time and place in mind. 'We have a venue, we have a time all we're missing is a candidate,' Cruz said, labeling Trump a 'fragile soul' who is afraid to answer tough queries from Iowans. 'Western Iowa Tech,' he said. '8:00 Saturday night, a two-hour, one-on-one debate,' Cruz said. His super PAC donors, however, said for Trump to get the money he would only have to debate Cruz for one hour. As a bonus perk, the candidates could choose a moderator. When Trump heard that Cruz wanted a one-on-one debate Wednesday he took to Twitter to joke about it. 'Even though I beat him in the first six debates, especially the last one, Ted Cruz wants to debate me again,' Trump wrote. 'Can we do it in Canada?' Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, took the question more seriously. Talking to Erin Burnett on CNN last night Lewandowski seemed open to a duel, but only once the number of candidates dwindled down to two. 'Of course,' Lewandowski said of accepting such a challenge. 'At the end of this race it's going to come down to two candidates for the Republican nomination at some point. If Ted Cruz is fortunate enough to be that second candidate, we'll be happy to debate him one on one on any debate stage that is available to us under the rules of the Republican National Committee,' Lewandowski continued. 'So if Ted Cruz is the last man standing next to Donald Trump, we'll be happy to debate him,' Lewandowski added. Unable to help himself, the campaign manager then used the opportunity to rib the Cruz campaign. 'You know, what this comes down is Ted Cruz's campaign has been desperate, has been falling apart in the state of Iowa,' Lewandowski said. He suggested that Cruz's poll numbers are going down because voters in Iowa are concerned that the Texas senator, who was born in Canada, doesn't have a legal right to run for president of the United States. 'You know, potentially, he should go and get a declaratory judgment from the courts to make sure that that question is put aside before people start voting on Monday in the caucuses,' Lewandowski said. Damage to Cumbria estimated at 500m and 20m in Lake District alone PM has pledged 2million to repair hundreds of bridges and paths damaged by the floods Families are being encouraged to spend their Easter holidays in the north of England with a 1million PR campaign launched by David Cameron today. It is part of the Government's efforts to rebuild the tourism industry across large parts of northern England that were hit by devastating floods over the Christmas period. A further 2million will be spent on fixing the Lake District's 1,400 bridges and 2,000 miles of path and 180 apprentices will be employed to help with the repairs. But Kerry McCarthy, Labour's shadow environment secretary, told MailOnline that the funding package was 'a drop in the ocean' and again appealed to the Prime Minister to apply for disaster relief aid from the EU's Solidarity Fund. And Stewart Young, the leader of Cumbria Council, said the money pledged was 'nowhere near enough' to get the county back on its feet, while Lib Dem leader and Cumbria MP Tim Farron dismissed the funding package as 'woefully inadequate'. The overall cost of the floods that hit parts of northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland over the Christmas period have been estimated at more than 5billion by insurance experts. The Prime Minister will visit parts of flood-hit Cumbria and Lancashire today to kick-start the campaign, coordinated by VisitEngland, urging British families to book their spring breaks in the north. 'From York Minster to Honister Mine, Carlisle Castle to the Leeds Armories, the North has some of the most iconic tourist attractions the UK has to offer,' Mr Cameron said ahead of his visit. 'So it is absolutely right that we do everything we can to make sure these businesses feel supported and ready to receive visitors. 'The measures we've announced today are an important step, showcasing the best the region's tourist industry has to offer while helping one of its key attractions in the Lake District National Park get back on its feet.' Scroll down for video The 300-year-old bridge in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, pictured, crumbled in a surge of water during the flooding that devastated the county over the Christmas period The overall cost of the floods that hit parts of northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland over the Christmas period is estimated to reach 5billion. Cameron, pictured speaking to local children from Grasser Primary School in Grasmere, launched a PR campaign to promote the north today Mr Young said the funds represented just a tenth of the estimated 20million cost of damage in the Lake District and demanded an urgent face-to-face meeting with ministers to discuss a more substantial amount of money for the region. 'This money is nowhere near enough to get Cumbria back on its feet following the floods,' Mr Young said. 'With an estimated 500 million of damage to our infrastructure, including 20 million in the Lake District National Park alone, today's funding announcement is totally inadequate.' Ms McCarthy said: 'All resources are welcome for communities devastated by the floods but with flood damage in the county estimated at in excess of half a billion pounds, this is but a drop in the ocean. With flood damage in the county estimated at in excess of half a billion pounds, this is but a drop in the ocean Kerry McCarthy, Shadow Environment Secretary 'With water levels rising again and more homes and businesses at risk, communities devastated by the floods feel let down by David Cameron. Urging Mr Cameron to apply for funds from the EU's insurance fund, she added: 'Up to 23 million more could be made available immediately to British homes and businesses devastated by the floods through an EU insurance fund, with millions more available in further payouts. 'But despite the fact it will cost the Government nothing, Ministers have so far refused to make a claim, even though we have paid in some 300 million since the fund was set up. 'With only a 12 week window to apply, time is running out.' Stewart Young, the leader of Cumbria Council said the funding package announced by Cameron today was 'nowhere near enough to get Cumbria back on its feet' and demanded a face-to-face meeting with ministers Cameron visited flood-hit areas in Cumbria and Lancaster today. Above, he is pictured visiting volunteers in York at the end of December Flooding in December caused long-term damage to the Lake District's 2,000 miles of paths. Above, a tree is submerged in Ullswater, Glenridding Culture Secretary John Whittingdale said the PR campaign promoting northern England will 'showcase the many fantastic places that are ready to welcome visitors in the coming weeks and months'. The Government's announcement came as a new poll found that the majority of people are critical of the Government's handling of the floods this winter and want ministers to do more to prevent future flooding, a survey has found. Almost two-thirds thought the Government had handled the flooding very or fairly badly - including two-fifths of Conservative voters quizzed in the poll for Greenpeace. Donald Trump has a commanding lead over Ted Cruz in the next two states to vote after Iowa, new polls shows today. The Republican frontrunner is ahead of Cruz by 19 points in New Hampshire and 16 points in South Carolina, the NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll found. He is also seven points ahead of Cruz in Iowa with just four days to go before the caucus the first actual test for White house candidates. Scroll down for video Donald Trump made a trip to South Carolina this week, a move that showed that he believed he would sweep Iowa and New Hampshire and then the Palmetto State too 'Trump is positioned to run the house in these three states,' said Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist College Institute of Public Opinion in a statement on the polls' release. 'Will that happen? The answer depends on when or if anti-Trump sentiment will coalesce to interrupt his march to the nomination.' In Iowa, Trump is again out in front with 32 percent support from likely GOP caucus-goers. Cruz stands at 25 percent, while Rubio is at 18 percent. Ben Carson, who was leading in Iowa around Halloween before plummeting in the polls, now snags 8 percent support. Jeb Bush has 4 percent. All the other Republicans candidates are receiving just 2 percent support from Iowans. The new numbers are good news for Trump, who was trailing Cruz 24 percent to 28 percent in the same poll less than three weeks ago, according to NBC News. Trump and Cruz are nearly tied when it comes to support from white Evangelical Christian voters in Iowa, with Trump receiving 31 percent to 28 percent. Trump's endorsement this week from Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of the Virginia-based Liberty University, could help usher more evangelicals toward the billionaire, while Family Research Council head Tony Perkins' endorsement for Cruz could have the same pull on the opposite direction. In New Hampshire, things are even more comfortable for Trump. He now stands at 31 percent support compared to 12 percent for Cruz. Rubio, along with Ohio Gov. John Kasich, are tied for third place, both garnering 11 percent support, while Bush receives 8 percent. Chris Christie is getting 7 percent in the Granite State. No other Republican receives more than 5 percent in New Hampshire. Trump leads with a number of key constituencies in New Hampshire, including young voters with 37 percent, Tea Party supporters with 34 percent, independents with 26 percent and evangelicals with 26 percent. However, his share of evangelicals is smaller in New Hampshire than it is in Iowa. Moving on to South Carolina, the third state in which voters will pick their nominee, and Trump again has a double-digit lead. He stands at 36 percent, while Cruz receives 20 percent. In South Carolina, like Iowa, Rubio stands in third place alone, attracting 14 percent of the vote. Bush is at 9 percent and Carson receives 8 percent. All the other candidates are receiving two percent support or less. And in the Palmetto State, Trump does the best with white evangelical Christians. Dylann Roof, 21, is accused of murdering nine people in a South Carolina church last year A South Carolina judge has ordered that a jury pool of 600 people be summoned in the trial of a white man accused in the shooting deaths of nine black parishioners at a Charleston church last June. The state is seeking the death penalty in the trial of 21-year-old Dylann Roof, who faces nine counts of murder, three counts of attempted murder and a weapons charge in the slayings that occurred during a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on June 17, 2015. The trial is set to begin on July 11. On Wednesday, Circuit Judge J.C. Nicholson issued an order saying a jury pool of 600 is needed because of the complexity of the case. The judge also ordered that questionnaires that will be used to screen potential jurors remain sealed until they are given to members of the jury pool June 28. Members of the pool will then report back to the court in groups of 20 to be questioned by attorneys the day the trial is set to begin. Attorneys have said the trial is expected to last several weeks. Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church pastor and South Carolina State Senator Clementa Pinckney lies at the South Carolina State House in Colombia, South Carolina, on June 24. Pinckney was one of nine people killed during a Bible study inside the Emanuel AME church in Charleston Roof also faces dozens of charges, including hate crimes and obstruction of the practice of religion, in federal court. Prosecutors have not yet said whether the federal government will seek the death penalty and indicated in earlier hearings it could be March before the Justice Department makes a decision. A hearing on the status of that case will be held next month. Dylann Roof posted this and several other pictures of himself posing with a gun and a Confederate flag shortly before killing nine black parishioners inside a Charleston, South Carolina church last June The alleged killer has pleaded not guilty to the murders and refutes police reports that he implicated himself during questioning Court documents show Perrone told cops he was a CIA operative paid by Arab men to kill Jews but he was found mentally fit to stand trial Investigators found the gun was used in all three murders which took place in shops which had no security cameras Salvatore Perrone, of Staten Island, (pictured in court last week) is charged with murdering the men, all of Middle Eastern descent, during a five-month killing spree in 2012 A man accused of killing three Brooklyn shopkeepers with the same gun was seen with a 'kill kit' moments before one of the murders, a court heard. Salvatore Perrone, of Staten Island, New York, is charged with murdering the men, all of Middle Eastern descent, during a five-month killing spree in 2012. The 66-year-old clothing dealer was dubbed 'John Doe Duffel Bags' by police before his arrest after he was seen carrying a bag in surveillance footage. Officers then discovered a bag, containing a sawed-off shotgun and bloody knife hidden behind Perrone's girlfriend's couch. Jurors in his murder trial on Wednesday were shown surveillance footage, captured from a store across the street, of Perrone lurking outside the second victim's 99-cent shop with the bag prosecutors have called his 'kill kit', New York Post reports. Isaac Kadare's body was discovered inside his Amazing 99 Cent Deals store, in Bensonhurst, later that evening on August 2, 2012. The father-of-four, 59, had been shot in the face and stabbed repeatedly in the neck while officers found that the $900 he had collected from a tenant earlier that day was missing. Crime Scene Unit Detective Carlos Pantoja told the court previously that Perrone attempted to cover up the murder of the Jewish shopkeeper by placing bleach around the body and an aluminum tray on the victim's face, JP Updates reported. Pantoja described the smell of bleach at the crime scene and discoloration to the victim's pants from the Clorox. 'He was laying on his right side, and there was a pool of blood,' he added. Court documents reveal the alleged serial killer told cops he was a CIA operative paid by Arab men to kill Jews. An NYPD source close to the investigation told SI Live Perrone told detectives he confessed to the two earlier murders and that he did it to 'promote world peace'. But Perrone, who was found by psychologists to be fit to stand trial, pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and now refutes police reports that say he implicated himself in the killings during questioning. Caught on camera: The balding, mustachioed suspect, dubbed 'John Doe Duffel Bags' by police, who was seen carrying what prosecutors call a 'kill kit' near the murder scenes of two victims. Pictured left, carrying a bag on November 16, 2012, close to the shop of victim Rahmatollah Vahidipour, and right, walking with the bag shortly before Isaac Kadare was killed on August 2, 2012 Weapon: Police say that Perrone used this sawed-off shotgun to kill three New York shop keepers Perrone previously underwent a court-ordered psychiatric exam and was deemed fit for trial He is also accused of murdering Egyptian Mohammed Gebeli, 65, in Bay Ridge and Rahmatollah Vahidipour, an Iranian. All three shopkeepers were men alone in stores that had no video cameras. On July 6, Gebli was found shot through the neck in his Valentino Fashion Inc. clothing shop. His body had been hidden beneath some of his own store's merchandise - as were the other bodies. Police believe the alleged killer does this to buy himself more getaway time by delaying the discovery of the bodies. 'I hope they catch the son of a b****,' Gebeli's son, Mourad said. In the final murder before Perrone's arrest, Vahidipour was shot three times in the head and chest at his store on November 16, 2012. The Daily News reports that the shop owner, of Great Neck, was behind the counter of She She in Brooklyn's Flatbush when he was shot. Isaac Kadare, a father-of-four, 59, was shot in the face and stabbed repeatedly in the neck while working at his store Kadare's body was discovered inside his Amazing 99 Cent Deals store, in Bensonhurst, later that evening on August 2, 2012 The gunman dragged the victim's body toward the back of the store and covered it with clothing. When Rahmoatollah didn't come home at the usual time his family called the police, who discovered the 78 year old with two gunshot wounds to the head and one to the torso. On the floor of the shop were the killer's calling card: shell casings matching casings left at the scenes of the last two homicides. 'Now it's like he's telling us, 'It's me again,'' a police source told the New York Daily News. 'He never had in his whole life one enemy, he didn't have, he was a very kind man,' his wife, Naima Rahmatollah, told reporters. After that killing, detectives discovered the same gun was used in the fatal shootings of two other shopkeepers when ballistics matched the .22-caliber gun shell casings on all three. Ballistics tests matched in each killing, all of which occurred in Brooklyn shops with an '8' in the address. Murdered: Shopkeepers Rahmatollah Vahidipour (left) and Mohammed Gebeli (right) were killed by the same gun in 2012 Unguarded: Police believe the killer was attracted to Vahidipour's store because, as with previous crime scenes, there were no cameras Peronne was caught on surveillance footage a block and a half away from the Flatbush store where Vahidipour was killed. Minutes later, the same mustachioed suspect is seen in a different video two blocks away from the store. On Wednesday, the court heard from another clothing shop manager, Rafael Picshardo, who said Perrone came into his store on the same day as the Rahmoatollah murder, but fled after noticing the security cameras. 'I felt uncomfortable,' said Picshardo, according to the New York Post. He said Perrone stood there for 10 minutes, just 'looking up' and completely ignoring everyone. 'People were approaching him saying, 'Good morning, hello,' and he didn't say anything,' Picshardo told the court. He eventually asked Perrone, 'What the f- is wrong with you?' The New York Post reports that a different surveillance camera, located by the scene of the second murder in Bensonhurst also shows the same man. Perrone (pictured being transported to court in November 2015) is accused of killing three Brooklyn shopkeepers of Middle Eastern descent At Brooklyn Supreme Court on Wednesday, Perrone, who suffers from personality and delusional disorder and is prone to outbursts remained uncharacteristically quiet The video is of poorer quality, but police say that the same duffel bag-toting man was in the area around the time that shopkeeper Kadare was killed on August 2, New York Post reports. 'John Doe Duffel Bag' wore a long overcoat and carried a duffel bag,' police commissioner Ray Kelly said. 'He was seen in the vicinity of Vahidipour's store just after 6pm. The shop owner's body was found at 7.11pm.' NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly previously labelled Perrone a 'serial killer' who is likely to have continued the murder spree. 'I think it's reasonable to assume that he was going to continue doing this, and, by arresting him, we saved lives,' Commissioner Kelly said in 2012. Besides owning stores, each victim was of Middle Eastern descent, prompting suspicion the killer could be racially motivated. People who've crossed paths with Perrone have described him as a man who wanted people to believe he was a tough guy, going so far as to claim he was a retired police officer. Salvatore Perrone (pictured in a 2001 police mugshot provided by the Franconia Township Police Department in Telford, PA) is charged in connection with the Brooklyn murders 'He was the kind of guy who you could tell had watched 'The Godfather' too many times,' Ben Elchonen, 26, who lives in the same apartment building as Charova, told Reuters. Elchonen said Perrone often spoke as if he were a police officer and once questioned him as to why he was on the building's roof, saying: 'we've gotten reports of someone throwing eggs'. 'He acted like a tough guy, but he wasn't at all,' Elchonen said. 'He spoke with this heavy Italian accent, but you could tell he was playing a part, playing a role.' At Brooklyn Supreme Court on Wednesday, Perrone, who suffers from personality and delusional disorder and is prone to outbursts remained uncharacteristically quiet. Vice Admiral Ted Branch had his access to classified information revoked in November 2013 after he was linked to a corruption scandal The admiral in charge of the Navy's intelligence operations has been barred from seeing military secrets for more than two years. Vice Admiral Ted Branch had his access to classified information revoked in November 2013 after he was linked to a $20million corruption scandal. Branch is yet to be charged, but he has not been cleared either - leaving the Navy in the bizarre predicament of having an intelligence chief who is unable to read top secret documents. Rear Admiral Bruce Loveless, one of Branch's deputies, has also had his access to classified information suspended. According to the Washington Post, senior Navy officers have to check rooms are clear of any sensitive documents or files before Branch walks in. He is also reportedly unable to be briefed on secret missions and some national security issues. A senior official told the Post that the Navy was 'frozen' until Branch is either charged or cleared. 'We have no actionable information on Admiral Branch, good, bad or otherwise. All we know is that he's wrapped up in this somehow,' the source said. 'Is it optimum? No, it's not optimum. But it's where we are,' they added. Branch is a three-star admiral, director of naval intelligence and is also the Navy's chief information officer. He was originally a fighter pilot, serving over Grenada, Lebanon, the Balkans and Iraq, before climbing the military ladder. Rear Admiral Bruce Loveless (left), one of Branch's (right) deputies, has also had his access to classified information suspended Leonard Glenn Francis, head of Navy supplier Glenn Defense Marine Asia, pleaded guilty to bribing senior Navy officers with prostitutes, grand dinners, luxury hotel stays and cash In 2013, he was linked to a $20million fraud scandal which saw the head of a Singapore-based Navy supplier arrested on bribery charges. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Justice Department had been investigating Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA), which restocked U.S. ships in Asia. Leonard Glenn Francis, chief executive of GDMA, was charged with bribing senior Navy officers with prostitutes, grand dinners, luxury hotel stays and cash. He pleaded guilty to the scam, which is said to have seen military officials accept the bribes in turn for directing U.S. ships to Francis' ports so the Navy could be overcharged for supplies to the tune of $20million. Numerous Navy officials have been arrested and Francis could face 20 years in prison. Neither Branch or Loveless have been arrested or charged and the Navy has not released any information on how they are linked to the case. A source close to the probe told the Post that Branch and Francis met 16 years ago and remained in touch with each other afterwards. Both Branch and Loveless declined to comment. Navy spokeswoman Rear Admiral Dawn Cutler said Branch and Loveless' suspension 'has not impacted the Navy's ability to manage operations', and that their deputies cover any work that requires access to classified information. A six-year-old New Jersey boy was mauled by a raccoon while walking to school with his mother, who said her son could have died if it weren't for a heroic neighbor who came to his rescue. Aryan Gavali had to get nine stitches on his face after the vicious animal attack that took place in Elmwood Park Wednesday morning. The child was on his way to the 16th Avenue Elementary School with his mother, Monali Gavali, when a large raccoon attacked him from behind and proceeded to bite and scratch him in the face. Scroll down for video Lucky to be alive: Aryan Gavali, six, pictured left and right with his mother, required nine stitches to his face after being mauled by a raccoon in New Jersey. The attack occurred as the boy was walking to school Dangerous varmint: The carcass of the dead animal was later taken to a lab to be tested for rabies Within a second, he screamed, Mommy, then I turn around and saw that he was on the ground... something was there, something was on his back,' Ms Gavali described the incident to NBC New York. Elmwood Park resident Danny Walls was getting ready for work when he heard the mother screaming for help outside his window. Seeing the massive racoon clawing at Aryan's face, the quick-thinking Good Samaritan grabbed a painter's pole from his car and started beating the varmint until it let go of the child and died. Walls described a harrowing scene in the wake of the attack, with little Aryan screaming in terror and blood streaming from his wounds. He had rips on his face, Danny's wife, Diana Walls said of the grade-schooler. 'Not just cuts, rips.' Hero: Neighbor Danny Walls rescued Aryan by grabbing a painter's pole and whacking the raccoon until it died This image shows Walls recreating how he struck the animal until it let go of the six-year-old boy After profusely thanking the fearless neighbor for saving her son's life, Monali Gavali rushed Aryan to Hackensack Medical Center to be treated for his injuries. Speaking from her son's bedside via video chat Wednesday night, Ms Gavali called Walls her 'angel,' reported CBS2. The bloody carcass of the raccoon that attacked Aryan was taken to a lab to be tested for rabies. The results are expected on Friday. The reports that a Syrian refugee had fallen ill and died after queuing for days outside of an overworked immigration processing office in Berlin, has been unmasked as a lie. The tragic story of a 24-year-old man succumbing to influenza after waiting outside the registration centre in freezing temperatures was shared on social media all over the world yesterday. However, the volunteer worker who shared the story on social media had made it all up to win sympathy and support for the plight of the migranrs in the German capital, Berlin police reports. The tragic story of the 24-year-old Syrian who died after waiting outside the registration centre in Berlin (pictured) was shared on social media all over the world yesterday - but it has now emerged to be fake A German immigration worker named Dirk V., had posted the story about the 24-year-old asylum seeker who had developed influenza while waiting in the queue. He wrote how the Syrian man had became sicker and sicker, before suffering a cardiac arrest. He said he had taken the man into his own house, but it was too late to help him. The notice read: 'We mourn for you. You were 24 years old. You came from Syria. You survived so much. You did not survive LAGeSo. 'You got fever, chills and then a cardiac arrest. You died last night. We cry for you.' LAGeSo is the German acronym for the State Office for Health and Social Affairs where refugees in the capital go to register. In addition, a death notice for the unnamed migrant had also appeared in a local newspaper after being posted on Facebook by Dirk V, and then shared all over the world. The man had developed influenza while waiting in he queue and became more sick before suffering a cardiac arrest In recent days there have been chaotic scenes outside the building as struggling volunteers buckled under the pressure of the sheer numbers of asylum seekers As a result, Berlin police devoted manpower to try to track down Dirk V. including posting a patrol outside his home and ringing repeatedly on his switched off mobile phone. But as people queued to place candles at the place where the young man died, it has now been revealed by police that the entire story was made up. The original Facebook poster was arrested and questioned, and refused to say anything but eventually last night confessed that the entire story had been made up from beginning to end. A police spokesman said: 'During the interview, we made it clear to the man that there was no dead asylum seeker.' But despite the fact that the story went round the world, the man has apparently not committed any crime for posting the item on Facebook and then later deleting it. LAGeSo is the German acronym for the State Office for Health and Social Affairs, pictured, where refugees in the capital go to register German police and rescue workers tried at the time to diffuse the situation saying they could find no trace of the man, but could not stop the spread of the story. One charity worker quoted in local media said: 'Who accepts responsibility here? Who has the guilt, the failing management or the political will - who else knows what's going on?' The death was also spread by Moabit Helps (Moabit Hilft), the refugee aid organisation located in the district of the city where the LAGeSo office is located. Diana Henniges, a spokeswoman for the group, said the young man was rushed to hospital after collapsing at the site but died of cardiac arrest a short while afterwards. She added: 'The condition of the man was very bad. He was completely destitute, had no insurance and was completely emaciated. 'He suffered an influenza infection which proved lethal. 'We have so many people who are sick and we are getting more and more behind with helping them. 'So many are sick, that we can't help them all.' One woman was heard on a microphone saying: 'That was a sermon' The GOP politician has since apologized, but has insisted he gave the pastor 'due VanAman said: 'You were pleased with Solomon, may you be pleased with us,' before Rosenberger finally interjected Rosenberger opened his eyes and looked anxious at four minutes The clergyman had been speaking for five minutes before he was stopped As Ohio's Speaker Of The House, Cliff Rosenberger is used to cutting off politicians if they go on too long. But the Republican stirred controversy on Tuesday when he interrupted a pastor during his opening prayer. The representative for Clarksville, who has been speaker for less than a month, intervened and said 'Amen' five minutes into B.J. Van Aman's long-winded grace before quickly ushering him off of the stage. A woman at the front of the statehouse is then heard in one of the microphones saying: 'That was a sermon.' The GOP politician has since apologized for his actions, but insists he gave the clergymen 'due diligence'. In an interview with the Columbus Dispatch, Rosenberger said: 'I didnt mean to be rude and I feel terrible. 'Its just that I felt that I gave it its due diligence. When I thought it was enough I didnt know really how best to do it, so I just said "amen" and here we go.' Video footage shows Rosenberger opening the session and then inviting Van Aman to the stage. Rep. Tim Schaffer had welcomed the religious leader from his district to make the opening remarks. Most prayers go on for around 90 seconds, but Van Aman's message continued for five minutes. Pastor B.J. Van Aman is seen giving his opening prayer to the Ohio House of Representatives Speaker Of The House Cliff Rosenberger (far right) is seen first opening his eyes after about three minutes Poll Should the Speaker have stopped the pastor mid-prayer? Yes No Should the Speaker have stopped the pastor mid-prayer? Yes 64 votes No 26 votes Now share your opinion Rosenberger is seen first opening his eyes after about three minutes, before shutting them again and carrying on. Just before the four-minute mark, he starts to look anxious about the length and trying to decide the right way to end it. Then, around five minutes in, he cuts him off. 'You were pleased with Solomon, may you be pleased with us,' Van Aman said. 'Amen,' Rosenberger said. He then thanked the pastor for being there before ushering him off the stage. Rosenberger then led the members of the House in the Pledge of Allegiance. Since there are microphones on the desks of House members, one female member could be heard saying, 'That was a sermon.' Daily Mail Online has contacted Van Aman for comment . Just before the four-minute mark, he starts to look anxious about the length and trying to decide the right way to end it. Then, around five minutes in, he cuts him off by saying 'Amen' He then thanked the pastor for being there before ushering him off the stage Police stopped a holidaymaker at the airport over an unpaid TV license fine - then later admitted they'd made a mistake. Linda Wooldridge was told she would be put in the cells overnight if she didn't pay the 55 fine by officers at Edinburgh Airport after she returned from a break in Amsterdam. They insisted the money was outstanding from a case at Dundee Sheriff Court and to avoid jail Linda, 50, paid the money and was then forced to fork out another 85 for a taxi after missing the last bus. Police Scotland have now agreed to pay her back the 55 and Linda, from Linlathen, Dundee, is also appealing to get her taxi fare repaid too. Linda Wooldridge was told she would be put in the cells overnight if she didn't pay the 55 fine by officers at Edinburgh Airport after she returned from a break in Amsterdam She said: 'I had literally just reached the arrivals hall when I was approached by police officers who said they wanted to talk to me. 'They told me I had an outstanding fine due at Dundee Sheriff Court. 'I insisted that I didn't, but they insisted I did and that unless I paid it there and then I would be taken to the cells in Edinburgh for the night.' Linda said she was told she still had to pay a 55 fine she had received for non-payment of her TV licence. But she insisted the matter had already been cleared up at court. Holidaymakers can be issued with on the spot fines if attempting to leave or enter the country having not paid an outstanding court fine in an initiative rolled out across the UK in 2008. And if someone has not paid their fines and a warrant has been issued for their arrest then they could ultimately wind up in custody if they cannot make a payment. 'If you are planning to travel abroad, we urge you to pay your fine before heading to the air or ferry port,' said Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service acting chief operations officer David Fraser. 'Otherwise you risk being arrested and having your travel plans disrupted. It's nicer to start your trip without that worry hanging over you.' A spokesman for the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service added: 'If a person fined by a court does not pay, the fines enforcement officers in the sheriffdom in which the fine was issued pursue the defaulter. 'If the person does not appear at court after being ordered to do so, or if the fines officers can provide evidence to the court that the present whereabouts of a defaulter are unknown usually because correspondence has been returned unanswered then they can apply to the court to issue a warrant. 'The Sheriff then has the option to issue a warrant. The warrant, once signed by the Sheriff, is sent on to the police who enforce it. Police at Edinburgh Airport insisted the money was outstanding from a case at Dundee Sheriff Court, but the fine had already been waived by a judge 'A port or airport arrest happens when the police have intelligence that suggests a person is either arriving the country, and as mentioned on the phone, this applies throughout the UK.' Last year, Linda had been arrested for non-payment of her TV license but the sheriff had waived the fine when he found out she had spent a night in the cells. She said that on the night she arrived at the airport she agreed to hand over the 55 because she just wanted to get home. She said: 'This was my house-keeping money that I couldn't really afford but I reckoned it was the best way to deal with the matter that night because it was then after midnight.' She left the airport but had missed her bus and says she paid 85 for a taxi home. When Linda went to Bell Street police station in Dundee the next day to complain about what had happened, she says that police admitted the mistake. Documents were later sent to Linda's lawyer saying the money could be reimbursed. They stated: 'We note that the fine had actually been remitted to nil at Dundee Sheriff Court.' Linda said: 'They told me they were aware that the matter had been dealt with and I should never have been detained in Edinburgh. 'They eventually offered to pay me back the 55 but said they had no obligation to refund my taxi money because I had been approached by police at the airport in good faith. 'I am refusing to accept the 55 until they refund me the 85 as well. I also want an apology. This whole thing was a horrible experience.' He was arrested last year on child pornography and exploitation charges Images were found by the FBI during investigation into Brandon Gressette Onu told police it was harmless because it was just a 'game' to the girl She is accused of taking 7,000 in 13 payments from Europe and the U.S. A mother accused of sexually abusing her 11-month-old baby online in return for payment from British and U.S. paedophiles has been arrested in Romania. Mother-of-two Roxana Elena Onu, 24, from the commune of Varasti in southern Romania, was arrested last week after Romanian police received a tip-off from the FBI. Images of Onu abusing her baby were discovered by U.S. authorities during an investigation into Brandon Gressette, 31, who was arrested last year for charges related to sexual exploitation of children and child pornography. Onu Roxana Elena (pictured) thought it was okay to sexually abuse her daughter because the child thought it was 'just a game' Onu was tracked down during an FBI investigation following the arrest of Brandon Gressette (pictured) last year The FBI informed Romanian authorities that the woman was operating under the username brunetelovex2 and had allegedly received money from Gressette via Western Union. Further investigations revealed that between June 2014 and October 2015 she received a total of 7,000 through 13 transfers from seven people in the USA, the UK, Belgium and Holland. Onu told prosecutors she carried out the abuse believing the baby would not be emotionally affected because she was only 11 months old. She added she avoided involving her three-year-old boy in the video chat activities, because 'he is older and he could have been affected emotionally'. She said: 'I agreed to do these things with my daughter because I thought that she couldn't have suffered any trauma. I thought that it was all just a game.' She added that she had been video-chatting before becoming pregnant but since December 2014 decided to also involve her child. She said: 'After graduating high-school I got involved in video-chat activities. It was my idea to involve my baby girl. 'Some of my clients knew that I had been giving birth to a baby. They asked me to undress her and to touch her. 'I agreed to do that in exchange of money. Some of them were paying me with $500, others with 100.' If found guilty, Onu could face up to 15 years in jail. Onu told prosecutors she carried out the abuse believing the baby would not be emotionally affected. The mother-of-two, from the Varasti commune in southern Romania, was arrested last week A leading surgeon who performed the world's first liver transplant faces being struck off for allegedly charging the Queen of Brunei's sister 12million for breast cancer treatment. Dr Susan Lim Mey Lee, who is based in Singapore but a member of the General Medical Council (GMC) in London, is an expert in robotic-assisted surgery and stem cell research and performed the world's first successful liver transplant in 1990. However, despite being held in high regard, she now faces losing her ability to practise after the GMC launched an inquiry into the 'grossly excessive fees' she charged to the Brunei royal family. Dr Susan Lim Mey Lee (right), who is based in Singapore but a member of the GMC in London, faces being struck off for charging the Queen of Brunei's sister 12m for breast cancer treatment over a six-month period. She was found guilty on misconduct in Singapore and faces a probe in Britain. Left: The Queen of Brunei An investigation into Dr Lee was launched by the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) in 2012. She was accused of charging 12million ($24m Singapore dollars) for coordinating the treatment of the Queen of Brunei's sister over a six-month period in 2007. The SMC found her guilty of 94 counts and suspended her from practising for three years for her 'particularly serious' misconduct. She was also fined 5,000 ($10,000) and ordered to promise that she would charge fair and reasonable fees in future. The Singapore High Court rejected an appeal which she lodged in 2013, describing the 'opportunistic and arbitrary' fees charged as 'grossly excessive'. That prompted a letter to the GMC in London from its counterpart in Singapore, alerting it to the findings against Dr Lee. The GMC's fitness to practise panel is now investigating the case and has the power to strike off Dr Lee if she is found guilty. Dr Lee faces losing her ability to practise after the GMC in London (headquarters pictured) launched an inquiry into the 'grossly excessive fees' she charged to the Brunei royal family while working in Singapore in 2007 Dr Lee fought to block the investigation at London's High Court, insisting that the alleged misconduct dated back to 2007 and that it was now too late to take action against her. She said her GMC membership was 'effectively honorary' and she had not realised she was obliged to keep the body informed about the disciplinary case in Singapore. Dismissing her challenge, however, Mr Justice Haddon-Cave said Dr Lee was duty-bound to notify the GMC in London of the SMC's findings against her. The five-year time limit applied under GMC rules began when the SMC found her guilty of misconduct, he added. Shooting took place at a notorious migrant camp near Dunkirk on Tuesday A UK-bound migrant shot at a notorious migrant camp near Dunkirk was hurt during a gunfight between rival Muslim and Christian people smugglers vying for trade, it has been claimed. Police were called when trouble broke out at the notorious Grande-Synthe shanty town late on Tuesday afternoon. Three people were shot, one stabbed and another struck on the head with a stick during clashes that resulted in two arrests. Police were called when trouble broke out at the notorious Grande-Synthe shanty town on Tuesday The clash centred on Christian and Muslim people smugglers, the national delegate for the Unsa police union, David Michaux said, according to the Times. He said 'dozens' of shots were fired during the battle. 'The religious tensions there exacerbate the situation,' he added. 'One of the big problems in this camp is that you have Muslims on one side, and Christians on the other.' However, the Times reports that state prosecutors have yet to confirm whether there was a religious element to the clash. Officers later fired at a vehicle that was believed to have been driven by a people smuggler. On Tuesday, a local police source said: 'It is thought that people smugglers were involved in the violence'. Three people were shot, one stabbed and another struck on the head with a stick during clashes that resulted in two arrests The clash centred on Christian and Muslim people smugglers, the national delegate for the Unsa police union, David Michaux said He added: 'The trouble broke out at around 4pm, and it was finally broken up by police. The three injured migrants were rushed to hospital at Grande-Synthe. None of the injuries were life threatening.' The source said it was common for the smugglers to hand out summary justice if people had not paid them enough money, or had annoyed them in some other way. Damien Careme, the mayor of Grande-Synthe, said on Tuesday that 'only one shot was heard', before firearms officers attended the scene. An investigation was immediately launched, with many of the 2500 migrants in the camp questioned. The camp has become notorious for the amount of people smugglers who prey on it, leading to allegations that it is 'in the hands of the Mafia'. Earlier this month, UKIP defence spokesman Mike Hookem MEP slammed French government plans to build an office refugee camp near the existing shanty town at Grande-Synthe. Damien Careme, the mayor of Grande-Synthe, said 'only one shot was heard', before firearms officers attended the scene An investigation was immediately launched, with many of the 2500 migrants in the camp questioned He said the French were 'kidding themselves' if they thought the new 1.1 million centre would 'defeat people traffickers and protect truck drivers in the port region'. Mr Hookem, who was threatened with a gun in the nearby Teteghem refugee camp in August last year said; 'Congregating migrants in one massive camp is exactly the wrong thing to do and will put extra pressure on police, port security, Immigration officials and truckers in the region. 'In fact these plans will essentially make the entire Dunkirk-Calais region an absolute no go area for British hauliers. This is the touching moment that an elderly couple finally got their dog back after being left heartbroken when it was adopted by another family after escaping. Sharon Robinson, 71, and her husband Larry, 73, were in Boston visiting his son when eight-year-old Tipsy escaped from their home in Stockton, California. They desperately searched for the Shetland Sheepdog for days but when the tracked her down, she had been adopted by another family who were refusing to give her back. But eventually, the family - who did not want to be identified' agreed to return her, and this video captures the beautiful moment that the couple were re-united with their lost pet. Scroll down for video Your browser does not support HTML5 video. Dog-gone: Sharon and Larry Robinson's dog Tipsy escaped and was taken in by a new family, who have refused to give her back The Robinsons, pictured on their wedding day, were visiting family in Boston when Tipsy, eight, got away The couple eventually tracked down Tipsy, only to find that another family had taken their Shetland Sheepdog in - and they will not give her back Valley Humane Society in California took Tipsy from an animal shelter and gave her to a new family Mrs Robinson sobbed as she greeted her, later saying: 'We're never going to let you go again,' in as she embraced the dog in the touching moments captured by Inside Edition. Tipsy escaped on December 5 and the Robinsons found out on January 12 that their dog had been adopted by a family that had lost their own Sheltie, Fox40 reported. Valley Humane Society had found Tipsy at an animal shelter in Stockton in December but she was not eating, so they took her to their rescue home instead. It was there where the new family found the dog, who does not have a chip and was not wearing a collar, and decided to take her home just after New Year. 'We looked every day. I even looked when I was sick, and they thought I was coming with pneumonia again,' Mrs Robinson said. 'I just want her back.' She offered to pay the new family back any fees they incurred while adopting Tipsy and pleaded for them to hand over her beloved pet, but they refused. The Robinsons had not chipped Tipsy and she was not wearing her collar when she escaped from their home in Stockton, California 'Theyve loved her for a little over two weeks. Ive loved her for eight-and-a-half years,' she said. 'I might add we paid for her in the beginning and we had no intention of giving her away,' she added. Mrs Robinson said her husband's health is in decline and that Tipsy was his 'companion'. 'This is a sad situation and one that is heartbreaking,' she said. 'While I realize she should have had a microchip in place our medical bills took presence as we never thought we would need to deal with a situation like this.' Mrs Robinson is now considering taking legal action against Valley Humane Society. Melanie Sadek, executive director of Valley Humane Society, told Daily Mail Online that everyone at the center was also 'heartbroken' that they had passed Tipsy on. Mrs Robinson offered to pay the new family back any fees they incurred while adopting Tipsy and pleaded for them to hand over her beloved pet, but they refused Tipsy was Mr Robinson's 'companion' and his wife said the situation was 'heartbreaking', but the new family changed their mind and agreed to give their beloved pet back She said the rescue organization did not know the Sheltie had an owner and that they needed to find her a new home so she would settle down and start eating again. Ms Sadek said legal ownership had passed from Stockton animal services to Valley Humane Society and then on to the new family, meaning there was nothing she was legally able to do. But the family were slammed on social media, with users telling them to give the dog back, and branding the 'selfish'. Eventually, the family agreed to return her and she is now back with Mrs Robinson, who was quite understanding of their reluctance, saying: 'I understand the pain that they're feeling.' Ms Sadek added that just 26 per cent of the 5,000 dogs who pass through Stockton animal services every year are reclaimed by owners, and they do not have the facilities to hold on to every dog until someone comes forward. A three-year-old girl found in critical condition inside a snowed-in car in New Jersey alongside the bodies of her mother and brother has also died, medics said. Saniyah Bonilla was taken to hospital on Sunday after being found unresponsive in a car alongside her mother Sasha, 23, and brother Messiah, one, who were already dead. Saniyah had remained in critical care at the St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center in Paterson until she passed away yesterday afternoon, NBC New York reported. Scroll down for video Saniyah Bonilla, three (right), the girl found unconscious inside a snowed-in car alongside the bodies of mother Sasha, 23, and one-year-old brother Messiah (both pictured) has also died Sasha, Saniyah and Messiah had gone out on Sunday to help father Felix dig their car out of a snow drift following storm Jonas, but climbed into the vehicle and turned the engine on after getting cold The family are thought to have succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning after their car's tail pipe became blocked with snow, forcing exhaust fumes into the cabin. The tragedy is believed to have unfolded as the family, including father Felix Bonilla Jr, went to dig their car out of a huge snow drift following storm Jonas which hit on Saturday. While digging Sasha, Saniyah and Messiah are thought to have become cold, and so climbed into the vehicle and turned the heaters on as Felix continued digging just a few feet away. By the time Felix looked up from what he was doing ten minutes later, he found his entire family unconscious. Witnesses describe trying to carry out CPR on the trio, but quickly realized that the little boy and his mother could not be saved. They were pronounced dead immediately after arriving at hospital, while doctors described Saniyah's condition as 'very critical' and said she was unlikely to survive. Authorities believe that carbon monoxide fumes were pushed into the cabin of the car (pictured) because the tail pipe was still blocked with snow Father Felix carried on shoveling snow for ten minutes before looking inside the vehicle to find his entire family unconscious inside, according to emergency crews Neighbor Isabel Carmona described the tragic scene, saying father Felix was reduced to tears, 'crying and jumping' around before medics arrived. When rescue workers did eventually arrive, she added: 'The paramedic, he cry, and the police cry. Everybody cry.' Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless and tasteless gas that is produced by the incomplete burning of hydrocarbon fuels, such as gasoline. While non-toxic at low levels, at high levels it leads to drowsiness, disorientation, extreme fatigue and ultimately death. The family were taken to hospital on Sunday where Messiah and Sasha were pronounced dead on arrival. Medics said Saniyah was in a 'very critical' condition before passing away yesterday afternoon Carbon monoxide poisoning is also thought to be behind the death of Brooklyn man Angel Ginel, 44, who was found unresponsive inside his snow-covered vehicle with the engine still running on Tuesday Once inhaled, carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin in red blood cells, the protein responsible for carrying oxygen to cells. As levels of carbon monoxide build up, the levels of oxygen in the blood drop sharply, and if the poisoning goes undetected, it ultimately causes the body to shut down. Carbon monoxide poisoning is also believed to be behind the death of Angel Ginel, 44, in Brooklyn, who was found dead inside his car on Tuesday with the engine still running. Barista judge Maria Paoli says the snobby attitude of the Melbourne's baristas is unacceptable An expert who has judged international baristas has singled out Melbourne for its rude baristas. Melbourne is renowned for its incredible coffee culture and has turned the beverage into an art form, indulging in cold drips, French pressed coffee and high quality bean roasting to secure their label as the coffee capital of Australia. However, barista judge and trainer Maria Paoli says the snobby attitude of the citys baristas is unacceptable and letting Victorias famous coffee culture down. There is way too much attitude from the staff in our cafes. Its so prevalent in Melbourne, from body language, to tone, language and an inability to stop looking at mobile phones while people are waiting to be served. Its a matter of courtesy, Ms Paoli told the Herald Sun. The coffee connoisseur runs historical and sensory walking tours of some of Melbournes best cafes and is passionate about espresso so much so she says coffee is in her blood. She says she is often dismayed to see baristas speaking down to customers, especially the elderly and people with allergies, and professionals need to remember the old adage that the customer is always right. If an elderly person goes to a cafe, and they are often the ones with money to spend on a coffee outing, and they ask for a hot coffee, that is what they should get. It doesnt matter if its not the perfect way to serve coffee that is what they like so they should get it, she told the Herald Sun. And dont put on that face when a customer has an allergy. Put on a smile and embrace it because you want that customer to come back, she advises Melbourne baristas. Ms Paoli says she is often dismayed to see baristas speaking down to customers, especially the elderly and people with allergies She is an accredited barista judge and has set up and judged for international Barista Competitions. She has loved coffee since she was a child and is always on the search for the perfect drop with a discerning approach to detail. In her tours, Ms Paoli takes visitors through the history of Espresso in Melbourne, branching from the coffee practices of the pre-war immigrants, the espresso revolution which took place in the mid 1950s and the current thriving coffee experience which makes up so much of the citys character. According to the City of Victoria the Port of Melbourne handles 30 tonnes of coffee beans every day which translates to three million cups of coffee every single day. 'Affluenza' teen Ethan Couch has returned to the United States a month after he was caught on the run in Mexico. Couch, 18, was seen arriving at Dallas Fort Worth Airport and was escorted through the terminal by U.S. immigration officials. He was marched into the coach section of a commercial AeroMexico plane at Mexico City Airport earlier on Thursday morning after dropping his appeal against extradition. The teenager was taken to a juvenile detention center, where he will be held until tomorrow when he is likely to face a court hearing to decide whether he will be tried as a child or an adult. The notorious teenager killed four people in a DUI crash in 2013 but was not jailed after a court ruled he did not understand the difference between right and wrong because of his privileged background. He went on the run in Mexico in December last year after allegedly breaching his probation by playing beer pong at a party. Scroll down for video 'Affluenza' teenager Ethan Couch (pictured at Dallas Fort Worth Airport) has returned to the United States a month after he was caught on the run in Mexico Couch, 18, was seen arriving at Dallas Fort Worth Airport and was escorted through the terminal by U.S. immigration officials Couch, who was taken into custody on arrival, has been on the run since December after allegedly breaching his probation 'Affluenza' teenager Ethan Couch (pictured in a Mexican government vehicle on the way to Mexico City Airport) was put on a plane to Dallas, Texas, by Mexican immigration officials Four apparently unarmed agents were seen escorting Couch onto a plane, which was headed for Texas Couch (inside the white SUV) arrived at the Lynn W. Ross Juvenile Detention Center on Thursday afternoon Couch and his mother, Tonya, were arrested a month ago in the Mexican Puerto Vallarta resort. She was quickly deported but he had fought against proceedings until a few days ago. Mexico's immigration institute said that Couch was taken to Mexico City Airport from an immigration holding center where he had been held. Video released by the immigration institute showed Couch wearing a blue, camouflage-print hoodie, as he was escorted out of the detention center before dawn. Four apparently unarmed agents were seen escorting him onto the plane. The institute said that upon arrival in Dallas, Couch 'will be met by U.S. authorities and face various charges'. Attorney Fernando Benitez said on Monday that Couch had considered his legal options before opting to return to America where he is facing up to 120 days in jail. A judge could hold a hearing as soon as tomorrow to decide whether to hold him in a juvenile detention center, an adult jail, or free him. For the meantime, he will be held at the Lynn W. Ross Juvenile Detention Center, where he was driven to this afternoon after landing in the U.S.. Another hearing will take place on February 19 to decide whether his case is transferred to the adult justice system. If so, another breach of probation could lead to Couch facing 40 years in prison. Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson said Couch was 'calm' after arriving at the juvenile jail and had asked for a meal. Uniformed Mexican immigration agents put Couch (pictured at Mexico City Airport), 18, aboard a commercial flight to Dallas, Texas, on Thursday morning Cuffed: Couch and his mother, Tonya, were detained in the resort of Puerto Vallarta in December Heading home: Couch was wearing a blue, camouflage-print hoodie as he was escorted out of the detention center before dawn The Mexican immigration institute said that upon arrival in Dallas, Couch 'will be met by U.S. authorities and face various charges' Couch was taken to Mexico City Airport from an immigration holding center where he had been held Couch signed paperwork at Mexico City Airport before he was marched onto a commercial AeroMexico flight Couch will be held at the Lynn W. Ross Juvenile Detention Center, where he was driven to this afternoon after landing in the U.S. 'We've reached a great milestone,' Anderson said. 'This is a day we've looked forward to, when we have them both here and back under the jurisdiction here. We're hoping that the day comes for justice for the families and the four victims that were killed.' Meanwhile, Tonya Couch could be jailed for up to 10 years if she is found guilty of helping her son flee the authorities. Couch was first arrested in 2013 after he killed four people while behind the wheel of his father's truck, despite being three times over the drink driving limit and too young to drive. Breanna Mitchell, 18, had broken down at the side of a highway in Texas and was trying to fix her vehicle alongside Hollie Boyles and her daughter Shelby, who lived nearby, and youth minister Brian Jennings, who had also stopped to help. Couch left the road while traveling at 70mph and hit the group, killing all of them, and paralyzing friend Sergio Molina from the neck down after he was thrown clear of the truck. At his trial, Couch's defense claimed he had 'affluenza', meaning he had been given such a privileged upbringing he was incapable of telling right from wrong. The 'condition' is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, and drew widespread ridicule and outrage at the time. However, Judge Jean Hudson Boyd accepted the defense and sentenced Couch to 10 years of probation, with conditions which prohibited him from driving or drinking alcohol. Mother Tonya Couch, who fled to Mexico with her son, was released on bail after she decided not to fight deportation and was transferred back to Texas Couch was sentenced to 10 years of probation which bars him from drinking or driving after he killed four people while joyriding his father's truck (wreckage pictured) back in 2013 Couch, who gained notoriety after he was given probation for killing four people in a DUI car wreck in 2013 (pictured in December 2013), had been fighting deportation back to his home state of Texas, but dropped that appeal on Monday AFFLUENZA TEEN'S LEGAL TIMELINE February 19, 2013: Ethan Couch, then 15, is caught in a truck with a naked, unconscious 14-year-old girl. He is sentenced to probation, an alcohol awareness course and community service. June 15, 2013: Couch kills four people in a 70mph DUI crash in Texas. He was more than three times over the blood alcohol limit. December 10, 2013: A judge spares Couch jail and gives him 10 years of probation following his 'affluenza' defense. December 3, 2015: A video emerges appearing to show Couch playing beer pong, which would violate his probation. December 15, 2015: An arrest warrant is issued for Couch after he and his mother, Tonya, go missing. December 28, 2015: Couch and his mother are arrested in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. December 30, 2015: Tonya Couch is deported to the United States. January 28, 2016: Ethan Couch is deported to the United States. Advertisement In December last year Couch was apparently filmed playing beer pong while at a party, in a likely violation of that order. Texas authorities launched an investigation and tried to contact Couch and his mother, Tonya, before revealing they had no idea where the pair were. They were eventually traced to the resort of Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, where they were arrested on December 28. Tonya did not attempt to fight deportation and within days was back in Texas where she posted bail of $75,000 and is now awaiting trial for hindering the apprehension of a felon. Meanwhile, Couch launched an appeal against deportation and has been held in Mexico until today. He dropped that appeal on Monday and his attorney, Scott Brown, hinted that Couch could have been taken to Mexico against his will. Couch did not appear to be being held unlawfully when he was captured and was caught after using a credit card to order pizza. It later emerged that he had been to a strip club while he was on the run with his mother and spent $2,000 on a single night. The crash killed Breanna Mitchell, 24 (left), a chef who had stopped her car because of a blown out tire, and pastor Brian Jennings (right), 41, who had stopped to help her Three high school students have been arrested after allegedly selling explicit photographs and videos of their classmates. A group of more than 20 children at Newtown High School, Connecticut, were found to be involved in the alleged sexting ring. The students are said to have taken pictures of themselves but later found the images were being shared with up to 50 classmates at the school through messaging apps. Police believe ringleaders were making between $10 and $20 a piece for the photographs. Three boys at Newtown High School (pictured), Connecticut, have been arrested on child pornography charges after allegedly selling explicit photographs and videos of their classmates Three male students - who have not been identified because they are minors - were arrested on Tuesday and charged with transmitting or possessing child porn, as well as obscenity charges. Twenty more have been referred to a juvenile review board and could face community service. An investigation started in May last year when police were told that students at the high school were sharing sexually explicit pictures and videos, NBC Connecticut reported. Several boys and girls took the photographs and videos outside of school by themselves but later found that the images were circulating on messaging apps Snapchat, iMessage and Kik, police said. Students are said to have taken pictures of themselves but later found the images were being shared with 50 classmates (picture posed by model) Sergeant Aaron Bahamonde, from Newtown Police Department, told WTVR that some of the students tried to sell the graphic images for between $10 and $20 each. The material was sent to around 50 pupils before police intervened. Sgt Bahamonde said the students who took the photographs had been 'held accountable' for sending them on but said they had never intended for the pictures to be widely shared. 'There are victims here, real victims. You can imagine, as a student, going to school knowing others might possess pictures of you when you only intended one person to have them,' he said. 'It can be devastating on your psyche and you don't know what can happen afterward. Peer pressure is hard enough in high school.' Joseph Erardi, superintendent of public schools in Newtown, said: 'I think the difficult lesson learned to all students is that every key stroke you're putting forward on technology, you own that for a lifetime.' The three charged students will appear at Danbury Juvenile Court in February. Newtown High School teaches around 1,800 students in grades nine to 12 and was attended by Caitlyn Jenner in the 1960s. For most people, using a door is a simple matter of opening it and walking through. But some find the revolving kind a little more complicated, if guidance issued by a Scottish university is to be believed. Students at Aberdeens Robert Gordon University have been issued with detailed instructions on their use. An email, issued on behalf of the universitys occupational health and safety team, lists dos and donts prompting claims of a nanny state gone mad. The Robert Gordon University email advised that 'facial injuries can occur if the doors stop unexpectedly' Staff and students have been told not to stop or slow down the glass doors and to be aware of others using them. The guidance came after a member of staff fractured their arm at the Garthdee campus in Aberdeen. The email said: Revolving doors are heavy and may cause serious injuries if they strike someone. Do not push the doors hard as they will continue revolving and do not have automatic brakes. Pay attention and look where you are going when using these doors: facial injuries can occur if the doors stop unexpectedly. A Robert Gordon University spokeswoman said the accident had been reported and investigated. Aberdeen councillor Ian Yuill said: If someone has been injured in one, theres been a problem. If RGU thought it was necessary to provide information on how best to use a revolving door and it avoids someone hurting themselves again, then thats the main thing. Many social media users poked fun at the sign. On Twitter Jon Hebditch said: Im hoping they do one on standard doors next. Those things are a menace. Richard Whittle wrote: Nanny state stuff, all because someone was stupid? And Rab Davidson suggested: Next week a seminar on how to cope with the challenge of tables and chairs. Durham Ranger added: If you have staff that cannot use doors, why are they teaching students? Robert Gordon University students are not the first needing help. Three years ago Edinburgh College issued guidance after a student fractured their cheek and arm after being caught in a door. Staff put up signs with instructions on how to use a door without injury. The guidance came after a member of staff fractured their arm at the Garthdee campus in Aberdeen While some make light of the signs, there have been serious cases involving revolving doors. In 2011, Roderick Elliott, 73, died after he was knocked down as he left South Tyneside District Hospital in South Shields. Mr Elliott was leaving a check-up at the clinic after suffering two strokes when he was hit by the door and broke his left thigh bone. He died six days after having a screw fitted to his hip to fix the break. An inquest revealed he was the second person to be injured by the door. Last year, Tatler Magazines beloved pet dog Alan was crushed to death in revolving doors at Vogue House in London after returning from a walk with an intern. Advertisement Six-foot tall, the 'child' accused of murdering a Swedish aid worker appeared in court today. Somali-born Youssaf Khaliif Nuur, charged with murdering Alexandra Mezher, 22, towered over his translator as he walked into the courtroom in Gothenburg. She was knifed to death as she tried to break up a fight at the shelter for unaccompanied child refugees where she worked alone in charge of ten youths. Scroll down for video First picture: Somali-born Youssaf Khaliif Nuur, 15, pictured in court in Gothenburg today, is charged with murdering Swedish social worker Alexandra Mezher. At six foot tall, he towered over his translator when he walked into the courtroom in Gothenburg today Killed: Miss Mezher (left and right), 22, described as an 'angel' by her mother (left), was fatally stabbed in the back and thigh at the asylum centre for young, unaccompanied migrants in Molndal, Sweden, on Monday morning. She died saving the life of another resident whom allegedly knife-wielding Khaliif Nuur was trying to kill, police sources said She died saving the life of another resident whom allegedly knife-wielding Khaliif Nuur was trying to kill, police sources said. Swedish prosecutors admit they do not know if Somalian Khaliif Nuur, supposedly aged 15, is his true identity. Psychology graduate Miss Mezher had warned her mother she was caring for 'big powerful guys' aged up to 24 in the shelter for children aged 14 to 17. Children's asylum applications are fast-tracked in Sweden, prompting some grown men to lie and say they are teenagers. Handcuffed Khaliif Nuur, looking older than his supposed 15 years, was ushered into court wearing a blanket over his head, a white T-shirt, light blue shirt and jeans. Judge Henrik Andersson asked him: 'Are you Youssaf Khaliif Nuur?' and he nodded and said yes. He asked if he wanted to make a statement regarding the charges of murder and attempted murder, and his lawyer Nicklas Unger said: 'My client does not want to express himself in any way regarding the charges.' He said his client objected to being held in custody, but prosecutor Linda Viking argued he might abscond or interfere with evidence if he was bailed. The hearing then continued behind closed doors, and the alleged killer was later remanded into custody until February 11. Hearing: Somalian Khaliif Nuur, supposedly aged 15, towered over his translator during today's court hearing where court papers showed prosecutors do not know his true identity. Children's asylum applications are fast-tracked in Sweden so some men say they are teenagers Killed: Psychology graduate Miss Mezher, was working alone on a night shift at the child migrant centre on the morning she died Argument: Khaliif Nuur is being held in police custody at the high security Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, a psychiatric unit for patients with psychological and addiction issues. Miss Mezher was working at a shelter for unaccompanied child refugees (pictured) Outside court prosecutor Linda Viking said: 'The suspect has said he is 15 so that is what is charged as. But we are checking his date or birth and name to make sure they are accurate.' She said he had arrived in Sweden last summer. Asked how he travelled, she said: 'I can't comment on that.' A source close to the investigation told MailOnline: 'Youssaf Khaliif Nuur is older than 15. You can see he has moustache and a beard. He shaves but you can see he has facial hair. 'He is between 16 and 20 I believe. He is from Somalia. He left Africa less than a year ago. He has only recently arrived in Sweden. He spoke the Somalian language very well,' they added. The bloodshed happened at breakfast on Monday at the child shelter in Molndal, a suburb of Gothenburg, where Miss Mezher was the only member of staff on duty. Khaliif Nuur allegedly launched an unprovoked attack on another youth, and Miss Mezher intervened and was stabbed in the back and thigh, and died in hospital hours later. The murder started with an attack on another man, a source at Gothenburg Police told MailOnline today. There was an argument between the suspect and another resident at the hostel. I dont know the reason for the argument between the two residents. But in some way this woman got between them. She was trying to break up the fight. This lady [Alexandra Mezher] tried to separate them and told him [Youssaf Khaliif Nuur] to stop but he [allegedly] stabbed her. Tragedy: A police officer in Sweden has told MailOnline the psychology graduate (right) died trying to break up a fight between two migrants on Monday morning. She was the only member of staff on duty at the shelter when the fight broke out Court papers: Khaliif Nuur, 15, appeared in court in Gothenburg today charged with murder and attempted murder. Court documents show the authorities have no proof that the suspect's name is his true identity Locked up: The suspect, Somali-born Youssaf Khaliif Nuur who is accused of murdering a Swedish aid worker, is being held at the high security psychiatric clinic at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg. The facility is for patients with psychotic illnesses The source dismissed any suggestion that the killing had a sexual motive. He added murder suspect Youssaf Khaliif Nuur, 15, had complained of feeling unwell the night before and had not slept at all in the hours before the alleged attack. The teenager is currently being held at a secure psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Gothenburg. The Gothenburg Police source told MailOnline: There was no sexual motive in the murder. This Somali man did not have a motive for the attack other than he was not feeling well. This lady tried to separate them and told him to stop but he stabbed her. The suspect had been up all night. He had said he was not feeling well the night before. It has been suggested that Nuur has psychological issues and had a breakdown in the hours before the attack and complained of hearing voices in his head. The source revealed: 'The knifeman may have had some kind of breakdown. He may have suffered some trauma previously in his life.' The source said he was heard pacing around his bedroom for most of the night before the attack at 8am on Monday. Managers of the adolescent migrant centre should not have let Miss Mezher work the night shift on her own if they knew one of the residents was suffering a mental health breakdown, the Gothenburg Police source claimed. He told MailOnline: If the management of the centre knew that one of the residents was not [mentally] well [they] should have got in extra staff to help her that night.' The source, who has worked for Gothenburg Police for over 30 years, has detailed the explosion in crime in the Swedish city since the country threw open the doors to mass immigration. Life taken: Alexandra's mother said her daughter (second from left) had been warned four hours before she started her last shift that a knife had been stolen from the kitchen, but nothing was apparently done. She was working alone in charge of ten youths He told MailOnline: We have experienced an explosion in crime, particularly violent crime, since our politicians threw open the doors to immigrants from all over the world. I have worked in Gothenburg for over 30 years and I have never known anything like it. The city always had a bit of trouble, but it was usually among people who were drunk and knew each other. But now I will not let my children go into the city after 2pm and especially not at night. There are violent gangs roaming around the streets and the use of knives and other weapons have become normal, rather than a rarity as it used to be. There are 20 robberies in Gothenburg every day usually with violence or the threat of violence. This week an 83-year-old lady had a gun put in her face when she was mugged on her way to play bingo. They got away with just 50 Kroner [about 4]. In the summer there were mass shootings with lots of people killed, including a little girl. He added the city streets were now at the mercy of gangs of young men mainly from North Africa. The source revealed: In the past couple of months we have noticed a dramatic increase in street robbery. This is a new phenomenon. They will do anything to get money steal a persons wallet, iPhone, jewellery. And then they will attack their victim and kick them half to death. Drug crime has gone through the roof. Every drug is available on the street nowadays, even in broad daylight. And when the police arrest someone nowadays the suspect often fights back with a knife or a screwdriver. This is not something we have seen before. Hard working: Psychology graduate Miss Mezher, who was a Lebanese Christian whose parents were from Beirut, was described by her mother Chimene as an 'angel'. She was stabbed to death while working a night shift alone at a centre for migrant children North Korea plans to launch a rocket into space within the next fortnight, US officials have claimed. Washington intelligence has reported increased movement of components and propellant near a missile text site inside the closed country in recent weeks. They now believe Kim Jong Un will conduct a space launch in the very imminent future. 'Our concern though is that they do a space-launch but really it's the same technology to develop ICBMs (inter-continental ballistic missiles),' an official told Reuters news on Thursday. Scroll down for video Dictator: The news of the possible long-range missile launch comes just days after Kim Jong-un claimed he had weapons capable of obliterating the U.S. The revelation comes just 24 hours after speculation that North Korea was preparing to launch a long-range missile as soon as next week, which itself followed claims by dictator Kim Jong-un that he had weapons capable of obliterating the U.S. Japan's Kyodo news agency, citing an unnamed Japanese government official, yesterday alleged there are signs of possible preparations for a missile launch based on analysis of satellite imagery of the North's Tongchang-ri missile test site on its west coast. The government source said a missile launch could occur in about a week at the earliest, Kyodo reported. It is not clear whether both allegations - of a space and missile launch - are related. U.N. Security Council members are currently calling for fresh sanctions against North Korea after it conducted its fourth nuclear test on January 6. The country is already under sanctions for its nuclear and missile programmes. It last conducted a long-range rocket launch in late 2012, successfully putting an object into orbit in what is believed by experts to be part of its effort to build an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Earlier this month, North Korea's state news agency KCNA, reported that the leader's scientists 'are in high spirit to detonate H-bombs of hundreds of kilotons and megatons, capable of wiping out the whole territory of the US all at once'. Kim Jong Un watches a submarine-launched ballistic missile which he claims could deliver a nuclear warhead, however experts claim the footage was faked The declaration came after the pariah state claimed to have tested a hydrogen bomb and released suspect footage of a submarine-launched ballistic missile it claims could deliver such a weapon. State television broadcast footage of the test, said to have taken place in December, and boasted about the hermit nation's ballistic missile technology. Pyongyang said it would allow the country to deliver a nuclear warhead. Experts have largely dismissed the H-bomb test, saying the yield around six kilotons was far too low for a fully-fledged thermonuclear device, which would have been 100 times more powerful. The KCNA commentary said the test 'was neither to 'threaten' anyone nor to 'provoke' someone for a certain purpose'. KCNA insisted that the main focus was on providing a 'sure guarantee' of the North's immunity from attack by hostile forces. Prime among those forces was the U.S. it said, offering an apocalyptic vision of how it would respond to US aggression. On January 12, the U.S. House of Representatives voted nearly unanimously to pass legislation to broaden sanctions on the North. The seventh and final GOP debate will go on as planned this evening even though the party's star presidential candidate is refusing to attend. Donald Trump is boycotting tonight's Fox News debate over network host Megyn Kelly's alleged bias against him and will hold his own event across town at the same time to benefit veterans organizations. Trump suggested this morning that other GOP candidates might follow his lead and skip the debate, too, but gave no indication of which of his rivals were considering a defection. Mike Huckabee, slated to appear at the earlier undercard debate, said this afternoon that he would join Trump at his veterans event - but only after he's done on stage. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO The seventh and final GOP debate will go on as planned this evening even though the party's star presidential candidate, Donald Trump, is refusing to attend. He's seen here at a campaign event in South Carolina yesterday CNN said this afternoon that Mike Huckabee, slated to appear at the earlier undercard debate, is going with Trump Fox is moving forward with the the prime time debate, moderated by Kelly, center, Bret Baier, right, and Chris Wallace and airing at 9pm Eastern, regardless of Trump's decision not to attend because of his beef with the 'Kelly file' host Publicly, his favorite punching bags have rejoiced that he won't be there, however, and expressed hope that they'll finally have an opportunity to discuss something other than the New York real estate mogul and his positions on the issues. Fox is moving forward with the the prime time debate, moderated by Kelly, Bret Baier and Chris Wallace and airing at 9pm Eastern, regardless of Trump's decision not to attend because of his beef with the 'Kelly file' host. Their feud dates back to the first Republican debate in August when she pressed him to defend his treatment of women. The argument turned ugly, with Trump later appearing on CNN to trash talk Kelly, whom he said was so angry she had 'blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her...wherever.' As this week's debate grew near, Trump re-upped his attacks on Kelly, calling her a 'lightweight' and questioning her professionalism. After he asked his social media followers if he should attend the debate at all, Fox fired live rounds in his direction, irking the billionaire enough that he pulled out of the event. It said in a statement, 'We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president - a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.' At a press conference that evening ahead of his Marshalltown, Iowa, rally, Trump said the statement, along with one signed by Fox News CEO Roger Ailes defending Kelly, pushed him over the edge. 'I was all set to do the debate. I came here to do the debate, but when they sent out the wise guy press releases a little while ago, done by PR person along with Roger Ailes, I said, bye, bye, OK?' HUCK'S IN: Huckabee, a former Fox News host himself, is taking Trump up on his offer and heading to the veterans event after he's done with the undercard debate Fox responded in kind that evening with a new statement in which it said: 'Were not sure how Iowans are going to feel about him walking away from them at the last minute, but it should be clear to the American public by now that this is rooted in one thing Megyn Kelly.' Trump called for Kelly's removal from the stage as a moderator for several days before the dramatics reached a zenith, but Fox refused. 'Capitulating to politicians ultimatums about a debate moderator violates all journalistic standards, as do threats,' the statement said, 'including the one leveled by Trumps campaign manager Corey Lewandowski toward Megyn Kelly.' According to Fox, Lewandowski suggested that Kelly should recuse herself - or else. 'We cant give in to terrorizations toward any of our employees,' it said. 'Trump is still welcome at Thursday nights debate and will be treated fairly, just as he has been during his 132 appearances on FOX News & FOX Business, but he cant dictate the moderators or the questions.' And on her show that night Kelly defiantly said, 'I'll be there.' She added, 'The debate will go on with or without Mr. Trump.' Lewandowski has denied Fox's claims that he threatened Kelly and implied that the Fox News executive he spoke to is rooting for Marco Rubio because his daughter works for the senator's campaign. And, he said, last night on CNN, 'This is not necessarily a war with Fox...it's about being treated fair on the debate stage.' Ted Cruz will be front and center at Thursday night's debate in Des Moines, sponsored by Fox News Channel, because Donald Trump pulled out and Fox won't leave an empty podium for him Trump's message to the network? Good luck with that. 'The "debate" tonight will be a total disaster - low ratings with advertisers and advertising rates dropping like a rock. I hate to see this,' he tweeted. And in an earlier message he said, 'Wow, two candidates called last night and said they want to go to my event tonight at Drake University.' Trump's campaign manager made a similar claim Wednesday morning on MSNBC. 'We've had calls from many of the candidates now who say, "Look, why would we participate in the Fox debate?" as well,' he said during a Morning Joe interview. Lewandowski said he expects Fox's ratings to tank as viewers turn to another network to watch the Donald Trump show. 'Maybe Fox was going to have a 20 or 25 million person debate [audience],' he told the MSNBC 'Morning Joe' program. 'But without Mr. Trump's participation I think they might have a 1 or 2 million person debate.' Jeb Bush, for his part, is calling what he thinks is a bluff. 'I've got a $20 bet he'll show up,' Bush said yesterday, according to the Associated Press. 'Why? 'Because it's in his interests.' Bush predicted it would that Trump's ratings, not the networks, would take a dive as a result of the kerfuffle. 'I'm glad he's not coming, from my perspective. It's more time for the rest of us on the stage,' Chris Christie said on Wednesday during an interview on Boston Herald radio. He said the night before on Kelly's show, though, that Trump was making a mistake. 'If you're not willing to show up when everything isn't going your way, exactly the way you want to, that's not the way the job of governor goes.' Ted Cruz sought to capitalize on his rival's absence and told an Iowa crowd yesterday that Trump's decision was really about them. 'It's not that he's afraid of me,' Cruz said, per the AP. 'He's afraid of you. He doesn't want to answer questions from the men and women of Iowa about how his record doesn't match what he's selling.' Rand Paul, who skipped the earlier undercard debate last time around because he wanted to be on the mainstage, had a similar theory. 'I think he does want to avoid difficult questions. And I think he's used to getting his way,' Paul said on CNN. On Fox News Paul said the GOP front-runners explosion was 'sort of a double win for me. Not only am I on the main stage, but we don't have to put up with a lot of empty blabber and boastfulness and calling people names.' And, he said, 'I think we'll actually have the best debate that we've had, and I think a lot of people are still undecided, and they know they're not really getting any serious content from Trump, they're just getting insults.' Paul also suggested yesterday that Trump might show up at the last minute tonight - or, as he snarkily contended, at a future Democratic debate. Trump may be 'afraid of the fact that he's never voted in a Republican presidential primary. For 70 years, he's been a progressive Democrat,' Paul said on CNN. 'I was wondering if maybe he's going to show up for the Democrat primary debate next time.' Not gonna happen, Trump said yesterday of a surprise appearance at the Fox News debate tonight in Des Moines. 'I just don't like being used,' he told Bill O'Reilly on his Fox News program last night. O'Reilly tried to get him to change his mind and even said, 'I bought you so many vanilla milkshakes, you owe me... Will you just reconsider?' But Trump said he still plans to go ahead with his event at Drake University's Sheslow Auditorium, which seats up to 775 people to benefit 'veteran organizations'. And even if he decided last-minute to come to the Fox debate, he wouldn't have a podium. Fox has said it will make Cruz, the runner-up in nationally polling, the center of its programming tonight. He'll be joined on stage by six other GOP candidates for president: Bush, Ben Carson, Christie, Rubio, Paul and John Kasich. It's the last face-off before Iowans cast their ballots on Monday in the state's caucuses. Contenders for the White House will then move on to New Hampshire, which holds the nation's first primary on Tuesday, Feb. 9. They'll go head-to-head again next Saturday in Manchester at a debate sponsored by ABC News. In both states, Trump is ahead of Cruz by decent margins. Polls of Iowa have Trump beating Cruz by seven points on average. Surveys of New Hampshire suggest a double-digit blow out for Trump. David Cameron said he did not need to apologise today after he was slammed for describing refugees in Calais as a 'bunch of migrants'. The Prime Minister insisted he did not accept the phrase, which he used at yesterday's PMQs, was unacceptable. Speaking today, Mr Cameron said: 'I don't accept that at all. I was making a clear point that what Jeremy Corbyn was doing was talking with migrants and telling them they could come to Britain.' David Cameron, pictured in the Lake District today, has rejected criticism of his use of the phrase 'bunch of migrants' at yesterday's Prime Minister's Questions Controversial: David Cameron, pictured during the row at the Commons despatch box, referred to a 'bunch of migrants' at PMQs in a heated exchange with Jeremy Corbyn, also pictured in the Commons The Prime Minister told Sky News: I was very clear I meant Labour have an open door migration policy. The Prime Minister insisted those people in France should be claiming asylum in France pointing out France was a safe country for refugees. Mr Cameron was branded 'shameful' and 'callous' by senior Labour MPs and criticised by the Refugee Council for his remark. Mr Corbyn even wrote to the Prime Minister hours after the exchange to rebuke him for the 'dismissive' language. He told the PM: 'I have to say I found it shameful that you referred to the people in those camps as a bunch of migrants, escalating the tensions on such a serious issue. 'It is clear that many are fleeing conflict and human rights abuses that you and I cannot begin to imagine.' Junior ministers immediately defended Mr Cameron insisting he was making clear his opposition to handing migrants in Calais a 'free pass' to enter the UK and Speaker John Bercow later ruled his language had not been 'unparliamentary'. The clash happened when Mr Cameron lost his temper with the Labour leader and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell after they criticised Google's controversial 130million tax deal. Mr Cameron said: 'They met with a bunch of migrants in Calais and said they could come to Britain - the only people they never stand up for are hardworking British families.' But Labour's Chuka Umunna led criticism when he said: 'The PM refers to 'a bunch of migrants' in Calais at the Dispatch box just now. Inflammatory and unbecoming of his office. Shameful.' Comedian David Baddiel was among those to protest the remarks outside Parliament. He said: 'Not the right day #HolocaustMemorialDay for the bunch of migrants thing.' Lisa Doyle, the Refugee Council's head of advocacy said: 'When we are facing the greatest refugee crisis of our time, it is disappointing the Prime Minister is using flippant remarks to score political points. 'We have all seen the pictures of the desperate conditions people are living in across Europe, including just miles from the UK's border. 'The Prime Minister should be showing political leadership and work with other European countries to ensure that people can live in safety and dignity.' Shadow Scotland Secretary Ian Murray said: 'PM barks 'he (corbyn) met a bunch of migrants at Calais'. He met terrified unaccompanied kids in danger of exploitation. Dispassionate PM.' David Baddiel was among the critics of the Prime Minister's remarks - highlighting it was Holocaust Memorial Day. Chuka Umunna was among Mr Cameron's harshest critics in Parliament The Prime Minister's remark drew an immediate reaction from Labour MPs on Twitter as Chuka Umunna said the language was 'inflammatory' Shadow international development secretary Diane Abbott said Mr Cameron was being 'callous' with his use of language Shadow international development secretary Diane Abbott immediately branded the remark 'shameful' and added: 'So Cameron refers to refugees in #CalaisJungle as 'bunch of migrants'.' After the clash, the Prime Minister's official spokesman defended Mr Cameron. When asked if it was wrong for the Prime Minister to use the 'pejorative' term, 'a bunch of migrants', he said: 'He very strongly disagrees with the approach Labour wants at Calais and that's to open the doors and let people into Britain because he believes it will make the situation worse and bring even more people to Calais'. Later, Tory business minister Anna Soubry said: 'He was using the language of ordinary people. 'You are damned if you do and damned if you don't. I'm sure he meant to say group'. Mr Cameron was vigorously defended by Tory MP Andrew Percy - suggesting 'left types' should thank Mr Cameron for giving them something to be 'smug and self righteous over'. He added: 'The left really are ridiculous and getting more ridiculous.' Speaking to ITV on Monday following his visit, Mr Corbyn called for a humane response to the migration in Calais. He said: 'I'm not saying all 9,000 should come. Start with those that have a British connection and a British passport - that's an obvious one. 'And the Home Office can let up a bit and be reasonable in those cases.' Mr Corbyn said he had been 'surprised' by how many people at the camp he had met who held British passports. He rejected the suggestion he was 'naive' about the implications of dramatically increasing the number of refugees it takes in. He said: 'Germany has taken several hundred thousand people already, Austria less but taken a lot. 'Britain is taking 20,000 over five years - that is the equivalent of a few tube trains. 'There is a refugee crisis on Europe's borders, there is a refugee crisis in the world. We can't ignore it, we can't wish it away. 'We have to deal with the political causes - the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, the war in Syria, the war in Libya. 'But in the mean time we cannot just ignore the fact that are a large number of people in a very serious, deeply depressed state and they need our help.' Last July, Mr Cameron sparked a major political row after describing hundreds of migrants in Calais as a 'swarm'. Labour's then acting leader Harriet Harman said the Prime Minister should remember he is talking about 'people, not insects' as tensions mounted over the government's response to the crisis. But political opponents accused him of 'dog-whistle' politics and the Refugee Council condemned the 'awful, dehumanising language'. Speaking to ITV about the migration crisis, he said: 'This is very testing, I accept that, because you have got a swarm of people coming across the Mediterranean, seeking a better life, wanting to come to Britain because Britain has got jobs, it's got a growing economy, it's an incredible place to live. 'But we need to protect our borders by working hand in glove with our neighbours the French and that is exactly what we are doing.' Mr Corbyn visited Calais on Saturday to see for himself the conditions thousands of migrants were living in northern France Detritus: A mattress, sleeping bags, clothes and other belongings have been discarded in the Dunkirk camp, close to where migrants are living For more of the latest on Angela Merkel visit www.dailymail.co.uk/merkel Predicts a 'mental breakdown' if she sticks to her guns on migrants Angela Merkel is a 'narcissist' whose refusal to curb immigration may be a sign of a 'mental breakdown, according to a celebrated German psychiatrist. The German Chancellor has been heavily criticized over her 'open border' policy, which resulted in 1.1million refugees and migrants entering Germany last year. German psychiatrist Hans-Joachim Maaz said in an analysis that Mrs Merkel is so determined not to admit that she was wrong about her migration policy that she has 'lost touch with reality'. Analysed: German psychiatrist and psychoanalstst Hans-Joachim Maaz has branded Angela Merker an 'overachiever' and a 'narcissist' with an 'artificially inflated self-image' He describes her as a typical overachiever, who often go to great lengths to please others in order to get validation of their worth from others, as their self esteem is so low. Over-achievers feed off success and praise, and struggle to take criticism, which Dr Maaz claims fits for Mr Merkel, Breitbart reports. He says the decision to open Germany's border was an emotional one, adding that the praise she has been given worldwide for her humanitarian act has fed her narcissism. He says it has led to her suffering from an 'artificially inflated self-image', and now her refusal to admit that her 'great humanitarian gesture' was a wrong move may hurt Germany. Dr Maaz concludes that if Mrs Merkel continues to follow the behavioural patterns of the classic overachiever, 'a psychological or psychosomatic collapse is imminent.' Happy days? Mrs Merkel laughs next to Minister of Economic Affairs Minister Sigmar Gabriel, at the Bundestag in Berlin, Germany Dr Maaz said in his analysis that Mrs Merkel is so determined not to admit that she was wrong about her migration policy that she has 'lost touch with reality' Germany's open border policy allowed an unprecedented 1.1 million migrants and refugees to enter the country last year, what its leaders described as an act of historic generosity towards refugees. When hundreds of thousands of migrants were arriving in the European Union last year on the shores of Italy and Greece, Germany made a bold decision: all refugees from the civil war in Syria would be welcome, regardless of where or how they entered the EU. Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany was a rich country that could afford to do its part to take in some of the world's most vulnerable people fleeing war. 'If Europe fails on the question of refugees ... then it won't be the Europe we wish for,' said Merkel in August. But refugees were not the only people who arrived. In addition to thousands of families fleeing Syria and other war zones, Germany also let in hundreds of thousands of people from other countries with no valid claim for asylum. Germany's open border policy allowed an unprecedented 1.1 million migrants and refugees to enter the country last year (pictured are refugees in Berlin on Thursday) The behaviour of the groups has been starkly different. The Syrian refugees intentionally welcomed by Merkel have so far proven overwhelmingly law abiding. According to a police report from North Rhine-Westphalia, the western German state that includes Cologne, earlier this month, only 0.5 percent of Syrian migrants in the city were caught committing crimes within a year. By contrast, among migrants from North Africa, as many as 40 percent were caught committing crimes within a year, the report says. Virtually none of the North Africans arriving in Germany have proven to be genuine refugees: last year Germany granted some form of protection to just 0.19 percent of Tunisian migrants, 3.74 percent of Moroccans and 1.6 percent of Algerians. privilege' makes it ok to direct a comment at a Latina woman Rev. Jarrett Maupin said he is fine with a white NAACP leader just not one whose 'white The president of the Maricopa County NAACP was asked to resign on Wednesday night after he told a Phoenix, Arizona area reporter she had 'nice t**s'. Don Harris, who is president of the civil rights chapter even though he is white, was speaking with 12 News' Monique Griego On Tuesday about a recent racist incident at an Arizona high school. Teens at Desert Vista High School were wearing letter shirts for a class picture day and used their wardrobe to spell out the word 'NI**ER' for a photograph last week. Scroll down for audio NAACP leader: Don Harris, the white president of the NAACP in Maricopa County, was asked to resign on Wednesday after he made a sexist comment about a TV reporter Sexist comment: Don Harris was caught on audio saying that reporter Monica Griego has 'nice tits' after discussing a racist incident at a high school Harris was one of 50 community leaders who gathered for a private meeting to speak out against the incident before making the side comment about Griego which was caught on tape by the Phoenix New Times. He told Griego of the meeting: 'It doesn't fix anything. We're on a pathway now to making things better.' When Griego turned to ask a question to someone else, Harris made the lewd remark. When asked by the Phoenix New Times if there should be any efforts to rid the world of sexist comments after his gaffe became public he responded: 'I'm going to slash my wrists,' he said. 'Better yet, I'm going to throw myself out of a f**king window, except I'm on the first floor... I'm one of the best goddamned people in the state,' he added in a bizarre rant. After news of his string of offensive comments broke, Harris said he emailed executive board members of the Maricopa County NAACP to offer his resignation if they wanted it. 'I said if they want me gone, I'm gone,' he told The Arizona Republic. 'I'm not ducking from anything. I did something stupid and wrong and I'm sorry for it. I can't beat myself forever about it. I said it. And I can't be any more sincere,' he added. The Rev. Jarrett Maupin called for Harris' resignation on Wednesday evening in a press release. High school drama: Harris was one of 50 community leaders who gathered for a private meeting to speak out against this racist incident before making the side comment about Griego Friendship: Harris has been linked to some controversial town figures like Maricopa Countys Trump-supporting sheriff Joe Arpaio with whom he is friends Rev. Jarrett Maupin told the Daily News that he was fine with a white man being leader of a NAACP chapter but added that the president's sexist comment at a Latina woman is a sign of 'white privilege'. 'When you have a certain amount of privilege in your mind, youll say what you want about anything,' he said. Maupin told the Daily News he was also troubled about the setting in which the comment was made since it was during a discussion about curbing racism at schools. The chapter's vice president Ann Hart said that the NAACP does not stand by Harris' words but that he has done good work for the organization and that his resignation is 'up to him.' Griego said on Wednesday night that she didnt hear the 'nice t**s' comment and does not want to make a comment. Harris has said that he gave up his law practice in order to devote more time to the NAACP. Harris has been linked to some controversial town figures like Maricopa Countys Trump-supporting sheriff Joe Arpaio with whom he is friends. 'Longtime friend Don Harris came by my office. He's the new head of local NAACP. I expect a great relationship,' tweeted Arpaio last January along with a picture of the two men together. Harris spoke to CNNs Anderson Cooper about Rachel Dolezal last year, another controversial white NAACP leader. 'Youve gotta have credibility,' he said. 'Once you lose that credibility, the efficacy of your leadership fails.' A man has been arrested at Disneyland Paris carrying two handguns, ammunition, and a 'guide to the Koran', but police are still hunting his female companion. Bomb disposal experts surrounded a car after weapons were detected when the luggage was put through an X-ray machine at the entrance to a hotel, 20 miles east of the French capital. The 28-year-old man, who was not known to security services, was stopped by Disney staff who found the weapons - two semi-automatic handguns and a knife - hidden in his suitcase at about midday. Scroll down for video French police stand guard at Hotel New York at Disney Village after the man was found with weapons in his bag Officers are still hunting for the man's female companion. It was believed she had already been detained Police swooped on the four-star Hotel New York at Disney Village and the man, who had booked a room for two, offered no resistance as he was being taken into custody. The couple's car was immediately surrounded by bomb disposal experts, and the hotel car park was shut down. The semiautomatic 7.65-millimeter pistols were inside cloth bags, along with two magazines and 20 bullets. Both weapons dates back to the 1980s, and there was also a small booklet entitled 'A guide to the Holy Koran'. It follows warnings from terrorist groups including Islamic State and Al-Qaeda that Disneyland, some 20 miles east of Paris, was one of their targets. It was initially believed the man's companion - thought to be his wife or girlfriend - was arrested in the Paris region, however she is still on the run. The Interior Ministry confirmed police were searching for a woman who may have been with the man. A police source said: 'A woman was arrested soon after the incident, but she was released after it became clear she was not the suspect involved. We are still looking for the man's companion.' The man was known to traffic police for once being caught driving without a licence, but had never been of any interest to anti-terrorist officers. The couple's car was immediately surrounded by bomb disposal experts, and Hotel New York's car park was shut down Police swooped on the Hotel New York at Disneyland Paris where the man was arrested (stock image) DISNEYLAND RESORT PARIS Officially opened in 1992 under the name Euro Disney, the park quickly began to attract millions of visitors from around the world. In 1994 it officially became Disneyland Resort Paris and the following year its famed rollercoaster Space Mountain was opened. On top of the attractions, the park's income is bolstered by 64 shops, 67 restaurants and seven hotels. The theme park covers nearly 5,000 acres and is directly served by the Eurostar. Its blend of fantasy and thrill-seeking requires more than 55,000 staff, with almost 15,000 employed on-site alone, its figures say. It has seen its number of visitors drop considerably in recent years. In 2014, more than a million fewer people were visiting than in 2012, their annual reports showed. After France, most visitors to the park come from the UK, making up 14 per cent of their guests in 2013. Advertisement A judicial police source said: 'Following questioning, the man made it clear that he had the guns with him for personal protection. The enquiry is ongoing, but it is not a terrorist enquiry.' Police would not initially name the two suspects, but they said the man was a French national born in the Paris suburb of Lagny, and currently living in the 14th arrondissement of the city. Both the man and the woman are of 'European appearance,' said the police source. Francois Banon, a spokesman for Disneyland Paris, said: 'During a routine security screening checkpoint at one of our hotels, weapons were discovered in a guest's luggage through our X-ray machine. 'The police were immediately notified and the individual was arrested. We continue to work closely with the authorities, and the safety and security of our guests and cast members is our utmost priority.' 'Police were called as soon as the guns were found,' said a hotel source. 'The man did not put up any resistance, but his companion disappeared. The police are still looking for her.' There are several hotels around Disneyland Paris, which is east of the French capital and is among Europe's most-visited tourist destinations with some 10 million visitors in 2014, according to that year's Global Attractions. Jean-Luc Marx, Prefect of the Seine-et-Marne district in which Disneyland is situated, said: 'I want to underline that the Disney security services and police reacted immediately, and made sure the man was taken out of harm's way, if indeed he ever intended to harm anyone. 'We don't know at this stage.' A man carrying two handguns and a 'guide to the Koran' has been arrested at Disneyland Paris (file picture) A judicial enquiry has been opened, led by a examining magistrate assisted by police from nearby Meaux, said Mr Marx. Later in the afternoon, the couple's black car could be seen being towed away on the back of a lorry. The incident comes just months after Islamist terrorists went on the rampage in Paris killing 130 people. France remained in a state of emergency since the attacks on November 13, which targeted the Stade de France, packed cafes and bars and the Bataclan music hall. In January 2015, three days of terror gripped Paris as a series of attacks left 17 people dead, including a massacre at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. France imposed a three-month state of emergency after the November attacks, which President Francois Hollande hopes to extend for another three months, despite fierce opposition from rights activists. Within a few hours ban was lifted after sororities agreed to review culture of 'alcohol use and abuse' College held emergency meeting with chapter presidents over concerns about the incident A North Carolina university has cracked down on its sororities after a student was left in critical condition due to an 'alcohol-related issue.' Duke University banned all sorority activities after the new pledge had to be rushed to hospital on Tuesday night. The student is expected to make a full recovery. In a statement, the college revealed it had 'concerns about activities during the most recent rush and bid periods, heightened by the hospitalization of a student for an alcohol-related issue.' Duke University banned all sorority activities after the new pledge had to be rushed to hospital on Tuesday night But within a few hours, the ban was partially lifted following an emergency meeting between administrators, ten chapter presidents and the Panhellenic executive board. Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs, said everyone 'agreed that what happened last night was unacceptable and that steps must be taken to prevent any similar recurrence'. He added that each chapter will be asked to review its activities to ensure they comply with the college's policies on social events, rush, and alcohol use. 'Steps that can be taken to undermine a social culture, not unique to Duke. That is excessively focused on alcohol use and abuse,' he said in a statement. Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs, has since announced they are lifting the ban in a statement Moneta said that after meeting with the chapter presidents, they had agreed to focus on changing the drinking culture within their own sororities. Sorority chapters are still subject to sanctions but will now be able to host study breaks, sisterhood events, chapter meetings, and philanthropy and community-service activities. Restrictions on social events will most likely be lifted in the near future. The girl, who has not been named, was hospitalized amid the sororities' rush events where the chapters hold events to solicit potential new members. She had recently joined one of the college's ten Panhellenic sororities although it was not clear which one. Duke's other eight non-Panhellenic chapters, which belong to other national sororities, are not affected, USA Today reported. This is the dramatic moment a middle-aged pervert was confronted by paedophile hunters when he thought he was meeting a 15-year-old girl for sex. David Curran had been chatting online to who he thought was a 15-year-old girl but in reality had fallen into a 'trap' set by Dark Justice. The 56-year-old walked away from the Newcastle city-centre meeting but was quickly tracked down by cops, who had been called by the group. Scroll down for video David Curran, pictured left and right, admitted trying to meet a child after sexual grooming and was handed a suspended sentence at Newcastle Crown Court During the conversations, he asked questions about the girls underwear and even sent her a picture of his near naked body with her name scrawled on his chest. When his home was raided, officers found 1,673 indecent images of children among his porn collection of around 50,000 legal pornographic pictures and movies. At Newcastle Crown Court, Curran, of Warkworth, Northumberland, admitted attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming as well as making and possessing indecent photographs of children. Prosecutor Jonathan Devlin told the court Curran had called the girl 'sexy', soon after they started chatting in July 2014, even after he was told she was 15. Mr Devlin said: 'He asked if he could kiss her, asked a number of questions about her underwear, sent images of himself semi-naked and naked but holding his genitals. 'On one of the images he had written the name 'Becca' on his body.' The court heard within weeks Curran had suggested seeing the girl and they arranged to meet at the Millenium Bridge on Newcastle's quayside. Curran was filmed here in Newcastle by Dark Justice after agreeing to meet 'Becca' after talking online He is seen walking away from his accusers claiming he thought the girl was 'pretending to be 15' Eventually he is seen running across Newcastle's Millennium Bridge being pursued by a member of Dark Justice, pictured centre, blurred Mr Devlin said: 'He was videoed, wearing the pink shorts described in the chat. 'He was approached and asked was it appropriate to meet a 15-year-old girl.' The court heard Curran said he was 'sorry' and that his actions were 'role play' before leaving the meeting point and being traced by the police. Judge John Milford QC said Curran had 'become isolated from the world' and that said his actions had been 'disturbing'. The judge told Curran: 'You walked straight into a trap which had been set by others on the internet. 'You have developed, in mid-life, an extremely unhealthy interest in teenage girls, which you were prepared to put into effect. Curran was given a 20-month suspended sentence and a sexual harm prevention order at the court, pictured 'It is fortunate you have been foolish and you were apprehended in this way before any harm could be done to someone such as Rebecca. 'Immense harm has been done to the subject of the images you had on the computer.' Curran was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment, suspended for two years, with supervision, programme requirements, a five year sexual harm prevention order and ten years on the sex offenders register. The judge said far more work could be done to protect public safety if Curran could be treated in the community Anne Richardson, defending, said: 'If he is sent to prison no work will be done with him. 'He will come out remaining isolated.' Miss Richardson said Curran has lived a law abiding life and turned to the internet when things started to 'go wrong' in his personal life. At the height of her health crisis, the teen was on life support, experienced organ failure and required kidney Three weeks later, Whitten can now walk and speak in a whisper, and doctors expect her to make a full recovery Rylie Whitten can still only speak in a whisper and has difficulty walking, but the 15-year-old Michigan girl is grateful for every uttered word and shaky step, having nearly died from toxic shock syndrome. Whitten has spent the past three weeks at DeVos Childrens Hospital in Grand Rapids fighting for her life against the rare and extremely dangerous staph infection caused by a common feminine hygiene product. For Rylie, a bubbly high school sophomore from Greenville, it all started with mild flu-like symptoms on January 4. Her parents, Nate Whitten and Jill Williams, said their usually healthy, strong daughter suddenly came down with aches all over her body and they decided to keep her home that Monday, on what was supposed to be the first day of school after the winter break. Back from the brink: Rylie Whitten, 15, pictured in a wheelchair alongside her parents this week, nearly died after contracting a rare bacterial infection Mom's little girl: Jill Whitten, pictured left and right with Rylie, spent weeks at her daughter's bedside as she lay unconscious. The 15-year-old Michigan teen experienced organ failure and was on life support Glimmers of hope: Two weeks ago, Rylie appeared to have turned a corner and started showing signs of improvement Grateful: Her father, Nate Whitten (left), said Rylie's recovery has been 'mind boggling' By the next morning, Rylie started vomiting and was moaning in pain, reported the station WZZM. The Whittens took the ailing teenager to the doctor, who quickly ruled out influenza and meningitis. But then a blood test found something highly alarming in Rylie's system, prompting her physician to call for an AeroMed helicopter to whisk her to a hospital in Grand Rapids for urgent treatment. As it turned out, the Greenville High School student was suffering from Toxic Shock Syndrome - an extremely rare and life-threatening infection that is caused by streptococcus and staphylococcus bacteria that invade the patient's bloodstream, where they release poisonous toxins. Anyone can develop TSS, but a significant number of cases occur in young women who are on their period and using a tampon - particularly those designed to be 'super absorbent'. It is recommended to change tampons every four to six hours, or more frequently if necessary. Women are also urged to avoid using super-absorbent tampons and to never leave a tampon inserted overnight, as it could become a breeding ground for bacteria. Doctors at DeVos Childrens Hospital in Grand Rapids concluded that this seemed to be the cause of Rylie's illness. Dr. Surender Rajasekaran, a pediatric intensive care physician at DeVos, told Spectrum Health Beat that Rylie was the sickest TSS patient he has ever treated. What ailed Rylie: Toxic Shock Syndrome is an extremely rare and life-threatening infection that is caused by streptococcus and staphylococcus bacteria that invade the patient's bloodstream The high school student experienced organ failure and was on life support for nearly two weeks, with her mother holding vigil at her bedside day and night. Gradually, her condition began to improve. Just days after being moved out of the pediatric ICU, Rylie managed to get out of bed and stand up without anyone's help. According to her parents, the speed of Rylie's recovery over the past week has been nothing short of 'mind boggling' and miraculous. When she came here she could hardly touch her nose, he said. Now shes on the phone, doing her nails, walking, doing stairs.' When she speaks about the onset of her illness, Rylie's memories are hazy: she remembers feeling unwell and being airlifted to the hospital in Grand Rapids. She also recalls being scared. 'And then- dreamland,' she said. Good cheer: On Tuesday, members of Michigan State University's cheerleading team visited Rylie and her parents at DeVos Childrens Hospital in Grand Rapids The Spartan cheerleaders performed an impromptu dance to the MSU fight song for the high-schooler, who is herself a competitive dancer Rylie, who hopes to go to MSU one day, got a hug from Michigan State University cheerleader Tyler Mehigh Rylie, pictured third from the left posing with the MSU cheer squad, is still unsteady on her feet but is gaining strength with every passing day On Tuesday, Rylie, who's a competitive dancer and plans to study music at Michigan State University after graduating from high school, was visited by five members of MSUs cheerleading squad, who posed for pictures with the teen and even performed a routine for her in the hospital library. Rylie is still unsteady on her feet, having had no use of her muscles of three weeks, and she speaks with a rasp due to damage to her vocal chords caused by the ventilator, but her parents say she is well on her way to a full recovery. She is expected to be released from the hospital any day now and enter an outpatient rehabilitation program, where she would undergo speech and occupational therapy. As she continues to recapture, Rylie and her parents are trying to raise awareness of the rare condition that nearly cost the high school sophomore her life. I hope it helps. I want others to know it's still happening and that it's not just the flu. Thats what we thought, she told WZZM. I dont want people to go through what I did. A Facebook page titled Prayers for Rylie now boasts more than 4,200 members, and as of Thursday morning, a GoFundMe campaign started by a relative has drawn nearly $6,000 in donations to help the Whitten family with their daughter's mounting medical expenses. Young woman's plight: Doctors at DeVos Childrens Hospital in Grand Rapids concluded that Rylie likely caught TSS from a tampon Uphill battle: Hospital staff described the 15 year olds case as the worst they have ever encountered No 'magical cutoff date' for a prosecution decision about Clinton, says FBI source Former secretary of state used a secret, home-based email server while in office FBI probe of Democratic presidential front-runner is still in full swing after six months The slow-moving federal train that is the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email practices is not slowing down anytime soon - and may keep running into the general presidential election this fall. That's according to a new report in The Hill on Thursday, which said any prosecution decision about the current Democratic race-leader may not come until the time that voters go to the polls for good for 2016. The report quoted FBI sources as saying there is no set time for a final declaration about whether the former secretary of state should be prosecuted for mishandling classified intelligence. Scroll down for videos Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton with top aide Huma Abedin at the State Department in 2009 Clinton's email scandal may be perhaps her only hurdle to the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 'I don't know that there's any magical cutoff date,' Ron Hosko, an FBI former assistant director, told the newspaper. The Clinton investigation has been the elephant in the room during the Democratic presidential primary process, with audiences wondering if the former first lady could be charged with misconduct. Despite a declaration from Clinton's closest rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders - in a nationally televised debate - that Americans are 'sick and tired of reading about your damn emails' - the cloud of prosecution has hung over Clinton's campaign since early last year. 'It does give pause to Democrats who are concerned that there may be another shoe to drop down the road,' Andrew Smith, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire, told The Hill. Currently - because Clinton's emails as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 are still being processed - more than 1,300 emails have been deemed classified that were processed through the server, although some of those classifications may have been retroactive. Clinton herself has maintained no wrong-doing, and neither the FBI nor the Justice Department would comment to The Hill. Clinton aide Cheryl Mills lost her Blackberry in 2010 and has been questioned about it by congressional Republicans Clinton has been plagued with her email scandal since last March FBI Director James Comey - a Republican - testified to Congress in December that the Clinton investigation would be 'competent,' 'honest' and 'independent,' telling a Senate committee at one point that 'we don't give a rip about politics.' For his part, President Barack Obama said in an interview last year that he was unaware of Clinton's private email practice, but said he doubted any national security secrets were compromised. That drew a rebuke from the FBI, where agents asserted that they had not finished their investigation - prompting the White House, in turn, to carefully backpedal on Obama's statement, saying it was only his opinion at the time. As The Hill noted in its report, Clinton's top aides at the State Department may end up holding the bag. Her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, is being investigated by congressional Republicans for possible national security violations, as is longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin. A disabled pensioner says he's been unable to park outside his own home because a council's administrative error led to his new blue badge arriving with someone else's face on it. Kevin Dillon, 73, who has suffered three strokes and uses a wheelchair when he goes outside, received the disabled parking badge last Friday. But when he looked at it he was shocked to find a stranger's face staring back at him. Mistake: Kevin Dillon (right) says he's been unable to park outside his own home because a council's administrative error led to his new blue badge arriving with someone else's face on it (left) Mr Dillon, of Chingford, East London, complained to Waltham Forest Council and the authority said it would investigate. He said: 'I didn't even notice that it wasn't me at first. Then my wife saw it and said "that's not you." 'We have no idea who this man is, but it's rather worrying and I feel very trapped not being able to see the people I want to.' Mr Dillon and his 72-year-old wife Carol, whom he relies on to drive, chose not to use the badge in case they were caught and issued with a fine. It means they aren't using the disabled parking bay outside their home. Mr Dillon said: 'They said that I could use the badge despite it having the wrong photo. 'But these people who stop you and look at your pass, they will fine you if you don't have the right photo, it is illegal. Useless: Mr Dillon, 73, who has suffered three strokes and uses a wheelchair when he goes outside, received the badge last Friday. But when he looked at it he was shocked to find a stranger's face staring back at him 'I can't use any disabled bays with this card - including the one outside my house. 'I can only walk about ten yards with a stick. I've had strokes and the blue badge is so important. 'At first they said it would take around a month to send me a new one, but then they started saying it would be a week or two.' His wife added: 'At the moment he has to sit in all day and he gets such a bad temper. 'I can't take him out until the new badge comes, I'm just not risking it.' After growing tired of hearing nothing from Waltham Forest Council, Mr Dillon chased the authority on Tuesday. But he claims that a council officer he spoke to denied all knowledge of his case and insisted that his disabled badge was void and that he if he used it he would be breaking the law. Mrs Dillon said: 'I think the council have handled this situation really quite badly. Mr Dillon and his 72-year-old wife Carol, whom he relies on to drive, chose not to use the badge (pictured) in case they were caught and issued with a fine. Waltham Forest Council has also said using it would be illegal It means they aren't using the disabled parking bay outside their home in Chingford, East London (pictured) 'It should never have happened in the first place. 'We are both very upset about it.' Waltham Forest Council have since told Mr Dillon that the situation is being handled and he will be getting a new badge shortly. He said: 'The council told me that somebody had clipped on the wrong photograph, which I think is very careless. 'It's also worrying because they haven't asked me to send the old badge back, which means that my details could then get mixed up with somebody else's.' Deputy leader of Waltham Forest Council, Cllr Clyde Loakes, said: 'I'd like to apologise to Mr Dillon for the fact his badge was issued with the wrong photo. Eleven militiamen have been arrested so far They want all charges to be dropped before they will leave Four militiamen are still refusing to leave the Malheur National Wildlife Reserve where they have been locked in a 27-day stand-off with police, which has left one dead; 11 arrested and has brought widespread condemnation from the local community. In a live video broadcast from the Oregon ranch this week, one of the last-standing members, said he believes the FBI is 'going to kill them', but refused to leave unless the authorities would meet their demands. Another militiaman added he is 'willing' to die in a final bloody siege with the authorities if negotiations fail. Their comments come after the last leader of the occupation voluntarily handed himself in at a police checkpoint. However, the group's number is continuing to dwindle rapidly. The five remaining members quickly dropped to four on Thursday morning. Murder: This militiaman appeared on a YouTube video accusing the FBI of plotting to kill the remaining demonstrators Blackout: The armed protester claimed the FBI had ordered the media away from the nature reserve so the 'killings' wouldn't be recorded A video posted Thursday to the YouTube channel DefendYourBase, which the group has been using to give live updates says the occupiers want assurances they won't arrested. A speaker believed to be David Fry said: 'We're stuck here, four of us. They're telling us it's safe to leave, but it's not safe.' Group co-leader Jason Patrick, 43, of Bonaire, Georgia, was arrested on Wednesday along with two other militiamen. Eight members were already under arrest following the stand-off and fatal shooting of rancher Robert 'LaVoy' Finicum, 55, on Tuesday. Militia leader Ammon Bundy was among those seized after the bloody traffic stop on Highway 395. He and six others were declared a flight risk on Thursday afternoon and refused release lest they return for the group's last stand. Dozens of supporters packed the courtroom for the hearing. Authorities claim father-of-11 Finicum reached for a gun in his waistband after fleeing in his vehicle from a police cordon and was promptly shot dead by officers. Bundy's brother, Ryan, was also shot in the arm during the incident. The remaining militiamen have spoken of their dismay at the death of Finicum. In another live video rant, one militia member angrily blasted the FBI as 'murderers'. 'The media has been ordered to leave that means they're coming to kill us, they don't want them to see that. They're going to murder all of us... The American people better wake up,' he said. Another said: 'If I die, I died for my country, I died a free man. That's how I want to die.' And in an interview with the Plain Dealer on Wednesday, Fry said: 'I'll pass on and move on to the next life. I don't know (how it will end), but I'm willing to go that far. 'Obviously they are murdering people at this point. They've been doing it for a long time now, and you guys are watching it.' Shot dead: Rancher Robert 'LaVoy' Finicum, pictured, was shot in a clash with police on Tuesday Family man: Finicum (center) and wife Jeanette (right) had been married for 23 years. He had 11 children The final four are refusing to leave unless authorities assure them they will all be free to return home. The Oregonian reported on Thursday that the group is concerned about a warrant out for militiaman Sean Anderson's arrest and they want it dropped before they leave. So far 11 members of the militia have been arrested. Leader Ammon Bundy and his brother, Ryan Bundy were seized on Tuesday alongside Shawna Cox, 59, Brian Cavalier, 44, Ryan Payne, Joseph O'Shaughnessy and Peter Santilli. Jon Ritzheimer, 32, was arrested in Peoria, Arizona, after turning himself in to police Duane Leo Ehmer of Irrigon, Oregon, Dylan Wade Anderson, 34, of Provo, Utah and Patrick, 43, were arrested on Wednesday. The arrests follow the release of federal court documents which claim that the militiamen were equipped with night vision goggles and explosives. Arrested leader Bundy has called on his followers to pull out of the wildlife reserve in a statement released through his lawyer Mike Arnold. He said: 'To those remaining at the refuge, I love you. Let us take this fight from here. Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is ours for now in the courts.' However, his father Cliven urged the remaining group to keep fighting. 'Ill tell you one thing, were dang sure going to have to fight this battle over and over if we just give up right today,' he told CNN during an interview at his Nevada ranch. 'I mean, weve got a life lost, but that life was wasted.' Authorities vowed to continue in their quest to bring the protest to a peaceful conclusion. Special agent Greg Bretzing of the FBI's Portland office said: 'We will continue to look for safe, peaceful procedures on how to bring this to a peaceful conclusion.' Harney County Sheriff David Ward said he regretted the death of Finicum and wants a peaceful end to the stand-off. 'I'm disappointed that a traffic stop that was supposed to bring peaceful resolution to this ended badly,' he said. 'Multiple law enforcement agencies put a lot of work into putting together the best tactical plan they could, to take these guys down peacefully... If it was as simple as just waiting out some folks down there to get out of some buildings, we could have waited a lot longer. 'Please go home': Ammon Bundy, pictured earlier this month, released a statement through his attorney Wednesday asking the remaining four protesters to leave the site of their armed anti-government protest Arrested: Oregon militia leader Ammon Bundy (left) and his brother, Ryan Bundy (right), were arrested Tuesday night Charged: Shawna Cox (left), 59, was taken to Multnomah County Jail along with the other detained militia members Tuesday. Jon Ritzheimer (right), 32, was arrested in Peoria, Arizona, after turning himself in to police Busted: Brian Cavalier, 44 (left), and Ryan Payne (right) were charged along with the others with conspiracy to impede federal officers Facing jail: Joseph O'Shaughnessy (left) and Peter Santilli (right) were arrested in Burns, Oregon, a short time after the traffic stop and shoot-out 'But this has been tearing our community apart. It's time for everybody in this illegal occupation to move on. There doesn't have to be bloodshed in our community.' Ward said if the occupiers had legitimate grievances with the government, they should use the 'appropriate manner' to address them. 'This can't happen anymore. This can't happen in America and it can't happen in Harney County,' he said. Authorities declined to divulge details of what led to the fatal shooting of Finicum. However, various onlookers say Finicum took off in his vehicle at high speed from a traffic stop. When curtailed by a roadblock, he stopped and exited the vehicle. FBI sources told CNN that he then reached to his waistband for his gun and the SWAT team opened fire. Bundy's brother, Ryan, was also shot in the arm in the incident. 'Let me be clear: It is the actions and choices of the armed occupiers of the refuge that have led us to where we are today,' Bretzing said. 'They had ample opportunity to leave the refuge peacefully and, as the FBI and our partners have clearly demonstrated, actions are not without consequences.' Another eyewitness account claims Finicum, of Cane Beds, was gunned down after charging at law enforcement officials. Mike McConnell, who claimed to have been behind the wheel of one of the vehicles heading to a community meeting in the town of John Day Tuesday, posted an eight-minute video on his Facebook page recounting what happened during the confrontation between the militiamen and the authorities. Finicum, a Mormon rancher from Arizona, was a father of 11 and grandfather of 19 who was married to his wife, Jeanette, for 23 years. 'LaVoy was passionate about this, about the movement,' McConnell said. In an interview with MSNBC three weeks ago, Finicum declared that he would rather die than face arrest. 'There are things more important than your life, and freedom is one of them,' he said at the time. 'I'm prepared to defend freedom.' He sounded a similar note when speaking to CNN earlier this month. 'I'm just not going to prison,' Finicum said. 'Look at the stars. There's no way I'm going to sit in a concrete cell where I can't see the stars and roll out my bedroll on the ground. 'I want to be able to get up in the morning and throw my saddle on my horse and go check on my cows. It's OK. I've lived a good life. God's been gracious to me.' Orders: Ammon Bundy's lawyer Michael Arnold, left, read out a statement from his client where he urged the remaining militiamen still at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge stand down and go home Emotional: A visibly shaken Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward told reporters on Wednesday the standoff with the Oregon militia has been tearing the local community apart Roadblock: Police officers block the turnout to Sodhouse Lane, which is the main road leading to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters Wednesday Shooting: An Oregon State police officer was pictured on Highway 395 after the fatal shooting of Finicum He joined the protest when it began on January 2 and was an outspoken member of the militia group throughout. At one point he personally climbed up a pole to dismantle surveillance cameras in an apparent show of defiance against the government. Last year, he told the St George News that he complied with federal land controls until Cliven Bundy's stand-off in Nevada in 2014. The episode, he said, struck a chord with him. He joined the Bundys and 'did a lot of soul-searching' until he 'realized that Cliven Bundy was standing on a very strong constitutional principle - and yet, here I was continuing to pay a grazing fee to the BLM (Bureau of Land Management).' All detained militia members were being held at Multnomah County Jail without bail and will appear in court late Thursday or Friday. The group took over the wildlife refug after a peaceful protest in nearby Burns, Oregon, over the conviction of two local ranchers on arson charges. Dwight Hammond, 73, and his son Steven Hammond, 46, said they lit fires on federal land in 2001 and 2006 to reduce the growth of invasive plants and protect their property from wildfires. The two were convicted three years ago and served time - the father three months, the son one year. But in October, a federal judge in Oregon ruled their terms were too short under U.S. law and ordered them back to prison for about four years each. Among the demands by the Bundy group is for the Hammonds to be released. Camila Batmanghelidjh said she 'burst into tears' when hearing the news charity blame allegations for forcing it to close last August The charity's founder Camila Batmanghelidjh said it could have survived if the claims of physical and sexual abuse had not frightened away donors Police have dropped an investigation into allegations of physical and sexual abuse at the scandal-hit charity Kids Company because there was not enough evidence of 'criminality'. The Metropolitan Police said they carried out an 'extensive' investigation into the now-defunct charity, and heard 32 accounts of alleged physical and sexual abuse. However, they did not find enough evidence to bring a criminal prosecution, or to suggest that the charity had 'fail[ed] in its duty to safeguard children or vulnerable adults.' They said the reports - supplied by a journalist - were mostly third-party hearsay which were 'vague in detail'. The news will be both a relief and a source of frustration to Kids Company's former bosses, who blame the allegations of sexual abuse for forcing the charity to close its doors last August. Kids Company's reputation had already been savaged by claims of financial mismanagement. But its founder Camila Batmanghelidjh said it could have survived if the claims of physical and sexual abuse had not scared off donors. 'That's the reason the charity closed. We had money confirmed. But the philanthropists said they couldn't support us when we were informed there were allegations,' she said. Miss Batmanghelidjh added how she 'burst into tears' when she heard police had ended their investigation. 'I'm very grateful to the police for acting honourably and fairly', she said. 'A lot of other organisations judged on the basis of allegations that were unfounded and the police acted with complete integrity on all this. 'I don't feel that the parliamentary inquiry will be honourable because that's the committee that was suggesting I do voodoo and all that.' Miss Batmanghelidjh added how she 'burst into tears' when she heard police had ended their investigation The allegations surfaced during interviews with two former charity workers by the BBC's Newsnight and BuzzFeed. The information was passed on to police after an independent expert said the claims raised child protection concerns. But police found the reports between 2008 and 2015 had largely come from third parties, rather than people who were abused themselves. One of the allegations had already been investigated, and involved an adult 'client' who physically assaulted a staff member. He has already been handed a three-month suspended sentence. However, officers could not find anything substantive beyond this, or any evidence of 'failings by the charity in its duty to safeguard children or vulnerable adults'. The Government dished out 46million to Kids Company over 15 years, despite repeated warnings about the dire state of its finances SCANDAL-HIT CHARITY CLOSED LAST AUGUST JUST SIX DAYS AFTER RECEIVING A 3MILLION GRANT Founded by Camila Batmanghelidjh in 1996 to offer counselling, support and art therapy to disadvantaged youngsters in Lambeth and Southwark, Kids Company was widely praised for its innovative approach and received a total of at least 42 million from central government and 4 million from local authorities and lottery bodies. However, it folded amid a storm of controversy in August 2015 - just six days after receiving a 3 million grant in a final bid to keep it afloat. In December, Alan Yentob, who was chairman of trustees at the charity, stepped down as BBC creative director after facing intense scrutiny during the episode. Advertisement The Metropolitan Police said in a statement: 'Aside from this case, to date the Met has identified no evidence of criminality within the 32 reports which would reach the threshold to justify a referral to the Crown Prosecution Service. 'As such the Met investigation into potential physical and sexual abuse has now concluded, although, as with any investigation, should any further information come to light it will be fully considered.' Since Kids Company's collapse, a series of damaging reports have painted a picture of chaos at the charity, with money being handed out 'willy-nilly' to youngsters, and relatives of staff. Kids Company is also the subject of an investigation by the Charity Commission. And the charity is not the only casualty of the scandal. Alan Yentob, its former chairman, was forced to give up his 330,000 job as the BBC's creative director, after he meddled in the corporation's coverage of Kids Company's closure. Meanwhile, the Government has been heavily criticised for handing Kids Company so much tax payers' money, when officials knew it was on the brink of collapse and could fail. The Government dished out 46million to Kids Company over 15 years, despite repeated warnings about the dire state of its finances. A pregnant woman who got sick from salmonella after she ate at a Sydney bakery at the centre of a food poisoning outbreak was forced to have a caesarean. Ashley Buchanan had to give birth at 35 weeks because she had become too sick after her meal at Box Village Bakery in Sylvania, in Sydney's south. 'I ended up deteriorating quite rapidly because the infection was so severe,' Ms Buchanan, from Wollongong - south of Sydney, told 2UE radio, according to Eyewitness Ten News. Scroll down for video Ashley Buchanan had to give birth at 35 weeks because she had become too sick after her meal at Box Village Bakery in Sylvania, in Sydney's south A pregnant woman has revealed she had to have an emergency caesarean when she fell ill after eating at Box Village Bakery in Sylvania, in Sydney's south. Customers ate hot chicken rolls or chicken schnitzel rolls 'By Monday they were discussing delivering early, and then Tuesday I deteriorated more and they had to do an emergency caesarean. 'It was all quite frightening because my blood pressure went right down and they had to rush me to ICU straight after the delivery.' To add more stress to the situation, Ms Buchanan's husband was not allowed into the delivery theatre with her because he was also ill. Luckily Ms Buchanan's new baby girl, Ava, is doing well and her family was on the mend. A week after the outbreak, the owners of the bakery accused of giving about 150 people food poisoning have taped up a handwritten note to apologise to their sick customers. It reads: 'Dear Customer We are Realy Sorry about what happen We hope every one get well soon We are sorry again [sic].' Luckily Ms Buchanan's new baby girl, Ava, is doing well and her family was on the mend To add more stress to the situation, Ms Buchanan's husband was not allowed into the delivery theatre with her because he was also ill Owners of the Box Village Bakery have taped up an apology note to sick customers (right) but one angry father, Damian Sullivan, has put up his own (left) The note was stuck up on the front window of the bakery almost a week after the outbreak But the father of a young boy who was struck down with salmonella after eating at the bakery says he is still 'p***ed off' with its owners. Damian Sullivan's 11-year-old son, Cooper, remains in hospital five days after he first complained of severe 'cramping, stitches', and a fever following a visit with his family to Box Village Bakery in Sylvania, in Sydney's south. Mr Sullivan had his own response to the note, also in the same form. 'You grubs. My son is still in hospital because of you,' he wrote on an orange piece of paper and wedging it in the front roller door of the bakery. 'I'm just really p***ed off with them. I think the fact that they put a small hand written note up [is meant to] show how much they care,' Mr Sullivan told Daily Mail Australia. 'My wife has video of my son crying when the doctors are putting more needles in him and he is begging them to stop and says I want to go home.' Mr Sullivan said he was also dissatisfied with the response he received from the New South Wales Food Authority, who have since shut down the bakery to investigate the incident. 'I am really p***ed off with the food authority as we reported this to them and they didn't even ring us back. We have had to chase them,' he told Daily Mail Australia. But a spokeswoman for the Food Authority said they did return his call and left a voicemail message on Wednesday afternoon. Mr Sullivan's 11-year-old son, Cooper (pictured in hospital), was struck down with salmonella after reportedly eating at a Sydney bakery with his family Here is another photo of Cooper in hospital and in pain. The number of people who are infected with food poisoning is about 150 people Following its shut down, a note was spotted outside the bakery on Tuesday, saying: 'You made my family very sick' As of Thursday afternoon, 151 people have presented themselves at hospital with symptoms of food poisoning and 27 were admitted. Since last Friday, 144 people have been to The Sutherland Hospital and seven people have shown up to The St George Hospital, according to the NSW Department of Health. Bakery owner Hien 'Johnny' Dau, who used to run two other bakeries without any trouble at Gymea and Sutherland, told The Daily Telegraph he wanted to apologise to his customers. He said he wanted and needed to do something to say sorry so he would be giving away food for a couple of days if the Food Authority gives him the green light to re-open. 'I feel really bad. I feel sick for people in hospital,' Mr Dau said. 'If it happens again - finish, no more business. After becoming incredibly sick overnight, Cooper was rushed to his local doctor and later admitted to The Sutherland Hospital It is thought customers got food poisoning had eaten hot chicken or chicken schnitzel rolls from the bakery The NSW Food Authority has shut down the bakery as the outbreak is being investigated 'I learn from my mistake, I don't want it to happen again.' Inspectors from the Food Authority visited the bakery, which made more than 200 rolls every day, on Wednesday and would come back on Wednesday to take food samples for testing, the Telegraph reported. Mr Dau will speak with inspectors on Monday to find out how the food poisoning outbreak happened and so far he has only been asked to patch up a hole in the ceiling. He said he was not sure how the incident could have occurred as his employees hands were clean and they wore plastic gloves when they prepared food. Previously Mr Sullivan told Daily Mail Australia, his son had become sick overnight after eating at the bakery. 'Cooper came into my bedroom on Sunday night, jumped on the toilet and was there all night basically,' Mr Sullivan told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday night. About 40 people presented themselves at The Sutherland (pictured) and St George hospitals with symptoms of food poisoning over the weekend. But this number has risen considerably Bakery owner Hien 'Johnny' Dau (pictured above is a woman walking past the bakery) said he wanted to apologise to sick customers Mr Dau said he would be handing out free food if the Food Authority gives them the green light to re-open 'When we got to the hospital the staff asked if we had eaten at the Box Village Bakery and said they had been inundated with patients who ate there. 'When we went back after Cooper was admitted, there were six other people on drips with salmonella poisoning.' It is thought the outbreak started after people consumed hot chicken or chicken schnitzel rolls from the bakery. 'Cooper came into my bedroom on Sunday night, jumped on the toilet and was there all night basically,' Mr Sullivan told Daily Mail Australia. Patients were also admitted to The St George Hospital over the weekend for food poisoning 'When we got to the hospital the staff asked if we had eaten at the Box Village Bakery and said they had been inundated with patients who ate there. 'When we went back after Cooper was admitted, there were six other people on drips with Salmonella poisoning.' Mr Sullivan said Cooper has since gotten worse and is expected to spend at least two more nights in hospital. In a video taken by his mother, the little boy bursts into tears after as he lay on a hospital bed on Tuesday. A 19-strong group of young men attacked staff at a centre for refugee children in Sweden with makeshift weapons, forcing them to barricade themselves inside a room. The men in their care rioted at the accommodation centre in Emmaboda, south-east Sweden, on Wednesday night and staff members were only freed when police arrived. The incident follows the stabbing of Swedish aid worker, Alexandra Mezher, 22, who died as she tried to break up a fight at a shelter for unaccompanied child refugees in the country. Rampage: A 19-strong group of young men attacked staff at a centre for refugee children on Wednesday The violence started after staff refused a request for a resident at the refugee centre to buy sweets In the latest incident, the Swedish newspaper Expressen, quoting Ingela Crona from the local police in Kalmar, reported that a violent riot broke out at the centre. 'They broke loose, and a total of 19 people banded together and did this,' she told the newspaper, which reported that the men were carrying makeshift weapons. The violence started after staff refused a request for a resident at the refugee centre to buy sweets, John Nilsson, from the local police force, told Barometern newspaper. '[They] became furious with the staff member,' he added. 'He collected together around 15 friends and the staff were forced to shut themselves in while they broke windows and did what they liked.' According to RT, police arrested two of the young men. The 16-year-old suspected of starting the riot is in custody and another person has been released. Sweden took in around 35,400 unaccompanied minors in 2015, nine times more than in 2014. Tensions are rising in the country and on Thursday, Swedish Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said Sweden could send back 60,000-80,000 asylum seekers in the coming years. Killed: Swedish aid worker, Alexandra Mezher, 22, died as she tried to break up a fight at a shelter for unaccompanied child refugees 'The first step is to ensure voluntary returns,' Ygeman told Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri. 'But if we don't succeed, we need to have returns by coercion.' More than 160,000 people applied for asylum in Sweden last year, the highest number in Europe relative to population size. The country of 9.8 million is among the European Union states with the highest proportion of refugees per capita. On Thursday, Somali-born Youssaf Khaliif Nuur, who is charged with murdering Miss Mezher on Monday, appeared in court. She died saving the life of another resident whom allegedly knife-wielding Khaliif Nuur was trying to kill at the child shelter in Molndal, a suburb of Gothenburg, police sources said. Swedish prosecutors admit they do not know if Somalian Khaliif Nuur, supposedly aged 15, is his true identity. Children's asylum applications are fast-tracked in Sweden, prompting some grown men to lie and say they are teenagers. Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven promised more resources for police after Miss Mezher was stabbed to death. The stabbing sparked concerns that authorities were being overwhelmed by the number of asylum seekers in the country. A former New York City police officer who investigators say jumped in front of a train after killing his former girlfriend with a machete has pleaded not guilty to the slaying. Arthur Lomando appeared in court in Hackensack, New Jersey, on Thursday and had his lawyer enter the plea on his behalf for a murder charge in the October death of Suzanne Bardzell. Authorities say the 44-year-old cop ambushed Bardzell, 48, in her car in Midland Park, New Jersey, and hours later jumped in front of the New York subway. Former NYPD officer Arthur Lomando is wheeled into a courtroom for his initial appearance Thursday in Hackensack New Jersey, where he pleaded not guilty in the killing of his ex-girlfriend Lomando, who had both feet amputated, is suing New York City's transit authority for $50million, claiming he was either jostled, slipped or was hit by falling debris Brutal killing: Lomando (left) is accused of slaying Suzanne Bardzell (right) with a machete-like knife as she sat inside her car in the driveway of her New Jersey home in October 2015 On Thursday, Lomando was escorted into Judge Susan Steele's courtroom in a wheelchair for a 10-minute hearing, which concluded with his bail being set at $5million. Lomando's defense attorney asked the judge to address 'real troubling allegations of mistreatment' during his detention at the Bergen County Jail, claiming that the double-amputee has been given no medication and was in need of urgent care, reported NJ.com. Suzanne Bardzell's family, including her ex-husband, were in attendance at the hearing but did not speak to the media, according to NorthJersey.com. Last week, Lomando filed a $50million lawsuit against the New York City transit authority claiming he fell from a platform at the subway station at Amsterdam and St Nicholas avenues in Harlem after he was jostled by a crowd of riders or slipped. The 44-year-old man hit debris as he fell, and had to have both his feet amputated. Authorities believe Lomando tried to kill himself by jumping in front of a train in the wake of Suzanne Bardzell's grisly killing. Lomando was wanted by police after the woman's blood-soaked body was discovered in her parked car on the driveway of her New Jersey home. The grim discovery was made by officers at around 3.30pm on October 22, Bergen County prosecutor John Molinelli told the New York Daily News. A judge set Lomando's bail at $5million during Thursday's 10-minute hearing, which was attended by the victim's family Lomando's defense attorney told a judge his client has been denied medical care while in jail Lomando was alleged to have repeatedly struck the 48-year-old special education teacher with a large machete shortly after she pulled into the driveway of her home. The Volkswagen SUV was still running when officers arrived at the scene. A warrant for Lomando's arrest was issued by detectives investigating her death. At 4.30pm that day, officers found Lomando after learning that a man had thrown himself under a train. He was taken to Harlem Hospital Center, where he underwent surgery for severe head and leg injuries. The special education teacher, who had two teenage sons from a previous marriage, was said to have met Lomando online three years ago. Her death came after she filed an order of protection notice against her boyfriend following a number of domestic violence incidents. 'There's a history of domestic violence between them - they were in a dating relationship for three years, and it looked like for the entire three years, there had been some instance of violence between them,' Mr Molinelli told a press conference at the time. Donald Trump's highly publicized veterans fundraiser on Thursday night will benefit his own charitable foundation, DailyMail.com can reveal. Ultimately, Trump's press secretary Hope Hicks said Thursday afternoon, 'the money will go to a number of Veterans charities and organizations.' The campaign has been coy about which organizations will eventually see a cash infusion. Trump tweeted on Thursday: 'It is my great honor to support our Veterans with you! You can join me now. Thank you! #Trump4Vets http://www.DonaldTrumpForVets.com.' The link goes to a website run by the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which promises that '100% of your donations will go directly to Veterans needs.' He told Fox News host Bill O'Reilly on Wednesday night that 'we're going to raise a lot of money for the veterans. A lot of money is going to be raised. A lot of people are going to be there, and I can do some good.' SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEOS DONALD TRUMP FOR VETS: The Republican presidential front-runner is raising money through his private foundation to benefit veterans charities but his campaign wont say which ones DRAMA: Trump's veterans fundraiser will compete head-to-head with a Republican debate in Iowa '100%': Trump's foundation pledges that every penny donated through the website 'will go directly to Veterans needs' The DonaldTrumpforVets.com Web domain was registered early Thursday morning, Internet records show, by Brad Parscale, the San Antonio-based website developer who handles Trump's campaign website. Hicks did not respond to a question about whether using the foundation as a pass-through vehicle was a last-minute decision. But even The Donald didn't seem to be in the loop about the website's final name, mistakenly tweeting at first that 'trumpforveterans.com' would be the repository for donations. Trump has made the treatment of American military veterans a centerpiece of his campaign, complaining at public rallies that the Obama administration's Department of Veterans Affairs needs a dramatic overhaul. He appeared in September aboard the USS Iowa in the Los Angeles harbor, saying against a backdrop of seafaring cannons that 'we have illegal immigrants that are treated better than our veterans.' Trump announced this week that he would skip Thursday's Fox News Channel/Google debate, the last one of its kind before Monday's Iowa caucuses, because the network trolled him with a sarcastic statement suggesting he was afraid to face questions from moderator Megyn Kelly. Kelly and Trump have a longstanding feud that dates back to the first Fox News debate in August, when she led off the event with a tough question about the billionaire's past barbs aimed at women he didn't like. Instead, he is hosting his own rally less than 2 miles away. Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, the winners of the last two Iowa GOP caucus contests, will join him after they participate in the 'undercard' debate reserved for low-polling Republicans. LAST MINUTE PLAN? The Trump veterans fundraising website was set up in the wee hours of Thursday morning, just hours before he started tweeting about it The Trump foundation itself has a spotty record to date of donating to veterans charities, one that will likely see a reinvention if The Donald's supporters donate heavily this week. Its future donations won't be publicly known until its 2016 taxes are filed, which won't happen until at least the middle of 2017 long after the election that will either make him President of the United States or send him back to the real estate world. The foundation could alternatively choose to publish a list of donations long before then, and Trump's rivals may insist on it. Forbes magazine reported in October that '[t]he Donald J. Trump Foundation has donated $5.5 million to 298 charities between 2009 and 2013 (the most recent year available), according to the non-profit's 990 tax forms from those years.' 'Of that, only $57,000 has been donated to seven organizations that directly benefit military veterans or their families. ... Wounded Warriors was not among the organizations Trump's foundation gave to in that time period.' But Hicks told The Weekly Standard on Wednesday that the Republican front-runner has dipped into his own pockets to support vets. 'Mr. Trump has made significant financial and in kind contributions to many Veterans organizations, personally and not through the Donald J. Trump foundation,' she said. One veterans group, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said Tuesday that it will decline any money from Trump's Des Moines event. THE RIGHT TWEET: Trump had to delete his first promotional tweet about the fundraiser after he sent out the wrong website address getting it right the second time 'Donald Trump is not a leader in veterans' philanthropy, unless he's donated a lot of money that nobody knows about,' the group's president Paul Rieckhoff, an Iraq War veteran, told The New York Times last year. Rieckhoff tweeted Tuesday: 'If offered, @IAVA will decline donations from Trump's event. We need strong policies from candidates, not to be used for political stunts.' Trump's foundation has attracted unwelcome attention in the past after The Smoking Gun reported that the billionaire had never donated to charities engaged in relief work following the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001. That report was based on an analysis of the Trump Foundation's tax returns. A Russian assault weapons classic is coming to Florida. The Kalashnikov company's U.S. arm is working to open a gun manufacturing plant in Pompano Beach, Florida, where it will produce weapons including the iconic AK-47. The AK-47 was invented by Mikhail Kalashnikov in the early 1940s as he lay wounded in hospital after fighting in World War II. Mikhail Kalashnikov (1919-2013) holding his most famous design in a 2005 file photo The AK-47 was conceived as a Soviet alternative to the assault rifles used by the German army It was presented in 1947 as a Soviet alternative to the assault rifles used by the German army. Originally used by members of the Warsaw Pact and distributed to their allies around the world, the AK-47 has been the weapon-of-choice for both national armies and guerrilla troops. Kalashnikov USA originally imported weapons from Russia, but after the United States imposed trade sanctions on the country in 2014, the American business severed ties with the Russian company. In 2015, Kalashnikov USA began assembling guns in a small facility in Tullytown, Pennsylvania.The proposed facility in Florida will be a full-fledged manufacturing plant. However, the company is not allowed to make ammunition or sell the weapons in Pompano Beach, CNNMoney reported. The mystery pensioner found dead close to the site of a 1949 air crash on Saddleworth Moor is not a childhood victim of the disaster, it has emerged. Such a theory has been ruled out after the real survivor, now a respected academic and university professor, came forward to identify himself to police. Detectives have been left stumped by the riddle of a smartly-dressed lone walker whose body was found near Dovestone Reservoir. His identity remains a mystery more than a month on. Mystery: Detectives have been left stumped by the riddle of a smartly-dressed lone walker whose body was found near Dovestone Reservoir on Saddleworth Moor. His identity remains a mystery more than a month on Theory: It had been thought that the man, who was found close to the summit of Indian's Head above Dovestone reservoir, may have been a childhood victim of the 1949 air disaster in Saddleworth One explanation was that the man was a survivor of the plane crash which claimed 24 lives and had returned to the scene of the tragedy. But that line of inquiry hit a dead end with the revelation that Professor Stephen Evans was on-board the ill-fated British European Airways flight. He believes he may be the last-living survivor. Prof Evans, who has spoken to detectives at Greater Manchester Police, said: 'My younger brother was killed in the crash but my parents and I were the only family with more than one survivor. 'There were Boy Scouts from the Oldham area among the first on the scene and they carried me to a farmhouse. I recall they made me an honorary member of their troop, but I no longer have any documentation of that.' Two young boys were among eight people saved from the wreckage of the Douglas DC-3 Dakota G-AHCY, although one of the boys later died in a second accident. Revealed: But that line of inquiry hit a dead end with the revelation that Professor Stephen Evans was on-board the ill-fated British European Airways flight. He believes he may be the last-living survivor Prof Evans, 72, lives in Southampton and works part-time at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He had been travelling from Belfast to Manchester Airport with his parents and brother when the twin-engined plane struck a mist-covered hill in Saddleworth, some 15 miles away from its intended destination. A doctor at the scene said that he saw bodies scattered all over the place and there were 'a few survivors lying groaning on the hillside but some of them died before I could attend to them. A report later found the crash was caused by an error in navigation, incorrect approach procedure and failure to check the position of the aircraft accurately before the descent from a safe height. Prof Evans, whose family later moved to Dorset, said: 'I have no current connection to the Manchester area but have contemplated visiting the site.' Investigations to identify the unknown man found above the reservoir close to the summit of Indians Head on December 12 are still ongoing. Det Sgt John Coleman, who is investigating the case, said officers had spoken to Prof Evans. He said: 'Thankfully, he is alive and well.' Police have now revealed the mystery victim was carrying an empty plastic container displaying Thyroxine Sodium, a medicine which is used to treat an under-active thyroid. Det Sgt Coleman said he hoped to speak to an expert at Newcastle University about the drug. He added: 'Theres no suggestion at this stage that you can overdose from it. I think its impossible. Accident: Despite still not knowing the mans identity, police thought he could have a family connection to the crash at Saddleworth Moor involving a British European Airways Douglas Dakota in 1949, which left 24 dead Investigation: Officers are appealing for anyone who recognises the man - seen on CCTV at Ealing Broadway train station in West London - to get in touch. Police are not treating the pensioner's death as suspicious 'But its a drug which would give a person energy. So potentially, he could have taken it if he is walking.' An image of the unknown man has been circulated to GP surgeries across the country in the hope that someone will recognise him. The man, believed to be aged between 65 and 75, was slim, white and clean shaven with grey receding hair, brown eyes and a large nose. A second post-mortem examination is due to take place next week. A couple was celebrating Valentine's Day early but ended up leaving the restaurant with a new bundle of joy after the expecting mother went into labor during their meal. Eric and Heather Bailey from Salt Lake City were dining at Italian restaurant Tuscany to celebrate the romantic holiday on Tuesday after learning their baby was due on February 14. However, when the mother-of-three went to the restroom she unexpectedly went into labor but with the help of the restaurant's staff they were able to deliver the couple's baby boy Christopher. Scroll down for video Eric and Heather Bailey from Salt Lake City were dining at Italian restaurant Tuscany on Tuesday when the mother-of-three went into labor. The couple pictured above with their baby boy and staff and NBA All-Star Mark Eaton, who is part owner 'We never ever thought we would say we had a baby inside a restaurant, but yeah, apparently he didn't want to wait,' Eric Bailey told Fox13Now. Server Sydney Malmrose had been waiting on the couple for the evening and had gone to collect their main course when Heather Bailey got up and went to the restroom. 'I had kind of intermittent contractions through the first two, three courses,' the mother told Fox13Now. Her husband started to get concerned after his wife had been gone for several minutes which was when he called Malmrose over to their table. With the help of staff, including their waitress Sydney Malmrose (pictured right) the couple welcomed their son Christopher (left) 'We never ever thought we would say we had a baby inside a restaurant, but yeah, apparently he didn't want to wait,' Eric Bailey, pictured with his wife and baby, said 'I was, like, jokingly, "Hey, you want me to go check on your wife and make sure she's not going into labor in the bathroom,"' she said to the father without realizing this soon would be a reality. Malmrose went to the restroom where she called out asking the mother if she was okay before she heard some 'definite labored noises,' according to Fox13Now. When the waitress realized what was happening she remained calmed, recalling her experience helping deliver her baby sister when she was 15, got Mr Bailey and told the hostess to get towels. Within the next minutes, their baby boy was born. When their waitress realized what was happening she remained calmed, recalling her experience helping deliver her baby sister when she was 15, got Mr Bailey and told the hostess to get towels After all of the excitement that night, the couple ended up having their meal comped and got to take food to-go. The owner reportedly said that each year on the baby's birthday the restaurant plans to treat the couple 'We rush into the bathroom, and I arrive just in time to basically catch,' Eric Bailey told Fox13Now. On Facebook, the restaurant wrote proudly of their staff who helped with the delivery. 'Baby born tonight at Tuscany with the help of our amazing staff! First time in 20 years of business,' the post read. After all of the excitement that night, the couple ended up having their meal comped and got to take food to-go. A 17-year-old Maryland girl has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for orchestrating her father's stabbing death with the help of her mentally disabled older boyfriend when she was 14. Morgan Lane Arnold was charged as an adult and subsequently pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the May 2013 killing of her father, 58-year-old businessman and blogger Dennis Lane. On Wednesday, Howard County Judge William Tucker handed down the 30-year sentence, calling it one of the most difficult decisions that this court has ever had to make. Lengthy sentence: Morgan Arnold (left) has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for coaxing her then-boyfriend, Jason Bulmer (right), into murdering her father in 2013 Victim: Dennis Lane, 58, a businessman and blogger, was found stabbed to death in his Ellicott City, Maryland, home in May 2013 Ambush: Prosecutors said Arnold left the door into the basement at her father's residence (pictured) unlocked, allowing Bulmer to slip inside armed with a butcher knife Prosecutors argued that Arnold and her then-boyfriend, Jason Bulmer, who was 19 at the time of the slaying but still in the 10th grade, plotted to kill Lane for two months, outlining their murderous plans in a series of text message exchanges and Skype conversations. Authorities said Arnold left the door into the basement at her family home in Ellicott City unlocked, allowing Bulmer to slip in and stab Lane to death with a butcher knife in May 2013. The plan was for Bulmer also to kill Lane's fiancee, Denise Geiger, but the mortally wounded 58-year-old man was able to subdue his attacker, giving Geiger a chance to pry the knife from the teen's hands. After he was found covered in blood along with Arnold in her bedroom, Bulmer told police, 'I am her boyfriend. I stabbed him and she told me to do it.' The teen, who suffers from a learning disorder and has the mind of a child between the ages of 9-12, according to psychiatrists, claimed that his girlfriend wanted her father dead 'because she was sick of him.' During pre-trial proceedings in 2014, a forensic psychiatrist testified that Arnold, who was said to be suffering from Asperger's syndrome and a host of other mental-health issues, told her she was 'glad' her father was dead. Star-crossed lovers: Bulmer and Arnold, who were 19 and 14, respectively, at the time of the murder, were described as social misfits suffering from mental health problems After the killing, Bulmer (left) told police he killed Lane (right) at Arnold's request 'because she was sick of him' 'My fantasy came true. he disappeared,' she was quoted as telling Dr Neil Blumberg. Mental health experts testified that at different points throughout her childhood and adolescence, Arnold has been diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, anxiety and schizoaffective disorder. Arnold and Bulmer were described during court proceedings as social misfits who were obsessed with fantasy characters. While the defense argued that Arnold was afraid of her older boyfriend, Judge Tucker said on Wednesday that having read their electronic exchanges, he believed that the girl was the one pulling the strings, reported The Baltimore Sun. Dennis Lane's sister, Kelly Lane, described her niece in her written victim impact statement as 'smart and manipulative,' and said that Bulmer was 'her first victim.' Bulmer pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to 30 years in prison in July 2014. At the completion of her sentence, Arnold will be on supervised probation for another five years. Eleven militiamen have been arrested so far They want all charges to be dropped before they will leave Defiant rancher Cliven Bundy has urged militiamen to continue in their stand-off with police at the Malheur National Wildlife Reserve in Oregon despite his own son telling followers to stand down. Bundy senior was interviewed by CNN at his Nevada ranch on Thursday after his son Ammon told followers to stand-down in the 27 day saga. Contradicting his son, who was arrested alongside his brother Ryan, Cliven Bundy called for the fight to continue. 'Ill tell you one thing, were dang sure going to have to fight this battle over and over if we just give up right today,' he said. Battle on: Cliven Bundy urged militiamen to keep up their stand-off with police at the Malheur National Wildlife Reserve on Thursday Defiant: Bundy senior directly contradicted his own son and militia leader Ammon, who told his followers from jail to stand down His comments come as only four militiamen remain on the Malheur National Wildlife Reserve. They refuse to leave unless authorities assure them they won't be arrested. At least one of the remaining protesters has a warrant out for his arrest while 11 other militiamen have been arrested so far. The 27-day stand-off has left one dead and has brought widespread condemnation from the local community. Robert 'LaVoy' Finicum, 55, was shot dead on Tuesday after fleeing a police cordon. Authorities claim he was reaching for a weapon when SWAT team members shot him dead. In a live video broadcast from the Oregon ranch this week, one of the last militiamen, said he believes the FBI is 'going to kill them' all, but refused to leave unless the authorities would meet their demands. Another militiaman added he is 'willing' to die in a final bloody siege with the authorities if negotiations fail. Their comments come after the last leader of the occupation voluntarily handed himself in at a police checkpoint. Murder: This militiaman appeared on a YouTube video accusing the FBI of plotting to kill the remaining demonstrators Blackout: The armed protester claimed the FBI had ordered the media away from the nature reserve so the 'killings' wouldn't be recorded A video posted Thursday to the YouTube channel DefendYourBase, which the group has been using to give live updates says the occupiers want assurances they won't arrested. A speaker believed to be David Fry said: 'We're stuck here, four of us. They're telling us it's safe to leave, but it's not safe.' Group co-leader Jason Patrick, 43, of Bonaire, Georgia, was arrested on Wednesday along with two other militiamen. Eight members were already under arrest following the stand-off and fatal shooting of rancher Robert 'LaVoy' Finicum, 55, on Tuesday. Militia leader Ammon Bundy was among those seized after the bloody traffic stop on Highway 395. Authorities claim father-of-11 Finicum reached for a gun in his waistband after fleeing in his vehicle from a police cordon and was promptly shot dead by officers. Bundy's brother, Ryan, was also shot in the arm during the incident. The remaining militiamen have spoken of their dismay at the death of Finicum. In another live video rant, one militia member angrily blasted the FBI as 'murderers'. 'The media has been ordered to leave that means they're coming to kill us, they don't want them to see that. They're going to murder all of us... The American people better wake up,' he said. Another said: 'If I die, I died for my country, I died a free man. That's how I want to die.' And in an interview with the Plain Dealer on Wednesday, Fry said: 'I'll pass on and move on to the next life. I don't know (how it will end), but I'm willing to go that far. 'Obviously they are murdering people at this point. They've been doing it for a long time now, and you guys are watching it.' Shot dead: Rancher Robert 'LaVoy' Finicum, pictured, was shot in a clash with police on Tuesday Family man: Finicum (center) and wife Jeanette (right) had been married for 23 years. He had 11 children The final four are refusing to leave unless authorities assure them they will all be free to return home. The Oregonian reported on Thursday that the group is concerned about a warrant out for militiaman Sean Anderson's arrest and they want it dropped before they leave. So far 11 members of the militia have been arrested. Leader Ammon Bundy and his brother, Ryan Bundy were seized on Tuesday alongside Shawna Cox, 59, Brian Cavalier, 44, Ryan Payne, Joseph O'Shaughnessy and Peter Santilli. Jon Ritzheimer, 32, was arrested in Peoria, Arizona, after turning himself in to police Duane Leo Ehmer of Irrigon, Oregon, Dylan Wade Anderson, 34, of Provo, Utah and Patrick, 43, were arrested on Wednesday. The arrests follow the release of federal court documents which claim that the militiamen were equipped with night vision goggles and explosives. Arrested leader Bundy called on his followers to pull out of the wildlife reserve in a statement released through his lawyer Mike Arnold. He said: 'To those remaining at the refuge, I love you. Let us take this fight from here. Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is ours for now in the courts.' Authorities also vowed to continue in their quest to bring the protest to a peaceful conclusion. Special agent Greg Bretzing of the FBI's Portland office said: 'We will continue to look for safe, peaceful procedures on how to bring this to a peaceful conclusion.' Harney County Sheriff David Ward said he regretted the death of Finicum and wants a peaceful end to the stand-off. 'I'm disappointed that a traffic stop that was supposed to bring peaceful resolution to this ended badly,' he said. 'Multiple law enforcement agencies put a lot of work into putting together the best tactical plan they could, to take these guys down peacefully... If it was as simple as just waiting out some folks down there to get out of some buildings, we could have waited a lot longer. 'Please go home': Ammon Bundy, pictured earlier this month, released a statement through his attorney Wednesday asking the remaining four protesters to leave the site of their armed anti-government protest Arrested: Oregon militia leader Ammon Bundy (left) and his brother, Ryan Bundy (right), were arrested Tuesday night Charged: Shawna Cox (left), 59, was taken to Multnomah County Jail along with the other detained militia members Tuesday. Jon Ritzheimer (right), 32, was arrested in Peoria, Arizona, after turning himself in to police Busted: Brian Cavalier, 44 (left), and Ryan Payne (right) were charged along with the others with conspiracy to impede federal officers Facing jail: Joseph O'Shaughnessy (left) and Peter Santilli (right) were arrested in Burns, Oregon, a short time after the traffic stop and shoot-out 'But this has been tearing our community apart. It's time for everybody in this illegal occupation to move on. There doesn't have to be bloodshed in our community.' Ward said if the occupiers had legitimate grievances with the government, they should use the 'appropriate manner' to address them. 'This can't happen anymore. This can't happen in America and it can't happen in Harney County,' he said. Authorities declined to divulge details of what led to the fatal shooting of Finicum. However, various onlookers say Finicum took off in his vehicle at high speed from a traffic stop. When curtailed by a roadblock, he stopped and exited the vehicle. FBI sources told CNN that he then reached to his waistband for his gun and the SWAT team opened fire. Bundy's brother, Ryan, was also shot in the arm in the incident. 'Let me be clear: It is the actions and choices of the armed occupiers of the refuge that have led us to where we are today,' Bretzing said. 'They had ample opportunity to leave the refuge peacefully and, as the FBI and our partners have clearly demonstrated, actions are not without consequences.' Another eyewitness account claims Finicum, of Cane Beds, was gunned down after charging at law enforcement officials. Mike McConnell, who claimed to have been behind the wheel of one of the vehicles heading to a community meeting in the town of John Day Tuesday, posted an eight-minute video on his Facebook page recounting what happened during the confrontation between the militiamen and the authorities. Finicum, a Mormon rancher from Arizona, was a father of 11 and grandfather of 19 who was married to his wife, Jeanette, for 23 years. 'LaVoy was passionate about this, about the movement,' McConnell said. In an interview with MSNBC three weeks ago, Finicum declared that he would rather die than face arrest. 'There are things more important than your life, and freedom is one of them,' he said at the time. 'I'm prepared to defend freedom.' He sounded a similar note when speaking to CNN earlier this month. 'I'm just not going to prison,' Finicum said. 'Look at the stars. There's no way I'm going to sit in a concrete cell where I can't see the stars and roll out my bedroll on the ground. 'I want to be able to get up in the morning and throw my saddle on my horse and go check on my cows. It's OK. I've lived a good life. God's been gracious to me.' Orders: Ammon Bundy's lawyer Michael Arnold, left, read out a statement from his client where he urged the remaining militiamen still at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge stand down and go home Emotional: A visibly shaken Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward told reporters on Wednesday the standoff with the Oregon militia has been tearing the local community apart Roadblock: Police officers block the turnout to Sodhouse Lane, which is the main road leading to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters Wednesday Shooting: An Oregon State police officer was pictured on Highway 395 after the fatal shooting of Finicum He joined the protest when it began on January 2 and was an outspoken member of the militia group throughout. At one point he personally climbed up a pole to dismantle surveillance cameras in an apparent show of defiance against the government. Last year, he told the St George News that he complied with federal land controls until Cliven Bundy's stand-off in Nevada in 2014. The episode, he said, struck a chord with him. He joined the Bundys and 'did a lot of soul-searching' until he 'realized that Cliven Bundy was standing on a very strong constitutional principle - and yet, here I was continuing to pay a grazing fee to the BLM (Bureau of Land Management).' All detained militia members were being held at Multnomah County Jail without bail and will appear in court late Thursday or Friday. The group took over the wildlife refug after a peaceful protest in nearby Burns, Oregon, over the conviction of two local ranchers on arson charges. Dwight Hammond, 73, and his son Steven Hammond, 46, said they lit fires on federal land in 2001 and 2006 to reduce the growth of invasive plants and protect their property from wildfires. The two were convicted three years ago and served time - the father three months, the son one year. But in October, a federal judge in Oregon ruled their terms were too short under U.S. law and ordered them back to prison for about four years each. Among the demands by the Bundy group is for the Hammonds to be released. As many as 7,800 U.S. troops were still unaccounted for as of last April to have been killed in the conflict Corporal Kenneth Stuck (pictured in the U.S. army) was killed in a battle against the enemy near Unsan, North Korea on approximately November 4, 1950 A heroic Korean War veteran labeled missing in action more than 65 years ago has finally come home. Corporal Kenneth Stuck was killed in a battle against the enemy near Unsan, North Korea on approximately November 4, 1950. Today, his body was finally returned to American soil where his family, members of the National Guard and Air Force were waiting to give the veteran the heroic welcome he deserved. His flag-draped coffin, which arrived at the Harrisburg International Airport in Pennsylvania, on Thursday, will be buried on Saturday. He was met by his emotional family, members of the National Guard and Air Force to give the veteran the heroic welcome he deserved. Stuck's brother, Clarence, a fellow Korean War veteran, was overwhelmed to finally be reunited with Kenneth after his disappearance in the 1950s. 'I'm a little numb right now,' he told Penn Live. 'I can't wait to see him. All I want to do is touch that casket and say 'Brother, welcome home.'' It has been a long wait for Clarence who was so shocked to hear that his brother's remains were being flown home he suffered a mini-stroke. Cpl. Stuck proudly enlisted in the U.S. Army on May 1, 1950 and was assigned to L Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Calvary Regiment, 1st Calvary Division. He bravely went with his unit to fight in the Korean War until hid death later that year. Stuck was awarded posthumously a series of medals for his heroism including the Purple Heart and National Defense Service Medal. On Thursday, Stuck's body was finally returned to American soil to the heroic welcome he deserved Family, members of the National Guard and Air Force were waiting to carry the veteran's flag-laden coffin to the hearse Following a funeral service, he will finally be laid to rest with his parents in the Hummelstown Cemetery with military honors accorded. His brother, in his eighties, had struggled to come to terms with the loss for decades and refused to stop searching to bring Kenneth's body home. He even named his first son Kenneth in his brother's honor. Now he can finally be put to rest, Clarence's long hunt is over. 'I can't believe it. When I see my brother he's gonna know I'm out there hugging him,' he said. Corporal Stuck's niece, Clarence's daughter Teresa Hancock, said: 'I know when he went to war and he was declared dead, it was really heartbreaking and my dad (Clarence) was on a mission ever since then,' Hancock said. Stuck's brother, Clarence, a fellow Korean War veteran, was overwhelmed to finally be reunited with Kenneth after his disappearance in the 1950s. His daughter Teresa Hancock said the loss had been 'heartbreaking' for her father Members of the armed forces salute the coffin of Corporal Stuck who has returned to American soil for the first time in more than 65 years The corporal was one of 36,000 American soldiers who were killed in the conflict. As many as 7,800 U.S. troops were still unaccounted for as of last April, according to Penn Live. Cpl Stuck's body was returned as part of a swap deal for the remains of North Korean troops held in South Korea, according to the family. The United States had previously suspended efforts to recover war remains in North Korea over the country's plans to launch a long-range rocket in 2012. Hillary Clinton agreed on Thursday to some of the terms laid down by an opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders, in his call to increase the number of public debates as they vie to become the Democratic candidate in November's U.S. presidential election. Clinton's two main Democratic challengers, Sanders and former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, have long called for more debates. They have complained that the relatively skimpy schedule of only six encounters was designed by the party to protect Clinton's position at the top of opinion polls. Scroll down for video Hillary Clinton says she's down for more debates and wants to participate in one before the New Hampshire primary Bernie Sanders is also interested in more debates, but doesn't want them to be held on Friday, Saturdays or holiday weekends - like previous Democratic confabs But the call for more debates intensified this week after a hastily arranged debate next Thursday in New Hampshire was announced, organized by a news channel and a state newspaper. Both Clinton and O'Malley said they would attend if all the candidates agreed, despite risking the ire of the Democratic National Committee, which has forbidden candidates from taking part in unsanctioned encounters. On Wednesday evening, the Sanders campaign called for three more debates, in March, April and May. The campaign also stipulated that none be held on a Friday, Saturday or holiday weekend, when the number of potential viewers typically dips. If Clinton would commit to this, his campaign said, then Sanders would also agree to join Clinton and O'Malley at the Feb. 4 debate convened by MSNBC and the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper, just days before the state becomes the second in the country to vote for Republican and Democratic presidential candidates. 'Senator Sanders is happy to have more debates, but we are not going to schedule them on an ad hoc basis at the whim of the Clinton campaign,' Sanders' campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, said in a statement. Weaver said Clinton had only agreed to next week's debate because Sanders has been gaining on her in polls. The response from the Clinton camp on Thursday acceded to some of these conditions, saying it would discuss adding debates only in April and May. 'We have always been willing to add additional debates beyond the six that had been scheduled and look forward to starting discussions on scheduling debates in April and May,' Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said in an email to reporters. Spokesmen for Clinton and Sanders did not respond to emails asking if the two campaigns were now in agreement. It remains unclear if any additional debates will come to pass. Two homes have been raided connected with an Australian man who appeared in a propaganda video for the so-called Islamic State's health service in Syria. Anti-terror police raided two properties in Melbourne's outer north in an operation linked to Mohomed Unais Mohomed Ameen, who appeared in an Islamic State propaganda video. The ABC reports that the homes are occupied by the ex-wives of Mohomed Unais Mohomed Ameen, 41, who appeared in an IS video along with Australian doctor Taeq Kamleh working in what was presented as an IS-operated hospital in Syria. Two homes connected with Mohomed Unais Mohomed Ameen were raided by counter-terrorism police It says Ameen travelled to Syria in May 2014 and is acting as a physiotherapist in an Islamic State hospital. Ameen may be linked to the Anzac Day terror plot and a bookshop in Springvale that itself is linked to Australians who have travelled to the Middle East to join IS, the ABC said. Australian Federal Police have confirmed the Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team executed warrants at homes in Meadow Heights and Craigieburn on Thursday morning. The team comprises AFP officers, Victorian police, ASIO agents and other agencies. Ameen allegedly worked with Australian doctor Taeq Kamleh (pictured) in an IS-operated hospital in Syria Both Ameen and Kamleh (pictured) appeared in in an Islamic State propaganda video showing them allegedly working in IS-operated hospital in Syria 'There is no immediate danger to the community as a result of this police activity,' the AFP said. 'As this matter relates to an ongoing investigation, no further comment can be provided at this time.' The video appeared last year and focused on Australian doctor Tareq Kamleh, who urged Australian sympathisers of Islamic State, who were qualified to look after people, to come to Syria and work for the terrorist group as doctors and medical staff. Ameen, 41, also played a major role in the video, and claimed he was treating up to 500 patients a week. He also called for qualified medical practitioners to join Islamic State's cause. The video appeared last year and focused on Australian doctor Kamleh (pictured) urging Australian sympathisers of Islamic State to come to Syria to work 'We have staff from many other countries, physiotherapy doctors from Russia, physiotherapy doctors from Sham, physiotherapy doctors from Australia, from Sri Lanka, Tunisia, and that a few countries to be named,' he says. 'We have female physiotherapy doctors separately for physiotherapy for females, and for the children. 'I would like to take this opportunity, call my brothers and sisters who have the medical background, medical knowledge, who [are] qualified or semi-qualified. 'We need the brothers and sisters to come and help us from all around the world.' Last year Kamleh posted an image of an X-ray done in Syria and saying the 'pathology here is incredible' Last year his colleague Kamleh was active on social media, posting an image of an X-ray done in Syria and saying the 'pathology here is incredible'. Last June the Australian Federal Police obtained an arrest warrant for Kamleh at Adelaide Magistrates' Court. The warrant relates to charges including membership of a terrorist organisation, recruiting for a terrorist organisation and entering or remaining in a declared area. 'Should Dr Kamleh return to Australia, this warrant authorises law enforcement to arrest him immediately,' the AFP said in a statement. Kamleh has previously stated he never intends to return to Australia. Last June the Australian Federal Police obtained an arrest warrant for Kamleh Hundreds of people in east China's Guizhou province turned out to loot eight tonnes of grain from a truck that had crashed. Looters rushed to the scene of the crash which occurred on January 27, blocking the road and causing chaos in Jingjiang City, the People's Daily Online reports. Police were called to the scene and witnessed hundreds of people with buckets, bags and other tools taking the truck's contents. Grain thieves: Looters rushed to the scene with bags and buckets to take the contents of the overturned truck A lot to clear up: Police cordoned off the area and started the cleanup operation in Fujian province The truck was passing through the city while transporting 45 tonnes of grain when it crashed into a flower bed and tipped over. According to reports, the road was wet at the time and the driver lost control crashing into a flower bed and overturning. The looters rushed to collect as much grain as they could from the crashed vehicle causing disruption to traffic in the area. Prize haul: Locals managed to take around eight tonnes of grain from the overturned vehicle Police were called to the scene at around 9:45am to disperse the crowd. The truck was removed and the road was finally cleared at around noon when people returned to the scene to scavenge for any leftover grain. Local police say around eight tonnes of grain were stolen. This is one of many cases of looting crashed vehicles in China. Earlier this month, villagers in Yunnan province looted a crashed truck carrying 30 tonnes of oranges. Advertisement Trainee flight attendants in central China are taking etiquette lessons to new extremes with the use of chopsticks and various other handy items. As well as balancing books on their heads for a straight posture, they are biting on chopsticks for a perfect smile, and placing a piece of A4 paper between their knees when standing straight. The students, who are from Sichuan South-west Vocational College of Civil Aviation in the Chinese city of Chengdu, were preparing for an upcoming exam which will allow them to become official stewards and stewardesses, reports the People's daily Online. Extreme etiquette: Student air hostesses use chopsticks for the perfect smile and an inflight magazine for posture in Sichuan, China Competitive: In China the position of a flight attendant is considered to be an extremely lucrative job, and every year hundreds of thousands of young men and women apply Straight back: They have to balance a glass bottle on their heads for three minutes and keep smiling at the same time for ellegance Pictures taken on January 26 show men and women standing in straight lines while balancing glass bottles or inflight magazines on their heads, as well as holding white paper between their legs. While they are practising their skills, the women are dressed in red, white, blue, and grey uniforms, with full hair and make-up done. The men are wearing navy blue suits, accompanied by a light blue shirt and a grey tie. As well as this, they have a chopstick in their mouths which they are biting down on between their teeth to maintain the high standards of a smiling face. According to the report, one of the women said she had to master acrobatic skills in order to become a successful flight attendant. Speaking to reporters, student Zhang Tongtong said: 'We not only have to balance a bottle on our head for three minutes, we have to keep smiling at the same time to demonstrate the elegance of flight attendants. 'In order to pass, we often practice by ourselves with a bottle. This is not just for the examination, it's to help us to be more graceful,' she said. The teacher at the college Xu Liqing, explained the reasons behind her schooling methods: 'In our normal training, we use wine bottles to help practice standing. 'This is to train the students' gesture as well as their confidence.' Paper training: The men and women were pictured on January 26 practicing their skills, he the women put A4 paper between their knees Bizarre: Men and women undergo rigorous etiquette and posture training to ensure that they represent their comapnay appropriately In China, the position of an air hostess is considered to be an extremely competitive role, and every year hundreds of thousands of young women apply to be flight attendants. In December last year, one school in Qingdao, north-east China, hosted an annual audition where more than 1,000 desperate graduates paraded in swimwear and airline uniforms in a bid to attract potentially lucrative contracts in aviation. It's not just flight attendants in China who endure chopstick between the teeth training for a perfect smile. Train attendants with the China Train Transportation Group in Chongqing, also embark on an etiquette course before beginning their duties where the attendants are taught how to get the perfect smile in the same way with a chopstick. They have to be able to achieve this grin even when tired at the end of a shift, or when faced with the most difficult customer. Posture class: Student flight attendants sit crossed legged with a straight back, and a full head of hair and make-up done when training During the run up to China's Lunar New Year, people in the country look forward to returning home and seeing their family. But Xiao Wei, a mother of two was left devastated after a scammer robbed her of 159 (1,500 yuan) in a long-distance bus station snatching the money from her hand, the People's Daily Online reports. The 30-year-old mother was trying to travel by bus from east China's Fujian province to her home-town of Nanning in Guangxi province. Upsetting: Xiao Wei had saved 159 (1,500 yuan) to pay for tickets for her and her children to travel home Angry: The mother-of-two was trying to visit her hometown while her husband stayed behind to work Xiao Wei's husband works as a fisherman and is working at sea during the holidays, so she opted to return home to visit family. The mother arrived at the bus station Quanzhou to find that tickets to Nanning were sold out. The mother decided to return home and try again the next day. However when she got in a taxi to return home, the driver said he knew someone who worked for the bus company and could supply her and her children with tickets. She met with the employee who offered her tickets for 63 (600 yuan). The mother, who had her daughter in her arms took out her entire savings and the man quickly snatched her cash from her. Before she had time to put her daughter down, the man had disappeared. Upset: Xiao Wei was left crying in the bus station after being robbed by a man posing as a bus employee Heartwarming: Generous passersby handed the woman cash to help pay for her tickets home Help: Police took a statement from Xiao Wei and have warned people of buying secondary tickets The woman was later seen by locals and Chinese media crying in the bus station. She was heard calling out: 'I am a mother with two children. Why would someone try to scam me?' Local police arrived on the scene and took a statement from her. Generous passersby gave the mother money to enable her to return home. She thanked the police for their assistance saying: 'You are the reason I still have hope in humanity.' Authorities have warned people of incidents of inflated prices of tickets and scammers selling fake tickets during the Lunar New Year travel period. In January 2014, 814 people were arrested for selling fake train tickets. Over 49,000 tickets were confiscated in the run up to the Lunar New Year period during that year. Workers at a construction site in east China became so angry that their wages were not being paid they decided to teach their boss the ultimate lesson. In a bid to get their wages, migrant workers from the Shangrao Economic Development Zone in Jiangxi Province, used scaffolding to lock their bosses car up so he was unable to drive anywhere, reports the People's Daily Online. They used 12 long scaffolding poles to clamp down a Skoda belong to one of their bosses after a dispute over money between the company and the employees. No escape: Builders in Sichuan Province, China, taught their boss the ultimate lesson when he didn't pay them Trapped: In a dispute over wages, workers in China used scaffolding to stop their boss getting away in his car It's understood that the workers were to receive their owed wages before the upcoming Chinese New Year, so that they could go home to celebrate the occasion with their families. The car reportedly belongs to one of the shareholders involved in the dispute. The employees feared he would get away, so they made sure he couldn't by clamping the car with the building equipment. Just to be one hundred per cent sure he couldn't get away they also deflated the tyres. Pictures of the trapped 4x4 show the poles tightly clamped together around the sorry looking car so it is unable to move. Ultimate car clamp: They used 12 pieces of scaffolding tightly bolted around the car and let down the tyres Payback: This beige Skoda had no chance of driving off after its owner had a dispute with his employees One of the workers spoke to a local reporter and said that his boss owes him 70,000 Yuan (7,443) in wages, and he is still waiting for it. In China, there are around 250 million migrant workers that have left their villages for better paid jobs in the city, often leaving their entire family behind for years at a time. It's common that these Chinese migrant workers, often working as waiters and construction workers in Chinese cities, face the difficulty in receiving wages on time. Enforcement of laws to protect the group is also relatively weak. It is unclear if the extreme clamping method by the employees at the Shangrao Economic Development Zone was successful. Navigating a busy road is hard at the best of times but one driver decided to make the experience even more challenging... by driving backwards. Footage posted online shows the car overtaking and changing lanes at nearly 40 miles per hour, the People's Daily Online reports. The video was filmed in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China from a car driving behind - or rather in front - of the white car. Devil-may-care: The video filmed in Nanjing, east China shows a car driving backwards down a motorway The car drives down the middle of the road before later successfully overtaking a truck as well as changing lanes. The passenger and driver filming the video were stunned by the motorist's act and can be heard commenting on the unusual road stunt in Nanjing dialect. Internet users on Chinese social media expressed their concern at the driver's behaviour. They managed to identify the neighbourhood sparking fears that pedestrians could have been hurt in the usually busy area. One internet user wrote: 'people are really worried about the driver's behaviour'. Mostly users on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter, expressed their opinions in a joking way. A user named 'Zhu Xiao Le' said: 'Did [the driver] have eye at the back of his head?' 'Jiangsu Wei Quan Ren Yu Hai' said: 'Excellent reversing skills.' 'LY_527miss' commented: 'Real masters are among the people.' The man is now being referred to as 'daochege' meaning reversing brother in Chinese. Overtaking: The motorist drives down the middle of the road before later successfully overtaking a truck Local police told Chinese media yesterday that they were aware of the video and its popularity. They said that they had located the car but had not managed to find the driver yet. Police say they will take appropriate action within regulations. However it's not just the driver of the white car that is in trouble. The person filming the car is also driving at the same time. Police say that according to traffic laws, his behaviour would interfere with safe driving meaning that he would be liable for a fine of 5.28 (50 yuan) and two demerit points on his license. The World Health Organization has reported that more than 200,000 people die in China every year as a result of traffic accidents. 'Much more needs to be done to spur the adoption of measures to raise road safety' Bernhard Schwartlander, the WHO's representative said. Advertisement A temple in Tokyo has now become a home to more than one thousand beckoning cat statues, in a bid to bring good luck to its grounds and surroundings. These red and white figurines go by the name Maneki-Neko, which literally means 'beckoning cat' in Japanese. They were put on display at the Goutoku Temple in the countrys capital on January 26, reports the Peoples Daily Online. These lucky charms are usually displayed at the entrance of shops and restaurants across south-east Asia welcoming good fortune, happiness, purity and positive things to come. Lucky charm: Thousands of these lucky cats were put on display at the Goutoku Temple on January 26 in Japan's capital city Tokyo Beckoning cats: A visitor looks at the Maneki-Neko figurines on display at the famous Japanese Temple were thousands are on display Prosperity: They are often displayed at the entrance to shops and restaurants but Goutoku Temple goes one step further with this display The unique Goutoku Temple is well known for its large collection of beckoning cats residing inside it, as well as its stunning architecture and history. Maneki-Nekos are adorable sculptures usually made out of ceramic. They are popular fortune cats that sit on their back legs with one arm raised as if they are waving at people. Some of them have arms that do physically wave up and down, they are believed to bring happiness and prosperity to those who display them. According to catster.com, these lucky cats first appeared during the Edo period (1603-1868) in Japan. There are a number of popular legends about the origins of the feline statue. Heavenly: Unique Goutoku Temple is well known for its large collection of cats residing inside it, as well as its stunning architecture Happiness: Beckoning cats are usually white and red but sometimes gold, they are impeccably dressed, with a bell attached to their collars Legend: Maneki-Neko's first appeared during the Edo period (1603-1868) in Japan, along with a number of legends about their origin The legend behind the Maneki-Neko at the Goutoku Temple is about a wealthy lord who was taking shelter under a tree from the rain. He saw the temple priests cat beckoning to him to follow, so he did. As soon as he left the tree it was struck by lightning, saving the lords life. The wealthy lord became friends with the priest at the temple, and when the cat died the first Maneki-Neko was made in his honour to keep the temple prosperous and lucky. They are usually impeccably dressed, with a bell attached to their collars in white and red, but sometimes they are gold to bring in wealth to their owner. Stunning: Thousands of Maneki Neko's, which in Japanese means 'beckoning cat.' Their paws are raised as if its waving in good fortune 2015 was a bumper year for exploring our planetary backyard. Space agencies landed a probe on a distant comet, received the most detailed close-ups from Pluto, brought rockets safely back from space - landing them upright - and sent the first British astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS). With this flurry of activity it would seem that the space race has been reinvigorated. So what will the year ahead have in store for planetary exploration? Scroll down for video Earth is increasingly becoming an interplanetary departures lounge. With a flurry of discoveries in the solar system in 2015, it would seem the space race has been reinvigorated. So what will 2016 have in store for planetary exploration? Stock image illustrates the solar system Earth is increasingly becoming an interplanetary departures lounge, as we wave off missions to distant alien worlds. But 2016 will see a stream of scientific data phoned home. Professor David Rothery, a planetary geoscientist at the Open University told MailOnline: 'In terms of discoveries, I don't think we've got another year ahead like we did this time last year.' But just because we were so spoiled for discoveries in 2015, doesn't mean that this year won't bring findings of its own. MARS The red planet will again be at the centre of much of the exploratory attention this year, as a number of missions leave Earth and make their way to Mars. Data collected could help lay the groundwork and assess the validity of future manned missions. The red planet will again be at the centre of much of the exploratory attention this year, as a number of missions leave Earth terminus and make their way to Mars (pictured). Data collected could help lay the groundwork and assess the validity of future manned missions EXPLORING THE RED PLANET Mars will once again be at the centre of much of the exploratory attention, as this year a number of missions leave Earth terminus and make their way to Mars. Data collected could help lay the groundwork and assess the validity of future manned missions. The European Space Agency, for example, is preparing for the first arrival of its ExoMars programme in October. The mission aims to detect methane and other atmospheric gases in Mars's atmosphere which could be clues of biological activity. Nasa's own lander, InSight, had hoped to beat the European mission to the Martian surface, with a proposed scheduled arrival date of late September. However, in December a leak was found and its liftoff was pushed back. Nasa has not revealed what date the mission will now take place. Advertisement The European Space Agency, for example, is preparing for the first arrival of its ExoMars programme in October. The mission aims to detect methane and other atmospheric gases in Mars's atmosphere which could be clues of biological activity. Professor Andrew Coates, a planetary scientist at University College London, explained: 'Methane in the Martian atmosphere is very interesting as it shouldn't be there, it should be broken up by sunlight, so the fact that it's there means there must be a source,' He told MailOnline: 'That source is either geothermal activity - which is interesting as we didn't know that Mars was active like that - or it's life. 'And that, of course, would be a completely amazing discovery.' Nasa has contributed the Trace Gas Orbiter, designed to sniff out methane, while Russian agency Roscosmos has provided the planetary lander, Schiaparelli for the mission and the mission will liftoff in March. Nasa's own lander, InSight, had hoped to beat the European mission to the Martian surface, with a proposed scheduled arrival date of late September. The European Space Agency is preparing for the first arrival of its ExoMars programme in October. The mission aims to detect methane and other atmospheric gases in Mars's atmosphere which could be clues of biological activity. The surface of Mars is pictured Curiosity keeps on rolling. The Nasa rover continues to explore the Martian surface and will drill more rocks, sample more dust and send back more images in 2016 One of the ExoMars instruments is pictured However, in December a leak was found in one of the lander's vacuum tubes and its liftoff was pushed back. Nasa has not revealed what date the mission will now take place. THE ASTEROID BELT What better way to study the formation of solar system then to study the leftover debris? At the tail end of 2015, Nasa's Dawn spacecraft sent back close ups of Ceres, the largest object in the rocky asteroid belt. Orbiting in the expanse between Mars and Jupiter, this lesser-known rock was revealed to have mountains, craters and shiny salt deposits. The closest flyby may have been in October 2015, but more images will be beamed back to Earth throughout 2016. New for this year will be Nasa's OSIRIS-REx mission, which will land on an asteroid called Bennu, mapping and analysing the space rock before returning a sample to Earth in 2023. Meanwhile, on other rocky bodies in the vicinity, the European Rosetta mission enjoyed much success last year after its Philae probe landed on spinning comet 67-P. However, after failing to respond, the probe may have given up the ghost. Rosetta will follow its little lander to the bitter end with its own landing attempt on 67-P in September. Rosetta continues to orbit and study duck-shaped comet 67P. The craft will follow its little lander to the bitter end with its own landing attempt on the comet planned for September Jupiter's enormous red spot up close. A probe will reach the gas giant this year, but will need to deal with the planet's intense radiation JUPITER Beyond the asteroid belt, the Juno mission is on schedule to arrive at Jupiter by this summer. The Nasa New Frontiers mission launched Juno in 2011 and has an arrival date of 5 July, where it will enter the gas giant's orbit. It aims to bring back new data on the origins of the solar system's largest planet. But according to Nasa, owing to the intense radiation churned out by Jupiter, the mission is expected to get a critical dosage quickly, and may only last 30 orbits of the planet before it flatlines. With any luck, it will send back images of the Jovian aurora, as well as peering beneath the clouds to the deeper atmosphere and further, using gravity measurements to reveal details about the planet's core. Work will also continue on Esa's Jupiter icy moons explorer (Juice) mission, set for launch in 2022. The mission will explore the gas giant and three of its larger moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. The Nasa New Frontiers mission launched Juno (illustrated) in 2011 and has an arrival date of 5 July. It aims to bring back new data on the origins of the solar system's largest planet. But according to Nasa, owing to the intense radiation churned out by Jupiter, the mission is expected to get a critical dosage quickly SATURN Out at Saturn's rings, Cassini is still going strong. After sending back key data on Enceladus - one of the contenders for microbial life in the solar system - the Nasa craft will continue this year with flybys of some of the ringed planet's smaller moons. The mission will continue throughout 2016, culminating in a planned swan dive into Saturn next year. Out at Saturn's rings, Cassini is still going strong. The mission will continue to to send back data on some of the smaller moons during this year, before culminating in a planned swan dive into Saturn (pictured) Cassini has sent back a wealth of data from Saturn and its moons, including this stunning shot of Earth as a pale blue dot in the distance THE MOON The Chinese space agency's lunar lander, Chang'e 3 and its Jade Rabbit (Yutu) rover, have just passed their second anniversary on the lunar surface. However, the technology has reportedly exceeded its life expectancy and it remains unclear how long it may last before the pilot light goes out. Meanwhile, Russian plans for a permanent moon base have been placed on hold. According to Russian newspaper Izvestia, the space agency has been subject to budgetary cuts, with the next manned lunar mission from Roscosmos pushed back to nearer 2030. Reports have circulated recently that Roscosmos is to be relaunched as a state-owned corporation, and looks set to compete with SpaceX for manned space flights later this year. But with China's penchant for state secrecy, surprises could be in store. A base on the moon? Not for a while. Russia's plans for a permanent moon base have been placed on hold. But the Chinese space agency is ramping up its activity and could launch a mission today Professor Rothery explained: 'The Chinese are putting big landing packages down on the moon,'Who knows when they will put something on the moon for sample return. Once they've done that, they could put people there.' Speculating on the future, he told MailOnline: 'My wild card prediction would be that in the next year or two we could see Chinese astronauts on the moon. They could pull it out of the bag and go for it.' PLUTO After the known planets comes our favourite hanger-on, the dwarf planet Pluto. Pluto was the star of 2015, posing for close ups for New Horizon as we received images of the surface in unprecedented detail. New Horizons' Plutonian visit was short-lived. But although the probe may be long past the planetoid and on its way further out, it will continue to send back its Pluto snaps for months to come throughout 2016. The next stop for New Horizons will be 2014MU69, a rocky body 21 miles (35km) across in the Kuiper belt. The next stop for New Horizons will be 2014MU69, a body 21 miles (35km) wide in the Kuiper belt (pictured) A number of satellites are in position to monitor the solar weather through 2016, including Nasa's Soho and a suite of others, watching for changes on the sun's surface and solar wind, and sending back the data to Earth THE SUN Solar activity has been ramping down of late, with the sun now past its peak activity of the current 11-year cycle. However, scientists warn of the increased potential for massive solar storms which could send bursts of charged particles and radiation our way during 2016. 'It's a time at which any activity on the sun can really affect what happens on Earth, because in the climbing phase of solar activity you get more geomagnetic storms,' explained Professor Coates. He told MailOnline: 'When the sun emits one of these very large coronal mass ejections, there is a chance that it will interact with Earth's magnetic field. 'And those interactions can become more intense during the declining phase.' A number of satellites are in position to monitor the solar weather through 2016, including Nasa's Soho and a suite of others, watching for changes on the sun's surface and solar wind, and sending back the data to Earth HQ. THE BEPICOLOMBO MISSION BepiColombo will set off to explore the composition and atmosphere of Mercury. The launch window had been scheduled for July, but hold-ups in the production of components has meant countdown has crept beyond 2016 into January. The dual mission from the European and Japanese space agencies should reach the planet by 2024. Scientists are excited as they think the data beamed back will provide an insight into the formation of the solar system's inner planets - Mercury, Venus, and Earth. Advertisement MERCURY Planetary scientists have long-awaited the dual mission from Esa and Japan's space agency Jaxa, which is destined for the solar system's innermost planet. But they may have to wait a little longer. One of the larger missions to come, BepiColombo, will set out to explore the composition and atmosphere of Mercury. Despite the planet's familiarity, it is one of the more poorly explored planets racking up just a handful of flybys and a single orbiter. The launch window had been scheduled for July, but hold-ups in the production of components has meant countdown has crept beyond 2016, to January 2017. BepiColombo should reach Mercury by 2024 and space agencies have aspirations that the data beamed back will provide insight into the history and formation of the solar system's inner planets Mercury, Venus, and Earth. Japanese probe Akatsuki finally entered orbit around Venus (pictured) in December, after overshooting its an initial window in 2010. Nasa is also considering two further missions to explore the planet's atmosphere, but these are yet to be confirmed VENUS The weather report from Venus remains cloudy, and 2016 is set to be comparatively quiet in relation to the other bodies of the solar system. Japanese probe Akatsuki finally entered orbit around Venus in December, after overshooting its initial window in 2010. While the planet is viewed as Earth's sister, she is considerably less hospitable. The Jaxa probe will use infrared sensors this year to peer beneath the veil of clouds of sulphuric acid and capture data on the planet's surface. Nasa is also considering two further missions to explore the planet's atmosphere, but these are yet to be confirmed. THE SEARCH FOR LIFE BEYOND EARTH Two distant moons are the top contenders for harbouring remnants of life in the solar system beyond Earth. Enceladus (pictured left), which orbits Saturn; and Europa (right), an icy world orbiting Jupiter Aside from the possibility of methane on Mars, which could hint at a history of life, two distant moons are the top contenders for harbouring remnants of life: Enceladus, which orbits Saturn, and Europa, an icy world orbiting Jupiter. Professor David Rothery, a planetary geoscientist at the Open University, told MailOnline: 'Europa and Enceladus have to be the most exciting targets to go to. The omens are good for there being microbes there that we can sample. 'There should be microbes inhabiting those places, and we can go there and find out whether there are or not. 'If we do, then it's pretty good evidence that life has begun somewhere else independently of the Earth. 'It might have spread through the solar system, on bits of meteorite, but Earth and Europa are a long way apart, so would be great to find life on Europa. 'It's an important task being planned. We're not going to know the answer in the coming year or two, but we've certainly got the go ahead for it.' Advertisement EARTH Before we journey any further outwards, there are a number of missions occurring on, and near, Earth. Last year brought success as well as ratcheting up rivalry between Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Both SpaceX and Blue Origin rockets successfully landed upright after short flights, beckoning the age of space tourism, lunar bases and cities on Mars, according to the aerospace firms. Recoverable rocket technology could drastically reduce the cost of space missions. In other news, Major Tim Peake is set to return home from the ISS on 5 June. However, the future funding of the space station is being questioned. The German and French space agencies, which are the biggest European backers of the space station, announced this month that they are carrying out detailed studies assessing the operating costs of the station, and whether the current level of funding is feasible. A further flurry of satellites are set to launch this year, and plans continue to design solutions to tackle Earth's growing problem of space trash. URANUS AND NEPTUNE It has been 30 years since the Voyager passed this way. Other than the recent, if distant, wave from Nasa's New Horizons probe, all is quiet in this icy realm. Home sweet home: Along with reusable rockets, the space station and a suite of interplanetary missions, 2016 will see a further flurry of satellites launch. Attention will also turn to the tackling the issue of Earth's growing problem of space trash ...AND BEYOND Following announcements earlier this month, 2016 will see astronomers will try to confirm if there is a ninth planet lurking at the edge of our planetary system or not. Scientists in California have made their case for a planet ten times the mass of Earth, past Neptune, which could explain the pull on icy bodies in the Kuiper belt. But it is yet to be observed. At the furthest reaches of the solar system are the Voyager spacecraft at more than 130 times the distance from the Earth to the sun (measured as one astronomical unit or AU). Voyager 1 has passed into interstellar space, outside the heliopause and the noise of the sun's radiation. Professor Coates told MailOnline: '[Voyager 1] is tasting the region of space outside of that, measuring magnetic fields, energetic particles, low energy particles, and that really tells you about the boundary between the solar system and interstellar space.' However, our furthest probe it still far from the real edge of the solar system, the Oort cloud. Giving some sense of scale, Professor Coates explained: 'Voyager 1 is currently 134 AU away, the Oort cloud is at something like 10,000 AU. He concluded: 'The solar solar system is really big, space is really big, and so we're really just looking at the very close things in our environment.' A rare set of fossilized footprints has revealed that a human being could outrun a T. rex as long as it's a young T. rex taking a stroll through muddy ground. Research on the rare Wyoming discovery has determined that the tyrannosaur was traveling roughly 2.8 to 5 miles per hour, slower than an average human runs. But, the researchers warn that these footprints aren't nearly representative of a T. rex's peak speed. Using the three footprints, the first of which is well preserved, the researchers were able to identify the dinosaur as a 'meat-eating theropod.' Based on the 47-centimetre width, along with the three forward-facing toes and the one rear-facing, thumb-like toe of the first print, the team determined it came from a tyrannosaur HOW FAST CAN A T. REX RUN? Researchers have debated for years on the top speed of a T. rex. The prints found in Wyoming reveal a young or adolescent tyrannosaur traveling at 2.8 to 5 miles per hour, much slower than the running speed of an average human. Still, the researchers assert that these prints only represent a single event, and one in which the dinosaur was walking through mud. Other studies have suggested the T. rex could have hit 10 miles per hour, while others have estimated 45 miles per hour. Advertisement The tracks were found at the site of a 66-million-year-old rock formation along an ancient shoreline in modern Wyoming, according to Science. Finding fossilized footprints is a rare feat; finding a set of footprints, known as a trackway, is even more uncommon. Using the three footprints, the first of which is well preserved, the researchers were able to identify the dinosaur as a 'meat-eating theropod dinosaur,' according to Scott Persons, a vertebrate palaeontologist at the University of Alberta, Edmonton in Canada, and lead author of the new study. Based on the 47-centimetre width, along with the three forward-facing toes and the one rear-facing, thumb-like toe of the first print, the team determined it came from a tyrannosaur either an adolescent T. rex, or a Nanotyrannus lancensis (which some have suggested is just a young T. rex). The team then calculated the traveling speed of these footprints. To do this, the researchers estimated the dinosaur's hip-height based on the length of the footprint and two common formulas, revealing that the hips were between 1.56 and 2.06 metres above the ground. By measuring the distance between the prints and calculating the speed using an equation for two-legged walking creatures, the researchers determined it was moving at a 'brisk walking speed,' between 2.8 and 5 miles per hour, according to Science. As the average human can run about 11 miles per hour over a short distance, The Huffington Post writes, the dinosaur moving at this pace would be slower than a person. But, the research indicates that this doesn't suggest that this is the fastest a T. rex can move. Could you outrun a T. rex? Research on the rare Wyoming discovery has determined that the tyrannosaur was traveling roughly 2.8 to 5 miles per hour, slower than an average human runs. But, the researchers warn that these footprints aren't nearly representative of a T. rex's peak speed The footprints only represent a single event, and one in which the dinosaur was likely traveling through the wet, sloppy sediment that best preserves such fossils, Thomas Holtz Jr., a vertebrate palaeontologist at the University of Maryland, College Park, told Science. Scott Persons told The Huffington Post that 'the tyrannosaur that made the footprints was just walking, and it was walking over muddy, mucky ground. 'And it was clearly a walk and not a run because of how the feet were positioned.' The decades old debate over the T. rex's top speed has resulted in a wide bracket of predictions, but no conclusion some have suggested that the dinosaur could only manage 10 miles per hour, while others have estimated 45 miles per hour. Still, if given the opportunity to challenge a T. rex to a head-to-head race, you might not want to test your odds. 'If you were out walking a juvenile T. rex, you'd be comfortable at a brisk walk,' Eric Snively, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, told Science. Facebook smashed investors' expectations with a 52-per cent jump in quarterly revenue as it sold more ads targeted at its fast-growing number of mobile users. Following the announcement, shares soared. The social network bucked the trend of underwhelming tech results from Apple and eBay, in the face of global economic uncertainty. 'It's phenomenal at these (currency headwind) levels that they're accelerating to that level of growth,' Rob Sanderson, an analyst at MKM Partners told Reuters. Facebook's dominance in mobile advertising helped to allay Wall Street concerns over its heavy investments in messaging service WhatsApp and Oculus, which have not yet generated profits. 'I don't think there's going to be too many people crying for them to start monetizing other properties anytime soon because the core business is so strong,' added Sanderson. Facebook shares rose almost 12 per cent in after-hours trading to $105.32 (74). They were helped by chief financial officer David Wehner's comment on a call with analysts that he expected operating expenses to increase by 30 to 40 per cent over the course of the year, a slower clip than last year. Total revenue rose to $5.84 billion from $3.85 billion a year earlier, with ad revenue increasing 56.8 percent to $5.64 billion in the holiday shopping period, when spending on advertising typically spikes. Analysts on average had expected earnings of 68 cents per share and revenue of $5.37 billion, according to Thomson Reuters. Apart from focusing on mobile, Facebook has been ramping up spending on what it calls 'big bets,' including virtual reality, artificial intelligence and drones to connect the remotest parts of the world to the Internet. Boss Mark Zuckerberg, who returned from two months of paternity leave on Monday, has said virtual reality represents the next major computing platform. In January, Facebook began taking orders for a consumer version of the Oculus Rift, a head-mounted virtual reality unit. The company has also begun monetizing some of its other units, such as photo-sharing app Instagram, which surpassed 400 million users last year and began selling ads in September. Facebook said mobile ads accounted for 80 percent of total ad revenue in the quarter, compared with about 78 percent in the third quarter and 69 percent a year earlier. 'It's much stronger ad growth than we were expecting,' said Ken Sena, an analyst at Evercore ISI. Facebook's service is not available for users in China but it can sell ads to companies there. 'It signifies the importance of what they're providing to advertisers,' he said. 'They're making big investments and evidenced by their quarterly performance it seems to be working.' The company, which has the world's most popular smartphone app, has also been benefiting from a surge in video views that has attracted advertising dollars. Facebook said it had 1.59 billion monthly active users as of Dec. 31, up 14 percent from the end of 2014. Of those, 1.44 billion used the service on mobile devices, an increase of 21 percent. Analysts had expected the company to report 1.58 billion monthly active users, with 1.43 billion accessing the service through smartphones and tablets, according to market research firm FactSet StreetAccount. Just a day after Apple announced that it made more money in the last quarter of 2015 than any company before it, Samsung has unveiled its own earnings. The outcome, however, is not as positive. During the fourth quarter, the South Korean tech giant reported a 40 per cent year-on-year drop in net profit. The world's top handset maker continues to face high-end competition from arch-rival Apple as well as cheaper players such as China's Huawei and Xiaomi. Slowing global demand for smartphones as well as memory chips dealt a blow to Samsung Electronics as it reported Thursday a 40 percent on-year drop in fourth-quarter net profit. The world's top handset maker continues to face high-end competition from arch-rival Apple matched by cheaper players like China's Huawei Net profit for October to December stood at 3.22 trillion won ($2.7 billion), below analyst expectations and down 39.7 per cent from a year ago. Operating profit rose 16.1 per cent year-on-year to 6.1 trillion won, in line with its earlier estimate. In a statement, the South Korean giant said 2016 was expected to throw up continued challenges to maintaining earnings 'due to a difficult business environment and slowing IT demand'. The poor earnings were blamed on a sharp fall in oil prices, as the components side of the business was impacted by weakened prices for chips and LCD panels. APPLE PROFITS CONTINUE TO SOAR Apple made enough money in just two hours to pay its entire UK corporate tax bill. The California-based technology giant raked in record profits of 12.9billion on its worldwide operations in the last three months. This was equivalent to 5.9million an hour meaning it could cover the 11.8million UK tax bill it paid last year in just 120 minutes. By comparison, a lawyer for Oracle recently revealed in federal court that Android has generated $31 billion in revenue since Google acquired the mobile operating system in 2005. If the numbers are accurate, that would mean Android has generated less revenue over its lifetime than the iPhone did in the quarter ended 30 September, the most recently reported quarter. Then, Apple said the iPhone generated $32.2 billion in sales. Advertisement Slowing global demand for computers also played a role. Since late 2014, Samsung's semiconductor business since has helped offset slumping profits at the firm's key mobile unit. But sluggish demand for handsets and computers worldwide drove down prices for memory chips, squeezing margins in the semiconductor unit, which posted the first drop in quarterly operating profit for about two years. 'The global slowdown affected all the firm's business segments...I see no major factor to boost profit down the road,' said Lee Seung-Woo, analyst at IBK Investment and Securities. 'The situation looks pretty bleak.' Following on from the earnings report, shares of Samsung fell 1.56 per cent in early trading to 1,156,000 won. Samsung lost more than $8 billion in market value in 2015, with its flagship smartphone business struggling to hold market share. Sales of the Galaxy S6 - the latest edition of Samsung's top-of-the-range handset, launched in April - failed to generate much excitement among consumers. But Samsung was not alone in being forced to come to terms with a slowing market. On Tuesday, Apple raised the spectre of the end of a technological era after reporting the slowest sales growth ever of its market-leading iPhone and warning it expects worse to come. Net profit for October to December stood at 3.22 trillion won ($2.7 billion), below analyst expectations and down 39.7% from a year ago. Operating profit rose 16.1 per cent year-on-year to 6.1 trillion won, in line with its earlier estimate. Sales of the Galaxy S6 (pictured) that launched in April failed to generate excitement among buyers But Samsung was not alone in being forced to come to terms with a slowing market. On Tuesday, Apple (shop pictured) raised the spectre of the end of a technological era after reporting the slowest sales growth ever of its market-leading iPhone and warning it expects worse to come The California technology giant said it expects to see its first decline in iPhone sales in the current quarter on a year-on-year basis. Samsung last year revamped its product lineup to provide a move diverse price range and vowed Thursday more efforts to expand its presence in the non-high end segment. 'The overall smartphone industry is struggling, but the low-and mid-end segments are still growing and competition will be even fiercer,' Lee Kyeong-Tae, vice head of Samsung's mobile unit, said at a conference call. The firm will this year launch updated mid-end models like Galaxy A and Galaxy J in emerging markets including China, Lee said. Apple's woes also have a knock-on effect for Samsung's semiconductor division, which, as well as providing components for the company's own handsets, also makes the processors for a number of other companies - including Apple. Japan has unveiled its first homemade stealth plane. The experimental X-2 is expected to make its maiden test flight in February, and boasts radar-resistance features, including a canopy with special stealth-enhancing coating. Defense officials said the aircraft is designed to test the stealth technology that would possibly be combined with the next-generation fighter jet, replacing the fleet of F-2 fighters as early as 2028. The experimental X-2 is expected to make its maiden test flight in February and has radar-resistance features, including a canopy with special stealth-enhancing coating, and mobility. WHO ELSE HAS STEALTH JETS? The U.S. has flown stealth aircraft since the 1980s. Russia flew its first stealth fighter in 2010 and China followed a year later, though each countrys programs have experienced delays and other setbacks. Advertisement It comes as Japan tries to catch up on the technology and enhance its reconnaissance and intelligence capabilities as China expands its own military presence in the region. It would become the fourth nation to test fly its own stealth jet, a move that could further antagonize neighboring Asian countries who have opposed Prime Minister Shinzo Abes bid to strengthen the role of its armed forces. Russia flew its first stealth fighter in 2010 and China followed a year later, though each countrys programs have experienced delays and other setbacks. The U.S. has flown stealth aircraft since the 1980s. The red-and-white aircraft, with a 14-meter (45-foot) -long fuselage and 9-meter (30-foot) -long wingspan, sat inside a hanger at the Nagoya Airport in central Japan. Led by Mitsubishi Heavy Industry, the stealth plane comes with radar-resistance features, including a canopy with special stealth-enhancing coating, and mobility. The red-and-white aircraft, with a 14-meter (45-foot) -long fuselage and 9-meter (30-foot) -long wingspan, sat inside a hanger at the Nagoya Airport in central Japan. The X-2previously known as ATD-X, for Advanced Technology Demonstrator Xwas manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for the the Japan Air Self-Defense Force. 'I cannot go into details, but we recognize it is technologically at a very high level,' said Takahiro Yoshida, an official in charge of the project at the Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency of the Defense Ministry. The 40 billion yen ($340 million) project began in 2009. Defense Ministry officers stand in front of the first domestically-made stealth aircraft, X-2, at Nagoya Airport in Toyoyama town, central Japan. Rise in infestations blamed on travelling, as bugs hitch a ride on clothes This means sprays used to kill the bugs aren't very effective They live in the cracks and crevices of beds and crawl out a night to suck blood by detecting our body heat and carbon dioxide. Now the much loathed bed bug is threatening to become even more of a pest because it is resistant to a common insecticide, scientists warn. Exotic holidays have been blamed for the recent resurgence of bed bugs in homes as they hitch a ride on clothing or in luggage. The blood-sucking bed bug (pictured) that's attracted to our body heat and carbon dioxide is threatening to become even more of a pest because it is resistant to a common insecticide, scientists warn The research has found the parasites have developed a tolerance to neonicotinoids, or neonics, because of their widespread use. It is the first study to show the overuse of certain insecticides has led to an increased resistance to the compounds, making them much less effective than advertised. In the US alone, millions of dollars are spent on the most widely used commercial chemicals to kill bedbugs, but their overuse has led to an increased resistance to the compounds. Assistant professor Troy Anderson, from Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences said: 'While we all want a powerful tool to fight bed bug infestations, what we are using as a chemical intervention is not working as effectively it was designed and, in turn, people are spending a lot of money on products that aren't working. New research has found the parasites have developed a tolerance to neonicotinoids, or neonics, because of their widespread use. A stock image of fumigation is pictured WHERE INFESTATIONS BEGIN In 2014, genetic tests revealed that a single undetected pregnant bed bug is all it takes to start an entire infestation. A DNA study at Sheffield University showed colonies of bed bugs come from a common ancestor or a few of the female bed bugs. The pregnant bed bug could rapidly create a colony of thousands that feed on humans. Researchers told the BBC that bed bugs' ability to generate a new colony from such small numbers might be a 'clue to their recent success'. 'If you just miss one, they can grow very quickly,' Professor Roger Butlin said, adding it takes only a few weeks for this to happen. Bed bugs are capable of surviving without feeding for a month as they wait for a human. In the late 1880s, an estimated 75 per cent of households were affected, but by the outbreak of World War II, that figure had dwindled to 25 per cent, Their recent resurgence has been blamed by some experts on resistance to commonly used insecticides and international travel. Advertisement 'Unfortunately, the insecticides we were hoping would help solve some of our bed bug problems are no longer as effective as they used to be, so we need to re-evaluate some of our strategies for fighting them.' Products developed to eradicate infestations in recent years combine both neonics with pyrethroids - another class of insecticide. Assistant Professor Dr Alvaro Romero from New Mexico State University added: 'If resistance is detected, products with different modes of action need to be considered, along with the use of non-chemical methods. 'Companies need to be vigilant for hints of declining performance of products that contain neonicotinoids. 'For example, bed bugs persisting on previously treated surfaces might be an indication of resistance. 'In these cases, laboratory confirmation of resistance is advised, and if resistance is detected, products with different modes of action need to be considered, along with the use of non-chemical methods.' The study, published in the Journal of Medical Entomology, is the first to confirm the resistance. Researchers collected bed bugs from homes in Cincinnati and Michigan and exposed them to four different neonics: acetamiprid, dinotefuran, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam. In the US alone, millions of dollars are spent on the most widely used commercial chemicals to kill bedbugs (microscopic image shown) but their overuse has led to an increased resistance to the compounds They also used the chemicals on a bed bug colony kept free of insecticide exposure for more than 30 years and to a pyrethroid-resistant population from Jersey City that had not been exposed to neonics since they were collected in 2008. Those that hadn't been exposed to the neonics died after contact with very small amounts of the pesticide, while the Jersey City bed bugs showed moderate resistance to acetamiprid and dinotefuran, but not to imidacloprid or thiamethoxam. The Jersey City colony's resistance could be due to pre-existing resistance mechanisms. When exposed to insecticides, bed bugs produce 'detoxifying enzymes' to counter them. Researchers collected bed bugs from homes in Cincinnati and Michigan and exposed them to four different neonics - acetamiprid, dinotefuran, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam. A stock image of fumegation is shown THE CHEMICALS AND BED BUGS The levels of detoxifying enzymes in the Jersey City bed bugs were higher than those of the susceptible Harlan population. The Michigan and Cincinnati bed bugs, which were collected after combinations of pyrethroids and neonicotinoids were introduced, had even higher levels of resistance to neonics. It only took 0.3 nanograms of acetamiprid to kill 50% of the non-resistant bed bugs from Dr Harlan's lab, but it took more than 10,000 nanograms to kill 50% of the Michigan and Cincinnati bed bugs. Just 2.3 nanograms of imidacloprid was enough to kill 50% t of the Harlan bed bugs, but it took 1,064 and 365 nanograms to kill the Michigan and Cincinnati bed bugs. The numbers were similar for dinotefuran and thiamethoxam. Compared to the Harlan control group, the Michigan bed bugs were 462 times more resistant to imidacloprid, 198 times more resistant to dinotefuran, 546 times more resistant to thiamethoxam, and 33,333 times more resistant to acetamiprid. The Cincinnati bed bugs were 163 times more resistant to imidacloprid, 226 times more resistant to thiamethoxam, 358 times more resistant to dinotefuran, and 33,333 times more resistant to acetamiprid. Advertisement The levels of detoxifying enzymes in the Jersey City bed bugs were higher than those of the susceptible Harlan population. Professor Romero explained: 'Elevated levels of detoxifying enzymes induced by other classes of insecticides might affect the performance of newer insecticides.' The Michigan and Cincinnati bed bugs, which were collected after combinations of pyrethroids and neonicotinoids were introduced, had even higher levels of resistance to neonics. It only took 0.3 nanograms of acetamiprid to kill 50 per cent of the non-resistant bed bugs from Dr Harlan's lab, but it took more than 10,000 nanograms to kill 50 per cent of the Michigan and Cincinnati bed bugs. Just 2.3 nanograms of imidacloprid was enough to kill 50 per cent of the Harlan bed bugs, but it took 1,064 and 365 nanograms to kill the Michigan and Cincinnati bed bugs, respectively. The numbers were similar for dinotefuran and thiamethoxam. Compared to the Harlan control group, the Michigan bed bugs were 462 times more resistant to imidacloprid, 198 times more resistant to dinotefuran, 546 times more resistant to thiamethoxam, and 33,333 times more resistant to acetamiprid. Advertisement It started in a bakery on Pudding Lane in the early hours of a Sunday morning and over the course of five days destroyed a third of the city of London. With more than 13,200 houses, 87 churches, many official buildings and St Paul's Cathedral consumed by the flames, the authorities faced a daunting task to rebuild after the Great Fire of London. Yet there were some who saw the destruction wrought by the blaze in 1666 as an opportunity to create a gleaming new city from the ashes. Following the Great Fire of London, King Charles II encouraged architects to put forward plans for rebuilding the city. Among those to be considered was one by Christopher Wren, which proposed building Parisian style boulevards and piazzas (pictured) Masterplans drawn up by several architects at the time have now gone on display which reveal how the capital city of London could have been a very different place if they had been implemented. Among them is the ambitious re-organisation of the city's streets put forward by Christopher Wren, which drew heavily on influences of Paris. He proposed remodelling London with grand formal streets, classical buildings and sweeping plazas. Under the encouragement of King Charles II, other schemes put forward include John Evelyn's proposals to adopt Italian-style piazzas and broad avenues. Richard Newcourt put forward an even more radical plan to use a grid system, which was later used to construct US cities like Philadelphia. One of the most radical plans to rebuilt London after the Great Fire was to introduce a grid system (pictured), put forward by Richard Newcourt. A similar scheme was eventually later used to construct Philadelphia John Evelyn's masterplan for rebuilding the City of London after the Great Fire (pictured), proposed a more Italian design with large piazzas and broad avenues. Sadly squabbles over money and who owned the land meant few of the designs put forward were ever realised Captain Valentine Knight put forward a rather unusual pattern for London that would have left the city looking a very different place. He proposed building two main streets running east to west and eight running north to south (pictured), with smaller lands connecting them to blocks of houses. He also put forward the idea of introducing a canal loop to the River Fleet Elsewhere, scientist and architect Robert Hooke proposed a grid pattern with wide boulevards which was later used in the renovation of Paris and Liverpool. Captain Valentine Knight suggested building two main streets running east to west and eight running north to south, between which there would be narrow blocks of houses connected by smaller lanes. He also introduced a canal loop to the River Fleet. Ultimately none of the masterplans were implemented due to a lack of finances and squabbles over ownership of the land. Eventually a special Fire Court heard the competing claims and the city was left largely as it had been, although streets were widened, straightened and bottlenecks eased. The Great Fire of London (illustrated) destroyed a third of the city, including 13,200 houses, 87 churches and St Paul's Cathedral The scientist Robert Hooke proposed using a grid pattern with wide boulevards (pictured) as the best way to reconstruct the devastated city. His scheme was later used in the renovation of Paris and Liverpool Christopher Wren eventually was made responsible for rebuilding St Paul's Cathedral. His design is pictured above from the Parentalia, a book on the famed architect's life The city was eventually rebuilt in much the same way as it had been with some streets being widened and one new street being introduced. The 18th century map above shows how the city would eventually look One new street - King Street was built, and special market halls were created to house those that had previously been on the streets. A scheme to turn the fleet into a canal, as proposed by Captain Knight, was started, but failed after a few decades while a plan to build a new Quay from Blackfriars also failed. One thing is clear, if any of the proposed plans had been implemented, London would have been a very different place from the one seen today. The plans appear in a new exhibition at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London called 'Creation from Catastrophe: How Architecture rebuilds Communities. Also included in the exhibition at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London is a painting by Jules Geurin of plans to rebuild post-fire Chicago (pictured) following the city's own Great Fire in 1871 This exhibition also includes plans for rebuilding Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871 and Lisbon after the Portugese city was destroyed by an earthquake in 1755. The exhibition also includes more modern solutions including attempts to build bamboo homes in Pakistan and floating buildings to overcome flooding in Lagos, Nigeria. A statement about the exhibition released by the Institute said: 'Starting with the five alternative plans for London produced after the Great Fire of 1666, the exhibition takes the viewer on a journey through 18th century Lisbon, 19th century Chicago, 20th century Skopje, ending up in current day Nepal, Nigeria, Japan, Chile, Pakistan and USA. Another of the designs to feature in the exhibition is this for a floating school to tackle flooding in Lagos, Nigeria (pictured) 'Key historical works from the RIBA Collection will be on display for the first time, including the five original plans for rebuilding London after the Great Fire of London, which has its 350th anniversary in 2016. 'The exhibition will weave a narrative about the shift from a tabula rasa approach (blank slate) created by a sole author, to a more collaborative way of working that relies on local expertise, materials and community spirit. Travellers can now book budget accommodation in the Taliban hotbed of Quetta via Airbnb. The Pakistani city has been plagued by armed conflict, terror attacks and targeted killings despite efforts to improve security in recent years. However guests can pay 11 per person, per night for a room in a 'secure', guarded location at a gated housing complex. Travellers can now book budget accommodation in the Taliban hotbed of Quetta via Airbnb. Pictured is the rooftop available for guests' use The British Foreign Office advises against all but essential travel to Quetta, which is in the restive province of Balochistan Up to six people can stay at the family home, where meals and car parking are available as additional extras. Host Muhammad insisted that visitors would be safe in the 'posh' suburban area. The British Foreign Office, on the other hand, advises against all but essential travel to the city in the restive province of Balochistan. Earlier this month, a suicide attack on a polio vaccination centre killed 15 people, mainly police officers escorting health workers at risk of attack from Islamic militants. On Monday, a roadside bomb killed at least six paramilitary soldiers on the outskirts of the city in an attack that was claimed by a separatist group. Quetta has been plagued by armed conflict, terror attacks and targeted killings despite efforts to improve security in recent years The Taliban's core leadership are also said to have regrouped in Quetta after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. But Muhammad claimed the provincial capital had suffered from 'media hype' and was 'much safer' than Pakistan's largest city Karachi, where he has also lived. He said: 'It's a given you need to practise general prudence in avoiding sensitive areas which are quite far away from my place where I myself live as well. 'The security situation is better by leaps and bounds generally in Quetta. 'The place is in a suburban area in a peaceful neighbourhood close to the heavily-secured Cantonment area 'The neighbourhood is in a secure, walled, gated housing scheme with security guards at the gate. 'No more security arrangements have ever been required in the last 10 years that me and my family have been living here. The area is considered a posh living area so there wouldn't be much concerns related to it. There is 24-hour police patrolling the main road adjacent to the housing scheme.' Owner Muhammad claimed the provincial capital had suffered from 'media hype' and was 'much safer' than Pakistan's largest city Karachi. Pictured is the exterior of the house (left) and the terrace (right) Stays are also available for 36 per night in Hillah, Iraq, close to one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces. The capital of Babylon province was the scene of heavy fighting during the US-led invasion in 2003 but has been trying to welcome back visitors wanting to see ancient ruins. Travellers can also pay 15 to stay at a 'large family home' in Najaf, which is considered the Shia world's spiritual capital and welcomes millions of pilgrims every year. Elsewhere in the city guests can sleep on a sofa for 36 per night. The Foreign Office also advises against all but essential travel to Hillah and Najaf. In Afghanistan, Airbnb users can book a stay at a house in Kabul described as a 'bright, cheery, friendly and peaceful' home, albeit with 24-hour armed guards. A guest described the host as 'intellectual, extroverted, sincere and lovely.' In Turkey, another property owner advertises traditional mud-brick houses in the province of Sanliurfa, close to the country's southern border with Syria. The 8-a-night accommodation is in Balikligol, noted for its history and peaceful ambience. But nervous travellers might not be reassured by the fact it is around 80 miles from the Isis heartland of Raqqa in Syria, which has led to a flow of refugees into the province. Airbnb, which allows people to list, find and rent lodgings online, attracted controversy earlier this month when a host claimed her flat in London was trashed by more than 100 revellers who held a New Year's Eve party. An Airbnb spokesperson said: 'Before booking international travel or traveling internationally, we recommend you consult the relevant agencies in your government (for example the State Department for US citizens) for any travel warnings or travel advisories that may apply to countries or regions included in your travel plans.' It's a picturesque island in the Mediterranean where piles of treasure could be buried - but digging it up is out of the question. This is Montecristo, made famous by author Alexandre Dumas, whose 19th-century novel The Count Of Monte Cristo incorporated legends of treasure buried there by pirates such as Redbeard. Only 1,000 tourists are permitted to visit the nature reserve per year and only then after they've waited three years for a visa to do so. And excavations are strictly out of the question. There could be stacks of treasure buried on the picturesque island of Montecristo in the Mediterranean A chapel was set up in a cave by monks in the seventh century. They went on to become part of the Benedictine order and it's believed they amassed huge wealth Around a thousand tourists are permitted to visit the nature reserve each year, with many labelling it the 'forbidden island' The exact location and nature of the supposed 'treasure' remains a mystery. Rumours about hidden loot first started circulating in the 13th century when the Monastery of St Mamilian on the island became extremely wealthy. The order was founded in the seventh century and their first chapel was built in a cave. But over time they accrued vast wealth thanks to donations from several noble families. But some believe Turkish pirate Oruc Reis, known in the West as Barbarossa (which means Redbeard in Italian), stashed loot on the island when he seized it in the 16th century, having spent years robbing merchant ships. The Monastery of St Mamilian was founded at the beginning of the seventh century and stands prominently on the island The fearsome Ottoman pirate Dragat (left) is said to have stormed the island and raided the monks' treasure. Others believe Redbeard (right) left loot on Montecristo after years of raids on the high seas His predecessor Dragut may also have buried wealth there. He stormed the monastery in 1553, enslaved the monks, and decreed its end. Perhaps he uncovered their wealth and found his own hiding place for it? In 1860, the Kingdom of Italy annexed Montecristo and, in 1889, it was ceded to the Marquis Ginori who transformed it into a game reserve and restructured the villa that had been built on the Cala Maestra some time before. The only way tourists can visit the 'forbidden island' is by booking onto one of the various tours that take place in the national park Visitors will get the chance to meet mountain coats, one of only a few permanent residents of Montecristo In 1971, the island went back into the hands of the state. It currently belongs to the Tuscan Archipelago National Park. Now the only way tourists can visit the 'forbidden island' is by booking into one of the various tours that take place in and around the national park. The Greeks gave Montecristo its oldest known name, Oglasa or Ocrasia, after the yellowish colour of the rocks. The Romans, however, knew it under the name Mons Jovis, and erected an altar to Iuppiter Optimus Maximus on the highest mountain, of which some traces remain. The Greeks gave Montecristo its oldest known name, Oglasa or Ocrasia, after the yellowish colour of the rocks In 1860, the Kingdom of Italy annexed Monte Cristo and, in 1889, it was ceded to the Marquis Ginori who transformed it into a game reserve An archaeological site in Mexico is set to charge tourists for taking selfies. Officials who run the walled Mayan archaeological site at Tulum National Park have decided that visitors will have to pay for the luxury of using mobile technology at the site. In 2015 several people are known to have suffered selfie-related deaths, but it's not clear whether the charge in Mexico - about 1.70 a shot - is set to be introduced for safety reasons. Tulum is a popular tourist hot-spot thanks to its ancient Mayan ruins, but now there is set to be a charge for using mobile technology Will the charge leave holidays in ruins? Tulum is one of the best-preserved coastal Maya sites and attracts thousands of tourists each year Julio Villagomez Villalobos, tourist guides' representative at the archaeological site told The Yucatan Times: 'The charge for the use of cell phones, tablets, GoPros and still cameras or amateur video, within the premises of archeological sites, has generated controversy and anger among tourists, especially domestic.' Set by the Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP), tourists will be charged 45 pesos per device when visiting the picturesque resort town. This equates to around 1.70 or $2.50. This will be in addition to the 60 peso (2.30, $3.30) price of a ticket. The ruins are situated on 39ft-tall cliffs along the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula on the Caribbean Sea in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. Over two million people visit Tulum each year, at its busiest some 2,000 people can traverse the ruins each day. Tulum is as beautiful as it is historic and provides many places to get that postcard photograph Tourists will be charged 45 pesos per device when visiting the picturesque resort town. This equates to around 1.70 or $2.50 Tulum was one of the last cities built and inhabited by the Maya. It was at its height between the 13th and 15th centuries and managed to survive about 70 years after the Spanish began occupying Mexico. Old World diseases brought by the Spanish settlers appear to have resulted in very high fatalities. They disrupted society and eventually caused the city to be abandoned. Over two million people visit Tulum each year - at its busiest 2,000 people can traverse the ruins each day Tulum managed to survive about 70 years after the Spanish began occupying Mexico In 2015, a total of 12 people are known to have suffered selfie-related deaths after either falling or being struck by a moving vehicle when taking a picture of themselves. However, according to data compiled by Mashable, only eight people are known to have been killed by a shark. And experts believe the rise in selfie-related deaths could be down the fact people are more willing to put themselves in dangerous situations, such as with animals or posing from great heights, to impress friends on social media. She's gone from small time TV star to fully-fledged Hollywood actress in recent years. But Lily James proved she's still as down-to-earth and relatable as ever in a new interview with the March issue of British GLAMOUR magazine, in which she discusses her 'cool' boyfriend Matt Smith and her ideal night out. The 26-year-old Cinderella star strikes a pose in an edgy black and white photoshoot, showing off her legs in a white, off-the-shoulder top with a sheer net skirt. Scroll down for video Girl next door: Lily James shows off her natural beauty in a sheer white dress as she poses in the pages of March's GLAMOUR magazine Wearing minimal make-up and her brunette locks piled on top of her hair in a messy top knot, Lily proved she's still every inch the girl next door as she poses for photographer David Vasiljevic. The actress joked she's far from the polished person she portrays at red carpet events and usually has to get her boyfriend Matt to help her dress because she has no sense of style. She told the magazine: 'I dont really know how to put stuff together, sometimes I definitely look like I got dressed in the dark. But my boyfriends really cool so he helps me.' Candid chat: The 26-year-old War And Peace actress joked she has to get her boyfriend Matt to help her dress because she has no sense of style and confessed she wants a man she can respect and admire The couple met while filming Pride And Prejudice And Zombies last year, a parody of classic 1813 Jane Austen novel, Pride And Prejudice. Lily plays heroine Elizabeth Bennet, who is reinvented as a master of martial arts and weaponry, teaming up with Mr Darcy to fight the zombie apocalypse facing the planet. Discussing how their romantic relationship mirrors what she looks for in a man, Lily said: 'I think everyone feels like an outsider, that they dont quite fit in, and theyre fighting against that a bit. Her personal stylist: Lily credits Matt (R), who she met while filming Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, for helping her put outfits together. The couple are pictured with their co-star Douglas Booth (L) 'And the Liz-Darcy relationship is something thats totally ideal, isnt it? 'A little bit of complications always good. You definitely want someone who you respect and look up to.' Lily also opened up about her love of hitting the town with pal Suki Waterhouse, revealing that the girls love nothing more than getting 'down and dirty'. She said: 'I love going out, going to the pub, and finding somewhere you can dance and get down and dirty, a bit dubsteppy. 'I kind of dance like a man and hold my crotch. Ive got a 'dance face, which Ive noticed Suki has as well.' See the full shoot in the March issue of GLAMOUR, on sale Thursday 4th February. Spoof: Lily plays heroine Elizabeth Bennet, who is reinvented as a master of martial arts and weaponry, teaming up with Mr Darcy to fight the zombie apocalypse facing the planet They will be appearing together in black comedy The Nice Guys, which is released in April. But after a Canadian radio station claimed Russell Crowe didn't get along with co-star Ryan Gosling, the Gladiator hunk took to Twitter to set the record straight. On Wednesday, while teasing a topic of discussion on their morning show, JUMP! 106.9 tweeted: '@russellcrowe reportedly a huge diva towards @RyanGosling'. Scroll down for video 'Great mates': A Canadian radio station tweeted on Wednesday that Russell Crowe, 51, (right) acted like a 'huge diva' towards Ryan Gosling, 35, (left) on set of The Nice Guys - prompting the Gladiator star to respond But the 51-year-old actor quickly set the record straight with a light-hearted tweet - and even claimed he and Ryan were 'great mates'. Russell replied: '@JumpOttawa plonkers, Spanky aka @RyanGosling and I are great mates. He's pretty much mostly Australian anyway.' The Oscar-winner later tweeted the Ottawa-based radio station a link to a YouTube video where the heartthrob 'crashed' his presenting role at the The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Awards last January, as proof of their friendship. Plonkers! Russell replied to Ottawa-based JUMP! 106.9's tweet, which teased a topic of discussion on their morning show, and clarified that he and Ryan were 'great mates' In the comedy sketch, which appears to have been filmed on-set of The Nice Guys in Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles, Russell prepares to announce the winner of Best Supporting Actress. But before he starts, his 35-year-old co-star walks on camera wearing his character's 70s garb and trademark mustache and interrupts proceedings. Assuming Russell is accepting an award, Ryan pats him on the shoulder and says: 'Hey, you won. Congratulations'. 'Oh, you lost? You were robbed': In a sketch broadcast during the 2015 AACTA Awards, Ryan 'consoles' his friend Russell after mistakenly believing he just lost out on a trophy But before Russell can properly correct him, Ryan cuts in: 'Oh, you lost? You were robbed,' which prompted laughter from the Sydney crowd. Russell later quips while introducing Ryan: 'Ladies and gentlemen, you might not recognise him with his clothes on - Ryan Gosling.' They exchange a look and Russell concedes: 'Cheap, but it worked, man.' 'No, it's live': Ryan looks resigned after Russell tells him 'the whole country can see you now' following his Australia-New Zealand mix up on the live TV sketch, which demonstrated their friendship and comedy chops Ryan also jokes that he's an 'honourary Australian' because he 'lived in New Zealand for, like, two years.' But when Russell tells him that Australia and New Zealand are different countries, the Notebook star glances nervously at the camera. He says, 'Yeah, you can still just cut that part out,' only to be told it was a live broadcast. Meanwhile, the New Zealand-born star seemed to take JUMP! 106.9's tweet in good humour - and later retweeted several posts in support of Bell Let's Talk, a mental health charity. He also retweeted a comment by Canadian actor Kevin Durand - who starred alongside Russell in 2010 film Robin Hood - which stated: '5 cents will be donated to mental health initiatives every time #BellLetsTalk is tweeted. So let's talk about it! R/T! #EndTheStigma' However, Russell didn't offer any clues as to why he called Ryan 'Spanky' in the tweet. Support: After replying to JUMP! Mornings's claims, Russell showed he had taken them in good humour by retweeting in support of a mental health initiative the radio station was promoting that day Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, JUMP! Mornings co-host Jesse Reynolds explained: 'I do the Hollywood news and gossip on the breakfast show, which we call the #JUMPSleaze. 'I saw something today on the blogs about [Russel's] time on set with Ryan Gosling on The Nice Guys. 'The rumour was he was a bit of a diva and was complaining that Ryan looked better than him on camera and kept asking the wardrobe department to make adjustments to his clothes.' The 28-year-old, who is joined by co-hosts Tony Stark and Brooksy, continued: 'Every day we tease the stories coming up on Twitter but Russell happened to see that tweet. Good humour: JUMP! Mornings DJ Jesse Reynolds, 28, (right), pictured with co-hosts Brooksy (left) and Tony Stark (centre) told Daily Mail Australia they enjoyed being called 'plonkers', adding that Russell is 'such a great guy' 'The interesting thing was, when he tweeted back he called us "plonkers". We didn't know what that meant here in Canada! 'We Googled it and saw, "People that drink cheap wine or cheap booze" - and that's exactly us! Russell must listen to the show - either that or he's psychic.' Speaking of Russell's later promotion if the mental health cause - an initiative by telecommunications and media company Bell Canada - Jesse concluded: 'It was really nice to see him retweet to show support for that. 'He's such a great guy. And he took our show with a great sense of humour too. Obviously - "plonkers"! He's not going to be calling everybody a plonker.' She lit up the red carpet on Tuesday night as the cast of Dad's Army came out in force to attend the world premiere of the highly-anticipated release in London. And Catherine Zeta-Jones was still riding high on the buzz surrounding the war comedy as she appeared with her co-stars on The One Show's special episode on Wednesday. The 46-year-old cut a stunning figure as she filmed the one-off episode with presenters Alex Jones and Matt Baker, gushing about how her turn in the movie was 'everything I wanted it to be'. Scroll down for video Star of the show: Catherine Zeta-Jones cut a classic figure in navy frill shirt as she discussed her role in Dad's Army on The One Show special on Wednesday Catherine, who plays glamorous journalist Rose Winters in the movie, looked sensational on the show, wearing a navy ruffled top which was sleeveless in style. She exposed her toned upper arms as she sat pretty on the television sofa, alongside co-star Sir Michael Gambon, who has scooped the role of Private Godfrey. Catherine injected a dose of much-needed glamour to the episode by teaming her elegant top with a pair of stunning drop earrings. 'It was everything I wanted it to be': Catherine, 46, gushed as she chatted alongside her co-star Sir Michael Gambon All the glamour: A pair of dazzling drop earrings added a touch of sparkle to the award-winning actress' plain ensemble Career highlight: It was evident Oscar winner thinks highly of the war comedy as she talked about the war comedy with much enthusiasm Additionally, she was polished to perfection with pretty make-up tones amplifying her striking beauty while her long brunette tresses cascaded down her back in impeccably-coiffed waves. Catherine and Michael were clearly thought highly of their latest release as they talked to the hosts with great enthusiasm. The 75-year-old film legend kept things simple in a plain white shirt and a black two-piece suit. Film royalty: Catherine sat alongside her co-star Sir Michael Gambon who plays Private Godfrey in the wartime comedy Cheers! As she got in the mood, she raised a cup of tea in honour of the show dedicated to Dad's Army A host of skits were acted out on the BBC One show, which saw a guests and cast-members dress up in traditional army dress as they sat among a wartime backdrop. The One Show special comes just a day after the premiere of the long-awaited movie which saw the stars turn out in dreary London to unveil the film to fans both old old and young. The hit Seventies TV comedy attracted 18million viewers at its height - and nearly 50 years since it first aired, the new film version of Dads Army is attracting huge excitement. A handful of stars from the original show have carried forward their role to the new picture, yet many of the stars are new including Tom Courtenay, Blake Harrison and Bill Nighy. Getting in the swing of things: The One Show hosts Alex Jones and Matt Baker got into the spirit of things by sporting traditional wartime dress He popped the question to Snezana Markoski while the pair holidayed last month. And while Sam Wood is yet to confirm when The Bachelor couple will tie the knot, he already has a vision in mind for the special day. Appearing on KIIS 106.5 FM's Kyle And Jackie O show on Thursday, the 35-year-old revealed he is picturing an outdoor wedding, perhaps at a winery, in a nod to the couple's first televised date in a vineyard. Scroll down for video Special plans: Sam Wood says he would like to tie the knot with Snezana Markoski in an outdoor ceremony, perhaps even at a winery 'Outdoors something in a winery,' Sam initially responded when quizzed about wedding details. 'We want to get married maybe in a run-down church and (then) straight away you go into a big party,' he added. For their first date on the Channel Ten show filmed last year, Sam chose to whisk Snezana off for a hot air balloon ride, followed by a romantic picnic in a winery. See more of the latest on The Bachelor's Sam Wood and his wedding to Snezana Markoski Memories: The idea of a wedding at a winery is reminiscent of the pair's first date on The Bachelorette held at a vineyard in New South Wales What a vision: Sam revealed his dream for an outdoor wedding on KIIS 106.5 FM's Kyle And Jackie O show on Thursday morning No doubt the date was quite the success, with the romantic surroundings of the secluded vineyard proving to be the perfect location for the pair's first kiss. In early December Sam and Snezana announced their engagement on social media while on holiday in Tasmania. The personal trainer shared a close-up shot of a square cut halo diamond ring ensconced on the Macedonian beauty's hand when sharing the big news. 'She said YES!' Sam announced in an Instagram post. 'When you know, you know. I love you Snezana,' the personal trainer added, with hashtags including 'Can't wipe the smile off my face' and 'Tasmania engagement'. Love is in the air: No doubt the date was a success, with the romantic surroundings of the secluded vineyard proving to be the perfect location for the pair's first kiss Big news: In early December Sam and Snezana announced their engagement on social media while on holiday in Tasmania Meanwhile, the 35-year-old mother-of-one also posted the photo of the couple holding hands, telling fans: 'Happiest Girl in the World' The pair, who had been holidaying with Sam's family in Tasmania, were enjoying some alone time with Snezana's ten-year-old daughter Eve on the East coast of the island. And things seem to be moving fast for the couple, who have also purchased a home together in Melbourne. Open to the idea of televising their nuptials, Sam told Kyle and Jackie O on Thursday: 'Yeah we are taking it into consideration. 'I mean if youd asked me two years ago "Will your wedding be on TV?" of course I would have scoffed and laughed,' he continued, before adding, 'it could be amazing'. Chris Hemsworth has returned home with his wife Elsa Pataky after spruiking Australia's famous sites and sounds in New York as part of his new role as global ambassador for Tourism Australia. The famous couple were spotted making their way through busy Brisbane Airport on Thursday morning after a short trip spent away from their three young children - India Rose, aged three, and twins Tristan and Sasha, aged one. Chris, 32, dressed for ultimate comfort in a loose fitting khaki T-shirt, white washed jeans and a pair of simple blue sneakers. Scroll down for video Coordinating couple! Chris Hemsworth, 32, and wife Elsa Pataky, 39, arrived back in Australia wearing matching khaki on Thursday He completed his cool travel look with multiple bracelets wrapped around each wrist and a watch. The Thor star had his hands full as he juggled wheeling a grey suitcase and garment bag with the left hand and carried his travel wallet and a shopping bag with the other. Meanwhile, Elsa, 39, kept a few paces behind her buff hubby as she wheeled a simple black suitcase through the busy terminal. Simple but stylish! Chris, 32, dressed for ultimate comfort in a loose fitting khaki T-shirt, white washed jeans and a pair of simple blue sneakers Cosy: Like Chris, Elsa also opted for comfort for her more than 20-hour return flight home Airport chic: The couple looked fresh despite travelling more than 20-hours Like her husband, Elsa also opted for comfort for her more than 20-hour return flight home. She too wore matching khaki in the form of a camouflage T-shirt, which she paired with black track pants. She kept warm with a black scarf wrapped around her neck while keeping her important belongings safe in a brown shoulder bag. Juggling act: The couple maneuvered their tiny suitcases through the busy airport The Fast And Furious starlet wore minimal makeup and pulled her short blonde tresses up into a tight bun. She completed her laidback travel look with a white beaded necklace, gold bracelets and fringed lace-up boots. The pair pounded the airport's polished tiles as they made their way to their car. Chris showed his gentlemanly side, helping the driver place the couple's luggage in the back of a car while Elsa hopped into passenger seat. Blonde stunner: Elsa's chic travel look consisted of black track pants, a camouflage T-shirt and fringed boots Final leg home: Chris showed his gentlemanly side, helping the driver place the couple's luggage in the back of a car while Elsa hopped into passenger seat A few days earlier, Chris attended an event at New York's Bryant Park along with fellow Aussies - chefs Curtis Stone and Luke Mangan and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party and Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop MP. Speaking about his new role as ambassador for Tourism Australia, Chris told Conde Nast Traveler that he couldn't say 'no' to the opportunity. 'I couldn't be more proud to be Australian,' he told the publication on Tuesday evening, on the eve of Australia Day. 'I feel incredibly fortunate for the experiences I had in Australia and to be able to share that with the world.' Talk time: The couple busily chatted as they took the final leg of their trip back home She is used to staring into the professional lens pursuing a modelling career that takes her around the globe. But it appears Australian-born model Nicole Trunfio is so adept to working the camera she made amatuer snaps taken by her acclaimed musician fiance Gary Clark Jr look sensational. In the two snaps posted to her Instagram account on Thursday, the 29-year-old brunette flaunts her slender physique in a tiny string bikini looking sultry and seductive. 'Backyard Polaroids': Model Nicole Trunfio posed in a tiny bikini for her husband, musician Gary Clark Jr, in a series of shots on Thursday Posing in front of a white wall, the lofty star's flat stomach is on display as she stretches up over her head, elongating her trim physique. The mother-of-one's chocolate hair is worn in soft tousled waves, and large silver hoop earrings peak out from beneath her thick tresses. Nicole appears to be wearing natural-looking makeup that accentuate her razor sharp cheekbones and tantalising pout. Model curves: The Australian-born beauty flaunted her credentials in the photographs, which see her posing in front of a white wall Goddess: The mother-of-one's chocolate hair is worn in soft tousled waves, and large silver hoop earrings peak out from beneath her thick tresses In the caption, she writes simply: 'Backyard Polaroids,' making reference to instant film and the bohemian life the couple appear to lead. Having relocated from Australia to the Texan capital of Austin to be with her troubadour husband and their infant son Zion, Nicole celebrated her heritage on Sunday with an Australia Day party. With a group of beautiful ex-pats including models Jessica and Ashley Hart, and presenter Susan Mourad, the clan hit up the trendy, Australian owned haunt L.P. in West Hollywood. The coolest couple: Nicole and her troubadour partner became engaged in late 2014 Burgeoning family: She has since relocated to Austin, Texas, to be with Gary and their adorable infant son, Zion There they enjoyed a barbecue served up on the rooftop bar with Melbourne house DJ Grant Smillie spinning the tunes. Before his set, however, Grant posed with the group of girls for some fun shots, with the flag patriotically waving in the background. Jess held tight to young Zion in one photo, with the tiny tot looking more interested in poking Grant's ears than being among the bevy of beauties. A couple that deltoid raise together, stays together. Zac Efron and Sami Miro aren't just incredibly good looking - they're gym buddies too. The pair were spotted on Wednesday heading for a workout together at his local gym in Los Angeles. Scroll down for video Gym buddies: Zac Efron and girlfriend Sami Miro were spotted heading in for a workout together in Los Angeles on Wednesday The 28-year-old certainly looked dressed for the occasion in neon yellow sports shorts, a matching pair of Under Armour trainers and a black Nike workout top with a matching yellow stripe. Carrying his backpack over one shoulder and a salad snack in his hands, the Dirty Grandpa star finished his very LA look with a backwards facing snap-back and a pair of aviator shades. His 28-year-old girlfriend meanwhile didn't look quite as 'in the zone' as he did, completely engrossed in her phone as they made their way in. She wore white Nike trainers with black leggings, and a stripey T-shirt under a cropped black hoodie. Suited up: The 28-year-old certainly looked dressed for the occasion in neon yellow sports shorts, a matching pair of Under Armour trainers and a black Nike workout top with a matching yellow stripe Fit: Carrying his backpack over one shoulder and a salad snack in his hands, the Dirty Grandpa star finished his very LA look with a backwards facing snap-back and a pair of aviator shades Her hair she kept tied back in cute little buns, while over her arm she carried not your typical gym bag, but a tiny red leather purse. Zack and Sami have been dating for more than a year now, first stepping out as a couple in September of 2014. The actor recently told Jimmy Kimmel about the month long vacation the pair took around Asia, where they even got to meet legendary sushi chef Jiro Ono. Distracted: His 28-year-old girlfriend meanwhile didn't look quite as 'in the zone' as he did, completely engrossed in her phone as they made their way in 'My girlfriend and I are really into food,' said Efron, who got to pose for pictures with the famed Japanese chef and star of acclaimed documentary Jiro Dreams Of Sushi. Despite its obvious upfront talent Zac's own most recent screen outing Dirty Grandpa - opposite Robert DeNiro - has failed to win critics over. Coming up he has Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising with Chloe Grace Moretz and the Franco brothers' The Disaster Artist, while he also filming the Baywatch reboot alongside Dwayne The Rock Johnson. Dreaming of sushi: The actor recently told Jimmy Kimmel about the month long vacation the pair took around Asia, where they even got to meet legendary sushi chef Jiro Ono Catching a glimpse of supermodel Heidi Klum in the flesh would be a treat for any fan. But at a promotional event for the 42-year-old's latest lingerie range in Sydney the beauty made sure the experience was extra sweet. On Thursday Heidi was seen handing out ice cream to her admirers from a truck covered in branding for her Heidi Klum Intimates range and retailer David Jones. Scroll down for video She's so (n)ice! Heidi Klum was seen handing out ice cream in Sydney on Thursday at a fan event Ever the modelling professional, Heidi used her props to her advantage and was seen holding an ice cream cone up to her mouth pretending to lick it. The mother-of-four used the opportunity to show off her fabulous figure in a super tight navy dress. But while Heidi covered up she was joined by scantily-clad models dressed in lingerie from her new range. Leggy lady: The mother-of-four showed off her flawless figure in a tight navy dress with a thigh high split at the event Sweet treats: Not only did fans get to meet Heidi but they also enjoyed a special dessert too Taking to Instagram to document the event, Heidi uploaded a picture of the ice cream truck to the social networking page on Thursday. Along with the image she wrote: 'Had a blast handing out @heidiklumintimates lingerie cones today at @davidjonesstore ! Thank you to everyone who came out! #heidixdjs #heidiklumintimates #heidiklumman In addition to her underwear range, the mother-of-four recently revealed she would be expanding her line to include swimwear. Always a pro: The supermodel was seen posing using the ice cream cones as accessories In demand: Fans queued up to spend a few moments with Heidi as she promoted her underwear range The new line - consisting of cover ups and swimwear - is set to role out in the Southern Hemisphere in July and in the Northern Hemisphere in October. The range will be in collaboration with New Zealand-based label Bendon, who also produce swimwear for luxury brands such as Stella McCartney. 'Most of my career has been spent rolling around on beaches around the world, and I still love it,' she told WWD earlier this month. She also revealed the designs would be simple saying: 'I'm not a huge fan of strange tan lines. 'There are so many complicated swim shapes out there but I don't want ten straps on my back.' Rowan Atkinson has reportedly moved in with his girlfriend of two years, Louise Ford. The Sun reports that the 60-year-old funnyman is shacking up with his actress partner, 32, after she moved into his 4.65million cottage in North London. The Mr Bean star is said to have taken the next step in his relationship by moving in with Miss Ford just weeks after his divorce from Sunetra Sastry, his wife of 24 years. Scroll down for video Shackin up: Rowan Atkinson has reportedly moved in with his girlfriend of two years, Louise Ford (pictured with the comedian, left) just weeks after his divorce from Sunetra Sastry, his wife of 24 years (right) Miss Ford is thought to have moved into Atkinson's 4.65million cottage in North London (pictured) Insiders tell the publication that 'Miss Ford's role in Channel 4 sitcom Crashing is helping boost her career and also enhance her relationship due to the duo's comedic symmetry. The source said: 'Rowan and Louise are both incredibly private people. But this shows they are obviously serious about their relationship.' Atkinson and Miss Ford went public with their romance in 2014, after his 23-year marriage to Ms Sastry came to an end. Enamoured: Insiders tell the publication that Louise's role in Channel 4 sitcom Crashing is helping boost her career and also enhance her relationship due to the duo's comedic symmetry At the time of the couple's split in 2014, they were building an 11million home in Oxfordshire, however the Blackadder star relocated to the London cottage while Ms Sastry is living in a 21million mansion in the capital. The funnyman, who is estimated to be worth 70million, shares son Ben, 22 and 20-year-old daughter Lily with his ex-wife, whom he married in 1990. He first met Ms Sastry, the daughter of an Indian engineer from Ealing, West London, in the late Eighties, when she was working as a make-up artist for the BBC, and was previously in a relationship with Men Behaving Badly star Leslie Ash. Atkinson met Miss Ford when they appeared together in 2012 in the West End comic play Quatermaine's Terms. Atkinson and Ms Sastry pictured together in 2012 (left). The couple met in the 1980s (they are pictured right in 1987) and have two children together, Ben, 22 and 20-year-old daughter Lily The former family home in Oxfordshire. The five-bedroom property is believed to have sold for 2.9m Dream home: At the time of the couple's split in 2014, they were building an 11million home in Oxfordshire, (pictured), however the Blackadder star relocated to the London cottage while Sunetra is living in a 21million mansion in the capital 'Louise is doing really well with her role in Crashing and wants to be in more comedy roles while Rowan has been busy with lots of other projects,' the source told the Sun. 'They work as a couple because theyre both comedy actors and understand each others work.' Shortly before he met and fell for Miss Ford, the actor revealed in an interview he had a certain kinship with the lonely, single characters he portrays, saying: 'I've played quite a few of these sad, isolated bachelor figures Bean is the most obvious. And I think I do identify with them, or aspects of them.' Former Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson is used to life in the fast lane, so no wonder he seems so at home in a louche Mayfair basement club surrounded by an adoring harem of posh admirers. The 55-year-old was spotted on Tuesday night getting cosy with socialite Emma Pilkington, reality TV star Sophie Stanbury, ex-model Gabriela Peacock, stylist Juliet Angus and underwear entrepreneur Lily Fortescue. Fortescue, 26, who is just six years older than the ex-BBC presenters daughter Emily, published the image online with the caption: How many is too many, Jeremy Clarkson? Maybe shed be better off asking his estranged wife Frances, who is understood to be divorcing the alcohol-loving rotter. Scroll down for video Jeremy Clarkson was pictured in Mayfair with (left to right) getting cosy with socialite Emma Pilkington, reality TV star Sophie Stanbury, ex-model Gabriela Peacock, stylist Juliet Angus and entrepreneur Lily Fortescue Pick of the parties OCCASION: Costa Book Of The Year Award at Quaglinos in St Jamess, London. GUESTS: TV presenter Penny Smith (host), author Joanna Trollope, singer Tony Hadley and actress Rebecca Front and Anneka RIce. MOST EAGER: Actress Maureen Lipman informed me she was one of the first through the door. Im here because I write a bit, but also for the free drink. UNEXPECTED STAGEFRIGHT: Despite performing for a living, Call The Midwife star Jenny Agutter felt out of her depth amid the well-read crowd. There are so many wonderful literary people here, it makes me nervous. BEHIND THE TIMES: Actress Natascha McElhone revealed shes a very slow reader. Im still on H Is For Hawk, from last years list its pitiful! THE OUTSIDER: A Village Affair author Joanna Trollope stayed true to her craft by observing from the sidelines. Hovering on the mezzanine, she confessed: It looks far too hot down there, and I hate being too hot. Chatting at the Costa Book awards, hosted by TV presenter Penny Smith, right, actress Natascha McElhone (left) revealed shes a very slow reader and is still on last year's winner Actress Maureen Lipman, pictured with Anneka Rice, informed me she was one of the first through the door AMONG the ranks of the Dads Army cast at its London premiere on Tuesday, one member was conspicuous by her absence. Julia Foster, 72-year-old mother of TV adventurer Ben Fogle, has a role as a mad spinster in the film, making her showbusiness comeback. Sadly former Doctor In The House star Julia was taken ill and had to be admitted to hospital. She is a doting mother to her son Rocket Zot but it appears that Lara Bingle is also extremely maternal towards her best friend's little girl Yoki too. Vicki Lee uploaded a super sweet snap of her model pal with her daughter as the pair played in the pool together. In the Instagram image Lara is seen holding a giggling Yoki into the air while gazing a the little girl. Scroll down for video Super cute snap: Lara Bingle's best friend Vicki Lee shared this snap of the model enjoying a play date with her daughter Yoki to her Instagram page on Thursday Along with the cute snap Vicki wrote: '"To the left to the left" Beyonce @laraworthington.' As well as spending some quality time with the tot Lara and Vicki also enjoyed some time together too. The pair seemed to be checking out the latest Snapchat filters and Lara posted a short clip from the app to her Instagram page. Yesterday in Gucci: The 28-year-old posted a snap of herself in this pretty floral dress earlier in the week. Along with the footage, who showed the girls 'shooting lasers from their eyes' Lara wrote: 'We are so grown up @vickileelee.' Vicki welcomed her daughter in March last year, just weeks before Lara welcomed her own child Rocket with husband Sam Worthington. In November Lara opened up about how her life has changed since welcoming her son. Speaking to Vogue Australia she said: 'I generally try and get up at least an hour and a half before he wakes to check emails, shower and catch up on work,' the 28-year-old said. RIP Pop: Earlier this week Lara paid tribute to her late grandfather posting this sweet snap of the pair together 'But as soon as [Rocket] wakes I put everything down so I'm 100% present.' While Vicki happily posts pictures of her daughter to her social media pages, Lara and Sam, who are notoriously private, keep their son out of the limelight. Over the weekend Lara paid tribute to her grandfather after he passed away. Kanye West angrily brushed off questions about his Twitter feud with Wiz Khalifa as he stepped out after his epic social media meltdown. The rapper grew annoyed at a TMZ cameraman who repeatedly questioned him about the beef and asked if he'd gone too far dragging Wiz and Amber Rose's young son into the spat. The 38-year-old blasted music from his new album Waves as he pulled up at LAX on Wednesday, wearing one of his Yeezy jackets and a black Yeezus hoodie. Scroll down for video Moving on: Rapper Kanye West brushed off questions about his epic Twitter meltdown at Wiz Khalifa as he arrived at LAX on Wednesday 'I said what I had to say,' the All Day rapper said when asked if he'd been too hard on Wiz. Asked a second time, Kanye insisted: 'I said what I had to say and I ain't saying nothing else to you.' The rapper signed autographs as he walked through the terminal, but lost his cool when he was asked about the issue for a third time, specifically about dragging Wiz and Amber's 23-month-old son Sebastian into the mix. Kanye implied on Twitter that Wiz had been 'trapped' by having a kid with 'gold digger' Amber, that Wiz wouldn't have a kid if it wasn't for Kanye breaking up with Amber. Fashion lover: Kanye wore one of his Yeezy jackets and a hoodie from his Yeezus tour as he said he didn't want to talk about the social media beef Annoyed: 'Don't ask me any more questions about it,' the rapper said as he moved through the terminal 'I said "I said all I had to say," said Kanye, adding: 'Don't ask me no more questions about it. Thank you.' However, the 38-year-old later appeared to regret his brusque tone, shaking the cameraman's hand and apologizing when he reached the gate. 'Thank you brother. Good meeting you man,' Kanye said. 'I didn't mean to talk to you heavy... respect to you and your family.' Better mood: Kanye went off on Wiz after he complained about Yeezy's new album name Waves and added the initials KK, which Kanye mistakenly took as a dig at wife Kim Kardashian. It was actually a weed reference On his phone: The 36-year-old later apologized for snapping at the cameraman, and has also deleted his tweets, saying he wants to put 'positive energy' out there Kanye unleashed an epic tirade at Wiz, 28, after taking a 'KK' reference in one of Wiz's tweets to be a dig at wife Kim Kardashian. He later realized it was a reference to marijuana and apologized, deleting the tweets and saying he wanted to focus on 'positive energy.' The rappers both dated Amber Rose, 32, and Kanye made several angry comments about his ex during the vitriolic stream of consciousness. He referred to Amber as a 'stripper' and implied she was a gold digger by referencing lyrics to his hit song. Amber and Wiz, who were married for a year, have a 23-month-old son, Sebastian, together. The feud began when Kanye announced he changed the name of his upcoming album to Waves, which Wiz took umbrage to and later tweeted something involving 'KK,' appearing to set Kanye off. Wild, wild West: Kanye West unleashed a tirade at Wiz Khalifa on Twitter on Wednesday. The pair both dated Amber Rose Amber responded with perhaps the most shocking tweet of all - a sexually explicit reference to her bedroom activities with Kanye. As the feud began with the album title, Waves, which is a term in the hip-hop community in reference to the style of rapper Max B, who is currently in prison. Wiz later tweeted a post with the initials KK in it, which Kanye took to be a reference to his wife Kim Kardashian, and blasted him for it, as well as accusing him of stealing his style from rapper and Kanye protege Kid Cudi. However, Kanye did admit that Wiz has 'cool pants.' After Wiz insisted that KK had been referring to marijuana, Kanye continued to berate him with pointed tweets. But Yeezy later admitted everything regarding 'KK' was a misunderstanding and that it was actually marijuana Wiz had been referring to, saying he was deleting his tweets because he wanted to try to stay positive. Epic: The 38-year-old rapper went on an epic Twitter rant as he even took aim at the mother of Wiz's child and his ex girlfriend Amber Rose Kanye's epic rant aimed at Wiz including strong words like: 'You let a stripper trap you.' 'I know you mad every time you look at your child that this girl got you for 18 years' 'You wouldnt have a child if it wasnt for me.' But he threw in a few compliments too in the bizarre outburst, saying: 'I think you dress cool I wish I was skinny and tall...' He continued: 'Maybe I couldnt be skinny and tall but Ill settle for being the greatest artist of all time as a consolation.' He also praised his rival's taste in trousers, noting: 'I went to look at your twitter and you were wearing cool pants. I screen grabbed those pants and sent it to my style team #Wizwearscoolpants.' Ouch: Kanye also used his wife's app Kimoji as he shared this image while making reference to Wiz's hit Work Hard Play Hard What an endorsement: Khloe Kardashian certainly seemed to be enjoying Kanye's rant as she posted this Working title: This all began on Tuesday night when Kanye announced he had changed his album title to Wave But then Kanye took the credit, noting: 'I am your OG and I will be respected as such. I made it so we could wear tight jeans.' At one point, The All Of The Lights rapper even used his wife's app Kimoji to share one of Kim Kardashian with a tear running down her face, he also poked fun of Wiz with the caption as he made reference to his 2012 hit with the message: 'work hard play hard.' It seemed as if Kanye finally got the message as he deleted the string of tweets because it was all about 'positive energy.' After three hours, Wiz finally took to Twitter again but did not address any of Kanye's tweets but instead promoted his concert as he wrote: 'First show in Argentina is tonight. Meet and Greets at 7. I go on at 9.' Regret? After the string of tweets, Kanye posted much more positive messages Moving on: He later tweeted that he had deleted all the negative messages aimed at WIz Working hard or playing hard?: Kanye said that he was with Ian Connor, who is Wiz's assistant, personal stylist and creative director Clarification: Kanye did admit that everything involving 'KK' was a misunderstanding and that it was actually a reference to marijuana Kanye dated Amber for two years from 2008 to 2010. Their relationship has been up for discussion as of late as a track from his upcoming seventh studio album was leaked, as he appeared to blast his ex by suggesting she doesn't look as good as she used to. A snippet from the track, features the lyrics: 'My ex said she gave me the best years of her life, I saw a recent picture of her, guess she was right.' It's fair to say the relationship did not end amicably with Amber previously branding Kim, the mother of Kanye's two children, a 'homewrecker.' Kanye was bold about slamming his former girlfriend in 2015 when he said in an interview that he had to take '30 showers' after dating Amber. No love lost: Kanye and then-girlfriend Amber Rose at an opera gala in New York in 2009 Low blow: Amber, Wiz and son Sebastian out in LA. Kanye tweeted that Wiz wouldn't have a child it it weren't for him dumping Amber Hitting back: Amber did not take the tweets lightly as she responded with a rather crude tweet 'You're getting bodied by a stripper': The 32-year-old model also addressed the fact that Kanye had deleted the tweets He candidly confessed: 'If Kim had dated me when I wanted, there would be no Amber Rose.' The rapper is said to have had his eye on Keeping Up With The Kardashians star Kim as early as 2008, naming her his 'girl of the week' in early blog posts which resurfaced in October 2014. He added in the one-to-one: 'It's very hard for a woman to want to be with someone that's with Amber Rose. I had to take 30 showers before I got with Kim.' Amber and Wiz married in July 2013 but filed for divorce just over a year later in September 2014. They remain amicable. It is quite an interesting time for the feud to come to come fruition, as Kim and Amber's lives certainly seem to be intertwined as Amber has had repeated reports of animosity between her and the Kardashian sisters. Eyebrows were raised earlier this week as she began following Kourtney Kardashian's ex Scott Disick on Instagram - after spending a weekend in Vegas with him, Khloe's ex French Montana and rapper Chris Brown. 'Don't take the wave': The 28-year-old rapper appeared to take umbrage with the album title change as he posted about the Wave movement on Tuesday night shortly after Kanye's announcement Not pleased: As currently incarcerated rapper Max B is credited with the Wave movement, Kanye paid his respects but Wiz still seemed skeptical Interesting initials: Wiz mentioned 'kk' and it seemed to set Kanye off as he thought it was a reference to his wife Kim Kardashian Explanation: Wiz did not respond very much during Kanye's epic rant but he did explain what 'kk' actually meant Igonoring: Several were waiting for the See You Again rapper's response but he decided not to acknowledge the posts as he opted to promote his concert in Argentina instead Not pleased: The Twitter feed for Wiz's record label, Taylor Gang, was very active as they fired shots at the rapper and fashion designer But anyone thinking Amber was attempting to provoke the Kardashians would be wrong - with a spokesman for the star explaining that she was simply an admirer of Disick. 'Amber just has a lot of respect for Scott and his work, explained her rep. 'They are friends and colleagues that have mutual respect for each other.' The model's newfound friendship with club promoter Disick comes as it emerged that her BFF Blac Chyna has begun a relationship with Rob Kardashian. The 28-year-old Rob shocked his family and fans when it was revealed that he is dating the model, who has been locked in a bitter feud with his sister Kylie Jenner since Kylie started dating 27-year-old Blac's ex-fiance Tyga. Kylie is said to be 'livid' over her brother's romance, with a source adding that she feels 'betrayed.' Things certainly seem to be getting interesting as he was pictured rolling up to the model's gated community in LA on Tuesday afternoon after he was allegedly kicked out of older sister Khloe's house for striking up the romance. More to the story: Kanye even accused Wiz of stealing the sound and style of his protege Kid Cudi, right, seen with the rapper at Cannes in 2012 Intertwined: Amber got fans talking about her 'feud' with the Kardashians as she followed Scott Disick after being seen boarding a private jet in Vegas with Kourtney Kardashian's ex, French Montana and Chris Brown Natalie Portman was a red carpet beauty at the premiere of her latest film on Wednesday. The 34-year-old actress opted for a black gown with colourful embroidery as she arrived at the premiere of Jane Got A Gun in New York hosted by Serpent's Bite Whisky. The mother-of-one's dress featured sheer short sleeves, a high neckline and long flowing skirt, while she pulled her brunette locks into a classic chignon. Scroll down for video Floaty frock: Natalie Portman wowed at the premiere for her new movie Jane Got a Gun on Wednesday The Black Swan star completed her look with berry-hued lipstick and carried a chic satin box clutch. Joining her at the The Museum of Modern Art event was her co-star Joel Edgerton, 41, who looked suave in a navy suit. In Jane Got A Gun, Natalie plays the starring character, Jane, who asks a former love to help her save her outlaw husband (Edgerton). Feminine look: The 34-year-old actress looked gorgeous in an embroidered black dress with sheer sleeves Classic look: Natalie completed the look with berry lipstick and satin clutch During an appearance on Good Morning America earlier that day, Natalie revealed why a western movie appealed to her. The actress said: 'I loved the idea of a love story in the the wild west because love seems like that kind of lawless atmosphere. 'This story of this woman having to sort of face her deepest fears in this really challenging environment was very parallel to sort of the experience of making films.' On-screen partners: The beauty posed alongside co-star Joel Edgerton as the duo celebrated the premiere of the western drama Stylish looks: Model Tali Lennox and Jazmin Grace Grimaldi (Albert II, Prince of Monaco's daughter) also made an appearance at the event Natalie is mother to four-year-old son Aleph Portman-Millepied with her husband, professional ballet dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied. While the family lives in Paris, France, she told hosts: 'I think the US will always feel like home to me, but it's an incredible experience to get to live in Paris. It's obviously a dream city for so many Americans I think especially - we hold Paris as a dream place in our minds.' The lovebirds began dating in 2009 after they met on the set of her film, Black Swan. She announced their engagement one year later and married on August 4, 2012 in Big Sur, California. 'I loved the idea of a love story in the the wild west because love seems like that kind of lawless atmosphere' Natalie appeared on Good Morning America earlier in the day to talk about her movie It is a hit reality franchise which has spawned series in cities all over the U.S. including New York and Atlanta, thanks to it's dramatic plot lines. But, Australia's very own version of the Real Housewives looks to promise an even bigger dose of socialising, scandals, shocks and squabbles. In a sneak peek for Melbourne's third series, the eight affluent ladies of the show appear to become embroiled in a number of raging cat fights, most notably Gina Liano who is seen in a very heated argument with Pettifleur Berenger. Scroll down for video Catty! In a sneak peek for Melbourne's third series of the Real Housewives Of Melbourne,Gina Liano is seen embroiled in a very heated argument with Pettifleur Berenger After flashes of the group voyaging on a desert safari which includes Gina pictured perched on top a camel, in the next scene Pettifleur is shown banging her hands down on the dinner table as she yells at Gina with rage to 'calm the f*** down!' Not one to stand down in an argument, Gina fires back at her counterpart shouting: 'Stay the f*** out of it!' Fellow housewife Gamble Breaux then imitates stabbing someone with a knife during her piece to camera, in lieu of the fight. 'Calm the f*** down!' Pettifleur is shown banging her hands down on the dinner table as she yells at Gina with rage 'Stay the f*** out of it!' Not one to stand down in an argument, Gina fires back verbal abuse at her counterpart Meanwhile, another argument in the trailer shows Pettifleur insulting an unidentified housewife, with the stab: 'Just listen to me sugardaddy.com!' As dramatic classical music plays, words flash across the screen such as 'new housewife,' 'old flames,' 'wedding bells,' and 'a baby?' The 'new housewife' is in reference to country girl turned Toorak housewife Susie McLean who will join seasoned cast members Chyka Keebaugh, Gamble Breaux, Gina Liano, Jackie Gillies, Janet Roach, Lydia Schiavello and Pettifleur Berenger, for the new series. And it appears as if it doesn't take long for Susie to settle in, with the trailer showing her already embroiled in an argument with Lydia, as she admits that she has a 'problem' with her. Cut-throat! Fellow housewife Gamble Breaux then imitates stabbing someone with a knife during her piece to camera, in lieu of the fight The clue of a plot involving 'old flames' flashes to Janet telling a male, presumed to be a former love interest: 'No i know where you are going, don't!' as she puts her arm out to say 'no.' The teaser also includes snips from Gamble and partner Dr. Rick Wolfe's wedding in Byron Bay, which appears to have been officiated by Gina. However it appears the wedding doesn't go to plan as the ten-tier cake is shown toppling over, followed by an outburst of tears from Gamble, who is later shown storming off from the group. 'Just listen to me sugardaddy.com!' The trailer shows Pettifleur insulting an unidentified housewife 'New housewife': Susie McLean who will join seasoned cast members for the new series and it appears as if it doesn't take long for Susie to settle in as she becomes embroiled in an argument with Lydia The trailer also teases of a shock pregnancy, as Lydia yells out: 'Now I never expected that!' This isn't the first time that a pregnancy storyline has come up in the reality TV franchise. In 2011, The Real Housewives of New York star Ramona Singer had a pregnancy scare when she was 54-years-old. The teaser also includes snips from Gamble and partner Dr. Rick Wolfe's wedding in Byron Bay Lavish: Gamble's choice of wedding frock is shown, as she dons a figure hugging garment for the special occassion Special moment: The wedding appears to have been officiated by Gina It appears as if a fair amount of travel is on the cards for the ladies in the latest series, as they are shown voyaging across a desert safari in the back of a four-wheel drive and riding on camels, as well as sliding down a water slide in an inflatable tube at a theme park. A series of surprised and terrified looks from the women are flashed across the screen in quick succession hinting at a very salacious series. The trailer finishes with Housewives dolled up to the nines in elegant blue gowns as they strut their way through a ballroom while gold confetti rains down on them. The ostentatious stars will return to TV screens when season three of The Real Housewives of Melbourne premieres on Arena on February 21. 'Now I never expected that!' The trailer also teases of a shock pregnancy 'No I know where you are going, don't!' The clue of a plot involving 'old flames' flashes to Janet speaking to a male, presumed to be a former love interest Arriving in style! It appears as if a fair amount of travel is on the cards for the ladies in the latest series The first two seasons of The Real Housewives of Melbourne were nothing short of explosive, but it looks like the upcoming third installment of the hit reality series is going to be the most scandalous yet. Gina previously told Daily Mail Australian that season three has been 'spectacular' for her. 'I dont know if its because I found my feet or know it better, but its been so much fun,' she said. 'Season one I was cringing at the prospect of watching it. Season two I was a little bit worried. But this season Im really looking forward to it. I think everyone is really going to enjoy it.' Jet-setting! They are shown voyaging across a desert safari in the back of a four-wheel drive Out of her comfort zone: Gina is shown on a desert safari perched on top a camel Adventurous! Susie, Janet and Pettifleur are also shown sliding down a water slide in an inflatable tube at a theme park The synopsis for the first episode has already been released, and in true Housewives fashion, it sounds like a wild ride. One scene features Lydia and 'Switch The B***h' author Pettifleur meeting up to discuss come controversial comments that Gamble made about the 51-year-old's book. With tensions building, the ladies get together for a 'wholesome baking day' at new Housewife Susie's home - but it doesn't take long for the claws to come out. 'It's kill or be killed,' says Pettifleur of the baking day bust-up. Viewers will also be treated to divorcees Susie and Janet trying online dating. Shocking! A series of surprised and terrified looks from the women are flashed across the screen in quick succession hinting at a very salacious series Highly anticipated! The trailer finishes with Housewives dolled up to the nines in elegant blue gowns as they strut their way through a ballroom while gold confetti rains down on them She is a business mogul who sells products ranging from diapers to sunscreen. So it seemed only appropriate Jessica Alba was first amongst beauties at a launch for supermarket Target in New York on Wednesday. The actress looked close to her best as she appeared at the event alongside fellow silver screen beauties Jaime King and Kate Bosworth. Scroll down for video Fantastic phwoar: Jessica Alba was joined by fellow beauties Jaime King and Kate Bosworth at the Who What Wear Target launch in New York on Thursday Fantastic Four favourite Jessica, 34, was looking great in a black leather jacket, striped top and yellow and purple skirt. She added a final dramatic flourish to her ensemble by wearing silver stilettos, a rather fitting addition given she is somehow worth an estimated $350 million. Superman Returns star Kate, 33, was also a sight to behold in a trendy black minidress and thigh-high suede boots. Rounding off the attractive group was Pearl Harbor actress Jaime, 36, who delighted in a black blazer, white feather Steven Khalil skirt and stilettos. Business as usual: The self-styled entrepreneur was winning all the stares at the event Three for the price of one: Attendees could no doubt scarcely believe their eyes when they saw who was there Hell bent for leather: She made sure he looked great by donning a racy biker jacket Caught on camera: Who What Wear co-founders Katherine Power and Hillary Kerr have a selfie with Jessica Surprise! Jessica looked stunned by something on her phone, possibly unimpressed by her selfie snap Mother-of-two Jessica recently claimed she had experienced sexism as she set up her business The Honest Company, which sells 'ethical' home products. The self-styled actress said: 'You feel like a lone wolf surrounded by men who have done it all before. 'Certainly people in Hollywood underestimated me. They absolutely, 100 per cent thought I was nuts. 'It p***** me off! But as a woman, as an actress, Ive dealt with that before. Ive dealt with people undermining me; Ive dealt with people thinking that I would do anything to get ahead and be successful.' Some say gentlemen prefer blondes: And if so they would doubtlessly have been impressed with Kate's immaculate appearance Heading down the Lois Lane: The Superman Returns actress turned heads as she arrived Making an entrance: Jaime arrived wearing a sophisticated black blazer to keep her warm in the winter chill Supermarket sweets: The pair looked like they were having a great time at the Target event A bit of all white: Jaime stood out from her peers by donning a pale top and white feather Steven Khalil skirt Tied up too tight: Jaime looked to loosen her choker in the middle of posing for pictures That's better: Jaime flicked out her hair, revealing her delicately inked bicep Meanwhile her company, which in August was valued at $1.7 billion, was sued by consumer Jonathan Rubin for $5 million, who alleges her company 'deceptively and misleadingly' marketed its products as 'natural' when a number of items included 'unnatural' and 'synthetic" ingredients. Rubin named the brand's dish soap, hand soaps, diapers and multi-surface cleaner as being potentially hazardous and claims its sunscreen is ineffective. Chin up: Jaime's bronze smokey eye-shadow gave her an alluring quality Making a statement: Katherine Power teamed a floral print dress and long denim jacket with a pair of white heels Off the shoulder: The actress successfully teamed sophisticated glamour with a playful edge Towering: Jessica's stunning silver stilettos contrasted with her playful summery dress Back in black: Kate cut a stylish figure in a plain all-black ensemble which teamed an LBD with knee-high boots Flying visit: After the event was over she made a quick getaway to JFK Airport to jet back home She's no Invisible Woman: Even in her travelling clothes it was impossible to ignore the Latina lovely Trolley dolly: She caused quite a stir as she pushed her luggage through the departure lounge The company has asked that the entire lawsuit be thrown out and points out that the man didn't even buy some of the products he is complaining about not being natural, specifically the brand's diapers and their multi-surface cleaner. Alba's company says that Rubin failed to show any misleading or false statements that were made by The Honest Company and also any proof that he purchased the items based on these alleged statements. Hard to miss: Jaime was spotted getting coffee earlier in the day wearing baggy denim overalls His new film is packed to the rafters with A-list celebrity cameos - from pop's comeback kid Justin Bieber to Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of fashion bible Vogue But funnyman Ben Stiller has revealed there's one famous face he couldn't get on board for the eagerly anticipated Zoolander sequel - controversial Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. In an interview with Fox FM's Hamish and Andy on Wednesday, the 50-year-old revealed that he asked the Australian journalist to play a brief role in the follow-up to his 2001 cult comedy. Scroll down for video Sharply dressed: Zoolander No. 2 star Ben Stiller, 50, revealed on the Hamish & Andy Fox FM radio show on Wednesday that he offered Wikileaks founder Julian Assange a racy cameo in the comedy sequel However, Julian was unable to film the scenes because he 'couldn't get out' of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, having been granted political asylum there in August 2012. Ben, from New York City, told the radio station: '[We] tried to get Julian Assange in the movie. But he said he couldn't get out.' He then explained Julian's proposed cameo to the Melbourne-based DJs, saying: 'We were going to have him, like, via satellite in the orgy.' Cameo: Julian Assange, the founder of whistle-blowing service Wikileaks, was offered a cameo in Zoolander No. 2, but his 'security situation' didn't allow it. He currently resides in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London The following day, Ben clarified his comments during an interview on KIIS 1065's The Kyle and Jackie O Show. He told the hosts, '(Julian) would have been part of Hansel's orgy', referring to Owen Wilson's character, Hansel McDonald, a male model who participated in group sex in the original film. 'We would have had him be a satellite on the monitor', Ben continued, confirming that Julian would only be an observer in the racy scene. Julian, from Queensland, applied to live under the diplomatic protection of the government of Ecuador in 2012 amid an investigation by Swedish prosecutors for accusations of sexual misconduct. Julian is also wanted for alleged espionage by United States authorities over his Wikileaks activities and fears if he goes to Sweden for questioning he will then be extradited to the US. On Wednesday, Wikileaks gave the following statement to The Washington Times: 'Julians a fan of Bens films. Radio DJs: Melbourne-based Fox FM co-hosts Hamish Blake, 34, (left), and Andy Lee, also 34, (right) posed for a photo with Ben (centre), who directed, co-wrote and starred in Zoolander No. 2 'The two spoke for half an hour but Julians security situation precluded the filming proposed. So no (Assange) cameo until his freedom and Zoolander 3.' Meanwhile, Ben has spent the last few days Down Under promoting Zoolander No. 2, which he co-wrote and directed. In the comedy sequel, Ben reprises the title role as dim-witted male model Derek Zoolander, alongside a host of celebrities in cameo parts. He even posed from the giddy heights of Sydney Harbour Bridge in character as part of a viral publicity stunt on Thursday. Zoolander No. 2 is released in theatres February 11. Last week, theatre star Rhonda Burchmore seemed to confirm her participation on the upcoming series I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here with a telling Instagram post. But while the contestants identities remain a closely guarded secret, co-host Julia Morris, 47, inadvertently dropped a major hint on Thursday morning by suggesting the actress will be taking part. Julia appeared on Rove and Sam and was asked directly by Rove how Rhonda is 'dealing with it all,' after having spoken about life in the jungle and Julia implied she was going on the show. Scroll down for video Letting slip? I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! co-host Julia Morris appeared to confirm speculation that Rhonda Burchmore is heading into the jungle during a radio appearance 'I don't know how she is going to go I have to be honest,' Julia said. 'I am hoping she does alright - she's already pretty slim and this is a show where you drop a bit of beef in the jungle. 'So if she does turn side-lines halfway through you might not be able to see her,' Julia said with a laugh. Rove went on to further quiz Julia about Rhonda, 55, and asked if she was in South Africa. What's the go? Last week, theatre star Rhonda Burchmore seemed to confirm she was going to appear on the upcoming series I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here Australia, with a telling Instagram post 'We were seeing Instagram feeds of Rhonda being in the jungle. Has she landed? Is she there? Is she a spare? Is she a third wheel? Is she officially going in?,' he said. Julia appeared to back track her comments, answering: 'That's the thing they don't tell me anything until the last day because I get a bit over excited and slip up - so I could easily say "Oh God they are all coming in - everyone mentioned has come in." 'But from all reports though, I have been told that hardly any of the guesses are right so far. And that's what happened last year - people were convinced someone was coming in and then there was another whole group of people.' Julia went on to explain that the celebrities who are going into the jungle are already in South Africa. Hints: Julia went on to explain that the celebrities who are going into the jungle are already in South Africa. She is seen here with co-host Dr Chris Brown 'They are not near our set yet, they are all in individual accommodation right around the area and it's an extensive area so they don't see each other until they start what is known as the walk in.' Rhonda - who is well known for her role in the 1982 flick The Pirate Movie, her many stage performances in Australia and overseas and who has released a number of albums - last week seemed to confirm she was heading to the jungle. She shared a picture of herself to her Instagram page, alongside her daughter Lexie on the plane, writing: 'About to say goodbye to Melbourne and head off into the jungle'. 'About to say goodbye to Melbourne and head off into the jungle': Rhonda took to Instagram last week and seemed to confirm her appearance on the show However, it seems Rhonda possibly meant the concrete jungle, to which New York City in the US is commonly referred to. She and her daughter jetted to NYC and have shared a number of images online of their time there, from shopping sprees to rugging up in warm winter coats after the blizzard hit the city. Her latest Instagram post came on Thursday, where she shared a picture of herself in a deli. The big apple! She and her daughter jetted to NYC and have shared a number of images online of their time there, from shopping sprees to rugging up in warm winter coats after the blizzard hit the city Travelling soon? Her latest Instagram post came on Thursday, where she shared a picture of herself in a deli The show is set to air on January 31, which could give the star time to jet to South Africa. In the clues released from the series, a theatre star is listed. Anthony Callea is the latest celebrity rumoured to be heading into the jungle, after a live Q&A on the show's Twitter page this week. Ready for a stint on TV? Anthony Callea is the latest celebrity rumoured to be heading into the jungle, after a live Q&A on the show's Twitter page this week The mystery contestant revealed they 'first kicked off my career publicly on a TV series' while adding they were 'Gen Y'. Other clues included they had an 'other half' and had 'flown in from USA.' Anthony, 33, indeed had recently been seen in Hollywood and is married to Tim Campbell. He also began his career on Australian Idol. Daily Mail Australia exclusively revealed last week Shane Warne as one of the contestants. The news of the sportsman's participation was confirmed by a media industry source. Shane fills the aforementioned category of 'cricket player' - a clue which was previously revealed by the network. He's going in! Daily Mail Australia exclusively revealed last week Shane Warne as one of the contestants If you got a smack of a repulsor gauntlet in the face, you'd have a mark too. Chris Evans looked like he was having a rough day at the office on Wednesday on the set of Captain America: Civil War. The 34-year-old was spotted with his face all busted up, sporting a sizeable bruise on his left cheek with a matching fat lip on the right, topping it all off with a rather forlorn expression. Battered and bruised: Chris Evans bore the scars of a tussle with Iron Man on the set of Captain America: Civil War on Wednesday There are very few people in the Marvel Universe who could do that sort of damage to the super soldier Steve Rodgers. But as the trailer for the upcoming comic book blockbuster movie has already shown, it is actually one of his fellow Avengers who is responsible. Civil War tells the story of new government laws being introduced to regulate superheros, which divides the entire team into two factions; one lead by Captain America who resists it, the other by Robert Downey Jr's Iron Man, who wants to enforce it. Iron fist: The 34-year-old was spotted with his face all busted up, sporting a sizeable bruise on his left cheek with a matching fat lip on the right, topping it all off with a rather forlorn expression The adrenaline pumping trailer for the latest chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe shows the two former friends kicking lumps out of each other in a mouth-watering matchup. It also shows where their team-mates ally themselves: The Winter Solder, The Scarlett Witch, The Falcon and Hawkeye line-up behind the Cap, while Black Widow, War Machine and The Vision unite behind Tony Stark - as does newcomer Black Panther. Also spotted on set on Wednesday was the man who plays him, 42 and Get On Up star Chadwick Boseman. Scrap: As the trailer for the upcoming comic book blockbuster movie has already shown, it is actually one of his fellow Avengers who is responsible Fight! The adrenaline pumping trailer for the latest chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe shows the two former friends kicking lumps out of each other in a mouth-watering matchup Since his black suit and mask covers every patch of skin, injury make-up didn't appear to be necessary... although unlike many of his his co-stars, he isn't shown taking a beating in the trailer. Rather in his brief glimpses he is shown laying the smackdown on Bucky Barnes, before wisely fleeing the pursuing Captain America. Captain America: Civil War hits theatres on May 6. They have been together for over eight years, so its no wonder David Schwimmer made sure he brought his wife Zoe Buckman to the premiere of his latest venture. Standing side by side, the couple put on a show of affection as they happily posed for several pictures at the premiere of FX's American Crime Story in Los Angeles, on Wednesday. The 49-year-old actor cut a handsome figure in a tailored silver suit by Nigel Curtiss and a dark blue shirt, while his stunning wife stole the limelight in a daring animal-print gown. Scroll down for video She's his lobster! David Schwimmer and his wife Zoe Buckman posed for several pictures at the premiere of FX's American Crime Story in Los Angeles, on Wednesday The sizzling ensemble, which featured full-length sleeves and a sexy thigh-high slit, drew heaps of attention to her slender limbs and statuesque frame. She wore her golden-tinted tresses loose in tousled waves, while accentuating her striking complexion with smokey eyewear, bronzed cheeks and glossy lips. Other attendees at the special screening included John Travolta, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Selma Blair, who looked elegant in a white pleated gown. Stylish duo: The 49-year-old actor cut a handsome figure in a tailored silver suit by Nigel Curtiss and a dark blue shirt, while his stunning wife stole the limelight in a daring animal-print gown Doing his thing: The Friends star - who plays defense lawyer Robert Kardashian in the new series - happily stopped to sign autographs for fans Big character: David plays attorney Robert Kardashian, who fathered Kim, Khloe, Kourtney and Robert Jr, in the upcoming TV mini-series American Crime Story Star-studded: he joined fellow actress Angela Bassett at the after-party The new TV series centres around the OJ Simpson trial which took place from 1994 to 1995, and will see Cuba Gooding Jr. play the role of O.J. and Travolta as defense lawyer Robert Shapiro. Former friends star David portrays defense lawyer Robert Kardashian and Selma his wife Kris, now known as Kris Jenner. Producer Nina recently teased in an interview with MTV News: 'For us, the O.J. story is so much more about race in America, the relationship between white police and a black community, the birth of a 24-hour news cycle, and of reality TV. Team effort: Sarah Paulson and director John Singleton were also in attendance Stellar line-up: Courtney B. Vance and Cuba Gooding Jr. appear in the series as well Old Hollywood glam: Selma Blair - who plays Kris Jenner in the series - looked elegant in a white pleated gown The momager before reality TV: Selma Blair plays Kris Jenner Scientologist couple: Also posing on the Westwood Village Theatre red carpet was Selma's co-star John Travolta alongside his wife of 24 years, Kelly Preston Quite a transformation: Travolta, left, had the looks and the nuances down as legal defender Robert Shapiro, right in 1994 'The violence is very sobering, but it is very, very restrained, because the story is much more about the trial and the circumstances and the cultural response, two years after the L.A. riots, and how the city and the country and the world responded to these events. 'Its a very, very different show than American Horror Story, and very respectful of the people involved.' The 10-episode true-crime anthology series American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson premieres February 2 on FX. Coming soon: The 10-episode true-crime anthology series American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson premieres February 2 on FX Maddy King enjoyed a night out with the girls on Thursday night. Attending the Social Diary Reality TV party at Sydney bar Bungalow 8 the brunette beauty was travelling solo as her other half, Kris Smith filmed a new show in Botswana, Africa. Speaking to Daily Mail Australia about maintaining their relationship long-distance, the model admitted: 'When he's away we try and talk as much as we can.' 'We try and talk when we can': Maddy King revealed how she and her hunky TV presenter beau Kris Smith keep their long-distance love alive as the busy couple travel the globe for work 'He's in Africa for a new show, so he doesn't have that much WiFi and connection, but when he can we speak,' she explained, adding: 'gotta make it work'. With both Kris and Maddy's careers taking them around the world, the pair try their best to travel together when they can. This time, while the hunky TV presenter is on the other side of the world for three weeks working on a new European reality show, Maddy will also be overseas for work. Letting her hair down! The brunette beauty (centre) was almost unrecognisable as she sported a blonde wig and tiara at the Social Diary Reality TV party at Bungalow 8 in Sydney on Thursday The model is set to fly out to Singapore for a Chinese New Year-based shoot there. In June this year, the on-again, off-again couple will mark four years together, after meeting through mutual friends when he was on a trip to Sydney. However, the brunette jokes about the upcoming anniversary: 'I don't know if he remembers that'. Maddy, who dressed in a blonde wig with a tiara in her hair for the reality TV themed party, also talked about keeping her trim and toned physique in shape. 'I don't know if he remembers that': The couple will mark four years together in June but it hasn't all been smooth sailing for the on-again, off-again pair, who met through mutual friends Model mode! Maddy revealed the couple try to travel together as much as possible but couldn't join Kris in Botswana as she has a shoot in Singapore 'Nutritional medicine studying that helps. I do Pilates. I walk everywhere, so I kind of feel like it's incidental exercise,' she listed. 'It's just gotta be about balance,' Maddy added, explaining: 'I'm having a drink right now but tomorrow I will train and it's just keeping that balance.' Another secret to her model figure is not making it a job, saying: 'You make it fun and it makes it more enjoyable and easier.' Work it! The Pilates fan admits she works hard to stay in shape but tries to make exercise fun Alli Simpson certainly turned heads at the ARIA Awards in Sydney in November, wearing an eye-catching navy and white kimono-style playsuit. And it would appear Big Brother star Aisha McKinnon loved the look so much she decided to wear the same outfit to the Witchery Autumn Winter runway show at Sydney's Carriageworks on Thursday. The 23-year-old showed off her trim legs in the Alice McCalll dress - an outfit she she teamed with white accessories. Scroll down for video In the blue! Aisha McKinnon attended the Witchery fashion show on Thursday night in Sydney, in a navy and white kimono-style playsuit Looks familiar: Aisha wore the look after it was previously seen on singer Alli Simpson, 17, at the ARIA Awards in Sydney in November (R) The reality TV star styled the look a little differently to Alli, 17, who is a singer and Cody Simpson's younger sister. Aisha pulled her long dark locks into a neat low ponytail with a side part, and teamed the plunging look with a white material choker. She also carried a white clutch, wore white heels and even had a white manicure and pedicure. All in the details: Aisha pulled her long dark locks into a neat low ponytail with a side part, and teamed the plunging look with a white material choker Aisha showed off a golden tan and kept her make-up relatively simple, wearing dewy foundation, bronzer, a soft gloss and lashings of mascara. When Alli wore the look, she teamed it with multi-layered silver chains and black shoes, and kept her hair out neatly straightened. Aisha is currently dating beau Travis Lunardi, who she met on the set of Big Brother in 2014. This week she spoke about her relationship to Daily Mail Australia and said the pair had no plans of marriage, but she knows exactly what kind of ring she wants if he pops the question. Picture perfect: The blonde teamed it with multi-layered silver chains and black shoes, and kept her hair out neatly straightened 'Its Art Deco, it's beautiful, it's very old school, very big but a girl can dream right!' she said, adding she has sent him a picture of it. The reality TV couple met in the Big Brother House in 2014, and have been happily dating since. Travis moved to Sydney four months ago to be with his girlfriend and the love-birds recently celebrated their one year anniversary in Port Stephens. When DMA asked about how long they had been together, he said: 'Alright lets be honest, last night went out for dinner and were doing a Snapchat. And I'm like "Babe how does it feel... Weve been together 13 months 8 hours and 6 mins. I love you."' The only question anyone wants to ask Kit Harington at the moment is: 'Is Jon Snow really dead?' But if anyone was asking the question on Wednesday night, Kit Harington didn't appear to be in the mood to answer it - as the actor cut surly figure while out and about in London. Heading to the The Ivy, the 29-year-old Game of Thrones star sported his character's trademark tousled black locks and beard - though he chose a more modern wardrobe than the Night's Watch. Scroll down for video Taking up the black: Kit Harington cut a surly figure as he stepped out in London on Wednesday night, and appeared to be taking some style tips away from his time on Game of Thrones Possibly paying a nod to his character's role as the leader of Westeros' only defence against the White Walkers and Wildlings, Kit donned an all black ensemble. With winter firmly upon the capital, the star chose to step out in a snug, charcoal wool jumper, which only served to emphasise the actor's impressive torso. Teaming his warm knitwear with a pair of black skinny-fit jeans, Kit kept to his monotonal theme while also adding a sharp edge to his smart-casual look. He rounded off the look with a pair of slightly scuffed Chelsea boots, which gave a distinctive British edge to the London-born actor's wardrobe. Channelling Westeros: Heading to the The Ivy, the 29-year-old Game of Thrones star sported his character's trademark tousled black locks and beard - though he chose a more modern wardrobe than the Night's Watch A tribute to Jon Snow? Possibly paying a nod to his character's role as the leader of Westeros' only defence against the White Walkers and Wildlings (Jon Snow, pictured), Kit donned an all black ensemble And while he may possibly have left Jon Snow behind for ever at the end of series five of Game of Thrones, Kit kept the distinctive look of Ned Stark's son for his evening on the town. Wearing his long mane tangled mane in the distinctive scraped-back, tousled do, the actor also sported a groomed beard on his chiseled features. Keeping his look sombre and mainly untouched, the only exception to his sartorial rule for the evening was a silver wristwatch. Winter warmer: With winter firmly upon the capital, the star chose to step out in a snug, charcoal wool jumper, which only served to emphasise the actor's impressive torso Simple and stylish: Teaming his warm knitwear with a pair of black skinny-fit jeans, Kit kept to his monotonal theme while also adding a sharp edge to his smart-casual look Kit's evening out in London came only days after the actor revealed in an interview with the BBC that Game of Thrones fans should prepare for disappointment regarding his beloved character. Talking about the up-coming sixth series (due in April) he bluntly revealed Jon Snow is dead, saying: 'They should tune in and watch because whatever happens in the next season will be very exciting. But John Snow is dead I'm afraid. 'I think [fans' speculation] is great for the show - but they shouldn't get their hopes up about anything because Game of Thrones is very good at dashing hopes.' Well-heeled display: He rounded off the look with a pair of slightly scuffed Chelsea boots, which gave a distinctive British edge to the London-born actor's wardrobe That distinctive look: Wearing his long mane tangled mane in the distinctive scraped-back, tousled do, the actor also sported a groomed beard on his chiseled features However the actor managed to expertly side-step the question of whether his character's scenes in series six, leaving a giant question mark hanging over the mysterious Jon Snow storyline. And hinting that the show had reached a peak, he hinted the award-winning drama would start to draw to an end. 'It's been a gateway into many things for me, and I love it and owe it a lot,' he explained. 'I hope that people keep watching it as it comes to a slow, gradual end.' Series Six of HBO's epic fantasy drama, based on the books of George R. R. Martin is due to hit the small screen in both the US and UK in April. Kit's evening out in London came only days after the actor revealed in an interview with the BBC that Game of Thrones fans should prepare for disappointment regarding his beloved character Natalie Bassingthwaighte has admitted that playing Julie Bamford, partner of late Australian motor racing ace Peter Brock, had a profound effect on her. In preparation for the role in Network Ten's upcoming drama Brock, Natalie, 40, focused on understanding what made Julie tick and the essence of her relationship with racing car champion. 'Julie goes through a pretty traumatic time. Finally meeting the love of her life, then finally being able to be together, then him dying,' the former X Factor judge told AAP while at an Emirates Australian Open lunch on Thursday. Scroll down for video Opening up: Natalie Bassingthwaighte has talked about her new acting role in the miniseries Brock, where she plays Julie Bamford 'I could definitely draw some inspiration from my own life for the role. It was a very spiritual and quite a cathartic experience for me. 'The most important thing for me was to get the essence of who she was, still is, and the relationship her and Peter had. From what I know, it was obviously very physical and sexual. But it was emotional and spiritual and there was a whole other side to her that was really fun to add in there.' The singer and former X Factor judge says she has relished getting back into acting after a break doing reality TV, juggling her children's fashion label and motherhood. She worked hard! To prepare for the role in Network Ten's upcoming drama Brock, Natalie, 40, focused on understanding what made Julie tick and the essence of her relationship with racing car champion Julie and Peter had an affair for 15 years, conducting their relationship behind the back of Julie's best friend, Peter's wife Bev. The women became embroiled in a bitter fight over his estate following his sudden death in a car rally in 2006. Peter and Bev had been together for 28 years when he left her in 2005 to move in with Julie. History: Julie Bamford and Peter Brock had an affair for 15 years, conducting their relationship behind the back of Julie's best friend, Peter's wife Bev. The lovers are seen here in 2005 His wife: Peter and Bev had been together for 28 years when he left her in 2005 to move in with Julie. Bev and Peter are seen here in 2004 Also appearing in the show alongside Natalie, is actor Matt Le Nevez, who will portray Peter. Acting had been on hold while Natalie concentrated on reality TV and is now ready to concentrate on that side of her career. 'I filmed Brock last year and so that was exciting for me to get back into the acting world because that's where my heart is at the moment.' But she is cautious about being typecast. Co-stars: Also appearing in the show alongside Natalie, is actor Matt Le Nevez, who will portray Peter 'I want to play different things every time. It's pretty easy to get typeset,' she said. 'Some other opportunities have come my way that I've chosen not to take for that very reason. 'But then there are some other opportunities I can't wait for. I feel like if it's a great story and a great script, whether it's real or made up, if it's written well with a great cast and good director, I'm in. I like a challenge. Elle Fanning seemed to be going undercover on Wednesday. The Maleficent star was spotted with her green cap pulled down low over her face as she exited a nail salon in Los Angeles. The 17-year-old actress was on a break from shooting the Ben Affleck film Live By Night. Putting her best foot forward! Elle Fanning stepped out of a pedicure appointment in Los Angeles in a pair of disposable flip flops and toe separators Elle teamed her summery pink top with a pair of slouchy Capris jeans The fresh face actress wore her bright blonde hair down in its natural waves. Elle looked thoroughly relaxed as she stepped out following her pampering session, her trusty high-tech phone in hand. Though she appeared solo, the actress was spotted chatting with someone, growing animated as she pointed towards the distance. Keeping it casual: The 17-year-old made do with a pink and white top with Capri jeans Top it off: The actress polished off the look with a playful hat that was worn over her bright blonde hair Elle has been carving out a name for herself in the movie industry with leading roles in previous films that include Maleficent and Young Ones. With a thriving career in the film industry, the teen recently discussed how she has had to put college plans on pause. 'I thought more, and I'm like, Eh. I dont think its for me.' she told Teen Vogue in 2015. 'That sounds weird because I feel like every- body goes to college. Maybe I'll just wait. I'm already doing what I want to do, so why cant I just...?' Hard at work: The We Bought A Zoo starlet has just finished shooting the film How to Talk to Girls at Parties, which is slated for release this year The younger sister of Dakota Fanning is busy as usual, having finished shooting the film How to Talk to Girls at Parties, which is slated for release this year. Elle stars as Zan, an alien touring the galaxy who breaks away from her group to pursue true love with Enn, played by Alex Sharp. The award-winning actress has also been shooting on the Hollywood set of Live By Night, a 1920s period film. Live By Night is scheduled for release in 2017. Keeping busy! The award-winning actress has also been shooting on the Hollywood set of Live By Night, a 1920s period film She was seen drenching herself in the sunshine of St. Barts less than a month ago. And serial jet-setter Hofit Golan was back to her bikini-clad best as she basked in the heat of the Maldives with a female friend on Thursday. The Israeli socialite showed off her slim curves in not one, but two stunning two-pieces as she cavorted on the beaches of the luxurious Hideaway Beach Resort & Spa. Scroll down for video Beach babe: Incessant jet-setter Hofit Golan was back to her bikini-clad best as she basked in the heat of the Maldives with a female friend on Thursday The TV presenter first sizzled in an aztec print bikini which featured racy lace-up detailing between the bust and somewhat risque splits just inches away from her modesty. The partly neon design was the perfect choice to draw attention to Hofit's ample assets and enviably toned torso as she tread the white sands. While the famed sun-seeker was seen dipping her toes in the crystal clear waters to cool off, she made sure not to get too carried away in a bid to maintain the preened nature of her sleek blonde tresses. Sizzling! The Israeli socialite showed off her slim curves in not one, but two stunning two-pieces as she cavorted on the beaches of the luxurious Hideaway Beach Resort & Spa Sending temperatures soaring! The TV presenter first sizzled in an aztec print bikini which featured racy lace-up detailing between the bust and somewhat risque splits just inches away from her modesty Pretty in pink: Seemingly keen to show off her extensive bikini collection, it wasn't long before Hofit altered the look with a vivid pink bikini with laser cut detailing True to form, the social media savvy star made sure she didn't compromise her glamorous image as she sported a fairly heavy make-up look despite the sticky tropical climate. Returning to her lavish beach hut later that evening, Hofit opted for a chic cover-up in the shape of a neon kimino which billowed around her feet, which had been slipped into coordinating skyscraper stilettos. But, seemingly keen to show off her extensive bikini collection, it wasn't long before Hofit altered the look with a vivid pink bikini with laser cut detailing. The model has wasted no time boasting to her 86,000 Instagram followers, having shared countless snaps from her idyllic getaway. Stylish as always: Returning to her lavish beach hut later that evening, Hofit opted for a chic cover-up in the shape of a neon kimino Glam: While the famed sun-seeker was seen dipping her toes in the crystal clear waters to cool off, she made sure not to get too carried away in a bid to maintain the preened nature of her sleek blonde tresses The brighter the better! Hofit's pink number was the perfect choice to show off her ample assets and enviably toned torso as she tread the white sands Unsurprisingly, the fashion blogger looks to be revelling in her trip as her days are filled with transitioning between her private infinity pool to the island's serene beaches. Hofit is arguably most well-known for the celebrity company she keeps, though in a previous interview with MailOnline, the stunner was quick to point out that she can't abide many stars because of the egos they carry around, although her close gaggle of gal pals like Kelly and Lindsay can't get enough praise. She said: 'I don't like to name drop. Friends are friends, even if they happen to be famous or royal. 'But I like low maintenance people - people who have bad energy I walk away from as I dont react well to egos. 'Kelly Brook was in Cannes with me and shes just a ball of laughs and fun. She's so easy going and low maintenance.' she dished. She just walked the runway for Chanel alongside her sister Gigi in Paris, France, and now this. In the midst of her whirlwind travels, Bella Hadid took a moment to share her cover for the February 2016 issue of Elle Brasil. Bella exudes youthful confidence and ethereal grace in the image which shows her wearing a low-cut feathery blue and black-edged top. Scroll down for video Ethereal: Bella Hadid took to Instagram to share a look at her February cover for Elle Brasil on Thursday that shows her in glowing form while clad in a feathery blue and black number The 19-year-old daughter of Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills star Yolanda Foster is seen giving the lens a slant-eyed look with her hand at her mouth. Her hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail with the loose strands streaked with highlights and blunt-edged as they graze her bare shoulder. Bella's make-up is understated with browns, beiges and ivory with a hint of rose. Couture cutie: The 19-year-old model walked the runway during the Chanel show as part of Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday Star trip: Bella looked chic and warmly outfitted in front of the George V Hotel in Paris on Tuesday 'My new @ElleBrasil cover by the great @maxabadian 3 Loveliest team @FrankieFoye @Nina_Park @SusanaBarbosa @MarcellMaia Thank You,' Bella gushed alongside the social media share. The fashion photographer echoed that sentiment as he posted the cover image along with his own message of gratitude. 'My new #cover with the beautiful @bellahadid in @versace_official @donatella_versace for @ellebrasil,' Abadian wrote, adding: 'Thank you @luciano_schmitz @susanabarbosa @frankiefoye @nina_park @marcellmaia #bellahadid #bella #elle #fashionphotography #covershoot #nyc #model #shotbymaxabadian @sdmgmt' Quick turnaround: The daughter of Yolanda Foster beat a rapid trail as she left her Paris hotel for a photo shoot in London Whirlwind: Bella was seen arriving at Kings Cross St. Pancras Eurostar train station in London later on Tuesday ahead of her next assignment Bella has had a hectic schedule of late, telling her Instagram followers that she had travelled across the channel to London immediately after her Paris show. 'Just touched down in London for a few hours to shoot with two of my favorite humans,' the model wrote alongside a selfie with her team. Bella was seen in transit, looking happy and fresh-faced as she left the Georges V hotel in Paris before arriving with a smile at the Kings Cross St. Pancras Eurostar train station in London later on Tuesday. 'Struggle in silence': Bella's mom Yolanda Foster posted a picture of her daughter with an IV in her arm during treatment for Lyme disease That same day, her mother Yolanda posted a photo on Instagram showing Bella receiving a treatment for Lyme disease with an IV line in her arm while they both reclined in bed. (Yolanda, who has documented her debilitating battle against Lyme disease on social media, revealed last year that both her daughter Bella and son Anwar were also suffering from the disease.) 'Watching my brave babies stuffer in silence in order to support me in my journey has struck the deepest core of hopelessness inside of me,' Yolanda wrote in the caption. Yolanda also sent a loving congrats to both Bella and Gigi, 20, who both walked the Chanel runway on Tuesday during Haute Couture Fashion Week in Paris. Viewers saw him fall from grace when he went from an upstanding policeman to a sleazy downtrodden lothario as Calvin Valentine in Hollyoaks. And Ricky Whittle has landed himself another gritty role in upcoming series American Gods, playing the front man, Shadow Moon. Starring in his first leading role, the 34-year-old will be at the centre of the adaptation of Neil Gaimans acclaimed contemporary fantasy novel. Scroll down for video Stateside star! Ricky Whittle, 34, has landed himself another gritty role, working in the upcoming US series American Gods, playing the front man, Shadow Moon The former soap star has already made a name for himself in America for his work in Mistresses and The 100, but his new role will no doubt propel him to a new level of fame. The series, which will begin production in April, sees a war brewing between old and new gods with conflicting traditional and new age values. The novel already has a huge cult following, translated into more than 30 languages and awarded the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel among many other accolades. As Shadow Moon, Ricky will play an ex-con who becomes bodyguard and traveling partner to conman, Mr. Wednesday. However, his enigmatic new boss is one of the older gods, who is on a mission to gather his forces in order to declare war against the new gods - who are obsessed with money, technology, media, celebrity culture and drugs. Mr loverman! Ricky (pictured with Jennifer Metcalfe) made a name for himself in Hollyoaks, where viewers saw him fall from grace as he went from an upstanding policeman to a sleazy downtrodden lothario Across the pond: The former soap star has already made a name for himself in America for his work in Mistresses and The 100, but his new role will no doubt propel him to a new level of fame Writers and showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green, explained the decision to cast Ricky was non-debatable. 'We searched every continent and country and all the islands in between for our Shadow Moon, and we are lucky to have found Ricky,' they said. 'Fans of the novel will find he has every bit of the heart of the character they fell in love with.' Talented: Ricky also proved he could dance when he made it through to the 2009 final of Strictly Come Dancing. He placed second in the series despite bagging the highest judges scores Taking to Twitter as the news was announced, Ricky posted: 'I am truly humbled & honored to be Shadow Moon in @AmericanGodsSTZ. Thank u @neilhimself @BryanFuller @andmichaelgreen @FMNATV #AmericanGods' The pilot for American Gods will be directed by Twilight's David Slade, who has also been cast to work in other episodes throughout the series. A launch date for the Starz series has not yet been confirmed. Cheryl Fernandez-Versini is no doubt set to thrill her fans with a very sexy bikini selfie. The 32-year-old shared the racy snap on her Instagram account on Thursday after having landed in Barbados the day before for best friend Kimberley Walsh's wedding. Looking incredible and showing off her toned abs, the single singer showed off her red two-piece, captioning the image: 'I could get used to this island life.' Scroll down for video 'I could get used to this island life': Cheryl Fernandez-Versini shows off her toned abs in very sexy red bikini selfie on Instagram on Thursday after touching down in Barbados ahead of Kimberley Walsh's wedding Standing in a very posh bathroom, she covered up a little in a cream lace cover-up as she looked better than ever and while her head was cut off in the snap, loose tendrils of her trademark brunette locks tumbled over her shoulder, allowing her toned frame to be the central focus of the sexy image. While her own marriage may be over, Cheryl did not let her romance woes quash her excitement for the forthcoming wedding of her best pal and former Girls Aloud band mate Kimberley Walsh. The Fight For This Love hitmaker also took to Instagram on Wednesday to share a cute snap as she touched down in Barbados to attend her pal's nuptials, where she will act as a bridesmaid. See more on Cheryl Fernandez-Versini as she shows off her toned abs in a bikini And she's landed! Cheryl Fernandez-Versini did not allow her own romance woes quash her excitement for the forthcoming wedding of her best pal and former band mate Kimberley Walsh Sporting a cobalt blue cut-out shirt and wearing perfectly applied make-up, Cheryl pouted into the camera while raising her eyebrows in mock shock. Rather than mention her pal's wedding, The X Factor judge opted to share her delight at landing in the home of fellow pop star Rihanna, who she lovingly dubbed 'Ri Ri'. In the caption she wrote: 'just touched down in Ri Ri's town #Barbados #dataccentdoe' - clearly enjoying the dialect of the locals she had met since arriving in the Caribbean. And while Cheryl is on holiday, her hectic work schedule never stops at home as she has just launched a stunning new make-up campaign with Maybelline. The pretty star, who was formerly a face of Loreal, looks stunning in the sensational new images for the campaign, in which she pouted saucily into the camera while applying mascara. Cheryl Fernandez-Versini news as she arrives in Barbados for Kimberley Walsh's wedding Sorting out the forms: Earlier in the day, Kimberley and her fiance Justin Scott had the legalities to attend to as they headed to the local government offices to pick up their marriage certificate Elsewhere on the wedding trip, Kimberley and her fiance Justin Scott had the legalities to attend to as they headed to the local government offices to pick up their marriage certificate. The Girls Aloud star was spotted making the most of the sunshine in a pretty strapless maxi dress as she left the office with her partner of 14 years. Kimberley, 34, looked gorgeous in her maxi, already showing off a hint of tan after jetting into Barbados with her family the day before. Selfie queen: Cheryl is well known for her love of a selfie on Instagram Cheryl recently revealed her excitement for the ceremony, telling Hello! magazine: 'Kimberley is just the best friend you could wish for. I'm so excited for the wedding. 'It is a celebration of two people in love that we've all been a part of, and I am so excited to celebrate their love story.' While the exact date is being kept under wraps for now, Kimberley has said she has been planning the big day for months. She has been dating property developer Justin for 14 years, and they welcomed their first child into the world in late 2014. Her former bandmates Cheryl and Nicola Roberts will act as bridesmaids on the day, while Sarah Harding and Nadine Coyle are reported to have been left off the guestlist. She is hardly known as the shy and retiring type. Yet Rita Ora proved she still has the power to shock her fans as she put on an extremely raunchy display in a sexy new shoot for Lui magazine - shot by controversial photographer Terry Richardson. The 25-year-old pop star showed off her sensational curves in the racy new snap, which saw her open a raglan shirt to reveal her super-ample assets. Scroll down for video Oops! Rita Ora proved she still has the power to shock her fans as she put on an extremely raunchy display in a sexy new shoot for Lui magazine - shot by controversial photographer Terry Richardson Rita will no doubt catch the eye of her admirers with the sexy new snap, in which she had no qualms about baring all. Pulling her shirt apart with aplomb, the Hot Right Now hitmaker exposed her incredible curves comprising of a super flat stomach and her pert bust. The singer's modesty was spared by two black stars superimposed over her nipples - yet very little else was concealed. The black stars complemented the barely there PVC skirt she was rocking - almost belt-like in its scanty quality. See more of the latest on Rita Ora as she goes topless for a very raunchy shoot Red coat: The 25-year-old pop starlet made a bold statement in a floor-sweeping red coat topping off a trendy all black look, as she joined supermodel Bella Hadid to return to the capital Her bouncy blonde locks were worn in a chic blow-dry - affording the look a sexy retro feel yet failing to detract from her incredible curves. She wore her trademark slick of red lipstick with lashings of black eye make-up with the overall effect being sex kitten-esque. Her only jewellery in the shoot was a floating pendant baring her initial and Rita was no doubt aware the placement of the necklace would further draw attention to her bare chest. Rita later posted the image on her Instagram page while adding the caption: '"FREEDOM" Being ME without permission.' Red Hot Right Now: Rita ensured she brought a slice of her sensational sartorial prowess back to London as she touched down at King's Cross station on Tuesday after her jaunt to the French city Her bare-chested look was in stark contrast to the wholly more reserved look she was rocking at King's Cross St Pancras station on Tuesday after returning from Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week. The pop starlet made a bold statement in a floor-sweeping red coat topping off a trendy all black look, as she joined supermodel Bella Hadid to return to the capital. She ensured all eyes were on her in the bold coat, which added a splash of colour to the otherwise drab ensemble. Although plain in design, the cut and style of the garment ensured Rita's figure was accentuated from all angles - with a double-breasted detail highlighting her trim waist. Many superstar selfies act to flaunt a new outfit or hairdo - yet a host of celebrities have opted to pull a pout for a good cause. Cara Delevingne has led a number of stars in becoming loose-handed with their lipstick to help support the #SmearForSmear campaign as part of Cervical Cancer Prevention Week over the last seven days. The 23-year-old supermodel was joined by Kara Tointon, Lacey Turner and Erin O'Connor in getting snap happy for charity, while also toying with their usually perfect make-up. Scroll down for video Lippy lady: Cara Delevingne has led a number of stars in becoming loose-handed with their lipstick to help support the #SmearForSmear campaign as part of Cervical Cancer Prevention Week over the last seven days Cara was the most enthusiastic in her lipstick application as she covered her entire lips in a deep pink shade before extending the shade along her entire face. She then drew a fine line beneath her eyes and along her nose before topping off the playful look with a heart illustrated on her head. Despite the dramatic nature of her lipstick application, Cara went make-up free underneath - a nod to her usual off-duty, laid-back look. In a bid to help the campaign reach a wider audience, the British beauty nominated Kendall Jenner and her sister Poppy to take part. See Cara Delevingne updates as throws support behind the #SmearForSmear campaign Pulling a pout: Lacey [pictured] went for Cara's simple yet effective look - minimal make-up and a beanie hat allowed her smudged lipstick to become the focal point of the look Superstars support: The 23-year-old supermodel was joined by Kara Tointon [pictured], Lacey Turner and Erin O'Connor in getting snap happy for charity, while also toying with their usually perfect make-up Kara meanwhile opted for a wholly more vampish selfie as she took the snap from below while rocking a blood-red shade with just a subtle smudge extending along the right-hand corner of her lip. Lacey went for Cara's simple yet effective look - minimal make-up and a beanie hat allowed her smudged lipstick to become the focal point of the look. Supermodel Erin O'Connor was barely recognisable in her snap, as her alabaster skin beamed through with a shock of crimson lipstick standing out. Her trademark raven tresses were just visible although her jet black eyebrows made the look even more stand out. Lady in red: Supermodel Erin O'Connor was barely recognisable in her snap, as her alabaster skin beamed through with a shock of crimson lipstick standing out EastEnders star Patsy Palmer opted to break against the mould and use a nude hued lipstick while not smudging the application at all - seemingly missing the point of the campaign but still showing support. Former TOWIE star Lauren Pope made quite a dramatic statement in her sultry image - where she pulled down one side of her lip to provide a smudged look. Made In Chelsea star Rosie Fortescue also joined in the fun with a deep red shade smeared across her face. And pout! EastEnders star Patsy Palmer opted to break against the mould and use a nude hued lipstick while not smudging the application at all - seemingly missing the point of the campaign but still showing support Red lady: Former TOWIE star Lauren Pope made quite a dramatic statement in her sultry image - where she pulled down one side of her lip to provide a smudged look The campaign is the second run by Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust, after the inaugural drive kicked off on in January, and aims to raise awareness about the disease among young women. Jo's Cervical Cancer trust, which is the largest cervical cancer charity in the UK, has launched the campaign following reports that the number of young women diagnosed with cervical cancer has soared in the last decade. New figures reveal more than one million failed to attend smear tests last year. Over the last 10 years, cases of the disease in women aged 25 to 29 have soared by 59.2 per cent. She has been suspended before for taking aim at hip hop stars' sexuality but that did not stop her from going after one of the biggest rappers in the world... or his wife. Wendy Williams jumped into Wiz Kahlifa and Amber Rose's corner in their battle against Kanye West on Thursday. The controversial 51-year-old host initially seemed to be criticizing the rapper for his comments about Amber's stripper past and her not yet three-year-old son but quickly turned it into attack on the Yeezus star and his wife Kim Kardashian. Scroll down for video On the attack: Wendy Williams jumped into Wiz Kahlifa and Amber Rose's corner in their battle against Kanye West on Thursday Changing targets: The controversial 51-year-old host initially seemed to be criticizing the rapper for his comments about Amber's stripper past but quickly turned it into attack on the Yeezus star and his wife Kim As part of her Hot Topics segment, the host brought up Kanye's comment that Wiz 'let a stripper trap' him but while defending Amber from so-called 's**t shaming', she did the same to Kim. Wendy told her audience: 'The idea he's talking about Amber being a stripper, you're not saying about anything she hasn't admitted herself. See Kim Kardashian updates as Wendy Williams takes aim at the her sex tape past 'As a matter of fact, Kanye, you're the one who gave this stripper her come-up. [As Amber and Kanye dated]. 'And, by the way, we recall meeting your wife on her back.' Tit for tat: As part of her Hot Topics segment, the host brought up Kanye's comment that Wiz 'let a stripper trap' him but while defending Amber from so-called 's**t shaming', she did the same to Kim Wild, wild West: This all started after Kanye (seen here earlier this month) unleashed a tirade at Wiz (pictured with Amber in 2014) on Twitter on Wednesday The talk show host was, of course, talking about Kim's sex tape with Ray J which was released in 2007 and put Kim in the pop cultural map. But Wendy was not done there, inferring that Kanye is gay as Amber slammed in him in a rather crude comment referring to a sex act. Amber wrote in Twitter during the epic social media battle: 'Are you mad I'm not around to play in ur a**hole?' Very revealing: Wendy was not done there, inferring that Kanye is gay as Amber slammed in him in a rather crude comment referring to a sex act Claims marriage is fake: The host said to Kim, 'I'm embarrassed for Kim Kardashian. I'm not even going to call you West because clearly that is not a real marriage' Wendy, who was previously suspended from her radio job for creating a list of rappers she thought were gay, said Kim should be embarrassed. As her audience screamed and laughed, she said: 'I was telling you I was wasn't feeling so well this morning. I wasn't going to come to work but I realized this whole story had to be told as I'm the OG [original gangster] in this whole booty war. 'I'm not going to say anything about Kanye, what people do behind closed doors is their own business. Would not let up: Despite saying she would not talk about it, Wendy continued to insinuate that Kim and Kanye's relationship was fraudulent and questioned his sexuality '[But] I'm embarrassed for Kim Kardashian. I'm not even going to call you West because clearly that is not a real marriage. 'Any time a man is fighting with another man and bringing up his ex, like why is Kanye still talking about Amber, what kind of respect, or lack there of, does he have about his new son, Saint, and his daughter?' Despite saying she would not talk about it, Wendy continued to insinuate that Kim and Kanye's relationship was fraudulent and questioned his sexuality. Have some respect: The star said the rapper needed to think of his family, 'Any time a man is fighting with another man and bringing up his ex... what kind of respect, or lack there of, does he have' 'I'm embarrassed for Kim but, Kim, I think you're more into the image of what it looks like to be married to what you think is a man than anything else. I'm embarrassed for you. This is shameful. That's number one. 'And, number two, oh, gosh, you know what I'm exhausted by? I'm exhausted because anybody who knows me from radio knows since 1990 I have been talking to you all about what goes on allegedly behind some men's [doors] and I have been suspended without pay, I've been left for dead on the turnpike, you all have thrown tomatoes at me. 'This is nothing but the same broken record that Wendy has been talking about since forever. No judgment, just saying.' 'It shows what type of person he is! Wendy's comments come as Amber (pictured last year with Sebastian) fired back again at ex Kanye on the Allegedly podcast Making it clear: Amber Rose said about the rapper (seen here Wednesday), 'Listen don't talk about my kid, that's all I got to say, don't talk about my baby. I wouldn't have said anything if it was just between him and Wiz' Wendy's comments come as Amber also responded to her ex-boyfriend Kanye's comments about her and her son, whom Kanye even said he 'owned'. On Wednesday, the 32-year-old pre-recorded an interview with Allegedly podcast - a preview of which was obtained by TMZ - and said:'I would never talk about kids in an argument, it just shows what type of person he is. 'Even him saying things about my son I still didn't say anything about his kids, they are innocent babies, you don't talk about a baby, ever, ever. That just shows how f**king ridiculous he is. Not shocked: The 32-year-old (pictured earlier this month) said she was not shocked her ex thought it was alright to drag her child into a twitter fight as 'he is a f**king clown' Taking the high road: The model said she would never speak about his children with Kim Kardashian, North (pictured November) and Saint Never forget: The star (seen here last month) said children should never be used as targets, 'they are innocent babies, you don't talk about a baby, ever, ever' 'The crazy thing is he came out with a song last week saying I had my son for a meal ticket and I didn't even say anything, I was just like ''he's a corn ball and I'm not saying s**t.'' 'Listen don't talk about my kid, that's all I got to say, don't talk about my baby. I wouldn't have said anything if it was just between him and Wiz, that's two grown men hashing it out. 'Hashing it out that's their business, I would have kept it cute and minded my own business but don't bring in my baby, that's so corny.' 'F**k Kanye!': Wiz did his best to stay calm and play nice on social media as his fellow rapper ranted on and on but he made sure to name check Kanye when he stepped out on stage in Argentina Asked if she was surprised Kanye decided to take his fight with Wiz to such a personal level and spoke about her son - who turns three next month - Amber responded: 'No because I know him, I know he is a f**king clown, I know him.' And she certainly does because, as Amber reminded Kanye, they dated from 2008 till 2010. 'He gets on the internet today and says ''a stripper trapped you Wiz'' but like you took me around the world, we dated for like two years but you're talking s**t about Wiz and my baby.' Reminder: Amber pointed out that while Kanye attacked her and her estranged husband Wiz saying a he had been trapped by a stripper, Amber and the now Mr Kim Kardashian dated for two years (pictured in 2009) As she did this her estranged husband Wiz made sure to name check Kanye when he stepped out on stage in Argentina. Wiz kicked off his song Taylor Gang by saying: 'You just wanna write s**t up? You just wanna talk s**t on the internet, huh?' Then in half way through the track, as captured in a video by fan Nahu Marin, the 28-year-old yells: 'F**k Kanye!' The feud began when Kanye announced he changed the name of his upcoming album to Waves, which Wiz took umbrage to as he felt it disrespected the legacy of rapper Max B, who was the founder of the Wave sound. He is currently serving 75 years in prison for a deadly armed robbery. Epic: The 38-year-old rapper went on an epic Twitter rant as he took aim at Amber, Wiz's child, his rapping style but not his skinny jeans Wave and Wavy in Max B's world means influential or cool leading many to believe Kanye lifted the name on purpose - including Wiz. While Kanye let Wiz's thoughts on the title initially slide after the See You again rapper tweeted something with 'KK,' in it, Kanye thought he was talking about Kim Kardashian and unleashed - despite it actually being a reference to marijuana. In true Kanye style, he came up with 17 reasons why Wiz needs to know his place, including insulting Amber; claiming to own their son Sebastian as well as accusing him of stealing his style from rapper and Kanye protege Kid Cudi. Regret? After the string of tweets, Kanye posted much more positive messages and said he was sad about what had occurred Clarification: Kanye did admit that everything involving 'KK' was a misunderstanding and that it was actually a reference to marijuana Kanye did however, praise Wiz for his ability to rock skinny jeans whilst claiming to have blazed the fashion path for the slender rapper to do so. Kanye's epic rant aimed at Wiz including strong words like: 'You let a stripper trap you.' 'I know you mad every time you look at your child that this girl got you for 18 years [making reference to his big hit Gold Digger]. 'You wouldnt have a child if it wasnt for me. Your own Waves? I own your child!' Low blow: Kanye wrote 'you own waves ??? I own your child !!!' about the couple's little boy, who is three next month (seen here last month) But he threw in a few compliments too in the bizarre outburst, saying: 'I think you dress cool I wish I was skinny and tall... Maybe I couldnt be skinny and tall but Ill settle for being the greatest artist of all time as a consolation.' But then Kanye took the credit, noting: 'I am your OG and I will be respected as such. I made it so we could wear tight jeans.' It seemed as if Kanye finally got the message as he deleted the string of tweets because it was all about 'positive energy.' Interesting initials: Wiz mentioned 'kk' and it seemed to set Kanye off as he thought it was a reference to his wife Kim Kardashian Explanation: Wiz did not respond very much during Kanye's epic rant but he did explain what 'kk' meant Meanwhile the man over whom the entire argument started - Max B - wasn't taking any sides. His Twitter account posted on on Thursday: 'Im truly flattered by all the emulations. Thnks for the love&support. Lets stay positive.' He finished it with a link to the petition to see him freed from prison. Something mad's happened! the landlord of the Queen Vic confessed to his missus during a double bill of EastEnders. So no change there then, viewers thought. This was Walford after all. Something mad was hardly news. It was standard. Scroll down for video Straight out of The Exorcist: Phil Mitchell was slowly drinking himself to death, vomiting blood everywhere on Thursday's installment of EastEnders In fact it was business as usual despite the extra episode. Phil Mitchell was slowly drinking himself to death or quickly. Ben was torn between plain old Abi Branning and the beatific Paul Coker - which wasnt much contest really, whatever your sexuality. And the latest in the seemingly endless stream of murderers from Albert Square turned himself into the Old Bill. This was Ryan, yet another long-lost relative/estranged dad/killer on the run who had chipped up to say hello, despite not having been mentioned for years. Ryan was Whitneys half-brother and the father of Staceys daughter Lily. Ryan only arrived on Friday and had a busy week: threatening to abduct Lily (a rite of passage traditional for all children in this show); stealing five grand from the Carters safe; and - having spent several years on the run for drowning his sisters pimp - suddenly deciding to do the right thing and hand himself in. Most importantly, all this allowed Whitney to seize the chance to snog her boyfriends father. This sounds shocking but then again it was Danny Dyer. Whats a girl to do? This has spun my nut! the head of the Carter clan fumbled as he confessed to his missus 'L'. Youd think he would be used to it. Whitneys lunge had come after he had talked her bruvver Ryan into all manner of life-changing decisions: stopping his threats to take Lily from the (admittedly hapless) clutches of Martin Fowler while Stacey was in ospital; returning the five bags (five grand) that Ryan had nicked from the pubs safe; and making the familiar walk across that little courtyard to Walford nick. Do the right thing. Then you can be a proper dad to Lily. Sneaky smooch: Whitney Dean and Mick Carter shared an illicit kiss in a car Can't resist: Whitney had no reservations about kissing her boyfriend's father... but then again it was Danny Dyer. Whats a girl to do? Not a bad nights work. Think of Danny Dyer as a cross between Inspector Morse, Gandhi, and the East Ends most diamond geezer. No wonder Whitney fancied him more than ever. Do you think its possible to love two people at the same time? she asked in his car thinking (briefly) about her boyfriend Lee and lunging in for a kiss that frankly he didnt resist very hard. To her credit, but our disappointment, his missus Linda Carter took it very well and didnt scratch Whitneys eyes out as Nancy had. Instead she took her out to lunch at Beales. Thatll teach her. Try my chips! L told Whit. Try my drink. You had enough? Or do you want my husband and all? Gulp. I was upset about Ryan, Whitney explained, apologetically. And he was so nice to me. I felt like I could open up. Lets not go there Confused: Do you think its possible to love two people at the same time? she asked in his car Do you want to hear a story about Lee? Linda asked. Not really She recalled the time her son realized his dad had forgotten Mothers Day. Lee had collected all his pocket money (every penny he had in the weld), gone to the corner shop, and bought L an Easter Egg. You know Beatrix Potter? With all these rabbits and daffodils on the front. He said he didnt have enough for flowers, so he bought me something with flowers on the box. So sweet...Never mind that he was 19 at the time. Its the thought that counts. That lovely little boy had grown up to join the army, kill people in Afghanistan, and become an alcoholic with violent tendencies. Hes just a bit lost. Help him be the best man he can be, Linda urged Whitney. And stay away from my usband. Well see. There was more marital love and happiness at the Cokers, although to be honest the sight of Les and Paaaaaaaam in a state of post-coital bliss was not so much romantic as disturbing. Its a long time since we did that ! drooled Les as they sneaked downstairs in a state of undress. In denial: I think Im bi-sexual', sexually confused Ben Mitchell declared They had been encouraging their grandsons decision to declare his love for Ben Mitchell. Hes warm and funny and kind! Paul had swooned. Presumably this must have been another Ben Mitchell. The odds of knowing two Ben Mitchells were high but he cant have been talking about the one we have been seeing for years. Warm, funny, and kind are not words even his own muvver would use to describe him. Phils son was the opposite of those. Jay had caught Paul kissing Ben in the salon as it were and made him prepare a speech telling Abi the truth. I think Im bi-sexual, Ben stuttered. No youve tried that. Youve got to be straight, Jay advised, even though this was what Ben had been trying for years. In the past, news of Ben coming out might have tipped Phil over the brink. Nowadays, his sons homosexuality was the least of Phils problems. All he cared about was running out of Smirnoff. Phils drinking had become so bad he had taken to watching daytime TV. Horrifying. After some ill-advised encouragement from Ronnie, he staggered along to Billy and Honeys engagement party at The Vic although when he saw the state of him, Billy wasnt that pleased. I just wanted everything to be perfect, he lamented. By this presumably he meant his cousin not drunkenly interrupting his bride-to-bes speech, forcing her into dancing with him, and then puking blood over her like the East Ends answer to The Exorcist. Understatement of the century: If he carries on drinking, hell be dead before the end of the year', the doctor warned Phil's family The various members of the Mitchell gathered at the hospital to learn what we all knew weeks ago. (They obviously dont watch the soaps.) Yes, Phils liver was knackered, to coin a Walford medical term. They were amazed and appalled to hear that both Phil had told Sharon everything weeks ago. What, and you did nuffink?! Ben raged charmlessly, as he does all his lines. After everything hes put me through, I was past caring! Sharon simpered, as if this made it acceptable. He simply must stop drinking, the doctor told them which was certainly a plan. Hell be alright though wont be? asked Ben, intelligently ignoring the fact that Phil has rarely, if ever, been alright. The best-case scenario? Hes got maybe twelve months, the doc elaborated gravely. If he carries on drinking, hell be dead before the end of the year. So, eleven months He needs a transplant urgently, he concluded. Admittedly this was bad news for Phil, but good news for us. Ross Kemp was surely watching and must now be on stand-by. #GetGrantBack Ferguson reaches deal with US to reform police, courts The city of Ferguson said Wednesday it has reached a deal with the US Justice Department to reform its police department and courts in the wake of the police shooting of unarmed black teen Michael Brown. Brown's 2014 death sparked weeks of sometimes violent protests and ignited a national debate about race relations and law enforcement in the United States. Ferguson was required to implement reforms after federal investigators found a widespread pattern of racial discrimination and multiple violations of citizens' constitutional rights in the St. Louis, Missouri suburb. Police stand guard as protesters march in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, 2015 Michael B. Thomas (AFP/File) Police officers in the town of 21,000 regularly pulled over motorists without reasonable suspicion, carried out arrests without probable cause and used excessive force. While African Americans make up two-thirds of Ferguson's overall population, they accounted for 93 percent of arrests in 2012 through 2014. African Americans also accounted for 85 percent of people stopped by Ferguson police, 90 percent of citations issued and 88 percent of instances in which force was used. Ferguson's local judicial system also came under a harsh light, with the report finding that African Americans were 68 percent less likely than others to have their cases dismissed by a municipal judge. And the town itself was accused by Attorney General Eric Holder of using law enforcement as a means to boost revenues, rather than ensure public order. The city "has made some positive changes to its law enforcement practices," since the scathing report was released in March, the Justice Department said in a letter to Ferguson's city council. The reforms laid out in a 131-page consent decree will "ensure that the City's stated commitment to refocusing police and municipal court practices on public safety, rather than revenue generation, takes root and will not be undone," it added. Arrested Oregon protest leader tells holdouts to go home The leader of an anti-government siege at a US wildlife refuge until his arrest in an operation that left one protester dead urged the remaining armed occupiers to go home. Eight people including Ammon Bundy were arrested and one of his group shot dead late Tuesday following a three-week standoff in the northwestern US state involving ranchers angry over federal land management policies. Speaking through his attorney, Bundy on Wednesday appealed to the handful of armed supporters still holed up in the remote area. Eight people including Ammon Bundy (C) were taken into custody and one of his group killed in a dramatic twist to the tense three-week standoff in Oregon Rob Kerr (AFP/File) "To those remaining at the refuge, I love you. Let us take this fight from here," read a statement issued via Bundy's attorney Michael Arnold. "Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is ours for now in the courts." Bundy paid tribute to the dead supporter as his "beloved friend" Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, an Arizona rancher who became de facto spokesman for the motley protest movement. "LaVoy is one of the greatest men and greatest patriots I have ever seen," Bundy said. "I mourn for him and his family. "Right now I am asking the federal government to allow the people at the refuge to go home without being prosecuted." Authorities have blocked the access road leading into the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and the occupiers are free to leave, but will be identified as they do so, Greg Bretzing, head of the FBI's Portland office, said. "We will continue to look for safe, peaceful procedures on how to bring this to a peaceful conclusion," he added. Last week, some 30 people, including women and children, were at the site, but it was unclear how many remain. - 'Kill them' - Local authorities and the FBI also called on the remaining occupiers to end the fight. "It's time for everybody in this illegal occupation to move on. There doesn't have to be bloodshed in our community," Harney County Sheriff David Ward told reporters. In a livestream that has been broadcasting from the protest site, an armed man was seen urging supporters to join them and to kill any law enforcement officer who tried to prevent their entry. "There are no laws in this United States now! This is a free-for-all Armageddon!" the man yelled into the camera. "(If) they stop you from getting here, kill them!" Ward held a news conference earlier Wednesday at which he appealed for the protesters to leave, and voiced distress that a police attempt to peacefully resolve the crisis ended in bloodshed. "It didn't have to happen," he said. Ward said some of the protesters came to his office the night before with "ultimatums that I couldn't meet." He did not elaborate. The FBI said it and local authorities then devised a plan to arrest members of the group as they drove on a highway, reportedly headed to a meeting with local people. Police stopped them on the way but one man died of a gunshot wound during the operation, Bretzing said. Five others including Bundy were arrested at the scene. The Oregonian reported that shots were fired when two men -- including Bundy's 43-year-old brother Ryan -- disobeyed orders when agents stopped the two cars they were travelling in and resisted arrest. The FBI and Oregon state police later Tuesday arrested two other men in Burns, the town nearest to the refuge. An eighth person surrendered to police in Arizona, officials said. On Wednesday afternoon three other occupiers surrendered and were arrested as they left the refuge, the FBI said in a statement. - 'Force, intimidation, threats' - The Bundy brothers are the sons of Cliven Bundy, 69, a vitriolic anti-government activist who in 2014 engaged in an armed standoff with federal authorities over unpaid cattle grazing fees at his Nevada ranch. Bundy and the others face a federal felony charge "of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats," the FBI said. The gunmen took over the wildlife refuge on January 2 to protest at the jailing of two local ranchers, Dwight Hammond and his son Steven, who were convicted of arson. Their demands soon grew to include calls for the government to turn over area federal land to local ranchers. In Oregon, nearly 53 percent of the land is federally owned. The Hammonds distanced themselves from the movement and voluntarily began their scheduled prison sentences after the occupation began. Several community members, notably the Oregon Cattlemen's Association, expressed sympathy for the Hammonds but condemned the takeover. In a series of tweets, Oregon Governor Kate Brown acknowledged the trauma to local residents: "Please know I am doing everything in my power to restore normal life to Harney County." Oregon standoff Ammon Bundy paid tribute to the member of his group who was killed, who was not formally identified, as his "beloved friend" Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, pictured Rob Kerr (AFP/File) An AirLife medical transport helicopter lifts-off from St. Charles Medical Center in Bend,Oregon on January 26, 2016 en route to Burns, Oregon Rob Kerr (AFP/File) Gbagbo trial rekindles controversy in Africa over western justice The groundbreaking war crimes trial in The Hague on Thursday of former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo has rekindled a bitter row across Africa over the international justice system. With Gbagbo the first ex-head of state hauled into the dock at the world's only permanent war crimes court, some in Africa are lashing out at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for allegedly pursuing Africans alone. The continent, they argue, instead should have its own court. Former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo pictured before the start of his trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague on January 28, 2016 Peter Dejong (Pool/AFP) "It leaves me a bit puzzled to see former African leaders dragged before the ICC," Babacar Ba, who heads a judicial forum in Senegal, told AFP. "It's as if we Africans are incompetent to decide the law or lack the resources to judge our own people," added Ba. Instead of trying Gbagbo at the ICC, "we could've set up Extraordinary African Chambers as we did for Hissene Habre,", he said, referring to the special court set up in Dakar by the African Union to try the former Chadian leader. Delayed for years, the first phase of the Habre trial for atrocities wrapped up in December, setting a historic precedent as up until then African leaders had been tried in international courts for such abuse. The Habre trial has set a precedent in the struggle to end impunity as it sees a former African head of state forced to account for his actions in another African nation's court under the principle of "universal competence". UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this month said the Habre trial, along with several cases before the ICC, showed "the surge in accountability mechanisms." "The world is witnessing a sea change in ending impunity for atrocious crimes," Ban added in his New Year message. At stake at the Habre trial that opened last year was Africa's "capacity to judge its own children so others don't do it in its stead", said Marcel Mendy, spokesman for the Extraordinary African Chambers. - Row over Sudan's Bashir - But Babacar Ba said it was key for African states to follow Senegal's lead and adopt the principle of "universal competence" to enable them to hold such trials. Set up in 2002 as the last resort to try war criminals and perpetrators of genocide never tried at home, the ICC has opened probes involving eight nations, all of them African: Kenya, Ivory Coast, Libya, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Uganda and Mali. African leaders have accused it of acting as the judicial arm of foreign powers. The creation of the ICC "was strongly backed by Africa", which now considers it "no longer a tribunal for all," said Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhamon Ghebreyesus, speaking on behalf of the African Union in November. The ICC prosecutor, herself an African, Fatou Bensouda of Gambia, disagrees. "All the cases we have, with the exception of Kenya, Sudan and Libya, were initiated on the request of African states," she told AFP in November. But the case of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who has been wanted by the ICC since 2009 for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, repeatedly reignites the row, with the African Union publicly opposing his arrest several times on the grounds of his immunity as head of state. At an AU summit in Johannesburg in June 2015, a South African court ordered the government to arrest him -- but authorities allowed him to make a rapid exit from the country, triggering a domestic row. The legal battle to force the government to arrest Bashir was launched by the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC), a non-profit lawyers' group. "It is important for South Africa and other signatories to the Rome Statute to support the ICC," Angela Mudukuti of the SALC told AFP ahead of Gbagbo's trial. "The ICC is the only permanent international justice mechanism mandated to handle egregious crimes. "Most importantly," she added, "victims need justice. "Suspected perpetrators of these crimes need to understand that the long of arm of the law will catch up with them." Gbagbo's trial, said his lawyer Emmanuel Altit, will be "an important trial for Cote d'Ivoire and for Africa." African leaders pursued by the ICC K.Tian/A.Bommenel, abm/pld (AFP) Former Chadian leader Hissene Habre gestures as he leaves a Dakar courthouse after an identity hearing on June 3, 2015 Seyllou (AFP/File) Serena surges past Radwanska and into 26th Grand Slam final An inspired world number one Serena Williams demolished Polish fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska Thursday to surge into her 26th Grand Slam final and zero in on a seventh Australian Open title. The dominant top seed was untouchable in overpowering the Pole 6-0, 6-4 in just 64 minutes on Rod Laver Arena to set up a decider against German seventh seed Angelique Kerber or unseeded Briton Johanna Konta. Kerber and Konta play later Thursday, with whoever wins facing a huge obstacle to be crowned champion. Of her 25 previous major finals, Williams has won 21. Serena Williams during her Australian Open semi-final match against Agnieszka Radwanska in Melbourne on January 28, 2016 Saeed Khan (AFP) "I'm really excited to be in another final, it kind of blows my mind right now," said Williams, 34. "I feel I am playing the best I can, and I can't believe I am in the final. "I started playing aggressive again in the second set and it worked out." The writing was on the wall for Radwanska -- Williams had never lost a semi-final at Melbourne Park on her way to six titles, and had beaten the Pole in each of their previous eight meetings stretching back to 2008. She crushed long-time rival Maria Sharapova in the quarter-finals and dished out the same treatment to Radwanska, halting her 13-match win streak in emphatic fashion. "I think she started unbelievable, with such a power and speed. I was just standing there kind of watching her playing," said Radwanska, calling the first set the best anyone had ever played against her. "There was just no mistake. Unbelievable serve. Everything, she was going for it. I couldn't do much." The victory puts Williams just one win away from matching Steffi Graf's Open-era Grand Slam record of 22 titles, with Margaret Court's all-time mark of 24 edging closer. - Emphatic finish - In her 16th Australian Open, Williams, who said this week she had no plans to retire any time soon, got on the front foot immediately, and effortlessly. Within a minute of the match starting she had a break point as she hit clean winners and attacked the net. It was the worst possible opening for Radwanska, with Williams, the oldest world number one in WTA history, breaking and then using her huge power advantage to easily hold serve and go 2-0 clear. Radwanska, 26, was in serious trouble with Williams attacking her vulnerable second serve, and a double fault left her flailing 0-3 behind. The American was hitting booming shots to perfection, while Radwanska was struggling to get the ball over the net. Her movement was virtually non-existent and a feeble backhand had the top seed 5-0 ahead after just 17 minutes. Radwanska could do nothing against an opponent playing on a different level, and only won seven points the entire set -- four of them from Williams' unforced errors. Williams won the set in 20 minutes, one of the fastest of the tournament and humiliating for Radwanska, last year's WTA Finals champion and one of the world's top players. Radwanska finally got off the mark in the opening game of the second set when Williams netted a backhand from the baseline, to huge applause from the crowd. But it was only a temporary reprieve, with Williams holding serve and then breaking to march 2-1 clear. The fourth seed finally started finding her range and with some errors leaking into the Williams game, she easily held serve then broke with a forehand error to go level at 3-3. An epic seventh game, including the first deuce of the match, allowed her to hold serve, but an easy Williams hold was followed by another lapse from Radwanska who was broken again. Williams, serving for victory, sent down three booming aces and won it on the first match point, keeping intact her record of not dropping a set all tournament. Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska hits a return against Serena Williams of the US during their women's singles semi-final match on day eleven of the 2016 Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne on January 28, 2016 Peter Parks (AFP) Germany's Angelique Kerber plays a forehand return during her women's singles semi-final match against Britain's Johanna Konta on day eleven of the 2016 Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne on January 28, 2016 Saeed Khan (AFP) Suspected Maoist rebels kill seven in eastern India Suspected Maoist rebels attacked a police convoy in a remote part of eastern India, killing five officers and two civilians, police said Thursday. The attackers set off a powerful landmine blast before opening fire on the convoy, which was on an anti-Maoist operation in the forests of Jharkhand state on Wednesday. "Seven people died in yesterday's landmine blast," police officer Nav Kumar Singh told AFP by phone from Palamu district, 190 kilometres (120 miles) from the state capital Ranchi. Indian Maoists patrol their village in Bijapur district on July 6, 2012, after an encounter between Maoist rebels and security forces in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh Noah Seelam (AFP/File) "Five were police officers, one was the driver and the other a guard." He said another six police were wounded and a search operation was under way. The ambush is the latest in a simmering conflict that pits the insurgents against security forces in remote areas of India. The rebels, who claim to be fighting for the rights of poor tribal minorities and farmers, have waged a decades-long battle across central and eastern Indian states to overthrow government authorities. They draw recruits from tribal communities whose members are often desperately poor and living in underdeveloped areas neglected by successive governments. The Maoist insurgency has claimed more than 12,300 lives between 1999 and 2014, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal website which tracks separatist trends. They are believed to be present in at least 20 Indian states but are most active in forested, resource-rich areas in the states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra. Their insurgency was described by former prime minister Manmohan Singh as the country's most serious internal security threat. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been seeking to stem the insurgency by earmarking development funds for revolt-hit areas and improving policing. Last year, he urged Maoists to put down their guns and take up ploughs, saying "violence has no future". Al-Jazeera says news crew kidnapped in Yemen freed Al-Jazeera said on Thursday that a three-man news crew for the Qatar-based channel has been freed more than 10 days after being kidnapped in the flashpoint Yemeni city of Taez. Reporter Hamdi al-Bokari, cameraman Abdulaziz al-Sabri and driver Munir al-Subaie went missing on January 18 while covering the conflict between rebels and Gulf-backed forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. The pan-Arab news channel said on its website early on Thursday morning that the three had been freed "a short while ago" after having been kidnapped by "unknown gunmen". Yemeni tribesmen from the Popular Resistance Committees, supporting forces loyal to Yemen's Saudi-backed President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, hold a position on the outskirts of Taez, on January 26, 2016 Ahmad al-Basha (AFP/File) In a message posted on his Facebook page, Bokari said he had been held by the Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels, under fire since March from a Saudi-led coalition, of which Qatar is a member. "We heard them repeat 'Death to America'," a slogan the Huthis and Iranian protesters commonly chant, he wrote, adding that he would release more details about the kidnapping in the coming days. The city of Taez is held by loyalists of Yemen's internationally recognised government, but it has been besieged by the Iran-backed rebels for months. The Huthis overran Sanaa more than a year ago, forcing Hadi's government to flee the Yemeni capital. Palestinian seriously wounds Israeli in West Bank stabbing A Palestinian teen stabbed and seriously wounded an Israeli man at a petrol station outside a West Bank settlement before being apprehended, police said Thursday. The 17-year-old Palestinian male from Bir Nabala, a village south of Ramallah, stabbed the ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jew twice in the back near the Givat Zeev settlement on Wednesday night and then fled. Bystanders pursued the stabber, who meanwhile discarded the knife, and subdued him until police arrived at the scene and arrested him, a police statement read. Israeli soldiers stand guard at a checkpoint near the settlement of Beit Horon in the West Bank, a short distance from the Givat Zeev settlement where a Palestinian teen stabbed and seriously wounded an Israeli man Ahmad Gharabli (AFP) Magen David Adom medics evacuated the Israeli to Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem in serious condition, where he was being treated. The Palestinian was taken to Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem with light wounds. Givat Zeev is a short distance from Beit Horon, where on Monday two Palestinians stabbed an Israeli woman to death and wounded another before being shot dead by a security guard. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the army following Monday's attack to submit a "comprehensive plan" to better ensure the security of settlements. A wave of Palestinian knife, gun and car-ramming attacks since October 1 has killed 25 Israelis, as well as an American and an Eritrean, according to an AFP count. Suspected Russian raids kill 54 Syrian civilians: monitor Suspected Russian air strikes killed at least 54 civilians in rebel- and jihadist-held areas of Syria in the past 24 hours, a monitoring group said Thursday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said strikes on Wednesday had killed 29 civilians, including nine women and three children, in villages controlled by the Islamic State group in the eastern Deir Ezzor province and its provincial capital of the same name. The strikes killed another 15 civilians, including five young brothers, in and around the city of Al-Bab, an IS bastion in the northern province of Aleppo, the Observatory said. Russian warplanes have been conducting air strikes against Islamic State jihadists and other groups in Syria since September 30, 2015 Paul Gypteau (AFP/File) Ten more civilians, including seven children, were killed in Russian strikes in Ghanto, a town held by Islamist rebels in the central province of Homs, it said. The Britain-based monitor relies on a network of activists on the ground and says it distinguishes between Syrian, Russian and US-led coalition aircraft based on flight patterns, as well as the type of planes and ordnance used. Russia launched air strikes in Syria in September in support of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, a key ally. The US-led coalition has been carrying out strikes against IS targets in Syria and Iraq since the summer of 2014. Russian backing has helped Assad's forces make significant advances in recent months and the Observatory said Thursday that regime troops had moved to within eight kilometres (five miles) of Al-Bab. It was the closest pro-government forces had been to the city, a key IS stronghold in Aleppo, since 2012, it said. Al-Bab, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of the Turkish border, fell to rebel forces in July 2012 and was taken over by IS in November 2013. Regime forces are seeking to sever IS-held territory in Aleppo province from that held by the group in neighbouring Raqa. The Observatory said last week that Russian strikes in Syria had killed more than 1,000 civilians, including around 200 children, since September. Russia has denounced accusations that its raids have killed large numbers of civilians as "absurd". The Observatory says the US-led strikes have killed 322 civilians, including more than 90 children. Ex-Ivory Coast leader Gbagbo pleads not guilty at ICC Former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo Thursday pleaded "not guilty" to four charges of crimes against humanity as his high-profile trial opened five years after post-election violence wracked his nation. Gbagbo and his co-accused, former militia leader Charles Ble Goude, both denied charges of organising "a common plan" which led to "widespread" murders, rapes, persecution and other "inhumane acts" at the start of their long-awaited trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Israel arrests Palestinian lawmaker from Hamas: army Israel arrested a Palestinian parliamentarian from the Islamist group Hamas, the army said Thursday, raising the number of detained Palestinian lawmakers to seven. Mohammed Abu Tir was taken to custody on suspicion of being "involved in terrorist activities", an army spokeswoman told AFP. He was arrested in an overnight raid in the east Jerusalem village of Kafr Aqeb, just south of the West Bank city Ramallah. Israeli soldiers monitor Palestinian protesters during clashes in the West Bank village of Silwad, north of Ramallah, on April 11, 2014 Thomas Coex (AFP/File) Abu Tir is a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council from east Jerusalem. He was previously held by Israel for a year without charge, eventually being released in 2012. Hamas confirmed on the Twitter account of its armed wing, Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, that Israeli forces "re-kidnap Palestinian Legislative Council member" Abu Tir. Six other members of the 132 member Palestinian Legislative Council are currently detained by Israel, according to the Palestinian human rights organisation Addameer. According to Addameer, three of them are Hamas members, one is from Fatah and two others from the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which Israel considers to be a "terrorist organisation". French carmaker Peugeot returns to Iran with 400-mn-euro deal French carmaker Peugeot will return to Iran in a partnership deal with a local manufacturer worth 400 million euros ($436 million), according to an agreement signed Thursday during Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's visit to France. The deal will see Peugeot work with the manufacturer Iran Khodro, with the first vehicles expected to roll off the production line in 2017. It makes Peugeot the first Western carmaker to announce a return to Iran since sanctions were lifted against the country after it signed a deal to limit its nuclear programme. An Iranian couple passing by a French Peugeot 307, produced by Iranian "Iran Khodro" company, during a 2004 car fair in Tehran Behrouz Mehri (AFP/File) Peugeot and its French partner Citroen will work with Iran Khodro to produce 200,000 vehicles a year using parts manufactured in Iran. The aim is to produce the Peugeot 208, the 2008 sport utility vehicle and 301 compact models. Peugeot pulled out of Iran in 2012 as Western sanctions imposed over the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme began to bite. At the time, Iran was Peugeot's second-largest market after France. Taiwan leader defends disputed island visit after US criticism Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou defended his visit to a disputed island in the South China Sea Thursday despite criticism from the United States and protests from the other claimants as tensions swirl in the region. Taipei insists Taiping Island in the Spratlys is part of its territory, but the chain is also claimed in part or whole by Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. "We have the same general direction as the US and I don't see how my visit will heighten tension. I didn't go there to scold other countries," he told reporters on his return to Taipei Thursday evening, brushing aside rebukes from regional rivals. Taiwan President Ma Ing-jeou (C) holding up a papaya during his Jan 28 visit to Taiping island, located in the disputed Spratly islands in the South China Sea Chen Chen Hsing (Taiwan Presidential Office/AFP) The purpose of the trip was to visit Taiwanese personnel stationed there ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, according to the presidential office, and Ma said the United States had been notified of the trip in advance. "In the South China Sea if any country takes any action, many countries will protest and we will keep monitoring... I really can't see what they are protesting against," he said. In a speech earlier in the day on Taiping, Ma said the islands were "an inherent part of the Republic of China (ROC)", using Taiwan's official title. "This is indisputable," he added. Taiwan has been boosting its presence on the island, inaugurating a solar-powered lighthouse, and expanding an airstrip and a pier late last year. But Washington, which has said it does not want to see an escalation of tensions in the region, said ahead of Ma's trip it was "extremely unhelpful", adding it would "not contribute to the peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea." His visit comes as several other claimants have been beefing up their military presence in the disputed region. Beijing regards almost the whole of the South China Sea as its territory and other claimants have complained it is become increasingly aggressive in pressing its claim. Ma made some effort at sounding reconciliatory on Thursday, calling for the setting aside of disputes and proposing joint exploration of natural resources the area is believed to harbour. "To resolve disputes in the South China Sea, the ROC government will work to safeguard sovereignty, shelve disputes, pursue peace and reciprocity, and promote joint development," he said. - Chorus of protests - Ma faced an onslaught of criticism from other countries who make claim to the islands, including Vietnam. Foreign ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said the visit was a "serious violation of Vietnam's sovereignty, running counter to recent speeches from Taiwan which express wishes to contribute to maintaining peace and stability" in the disputed sea. Le called on Taiwan "not (to) repeat similar acts which escalate tension", with Ma's visit coming weeks after Taiwanese coastguards drove off a Vietnamese fishing boat near Taiping Island. The Philippines expressed similar sentiments, saying Taiwan should resist provoking its neighbours. "We remind all parties concerned of our shared responsibility to refrain from actions that can increase tension in the South China Sea," foreign ministry spokesman Charles Jose said. China, which also regards Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification, gave a measured response to Ma's trip. "The Nansha (Spratly) islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times. The Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait all have the responsibility to safeguard the ancestral property of the Chinese nation," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters. Disputed Spratly Islands Adrian Leung (AFP) Taiwan President Ma Ing-jeou (2nd R) being shown a map during his flight on board a military C-130 transport aircraft to Taiping island Chen Chiejn Hsing (Taiwan Presidential Office/AFP) Women suicide bombers kill four in north Cameroon A pair of women suicide bombers killed four people and left a trail of injury in north Cameroon Thursday, the second such attacks this week in a region targeted by Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamists. Only two attacks in the town of Kerawa were successful and three others were foiled, a member of a local vigilante group said. "There were new suicide attacks this morning in Kerawa," said a regional security source contacted by AFP. "Four civilians were killed. Many others were hurt." Security forces transport with a blanket the remains of some of the eleven victims of a double blast in the northern Cameroonian city of Maroua on July 22, 2015 The member of the vigilante committee set up to ward off such attacks said the assailants were both women and confirmed that six people had died in all, including the bombers. "Five women planned to blow themselves up in Kerawa today but two of them were arrested and the fifth is on the run," the member said, adding that one of the arrested women "is the wife of a Boko Haram chief in the Kerawa region." The security source said the attacks were carefully timed as members of the vigilante group had been called to a nearby town to receive silver medals from the local governor for their role in pre-empting Boko Haram attacks. The attacks took place next to a school sheltering people displaced from their homes by Boko Haram's six-year campaign of terror. The jihadists initially confined their war to Nigeria but last year saw a sharp increase in cross-border attacks in Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Kerawa was the scene of one such assault in September in which 20 people were killed. And on Monday, at least 37 people died in four suicide attacks at a market in Bodo, also in Cameroon's extreme north. Nearly 1,200 people have been killed since 2013 when Boko Haram began attacking Cameroon's Far North region bordering the Islamist group's stronghold in northeastern Nigeria, according to government spokesman, Communications Minister Issa Chiroma Bakary. - 'Barbaric attacks' - "In total, 1,098 civilians, 67 of our soldiers and three police officials have been killed in these barbaric attacks by the Boko Haram terrorist group," he said earlier this month. In that time, officials say there have been more than 30 suicide attacks blamed on Boko Haram, which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group. In recent years, Boko Haram fighters had slipped back and forth across the frontier, often using Cameroon's remote north as a rear base, acquiring arms, vehicles and supplies there. But since late November, the Cameroon army has carried out operations in several border areas aimed at weakening Nigerian jihadists active in the region, with sources saying the raids have significantly weakened Boko Haram's capabilities. As a result, the insurgents turned away from direct confrontation with the military in favour of suicide attacks, increasingly staged by women and girls. The Nigeria-based jihadists have killed at least 17,000 people and made more than 2.6 million others homeless since their six-year campaign began. Cameroon has meanwhile banned the Islamic veil in a bid to pre-empt suicide bombings staged by attackers wearing the full-face veil. Along with Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Benin, Cameroon is part of a regional military force fighting the jihadists. Despite the offensives launched by the regional force, the group maintains strongholds in areas that are difficult to access, such as the Sambisa forest, the Mandara mountains and the numerous islands of Lake Chad. Cameroon security forces speak with locals after a twin suicide attack in the extreme north village of Kolofata on September 13, 2015 - (AFP/File) IS claims deadly attack on Egyptian soldiers in Sinai An Egyptian affiliate of the jihadist Islamic State group claimed responsibility Thursday for an attack that killed a colonel and three soldiers in North Sinai, where it is spearheading a deadly insurgency. Wednesday's bombing in North Sinai's provincial capital of El-Arish targeted the troops' armoured vehicle when it was engaged in a search operation, security officials and emergency services said. Another 12 soldiers were wounded in the blast. Jihadists in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers In a statement posted on jihadist forums, IS affiliate the Sinai Province said its members used explosive devices to target the army west of El-Arish. Jihadists have regularly attacked security forces in the peninsula since the army toppled Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. They say their attacks are in retaliation for a government crackdown targeting Morsi supporters that has left hundreds dead and thousands imprisoned. The authorities say hundreds of policemen and soldiers have been killed in attacks, mainly in North Sinai, since 2013, although there have also been attacks in the Nile Delta and in Cairo. Yemen blast 'kills eight' near presidential palace in Aden A suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group killed at least eight people Thursday outside Yemen's presidential palace in the city of Aden, security and medical officials said. IS said that one of its militants, apparently a Dutch national, carried out the attack on a checkpoint outside the palace in the main city of southern Yemen. Both soldiers and civilians were among those killed, while at least 17 others were wounded, a medical source said. People gather at the site of a suicide car bombing outside Yemen's presidential palace in the city of Aden, on January 28, 2016 Saleh al-Obeidi (AFP) A security source said the attack appeared to target the convoy of a local businessman who was entering the presidential complex. Sources had initially said the convoy was carrying Aden's governor, Aidarus al-Zubaidi, but he later told AFP he was not in the area at the time of the attack. Zubaidi survived a car bombing earlier this month, after being appointed in December following the murder of his predecessor, Jaafar Saad, in an Aden bombing claimed by IS. Witnesses said the blast damaged at least six vehicles and a nearby mosque. In statement posted on Twitter, IS said "martyrdom-seeker Abu Hanifa al-Hollandi... detonated his explosives-laden vehicle at the presidential palace". The name used for the assailant implied he was from the Netherlands. President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi was in the palace at the time of the attack but unharmed, a government official said. Military vehicles from the Saudi-led coalition which supports Hadi's government were deployed around the complex after the attack, security sources said. Aden has become the temporary headquarters of Hadi's government as it battles to retake large parts of Yemen from Shiite Huthi rebels. The port city has also seen a growing jihadist presence, with Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, long active in Yemen, and IS apparently vying for influence. Hadi fled to Aden after escaping house arrest in the capital Sanaa, which was overran by the Huthis in September 2014. But he also had to flee the southern port city in March to Riyadh when the rebels advanced on the south, prompting Saudi Arabia to intervene with air strikes. Huge gas reserves found off Senegal Senegal on Thursday hailed the discovery of offshore gas reserves estimated at 450 billion cubic metres as a game changer for the west African nation. US firm Kosmos said its Guembeul-1 exploration well, located in the northern part of the Saint Louis Offshore Profond license area in Senegal, had made a "significant gas discovery." The company said it was a "world class gas resource that extends into both Senegal and Mauritania." US firm Kosmos said its Guembeul-1 exploration well, located in the northern part of the Saint Louis Offshore Profond license area in Senegal, had made a "significant gas discovery" Martin Bureau (AFP/File) "This is the best news possible for our country," said Energy Minister Thierno Alas sane Sall on state television. He said this would allow Senegal "to be self-sufficient in energy and also export gas to the rest of the world." Dallas-based Kosmos Energy has since 2014 had exploration rights off Senegal. The government said it was "the biggest gas reserve in west Africa" in an offshore area shared between Senegal and Mauritania. Kosmos said it had signed agreements with the national oil companies of Senegal and Mauritania to jointly develop the offshore field. Zika: Puerto Rico the latest to warn against getting pregnant The US territory of Puerto Rico joined several Latin American countries in recommending Thursday that women avoid getting pregnant for now to protect against the fast-spreading Zika virus. The virus -- which is "spreading explosively" in the Americas, according to the World Health Organization -- has been blamed for a surge in the number of babies born with abnormally small heads, a condition known as microcephaly. So far, 19 cases of the mosquito-borne virus have been reported in this US territory in the Caribbean, but none in pregnant women. So far, 19 cases of the mosquito-borne virus Zika have been reported in Puerto Rico, but none in pregnant women Al Bello (Getty/Getty Images/AFP/File) In a radio interview, Health Minister Ana Rius recommended that women on the island avoid getting pregnant until more is known about the virus and its effects on children born to infected women. "It is just a recommendation. It is up to the individual to accept it or not," Rius said. Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador and Jamaica have warned women to avoid getting pregnant for the time being. Microcephaly can cause brain damage in babies or even death. Israeli attacker 'inspired by IS': officials An Arab Israeli who killed three people in a January 1 shooting spree in Tel Aviv may have been inspired by the Islamic State jihadist group, the internal security agency said Thursday. Shin Bet released a video and information shedding light for the first time on the motives of Nashaat Melhem, 31, who was shot dead during his arrest after a week on the run. He had previously been described by Israeli authorities only as a "terrorist". People gather at the site where Israeli special forces shot an Arab Israeli, who was wanted for the murder of three people in a Tel Aviv shooting spree, in the northern Arab Israeli city of Arara, on January 8, 2016 Jack Guez (AFP/File) Before fleeing Tel Aviv, Melhem hung a banner on a rooftop on which he wrote "Daesh," the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State (IS), and another marked "There is no god but God and Mohammed is the messenger of God", the Shin Bet told AFP. It was the first time the agency has explicitly suggested a direct potential link between IS and a specific attack in Israel. In videos shot by Melhem himself, he swears and curses broadly at a range of targets, apparently under the influence of drugs and alcohol. "The language used is similar to that used by the Islamic State and Salafi jihadists," Shin Bet said in a statement. Melhem used a semi-automatic weapon to kill two Israelis and wound seven others seated at a Tel Aviv bar and neighbouring cafe. He then killed an Arab Israeli taxi-driver as he fled, fearing he would have exposed him. He was shot on January 8 after a week in hiding in his village of Arara, north of Tel Aviv, after opening fire at police who had attempted to arrest him. In the videos, which were found on a phone he lost on the day of the attack, Melhem films himself in what appears to be his village and home at unspecified times before the attack. In the first video, he strolls through the streets wearing glasses and a hoodie drinking beer and talking about smoking hashish. In a later video talking to the camera, he calls on Christians to convert to Islam, while attacking Jews and Shiite Muslims. Israel has so far largely avoided IS-inspired attacks, though around 50 of its citizens have travelled to Syria to fight with Sunni rebels, according to Israeli estimates. Several Arab Israelis have been arrested on suspicion of links with IS and plans to carry out attacks inspired by the Sunni extremist group. The security services have faced criticism over accusations they missed an opportunity to catch Melhem earlier after dismissing evidence. Three men, including two members of Melhem's family, have been charged with helping him to escape, the Shin Bet said. Mexico deports US 'affluenza' teen Mexican authorities on Thursday deported a US teenager known for using an "affluenza" defense in a fatal Texas drunk-driving accident, a month after the fugitive was caught in a resort. The National Migration Institute released a video showing agents escorting a bearded Ethan Couch, 18, into a plane flying from Mexico City to Dallas, Texas, after he dropped an appeal against his deportation. Couch, who had spent 28 days in a detention facility, will be met by US authorities in Dallas "because he faces several charges," the institute said in a statement. View of the police van carrying American Ethan Couch while heading to the Mexican migration office in Guadalajara City on December 30, 2015 Hector Guerrero (AFP/File) Couch and his mother, Tonya, were detained by Mexican authorities in the Pacific resort of Puerto Vallarta on December 28 following an international manhunt. The young man had disappeared late last year after missing a mandatory meeting with his probation officer. Couch apparently vanished after the emergence of a video showing him at a party taking part in a drinking game, which violated the terms of his probation. Tonya Couch was deported from Mexico on December 31 and was promptly arrested by US authorities to face charges of hindering his apprehension. Her son had lodged an appeal that could have delayed his deportation for months, but he dropped it on January 15. In 2013, the teen crashed his pickup into a group of pedestrians in Texas and another vehicle, leaving four dead and several seriously injured. Couch, who was 16 at the time, had a blood-alcohol level nearly three times the legal limit for an adult. The son of millionaire parents made headlines during his trial when a psychologist testifying on his behalf claimed he suffered from "affluenza." The term, coined from affluence and influenza, implied that financial privilege made him unable to understand the consequences of his actions. N.Korea apparently preparing 'some kind of launch': US official North Korea appears to be readying for some kind of a rocket launch, a US defense official said Thursday, though it did not appear to be a ballistic missile. The official's comments came after Japanese media reported that satellite imagery showed Pyongyang seemed to be preparing a long-range ballistic missile launch from the Dongchang-ri site in North Korea's west. "The indications are that they are preparing for some kind of launch," the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. This image taken from TV footage released on January 8, 2016 from North Korea's KCTV via AFPTV shows a missile being launched vertically from underwater and igniting in mid air KCTV (KCTV/AFP/File) "Could be for a satellite or a space vehicle -- there are a lot of guesses. North Korea does this periodically, they move things back and forth... There's nothing to indicate it's ballistic-missile related." Citing an anonymous government source, Kyodo News in Japan said the satellite imagery had been collected over the past several days. The United States regularly monitors North Korea from space, while Japan began its own satellite monitoring of the country in 2003. North Korea is banned under UN Security Council resolutions from carrying out any launch using ballistic missile technology, although repeated small-range missile tests have gone unpunished. The development parallels events in December 2012, when Pyongyang put a satellite into orbit with its Unha-3 carrier. US monitoring Iraq's largest dam for signs of collapse The United States is monitoring Iraq's largest dam for signs of further deterioration that could point to an impending catastrophic collapse, US army officers said on Thursday. The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group seized the Mosul Dam briefly in 2014, leading to a lapse in maintenance that weakened an already flawed structure, and Baghdad is seeking a company to make repairs. "The likelihood of the dam collapsing is something we are trying to determine right now," Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland, the commander of the US-led operation against IS, told journalists in Baghdad. A general view shows the Mosul Dam on the Tigris River Ahmad al-Rubaye (AFP/File) The dam has long been in danger of collapse, which US officials have warned could send a huge wave crashing into IS-held Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city that lies about 40 kilometres (25 miles) away. The US put measuring devices on the structure in December to monitor how much it is "moving or deteriorating over time", MacFarland said. "We're still evaluating that data," he said, but if it does collapse, "it's gonna go fast, and that's bad." The US is sharing the data it collects with the Iraqi government and working with Baghdad on an evacuation plan, MacFarland said. "They understand that there is the potential for the Mosul dam to collapse," he said. "If this dam was in the United States, we would have drained the lake behind it -- we would have taken that dam out of commission." Colonel Steve Warren, the spokesman for the anti-IS operation, said that divers had also assessed the dam. The dam, which was completed in 1984, was constructed atop a foundation that continuously erodes with exposure to water, leaving cavities beneath the structure. Since its completion, the Iraqi government has sought to shore up the foundation by injecting mortar-like grout into the subsoil and cavities and controlling seepage. But that regular maintenance lapsed in 2014 after IS seized the dam, stealing the equipment and chasing off the workers, Warren said. "After we regained control of that dam, the equipment was all gone, and the workers really never did come back," Warren said. "So the rate of decay increased because they weren't doing that regular maintenance, that regular grouting." In 2007 the US ambassador to Iraq and the top American military commander in the country wrote a letter warning the dam could fail with devastating results. "A catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam would result in flooding along the Tigris River all the way to Baghdad," the letter said. "Assuming a worst case scenario, an instantaneous failure of Mosul Dam filled to its maximum operating level could result in a flood wave 20 metres deep at the city of Mosul," it said. Syria opposition puts off peace talks decision until Friday Syrian opposition members meeting in Riyadh have postponed until Friday a decision on whether to attend peace talks due to start in Geneva the same day, delegates said. "I believe tomorrow we will take a decision" on whether or not to attend the UN-brokered negotiations, said one delegate from the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee. "We will not be in Geneva tomorrow," said another opposition source. A fighter from Jaish al-Islam (Islam Army) holds a position during clashes with regime forces in Harasta Qantara, on the eastern outskirts of Damascus, on January 23, 2016 Amer Almohibany (AFP) The Committee was formed in December when the main Syrian political opposition and armed factions came together in Riyadh for an unprecedented bid at unity, after months of Saudi effort. It insists that it is the sole permitted representative of Syria's opposition, despite objections from others. The Committee has met for three days in the Saudi capital to discuss whether or not to participate in the Geneva process. It had said it was waiting for UN "clarifications" after the UN issued invitations to other opposition figures. But delegate Monzer Makhos told AFP that members "would not be there" in Geneva for the planned start of talks "as we have yet to make a decision". The Committee wants assurances from the international community that it will move to end regime attacks on civilians and allow humanitarian aid. The Riyadh discussions were to resume at 0600 GMT on Friday, the delegate said. US journalist humbled by efforts to win release from Iran Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, in his first public appearance since his release by Iran, said Thursday it was humbling to learn of efforts to free him during his imprisonment. "For much of the 18 months I was in prison, my Iranian interrogators told me that the Washington Post did not exist, that no one knew of my plight, that the United States government would not lift a finger for my release," a teary-eyed Rezaian said at a dedication ceremony for the new Washington Post headquarters. "Today I am here in this room with the very same people who helped prove the Iranians wrong in so many ways," he said. "Knowing the lengths you all went to to keep my story alive is truly humbling." Freed Washington Post Tehran bureau chief Jason Rezaian speaks during the inauguration of the Washington Post Headquarters on January 28, 2016 in Washington, DC Mandel Ngan (AFP) Rezaian was among four prisoners freed in Iran earlier this month, hours before world powers sealed a deal with Iran on its nuclear program. In return, the US pardoned seven Iranian prisoners and dropped charges against 14 other Iranians. Rezaian received a standing ovation from the crowd gathered for the dedication, which included US Secretary of State John Kerry and Post owner Jeff Bezos, who according to Rezaian "gave me a ride home to freedom." Kerry, who had been scheduled to speak at the ceremony for some time, said the event was "particularly sweet for everybody now that Jason is home." Kerry said Rezaian's imprisonment "gnawed at us because we sensed the wrongfulness" of it. And he noted that the day of Rezaian's release was "one of the days that I enjoyed the most as secretary of state (but) was also one of the most nerve-racking." He was referring to a 25-hour-ordeal in which the fate of Rezaian's wife Yeganeh Salehi and his mother Mary was not known -- a snag which could have derailed the prisoner exchange. Kerry said Rezaian's captivity underscored the dangers faced today by journalists, who are increasingly targeted for their reporting around the world. In the Vietnam War era, Kerry said, journalists faced dangers more from accidents or crossfire. But now things have changed. "Journalists then were rarely hunted, today they are," he said. "In our era, roughly two-thirds of the reporters who die violently are killed not in spite of their profession but because of it," Kerry added. Kerry said the US would keep up efforts to ensure the safety of journalists around the world as part of a longstanding tradition defending a free press. "To those who try to intimidate or imprison reporters, we need to stand up and say loud and clear that committing journalism, reporting on the truth, is not a crime," he said. "It is a badge of honor. It is a public service." Iran, France hail 'new relationship' Iran's President Hassan Rouhani and his French counterpart Francois Hollande hailed a "new relationship" between their countries Thursday as the leader of the Islamic Republic visited Paris to seal a host of post-sanctions deals. A commitment for Tehran to buy 118 Airbus aircraft was the most eye-catching of the deals that also included agreements for carmaker Peugeot to return to Iran and for Total to buy Iranian crude oil. "A new era in our relationship starts today," Hollande said at a press conference with Rouhani. French President Francois Hollande (L) shakes hands with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani upon his arrival on January 28, 2016 at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris Stephane de Sakutin (AFP) The Iranian president called earlier for both countries to take advantage of the "positive atmosphere" following the lifting of sanctions over the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme. "Let us forget the resentment," Rouhani said. "We are ready to turn the page" and establish a "new relationship", he said. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Iran "can count on France". Rouhani was welcomed to Paris with military honours and national anthems before addressing business leaders. Deals agreed Thursday included a $25 billion (22 billion euros) accord under which Iran will purchase 73 long-haul and 45 medium-haul Airbus passenger planes to update its ageing fleet. The countries signed a memorandum of understanding because the aircraft deal cannot be finalised until sanctions are fully lifted. "The sky has brightened for Iranian passengers, and Airbus is pleased to welcome the return of Iran to the international civil aviation community," said the boss of the European aircraft maker, Fabrice Bregier. Carmaker Peugeot said it will return to the Iranian market in a five-year deal worth 400 million euros ($436 million). Peugeot will produce 200,000 vehicles a year in a joint venture with local manufacturer Iran Khodro, according to a statement. The French carmaker was forced to pull out of Iran in 2012 as sanctions began to bite. In another bonanza for France, oil giant Total agreed to take between 150,000 and 200,000 barrels of Iranian crude a day. French construction firms will also upgrade Iranian airports. - Human rights reminder - While the French state rolled out the red carpet for Rouhani, hundreds of people held a demonstration in Paris protesting against Iran's human rights record. Speakers noted that around 2,000 people have been executed in Iran since Rouhani came to power three years ago. Maryam Radjavi, president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (CNRI), condemned Rouhani's "facade of moderation" and said he was "implicated in all the atrocities of this regime and as a result should be brought to justice for crimes against humanity". Hollande himself said he had reminded Rouhani that France was "committed to human rights". Rouhani's talks with Hollande also touched on Iran's role in Syria, where Tehran is backing President Bashar al-Assad in a war that has killed 260,000 people. With talks on the conflict due to begin in Geneva hanging in the balance, Hollande called for them to start as soon as possible. "We urgently need to put in place humanitarian measures and negotiate a political transition. It is possible," Hollande said. Earlier, Rouhani referred to Iran's bitter feud with regional rival Saudi Arabia, telling an audience in Paris that "some countries had wanted to use terrorism for their own means". "But this is a hand grenade with the pin removed," he said. Rouhani had begun his European visit in Italy, where he sealed deals for steel and pipelines worth between 15 and 17 billion euros and visited Pope Francis at the Vatican. Rouhani, a 67-year-old former academic and diplomat who is seen as a pragmatist, was elected on a pledge to end sanctions and improve relations with the West. French President Francois Hollande and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (L) arrive to give a joint press conference on January 28, 2016 in Paris Stephane de Sakutin (AFP) Airbus chief executive Fabrice Bregier (R), Iran Air chief executive Farhad Parvaresh (L), Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (back L) and French President Francois Hollande in Paris on January 28, 2016 Stephane de Sakutin (AFP) Anger at campaign against leftist Israeli artists A campaign by a rightwing Israeli NGO branding artists linked to leftwing groups hostile "moles" was denounced Thursday by politicians across the political spectrum as "fascist" and "despicable". Im Tirtzu put images of four prominent Israeli cultural figures on its Facebook page on Wednesday, alleging their support of various "fifth column" leftwing organisations. The group also accused dozens more artists and intellectuals of disloyalty. Writer David Grossman is one of four prominent Isreali cultural figures who was branded a "mole" by the rightwing group Im Tirtzu Hector Guerrero (AFP/File) Its campaign, titled "moles in culture," follows a video it released in December lambasting Israeli human rights activists whose groups receive foreign funding and saying they should be called "foreign agents". "Our cultural world is controlled by many moles planted by the New Israel Fund and its organisations," Im Tirtzu wrote on Wednesday, referring to a US-based foundation that funds Israeli groups active in the fields of civil rights, religious freedom and social justice. The cultural establishment and artists in Israel "conduct themselves like a political junta that does everything it can to preserve its power and influence," it said. The Facebook post shows authors Amos Oz and David Grossman, actress Gila Almagor and playwright Yehoshua Sobol. It said Sobol "stood proudly" in the "battle against the culture minister." However Culture Minister Miri Regev, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud party, herself spoke out against Im Tirtzu's campaign. "Alongside the public's right to know, we must refrain from statements that could lead to incitement and violence. Hurting any person because of their political opinions is wrong," she wrote on Facebook. -'Fascist, ugly and dangerous'- Likud MP Benny Begin, son of late prime minister Menachem Begin, called the Im Tirtzu offensive a "new level of ugly". "There's an attempt here to plant in the public's mind the term 'moles' as a synonym for 'traitors'," he said on public radio. "Seeking out, locating and marking supposed traitors is an old fascist trait, both ugly and dangerous," he added. Isaac Herzog, head of the opposition Labour party, said that "McCarthyism is making a despicable attempt to take over Israel" but "the Israeli McCarthyism and the lowlifes leading it will disappear, like they did from the United States." The Association for Civil Rights in Israel said Im Tirtzu's attack on artists and intellectuals came after it had previously targeted academics and human rights activists. "The infamous Senator Joseph McCarthy is a cultural hero in the eyes of Im Tirtzu," ACRI said in a statement. "But the real cultural heroes are human rights activists, intellectuals and artists who stand up to protect human rights and are not deterred from fighting against human rights violations." McCarthyism refers to allegations of treason or subversion without proof, and was coined after the former US senator's anti-communist witch-hunts from the late 1940s to the 1950s. Im Tirtzu's latest broadside coincides with a row over a bill proposed by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked targeting leftwing NGOs that the United States has warned could have "chilling" repercussions. The bill demands that NGOs receiving more than half of their funding from foreign governments declare it in all their official reports, while their representatives should wear a special badge during visits to parliament. And Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who leads Shaked's far-right Jewish Home party, has ordered a number of changes in the school curriculum which have alarmed the left. Both minsters criticised Im Tirtzu's crusade, with Bennett calling it "embarrassing, unnecessary and degrading" in a tweet, and Shaked telling army radio that "artists with leftwing opinions shouldn't be considered 'moles' or demonised." Hip-hop is notorious for its bravado and epic beefs, but 'pharma-bro' CEO Martin Shkreli is one-upping rappers over their own work. The pharmaceutical mogul -- last year dubbed the most hated man in America for massively hiking the price of a vital drug for HIV patients -- is the sole owner of the Wu-Tang Clan's Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. Shkreli, who was recently indicted on security fraud charges stemming from an alleged Ponzi scheme, on Thursday threatened to wipe out contributions on the album by Ghostface Killah after the Wu Tang member poked fun at him, calling the 32-year-old hip hop connoisseur a 'Michael Jackson nose kid.' Scroll down for video Not backing down: Martin Shkreli, pictured in December, threatened to edit out contributions on Once Upon a Time in Shaolin by Ghostface Killah after the Wu-Tang member insulted him Precious: Wu Tang Clan had made only one copy of the album (pictured), which was stored in a vault in Morocco until Shkreli bought it for $2million Shkreli said in a Tweet that he wants a written apology from Ghostface Killah that has to be at least 500 words 'I expect a written apology,' Shkreli wrote on Twitter. 'At least 500 words, no grammatical errors and Shaolin stays intact.' Shkreli also taunted Ghostface Killah in a video obtained by TMZ in which the widely detested New York businessman sips from a drink surrounded by three masked, hooded goons who brandished a silver engraved box said to hold the one-of-a-kind album. 'If you ever say some dumb s*** again, this album, this "Shaolin," I'm going to erase all your s*** from this album, you understand? 'I'm going to erase you from the record books of rap,' Shkreli says, calling the 45-year-old Ghostface Killah 'an old man that's lost his relevance,' and addressing him by his 'government name,' Dennis. 'You have to listen to me,' he adds. 'Without me, you're nothing.' His threat came after Ghostface Killah spoke dismissively of Shkreli, referring to him as 'Pee Wee Herman' and 'Michael Jackson nose kid' when speaking to TMZ. Bold statement: Shkreli said he was going to erase Ghostface Killah (pictured) 'from the record books of rap' for his insults Back in the day: Ghostface Killah, The GZA and Method Man of Wu-Tang Clan performing live in January 2008 Holding up his phone displaying a closeup photo of Shkreli, Ghostface Killah says in the footage: 'I'm just laughing off of the dude's face. I mean, come on, man, look at that smile.' The rapper, who appeared to be speaking extemporaneously after being approached on a Los Angeles street, denounced Shkreli for the 5,000-percent rise in the Daraprim drug's price. Ghostface Killah said that 'Once Upon a Time in Shaolin' should belong instead to 'the people' but said the issue was out of his control. The influential New York rap ensemble had made only one copy of the album, which was stored in a vault in Morocco until Shkreli bought it for $2million. RZA, generally seen as the leader of the Wu-Tang Clan, earlier said that the sale of the album was completed before the infamous price hike and that some proceeds would go to charity. Shkreli may have been imitating a video in July in which Ghostface Killah threatened younger rapper Action Bronson for criticizing the elder rapper's recent output. Tunisia loses third of tourism revenue over IS attacks Tunisia lost more than a third of its tourism revenues last year after attacks targeting the vital sector claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group, official figures showed Thursday. Two IS attacks last year killed 59 foreign tourists, badly shaking an industry that accounts for seven percent of the country's GDP. "The national economy in 2015 saw a decline in activity... notably in the industrial and service sectors, which were affected by the terrorist events and despite the success of the political transition," Tunisia's central bank said. Tourists look at flowers at the site of a shooting attack on the beach in front of the Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel in Port el Kantaoui, on the outskirts of Sousse, Tunisia on June 28, 2015 Kenzo Tribouillard (AFP/File) The country is hailed as a rare success story of the Arab Spring uprisings, although authorities have failed to redress the economy or resolve the problems of social exclusion. Tourist entries in 2015 dropped by 30.8 percent compared to the previous year and tourism revenues declined by 35.1 percent, the bank said. Last year the number of tourists from Europe fell by 53.6 percent compared to 2014 -- or by 65.4 percent compared to 2010, figures from the tourism ministry showed. The 2011 revolution that ousted longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali also dealt a blow to the tourism sector. In March, 21 tourists and a policeman were killed in a gun attack on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis, while in June an attack at a beach resort near Sousse killed 38 holidaymakers. IS also claimed a suicide bombing in Tunis in November that killed 12 presidential guards. Last year several hotels closed temporarily due to a lack of tourists. Man charged in race plot pleads guilty to robbery conspiracy RICHMOND, Va. (AP) One of three Virginia men charged in an alleged plot to attack synagogues and black churches has pleaded guilty to a robbery conspiracy. U.S. District Court records show that 30-year-old Charles D. Halderman pleaded guilty Wednesday. He faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced April 25. According to authorities, Halderman and two other Richmond-area men plotted to rob a silver and coin dealer and use the money to finance a race war. UN: Ban stands by every word of Israeli settlement comments UNITED NATIONS (AP) The United Nations says Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stands by every word of his criticism of Israeli settlement-building this week and rejects Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's comment that the remarks justify terrorism. The U.N. chief on Tuesday told the Security Council that settlement activities are "an affront to the Palestinian people," and he called for Israel to freeze them. He also said "it is human nature to react to occupation." Ban spoke out again Wednesday, telling a General Assembly committee that the Palestinians "watch as Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, expand and expand." The Latest: Texas executes man who fatally shot game warden HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) The Latest on the execution of James Freeman for the slaying of a Texas game warden (all times local): 7:10 p.m. The brother of the Texas game warden slain by inmate James Freeman nine years ago thanked some of about 100 law enforcement officers who stood outside the Huntsville prison as the inmate was executed. This undated photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows Texas inmate James Freeman. On Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, Freeman, 34, was set to die for killing Texas Parks and Wildlife Game Warden Justin Hurst during a March 17, 2007 a shootout. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP) Justin Hurst was fatally wounded during a shootout after a vehicle chase that began when a warden suspected Freeman was hunting illegally. Greg Hurst's voice cracked with emotion as he spoke about his brother's death, saying: "Nine years ago -- nine long years." Texas Game Warden Col. Craig Hunter, head of law enforcement for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and a witness to Freeman's execution, said the punishment marked "a moment that many of us have been waiting for since we first heard of Justin's death." ___ 6:40 p.m. A Texas prisoner has been executed for fatally shooting a game warden nine years ago during a shootout after a 90-minute chase that began when he was suspected of poaching. The lethal injection Wednesday evening of 35-year-old James Freeman was the second in as many weeks in Texas, which carries out capital punishment more than any other state. Freeman in 2007 led police on a chase with speeds reaching 130 mph after he was suspected of illegal hunting in Wharton County in Southeast Texas. After his pickup truck was disabled, he jumped out and opened fire at officers with a pistol and an assault rifle. A Texas game warden, Justin Hurst, was shot and killed in the June 17, 2007, shootout. It was Hurst's 34th birthday. ___ 12:42 p.m. No late appeals are expected for a man set to be executed for a Texas game warden's death during a 2007 shootout. James Freeman's lethal injection would be the second in as many weeks if carried out Wednesday in the nation's busiest death penalty state. The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month refused to review Freeman's case. On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles declined a clemency petition for Freeman. Freeman was suspected of illegally hunting at night from his truck when a Texas game warden spotted him. Freeman led authorities on a 90-minute chase that ended with a shootout in which another game warden who joined the pursuit was killed. Obama honors 4 who protected Jews during Holocaust WASHINGTON (AP) As he honored four people on Wednesday for risking their lives to protect Jews, President Barack Obama warned that anti-Semitism is on the rise and that an attack on any faith is an attack on all faiths. Obama spoke Wednesday evening at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, the first sitting president to speak at the embassy. He was introduced at the event by Steven Spielberg, the Oscar-winning director of the Holocaust film "Schindler's List" and the founder of a Holocaust history foundation. "Too often, especially in times of change, especially in times of anxiety and uncertainty, we are too willing to give in to a base desire to find someone else, someone different, to blame for our struggles," Obama said. "So here tonight we must confront the reality that around the world anti-Semitism is on the rise. We cannot deny it." President Barack Obama, left, and filmmaker Steven Spielberg, right, embrace at the Righteous Among the Nations Award Ceremony at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Obama spoke as four people were being honored posthumously for risking their lives to protect Jews during the Holocaust. He became the first sitting president to speak at the embassy. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) The United Nations has designated Wednesday as International Holocaust Remembrance Day to commemorate the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in 1945. Six million Jews were killed by Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust. Recognized posthumously for protecting Jews from harm during the Holocaust were Roddie Edmonds of Knoxville, Tennessee; Lois Gunden of Goshen, Indiana; and Polish citizens Walery and Maryla Zbijewski of Warsaw. The honors were bestowed by Yad Vashem, the world's Holocaust education and research center, based in Jerusalem. Each was designated Righteous Among the Nations, an official title awarded by Yad Vashem on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Obama said the Holocaust is unique, "a crime without parallel in history," but he also sought to extend his concerns about confronting intolerance toward other faiths as well. "It means taking a stand against bigotry in all its forms, and rejecting our darkest impulses and guarding against tribalism as the only value in our communities and in our politics," he said. "It means heeding the lesson repeated so often in the Torah: To welcome the stranger, for we were once strangers, too." Edmonds, a master sergeant, participated in the landing of U.S. forces in Europe and was taken prisoner by the Germans. When the Germans ordered all Jewish prisoners of war to report, Edmonds defied the order by figuring out how to keep the Jewish POWs from being singled out for persecution. "We are all Jews," he told the Germans. Gunden, a French teacher, established a children's home in southern France that became a haven for children, including Jews she helped smuggle out of a nearby internment camp. She protected the children when French police showed up at the home. The Zbijewskis hid a Jewish child in their Warsaw home until the girl's mother could take her back. In televised remarks during the ceremony, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel remained indebted to those being honored because of the Jewish soldiers and children saved by their bravery. He also praised the U.S. and said there was an unbreakable bond between the two countries. "We know we have no better friend than the United States of America," Netanyahu said. Obama's appearance at the Israeli Embassy came after several months of tensions during his pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran, which Netanyahu vigorously opposed. The two leaders met at the White House in November as they attempted to reset ties for the final year of Obama's presidency. "America's commitment to Israel's security remains, now and forever, unshakeable," Obama said Wednesday. ____ Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report. President Barack Obama speaks at the Righteous Among the Nations Award Ceremony at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Obama spoke as four people were being honored posthumously for risking their lives to protect Jews during the Holocaust. He became the first sitting president to speak at the embassy. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Filmmaker Steven Spielberg speaks as he introduces President Barack Obama at the Righteous Among the Nations Award Ceremony at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Scientists: More research needed into Zika-microcephaly link RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) The release of new figures apparently finding fewer cases of microcephaly in Brazil than first feared is adding force to calls for more research into the link between the rare birth defect and the spreading Zika virus. Health experts have been looking at 4,180 suspected cases of microcephaly reported since October in Brazil, where authorities said the birth defect could be linked to the virus and announced that 220,000 military personnel were being deployed to help eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito that transmits Zika. But on Wednesday, Health Ministry officials said they had done a more intense analysis of more than 700 of those cases, confirming 270 cases and ruling out 462 others. Municipal workers pause to refill the insecticide sprayer during an operation to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmits the Zika virus at the Imbiribeira neighborhood in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Brazil's health minister Marcelo Castro said that nearly 220,000 members of Brazil's Armed Forces would go door-to-door to help in mosquito eradication efforts ahead of the country's Carnival celebrations. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) What this means is hard to say, according to some experts. It does not answer whether the tropical Zika virus is causing the babies to have unusually small heads. Nor does it really tell us how big the problem is. "I don't think we should lower our alarm over the Zika outbreak," said Paul Roepe, co-director of Georgetown University's Center for Infectious Disease. Brazilian officials still say they believe there's a sharp increase in cases of microcephaly and strongly suspect the Zika virus is to blame. The concern is strong enough that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month warned pregnant women to reconsider visits to areas where Zika is present, and officials in El Salvador, Colombia and Brazil have suggested women stop getting pregnant until the crisis has passed. But the World Health Organization and others have stressed that any link between Zika and the defect remains circumstantial and is not yet proven scientifically. And the new figures were a reminder of just how little is known about the disease and its effects. The arrival of the mosquito-borne illness in Brazil initially caused little alarm as the virus' symptoms are generally much milder than those of dengue. Then late last year, after noting what they said was a spike in the birth defect, Brazilian authorities for the first time asked doctors to report cases of patients in their care. So there are no solid numbers to compare with the new tally. In 2014, only about 150 cases were reported in Brazil in a year a surprisingly small amount for a large country with nearly 3 million births a year. The United States, with about 4 million births a year, has an estimated 2,500 cases of microcephaly a year, said Margaret Honein, a CDC epidemiologist. Brazilian health officials have dismissed the idea there might have been a large number of unreported cases previously. But the rate of recorded microcephaly cases was only a fraction of what some experts thought it ought to be. In establishing a registry, the Health Ministry cast a wide net, including live births, stillborn and miscarried babies, and fetuses shown to have unusually small heads by ultrasound or other diagnostic tests, the ministry said. In subsequent investigations, tests were done to see if the brain had been affected. Brazilian health officials did not detail what they found in the 462 cases that were ruled out, but many of them were just premature and under-sized, a health ministry spokeswoman said. The birth defect can be caused by factors such as genetics, malnutrition or drugs. Infections are also a cause although Zika-like viruses have not previously been linked to microcephaly. The CDC's Honein said shifts in the numbers reported out of Brazil were not surprising, and much more investigation is needed. She was echoed by Dr. Ganeshwaran Mochida, a pediatric neurologist at Boston Children's Hospital who specializes in microcephaly. He said 270 confirmed cases "is still quite a substantial number" in a country that has been reporting far lower counts. ___ Mike Stobbe reported from New York City. Municipal workers sprays insecticide to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmits the Zika virus at the Imbiribeira neighborhood in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Brazil's health minister Marcelo Castro said that nearly 220,000 members of Brazil's Armed Forces would go door-to-door to help in mosquito eradication efforts ahead of the country's Carnival celebrations. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) A municipal worker gestures during an operation to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmits the Zika virus in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Brazil's health minister Marcelo Castro says the country is sending some 220,000 troops to battle the mosquito blamed for spreading a virus suspected of causing birth defects, but he also says the war is already being lost. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) A health worker shows larvae of the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes found inside a warehouse during an operation to combat the mosquitoes that transmits the Zika virus in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Brazil's health minister Marcelo Castro says the country is sending some 220,000 troops to battle the mosquito blamed for spreading a virus suspected of causing birth defects, but he also says the war is already being lost. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) A fumigation brigade spray an area of Chacabuco Park in a Aedes mosquito control effort, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Zika virus is spread by the same Aedes mosquito as dengue fever and chikunguya. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says researchers have found strong evidence of a possible link between Zika and a surge of birth defects in Brazil. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko) A fumigation brigade sprays an area of Chacabuco Park in a Aedes mosquito control effort, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Zika virus is spread by the same Aedes mosquito as dengue fever and chikunguya. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says researchers have found strong evidence of a possible link between Zika and a surge of birth defects in Brazil. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko) FILE - Dead insects and larvae float in an empty vase at a cemetery in Cartagena, Colombia, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Local health workers emptied vases during a campaign to destroy potential hatcheries of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmits the Zika virus at the cemetery as part of a prevention campaign that according to the health ministry has already infected more than 16,000 people in Colombia, and could hit more than half a million. (AP Photo/Reinaldo Reyes) This 2006 photo provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a female Aedes aegypti mosquito in the process of acquiring a blood meal from a human host. Scientists believe the species originated in Africa, but came to the Americas on slave ships. It's continued to spread through shipping and airplanes. Now it's found through much of the world. (James Gathany/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention via AP) Young residents run away and others cover their faces as municipal worker sprays insecticide to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmits the Zika virus at the Imbiribeira neighborhood in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Brazil's health minister Marcelo Castro said that nearly 220,000 members of Brazil's Armed Forces would go door-to-door to help in mosquito eradication efforts ahead of the country's Carnival celebrations. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) A municipal worker sprays insecticide to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmits the Zika virus at the Imbiribeira neighborhood in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Brazil's health minister Marcelo Castro said that nearly 220,000 members of Brazil's Armed Forces would go door-to-door to help in mosquito eradication efforts ahead of the country's Carnival celebrations. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) Project aims to mark dozens of American slave trade ports PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) A project aimed at memorializing America's slave-trade ports is moving to Rhode Island, where some 1,000 slave-trading voyages were launched. The Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project has been working to place markers at 40 ports along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts where slaves arrived or where ships were sent to be used in the trade. The Middle Passage refers to the forced migration across the Atlantic Ocean of more than 10 million Africans, many of whom died on the way. "We're just simply saying mark the place where it began," said Ann Chinn, who founded the Middle Passage project. "In the same way, people marked Plymouth, they marked Jamestown, they marked St. Augustine. Well, in each of those places, Africans were there too." In this Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016 photo, a slavery port marker sits along the shore in Portsmouth, N.H., identifying a port where slaves arrived or where ships were sent to be used in the trade. A project aimed at bringing the little-known history of some of Americas most prolific slave-trade ports to the public is moving to its next target: Rhode Island, where some 1,000 slave-trading voyages were launched. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola) The project is rolling out as places around the country have been coming to grips with their roles in the slave trade, including the North, where the region's history of fighting against slavery is more widely known than its less noble roots of trading and profiting from slavery. It uses the Voyages Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database at Emory University and other historical records to identify ports where slaves arrived or those that sent off ships used in the slave trade. Then, it works with local historical groups, churches and others to gain support to erect markers that note a city's role in the slave trade. In some cases, local groups were already working on something similar. In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for example, a group called Chinn in October to say it had already erected a granite marker saying slaves were brought there. Markers have also been placed in cities in Virginia, Georgia, Maryland, New York, Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana. Each city works out the details on its own. Some markers contain just a few sentences. Others are several feet long and include maps and color illustrations. Markers can cost as little as $1,000, or several thousand for something more detailed. One of the group's early efforts was in 2013 in Yorktown, Virginia, best known as the place where the British surrendered to George Washington, ending the Revolutionary War. At the time, there was little information about the history of slavery or African Americans at the site, even though it was a major slave trading port, said Lois Winter, who served at the time as chair of the Yorktown Historical Committee. "They didn't include it as part of the tourist information, so people wouldn't know," she said. Installing the marker, which details how Yorktown served as the primary point of entry for Africans brought to Virginia, means visitors are now learning a more complete history, Winter said. "You're ignoring this huge chunk of population by not including them in the story," she said. Around 60 percent of all slave-trading voyages launched from North America came from Rhode Island, according to a Brown University report issued in 2006. Voyages left from Providence, Newport, Bristol and Warren. More than 2,700 slaves were brought directly to Rhode Island, according to the Voyages database. In addition, the state's economy was built on the trade, including shipbuilding, rum distilleries and other industries. People from Brown University and other local groups plan to meet Friday to discuss how to move forward. Ray Rickman, who is deeply involved in local historical endeavors, said he especially wants to see a marker in the tourist hub of Newport, where millions of people visit every year. According to the Brown University report, Newport's streets were paved with money generated from a duty on slave imports. Rickman said the nation could begin to fix its racial problems if people knew more about its history. "There are some real positive things that could come out of a very close look at this," he said. In this Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016 photo, a slavery port marker sits along the shore n Portsmouth, N.H., identifying a port where slaves arrived or where ships were sent to be used in the trade. A project aimed at bringing the little-known history of some of Americas most prolific slave-trade ports to the public is moving to its next target: Rhode Island, where some 1,000 slave-trading voyages were launched. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola) In this Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016 photo, pedestrians walk by a slavery port marker in Portsmouth, N.H., identifying a port where slaves arrived or where ships were sent to be used in the trade. A project aimed at bringing the little-known history of some of Americas most prolific slave-trade ports to the public is moving to its next target: Rhode Island, where some 1,000 slave-trading voyages were launched. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola) Officials: Georgia trooper shot in Atlanta-area police chase MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) A Georgia state trooper was shot and a driver who led him on a chase in suburban Atlanta was fatally wounded in an exchange of gunfire Wednesday, authorities said. Trooper Jacob Fields was patrolling Interstate 75 southbound in Cobb County shortly after 3:30 p.m. when he saw a black Chevrolet Silverado speeding, Georgia State Patrol spokesman Capt. Mark Perry said. Fields recorded the pickup truck going 98 mph and when he tried to pull the Silverado over, the driver fled, Perry said. The driver was 26-year-old Israel Vladimir Rodriguez of Acworth, Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman Scott Dutton said. First responders are shown working on a suspect that was shot following a chase on Interstate 75 in Cobb County. A state trooper and a suspect were shot Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, in a police chase in suburban Atlanta, the Georgia State Patrol said. The GSP said in an email that the trooper and suspect were shot in a pursuit on Interstate 75 in Marietta. (Johnny Edwards/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) Fields chased the Silverado for about 10 miles with two other troopers joining in to try to execute a "box-in maneuver," in which they try to bring it to a slow stop, Perry said. Before they could complete that, the Silverado hit a civilian vehicle and came to a stop. Rodriguez got out of the truck holding a handgun and began shooting at the troopers; Fields and two other troopers returned fire, Perry said. Fields was shot in the leg and abdomen just below his vest and above his gun belt, and Rodriguez was hit multiple times in the abdomen area, Perry said. Rodriguez underwent surgery but died at a hospital around 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dutton said. He would have faced a number of charges, including aggravated assault on a police officer. The GSP said Fields, a three-year veteran, underwent surgery Wednesday evening and was expected to make a full recovery. He was expected to remain in the hospital for two or three days. Perry didn't speak to Fields but said he heard the trooper speaking to his family. "He sounded very lucid, very awake, very alert, and he was very coherent and speaking, explaining what happened," Perry said. All three troopers who exchanged fire with Rodriguez were placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation, which is standard procedure. Marietta Police spokeswoman Brittany Wallace said the shooting caused all but two lanes of the busy highway to shut down. The southbound lanes were completely blocked off for several hours with numerous police cars, firetrucks and an ambulance parked at the scene. Police diverted traffic off I-75 heading south to clear the way for the investigation. Dutton said the GBI is investigating at the request of the State Patrol. ___ Associated Press writer Jonathan Landrum Jr. in Atlanta contributed to this report. This photo released by the Georgia Department of Public Safety shows Trooper Jacob Fields. Fields and a driver who led him on a chase on a highway in suburban Atlanta both suffered gunshot wounds after exchanging fire Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, a Georgia State Patrol spokesman said. (Georgia Department of Public Safety via AP) Police work at the scene of an officer-involved shooting on I-75 in Cobb County on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Georgia State Police say they were trying to stop a speeder following a 10-mile chase when the speeder struck another vehicle and exited his truck with a gun. A state trooper and a suspect were shot Wednesday, in a police chase in suburban Atlanta, the Georgia State Patrol said. The GSP said in an email that the trooper and suspect were shot in a pursuit on Interstate 75 in Marietta. (Ben Gray/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) In the snowy woods of northern New England and other forested parts of the country, the lumberjack is an endangered species. As markets for forest products change and high-tech machinery replaces chain saws, which themselves replaced the ax, a generations-old way of life is disappearing, one that historically saw fathers pass on to their sons their love and knowledge of the woods and the independence that came from working for oneself. Ken Davis feels this keenly as he reaches retirement age after a half-century career with no one to pass the torch to. lumberjack's goodbye: Logs destined for a mill are unloaded at a satellite wood yard in Harwick, Vermontt. The owner of the yard, Ken Davis, said he isn't sure what he'll do with his business when he retires because none of his employees want to take it over Not taking over: Aaron Martin works on a piece of logging equipment in Greensboro, Vermont. Martin, 31, said he likes to work outside, but he isn't interested in taking over the business Davis once employed 19 people full-time to cut the wood, haul it and then truck it, sometimes to his log yard, other times directly to the now-disappearing mills across Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and upstate New York that would turn it into lumber or process it into paper. He now employs seven, and has no sons. His daughter and son-in-law tried it for a while, but they didn't keep at it. 'I've got the sawdust in my veins, and they don't make a dialysis machine to get it out, so I'm still here,' Davis said recently at his log yard in the town of Hardwick, in an especially rural region Vermonters call the Northeast Kingdom. None of Davis' employees are showing interest in taking over his business. It's the same story across the region, said Michael Snyder, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation. 'It's dangerous, it's hard to make a living and everybody hates you,' Snyder said of logging. 'Who's signing up for that?' The arguments for not becoming a logger are solid. For one, there's just not as much demand for paper and other wood products because of low commodity prices and international competition, making it less secure than it once was. It's physically and yes intellectually demanding work that increasingly requires special skills to run hugely expensive, high-tech machinery. And because of that machinery, capital investments needed to get started can be prohibitive. Ken Davis cuts logs to length at a log landing in Greensboro, Vermont. The renaissance that farming has undergone in recent years, with an emphasis on food systems and sustainable agriculture, hasn't brought the same energy to logging The renaissance that farming has undergone in recent years, with an emphasis on food systems and sustainable agriculture, hasn't brought the same energy to logging. In many quarters, loggers are still seen as despoilers of the land. But Snyder noted that while forests can do just fine on their own, logging can support their health by weeding out infestations and invasive species. Logging entails a number of jobs, including fallers, who cut down trees by hand essentially, lumberjacks; operators of machinery used to fell trees; and graders and scalers, who check the amount and quality of the wood. The number of all logging workers is expected to fall only 4 percent from 2014 to 2024, from 53,700 to 51,700, according to Bureau of Labor projections. Nationwide, the number of fallers is projected to decline 17 percent over the same period, from 8,200 in 2014 to 6,800 in 2024. Aaron Martin, left, and Ken Davis pose at a log landing in Greensboro. Martin has been logging for 10 years, but few of his friends have been drawn to the life, he said: 'They don't like being out in the cold.' With the industry becoming more mechanized, the number of equipment operators is expected to stay about the same, with graders and scalers declining 2 percent and all other logging workers falling 7 percent. 'Today you are running a half-million, $600,000 machine, and not only do you need to operate it, you've got to read GPS and computer-based technology equipment, you've got to be able to service and maintain that equipment, you have to know forestry, environmental law, best management practices, tree identification,' said Dana Doran, executive director of the Professional Logging Contractors of Maine. Across the region, efforts are underway to bring along young loggers. The Vermont Technical College in Randolph helps train forest technicians. In Maine, the industry is backing a plan to train logging technicians in community colleges. In the Northeast Kingdom, one of Davis' workers, 31-year-old Aaron Martin, said he likes the freedom of working outside in different places. He has been logging for 10 years, but few of his friends have been drawn to the life, he said: 'They don't like being out in the cold.' But as much as he likes his work, he has no interest in being the boss. 'With that comes its own headaches,' he said. 'It's nice to be able to work for somebody else and not deal with all the stress that comes with paying all the bills and everything that goes with it, finding the next job. 'I just go to work and do what I'm told. It's a lot simpler that way.' Drug traffickers seek safe haven amid legal marijuana DENVER (AP) Seeking a safe haven in Colorado's legal marijuana marketplace, illegal drug traffickers are growing weed among the state's sanctioned pot warehouses and farms, then covertly shipping it elsewhere and pocketing millions of dollars from the sale, according to law enforcement officials and court records consulted by The Associated Press. In one case, the owner of a skydiving business crammed hundreds of pounds of Colorado pot into his planes and flew the weed to Minnesota, where associates allegedly sold it for millions of dollars in cash. In another, a Denver man was charged with sending more than 100 pot-filled FedEx packages to Buffalo, New York, where drug dealers divvied up the shipment. Twenty other drug traffickers, many from Cuba, were accused of relocating to Colorado to grow marijuana that they sent to Florida, where it can fetch more than double the price in a legal Colorado shop. These cases and others confirm a longstanding fear of marijuana opponents that the state's much-watched experiment in legal pot would invite more illegal trafficking to other states where the drug is still strictly forbidden. FILE - In this Dec. 31, 2013 file photo, employees tends to marijuana plants at a grow house in Denver. According to law enforcement officials, Colorados legal marijuana marketplace is in some cases serving as cover for a host of illegal drug traffickers who hide their product among the states many legal growing operations, then covertly ship it elsewhere and pocket millions of dollars from its sale. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, file) One source is Colorado residents or tourists who buy retail pot and take it out of state. But more concerning to authorities are larger-scale traffickers who move here specifically to grow the drug and ship to more lucrative markets. The trend also bolsters the argument of neighboring Nebraska and Oklahoma, which filed a lawsuit in late 2014 seeking to declare Colorado's pot legalization unconstitutional, arguing that the move sent a tide of illicit weed across their borders. The Obama administration last month urged the Supreme Court to reject the suit, saying that the leakage was not Colorado's fault. No one knows exactly how much pot leaves Colorado. When illegal shipments are seized, it's often impossible to prove where the marijuana was grown. But court documents and interviews with law enforcement officials indicate well-organized traffickers are seeking refuge in Colorado's flourishing pot industry. "There's no question there's a lot more of this activity than there was two years ago," said Colorado's U.S. attorney, John Walsh. Some in the legal industry say police have exaggerated the problem and put unfair scrutiny on people who legally grow pot on behalf of patients. Lawmakers last year limited unregulated pot growers to no more than 99 plants in an effort to crack down on those selling untaxed pot. The federal government allowed Colorado's experiment on the condition that state officials act to keep marijuana from migrating to places where it is still outlawed and out of the hands of criminal cartels. Federal authorities acknowledge that both things are happening but say that, because the state is trying to keep its industry tightly regulated, there's no reason to end the legal pot trade. The pot industry also acknowledges the criminal activity and insists it is doing all it can to keep legally grown weed from crossing state lines. Among other safeguards, Colorado law requires growers to get a license and use a "seed-to-sale" tracking system that monitors marijuana plants at every stage. Many of the illicit growers come from elsewhere, never obtain a growing license and "don't even attempt to adhere to the law," said Barbra M. Roach, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Denver field division. "It's like hiding in plain sight," she said. Authorities in Washington state, which also allows recreational marijuana, have noticed more marijuana leaving the state. But more reports are coming from Colorado, which has the nation's most robust commercial market and an international reputation for producing premium, high-potency pot. "It's a brand name now," Roach said. Jason Warf, head of the Southern Colorado Cannabis Council, said people are "coming from out-of-state, buying products from licensed stores and being arrested on their way home." That "is really hard to curb," he said. "We can't essentially babysit adults and their behavior." The Colorado Department of Revenue's marijuana-enforcement division cites shops if pot is unaccounted for but "after it's sold, we have very little control what happens to the marijuana," Director Lewis Koski said. Police agencies seized nearly 2 tons of Colorado weed from drivers who had intended to take it to 36 other states in 2014, the year legal pot shops opened, according to the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a federally funded drug task force. By comparison, they seized less than a ton in 2009. U.S. postal inspectors seized about 470 pounds of Colorado pot from the mail in 2014, up from 57 pounds in 2010, according to the task force, whose findings are based on voluntary submissions from law enforcement agencies and are largely anecdotal. Some cases have comic overtones, like when a Wyoming patrolman discovered 7 ounces of high-grade weed in trick-or-treat bags the day after Halloween, or when police in northern Colorado seized stuffed animals full of marijuana destined for Florida. Other operations are more sophisticated, like the one in which authorities say 32 people used skydiving planes and posed as licensed medical marijuana caregivers and small business owners to export tens of thousands of pounds of pot grown in Denver warehouses, usually to Minnesota. The organization made more than $12 million over four years, according to a state indictment. When they busted illegal pot farms in southern Colorado in September, state and federal agents found 28 guns, more than 1,000 plants and $25,000 in cash. A local UPS facility intercepts about 50 pounds of pot headed out of state each week, said Todd Reeves of the Colorado Drug Investigators Association. "We don't have the resources," he said, "to be able to go after every single one of these cases." Magical Laotian town preserved by UNESCO loses its soul LUANG PRABANG, Laos (AP) It is officially described as the best-preserved city in Southeast Asia, a bygone seat of kings tucked into a remote river valley of Laos. Luang Prabang weaves a never-never land spell on many a visitor with its tapestry of French colonial villas and Buddhist temples draped in a languid atmosphere. But most of the locals don't live here anymore. They began an exodus from this seeming Shangri-La after their hometown was listed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995, and sold itself wholesale to tourism. It's not an uncommon pattern at some of the 1,031 sites worldwide designated as places of "outstanding universal value" by the U.N. cultural agency: The international branding sparks mass tourism, residents move out as prices escalate or grab at new business opportunities, hastening the loss of their hometown's authentic character to hyper-commercialization. But locals may also prosper and some moribund communities are injected with renewed energy. In this Sept. 8, 2014 photo, a tourist visits the Haw Pha Bang temple in the grounds of the Palace Museum in Luang Prabang, Laos. It is officially described as the best-preserved city in Southeast Asia, a bygone seat of kings tucked into a remote river valley of Laos. Luang Prabang weaves a never-never land spell on many a visitor with its tapestry of French colonial villas and Buddhist temples draped in a languid atmosphere. (AP Photo/Mark Baker) "If you open the door you will have some fresh wind, but you will also get mosquitoes," says Prince Nithakhong Tiaoksomsanith, a leader in preserving Luang Prabang's artistic heritage. Since UNESCO helped lay down the town's welcome mat, its longtime residents have been replaced by wealthy Lao outsiders, an ever-growing influx of tourists and enough French, Australian, American and other expatriates catering to their needs to have locals rhyme Luang Prabang with "Meuang Falang" meaning either French or Western town. Luang Prabang's rich architectural heritage, protected by UNESCO's regulations, has been spared the eradication of countless historic sites across Asia. But virtually every home and mom-and-pop store in the historic center has been converted into a guesthouse, restaurant, cafe, bar or travel agency. The former prison was recently transformed into a luxury hotel and the French Cultural Center has become the Hibiscus Massage Parlor. Scenes of workaday life are rare because as prices shot up a small plot of land that sold for $8,000 three years ago now goes for $120,000 residents moved into surrounding areas, selling or renting their properties to the newcomers. As former UNESCO consultant and longtime resident Francis Engelmann has said, "We have saved Luang Prabang's buildings but we have lost its soul." Similar criticism has been leveled at UNESCO's worldwide program, along with praise for having rescued irreplaceable man-made and natural treasures in 163 countries since its inception in 1972. Calling it "UNESCOcide," Italian writer on urban development Marco d'Eramo has said that whenever a city is named a heritage site, it "dies out, becoming the stuff of taxidermy. a mausoleum with dormitory suburbs attached." Viewing UNESCO's program in a broader context, Dallen Timothy, a cultural tourism expert at Arizona State University, said indigenous heritage worldwide has become the commodity of outsiders "rather than remaining in control of the people whose cultural heritage it really is. It's a matter of powerful versus the powerless." The director of UNESCO's World Heritage Program, Mechtild Rossler, acknowledged that a very fine line existed "between the benefits which need to be shared with the local community and the rights of the visitors." In a phone interview from the agency's headquarters in Paris, she said UNESCO currently stresses preservation of "intangible culture" rather than just bricks and stones. Some argue that sites like the Pyramids, Grand Canyon and Stonehenge would draw crowds whether they were on UNESCO's list or not, that mass tourism is simply a 21st century phenomenon. But especially in developing countries, the designation can ignite a surge in visitors. From a trickle, Luang Prabang, a town of some 50,000, attracted more than 530,000 foreign and domestic tourists in 2014 and all projections show steep increases. Rossler said tourists to Japan's Tomioka Silk Mills have soared by 400 percent since they were named a UNESCO site two years ago. Governments and tourist operators are keenly aware of the benefits a UNESCO imprimatur can bring, and use it as a marketing strategy. A tourist sub-group, the "WHS baggers," has even emerged. Els Slots, one of them, says her life's goal is to visit every site, having already notched 587. The Dutch IT executive runs a website about UNESCO's program. Laos last month marked the 20th anniversary of Luang Prabang's inscription with a 6,000-strong parade accompanied by 20 elephants. "Emerging countries have bombarded us with new nominations, especially China and India, in addition to European countries, which have always been interested," said Rossler. "Their economic impact is tremendous, even in Europe." As political pressure is exerted, some sites are approved well before they are properly prepared, Rossler said. The listing is finalized not by UNESCO itself but a World Heritage Committee with members from 21 nations. In Luang Prabang, the prince said residents, tour operators and Buddhist monks were not ready to cope with the sudden influx. While flyers urging tourists to respect local customs are passed out, some offensive behavior continues. One foreigner wanted the prince to arrange sunset cocktails at a hilltop temple and other tourists point their cameras inches from the faces of monks as they pass by on their dawn rounds to collect alms. "This is a religious procession, not Disneyland," the prince said. Compared to many places, Luang Prabang has generally abided by UNESCO's regulations, which here include forbidding pane glass and using only traditional materials when restoring temples. Currently, 48 sites are on a UNESCO "danger list" for being seriously degraded by humans or nature ranging from the birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem to Florida's Everglades National Park while two have been delisted for gross violations. Many long-listed sites have yet to present required conservation management plans. "UNESCO should be a bit tougher on enforcing the regulations. Some of the sites in danger should be delisted, which would provide an impetus for their host countries to wake up and work on fixing what's wrong," said Arizona State's Timothy. Aside from shaming governments into action, the agency has few enforcement powers. Rossler puts down failures to "bad actions of governments" and stresses that UNESCO doesn't have the funds or manpower to solve festering problems, never mind the destruction of sites by war and Islamists in the Middle East. In Luang Prabang, reactions of citizens to "moladok," or heritage, are complex. They express pride in being internationally recognized and satisfaction at opportunities for jobs and cash from tourists, hoping even more will come. But they also chafe at the UNESCO-imposed restrictions and don't generally share Western nostalgia about a pre-globalization past, preferring new houses in modern suburbs. And yet, "They say they have lost a sense of belonging to the community, a monastery and its ceremonies, a sense of pride in their old quarter," says Engelmann, the former consultant. "It's not easy to recreate the feeling of belonging to a real community." Thongkhoun Soutthivilay, co-director of the town's Traditional Arts and Ethnology Center, said her mother sold her traditional house for a good price and joined the exodus. Life improved in some ways. "But we miss our old neighborhood," she said. "Some things have changed for the good, some for the bad." In this Sept. 6, 2014 photo, a worker updates the paintwork at the Wat Xieng Thong temple in Luang Prabang, Laos. It is officially described as the best-preserved city in Southeast Asia, a bygone seat of kings tucked into a remote river valley of Laos. Luang Prabang weaves a never-never land spell on many a visitor with its tapestry of French colonial villas and Buddhist temples draped in a languid atmosphere. (AP Photo/Mark Baker) Egypt's top auditor faces backlash over corruption findings CAIRO (AP) Egypt's top auditor ignited an uproar when he estimated that corruption had cost the country billions of dollars. Yet the anger was not directed against the government or even long-established oligarchs, but at the auditor himself. Hesham Genena has endured a barrage of criticism from pro-government media, well-connected businessmen and senior officials since he was appointed in 2012. But now President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, a former military chief who has vowed to wipe out corruption, appears to be siding with Genena's critics. The furor highlights the government's sensitivity to criticism as it grapples with a worsening economic crisis and lingering unrest five years after the popular uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak. FILE - In this Tuesday, April 16, 2014 file photo, Hesham Genena, the head of Egypt's oversight body, holds documents at his office in Cairo. Egypts top auditor ignited an uproar when he estimated that corruption had cost the country hundreds of millions of dollars, and yet the anger was not directed against the government or even long-established oligarchs, but at the auditor himself. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File) After Genena alleged massive corruption in newspaper interviews last month, el-Sissi appointed a presidential commission that wrapped up its work in two weeks lightning speed for an official probe and accused the auditor of misleading the public with the help of unnamed "foreign" parties. A presidential decree issued last year that could pave the way for the dismissal of Genena, who enjoys constitutional immunity, was recently approved by Egypt's newly seated and strongly pro-el-Sissi parliament. Pro-government media have branded Genena a traitor and closet supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, now outlawed as a terrorist group. And the state prosecutor has issued a gag order on any reporting about the 400-page report detailing his findings. Genena was appointed head of the Central Auditing Organization in 2012, a position that carries a degree of constitutional immunity. Since then, he has worked to expose what many have long seen as a pervasive culture of corruption. The London-based Transparency International ranks Egypt 94th out of 175 nations in combatting corruption, and anger at influential businessmen was one of the central grievances of the 2011 uprising. In December, Genena was quoted by the pro-government daily Youm 7 as saying that corruption had siphoned off 600 billion Egyptian pounds (around $75 billion) in 2015 alone. He later said he was misquoted, that the figure covered four years and that it was arrived at following an exhaustive study. Another newspaper quoted Genena as saying the figure covered four years. Genena declined to speak with The Associated Press about the report or the criticism. Genena's lawyer, Ali Taha, told AP that three-quarters of the alleged graft stemmed from state lands illegally acquired by businessmen. He said the study was commissioned by the Planning Ministry and carried out with the U.N. Development Program. He said Genena plans to publicize his results next month. The UNDP referred questions to the ministry, which referred them to the presidential commission. Presidential spokesman Alaa Youssef declined to comment on the matter. The commission includes Hesham Badawi, a prosecutor with a long background in Egypt's powerful security agencies who el-Sissi has also recently appointed to serve as Genena's deputy. The pro-government media, much of it financed by Egyptian tycoons, sprang into action after Genena's revelations, calling for his dismissal and demanding he be put on trial for undermining the state and tarnishing its image. They accused him of being an Islamist charges he has denied by citing the fact that he was appointed by Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist elected president after Mubarak's ouster. The accusations also stem from his prominence among an anti-Mubarak judges' group later found to be dominated by Brotherhood-allied figures. El-Sissi served as Morsi's defense minister and military chief before leading his 2013 overthrow, which was supported by the security forces, the judiciary and businessmen who had thrived under Mubarak the same constituencies now lined up against Genena. Since then, the government has branded the Brotherhood a terrorist group and waged a sweeping crackdown, jailing thousands of mainly Islamist dissidents and imposing a virtual ban on street protests. The fifth anniversary of the pro-democracy uprising came and went last week with no public commemorations. Critics say the campaign against Genena is aimed at silencing one of the last remaining voices of dissent. "The message is clear to us: Even if you are a senior official you are not allowed to tell people the truth," Negad Borai, a well-known human rights lawyer, wrote in the independent Al-Shorouk daily earlier this month. The motive could be more personal. Genena and Justice Minister Ahmed el-Zend an ardent supporter of el-Sissi and outspoken critic of the Brotherhood have clashed repeatedly since their days in the powerful Judges Club, where el-Zend defeated Genena in a disputed election in 2009. Genena has said el-Zend is personally implicated in his reports and that he was behind the presidential decree giving el-Sissi the power to remove the auditor. Parliament approved the decree last week, and lawmaker Mustafa Bakry, an el-Sissi loyalist, has been circulating a petition demanding that Genena be questioned by prosecutors. Bakry has said lawmakers will call on the president to sack Genena. "El-Sissi is weak and he can't face the lobby of the corrupt," said Taha, Genena's lawyer. He said Genena is already facing seven court cases, including one alleging that he belongs to an outlawed group a reference to Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood and should therefore be removed from his post. The campaign against Genena could backfire, by reviving memories of Mubarak-era cronyism and undermining el-Sissi's image as a military man willing to stand up to entrenched interests. "I am afraid the campaign will be used as a pretext to cover up for the corrupt," said prominent columnist Abdullah el-Sinnawi. "What is really making me so angry is that those who are implicated in corruption are the ones who are leading this campaign." FILE - In this Tuesday, April 16, 2014 file photo, Hesham Genena, the head of Egypt's oversight body, poses for a portrait in front of pictures of his predecessors at his office in Cairo. Egypts top auditor ignited an uproar when he estimated that corruption had cost the country hundreds of millions of dollars, and yet the anger was not directed against the government or even long-established oligarchs, but at the auditor himself. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File) FILE - In this Tuesday, April 16, 2014 file photo, Hesham Genena, the head of Egypt's oversight body, speaks during an interview with the Associated Press at his office in Cairo. Egypts top auditor ignited an uproar when he estimated that corruption had cost the country hundreds of millions of dollars, and yet the anger was not directed against the government or even long-established oligarchs, but at the auditor himself. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File) FBI shows video of Tuesday shooting of occupier BURNS, Ore. (AP) The FBI released video Thursday of the shooting death of a spokesman for the armed occupiers of a wildlife refuge that appears to show the man reaching into his jacket before he fell into the snow. The FBI said the man had a loaded gun in his pocket. Authorities showed the video at a news conference to counter claims that the man killed in the Tuesday confrontation on a remote Oregon high country road Robert Finicum did nothing to provoke officers. Release of the video came as four occupiers remaining at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge refused to leave without assurances they wouldn't be arrested. The occupation began nearly a month ago. This photo taken from an FBI video shows Robert "LaVoy" Finicum after he was fatally shot by police Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016 near Burns, Ore. A video released Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 by the FBI of the shooting death of a spokesman for the armed occupiers of a wildlife refuge shows the man reaching into his jacket before he fell into the snow. The FBI said the man had a gun in his pocket. (FBI via AP) During the Tuesday confrontation, the FBI and Oregon State Troopers arrested five main figures in the occupation, including Ammon Bundy, their leader. The video, shot by the FBI from an airplane, shows Bundy's vehicle stopped by police on a road. He and an occupier riding with him Brian Cavalier were arrested. A white truck driven by Finicum was stopped but took off, with officers in pursuit. The video shows Finicum's vehicle plowing into a snowbank when encountering a roadblock. A man identified as Finicum gets out of the truck. At first, he has his hands up, but then appears to reach into his pocket and he falls into the snow. "On at least two occasions, Finicum reaches his right hand toward a pocket on the left inside portion of his jacket," said Greg Bretzing, special agent in charge for the FBI in Portland. "He did have a loaded 9mm semi-automatic handgun in the pocket," he said. Bretzing also said Finicum's truck nearly hit an FBI agent before it got stuck in the snow. "Actions have consequences," Bretzing said. "The FBI and OSP tried to effect these arrests peacefully." The FBI posted the video to its YouTube channel (http://bit.ly/209MgEw ). With Finicum lying in the snow, the video shows the arrest of two other occupiers as they got out of the stuck truck: Ryan Bundy, who is Ammon's brother, and Shawna Cox. Bretzing said another woman was in the truck but was not arrested. He did not identify her. Bretzing said agents and troopers "provided medical assistance to Finicum" after they were "confident that they had addressed any further threats." He said that happened about 10 minutes after the shooting. Two loaded .223 caliber semi-automatic rifles and a loaded revolver were found in the truck, Bretzing said. Bretzing said that when Finicum's truck was first stopped, an occupier riding with him Ryan Payne got out and surrendered. He said troopers and agents ordered others in the truck to surrender but Finicum sped off. Bundy and his followers were on their way to a meeting in the community of John Day when then encountered the FBI-led operation to apprehend them. The FBI acted amid growing calls that something be done to end the occupation, including from Oregon's governor. The Oregon State Medical Examiner's Office on Thursday confirmed the person shot in the Tuesday confrontation was Finicum, a 54-year-old Arizona rancher. At the news conference in Burns, Bretzing said four occupiers are still holed up at the wildlife refuge. "The negotiators continue to work around the clock to talk to those four people in an effort to get them to come out peacefully," he said. The occupation by ranchers and others began on Jan. 2, and at one point there were a couple of dozen people holed up, demanding that the federal government turn public lands over to local control. But the compound has been emptying out since the arrest of Bundy, and 10 others over the past few days, and with the death of Finicum. Oregon Public Broadcasting on Thursday spoke with the holdouts and identified them as David Fry, who is from Ohio, husband and wife Sean and Sandy Anderson of Idaho, and Jeff Banta of Nevada. Ammon Bundy on Thursday released a statement through his attorney repeating his call for the last occupiers to leave peacefully: "Turn yourselves in and do not use physical force." All 11 people under arrest have been charged with a felony count of conspiring to impede federal officers from carrying out their duties through force or intimidation. Three of the 11 were arrested Wednesday night when they left the refuge. Ammon Bundy is the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a tense 2014 standoff with the government over grazing rights. The group came to the desert of eastern Oregon in the dead of winter to decry what it calls onerous federal land restrictions and to object to the prison sentences of two local ranchers convicted of setting fires. In a criminal complaint Wednesday, federal authorities said the armed group had explosives and night-vision goggles and was prepared to fight. The charges against Bundy and others say that the refuge's 16 employees have been prevented from reporting to work because of threats of violence. ___ Petty reported from Portland, Oregon. Associated Press writers Eric Tucker, in Washington, D.C., Ken Ritter in Las Vegas, Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, and Martha Bellisle and Lisa Baumann in Seattle contributed to this report. This photo taken from an FBI video shows Robert "LaVoy" Finicum before he was fatally shot by police Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016 near Burns, Ore. A video released Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 by the FBI of the shooting death of a spokesman for the armed occupiers of a wildlife refuge shows the man reaching into his jacket before he fell into the snow. The FBI said the man had a gun in his pocket. (FBI via AP) This photo taken from an FBI video shows Robert "LaVoy" Finicum after he was fatally shot by police Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016 near Burns, Ore. A video released Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 by the FBI of the shooting death of a spokesman for the armed occupiers of a wildlife refuge shows the man reaching into his jacket before he fell into the snow. The FBI said the man had a gun in his pocket. (FBI via AP) This photo taken from an FBI video shows Robert "LaVoy" Finicum before he was fatally shot by police Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016 near Burns, Ore. A video released Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 by the FBI of the shooting death of a spokesman for the armed occupiers of a wildlife refuge shows the man reaching into his jacket before he fell into the snow. The FBI said the man had a gun in his pocket. (FBI via AP) Security was strong at the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Ore., Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, as the defendants arrested in Harney County had their appearance in court. (Kristyna Wentz-Graff/The Oregonian via AP) Mike Arnold, left, and Lissa Casey, right, representing Ammon Bundy, spoke briefly after Bundy's appearance in the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Ore., Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. They read a statement prepared by Bundy which asked the remaining occupiers to "stand down." (Kristyna Wentz-Graff/The Oregonian via AP) Q&A: What's going on with the Oregon armed standoff BURNS, Ore. (AP) Leaders of the armed group that took over a national wildlife refuge in Oregon to oppose federal land policy were arrested and will stay behind bars until at least Friday. Authorities and jailed group leader Ammon Bundy now are working to persuade the handful of holdouts at the remote preserve to stand down. ___ WHAT'S GOING ON AT THE REFUGE? Oregon State Police man a roadblock at the intersection of highways 395 and 20 outside of Burns, Ore., Wednesday morning, Jan. 27, 2016. Authorities were restricting access on Wednesday to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters being occupied by an armed group after one of the occupiers was killed during a traffic stop and eight more, including the group's leader Ammon Bundy, were arrested. (Dave Killen/The Oregonian via AP) MAGS OUT; TV OUT; NO LOCAL INTERNET; THE MERCURY OUT; WILLAMETTE WEEK OUT; PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT A video posted Thursday by the holdouts says four members of the armed group are still at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and will leave if no one faces arrest. It comes after federal and state law enforcement arrested group leader Ammon Bundy and others Tuesday in a traffic stop that left one man dead and then blocked the roads leading to the property. Others were apprehended later. In a video on the YouTube channel "DefendYourBase," which the group has been using to issue updates during the nearly four-week-old takeover, a speaker believed to be David Fry says the FBI told the group that everyone was free to leave. But he says the occupiers want assurances they won't arrested because one person faces a federal warrant. "We're still stuck here, four of us. They're telling us it's safe to leave, but it's not safe," according to the video, in which occupiers in camouflage sit around a campfire near pickup trucks, an American flag and weapons. ___ WHAT IS AMMON BUNDY SAYING? Bundy has urged those still at the refuge to leave and asked the federal government to allow the holdouts to go home without being prosecuted, according to statements released through his attorney. As the holdouts remained at the refuge Thursday, he told them: "Turn yourselves in, and do not use physical force." Bundy said the armed activists never pointed their weapons at anyone and "never wanted bloodshed." ___ WHAT'S NEXT FOR THOSE ARRESTED? So far, eleven people have been arrested, including Bundy and his brother Ryan Bundy. They all face the same charge conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force. Charges could be added or dropped depending on the FBI investigation, which is still underway. A judge has ordered seven of the defendants, including the Bundys, held in jail pending a Friday hearing, saying they are a danger to the community. ___ HOW DID THIS BEGIN? The group took over the refuge on Jan. 2 to demand the federal government turn public lands over to local control and object to the prison sentences of two local ranchers convicted of setting fires. The case led Bundy's group to demand an inquiry into whether the government is forcing ranchers off their land, though the father-and-son ranchers distanced themselves from the occupiers. It's a clash over public lands that dates back decades in the West. ___ WHAT ABOUT THE PERSON KILLED? Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, a 55-year-old rancher from Arizona, died after the traffic stop Tuesday night near the refuge. It's unclear what happened in the moments before his death. Authorities have said shots were fired but declined to say how many or if Finicum or any of the other activists exchanged gunfire with officers. Ammon Bundy said in his statement Thursday that FBI agents told him the shooting was recorded on video. "We are anxiously waiting to review this video," Bundy said. "Questions must be answered." Finicum vowed a few weeks ago that he would die before spending his life behind bars. He was a prominent voice of the group, and his affable but passionate demeanor made him a popular subject for on-camera interviews. A lone supporter to free the Hammonds stands outside a press conference at the Harney County Community Center in Burns, Ore., Thursday, Jan. 27, 2016. (Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian via AP) Not enough evidence to charge son of Illinois police officer CHICAGO (AP) Investigators did not find enough evidence to charge the son of a disgraced Illinois policeman with financial crimes even though text messages show the father and son discussing money pilfered from a youth program before the officer killed himself, a police spokesman said Thursday. Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz elaborately staged his Sept. 1 suicide to look like he'd been killed in the line of duty because he feared his embezzlement would be uncovered, authorities say. His death triggered a massive, weeks-long manhunt that left the community on edge. Investigators announced two months later that it was a suicide and released details of the embezzlement scheme. The revelation stunned the northern Illinois community where the officer known as "G.I. Joe" was regarded as a hero and role model for young people he mentored in the Fox Lake Police Explorer program. FILE - In this Sept. 7, 2015 file photo, Donald D.J. Gliniewicz, the son of Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz, leaves after funeral services for his father at Antioch High School in Antioch, Ill. Authorities later concluded that Gliniewicz staged his September suicide to look like hed been killed in the line of duty after embezzling from a youth program. On Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, authorities said they do not have enough evidence to charge his son with financial crimes even though text messages show the pair discussing money pilfered from a youth program before the officer killed himself. (Patrick Kunzer/ Daily Herald via AP, File) MANDATORY CREDIT, MAGS OUT Authorities released incriminating text and Facebook messages in November showing a frantic Gliniewicz discussing the money and ways he could evade discovery. An official with knowledge of the investigation identified Gliniewicz's wife and one of his sons, an Army soldier stationed in North Carolina, as the recipients of those messages. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the probe publicly. The officers' wife, Melodie Gliniewicz, was indicted Wednesday by a grand jury on felony counts of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority and for personal benefit. With her indictment, the financial investigation is over and no one else is expected to be charged, said Lake County Sheriff's Office spokesman Christopher Covelli. Investigators were not able to prove that the officer's 23-year-old son, Donald "D.J." Gliniewicz, knew until after the fact that the money he was spending had been stolen, Covelli said. Melodie Gliniewicz had fiduciary responsibility for the Explorer accounts as a program adviser. D.J. Gliniewicz, who had gone through the program in his youth, did not, Covelli said. The text messages between the officer and his son, an Army specialist with the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, show the older Gliniewicz was lending him several thousand dollars from Explorer accounts for things such as truck repairs and a summer leave trip to Oklahoma. He pleads with his son to return the money. "You'll have to start dumping money into that account or you will be visiting me in JAIL!!," he said in a June 25 message. "The 1600 and the 777 all came from there." The investigation could not determine definitively whether the younger Gliniewicz knew before that point that the money was from Explorer funds, Covelli said. Investigators sifted through thousands of pages of financial documents, interviewed witnesses and flew to D.J. Gliniewicz's military post to interview him, Covelli said. In a message sent through a spokesman for the 82nd Airborne, D.J. Gliniewicz declined to comment Thursday. It was not clear whether he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf. Melodie Gliniewicz was taken to the county jail Wednesday and released later in the day after posting 10 percent of her $50,000 bond. "Melodie is a victim of her husband's secret action and looks forward to her day in court to show the world her innocence," said the law firm Kelleher & Buckley, which is representing her. Investigators found that money from the police explorer's account was used for expenses including more than 400 restaurant charges, personal payments to a Starbucks and a local theater as well as a trip to Hawaii. Gliniewicz was experienced in staging crime scenes for drills with the youth program. Moments before his death he radioed dispatchers to tell them he was chasing three suspicious men. He left his equipment strewn over a wooded, swampy area leading up to the spot where he shot himself twice, once in his ballistic vest and once in his upper chest. ___ Associated Press Writer Don Babwin contributed to this report. FILE - This undated file photo provided by the Fox Lake Police Department shows Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz, who authorities say staged his own death on Sept. 1, 2015, to look like hed been killed in the line of duty after embezzling from a youth program. Authorities say they do not have enough evidence to charge Gliniewiczs son Donald D.J. Gliniewicz with financial crimes even though text messages show the pair discussing money pilfered from a youth program before the officer killed himself. (Fox Lake Police Department photo via AP, File) The Latest: Iranian president formally welcomed to France PARIS (AP) Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is being formally welcomed to France at the gold-domed Invalides monument where Napoleon is buried. While Rouhani arrived in Paris on Wednesday from Rome, the official French government greeting ceremony is being held Thursday morning. Rouhani is also meeting Thursday with the chief of UNESCO, the Paris-based U.N. cultural body, and speaking to high-level French executives whose companies are interested in resuming trade with his long-isolated nation of 80 million people. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani waits before a meeting with French Senate President Gerard Larcher, in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Rouhani says his first visit to Europe since the nuclear accord was signed has proven that there are "great possibilities" for economic, academic, scientific and cultural cooperation and that "today we are in a win-win situation" after years of mutual losses due to sanctions. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) Later he and French President Francois Hollande will oversee a ceremony for signing about 20 bilateral accords. The trip is an effort to usher in a new era after a landmark accord to curb Iran's nuclear program and lift Western sanctions. However, France is now weighing new sanctions over Iranian ballistic missile tests. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, third left seated, attends a meeting with French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron and French business leaders in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Rouhani says his first visit to Europe since the nuclear accord was signed has proven that there are "great possibilities" for economic, academic, scientific and cultural cooperation and that "today we are in a win-win situation" after years of mutual losses due to sanctions. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) Poll: Uninsured sit on the sidelines as sign-up season ends WASHINGTON (AP) Most uninsured Americans are sitting on the sidelines as sign-up season under the federal health law comes to a close, according to a new poll that signals the nation's historic gains in coverage are slowing. The survey released Thursday by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation finds that: Only 15 percent of the uninsured know this year's open enrollment deadline is Sunday. FILE - In this Oct. 6, 2015 file photo, the HealthCare.gov website, where people can buy health insurance, is displayed on a laptop screen in Washington. Most uninsured Americans are sitting on the sidelines as sign-up season under the federal health law comes to a close, according to a new poll that signals the nations historic gains in coverage are slowing. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) More than 7 in 10 say they have not tried to figure out if they qualify for the two main coverage expansions in the law, Medicaid and subsidized private health insurance. Only 1 in 100 know the minimum penalty for being uninsured is going up to $695 in 2016. About two-thirds say they have not been contacted about signing up for coverage. "What this survey does suggest is that it will get harder and harder to continue to make gains in the share of people getting health insurance," said Mollyann Brodie, Kaiser's polling director. "I think we will be in a period where we will see slower and slower gains in that number." Nonetheless, administration officials said Thursday they are confident of a strong finish to sign-up season this weekend. Thirty-five states served by the federal HealthCare.gov website are ahead of where they were at the same point last year, said Andy Slavitt, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. More than 14 percent of Americans were uninsured in 2013 before the big coverage expansion under President Barack Obama's health care law. That share dropped to 9 percent last year, according to the government. Now, those historic gains could be stalling out. It's raising questions about the lasting impact of Obama's signature legislation, and spurring liberals like Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to call for guaranteed coverage for all. The health law's problems in part reflect entrenched political opposition, but there's also skepticism about whether the coverage is affordable for uninsured people of modest means. Premiums are up, and those who get sick can face significant out-of-pocket costs. Major health insurer Anthem said Wednesday it booked fewer customers than expected last year through the health care law. The poll found that nearly half the uninsured (46 percent) have been without coverage for two years or longer. The Kaiser poll is the second independent survey to raise questions recently. Earlier this month, the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index found that the law's progress stalled last year. The share of U.S. adults without health insurance was 11.9 percent in the last three months of 2015, according to Gallup, essentially unchanged from the start of the year. The health law has added coverage in two major ways. Online insurance markets like HealthCare.gov offer taxpayer-subsidized private plans to people who don't have coverage on the job. Sunday is the marketplace sign-up deadline. The Obama administration has set a modest goal of 10 million people enrolled through the markets and paying premiums at the end of the year. Earlier this week, the Congressional Budget Office reduced its own enrollment projections. The law's other big driver of coverage is a Medicaid expansion aimed at low-income adults with no children living at home. Thirty-one states, plus Washington, D.C., have opted to expand. But populous Republican-led states including Texas, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina have turned down the federal offer. If they were to accept, the coverage expansion would regain its momentum. The poll found that Americans remain divided on the Affordable Care Act, with 44 percent viewing it unfavorably and 41 percent holding a favorable view. The Kaiser survey was conducted Jan. 13-19 among a nationally representative sample of 1,204 adults. For the entire poll, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. For the uninsured, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 10 percentage points. ___ Online: Senate Dems pitch $400 million fix for lead pipes in Flint WASHINGTON (AP) Senate Democrats on Thursday proposed up to $400 million in emergency federal aid to Flint, Michigan, half of what the state's Republican governor says it will cost to replace and fix the city's lead-contaminated pipes. Senate Republicans were non-committal on whether they would back the measure that would spend money without any offsetting budget cuts and add to the deficit. The Senate could vote as early as next week on the proposal, a move with political implications as Democrats insist that Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and other state officials ignored a dire problem in the majority black city of 100,000 north of Detroit. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., second from left, accompanied by, from left, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., discusses proposed legislation to help Flint, Mich. with their current water crisis, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said "there's no doubt" in her mind that if the water problem had occurred in a wealthy, white community, the state would have responded immediately. Pointing to a large photo of brown water in a Flint sink, Stabenow said that if one of Snyder's supporters had called the governor's office "and said, 'Our water looks like this. It smells. Our children are getting rashes. People are losing their hair. Help us.' I don't think it would be very long at all before it was fixed." A spokesman for Snyder disputed Stabenow's claim. As governor, Snyder "takes the well-being of all Michiganders very seriously, regardless of where they are from," spokesman Dave Murray said. Snyder was reviewing the Senate proposal but is "always grateful for support from our federal partners," Murray said. The amendment proposed by Stabenow and Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., would require the state of Michigan to match the $400 million federal spending on Flint pipes, dollar for dollar. "This is a state responsibility," Peters said at a news conference Thursday at the Capitol. "The state broke it. They need to fix it." Flint's water became contaminated when the financially-struggling city switched from the Detroit municipal system and began drawing from the Flint River in April 2014 to save money. The city was under state control at the time. Regulators failed to ensure the water was treated properly and lead from pipes leached into the supply, leading to a spike in child lead exposure. Some children's blood has tested positive for lead, a potent neurotoxin linked to learning disabilities, lower IQ and behavioral problems Snyder has estimated the cost of replacing Flint's water supply infrastructure at $767.4 million, although local officials peg the cost at twice that amount. The measure introduced by Stabenow and Peters requires federal action if a state refuses to warn the public about unsafe water and authorizes $20 million a year for 10 years to monitor lead exposure in Flint. The measure also would require the Environmental Protection Agency to alert the public if there is a danger from lead in the water system, if the state refuses to act. The Michigan senators and other Democrats offered the measure Thursday as an amendment to a bipartisan Senate energy bill. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called the water problems in Flint "disgraceful" and said "thousands of young children have lead coursing in their veins," not in an impoverished country but in the United States. Peters said the issue was not partisan. "This is about the children of Flint," he said. But other Democrats said the crisis in Flint came amid continuing Republican attacks on government regulation, particularly those aimed at the environment. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., decried what he called a "persistent and very well-funded campaign' by Republicans and business interests to "deride and degrade environmental protections" and even eliminate the EPA. Whitehouse said the children of Flint "aren't big shots, they don't vote, but they sure as heck are entitled to drink water that isn't poisoning them and damaging their brain development." The Senate proposal came as the Michigan Legislature unanimously approved $28 million in new funding to address lead contamination in Flint. The emergency spending bill includes money for more bottled water and filters and services to monitor for developmental delays in young children. The money also will help the city with unpaid water bills and cover testing, monitoring and other costs. The Senate was voting Thursday on amendments to the energy bill, the first comprehensive energy legislation to come up for a vote in the Senate in nine years. The wide-ranging bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., would update building codes to increase efficiency, strengthen electric grid safety standards and promote development of an array of energy forms, from renewables such as solar and wind power, to natural gas, hydropower and even geothermal energy. Fierce partisan fights over the measure are expected as lawmakers offer amendments responding to President Barack Obama's energy policies and efforts to slow climate change. Even so, lawmakers said they hope to finish the overall energy bill next week. ___ Associated Press writer David Eggert in Lansing, Mich., contributed to this story. Follow Matthew Daly on Twitter: http://twitter.com/MatthewDalyWDC Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., left, accompanied by Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and others discusses proposed legislation to help Flint, Mich. with their current water crisis, during a news conference, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) Sovereignty, legacy factors in Taiwan leader's island visit TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) Seeking to assert Taiwan's sovereignty and build his legacy, President Ma Ying-jeou paid a visit Thursday to an even smaller island also claimed by China. Defying rare criticism from the U.S., Ma flew to the island of Taiping in the South China Sea and sought to cast Taiwan as a peaceful, humanitarian player in a region where China's robust assertions of its territorial claims are sharpening disputes with its neighbors. Ma cited infrastructure developments, including a 10-bed hospital and a lighthouse, saying they reinforced Taiwan's claim of sovereignty and granted it rights over the surrounding waters. "All this evidence fully demonstrates that Taiping Island is able to sustain human habitation and an economic life of its own. Taiping Island is categorically not a rock, but an island," Ma said. Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou speaks to the media during a briefing following his visit to Taiping island, also known as Itu Aba, in Taipei, Taiwan, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. Outgoing President Ma, defying a rare criticism from key ally the United States, visited the island in the disputed South China Sea on Thursday to emphasize Taiwan's sovereignty claims in the increasingly tense region. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying) Ma had invited along his successor, President-elect Tsai Ing-wen of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, but she declined the offer, apparently to clarify the difference between her and Ma's unpopular China-friendly Nationalist Party administration. NATURE OF THE DISPUTE Roughly 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) south of Taiwan and 46 hectares (110 acres) in size with a population of around 200 people, mostly military personnel, Taiping is the largest naturally occurring island in the South China Sea's disputed Spratly islands. However, it has recently been eclipsed in size by islands China has built up from reefs and shoals. China has constructed housing, ports, airstrips and other infrastructure on the newly created islands, which others say is exacerbating tensions in the strategically vital region. While Taiwan and China share identical claims to almost the entire South China Sea and its islands, reefs and atolls, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei also say parts of the strategically vital sea belong to them. Amid international litigation over the competing claims, Taiwan wants to ensure Taiping retains its status as an island with accompanying rights to surrounding waters, rather than simply that of a rock unable to sustain human habitation. TAIWAN'S ROLE Taiwan has been largely passive in the dispute, unlike China, which has deployed civilian vessels, coast guard ships and even oil rigs to assert its claims and intimidate its rivals. However, the island has also been upgrading its outpost on Taiping, spending more than $100 million to improve the island's airstrip and build a wharf capable of allowing its 3,000-ton coast guard cutters to dock. On Thursday, Ma laid out what he called the South China Sea Peace Initiative Roadmap promoting cooperation rather than confrontation, sharing rather than monopolizing, and pragmatism rather than intransigence. Ma drew a contrast with China's approach, saying Beijing had not advocated peaceful sharing of resources. Incoming President Tsai, meanwhile, has pledged to uphold Taiwan's claims while avoiding conflict. CHINA'S RESPONSE Although Ma's presence on the island highlighted Taiwan's status as a self-governing democracy, Beijing wasn't outwardly bothered by his trip there. Responding to a question on the matter Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the islands have been Chinese "since ancient times," but that Beijing was committed to maintaining freedom of navigation, peace, stability, development and prosperity in the South China Sea."People from both sides of the (Taiwan) Strait have the responsibility to maintain the ancestral property of the Chinese nation," Hua said. China and Taiwan hold identical claims to the South China Sea, aligning with Beijing's "one China principle" that considers them two parts of a single Chinese nation. Any renouncing of Taiwan's claims in the area would likely be frowned on by Beijing, which has threatened to retaliate against formal changes in Taiwan's legal status with military force. MA'S MOTIVES Ma is constitutionally barred from seeking a third four-year term and is preparing to leave office in May amid dismal public approval ratings. His Nationalist Party was hammered in the Jan. 16 elections, with Tsai taking 56 percent of the vote and her party winning 68 of 113 seats in the legislature, its first-ever majority. Ma has been seeking to leave on a high note, as witnessed by his historic summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in November, the first meeting between leaders of the two sides since they split amid civil war in 1949. "It's for his legacy," said Lin Chong-pin, a retired strategic studies professor in Taiwan. "Ma would like to be called the one who really breaks the barrier between Taipei and Beijing and lays the cornerstone for eventual reunification." TSAI'S DECISION Taiwan's president-elect declined to join the trip in an apparent effort to disassociate herself from Ma. The DPP takes a more guarded approach to relations with China and she has refused to endorse China's basic conditions for dialogue, casting new uncertainty over the relationship that had grown substantially closer under Ma. Tsai also wants to build ties with the United States, and by declining to join Ma's trip she avoided being netted in the U.S. State department's criticism. "She wants to draw a clear distinction from everything this government has done or plans to do regarding this controversy," said Raymond Wu, managing director of Taipei-based political risk consultancy e-telligence. "She also wants to maintain a close relationship with Japan and the United States and this isn't something they would want." OTHER RESPONSES The Philippines expressed concern over the trip, and U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the United States was disappointed by it. "We view it as, frankly, as raising tensions rather than what we want to see, which is de-escalation," Toner said. During a visit to Beijing on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry encouraged all parties in the South China Sea to clarify their territorial claims, exercise restraint and engage in negotiations on the basis of international law. Ma responded later in the day that Taiwan and the U.S. were on the same page in terms of prioritizing peace and joint development. "Everything we're doing is for the promotion of peace. How can we be causing tensions?" Ma told reporters. ___ Bodeen reported from Beijing. Associated Press writer Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report. In this photo released by the Taiwan Presidential Office, Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou displays a locally grown fruit during his visit to Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba, in the Spratly archipelago, south of Taiwan, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. Outgoing President Ma, defying a rare criticism from key ally the United States, visited the island in the disputed South China Sea on Thursday to emphasize Taiwan's sovereignty claims in the increasingly tense region. (Taiwan's Presidential Office via AP) In this photo released by the Taiwan Presidential Office, Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou, second from right, arrives on his visit to Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba, in the Spratly archipelago, south of Taiwan, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. Outgoing President Ma, defying a rare criticism from key ally the United States, visited the island in the disputed South China Sea on Thursday to emphasize Taiwan's sovereignty claims in the increasingly tense region. (Taiwan's Presidential Office via AP) In this photo released by the Taiwan Presidential Office, Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou posts a letter in a mailbox during his visit to Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba, in the Spratly archipelago, south of Taiwan, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. Outgoing President Ma, defying a rare criticism from key ally the United States, visited the island in the disputed South China Sea on Thursday to emphasize Taiwan's sovereignty claims in the increasingly tense region. (Taiwan's Presidential Office via AP) The Latest: Sweden may deport up to 80,000 asylum-seekers STOCKHOLM (AP) The Latest on the continuing influx of asylum-seekers and migrants in Europe (all times local): 10:00 a.m. Swedish Interior Minister Anders Ygeman says the country could deport between 60,000 and 80,000 asylum-seekers in coming years. In this Friday, Jan. 15, 2016 photo, refugees wait their turn at the Tabakika registration center, Chios island, Greece. Despite the bitter winter cold and rough seas, tens of thousands of men, women and children fleeing violence and poverty in their homelands continue to risk their lives to make the relatively short but dangerous journey from the Turkish coast to nearby Greek islands, seeking a better future in Europe. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) Ygeman told newspaper Dagens Industri that since about 45 percent of asylum applications are currently rejected, the country must get ready to send back tens of thousands of the 163,000 who sought shelter in Sweden last year. "I think that it could be about 60,000 people, but it could also be up to 80,000," Ygeman was quoted as saying. His spokesman, Victor Harju, confirmed the quotes Thursday, adding that the minister was simply applying the current approval rate to the record number of asylum-seekers that arrived in 2015. Harju adds: "That rate could of course change." Germany and Sweden were the top destinations for asylum-seekers in Europe last year ___ 8:45 a.m. Greece's coast guard says it is unclear how many people are missing from the latest migrant boat sinking off an eastern Greek island that has claimed at least 11 lives. Ten people have been rescued from Thursday's sinking north of the island of Samos. The coast guard said the survivors were in shock and their accounts of how many people were on board were confused and vague. Five of the survivors were found clinging to a piece of wood, leading authorities to believe that the vessel that sank was made of wood. The bodies of our boys, three girls, three men and one woman were recovered from the sea. A search and rescue operation was ongoing in the area by the Greek coast guard and vessels from the European border patrol agency Frontex. ___ 8:05 a.m. Greece's coast guard says at least 11 people, most of them children, have died in the latest migrant boat sinking off an eastern Greek island. The circumstances of Thursday's sinking were unclear. The Greek coast guard and vessels from the European border patrol agency Frontex were carrying out a search and rescue operation off the island of Samos. Ten people were rescued, while 11 bodies those of four boys, three girls, three men and one woman were recovered. The sinking is the second in two days. Another boat sank off the island of Kos on Wednesday, leaving seven dead, including two children. Greece, with thousands of kilometers (miles) of coastline and islands very near the Turkish coast, is the main gateway into Europe for refugees and migrants. Filipinos talk about 1st visit by Japanese emperor since war Emperor Akihito is making the first visit by a Japanese emperor since World War II to the Philippines, which suffered under Japan's harsh military occupation during the war but now relies on Tokyo as an ally, trading partner and source of aid and investment. Akihito was apprehensive when he first visited the Philippines as crown prince in 1962, fearing anti-Japanese feelings were still strong, but his anxiety vanished in the smiles of the Philippine president and Filipinos who welcomed him, according to the emperor's press secretary, Hatsuhisa Takashima. A selection of Filipinos' views on Akihito's visit: Students line up the route with Japanese and Philippine flags to welcome visiting Japan's Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko for another function at Fort Santiago Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 in Manila, Philippines. The 82-year-old Akihito is paying his respects at memorials for both the Philippine and the Japanese war dead during a five-day state visit.(AP Photo/Bullit Marquez) ___ "I think if the Japanese are offering an apology for what they did, it is better to be friends because we can no longer bring back the past. I am happy about what the emperor said because they have accepted their mistake, but maybe they should help the remaining victims of the war to ease their pain." Joel Abedo, 51, security guard. ___ "I feel very happy because they both looked very kind and it is always an honor to see royalty from other countries visiting the Philippines." Bea Roque, 19, student. ___ "(After) what they did to my sister ... I thought, what is the biggest revenge I can do to the Japanese? Rape as many women as I can. ... I realize now that all that hate was wrong and I asked for forgiveness ... therefore, I welcome very much the visit of Emperor, his majesty, Akihito." Miguel Perez-Rubio, 90, World War II survivor. ___ "We were initially happy that he visited because our only hope is with him, that he will give attention to the 'comfort women' ... but nothing. ... He gave attention to the war dead but he has not even given attention to what his soldiers did (to us) during the war." Hilaria Bustamante, 89, who was forced to work as a sex slave, or "comfort woman," for Japanese troops during the war. ___ "The sentiments (about the war) are still there but enough time I think has passed 70 years. Most of the wounds have been healed, most of the victims have passed away, although there are still several around. The younger generation looks at Japan in a different light ... in terms of Japanese cars, Japanese cameras, electronics, manga, anime. So the youth's perception of Japan is very different from the elder generation's perception." Ricardo Jose, 58, historian. ___ "My eldest brother was killed by the Japanese military because he was suspected as an American spy. My second brother was killed by Filipino guerrillas for being a mestizo (Filipino of Japanese descent). My younger brother, sister and my mother were killed by American shelling. Only two of us in the family survived. There should never be any war again. ... I welcome the emperor because he is on a peace mission." Carlos Teraoka, 85, Filipino whose father was Japanese. ___ "In meeting your majesties, I am held in awe, recognizing the burdens you have borne as you have had to live with the weight of the decisions made by others during the dark episodes in the history of our nations. It is, however, upon this history that we have built a far more enduring relationship." Benigno Aquino III, 55, Philippine president. Visiting Japan's Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko wave to well-wishers as his motorcade passes by a university at Fort Santiago Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 in Manila, Philippines. The 82-year-old Akihito is paying his respects at memorials for both the Philippine and the Japanese war dead during a five-day state visit.(AP Photo/Bullit Marquez) Family members of the crew gathered Thursday at the Kennedy Space Center for a memorial The space shuttle was carrying six astronauts and a schoolteacher when it launched and then exploded seconds Advertisement On January 28, 1986, Americans across the country took a break from their work, or from class, and found their way to a television to watch the space shuttle Challenger take off from Cape Canaveral. Seventy-three seconds later, the nation gave a united gasp as the shuttle exploded like a firework across the bright blue sky - killing all seven crew members on board. Today, on the 30th anniversary of the disaster, the son of teacher Christa McAuliffe, who won her place onboard the shuttle and died alongside her fellow astronauts, led family tributes. Scott McAuliffe, who along with his sister Caroline has become a teacher like their mother, was just eight when the tragedy happened. Today he stood clutching a white rose in a rare appearance to honor her. His sister, who was six, and their father Steven chose not to attend. Along with Mr McAuliffe was Alison Smith Balch, daughter of Challenger pilot Michael Smith and Kathie Scobee Fulgham, daughter of Challenger commander Francis Scobee and her brother Air Force Brig. Gen. Richard Scobee. They gathered at he Kennedy Space Center in Florida to pay an emotional tribute to their lost loved ones. Meanwhile, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden also commemorated the fallen astronauts by placing a wreath at their memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. Scroll down for video After placing a wreath, daughters and sons of Challenger astronauts look up at the names of their loved ones on the Astronaut Memorial at Kennedy Space Center on Thursday. Pictured left to right are Alison Smith Balch, daughter of Challenger pilot Michael Smith, Kathie Scobee Fulgham, daughter of Challenger commander Francis Scobee, Air Force Brig. Gen. Richard Scobee, the Challenger commander's son and Scott McAuliffe, son of Challenger "Teacher in Space" Christa McAuliffe. Family: High School teacher Christa McAuliffe, her husband Steven, and children Caroline, 6, and Scott, 8, pose for a picture together outside their Concord home on Saturday, July 20, 1985 The family of Christa McAuliffe, sister, Betsy, front, and parents Grace and Ed Corrigan, react in horror as the shuttle explodes The awful moment, just 73 seconds after take off, that the shuttle exploded on January 28 1986 as 17 per cent of the American population watched on in horror Unlike in previous years, the widow of Challenger commander Dick Scobee did not address the group. Instead, June Scobee Rodgers passed the torch to her daughter Kathie Scobee Fulgham, heralding in a second generation of survivors who will be the new custodians to the crew's legacy. Christa McAuliffe's son, Scott, attended with his own own family. McAuliffe was chosen from 10,000 candidates to be the first schoolteacher to visit space, and when she died on that January day, she left behind a husband, a son and a daughter. 'It's going to be wonderful to watch the pages turn,' Rodgers said earlier this week. The second generation 'can now speak for our family and speak for the nation,' she said, adding that she's looking forward to these grown astronauts' children 'sharing their stories, their beliefs and their leadership.' People attend a Day of Remembrance Ceremony to honor the lives of the seven crew members of the Challenger space shuttle on the 30th anniversary of the 1986 tragedy, at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on Thursday Dozens of family members of the crew killed in the explosion gathered at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday for a memorial NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, left, and NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman, right, take part in a 'Day of Remembrance' ceremony to pay tribute to the crews of Apollo 1 and Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia at Arlington National Cemetery on January 28, 2016 in Washington, DC Members of the "Old Guard" take part in a changing of the guard ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider at Arlington National Cemetery January 28, 2016 in Washington, DC Rick Varner, director of the Scobee Education Center at San Antonio College, places a wreath at the Challenger Memorial Garden during a ceremony to honor the lives of the seven crew members of the shuttle on Thursday Visitors to the Scobee Education Center at San Antonio College view art work displayed to honor the lives of the seven crew members of Challenger shuttle flight STS-51L on the 30th anniversary of the 1986 tragedy, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) Bob Kelley shows a video at the Scobee Education Center planetarium at San Antonio College following a ceremony to honor the lives of the seven crew members of Challenger shuttle flight STS-51L on the 30th anniversary of the 1986 tragedy, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) For the seven astronauts' loved ones, January 28, 1986, remains fresh in their minds. Steven McAuliffe, a federal judge in Concord, New Hampshire, still declines interviews about his late wife Christa, who was poised to become the first schoolteacher in space. But he noted in a statement that although 30 years have passed, 'Challenger will always be an event that occurred just recently. Our thoughts and memories of Christa will always be fresh and comforting.' McAuliffe said he's pleased 'Christa's goals have been largely accomplished in that she has inspired generations of classroom teachers and students.' She would be proud, he noted, of the Challenger Learning Centers. Thursday marks the 30th anniversary of the Challenger space shuttle explosion. Above, the six astronauts and school teacher who were killed in the disaster. Front row from left are Michael J. Smith, Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, and Ronald E. McNair. Back row from left are Ellison Onizuka, school teacher Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, and Judith Resnik In this series of photos taken on January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger is seen exploding in the sky just 73 seconds after take-off from Cape Canaveral, Florida while a family from Michigan watches from Shepard Park in Cocoa Beach WHAT CAUSED THE CHALLENGER DISASTER? On January 28, 1986, shortly before noon, the space shuttle challenger launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The shuttle was taking five crew, an engineer and a school teacher in space. The launch was highly publicized due to the fact that New Hampshire high school teacher Christa McAuliffe was to become the first teacher in space - winning the spot from a pool of 10,000 applicants. But just 73 seconds after the launch, the shuttle exploded in the sky making a trail of smoke into the ocean. NASA later blamed the deadly launch on unusually cold weather in Florida which led to the shuttle's booster rocket O-ring seals to become stiff, causing a leak. Advertisement McAuliffe is presiding over a trial this week in Concord, and so son Scott will represent the family, part of the next-generation shift. Scott and his sister are now in their 30s and have followed in their mother's footsteps to become teachers as well. The McAuliffes normally do not take part in these NASA memorials, so Scott's presence is especially noteworthy. Along with the other Challenger families, Rodgers established the Challenger Center for Space Science Education just three months after the shuttle disintegrated in the Florida sky. Unusually cold weather that morning left Challenger's booster rockets with stiff O-ring seals; a leak in the right booster doomed the ship. Today, there are more than 40 Challenger Learning Centers focusing on science, technology, engineering and math, mostly in the U.S. More are being built. 'They're not just a field trip for kids. They're actually lessons learned,' said Rodgers, an educator who lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. 'That's why they've lasted.' McAuliffe's backup, Barbara Morgan, a schoolteacher from Idaho, rocketed into orbit in 2007 aboard Endeavour as a fully-trained astronaut. Morgan was invited to speak Thursday at Rodgers' request. Besides Dick Scobee and Christa McAuliffe, the Challenger dead include pilot Michael Smith, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka and Gregory Jarvis. Seven more shuttle astronauts died February 1, 2003, aboard Columbia; that commander's widow, Evelyn Husband Thompson, will attend Thursday's ceremony. Unusually cold weather the morning of the launch left Challenger's booster rockets with stiff O-ring seals; a leak in the right booster doomed the ship. Above, the Challenger during take-off In this January 27, 1986 file picture, the crew members of space shuttle Challenger , leave their quarters for the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. From foreground are commander Francis Scobee, Mission Spl. Judith Resnik, Mission Spl. Ronald McNair, Payload Spl. Gregory Jarvis, Mission Spl. Ellison Onizuka, teacher Christa McAuliffe and pilot Michael Smith This NASA file photo taken on January 8, 1986 shows the space shuttle Challenger mission crew as they pose for a portrait while training at Kennedy Space Center's Launch complex. Left to right are teacher Christa McAuliffe; Payload Specialist Gregory Jarvis; and Astronauts Judith A. Resnik, mission specialist; Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, mission commander; Ronald E. McNair, mission specialist; Mike J. Smith, pilot; and Ellison S. Onizuka, mission specialist Frederick Gregory (foreground) and Richard O Covey, spacecraft communicators at Mission Control in Houston watch helplessly as the Challenger shuttle explodes on take-off In this January 28, 1986 file picture, spectators at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida react after they witnessed the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger Faces of spectators register incomprehension and shock as they witness the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger 73 seconds after liftoff, on January 28, 1986 Above, more shocked spectators to the Challenger disaster. About 17 per cent of Americans watched the launch Young Scott McAuliffe's third grade teacher comforts one of her charges as another youngster and a young woman, right, react after seeing the Space Shuttle Challenger explode in midair, killing all aboard on Tuesday, January 28, 1986 The event will honor the Columbia Seven as well, along with the three Apollo 1 astronauts killed during a launch pad test on January 27, 1967. NASA also plans observances at Arlington National cemetery, Johnson Space Center in Houston and elsewhere. At Kennedy, the Scobee contingent will number 12, including June's son Richard, a major general in the Air Force, and a 16-year-old granddaughter. Dick Scobee was 46 years old when he died aboard Challenger barely a minute into the flight. Both his children are now in their 50s. 'For so many people, 30 years, it's definitely history. It's in the history books,' Rodgers said. For the family, 'it's like it's just happened, which in a way keeps Dick Scobee young in our hearts, and the joy and excitement he had for flying.' In this 1986 file photo, members of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident walk past the solid rocket boosters and the external tank of a shuttle being fitted in the Vehicle Assembly building at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida In this January 28, 1986 photo provided by NASA shows icicles on hand rails of the space shuttle Challenger's service structure on the morning of its final launch from Kennedy Space Center, Florida The Latest: East-West contrasts in Iranian leader's visit PARIS (AP) The Latest on Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's visit to Europe (all times local): 8:15 p.m. The Iranian president's visit to Paris has been rife with contrasts, from the headwear to the East-West tensions underpinning his discourse. French president Francois Hollande, right, welcomes Iranian President Hassan Rouhani before a meeting at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. France has welcomed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani with a lucrative car-making agreement and pledges to boost trade after a diplomatic deal easing nuclear tensions. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) Hassan Rouhani's white turban and flowing robes stood out against the angular uniforms and feathered helmets of Republican Guards in the Elysee Palace. French President Francois Hollande, who's often jocular, stood closed-lipped as he shook hands with a grinning Rouhani in the presidential courtyard. At a meeting with executives, France's firmly secular prime minister sat rigid on the stage as Rouhani opened his speech with the words, "In the name of God..." And mealtimes were discreet for a man whose country bans alcohol as he visited a land that venerates wine. Unlike in Rome, where zealous officials covered naked statues at a museum Rouhani visited, a couple of bare bodies surfaced during his Paris stay. A topless protester, the Iranian flag painted across her chest, staged a mock hanging off a Paris bridge. And in the presidential palace, a fresco above the dais where Rouhani and Hollande spoke to reporters included a woman with one bared breast. ___ 7:45 p.m. France and Iran have signed a total of 20 agreements, including nine commercial deals, following the meeting between the presidents of the two countries, Francois Hollande and Hassan Rouhani. French and Iranian companies signed a series of agreements Thursday in the sectors of air and maritime transport, airports, health and agriculture. Oil and gas company Total signed an agreement with the National Iranian Oil Company on purchases of crude oil. The total value of the deals could reach up to 30 billion euros ($32.8 billion) including the 22.8 billion euros ($25 billion) for the sale of 118 Airbus passenger aircraft to Iran Air, according to the French presidency. ___ 5:45 p.m. Iran Air has signed a deal to buy 118 aircraft from Airbus in the first of an expected host of commercial deals expected to be announced during the visit of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Paris. Rouhani and French President Francois Hollande are expected to oversee the signing of about 20 bilateral agreements. ___ 3:55 p.m. The Iranian president is meeting with his French counterpart at the Elysee palace. Hassan Rouhani, smiling, walked across the Elysee courtyard in front of the Republican Guards to be formally welcomed by Francois Hollande. The two heads of state are to discuss Iran's role in peacemaking in the region, notably in Syria and Yemen, as well as other issues. The meeting is scheduled to last for about two hours. Then Rouhani and Hollande are expected to oversee the signing of about 20 bilateral agreements. They will give a joint news conference following their meeting. ___ 2:55 p.m. Iran's president is highlighting his country's experience hosting 3 million people fleeing neighboring Afghanistan as an example for a Europe struggling to absorb migrants. Hassan Rouhani, speaking at French think tank IFRI on a trip to Paris, said "our nation has shouldered such a heavy weight through all these years, accepting 3 million migrants without complaining." As at least 1 million people fleeing war and poverty in Syria and elsewhere reached Europe last year, Rouhani said, "Europeans with all their economic power and resources were saying '100,000 migrants have arrived to our soil, what do we do now? 200,000 have swarmed (our borders), what do we do now?'" He did not elaborate on how Iran handled the Afghan migrant influx, even as Iran's economy struggled for years amid sanctions that were recently lifted. ___ 12:45 p.m. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says successful negotiations over his country's nuclear conflict with the West could serve as an example for solving multiple regional crises in the Middle East. Rouhani, in a speech to French think tank IFRI, said that for such diplomacy to work, both sides must "lower our pretensions." Speaking through a translator, he said "that allowed us to reach accords" on curbing Iran's nuclear program and lifting sanctions. "Each side must feel it is a win-win agreement." He was responding to a question about how Iran can contribute to restoring order in Middle East. Rouhani's visit to Paris is focused on renewing trade ties, but France also wants to draw in Iran's help in peacemaking in the region, notably in Syria and Yemen, and easing tensions with regional rival Saudi Arabia. ___ 11:20 a.m. A near-naked woman hanging from a noose-like rope from a Paris bridge has sent a message to visiting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. "Welcome Rouhani, Executioner of Freedom," read a huge banner across the pedestrian bridge over the Seine River near the Eiffel Tower. The protest Thursday by feminist group Femen is calling attention to the large number of executions in Iran. Iran is one of the world's largest users of the death penalty, ranking second behind China in 2014, according to Amnesty International. Most Iranian executions are linked to drug smuggling. Sarah Constantin, the activist who hung from the bridge, said they organized the "public hanging" to call attention to those executed for political reasons and put pressure on French President Francois Hollande to bring up human rights in his meeting with Rouhani. ___ 11:05 a.m. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said his country is "favorable terrain" for resumed trade between East and West, as he and French Prime Minister Manuel Valls pledged to turn the page on past tensions. Rouhani is reaching out to European businesses on the first visit by an Iranian president to Europe since 1999. Rouhani, speaking to French executives Thursday, urged efforts to unblock financing for resumed trade now that sanctions over Iran's nuclear program have been lifted. Continued U.S. bank restrictions against Iran are a hurdle to many European countries seeking renewed commerce. Rouhani praised France and said he wants to use the positive atmosphere after a landmark nuclear accord to boost ties. Valls said the countries should forget past rancor. "France is available for Iran," he said. "Iran can count on France." ___ 10:30 a.m. France's Peugeot-Citroen has announced a joint venture with automaker Iran Khodro to make 200,000 cars a year outside Tehran, as both countries seek to boost trade after the lifting of Western sanctions. Carlos Tavares, chairman of the PSA Peugeot-Citroen managing board, announced the deal Thursday during a visit to France by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. It will be a 50-50 joint venture, aiming to produce three new models of cars starting late next year. Peugeot was a major player in Iran's car market before the sanctions were imposed, and the company said negotiations for this deal have been under way since before the sanctions were lifted. ___ 9:00 a.m. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is being formally welcomed to France at the gold-domed Invalides monument where Napoleon is buried. While Rouhani arrived in Paris on Wednesday from Rome, the official French government greeting ceremony is being held Thursday morning. Rouhani is also meeting Thursday with the chief of UNESCO, the Paris-based U.N. cultural body, and speaking to high-level French executives whose companies are interested in resuming trade with his long-isolated nation of 80 million people. Later he and French President Francois Hollande will oversee a ceremony for signing about 20 bilateral accords. The trip is an effort to usher in a new era after a landmark accord to curb Iran's nuclear program and lift Western sanctions. However, France is now weighing new sanctions over Iranian ballistic missile tests. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, left, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani inspect an honor guard during a welcome ceremony at the Invalides in Paris, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. While Rouhani arrived in Paris on Wednesday from Rome, the official French government greeting ceremony is being held Thursday morning. The trip is an effort to usher in a new era after a landmark accord to curb Iran's nuclear program and lift Western sanctions. However, France is now weighing new sanctions over Iranian ballistic missile tests. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, Pool) Iranian President Hassan Rouhani waits before a meeting with French Senate President Gerard Larcher, in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Rouhani says his first visit to Europe since the nuclear accord was signed has proven that there are "great possibilities" for economic, academic, scientific and cultural cooperation and that "today we are in a win-win situation" after years of mutual losses due to sanctions. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, third left seated, attends a meeting with French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron and French business leaders in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Rouhani says his first visit to Europe since the nuclear accord was signed has proven that there are "great possibilities" for economic, academic, scientific and cultural cooperation and that "today we are in a win-win situation" after years of mutual losses due to sanctions. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) Iranian President Hassan Rouhani leaves after a meeting in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Rouhani says his first visit to Europe since the nuclear accord was signed has proven that there are "great possibilities" for economic, academic, scientific and cultural cooperation and that "today we are in a win-win situation" after years of mutual losses due to sanctions. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) A Femen activist, Sarah Constantin, is hanged from a noose-like rope from a Paris bridge to call attention to the large number of executions in Iran as she stages a protest against visiting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Paris, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. A near-naked woman hanging from a noose-like rope from a Paris bridge has sent a message to visiting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. (AP Photo/Zacharie Scheurer) A Femen activist, Sarah Constantin, is hanged from a noose-like rope from a Paris bridge to call attention to the large number of executions in Iran as she stage a protest against visiting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Paris, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. A near-naked woman hanging from a noose-like rope from a Paris bridge has sent a message to visiting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. (AP Photo/Zacharie Scheurer) French president Francois Hollande, center right, welcomes Iranian President Hassan Rouhani before a meeting at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. France has welcomed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani with a lucrative car-making agreement and pledges to boost trade after a diplomatic deal easing nuclear tensions. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) French president Francois Hollande, left, greets Iranian President Hassan Rouhani before a meeting at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. France has welcomed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani with a lucrative car-making agreement and pledges to boost trade after a diplomatic deal easing nuclear tensions. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) French president Francois Hollande, left, greets Iranian President Hassan Rouhani before a meeting at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. France has welcomed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani with a lucrative car-making agreement and pledges to boost trade after a diplomatic deal easing nuclear tensions. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) 'Trooper down!' Officers call for help after chase, shootout MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) Police radio calls released Thursday provide a glimpse of the high-speed chase on a busy interstate that ended with the driver of a pickup truck in a shootout with state troopers. Officers scream "shots fired, shots fired" followed by "trooper down," according to the calls obtained by The Associated Press. Troopers chased the pickup in and out of traffic at speeds of nearly 100 mph on Wednesday before it crashed into a civilian vehicle, authorities said. The driver got out with a handgun and started firing, wounding Trooper Jacob Fields in the leg and stomach, just below his bullet-proof vest, authorities said. First responders are shown working on a suspect that was shot following a chase on Interstate 75 in Cobb County. A state trooper and a suspect were shot Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, in a police chase in suburban Atlanta, the Georgia State Patrol said. The GSP said in an email that the trooper and suspect were shot in a pursuit on Interstate 75 in Marietta. (Johnny Edwards/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) The driver, 26-year-old Israel Vladimir Rodriguez, was hit by troopers' gunfire. Rodrigeuz died at a hospital. Fields had chased the Chevrolet Silverado for about 10 miles with two other troopers and they tried a "box-in maneuver" to bring it to a slow stop, highway patrol Capt. Mark Perry said. The Silverado crashed. No one else was seriously hurt. Law enforcement agencies have various policies regarding how they may pursue vehicles, and under what circumstances. Asked about the decision in this case, Perry told reporters Wednesday that "the criteria for a chase is at officer discretion." "This gentleman is the one who chose to flee," Perry said of the suspect. "The trooper made the decision and this is something he will have to speak to at some point on why he chose to pursue at that point." In Memphis, Tennessee, police officers started to pursue a car during a chase Wednesday but backed off, authorities said. The car eventually crashed as police officers were watching it and one of the suspects died in a shootout with police pursuing on foot. The officers were not hurt. In the Georgia radio transmissions, a trooper tells the dispatcher that the pickup isn't stopping, and is "in and out of traffic" and failing to maintain its lane. The trooper says that the pickup is traveling 98 mph as the chase heads south down I-75, at times in the emergency lane. At one point, Fields pulls alongside the pickup. "Southbound on Canton Road, I'm right beside him... He's a Hispanic male. He's on the cellphone with somebody, I can't tell. Will somebody get in front of him we can box him in." About four minutes later, the urgent calls for help come. Fields was improving Thursday after a successful surgery. Fellow troopers are taking turns staying by his side at the hospital. "But for the grace of God, it could have been any of those troopers who were there," Perry said. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is looking into the shooting and trying to figure out why Rodriguez fled in his pickup. Booking records from the Cobb County Sheriff's Office show Rodriguez had been arrested and jailed in 2008 for misdemeanor traffic charges of reckless driving, following another vehicle too closely and driving on a suspended or revoked license. The records gave no other details surrounding Rodriguez's prior arrest, and they did not indicate how the courts ultimately dealt with the charges. Fields, a 26-year-old trooper who has been on the force for three years, is expected to make a full recovery. He's from Jasper, Georgia, a small town in the foothills of the north Georgia mountains, about 45 miles north of the shootout. All three troopers who exchanged fire with Rodriguez were placed on paid administrative leave during the investigation, standard procedure in such cases. The southbound lanes were completely blocked off for several hours Wednesday with numerous police cars, fire trucks and an ambulance parked at the scene. Police diverted traffic off I-75 to clear the way for the investigation. Many truck drivers pulled over and parked on the shoulder of the interstate during the traffic jam. Dozens of big rigs remained on the side of the highway before dawn Thursday, a sight reminiscent of the 2014 snow and ice storm that led to motorists to abandon their vehicles. ___ Associated Press writers Jonathan Landrum Jr. in Atlanta, Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, contributed to this report. This photo released by the Georgia Department of Public Safety shows Trooper Jacob Fields. Fields and a driver who led him on a chase on a highway in suburban Atlanta both suffered gunshot wounds after exchanging fire Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, a Georgia State Patrol spokesman said. (Georgia Department of Public Safety via AP) Police work at the scene of an officer-involved shooting on I-75 in Cobb County on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Georgia State Police say they were trying to stop a speeder following a 10-mile chase when the speeder struck another vehicle and exited his truck with a gun. A state trooper and a suspect were shot Wednesday, in a police chase in suburban Atlanta, the Georgia State Patrol said. The GSP said in an email that the trooper and suspect were shot in a pursuit on Interstate 75 in Marietta. (Ben Gray/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) Georgia State Police Cpt. Mark Perry briefs the media outside of WellStar Kennestone Hospital following an officer-involved shooting in which the suspect and an officer were both shot on I-75 in Cobb County on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. A state trooper and a suspect were shot Wednesday, in a police chase in suburban Atlanta, the Georgia State Patrol said. The GSP said in an email that the trooper and suspect were shot in a pursuit on Interstate 75 in Marietta. (Ben Gray/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) EU mulls probe of UK Google tax deal as Italy investigates LONDON (AP) Google is gearing up for a new round in its European tax fight after the EU said it could investigate its 130 million-pound ($186 million) deal for back taxes in Britain and Italy alleged Google owed it some 300 million euros. Britain's Scottish National Party had asked Wednesday for an investigation of the tax deal the U.K. government struck with Google, with deputy party leader Stewart Hosie arguing there was a lack of transparency. "It is my view that an independent verification of this settlement would establish confidence that the settlement is within the boundaries of state aid regulations and is a fair deal for the taxpayers of the United Kingdom," he wrote. A man enters an office building with small Google UK Limited sign in London, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. The European Unions competition commissioner says she would consider investigating the 130 million pound ($186 million) deal for back taxes struck between Britain and Google amid fury among opposition lawmakers who suggest the Internet giant should have paid more.(AP Photo/Frank Augstein) Ricardo Cardoso, spokesman for EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, said that "we will look into it and then decide where to move from there." Writing in the Financial Times, Google's vice president of communications, Peter Barron, insisted the company paid tax at the standard corporate rate of 20 percent. "Governments make tax law, the tax authorities independently enforce the law, and Google complies with the law," he wrote. The anger of lawmakers has been stoked by reports that France and Italy were in talks to squeeze more out of the company. In Italy, the financial police confirmed reports Thursday that Google was under investigation for allegedly avoiding up to around 300 million euros ($326 million) in taxes. Italian daily La Repubblica reported that the investigation stems from Google activities in Italy from 2008-2013, when Google allegedly declared its fiscal headquarters in Ireland. Google repeated Barron's line and said it is working with the relevant authorities. Italy has brought several cases against global technology companies that have headquarters in low-tax nations like Ireland to avoid paying higher taxes in other countries, like Italy. In December, Apple agreed to pay Italy 318 million euros in back taxes covering the same time period now contested against Google. At the time of Apple's settlement, Google said it was working with Italian tax authorities. Google Inc. is based in Mountain View, California. ___ The Latest: Officer screams 'trooper down!' in radio calls MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) The Latest on a highway shooting that left a Georgia State Patrol trooper wounded and the suspect dead. (all times local): 1:30 p.m. State troopers scream "Shots fired! Shots fired!" in frantic radio calls at the end of a high-speed pursuit on Interstate 75. Seconds later, a dire message comes from one of the troopers: "Trooper down!" Police work at the scene of an officer-involved shooting on I-75 in Cobb County on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Georgia State Police say they were trying to stop a speeder following a 10-mile chase when the speeder struck another vehicle and exited his truck with a gun. A state trooper and a suspect were shot Wednesday, in a police chase in suburban Atlanta, the Georgia State Patrol said. The GSP said in an email that the trooper and suspect were shot in a pursuit on Interstate 75 in Marietta. (Ben Gray/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) Authorities say Trooper Jacob Fields was shot when he exchanged gunfire with a man who had been driving a picking truck. Fields was wounded and is in the hospital. The driver, 26-year-old Israel Vladimir Rodriguez, was also wounded and died at a hospital. The Associated Press obtained the police radio communications on Thursday under Georgia's open records law. Capt. Mark Perry says Fields, who was shot twice, is doing well after surgery. ___ 9:15 a.m. A Georgia State Patrol spokesman says a trooper wounded in a gun battle on Interstate 75 has been moved to a regular medical floor of a hospital. Capt. Mark Perry said 26-year-old Trooper Jacob Fields of Jasper, Georgia, was doing well enough after surgery late Wednesday that the medical staff was able to move him to a regular floor rather than intensive care at WellStar Kennestone Hospital in Marietta. Perry said the wounded lawman's fellow troopers volunteered overnight to stay with him and the family at the hospital, and help out in any way they could. Authorities say Fields began pursuing a speeding pickup Wednesday afternoon until it crashed. They say the driver got out and fired at troopers, who returned fire. Authorities said suspect 26-year-old Israel Vladimir Rodriguez of Acworth was shot and later died. ___ 7:20 a.m. Dozens of semi-trailers remained parked on the side of Interstate 75 more than 12 hours after a car chase and gun battle involving a Georgia State trooper led to a massive traffic jam. The sight of the big rigs on the south-bound shoulder lanes of I-75 shortly after 5 a.m. Thursday was reminiscent of the 2014 snow and ice storm that led to motorists leaving their vehicles for a time. Traffic was flowing freely around the semis early Thursday morning. Many drivers pulled over and parked on the shoulder of the interstate as the southbound lanes were shut down for several hours Wednesday afternoon as police investigated the shooting. Authorities said Trooper Jacob Fields was wounded by gunfire but is expected to survive. The suspect, 26-year-old Israel Vladimir Rodriguez of Acworth, died of his wounds. ___ 5:15 a.m. A highway chase in suburban Atlanta ended with a Georgia state trooper being shot and the suspect fatally wounded in an exchange of gunfire. Georgia State Patrol spokesman Capt. Mark Perry says Trooper Jacob Fields was patrolling Interstate 75 southbound Wednesday afternoon in Cobb County when he saw a Chevrolet Silverado speeding. Perry says that when Fields tried to pull it over, the driver fled. Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman Scott Dutton says the driver was 26-year-old Israel Vladimir Rodriguez. Perry says Fields chased the truck for about 10 miles with two other troopers joining in. The Silverado hit a civilian vehicle and came to a stop. Perry says Rodriguez got out and began shooting at the troopers, who returned fire. Fields was shot in the leg and abdomen just below his vest, and Rodriguez was hit multiple times in the abdomen. Fields is expected to recover. Rodriguez died at a hospital. First responders are shown working on a suspect that was shot following a chase on Interstate 75 in Cobb County. A state trooper and a suspect were shot Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, in a police chase in suburban Atlanta, the Georgia State Patrol said. The GSP said in an email that the trooper and suspect were shot in a pursuit on Interstate 75 in Marietta. (Johnny Edwards/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) This photo released by the Georgia Department of Public Safety shows Trooper Jacob Fields. Fields and a driver who led him on a chase on a highway in suburban Atlanta both suffered gunshot wounds after exchanging fire Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, a Georgia State Patrol spokesman said. (Georgia Department of Public Safety via AP) Drug traffickers seek haven amid Colorado's legal marijuana DENVER (AP) Illegal drug traffickers are growing marijuana among Colorado's legally sanctioned pot warehouses and farms, then covertly shipping it elsewhere and pocketing millions of dollars from its sale, according to law enforcement officials and court records consulted by The Associated Press. The cases and others confirm marijuana opponents' fear that the state's much-watched experiment in legal pot would invite more illegal trafficking to other states where the drug is still forbidden. Colorado has the nation's most robust commercial market. In one case, the owner of a skydiving business crammed Colorado marijuana into his planes and flew it to Minnesota, where associates allegedly sold it for millions of dollars in cash. In another, a Denver man was charged with sending more than 100 pot-filled FedEx packages to New York state, where drug dealers divided up the shipment. Twenty other drug traffickers, many from Cuba, were accused of relocating to Colorado to grow marijuana that they sent to Florida, where it can fetch more than double the price in a legal Colorado shop. FILE - In this Dec. 31, 2013 file photo, employees tends to marijuana plants at a grow house in Denver. According to law enforcement officials, Colorados legal marijuana marketplace is in some cases serving as cover for a host of illegal drug traffickers who hide their product among the states many legal growing operations, then covertly ship it elsewhere and pocket millions of dollars from its sale. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, file) Neighboring Nebraska and Oklahoma filed a lawsuit in late 2014 seeking to declare Colorado's marijuana legalization unconstitutional, arguing that the move sent a tide of illicit weed across their borders. The Obama administration last month urged the Supreme Court to reject the suit, saying the leakage was not Colorado's fault. No one knows exactly how much pot leaves Colorado. When illegal shipments are seized, it's often impossible to prove where the marijuana was grown. But court documents and interviews with law enforcement officials indicate well-organized traffickers are seeking refuge in the state's flourishing pot industry. "There's no question there's a lot more of this activity than there was two years ago," said Colorado's U.S. attorney, John Walsh. The federal government allowed Colorado's experiment on the condition that state officials act to keep marijuana from migrating to places where it is still outlawed and out of the hands of criminal cartels. Federal authorities acknowledge that both things are happening but say that, because the state is trying to keep its industry tightly regulated, there's no reason to end the legal pot trade. The pot industry acknowledges the criminal activity and insists it is doing all it can to keep legally grown weed from crossing state lines. Among other safeguards, Colorado law requires growers to get a license and use a "seed-to-sale" tracking system that monitors marijuana plants at every stage. Many of the illicit growers come from elsewhere, never obtain a growing license and "don't even attempt to adhere to the law," said Barbra M. Roach, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Denver field division. Jason Warf, head of the Southern Colorado Cannabis Council, said people are "coming from out-of-state, buying products from licensed stores and being arrested on their way home." "We can't essentially babysit adults and their behavior," he said. The Colorado Department of Revenue's marijuana enforcement division cites shops if pot is unaccounted for, but "after it's sold, we have very little control what happens to the marijuana," Director Lewis Koski said. Police agencies seized nearly 2 tons of Colorado marijuana from drivers who had intended to take it to 36 other states in 2014, the year legal pot shops opened, according to the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a federally funded drug task force. By comparison, they seized less than a ton in 2009. U.S. postal inspectors seized about 470 pounds of Colorado pot from the mail in 2014, up from 57 pounds in 2010, according to the task force, whose findings are based on voluntary submissions from law enforcement agencies. The Latest: Colombian president says Zika "is a big threat" GENEVA (AP) The latest on the Zika virus that is spreading through Latin America (all times local): 12:15 a.m. The Zika virus isn't worrying only Latin America's poor and pregnant women. Bolivia's President Evo Morales, left, jokes with Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos during the official portrait of the heads of state of the IV Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC, in Quito, Ecuador, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. The Dominican Republic will take over the rotating presidency of the CELAC from Ecuador, on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa) Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos says that since the recent spread of the virus began he has been applying double the bug spray and sporting long sleeves when he goes on his weekend bike ride near his country home down the mountain from mosquito-free Bogota. Santos tells The Associated Press in an interview that "Zika in the short run is a big threat. People are scared." He says the virus' spread has the potential to do more damage to Colombia's booming tourism industry than periodic U.S. travel warnings about visiting the conflict-battered country. Colombia is the second hardest-hit country in Latin America from Zika after Brazil. It has more than 16,000 confirmed or suspected cases. Santos says as many as 600,000 people could be infected when the virus reaches its peak. ___ 11:30 p.m. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it is working to defer blood donations from travelers who have visited one of the regions where the Zika virus is prevalent. The agency said Thursday that the goal is to protect the blood supply in the United States. The FDA says it also will put into place recommendations for U.S. territories affected by Zika. Earlier, Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the virus is in an infected person's bloodstream only very briefly and that most have it cleared in about a week. ___ 9:50 p.m. Venezuela authorities have broken their silence on the outbreak of Zika in the South American country, and they're pledging to mount a public health campaign to slow the virus' spread. Venezuelan Minister of Health Luisana Melo appeared on state television on Thursday and said Venezuelan authorities have recorded 4,700 suspected cases of Zika here. She says the country will begin fumigation campaigns and step up training of medical workers to protect against the mosquito-borne illness suspected of causing birth defects in neighboring Brazil. ___ 8:00 p.m. Canadian Blood Services will soon refuse blood donations from those who have travelled to countries where the mosquito-borne Zika virus has become widespread. Chief medical and scientific officer Dr. Dana Devine says the blood collection agency will decide in the next few days which travel destinations would be linked to a temporary ban on donating blood. Devine says the risk of the Zika virus being transmitted through blood transfusion is low, but Canadian Blood Services doesn't want to take any chances. The agency already prohibits Canadians who have travelled to countries where malaria is endemic from donating blood for a period of 12 months. ___ 7:40 p.m. Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes says he doesn't believe the spreading Zika virus "is a problem for the Olympics," which open in six months in the picturesque South American city. He notes that the games starting Aug. 5 will occur in the drier, cooler South American winter season when controlling the mosquito population "will be much easier." Also speaking Thursday was International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, who said his organization is in "close contact" with Brazilian authorities and the World Health Organization about Zika. Bach said the IOC would send advice this week to all national Olympic committees, which can then tell athletes about safety guidelines. ___ 6:30 p.m. Health officials say the number of U.S. residents diagnosed with Zika infections in the past year has grown to 31. All of them are believed to have caught the infection while traveling in the Caribbean or Latin America where there are outbreaks of the tropical illness. Officials said Thursday the 31 people are in 11 states and Washington. In U.S. territories, Puerto Rico has 19 confirmed cases and the U.S. Virgin Islands has one. The government is looking at the issue of blood donations from travelers, although officials think the virus is gone from an infected person's blood in a week or less. ___ 6:25 p.m. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has called for a meeting of the member nations of South America's Mercosur trading bloc to discuss ways to join forces to eliminate the Aedes mosquito and the Zika virus it transmits. The Brazilian presidency's website says she told reporters covering the Wednesday summit meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States in Quito, Ecuador, that the Mercosur meeting will be held Feb. 2 in Montevideo, Uruguay. "We must declare war on the mosquito and until we have a vaccine against the Zika virus, that war must focus our efforts on eliminating its breeding grounds," Rousseff said on her Twitter page. "Eliminating Zika is everyone's responsibility. We must eradicate all areas of stagnant water where the mosquito lives and reproduces." ___ 6 p.m. International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach says the fact that the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro will be held in August during Brazil's winter could limit difficulties caused by the outbreak of the mosquito-borne Zika virus. Bach spoke during a visit to Greece where he promoted a $2 million international assistance program for refugee athletes. "The Olympic games will take place during the Brazilian winter so at that time we will have different climate conditions than there are now, when we are in the middle of the Brazilian summer," he said. Bach said the IOC is in "close cooperation" with Brazilian authorities and the World Health Organization, and he promised to have consultations with national Olympic committees on safety guidelines concerning the Zika outbreak by late Friday. ___ 4:05 p.m. The World Health Organization says China and other countries with dengue fever should be on the lookout for Zika virus infections. Dr. Bruce Aylward, who runs WHO's outbreak response department, said any country that has the Aedes mosquito should be concerned about the possibility of the Zika virus arriving. The Aedes mosquito spreads diseases including Zika, dengue fever and chikungunya. During a special session on Thursday, WHO said it is convening an expert group on Monday to advise on whether the Zika outbreak which has now spread to more than 20 countries in the Americas qualifies as a global health emergency. WHO says there is an "extremely high" level of alarm that the virus could be causing a surge in the number of babies being born with abnormally small heads in Brazil. ___ 3:45 p.m. The World Health Organization estimates there could be 3 to 4 million cases of Zika in the Americas over the next year. Sylvain Aldighieri, head of WHO's epidemic response team in the Americas, said the estimate is based on previous numbers of infections of dengue fever, which is also carried by mosquitoes. He said the agency expects "huge numbers" of infections because of the widespread presence of the mosquitoes that spread Zika and because there is no immunity among the population. He said that since most people with Zika don't get sick, there is a "silent circulation" of the disease that may make tracking its spread more difficult Zika is suspected of being behind the birth of babies with abnormally small heads. ___ 2:20 p.m. The World Health Organization has called Thursday's special session on Zika in part to convey its concern about an otherwise mild illness that has sown fear among many would-be mothers in Brazil, who have often responded by covering themselves head-to-toe in clothing in the often hot, largely tropical country or slopped on many coats of insect repellent. "The possible links, only recently suspected, have rapidly changed the risk profile of Zika from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions," said WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan. "The increased incidence of microcephaly is particularly alarming, as it places a heart-breaking burden on families and communities." The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says the disease is now in more than 20 countries, mostly in Central and South America. ___ 2:05 p.m. A U.S. health official says he doubts the United States is vulnerable to a widespread outbreak of a virus linked to a wave of birth defects in Brazil. Dr. Anthony Fauci says the Zika virus suspected of being connected to microcephaly hopefully can be kept at bay with "mosquito vector control." Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, appeared on "CBS This Morning." He said administration officials do not believe there are major ways of spreading the virus "other than by mosquito bites." Health officials suspect that Zika is linked to a wave of birth defects in Brazil in which babies have small heads. President Barack Obama hosted a meeting of federal health specialists on the issue earlier this week. ___ 1:30 p.m. The World Health Organization says it is convening an emergency committee on Monday to decide if the Zika virus outbreak should be declared an international health emergency. At a special meeting on Thursday, WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said the virus which has been linked to birth defects and neurological problems was "spreading explosively." Chan said although there was no definitive proof that Zika was responsible for a spike in the number of babies being born with abnormally small heads in Brazil, "the level of alarm is extremely high." WHO last declared an international emergency over the devastating 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which ended up killing more than 11,000 people. A technician of the Fiocruz institue stores Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to be used in research, in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. The mosquito is a vector for the proliferation of the Zika virus currently spreading throughout Latin America. New figures from Brazil's Health Ministry show that the Zika virus outbreak has not caused as many confirmed cases of a rare brain defect as first feared. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) An army soldier and a health agent from Sao Paulo's Public health secretary talk with a woman as they check her residence during an operation against the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is a vector for transmitting the Zika virus, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has called for a meeting of the Latin American and the Caribbean nations to discuss ways to join forces to eliminate the Aedes aegypti mosquito. (AP Photo/Andre Penner) An Aedes aegypti mosquito is photographed through a microscope at the Fiocruz institute in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. The mosquito is a vector for the proliferation of the Zika virus currently spreading throughout Latin America. New figures from Brazil's Health Ministry show that the Zika virus outbreak has not caused as many confirmed cases of a rare brain defect as first feared. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) South Sudan: Peace accord falters, refugees remain in camps JUBA, South Sudan (AP) When a delegation of South Sudanese rebels returned to the government-controlled capital Juba last month after two years of war, Nyajok Koat thought she would finally return to the home she fled when the fighting began. But more than a month later, prospects of her leaving the U.N. base where she has taken shelter seem dim after the government and rebels missed a deadline last week to form a power-sharing government and end the war. "It's only for God to know how long I'll be here," an exasperated Koat told a reporter who visited a U.N. camp in the capital that she shares with more than 27,000 other people. In this photo taken Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2016, a displaced child holds clay model toys of a peacekeeper and a rifle, in the United Nations camp for displaced people in the capital Juba, South Sudan. When a delegation of South Sudanese rebels returned to the government-controlled capital Juba last month after two years of war, many refugees thought they would finally return to the homes they fled. But prospects for peace seem dim after the government and rebels missed a deadline last week to form a power-sharing government and end the war. President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and rebel leader Riek Machar, a Nuer, signed a peace deal in August, but fighting continues. Machar said Tuesday, Jan. 26 in Kampala, Uganda that he wont return to Juba, South Sudans capital, because the decree violated the peace accord. (AP Photo/Jason Patinkin) Although President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and rebel leader Riek Machar, a Nuer, signed a peace deal in August, the fighting continues sporadically. Machar has not come to the capital to be Kiir's vice president, as agreed. The peace deal said Machar's side would get control of South Sudan's two oil-producing states, but Kiir created 28 new states by decree, jeopardizing that provision of the agreement. Machar said Tuesday in Kampala, Uganda that he won't return to Juba because the decree violated the peace accord. Kiir's spokesman, Ateny Wek Ateny, said reversing the decision would create more instability, and accused rebels of dragging their feet by refusing to nominate ministers to the transitional government. Machar also wants the government to pull its troops from Juba, as called for in the peace deal, according to his spokesman, James Gatdet Dak. Ateny said the government doesn't have money for tents to house the soldiers elsewhere. Despite the peace accord, both sides continue to seek new weapons, according to a report this week by a U.N. panel of experts. The panel said that as of mid-September, South Sudan's government was apparently trying to arrange payment for four attack helicopters from a Uganda-based company, Bosasy Logistics. The rebels have received ammunition and arms from neighboring Sudan, the report says. The lack of progress toward peace leaves over 200,000 refugees in U.N. camps in makeshift tents of plastic sheets, dependent on food aid and enduring heat and dust in the dry season and mud and disease during rains. Space is tight in the Juba camp, where Koat now lives. There isn't enough clean water trucked in for the camp's growing population, so residents dig deep holes in the hard packed earth to reach muddy groundwater. When the rebel delegation returned to Juba, Koat, a Nuer, was joyful. "I was very happy. People were dancing. Even I danced," she said. "But I danced for nothing ... I should have waited for real peace." In this photo taken Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2016, Nyajok Koat sits with her one year-old son Thach Kuony in her makeshift home covered with plastic sheets, in the United Nations camp for displaced people in the capital Juba, South Sudan.When a delegation of South Sudanese rebels returned to the government-controlled capital Juba last month after two years of war, many refugees thought they would finally return to the homes they fled. But prospects for peace seem dim after the government and rebels missed a deadline last week to form a power-sharing government and end the war. President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and rebel leader Riek Machar, a Nuer, signed a peace deal in August, but fighting continues. Machar said Tuesday, Jan. 26 in Kampala, Uganda that he wont return to Juba, South Sudans capital, because the decree violated the peace accord. (AP Photo/Jason Patinkin) In this photo taken Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2016,displaced people walk next to a razor wire fence at the United Nations base in the capital Juba, South Sudan. When a delegation of South Sudanese rebels returned to the government-controlled capital Juba last month after two years of war, many refugees thought they would finally return to the homes they fled. But prospects for peace seem dim after the government and rebels missed a deadline last week to form a power-sharing government and end the war. President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and rebel leader Riek Machar, a Nuer, signed a peace deal in August, but fighting continues. Machar said Tuesday, Jan. 26 in Kampala, Uganda that he wont return to Juba, South Sudans capital, because the decree violated the peace accord. (AP Photo/Jason Patinkin) 3 more arrested as leader urges US refuge occupiers to leave BURNS, Oregon (AP) It was unclear early Thursday whether the rest of an armed group occupying an Oregon wildlife refuge would follow their jailed leader's advice to "go home," a day after officials said three members surrendered to authorities. The three arrests Wednesday, announced by the FBI and Oregon State Police, followed the arrests a day earlier of leader Ammon Bundy and seven others. After Bundy made his first court appearance on Wednesday, his attorney, Mike Arnold, read a statement from his client: "Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is now in the courts." Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward speaks at press conference at the Harney County Community Center in Burns, Ore., Thursday, Jan. 27, 2016. (Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian via AP) A video posted Thursday by the holdouts occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge said the remaining five members of the armed group will leave if none of them face arrest. Ammon is the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a high-profile 2014 standoff with the government over grazing rights. The group Ammon Bundy led is protesting what it calls onerous federal land restrictions, and it objects to the prison sentences of two local ranchers convicted of setting fires. Bundy and the seven others arrested Tuesday are charged with felony counts of "conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats." The criminal complaint says the 16 employees at the wildlife refuge "have been prevented from reporting to work because of threats of violence posed by the defendants and others occupying the property." Details have begun to emerge about the confrontation Tuesday on a remote highway that resulted in the arrest of Bundy and other leading figures in the group, and in the death of militant Robert Finicum. Bundy followers gave conflicting accounts of how Finicum died. One said Finicum charged at FBI agents, who then shot him. A member of the Bundy family said Finicum did nothing to provoke the agents. Authorities refused to release any details about the encounter or even to verify that it was Finicum who was killed. Federal law officials on Wednesday called on the rest of the occupiers to go home. There is a huge law enforcement presence in the region, and the FBI has now set up checkpoints outside the refuge. FBI officials said Wednesday night that in addition to the three men arrested, five people left the refuge through the checkpoints and were released without arrest. ___ Petty reported from Portland. Associated Press writers Ken Ritter in Las Vegas, Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, and Martha Bellisle and Lisa Baumann in Seattle contributed to this report. This photo provided by the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, shows Ammon Bundy, one of the members of an armed group occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge as part of a dispute over public lands in the Western U.S. Bundy and several others were arrested on Tuesday, Jan. 26, prompting gunfire and leaving one man dead during a traffic stop along a highway in Oregon's frozen high country. (Multnomah County Sheriff via AP) FBI Special Agent in Charge Greg Bretzing reacts as he speaks during a press conference at the Harney County Community Center, in Burns, Ore., Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Bretzing was recounting the actions taken Tuesday night by police and federal authorities including the killing of one of the armed group occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. (Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian via AP) Oregon State Police man a roadblock at the intersection of highways 395 and 20 outside of Burns, Ore., Wednesday morning, Jan. 27, 2016. Authorities were restricting access on Wednesday to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters being occupied by an armed group after one of the occupiers was killed during a traffic stop and eight more, including the group's leader Ammon Bundy, were arrested. (Dave Killen/The Oregonian via AP) MAGS OUT; TV OUT; NO LOCAL INTERNET; THE MERCURY OUT; WILLAMETTE WEEK OUT; PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward speaks at press conference at the Harney County Community Center in Burns, Ore., Thursday, Jan. 27, 2016. (Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian via AP) Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward speaks at press conference at the Harney County Community Center in Burns, Ore., Thursday, Jan. 27, 2016. (Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian via AP) People wait inside the Harney County Community Center before a news conference, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, in Burns. Ore., regarding the standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Authorities Tuesday arrested the leaders of the armed group who had been occupying the refuge headquarters to protest federal land policies. (Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian via AP) MAGS OUT; TV OUT; NO LOCAL INTERNET; THE MERCURY OUT; WILLAMETTE WEEK OUT; PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT Kim Rollins, 64, of Burns, stands outside the Harney County Community Center in Burns, Oregon, before the start of a news conference by officials Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Authorities on Tuesday arrested the leaders of an armed group who had been occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters to protest federal land policies. (AP Photo/Keith Ridler) Police officers block the turnout to Sodhouse Lane, which is the main road leading to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, near Burns, Ore. Authorities were restricting access on Wednesday to the Oregon refuge being occupied by an armed group after one of the occupiers was killed during a traffic stop and eight more, including the group's leader Ammon Bundy, were arrested. (Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian via AP) MAGS OUT; TV OUT; NO LOCAL INTERNET; THE MERCURY OUT; WILLAMETTE WEEK OUT; PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT Law enforcement personnel block an access road to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, near Burns, Ore. Authorities were restricting access on Wednesday to the Oregon refuge being occupied by an armed group after one of the occupiers was killed during a traffic stop and eight more, including the group's leader Ammon Bundy, were arrested. (Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian via AP) MAGS OUT; TV OUT; NO LOCAL INTERNET; THE MERCURY OUT; WILLAMETTE WEEK OUT; PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT Dominic West plays the cad in 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses' LONDON (AP) Dominic West would like to be the next James Bond. But he's worried you think of him as a cad. The British star of "The Affair" and "The Wire" nurtures a dream of playing 007, but in the meantime he's relishing the chance to be a smooth-talking sexual schemer onstage in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." The Josie Rourke-directed production at London's Donmar Warehouse will be broadcast live in British and U.S. movie theaters Thursday, with repeat screenings around the world over the coming weeks. In this photo taken on Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016, British actor Dominic West poses for a portrait during an interview by the Associated Press in central London. Dominic West would like to be the next James Bond. But he's worried you think of him as a cad. The debonair British actor nurtures a dream of playing 007, but in the meantime he's relishing the chance to be a smooth-talking sexual schemer onstage in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." The Josie Rourke-directed production at London's Donmar Warehouse will be broadcast live in British and U.S. movie theaters Thursday, Jan. 28 with repeat screenings around the world over the coming weeks. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant) "I certainly seem to take a lot of parts playing cads," West said before a recent evening performance. In Christopher Hampton's drama of sexual intrigue among 18th-century French aristocrats, West plays Le Vicomte de Valmont, who conspires with former lover the Marquise de Merteuil (a compelling, calculating Janet McTeer) to seduce a virtuous woman and ruin a chaste teenager just for the fun of it. Witty, flamboyant, cruel and ultimately tragic, Valmont can be a career-defining character. The role is strongly associated with the late Alan Rickman, who starred in the original 1980s stage production, and John Malkovich in the 1988 film "Dangerous Liaisons." West concedes with a laugh that Valmont is an "evil bastard." He has qualities in common with many of West's characters, including wayward Baltimore police detective Jimmy McNulty in HBO's "The Wire" and adulterous writer Noah Solloway in Showtime's "The Affair," for which he won a Golden Globe nomination. West also won a British Academy television award for playing genuine evil, real-life serial killer Fred West in the miniseries "Appropriate Adult." West, whose gently patrician accent is a reminder that he attended Eton College, Britain's most elite private school, insists he's "completely wholesome and nice" in real life. But there is a seductively wicked cast to his features, and his deep laugh, that fans find irresistible. "I always thought Noah, my character in 'The Affair,' was a hero. But he turned out to be a bit of a cad as well," West said. "I think probably I influenced the writers' direction." He says he was slightly wary about taking on "Liaisons," ''partly because of how well it had been done before, but also because it did feel a little obvious in a way." But while he says he's "longing to play a nice hero," he knows the devil gets all the good lines. "They're much more interesting parts, the cads. It's very difficult to play a good man and make him interesting. You've got to be Jimmy Stewart or Tom Hanks. "It's much easier and more fun to make bad men interesting." Hampton's play has become a modern classic, and its source, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos' 1782 novel, also remains uncannily timely after almost 250 years. West says that's because the tale expertly dissects "male pride and the delusions of male pride, and sexual pride." "It deals with issues that never age," he said. "It's not just about stupid aristocrats who all lost their heads. It's about something we all can relate to." West says his career goal is to balance stage, film and TV work, doing "all three in short bursts." A third season of "The Affair" looks likely in 2016. But like many British leading men, he's drawn to the idea of Bond. West auditioned for the role before Daniel Craig was cast as 007 a decade ago. With speculation rife that Craig will do one more film at most, the rumor mill is whirling again. "I'd love to be James Bond," West said. "But at the moment I'm a 40-1 outsider." He worries that, at 46, he's too old to be cast. "My friend texted me the other day and said, 'You've got to go for Bond, you'll be the oldest ever!' I said, 'What about Roger Moore?' He said, the oldest starting Roger Moore started younger." ___ Online: NT Live: http://ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/ntlout14-les-liaisons-dangereuses Follow Jill Lawless on twitter at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless . Her work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/jill-lawless In this photo taken on Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016, British actor Dominic West poses for a portrait during an interview by the Associated Press in central London. Dominic West would like to be the next James Bond. But he's worried you think of him as a cad. The debonair British actor nurtures a dream of playing 007, but in the meantime he's relishing the chance to be a smooth-talking sexual schemer onstage in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." The Josie Rourke-directed production at London's Donmar Warehouse will be broadcast live in British and U.S. movie theaters Thursday, Jan. 28 with repeat screenings around the world over the coming weeks. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant) President Barack Obama created a new federal task force Thursday to accelerate cancer research, putting Vice President Joe Biden in charge of the drive to streamline government efforts toward a cure. Dubbed the White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force, the group will be modest in scope the White House says the task force is 'advisory only.' Yet its formation gives a formal green light to what until now has been an amorphous effort by the vice president to supercharge cancer research during his final year in office. 'We're not trying to make incremental change here,' Biden wrote on the blog site Medium. 'We're trying to get to a quantum leap on the path to a cure.' See updates in the search for a cure for cancer as Obama creates advisory task force Vice President Joe Biden points at President Barack Obama during the president's State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Barack Obama is creating a new federal task force to accelerate cancer research. A presidential memorandum signed by Obama on Thursday says the task force's goal is to double the rate of progress on treatment and prevention, a benchmark Biden first introduced earlier this month in tandem with Obama's State of the Union address. The administration hasn't said exactly how that will be measured, but laid out areas for potential progress including better use of federal dollars to support cancer prevention, treatment and early detection. The Defense Department, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health are among about a dozen federal agencies involved. The task force will submit a report on its findings to Obama at the end of December just he Obama and Biden leave office. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said the Senate health committee he chairs is working on a bipartisan bill to speed development of drugs and medical devices. He said the task force would 'set the stage for the Senate to get a bipartisan result.' Biden, who has spent recent months meeting with hundreds of cancer researchers, has put a particular emphasis on eliminating obstacles to collaboration and data-sharing among various cancer centers, doctors and universities. In this Feb. 5, 2013 file photo, then-Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden is seen at the Justice Department in Washington. President Barack Obama is creating a new federal task force to accelerate cancer research. He's tapping Vice President Joe Biden to chair the White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force. Biden's son Beau died of brain cancer last year. A key focus for the task force will be identifying bureaucratic and regulatory hurdles that make the government a bottleneck in the research process. The White House-sanctioned effort taps into deeply personal territory for Biden, whose 46-year-old son, former Delaware state Attorney General Beau Biden, died from brain cancer in May. The loss played heavily into Biden's decision not to run for president in 2016, but he instead vowed a 'moonshot' to cure cancer before leaving the White House. 'I don't claim to be a cancer expert,' Biden said. 'But I do have something to offer when it comes to being a catalyst and bringing folks together.' 3 suspects arrested in killing of Puerto Rico prosecutor SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) Puerto Rico police say they have arrested three of four people suspected of killing a prosecutor who worked at the main court in the U.S. territory's capital. Police Chief Jose Caldero said Thursday that the suspects are members of a gang involved in car thefts. He said they spotted 42-year-old Francelis Ortiz at an intersection last week and followed her to her house in the north coastal town of Rio Grande. Spain recommends fines for Sevilla and Cadiz over fans MADRID (AP) Spanish authorities are recommending Sevilla and third division club Cadiz should each be fined 120,000 euros ($130,000) for "supporting and promoting" activities of violent fan groups. The government's anti-violence commission said Thursday the clubs failed to cooperate with authorities who had warned the teams about their actions favoring the groups. The commission said the "very serious" fine to Sevilla is needed because the club failed to control the violent groups' behavior inside the Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium. Atletico Madrid's Juan Francisco Torres Juanfran, left, tussles for the ball with Sevilla's Steven NZonzi, center, during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Atletico Madrid and Sevilla at the Vicente Calderon stadium in Madrid, Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016. The match ended in a 0-0 draw. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) Authorities said that in the team's game against city rival Real Betis earlier this month, two large banners promoting the violent fan groups were displayed. The banners used the by groups were different from those pre-approved by authorities ahead of the local derby, officials said. The commission said the club had been warned six times about its support to the violent groups in the last two seasons, being sanctioned in 10 different occasions. The club also was denounced many times because of the fans' violent chants at the Pizjuan. Authorities said Cadiz needs to be punished for giving violent fan groups a place inside its stadium to keep their banners, megaphones and other objects. The commission said it told the club several times that it was not allowed to support the groups by giving them a place to use at the stadium. It said Cadiz also was punished for not providing enough security personnel to promote fan safety inside its Ramon de Carranza Stadium. Separately, the commission fined Cadiz in 30,000 euros ($32,600) for not officially keeping track of fans suspected of wrongdoing. Cadiz was twice sanctioned last season for not implementing proper security measures at its stadium. In a separate ruling, the commission recommended a 4,000 euro ($4,400) fine to first division team Espanyol because fans displayed banners insulting Colombian singer Shakira, wife of Barcelona defender Gerard Pique. The recommendations were made to the Spanish federation's competition's committee, which will later decide whether to accept them. The teams will be allowed to appeal. ___ The Latest: 'Affluenza' teen attorneys say Couch will behave FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) The Latest on "affluenza" teenager Ethan Couch's deportation from Mexico (all times local): 5:40 p.m. The attorneys for "affluenza" teenager Ethan Couch say they are optimistic their client will not run afoul of the law during the rest of his probation. This frame grab from a Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 taken from a video provided by Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Migracion, INM, shows a hooded Ethan Couch, as he is processed by Mexican immigration agents, in Mexico City. INM said that Couch, who used an "affluenza" defense in a 2013 fatal drunken-driving accident in Texas, was taken to the Mexico City airport from an immigration holding center, ending his month-long stay in Mexico. Couch was escorted onto a commercial plane, en route to Dallas, Thursday morning. (Instituto Nacional de Migracion, INM via AP) Scott Brown and Reagan Wynn issued a statement Thursday in which they also predicted Couch would remain in a juvenile facility until a judge decides Feb. 19 whether to transfer his case to the adult system. A hearing scheduled for Friday morning in Fort Worth will determine whether Couch spends the next three weeks in juvenile custody or an adult jail. Authorities say Couch and his mother fled to Mexico last month, as Texas prosecutors investigated whether he violated his probation in a 2013 drunken-driving wreck that killed four people. Couch was deported from Mexico and flown to Texas on Thursday morning. ___ 1:10 p.m. A Texas sheriff says "affluenza" teenager Ethan Couch has been transported to a juvenile detention center following his deportation from Mexico, but that he hopes the 18-year-old is transferred to an adult jail. Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson says Couch was taken to the detention center in Fort Worth on Thursday after arriving on a flight at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. The sheriff says he was calm and his only request was for food. A judge is scheduled to decide Friday whether Couch will continue to be held at the juvenile facility or be moved to an adult jail. He also could be released as prosecutors investigate whether he violated terms of his probation in a juvenile case stemming from his 2013 drunken-driving wreck that killed four people. Anderson says he wants Couch held at an adult jail because of his age and the severity of his offenses. The sheriff says Couch also will undergo a routine medical screening. ___ 12:15 p.m. Authorities say "affluenza" teenager Ethan Couch will have to wait a day before facing his first court appearance in Texas following his deportation from Mexico. Tarrant County Sheriff's Deputy Ed Wiseman say the 18-year-old Couch is scheduled for a detention hearing on Friday in Fort Worth. The judge will decide whether to continue to hold Couch at a juvenile facility, to book him in an adult jail or to let him go. Authorities say Couch and his mother fled to Mexico last month, as Texas as prosecutors investigated whether he may have violated his probation in a 2013 drunken-driving wreck that killed four people. Couch was 16 at the time of the fatal wreck, so the case is being handled for now in juvenile court. Couch was deported from Mexico and flown to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on Thursday morning. ___ 11:05 a.m. "Affluenza" teenager Ethan Couch has arrived in Texas after being deported from Mexico. The 18-year-old arrived on a flight at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport late Thursday morning. He could be seen walking through the airport escorted by law enforcement. Investigators believe Couch and his mother fled to Mexico in early December, as Texas prosecutors investigated whether he violated his probation in a 2013 drunken-driving wreck that killed four people. Couch and his mother were apprehended on Dec. 28 in Puerto Vallarta. His mother was quickly deported. Couch initially won a court-ordered delay, but his attorneys recently dropped the deportation fight, saying his rights were protected by Mexican authorities. During Couch's trial in the drunken-driving case, a defense expert argued that Couch had been coddled into a sense of irresponsibility by his wealthy parents, a condition the expert called "affluenza." ___ 9 a.m. The Mexican immigration institute says it has taken a Texas teenager who used an "affluenza" defense in a fatal drunken-driving accident to the Mexico City airport, to fly him back to Texas to face charges. The institute said Thursday that Ethan Couch would be placed on a commercial flight to Dallas, Texas. He formally ratified his decision to drop an appeal against deportation on Monday. Couch and his mother, Tonya Couch, were detained in the resort of Puerto Vallarta in December. His mother was quickly sent back to the U.S. She was released after posting bail. This frame grab taken from a Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 video provided by Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Migracion, INM, shows Ethan Couch, as he is escorted by Mexican immigration agents, upon their arrival to the international airport in Mexico City. INM says it has taken the Texas teenager who used an "affluenza" defense in a fatal drunken-driving accident to the Mexico City airport, to fly him back to Texas to face charges. The institute said Thursday that Couch would be placed on a commercial flight to Dallas, Texas. (Instituto Nacional de Migracion, INM via AP) Official: 7 dead in shootings in southern Mexican city ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) The bullet-ridden bodies of seven men were found early Thursday in the city of Chilpancingo, in southern Mexico. A law enforcement official says the bodies were found on roadsides in two groups. The official was not authorized to be quoted by name and spoke on condition of anonymity. Three bodies were dumped on the side of the main highway that runs through the city. They had been bound and their faces covered before being shot. Four more bodies were found in similar circumstances in a rural area on the outskirts of the city, which is capital of Guerrero state, which has been plagued by drug gang turf battles, opium poppy plantations, land disputes, illegal logging and a host of other conflicts. The killings come one day after 3,500 soldiers and police were dispatched to bring order to the area east of Chilpancingo. The operation is based in the city of Chilapa, where two drug gangs have been fighting bloody turf battles for years. UN: Somali Cabinet has agreed on model for elections in 2016 UNITED NATIONS (AP) The U.N. envoy for Somalia said the Cabinet agreed Thursday on a model for elections later this year, calling the long-awaited decision "an important milestone" for the impoverished Horn of Africa nation grappling with Islamic extremist insurgents. Michael Keating, who took over as special representative this month, told the U.N. Security Council that the Cabinet decision was the culmination of almost six months of intense consultations and "may be a watershed moment." Somalia has been trying to rebuild after establishing its first functioning central government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a longtime dictator and turned on each other, plunging the impoverished nation into chaos. Al-Shabab rebels were ousted from the capital, Mogadishu, in 2011 and have been pushed out of other key cities but they are not yet defeated, and the government remains weak. Keating said the security situation remains "very challenging" and called al-Shabab "a potent threat," noting two terrorist attacks in just the last two weeks. Somalia also faces a serious humanitarian situation: 4.9 million people, representing 40 percent of the population, in need of assistance, over 1.1 million internally displaced, some 300,000 children under the age of five acutely malnourished, and millions without basic healthcare, water and sanitation, Keating said. At the same time, the U.N. envoy stressed the importance of the newly agreed electoral model, which he praised for being an entirely Somali creation. The U.N.'s Security Council said "holding a peaceful, transparent electoral process in 2016 will mark a historic step forward for all Somalis, and will be fundamental for the country's continued progress towards democracy and stability." U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the decision and called on all parties to urgently establish a roadmap to universal elections in 2020 "to ensure continued momentum in the country's transition to democracy." The current non-elected parliament of the transitional government, sworn in in 2012, expires this year. Keating said the new electoral model envisions a 275-member lower house which maintains a power-sharing formula among clans and a 54-member upper house based on equal representation of existing, emerging and prospective federal states plus additional seats for Puntland and Somaliland. It also requires that a minimum of 30 percent of seats be reserved for women. Border city works to put scandals behind amid new ones SUNLAND PARK, N.M. (AP) Sunland Park thought it was shedding the taint from a series of scandals and bad headlines, including a fight during a city council meeting and a former mayoral candidate secretly recording an opponent receiving a lap dance from a stripper. Then, the elected leaders of the city along the U.S.-Mexico border started getting in trouble again. A councilor was arrested during a council meeting on drug charges in September. Ten days later, another was arrested on allegations he gave beer to his 19-year-old girlfriend and another person. A third was evicted from his home by U.S. Marshals. In this Jan. 4, 2016 photo, a U.S. Border Patrol agent patrols Sunland Park along the U.S.-Mexico border next to Ciudad Juarez. The New Mexico border town, next to El Paso, Texas, has struggled to put a series of national scandals behind it until two city councilors were recently arrested. (AP Photo/Russell Contreras) The troubles have prompted renewed calls to disband the city along with an effort by leaders to transform the town, going so far as to hold a recent meeting to encourage residents to run for office in March and discuss different forms of city government. "It's very hard to talk about all the positive things we are doing when this happens," said Mayor Javier Perea, who is seeking another term. "It's like we can't move on from the past." Some residents have called for the city to adopt a code of ethics for elected officials. "I think many of us feel we aren't being represented," said Orla Arguelles. "A lot of us feel we've been disempowered." Nearly 40 percent live below the poverty line in the city, where the main source of income comes from the Sunland Park Racetrack & Casino. It's the only American border city that sits south of the Rio Grande. The city drew national attention in 2012 after former mayoral candidate Daniel Salinas was arrested for recording an opponent receiving a lap dance from a topless woman. Salinas pleaded guilty to extortion earlier this year. The year before, former Mayor Martin Resendiz admitted he was drunk when he signed contracts with a California company. When later confronted after his lack of attendance at council meetings, Resendiz and Salinas, then mayor pro-tem, nearly came to blows in the council chambers as a crowd urged them to fight it out. Jerry Pacheco, president of the Border Industrial Association, the group that helps operate the nearby unincorporated booming border town of Santa Teresa, New Mexico, said the instability of Sunland Park makes some investors nervous. "If you have $75 million invested in a warehouse in a town near Sunland Park, all you have to do is go to Google to see what is happening around the corner," Pacheco said. But Pacheco said he hopes the upcoming Sunland Park elections in March finally will stabilize the city. Perea said that's why he's trying to get more residents involved in shaping the city's future. He recently announced that he would be forming various committees to develop policies and projects. "The ethics committee is one of the first ones I want to form," Perea said. Fernando Clemente, a wildlife biologist, said he also intended to seek a council seat. Asked about the previous city's scandals, Clemente shook his head and said, "I don't want to think about that. I'm running to focus on education." Perea said he hopes a new council will help the city focus on projects that could generate revenue and tourism, such as developing an area around the Rio Grande and possibly build a port of entry in Sunland Park. "There are a lot of exciting things happening in Sunland Park," Perea said. "We just have to get away from the past." ___ Follow Russell Contreras on Twitter at http://twitter.com/russcontreras . His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/russell-contreras . In this Jan. 4, 2016 photo, Sunland Park Mayor Javier Perea listens to a session on different forms of city government during a meeting to encourage more civic participation in Sunland Park, N.M. The New Mexico border town, next to El Paso, Texas, has struggled to put a series of national scandals behind it until two city councilors were recently arrested. (AP Photo/Russell Contreras) In this Jan. 4, 2016 photo, Sunland Park residents listen to a session on different forms of city government during a meeting to encourage more civic participation in Sunland Park, N.M. The New Mexico border town, next to El Paso, Texas, has struggled to put a series of national scandals behind it until two city councilors were recently arrested. (AP Photo/Russell Contreras) US senators pitch $400 million fix for lead pipes in Flint WASHINGTON (AP) U.S. Senate Democrats are introducing a measure to provide up to $400 million in new federal funding to replace and fix lead-contaminated pipes in the city of Flint, Michigan. The bill also requires federal action if a state refuses to warn the public about unsafe water and authorizes $20 million a year to monitor lead exposure in Flint. Democratic Sens. Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan were expected to offer the measure Thursday as an amendment to a Senate energy bill. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is surrounded by reporters as the Senate moves to rewrite federal energy policies, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Flint's water became contaminated when the financially-struggling city switched from the Detroit municipal system and began drawing from the Flint River in 2014 to save money. Regulators failed to ensure the water was treated properly and lead from pipes leached into the supply, leading to a spike in child lead exposure. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., flanked by Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., right, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., left, speaks with reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, as senators returned to work following the snowstorm that crippled the Mid-Atlantic region. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Mother of man accused in shooting plot says FBI set him up MILWAUKEE (AP) The mother of a man accused of planning a mass shooting at a Masonic temple in Milwaukee says her son was set up by the FBI. Despite a federal criminal complaint describing Samy Mohamed Hamzeh as a Muslim extremist, Khawla Hamzeh said her 23-year-old son is immature, not very religious and was just trying to convince his friends he was tough. "He's not mature. You know guys, they want to show they are brave," she told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (http://bit.ly/1TpM66E ). Samy Mohamed Hamzeh is seen in an undated photo provided by the Waukesha County (Wis.) Sheriffs Department. Federal prosecutors charged 23-year-old Samy Mohamed Hamzeh on Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016, with unlawfully possessing a machine gun and receiving and possessing firearms not registered to him. Federal agents said Tuesday that Mohamed Hamzeh wanted to storm a Masonic temple with a machine gun and kill at least 30 people in an attack he hoped would show "nobody can play with Muslims" and spark more mass shootings in the United States. (Waukesha County (Wis.) Sheriffs Department via AP) Hamzeh, who was born in New Jersey, has been charged with unlawfully possessing a machine gun and receiving and possessing improperly registered firearms, and is accused but not indicted of planning to attack a downtown Masonic center and kill 30 people. According to court documents, FBI agents were tipped off in September that Hamzeh planned to travel to Israel to attack Israeli soldiers and citizens in the West Bank. He abandoned those plans due to "family, financial and logistic reasons," instead focusing his efforts on a domestic attack. Hamzeh was arrested Monday, after he paid two undercover FBI agents for two automatic machine guns and a silencer and put them in the trunk of his car. During his court appearance Tuesday, he told U.S. Magistrate Judge David Jones that he had read and understood the federal complaint filed against him, but that he doesn't agree with it. The hearing was closed to the media, but the newspaper obtained an audio recording of the hearing and posted it on the newspaper's website. Khawla Hamzeh said she was constantly reminding her son to pray and didn't like his violent video games. But she said he was a loving son who hugged and kissed her often. "I can't believe this is my son. Everybody in Milwaukee loves Samy," his mother told the newspaper. "He never fights with anyone." She believes her son was set up and led astray by the FBI. "The first day he tell his friend he want to do something, take him to the jail. Take him to the doctor. They watch him for months!" she said. "Why (would the FBI) sell my son the gun?" The Hamzehs are from Jordan and have moved back and forth to the United States. Samy Hamzeh was supporting his family because his father was having trouble finding steady work since moving to the U.S. last spring, his mother said. Khawla Hamzeh said her son wasn't acting any differently when she made him breakfast Monday. He didn't have mental health problems, she said, although he was worried about money since he supported the family and had recently been fired from his job as a trainer. "He spent his money for us. He'd say, 'Mama, take this money. Just give me $10,' " she said. "He pay $900 for the house, $120 for the gas and electricity. When he stopped working, he feel very sad." ___ A look at the scheduled Syrian peace talks in Geneva GENEVA (AP) The peace process the U.N. hopes to begin in Geneva is the first attempt to bring together Syria's rival groups since 2014, but few harbor any hope that the talks will achieve a quick breakthrough in the 5-year-old civil war. In fact, there are big questions about whether the main opposition group will show up on time or whether the talks will even take place. The talks are scheduled to begin Friday but are likely to be delayed due to ongoing disputes. The process has the backing at least in principle of the international community, including countries that support opposing sides of the conflict: The United States, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran. FILE - In this Jan. 25, 2016, file photo, UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria Staffan de Mistura informs the media on the Intra-Syrian Talks, during a news conference, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. The talks are scheduled to begin Friday, Jan. 29 but are likely to be delayed due to ongoing disputes. The U.N. Special Envoy to Syria, de Mistura, described the talks Thursday, Jan. 28 as an opportunity not to be missed. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File) U.N. Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura described the talks as "an opportunity not to be missed." Here are some questions and answers about the talks and their significance: ___ WHY ARE THE TALKS IMPORTANT? Any attempt, however modest, to end the conflict is important. The civil war has killed over a quarter of a million people, sent millions of refugees spilling into neighboring countries and Europe, and created a huge humanitarian catastrophe. The talks are an attempt to bring together opposition groups and government representatives in what is billed as the first step in a U.N.-endorsed, 18-month political transition plan. At stake is whether the two sides and their international backers can overcome sharp differences to achieve confidence-building measures that can serve as a foundation for something bigger, including a broad national cease-fire. Judging by the posturing and bickering over which opposition groups are eligible to attend and what should be on the agenda, the attempt appears almost hopeless. ___ WHO ARE THE PARTICIPANTS? De Mistura has invited Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem and members of his delegation, as well as Riyad Hijab, the head of the opposition's Higher Negotiating Committee, a Saudi-backed bloc that includes civilian and rebel groups. While the government delegation was expected to arrive Friday, the opposition bloc says it is still waiting for replies from the U.N. chief responding to its concerns, and is unlikely to make it by Friday. Also invited are Russia-backed Syrian opposition figures, including Qadri Jamil, a former Syrian deputy prime minister. There also will be civil society groups; women's groups and independents. The largest Kurdish group in Syria, the Democratic Union Party or PYD, is not invited; neither are the two militant factions that control large parts of the country: the Islamic State group and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front. ___ HOW ARE THESE TALKS DIFFERENT THAN PREVIOUS ONES? Two rounds of talks held in Switzerland in 2014 ended in spectacular failure after the two sides failed to agree even on an agenda. The government insisted on talking about eradicating "terrorism," while the opposition was focused on a political transition that would ease President Bashar Assad from power. Those talks were marred by the fact that Iran, a main backer of the Syrian government, was not part of the process. This time, Iran is among 17 nations that support the process and have signed up for a roadmap to end the war. The U.S. and Russia are also working more closely together, both determined to find a way to end the war. The 2014 talks also were criticized for excluding armed groups inside Syria. This time, the opposition delegation includes several rebel factions in addition to the civilian opposition. ___ DOES THAT MEAN THERE IS MORE HOPE OF A BREAKTHROUGH? Not necessarily. In fact, expectations for a breakthrough are almost nonexistent. In a reflection of the deep animosity and complexity of the task, de Mistura has decided that these will be "proximity talks," rather than face-to-face sessions meaning that he plans to keep the delegations in separate rooms with a lot of shuttling in between. He has tamped down expectations by saying he expects them to last for six months, describing them more as consultations. Another seemingly insurmountable issue has been identifying which armed groups in Syria are considered terrorists. The only groups everyone agrees are terrorist are the Islamic State group and the Nusra Front. But there are many other groups that each side calls terrorists. Turkey considers the main Kurdish group, the Democratic Union Party or PYD, to be a terrorist organization and has threatened to boycott the talks if the group is invited. Russia considers the Army of Islam that is part of the Saudi-named delegation to be a terrorist organization, while Syrian opposition groups and Saudi Arabia consider Lebanon's Hezbollah, which is fighting along Assad's forces, to be terrorists. ___ WHAT HAPPENS IF THE TALKS FAIL? The military conflict will probably escalate even further. As things stand, that is likely to be advantageous to the Syrian government. Russia's military involvement, which began with airstrikes Sept. 30, has allowed the Syrian army to go on the offensive against rebels. Backed by Moscow's airpower many Syrians describe it as the "Sukhoi Storm," named for Russia's warplanes the army and allied militias have scored significant victories over rebels in recent weeks. Russia is likely to intensify its support of Syrian troops. Gulf countries, which back the opposition, are likely to step up weapons shipments to the rebels. FILE - In this Monday, Jan. 11, 2016 file photo, Former Syrian Prime Minister Riad Hijab, now coordinator of the Syrian opposition team talks to the press after his meeting with French President Francois Hollande at the Elysee Palace in Paris. One of the major opposition groups in the Syrian war said Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016 it will only attend the imminent Geneva peace talks if the sieges in the country are lifted and other conditions are met, casting further uncertainty on the talks scheduled to begin in two days. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, File) Police: 6 dead in apparent domestic murder-suicide CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) Six members of a Virginia family that friends and neighbors called religious and hard-working were killed in an apparent murder-suicide after a failed negotiation, police said Thursday. Chesapeake police said they believe Cameron Dooley, 26, killed his parents, brother, sister and another relative before killing himself after an hours-long negotiation with officers. The other dead were identified as Steven Todd Dooley, 50; Lori Dooley, 54; Landon Dooley, 22; and Brooke Dooley, 17. The name of the sixth family member, a woman, was not immediately released. Their deaths were ruled homicides. The Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said Thursday all five homicide victims died of gunshot wounds. Cameron Dooley was shot in the chest and his death was ruled a suicide, while the other Dooleys were shot in the head, spokesman Arkuie Williams said. Police said all were shot with a handgun. Steven Todd Dooley, who went by his middle name, retired Nov. 1 after 25 years as a Chesapeake Police Department officer, police spokeswoman Kelly O'Sullivan said. Several neighbors said Todd Dooley's father, the Rev. Allen Dooley, led the nearby Temple Baptist Church before dying in 2010 and leaving behind a large family that was widely viewed as the cornerstone of the neighborhood. "They were just really good Christian people," neighbor Desiree Darst said in a telephone interview. "I knew them my whole life. We're all in shock." Police said in a news release that officers responded to a call to check on a person and found Landon Dooley dead inside a house Wednesday afternoon. Their investigation led them to another home a couple of blocks away, where they found an armed man barricaded inside. After negotiating for several hours, police said officers entered the home and found the other five people dead, including the man they had been negotiating with. O'Sullivan said Todd Dooley was "very well respected" in the police department. "He was just very easygoing a nice guy," she said. He was active with the police department's dive team and marine patrol, which led him to an after-retirement job as a service technician at Lynnhaven Dive Center in Virginia Beach. "Todd was a good man and a hard worker a family man and a very religious man," said Blake Hughes, the dive shop's service manager. "It's sort of hard to wrap our brains around what happened." Hughes said his wife is a nurse, so Dooley talked to him about daughter Brooke's participation in the nursing education program at Deep Creek High School. Dooley never mentioned any problems with any of his children, Hughes said. Neighbors also said they never had any hint of trouble in the Dooley family. "The family had a wonderful reputation," said Judith Styron, who has lived in the neighborhood for 21 years. Timothy Casteen, a retired teacher who lives two doors down from Todd and Lori Dooley's home, said the late Rev. Allen Dooley established a strong family presence in the neighborhood that was carried on by his surviving family members. "They were people we all looked up to," he said. Darst said she had many conversations with Cameron Dooley, who helped take care of his grandmother after his grandfather died. US marks 30th anniversary of shuttle Challenger disaster CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) Dozens of educators who competed alongside Christa McAuliffe to become the first teacher in space gathered Thursday to remember the seven astronauts who perished aboard Challenger 30 years ago. They still believe strongly in what McAuliffe hoped to accomplish aboard Challenger before disaster struck during liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986. Names of the Challenger dead were read during the memorial service. The former astronaut reciting the names of all 24 astronauts killed in the line of duty over the years, Jon McBride, had to fight back tears. The awful moment, just 73 seconds after take off, that the shuttle exploded on January 28 1986 as 17 per cent of the American population watched on in horror Close to 40 of the 113 remaining semifinalists for teacher-in-space traveled to Cape Canaveral for the anniversary, the biggest gathering ever for a NASA memorial like this. Another first: McAuliffe's son, Scott, 39, took part in the ceremony. He said having his own two sons there with him, ages 6 and 8, made it easier. The crowd numbered close to 400 and included family members of astronauts killed in all three of NASA's spacecraft tragedies: Challenger; Columbia's catastrophic descent on Feb. 1, 2003; and the Apollo 1 fire on Jan. 27, 1967. Steven McAuliffe still declines interviews about his late wife Christa, but he noted in a statement that although 30 years have passed, "Challenger will always be an event that occurred just recently. Our thoughts and memories of Christa will always be fresh and comforting." A leak in the right booster doomed the ship; unusually cold weather that morning left Challenger's booster rockets with stiff O-ring seals. Besides Christa McAuliffe, the Challenger dead include pilot Michael Smith, Judith Resnik, Dick Scobee , Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka and Gregory Jarvis. ___ Online: Challenger Center: http://www.challenger.org/ NASA: http://www.history.nasa.gov/sts51l.html A million pieces: Ebeling knew the weather in Florida was too cold for a safe launch of the Challenger space shuttle on January 28, 1986 FILE - This photo provided by NASA shows the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger mission 51L. All seven members of the crew were killed when the shuttle exploded during launch on Jan. 28, 1986. Front row from left are Michael J. Smith, Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, and Ronald E. McNair. Front row from left are Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, and Judith Resnik. (NASA via AP) The crew members walked out to the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral for the fateful launch FILE - In this Jan. 28, 1986 file picture, spectators at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. react after they witnessed the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. (AP Photo/File) FILE - This Jan. 28, 1986 file picture shows U.S. President Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office of the White House after a televised address to the nation about the space shuttle Challenger explosion. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook) FILE - In this series of Jan. 28, 1986 photos, the space shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. A family from Michigan watches the explosion from Shepard Park in Cocoa Beach. (Malcolm Denemark/Florida Today via AP) NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT FILE - In this Friday, Jan. 28, 2011 file photo, June Scobee Rodgers, widow of Dick Scobee, commander of space shuttle Challenger, looks upward during the playing of the National Anthem at a remembrance ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of the Challenger explosion at the Kennedy Space Center visitor complex in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Friday, Jan. 28, 2011. On the 30th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger accident, June Scobee Rodgers _ widow of Challenger commander Dick Scobee and longtime spokeswoman for the families of the lost astronauts _ is passing the torch to daughter Kathie. (AP Photo/John Raoux) 30 years since Challenger: Teacher-in-Space finalists gather CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) Dozens of educators who competed alongside Christa McAuliffe to become the first teacher in space gathered Thursday to remember the seven astronauts who perished aboard Challenger 30 years ago. McAuliffe's son, Scott, now 39, also took part in the emotionally charged ceremony, held on a bleak, drizzly morning just six miles from where his mother's space shuttle blasted off for the final time on Jan. 28, 1986. Many of the teacher-in-space semifinalists are retired now. They have gray hair. A few limp. But they still believe strongly in what McAuliffe hoped to accomplish aboard Challenger before disaster struck during liftoff. People attend a Day of Remembrance Ceremony to honor the lives of the seven crew members of the Challenger space shuttle on the 30th anniversary of the 1986 tragedy, at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. In addition to paying tribute to the Space Shuttle Challenger, they also honored all of those who have fallen since the beginning of the U.S. space program. (Tim Shortt/Florida Today via AP) NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT "It's really hard" to be back, said William Dillon, 77, a retired teacher who represented California in the competition back in the mid-1980s. He was at Kennedy Space Center for Challenger's launch and had gotten to know not only McAuliffe, but a few of the other astronauts on the doomed flight. Linda Preston, 61, also retired as a teacher, choked up as the names of the Challenger dead were read during the memorial service. The former space shuttle pilot reciting the names of all 24 astronauts killed in the line of duty over the years, Jon McBride, had to fight back tears. "All of a sudden, I couldn't breathe," Preston later confided to a reporter. She represented Utah in the teacher competition. About 40 of the 113 remaining semifinalists for teacher-in-space traveled to Cape Canaveral for the anniversary commemoration, the biggest gathering ever for a NASA memorial like this. "We felt we all wanted to be part of it," said Connecticut semifinalist David Warner, 63, who still teaches science, robotics and rocketry. Like so many of his colleagues, Warner wanted to see Kennedy's "Forever Remembered" exhibit that opened last summer. It contains the only piece of Challenger wreckage on public display, a 12-foot section of the left-side body panel complete with the U.S. flag, as well as personal belongings of the Challenger and Columbia crews. The ceremony was one of several NASA memorials that took place Thursday at Arlington National Cemetery and elsewhere around the country. At Kennedy, rain moved the ceremony indoors, directly in front of the "Forever Remembered" exhibit. The gathering took place beneath the suspended shuttle Atlantis, which in 2011 made the final shuttle flight. Afterward, McAuliffe and other children of the Challenger dead laid a wreath at the outdoor Space Mirror Memorial. Each guest received a rose or carnation to attach to the railing in front of the massive granite mirror. McAuliffe, who works in education technology in Maine, said having his own two sons there with him ages 6 and 8 made it easier. It's time, he said, that his children see and learn firsthand all about astronauts and the space program. Indeed, in a nod to the second generation, June Scobee Rodgers widow of Challenger commander Dick Scobee and longtime spokeswoman for the group passed the torch to daughter Kathie Scobee Fulgham. Fulgham not Scobee Rodgers was on the stage for the ceremony and introduced guest speaker Barbara Morgan, an Idaho schoolteacher who served as Christa McAuliffe's backup so long ago. Morgan recalled how Dick Scobee was "a deep and poetic thinker," and how pilot Michael Smith let her "push the stick" during a training jet flight. She said Christa McAuliffe taught her not to worry about what's unimportant but rather work harder at what truly counts. Up until the final day before launch, Morgan noted, Christa McAuliffe took time to write college recommendations for her students. The rest of the Challenger crew, remembered fondly by Morgan: Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka and Gregory Jarvis. The crowd of about 500 included family members of astronauts killed in all three of NASA's spacecraft tragedies: Challenger; Columbia's catastrophic descent on Feb. 1, 2003; and the Apollo 1 fire on Jan. 27, 1967. For the astronauts' loved ones, the disasters remain fresh in their minds. Steven McAuliffe, a federal judge in Concord, New Hampshire, still declines interviews about his late wife Christa. But he noted in a statement that although 30 years have passed, "Challenger will always be an event that occurred just recently. Our thoughts and memories of Christa will always be fresh and comforting." McAuliffe was presiding over a trial this week in Concord, and so Scott represented his father as well as his younger sister. The McAuliffes normally do not take part in these NASA memorials, so Scott's presence was especially noteworthy. Along with the other Challenger families, Scobee Rodgers established the Challenger Center for Space Science Education just three months after the shuttle disintegrated in the Florida sky. A leak in the right booster doomed the ship; unusually cold weather that morning left Challenger's booster rockets with stiff O-ring seals. Today, there are more than 40 Challenger Learning Centers focusing on science, technology, engineering and math, mostly in the U.S. More are being built. "They're not just a field trip for kids. They're actually lessons learned," said Scobee Rodgers, an educator who lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. "That's why they've lasted." ___ Online: Challenger Center: http://www.challenger.org/ NASA: http://www.history.nasa.gov/sts51l.html FILE - In this Jan. 28, 1986 file photo, the space shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Bruce Weaver, File) FILE - This photo provided by NASA shows the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger mission 51L. All seven members of the crew were killed when the shuttle exploded during launch on Jan. 28, 1986. Front row from left are Michael J. Smith, Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, and Ronald E. McNair. Front row from left are Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, and Judith Resnik. (NASA via AP) Bob Kelley shows a video at the Scobee Education Center planetarium at San Antonio College following a ceremony to honor the lives of the seven crew members of Challenger shuttle flight STS-51L on the 30th anniversary of the 1986 tragedy, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) Kevin Moore visits the Scobee Education Center at San Antonio College where art work was displayed to honor the lives of the seven crew members of Challenger shuttle flight STS-51L on the 30th anniversary of the 1986 tragedy, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) Rick Varner, director of the Scobee Education Center at San Antonio College, places a wreath at the Challenger Memorial Garden during a ceremony to honor the lives of the seven crew members of Challenger shuttle flight STS-51L on the 30th anniversary of the 1986 tragedy, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) FILE - In this Jan. 28, 1986 picture, the space shuttle Challenger lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. shortly before it exploded with a crew of seven aboard. (AP Photo/Thom Baur) FILE - In this Jan. 27, 1986 file picture, the crew members of space shuttle Challenger flight 51-L, leave their quarters for the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. From foreground are commander Francis Scobee, Mission Spl. Judith Resnik, Mission Spl. Ronald McNair, Payload Spl. Gregory Jarvis, Mission Spl. Ellison Onizuka, teacher Christa McAuliffe and pilot Michael Smith. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) FILE - In this Jan. 28, 1986 file picture, spectators at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. react after they witnessed the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. (AP Photo/File) FILE - This Jan. 28, 1986 file picture shows U.S. President Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office of the White House after a televised address to the nation about the space shuttle Challenger explosion. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook) FILE - In this series of Jan. 28, 1986 photos, the space shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. A family from Michigan watches the explosion from Shepard Park in Cocoa Beach. (Malcolm Denemark/Florida Today via AP) NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT FILE - In this Friday, Jan. 28, 2011 file photo, June Scobee Rodgers, widow of Dick Scobee, commander of space shuttle Challenger, looks upward during the playing of the National Anthem at a remembrance ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of the Challenger explosion at the Kennedy Space Center visitor complex in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Friday, Jan. 28, 2011. On the 30th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger accident, June Scobee Rodgers _ widow of Challenger commander Dick Scobee and longtime spokeswoman for the families of the lost astronauts _ is passing the torch to daughter Kathie. (AP Photo/John Raoux) FILE - This Jan. 28, 1986 photo provided by NASA shows icicles on hand rails of the space shuttle Challenger's service structure on the morning of its final launch from Kennedy Space Center, Fla. The cold weather affected O-ring seals on a solid rocket booster, causing the explosion during launch. (AP Photo/NASA) Bob Kelley shows a video at the Scobee Education Center planetarium at San Antonio College following a ceremony to honor the lives of the seven crew members of Challenger shuttle flight STS-51L on the 30th anniversary of the 1986 tragedy, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) FILE - In this Jan. 28, 1986 file photo the space shuttle Challenger is destroyed by an explosion shortly after it lifted off from Kennedy Space Center, Fla. Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 marks the 30th anniversary of the accident which killed all seven crew members. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File) FILE - In this Friday, Jan. 28, 2011 file photo, June Scobee Rodgers, widow of Dick Scobee, commander of space shuttle Challenger, speaks in front of the Space Mirror Memorial during a remembrance ceremony to mark the 25th Anniversary of space shuttle Challenger at the Kennedy Space Center visitor complex in Cape Canaveral, Fla. On the memorial behind her are the names of the astronauts that perished aboard Challenger. (AP Photo/John Raoux) The Latest: FBI releases video of Oregon shooting BURNS, Ore. (AP) The latest on an armed group that took over buildings at a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon (all times local): 6:10 p.m. The FBI has released video of the fatal traffic stop shooting of an armed occupier of a national wildlife refuge in Oregon. FILE - In this Jan. 9, 2016 file photo, LaVoy Finicum, a rancher from Arizona, speaks to the media after members of an armed group along with several other organizations arrive at the at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Ore. The FBI and Oregon State Police arrested the leaders of an armed group that has occupied a national wildlife refuge for the past three weeks during a traffic stop that prompted gunfire and one death along a highway through the frozen high country. The Oregonian reported that Finicum was the person killed, citing the man's daughter. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) The aerial video was shown at a news conference Thursday evening. Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, an Arizona rancher, was shot and killed by police Tuesday during the arrest of most of the armed group's leaders on a highway north of the refuge. The video shows a truck speeding toward a roadblock and hitting a snow bank. Greg Bretzing, special agent in charge for the FBI in Oregon, narrated the video and said that Finicum then got out of the truck. The video appears to show the individual that got out of the truck reaching into his pocket. Bretzing said Finicum had a loaded handgun in his pocket and he "on at least two occasions" reached his right hand toward the pocket inside his jacket. The video then shows the man being shot by officers. Bretzing said Oregon State Troopers fatally shot Finicum after he reached toward his pocket. Bundy followers had given conflicting accounts of how Finicum died. One said Finicum charged at officers, who then shot him. A member of the Bundy family said Finicum did nothing to provoke the officers. The FBI posted the video to its YouTube channel (http://bit.ly/209MgEw ). ___ 4:15 p.m. A law enforcement official says the Arizona rancher killed during the arrest of an armed group in Oregon was shot after reaching toward his waistband multiple times. The official, who had been briefed on the investigation but spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it by name, said Robert "LaVoy" Finicum of Arizona was armed, but did not have an opportunity to shoot. The Deschutes County Sheriff's department said in a statement that Oregon State Medical Examiner's Office performed an autopsy Thursday and confirmed the 54-year-old Finicum's identity. The autopsy results were not released. Authorities say the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office will be the lead agency on the police shooting investigation. Group leader Ammon Bundy and seven other main figures in the takeover were arrested earlier in the week, most of them in the traffic stop Tuesday night that erupted in gunfire. Bundy's group seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon on Jan. 2 to protest federal land use policies. Eric Tucker ___ 1:25 p.m. The jailed former leader of an armed group occupying an Oregon wildlife refuge reiterated his call for the last few holdouts to leave. In a statement Thursday issued through his lawyer, Ammon Bundy said: "Turn yourselves in, and do not use physical force." Bundy and others protesting federal land policies were arrested during a traffic stop Tuesday that left one man dead. Bundy's statement says FBI agents told him that the shooting of Arizona rancher Robert "LaVoy" Finicum was recorded on video. He says he's waiting to review the footage because "questions must be answered." Bundy supporters have given conflicting accounts about Finicum's death. One said the rancher charged at officers, who then shot him. A member of Bundy's family said Finicum did nothing to provoke the officers. Authorities have refused to release details. ___ 12 p.m. The last few occupiers of an Oregon wildlife refuge have been posting online videos in which they say they are in negotiations with the FBI and that their numbers are down to four. A video posted Thursday to the YouTube channel "DefendYourBase," which the group has been using to give live updates from Malheur National Wildlife Refuge says the occupiers want assurances they won't arrested. A speaker believed to be David Fry said: "We're stuck here, four of us. They're telling us it's safe to leave, but it's not safe." He says one of the occupiers faces a federal arrest warrant. The latest videos show them sitting around a campfire near pickup trucks, an American flag, weapons, a tarp and clutter. In one, a couple dances slowly to a country Western tune. ___ 9:50 a.m. A video posted by the holdouts occupying an Oregon wildlife refuge says the remaining five members of the armed group will leave if none of them face arrest. The statement was posted early Thursday to the YouTube channel "DefendYourBase," which the group has been using to give live updates from Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. David Fry has made frequent posts, but no face was visible in the video. It shows a campfire while a man says authorities told the group that "out of five people left here, four of us are allowed to leave." The video says the FBI told them that one of the remaining occupiers faces a federal felony charge. The video says "we are willing to stay here" unless authorities agree to drop it. The FBI has established checkpoints around the refuge. Eleven other people have been arrested in connection to the standoff. This photo provided by the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, shows Ammon Bundy, one of the members of an armed group occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge as part of a dispute over public lands in the Western U.S. Bundy and several others were arrested on Tuesday, Jan. 26, prompting gunfire and leaving one man dead during a traffic stop along a highway in Oregon's frozen high country. (Multnomah County Sheriff via AP) Police officers block the turnout to Sodhouse Lane, which is the main road leading to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, near Burns, Ore. Authorities were restricting access on Wednesday to the Oregon refuge being occupied by an armed group after one of the occupiers was killed during a traffic stop and eight more, including the group's leader Ammon Bundy, were arrested. (Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian via AP) MAGS OUT; TV OUT; NO LOCAL INTERNET; THE MERCURY OUT; WILLAMETTE WEEK OUT; PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT In face of Zika virus, women ponder abortion, childlessness SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) Maria Erlinda Guzman desperately wants a baby, and has been undergoing fertility treatments at El Salvador's largest women's hospital. But now, she fears her dream of motherhood may be dashed by Zika. After her country took the extraordinary step of advising women to avoid pregnancies for two years due to concerns about the rapidly spreading virus, the 34-year-old now plans to start using contraception. She worries that she may be too old to conceive by the time it is considered safe to do so. "I'm going to be left childless," Guzman said. Aedes aegypti mosquitoes sit in a petri dish at the Fiocruz institute in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. The mosquito is a vector for the proliferation of the Zika virus currently spreading throughout Latin America. New figures from Brazil's Health Ministry show that the Zika virus outbreak has not caused as many confirmed cases of a rare brain defect as first feared. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) While Zika's exact link to the rare birth defect known as microcephaly is still unclear, warnings from El Salvador, at least six other countries and health officials across the Americas are raising anxiety for millions of would-be and could-be mothers in affected areas. For some it's a dilemma pitting religious beliefs about abortion against the risk that their babies could be born with abnormally small heads and a short life expectancy. World Health Organization officials said Thursday the virus is "spreading explosively" and the Americas could see up to 4 million cases of Zika in the next year. And as it expands to countries where abortion is strictly limited or outlawed altogether, doctors and health advocates fear that many women could resort to back-alley procedures that imperil their health. "What happens in a country where abortion is completely illegal?" said Angelica Rivas of Acdatee, a Salvadoran nonprofit that advocates for decriminalization of the procedure. "What can be expected is an increase in the rates of illegal abortions, unsafe abortions and a mental health issue for women." At least 4.4 million pregnancies were aborted in 2008 in Latin America, about 95 percent of them clandestinely and in unsafe conditions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a U.S.-based nonprofit that promotes reproductive health rights. "When women are desperate ... they will seek out their own solutions," said Carmen Barroso, Western Hemisphere director for the International Planned Parenthood Federation. In El Salvador, she said, half of all pregnancies are unplanned. So far, only Brazil has seen a sharp rise in microcephaly cases suspected of a link to Zika. Abortion is illegal in Brazil except in cases of rape, danger to the mother's life or anencephaly, another birth defect involving the brain. Authorities have said they don't plan to add a microcephaly exception, though the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper argued in an editorial that Zika raises a need to discuss decriminalization of abortion. Microcephaly usually occurs because of abnormal brain development that numerous conditions can trigger: genetic abnormalities, disorders such as Down syndrome, drug or alcohol use, other infections such as cytomegalovirus or even serious nutritional problems. WHO officials say it may be six to nine months before a link between Zika and microcephaly is established or dismissed. Complicating the mystery is how to detect which pregnancies really may be at risk. Microcephaly typically has not been diagnosed in early pregnancy. One study published in 2000 found it was diagnosed on average at 28 weeks, although Dr. Jeffrey Ecker, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, said it sometimes may be detected in the second trimester. "We don't know as much as we would like," Ecker said. "That's the caveat that hangs over all of this." In the United States, if there's concern that a pregnant woman may have been infected by Zika while traveling abroad, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is recommending ultrasound exams every three to four weeks to evaluate the fetus. Moreover, about 80 percent of those infected with Zika present no symptoms, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Zika does not produce effects in all pregnant mothers. ... It is a rate that we don't understand yet," said Dr. Carlos Espinal of the American Health Foundation. The type of mosquito that transmits Zika, and also dengue and chikungunya, is present in much of the Americas. Even in countries where there have been no confirmed cases of microcephaly, such as El Salvador, nervous women are asking themselves tough questions. "I can't say what I would do. It's illegal to abort they would throw me in jail," said Dinora Martinez, a 26-year-old Salvadoran woman who is not pregnant but has a 5-year-old son. But she noted that there are clandestine clinics where her countrywomen can terminate a pregnancy: "If I did," she added, "I wouldn't tell anyone." So far no health agency has suggested abortion for pregnant women who contract Zika. For many who are already pregnant, reports about Zika have injected fear into what would otherwise be a joyous time. "I'm afraid that my baby could have some problem," said Kerly Rocio Ariza, a 17-year-old Colombian who is five months into her first pregnancy and was recently diagnosed with Zika. "It terrifies me because I've seen the symptoms I had on TV, and in truth they told me it was dangerous." In the Ecuadorean capital of Quito, about 2,850 meters (9,350 feet) above sea level in the Andes, Maria de Jesus Rivera said she will put off trips to the beach for the five months remaining before she gives birth. The mosquito that transmits Zika is believed to be unable to reproduce above 1,800 meters (5,900 feet). "We're afraid," the 26-year-old woman said. "We want the child to be born healthy with no problems of any kind." At the women's hospital in San Salvador, Dr. Carlos Amaya Campos met with patients this week to explain the potential risks of Zika. Stopping short of the two-year pregnancy moratorium urged by his government, he advised women to use birth control for six months and then assess the situation. For those already pregnant, he prescribed long sleeves and mosquito repellant. "Brazil, which has the most cases of newborns with microcephaly, said (to wait) six months," Amaya said. "I do not know why our government said two years. ... We hope that in six months the epidemic is sufficiently controlled for the ministry to say you can get pregnant." ___ Associated Press writers Lauran Neergaard in Washington; Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo; Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Ecuador; Cesar Garcia in Bogota, Colombia; Jamey Keaten in Geneva; and E. Eduardo Castillo in Mexico City contributed. A city worker helps homebound Simon Jose Valentin, 94, leave his home while it is fumigated to combat the Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes that transmit the Zika virus, at the San Judas Community in San Salvador, El Salvador, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Worries about the rapid spread of Zika through the hemisphere has prompted officials in El Salvador, Colombia and Brazil to suggest women stop getting pregnant until the crisis has passed. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez) A city worker fumigates insecticide to combat the Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes that transmit the Zika virus, at the San Judas Community in San Salvador, El Salvador, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Worries about the rapid spread of Zika through the hemisphere has prompted officials in El Salvador, Colombia and Brazil to suggest women stop getting pregnant until the crisis has passed. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez) A woman covers her mouth as she stands outside her home while city workers fumigate to combat the Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes that transmit the Zika virus, at the San Judas Community in San Salvador, El Salvador, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Worries about the rapid spread of Zika through the hemisphere has prompted officials in El Salvador, Colombia and Brazil to suggest women stop getting pregnant until the crisis has passed. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez) A woman covers her mouth while city workers fumigate insecticide to help combat the Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes that transmit the Zika virus, at the San Judas Community in San Salvador, El Salvador, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Worries about the rapid spread of Zika through the hemisphere has prompted officials in El Salvador, Colombia and Brazil to suggest women stop getting pregnant until the crisis has passed. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez) A man works on a fence amidst a cloud of insecticide as city workers fumigate to combat the Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes that transmits the Zika virus, at the San Judas Community in San Salvador, El Salvador, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Worries about the rapid spread of Zika through the hemisphere has prompted officials in El Salvador, Colombia and Brazil to suggest women stop getting pregnant until the crisis has passed. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez) An Aedes aegypti mosquito is photographed through a microscope at the Fiocruz institute in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. The mosquito is a vector for the proliferation of the Zika virus currently spreading throughout Latin America. New figures from Brazil's Health Ministry show that the Zika virus outbreak has not caused as many confirmed cases of a rare brain defect as first feared. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) A technician of the Fiocruz institue stores Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to be used in research, in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. The mosquito is a vector for the proliferation of the Zika virus currently spreading throughout Latin America. New figures from Brazil's Health Ministry show that the Zika virus outbreak has not caused as many confirmed cases of a rare brain defect as first feared. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) The Latest: No charges against son of Illinois officer CHICAGO (AP) The Latest on the investigation of relatives of a northern Illinois police officer who staged his suicide after embezzling from a youth program (all times local): 12:45 p.m. Authorities say they don't have enough evidence to charge the son of a disgraced northern Illinois policeman with financial crimes even though text messages show father and son discussing money pilfered from a youth program before the officer killed himself. Melodie Gliniewicz, 51, of Antioch,Ill., appearars at the Lake County sheriff's office after she was indicted in Waukegan, Ill., by a Lake County grand jury. The grand jury on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, indicted the 51-year-old Gliniewicz on felony counts of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority for personal benefit. (Mark Welsh/Daily Herald via AP) Authorities say Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz staged his September suicide to look like he'd been killed in the line of duty because he feared his embezzlement was about to be uncovered. His death triggered a massive, weeks-long manhunt that left the community on edge. His wife was indicted Wednesday, but her lawyer denies she took part in the theft from the Fox Lake Police Explorer Post her husband ran. Lake County Sheriff's Office spokesman Christopher Covelli says investigators were not able to prove that the officer's son, 23-year-old Donald "D.J." Gliniewicz, knew beforehand that money he was spending had been stolen. ___ 1:45 a.m. The wife of a northern Illinois police officer who killed himself after embezzling from a youth program has turned herself in after being indicted by a grand jury. Melodie Gliniewicz was taken to the Lake County jail Wednesday. She was released later in the day after posting 10 percent of her $50,000 bond. Her husband, Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz, died Sept. 1. Authorities say he staged his suicide to look like a homicide. Investigators believe he feared discovery of the embezzlement. Authorities say Melodie Gliniewicz served as an adviser to the Fox Lake Police Explorer Post her husband ran. A grand jury indicted the 51-year-old Gliniewicz on felony counts of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority for personal benefit. In a statement, her attorneys vehemently denied she took part in her husband's scheme. FILE - In this Sept. 2, 2015 file photo, Melodie Gliniewicz, the wife of Fox Lake Police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz, leaves with her family during a vigil to honor her husband in Fox Lake, Ill. Authorities later said Gliniewicz staged his suicide to look like a homicide after embezzling from a youth program. On Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, a grand jury indicted Melodie Gliniewicz on felony counts of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority for personal benefit. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File) Melodie Gliniewicz, right, of Antioch,Ill., appears at the Lake County sheriff's office after she was indicted in Waukegan, Ill., by a Lake County grand jury. The grand jury on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, indicted the 51-year-old Gliniewicz on felony counts of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority for personal benefit. (Gilbert R. Boucher II/Daily Herald via AP) Melodie Gliniewicz, right, of Antioch,Ill., appears at the Lake County sheriff's office after she was indicted in Waukegan, Ill., by a Lake County grand jury. The grand jury on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, indicted the 51-year-old Gliniewicz on felony counts of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority for personal benefit. (Gilbert R. Boucher II/Daily Herald via AP) Detective Chris Covelli, left, of the Lake County Sheriff's office speaks aabout the wife of disgraced Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz. Melodie Gliniewicz, 51, of Antioch,Ill., appeared at the Lake County sheriff's office after she was indicted in Waukegan, Ill., by a Lake County grand jury. The grand jury on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, indicted the 51-year-old Gliniewicz on felony counts of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority for personal benefit. (Mark Welsh/Daily Herald via AP) Melodie Gliniewicz, 51, of Antioch,Ill., appears at the Lake County sheriff's office after she was indicted in Waukegan, Ill., by a Lake County grand jury. The grand jury on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, indicted the 51-year-old Gliniewicz on felony counts of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority for personal benefit. (Mark Welsh/Daily Herald via AP) Melodie Gliniewicz, 51, of Antioch,Ill., appears at the Lake County sheriff's office after she was indicted in Waukegan, Ill., by a Lake County grand jury. The grand jury on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, indicted the 51-year-old Gliniewicz on felony counts of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority for personal benefit. (Mark Welsh/Daily Herald via AP) Wyoming man who sought military pension gets 15 years CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) A federal judge on Thursday imposed a 15-year prison sentence on a Wyoming man who had sought unsuccessfully to have his sentencing on child sex-crime convictions delayed so he could qualify for a military pension. A federal jury in October convicted Army National Guard Lt. Timothy Wells of sexual exploitation of a child and other charges. Prosecutors say the crimes occurred at the F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne. U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson of Cheyenne recently denied a request from Wells to release him from custody temporarily and reschedule his sentencing for April to allow him to finish the 20 years of military service necessary to qualify for a pension. Assistant Federal Public Defender James Barrett told Johnson in court that Wells essentially was receiving a life sentence. Wells will have to register as a sex offender after his release from prison. "His career is gone; his pension is gone," Barrett said. "His future, for all intents and purposes, isn't gone, but it is tremendously diminished." The victim addressed Johnson, speaking softly while standing at a lectern in the large courtroom. The Associated Press is not identifying the victim. "I feel like wherever I turn, I can't get away from it," she said, describing the effect of Wells' offenses on her life. Prosecutor Thomas Szott told Johnson that the victim had suffered for a long time as a result of Wells' actions. "Mr. Wells is in this position, your honor, because of choices that he made," Szott said. Wells addressed Johnson before the judge pronounced sentence. Wells wore orange jail clothing, and stood shackled at the wrists and ankles. "In the Army, we're taught not to run from a fight," Wells said. He said he disagreed with some of the things that had been presented at the hearing. In imposing the sentence, Johnson, himself an Air Force veteran, said Wells case was not the sort that often comes before a federal judge. He said he attributed that to the quality of the people who live on the Air Force base in Cheyenne. "Deservedly so, we are proud of the men and women who serve in our military and in our national guard," Johnson said. "This is a tragic moment and a sad moment for Mr. Wells and his life," Johnson said. "A life that, in many aspects, he tried to live with honor and failed" because of his fixation on the victim. ------ Walgreens tells Theranos to stop using lab under scrutiny Walgreens has told blood-testing startup Theranos to stop sending samples collected at the drugstore chain's stores to a testing facility that drew regulatory scrutiny over possible patient risks. The company said Thursday that it told Theranos to either send tests to a certified lab in the Phoenix area that Theranos runs or to an accredited third-party lab. The decision only affects 40 stores in Arizona and a Palo Alto, California, store, where Walgreens has suspended Theranos laboratory services. Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. runs more than 8,000 U.S. locations as the nation's largest drugstore chain. Inspectors for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently warned the privately held Theranos Inc. that they found five deficiencies at its Newark, California, laboratory, and some "pose immediate jeopardy to patient safety and health." Theranos has said the inspection took place last year and doesn't reflect its current practices. The Silicon Valley company also says it is taking corrective steps. Founded by CEO Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos has raised millions by pitching its technology as a cheaper, faster way to run dozens of blood tests. Mass expulsions ahead for Europe as migrant crisis grows STOCKHOLM (AP) Dazzled by an unprecedented wave of migration, Sweden on Thursday put into words an uncomfortable reality for Europe: If the continent isn't going to welcome more than 1 million people a year, it will have to deport large numbers of them to countries plagued by social unrest and abject poverty. Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said Sweden could send back 60,000-80,000 asylum seekers in the coming years. Even in a country with a long history of immigration, that would be a scale of expulsions unseen before. "The first step is to ensure voluntary returns," Ygeman told Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri. "But if we don't succeed, we need to have returns by coercion." FILE - In this Nov. 11, 2015 file photo, Sweden's Interior Minister Anders Ygeman, announcing that the government will impose temporary border controls as the Nordic country struggles to receive tens of thousands of refugees in Stockholm, Sweden. Ygeman says Sweden could deport between 60,000 and 80,000 asylum-seekers in coming years. (Henrik Montgomery/TT via AP) SWEDEN OUT . The coercive part is where it gets uncomfortable. Packing unwilling migrants, even entire families, onto chartered airplanes bound for the Balkans, the Middle East or Africa evokes images that clash with Europe's humanitarian ideals. But the sharp rise of people seeking asylum in Europe last year almost certainly will also lead to much higher numbers of rejections and deportations. European Union officials have urged member countries to quickly send back those who don't qualify for asylum so that Europe's welcome can be focused on those who do, such as people fleeing the war in Syria. "People who do not have a right to stay in the European Union need to be returned home," said Natasha Bertaud, a spokeswoman for the EU's executive Commission. "This is a matter of credibility that we do return these people, because you don't want to give the impression of course that Europe is an open door," she said. EU statistics show most of those rejected come from the Balkans including Albania and Kosovo, some of Europe's poorest countries. Many applicants running away from poverty in West Africa, Pakistan and Bangladesh also are turned away. Even people from unstable countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia can't count on getting asylum unless they can prove they, personally, face grave risks at home. Frans Timmermans, the Commission's vice president, told Dutch TV station NOS this week that the majority of people seeking asylum in Europe are not refugees. "More than half, 60 percent, should have to return much more quickly. If we start with doing that, it would already make a huge difference," he said. Sending them back is easier said than done. In 2014, EU nations returned less than 40 percent of the people who were ordered to be deported. Sometimes those seeking asylum go into hiding after receiving a negative decision. Sometimes their native country doesn't want them back. EU countries, including Sweden and Germany, have had some success sending people back to the Balkans on chartered flights. Of the 37,000 who returned from Germany on their own accord last year, all but about 5,000 were from the Balkans. "It's been more difficult with Iraq and Afghanistan," said Mikael Ribbenvik, director of operations at the Swedish Migration Agency. "The returns have worked during some periods, and not so well during others." One of the biggest obstacles to sending people back is to obtain travel documents from their home countries. People routinely lose or even destroy their travel papers coming to Europe, creating confusion about where they are from. "Most countries in the world don't accept someone if cannot be proved that it's one of their citizens," Ribbenvik said. Sweden has urged the EU and its Frontex border agency to help establish return agreements with the countries of origin. Frontex's budget for deporting people was significantly increased this year, allowing it to coordinate more flights and help countries prepare their own. Under U.N. rules, countries are supposed to offer protection to refugees fleeing war and persecution. But some European countries also offer protection to people deemed at risk of torture or the death penalty or who are suffering from an exceptionally serious disease. "Obviously, there is currently a very heated debate in Europe on this issue," said Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general. "Our message continues to be the same that refugees and migrants need to be treated with compassion, dignity and with full respect of their rights for those who are refugees." Even for those who get a negative decision within months, it can take years before all appeals are exhausted and they are ordered to leave. Jawad Aref Hashemi, a 43-year-old Afghan who lived in Iran before traveling to Denmark to seek asylum, suggested he won't accept no for an answer. "If people are sent home, they will protest. How will they send us home? In big cars? We are not animals," he said. Abdi Xuseen, a 28-year-old Somali who also sought asylum in Denmark, said "people will hide" or go on hunger strikes if they are forced to leave Europe. Statistics from the Swedish Migration Agency show 127,000 people have been ordered to leave the country since 2010. About 60,000 did so voluntarily, while 26,000 were deported with coercion and 40,000 absconded. Authorities have little information on the latter group. Some are believed to have left the country, while others remain in Sweden illegally, at risk of being exploited in a black market economy. "There has to be noticeable consequences for companies that use illegal labor," Ygeman told Dagens Industri. "If there's a decent illegal labor market the incentive to stay in Sweden will be strong." More than 160,000 people applied for asylum in Sweden last year, the highest number in Europe relative to population size. Ygeman's estimate that 60,000-80,000 of them will have to leave was based on the current rejection rate of about 45 percent. Meanwhile, the stream of migrants making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe continues. Greece's coast guard said 25 people died, including 10 children, when a migrant boat sank Thursday off Samos, an island near the Turkish coast. Romanian rescuers dropped off 119 African migrants in Italy after recusing them from an inflatable dingy. The migrants were dehydrated and showed signs of hypothermia, the Romanian border police said. ___ Associated Press writers Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, David Rising in Berlin, Lorne Cooke in Brussels and Cara Anna in New York contributed to this report. In this Friday, Jan. 15, 2016 photo, refugees wait their turn at the Tabakika registration center, Chios island, Greece. Despite the bitter winter cold and rough seas, tens of thousands of men, women and children fleeing violence and poverty in their homelands continue to risk their lives to make the relatively short but dangerous journey from the Turkish coast to nearby Greek islands, seeking a better future in Europe. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) Feds issue reminder: Test students or risk losing funding BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) The U.S. Education Department has reminded 13 states that federal funding is still tied to testing students on math and language arts, despite the end of No Child Left Behind. The department asked states with large numbers of students skipping the tests how they plan to do better. A letter to state school chiefs last month noted that the nation's new education law still requires testing for grade 3-8 students and that states falling short of 95 percent participation risk losing funding. Thirteen states were asked for corrective plans. Responses reviewed by The Associated Press show many plans include outreach to parents and downgrading school ratings. None appear to carry financial consequences. Kansas court ponders greenhouse gas limits for coal plant TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) The Kansas Supreme Court considered Thursday whether the state can avoid limiting greenhouse gas emissions from a proposed $2.8 billion coal-fired power plant despite the federal government's efforts to combat climate change. The court heard arguments Thursday from attorneys in a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club in 2014 to prevent Sunflower Electric Power Corp. from building the 895-megawatt facility next to an existing coal-fired plant outside Holcomb, in southwest Kansas. The state Department of Health and Environment has twice given a go-ahead for the project without setting limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The department first issued a pollution-control permit to Sunflower in 2010, just before the federal government began regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Environmentalists challenged it on other grounds, and the Supreme Court in 2013 directed the agency to set tougher standards for pollution such as mercury, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide. FILE - This Feb. 2, 2007 file photo shows Sunflower Electric Cooperative's coal-fired power plant in Holcomb, Kan. The Kansas Supreme Court heard arguments from attorneys Thursday, Jan., 28, 2016 in Topeka on a lawsuit filed by an environmental group to block construction of a $2.8 billion coal-fired power plant next to the existing coal-fired plant outside Holcomb. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File) The department in 2014 issued what it calls an "addendum" to the 2010 permit and argues that limits on greenhouse gas emissions are still not required for the new plant. The Sierra Club said the agency must impose such restrictions because of President Barack Obama's efforts to target coal-fired power plants as a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. The Supreme Court could rule later this year, and such a decision would come as Kansas officials are working on a plan for complying with a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule issued last year to require states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Kansas must drop its emissions levels by 43 percent by 2030. "They'd like to pretend this isn't happening, but it is," Amanda Goodin, an attorney for Earthjustice, which is representing the Sierra Club, said after the court's hearing. "They need to wake up and get emission limits in this permit." Sunflower has sought to build the plant for nearly a decade. It didn't obtain a permit from KDHE until Democratic Gov. Mark Parkinson brokered a deal with the company and the Republican-dominated Legislature that included approval of some green energy initiatives. The 2010 permit was issued during Parkinson's final weeks in office, after he'd pushed out the KDHE secretary who'd previously blocked it. Environmentalists didn't challenge the lack of limits on greenhouse gas emissions in attacking the 2010 permit. They conceded the issue because the EPA's first greenhouse gas rules didn't take effect until 2011, albeit only weeks after the permit. Assistant Attorney General Steve Fabert, representing KDHE said after the hearing that the Sierra Club "punted" on the issue by not raising it then. He told the justices that the department wasn't issuing a new permit in 2014. Doing so would require the state to follow federal greenhouse gas regulations imposed after 2010. "We didn't alter anything here," Fabert told the justices. "We added to what was already present." But Justice Marla Luckert told him: "That seems disingenuous to me." Sunflower provides electricity to 350,000 western and central Kansas residents through six smaller cooperatives. Its new plant could generate enough electricity for up to 448,000 households, according to one state estimate. Three-quarters of the new capacity would be reserved for power that would be sold in Colorado. That's a sore point for environmentalists, but Sunflower gained bipartisan support in the Legislature for the plant by describing it as potential economic development. ___ Online: Kansas Supreme Court: http://bit.ly/1KdpNiv Sunflower: http://www.sunflower.net/ ___ The Latest: medical examiner says 5 deaths from gunshots CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) The latest on a murder-suicide that claimed six lives in Chesapeake, Virginia (all times local): 5:45 p.m. The Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner says five of six people killed in an apparent murder-suicide in Chesapeake died of gunshot wounds. Spokesman Arkuie (ar-KEE') Williams told The Associated Press on Thursday four died of gunshot wounds to the head, and suspected gunman Cameron Dooley died of a gunshot wound to the chest. Williams said 26-year-old Dooley's death was ruled a suicide, while the others were deemed homicides. The identity of a sixth victim has not been released. Chesapeake police identified four of the homicide victims as 50-year-old Steven Todd Dooley, 54-year-old Lori Dooley, 22-year-old Landon Dooley and 17-year-old Brooke Dooley. ___ 4 p.m.: Police in Virginia have identified five of the six people killed in an apparent murder-suicide. Chesapeake police said they are 50-year-old Steven Todd Dooley, 54-year-old Lori Dooley, 26-year-old Cameron Dooley, 22-year-old Landon Dooley and 17-year-old Brooke Dooley. Steven Todd Dooley recently retired from the Chesapeake Police Department. The identity of the sixth victim, a woman, has not been released. A police news release identified Cameron Dooley as the suspect in the murders. They believe he killed his parents, siblings and another relative before killing himself. Police responding to a call to check on a person Wednesday afternoon found Landon Dooley dead. Their investigation led to them to another nearby home, where they found an armed person barricaded inside. After negotiating for several hours, police say officers entered the home and found five people dead, including the armed person. ___ 8:40 a.m. Police in Virginia say six people are dead in an apparent domestic murder-suicide in Chesapeake. News outlets report that Chesapeake police said in a news release that officers were sent to a home Wednesday afternoon to check on a person and found one person dead. Police say their investigation led them to another home about a block away, where they found an armed person barricaded inside. After negotiating for several hours, police say officers entered the home and found five people dead, including the armed person they had been negotiating with. Kidnapping trial begins for son of prominent Haitian family PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) A high-profile kidnapping trial started Thursday for the son of a prominent Haitian family with extensive business holdings in the Caribbean nation. Clifford Brandt was first jailed in 2012 for allegedly kidnapping two adult children of another wealthy family and demanding a ransom of $2.5 million. He escaped from a maximum-security lockup in a mass breakout in 2014 but was recaptured a couple of days later near the Dominican border. On Thursday, masked officers carried duffel bags stuffed with evidence into a courtroom in downtown Port-au-Prince. One law enforcer carried a baseball bat to be entered into evidence. FILE - In this Aug. 12, 2014, file photo, Clifford Brandt is escorted by police after his arrest, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. A high-profile trial has begun on Thrusday, Jan. 28, 2016, for Brandt, the son of a prominent Haitian family with extensive business holdings. Brandt allegedly kidnapped the adult children of another wealthy family. The trial is being regarded by many as a test of Haiti's justice system, which has long been regarded as corrupt and dysfunctional. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery, File) Brandt was later escorted into the courthouse, which had a strong police presence. He has denied any wrongdoing and his lawyers have said the allegations stemmed from a family dispute. He and several alleged co-conspirators have been charged with kidnapping for ransom, money laundering, and illegal possession of weapons, among other charges. Prosecution team lawyer Francois Amiel asserted Thursday that there is "strong evidence" against Brandt and his alleged co-conspirators. He said he could not estimate how long the trial might take. The trial is being regarded as a test of Haiti's justice system, which has long been regarded as corrupt and dysfunctional. "We know what the law says. We will see if it is going to apply in this case," said prominent human rights lawyer Mario Joseph, adding he was satisfied that a new "respectable" judge was appointed to the non-jury criminal trial. A 2012 report from Haiti's National Human Rights Defense Network alleged that Brandt was the leader of a gang that had at least 13 victims. It said investigators seized weapons, cars, uniforms of the Haitian National Police and an ID card for Haiti's National Palace issued to Brandt and listing him as an adviser. Kidnappings soared in Haiti after the 2004 rebellion that ousted then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. But U.N. peacekeepers and Haitian police successfully cracked down on the crime and kidnappings, especially of foreigners, has become relatively unusual. ___ David McFadden on Twitter: http://twitter.com/dmcfadd Clifford Brandt, wearing white shirt, is escorted by police while he arrives at the courthouse in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. A high-profile trial has begun for Brandt, the son of a prominent Haitian family with extensive business holdings for allegedly kidnapping the adult children of another wealthy family. The trial is being regarded by many as a test of Haiti's justice system, which has long been regarded as corrupt and dysfunctional. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) Clifford Brandt, center, is escorted by police as he arrives at the courthouse in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. A high-profile trial has begun for Brandt, the son of a prominent Haitian family with extensive business holdings for allegedly kidnapping the adult children of another wealthy family. The trial is being regarded by many as a test of Haiti's justice system, which has long been regarded as corrupt and dysfunctional. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) Clifford Brandt, center, is escorted by police as he arrives at the courthouse in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. A high-profile trial has begun for Brandt, the son of a prominent Haitian family with extensive business holdings for allegedly kidnapping the adult children of another wealthy family. The trial is being regarded by many as a test of Haiti's justice system, which has long been regarded as corrupt and dysfunctional. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) What we know about Sweden's prediction of mass deportations SWEDEN (AP) Amid unprecedented waves of migration, the interior minister of Sweden says the coming years could see the deportation from the country of between 60,000 to 80,000 people who have sought asylum. Here's what we know about what could become an uncomfortable reality for Europe: Interior Minister Anders Ygeman is basing the deportation figure on the fact that more than 160,000 people applied for asylum in Sweden last year, and the current rejection rate is about 45 percent. Sweden and Germany are prime destinations for those seeking asylum in Europe, and the sharp increase last year of such people almost certainly will also lead to much higher numbers of rejections and deportations. FILE - In this Dec. 17, 2015 file photo, the police escort 3 men from a train at Hyllie station outside Malmo, Sweden. Interior Minister Anders Ygeman says Sweden could deport between 60,000 and 80,000 asylum-seekers in coming years. Ygeman told newspaper Dagens Industri that since about 45 percent of asylum applications are currently rejected, the country must get ready to send back tens of thousands of the 163,000 who sought shelter in Sweden last year, it was reported on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. (Johan Nilsson /TT News Agency via AP, File) The prospect of packing unwilling migrants, even entire families, onto chartered airplanes bound for the Balkans, the Middle East or Africa evokes images that clash with Europe's humanitarian ideals. The European Union has urged its member countries to quickly send back those who don't qualify for asylum so that Europe's welcome can be focused on those who do, such as people fleeing war in Syria. Sweden took in around 35,400 unaccompanied minors in 2015, nine times more than in 2014 (stock image) FILE - In this Nov. 11, 2015 file photo, Sweden's Interior Minister Anders Ygeman, announcing that the government will impose temporary border controls as the Nordic country struggles to receive tens of thousands of refugees in Stockholm, Sweden. Ygeman says Sweden could deport between 60,000 and 80,000 asylum-seekers in coming years. (Henrik Montgomery/TT via AP) SWEDEN OUT . Refugees prepare themselves before heading towards the border with Serbia, at the transit center for refugees near northern Macedonian village of Tabanovce, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. Macedonia allows in migrants whom it deems to be bona fide refugees - Syrian, Iraqi and Afghan nationals. All others are considered economic migrants and left trapped in Greece, where they are told to seek asylum, agree to voluntary repatriation or be deported. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski) Weekend blizzard ranks 4th worst among Northeast snowstorms HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) Last weekend's blizzard was the fourth most powerful snowstorm to hit the Northeast in at least 66 years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday. The agency gave the storm a rating of 7.66 on the Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale, which ranks storms according to inches of snowfall, geographic reach and population affected. That bumps down to No. 5 the Presidents Day weekend storm of 2003, which had a score of 7.50. The blizzard last Friday through Sunday affected 102.8 million people and covered about 434,000 square miles in 26 states, NOAA spokeswoman Maureen O'Leary said. FILE - In this Jan. 23, 2016, file photo, headstones are nearly covered by snow at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, that last week's blizzard was the fourth most powerful snowstorm to hit the Northeast in at least 60 years. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) Almost 24 million people saw more than 20 inches of snow and 1.5 million got more than 30 inches, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Paul Kocin, who helped develop the scale. He called the storm a slightly smaller version of a January 1996 blizzard, No. 2 on the list, which covered a similar area. "This storm ranks up there with the great blizzards of the past 100 years in terms of amount of snowfall, size of impacted areas and population affected," Kocin said in a statement. The scale doesn't take into account other misery metrics, such as storm-related deaths, flight cancellations and power outages. "We try to keep the scale as simple as possible," Kocin explained in a telephone interview. The scale encompasses data going back to 1950. It assigns each storm a numerical value and a category on a five-tier scale ranging from Category 1, "notable," to Category 5, "extreme." The recent storm's numerical value puts it in Category 4, "crippling." A different NOAA scale, the Regional Snowfall Index, also classifies the weekend storm as a Category 4, "crippling" event, and ranks it as the sixth strongest snowstorm since 1900. The storm dropped snow from Louisiana to Maine and across parts of the southern Midwest. It also caused major coastal flood damage in New Jersey. At least 52 people in 11 states and the District of Columbia died in storm-related incidents including car accidents, carbon monoxide poisoning and heart attacks while shoveling snow. One of the highest snowfall readings was 42 inches, in Glengary, West Virginia, where some counties remained under states of emergency Thursday. This storm was unique for its high level of predictability, Kocin said. Forecasters saw it coming a week in advance and accurately predicted snowfall amounts for most places days ahead of time. Notable exceptions included northern New Jersey and New York City, where snowfall was heavier than initially forecast, he said. The most powerful storm on the NESIS scale is still the so-called Storm of the Century, which dropped more than 30 inches of snow in spots along a swath from Mississippi to Maine in March 1993. That extreme late-winter blast, characterized by NOAA as a superstorm, scored 13.2 on the scale. It affected more than 100 million people and caused more than $2 billion in property damage in 22 states, according to NOAA's website. This weekend's storm's economic impact is still being calculated. Earlier this week, economists at Moody's Analytics pegged the lost economic output to $2.5 billion to $3 billion. That estimate just represents lost income for hourly workers and skipped consumer spending. It doesn't include damage to roads or other infrastructure. In Maryland alone, where officials are seeking federal disaster aid, emergency management officials say they expect tens of millions of dollars in snow removal costs, damage to public property, and emergency measures to protect lives and property. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake hasn't put a dollar figure on the recovery efforts, but said "anytime you have a historic storm, the budget will be historic as well." In Virginia, Gov. Terry McAuliffe said the storm may turn out to be the state's costliest, wiping out a $200 million snow response budget. Federal workers in the Washington area have yet to have a normal day since the snowstorm. The government was closed from noon Friday through Tuesday. On Wednesday and Thursday, federal workers started with a three-hour delay. Some students in Maryland and Virginia learned that their snow holiday will continue through Friday. Crews in Baltimore and Washington were still working to clear streets, and trash collection remained spotty in places. Virginia had the highest death toll 12 and state police there reported more than 8,400 calls for assistance. At least five deaths across the region involved people sheltering inside cars that filled with carbon monoxide after their exhaust pipes were covered by snow. They included a 3-year-old girl in Passaic, New Jersey, who succumbed Wednesday, four days after her mother and brother died as her father shoveled snow outside their running car. A state of emergency continues through Friday afternoon in four West Virginia counties. The state transportation department says it used about 22,000 tons of road salt in four days. More than 127,000 people lost power during the storm in Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama. Northern Alabama saw several inches of snow. ___ Associated Press writers Jessica Gresko in Washington; Juliet Linderman in Baltimore; John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia; Steve Szkotak in Richmond, Virginia; Bruce Shipkowski in Trenton, New Jersey; Travis Lollar in Nashville; and Katie Foody in Atlanta contributed to this report. The Latest: 2011 Christie road repairs at center of lawsuit NEW YORK (AP) The Latest on New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's 2011 decision to spend $1.8 billion on road repairs now at the center of a New York lawsuit (all times local): 4 p.m. Five years later, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's decision to spend $1.8 billion in bistate agency funds to fix state roads has come under increasing scrutiny. Lawyers at the time warned that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's expenditure on the Pulaski Skyway repairs could raise problems. And on Thursday, lawyers for AAA suing the agency over 2011 toll hikes made the spending a central part of their case. The Port Authority has argued the expenditure was proper regardless of whether AAA agrees. But the Port Authority's spending on Pulaski repairs is now also being challenged by an airline, probed by the Federal Aviation Administration and investigated by both the Securities Exchange Commission and the Manhattan district attorney. ____ 10:50 a.m. Lawyers warned five years ago that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's decision to take $1.8 billion from a bistate agency to fix state roads might cause legal problems. They turned out to be right. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's expenditure on the Pulaski Skyway repairs has become a central part of a lawsuit filed by AAA against the agency over 2011 toll hikes. On Thursday, lawyers for both sides will argue before a federal judge in New York. But the Port Authority's spending on Pulaski repairs is also being challenged by an airline, probed by the Federal Aviation Administration and investigated by both the Securities Exchange Commission and the Manhattan district attorney. Sale of public assets in 2015 was biggest in UK history Sales of publicly-owned assets, including Royal Mail and Eurostar, raised more money for the Government in 2015 than any other year in history. A total of 26.4 billion was made through privatisations, beating by almost 6 million the previous record set in 1987, according to new analysis by the Press Association. The sell-offs included the Government's remaining 30% stake in Royal Mail, 5% of the Royal Bank of Scotland and more than 11 billion shares in Lloyds. The sell-offs included the Government's remaining 30% stake in Royal Mail Responding to the findings, a Treasury spokesman said: "Central to our plan to fix the public finances is the sale of Government assets to help pay down the national debt and ensure economic security for working people. "That's why we've set an ambitious target to sell 5 billion worth of assets by 2020, which will put us on track to meet our target." Shadow business secretary Angela Eagle accused Chancellor George Osborne of "touring China selling off any British asset he could lay his hands on to the Chinese state bank". She added: "Osborne will only meet his debt target by selling off public assets which explains why the Tories are flogging off the family silver at record pace." The Press Association's analysis shows that almost half of the record-breaking 26.4 billion came from the sale of mortgages previously owned by Northern Rock, which brought in around 13 billion. More than 1 billion was raised by the sale of the Government's remaining shares in Royal Mail, while a further 800 million came from the sale of a 40% stake in Eurostar. Welcoming the figures, TaxPayers' Alliance chief executive Jonathan Isaby said: "M inisters are absolutely right to have identified assets to be sold off. Where shares, buildings or land no longer need to be in Government hands, their sale can help ease the burden on already hard-pressed taxpayers." TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said the privatisations had " nothing to do with providing economic security". "Eurostar and Royal Mail were both sold for well under value," she continued. "Flogging them off for short-term political gain is short-changing taxpayers." In 1987 the privatisation of British Airways, Rolls-Royce and other public assets raised a combined total of 20.7 billion in today's prices: a record that remained unbeaten until 2015. Chief economist at IHS Global Insight Howard Archer said the bumper sell-offs in 2015 had been helped by "largely favourable market conditions" during much of the year. "Current financial market turmoil and uncertainty could slow and delay further privatisation plans," he added. Some 2 billion of shares in Lloyds are due to go on sale to the public later this year. The privatisation of Channel 4 has also been rumoured, with David Cameron saying it is right to "look at all the options" over the future of the publicly-owned TV network. The first sell-off of 2016 has already taken place. The Government announced on January 22 that it had sold its stake in a 67-acre redevelopment site near King's Cross station in London, raising 371 million. David Cameron rejects claims over unaccompanied child refugees in Europe David Cameron has rejected claims the Government is ignoring the plight of thousands of unaccompanied child refugees stranded in Europe after fleeing the fighting in Syria and other conflict zones. The Prime Minister insisted that Britain was right to concentrate on re-settling orphans from the camps in the region rather than those who had made the crossing to Europe. "No country in Europe has done more than Britain to help with the Syrian refugee crisis," he told Sky News. The UK will work with United Nations refugee agency UNHCR to identify 'exceptional cases' of unaccompanied children in conflict zones "I think it is right our approach to take refugees from the region, not encouraging them to make the difficult, potentially lethal, journey to Europe. Our approach is compassionate, it is generous and I think it is right." Immigration Minister James Brokenshire confirmed earlier that a new scheme to admit vulnerable refugee children would only apply to those still in the region and would not cover those who have managed to reach Europe. Officials also played down suggestions that many more could be settled in the UK through improved measures to identify migrants - including children - with close family members in Europe with whom they could be reunited. Charities such as Save the Children - which has called on Britain to take at least 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees in Europe - had originally hailed the move, saying it could open the door for "thousands" more to come to the UK. However the Home Office made clear that it was simply a "continuation" of Britain's existing obligations to reunite family members under a European agreement known as the Dublin regulations. A spokeswoman for Save the Children said: "We want the Government pro-actively to seek out refugee children in Europe with family connections in the UK and speed up the process of reunification." Speaking on BBC Radio 4's World At One, Mr Brokenshire said the UK was already following the provisions of the Dublin regulations. "What we want to see is better systems in place to identify connections across the EU. It is about better information to help see that happen," he said. He said Britain would provide additional support in "hotspots" such as Italy and Greece to help identify and register at-risk children when they first arrive in the EU as well as committing 10 million to support vulnerable migrant children in Europe. In a Commons written statement, he also confirmed that the Government would work with the United Nations refugee agency - the UNHCR - to identify vulnerable children in conflict zones such as Syria and Afghanistan who would benefit from being re-settled in the UK. He made clear however that these were likely to be "exceptional cases" as the UNHCR generally considered it was better for them to remain in the region where they could be reunited with any remaining family members. Shadow home secretary Andy Burnham said the announcement did not go far enough and urged the Government to accept the 3,000 child refugees currently in Europe which Save the Children originally called for. "They draw a distinction between children in the camps in the region and children who have made it to Europe. You cannot differentiate between these two groups. They are equally deserving and need our protection," he told Sky News. Steve Symonds, of Amnesty International UK, said that, while the announcement was a welcome "small step" forward, it would not help children stranded in camps like The Jungle in Calais. David Cameron announces 20m of funding to boost North Sea industry The UK Government is making 20 million of cash available for surveys in the North Sea in a bid to aid the struggling oil and gas sector. Prime Minister David Cameron announced the funding as he visited Aberdeen to hear from industry leaders about the challenges it is facing. Plummeting oil prices have resulted in thousands of job losses, but now the UK Government hopes the funding for seismic surveys will help uncover new oil reserves, with the data that is uncovered to be made publicly available. The UK Government hopes its funding for seismic surveys will help uncover new oil reserves A total of 1 million of the fund will then be awarded to innovative uses of the data to help unlock new fields. In addition, an oil and gas ambassador will be appointed to promote the North Sea around the world and boost inward investment. UK Energy Secretary Amber Rudd said the measures show "the UK Government is backing our oil and gas industry, the hard-working people it employs and the families it supports." She also welcomed news that Total is to drill a new exploration well later this year to the east of the Shetland Islands, saying: " This shows the North Sea is open for business and this Government is clear that the broad shoulders of the UK are firmly behind it." To promote new opportunities in the sector, the Oil and Gas Authority will publish a decommissioning plan for the UK Continental Shelf by early summer, which ministers hope will help Aberdeen become a centre of expertise and ensure UK firms can capitalise on this future source of income. The Government is also setting out its own strategy to maximise the amount of oil and gas that can be extracted from the North Sea. Ms Rudd said: "We're stepping in to provide the extra support needed now with 20 million of funding for seismic exploration to help industry find new oil and gas reserves. "But we're also determined to build a bridge to the future and make sure the expertise we hold in areas such as decommissioning can become a UK success story, boosting our economy, supporting jobs and creating more financial security for families." The assistance was announced on the same day as the UK and Scottish governments signed a city deal for Aberdeen and the surrounding area, which includes plans for innovation in the oil and gas industry. Both administrations contribute 125 million to the fund, although the Scottish Government has also pledged a further 254 million to improve infrastructure in the area. Google should pay more UK tax, says Transport Secretary A Cabinet minister has said he would like to see Google pay more tax in future as Brussels considered demands to investigate the agreement reached by the internet giant with the UK authorities. Chancellor George Osborne has insisted the deal is a "major success" but his Cabinet colleague Patrick McLoughlin said he would "like to see Google making more payments to the country" and suggested Whitehall's financial watchdog could examine it. The controversial 130 million 10-year deal with HM Revenue and Customs on back taxes could be investigated by the European Commission following complaints from the SNP and Labour. Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin wants to see Google pay more UK tax in future years EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager indicated she was ready to look into complaints that the settlement breached EU rules. Transport Secretary Mr McLoughlin defended the deal as a "move in the right direction" but said it was open to the National Audit Office (NAO) to examine it. "The truth is it's a move in the right direction. There is more for them to pay and I want them to pay more in future," he said. Appearing on BBC1's Question Time, he said: "We have started to receive tax from Google, which is something that hasn't happened for the 10 years they have so far been established here, so in that position the Chancellor was right to say that it was a move in the right direction. "Of course I would like to see Google make more payments to the country. I would like to see them employ more people in this country. "They do employ 3,000 people, top end jobs, they are doing a lot of investment in this country as well, which is actually good for the long-term economic future of the country. "But I believe in a low tax base, I believe in attracting companies here, but I believe when those companies are here they should pay their tax which is rightly collected. "But companies can and have found ways around paying taxation and we have made a lot of changes to the taxation system that actually will make them pay more over years to come." The Cabinet minister said he expected the NAO to come under pressure to examine the deal. "The direct negotiations between HMRC and the company are confidential, but the NAO can do an investigation, can do an audit, and I'm sure they will do," he said. "I'm sure the pressure will come on them to do it." He added: "If the NAO decided to do it, it wouldn't be something George could stop." Mr McLoughlin said a review commissioned by the NAO into five large tax deals, which reported in 2012, found that HMRC had acted reasonably in each case. Both the SNP and Labour have written to Ms Vestager calling for an EU-level investigation into the arrangement between HMRC and Google. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell suggested the deal could have broken state aid rules by offering Google "favourable treatment". He said: "We believe 130 million to be significantly lower than a fair or reasonable assessment of Google's UK turnover and profits would suggest, with experts suggesting that Google has been levied an effective tax rate of around 3%. "I am therefore requesting an investigation under EU competition law, since we are concerned that, first, the deal is arguably not compliant with state aid rules, creating a favourable treatment for a particular company; second, that if the deal is generalised, it could constitute a serious potential threat to the ability of other EU members to levy taxes in their jurisdiction." Executives from Google and HMRC bosses are to be grilled on the deal by the PAC on February 11 in the latest of a series of hearings by the influential spending watchdog into multinationals' tax affairs. Litvinenko widow to meet Home Secretary The widow of poisoned spy Alexander Litvinenko will meet Theresa May today. Marina Litvinenko will have private talks with the Home Secretary a week after an official inquiry into her husband's death concluded that his killing was "probably approved" by Russian president Vladimir Putin. Following the publication of the inquiry report, which sparked a diplomatic row and calls for the UK to impose sanctions against Moscow, Mrs May said the findings were "deeply disturbing". The recent findings have deepened the diplomatic row between the UK and Russia Ahead of the meeting, a Home Office spokeswoman said: "The Home Secretary made clear that she would meet with Mrs Litvinenko and listen very carefully to what she has to say. "We are not going to confirm details or timings of what is a private meeting." Mrs Litvinenko called on Prime Minister David Cameron to impose "targeted economic sanctions and travel bans" against individuals, including Mr Putin. Moscow has dismissed the findings, describing the inquiry as a political "whitewash". Earlier this week Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov warned it would "certainly worsen" relations between London and Moscow and even suggested that British officials could be sued for slander. The Government has announced financial sanctions against Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun, who allegedly carried out the killing. Both deny involvement. Toulon full-back Delon Armitage eyeing move back to England Toulon's former England full-back Delon Armitage is eyeing a return to the Aviva Premiership next season. The 32-year-old is out of contract this summer and could end up surplus to requirements at Stade Mayol, owing in part to tougher rules around the quotas of homegrown players at French clubs. Last year's Premiership finalists Bath are understood to have held discussions with Armitage over bringing the 26-cap star to the Recreation Ground, but club bosses insist no deal is in the offing. Delon Armitage could be heading back to England "We are not in talks with Delon Armitage," said a Bath Rugby spokesperson. Armitage is finding his future options in France limited, with triple European champions Toulon stalling on retaining his services beyond the summer. The former London Irish player has proved integral to Toulon conquering Europe in the last three successive seasons, having joined the French giants in 2012. Now, though, Toulon owner Mourad Boudjellal may see no room for Armitage next term, after Wales full-back Leigh Halfpenny committed his future to the Cote d'Azur club. Wasps came close to convincing British and Irish Lions full-back Halfpenny to make a move to England, but the 27-year-old has opted to take up the final year of his contract with Toulon. Bath came close to signing Armitage's younger brother and renowned openside flanker Steffon in autumn 2014, but the 30-year-old is expected to stay at Toulon next season in what will be the final year of his current contract. Next season all Top 14 teams must have at least 14 players registered with the French Rugby Federation (FFR) for five years before turning 21, or to have spent at least three years in an approved training centre if under 21. Threats of hefty fines for non-compliance, coupled with the imposition of new salary cap rules, led to Toulon owner Boudjellal to send a written request to join England's Premiership. While this ought to end up as muscle-flexing designed as a bartering tool with the French authorities, Boudjellal continues to vent Toulon's frustrations in public. The Toulon chief has already admitted the club may face some tough decisions on which overseas players they cannot retain in the summer, and Delon Armitage is among those whose future is under scrutiny. Bath boast another former London Irish star in Tom Homer as their main natural full-back this term, with England flyer Anthony Watson also able to operate in the 15 shirt. Argentina stalwart Horacio Agulla also features across the back-three, but Bath are understood to be weighing up bolstering their options. While Armitage's quality is not in doubt, the attacking talent has also endured his fair share of controversy over the years. After a handful of suspensions with Irish, Armitage was widely criticised for mocking Brock James en route to scoring a crucial try in Toulon's 16-5 Heineken Cup final victory over Clermont in 2013. Women can make the grade says first female Armed Forces Minister Britain's first female Armed Forces Minister insists women can make the grade - amid a review into whether both sexes should be allowed to fight on the frontline together. Women are prevented from joining infantry battalions, armoured regiments and the Royal Marines. But that could be about to change this year following the end of a six-month review which is overseen by the head of the Army. Armed Forces Minister Penny Mordaunt adjusts her helmet before watching a live firing exercise During a visit to an army training unit near Brecon, mid Wales, Armed Forces Minister Penny Mordaunt refused to be drawn on whether she was in favour of the move. However, Ms Mordaunt, 42 - whose father was a paratrooper - championed women's role in the forces shortly after seeing two female soldiers take part in a firing exercise. She said: "Women are already on the frontline. But clearly there are particular trades that have been closed off. "I think we are doing something a bit different from other nations which have tended to focus on whether women can make the grade. "Well, it's clear they can make the grade in the military across lots of different roles. "We are looking at if you can put women in these trades, can they endure at least the average length of career. "It's no good getting through the training course, passing all of that, if you can't actually can't have a career in the profession that you want to serve in. "We are doing an additional piece of work looking at the physiology of women, why men and women have particular injuries and looking at what we can do to mitigate that and support them better." Ms Mordaunt visited the Infantry Battle School, based at Dering Lines, Brecon, which is the largest military training area in Wales. The Portsmouth North MP wore a flak jacket and camouflage helmet before witnessing a Dismounted Close Combat course in the barren Sennybridge Training Area facility - which saw students use live ammunition. An army spokesman said: "The exercise is designed to be physically and conceptually demanding to reflect the character of modern conflict." Among those taking part in the drill was 28-year-old sergeant Sally Stuart of the Royal Military Police. She said: "There is a study going on and then the Army will decide whether they think it is a good idea. I've been in the Army just over 10 years and I think that what matters is your ability, not what sex you are." However, in the past few weeks some senior British military figures have voiced their unease about allowing women to fight on the front line and calling it a "politically correct mistake". Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander in Afghanistan, previously said women lack the "killer instinct" necessary to fight in close combat. And last month Colonel Mike Dewar, a military historian who served in Cyprus, Borneo and Northern Ireland, told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme that women lack the upper body strength "to pass the stringent physical tests which the infantry require". One dead in tunnel collapse at future French nuclear waste site STRASBOURG, France, Jan 26 (Reuters) - One person died and another was injured in a tunnel collapse at France's future nuclear waste storage site in the northeast of the country, local authorities said on Tuesday. The Strasbourg prefecture said in a statement that the front of a tunnel being drilled about 500 metres (yards) deep at the site in Bure had collapsed while measurements were being taken. Nuclear waste agency Andra's Cigeo deep geological storage project is designed to bury France's highly radioactive nuclear waste hundreds of metres underground for thousands of years. Washington to lift snow emergency as it digs out from blizzard By Ian Simpson WASHINGTON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Washington, D.C., will end its snow emergency on Wednesday, Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a sign that the U.S. capital is returning to normal after a deadly weekend blizzard on the U.S. East Coast. The federal government remained closed on Tuesday and Congress put most activity on hold as the Washington region continued digging out from the snowstorm, which killed at least 35 people in 10 states and the U.S. capital. A small army of workers and equipment were making progress in clearing streets after the storm brought more than 20 inches (50 cm) to the city. Washington's snow emergency would end at 6:30 p.m. EST (2330 GMT) on Wednesday, Bowser said. "We have a lot of snow. We're getting to every part of the city that needs attention as soon as possible," she said at a news conference on Tuesday. The snow emergency allowed the ticketing and towing of vehicles parked on major streets and a surcharge for taxi fares. District of Columbia city government and some local governments in the Washington-Baltimore region reopened on Tuesday. Washington joined Baltimore, Philadelphia and suburban districts in keeping public schools closed after the area was slammed by more than 2 feet (60 cm) of snow. Temperatures forecast to reach about 45 Fahrenheit (7 Celsius) were expected to help Washington's cleanup. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been idled or working from home since offices closed at noon on Friday ahead of the storm. Devon Brewster, 27, a restaurant server, said the federal government could have opened even though the cleanup was continuing. "It's government. They get plenty of days off a year. Good for them," he said. Stephen Fuller, director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University, said the Washington area's $500 billion economy would see slight impact from the storm. Local governments already had budgeted for bad weather and two days of lost work out of a year is negligible, he said. Washington's Metro subway system, the second-busiest in the United States, was shut down Saturday and Sunday but was running with slower service on almost all lines Tuesday. Buses were on a reduced schedule. Maryland's commuter rail line resumed limited service but Virginia's remained shut down. Burkina Faso army arrests dozens of suspects after armoury raid OUAGADOUGOU, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Burkina Faso's army has arrested a total of about 40 suspects after an armoury raid last week on the outskirts of the capital Ouagadougou, a spokesman said on Tuesday. The country is still reeling from an attack by gunmen on a hotel and restaurant in Ouagadougou on Jan. 15 during which 30 people were killed, most of them foreigners. The attack was claimed by an al Qaeda-affiliated group. Authorities blame former members of the presidential guard - disbanded after a coup in September and loyal to ousted president Blaise Compaore - for the armoury raid on Friday in which rocket launchers and assault rifles were stolen. After last year's coup, some of the elite guards fled with their weapons, and on Tuesday the army published names and photos of nine former officers who are still on the run. Sixteen suspects were arrested over the weekend. "In the scope of the investigation on the attack on the Yimdi armoury, we have proceeded in the arrests of 30-40 suspects up to this point," army spokesman Col. Williame Yameogo said. Malaysia's top lawyer rejected advice to charge PM - source By Rozanna Latiff and Praveen Menon KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Malaysia's anti-graft agency had recommended that Prime Minister Najib Razak be charged with criminal misappropriation, a source said, amid growing outrage after the premier was cleared of any offences in a multi-million-dollar scandal. The attorney-general on Tuesday closed all investigations of Najib, after reviewing reports from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) on a case that involved the transfer of $681 million into the prime minister's personal bank account. Najib has consistently denied any wrongdoing, saying the funds were a political donation and he did not take any money for personal gain. After he was cleared of any offences by the country's chief law officer on Tuesday, he said the scandal had been "an unnecessary distraction". A source at the MACC told Reuters that, when it handed its findings to the attorney-general last month, the agency had recommended that Najib be charged with criminal misappropriation. The source did not specify the grounds or the legal basis for the MACC's recommendation. "It's a pretty straightforward case. We had made recommendations for charges to be filed that the attorney-general has instead chosen to reject," said the source, who declined to be identified or to elaborate on the MACC's findings. The attorney-general's office declined to comment. Najib's office said it had no immediate comment. The MACC said it would not comment on whether it made any recommendation to charge the prime minister. In a statement on Wednesday, the agency said it would seek a review of the attorney general's decision to close the investigations, but declined to make any further public comment on his findings. Najib has been buffeted for months by allegations of graft at the debt-laden state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and by revelations of the transfer of funds, adding to a sense of crisis in a country under economic duress from slumping oil prices and a sliding currency. DRAWING A LINE Attorney-General Mohamed Apandi Ali appeared to have drawn a line under the scandal on Tuesday, announcing that the money was a private donation from Saudi Arabia's royal family and that no further action needed to be taken on the matter. While Malaysian law places limits on the amounts individual candidates can spend in an election campaign, there is no ceiling on donations to parties or requirement for them to disclose the source of their funds. However, popular opinion seems to be against Najib as he tries to rebuild support ahead of a 2018 general election, and on Wednesday commentators and critics denounced the attorney-general's ruling as a whitewash. "The court of public opinion will continue to try him," said veteran journalist and former editor-in-chief of the state-linked New Strait Times newspaper, A Kadir Jasin. "As for all of us, we have to do some serious soul-searching if we care for this country and its future." Najib's ruling United Malays National Organisation party welcomed the attorney-general's decision. Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said it had brought a moment for the country to unite and move forward under the prime minister's leadership. Influential former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, one of Najib's fiercest critics, said in a blog that having that much money in his account was wrong in itself, even though it might not be illegal. Mahathir said the attorney-general's role as both judge and prosecutor amounted to an injustice. Apandi's office did not comment on Mahathir's criticism. Najib enjoys the backing of most of the powerful division chiefs in the ruling United Malays National Organisation party, and most of his critics concede that he cannot be unseated. In moves that were widely seen as stamping out dissent last year, he sacked his critical deputy prime minister, replaced the former attorney-general with Apandi and cracked down on opposition leaders and academics. Najib has said his reshuffle was necessary to maintain government unity. Human Right Watch (HRW) said in its World Report 2016 released on Wednesday that Malaysia's human rights situation had deteriorated sharply during 2015, as the government stepped up a campaign of harassment and repression. Poland - Factors to Watch Jan 28 Following are news stories, press reports and events to watch that may affect Poland's financial markets on Thursday. ALL TIMES GMT (Poland: GMT + 1 hour): C.BANK MINUTES The central bank is to publish minutes from its January sitting at 1300 GMT. RATE-SETTERS The lower chamber of parliament Sejm is expected to appoint two rate-setters to the Monetary Policy Council in votes. All of Thursday's votes in the Sejm are scheduled to take place from 0800 GMT until 0000 GMT on Friday. CENTRAL BUDGET The lower chamber of parliament Sejm is expected to vote on the 2016 draft budget. All of Thursday's votes in the Sejm are scheduled to take place from 0800 GMT until 0000 GMT on Friday. PKN ORLEN Poland's top refiner PKN Orlen reported on Thursday a 81 million zlotys ($19.69 million) net loss in the last quarter of 2015, which came below analysts' expectations due to bigger than expected asset impairment charges amid falling oil prices. PZU The newly appointed CEO at the state-run insurer PZU said in an interview for the local edition of Forbes magazine that the ongoing consolidation of the banking sector is a potential investment opportunity for PZU, but he wants the company to focus on its core business. GRUPA AZOTY Chemical group Grupa Azoty plans to use up annually about one million tonnes of coal to produce 500,000 tonnes of methanol, Deputy Chief Executive Krzysztof Jalosinski told Gazeta Polska Codziennie. ****Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.**** Romania - Factors to watch on Jan 28 BUCHAREST, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Romanian financial markets on Thursday. MONEY SUPPLY Romanian M3 money supply rose 9.3 percent on the year to 286.301 billion lei ($68.73 billion) in December, and was up 6.1 percent on the month, central bank data showed on Wednesday. JUSTICE MONITORING Romania's judiciary has made progress in implementing reforms and combating corruption, but lawmakers' system of immunity needs to be addressed, the European Commission said in its annual justice monitoring report. Parliament has an inconsistent record of approving prosecutors' requests to investigate sitting lawmakers on suspicion of graft. Romania's government praised magistrates and said the progress meant that the Commission should consider ending special monitoring over time. CEE MARKETS Risk aversion in global markets knocked the zloty EURPLN= and the forint EURHUF= lower on Wednesday but Central European assets were otherwise slightly firmer, with comments from Moody's soothing fears it might downgrade Poland. PROSECUTOR GENERAL Romanian Justice Minister Raluca Pruna said on Wednesday she was not ruling out any potential measure against prosecutor general Tiberiu Nitu after anti-corruption prosecutors said they were investigating a former deputy prime minister on suspicion of abuse of power, including authorising official motorcades for Nitu, who was not entitled to them. For the long-term Romanian diary, click on For emerging markets economic events, click on For an index of all diaries, click on PRESS DIGEST - Bulgaria - Jan 28 SOFIA, Jan 28 (Reuters) - These are some of the main stories in Bulgarian newspapers on Thursday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. -- The European Commission, the EU's executive, said Bulgaria needs to speed up reforms in the judiciary and show results in fighting organised crime and corruption in its annual monitoring report. (24 Chasa, Capital Daily, Telegraph, Monitor, Sega, Standart, Trud) -- Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said his government was fighting corruption by combating smuggling, and results were tangible in the increase of collected taxes and excise duties. He said that organised crime would like to see his government tumble so that smuggling and tax evasion can flourish.(24 Chasa, Trud, Monitor, Standart) -- Transparency International's corruption perception index puts Bulgaria on 69th position among 1697 countries in 2015. Bulgaria ranks as the most corrupt EU country, the index showed. (Duma, Capital Daily, Sega, Standart) EU competition boss says could look at UK's Google tax deal LONDON, Jan 28 (Reuters) - The European Union could investigate a back tax deal agreed by Internet group Google and Britain, its competition boss said on Thursday. The 130 million pounds ($185 million) settlement, announced on Friday, was hailed by the UK government as a major success but dismissed as "derisory" by the opposition Labour Party. European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager told BBC radio she would be willing to probe Google's tax arrangements with Britain. "If we find that there is something to be concerned about. If someone writes to us and says 'well maybe this is not as it should be' then we will take a look," she said. Google says it is paying all the tax that is due. "After a six-year audit we are paying the full amount of tax that HM Revenue & Customs agrees we should pay, including 130 million pounds in additional back tax," Peter Barron, Google vice president for communications and public affairs, said in a letter to the Financial Times. "Governments make tax law, the tax authorities independently enforce the law, and Google complies with the law," he said in the letter. The Commission is preparing to announce measures designed to prevent tax avoidance by multi-national companies. Turkey's Kurdish conflict impacting Syria, migrant crises -Demirtas By Hanna Knutson BRUSSELS, Jan 28 (Reuters) - The leader of Turkey's pro-Kurdish opposition said conflict in the country's largely Kurdish southeast had grown into an international problem, feeding into war in neighbouring Syria, and urged allies to do more to push for a ceasefire. Unrest in the NATO member state, which is negotiating to join the European Union, has turned parts of the southeast into a war zone. Kurdish militants have dug trenches and erected barricades in towns and cities, and the death toll has climbed into the hundreds as the security forces try to flush them out. It is also complicating efforts to stage Syrian peace talks. "The international community should call on both the Turkish government and the PKK for a ceasefire and a return to healthy negotiations, and they must make this call repeatedly," Selahattin Demirtas, co-leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the third largest party in the Turkish parliament, told Reuters. "Turkey's domestic peace is not an issue for Turkey alone. It is directly related to the resolution of the Syrian conflict and to the migration problem in Europe," he said in an interview on Wednesday in Brussels, where he was participating in a Kurdish conference in the European parliament. Ankara's army, the second largest in NATO, is fighting on two fronts, against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters and the threat from Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, both bordering Turkey. The country has seen a series of bombings, most recently an Istanbul suicide attack that killed ten German tourists. CURFEW WIDENED The conflict with the PKK, after the breakdown of a two-and- a-half-year ceasefire, has complicated efforts by a U.S.-led international coalition, of which Turkey is a member, to fight Islamic State. Turkey, the United States and European Union all classify the PKK - which says it is fighting for Kurdish autonomy - as a terrorist organisation. But Washington sees the Syrian Kurdish PYD, which has links to the PKK, as a useful ally. Ankara views it as a terrorist group and does not want it making territorial gains that could stoke Kurdish separatism at home. Demirtas described Turkey's opposition to the PYD taking part in Syrian peace talks planned in Geneva as an "emotional reflex", saying the group was vital to the negotiations. Turkey is sheltering more than 2.5 million Syrian migrants, according to U.N. and government figures, and has agreed with the EU to do more to stop their exodus to Europe. Demirtas, who denies accusations that his party has links to the militants, said the latest military operations had killed around 200 civilians, 70 of them children. Hundreds of thousands of civilians had been affected, many having to leave their homes or shut their businesses. The EU has called for an immediate ceasfire. The government says civilians are not being targeted in the operation and blames the PKK for bringing its campaign, which has killed over 40,000 since 1984, to city centres. President Tayyip Erdogan, who eased some restrictions on Kurdish culture in his early years in power, has vowed to destroy the PKK. Cologne attacks show Germany unprepared for migration challenge By Michelle Martin COLOGNE, Germany, Jan 28 (Reuters) - The crowds of drunk young men had been gathering for hours outside the main railway station in Cologne on New Year's Eve when city police finally told the office that coordinates forces for the region that they wanted to clear the square. The police coordinating office says it offered to send reinforcements. A report from the city police says the officer in charge decided there was no point asking for help because reinforcements would arrive too late. Cologne, a city of more than 1 million people, had added just 142 extra police for the holiday. Most had only come on duty at 10:00 p.m. As every German now knows, the small police force would prove incapable of preventing the crowd on that square from committing hundreds of assaults on women, stealing their valuables, groping and even raping them. The incidents have caused profound soul searching in a country that allowed in an unprecedented 1.1 million migrants last year in what its leaders described as an act of historic generosity towards refugees. Germans, who have prided themselves for generations in an orderly society that requires only gentle policing, are beginning to come to terms with change on a vast scale. "In the past, the police's softly-softly approach and focus on de-escalation was cherished. But there have been warning signs in recent years that this may not be appropriate now," said Wolfgang Bosbach, a lawmaker from Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) whose constituency is near Cologne. Cologne prosecutors say 945 complaints have been made to police over the events of that night, including 434 for sex crimes. Four weeks on, prosecutors have 35 suspects, mostly for pick pocketing and robbery while just three are suspected of sexual crimes. Only nine of the suspects are in custody. Most of the suspects come from northern Africa - Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia. One of the victims, Henrike, 18, told Reuters she was pestered, groped and sexually assaulted by a group of young men of north African appearance outside the station when she went to watch the city's firework display. She feared she was going to be raped when a group of about 25 men encircled her and two friends and tried to pull down their skirts: "They were like animals ... It felt like 20,000 hands were touching me all at once," she said. German media reported similar sex attacks and robberies on a smaller scale in 12 of Germany's 16 states. "THE EUROPE WE WISH FOR" It wasn't what politicians promised last year. When hundreds of thousands of migrants were arriving in the European Union last year on the shores of Italy and Greece, Germany made a bold decision: all refugees from the civil war in Syria would be welcome, regardless of where or how they entered the EU. Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany was a rich country that could afford to do its part to take in some of the world's most vulnerable people fleeing war. "If Europe fails on the question of refugees ... then it won't be the Europe we wish for," said Merkel in August. But refugees were not the only people who arrived. In addition to thousands of families fleeing Syria and other war zones, Germany also let in hundreds of thousands of people from other countries with no valid claim for asylum. The behaviour of the groups has been starkly different. The Syrian refugees intentionally welcomed by Merkel have so far proven overwhelmingly law abiding. According to a Jan. 8 police report from North Rhine-Westphalia, the western German state that includes Cologne, only 0.5 percent of Syrian migrants in the city were caught committing crimes within a year. By contrast, among migrants from North Africa, as many as 40 percent were caught committing crimes within a year, the report says. Virtually none of the North Africans arriving in Germany have proven to be genuine refugees: last year Germany granted some form of protection to just 0.19 percent of Tunisian migrants, 3.74 percent of Moroccans and 1.6 percent of Algerians. Many arrive not as families, but as single young men who are not legally permitted to work. Slightly more than twice as many males as females claimed asylum in Germany last year. "What we experienced at New Year was not only a police problem - it is (a result of) a lack of integration of about 300,000-500,000 young men who have arrived without families in Germany and are sitting around without much to do and who come from a male-dominated culture," said Christian Pfeiffer, a criminologist and former justice minister of Lower Saxony state from the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD). Ingo Westen, vice-president of the German Moroccan society based in Dortmund an hour's drive from Cologne, said young North African men arrive with high hopes for lives in "paradise" but quickly become disillusioned by life with just a bed and a small stipend. "That easily results in people who are not particularly strong getting corrupted by ringleaders who say: 'let's rob the department store over there or steal a mobile phone or clothes, and then we'll have a little bit of money when we sell them.'" His organisation worries that longer-settled migrants who have long been integrated into German society are increasingly falling under blanket suspicion too. It called for the German government to declare North African countries like Morocco to be safe and rigorously deport people who commit crimes. FEWER SECURITY CAMERAS THAN A GROCERY STORE Police unions say their forces are simply not adequately staffed and funded for the changing environment. What happened in Cologne was "a result of the savings that have destroyed the police in the last 10 years," said Arnold Plickert, deputy chairman of the GdP police union. The number of officers in the federal, state and criminal police has been cut by around 13,000 since 2000 to 260,713, according to the latest figures from GdP, although some federal states, including NRW are now boosting recruitment again. A survey by regional newspaper Rheinische Post showed NRW has one of the lowest ratios of police officers to inhabitants of all of Germany's states, with 228 police offers per 100,000 residents compared with the national average of 304. France, by comparison, has 356. Sebastian Fiedler, head of NRW's branch of the BDK union for Germany's criminal police, made up of plain-clothes officers that investigate crimes, said officers had been worried about offenses committed by north Africans for some time. "But to combat such a criminal phenomenon we need sufficient qualified staff to investigate the gang structures and then destroy them ... And that's where we have a problem," he said. In part because of its totalitarian history, Germany has been reluctant to deploy the police surveillance tools used in other European countries. Police cameras, ubiquitous in, say, Britain or France, are virtually unseen, and none were on the square outside Cologne station. NRW state police operate only two cameras in the entire state of 18 million people, and neither of them is in the city of Cologne, according to Erich Rettinghaus, head of the NRW branch of the DPolG police union. "The concentration of cameras in a Lidl store is greater than that of the NRW police," he said, of a grocery chain. Cologne - with a longer history of a migrant population than many other German cities - sees itself as a tolerant liberal city. Around a third of its population has a migrant background. Still, the New Year's events were beyond anything police could imagine: "We only knew about sexual attacks on this scale from abroad, from places like Tahrir Square and India. But it had never happened in Germany before," Fiedler said. In a Jan. 8 report, Cologne police said there had been no indications that such a high number of "dangerous people" would gather, and there had been no need for special police measures in the area around the cathedral and station in previous years. Police in NRW say they have been studying crime among north Africans. In Duesseldorf, NRW's state capital, police are doing a study known as "Casablanca" looking into groups that carry out robberies using a technique called "Antanzen", in which criminals dance up to or hug victims to distract them before picking their pockets. A police project in Cologne called NAFRI has been exploring the workings of possible groups of North African criminals since Jan. 2013. Three analysts have analysed data on more than 21,000 criminal offences and 17,000 people of northern African origin. But NRW state Interior Minister Ralf Jaeger said the suspects from New Year's Eve were not part of the Antanzen scene. In a report dated Jan. 19, the NRW interior ministry said of the 29 New Year's Eve suspects just one had turned up as part of the NAFRI project. HARD QUESTIONS In the wake of the Cologne assaults, Germans have been forced to confront questions that some politicians say were deliberately buried last year while migrants poured in. The reluctance to confront the issue has itself become part of the debate. Public broadcaster ZDF apologised for initially failing to report the New Year's Eve assaults. There was widespread criticism of the Cologne police for saying on Jan. 1 that the New Year's Eve celebration had been peaceful. Gregor Golland, an NRW state lawmaker from Merkel's CDU, said the state government, led by the Greens and SPD, "more or less laughed" at his party's attempts to get the problem of north African criminals on the agenda in 2014 and 2015. "They acted as if it did not exist," he said. Hans-Willi Koerfges, an SPD lawmaker in NRW's parliament, denied his party had ignored the Antanzen phenomenon among north Africans, saying SPD members had expressed concern and it was already being looked into by the time the CDU raised it. A consensus is growing that, in order to make Merkel's generosity to refugees work, Germany is going to have to do more to distinguish between those genuinely in need of protection and migrants from safe countries. Merkel's coalition government backed a new law this week to make it easier to deport migrants who commit crimes. Former German interior minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, of Merkel's CDU, said whitewashing by the media and politicians keeping quiet about problems related to the refugee crisis had "led to an illusion about an idyllic world that never existed". JKX board quits as investors back Proxima overhaul plan By Esha Vaish and Mamidipudi Soumithri Jan 28 (Reuters) - JKX Oil & Gas Plc's top management quit on Thursday after its second-largest shareholder managed to rally support from other investors for a massive overhaul of the board, in the latest win for investor activism in Europe. Shareholders voted in favour of all the proposals put forth by Proxima Capital Group Inc in an investor meeting, succeeding where Eclairs Group Ltd, the company's largest shareholder, had failed in 2013. The vote, that passed despite JKX barring two of its top investors including Eclairs Group from voting, effectively reduces the size of JKX's board and appoints Proxima nominees to top positions. The change in management could represent a new direction for the company, which has been struggling with oil prices that have fallen to around $30 a barrel and political tensions between its two main markets Russia and Ukraine. Proxima called for a shake-up in December, saying there had been a "destruction of value" for shareholders due to the erstwhile board's failure to manage the business well. Chairman Nigel Moore, Chief Executive Paul Davies and five other members resigned, effective immediately, after the meeting, JKX said in a statement. JKX, which has seen its shares tumble more than 90 percent over the past five years, said earlier on Thursday that its Finance Director Cynthia Dubin and Non-Executive Director Dipesh Shah had also quit. The company's enterprise value to core profit ratio currently trades at a discount of 52.5 percent to its own median over the last 10 years - a sign that the company might be undervalued. "We are delighted that all our resolutions were passed unconditionally, without having to rely on the votes of shareholders that are subject to legal dispute," Proxima CEO Vladimir Tatarchuk said in an emailed statement. Following the meeting, Paul Ostling, a former chief operating officer of Ernst and Young, will become chairman and Tom Reed chief executive. The results exclude votes cast by Eclairs Group and Glengary Overseas Ltd, two of JKX's biggest shareholders. JKX had restricted them from voting at the meeting citing its inability to clarify the ownership structures and voting arrangements of their stakes. Taiwan president says visit to disputed island was to promote peace By J.R. Wu TAIPEI, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, ignoring U.S. criticism, flew to a disputed island in the South China Sea on Thursday to reaffirm Taipei's sovereignty and said the trip was aimed at promoting peace. Ma's one-day visit to Itu Aba came amid growing international concern over tension in the South China Sea, especially in the wake of Beijing's rapid creation of seven man-made islands in the Spratly archipelago. The United States, Taiwan's biggest ally, on Wednesday called Ma's trip "extremely unhelpful", adding it would not do anything to resolve disputes over the waterway. But Ma, who steps down in May, said he had told the United States about his trip a few days beforehand. "The U.S. and we (Taiwan), when it comes to the big direction for the South China Sea, are the same," Ma told reporters on his return. "We all hope for peace, hope there is no conflict or war." Beijing on Thursday reiterated that China and Taiwan had a common duty to protect Chinese sovereignty in the South China Sea. Beijing, recognised by most of the world as the head of "one China", the People's Republic of China, deems Taiwan a wayward province to be taken by force if necessary. Taiwan, which goes by the official name of Republic of China, is recognised by only a handful of countries. Ma also said his trip was aimed at bringing attention to Taiwan's stand. Both China and Taiwan claim most of the South China Sea. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei have competing claims. The Philippines has launched an arbitration case against China in The Hague which Ma said could result in a ruling affecting Taiwan. The visit was now or never because of the pending ruling that might rule on land formations that could determine economic zone rights for claimants. "Our diplomatic situation is difficult. On the topic of the South China Sea, we want to talk but have nowhere to file our complaint," Ma said. "This was the time to go. If I didn't go now, it would have been too late." Vietnam's top official in Taiwan said Hanoi "resolutely opposed" Ma's visit. The Philippine Foreign Ministry said all parties had a shared responsibility to refrain from actions that could increase tensions. Taiwan has just finished a $100 million port upgrade and built a new lighthouse on Itu Aba, known as Taiping in Taiwan. The island, which lies in the Spratlys, also has an airstrip, a hospital and fresh water. Given the tensions over the South China Sea, few senior political officials from any of the claimants have visited the contested region in recent years. Ma's visit follows elections won by the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which declined a request by Ma to send a representative along. The DPP said Taiwan had a responsibility to maintain peace and stability in the area. The claims of both China and Taiwan are based on maps from the late 1940s belonging to the Nationalists, when they ruled all of China. The Nationalists fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the Chinese civil war to Mao Zedong's Communists. China has appeared unfazed by Taiwan's upgrading work on Itu Aba. Military strategists say that is because Itu Aba could fall into China's hands should it ever take over Taiwan. Hungary court acquits leaders of firm behind toxic spill BUDAPEST, Jan 28 (Reuters) - A Hungarian court acquitted on Thursday 15 people charged with criminal negligence relating to a toxic red sludge spill which flooded part of Western Hungary in 2010, killing 10 people and destroying hundreds of homes across three towns. The spill was one of the worst environmental disasters to hit the central European country of 10 million people. It took years and cost about 40 billion forints ($140 million) to clean up toxic red mud that covered the countryside and seeped into rivers as far downstream as the Danube. MAL Corp, the aluminium smelting company that owned the faulty alumina reservoir was taken over by the government, which declared it responsible for the incident and began to close it down. But in its first-instance ruling, the court said executives and top employees of MAL had not been criminal negligent or committed other crimes they were charged with during the 40-month legal procedure. "The defendants had no realistic and objective opportunity to discover the hazards that had formed," the court said in a statement, adding that relevant authorities had signed off on the reservoir's blueprints and operation, and held regular checks. Syria talks risk further delay as opposition appeals to U.N. chief By John Davison BEIRUT, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Talks to end Syria's civil war risked being delayed for the second time this week as the opposition stuck to its demands for an end to air strikes and blockades and said on Thursday it was waiting for a response from U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon. The opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) blamed those responsible for "bombardment and starvation of civilians", meaning the Syrian government and its allies, for obstructing the start of talks to end a five-year war that has killed a quarter of a million people. The talks, the first in two years, were meant to start in Geneva on Monday but the United Nations has pushed them back to Friday to allow more time to agree a list of participants, some of whom are regarded by the Syrian government as terrorists, and persuade the opposition to engage. But even a Friday start looks increasingly unlikely unless diplomacy can achieve a major breakthrough in the coming hours. "We are serious about taking part... but what is hindering the start of negotiations is the one who is bombing civilians and starving them," HNC spokesman Salim al-Muslat said. An opposition source familiar with the HNC's talks this week in Saudi Arabia said it was waiting for a response from the U.N. Secretary-General over its demands, which are also part of a U.N. Security Council resolution passed on Dec. 18. The source said the opposition had already received a response from U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura, who had told them that he did not have the authority to implement the resolution. De Mistura's office was not immediately available to comment. The United States, whose Secretary of State John Kerry is among those pushing for negotiations to get started on Friday, urged Syrian opposition groups to seize the "historic opportunity" and enter talks without preconditions to end the war, which has also displaced more than 11 million people. In the three days since the talks were rescheduled, the Syrian government and its allies have made further advances in western Syria, building on gains achieved in recent months with the backing of Russian air power. "TERRORISTS IN A NEW MASK" Preparations for the talks have been beset by problems, including a dispute over who should represent the opposition. Damascus and its chief allies, Moscow and Tehran, object to the inclusion of groups they consider terrorists in any peace talks, and have criticised the HNC, which includes Saudi-backed and other foreign-backed groups fighting against President Bashar al-Assad. Deputy Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Thursday his country strongly opposed moves by Saudi Arabia to allow "terrorists in a new mask" to sit down for talks. A powerful Kurdish party, the PYD, has been excluded from the talks, in line with the wishes of Turkey which views it as a terrorist group. That has led to a boycott by at least one prominent dissident, Haytham Manna. With backing from Iranian fighters and Lebanon's Hezbollah on the ground, and Russian air raids, the government has recaptured areas in the west, northwest and south of Syria since Moscow intervened last September, reversing some rebel gains. Earlier this week the Syrian army took a strategic town in the southern province of Deraa, securing its supply routes from the capital to the south, a monitoring group said, days after retaking more territory in Latakia province, Assad's heartland. The United States, which supports moderate Syrian insurgent groups, insisted that the opposition should attend the talks on Friday and go without preconditions. "Factions of the opposition have an historic opportunity to go to Geneva and propose serious, practical ways to implement a ceasefire, humanitarian access and other confidence-building measures, and they should do so without preconditions," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Wednesday. Syria's opposition has said it has come under pressure from Kerry to attend the talks in order to negotiate over the very steps which it says must be implemented beforehand. The Syrian government has said it is ready to take part in the Geneva talks. Islamic State claims Aden suicide car bombing that kills 6 ADEN, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Islamic State militants claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing outside Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's residence in the southern city of Aden on Thursday that killed at least six people. Officials said Hadi was inside his residence at the Maashiq Palace at the time of the attack but was unharmed. Hadi's office, in a statement carried by the government-run Saba news agency, said that 11 other people were also injured in the attack, in which a car tried to crash through a security checkpoint guarding the palace. "A booby-trapped car was confronted while trying to break through the outer security ... and (security) prevented it from getting through by opening fire at it and detonating it," the statement said. It said that six people were killed, five of them members of the palace security detail and one civilian. Local officials and witnesses earlier reported that seven people had died and 10 were injured, and that the majority of the casualties were civilians. It was the latest in a spate of deadly attacks by Islamist militants on Yemeni government and security targets. In a statement posted online, Islamic State said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber it identified as Abu Hanifa al-Hollandi. The nom de guerre suggested the attacker was a Dutch citizen. Hadi fled the capital Sanaa in 2015, after the Houthis -- a Yemeni militia that hails from the Zaydi branch of Shi'ite Islam -- seized his presidential palace. The Houthis later advanced through a large swathe of Yemen and forced Hadi into exile in Saudi Arabia. But he has managed to re-base in Aden, Yemen's second largest city, where his government is trying to project authority after its loyalists, backed by Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab forces, seized it back in July. Aden, a city of some one million people, has been gripped by lawlessness, with regular bomb and gun attacks on security forces and civil servants, including judges. Vice President and Prime Minister Khaled Bahah, who has also recently returned to Aden and was believed to be staying at the Maashiq Palace, has been trying to coordinate efforts to bolster security in the city. Dozens of armoured vehicles and troops from the United Arab Emirates arrived in Aden's port on Wednesday, security officials said, as part of a plan to tackle security chaos. Backed by a Saudi-led military alliance of Sunni Muslim Arab states, Hadi's forces have been battling the Iran-allied Houthis and supporters of ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh who are in control of Sanaa. The war has killed 6,000 people. Islamic State insurgents have also stepped up operations, emerging as a forceful rival to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has been the main Islamist militant group in the country in recent years. South African racial tensions thwart opposition challenge to ANC By Stella Mapenzauswa JOHANNESBURG, Jan 28 (Reuters) - A racist Facebook post by a member of South Africa's main opposition party has caused a national furore and left it scrambling to shake off its image of an organisation that chiefly serves the interests of the minority white community. The episode highlighted how racial tensions simmer in the country more than two decades after Nelson Mandela become its first black president, with wealth and income gaps that are still clearly visible along race lines fuelling perceptions of white privilege. It could set back the Democratic Alliance's efforts to attract black votes and present an effective opposition to the African National Congress (ANC), whose hold on power has been virtually untested since the end of apartheid despite rising discontent over an ailing economy and job losses. The furore erupted this month after estate agent Penny Sparrow, a Democratic Alliance (DA) member, referred to black people as "monkeys" in a New Year's Day rant on Facebook against littering at a public beach. It triggered hundreds of posts on social media condemning the comments, in turn leading to nationwide media coverage and to some rival politicians saying Sparrow had expressed views secretly shared by many DA supporters - who, along with its political leaders, are predominantly white. In the following days, the ANC organised several anti-racism marches attended by hundreds of people. The DA was quick to denounce and expel Sparrow, but the episode dealt a blow to its drive to convince voters it is committed to an equal society, despite having elected its first black leader last year, Mmusi Maimane. It risks costing the party the support of some black middle-class voters like Ndodana Nkomani, who had grown disenchanted with the ANC and was thinking of giving the opposition a chance at this year's local government elections. "Now I'm not so sure," said the 27-year-old financial market analyst from Johannesburg. "It seems like apartheid is still alive and well." Mcebisi Ndletyana, a professor of political science at the University of Johannesburg, said the Sparrow post has exacerbated the DA's credibility problem on the issue of race. "Mmusi Maimane's presidency started off on a good footing ... but they've taken a step back. Racial identity is a strong problem that the DA faces both at national and local elections and that problem has been compounded." Tensions in the country rose further when, days after Sparrow's post, prominent Standard Bank economist Chris Hart suggested on Twitter that 25 years of ANC rule had perpetuated poverty and entrenched a tendency to blame whites for all of South Africa's ills. The tweet prompted mostly black youths to stage a protest march to the bank's offices in downtown Johannesburg. Hart apologised for the comments, and said they were not meant to be racist, but he was suspended by the bank, whose CEO said racism and inequality were a drag on Africa's most advanced economy. JOBS, HOUSING President Jacob Zuma's ANC won 62 percent in 2014 parliamentary and presidential elections - similar to what the party garnered in the first democratic elections in 1994 - with the Democratic Alliance a distant second with 22 percent. In the latest measure of the public mood, the ANC is expected to easily win local elections this year, even in the face of an economic downturn and public anger that it has not fully delivered on its promise to provide jobs, housing and quality education, among other services. The DA also faces a growing challenge from the radical new Economic Freedom Fighters (EEF) which scored more than 6 percent in 2014 despite having been formed just months before the poll, winning support from black voters frustrated about inequality. Black people make up 80 percent of the country's roughly 54 million population, yet the lion's share of the economy in terms of ownership of land and companies remains in the hands of white people, who account for around 8 percent of the population. The DA is walking a difficult line, according to political analysts, to attract the black voters needed to win power while retaining its traditional support among white voters. In a scathing newspaper column last week, former DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko, who quit to pursue studies at Harvard, urged the party to reflect "on a culture that isolates black members and leaders" and to "interrogate the almost exclusive dominance of white males". The party faced criticism from the ANC and EEF for briefly expelling, then reinstating its member of parliament Dianne Kohler Barnard after she shared a Facebook post last year praising former apartheid President PW Botha. "It is not going to help the DA to try to be all things to all races," Aubrey Matshiqi, a research fellow at the Helen Suzman Foundation, told Reuters. "It's not going to help to engage in double speak; using anti-racist rhetoric to attract black voters, and downplaying the question of race and the role of whiteness in racism in order to hold on to its traditional support base." DA leader Maimane urged racists not to vote for his party at a speech to supporters last week and his party has launched a nationwide campaign for its members to sign an anti-racism pledge. But the latest furore over the online posts has undoubtedly benefited the ANC, analysts say, taking some heat off Zuma who is accused by his political opponents and analysts of mismanaging the economy, and boosting its bid to promote itself as the only party committed to a non-racial society. German parliament approves more soldiers for Mali, Iraq BERLIN, Jan 28 (Reuters) - The German parliament approved government plans on Thursday to send up to 650 soldiers to Mali, boosting its presence in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the West African country which is beset by Islamist militant violence. The Bundestag lower house of parliament also agreed to increase the number of soldiers training Kurdish Peshmerga forces in northern Iraq to up to 150 from up to 100. The majority of the German forces who will start going to Mali in the coming weeks will be stationed in the north of the country which has seen an upsurge of violence by Islamist militants. Working with Dutch forces who operate a military camp in the northern city of Gao, they will carry out reconnaissance work and provide logistical support. Apart from participating in the U.N. mission in Mali, Germany sent troops there in 2013 as part of a European Union mission to train local security forces after France quelled an Islamist uprising in the north. German forces are currently carrying out missions in around 13 countries, including Afghanistan and Kosovo, as well as conducting monitoring in the Mediterranean. Hungary court acquits leaders of firm behind toxic spill KOLONTAR, Hungary, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Fifteen people tried in connection with a toxic spill from an alumina reservoir in western Hungary that killed 10 people in 2010 were acquitted on Thursday, an outcome a local mayor said would only serve to further traumatise and anger residents. The spill was one of Hungary's worst environmental disasters. Toxic red mud flowing from the reservoir destroyed hundreds of homes across three towns, covered the countryside and seeped into rivers as far downstream as the Danube. It took years to clean up at a cost of about 40 billion forints ($140 million). MAL Corp, the aluminium smelting company that owned the faulty alumina reservoir was subsequently taken over by the government, which declared it responsible for the incident and began to close it down. It is still under liquidation. But in a first instance ruling, the court in the western town of Veszprem said executives and top employees of MAL had not been criminally negligent, nor had they committed other crimes they were charged with during the 40-month legal procedure. "The defendants had no realistic and objective opportunity to discover the hazards that had formed," the court said in a statement, adding that relevant authorities had signed off on the reservoir's blueprints and operation, and conducted regular checks. "The authorities had uncovered no shortfalls and prescribed no additional checks. The catastrophe had no predictable, visible, recognisable prior sign," the court said. It was not immediately clear whether prosecutors would appeal the verdict. Earlier, a local far right politician, Lajos Kepli, protested in the court, holding up a sign showing an image of the devastation. It read: "Is this the worth of ten lives?" He was led out by police, a Reuters witness said. Karoly Tili, the mayor of nearby Kolontar, the first village that was struck, said locals, many of whom had yet to recover from the disaster, would be devastated. "I am disappointed," he said by telephone. "I thought they would set an example in the case. The prosecution needs to appeal this, or people here will be very angry." Emotions in Kolontar were running high ahead of the trial. On Wednesday, Jozsef Holczer, 67, whose house was destroyed, cried as he recalled the tragedy which swept away half the buildings in the village. "I used to come here to sit with my friend Erno Stumpf under a big walnut tree that stood here," Holczer said. "We would hide from the sun in summers, take shelter from the snow in winters, sit around and drink and talk." State support for Russia's VEB seen at up to 200 bln roubles in 2016 -minister ST PETERSBURG, Russia, Jan 28 (Reuters) - The Russian government's support for state development bank VEB is estimated at between 150 billion roubles and 200 billion roubles ($1.96 billion to $2.61 billion) this year, Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev told reporters on Thursday. Gbagbo trial exposes old wounds in Ivory Coast By Ange Aboa and Joe Bavier MAMA, Ivory Coast, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Paul Koudou sat, eyes glued to a tiny television in the Ivory Coast village of Mama, as a court clerk 5,000 km (3,000 miles) away in The Hague read out a list of charges - rape, murder, persecution - against former president Laurent Gbagbo. "It hurts me to see him like that," said Koudou, who looks after the now abandoned residence that Gbagbo owns in his home village, a sprawling 10-room villa still scarred by the bullet holes of a 2011 war that led to the president's downfall. "He didn't do any of the things they're saying. Gbagbo is a man of peace," the 51-year-old lamented, expressing a view of the former leader not universally shared in Ivory Coast. Five years after the civil war that killed 3,000 people, the country has emerged as one of Africa's rising stars, held up by many as a model of successful post-conflict reconstruction. Under President Alassane Ouattara, the economy of the world's top cocoa producer has grown rapidly and stability has returned after a decade of violent political turmoil. However, the start of Gbagbo's trial before the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday for crimes committed during the conflict has exposed deep, persisting divisions. While some Ivorians denounce him as an arch-villain who rejected his 2010 election defeat then murdered his own people, others fete him as an unjustly maligned national hero. "Laurent Gbagbo doesn't belong to a family or a political party," said the president's son Michel Gbagbo, who was arrested with his father in April 2011 by rebels who backed Ouattara and received support from France and U.N. peacekeepers. "He belongs to a country. He belongs to a continent. He's part of the legend of individuals like (slain Congolese independence leader Patrice) Lumumba," he said. Much of polarisation of the debate surrounding Gbagbo's trial is rooted in a continuing and fundamental disagreement over what actually happened in late 2010 and early 2011. Gbagbo's supporters say he adhered to the Ivorian constitution throughout the dispute that followed the announcement of U.N.-certified, internationally endorsed results showing he'd lost the election. They claim the ICC trial - the world court's first against a former head of state - can only be fair if the events are placed in the context of what they say were Gbagbo's legitimate efforts to fend off an external aggression. "We know this was a French plot to remove Gbagbo from power. We know he won the election," said Arsene Bolou, a member of the pro-Gbagbo Young Patriots movement who watched the trial's opening at a packed bar in the commercial capital Abidjan. "I WANTED HIM KILLED" ICC prosecutors argue that Gbagbo and his supporters conspired to keep him in power by all means necessary, including violence against civilians, no matter the election's outcome. "If it had been up to me, I wanted him killed the day he was arrested. But God did not grant my wish," said Seydou Barro, a 53-year-old craftsman who was picked up by Gbagbo's security forces during a pro-Ouattara march in December 2010. Gbagbo's men killed at least 45 people at the demonstration, according to the prosecution, which has included the attack among five incidents during which it claims crimes were committed. Barro says he spent eight days in detention, where policemen threatened to execute him as they beat him repeatedly. He is now among the victims formally represented at the trial, which campaigners consider a landmark opportunity to hold a man at the pinnacle of power responsible for the harm he has caused others. "Gbagbo's trial is a cautionary tale for those willing to use whatever means necessary to cling to power," said Param-Preet Singh, senior international justice counsel at Human Rights Watch. Not everyone agrees however that justice is being done in The Hague. Though ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda again promised on Wednesday to step up investigations into all sides in the 2011 conflict, none of Ouattara's own backers, who are also accused of committing massacres, are yet facing indictment. "Was Gbagbo fighting this war against himself? Where are Ouattara's supporters. This isn't justice," said Abdouramane Sangare, who heads the hardline faction of Gbagbo's political party, the Ivorian Popular Front. This perception of one-sided victor's justice has tarnished the ICC in the eyes of many, both in Ivory Coast and elsewhere in Africa, where the court was already under fire from governments accusing it of bias against Africans. Former presidents Joaquim Alberto Chissano of Mozambique and Benin's Nicephore Soglo have called for Gbagbo's liberation, claiming the ICC case has "further aggravated the divisions and animosities between Ivorian citizens". But Mariam Kamagate, who says she was beaten by pro-Gbagbo militia fighters because she bears a Muslim name, said Ivory Coast must reject impunity if it is going to move forward as a united country. Britain to take in unaccompanied refugee children from conflict areas By Alex Whiting LONDON, Jan 28 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Britain will take in some unaccompanied refugee children from Syria, North Africa and other conflict areas, the Home Office (interior ministry) said on Thursday, but it did not say how many. This is in addition to the 20,000 Syrian refugees the government has pledged to take in by 2020. More than 1,000 of them - around half of them children - have already been resettled in Britain under this scheme, the government says. The Home Office said it would work with the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) to identify particularly vulnerable children, though the government has said the majority of refugee children are better off staying in their region of origin so they can be reunited with their families. "The crisis in Syria and events in the Middle East, North Africa and beyond have separated a large number of refugee children from their families," Immigration Minister James Brokenshire said in a statement. "... we have asked the UNHCR to identify the exceptional cases where a child's best interests are served by resettlement to the UK and help us to bring them here," Brokenshire said. Aid agencies cautiously welcomed the announcement. "The UK has a responsibility to protect vulnerable children, it is absolutely right that the government is committed to resettle unaccompanied children from conflict regions," the U.N. children's agency UNICEF said. Tanya Barron, CEO of children's charity Plan UK, said: "Any and all help for children who have been separated from their families by the war in Syria should be encouraged. "In many cases, they are traumatised having seen their homes destroyed and loved ones killed or injured. These children urgently need help to try and rebuild their shattered lives." UNICEF said there were tens of thousands of unaccompanied refugee children, many of whom had relatives in the United Kingdom. They should be given information about their right to family reunification and how to claim it, the agency said. Mexico says deports 'Affluenza' teen, on flight to Dallas MEXICO CITY, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Ethan Couch, known as the "affluenza" teen after he killed four people in a drunk driving incident in 2013, was deported from Mexico on Thursday, leaving the capital aboard a commercial flight heading for Dallas, Mexico's migration department said. Couch, 18, and his mother, Tonya, were arrested in Mexico last month following a more than two-week-long manhunt. His mother was deported to the United States last month and Couch dropped a legal appeal against his extradition. Dutch suggest EU send migrants straight back to Turkey as more arrive without case for asylum By Gabriela Baczynska and Thomas Escritt BRUSSELS/THE HAGUE, Jan 28 (Reuters) - The Netherlands floated an idea on Thursday to ferry migrants reaching Greece straight back to Turkey to stop a relentless influx into the European Union as EU officials cited a rise in the numbers of those who would not qualify for asylum. The 28-nation bloc has all but failed to curb or control the influx of asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa, more than one million of whom arrived in Europe last year, mainly via Greece and heading towards the EU's biggest economy, Germany. More than 54,500 people have already reached Europe by sea this year, including 50,668 through Greece, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). They keep flowing in despite stormy winter weather making the journey ever more perilous, a fact highlighted by a UNHCR report that 235 migrants were dead or missing already in 2016. On Thursday, 24 drowned when their boat sank off a Greek island close to the Turkish coast. Much of the EU debate on how to handle the influx has focused on distinguishing people fleeing war, and thus eligible for international protection, from "economic" migrants seeking better lives without being under immediate threat. "Indeed we have seen that the numbers of people arriving in Europe who don't have a genuine claim to asylum have been rising slightly," a spokeswoman for the European Commission told a regular news briefing on Thursday. EU nations have grown unnerved by the continent's worst migration crisis since World War Two, one that has jeopardised the bloc's Schengen zone of passport-free travel over national borders that has contributed greatly to its vaunted prosperity. In the latest idea for discouraging migrants from flooding into Europe, the head of a party in the Dutch ruling coalition said it was drafting a plan under which those arriving in Greece by sea could be dispatched straight back to Turkey. Diederik Samsom said European countries would have to agree in exchange to take several hundred thousand refugees each year out of nearly 2 million currently in Turkey. The Netherlands now holds the EU's rotating presidency and Samsom said it would seek to push for Europe-wide agreement on the plan. Samsom also said improving conditions for Syrian refugees in Turkey meant it could soon be regarded as a safe country to which asylum-seekers could be returned. Amnesty International quickly denounced the idea as "fundamentally flawed", saying it would deny those arriving the right to have their asylum claims properly considered. "Any resettlement proposal that is conditional on effectively sealing off borders and illegally pushing back tens of thousands of people while denying them access to asylum procedures is morally bankrupt," said Amnesty's John Dalhuisen. "There is no excuse for breaking the law and flouting international obligations in the process." GERMANY, SWEDEN, DENMARK The government of Germany, where more than a million migrants arrived last year alone, on Thursday agreed tighter asylum rules, while Sweden and Finland said they would deport tens of thousands of last year's asylum seekers. In another example of how wealthy European states are seeking to deter migrants, Denmark's parliament on Tuesday passed measures allowing the confiscation of asylum seekers' valuables to pay for their stay, despite protests from international human rights organisations. The European Commission said on Thursday it was looking into whether Denmark's move was undermining fundamental EU values. While the overall number of arrivals is relatively low compared to the EU's 500 million population, the uneven distribution among member states has put heavy pressure on public and security services in some, as well as fuelled support for anti-foreigner nationalists and populists across the bloc. The EU border agency Frontex said on Thursday the number of Syrians arriving on Greek islands had declined in recent months, while Iraqi arrivals had risen. "The percentage of declared Syrians among all of the migrants landing on the Greek islands has fallen considerably in the last several months," Frontex said, adding that some 39 percent of those arriving in Greece in December were Syrians, compared to 43 percent in November and 51 percent in October. The shifting numbers partly reflect how registration and identification of migrants has improved in Greece over the last quarter, meaning fewer people pass under false nationality. Guinea Bissau parliament passes spending plan, saves government BISSAU, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Guinea Bissau's parliament approved the 2016 spending programme on Thursday, saving the government from dissolution and lending the fragile West African democracy some stability after a turbulent few weeks. Prime Minister Carlos Correia's budget, which includes spending on roads, electricity, health and education, was passed with 59 votes in favour and none against. The vote was boycotted by the opposition PRS party, which opposed the plan. "We deserve this victory, especially since it cost us sleepless nights," said Califa Seidi, parliamentary chief of the ruling PAIGC party. "Therefore no one has the right to question the fate of this country and its people." The vote capped a turbulent month for Guinea Bissau in which 15 PAIGC members denounced the plan and joined the opposition, leaving the prime minister without the votes to pass it. Those 15 members were expelled from parliament, however, and replaced on Thursday before the vote. If parliament had failed for a second time to approve the plan, the constitution would have required the government's dismissal. Canada signals it will reengage with Russia despite Ukraine OTTAWA, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Canada will seek closer relations with Russia despite deep tensions over Moscow's actions in Ukraine, new Liberal Foreign Minister Stephane Dion signaled on Thursday, marking a major policy shift. Last October the Liberals defeated the Conservatives, who had cut most high-level ties with Moscow and slapped sanctions on Russian firms, officials and business executives in response to the actions of Russian-backed militants in Ukraine. "If we don't engage with Russia we don't help Ukraine (and) we don't help Canada's interests," Dion told a foreign policy forum. Canada and Russia both have competing interests in the Arctic, home to potentially vast reserves of oil and gas. Dion said the United States, which has also imposed punitive measures on Russia, was dealing directly with Moscow on a number of international issues. It would be irresponsible for the two nations not to have such contacts, he said. "So something that is irresponsible for the United States would also be irresponsible for Canada, don't you think? So that is the approach we will have when building a foreign policy," he said. Morocco to hold parliamentary elections on Oct. 7 -government RABAT, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Morocco will hold a parliamentary election on Oct. 7, the second ballot since the kingdom adopted constitutional reforms designed to calm protests during the Arab Spring uprisings. The Islamist Justice and Development party, known by its French acronym PJD, won elections in 2011 and has led the government since then. It was the first time King Mohammed had allowed an Islamist group to take power. The reformed constitution has shifted some powers to the elected government but King Mohammed still retains ultimate authority. "The next parliamentary elections will take place on Oct. 7, 2016," a government statement issued after the weekly cabinet meeting said. Analysts believe the PJD could win a second term in the 2016 elction although austerity measures that the government launched to revive public finances have started to weigh on Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane's popularity. Benkirane's government may face even further pressure this year as weak growth is expected, with a drought looming after an exceptional cereal harvest in 2015. Agricultue accounts for more than 15 percent of the Moroccan economy. The government sees gross domestic product (GDP) growing by only 3 percent in 2016, down from 5 percent last year, as agricultural output is expected to drop sharply. The central bank is forecasting only 2.6 percent this year. Italy says West prepared to take on Islamic State in Libya ROME, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Western powers are prepared to fight Islamic State in Libya even if the North African country fails to agree on a unified government soon, Italy's defence minister said on Thursday. Libya's internationally recognised parliament rejected the United Nations proposal for a unified government earlier this week. Meanwhile, the militant group IS is stepping up attacks throughout the country. "We cannot imagine the situation in Libya remaining in a stall as spring comes and goes," Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti said in an interview with the newspaper Corriere della Sera. Her spokesman confirmed the comments. Since 2014, Libya has had two competing parliaments and governments, one set based in Tripoli and a second, internationally recognised one in the east. Both are backed by loose alliances of armed groups and former rebels who helped topple Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. At a Paris meeting last week of defence ministers from countries in the anti-IS coalition, Pinotti said, there was "total agreement" that a Libya unity government should ask for help to fight militants, to avoid fuelling "jihadist propaganda" of yet another "Western invasion". But she went on to say that Islamic State was strengthening in the current political vacuum, prompting Italy and its allies to prepare for an "emergency", adding that the United States recently has expressed "a greater concern" over IS militants in Libya. "In the past month, we have worked more diligently with Americans, British and French," Pinotti said. "I wouldn't call it an acceleration, and it's certainly not unilateral. We are all agreed that we must avoid uncoordinated action," she said. On Wednesday, the U.S. said it had already sent "a small number of military personnel" into Libya to try to "to engage in conversations with local forces to get a clearer picture of exactly what's happening there," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said. "We're looking at military options," Cook said, according to a transcript of his press conference on the Department of Defense website. IS militants have taken advantage of Libya's chaos to establish themselves in the city of Sirte, and they have carried out several attacks on oil installations this month. At least 47 were killed by an IS suicide bombing against a Libyan police training centre earlier this month. Italy has said it wants a leadership role in stabilising Libya, its former colonial possession, which is located less than 200 miles (320 km) from the Italian island of Lampedusa. Ivory Coast's main airport to get $67 mln makeover ABIDJAN, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Ivory Coast's international airport in the commercial capital Abidjan will get a 40 billion CFA franc ($67 million) makeover to boost it as a regional hub, the chairman of the board of operator Aeria said on Thursday. The world's top cocoa grower has become one of Africa's rising stars since emerging from a 2011 civil war and annual economic growth of around 9 percent is attracting a flood of foreign investment. Felix Houphouet-Boigny International Airport expects 1.75 million passengers this year, up from a record 1.5 million last year, Aeria's Abdoulaye Coulibaly said. "We are aiming to invest around 40 billion CFA francs over the next three years to offer quality service, because the number of passengers is increasing each year," he said, adding the funds will go towards tarmac and terminal upgrades. Coulibaly said Aeria was also preparing a 140 billion CFA franc project to build an extension to the terminal that would more than triple capacity to 8 million passengers per year by 2022. Work was expected to begin in two years, he said. Syria peace talks derailed as opposition stays away By Suleiman Al-Khalidi, John Davison and Stephanie Nebehay AMMAN/BEIRUT/GENEVA, Jan 28 (Reuters) - The Syrian opposition said it will not attend peace talks due to begin in Geneva on Friday, derailing the first attempt in two years to hold negotiations aimed at ending the five-year-long war. An opposition council convening in Riyadh said its delegation would "certainly" not be in Geneva on Friday, saying it had not received convincing answers to its demands for goodwill steps including an end to air strikes and blockades. The failure to get talks off the ground on time reflects the challenges facing peace-making as the conflict rages unabated on the ground. The Syrian government is clawing back territory from rebels with military help from Iran and Russia. It has said it is ready to attend the negotiations, which U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura plans to hold in an indirect format. Another opposition representative said the delegation might turn up if their demands were met in a day or two, but the chances of that appeared vanishingly slim. The turn of events is a bitter blow to De Mistura, whose office had issued a video message that he had sent to the Syrian people, in which he said the talks were expected to happen "in the next few days". A spokeswoman for his office, speaking before the opposition statement, said the talks would begin on Friday as scheduled. George Sabra, a member of the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), said: "For certain we will not head to Geneva and there will not be a delegation from the High Negotiations Committee tomorrow in Geneva." GUARANTEES Before agreeing to talks, the HNC had been seeking U.N. guarantees of steps including a halt to attacks on civilian areas, a release of detainees, and a lifting of blockades. The measures were mentioned in a Security Council resolution approved last month that endorsed the peace process for Syria. Sabra said a response from de Mistura was "unfortunately still ink on paper". "We are not certain that the opportunity is historic," he told Arabic news channel Arabiya al-Hadath. Riad Hijab, who heads the Syrian opposition council, told Arabiya TV members might be in the city of Geneva, but would not attend the talks. He demanded immediate steps to alleviate the plight of Syrians under seige and bombardment. Another HNC official said the opposition could attend if their demands were met "within two, three or four days." "Tomorrow will probably the start will be with those who attend but it has no value," Monzer Makhous told Al-Hadath. The talks were meant to start in Geneva on Monday but the United Nations has pushed them back to Friday to allow more time to resolve problems including a dispute over which groups should be invited to negotiate with the government. The exclusion of a powerful Kurdish faction that controls wide areas of northern Syria has triggered a boycott by some of the invitees. Turkey had opposed the PYD's participation on the ground it views it as a terrorist group. The United States, whose Secretary of State John Kerry is among those pushing for negotiations to start on Friday, urged the opposition to seize the "historic opportunity" and enter talks without preconditions to end the war, which has also displaced more than 11 million people. Diplomacy has so far had little impact on the conflict, which has spawned a refugee crisis in neighbouring states and Europe. De Mistura is the third international envoy for Syria. His two predecessors - Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi - both quit. "TERRORISTS IN A NEW MASK" Enormous challenge include tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are vying for influence across the region, and the underlying dispute over the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. With backing from Iranian fighters and Lebanon's Hezbollah on the ground, and Russian air raids, the government has recaptured areas in the west, northwest and south of Syria since Moscow intervened last September, reversing rebel gains. The HNC groups political and armed groups fighting Assad. It includes some of the main armed groups fighting in western Syria, including the Islamist Jaysh al-Islam, which is deemed a terrorist group by Russia, and Free Syrian Army factions that have received military support from states including the Saudi Arabia and the United States. Earlier this week the Syrian army took a strategic town in the southern province of Deraa, securing its supply routes from the capital to the south, days after retaking more territory in Latakia province. Damascus, Tehran and Moscow have objected to the inclusion of groups they consider terrorists in any peace talks. Deputy Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Thursday his country strongly opposed moves by Saudi Arabia to allow "terrorists in a new mask" to sit down for talks. German government agrees tighter asylum rules By Joseph Nasr BERLIN, Jan 28 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and their left-leaning Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners agreed on Thursday to tighten asylum rules, reaching a compromise on how to stem an influx of migrants that topped one million last year. The new measures include a two-year ban on family reunions for asylum seekers who are granted limited refugee protection and speeding up the deportations of failed applicants, said Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, announcing the deal. A dispute over tighter immigration rules has been straining the ruling coalition, which includes Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavaria-based Christian Social Union (CSU) sister party, as well Gabriel's SPD. All three parties are eager to show voters that, despite deep divisions, the government is in control of the refugee crisis before three state votes in March and a general election next year. "The mood is good," Gabriel told reporters, signaling unity among the three parties after weeks of tension over CSU leader Horst Seehofer's threat to take Merkel's government to court if his demand to stem the flow of asylum seekers is not met. The new rules, which have been in the works since November and entail a programme for integrating refugees, also include speeding up the process for applicants from so-called safe countries and reducing financial support for asylum seekers. Merkel, whose popularity has slumped over her handling of the crisis, is also holding a meeting with the heads of Germany's 16 states who are demanding more government funds for German courses, schools, kindergartens and policing. German towns and cities say the influx of 1.1 million asylum seekers last year is pushing their resources to the limit and they would not be able to accommodate more newcomers if the numbers do not go down. The number of asylum seekers crossing the German border from Austria every day fell to some 700 over the last several days from more than 2,000 earlier in the year. German officials say the decrease is linked to winter and warn of a spike in spring. This is the second bundle of asylum measures agreed by the government, which pushed a first package of tighter immigration rules in October. Gabriel said that while tightening the rules to discourage migrants from reaching Germany illegally, the government wanted to bring Syrian refugees from camps in Lebanon and Jordan. Obama's pick to lead US forces in Afghanistan to review drawdown By Phil Stewart WASHINGTON, Jan 28 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's pick to lead U.S. forces in Afghanistan said on Thursday he aimed to review a campaign plan that would cut American troop levels by nearly half by the start of next year, as he acknowledged deteriorating security in the country. Lieutenant General John Nicholson's Senate confirmation hearing underscored anxiety in Congress about Obama's withdrawal plan, which has already been slowed to address Afghanistan's struggle to blunt a still-resilient Taliban insurgency. The emergence of Islamic State as a threat in Afghanistan has added to U.S. concerns. Nicholson acknowledged gaps in Afghan military capabilities and said during his Senate confirmation hearing he aimed to complete his review of the situation in Afghanistan within his first 90 days in command, if confirmed by Congress. He was careful not to disclose any potential recommendations he might make. Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said cutting U.S. troop levels from 9,800 to 5,500 as planned could undermine efforts to both bolster Afghan forces and combat al Qaeda and Islamic State militants. "It's time to immediately halt U.S. troop withdrawals and eliminate any target date for withdrawal," McCain said. Nicholson said he agreed with plans by the outgoing commander, General John Campbell, to keep as many troops in Afghanistan for as long as possible before reducing them to 5,500 U.S. troops, as ordered, by Jan. 1, 2017. But he also said preparations for that drawdown would need to start in the coming months. A blunt Pentagon report released last month said the security situation in Afghanistan deteriorated in the second half of 2015, with Taliban militants staging more attacks and inflicting far more casualties on Afghan forces. The grim outlook prompted Obama in October to scale back his drawdown plans, which had previously seen the United States drawing down to an embassy-based presence by 2017. The White House has also recently given the military broad authority to target Islamic State in Afghanistan. Nicholson said the Taliban came at the Afghan forces "more intensely than perhaps we anticipated." "Because of that, we did not make the advances we projected we thought we would make," he said. Nicholson listed capability gaps within Afghan forces including in intelligence, air support and the evacuation of wounded forces from the battlefield. The Pakistan army chief of staffs resolve to retire on time merits little or no discussion in established democracies around the world. Be it Westminster-style or Indian democracy. In fact, such developments attract no banner headlines. The Pakistani context, although, is a bit different. A bit complex. With November 2016 set as retirement date for his three-year stint in office, Sharifs announcement not to seek extension may have different connotations and interpretations in this part of the world. Like retirements, appointment to the top army four-star position in civilian eras attract the media attention galore. The uneasy history of civil-military relations, military coups of the past, make the latest announcement by Sharif not to seek extension in service is major news by Pakistani standards. It has always been a sensitive issue in the past, with many strings attached. In this context, civilian government of the day still cautiously observe every move of the garrison, as was seen recently. A bit of over exposure for the general in the mainstream media and the unnecessary glorification on social media was enough to send alarm bells ringing across power corridors. Sceptics believed an extension was being sought for Shareef through an unseen but systematic campaign. Overzealous supporters wanted an extension of term without delay. Seeing an unnecessary controversy in sight, the man himself cleared the air. Even then some analysts are still in disbelief, urging the government to convince the general not to retire on the said date; continue for some more months, may be another full term. But as soon as the announcement was made on January 26 through the official spokesman of the military, it was a breaking news then and there. Unprecedented, as none of the past military chiefs, especially the ones who served during the civil eras, made such prior announcements. The last army chief general Ashfaq Kiyani had instead secured a three-year extension for himself. It was a quid pro quo of sorts. Facing allegations of corruption and misrule, and at the brink of economic meltdown, the last PPP regime felt relieved to dole out a favour to the then military chief. In return, it secured a complete five-year term in office. But that extension didnt go down well for the very repute of general Kiyani, despite the hallmark Swat valley and South Waziristan operations to his credit. Even after two years of his retirement, allegations of nepotism haunt the former army chief as his brother is being investigated by countrys accountability watchdog in a multibillion housing scam. Keeping in view unceremonious ousters of elected governments in the late 1980s and 1990s with tacit approval of successive military regimes, the present day government in Pakistan tends to act overcautiously. The five-month long sit-in by Imran Khan-led PTI in the heart of the Pakistani capital in 2014 was seen in the same context. Khan and religious cleric Dr Tahirul Qadri wanted to overthrow prime minister Nawaz Sharif by crippling the government and had attacked Parliament and prime ministers house. Some top military men, having retired in October that year, were said to be sympathetic towards principle demand of the agitators that prime minister Sharif should step down, to pave way for judicial inquiry into the 2013 elections rigging allegations. Sharif didnt side with agitators, or conspirators. The agitation finally subsided and had to be called off after the Army Public School, Peshawar massacre in which 130-plus students and teachers were gunned down in cold blood. The attack changed the whole dynamics of the countrys approach towards tackling and eliminating extremism and militancy. A large-scale military operation against Pakistani Taliban, launched in June that year, was already in full-swing. The situation gave birth to the 20-point National Action Plan, devised by all political forces with the military establishments input. Military courts were set up, sectarian extremist outfits and their affiliates were banned, and thousands were rounded up. Scores were sent to gallows. Since then, much has been done and a lot is underway. As a by product, critics says, the military establishment secured more influence, overall. In actual terms, however, it had more to do with inaction and lethargic attitude of the political elite, than alleged covert plans of the military establishment to dominate the national scene. Taking over command of Pakistani military at the end of year 2013 was more challenging as compared to yesteryears. It was exactly the time when terrorism was striking and every nook and corner of Pakistan was termed as an "existential threat" to the country. Unlike his predecessors, the incumbent chief treaded a different approach. A professional soldier to the core, he did not like to indulge in past practice to exploit situations for personal goals. To his credit, he hails from a decorated military family having secured two top military medals in the past one by his martyred elder brother, the other by his uncle. Preserving his military family honour and reputation has always been top priority on his agenda. The incumbent seems focused in transforming the Army and ISI into a more disciplined, apolitical force to improve professional image of the institution. Crux of the effort has been to disengage from unnecessary civil-military confrontation controversies, and focus on real threats facing the country. Hence the latest announcement, at least 10 months prior to the retirement date. Official narrative suggests it was done to put to rest unnecessary speculation. As some fear it weakensresolve of the top general in weeks and months ahead, others predict more bravado fight against terrorist elements, focused large scale law and order operations. And to top it all, targeted operations against abettors and financiers of terrorism an area that recently hit snags due to false flags of political victimisation raised by PPPs government in Sindh province. Some of its former ministers and blue-eyed bureaucrats were rounded up on serious charges of corruption linked to terror financing. Restoring normalcy to chaos hit Karachi countrys only megapolis, sea port and financial hub through a resolute paramilitary operation was the most daunting task after elections in mid-2013. Effort of the last two-and-a-half years suggest a marked decline in sectarian killings and kidnappings for ransom. Premier Sharif picked the incumbent general from amongst the top hopefuls in November 2013, applying seniority cum professional standing crietaria. In doing so, recommendations of the then army chief general Ashfaq Kiyani were ignored. Both the Sharifs, civilian and military, had daunting challenges of their own to meet in days and months ahead. A dwindling economy, law and order blues in countrys financial capital Karachi, terror attacks across the country due to Pakistani Taliban led insurgency in tribal areas, and worst law and order situation in some parts of Balochistan, were some challenging tasks. Till date, almost half way into the task, Premier Sharif carries a mix baggage of successes and failures. For general Sharif, the challenges were more hands-on and challenging in nature. Streamlining military affairs, coupled with need to boost morale of the army was equally daunting. Now, he has a new crop of qualified, like-minded generals at his disposal. It was in June 2014, exactly seven months into his new shoes, when the top Army general launched a surprise military operation in North Waziristan, putting to end efforts to engage Pakistani Taliban umbrella group in talks. The operation is at its final stage, these days. His score card seems more convincing in terms of delivering results. With 90 per cent of the tribal areas, including North Waziristan, now cleared of insurgents, the task at hand is to establish permanent peace. The task is daunting as it is directly linked to peace in neighbouring Afghanistan. Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy Del. Nick Freitas, R-Culpeper, wants to implement local and state review over what he considers to be an insufficient federal refugee resettlement process, and recently introduced House Bill 1349 to establish such measures. The refugee situation is on everyones mind right now, obviously a lot of concern, and I think I bring a unique perspective with respect to having served in Iraq, said the Army veteran and first-term state lawmaker. Syria has been the biggest concern, but in many cases its a regional concern. Freitas said while most Virginians support helping people fleeing terrorist regimes, especially children, the states security is paramount. What we dont want to let into the commonwealth are terrorists, he said. Freitas said the federal review process falls short. The federal government is theoretically providing some sort of vetting process, but elements of the Obama administration have already admitted its not sufficient, he said. Im going to take them at their word and Im going to make sure Virginia has a plan and the ability to protect our citizens. House Bill 1349 proposes that the Virginia State Police conduct background checks on refugees before confirming that they dont pose a security threat to the state: Only refugees certified by the State Police not to pose a security threat may be resettled according to the bill. The governor could, however, override the state police certification and decline resettlement of refugees. If the governor determines that a refugee is eligible for resettlement such refugee shall be required to submit detailed personal information, including information regarding education level, professional licenses or certifications and work experience, according to the bill. Such refugee shall also be required to take a test to establish his proficiency with the English language and submit to a medical examination. Per the legislation, the department of social services would develop a resettlement plan for refugees and notify local government, law enforcement and the commonwealths attorney at least 60 days before the resettlement date. This isnt something that now that weve determined there is no threat were just going to drop them off somewhere, Freitas said. We want local communities to be involved in that process so that we can accurately predict the impact with respect to public services. Thats the second part of the vetting process. Finally, as part of his bill, any refugee resettled in Virginia would be required to report to local law enforcement within three days of arriving and on a monthly basis for a year. When someone first comes over and starts to resettle, theres still a security concern. We want to make sure the community is getting to know this individual, the Culpeper delegate said. The other thing is that many of these people are coming from countries where they dont trust their law enforcement and we want to make sure that were establishing a relationship with local law enforcement so they know this is someone they can trust. Freitas said his bill, in addition to addressing the safety of Virginia citizens, would protect refugees. Terrorists prey on refugee camps for recruitment so if you dont have a good vetting program you can encourage terrorists to prey off of refugees for purposes of infiltration into other areas, he said. I think our refugee bill does a good job of assuaging the very reasonable concerns of our own citizens while at the same time being able to provide protection for refugees. Freitas added that since his legislation essentially seeks to support federal policy that it would also require federal financial reimbursement for the state police vetting process. Asked about the bill, Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corrine Geller said, per policy, the agency does not comment on pending legislation. The issue of refugee resettlement took center stage back in November when it was revealed that at least one of the suspects believed to be involved in the Paris terror attacks entered Europe among the current wave of Syrian refugees. At the time, Brian Coy, spokesman for Gov. Terry McAuliffe, said in a statement to the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the governor and his public safety team were in constant communication with federal authorities on all refugee resettlements, and that all refugees settled in the U.S. undergo intensive security screening. U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, said at the time that refugee admission to America generally takes more than a year and a half, requiring approval by the National Counterterrorism Center, CIA, FBI, Homeland Security and Department of Defense. In the last three months of last year, 248 refugees were relocated to localities around Virginia, according to the Refugee Processing Center, a function of the U.S. Department of State. Of those, 33 percent were from Iraq; 16.1 percent from Afghanistan and 14.1 percent from Bhutan. House Bill 1349, introduced Jan. 21, was referred to the House Committee on General Laws. The Virginia Department of Social Services manages the states refugee resettlement program, partnering with 120 local departments as well as nonprofit and faith-based groups to promote the well-being of children and families statewide, according to the state plan for fiscal year 2016. Virginias primary goals for newly arriving refugees are durable economic self-sufficiency and social integration into Virginias communities, the plan said. Virginia accomplishes these goals through its model of comprehensive refugee resettlement service delivery. Through social services, refugees are eligible to receive cash, medical and employment assistance and other support services. DaytonLocal.com - 404 Page Not Found Bother... the page you're looking for has either been misplaced (sorry) or it may have been deleted. We do hope you find what you're looking for anyways. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us. Terrorism and how best to contain the challenge was the central theme of French President Francois Hollandes three-day visit to India as chief guest for the Republic Day parade. Prior to what is often billed as the worlds most spectacular and colorful parade, there was considerable anxiety among intelligence professionals about a possible terror attack in Delhi given that the French President is a high visibility target. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) had threatened to avenge the death of its cadres who carried out the November 13 Paris attack and were neutralised by French security forces. Prime Minister Narendra Modi revealed that soon after the Paris attack he had decided to invite Mr Hollande to the Republic Day parade as a mark of solidarity apropos the terror menace. Predictably, the joint statement issued by India and France on counter-terrorism is explicit and names the various groups that have a South Asia-Pakistan connection. The relevant section notes: Stressing that terrorism cannot be justified under any circumstance, regardless of its motivation, wherever and by whomsoever it is committed, both leaders asked for decisive actions to be taken against Lashkar-e-Tayabba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Hizbul Mujahideen, the Haqqani network and other terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda. Condemning the recent terror attacks in Pathankot and Gurdaspur in India, the two countries reiterated their call for Pakistan to bring to justice their perpetrators and the perpetrators of the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, which also caused the demise of two French citizens, and to ensure that such attacks do not recur in the future. Mr Hollande commended India for its stabilising role in South Asia, particularly in Afghanistan, and its recent initiative to launch a comprehensive dialogue with Pakistan. But will this attempt to resume dialogue with Pakistan yield any positive outcome when it comes to terrorism? This question acquires greater relevance against the backdrop of the terror attack on the Bacha Khan University in Chardassa (January 20) and the killing of innocent students, recalling the horror that was unleashed on an Army school in Peshawar in December 2014. That the Pakistani deep state supports certain terror groups as part of its strategic depth policy is well documented. Its origin goes back to the early 1980s when the image of a mujahideen holding the Quran in one hand and a Kalashnikov in the other became the visual symbol of resistance against the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan. Over the years, General Zia-ul-Haq honed the policy of Islamisation of Pakistan both state and society with active Saudi support. The inflexible Wahhabi-Salafi strand of Sunni Islam became the dominant theological denomination and the Punjabi ethnicity enabled to become the ruling dispensation in the post 1971 truncated Pakistan. Creating and nurturing terror groups against India (LeT and JeM among others) and supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan was part of this security policy that Rawalpindi, the general headquarters of the Pakistan Army, alone controlled much to the chagrin of the civilian leadership in Islamabad and this arrangement was subtly endorsed by Pakistans principal benefactors. The United States, China and Saudi Arabia were more than aware of this Rawalpindi support-to-terror policy and accepted it as part of a complex quid pro quo to advance their own interests. The global discourse about jihad-driven terrorism which had reared its bloody head in the mid 1990s was shaped in such a manner that Pakistans dubious role was excluded though the mainstream Western media and intelligence agencies were more than aware of this policy. Consequently, a meta-narrative was created about Pakistan being in the forefront of the US-led global war against terror and this charade was maintained till the fiasco of Osama bin Laden being in Abbottabad and the perfidy of the Rawalpindi GHQ was revealed in May 2011. But even the enormity of this disclosure was glossed over by the US and its allies, and the image of Pakistan as a victim of terror was kept alive. The Faustian bargain that Pakistan had entered became evident when the same terror groups turned against the Pakistan state and military and targeted General Pervez Musharraf. His attempt at trying to clear the Lal Masjid in Islamabad of the jihad supporting right-wing in 2007 marked the end of his tenure and over the next few years the terror groups became even more audacious Mumbai 2008 is illustrative of this. The terror footprint within Pakistan has no doubt grown, as Peshawar and Chardassa have demonstrated. But the selective policy approach of Rawalpindi cannot be ignored. This is what compelled then US secretary of state Hillary Clinton to observe that Pakistan was keeping snakes in the backyard and expecting them to only bite the neighbours. What is instructive is that notwithstanding the tragedy of Peshawar and the responsibility claimed by the local Taliban, the spin doctors in Pakistan were again seeking to pin the blame on India. The hope that Peshawar was the turning point in Pakistans internal battle against terror was belied and Chardassa happened. Students who did not want to, had been converted into martyrs. The make-believe continues and the Economist noted of the two attacks: With more imagination than evidence, Pakistani conspiracy theorists saw India behind both acts of violence on their soil, and sagely counseled that Pakistan must bring its Frankensteins to heel. This is a prescription that even US President Barack Obama reiterated. While describing the Pathankot attack as another example of the inexcusable terrorism that India has endured for too long, he noted that Pakistan can and must take more effective action against terrorist groups operating in its territory by de-legitimising, disrupting and dismantling such networks. But will it do so? On current evidence, this appears unlikely for the deep state in Pakistan remains tenaciously committed to its own charade that the selective approach to terror is ostensibly in their national interest. For national read Rawalpindi GHQ! The writer is director, Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi Preparations go in full swing for the Maritime Exhibition in Andhra University Engineering Grounds for the IFR. Visakhapatnam: The Maritime Exhibition coming up at Andhra University Engineering College grounds, as part of International Fleet Review (IFR) will give a sneak peak to the public into the operations of Indian Navy and also give an idea about Indian Navys thrust on indigenisation, under Make in India concept. A thematic entrance is being created which through a unique sound and light show depicts various facets of war and peace time Indian Naval operations such as anti-piracy, low intensity maritime operations, human aid and disaster relief including foreign cooperation. Performance by the Royal Australian Naval (RAN) Band at the exhibition and IFR village is expected to be a highlight during the IFR. Maritime exhibition is a platform showcasing self-reliance of Indian Navy through innovation and indigenisation by PSUs and private firms which have immensely contributed to the military might of our country. The exhibition also showcases Make in India concept, said a Navy official. Day performances of art forms like Bahurupi, puppet, rangoli, kalbeliya, panch vadya, shiv mudra from different states will showcase the unity in diversity of India. Refugees and migrants wait to embark in police and military vans on a highway near the north-eastern Greek village of Thourio, at the Greek-Turkish border. (Photo: AP) Athens: Under fire over its handling of the EU's migration surge, Greece cannot hope to manage the influx unless Brussels and neighbouring Turkey keep their side of the bargain, experts say. The European Commission on Wednesday blasted Greece for "seriously" neglecting its border obligations and gave Athens three months to remedy the problem. A damning EU report researched in November found insufficient registering and fingerprinting of migrants entering Greece from Turkey, the main gateway for refugees fleeing war in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. This came after a succession of eastern EU states this week said Greece was failing to protect the exterior borders of Europe's passport-free Schengen zone, with some threatening to make Bulgaria and Macedonia the cutoff point if Athens is unable to staunch the inflow. "If Greece and Turkey fail to protect the outer border and we are unable to cope with strong migrant pressure, we will have to discuss a plan B," Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said on Tuesday. Austria, Poland and Hungary have voiced similar criticism. The pressure rose further with a senior Belgian official floating the idea of Greece being forced to host hundreds of thousands of migrants as punishment. "The Greeks must suffer the consequences," Theo Francken, secretary of state for migration, told public broadcaster VRT. "Hosting 200-300,000 people in camps on external borders is the sole possibility of halting the flow of refugees in the short-term." Greece has reacted angrily to the criticism, with government spokeswoman Olga Gerovassili accusing EU partners of shifting blame instead of working together to end the continent's worst migration crisis since World War II. "This tactic of diverting responsibility is not an effective response to a problem of historic dimensions, which requires joint action," she said Wednesday, pointing to Turkey as key in resolving the crisis. 'A game of bluff' EU border agency Frontex this week acknowledged that the Aegean Sea, which claims the lives of migrants and their children almost on a daily basis, "is not a field that can be fenced." "A game of bluff among EU states is now in the process of blowing up," says Henri Labayle, a law professor at the University of Pau, France. Though Greece has long failed to meet its obligations, Labayle noted the "complete contradiction" of Athens being forced to axe state jobs under its economic bailout, and then being castigated for not having enough border staff. In the last few months, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, France and non-EU member Norway have all introduced temporary controls over the migrant crisis, but with a limit of six months. Philippe Leclerc, acting representative of the UN refugee agency in Greece, warns that border closures would have serious ramifications for debt-hit Greece. "Over 2,000 people cross (from Greece into Macedonia) on a daily basis," he said. "Should this procedure slow or stop altogether, it would have considerable repercussions on Greece." Countries along the Balkan migrant route last year began restricting entry only to refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. And Macedonia last week began intermittently closing its Greek border, only allowing passage to refugees wishing to go to Germany or Austria. Another change of policy on which nationalities to accept could leave tens of thousands requiring winter shelter, Leclerc adds. "There is great fear (in Europe) and it leads to divisive and unilateral moves by nations," Yannis Mouzalas, Greece's junior migration minister, told Skai TV this week. A former senior member of Doctors of the World, Mouzalas says screening centres known as hotspots would be fully operational on five Greek islands by early March. "It's very difficult to build a hotspot when in the same hotspot every day you have 10,000 immigrants," he said. He has insisted that despite the shortages, identification of migrants has been dutifully carried out for months, enabling Greek police to track the passage of at least two men who took part in November's jihadist attacks in Paris. Mouzalas has repeatedly noted that Greece has received far less in staff and equipment than originally pledged by Europe. "The Greeks in August wanted an additional 1,600 staff. Frontex promised 750, and 300 are currently available," says a European security source. Turkey has taken little action to stop the activities of people smugglers on its coasts whilst also placing obstacles to repatriation of economic migrants. "In recent days Turkey took back 123 migrants and sent over 60,000," Mouzalas told Skai TV on Wednesday. "The Turks only take their own back... They refuse 98 percent of relocation demands," says the European security source. "We did everything we had to, we condemned" the attack, Rouhani said of the torching of the embassy earlier this month by demonstrators protesting the execution of a prominent cleric from Saudi Arabia's Shiite minority. (Photo: AP) Rome: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday he hoped his country could reconcile with fellow Middle Eastern powerhouse Saudi Arabia, but refused to apologise for an attack on a Saudi embassy. "We did everything we had to, we condemned" the attack, Rouhani said of the torching of the embassy earlier this month by demonstrators protesting the execution of a prominent cleric from Saudi Arabia's Shiite minority. "We arrested the culprits, it was right to do so and we did," he said, insisting the ball was now in Saudi Arabia's court. "Why should we apologise? Because (cleric) Nimr al-Nimr was executed? We are the ones to apologise because they are killing the people of Yemen? Apologise to them because they are helping terrorists?" he asked. "We do not want tensions with Saudi Arabia to continue," he said, but insisted there was "no justification" for what he described as Riyadh's "aggressive" policies in the region. "They are the ones who should apologise to Muslim people, hundreds of times," he said. The Gulf kingdom and some of its allies severed diplomatic relations with Iran over the January 2 embassy attack. Iran previously said it had arrested 40 people over the incident in Tehran, and another four after Riyadh's consulate in Mashhad was set alight. Zika means overgrown in Luganda language. The name comes from a forest in Uganda where the first infected rhesus monkeys were found. Geneva: The World Health Organisation said on Thursday it expects three to four million cases of the Zika virus in the Americas, as fears mount over the rapid spread of the disease blamed for birth defects. We can expect three to four million cases of the Zika virus disease, said Marcos Espinal, the head of communicable diseases and health analysis at the WHOs regional office in the Americas. The Zika virus is spreading explosively in the Americas, the head of the WHO said , as the global health body warned that it expected up to four million cases of the disease. WHO chief Margaret Chan called for an emergency meeting on February 1 on the outbreak of the virus, which has been blamed for the birth defect microcephaly, a condition that causes babies to be born with an abnormally small head. The level of alarm is extremely high, Chan said, adding that the meeting of WHOs Emergency Committee will seek to determine if the outbreak qualifies as an international public health emergency. The virus is now spreading explosively, in the Americas, where 23 countries and territories have reported cases, the WHO chief said. Marcos Espinal, the head of communicable diseases and health analysis at the WHO's Americas office, said the region should expect three to four million cases of Zika, without proving a timeframe for the outbreak to ramp up to that level. Following its initial discovery in a monkey in Uganda's Zika forest in 1947, the disease slumbered and occasionally caused a mild disease of low concern, in humans, Chan said. The situation today is dramatically different. Chan highlighted the growing concern over Zika's possible link to microcephaly and a neurological disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome. A causal relationship between Zika virus infection and birth malformations and neurological syndromes has not yet been established, but is strongly suspected, Chan said. The emergency meeting will seek advice on the severity of the outbreak and what response measures might be taken. It will also aim to identify priority areas for urgent research, Chan said, after US President Barack Obama called for swift action, including better diagnostic tests as well as the development of vaccines and treatments. Espinal warned that Zika will go everywhere the mosquito is. We should assume that. We should not wait for it to spread, he said. Drawing a contrast with Ebola, Espinal stressed that Zika needs a carrier to spread and that controlling the mosquito was therefore crucial to controlling the outbreak. WHO has previously said that it expects Zika to spread to every country in the Americas except Canada and Chile. Brazil has been the country hardest hit so far, and concerns are growing about this summer's Olympics, which is likely to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors to host city Rio de Janeiro in August. Zika originated in Africa and also exists in Asia and the Pacific, but has not been associated with microcephaly there. It first came to prominence in Brazil in October. So, whats Zika? Zika means overgrown in Luganda language. The name comes from a forest in Uganda where the first infected rhesus monkeys were found. The virus was first identified in a monkey in Africa in 1947. Within several years the virus had jumped to humans in Uganda and Tanzania. How is it transmitted Like dengue, chikungunya, two similar diseases, Zika is transmitted by mosquito found in tropical and sub-tropical regions: Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, or tiger mosquitoes. Cause of worry Disease suspected of causing 2 serious complications: neurological problems and birth defects in babies born to infected women. Nerve-testing The main neurological complication is Guillain-Barre syndrome, in which the immune system attacks nervous system, causing weakness and sometimes paralysis. Most patients recover, but the syndrome is sometimes deadly. Microcephaly and other brain deformities in newborns were reported, particularly in Brazil. The treatment There is no vaccine for Zika, and no specific treatment patients simply pain-killers and other pills to fight symptoms. Prevention is better Water bodies were fumigated to stop mosquitoes breeding. A madrasa teacher and two others have been arrested for demanding Rs 50 lakh to hand over a 12-year-old boy who was already dead, killed by another gang which had kidnapped him last year. The boys decomposed body was found days after his kidnapping and his alleged killers, three juveniles, nabbed. But last week, the madrasa teacher and his accomplices told the boys father that he was still alive and in their possession, police said on Wednesday. Mohammad Burahanuddin, Sameer and Billa were nabbed in Uttar Pradeshs Saharanpur. Burahanuddin is a mufti at a madrasa. On January 20, Jafrabad-based businessman Mehraz Hassan received a call on his mobile phone, demanding the money. They claimed that his son Adi was in their possession, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (North East) Veenu Bansal. Another ransom call was made on Jan 21 following which Mehraz filed a complaint with Jafrabad police station. A case under sections 387 (putting person in fear of death to commit extortion) and 507 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code was registered. A police team went to Saharanpur and arrested the three men. Burahanuddin told police that he had met Mehraz in December 2015. Mehraz believed in Burahanuddins spiritual powers, police said. As Adis body was decomposed and couldnt be identified, Mehraz believed that he may have been still alive. Burahanuddin told Mehraz that he will find a solution. At the same time, Burahanuddin conspired with a man named Tabrez to extort money with the help of his associates. Tabrez and his accomplices had made the ransom call. Mehraz was threatened not to inform police, Bansal said. Kidnapping Last year, three juveniles living in the neighbourhood were apprehended for kidnapping and killing Mehrazs son. They had told police that they kidnapped Adi on September 13, kept his body at a rented accommodation for 24 hours, and later dumped it near a railway track in northeast Delhis Mansarovar Park. They first forced Adi to consume cannabis and then strangled him, Bansal added. The three juveniles were apprehended when they made a call to Mehraz demanding Rs 10 lakh. Mehraz lives with his wife and two sons. The Delhi government is planning to send a delegation to study elevated Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridors and tolled expressways in Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia and Singapore. The plan seems timed around the dismantling of south Delhis Ambedkar Nagar-Moolchand BRT corridor that evoked public anger for causing inconvenience over the past eight years. Sources said the delegation to the Southeast Asian country may also include Public Works Department Minister Satyendar Jain, who has been instrumental in saving around Rs 350 crore in an elevated road project in north Delhi. Engineers from the same team which successfully completed the elevated road project are likely to be roped in for the new BRT project, said an official. Assessment of the benefits from the elevated road between Mangolpuri-Madhuban Chowk would also be considered to prepare a Delhi specific model of a network of elevated roads for congestion- free movement of vehicles, said an official. The Johor Bahru Rapid Transit System to link Singapore with Malaysia and the BRT Sunway Line in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia are likely to be studied during the visit, said an official, adding that the AAP government now is keen on a BRT corridor in which the buses move on the extreme left lane and not in the middle as on the Ambedkar Nagar-Moolchand BRT corridor. While starting the demolition of the Delhi BRT on January 19, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had described it as a bad copy paste exercise from abroad. The Rs 180 crore BRT corridor was built in 2008 by the Congress government led by the Sheila Dikshit. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has also dropped strong hints about his government looking at a drastic solution like a double-decker elevated roads which would dedicate one level to BRT and the other for signal free toll expressway for fast traffic movement. Kejriwal is looking at the possibility of a high toll rate for those who use the expressway for their private vehicles and subsidise the public transport system. A proposal to build an elevated road over the existing Ring Road was struck down in the mid-2000s. Another proposal for elevated East-West corridor ran into trouble in 2011 due to objections related to heritage site falling on its route. According to Sisodia, the demolition of the existing BRT corridor was a poll promise which the government is fulfilling. The cabinet decided to scrap the BRT corridor in July 2015. The dismantling of over five km stretch of BRT will be completed by February at a cost of around Rs 3.5 crore. An indefinite strike by municipal employees demanding timely wages began on Wednesday with a partial impact as garbage started building up in some areas and school kids and patients were turned back from schools and hospitals. A bulk of sanitation workers, teachers, doctors and engineers kept away from work and hundreds of agitating employees held a protest outside the residence of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal demanding release of funds by the AAP government for payment of their salaries and arrears. An official in the North Corporation said some employees did work despite the strike call given by workers unions. Skeletal staff was present in hospital emergency, he said. On the whole, garbage was not lifted from some community bins, teachers did not take classes in schools, building department engineers did not go out in field for demolitions, dog catchers and health inspectors also stayed away from work and a bulk of nurses and doctors abstained from work. As the Delhi High Court tasked the police commissioner to work closely with the corporations to ensure smooth functioning of civic offices and lifting of garbage, a verbal war broke out between the ruling AAP and the BJP which controls the three corporations. The Congress blamed both the BJP and the AAP government for the crisis. Rajender Mewati, general secretary, United Front of MCD Employees, said The strike would continue. We will review the situation on January 29 on the future course. A threat of an epidemic may loom if agitating staff does not budge in and garbage starts piling up in the coming days. The Kejriwal government dished out figures of payments made to the civic agencies for payment of salaries while the BJP demanded early release of more funds and implementation of the Fourth Finance Commission report which recommends a larger pool of funds for the cash-starved civic agencies from the Delhi governments tax revenue. Workers attached to the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) had gone on strike over similar demands in October last year. But the strike was called off after the High Court directed the AAP government to release funds for salaries. Apart from salaries and arrears, the employees are now seeking regularisation of contract-based employees and unification of the three corporations. In a joint statement, the three Mayors - Subhash Arya, Harsh Malhotra and Ravindra Gupta - said that Kejriwal government was responsible for the inconvenience caused to the people due to the collapse of municipal services. Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay, himself a councillor, demanded that the AAP government should implement the previous finance commission report and set up the Fifth Finance Commission on municipal finances. In a hurried-called press briefing, Delhi governments Tourism Minister Kapil Mishra alleged scams in the BJP-ruled civic agencies and said an attempt was being made to vilify the AAP government and create a humiliating situation in the city. The municipal commissioners have already given in writing that the money needed by the civic agencies for payment of salaries has already been paid, he said, adding that MCDs are not showing any interest in recovering their Rs 1,555 crore dues from the centre-controlled Delhi Development Authority. Delhi Congress chief spokesperson Sharmistha Mukherjee said with the MCD employees going on yet another strike for non-payment of their salaries, a despicable situation has arisen in Delhi, which was due to the rampant corruption and inefficiency in the BJP-ruled MCDs. She said the AAP government was also to be blamed for the present mess in the MCDs as it was its apathetic attitude that has worsened the financial crisis in the MCDs. World number one Serena Williams demolished Polish fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska today to surge into her 26th Grand Slam final and zero in on a seventh Australian Open title. The dominant top seed was untouchable in overpowering the Pole 6-0, 6-4 in just 64 minutes on Rod Laver Arena to set up a decider against German seventh seed Angelique Kerber or unseeded Briton Johanna Konta. Kerber and Konta play later Thursday, with whoever wins facing a huge obstacle to be crowned champion. Of her 25 previous major finals, Williams has won 21. "I'm really excited to be in another final, it kind of blows my mind right now," said Williams, 34. "I feel I am playing the best I can, and I can't believe I am in the final. "I started playing aggressive again in the second set and it worked out." The writing was on the wall for Radwanska -- Williams had never lost a semi-final at Melbourne Park on her way to six titles, and had beaten the Pole in each of their previous eight meetings stretching back to 2008. She crushed long-time rival Maria Sharapova in the quarter-finals and dished out the same treatment to Radwanska, halting her 13-match win streak in emphatic fashion. The victory puts her just one win away from matching Steffi Graf's Open-era Grand Slam record of 22 titles, with Margaret Court's all-time mark of 24 edging closer. In her 16th Australian Open, Williams, who said this week she had no plans to retire any time soon, got on the front foot immediately, and effortlessly. Within a minute of the match starting she had a break point as she hit clean winners and attacked the net. It was the worst possible opening for Radwanska, with Williams, the oldest world number one in WTA history, breaking and then using her huge power advantage to easily hold serve, racing 2-0 clear with a smash at the net. Radwanska, 26, was in serious trouble with Williams attacking her vulnerable second serve, and a double fault left her flailing 0-3 behind. The American was hitting booming shots to perfection while Radwanska was struggling to get the ball over the net. Her movement was virtually non-existent and a feeble backhand into the net had the top seed 5-0 ahead after just 17 minutes. Radwanska could do nothing against an opponent playing on a different level and only won seven points the entire set -- four of them from unforced errors by the American. Williams won the set in 20 minutes, one of the fastest of the tournament and humiliating for Radwanska, last year's WTA Finals champion and one of the world's top players. Radwanska finally got off the mark in the opening game of the second set when Williams netted a backhand from the baseline, allowing her opponent to hold serve, to huge applause from the crowd. But it was only a temporary reprieve with Williams holding serve then breaking to march 2-1 clear. The fourth seed finally started finding her range and with some errors leaking into the Williams game, she easily held serve. Radwanska then broke the American to huge roars with a forehand error hauling her level at 3-3. An epic seventh game, including the first deuce of the match, allowed her to hold serve. But an easy Williams hold was followed by another lapse from Radwanska who sent a forehand long to be broken again. Williams, serving for the victory, sent down three booming aces and won it on the first match point, easily keeping intact her record of not dropping a set all tournament. North Korea may be preparing a long-range ballistic missile launch, Japanese media said rsday, following a nuclear test this month that raised international alarm and sparked a diplomatic clash between Washington and Beijing. Imagery collected over the past several days suggested the launch from the western Dongchang-ri site could come in about a week, Kyodo News said, citing a Japanese government source it did not identify. Increased movements of people and vehicles were seen around the launch site, which has now apparently been covered over, national broadcaster NHK said, citing a source familiar with Japan-South Korea relations. The United States regularly monitors North Korea from space while Japan itself began its own satellite monitoring of the country in 2003. North Korea is banned under UN Security Council resolutions from carrying out any launch using ballistic missile technology, although repeated small-range missile tests have gone unpunished. The development parallels events in December 2012, when Pyongyang put a satellite into orbit with its Unha-3 carrier. Eight days before the 2012 launch, the North also put up a covering over the facility to hide the work from the view of satellites, NHK said. The international community condemned the 2012 launch as a disguised ballistic missile test, resulting in a tightening of UN sanctions, despite Pyongyang's claim that it was a scientific mission. The reported preparation of a missile launch came amid a flurry of diplomatic activity over possible further sanctions against Pyongyang for conducting its fourth nuclear test earlier this month. Pyongyang said the blast was a miniaturised hydrogen bomb, though experts have largely dismissed the claim. Washington is pushing for a strong United Nations response, including enhanced sanctions. But China, North Korea's chief diplomatic protector and economic benefactor, is reluctant, despite ties becoming strained in recent years as Beijing's patience wears thin with its neighbour's ambitions for nuclear weapons. US Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Wednesday and said they had agreed to mount an "accelerated effort" to try to resolve their differences on a new resolution. But Kerry, who said nuclear-armed North Korea poses an "overt threat, a declared threat to the world", acknowledged that the two had not agreed on the "parameters of exactly what it would do or say". Two jail officials and a policeman were today suspended after "item songs" performance by a woman dancer in the dargah prison campus here on the Republic Day triggered a controversy. Action had been taken against the jail in charge P S Ambekar, Warden Sampat and Head Constable Gundalli based on the report from Vijayapura District Superintendent of Police Siddaramappa, DGP (Prisons) Satyanarayana Rao told reporters. In the video footage aired by some TV channels, currency notes were seen showered on the dancer by a few people around. The event was reportedly held before releasing 38 prisoners from the jail for good conduct. The dance show was held before the district in charge minister M B Patil and other dignitaries arrived at the function and presented release certificates to the convicts. Rao said Bengaluru police team would investigate the incident thoroughly to find out as to who arranged the item songs and for what purpose. He said it should not have happened and instruction would be given to jail officials not commit such mistakes in future. Rao said officials have been asked to keep a vigil on bad elements and illegal activities of prisoners. He said jammers would be installed in the jail campus to stop misuse of mobiles by prisoners. Rao came to the city soon after some TV channels aired video footage of the programme. He said he had given instructions to Belagavi Jail Superintendent to inspect the Vijayapura jail and also asked SP to send report on the incident. Supreme Court today extended the interim bail of social activists Teesta Setalvad and her husband till March 18 but asked them to cooperate in the probe in two criminal cases of alleged embezzlement of funds and Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) lodged against them by the Gujarat Police and the CBI respectively. CBI and the state police told a bench headed by Justice A R Dave that Teesta was not cooperating with the investigation and the couple was also not supplying relevant documents relating to the spending of funds. While Gujarat police is probing the alleged embezzlement of funds for a museum at Ahmedabad's Gulbarg Society that was devastated in the 2002 riots, the CBI is investigating the purported violations of the FCRA in connection with the utilisation of funds received from Ford Foundation by Sabrang Communications and Publishing Pvt Ltd, run by the couple. The submissions of Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar and senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani on behalf of CBI and the state police respectively was refuted by senior advocate Kapil Sibal and Kamini Jaiswal, who said the allegation of non- cooperation was being made against Teesta and her husband Javed Anand as the probe was not suiting the investigators. Taking note of the submissions of both sides, the bench, also comprising Justices F M I Kalifulla and V Gopala Gowda, directed Teesta and Javed that if they have not supplied the relevant documents relating to the embezzlement case to Gujarat Police in accordance with the list provided to them by investigators through April 11, 2015 letter, they will "furnish those documents as soon as possible and preferrably within two weeks." In the FCRA case, the bench asked the couple to file an affidavit within two weeks explaining their stand on the issue of utilisation of funds procured by Sabrang Communications and Publishing Pvt Ltd and posted both the cases for hearing on March 9. At the outset, both CBI and the state police alleged that they were not getting cooperation from Teesta in their probe and the matter of anticipatory bail has been pending for almost a year. "They are not special accused," Jethmalani said while seeking for early hearing of the matter. He said the couple also filed an application on May 6, 2015 in the pending anticipatory bail matter seeking to know the "scope of investigation." Taking note of the submission, the bench orally observed "we will pass an appropriate order giving time for supply of documents and if the order is not complied with, we can even vacate our order (granting anticipatory bail)." When Jaiswal refuted the charge, the bench said "you have to cooperate with the investigation. You should have known by this time which documents are with you and which are not." The Solicitor General said in the FCRA case, CBI was seeking explanation for utilisation of funds received from the Ford Foundation but none of the over 4,700 documents provided related to the probe. What the couple have given to the agency were vouchers relating to air travel, expenditure on wine, liquor, payments made to restaurants and hotels and documents about directors' emoluments, he said. Sibal, who came in the middle of the hearing, said even under the Income Tax Act, the investigators cannot ask for documents for a long period of 2004 to 2016 and at best, they can go for documents of last eight years. However, the bench said "they may be having books of account. You can say on affidavit that under the statute, you are not required to examine records of particular duration." The bench also wanted to know that can under the Income Tax Act, after filing of balance sheets, other documents can be destroyed. The Solicitor General said it is for Teesta to give all explanation. Sibal said despite all the possibilities, he has asked the couple to cooperate in the investigation. An affidavit will be filed on behalf of them in the FCRA case explaining their stand, he added. The apex court on December 1 last, had extended their interim bail till January 31. The Gujarat High Court on February 12, 2015 had rejected their anticipatory bail in the fund embezzlement case which was stayed on the same day after the couple approached the apex court. The CBI has contested the August 11, 2015 order of the Bombay High Court granting anticipatory bail to Teesta and her husband in the FCRA violation case, claiming the court had erred in giving relief after holding "prima facie" that they had violated the law. Earlier too, the apex court had warned the couple that their failure to adhere to the conditions imposed by the High Court may lead to cancellation of their anticipatory bail granted in the FCRA violation case. While the couple has denied all charges claiming they were being victimised for taking up the cause of riot victims, the agency held that 'prima facie' there was misuse of funds they had received from Ford Foundation for which they were "undoubtedly answerable" and the high court ought not have granted them anticipatory bail using its extraordinary discretionary powers. Teesta has also challenged some remarks of the High Court, saying "the observations made by the High Court in para 8 of the impugned judgment are premature, misconceived and unjustified inasmuch as they have been recorded solely on the basis of the malicious allegations of the prosecution and without there being any relevant document or material on record, necessary to adjudicate upon the merits of the matter." Known for his elephantine memory, President Pranab Mukherjee today said some facts from his years in governance will be buried with him as he disclosed some accounts of turbulent years of politics between 1980-1996 in his memoir released today. The second volume of Mukherjee's memoirs, 'The Turbulent Years: 1980-96' was released today by Vice President Hamid Ansari. Addressing a gathering at his book release event, Mukherjee said he did not deliberately speak on matters which are highly confidential and it was for the readers to read and come to their own conclusion. "Many people in their memoirs including Churchill (Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) and many others have written many of the State facts but I had a bit conservative approach as and when facts will be released by the government that people should come to know not from somebody's account who was in the government," the President said. He made a mention of his old habit of writing a page daily in a diary, which has some secrets. "That is why I have advised my daughter who is the custodian of this diary that never release this. You should digitise this but never release it. If you digitise it as and when government will find it necessary to release then they will release. "Even some time I have been confronted with but I avoided that. But I would like to stick to this view and, as I more than often say, some facts are to be buried with me and this can never be revealed and I stick to it," Mukherjee said For the second time, four witnesses failed to appear before a Pakistani anti-terrorism court to record their statement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack case, prompting an annoyed judge to re-summon them. "Four witnesses - both official and private - were to appear in the Anti-Terrorism Court Islamabad which held its hearing at Adiala Jail Rawalpindi yesterday. But they did not appear and no reason was given to the court in this regard," a court official told PTI today. "They had also not appeared in a previous hearing. The judge expressed his annoyance and re-summoned them for next hearing," the official said. The court adjourned the hearing till Wednesday. Earlier, a prosecution lawyer said that the prosecution would challenge in the Lahore High Court the rejection of its plea by the trial court to form a commission to examine the boat used by Mumbai attackers. "We are going to challenge the trial court's decision to reject our plea regarding formation of a commission to examine the boat - Al-Fauz - used by alleged terrorists of Mumbai attacks in the Lahore High Court," he said. He said the prosecution believes that the boat is "case property" and it needs a government commission to examine and endorsement in this respect. On January 13 hearing, the court dismissed the plea of the prosecution. According to the Federal Investigation Agency, the alleged attackers used three boats including Al Fauz to reach Mumbai from Karachi. It said the security agencies had also traced the shop and its owner from where the culprits bought the engine and the boat while a bank and a money exchange company were also traced which were used for the transaction of money. The multiple attacks in Mumbai killed 166 people. Pakistani authorities arrested seven Lashkar-e-Taiba members involved in the planning of the attacks including the terrorist group's operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the mastermind of the Mumbai attack. Six accused -- Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younis Anjum -- have been in Adiala Jail for more than six years in connection with planning and executing the Mumbai attack in November, 2008, that left 166 people killed. Lakhvi, 56, secured bail in December, 2014, and was subsequently released from Adiala Jail on April 10, 2015, after the Lahore High Court set aside the government's order to detain him under a public security act. A case has been underway against them in the ATC since 2009 for their alleged role in the Mumbai attacks. Muslim women today staged a protest demanding entry into a restricted area of the Haji Ali dargah here, a stir that came amid a campaign by a group seeking right for female devotees to offer prayers at inner sanctum of Shani Shingnapur temple in Maharashtra. Several activists belonging to Muslim women groups held placards demanding entry for females into the sanctum sanctorum of the historic dargah, which receives hundreds of devotees everyday. A participant said it was "male patriarchy", and not religion, which was imposing restrictions on women. "This is against tenets of Islam. The Constitution has given you equal rights, Islam supports the Constitution," she added. A Muslim women's rights group is locked in a legal battle with trustees of the Haji Ali dargah, which has barred women's entry into mosque's mausoleum. The Bombay High Court is hearing a petition challenging the Haji Ali Trust's decision to ban the entry of women in the sanctum sanctorum of the dargah (grave of a male Muslim saint). On January 18, the HC said it would wait for Supreme Courts ruling on entry of women in Sabarimala temple of Kerala before deciding on the plea related to the dargah. A bench of Justices V M Kanade and Reveti Mohite-Dere had said both matters involved entry of women in the religious shrines, and hence they would like to see what view the apex court would take on the issue before deciding on the PIL pending before them. The next HC hearing will take place on February 3. The protest in Mumbai broke out two days after members of a group, Bhumata Brigade, were prevented by police from entering into Shani Shingnapur temple in Ahmednagar district to break a 400-year-old tradition banning women from entering its sacred sanctum. After the high-voltage march to the temple by the Bhumata Brigade volunteers, which was foiled mid-way, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis called for a dialogue between temple authorities and activists to find a way out of the row. The popular shrine is dedicated to Lord Shani, who personifies the planet Saturn in Hindu belief. Women devotees are not permitted on the 'chauthara' (sacred platform) of the temple as per the centuries-led tradition followed at the shrine. Nine Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) cadres were today named in a charge sheet filed by National Investigation Agency in last year's terror attack case in Jammu and Kashmir's Udhampur. Two Pakistani terrorists of LeT had on August 5 attacked a BSF convoy in Udhampur. The attack resulted in the death of two BSF personnel while 13 others were injured. The case was subsequently transferred to NIA for investigation. The charge sheet has been filed against the accused Mohammed Naveed alias Usman, Khursheed Ahmed Bhat alias Khursheed Alam Bhat, Showkat Ahmed Bhat, Shabzar Ahmed Bhat, Fayaz Ahmed Ittoo alias Fayaz Khar, Khursheed Ahmed Ittu, Fayaz Ahmed Ashwar alias Setha, Ashiq Hussain Bhat alias Ubaida and Abu Noman, a press release issued by the NIA said. Of the accused, Abu Noman was killed in retaliatory action by the security forces upon the commencement of the instant terrorist attack, while Fayaz Ahmed Ashwar and Ashiq Hussain Bhat are absconding, it said. "The investigation has not only unearthed the specific conspiracy behind the terrorist attack in Udhampur but also the larger conspiracy of the LeT through which Mohammed Naveed alias Usman and his associates were infiltrated and sheltered in Indian territory for committing terrorist acts," the release said. The charge sheet has been filed under various provisions of the Ranbir Penal Code, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Foreigners' Act and the Explosive Act, it said. I feel I am still in the Amazon forests. I pinch myself as I find it hard to relish that my holiday, which was a distant dream, turned real last year, when I went to Machu Picchu and NAZCA Lines and trekked through the Amazon Forests. The tour was organised by National Geographic. Words are not enough to describe the corridors of Machu Picchu and NAZCA lines, so I will try to describe just the thick Amazon Forests. Amazon is an adventure-seekers haven, a photographers paradise, a wildlife conservationists nest and the common mans dream. My wife Varuni and I embarked on this journey on July 5 last year. We set off to Los Angeles, where we spent about three days. From LA, we reached Lima, Peru, where the staff of National Geographic received us. The rest of the group arrived from different parts of the world. The next morning, we flew into Iquitos situated in the North-Eastern region of Lima. Its a Peruvian port city and gateway to the jungle lodges and tribal villages of Northern Amazon. It was the transit city to embark on our cruise Delfin II which has about 16 cabins. The uncharted waters of the Amazon take birth in the Andes mountains and flow from north -eastern Peru to the eastern region, before entering Brazil. Twenty percent of worlds fresh water is in Amazon and one can only imagine its vigour. The whole area, which was covered by the cruise, is known as National Reserve of Pacaya and Samiria. A detailed registration of members was mandatory as we entered the area. The entire zone is very well protected by the Government of Peru. We sailed for about 400 miles in the Amazon. Its a smorgasbord of terrestrial, aerial and aquatic life. The cruise is a different world by itself. We cruised on river Maranon which eventually flows into Amazon. We ventured into the deep jungles and creeks on skiff boats. There were a number of naturalists who helped us spot rare species of the world, that isnt not seen anywhere else. We saw species of orchids, fruits and flowers Pink dolphins, South American fresh water fish Piranha are common in Amazon. We trekked in the forests during the day. The Amazon forest is home to the dangerous Anaconda and Caimans and we had the opportunity to hold a tarantula! We spotted more than 30 species of monkeys. On River Ucayali, which is also a tributary of River Amazon, we had the opportunity to visit some tiny villages on islands. The village folk had a minimalistic way of life and sustainable living. Towards the evening, we let the feeling of treading through the worlds thickest jungle sink in by watching the sunset on the Amazon river. For details, email prakash@sunelectric.co.in How to get there We took a Jet Airways flight to Los Angeles. From there, we proceeded to Lima and then to Iquitos by United Airlines. We took the cruise ship Delfin II to Amazon. The round trip, which also comprised Machu Picchu and NAZCA Lines, cost Rs 26 lakh. Where to stay At Lima, we stayed at The Airport Hotel. We spent nine nights on the Delfin II. Government is likely to come out with its recommendations as well as assessment of losses due to floods in Tamil Nadu within a fortnight as a central team constituted for the purpose has submitted its report, a Parliamentary panel was told today. Briefing the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs chaired by Congress MP from Rajya Sabha P Bhattacharya on the issue, Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi informed that the eight-member inter-ministerial team deputed by the Centre to assess the flood damage in Tamil Nadu has given its report, which is being examined, the sources said. They said that the Home Secretary told the panel the government is likely to come out with its assessment of losses and measures to deal with it within a fortnight as the Parliamentary committee urged the Centre to give liberal assistance to the rain-ravaged state. The eight-member team, led by Joint Secretary in the Union Home Ministry T V S N Prasad, had met Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa after touring the state. The Chief Minister asked them to make an "in-depth assessment" and submit its report to the Union Home Ministry "expeditiously". Jyalalithaa, who has demanded a Central assistance of Rs 25,912 crore, had told the visiting team that the requirement of funds for relief and restoration of infrastructure "are well beyond the resources available with the state". Following the disaster that claimed about 280 lives, the state government submitted a demand for Rs 25,912 crore. The team had earlier also visited the state and made an assessment of damage last year. Besides Chennai, Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur, Cuddalore, Tirunelveli and Tuticorin districts had bore the brunt of the torrential rains during the North East monsoon last year. The panel meeting in which representatives from Home Ministry, Finance Ministry, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and Tamil Nadu government briefed members about the flash flood and the steps taken in the aftermath, members raised a number of questions on the government's preparedness to meet such a crisis and about the quantum of central assistance. The members also wanted the Centre to do more in situations saying Centre cannot abdicate its responsibility during such massive disasters. In the last meeting of the panel on December 18, the Home Secretary had to face the ire of members for leaving the panel's deliberations midway with two TMC MPs even walking out of the committee's meeting, resulting in its postponement. Following this, chairman of the panel and Congress MP from Rajya Sabha P Bhattacharya called Mehrishi again and advised him not to do so in future. In the 31-member panel, the BJP has 13 members, Congress 4, BJD 2, Trinamool Congress 2, AIADMK 3, CPI-M, CPI, SP, TRS, TDP, Shiromani Akali Dal and Shiv Sena one each. NDA members have majority in the panel. The filing of nominations for the upcoming Panchayat elections will be held between February 1 and 8, from 11 am to 3 pm. Yogish H R, deputy director of the Department of Agriculture and also the Election Officer for the Zilla Panchayat elections spoke to reporters at the tahsildars office in the Mini Vidhana Soudha on Thursday. He said that in Dakshina Kannada, the elections will be held under the second phase. February 8 is the last date to submit nominations, which will be scrutinised on February 9. February 11 is the last date to withdraw nominations. The elections will be held on February 20 between 7 am and 5 pm. If needed, re-elections will be held on February 22, he added. The candidates may file their nominations at the Taluk Panchayat office at the Mini Vidhana Soudha, Mangaluru. Jene Mary Tauro, UPORR Investigation Officer, will be the assistant election officer for the Zilla Panchayat elections. Muhammed Isac, Moodbidri special tahsildar, R B Shivashankarappa, Mangaluru tahsildar, Jnanesh, BEO (Mangaluru South), and Usman A, Women and Child Welfare Department development officer, will be the election officers for the Taluk Panchayat elections, said Yogish. Every taluk panchayat election officer will be in charge of nine to 10 taluk panchayat constituencies. BEO Office, Moodbidri, Gazetted Manager Manohar Kamath, Social Welfare Department Gazetted Manager Hemachandra, District Backward Classes and Minority Welfare Office Manager Sundar Naik and BEO Office, Mangaluru North Block Resource Person Vasant Palan will be the assistant election officers for the Taluk Panchayat elections, said the officer. Mangaluru City Corporation Zonal Commissioner M K Pramila will be the nodal officer for observation of election model code of conduct, he added. Yogish further said that there would be 342 polling booths in Mangaluru taluk. As many as 39 sector officers and three flying squads have been appointed. There are 3,07,402 voters in the district. January 30 is the last date for citizens to enrol their names in the voters list, he said. Counting will be done at the Mahatma Gandhi Centenary Higher Primary School, Bondel, in Mangaluru, on February 23 starting 8 am. A control room has been set up for receipt of public grievances related to the elections. The public can seek information or submit complaints by calling 2220587, Yogish said. KSP nominations Election officer Shivashankarappa said that, three nominations had been received for the elections to the district unit of the Kannada Sahitya Parishat. Devaprasad Punaroor, Pradeep Kumar Kalkura and K Mohan Rao were the candidates. The verification was done on Thursday and all nominations have been accepted, said the officer, adding, There are 3,326 voters and 28 polling booths have been set up in the taluk centres of the district for the purpose. The proposals that fetched Davangere a place in the list of 20 cities that are to be developed in the first phase of the Smart City project were titled LIFE (Livable, Inclusive, Financially vibrant, Futuristic city) and focused on edutainment activities in the next five years. The Davangere City Corporation had submitted a Rs 1,307.18-crore proposal after holding discussions with experts, people and consultancies. The proposals included relocating more than 800 puffed rice units which cause pollution to the citys outskirts, scientific disposal of garbage, development of footpath, installation of solar lights, increasing solar-based activities to minimise the use of conventional power, establishing an information centre, building tunnels, underbridges and dedicated bicycle lanes. It also visioned bringing changes in traffic management, improving intra-city transport, development of parks and water bodies, optical fibre network, development of slums and improving toilet and sanitation services. The corporations commissioner, B H Narayanappa, said that 60 per cent of Davangeres five lakh plus population was dependent on tap water. Over 30,000 people applied for housing sites. The rice units employ thousands of people and more than 5,000 people eke out a living by selling Davangere delicacies such as Benne Dose, Mirchi and Mandakki. There are 35 declared slums and 11 undeclared shanties in Davangere. Localities in old Davangere will get priority under the Smart City project, he added. Union Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, G M Siddeshwara, who represents Davangere in Parliament, played a crucial role in the selection of Davangere. District in-charge minister Shamanuru Shivashankarappa also threw his weight behind as the State government will contribute an equal sum under the project. Earlier, Davangere was selected for Atal Mission Rejuvenation of Urban Transportation (Amrut) and received 50 crore. Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Jagadish Shettar on Thursday accused the State government of not properly utilising Rs 30,000 crore received from the Centre in the form of grants, the States share of taxes and relief aid during the financial year: 2015-16. Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, Shettar said the central grants this fiscal had almost doubled compared to previous years. Yet, the government was blaming the Centre for not coming to its aid. Shettar said the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) led government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Centre had released Rs 1,540 crore to the State as drought relief. However, the State government has so far utilised only Rs 83 crore, he claimed. 17.6 pc utilised The State had so far utilised only 17.6 per cent of the Rs 2,012 crore earmarked for the Hyderabad-Karnataka region this financial year, he added. Three jail officers, including the in-charge jail superintendent, have been suspended in connection with the item dance episode on the dargah jail premises in the city on Tuesday. The officers suspended are P S Ambekar, the incharge jail superintendent, chief supervisor (warden) G M Gundalli and supervisor Sampathkumar Kadapatti. This was announced by H N Satyanarayana Rao, DGP (prisons), after his visit to the jail on Thursday. Speaking to mediapersons and after collecting information related to the incident, he said that such an incident should not have happened inside the jail premises. The three officials have been kept under suspension pending inquiry. The superintendent of police of Vijayapura S N Siddaramappa has been directed to inquire into the incident, he said. The dance by the girls has been recorded by the CCTV on the jail premises. Rao lamented that the atmosphere in the Vijayapura central jail was totally fearless, allowing inmates to act as per their will. He stated that stringent measures would be initiated to stop such undesirable freedom of the inmates. The DGP said that the inmates should be taught the lessons of transformation and not of enticement. He said he had come to know that it was Sampathkumar who organised the obscene dance. He said necessary restrictions would be imposed on the prisoners being released on parole. Sub-jailer Naikodi has registered a case against the three suspended officers at the Adarshnagar police station. Vijayapura SP S N Siddaramappa and Belagavi prison superintendent T P Shesha were present with Rao on the occasion. It is said that five to six inmates have threatened to go on a fast in protest against the suspension of the three officers. G M Gundalli, the chief supervisor, pleaded innocence in the case, saying he had let the dancers inside the jail on the instructions of the jail superintendent. DGP (prisons) to conduct probe Home Minister G Parameshwara on Thursday said he had directed a top police officer to conduct a detailed inquiry into the item dance incident at the Vijayapura jail, reports DHNS from Bengaluru. Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, Parameshwarasaid he had asked DGP (prisons) H N Sathyanarayana Rao to conduct an inquiry into the incident, wherein an item dance was performed by two women brought from Mumbai. A circular has been issued stating that such mistakes should not be committed in future, Parameshwara said. Three jail officials have been suspended, pending inquiry by Rao, on Thursday, the minister said. Those suspended include jail incharge superintendent P S Ambekar, chief supervisor (warden) G M Gundalli and supervisor Sampathkumar Kadapatti. On the outcome of the interrogation of six terror suspects from the State arrested by National Investigation Agency (NIA) recently, Parameshwara said he was not aware of the details. As many as 48 ambulances, which are part of the 108 Arogya Kavacha scheme, stayed off roads in Bengaluru on Thursday as drivers and paramedics of the government service went ahead with their strike. Out of about 80 four-wheeler ambulances in Bengaluru, 48 were halted for want of drivers and paramedics while the rest were driven by BMTC and KSRTC drivers who were deployed by the department of health and family welfare late in the night on Wednesday. While staff nurses from several 24-hour primary health centres and other hospitals were called for to be interim paramedics on wheels, sources in the department said many ambulances just saw the drivers on duty and no paramedics. Dr N H Vijaya Mohan Reddy, district health officer, Bengaluru Urban, said that apart from the staff nurses from the health department, nurses had been called from the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palikes hospitals too. Shrishail Hallur, State president, 108 Ambulance Drivers Association, said that the protesting drivers and paramedics met Minister for Health and Family Welfare U T Khader on Thursday. We spoke to him about our concerns. We clarified that we were not protesting for money and that we did not wish to sign the undertaking. He asked us to give it in writing, he added. He said that the minister also told them that the government had done its bit by sanctioning Rs 6.5 crore towards appraisal and that it was their employer, GVK Emergency Management and Research Institute, which had to give its share. Drivers also claimed that when they went to meet representatives of the GVK EMRI, they were handed over a different undertaking with an additional point apart from what was mentioned before. Now they have a new point which states that we will take the representatives of the company along while having discussions with the government and that we will not defame the company before the media, Hallur added. Food and Civil Supplies Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao said the government should not regulate media, but there is a need for the media to adopt self-regulation. He was delivering the inaugural speech of the two-day 11th Global Communication Association (GCA) international conference on Ombudsman: Media and Social Responsibility here on Thursday. The University of Mysore (UoM) is the academic partner of the conference. Describing the current media explosion as digital age, Rao said there is an exponential growth in the process of generation of information and its global reach. However, with the advent of corporates and the allegations of paid news, there are possibilities of information being manipulated before dissemination. If people get manipulated with false information, it may lead to differences of opinion, disharmony, riots and violence. So, media should impose the obligation of social responsibility on itself and try to secure its credibility, he said. The minister said, Media is definitely free in India and that is why it has remained credible. In view of the diversity in the nation, media has been instrumental in keeping the spirit of unity alive. Stating that media has grown powerful because of its reach, the minister said it is the trendsetter because of its influence on people. Politicians always have a grouse against the media. But people get factual information. But, the facts should be checked and crosschecked to retain medias credibility because the thinking process of the people depends on the information. Media should also promote a scientific and rationalistic temper among people, he said. As per the law of the land, an accused is innocent till he is proven guilty. But due to the activism of the media, it is reverse. Now, an accused is not necessarily a person, who is facing charges in a court of law, but someone against whom an allegation is made. And, the accused is held guilty until he is proven innocent, Rao said. Chairman of My Kingdom Holdings Venu G Somineni, GCA chairman Yahya R Kamalipour, Vice Chancellor K S Rangappa, Registrar C Basavaraju and Organising Secretary of the conference Krishna B Mariyanka were present. Bengaluru Development Minister K J George might have asserted that he was not a telephone operator to take phone calls of people who try to reach him. But his government appears to have rendered heads of departments, district and taluk-level officials exactly that. The Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR) has recently made it mandatory for district and taluk-level officials, including Deputy Commissioners, Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), executive officers of taluk panchayats and district police officials to return the phone calls of ministers, legislators and VIPs if they fail to attend them. The officials have been asked to follow the direction strictly. Calls to be returned soon The officials have been asked to ensure that their personal secretaries or personal assistants jot down details of the caller if they are in an important meeting or attending any other important official work. They have to return the calls made by ministers, legislators, including MLAs, MLCs and MPs, and VIPs soon after their meeting or any official engagements. What has added to the officials problem is that the circular has not defined people who fall in the bracket of VIPs. This has left them fuming as they have been forced to return all missed and unattended calls of late. Returning phone calls has in reality become a big headache for the officials. A deputy commissioner, it is learnt, spends an average of one and a half hour looking at his cell phone and returning the calls every day. The district and taluk-level officials are, as a result, finding it difficult to find time to meet the public, official sources in the government said. Inviting trouble Non-compliance means inviting trouble, and there is a likelihood of such officials getting transferred the way Anupama Shenoy, the Deputy Superintendent of Police of Kudligi taluk in Ballari district, was recently shunted out for putting Labour Minister and Ballari district in-charge Minister P T Parameshwara Naiks phone call on hold. Earlier, returning phone call was mandatory for only senior officials at the State secretariat secretaries, principal secretaries and heads of department. It has now been extended to the district and taluk-level officials. After admitting that it was misled to make appointment of Justice Virendra Singh as Uttar Pradesh Lokayukta, the Supreme Court on Thursday recalled its December 16 order and appointed former Allahabad HC judge Justice Sanjay Mishra as head of the anti-graft body. A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Prafulla C Pant said the order appointing Justice Singh as Lokayukta was passed on the basis of the statement made on behalf of the Uttar Pradesh, which now appears to be somewhat inaccurate. Chief Justice of Allahabad HC Justice D Y Chandrachud has told the court that Justice Singh was not a man of integrity. He had also said the chief minister went ahead considering his name for the post despite assurance to the contrary. Justice Singhs name figured on top in the list submitted to the court on December 16. Disposing of a writ petition filed by journalist Sachidananda Gupta, challenging Singhs appointment, the bench said, We can only wish that the reservation of the Chief Justice had been placed before us before we had passed our earlier order. After going through the list of names discussed in the meeting of collegium comprising chief minister, Chief Justice (CJ) and leader of Opposition, the bench said, The picture that emanates from the narration of facts is hazy, unclear and uncertain. It has now come to light that the 14 terror suspects arrested recently by the NIA were in touch with Sheikh Shafi Armar, another terror suspect hailing from Bhatkal. Shafi, 30, is said to be the brother of Maulana Abdul Sultan Armar, who had been killed by the Islamic State (IS). Shafi had been to Dubai 10 years ago and was active as Mohammed Atta, Sameer Khan and Yousuf on social networking sites. Officials of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) found during their investigation that Shafi used to contact youth through his accounts on these sites and attract them to the Islamic State (IS). The activities of the Armar brothers came to light during the interrogation of Yasin Bhatkal of the Indian Mujahideen (IM) after his arrest in 2013 and when the Delhi police were investigating, in 2014, the case pertaining to three youths from Rajasthan who had tried to join the IM. The Armar brothers were said to be close associates of the Bhatkal brothers - Riyaz and Iqbal - the IM founders. Shafi, it is said, has two more brothers. One of them is settled in Dubai. His mother had changed homes taken on rent in the town several times. She went to Dubai six months ago, it is said. Safan, the other brother of Shafi, runs a cool drinks shop in Bhatkal. He says he has no information about his brothers for 10 years now. Those living in the vicinity of Shafis former residence say they know nothing on his whereabouts. India on Thursday made it clear that the trial of the 26/11 accused in Pakistan would continue to be seen as a test of the sincerity of the government of the neighbouring country in combating terrorism. Even as it waits for Islamabad to send a firm proposal about the visit of its investigators to probe the recent terror attack on the Indian Air Force base at Pathankot in Punjab, New Delhi sought to drive home the point that it was also equally important for Pakistan to speed up the trial of the seven Lashkar-e-Toiba operatives accused of planning and coordinating the November 26-28, 2008 terror attack in Mumbai from the neighbouring country. We have said before that we see the Mumbai terror attack trial as a test of Pakistans sincerity in combating terrorism directed against India, Vikas Swarup, official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, told journalists on Thursday in New Delhi. He was responding to a question on New Delhis view on Islamabad High Courts recent order dismissing a petition by prosecutors seeking permission to obtain voice samples of LeT commander Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi and his six accomplices accused of coordinating the 26/11 carnage in Mumbai. He noted that the planning, training and financing for the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai were done in and from Pakistan, where 99 per cent of the evidence required for convicting the accused should be found. It is Pakistans responsibility to unearth and present the requisite evidence in the ongoing trial so that the perpetrators are brought to justice. The voice samples could have been used to match with the recordings of phone conversations among the 10 terrorists, who had carried out the November 26-28, 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, and the LeT operatives, who coordinated the strikes from Pakistan. Indias intelligence agencies had intercepted the conversations over phone and New Delhi had sent the recordings to Islamabad, asking the latter to use those to nail the LeT operatives who had plotted and coordinated the carnage in Mumbai. In a major embarrassment for the Congress, former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan is likely to face CBI prosecution in the Adarsh scam case that ended his tenure abruptly. Chavan (57), President of Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee, is an MP from Nanded and is among the two Congress Lok Sabha members from this state. In 2013, the then Governor K Sankaranarayanan turned down CBIs plea to prosecute Chavan, who had to resign as the Chief Minister in 2010 in the wake of the Adarsh scam. The CBI sought permission on the basis of "fresh evidence" and the Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP-Shiv Sena government recommended to Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao to allow Chavans prosecution. "Its a political vendetta against me. The Congress has been raising issues of public importance and are highlighting the failures of the BJP-led governments at the Centre and Maharashtra and hence they are targeting opposition leaders....they are misusing the CBI," Chavan said. If the former governor (Sankaranarayanan) denied permission after consulting the Solicitor General, he asked on what basis the government is allowing the prosecution now. The CBI chargesheet listed Chavan as an accused, while the two-member Commission of Inquiry comprising Justice (Rtd) J A Patil, a former judge of the Bombay High Court and P Subramanian, a former Chief Secretary, had accused him of quid pro quo and political patronage. CBI had to earlier petition the Bombay High Court to drop Chavans name as an accused as Sankaranarayanan turned down its plea to prosecute him. Son of former Union Home Minister and ex-Maharashtra Chief Minister Shankarrao Chavan, Ashok Chavan's mother-in-law Bhagwati Sharma, sister-in-law Seema Sharma and father-in-law's brother Madanlal Sharma have flats in the society. With the State government barring entry to private buses in the Central Business District (CBD) of Bengaluru from February 1 to 10 in order to decongest roads during Invest Karnataka-2016, scheduled between February 3 and 5, BMTC buses will ferry passengers to and from different satellite bus stands where the private transport buses will be parked. The private bus services to different destinations will be operated from the satellite bus stands. At least 1.5 lakh passengers will be affected daily given that more than 3,000 private buses operate multiple trips. The private buses have stands in CBD areas such as Majestic, Gandhinagar, K R Market and Kalasipalya. They have to now operate from the outskirts of the City such as the Outer Ring Road, end points of the state and national highways and satellite bus stations. The private buses plying on National Highway-4 have to terminate at Bangalore International Exhibition Centre at 10th mile, Tumakuru Road; buses from Chennai and Kolar have to stop near hanging bridge in K R Puram; those from various Tamil Nadu districts at Hosur Main Road close to Attibele and those from Mysuru side at Kengeri. It is the traffic polices responsibility to ensure that there is smooth traffic between CBD and these points and the BMTC buses operate smoothly, official sources told Deccan Herald. The BMTC will run buses to the pick up points and feeder services will ferry back passengers to different Traffic and Transit Management Centres (TTMCs) and to Kempegowda Bus Station. The government will use the ban as a trial run to guage the impact on the Citys traffic and will then take a call on whether to make it a permanent measure. Transport commissioner Rame Gowda said a permanent ban will be considered after studying how the 10-day restriction works and giving private operators enough time to make alternative arrangements. We have an open mind on the issue, Gowda said. The solar scam case snowballed into a crisis for the Congress-led government in Kerala on Thursday after a vigilance court in Thrissur ordered filing of an FIR against Chief Minister Oommen Chandy based on fresh bribery allegations by key accused in the case, Saritha S Nair. The court directed the police to file the FIR against Chandy and others, including Power Minister Aryadan Mohammed, while hearing a petition by social activist P D Joseph, based on revelations made by Saritha on Wednesday, during her deposition before the judicial commission probing the scam. After hectic late-evening discussions involving senior Congress leaders in Kochi, Chandy said private petitions would be filed in the Kerala High Court on Friday challenging what party leaders called a hasty vigilance court order. Following the vigilance court order and protests by the CPM-led opposition, Chandy will have his task cut out as he builds his defence three months ahead of the Assembly election. Saritha had told the G Sivarajan Commission on Wednesday that she had paid Rs 1.9 crore to Chandy through one of his aides and Rs 40 lakh to Aryadan Mohammed in return for favourable decisions on projects her company, Team Solar, was proposing. Extraordinary order The court termed is decision extraordinary but necessary in an extraordinary situation. The Congress in Delhi, meanwhile, made it clear that it will back Chandy and said he need not resign for now. There is no need for Chandy to resign... This is election time in Kerala and mischievous and malicious allegations will continue to fly. Such allegations have not come for the first time, Randeep Singh Surjewala, in-charge of AICC media department, told reporters. As the news of the vigilance court ordering registration of an FIR against Chandy trickled in, Congress president Sonia Gandhi summoned senior leaders A K Antony and Mukul Wasnik, the AICC General Secretary in-charge of Kerala, to discuss the developments. The central leaders decided against taking any precipitate action as Chandy still has the option of moving a higher court against the vigilance court order. That the Kerala High Court suspended a similar vigilance court order against former excise minister K Babu in the bar bribery case also raised hopes of Chandy getting relief. In Kerala, Left-affiliated protestors waved black flags at the chief minister during events he attended in Kozhikode and Malappuram on Thursday. Activists of DYFI and BJP-affiliated Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha staged protests. In Thiruvananthapuram, protestors clashed with the police near the State Secretariat. The police used water cannons and grenades. A lathicharge left some of the activists with minor injuries. The court said FIR should be registered even before a preliminary verification of the charges. It was the same court which had ordered an FIR against bar bribery scam accused K Babu, leading to his resignation as Excise Minister. Chandy dismissed talks of a resignation. Why should I resign? Im ready to face any investigation, he said in Malappuram. I will discuss the matter with coalition partners, the Congress High Command and take a suitable decision, he said. The Centre on Thursday formed a one-man judicial commission headed by former Allahabad High Court judge Ashok Kumar Roopanwal to probe the suicide of PhD student Rohith Vemula in the University of Hyderabad. The constitution of one-man judicial commission was approved by the HRD Ministry today (Thursday), official sources said. The retired high court judge, who has been a practicing lawyer for the last few years and designated as a senior advocate of the Supreme Court in 2013, will investigate into the sequence of events that led Rohith Vemula to commit suicide, a Ministry official said, referring to the terms and reference of the judicial commission. He will probe into the entire sequence of events and circumstances that led to the incident and fix the responsibility for it, he said. The judicial commission will investigate if the university followed the procedures, laid down by the University Grants Commission (UGC) in its regulations notified in 2012, to check harassment and victimisation of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students at the hands of their teachers and peers, he said. The one man judicial commission will submit its report within three months, he added. The constitution of judicial commission to probe into Vemulas suicide within a week after the HRD Ministry made an announcement in its regard, amid students intensifying their protest against HRD Minister Smriti Irani in Hyderabad, Delhi and other states, demanding her resignation along with that of Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya. Students under the banner of Left-backed unions and Krantikari Yuva Sangathan have been staging protests every day at various locations in Delhi since Vemulas suicide on January 17, holding two Union ministers responsible for it. On January 25, the Congress-backed National Students Union Of India (NSUI) gave a call for Dilli Chalo (march to Delhi) in Hyderabad. As the HRD Ministry remained under pressure, the UGC wrote to vice-chancellors of all universities affiliated to it, reminding them of its guidelines issued last year to ensure safety of students on and off the their respective campuses. The higher education regulator asked all varsity heads to set up students counselling centres at their respective campus, as suggested by it in its guidelines issued on in April 2015. All the higher educational institutions should mandatorily put in place a broad-based students counseling system for the effective redressal of problems and challenges faced by students. You are requested to kindly create the students counselling centre in your esteemed university and the colleges affiliated to your university, the commission said in its letter to vice-chancellors on January 27. It also sought the varsities to engage trained psychologist at the centres as and when required. The action taken in this regard may be sent to the undersigned at the earliest on, it added. Former Civil Aviation minister and veteran Nationalist Congress Party leader Praful Patel was on Thursday fined Rs 3,000 by a Mumbai court for seeking yet another adjournment in a defamation case. The case was filed by Patel against former Air India Executive Director Jitender Bhargava, who had authored a controversial book The Descent of Air India. The book had chronicled the decline of Air India under Patel by citing numerous acts of omissions and commissions when Patel was at the helm of affairs besides other factors responsible for Air Indias financial condition and current state of affairs. When Patels lawyer sought an adjournment, Metropolitan Magistrate V P Adone not only rejected the plea, but also imposed a fine of Rs 3,000. The next and final hearing date has now been fixed for February 12 by the magistrate after imposing the penalty on him. Irked by the contents of the book that Bhargava penned after retirement, in October 2013, Patel filed a defamation case against Bhargava and the publishers, Bloomsbury. Foreign nationals who police suspected as terrorists for the mysterious way they absconded from a hotel here on January 25 night could after all be tourists. Andhra Pradesh police detained the five Iranian tourists, two of whom were women, near Vishakhapatnam on Wednesday after they crossed the Odisha border and entered the neighbouring state. Andhra Pradesh and Odisha police with Intelligence Bureau are jointly interrogating the terrorists since late Wednesday night, while Odishas Special Task Force (STF) has despatched a team soon after news of the tourists arrest emerged. STF sources said the travel documents in the tourists possession are genuine. The tourists arrived in India in two batches in late December and first week of January with valid visa. Their passports are found genuine, while the car in which they travelled was hired from Delhi. The corporate real estate sector has registered a tremendous growth in 2015 despite claims that Bengalurus infrastructure problems are driving out IT and ITES companies, a recent study has revealed. According to the study, 56 per cent of real estate deals struck last year were to create office spaces for IT and ITES companies, way ahead of property purchases by financial services firms, which stood at 12 per cent and e-commerce firms at 6 per cent. The study states that 33 per cent of corporate real estate spaces in the country are situated in the City. There has also been a five to 17 per cent growth in the corporate rental sector.According to the study, 70 per cent of large scale deals of properties measuring around 100,000 sqft and small scale deals of properties measuring around 50,000 sqft were in Bengaluru, Gurgaon and Pune. Transactions grew by 18 per cent in 2015, in which Bengalurus share was 32 per cent, while Delhi NCR contributed 23 per cent. New office space supply rose by 40 per cent year on year. Of this, 65 per cent was commercial (non-IT) office space and 22 per cent SEZ space. People in the IT sector say since companies do not want to ignore Bengaluru, a big engineers market among major metros, they tend to rent out or lease out property. Growth in corporate real estate is on the rise in Eastern Bengaluru, South and South Eastern Bengaluru and Northern Bengaluru. These three hubs are where the IT sector is growing and corporates are setting up economic parks. The rapidly growing hubs is the reason why corporate real estate is thriving in these areas, says a project manager from Infosys. The study states that a few bottlenecks in the City have been removed. For example, a ten km elevated toll way has been constructed on Hosur Road from Silk Board Junction to Electronic City, which enables one to reach Electronic City in only ten minutes from Silk Board. Similarly, a metro line is coming up till Bommansandra in the next three years. As far as Whitefield is concerned, a metro line is coming up right up to Whitefield from Baiyappanahalli. A few infrastructure projects are on to connect central Bengaluru with its suburbs. The next five years could decide where Bengaluru stands on the IT/ITES front, when these infrastructure projects are ready. Underworld don Bannanje Raja was produced before a local court in the City on Thursday in connection with a murder case and was remanded in 10-day police custody. He was brought to the City from Hindalga jail in Belagavi in connection with a murder case registered against him in Banashankari police station in 1997. He will also be interrogated in connection with several other cases registered against him in the City. Raja was accused of killing Srinivas alias Seena, the driver for Agni Sridhar, a scribe and former underworld operator. He had planned to kill Sridhar, but shot Seena in a case of mistaken identity. The City police extradited Raja from Morocco in 2015. He is being tried for the cases registered against him. Private operators are up in arms against the ban on their buses in the City from February 1 to 10 in the context of Invest Karnataka 2016. They see a bigger game plan behind the Transport department and the State governments decision to ban buses. Secretary of Bangalore Bus Association K N Ramesh said there was a vested interest at work in the ban on private buses in the central parts of the City. The government has a plan to do something else by invoking Invest Karnataka 2016 for the ban. The meet is from February 3 to 5. So why the ban from February 1 itself and after February 5? There is an ulterior motive to this. We are sure they are trying to ban us permanently. We will be meeting on Friday to uncover the governments motive which proposed the ban without even consulting us. He said when nearly 3,000 private buses ply from Bengaluru, the least the State government could do was consult the bus operators. Hundreds of passengers travel from the City centre Majestic every day. What will happen to them? How will they be ferried to distant bus stops? And what will happen to us? We are dependent on the passengers. If we are pushed to the edge of the City, we will certainly make losses. Given all these implications, should the government not have asked us what they intended to do before they started implementing the plan? According to Ramesh, only four alighting points have been given to bus operators. The list from the government does not say anything about Kanakapura Road, Bannerghatta Road. The reason for exempting these two roads is not clear.Private bus operators are planning to meet the authorities on Friday or Saturday to seek clarity on why the ban is suddenly being brought into force. Our central argument is why a ban till February 10? Anyway we will thrash out the details with the government, Ramesh said. The political slugfest at Krishnarajapuram found an echo in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike council meeting on Thursday when the areass BJP corporator K Poornima accused Congress MLA from KR Puram constituency Byrathi Basavaraju of allowing encroachment of footpaths. Mayor B N Manjunath Reddy and BBMP Commissioner G Kumar Naik were taken by surprise when Poornima sought permission to build shops and bus shelters on pavements. Poornima said, There are many poor people who want shops. Allow them to construct shops on pavements. She said a bus shelter and 13 shops under the sign APJ Abdul Kalam Vision 2020 have come up on a footpath in Krishnarajapuram. She said, The Supreme Court guidelines clearly prohibit construction of even a bus shelter on the pavement as it encroaches on the rights of pedestrians. How were such shelters allowed to come up? She further sought to know whether any structure named after renowned persons like APJ Abdul Kalam can be demolished. Submitting photographs of the encroachment to the Mayor and the Commissioner, she threatened to stage a demonstration if the structures were not removed. The warning irked Congress corporators from KR Puram Assembly constituency who said they would call a Bengaluru Bandh if the demonstration was allowed. The Mayor quickly intervened and admonished the Congress corporators for exceeding their limits. He then assured Poornima he would visit the spot with the Commissioner. Chief Magistrate Judge Mary Pat Thynge recently issued a Report and Recommendation regarding defendant Amazon.com, Inc.s motion for summary judgment of non-infringement. Hand Held Products, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., et al., C.A. No. 12-768-RGA-MPT (D. Del. Jan. 21, 2016). The accused products at issue are Amazon mobile apps used by consumers to find and purchase Amazon products from their smartphones. Id. at 5. One way the Amazon Apps can be used to find a product on Amazon is by scanning the barcode of the product. Id. This barcode scanning ability is the feature accused of infringing the patent-in-suit. Id. Based on the Courts claim construction, Amazon argued that it is undisputed that a user of the Accused Apps cannot take the requisite snapshot by pressing a shutter button, setting a timer, or in any other manner. Id. at 8 (emphasis in original). The Court agreed. [T]he Accused Apps provide no mechanism by which a user selects an instant in time to capture a barcode image and, therefore, the Accused Apps do not infringe the asserted claims of the [patent-in-suit]. Id. (emphasis in original). UPDATE: On March 31, 2016, Judge Andrews overruled the plaintiffs objections to Chief Magistrate Judge Thynges report and recommendation, adopted it without modification, and granted summary judgment of non-infringement. Hand Held Products, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., et al., C.A. No. 12-768-RGA-MPT (D. Del. Mar. 31, 2016) Resul Pookutty Gets Nominated In US For Films Banned In India You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site. by Kathleen Gilbert BEIJING, September 7, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) Escaped Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng is leading international opponents of forced abortion in calling upon the worlds largest company to end compliance with the Chinas one-child policy. Family planning police have targeted employees (569) Sign up below to have the hottest Catholic news delivered to your email daily! Close Sign up below to have the hottest Catholic news delivered to your email daily! Church Militant, we need to band together to protect our religious liberties and win the culture war! Pharmaceutical giant Bayer has completed an agreement to sell its Diabetes Care business to Panasonic Healthcare Holdings Co., Ltd. for around 1 billion Euros. Diabetes Care, which is now a standalone business, has been renamed Ascensia Diabetes Care Holdings. The new organisation is based in Switzerland. Bayer Diabetes Care is a leading supplier of blood glucose meters, test strips and lancet devices, including the CONTOUR range of blood glucose meters. We are excited to launch as Ascensia Diabetes Care and continue to be a trustworthy provider of reliable, high-performance solutions that could make a positive, daily difference for people with diabetes, said Michael Kloss, Chief Executive Officer of Ascensia Diabetes Care. This is a unique and exciting opportunity for us to expand our business and better serve our patients, customers and partners worldwide. Panasonic Healthcare has been a pioneer in the development of key diabetes care products, and we are thrilled to work together with them to introduce new and innovative technologies that enhance the lives of patients living with diabetes. We are focused on moving forward into an exciting future and continuing to play a leading role in the diabetes care industry. A new study confirms that fast food marketing increases the consumption of fast food in children. The news has fuelled renewed calls for a pre-watershed ban on advertising of unhealthy junk food. The study, which was conducted by researchers at the University of Liverpools Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, finds that fast food advertising is at least partly responsible for high rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes, increasingly amongst the young. The researchers analysed 22 previous studies that had examined the impact of fast food marketing on food consumption. The studies observed the effects of marketing both online and on television, concluding that the two had an equal impact on fast food consumption. Through our analysis of these published studies I have shown that food advertising doesnt just affect brand preference it drives consumptio, said Dr. Emma Boyland, of the University of Liverpools Institute of Psychology, Health and Society. Given that almost all children in Westernised societies are exposed to large amounts of unhealthy food advertising on a daily basis this is a real concern. Small, but cumulative increases in energy intake have resulted in the current global childhood obesity epidemic and food marketing plays a critical role in this. We have also shown that the effects are not confined to TV advertising; online marketing by food and beverages brands is now well established and has a similar impact. On the basis of these findings, recommendations for enacting environmental strategies and policy options to reduce childrens exposure to food advertising are evidence-based and warranted. Tim Rycroft, of the Food and Drink Federatio, argues that advertising regulation will have little effect on childhood obesity: We have one of the strictest advertising regulatory regimes in the world concerning how foods and drinks can be advertised. Many companies go even further, developing their own responsible marketing guidelines and making voluntary commitments. We dont believe that a 9pm watershed would have any effect on obesity. Despite Rycrofts protests, the findings are likely to inspire renewed calls for tighter regulation of the advertising industry. Currently, manufacturers are not allowed to advertise during television shows specifically aimed at children, but there is nothing stopping them from advertising during any other kinds of television. Advertising during the evening peak viewing period when millions of children will be watching television is totally unrestricted. Mike Hobday, Policy director at the British Heart Foundatio, believes all advertising of fast food should be banned before the 9pm watershed. We mustnt allow food companies to continue to exploit a failing regulatory system that allows them to bombard TV screens with junk food adverts at the times when the highest numbers of children are watching TV, said Hobday. The findings are published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The Vaio Z Flip is a high-end laptop, while the Vaio Z Clamshell is a toned down version of that. Erstwhile Sony brand, Vaio, has taken a big step towards making a comeback in the laptop market. The company just announced three high-end laptops overseas, including two variants of the Vaio Z Flip, the Vaio Z Clamshell and the Vaio S. The Vaio Z Flip is the highlight amongst these, boasting a 13 inch touchscreen QHD display, which can be flipped, just liked in Lenovos Yoga series laptops. Its an expensive laptop though, with a starting price of around $1,799 (approx. Rs. 1,22,000) in the US. There is a cheaper variant as well, priced at $1,499 (approx. Rs. 1,02,000). The Vaio Z Clamshell also starts at the same price as the cheaper variant of the Z Flip. Technically, the company calls all of them the Vaio Z, but the Clamshell and Flip monickers are used to differentiate them for consumers. Along with its QHD display, the Vaio Z Flip is has an aluminium casing inside and on the top. In addition, the device runs on Intels new i7 Skylake processor, with an option for the i5 as well. It can hold 8 to 16GB of RAM and the company claims it has a battery life of 11-12 hours. It has been selling in Japan for a while and has been introduced in the US now. There is no word on whether it will ever make it to India. On the other hand, the Vaio Z Clamshell laptop has a 1080p display, with no touchscreen benefits. Its build is similar to the Flip, but it cant be flipped around to be used as a tablet. The last of the three laptops launched in the US is the Vaio S, which is sold in Japan as the Vaio Pro. Its somewhat of an old school laptop, hosting both a VGA and ethernet port on its sides. While none of these laptops have made it to India and arent likely to do so anytime soon, the once Sony owned brand has interested Indian consumers in the past. These three laptops, which had first been announced in Japan, compete against the most premium laptops in the market, marking Vaios first real move to return to the competition. Source: The Verge While the tests went successfully, SpaceX wants to use the parachutes only for emergencies, with propulsion being the primary method for landing. Elon Musks SpaceX has successfully tested parachutes that are aimed at bringing its Crew Dragon spacecraft back to Earth. The company completed the test for four large parachutes yesterday, with NASA publishing a video of the test. The video shows the large parachutes slowing down a test spacecraft. SpaceX has been employed by NASA, to make cargo runs to and from the International Space Station (ISS) since 2012 now. The premier space agency is also going to use SpaceX for shuttling astronauts to and from the ISS in future. The Crew Dragon spacecraft is being built for this reason. The parachute test was one of many that the company needs to pass, before it is ready to send astronauts to space in the Crew Dragon. While SpaceX didnt use the actual spacecraft, a giant weight was used in its place. The entire rig was then dropped from a C-130 aircraft over the Coolidge, Arizona area and the four parachutes deployed correctly, to reduce the speed of the falling rig. While the rig landed somewhere in the desert, the final plan is to have the spacecraft land in the ocean, which, if achieved, would mark the first time that astronauts would have landed on water since the 1970s. The missions testing the landing of the spacecraft are reportedly going to be conducted in late 2017 to early 2018. Parachute assisted landing is one of the ways that SpaceX is testing, with the other being propulsive landings, which was seen in a video that was published last week. This was achieved using the built-in SuperDraco rocket engines. SpaceX reportedly wants to use the parachutes for emergency purposes, with the propulsive method being the primary landing mechanism. Champagne corks were no doubt popping at the Synectics offices on Thursday, as it revealed another major aviation client had signed up to its Synergy 3 security command and control platform. The AIM-traded surveillance and security technology firm confirmed the deal with one of the world's top ten passenger airlines in a statement to the market. While Synectics would not be drawn on which airline it was, it did describe the airline as having an "impressive and growing" global presence in a statement, revealing it had a central Asia Pacific hub. Synectics said the Synergy 3 product chosen by the airline would allow it to integrate, monitor and manage data from many security and safety sub-systems through a dedicated security centre equipped with the product. "In 2015, our enterprise platform Synergy 3 was selected as the airport safety and security solution for Terminal 3 Ultimate at Jakarta's Soekamo-Hatta International Airport", said Synectics chief executive Paul Webb. "To secure another major aviation contract within the ASEAN region is an excellent achievement and demonstrates our credibility and the reust that the aviation industry and major airlines have in our scalable, resilient, integrated security management solutions", he added. At 1145 GMT, shares in Synectics were up 5.09%, trading at 134.25p. CitiFX watching for weekly close in WTI above $32.40 per barrel Barclays analysts highly skeptical Oil futures registered sharp gains amid contradictory reports regarding possible plans to reduce oil output by the Organisation for Petroleum Exporting Countries, in coordination with producing nations from outside the cartel, mainly Russia. Russian energy minister Alexander Novak said Saudi Arabia had suggested output cuts of 5% at previous OPEC meetings, with the size of the reductions currently under discussion, Interfax reported. However, at 15:26GMT Bloomberg reported that four delegates to OPEC had told the newswire they had not heard yet of any plans for talks. According to Bloomberg, when Novak was asked whether the Russian Federation was still ready to meet with OPEC at a proposed meeting next month to coordinate their levels of production, he said "that is exactly the subject of discussion. The next regularly scheduled meeting of the cartel was not until June. "OPECs hands are tied" Another report from Interfax, earlier on Thursday, cited the Russian presidents spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, as having said that the Russian Federation was not planning to hold talks with Saudi Arabia or OPEC on the subject of oil. As of 15:27GMT front month West Texas crude Intermediate futures were 4.3% higher to $33.74 per barrel on the ICE and those for Brent by another 4.7% to $34.74 per barrel. Tim Evans, energy futures specialist at Citi Futures and OTC Clearing, pointed out to Market News International how Russian oil output may have reached 10.89m barrels per day in January, reflecting the resilience of the countrys output to low oil prices. "We remain highly skeptical that such a meeting [in February] will result in credible cuts in supply; thus, we see this as nothing more than an attempt to shift market sentiment, and we do not expect that it will change the physical market imbalance," Barclayss Michael Cohen, Miswin Mahesh and Warren Rusell said in a research note sent to clients. "OPECs hands are tied. We see it as a hard sell for Saudi Arabia (and Russia, for that matter) to agree to cut production, while Iran continued to ramp up output," Barclays added. "There is a vast difference between a meeting to exchange views on the state of the markets and a meeting to agree on a cut. This will likely be the former, not the latter." Technical analysts at CitiFX told MNI further confirmation that a bottom was near in oil would come with a close above $32.40 for West Texas Intermediate futures - at a minimum on weekly price charts. One David was out, and another one in at Coca-Cola HBC on Thursday, with the announcement that the company's chairman, George A. David, had stepped down with immediate effect. The FTSE 100 Coca-Cola bottler said George David would remain on the board until the company's annual general meeting in June, at which point he would retire from the company. Coca-Cola Hellenic also announced the appointment of its current Vice Chairman, Anastassis G. David, to the role of Chairman until the AGM, at which point he would be proposed for election by shareholders. Anastassis David joined the board of Coca-Cola HBC as a non-executive director in 2006, before being appointed Vice Chairman in 2014. The company said he was bringing with him more than two decades of experience in the beverage industry. "Whilst the leadership of the board is changing, we are doing this in a way that ensures continuity and industry experience", said chairman of the company's Nomination Committee and senior independent director, Sir Michael Llewellyn Smith. "Anastassis has a proven track record and we are delighted to welcome him in his new role as Chairman", he added. George David described his time at the bottler as a privilege, saying he believed it the right time to hand over to a new leader after 35 years with the company. "I fully endorse our values and will continue to work with my colleagues on the board and management to deliver on our growth strategy", said Anastassis David on his appointment. Coca-Cola HBC is the second-largest anchor bottler in the Coca-Cola network, manufacturing the company's products in 28 countries in Eastern Europe, Russia and Nigeria. 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Bills was accused of accepting envelopes stuffed with cash, along with gifts including condos in two states and a Mercedes to help Redflex Traffic Systems obtain contracts in a decade-long scheme. Bills, 54, was charged with several crimes, including bribery, conspiracy and extortion under color of official right. The Chicago man faces a maximum combined sentence of 304 years in prison when sentenced on May 5. John is going to continue to fight for his innocence, his attorney, Nishay Sanan, said outside the courtroom Tuesday. The fight is not over. The people who are guilty of this know who they are, (but) we don't expect them to come forward. During closing arguments on Monday, Sanan told jurors the money actually went to lobbyists who funneled it upstairs, tossing out names including Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Alderman Edward Burke, the Chicago Tribune reported. You don't give that kind of money to a guy like John Bills. You give it to people who can get things done, Sanan told jurors, who began deliberating Monday. No elected officials have been implicated by prosecutors in the scheme. U.S. Attorney Zach Fardon called Sanan's contention malarkey, and detailed various hotels stays, golf trips, an Arizona condominium, a Chicago apartment and a Mercedes allegedly given to Bills for his efforts to help the company. Prosecutors also cited emails in which Bills described his efforts for Redflex. The idea that lobbyists were paid to funnel money to people like Mike Madigan and Ed Burke and Rahm Emanuel is pretty grandiose, but there is not one single shred of evidence that supports any of it, Fardon told jurors Monday. Martin O'Malley, who was hired as a Redflex consultant, testified that he passed envelopes stuffed with thousands of dollars in cash at a time to Bills at a restaurant. O'Malley has pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme. Sometimes there would be other people there with us, but they couldn't tell what was happening, O'Malley told jurors during the trial. O'Malley said he collected about $2 million in bogus commissions during the 10-year conspiracy. He said Redflex paid him a commission every time a new camera system was installed in Chicago. Former Redflex executive Karen Finley also has pleaded guilty to related charges. She is scheduled for sentencing this year. Emanuel canceled Redflex's contract in 2013 following the Chicago Tribune's reports about the alleged bribery scheme. Bills retired from his job as Chicago's managing deputy commissioner of transportation in 2011. He was charged in 2014. University of Alaska boot camp' trains aspiring miners with simulators, real mines The four-week course even has a two-week break in the middle to simulate the downtime a working miner gets. By CASEY GROVE Fairbanks Daily News-Miner FAIRBANKS, Alaska Entering an underground mine means leaving behind the topside world, its trees and natural light, and going into a dark, dirty environment with the potential for danger. Inside, all light is artificial, and the ventilation is closely monitored. It can be a jarring experience for the uninitiated, as it often is for aspiring miners starting the underground mining program at the University of Alaska's 100-acre Mine Training Facility, a collection of modular buildings comprising a mine camp near about a mile of subterranean tunnels near Delta Junction. But for all the noise and cramped spaces students have to deal with not to mention the several pieces of heavy equipment they learn to operate inside the unforgiving granite-walled corridors some of the toughest lessons are personal rather than physical. The four-week course, with a two-week break in the middle, is taught by instructors from the university's Mining and Petroleum Training Service, each of them with decades of mining experience, in partnership with Canada's Yukon College Center for Northern Innovation in Mining. The Yukon college refers students to the training center and, among other contributions, donated two heavy equipment simulators that give the would-be miners realistic practice driving inside a virtual mine. Several operating mines in Alaska and Canada are also partners. They pre-screen the students, many from rural communities, as potential employees with entry-level jobs waiting for them upon completing the coursework. A crop of eight miners graduated on a Monday in November, joining more than 100 others that have gone through either the underground or surface mining programs in the nearly two years the facility has operated. Whether the lessons are on interpersonal skills and cultural differences, or how to operate a 130-pound jackleg drill on their own, the students have two options: They either pass or fail, MAPTS director Bill Bieber said. There is no way to earn their certificate with any grade in between, Bieber said. This is a mining boot camp, in every aspect, Bieber said. We're trying to set the student up for long-term employment success. These are careers, and they're high-dollar careers, he said. Rough edges First, the students arrive by bus at the camp. Their coursework is tailored to what each mine will require of them, but it always involves teaching what the instructors call soft skills. Every student is different, but with many of them being young and coming from rural areas, teaching good communication skills and instilling confidence can be paramount, Bieber said. Some of the students have never been away from their hometown or village, Bieber said. When the students first arrive, they might not talk much or have a lack of confidence, he said. One past student was so scared on the first day, he was near tears, Bieber said. Two of the instructors, Peter Boise Alexie and Mike Azzara, are the more personable, I'll hold your hand through this process instructors, Bieber said. Instructor Daren Case has a professional flair to teach students how to interact with mine managers. Then there is Jim Smitty Smith, a longtime underground miner whose legend Bieber had heard of years before he ever met the guy. When all else fails, then we have Smitty, who'll knock off whatever rough edges happen to remain by the time they get to him, Bieber said, chuckling. Along the way, all the instructors look for weaknesses in the students, Bieber said. But for many students, the biggest fear is the fear of failing, he said. The soft skills learning also involves teaching students how to deal with a two-week break, intended to simulate the downtime a working miner gets as time off from their job. Instructors stress the importance of students using that time to take care of their families, maybe changing the family car over to winter tires or doing chores to fix up their homes, Bieber said. That's because they will be away at remote mining camps for work and unavailable, unless they quit the job, to help with family issues, he said. Brassing in The journey into the mine itself first requires learning a few basics. The reflective coveralls miners wear are called diggers and are not allowed in the clean chow hall. All hardhats need to have a charged headlamp on them. Underground miners carry a self-rescuer attached to a belt on their hip that, when opened, reveals a mouthpiece and canister that allows him or her to breathe if the mine fills with smoke from a fire. Anyone entering the mine must brass in by putting one of two brass tokens assigned to them on a board at the mine entrance, with the other token kept on their person. The board lets others know who is inside and how many people are inside, especially important in an emergency. Headlamps are used, obviously, for seeing in the dark underground caverns. But if shined in a miner's eyes, they can temporarily blind the person. So miners learn to keep the light out of one other's eyes while talking face to face. The headlamps also offer a simple way to communicate when miners are too far apart to talk or they are operating noisy equipment. On a winter day less than a week before graduation, student Chelsea Charbonneau, an Air Force veteran from the Kenai Peninsula, filled the role of shifter, or crew boss, for the day by supervising the other students' work. Making a circle with your headlamp means come here, and nodding means back up, Charbonneau explained. Shaking your head and headlamp side to side means, stop, whatever you're doing, she said, laughing. Our number one way to talk down there is with our headlamps, your hands, horns, all those signals, Charbonneau said. Virtual mining As Azzara fired up the computer running a heavy equipment simulator, one of his teaching specialties, screens surrounding the driver's seat and its realistic controls flickered to life. Virtual mine walls, ventilation pipes and other haul trucks appeared. The seat rumbled as Azzara put a virtual load of rocks and mud on the imaginary dump truck, and he directed the driver to start moving forward. Everything about driving the simulator feels real, except maybe the lack of wind in your face. Images of sparks even fly off the side of the truck if it strikes the virtual mine walls. Practicing on controls identical to the real vehicle and dealing with whatever variable the instructor running the simulation chooses, like a blown tire or dropping oil pressure, allows students to learn how to deal with real-world problems, Azzara said. They can also make mistakes without hurting themselves or the expensive equipment, he said. Part of the training here is muscle memory, Azzara said. Hitting the walls with the real equipment is bound to happen, though hopefully not more than a few times, and the simulators help minimize actual damage later on the real job, Azzara said. Entry-level training at a working mine does not always allow for such mistakes, Azzara said. For one thing, the equipment is usually designed to carry only the operator, so it can be difficult to give advice during actual operation, Azzara said. And the confined space of an underground mine makes supervising a new hire even more difficult, he said. Throughout the program, the instructors follow a pattern with the equipment training, Bieber said: They tell students how to do something, show them how to do it, have them practice in the simulators, then practice on the real thing above ground before taking the skills underground. For some, getting on the simulator is like playing a video game, Azzara said. It's fun for about two hours, then it's just work, he said. Passing the drill Inside the mine recently, student Wesley Washpan-Tulk was taking his final test on the jackleg drill, so-called because the heavy tool is supported by a hydraulic leg. Wearing a thick set of neon green coveralls, Washpan-Tulk held the drill up and pointed its business end at the rock wall. A deafening roar echoed through the tunnel as Washpan-Tulk pushed the long, narrow steel tube with the drill bit on the end into and through the granite. Water flowing through the hollow steel forced bits of rock out, and the finished hole had a metal tube forced into it to help reinforce the mine walls. Eventually, Smith, the instructor watching Washpan-Tulk work, told the student the drilling test was complete. So I passed? Washpan-Tulk asked. You passed, Smith said. Woooo! Washpan-Tulk shouted, pumping his fist. Farther into the mine, Tiffany Blackjack was driving a haul truck that Charbonneau, in a front-end loader, was dumping rock and mud into while Case, the instructor, watched. Before Charbonneau dropped one of the loads, Case told Charbonneau her bucket, which was lifted above the truck, was too far to one side, which could overload one side of the haul truck and cause a tire blowout. Case stood a few feet from both pieces of equipment. By the time we get in here, I need to know they can run this equipment well enough that they aren't going to smash me, because I need to be right here, Case said. Blackjack, from Carmacks in the Yukon, said she was enjoying the course and looking forward to graduation. I've always been into mining, and I wanted to do more, Blackjack said while sitting in the haul truck driver's seat. So far I'm loving it, learning a lot. It'll definitely bring you out of your comfort zone. It's fun though. Finding good workers According to Bieber, all of the students who have gone through the underground mining program in the past two years are still employed at various mines in Alaska and the Yukon. The mines are happy to see trained, entry-level employees ready to work, said Lorna Shaw, external affairs manager for Pogo Mine, one of the mining program's partners. It's been a great partnership, because a lot of what they do is figure out if a person is the right fit for mining and for camp life, Shaw said. Previous columns: Alaska quake puts focus on preparing huge state to handle natural disasters Major damage at the Port of Anchorage, through which an estimated 90 percent of commodities enter the state, would have a cascading effect. By BECKY BOHRER Associated Press JUNEAU, Alaska A magnitude 7.1 earthquake in Alaska's most populous region has renewed focus on the state's readiness to deal with a natural disaster. And it's not just earthquakes that pose a danger across the vast state but also wildfires, floods, landslides and even volcanos. Robert Forgit, Alaska area manager for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said he thinks Alaskans are resilient and perhaps more used to quakes and flooding. The state also does a good job of working with communities on emergency plans, he said. Jeremy Zidek, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, said it's hard to say how prepared residents are. Many people hunt and fish and have a freezer full of meat, and there are people who live near the road system but are remote enough that they tend to stock up more on food, he said. The state recommends having at least seven days of supplies on hand and a family plan in case of emergencies. In the case of major damage to the Port of Anchorage, through which an estimated 90 percent of commodities for most Alaskans enter the state, there would be a cascading effect, Zidek said. It would take time to set up alternate routes, such as use of other ports, having things flown in or trucking supplies from the Alaska Highway, which runs from Canada. In 2012, then-Gov. Sean Parnell's administration proposed stockpiling food around the state's two largest cities, which also have military bases, in case the state's 735,000 residents were cut off from supply lines. But when Gov. Bill Walker took office and asked departments to tighten belts as the state dealt with a multibillion-dollar budget deficit, the stockpiling idea was tossed, Zidek said. The state has other food resources it can tap, including local food banks and partnerships with federal agencies and non-governmental agencies, like the Red Cross, he said. I think Alaskans are more prepared to deal with natural disasters than other communities, say in the Lower 48, because we're a resilient people anyway. This is the Last Frontier, said Forgit. Alaskans, living along an active seismic zone, also are a bit more used to earth-shaking and flooding along rivers like the Yukon and Kuskokwim, he said. In places like the Kenai Peninsula, where four houses were destroyed following the early Sunday morning earthquake, authorities put as much time as they can into stressing readiness, said Scott Walden, emergency management director for the Kenai Peninsula Borough. A group of about 150 residents in the region are trained as part of a Citizens Corps to help provide basic fire or first aid response as a stopgap if emergency services are not able to respond immediately. Members of the corps opened the shelter after the quake until the Red Cross arrived, he said. It's neighbors helping neighbors, Walden said. Not to take the place of emergency responders but to be able to provide some semblance of organization and comfort until the responders can get there, he said. In 2013, an ice jam along the Yukon River flooded the small community of Galena in Alaska's Interior. Steve Erickson said he's lived in Galena for 25 years and thought he knew what flooding was. But he had never experienced something like that before fast and furious. He and his wife have rebuilt their home on high pilings. They're also are more vigilant around break-up in the spring. Preparations include making sure there's enough bottled water and food in the house for a week or so, he said. You can just have a bunch of canned food and you're good to go, he said. An award-winning nurse who spent months in Sierra Leone helping fight the Ebola crisis has overcome her greatest fear yet giving a speech to graduates at De Montfort University Leicester (DMU). Though she withstood searing West African temperatures and daily exposure to the deadly virus, Hannah McReynolds said the experience had nothing on delivering an address to students from the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, graduating at the last of this winters ceremonies. The 32-year-old who was honoured at the event with the title of Alumnus of the Year - said she had worried for days about giving the speech, in which she talked about her experiences volunteering at an Ebola Treatment Centre in the city of Makeni between late 2014 and November last year, and for which she was awarded the Queens Ebola Medal last year. But, in a show of the spirit and strength which twice prompted her to fly out to the stricken country, she overcame her nerves and delivered an inspiring address to graduates at the ceremony, held at The Venue@DMU. She told the assembled graduands that she had learned that, I am privileged. You are privileged. But what we do with this is instinct and we should always trust our instincts. Hannah, who graduated from DMU with a degree in Nursing in 2011 and is now a staff nurse at the Leicester Royal Infirmary A&E department, said she had been honoured to be awarded Alumnus of the Year. She said: It was a shock to be given the award. I just hope I can inspire people to act on their instinct. All I did was what I thought was the right thing. Thats it. Its just about taking the decision to act. Hannah originally volunteered to help with the Ebola crisis in late 2014. She spent Christmas and New Year helping to open and run a 100-bed medical camp in Makeni, returning in January 2015. But almost as soon as she had returned to work at the LRI, she knew she wanted to go back, that her help was still needed. So in April she flew back to Makeni and began a stint working in the treatment centre which lasted for more than six months. She said: I went because I felt I needed to help my nursing brothers and sisters. Working alongside the African national staff was amazing there were nurses there who were ex-Ebola patients themselves. We taught them techniques and we helped treat people with either suspected or confirmed Ebola. You never get use to death and it was very hard to have to separate parents from children when tests confirmed Ebola. But there were survivors and there was hope. Will Richmond, Melanie Ward and Chandni Chauhan all received their MSc in Psychological Well-being and all three of them have secured jobs as a result. Will, who works for Richmond Pharmacology in Croydon, said: There is no doubt the MSc has helped me get my job. Definitely. 100 per cent. Melanie, who is working for Springfield Mind, said: It was a long time coming to reach this day but I am delighted to have graduated with an MSc. Chandni, who is working as a health and well-being coordinator for the NHS in Hertfordshire, said: I am so happy to be graduating. I have made the best friends and the lecturers were really good. Will added: Yes, they were amazing. We have to give a big shout out to Diane, Iain and Roshan. They really were brilliant. Zoe Trickett graduated in nursing and has a job in the cardiology department of Leicesters Glenfield Hospital. She said: I loved studying for my degree and I have already started work so Im really happy. The best bit about DMU was making lots of new friends. It feels like you are part of a big family here. Bharti Airtel, Axiata to merge operations in Bangladesh Bharti Airtel and Axiata Group Bhd have signed a definitive agreement to merge their respective telecommunication subsidiaries in Bangladesh. Following the agreement, the companies will merge their units Robi Axiata (Robi) and Airtel Bangladesh (Airtel). Upon completion, Axiata will hold a 68.3-per cent controlling stake in the combined entity, while Bharti will hold 25 per cent. The remaining 6.7 per cent will be held by existing shareholder, NTT DOCOMO of Japan. Post-merger, the combined entity operating as Robi will serve about 40 million customers. The joint strengths of Robi and Airtel will deliver the widest mobile network coverage across Bangladesh, strengthening its position in the mobile internet segment as well as consolidating its position as the second-largest operator in the country. The proposed transaction is subject to conditions precedent including receiving applicable approvals from relevant authorities and is expected to complete in the first half of 2016. The telecommunications landscape in Bangladesh has been one of high-growth albeit intensively competitive with six players. The proposed merger is set to strengthen the industry structure, competitiveness and, more importantly, bring greater benefits to customers in terms of network quality and coverage and an improved offering of data products and services. On 9 September 2015, the companies had entered into an exclusive discussion to explore possibility of combining their business operations in Bangladesh. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) and its counterparts in Malaysia, Singapore and Japan have signed three pacts for cooperation in cyber security. The pacts aim at promoting exchange of knowledge and experience in detection, resolution and prevention of security related incidents between India and these countries, the ministry of communications and information and technology said today. The cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was today apprised of the memorandums of understanding in this regard, said the ministry in a statement. An agreement between CERT-In and CyberSecurity, Malaysia was signed on 23 November 2015, in Kuala Lumpur during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Malaysia. Another pact between CERT-In and Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team (SingCERT), Cyber Security Agency (CSA) was signed on 24 November 2015 in Singapore during Prime Minister's visit to Singapore. The third pact between CERT-In and Japan Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center (JPCERT/CC) was signed on 7 December 2015, through diplomatic exchange. The exchange of the signed MoUs between the two parties was completed by 22 December 2015, it added. A local traffic warden went above and beyond the call of duty recently, winning warm praise from the woman he helped. Niamh Hamill is one of the organisers of Transatlantic Connections, an annual conference that strengthens links between Ireland and the USA. She described what happened. One of our USA visitors took a bus from Dublin Airport, got off in Ballyshannon, a bit jet-lagged, and forgot to take her bags off the bus. As the bus pulled away, she realised all her belongings were on it. Not knowing what to do, she asked local traffic warden Mick Whelan for advice. He kindly phoned a friend who agreed to meet the bus in Donegal Town and collect her bag. Mick even arranged for the lady to be reunited with her bag in Ballyshannon. For more see todays Donegal Democrat. Patients from Donegal will get the same level of treatment as patients from Northern Ireland at the new cross-border radiotherapy centre in Derry when it opens later this year, management of the service has pledged. The Dublin government has put 19m towards the cost of building the state of the art 27-bed unit at Derrys Altnagelvin hospital. Management at the hospital say it will be one of the most advanced cancer treatment facilities in the world. Taxpayers here will contribute about 25 per cent of the running costs under a service agreement between the two governments. Up to 400 new patients a year, out of a total of 1,500, will come from the catchment area of Letterkenny University Hospital, about 110,00 people. The hospital has already recruited for some of the 215 posts required to run the unit. Experienced staff from Ireland, the UK, Europe, Asia and North and South America are among those that have been recruited to date. Alan Moore, Director of Strategic Capital Development at The western Health And Social Care Trustsaid patients from Donegal will receive the same treatment as patients from Northern Ireland under the service agreement. This is one of the most significant cross-border developments he said. David Stewart, consultant radiologist added: There will be no difference, he said. They will have their chemotherapy in Letterkenny hospital and radiation care and management will be the same for patients from both sides of the border. Dr. Stewart said that just under 90 per cent of the patients in the centres catchment area in Northern Ireland will receive their treatment there, with treatment for more specialist cancers taking place in Belfast. That figure is lower for Donegal patients as some will be sent to Dublin for treatment for specialist cancers and cancers such as head and neck and gynaecological cancers. Mr Moore said: We are very mindful of that fact that our colleagues in the Republic have invested considerable money to make this a viable centre and we need a population of 500,000 to make that viable. We have had huge support from our colleagues in Letterkenny. Letterkenny Credit Union Art Competition For this years Letterkenny Art competition 2015/2016 students were asked to produce a piece of artwork based on the theme given Happiness is Mrs. Crossan had a number of winners (pictured) from her class who submitted a piece for the competition. Catherine Boyce was a winner again this year, picking up the overall prize in the 14-17 age category. Her entry will now go on to the Ulster heat for All Ireland selection. Ryan Lynch was second in the 14- 17 age Special Category. Jack Doyle was third in the 11- 13 age category. Congratulations to all of the winners who received prize money for their work. The Bar of Ireland: TY Programme Congratulations to Nazar Dorrian who has been selected by The Bar of Ireland to spend a week at the Bar in February. Nazar will spend a full week in February in Dublin where he will: watch trials; visit King's Inn, the Four Courts and the Criminal Courts of Justice; hear talks by a sitting judge and a court garda; and take part in mock trials with other students and barristers. Ulster Senior B Final Pobalscoil Ghaoth Dobhair 4-2 Errigal College, Letterkenny (a.e.t.) This was the final result in what was a fascinating Ulster Senior B Final played in Gweedore on Tuesday 19th of January. The Errigal College team managed by Mr McMenamin, were 2-1 up with only a minute remaining, only to have Odhran McFadden score following a corner. Then, in extra-time, two penalties from substitute Sean O Fearraigh one in either period sealed the win. It was a bruising and absorbing encounter in which the lads pushed hard right until the final whistle., Errigal College, Letterkenny: Ciaran Cleary; Paddy Sharpe, Conor Quill (Conor Faul 91), Kalvin McCormick, Jerry Obi (Gabriel Aduaka, 91); Sean Cleary, Kyle Sylvia, Kealan ODonnell, Gary Steen; Igor Arriel, Emmanual Okorali. First in Donegal Errigal College has become the first school in Co. Donegal to implement the daily Health and Wellbeing programme which is part of the new Framework for Junior Cycle. First years spend 30 minutes every morning doing a series of active fun exercises and games. The programme is based on creating a positive attitude towards a healthy active life, teaching the students about the effects of healthy eating and exercise. It aims at targeting three core areas of wellbeing: activity, nutrition and mental health. The course was launched in Errigal College by Mr Donncha Gallagher, HSE. He told the students about the importance of healthy eating, and being aware of the hidden sugar content in all foods. One of Errigal Colleges SNAs, Mrs Mary Stewart commented that The information was hugely important. The effects of sugar on behaviour was very revealing! LYIT students are also involved in this programme. They will monitor the ongoing fitness levels of the students, and health benefits at regular intervals. Young Social Innovators Transition year students are currently working on their Young Social Innovators project. The Young Social Innovators competition involves choosing a social concern and completing actions to combat the concern. The students decided to create a more inclusive and welcoming environment for those from different countries who do not have English as their first language. They carried out a survey to find out the different languages that are spoken in our school and created a database for teachers and students. They are creating a wallet sized card for teachers with "Hello, How are you?" in different languages and a place-mat for each classroom with phrases that a student may need to use. The phrases will be translated into a variety of different languages. This is a positive step in inclusion for all those without English as their first language in the school. Errigal College has been at the forefront when it comes to welcoming and including students whose first language is not English. Errigal College is one of the first schools in Donegal to have an EAL policy as part of its overall school plan. Leaving Cert Study Skills Leaving Cert students are currently availing of a study skills class once a week in school. The purpose of the class is to guide students with their study and introduce them to various study techniques. Careers teacher Donna Mc Gowan and English teacher Katie Mulhern are delivering the class. The European Union has proposed new rules to test pollution levels in new cars in the wake of Volkswagen's diesel emissions scandal. Authorities say an overhaul of the system is urgently required, calling for independent assessors who are not connected with vehicle manufacturers along with testing laboratories that are no longer paid directly by manufacturers, in order to prevent conflicts of interest. In addition, the EU wants to be able to recall vehicles across the continent and carry out spot checks so that deliberate cheats would soon be found out; significant changes from the current structure, where tests are carried out at national level and are then valid across all of Europe. The rules would enable Brussels to impose penalties on car makers of up to $46,500 (30,000) per vehicle for failure to comply with environmental laws if no fine is being imposed by the member state. "To regain customers' trust in this important industry, we need to tighten the rules but also ensure they are effectively observed," said Jyrki Katainen, the European Commission's vice president. The EU's lack of power has been continually highlighted by the Volkswagen scandal. It was accused of being too scared to take on Germany's powerful car industry and criticised over its inability to act against any single nation. So far, no EU country has imposed a penalty on Volkswagen despite 8.5 million of the 11 million vehicles fitted with banned emissions cheating software are in the region. The proposal is expected to be met with firm opposition from national authorities, who would lose their own enforcement powers if the legislation came to fruition. The car industry is also set to resist the changes. The EU is also trying to close a loophole whereby testing for toxic nitrogen oxide (NOx) pollutants occurs in a laboratory rather than real road conditions. Car makers can alter carbon dioxide and fuel use claims through a variety of measures, including switching off the air-conditioning and improving aerodynamics by removing wing mirrors and taping up doors. But that legislation faces opposition in the European Parliament because the current proposal would still allow emissions that are more than twice the level of official limits. Ford officials have confirmed plans to exit the Japanese and Indonesian automotive markets because they are not profitable. That means closing dealerships and no longer selling or importing Ford and Lincoln vehicles in the two countries. "After pursuing every possible option, it has become clear that there is no path to sustained profitability, nor will there be an acceptable return over time from our investments in Japan or Indonesia," said spokeswoman Karen Hampton in a statement. "Therefore, we will cease all operations in these markets before the end of 2016 and concentrate our resources elsewhere." Hampton said the decision "has just been made and has been communicated to our employees and dealers. As we work through the closures, our priorities are to ensure we treat our employees and our dealer partners with respect and support them in this transition." Many automakers have struggled to gain market share in Japan, which historically has made it hard for non-Japanese brands to be imported and sold. Ford sold about 5,000 vehicles there last year and has less than 2 percent market share. Ford has had a presence in Japan since 1974, Reuters reported earlier from Tokyo after obtaining an email from Asia Pacific President Dave Schoch to employees in the region. The closures affect about 52 dealerships and almost 300 employees in Japan. Product development will also cease in that country. Ford has been in Indonesia since 2002 and has 35 employees and 44 franchised dealerships. Sales were about 6,000 vehicles last year, which is less than 1 percent market share. General Motors announced last year it was going to stop making vehicles in Indonesia, which led to 500 job losses. Ford will let customers in both countries know that they will be able to continue to get parts to service their vehicles and honor warranties even after the Ford dealerships are closed, Hampton said. "Ford remains committed to serving global markets while aggressively restructuring parts of our business which have no reasonable path to achieve sales growth or sustained profitability, particularly in areas where market dynamics prevent us from competing effectively," she said. The crowd on Tuff Street is heaving with anticipation as a highly-modified Holden Torana, bearing the number plates 'ON IT', lets rip. There is a chorus of screaming tyres, bellowing engine noise and raucous cheer from onlookers as the car's rear rubber disintegrates into a cloud under 500-odd kilowatts of V8 internal combustion. Then, there is silence. Drive has just entered Gate 4 of the 29th Summernats festival. The noise of the crowd falls flat as we roll silently through the main thoroughfare of the Southern Hemisphere's largest car festival earlier this month. The feeling at the wheel is almost akin to sitting your first driver's test. "Is this thing electric?" quizzes a security guard, one of several lining the well-worn tarmac. "I definitely haven't seen one of these here before." He's not alone. Full-sized blokes with beards and tattoos whisper between one another and a general sense of bewilderment transcends the hot and sweaty masses as our Tesla Model S saunters through the annual Canberra festival. It's as though we've turned up to a Rebel's bikie meeting in drag. "This is Summernats, not f***ing Star Wars," yells one punter. The reason for our visit is not to upset the establishment, but to try and beat it. Using Tesla's fastest, most powerful model, the $222,178 (plus on-road costs) P90D, we plan to compete against some of the country's most powerful muscle cars in the Summernats' Go to Whoa performance event. The idea at first seemed fanciful; now it feels as though we're in some kind of bad dream where the angry mob is about to set upon us. All in the name of an experiment. Playing the green card Our trip south to Canberra is considerably different to that of regular Summernats' contestants. Most trailer their rides to and from the event to avoid unnecessary wear and tear. There's also the issue of avoiding police infringements. We leave Tesla's Sydney dealership with a full complement of electricity, about 490km worth of claimed range, giving us enough charge to reach Goulburn comfortably. There, we sample the delights of a nearby cafe while the P90D replenishes itself at a free supercharger station, one of several between Brisbane and Melbourne, near the town's information centre. A full charge takes about an hour. Fitted with the latest generation of Tesla's AutoPilot function, the Model S more or less plods itself south along the Hume Highway, changing lanes and maintaining its position with one hand only superficially touching the wheel. It adheres more to a luxury car brief than a performance car brief, with a roomy cabin clad in leather and Alcantara and punctuated by a huge 17-inch display conveying driver and infotainment function. We arrive at the main gates of Canberra's Exhibition Park at 8am, where we're met with the curious reception, before making our way to the scrutineering shed, where the novelty factor of the Tesla really takes hold: "Can you turn it over for me please, I'm going to have to assess how loud it is," jokes one official. The official safety assessment comprises only a quick external check over, as the Tesla's dual motors and bank of lithium-ion batteries are located under the floor and out of sight as a means of keeping its centre of gravity low and enabling better interior packaging. Friendly fire The banter at Summernats, it turns out, is mostly in good taste. Nearly every person we speak to is interested in the Tesla's performance and eager see it unleash its full potential a hefty 568kW of power and 967Nm of torque, both at 0rpm at the track event. The most divisive issue is noise, or lack thereof. "In years to come I think there will be more electric cars here but I still don't think they could ever take over the noisy V8s. That's what Summernats seems to be all about," says Matt, a first-time visitor to the festival. Even though it is still perceived as a rowdy gathering, particularly late on the Saturday afternoon, the Summernats appears more open to change than before. Clayton, a Mazda owner from Sydney, says he has noticed a discernable shift in attitude towards non V8-powered competitors in recent years. "The first time I brought the RX-2 down it was a little different, to say the least. I felt like people were almost offended," he says. "You still get the odd person that takes exception to a rotary at Summernats, but generally, people have become quite accepting of them." For the record, rotary-engined Mazdas have taken out the grand champion of Summernats accolade for two years running. According to veteran Summernats track commentator Jason O'Halloran, the Tesla's fearsome performance automatically earns it credence among most car lovers. "Being a Tesla it's an interesting vehicle because you come to Summernats, the holy grail of supercharged V8 craziness here in this country, but everyone knows what this is," he says. "The V8 guys with the big blowers, I think they expect that this is coming, they know that it's on the way so they're not giving up their V8s just yet. But they respect this." Go to Whoa The aim of our chosen event is to accelerate along a circa-100 metre section of bitumen, before braking as efficiently as possible to finish between two white lines. There are strictly no double braking movements allowed and competitors cannot overshoot the target. "Just get in there and have a go. And make sure you stop at the other end," says John, a regular Go to Whoa competitor in his Ford Falcon XR8 sedan. The event is traditionally dominated by high-powered V8 entrants with modern disc brakes. With a claimed 0-100km/h time of 2.8 seconds and all-wheel drive grip, the Model S P90D is a formidable opponent. The bigger test will be that of the driver. "I've seen a lot of different cars through this event, but never anything like this," says Steve, the main track official who has overseen 19 Summernats. "It just leaves the line and it's there at the finish. It's like nothing else." Our first two runs at Go to Whoa are unsuccessful. The Tesla misses out on a time as I finish too short of the line or I overshoot it in a ham-fisted rush of testosterone. "You'll get it this time, I'm sure," a track official says as I strive for third time lucky. She was right; using a little more caution, I manage to register 7.93 seconds fast enough to keep company with some competitors, without threatening the top bracket. Determined to make amends for my first two blunders, I go for a fourth attempt. The green light drops and the Tesla launches cleanly off the line. There's a maniacal surge forward. I then back off momentarily to get a gauge of my speed before jamming the anchors on as hard as I can. Track official Steve, by now mystified at the Tesla's acceleration, runs over: "6.02 seconds, mate. Well done, that's the fastest time of the day". The experiment works, and there is no doubt that, had we hung around until the Go to Whoa finals on Sunday, the Model S would be a strong chance of taking home the silverware. The bigger surprise from our appearance at Summernats is not the Go to Whoa result, but the general crowd response on seeing the Tesla for the first time. Most are welcoming and nearly all are intrigued at the presence of the electric car. "To see it out on the track today was really good, and a lot of people came over to see just what it sounded like, which is basically nothing," commentator O'Halloran says afterwards. "The reaction was really good, people have seen these things on YouTube and now they want to see it in the flesh. They were all videoing themselves and you know that will go out to others on social media. "It's an interesting car in a very exciting time in Summernats history. I think to have it here has been really good, and to see what it could do a six second time on this track is very impressive." Equally promising is the fact nearly all punters we speak to say they would be happy for a Tesla to return, as long as it is present among more traditional muscle cars. "It is weird because there's not much noise, but if it burns tyres it will probably get past the crowd," one enthusiast says. "Anything that is a performance car is quite welcome here in my opinion." Tesla Model S P90D On sale: Now Price: $222,178 (plus on-road costs) Engine: Dual electric motors, 90kWh battery pack Power: 568kW at 0rpm (193kW front motor power, 375 kW rear motor power) Torque: 967Nm at 0rpm Transmission: Single-speed automatic; AWD Fuel use: 0.0L/100km (491km electric range) The subject of dual-range four-wheel drive could just about start a brawl at the Birdsville Pub. Many are adamant it's essential for genuine off-roading. And it certainly helps in the really rough stuff, especially steep ascents and descents or over rocks. Low range is a reduction gear that makes first gear extremely low, helping with engine braking down hills and making it easier to tackle obstacles in a slower, more controlled manner. But for most adventuring and outback touring it's not essential. Cars such as the Volkswagen Amarok have proved that you can do an awful lot with a decent four-wheel drive system and a strong engine. That said, most serious off-roaders and 4x4 most dual-cab utes will have a low range four-wheel drive system. Underbody protection Off-roading can be tough and terminal on vehicle mechanicals. But any serious off-roader comes prepared with big metal plates under the car to protect the engine, oil sump, transmission and other vitals. Don't be fooled by plastic covers, which are close to useless in any sort of strike with nature. They're more about smoothing the air flow under the car to reduce fuel use rather than actually going off-road. It's the metal stuff that counts. Decent tyres The trend with modern cars is for big wheels and tyres, something that looks great flashing around town and can help with cornering grip and steering accuracy. As a general rule, the bigger the diameter of the tyre (usually between 15 and 22 inches on an SUV) the less useful it'll be in rough terrain. That's because larger tyres typically have a lower profile, a number expressed as a percentage of the width of the face of the tyre (usually between 35 and 75). Anything with a profile lower than about 60 is more about going fast around corners, not fending off punctures or holding together over rocks and dirt tracks. In remote areas you'll also struggle to find replacements for tyres 19 inches or larger. So if you're planning to actually take your off-roader off the road then go for the smaller tyres with a higher profile. Full-sized spare tyre If you're going off-road the chances are you'll get a puncture at some stage. And the skinny space-saver spare tyres increasingly common in SUVs are close to useless in the rough stuff. Apart from the fact they'll limit your top speed (usually recommended at 80km/h) they also aren't designed to be driven big distances (often the rubber is a much softer compound to help with grip), so could wear out getting back to town. That softer rubber is also often more susceptible to punctures in rough terrain. Diff locks and other traction systems Traction is the big thing with four-wheel drives. If you don't have it, you'll stop (get bogged). The advantage of a four-wheel drive is the drive is shared over all four wheels rather than just two. But just as important is how that drive is apportioned to those four wheels. Many modern soft-roaders send the drive predominantly to two wheels (usually the front) and will reactively send it to the rear once wheelspin is detected. But most also have traction control systems designed for smoother on-road driving; if you get wheelspin on one or two wheels it could mean you're stuck. Smarter traction control systems (like those used on various Jeeps and Land Rovers) are designed for proper off-roading, so even though the vehicle itself may be more passenger car in its make up it'll still do a good job of keeping the wheels moving. And forget about the fancy buttons on city SUVs that suggest the system has a centre locking differential; it's more about constantly sending some drive to all four wheels rather than evenly spreading the driving load. Speaking of which, locking differentials are a fantastic traction aid. They send identical drive to the left and right wheels, or to the front and rear pairs of wheels. Some very serious off-roaders have three locking differentials (or fixed drive between some axles) which means each wheel will drive at exactly the same speed. It means when cornering one or more wheels has to skid to account for the difference in how far each travels, so there can be some skipping or skidding during a tight turn. And don't lock differentials on a bitumen road because you risk damage to the driveline Green Party councillor and general election candidate Mark Dearey has more reason than most to welcome the 2 million EU funding for Clanbrassil Street. The 2m grant assistance will fund the Clanbrassil Street and St. Nicholas rejuvenation scheme with matching funding provided by Louth County Council. Deareys store on Clanbrassil Street is where he grew up, and when the rest of us were growing up it was one of the towns landmarks, in fact, its still hard to believe that it's gone. It was an anchor business not only of the street but the town, and the absence of such iconic shops has contributed to the decline of our high street. Of course high streets have suffered greatly, not just here, but in every EU country, so this funding - when matched by the council it will come to 4 million - is a step in the right direction. Cllr Dearey reminded me this week that it was the executive of Louth Local Authority, the body that comprises Louth County Council, and the three municipal committees, that went after the funding and secured it. The local authority gets its share of criticism these days, but it was their professional commitment and expertise that landed this funding and all thats needed now is a consensus of all concerned as to how it can be best utilised. Dundalk councillors had a very significant input into the refurbishment of the Market Square and I hope that will be the case with this project, Cllr Dearey said. An architect will be engaged and that is to be welcomed, but Im very much aware that Park Street is not part of the project, so in the long term we will have to look beyond it and to the rest of the town and link it to a total revitalisation of the town centre. But he is very optimistic and believes that a redevelopment of the streetscape is the start of seriously tackling the economic woes of our town centre due to the wrong planning decisions having been taken over the past 15 years when business was moved out of the centre of the town, to the outskirts, at the cost of the town centre. The chief executive of Louth Local Authority, Joan Martin, is also committed to working with town centre business to see what measures can be taken to give the town back its unique atmosphere. And the town has a unique atmosphere. Leave this office here in Crowe Street, step outside the front door, walk up the centre of Dundalk, and you will meet the friendliest people, in business or shopping. We can match any town in Ireland for friendship and conviviality. Later this month, the chief executive will meet members of Dundalk Chamber of Commerce and Dundalk BIDS to see how they can all use their expertise to help the town centre. If this 4 million facelift does for Clanbrassil Street and Nicholas Street what the rejuvenation project did for the Square, then it will be a good start. Cllr Dearey would like to see this streetscape project backed up by a scheme that helps the refurbishment of town centre properties such as happens with the Living Centre Initiative. The Living City Initiative is a scheme of property tax incentives for special regeneration areas in the centres of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford and Kilkenny. Cllr Dearey has written to Minister for Finance Michael Noonan to have Dundalk included. so far, no luck, but he hasnt given up. I will be writing to Michael Noonan about the Living City Initiative because investment in property as well as developing the streetscape is crucial, Cllr Dearey said. Senator Mary Moran has also welcomed the announcement that Dundalk is getting the 2m grant allocation from the European Regional Development Fund. This is very welcome news for our town centre, she said, and will give a badly needed new lease of life to this area of the town. A number of improvements are expected to be carried out under the rejuvenation scheme and I would encourage Louth County Council to keep accessibility for the disabled in mind at all times in going forward with this project. Full accessibility is a must for this project. I continuously raise the issue of accessibility with Louth County Council officials. I have particularly highlighted the lack of accessibility right in our town centre including An Tain Theatre which is not properly accessible for wheelchair users or people with mobility issues. I have walked the town with wheelchair users assessing the accessibility situation for people with a disability and for people with buggies who also find it difficult to access certain areas of our town centre. An excellent accessibility report was compiled in recent years by local man, John Morgan, which I brought to the attention of Louth County Council and would encourage that they look at this report again in light of this funding allocation. Disability groups and local people should be consulted on accessibility needs in the town before ground breaks on this project. Full accessibility needs to be a priority in this rejuvenation scheme and I have written to the Chief Executive of Louth County Council on many occasions to highlight this matter, she said. Fine Gael deputy Peter Fitzpatrick said the money will be channelled towards formulating a new identity for this part of the town. There are also plans in place to improve connectivity for all members of the community and for visitors to the town. This funding will be spent on refurbishing footways and providing full accessibility for all users, he said, modernising existing pedestrian crossings; replacing street lighting and improving the roads. I am absolutely delighted to see this important funding delivered for Dundalk and the local community. Fine Gael has a plan to keep the economic recovery going to ensure we have the State resources available to invest in exactly these kinds of projects to benefit the whole community, he said. Michael ODowd, the Renua general election candidate for Louth believes that the public want a change of Government but they do not want the economy put at risk. That is where Renua come in, he says.We really have a strong message for the electorate here in Louth and its based on the economy. He works for Enterprise Ireland, the Government agency responsible for supporting Irish businesses both at home and abroad, and is based at the Finnabair Industrial Park in Dundalk. Dundalk is a wonderful location for industrial investment, he says. But I do think that the Mullaharlin industrial estate has not been used to its full potential. The emphasis was on getting a biopharmaceutical company based there, but I think that was limiting our options. The Dundalk Science and Technology Park at Mullaharlin has been developed by the IDA. It is central to the Louth Economic Forums plans for bringing bringing foreign investment to the town. It is hoped to get a major biopharmaceutical facilities to operate from the site and the IDA is marketing this project. But ODowd has a good point: why concentrate on just one idea? He himself has put forward a plan for a business pilot scheme based in the centre of the county. It would be based in Ardee and would mirror industrial development zones in Scotland and Wales which try to take job creation from city areas and into the regions. Since the formation of Renua, he said, we have developed a job creation policy intended to regionalise new jobs and moving them out from an already overcrowded Dublin city into the regions. His believes his Louth City of Business plan has vision. There may talk of a global economic slowdown, but hes not looking at the markets. If the Irish economy is growing, then he wants that growth here in Louth and not just concentrated in Dublin. He has also made it clear that he will not be supporting the repeal of the Eighth Amendment of the constitution. The Eighth Amendment of the constitution introduced a constitutional ban on abortion. He said that his position on this has been consistent. It is one of the main reasons I joined Renua, he said. The eighth amendment protects the life of the mother but it also gives a very important right to the unborn. This right is precious and I am not in favour of removing it. As the issue has come up at some doors I think it is important that I put my views on the record. But Renua is about more than just the Eighth Amendment. The economy is a major priority with the party and I will be supporting any policy that helps create jobs. We are also a party that will open up Public Procurement and remove unfair conditions that currently hamstring local companies and advantage cross border competition. Michael ODowd was a county councillor for 15 years. He won three local elections. This is his first general election. Its a first for many of the candidates in Louth and its one of the hardest to call. He believes there are seats there for Fine Gael, Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail and that he is the best of the rest. Renua have 25 candidates and will get six or seven seats. Louth could be one. For a small business or start-up navigating our 24 hour news circle is a difficult prospect. Positioning yourself positively in the media can generate sales and redefine an outdated marketing strategy. Of course, though, negative media can ruin reputation and stifle growth. When conducted correctly, the process of gaining media attention can be easy and harmless. Constantly as a media consultant, Im asked by business owners and entrepreneurs how they can receive positive media attention. And that they are dismayed their media releases dont get reported on. The problem is right there, relying on an outdated form of communication the emailed media release. As a former journalist and media adviser, Im well versed in all things media release and argue 90% of the time they dont work. Much like a media release, its old school thinking to assume emailing one to a generic news room address will work. Think of it like an email to a large corporation where does it go? Who receives it? And do they care? The same applies to a busy news room with many stories on the go. You might get lucky and your media release could be printed out. If so, dont expect miracles beyond that. It will be throw in a heap with every other look at me media release. Journalists are time poor and dont or wont spend much time rifling through it to find gold. Dont get even more old school by writing a media release longer than War and Peace. If printed, it wont get stapled before being thrown at the heap. If it is picked up and the second page cant be found, game over. In fact, a media release longer than one page risks never being read at all. Students of journalism are taught the importance of the hook to keep your reader reading. If you dont hook a journalist with your heading, they wont go beyond the first paragraph. Keep in mind journalists are emailed countless media releases daily. Like Twitter, you have only a few characters to sell your story (in a media release) make them count. If its superfluous get rid of it. After a catchy heading, make your text concise and appealing. Focus on the story, not the product or service. Let the narrative tell the journalist (and hopefully reader) that your product or service is ideal for them. Lets not consign the humble media release to the annals of history though. It can be a vital tool, when used correctly. Choose your market. Dont send out media releases to every media organisation if they dont cover your area of business i.e: dont send a media release to the Herald Sun if youre a business operator in Perth simply because you have a few customer in Melbourne seems obvious, but happens all the time. A smaller relevant database is greater than a large generic one. Three journalists reporting on your industry in your contact book is greater than having all the big media players numbers on speed dial. Like building a client or customer base, gaining media attention should be the same process forming relationships. Journalists look for stories but not necessarily off media releases. If youre in contact with them, a casual text or chat over coffee might do (as long as you pay). Research the media in your area (both industry and location). Smart money says youll find a plethora on Twitter alone. Follow, like and engage with them in the build up to trying to gain media attention, its another form of business and/or brand recognition. Through doing this youll learn what appeals to particular journalists and then you can target your media release or approach to them. It will increase your chance of success. Without building a professional relationship with journalists your media release remains faceless, doomed for the heap. Digital technology has gifted small business an arsenal of options to help project your name, use it to your best advantage. Start building your media connections now for when you need them. About the author: Luke Buesnel is an experienced journalist and political media advisor with an interest in small business issues and trends. Luke is now the Founder and Director of Real Media Management. From left, Master Sgt. Krystal Stegner; Capt. Lindsay Doak; Col. Robert Kilgore; State Sen. Tom Croci; State Sen. Pat Gallivan; State Sen. Rob Ortt; Lt. Col. Steven Hefferon; Senior Master Sgt. Jessica King; Lt. Col. David Warnick; Maj. Ryan Forrest. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO) Check out East Niagara Post videos on YouTube, Vine and Periscope. NIAGARA FALLS AIR RESERVE STATION State Sen. Rob Ortt and State Sen. Patrick Gallivan welcomed fellow Republican senator, Tom Croci, to their respective districts Wednesday during a tour of the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park and the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station. Todays visit to the naval park and air base was a fist for Senator Croci.During their time in Niagara Falls, the senators toured the 107th Airlift Wing to learn about the capabilities of the MQ-9 Reaper, which is currently under construction, and allows airmen to fly remotely-piloted aircraft all over the world, right from the air base. 107th Airlift Wing Commander Col. Robert Kilgore and the senators discussed how the mission will help the bases sustainability. They also spoke about the importance of the base to the area and how much of an economic impact it has as Niagara Countys largest employer.The Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station is an asset to the community and region as a whole, said Sen. Ortt. Once completed, the MQ-9 Reaper mission will set the base apart, help to ensure its future and strengthen national defense efforts.Sen. Croci chairs the Senate Committee on Veterans, Homeland Security and Military Affairs, where Senator Ortt also sits on as a committee member. Both Senators are veterans of the U.S. military. The EBRD and Emerging Europe, an information platform focused on the region, are hosting a business conference Outlook on Croatia today. A diverse coastline, a large variety of islands and a rich history spanning centuries and empires attracts millions of visitors every year. In 2015 alone, Croatia had a record tourist season with more than 14 million visitors, an increase by more than 8.3 per cent over the previous year. Impressive as this is, Croatia has much more to offer as a business destination. With a new government committed to reform and with the economy growing again, the signs for a sustained upward trend are all there. One of the major positive developments in recent times have been efforts to establish Croatia as a link between the capital markets of the Western Balkans and the EU. These efforts are now beginning to yield results. Business has no borders, but in order to function well it needs links. Croatia is ideally located to provide those links between the European Union and the Western Balkans. Infrastructural connections are already in place. Now its time for Croatia to increase the role it can play in connecting capital markets. The Zagreb Stock Exchange (ZSE) is the main actor here. Established in 1907, under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Commodities and Valuables Division of the Chamber of Commerce, as it was called then, quickly built traders trust throughout the monarchy. Now, that trust has grown and the ZSE is making great strides to build an even wider network. The first major step is the creation of SEE Link, which brings the Bulgarian, Croatian and Macedonian stock exchanges together. The links objective is to establish the regional infrastructure for the trading of securities listed on those three bourses. The system is scheduled to become operational in Q1 2016 and will provide access to all listed securities on the Bulgarian, Croatian and Macedonian stock exchange. Having returned to growth and with a new government in place what Croatia now needs is a new reform drive, say Ivana Gazic, President of the Management Board of the Zagreb Stock Exchange, and Vedrana Jelusic Kasic, EBRD Director, Croatia. Integrating capital markets will play a major role in attracting investors. More videos The other major step is further expansion or the acquisition of the Ljubljana Stock Exchange, with the latter becoming effective at the beginning of 2016. The two bourses had shared a similar development path structure and potential as well as financial system framework. Now, all market participants will benefit from this acquisition. It will result in an increased range of financial products allowing investors to make investment choices reflecting their preferred risk-expected return mix. Currently, Ljubljana trades 105 securities out of which 45 are in equities. An enlarged consolidated capital market will also ensure a broader range of financing sources. And, thirdly, investors interested in Croatian and Slovenian securities will have an opportunity to share a common view of the joint regional market. Worth noting is the fact that Croatian investors already hold considerable stakes in Slovenian companies and Croatian institutional investors are among the largest buyers on the Ljubljana Stock Exchange including Croatian pension funds which have over 9 billion of asset under management. Today, there are more than 150 companies listed on the Zagreb Stock Exchange, which offers a regulated market and a multilateral trading facility and 351 securities. Over the past five years, the bourse has introduced new and innovative products to the domestic capital market such as market making and structured products trading, operating a multilateral trading facility. It also launched eight new indices and started issuing LEI (Legal Entity Identifier) codes. The ZSE is also planning to switch to Xetra, a new trading system which is expected to help facilitate cross-border investment flows, one of the aims of the EU Capital Markets Union. The Zagreb Stock Exchange strongly supports this EU initiative as Croatia needs to mobilise capital to create more investment opportunities for investors and a greater choice of funding for companies. Last year, the stock exchange reflected a stellar tourism season with increased growth in tourist sector equities, with a 23.7 per cent annual growth of the CROBEXturist index. Now, with a new government committed to enhance the countrys business environment and endorse reforms and modernisation across the economy, the future outlook on capital markets is promising. This article was co-authored by Ivana Gazic, President of the Management Board of the Zagreb Stock Exchange. Last night Anne and I were privileged to watch the taping of Rachel Maddows Flint Town Hall. It was an astonishing experience for a variety reasons and I think it has the potential to be a game changer in terms of how the poisoning of Flints drinking water by the Snyder administration is perceived by people outside of Flint and around the country. The connection between Eclectablog and The Rachel Maddow Show goes back to April or 2011. In that first appearance on her show she called us Electablog but it was the beginning of Maddows championing of Michigans plight under the un-American scourge on democracy known as Emergency Management. Since then, of course, my writing about Emergency Managers and the outrageous assaults on American democracy in Michigan has been featured many times on her show. I wont rehash the entire town hall. If you havent seen it, you should check out the clips that are online HERE and watch it in its entirety when it becomes available. I do, however, want to note some highlights and, of course, give you some behind-the-scenes glimpses of what it looked like from inside the gymnasium at Flints Holmes STEM Academy where the event was held. While Anne and I waited in the holding area before going into the town hall, Anne and I spoke with University of Michigan Professor Martin Kaufman. Dr. Kaufman has been mapping the areas in Flint most likely to have lead water lines and other plumbing to understand where the potential lead contamination is likely to be an issue. He told us that homes in the center of the city of Flint are likely to be new and not have lead-containing plumbing. Also, the outer areas of Flint, the newer suburbs, are also new and likely not to have much of an issue. However, the ring around the city center where most of Flints homes are likely to be vulnerable. This, he said, is likely over HALF of the homes in Flint. So, the idea that this is somehow a limited problem is completely false. MSNBC host Joy Ann Reid came out to warm up the crowd before the taping began. After that, Maddow herself came out to speak to the residents of Flint, to express how bad she felt that it took so long for their story to be told, and to let them know how much she loves them. All photos by Anne C. Savage, special to Eclectablog. Please contact us using the Contact link at the top left of the page for inquiries on reusing them. As the gymnasium filled up, a number of elected officials and other important players in this saga arrived. Congressman Dan Kildee Progress Michigan staffers Denzel McCampbell, Sam Inglot, Hugh Madden, and Lonnie Scott Rachel Maddow hugs Rev. Jesse Jackson Maddow started out by holding a lead pipe to show where the problem lies in terms of lead contamination. She said the thing she had learned since arriving in Flint is that, despite knowing Flint has a problem since the beginning of October 2015, the Snyder administration has done exactly nothing to address the critical infrastructure problems that led to the poisoning of the citys drinking water. The town hall was divided into several panels. The first panel was comprised of Flint Mayor Karen Weaver, Virginia Tech Professor Mark Edwards, and Prof. Kaufman. They talked about the extent of the problem and took the Snyder administration to task for their lack of coherent response. Throughout the various panels, Maddow took questions for the panelists from people in the audience. She talked to a local plumber who contested the Snyder administrations claim that it will take 15 years to resolve the problem of lead-containing components of Flint residents homes. The second panel included Hurley Medical Center pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, Flint City Council Member Sheldon Neeley, and Holmes STEM Academy principal Anna Johnson. These three attempted to address the extent of the health crisis, what needs to be done, and how it is impacting the education and development of children now and into the future who have been poisoned by lead. The final panel included Mayor Weaver, Senator Debbie Stabenow, and civil rights activist Rev. Charles Williams III. They talked about what is needed from both the state and federal government to address this issue. Rev. Williams was particularly vehement that the Snyder administration has completely failed the residents of Flint and that the Governor cannot be trusted. The taped segment of the townhall finished with all of the panelists back on stage. Its this group, Maddow said, that gives her hope that things CAN be fixed in Flint, despite the scandalously inadequate response from the Snyder administration. Maddow concluded the town hall by reminding us that America has done big things. It has created the national highway system and many other huge undertakings. Now, she said, its time for us to do something big in Flint to correct this disaster that was not of their own making but that was done TO them: This is a disaster; a man-made American disaster of national consequence. And part of the reason we came here to Flint tonight is not because Im from here or Ive got some Michigan connection. I dont. And most Americans arent from here and dont have some specific connection to this place. But we, as your fellow Americans, have to start thinking about the restoration of this town, the restoration of Flint, as one of the big things we need to do as a country. [] It took awhile but America is with you now, Flint, Michigan. After the taped segment concluded, Maddow continued to take questions from the audience for awhile. When that concluded, she was engulfed in a throng of town hall attendees and she graciously spoke with anyone who approached her. This young mans brother is one of the survivors of the surge in cases of Legionnaires Disease in Flint It was an incredible event, one sure to raise further awareness around the country about the human-made catastrophe in Flint and the abject failure of a corportatist-driven, Republican approach to governance in Michigan, a state with a multitude of urban areas ravaged by the implosion of their manufacturing base and the disinvestment that has allowed them to deteriorate. In the end, as Maddow so clearly and eloquently put, this is a national problem and one we owe it to our kids to solve. 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Over the past year in some Islamic countries many have been murdered by extremists or sentenced to long jail terms just for expressing their views, according to Freedom of Thought Report 2015. The report is released by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU). The IHEU says it is the sole global umbrella organization embracing Humanist, atheist, rationalist, secularist, skeptic, laique, ethical cultural, freethought and similar organizations worldwide '13 NATIONS PRESCRIBE DEATH FOR APOSTASY' It notes that 13 countries - all in the Muslim world - prescribe the death penalty for apostasy, or leaving the official State religion, or for blasphemy, and subject unbelievers to other extreme punishments like flogging and long prison terms. The United Nations top expert on religious affairs has criticized the onslaught against those who chose not to believe in a god. Officially-secular Bangladesh has in 2015 seen five separate machete killings of atheist bloggers and publishers, in public and in broad daylight with police standing by. In Saudi Arabia, a member of the UN's 48-nation Human Rights Council, a poet was sentenced to death for apostasy and a blogger to regular weekly lashings, as well as a long jail term, for "insulting Islam." All this, says IHEU President Andrew Copson, while U.N. conventions on social and political rights to which these countries have subscribed declare that freedom of religion and belief are basic human rights. Those conventions say that no-one should be persecuted or ill-treated for expressing their views or for abandoning one religion for another or abandoning any form of religious faith. The study is issued annually on the UN's Human Rights Day, December 9. "Last year, we recorded a rise in hate speech (against atheists and similar groups) and rhetoric: Presidents saying 'humanism and liberalism' were a threat to the State, laws branding atheism as 'terrorism,' and so on," said Copson. "This year we've seen that rhetoric bubble over into truly malicious acts of persecution," he declared as the report was launched in Brussels in the presence of the U.N.'s special rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief Professor Heiner Bielefeldt who, although himself a theologian, attends IHEU gatherings. The report notes that in territory controlled by the group that calls itself Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, ISIS, people suspected of atheism or of challenging in any way the precepts of Islam are executed out of hand, often in particularly gruesome ways. But Copson said the "brutality" of ISIS against atheists who count for some 14 percent of the world population according to independent surveys seemed to be creating the space "for deep, noxious hatred against the non-religious in a growing number of countries, primarily Islamic states." 'EGYPTS DELCARES WAR ON ATHEISM' Egypt, the report says, had publicly declared "war on atheism," while Malaysia has branded humanism, secularism and liberalism as threats to Islam, the state religion, and therefore to state security. Saudi Arabia defines "calling for atheist thought in any form" as the prime example of terrorism in the country. Such behavior by governments, the IHEU says, encourages "fundamentalist vigilantes" like in Bangladesh to attack anyone who voices criticism of Islam or even just of some of its practices. Such lynch law is further promoted by official indifference or even accusations from political leaders that the victims were at fault for "offending religion." But the problems atheists and humanists face is not restricted to the Muslim world, the report makes clear. It records that two rationalists - a term covering a wide range of non-religious thought in the country - had been assassinated over the past year, apparently by Hindu fundamentalists, after challenging religious superstition and right-wing policies. In many African countries where different forms of Christianity predominate, the report indicated, people declaring atheism were often treated in the same fashion as gays and lesbians and subjected to harassment, public attacks in the media and from church pulpits, expulsion from jobs, barring from studies and even brutal assault and murder. However, the IHEU says, some Western countries which proclaim their support for universal human rights are also involved in at best discrimination against atheists and humanists and at worst making it easy for them to be brought to court under blasphemy laws, on charges of "causing offence" or of engaging in "hate speech" simply for voicing their views on religious matters. Britain, the report notes, has seen an increasing swing in its education system towards allowing religious organizations to take over state schools, where terms of admission force atheist and humanist parents to pretend to be religious and where children are subjected to classes in religion with little or no exposure to other philosophies of life. In Canada, "despite what should be strong constitutional protections for freedom of thought and expression, significant religious privileges are in force, both nationally and in several of its ten provinces and three territories," it declares. Although the United States' record is largely satisfactory, the report says, humanist and civil liberties groups frequently have to fight hard to defend the inherent secularism of the constitution against efforts, often backed by local state authorities or officials, to enforce particular religious beliefs in the public sphere. Sentiment against anyone voicing views against religion or criticizing it "has fed into the social idea that to be really American is to be religious, especially Christian," it adds. This in turn made it difficult for anyone seeking political office at any significant level to publicly espouse atheism or humanism, forcing non-religious people even in Congress to pretend to have faith in a deity. (Photo: Open Doors) Persecution of Christians is increasing and for millions of its faithful around the world, 2015 has been a "year of fear", says Open Doors, which once again has placed North Korea as the most dangerous place to be a Christian. Open Doors, has supported the persecuted church since its founding by Brother Andrews 50 years ago, and each year publishes its World Watch list of the top 50 most dangerous countries to be a Christian. "Islamic extremism remains by far the most common driver of persecution: in eight out of the top 10, and 35 out of the top 50 countries, it is the primary cause," says the 2016 Open Doors World Watch List. "A rise in Islamic extremism sees Pakistan at its highest position ever, and Libya entering the top ten for the first time," says the Open Doors reported. 'IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT ISLAM' "But it's not just about Islam. A rise in hardline Hindu nationalism in India has seen churches and pastors attacked with impunity. It enters the top 20 for the first time." It says research shows that persecution against Christians has increased so dramatically that persecution has risen even in those countries that have dropped out of its top 50. Open Doors rates the level of persecution as "extreme" in nine countries. For the 14th year in a row, North Korea is top of the list; followed by Iraq, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan and Iran. Open Doors comments, however, "But where there is great fear, there is also great faith. What this List also shows is that the church may be persecuted, it may be suppressed, attacked, vilified, lied about. But it has not been, and will never be, defeated." The north east African reclusive State of Eritrea has entered the top five for the first time. "Religious extremism Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist is the greatest source of persecution of Christians," says Open Doors, while noting that "gender violence is a weapon of persecution: women and girls are on the frontline.". Open Doors records show that worldwide there were over 7,000 Christians killed for faith-related reasons in the year almost 3,000 more than the previous year. It says its estimates exclude North Korea, Syria and Iraq, where accurate records do not exist. Around 2,400 churches were attacked or damaged over double the number for last year. In terms of violence against Christians and Christian property, Nigeria and Central African Republic topped the list. 'FAILED NATION STATES' The report notes that "Conflict and failed nation states result in increased levels of persecution." One of its key findings is that never before have so many Christians been on the move. "According to the UN, a record 60 million people have been displaced. A great number of these are Christians, especially in places like Syria, Iraq and Nigeria, where anti-Christian violence has driven hundreds of thousands of Christians from their homes." The entry of India, often referred to as the world's biggest democracy, into the top 20 most dangerous place at17 is a first. Open Doors says, "Persecution in India is extremely violence - and the violence is increasing. "More than 350 Christians were physically attacked, at least nine Christians were killed for their faith and at least three women were raped in the reporting year. "Attacks mainly come from Hindu extremists, although extremist Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and Maoists have all targeted Christians. "The Indian government, now led by Hindu nationalist party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is turning a blind eye to attacks against religious minorities, allowing Christians to be attacked with impunity." 'ISLAMIC EXTREMISM CROSSING BORDERS' When it comes to Islamic extremism, Open Doors say its has been crossing borders "Islamic State (IS) has moved beyond Syria and Iraq and into Libya. Boko Haram has spread to Cameroon and Chad, and al-Shabaab into Kenya. Meanwhile, many smaller extremist movements have declared themselves part of the IS group of caliphates. "Even the West has felt the tremors. Bombs in Paris, gunfights in California, holidaymakers killed on a Tunisian beach: in a globalised world, there is no such place as abroad anymore." Open Doors says some of the good news is that the wider Church is speaking out. "In November 2015, for the first time in the modern history of Christianity, high level representatives of various church traditions gathered together to listen to, learn from, and stand with, persecuted churches and Christians," it said in reference to a meeting held in Tirana, Albania convened by the Global Christian Forum. "Leaders of the world's great Christian traditions pledged to 'listen more, pray more, speak up more, and do more' for the world's persecuted believers," said Open Doors. Federal Education Minister, Simon Birmingham , has responded to Labors announcement today that it would honour the full six years of the needs-based Gonski funding model.In a statement this afternoon, Minister Birmingham said that Labors policy was short on detail and repeats the previous mistakes in education policy. He also warned that Labors plan would drive the budget deficit even higher than current levels.Labors schools press release fails the basic lesson of the last decade more money doesnt automatically equal better student outcomes, he said.Earlier today, Federal Labor leader, Bill Shorten, took to social media to pledge the largest school funding boost in two generations.My shadow colleagues and I have been talking about the largest boost for school funding in Australia in two generations. Were calling it your child, our future, Shorten said in a statement on social media.We want to make sure that every school is a great school and that we do the most important thing we can, which is to provide a good education for our kids.We want to make sure that our kids are getting the best quality education in the world and that what our children learn at school gives them the best start in life for the jobs of the future.However, Minister Birmingham said Labors reforms were simply a mirror of the Coalitions existing policies which were making inroads in STEM, supporting students with a disability and engaging with parents.Many of Labors so called reforms in relation to teacher quality, increased focus on STEM, engaging with parents and providing record supports for students with disabilities are already being implemented by the Coalition, Birmingham said.Birmingham said total State and Federal spending on schools grew by more than 100% in real terms between 1987/88 and 2011/12 yet Australia had gone backwards in absolute and relative terms, including in international literacy and numeracy rankings.The Turnbull Government is putting in more money than ever before, but we are making sure that it is being used where it counts in teacher quality, in a better curriculum, in parental engagement, in supporting principals to make local decisions about their local school, he said.Schools funding under the Commonwealth and under this Coalition government has always been needs based. At least six states are quietly bestowing retroactive diplomas on tens of thousands of former students who never passed their states required exit exam, sparking a heated debate about rigor, fairness, and the meaning of a high school diploma. In Georgia alone, more than 17,000 diplomas have been granted that way in just the past nine months, and that number is expected to soar further. Texas has issued at least 4,000 retroactive diplomas, with 12,000 studentsand possibly three times that numberstill eligible. South Carolina has already conferred more than 6,100 retroactive diplomas and could face similar requests from another 8,000 or more students. In California, at least 35,000 students now qualify for diplomas even though they failed the requiredbut now eliminatedexit exam in the past decade. Arizona and Alaska have passed similar legislation, allowing students to apply for diplomas despite failing the test required for graduation. The novel pathway to graduation has arisen from a national trend in which states are eliminating comprehensive tests in math and English/language arts in favor of end-of-course tests or other measures of high school achievement. States have been throwing over exit exams for years, arguing that theyre useless because theyre often pegged to 8th- or 9th-grade-level skills. More recently, the states that dropped their graduation exams argued that they dont reflect the Common Core State Standards. Then states had to confront a fairness issue: How could they hold students responsible for passing a test that state officials themselves deemed obsolete and too easy? Some states responded with laws that let students off the hook for the exam. But that triggered a backlash in some quarters from advocates who view the policy change as lowering expectations and devaluing the meaning of the diploma for the students who did pass their states test. Opening New Doors Georgia enacted House Bill 91 last March, allowing students who failed various iterations of the states exit exam as far back as 1985 to petition for diplomas. A 2012 state study found that high school grade point average was a much better predictor of college success than either of the exit exams Georgia had been using. So far, 17,337 diplomas have been conferred under the new law, according to the state department of education, but its impossible to estimate how many more students might qualify, since the state doesnt know which ones didnt graduate solely because of exit-exam failure, said Matt Cardoza, the departments spokesman. Students who earn diplomas via HB 91 cant be added to the states past or future graduation-rate calculations, he said. William Schofield is well aware of the outrage that some Georgians harbor about the high school diplomas awarded under the new law. As the superintendent of the 27,000-student Hall County school system, northeast of Atlanta, he used the law to confer 289 diplomas and defends it as an important way to reverse damage done to people who didnt fit an older, narrower concept of high school success. People say weve lowered the bar, and I say, whose bar? The bar of the master auto mechanic in a major market whos making $105,000? asked Schofield. I still get calls from students from years ago, who are well-intended, gifted, with plenty of dreams of their own, but they couldnt pass one section of the test. Why should we hold back kids like that? The exam had held back Misty Hatcher for 10 years. She finished her coursework with her graduating class in 2005, but couldnt pass the science section of the exit exam. She begged a local technical college to admit her, but it refused, citing its high school diploma requirement. Hatcher worked as a secretary and then took a $7.50-per-hour job in day care because the schedule was more manageable once she had children, and you dont have to have a diploma for that. For a few years, she kept taking the science test, but she couldnt pass. Hatcher applied for and got her diploma under the new state law. And now, at age 28, shes enrolled at that local technical college and is studying to become a computer-networking specialist. Hatcher hopes to earn a bachelors degree in graphic design. I didnt think Id ever get [a high school diploma], she said. When they gave it to me, I was yelling. I couldnt believe it. I thought, I can finally do something for my kids. Jennifer Zinth has been tracking exit exams as a policy analyst at the Education Commission of the States in Denver. She sees the moves to confer retroactive diplomas as a byproduct of many states decisions to end the practice of requiring students to pass some kind of test in order to graduate. In 2012, 25 states required such exit exams, according to ECS data. This year, only 13 do. Exit exams first became popular in the 1970s, she said, to ensure that students had mastered a basic, relatively low level of skills. States embraced new graduation exams in the 1980s and 90s, to reflect their state standards, but many were still pegged to relatively low skill levels, Zinth said. Since 2000, more states dropped exit exams in favor of end-of-course tests, but more recently, some states have been phasing those out as well, since many want to cut testing time and cost and have college-readiness tests in place, she said. Like those passed by other states, Texas law has stirred controversy. Signed into law last May, Senate Bill 149 allows students in three graduating classes, between 2014-15 and 2016-17, to get diplomas even though they failed one or two of the three required exit exams. School-based committees consider such students cases and allow them to meet exit-exam requirements in other ways, such as showing a portfolio, completing projects, or doing remedial work. Students still must pass all their core courses to graduate. In the class of 2015, 291,000 took the exit exams, and 16,786 students failed to pass one or two, qualifying them for diplomas under the new law. No one knows yet whether those failure rates will hold true for the next two graduating classes, but if they do, more than 50,000 students would be allowed to fail one or two exit exams and potentially still earn diplomas under SB 149. A Free Pass? That infuriates Bill Hammond, a former state representative who is now the chief executive officer of the Texas Association of Business. The state hasnt finished compiling statewide data on how many diplomas have been granted so far under that law, but Hammonds organization surveyed the 100 biggest school districts in Texas last year and found that they had granted 3,974 petitions for diplomas, about 70 percent of those filed in those districts under the measure. Twenty-three of those districts granted every petition filed. Its a very misguided policy. All you have to do is have an IQ above room temperature and youve got a diploma, Hammond said. What about all those students who worked hard, who tried multiple times to pass? Now their diplomas are worth nothing, the same as those who were given a free pass. Republican state Sen. Kel Seliger, who sponsored SB 149, rejected the argument that Texas exit exam is an effective safeguard of high school rigor. On some of those end-of-course tests, which are part of the statewide testing system known as the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, students can get as few as 37 percent of the questions correct and still get a passing score, he said. Theres nothing magical about a STAAR test, Seliger said. None of the folks in NASA took a STAAR test, and yet they muddled their way to the moon. Energypr Ultrafast pure fibre broadband provider, Gigaclear plc, has secured a EUR25m (GBP 18m) committed debt facility from the European Investment Bank (EIB). The loan, the largest one of its kind awarded to a UK company, will be used to support Gigaclears plans to rapidly extend its pure fibre, ultrafast broadband infrastructure within rural Britain during 2016. Founded in December 2010, Gigaclear has so far installed fibre outside more than 15,000 properties in rural parts of Oxfordshire, Essex, Northamptonshire, Berkshire and Gloucestershire, with 10,000 more already in construction. It was the first operator other than BT to secure contracts as part of the government-subsidised BDUK programme to bring broadband of at least 24Mbps to 95% of the UK. Gigaclear is both building networks under its own commercial investment and has also won three substantial BDUK contracts in Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Essex. During 2016 Gigaclear plans to build its pure fibre, ultrafast broadband network to at least 40,000 additional properties. This will involve a major investment by the company, one third of which is being financed through the EIB facility. Matthew Hare, Chief Executive of Gigaclear, said: This level of support is a ringing endorsement of Gigaclear as a business. EIB clearly has faith in our model and vision. It can see our own commitment to invest and how effectively we are already providing next generation infrastructure for the UKs rural economy and communities. Were transforming lives and businesses, giving people access to the fastest internet speeds to be found anywhere in the world and technologically future-proofing these rural communities for years to come. We have estimated that 1.5 million properties in the UK could benefit from our services and we want to reach those people as quickly as possible, but were a capital intensive business. So this loan is a landmark moment for us and an important next step in our expansion strategy. The loan to Gigaclear is the maximum available to companies under the InnovFin EU Finance for Innovators MidCap Growth Finance scheme and is the largest amount the EIB has awarded to any UK business under the InnovFin initiative. Jonathan Taylor, European Investment Bank Vice President commented: Improving internet access in rural areas is crucial for economic activity, healthcare, education and access to key services. Over the last 5 years the European Investment Bank has provided nearly EUR 12 billion to improve broadband and telecommunications across Europe. We are pleased to support Gigaclears activities in our first targeted support for rural communications in the UK. Gigaclear is advised by Cameron Barney LLP and its shareholders include Prudential Infracapital and Neil Woodfords Woodford Investment Management. At the end of 2015 Gigaclear owned and operated 56 rural fibre networks and has 35 under construction across Kent, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Rutland, Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Essex. In 2015 the company launched a trial of Britains fastest internet package for retail customers with up to 5Gbps broadband speeds, delivering download speeds up to 200 times faster and upload speeds 1,000 times faster than the UK average. Matthew Hare concluded: Our strategy to use pure fibre means we arent simply connecting rural communities but we are helping them leapfrog a whole generation of technology. Understandably communities who up to now have suffered from woeful internet speeds are incredibly excited about that proposition, so demand for our services is huge. Gigaclear is supported by InnovFin EU Finance for Innovators, MidCap Growth Finance with the financial backing of the European Union under Horizon 2020 Financial Instruments. Background information: About Gigaclear Gigaclear plc is dedicated to building and operating ultrafast, pure fibre to the premises broadband networks in rural Britain. With fast and reliable pure fibre connectivity to every property in a community, our customers are able to do what they need online, at any time of day, regardless of how many users there are in their property. The company was founded in December 2010 by its chief executive, Matthew Hare. For further information about qualifying communities see www.gigaclear.com/can-i-get-it For further information, visit www.gigaclear.com About InnovFin Under Horizon 2020, the EU research programme for 2014-20, the European Commission and the European Investment Bank Group (EIB and EIF) have launched a new generation of financial instruments and advisory services in 2014 to help innovative firms access finance more easily. Until 2020, "InnovFin EU Finance for Innovators" offers a range of tailored products which will make available more than EUR 24bn of financing support for research and innovation (R&I) by small, medium-sized and large companies and the promoters of research infrastructures. This finance is expected to support up to EUR 48bn of final R&I investments. Backed by funds set aside under Horizon 2020 and by the EIB Group, InnovFin financial products support R&I activities, which by their nature are riskier and harder to assess than traditional investments, and therefore often face difficulties in accessing finance. All are demand-driven instruments, with no prior allocations between sectors, countries or regions. Firms and other entities located in EU Member States and Horizon 2020 Associated Countries will be eligible as final beneficiaries. InnovFin MidCap Growth Finance offers long term senior, subordinated loans or mezzanine loans, in order to improve access to finance mainly for innovative larger midcaps (up to 3000 employees), but also SMEs and small midcaps. Loans from EUR 7.5m to EUR 25m will be delivered directly by the EIB. By Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has seen increased activity around a North Korean site suggesting preparations for a possible space launch in the near future, U.S. officials told Reuters on Thursday. The officials cited intelligence suggesting movement of components and propellant, adding the United States believed a test could take place even within a couple of weeks. "Our concern though is ... it's the same technology to develop ICBMs" (inter-continental ballistic missiles), one of the officials said. U.N. Security Council members were discussing fresh sanctions against North Korea after it conducted its fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6. The Pyongyang government is already under sanctions for its nuclear and missile programs. North Korea last conducted a long-range rocket launch in late 2012, successfully putting into orbit an object it claimed was a communications satellite. Western and Asian experts said it was part of an effort to build an inter-continental ballistic missile. Earlier on Thursday, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported North Korea may be preparing to launch a long-range missile as soon as within a week. South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok declined to comment on whether there were pre-launch activities at the site, citing a policy of not discussing intelligence matters. He said North Korea had issued no international warnings on navigation, however, as it has ahead of previous long-range rocket launches. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned during a trip to China this week of the dangers of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's pursuit of an ICBM, particularly given its declared intention to develop one with the capacity to carry a nuclear warhead. "This is threat to any nation in the world, but particularly we in the United States understand what his purpose is and therefore it is a threat the United States must take extremely seriously," Kerry told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday. "The United States will do what is necessary to protect people in our country and our friends and allies in the world," Kerry said. (Reporting by Phil Stewart; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Beijing, Ju-min Park and Jack Kim in Seoul; Editing by Susan Heavey and Grant McCool) By Martin Petty HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam's Communist Party unveiled a new politburo on Thursday with 12 newcomers and members of the controversial outgoing premier's cabinet, expanding the leadership of a party facing a "heavy" workload of economic reforms. Nguyen Phu Trong, who stays party chief, pledged to maintain a pro-growth status quo that balances foreign ties and cements a consensus leadership that analysts say was strained by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung's assertiveness in the latter years of his administration. Trong, 71, said he was a reluctant leader of a party that would move Vietnam towards modernisation. "My age is high, health is limited, knowledge is limited. I asked to step down, but because of the responsibility assigned by the party I have to perform my duty," Trong told reporters. "I'm also worried because the upcoming work is heavy." The 19-member politburo contains conservative and progressive elements, although uncertainty hangs over the outlook for economic reforms rolled out at an unusually fast rate under Dung, whose exit has caused some jitters. Those might be assuaged by the inclusion of Nguyen Van Binh, the governor of a central bank praised for its stable monetary policy and tackling of bad debt that swamped a beleaguered banking sector. Joining him is U.S.-educated foreign minister and Dung's deputy, Pham Binh Minh, seen by some experts as a signal of the party's pursuit of even ties between competing superpowers China and United States. Fred Burke, a board member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam and managing partner at law firm Baker & McKenzie, said the lineup was reassuring for business and would pick up where Dung left off. "It's positive," he said. "It's continuity, but continuity with a 21st century bent, a professional bent, with people who are pragmatists who want to roll up their sleeves and get on with it." Vietnam-U.S. relations have warmed dramatically as tensions between Communist neighbours Hanoi and Beijing have increased over South China Sea sovereignty. While Trong has been less critical of China's expansionism, Dung was the party's strongest voice in denouncing Beijing and was credited with Vietnam's smooth accession to a U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trong was the politburo's sole candidate for party chief, running unopposed despite rumours of a fierce showdown with Dung for the top post. Adding some personality to a traditionally arcane politburo is Dinh La Thang, a media-savvy transport minister who has won popularity for brash comments, rebukes of officials and Facebook accounts carrying his name. The politburo retains an authoritarian streak, however, with four members hailing from a police force criticised by rights groups for crushing the party's detractors. Nominations for president, prime minister and legislative chair were included. They are Tran Dai Quang, Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, respectively. (Additional reporting by Ho Binh Minh; Editing by Nick Macfie) Washington, Jan 28 (EFE).- The U.S. government is increasing its efforts to protect its citizens from infections by the Zika virus, after an urgent call by president Barack Obama to 'accelerate' the investigation to develop better diagnostic tests, vaccines and therapies. At present, most efforts are focused on "exchange of information with the public, regarding steps that they can take to protect themselves," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Wednesday. According to Earnest, Obama is "concerned" about the spread of the virus, already present in 22 countries on the American continent. "First, we want to ensure that the people are properly educated about the risks of this virus. But we also want to make sure that we are taking necessary measures to do everything possible to fight the disease," said the spokesman. On Tuesday, Obama met with Health and State security advisors in the White House to discuss the spread of the Zika virus. U.S. Secretary of Health Sylvia Mathews Burwell and Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), informed Obama of "factors" that could contribute to the spread of the Zika virus in the country, according to the White House. During the meeting, Obama "emphasized the need to accelerate research efforts to make available better diagnostic tests, to develop vaccines and therapeutics," the White House said in a statement. The CDC has not yet proof of a definitive link between the Zika virus and the increased birth of babies with microcephaly in the affected countries, but has stepped up precautionary measures. Moreover, U.S. authorities reiterated all international warnings on Tuesday about the spread of the virus and asked that babies of mothers who traveled to any of the affected countries undergo diagnostic tests in their first two days after birth. Several U.S. airlines have offered flight changes and some even reimbursements to pregnant women who had planned to travel to Caribbean and Latin American countries affected by Zika. The U.S. has also issued travel warnings for several countries in the region, including Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Martinique, Haiti, Suriname, Barbados, Guadeloupe, St Martin, Guyana, Cape Verde, Samoa and Puerto Rico. The Zika virus has forced governments in the region to take extreme measures, as in the case of Brazil and The Dominican Republic, who are using its military forces to control the Aedes Aegypti mosquito that transmits the virus as well as dengue fever and chikungunya. According to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the rapid spread of the virus in America is because the population has not been exposed to the Zika virus before and therefore lacks immunity. The Aedes Aegypti mosquito is present in every country in the region, except in Canada and continental Chile. Currently, there is no vaccine to prevent or medicine to treat Zika. Four in five people who acquire Zika infection may have no symptoms, the CDC advises. Ely, Cambridgeshire is best known for its majestic cathedral dubbed the 'Ship of the Fens' because it dominates the flat landscape. The city, which is the second smallest in England, is about 14 miles north-northeast of Cambridge and about 80 miles by road from London. 17:55, 17 OCT 2022 Re: Lurking and looking to relocate I love multi-quote.... get ready for a long post! (snipping in places to shorten it) Quote: 3Wishes Welcome back, Amanda. I think you can approach this from a few angles. First, try to get that citizenship application rolling as soon as you can, because at the moment there is no official language requirement for facilitated naturalization. You just need to speak a little bit to get through an interview. Start reconnecting with any Swiss relatives so you can prove close ties here. Maybe even get in touch with your home village (Heimatort in German). It's certainly not required and some people have never even visited their Heimatort...but it can't hurt to at least get your name on the minds of the folks there. Citizenship will make part 2 easier - getting a job. At the moment with just U.S. citizenship it will be much harder, as an employer has to prove they can't find a Swiss or EU (or non-EU already here on a valid permit) for the job. It's not impossible, but without special skills or local language fluency, it's a bit harder. Since you've got a bit of time, I'd also schedule a visit where you can come and check out some of the cities for yourself. If your dream job is in the French part then certainly focus on Romandie. I'll be back a bit later to talk about how life is different for me (I'm American too), but in the meantime I'm sure others will be along. I'm working on some items for the application. the Vice-Consul sent me a list of "preferred" things to have done beforehand. One is learning Swiss history, which I can do even more easily. As for language, French is easier on me that German right now. My dream job is located in the French part, so French is the more obvious choice right now. It's also related to my degree I'm working on, which is more specialized. I just don't know if they actually need someone like me right now. I'm going to write them a letter of introduction with a full CV (totally not like US resumes), and see what they say. One of the other things was to get involved in the local Swiss community, which there is one and I'm slowly getting involved. Quote: Medea Fleecestealer Sorry to hear of your loss Amanda. Have you got the book "Living and Working in Switzerland" by David Hampshire? It's full of useful info about moving and living here. You can order it from your local bookshop or via the internet. If you plan/want to live in Zurich then really learning French isn't going to help you as no one will be speaking that language there.......... So you need to decide which part of Switzerland you want to be in (where you're most likely to find work) and then learn the language of that area. Don't know where you got the info that most places are furnished because they're not. You can rent furnished properties, but most come unfurnished including without light fixtures quite often. Communal laundry facilities are the norm with set days/times when you can do yours, shops normally open Monday to Saturday 9-7ish with one late night shop (till 9pm). Public transport is excellent so you may no necessarily need a car here. Get the book and have a read that'll answer many of the common questions you'll have and of course peruse the sticky threads here on the forum. Search the forum using keywords for more info as well. And also you need to understand your US tax filing obligations. As an American citizen you're required to file US returns no matter where you live in the world and may also owe the US tax on top of Swiss ones. Start your research on that here: (snipped for length) So if you really want to make this work and get that dream job citizenship is likely to be your best option. Furnished apartments: Sometimes (and anecdotally this seems to be more common down in the French-speaking bit) the outgoing tenants will pressure you to buy their furniture - and there are usually so many applicants for each apartment they can get away with it. You are within your rights to decline, but they are also within their rights to pick someone else's application to pass to the landlord. Other than that, apartments are typically UNfurnished. And this also means no light fixtures, just bare wires hanging from the ceiling. As a temporary solution you can buy cheap bare-hanging-bulb lights for a few francs from a hardware store, and install them on the day you move in. Not pretty but it'll let you see what you're doing to unpack a few boxes... I'll have to track that book down. It may be in my Amazon wishlist already. While Zurich is, from my understanding, a more "foreigner-friendly" city, the place I want to work is in the French part, down near the border, so French is my best bet for now. I think immersion with traveling to other areas will help. I had found an audio learning course on Swiss German and realized my worst learning method is by listening-only. So, no good! Reading, writing, engaging, being active with it will help more. I have a tiny bit of standard German, but barely much beyond greetings and a few other things. After I get to about 50% in Duolingo in French, I may go back to my German course in it and tackle more. I'm at 20% now in French. Furniture: Interesting that what I was told and have seen isn't the norm. Although, bringing all of my furniture over may end up more expensive than just selling it off and starting over. I think maybe some regions, and other countries, do things differently. Mathnut, I have lamps. I can certainly bring those! I even have a gorgeous brass lantern I'm converting into electric. I just need the chain and stuff. It's heavy! I'm downsizing the amount of "stuff" I have anyway, so I hopefully won't need as much furniture as what I have now. Taxes are one other thing I've been looking into casually (for now). I know citizenship is my best path. Everything there will be easier once I get it. I think at this particular moment, I'm going to just focus on my learning, get local work (I'm out again, but trying for better work), save up for a trip and the application. I know this all may take some time. I expect no miracles. Quote: MathNut Hi Amanda, welcome back! Sorry to hear about your folks. ----------------------------- Differences with the US: A smile is less often called for here as part of a casual social interaction. For example when you greet someone as you pass on the sidewalk (btw this custom is more prevalent in towns and villages than in big cities) you needn't produce a smile or even recompose your face into a pleasant expression. The words carry the greeting. Ditto for the supermarket checkout. You can smile if you like, of course, and I often do - but don't be dismayed when you don't necessarily get one back. If you have the vague impression that people are less overtly friendly here, this'll probably be why. Just as in the US, people-watching is fine, staring is rude. Dorm-size refrigerators are the norm here - for whole families. This doesn't sound like a big deal but it changes the way people grocery-shop (smaller trips, more frequently) and the way they cook (portion sizes tailored to the crowd you're feeding, no leftovers expected)..... Communal laundry rooms are also the norm. Personal space bubbles are smaller. You might walk past someone on a nearly empty train platform, and if you don't brush their sleeve as you pass them, that's far enough away. Ways of signaling to oncoming foot traffic which direction you plan to go are also slightly different. I spent several months doing the awkward left-right-left shuffle with strangers till I got the hang of this. Fix your eyes on where you want to go, either slightly left or slightly right of the person coming toward you - keep walking - and a path will appear. Not a big path (see above) but a path. ----------------------------- A lot of these sound trivial, and probably are, but the cumulative effect of being not-smiled-at, stared-at, walked-too-close-to every time you go out in public can be a bit dispiriting. What am I, chopped liver? Understanding what's going on when it happens may help you reframe most of these "incidents" (or from a local perspective, total non-incidents) as merely cultural: a difference in manners rather than a lack of manners. That's the idea anyway. Hope it helps! Walking around... thanks to a couple of mishaps with the sidewalks here in Portland, I tend to look down anyway (1st time I fractured my kneecap, second was a sprained knee and wrist). Groceries was one of my curiosities. I do stock up on some things, and then do portions for myself through the week. I may work on adapting to a more daily system. ------- And thank you for the condolences on my parents, Medea and Mathnut. We expected my mother, as she had Alzheimer's, but I had just talked to my dad the day before and was talking about going down there for Christmas... then he was gone. Thank you everyone. I'm just really starting to take this whole thing seriously. I was talking about this whole thing to someone a couple of days ago, and she said I seem to be half here and half there already. Amanda Funny enough, it's the trivial things I do want to learn about. I already share with the people on my floor, so communal laundry isn't new for me. I think also for personal transport, at best I may work on getting a scooter, but likely will stick to a bike and walking. Last edited by 3Wishes; 28.01.2016 at 21:29 . Reason: fixed quote of Medea's text Re: Where can I take nice photos of Zurich With Zurich you are basically spoiled with choice. It just depends what look and feel you are after. I would say that the urban feel around Hardbrucke is quite amazing. You have quite a lot of urban coffee shops and restaurants. You also have Viadukt, Frau Gerolds Garten and of course Gerolds Chuchi. Quote: Cloudia Hi, Just don't know where to fit this question...please direct me if inappropriate here. I am a portrait photographer. In my spare time I take landscape photos around. I have a few good spots where I can take nice photos but i quickly get bored and want to explore new ones. Do any of you know about good spots where I can take nice photos, in or around Zurich that I can take a day trip? Here are my photos. Any comments, tips and recommendation is welcome. Cheers, Cloudia Hi Cloudia,With Zurich you are basically spoiled with choice. It just depends what look and feel you are after.I would say that the urban feel around Hardbrucke is quite amazing. You have quite a lot of urban coffee shops and restaurants. You also have Viadukt, Frau Gerolds Garten and of course Gerolds Chuchi. Take a ride up to Uetliberg; shoot Uetliberg from the west of Zurich, round about the direction of Birmensdorf (much more pleasant than from the city itself). Walk from Uetliberg to Adliswil Felsenegg, on the Planetenweg, have nice views on the way, and a ride in a cable car down. Have dinner at Urania, then move to the top floor to the Jules Vernes Bar. Explore the area from Niederdorfstrasse / Munstergasse going east - i.e. up the hill. This is the "real" Zurich, as opposed to whatever people like about Bahnhofstrasse, the lake etc. Climb the tower at the Loorenkopf to get a view on Zurich, Lake Zurich, and the Greifensee. Get to Pfannenstiel, for a view of the area. People shoot towards the Innerschweiz from Burkliplatz and the Quaibrucke. There's a much better view of all of that from canton Aargau, from around Berikon. Walk around Museum Rietberg (and the park there). For architecture, consider the ETH campus at Honggerberg. There's just so much, too much. Take your camera and just walk around, there is a gem or two hiding in plain sight everywhere. And that's just all nearby. Once you venture further out, Santis, Innerschweiz, Graubunden, Berner Oberland are all within one or two hours of train ride. Industrial growth is down from 6% to -1% Agri growth down from 2% to -12% (I dont know compared to what period- assume it is what it was 5 years ago vs today) Economic growth down from 8 to 3.5% Recently state govt spent Rs 200 crore public money on investor meet and claimed MOU worth 242000 crore is signed- MOU is just a piece of paper and doesnt signify real investment-So this is a complete eye wash, according to Ramadoss. (I agree- I have shared my concerns on this topic in an earlier post here). No real investments are happening because investors are unable to meet the CM. [I have written a separate post on this topic- why investment values announced doesnt mean anything] If he becomes CM, he could dedicate 3 hours every week to meet Industrialists who wants to meet CM- Ramadoss added. 65000 crore worth of investment has gone out of TN as Hyundai, Ford, Nissan and Bharath Benz have chosen other states (mainly Gujarath and AP) to set up their second plants Debt has increased from 1 lakh crores 5 years ago to 2.12 lakh crores today- this refers to only administrative debt. Mini bus in Kaunas, Lithuania Tram buses in Lithuania On 26th Jan evening, I attended a function in which PMK leader and former Union Health Minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss addressed an audience full of influencers as to why he is the best fit to be CM of TamilNadu after the 2016 assembly elections.I felt I was tricked into attending this event- because I was told the event is about initiative run by an NGO to . It was supposed to be an event where we discussed various burning issues concerning Chennai- the floods, road safety, pure water etc and Dr Anbumani Ramadoss (Sitting MP and former union health minister) would be chief guest speaker. But in reality, the event which started 1 hour behind schedule ended up having a 2.5 hour speech by Dr Anbumani Ramadoss about himself and his vision for the state and more importantly why he deserves to be the next CM.If the PR agency had revealed true intentions-that it is a political event where Dr Ramadoss would pitch himself for the position of Tamil Nadus CM, probably most of us wouldnt have turned up to the event. But then, after sitting through the entire session which went on till 9.30 PM and beyond, I dont regret attending the session. Because Mr Ramadoss came out as a man with lots of ideas, vision and strategy. He didnt talk random things blaming everyone else and portraying himself as god. He didnt promise moon if he were to become CM (In fact he said he wont give anything free in your hands if he gets to become CM- that is a bold statement for TN voters who are used to getting freebies.) His statements were backed up by statistics, ideas, strategies and lots of sense- which is rare to find among politicians. So in a state traditionally exploited by two main parties, people like Anbumani Ramadoss stand unique and probably deserve a chance to bring in some change.In this post, I will try to list all the key points made by Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss and other outcomes from the session.Background- Dr. Ambumani Ramadoss has earned his MBBS degree, was Indias youngest cabinet minister when he became health minister in Congress Government, he said he was an athlete in school days and has traveled the world, from Africa to US to Copenhagen to Singapore and beyond. That alone makes him much more qualified candidate compared to Actor/Actress turned politicians who have been ruling the state for decades.Ramadoss said 108 Ambulance service is his initiative. I was under the impression that 108 is brainchild of Satyam Founder Ramalinga Raju and the EMRI set up by his foundation. When questioned, he explained that the idea was his and when he met Ramalinga Raju in Hyderabad, later expressed interest to implement it for Hyderabad. Thus EMRI only implemented the idea seeded by Ramadoss on trial basis- this is the claim made by Ramadoss, I dont have a contact with EMRI or Raju to cross check. He said that 25% of the calls are for child birth incidents, 21% is for accidents. So far 16000 babies have born inside 108 Ambulances.Ramadoss explained various initiative he took as health minister- to reduce IMR and MMR (Infant Mortality Rate and Maternity Mortality Rate) by 55% and 50% (not sure in comparison to what), to fight various lobbies (he brought in policy that bans smoking in public areas, sale of tobacco within 100 meters of education institutions and mandatory warning messages on cigarette packs), the awards he got and that UN Secretary breaking protocol in coming and meeting him to thank him for the good work he has done.Once the intro is over, Ramadoss listed various problems TN is currently facingToday one third of TNs revenue comes from TASMAC. Out of 105000 crore revenue 36k crore comes from sale of alcohol. TN is the only state that commissioned a SWOT Analysis when TASMAC sales went down. (I have seen that even during floods, TASMAC shops were doing brisk business, men wasting money on alcohol instead of using it to rebuild their homes or feed family members.) For all other state, revenue from alcohol is in the range of 3 to 8% only. Why should Government be running alcohol shops? While liquor sale brings lots of revenue, the actual loss in terms of GDP is huge- if a drunken fellow causes an accident, time and effort of police, doctor etc is wasted, his income till he recovers stops-value of all these is much more than profit gained from alcohol sale. Ramadoss pegged the total loss because of Alcohol at 1,76,000 crores against the revenue of 36000 crores. Kerala and Guajarath have already banned alcohol. Anbumani promised to do the same if he is elected to power. Said most of the women folk are with him in this decision as they are directly affected by this menace.On questioned how he would compensate for the loss of revenue, Dr Anbumani spoke of bringing some order into sand mafia- today only small % of actual sand extracted is reported to govt. While sand price is Rs 670 at the river bed, end consumer pays 10 times more- if this can be channelized, we can have more revenue- the MP said.The two leading parties have found an easy way to keep public engaged- for men, theres alcohol, for women, freebies like mixer grinder etc, for youth, theres movies (TN has a cap of Rs 120 per ticket to show movies, irrespective of how popular the movie is or posh the theatre is. Same movie in Bangalore may cost 5 times more and it will be cheaper to catch a train, come to Chennai, watch the movie and go back)Speaking of public transportation, Ramadoss said long ago there were 3000 buses for 20 lakh population, today theres 3500 buses for 50 lakh people. Chennai needs 8000 buses, outer ring roads and dust pollution need to be tackled. He said he can make the state highways toll free. Said that toll road agreements will have clauses that mandates that even if there is one pot hole, toll shouldnt be collected. But this is never enforced. Ramadoss said Lithuania offers free public transportation in its capital. I was surprised to hear this. I was there in Kaunas and Vilnius last year and transportation was cheap but not free. I countered him on this during Q&A, Ramadoss checked with his staff and said he meant Estonia, not Lithuania. (I was too tempted to Take a ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn, capital of Estonia during my visit to Helsinki, but that meant not getting enough time for Finland, so I dropped the plan. Should visit Estonia sometimes.He talked about corruption in the state and various other topics.But we need to note that such a forward thinking person still seem to believe that 27% of opportunities should be reserved for OBCs (Source: Wikipedia , I read this only later, couldnt ask him a question during the session). He is also against atomic power and believes solar and other renewable sources of energy are adequate to generate required power.On being asked what is his strategy to win the state election, Dr Ramadoss said that there is anti-incumbency and ruling party is not likely to win. He said main opposition has lots of infighting and rest of the parties do not practically count. He said he is confident of winning this time.Overall, I dont regret attending the meet- Dr Ramadoss has managed to project himself as a viable alternative to the two major parties in the state. He has several qualities (education, experience, will power, energy, vision etc) that his rivals lack. Will he be able to repeat the magic Kejriwal created in Delhi? Will voters of TN give up their temptation for freebies, ditch the sun and the flower to embrace Mango? Will his efforts have desired Impact on the state? Only time will tell. It is really shocking to read the reports describing the ban on the entry of women of menstrual age at Lord Ayyappa Temple in Sabarimala. The authorities concerned (Travancore Devaswam Board) claimed this stricture is sanctioned by custom. But are all these prohibitions justified in 21st century? Menstruation is a biological process, and it is good for health. Why smear it with notions of purity and pollution? The strictures are also directly proportional to socially constructed hierarchies, most notably caste. They also vary from religion to religion. But these are only matters of degree. Physical, social, cultural, psychological and/or verbal taboo pertaining to menstruation and menstruating women, in fact, transcend cultures. The healthcare provider Centene Corporation recently announced that its searching for six unencrypted hard drives that were unaccounted for in an inventory of IT assets. The drives held the names, addresses, birthdates, Social Security numbers, member ID numbers and health information of approximately 950,000 people who received laboratory services between 2009 and 2015. While we dont believe this information has been used inappropriately, out of abundance of caution and in transparency, we are disclosing an ongoing search for the hard drives, Centene chairman, president and CEO Michael F. Neidorff said in a statement. The drives were a part of a data project using laboratory results to improve the health outcomes of our members. All those affected are being offered free access to credit and healthcare monitoring services. Centene is in the process of reinforcing and reviewing its procedures related to managing its IT assets, the company said in a statement. Hormazd Romer, head of product marketing at Accellion, noted by email that healthcare breaches keep occurring, despite the industrys stringent compliance regulations. Though the incident at Centene may not be linked to cybercrime, it still highlights the need for stronger security controls within highly regulated industries, he said. Unless the compromised data was encrypted, the individuals in possession of the hard drives now have access to very sensitive healthcare data, which is considerably more valuable on the black market than other forms of personally identifiable information. IDT911 chairman and founder Adam Levin said a breach like this can put patients lives in jeopardy. When thieves or their customers exploit drug prescriptions, seek treatment or obtain medical procedures using stolen identities, they drain insurance coverage leaving victims stranded when they are most vulnerable and in the greatest need, he said. In addition, health records can be contaminated and falsified: blood types can change and allergies can appear or disappear. This could mean the difference between life and death in emergency situations. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services fines for potential HIPAA violations like these can be significant in 2014, New York Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center were fined $4.8 million for failing to secure 6,800 patients PHI; in 2013, WellPoint agreed to pay $1.7 million for leaving 612,402 peoples PHI exposed online; and in 2012, Alaskas Department of Health and Social Services agreed to pay a $1.7 million fine in connection with the theft of a hard drive containing 501 peoples PHI. Bitglass this week released its 2016 Healthcare Breach Report, which found that one in three Americans were victims of healthcare data breaches in 2015, a massive increase over the previous year. Ninety-eight percent of record leaks, the report found, were due to large-scale breaches such as the Premera Blue Cross and Anthem hacks. In total, more than 111 million Americans data was lost due to hacking or IT incidents in 2015, a massive increase from 12.5 million in 2014. Recent eSecurity Planet articles have looked at the healthcare industrys vulnerability to cyber attacks, and listed the top 10 encryption tools you should know. Analysis of ancient Babylonian tablets reveals that, to calculate the position of Jupiter, the tablets' makers used geometry, a technique scientists previously believed humans had not developed until at least 1,400 years later, in 14th century Europe. These tablets are the earliest known examples of using geometry to calculate positions in time-space and suggest that ancient Babylonian astronomers may have influenced the emergence of such techniques in Western science. In this Report, Mathieu Ossendrijver discusses the translation of four almost completely intact tablets that were most likely written in Babylon between 350 and 50 BCE. They depict two intervals from when Jupiter first appears along the horizon, calculating the planet's position at 60 and 120 days. The texts contain geometrical calculations based on a trapezoid's area, and its "long" and "short" sides; previously, it was thought that Babylonian astronomers operated exclusively with arithmetical concepts. The ancient astronomers also computed the time when Jupiter covers half of this 60-day distance by partitioning the trapezoid into two smaller ones of equal area. While ancient Greeks used geometrical figures to describe configurations in physical space, these Babylonian tablets use geometry in an abstract sense to define time and velocity, Ossendrijver notes. These tablets redefine our history books, revealing that European scholars in Oxford and Paris in the 14th century, who were previously credited with developing such calculations, were in fact centuries behind their ancient Babylonian counterparts. This paper is featured on the cover, with a special cover caption describing how Science photo editors created a striking image of a 3-D printed replica of the ancient tablet, positioned aptly under a prominent Jupiter in the Babylonian night sky. ### Washington D.C., January 28, 2016 - A study to be published in the February 2016 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP) reports that adolescents chronically victimized during at least two school years, are about five times more at risk of thinking about suicide and 6 times more at risk of attempting suicide at 15 years compared to those who were never victimized. This is the first study to show a predictive association between victimization, suicidal ideation and suicide attempt in mid-adolescence. It also takes into account a variety of factors, including previous suicidality, mental health problems (by the age of 12 years) such as depression, opposition/defiance and inattention/hyperactivity problems, as well as family adversity. Using data from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development, which followed a general population sample of 1168 children born in 1997-98 in Quebec (Canada) until they were 15 years old, a group of researchers led by Dr. Marie-Claude Geoffroy of the CIUSSS de l'Ouest-de-l'Ile-de-Montreal (Douglas Mental Health University Institute, McGill Group for Suicide Studies) and the Sainte-Justine Hospital Research Centre examined the relationship between victimization by peers, suicidal ideation and suicide attempt. The authors hypothesized that children victimized by their peers would be at higher risks of suicidal ideation and suicide attempt compared to non-victims. Overall, approximately 20% of the study participants report being exposed to victimization by their peers. Peer victimization includes actions such as being called names, spreading rumours, excluding someone from a group on purpose, attacking someone physically or cyberbullying. According to the authors, victims reported higher rates of suicidal ideation at age 13 and 15 (respectively 11.6% and 14.7%) compared to those who had not been victimized (2.7% at 13 and 4.1% at 15). The authors also observed higher rates of suicide attempt for the victimized adolescents at age 13 and 15 (5.4 % and 6.8%) compared to non-victims (1.6% at 13 and 1.9% at 15). In particular, the data showed that 13 years old adolescents who had been victimized by their peers have two times more risk of having suicidal ideation two years later and three times more at risks of suicide attempt. The authors point out that although victimization predicts suicidality it does not necessarily cause it, and this prediction does not apply to all individuals. Only a minority of victims will later develop suicidal ideation or make a suicide attempt. Why these adverse experiences affect individuals remains to be investigated. Adolescence is a crucial period for suicide prevention. As a result, the authors suggest that effective interventions may require a multidisciplinary effort involving parents, schoolteachers, principals, and mental health professionals. All adolescents, victimized or not, who think often and/or seriously about suicide should see a mental health professional such as a psychiatrist, a psychologist, or an accredited psychotherapist. ### The article "Associations Between Peer Victimization and Suicidal Ideation and Suicide Attempt During Adolescence: Results From a Prospective Population-Based Birth Cohort" by Marie-Claude Geoffroy, PhD, Michel Boivin, PhD, Louise Arseneault, PhD, Gustavo Turecki, MD, PhD, Frank Vitaro, PhD, Mara Brendgen, PhD, Johanne Renaud, MD, FRCPC, Jean R. Seguin, PhD, Richard E. Tremblay, PhD, and Sylvana M. Cote, PhD ( http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2015.11.010) appears in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Volume 55, Issue 2 (February 2016), published by Elsevier. Notes for editors Full text of the article is available to credentialed journalists upon request; contact Mary Billingsley at +1 202 587 9672 or mbillingsley@jaacap.org. Journalists wishing to interview the authors may contact Dr. Marie-Claude Geoffroy at marie-claude.geoffroy@mcgill.ca or Bruno Geoffroy, information officer of the CIUSSS de l'Ouest-de-l'Ile-de-Montreal (Public relations services - Media relations for scientific research) at bruno.geoffroy.comtl@ssss.gouv.qc.ca Dr. Louise Arseneault at louise.arseneault@kcl.ac.uk can answer questions from journalists based in Europe. All articles published in JAACAP are embargoed until the day they are published as in press corrected proofs online at http://jaacap.org/inpress. Articles cannot be publicized as in press accepted manuscripts. Contents of the publication should not be released to or by the media or government agencies prior to the embargo date. About JAACAP Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP) is the official publication of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. JAACAP is the leading journal focusing exclusively on today's psychiatric research and treatment of the child and adolescent. Published twelve times per year, each issue is committed to its mission of advancing the science of pediatric mental health and promoting the care of youth and their families. http://www.jaacap.com The journal's purpose is to advance research, clinical practice, and theory in child and adolescent psychiatry. It is interested in manuscripts from diverse viewpoints, including genetic, epidemiological, neurobiological, cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic, social, cultural, and economic. Studies of diagnostic reliability and validity, psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacological treatment efficacy, and mental health services effectiveness are encouraged. The journal also seeks to promote the well-being of children and families by publishing scholarly papers on such subjects as health policy, legislation, advocacy, culture and society, and service provision as they pertain to the mental health of children and families. About Elsevier Elsevier is a world-leading provider of information solutions that enhance the performance of science, health, and technology professionals, empowering them to make better decisions, deliver better care, and sometimes make groundbreaking discoveries that advance the boundaries of knowledge and human progress. Elsevier provides web-based, digital solutions -- among them ScienceDirect, Scopus, Elsevier Research Intelligence and ClinicalKey -- and publishes nearly 2,200 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and over 25,000 book titles, including a number of iconic reference works. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world-leading provider of professional information solutions in the Science, Medical, Legal and Risk and Business sectors, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange). Media contact Mary Billingsley JAACAP Editorial Office +1 202 587 9672 mbillingsley@jaacap.org European scientists have gathered tiny fungi that take shelter in Antarctic rocks and sent them to the International Space Station. After 18 months on board in conditions similar to those on Mars, more than 60% of their cells remained intact, with stable DNA. The results provide new information for the search for life on the red planet. Lichens from the Sierra de Gredos (Spain) and the Alps (Austria) also travelled into space for the same experiment. The McMurdo Dry Valleys, located in the Antarctic Victoria Land, are considered to be the most similar earthly equivalent to Mars. They make up one of the driest and most hostile environments on our planet, where strong winds scour away even snow and ice. Only so-called cryptoendolithic microorganisms, capable of surviving in cracks in rocks, and certain lichens can withstand such harsh climatological conditions. A few years ago a team of European researchers travelled to these remote valleys to collect samples of two species of cryptoendolithic fungi: Cryomyces antarcticus and Cryomyces minteri. The aim was to send them to the International Space Station (ISS) for them to be subjected to Martian conditions and space to observe their responses. The tiny fungi were placed in cells (1.4 centimetres in diameter) on a platform for experiments known as EXPOSE-E, developed by the European Space Agency to withstand extreme environments. The platform was sent in the Space Shuttle Atlantis to the ISS and placed outside the Columbus module with the help of an astronaut from the team led by Belgian Frank de Winne. For 18 months half of the Antarctic fungi were exposed to Mars-like conditions. More specifically, this is an atmosphere with 95% CO2, 1.6% argon, 0.15% oxygen, 2.7% nitrogen and 370 parts per million of H2O; and a pressure of 1,000 pascals. Through optical filters, samples were subjected to ultra-violet radiation as if on Mars (higher than 200 nanometres) and others to lower radiation, including separate control samples. "The most relevant outcome was that more than 60% of the cells of the endolithic communities studied remained intact after 'exposure to Mars', or rather, the stability of their cellular DNA was still high," highlights Rosa de la Torre Noetzel from Spain's National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA), co-researcher on the project. The scientist explains that this work, published in the journal Astrobiology, forms part of an experiment known as the Lichens and Fungi Experiment (LIFE), "with which we have studied the fate or destiny of various communities of lithic organisms during a long-term voyage into space on the EXPOSE-E platform." "The results help to assess the survival ability and long-term stability of microorganisms and bioindicators on the surface of Mars, information which becomes fundamental and relevant for future experiments centred around the search for life on the red planet," states De la Torre. Also lichens from Gredos and the Alps Researchers from the LIFE experiment, coordinated from Italy by Professor Silvano Onofri from the University of Tuscany, have also studied two species of lichens (Rhizocarpon geographicum and Xanthoria elegans) which can withstand extreme high-mountain environments. These have been gathered from the Sierra de Gredos (Avila, Spain) and the Alps (Austria), with half of the specimens also being exposed to Martian conditions. Another range of samples (both lichens and fungi) was subjected to an extreme space environment (with temperature fluctuations of between -21.5 and +59.6 C, galactic-cosmic radiation of up to 190 megagrays, and a vacuum of between 10-7 to 10-4 pascals). The effect of the impact of ultra-violet extraterrestrial radiation on half of the samples was also examined. After the year-and-a-half-long voyage, and the beginning of the experiment on Earth, the two species of lichens 'exposed to Mars' showed double the metabolic activity of those that had been subjected to space conditions, even reaching 80% more in the case of the species Xanthoria elegans. The results showed subdued photosynthetic activity or viability in the lichens exposed to the harsh conditions of space (2.5% of samples), similar to that presented by the fungal cells (4.11%). In this space environment, 35% of fungal cells were also seen to have kept their membranes intact, a further sign of the resistance of Antarctic fungi. ### References: Silvano Onofri, Jean-Pierre de Vera, Laura Zucconi, Laura Selbmann, Giuliano Scalzi, Kasthuri J. Venkateswaran, Elke Rabbow, Rosa de la Torre, Gerda Horneck. "Survival of Antarctic Cryptoendolithic Fungi in Simulated Martian Conditions On Board the International Space Station". Astrobiology 15(12): 1052-9, December 2015. DOI: 10.1089/ast.2015.1324. Findings of research conducted at University of Sao Paulo's Ribeirao Preto School of Medicine can help evaluate prognosis of patients with central nervous system tumors and improve treatment protocols In an international study conducted in Brazil, researchers have identified new glioma subtypes on the basis of epigenetic profile, i.e. how gene expression is modulated. The discovery may help evaluate the prognosis of patients with gliomas and may pave the way for personalized treatment. Gliomas are tumors of the central nervous system. Houtan Noushmehr, one of the principal investigators for the project and a professor at the Genetics Department of the University of Sao Paulo's Ribeirao Preto School of Medicine (FMRP-USP), said that epigenetic modifications correspond to a set of chemical processes that shape genome functioning and thus the phenotypic profile, by activating or deactivating genes. If the genome is comparable to the hardware of a computer, Noushmehr explained, then epigenetics is the software that makes it work. Among the most widely known epigenetic mechanisms are DNA methylation, the addition of a methyl group (carbon and hydrogen atoms) to the DNA base cytosine, which potentially prevents the expression of some genes, and histone modification, in which acetyl, methyl or other groups are added to or subtracted from the amino acid residues in histones. The study conducted at FMRP-USP was designed to evaluate DNA methylation profiles in 1,122 adult glioma samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), a joint effort of the US National Cancer Institute and National Human Genome Research Institute, both of which are linked to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). TCGA collects genomic, epigenomic and clinical data as well as tissue samples from cancer patients in many countries. "We had various kinds of data available for analysis, such as complete tumor genome sequences, complete exome sequences (all the protein-coding genes in genomes), RNA sequencing and DNA methylation data, and chromosome copy number alterations. All these data enabled us to map the epigenetic profiles of tumors. We also had the patients' clinical histories and other details showing how the disease progressed," Noushmehr said. The analysis was conducted with the aid of bioinformatics tools as part of the postdoctoral research of Tathiane Malta and during the master's research of Thais Sabedot, both under the aegis of a FAPESP Young Investigator project coordinated by Noushmehr. According to the scientists, until recently, adult gliomas were divided according to their aggressiveness into two main groups: slow-growing tumors (grades 1, 2 and 3) and very aggressive, fast-growing tumors (grade 4). Previous studies published by Noushmehr in 2010, 2013 and 2015 separately evaluated samples from high- and low-grade tumors and identified tumor subgroups by their DNA methylation profiles. In this most recent study, samples from high- and low-grade tumors were analyzed together. "Patients with low-grade tumors typically have a mutation in the IDH1 or IDH2 gene. However, we observed that some low-grade tumors didn't have this mutation, while some high-grade tumors did. We therefore decided to analyze them all together in search of a more accurate classification. Generally speaking, we found that tumors with the IDH1 mutation had a DNA methylation phenotype and a better prognosis," Malta said. At the end of the analyses, tumors from patients with the IDH1 mutation and 1p/19q chromosome co-deletion, previously considered a homogeneous group, were divided into two new subgroups with different clinical outcomes: G-CIMP-low (low DNA methylation profile and shorter patient survival) and G-CIMP-high (hypermethylation and longer survival). In the group without the IDH1 mutation, which should have been the most aggressive cases according to previous criteria, the researchers identified a new subgroup with low aggressiveness that displayed similarities with pilocytic astrocytoma, another type of central nervous system tumor that usually has a good prognosis. Survival for patients with this type of tumor was similar to astrocytoma was significantly longer than for patients without the mutation. "In terms of histopathology, i.e. the microscopic anatomical changes in diseased tissue, these are different tumors, but from the molecular standpoint, they're similar. This finding is very important and will be explored in more detail in future studies," Malta said. For Noushmehr, the new findings serve to stratify glioma patients more accurately and will contribute to an enhancement of treatment protocols. ### Combining experimental investigations and theoretical simulations, researchers have explained why platinum nanoclusters of a specific size range facilitate the hydrogenation reaction used to produce ethane from ethylene. The research offers new insights into the role of cluster shapes in catalyzing reactions at the nanoscale, and could help materials scientists optimize nanocatalysts for a broad class of other reactions. At the macro-scale, the conversion of ethylene has long been considered among the reactions insensitive to the structure of the catalyst used. However, by examining reactions catalyzed by platinum clusters containing between 9 and 15 atoms, researchers in Germany and the United States found that at the nanoscale, that's no longer true. The shape of nanoscale clusters, they found, can dramatically affect reaction efficiency. While the study investigated only platinum nanoclusters and the ethylene reaction, the fundamental principles may apply to other catalysts and reactions, demonstrating how materials at the very smallest size scales can provide different properties than the same material in bulk quantities. Supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Department of Energy, the research will be reported January 28 in the journal Nature Communications. "We have re-examined the validity of a very fundamental concept on a very fundamental reaction," said Uzi Landman, a Regents' Professor and F.E. Callaway Chair in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "We found that in the ultra-small catalyst range, on the order of a nanometer in size, old concepts don't hold. New types of reactivity can occur because of changes in one or two atoms of a cluster at the nanoscale." The widely-used conversion process actually involves two separate reactions: (1) dissociation of H2 molecules into single hydrogen atoms, and (2) their addition to the ethylene, which involves conversion of a double bond into a single bond. In addition to producing ethane, the reaction can also take an alternative route that leads to the production of ethylidene, which poisons the catalyst and prevents further reaction. The project began with Professor Ueli Heiz and researchers in his group at the Technical University of Munich experimentally examining reaction rates for clusters containing 9, 10, 11, 12 or 13 platinum atoms that had been placed atop a magnesium oxide substrate. The 9-atom nanoclusters failed to produce a significant reaction, while larger clusters catalyzed the ethylene hydrogenation reaction with increasingly better efficiency. The best reaction occurred with 13-atom clusters. Bokwon Yoon, a research scientist in Georgia Tech's Center for Computational Materials Science, and Landman, the center's director, then used large-scale first-principles quantum mechanical simulations to understand how the size of the clusters - and their shape - affected the reactivity. Using their simulations, they discovered that the 9-atom cluster resembled a symmetrical "hut," while the larger clusters had bulges that served to concentrate electrical charges from the substrate. "That one atom changes the whole activity of the catalyst," Landman said. "We found that the extra atom operates like a lightning rod. The distribution of the excess charge from the substrate helps facilitate the reaction. Platinum 9 has a compact shape that doesn't facilitate the reaction, but adding just one atom changes everything." Nanoclusters with 13 atoms provided the maximum reactivity because the additional atoms shift the structure in a phenomena Landman calls "fluxionality." This structural adjustment has also been noted in earlier work of these two research groups, in studies of clusters of gold which are used in other catalytic reactions. "Dynamic fluxionality is the ability of the cluster to distort its structure to accommodate the reactants to actually enhance reactivity," he explained. "Only very small aggregates of metal can show such behavior, which mimics a biochemical enzyme." The simulations showed that catalyst poisoning also varies with cluster size - and temperature. The 10-atom clusters can be poisoned at room temperature, while the 13-atom clusters are poisoned only at higher temperatures, helping to account for their improved reactivity. "Small really is different," said Landman. "Once you get into this size regime, the old rules of structure sensitivity and structure insensitivity must be assessed for their continued validity. It's not a question anymore of surface-to-volume ratio because everything is on the surface in these very small clusters." While the project examined only one reaction and one type of catalyst, the principles governing nanoscale catalysis - and the importance of re-examining traditional expectations - likely apply to a broad range of reactions catalyzed by nanoclusters at the smallest size scale. Such nanocatalysts are becoming more attractive as a means of conserving supplies of costly platinum. "It's a much richer world at the nanoscale than at the macroscopic scale," added Landman. "These are very important messages for materials scientists and chemists who wish to design catalysts for new purposes, because the capabilities can be very different." Along with the experimental surface characterization and reactivity measurements, the first-principles theoretical simulations provide a unique practical means for examining these structural and electronic issues because the clusters are too small to be seen with sufficient resolution using most electron microscopy techniques or traditional crystallography. "We have looked at how the number of atoms dictates the geometrical structure of the cluster catalysts on the surface and how this geometrical structure is associated with electronic properties that bring about chemical bonding characteristics that enhance the reactions," Landman added. ### In addition to those already named, the research team included first-author Andrew Crampton, Marian Rotzer, Claron Ridge and Florian Schweinberger from the Catalysis Research Center at the Technical University of Munich. The experimental work has been supported by the European Research Council (ERC) through the advanced research grant (246645-ASC3), and by the DFG through project HE3454/23-1. Support was also provided by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and by grant FG05-86ER45234 from the Office of Basic Energy Sciences of the US Department of energy (DOE). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors. CITATION: Andrew S. Crampton, et al., "Structure sensitivity in the nonscalable regime explored via catalyzed ethylene hydrogenation on supported platinum nanoclusters," (Nature Communications 2016). http://dx.doi.org/10/1038/ncomms10389. A smartphone app containing motivational videos developed to help married rural women in India better understand contraceptive choices led to a dramatic increase in the number of women using modern family planning methods in just a few months, new Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs (CCP) research suggests. The researchers say that women who watched videos were 4.5 times more likely to use modern contraceptive methods than those who did not. The findings, presented Thursday at the International Family Planning Conference in Nusa Dua, Indonesia, show that digital technology can be an effective tool to provide customized information and also address cultural and social barriers that may prevent women in low- and middle-income countries from adopting family planning behaviors. "This study shows that mobile technology provides an innovative and dynamic platform for social and behavior change communication," says Sanjanthi Velu, PhD, Asia team lead at CCP, which is part of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "It can encourage conversations between women and frontline health workers that are interactive, culturally relevant, and personalized - and that lead to increased, sustained use of modern contraceptive methods." As part of a larger communications initiative, CCP developed the app, called Gyan Jyoti, or "light of knowledge," for use in the state of Bihar in India under Project Ujjwal, a UK aid-funded family planning project led by Palladium. The app is designed for use by ASHAs, community health workers in India, who visit the homes of rural women to promote family planning and other healthy behaviors. The app incorporates a variety of videos about family planning and modern contraceptive methods, including entertaining and educational films, testimonials from happy couples who are using contraception, Q & A videos with physicians and other information that aims to dispel myths and misconceptions. In one district of Bihar, smartphones loaded with the Gyan Jyoti app were given to 14 ASHAs, while in another district another 14 ASHAs were supplied with more low-tech SD cards. Each set of ASHAs regularly visits roughly 1,400 rural women. The ASHAs with the smartphone app were able to customize their family planning counseling, showing videos most appropriate to answer each woman's particular questions. Those ASHAs who had the SD card could show the videos, but did not have the benefit of customizing their interaction. The ASHAs using the app were also able to share the films via Bluetooth if the women had the technology, enabling the women to show it to their husbands or mothers-in-law at a later time. The researchers randomly chose 406 women from each district to study in May 2015, five months after the app and the SD cards were made available to the ASHAs. They found that 22 percent of women who were counseled with the app were using modern contraception such as IUDs, oral contraceptive pills and injectable contraception at the end of the study period, while 13 percent of the women were using modern contraception in the district without the app. Seventeen percent of the women who had access to the smartphone app watched some of the videos, while 2.4 percent of those who only had access to the SD card watched the videos. Of the 75 women in the intervention district who were using modern contraceptive methods at the end of the study period, three-quarters of them had interacted with the app. Among the types of modern family planning methods that were chosen were female sterilization (41 percent), injectable (18 percent), hormonal birth-control pills (11 percent), condoms (11 percent) and IUD (4 percent). Women who were visited by an ASHA during the study period were 1.9 times more likely to be using modern contraceptive methods, and more importantly, women who had watched the videos were 4.5 times more likely to be using modern contraceptives, no matter whether they were shown by an ASHA with the app or an SD card. This was most likely because the ASHAs had more interactive and engaging information to share. Visits were up 56 percent in the intervention district compared to 47 percent in the SD card district, the researchers say. "Our research shows that there is value in developing targeted mobile platforms that can be customized depending on the needs of each provider and her clients," Velu says. Velu says the Gyan Jyoti app could be adapted for different languages or other types of health information that families may need. It could also be expanded to ASHAs around the country. ### About the International Conference on Family Planning: Held biannually since 2009, the International Conference on Family Planning is a strategic inflection point for the family planning community worldwide. The conference brings together thousands of researchers, advocates, policymakers, and representatives of national and international organizations to disseminate knowledge, celebrate successes, and identify next steps toward increasing access to voluntary, high-quality family planning. Co-hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the National Population and Family Planning Board of Indonesia (BkkbN), the 2016 ICFP will take place January 25-28 in Nusa Dua, Indonesia. Findings indicate that Kaiser Permanente's systematic efforts to improve risk-factor control may help reduce or eliminate racial and ethnic disparities OAKLAND, Calif., January 28, 2016 -- In a study of more than 1.3 million Kaiser Permanente members in Northern California that stretched over 10 years, researchers found that blacks, Latinos and Asians generally had lower risk of coronary heart disease compared to whites. The study was published today in American Journal of Preventive Medicine. "Racial and ethnic differences in diabetes, cardiovascular-disease risk factors and their outcomes, especially in blacks, are well documented, but population health estimates are often confounded by differences in access to high-quality health care," said lead author Jamal S. Rana, MD, PhD, of the Division of Cardiology and Clinical Adjunct with Division of Research at Kaiser Permanente Northern California. The findings echo those of a 2014 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which showed that racial disparities between black and white Medicare beneficiaries covered by Kaiser Permanente in the western United States have been nearly eliminated for cardiac risks and diabetes markers, even as these disparities persisted among patients in managed health care systems in other regions of the United States. In the study just published, "we were able to evaluate ethnic differences in risk of future coronary heart disease within a diverse population, which included not only black, but also large Asian and Latino populations, with uniform access to care in an integrated health care delivery system," Rana noted. "The results in our report may reflect, not only access to high quality heart disease care, but also systematic efforts by the health plan to improve risk-factors such as high blood pressure and promote smoking cessation across its member population." The ethnic composition of the study cohort of 1,344,899 members was 64 percent white (868,301 members), 14 percent Asian (190,439 members), 13 percent Latino (169,886 members) and 9 percent black (116,273 members). More than 10 percent of Latinos and almost 20 percent of blacks were from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Members were aged 30 to 90 years, included both men and women, and were followed from 2002 through 2012. Researchers evaluated the ethnic differences in risk of future coronary heart disease in patient populations distinguished by the presence or absence of diabetes and prior coronary heart disease in four clinical risk categories: 1) No diabetes with no prior coronary heart disease; 2) No diabetes with prior coronary heart disease; 3) Diabetes with no prior coronary heart disease; and 4) Diabetes with prior coronary heart disease. Blacks, Latinos and Asians without any prior history of coronary heart disease had lower risk of coronary heart disease compared with whites, regardless of whether they also had diabetes. Among members with prior coronary heart disease and no diabetes, blacks had slightly increased risk of future heart disease compared to whites. However, no such increased risk was noted in the highest risk group with both prior history of heart disease and diabetes. Latinos did not have any difference in risk compared to whites in both of these groups, and Asians had decreased risk. "Our findings are very encouraging. It is a complex issue, and further research is needed to address the differences in health status and outcomes related to race and ethnicity across the country," Rana noted. "These findings may inform policy development and interventions designed to identify and eliminate racial and ethnic disparities." ### Other authors of the study include Jennifer Y. Liu, MPH, Howard H. Moffet, MPH, Stephen Sidney, MD, and Andrew J. Karter, PhD, of the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research, and Marc G. Jaffe, MD, of the Division of Endocrinology, Kaiser Permanente South San Francisco Medical Center. This study was supported by a grant from the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Community Benefit Program, which had no role in the study design or activities. About the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research The Kaiser Permanente Division of Research conducts, publishes, and disseminates epidemiologic and health services research to improve the health and medical care of Kaiser Permanente members and society at large. It seeks to understand the determinants of illness and well-being, and to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of health care. Currently, DOR's 500-plus staff is working on more than 400 epidemiological and health services research projects. For more information, visit http://www.dor.kaiser.org or follow us @KPDOR. About Kaiser Permanente Kaiser Permanente is committed to helping shape the future of health care. We are recognized as one of America's leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans. Founded in 1945, Kaiser Permanente has a mission to provide high-quality, affordable health care services and to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. We currently serve more than 10 million members in eight states and the District of Columbia. Care for members and patients is focused on their total health and guided by their personal physicians, specialists and team of caregivers. Our expert and caring medical teams are empowered and supported by industry-leading technology advances and tools for health promotion, disease prevention, state-of-the-art care delivery and world-class chronic disease management. Kaiser Permanente is dedicated to care innovations, clinical research, health education and the support of community health. For more information, go to: kp.org/share. New Orleans, LA - A technology invented by faculty at LSU Health New Orleans is part of an acquisition deal by Allergan plc, a global pharmaceutical company. Allergan acquired Anterios, a clinical stage pharmaceutical company, which licensed an LSU Health-patented technology in 2008 and in which LSU Health New Orleans held equity. In consideration for the license, LSU Health New Orleans received a mix of equity and royalties, and may potentially receive milestone payments. The technology, created by Drs. Ann Tilton, Dana Suskind and Mary Caire at LSU Health New Orleans, is for the use of topical botulinum toxin to treat or prevent acne. Allergan makes one of the best-known brands of botulinum toxin, BOTOX and BOTOX Cosmetic, and Anterios has been developing a next-generation delivery system and botulinum toxin-based prescription products. The deal for Anterios provides that Allergan, which last year agreed to merge with Pfizer Inc. creating the biggest pharmaceutical company in the world, will pay Anterios $90 million up front plus potential development and commercial milestone payments. As a former equity holder in Anterios, LSU Health New Orleans will receive a pro rata share of the upfront consideration in the Anterios transaction, plus a pro rata share of any of the contingent consideration if and when the milestones are reached. "This acquisition marks the first time LSU Health New Orleans has ever received financial consideration for our equity holdings," notes Chancellor Dr. Larry Hollier. "It also illustrates the value of the innovative research conducted by the LSU Health New Orleans research enterprise." In connection with the acquisition, a new company, Eirion Therapeutics, has been spun out to the former Anterios shareholders, and LSU Health New Orleans has received stock in the new company. "It has been very exciting to see how the idea that grew out of our clinical experience with the use of botulinum toxin has evolved from a clinical hypothesis to pilot studies to the potential development of a product to help patients," says principal investigator Dr. Ann Tilton, LSU Health New Orleans Professor of Clinical Neurology and Chief of the Section of Child Neurology. "Its acquisition by this pharmaceutical giant will now enable even more patients to benefit from it." The LSU Health New Orleans technology involves the application of all types of botulinum toxin, whether injected or applied directly to the skin, for the treatment and prevention of acne. It is thought to do this in part by inhibiting sweat gland production and decreasing perspiration to prevent plugged pores and hair follicles. One advantage of this technology is that it has a novel mechanism of action in an area of high unmet need. "The acquisition of Anterios by Allergan further validates the model of universities working with small companies to commercialize inventions," said Patrick E. Reed, MS, RTTP, Director of the LSU Health New Orleans Office of Technology Management. "Anterios was an excellent commercialization partner and worked diligently to bring our clinicians' discovery into development. I look forward to Allergan continuing to take our invention through the clinical development and regulatory process and eventual commercialization for public benefit." According to the National Institutes of Health, acne is a disorder resulting from the action of hormones and other substances on the skin's oil glands (sebaceous glands) and hair follicles. These factors lead to plugged pores and outbreaks of lesions commonly called pimples or zits. Acne lesions usually occur on the face, neck, back, chest, and shoulders. Although acne is usually not a serious health threat, it can be a source of significant emotional distress. Severe acne can lead to permanent scarring. An estimated 80 percent of all people between the ages of 11 and 30 have acne outbreaks at some point. For most people, acne tends to go away by the time they reach their thirties; however, some people in their forties and fifties continue to have this skin problem. "Although many of our technology disclosures result from the basic research arm of the University, it's important to realize that our clinicians are also responsible for innovation," Reed says. "As they work to provide solutions to patients' problems, they often develop new and useful technologies. The Office of Technology Management has redoubled its efforts to work with LSU Health New Orleans clinicians to identify other useful and marketable technologies ripe for commercial licensing." Some of the funds realized will be reinvested in the LSU Health New Orleans research enterprise. ### LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans educates Louisiana's health care professionals. The state's health university leader, LSU Health New Orleans includes a School of Medicine, the state's only School of Dentistry, Louisiana's only public School of Public Health, and Schools of Allied Health Professions, Nursing, and Graduate Studies. LSU Health New Orleans faculty take care of patients in public and private hospitals and clinics throughout the region. In the vanguard of biosciences research in a number of areas in a worldwide arena, the LSU Health New Orleans research enterprise generates jobs and enormous economic impact. LSU Health New Orleans faculty have made lifesaving discoveries and continue to work to prevent, advance treatment, or cure disease. To learn more, visit http://www.lsuhsc.edu, http://www.twitter.com/LSUHealthNO or http://www.facebook.com/LSUHSC. New research suggests that the adult brain's natural plasticity can compensate for inner ear damage to bring sound detection abilities back within normal limits; however, it does not recover speech intelligibility Researchers from Massachusetts Eye and Ear/Harvard Medical School have described, for the first time, the adult brain's ability to compensate for a near-complete loss of auditory nerve fibers that link the ear to the brain. The findings, published in the current issue of Neuron, suggest that the brain's natural plasticity can compensate for inner ear damage to bring sound detection abilities back within normal limits; however, it does not recover speech intelligibility. This imperfect hearing recovery may explain a common auditory complaint, in which some patients report difficulties understanding speech despite having normal hearing thresholds. "Our findings suggest that plasticity in the adult brain at higher stages of processing acts as an amplifier -- the same way that you'd have an amplifier on a hearing aid," said Daniel B. Polley, Ph.D., Director of the Amelia Peabody Neural Plasticity Laboratory at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and an Associate Professor of Otolaryngology at Harvard Medical School. "It seems that even just 3 percent of the normal complement of inputs is enough for the brain to operate on; however, the compensation is incomplete. There is a cost, and the cost is that the neurons that recover cannot decode complex sounds, such as speech, which are central to our ability to communicate." The auditory nerve is comprised of thousands of tiny nerve fibers responsible for transmitting sound information to and from the ear and the brain. Recent discoveries have shown that they are the most vulnerable structures in the inner ear, and they naturally die away throughout the human lifespan due to exposure to noise, medications and even simply aging. Patients who describe difficulties understanding speech despite having normal hearing thresholds recorded with an audiogram have long vexed physicians, and researchers have hypothesized that the loss of nerve fibers contributes to this condition. The Neuron authors suggest that the brain's plasticity -- its ability to adapt to its environment -- also contributes to this clinical presentation. "Someone with a substantial depletion of auditory nerve fibers would be sitting across from you and could hear the sound of your voice but would not be able to extract any intelligible information from it, particularly if other people were talking nearby," said Dr. Polley. "The loss of nerve fibers reduces the bandwidth of information that can be transmitted from the inner ear to the brain, which leads to a struggle to process sound information, even if hearing thresholds are normal." The researchers used chemicals to wipe out nearly all of the nerve fibers charged with processing sound in the inner ears of mice. They then observed normal responses to sound and increased activity in the cortex -- the highest stage of processing in the brain -- and determined that the cortex is where the "amplifier" resides. But they also found that there were limits to what could be recovered by the brain's natural plasticity. The researchers found that the increased amplification at higher stages of brain processing could fully recover sensitivity to faint sounds, but that the ability to resolve differences in complex sounds, like speech, did not recover to the same degree. The findings provoke several important questions that the researchers will address in upcoming studies. The consequences of not having enough amplification are obvious, but the researchers are particularly motivated to explore whether debilitating auditory conditions such as tinnitus or hyperacusis might reflect too much amplification in the system. "Like feedback from a microphone, having too much gain in the system can push neural circuits toward becoming pathologically hyperactive and hypersensitive," said Dr. Polley. "By establishing the actual cellular components of the brain's amplifier, we hope that one day we might be able to turn the volume knob up and down to find that 'sweet spot' where people can reconnect to the auditory world without hearing phantom ringing or cringing at a loud noise that most people would shrug off as 'tolerable.'" ### Authors on the Neuron paper include senior author Daniel B. Polley, Ph.D., first author Anna R. Chambers, Ph.D., Jennifer Resnik, Ph.D., Jonathon P. Whitton, Au.D., Albert S. Edge, Ph.D., and M. Charles Liberman, Ph.D., of the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories at Mass. Eye and Ear and the Department of Otolaryngology at Harvard Medical School, as well as Yasheng Yuan, Ph.D., of the Department of Otolaryngology at Fu Dan University in Shanghai, China. This work was supported the NIH, National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders grants, R01 DC009836 (DBP), R01 DC007174 (ASE), R01 DC 000188 (MCL), P30 DC005209 (MCL), a research grant from Autifony Therapeutics (DBP) and the Lauer Tinnitus Research Center (MCL, DBP). About Massachusetts Eye and Ear Mass. Eye and Ear clinicians and scientists are driven by a mission to find cures for blindness, deafness and diseases of the head and neck. Now united with Schepens Eye Research Institute, Mass. Eye and Ear is the world's largest vision and hearing research center, developing new treatments and cures through discovery and innovation. Mass. Eye and Ear is a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital and trains future medical leaders in ophthalmology and otolaryngology, through residency as well as clinical and research fellowships. Internationally acclaimed since its founding in 1824, Mass. Eye and Ear employs full-time, board-certified physicians who offer high-quality and affordable specialty care that ranges from the routine to the very complex. U.S. News & World Report's "Best Hospitals Survey" has consistently ranked the Mass. Eye and Ear Departments of Otolaryngology and Ophthalmology as top in the nation. For more information about life-changing care and research, or to learn how you can help, please visit MassEyeAndEar.org. CAMBRIDGE, MA -- In 2010, a large study in Denmark found that women who suffered an infection severe enough to require hospitalization while pregnant were much more likely to have a child with autism (even though the overall risk of delivering a child with autism remained low). Now research from MIT, the University of Massachusetts Medical School, the University of Colorado, and New York University Langone Medical Center reveals a possible mechanism for how this occurs. In a study of mice, the researchers found that immune cells activated in the mother during severe inflammation produce an immune effector molecule called IL-17 that appears to interfere with brain development. The researchers also found that blocking this signal could restore normal behavior and brain structure. "In the mice, we could treat the mother with antibodies that block IL-17 after inflammation had set in, and that could ameliorate some of the behavioral symptoms that were observed in the offspring. However, we don't know yet how much of that could be translated into humans," says Gloria Choi, an assistant professor of brain and cognitive sciences, a member of MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and the lead author of the study, which appears in the Jan. 28 online edition of Science. Finding the link In the 2010 study, which included all children born in Denmark between 1980 and 2005, severe infections (requiring hospitalization) that correlated with autism risk included influenza, viral gastroenteritis, and urinary tract infections. Severe viral infections during the first trimester translated to a threefold risk for autism, and serious bacterial infections during the second trimester were linked with a 1.5-fold increase in risk. Choi and her husband, Jun Huh, were graduate students at Caltech when they first heard about this study during a lecture by Caltech professor emeritus Paul Patterson, who had discovered that an immune signaling molecule called IL-6 plays a role in the link between infection and autism-like behaviors in rodents. Huh, now an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and one of the paper's senior authors, was studying immune cells called Th17 cells, which are well known for contributing to autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel diseases, and rheumatoid arthritis. He knew that Th17 cells are activated by IL-6, so he wondered if these cells might also be involved in cases of animal models of autism associated with maternal infection. "We wanted to find the link," Choi says. "How do you go all the way from the immune system in the mother to the child's brain?" Choi and Huh launched the study as postdocs at New York University School of Medicine, working with Dan Littman, a professor of molecular immunology at NYU and one of the paper's senior authors. They began by injecting pregnant mice with a synthetic analog of double-stranded RNA, which activates the immune system in a similar way to viruses. Confirming the results of previous studies in mice, the researchers found behavioral abnormalities in the offspring of the infected mothers, including deficits in sociability, repetitive behaviors, and abnormal communication. They then disabled Th17 cells in the mothers before inducing inflammation and found that the offspring mice did not show those behavioral abnormalities. The abnormalities also disappeared when the researchers gave the infected mothers an antibody that blocks IL-17, which is produced by Th17 cells. The researchers next asked how IL-17 might affect the developing fetus. They found that brain cells in the fetuses of mothers experiencing inflammation express receptors for IL-17, and they believe that exposure to the chemical provokes cells to produce even more receptors for IL-17, amplifying its effects. In the developing mice, the researchers found irregularities in the normally well-defined layers of cells in the brain's cortex, where most cognition and sensory processing take place. These patches of irregular structure appeared in approximately the same cortical regions in all of the affected offspring, but they did not occur when the mothers' Th17 cells were blocked. Disorganized cortical layers have also been found in studies of human patients with autism. Preventing autism The researchers are now investigating whether and how these cortical patches produce the behavioral abnormalities seen in the offspring. "We've shown correlation between these cortical patches and behavioral abnormalities, but we don't know whether the cortical patches actually are responsible for the behavioral abnormalities," Choi says. "And if it is responsible, what is being dysregulated within this patch to produce this behavior?" The researchers hope their work may lead to a way to reduce the chances of autism developing in the children of women who experience severe infections during pregnancy. They also plan to investigate whether genetic makeup influences mice's susceptibility to maternal inflammation, because autism is known to have a very strong genetic component. ### Charles Hoeffer, a professor of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado, is a senior author of the paper, and other authors include MIT postdoc Yeong Yim, NYU graduate student Helen Wong, UMass Medical School visiting scholars Sangdoo Kim and Hyunju Kim, and NYU postdoc Sangwon Kim. HOUSTON -- (Jan. 28, 2016) -- In a surprising find, physicists from the United States, Germany and China have discovered that nuclear effects help bring about superconductivity in ytterbium dirhodium disilicide (YRS), one of the most-studied materials in a class of quantum critical compounds known as "heavy fermions." The discovery, which is described in this week's issue of Science, marks the first time that superconductivity has been observed in YRS, a composite material that physicists have studied for more than a decade in an effort to probe the quantum effects believed to underlie high-temperature superconductivity. Rice University physicist and study co-author Qimiao Si said the research provides further evidence that unconventional superconductivity arises from "quantum criticality." "There is already compelling evidence that unconventional superconductivity is linked in both copper-based and iron-based high-temperature superconductors to quantum fluctuations that alter the magnetic order of the materials at 'quantum critical points,' watershed thresholds that mark the transition from one quantum phase to another," Si said. "This work provides the first evidence that similar processes bring about superconductivity in the canonical heavy-fermion system YRS." Electrons fall within a quantum category called fermions. Heavy fermions are composite materials that contain rare earth elements. Their name stems from the fact that at extremely low temperatures, typically less than 1 kelvin, electrons move through the material as if they were 1,000 times more massive than normal. In the latest experiments, Si said, the measured heat capacity was so large that the electrons behaved as if they were heavier still -- about 1 million times heavier than normal. This occurred as the YRS was cooled to just above the point of superconductivity, around 2 millikelvins. Si, Rice's Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor of Physics and Astronomy. also directs the Rice Center for Quantum Materials (RCQM). He said the research was conducted in collaboration with RCQM partners in Germany and China. Experiments were performed at the Walther Meissner Institute for Low Temperature Research at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Garching, Germany, and at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden, Germany. Theoretical work was performed at Rice and at Renmin University of China in Beijing. Experiments overseen by the Meissner Institute's Erwin Schuberth and the Max Planck Institute's Frank Steglich offered the first glimpse of YRS' behavior at the quantum critical point. Schuberth, who has appointments at both institutes as well as the Technical University of Munich, said what appeared to be an increase in apparent mass was actually the clue that nuclear forces were at work. "Nothing else could have accounted for such a large change," he said. The bulk of experiments were performed in Garching, where Schuberth's team used "adiabatic magnetic cooling" and other specialized techniques to make its YRS samples ultracold, about 10 times colder than those in any previous YRS experiment; this is what allowed the team to discover superconductivity. In analyzing the evidence, Si and fellow theorist Rong Yu of Renmin University found that the arrangement of inertial spins of the ytterbium nuclei in the YRS composite helped bring about superconductivity. He said the nuclear spins became coupled at extremely low temperatures and arranged in an ordered pattern that exposed the quantum criticality of the electrons. "In YRS, the spins of electrons are locked in a pattern that varies periodically in space and is the hallmark of an electronic order known as anti-ferromagnetism," Si said. "An ordered arrangement of the nuclear spins acts to suppress the electronic order, and this exposes the electronic quantum criticality, which in turn drives unconventional superconductivity." The discovery of superconductivity in YRS followed a search lasting more than a decade. Steglich said the previous experiments demonstrate that quantum criticality in YRS brings electrons to the verge of being both localized and itinerant, a condition that was predicted by Si and collaborators in a landmark 2001 theory. Steglich said, "In previous experiments, an external magnetic field revealed a quantum critical point with a host of truly remarkable electronic properties that had been predicted by theory. But the magnetic field also created a condition that is inhospitable to superconductivity." The current work succeeded in discovering superconductivity by reaching quantum criticality through the ordering of nuclear spins at ultralow temperatures, without applying an external magnetic field. "It is remarkable that it takes an act of nuclear spins to produce quantum criticality at zero magnetic field and realize superconductivity," Steglich said. Si said the new findings are important for the study of both heavy-fermion superconductivity and, more generally, the physics of quantum criticality. "The work demonstrates that quantum criticality is a robust mechanism for bringing about unconventional superconductivity, not only in high-temperature superconductors, as had previously been shown, but also in heavy-fermion materials that are the canonical example of quantum critical behavior in every other respect," Si said. ### Study co-authors include Marc Tippmann of the Meissner Institute; Lucia Steinke of both the Meissner Institute and the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids; Stefan Lausberg, Alexander Steppke, Manuel Brando and Christoph Geibel, all of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids; and Cornelius Krellner of both the University of Frankfurt and the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids. The research was supported by the German Research Foundation, the Robert A. Welch Foundation and the National Science Foundation. High-resolution IMAGES are available for download at: http://news.rice.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/0119_HEAVY-Si-bookV-lg.jpg CAPTION: Qimiao Si CREDIT: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University http://news.rice.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/0129_HEAVY-esmt-lg.jpg CAPTION: Erwin Schuberth (left) and Marc Tippmann with a high-performance cryostat at the Walther Meissner Institute in Garching, Germany. CREDIT: Andreas Battenberg/Technical University of Munich http://news.rice.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/0129_HEAVY-YRS-lg.jpg CAPTION: This microscopic closeup shows a small sample of ytterbium dirhodium disilicide, one of the most-studied "heavy fermion" composites. The scale bar in the center of the screen is one millimeter wide. CREDIT: Marc Tippmann/Technical University of Munich This release can be found online at news.rice.edu. Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,910 undergraduates and 2,809 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for best quality of life and for lots of race/class interaction by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to http://tinyurl.com/AboutRiceUniversity. Magic swords, wands, cauldrons and cloaks of invisibility do not exist in reality. In contrast, it is possible that scenarios like crashed aircrafts looming out of the mists of an alien planet, patients being snatched from the jaws of death by a risky medical breakthrough, or smug murderers who are betrayed by a few molecules left at the scene of crime are part of our current or future reality. Those along with other manifestations of science in films may even have greater potential to capture an audience's attention than pure products of our imaginations. On top of that, could films add to the public's education by giving people an understanding of actual state-of-the-art science and technology? That's the question Kevin R. Grazier and Stephen Cass pursue in their book Hollyweird Science: From Quantum Quirks to the Multiverse. According to the authors, the portrayal of science in fiction is often grounded in real-world, cutting-edge science and technology. They look at Hollywood depictions science to discover that the film industry is actually doing quite a good job of familiarizing the public with scientific facts. They examine topics such as quantum mechanics, parallel universes, and alien worlds to examine screen science fiction from the sometimes-conflicting vantage points of storytellers, researchers, and viewers. In order to present an authentic and many-voiced survey on the field, the authors include material from interviews with writers, producers, and directors of acclaimed science-themed productions as well as scientists and science fictions authors. The result is a book that is appealing to all readers from the layperson to the armchair expert to the professional scientist, and will delight all of them equally through its lighthearted and quirky style. ### Kevin R. Grazier, Ph.D. was a research scientist for fifteen years at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the Cassini/Huygens Mission to Saturn and Titan. Still an active researcher, he performs large-scale computer simulations of early Solar System evolution. Grazier served as the science advisor for the film Gravity, and on the television series Eureka, Defiance, Ascension and the Peabody-Award-winning Battlestar Galactica. Stephen Cass is an Irish science and technology journalist based in New York City. He has been an editor at Discover magazine and MIT Technology Review and has written for outlets such as Popular Science and Nautilus. He has also edited several science fiction anthologies and currently works as a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum. In our rapidly urbanizing world, access to sanitation, transportation, and other essential services remains a challenge for more than a billion people. In the world's poorest and most vulnerable urban communities, finding new ways to meet these day-to-day human needs not only leads to sustainable development, it also fortifies them against the effects of climate-induced disasters. This week, scientists from the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) and Arizona State University (ASU), together with Slum Dwellers International (SDI), a network of community-based organizations of the urban poor in 33 countries and hundreds of cities and towns worldwide, were selected to tackle a challenge put forth by OpenIDEO's Amplify Program: How might urban slum communities become more resilient to the effects of climate change? In the coming decades, climate change is expected to drive more frequent extreme weather events -- such as hurricanes, flooding, and droughts -- in many parts of the world. Such disasters hit slum dwellers particularly hard because they lack physical accesses to essential services, such as water and sanitation, and to emergency response such as fire protection and health assistance. The Amplify Program's Urban Resilience Challenge aims to address these issues by providing funding and design support for innovative solutions. The proposal from the SFI-SDI-ASU collaboration was selected from hundreds of submissions as a "winning idea"; it will receive support from the Global Resilience Partnership (which includes The Rockefeller Foundation, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency [Sida], and the U.S. Agency for International Development [USAID]). For many urban slums, the key to resilience may lie in an integrated development approach called "reblocking," a process by which slum communities physically rearrange themselves to create new streets and public spaces that provide accesses to every residence and workplace, facilitating the universal introduction of modern services, and providing each household with a recognized address. "There are social, economic, and spatial considerations in creating a street network in a neighborhood," says Luis Bettencourt, a professor at the Santa Fe Institute who leads the Institute's Neighborhoods, Slums, and Human Development project together with Professor Jose Lobo at ASU's School of Sustainability. "Unless you bring them all together in a single platform that everyone can use, it is very difficult to coordinate local communities, create good solutions, and collaborate with their local governments. Technology and design can now help us do this much better." "Creating visual digital images for a dialogue within the city and between communities is not a process presently in place," says SDI Chair Sheela Patel. "Enabling slum communities to generate this data, getting internal agreements within their members, and presenting it to cities is of great value to Slum Dwellers International affiliates." The SFI-SDI-ASU collaboration is developing a digital reblocking platform as an open-source tool that will allow residents to re-plan their communities with the minimum cost and disturbance. The platform allows users to map buildings, thoroughfares, and services within their communities and propose new layouts that most efficiently solve the problem of universal access. They can iterate and edit these suggestions to coordinate community and local government objectives. Quantities such as street length and proximity to existing services provide real-time estimates for how much each street plan will cost. The website OpenReblock.org includes a beta version of these urban planning tools that the project will now improve through better design and collaboration between slum communities, local governments, researchers, and technologists. "By providing a map that can be iterated to create a well-serviced neighborhood, we ensure that everyone involved is working from a common reference," says Christa Brelsford, an SFI-ASU postdoctoral fellow who has designed the Open Reblock algorithms and is helping develop the platform. With the new support from the Global Resilience Partnership, the project will create a more dynamic and user-centric design that will enable slum communities to easily generate, analyze, and edit maps for providing access to each place of work and residence, and in this way set neighborhoods on a path of resilient development, as dictated by local knowledge and needs. The Urban Resilience Challenge is one of ten innovation challenges under OpenIDEO's Amplify Program that "find and support solutions to some of the world's most pressing development issues." The challenges are a collaboration between the international design group IDEO.org, OpenIDEO, and the Department for International Development. "The science and the algorithms behind Open Reblock allow you to create potential solutions faster and more systematically," SFI's Bettencourt says, "which we hope will speed up the process of converging on a great design that will more surely improve the lives of people in the neighborhood - according to their own preferences - and their city. It also provides a new perspective on the street plans of neighborhoods in all cities." ### TORONTO, Jan. 28, 2016 - Refugee women who come to Canada have greater risk of giving birth prematurely than non-refugee immigrants, a study by a St. Michael's Hospital researcher has found. Those risks are fueled by the fact that the preterm birth rate was 7.1 per cent among secondary refugees - those who spent more than six months in a transit country before arriving in Canada -compared to five per cent among secondary, non-refugee immigrants. These so-called "secondary refugees" also had a greater absolute risk of preterm birth than Canadian-born women (6.4 per cent). "This suggests that refugee experiences in countries before coming to Canada are not conducive to good health," said Dr. Susitha Wanigaratne, a researcher at St. Michael's Centre for Research on Inner City Health, who has a PhD in epidemiology. Preterm or premature birth describes infants who are born before 37 weeks of gestation. Risk factors for preterm birth include infections, malnutrition and stress - all very common among women living in refugee situations. The higher risk found among secondary refugees was most apparent in very preterm deliveries, which occur at 22 to 31 weeks of gestation (1.2 per cent compared to 0.6 per cent among their non-refugee counterparts). The shorter the gestation length, the higher risk for the baby and associated health care issues. Dr. Wanigaratne's research, published today in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health looked at Ontario immigration and hospital records housed at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) from more than 120,000 births between 2002 and 2010, comparing births of refugee and non-refugee women. A total of 203 countries of origin were represented in the study. "Overall, refugees had higher odds for preterm birth," said Dr. Wanigaratne. "However, when we examined primary immigrants and secondary immigrants separately, we found much greater odds of preterm birth among secondary refugee women." As of 2013, the UN estimated about 3.15 million female refugees were living in long-term migration situations in a transition country, such as refugee camps. On average, refugees spent approximately 17 years in transition countries before finding a safe, permanent location. "Our findings on the association between secondary refugees with preterm birth are extremely important from an international perspective given the current Syrian refugee crisis and other refugee crises," said Dr. Wanigaratne. "With women living in transition countries for potentially long periods of time, the risk for giving birth prematurely is amplified." Preterm birth is a key indicator for the immediate and future health of babies. It is a leading predictor for perinatal death, feeding problems and respiratory complications at birth, as well as learning and cognitive disabilities later in life. Dr. Wanigaratne said although some countries like Somalia have experienced large refugee crises, specific countries of origin did not explain the higher odds for preterm birth among secondary refugees. Rather, the findings suggested a universal risk for secondary refugee women, regardless of their country of origin. "We believe some factors contributing to the higher risk may include long-term exposure to poor living conditions and stressors in transition countries including anxiety, racism, domestic or personal violence and major life events, such as a death in the family - to name a few," said Dr. Wanigaratne. The researchers suggest implementing policies that work toward shortening the time refugee women spend in transition countries, emphasizing the need to move them to a safe place, quickly. In the meantime, improving access to health care and social services for refugees in transition countries may also be beneficial. In addition, health providers in Canada and other countries should also be sensitive to how the refugee migration journey may impact health. ### This study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. About St. Michael's Hospital St. Michael's Hospital provides compassionate care to all who enter its doors. The hospital also provides outstanding medical education to future health care professionals in 27 academic disciplines. Critical care and trauma, heart disease, neurosurgery, diabetes, cancer care, care of the homeless and global health are among the hospital's recognized areas of expertise. Through the Keenan Research Centre and the Li Ka Shing International Healthcare Education Centre, which make up the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, research and education at St. Michael's Hospital are recognized and make an impact around the world. Founded in 1892, the hospital is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto. Media contacts For more information or to arrange an interview with Dr. Susitha Wanigaratne, please contact: Kendra Stephenson Communications Adviser - Media Communications & Public Affairs 416-864-5047 stephensonk@smh.ca The Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) is an independent, non-profit organization that uses population-based health information to produce knowledge on a broad range of health care issues. Our unbiased evidence provides measures of health system performance, a clearer understanding of the shifting health care needs of Ontarians, and a stimulus for discussion of practical solutions to optimize scarce resources. ICES knowledge is highly regarded in Canada and abroad, and is widely used by government, hospitals, planners, and practitioners to make decisions about care delivery and to develop policy. For the latest ICES news, follow us on Twitter: @ICESOntario Kathleen Sandusky Media Advisor, ICES kathleen.sandusky@ices.on.ca 416-480-4780 or 416-434-7763 An average of 30 years had passed since the traumatic events that had left them depressed, anxious, irritable, hypervigilant, unable to sleep well and prone to nightmares. But for 12 people who were involved in a UCLA-led study -- survivors of rape, car accidents, domestic abuse and other traumas -- an unobtrusive patch on the forehead provided considerable relief from post-traumatic stress disorder. "We're talking about patients for whom illness had almost become a way of life," said Dr. Andrew Leuchter, the study's senior author, a UCLA professor of psychiatry and director of the neuromodulation division at UCLA's Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. "Yet they were coming in and saying, 'For the first time in years I slept through the night,' or 'My nightmares are gone.' The effect was extraordinarily powerful." The research, which has been presented at three scholarly conferences and published in the journal Neuromodulation: Technology at the Neural Interface, revealed the first evidence that trigeminal nerve stimulation, or TNS, holds promise for treating chronic PTSD. "Most patients with PTSD do get some benefit from existing treatments, but the great majority still have symptoms and suffer for years from those symptoms," said Leuchter, who is also a staff psychiatrist at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System. "This could be a breakthrough for patients who have not been helped adequately by existing treatments." Based on the study, which was conducted primarily with civilian volunteers, the scientists are recruiting military veterans, who are at an even greater risk for PTSD, for the next phase of their research. TNS is a new form of neuromodulation, a class of treatment in which external energy sources are used to make subtle adjustments to the brain's electrical wiring -- sometimes with devices that are implanted in the body, but increasingly with external devices. The approach is gaining popularity for treating drug-resistant neurological and psychiatric disorders. TNS harnesses current from a 9-volt battery to power a patch that is placed on the user's forehead. While the person sleeps, the patch sends a low-level current to cranial nerves that run through the forehead, sending signals to parts of the brain that help regulate mood, behavior and cognition, including the amygdala and media prefrontal cortex, as well as the autonomic nervous system. Prior research has shown abnormal activity in those areas of the brains of PTSD sufferers. "The chance to have an impact on debilitating diseases with this elegant and simple technology is very satisfying," said Dr. Ian Cook, the study's lead author. Cook co-invented TNS at UCLA; now on leave from his faculty position, he is serving as chief medical officer at Los Angeles-based Neurosigma, Inc., which is licensing the technology and funding the research. Neurosigma is already marketing the technology overseas and has plans to make it available to patients in the U.S. PTSD affects approximately 3.5 percent of the U.S. population but a much higher proportion of military veterans. An estimated 17 percent of active military personnel experience symptoms, and some 30 percent of veterans returning from service in Iraq and Afghanistan have had symptoms. Sufferers often have difficulty working with others, raising children and maintaining healthy relationships. Many try to avoid situations that could trigger flashbacks, which makes them reluctant to socialize or venture from their homes, leaving them isolated. People with the disorder are six times more likely than their healthy counterparts to commit suicide, and they have an increased risk for marital difficulties and dropping out of school. For the recently completed study, the researchers recruited people with chronic PTSD and severe depression who were already being treated with psychotherapy, medication or both. While continuing their conventional treatment, the volunteers wore the patch while they slept, for eight hours a night. Before and after the eight-week study, the study subjects completed questionnaires about the severity of their symptoms and the extent to which the disorders affected their work, parenting and socializing. The severity of participants' PTSD symptoms dropped by an average of more than 30 percent, and the severity of their depression dropped by an average of more than 50 percent, the study reports. In fact, for one-quarter of the study subjects, PTSD symptoms went into remission. In addition, study subjects generally said they felt more able to participate in their daily activities. Leuchter is working with the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System to recruit 74 veterans who have served in the military since 9/11 for the study's next phase. Half will receive real treatment and half will be given a fake TNS patch, in the way a placebo pill would be used in a drug trial. At the end of the study, subjects who were using the fake patch will have the option of undergoing treatment with an actual TNS system. TNS treatment has been shown to be effective in treating drug-resistant epilepsy and treatment-resistant depression. "PTSD is one of the invisible wounds of war," Cook said. "The scars are inside but they can be just as debilitating as visible scars. So it's tremendous to be working on a contribution that could improve the lives of so many brave and courageous people who have made sacrifices for the good of our country." ### Newly published research that started as a high school science project confirms that the density of sea turtle nests on Florida beaches is reduced where artificial lights along the coast deter nesting females. But the data also show that the network of sea turtle-friendly lighting ordinances along Florida's coast seems to be working. "It's a success story. Florida's coastlines are getting darker, and that's a good thing not just for sea turtles but for other organisms," said UCF biology professor John Weishampel, co-author of the study published last week in the journal Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation. "It shows we affect turtles' nesting, but at the same time we've been successful at reducing that effect." The research started last year with Weishampel's son Zachary. The high school student had experience analyzing satellite imagery from an earlier project. He was looking for an idea for the science fair that would let him use that skill when his father suggested exploring how sea turtle nests have fared since cities began adopting restrictions on coastal lighting that can disorient nesting mothers. First, they gathered data on the intensity of artificial light at night that was collected by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program from 1992 to 2012. Then they compared it to the extensive data on nesting sea turtles collected by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for the same period. Because Florida's human population increased by more than 40 percent during that period - adding about 5.5 million people - researchers expected to find that artificial light levels had increased, too. But, assisted by UCF graduate student Wan-Hwa Cheng, they found that nighttime light levels had decreased for more than two-thirds of the 368 one-kilometer (.62-mile) sections of Florida beach that were examined. Some 14 percent had increased, and the rest hadn't changed. "Sea turtle populations are doing pretty well in Florida, and it may be due in part to our coastal management," Weishampel said. "The satellite serves as a kind of policeman in the sky to see what's going on with these lighting ordinances." About 90 percent of sea turtle nesting in the continental United States occurs in Florida, led by three main species: loggerheads, green turtles and leatherbacks. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service classifies green turtles and leatherbacks as endangered, and loggerheads as threatened. Previous research has shown that sea turtles are impacted by artificial light. And because sea turtles are so long-lived and spend only a fraction of their lives ashore, they had little time to adapt to manmade lights. That's prompted regulations meant to reduce the amount of light near nesting beaches by mandating the type of bulbs used and requiring fixtures to be shielded and directed downward. In some areas - such as around Kennedy Space Center, Merritt Island and Sanibel Island - the researchers found that light levels had decreased dramatically since 1992. Others, including Wabasso Beach and Jupiter Island, had increased. The density of turtle nests is reduced where artificial light is brightest, and higher where it's dark, researchers found. They also concluded that turtles aren't impacted by beach lighting alone. Data showed that light from distant urban areas, known as "skyglow" - even from cities as far as 60 miles away - can influence a female turtle's nesting location. An earlier study in Israel used satellite data to gauge artificial light's impact on loggerhead and green turtle nesting in the Mediterranean Sea. But the data on which it relied were not as robust as Florida's vast nesting database. At most, the density of nests in the Israeli study was fewer than 10 per kilometer of beach. By comparison, several monitored Florida beaches have more than 700 loggerhead, 100 green and 10 leatherback nests per kilometer. In Florida, sea turtle nesting has been increasing for all three species. The UCF research suggests that artificial lighting may not be critically impairing those turtle populations, and light mitigation policies are working. At the same time, the adult females are only half the equation. Turtle hatchlings are lured away from the sea by artificial light, and that impact on nesting may not be felt for decades. Even so, Weishampel said the research shows satellite-derived data can be used to determine what areas need more effective management of artificial light. It's also a useful tool to monitor more remote areas for conservation purposes. ### When family difficulties means that children are at risk of abuse or neglect ... how can their fathers be brought back into the equation? When family difficulties mean that children are at risk of abuse or neglect and face being taken into care or becoming candidates for adoption, how can their fathers be brought back into the equation? Instead of being marginalised, might they be part of a solution? A conference at the University of Huddersfield enabled social workers involved in child protection to hear and discuss the very latest research in the field of fatherhood. The event was entitled Engaging Dads in Assessment and among the key speakers was Brid Featherstone, internationally acknowledged for expertise in the areas of gender, fathers and child protection and now Professor of Social Work at the University's School of Human and Health Sciences. Her latest article is What about my dad? Black fathers and the child protection system, in the journal Critical and Radical Social Work. Professor Featherstone's talk included case studies of three men from ethnic minorities who successfully fought to be given care of their children. She laid stress on the correlation between poverty and family difficulties and said that she was worried about the present emphasis on adoption. "We might be on dangerous ethical and moral ground about how we treat the poorest people in society," she said. The old model of the distant, uninvolved father as breadwinner had gone, said Professor Featherstone, but no new model had yet been established. "A good father today expects to be emotionally engaged with his children," she added. When fathers -- who might have experienced years of disrespect and feelings of powerlessness -- encountered the social services they wanted to be treated with fairness and to have their voices heard, according to Professor Featherstone, who said that fathers from poorer backgrounds are bitterly aware of unfairness and double standards, having been accustomed to them all their lives. She analysed issues such as "double suffering", whereby men who had been abused themselves sometimes became abusers. "We can't condone their bad behaviour, but equally we can't write them off. We have to try and find ways of engaging them respectfully." Engaging Dads The Engaging Dads conference drew a large attendance of social workers plus other professionals within social care and youth services, including many of whom are involved in early intervention services. It was jointly organised by the University's School of Human and Health Sciences and Kirklees Council. Delegates were welcomed by Toni Traynor, who is the Council's Head of Early Intervention, Targeted Support and Disabled Children's Services. "Quite often, dads are silent through the assessment process and we need to engage them," she said. "I hope that you will use the knowledge gained today to improve your practice in serious case review." There was also an introduction from Gill Kirkman, who is the University's Subject Leader in Social Work. "This event is wonderful collaboration between our Division of Social Work and Kirklees Council and I hope it will be a fantastic opportunity to engage in recent research and look at the application of that in practice," she said. Speakers included Dr Gavin Swann, who described a successful experiment in a London borough in engaging fathers. It had led to a "father-friendly culture", he said. Former Kirklees council social worker Lee Sobo-Allen -- now a university senior lecturer -- described a study of social workers' expectations and motivations for considering non-resident fathers as potential alternative carers for their children. In addition to talks, there was also a screening of a DVD -- to which Professor Featherstone contributed -- produced by the organisation Fathers Matter, which has carried out extensive research into experiences of fathers whose children are involved with Children's Services. Delegates also attended a sequence of workshops conducted by Dr Swann and Mr Sobo-Allen, revolving around their research, plus a session entitled Bringing Our Own Meanings to Fatherhood, with Gill Kirkman and Suzanne Triggs. ### The Y chromosome is a symbol of maleness, present only in males and encoding genes important for male reproduction. But a new study has shown that live mouse progeny can be generated with assisted reproduction using germ cells from males which do not have any Y chromosome genes. This discovery adds a new light to discussions on Y chromosome gene function and evolution. It supports the hypothesis that Y chromosome genes can be replaced by that encoded on other chromosomes. Two years ago, the University of Hawaii (UH) team led by Monika A. Ward, Professor at the Institute for Biogenesis Research, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawai'i, demonstrated that only two genes of the Y chromosome, the testis determinant factor Sry and the spermatogonial proliferation factor Eif2s3y, were needed for male mice to sire offspring with assisted fertilization. Now, the same team, with a collaborating researcher from France, Michael Mitchell (INSERM, Marseille), took a step further and produced males completely devoid of the entire Y chromosome. In this new study scheduled for online publication in the journal Science on Jan. 29, 2016, Ward and her UH colleagues describe how they generated the "No Y" males, and define the ability of these males to produce gametes and sire offspring. The UH researchers first replaced the Y chromosome gene Sry with its homologue and direct target encoded on chromosome 11, Sox9. In normal situation, Sry activates Sox9, and this initiates a cascade of molecular events that ultimately allow an XY fetus to develop into a male. The researchers used transgenic technology to activate Sox9 in the absence of Sry. Next, they replaced the second essential Y chromosome gene, Eif2s3y, with its X chromosome encoded homologue, Eif2s3x. Eif2s3y and Eif2s3x belong to the same gene family and are very similar in sequence. The researchers speculated that these two genes may play similar roles, and it is a global dosage of both that matters. They transgenically overexpressed Eif2s3x, increasing dose of the X gene beyond that provided normally by X and Y. Under these conditions, Eif2s3x took over the function of Eif2s3y in initiating spermatogenesis. Finally, Ward's team replaced Sry and Eif2s3y simultaneously, and created XOSox9,Eif2s3x males that had no Y chromosome DNA. Mice lacking all Y chromosome genes developed testes populated with male germ cells. Round spermatids were harvested and a technique called round spermatid injection (ROSI) was used to successfully fertilize oocytes. When the developed embryos where transferred to female mouse surrogate mothers, live offspring were born. The offspring derived from the "No Y" males were healthy and lived for normal life span. The daughters and grandsons of the "No Y" males were fertile and capable of reproducing on its own without further technological intervention. Ward's team produced three consecutive generations of "No Y" males using ROSI showing that males lacking Y chromosome genes can be repeatedly propagated with technical assistance. "Most of the mouse Y chromosome genes are necessary for development of mature sperm and normal fertilization, both in mice and in humans," Ward said. "However, when it comes to assisted reproduction, we have now shown that in the mouse the Y chromosome contribution is not necessary." The study provides new important insights into Y chromosome gene function and evolution. It supports the existence of functional redundancy between the Y chromosome genes and their homologues encoded on other chromosomes. "This is good news," Ward said, "because it suggests that there are back-up strategies within genomes, which are normally silent but are capable of taking over under certain circumstances. We revealed two of these strategies by genome manipulation. Whether such alternative pathways would ever be activated without human help, for example in response to environmental changes, is unknown. But it is certainly possible and has already happened for two rodent species which lost their Y chromosomes. " The development of assisted reproduction technologies (ART) allows bypassing various steps of normal fertilization by using immotile, non-viable, or immature gametes. The newest study as well as Ward's preceding report (Science 2014 Jan 3; 343 (6166: 69-72) support that in the mouse ROSI is a successful and efficient form of ART. In humans, ROSI is considered experimental due to concerns regarding the safety of injecting immature germ cells and other technical difficulties. The researchers hope that the success in mouse studies may spark the re-evaluation of human ROSI for its suitability to become an option for overcoming male infertility in the future. ### Corporate philanthropy benefits organizations in many ways: Giving enhances a business's reputation and strengthens a business's efforts toward corporate social responsibility. But does corporate philanthropy do anything to benefit a business's employees? Researchers Emily Block and Michael Mannor from the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business; Ante Glavas, now at Kedge Business School in France; and Laura Erskine at the University of California, Los Angeles examined how corporate philanthropy affects those inside the organization. They analyzed three years' of data on the attitudes of an average of 14,577 employees in 53 offices. The researchers found an overall positive impact on employees of businesses practicing corporate giving. They also found that the way that firms choose to deploy those funds has a huge impact on the degree to which giving affects employees. "Specifically, the impact is stronger when firms donate to a few big and visible targets rather than to a wider range of charities chosen by the employees themselves," Block said. Of particular interest in the findings is that by coupling donations with opportunities to volunteer, organizations can enhance the positive impact on employees. "Also, surprisingly, we found that employees respond more positively to donations to larger more strategic and more centralized targets," Block said. "We thought, wrongly, that self-interested employees would look for ways to pay for their own pet projects. However, that was not what we found empirically. Employees care about impact." ### The study appears in the Journal of Business Ethics. An abstract of the study can be found here: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-015-2930-8. Between 1,500 and 2,000 injuries are reported in the US each year Cold therapy has long been prescribed for those recovering from orthopedic surgery, muscle inflammation and sports-related injuries, with treatments ranging from ice baths to immersion in whole-body cryotherapy chambers. Yet the risks to exposed skin and blood vessels constricted by temperatures of 50 degrees Fahrenheit or below can be severe, leading in some cases to nerve and tissue damage, neuropathy and more serious impacts on the treated limb. Between 1,500 and 2,000 cases of such injuries are reported in the U.S. each year. Researchers at The University of Texas at Arlington and The University of Texas at Austin are developing a solution in the form of what are believed to be the first formal protocols for effective and safe use of cold therapy, and a state-of-the-art cryotherapy device that can stimulate blood flow to keep tissue healthy and minimize potential side effects. Matthew Brothers, an associate professor of kinesiology in the UTA College of Nursing and Health Innovation, is co-investigator on the project. The work is supported by a four-year, $1.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. Brothers and his co-investigator Kenneth Diller, a University of Texas at Austin professor of biomedical engineering, alongside other colleagues, have filed a provisional patent application for the innovative technology that will result from their work. The team may secure additional funding as they achieve results. Currently, about 800 Austin area patients are participating in the formal testing process. Recruitment in the Arlington area is scheduled to begin in February. Preliminary research has shown that a 30-minute cryotherapy session causes an approximate 90 percent reduction in blood flow to the treated area, which continues for up to three hours after the treatment is over and skin temperatures have returned to the pre-cooling levels. "This pronounced and sustained reduction in blood flow, which lowers the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the treated area, contributes to these side-effects," said Brothers, who joined UTA in 2015. "Our research will establish the optimal times and temperatures for treatment and test ways to stimulate blood flow to the treatment area. We will also develop new devices that apply cold directly to the treatment site to increase the precision of care." Currently, without formal protocols, extreme practitioners can advocate continuous use of cryotherapy for days and even weeks while others recommend an application period of 20 to 30 minutes followed by a cessation period of two hours. In addition to developing protocols and a prototype device, the team also is investigating the physiological mechanisms behind the reductions in blood flow, through a series of experiments that involve infusing different substances that impact the regulation of blood vessels. These substances range from antioxidants to ones that block the response of sympathetic nerves that cause vasoconstriction. Changes in blood circulation are then measured using a laser Doppler probe to determine the reasons behind the reductions in blood flow. Anne Bavier, dean of the College of Nursing and Health Innovation, commended the initiative as a model of the University's work to advance Health and the Human Condition under the Strategic Plan 2020: Bold Solutions | Global Impact. "It is striking that there are currently no protocols for the use of cryotherapy devices despite awareness of risks to patients," Bavier said. "This valuable work will provide the knowledge and new technologies needed to ensure patient safety while providing the benefits that cooling treatments have been known for since the time of Hippocrates." ### About the UTA College of Nursing and Health Innovation The UTA College of Nursing and Health Innovation is a leader in the development of scientific evidence and educational models that equip nurses and other health care professionals to effectively and quickly integrate into the healthcare scientific and practice workforce. With 19,000 students in campus-based online degree programs, the College is one of the largest and most successful in the United States. Academic programs prepare individuals for clinical practice, teaching, research, leadership, administration and health care policy. Visit http://www.uta.edu/nursing/ to learn more. About The University of Texas at Arlington The University of Texas at Arlington is a comprehensive research institution of more than 51,000 students in campus-based and online degree programs and is the second-largest institution in The University of Texas System. The Chronicle of Higher Education ranked UTA as one of the 20 fastest-growing public research universities in the nation in 2014. U.S. News & World Report ranks UTA fifth in the nation for undergraduate diversity. The University is a Hispanic-Serving Institution and is ranked as the top four-year college in Texas for veterans on Military Times' 2016 Best for Vets list. Visit http://www.uta.edu to learn more, and find UTA rankings and recognition at http://www.uta.edu/uta/about/rankings.php. Post-financial crisis, notional pooling was one of the tools that received increased interest as companies looked to optimize their internal cash sources. However, higher bank equity requirements and demands of the liquidity coverage ratio under Basel III have raised questions on the future of the product. Benoit Desserre, Societe Generale Notional pooling differs from physical cash pooling in that the funds are not moved between the various locations where a company is based. It has been preferred by large companies as it creates a single funding pool while allowing each organization to retain its own cash position. Notional pooling also removes the expense of conducting FX transactions, and the need to conduct inter-company loans. The requirements under Basel III mean outstanding balances within a pool will be netted, leaving the ratios to be calculated on the gross balances. Because of this, banks will need liquidity to cover the pool. Overdraft balances, which see greater scrutiny under Basel III, also require an increase in regulatory capital being held by the banks. The rising costs have forced a number of banks to reconsider offering the product, and raised questions on its viability as a cash-management tool. However, rather than seeing the death of notional pooling, the banks committed to the product are likely to reassess their criteria. Benoit Desserre, global head of payments and cash management at Societe Generale, explains the product's challenges. Under previous rules, notional pooling was profitable from the first cent," he says. "But in the future, to continue offering the product, banks will need to meet the new regulatory requirements, like allocating a minimum of equity and applying leverage ratio. They will need to be able to put a lot of equity into something which in the past cost nothing. Notional pooling could be seen as being a victim of its success, being implemented for a greater number of companies than it was potentially suitable for, by banks without the full capabilities to manage it. Notional pooling is very niche, says Desserre. Not many banks can offer it as it is a very technical product. And the customers that are large enough to need it and have good enough treasury functions to support it are rare. The product requires considerable legal and tax resources relating to each jurisdiction it is implemented. Suzanne Janse van Rensburg, BAML Suzanne Janse van Rensburg, regional head of liquidity, GTS EMEA, at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML), says: Pooling is a complex product offering. Banks need to apply a high level of due diligence to ensure it is the right solution for a client and that it meets a client's objectives, but also make sure that it fits within the bank's parameters. Mark Smith, head of global liquidity, GTS, at BAML, adds: The notional-pooling proposition needs to be strong and future-proofed. There needs to be a stringent legal and account framework underpinning the offering to ensure it meets the necessary requirements and to deal with complexities. The banks that continue to use notional pooling are also likely to apply stricter rules on which companies they will offer the product to. By the time the Basel rules are implemented in 2018, I would be surprised if there are not some important changes from the banks on who they offer it to either with them being more picky, more restrictive or more expensive, says SocGen's Desserre. In particular, banks are likely to move towards their best credit-rated clients, and the ones with the most sophisticated treasury structures. Whatever the reason for the withdrawal, the corporate that had been used to the notional pool will be faced with finding an alternative. BAML's Janse van Rensburg says: If notional pooling is no longer a viable solution for a corporate, whether this is a provider or a company-driven solution, this can be challenging for a corporate. "It is important for them to work with their banking providers to assess suitable alternatives to ensure they can continue to meet their liquidity management objectives. This may involve considering other providers or pooling product alternatives. In some circumstances, corporate treasurers will choose to issue a request for proposal, but might still realize they cannot find another bank that will be willing to provide them with the service. One alternative is to shift from notional to physical pooling, such as cash concentration, when money is physically relocated to one account. This gives greater oversight over cash and enough control to allow the identification of excess cash for use in investment. Some corporates are already organically making this switch away in response to pricing changes. Thomas Schickler, HSBC Thomas Schickler, global head of product management, global payments and cash management, HSBC, says: Notional pooling and cash concentration can both serve a client's need to self-fund. Increasingly, we are observing a slight bias towards cash concentration as the need to increase the frequency of settlement of notional pool positions has increased the costs to manage the pool. The treasurers themselves need to be prepared for the additional workload such a complex structure creates. Schickler adds: Whether a customer chooses notional pooling or cash concentration, there are extensive internal documentation and operational considerations. For the former, a client will need to manage a set of cross-guarantees, as well as take measures to ensure that short positions in the pool are settled on a periodic basis. Although notional pooling faces a substantial increase in cost, and increasing restrictions, it still remains an essential part of cash management for a number of corporate treasurers. Therefore, banks might be willing to take the financial hit on continuing to offer the service, even if for a reduced number of customers. Desserre says: It is possible the banks will not pass on the higher cost to the corporate. If they have a profitable relationship, they may not want to jeopardize it by increasing the price. Traditionally, it is often argued, the principal focus of the prime brokerage (PB) business was on market share above profitability. Many of the banks that dominated the business offered their services on the cheap, partly as a way to win more profitable business from those clients elsewhere in the bank. At some banks it was seen as a particularly good way of generating business for the trading desks, with which PB units were often closely aligned. Raj Sitlani, IS Prime However, a number of factors have conspired to shake up the PB business generally, and FX PB in particular, which has always been less fashionable than other parts of the business such as equity PB. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) debacle was the most obvious of these. FX funds suffered considerable losses, as did the prime brokers servicing them, with those that had built up the biggest balance sheets suffering the most, via the leverage they offered. Even before that, new capital rules were making the business more expensive for banks, forcing them to rethink their approach. One head of FX PB at a top-tier bank says SNB accelerated a process that was already under way by around six to 12 months. The banks were always going to tackle the issue by the end of this year, with new Basel III capital requirements coming into effect in early 2017. Many are still working on this, meaning 2016 is likely to see more changes to the business. Jack Inglis, CEO of the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), says: There is no doubt that the Basel III banking standards are having a significant impact on hedge funds and other alternative asset managers. Financing costs are rising and the fund manager / prime broker relationship is changing fundamentally. According to an AIMA survey of global fund managers worldwide, financing costs have risen for 50% of firms, with 75% of respondents expecting further cost increases over the next two years. Three quarters of them also said they have been asked to change how they do business with their prime brokers, while more than 67% have had to cut the amount of cash they keep on their brokers balance sheets. The most important result of this industry-wide business review to date has been the impact on pricing, which has become more defensive. Commissions have gone up, with many in the business acknowledging they might go up further. Banks have also recognised that increased electronification and algorithmic trading means the subsidy many trading desks offered to their PB units no longer makes sense. The PB banks are now much more selective about the business they do. Some, such as Credit Suisse, have exited FX PB altogether, preferring to focus their energy on other areas. Others remain, but with a new strategy of cherry-picking the biggest and most profitable clients, or offering it only as part of a package alongside other PB business. This has left new entrants to the market, predominantly prime-of-prime (PoP) houses, which act as a middleman between the bank and the client, but are themselves clients of the bank. They leverage their balance sheet and pass on their services to the smaller funds. Clients seem, so far, to have accepted the rationale for rising prices for PB, and no longer expect this to be the main area of competition between providers. Peter Plester, head of PB at Saxo Bank, says: A few years ago, clients were primarily focused on price and leverage. It was always seen as good to secure the maximum amount of leverage, even for those not planning to use it. Today, those are not the most important factors for clients the first questions they ask are about things like service and technology. One head of FX PB at a large European bank agreed that these two, formerly all-important factors have become less of a focus among clients. While price remains important, he says, banks have a clearer idea what the bottom line is for them in terms of ensuring the business remains profitable, and are less willing to get into a race to the bottom on fees to win business. Different view However, one prime broker at a top-tier bank cautioned that PoPs might view things differently. Some might be making the same mistakes as banks, he warns, by underestimating the risk of the business they are taking on as they look to increase market share. The PoPs dismiss this suggestion. Rising commissions already mean prime brokers are being paid more for the risk they take, they say. However, more importantly, many of the PoPs, as well as the bigger banks, have invested heavily in better risk-management systems, benefiting themselves and their clients. Patrick OBrien, communication director at Exante, says: Most of the quality and trusted brokerages like Exante have made significant investments in real-time risk visibility systems, so that if there is another SNB type incident they can react. Plester agrees, saying: Risk management is the biggest theme in PB at the moment. This is partly because the market has become so risk averse, especially since the SNB crisis, but particularly evident again in recent months as traders fret about China. It also demonstrates how the industry as a whole had been neglecting risk management. Investment in this area was long overdue, and offered a substantial return on the investment. Peter Plester, Saxo Bank Saxos flagship technology upgrade offers clients pre-trade risk controls, among other services such as liquidity optimization. Pre-trade risk controls enable Saxo to provide them access to credit and liquidity without exposing itself to undue counterparty risk, while preventing clients from breaching their own position limits, with only a small impact on latency. Few dispute the value of this innovation, though some question whether it will be necessary in all cases. For some it might prove impractical and expensive, says one prime broker at a big bank, for example where clients trade on a limited number of exchanges. There might be some push back from clients on cost, he says, while the biggest beneficiary is the prime broker given the corresponding reduction in risk. It might therefore be a service best offered selectively, he says. Other providers emphasise different advantages of technological evolution. OBrien says: Technology has certainly allowed for higher velocity programs and strategies in this market, resulting in higher volumes, which give clients a greater foundation for aggressive pricing. So while prices have increased, and might have further to go, providers insist clients are still getting value for money as service improves. Raj Sitlani, managing partner at IS Prime, says: The cost of the business has gone up and, of course, this has been passed downstream to clients, but overall it is a clearer and more efficient market now. The US Federal Reserve's December move to hike rates by 25 basis points brought some certainty about the direction of US monetary policy for corporate treasurers and sparked a debate about cash-management strategies after nearly a decade of historically low rates. However, the first hike is unlikely to result in any notable change in behaviour. Mark Smith, BAML Mark Smith, head of global liquidity, GTS, at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML), explains: We should keep this first hike in context; its only 25bp, rate increases had been anticipated for some time, and loan pricing remains very low. On its own, the Feds first hike shouldnt be the turning point of the credit cycle." For corporate treasurers, the change removed underlying concerns about the direction of the monetary cycle, says Seth Brener, head of cash management corporates, at Deutsche Bank. The rate increase was not very significant, but it was a nice push in the right direction," he says. "The uptick has given the market confidence. Ryan Gaylor, director of client sales at treasury solutions provider Reval, adds: Generally, the market doesnt like uncertainty and while key Fed benchmarks were largely on target, the global macroeconomic picture added some uncertainty which created consternation that persists today. "The debate has now shifted to if the anticipated pace of the rate hike will remain on track. The timing of the announcement means corporates have only begun to mull the consequences. Coming at year-end, the timing of the rate change allowed for a natural break between the Fed announcement and client reaction, says BAML's Smith. Were only now beginning to see the real impact on the market and our clients. Anecdotally, cash-management strategies for some corporates are beginning to shift. Smith says: As part of our ongoing dialogue with clients, weve naturally discussed the impact of rising rates and havent heard any concerns which we hadnt anticipated. In fact, its offered a good opportunity for productive conversations with our clients. Seth Brener, Deutsche In search of yield on their cash, corporates have started making enquiries about the best use for their funds. Deutsche's Brener says many companies are cash rich and looking for ways to use their money, adding: Corporates have started to ask the banks about where the best places are to put their money. Term deposits are now giving more bang to their cash. Corporates that are willing to put their money on hold for a longer period of time will see the advantages. In 2016, treasurers that have dollar positions globally have greater investment options. The increased relative appeal, from the perspective of corporates, of term deposits comes as Basel III comes into force, which requires banks to hold a 25% liquidity buffer against all their corporate operational balances. Because of the potential for return, term deposits are becoming an attractive proposition for banks and corporates alike. 'Holy grail' Dan Scanlan, regional head, transaction banking, Americas, at Standard Chartered, says: Banks are pressing their corporates for term deposits due to the demands of Basel III and the need for more liquidity. Since non-operational balances have little or no value, any balances they leave with the bank have to be operational. There is no question that corporate cash is the holy grail of liquidity these days. Brener agrees that regulation will encourage banks to monitor what their corporates are doing with their funds. Banks will be keeping an eye on the demands of Basel III and the LCR, and will be looking to maintain the differentiation between operating and non-operating balances, he says. StanChart's Scanlan adds: Corporates can earn more basis points by tying up their funds. But they will be reluctant to do so if they think they will need the liquidity. Its a trade-off that each company has to make, and decide based on their needs and their willingness to tie it up. Dan Scanlan, Standard Chartered Nevertheless, global market volatility is expected to moderate the pace of US monetary tightening this year. Scanlan says: It is hard to imagine the Fed will increase rates based on the economy recently. They are watching the global and local markets closely and have said that they will be guided by the numbers. They may decide to test the market a bit further down the road before making more changes. Brener adds: There were thoughts of there being two or even three further increases over the year, but the current market may force them to take a second look at that plan. At Deutsche Bank we think the Fed will decide to be more cautious, but we will see the how the economy develops through the year, As a result, sticking to short-term positions on cash is still considered a prudent strategy. Brener says: At the present time, corporate treasurers shouldnt be looking for incredibly long-term positions, and instead should take a shorter-term look at the potential rate hikes as we come closer to see what will change. With the recent filing of academic freedom bills in Oklahoma, misinformation about what these bills actually protect is springing up in the media and from Darwin lobbyists as it has many times before. Donald McLaughlin already addressed a claim from the National Center for Science Education that the bills one in the state House and one in the Senate are anti-science; let me clarify what they authorize teachers to present. The NCSE reports: SB 1322 would, if enacted, in effect encourage science teachers with idiosyncratic opinions to teach anything they pleased proponents of creationism and climate change denial are the usual intended beneficiaries of such bills and discourage responsible educational authorities from intervening. John Timmer at Ars Technica states that the House version permits educators to teach whatever they want as long as they think its science, and nobody can discipline them. Slates Laura Moser writes: As with the intelligent-design debate, there is no supremacy of fact; there are only opinions about controversial issues. And even if poor, God-fearing teachers are forced to discuss those pesky existing scientific theories of how the world was created, they are also allowed to discuss the potential weaknesses of said theories (like, say, their making no appearance in Genesis) without repercussions. I mean, anything that suggests the Earth wasnt created in six days surely qualifies as controversial, right? If this law passes, teachers can teach pretty much whatever they want in any type of science class without getting in trouble. Because, you know, its all relative. Pretty much whatever they want? These attacks on the Oklahoma academic freedom bills are pretty much fact-free. First, the bills only authorize teachers to present scientific information regarding controversial theories. As both bills state, Teachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught. Areas outside of scientific strengths and weaknesses are outside of the legislation. For information on scientific weaknesses in modern evolutionary science, see Donald McLaughlins recent post, Casey Luskins accounts of uncertainty in origins science and controversy over evolution, and the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism list (with more than 900 signers). Second, Oklahomas bills would not authorize the teaching of creationism or other religious beliefs. Both the Senate and House bills note that they only protect the teaching of scientific information and shall not be construed to promote any religious or nonreligious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs or nonbeliefs or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion. As Casey Luskin has pointed out, [I]f youre teaching religion, then youre not protected by an academic freedom bill. Since creationism has been ruled a religious belief by the Supreme Court, teachers who teach it would not be protected. Clearly, Oklahomas legislation does not authorize teaching creationism. Conversely, teaching the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolution is on firm constitutional ground. As the Supreme Court held in Edwards v. Aguillard, We do not imply that a legislature could never require that scientific critiques of prevailingscientific theories be taught. Under an academic freedom law, Oklahoma teachers could discuss controversial scientific questions about origins and evolution without fear of losing their jobs, delving into such issues as whether Galapagos finches provide evidence for macro- (or only micro- ) evolution, whether vertebrate embryos really are similar in their earliest stages, and whether DNA evidence demonstrates a grand tree of life. SB 1322 and HB 3045, if enacted, would provide protections for teachers to engage in scientific inquiry on the subject of evolution, and thus contribute to better science education in Oklahoma. For more information about academic freedom bills, see our fact sheet Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Academic Freedom Bills. Image: Oklahoma State Capitol, by James Johnson (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons. Hi all, I'm a South African SLP looking to immigrate to the US. We will hopefully have an MRA signed at the end of this year. My question is, has anyone been successful in registering to practice in the US as an SLP based on having your ASHA CCC (as a result of the MRA?) I have read that although you may have the MRA, you still may not be able to practice. I am looking specifically to go to California and I'm really struggling with the information surrounding the requirements to practice - I cannot afford a US Masters degree. Thanks in Advance Kate I think I agree with all of the above, although I'd like to chime in here that it can be very, very simple (truly) if you want it to be simple. As a general rule it's best not to add complexity absent a compelling reason to do so. 1. If the U.K. company has a U.S. subsidiary or affiliate that can put you on their U.S. payroll, that obviously works. You'd be a regular U.S. employee of a U.S. company. In that case your employer pays half of U.S. Social Security/Medicare payroll taxes (before your wages are even shown on your paycheck), and you pay half (deducted from your paycheck). 2. There is rarely a requirement to have any business structure whatsoever to work as a contractor. No LLC, no dba, no corporation, etc. -- those are all optional. You just pay estimated taxes quarterly, including the Self-Employment Tax. OK, that said, plenty of people participating in this forum get a little more sophisticated and create an LLC (for example) since there might be tax and/or liability benefits for their particular self employment situation. That said, it's really quite difficult to avoid liability, so I agree with the comment that liability insurance of some type might be a better (or at least also necessary) approach if that's a concern. And as a general rule the U.S. isn't like the U.K. in terms of tax benefits associated with single individual structures -- the U.K. seems to be much more generous in that respect. So, to net it out, you can keep it very simple indeed, and many or even most people do exactly that. They just perform some work without any company structure, receive some money for that work, report the income, and pay taxes on that income (including estimated taxes) -- all without even hanging a shingle, as it were. And that's all perfectly fine in most cases, including for U.S. state governments with state income taxes. In terms of where you're paid -- into which bank account -- that doesn't matter much at least on the U.S. side. It's still income, still constructively received. As a separate matter, non-U.S. accounts are reportable via FinCEN Form 114 and/or IRS Form 8938, as applicable. But those are financial disclosure forms for asset control and other similar purposes, not tax forms as such. Presumably you want to start supporting your lifestyle in U.S. dollars since you're living in the U.S. where expenses are all in U.S. dollars, so it'd probably be in your interest to set your compensation in U.S. dollars going forward and for your employer to pay you in that form in some negotiable instrument that means you receive exactly those agreed U.S. dollars. But that's up to whatever agreement you can reach -- you aren't required to do that. If for example you (oddly) want to get paid in Swiss francs deposited in a French bank account, no problem, but you still pay tax (in the U.S., in U.S. dollars) and have to disclose the account to U.S. authorities. The new Westgate Farmers Market has officially begun organizing for the 2016 season and is now seeking out vendors. (This article has been updated to reflect a time change for the new market.) COLUMBUS Farmers markets provide an opportunity for neighbors to come together and support locally grown food and other local vendors. With several markets in the greater Columbus area already, the west side has been noticeably lacking. Ruth Thurgood Mundy and Juliette Lonsert, both Westgate neighborhood residents, set out to change this, and this summer will be the first season of the Westgate Farmers Market. Thurgood Mundy, a five-year resident of Westgate, and Lonsert, a newer resident of the community, both felt strongly that a market would not only bring together the area residents but also meet one of the major needs of the west side neighborhood. The west side has long been a bit of a food desert, said Thurgood Mundy. We hope that a farmers market will bring vendors to the neighborhood with the kinds of fresh produce and local foods that our neighbors have been asking for, for quite some time. Neighborhood needs The Westgate Farmers Market intends to accept SNAP and WIC benefits, as well as senior nutrition coupons in an effort to truly meet the needs of the surrounding neighborhoods. We know that there are quite a few markets in Columbus for vendors to choose from, said Lonsert. Its our mission to find vendors that want to join us in bringing a positive event like this to the residents of the west side and meet this area need. The market will run June-October, the first and third Saturday of the month from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. It will be held on the lawn at the West Gate Masonic Lodge, located at 2925 W Broad St, Columbus, OH 43204. A link to vendor applications can be found on the Markets Facebook page, or by contacting the group directly. For more information about the Westgate Farmers Market, or to find out how you can become a vendor, event sponsor, or volunteer, contact farmersmarketwestgate@gmail. com or visit the Markets Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ westgatefarmersmarket. This week, animal rights extremist group, PETA, took a bold (although not surprising) stab at the values of an organization I hold near and dear to my heart; the National FFA Organization. First of all, using a teenage acronym inspired title lame AF (*insert eye roll*) honestly made me scroll right past this article the first time I saw it. There are so many red flags that pop up in my mind credibility for one but as far as catching the attention of that younger demographic; nailed it! So when I came across this blog from a college student titled FFA is BAE (after I read her blog to know what that even means) I had to give her props on her clever counter approach. (P.S. thank you for bringing me up to speed on another popular teenage slang term.) In fact many fellow FFA alum and current members came together to defend an organization they take pride in, but what I have found even more satisfying in the few blog posts I have read in response to PETAs attack are the open conversations and invitations into the lives of those that have been touched by FFA (see Celeste Harned blog here) not an equally slandering/bashing session of the opposing organization. I pondered this article for a while, not wanting to write a hasty response out of fury but to combat PETAs over-the-top claims of animal agriculture with thought and reason. And the best way I can think to do that is by drawing on personal experience. My what FFA means to me spiel Like everyone else, I feel it is appropriate to jump on the bandwagon and share my experiences in FFA and why I believe PETA got it all wrong. I could write a book on all my reasons, but I will highlight only a few that stand out most to me. I joined FFA in high school because, to me, it just made sense. Both my parents were raised on the farm and participated in 4-H and FFA growing up and, while I didnt live on a farm, I still grew up working on my grandparents dairy farm and showed animals in 4-H as soon as I was old enough. But I also had many friends who sat alongside me during my Intro to Ag class that couldnt tell the difference between a bull and a steer. This alone was an eye opener for me: Growing up in a mostly rural county (and one of the top dairy counties in Ohio at that), I just thought everybody should know chocolate milk does not come from brown cows. But FFA turned out to be so much more than livestock and fieldwork. Communicating in an appropriate, purposeful and positive manner This is a huge one for me. FFA developed a confidence in me that I didnt even know that I had. Being forced to stand in front of my peers and recite the FFA creed got me over my fear of public speaking pretty quickly. It also made me a better communicator in the long run. I remember participating in my first prepared speech contest and preparing a speech on wool and its uses. That speech forced me to present information not only in a captivating way something PETA excels at but to really research my topic and present the facts something PETA forgets to do. Dressing appropriately Which leads me to their take on dressing neatly and appropriately. I never felt more professional or appropriately dressed than when I was in my official FFA dress; but thats not the point they are really making here. PETA wants you to believe that hundreds of sheep die in the making of wool-based products and that you should be ashamed for wearing it. This just makes me turn into that lady from the esurance commercial and scream, thats not how it works, thats not how any of this works! Shearing the wool off of a lamb is no different than having your head shaved at the local barber shop. The same goes for ear tagging; ever get an ear piercing? While I am not an expert on the sheep industry in Australia and couldnt tell you why those sheep are dying, I am sure we are missing a lot of key information: sickness, natural causes, predators. PETA often chooses to selectively craft its argument by piecing together keywords like lambs dying and wool shearing in a way that might not be entirely inaccurate, but does not give you the whole picture. Supervised Agricultural Experiences All FFA members are encouraged to participate in a Supervised Agricultural Experience or SAE. I think this is probably one of the most beneficial experiences an FFA student could receive. For me, it was a combination of raising sheep to show at the fair and working on my grandparents dairy. Keeping track of animal weights, feed costs, health, and money made on the farm taught me the value of record keeping and responsibilities. Management is critical on the farm and that includes finances and livestock care. I can assure you a farmer doesnt spend thousands of dollars on feed, barns for shelter and healthcare just to beat and starve their animals and leave them to die. Those attitudes of responsibility and giving an animal the best life so it can live its best life is developed in programs like 4-H and FFA. Care and respect Walk through an animal barn at your local county fair and see how many kids are hugging the necks of their sheep, taking a nap in the straw curled up next to their favorite cow or giving a hog the best back scratching he has ever had. I know I have done all of these things. I have also experienced the sadness of letting a market animal go once the fair came to an end and it still gets to me when I see youngsters experience their first livestock sale thats because we care! But I also know the importance of these animals to our food supply and that does not make me heartless and cruel which is what PETA wants its followers to believe by picking apart the FFA code of ethics and trying to link each one back to animal cruelty. Being an agricultural journalist, I have a truly unique opportunity (and responsibility at times) to be a voice for agriculture. And with that voice comes great responsibility (cue the dramatic music) to share why animal agriculture is so important. Sure its messy at times (as wonderfully stated in this blog), but to have a farmer you just met sit down with you for an interview at the family dining room table and look you right in the eyes to tell you we will go without supper before they do, truly makes it hard for me to believe that farmers are heartless and cruel. That same farmer also told me an animal should only have one bad day in its life and thats when it is harvested, and thats what it is all about. PETA does what they do best Yes, PETA does what PETA knows how to do best scare tactics and fear mongering and unfortunately that gets them a large following of those who just dont know any better. But what I have come to learn is most of these articles, videos, photos, etc. are created to do just that; evoke emotion and strike a nerve. And yes, I will admit that I have had my share of bashing sessions when it comes to organizations like HSUS and PETA posting this graphic content. So how do we as advocates and proud supporters share those equally emotional and thought-provoking posts that cast a positive light on agriculture and programs like FFA and 4-H? I think the responses of some of these bloggers is a pretty great start and I am happy to stand by them #FFAproud. An ambitious new action plan to help organic food and farming build a more sustainable future, regenerate the rural economy and conserve biodiversity and natural resources is being launched for Scotland. Unveiled today (Wednesday 27 January) Organic Ambitions: Scotlands Organic Action Plan 2016 2020 will be further celebrated with a parliamentary reception (at 17:30) on 28th January, attended by Richard Lochhead, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Food and the Environment. Outlining an Organic Vison for 2020, the Action Plan identifies the key challenges facing the development of Scottish organic food and the actions required to address them. Key to the strategy is spreading knowledge about the economic, environmental and social value of Scottish organic produce, increasing the strength of the whole supply chain and boosting skills through knowledge of best practice and training. Building resilience by strengthening the ability of the sector to conserve and enhance Scotlands natural capital will also be vital. Work begins early this year on a programme to deliver these desired outcomes. Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Food and the Environment Richard Lochhead said: Scottish food and drink is a phenomenal success story and, as interest in organic produce increases, that sector clearly has an important role to play in continuing that trend. Much has been achieved over the past few years but there is the potential to do so much more. I want to see a strong organic sector in Scotland, one that is strategically supported and that can compete with the rest of the UK, EU and, indeed, the world. I also want to see a Scottish organic sector that is making an important contribution to Scotland becoming a Good Food Nation, by being self-sustaining, adding value to our environment as well as the economy. Partnership and positive collaboration are key to achieving these aims and this new action plan will surely assist in realising these ambitions. Organic Ambitions was funded by Scottish Government and produced by the Scottish Organic Forum following an extensive consultation. SOF members include Scottish Government, Soil Association Scotland, Scottish Organic Producers Association, Organic Growers Alliance, Caledonian Organics, Scottish Organic Milk Producers, the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society, SRUC and SAC Consulting, part of SRUC, which also provides the secretariat. Wendy Seel, Chair of the Scottish Organic Forum and founder of Aberdeenshire-based Vital Veg, said: "Organic Ambitions will build knowledge about organics, strengthen the organic supply chain and increase skills throughout the organic sector. It will also strengthen the capacity of Scotlands organic farms to preserve and enhance natural capital (soil, clean air and water, biodiversity), and in turn to create a more resilient food supply chain. Making change happen will involve partnership working between all those concerned about the future of food, farming and the environment in Scotland. Organic Ambitions has been well received by those involved in Scotlands Food and Drink economy. Pete Ritchie, Director Nourish Scotland, said This ambitious plan charts a course for Scotland - like Germany, France, Denmark and many other countries - to develop a vibrant, co-operative, innovative and wealth-creating organic sector which produces excellent food while also helping Scotland meet its aspirations on climate change, biodiversity and water quality." James Withers, Scotland Food and Drink CEO commented: There are real opportunities for our organic sector in the coming years and this action plan can create a foundation to grasp the clear opportunities ahead. Scotland currently imports a significant proportion of produce, especially organic, and Scott Erwin, Member Director of Glasgow-based Greencity Wholefoods stated: as a wholesaler we can see the demand that exists for organic produce within Scotland. The Organic Action Plan will provide a platform to ensure that in years to come, a higher proportion of the organic produce that we sell will be grown within Scotland. Organic Ambitions emphasises the need to strengthen cooperation within the sector. Ross Paton, Scottish Organic Milk Producers said they fully support Organic Ambitions as it is important that all the bodies from farmers to procurement organisations are united and seen to be united in their ambitions. Food production has a very significant impact on the natural environment and on greenhouse gas emissions related to climate change. Environmental organisations support the initiative with Vicki Swales, Head of Land Use Policy, RSPB Scotland commenting: Organic agriculture has a key role to play in conserving farmland wildlife and protecting the environment. RSPB Scotland wants to see the organic sector grow and welcomes Organic Ambitions as a way to make this happen. Claudia Rowse, Head of Rural Resources Unit Scottish Natural Heritage believes Organic Ambitions will help contribute to the vision of Scotland becoming a world leader in green farming. It can also help contribute to achieving some of the objectives for sustainable land management and farmland biodiversity in Scotlands Biodiversity Route Map 2020. Angela Mitchell, Acting Director of Soil Association Scotland said: We welcome the new action plan and the Scottish Governments continuing support for organics as a national priority. The actions it sets out have the potential to make real change in how Scotland farms and eats; as well as increasing sales of organic produce, and the amount of land in Scotland being farmed organically. This will be good for consumers, for farmers and producers, and for the environment. The plan is very ambitious. The challenge now will be to find ways to ensure that, even in the face of difficult economic times, the vision it sets out becomes a reality. It was created with input from a wide range of organisations interested in food, farming and the environment, and it is critical that we all continue to work together to implement it. Here at Soil Association Scotland we look forward to contributing to the success of the plan by building on our existing work through programmes like Food for Life to work with schools, public sector organisations, caterers and retailers to raise awareness about good food and organic produce. We also look forward to continuing to work with farmers, growers, processors and key partner organisations in order to support the organic sector in Scotland. The RPA has announced the latest BPS payment figures following a further payment run on Sunday 25 January. In summary, the RPA have paid a further 66m to 3,472 claimants, with payments averaging c19,000 each. Please also note the latest on ES payments and also the frustration that some farmers have not been paid due to not being registered or their bank account details. There is expected to be further weekly payment runs at weekends going forward. The NFU's concern is all those not paid, as can be seen from the headline figures below, there are as many without any notification of payment timing as have received the latest round of letters from the RPA: Claim Population: 87,000 Paid (but no breakdowns) 61,200 With a letter and not paid 13,000 No letter or payment 12,800 The RPA statement in brief: BPS 2015 payments stands at 61,172 - over 70% of those eligible Over 845 million, of an estimated total fund of 1.43 billion, has now been paid out for the 2015 Scheme. The RPA said it's doing everything it can to pay the remaining claims as quickly as possible. This includes contacting those who still need to register or provide information. There is currently 1.5million of payments ready to pay waiting for those farmers to either register or confirm correct bank account details. Environmental Stewardship: Natural England has now processed over 29,000 Environmental Stewardship final payments (65%) worth over 220 million which is a month ahead of previous years. New report backs farmers' calls for better waste crime policies "We will continue to target the high-value milk-based beverage category, white milk and other key dairy categories, where we believe we can sustain profitability and category growth over the long term for the benefit of our business, farmers, customers, distributors and other stakeholders." In November, the Department of Justice confirmed the rumors that had circulated all fall about an appointment it was making in its Fraud Section: Hui Chen was selected to occupy the new role of in-house compliance counsel. Chen most recently served as Global Head for Anti-Bribery and Corruption at Standard Chartered Bank, and prior to that worked in general counsel and compliance roles at Pfizer, Inc. and Microsoft Corporation. The precise contours of her role have not been spelled out, although they have been said to be fluid and will evolve over time. Leslie Caldwell, Assistant Attorney General at the DOJs Criminal Division, offered a glimpse into her remit in a speech on November 17. I welcome this appointment. I love the attention being paid to the compliance function, the listening ear DOJ promises, and the reminder to firm executives and officers that compliance departments need money and sufficient staffing to be effective. But I have questions, and I pitched a few of them to Palmina Fava, a partner in the litigation practice of Paul Hastings in New York, and someone who conducts internal investigations, plus drafts and implements global compliance programs for global firms. * * * First, is the DOJ basically admitting it did not have any such expertise before this point? What was the impetus behind the new roles creation? Andrew Weissmann, chief of the Criminal Division Fraud Section, was candid in acknowledging that while the Fraud Section has experts in a number of areas, compliance program assessment wasnt one of them. In creating the Compliance Counsel position and hiring someone with Hui Chens expertise, the DOJ not only has a resource for Fraud Section attorneys when assessing the merits of a companys compliance program, but companies are on notice that their compliance programs need to be robust and tailored to their risks in order to pass the smell test. Hiring Ms. Chen who has a lot of experience working in Asia and mitigating compliance risks in the region is also a signal that companies operating in Asia should ensure that their compliance programs address the risks posed by the various customs and practices of the market. Saying to Ms. Chen, this is how business is done in China or Korea, is not going to get a company credit for a compliance program that fails to prevent significant, non-transparent cash gifts to government officials, for example. Can one person handle this weighty role? The DOJ expects the companies they investigate to put significant resources into the compliance department but they hire just one person to oversee the function at these many firms. Ms. Chen handled significant responsibility and weighty issues in her prior roles in-house. Just as she did in-house, within the Fraud Section, she will likely be working cooperatively with her colleagues who have been evaluating compliance programs and gaps in those programs as part of their pending and prior investigations. But, as you point out, a robust and successful corporate compliance program requires the investment of significant resources and, for most companies, that means many more than one person overseeing the program. To be more than a paper policy, companies need to monitor compliance with their policies and procedures, ensure that they are practical and tailored to the business realities their employees face in different markets around the world, and identify and fill gaps when necessary. * * * While we were on the topic, Palmina and I came up with our short list of strong compliance program indicators: Ongoing training. Regulators have discussed the importance of firms offering ongoing training for their staff that keeps pace with ever-increasing regulatory obligations and with the evolving nature of the firms business. Regulators leave it to firms to decide how to provide the training and when but the firms that tend to get it right offer it from the on-boarding stage and dont drop the ball there. They carefully attempt to calculate the return on the training investment. An eye on intermediaries. Regulators are also consistently warning firms to keep close tabs on any outside consultants they hire to oversee parts of their compliance program. The Securities and Exchange Commission issued a risk alert in November citing a 2011 survey finding 38 percent of investment advisers outsource at least some of their compliance functions. The watchdog went on to warn that adviser firms must be fully aware of how such third parties operate, hire and train their staff, securely store data and deeply understand the business they are assisting. Keeping tabs on third parties means doing diligence on them before they are retained and exercising audit rights throughout the contract term. Aiming at what could happen. Compliance programs should be proactively designed to address issues that may arise, tailored to the companys strategic plans. Ms. Chen has commented on this point. For example, if a company intends to expand its business into Syria or North Korea within the next 12 to 24 months, its compliance program should explain sanctions risks and rules. Casting a wide net. Compliance professionals should engage with all stakeholders when gauging the effectiveness of a compliance program. Ms. Chen has spoken of this issue, noting that some of her most fascinating and helpful conversations have come from someone who processes payments in the back room. It is these employees who sometimes have the greatest insight into accounting or payment irregularities or questionable practices happening on the shop floor. ____ Julie DiMauro is a contributing editor of the FCPA Blog. She works in the Regulatory Intelligence group at Thomson Reuters in New York. Follow Julie on Twitter @Julie_DiMauro and email her at [email protected]. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (State Department photo) If youre a U.S. company unless youre a food, medicine/medical supplies, or civil aircraft/parts supplier you still cannot have anything to do with Iran, even after the so-called lifting of sanctions as part of the nuclear accord known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. What has changed is that your foreign subsidiaries can once again, for the first time since October 2012, deal with Iran pursuant to newly issued Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) General License H. General License H authorizes U.S.-owned or U.S.-controlled foreign entities to do business in Iran, including with the government of Iran, subject of course to some limitations. For example, your foreign subsidiary cannot: source goods, services, or technology from the U.S. or from any U.S. person (unless they obtain a specific license from OFAC), or use U.S. banks to process transactions (including correspondent banks for U.S. dollar-denominated transactions). Also, the strict prohibition on any type of facilitation of Iran-related transactions by U.S. persons is alive and well, meaning the U.S. parent company and any U.S. persons will need to be completely walled off in nearly every aspect from its subsidiarys dealings in Iran except for two narrow, technical exceptions carved out in the license: The U.S. parent is authorized to 1) alter its operating policies and 2) make available to the foreign sub any automated and globally integrated computer, accounting, email, telecommunications, or other business support system to the extent necessary to allow the foreign sub to conduct authorized business in Iran. For U.S. companies with foreign subsidiaries thinking about doing business in Iran, a reminder about the SDN List and real-world compliance challenges might be helpful: The Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List, OFACs main blacklist, calls upon companies, whether U.S. or foreign, to literally screen each and every entity that has any ownership interest in the Iranian entity with whom you wish to deal. This is because, since August 2014, it is considered a violation to deal with any company that is owned 50% or more in the aggregate by SDNs. (Think about it. Before August 2014, you only had to worry about identifying majority owners; now, youre supposed to identify and screen every owner to see if SDN ownership adds up to 50%.) In theory, this sounds like a pain (even if youre lucky enough to get complete information regarding ownership). In practice, it sounds all but impossible. Consider for example that any transaction that takes place at Shahid Rajaee, the main container terminal at Iranian port city Bandar Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz, could be subject to sanctions enforcement. This is because the container terminal operator, Tidewater Middle East Co., responsible for some 90 percent of Iranian container traffic and with operations at six other Iranian ports, is an SDN. Ive heard it cited that only 17% of Iranian business is truly private, and that the IRGC (the Revolutionary Guards or Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps), also an SDN, has interests in the rest of the economy, either overtly or through front companies. Its going to be tough to Know Your Customer in Iran. But at least for now, most U.S. companies are on the sidelines and wont have that burden. ____ Nina Mohseni is an associate attorney at Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg in Chicago where she practices customs and international trade law. She is the vice president of the Chicago chapter of the Organization of Women in International Trade (OWIT Chicago) and vice chair of the Chicago Bar Associations International Corporate and Trade Law Committee. Single mothers are having a 'movie moment' and it's about time too. Simon Booker In Joy, Jennifer Lawrence plays a divorced mother who overcomes personal and professional obstacles in order to create a successful business founded on her own invention, the 'Miracle Mop'. In Room, based on the bestseller by Emma Donoghue, Brie Larson gives an Oscar-worthy performance as 'Ma'. Held captive for years along with her young son, she helps him to pull off a daring escape and to experience the outside world for the first time. Both films feature strong-minded, independent single mothers who have more than a little in common with Morgan Vine, heroine of my debut crime novel, Without Trace. Morgan has brought up her daughter singlehanded and is now a down-on-her luck investigative journalist who specialises in miscarriages of justice. She lives in a converted railway carriage on the beach at Dungeness. For four long years she's campaigned on behalf of her childhood sweetheart, Danny Kilcannon, convicted on dubious evidence of murdering his stepdaughter. The appeal succeeds, resulting in Danny's release from prison. But when Morgan's own daughter goes missing in mysterious circumstances, she is forced to question everything she thinks she knows about the love of her life. Is Danny a wronged innocent or a ruthless killer? Morgan Vine is the latest addition to a long roll call of fictional single mothers including Meg Altman in tense thriller Panic Room and Carol Connelly in classic rom-com As Good As It Gets. In the former, Jodie Foster plays a newly divorced woman who will go to any lengths to protect her daughter (played by a young Kristen Stewart) when 'bad guys' break into their New York apartment. Meanwhile, in As Good As It Gets, Helen Hunt's 'Carol' is a hard-working, end-of-her-tether waitress and single mum to a chronically ill son. She lives with her own mother, whose cynicism about affairs of the heart is limitless. When Carol bemoans the lack of dating opportunities with 'normal people', her mother tells her, "Everyone wants that, dear. It doesn't exist." Carol does, however, succeed in reviving the long-dormant ardour of irascible, OCD-afflicted Jack Nicholson whose misanthropic character utters one of Hollywood's most memorable (and schmaltzy) declarations of love: "You make me want to be a better man." Having been raised by a divorced, single mother who succeeded in carving a successful career as a movie publicist in the UK and Hollywood at a time when 'career women' were frowned upon and divorce was stigmatised, I have an inexhaustible reservoir of respect and admiration for such heroic characters - and their real-life counterparts: vulnerable yet indomitable, determined to deal with whatever life throws at them, to work hard and battle against a tide of male chauvinism in order to live life on their own terms and do their best for their children. Without Trace is first and foremost a psychological thriller - an entertaining page-turner - but at the heart of the story is a smart, tenacious, strong-willed woman who must not only unravel a complex mystery and discover the truth about her enigmatic old flame, but also find her missing daughter. Because whatever else Morgan Vine may be - dedicated journalist, tireless investigator, accidental detective - she is one thing above all else: a single mother determined to protect her child. Whatever it takes. Without Trace by Simon Booker is published on 28th January (Twenty7). The book is available to buy from Amazon For more information visit www.simonbooker.com Thank you. Our team will contact you shortly. No sooner than the world powers agreed to end to economic sanctions against Iran, leading fashion brands and other businesses in Turkey are making a bee-line to open shop in Iran to grab a market share in the country of 80 million people.Leading Turkish apparel brand D'S Damat announced it has opened a new store in Tehran just three days after the world was informed about the lifting of the sanctions last week after Iran agreed to end its nuclear weapons programme. No sooner than the world powers agreed to end to economic sanctions against Iran, leading fashion brands and other businesses in Turkey are making a # The timing of Damat opening of its Tehran branch and announcements by similar textile firms brought to the fore the Turkish industry's desire to seize possible opportunities in Iran, a report in the Turkish daily Today's Zaman said.The United Brands Association (BMD) -- the Istanbul-based umbrella organization for over 500 renowned Turkish brands, most of which are retailers expects to open about 865 stores in Iran over the next three years.Twenty-nine of our brands already have 135 stores in Iran. As the embargoes are being lifted, 20 more brands are now able to open 500 stores in total. With the new stores that will be set up by existing Turkish companies in Iran, the total number could rise to 1,000 after three years, a BMD official said.On the back of sanctions-driven woes, Turkish exports to Iran fell from $9.9 billion in 2012 to $4.1 billion in 2013, $3.8 billion in 2014 and $3.68 billion in 2015.Iran has become an attractive market for Turks after the sanctions, but it is challenging as well, Bilgin Aygul, the head of the Turkish-Iranian Business Council said.(SH) Fibre2Fashion News Desk - India Fashion e-commerce portal Koovs.com plans to increase gross merchandise value (GMV) to 9.5 million pounds (Rs 91.59 crore) by end of this year from three million pounds (Rs 29 crore).Koovs, which runs an inventory-led model, believes that it has an edge over its competition such as Myntra and Jabong as they are more of a fashion curation portal. Fashion e-commerce portal Koovs.com plans to increase gross merchandise value (GMV) to 9.5 million pounds (Rs 91.59 crore) by end of this year from# We are a fashion house. Our private label is exclusive to us designed by our designers in London. We provide affordable western wear for the Indian market. We are not a marketplace we act like a personal shopper. We curate our apparel. While last year our GMV last year at three million pounds. This year we are on a trajectory to deliver 9.5 million pounds, the Business Standard quoted Mary Turner, CEO, Koovs Plc as saying.Koovs hopes to break even by 2019. Over the next three years we are looking at raising another 30 million pounds. The plan is break even in the next three years, by 2019 we should be at net profitable level. At gross level we have been profitable, Turner added.The company recently posted a threefold jump in sales and has raised 4.5 million pounds (Rs 43 crore). Over the next three years, it plans to raise another 30 million pounds (Rs 289 crore). The e-commerce venture is part of Koovs Plc which was founded two years ago with 22 million pounds (Rs 212 crore) through a float on AIM, the London Stock Exchange's international platform for smaller companies.Koovs, which started its operations in India in 2014 has seen a hike in sales thanks to its brand awareness campaign. Our brand awareness has been quite low at sub one per cent but now it is up at eight per cent. Sixty per cent of orders come from top five metros. We are going to advertise more in Tier II and III cities as well, she said.Currently, Koovs has around 20-25 creative designers based out of its London office while it has 200 employees in India. We will add more people as our operations expand but we will not do it just for the sake of expanding, she added.Turner said its strategy is to access this growth market and to become India's top destination for affordable western fashion by 2020. (SH) Fibre2Fashion News Desk - India Ghana government is determined to revive the textile industry to produce more for its exports, Kweku Ricketts Hagan, the deputy minister of trade and industry has said, according to Ghanaian media reports. The government is also taking steps to invest in the local textile industries to promote it in the international market. Speaking at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Ghana Textile Printing (GTP) company, Hagan said the ministry is working persistently to revamp dormant manufacturing companies such as the Juapong and Volta Star Textiles factories to make Ghana an export rather than import oriented nation. The government would also resuscitate the cotton industry to ensure that most of the lint is produced in the country, he added. Ghana government is determined to revive the textile industry to produce more for its exports, Kweku Ricketts Hagan, the deputy minister of trade and # Hagan further said that for a country like Ghana whose imports exceeds its exports, it is essential to add value to its raw materials. This would help the country's economy to improve and would also help in creating more jobs for the Ghanaian youth. Unstable power supply has been the major concern of manufacturing companies in the country for which the government has initiated some measures to solve the situation, said the deputy minister. (NA) Fibre2fashion News Desk - India The current fiscal is unlikely to bring cheer to India's textile and garment exporters with exports projected to remain flat. India's overall exports of textiles and clothing in 2015-16 are likely to be around $ 40 billion, similar to last year's level at $ 41.4 billion in 2014-15 and $39.31 billion in 2013-14."We see slowdown in China as an opportunity for us and we are looking at USD 40 billion of textiles exports this year. To overcome global slowdown, the Textile Ministry will give full support to the industry," Textile Commissioner Kavita Gupta told reporters after inaugurating the 62nd National Garment Fair organised by the Clothing Manufacturers Association of India (CMAI) in Mumbai. The current fiscal is unlikely to bring cheer to India's textile and garment exporters with exports projected to remain flat. India's overall exports# Gupta said that the slowdown in China needed to be viewed as an opportunity and not as a challenge for Indian textile exports. We need to act fast in seizing the opportunity, she said pointing to Bangladesh and Vietnam as stiff rivals in the global market: We need to promote every segment as we are losing out to Bangladesh and Vietnam."Technical textiles sector, with 13 per cent share, is emerging as a sunrise sector. It is projected to grow at 20 per cent year-on-year and the segment's potential is largely untapped in the country , the textile commissioner said adding that the draft of the new textile policy is ready.CMAI President Rahul Mehta said exports of ready-made garments is expected to reach $17 billion (about Rs 1,12,000 crore) in 2015-16 as against $ 16 billion in the previous year. Indian exports to South America, Eastern Europe and Middle East have increased significantly, but uncertainty still prevails in Europe, which is a major market, he said.The domestic apparel industry is facing slackness but sentiment is likely to improve after the implementation of GST, Mehta said. (SH) Fibre2Fashion News Desk - India A newly established firm in home textiles, 3i Products, is establishing operations in America's Lancaster County in South Carolina with an investment of $3 million. The investment is expected to create 100 new jobs in Lancaster over the next five years.According to a South Carolina Department of Commerce press release, 3i Products, which specializes in the manufacturing and distribution of indoor and outdoor cushions and pillows has acquired an existing 27,000-square-foot building, in Lancaster to house its new operations. The facility is expected to be fully operational by the second quarter of 2016, and hiring for the 100 new positions is expected to begin in April 2016. A newly established firm in home textiles, 3i Products, is establishing operations in America's Lancaster County in South Carolina with an investment# South Carolina's positive business climate and excellent workforce continues to attract businesses of all types to our borders. This includes newly-established firms, like 3i Products, Inc., which has chosen Lancaster County for its new facility, bringing 100 new jobs to the local community, said Secretary of Commerce Bobby Hitt.The Coordinating Council for Economic Development has approved a $150,000 Rural Infrastructure Fund grant to Lancaster County to assist with the cost of real property improvements related to the project. Additionally, Advance SC committed a $50,000 grant to Lancaster County to assist with building up fit in support of the project. (SH) Fibre2Fashion News Desk - India HON PM BAINIMARAMA SPEECH AT THE NATUTALE PRIMARY SCHOOLS VTSAT SYSTEM OPENING Bula vinaka and a good afternoon to you all.Its a pleasure to be here today at the Natutale Primary School here in Ba. This is the fourth day of my tour of the West, and its been a privilege being here in the Western Division, meeting people and knowing that we are able to use the resources of government to make their lives better.The projects, services and infrastructure that my Government is opening here in the West and all over the country are designed to do just that. They are targeting the people in this country who work hard every daythe people who sacrifice so their children can be well fed, well clothed, and well educated, the people who struggle to maintain small business or do well in their job, and the people who must think hard about every purchase they make to be sure they get good value for every cent they spend.I am on this tour because Fijis economic success isnt only because of the big businesses in Suva or Lautoka. It is because of all of us. Every Fijian, in their own way, is making daily contributions to Fiji and helping us develop in ways that seemed impossible a generation ago. And you deserve every effort my Government can make to help you improve your quality of life to the level you wanton a par with that of our Fijians living in larger, more developed regions. It is a long effort, and it will not happen overnight, but we will take the steps together. Government will create the infrastructure and the programmes to create equal opportunity, but the rest will be the product of your own ingenuity, ambition and sweat.Ive also had the chance to visit a number of schools here in the West. And each time I do, it reminds what I love most about my job. I have children and grandchildren, and I know how valuable education has been and is in their lives. So every time I have a chance to improve the classroom experience for our students in Fiji, it brings me a lot of joy.Here at the Natutale Primary School, you are in a beautiful location. But it is also a remote location, and that can make it difficult to provide much-needed services and support. That is why schools such as your require special attention from my Government.The quality of your education should never be decided based on where someone chooses to call home. For generations, many of you have lived here in Natutale so it is my Governments job to come to you and not the other way around. It is my duty as Prime Minister to make sure that your school and your community receive as much assistance as needed to give your students the same opportunities in life as anywhere else in our islands.The VTSAT system that I am opening today has been funded at a cost of $20,307. Weve secured this funding for your school because we want you remain connected to the rest of the country, and the rest of the world. This simple project is one way to lessen the isolation of living here in the highlands and open new pathways of learning for your children. Through modern communications, we truly begin to create One Fijifor our children, for the teachers who are giving them the skills they will need for productive adulthood, and for this community.Communication is a major key in keeping your students and teacher up-to-date on new policies, materials and developments from across the nation. Your school now has the ability to make calls and access the internet a vast wealth of knowledge that will better your educations.In the age we live in today, information is the greatest advantage our students can have. Now you can receive new information the moment it becomes available, and use it to enhance your learning and development.This can become the most powerful academic tool at your disposal, so I encourage to integrate this technology into your curriculum as best as you can and as soon as you can.Ladies and gentlemen,This tour Ive also been spreading the word on how Fiji will choose its new national flag. Our current flag is a proud testament to our past, but is not the flag of our future. Fiji and the Fijian people deserve a flag that displays the beauty of our country and represents our unity, independence and vision for our future.The deadline for flag design submissions has been extended until 29 February. I urge all of you to submit your designs so that we can best incorporate the spirit and creativity of our people into the new flag. In March, we will choose five final designs and then consult the public before raising our new fag on Constitution Day, which is 7 September.With this new VTSAT system, you can stay engaged in this new flag selection process, one of the many new advantages it will bring. I hope you will treat this new equipment with the respect it deserves and achieve everything it will allow you to do.Thank you. Vinaka vakalevu HON PM BAINIMARAMA SPEECH AT THE OPENING OF FACILITIES AT NASIVIKOSO PRIMARY SCHOOL Thank you, Vinaka vakalevu. Ni sa bula vinaka and good afternoon to you all. And my best wishes for a happy 2016.I am happy to see that you already started the New Year with three new classrooms and new furniture and equipment. You are already enjoying the new schoolrooms, and we are now putting the finishing touches on this project.Two new teachers quarters will ensure that the teachers who dedicate themselves to teach in this village have a suitable place to live. The new washroom facilities ensure that a proper level of hygiene is maintained, and the generator means that you can now read and study at night and enjoy access to other amenities.I made a personal commitment to this improvement, which cost a total of nearly $170,000, all funded by the Office of the Prime Minister under the 2014 Small Grant Scheme Project.When we have better facilities for students, we make it easier for them to learn. And when we have proper facilities for teachers, we make it easier for them to teach. The students and teachers who work so hard at this school deserve the best support we can offer. The learning environment that we create makes a big difference, and when we create the right physical environment, we as a people are telling our children and teachers alike that we want them to succeed.But education is more than that. Our Constitution uses very specific language to guarantee every Fijian the right to an education. That makes it the governments responsibility to make sure that resources are distributed fairly and that we pay very strict attention to the needs of children in all parts of Fiji.My Government has a plan to improve the quality of teaching, to improve the quality of the materials and equipment for students and teachers, and to improve the quality of our school buildings. This will not be done overnight, but it will be done. And it is a shame that some civil servants in the Ministry of Education failed to ensure that our children receive their text books from day 1 of the new term in the New Year. This is a serious matter. First, it not only deprives children of the books they need, but it infringes on their constitutional right. Second, it undermines the peoples faith in the institution that is charged with guaranteeing that right. And that is why we have launched an investigation into the matter. We want to make sure that this kind of inexcusable failureor anything similarnever happens again. I am happy to announce that we have made special arrangements and therefore all text books should be ready for distribution, at the latest within 4 weeks.And speaking of improving the quality of teaching, I would like to say a few words about the teachers here today and all teachers who teach in rural areasareas that are underserved and marginalised: Thank you. Thank you for your commitment. Thank you for your dedication. Thank you for the love you have shown these children. Thank you for simply being here, where you do more good than you can possibly imagine. These children will remember you with affection and respect all the days of their lives. We have also, as you would be aware, started paying an additional allowance to those teachers serving in remote parts of Fiji. I have been visiting many schools recentlyin Vanua Levu earlier this month, and now throughout the West. I can think of no better way to spend my time and use my energy than to improve education in this country. I have said many times that I want to be remembered as the Prime Minister who finally made education free in Fijiand not just because education is valuable in its own right, but also because it is the key to true equality. Education gives us the ability to overcome challenges, and to reject limitations. When we are educated, we have the world and all it offers before us. That is what I want for these children.I often wonder what took us so long. Why previous governments never had the foresight to make education free. Free education is not a new idea, after all; it is practised in some countries also. Why didnt previous governments see it? Why didnt previous Ministers for Education fight for itfight for the children of Fiji?Fortunately, we will never go back to those days.We came to government brimming with idealism and the drive to reform Fiji and correct what was wrongto replace privilege with equality, to replace indolence with energy, and to become a country that producesproduces goods, produces ideas, and produces future generations that will lead this region and show the world what kind of people we are. To do that, we need to be one Fiji, where all citizens are equal regardless of ethnicity, religion or occupationwithout regard to whether they lived in the capital or the most remote island community, and whether they were rich or poor.So if Fiji is to be governed by merit instead of privilege, if we are to build a society that provides opportunity to a people who know how to seize that opportunity, we need to be smarter, and equal before the law and in each others eyes.When we took the burden of payments off the backs of familiesconstant payments to schools, unforeseen payments to schools, never-ending demands for payments to schoolswe put all schools on an equal basis. And we replaced that system with a system that allows government to distribute grants to the schools. Today, the resources available to children no longer depend on how much their parents can pay. And the new facilities at these school are a result of that policy.So you see some concrete results of a new Fiji right here in your community, in this village. And soon you will see a new symbol of our nation, a symbol that I hope you will help us discover.I am talking about our new flag, and I am asking for your help and support in deciding what that new flag should look like.I have known our flag all my adult life, and I have served under it with pride as a military officer and your Prime Minister. I know it is precious to you, too. But I would like us to have a flag that takes us into the futureto where we are going rather than from where we have been. So we need to let the old flag go, with our love and admiration. The new flagalways with our beloved Fiji bluecan stand for the kind of people we are, the kind of nation we aspire to be, and the kind of country we will leave to these children.We have established a transparent process to select a new flag, and I ask you all to participate. We are accepting design submissions until February 29, and then we will select five designs to put before the people. There will be a national consultation during which time you will be able to tell us which design you like best.Whichever design we choose, it will signify the dawn of a new day. It will tell the world that Fiji is on the move. It will be our banner. We will have created it.I believe we will love whichever design we choose because we love our Fiji.So to our teachers, keep up the good work and enjoy these new upgrades, and to our students, keep working hard and listening to your teachers. And to everyone in this community, remember that we build a better Fiji - village by village. All of the work you do to educate your children and to earn a better life makes Fiji a better place. Anushka Sharma's maiden producetion venture, NH10 was a huge success at the Box Office! The film obtained critical acclaim as well. So when the start of her producer career turned out to be so good, Anushka decided that its time for her to produce a second film under her banner! Ayushmann-Anushka Ayushmann and Anushka Sharma's candid selfie the duo took at Farah Khan's show. Anushka-Diljit Anushka Sharma and Diljit will be playing the lead roles in her next production venture. Pricey Ayushmann Demanding a hefty renumeration has cost Ayushmann a plump role in Anushka's movie. Kareena-Diljit Apart from Anushka's film, Diljit will also be seen in Udta Punjab with Kareena. Ayushmann Meanwhile Ayushmann is doing a film with Bhumi Pednekar next, titles Manmarziyan. Like NH10, in the second film too Anushka Sharma will be the lead actress and actor Diljit Dosanjh who is currently shooting for Udta Punjab with Kareena Kapoor will also be seen playing a pivotal role. The story of her second film required two male actors for which she had rumouredly approached Ayushmann Khurrana. While Anushka's team says they are still in the casting stages and nothing is finalised. A leading website, spotboye, has found out that Life Of Pi actor, Suraj Sharma will be replacing Ayushmann Khurrana in the movie. Suraj obtained huge name and fame in Hollywood through the Oscar winning director Ang Lee's film, Life Of Pi and now he is out to do the same in Bollywood with his debut Hindi film under Anushka's production banner. Ayushmann's huge remuneration demand ended up in him being replaced by the team. A source close to the film revealed, "It is only a matter of dates, the finances are almost sorted." Newcomer Anshai Lal is helming the project, which is set in Punajb and Diljit and Anushka will be playing the lead roles in this romantic comedy. ALSO READ: REALLY? Shahid Kapoor Gets Converted To Islam? Shocked? So are we! But according to recent reports, Katrina Kaif's red hair in Fitoor costs Rs 55 lakhs. Not just that, even the producers of the movie were shocked to know their leading lady's hair colour's price. According to a report by Miss Malini and Openthemagazine.com, Katrina Kaif couldn't find any Mumbai professional who could give her hair the expected shade of red for Fitoor. So, she ended up recruiting a London-based hair colouring expert. Click On The Slider To See Some Unseen Pictures Of Katrina Kaif Kat-Adi Katrina Kaif and Aditya Roy Kapur snapped by the paparazzi on the sets of their upcoming film Fitoor. Fitoor Katrina Kaif is playing Aditya Roy Kapur's love interest in the movie. It is said that Katrina Kaif has a very powerful role in the movie. Fitoor Fitoor is directed by Abhishek Kapoor, who revealed that it was Katrina Kaif, who approached him for the role. Kat These days Katrina Kaif is busy in the promotions of Fitoor with her co-star Aditya Roy Kapur and director Abhishek Kapoor. Katrina And Aditya Katrina Kaif and Aditya Roy Kapur snapped by the shutterbugs while talking to the reporters during the promotions of their movie. The report stated, ''Studio bosses at one of Bollywood's most prolific film companies nearly had a coronary when they looked at the expense reports on one of their new films, a prestige picture based on an English literature classic.'' ''Turns out that the film, which features a mid-range cast, has cost them more than they'd originally budgeted. But that's not what drained the colour from their faces.'' ''According to insiders, the producers were horrified to learn that they've shelled out roughly Rs 55 lakh on-wait for it-their leading lady's hair colouring alone. Apparently the actress couldn't find any professional locally who could give her mane the desired shade of red for the character.'' So she ended up recruiting a London-based hair colouring expert for the job. This, of course, meant that she needed to zip across to London every few months for a fresh coat... and everyone knows the diva is no budget traveller.'' ''She flew First Class, and her accompanying manager, Business Class. Plus five- star hotel accommodation on each trip. All added up, it's cost the makers a pretty packet, and from what one hears, they're not thrilled,'' the report said. Sultan In Trouble? Read About Salman Khan & Anushka Sharma's Major FIGHT We all know that superstar Salman Khan is dating Romanian beauty Iulia Vantur. But do you know what name Salman has given Iulia? The handsome hunk calls his lady love just 'U' with love. Talking about the same, a source told Bollywood Life, ''Sallu calls Iulia just 'U' with love.'' The source also revealed that Salman Khan and Iulia are living together currently. "Iulia travels in a rickshaw to reach bhai's apartment.'' Click On The Slider To View Some Unseen Pics From Salman Khan's 50th Birthday Salman Khan Salman Khan snapped with Ritiesh Deshmukh, Genelia D'souza and Sania Mirza on his 50th birthday. Salman-Sophie Salman Khan posing for a picture with singer and actor Sophie Chodry on his 50th birthday. 50th birthday Salman Khan celebrated his 50th birthday on 27th December 2015. Many Bollywood celebs attended the grand birthday party. Salman-Iulia Salman Khan's alleged girlfriend Iullia Vantur also attended the actor's 50th birthday celebrations. (In Pic-Salman Khan, Iulia Vantur and Alvira Khan) Salman With Family Salman Khan snapped at his 50th birthday party with mother Salma Khan, sisters Arpita Khan- Alvira Khan and Sohail Khan. The source further added, ''This way she is hidden from the flashing cameras that follow Salman everywhere. Salman's bodyguards are also kept at bay from her for the same reason. It is better this way for them to move in or around the city." Not so long ago, it was rumoured that Salman Khan is engaged to Iulia. To which Salman Khan had told a leading daily, ''Oh, I loved the rumour about my engagement.'' The actor added, ''When the rumour about my engagement broke out, some journalist called my father and said, 'Mubarak ho, Salman Saab has got engaged, and my dad, who obviously got a bit perplexed, replied - 'I don't think so...he is sleeping. This news came out in the foreign media because Iulia's friend whose name is also Iulia, was wearing a ring,'' he said. ''She gave that ring to Iulia to wear and suddenly the news was splashed all over, but in five minutes Iulia cleared out that it was her friend's ring and there's no engagement, nothing. But by then it was all celebration for the media here. I felt let the rumours about my engagement go on, what difference does it make?" Salman said. WHAT! Yami Gautam Accepts That She Is Having An Affair With Pulkit Samrat? The final schedule of the upcoming Dileep starrer comical entertainer King Liar started rolling in Dubai. The movie marks the reunion of the popular directors duo, Siddique-Lal. Interestingly, this time, Siddique and Lal are not teaming up as directors. Siddique pens the script, while Lal handles the direction. King Liar will hit the theatres this March. Madonna Sebastian, the Premam fame actress essays the female lead opposite Dileep in the movie. Asha Sarath, Joy Mathew, and Lal himself appear in the other pivotal roles. King Liar is about Sathyanarayanan, played by Dileep. Sathyan has a habit of telling lies unnecessarily. The movie revolves around how Sathyan's habit affects the lives of others. Reportedly, King Liar will be the first ever feature film in Malayalam to be entirely shot using an iPhone camera. But the team hasn't confirmed the reports officially yet. It is the second collaboration of Dileep and Siddique, after the huge success of Bodyguard. The actor is acting in Lal's directorial venture, for the first time in his career. For Madonna, it is the second outing in M'town after her debut movie Premam. The actress is all set to release her Tamil debut movie Kadhalum Kadandhu Pogum, this February. Here comes the news, which can light up the day of mega fans out there. Megastar Chiranjeevi paid a visit to the sets of Sardaar Gabbar Singh, to meet his brother Powerstar Pawan Kalyan and it was indeed a mega day on the sets of the film, yesterday. "#ShankarDada meets #Sardaar on the sets of #SardaarGabbarSingh. Team celebrates the visit. #PSPK #PawanKalyan.", tweeted Sharrath Marar, the producer of the film. Check out the pictures of the mega brothers in the slides below. Apparently, S J Surya and A M Ratnam were also spotted in the sets along with Chiranjeevi, strengthening the reports that suggested that Pawan would team up with his longtime associate. S J Surya, for his next film. The reports also added that the film would be a sequel to their earlier super hit film, Khushi. Also spotting A M Ratnam, who produced Khushi, is now further boosting the reports. So, can we assume Khushi 2 is on cards? Well! Time will tell us. On the other hand, Pawan Kalyan is busy shooting for Sardaar Gabbar Singh in a specially erected village set in Ramoji Film City, without any break from past one and a half months. The team would be moving to Kerala in the first week of February to shoot some of the important sequences of the film. If all goes well, Sardaar Gabbar Singh will hit screens on 8 April, as promised earlier and the audio launch will be held in the second week of March, for which, Megastar might attend as the chief guest. Stay tuned for more updates. Bizlink Holdings, a California-headquartered and Taiwan-listed cable manufacturer, raised $60 million on Wednesday after completing the first internationally-marketed, US dollar-denominated Taiwanese convertible bond sale in seven months. The transaction is the first Reg S equity-linked issuance out of Taiwan since United Microelectronics Corps $600 million deal in May last year. The unrated issuer, a supplier of charging cables and USB connectors to car and computer manufacturers, is almost unknown to international investors and there is no analyst coverage of the stock by international banks and brokerages. Sole bookrunner JP Morgan was nonetheless able to draw in robust demand after sounding out the transaction and educating investors about the company several weeks ahead of launch. The deal is small but it is a very successful transaction considering the low profile of the company internationally and the impressive pricing it has achieved, particularly a conversion price that well exceeds the stocks all-time high, a source familiar with the situation told FinanceAsia. The initial marketed terms of the five-year zero-coupon deal include a yield-to-put/maturity of 1% to 1.5% and a fixed conversion premium of 15% over the stocks Wednesday closing price, translating into a conversion price of NT$179.4. The bond features a rare two-year put option marketed at 102.02% to 103.03% and redemption price at 105.11% to 107.76%. There is no standard call option attached to the bond but there is a clean up call and full dividend pass through. Some price sensitivity was seen in the early hours of the bookbuild but the majority of the investors eventually put in strike bids. That allowed the company to settle the final terms at the best end of guidance, with a 1% yield-to-put/maturity, put price of 102.02%, and redemption price of 105.11%. To facilitate the transaction Bizlink lined up asset swaps for the full deal size at 250 basis points, which was understood to have been mostly used up by investors. The book was well-covered with approximately 20 lines, including both international outrights and hedge funds, and a number of accounts zeroed out, the source familiar with the situation said. A $20 million upsize option was not immediately exercised but it could be used within 30 days after the closing date, expected to be around February 3. Underlying assumptions include a credit spread of 250bp and a fairly high stock borrow cost of 5%, because such borrows are almost unavailable in the market. That derives a bond floor of 95% and an implied volatility of 21%. At the final price the theoretical value of the bond is around 107%, assuming volatility of 35%. In secondary market trading on Wednesday the bond was at par despite trading up at 100.375%/101.125% in the grey market a day earlier. One market participant said trading was limited, considering that a large part of the option might have already been swapped. Bizlink is no stranger to equity-linked issuance having printed its maiden NT$200 million ($6 million) domestic convertible bond in 2014. But while the new issue is much larger in size, it is also an important step for Bizlink to grow its international profile. The strategy is in line with Bizlinks expansion to supply its products to more international brands. It is one of the key suppliers of charging cables to automobile manufacturers such as Tesla and BMW, and also of USB connectors to PC makers including Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft. Bizlink's share price has traded up by 60% in the past 12 months despite an 18% decline in the benchmark TWSE Index. NEW YORK, NY -- (Marketwired) -- 01/27/16 -- Dawn Bennett, a long-time local financial advisor, has affirmatively declined on principle to attend or participate in the Securities and Exchange Commission's unconstitutional administrative proceeding against her and Bennett Group Financial Services, LLC. The proceeding, held before an administrative law judge hired by the SEC itself, and not properly appointed by the Commission, began today in Washington, D.C. Bennett has challenged the constitutionality of the SEC's administrative proceeding, because the SEC's administrative law judges, including the ALJ presiding over the proceeding against her, were not appointed in a manner consistent with the appointments clause of the United State Constitution, a conclusion with which a number of United States District Court judges have agreed. Bennett has raised her constitutional challenge in the United States District Court, District of Maryland; with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals; with the Administrative Law Judge himself; and with the Commission's Division of Enforcement. Her claim before the 4th Circuit is pending. "I will not subject myself and Bennett Group Financial Services to an unconstitutional proceeding by the SEC. I know this has never been done before. But sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in, even if there are personal consequences. I believe in the Constitution, so I won't attend their kangaroo court. Any American businessperson can survey the regulatory landscape and be concerned about how the SEC is operating. It's time to make a serious change, and you need to start some place," Bennett said. Gregory Morvillo, an attorney for Bennett, stated: "We asked the SEC, out of fairness, to adjourn the administrative proceeding until the constitutional question is resolved by the courts; they have refused. Ms. Bennett was therefore put in a position where she would have to risk defending herself twice; once in the proceeding that commenced today, and again later after the courts have addressed the constitutional question. In our view, that is patently unfair to Ms. Bennett, and the SEC shouldn't put Ms. Bennett and others situated like her, in this unfair position." Eugene Ingoglia, an attorney for Bennett, stated: "Charges brought by the SEC should be litigated on an even playing field. The SEC has been on notice about the real constitutional concerns with their administrative hearing process, but has refused to remedy the problem and has instead doubled-down on its use of an unconstitutional process. By refusing to participate, Ms. Bennett is saying: I object." This is a problem of the SEC's making, and different courts have handled it different ways. In the Second Circuit and in Georgia district courts, those in Bennett's position have been granted stays pending the resolution of their challenges. Bennett, based on her residence, is being forced to proceed where some others are not. It is manifestly unfair and as such, she is refusing to participate in the administrative proceedings at all, and continues to seek to challenge the unconstitutional nature of the process at the earliest possibility. To be clear, Bennett denies any wrong-doing, knows that not defending the merits of her case now will result in a finding against her, but believes that standing up for her constitutional rights, and the rights of people who come after her, is bigger than her opportunity to contest the facts the SEC alleges in a suspect forum. Morvillo LLP (http://morvillolaw.com/) is a boutique litigation firm with offices in New York and Washington, DC, that specializes in White Collar defense, SEC enforcement and other regulatory investigations, FCPA cases and civil securities litigation. Contact: Susan E. Jacobsen +1 202.251.8184 Email Contact OTTAWA (dpa-AFX) - The Japanese yen weakened against the other major currencies in the Asian session on Thursday. The yen fell to 129.47 against the euro, 169.57 against the pound and 117.09 against the Swiss franc, from yesterday's closing quotes of 129.25, 168.89 and 116.86, respectively. Against the U.S. and the Canadian dollars, the yen edged down to 118.93 and 84.38 from yesterday's closing quotes of 118.65 and 84.18, respectively. If the yen extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 132.00 against the euro, 175.00 against the pound, 119.00 against the franc, 120.00 against the greenback and 88.00 against the loonie. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. OTTAWA (dpa-AFX) - Murphy Oil Corp. (MUR) said that its Canadian subsidiary, Murphy Oil Company Ltd. or 'MOCL', has signed a definitive agreement with Enbridge G&P Limited Partnership, a subsidiary of Enbridge Inc., (ENB.TO, ENB) to divest natural gas processing and sales pipeline assets that support Murphy's Montney natural gas fields in the Tupper and Tupper West areas of northeastern British Columbia. The transaction includes the sale of existing infrastructure capable of processing up to 320 million cubic feet per day. Total cash consideration to Murphy upon closing of the transaction will be C$538 million. Enbridge will own and operate the natural gas processing plants and sales pipeline assets which include a twenty-year arrangement, customary fee structure and an opportunity for plant expansion ensuring flexibility for both parties. The transaction is subject to typical closing conditions and is anticipated to close promptly upon receipt of regulatory approval early in the second quarter 2016. In a separate transaction, MOCL has signed a definitive agreement with affiliates of Athabasca Oil Corporation to acquire a 70 percent operated working interest (WI) of Athabasca's production, acreage, infrastructure and facilities in the Kaybob Duvernay lands, and a 30 percent non-operated WI of Athabasca's production, acreage, infrastructure and facilities in the liquids rich Montney lands in Alberta. Under the terms of the joint venture the total consideration amounts to C$475 million, of which Murphy will pay approximately C$250 million in cash at closing and the remaining C$225 million in the form of a carry for a period of up to five years. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and normal closing conditions, and is anticipated to close late in the first quarter 2016, with an effective date of January 1, 2016. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de TRUSTe/NCSA Consumer Privacy Index Reveals Rising Consumer Concerns and a Significant Awareness Deficit; Businesses Pay as Privacy Concerns Discourage Consumers LONDON, Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The TRUSTe/National Cyber Security Alliance GB Consumer Privacy Index reveals the extent of current consumer privacy concerns with noticeably more Brits concerned about not knowing how the personal information collected about them online is being used than losing their principal source of income. Released to coincide with the ninth Data Privacy Day on 28 January 2016, the study found that online privacy concerns topped the loss of personal income by 10 percentage points, even as only 1 in 4 Brits report they understand how companies collect their personal information. Likewise, the business impact of consumers' privacy concerns remains high with 89 percent avoiding companies they don't believe protect their privacy and 76 percent of those who worry about their privacy online limiting their online activity in the last 12 months due to their concerns. Michael Kaiser, Executive Director National Cyber-Security Alliance commented, "Consumers are increasingly aware, interested and concerned about their privacy and they're acting on it. However, if Internet users knew more, they would do more. The research points to an awareness-action shortfall that belies a growing confidence in British Internet Users' personal ability to protect their online data. "As the vast amounts of data being collected, exchanged and stored online increases, NCSA urges all digital citizens to own their online presence and manage their privacy. We encourage consumers to use available tools and take actionable steps to manage their privacy such as limiting access on social media, keeping all apps, software and devices updated and understanding that their personal information - just like money - has great value and thus, should be protected." Just 54 percent of British Internet users trust businesses with their personal information online, exposing a remarkably lacking level of trust. To close this gap, it appears consumers are demanding more transparency in exchange for trust and want to be able to control how data is collected, used and shared with simpler tools to help them manage their privacy online. 51 percent don't feel they have control over any personal information they may have provided online, 35 percent think protecting personal information online is too complex and 43 percent of those who worry about their privacy online say companies providing clear procedures for removing personal information would increase trust. Chris Babel, CEO TRUSTe added, "Consumer privacy concern is real and rising and businesses need to act now to rebuild trust with their customers before it hurts the bottom line through lost clicks, downloads and sales. With 3 out of 4 Brits who worry about their privacy online modifying their online activity last year due to privacy concerns this research shows privacy is not just good practice it is simply good business." Interestingly given the recent introduction of the so-called 'Right to be Forgotten' for Europeans in the EU General Data Protection Regulation, 60 percent already think they have the right to be forgotten. With the recent terrorist attacks in Paris the month before this survey was conducted, there has been a fall in the numbers who think online privacy is more important than national security (36 percent) down nine percentage points from last year's study. Only 3 in 10 percent think losing online privacy is a part of being more connected. The TRUSTe/National Cyber Security Alliance GB Consumer Privacy Index 2016 is based on data from an online survey conducted by Ipsos MORI with 1,000 British Internet users aged 16-75 from 17-22 December 2015. The research was commissioned by TRUSTe and the NCSA, building on tracking studies conducted over the past four years by both organisations. Comparable research was also conducted in the U.S. Detailed findings from the 2016 TRUSTe/NCSA GB Consumer Privacy Index: Overall, the research found that consumer online privacy concerns remain extremely high with 92 percent of British Internet users worrying to some extent about their privacy online - the same percentage as last year. 36 percent said they were frequently or always concerned and 39 percent agreed they were more concerned than one year ago. 73 percent were concerned about not knowing how personal information collected about them online is used compared with 62 percent concerned with losing their principle source of income and 51 percent being a victim of crime in their community. When those aware of activities related to online privacy were asked what made them most concerned about their online privacy, almost half (45 percent) said companies sharing their personal information with other companies. When those aware of activities related to online privacy were asked what made them most concerned about their online privacy, almost half (45 percent) said companies sharing their personal information with other companies. 74 percent of British Internet users believe that they protect their privacy online very or fairly well and yet their awareness and actions tell a different story. Of those aware of any activities that can be done to protect privacy online, a notably lower proportion in each case had actually done any of these activities in the last year. 58 percent were aware that they could delete cookies, cache or browsing history to help protect their privacy online; yet just 49 percent did 44 percent were aware that they could turn off smartphone location tracking; yet only 28 percent did 49 percent were aware they could change the settings on their social media accounts; yet only 31 percent did 31 percent were aware they could read privacy policies; yet just 12 percent did Despite this 'privacy awareness deficit' the business impact of consumer concerns remains high. 76 percent of British Internet users who worry about their privacy online have limited their online activity in the last year due to privacy concerns. Specifically in the last 12 months: 53 percent have not clicked on an online ad 46 percent withheld personal info when asked for it 31 percent have not downloaded an app/product 23 percent stopped an online transaction Among all online adults, 31 percent have stopped using a website and 24 percent have stopped using an app in the last twelve months because they did not trust them to handle personal information securely. 52 percent of adults who have stopped using either an app or website said that this was because they did not feel comfortable. Interestingly 13 percent said they continued to use a website they didn't trust to handle their personal information responsibly with 35 percent of those who reported doing this saying it was because it was the only website that sold a particular product or service. Trust remains a significant issue with just 54 percent of British Internet users trusting most businesses with their personal information online. Healthcare providers (72 percent) and financial organizations (66 percent) were most trusted to handle personal information responsibly. Social Networks (32 percent) and advertisers (19 percent) were the least trusted. There is more that businesses can do to lower consumer concern and improve trust. Among those who ever worry about their privacy online, the two top ways to lower privacy concerns were companies being more transparent about how they are collecting and using data (37 percent) and having more easy to use tools available to protect personal information (33 percent). Importantly, British Internet users want control when providing personal information online. 50 percent said they wanted control over who has access to their personal information 47 percent wanted to know how this is used 39 percent wanted to know about the type of info collected. 29 percent want to be able to delete personal info collected about them About NCSA's STOP. THINK. CONNECT. Privacy Awareness Campaign National Cyber Security Alliance's (NCSA) privacy awareness campaign is an integral component of STOP. THINK. CONNECT. "' the global online safety, security and privacy campaign. Data Privacy Day is the signature event for the campaign and is officially organized by NCSA in North America. Data Privacy Day began in the United States and Canada in January 2008 as an extension of the Data Protection Day celebration in Europe. Cisco, ESET and TRUSTe are Leading Sponsors of the 2016 privacy awareness campaign. Intel is a Contributing Sponsor. Lockheed Martin and Passcode are Participating Sponsors. Supporting Sponsors include CPDP2016, ExpressVPN, ForgeRock, Mozilla, Privacy Ref, Privacy Salon, PRIVATIZE ME and PRIVATE WiFi. The hashtag for NCSA's privacy campaign efforts is PrivacyAware. About TRUSTe TRUSTe powers privacy compliance and trust by enabling businesses to use data across their customer, employee and vendor channels. We have nearly 20 years experience and a team of over 150 professionals dedicated to providing data privacy management solutions and services, including assessments, certifications and our SaaS-based Platform. The Data Privacy Management Platform provides control over all phases of privacy; from conducting assessments and implementing compliance controls to managing ongoing monitoring. Companies worldwide rely on TRUSTe to minimize compliance risk and protect their brand. http://www.truste.com About The National Cyber Security Alliance The National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) is the nation's leading nonprofit, public-private partnership promoting cybersecurity and privacy education and awareness. NCSA works with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and NCSA's Board of Directors, which include representatives from ADP; AT&T; Bank of America; BlackBerry; Cisco; Comcast Corporation; ESET; Facebook; Google; Intel; Logical Operations; Microsoft; PayPal; PKWARE; RSA, the Security Division of EMC; Raytheon; Symantec; Verizon; and Visa. NCSA' s core efforts include National Cyber Security Awareness Month (October), Data Privacy Day (January 28), and STOP. THINK. CONNECT., the global online safety awareness and education campaign led by NCSA and the Anti Phishing Working Group, with federal government leadership from DHS. For more information on NCSA, please visit http://staysafeonline.org/about-us/overview/ Research Methodology The TRUSTe/National Cyber Security Alliance GB Consumer Privacy Index research was conducted by Ipsos using an online survey among a representative quota sample of 1,000 adults aged 18-75 in Great Britain from 17-22 December, 2015. Among these, 872 were aware of activities related to data privacy, 874 were aware of activities that could be done to protect online privacy, while 955 said they ever worry about their privacy online. 364 said they have stopped using a website or app in the last 12 months because they did not trust it to handle their personal information securely, while 131 report they have used a website even if they did not trust the company or service to handle their personal information responsibly. Survey data were weighted by age, gender, region, social grade and working status to known offline population proportions. Comparison data for Great Britain for the previous four years is drawn from research conducted online on behalf of TRUSTe by Ipsos MORI from 28 November and 5 December 2014 with 1000 adults aged 16-75, from 13 - 18 December with 2,011 adults aged 16-75; from 4 - 8 January 2013 with 2,006 adults aged 16-75 and by Harris Interactive from 28 February - 7 March, 2012 with 2,012 adults aged 16 and older. These surveys can be accessed here and form part of TRUSTe's ongoing consumer privacy research program. NIEUWEGEIN, The Netherlands, January 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Not for release, publication or distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, or any other jurisdiction in which such release, publication or distribution would be unlawful. last trading day of depositary receipts of ordinary shares in Ballast Nedam on 25 February 2016 ; ; delisting of depositary receipts on 26 February 2016; offer to acquire all depositary receipts offered through Euronext Amsterdam at EUR 0.30 per depositary receipt until last trading day of depositary receipts; and per depositary receipt until last trading day of depositary receipts; and intent to initiate statutory buy-out procedure (uitkoopprocedure) at a buy-out price of EUR 0.30 per depositary receipt ultimately on 26 February 2016 . The private limited liability company Renaissance Infrastructure B.V. with its seat in Breda (the "Offeror"), a company controlled by RC Ronesans InAYaat Taahhut A.Az., and the public limited company Ballast Nedam N.V. with its seat in Nieuwegein ("Ballast Nedam") today jointly announce that Euronext Amsterdam N.V. has, subject to the terms set out in this press release, agreed to co-operate with the delisting of the depositary receipts of ordinary shares Ballast Nedam ("Depositary Receipts") from the Stock Exchange of Euronext in Amsterdam ("Euronext Amsterdam"), effective 26 February 2016, with the last trading day being 25 February 2016. The Offeror and Ballast Nedam furthermore jointly announce that the Offeror will offer to acquire any and all Depositary Receipts offered through Euronext Amsterdam at a price of EUR 0.30 per Depositary Receipt. The Offeror and Ballast Nedam furthermore announce that the Offeror intends to initiate a statutory buy-out procedure (uitkoopprocedure) ultimately on 26 February 2016 at a buy-out price (uitkoopprijs) of EUR 0.30 per Depositary Receipt. Depositary Receipts held by the Offeror As of the date hereof, the Offeror holds 215.558.127 Depositary Receipts (representing 97.85% of the total issued capital of Ballast Nedam) as a result of the offer for Depositary Receipts announced by the Offeror and Ballast Nedam on 17 September 2015 (the "Offer"), the rights issue and private placement transactions, the envisaged key terms of which were announced by Ballast Nedam on 9 December 2015, as well as certain transactions effected through the open market. Delisting request and Standing Order for depository receipts by the Offeror As announced in the offer memorandum (biedingsbericht) issued in relation to the Offer, Ballast Nedam has requested a delisting of the Depositary Receipts from Euronext Amsterdam pursuant to Euronext notice (Euronext mededeling) 2004-041, effective as soon as possible. Euronext Amsterdam has agreed to the delisting of the Depositary Receipts effective as of 26 February 2016, provided an acceptable 'exit' opportunity is offered on the terms set out below. In this context, Ballast Nedam and the Offeror have agreed that the Offeror will offer all holders of Depositary Receipts other than the Offeror to buy their Depositary Receipts. This will be effected by the Offeror issuing a general standing order through the Stock Exchange of Euronext Amsterdam to acquire Depositary Receipts (the "Standing Order"). The Standing Order: (i) will apply to all Depositary Receipts not already owned by the Offeror offered through Euronext Amsterdam; (ii)will be made unconditionally (onvoorwaardelijk); (iii)will remain open for acceptance for 20 trading days, starting on 29 January 2016 (9:00 AM CET) and ending on 25 February 2016 (17:40 PM CET), where after the Standing Offer will be withdrawn; and (iv)will be made at an offer price (the "Offer Price") of EUR 0.30 per Depositary Receipt. The Offer Price is equal to the price for the Depositary Receipts paid by the Offeror in the Offer and is well in excess of the average market price for the Depositary Receipts over the last 14 trading days of EUR 0.254, and the closing price of the Depositary Receipts of EUR 0.245 on Euronext Amsterdam on 27 January 2016. This Standing Order will not only be announced in this press release, but also in a nationally distributed newspaper. As stipulated above, the period during which you can sell your Depositary Receipts under the Standing Order ends on 25 February 2016 at 17:40 PM CET. This period will not be extended. Should you wish to sell your Depositary Receipts, you should therefore timely instruct the bank through which you hold your Depositary Receipts. Should you still hold Depositary Receipts upon expiration of the Standing Offer, these Depositary Receipts (or the ordinary share represented by such Depositary Receipt) will become subject to the statutory buy-out procedure referred to below. Ballast Nedam and the Offeror will announce the aggregate take up of Depositary Receipts under the Standing Offer by means of a single press release to be issued on 25 February 2016, after close of trading of Euronext Amsterdam. The Standing Order is fully supported by the management board, and supervisory board of Ballast Nedam and will not have any consequences for the activities, place of business, or employees of Ballast Nedam or the Offeror. Renaissance confirms to have the funds available to fulfil its obligations under the Standing Order. Renaissance and Ballast Nedam confirm that they have made all information relevant for holders of Depositary Receipts to assess the terms of the Standing Offer publicly available. For information on Ballast Nedam, including copies of the offer memorandum (biedingsbericht) issued in connection with the Offer, and the prospectus issued in connection with the rights offering and private placement transactions referred to above, please refer to the website of Ballast Nedam (http://www.ballast-nedam.com). In connection with the public announcement of the Standing Order through this press release, the Autoriteit Financiele Markten (AFM) has issued an exemption (ontheffing) from certain provisions of the Dutch Financial Markets Supervision Act (Wet op het financieel toezicht) and the Take Over Decree (Besluit openbare biedingen Wft). Last trading day and delisting of Depositary Receipts The last day that the Depositary Receipts can be traded on Euronext Amsterdam will be 25 February 2016 and delisting of the Depositary Receipts will take place on 26 February 2016. Statutory buy-out proceedings In order to acquire any Depositary Receipts not owned by the Offeror after 25 February 2016, the Offeror will commence statutory buy-out proceedings (uitkoopprocedure) in accordance with the Dutch Civil Code as soon as practically possible, with the intent to initiate such proceedings ultimately on 26 February 2016, against a buy-out price (uitkoopprijs) of EUR 0.30 per Depositary Receipt (or ordinary share represented by such Depositary Receipt). This means the Offeror will seek to obtain all Depositary Receipts not tendered under the Standing Order by court order. For more information, please contact the bank through which you hold your Depositary Receipts. Exchange Agent ABN AMRO Bank N.V. Corporate Broking (HQ7050) Gustav Mahlerlaan 10 P.O. Box 283 1000 EA Amsterdam The Netherlands Tel: +31-20-344-2000 Email: corporate.broking@nl.abnamro.com The Offeror Renaissance Infrastructure B.V. Claudius Prinsenlaan 144 4818 BN Breda The Netherlands Ballast Nedam Ballast Nedam N.V. Ringwade 71 3439 LM Nieuwegein The Netherlands Ballast Nedam targets its strategic focus at successfully acquiring and carrying out integrated projects in the working areas of housing and mobility in the Netherlands and internationally. We also work on projects where we can make a difference for the client with our expert knowledge and skills. Ballast Nedam applies a differentiated market approach for its three divisions. With further industrialization of the building process through the use of innovative modular concepts and standardization Ballast Nedam creates enduring quality at the lowest possible life cycle costs for its clients and society. The Ballast Nedam share is included in the Amsterdam Small Cap Index (AScX) of Euronext. PRN NLD Today the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has issued a new Proposed Decision on the successor program to net metering in the state, which advocates say looks a lot like the earlier Proposed Decision despite utility attempts to force major changes. This new proposal will be voted on by CPUC in a meeting which begins tomorrow morning at 9:30 AM Pacific Time. California Solar Energy Industries Association (CalSEIA) says that the changes are mix of clarifications and minor changes that are not in the industry's favor but not fatal. In the industry's favor, CPUC has deleted a footnote from the December Proposed Decision which suggested that the "non-bypassable charges" to be subtracted from the credit rate for electricity from customer PV systems should include transmission costs. This means that these non-bypassable charges will be $0.02-0.023 per kilowatt-hour, instead of possibly as high as $0.04-0.05/kWh if transmission costs were to be included. CalSEIA Executive Director Bernadette Del Chiaro says that this level of non-bypassable charges, which include ... Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. PayPoint plc 28 January 2016 Interim Management Statement The board reports on events, transactions and trading since the half year results to 30 September 2015. Dominic Taylor, PayPoint's Chief Executive, said: 'We have continued to make progress across the businesses in the third quarter. Retail services have grown strongly, our new terminal is in pilot in the UK and we have made good progress in developing our core epos software. Since the end of the quarter, we have also concluded the sale of our Online Payments business, further strengthening our balance sheet. However, our progress has been partially offset by the unseasonably warm weather and its impact on energy consumption, an extension of the additional costs in Collect+ to facilitate the shareholder discussion and a delay in the sale of our Mobile Payments business. The restructuring of our business continues apace. We aim to resolve the Collect+ joint venture arrangements and complete the sale of our Mobile Payments business by the time we report our full year results in May, so we can focus all our effort on the development of our retail networks.' Performance1 for the third quarter period ending 31 December 2015 Group: Net revenues2 were 35.0 million, up 1.8% from net revenues for the third quarter last year3 whilst revenues of 58.1 million were down 3%3. We saw strong growth in retail services of 22.7% and Mobile and Online of 9.6% offset by declines in top ups of 13.7% and bill and general of 2.4%, the latter mainly due to lower energy consumption. Overall transactions processed during the quarter were 225.4 million, up 3.9% on the 216.9 million transactions in the same period last year. The adverse VAT ruling from HMRC, as previously reported, along with the unseasonably warm weather, has slowed the improvement in our results. UK and Ireland Retail: Retail services transactions (ATMs, debit/credit cards, parcels, money transfer and SIM card sales) continued to grow, up 14.3% on last year. UK and Irish bill and general transactions were down 8.1% on last year. Mobile top-ups continued to decrease as the prepaid mobile sector declined, partially offset however, by an increase in other top-ups. UK and Irish retail sites at 31 December numbered 29,044, up by 113 since the half year end. Romania: Profitable growth continued. We processed 15.3 million bill payments in the period, up 11.0% on last year. Top-ups increased by 6.2% and retail services by over 50%. We increased our terminal estate since the half year end by 307 sites to 9,765 and continued to add new clients. Collect+: Volumes increased by 5% to over 6.0 million transactions in the period, with a record Christmas week of 638,000 transactions. Our Collect+ network continued to expand with an increase of 75 sites to 5,970 since the half year end. Discussions are ongoing with Yodel regarding the future of the joint venture and the proposed increases in charges put forward by Yodel. Some of these charges have been allowed pending the outcome of negotiations, which has resulted in the joint venture generating a small loss. Mobile and Online: Transactions increased by 37.6% to 50.2 million in the period, compared to 36.5 million last year, with Mobile Payment transactions up 38% to 13.3 million and Online Payment transactions up 37% to 36.9 million. The Online Payments business was sold to Capita after the end of the period on 8 January 2016 for 14.4 million. We have continued to progress the sale of the Mobile business, PayByPhone, and have carried its continued loss. Balance sheet at 31 December 2015 We have maintained a strong balance sheet. The group had cash of 55.7 million (30 September: 46.1 million), after payment of the interim dividend of 9.7m in the period (2015: 8.4m). The cash balance includes amounts held to settle short term client obligations of 28.3 million (30 September: 19.0 million). 1 PayPoint's auditors have not been requested to review the performance or financial position. 2 Net revenue is revenue less the cost of mobile top-ups (where PayPoint is principal), SIM cards and other costs incurred by PayPoint which are recharged to clients and merchants. These costs include retail agent commission, merchant service charges for card payments and costs for the provision of call centres for PayByPhone clients. Net revenue is a measure which the directors believe assists with a better understanding of the underlying performance of the group. 3 Prior period revenue and net revenue have been restated by an increase of 2 million, representing the cost of production of cash out vouchers that had been incorrectly netted off revenue, net revenue and cost of sales, the latter of which is also restated. There was no impact on profit of these restatements. Enquiries Finsbury +44 207 251 3801 - Rollo Head/Andrew Parnis ABOUT PAYPOINT PayPoint is an international leader in payment technologies, its solutions transforming payments for everyone from consumer and financial services companies to retailers, utilities, media, e-commerce, gaming and government clients. PayPoint delivers payments and services by taking the complexity of multi- channel payments and translating it into convenient, simple, value-added solutions. It handles almost 15 billion from almost 800 million transactions annually for more than 5,000 clients and merchants. With the backing of 24/7 operations centres with dual site processing, PayPoint is widely recognised for its leadership in payment systems, smart technology and service. Retail networks The PayPoint retail network across the UK numbers over 29,000 local shops (including Co-op, Spar, McColls, Costcutter, Sainsbury's Local, Tesco Express, One Stop, Asda, Londis and thousands of independents), where it processes energy meter pre-payments, bill payments, benefit payments, mobile phone top-ups, transport tickets, BBC TV licences, cash withdrawals and a range of other transactions. In Romania, the retail network numbers 9,700 terminals in local shops, helping people to make cash bill payments, money transfers, road tax payments and mobile phone top-ups. In the Republic of Ireland, over 500 terminals in shops and credit unions process mobile top-ups and bill payments. Collect+, a joint venture with Yodel, provides a parcel drop-off and pick-up service at 6,000 PayPoint retailers. PayPoint's ATM network numbers more than 4,000 'LINK' branded machines across the UK, and 10,000 PayPoint terminals enable retailers to accept credit and debit cards. Mobile Payments PayPoint Mobile Payments (trading as PayByPhone and Adaptis) handles over 118 million payments for parking, payments and consumer services. In major cities in the UK, Canada, USA, France, Switzerland and Australia, its parking solutions make it easy for people to pay for parking by mobile, as well as providing electronic parking permits, automatic number plate recognition systems for car parks and penalty charge notices. IMS: http://hugin.info/137093/R/1981749/726095.pdf This announcement is distributed by GlobeNewswire on behalf of GlobeNewswire clients. The owner of this announcement warrants that: (i) the releases contained herein are protected by copyright and other applicable laws; and (ii) they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: PayPoint plc via GlobeNewswire [HUG#1981749] B02QND9R5 Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de STOCKHOLM (dpa-AFX) - European home appliances giant Electrolux AB (0MDT.L, 0GQ1.L, ELUXY.PK) Thursday reported that its fourth-quarter loss was 393 million Swedish kronor or 1.38 kronor per share, compared to income of 970 million kronor or 3.39 kronor per share in the year-ago quarter. Net sales for the quarter increased to 31.79 billion kronor from 31.40 billion kronor last year. Sales increased by 1.3 percent, of which 0.2 percent was organic sales growth, 0.1 percent acquisitions and 1.0 percent currency translation. Operating income amounted to a loss of 202 million kronor in the quarter, compared to operating income of 1.40 billion kronor last year. This corresponds to a margin of negative 0.6 percent, compared to a margin of positive 4.4 percent last year. Operating income includes costs of 1.66 billion kronor, related to the not completed acquisition of GE Appliances. The company's board has proposed a dividend for 2015 of 6.50 kronor per share, the same as last year. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. Conferences to focus on Real World Implementations from RPA, Cognitive Computing to Artificial Intelligence NEW YORK and LONDON, Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- IRPA(The Institute for Robotic Process Automation), an independent professional association and knowledge forum for the robotic process automation (RPA) industry, today announced its Automation Innovation Conference "2016, The Year of the Robot," will be held December 7, 2016 in New York and December 13, 2016 in London. Now in its third year, the Automation Innovation (AI) Conferences will focus on real world implementations, covering everything from RPA, Cognitive Computing to Artificial Intelligence and its impact on labor and the outsourcing community. Logo- http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160127/326443LOGO With hundreds of attendees representing Fortune 500 companies, leading industry analysts, consultants and software vendors, the Automation Innovation Conferences bring together all the movers and shakers in a single place, for the industry's only exclusive automation event. "2016, The Year of the Robot," will address the most pressing and consistent questions throughout the marketplace - where do I start, what do I need, how are these technologies different, why that matters, and what does the future hold? To learn more about the upcoming Automation Innovation Conferences, "2016, The Year of the Robot," and to register please visithttp://www.irpanetwork.com/events/. "When we launched our first AI Innovation Conference in 2014, we laid the groundwork for understanding what RPA is, and whether it really is different from traditional automation and what's already out there," said Raheem Hasan, President and Co-Founder, IRPA. "Attendees came skeptical and left convinced this was going to be the next wave of disruption and innovation. Our 2015 conferences, which were standing room only, were all about readiness. Many if not most service providers and advisors now know RPA is real and a required discipline to be relevant in the rapid shift from labor arbitrage to digital labor.Our 2016 conferences are all about reality and the demystification of automation - RPA, Cognitive Computing and Artificial Intelligence. "The AI Innovation Conference series has been ahead of the curve in terms of envisioning the significance of RPA and identifying the key opportunities and challenges facing both buyers and sellers," said Chip Wagner, CEO of Alsbridge, co-chair of the 2014 and 2015 conferences. "By bringing together industry leaders, visionaries and real-world practitioners, the programs have generated excitement regarding the possibilities of these game-changing technologies, without resorting to hype and hyperbole. Through the events, we've established relationships and gained insights that continue to yield benefits." In addition to the Automation Innovation Conferences, IRPA is teaming up with its sister organization, the Outsourcing Institute, to host the Outsourcing, Automation, Innovation Seminar Series (OAISS) this Spring, a new regional roadshow and roundtable series focused on the intersection of outsourcing, innovation & automation. OAISS event details: March 17 in Dallas in April 12 in NYC in NYC April 27 in London, UK in June in Chicago IRPA continues to be front and center in the RPA ecosystem - bringing together buyers, consultants and providers, to assess the true merits of automation software with an objective eye and an independent voice. Individuals interested in speaking or sponsoring any of the events can e-mail events@irpanetwork.com. To learn more about the full agenda, conference location and to register please visithttp://www.irpanetwork.com/events/. About IRPA The Institute for Robotic Process Automation (IRPA) is an independent professional association and knowledge forum for the buyers, sellers, influencers and analysts of robotic process automation. Our network and advisory services offer leading- edge market intelligence, industry research, best practices, and alliance-building opportunities for stakeholders across service industry functions. To learn more please visit www.irpanetwork.com. STRASBOURG, France, January 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) this week adopted a resolution that accuses Armenia of "deliberately depriving" Azerbaijanis of water flowing from the Sarsang reservoir, which is located in the Armenian-controlled territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. It says that this "environmental aggression" requires "the immediate withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from the region concerned." MP Milica Markovic from Bosnia and Herzegovina prepared the report, unambiguously entitled "Inhabitants of Frontier Regions of Azerbaijan are Deliberately Deprived of Water." "The problem with providing the Azerbaijani population with drinking water is very important," Markovic said, adding that the use of water is an integral part of human rights, according to international conventions. "PACE cannot ignore the problems of Nagorno-Karabakh and the sufferings of the ordinary people who are facing the shortage of water from the reservoir controlled by Armenia," Markovic said. Behind the crisis is the continued occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and the seven surrounding Azerbaijani districts by Armenia, which has left the country in control of high-lying catchment areas as well as the unmaintained Sarsang dam. Markovic's report says Armenia has created an artificial environmental crisis by denying water to the once-productive agricultural regions of Azerbaijan that lie downstream. As a PACE rapporteur, Markovic was tasked to investigate the water crisis and dangers caused by the lack of maintenance at the dam, which, she warned, could "result in a major disaster with great loss of human life and possibly a fresh humanitarian crisis." She called for Armenia to allow access by independent engineers and hydrologists to carry out a detailed on-the-spot survey, something Yerevan has so far refused. "Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to undertake a visit to Armenia, owing to the lack of cooperation of the Armenian delegation," she said during the heated debate. The adoption of the resolution is a victory for Azerbaijani MP and PACE member Elkhan Suleymanov, who has fought to raise awareness about the Sarsang issue for years. "This resolution is a step in the right direction," Suleymanov said. "But the 400,000 people that live downstream are still in grave danger and the issue will only be resolved if Armenia adheres to international law and withdraws from the occupied territories." Numerous international bodies, including the United Nations, European Parliament and the OSCE have adopted resolutions calling for the immediate withdrawal of Armenian troops from Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding Azerbaijani provinces. Newly elected PACE President Pedro Agramunt called the unresolved conflict one of the key challenges for the Strasbourg-based assembly. REDMOND (dpa-AFX) - Software giant Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) has been making great progress towards its goal of $20 billion in annualized commercial cloud revenue run rate, which now exceeds $8.2 billion. It is also focused and making progress towards the goals for fiscal year 2018. With more than 110 million active devices running Windows 10, the company claims it is well on track to reach 1 billion Windows 10 active devices. The company is set to release its second-quarter results after the bell today, with analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimating earnings of $0.71 per share on revenue of $25,26 billion. The company expects 4 points of negative impact on total revenue in the second quarter, and expects the impact to lessen to around 3 points in total for the second half of the year, weighted toward its segments with the highest percentage of annuity. Also, Microsoft expects commercial unearned revenue to be within a range of $19.5 billion - $19.7 billion, benefiting from the good execution on contract renewals and continued adoption of its commercial cloud services. With the ongoing increase in cloud demand, the company expects to further accelerate its investment in data centers and capital equipment for the remainder of the fiscal year, expanding geographic coverage and capacity. January 19, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced a new three-part initiative to ensure that Microsoft's cloud computing resources serve the public good. As part of this initiative the recently formed Microsoft Philanthropies will donate $1 billion of Microsoft Cloud Services, measured at fair market value, to serve nonprofits and university researchers over the next three years. Microsoft said its three-part commitment focuses on ensuring the cloud can serve the public good in the broadest sense by providing additional cloud resources to nonprofits, increasing access for university researchers and helping solve last-mile Internet access challenges. Productivity and Business Processes revenue is estimated to be in the range of $6.6 billion - $6.7 billion, and Intelligent Cloud segment revenue to range between $6.2 billion and $6.3 billion - including a 6 point FX impact. Further, the company expects More Personal Computing revenue to be $12 billion - $12.4 billion, including the 3 points of FX impact in the second quarter. In the last quarter, the company reported upbeat profit, despite a significant drag from the negative impact of currency exchange rates. First-quarter net income was $4.62 billion, or $0.57 per share, up slightly from $4.54 billion, or $0.54 per share in the same period of last year. The quarterly results for both this year and last year included integration and restructuring charges. Leaving out these items, the company's adjusted profit actually dipped from last year, largely as the result of currency exchange. Adjusted profit was $5.38 billion or $0.67 per share versus $5.45 billion or $0.65 per share last year. Analysts expected earnings of $0.59 per share. Microsoft said that its adjusted earnings would have been up 11% over last year, if the impact of foreign currency exchange was stripped out. Operating profit came in at 7.07 billion. Revenue decreased to $20.4 billion from $23.2 billion last year. Adjusted for the impact of revenue deferrals related to Windows 10, the company's revenue figure for this year was $21.66 billion. Wall Street was looking for a top-line figure of $21.03 billion. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - Eurozone economic confidence fell to a 5-month low in January, survey results from European Commission showed Thursday. The economic confidence index dropped to 105 in January from 106.7 in December. It was the lowest score since August, when the reading was 104. The industrial sentiment index fell to -3.2 from -2.0. The services confidence indicator came in at 11.6, down from 12.8 a month ago. Likewise, the consumer sentiment index declined to -6.3, in line with flash estimate, from -5.7 in previous month. The retail trade indicator held steady at 2.9 in January. The indicator for construction slid to -19.1 from -17.6 in previous month. Another report showed that business confidence dropped to 0.29 from 0.39 in December. The expected score was 0.4. All five underlying components of the business sentiment index contributed to this decline. The worsening was slightly more marked for managers' appraisal of stocks of finished products, total and export order books as well as managers' production expectations than for their assessment of production trends observed in recent months. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. Getronics, the global ICT services group, today announced it has won a five year deal with AGS Airports Limited, the owner of Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton airports, to undertake IT support services as AGS separated from Heathrow Holdings. With more than 13 million customers passing through its airports each year, AGS required a partner that could complete the project within tight separation timeframes and within budget, with minimal disruption to the critical airport operations that the IT infrastructure supports. AGS selected Getronics primarily due to its reputation as a company with proven experience in helping businesses transition complex IT systems amid M&A activity. For instance, Getronics supported the IT separation activities associated with RAC's separation from Aviva; Subsea7's merger with Acergy; and Alpha Flight Group's merger with LSG Sky Chefs, to name a few. This experience allowed Getronics to drive parts of the process and guide AGS to follow tried and tested methods for seamless IT transitions, despite the often challenging circumstances surrounding M&A activities. AGS Airports is a partnership between Ferrovial and Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA) established in 2014 to acquire Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton airports from Heathrow Holdings. This required AGS to create a standalone IT infrastructure and, for the first time, one that unified all three airports under the same, improved managed IT infrastructure. The agreement has seen Getronics take on the IT support services associated with this separation, including telephony and support desk operations, and provision of on-site engineers at Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton airports. Since separation, the support services have remained stable, and are starting to show an improvement in end user satisfaction. A further key benefit of the new infrastructure and support services has been AGS' ability to be more responsive to their customers. During the first phase of the project, Getronics has successfully moved AGS on to Getronics' robust support model, seamlessly transitioning managed IT support services and maintenance. The second phase, to be delivered in early 2016, will see AGS move its networking systems to Getronics. Once the separation activities are concluded, focus will turn to Getronics' set up and delivery of a Project Office that facilitates additional IT projects in support of AGS IT's strategy, supporting the needs of their business. Chris Tames, Group Head of IT at AGS Airports Limited said, "Airport IT systems rely on multiple complex applications and services running seamlessly. Getronics has a wealth of experience in helping organisations transition their IT, many in separation situations similar to our own. Rather than a traditional supplier, the Getronics team acted as an extension of our business; were flexible and easy to work with and have been instrumental in helping us meet business deadlines quickly to improve our airports' operations and consequently the service we deliver to customers and staff. I am looking forward to the next phase of the challenge with Getronics as our IT separation partner." Mark Cook, Group CEO at Getronics said: "Getronics has a proven track record of working with businesses either merging or divesting their IT systems to meet the demands of their customer base, many within the aviation industry. Our experience in this sector help us to demonstrate our understanding of the pressures and priorities customers like AGS Airports face in order to keep operations running smoothly. We are proud to partner with AGS Airports to deliver this five year IT divestment project and look forward to helping them transform their operations to benefit customers in years to come." About Getronics The Getronics family is an ICT Services group consisting of the Getronics and Connectis brands and is owned by the AURELIUS Group, a holding company headquartered in Munich, Germany. With an extensive history that extends over 125 years, the Getronics family has approximately 6,000 employees in 18 countries across Europe, Asia Pacific Latin America, and has a complete portfolio of integrated ICT services for the large enterprise and public sector markets. This includes Workspace, Applications, Communication, Data Centre, Cloud, Consulting, Product and Managed Services. Getronics is a lead in the Global Workspace Alliance a unique model that provides customers with a consistent IT service throughout the world, with one single point of contact and billing entity, delivering services to 90 countries. The GWA is ranked number 3 globally according to OVUM's Managed/Maintained End-user Devices with a total of 7.4M assets. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160128005575/en/ Contacts: 3 Monkeys Communications 020 7009 3100 Getronics@3-monkeys.co.uk or Zuzana Bielikova 02070093152 zuzana.bielikova@3-monkeys.co.uk BEIJING (dpa-AFX) - Noah Holdings Limited (NOAH), a wealth management services provider, announced Thursday that its shareholders voted in favor of the proposal to adopt a dual-class share structure at the extraordinary general meeting held on January 28. Pursuant to this, the company's authorized share capital shall be re-organized and re-designated into Class A ordinary shares and Class B ordinary shares. Each Class A ordinary share will be entitled to one vote and each Class B ordinary share will be entitled to four votes on all matters subject to vote at general meetings of the Company. The company also said the proposal to amend and restate the Company's memorandum and articles of association would reflect the adoption of the Dual-class Share Structure and other related matters. Jingbo Wang, Noah's Founder, Chairman and CEO, and Zhe Yin, Noah's Co-founder, Executive Director and CEO of Noah's subsidiary Gopher Asset Management, will receive Class B ordinary shares and all other shareholders will receive Class A ordinary shares. Kenny Lam, Noah's Group President, said, 'The dual-class share structure is an important part of our long term strategy. We are building our platform for the next decade. This structure will keep our focus on long-term priorities rather than short-term fluctuations and ensure that we keep intact our values and elements of success espoused by our founders.' Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. NORTHRIDGE, CA and CAMBRIDGE, UNITED KINGDOM -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- Avita Medical Ltd. (ASX: AVH) (OTCQX: AVMXY), a regenerative medicine company specializing in the treatment of wounds and skin defects, today announced its financial results for the second quarter of fiscal 2016 which concluded on December 31, 2015. Q2 Financial Highlights Total ReCell for the first six months of fiscal 2016 were 17% higher than the previous year period Respiratory sales for the first half of the fiscal year were 9% lower than last year, and quarterly sales were down 1% compared to the second quarter of fiscal 2015 Overall company sales for the first half of the fiscal year were in line with the first half of fiscal 2015 First half fiscal 2016 sales in France and Germany were up 54% and 213%, respectively, versus the year ago period UK sales for the first six months of the fiscal year were flat on a year-over-year basis, and increased 9% for the second quarter compared to the three month period in fiscal 2015 Receipts for the quarter were down 39% compared to the previous quarter as the company transitions to new distributors Net operating cash out flow for the second quarter was 11% higher compared to the previous quarter Completed financing of AUD$10,018,644 million in a common stock placement through issue of 107,727,359 shares at a price of AUD$0.093 per share At end of the second quarter of fiscal 2016, the Company reported cash on hand of AUD$7.7 million. Avita continued to execute its comprehensive commercial strategy during the second quarter as it transitions its business for long-term growth. The Company generated overall sales for the first half of the fiscal year that were in line with the same period of fiscal 2015. In particular, the European market showed significant improvement with an increase in first half sales of 213% in Germany and 54% in France. On a segment basis, the Company achieved revenue growth of 17% for its ReCell business during the first half compared to the first half of fiscal 2015, demonstrating the growing interest in these regenerative medicine products and the need for improved treatment options for wounds, burns and skin defects. During the quarter, Avita took important steps to strengthen its balance sheet and enable it to focus entirely on its ReCell business. As a major step in its funding strategy to support its stated commercialization goals, Avita completed a financing of over AUD$10 million in a common stock placement to sophisticated and institutional investors through the issue of 107,727,359 shares at a price of AUD$0.093 per share. In addition, the Company announced the sale of its respiratory business for $2.64 million, which comprises $2.2 million in cash and $440,000 in stock. The transaction is anticipated to close by early February. The sale of the respiratory business, coupled with its Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) contract, which will start generating revenue during the current quarter, will provide the Company with significant non-dilutive capital. With a strong and growing cash position, Avita is strategically positioned to support its ongoing clinical activities and work toward commercialization. At end of the second quarter of fiscal 2016, the Company reported cash on hand of AUD$7.7 million. Adam Kelliher, Chief Executive Officer of Avita Medical, commented, "This quarter was extremely significant for Avita from a strategic perspective. Importantly, we divested our respiratory business, which enabled us to accomplish two important goals. First, we have transitioned our business to focus solely on ReCell, a business which continues to grow sales globally and we believe will play an important role in wound care and the treatment of skin defects. Second, it provides additional cash to support our ongoing clinical activities so that we can commercialize in the United States. Over the past few quarters, we have worked hard to transition Avita for long-term growth and we are excited about our recent achievements toward this goal." ABOUT AVITA MEDICAL LIMITED Avita Medical develops and distributes regenerative products for the treatment of a broad range of wounds, scars and skin defects. Avita's patented and proprietary collection and application technology provides innovative treatment solutions derived from a patient's own skin. The Company's lead product, ReCell, is used in the treatment of a wide variety of burns, plastic, reconstructive and cosmetic procedures. ReCell is patented, CE-marked for Europe, TGA-registered in Australia, and CFDA-cleared in China. In the United States, ReCell is an investigational device limited by federal law to investigational use. A pivotal U.S. trial is underway, with patient enrollment completion anticipated by the end of 2015. To learn more, visit www.avitamedical.com. Release with 4C report, click here. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION Avita Medical Ltd Adam Kelliher Chief Executive Officer Phone: +44 (0) 1763 269 770 akelliher@avitamedical.com Avita Medical Ltd Tim Rooney Chief Financial Officer Phone: + 1 (818) 356-9400 trooney@avitamedical.com Avita Medical Ltd Gabriel Chiappini Company Secretary Phone +61(0) 8 9474 7738 gabriel@laurus.net.au UK/EU Instinctif Partners Gemma Howe/Sue Charles Phone +44 (0)20 7866 7860 avitamedical@instinctif.com USA The Ruth Group Lee Roth, Investor Relations Kirsten Thomas, Public Relations Phone: +1 (646) 536-7012 / +1 (508) 280-6592 lroth@theruthgroup.com / kthomas@theruthgroup.com Australia Monsoon Communications Rudi Michelson Investor Relations / PR Phone: +61 3 9620 3333 rudim@monsoon.com.au BONN, Germany, January 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- On 28th January at the initiative of the Council of Europe, the European Data Privacy Day will take place for the 9th time. The goal of the Data Privacy Day is to strengthen the data privacy awareness with consumers in the EU. For companies, data privacy is not only a legal requirement but also an opportunity for a competitive advantage. In a digitalised economy which increasingly focusses on data-driven business models, user trust is an essential precondition for success. The often used term of data-driven marketing already implies this. Data is an essential driver in digital business models and in marketing. Truly customer-centred services are no longer possible without the use of (personal) data and the integration of information technology. Users nowadays interact with a growing number of digital applications and generate data which vice versa is used by companies to optimise their marketing, service and the general customer experience. If you mention personal data you must also mention data privacy. Personal data is an asset worth protecting. Companies therefore face the responsibility to deal with this asset in a sensitive manner and to fulfil the demands on data privacy and data security. Companies should always bear in mind the following: Data privacy is not only about abiding to the current regulations in order to avoid trouble with the law, it is also a competitive factor not to be underestimated. Trust is the Basis for Business Success Consumers, especially in Germany, have a strong awareness of data privacy, not only thanks to events such as the European Data Privacy Day. On the other hand, data scandals and occasional, agitated public data privacy debates have contributed to scepticism. Companies should take this scepticism seriously since mistrust threatens the basis of many digital or data-supported business models. In a more positive light, the high sensitivity of consumers also shows: companies score higher when they focus on high data privacy standards and communicate these in a transparent way. This applies particularly in the international comparison, e.g., with companies in the US. It is important to gain the consumer's trust. According to a study by the Ponemon Institute in 2015, 50% of German consumers only share data with companies they trust. A current study by Forrester Consulting comes to the conclusion that two thirds of global consumers are generally willing to transfer personal data to companies if they are rewarded with a personalised user experience. Even for interesting content or free access to services, users are willing to share data provided a high data privacy standard is maintained. 76% of Germans pay attention to who they provide which data of themselves, according to research by forsa. Data for Added Value What should companies therefore do to use data privacy to gain a competitive advantage? The precondition is, naturally, that they familiarise themselves with the legal framework requirements for the usage of personal data and implement it correctly. This means creating justiciable processes throughout, obtaining the adequate consent (opt-ins) from consumers within the framework of the data privacy declaration (e.g. for the creation of user profiles), as well as ensuring a suitable technical differentiation ability in the appropriated processing of data. Data privacy declarations (DPD) which are managed comprehensively, centrally and in compliance with the law are becoming part of the marketing task in order to be able to use this data. To gain the consumer's trust, two thing are important: 1. Transparency: In their data privacy/data privacy declaration, companies should describe clearly and in detail which data is to be collected, for which purpose it will be used, for how long it will be saved and how exactly it will be distributed, as well as which rights to information and deletion the respective consumer has. The clearer and the more transparent data privacy is, the better. Furthermore, it is recommended to create trust already at the point of collecting the data by using clear statements such as "Your data will not be shared with third parties.". Further trust-building measures which should be clearly communicated to the user are e.g., privacy seal, certifications, geographic server locations, contacts for data privacy queries, compliance regulations or specific organisational and technical measures to guarantee data privacy and data privacy. A good example is set by companies who enable consumers to adapt their data and their opt-ins themselves. 2. Creating an Understanding of the Added Value: Trustworthy or not, why should a consumer provide his data to a company if there is no benefit to himself? The consumer should be offered a real added value, e.g., personalised offers which are adjusted to his interests, a user-friendly experience because a company which knows its consumers can relieve them from certain process steps ("If we know your location and your preferences, we can inform you about the best restaurants in your vicinity.") etc. It is important to make the consumer aware that his data is necessary for the service provided. Companies asking for a large number of details which are not necessary for the service provided, tend to deter the consumer. An explanation why data is part of the agreement can also be helpful. Users understand that some fee offers must be web-based and therefore tend to be willing to give a consideration according to the principle of reciprocity, if they are explicitly asked for their collaboration. Research has shown an increase of consent by 26% when a statement like "We need your support! Our offers are free for you - with targeted advertising we can finance them better!" is used in contrast to an argumentation about the customer benefit of better advertising. Free Checklist on Legal Queries in the Big Data Environment You will find more information on the legal use of data in marketing in our checklist 23 Questions on Big Data and Law by artegic and Bird&Bird. This checklist will help companies to avoid legal pitfalls when handling Big Data. To the free download: https://www.artegic.de/big-data-and-law Downloads Portrait Stefan von Lieven (JPG) Logo artegic (JPG) Logo artegic (EPS) artegic AG - Know-how and Technology for Online CRM artegic AG supports companies in the construction of loyal and profitable B-to-B and B-to-C customer relations via online channels. Our service portfolio includes strategic consulting, technologies and business services for online CRM and dialogue marketing via email, mobile and social media. With the online CRM technology ELAINE FIVE, artegic offers a unique high-performance solution for the comprehensive realisation of campaigns, as well as marketing automation based on self-sharpening analytical customer profiles. artegic received the eco Internet Award for its trend-setting implementation of data privacy requirements. Internationally, each month, approximately 2.7 billion emails, SMS and social media messages are sent via ELAINE FIVE. As an associated company of the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, artegic draws on the know-how of the latter, as well as the expertise from long-standing best practice with renowned clients, such as BMW, PAYBACK, ASUS, CANYON, HYUNDAI and Ticketmaster. artegic is certified company-wide by TUV Rheinland, according to the international standard for IT and Data Decurity ISO/IEC 27001. Contact: artegic AG Zanderstrae 7 53177 Bonn Mr. Sebastian Pieper Tel: +49(0)228-22-77-97-0 Fax: +49(0)228-22-77-97-900 pr@artegic.de http://www.artegic.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/artegic_uk GooglePlus: https://plus.google.com/111057448053888319461/posts FRANKFURT, Germany, January 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Kristin Intress hands over her responsibilities after two years of successful leadership Worldhotels, a leading group of independent hotels worldwide, has announced a change in its management: Kristin Intress, current Chief Executive Officer, will leave the group, handing over to Dirk Fuehrer, who will join Worldhotels as its new Chief Executive Officer on 15th February. (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160128/326870 ) Dirk is a hospitality industry expert with an entrepreneurial spirit. He was formerly Chief Commercial Officer and Member of the Executive Board at Steigenberger Hotel Group and previously held various senior roles at Hilton, Carlson Rezidor and Starwood. Most recently he founded and led Okanda.com, the first online meeting portal with real-time availability. Dirk has a strong sales, marketing and distribution background and his experience spans Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific. Kristin has led the business for the past two years and has focused on strengthening the relationship with our hoteliers and positioning Worldhotels for future growth. She will relocate back to Wisconsin, US, to pursue new opportunities. Worldhotels under Dirk's leadership will build on its current strategy and in particular expand its digital initiatives. Dirk was introduced to Worldhotels employees and partner hotels at the Worldhotels Annual Conference 2016 held at the Grand Elysee Hamburg last week. - Cross reference: Picture is available at AP Images (http://www.apimages.com) and http://www.presseportal.de/nr/79299 Media Contact: Kyra Zanner Worldhotels +49-(0)69-660 56-252 kzanner@worldhotels.com PUNE, India, January 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new market research report "Gene Expression Analysis Market by Technology (DNA Microarray, PCR, NGS, SAGE, Northern Blotting), Consumables (DNA Chips, Reagents), Services (Gene Profiling, Bioinformatics) & Applications (Research, Drug Discovery, Diagnostic) - Global Forecasts to 2020", published by MarketsandMarkets, This report studies the global market for the forecast period of 2015 to 2020. This market is expected to reach USD 5.30 Billion by 2020 from USD 3.39 Billion in 2015, at a CAGR of 9.3%. Browse 96 market Tables and 42 Figures spread through 174 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Gene Expression Analysis Market " http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/gene-expression-analysis-market-156613968.html Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report. Factors such as availability of funding, growing number of cancer patients, strong focus on research, and decreasing cost of sequencing are driving growth in this market. Furthermore, increased focus on personalized medicines and room for market penetration in emerging nations is expected to create an array of opportunities for players in the gene expression analysis market. The global gene expression analysis market is segmented on the basis of consumables, instruments, services, applications, and region. Based on consumables, the market is categorized into reagents and DNA chips. In 2015, the reagents segment accounted for the larger share of the gene expression analysis consumables market. The high growth and dominant market size of the reagents segment can be attributed to the increased number of gene expression analysis instrument installations, favorable funding scenario promoting research initiatives, and growing number of sequencing services centers On the basis of instruments, the market is segmented based on technology such as PCR, NGS, DNA Microarray, SAGE, and Northern Blotting. The PCR segment accounted for the largest share of the gene expression analysis in 2015. However, the NGS segment is expected to be the fastest growing segment from 2015 to 2020. Factors such as the need to enhance knowledge of DNA sequences, wide application base, continued technological advancements aimed at improving the speed and throughput, and increase in large-scale gene expression studies are driving growth of the NGS segment. Based on services, the market is segmented into gene expression profiling services and bioinformatics solutions. The gene expression profiling services segment accounted for the largest share of the gene expression analysis market in 2015. The gene expression profiling services segment is also expected to be the fastest growing segment from 2015 to 2020. The insights obtained through gene expression profiling plays a vital role in the advancement of disease diagnosis, drug discovery, and precision medicine. This is expected to boost the demand for gene expression profiling services in the coming years. Ask for PDF Brochure:http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownload.asp?id=156613968 The market on the basis of application is categorized into research, drug discovery, diagnostic, and others. Others comprise of animal research, agricultural research, and forensics. In 2015, the research segment accounted for the larger share of the gene expression analysis market and expected to grow at the fastest rate during the forecast period. The large share of the research segment can be attributed to the availability of funding for research at institutional and academic level. On the basis of regions, the global market is divided into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Rest of the World (Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa). In 2015, North America accounted for the largest share of the gene expression analysis market, followed by Europe and Asia. Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at the fastest rate during the forecast period. Growth in this region can be attributed to increasing research activities on agriculture, government intervention to improve healthcare, and rising popularity of gene expression tests. However, the high cost of the major gene expression analysis instruments is a major concern, which limits market growth to a certain extent. Also, the currency devaluations in developing countires are expected to pose as a key challenge to the growth of the gene expression analysis market. Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. (U.S.), QIAGEN N.V. (Germany), Illumina, Inc. (U.S.), Bio-Rad Laboratories (U.S.), Agilent Technologies (U.S.), and PerkinElmer (U.S.) are some of the major players in gene expression analysis market. Browse Related Reports: Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) Market by Platforms (Illumina HiSeq, MiSeq, HiSeqX Ten, NextSeq 500,Thermo Fisher Ion Proton/PGM), Bioinformatics (Exome Sequencing, RNA-Seq, ChIP-Seq), Technology (SBS, SMRT) & by Application (Diagnostics, Personalized Medicine) - Global Forecast to 2020 http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/next-generation-sequencing-ngs-technologies-market-546.html European NGS Services Market by Technology (SBS, SBL, SMRT, Pyrosequencing), Application (Exome Sequencing, CHIP-Seq), End User (Pharmaceutical Companies, Hospital), Disease [Oncology (Prostate, Lung, & Breast Cancer), Rare Diseases) - Forecast to 2020 http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/european-ngs-services-market-264072127.html About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets is world's No. 2 firm in terms of annually published premium market research reports. Serving 1700 global fortune enterprises with more than 1200 premium studies in a year, M&M is catering to multitude of clients across 8 different industrial verticals. We specialize in consulting assignments and business research across high growth markets, cutting edge technologies and newer applications. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. M&M's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. The new included chapters on Methodology and Benchmarking presented with high quality analytical infographics in our reports gives complete visibility of how the numbers have been arrived and defend the accuracy of the numbers. We at MarketsandMarkets are inspired to help our clients grow by providing apt business insight with our huge market intelligence repository. Contact: Mr. Rohan Markets and Markets UNIT no 802, Tower no. 7, SEZ Magarpatta city, Hadapsar Pune, Maharashtra 411013, India 1-888-600-6441 Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com Visit MarketsandMarkets Blog @ http://mnmblog.org/market-research/healthcare/biotechnology Connect with us on LinkedIn @http://www.linkedin.com/company/marketsandmarkets HKTDC Communication and Public Affairs Department Joe Kainz Tel: +852 2584 4216 Email: joe.kainz@hktdc.org HONG KONG, Jan 28, 2016 - (ACN Newswire) - The 26th HKTDC Education & Careers Expo, organised by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), opened today and continues through 31 January at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Admission is free. The fair gathers more than 800 exhibiting organisations from 17 countries and regions, offering a wide range of information on further studies, continuous education and job opportunities to help visitors strengthen their resumes and develop their careers. Among the exhibitors are those from this year's featured industries: electrical and mechanical, aviation and food and beverage.Speaking at today's opening ceremony, Matthew Cheung, Secretary for Labour and Welfare of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government, said that with strong fundamentals including the rule of law, economic freedoms, free-market philosophy, pluralistic culture and international complexion, Hong Kong is well placed to play a "super-connector" role between the fast growing Chinese economy and the rest of the world. By promoting smart manufacturing and attracting high value-added innovation and technology industries suitable for Hong Kong, the government plans to "re-industrialise" the economy. All these will not only strengthen Hong Kong's internationally competitive pillar industries, but also create quality and diversified employment opportunities for the local workforce.Margaret Fong, Executive Director, HKTDC, said the 26th Education & Careers Expo has established itself as one of the most important events of its kind in Hong Kong and an effective interactive platform for students and job seekers to connect with a wide range of institutions and potential employers, as well as those offering diversified study and career opportunities.New career theme days to attract fresh talentIn light of the strong demand for talent in various industries, the Expo presents four career theme days to help students and job seekers pursue their goals by analysing opportunities and prospects in certain sectors as well as the pathways for entering different industries. Today's Culinary and Bakery theme day hosts cooking demonstrations by the Chinese Culinary Institute and International Culinary Institute while three-star Michelin Chinese chef Albert Au is on hand to share his recipe for career success. These activities aim at attracting school-leavers to join the restaurant and catering industry. With the launch of major infrastructure projects by the HKSAR Government in recent years, there is a strong demand for workforce in the construction and engineering field. During the Electrical and Mechanical theme day tomorrow, 19 organisations including the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department, CLP Power, MTR Corporation and the Water Supplies Department will explore career prospects and present a host of job vacancies at the fairground.Saturday's Career Internship theme day will invite Qianhai International Liaison Services Limited from Shenzhen, the Home Affairs Bureau, the Commission on Youth and various consultancies to share information on working opportunities both on the Chinese mainland and overseas. Meanwhile, given the recent emphasis of the HKSAR Government on nurturing local and regional aviation specialists, the highly popular Aviation theme day returns to the expo this year. Aviation professionals will discuss career prospects for pilots, aircraft engineers and the air cargo industry.In addition to the career themes, a number of government departments as well as institutions from the private and public sectors are carrying out recruitment activities at the Expo. They include the Hong Kong Police Force, Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals Limited, Centaline Property Agency and BOC Group Life Assurance Company Limited. Job seekers may present their resumes and apply for jobs on-site.Youth Zone presents abundant summer jobs and internshipsInternships prepare students for their future careers. The Youth Zone gathers a number of local and Chinese mainland corporations to present their internship programmes to fair visitors.This year the HKTDC joins hands with FreshLinker, an online job-seeking platform for university students, to offer more than 200 summer jobs and internships, which will give successful applicants valuable experience in the workplace. A total of 16 companies are offering internship opportunities in the Youth Zone, including Hyatt Hotels Corporation, New World Telecommunications Limited, Hopewell Holdings Limited and Golden Harvest.Representatives from the Labour Department will introduce the Youth Employment and Training Programmes scheme, up-to-date information on job opportunities on the Chinese mainland and overseas Working Holiday scheme, providing youngsters with a wider range of career options.Identifying global education opportunitiesOn education, the Expo comprises different theme days featuring in-depth information for students who wish to pursue their studies outside Hong Kong. The four education theme days begin today with the Chinese mainland, followed by the United States and Europe. The last day of the fair will focus on Australia and New Zealand. Representatives from these places will host seminars on such topics as admission procedures, entry requirements and campus life. This year, with the Scheme for Admission of Hong Kong Students to Mainland Higher Education Institutions is expanded to include 84 mainland institutions, including Tsinghua University and Peking University. As such, the China Education Exchange (Hong Kong) Centre will explain enrolment details during the Expo. Other overseas exchange and study programmes are also presented by AFS Intercultural Exchanges.With creative education gaining popularity, a number of exhibiting organisations are offering related study programmes. The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, French Institutes Beauty Academy and the International Professional Grooming Academy will outline their respective programmes to point youngsters in the right direction along their chosen career paths.This year, the HKTDC has teamed up with the Vocational Training Council (VTC) to present a range of innovative, fun-filled activities for visitors' participation on-the-spot, such as building a robotic ant and using smart devices to control a racing car and a badminton-playing robot.Experts and celebrities share workplace insightsA number of star speakers are taking part in the Expo to share their experience in building their careers. Today, former TV news anchor and executive director of a local drama group, The Nonsensemakers, Ngai Yee-shan, reveals her thinking behind switching profession from media to performing arts. Tomorrow, Hong Kong's first F1 Development Driver Fong Cheun-yue will talk about his road to becoming a professional racer, followed by clinical psychologist and one of the "Hong Kong Ten Outstanding Young Persons 2015" Dr Cheung Yee-lai on Saturday. Cheng Tan-shui, a well-known cross-media professional, will make his appearance on the last day of the Expo (31 January) to talk about public speaking skills. On the same day, Alvina Chan, founder of Alvina Cookery, will reveal what it takes to move from a career in investment banking to studying culinary arts at Le Cordon Bleu Paris.More than 100 events are arranged during the Expo, including seminars on further education, theme day talks, sharing sessions on mainland working experience, tips on taking IELTS examinations, as well as seminars on management trainee programmes. In addition, Dr Benjamin Au Yeung, Senior Lecturer of the Chinese Language and Literature Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Yan Yuk-ki, author and consultant of the 5 Stars Chinese Composition Series, will talk about Chinese writing skills.Date: 28 January (Thursday)Careers Theme Days: Culinary and BakeryEducation Theme Days: Chinese mainlandDate: 29 January (Friday)Careers Theme Days: Electrical and MechanicalEducation Theme Days: United StatesDate: 30 January (Saturday)Careers Theme Days: Career InternshipEducation Theme Days: EuropeDate: 31 January (Sunday)Careers Theme Days: AviationEducation Theme Days: Australia and New ZealandFair website: http://www.hktdc.com/fair/hkeducationexpo-en/Event schedule: http://bit.ly/23vwvGYPhoto download: http://bit.ly/1lVY0rbMedia Registration: Media representatives wishing to cover the event may register on-site with their business cards and/or media identification.To view press releases in Chinese, please visit http://mediaroom.hktdc.com/tcAbout HKTDCA statutory body established in 1966, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) is the international marketing arm for Hong Kong-based traders, manufacturers and services providers. With more than 40 offices globally, including 13 on the Chinese mainland, the HKTDC promotes Hong Kong as a platform for doing business with China and throughout Asia. The HKTDC also organises international exhibitions, conferences and business missions to provide companies, particularly SMEs, with business opportunities on the mainland and in overseas markets, while providing information via trade publications, research reports and digital channels including the media room. For more information, please visit: www.hktdc.com/aboutus. Follow us on Google+, Twitter @hktdc, LinkedIn.Google+: http://plus.google.com/+hktdcTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/hktdcLinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/hong-kong-trade-development-councilSource: HKTDCContact:Copyright 2016 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved. LONDON, Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Chubb today announced the launch of a new partnership with Crawford & Company as it continues to invest in building its cyber enterprise risk management capabilities. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160121/324916LOGO A global leader in claims and crisis management, Crawford & Company will provide Chubb's clients with a single point of contact and a 24/7 incident response platform to report cyber incidents. Crawford's qualified incident managers will help insureds navigate through the complexities of a cyber incident from start to finish and offer access to a global network of crisis management service providers. The platform will be available to current and future policyholders who purchase cyber cover through Chubb in Europe. It is designed to meet the needs of a wide range of international and domestic organisations across Europe, including both larger and middle-market companies in Continental Europe and the UK and Ireland. Highlights of the new solution include: A direct, single point of contact to help manage the incident response from end to end. A 24/7 incident response hotline available in over 200 languages. A dedicated, highly qualified and accredited incident manager who will help the insured navigate the complexities of the incident. Access to Crawford's seamless global network of forensics, legal, notification, fraud remediation, and public relations experts. Flexibility to add other partners into the Crawford network of providers based on the insureds' existing relationships. Access to Chubb's global underwriting expertise and claims network, including: dedicated cyber teams in Europe and the US with a track record of over 15 years of local underwriting experience and claims handling and Chubb's local presence spanning 54 countries worldwide. This will be further supported in key European markets by teams of third-party local incident response experts, co-ordinated by Chubb. Tim Stapleton, Vice President and Cyber Insurance Product Manager, Overseas General Insurance at Chubb, said: "We are thrilled to partner with Crawford & Company as part of our new Cyber Enterprise Risk Management solution. Cyber incidents develop quickly and have a number of complex moving parts. It is crucial that our insureds have immediate access to a provider that can help them take control of the situation and respond accordingly. This is a global solution with a local feel. Combined with our risk engineering expertise and on-the-ground underwriting, claims and data breach expertise, this underlines Chubb's commitment to moving the insurance market beyond insurance policies to a complete cyber risk proposition." Kyle Bryant, Regional Manager for Cyber Risk, Continental Europe at Chubb, said: "Brokers and clients have told us they want to see less pushing of cyber products by insurers and coordinated risk management solutions. 24/7 incident response is a key component of our response. Insureds and brokers can be confident that they are getting direct engagement with a partner who will help them understand and manage the growing challenge of cyber risk." About Chubb Chubb is the world's largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company. With operations in 54 countries, Chubb provides commercial and personal property and casualty insurance, personal accident and supplemental health insurance, reinsurance and life insurance to a diverse group of clients. The company is distinguished by its extensive product and service offerings, broad distribution capabilities, exceptional financial strength, underwriting excellence, superior claims handling expertise and local operations globally. Parent company Chubb Limited is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: CB) and is a component of the S&P 500 index. Chubb maintains executive offices in Zurich, New York, London and other locations, and employs approximately 30,000 people worldwide. Additional information can be found at: new.chubb.com. PARIS, January 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Growth in business travel budgets was twice as strong as expected heading into 2015. Companies' international development plans stand out as a major growth driver. American Express Global Business Travel ("GBT") today announced the results of its2015 EVP Barometer by American Express Global Business Travel(the "Barometer") during the 25thannualEVP, held in Paris. The Barometer results show that business travel spending increased by 1.42% in 2015, more than twice the rise anticipated in the 2014 Barometer (0.7%). In addition, "safety and security" has overtaken "cost control" to be the number one priority of company executives when considering business travel. "Traveller satisfaction" is ranked the number three priority. When it comes to cost control and optimising costs, this year efforts appear to be more focused on improving processes than on the direct costs themselves. Process improvements include: online and expense management tools, and more consideration to the nature and purpose of travel before booking trips. Elyes Mrad, Managing Director of American Express Global Business Travel Europe, the Middle East and Africa, stated: "This year, we are proud to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the annual American Express Global Business Travel Barometer. The Barometer reveals that respondents are optimistic when it comes to business travel spending, however they continue to perceive business travel as a cost, rather than an investment. This demonstrates that calculating the return-on-investment of business travel is still a challenge for companies." "Companies should work closely with travel management companies to address their evolving business travel priorities of security, cost control and traveller satisfaction, while introducing technology and innovation to help their overall programme efficiency." Key findings from the Barometer include: 1)Growth in business travel reflecting international expansion plans The Barometer points out that half of the companies' surveyed aim to grow their businesses by expanding abroad over the next year, compared to 38% in 2014. Furthermore, the study shows that one third of respondents plan to increase their business travel budgets within the next three years, compared to 18% in 2014. However, 76% of respondents still view business travel as a necessary cost, compared with 24% who see it as an investment. Further, 21% of the participants said they would be interested in being more informed on how they can measure the return-on-investment of their business travel. 2)Evolving company priorities The Barometer points to the following as the top priorities for the companies surveyed: Number 1:safety This key concern has soared in importance over the past five years: while safety was the number two priority for companies in 2013, it has risen by 24% in two years, to become the absolute prime concern[1] . 96% of companies surveyed have implemented safety procedures (follow-up and tracking). Nonetheless, they seem to favour a curative rather than a preventive approach, as only 24% of companies provide training to travellers. Number 2:cost control Having been the leading priority for companies for a number of years, 'cost control' fell back to second place in the ranking of priorities this year. 52% of respondents believe that they can still optimise management costs to a certain degree. However, 50% of the respondents cited efforts have already been undertaken to improve processes. These include: more thorough evaluation of the cost and the importance of the trip prior to booking, implementing online tools, and the use of payment and expense management tools. This year, spending on airfares accounted for 40% of the average business travel expenditure while hotel accommodation expenditure was 28%. However, 59% of respondents reported hotel accommodation expenditure will be a key consideration for them this year. This implies travel managers feel there are further opportunities to potentially drive costs down or maximise their overall hotel programmes by focusing on supplier negotiation or driving the adoption of corporate negotiated rates, for example. Number 3:increasing importance of traveller satisfaction The Barometer points to a considerable boost in the importance of traveller satisfaction, which leapt up to third place among companies' priorities from sixth place last year. 50% of respondents now measure the satisfaction of their business travellers, compared to 45% last year; and 22% use this feedback to improve their travel policies. Travel managers appear to be mindful that the adoption of tools and processes which positively affect the travel experience, such as itinerary management, incorporation of mobile technologies and new means of payment or expense reconciliation, has a direct impact on travellers' satisfaction and productivity. 3)Trends for 2016 According to the Barometer, the upswing in business travel spending witnessed this year is likely to continue in 2016, with respondents expecting a 1 to 3% rise in total travel spending over the coming year. Further, when asked about the aspects which will grow in importance over the coming year, the top four elements cited by respondents were: price optimisation (50%), security solutions (41%), reliability of data (41%) and quality of overall travel programme management (40). About the Barometer The Barometer was prepared by Concomitance from a telephone survey conducted throughout Europe between October 20 and November 16, 2015 (90% prior to the November 13 attacks in Paris), to present the main trends for the coming year. 580 persons in charge of corporate travel budgets were interviewed, for an aggregated expenditure of 1.3 billion. The companies surveyed are based in 10 major European countries: France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Since its creation, the Barometer has brought together 50,000 visitors, 14,500 participants and 37.5 billion in travel spending. Source for all figures in release: 2015 EVP Barometer by American Express Global Business Travel (the Barometer). [1] As a reminder, 90% of respondents were contacted prior to the November 13 2015 attacks in Paris. MUMBAI, India, Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Vedanta Limited (formerly known as Sesa Sterlite Ltd) today announced its unaudited consolidated results for the third quarter ended 31 December 2015. Financial Highlights Q3 FY2016 Revenues at Rs. 14,801 crore Robust EBITDA of Rs. 3,212 crore and 26% EBITDA margin 1 , despite weak commodity prices and 26% EBITDA margin , despite weak commodity prices Attributable PAT at Rs. 18 crore , primarily driven by lower oil and metal prices , primarily driven by lower oil and metal prices Generated free cash flow at Rs. 609 crore before growth capex before growth capex Actively managing balance sheet, with a focus on optimising opex and capex to maximize free cash flow; refinancing and terming out maturing debt; and simplifying the group structure Strong financial position with total cash & cash equivalents of Rs. 50,685 crore and undrawn committed facilities of c. Rs. 4,800 crore Operational Highlights Zinc- India : Strong refined metal production; record refined silver production of 116 tonnes : Strong refined metal production; record refined silver production of 116 tonnes Oil & Gas: Stable Q3 production with 19 kbopd contribution from Mangala EOR; Rajasthan water flood operating costs continue to improve Aluminium: Record metal production; 7% lower cost of production q-o-q driven by cost optimisation initiatives; received approval for conversion of 3 units of 2,400 MW Jharsuguda IPP to CPP Copper- India : 89% utilisation, affected by floods and unplanned shutdowns : 89% utilisation, affected by floods and unplanned shutdowns Power: Second 660 MW unit of 1,980 MW Talwandi Sabo commissioned; 85% availability for both units Iron ore: Stable operations in Karnataka; slower ramp up in Goa due to transportation issues Excludes custom smelting at Copper India and Zinc India operations Tom Albanese, Chief Executive Officer, Vedanta Limited, said: "In the weak commodity price environment, we remain committed to optimising our operations, leveraging our high quality asset base, and proactively managing our balance sheet. I am encouraged to see the positive results of our cost reduction programme gaining momentum, and believe that this relentless focus on efficiency will not only make our business more resilient through the cycle but position us favourably for any future improvement in market conditions. Despite challenging market conditions, these efforts have allowed us to generate a robust EBITDA margin of 26%." Consolidated Financial Performance The consolidated financial performance of the company during the period is as under: (In Rs. crore, except as stated) FY' 15 Particulars Q3 Q2 Nine months Actual FY 2016 FY 2015 % Change FY 2016 FY 2016 FY 2015 % Change 73,364 Net Sales/Income from operations 14,801 19,128 (23)% 16,349 48,102 55,632 (14)% 22,226 EBITDA 3,212 6,234 (48)% 4,113 11,365 18,240 (38)% 41% EBITDA Margin1 26% 43% 32% 30% 45% 5,659 Finance cost 1,391 1,341 4% 1,418 4,167 4,338 (4)% 2,367 Other Income 579 429 35% 721 2,194 2,325 (6)% (611) Forex loss/ (gain) (136) (405) (66)% (494) (885) (795) 11% 19,363 Profit before Depreciation and Taxes 2,430 5,639 (57)% 3,797 10,009 16,813 (40)% 7,160 Depreciation and Amortisation of goodwill 1,770 2,328 (24)% 1,660 5,148 6,396 (20)% 12,204 Profit before Exceptional items 660 3,311 (80)% 2,137 4,861 10,417 (53)% 22,129 Exceptional Items2 - - 0% - - 2,173 1,448 Taxes3 160 478 (66)% 204 717 899 (20)% (11,373) Profit After Taxes 500 2,834 (82)% 1,933 4,144 7,345 (44)% 10,183 Profit After Taxes before Exceptional items 500 2,834 (82)% 1,933 4,144 9,010 (54)% 4,276 Minority Interest 482 1,246 (61)% 959 2,287 3,763 (39)% 50% Minority Interest excl.Exceptional Items % 96% 44% 50% 55% 49% (15,646) Attributable PAT after exceptional items 18 1,588 (99)% 974 1,858 3,582 (48)% 5,060 Attributable PAT before exceptional items 18 1,588 (99)% 974 1,858 4,569 (59)% (52.77) Basic Earnings per Share (Rs./share) 0.06 5.35 (99)% 3.28 6.27 12.08 (48)% 17.07 Basic EPS before Exceptional Items 0.06 5.35 (99)% 3.28 6.27 15.41 (59)% 61.15 Exchange rate (Rs./$) - Average 65.93 62.00 6% 64.91 64.78 60.77 7% 62.59 Exchange rate (Rs./$) - Closing 66.33 63.33 5% 65.74 66.33 63.33 5% Excludes custom smelting at Copper India and Zinc India operations Exceptional Items Gross of Tax Previous period figures have been regrouped / rearranged wherever necessary to conform to current period presentation Revenues Revenues during the quarter at Rs 14,801 crore, were lower by 9% q-o-q due to softening of oil and metal prices, partially offset by improved volumes in the Power business. Revenues for the quarter were 23% lower y-o-y, on account of the fall in oil and metal prices, partially offset by higher volumes at Zinc India and Power. EBITDA and EBITDA Margins EBITDA at Rs. 3,212 crore was 22% lower q-o-q, due to the fall in metal and oil prices, partially offset by cost savings initiatives and due to a one-time benefit of Rs. 216 crore at Copper India and Zinc India, regarding an export incentive scheme based on a Supreme Court judgement in October 2015. EBITDA was down 48% y-o-y primarily due to weak commodity prices. We were able to maintain an EBITDA margin of 26% in the weaker commodity price environment, driven by strong optimisation of operating costs. Depreciation and Amortisation Depreciation and amortisation at Rs.1,770 crore, was higher by Rs. 110 crore q-o-q on account of assets capitalized in Q3 FY2016 at Aluminium and Power, and a one-time depreciation charge at Lisheen post closure. Depreciation and amortisation was lower y-o-y, largely on account of lower amortisation following the impairment of goodwill taken at the end of FY2015, primarily in the Oil & Gas business. Depreciation was also lower driven by a change in the useful life of our metals and mining assets, effected at the end of the last financial year. This was partially offset by the capitalisation of new capacities at Oil & Gas, Aluminium and Power business, over the last year. Finance Cost and Other Income Finance cost at Rs. 1,391 crore was marginally lower q-o-q due to the benefits of lower cost of refinancing partly offset by capitalisation of the power units. However finance costs were higher by Rs.50 crore y-o-y, primarily driven by capitalisation of power units, forex impact on dollar denominated borrowings, partially offset by benefits of lower cost of refinancing. Other income at Rs.579 crore decreased by Rs.142 crore sequentially due to timing differences, where income earned on certain investments are recognised at maturity due to partial adoption of AS-30. Non-Operational Forex Loss/Gain During the quarter, rupee depreciation of 1% led to a forex gain of Rs. 136 crore on dollar- denominated investments, advances and trade debtors. Taxes Tax expense was Rs. 160 crore during the quarter, implying a tax rate of 24% compared to tax expense of Rs. 204 crore (tax rate 10%) in Q2 FY2016. Tax rate is sequentially higher given the lower profit base. Attributable Profit After Tax and Earnings Per Share (EPS) Attributable Profit After Tax (PAT) for the quarter is at Rs. 18 crore. Attributable EPS for the quarter was at Rs. 0.06 per share compared to Rs.3.28 per share in Q2, primarily due to lower commodity prices. Balance Sheet Management The Company is actively managing its balance sheet in light of the current commodity price environment, with a focus on maximizing free cash flow; refinancing and terming out maturing debt; and simplifying the group structure. Our financial position remains robust with cash and liquid investments of Rs. 50,685 crore, which is invested in debt related mutual funds, bank deposits and bonds, and undrawn committed facilities of c. Rs. 4,800 crore as on December 31, 2015. Gross debt and net debt were at Rs. 80,952 crore and Rs. 30,267 crore respectively, at 31 December 2015, higher than Rs 79,433 and 27,105 crore at 30 September 2015. Gross debt and net debt were higher over the quarter primarily on account of project capex, unwinding of working capital as guided last quarter, and payments of dividends. Out of the total debt of Rs. 80,952 crore, the INR/ USD split is approximately 50% each. Further, the gross debt comprises of long term loans of Rs. 67,166 crore and short term loans of Rs. 13,786 crore. FY2016 debt maturities are Rs 7,555 crore, which we intend to meet through committed term loans of c.Rs 4000 crores, cash and liquid investments of c. Rs 1,500 crore and the balance would be funded through a combination of undrawn committed facilities and further term loans that are in the process of being tied up. We continue to evaluate different structures and options for future maturities with an objective to lower funding cost and/or extend the maturity profile. With the fall in commodity prices, CRISIL has recently revised the company's long term credit rating to AA- (outlook negative) from AA (stable). Corporate Merger - Vedanta Limited & Cairn India The Board of Directors of the Company and Cairn India Limited, at their respective meetings held on June 14, 2015, had approved the Scheme of Arrangement (the "Scheme") between the Company and Cairn India Limited and their respective shareholders and creditors, subject to regulatory and other approvals. On September 10, 2015, BSE Limited and the National Stock Exchange of India Limited issued 'No adverse observation' letters to the Scheme. The applications for the scheme have been filed with the respective High Courts, and the shareholders and creditors meetings are expected to be convened in the current quarter. We continue to work towards completion of the merger by Q2 CY2016. Aluminium Business Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) on conversion of 2400 MW (4 x 600 MW) Independent Power Plant (IPP) to Captive Power Plant (CPP) Vedanta Limited had filed an application under the Electricity Act and Electricity Rules before the Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) for declaring the 2400 MW (4x600 MW) Power Plant as a Captive Power Plant (CPP) to supply power for captive use due to the merger of erstwhile Sterlite Energy Ltd. (SEL) with the Company. OERC after a detailed hearing, vide order dated January 27, 2016 has allowed the application of the Company to the extent permitting conversion of three units of 600 MW (3 x 600 MW) of 2400 MW power plant w.e.f. April 01, 2015. OERC has ordered that one unit of 600 MW will continue to supply power to State Nominated Agency, i.e., GRIDCO as per the PPA signed between the parties. The OERC order will facilitate the Company to use the power generated from the 3 x 600 MW power plant as captive power for its aluminium smelter (SEZ) located at Jharsuguda. Under the Electricity Act, supply of power from CPP does not attract cross subsidy surcharge (CSS) and to that extent the company will have no liability of CSS on the power sourced from its power plant. Annexure Debt and Cash (in Rs. Crore) Company 31 Dec 2015 30 Sep 2015 Debt Cash & LI Net Debt Debt Cash & LI Net Debt Vedanta Ltd Standalone 42,645 3,055 39,590 39,394 2,194 37,200 HZL - 28,214 (28,214) - 30,404 (30,404) Zinc International 64 673 (609) - 1,041 (1,041) Cairn India - 18,643 (18,643) - 18,116 (18,116) BALCO 5,949 25 5,924 5,731 75 5,656 Talwandi Sabo 7,440 8 7,432 6,896 195 6,701 Twinstar Mauritius Holdings Ltd and Others 24,854 67 24,787 27,412 303 27,109 Vedanta Ltd Consolidated 80,952 50,685 30,267 79,433 52,328 27,105 Debt at TSMHL comprised Rs.9 , 120 crore of bank debt and Rs. 14,800 crore of debt from Vedanta Resources Plc Others includes MALCO Energy, CMT, VGCB, Sesa Resources, Fujairah Gold, and Vedanta Ltd.'s investment companies. Debt Maturity Profile for Term Debt1 (in Rs. Crore) Particulars FY 2016 FY 2017 FY 2018 FY 2019 FY 2020 FY 2021 & Later Total Vedanta Ltd Standalone 3,935 3,510 6,065 6,324 3,199 7,527 30,560 Vedanta Ltd Subsidiaries 3,620 4,282 4,242 4,266 1,737 3,659 21,806 Total 7,555 7,792 10,307 10,590 4,936 11,186 52,366 Maturity profile excludes working capital facilities of Rs.13 , 786 crore and debt from Vedanta Resources Plc of Rs. 14,800 crore . Note: Debt numbers in the tables above are at book value, and exclude inter-company eliminations Results Conference Call Please note that the results presentation is available in the Investor Relations section of the company website www.vedantalimited.com Following the announcement, there will be a conference call at 6:00 PM (IST) on Thursday, 28th January 2016, where senior management will discuss the company's results and performance. The dial-in numbers for the call are as below: Event Telephone Number Earnings conference call on 28 January 2016 India - 6:00 PM (IST) Mumbai main access +91 22 3938 1017 Mumbai standby access +91 22 6746 8333 Singapore - 8:30 PM (Singapore Time) Toll free number 800 101 2045 Hong Kong - 8:30 PM (Hong Kong Time) Toll free number 800 964 448 UK - 12:30 PM (UK Time) Toll free number 0 808 101 1573 US - 7:30 AM (Eastern Time) Toll free number 1 866 746 2133 For online registration http://services.choruscall.in/diamondpass/registration?confirmationNumber=5267915 Replay of Conference Call (28 Jan 2016 to 4 Feb 2016) Mumbai +91 22 3065 2322 +91 22 6181 3322 Passcode: 63835# For further information, please contact: Communications Roma Balwani Tel: +91 22 6646 1000 President - Group Communications,Sustainability & CSR gc@vedanta.co.in Investor Relations Ashwin Bajaj Tel: +91 22 6646 1531 Director - Investor Relations vedantaltd.ir@vedanta.co.in Sunila Martis Manager - Investor Relations Vishesh Pachnanda Manager - Investor Relations About Vedanta Limited (Formerly Sesa Sterlite Ltd.) Vedanta Limited is a diversified natural resources company, whose business primarily involves producing oil & gas, zinc - lead - silver, copper, iron ore, aluminium and commercial power. The company has a presence across India, South Africa, Namibia, Australia, Ireland, Liberia and Sri Lanka. Vedanta Limited, formerly Sesa Sterlite Limited is the Indian subsidiary of Vedanta Resources Plc, a London-listed company. Governance and Sustainable Development are at the core of Vedanta's strategy, with a strong focus on health, safety and environment and on enhancing the lives of local communities. Vedanta Limited is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange in India and has ADRs listed on the New York Stock Exchange. For more information please log on to www.vedantalimited.com Vedanta Limited (Formerly known as Sesa Sterlite Limited) Vedanta, 75, Nehru Road, Vile Parle (East), Mumbai - 400 099 www.vedantalimited.com Registered Office: Sesa Ghor, 20 EDC Complex, Patto, Panaji (Goa) - 403 001 CIN: L13209GA1965PLC000044 Disclaimer This press release contains "forward-looking statements" - that is, statements related to future, not past, events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address our expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "should" or "will." Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain. For us, uncertainties arise from the behaviour of financial and metals markets including the London Metal Exchange, fluctuations in interest and or exchange rates and metal prices; from future integration of acquired businesses; and from numerous other matters of national, regional and global scale, including those of a political, economic, business, competitive or regulatory nature. These uncertainties may cause our actual future results to be materially different that those expressed in our forward-looking statements. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150422/740375 Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - Japan's Economy and Fiscal Policy Minister Akira Amari announced his resignation over graft allegations, in what is the most high profile loss for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet thus far and could derail his 'Abenomics' program to boost the economy. A close ally of Abe, Amari, decided to step down after it was revealed that he and his aides received cash from a construction company. The minister announced his resignation at a news conference on Thursday after rejecting allegations for a week. The government named Nobuteru Ishihara as the new Economy Minister. Amari's resignation over bribe taking is thus far the most significant political crisis faced by Abe since he took office in 2012. He was a crucial member of Abe's cabinet and the key engineer of 'Abenomics' program to boost the Japanese economy. He was also Japan's top negotiator for the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks. The scandal broke after a Japanese magazine reported last week that Amari and his aides received cash from an unidentified construction company in the Chiba Prefecture in exchange for favors. At the press conference, Amari acknowledged that he and his aides received the money. He also admitted receiving 500,000 yen in cash himself on two occasions, but said it was political donation. However, the minister said he was embarrassed about what happened under his watch. Reports suggest that a large part of the money received went unrecorded in Amari's political funds report. If proved correct, then the minister could be charged with violation of the Political Funds Control Law. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de TORONTO, CANADA -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- CVMR Corporation (CVMR) of Canada and Central America Nickel Inc. (CAN) are pleased to announce that they have entered into an agreement whereby CVMR, using its proprietary chemical vapor metallurgy technology will be concentrating 3 million tons of ore per year in Guatemala and refining the concentrate in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, through CVMR (USA) Inc., from CAN's Santa Anita property in Guatemala. INCO of Canada originally owned the Santa Anita property. According to historical drillings by INCO and VALE do Rio Doce, over a 15 km strike length; this reserve is considered one of the largest untapped reserves of Nickel in the world. The property offers the potential for 800 million tons of mineralization in 35 square km. Its reserves of Platinum group of metals and scandium are not revealed yet. The recently established CAN has been conducting business in Guatemala, Cuba and the Dominican Republic over the past 14 years through its wholly owned subsidiaries: Nichromet Guatemala S.A., Rio Nickel S.A., Nichromet Dominica S.A. The company has managed to acquire major nickel /cobalt bearing deposits throughout Central America. In addition Pierre Gauthier, President of Central American Nickel, states that: "CAN holds the mineral rights to the Rio Negro property, which is estimated by Cominco Resources to contain 25 million tons at 1.6% nickel. CAN continues to negotiate the purchase of more properties in Latin America." CVMR is the leader in the metal refining and manufacturing of metal powders, super alloys, metal 3D printing feed materials, net shapes and metal parts of high value. This would allow the Joint Venture partners to avoid being at the mercy of the commodity markets and commodity markets' cyclical price fluctuations. The products pricing of CVMR's output are based on the market demand in different segments of the manufacturing and consumer markets. While the commodity prices have nose dived, metal powders, nano-powders, net shapes and super alloy prices keep climbing, and have done so with a steady pace in the past 15 years. The rate of growth in demand for the CVMR products in the past 10 years has been 7.6% on average. In fact it is much higher for some of the specialty products that CVMR produces. CVMR plants operate without any pollution of the air, water or soil. This is a major attraction for Latin American countries that have had to struggle with massive pollutions by mining and refining companies in recent years. The CVMR's refined products from this operation will be in the form of nickel foams with various porosity, Net Shapes used by the aerospace and defense industries, various nickel, iron and platinum powders used in the manufacture of car parts, 3D printing and injection molds, medical instruments, electronic parts, etc. According to Kamran M. Khozan, Chairman and CEO of CVMR Corporation: "The Joint Venture expects to generate over US $500 million a year after commissioning and ramp up." The funding for this project was secured through a Consortium of Canadian and US financial institutions. The Joint Venture partners have been able to obtain four major off-take agreements for their final products, three years in advance of commissioning of the refinery. Contacts: For CVMR: Kamran M. Khozan +1 (416) 743-2746 For CAN: Pierre Gauthier +1 (514) 299-0881 DALLAS, TX -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- Masergy Communications Inc. today announced its Security Control Center and customer support has been recognized as a Finalist in the 2016 STEVIE AWARDS for Sales and Customer Service Excellence. Masergy is a global leader in hybrid networking, managed security and cloud communications services. Masergy captured the nomination for Sales and Customer Service for the second year in a row based on the expertise and responsiveness of its security professionals who staff the Security Control Center. Masergy continues to excel in customer service and support with a Net Promoter Score of 66% for customer satisfaction. The judges were particularly impressed with Masergy's Security Control Center, which offers continuous monitoring of customer networks for potential security breaches. The SCC is part of Masergy's Unified Enterprise Security (UES) managed service. Customers view Masergy as an extension of their internal IT staff, providing 24x7x365 vulnerability scanning, intrusion detection, incident response and actionable remediation information. "Providing the most responsive customer support goes hand-in-hand with delivering the most innovative security technology," said Craig D'Abreo, VP of Security Operations, Masergy. "The industry's positive attention to our efforts is a continued validation that our customers remain our top priority." The STEVIE AWARDS are an international competition recognizing excellence in disciplines that are crucial to business success. Finalists were determined by the average scores of 115 professionals acting as preliminary judges. The final results will be announced during a gala banquet on Friday, March 4 in Las Vegas, Nevada. "The STEVIE AWARDS for Sales & Customer Service continues to be the fastest-growing of our international awards programs," said Michael Gallagher, president and founder of the STEVIE AWARDS. "The sheer number of nominations is matched by the increasing quality of those nominations. We congratulate all of this year's Finalists and wish them well in the next phase of judging." About Masergy Masergy owns and operates the largest independent Software Defined Platform in the world, delivering hybrid networking, managed security and cloud communication solutions to global enterprises. Our patented technology, customizable solutions and unmatched customer experience are why a growing number of leading organizations rely on Masergy to deliver performance beyond expectations. Learn more about Masergy and follow us on our blog Transforming Enterprise IT, Twitter @Masergy, LinkedIn and Facebook. For more information, contact: Betsey Rogers Public Relations BridgeView Marketing 603-886-7087 betsey@bridgeviewmarketing.com WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwired - January 28, 2016) - U.S.English Chairman Mauro E. Mujica today applauded West Virginia Delegate Lynwood Ireland for his introduction of a bill that would declare English the official language of the Mountain State. HB 4019 would require that all official state business be conducted in English, allowing for exceptions in instances of health and public safety, the teaching of foreign languages, trade and tourism, conducting the Census and judicial activities. "Passage of Delegate Ireland's bill would make West Virginia the 32 nd state to recognize English as the official language," Chairman Mujica said. "Declaring an official language is a common sense way to unite all residents. When the government operates in foreign languages, it promotes the isolation of foreign language speakers. Conversely, when government business is conducted in English, it sends the message that learning English is essential to full civic participation, leading to the breakdown of existing communication barriers. I encourage the West Virginia State Legislature to support this unifying piece of legislation." In the 2015 Legislature, an identical bill introduced by Delegate Ireland passed the State House by a vote of 88 - 4. This year, HB 4019 currently has 11 bipartisan sponsors and has been referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, where it awaits further consideration. U.S.English, Inc. is the nation's oldest and largest non-partisan citizens' action group dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States. Founded in 1983 by the late Sen. S.I. Hayakawa of California, U.S.English, Inc. (www.usenglish.org) now has more than 2 million members. CONTACT: U.S.English (202) 833-0100 BUENOS AIRES (dpa-AFX) - US scientists have urged the World Health Organisation to take urgent action over the Zika virus, which they say has 'explosive pandemic potential'. Writing in a US medical journal, they called on the WHO Director-General to convene an IHR Emergency Committee to advise countries on critical issues such as vector control, health system preparedness, travel advisories, and avoiding punitive measures. Also, an emergency committee of disease experts should be convened immediately to advise the Director-General about the conditions necessary to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), Daniel R. Lucey and Lawrence O. Gostin said in an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The World Health Organization Monday warned that Zika virus was likely to spread across nearly all of the Americas. The biggest concern is the potential impact on babies developing in the womb, and US health authorities have warned pregnant women not to travel to Latin America and the Caribbean to avoid exposure to the Zika virus. Nearly 4000 suspected cases of microcephaly - babies born with tiny brains - have been reported in Brazil alone since October. The US scientists called on the UN health agency to heed lessons from the Ebola outbreak, and blames that its failure to act decisively cost thousands of lives. The WHO Director General was widely criticized for waiting 4 months after the first cross-border transmission of Ebola before declaring a PHEIC. Their warning came ahead of WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan's briefing Thursday at the 138th WHO Executive Board meeting on Zika virus and steps that WHO is taking in response to the outbreak. The global dimensions of Zika are quite clear, with fresh urgency as the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro loom. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de KAMPALA, Uganda, January 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Dahabshiil has provided seed capital to two innovative start-ups founded by young entrepreneurs in Uganda as part of a programme co-sponsored by the US Embassy in Kampala. Dahabshiil has invested in GSM-based agriculture market solution, MoBFIT (Mobile Business Financial Information Tool) which allows farmers to pre-sell their produce to buyers before harvest. MoBFIT is an agricultural supply chain management software that will directly connect rural farmers to buyers in the market at a low cost via SMS technology. It aims to broaden the market for grass-root farmers, reduce the cost of marketing farm produce and the dependence on middlemen. MoBFIT was the winner of the hackathon during which six teams competed in an intense race-against-the-clock to develop business propositions to meet key market needs and create jobs. Due to the strong calibre of ideas presented at the hackathon, Dahabshiil also agreed a further investment to support second placed initiative, Yaka Ko, an emergency power credit service to help clients enjoy uninterrupted power usage. In addition, local startup incubator GoBigHub offered free mentoring to all of the hackathon participants through its partners Bytelex, Azems Value Add, and Strategy Consults - meaning all of the teams will receive support to turn their business ideas to reality. Dahabshiil CEO, Abdirashid Duale said: "Both MoBFIT and Yaka Ko, alongside many of the other business ideas presented at the hackathon, are an incredible demonstration of the power of young people to drive social and economic change. "We hope that this event is seen as an illustration of what can be achieved through coordinated partnerships between the public and private sector. Dahabshiil is very proud to have collaborated with the U.S. Government as part of +256 Rising, in the run up to the next Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Silicon Valley later this year. "I have been inspired by President Obama and his vision to support entrepreneurship in Africa and throughout the world. His commitment is reflected by his personal participation in the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Kenya last year." US Embassy Charge Trish Mahoney, said: "This hackathon represents part of the U.S. Mission's ongoing efforts and key goal of increasing economic opportunities for Ugandans across the country. "Programmes like this hackathon should help Uganda improve the quality of entrepreneurship and promote its sustainability, so that new businesses lead to new jobs. "Entrepreneurship brings down barriers between communities and cultures, and builds bridges that help us take on common challenges together." Quintan Wiktorowicz, Managing Partner of social impact organization, Affinis Labs, which planned the hackathon, said: "The event was designed to unlock talent, creativity and innovation amongst Ugandan youths in order to help create jobs and reduce unemployment. We feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with these talented young entrepreneurs. "The level of entrepreneurial talent in Uganda is amazing, and we are hopeful that many of the teams from +256 Rising will go on to form successful businesses and help strengthen the Ugandan economy." About Dahabshiil Group: http://www.dahabshiil.com Dahabshiil Group is a multinational branded conglomerate which includes the largest African money transfer network, a mobile money provider and bank. WASHINGTON, DC and NEW YORK, NY -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- BuckleySandler LLP, a premier financial services, government enforcement, and litigation law firm, announced today that Dana V. Syracuse, former Associate General Counsel of the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) and former Assistant Attorney General in the Office of the New York State Attorney General, has joined the firm as Counsel in its New York office. Syracuse will join electronic signature pioneers Margo Tank, Jerry Buckley, and David Whitaker; noted Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)/anti-money laundering (AML) lawyer Michael Zeldin; AML and virtual currencies leader Amy Davine Kim; and cybersecurity and data privacy experts Douglas Gansler and Rena Mears, further enhancing the firm's Digital Commerce, Virtual Currencies, Anti-Money Laundering/Bank Secrecy Act (AML/BSA), and Privacy, Cyber Risk, and Data Security practices. Syracuse is the second former senior government official to join BuckleySandler this week. Kathleen "Kitty" Ryan, former Deputy Assistant Director for the Office of Regulations at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, also joined as Counsel in the firm's Washington, DC office (Ryan, admitted to practice in PA, is supervised by BuckleySandler Partner, Benjamin Olson). "Our broad FinTech practice, which covers regulatory, enforcement and transactional matters in digital commerce, virtual currencies, payments, money transmitters, marketplace lending, and privacy and data risk, has grown substantially in response to business innovations and the reactions of legislators, regulators and enforcement agencies," said Andrew L. Sandler, Chairman and Executive Partner of BuckleySandler LLP. "Dana's experience at the New York Department of Financial Services and the Office of the New York Attorney General will deepen our already strong bench and provide our clients the knowledge of an attorney who has been involved in several key regulatory and enforcement developments impacting this emerging growth area within the financial services industry." While at the NYDFS, Syracuse helped oversee the Department's strategy regarding emerging payment systems, virtual currency, and blockchain technology, the drafting of New York State's BitLicense virtual currency regulation, and the chartering of New York State based virtual currency exchanges. He also worked extensively with other states, through organizations such as the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, on the development of state and federal regulations and standards governing cybersecurity, money transmitters, emerging payment systems, and virtual currency market participants. He also helped develop the NYDFS strategy for the review of cyber security standards of its regulated institutions, oversaw the revamp of the NYDFS cybersecurity examination process, helped implement targeted risk assessments of its regulated institutions' cyber preparedness, and took steps to assess the cybersecurity risks presented to the banking and insurance industries and those posed by third-party vendors. Before joining the NYDFS, Mr. Syracuse served as Assistant Attorney General, Taxpayer Protection Division, in the Office of the New York State Attorney General. "BuckleySandler is in a unique position as a leading law firm for traditional and emerging financial services companies. I am looking forward to applying my cybersecurity, virtual currency, money transmitter, anti-money laundering and government enforcement background to the firm's cutting-edge work," said Syracuse. Prior to joining the NYDFS, Mr. Syracuse served as Assistant Attorney General, Taxpayer Protection Division, in the Office of the New York State Attorney General. He is a frequent speaker on banking regulation issues, cybersecurity, emerging payment systems, virtual currency regulation, and the New York False Claims Act. He received his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School and his B.S. from New York University. Syracuse photo available for download: http://bit.ly/DanaSyracuse ABOUT BUCKLEYSANDLER: BuckleySandler LLP provides premier legal counsel to protect and support the nation's leading financial services institutions and corporations, and individual clients. With more than 150 lawyers in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and London, we offer a full range of litigation, transactional, compliance, and regulatory services. "The best at what they do in the country." (Chambers USA). Online: www.buckleysandler.com | Twitter: https://twitter.com/BuckleySandler. MEDIA CONTACT: Susan E. Jacobsen 202.251.8184 Email Contact Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 28, 2016) - Under terms of the LOIs, DNI Metals Inc. (CSE: DNI) (FSE: DG7N) (OTC Pink: DMNKF) will acquire 100% of the shares of CR Capital Corp. (TSXV: CIT.H) ("CR"), a publicly listed company, and 100% of a privately owned Canadian company ("PC"). Both companies are currently operating in the mineral exploration business. Under terms of the LOI, shareholders of CR will receive two (2) common shares of DNI for every one (1) share of CR they currently own for a total of 16,654,674 common shares of DNI; and the shareholders of the private company will receive one (1) common share of DNI for every one (1) share of PC they currently own for a total of 23,544,165 common shares of DNI. Following the approval of all the respective Boards of Directors, the approval of shareholders of both CR and PC, the approval by securities regulators and stock exchanges, and to the extent required shareholder approval, as well as completion of definitive agreements, DNI will have approximately 69,785,043 common shares issued and outstanding. The completion of these acquisitions will provide DNI with cash and working capital of approximately $2.2 million and copper and zinc properties in Canada. DNI will continue to build an Industrial Metals company, focusing on its Graphite project in Madagascar, its graphite wholesale business (supplying graphite from Brazil to customers in North America), and completion of the acquisition of the cash-flowing laboratory/technology centre in Mississauga. Neither the CSE, TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release DNI - CSE DG7 - Frankfurt Issued: 29,586,204 For further information, contact: DNI Metals Inc. - Dan Weir, President & CEO 416-595-1125 DanWeir@dnimetals.com Katrin Tosine, Advisor to DNI Metals Inc. Capital Markets and Investor Relations E-mail: kat@dnimetals.com Email: ir@dnimetals.com. Also visit www.dnimetals.com ABOUT DNI METALS INC. DNI Metals Inc. is building a vertically integrated industrial metals company, focused on acquiring a cash-flow positive, commercial mining-related laboratory; continuing to build the Company's wholesale graphite business shipping material from high-quality producers in Brazil to North America; and developing its flagship Vohitsara project in Madagascar, which is fully-permitted for mining and development. Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Information This news release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that involves discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as "expects", or "does not expect", "is expected", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans", "budget", "scheduled", "forecasts", "estimates", "believes" or "intends" or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results "may" or "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. In this news release, forward-looking statements relate, among other things, to: the anticipated benefits of the Transaction to the Company and shareholders of the Company; the pro forma shareholdings of the Company's shareholders in DNI; execution of the Definitive Agreement, the timing and receipt of the required shareholder, stock exchange and regulatory approvals for the Transaction; the anticipated timing for mailing the management information circular to the shareholders of the Company in respect of the Transaction; the closing of the Transaction; the length of the current market cycle and requirements for an issuer to survive in the current market cycle; future growth potential of DNI and its business; and future mine development plans. These forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions and estimates of management of the Company at the time such statements were made. Actual future results may differ materially as forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to materially differ from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors, among other things, include: satisfaction or waiver of all applicable conditions to closing of the Transaction (including receipt of all necessary shareholder, stock exchange and regulatory approvals or consents, and the absence of material changes with respect to the parties and their respective businesses); the synergies expected from the Transaction not being realized; business integration risks; fluctuations in general macroeconomic conditions; fluctuations in securities markets and the market price of the DNI Shares and the Company Shares; fluctuations in spot and forward prices of graphite or certain other commodities; fluctuations in currency markets (such as the Canadian dollar to United States dollar exchange rate); change in national and local government, legislation, taxation, controls, regulations and political or economic developments; risks and hazards associated with the business of mineral exploration, development and mining (including environmental hazards, industrial accidents, unusual or unexpected formations pressures, cave-ins and flooding); inability to obtain adequate insurance to cover risks and hazards; the presence of laws and regulations that may impose restrictions on mining; employee relations; relationships with and claims by local communities and indigenous populations; availability of increasing costs associated with mining inputs and labour; the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development (including the risks of obtaining necessary licenses, permits and approvals from government authorities); and title to properties. In addition, the failure of a party to comply with the terms of the Definitive Agreement (assuming the Definitive Agreement is entered into) may result in that party being required to pay a non-completion or other fee to the other party, the result of which could have a material adverse effect on the paying party's financial position and results of operations and its ability to fund growth prospects and current operations. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the Company believes, or believed at the time, to be reasonable assumptions, the Company cannot assure shareholders that actual results will be consistent with such forward-looking statements, as there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release. Except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law. Neither the TSX-V nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX-V) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved of the information contained herein. LOS ANGELES, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- GTX Corp (OTC PINK: GTXO), a pioneer in GPS wearable technology and a global provider of personal location wandering assistive technology, is pleased to announce the addition of Imexpalcom CIA Ltd. to its list of international distributors. Imexpalcom is headquartered in Quito, Ecuador, operating in the telecommunications industry supporting customers in Ecuador and Colombia, with plans to expand into Peru and Bolivia later this year. "We are very excited to be launching this highly innovative product to the Ecuadorian and Colombian market, finally we found the best solution for our market needs related to personal security," says Joffre Palacios, managing director of Imexpalcom. "Estamos muy emocionados con el lanzamiento de este innovador producto en territorio ecuatoriano y colombiano, finalmente encontramos la mejor solucion para nuestro mercado en cuanto a seguridad personal." GTX Corp has shipped the first commercial order of GPS SmartSoles to Imexpalcom, with additional shipments scheduled to go out next month, demonstrating the company's ability to pursue and secure international expansion and partnerships in Latin America. "As we continue to expand our international business, we are extremely pleased to add Imexpalcom to our growing list of distributors and now with distribution partners across most of Europe, we are starting to focus a little more in Central and South America," says Andrew Duncan, director of business development. GTX Corp's patented GPS SmartSoles, which were featured in AARP's 2015 technology gear guide and a recent winner in the 2015 New Product & Technology Awards in recognition of the most innovative products and services for older adults and their families, are placed in the wearer's shoes and contain a GPS tracking chip connected through a global GSM cellular network that sends a signal to a central monitoring website or app showing the exact location of the individual wearing the SmartSoles. They come in several trim to fit sizes for both men and women, are made with the highest quality electronic components and assembled in Rhode Island, U.S.A. The value behind the SmartSole Platform is its ability to be a 'wearable' yet 'invisible' stigma-free monitoring and wondering recovery solution that alerts a caregiver when the wearer wanders off, sending a text or email to the caregiver's phone and computer, with a direct link to a map plotting the wanderer's location. For someone in danger of wandering and becoming lost due to Alzheimer's, dementia, autism or TBI, GTX Corp's wearable technology products and tracking devices not only provide peace of mind, but can also save lives. About Imexpalcom CIA Ltd Imexpalcom CIA Ltd has been established for almost 10 years in the telecommunications industry. The company owns the registered trademark Pitbull which has developed many hardware and search tools for location-based software solutions. About GTX Corp GTX Corp (GTXO) is a pioneer in Smart, Mobile and Wearable GPS, cellular and BLE tracking and recovery technology. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, with distributors in over GPS Tracking App, and innovative GPS and BLE SmartSole. GTX provides solutions that answer the "where" question: where is my mother, child, employee, vehicle, drone and high value assets. Through a robust global enterprise IoT monitoring platform and licensing subscription business model, the Company offers a complete end to end solution of hardware, middleware, apps, connectivity and professional services. Letting you know where or how someone or something is at the touch of a button, delivering security and peace of mind in an instant. GTX Corp also owns and operates LOCiMOBILE, Inc which develops applications for smart phones and tablets and Code Amber Alertag. The Company has a comprehensive intellectual property strategy and owns an extensive portfolio of patents, patents pending, registered trademarks, copy rights and URL's and was featured in a 38 page research piece which outlines the value proposition of the Company's IP portfolio and more recently in the SeeThruEquity research report. Online: www.gtxcorp.com www.locimobile.com www.gpssmartsole.com Social media - withyou smartsoles www.facebook.com/gtxcorpcom GTX Corp | LinkedIn www.twitter.com/gtxcorp www.pinterest.com/gtxcorp www.instagram.com/gtxcorp Disclaimer: GTX Corp does not warrant or represent that the unauthorized use of materials drawn from the content of this document will not infringe rights of third parties who are not owned or affiliated by GTX Corp. Further GTX Corp cannot be held responsible or liable for the unauthorized use of this document's content by third parties unknown to the company. Forward Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking statements. The terms and phrases "expects," "would," "will," "believes," and similar terms and phrases are intended to identify these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on estimates and assumptions made by GTX in light of its experience and its perception of current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors that GTX believes are appropriate in the circumstances. Many factors could cause GTX's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Certain risk factors that may cause actual results to differ are set forth in GTX's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (which may be obtained at http://www.sec.gov). These factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not place undue reliance on GTX's forward-looking statements. GTX has no intention and undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. General information, licensing or investor relations email: GTX Corp. info@gtxcorp.com 213.489.3019 ir@gtxcorp.com WEST DES MOINES, IA -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- Spotlight Innovation Inc. (OTCQB: STLT) has retained noted French oncologist David Khayat, MD, PhD, FASCO, as the Principal Investigator for a European Phase I dose escalation safety study, Crotoxin in Patients with Advanced Cancer using an Intravenous Route of Administration. The clinical study will be conducted at Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital in Paris. Crotoxin is one of a number of proprietary compounds, owned by Spotlight Innovation, derived from snake venom. These compounds possess specific anti-cancer and analgesic properties which apply to a broad spectrum of treatments for solid cancerous tumors and pain management. Of particular significance, these compounds create minimal side effects. Prof. Khayat heads the Department of Medical Oncology at Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital and is a Board Member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). In 2003, Prof. Khayat was appointed by then French President Jacques Chirac to lead the formation and development of the French National Cancer Control Plan. Prof. Khayat also served as President of the French National Cancer Institute from 2004 to 2006. He was the first President of the French Federation of Medical Oncologists, has received numerous awards including the National Order of Merit and the ASCO Distinguished Achievement Award, and is a co-founder of World Cancer Day. Paul Reid, PhD, Spotlight Innovation's Director of Product Development, said, "We are delighted to have a clinician with Prof. Khayat's credentials and experience directing our study. His guidance, as a key opinion leader in the oncology space, is greatly welcomed." "It is an honor and a privilege to have Prof. Khayat as the Principal Investigator for our clinical study," said Cris Grunewald, President and Chief Executive Officer of Spotlight Innovation. "We look forward to continuing the clinical advancement of Crotoxin under his direction." About Spotlight Innovation Inc. Spotlight Innovation Inc. (OTCQB: STLT) identifies and acquires rights to innovative and proprietary platform technology candidates with a focus on cancer drugs and related treatment therapies, solutions for infectious disease, and other specialty and unique opportunities. Access to platform technology candidates is accomplished via our extensive relationships with many leading academic institutions and other sources. We provide value-added development capability and funding in order to accelerate development progress. When commercially significant benchmarks have been achieved, we will partner with proven market leaders via sale, out-license or strategic alliance. For more information, visit www.spotlightinnovation.com or follow us on www.twitter.com/spotlightinno. Forward Looking Statements Statements in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements herein include statements regarding the Company's efforts to develop and commercialize its various technologies. Actual outcomes and the Company's actual results could differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include risks and uncertainties such as the inability to finance the planned development of the technologies, the inability to hire appropriate staff to develop the technologies, unforeseen technical difficulties in developing the technologies, the inability to obtain regulatory approval for human use, competitors' therapies proving to be more effective, cheaper or otherwise more preferable, the inability to market a product, all of which could, among other things, delay or prevent product release, as well as other factors expressed from time to time in Spotlight Innovation's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). As a result, this press release should be read in conjunction with Spotlight Innovation's periodic filings with the SEC. The forward-looking statements contained herein are made only as of the date of this press release and Spotlight Innovation undertakes no obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. Press Contact Rene Erickson Spotlight Innovation Inc. 1-515-274-9087 corpcomm@spotlightinnovation.com Investor Contact Bob Woods CEOcast, Inc. 1- 212-732-4300 rwoods@ceocast.com VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- Select Sands Corp. (TSX VENTURE: SNS)(OTC PINK: CLICF) (the "Company") is pleased to announce the results of voting at its Annual General Meeting of Shareholders ("AGM") held Tuesday, January 26, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Shareholders voted in favour of all items put forward by the Board of Directors and management. All six individuals nominated for the Board of Directors - Arnold Tenney, Rasool Mohammad, Zig Vitols, Steven Goldman, John Kime and Douglas Turnbull - were elected. Shareholders also voted in favour of: -- Appointing Morgan and Company LLP, Chartered Accountants, as auditors of the Company for the ensuing year and authorizing Directors to fix their remuneration -- Approving the Company's Option plan The company is pleased to announce that certain Officers and Directors have been issued an aggregate of 1,000,000 options with an exercise price of $0.40 pursuant to the Company's option plan. Each option is exercisable into one common share at an exercise price of $0.40 at any time on or before the fifth anniversary of its issuance. All such options vest over a period of one year. About Select Sands Corp. Select Sands' Sandtown property, located in northeast Arkansas, USA, is underlain by the Ordovician St. Peter sandstone formation, which is a major source of 'Ottawa White' Tier-1 frac sand/industrial sand selling into major US oil and gas basins as well as industrial and speciality end markets. The Sandtown property is located 3.1 miles from Highway 167 near a natural gas pipeline. The property has an active power line on the property and is located approximately 14.7 miles from the nearest rail system (see December 4, 2014 News Release). Compared to competitive sand mines located in Wisconsin owned by the largest US frac sand producers, Sandtown has a competitive location advantage as it is approximately 650 rail miles closer to the Texas/Louisiana oil/gas plays as well as the Houston port and industrial hub. As per a Preliminary Economic Assessment report completed in June, 2015 by Tetra Tech of Golden, Colorado, USA and Vancouver, BC, Canada, the Sandtown property contains 22 million tons of Indicated resources of silica sand with a pre-tax NPV valued at US $160 million. This mineral resource is contained within 40% of the total property area (See June 10, 2015 News Release). The Company would like to remind investors that mineral resources for the Sandtown Property are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability and there is no certainty that this preliminary economic assessment will be realized. The Company also owns high-grade gold deposit in the La Ronge Gold Belt, northern Saskatchewan. The Preview SW Gold Project hosts indicated resources containing 158,300 ounces of gold (2.61 million tonnes grading 1.89 g/t Au) and inferred resources containing 270,800 ounces (5.70 million tonnes grading 1.48 g/t Au) based on a 0.50 g/t Au cut-off grade (See October 31, 2013 News Release). Douglas Turnbull, P.Geo., a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed the scientific and technical information disclosed in this News Release. For more information about Select Sands Corp., please visit www.selectsandscorp.com. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this Release. FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION This news release includes forward-looking information and statements, which may include, but are not limited to, information and statements regarding or inferring the future business, operations, financial performance, prospects, and other plans, intentions, expectations, estimates, and beliefs of the Company. Information and statements which are not purely historical fact are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking information and statements involve and are subject to assumptions and known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause actual events, results, performance, or achievements of the Company to be materially different from future events, results, performance, and achievements expressed or implied by forward-looking information and statements herein. Although the Company believes that any forward-looking information and statements herein are reasonable, in light of the use of assumptions and the significant risks and uncertainties inherent in such information and statements, there can be no assurance that any such forward-looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, and accordingly readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such risks and uncertainties and should not place undue reliance upon such forward-looking information and statements. Any forward-looking information and statements herein are made as of the date hereof, and except as required by applicable laws, the Company assumes no obligation and disclaims any intention to update or revise any forward-looking information and statements herein or to update the reasons that actual events or results could or do differ from those projected in any forward-looking information and statements herein, whether as a result of new information, future events or results, or otherwise, except as required by applicable laws. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities described herein have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the securities laws of any state and may not be offered or sold within the United States absent such registration or an applicable exemption from such registration requirements. Contacts: Select Sands Corp. Rasool Mohammad, B.Sc. (Mining) President & CEO 604-639-4533 www.selectsandscorp.com Investor Relations Arlen Hansen 1-604-684-6730 SNS@kincommunications.com VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA and DOWNERS GROVE, ILLINOIS -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- Kelso Technologies Inc. (TSX: KLS)(NYSE MKT: KIQ) ("Kelso" or the "Company") is pleased to report that it has successfully renewed its M1003 manufacturing status under the Association of American Railroads (AAR) policies and guidelines. The AAR conducted a full manufacturing audit of our Bonham, Texas facility in accordance with the M1003 regulations on January 5-6, 2016. This audit is required to maintain M1003 certification which is a requirement for all tank car valve manufacturers. The audit was completed with no adverse findings and continuation of Kelso's M1003 approval has been recommended by the lead auditor. In addition to the AAR review Kelso's M1003 system has been audited by a number of key customers who have approved our M1003 program as compliant with their own M1003 requirements. Achieving M1003 approval is indicative of Kelso's commitment to American-made high quality products. This includes product warranties and service that surpass all industry requirements. James R. Bond, CEO of the Company comments that: "Kelso continues to achieve and maintain the highest standards of design engineering and production capabilities. Our primary objectives are to surpass regulatory compliance guidelines in order to produce the "best available safety technology" products designed to better protect the lives of first responders and all in harms way. We are pleased that Kelso has maintained the highest production standards recognized by the industry. We remain optimistic that our product strategies and our abilities to produce them will eventually lead to enhanced financial performance when economic conditions improve." About Kelso Technologies Kelso is a railway equipment supplier that designs, produces and sells proprietary tank car service equipment used in the safe handling and containment of hazardous materials during transport. Products are specifically designed to provide economic and operational advantages while reducing the potential effects of human error and environmental harm during the transport of hazardous materials. The Company is recognized as a reliable supplier of AAR approved railway equipment that addresses the regulatory concerns about railroad safety in North America. For a more complete business and financial profile of the Company, please view the Company's website at www.kelsotech.com and public documents posted under the Company's profile on www.sedar.com in Canada and on EDGAR at www.sec.gov in the United States. On behalf of the Board of Directors, James R. Bond, CEO and President Legal Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements are indicated expectations or intentions. Forward-looking statements in this news release include that our product warranties and service surpass all industry requirements; and we remain optimistic that our product strategies and our abilities to produce them will eventually lead to enhanced financial performance when economic conditions improve. Although Kelso believes its anticipated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements and information are based upon reasonable assumptions and expectations, they can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. The reader should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and information as such statements and information involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Kelso to differ materially from anticipated future results, performance or achievement expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and information, including without limitation the risk that the Company's products may not provide the intended economic or operational advantages; or reduce the potential effects of human error and environmental harm during the transport of hazardous materials; or grow and sustain anticipated revenue streams; AAR approvals may not be attained; the rail tank car market may not improve in 2016, orders may be cancelled and competitors may enter the market with new product offerings which could capture some of our expected market share. Except as required by law, the Company does not intend to update the forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained in this news release. Contacts: Kelso Technologies Inc. James R. Bond CEO and President bond@kelsotech.com Kelso Technologies Inc. Richard Lee Chief Financial Officer lee@kelsotech.com www.kelsotech.com EDMONTON, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- Iberian Minerals Ltd. (the "Company" or "Iberian") (TSX VENTURE: IML)(OTCQB: SLDRF) has applied to the TSX Venture Exchange for approval to extend the expiry date of 7,000,000 common share purchase warrants that were issued as part of a non-brokered private placement completed by the Company in August 2013. The Warrants are exercisable for common shares of Iberian at a price of $0.15 per share and will currently expire at 4:30 p.m., Edmonton, Alberta time on February 14, 2016. The warrants are subject to an accelerated expiry clause stating that if at any time the closing price of the Company's common shares on the TSX Venture Exchange exceeds $0.25 for any 10 consecutive trading days, the warrant holder will be given notice that the warrants will expire 30 days following the date of such notice. The Company is proposing to extend the expiry date of the warrants by an additional twelve (12) months to 4:30 p.m., Edmonton, Alberta time on February 14, 2017. All other terms and conditions of the warrants, including the exercise price, will remain the same. The proposed extension of the expiry is conditional upon the receipt of Exchange approval. Additional details of the warrants are provided in Iberian's press releases dated August 14, 2013 and July 15, 2015. About Iberian Minerals Iberian Minerals is a Canadian junior mining company positioned for growth through the partnership of advanced cash flow mining opportunities utilizing the Mineworx environmentally friendly toll-processing technology. The Company is also implementing its business strategy of actively engaging its Spanish contacts and technical team towards the further accumulation of high interest assets throughout the mineral rich Iberian Peninsula. For further information, go to www.iberianminerals.ca. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Contacts: Iberian Minerals Ltd. Greg Pendura President & CEO 780-800-0726 info@iberianminerals.ca Iberian Minerals Ltd. Rick Giege Corporate Development 250-751-3661 rick@iberianminerals.ca www.iberianminerals.ca TOLEDO, OHIO -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- Libbey Inc. (NYSE MKT: LBY), one of the largest glass tableware manufacturers in the world, is scheduled to announce 2015 fourth-quarter and full-year financial results on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2016, prior to the opening of the New York Stock Exchange. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer William Foley and Chief Financial Officer Sherry Buck will host an earnings conference call at 11 a.m. EST on Feb. 24 to discuss the Company's financial results. Interested parties may listen to the conference call on Libbey's website at https://investor.libbey.com by clicking on the "2015 Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year Financial Results" link. Replays of the conference call will be available on the Company's website through March 2. Financial information, including the earnings release and other investor-related material, will also be available online. About Libbey Inc. Based in Toledo, Ohio, Libbey Inc. is one of the largest glass tableware manufacturers in the world. Libbey Inc. operates manufacturing plants in the U.S., Mexico, China, Portugal and the Netherlands. In existence since 1888, the Company supplies tabletop products to retail, foodservice and B2B customers in over 100 countries. Libbey's global brand portfolio includes Libbey, Crisa, Royal Leerdam, World Tableware, Syracuse China and Cristal Glass. In 2014, Libbey Inc.'s net sales totaled $852.5 million. Additional information is available at www.libbey.com. Contacts: INVESTORS: Alpha IR Group Chris Hodges or Sam Gibbons (312) 445-2870 LBY@alpha-ir.com MEDIA: Lisa Fell Corporate Communications (419) 325-2001 lfell@libbey.com Paul Janelle, President Director of PT HM Sampoerna, center, receiving the 2015 FinanceAsia Achievement Award for "Best Indonesia Deal" in HK on Wednesday night. This follows Sampoerna's success in conducting a Rights Issue in October 2015. PT HM Sampoerna Tbk Elvira Lianita Head of Regulatory Affairs, International Trade & Communications Tel +62 21 515 1234 Fax +62 21 515 2234 Email elvira.lianita@sampoerna.com JAKARTA, Jan 28, 2016 - (ACN Newswire) - PT HM Sampoerna Tbk (IDX:HMSP), the largest tobacco company in Southeast Asia's biggest economy, has received a 2015 FinanceAsia Achievement Award in the "Best Indonesia Deal" category following its successful Rights Issue conducted in October 2015. President Director of Sampoerna, Paul Janelle, received the award in Hong Kong on Wednesday evening.This Rights Issue was the largest-ever secondary placement in Southeast Asia and the largest equity offering in Indonesia since 2008. It attracted both domestic and foreign investment, with the capital from foreign investors translating into other currency inflows into the country, demonstrating confidence in the Indonesian economy and its stock market. As a result, Sampoerna's market capitalization of Rp 483,883 trillion (USD 32,101 billion) as of January 27, 2016, is now the largest market capitalization of any firm in Indonesia.In its written remarks, FinanceAsia praised Sampoerna's success in carrying out the Rp 20,768 trillion (USD 1,500 billion) Rights Issue despite weak Indonesian economic conditions in 2015. "Sampoerna nonetheless managed to attract more than USD 700 million of international fund money."Mr. Janelle expressed his appreciation for the award presented by FinanceAsia, an institution with an international reputation for its reporting on the Asian capital and financial markets for the past 20 years."Sampoerna was founded in Surabaya in 1913 and we have grown our business both through the dedication of our tens of thousands of talented Sampoerna employees and our close partnership with the millions of Indonesian retailers, tobacco farmers and clove growers. We are proud to be part of the fabric of Indonesia and this FinanceAsia award inspires us to work even harder for all of our adult-smokers, business partners and shareholders," said Mr. Janelle.With payments of approximately Rp 67 trillion in 2015, Sampoerna is the largest taxpayer in Indonesia.In December 2015, Sampoerna celebrated the full inclusion of HMSP shares on the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX) Index Listing. Sampoerna's shares have also been included in the Morgan Stanley Composite Index (MSCI) since 2015.About PT HM Sampoerna TbkEstablished in 1913, PT Hanjaya Mandala Sampoerna Tbk (Sampoerna) is a leading tobacco company in Indonesia, engaging primarily in the manufacture and trade of clove (kretek) cigarettes. The company had a market share of 34.9% in 2014, led by its strong brand portfolio including Dji Sam Soe and A Mild in premium segment and Sampoerna Kretek and U Mild in the medium price segment. Sampoerna operates seven manufacturing facilities across Java, partners with 38 Third Party Operators in contract manufacturing (TPO).Sampoerna, directly and indirectly, employs approximately 78,000 people, the majority of whom are involved in the production of Sampoerna's hand-rolled kretek cigarette brands (SKT). The company distributes its products through 106 Area Sales and Distribution Offices throughout Indonesia. Sampoerna (HMSP:IDX;PHJMF:OTC) is an affiliate of PT Philip Morris Indonesia and part of Philip Morris International Inc (PMI). For more information, please visit www.sampoerna.com.Source: PT HM Sampoerna TbkContact:Copyright 2016 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved. BRASILIA (dpa-AFX) - The US is gearing up to fight the dangerous Zika virus as President Barack Obama called for development of vaccines and therapeutics to fight the deadly mosquito-born infection. The move comes as Zika virus, which is linked to a birth defect where babies are born with smaller heads which limits brain growth, has spread to countries in the region. One case of the Zika virus has been identified in Arkansas and another in Virginia, Center for Disease Control (CDC) said, adding that one case was also confirmed in a girl in California, but she has since recovered. No vaccine has so far been developed to prevent Zika. The best way to prevent diseases spread by mosquitoes is to avoid being bitten, CDC said. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said a meeting has been convened at the White House to discuss the fight against Zika virus, as the President himself is concerned about it. In the days ahead you'll see more of a conspicuous, concerted effort on the part of US government to communicate with the American people about the risks of this virus and the steps that they can take to protect themselves, Earnest said, a day after Obama held a meeting to review preparedness for the virus. In his meeting with senior health official and National Security team, Obama emphasized the need to accelerate research efforts to make available better diagnostic tests, to develop vaccines and therapeutics, and to ensure that all Americans have information about the Zika virus and steps they can take to better protect themselves from infection, the White House said. While Ebola is a deadly disease, Earnest said the Zika virus poses a different set of risks that are most serious for pregnant women. That explains the kind of reaction you've seen from the federal government and the kind of guidance that the CDC has shared with Americans who are considering travel to a variety of tropical areas in the Western Hemisphere, he said. In a statement early this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned pregnant woman from travelling to countries hit by Zika Virus. CDC said no locally transmitted Zika cases have been reported in the continental US, but cases have been reported in returning travelers. Locally transmitted Zika virus has been reported in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. With the recent outbreaks, the number of Zika cases among travelers visiting or returning to the US will likely increase, it said. Zika is a disease caused by Zika virus that is spread to people primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes Aegis species mosquito. The most common symptoms of Zika are fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis (red eyes). Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de TORONTO, ON -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- ScribbleLive, a global leader in content marketing, announced today that it has acquired Visually, a content creation platform. The integration of the two companies' platforms and solutions will create an all-in-one content marketing platform that marries data science with content creation. ScribbleLive's marketing solution combines data science with content planning, creation and distribution technologies to deliver optimized business results. Visually is a day-to-day content partner that enables brands to engage audiences through premium, original content. By combining a network of creative professionals and an online project management platform, Visually delivers content more efficiently and cost-effectively than traditional models. Visually CEO Matt Cooper will continue to lead the Visually marketplace of creative professionals and also assumes responsibility for ScribbleLive's content marketplace platform. Visually VP of Marketing, Ural Cebeci, will expand his role to assume the role of VP of Marketing for the combined organization. Both executives will report directly to ScribbleLive CEO, Vince Mifsud. This acquisition expands Toronto-based ScribbleLive's U.S. presence to Silicon Valley, where the Visually team and many customers are headquartered. It also adds more than 1,000 customers to ScribbleLive's large client base. "As content starts to overtake traditional and online advertising, marketers are under increased pressure to create higher quality, engaging content that stands out from the competition," said Matt Cooper, CEO of Visually. "But creating great content alone isn't enough. Our vision has always been to provide marketers with one platform that brings data, creativity and process together. By joining ScribbleLive, we're able to realize this vision much sooner and better equip marketers with the tools they need to create data-driven content that cuts through the noise and delivers optimal business results." Through the integration of ScribbleLive with the Visually platform and network of creative professionals, brands will have the power to access an all-in-one content marketing platform to plan, create, distribute and measure marketing efforts to drive top-of-funnel growth and transform marketing effectiveness. The Need for Data-driven Content The online marketing world is rapidly evolving with content marketing at the center of this shift, disrupting traditional marketing models. The speed at which a brand can create content and marry data in a streamlined process will play a major part in their success. This acquisition will solve for just that, swiftly leveraging data and insights to build content that engages an audience. "As more consumers opt to engage with brands via content versus interruptive ads, it makes sense for us to bring Visually on board," said Vince Mifsud, CEO of ScribbleLive. "The company has a solid track record for creating premium content for more than 1,000 top brands including 40 of the Fortune 100. With this acquisition, we can continue to transform marketing by marrying data science and creativity. And while our customers are able to gain powerful insights with ScribbleLive today, they can now put this data to even greater use by leveraging it to inform the type of content they create, resulting in strong content that resonates with their audience and cuts through the noise, while continuing to measure results for future content creation. It's a virtuous circle." Visually and ScribbleLive's customer base can start to benefit from this move today, enabling them to access an even larger roster of world-class creative professionals, content strategists and marketing experts. To sign up for the upcoming webinars to learn about Visually click here and ScribbleLive click here. About ScribbleLive ScribbleLive is the leading global content marketing solution provider. The company's all-in-one SaaS solution combines predictive analytics with content planning, creation, and distribution technologies to deliver optimized business results. ScribbleLive is used by 1000+ brands including Bank of America, Bayer, Deutsche Telekom, Ferrari, Oracle, Red Bull and Yahoo! For more information, visit www.scribblelive.com About Visually Visually enables businesses to connect with their audiences through engaging beautiful visual content. The world's top brands rely on Visually for premium videos, infographics, eBooks, presentations, web interactives, social media micro-content and more: created fast and cost-effectively. With over 1000 carefully vetted creative professionals, Visually's pairs its clients with the best designers, writers, researchers, and developers available, with a wide range of skills to support their business needs. Using Visually's easy-to-use online collaboration platform, clients work closely with their team and enjoy a high-degree of creative control. And they are supported every step of the way -- from talent assignment to creative direction -- to create content that connects and converts. The company is backed by Crosslink Ventures, Softtech and 500 Startups. For more information, visit Visual.ly or follow @Visually on Twitter. Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2955955 Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2955958 Media Contacts: Blast PR On Behalf Of ScribbleLive KristinAnn Janishefski 310-560-6258 Email Contact Visually Sharna Brockett 415-734-1763 Email Contact Webinar reveals valuable research insights and analyst perspectives from Frost & Sullivan MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- WHEN: 10:00 a.m. EST on Thursday, February 4, 2016 LOCATION: Online, with free registration (Email kayla.belcher@frost.com) EXPERT PANELIST: Frost & Sullivan's Research Director, Daniel Ruppar; Principal Analyst, Nancy Fabozzi; Principal Analyst, Victor Camlek; Senior Research Analyst, Koustav Chatterjee Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160127/326716LOGO Connected healthcare continues to expand as innovations in technology and services flourish. Consequently, the adoption of digital health solutions has increased significantly throughout the industry. While the U.S. healthcare system evolves and embraces lower costs and improving quality of care and access, opportunities are emerging in connected healthcare. The industry is driven by health IT development, growth of connected and savvy users, as well as cloud based-software as a service (SaaS) delivery models. Join Frost & Sullivan's Connected Health team, as they host a panel discussion on the 2016 connected healthcare predictions and current insights on key areas within the market. The panel will be followed by a live Q&A session. This is the first of the Connected Health team's new quarterly webinar series. Attend this webinar to discover: Key market predictions including merger and acquisitions (M&A), partnerships, as well as areas of growth and controversy in 2016 New data regarding consumers; how they view their health and interests in digital health tools Latest perspectives on telehealth and remote patient monitoring The progression of the ambulatory electronic health records space and what this means for providers The webinar is essential for senior executives working in different aspects of the value chain including those involved in: connected health, information technology, devices, pharma, health IT, as well ashealthcare stakeholders,communication service providers,and others seeking to understand one of the most important areas in healthcare's future. Thought leader insights: "In an environment of continued disruption, it is a critical time for many important concepts and areas in connected health" says Frost & Sullivan's Transformational Health Research Director Daniel Ruppar. "With consumerism, population health, virtual visits, payment model changes, and M&A impacting healthcare, connected health solutions are expected to drive true change." Register: To attend the briefing, email Kayla Belcher, Corporate Communications - kayla.belcher@frost.com - your full name, job title, company name, company telephone number, and company email address, website, city, state and country or click here: http://frost.ly/16. About Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants. Our "Growth Partnership" supports clients by addressing these opportunities and incorporating two key elements driving visionary innovation: The Integrated Value Proposition and The Partnership Infrastructure. The Integrated Value Proposition provides support to our clients throughout all phases of their journey to visionary innovation including: research, analysis, strategy, vision, innovation and implementation. provides support to our clients throughout all phases of their journey to visionary innovation including: research, analysis, strategy, vision, innovation and implementation. The Partnership Infrastructure is entirely unique as it constructs the foundation upon which visionary innovation becomes possible. This includes our 360 degree research, comprehensive industry coverage, career best practices as well as our global footprint of more than 40 offices. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Is your organization prepared for the next profound wave of industry convergence, disruptive technologies, increasing competitive intensity, Mega Trends, breakthrough best practices, changing customer dynamics and emerging economies? Contact: Kayla Belcher Corporate Communications - North America +1.210.247.2450 kayla.belcher@frost.com BELLEVUE, WA--(Marketwired - January 28, 2016) - Inspirage presented ten recipients of its "2015 Innovation Partner of the Year" Awards at their Customer Appreciation Dinner during Oracle Modern Supply Chain Experience in San Jose, Ca. Each year, Inspirage identifies those clients who exemplify the three pillars of achievement: Innovation - Award recipients have taken a unique approach to solve a business challenge Transformation - Award recipients have driven business process and system improvements that deliver tangible results for their enterprises Collaboration - Award recipients have demonstrated cross-functional teamwork across their organizations and with the Inspirage team The "Innovation Partner of the Year" awards program recognizes Inspirage customers that exhibit the highest level of innovation in driving business process and system improvements that deliver tangible results for their enterprises. This year's winners are: Consumer Packaged Goods & Retail NBTY, Inc. - Supply Chain Management High Tech Panduit - Logistics Management Trimble - Innovation Management Western Digital - Supply Chain Management Industrial CB&I - Innovation Management GE Oil & Gas - Supply Chain Management NOV - Supply Chain Management Life Sciences Cardinal Health - Innovation Management KaVo Kerr Group - Logistics Management Stryker - Supply Chain Management "Inspirage is proud to honor these innovative companies for their pioneering work in transforming the supply chain," said Inspirage CEO Srini Subramanian. "We recognize that project success requires many factors such as management commitment, cross functional team collaboration and a focus on business process improvement that delivers tangible results for the enterprise. We are delighted to recognize these companies, who all exceeded expectations through significant industry projects, proving true innovation and success." About Inspirage Inspirage is the leading integrated supply chain' specialists for operational excellence solving business critical challenges from design to delivery. Our end-to-end consulting and implementation solutions link Innovation Management, Supply Chain Management and Logistics Management to create more responsive and agile supply chains. Inspirage is an Oracle Platinum Partner and has been recognized by Oracle Corporation with numerous awards, including the 2015 and 2014 Oracle Excellence Award for Specialized Partner of the Year - North America. Headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, the company has global presence with offices in North America, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.inspirage.com. Trademarks Inspirage, Innovation through Execution, and Integrated Supply Chain are trademarks of Inspirage LLC. Sarah Fahey Inspirage 855-517-4250 sarah.fahey@inspirage.com HAMILTON, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- The Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) will be joining thousands of workers and community members at a Hamilton rally on Saturday to support good jobs, pensions and Canadian manufacturing. The rally coincides with an aggressive legal action launched by U.S. Steel that seeks to give the foreign multinational corporation priority over the 20,000 retirees from the company's bankrupt plants in Hamilton and Nanticoke. It also comes at a time when over 100 Hamilton steelworkers have been locked out for almost three years as Max Aicher North America (MANA) continues to use replacement workers to try to grind the union down. "Prime Minister Stephen Harper swung the door wide open for foreign-owned mega-corporations, like U.S. Steel, to buy up Canadian industry, siphon our precious natural resources and strip-mine our livelihoods," said OFL President Chris Buckley. "We are calling on the Trudeau Government to set a new tone for companies and would-be investors by making good jobs, workers' rights and Canadian interests the law of the land." WHAT: Hamilton Rally to Stand Up For Steel WHEN: Saturday, January 30, 2016, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. WHERE: Hamilton City Hall, 71 Main St W, Hamilton, Ontario "The battle being waged by workers in Hamilton and Nanticoke to save Canadian jobs and manufacturing is being played out in communities across the country. So, in a very real way, when we mobilize with workers in Hamilton and Nanticoke, we are standing up for workers in every town and city," said Buckley. "Ontarians want a fair economy that allows everyone to thrive and prosper." The Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) represents 54 unions and one million workers in Ontario. For information, visit www.OFL.ca and follow @OFLabour on Facebook and Twitter. Contacts: Joel Duff OFL Communications Director 416-707-0349 (cell) jduff@ofl.ca ENG/FRENCH LONDON, Jan. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --Boies, Schiller & Flexner's London office successfully obtained a judgment from the English High Court today on behalf of the holders of the Class A1 Notes issued by Canary Wharf Finance II Plc in connection with the issuer's obligation to make a "Spens payment" following an early partial redemption of the notes. Boies, Schiller & Flexner was selected to represent the Class A1 Noteholders in August 2014. The noteholders were concerned by the issuer's position that no Spens payment was payable, following a partial redemption of the notes in June 2014 subsequent to the disposal of 10 Upper Bank Street (one of the properties in the underlying securitization portfolio). The issuer commenced proceedings before the Commercial Court seeking declarations that it was entitled to make both this voluntary disposal/redemption and any future voluntary disposals/redemptions without making a Spens payment. On the issuer's case, it would have been entitled to effectively redeem the long-dated Class A1 Notes at par in advance of maturity (2033), without making any form of make-whole to the noteholders, including to compensate them for lost interest payments. The issuer initially refused to join the noteholders to the proceedings, forcing them to make a contested application. In October 2014, the court ordered that they be joined and made a representation order. The trial took place before Justice Stephen Phillips in July 2015. In his judgment, Justice Phillips found in favour of the noteholders on all points, unequivocally rejecting the issuer's arguments, and finding that both the "clear and unambiguous language" of the relevant contractual documentation and the relevant commercial context supported the noteholders' case. As a result, an amount of 169 million plus accrued interest is payable by the issuer to the noteholders in connection with the disposal of 10 Upper Bank Street. The noteholders also expect the court to require the issuer to pay their costs of the first instance proceedings. The issuer, who is represented by Clifford Chance, has indicated that it intends to seek permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal. "The case represents an important victory for the Class A1 Noteholders of Canary Wharf, demonstrating that the Issuer cannot avoid or structure around their obligations to make-whole where there has been an early voluntary redemption. We are delighted with the result and with the judgment, which is very strong indeed," said Natasha Harrison, Managing Partner of Boies, Schiller & Flexner's London office. The case for the noteholders is being led by Ms. Harrison, assisted by counsel Fiona Huntriss and associate Melissa Kelley. About Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP Boies, Schiller & Flexner (www.bsfllp.com) regularly serves as lead counsel in the biggest, highest-profile disputes and represents some of the world's largest and most sophisticated organizations when the results matter most. Follow the firm on LinkedIn. CLEVELAND, January 28, 2016 -The Lubrizol Corporation announces the official opening of a chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (CPVC) compounding plant in Dahej, India. This opening represents the culmination of Lubrizol's latest industry leading investments in its global expansion of the company's FlowGuard, BlazeMaster and Corzan compound manufacturing sites. These most recent investments, which were announced in 2013, total more than $200 million (INR1300 CR) and also include the 2015 opening of a resin manufacturing facility as part of a joint investment in Rayong, Thailand, as well as an expansion of the company's manufacturing facility in Louisville, Kentucky. Strategically located in the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC), which is one of the largest chemical parks in India, Lubrizol is the first major global producer of CPVC to establish operations in India. With capacity to produce approximately 55,000 metric tons of compounds annually, the more than $50 million U.S. investment (INR 325 CR) in this plant further solidifies Lubrizol's commitment to the Indian market. The site's prime location positions the company to serve not only the growing Indian market, but to also support the emerging growth of its FlowGuard, BlazeMaster and Corzan businesses in South Asia, the Middle East and East Africa. "Our recent expansion efforts, combined with our existing operations, positions Lubrizol to continue to be a strong market leader for many years to come," stated Eric Schnur, president of Lubrizol Advanced Materials. "We are pleased to have an unmatched global footprint that provides our partners with reliable, high quality compounds to enable them to achieve their overall growth objectives." "With construction projects in non-metro cities expected to continue to increase in India, and with the central government of India aiming to build more smart cities, the demand for trustworthy piping systems is expected to rise," said Manoj Dhar, head of TempRite Engineered Polymers in South Asia. "Lubrizol is dedicated to providing our customers with the highest quality piping products through our insistence of using only the best raw materials, and our new India compounding plant will use the industry's most advanced compounding technology used in our FlowGuard, BlazeMaster and Corzan products developed in the U.S. and employed in our manufacturing sites around the globe." A grand opening ceremony to commemorate the beginning of plant operations at the Dahej site is being held on January 29 and will be attended by Eric Schnur, president of Lubrizol Advanced Materials; Brian Pitts, general manager of TempRite Engineered Polymers; and Matt Timmons, managing director of Lubrizol Advanced Materials, South Asia. Various other members of the Lubrizol India management team will also partake in the celebrations along with valued customers Aliaxis Group (Bruxelles - Belgium); Ashirvad Pipes Pvt. Ltd. (Bangalore - India); Astral Pipes Ltd. (Kenya); Astral Poly Technik Ltd. (Ahmedabad - India); Marvel Technoplast Pvt. Ltd. (Kathmandu - Nepal); Phoenix Industries Ltd. (Sri Lanka); RFL Plastics Ltd. (Dhaka - Bangladesh); and various partners and Indian government officials. About The Lubrizol Corporation The Lubrizol Corporation, a Berkshire Hathaway company, is a technology-driven global company that combines complex, specialty chemicals to optimize the quality, performance and value of customers' products while reducing their environmental impact. It produces and supplies technologies to customers in the global transportation, industrial and consumer markets. These technologies include lubricant additives for engine oils, driveline and other transportation-related fluids, industrial lubricants, as well as additives for gasoline and diesel fuel. In addition, Lubrizol makes ingredients and additives for home care and personal care products and pharmaceuticals, and specialty materials, including plastics technology and performance coatings in the form of specialty resins and additives. Our products for the oilfield market include technologies for exploration, production and transportation. With headquarters in Wickliffe, Ohio, Lubrizol owns and operates manufacturing facilities in 17 countries, as well as sales and technical offices around the world. Founded in 1928, Lubrizol has approximately 9,000 employees worldwide. Revenues for 2014 were $7 billion. For more information, visit Lubrizol.com. Media Contacts Julie S. Young 440/347-4432 Website: www.lubrizol.com (http://www.lubrizol.com) Manoj Dhar, Head of TempRite Engineered Polymers, South Asia M: 09967020535 Dhiren Maiseri, Site Head, Dahej M: 08140044361 ### This announcement is distributed by NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions on behalf of NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: Lubrizol via Globenewswire HUG#1981770 Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 28, 2016) - Royal Road Minerals Limited (TSXV: RYR) ("Royal Road Minerals" or the "Company"), a gold focused mineral exploration and development company, is pleased to announce that it has entered into a binding letter of intent with the mining concessionaire with respect to the Mina La Redencion gold project, which is located approximately 450 meters north of the license boundary of the Company's La Golondrina gold project in the Narino Province of southern Colombia. The letter of intent provides the Company with the exclusive right to conduct exploration and legal due diligence on the Mina La Redencion gold project property for a period of three months commencing January 27, 2015. The Mina La Redencion gold project is a locally owned and operated vein-hosted gold mine held under a 25 hectare mining license. The project has not yet been drill-tested but exposure in underground development reveals that the mineralized system has the same geological characteristics to the Company's neighboring La Golondrina gold project. Where exposed, gold mineralization at La Redencion is most similar to the "vein-zone" style of gold mineralization at La Golondrina and comprises three or more parallel veins with subsidiary linking vein structures extending over widths that can exceed one meter. Mineralized bodies at Mina La Redencion are shallow-dipping, and occur at the same topographic level to and just 450 meters along strike to the north from veins and vein-zones at La Golondrina suggesting they are part of the same mineralizing system. "We are pleased to have this exclusive opportunity to geologically assess and conduct due diligence at Mina La Redencion" said Tim Coughlin, Royal Road's President and CEO. He added "It is our view that gold mineralization at La Redencion is an exposed along-strike extension of the same high-grade gold system at La Golondrina, testifying to the lateral extent of vein and hornfels-hosted gold mineralization in this area and thus to its plus million ounce potential. Underground channel sampling at La Golondrina is now drawing to a close and once complete the sampling teams will move across to commence work on the underground development at La Redencion. This sampling work is helping us assess the resource potential of vein and hornfels-hosted gold mineralization and will provide valuable geostatistical information for the interpretation of drilling results". Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The information in this news release was compiled, reviewed and verified by Dr. Tim Coughlin, BSc (Geology), MSc (Exploration and Mining), PhD (Structural Geology), FAusIMM, President and CEO of Royal Road Minerals Ltd and a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Royal Road Minerals employees are instructed to follow standard operating and quality assurance procedures intended to ensure that all sampling techniques and sample results meet international reporting standards. More information can be found on Royal Road Minerals web site at www.royalroadminerals.com Cautionary statement: This news release may contain certain information that constitutes forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan," "expect," "project," "intend," "believe," "anticipate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur and include statements regarding the Option Agreement. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. These factors include the inherent risks involved in the hiring and retention of directors and officers, exploration and development of mineral properties, mine site planning and development, the uncertainties involved in interpreting drilling results and other geological data, fluctuating metal prices, permitting and licensing and other factors described above and in the Company's most recent annual information form under the heading "Risk Factors", which has been filed electronically by means of the Canadian Securities Administrators' website located at www.sedar.com. The Company disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. For further information please contact: Dr. Tim Coughlin President and Chief Executive Officer USA-Canada toll free 1800 6389205 +44 (0)1534 887166 +44 (0)7797 742800 info@royalroadminerals.com GATINEAU, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- The Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage, invites media to the official launch of the 38th edition of Winterlude on Friday. She will be joined by Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin, Mayor of Gatineau; Jim Watson, Mayor of Ottawa; and Gregory Charles, headliner of the opening evening's celebration.Please note that all details are subject to change. All times are local. Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. BUENOS AIRES (dpa-AFX) - The World Health Organization has set up a Zika 'emergency team' after the 'explosive' spread of the virus, and convened a meeting to ascertain whether the outbreak constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. The meeting on Monday in Geneva of an International Health Regulations Emergency Committee, convened by WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, will also discuss an observed increase in neurological disorders and neonatal malformations. At her briefing Thursday at the WHO Executive Board meeting on Zika virus and steps that WHO is taking in response to the outbreak, Dr. Chan said Zika had gone from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions, and was having a heart-breaking impact. On the eve of the WHO meeting, US scientists urged the UN health agency to take urgent action over the Zika virus, which they say has 'explosive pandemic potential'. The World Health Organization Monday warned that Zika virus is likely to spread across nearly all of the Americas. The biggest concern is the potential impact on babies developing in the womb, and US health authorities have warned pregnant women not to travel to Latin America and the Caribbean to avoid exposure to the Zika virus. In May 2015, Brazil reported its first case of Zika virus disease. Since then, the disease has spread within Brazil and to 22 other countries and territories in the region. Nearly 4000 suspected cases of microcephaly - babies born with tiny brains - has been reported in Brazil alone since October. At the same time there has been a steep rise in levels of the rare nervous system disorder Guillain-Barre syndrome in new born babies. While it has not yet been confirmed if the virus and these disorders are connected, the WHO chief said it was strongly suspected and deeply alarming. The White House has called a meeting to discuss the fight against Zika virus, as President Barack Obama called for development of vaccines and therapeutics to fight the deadly mosquito-born infection. No vaccine has so far been developed to prevent Zika. WHO said Thursday that it will also prioritize the development of vaccines and new tools to control mosquito populations as well as improving diagnostic tests. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said no locally transmitted Zika cases have been reported in the continental US, but cases have been reported in returning travelers. Zika is a disease caused by Zika virus that is spread to people primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes Aegypti species mosquito. The most common symptoms of Zika are fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de TOLEDO, OH -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- To meet the growing demand for pizza in Utah, Marco's Pizza franchise is seeking to partner with entrepreneurs who want a slice of the action. The demand for pizza in Utah is growing. Utah's population growth rate continues to outpace that of the nation, making it a great place for Marco's Pizza. Utah is also business-friendly. In 2015, Utah ranked No. 1 in Forbes' Best States for Business list for the second straight year and the fifth time since 2010, making it an excellent region for a Marco's Pizza franchise. Once customers try Marco's Pizza's Ah!thentic Italian-style pizza -- fresh-made with delectable cheeses, meats and vegetables -- they're hooked. Marco's has prime locations available in Utah for entrepreneurs to start building their franchise restaurants and loyal customer base. "Our franchisees come from a remarkably wide variety of backgrounds. But there's a common thread among our franchisees -- passion for the Marco's product. Almost half of them were Marco's consumers first. They fell in love with our product," said Cameron Cummins, Chief Development Officer for Marco's Pizza. Marco's prides itself in making the best pizza money can buy. Pizzas are handmade in the Italian tradition. They use fresh, never-frozen cheeses, make the dough in stores daily and top it with only premium meats and vegetables. Founded in Toledo in 1978, Marco's is the only Top 20 pizza chain started by a native Italian. Marco's has enjoyed stunning growth in recent years and is on pace to open 1,000 restaurants by the end of 2017. The brand's proven business model and sustainable growth have been heralded by the likes of Forbes, Consumer Reports, Entrepreneur, Franchise Times and Nation's Restaurant News. Why Utah? Why now? Utah's population of nearly 3 million has a growth rate of 1.7 percent, which is more than twice the national average, according to the Governor's Office of Management and Budget. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently published a study on American eating habits that found on any given day, 13 percent of the entire U.S. population is eating pizza. Looking at just three large Utah cities of Logan, Ogden, and St. George -- which have a combined population of more than 202,000 -- that works out to about 26,000 Utahns feasting on pizza daily, and Marco's is ready to grab a big slice of that market. Competitors have oversaturated their markets, but Marco's Pizza still has prime locations for franchisees to set up shop -- Utah is one of them. Marco's Pizza growth outpaces pizza industry Marco's Pizza has the fastest-growing unit growth, according to Nation's Restaurant News, who named the beloved pizza franchise as part of its Second 100 List -- an analysis of businesses that are smaller but are focusing on growing around the nation. The publication states that while the pizza industry is mature and growth is limited, Marco's Pizza is the exception. Not only is Marco's growing faster than other pizza franchises, currently on pace to open its 1,000th location in early 2017, Marco's Pizza sales growth also is higher than any other pizza franchise. The publication reports that Marco's Pizza sales growth is tops for system-wide sales in the Second 100 pizza segment. Marco's Pizza franchise seeks friendly, passionate entrepreneurs in Utah Marco's Pizza is seeking quality franchisees who are committed to making their franchises places where customers want to buy fresh, delectable pizza -- welcoming, friendly individuals who remember customers' names and are passionate about the Marco's product. The investment required to start a Marco's Pizza franchise is typically about $350,000. The pizza franchise is looking for people who have a net worth of $150,000 and a minimum liquidity of $100,000. Previous restaurant experience is not necessary to open a Marco's Pizza. The company's team of veteran pizza executives has experience growing brands and is always ready to help franchisees throughout their careers. At a six-week training at Marco's University, franchisees learn how to make the perfect pizza in the company's state-of-the-art kitchen. In addition to learning about the product and how it is made, the company helps franchisees learn to manage the business side of the franchise. Franchisees learn how to train staff, manage finances and study market analysis, as well as learn the insurance requirements, leasing issues and marketing savvy needed to be successful. To learn more, visit www.marcosfranchising.com. Embedded Video Available Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2949839 Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2949841 Embedded Video Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2949885 Contact Cameron Cummins Chief Development Officer ccummins@marcos.com LEHI, UT--(Marketwired - January 28, 2016) - Moki, the leader in cloud-native management and control for tablet-based commerce solutions, announced today a strategic partnership with Mimo Monitors (Mimo Display, LLC). Headquartered in Princeton, NJ, Mimo Monitors produces affordable commercial-grade, Android'-based tablet devices and related POS peripherals, such as 2d barcode scanners, and credit card readers, etc., that come deployment ready with VESA-mountable displays. This new partnership will combine Moki's tablet-based kiosk control capabilities and Mimo's robust devices to provide those in the retail and corporate spaces an affordable and fully-managed commercial-grade option for deploying large fleets of tablet-based kiosks and displays. Rather than turning a consumer grade tablet running iOS, Windows or Android into a tablet kiosk using enclosures, retailers can now purchase a low-cost device that is purpose-built to withstand the day-to-day rigors demanded from a tablet-based kiosk or display in a retail or other setting. Customers can also expect a managed hardware and software refresh cycle to allow for long term deployments. "Consumer-grade devices are difficult to manage at scale and don't stand up to the day-to-day beating like Mimo's commercial grade systems do. However, consumer-grade devices offer retailers so many new opportunities and price points that they continue trying to make them work anyway," said Tom Karren, CEO and co-founder of Moki. "The combination of Mimo's affordable commercial-grade devices and Moki's best-in-class tablet management solution changes all of this. This potent combination opens up the doors that many organizations have been trying to break through for years." Moki's ability to provide a managed service for deploying and monitoring the health, usage and security of Android and iOS devices, all at scale, allows customers to control the full life cycle of their deployments. Mimo Monitors tablets powered by Moki offer companies commerce-enabling solutions, such as mPOS, with a scalable and durable option to open new markets at a lower operational cost than ever before. "We make great hardware, and surprisingly this can be a problem for our customers. They quickly see the value these devices bring and want to deploy them in massive numbers -- only to start asking themselves how they can manage so many devices at scale. Moki gives them a way to do that, no matter how many devices a customer has," said David Anderson, CEO of Mimo Monitors. "We're excited to partner with Moki to offer customers our durable hardware with Moki's stable management solution. This way our customers get the best from two industry leaders, all designed to reduce their deployment complexity." For more information about Mimo's cost-effective devices that ship with Moki provision-ready software on board, visit www.mimomonitors.com. For more information about Moki's cloud-native management solution for tablet-based kiosks, or to setup a demo, visit www.moki.com. About Moki Moki provides cloud-based (SaaS) software that makes it easy to provision, manage, secure, maintain and effectively measure tablet kiosks -- at any scale. Moki does this by enabling total control of devices, with remote management, security and analytics of hardware, operating systems, applications and content. Founded in 2012, Moki is trusted by hundreds of customers in over 55 countries. Innovative brands like Belly, Motorola, T-Mobile, PayPoint, RAB Lighting, Columbia Sportswear, Marriott, The Juilliard School and the New York City Department of Health choose Moki. Moki is headquartered in Lehi, Utah, with an EMEA office in London, U.K. Learn more about Moki at www.moki.com, and keep up on the latest from Moki on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the Moki blog. About Mimo Monitors Mimo Monitors is the industry leader in small touch monitors, displays and tablets. The Mimo Monitors portfolio is built on proprietary IP developed by our engineering team and partners. Our world class team has deployed the Mimo solution in tens of thousands of locations throughout the world. Our customers include Fortune 500 companies, both in the US as well as internationally. Mimo's touch solutions are industry leading in their technology, small footprint, and price point. The company's touch capabilities drive innovation in systems design of point of sale (POS), digital signage, and video conferencing solutions. Mimo Monitors is headquartered in Princeton, NJ. For more info, please contact us at info@mimomonitors.com, or view our website at www.mimomonitors.com. Moki Justin Strong Email contact NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - January 28, 2016) -marcus evans will host the 3 rd Annual ORSA & ERM Conference on April 20-21, 2016 in New York, NY. Over the years, this conference and its attendees have strived to cultivate an effective level of ERM. The conference provides ORSA and ERM business practices with strategies and solutions to develop and implement new risk disclosures in the insurance regulatory environment, ability to meet policyholder obligations, charting a path to stronger ERM capabilities in the long term, and more! Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. Zurich - A cautious approach to evolving country risks will be necessary in 2016. In an environment of soft global growth, forecast by Coface to be 2.7% (after 2.5% in 2015), the risks that emerged in 2015 are expected to remain this year. At the forefront are the political tensions gaining ground in both advanced and emerging countries. The elections in the United States and, above all, the risk of a "Brexit" by the United Kingdom (two advanced countries that outperformed the eurozone in 2015), are likely to weigh on business confidence. In the emerging world, uncertainties remain high in the Middle East. The risk of terrorism could lead to stronger nationalist movements. According to Coface's political risk index , Turkey and Brazil particularly stand out, due to their growing political instability between 2007 and 2015, following the significant deterioration of their economic situations. Brazil, whose political crisis and recession are expected to continue in 2016, thus saw its country risk rating downgraded for the second time in less than a year, to C. Advanced countries: recovery under pressure Overall, advanced countries will see moderate growth in 2016, estimated at 2% by Coface. The main concerns include their dependency on commodity prices, the Chinese slowdown and financial market volatility. The trend of low barrel prices should continue in 2016, due to the continued surplus of oil supply - in part attributable to Iran's return to the market. Heavily affected by the drop in oil sector ... Den vollstandigen Artikel lesen ... JZ CAPITAL PARTNERS RECLASSIFIED INTO AIC FLEXIBLE INVESTMENT SECTOR 28 January 2016 JZ Capital Partners Ltd. (LSE: JZCP.L or "JZCP"), the London listed fund that invests in US and European microcap companies and US real estate, has been reclassified by the Association of Investment Companies ("AIC") into the recently established Flexible Investment Sector. The AIC launched the Flexible Investment sector in December 2015 to help Independent Financial Advisers ("IFAs") find and compare multi-asset trusts more easily. AIC defines the sector as "companies whose policy allows them to invest in a range of asset types." The name of the new sector mirrors the sector name used by the Investment Association. David Zalaznick, JZCP's Founder and Investment Adviser, commented: "Following shareholder approval of a more diverse investment policy last year, we are delighted that the AIC has recognised our broader investment mandate. We are a multi-asset investment company with our assets primarily being deployed in Private Equity (US and Europe), Real Estate (Brooklyn, New York and Miami, Florida) and Asset Management (Globally)." Ian Sayers, Chief Executive at the AIC, said: "The investment company sector has always housed a diverse range of sectors and investment strategies. One unifying theme in the Flexible Investment sector is the companies' investment policies, which allow them to invest in a range of asset classes. We hope investors and advisers will find the new sector classification useful and can easily compare the different strategies and styles in more detail." JZCP joins a list of eleven investment companies to be reclassified into the Flexible Investment sector. More information can be found here. Ends For further information: Ed Berry / Kit Dunford +44 (0) 20 3727 1143 FTI Consulting David Zalaznick +1 212 485 9410 Jordan/Zalaznick Advisers, Inc. Paul Le Ray +44 (0) 1481 745815 JZ Capital Partners, Ltd. About JZCP JZCP is a London listed fund which invests in high quality US and European microcap companies and US real estate. Its objective is to achieve a superior overall return comprised of a current yield and significant capital appreciation. JZCP receives investment advice from Jordan/Zalaznick Advisers, Inc. ("JZAI") which is led by David Zalaznick and Jay Jordan. They have worked together for 30 years and are supported by teams of investment professionals in New York, Chicago, London and Madrid. JZAI's experts work with the existing management of microcap companies to help build better businesses, create value and deliver strong returns for investors. JZCP also invests in mezzanine loans, first and second lien investments and other publicly traded securities. For more information please visit www.jzcp.com. A.M. Best has affirmed the financial strength rating of B++ (Good) and the issuer credit ratings of "bbb+" of Qatar Islamic Insurance Company Q.S.C. (QIIC) (Qatar). The outlook for both ratings remains stable. The ratings for QIIC reflect its adequate combined risk-adjusted capitalisation (considering both shareholders' and policyholders' funds), sustainable policyholders' fund, good track record of operating performance and niche market position as a takaful provider in the Qatari market. Offsetting rating factors include limited enterprise risk management and a high concentration of illiquid assets within its investment portfolio. QIIC's combined risk-adjusted capitalisation has weakened as a result of a shift in the company's asset allocation toward real estate assets; however, it remains at an adequate level. Capital requirements are largely driven by QIIC's concentrated investment profile, which is weighted toward domestic equity and real estate assets. The company has generated a self-sustaining policyholders' fund, with QAR 132 million (USD 30 million) in retained surplus at the end of the third quarter of 2015, adequately supporting the risks assumed by policyholders. Risk-adjusted capitalisation is expected to remain sufficiently strong to support QIIC's planned growth. QIIC adopts a combined takaful model, whereby the shareholders' fund charges a Wakala fee based on gross written premiums and a Muderaba fee based on investment income to the policyholders' fund. QIIC has consistently generated surpluses within the policyholders' fund and regularly distributed surplus back to policyholders. The company has developed a sound balance of earnings between the shareholders' and policyholders' funds, which reinforces the sustainability of the model. QIIC achieved overall profits and policyholder surplus of QAR 90.5 million (USD 24.8 million) in the first three quarters of 2015. QIIC has an impressive track record of underwriting profitability with a five-year weighted average combined ratio (replacing Wakala fees for actual expenses) of 80%, reflecting consistently strong profitability in medical and Family Takaful (life) lines of business. QIIC's performance is supported by strong investment returns from equity and real estate assets in Qatar, producing an average return on equity of 21% over the same period. As a provider of Shari'a compliant products, QIIC enjoys a niche position in the Qatari market. QIIC's distribution of surpluses back to policyholders, in line with its takaful operating model, provides a competitive advantage over other market players. QIIC's enterprise risk management is developing. The company has sound underwriting controls in place; however, investment decisions are made at board level. As such, the high concentrations in real estate and equities in the company's portfolio can create volatility in operating results and limit liquidity. This press release relates to rating(s) that have been published on A.M. Best's website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see A.M. Best's Recent Rating Activity web page. A.M. Best is the world's oldest and most authoritative insurance rating and information source. For more information, visit www.ambest.com. Copyright 2016 by A.M. Best Company, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160128006085/en/ Contacts: A.M. Best Michael Dunckley, +(44) 20 7397 0321 Financial Analyst michael.dunckley@ambest.com or Mahesh Mistry, +(44) 20 7397 0325 Director, Analytics mahesh.mistry@ambest.com or Christopher Sharkey, +(1) 908-439-2200, ext. 5159 Manager, Public Relations christopher.sharkey@ambest.com or Jim Peavy, +(1) 908-439-2200, ext. 5644 Assistant Vice President, Public Relations james.peavy@ambest.com Technavio's latest construction industry report covers the present scenario and growth prospects of the curtain wall market in China 2016-2020. In this report, Technavio's heavy industry research experts announce their key market highlights for the curtain wall market in China. Their findings include: Curtain wall market in China expected to reach close to USD 128 billion by 2020 The demand for curtain walls in China is attributed to the increase in large-scale urban development projects in the country. The Guangdong province invested close to USD 225 billion in infrastructural construction in 2015, providing a major boost to the market. In addition, China also plans to build 244 airports by the end of 2020, which is anticipated to generate a huge demand for curtain walls during the forecast period. Curtain walls reduce construction time as the duration of the fabrication processes is shorter. It reduces costs as the materials used in curtain walls are lightweight compared to other exterior wall construction materials such as bricks, stones, and concrete. Curtain walls also provide protection from harsh weather conditions, while it helps reduce the damage caused by natural calamities such as earthquakes. Increase in renovation of commercial properties, coupled with a rise in construction of new hotels expected during the forecast period Multiple renovation projects across China, such as the facade renovation project of the Hengshan Fang Historical Area Regeneration Program in Shanghai, is predicted to add to the demand for curtain walls in China over the next four years. Technavio research shows, the curtain wall segment for commercial buildings in China was worth USD 36 billion in revenues in 2015, and it is predicted to reach an impressive CAGR of over 20% in the next four years. Increased government spending on travel and tourism will boost construction activities in the country. A rise in tourism is likely to lead to a rise in construction of hotels and restaurants during this period, which bodes well for the market. Rise in public-private partnership (PPP) model in China is fueling the growth of the construction market in the country China is one of the leading manufacturers of curtain wall systems in the world. It is increasingly turning to PPP models to reduce the financial burden on the government. The increase in public and private investments in China, coupled with contribution from foreign investors is boosting the growth of the global construction market. This, in turn, is likely to add to the demand for large commercial and public construction projects in China. For instance, in May 2015, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) invested USD 322 billion in infrastructural construction projects across China. China also announced the participation of private investors in 1,043 proposed projects through PPP during the same period. Increase in demand for high-rise buildings is driving the demand for curtain walls, as they provide aesthetic appeal to tall structures Rapid urbanization and economic growth have led to the construction of skyscrapers in numerous cities across China. Construction of ultra-high-rise buildings (more than 300 meters in height) has also become common in the country. China is likely to dominate the global high-rise building market until 2020, accounting for approximately 72% of the total number of high-rise office buildings worldwide and with more than 50% of the buildings coming up in two-tier cities in the same period. Browse related reports: Global Window Dressing Market 2015-2019 Global Home Furnishing Market 2015-2019 -- Glass Market in Europe 2015-2019 Global Sapphire Glass Market 2015-2019 Global Flat Glass Market 2015-2019 Global Glass Packaging Market 2015-2019 Purchase three reports for the price of one by becoming a Technavio subscriber. Subscribing to Technavio's reports allows you to download any three reports per month for the price of one. Contact enquiry@technavio.com with your requirements and a link to our subscription platform. About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies. Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160128005059/en/ Contacts: Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media Marketing Executive US: +1 630 333 9501 UK: +44 208 123 1770 www.technavio.com media@technavio.com WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - While much of the recent focus of the presidential campaign has been on Donald Trump's decision to skip tonight's Fox News debate, the results of a trio of new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls show the real estate tycoon leading the Republican races in all three early-voting states. Just four days ahead of the Iowa caucuses, the results of a survey of likely Republican caucus-goers show Trump with a 32 percent to 25 percent lead over Senator Ted Cruz, R-Tex. The seven-point lead for Trump in the latest poll reflects a turnaround from a poll conducted earlier this month, which showed Cruz with a 28 percent to 24 percent advantage. Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., came in third in both polls, although support for the Florida Senator has climbed to 18 percent from 13 percent. A separate survey showed that Trump has expanded his substantial lead among likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters. The poll showed Trump in the lead in New Hampshire at 31 percent, followed by Cruz at 12 percent and Rubio and Ohio Gov. John Kasich tied at 11 percent. In a survey conducted earlier this month, Trump led Rubio 30 percent to 14 percent, with Cruz at 10 percent and Kasich and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush tied at 9 percent. The billionaire businessman also has a commanding lead in South Carolina, where NBC/WSJ/Marist conducted their first survey of likely primary voters. The poll showed Trump with the support of 36 percent of likely South Carolina primary voters, followed by Cruz at 20 percent and Rubio at 14 percent. 'Trump is positioned to run the house in these first three states,' said Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, Director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. 'His supporters are committed and plan to turn out.' 'Will it happen? The answer depends on when or if anti-Trump sentiment will coalesce to interrupt his march to the nomination,' he added. The NBC/WSJ/Marist survey of 450 likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers was conducted January 24th through January 26th and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.6 percentage points. The survey of 612 likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters was conducted January 17th through 23rd and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. The NBC/WSJ/Marist survey of 718 likely South Carolina Republican primary voters was also conducted January 17th through 23rd and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.6 percentage points. (Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore) Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de Technavio's latest home, kitchen, and large appliances industry report covers the present scenario and growth prospects of the global beverage refrigerator and cooler market 2016-2020 In this report, Technavio's new research areas experts announce their key market highlights for the global beverage refrigerator and cooler market. Their findings include: Global beverage refrigerator and cooler market expected to post a CAGR of over 5% by 2020 The global beverage coolers market was valued at USD 20.3 billion in 2015 and is expected to exceed USD 26 billion by 2020, growing at a CAGR of 5.1%. The beverage cooler market will grow at a consistent pace in the forecast period with major demand arising from Western and Southern European countries and the US, where consumption of a variety of beverages is relatively high. "There has been major growth recently in the market for alcoholic as well as non-alcoholic beverages and the trend is expected to continue throughout the forecast period. In major economies like Western Europe and North America, low calorie spirits, cocktails, and craft beers are major propellants in the beverage market," said Technavio lead kitchen appliances analyst Jhansi Mary. "In China, premium priced imported beverages will see major demand from aspirational consumers. As beverage brands invest more on social media marketing and create emotional engagement through advertisements, the market will attract more consumers especially from the millennial generation," Jhansi added. Europe and North America account for nearly 90% of the market share The global beverage coolers market is highly concentrated in Europe and North America. In 2015, Europe accounted for 49.33%, while North America accounted for 40.35% of the market. Major growth in the beverage coolers market in Europe is expected to come from Western European countries like the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, and especially Germany which recorded a healthy growth in 2013. This growth stemmed from a major shift toward energy-efficient products. The beverage coolers market in Europe will see an increase in demand from Russia as well. Electric goods retailers and kitchen specialty stores have emerged as the primary distribution channels forming 49% and 16% of the volume sales of beverage coolers, respectively. "Even emerging nations in Eastern Europe will see an increase in demand for built-in beverage coolers with the increased investments in kitchen renovations and luxury homes," said Jhansi. "Another major trend which is expected to propel the market in the forecast period is the emerging trend towards off-trade consumption of beverages. Instead of going to restaurants, bars and pubs, consumers are increasingly purchasing beverages from hypermarkets and supermarkets to consume at home which in turn will increase the installation of beverage coolers and wine chillers." The market growth in North America is attributed to the investments made by the consumers on home improvement, kitchen remodeling, and renovations to improve the aesthetic appeal of their residences. These investments also assure better resale value in the future and propel the growth of market for built-in appliances like built-in beverage coolers. During the recessionary period in 2008, to mitigate expenses owing to stressful financial conditions, most consumers refrained from visiting restaurants and settled for recreational activities at home. Post-recession, despite the economic recovery and improved financial conditions, this trend has prevailed, resulting in a developed platform to launch innovative products such as built-in beverage coolers. Features which were primarily part of commercial and professional quality appliances are now being incorporated in appliances meant for residential customers. Average annual expenditure per consumer on home appliances saw a downward trend after the 2008 financial crisis in the US. However, the market has recovered and consumers have increased their expenditure on home appliances. 32.45% of the expenditure on home appliances in 2015 was on refrigerators and freezers. The trend is likely to continue in the forecast period and will propel the growth of the market in North America. Modular kitchens gaining popularity Modular kitchens are gaining traction not only in developed countries but also in emerging nations like India. With increase in per capita income and standards of living, consumers are opting for more well-equipped and modernized kitchens. The market for modular kitchens is being propelled by the need for affluent households to incorporate more style, appeal and functionality based designs in the kitchen. This trend has created the market opportunity for appliances like built-in beverage coolers. Companies are engaging in joint ventures with international players to foray into the market in emerging economies. The multinational corporations like Hafelle which enter emerging nations benefit from the established distribution networks of local firms, while local firms benefit from the quality and technological efficiency of international players. Browse Related Reports: Global Water Softener Market 2016-2020 Global Dishwasher Market 2016-2020 Global Hand Blender Market 2016-2020 Purchase these three reports for the price of one by becoming a Technavio subscriber. Subscribing to Technavio's reports allows you to download any three reports per month for the price of one. Contact enquiry@technavio.com with your requirements and a link to our subscription platform. About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies. Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160128005061/en/ Contacts: Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media Marketing Executive US: +1 630 333 9501 UK: +44 208 123 1770 www.technavio.com DEDHAM, MA -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- Rage Frameworks, a provider of knowledge-based automation technology and services, today announced major additions to its pioneering RAGE AI platform, adding two new powerful frameworks to its suite. RAGE AI significantly extends the frontier of deep learning and machine intelligence technology from "natural language processing" to "natural language understanding." RAGE AI incorporates deep linguistic parsing and proprietary innovations to understand meaning in context, which makes its solutions completely transparent, auditable and flexible. The platform facilitates unsupervised to supervised learning and contains several innovations to support automated knowledge acquisition including pragmatic knowledge. RAGE AI is not a black box and does not rely on statistical patterns present in training data. Introduced in 2011, RAGE AI is an integral part of the broader RAGE Enterprise platform, a provider of all process orchestration and automation capabilities. RAGE Enterprise is required for RAGE AI solutions to be implemented effectively in an enterprise, such as the aggregation, integration, cleansing, normalization and reconciliation of data, and the workflow required to orchestrate the work, enable consequent actions, manage SLAs, escalations and exception handling. The following new frameworks have been added to the RAGE AI suite: Customer Service Intelligence and Support: analyze customer service interactions and records to assess true drivers of customer calls and dissatisfaction, automatically intervenes in customer exchanges if required, providing the call center agent with real time analysis in support of a better outcome for the customer interaction currently in progress. Sales Lead Generation: monitor customer and market moves to identify opportunities and provide business specific sales triggers to the sales team in the field. In addition to these frameworks, the RAGE AI inventory includes the following frameworks: 1. Real Time Intelligence [RTI] for Capital Markets: discover 'alpha', serve as a second pair of eyes to identify information asymmetry. 2. Customer and Market Intelligence: continuously surface industry trends, competitor positioning, compare companies within a given industry, etc. 3. Real Time Intelligence [RTI] for Credit and Supplier Risk: continuous monitoring of credit/supplier risk across hundreds of risk dimensions. 4. RAGE LiveSpread: aggregation, extraction and normalization of data from unstructured financial statements, bank statements and income tax returns presented in any form and format. 5. RAGE LiveWealth Aggregation Module: aggregation, extraction and normalization of assets held with domestics and international custodians. 6. RAGE KYC Framework: for commercial and retail customers as well as third parties. The framework includes core capabilities such as adverse media analysis, extraction/interpretation of documents submitted by clients, financial analysis where required, PEP analysis, and more. Clients can pick and choose from relevant components, sources, process flows and define KYC acceptance criteria. 7. Contract/Document Review: review and understand large volumes of documents or contracts rapidly with respect to a purpose, such as M&A, private offering, reconciliation, etc. 8. Knowledge Management: fully leverage intra-company content/knowledge across all source types to provide contextual intelligence to account teams and all other employees. RAGE AI is currently used by some of the largest banks, manufacturers, consultants, high tech firms, logistics companies and biotech firms. It is offered on a subscription basis for both pre-configured solutions and custom solutions. Visit us at www.rageframeworks.com to learn more about the Rage platform and our entire suite of intelligent automation solutions and follow us on Twitter via @RAGE_Frameworks. About RAGE Frameworks: It's Possible RAGE Frameworks Inc. is a leader in Cognitive Intelligence and Business Process Automation technology providing enterprise solutions in wealth management and business banking, breakthrough information products and custom solutions to power business transformation. Headquartered in Dedham, Massachusetts with global operations centers in Pune and Belgaum, India, RAGE offers unprecedented speed, flexibility and insight in solving today's most complex, critical business problems. For additional information on Rage Frameworks, contact: Jeff Lavery or Kay Kelly SVM Public Relations 401-490-9700 Email Contact Email Contact The Diabetic Boot Company t/a PulseFlow Technologies (DBC) earned a place as one of the UK's highest crowd funded companies of 2015 after raising approx. 1.75m via Syndicate Room led by major life science investor Jim Mellon. The boot strap startup goes from strength to strength since receiving Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to market PulseFlowDF (a therapeutic medical device designed to improve diabetic foot ulcer healing) in the United States. However, the vast commercial opportunity in the US requires an injection of working capital to enhance the company's newly established US operations and ensure the anticipated high levels of demand can be met for this exciting limb salvage technology. Diabetic foot ulcers are multi-faceted wounds requiring a diverse approach to treatment. PulseFlowDF combines the proven benefits of pressure redistribution in well-designed footwear, with intermittent plantar compression ensuring oxygen-rich blood flows around the wound. Listed on the UK National Health Service (NHS) Supply Chain catalogue and available to any NHS patient, PulseFlowDF has a patient compliance monitor built in to correlate healing to wear times. Studies carried out on patients by Richard Leigh, Consultant Podiatrist at University College London Hospital NHS Foundation Trust have yielded positive results. Potential investors seeking long term ROI are reassured by DBC's board members impressive clinical-to-business background. CEO Les Lindsay, who sold his house to fund initial product development says, "PulseFlowDF is already helping to save lower limbs from amputation in patient trials which is incredible considering that globally, someone suffers a diabetes related amputation every 20 seconds usually due to a diabetic wound that will not heal." The World Health Organization (WHO) projects that diabetes will be the 7th leading cause of death by 2030. Complications developed through the disease such as lower limb neuropathy can lead to an untreatable foot ulcer and amputation accounting for a vast part of healthcare costs for surgery and aftercare. World leading podiatric surgeon and champion of PulseFlowDF, David Armstrong, Director of Southern Arizona Limb Salvage Alliance (SALSA) and Professor of Surgery at The University of Arizona writes on his blog Diabetic Foot Online that 5% of people with a new diabetic foot ulcer die in the 1st year (42% in 5 years). The world is facing an epidemic of lower limb circulation problems for which there are significant unmet clinical answers. PulseFlowDF offers good value to healthcare managers by delivering non-invasive therapy and increased patient motivation through wearable (non-stigmatised) treatment. Interested financiers, contact www.pulse-flow.net Ed note: The Telegraph Financial Times View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160128005081/en/ Contacts: PulseFlow Technologies Les Lindsay (CEO) les.lindsay@pulse-flow.net +44(0)1296-678-596 OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- The Honourable Hunter Tootoo, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard and Nunavut Premier, the Honourable Peter Taptuna today announced a new agreement to support Canada's Indigenous seal industry. The contribution agreement worth $150,000 is the first to be signed under the federal Certification and Market Access Program for Seals (CMAPS). CMAPS is a $5.7 million, five-year program established in 2015. It will fund the development of certification and tracking systems so that seal products harvested by Indigenous communities can be certified to be sold in the European Union (EU). CMAPS will support capacity-building so Indigenous communities can take advantage of renewed market access, and it will also support the broader seal industry. The Government of Nunavut will use the new funds to lead a number of projects in collaboration with the Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association and others. These projects aim to increase the amount and market value of sealskin products, reinvigorate the industry overall, and bring awareness and opportunity to Inuit about accessing the EU and other markets. Minister Tootoo pointed to the agreement as further evidence of the federal government's commitment to strengthening relations with Indigenous communities and supporting northern economic development. Quick Facts -- Canada's Certification and Market Access Program for Seals (CMAPS) is a $5.7 million, five-year program to support Indigenous communities in leveraging the EU's Indigenous communities' exemption for seal products, to promote market access for all Canadian seal products, and to identify potential partners and collaborators. -- The EU requires that only seal products harvested by Indigenous people and certified by a recognized body are allowed to be sold in the EU. -- Currently, the Nunavut Department of Environment is the only Canadian recognized body designated to certify that seals harvested in Nunavut meet the requirement of the EU Regulation. -- CMAPS is managed collaboratively by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (CanNor) and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. Quotes "The seal harvest is a traditional way of life for Canada's Indigenous people, and it provides a key source of food, clothes and income for many Inuit families. This financial agreement will help Inuit families to create value-added seal products and it is a key way in which this Government is demonstrating its commitment to supporting northern economic development." approx. The Honourable Hunter Tootoo, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard "The EU ban on the import of seal products continues to affect Nunavut sealskin prices. The establishment of CMAPS supports our continued efforts to promote sealing as a sustainable industry, and actively market this important product through the Inuit exemption. It is also an opportunity to strengthen international knowledge and break down barriers to understanding why the sealing economy is so important to our people." approx. The Honourable Peter Taptuna, Premier of Nunavut "The Department of Environment, with the support of the Government of Canada, has continued to invest in supports to market Nunavut seal products, and we have successfully developed a very strong local market for manufactured products. This contribution by the federal government will further strengthen those markets, as well as provide manufacturers with improved access to the European market." approx. The Honourable Johnny Mike, Nunavut Minister of Environment Associated Links The market for Canadian seal products The Government of Nunavut is Formally Recognized Under the EU Seal Regime European Commission: Trade in Seal Products and Scope of the EU ban Internet: http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca For more information about the Canadian Coast Guard, visit www.ccg-gcc.gc.ca. Follow us on Twitter! www.Twitter.com/DFO_MPO Contacts: Media Relations Fisheries and Oceans Canada 613-990-7537 Media.xncr@dfo-mpo.gc.ca Yasmina Pepa Chief, Public Affairs Office of Premier Taptuna 867-975-5059 ypepa@gov.nu.ca MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- Canadian Metals Inc. ( The "Corporation") (CSE: CME) is proud to announce the arrival of Mr. Roland Courtemanche, Eng amongst its team as the Special Advisor of Canadian Metals. M. Courtemanche will work closely with all the Corporation's directors for the development of the Corporation. Mr. Roland Courtemanche, a professional engineer with a mechanical degree having more than 42 years of experience, the last 18 years with Consultants MESAR inc., is actually in charge of the industrial group serving many large clients namely:RIMA, ArcelorMittal, RioTinto, Hydro Quebec, Saint-Gobain, Air Liquide, ESSO, Kruger, Lafarge, Bombardier, Norsk Hydro, Alcoa, etc. He spent his career working with people from different cultures in different countries: Norway, France, Belgium, USA, South Africa, Venezuela, Brazil sharing instructions for the design and construction of new plant sites (specifically in South Africa, Venezuela, Norway, Brazil and USA) in accordance with local codes.His field of specialized expertise for the design and operation of silicon carbide factories . During his career, he served as a project engineer, maintenance supervisor, construction manager, plant manager, vice president engineering services. The industries with which he was personnally involved are primarily associated with silicon carbide production, iron and titanium, mine and foundry, aluminum, silicon metal, polyethylene, and petroleum (pet coke production). We are very pleased to welcome Roland Courtemanche to our ranks, his experience and expertise in operating, designing and constructing new plant sites will significantly enhance our team and be a major benefit to the Company in all future development steps that will be implemented following the publication of a Pre-economic assessment ( PEA ) which should be made public within the coming weeks" stated Stephane Leblanc, CEO of the Company. About Canadian Metals Canadian Metals Inc. is focused exclusively on the development of its Langis Project, a high-purity silica deposit located in the province of Quebec. The Company is rapidly positioning itself to eventually become a North American ferrosilicon and silicon metal producer. For almost a decade, quartz from the Langis quarry has been exported to Europe for ferrosilicon production. Canadian Metals has rapidly built an international management team with local talent with a view to implementing a ferrosilicon plant in Quebec for converting the Langis silica into high grade ferrosilicon. With the goal to create approximately one hundred highly qualified direct jobs and some three hundred indirect jobs, Canadian Metals strongly believes that the Province of Quebec benefits from all of the required infrastructures, including transportation, port facilities, clean and renewable energy source and skilled labor in order to successfully implement this metals and minerals project. Neither the CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Contacts: Stephane Leblanc President and CEO (418) 717-2553 sleblanc@canadianmetalsinc.com www.canadianmetalsinc.com The global metal matrix composites (MMCs) marketis set to grow at a CAGR of over 6%, according to Technavio's latest report. In this report Technavio covers the market outlook and growth prospects of theglobal metal matrix composites marketfor 2016-2020. Based on application platform, the market is categorized into the following segments: ground transportation, electronics and thermal management, aerospace, and others. Technavio's research study segments the global metal matrix composites market into the following regions: North America APAC ROW North America: Largest market for metal matrix composites As of 2015, North America was the largest market for the global metal matrix composites market, growing at a CAGR of more than 6%. In terms of volume, the MMC market in North America was close to 3 kilotons in 2015. The US is the global leader in the production of large civil aircraft (LCA). Technavio's report has estimated that the number of large commercial airplanes will increase at the rate of 3.5% per year during the next 20 years. Since MMCs are mainly in aircraft manufacturing, this will boost the growth of the market during the forecast period. Technavio's lead metals and minerals analyst Chandrakumar B J says, "Metal matrix composites are also used in transmission lines and more than half of the transformers and transmission lines in North America will exceed their useful lives by 2016. The US is planning to invest approximately USD 50 billion by 2016 for upgrading, replacing, and expanding of these transmission lines." Ask for a sample of this report: http://goo.gl/p9KYjS Some of the top vendors in the global metal matrix composites market highlighted in the report are: 3M CPS Technologies GKN Sinter Metals Materion Santier Sumitomo Electric USA 3M, CPS Technologies, GKN Sinter Metals, Materion, and Sumitomo Electric USA are headquartered in the US, whereas Santier is headquartered in Austria. MMC market in APAC set to grow at a CAGR of over 6% by 2020 The report highlights APAC as the second largest market for MMC and is expected to grow at a fast pace over the next five years due to the growing demand from the automotive and electronics industries. There is a rise in the production of vehicles and automotive components made from MMCs in countries such as China and India due to the availability of low-cost labor. "The rapidly expanding industrial sector in APAC and a subsequent rise in the demand for industrial equipment will lead to the growth of the market during the forecast period. Increasing manufacturing activities coupled with steady economic growth will also contribute to market growth," says Chandrakumar. Initiatives taken by the Indian government such as Make in India, a plan to encourage companies to manufacture products in India, will result in more industrialization in India. This, in turn, will generate a demand for electricity, thus leading to increased demand for composite transmission lines made of MMCs. ROW The MMC market in ROW, which include the markets in Latin America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, is expected to exceed 3 kilotons by 2020. The growing demand for MMCs from countries such as Germany, the UK, and France for use in industries such as automotive and electronics will drive the market growth. However, Technavio predicts that the demand for MMCs from countries in Central and Eastern Europe will gradually outpace demand from Western European countries in the near future. The report also states that countries in Latin America, like Brazil and Paraguay, are shifting toward an industrialized economy and are thus investing heavily in transmission and distribution lines. These investments will lead to the demand for MMCs as they are used in manufacturing transmission and distribution cables. Browse Related Reports: Global Medical Composite Material Market for Orthopedics 2015-2019 Global Polymer Nanocomposites Market 2015-2019 Global Ceramic Matrix Composites Market 2016-2020 Purchase these three reports for the price of one by becoming a Technavio subscriber. Subscribing to Technavio's reports allows you to download any three reports per month for the price of one. Contact enquiry@technavio.com with your requirements and a link to our subscription platform. About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies. Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160128005067/en/ Contacts: Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media Marketing Executive US: +1 630 333 9501 UK: +44 208 123 1770 www.technavio.com WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A group of Super PACs supporting Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., has offered to donate $1.5 million to veterans charities if real estate tycoon Donald Trump accepts the Senator's invitation to a one-on-one debate. The offer from the groups known as Keep the Promise comes as Trump has decided to skip Thursday night's Fox News debate amid an ongoing feud with moderator Megyn Kelly. Cruz subsequently challenged Trump to a one-on-one debate before the Iowa caucuses on Monday and called on his supporters to tell the businessman to accept his invitation. The Super PACs offered to make the donation, as Trump is holding a rally his campaign says will benefit veterans instead of attending the Fox News debate. 'Not only would this be a heck of a debate, but it would also be a terrific opportunity to generate millions of dollars for the veterans,' the donors backing the Super PACs said in a joint statement. The Cruz supporters said the debate should be an hour long and take place before the Iowa caucuses, with the candidates allowed to pick the moderators themselves. Cruz released a statement on Wednesday inviting Trump to a one-on-one debate in Sioux City, Iowa, on Saturday at 8 pm. The Senator suggested the moderators either be radio hosts Mark Levin, Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh, or that the format simply be questions from the audience. 'We owe it to the men and women of Iowa to ensure that they hear jointly and directly from the two leading Republican candidates so that they may contrast our positions on the critical issues we face as a nation as they make their final choice leading up to Monday's caucuses,' Cruz said. Just four days ahead of the Iowa caucuses, the results of a NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll showed Trump with a 32 percent to 25 percent lead over Cruz among likely Republican caucus-goers. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- Western Economic Diversification Canada Western Canada's first open-access apparel research and development facility officially opened in Calgary today. This new state-of-the-art facility will provide businesses with services to test, design and manufacture innovative apparel products for the consumer apparel and industrial protective clothing markets. Western Economic Diversification Canada, through the Western Diversification Program, invested close to $3 million to enable Olds College, in partnership with AGM Wear Ltd. (Alberta Garment), to establish the Apparel Innovation Centre. Through this support, the Centre was able to purchase product testing and prototype development equipment, as well as garment design hardware and software. The Apparel Innovation Centre, which houses North America's most advanced apparel research and development equipment and technologies, will provide opportunities for Canadian manufacturers and businesses to seize new opportunities and compete globally. Quick Facts -- The Apparel Innovation Centre houses world-class hot liquid and steam protection testing chambers, which will enable businesses to test personal protective equipment (PPE) for burn resistance. -- The Centre is also home to a thermal comfort testing chamber, equipped with a Newton Thermal Manikin. The chamber is capable of simulating a variety of physiological conditions that replicates the human thermoregulatory system. The comfort and thermal sensation data produced will allow researchers to further study and evaluate the performance of the apparel. -- This Centre complements Old's College's Fashion Marketing and Apparel Technology programs and is connected to the Alberta Garment Manufacturing facility in northeast Calgary. Quotes "The Apparel Innovation Centre's grand opening will help increase innovation, productivity and competitiveness in Canada's apparel industry. The Government of Canada is proud to support the Centre, as it works with western Canadian apparel companies and entrepreneurs to develop and test new products for the market." - The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and Minister responsible for Western Economic Diversification Canada "Today's grand opening ensures businesses and students have access to the latest tools, resources, and technologies needed to thrive in today's specialized apparel market. This is an important contribution to the diversification and long-term growth of the Canadian economy." - Kent Hehr, Minister of Veterans' Affairs and Member of Parliament for Calgary Centre The Apparel Innovation Centre is a crown-jewel that reflects the Olds College dedication to Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and celebrates our relationship with government, industry and stakeholders. We welcome the opportunity to help strengthen the apparel industry, one which will continue to employ Olds College students in the future. - Dr. H. J. (Tom) Thompson, President, Olds College "We applaud the Government of Canada's vision and commitment to help create the world-class Apparel Innovation Centre. It will become a magnet for innovative thinkers in the apparel industry as it fulfills its mission of helping entrepreneurs create innovative apparel and enhancing the growth of the economy of Western Canada. - Adrian Bussoli, President, Alberta Garment Related Products - Government of Canada partners with Olds College to establish the Apparel Innovation Centre in Calgary Additional Links - Apparel Innovation Centre - Olds College Fashion Institute - AGM Wear Ltd. - Industry Canada Apparel Industry Profile Subscribe to news releases and keep up-to-date on the latest from WD. Follow us on Twitter at @WD_Canada. IF THERE IS A DISCREPANCY BETWEEN ANY PRINTED VERSION AND THE ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THIS NEWS RELEASE, THE ELECTRONIC VERSION WILL PREVAIL. Contacts: Donna Kinley Communications Manager Western Economic Diversification Canada 780-495-6892 donna.kinley@canada.ca Dean Turnquist Manager, Corporate Communications Olds College 403-556-4631 dturnquist@oldscollege.ca Michael Bussoli Alberta Garment 403-671-2890 mbussoli@apparelinnovation.org WD Toll-Free Number: 1-888-338-WEST (9378) Teletypewriter (TTY): 1-877-303-3388 Website: WD is online at www.wd-deo.gc.ca VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- Revelo Resources Corp. ("Revelo" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: RVL) informs that Kinross Minera Chile Limitada ("Kinross" - a subsidiary of Kinross Gold Corporation) has elected to withdraw from the Option and Joint Venture Agreement ("the Agreement") signed in April 2014 relating to Revelo's Las Pampas Project in northern Chile. With its withdrawal from the Agreement, and without having fulfilled the minimum requirements to earn an initial interest, Kinross is returning 100% of the Las Pampas Project properties to Revelo, together with all exploration data collected by Kinross to date. Revelo will review all Kinross data and provide further updates on the project in due course. Tim Beale, President & CEO of Revelo stated that, "Although unfortunate that Kinross has decided to abandon the Las Pampas Option and JV Agreement, we continue to believe that Las Pampas comprises a series of highly attractive targets, principally for precious metals, and we will strive to find a new partner to continue the exploration and discovery journey there." ABOUT LAS PAMPAS The Las Pampas Property is an approximately 50,000 hectare land package located in an exceptional position along the highly prospective Palaeocene mineral belt in northern Chile. The property is centred along strike and approximately 35Km southwest of the multi-million ounce gold and silver mining district at El Penon and related deposits. Key targets include: -- High-grade, low-sulphidation "bonanza"-style gold-silver veins along the Cerritos Trend as evidenced by widespread quartz-vein float, significant pathfinder geochemical anomalies, geophysical anomalies typical of epithermal vein systems, and drill results with anomalous intercepts of gold and silver. The anomalous belt is more than 8Km x 1km in size, and is largely obscured by post-mineral gravels and mud flows, generally less than 100m thick (and often only a few metres thick). -- High-grade, low-sulphidation "bonanza"-style gold-silver veins beneath the eroded remnants of a large silica sinter field at Cerros Bayos that extends over at least 3Km, and which displays low level anomalies in gold, silver and arsenic in rock chip samples, together with linear geophysical features that may represent mineralised feeder systems at depth. The sinter, unusually, has been shown to carry trace amounts of silver minerals including native silver together with the silver sulphide and sulphosalt minerals of argentite, pyrargyrite and proustite. -- Disseminated precious metals mineralisation of high-sulphidation type focused principally on a large area of advanced argillic alteration at Cerro Buenos Aires, together with subsidiary outcrops at Cerro Intermedio and Cerro Turmalina, covering a total strike length of approximately 10Km. Detailed hydrothermal alteration mapping, surface geochemistry and CSAMT and HoistEM geophysical data show large volumes of highly anomalous rock with potential for precious metals mineralisation. Very limited drilling to date has cut anomalous gold and silver values. -- An extensive area of advanced argillic alteration with "wormy" quartz veining at Cerro Blanco may represent a "lithocap" above a potential porphyry copper target. Several other target areas, principally prospective for high-grade precious metals veins, also occur on the property. A NI43-101 compliant geological report for Las Pampas, dated December 2014, is available on Revelo's website. Revelo controls a highly prospective land position along the Paleocene Mineral Belt, with the wholly-owned Magallanes, Las Pampas, Loro, Limbo, Reprado and San Guillermo precious metals properties - totaling around 80,000 Ha. All six properties contain abundant evidence for vein-hosted styles of precious metals mineralization, and all six are located close to and along trend from either producing mines or significant in-ground mineral resources. ABOUT REVELO Revelo is building a sustainable exploration business focused on securing prospective land along the prolific mineral belts of northern Chile, and by implementing effective exploration and capital management strategies to grow, advance and de-risk its portfolio to provide shareholders with multiple opportunities for exploration success. Revelo controls more than 350,000 hectares of 100% owned exploration tenement along proven mineral belts in northern Chile. The portfolio is comprised of 21 high-quality exploration projects prospective for copper, gold and silver including the Montezuma project already under JV agreement with a subsidiary of Newmont Mining. In addition, Revelo retains a 2% royalty interest in the Victoria Project, an important copper-gold-silver exploration project in northern Chile. Revelo is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX VENTURE: RVL). For more information please visit Revelo's website at www.reveloresources.com. Dr. Demetrius Pohl, PhD., Certified Professional Geoscientist (CPG), an independent consultant, is the Company's Qualified Person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosures for Mineral Projects of the Canadian Securities Administrators, and has approved the written disclosure of the technical information contained in this news release. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD Timothy J. Beale, President & CEO Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENT This news release contains certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical fact, that address events or developments that Revelo expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential", "indicate" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although Revelo believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Contacts: INVESTOR CONTACT Chiara Orrigoni Investor Relations Manager T: +1 604 687-5544 info@reveloresources.com www.reveloresources.com WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Accuray Incorporated (ARAY) reaffirmed its previously provided financial guidance for fiscal 2016. Total revenue is expected to be between $395 million to $410 million and adjusted EBITDA is expected to range between $25 million to $35 million. Accuray continues to expect that gross orders for the fiscal year will be approximately $295 million, which would represent a 10 percent increase year over year. Net loss improved to $6.0 million, or $0.08 per share, for the second quarter of fiscal 2016, compared to a net loss of $10.0 million, or $0.13 per share, for the second quarter of fiscal 2015. Adjusted EBITDA was $6.8 million, compared to $3.7 million in the second quarter of the prior fiscal year. Total revenue was $108.9 million, an increase of 11 percent from the prior fiscal year second quarter and an increase of 15 percent on a constant currency basis. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. COLUMBUS, OH -- (Marketwired) -- 01/28/16 -- Worthington Industries, Inc. (NYSE: WOR) today announced that Mark Russell, president and COO, became interim president of the Pressure Cylinders business following the resignation of Andy Billman. Russell served as president of the Steel Processing business beginning in 2007 before becoming Worthington's president and COO in August of 2012. Billman was with Worthington for nearly 20 years, named president of Pressure Cylinders in August 2011 and has left the Company to pursue other interests. About Worthington Industries Worthington Industries is a leading global diversified metals manufacturing company with 2015 fiscal year sales of $3.4 billion. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Worthington is North America's premier value-added steel processor providing customers with wide ranging capabilities, products and services for a variety of markets including automotive, construction and agriculture; a global leader in manufacturing pressure cylinders for industrial gas and cryogenic applications, CNG and LNG storage, transportation and alternative fuel tanks, oil and gas equipment, and brand consumer products for camping, grilling, hand torch solutions and helium balloon kits; and a manufacturer of operator cabs for heavy mobile industrial equipment; laser welded blanks for light weighting applications; automotive racking solutions; and through joint ventures, complete ceiling grid solutions; automotive tooling and stampings; and steel framing for commercial construction. Worthington employs approximately 10,000 people and operates 80 facilities in 11 countries. Founded in 1955, the Company operates under a long-standing corporate philosophy rooted in the golden rule. Earning money for its shareholders is the first corporate goal. This philosophy serves as the basis for an unwavering commitment to the customer, supplier, and shareholder, and as the Company's foundation for one of the strongest employee-employer partnerships in American industry. Safe Harbor Statement The company wishes to take advantage of the Safe Harbor provisions included in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 ("the Act"). Statements by the company which are not historical information constitute "forward looking statements" within the meaning of the Act. All forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ from those projected. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include risks described from time to time in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. CONTACTS: Cathy M. Lyttle VP, Corporate Communications and Investor Relations Phone: (614) 438-3077 E-mail: Email Contact Sonya L. Higginbotham Director, Corporate Communications Phone: (614) 438-7391 E-mail: Email Contact 200 Old Wilson Bridge Rd. Columbus, Ohio 43085 WorthingtonIndustries.com KANATA, ON--(Marketwired - January 28, 2016) - A Canadian startup company is making novel use of an abundant natural resource to meet the needs of individuals looking for a sustainable way to express their feelings with edgy humour. Straddling the resource and knowledge economies, the newly launched Incredi-Bull Products Company uses additive manufacturing to transform a globally available raw material into a value-added artisanal product line. "What began as a joke has become a personal expression company filling the need for comic relief from life's aggravations," says Patrick ("Paddy") Field, Chief Bucoprodynamicist of Incredi-Bull. "We are proud to have created a product line that addresses an important market niche." The company has targeted Valentine's Day for its product launch, developing a limited-edition anti-Valentine gift package, perfect , Mr. Field says, "for that not-so-special someone." Offering an original poem, greeting card and artisanal gift, this clever and mocking missive comes with a virtuous twist: it enables you to express yourself while contributing to the development of new markets for an under-valued and sustainable natural resource. "This is the world's only Valentine that addresses the global scourge of an accumulating raw material," says Patrick (Paddy) Field, Chief Bucoprodynamicist of Incredi-Bull. "We are redirecting this abundant raw material to a higher purpose. Sourced from the daily byproduct of only the finest stud bulls, this is an appropriately packaged personal expression gift. We are very proud of our value-added ratio that is comparable to that of the semiconductor industry." "Whatever your beef -- whether it's a deceitful partner or a scamming corporation -- our Anti-Valentine sends a moving message that won't be forgotten." www.incredi-bull.net/donotbemine For on-time delivery by Valentine's Day, orders must be placed by Feb. 5. Twitter hashtag: incredi-bull About Incredi-Bull Inc.: Straddling the Canadian resource and knowledge economies, Incredi-Bull is a personal expression company providing high-quality offerings in sterile, odorless, mailable form. www.incredi-bull.net Contact: Patrick (Paddy) Field Chief Bucoprodynamicist Incredi-Bull Inc. P: +1-613-791-4465 E: fedup@incredi-bull.net Clementine Belanger Communications Manager E: clementineb1953@gmail.com Finova Financial, a West Palm Beach, Florida- and San Francisco, CA-based socially responsible online lender, raised a seed funding round of undisclosed amount. Backers included Silicon Valley-based investment fund 500 Startups and other angels and entrepreneurs. Finova leverages technology, analytics and a fee structure to provide consumers with a socially responsible online lending platform. The companys vehicle equity line of credit provides consumers with quick financing decisions, access to capital, and a runway back to financial health. The solution, which is accessible from any computer or smartphone, is based on the Finova Score, a proprietary constantly learning credit scoring system designed to assess consumers with bad or no credit allowing the company to make a quick funding decision and provide the consumer with access to funds in as little as 15 minutes. The company, which is led by Mr. Gregory Keough and Mr. Derek Acree Esq., respectively CEO and Chief Operating and Legal Officer of National Financial Holdings, CEO the parent company of Finova Financial, says that its loans cost 50% lower than the national average. FinSMEs 28/01/2016 Lever, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of recruitment software, raised $20m Series B funding round. The round was led by Scale Venture Partners with participation from existing investors Matrix Partners and Index Ventures, Correlation Ventures and a syndicate led by Naval Ravikant, chief executive officer and co-founder of AngelList. In conjunction with the funding, Stacey Bishop, partner at Scale Venture Partners, will join Levers board of directors. The company, which has raised $32.8m to date, will use the funds to accelerate product development, sales and marketing efforts. Founded in 2012 by Sarah Nahm, Nate Smith and Randal Truong, Lever provides an applicant tracking system (ATS) that allows companies of all sizes to source, interview, and hire talent. The companys software is used by more than 700 companies including Netflix, Lyft, Eventbrite and Shopify. FinSMEs 27/01/2016 NewVoiceMedia, a near London, UK-based global provider of cloud customer contact platform, secured $30m in a new venture capital funding round. Backers included new investor BGF Ventures (part of the Business Growth Fund) and existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), Eden Ventures, Highland Capital Partners Europe, Salesforce Ventures and Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV). The company intends to use the funds to accelerate its international growth plans, with a particular focus on the North American market, further expanding its US-based sales, marketing and professional services delivery teams and improving its product and platform capabilities. Led by Jonathan Gale, CEO, NewVoiceMedia provides a cloud customer contact platform that integrates with Salesforce to connect organizations with their customers worldwide, enabling their sales and marketing team to deliver a more personalized customer experience. The company, ehich now serves more than 500 customers, spanning 128 countries and six continents, including PhotoBox, MobileIron, TNT, Lumesse, Qlik, JustGiving, Canadian Cancer Society and Wowcher, has offices in Basingstoke, UK, San Francisco, USA, San Francisco, CA, New York, USA, Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, Brussels, Belgium, Copenhagen, Denmark, and Wroclaw, Poland. FinSMEs 28/01/2016 Peakon, a Copenhagen, Denmark- and London, UK-based real-time people analytics platform, raised 4m in Series A funding. Backers included Idinvest Partners and Sunstone Capital. In conjunction with the funding, Guillaume Durao of Idinvest Partners, will join Peakons board. The company intends to use the funds to expand its international user base initially in Europe and the United States, as well as scaling product development in Copenhagen, and increasing sales and operations in London. Founded in December 2014 by Kasper Hulthin, Christian Holm, Phil Chambers, and Dan Rogers, Peakon provides a solution to understanding, engaging, and retaining talent within a company through automated surveys and specifically tailored insights and analysis of drivers and motivation within teams. The platform also allows managers to compare the data collected from their own company with others within similar industries. Peakons solution, which is now fully available through an annual software-as-a-service subscription model, priced on a per seat/ per month basis, has already been adopted by innovators and businesses such as YPlan, Opera, Urban Airship, Delivery Hero, Adzuna and depop. The company, which currently has a staff of 13, had earlier raised 1m in seed funding round from Tommy Ahlers (Podio, Zyb), Morten Primdahl (co-founder Zendesk), Alexander Aghassipour (co-founder Zendesk), Bernardo de Albergaria (Atlassian, Citrix), and Doug Monro (Gumtree, Zoopla, Adzuna). FinSMEs 27/01/2016 ZenMate, a Berlin, Germany-based internet security solution provider, secured additional venture capital funding. The amount of the transaction was not disclosed. Backers included existing shareholders Holtzbrinck Ventures and Project A Ventures and new backer Bessemer Venture Partners. The company intends to use the funds for development of new products, expected to be released in 2016, and expand the adoption of its offering gloabally. Led by Simon Specka, founder and CEO, ZenMate provides a free platform and device agnostic internet security solution encrypting browser traffic, hiding real location, unblocking geo-restrictions, providing Wifi and hacker security and protecting user privacy. It is currently available for Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, iOS and Android, with other products planned for the future and used by several million users, spanning across 180 countries worldwide. FinSMEs 28/01/2016 Actor Arjun Kapoor says he flirts a lot with people in real life, which he says is in his nature. The 2 States star will make his TV debut as the host of the new season of Khatron Ke Khiladi. When asked if he found love on the show, Arjun Kapoor told reporters, I fell in love with a lot of people (on the show) but I wont go into details. Thats just for fun. I have done some amazing things on the show, but thats for fun. I dont deny that I flirt with people. So that was natural. Let the rumours spread now, who can stop, he added. The actor was speaking at the press conference of the upcoming reality show. Continuing the legacy of Akshay Kumar, Priyanka Chopra and Rohit Shetty, the 30-year-old Gunday star will make his small screen debut with the seventh season of the stunt/ daredevil reality game show, based on Americas Fear Factor. Arjun Kapoor said he wasnt apprehensive to come on television as he believes it is an amazing medium which should not be underestimated. It is an actors job to entertain irrespective of the medium, whether its a TV screen or a theatre. I am here to entertain people. The power of TV should never be underestimated, it is amazing. People who are not able to watch our films in theatres, they watch on TV," he adds. The Ishaqzaade actor said many stars, from Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan, have forayed into TV and done well. A star like Amitabh Bachchan did Kaun Banega Crorepati when he was at his prime. Salman, Shah Rukh have done television too. Many stars have emerged from TV and made an impact in films. We shouldnt have a myopic view. India does love to be entertained on a regular basis, the actor said. 14 celebrities participating on the show are Tanishaa Mukherjee, Mukti Mohan, Siddharth Shukla, Tina Dutta, Aishwarya Sakhuja, Jay Bhanushali, Sana Saeed, Mahhi Vij, Faisal Khan, Raghav Juyal, Vivan Bhatena, Yuvraj Walmiki, Himanshoo Malhotra and Parvathy Omankauttan. Khatron Ke Khiladi will air on Colors on January 30 at 9 PM. The government on Thursday released the list of 20 cities that have won the smart city challenge, with Bhubaneshwar getting the first rank. "Today marks a historic landmark in the annals of urban development in our country as we get to know the first batch of smart cities. This announcement marks a paradigm shift in our approach to urban development in the country," urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu said at the press conference. "The idea of smart cities has aroused an unprecedented enthusiasm ever since it was first mooted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014," Naidu said at the presser. "Nobody can stop an idea whose time has come. This applies more to the launch of Smart City Mission in our country," he said. "These 20 cities will be the first to receive funds, hence kickstarting the process of developing them into 'smart cities'. The next two years will see the inclusion of 40 and 38 cities more," Naidu said at a press conference here. Here's are all the key facts you need to know about the pet dream of prime minister Narendra Modi: What is a smart city? According to the government, some features of smart cities are promoting mixed land use in area based developments; housing and inclusiveness; creating walkable localities; preserving and developing open spaces; promoting a variety of transport options; making governance citizen-friendly and cost effective; giving an identity to the city; and applying smart solutions to infrastructure and services in area-based development. Naidu on Thursday said the smart city mission will help integrate urban planning by addressing the issue of infrastructure, land use planning, transport, urban design and architecture in a holistic manner. What is the smart cities challenge? This is an innovative way devised by the government to choose the ideal candidates to transform into smart city. As part of the stage 1, all state governments were asked to short list potential smart city candidates, from which the government selected 98 cities. These candidates were asked to submit a proposal for which they get assistance from a consultant, approved by panel set up by the urban development ministry. This is the stage 2 of the project. The proposals were evaluated by a panel of experts. Probably aimed at preempting all criticisms, the minister on Thursday time and again made it clear that there is no intervention from his ministry in the shortlisting the candidates. The selection committee has taken into account various parameters such as city vision and strategy, cost effectiveness, credibility of implementation and innovation. Each parameter was assigned a weight. For example, cost effectiveness was accorded 30 percent weight, civilian participation 16 percent, smartness 10 percent and process followed 4 percent. "Bottom-up approach has been the key planning principle under Smart City Mission," Naidu said at the press meet Thursday. Which are the cities that won the challenge? The 20 cities that won the challenge are: Bhubaneswar (Odisha), Pune (Maharashtra), Jaipur (Rajasthan), Surat (Gujarat), Kochi (Kerala), Ahmedabad (Gujarat), Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh), Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh), Sholapur (Maharashtra), Davangere (Karnataka), Indore (Madhya Pradesh), New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC, Delhi), Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu), Kakinada (Andhra Pradesh), Belagavi (Karnataka), Udaipur (Rajasthan), Guwahati (Assam), Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Ludhiana (Punjab), and Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh). In terms of population, these 20 cities account for 3.54 crore people. What next for the 20 cities? "These 20 cities will be the first to receive funds, hence kickstarting the process of developing them into 'smart cities'. The next two years will see the inclusion of 40 and 38 cities more," Naidu said. The 20 selected cities should now set up special purpose vehicles and start implementation of their proposals, prepare detailed project reports, float tenders etc. According to the minister, a total investment of Rs 50,802 crore has been proposed in the selected smart cities and towns during the five-year period. All the cities have proposed public-private partnership (PPP) as a major vehicle of resource mobilisation, said the minister. As many as 10 of the 20 cities have proposed to mobilise Rs 8,521 crore under PPP model while others have also indicated this option. A total area of 26,735 acres has been identified by these cities for making them smart through necessary interventions. According to Arindam Guha, Senior Director, Deloitte in India, there are no winners or losers here. "The really smart cities will build on the effort already put into developing the Smart City plans and take some of the implementation forward, especially those which do not require significant financial outlays like increasing walkability by improving pavements or are largely supported by private investment like wi-fi facilities in public spaces, beautification of public places through corporate sponsorships or advertisements. At the end of the day, the largest part of the investment which is in basic infrastructure is funded through programmes like Amrut, Safe Cities etc, he said in a statement. Lauding the announcement made on Thursday and the initiative as such, Pratap Padode, Founder & Director, Smart Cities Council India, said the move has proved the commitment of the government to the smart cities mission. "Funds for the winning cities would be made available by the year end which would mean that the winning cities would be undergoing request for proposals (RFP) discussions and will plan tenders in the third quarter of fiscal 2016-17," he said. Who will benefit? Apart from the 3.54 crore population residing in these cities, it is likely to be a bonanza for the slowdown-hit real estate. According to a report in PTI realtors' body CREDAI has hailed the move. It sees the initiative would provide great opportunity for the real estate development, particularly in the affordable home segment, with improvement in infrastructure of these towns. "Its a good initiative by the government. Satellite towns around these smart cities will be good opportunity for the real estate development especially affordable housing," CREDAI President Getamber Anand has said. "While this initiative will involve large-scale retrofitting as well as redevelopment; these cities could become showcases of urban infrastructure development, encouraging others to follow suit," said CBRE South Asia Chairman & MD Anshuman Magazine. The Smart City initiative would be a game changer in raising the standard of infrastructure in the cities in the country, said Shubhranshu Pani, MD - Infrastructure Services, JLL India, a company which has supported Bhubaneshwar and Chennai in their bid for smart city makeover. What about the cities those missed out? The 20 cities have been selected after a "rigorous competition". Rajasthan had proposed total investment of Rs 6,457 crore over the next five years for developing Ajmer, Jaipur, Kota and Udaipur as Smart Cities, while Maharashtra had proposals worth Rs 29,647.45 crore for 10 cities. Only two cities each from these states have made to the list. However, for those that did not enter the list this time it is not all lost. The 23 states and Union Territories which could not make cut this time get an opportunity to participate in a fast track competition. Each top ranking city form these left out states can upgrade their smart city proposals and submit them by 15 April, this year for inclusion in the mission. With inputs from IANS New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday took strong exception at complaints and grievances from people related to the customs and excise sector and asked for strict action against concerned officials. Modi, who chaired his ninth interaction through PRAGATI - Pro-Active Governance And Timely Implementation - urged all secretaries whose departments have extensive public dealing, to set up a system for top-level monitoring of grievances immediately. According to a report in The Times of India, the prime minister has told the secretaries to assess the functioning of the officials in their respective departments and even dismiss or cut their pension if they are found erring and not ready to change their ways of functioning. "Though he (the PM) specifically asked the excise and customs department to identify and take action against such officials, he said the message is for all secretaries and chief secretaries," an official has been quoted as saying in the ToI report. Later in the day, Modi held a meeting of his council of ministers to review progress on schemes related to some ministries and laid thrust on faster delivery of government initiatives. According to the sources, the meeting reviewed schemes and government initiatives related to ministries such as agriculture, chemical and fertilizer and water resources. Such meetings were likely to be held every month, added the sources. The meeting to review implementation of schemes came a day after the government completed 20 months in office. The coming year is crucial for the government as it will be completing half of its term. The opposition has accused the government of being high on promises and low on delivery. It has also slammed the government over rise in prices of some food items such as pulses. BJP leaders have dismissed the allegations of the opposition and said that the slew of initiatives government were already showing impact and will show greater results in the coming days. In his interaction through PRAGATI, Modi reviewed the progress of vital infrastructure projects in road, railway, coal, power and renewable energy sectors spread over several states including Maharashtra, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan. An official release concerning the PRAGATI said that among the projects reviewed were the Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link, the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) and the Jal Marg Vikas Project from Allahabad to Haldia. Modi also reviewed the progress of the Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY). He reviewed implementation of the National Old Age Pension Scheme and emphasized the need to ensure that beneficiaries receive the payment on time. With IANS Islamabad: For the second time, four witnesses failed to appear before a Pakistani anti-terrorism court to record their statement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack case, prompting an annoyed judge to re-summon them. "Four witnesses both official and private were to appear in the Anti-Terrorism Court Islamabad which held its hearing at Adiala Jail Rawalpindi yesterday (Wednesday). But they did not appear and no reason was given to the court in this regard," a court official told PTI on Thursday. "They had also not appeared in a previous hearing. The judge expressed his annoyance and re-summoned them for next hearing," the official said. The court adjourned the hearing till Wednesday. Earlier, a prosecution lawyer said that the prosecution would challenge in the Lahore High Court the rejection of its plea by the trial court to form a commission to examine the boat used by Mumbai attackers. "We are going to challenge the trial court's decision to reject our plea regarding formation of a commission to examine the boat Al-Fauz used by alleged terrorists of Mumbai attacks in the Lahore High Court," he said. He said the prosecution believes that the boat is "case property" and it needs a government commission to examine and endorsement in this respect. During the 13 January hearing, the court dismissed the plea of the prosecution. According to the Federal Investigation Agency, the alleged attackers used three boats including Al Fauz to reach Mumbai from Karachi. It said the security agencies had also traced the shop and its owner from where the culprits bought the engine and the boat while a bank and a money exchange company were also traced which were used for the transaction of money. The multiple attacks in Mumbai killed 166 people. Pakistani authorities arrested seven Lashkar-e-Taiba members involved in the planning of the attacks including the terrorist group's operations commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the mastermind of the Mumbai attack. Six accused Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younis Anjum have been in Adiala Jail for more than six years in connection with planning and executing the Mumbai attack in November 2008, that left 166 people killed. Lakhvi, 56, secured bail in December 2014, and was subsequently released from Adiala Jail on 10 April, 2015, after the Lahore High Court set aside the government's order to detain him under a public security act. A case has been underway against them in the ATC since 2009 for their alleged role in the Mumbai attacks. PTI New Delhi: Assam Regiment has been adjudged the best marching contingent in the services category and Border Security Force (BSF) among the para-military and other auxiliary forces which took part in 67th Republic Day parade at the Rajpath. An official release here on Wednesday said that in the tableau category, the first position was bagged by West Bengal followed by Tripura and Assam. This year, a special prize has been awarded to the tableau of Ministry of Communication and Information Technology on the theme "Digital India". In the competitive category of school children items, the dance presented by South Central Zone Culture Centre, Nagpur (Maharashtra) has been adjudged the best. A consolation prize has also been awarded to Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya and Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya, Gandhi Nagar, Delhi, for their portrayal of traditional folk dance "dal khai", seen in western Odisha. The release said that the defence ministry appointed three panels of judges for assessing the marching contingents and the tableaux at the parade held on Tuesday. IANS New Delhi: Alleging "delay in justice" to Hyderabad University research scholar, 150 protesting students from varsities across Delhi who were detained earlier on Wednesday decided to go on an indefinite hunger strike at Parliament Street police station in New Delhi. According to police, due to security concerns, around 150 students were detained from outside Shastri Bhawan and taken to Parliament Street police station. "Every time we try to go to the Ministry and raise our demands with HRD Minister Smriti Irani, we are held back and detained by police. Protesting is a basic right. We can't be denied that at a time when the government is trying to cover up an 'institutional murder'," JNU Students Union vice president Shehla Rashid Shora said. Members of Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS) and Left-backed All India Students Association (AISA) were among the protesters. Sucheta De, national president, AISA said, "We will not budge from the premises of the Parliament Street police station now and sit on an indefinite hunger strike here till our demands are met." "We are protesting the delay in justice to the student who had to end his life due to the harassment by the institution," she said and asked "who will be held accountable for similar such suicides in varsities across country which go unreported?" The protests over the issue have been rocking the national capital since last week with three JNU students sitting on an indefinite hunger strike since Sunday. Rohith Vemula, a 26-year-old Dalit PhD scholar, was found hanging at Hyderabad Central University's hostel room on 17 January. He was among the five research scholars who were suspended by Hyderabad Central University (HCU) in August 2015 and also one of the accused in the case of assault on an ABVP student leader. They were also kept out of the hostel. The suspension was revoked later. Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya and Hyderabad University Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao Podile were named in an FIR over the death of the scholar, which triggered massive protests and demands for their removal from their posts. The issue also took a political turn with allegations that the extreme action was a result of discrimination against Dalit students after Dattatreya had written a letter to Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani seeking action against their "anti-national acts". In a bid to defuse the raging controversy, the Centre had last week decided to set up a judicial commission to go into the suicide, and announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs 8 lakh to his family but protests continued. Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi broke his silence and expressed grief over the death of Vemula, students are demanding the removal of Irani and Dattatreya and the vice-chancellor. PTI Hyderabad: Three teachers of Hyderabad Central University on Thursday sat on a one-day hunger strike demanding that Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao Podile be removed and in-charge VC Vipin Srivastava step down, in order to resume academic and administrative activities. The protest by teachers comes a day after a second batch of students on an indefinite fast demanding justice for Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula, who allegedly committed suicide on 17 January, were shifted to hospital following concerns over their health condition. A teacher from the Osmania University also joined the protesting teachers in the fast on HCU campus under the banner of SC/ST Teachers' Forum and other concerned teachers. Earlier, a group of seven students had also been taken to hospital following their deteriorating health condition. The agitating students on Wednesday refused to hold talks with Srivastava, who came to the protest site. They alleged that Srivastava was equally responsible for the "wrong affairs" and demanded that he step-down from the responsibility of interim VC. Meanwhile, the Joint Action Committee for Social Justice, spearheading the agitation over Rohith's suicide, said that students would intensify the "struggle" till all their demands are met. Their demands include Podile's resignation, and also Srivastava's from the post of in-charge VC, "sacking" from Union Cabinet of HRD Minister Smriti Irani, employment to a family member of Rohith and Rs 50 lakh compensation to his family. The selection of Srivastava as interim VC was earlier opposed by the students and SC/ST staff forums as they claimed he headed the Executive Council sub-committee whose decisions were "responsible for the death of Rohith" and that he was one of the accused in the death of another Dalit student in 2008. Students of most universities in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana yesterday boycotted classes in solidarity with the agitators as they sought "justice" for Rohith. PTI As the storm over Shani Shingnapur mandir in Maharashtra refuses to die down, others are brewing or ongoing elsewhere in the country. The aborted attempt by protesters to enter Shani Shingnapur on Republic Day and break the tradition of not permitting women into the temples most sacred innards is clearly not the last we have heard on this issue. Meanwhile, next week, the Bombay High Court will listen to further arguments in the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolans PIL against the denial of entry to women in the sanctum sanctorum of the Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai. And on 8 February, the Supreme Court will hold its next hearing of a petition demanding a lifting of the ban on women, aged 10-50, from the Sabarimala temple in Kerala. The points being raised in all these cases are similar. Those advocating the status quo use the cloak of faith and religious belief to justify discriminatory customs. At Sabarimala, for instance, it has been variously claimed that menstruating women are impure and/or could taint or tempt the celibate male deity of the shrine, Lord Ayyappa. As reported in Deccan Chronicle last November, Prayar Gopalakrishnan, president of the Travancore Devaswom Board which runs Sabarimala, went so far as to tell reporters at the Kollam Press Club: A time will come when people will ask if all women should be disallowed from entering the temple throughout the year. These days there are machines that can scan bodies and check for weapons. There will be a day when a machine is invented to scan if it is the right time for a woman to enter the temple. When that machine is invented, we will talk about letting women inside. Haji Ali trustees, on their part, reportedly told the Mumbai court that women being allowed near the grave of a male Muslim saint is considered a sin in Islam. Those challenging the status quo, on the other hand, argue that such restrictions on female worshippers are discriminatory and that they have no foundation in their respective religions. This brings us to a question even some protestors are skirting: If indeed a scriptural justification is available for such practices, should they be acceptable in a democracy? Is discrimination okay if your faith or holy book endorses it? The answer, ideally, should be an obvious, in-principle no. The courts may be compelled to examine religious texts to minimise the number of toes they tread on in such combustive matters, but for society at large, it is inexcusable that in the 21st century, in a Constitutionally secular nation such as India, scriptures are being viewed as a legitimate arbiter in the matter of discrimination; and that there is, in the opinion of some citizens, such a thing as permissible discrimination. Article 14 of the Indian Constitution, which spells out the fundamental right to equality before law reads thus: The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India. There is no addendum to this Article that states: unless stated otherwise in the Bhagvad Gita, Quran, Bible or Guru Granth Sahib That being said, the ultimate evidence of religion being a patriarchal construct comes from the fact that the male-dominated or male-monopolised leadership of many world religions often defy the principles and teachings of even their founders or selectively cite scriptures to indulge in discriminatory religious, social and cultural practices. The Quran, for instance, commands believing men to lower their gaze and guard even as it lays out guidelines for womens clothing (both debatable in themselves), yet it is the veiling of women that is practised often with physical and legal force across Muslim societies while the stricture against men is rarely cited. A womans alleged failure to evade the male gaze is even used by Islamic states such as Saudi Arabia to harshly punish women rape victims. While the Muslim community faces widespread worldwide criticism for blatant discrimination against women especially in countries where Islam is the state religion, many among its critics are unwilling to introspect about the gender politics within their own religious groups. The harsh truth that few people like to hear is this: all major world religions discriminate against women; some do it more, some do it less (let not political correctness prevent us from stating this clearly), but they all do it (lets be clear about this too). For instance, the Roman Catholic Church the largest sect within Christianity does not permit priesthood for women. Since only priests can rise in the hierarchy to become bishops, cardinals and ultimately, the Pope, the result is a men-only leadership. This goes against the very essence of the teachings of Jesus Christ who, common sense indicates, was a feminist as evidenced, among other things, by his refusal to condemn a woman for committing adultery. Let him who has not sinned cast the first stone his now-legendary response to the men who hauled her to him 2,000 years ago, was a stinging slap in the face of traditional notions of sexual morality and a revolutionary statement for the time. Yet 2,000 years later, the Church persists with its patriarchal power structure. It goes without saying that for the men who dominate these religions, such debates are unwelcome and inconvenient. Every conceivable argument is therefore fished out to condemn all rebellion. The Hindu right in India, for instance, is working hard to instill a sense of victimhood among the countrys majority community in the context of the Shani Shingnapur and Sabarimala controversies. A feeling is sought to be created among Indias Hindus that they and they alone are being targeted and that these movements are a Western / Communist / feminist / Leftist conspiracy against Hinduism. This falsehood needs to be urgently busted. The fight against gender discrimination within Indian religious communities long pre-dates the current struggles involving Shani Shingnapur and Sabarimala, and has never been restricted to Hindu practices alone. A landmark moment in this heterogeneous movement came in the mid-1980s with the Supreme Court verdict in favour of activist Mary Roy (mother of writer Arundhati Roy), granting equal rights in ancestral property to Syrian Christian women of Kerala along with their male siblings. Around the same time as this was happening, when Shah Bano a Muslim woman from Madhya Pradesh won the right to maintenance from the Supreme Court, the Rajiv Gandhi government at the Centre was widely criticised by liberals for diluting the court order with the enactment of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, to please conservatives within her community. This episode is often cited by the Hindu right as a case of minority appeasement. They forget that Shah Bano the sufferer in this saga was herself a minority community member. If any appeasement can indeed be alleged, then it should be appeasement of orthodox male Muslims. And thats what it comes down to at the end of the day: a determination by men to retain control of their respective religions in the face of objections from rights-conscious women and their male supporters. While Shani Shingnapur, Sabarimala and Haji Ali signify the quest to control womens access to places of worship, the brutal practice of female genital mutilation among the countrys Dawoodi Bohra Muslims which more women are now speaking up against is an effort to control womens bodies. Conservatives take shelter under the Constitutionally-granted right to Freedom of Religion while suppressing, marginalising and humiliating women. Feminists across religious groups are reminding them that Freedom of Religion is not a synonym for Freedom to Discriminate. Pakistan High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit in an interview with CNN-IBN aired on Thursday said that both Pakistan and India made mistakes after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks and his country was keen to avoid those mistakes with the Pathankot terror attack investigation. "If the Pakistani team gets proper evidence, I'm confident Masood Azhar will not meet same fate as Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi," he said in this exclusive interview. He added, "Pakistan will probe the Pathankot attack after NIA completes the probe." The decision of the two countries to not discontinue talks after the Pathankot attack was a positive decision, he said. In fact, Basit also said that foreign secretary-level talks may happen in the first fortnight of February. Basit confirmed that Azhars organisation, Jaish-e-Mohammed, which was allegedly behind the attack in Pathankot, was banned in Pakistan in 2002 and their activities were being curtailed even now. No individual or terror organisation will be spared, I can assure you that, he said. Basit discussed the issue of Osama bin Laden finding refuge in Pakistan, stating, "it was as much a failure of the CIA as it was of ISI". The BJP on Thursday announced the name of Union Minister for Minister of State (independent charge) for Youth Affairs and Sports Sarbananda Sonowal as its chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming Assam Assembly elections in April and May. Reacting to the announcement, Sonowal told CNN-IBN, "Happy that party has given me this responsibility. We will win the Assam Assembly Elections with majority." Few hours after his nomination, the Union minister also thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah through his Facebook page. "My sincere thanks to Hon'ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji, Shri Amit Shah Ji and the Parliamentary Board for their faith and confidence in me. I am counting on the help and support of all our Honourable MPs, MLAs, Office Bearers, District Committees, Mandal Committees, Booth Committees, and all party workers. Above all, I will need the blessings of our people to bring the change. The change which will transform Assam and all sections of its society. Elders, friends and the youth of Assam, let's come together and take our state forward," Sonowal said. At present, Sonowal represents Assam's Lakhimpur constituency in the Lok Sabha. With 14 seats in the Lok Sabha, Assam, which votes for its 126-member assembly in March/April this year, may not be critical to political parties from a larger perspective. But this time, something much more than numbers is involved in the elections: the polls are a matter of prestige. The incumbent Congress and challenger BJP look set for a battle of prestige in the state. And after consecutive losses in Delhi and Bihar, the BJP in particular is taking no chances. On 21 November last year, the BJP had appointed the Union minister as the state president while accommodating the then incumbent Siddharth Bhattacharya as the national spokesperson on issues pertaining to the north-east. The Union minister was at the helm of affairs of the BJP in the state during the Lok Sabha polls last year and he engineered a massive victory for the party by wresting the entire Upper Assam bastion of the Congress for the first time. In the 2014 general election, BJP managed to win seven seats while the Congress secured a humiliating three. Whether it was the magic of the Modi wave or a display of exemplary organisational and leadership skills by Sonowal will be clear months later when the results are out. The claim to fame for the 53-year-Sonowal is that he was the petitioner at the apex court against the controversial Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, 1983 (IMDT Act) which was finally struck down by the Supreme Court in July 2005. This made him immensely popular across the state and he became a household name. He was even conferred with the title of Jatia Nayak by his then organisation All Assam Students Union. The IMDT Act was brought in by the Parliament to detect and expel illegal foreigners, particularly to check the stem the flow of illegal migrants from Bangladesh which posed a grave threat to the demographic, economic and social pattern in the state. However, the law had glaring lacunae and was declared null and void by the apex court. Born in 1962, Sonowal was earlier the president of the AASU from 1992 to 1999 till the time he joined the Asom Gana Parishad. In January 2011, he joined the BJP and gradually rose in ranks. By Marya Shakil In October of 2015, in the midst of a bitter electoral battle in Bihar, an idea would evolve into a promise. Nitish Kumars election strategist Prashant Kishor would propose a model of governance that he had earlier suggested to Narendra Modi in May 2014 but Modi couldn't implement. The election victory a month later ensured that a blueprint would soon be put into the works. The Bihar Vikas Mission notified by the Bihar cabinet last week is being pitched as a path breaking initiative for ensuring time bound delivery of services. However, a Bihar cadre bureaucrat, currently deployed with the Central government, says Nitish is looking for policy solutions to what is a political complexity of divergent views between him and Lalu Yadav. Sources close to the Bihar chief minister said that Nitish did communicate his concerns of the Bihar story carefully scripted by him getting lost in the emerging narrative of governance chaos in the state. Hence, his best bet was the man who had acted as the liaison between Lalu and him during the elections. This is the man who enjoyed the unflinching trust of Lalu and Nitish. In a country/polity where dual power-centres are seen as a way of life as far as politics and governments are concerned with recent history replete with such examples of 10 Janpath and 7 RCR during UPA-I and II, the new governance model in Bihar hopes to settle that debate between Lalu and Nitish. The urgency with which it has been notified, shows how Nitish wants to ensure that the governance address doesnt change in the state. Kishor, now officially the advisor to the Chief Minister of Bihar will have to solve the conundrum of achieving Nitishs singular vision while being locked in an unlikely alliance. If Kishor is to be believed, then a first-of-its-kind in India CMO is in the making in Patnas secretariat and 7 Circular Road: A work space where politics and policy will come together in creating a system that will act as a facilitator and a force multiplier. The bedrock of this model will be the programme management units functioning at multiple levels. The Bihar chief ministers office, currently functioning with a strength of just four to five officers, is likely to see the infusion of 250-400 talented professionals, retired bureaucrats, civil society experts and specialists from private sector in the next year. The second unit will be the chief secretarys office, which will act as an interface between the bureaucracy and the mission. At the level of department secretary and the district magistrate in 38 districts of Bihar, there will be the induction of over 400 professionals, who will be functioning at the grassroot-level for the implementation of the programme on ground. Kishor plans to extend it to the Block development level in the second year. According to the equations calculated by Kishor, the programme management units functioning as resource centers at multiple levels will be injecting hundreds of new people into the governance system. The mission establishment cost will be roughly Rs 150 to 200 crore of the allocation of roughly 55,000 to 65,000 crores that Nitish plans to invest in his seven nishchay programme every year. A bureaucrat privy to the discussion says that Nitish has told Kishor that the mission model would not be limited to just seven election promises, but all the programmes of the Government of Bihar will be rooted through this mission. Dr Saibal Gupta, the founder of the Asian Development Research Institute however views it with skepticism: "Whats the need for such a mission?" He added that despite Bihar being written off as a non-functional state, the state machinery responded efficiently to Nitishs scheme of giving bicycles to school girls. He however highlighted that in the past, similar missions have been successful, adding how in 1980s, Rajiv Gandhi had rolled out multiple missions literacy mission, the telecom mission and so on. However, those were individual missions for individual agendas, not one mission like this one with multiple agendas. A senior bureaucrat in the Bihar government who was actively involved in implementing Nitishs earlier governance agendas said, The Bihar Vikas Mission will try to make use of energy and innovation of the young generation, complimenting it with the experiences of retired bureaucrats and experts who have excelled in their fields, ensuring that experience can cut the delivery time gap. There will be some kind of generational outreach that will reflect in the form of delivery. So, for example, the duration given for achievements in the energy sector is two-and-a-half years. The officer further added that most state governments have aspired to achieve similar goals, but the difference between the Bihar model and that of other states is that Bihar will have more urgency in implementation, rather than the usual model of giving it 10 yearst. Kishor has already drawn up a list of bureaucrats with proven track records who are being approached by the chief ministers office and they range from across the board. A woman IAS officer known for her expertise in water sanitation in Tamil Nadu has been contacted. Bihars former chief secretary Anoop Mukherjee, known for his work in the rural development department, is another bureaucrat on this list. The criticism is that the new model will lead to more implementation challenges due to bureaucratic resistance to perceived outsiders, as attempts are being made to open up governance to newer stakeholders. The question before the Prashant-Nitish model will be-how to construct an ecosystem where the new and the old order can coexist, with the steel frame of India devolving some of its powers to the young experts. Ironically, the experiment of redefining the role of administration is emerging in a state where every other young Bihari is born and bred on the philosophy of cracking the IAS. For the moment though, Bihar is gearing itself for an experiment conscious of its historical blunders and socio-economic indices. Readying to take a leap of faith with the leader in whose hands they entrusted the reins of the state for the next five years and the man with whom he shares a vision for the future. The author is associate political editor and anchor with CNN-IBN President Pranab Mukherjee, in the second volume of his memoir The Turbulent Years: 1980-96, has said that it was then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao's inability to prevent the demolition of the Babri Masjid that was his biggest failure. In his memoir, Mukherjee wrote that the demolition of the Babri Masjid was "an act of absolute perfidy, which should make all Indians hang their heads in shame," according to Hindustan Times. "The inability to prevent the demolition of the Babri Masjid was one of PVs biggest failures. He should have entrusted the task of tough negotiations with other political parties to a more senior and seasoned politician familiar with politics in UP," the report quoted an excerpt from the memoir as saying. According to the report, the memoir further said that after the demolition of the mosque, Mukherjee in a private meeting with Rao asked him, "Was there no one who advised you of the dangers? Did you not understand the global repercussions of any damage to the Babri Masjid? At least now take concrete steps to quell communal tensions and assuage the feelings of Muslims through affirmative action." The president clearly seems to have given a very frank account of incidents which affected him deeply. He also described how Rajiv Gandhi reacted after Indira Gandhi's assassination and how he eventually became prime minister. According to another Hindustan Times report, in one of the most emotional parts of his memoir, he wrote that after Rajiv Gandhi received the news that his mother had been shot, he turned to him and asked, "Did she deserve all these bullets?" Mukherjee also wrote that after it was decided that Rajiv should become PM after Indira's death, he was the one who told him to take over as PM. Rajiv's immediate response was: "Do you think I can manage?" The President's strong statements on the Babri Masjid demolition comes a little over a week after he had said that the idea of secularism needs to be further strengthened in the minds of young people to build a harmonious society. On 19 January, addressing institutes of higher learning and civil service academies, the President had stressed on the need for providing "value-based education" to the youth. "We must inculcate in them the spirit of democratic behaviour which calls for an appreciation of the rich diversity of our nation, assimilation of ideas, and accommodation for divergent or contrarian views. "The idea of secularism is deeply ingrained in the consciousness of our nation. It has to be further strengthened in the minds of the young ones to build a harmonious society," he had said. The president had also spoken about gender equality and had said it was important for having an "inclusive society". "The occurrence of some unfortunate incidents of atrocity and violence against women in recent years should strengthen our resolve to wipe out any trace of depravity and evil from the minds of individuals. "Respect for women is sacrosanct in our society with its roots embedded in our civilisational values, which are reflected in our Constitution. A spirit of reverence towards women must be instilled in our children in our homes and educational institutions. It must guide social conduct of an individual from an early age," Mukherjee had said. With inputs from PTI Mumbai: Muslim women on Thursday staged a protest demanding entry into a restricted area of the Haji Ali dargah in Mumbai, a stir that came amid a campaign by a group seeking right for female devotees to offer prayers at inner sanctum of Shani Shingnapur temple in Maharashtra. Several activists belonging to Muslim women groups held placards demanding entry for females into the sanctum sanctorum of the historic dargah, which receives hundreds of devotees everyday. A participant said it was male patriarchy, and not religion, which was imposing restrictions on women. This is against tenets of Islam. The Constitution has given you equal rights, Islam supports the Constitution, she added. A Muslim womens rights group is locked in a legal battle with trustees of the Haji Ali dargah, which has barred womens entry into mosques mausoleum. The Bombay High Court is hearing a petition challenging the Haji Ali Trusts decision to ban the entry of women in the sanctum sanctorum of the dargah (grave of a male Muslim saint). On January 18, the HC said it would wait for Supreme Courts ruling on entry of women in Sabarimala temple of Kerala before deciding on the plea related to the dargah. A bench of Justices V M Kanade and Reveti Mohite-Dere had said both matters involved entry of women in the religious shrines, and hence they would like to see what view the apex court would take on the issue before deciding on the PIL pending before them. The next HC hearing will take place on February 3. The protest in Mumbai broke out two days after members of a group, Bhumata Brigade, were prevented by police from entering into Shani Shingnapur temple in Ahmednagar district to break a 400-year-old tradition banning women from entering its sacred sanctum. After the high-voltage march to the temple by the Bhumata Brigade volunteers, which was foiled mid-way, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis called for a dialogue between temple authorities and activists to find a way out of the row. The popular shrine is dedicated to Lord Shani, who personifies the planet Saturn in Hindu belief. Women devotees are not permitted on the chauthara (sacred platform) of the temple as per the centuries-led tradition followed at the shrine. PTI Links: 'Discrimination cannot be passed off as Islamic' The Supreme Courts bewilderment on Wednesday at the Union home secretary seeking the resignations of state governors over the phone once gain highlights the tendency of using this constitutional post as a political tool. A constitution bench of the apex court, presided over by Chief Justice TS Thakur, made this observation while hearing the petition of former Uttarakhand governor Aziz Qureshi questioning the propriety of sacking governors on the phone. Terming it a serious matter, the bench asked the government to clarify who can ask a governor, a constitutional authority, to resign. Qureshi had felt humiliated when he was asked last year by the then home secretary Anil Goswani to put in his papers. Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi tried to pass it off not as an instruction to quit, but as friendly advice. To this, the judges didnt bite. According to The Indian Express, this is what happened next: The bench then asked the AG whether being friendly is different from being friends. The bench also took note of Goswamis personal secretary calling up former Lt-Governor of Puducherry Virendra Kataria, asking him to resign, and said that it is very surprising that anybody could simply pick up the phone and ask a constitutional functionary to quit. We may have to lay down a format for communications with such high constitutional dignitaries," the bench observed. Central to the grilling of the government by the apex court is the belittling of the office of the governor, a constitutional functionary. While it is true that sacking by phone is a new low introduced lately to diminish the stature of the governors, the latter have contributed in no small measure to their being treated as handmaidens of the party in power. Qureshis ordeal is nothing unique as governors of the state are often appointed or suffered, purely on the basis of their political utility or the lack thereof. In this context, Arunachal Pradesh governor JP Rajkhowa will obviously figure no less prominently than those of his predecessors who adorn the hall of infamy and notoriety in subverting the Constitution by holding onto their gubernatorial assignments. There is enough evidence to prove that Rajkhowa has acted exactly opposite to his oath of protecting and defending the Constitution. That his task was made easier by the Congress does not mitigate his indiscretion. In fact, Rajkhovas conduct raises a fundamental question about the relevance of retaining the governors in the states. It has allowed them to act as cats paws to destablise unfriendly political governments. Governors are supposed to act as a representative of the Indian union in order to guard and protect the Constitution. But one look at the history of gubernatorial conduct would repudiate the high-sounding constitutional obligations to which this post is supposed to be beholden. The Raj Bhavans turning into a palace of political intrigue is an unending story. Take for instance, the running feud between Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Delhis lieutenant-governor Najib Jung. The running feud between the two has belittled the constitutional posts they hold. In fact, there is little doubt that the use of the governor as political agent of the centre began in 1959 when Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru sacked the Communist regime in Kerala under the influence of his daughter Indira Gandhi. Yet, it took Indira to institutionalise and legitimise this constitutional arrangement by installing governors as puppet of the Centre. In Rajiv Gandhis regime, the post of governors further degenerated into a post subservient to the Union home ministry. In reality, the state governors functioned like joint secretaries of the Union home ministry. Take for instance the role of Siddharth Shankar Ray, M Chenna Reddy, Motilal Vohra, Romesh Bhandari, Sundersingh Bhandari, Madanlal Khurana and Buta Singh in their gubernatorial assignments. Most of them have eminently contributed to the decline of the prestige and sanctity attached to the post. But that is one part of the story. Of late there are numerous stories of the governor's house degenerating into a hub of corruption. Former cabinet secretary Prabhat Kumar who took up the charge of Jharkhand governor was found to be prima-facie guilty of indiscretion in keeping liaison with a dubious Noida-based industrialist. Motilal Vora had to reign as UP governor as his name figured in the recipients of Hawala money in 1996. At the age of 86, three-time UP chief minister ND Tiwari was caught on camera in the company of compromising position with women. That led to his ignominious exit. There are many salacious stories that the Raj Bhavans generate in various state capitals. Apparently the relevance of Governors post has been debated many-a-times in the past. The BJP, while in Opposition, was insistent in the past that the issue must be reviewed threadbare to take a position if the post of governors in the state is at all relevant. The history of the governors conduct bears this out that governors have more often than not subverted the spirit of the Constitution than protect it. In an era of Narendra Modis cooperative federalism where the Centre has been ceding financial autonomy to the states, Rajkhowas conduct once again proves that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The toppling of the Arunachal Pradesh government through the institution of governors will once again put an unbearable strain on the federal character of the Constitution. But there is hardly anything to suggest that history will not repeat itself. New Delhi: BJP on Thursday demanded immediate resignation of Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy saying he has no "locus standi" to be in his chair following state vigilance court's order that an FIR be registered against him in the solar scam. Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also hit out at the Congress high command for "looking the other way" in cases of corruption involving its state leaders and said that it should now "speak out". "Vigilance court has asked that an FIR be filed. It cannot be graver than this. BJP demands that the chief minister resign immediately. The CM has no locus standi to be in his chair. "On this, the Congress high command will have to speak out. Kerala government is reeling under one corruption charge or other," she told reporters in New Delhi. She also referred to the resignation of the state's finance minister and excise minister over corruption charges and graft allegations being leveled against the power minister. Asked about Chandy's defense, she shot back "I don't think he has a choice". When the charges were first made against him, Congress leaders claimed that it was merely an allegation and not verified but the court's direction underlined their seriousness, she said. "These are not light and frivolous allegations but very serious charges," Sitharaman said. Taking a jibe at Chandy, she said the chief minister recently sat through a "gruelling session of questioning" not on matter of governance but corruption. "One cannot hope much from the Congress high command because it has looked the other way on corruption. Congress moves from one issue to another (to target BJP) but will somebody from its high command go to Kerala and speak on corruption?" she said. The reaction came after a vigilance court on Thursday ordered registration of an FIR against Chandy and Power Minister Aryadan Muhammed in connection with the solar scam. Targeting Chandy and Muhammed, prime accused in the solar scam, Saritha S Nair had alleged that she had paid bribes totalling Rs 1.90 crore to a close aide of the chief minister while Rs 40 lakh had been given to the power minister. Asked about a global human rights body's reported concerns over human rights in India, she said it should do more home work as the country stands out as a multi-cultural society which is recognised by experts abroad. PTI Tokyo: Satellite imagery analysis suggests North Korea may be preparing a long-range ballistic missile launch, Japan's Kyodo News reported today, citing a Japanese government source. Imagery collected over the past several days suggested the launch from the western Dongchang-ri site could come in about a week, Kyodo said. While the report did not provide any details on the source of the analysis, Japan's key security ally the United States regularly monitors North Korea from space while Japan itself in 2003 began its own satellite monitoring of the country. South Korean defence ministry spokesperson Kim Min-seok declined to confirm or deny the report, saying the ministry did not comment on intelligence matters. He added, however, that South Korea's military was monitoring for any signs of a long-range missile launch. The report came as the international community discusses further sanctions against Pyongyang for conducting its fourth nuclear test earlier this month. "The reclusive country's supposed action could be aimed at flouting the (UN security) council and any plans among its members to tighten sanctions over the latest nuclear detonation," Kyodo said in its report. Washington is pushing for a strong United Nations response, including enhanced sanctions, to respond to the North's latest atomic blast. But China, North Korea's chief diplomatic protector and economic benefactor, is reluctant, despite their ties becoming strained in recent years as Beijing's patience wears thin with its neighbour's ambitions for nuclear weapons. US Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing yesterday and said they had agreed to mount an "accelerated effort" to try to resolve their differences on a new resolution. But Kerry, who said nuclear-armed North Korea poses an "overt threat, a declared threat to the world", acknowledged that the two had not agreed on the "parameters of exactly what it would do or say". Pyongyang said the blast earlier this month was a miniaturised hydrogen bomb, though experts have largely dismissed the claim. The South Korean defence ministry's Kim added that officials were on guard for any changes in North Korea's previous behaviour. AFP FORT WORTH, Texas/MEXICO CITY The American teenager derided for a defense of "affluenza" in the killing four people while driving drunk arrived back in Texas on Thursday, where he faces detention, after being deported from Mexico. Ethan Couch, 18, was seen with his hands behind his back being escorted by uniformed officers through the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and had grown a beard. He fled to Mexico with his mother in December after a video emerged on social media that likely showed him in violation of the probation deal reached in juvenile court that kept him out of prison for causing the deadly crash in 2013. Couch will be placed in a juvenile detention center. He faces a detention hearing on either Friday or Monday, at which a judge will determine whether to transfer the case from the juvenile system to the adult system, said a spokeswoman for the Tarrant County District Attorney's office. Couch was 16 when he was tried as a juvenile. A psychiatrist testifying on his behalf said he had "affluenza," as his family's wealth had left him so spoiled that it impaired his judgment to tell right from wrong. The affluenza diagnosis, not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, was widely ridiculed. "It's more than overdue for Couch to be held accountable after taking the lives of four people, and injuring several others," activist group Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) said in a statement. If he is found to have violated the probation deal, Couch faces about four months behind bars. His mother, Tonya Couch, faces up to 10 years in prison for helping her son flee to Mexico. Couch's lawyers may seek to transfer him to the adult system so he can apply for bail, an option not available in the juvenile system, a legal official familiar with the case said. The two were arrested in Mexico last month following an over two-week-long manhunt. His mother was deported to the United States last month and has since been freed on bond. In a video sent by Mexican authorities, Ethan Couch could be seen signing papers before being accompanied by Mexican officials onto the plane. He was sentenced in Tarrant County, Texas to 10 years of drug-and-alcohol-free probation for intoxication manslaughter, a punishment condemned by critics as privilege rewarded with leniency. His parents are separated and his father runs a metal works company that specializes in roofing. (Writing by Jon Herskovitz and Gabriel Stargardter; editing by Simon Gardner and G Crosse) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. FORT WORTH, Texas/MEXICO CITY The American teenager derided for a defence of "affluenza" in the killing four people while driving drunk arrived back in Texas on Thursday after being deported from Mexico and was placed in juvenile detention. After his flight landed, Ethan Couch, 18, was seen with his hands behind his back being escorted by uniformed officers through the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and had grown a beard. He fled to Mexico in December along with his mother after a video emerged on social media that likely showed Couch in violation of the probation deal reached in juvenile court that kept him out of prison for causing the deadly crash in 2013. A white sport utility vehicle with tinted windows carrying Couch arrived at a Tarrant County juvenile detention centre about an hour after his arrival at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. He faces a detention hearing on either Friday or Monday, at which a judge will determine whether to transfer the case from the juvenile system to the adult system, a spokeswoman for the Tarrant County District Attorney's office said. Couch was 16 when he was tried as a juvenile. A psychiatrist testifying on his behalf said he had "affluenza," as his family's wealth had left him so spoiled that it impaired his judgement to tell right from wrong. The affluenza diagnosis, not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, was widely ridiculed. "It's more than overdue for Couch to be held accountable after taking the lives of four people, and injuring several others," activist group Mothers Against Drunk Driving said in a statement. If he is found to have violated the probation deal, Couch faces about four months behind bars. His mother, Tonya Couch, faces up to 10 years in prison for helping her son flee to Mexico. Couch's lawyers may seek to transfer him to the adult system so he can apply for bail, an option not available in the juvenile system, a legal official familiar with the case said. The two were arrested in Mexico last month following an over two-week-long manhunt. His mother was deported to the United States last month and has since been freed on bond. In a video sent by authorities in Mexico, Ethan Couch could be seen signing papers before being accompanied by Mexican officials onto the plane. He was sentenced in Tarrant County to 10 years of drug-and-alcohol-free probation for intoxication manslaughter, a punishment condemned by critics as privilege rewarded with leniency. His parents are separated and his father, Fred, runs a metal works company that specializes in roofing. (Writing by Jon Herskovitz and Gabriel Stargardter; additional reporting by Suzannah; editing by Simon Gardner and G Crosse) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Toronto: Inderjit Singh Reyat, the lone person convicted for the 1985 Air India Kanishka bombing, which killed all 329 people on board, was on Wednesday released from prison in Canada after serving two decades behind bars. Reyat was convicted of perjury in 2010 for lying to the court in 2003 during the trial of Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, who were acquitted in the terrorist attack. The flight was operating on the Montreal, CanadaLondon, UKDelhi, India route. A spokesman for the Parole Board of Canada confirmed Reyat's statutory release after serving two-thirds of a nine-year sentence for his involvement in one of the deadliest airline attacks in history. A mechanic migrated from Punjab, Reyat bought the dynamite, detonators and batteries that took the lives of 329 passengers on Air India's Flight 182, which exploded over the coast of Ireland on its way to Heathrow Airport in London. The second exploded at Japan's Narita airport, killing two baggage handlers as they transferred cargo. In 1991, Reyat was convicted of manslaughter in the deaths of two baggage handlers. He served 10 years for that crime. He also got five years for another manslaughter charge in the Air India bombing. Reyat got nine years for perjury, the longest such sentence ever given in Canada, although he was given credit for time served awaiting trial. His sentence began on 7 January, 2011. Patrick Storey, Pacific regional manager of the Parole Board of Canada, said Reyat has reached his statutory release date. "A statutory release is not a discretionary release. It's an automatic release mandated by law," The Globe and Mail quoted Storey as saying. "So his statutory release date is Janaury 27, 2016, and he reaches the end of his sentence on August 6, 2018....[Wednesday] is the two-thirds mark in his sentence." Storey said the parole board had no option but to allow the release and a hearing was not held. Reyat has been ordered to abide by several conditions set by the parole board, including having no contact with victims' families or alleged former co-conspirators, and no political activities. Storey said the board imposed eight conditions, including one that is seldom used, restricting where Reyat can live. "He's required to reside at a community correctional centre or a community residential facility, or other residential facility approved by the Correctional Service of Canada," he said. "So in other words he cant go home, he has to go to a halfway house." Reyat also cannot associate with anyone involved in criminal activity, or who has extremist or political views. Storey said the conditions will apply until the end of Reyat's sentence in 2018. PTI Stockholm: Sweden intends to expel up to 80,000 failed asylum seekers, the interior minister said Wednesday, the latest move by EU states to tighten their borders in the face of the migrant crisis. Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said the mass expulsions of people who arrived last year as part of a record influx of migrants would use specially chartered aircraft and be staggered over several years. "We are talking about 60,000 people but the number could climb to 80,000," he was quoted saying by Swedish media, adding that police and migrant authorities have been tasked with organising the scheme. Sweden, a country of 9.8 million, took in more than 160,000 asylum seekers in 2015, putting it among the European Union states with the highest proportion of refugees per capita. More than one million people travelled to Europe last year the majority of them refugees fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in the continent's worst migration crisis since World War II. Most cross by boat from Turkey to Greece and the UN says more than 46,000 people have washed up on the EU member's beaches so far this year, while 170 people died making the dangerous journey. But, with the influx showing little sign of abating despite wintry conditions, many countries including Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, France have tightened their asylum rules in a bid to discourage new arrivals. Greece under fire Reflecting the mounting tensions, Brussels on Wednesday blasted Greece's handling of the crisis and warned it could face border controls with the EU's passport-free Schengen zone if it does not protect the bloc's frontiers. Greece is not the only country under fire Denmark has faced heavy criticism after its lawmakers passed a bill this week allowing authorities to seize valuables from refugees in a bid to deter new arrivals. Some have likened the move to the Nazis' confiscation of gold from Jews during the Holocaust, with Human Rights Watch denouncing the bill as "despicable". Neighbouring Sweden has seen the number of new migrants entering the country fall since it brought in systematic photo ID checks on travellers on 4 January. Concerns have been growing over conditions in overcrowded asylum facilities, however, and on Tuesday officials called for greater security the day after an employee at a refugee centre for unaccompanied youths was stabbed to death. A young male allegedly attacked the 22-year-old employee, named by local media as Alexandra Mezher whose parents were from Lebanon, at a centre for youngsters in Molndal, near Gothenburg on Sweden's west coast. Her death has led to questions about conditions inside some centres, with too few adults and employees to take care of children, many traumatised by war. Some 40 to 50 municipalities are facing extreme difficulties in Sweden's biggest cities, according to local authority figures, while workers say many asylum facilities do not have enough resources to cope. The number of threats and violent incidents at asylum facilities more than doubled from 148 incidents in 2014 to 322 last year, according to the Swedish Migration Agency. National Police Commissioner Dan Eliasson has requested 4,100 additional officers and support staff to help counter terrorism, deport migrants and police asylum facilities. AFP Stockholm: Interior Minister Anders Ygeman says Sweden could deport between 60,000 and 80,000 asylum-seekers in coming years. Ygeman told newspaper Dagens Industri that since about 45 percent of asylum applications are currently rejected, the country must get ready to send back tens of thousands of the 163,000 who sought shelter in Sweden last year. "I think that it could be about 60,000 people, but it could also be up to 80,000," Ygeman was quoted as saying. His spokesman, Victor Harju, confirmed the quotes on Thursday, adding that the minister was simply applying the current approval rate to the record number of asylum-seekers that arrived in 2015. Harju adds: "That rate could of course change." Germany and Sweden were the top destinations for asylum-seekers in Europe last year In the sea near a Greek island, the coast guard at least 11 people, most of them children, died on Thursday in the latest migrant boat sinking. Ten people were rescued, while the bodies of four boys, three girls, three men and one woman were recovered. Romanian border police said on Thursday that they had rescued 119 asylum-seekers from Africa including 34 children who were on an inflatable dingy in the Mediterranean, trying to reach Europe. The migrants were dehydrated and had signs of hypothermia when they were picked up on Tuesday. They came from Gambia, Senegal, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leona and Guinea Bissau and were planning to travel to the Schengen area. A Dutch politician says his country, which currently holds the EU presidency, is working on a plan to ease the migrant crisis by which a core group of member states would accept up to 250,000 refugees coming from Turkey in return for sending back the migrants that now arrive by the hundreds of thousands in Greece. Diederik Samson leader of the Socialist PvdA party, a key partner in the government told De Volkskrant newspaper that a core group of nations should be willing to accept a set number of refugees coming from Turkey, if the other migrants can be sent back. AP Netherlands: The Dutch EU presidency is working on a plan to ease the migrant crisis by which a core group of member states would accept up to 250,000 refugees coming from Turkey in return for sending back the migrants that now arrive by the hundreds of thousands in Greece. The leader of the Socialist PvdA party, a key partner in the government of Prime Minister Mark Rutte, told De Volkskrant paper on Thursday that current EU plans were not working because of intransigence of many member states refusing to take refugees. Instead, Diederik Samson said a core group of nations should be willing to accept a set number of refugees coming from Turkey, if the other migrants can be sent back. Samson said that once Turkey gains the full status as 'safe country' for migrants to be returned to, returns could happen speedily. Even if the core group of EU nations would voluntarily accept the refugees, the 28-nation EU as a whole would have to bear the financial burden, he said. AP Washington: President Barack Obama honored four people on Wednesday for risking their lives to protect Jews, warning that anti-Semitism is on the rise and an attack on any faith is an attack on all faiths. Obama spoke at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, the first sitting president to speak at the embassy. He was introduced at the event by Steven Spielberg, the Oscar-winning director of the Holocaust film Schindler's List and the founder of a Holocaust history foundation. "Too often, especially in times of change, especially in times of anxiety and uncertainty, we are too willing to give in to a base desire to find someone else, someone different, to blame for our struggles," Obama said. "So here tonight we must confront the reality that around the world anti-Semitism is on the rise. We cannot deny it." Obama said all nations that value diversity and tolerance must speak out when Jews and other members of religious minorities are attacked. The United Nations has designated Wednesday as International Holocaust Remembrance Day to commemorate the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in 1945. Six million Jews were killed by Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust. Recognised posthumously for protecting Jews from harm during the Holocaust were Roddie Edmonds of Knoxville, Tennessee; Lois Gunden of Goshen, Indiana; and Polish citizens Walery and Maryla Zbijewski of Warsaw. The honors were bestowed by Yad Vashem, the world's Holocaust education and research center, based in Jerusalem. Each was designated Righteous Among the Nations, an official title awarded by Yad Vashem on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Edmonds, a master sergeant, participated in the landing of US forces in Europe and was taken prisoner by the Germans. When the Germans ordered all Jewish prisoners of war to report, Edmonds defied the order by figuring out how to keep the Jewish POWs from being singled out for persecution. Gunden, a French teacher, established a children's home in southern France that became a haven for children, including Jews she helped smuggle out of a nearby internment camp. She protected the children when French police showed up at the home. The Zbijewskis hid a Jewish child in their Warsaw home until the girl's mother could take her back. In televised remarks during the ceremony, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel remained indebted to those being honored because of the Jewish soldiers and children saved by their bravery. He also praised the US and said there was an unbreakable bond between the two countries. "We know we have no better friend than the United States of America," Netanyahu said. AP Cairo: The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the roadside bombing of an army convoy in the turbulent northern part of the Sinai Peninsula a day earlier that killed at least four. In a statement distributed by IS sympathizers on social media on Thursday, the group said that it had killed and wounded more than 20 soldiers including senior officers. The Associated Press could not independently verify the claim, but its design and logo resembled previous IS claims. Egyptian security and health officials had said the attack, just south of the coastal city of el-Arish, killed an army colonel and three soldiers and wounded another 12 soldiers, several of whom were in critical condition. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. AP Moscow: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday urged Germany to share information about a 13-year-old Russian-German girl whose family says she was raped by migrants, as Moscow and Berlin wrangled over the case. "I'm sure that if we are provided with the necessary information by the German institutions involved, there will be less misunderstanding," Lavrov said on a visit to ex-Soviet Turkmenistan, quoted by RIA Novosti news agency. The family of the 13-year-old girl, named as Liza by Russia, said she was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by three immigrants in Berlin. The case in Germany has fuelled the heated debate over migrants and exacerbated tensions between Germany and Russia over the conflict in Syria and European Union sanctions imposed on Moscow. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Wednesday urged Lavrov to avoid "political" exploitation of the allegations, pending the results of an investigation. German police last week rejected the teenager's account but nevertheless passed the case to the prosecutor's office. Berlin prosecutors said there was no evidence that the girl was forced to have sexual relations but opened a probe against at least one man on possible statutory rape charges since she was under the age of consent (14 in Germany). "Since we are talking about a Russian citizen, we have the right not to simply wait for the end of the investigation," Lavrov said Thursday. "According to all the norms that exist in the civilised world, we must be informed of any incident that happens to Russian citizens, which in this case was not done in a timely fashion," he complained. He said Russia had initially heard about the incident "not from Germany's official structures but from the Russian-speaking community, then from the family's lawyer, then from Liza's parents." "I'm sure that the more transparency we have here, the more information we have on our citizens who get into unusual situations, particularly such serious ones, the better it will be for our relations." Lavrov on Tuesday had lent credence to the girl's allegations by saying that she had disappeared "absolutely for sure" against her will and that details of the incident had "been hidden." AFP SINGAPORE China has built a potent military machine over the past 30 years but is struggling to develop advanced engines that would allow its warplanes to match Western fighters in combat, foreign and Chinese industry sources said. The country's engine technology lags that of United Technologies unit (UTX.N) Pratt & Whitney, General Electric (GE.N) and Rolls-Royce (RR.L), said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. China's Defence Ministry, in a brief statement to Reuters, said there was a "definite gap" between Chinese military technology and some developed countries, adding Beijing would continue to strengthen its armed forces. Western restrictions on arms exports to China prohibit the sale of Western engines for military use, forcing China to rely on homegrown designs or engines Russia has agreed to sell. "Chinese engine-makers face a multitude of problems," said Michael Raska, assistant professor in the Military Transformations Programme at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Among the issues, China's J-20 and J-31 stealth fighters cannot super-cruise, or fly at supersonic speeds like their closest rivals, Lockheed Martin's (LMT.N) F-22 and F-35 stealth planes, without using after-burners, said two industry sources who follow Beijing's military programmes closely. After-burners remove a warplane's stealthiness, a capability that allows them to escape radar detection. Even the warplane engine that experts consider to be China's best has reliability issues, said the sources, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. SOUTH CHINA SEA A Chinese military expert, who has knowledge of the government's defence policy but who declined to be identified, said Chinese fighter jets could not perform as well as American warplanes because of inferior engine technology. That puts China at a disadvantage should its warplanes be pitted against U.S. jet fighters or those from security ally Japan in Asia's disputed waters, the industry sources and security experts said. Chinese warplanes are likely to come into increasing contact with U.S. fighters over the South China Sea in the years ahead after Beijing conducted its first test flights this month to one of three island runways it is building in the contested Spratly archipelago, security experts said. In any conflict, China would likely rely on sheer numbers of fighters as well as a growing arsenal of sophisticated missiles that can be launched from warships or land, they added. To be sure, China has made warplane engine development a priority in recent years, sources said. The Shanghai-based Galleon group, which provides consulting services to the aerospace industry, estimates Beijing will spend $300 billion over the next 20 years on civil and military aircraft engine programmes. Some sources said China had hired several foreign engineers and former air force personnel to work on engine development, although this could not be independently confirmed. The Chinese Defence Ministry declined to comment. "In 20 to 30 years time, given the amount of work they have done and the effort they are putting into it, they should have a viable military engine," said Greg Waldron, Asia Managing Editor at Flightglobal, an industry publication. ENGINE MAKERS MERGED China first manufactured warplanes under licence from Russia in the 1950s. Its indigenous fighter jet programme kicked into full swing in the 1980s. The country's best warplane engine is the WS-10A Taihang, made by Shenyang Aeroengine Research Institute, a subsidiary of China's biggest state-owned aerospace and defence company, Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), the sources said. In development since the late 1980s, Chinese state media reports say more than 250 have been fitted to some fourth-generation J-10s and J-11s. But the engines don't produce enough thrust, or power, and need frequent repairs, added the sources. "They are trying to improve the Taihang, but reliability is a major problem," said one source. AVIC did not respond to a request for comment while Shenyang Aeroengine Research Institute could not be reached for comment. In October, state media said three engine makers owned by AVIC would merge into one firm. China will do more to integrate other engine-making firms in the coming years, said a Chinese source in the country's aerospace industry. This would help coordination across civilian and military engine research and development and production, said the source. The Defence Ministry declined to comment. To cover gaps for now, China has fitted Russian engines on many of its warplanes. In November, China held talks with Russian state-owned aircraft engine manufacturer United Engine Corp on the possible joint development and production of military engines at the same time it signed a deal to buy 24 Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets, one of Moscow's most advanced warplanes. The Chinese Defence Ministry declined to comment on the status of the discussions. (Additional reporting by Megha Rajagopalan in Beijing; Editing by Dean Yates) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Rio De Janeiro: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff called for Latin America to launch a region-wide fight against the Zika virus, blamed for a surge in brain-damaged babies, as alarm rose over the world's latest health scare. Brazil has been the country hardest hit by the outbreak of the mosquito-borne virus, which is blamed for a sharp rise in infants born with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads. The outbreak is particularly concerning officials as the country prepares to host the Olympics, which will bring hundreds of thousands of travellers from around the world to Rio de Janeiro in August. But Brazil is far from alone: Zika has spread to some 20 countries in Latin America and the World Health Organisation (WHO) warns it is expected to spread to every country in the Americas except Canada and Chile. Nicaragua confirmed its first two cases yesterday. Denmark and Switzerland meanwhile joined a growing number of European countries to report Zika infections among travellers returning from Latin America. The returning travellers in those two countries were not pregnant and the disease has not been transmitted within Europe or the United States. US President Barack Obama called for faster research on the quick-moving virus, urging better diagnostic tests and the development of vaccines and treatments. There is currently no specific treatment for Zika and no way to prevent it other than avoiding mosquito bites. Rousseff said yesterday she had asked a summit of the 33-member Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to launch "cooperative action in the fight against the Zika virus." Zika originated in Africa and also exists in Asia and the Pacific, but has not been associated with microcephaly there. The virus first came to prominence in Brazil in October. In Brazil, cases of microcephaly which can cause brain damage or death in babies have surged from 163 a year on average to more than 3,718 suspected cases since the outbreak, according to new figures from the health ministry. AFP Gaza City: Seven members of Hamas' military wing were killed when a tunnel built for fighting against Israel collapsed this week in the Gaza Strip, the Islamist movement said on Thursday. The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, said in a statement that four militants managed to escape after the collapse late on Tuesday in the northeast of the Palestinian enclave. The collapse occurred after several days of rain. Al-Qassam Brigades said the seven "martyrs" were killed "when they were going to prepare for fighting with the enemy." Eight militants were initially reported missing by a security source. A Hamas source said three managed to escape within the first hour of the collapse, while a fourth was later rescued. The man rescued was injured, the source said, but it was not clear how seriously. Hamas officials were seeking to keep tight control over information regarding the incident. The collapse comes at a time of renewed focus on tunnels in Gaza, with Israel accusing Hamas of reconstructing them with the aim of attacking it following its 2014 war with Palestinian militants in the enclave when many were destroyed. Al-Qassam Brigades said the men killed were working on rebuilding a tunnel previously used for attacks when the collapse occurred. It was not clear if it was referring to the tunnel that collapsed or another connected to it. Several idle bulldozers could be seen on Thursday morning in an area next to a farm where the tunnel is believed to have been located. The area is about a kilometre (mile) from the Israeli border. Tunnels on TV Such tunnels have been used in the past to store weapons or stage attacks, including by passing under the Israeli border during the 2014 war. After the statement on the deaths was issued on Thursday, Hamas-run Al-Aqsa television broadcast a programme on tunnel operations, including the targeting of Israeli tanks. Such collapses have previously occurred in the coastal strip, which is under an Israeli blockade and has seen three wars with the Jewish state since 2008. On Saturday, a tunnel collapse killed a 30-year-old man, according to Hamas officials. Residents said the tunnel was located in Al-Maghazi in the central Gaza Strip. In December, 14 Palestinians were rescued after being stranded for hours in a tunnel near the Egyptian border when it flooded and partially collapsed, though tunnels in that area are more typically used for smuggling. At the end of 2014, Egypt began the construction of a buffer zone in the northern Sinai Peninsula, on the border with Gaza, including destroying hundreds of tunnels it says are used for smuggling weapons and other items. Israel's blockade severely restricts the movement of people and goods into and out of the enclave. Egypt's sole border with Gaza has also remained largely closed following the 2013 overthrow of the country's president Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, effectively trapping the 1.8 million Gazans into the territory. AFP Melbourne: A teenage suspect discussed with a British accomplice packing a kangaroo with explosives before setting it loose on Australian police officers, prosecutors alleged today. Sevdet Ramadan Besim was ordered in the Melbourne Magistrates Court today to stand trial in the Victoria state Supreme Court on charges that he planned an Islamic State group-inspired terrorist attack at a Veterans' Day ceremony that included targeting police officers in April last year. Besim, 19, pleaded not guilty to four charges relating to a plot to attack commemorative services in Melbourne or the neighbouring city of Dandenong to mark Anzac Day, the annual April 25 commemoration of the 1915 Gallipoli landings in Turkey. The campaign was the first major military action fought by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during World War I and hundreds of thousands attend commemoration services around Australia. Besim faces a potential life sentence in prison if convicted. Besim and four alleged conspirators were arrested in Melbourne a week before Anzac Day. He has been in custody since. Prosecutors alleged in court documents that Besim discussed with a British-based accomplice in online conversations that a kangaroo could be packed with explosives, painted with "the IS symbol" and set loose on police. Besim was also accused of planning to use a car to run over, then behead, a police officer. Besim allegedly said in online communications he was "ready to fight these dogs on there (sic) doorstep." "I'd love to take out some cops," Besim is alleged to have written. "I was gonna meet with them then take some heads." Police allege Besim was motivated by an extremist ideology and had expressed support for terrorist organisations, particularly the Islamic State movement. A British court in October sentenced a 15-year-old boy from Blackburn, northwestern England, for his part in the Anzac Day plot. In passing sentence in the Manchester Crown Court, Judge John Saunders said the teenager, who can't be named because of his age, would only be released when he was no longer a danger to the public. Saunders handed down a life sentence with no chance of parole for five years. AP Taipei, Taiwan: Taiwan's president, defying criticism from key ally the United States, visited to an island holding in the disputed South China Sea on Thursday and called for peaceful development in the increasingly tense region. Accompanied by about 30 staff members, Ma Ying-jeou left the capital Taipei early in the morning aboard an air force C-130 cargo plane bound for Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba. Taiping lies in the Spratly island group, an area where Taiwan shares overlapping claims with China, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. The city state of Brunei also claims a part of the South China Sea. Taiping is the largest naturally occurring island in the area, but has recently been eclipsed in size by man-made islands created by China out of reefs and shoals. China has built housing, ports, airstrips and other infrastructure on the newly created islands, drawing accusations from the US and others that it is exacerbating tensions in the strategically vital region. Taiwan stations about 200 coast guard personnel, scientists and medical workers on Taiping. It occupies a number of other islets in the South China Sea, including the Pratas island group to the north. After arriving, Ma spoke at a national monument on the islet and reiterated his call made last year for peaceful use of the sea. He also cited developments on the islet, including a 10-bed hospital and a lighthouse, saying they reinforced Taiwan's claim of sovereignty and granted it rights over the surrounding waters. There was no immediate response from Beijing, but the Philippines, which occupies a string of islands and reefs near the island Ma will visit, expressed its concern over the trip. "We remind all parties concerned of our shared responsibility to refrain from actions that can increase tension in the South China Sea," Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Charles Jose said in Manila. Coming near the end of his eight years in office, Ma's visit aims to emphasize Taiwan's sovereignty claim over the South China Sea. Hemmed in diplomatically by China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, Ma's government also wishes to be seen as a legitimate actor in the struggle for influence in the area, where tensions have been sharpened by China's increasingly robust assertions of ownership. Ma, who has been criticized at home as weak on foreign policy, must step down in May due to term limits and analysts said he considers the island visit a capstone to his time in office. Opposition party president-elect Tsai Ing-wen declined an invitation to go on the trip. "President Ma...views advancing (Taiwan's) maritime interests as part of his legacy," said Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington. "His visit to Taiping will further incite nationalistic fervor in the claimant countries and increase tensions." US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Wednesday that the United States was disappointed by Ma's trip, saying it could exacerbate tensions. During a visit to Beijing on Wednesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry encouraged all parties in the South China Sea to clarify their territorial claims, exercise restraint and engage in negotiations on the basis of international law. "I stressed the importance of finding common ground among the claimants and avoiding the destabilizing cycle of mistrust or escalation," Kerry said following a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The US takes no position on who owns the islands, but says developments in the South China Sea are a matter of national security. The sea is home to key shipping lanes as well as important fisheries and a possible wealth of oil and natural gas reserves. Tensions have been especially high since Beijing transformed seven disputed reefs into islands. The US says the new islands don't enjoy the status of sovereign territory and sent a guided-missile destroyer close to one of them, called Subi Reef, in October in a challenge to Beijing's territorial claims, sparking warnings from China. AFP Hanoi, Vietnam: Vietnam's freshly re-elected top communist party leader has hit out at critics of his country's one-party system, arguing that collective decision-making is "more democratic" than in nations which hold popular elections. Trong, a conservative apparatchik, made the comments after being re-elected on Wednesday for a second term as top leader, bringing the five-yearly Communist Party Congress to a close with a resounding victory for the party's old guard following weeks of infighting. The septuagenarian official, schooled in Soviet-style economics and seen as closer to Beijing than his erstwhile rival, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, used the first remarks of his new term to defend Vietnam's authoritarian system, which tolerates little dissent. "I don't want to name names, but some countries are nominally democracies yet the individual (leader) decides everything," he said. "With that in mind, who is more democratic?" he asked. Trong's rival, the reformist Prime Minister Dung who is widely credited with pushing a pro-business agenda and had been tipped for the top job, lost out in internal elections and will step down in May. His replacement is expected to be Nguyen Xuan Phuc, currently a deputy prime minister, state media said. Trong has been party chief since 2011 and will stay on following a compromise deal which analysts say is a break from the charismatic Dung's decade in power and a shift back towards more consensus-based decision-making. Trong said was he was "surprised" to have been asked to stay on in the party's top job, but prepared to face the challenges ahead. He sent a clear message in his speech that Vietnam, which is routinely criticised by rights groups and foreign governments for its intolerance of domestic dissent, will not be changing tack. "A country without discipline, in chaos and instability, that country cannot develop. So democracy and discipline must go together," he said. The country's new president, reported to be Tran Dai Quang by state media, is a police general who rose the ranks within the country's powerful Ministry of Public Security. Trong's ascent -- which owes as much to Dung's divisiveness as to his own popularity -- is unlikely to mark a dramatic change of course on key issues such as a dispute with Beijing over parts of the South China Sea and participation in a series of trade deals, including the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership. AFP Tehran, Iran: Several European airlines will resume their flights to Iran after nearly five years following a landmark nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, the state-owned IRAN daily reported on Thursday. The newspaper quoted Mohammad Khodakarami, deputy head of Iran's civil aviation authority, as saying British Airways officials visited Tehran on Tuesday to discuss resumption of flights. He did not elaborate. Khodakarami also said both Air France and Dutch flagship KLM have already announced their readiness to resume flights to Tehran. European carriers stopped their flights to Iran after the West imposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear ambitions. Currently Iran's national carrier, Iran Air, has three weekly flights to London as well as two weekly flights each to Paris and Amsterdam. Earlier this week, Iran said it is also considering direct flights to the United States. Direct flights stopped between the two countries more than three decades ago. Iran and the United States severed air links when Washington broke relations in 1979 after Iranian militants stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and held the occupants hostage. Tehran has also expressed interest in buying scores of new airplanes from American aircraft manufacturer Boeing. Iranian officials have already discussed buying 114 airplanes from European consortium Airbus. About 1 million Iranians live in the United States, mostly in California. Thousands fly to Iran every year, often changing planes in London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Istanbul and Dubai. AP In an exclusive interview, Senior Staff Writer Scott J. Davis sat down with up-and-coming Australian actor Jak Wyld, who has just taken his next big step in the acting world in the US Scott J. Davis: You have quite a diverse background with your early jobs and New Zealand Military training. How did you get started in acting, was it always a dream of yours from a young age? Jak Wyld: I was involved in a lot of productions throughout high school, when I was close to graduating I had to seriously look at career choices; a country school in New Zealand in the 80s had no drama classes or progression. I had always been interested in the military and aircraft so one afternoon I enlisted, I certainly dont regret it, but I think in the back of my mind I always knew my calling was in acting. SJD: How have your family reacted to your career change and now your new successes in the US? How has the transition been for them? JW: When I first told them that I was leaving the military they were understandably shocked, its probably not the obvious career progression. Once they got over the initial what the they were very supportive. Its always hard moving far from home, I do try and get back to see everyone as much I can and hopefully that wont change. SJD: Was it always your dream to be an actor in the US? Do you get to use your military training as an actor? JW: Yes, I think once the light bulb came on the natural thing to do was to work towards moving to LA, it is after all the center of the acting world. I use the skills I learnt in the military every day, hard work, respect and punctuality. I am also trained in weapons, drill, survival and general military decorum; these skills come incredibly useful for authenticity when Im cast in a military role. SJD: Tell us a little about your latest film Arrowhead how did you get involved? What is the story? JW: Its an upcoming Australian sci-fi feature film directed by Jesse OBrien. I heard about the film through social media and read some great articles about the journeys from short film to feature. I watched the short and knew I that I wanted to be a part of it, so I wrote to the director, a few times actually. They asked me if I wanted to play the Prison Commander, I travelled down to Melbourne, met the production team and the rest is history. SJD: You have had a decent stint on the very successful show Shortland Street how has the experience of working in television been so far? How does it differ from film for you? JW: Well, working on Shortland Street has been amazing. They are such a hardworking and professional team. Its fast, I think its the fastest single unit show in the world. You have to be on your game. I have really enjoyed playing Detective Inspector Derek Foster. He gets all the meaty cases. I was fortunate to be a part of the 2015 season finale. It was a double episode which ended up trending worldwide on social media. Film has a much more measured pace thats for sure, there is a lot more time to work on a character. There are more takes and actors can normally take their time on a scene. SJD: type of genre do you prefer to work on you have crossed over so many, do you have a particular favourite? JW: I have always enjoyed sci-fi-action films. Lately I have really enjoyed a good crime drama. I would love to work on either genre. To be honest, Im not that picky. If a script is captivating I am keen to be a part of it. SJD: you get to go to the cinema much? Anything films you have enjoyed lately? JW: Yeah I think its an important part of acting. Seeing whats out there, whats current, whats working and what isnt. I definitely prefer seeing movies on the silver screen as they were intended. I go as much as I can, just seen The Revenant. One word amazing! SJD: Are there any actors or directors you would love to work with in the future? Any other films in the pipeline for 2016 and beyond? JW: Oh wow so this list is practically endless. There are so many great directors out there today. I think my first choice would be Clint Eastwood for sure, I love his films, J.J. Abrams brings a lot to films too. A series regular on a space opera would be a dream come true, as I am a big Stargate fan. As for 2016 it has only just begun and it is set to be another rollercoaster year. I am waiting to hear on a few new exciting roles that I have met casting directors and producers for. Ill keep you posted on progress, but Im looking forward to all the opportunities 2016 has to offer. SJD: I understand you recently signed on with Bohemia Group, a renowned international agency. What does this mean for your future endeavours? JW: I am so thrilled to working with Bohemia, they are a solid management firm with offices globally. The team are passionate about their clients and having them in my corner will certainly take things to the next level. SJD: Finally, any advice you would give any actor who is trying to break into the US? JW: There is a check list for sure but predominantly research, preparation and understand the industry fully. You must work hard and take classes, and know that Los Angeles is not short of any type of actor. I think securing good work in your parent country is absolutely paramount. Build your credits in your homeland, hone your craft and then venture out to Hollywood. Break a leg! Our thanks to Jak for taking the time to do this interview, as well as Liz Rodriguez and EMR Media for helping us with the interview. Scott Davis is Senior Staff Writer for Flickering Myth and co-host of The Flickering Myth Review Podcast. Follow him on Twitter. Over fifty million people have viewed a Facebook video that features a Starbucks barista, who seemed to be dancing at work, while preparing your favorite coffee concoction. Soon, people found out that that entertaining barista is named Sam, and he has autism, particularly diagnosed with a movement disorder, a condition that makes him move in sudden, jerky movements and keeps him from being still for long periods of time. Many people were touched by the video, admiring the determination of Sam to live a normal life, as well as thankful to the people behind Sam's hiring. Sam was offered a job at Starbucks, which his parents thought might not be good and suitable for his situation. But Sam told his parents that he felt that his life had meaning for the first time. According to Chris, Sam's manager, at first he did not think that Sam would be able to handle the workload and perform his job behind the bar. But, he said that he believed in him and he saw no reason why he wouldn't take Sam on his coffee-making team. Jerky Movements to Dancing Instead of seeing his sudden movements as an accident waiting to happen, Sam channeled his moves towards dancing while working and entertaining customers waiting for their drink. Because of this, Sam is known as the "Dancing Barista". Just like every inspiring success story, Sam didn't learn to control his movements overnight. According to the post, Chris spent a lot of hours to get Sam somehow control his movements. Sam's video was uploaded by Carly Fleischmann, an autism advocate who was diagnosed with autism herself. She wrote: "My birthday is in four days and my birthday wish this year is to have this video go viral... More people like Sam need to be seen, heard and given a chance to thrive and dance." Aside from pizza and wings, everybody loves to have chili while watching and shouting at the Super Bowl on TV. Chili is a classic American comfort food but, did you know that each serving can have at least 250-500 calories in it? And let's be honest, everyone knows you won't settle for one serving. How about trying a delicious recipe of chili, but a little bit healthier? Many think that Chili can't be healthy-how can an American distress snack be healthy and still be delicious at the same time? Try substituting the traditional meat with turkey-turkey chili! Also, use red chilis. This kind of spice is healthier and would make you taste the heat more. Try skipping the additional salt, instead, incorporate soy sauce with the meat, which will make your turkey less bland. Follow this recipe by Food Network host Melissa D' Arabian and try changing a little something this game day! GAME DAY TURKEY CHILI Start to finish: 45 minutes 2 tsp vegetable oil, divided 1 lb lean ground turkey 2 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce 2 tsp smoked paprika 1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped 1 red bell pepper, cored and finely chopped 12-oz light beer two 15-oz cans low-sodium black beans, drained and rinsed 14-oz can low-sodium tomato sauce two 14-oz cans crushed tomatoes 2 tbsp chili powder dash of cayenne pepper 1 tsp cocoa powder hot sauce, to taste plain low-fat Greek yogurt, to serve chopped scallions, to serve shredded cheddar or Mexican cheese, to serve 1. In a Dutch oven or other large, heavy pot over medium-high, heat 1 teaspoon of the oil. Add the turkey and cook, breaking it up, until cooked through, about 7 minutes. Sprinkle the turkey with the soy sauce and smoked paprika, then mix until well-coated. Continue to cook until any moisture in the pot is gone, about 3 minutes. Spoon the meat out of the pan and set aside. 2. Return the pot to the heat and add the remaining oil. Add the onion and red pepper, then cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Increase the heat to high, then add the beer to deglaze the pan, scraping the bottom to loosen any stuck bits. Simmer for 2 minutes. Return the meat to the pot, along with the beans, tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes, chili powder, cayenne and cocoa powder. Bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low, then simmer for 30 minutes. 3. Serve with hot sauce, yogurt, scallions and cheese on the side. serves 8 There is no question that the Northern Kentucky of today looks a lot different than the one from 2007. Covington and the urban core... Republican presidential candidate and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul believes he has what it takes to stand out among his competitors at the next GOP debate, co-hosted by Fox News and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG). I think my voice is unique on the stage, Paul said. I think the government has gone way too far in collecting all our private information- our phone records, our credit card information. Im also alone on the stage in thinking the governments gone too far in putting teenagers in jail for marijuana and minor offenses." The Senator added: Im also alone on the stage in saying I think that our military interventions in the Middle East have often backfired and led to unintended consequences. I frankly think that toppling Gaddafi led to chaos in Libya and the rise of radical Islam. Frankly, I think the same will happen in Syria if we try to topple Assad. As for his thoughts on Republican frontrunner Donald Trumps decision to opt out of the next GOP debate, Paul said: I think hes [Trump] really afraid that the more hes exposed, the more people might know that hes not really a conservative. He added: Hes been a progressive Democrat most of his life, so I suspect hes not really conservative at all. Smart devices are some of the most exciting new consumer products, and from the looks of it, theyre only going to get more popular. Adding Internet capability to something as mundane as a light switch can make your home more exciting, comfortable and personalized it can also make it more vulnerable to intruders. The so-called Internet of Things presents a new challenge to home-tech enthusiasts. As people want to adopt new technology and enhance their everyday tasks with connectivity, they risk exposing their homes to hackers. There have been several reports of Internet of Things vulnerabilities, some scarier than others, but theyre not necessarily reasons to avoid embracing new things. More than anything, theyre a reminder to be cautious and aware of potential risks of Internet-connected items. How to Protect Yourself As boring as it sounds, reading the manual to your gadgets is a crucial first step to protecting yourself, said Adam Levin, author of Swiped, a book on identity theft, and co-founder of Credit.com. The issue really is all of these devices come with default passwords, most of those default passwords can be found on websites, Levin said. A lot of consumers dont take the time to read the manual to find out exactly how they can change the password. Internet-connected items tend to collect and transmit data for the purpose of making improvements to meet current and future customers needs, but that connection could be an open window to unwelcome guests. If one device on your network is vulnerable, other things on the same connection could be at risk, too. The bottom line is we are moving more and more toward very smart products and consumers have to at least be in a position to outsmart the smart products, Levin said. Read the manuals to determine where your points of exposure are. And, if you ever have reason to believe your personal information has been exposed, you should monitor your credit. You can do so by pulling your credit reports for free each year at AnnualCreditReport.com and viewing your credit scores for free each month on Credit.com. Here are some common household items that have been in the news for hacking vulnerability (besides the obvious: personal computers). 1. TVs At the 2013 Black Hat security conference, researchers showed how Samsungs Smart TVs could be overtaken by hackers, reported Mashable. Samsung responded saying the bugs had been fixed (the company did not respond immediately for follow-up comment). Still, the demonstration at the conference raised awareness of such devices vulnerabilities. 2. Baby Monitors Several stories of parents hearing creepy messages coming through their baby monitors have hit the news in the last year. In one story, from CBS New York, a couple heard, Wake up little boy, daddys looking for you, come through the monitor in their sons room, and they noticed the hacker could control the camera. Later in 2015, a security firm issued a report saying many popular Internet-connected baby monitors lacked basic security features. 3. Thermostats TrapX Security, a security research firm, reported in early 2015 that smart thermostats could be vulnerable to external takeover and serve as a gateway to control a homes network and items connected to it. The report focused on Google-owned Nest thermostats, though the company said theres no evidence that a Nest device has been compromised in the way the researchers said it could be, Forbes reported. The vast majority of hardware devices from laptops to smartphones are susceptible to hacking with physical access, a spokesperson from Nest said in an email. This is sometimes called a jailbreak or rooting and describes the kind of hack TrapX performed. A jailbreak doesnt compromise the security of our servers or the connections between non-jailbroken devices and our servers. To the best of our knowledge, no Nest device has ever been compromised remotely. More from Credit.com: How to Use Free Credit Monitoring ToolsWhat's a Good Credit Score?Chase Slate Review: A Great Bet If You Need Breathing Room From Your Debt Want to know which hackable household items made the rest of our list? Check out the full article on Credit.com. This article originally appeared on Credit.com. Christine DiGangi is a reporter and editor for Credit.com, covering a variety of personal finance topics. Her writing has been featured on USA Today, MSN, Yahoo! Finance and The New York Times International Weekly, among other outlets. More by Christine DiGangi Six years ago a there was a hopeful flicker of light at the end of the tunnel for the tens of thousands of commuters who travel back and forth each day on crowded trains between New Jersey and New York City. Construction of a third train tunnel under the Hudson River was slated for completion by 2018. The project, dubbed Access to the Regions Core (ARC), would have doubled rail commuter capacity between two of the most densely populated regions in the country. But that flicker of light was swiftly extinguished by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who killed the $12.4 billion ARC project in the fall of 2010 under the premise that New Jersey taxpayers were shouldering too much of the financial burden. Now the massive infrastructure project is back on the drawing board but the projected cost has risen to more than $20 billion and the new tunnels wont be completed for another decade and a half, perhaps longer. We will have lost 13 years or so as a result of the decision making that led to the cancellation of the ARC project, said Martin E. Robins, a leading architect of New Jerseys rail transit system over the past 25 years and the chief designer of the ARC tunnel. The new project dubbed Gateway is needed beyond badly, according to Robins, regardless of the escalating costs, the political and bureaucratic difficulties and all the logistical nightmares that need to be overcome. The need has long since been identified going back around 20 years. Its absolutely urgent that the project be built now, he added. There are currently just two rail tunnels connecting Manhattan with New Jersey, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and beyond. Thats how its been for more than 100 years -- the same two tunnels. In other words, as the population of the metro New York/New Jersey area has multiplied during the past century, a linchpin of the regions commuter rail transportation system has remained unchanged. Every weekday during the morning and evening rush hours those century-old tunnels are running at maximum capacity, funneling an estimated 90,000 NJT commuters and thousands more Amtrak passengers in and out of Penn Station underneath Midtown Manhattan. If something goes awry in one of those tunnels as it frequently does thousands of commuters are left stranded, sometimes for hours, on either side of the river, frequently on badly over-crowded trains. Ironically, a primary reason for the overcrowded trains is that New Jersey Transit (NJT) has significantly improved its service in and out of the city over the past two decades. Initiated 20 years ago under Robins direction, NJTs Midtown Direct service has proven a boon to a number of suburban towns along NJTs web of train lines. Luxury condominium complexes within walking distance of train stations have attracted nearby retail shopping, restaurants and coffee shops, re-energizing once-sleepy downtowns in places like Morristown, Montclair and South Orange. Thats the good news. The bad news is that the influx of residents, folks fleeing the ever-higher cost of living in Manhattan or Brooklyn but who still work in the city, has created a sharp increase in the number of commuters trekking back and forth each day across the Hudson River. That surge in commuters prompted renewed calls for construction of another rail tunnel under the Hudson. With momentum seemingly headed in that direction in the late 2000s, Christies decision to kill the ARC project infuriated many. Former U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) called it one of the biggest policy blunders in New Jersey history. Many suggested the decision was politically motivated, an effort by the ambitious governor with presidential aspirations to boost his 2013 re-election chances and raise his national profile by allowing him to divert billions of dollars in ARC money to help bail out the states troubled finances without having to raise the states gasoline tax. The Christie administration has denied any political motivation, but thats water under the bridge, so to speak. The issue now at hand, according to Robins, is moving the Gateway project forward as quickly as possible. Time is a tremendous issue, he said. There are many problems but they can be surmounted. A primary concern is completing at least one of the two proposed Gateway tunnels before one or both of the existing tunnels becomes incapacitated, a situation made all the more likely when both existing tunnels were flooded with salt water in 2012 by Hurricane Sandy, causing extensive damage. Its hard to imagine the congestion that would occur each day if there was only one rail tunnel open to NJT commuter and Amtrak trains beneath the Hudson River. The Gateway project gained a good bit of momentum in the latter half of 2015 when Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo agreed to split 50% of the total costs if the federal government agreed to cover the rest, an important first step. Meanwhile, the Gateway Development Corporation was set up within the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to oversee the project and Congress in December passed a massive transportation spending bill that officials say will provide funding for the new tunnels. Robins said that in addition to likely construction issues and the many questions that still remain concerning the financing, one of the most challenging hurdles will be negotiating with the owners of underground land that currently abuts the existing Penn Station in Manhattan. In order to build the additional tunnels and create terminals for the increased passenger traffic, Penn Station will have to be expanded, and that wont happen on the cheap. Fortunately, according to Robins, the debate is no longer whether to build the tunnels but rather how to build them. Certainly in our region there is a realization that this project needs to get done. Theres a lot of pent up demand here, he said. Young people strongly favor rail travel and understand that rail travel is the future. All that makes it a much easier sell than it was 20 years ago. A staff mix-up regarding the care of a 90-year-old patient at a senior home who suffered from a severe eye infection resulted in worms infesting her wound. Coca Miglioranza has lived in a senior home in Lujan, a city in Argentinas Buenos Aires province, for 30 years, Central European News (CEN) reported. She had been suffering from skin cancer and developed a severe eye infection, but was not given the proper medication to treat it. Hospital staff reportedly gave her medicine meant to treat animals, which resulted in parasites infesting the wound, CEN reported. Miglioranza reportedly complained repeatedly of the pain, but no action was taken until the parasites were visible. An employee alerted others, but chose to share the story with local media when no further action was taken, CEN reported. This is not the first time this has happened, the unidentified employee reportedly told the news station. This grandma is very hurt, but she hasnt filed a complaint due to her vulnerable state. Miglioranza is currently receiving the correct care, CEN reported. Marcelo Musso, president of the states healthcare commission, said in a statement that what happened is very serious and should not happen again. Musso also cited staffing shortages as a reason for possible oversight, CEN reported. Photos of an Australian mother pregnant with quintuplets and posing on the beach have begun going viral. Fox 5 Atlanta reported that Kimberly Tucci, of Warnbro, Australia, posed for the photos on a western Australia beach. Her photographer, Erin Hoskins, of Erin Elizabeth Photography, has received praise from across the globe for the snapshots. The images show Tucci standing in the sand next to crashing waves in sweeping, neutral-colored dresses while holding her belly. In a caption for two photos of Tucci posted on her Facebook page, Hoskins described Tucci as stunning and a goddess. Kim has carried her babies all the way into the third trimester and five healthy babies are expected to arrive any day now, Hoskins wrote in the status, which she posted Tuesday Jan. 19 and had garnered nearly 60,000 likes as of Thursday morning. These photos were taken at 24 weeks and she could not be more beautiful...her strength just shines through in every image. A true goddess, indeed. Since the photos began going viral, Tuccis blog, Surprise by Five, has also entered the spotlight for its honest discussion about what carrying five children is like. In the blog, Tucci shares that she must consume 6,000 calories a day and use the restroom 12 times throughout the night to support the growing lives in her belly. Tucci and her husband, Vaughn, already have two daughters together: Aiva, 4, and Indiana, 2, according to Womans Day. Before Tucci learned she was pregnant with quintuplets, they had been trying for one more child: a boy. With Tuccis current pregnancy, they are expecting four girls and one boy. According to the Womans Day feature, Tucci did not use fertility drugs or IVF while trying to get pregnant. Doctors estimate the chance of conceiving quintuplets naturally is one in 55 million. More than 29 million Americans are living with diabetes, and 1 in 4 are likely unaware that they have the disease, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports. As the cost of care for diabetes patients and the overall presence of it continues to increase, news of a possible natural treatment is offering hope. Researchers are currently studying the effects of a rainforest vine called ayahuasca, a psychoactive plant that contains a key ingredient that may play a role in reversing diabetes. Diabetes involves either an inadequate production of pancreatic beta cells, which are responsible for the production of insulin, or a failure on the part of pancreatic beta cells to actually produce enough insulin to stabilize blood sugar, Chris Kilham, The Medicine Hunter, told FoxNews.com from Peru. Scientists have wondered for decades, Is there a way to stimulate more growth of pancreatic beta cells in the human body? Kilham added that in humans, pancreatic beta cells develop within the first year of life, and continue to work to keep blood sugar levels stable to prevent the development of diabetes. In a recent study published in the journal Nature, scientists reported that the alkaloid harmine, which is found in the ayahuasca vine, actually causes the production of new pancreatic beta cells. Harmine is also found in a plant called Syrian Rue, which may also be a source of the alkaloid. But what the scientists found was that introducing this alkaloid harmine into a living system resulted in the proliferation of pancreatic beta cells, Kilham said. This is a very big breakthrough, he said, adding that it could potentially mean that type 2 diabetics might be able to achieve a reversal of their condition by taking harmine in some form, while type 1 diabetes patients might be able to produce healthy new pancreatic beta cells, therefore no longer requiring insulin therapy or being considered diabetic. Kilham cautioned that the science is still relatively new, and the studys authors said harmine alone wont cure diabetes. Moving forward, researchers will need to find a way to specifically target beta cells with this chemical, without it appearing elsewhere in the body. The next phase of research may take time, but the discovery could lead to the development of drugs that may one day reverse diabetes. Police in California are searching for a suspect who stole a custom bike from a child with special needs. Damian Jeffries, 13, was born with cerebral palsy, a chronic condition that affects body movement and muscle coordination. Its typically caused by damage to one or more areas of the brain during fetal development. His mother had the foot-and-hand-pedal bike worth more than $5,000 custom-made for him so he could feel more normal, KABC.com reported. We wanted to make sure he had something to make him, as he says, more normal, Allesha Jeffries, Damians mother, told the news station. I hate the word normal, but normal like all the other kids to be able to ride and get around. Damian is now hoping the Burbank Police Department can help him find the thief who stole his bike Saturday evening. Surveillance video shows the suspect walking out of the lobby door of a Riverside Drive building with it. Who would steal a handicapped kids bike? Damian told KABC.com. It made me feel like a normal kid because, like, almost every kid rides a bike or a skateboard. Despite doctors telling Damians mother her son suffered severe brain damage, he has beaten the odds to learn how to walk, talk and even ride his special bike. If you see this, return the bike. Its a crime, but return the bike, Allesha pleaded to the suspect. Its very important to him. Police told KABC that the suspect will face grand theft charges. next Image 1 of 3 prev next Image 2 of 3 prev Image 3 of 3 The United States has two potential candidates for a vaccine for the Zika virus and may begin clinical trials in people by the end of this year, but there will not be a widely available vaccine for several years, U.S. officials said on Thursday. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease, said one of the vaccines was based on work done on the West Nile virus. Fauci said that vaccine was never developed because a drug company partner could not be found, but he did not see this as an issue for Zika. "We're already talking to a few companies who are able to partner with us in advanced development," he told a news conference. Zika, a mosquito-transmitted virus, has been linked to severe birth defects in thousands of babies in Brazil. There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is like dengue and causes mild fever, rash and red eyes. An estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms, meaning it can be hard to tell if a pregnant woman has been infected. Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said there have been 31 cases of Zika infection among U.S. citizens who traveled to areas affected by the virus. So far, there have been no cases of transmission of the virus through mosquitoes in the United States, she said. In Geneva, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that Zika is spreading "explosively" and could affect as many as four million people in the Americas. Presidential candidate and self-avowed Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders gladly admits, if elected, he will raise taxes for Americans. For instance, during the Democratic town hall meeting, Sanders talks about wanting Medicare for all. He is not alone in speaking about raising taxes. President Obama campaigned in 2008 on hiking taxes on anyone making more than $250,000 a year. The catch phrase had a lot to do with getting him elected -- "Pay your fair share" -- even when many argued those percentage of people already were. Hillary Clinton has also called on raising taxes for the so called wealthy, but Bernie is different. He wants to raise taxes for everyone -- claiming he'll save "some" Americans money in doing so, but by just how much? Just a few years ago, Sanders admitted he was in favor of a 90 percent tax rate, and while he has come off of that since running for president, no one's really pushed him on what his new number would be. Wouldn't that be an important number to know? Somewhere in Des Moines, a set designer is working overtime. Prior to Donald Trumps decision to skip Thursdays Fox News GOP presidential debate, the format was self-evident: in one steel cage, Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, rasslin for first place in Mondays Iowa caucuses; in a second cage, the four establishment Republicans vying for a second-place finish in New Hampshires primary. Trumps change of heart changes that. And by putting his personal animus ahead of the democratic process, the billionaire developer who made an extra career out of firing television apprentices is playing with political fire. For two reasons the first being the uncertainty of the Iowa electorate. Four year ago, exit polls in Iowa showed 46 percent of GOP caucus-goers not making up their minds until the week before the vote. One-third of them sided with Rick Santorum, resulting in a 34-vote loss for Mitt Romney (although we didnt really know that for six weeks), the frontrunner going into the weekend before that years vote. If the current Iowa polls are to believed and Trump has regained the lead over Cruz, why mess with that momentum? Second, what Fox News has in store is historic: its the first time that a debate will loom over the caucuses. In 2012, the GOP field last debated in the Hawkeye State 19 days before the caucuses. This time, its only four days. In a state that take its politics seriously, a sliver of caucus-goers may decide that playing mind games with a new anchor isnt the stuff of serious statesmanship not an avalanche of voters, mind you, but enough to put Cruz narrowly over the top. As for the debate itself, four observations: 1. What now for Cruz? Minus Trump, Cruz is without his main sparring partner these past few weeks. The good news America perhaps gets a reprieve from the citizenship controversy. The Texas senator wont receive a free pass, however. Expect the moderators to push Cruz on, say, his ties to Goldman Sachs and his opposition to the federal ethanol subsidy (aka, King Corn), which sent Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad fleeing in Trumps direction. Someone who could fill Trumps shoes as a Cruz antagonist: Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. The two had a falling-out last fall (Cruz cherry-picking Pauls libertarian base; Paul calling Cruz a flip-flopper on immigration). Four years ago, Rand Paul, the senators father, finished a solid third in the caucuses. This likely is the sons last chance to have an impact on the race. 2. Winter Storm Jeb. While the media have obsessed over the Cruz-Trump feud, the other defining aspect of the GOP race is Jeb Bushs relentless aerial assault on Marco Rubio since December, nine of every 10 dollars in Bush super PAC attack ads directed at his fellow Floridian. The ads havent done much for Bushs sagging poll numbers (4 percent in Iowa and 7 percent in New Hampshire, per the most recent Fox News Poll), but they have stalled Rubios progress. The Bush spots have vacillated from policy to petty (mocking Rubios choice in footwear; his use of credit cards). Does Jeb continue with the attacks in person? If so, is this the night when Rubio decides hes had enough (the Rubio camp might ask: wheres Trump when you need him?)? 3. The New Hampshirites. The other winter storm Jonas was a bad break for Chris Christie, as it took him away from the Granite State to tend to affairs back in New Jersey. Which means the luckiest man in the GOP field may be John Kasich. As Trump and Cruz trade insults and Bush unloads on Rubio, the Ohio governor continues to forge his wage across New Hampshire under the radar and off the attack-ad grid. On Tuesday, Kasich landed The Concord Monitors and Boston Globes endorsements (lest you think this seals the deal in New Hampshire primary, the same papers endorsed Jon Huntsman in 2012). At 2 percent in the Fox News Poll of GOP caucus-goers, Kasich is a non-entity in Iowa. But in New Hampshire, he sits in fourth place, just five points behind the second-place Cruz. If I were Cruz, Id talk up Dr. Ben Carson in this debate thats assuming a third-place finish in Iowa by Carson seriously wounds Rubio moving forward to New Hampshire. 4. Wheres The Donald? So what does Trump do with those two hours of free time? Instead of taking part in the debate, the candidate will host an event for wounded veterans at Drake University in Des Moines. Youll recall that he played a similar card back in September, when he threatened to drop out of CNNs GOP presidential debate unless the broadcasts profits went to various veterans groups. To his credit, Trump has talked about the plight of the Veterans Administration on the campaign trail. However, a cynic will note that a partys frontrunner surrounding oneself with veterans, at the same time hes trying to stick it to a news network by ducking a debate, could easily be interpreted as exploitation. Not that a politician would ever do such a thing Five hundred forty-five days. That's the number of days that Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian spent in prison on what many agree were trumped up charges. Jason spent last week reuniting with his wife, mother, and brother at an American military base in Germany before returning home to the United States on Friday. Its undoubtedly been a long journey for the countless number of people involved in the daily fight for Jasons freedom. Arguably no one fought more tirelessly than Jasons brother Ali, who put his life on hold and traveled the world for 18 months to try to get him home. Ive had the good fortune of spending time with Ali during the last year. We first connected after the Rezaian family started a petition on Change.org that began to gain significant support last January. From a National Press Club event in March that showcased the growing global support for Jasons release to Alis petition delivery to the Iranian Mission to the U.N. in December, Im so thrilled that Jason is free and reunited with Ali and his family. At this time last year, Jasons imprisonment wasnt widely known by Americans or others worldwide. Alis petition changed that. While diplomats, advocacy organizations, and Jasons employer worked to free Jason, Ali was able to employ his own tool: a petition to educate the global community about what had happened to his brother. The petition, which highlighted the familys despair as a result of Jasons injustice, inspired and mobilized people from all corners of the globe to take action. It also spurred petitions in other countries, like that of Charles-Antoine Joly (one of Jasons best friends), who actively campaigned for his release in France. Soon, handfuls of Washington Post journalists tweeted the petition to encourage public support -- a rare move in the journalism community. The National Press Club called on all of its press members to bring attention to Jasons case, and Alis petition was highlighted at the White House Correspondents Dinner in April, where President Obama spoke of his administrations commitment to Jasons release. The increased momentum helped to drive ongoing press coverage of Jasons case worldwide, and petition signatures grew from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. What soon came together was a full-blown, global #FreeJason campaign, and Alis petition became the central organizing place for everyone who was advocating on Jasons behalf. Throughout this ordeal, Ali and the many who stood with him kept pushing despite the setbacks. Jasons secret trial with a hard-line judge, his continued imprisonment despite the Iranian nuclear deal, and his conviction on questionable charges were certainly unsettling developments. Yet at every turn, more people came to sign petition and support the family. Through the highs and the lows, Alis campaign demonstrated the power and promise of online organizing and mobilization by playing a key role in elevating public awareness of Jasons plight. More than 540,000 people from more than 140 countries had supported Alis campaign by the time Jason was released. At any given time, Ali could tap into this global community, whether to inform them of recent news or ask them to take specific actions, such as a tweet to President Rouhani or a share of the petition with friends and family members to broaden awareness. There is no question that the diplomatic efforts of the United States, as well as the persistent fight by Washington Post leadership, were the driving forces in securing Jasons freedom. However, what is clear is that Alis petition filled an important gap that had been previously missing this time one year ago: broad public awareness and engagement. That engagement helped to fuel a larger, global campaign for Jasons release. It demonstrated to Iranians that people worldwide clearly knew what they were doing and wouldnt support it. It showed the journalism community that this wasnt their fight alone, but that many in the public were in solidarity with them. It also comforted the Rezaian family to know that hundreds of thousands of people worldwide -- people who theyve never met -- stood by them during many dark days. Petitions on Change.org start and propel conversations at the local, national, and international levels in a way that wouldnt have been possible even 10 years ago. The fact that Alis petition was a cornerstone piece of the work that many individuals and organizations supported speaks to the power that a typical, everyday person can harness to advance their own causes. On behalf of the more than half a million people who signed the familys petition: Welcome home, Jason. The judge overseeing an upcoming political corruption case offered Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Chaka Fattah some harsh advice Tuesday: get your priorities straight. Fattah faces a racketeering indictment and his attorneys want to be removed from representing him, claiming the Philadelphia Democrat failed to pay them over the last five months. U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III informed Fattah he is not taking his trial seriously enough and is too focused on raising money for his re-election bid. I think you need to take this matter seriously and think hard and fast about your priorities, the judge told Fattah after the congressman said he would pay his lawyers after raising funds for his campaign. Im not suggesting that Im not taking this matter seriously, he said. But one thing has to come after another, and you have to make rational decisions. We dont think much of the allegations, but this is an important matter, he told the Philadelphia Inquirer, noting earlier that he has every intention to pay his legal bills. Fattah is accused of accepting bribes and misusing campaign money, charitable contributions and grant funds as a way to pay his family members and political allies. Follow Kerry on Twitter Bernie Sanders campaign reportedly is weighing whether to launch a tough attack ad against Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton in the closing days of the Iowa caucus race. The New York Times reported Wednesday that the campaign has two ads ready to go one, a positive spot; the other, an attack on Clintons Wall Street ties. The campaign reportedly was meeting Wednesday to figure out which direction to go. The Times report already is being used as a fundraising tool by the Clinton campaign, which is accusing Sanders of considering going back on past pledges not to run negative ads. A fundraising email from Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook says: The New York Times reported this morning that Bernie Sanders and his advisors are convening to decide whether to air a devastating ad attacking Hillary in the final days before the Iowa caucus. Bernie promised he wouldn't make personal attacks in this campaign We can't let these attacks go unchecked. The back and forth comes as the candidates jockey for the lead in Iowa polls. The most recent Fox News Poll in Iowa showed Sanders closing the gap, but Clinton still leading by 6 points. Other polls have Sanders slightly ahead. Sanders, meanwhile, met privately Wednesday with President Obama at the White House. The meeting, according to a White House spokesman, was requested by Sanders weeks ago. Sanders did not say much about what was discussed but called it a very positive and constructive meeting. Earlier this week, Obama appeared to come to Clintons defense, praising her in an interview with Politico while likening Sanders campaign to a bright, shiny object. Sanders acknowledged Wednesday that he and Obama have their differences but praised the work the Obama administration has done. Amid the reported discussions about whether to get tougher on Clinton before the caucuses, the Sanders campaign hit her financial industry ties again Wednesday evening, tweeting: Bernie Sanders: speaking tonight in Mason City, Iowa. Hillary Clinton: at investment firm fundraiser in Philadelphia Sanders' campaign also responded to a new Clinton campaign ad airing in Iowa attacking his Medicare-for-all proposal. We were disappointed but not surprised that Secretary Clinton has decided to broadcast a television ad in Iowa that completely distorts my record, Sanders said in a statement. Donald Trump stuck by his decision to skip the upcoming Fox News/Google presidential primary debate, claiming in an interview Wednesday night with Fox News Bill OReilly that he had been used and mistreated. I dont like being taken advantage of, the billionaire businessman and Republican primary front-runner said, repeatedly telling O'Reilly that he'll instead hold a veterans event at Drake University while his GOP rivals debate. Trump has taken heat from conservative commentators as well as his Republican primary rivals for his decision to boycott the Thursday night debate. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz earlier said that if Trump is afraid to face questions, that does not bode well for what kind of commander-in-chief you'd make. Cruz also challenged Trump to a one-on-one debate, a suggestion Trump later brushed aside with a sarcastic tweet referencing Cruz's Canadian birth. Trump rejected his rivals' criticism, insisting hes won every debate to date and is willing to do more going forward. Ill do other debates, he told O'Reilly, but then complained that, Were going to go on forever with these debates. Despite O'Reilly's attempt to convince Trump to reconsider his debate boycott, Trump held fast to his decision while insisting, Im not walking away. The Republican candidate, meanwhile, announced the details of an alternative event he plans to host Thursday night, to raise money for veterans groups. He said hell host the event, being described as a special event to benefit veterans organizations, at Drake University in Des Moines. Late Wedneday night, super PAC Keep the Promise which supports Ted Cruz offered to contribute $1.5 million to veterans charities if Trump accepts Cruzs one-on-one debate challenge. There was no immediate response from the Trump campaign. Trumps comments are the latest in a fast-paced volley of accusations surrounding the upcoming debate. For days, Trump has revived his criticism of one of the moderators, Fox News host Megyn Kelly, alleging that she had treated him unfairly at the Fox News debate in August. That led to an exchange of media statements between Trump and Fox News representatives, after which Trump decided Tuesday night to boycott. Trump pointed to those media statements, as well, in explaining his decision not to attend Thursdays debate. He has continued to criticize both Kelly and Fox News itself in the wake of his decision. Early Wednesday morning, Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told MSNBCs Morning Joe that the boycott had nothing to do with Megyn Kelly. But a half-hour later, Trump again went after Kelly on Twitter, calling her a lightweight reporter. And, he continued his attacks during his appearance on "O'Reilly." Whether Trumps decision helps or hurts his campaign in Iowa and beyond remains to be seen. Other candidates suggested Trumps absence might help give the rest of those on stage a better chance to be heard. Itll give us more time to talk, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told Fox News. And thatll be good for me and good for the other people on the stage. Christie, too, ripped Trump for his decision, saying: You gotta show up. Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes has defended Megyn Kelly amid the criticism from Trump, saying shell absolutely be on the debate stage. Fox News also issued a statement after Trumps decision saying Lewandowski had threatened to ramp up the attacks. In a call on Saturday with a FOX News executive, Lewandowski stated that Megyn had a rough couple of days after that last debate and he would hate to have her go through that again, the Fox News statement said late Tuesday. Lewandowski was warned not to level any more threats, but he continued to do so. We cant give in to terrorizations toward any of our employees, the statement added. The Fox News/Google prime-time debate is set for Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa, at 9 p.m. ET the same time as Trumps veterans event. Addressing the matter on The Kelly File Tuesday night, Kelly said: Ill be there. The debate will go on with or without Mr. Trump. The seven Republican presidential candidates who've accepted the invitation to participate in Thursday night's Fox News/Google debate are trying to step into the spotlight Donald Trump vacated when he decided to boycott the Iowa showdown. For the first time, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz will be center-stage at the prime-time event. He is fighting to regain lost ground over Trump in the Iowa polls, and is widely expected to train his attacks Thursday night on the missing front-runner. I think it's stunning Donald has refused to do it, Cruz told Fox News. But without the kind of Trump-Cruz war of words that dominated the last Republican debate, other candidates may have a better chance of breaking through at the showdown in Des Moines. They all need a game-changing moment, Taryn Rosenkranz, founder of the political digital strategy firm New Blue Interactive, told Fox News. Democratic strategist Doug Schoen said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who is third in most Iowa polls, has a chance to go after Cruz Thursday night and emerge as a top debate finisher by Friday. Indeed, Trumps absence could make Cruz the focus of many other candidates attacks. By taking himself out of the action, [Trump] creates a dynamic where another candidate, whether it be Rubio, perhaps [Jeb] Bush or somebody else can emerge, Schoen said. Bush -- who has struggled at virtually every debate to land a knock-down blow against top rivals is, like Cruz, still taking shots at Trump ahead of the face-off Thursday night. He tweeted an informal poll question Wednesday night: If @realDonaldTrump cant handle the @FoxNews debate, what else will he not be able to handle? Jeb Bush (@JebBush) January 28, 2016 New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie indicated he hopes Trumps absence will let the other candidates truly debate. Itll give us more time to talk, Christie told Fox News. And thatll be good for me and good for the other people on the stage. The debate marks a particular opportunity for Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul who did not qualify for the recent Fox Business Network debate but will now return to the prime-time stage after making the cut this time. Paul, though, continues to struggle with low poll numbers. The seven candidates on the prime-time stage in Des Moines at 9 p.m. ET will be: Cruz; Rubio; retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson; Bush; Christie; Ohio Gov. John Kasich; and Paul. Four candidates also qualified for the earlier, 7 p.m. ET debate: Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum; and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore. Santorum and Huckabee, after the evening debate, both plan to attend a veterans event that Trump is holding nearby in Des Moines. The debate will be the candidates last before the Iowa caucuses on Monday. The polls in the Hawkeye State show essentially a two-man race for first between Trump and Cruz. Rubio has been holding steady in third position, while Carsons numbers have been on a downward course in recent weeks. After Iowa, the candidates head to New Hampshire, where Trump also leads but several other candidates are jockeying for position behind him. Cruz campaign is deploying a substantial ground operation in a bid to overtake Trump in Iowa, a state the campaign considers crucial. Were looking forward to a win, spokesman Rick Tyler told Fox News. Weve got an unbelievable ground game. The debate Thursday will be moderated by Fox News anchors Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace. **Want FOX News First in your inbox every day? Sign up here.** Buzz Cut: A GOP debate to-do list To Bern or not to Bern? FBI continues probe into Hillary server Bernie to sit out unsanctioned debate Snuggle time A GOP DEBATE TO-DO LIST DES MOINES, IOWA -- The ecstatic shrieks of the political press over Donald Trumps decision to skip tonights Fox News/Google debate have been pretty much the norm for the 2016 cycle. How much Trumps choice to snub Iowas only Republican debate this cycle is an open question, but the race is close enough and Iowa is famous for late-breaking caucus decisions that the consequences could be substantial. Just as important for Iowa Republicans and the rest of the election cycle is the tremendous opportunity Trump is leaving open for his rivals by not attending the debate. Trump is giving them not just the chance to wail away on him without retort, but also to make their own cases. With that in mind, heres a to-do list for each of the candidates: TED CRUZ To do: Strike a presidential pose - How much or how little Cruz talks about Trump will give us a revealing look at how the Texas senator really sees the race. Trump is roasting Cruz with buckets of napalm. Cruz will be obliged to point out Trumps weakest policy points, especially on immigration and make his plea to Iowa conservatives to put principles above personality. But Rubio is really Cruzs problem tonight. As the rest of the field has fallen away, Cruz finds himself the man in the middle between the human torch Trump and the nimble knife fighter Rubio. On the stage, though, its just his fellow senator. Wariness about Cruz relates to his prospects for a general election. One of the reasons that the GOP establishment is warming to Trump goes beyond the frontrunners views, which line up better with party elites, but also about worries over Cruzs ability to even keep a general election competitive. Whatever he does in attacking and parrying, Cruz will have to do it in a way that allows Republicans to imagine him as the leader of their party. MARCO RUBIO To do: Elevate your game - The Florida senator will be fending off attacks not just from his rival Cruz but also from the second-tier candidates desperate for attention and to hobble Rubio. He has been better than any candidate this cycle in the close-quarters combat of these on-stage showdowns. But Rubio is really at his best when he speaks in aspirational terms for the country and the future. There is liable to be so much incoming from his rivals that he may struggle to make the emotional and rhetorical shift. Making those moments is how he can continue to solidify his place as the third man in a three-way race. RAND PAUL To do: Be the message - The Kentucky senator has some difficult decisions to make. Paul had once imagined that this would really be the libertarian moment for the Republican Party and that he would be a top-tier contender. While the GOP frontrunner sometimes agrees with Paul on foreign policy, Trump is far from libertarian when it comes to domestic issues. Facing a speedy exit from the race, Paul needs to use this debate to maintain his status as the maximum liberty candidate if only to maintain his place as one of the leaders in the movement. CHRIS CHRISTIE To do: Talk straight - New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie needs to live up to his campaigns main message: tell it like it is. Christie has been known for his upfront, no nonsense style since he gained a high political profile in 2009, but lately his record has become a little jumbled. In the last debate, hosted by Fox Business, Christie came out looking like a flip-flopper on issues like abortion and gun control, which is the antithesis to his message. Christie needs to get the record straight and drive it home to reclaim his role as the guy who doesnt mince words. JEB BUSH To do: Be bigger - The former Florida governor hasnt played well in Iowa. His super PAC has poured most of its money into bashing former friend Marco Rubio, rather than promoting Bushs campaign platform. On the debate stage, Bush has taken to attacking his fellow presidential contenders, and often comes out looking like a cranky old man, rather than a strong leader. Bush needs to be the bigger man, the statesman that he envisions himself to be in tonights debate. JOHN KASICH To do: Talk to New Hampshire - Ohio Gov. John Kasich knows he has no place to defend in Iowa, where his RCP average in the state is 2 percent. Kasich needs tonights facetime to talk to the people of the next contest: New Hampshire. Iowa has made their decision on Kasich, and it doesnt seem to be changing, but he can use tonight to promote his message as the candidate of the Granite State. BEN CARSON To do: Stay above the fray - Once the insurgent Iowa favorite, Ben Carson has fallen from grace in the Hawkeye State, but all is not lost for the pediatric neurosurgeon. His core message of faith and strong stance of social issues resonated with voters here once upon a time, and still holds a group that will not be swayed to anyone else. Staying above the fray, and on the issues he speaks to best, is enough for Carson to walk away with a solid performance. WITH YOUR SECOND CUP OF COFFEE Time: Theres a terrible power to the iconic pictures of the space shuttle Challenger exploding the orange-white fireball in the Florida sky, with the twin contrails of the solid rocket boosters briefly continuing on their journey to nowhere. Its been 30 years since that awful morning on Jan. 28, 1986, and an entire generation of Americans has been born and grown into young adulthood sinceThe space shuttles never became the safe and reliable spacecraft they were originally advertised to be. They flew for 25 more years after Challenger, yes, but before they were through they claimed a second crew, when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated on reentry in 2003. Its partly for that reason that the U.S. has since returned to the old way of getting people to space putting them in a vehicle at the top of a rocket and bringing them home by parachute Got a TIP from the RIGHT or the LEFT? Email FoxNewsFirst@FOXNEWS.COM POLL CHECK Real Clear Politics Averages Iowa GOP caucus Trump 33.2 percent; Cruz 26.7 percent; Rubio 13.8 percent; Carson 7.3 percent General Election: Clinton vs. Trump Clinton +2.7 points Generic Congressional Vote: Republicans +0.5 TO BERN OR NOT TO BERN? NYT: Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and his top advisers returned to Iowa on Wednesday evening having confronted a decision that will have lasting consequences for his presidential campaign and his political image: whether to open a new, tougher line of advertising against his rival Hillary Clinton in the closing days of the race for Iowa. Both campaigns acknowledge that Mrs. Clinton has pulled slightly ahead in polling for the Iowa caucuses on Monday. Some advisers to Mr. Sanders believe he can win here only by drawing sharper contrasts with her, especially by emphasizing her ties to Wall Street. The senator has prided himself on running an inspiring, issue-oriented campaign, and he says often that he is not interested in tearing down Mrs. Clinton FBI continues probe into Hillary server - The Hill: Six months after it began, the federal investigation into Hillary Clintons private email server shows no signs of slowing down. Former FBI officials said the length of the probe is not unusual, and speculated that a decision on whether to file charges against Clinton or her top aides could come later this year, during the heat of the general election campaign. I dont know that theres any magical cutoff date, said Ron Hosko, the FBIs former assistant director of the criminal investigative division and a 30-year veteran of the bureau. For Democrats, the extended investigation has become a source of some anxiety, with Republicans gleefully raising the prospect of their presidential front-runner being indicted. Bernie to sit out unsanctioned debate - Newsweek: For months, Bernie Sanders has blasted the Democratic National Committee and its chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, for not scheduling enough debates to give voters a proper chance to choose between himself and his Democratic competitors, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley. But, after the New Hampshire Union Leader, New Hampshire's largest newspaper, announced Tuesday that it will host an additional debate, unsanctioned by the DNC, on February 4, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told The New York Times that Sanders does not want to participate for fear of retribution from the DNC. The Judges Ruling: no plausible deniability for Hillary - Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano argues that Hillary Clintons biggest rival this political cycle is the results of the FBI investigation. With the recent revelation that SAP information was found on the Clintons home server, the Judge says that all defense of plausible deniability vanished. He explains: SAP is clothed in such secrecy that it cannot be received or opened accidentally. Clinton -- who ensured all of her governmental emails came to her through her husbands server, a nonsecure nongovernmental venue -- could only have received or viewed it from that server after inputting certain codes SNUGGLE TIME KTLA: An elderly woman in Miami woke up to quite a surprise when she found an exotic animal caressing her face. Late Monday night, the woman was startled when she woke up staring at a kinkajou, which looks like a cross between a raccoon and monkey. The woman, who has not been named in reports, screamed in panic and the animal scurried away into the attic, according to a Cathy Moghari, a family friend who helped rescue the animalAfter doing an Internet search for kinkajous, Moghari played some kingajous sounds with the speaker held up to the ceiling, the animal emerged. Moghari then used cherries to help lure the hungry and frightened animal into a cage. Tuesday morning, the animal arrived at South Dade Avian and Exotic Animal Medical Center where veterinarian Don Harris was able to check over the health of the anxious creatureHer owner, Ray Fernandez, contacted the vet and was reunited with his furry friend, named Banana, Wednesday morning. AND NOW A WORD FROM CHARLES I think, this is a competition between [Donald Trump's] narcissism and his canniness. And I think I would guess that his narcissism, meaning staying out, is going to win over. Charles Krauthammer on Special Report with Bret Baier. Chris Stirewalt is digital politics editor for Fox News. Want FOX News First in your inbox every day? Sign up here. Rand Pauls campaign is unloading on ABC News over new rules that would likely exclude himand several other Republican candidatesfrom a crucial debate on the eve of the New Hampshire primary. The network announced that its Feb. 6 debate in Manchester will be limited to candidates who poll in the top six nationally or in New Hampshirebut only the top three finishers in the Iowa caucuses. That approach would eliminate the undercard debate. Its a little bit irresponsible, Paul spokesman Sergio Gor said in an interview in Iowa, before the Fox News/Google debate Thursday night. Voters should be the ones making these decisions and not network executives in New York. Gor said he is appealing to ABC and also pressing his case with the Republican National Committee, which oversees the debates. Paul boycotted the Fox Business debate in South Carolina when he was relegated to the undercard, but his showing in the Iowa polls landed him a spot on the main stage tonight. In recent debates hosted by Fox News, Fox Business and CNN, a top-six finish in polls in Iowa (as well as New Hampshire and nationally) was enough to earn a ticket to the prime-time stage. Under ABCs approach, Paul, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum would likely be excluded, based on current polling, from the debate moderated by David Muir. Its unfortunate because youre discounting anything that happened in Iowa, Gor said. Theyre dismissing the importance of the early states. Are they really going to exclude the fourth-place finisher in Iowa? Were hoping they reconsider. The Paul campaign has something of a history with ABC based on objections to the role of George Stephanopoulos, the former Clinton White House official who is the co-anchor of Good Morning America and hosts This Week. The Kentucky senator has avoided interviews with Stephanopoulos, saying last year, Weve made the decision that hes too close to the Clintons to really give an objective interview. Stephanopoulos withdrew from any role in the GOP debates after apologizing for his failure to disclose $75,000 in donations to the Clinton Foundation. Benjamin Franklin is credited with the observation that nothing is certain except death and taxes. Bernie Sanders would probably agree, and then some. In an election season marked by populist anger, his plan to raise at least $19.58 trillion in higher taxes over 10 years -- almost 20 times the tax hikes Hillary Clinton proposes -- has not dulled his rise. And, despite the anti-tax fervor of the Tea Party wave a few years ago, neither Democratic candidate seems shy about pushing an aggressive tax plan in their presidential primary battle. "Raising taxes in the Democratic primary is a vote winner," said Grover Norquist, of the anti-tax Americans for Tax Reform. Sanders, for one, was defiant about his proposed tax hikes at a CNN town hall on Monday. "I start off with the premise that in the last 30 years ... there's been a massive redistribution of wealth in this country," Sanders said. "It's gone from working families, trillions of dollars, to the top one-tenth of 1 percent." Sanders is beating Clinton by nearly 15 percentage points in New Hampshire, and is virtually tied with her in Iowa, in the latest RealClearPolitics polling average. His popularity largely is attributable to his message about the need for wealth redistribution. The Vermont senator seemingly has tapped into a tried-and-true socialist formula in times of economic hardship -- blaming private-sector corporations and the wealthy. "What this campaign is about is to say to profitable corporations who, in some years don't pay a nickel in taxes, to the wealthiest people in this country who sometimes have an effective tax rate lower than truck drivers or nurses, yes, you are going to start paying your fair share of taxes," he said. That message especially rings true for young Democrats, a demographic group burdened with college debt and poor job prospects, and heavily represented in the public sector. "So much of the Democratic activist base are government employees or people who get government grants, Norquist explained. So when he talks about raising taxes, his enthusiasts ... are hearing they will not be paying higher taxes. They think they will be getting more money." Clinton has steered clear of a broad-based policy to increase taxes on the middle class, while partially tapping into Sanders class warfare rhetoric. In a January Democratic debate, she tried to explain their distinctions on taxes: "I'm the only candidate standing here tonight who has said I will not raise taxes on the middle class. I want to raise incomes, not taxes, and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that the wealthy pay for debt free tuition, for child care, for paid family leave." Kyle Pomerleau, of the Tax Foundation, said Clintons proposals are closer to what the Obama administration has proposed." "More targeted higher-end tax increases on investment income, also high-income earners rather than broad tax increases for all Americans," he said. Heres how the plans stack up. Among Clintons proposals: The New College Compact to limit the cost and debt of a college education. Costing $350 billion over 10 years, she says it would be paid for by limiting certain tax breaks for high-income taxpayers. A $275 billion infrastructure plan, paid for through business tax reforms. Clinton also promises to expand ObamaCare. She wants to lower co-pays and out-of-pocket expenses, as well as reduce the cost of prescription drugs. But she has not spelled out specifically how such programs would be paid for. Among Sanders tax proposals, many meant to help pay for a government-run health care system that replaces ObamaCare: Business health care premium tax: $6.3 trillion over 10 years Ending tax-free status of employer health insurance: $3.1 trillion Wall Street speculation tax: $3 trillion Individual health care premium tax: $2.1 trillion Social Security tax hike: $1.2 trillion Marginal income tax rate increase: $1.1 trillion Corporate offshore income tax: $1 trillion Capital gains tax hike: $920 billion Payroll tax hike: $319 billion Estate tax: $243 billion Ending tax deductions: $150 billion Energy tax: $135 billion Carried interest tax: $15.6 billion Sanders says that while taxes would rise under his plan, health costs would drop. Sanders home state of Vermont also had such a plan for a state-run, single-payer system, but Gov. Peter Shumlin shelved it in late 2014 after learning how much it would cost in new taxes. The head of an Iraq and Afghanistan veterans group says they will decline donations from the fundraising event Donald Trump plans to hold Thursday night as he sits out the Republican primary debate. Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America founder Paul Rieckhoff said on Twitter Wednesday that his group had not heard from the Trump campaign and did not know which organizations would be involved in the veterans event. He then tweeted: If offered, @IAVA will decline donations from Trump's event. We need strong policies from candidates, not to be used for political stunts. Paul (PJ) Rieckhoff (@PaulRieckhoff) January 27, 2016 Rieckhoffs criticism wasnt reserved only for Trump. He had a similar message for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz after a super PAC supporting the presidential candidate offered to donate $1.5 million to veterans if Trump accepts a one-on-one debate challenge. Now it's Cruz yanking vets into the nastiness of the presidential fights before Iowa. This is not what vets need. https://t.co/xY9zwQX11n Paul (PJ) Rieckhoff (@PaulRieckhoff) January 28, 2016 Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina also said her campaign would donate $1.5 million to veterans causes if she can join the proposed Cruz-Trump face-off. Its unclear which groups will be involved in the Trump veterans event Thursday night in Des Moines. Trumps campaign quickly put the event together after the Republican presidential front-runner announced he would not participate in Thursdays Fox News/Google debate held at the same time, claiming he had been treated unfairly by the network. The campaign said Wednesday night that the special event to benefit veterans organizations would be held at Drake University in Des Moines. We're going to raise a lot of money for the veterans. A lot of money is going to be raised, Trump told Fox News Bill OReilly, while repeatedly refusing to reconsider his decision to boycott the debate. A lot of people are going to be there, and I can do some good. Rieckhoff has been critical before of politicians comments about veterans issues on the campaign trail. After Sarah Palin, during her Trump endorsement, seemed to point the finger at President Obama over mental issues her son may be dealing with following his Iraq war service, Rieckhoff pushed back. He called PTSD a very serious problem and reportedly urged Palin not to politicize it. IAVA says it has over 180,000 post-9/11 veteran members. The group spent about $3 million on awareness, community and advocacy programs, according to the most recently filed financial forms analyzed by Charity Navigator. If scientists one day discover life on Mars, they might just want to thank a tiny fungi found on Antarctic rocks. These cryptoendolithic fungi, which normally are found in the McMurdo Dry Valleys in the Antarctic Victoria Land, were recently sent by European researchers to the International Space Station. After 18 months on board in conditions similar to those on Mars, the researchers found that most survived. The most relevant outcome was that more than 60 percent of the cells of the endolithic communities studied remained intact after exposure to Mars, or rather, the stability of their cellular DNA was still high, Rosa de la Torre Noetzel, from Spains National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA), co-researcher on the project, said in a statement. Related: International Space Station celebrates 15th birthday The results help to assess the survival ability and long-term stability of microorganisms and bioindicators on the surface of Mars, information which becomes fundamental and relevant for future experiments centered around the search for life on the Red Planet, De la Torre added of the work, whose findings were described in a paper published in the journal Astrobiology. The search for the presence of life on Mars has intensified of late, following the revelations last year that NASA scientists had discovered flowing liquid salty water on Mars. Scientists have long known that there is frozen water at Mars' poles, but they have never discovered liquid water. The find could have huge consequences for future expeditions, including NASA's goal of sending a manned mission to Mars by the 2030s.ueling the possibility of life on the Red Planet. Related: Shrink playerLife on Mars: Can we handle it? The latest work on fungi only adds to the possibly that life could have thrived once on the Red Planet. Two species of the fungi - Cryomyces antarcticus and Cryomyces minteri were collected from McMurdo, where earthly conditions are most similar to Mars. They make up one of the driest and most hostile environments on our planet, where strong winds scour away even snow and ice. Only so-called cryptoendolithic microorganisms, capable of surviving in cracks in rocks, and certain lichens can withstand such harsh climatological conditions. The tiny fungi were placed in cells on a platform for experiments known as EXPOSE-E, developed by the European Space Agency to withstand extreme environments. The platform was sent in the Space Shuttle Atlantis to the ISS and placed outside the Columbus module with the help of an astronaut from the team led by Belgian Frank de Winne. Related: Mars has flowing liquid water, NASA confirms For 18 months half of the Antarctic fungi were exposed to Mars-like conditions that featured an atmosphere with 95 percent CO2, 1.6 percent argon, 0.15 percent oxygen, 2.7 percent nitrogen and 370 parts per million of H2O; and a pressure of 1,000 pascals. Through optical filters, samples were also subjected to ultraviolet radiation as if on Mars and others to lower radiation. In contrast, another collection of lichen and fungi samples was subjected to an extreme space environment and didnt fare as well. They were exposed to temperature fluctuations of between -21.5 and +59.6 C as well as galactic-cosmic radiation of up to 190 megagrays and other stressors. After the year-and-a-half-long voyage, and the beginning of the experiment on Earth, the two species of lichens exposed to Mars showed double the metabolic activity of those that had been subjected to space conditions. As families of the lost Challenger astronauts gather with NASA to mark the space shuttle accident's 30th anniversary, there's a new voice to address the crowd. June Scobee Rodgers -- widow of Challenger commander Dick Scobee and longtime spokeswoman for the group -- is passing the torch to daughter Kathie Scobee Fulgham. Fulgham -- not Rodgers -- will be on the stage for Thursday morning's ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. And making a rare appearance in the audience will be schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe's son, Scott, with his own family. "It's going to be wonderful to watch the pages turn," Rodgers said earlier this week. The second generation "can now speak for our family and speak for the nation," she said, adding that she's looking forward to these grown astronauts' children "sharing their stories, their beliefs and their leadership." For the seven astronauts' loved ones, Jan. 28, 1986, remains fresh in their minds. Steven McAuliffe, a federal judge in Concord, New Hampshire, still declines interviews about his late wife Christa, who was poised to become the first schoolteacher in space. But he noted in a statement that although 30 years have passed, "Challenger will always be an event that occurred just recently. Our thoughts and memories of Christa will always be fresh and comforting." McAuliffe said he's pleased "Christa's goals have been largely accomplished in that she has inspired generations of classroom teachers and students." She would be proud, he noted, of the Challenger Learning Centers. McAuliffe is presiding over a trial this week in Concord, and so son Scott will represent the family, part of the next-generation shift. Scott and his sister are now in their 30s. The McAuliffes normally do not take part in these NASA memorials, so Scott's presence is especially noteworthy. Along with the other Challenger families, Rodgers established the Challenger Center for Space Science Education just three months after the shuttle disintegrated in the Florida sky. Unusually cold weather that morning left Challenger's booster rockets with stiff O-ring seals; a leak in the right booster doomed the ship. Today, there are more than 40 Challenger Learning Centers focusing on science, technology, engineering and math, mostly in the U.S. More are being built. "They're not just a field trip for kids. They're actually lessons learned," said Rodgers, an educator who lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. "That's why they've lasted." McAuliffe's backup, Barbara Morgan, a schoolteacher from Idaho, rocketed into orbit in 2007 aboard Endeavour as a fully trained astronaut. Morgan was invited to speak Thursday at Rodgers' request. Besides Dick Scobee and Christa McAuliffe, the Challenger dead include pilot Michael Smith, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka and Gregory Jarvis. Seven more shuttle astronauts died Feb. 1, 2003, aboard Columbia; that commander's widow, Evelyn Husband Thompson, will attend Thursday's ceremony. The event will honor the Columbia Seven as well, along with the three Apollo 1 astronauts killed during a launch pad test on Jan. 27, 1967. NASA also plans observances at Arlington National cemetery, Johnson Space Center in Houston and elsewhere. At Kennedy, the Scobee contingent will number 12, including June's son Richard, a major general in the Air Force, and a 16-year-old granddaughter. Dick Scobee was 46 years old when he died aboard Challenger barely a minute into the flight. Both his children are now in their 50s. "For so many people, 30 years, it's definitely history. It's in the history books," Rodgers said. For the family, "it's like it's just happened, which in a way keeps Dick Scobee young in our hearts, and the joy and excitement he had for flying." An American mega-yacht is being blamed for destroying 80% of the protected coral within a 13,000-square-foot area of a Cayman Islands marine reserve, the Cayman Compass reports. The 303-foot yacht named Tatoosh belongs to billionaire Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft and owner of the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers, reports the Washington Post. The damage was caused on or around Jan. 14 near a popular dive site, and the Cayman Islands Department of Environment is continuing to look into what happened. At the moment, it appears the coral was damaged by the Tatoosh dragging its anchor chain, notes the Compass. A spokesperson for Allen blames the incident on strong winds moving the yacht too close to the marine reserve, and GeekWire quotes a statement from VulcanAllen's companythat claims media accounts of the damage are "greatly exaggerated." The islands' Department of Environment is set to issue its report on the incident next week, according to the Post. If found responsible, Allenwho may or may not have been on the Tatoosh at the timecould face a major fine. Coral reefs are vitally important for everything from providing a habitat for marine life to protecting coastlines from storms. The Tatoosh, which features not one but two helipads, is one of the top 50 largest yachts in the world. But GeekWire points out it's actually the smaller of Allen's yachts. (On the bright side, Allen's yachting has resulted in a cool maritime find.) This article originally appeared on Newser: Paul Allen's Mega-Yacht Blamed for Destroying Coral Reef More From Newser SpaceX has successfully tested the parachute system that will one day be used to land its Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying astronauts back from the International Space Station. The test took, which involved the deployment of four parachutes, took place above the desert near Coolidge, Ariz., according to a statement released by NASA. Related: SpaceX botches rocket landing on California barge The test used a mass simulator as the weight of the spacecraft connected to the parachute system, explained the space agency, in a statement on its website, Wednesday. The mass simulator and parachutes were released thousands of feet above the ground from a C-130 cargo aircraft. This test evaluated the four main parachutes, but did not include the drogue chutes that a full landing system would utilize. The test was part of SpaceXs final development and certification work with NASAs Commercial Crew Program, which aims to develop crew space transportation to and from the International Space Station and low-Earth orbit. SpaceX is performing tests of flight-like hardware that allows engineers to assess the reliability, explained NASA, on its website. Later tests will grow progressively more realistic to simulate as much of the actual conditions and processes the system will see during an operational mission. Related: NASA picks Dream Chaser space plane for ISS supply missions Initially, the spacecraft will splash down safely in the ocean under parachutes, but ultimately the company wants to land the vehicle on land propulsively using eight SuperDraco engines, added NASA. Other companies involved in the Commercial Crew Program include Boeing, Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada Corporation. This has been a busy month for SpaceX, which recently completed a hover test of its Dragon 2 spacecraft that can carry crew and cargo. Hover test of our Dragon 2 spacecraft that can carry cargo and crew https://t.co/H0F7hQbZlB SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 21, 2016 SpaceX also attempted to land the first stage of a SpaceX rocket on an ocean barge after it delivered an ocean-monitoring satellite into orbit. The rocket, however made a hard landing and broke a support leg. Earlier this month NASA awarded SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Sierra Nevada Corporation contracts to fly cargo missions to the International Space Station from 2019 through 2024. Under the terms of the contracts, each of the three companies selected will fly at least six missions to the ISS. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Tributes flooded in for the seven astronauts who lost their lives on the Challenger Space Shuttle Thursday as the United States commemorated the 30th anniversary of the disaster. The shuttle exploded just 73 seconds after launch from Kennedy Space Center, Fla. on Jan. 28, 1986, killing all crewmembers of mission STS-51L. The disaster claimed the lives of astronauts Francis Dick Scobee, Michael Smith, Christa McAuliffe, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka and Gregory Jarvis. NASA is holding a day of remembrance to commemorate the crews of Challenger, Apollo 1 and Columbia. Related: Family members of Challenger victims to mark 30 years since shuttle disaster Every year at this time we take a moment to reflect as the NASA family on the very broad shoulders on which we stand: the shoulders of those men and women of NASA who gave their lives so that you and I could continue to reach for new heights for the benefit of all humankind, wrote NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, in a statement on NASAs website. Astronauts on the International Space Station held a moments silence as part of NASAs Day of Remembrance. Today marks the 30th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger accident so I would like to just take a moment of silence and recognize the sacrifice of all those crewmembers and how their legacy and lives on in our achievement in space, said American astronaut Scott Kelly, who is spending a year on the International Space Station. The U.S. Air Force also honored the Challenger crewmembers. #TBT honoring the 7 heroes who were lost 73 seconds into the launch of @NASA space shuttle Challenger 30 years ago. pic.twitter.com/A7zO7sZdTB U.S. Air Force (@usairforce) January 28, 2016 Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield added his voice to those paying tribute to the Challenger crew. Spaceflight is forever safer, more capable. I honour them, he tweeted. 30 yrs ago today these 7 died in the Challenger accident. Spaceflight is forever safer, more capable. I honour them. pic.twitter.com/cIbKr4naBS Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) January 28, 2016 I think, in many ways [the Challenger disaster] challenged us to renew our exploration efforts, said astronaut Buzz Aldrin, during an interview with Fox Business on Thursday. Families of the lost astronauts are gathering with NASA to mark the space shuttle accident's anniversary Thursday. Teachers and school board members are also gathering at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord, N.H. to pay tribute to crewmember and teacher Christa McAuliffe and the six other astronauts who died. Gov. Maggie Hassan is among the people scheduled to speak at the center Thursday afternoon. She said we must continue to carry on the legacy of McAuliffe, who taught at Concord High School, and the Challenger crew by encouraging more young people to enter the sciences and working to achieve the dreams that led McAuliffe into space. Thursday is the first day of this semester's American Women in History class at the school, a course McAuliffe created. Students are watching a documentary about her, writing about their dreams as part of a "Reach for the Stars" assignment, and participating in a school-wide moment of silence. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Customs officers have seized over 16,000 counterfeit hoverboards worth an estimated $6 million. The so-called hoverboards, which are actually two-wheeled scooters, were seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Chicago. Not only are these hoverboards a serious safety hazard but they also threaten our economic security by hurting legitimate businesses who invest significant amounts of resources into development and protection of their brands, said U.S. Customs and Border Protection Director of Field Operations William Ferrara, in a statement released Wednesday. Related: Citing fire concerns, NY City bans 'hoverboards' from all subways, trains and buses The final seizure total in Chicago is expected to significantly increase in the coming weeks due to the massive amount of shipments still being processed, according to officials. Reports continue to swirl about hoverboards catching fire. Earlier this month the U.S. government announced that Amazon is offering refunds to customers who bought hoverboards on its website, amid ongoing safety concerns about the technology. Related: Amazon offering 'hoverboard' refunds, government says The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is investigating a number of companies that make or sell hoverboards. In a statement released last week U.S. CPSC Chairman Elliot Kaye also noted that Amazon is offering hoverboard refunds. On Wednesday New York City banned hoverboards from all subways, trains and buses, citing fire concerns. The safety of our customers and employees is always our top concern, said Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chief Safety Officer David Mayer, in a statement. For obvious reasons, it is not safe to use hoverboards, skateboards or other personal wheeled vehicles on station platforms. Were equally concerned about the safety risk of bringing devices that pose fire hazards into the confined spaces inside trains and buses. Jared Fogle, the disgraced former Subway pitchman, was sentenced Thursday in federal court to more than 15 years on child porn and sex charges. The sentencing came after Fogle pleaded guilty to child pornography and sex crime charges, telling the judge he understood that he will likely go to prison. Fogle agreed in August to plead guilty to one count each of travelling to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor and distribution and receipt of child pornography. The charges followed a July raid on his suburban Indianapolis home and the resulting criminal case destroyed his career with the sandwich restaurant chain. Before entering his guilty plea during Thursday's hearing, U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt asked Fogle whether he understood the punishment he could face and he answered, "Yes, your honor. I do." Fogle has admitted paying for sex with girls as young as 16 and receiving child pornography produced by Russell Taylor, the former executive director of The Jared Foundation, a nonprofit Fogle started to raise awareness and money to fight childhood obesity. Authorities said Taylor secretly filmed 12 minors as they were nude, changing clothes, or engaged in other activities using hidden cameras in his Indianapolis-area residences to produce child pornography. Taylor has agreed to plead guilty to child exploitation and child pornography charges. Prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum filed last week that Fogle received photos or videos from Taylor of eight of those 12 youths, and that some of those images were of girls as young as 12. Fogle could have stopped Taylor from victimizing some of minors, prosecutors have said, but he instead encouraged Taylor to produce additional child pornography. In the government's filing, prosecutors said "Fogle has sacrificed absolutely everything he had built -- including his family -- to engage in sexually explicit conduct with two minors. He emboldened a molester and a producer of child pornography." Court documents detailing the charges against the 38-year-old father of two say that Fogle had sex at New York City hotels with two girls under age 18 -- one of whom was 16 at the time -- and paid them for that sex. Fogle agreed to pay a total of $1.4 million to his 14 victims, with each getting $100,000. Before Fogle entered his guilty pleas Thursday, one of his attorneys told the judge that Fogle had paid 12 of the 14 victims and turned over the checks for the last two victims before the proceedings began. Fogle became a Subway spokesman after shedding more than 200 pounds as a college student, in part by eating the chain's sandwiches. Subway ended its relationship with Fogle after authorities raided his suburban Indianapolis home in July. In their sentencing memorandum seeking a five-year prison term, Fogle's attorneys said he "is profoundly sorry for what he has done." They also wrote that Fogle suffers from "hypersexuality and alcohol abuse/dependence" and is committed to receiving treatment for his medical conditions. In addition, Fogle's attorneys stressed that he never engaged in any sexual conduct with any of Taylor's minor victims and played no role in producing any of the images or videos recorded by Taylor. Fogle's attorneys said in their sentencing memorandum that Fogle's offer to pay each victim restitution demonstrates "both the genuine remorse he feels and his commitment" to help his victims "move forward" with their lives. As of last week, 11 of those victims had received their restitution and the three others should have arrangements in place to be paid by Fogle's sentencing hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven DeBrota said. The Associated Press contributed to this report Baltimore police say two officers shot a man who backed his SUV into their unmarked car, injuring one of the officers. Department spokesman T.J. Smith said at a news conference Wednesday that the officers saw a suspicious SUV with three men inside. Smith says the officers, who were not in uniform but were wearing vests marked "police," started to get out of their car when the suspects' vehicle backed up. The door was torn off the officers' car, Smith says, and the officers shot the driver. One officer suffered a leg injury. Smith says the SUV's driver was struck in his neck and was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. The men are in custody, but have not been charged. Police say the widow of the Illinois cop who shocked the world by staging his on the job suicide to look like murder was a partner in her late husbands crime and now faces numerous felony charges. An Illinois grand jury indicted Melodie Gliniewicz, 51, on four counts of misuse of charitable funds and two counts of money laundering. Shes free on $50,000 bail but faces over 20 years in prison, according to police. Investigators say over the course of several years Melodie and her deceased husband, Fox Lake Police Lt., Joe Gliniewiecz, 52, embezzled tens of thousands of dollars from the Fox Lake Explorer Postthe young adult police academy the duo ran and were widely praised for. Detectives determined this money was used to finance a number of personal expenses and personal finances, Lake County Undersheriff Ray Rose said in a press release. Police say the couple used the embezzled money for vacations and over 400 restaurant bills. Fox News learned Joe Gliniewicz was also using some of the money for the mortgage, car repairs, coffee stops and even adult websites, according to police. Gliniewicz, a tattooed officer with a shaved head, was described by those who knew him as tough when needed, but also as sweet and a role model to youngsters aspiring to go into law enforcement. He had also served in the U.S. Army and was affectionately known as "G.I. Joe." But Gliniewicz also was apparently living a double life, stealing and laundering money by forging signatures on official documents for seven years and had a lengthy personnel file. Fox News learned a female colleague sued the police department, claiming Joe Gliniewicz forced her into oral sex numerous times. Gliniewicz died on Sept. 1, triggering a manhunt that lasted more than 2 months before police concluded that he'd killed himself. The Texas teenager who used an "affluenza" defense in a deadly drunken-driving wreck arrived in Dallas on a commercial jet from Mexico City Thursday, one month after he and his mother allegedly fled the United States. Ethan Couch, 18, wearing a bluish camouflage-print hoodie, arrived at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on the Aeromexico plane before law enforcement escorted him to a juvenile detention center. A judge will hold a hearing Friday in Fort Worth to decide whether to continue to hold him in at that facility, book him in an adult jail or let him go, Tarrant County Sheriff's Deputy Ed Wiseman said. Couch and his mother, Tonya, allegedly fled Texas while prosecutors investigated whether he had violated his probation. The attorneys for Couch said they are optimistic their client will not run afoul of the law during the rest of his probation. Scott Brown and Reagan Wynn issued a statement Thursday afternoonin which they also predicted Couch would remain in a juvenile facility until a judge decides Feb. 19 whether to transfer his case to the adult system. If it is transferred and Couch violates his probation again, he could face up to 40 years in prison. The teen formally ratified his decision to drop an appeal against deportation on Monday. He had been in immigration custody for 28 days. Couch, seen with a full, light-brown beard, showed little emotion as he was placed aboard a pickup truck and driven out of the gated detention center Thursday morning. Data curated by FindTheData The teen and his mother were detained in the resort of Puerto Vallarta in December after a call for delivery pizza tipped off authorities to their whereabouts. His mother was quickly sent back to the U.S. She was released after posting bail. "Its more than overdue for Couch to be held accountable... We must ensure Couch gets prison, and not a present for his 19th birthday in April," Mothers Against Drunk Driving National President Colleen Sheehey-Church said. According to an arrest warrant, Tonya Couch is accused of telling her estranged husband, Fred Couch, that he would never see her or his son again before fleeing. The teen was driving drunk and speeding near Fort Worth in June 2013 when he crashed into a disabled SUV, killing four people and injuring several others, including passengers in his pickup truck. He was 16 at the time. He pleaded guilty in juvenile court to four counts of intoxication manslaughter and two counts of intoxication assault causing serious bodily injury. He was sentenced to 10 years' probation. During the sentencing phase of his trial, a defense expert argued that he had been coddled into a sense of irresponsibility. "Affluenza" is not recognized as a medical diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association, and its invocation drew ridicule. The Associated Press contributed to this report. An American Airlines flight from Chicago was in the process of landing at Miami International Airport Wednesday morning when the pilot of the aircraft noticed a drone. The approaching jetliner, carrying 113 passengers, reported seeing the device to Miami-Dade police officers who were stationed at the airport, according to the Miami Herald. Police searched for the owner of the unmanned device, but came up empty. An area canvass was conducted with negative results, police said in a statement to the paper. American Airlines Corporate Communications Manager Alexis Coello told the Miami Herald the plane landed safely at 11:18 a.m. and it never came into contact with the drone. Todays incident is yet another example of the danger drones pose to the traveling public, Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, a member of the Senate Commerce Committee which oversees the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. Finding a way to implement the technology needed to prevent this kind of dangerous situation near our nations airports will be one of my top priorities as we begin work on a bill to reauthorize the FAA in the coming weeks, Nelson added. Miami-Dade County commissioners unanimously approved in November 2015 a resolution urging the FAA to address drone activity near airports in the city, according to the Miami Herald. Click for more from the Miami Herald. Seeking a safe haven in Colorado's legal marijuana marketplace, illegal drug traffickers are growing weed among the state's sanctioned pot warehouses and farms, then covertly shipping it elsewhere and pocketing millions of dollars from the sale, according to law enforcement officials and court records consulted by The Associated Press. In one case, the owner of a skydiving business crammed hundreds of pounds of Colorado pot into his planes and flew the weed to Minnesota, where associates allegedly sold it for millions of dollars in cash. In another, a Denver man was charged with sending more than 100 pot-filled FedEx packages to Buffalo, New York, where drug dealers divvied up the shipment. Twenty other drug traffickers, many from Cuba, were accused of relocating to Colorado to grow marijuana that they sent to Florida, where it can fetch more than double the price in a legal Colorado shop. These cases and others confirm a longstanding fear of marijuana opponents that the state's much-watched experiment in legal pot would invite more illegal trafficking to other states where the drug is still strictly forbidden. One source is Colorado residents or tourists who buy retail pot and take it out of state. But more concerning to authorities are larger-scale traffickers who move here specifically to grow the drug and ship to more lucrative markets. The trend also bolsters the argument of neighboring Nebraska and Oklahoma, which filed a lawsuit in late 2014 seeking to declare Colorado's pot legalization unconstitutional, arguing that the move sent a tide of illicit weed across their borders. The Obama administration last month urged the Supreme Court to reject the suit, saying that the leakage was not Colorado's fault. No one knows exactly how much pot leaves Colorado. When illegal shipments are seized, it's often impossible to prove where the marijuana was grown. But court documents and interviews with law enforcement officials indicate well-organized traffickers are seeking refuge in Colorado's flourishing pot industry. "There's no question there's a lot more of this activity than there was two years ago," said Colorado's U.S. attorney, John Walsh. Some in the legal industry say police have exaggerated the problem and put unfair scrutiny on people who legally grow pot on behalf of patients. Lawmakers last year limited unregulated pot growers to no more than 99 plants in an effort to crack down on those selling untaxed pot. The federal government allowed Colorado's experiment on the condition that state officials act to keep marijuana from migrating to places where it is still outlawed and out of the hands of criminal cartels. Federal authorities acknowledge that both things are happening but say that, because the state is trying to keep its industry tightly regulated, there's no reason to end the legal pot trade. The pot industry also acknowledges the criminal activity and insists it is doing all it can to keep legally grown weed from crossing state lines. Among other safeguards, Colorado law requires growers to get a license and use a "seed-to-sale" tracking system that monitors marijuana plants at every stage. Many of the illicit growers come from elsewhere, never obtain a growing license and "don't even attempt to adhere to the law," said Barbra M. Roach, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Denver field division. "It's like hiding in plain sight," she said. Authorities in Washington state, which also allows recreational marijuana, have noticed more marijuana leaving the state. But more reports are coming from Colorado, which has the nation's most robust commercial market and an international reputation for producing premium, high-potency pot. "It's a brand name now," Roach said. Jason Warf, head of the Southern Colorado Cannabis Council, said people are "coming from out-of-state, buying products from licensed stores and being arrested on their way home." That "is really hard to curb," he said. "We can't essentially babysit adults and their behavior." The Colorado Department of Revenue's marijuana-enforcement division cites shops if pot is unaccounted for but "after it's sold, we have very little control what happens to the marijuana," Director Lewis Koski said. Police agencies seized nearly 2 tons of Colorado weed from drivers who had intended to take it to 36 other states in 2014, the year legal pot shops opened, according to the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a federally funded drug task force. By comparison, they seized less than a ton in 2009. U.S. postal inspectors seized about 470 pounds of Colorado pot from the mail in 2014, up from 57 pounds in 2010, according to the task force, whose findings are based on on voluntary submissions from law enforcement agencies and are largely anecdotal. Some cases have comic overtones, like when a Wyoming patrolman discovered 7 ounces of high-grade weed in trick-or-treat bags the day after Halloween, or when police in northern Colorado seized stuffed animals full of marijuana destined for Florida. Other operations are more sophisticated, like the one in which authorities say 32 people used skydiving planes and posed as licensed medical marijuana caregivers and small business owners to export tens of thousands of pounds of pot grown in Denver warehouses, usually to Minnesota. The organization made more than $12 million over four years, according to a state indictment. When they busted illegal pot farms in southern Colorado in September, state and federal agents found 28 guns, more than 1,000 plants and $25,000 in cash. A local UPS facility intercepts about 50 pounds of pot headed out of state each week, said Todd Reeves of the Colorado Drug Investigators Association. "We don't have the resources," he said, "to be able to go after every single one of these cases." A missing Virginia teen, who is without the daily medication she takes following a liver transplant, has been listed as an endangered child by the Virginia State Police. The FBI was also joining the search for 13-year-old Nichole Madison Lovell, WDBJ7 reported. She was last seen in Blacksburg between midnight and 7 a.m. on Wednesday. Lovell has a scar on her throat from a tracheotomy. She was last seen wearing black jeans and brown and pink cowboy boots, a police press release said. She may be in possession of a blue blanket with the yellow Minions characters on it. The remaining protesters occupying a remote Oregon wildlife refuge told authorities early Thursday they would leave the premises -- if no one in the group faces charges. A video posted to YouTube channel "DefendYourBase" by the holdouts at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge said the remaining five members of the armed group would leave if none of them would be arrested. The group has been using the YouTube channel to give live updates. David Fry has made frequent posts, but no face was visible in the video. Thursday's video showed a campfire while a man said authorities told the group that "out of five people left here, four of us are allowed to leave." The man in the video said the FBI told the group that one of the remaining occupiers faced a federal felony charge. "We are willing to stay here" unless authorities agree to drop it, the man said. Ammon Bundy, the group's leader, who was arrested during a deadly traffic stop on Tuesday, called for the second day in a row for the remaining occupiers to turn themselves in. Bundy's plea on Thursday was delivered in a statement read by his lawyers. "My message still remains: Turn yourselves in," Bundy said in the statement. "Do not use physical force. Use the national platform that we have to continue to defend liberty for our Constitutional rights." He added: "We never wanted bloodshed. We verbalized this many times and we continue to do so." The FBI has established checkpoints around the refuge. Special agent in charge Greg Bretzing said Wednesday that any remaining occupants of the refuge were free to leave through the checkpoints, but those leaving would be identified on their way out. Eleven people have been arrested in connection to the standoff, including Bundy and other leaders of the group. One other man, Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, who had served as a spokesman, was shot to death Tuesday as police attempted to arrest members of the group during a traffic stop. Officials have refrained from speaking about the events surrounding Finicum's death. Bundy said in his Thursday statement that police told him "LaVoy's shooting would have to be recorded on video." "We are anxiously awaiting to view this video," he said. "Questions must be answered." The Associated Press contributed to this report. To put it in a mathematical perspective California high school senior Cedrick Argueta would probably appreciate, only .00003 percent of all students to take the Advanced Placement Calculus exam last year earned a perfect score. Argueta was in that tiny minority, one of just 12 to ace the test. The 17-year-old Lincoln High School student told The Los Angeles Times he was stunned by the news. Its crazy, he said. Twelve people in the whole world to do this and I was one of them? Its amazing. Argueta took the test in May, The Times reported. He learned this summer hed scored a 5 the top score but not that hed achieved perfection. Five was kind of expected, one of Arguetas math teachers, Anthony Yom, told ABC7. We kind of joked anything below five would have been a disappointment. Argueta, the son of a Salvadoran maintenance worker and Filipina nurse, said math has always made sense to him. He wants to attend the California Institute of Technology and go on to a career in rocket science, according to ABC7. Theres also some beauty in it being absolute, Argueta told The Times. Theres always a right answer. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said Wednesday the full replacement of the Flints lead pipes is not imminent despite the ongoing crisis of citys lead-poisoned tap water. Environmental and civil rights groups filed a lawsuit earlier in the day demanding the prompt replacement of all lead pipes in Flints water system at no cost to customers. Snyder didnt rule at eventually replacing the lead service lines leading from water mains, but said its a longer-term consideration. Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards, who originally helped expose the lead in Flints water, was hired to oversee water testing. Edwards discovery was initially met with skepticism from state regulators leading to prolonged efforts to get the crisis under control. "There absolutely is a trust issue," Snyder said during a news conference with state and local officials who announced more plans to address the city's crisis. The Legislature is expected to direct $28 million in additional funding toward Flint on Thursday. Mayor Karen Weaver said residents should not have to pay for the water "they did not and are not using." Emergency budget legislation approved Wednesday by a Senate committee includes $3 million to help Flint with unpaid water bills. "I was glad that the governor said these are just first steps because I'm asking for a staircase," she said. Flint residents are unable to drink unfiltered tape water and tests have shown high lead leavels in some childrens blood. While under state financial management, the city switched its water source to the Flint River but without controlling corrosion. That caused lead to leech into the water for a year and a half and contributed to the spike in child lead exposure before state and officials fully acknowledged the problem in early October. It remains unclear how badly the lead service lines were damaged by the river water. While Snyder's administration has estimated it could cost up to $55 million to repair some 15,000 pipes, he cautioned that more study is needed. "A lot of work is being done to even understand where the lead services lines fully are," Snyder said. "The short-term issue is about recoating the pipes (with chemicals) and that will be based on third-party experts saying the water is safe. ... It's a lot of work to take out pipes, to redo all the infrastructure." The groups lawsuit expresses doubt about whether the city can handle optimal corrosion treatment when it switches to another new water source later this year. The suit is seeking a ruling to force state officials to fix alleged violations of the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act, including failure to properly treat the water for corrosion, test it for lead and notify residents of results and accurately report if the correct sample sites are being selected. "It's essentially asking the government to do its job," said Wayne State University assistant law professor Noah Hall. "There doesn't seem to be any unit or level of government that didn't screw up here." The suit was filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council on behalf of citizens, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, the Concerned Pastors for Social Action and Melissa Mays, a Flint resident. At least three other suits have been filed since the crisis was exposed in the fall. Two seek class-action status and financial compensation; another asks a judge to declare that users do not have to pay their water bills. Snyder also announced Wednesday that a close adviser, Flint native Rich Baird, would run a new state office in Flint. He also convened the first meeting of experts on a new 17-member committee to deal with what he called the "terrible tragedy." Later, during a 50-minute town-hall style telephone call with nearly 8,000 listeners, Snyder told a questioner about 200 Flint children with elevated blood-lead levels have been identified. He said more kids need to be tested, though. Sadly, the Flint water crisis might not be only contained in the one Michigan city. A Bridge Magazine expose, published in the Detroit News, revealed that high-lead levels were reported in a higher percentage of children in Grand Rapids, Detroit, Saginaw, Muskegon and Holland among several other cities in Michigan. A congressional hearing on the crisis in Flint is scheduled for Feb. 3. But Democratic Rep. Brenda Lawrence said Wednesday the hearing will not include Snyder despite him being on the top of witnesses to testify at the hearing, according to MLive.com. Other witnesses Lawrence hopes to hear from are Michigan Environmental Quality Director Dan Wynant, EPA Regional Director Susan Hedman, Hurley Medical Dr. Mona Hanna-Atissha, Mayor Weaver and Professor Edwards. The Associated Press contributed to this report. The mother of a 6-year-old boy in New Jersey says she's grateful that a man raced into action to kill a raccoon that was attacking the child. A witness told officers the animal had run across the street, jumped on Aryan Gavali's back and crawled onto his face Wednesday morning while he was walking to school in Elmwood Park with his mother. The bystander ran over and grabbed the raccoon before beating the animal to death with a stick, police Chief Michael Foligno tells The Record newspaper. "I cried, because the first thing I thought about was my own son," the bystander, Danny Walls, told WCBS. He came like an angel to help us," the boy's mother, Monali, said. The child was taken to a hospital with deep cuts but was expected to recover, according to police. Bergen County Animal Control will have the animal tested for rabies. The results are expected on Friday. Click for more from Fox 5. The Associated Press contributed to this report. A Southern California patrol deputy lost an AR-15 Tuesday after placing it on the trunk of a patrol vehicle and driving away before realizing his weapon was missing. The Orange County Sheriffs Department officer has yet to find the weapon, according to the Orange County Register. The deputy was getting ready to start a shift at the Aliso Viejo station and placed the AR-15 rifle in a black nylon bag with three loaded magazines on the cars trunk. He got distracted and drove off with the weapon still on the vehicle, according to officials. According to the paper, it took seven hours to realize the weapon was missing. Reserve deputies, bloodhounds and investigative personnel have been searching the streets near Laguna Hills for the gun. Officials described it as a black Colt, semi-automatic AR-15, .223 caliber with a 20-inch barrel. Its serial number is A0091856. The deputy indicated that he drove on several streets in both the cities of Aliso Viejo and Laguna Hills; however, was unable to pinpoint a specific location where the rifle may have been lost, according to a department statement. The department didnt specify whether the officer was punished as a result of losing his firearm. Officials are encouraging anyone with any information on the missing weapon to immediately call the Orange County Sheriffs Department at 714-647-7000 or send an anonymous tip to Orange County Crime Stoppers at 1-855-OCCS. Click for more from the Orange County Register. Three more members of the milita group occupying a federal wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon were arrested Wednesday at one of the checkpoints the FBI had established around the area. One of those arrested was 43-year-old Jason Patrick, who had taken over leadership of the group from Ammon Bundy. Bundy was arrested Tuesday after a confrontation on a remote highway that resulted in the death of militant Robert Finicum. The FBI and Oregon State Police said that 45-year-old Duane Leo Ehmer of Irrigon, Oregon, and 34-year-old Dylan Wade Anderson of Provo, Utah, turned themselves in hours before Patrick's arrest. FBI officials said Wednesday night that in addition to the three arrests, five others left the refuge through the checkpoints and were released without arrest. All three arrested men face a single felony charge of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation or threats, as does Bundy and the seven others who were arrested Tuesday. Earlier Wednesday, following an initial court appearance in Portland, Ammon Bundy urged his followers in a statement read by his attorney to "please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is now in the courts." It was unclear whether the rest of the remnant of Bundy's followers still holed up at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge south of Burns was ready to heed his advice. It was believed perhaps a half-dozen remained late Wednesday, apparently sitting around a campfire. Also Wednesday, a federal judge unsealed a criminal complaint that said the armed group had explosives and night-vision goggles and that they were prepared to fight at the refuge or in the nearby town of Burns. Someone told authorities about the equipment on Jan. 2, when the group took over Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, according to the document. The criminal complaint states that the 16 employees at the wildlife refuge "have been prevented from reporting to work because of threats of violence posed by the defendants and others occupying the property." Meanwhile, details began to emerge about the confrontation Tuesday on a remote highway that led to Bundy's arrest and Finicum's death. Authorities refused to release any details about the encounter or even to verify that it was Finicum who was killed. FBI agent Greg Bretzing defended the operation, saying "the armed occupiers were given ample opportunities to leave peacefully." Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward said multiple law-enforcement agencies put together "the best tactical plan they could." Bundy followers took to social media to offer conflicting accounts of Finicum's final moments. In a video posted to Facebook, Mike McConnell said he was driving a vehicle carrying Ammon Bundy and another occupier, Brian Cavalier. He said Finicum was driving a truck and with him were Ryan Bundy -- Ammon's brother -- as well as three others. He said the convoy was driving through a forest when they were stopped by agents in heavy-duty trucks. He said agents first pulled him out of the vehicle, followed by Ammon Bundy and Cavalier. When agents approached the truck driven by Filicum, he drove off with officers in pursuit. McConnell said he did not see what happened next, but he heard from others who were in that vehicle that they encountered a roadblock. The truck got stuck in a snowbank, and Finicum got out and "charged them. He went after them," McConnell said. Relatives of Ammon Bundy offered similar accounts, but they said Finicum did nothing to provoke FBI agents. Briana Bundy, a sister of Ammon Bundy, said he called his wife after his arrest. He said the group was stopped by state and federal officers. She said people in the two vehicles complied with instructions to get out with their hands up. "LaVoy shouted, `Don't shoot. We're unarmed,' "Briana Bundy said in an interview with The Associated Press. "They began to fire on them. Ammon said it happened real fast." "Ammon said, `They murdered him in cold blood." McConnell had a different perspective. "Any time someone takes off with a vehicle away from law enforcement after they've exercised a stop, it's typically considered an act of aggression, and foolish," he said in the Facebook video. Ammon and Ryan Bundy are the sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a high-profile 2014 standoff with the government over grazing rights. The group they led came to the frozen high desert of eastern Oregon to decry what it calls onerous federal land restrictions and to object to the prison sentences of two local ranchers convicted of setting fires. The Associated Press contributed to this report. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald is traveling to Los Angeles to sign the draft master plan for the West LA VA campus on January 28 after months of advocacy by local veteran leaders to get their peers voices heard against a backdrop of wrangling between the citys power brokers and politicians. The action comes nearly a year after the VA won a ruling to reassume control of the sprawling campus near Santa Monica that has suffered several decades worth of encroachment by non-VA organizations and inattention by the VA itself. In 1888 John P. Jones and Arcadia B. de Baker signed a deed donating 300 Acres of West Los Angeles land to be used by the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers (the precursor to the Department of Veterans Affairs) as their Pacific branch home. Over the next 127 years, the property lost its original focus and suffered at the hands of ineffectual government authorities who let the facility fall into disrepair and conniving interlopers from a host of organizations including a major university, an elite parochial school, and even other government agencies who wrangled large parcels for their own use (and nothing to do with veterans healthcare or well-being). But in January 2015, VA Secretary Bob McDonald signed a settlement agreement in a class action lawsuit (Valentini v Shinseki) regarding encroachment on the campus of the facility. The agreement established a nonprofit, Vets Advocacy, to serve as a partner in the West LA VA master planning process. As the first step of that process, Vets Advocacy petitioned the veteran community for inputs on how theyd like to see VA services provided. Vets Advocacy created a website, www.vatherightway.org, as the primary tool behind their mission. The site allows veterans to find out about the history of the West LA VA campus, see the schedule of local town hall events, watch video testimonials of other vets, and most importantly take the survey regarding how the campus should be modified to better serve patients and the veteran community at large. In the period leading up to the creation of the draft master plan, more than 1,300 surveys were completed. The vets stepped up to the plate, said Mike Dowling, We Are The Mightys director of outreach and a major force behind organizing veteran inputs on the master plan. The master plan is wholly informed by vet input, said Vets Advocacys Dr. Jon Sherin, who ran mental health services for the West Los Angeles VA hospital. Now Secretary McDonald is signing into law the guideposts by which all decisions regarding that land will be made. The plan is not just historic for the amount of comments, but for what this represents, Army vet Michael Cummings writes on his blog. This plan represents the possibility to change the VA from being a hospital or housing shelter into a community that brings veterans together. The veteran leaders Im working with dont just want to make the VA function better, we want to build a community of veterans and work with the VA to improve the lives of the people who fought and sacrificed for our country. Even better, we know that we are creating a model for the whole country. Our efforts in Los Angeles are providing a blueprint for other VA campuses around the country for how to to turn from being simply a hospital into a community. Although getting Secretary McDonalds signature on the draft master plan is an important milestone, the work towards realizing the promise of the document is far from over, and veteran input remains fundamental to the effort. The core theme among vets taking the survey was the need for a vet-driven governance structure for the community being developed on that land, Dr. Sherin said. We have to keep the vets voices alive and clear. More from WeAreTheMighty.com: 10 legendary heroes of the US Air Force 19 photos of the crazy fire training military police go through The 5 most legendary American battleships ever These three dogs helped top leaders win World War II A grand jury has indicted the wife of a disgraced northern Illinois policeman who embezzled money from a youth program and then staged his own suicide to look like a homicide. Melodie Gliniewicz, 51, turned herself in Wednesday at the Lake County Sheriff's Office when she learned of the grand jury indictment on charges of helping divert money from a program for teens interested in law enforcement careers. She was taken to the county jail, and her bond was set at $50,000. Her husband, Fox Lake Police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz, died Sept. 1. Authorities said he shot himself because he feared discovery of the embezzlement from the Fox Lake Police Explorer Post. The officer's death touched off a manhunt involving hundreds of officers and raised fears that several killers were on the loose. Joe Gliniewicz was initially hailed as a community hero and praised for his work with the youth program. At the time, Melodie Gliniewicz's tearfully told hundreds of people gathered at a candlelight vigil that Gliniewicz had been her "hero" and her "rock." Two months after Gliniewicz's death, authorities announced he had killed himself after stealing from the village's Police Explorer program for seven years, prompting tough questions about why it had taken so long to reach that conclusion. The Lake County State's Attorney's office said in announcing the indictment of Melodie Gliniewicz that money from the police explorer's account was used for expenses including more than 400 restaurant charges, personal payments to a Starbucks and a local theater as well as a trip to Hawaii. Melodie Gliniewicz was indicted on charges of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority and for personal benefit. Joe Gliniewicz had run the Explorer program with Melodie Gliniewicz serving as an adviser and in a fiduciary role involving the program's finances, authorities said. In a statement, attorneys for Melodie Gliniewicz vehemently denied that she took part in her husband's scheme. "Melodie is a victim of her husband's secret action and looks forward to her day in court to show the world her innocence," said the law firm Kelleher & Buckley. Early in the world wars, many American women found roles open to them. While they were usually kept far from the direct combat (nurses excluded), the positions they filled were usually designed to free a man to fight. Female units formed throughout the U.S. military, though not without debate or criticism. Many of these were based on similar British organizations for women. After visiting Americans observed these female units in action, they brought the good ideas home. The Womens Flying Training Detachment was one such unit. Created by Legendary Air Force (then-Army Air Corps) General Henry H. Hap Arnold, these women pilots were hired to fill jobs flying aircraft stateside from base to base. They received hundreds of flying hours in training, but were not considered a real part of the Army and thus could not received veteran status. The WFTD and the Womens Auxiliary Airforce Ferrying Squadron (WAAFS) were both formed separately in 1942. The WAAFS would take fighters, bombers, and transports from the factories to stateside bases. Both the WAAFS and WFTD would later be merged with the now-famous Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs. The first director of the WASPs was Jacqueline Cochran, a contemporary of famed pilot Amelia Earhart. She was only woman to win the Bendix Transcontinental Aeronautical Race and also a five-time Harmon Trophy winner, which was awarded to the worlds foremost leading aviator. Cochran would also become the first woman to fly a bomber across the Atlantic Ocean, the first woman to break the sound barrier, and many more female firsts. She also currently holds more distance and speed records than any pilot of any gender, living or dead. If that wasnt enough of a pedigree, Nancy H. Love, commander of the WAFS, was the Executive Officer for the new unit. Love was also an accomplished pilot by any metric. She was certified in 19 military aircraft and was the first woman to fly the B-17 Flying Fortress. After the creation of the independent Air Force, Cochran and Love would both joint the U.S. Air Force Reserve and rise to the ranks of lieutenant colonel. The WASP program would train over a thousand pilots as light training instructors, glider tow pilots, towing targets for air-to-air and anti-aircraft gunnery practice, engineering test flying, ferrying aircraft, and other duties. They were considered civil services employees, never being accepted into the Army Air Forces despite their proven ability. WASPs were capable of flying any aircraft in the U.S. arsenal, including the P-51 Mustang and B-29 Superfortress,, often remarked by men as being difficult to fly. In fact, the first person to fly an Army Air Forces jet was WASP Ann Baumgartner. WASPs were required to complete the same training as male Army Air Corps pilots, save for combat flying, such as gunnery and acrobatics. WASPs did their training at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas and were stationed at 120 air bases across the U.S. They would deliver more than 12,000 aircraft of 78 different types. Thirty-eight WASPs died during the programs run. The accident rate was similar to that of males doing the same work. Hap Arnold himself would address the last class of WASPs to graduate from training. You have shown that you can fly wingtip to wingtip with your brothers. If ever there was doubt in anyones mind that women could become skilled pilots, Arnold said. The WASPs dispelled that doubt. I want to stress how valuable the whole WASP program has been for the country. The WASP program was classified and sealed until 1977, when a false press release from the Department of the Air Force announced that the first women would be trained to fly military aircraft. Then-Colonel Bruce Arnold, son of General Hap Arnold, lobbied Congress for full recognition of the WASPs as veterans. President Carter ordered their recognition as veterans in 1977 and in 1984, they received their World War II Victory Medal. In 2009, the WASPs were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, with 300 surviving members on hand to receive them. The family of WASP Elaine Danforth Harmon started a petition to get WASPs their recognition as veterans eligible for inurnment at Arlington. According to the Department of the Army, WASPs have never been eligible either for inurnment or burial at Arlington. The service of Women Air Force Service Pilots during World War II is highly commendable and, while certainly worthy of recognition, it does not, in itself, reach the level of Active Duty service required for inurnment at Arlington National Cemetery, Lt. Col. Patrick Seiber of the Armys Media Relations Division clarified. The confusion is caused, in part, by Public Law 95-202 Section 401, Seiber continued. Which authorized the Secretary of Defense to declare that certain groups be considered active duty for the purpose of allowing certain Veterans Affairs benefits, which include burial and inurnment at national cemeteries maintained by VA. Arlington is not administered by the VA, and its eligibility criteria are far more stringent, due to space limitations. Burial space at Arlington National Cemetery is ultimately finite. Based upon current demand and capacity, Arlington will exhaust interment and inurnment space for any Active Duty service member or veteran in the next 20 years, by the mid 2030s. Harmon was too young to volunteer for the war effort, but she got her parents permission to join. Her 40 hours of flight time earned her a training spot in Sweetwater, Texas, and then later a spot for more training at Nellis, in Nevada. It was a rare opportunity, only one woman was accepted for every ten males. WASPs did not even have uniforms until about seven months before they were deactivated. They wore coveralls when they flew and had to wash them in the showers. My grandmother was just a generally very adventurous person. When she saw an advertisement for a program to learn how to fly, she said Oh that sounds like something Id be interested in doing, Harmons granddaughter Erin Miller told PRI. My grandmother and the women she served with, the other WASPs, were just really excited to be able to serve their country, like they would gladly have gone overseas if they had been allowed to they had no hesitation about that. They were just very glad to serve their country. You can sign the WASPs petition here. More from WeAreTheMighty.com: 10 legendary heroes of the US Air Force 19 photos of the crazy fire training military police go through The 5 most legendary American battleships ever These three dogs helped top leaders win World War II A teenage suspect discussed with a British accomplice packing a kangaroo with explosives before setting it loose on Australian police officers, prosecutors alleged on Thursday. Sevdet Ramadan Besim was ordered in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday to stand trial in the Victoria state Supreme Court on charges that he planned an Islamic State group-inspired terrorist attack at a Veterans' Day ceremony that included targeting police officers in April last year. Besim, 19, pleaded not guilty to four charges relating to a plot to attack commemorative services in Melbourne or the neighboring city of Dandenong to mark ANZAC Day, the annual April 25 commemoration of the 1915 Gallipoli landings in Turkey. The campaign was the first major military action fought by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during World War I and hundreds of thousands attend commemoration services around Australia. Besim faces a potential life sentence in prison if convicted. Besim and four alleged conspirators were arrested in Melbourne a week before ANZAC Day. He has been in custody since. Prosecutors alleged in court documents that Besim discussed with a British-based accomplice in online conversations that a kangaroo could be packed with explosives, painted with "the IS symbol" and set loose on police. Besim was also accused of planning to use a car to run over, then behead, a police officer. Besim allegedly said in online communications he was "ready to fight these dogs on there (sic) doorstep." "I'd love to take out some cops," Besim is alleged to have written. "I was gonna meet with them then take some heads." Police allege Besim was motivated by an extremist ideology and had expressed support for terrorist organizations, particularly the Islamic State movement. A British court in October sentenced a 15-year-old boy from Blackburn, northwestern England, for his part in the ANZAC Day plot. In passing sentence in the Manchester Crown Court, Judge John Saunders said the teenager, who can't be named because of his age, would only be released when he was no longer a danger to the public. Saunders handed down a life sentence with no chance of parole for five years. Hundreds of potentially violent Islamic radicals, including at least 50 who have traveled to and from the Islamic State where they took up arms for ISIS, now live in Berlin, a top German law enforcement official told FoxNews.com Wednesday. Investigators have identified 680 hardcore Islamists in the German capital, nearly half of whom are geared toward violence, said a spokeswoman for the Berlin office of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germanys equivalent of the FBI. While the ISIS veterans are most worrisome, all pose a serious threat, she said. We consider the ideology of the 680 to not be compatible with our freedom and that can be dangerous. German law enforcement spokeswoman We consider the ideology of the 680 to not be compatible with our freedom and that can be dangerous, Isabelle Kalbitzer told FoxNews.com, adding that the 50 estimated to have returned from Islamic State pose the most immediate threat. The number of radical Islamists in Berlin has nearly doubled from the 350 identified in Berlin just five years ago. And at that time, fewer than 100 were considered violent. In recent years, as ISIS has risen, much of the Middle East has become engulfed in war and millions of refugees have poured into Europe, Berlin has become a magnet for terrorists, say experts. According to a report in the newspaper Berliner Morgenpost, Berlin Integration Minister Dilek Kolat said Berlin is stronghold of the Salafism, referring to a virulent and violent strain of Sunni Islam that gave rise to groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS. Bernd Palenda, head of the Berlin intelligence agency, concurred, telling the paper Berlin is a hot spot for Salafists." Throughout Germany, federal law enforcement estimates there are 7,000 active Salafists animated by the goal of a return to 7th-century Islamic society. They openly advocate stripping women of their rights and an austere way of life governed by a harsh form of Islamic Sharia law. They can be seen in Berlin handing out copies of the Koran and propaganda materials. Now, the entrenched radicals have a new audience in the growing pool of Muslim migrants and refugees that have flocked to Berlin from the Middle East and northern Africa, she said. Nearly 50,000 refugees have landed in Berlin, most from Muslim-majority countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt and Iraq. Recruiting by violent Islamists occurs in Berlins mosques and even in front of the citys main refugee registration center. In addition, the Muslim Brotherhood, designated a terrorist organization by the UK as well as Egypt, has a recruitment presence at the Lageso refugee center in the heart of Berlin, said Kalbitzer said. There are meeting places where the Salafists are recruiting, she added said. It continues to happen in different circles. The poisonous message of firebrand imams can be heard on Fridays in the citys mosques, where attendance is swollen by the influx of refugees. Last month, a cleric named Sheikh Hassan Shahrour delivered a sermon in which he praised child murderer and Hezbollah fighter Samir Kuntar. In a 1979 attack in Israel, Kuntar bludgeoned four-year-old Israeli girl Einat Haran, whose father and two other Israelis were also killed. Kuntar was released by Israel in a 2008 prisoner exchange, and promptly went to fight in Syria, where Israel reportedly killed him in an airstrike in December. You should give him a big round of applause, said Shahrour. The audience responded with clapping. In 2014, the radical Danish Imam Sheikh Abu Bilal Ismail called for the extermination of Jews at a Berlin mosque. He said it was necessary to destroy the Zionist Jews..., and to count them and kill them to the very last one. Dont spare a single one of them.... According to a 16-page court verdict obtained by FoxNews.com , he was convicted and fined the equivalent of $1,400 for incitement to hatred. France has restricted access to a new documentary on radical Islam by giving it the French equivalent of an NC-17 film rating, The New York Times reports. The French Culture Ministry said Wednesday that Salafistes, which explores life under Sharia law and the roots of extremist groups like ISIS and the Salafists, is inappropriate for minors due to sometimes unbearable scenes that are degrading to human dignity, the newspaper adds. Only adults 18 and over will be able to see the film in theaters. Some of its scenes include images of a police officer being killed in last years attack on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, terrorists openly degrading women and praising the 9/11 attacks and interviews with members of Al Qaeda and other groups, which could be interpreted as terror propaganda. We wanted to show what it was like to live under the Shariah when we started the project, but then [The Islamic State] emerged and we had to put it in the synopsis, the films director Francois Margolin told the New York Times. As a result, the FIPA festival in Southwestern France decided to limit access to the film to journalists, reviewers, and others with special credentials, the newspaper adds. Margolin has disagreed with the films assessment, saying audiences are intelligent enough to understand the film is not meant to promote extremism. The interviews explain the ideology of these people, and the propaganda images are here to show in practice how their ideas work, Margolin said Tuesday. He added that he had not expected the film to be rated at all. Movie-goers at the Salafistes Paris premier on Tuesday were conflicted; some said the film encouraged audiences to confront the reality of terrorism, while others thought it was nothing more than propaganda, the newspaper adds. And the controversy is expected to hurt profits. Instead of opening in 30 theaters nationwide, Salafistes is only expected to be shown in three. We are going to lose a lot of money despite the fact that we risked our lives to shoot some scenes, Margolin said, The New York Times reports. Israel Nature and Parks Authority officials are pleading for the release of a vulture after residents of a southern Lebanese town captured the bird, claiming it was being used for spying. Lebanese media reported that the bird allegedly carrying Israeli spy equipment -- was caught Tuesday to prevent it from attacking citizens in the town of Bint Jbail, according to the Jerusalem Post. The town is about 2.5 miles away from Israels border. Israeli officials said the bird was released in the Gamla Nature Reserve about a month ago after arriving from Spain in 2015. The bird, outfitted with a transmitter, was brought to Israel in hopes to increase its local population, the officials added. In the 21st century we expect that people would understand that wild animals are not harmful and that their role is to act according to nature, said Ohad Hatzofe, an avian ecologist for the INPA. We hope that the Lebanese will take care of him and release him. Click for more from the Jerusalem Post. French police arrested a man and woman at a Disneyland Paris theme park hotel after the man was found with two handguns, ammo and a Koran inside his suitcase. During a routine security screening checkpoint at one of our hotels, weapons were discovered in a guests luggage through our x-ray machine. The police were immediately notified and the individual was arrested. We continue to work closely with the authorities, and the safety and security of our guests and cast members is our utmost priority, the park's Vice President of Communication and Public Affairs Francois Banon said. French media report the man is from Paris, but not known to the local police or French intelligence. The woman arrested is the man's girlfriend, a police source told AFP. French broadcaster RTL reported that police seized two small-caliber handguns and a 7.65 caliber cartridge box. A small Koran was also found in the mans suitcase. Disneyland Paris, located 18 miles east of the French capital, is Europes most visited theme park, attracting around 10 million visitors in 2014. Employees at the New York Hotel and several others around Disneyland Paris said they continued functioning as usual after the arrest. France remains under a state of emergency following the series of attacks in Paris in November that left 130 dead. Disneyland Paris closed briefly after the massacre. The state of emergency is scheduled to expire at the end of February, but President Francois Hollande last week proposed a three-month extension. Nearly 400 people had been placed under house arrest through the state of emergency, according to an official breakdown in late December. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Mosul Dam in northern Iraq is in moderate danger of breaking down due to months of neglect by the Iraqi government, a U.S. official told Fox News Thursday. The Islamic State terror group seized the dam in the summer of 2014, but Iraqi forces and Kurdish fighters, with coalition air support, took it back within weeks. ISIS militants took all the equipment they could get their hands on putting the dam at risk, according to the official, who adds, they stole everything." Speaking to journalists in Baghdad, Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland offered concerns about the possibility the Mosul dam could breach if repairs are not made soon posing a grave threat to the surrounding area. The Iraqi government called for engineering firms to bid on repairs to the dam and an Italian firm won the bid, according to the official who was not aware of any American bids on the project. Built in the early 1980s, the dam is made largely of earth and situated on soft mineral foundations, which are easily dissolved by water. A report in 2006 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers called it "the most dangerous dam in the world" because of its propensity to erode. The report said the dam's collapse would put Mosul -- Iraq's second-largest city -- under 65 feet of water and kill an estimated half a million people. "If this dam was in the United States, we would have drained the lake behind it," MacFarland said. Situated on the Tigris River, the dam is the largest in Iraq and the fourth-largest in the Middle East. It once supplied electricity and water to much of the country, but now only operates at partial capacity. The coalition and Iraqi forces have drafted plans to move civilians to safety should the dam collapse, MacFarland said, warning that "when it goes, it's going to go fast, and that's bad." Speaking to The Associated Press by phone, Riyadh Izeddin, the director general of the dam, said he had not been informed by the U.S. about any such contingency plan. "The Americans didn't tell us anything," he said, countering the coalition's assessment that the structure is in serious danger. "There is nothing to be afraid of. There is nothing seriously wrong with the dam," Izeddin said. Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report. An American Airlines fight bound for Los Angeles was forced to return to London's Heathrow Airport Wednesday after at least six people on board fell ill. The Daily Telegraph reported that one member of the Boeing 777's cabin crew fainted and five others complained of feeling unwell. With the plane in the air over southwest Iceland, the captain made the decision to return to Heathrow. American Airlines confirmed that two passengers and "some of our flight attendants" complained of lightheadedness aboard Flight 109, which left Heathrow at 12:05 p.m. local time Wednesday (7:05 a.m. EST). The airline said early Thursday that the aircraft was being inspected by maintenance engineers. Paramedics and fire crews surrounded the plane as it landed approximately five hours after it had taken off. The Telegraph reported that the passengers' luggage was briefly taken away for inspection before being returned to them. "About 2.5 hours into the flight just as we were passing Iceland we had a Tannoy announcement asking for any doctors, nurses or medical professionals on board to report to the boarding doors to assist with unwell passengers," passenger Lee Gunn told The Daily Mirror. "The lights then came on in the cabin and there was lots of commotion." "Eventually, when we did dock, there was only one person who came on and he was monitoring the air," passenger Alan Gray told The Daily Mail. "Then the paramedics were allowed onboard to treat those who were ill and everybody was let off." The London Fire Brigade said that crews investigating the plane found no evidence of hazardous substances, while the London Ambulance Service said that six patients who complained of feeling unwell were examined, then discharged. It remains unclear what caused the illnesses. North Korea is preparing a long-range missile launch and it could happen as early as next week, according to a published report. Sky News, citing Japans Kyodo news agency, reported that an unnamed Japanese government official claims there are signs North Korea is readying a missile launch. The official made the assumptions based on the latest satellite images of North Korea's Tongchang-ri missile test site. The official told Kyodo a launch could happen next week, but didnt elaborate more on the images seen at the test site. South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok declined to comment on the report, citing a government policy of not discussing intelligence matters, according to Reuters. However, Kim said North Korea had not issued any international warnings, as hit has done ahead of previous rocket launches. A South Korean government official told the Yonhap news agency that steady activity has been observed at the missile site, with rails set up to quickly move parts for rocket assembly and eventual launch. North Korea said Jan. 6 that it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. However, the U.S. and other countries have expressed doubt that North Korea has made strides in its nuclear weapons program. The Norths last test of a long-range rocket was in 2012, when Pyongyang launched an object into orbit which experts believe is part of an effort to build an intercontinental ballistic missile. North Korea is also thought to be working to miniaturize a nuclear warhead to mount on a missile, according to Sky News. Earlier Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and agreed on the need for a fresh resolution on the North Korea situation, but both parties couldnt come to a solid agreement on what the new measures would be. According to Reuters, U.S. Navy Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, said he supported the conversion of an Aegis missile defense test site in Hawaii into a facility ready to bolster U.S. defense against a ballistic missile attack. Harris also supported putting a mobile missile defense system in place in South Korea, but warned that both the U.S. and South Korea must come to an agreement on that together. Click for more from Sky News. Click for more from Reuters. A Russian jet sped closely by a U.S. Air Force spy plane "in an unsafe and unprofessional manner" over the Black Sea on Monday, a Defense Department spokeswoman told Fox News. The Pentagon is investigating the incident which took place in international airspace, Lt. Col. Michelle L. Baldanza added. She said the Russian aircraft was an Su-27 fighter jet. The Pentagon held a video conference Thursday with Russian military officials to discuss flight safety over Syria "to avoid accidents and unintended confrontation between coalition and Russian forces whenever the two sides operate in close proximity," according to Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook. There was no mention of the "unprofessional" intercept in his statement. "No specific incident or event prompted today's discussion," Baldanza said. This is just the latest report of Russian jets buzzing U.S. aircraft in that same region. U.S. officials told Fox News Russian fighter jets intercepted American predator drones at least three times in the first week of Moscow's air campaign over Syria last fall. Russia claimed its airstrikes targeted Islamic terrorists, but human rights groups said some of the victims were Syrian anti-government rebels with no links to terror. Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report. Taiwan's president, defying a rare criticism from key ally the United States, visited an island in the disputed South China Sea on Thursday to emphasize Taiwan's sovereignty claims in the increasingly tense region. Accompanied by about 30 staff members, Ma Ying-jeou (MAH' YEENG' JOH') spoke at a national monument on Taiping, also known as Itu Aba, and reiterated his call made last year for peaceful coexistence and joint development with other claimants. The island is part of the Spratly archipelago, where China, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and the city-state of Brunei have overlapping claims. Roughly 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) south of Taiwan and 46 hectares (110 acres) in size, Taiping is the largest naturally occurring island in the area. It has recently been eclipsed in size, however, by man-made islands created by China out of reefs and shoals. China has built housing, ports, airstrips and other infrastructure on the newly created islands, drawing accusations from the U.S. and others that it is exacerbating tensions in the strategically vital region. Ma cited infrastructure developments, including a 10-bed hospital and a lighthouse, saying they reinforced Taiwan's claim of sovereignty and granted it rights over the surrounding waters. Taiwan is spending more than $100 million to upgrade the island's airstrip and build a wharf capable of allowing its 3,000-ton coast guard cutters to dock. "All this evidence fully demonstrates that Taiping Island is able to sustain human habitation and an economic life of its own. Taiping Island is categorically not a rock, but an island," Ma said. The Philippines expressed concern over the trip, and U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Wednesday that the United States was disappointed, saying it could exacerbate tensions. "President Ma Ying-jeou has every right to make his position clear on the South China Sea. We just disagree with this particular action. We view it as, frankly, as raising tensions rather than what we want to see, which is de-escalation," Toner said. During a visit to Beijing on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry encouraged all parties in the South China Sea to clarify their territorial claims, exercise restraint and engage in negotiations on the basis of international law. Taiwan stations about 200 coast guard personnel, scientists and medical workers on Taiping. It occupies a number of other islets in the South China Sea, including the Pratas island group to the north. There was no immediate response to Ma's visit from China, although a spokesman for the Cabinet's Taiwan Affairs Office on Wednesday repeated Beijing's claim to "indisputable sovereignty" over the South China Sea islands. "Safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity and the overall interests of the Chinese nation are the common responsibility and obligation of compatriots on both sides" of the Taiwan Strait, Ma Xiaoguang told reporters. China and Taiwan hold identical claims to the South China Sea, aligning with Beijing's "one China principle" that considers the two part of a single Chinese nation. Beijing has threatened to retaliate to any formal change in Taiwan's legal status with military force. Coming near the end of his eight years in office, Ma's visit is the second by a Taiwanese leader. Former president Chen Shui-bian visited in 2008 when he delivered a similar message. Ma, who has been criticized at home as weak on foreign policy, must step down in May due to term limits and analysts said he considers the island visit a capstone to his time in office. Opposition party president-elect Tsai Ing-wen declined an invitation to go on the trip. Tsai won a decisive victory over the candidate from Ma's China-friendly Nationalist Party in this month's election while leading her independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party to a majority in the legislature, casting new uncertainty over the future of Taiwan-China relations. "President Ma...views advancing (Taiwan's) maritime interests as part of his legacy," said Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington. "His visit to Taiping will further incite nationalistic fervor in the claimant countries and increase tensions." ___ Bodeen reported from Beijing. Associated Press writer Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report. Home Care Assistance Denver to Host Aging In Place Workshop The Aging in Place event will be held January 27, 2016 from 6-8 p.m. at the Eugene Fields Library 810 S. University Blvd in Denver, CO and is open to the public free of charge. January 27, 2016 // Franchising.com // Denver, CO Home Care Assistance Denver, a leading provider of non-medical, in-home care for seniors, is co-hosting an Aging in Place workshop with Carol Core of CarolCARE on Wednesday, January 27th, at the Eugene Fields Library from 6-8pm. The library is located at 810 S. University Blvd in Denver, CO. This event is free, open to the public and will offer valuable information and resources for family caregivers. Light refreshments will be served. We are very excited to be hosting this event because there needs to be a paradigm shift in the way society views aging, said Samantha Co-Owner of Home Care Assistance Denver. We see this workshop as a means to this end in jumpstarting that shift and instilling family caregivers with hope, resources and the support needed to help their loved ones age in place safely while still finding time for themselves. The Aging In Place workshop will include the following: What is Home Care? 10 Sanity Saving Tips for Caregivers How to ask for help and find resources Five reasons quality in-home care can improve your loved ones quality of life while saving money on eldercare costs The events co-host, Carol Core of CarolCARE, spent more than 12 years as a non-paid family caregiver and leveraged her personal expertise and knowledge to create CarolCARE a firm dedicated to offering support, empowerment and relief to non-paid family caregivers. Carol also authored the book 50 Sanity Saving Tips for Caregivers, You Dont Have to Kill Yourself to Keep Them Alive. For more information about Home Care Assistance Denver please visit: www.homecareassistancedenver.com or call us at 720-443-3371. About Home Care Assistance Home Care Assistance, founded in 2002, is a leading international provider of non-medical, in-home senior care with franchises throughout the United States, Canada and Australia. Serving as a comprehensive alternative to a nursing home or assisted living facility for older adults, our mission is to provide the highest quality and most reliable in-home care service. Home Care Assistance successfully operates as North Americas preferred brand for in-home care and maintains an intimate and personal rapport with each client. Here at Home Care Assistance we are dedicated to finding the highest caliber caregivers that we expertly match with the right recipient based on his or her needs. In addition, we do not require long-term contracts for services and remain on-call 24 hours a day. For more information, please contact Home Care Assistance at 778-279-3634, or visit online at: www.homecareassistance.com. SOURCE Home Care Assistance Media Contact: Kathryn Zakskorn Director of Franchise Marketing 650-462-9501 kzakskorn@homecareassistance.com ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus 1000 Degrees Neapolitan Pizza Opens First Arizona Location in Phoenix New Option for Customizable Fast-Casual Pizza Offers Free 10 Pizza for All Guests, Plus Chance to Win Free Pizza for a Year January 28, 2016 // Franchising.com // PHOENIX 1000 Degrees Neapolitan Pizza, a fast-casual American spin on authentic, hand-tossed Neapolitan pizza, is debuting in Arizona with the opening of its Phoenix location on Sunday, January 31. The new restaurant is located at 7000 East Mayo Boulevard, Suite 1002, in the 101 and Scottsdale Shopping Center. To celebrate the new restaurant, the first 10 guests through the doors on Sunday, January 31 at 11 a.m. will win free pizza for a year. In addition, all guests who visit the grand opening between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. and like 1000 Degrees on Facebook, follow on Instagram or Twitter, will receive a free 10 pizza of their choice. 1000 Degrees serves personalized, made-to-order authentic Neapolitan pizza. Each pizza starts with fresh, never frozen, hand-tossed dough, created with authentic Neapolitan 00 flour and available in both a personal 10 and sharable 14 sizes. Guests then choose to create their own pizza or order one of the 1000 Degrees Favorites. The Phoenix 1000 Degrees is the first location in Arizona and will be operated by Randy and Ban Kassab of Capital Pizza Ventures. The group plans to develop three total locations throughout Arizona, with the next scheduled to open in Gilbert this spring. We saw Phoenix as a relatively untapped market for fast-casual, authentic Neapolitan-style pizza, said Randy Kassab. Were looking forward to opening our doors and sharing our love for pizza with the community. Customizing a 1000 Degrees pizza is truly a unique experience, as guests can choose to top theirs with any of the more than 50 high quality cheeses, sauces, meats, vegetables and other toppings all for one flat price. While choosing their toppings, customers are guided down an assembly line of pizza consultants to create a pizza that is totally unique to them. Outside of the build your own option, there are more than 12 varieties of specialty pizzas including favorites like The Smokey Pollo, also known as Barbecue Bourbon Chicken, which features sweet and smokey bourbon barbecue sauce, roasted chicken, red onion, pineapple, shredded Grande brand mozzarella and blue cheeses, and The Philly, which is a cheese steak pizza topped with thinly sliced rib-eye, caramelized Spanish onions, balsamic glaze, shredded Grande brand mozzarella and provolone cheeses. Pizzas are then fired to perfection at 1000 degrees in a custom, handmade, revolving Neapolitan brick oven in just two minutes. 1000 Degrees is on fire and were certainly heating up metro Phoenix with the opening of our first Arizona location, said 1000 Degrees CEO and Founder Brian Petruzzi. Im confident that we serve the best hand-tossed Neapolitan pizza in the area and provide an unparalleled customer experience that will keep people coming back for more. Unlike traditional Neapolitan pizza which has a slightly undercooked center and requires a fork and knife to eat, 1000 Degrees Neapolitan Pizza has fused this classic style with American flare. The result is a thin crust pizza that maintains the light and airy appeal of a Neapolitan style pizza. 1000 Degrees pizza captures American appeal and old world Neapolitan flavor. The company currently has more than 10 domestic restaurants open and one international location in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 1000 Degrees is growing at a rapid pace, estimating it will open more than 80 units by the end of 2016, and projecting an additional 170 units by 2017. 1000 Degrees in Phoenix is open Sunday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. To learn more about 1000 Degrees Neapolitan Pizza or to be part of its daily free pizza contests, please visit www.facebook.com/1000DegreesPizzaPhoenix/?fref=ts or call (480) 502-7735. About 1000 Degrees Neapolitan Pizza 1000 Degrees Neapolitan Pizza brings guests the finest hand-tossed Neapolitan pizza. Founded in 2014, the international franchise has experienced unparalleled growth and is on target to have more than 80 units open by the end of 2016, and projects more than 170 units by 2017. For more information on the 1000 Degrees Neapolitan Pizza brand, or for franchise or investor relations, please visit the company website at www.1000DegreesPizza.com. SOURCE 1000 Degrees Neapolitan Pizza Contact: Kayla Atwell Account Executive (O) 847.945.1300, ext. 235 ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Cruise Planners Announces New Role: Corporate Director of Finance Matt Kruszewski Joins Management Team to Support Growth in Finance and Technology Initiatives January 28, 2016 // Franchising.com // CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. Cruise Planners, an American Express Travel Representative, the nations leading home-based travel agency network announces that Matt Kruszewski has joined the franchisor as Corporate Director of Finance. Matt comes to Cruise Planners with 10 plus years of experience and a background in finance with a special focus on technology, which makes him uniquely qualified to jump into his new role. Prior to Cruise Planners, Matt worked at Oracle as an IT audit manager with a focus on IT operations, product development and cybersecurity. Prior to Oracle, Matt was a manager at Ernst & Young with a specialization in enhancing the processes and controls of financial services organizations. Both roles have prepared him to immediately contribute to Cruise Planners success and support each franchisee. Matt received his Master of Arts in International Business from the University of Florida and a Masters in Accounting from Florida Atlantic University. After graduation, he became a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and recently become a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), which merges both his technology and finance experience. Matt is the right fit for our company because of his diverse background, said Michelle Fee, CEO and co-founder of Cruise Planners. We are thrilled to have him join our talented team and use his experience in both finance and technology to continue to position Cruise Planners as a leader in travel. As the nations largest network of home-based travel professionals, Cruise Planners has continued to increase sales using proprietary technology and creating business solutions for its growing travel agent network as a franchisor. The company constantly merges travel, technology and finance to create successful business opportunities for its more than 1,400 franchisees. As Cruise Planners continues to grow, this is the perfect time to bring Matt on board as Corporate Director of Finance, Fee said. He has the right combination of experience and passion for our team. Not only is Matt passionate about finance and technology, he also is a travel enthusiast. He was bit by the travel bug while studying international business in Europe and continued his adventures by traveling to Brazil for an extended period. These days, Matt enjoys traveling, jogging, and spending time with his two young daughters, wife and family dog, Yoshi. About Cruise Planners, an American Express Travel Representative Cruise Planners, an American Express Travel Representative, is the nations largest home-based travel agent franchise network in the travel industry. Cruise Planners operates a network of more than 1,000 franchise owners who independently book amazing vacation and travel experiences for their clients. The Florida-based Home Office team positions franchise owners for success by providing innovative marketing, booking and lead-generating tools, as well as professional development and hands-on training with the industrys top executives. The company continues to be lauded and has been named the No.1 Cruise Tour / Travel Agency by Entrepreneur for 12 consecutive years. Cruise Planners was recently featured in Entrepreneur as one of the top 30 franchise innovators in technology and named to the Fast 50 by the South Florida Business Journal. SOURCE Cruise Planners ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Dickeys Barbecue Pit to Open New Location in Indianapolis with Three-Day Barbecue Bash The largest barbecue chain in the nation opens first location in Indianapolis with specials and giveaways. January 28, 2016 // Franchising.com // Indianapolis, IN - Dickeys Barbecue Pit opens Thursday with a three-day barbecue bash. The celebration kicks off with the first 50 guests receiving gift cards worth up to $50. The next 100 guests will receive a voucher for a free quarter plate with the purchase of a Big Yellow Cup. On Friday the store will hold a drawing for one $500 gift card giveaway, and three guests will win free barbecue for an entire year! Saturday the store will give away Dickeys goodies all day and the first 100 guests receive a Big Yellow Cup. Kids eat free on Sunday as always! To find the Dickeys Barbecue Pit nearest you, go here [https://www.dickeys.com/locations]. Dickeys has seen exponential growth nationwide, and we look forward to opening our sixth location in Indiana, says Roland Dickey, Jr., CEO of Dickeys Barbecue Restaurants, Inc. We congratulate Rieley Armour on his grand opening. The grand opening weekend includes: Thursday, January 28 kicks off with the first 50 guests receiving gift cards worth up to $50. The next 100 guests will receive a voucher for a free quarter plate with the purchase of a Big Yellow Cup. kicks off with the first 50 guests receiving gift cards worth up to $50. The next 100 guests will receive a voucher for a free quarter plate with the purchase of a Big Yellow Cup. Friday, January 29 the first 100 guests will receive a free Big Yellow Cup and the store will hand out Dickeys goodies all day. the first 100 guests will receive a free Big Yellow Cup and the store will hand out Dickeys goodies all day. Saturday, January 30 one lucky winner will be chosen for a $500 gift card and three winners will receive free barbecue for an entire year. Winners will be announced in the store. The store will also sell pulled pork sandwiches for $2 from 11:00 a.m. 2:00 p.m. Rieley Armour is among the youngest Owner/Operators in the Dickeys system. Since he was a young child playing in a chef hat and apron, Armour always knew he wanted to open a restaurant. He met his business partner as sales supervisor of a lawn care company and now the two look forward to opening their first restaurant together. This has been my dream since I was 10 years old, Armour says. Dickeys has the best pulled pork sandwich Ive ever had, and Im excited to bring these authentic barbecue flavors to this region of Indianapolis. The new Dickeys Barbecue Pit in Indianapolis is located at: 8624 Pendleton Pike, Indianapolis, IN 46226. The phone number is 317-836-0980. Find Dickeys on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. About Dickeys Barbecue Restaurants, Inc. Dickeys Barbecue Restaurants, Inc., the nations largest barbecue chain was founded in 1941 by Travis Dickey with the goal of authentic slow smoked barbecue. Today, all meats are still slow smoked on-site in each restaurant living up to the company tagline, We Speak Barbecue. The Dallas-based family-run barbecue franchise offers a quality selection of signature meats, home style sides, tangy barbecue sauce and free kids meals every Sunday. The fast-casual concept has expanded to over 530 locations in 43 states. Dickeys was recognized for the third year by Nations Restaurant News as a Top 10 Growth Chain and by Technomic as the Fastest-growing restaurant chain in the country. For more information, visit www.dickeys.com or for barbecue franchise opportunities call 866.340.6188. SOURCE Dickeys Barbecue Restaurants, Inc. Media Contact: Michelle George 972.248.9899 mgeorge@dickeys.com ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Executive Care Celebrates Monumental Growth Phase Northern New Jersey Home Care Company Closes 2015 with Aggressive Franchise Growth Initiative Sets Stage for 2016 with Introduction of New Executive Care 360 Services January 28, 2016 // Franchising.com // HACKENSACK, N.J. - Hackensack, N.J.-based Executive Care, the home care company widely recognized as the most trusted provider of skilled and personal care services, is celebrating a remarkable start to 2016. Coming on the heels of record-breaking franchise growth, the brand extended its presence into four new states including North Carolina, Florida, Texas and Connecticut in 2015. For a concept that started franchising just three years ago, this growth is a clear indication that Executive Care has established itself as a major home care franchise on the national level. Coast to coast growth is on the horizon for Executive Care this year, said Todd Leonard, vice president of operations and franchise development. Last year we extended our footprint to four new states and this year we expect growth in major U.S. cities such as Orlando, Boston, Phoenix, Denver and more. We are aware of the demand and look forward to providing high-quality care to individuals across the country. Continuing the momentum in the months ahead, Executive Care is meeting and vetting additional franchisee candidates, and plans to open 10 new franchise offices by the end of 2016, doubling the current total of locations. The new year has started on a high note for Executive Care with a multi-unit franchise agreement signed for the San Antonio market. Adding to the energy enveloping the company is the emergence of Executive Care 360, a comprehensive program that encompasses all services. Executive Care designed the new program, which employs a complete team approach to the well being of clients and results in higher client satisfaction and continuity of care. These factors, plus Executive Cares advanced technology management system, have made it stand out in one of the nations most rapidly expanding industries. New franchisees can embrace Executive Cares proven private pay model and its collection of in-home services. To that point, the company considers its franchising opportunity to be an outgrowth of several notable franchisee accomplishments the Stratford, Connecticut office is celebrating its one-year anniversary and the Freehold, New Jersey office is now a proud member of the Million Dollar Sales Club. Our accomplishments over the past year have made it clear that America has taken a strong notice of how our business has had an impact in peoples lives, making it rewarding to be able to share this vision with others for longer than a decade, said Lenny Verkhoglaz, the CEO and co-founder of Executive Care who launched the business and runs it with his wife, Mila Feldman. Weve seen such determination from new and existing franchisees. The demand for home care is only going to increase in the years to come and we are excited to be a part of the growing need. The franchise expansion, which began in 2013, significantly extends the full-service home care companys footprint, bridging the gap for thousands of families seeking affordable care for their loved ones, yet unsure of who they can trust. Executive Cares unique ability to blend a variety of companion and skilled home health care services and maintain top-notch customer engagement has made it a trusted resource for health care referral partners and families. We have truly put our passion into designing the most dynamic home care concept, said Mila. Looking back to when we first began this journey, I have seen such tremendous growth from franchisees. Several come from no experience in the industry but have completely immersed themselves in the business. That is the most gratifying part of this. Moreover, Executive Cares low start-up cost of less than $100,000, which includes the franchise fee, makes it an attractive business for entrepreneurs seeking to join one of Americas fastest growing sectors. Executive Care offers a variety of caregiving and skilled nursing services to help families often overwhelmed with the responsibility of providing care to a loved one - all while ensuring the patient remains in the comfort of his or her own home. In a crowded sector, the company has built a reputation from the ground up. About Executive Care Executive Care, based in Hackensack, N.J., delivers a comprehensive selection of home care services tailored to the every need of its customers. From companionship and personal care to 24/7 live-in care and skilled nursing, Executive Care ensures customers receive safe, reliable and certified in-home medical and personal services. At the heart of Executive Care is the relationship forged between caregivers, customers and families. The company has announced plans to grow, offering an attractive franchise opportunity in the fast-growing home care sector. To learn more about Executive Cares services, visit ExecutiveHomeCare.com. For more information on the Executive Care franchise opportunity, email Todd Leonard at todd@executivehomecare.com or call (855) 393-2372. SOURCE Executive Care Media Contact: Bailey Hewitt Account Lead O: 847-897-7487 C: 773-818-1321 ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Fetch! Pet Care Celebrates Its First 10-Year Local Franchise Renewal DAYTON, OH (PRWEB) January 28, 2016 - 2015 was a big year for Randy Ring who recently celebrated 10 years as a Fetch! Pet Care franchisee in the St. Louis metro area. It was also the year that he decided to extend his local franchise business ownership for an additional 10 years. With the announcement now being made public, it is noted that Rings decision marks the first franchise renewal for Fetch! Pet Care, Inc. which was started as a local dog walking and pet sitting service in 2002. Ring will continue as a franchisee with the nationwide brand because, according to him, Fetch! has exceeded all of my expectations. As a local owner, he has benefited from ongoing training, education and support in a recession resistant business, which also provides national and local marketing support. Being part of a strong, recognizable brand is just one reason why Ring originally chose to purchase his franchise. According to the 2015-2016 American Pet Products Associations National Pet Owners Survey, pets currently reside in over 79 million American households. In realizing the growing magnitude of pet ownership early on, Rings primary goal was to impact his community by providing a quality and reliable pet sitting service, which he has now enjoyed doing for an entire decade. With the continued success of his business, Ring is renewing because of the companys outstanding communication, support, systems, processes and procedures, all which help him provide superior service throughout his territories. Owning your own business is always a challenge, but Fetch! gives me the tools I need to succeed. I am more optimistic than ever about my future with Fetch! and I look forward to many more years of continued success, says Ring about the decision to renew his franchise operation for another decade. With a background in advertising, publishing, lending and management, Ring further attributes the local operations success to his sales experience prior to becoming a franchisee. Paul Mann, Founder and President, shares that, It has been a delight working with Randy over the past decade, and we are all proud of the outstanding pet care service he and his staff have provided to his community Im excited by this great milestone for both the Fetch! Pet Care brand and Randy as he renews for another 10 years, and look forward to witnessing his continued business growth over the next decade. Ring started his franchise in June of 2005 in St. Louis, Missouri initially serving the metro area which includes Chesterfield, Maryland Heights, Saint Louis, Clayton, Richmond Heights, Webster Groves, Kirkwood, Ladue, Crestwood, Sunset Hills, University City, Des Peres, Olivette, Creve Coeur, Maplewood and Brenton. He purchased a second franchise in 2014 enabling him to include West St. Louis County which services Ballwin, Eureka, Fenton, Glencoe, Grover, High Ridge, Pacific, Saint Albans, Valley Park and Manchester. Each Fetch! Pet Care location maintains Pet Care Coordinators who personally match each client to the most qualified dog walker or pet sitter on staff. In keeping with the national brands standards, all of Rings dog walkers and pet sitters are background checked, bonded and insured, and come with glowing reviews and a satisfaction guarantee of high quality service. Currently employing approximately 60 local dog walkers and pet sitters, Rings Fetch! Pet Care franchise will continue to provide valuable and in-demand pet care services such as dog walking, pet sitting, private boarding, pet taxiing and day care to residents throughout his service area. About Fetch! Pet Care The largest pet sitting and dog walking franchise in the United States, Fetch! Pet Care originated as a local pet care service in California in 2002. Fetch! Pet Care services tens of thousands of clients through its network of more than 3,000 professional pet sitters and dog walkers in over 25 states coast-to-coast. Headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, the company now boasts over 100 franchise locations servicing over 1,500 cities and towns nationwide. Pet care services provided include dog walking, in-home pet sitting, private boarding, pet day care, overnight pet care, pet taxi and pet exercise. For more information about services, jobs or franchising opportunities visithttp://www.fetchpetcare.com or call 866-FETCH-ME (866-338-2463). SOURCE Fetch! Pet Care Contact: Paul Mann Fetch! Pet Care, Inc. +1 (510) 545-4963 ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Local Boca Man Loses Job, Starts Over with Window Genie Jorge Rodriguez was laid off from his job of 10 years as an executive in corporate America. Determined to never work for anyone else again, he purchased a window Genie franchise in Boca Raton. BOCA RATON, FL (PRWEB) January 27, 2016 - Window Genie announces the grand opening of its newest location in Boca Raton, FL on February 8th. Local 30 year resident Jorge Rodriguez is the owner. Window Genie is a national home service franchise specializing in residential and light commercial window cleaning, window tinting, pressure washing, gutter cleaning and more. Window Genie of Boca will service homes and small businesses in Boca Raton, Delray Beach and the surrounding communities. Before purchasing a Window Genie franchise, Rodriguez was unexpectedly let go from his job of over 10 years. He said, For the last 10 years I was in senior management as an executive until one day I was called into a meeting and I was no longer with that company. Its something you read about in the news, but until it happens to you it was a shocking experience that changed my life. I was determined to make sure that never happened again, there are just no guarantees when you work for someone else. To take control of his own success and transition from employee to boss/owner, Jorge engaged with Jose Torres of FranNet, a franchise consulting firm. Together they were able to determine which franchise opportunities best fit Rodriguez goals, interests, strengths and weaknesses. Among his top choices was Window Genie. I went into this process without knowing what I wanted, but definitely knew what I didnt want, said Rodriguez. I was sure I didnt want anything high tech where Id always have to adapt and learn as technology advances. Also, I was looking for a franchise I could run from home without a retail space. Consistently ranked on Entrepreneurs list of top home-based and low-cost franchises, Window Genie fit the bill. Another advantage Window Genie presented was Rodriguez ability to serve his community. He said, Ive lived here over 30 years, I raised my children here, its my comfort zone. Being able to offer my neighbors and the entire community a much needed service was ultimately why I chose Window Genie. Opening just in time for spring cleaning, Rodriguez has his plate full, but is excited. The timing couldnt be better for me. Im not afraid of a challenge and I know the demand is there, its just up to my team to deliver on expectations. Were excited to start earning customers and grow the business for years to come. Window Genie of Boca officially opens for business on February 8th. All field technicians are fully trained, insured, bonded and have passed a background check. For more information or for a free estimate, contact owner Jorge Rodriguez at jrodriguez(at)windowgenie(dot)com or by calling 561-376-5844. About Window Genie Window Genie is a nationally ranked home service franchise specializing in residential and light commercial window cleaning, window tinting, pressure washing, gutter cleaning and more. Founded in 1994, Window Genie has since grown to a system of almost 90 franchise partners operating in over 200 markets in 27 states.Franchise opportunities available nationwide. SOURCE Window Genie Contact: Erin McDermott Window Genie VPR +1 (513) 541-3351 ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Menchies Celebrates National Frozen Yogurt Day with Free Froyo on February 1 January 28, 2016 // Franchising.com // ENCINO, Calif. - Menchies, North Americas largest self-serve frozen yogurt franchise, is celebrating National Frozen Yogurt Day on February 1 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. by gifting fans with a free six ounce cup of frozen yogurt. No coupons are necessary for frozen yogurt lovers to enjoy this sweet deal. As a special bonus, fans who come in and celebrate with Menchies, will receive a 20 percent off coupon to use on their next visit, valid February 2 through February 20, while supplies last. We are thrilled to celebrate our favorite holiday, National Frozen Yogurt Day, with our guests, said Amit Kleinberger, CEO of Menchies. Its our day to spread smiles and say thank you to our loyal fans who have been with us for eight years and counting. This month, Menchies is also partnering with Nestle, the worlds leading nutrition, health and wellness company, to release two new limited time flavors - bringing fans the essence of classic Nestle treats swirled into their favorite froyo. Peanut Butter Chocolate Bar made with Nestle Butterfinger Pieces and Chocolate Candy Bar made with Nestle Crunch Pieces are sure to entice chocolate bar aficionados everywhere. Both delicious Nestle flavors can pair with any of Menchies premium toppings for the perfect dessert. These limited-time flavors will be available at Menchies during the month of February. For more information regarding Menchies, including store locations, franchising opportunities or their National Frozen Yogurt Day deal, please visit www.menchies.com. Like Menchies on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/MyMenchies or follow on Twitter atwww.Twitter.com/MyMenchies. About Menchies Menchies creates lasting memories by providing an unparalleled guest experience with a mission to make every guest smile. Menchies is a world-leader of ensuring best-in-class products and is the ambassador of frozen yogurt quality worldwide. With over 500 stores, the franchise has locations open in the United States, Canada, China, Japan, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, India, and more. Menchies expects to celebrate 600 stores in 2016. Guaranteeing happiness in every cup, the brand offers guests premium rotating yogurt flavors and delicious toppings for unlimited combinations in every bite. The proprietary collection is made from the milk of smiley California cows, which have not been treated with artificial growth hormones (rBST). Menchies frozen yogurt contains live and active cultures and has received the Live and Active Culture (LAC) seal indicating its endorsement by the National Yogurt Association. About Nestle USA Named one of The Worlds Most Admired Food Companies in Fortune magazine for eighteen consecutive years, Nestle provides quality brands that bring flavor to life every day. From nutritious meals with LEAN CUISINE to baking traditions with NESTLE TOLL HOUSE, Nestle USA makes delicious, convenient, and nutritious food and beverages that make good living possible. Thats what Nestle. Good Food, Good Life is all about. Nestle USA, with 2014 sales of $9.7 billion, is part of Nestle S.A. in Vevey, Switzerland the worlds largest food company with a commitment to Nutrition, Health & Wellness with 2014 sales of $100 billion. For product news and information, visit Nestleusa.com or Facebook.com/NestleUSA. About Butterfinger Butterfinger is a one-of-a-kind candy bar with the crispety, crunchety, peanut-buttery taste people love. No other candy bar comes close to the intense flavor and texture of a Butterfinger. Keep up with the latest news about Butterfinger atFacebook.com/Butterfinger or follow its sweet tweets at Twitter.com/Butterfinger. In 2013, Butterfinger marked its 90ish anniversary, as the candy bar originally invented by Chicagos Curtiss Candy Company was believed to have been promoted as early as 1923 (before it ultimately was sold to Nestle in 1990). SOURCE Menchies Media Contacts: Erin Morrissey For Menchies emorrissey@konnect-pr.com Madison Jones For Menchies mjones@konnect-pr.com ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus The Cleaning Authority Finishes 2015 Strong; Eyes 200th Location Opening in the First Quarter of 2016 Residential Cleaning Franchise Looks to Expand into Additional New Markets with Franchise Partners Interested in Simple, Sophisticated and Scalable Business Model COLUMBIA, MD (PRWEB) January 28, 2016 - The Cleaning Authority, one of North Americas leading home cleaning franchise brands with a 25-year record of excellence, reported record-breaking success in 2015. Between the acquisition of new franchisees, launching an initiative to attract eager entrepreneurs and working toward the goal of opening the brands 200th office, The Cleaning Authority is starting 2016 off with ambitious development plans. We had a banner year, with the strongest development growth we have had since 2007, Iric Wexler, Vice President of Franchise Development for The Cleaning Authority said. While our greatest expertise and primary focus continues to be supporting existing franchisees unit economic growth, we have had a renewed and more ambitious focus placed on developing new markets, both adjacent to existing franchisees territories and into markets in which no franchisee is currently operating. In 2015, the franchise system added 23 new units, 18 of which are already operational, and the leadership team oversaw 15 resales by transferring ownership to qualified and determined entrepreneurs. As some franchisees mature toward 20 years of TCA ownership, resales to strong new owners are very important. Wexler added that the unprecedented growth the company experienced in 2015 is a testament to the proven and successful business model that the brand has established. One of the aggressive business strategies that The Cleaning Authority launched in 2015 is the HomeTown Markets program. The franchise is blazing a new trail by actively funding candidates with up to $12,000 in start-up fees. The Cleaning Authoritys HomeTown Markets are slightly smaller-than-traditional Enterprise Markets, with a franchise fee of up to $24,000, and the opportunity provides franchisees with the same unrestricted access to proprietary tools, technology systems, corporate marketing and lead generation resources. We have such an ambitious business model that we never really had a focus on developing smaller markets, Wexler said. We have re-engineered our business model with initiatives like the HomeTown Market program to help young, new entrepreneurs find success in smaller markets. Finding qualified business partners, young entrepreneurs and veterans as franchisees through the HomeTown Market model will continue to be a key component of growth for the brand in 2016. The Cleaning Authority also plans to launch a program in which the team will work to convert independent cleaning businesses to join its established franchise network, offering them comprehensive infrastructure and corporate support. The Cleaning Authority also partners with VetFran as an initiative to support business opportunities for veterans. Through the partnership, the brand is able to reduce franchise fees by 25 percent for individuals who are interested in business ownership after military service. The steady, deliberate and strategic evolution of the companys framework and systems at The Cleaning Authority has driven exceptional unit level success and ultimately the development of a fantastic brand, Wexler said. We are as focused as ever on finding the best franchisees to continue to build The Cleaning Authoritys franchise system and plan to continue to break records year after year. About The Cleaning Authority Founded in 1989, The Cleaning Authority has been franchising for almost 20 years and has more than 190 locations in the United States and Canada. Completing more than 1.7 million cleans last year, the company is responsible for the proprietary Detail-Clean Rotation System designed to guarantee a thorough clean. The Cleaning Authority is an environmentally responsible residential cleaning franchise committed to using Green-Seal Certified cleaning products. For more information, please visit http://www.thecleaningauthority.com or follow us on Twitter @LiveLifeWeClean. SOURCE The Cleaning Authority Contact: Lauren Boukas No Limit Agency +1 (312) 526-3996 ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Wayback Burgers Shows Love For Veterans With Free Valentines Day Dinner Americas Hometown Burger Joint Adds American Heroes Limited-Time Menu to Pay Tribute to Military Members January 28, 2016 // Franchising.com // CHESHIRE, CT Wayback Burgers, serving delicious, fresh, never frozen burgers and hand-dipped milkshakes amidst an atmosphere reminiscent of a hometown burger joint, announced the launch of its limited-time-only American Heroes menu, which pays homage to those who have served, available at Wayback Burgers restaurants nationwide through March 31. Additionally, the burger brand will provide a FREE American Heroes meal to military members on Valentines Day at participating Wayback Burgers locations. Wayback Burgers is playing cupid for veterans and military members on Valentines Day by offering FREE Valentines Day dinners at select restaurants throughout the country. On Sunday, February 14 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., veterans and active-duty military personnel who dine-in in uniform or show proof of service will receive one free American Heroes meal, which includes the Cheeseburger Hero, Chocolate Banana WOWBUTTER Milkshake and side of Frings French fries and onion rings. Each restaurant will be lovingly decorated with a festive Valentines Day theme for a romantic dinner date complete with the perfect all-American meal burgers, frings and a shake. Reservations can be made online at www.WaybackBurgers.com/valentines. Participating Wayback Burgers locations include Los Angeles and Port Hueneme, CA; Dover, DE; Lithia, FL; Evansville, IN (Cross Pointe Blvd. and East Diamond Ave. locations); Saugus and Worcester, MA; Bel Air, MD; Wilson, NC; Brooklyn, Evans Mills and Monroe, NY; Medford, OR; Nashville, TN; Killeen, TX; and Ashburn, VA. The Wayback Burgers team is extremely proud to support our United States Military, said John Eucalitto, president of Wayback Burgers. We want to thank our veterans and military members for their service and sacrifice. Our Valentines Day dinner and American Heroes menu gives us a chance to show some of that appreciation and share our little piece of Americana with this great group of people. The American Heroes menu includes the Cheeseburger Hero two fresh all-beef patties with all the fixings Our Way, served on a seven-inch sub roll, a side of Frings a combination of French fries and onion rings, so guests never have to decide between the two, and the Chocolate Banana WOWBUTTER Milkshake a blend of hand-dipped vanilla bean ice cream, banana and WOWBUTTER, a delicious, nut-free alternative to peanut butter. Guests are encouraged to share their American Heroes meals using the hashtag #WaybackHeroes on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Wayback Burgers is about serving delicious, fresh burgers and hand-dipped milkshakes amidst an atmosphere that hearkens back to a simpler place and time a time when customer service meant something, and everyone felt the warmth of the community. Wayback Burgers offers burgers made from 100 percent fresh, never frozen ground beef, cooked to order, available as a single, classic double, triple and triple triple (nine) patty, and rich, thick milkshakes made the old-fashioned way by hand, using only fresh milk and hand-dipped ice cream. Going way beyond the burger, Wayback Burgers also offers crispy and grilled chicken sandwiches, veggie burgers, turkey burgers, fresh salads and delicious sides including fries, onion rings, homestyle chili and house-made chips. For more information on Wayback Burgers, visit www.WaybackBurgers.com, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. About Wayback Burgers Founded in 1991 in Newark, DE, Wayback Burgers is a Connecticut-based fast-casual franchise with a reputation for fresh burgers and thick, hand-dipped milkshakes, and currently operates in 26 states with over 100 locations nationally and internationally in Argentina and Saudi Arabia. Wayback Burgers, through its executed master franchise agreements, plans to open in 33 countries in the Middle East, Northern Africa, Argentina, Pakistan and Brunei, along with pending agreements for Mumbai, India. SOURCE Wayback Burgers Contact: Jillian Verpent Account Executive BML Public Relations O: 973/337.6395 M: 732/674.3814 jverpent@bmlpr.com ### Add to Request List Added Request Information Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus New U.K. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt has reversed most of an economic package announced by the government just weeks ago, including a planned cut in income taxes. Hunt said Monday he was scrapping almost all the tax cuts announced last month by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Liz Truss, and also signaled that public spending cuts are on the way. It was a bid to soothe turbulent financial markets spooked by fears of excessive government borrowing. The move raises questions about how long the beleaguered prime minister can stay in office, though Truss insisted she has no plans to quit. She vowed to lead the Conservatives into the next general election, but many in the party want her gone. BURNS, Ore. The Oregon nature preserve being occupied by an armed anti-government group was surrounded by law-enforcement agents Wednesday, a day after one of the occupiers was killed by officers during a traffic stop and eight others, including group leader Ammon Bundy, were arrested. The confrontation came amid increasing calls for authorities to take action against Bundy for the illegal occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, which was seized by the group on Jan. 2 in a bid to force the government to turn federal lands over to local officials. The traffic stop was supposed to bring a peaceful resolution to the situation but ended badly, Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward said, expressing disappointment. "Multiple law enforcement agencies put a lot of work putting together the best tactical plan they could to take these guys down peacefully," Ward said at a news conference Wednesday. The death didn't have to happen, he said. Details of the fatal encounter were sparse. It occurred as Bundy and his followers were heading to a community meeting late Tuesday afternoon in the town of John Day, about 70 miles north of Burns. Arianna Finicum Brown confirmed that her father, Arizona rancher Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, was the man killed, the Oregonian reported. The 55-year-old was a frequent and public presence at the refuge, often speaking for the group at news conferences. It was unclear what led to the shooting, or if Finicum or any of the other ranchers exchanged gunfire with officers. Authorities would not say how many shots were fired. "This is where I'm going to breathe my last breath, whether I'm 90, 95 or 55," Finicum told The Associated Press on Jan. 5. " ... I'm going to not spend my days in a cell." The FBI and Oregon State Police would say only that the dead man was wanted by federal authorities. They said no more specifics would be released pending formal identification by the medical examiner. Greg Bretzing, special agent in charge for the FBI in Oregon, said authorities took a deliberate and measured response to the occupiers and tried to conduct the traffic stop safely and away from local residents. The armed activists were given ample opportunity to leave the refuge peacefully and have their grievances heard through legal means, he said. "They chose, instead, to threaten the very America they profess to love, with violence, intimidation and criminal acts," Bretzing said. He and the sheriff urged the remaining group members to leave. "This has been tearing our community apart. It's time for everybody in this illegal occupation to move on," Ward said. "There doesn't have to be bloodshed in our community." Jason Patrick, one of the leaders of the occupation, told Oregon Public Broadcasting that five or six group members remained inside the refuge. For weeks, law-enforcement vehicles have been noticeably absent from the roads around the refuge. On Wednesday, however, marked law-enforcement cars were parked throughout the region. The FBI and state police said they were setting up checkpoints and only allowing ranchers who own property in specific areas to pass. "If the people on the refuge want to leave, they are free to do so through the checkpoints, where they will be identified," Bretzing said. About 13 miles from the refuge headquarters, a sign warned drivers to turn around because a roadblock is ahead. Reporters and others who approached the vehicles blocking the road were met by FBI agents wearing camouflage body armor and helmets and carrying assault rifles. A spike strip, designed to puncture tires, was laid across the pavement just beyond the roadblock. Police and news media have converged on the nearby town of Burns, where most hotels are booked to capacity. Brand Thornton, one of Bundy's supporters, said he left the refuge Monday and was not sure what those remaining would do. "The entire leadership is gone," he told the AP in a telephone interview. "I wouldn't blame any of them for leaving." Thornton called the arrests "a dirty trick" by law enforcement. In addition to Ammon Bundy, those arrested were: his brother Ryan Bundy, 43; Brian Cavalier, 44; Shawna Cox, 59; and Ryan Payne, 32 - apprehended during the traffic stop on U.S. Highway 395 Tuesday afternoon. Authorities said two others Joseph Donald O'Shaughnessy, 45, and Peter Santilli, 50 were arrested separately in Burns, while FBI agents in Arizona arrested another, Jon Eric Ritzheimer, 32. Each will face a federal felony charge of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation or threats, authorities said. Law enforcement previously had taken a hands-off approach, reflecting lessons learned during bloody standoffs at Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho, during the 1990s. Many residents of Harney County, where the refuge is located, have been among those demanding that Bundy leave. Many sympathize with his criticism of federal land management policies but opposed the refuge takeover. "I am pleased that the FBI has listened to the concerns of the local community and responded to the illegal activity occurring in Harney County by outside extremists," Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley said in a statement. The Bundys are the sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a high-profile 2014 standoff with the government over grazing rights. The group, which has included people from as far away as Michigan, calls itself Citizens for Constitutional Freedom. It came to the frozen high desert of eastern Oregon to decry what it calls onerous federal land restrictions and to object to the prison sentences of two local ranchers convicted of setting fires. FLINT, Mich. Flint residents coping with lead contamination will be cleared to drink unfiltered water again only when outside experts determine it is safe, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said Wednesday, acknowledging their mistrust of government officials while saying a replacement of the citys pipes is not imminent. A lawsuit filed earlier in the day by environmental and civil rights groups asked a federal judge to order the prompt replacement of all lead pipes in Flints water system at no cost to customers. Snyder did not rule out the eventual replacement of the lead service lines leading from water mains. In the meantime, Flint hired a Virginia Tech professor who helped expose the lead problem despite initial skepticism from state regulators to now oversee water testing. Professor Marc Edwards also was appointed by Snyder to a committee that will set in place long-term solutions. BURNS, Ore. Three members of an armed group occupying an Oregon wildlife refuge surrendered to authorities, officials said, hours after their jailed leader urged the remaining occupiers to go home. The three arrests Wednesday came a day after the arrests of leader Ammon Bundy and seven others and the death of another occupier in a confrontation with law enforcement. The group, which has included people from as far away as Arizona and Michigan, seized the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 2. They want federal lands turned over to local authorities. The FBI and Oregon State Police said that 45-year-old Duane Leo Ehmer of Irrigon, Oregon, and 34-year-old Dylan Wade Anderson of Provo, Utah, turned themselves in around 3:30 p.m. Wednesday. And 43-year-old Jason S. Patrick of Bonaire, Georgia, did the same a few hours later. After Bundy made his first court appearance in Portland on Wednesday, his attorney, Mike Arnold, read this statement from his client: "Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is now in the courts." It was unclear whether the rest of Bundy's followers still holed up at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge south of Burns were ready to heed his advice. It was believed perhaps a half-dozen remained late Wednesday. Meanwhile, details began to emerge about the confrontation Tuesday on a remote highway that resulted in the death of Robert Finicum. Bundy followers gave conflicting accounts of how Finicum died. One said Finicum charged at FBI agents, who then shot him. A member of the Bundy family said Finicum did nothing to provoke the agents. An Oregon man who says he witnessed the shootout says he heard about a half-dozen shots but didn't see anyone get hit, and that the shooting happened quickly over maybe 12 or 15 seconds. Raymond Doherty told Portland TV station KOIN-TV that he was about 100 feet back and couldn't see who specifically was shooting. But, he added, "I saw them shooting at each other." Authorities refused to release any details about the encounter or even to verify that it was Finicum who was killed. FBI agent Greg Bretzing defended the FBI-led operation. "I will say that the armed occupiers were given ample opportunities to leave peacefully," he said. Also on Wednesday, a federal judge in Portland unsealed a criminal complaint that said the armed group had explosives and night-vision goggles and that they were prepared to fight at the refuge or in the nearby town of Burns. Someone told authorities about the equipment on Jan. 2, the day the group took over Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, according to the document. Bundy and the seven others are charged with felony counts of "conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats." The criminal complaint says the refuge's 16 employees have been prevented from reporting to work because of threats of violence. Federal law officials and Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward held a news conference on Wednesday in which they called on the rest of the occupiers to go home. There is a huge law enforcement presence in the region, and the FBI has now set up checkpoints outside the refuge. Bundy followers took to social media to offer conflicting accounts of Finicum's final moments. In a video posted to Facebook, Mark McConnell said he was driving a vehicle carrying Ammon Bundy when he and a truck driven by Finicum were stopped by agents in heavy-duty trucks. When agents approached the truck driven by Finicum, he drove off with officers in pursuit. McConnell said he did not see what happened next, but he heard from others who were in that vehicle that they encountered a roadblock. The truck got stuck in a snowbank, and Finicum got out and "charged them. He went after them," McConnell said. Relatives of Ammon Bundy offered similar accounts, but they said Finicum did nothing to provoke FBI agents. Briana Bundy, a sister of Ammon Bundy, said he called his wife after his arrest. She said people in the two vehicles complied with instructions to get out with their hands up. "LaVoy shouted, 'Don't shoot. We're unarmed,'" Briana Bundy told The Associated Press. "They began to fire on them. Ammon said it happened real fast." "Ammon said, 'They murdered him in cold blood,'" she added. McConnell had a different perspective. "Any time someone takes off with a vehicle away from law enforcement after they've exercised a stop, it's typically considered an act of aggression, and foolish," he said in the Facebook video. Ammon and Ryan Bundy are the sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a high-profile 2014 standoff with the government over grazing rights. The group they led came to the frozen high desert of eastern Oregon to decry what it calls onerous federal land restrictions and to object to the prison sentences of two local ranchers convicted of setting fires. In nearby Burns, 80-year-old Bev Schaff said the occupation has "split this town." "Some people are for it and some against it. But I think everyone is ready for it to be over," Schaff said. "In some respects, this will be a bellwether," said American Civil Liberties Union attorney Joshua Block, who represents 16-year-old Gavin Grimm in a lawsuit challenging a policy that bars him from using the boys' restrooms at Gloucester High School. He said that some other appeals courts have ruled in favor of transgender people on the basis of federal employment law or constitutional issues, but Grimm's case will be the first to determine whether policies such as Gloucester's violate the federal law against sex discrimination in education. Grimm, who was born female but identifies as male, was allowed to use the boys' restrooms at his school for several weeks in 2014. But after some parents complained, the Gloucester County School Board adopted a policy requiring students to use either the restroom that corresponds with their biological gender or a private, single-stall restroom. Board members said at the time that the policy respects the privacy of all students. "Schools can and should have privacy protections, but what they can't do is exclude transgender students," Block told a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Grimm is appealing a judge's dismissal of his sex discrimination claim and refusal to issue a preliminary injunction that would have allowed Grimm to use the boys' restrooms. The appeals court typically takes several weeks to issue a decision. Block told the panel during the 45-minute hearing that multiple judicial rulings and federal regulations support Grimm's right to use the boys' restrooms. The U.S. Justice Department filed a "statement of interest" in Grimm's case in July declaring that failure to allow transgender students to use the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity amounts to sex discrimination under Title IX of the U.S. Education Amendments of 1972. David Corrigan, an attorney for the school board, argued that the restroom policy is not discriminatory because anyone can use the alternative unisex restrooms. "Our position is that all students are treated the same," he said. Judge Andre Davis challenged Corrigan on that point, suggesting that "there's no stigmatizing impact" on anyone other than Grimm in having the private restroom as the only viable option. Grimm said at a news conference after the hearing that he continues to struggle with the restroom policy, which he called humiliating and dehumanizing. He has little vocal support among his peers, he said, but also not much opposition. "It's the elephant in the room nobody talks about," Grimm said. "In a way, that's worse." He said he is waging the court battle for transgender students who come along after him, although it's not a duty he necessarily wanted. "I did not set out to make waves," Grimm said. "I set out to use the bathroom." An Experienced Team of Caversham Solicitors Now Available Online for Free Consultation Caversham Solicitors Limited is now a national law firm serving the citizens of Reading in Berkshire to find legal solutions for fulfilling their diverse personal or commercial needs or solving different issues. -- Following legal regulations and formalities is the official duty of each citizen. However, not all are aware of the same. This is exactly where genuine solicitors help quite reliably. Whether it is a happy moment of buying a new property for residential or commercial purpose or a sad event of divorce or personal injury, Caversham solicitors provide tested solutions and free consultations for giving the right guidance. England, Jan 27, 2016 Berkshire: Looking for a genuinely experienced law firm in Caversham, Reading is now only a matter of minutes. With Caversham Solicitors going online, the citizens of this small borough need not look here and there for getting a legal advice or solution. Since 20 years, this national law firm has been catering to the diverse issues as well as needs of both individuals and business personnel. To test their experience, the customers can start by taking advantage of their free consultations, available for most issues and matters. Through such consultations fixed only by prior appointment, the customers can gain an initial advice or guidance. There are both Free and Fixed Fee consultations. The firm has multiple dedicated departments in Caversham, all of which aim to offer a customized, effective legal service to clients, such as families for divorce, individuals for wills, power of attorney, and probate, and business personnel for exploring their rights and duties. The comprehensive services range from conveyancing to litigations, to ensure that the clients do not have to look for other firm for another issue. For the business world also, there are dedicated solicitors who can guide through the process of establishing a new business and assist the established businesses further in the fields of debt recovery, commercial disputes, and employment. These solicitors are capable of delivering a personalized service to each customer no matter where she or he is located in Reading. "The customer is only required to disclose specific requirements, and the rest is the solicitor's responsibility," says a spokesperson. According to him, "This business is founded on moral values due to which acting in the right manner for a client is our topmost priority. We also aim to not just guide and resolve, but also develop a loyal bond of trust and lasting relationship with all our customers." Such facts do not seem to be futile because the company has been serving diverse communities by provisioning effective legal services. Anyone can take the advantage of the company's highly competitive rates, perhaps because of the highly dedicated team of client-oriented solicitors, each with their own certifications of specialization. For more information about us, please visit http://www.cavershamsolicitors.co.uk/. Contact Info: Name: Bogdan Popa Organization: Caversham Solicitors Limited Address: 51A Church Street Phone: 0118 947 8638 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/an-experienced-team-of-caversham-solicitors-now-available-online-for-free-consultation/102238 Release ID: 102238 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Super Blinds Mart Announces Special offers on Bestseller Blockout Roller Blinds Super Blinds Mart has announced great 15% discount on bestseller roller blockout blinds Portsea. The offer is available on both readymade & customised products for customers all across Australia. -- Leading Nedlands window fashion store Super Blinds Mart has recently announced great discounts on its bestseller roller blockout blinds Portsea. The customers will be able to avail a handy 15% off on the blind price. "We are glad to announce that we are celebrating the upcoming New Year with a fabulous discount on our blockout roller blinds. Portsea is one of our bestsellers & we often recommend it for shift workers who ask for 100 precent blockout blinds. Our premium blockout blinds assure complete privacy & protect your family from dangerous UV rays by keeping the harsh sunlight out," stated the senior sales executive from Super Blinds Mart. A leading name across Aussie window treatment sector, Super Blinds Mart is a family-owned enterprise operating for 3 generations now. The company extends both readymade & customised blinds. "Our premium block out blinds would help to reduce the energy bills in summer months & prevent the carpets & other valuable furnishing from fading. Our rates are already low as we offer our products direct from the warehouse and the latest discount offer thus ensures a whooping savings for you". The Portsea blind would be ideal for dining, living, sun rooms, kitchens, office spaces & more. The blind is available for both inside and outside mount- and the customers can choose from 4 various colours. Speaking further, the firm manager stressed on a rigorous quality testing procedure on every blind leaving their warehouse. All the blinds from the store come up with a 2 years warranty. "Unlike other stores, we are with our customers even after the sales as customer satisfaction is the most important for us. We promise you tried & tested products only and that too at highly affordable rates," the manager added in. Added to roller blockout blinds, the company offers Venetian blinds, Roman blinds & eyelet curtains. About Super Blinds Mart Super Blinds Mart is a leading store for window fashion which delivers both readymade & customised blinds & curtains all across Australia. For more, visit- https://www.superblindsmart.com.au/readymade-roller-blinds/blockout-portsea-en-2.html For more information about us, please visit https://www.superblindsmart.com.au Contact Info: Name: Stewart Graham Email: sales@superblindsmart.com.au Organization: Super Blinds Mart Address: 125 Stirling Highway, Nedlands, Perth, Western Australia, Australia, 6009 Phone: 1300 652 027 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/super-blinds-mart-announces-special-offers-on-bestseller-blockout-roller-blinds/101987 Release ID: 101987 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Hot Tubs, Swim Spas Parker, Dealer Publishes 3 Ways to Have a Healthy New Year Parker Hot Tub and Swim Spas Dealer Publishes "Three Ways to Have a Healthy New Year". Celebrates by Offering Local Residents Free Hot Tub Test Soaks. -- IHT Spas and Fireplaces selling hot tubs, swim spas, massage chairs and fireplaces with stores in Denver, Boulder and Highlands Ranch shares, "Three Ways to Have a Healthy New Year". "The dawn of the New Year is a time when people often take stock of their lives and think of ways to make it better," said Rich Hiner, president of International Hot Tub. "It is a time of anticipated benefits, and lots of wishful thinking as promises are made and vows taken." "Of course, most of those promises get broken as real-life takes its toll," continued Hiner. "Instead of making traditional New Year's resolutions, take a few minutes to think of ways that will truly have an impact on everyday life, and make living more fun, healthy and enjoyable." Here are three ways to have a healthy New Year that are easy to incorporate into daily life without having to struggle to maintain a vow. Make Up the Bed - Everybody probably remembers when mom told them to make their bed every morning. It's a habit that is easy to get away from once people move out and are on their own. However, there is a valid reason to keep up with the practice. Of course, it will make a house stay neater, and be more inviting. It gives people an inviting place to come home to at the end of a long day, and makes going to bed a pleasure at the end of the night. There's more to it than that, however. Making the bed every morning makes it easier to get up, get started and feel good right from the get-go every day. It doesn't seem like it should make a difference, but it can really start the day off on the right foot. Really Eat Five and Five - The Nutrition Council has long promoted a healthy eating pattern of eating five servings of fruits and vegetables every day. However, many people fudge the count on that, and accept far less from their meal plans. Make a habit of filling up on good, nutritious foods that include those 5/5 servings every day. People who eat more vegetables and fruits are healthier and less prone to serious illnesses. Make Time to Relax - Everybody needs some time to unwind each day. Modern life is full of stress. It is everywhere from dealing with traffic, handling job related issues and even at home working on chores or paying bills. It is usually the little things that are annoying that add up to great pressure each day, not the big blow outs that people think are the cause of their anxieties. Set up an area of the home that is devoted to relaxation. A hot tub in the yard or on a patio is a great addition to the home. It gives everyone a place they can congregate at any time of the day when they have time, relax and relieve the tensions of the day. The National Sleep Foundation even suggests soaking for 30 minutes before bed to help get to sleep faster and get a better night's rest. Hot tubs offer a variety of health benefits that people of all ages can enjoy, from pain relief to blood pressure reduction. It is a tool that not only helps people get the most out of life, but offers an exciting and fun place for family members to enjoy each other's company. "In an effort to help educate the public on how hot tubs and hot water hydrotherapy can help improve health and well-being, IHT will provide free hot tub test soaks at all their locations during the entire month," said Jill Seng, marketing manager. They do recommend however that people wanting to schedule their free 30-minute wet test call them ahead of time to reserve their spot. Consumers wanting to find the location nearest them are encouraged to visit the company website for more information. The website address is http://ihtspas.com About International Hot Tub Company Since 1978, IHT - International Hot Tub Company has been providing the Finest Products and service available in the Hot Tub, Spa and Fireplace Industries. We offer Hot Tubs including Hot Spring, Caldera, Limelight, Hot Spot, FreeFlow and Nordic. We also feature used hot tubs and the used list changes daily. IHT carries many other fine home products in our showrooms, including Exercise Swim Spas by Endless Pools, Fireplaces, Stoves & Inserts by Kozy Heat, Napoleon & Vermont Castings, custom Saunas and Steamrooms, Gas and Charcoal BBQ Grills by Weber and The Big Green EGG, Massage Chairs by Infinity, and Gazebos by Sequoia Works. To pick up a copy of their free report - "7 Secrets to Selecting the Right Hot Tub Dealer" call 303-296-7727 or go to http://ihtspas.com Contact Info: Name: Jill Seng Email: marketing@ihtspas.com Phone: 303-296-7727 Organization: International Hot Tub Source: http://www.prreach.com/pr/22174 Release ID: 102298 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sorry that press release couldn't be found. [ Vist our sister sites: Linux news | Bible Study Tool ] Site design and layout copyright 2005-2015 Free Press Release Center Priority Networks Inc. Weighs in on British Columbia Adding Computer Coding to School Curriculum Priority Networks Inc. discusses British Columbia's implementation of computer coding courses into the provincial curriculum. -- Priority Networks Inc. (www.PriorityNetworks.ca), a Toronto-based computer network company offering complete network installation and maintenance, is weighing in on British Columbia's decision to add computer coding to its school curriculum. Premier Christy Clark has acknowledged the need for this skill set and it will be taught to every student from kindergarten through grade 12. (Source: Silkoff, S., "BC to add computer coding to school curriculum," The Globe and Mail web site, January 18, 2016; http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/bc-government-adds-computer-coding-to-school-curriculum/article28234097/.) "This is a great time to introduce this kind of learning to students of all ages," says Massimo DeRocchis, president of Priority Networks Inc. "Computers aren't going anywhere and, in fact, we're becoming more and more reliant on their functions. It can only benefit us if young people become more familiar with how they work." British Columbia is doing a lot to nurture its technology sector, which currently employs more people than forestry, oil, and mining combined. This addition to the curriculum is just one step to continue encouraging education in technology: the government has also dedicated a $100 million venture fund with the goal of funding tech startups. "We have to be aware of the future of this country," DeRocchis continues. "It's clear that our natural exports aren't as desired as they once were. And even if that industry gets back on its feet, the tech industry still has a bright and important role in our future. We should definitely be encouraging the younger generations to get involved as producers rather than only consumers of the products." Both initiatives are being done in part to address the shortage of talent in the technology sector that's expected to worsen in the next three years. One report has the tech industry short approximately 180,000 workers. Even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, during his visit to Google in Waterloo, acknowledged the need for Canada to do more to help young people understand coding. British Columbia isn't the first province to mandate coding into its curriculum. Nova Scotia holds that title, announcing last November that they will begin giving lessons on coding for students in the province. "Computers are our life here at Priority Networks Inc. We show small businesses how to best incorporate software that will help their businesses to flourish," DeRocchis adds. "It's not common knowledge at all, and with so many applications available, knowing which one best fits your business needs is a skill in itself." Priority Networks Inc. understands how important computers are to a business. They have highly qualified technicians and offer affordable repair packages that will work to clients' needs. For more information about us, please visit http://prioritynetworks.ca/ Contact Info: Name: Massimo DeRocchis Organization: Priority Networks Inc Address: 8601 Jane Street Vaughan, ON L4K 5N9 Unit 7 & 8 Phone: 416-662-6277 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/priority-networks-inc-weighs-in-on-british-columbia-adding-computer-coding-to-school-curriculum/102294 Release ID: 102294 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Lewis Tree Service Introduces New Crane Service To Tackle The Largest Possible Jobs Lewis Tree Service has introduced a large scale crane to help them tackle the biggest trees together with a wide range of other large scale home renovations and additions. -- While the great outdoors enables nature to grow wild and untamed, in human spaces this growth must be carefully controlled and managed to prevent tree growth becoming dangerous. Lewis Tree Service manages one time jobs like removing tree stumps to managing large scale ongoing landscaping projects as well as regular maintenance. They have now introduced their own 30-ton crane, with a boom that extends more than 70 feet from the center, to handle the biggest and most ambitious jobs on behalf of their clients. In addition to the new crane, specialist staff have been recruited that specialize in aerial tree surgery and crane operation, meaning they can not only manage and remove large trees, but place beams and move hot tubs, pools and AC units. This has effectively allowed them to expand their services beyond their tree surgery, hauling and removal services, which have ensured they have become a central fixture of the community in Lewis. Now with crane lifting and removal affordably, safely and reliably. A spokesperson for www.lewistreeserviceinc.com explained, "Lewis Tree Service has been active in the communities of Santa Cruz, Santa Clara and Monterey for almost thirty years, and having the crane added to our repertoire has hugely expanded our capacity and potential for growth, not only in these existing service areas but in new ones, as we look to expand throughout the year ahead. There is a full accounting of our crane services together with everything else we offer on our website, so individuals can head there to book the best landscaping, tree surgery and removal services in the region. We can't wait to debut our crane in 2016." About Lewis Tree Service: Lewis Tree Service is a fully licensed and insured tree service company willing and able to assist clients with all of their tree care needs. They have been serving Santa Cruz, Monterey and Santa Clara counties for nearly 30 years. Their estimators are all ISA certified arborists, extremely knowledgeable in all facets of tree care. They offer free estimates tailored to suit the individual needs of each customer, using the current industry standards and techniques. For more information about us, please visit http://www.lewistreeserviceinc.com/ Contact Info: Name: Joe Bragg Organization: Brandoutreach Phone: (415) 632 1664 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/lewis-tree-service-introduces-new-crane-service-to-tackle-the-largest-possible-jobs/102287 Release ID: 102287 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) First Security Services Expands Service Area To Stockton, Expanding State Wide Coverage First Security Services has expanded its service area to include Stockton, expanding their state-wide coverage of California, offering bespoke security options to private and corporate clients. -- Security is an increasingly important concern for a growing number of influential individuals and growing businesses, who must protect their staff and sensitive material from falling into the wrong hands. Security solutions are available, but it's often difficult to tell the best from the rest. Fortunately, First Security Services has an impeccable reputation built over an impressive 46 years in the industry, and has now extended its state wide expansion with a new branch in Stockton. The new Stockton division will see their force top six hundred professional security officers, who offer everything from personal body-guarding to premises patrol and more. They offer scalable levels of protection from standard observe and report security guards who can patrol schools and colleges, construction sites and banks to armed guards for airports and hospitals, and personal security for anyone up to government officials. The Stockton security guards are of the same high standard as the Sacramento security guards, and the company is continuing their recruiting drive, offering an impressive list of benefits as well as a full briefing of the requirements in order to participate in their development program. A spokesperson for First Security Services explained, "First Security Services is thrilled to be able to help people throughout the whole of California with all their security needs. With our First Alarm and FirstView surveillance, and FirstLink remote monitoring, we now offering one of the most comprehensive packages available to our clients, and we are doing our best to ensure that we can offer this same industry leading protection to clients in the whole of California. Stockton expands our state-wide coverage, so it's a huge milestone for us, and we can't wait to help people there throughout 2016 and beyond." About First Security Services: With over 46 years of experience, First Security Services has emerged as an industry leader in providing comprehensive security solutions for industrial complexes, businesses, school districts, and government and healthcare facilities. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, the company now has a security force of over 600 highly trained professionals and a presence in virtually every major city in the state. For more information about us, please visit https://www.firstsecurityservices.com/ Contact Info: Name: Joe Bragg Organization: Brandoutreach Phone: (415) 632 1664 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/first-security-services-expands-service-area-to-stockton-expanding-state-wide-coverage/102286 Release ID: 102286 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Joshua A. Plaxen Joins the Maryland Personal Injury Law Firm Plaxen & Adler, P.A. Plaxen & Adler, P.A., one of Maryland's premier personal injury law firms, is pleased to announce that Joshua A. Plaxen has joined the firm as an Associate Attorney. -- Plaxen & Adler, P.A., one of Maryland's premier personal injury law firms, is pleased to announce that Joshua A. Plaxen has joined the firm as an Associate Attorney. Firm founder Bruce Plaxen said "As a parent, I am excited to work with my son. As an employer, I am fortunate to have a talented and accomplished young lawyer join our firm." Plaxen & Adler, P.A. is an elite law firm serving personal injury and medical malpractice victims throughout the state of Maryland. By purposely remaining small, the firm is able to offer clients personalized attention, and to ensure that every matter of their case is thoroughly attended to from the beginning. About Joshua A. Plaxen Joshua Plaxen joined Plaxen & Adler, P.A. in January of 2016 after working for the University of Maryland, Baltimore. His previous experience was as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable William V. Tucker, of the Circuit Court of Howard County. Joshua is a graduate of the University of Baltimore School of Law, where he graduated magna cum laude and in the top 10% of his class. During his time there, he was inducted into the Heuisler Honor Society, and served Executive Board of the University of Baltimore Law Review. He also holds a B.S. in Business from the University of Maryland, College Park. In his role as an Associate Attorney at the firm, Joshua Plaxen will handle personal injury, Social Security Disability and workers' compensation claims. Plaxen & Adler, P.A. serves clients throughout the entire state of Maryland. The firm's attorneys focus on: o Personal injury o Medical malpractice o Defective product litigation o Social Security Disability o Workers' compensation For more information about us, please visit http://www.plaxenadler.com Contact Info: Name: Bruce M. Plaxen Organization: Plaxen & Adler, P.A. Address: 10211 Wincopin Cir, Suite 620, Columbia, MD 21044 Phone: (410) 730-7737 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/joshua-a-plaxen-joins-the-maryland-personal-injury-law-firm-plaxen-adler-p-a/102267 Release ID: 102267 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Chancellor George Osborne has delayed the 2bn sale of the governments stake in the Lloyds Banking Group until the markets have calmed down. The shares were expected to go on sale to members of the public in March. However, the chancellor today (28 January) took to Twitter to confirm the postponement of the sell-off after it was reported by the BBC. In the Tweet he wrote: Well build a share owning democracy. So British people can buy Lloyds shares but well only sell when turbulent markets have calmed down. In October, HM Treasury stated it would sell its remaining 2bn stake in the banking group to retail investors early this year. It also planned to offer a similar amount to institutional investors, including asset managers. Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said this will be a big disappointment for the hundreds of thousands of investors who had queued up for a chunk of Lloyds. However, he said taking a big loss on selling shares when markets are low was always going to be a bridge too far for the chancellor. He pointed out the fall in Lloyds share price has left the government around 10p below what it thinks it needs to break even. With the planned 5 per cent discount and bonus share scheme it would have meant the chancellor putting his hand in his pocket, so now he looks to be pinning his hopes on a recovery in markets later in the year. The lower market price today means that investors who buy now will get a significant yield pick-up compared to buying at the governments in-price, Mr Khalaf added. He described the timetable for the share sale as vague, but added the timing was always going to be tricky. Mr Khalaf said: Market volatility in recent months has seen UK stock market values fall by around 20 per cent since the April 2015 high, so its understandable that the share sale is being delayed. The government is committed to returning the bank to private hands. Therefore we expect this share sale to proceed at some stage, but the timescales are unknown. katherine.denham@ft.com The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) have decided to start investigations into certain former Halifax Bank of Scotland senior managers. The regulators confirmed the investigations will determine whether or not any prohibition proceedings should be commenced against them. The FCA and PRA continue to review materials with a view to making further decisions regarding other former HBoS senior managers. The move to re-start investigations into HBoS senior managers comes after a report by Andrew Green QC slated the Financial Services Authority failure to take enforcement action following the failure of HBoS. According to Andrew Green QC, the FSA should also have investigated former HBoS chief executive Andy Hornby from early 2009. The decision in March 2010 not to investigate Mr Hornby over his role in the demise of HBoS was deemed unreasonable by the QC. Mr Green published his report alongside the PRA and FCAs document on the failure of HBoS. The FCA/PRA report also concluded the FSA placed too much trust in the competence and capabilities of HBoS senior management and control functions. Parliament and the public were finally handed the official report on what went wrong at HBoS and the way the then Financial Services Authority kept tabs on the lending giant back in November. HBoS was the second worst failure in British banking history, after RBS, and with impairments in the loan book as a proportion of the balance sheet that were twice as bad. The report published yesterday by the FSAs successors, along with the report produced by the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards back in 2013, concluded the same things. The collapse of HBoS was found to be the result of catastrophic failures of management, governance and regulatory oversight. Ultimate responsibility for the demise of HBoS lies with the banks board, but the FSA found to be asleep at the wheel, and even the start of the financial crisis failed to wake them. The FSA just did not appreciate the full extent of the risks facing HBoS, the report ruled. It cost 7m to produce the FCA/PRA report and Parliamentary Commission report. Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Treasury Committee, commented that it has taken a heap of pressure from Parliament to secure appropriate action from the regulators. Mr Green concluded that the FSA should have got on with this in 2009. So the FCA and PRA should conduct these investigations immediately. The lions share of the investigatory work should already have been undertaken in the preparation of the regulators report in to the failure of the bank. Tony Catt, compliance officer at Peacehaven-based Anthony Catt Limited, said: It is rather late to be going after these people after all this time. The expense in generating this report would be an awful waste of money if nothing were to come from its findings. The main issue for the FCA is having sufficient resources to oversee the banks and all other areas of financial advice, he said, pointing out that FCA staff are stretched and in many cases lacks the experience and knowledge to be effective. A sixth broker on trial over allegations he acted as a middleman for convicted trader Tom Hayes and others to fix global bank rates has been cleared on the remaining charge against him. According to FTAdvisers parent newspaper the Financial Times , Darrell Read, a former broker at ICAP, joined five others from the firm, Tullett Prebon and RP Martin in being found not guilty of Libor manipulation. They had faced five counts of fraud from the Serious Fraud Office, which alleged that they helped Hayes to manipulate the London interbank offered rate tied to the Japanese yen while he worked for UBS and Citigroup. Hayes was found guilty last August of eight counts of conspiracy to defraud, having sought to fix the rate to benefit his own trading positions, which were tied to yen/Libor. Along with Mr Read, nicknamed Big Nose, Danny Wilkinson and Colin Goodman, or Lord Libor, worked at ICAP, while Noel Cryan was at Tullett Prebon and Jim Gilmour and Terry Farr were formerly with RP Martin. All were unanimously found not guilty at Southwark Crown Court in London after a 15-week trial. It was the second UK trial that formed part of a global investigation that has taken nearly eight years and involved the Financial Conduct Authority, City of London Police, US Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, amongst others. David Green, director of the SFO, commented that the key issue in this trial was whether these defendants were party to a dishonest agreement with Hayes. By their verdicts the jury have said that they could not be sure that this was the case. Nobody could sensibly suggest that these charges should not have been brought and considered by a jury. A further trial of individuals charged with the manipulation of US dollar Libor is scheduled to begin on 15 February, while a trial of individuals charged with the manipulation of the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (Euribor) is scheduled to begin on 4 September 2017. Since Hayess conviction, the SFO has charged 11 former traders from Barclays, Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale with manipulating Euribor, along with another five from Barclays who are still due to stand trial. Alison McHaffie, a regulatory partner with law firm CMS, said that apart from being acutely embarrassing to the SFO, these verdicts show how difficult it is to demonstrate criminal activity by individuals for this type of type of market misconduct. It is always easier to bring regulatory action rather than criminal prosecution against the firms themselves. In future, the regulator will find it easier to pursue disciplinary actions against individuals for wrongdoing. peter.walker@ft.com Losses from flea beetle were lower last autumn than the previous year, according to AHDB estimates, totalling to 6,000ha. About 1% of the UK oilseed rape area was lost to adult cabbage stem flea beetle activity last autumn, lower than in autumn 2014, where losses amounted to 2.7% of the crop. A total of 62,000ha was assessed in a survey using AICC agronomists, which equates to about 11% of the total UK winter rapeseed area. See also: Cultural approach key to solving OSR flea beetle crisis Caroline Nicholls, AHDB research manager, said: Autumn 2015 marked the second season where neonicotinoid seed treatments were not available for the vast majority of oilseed rape crops. In 2015, crops that were drilled earlier tended to move through the vulnerable periods more quickly, she said. In 2014, a similar observation was made. Miss Nicholls added: We have a growing body of evidence that shows that once oilseed rape has emerged it can tolerate severe defoliation in good growing conditions. All the evidence points to the importance of giving crops the best possible start in life. The worst affected counties in 2015 were Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, East Yorkshire, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, North Yorkshire, Hampshire and Bedfordshire. However, she stresses that care has to be taken when making direct comparisons between years, as different methodology was used. Once again, we asked a 56-strong network of agronomists to report on crop damage and loss across 42 counties in England, Wales and Scotland. But unlike 2014, where crops were assessed over a seven-day snapshot period, the autumn 2015 assessment was linked to crop growth stages. Assessments were made only on crops drilled without neonicotinoid seed treatment. CSULB alum wins gold at the 38th Long Beach Marathon which was his first Hundreds of Oregon State University students participated Wednesday in the universitys third off-campus housing fair in the Memorial Union ballroom. Associated Students of Oregon State University President Cassie Huber, who was working the sign-in booth, noted that more than 200 students came through the doors in the first 90 minutes of the four-hour event. Approximately 250 attended last years fair. The first fair, in 2014, drew approximately 1,000 participants, but organizers did not do a precise person-by-person head count. Jonathan Stoll, OSUs community relations coordinator, said he was hoping for a turnout of 500 on Wednesday. The fair included 25 vendors, a mix of property managers and landlords, university services and government entities such as the Corvallis Fire Department and city of Corvallis housing services. Austin Vick, a freshman in biology/pre-med from Portland, and Annabell Schulz, a psychology major from Pleasanton, California, were on the prowl for a townhouse for themselves and two other people. Were trying to get as much information as possible before we sign up, and this seemed like a good place to start, said Vick, who is living in the new Tebeau Hall dorm this year. Vick and Schulz were spotted near the 7th Street Station table and said that they were impressed that the 3-year-old complex just east of the campus does not increase the portion of the rent if one member of the party moves out. Alyssa Coulter, a community assistant with 7th Street Station confirmed that the facility has been using an individual lease approach since opening and that to her knowledge only the Retreat west of campus and the Union on Harrison offered similar packages. 7th Street Station also is offering a zero down/no security deposit deal and had some of the best swag at the fair: T-shirts, cups and frisbees. Bob Loewen, the citys rental housing specialist, said the question he is asked most often is how do I find a place? And Loewen brought the answer, a single sheet with phone numbers and email addresses for the main property managers and large complexes in town. Corey Groshong, a freshman general engineering major from Roseburg, is living in West Hall dorm this school year. He already had scored an armful of pamphlets but was waiting for his two roommates to reach the fair so they could collaborate. Ibrahim Alathari, freshman electrical engineering student from Kuwait, was hunting for deals rather than being locked in on housing type. Im just trying to see whats available at what price, Alathari said, adding that getting a place close to campus also was high on his list. Location was something Eric Saltveit and Kelly Saltveit of Preferred Properties Northwest were hearing a lot. Other things that prospective tenants were asking about were the size of bedrooms, amenities such as washers and dryers and parking. Parking has been kind of a big issue in town, Eric Saltveit said. Having off-street parking is really important. Jim Patton, the citys fire prevention officer, didnt have any properties for rent. His concern was keeping students safe once they secure a place. The two most important pieces, Patton said, are having working smoke alarms and making sure that there is a window to escape through. Patton noted that newer complexes such as 7th Street Station have all of the required fire safety bells and whistles, but that students should be cautious about safety issues when looking at older housing stock. Thats my biggest concern, he said, places that might not be up to snuff. A lot of these students are first-time renters, and its important to get them off on the right foot. The housing fair also offered one-hour workshops on off-campus living. Students who participate in the workshops and pass an online exam are eligible for $50 deposit credits with participating landlords. The workshops also will be offered at OSU residence halls and online, with property managers working on a possible session at one of their offices. On-time graduation rates across Oregon rose 2 percentage points to 74 percent, the Oregon Department of Education said Thursday in its annual report on rates of school completion throughout the state. Benton Countys largest two school districts, Corvallis and Philomath, also saw gains that brought the county graduation rate up to 86 percent for the 2014-15 school year, from 84 percent in the 2013-14 school year. Most of the countys smaller schools saw drops in their graduation rates. Last year, the Oregon graduation rate also increased but the majority of the gains were from changes to the way the state calculates the rates, which the Department of Education said were intended to bring Oregons methodology more in line with the rest of the country. This years increase is particularly notable because there was no change to methodology or reporting, the department said. Corvallis In the Corvallis School District, the growing graduation rate was driven by continued improvements in the rate at Corvallis High School, which has posted increasing numbers each year since the 2010-11 school year, when the four-year graduation rate dipped below 70 percent. In the Corvallis High School class of 2014-15, just over 90 percent of students graduated on time. Erin Prince, the superintendent of the Corvallis School District, said she was pleased with the districts growing graduation rate: for the 2014-15 school year, it was 86 percent, up from 84 percent the previous year. I am absolutely proud of our staff and our leaders. They have stepped up in a big way and are changing the way we approach education, she said. Prince said when she joined the district in 2011, she was focused on improving what was then a sub-70 percent four-year graduation rate by not allowing staff to accept the rate as business as usual. I said, if we get 100 students in here, how do you pick which 32 wont graduate?'" She said the district has focused on things like building relationships with all students, and finding alternative pathways for students who dont fit into the traditional educational structure. Prince said a standout for her in the data was the improving performance of some of the demographic groups within the schools, such as economically disadvantaged students, who graduated on-time 73 percent of the time in 2014-15 compared to 66 percent the previous year; Latino/Hispanic students, who graduated on-time 81 percent of the time compared to 65 percent the previous year; and students with disabilities, 64 percent of whom graduated on time compared to 59 percent the previous year. Were starting to close those gaps, not fast enough, but we are closing them, she said. Prince also said the growth at Corvallis High School was setting a new standard that every student would be successful. I want to shout out to CHS; they have broken through the glass ceiling, she said. Crescent Valley High School saw its four-year graduation rate drop from 85 percent to 83 percent. Prince said the number of students responsible for the shift isnt too large, so she said the figure represents the school maintaining its level of success. She also said the schools 95 percent five-year completer rate (which also includes students who earned a GED) was a better measure of student success. Some kids take more time, she said. Philomath Philomath High School had Benton Countys highest four-year graduation rate for the 2014-15 school year, at nearly 91 percent. This is an increase over the 2013-14 school year, when 85 percent of students graduated in four years. Melissa Goff, who started as Philomath's superintendent in July 2015, said the district's success is made possible only through the individual attention teachers and staff members can give to each student. She gave credit to her predecessor, Dan Forbess, and the district's staff, saying that result is not just the work of the high school teachers, but of all of the K-8 teachers as well. And, she noted, despite the high graduation rate, it still means 12 to 15 students each year do not graduate. That's significant to those students, she said. The district's staff, she said, is "not going to be satisfied until every student is leaving Philomath with a diploma." Rural schools While the larger districts had graduation rates well above the state average, at Benton Countys smaller and more rural schools the picture was somewhat different. With just 75 percent of Monroe High Schools cohort of 24 students graduating in four years in 2014-15, its graduation rate was just barely above state average. The figure is down from 81 percent 2013-14, when Monroe had a cohort of 42 students. In 2012-13 the schools cohort of 27 had a four-year graduation rate of 89 percent. Monroe Superintendent Russ Pickett said district officials have looked at some of the students who are listed as dropouts; they believe some of those students enrolled in online schools, private schools or out-of-state schools and therefore shouldn't be counted against the graduation rate. Records for those students never were requested by the schools to which they transferred, a request which would allow Monroe to move those students off its longs. Pickett said the district would work with the Oregon Department of Education to see if some of the records could be adjusted. Still, Pickett said some of the students in that figure genuinely are dropouts, and the district needs to address that. This is particularly important at small schools, he said, where a shift of a couple of students can have a dramatic impact on graduation rates. The loss of one or two will hit (the rate) pretty hard, but the bigger picture for us is that we dont want any kid not to graduate, so we are going to take a hard look at pushing that back up, he said. Alsea High School, which had eight graduates in 2014-15, had a graduation rate of just 53 percent in 2014-15, down from 82 percent in 2013-14 and 78 percent in 2012-13. Kings Valley Charter School had a graduation rate of around 63 percent in 2014-15 with a graduating class of five; in 2013-14 the school had a 57 percent graduation rate with a class of four. James (Jahmez) Reismiller died peacefully on September 20th, 2022 of an aortic dissection. We will be celebrating his life on Saturday, October 22nd from 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m., at the Rotary Shelter at Willamette Park in Corvallis. Memorial contributions are suggested to https://www.gofundme.com/f/jahmez-reismiller or donate generously to your own favorite organization. ALBANY Governor Kate Browns plan to raise Oregons minimum wage to as much as $15.52 per hour is unconstitutional, the Linn County Board of Commissioners charged Wednesday in a letter sent to the governor and members of the Oregon Legislature. Board chairman Roger Nyquist said Article XI, Section 15 of the Oregon Constitution prohibits the state from imposing mandates without providing funding to implement them. The commissioners estimate that increasing the minimum wage a two-tiered plan: $15.52 in Portland and $13.50 in the rest of the state will cost Linn County at least $2.25 million annually. Even though the county doesnt employ many people at the minimum-wage level, the wages of nearly everyone on the county pay scale will have to be increased to keep compensation levels fair for all employees. We have not seen nor heard of any conversations as to the fiscal impact of the governors proposal on state and local government, nor any discussion on how to avoid a violation of Article XI, Section 15 of the Constitution that you took an oath to uphold, the letter notes. The commissioners also said that if the governors proposal is approved by the Legislature, the county can choose to not participate since it is unconstitutional. The county would also pass those savings along to any business with which county services competes. The commissioners said that, for example, the countys Inmate Work Crew competes with private companies in the areas of landscaping and forestry and the parks department competes with local RV campgrounds. The affected businesses would have the option to not pay the new minimum wage scale, Nyquist said. The list of businesses in Linn County that would not have to participate in a new minimum-wage program would be substantial, to say the least, Nyquist said. We think the implementation and consequences of such a situation are complicated and not something we desire. The commissioners believe the issue of increasing the minimum wage should happen through a petition process and go before a statewide vote. Nyquist said many in state government arent doing the math when it comes to the real cost of increasing minimum wage by more than 50 percent. He said it will result in thousands of lost jobs in both the public and private sectors. He points to a Congressional Budget Office report that suggests increasing the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour would reduce total employment nationwide by more than 500,000 people and could result in as much as 1 million job losses. An increase to $15 would lead to even more lost jobs, Nyquist predicts. Oregons minimum wage of $9.25 is already significantly more than the federal minimum wage. Oregons minimum wage is also indexed to increase annually based on the Consumer Price Index. This is the second time in recent weeks that Linn County has challenged state government. The commissioners recently notified Gov. Brown and the Oregon Department of Forestry of a plan to file a class-action lawsuit to recover damages for breach of contract. Linn County charges that the state has not lived up to a 70-year-old contract that more than 600,000 acres of states forest lands be managed for the greatest permanent value resulting in greatly reduced annual payments to 15 Oregon counties. If filed, the lawsuit will seek $1.4 billion in restitution to be distributed among the participating counties. If you pay any attention at all to the Oregon Legislature, youre going to hear plenty of complaining over the next month or so from Republicans about how the Democratic majority is abusing the original intent of the short five-week legislative sessions that convene in even-numbered years. During a session preview on Tuesday in Salem sponsored by The Associated Press, Republican legislative leaders argued, again and again, that the shorter sessions never were intended for the sort of complicated (and controversial) policy measures that will dominate this years session, which begins on Monday. In fact, some Republican leaders argued, using the shorter sessions to advance proposals on items such as an increase in the state minimum wage and a controversial proposal to wean Oregon away from coal amounts to abuse of power. Well, of course, some partisan politics is involved in that argument. And lets face facts: If Republicans enjoyed the kind of legislative majorities that Democrats currently do, no one doubts that Republicans would use their edge to push their priorities. But even keeping that in mind, though, the Republicans have a point and it was hammered home again and again, sometimes unintentionally during Tuesdays preview session. When Oregon voters approved the proposal for annual sessions, the idea behind it was that state government had become too large and complex an operation to guide with a Legislature that met every other year. But the idea was that these 35-day sessions would be focused on smaller items: As Gov. Kate Brown put it on Tuesday, the shorter sessions would be an opportunity to make budgetary adjustments and also to tie up any loose ends or unexpected developments resulting from the Legislatures work in its 160-day sessions held in odd-numbered years. That was the case voters approved. In her comments on Tuesday, though, Brown added a third goal for the shorter session, and this one struck us as new although, to be fair, our memories might be faulty: Legislators in the shorter sessions, she argued, also can work to come up with alternatives or compromises that could pre-empt voter initiatives that might make it to the election ballot. In other words, the shorter legislative sessions might be necessary to help protect voters from themselves. No wonder that argument didnt get a lot of play in the campaign for annual sessions. But the fact is that the shorter sessions are not the proper venue for complex policy bills, and heres the primary reason why: The pace of the session is such that it forecloses any real opportunity for public input. As legislators noted, its a bit of misnomer to call them five-week sessions: Since bills need to pass both houses of the Legislature, that means each body often has two weeks or less to pass a measure. Hearings on bills can be announced with 24 hours notice, and sometimes less than that. The shorter sessions are not the place for complicated new policy initiatives and the more legislators use them in that way, the more theyll find that theyre eroding a measure of trust with the public. (mm) Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021. Housing crunch : Affordable housing hard to find in Bonn and Cologne Dusseldorf A growing population in NRW puts a crunch on the affordable housing market. For refugees alone, 120,000 apartments will be needed. Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken Trying to find an affordable rental apartment in Bonn may not be an easy task. The housing market in cities along the Rhine River like Bonn and Cologne has become even more tight. According to a study from NRW Bank and the Ministry for Urban Development, 120,000 apartments are expected to be required for refugees alone. Northrhine Westphalia continues to attract more people. Even though more apartments are being built, the fast growing cities of Bonn, Cologne and Dusseldorf cant keep up with the demand of housing for people with lower incomes. Add to that, rents are increasing most in the affordable housing segment. For new rentals in Cologne and Aachen, rental prices went up over 5% within a year. In contrast, areas of Sauerland, Siegerland and Ostwestphalia are experiencing a decrease in demand, largely because young and educated people are moving away. On the eastern rim of Northrhine Westphalia, renters pay less than 4.50 Euro per square meter, while in Cologne, Dusseldorf and Munster, housing costs more than 7.00 Euro per square meter. A growing number of retirees and elderly means there are more people on a fixed income, and this also increases demand for affordable housing. Constructing subsidized housing will be necessary to meet demands in the future, according to the report. Nigerian Lady, Franca Asemota Extradited To UK For Prosecution For Human Trafficking nametalkam at 28-01-2016 09:04 AM (6 years ago) (m) Franca Asemota, a Nigerian fugitive was in the early hours of Wednesday, January 27, 2016, extradited to the United Kingdom to face trial for offences bordering on trafficking of minors. Justice Abdul Kafarati of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja had on Wednesday, January 13, 2016, ordered her extradition to the UK following a request through the office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF). Asemota, 36, is wanted by the UK government for trafficking of minors to Europe using London Heathrow airport as a transit hub. She was accused of allegedly engaging in organising a network that trafficked young women, mostly teenagers, from remote Nigerian villages into Europe through London. The girls were promised education or jobs such as hairdressing in countries including France and Spain, but were forced into prostitution. However, the long arm of the law caught up with Asemota when she was arrested by the operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Wednesday, March 24, 2015 in Benin, Edo State on suspicion of money laundering offences. On arrest, checks on her profile revealed that, she had been on the wanted list of the National Crime Agency, NCA. Justice Abdul Kafarati of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja had on Wednesday, January 13, 2016, ordered her extradition to the UK following a request through the office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF).Asemota, 36, is wanted by the UK government for trafficking of minors to Europe using London Heathrow airport as a transit hub.She was accused of allegedly engaging in organising a network that trafficked young women, mostly teenagers, from remote Nigerian villages into Europe through London.The girls were promised education or jobs such as hairdressing in countries including France and Spain, but were forced into prostitution.However, the long arm of the law caught up with Asemota when she was arrested by the operatives of the Economic and Financial CrimesCommission, EFCC, on Wednesday, March 24, 2015 in Benin, Edo State on suspicion of money laundering offences.On arrest, checks on her profile revealed that, she had been on the wanted list of the National Crime Agency, NCA. Post Reply I specialize in investigative reportage across several subject matter and sectors but mainly focus on metro events and investigation. Do leave your thoughts and opinion on my reports to let me know what you think about them. Thank you Posted: at 28-01-2016 09:04 AM (6 years ago) | Addicted Hero Ennyolalekan at 28-01-2016 09:29 AM (6 years ago) (m) server her right Posted: at 28-01-2016 09:29 AM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac server her right Reply Ennyolalekan at 28-01-2016 09:29 AM (6 years ago) (m) serves her right Posted: at 28-01-2016 09:29 AM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac serves her right Reply sunyobi at 28-01-2016 09:44 AM (6 years ago) (m) Money wahala Posted: at 28-01-2016 09:44 AM (6 years ago) | Newbie Money wahala Reply dareper at 28-01-2016 10:03 AM (6 years ago) (m) Jail that bitch..asap Posted: at 28-01-2016 10:03 AM (6 years ago) | Hero Jail that bitch..asap Reply Zaki68 at 28-01-2016 10:29 AM (6 years ago) (m) If its Igbo now you guys will start calling Buhari or say he hates Igbos that he planned the extradition #FREETHINKER# Posted: at 28-01-2016 10:29 AM (6 years ago) | Upcoming If its Igbo now you guys will start calling Buhari or say he hates Igbos that he planned the extradition #FREETHINKER# Reply gogoman at 28-01-2016 11:00 AM (6 years ago) (m) @ FREETHINKER , NA COMFIRMER BASTARD NA Posted: at 28-01-2016 11:00 AM (6 years ago) | Addicted Hero @ FREETHINKER , NA COMFIRMER BASTARD NA Reply winace at 28-01-2016 05:42 PM (6 years ago) (f) Good for her. Posted: at 28-01-2016 05:42 PM (6 years ago) | Addicted Hero Good for her. Reply akinmanchy at 28-01-2016 05:56 PM (6 years ago) (m) End of the road for u, come stand ur trial Life na jeje so just try to take am softly Posted: at 28-01-2016 05:56 PM (6 years ago) | Hero End of the road for u, come stand ur trial Reply Trueyarn at 28-01-2016 07:10 PM (6 years ago) (m) Jail don set like christmas rice for her make she go chop am jejeli. Posted: at 28-01-2016 07:10 PM (6 years ago) | Hero Jail don set like christmas rice for her make she go chop am jejeli. Reply AmazingMarie at 28-01-2016 07:26 PM (6 years ago) (f) she has been dubious she has to face the charges. Posted: at 28-01-2016 07:26 PM (6 years ago) | Hero she has been dubious she has to face the charges. Reply cocoeni at 28-01-2016 10:56 PM (6 years ago) (f) good for her Posted: at 28-01-2016 10:56 PM (6 years ago) | Hero good for her Reply imaria at 29-01-2016 12:50 AM (6 years ago) (f) Reap what you sow na your wishooo Posted: at 29-01-2016 12:50 AM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac Reap what you sow na your wishooo Reply Oworen25 at 29-01-2016 10:05 AM (6 years ago) (m) My question is why can't our country persecute her instead of sending her to UK for judgment. Posted: at 29-01-2016 10:05 AM (6 years ago) | Hero My question is why can't our country persecute her instead of sending her to UK for judgment. Reply diezo at 29-01-2016 02:15 PM (6 years ago) (m) PERSON NO WELL ANOTHER PERSON WEY WELL DEY TAKE TABLET FOR PERSON WEY NO WELL NA WHO NO COME WELL !!! Posted: at 29-01-2016 02:15 PM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac PERSON NO WELL ANOTHER PERSON WEY WELL DEY TAKE TABLET FOR PERSON WEY NO WELL NA WHO NO COME WELL !!! Reply egotic at 29-01-2016 04:12 PM (6 years ago) (f) This is one of the woman that promise young naija girls to come and wash plate and do hair in spain / abroad and later they end up getting delivered by man of God prophet Tb joshua thank God they don catcham........go rot in jail...mugu. Posted: at 29-01-2016 04:12 PM (6 years ago) | Newbie This is one of the woman that promise young naija girls to come and wash plate and do hair in spain / abroad and later they end up getting delivered by man of God prophet Tb joshua thank God they don catcham........go rot in jail...mugu. Reply Novic at 29-01-2016 10:40 PM (6 years ago) (m) GOGOMAN YOU ARE VERY STUPID AND A BRAINLESS IDIOT SO BECAUSE ITS BUHARI OR APC NO ONE SHOULD TALK USELESS IDIOT... NOW I KNOW YOU ARE A BORN BASTARD WHAT HAVE YOU BENEFITED FROM YOUR USELESS god BOKARI THE MOST TRAVELLED PRESIDENT IN WORLD WITHOUT BRAIN..IF IT WAS GOODLUCK YOUR KUNU MOUTH WILL BE RUNING LIKE TOILET MONKEY FROM THE ZOO see oppression Buhari's APC bribed a yoruba boy studying at Universiti sains Islam Malaysia with N7 million in December 2014 for his facebook propaganda posts. The same boy was the one whose friend reported to the university management that he was suffering from terminal disease called HIV besides being a scammer and fraudster. To my chagrin, the person who made the report got expelled and deported back to Nigeria Posted: at 29-01-2016 10:40 PM (6 years ago) | Hero GOGOMAN YOU ARE VERYSTUPID AND A BRAINLESSIDIOT SO BECAUSE ITSBUHARI OR APC NO ONESHOULD TALK USELESSIDIOT... NOW I KNOW YOU ARE A BORN BASTARD WHAT HAVEYOU BENEFITED FROM YOURUSELESS god BOKARI THEMOST TRAVELLED PRESIDENTIN WORLD WITHOUT BRAIN..IFIT WAS GOODLUCK YOUR KUNU MOUTH WILL BE RUNINGLIKE TOILET MONKEY FROMTHE ZOO see oppression Buhari's APC bribed a yoruba boystudying at Universiti sains IslamMalaysia with N7 million inDecember 2014 for his facebookpropaganda posts. The same boywas the one whose friend reported to the university management thathe was suffering from terminaldisease called HIV besides beinga scammer and fraudster. To mychagrin, the person who made thereport got expelled and deported back to Nigeria Reply Novic at 29-01-2016 10:41 PM (6 years ago) (m) GOGOMAN YOU ARE VERY STUPID AND A BRAINLESS IDIOT SO BECAUSE ITS BUHARI OR APC NO ONE SHOULD TALK USELESS IDIOT... NOW I KNOW YOU ARE A BORN BASTARD WHAT HAVE YOU BENEFITED FROM YOUR USELESS god BOKARI THE MOST TRAVELLED PRESIDENT IN WORLD WITHOUT BRAIN..IF IT WAS GOODLUCK YOUR KUNU MOUTH WILL BE RUNING LIKE TOILET MONKEY FROM THE ZOO see oppression Buhari's APC bribed a yoruba boy studying at Universiti sains Islam Malaysia with N7 million in December 2014 for his facebook propaganda posts. The same boy was the one whose friend reported to the university management that he was suffering from terminal disease called HIV besides being a scammer and fraudster. To my chagrin, the person who made the report got expelled and deported back to Nigeria Posted: at 29-01-2016 10:41 PM (6 years ago) | Hero GOGOMAN YOU ARE VERYSTUPID AND A BRAINLESSIDIOT SO BECAUSE ITSBUHARI OR APC NO ONESHOULD TALK USELESSIDIOT... NOW I KNOW YOU ARE A BORN BASTARD WHAT HAVEYOU BENEFITED FROM YOURUSELESS god BOKARI THEMOST TRAVELLED PRESIDENTIN WORLD WITHOUT BRAIN..IFIT WAS GOODLUCK YOUR KUNU MOUTH WILL BE RUNINGLIKE TOILET MONKEY FROMTHE ZOO see oppression Buhari's APC bribed a yoruba boystudying at Universiti sains IslamMalaysia with N7 million inDecember 2014 for his facebookpropaganda posts. The same boywas the one whose friend reported to the university management thathe was suffering from terminaldisease called HIV besides beinga scammer and fraudster. To mychagrin, the person who made thereport got expelled and deported back to Nigeria Reply DAMILARE100 at 30-01-2016 09:54 AM (6 years ago) (m) Quote from: oworen obong on 29-01-2016 10:05 AM My question is why can't our country persecute her instead of sending her to UK for judgment. ...Because she could easily bribe her ways out here. My question is how did she secure the visas? Posted: at 30-01-2016 09:54 AM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac ...Because she could easily bribe her ways out here. My question is how did she secure the visas? Reply clarajancita at 28-01-2016 12:50 PM (6 years ago) (f) The trial of Ivory Coast ex-President Laurent Gbagbo for crimes against humanity has begun at the International Criminal Court (ICC). He faces charges relating to the country's civil conflict that erupted after he lost elections in 2010. The trial of Ivory Coast ex-President Laurent Gbagbo for crimes against humanity has begun at the International Criminal Court (ICC). He faces charges relating to the country's civil conflict that erupted after he lost elections in 2010. Mr Gbagbo becomes the first former head of state to stand trial at the court in The Hague. Both Mr Gbagbo, 70, and his co-accused, former militia leader Charles Ble Goude, 44, say they are innocent. The trial could last three or four years. As it began, Mr Gbagbo appeared relaxed, smiling and shaking hands with his defence team. One of his advisers, Abdon Bayeto, told the us that Mr Gbagbo's innocence was not in doubt. He said: Mr Gbagbo becomes the first former head of state to stand trial at the court in The Hague. Both Mr Gbagbo, 70, and his co-accused, former militia leader Charles Ble Goude, 44, say they are innocent.The trial could last three or four years.As it began, Mr Gbagbo appeared relaxed, smiling and shaking hands with his defence team. One of his advisers, Abdon Bayeto, told the us that Mr Gbagbo's innocence was not in doubt.He said: Quote "He's going to plead obviously not guilty... there's been a parody of justice here. Somebody who has been in prison for five years with no proof." A lawyer for Mr Ble Goude, who is accused of organising attacks on opposition supporters, described his client as a "man of peace". This may prove to be the most important trial in the ICC's history. The international court was established to end impunity and bring the most powerful leaders to justice. The first trial of a former head of state is testament to the prosecutor's reach. And yet, despite casualties on both sides, not one of President Alassane Ouattara's supporters has been charged, leading to accusations of victor's justice. Gbagbo was arrested with his wife in 2011 and later sentenced to 20 years in jail by a court in Ivory Coast. During the pre-trial press briefing the victims' representative was asked how she could represent the victims when only half of those who suffered would have their voices heard. This high-profile trial will test the ability of the ICC to obtain reliable evidence from a country in which the government has a political interest in securing a guilty verdict. Can the suspects expect a fair trial if much of the evidence comes from their enemy? Mr Gbagbo sparked a crisis in Ivory Coast after he refused to step down following his loss to Alassane Ouattara in the 2010 presidential vote. There were bloody clashes between rival forces over five months in 2010 and 2011. Some 3,000 people were killed, with Mr Gbagbo holing up in the presidential palace. He was arrested in April 2011 by forces loyal to President Ouattara, backed by troops from former colonial power France, and later that year was extradited to The Hague. It will be the highest-profile trial yet for the ICC, which has only convicted two Congolese warlords since its establishment in 2002. Mr Gbagbo and Mr Ble Goude are accused of four charges - murder, rape, attempted murder and persecution. Hundreds of Gbagbo supporters gathered outside the ICC on Thursday to back the ex-president. This may prove to be the most important trial in the ICC's history. The international court was established to end impunity and bring the most powerful leaders to justice. The first trial of a former head of state is testament to the prosecutor's reach. And yet, despite casualties on both sides, not one of President Alassane Ouattara's supporters has been charged, leading to accusations of victor's justice.Gbagbo was arrested with his wife in 2011 and later sentenced to 20 years in jail by a court in Ivory Coast. During the pre-trial press briefing the victims' representative was asked how she could represent the victims when only half of those who suffered would have their voices heard.This high-profile trial will test the ability of the ICC to obtain reliable evidence from a country in which the government has a political interest in securing a guilty verdict.Can the suspects expect a fair trial if much of the evidence comes from their enemy? Mr Gbagbo sparked a crisis in Ivory Coast after he refused to step down following his loss to Alassane Ouattara in the 2010 presidential vote. There were bloody clashes between rival forces over five months in 2010 and 2011.Some 3,000 people were killed, with Mr Gbagbo holing up in the presidential palace.He was arrested in April 2011 by forces loyal to President Ouattara, backed by troops from former colonial power France, and later that year was extradited to The Hague.It will be the highest-profile trial yet for the ICC, which has only convicted two Congolese warlords since its establishment in 2002. Mr Gbagbo and Mr Ble Goude are accused of four charges - murder, rape, attempted murder and persecution. Hundreds of Gbagbo supporters gathered outside the ICC on Thursday to back the ex-president. Quote "Our dream to see our president walk free starts today," said one, Marius Boue. "He is truly a man of the Ivorian people." Mr Gbagbo's supporters accuse the ICC of overlooking alleged crimes by his opponents, many of whom are now in power. But this was rejected by ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, who said investigations into the pro-Ouattara camp had been "intensified". Born in 1945, Mr Gbagbo's first career was in academia as a history professor. He was jailed for two years in 1971 for "subversive" teaching By the 1980s, he was heavily involved in trade union activities After years in exile, he returned to Ivory Coast to attend the founding congress of the Ivorian Popular Front in 1988 Mr Gbagbo was one of the first to challenge Ivory Coast's founding President Felix Houphouet-Boigny, after multi-party politics were permitted Became president with the Ivorian Popular Front in 2000 Profile: Laurent Gbagbo Mr Gbagbo is the first ex-head of state to appear at the ICC, although Liberia's former President Charles Taylor also stood trial at The Hague. He appeared before the Special Court for Sierra Leone and was given a 50-year jail sentence in 2012 on charges of aiding and abetting war crimes during the civil war in Sierra Leone, which neighbours Liberia. The ICC has been accused by some in Africa of unfairly targeting the continent. An attempt to prosecute Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta over post-election violence failed amid allegations witnesses had been intimidated. This week however the ICC authorized an investigation into possible war crimes committed during the 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia - the first inquiry into a conflict outside Africa. Mr Gbagbo's supporters accuse the ICC of overlooking alleged crimes by his opponents, many of whom are now in power. But this was rejected by ICC Chief Prosecutor FatouProfile: Laurent GbagboMr Gbagbo is the first ex-head of state to appear at the ICC, although Liberia's former President Charles Taylor also stood trial at The Hague.He appeared before the Special Court for Sierra Leone and was given a 50-year jail sentence in 2012 on charges of aiding and abetting war crimes during the civil war in Sierra Leone, which neighbours Liberia.The ICC has been accused by some in Africa of unfairly targeting the continent.An attempt to prosecute Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta over post-election violence failed amid allegations witnesses had been intimidated.This week however the ICC authorized an investigation into possible war crimes committed during the 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia - the first inquiry into a conflict outside Africa. Post Reply I am a metro reporter on Gistmania, I have been publishing news materials for over 5 years Posted: at 28-01-2016 12:50 PM (6 years ago) | Hero India sews up cyber security accords with three countries News oi -GizBot Bureau Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has signed agreement with its counterparts in Malaysia, Singapore and Japan, an official statement said here on Wednesday. The agreements related to cyber security will promote closer cooperation for exchange of knowledge and experience in detection, resolution and prevention of security related incidents between India and the respective country, the cabinet statement said. SEE ALSO: Windows 10 Powered Xiaomi Mi4 Gets New Update! Does it Matters? The CERT-In and its Malaysian counterpart signed an agreement on November 23, 2015, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Malaysia. The agreement between CERT-In and Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team, Cyber Security Agency of Singapore, was signed on November 24, 2015. SEE ALSO: Asus launches Zenfone 2 Deluxe Again! But now with a new Intel SoC! The agreement between CERT-In and Japan Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center was signed on December 7 through diplomatic exchange and exchange of the signed agreements between the two parties completed by December 22, 2015. Source IANS Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Feeling sleepy? Blame it on social media News oi -GizBot Bureau Teenagers who spend a lot of time on Facebook and Twitter irrespective of the time are more likely to suffer sleep disturbances than their peers who prefer outdoor activities with smartphones on silent mode, say researchers. "This is one of the first pieces of evidence that social media use really can impact your sleep," said lead author Jessica C Levenson, post-doctoral researcher at the University of Pittsburgh. SEE ALSO: Asus launches Zenfone 2 Deluxe Again! But now with a new Intel SoC! To reach this conclusion, Levenson and her colleagues sampled 1,788 adults ages 19-32, using questionnaires to determine social media use and an established measurement system to assess sleep disturbances. The questionnaires asked about the 11 most popular social media platforms at the time: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Vine and LinkedIn. On average, the participants used social media a total of 61 minutes per day and visited various social media accounts 30 times per week. SEE ALSO: Lenovo K5 Note vs Lenovo K4 Note: What's The Difference? The assessment showed that nearly 30 percent of the participants had high levels of sleep disturbance. The participants who reported most frequently checking social media throughout the week had three times the likelihood of sleep disturbances, compared with those who checked least frequently. The participants who spent the most total time on social media throughout the day had twice the risk of sleep disturbance, compared to peers who spent less time on social media. "This may indicate that frequency of social media visits is a better predictor of sleep difficulty than overall time spent on social media," Levenson explained.. Published online in the journal Preventive Medicine, the study indicates that physicians should consider asking young adult patients about social media habits when assessing sleep issues. Alternatively, young adults who have difficulty sleeping may subsequently use social media as a pleasurable way to pass the time when they can't fall asleep or return to sleep. "It also may be that both of these hypotheses are true. Difficulty sleeping may lead to increased use of social media, which may in turn lead to more problems sleeping," noted senior author Brian A Primack, director of Pitt's Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health. SEE ALSO: Top 10 Powerful Laptops with 8GB RAM To Buy in India This cycle may be particularly problematic with social media because many forms involve interactive screen time that is stimulating and rewarding and, therefore, potentially detrimental to sleep, the authors pointed out. Source IANS Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Lifting the Veil: UK Licenses Sale of Snooping Tech to Saudis, Egypt, UAE Sputnik News 10:05 28.01.2016(updated 11:06 28.01.2016) The British government is licensing its overseas trade of surveillance equipment to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates among other states, The Independent newspaper reported citing new records. MOSCOW (Sputnik) The equipment can be used to intercept phone messages as well as control and hack a number of intricate devices, the documents, found by charity Privacy International, revealed. 'These categories of surveillance technology cover some of the most advanced and intrusive systems on the market. These would allow some of the most authoritarian countries in the world to carry out mass, suspicion-less surveillance and gain unlimited access to anyone's private communications and device,' Edin Omanovic, a research officer at Privacy International, was quoted as saying by the news outlet Wednesday. According to the newspaper, 2015 marked the first year the spying technologies were put on the government's export licenses list, though it was still subject to the parliamentary debate under the draft Investigatory Powers Bill. The revelation comes the same day as British Prime Minister David Cameron refused a proposal to launch an inquiry into the delivery of UK-manufactured arms to Saudi Arabia. Explaining his move, Cameron stated that the arms exports of the United Kingdom were 'carefully controlled.' The UK government has faced staunch criticism for the British weaponry sales to the Gulf States both from parliamentarians and human rights groups in recent times, claiming it had been used to commit appalling attacks against civilians. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Military Strikes Target ISIL Terrorists in Syria, Iraq From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release SOUTHWEST ASIA, January 27, 2016 U.S. and coalition military forces have continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria and Iraq, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today. Officials reported details of the latest strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports. Strikes in Syria Attack and fighter aircraft conducted four strikes in Syria: -- Near Hasakah, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL fighting position. -- Near Raqqah, a strike destroyed six ISIL workover rigs. -- Near Mar'a, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two ISIL fighting positions. Strikes in Iraq Attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 10 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq's government: -- Near Baghdadi, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two ISIL weapons caches and an ISIL bunker and damaged an ISIL vehicle. -- Near Huwayjah, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit. -- Near Kirkuk, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL fighting position and an ISIL excavator. -- Near Ramadi, five strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL sniper position, two ISIL fighting positions and an ISIL fuel truck, damaged a separate ISIL vehicle and denied ISIL access to terrain. -- Near Sinjar, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL fighting position and an ISIL heavy machine gun. Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Part of Operation Inherent Resolve The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat they pose to Iraq, Syria, and the wider international community. The destruction of ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq further limits the terrorist group's ability to project terror and conduct operations, officials said. Coalition nations conducting strikes in Iraq include the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Coalition nations conducting strikes in Syria include the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S. Department of Defense Press Operations News Transcript Presenter: Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook January 27, 2016 Department of Defense Press Briefing by Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook in the Pentagon Briefing Room PETER COOK: Afternoon, everyone. Hope you survived Snowzilla adequately. You look -- crowd's a little smaller today. Maybe people are still trapped. But -- hope everyone's doing all right. I wanted to begin, today, with a statement regarding a statement from the secretary regarding Afghanistan -- again, from Secretary Carter. "I want to thank General John Campbell for his extraordinary leadership and dedication in his dual role as commander of the United States forces Afghanistan, and as commander of the NATO Resolute Support mission. "While many challenges remain, we have made gains over the past year that will put Afghanistan on a better path, and much of the credit for that progress rests with General Campbell. "Under General Campbell's leadership, our forces have engaged in two important and enduring missions: our train, advise and assist support to the Afghan security forces, and our counterterrorism effort. General Campbell has taken the fight to Al Qaida and made clear our resolve to deny it safe haven. "He has consistently identified ways to increase the capability and capacity of the Afghan forces -- forces that have shown the motivation and resiliency required to ensure the long-term success of our partnership and the security and the stability of the Afghan -- that the Afghan people deserve. "General Campbell has presided over important milestones in our mission to enable the ANDSF, including the recent delivery of the A-29s to the Afghan military to provide close air support, which will be a key element in increasing superiority over Taliban forces. "He has also forged strong partnerships with the Afghan unity government led by President Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah, and it is clear that we have strong partners with a common vision focused on a secure and prosperous future for the Afghan people. "For nearly 18 months, General Campbell has given his all to the mission as our top commander in Afghanistan, and his personal sacrifices on behalf of his troops and the Afghan people will be remembered by us all. "As his tour in Afghanistan comes to a close, I want to personally thank him for everything he has done to bring us to this moment in Afghanistan, and for all that he has done throughout his extraordinary career. There will be more to say about his future in the coming days. "The good news is that we have a deep bench. I am absolutely confident the man the president intends to nominate to take General Campbell's place when his work in Afghanistan is completed, Lieutenant General John "Mick" Nicholson, is an accomplished soldier with extensive command experience both in Afghanistan and around the world. "He has led soldiers at all levels, from platoon to division, in airborne, ranger, mechanized, Stryker and light infantry units in five different infantry divisions and the 75th Ranger Regiment. He commanded the 82nd Airborne Division, reestablishing global response force capabilities, and commanded NATO's Allied Land Command. "He knows what it means to lead a responsive and nimble force, and how to build the capacity of our partners to respond to immediate and long-term threats and remain adaptable to confront evolving challenges. And he understands the importance and complexity of our mission in Afghanistan, having served in multiple capacities, including chief of staff of operations for the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, and U.S. Forces Afghanistan, director of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Coordination Cell for the Joint Staff and deputy commander of stability of ISAF Regional Command-South. "I am confident that General Nicholson will build upon General Campbell's hard work to secure a bright future for the Afghan people and help the government of Afghanistan strengthen a professional and capable security partner to the American people." I also wanted to update you as well on the secretary's visit to CYBERCOM earlier today. The secretary and Chairman Dunford visited U.S. Cyber Command or CYBERCOM in Fort Meade, Maryland, this morning. They discussed a range of cyber-related topics with the leadership there, including the latest on efforts to degrade ISIL's messaging campaign. As the secretary made clear in his remarks to the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell and in his speech in meetings with allies last week in Paris, our effort to accelerate the campaign to deliver a lasting defeat to ISIL includes targeting their use of the Internet to spread their message of hate, recruit fighters and inspire acts of terror. CYBERCOM is charged with supporting our inter-agency partners in our whole of government effort to counter ISIL messaging in addition to several other vital aspects of the counter ISIL campaign. Secretary was able to engage directly with some of the men and women directly engaged in cyber operations. He encouraged them, the entire CYBERCOM team, to do what they can to intensify the fight against ISIL. And with that, I'd be happy to take your questions. Jamie. Q: I wanted to ask you about the possibility of the U.S. expanding its counter ISIL efforts into Libya. The chairman traveling in Europe this week said that it was fair to say that the U.S. needed to take decisive military action -- he said, in conjunction with the political events in Libya. Can you help us understand what he's talking about and what's under consideration in terms of expanding efforts against ISIL into Libya? MR. COOK: Well, as the chairman has discussed, as the Secretary has spoken on numerous occasions, including just last week in our visit to Paris and our meetings with other members of the ISIL coalition, we are extremely worried about the metastasis of ISIL to other locations, Libya being just one of those locations. We continue to monitor the situation there. Continue to work very closely with our coalition partners, with others in the region who have similar concerns about the situation in Libya. And I think it's fair to say that we are closely monitoring the situation. As Chairman Dunford has indicated, working with those partners and also continuing to have conversations with people on the ground as to exactly what is happening there and the threat that ISIL poses to the United States and others. Q: Could we see an expansion into Libya that looks something like what's going on in Iraq and Syria? That is to say, more consistent air strikes and even possibly some limited ground actions? MR. COOK: We've shown in the past a willingness to strike in Libya. We've taken out a key ISIL leader in Libya in the past. But I think Jamie, it's too soon to say at this point exactly where things will evolve. We're taking a very close look at this situation. Again, it's not just the United States that's involved here, that has a stake in what happens in Libya. We're continuing, of course, through the State Department, to support the effort to -- to forge a government in -- in Libya, and we think that's a critical step in terms of the governance of the country to trying to address the -- the ISIL threat as well. It's not just a military solution here. But we're going to continue to monitor it, and -- and as Chairman Dunford indicated, we see this threat in ISIL as a serious threat, and we're going to continue to -- to monitor the situation and consider what options we have moving forward. Q: Chairman Dunford seemed to indicate that those options might be presented to the president in -- I think he said in -- in a matter of weeks. Are -- so we -- are we talking about seeing some significant stepping-up of the operations against Libya in a matter of weeks? MR. COOK: I think we're going to continue to assess the -- the threat in Libya and respond accordingly, and the chairman and the secretary will continue to have those conversations with the president's national security team and with our partners as well, as we assess the threat in Libya. Q: Peter? MR. COOK: Jennifer. Q: Can you -- can you rule out U.S. boots on the ground going to Libya? Is that (inaudible) discussion? MR. COOK: You -- you know the situation right now. We've had -- acknowledged that there have been some U.S. forces in Libya trying to establish contact with forces on the ground so that we get a clear picture of what's happening there. But beyond that, it's -- again, we're going to consider all of our options going forward. Right now, that's not something that's -- that's under consideration. Q: And can you help me understand -- twice this week, Ash Carter told CNN and CNBC -- gave the impression that U.S. boots on the ground are on their way to Iraq and possibly Syria. He told CNN, "I just went to Fort Campbell, headquarter of 101st Airborne. They're going to be the next unit going into Iraq -- whole division. This is your mission: to get the Iraqis positioned. Is that hazardous? Boots on the ground -- yeah." That led to some confusion. Did he mean to say that a division of the 101st was going to Iraq? MR. COOK: The deployment of the 101st -- it's been scheduled for some time. They're rotating in to replace existing forces on the ground. So hopefully there isn't any confusion there. Q: It's not a whole division. It's a brigade. MR. COOK: It's my understanding it's about 1,800 troops that will be moving in. And, as the secretary acknowledged to those troops, they have an important mission to carry out. It's been planned for some time. It's going to be the same mission that's being conducted right now by the 82nd Airborne, and they have a critical role to play going forward. And I think the secretary was making the point that those forces, while they're on the ground in Iraq trying to, again, enable Iraqi security forces to move forward, will be at risk -- will be in harm's way. I think that was the point he was trying to make in that conversation. Q: Is there any change to their mission in terms of -- will they be closer to the front lines? Will they be embedded if the Mosul operation begins? Is there any change to their mission? MR. COOK: Their mission will be the same as the mission that -- for the forces that they're replacing, and this is, again, an effort to enable those Iraqi security forces, as U.S. trainers were able to do with Iraqi security forces that successfully took back those parts of Ramadi. We're looking for much the same thing out of these forces, and they -- I can tell you from our travel to Fort Campbell and our conversations with them -- are -- are ready for this mission. They understand the importance of this mission, and they will play a critical role in enabling those Iraqi security forces as they move towards their next targets, including, ultimately, Mosul. Q: And I -- can I just shift to China for a moment? Secretary Kerry is over in China today, and he was quoted in talking about the disputed islands in the South China Sea -- he was quoted saying, "Let me emphasize again: the United States does not take sides on the sovereignty questions underlying the territorial disputes in the South China Sea." That is a very different tone than what we've heard from this building. Secretary Carter has said that we will continue to fly over the disputed islands. And in fact, there has been a lot more said that suggests that we do actually take sides on this issue. So where -- how do I understand this? MR. COOK: I think Jennifer, that careful reading of the secretary's comments on this topic, including when we were in the region, he has been very clear -- and I think you can look at his testimony as well. We don't take sides in terms of these disputes. We encourage a diplomatic resolution to these disputes. But what he's said is that efforts to reclaim these areas and to militarize these disputed islands is counterproductive to the effort to try and get a final resolution. And in the meantime, the United States will continue to be a force for stability in the region. And we're going to continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows. But we don't take sides in these disputes, whether it's disputes involving China or other players in the region. Paul? Q: Going back to Libya for a second, are there currently U.S. forces on the ground there? MR. COOK: I'm not going to tell you exactly what the disposition of our forces are there. I can acknowledge that we've had forces on the ground previously as we've indicated, to engage in conversations with local forces to get a clearer picture of exactly what's happening there. Q: And can you give us a better sense of what that discussion with local forces is? Is that is preparing to organize the kinds of militias we can work with? Is it meeting with political leaders to get a sense of whom supports whom? I mean, it sounds as though it's a very complicated picture with dozens if not hundreds of different kinds of militias. What exactly is the U.S. stance? MR. COOK: It is a complicated picture and I think you've characterized pretty well what the goal would be and that is to simply get a better sense of who the players are, who might be worthy of U.S. support and support from some of our partners going forward in the fight against ISIL. It is a complicated picture. And that's why the formation of a government is so central to the future for Libya and to also addressing the issue of ISIL in Libya. And so part of the presence -- the reason for the presence of those troops is to, again, get a sense of the forces on the ground, the players on the ground and exactly what's happening, because it is a muddled picture right now. And we -- that is one of the best ways we can get a better sense of what's happening. Q: Have they come to any conclusions on the kinds of forces we can work with? MR. COOK: I think they provided valuable information. And again, there's a big picture here. There are lots of players involved, there are also a lot of foreign partners that we have who are providing us critical information about what's happening in Libya and we'll continue to work closely with them. It's not the only way we're getting information on the ground. Q: Going back to Jamie's question. I realize that ISIS is a problem in many countries beyond Iraq and Syria, but Libya, as we understand it, is the only place where they are exercising active command and control. And I wonder, given Chairman Dunford's comments, given Secretary Carter's comments, is Libya getting a greater priority, a greater sense of urgency in the anti-ISIL fight than other countries? MR. COOK: Well, I think we've acknowledged the threat posed by ISIL as it metastasizes and Libya is clearly a place where we've seen movement of ISIL forces, of ISIL members if you will. So clearly, it's a significant concern for us. I'm not going to say it's more of a concern than other countries at this particular point but we have seen an increase in ISIL members, ISIL-affiliated groups, if you will, in Libya, and that's a cause for concern. And -- and as a result, we're doing everything we can to monitor that situation and work with our partners, trying to get a better fix on what's happening and, again, consider our options going forward. Aaron? Q: A domestic question for you. Can you confirm the secretary's going to brief the budget on February 2nd and maybe give us a preview of the preview? MR. COOK: I can confirm that the secretary will have something to say about the budget on February 2nd, yes. But I can't give you more details than that. And he'll make -- he'll make those comments here in Washington. So, Barbara? Q: Can we go back to Libya again? My -- my memory may be very faulty on this. I recall -- I think it was a couple of months ago -- there was a photo that emerged, that was acknowledged, of some U.S. troops that appeared in Libya, and it was said at the time that they were asked by a local militia to please leave the area, and they did leave. they did not stay. And I -- I acknowledge my memory maybe faulty -- that is the only instance I recall. Is what you're saying today the first time the Defense Department is now openly acknowledging that U.S. special forces have gone in on the ground in Libya to establish contact with local groups? Because I don't recall, other than that photo -- and I may -- my memory may be faulty. So is this your first time you're saying this? MR. COOK: I don't know if it's the first time we've said it as -- as a building, but I would just acknowledge, I think, what we've said previously -- that there have been U.S. personnel there, doing exactly what I described: trying to get a better sense of the picture there. Q: (off-mic.) I believe, in Tripoli, but you seem to be indicating that it's much more of an enduring mission that just -- MR. COOK: (inaudible) -- Q: -- so help -- help us understand if you could -- MR. COOK: -- this is -- Q: -- what these -- the task and mission of these U.S. special forces is? MR. COOK: -- there have been U.S. personnel in Libya, as I described -- Q: Military personnel? MR. COOK: -- at the concurrence of -- of Libyan officials in an effort to try and explore relationships, to get a better sense of what's happening on the ground in Libya. And, again, we've acknowledged this in the past -- small group, and they're trying to get a clearer picture of what's happening there. And they've made contact with people on the ground to try and get a better sense of not only the threat that ISIL poses there, but the dynamic on the ground in terms of the security situation. We're looking for partners who can give us a better sense of the security situation, and it's not just the United States, of course, that has a keen interest here, Barbara. It is our foreign partners as well, and likewise, they have been able to provide us a significant amount of information as to what's happening in Libya. And again, cause for concern for us, and that's why I think you've heard from Chairman Dunford, Secretary Carter -- been very up-front that this is a situation that does cause us concern, and we're considering what our options might be going forward should that threat ISIL, become an even bigger threat from Libya. Q: So you -- just to clarify, they are U.S. military personnel? These are not just random government employees? These are U.S. military personnel you're referencing? MR. COOK: U.S. military personnel. Q: And you are also acknowledging that you are working on -- you just said "options". So you're -- you're -- you are acknowledging you are indeed, then, working on military options to deal with ISIS in Libya? MR. COOK: We're taking the appropriate steps, along with our partners, to assess the threat that ISIL may pose in Libya. And obviously, looking at the security situation there, and doing everything we can separately. Very important, Barbara, the -- the diplomatic side of this -- the formation of a -- of a central government in Libya -- critically important to the future of that country, of course, and to try to stabilize the security situation. Q: But -- but you said "options," and since you're the Defense Department spokesman, you are talking military -- MR. COOK: We are -- Q: -- I just need to make sure I understood accurately. You're talking -- your podium? MR. COOK: We are -- yes. We -- we're looking at military options, a range of other options as a government that we can engage in to try and -- as the situation in Libya unfolds, we want to be prepared, as -- as the Department of Defense always wants to be prepared, in the event that ISIL in Libya becomes more of a threat than it is even today. Q: And can I just follow up, also, on Mosul, if I might? So the secretary is going to have this meeting with the allies to talk about getting increased contributions. To what -- and -- and I think Colonel Warren referenced -- you know, you're looking, in particular, at Mosul coming down the road, and the need for eight trained Iraqi brigades -- brigades. So how much of this meeting he is going to have focuses -- and why -- on trying to get the Persian Gulf and the Middle East allies to contribute to get the Iraqi forces ready for a fight to take Mosul? How much of the meeting focuses on that? MR. COOK: Well, I think the secretary's made clear that he's looking for contributions from as many contributors as possible -- as many countries that are engaged in the campaign -- including those, perhaps, that aren't engaged in the campaign at all right now. So he doesn't want to single out any particular group here. But he thinks there's plenty of contributions that can be made -- and it's not just, Barbara, in the -- in the training, if you will, of those eight brigades. There are a whole host of other things that need to be done in the counter-ISIL fight, and what the secretary and his -- and his partners at the table in Paris have -- have said about doing is to -- identifying the key capabilities that are going to be needed, going forward, in the fight against ISIL. Again, it's not just training forces. It could involve additions to the air campaign. It could involve logistical support. It could involve the training of police. There are a whole host of things that countries could do as part of this effort -- ISR is another example -- where countries could step up and do more. Q: If -- and not hypothetically, because as you said, many of them are doing nothing. So if that -- of the status quo continues, what is the general range of additional U.S. personnel that are needed for Iraq to be ready for Mosul? MR. COOK: I think the secretary -- again, we -- this is a coalition. We have 26 nations, plus Iraq, in Brussels. We have seen great contributions from many members of that coalition. The secretary believes that more can be done -- that more can be offered towards this effort -- that there should be no free riders, in his words. And -- and we'll see what comes out of Brussels. But this is an ongoing conversation, and I think, at this point, we remain optimistic that there will be additional contributions from foreign partners that will enable this effort to move forward. In the meantime, the United States is going to continue to do what it's been doing -- and we are the leader of this coalition right now, and contributing the most to it at this point. We're going to continue to do what we're doing to push this -- Q: (off-mic.) MR. COOK: -- to accelerate this effort along, with the help of our partners. Q: So how many more U.S. troops are needed? MR. COOK: I think you know where we are right now. Q: I don't. MR. COOK: We're about 3,700 U.S. troops, right now, in Iraq, and that's -- that's the level, right now, that the secretary feels is the appropriate level, and if he feels like he needs to request more, then he's prepared to do that. It depends on the circumstances, going forward, and if unique capabilities need to be brought into the fight. But this is -- that's where we are right now, and that's part of -- again, that's a calculated assessment of -- of what this campaign needs, at this moment particularly, from the U.S. side. But if -- the secretary has said, if he sees an opportunity for us to be able to do more, and it requires additional U.S. forces, he's prepared to make that request. But he doesn't have a pending request right now. Yes? Q: Peter, I want to go back to Libya. You said that -- just to make it clear. You said that now the Pentagon is (inaudible) the military options to (inaudible) of ISIS fight inside Libya. Is that correct? MR. COOK: We are always reviewing our options with regard to Libya and a whole host of other challenges facing the United States. Q: What about you could clarify the size of the U.S. force, the military personnel who is -- who worked in Libya before or -- what is the status? MR. COOK: It's a small number of military personnel -- I'm not going to get into the disposition right now of those forces. But we've indicated before there was a small group there to meet the diverse range of groups to get a better sense of what's happening on the ground. Q: And when you say small group, this isn't -- MR. COOK: I'm going to leave it at that. This is a small group, Joe, I'm going to leave it at that. Yes, Austin. Q: Peter, at Fort Campbell in his prepared remarks, the secretary once again knocked Congress for holding up the last $49 million in Syria train and equip funds. Have there been any updates on that in terms of briefings to answer Congress' questions. And at this point, have there been any real world consequences for not having that money? MR. COOK: Austin, let me take that question to give you a definitive update as to where that -- to my understanding, as at last check, there was still some money being held up if you will, had not been released fully. And I think in terms of real world consequences, the department and the secretary believes that that money could be well used in this effort to take the fight to ISIL, and so we'll continue our efforts to work with Congress to try and free up those funds. Q: Thank you. MR. COOK: Yep. Yes. Q: Of course. (Laughter.) Q: Two questions. MR. COOK: Everyone knows who you are, Gordon, so (inaudible). Q: (Inaudible) When you were with Secretary Carter in Afghanistan in September, he hinted talking to troops about a longer term mission for troops in Afghanistan, okay. And then we see these reports, or a report today about rethinking the idea of an exit strategy altogether. Can you respond to this notion that the current plan which will withdraw most of the troops I believe, by the end of the year or whatever it is now, is being rethought. And I have a second question, unrelated which is, the Turks had proposed to Chairman Dunford a kind of a new, teeny program, slightly more limited, for folks inside Syria to be training somewhere and then brought back into Syria. Has the secretary received any recommendation on that? MR. COOK: I know that this topic came up previously. The secretary -- I'm not aware of any specific action or review that the secretary has conducted yet that I can share with you at this point. On your first question, there is no change right now to the number of U.S. forces and the current plan in place. Ninety-eight hundred U.S. troops being reduced down, ultimately to 5,500. The pace of that will be determined by commanders on the ground and there's been no change to that. Obviously, we are going to continue to assess the security situation in Afghanistan. The secretary is going to continue to listen very carefully to General Campbell on his assessment on what is happening in Afghanistan. But as of now, there's no change in that plan. Q: And we have several months to go before the end of the year, but is there a point at which a decision would have to be made on not starting to draw down the 9,800 to 5,500? MR. COOK: Again, this will be determined by commanders on the ground. I think everyone's looked at this situation, understands what -- what that end point is scheduled to be, at this -- at this moment, and is confident that we can get there, if necessary. And, again, if there needs to be a review -- a reassessment, that will be done with -- in coordination with commanders on the ground, of course. The secretary engaging with the -- with the national security team at the -- at the White House as well. Luis. Q: (inaudible) -- in the nomination for General Nicholson. Is that -- is he being nominated for a fourth star, or is this going to be a three-star command now? MR. COOK: My understanding, this would be a fourth star. Q: And there's been a development in South America with this Zika virus that is drawing concern. Last night, the president had a meeting with his health care leadership, and also national security leaders like defense -- Deputy Defense Secretary Work was there. What is the role that the U.S. military or the Pentagon is being asked to play as part of this health initiative to try to prevent the spread of this disease? MR. COOK: My understanding is we've been asked -- and, again, the deputy secretary was at the White House yesterday -- we've been asked to support Health and Human Services in their efforts to convene experts and -- and stakeholders, specifically in the research area. This is an area where the DOD has done some research in the past, and I think some of that expertise will be brought to this effort, and we'll be supporting HHS in whatever way we can. Q: Is there any consideration to -- MR. COOK: Excuse me. Q: -- an initiative similar to what happened with Ebola, where the U.S. military played a role in containing that disease in Africa? MR. COOK: I don't think anyone is talking about that kind of role at this particular time. So this is a support role, again, sharing our research knowledge as -- as much as anything else, with the folks at HHS. Okay? Jennifer. Q: Peter, why haven't we heard from the 10 sailors who were held by Iran overnight? If you have any plans to allow them to take questions? MR. COOK: I'll refer you to the Navy as to exactly what stage they are. My understanding is the reintegration process has been completed, and I'll leave it to the Navy -- I know that the Navy investigation is still ongoing -- as to exactly what took place. And I think that could be -- a determination could be a factor in exactly their status at this point, and whether or not they might be made available for media interviews. Q: And does the secretary have any reaction to the CBS report last night on the Wounded Warrior Project and how money has been wasted that was raised to help wounded warriors -- up to $1 billion? Any reaction to that? MR. COOK: To be honest. Jennifer, I didn't see the report myself. I'm not sure if the -- the secretary did. We'll obviously look into it. The secretary would obviously be concerned about any report of malfeasance in this sort of area. But we didn't see the report, so let me take a look and find out if -- if the secretary saw it himself. Okay. All said? Thanks, everyone. http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/645195/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S. Department of Defense Press Operations News Release No. NR-002-16 January 28, 2016 Statement by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter on Change of Command in Afghanistan I want to thank Gen. John Campbell for his extraordinary leadership and dedication in his dual role as commander of United States Forces Afghanistan, and as commander of the NATO Resolute Support mission. While many challenges remain, we have made gains over the past year that will put Afghanistan on a better path, and much of the credit for that progress rests with Gen. Campbell. Under Gen. Campbell's leadership, our forces have engaged in two important and enduring missions: our train, advise and assist support to the Afghan security forces, and our counter-terrorism effort. Gen. Campbell has taken the fight to Al Qaeda and made clear our resolve to deny it safe haven. He has consistently identified ways to increase the capability and capacity of the Afghan military, a force that has shown the motivation and resiliency required to ensure the long term success of our partnership and the security and stability the Afghan people deserve. Gen. Campbell has presided over important milestones in our mission to enable the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), including the recent delivery of A-29s to the Afghan military to provide close air support, which will be a key element in increasing superiority against Taliban forces. He has also forged strong partnerships with the Afghan unity government led by President Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah, and it is clear that we have strong partners with a common vision focused on a secure and prosperous future for the Afghan people. For nearly 18 months, Gen. Campbell has given his all to the mission as our top commander in Afghanistan, and his personal sacrifices on behalf of his troops and the Afghan people will be remembered by us all. As his tour in Afghanistan comes to a close, I want to personally thank him for everything he has done to bring us to this moment in Afghanistan, and for all he has done throughout his extraordinary career. There will be more to say about his future in the coming days. The good news is that we have a deep bench. I am absolutely confident in the man the president intends to nominate to take Gen. Campbell's place when his work in Afghanistan is completed. Lt. Gen, John "Mick" Nicholson is an accomplished soldier with extensive command experience both in Afghanistan and around the world. He has led soldiers at all levels from platoon to division in airborne, ranger, mechanized, Stryker and light infantry units in five different infantry divisions, and the 75th Ranger Regiment. He commanded the 82nd Airborne Division, reestablishing global response force capabilities, and commanded NATO's Allied Land Command. He knows what it means to lead a responsive and nimble force, and how to build the capacity of our partners to respond to immediate and long term threats and remain adaptable to confront evolving challenges. And he understands the importance and complexity of our mission in Afghanistan, having served in multiple capacities including chief of staff of operations for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and U.S. Forces Afghanistan, director of the Pakistan/Afghanistan Coordination Cell for the Joint Staff, and deputy commander Stability of ISAF Regional Command South. I am confident that Gen. Nicholson will build upon Gen. Campbell's hard work to secure a bright future for the Afghan people, and help the government of Afghanistan strengthen a professional and capable security partner to the American people. http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/645193/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO and OSCE discuss modernising tools of military transparency NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 27 Jan. 2016 - Measures to enhance transparency on military activities, the conflict in Ukraine and closer institutional links topped the agenda in talks between NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Gernot Erler, the Special Representative of Germany for the OSCE Chairmanship at NATO headquarters on Wednesday (27 January 2015). "I appreciate the efforts of Germany's OSCE Chairmanship to focus on renewing dialogue and strengthening the OSCE's instruments and discussion forums," the Secretary General said, describing the OSCE as a "key player in many areas of particular interest to the Alliance." Mr Stoltenberg stressed the need for stronger measures to create more transparency on military activities in Europe in view of Russia's actions in Ukraine, as well as its frequent snap exercises. He welcomed the efforts within the OSCE to further strengthen mechanisms for transparency in order to avoid accidents and incidents. He stressed that Allies actively support OSCE efforts to update the regime of inspections and reporting of military exercises, including short-notice ones. The Secretary General and the Special Representative discussed opportunities to increase information sharing between the two organisations. The Secretary General thanked the OSCE for its crucial role in monitoring the situation on the ground in Eastern Ukraine, and in the efforts to facilitate a diplomatic solution. He stressed that the full implementation of the Minsk agreements offers the best chance for peace in Ukraine. Special Representative Erler and OSCE Secretary General Ambassador Lamberto Zannier separately addressed the Ambassadors of the North Atlantic Council about OSCE activities and the priorities of the German chairmanship. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Army-PKK clashes leave 4 troopers dead in SE Turkey Iran Press TV Wed Jan 27, 2016 6:27PM Fresh clashes between the Turkish army and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants have left four Turkish soldiers dead in the country's restive southeastern province of Diyarbakir. According to a statement by the Turkish army, Kurdish militants attacked the security forces with rifles and rocket launchers in Diyarbakir's Sur district on Wednesday. The assault prompted intense confrontation, killing three soldiers at the scene and wounding six others. One of the injured troopers succumbed to his wounds later at hospital, Turkey's Dogan news agency reported. Turkey's southeast has been volatile since a shaky ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK that had stood since 2013 collapsed following the Turkish military operation against the militant group. The Turkish government has imposed curfew in the areas that have been targeted in the army's anti-PKK campaign. Local authorities said on Wednesday that the 24-hour curfew in Sur, which has been in place since December last year, was expanded to cover five more neighborhoods and a main road to help the security forces remove the bombs and barricades set up by the militants. The Turkish army also said a total of 20 PKK members were killed on Tuesday in Sur and the Cizre district of Sirnak Province, bringing the total number of militants killed in the two areas to some 600 since December. Ankara's anti-PKK campaign began in the wake of a deadly July 20 bombing in the southern Turkish town of Suruc. More than 30 people died in the attack, which the Turkish government blamed on Daesh Takfiri terrorist group. After the incident, the PKK militants, who accuse the Turkish government of supporting Daesh, engaged in a series of reprisal attacks against Turkish police and security forces. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Some 34,000 flee clashes in Sudan's Darfur: UN Iran Press TV Wed Jan 27, 2016 6:23PM A series of violent clashes in Sudan's western region of Darfur has forced thousands of people to flee their homes, the United Nations says. Marta Ruedas, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, said on Wednesday that as many as 34,000 people have fled fierce clashes between the Sudanese government forces and rebels around the mountainous Jebel Marra area, which straddles South, Central and North Darfur states. "Initial reports indicate that about 19,000 civilians have fled into North Darfur state, and up to 15,000 into Central Darfur state, following fighting in the mountainous Jebel Marra region," Ruedas said. The UN official added that the vast majority of those fleeing the violence were women and children. Ruedas also noted that "while it is encouraging that some humanitarian assistance is being provided, clearly much more is needed." The violence-hit region is considered as a stronghold of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA-AW), which has been battling the government in Khartoum since 2003. The fresh clashes come after several months of relative calm in the restive region following Khartoum's announcement of a ceasefire late last year. The truce was extended for a month on New Year's Eve. The two sides have accused each other of provocation and initiating the clashes. Sudan's government forces have said that they are committed to the truce and have only responded to attacks by rebels. This is while the SLA-AW claim to have repelled several attacks by the government soldiers who tried to fight their way into Jebel Marra. Meanwhile, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused the Sudanese government troops and pro-Khartoum militia of using "rape as a weapon of war" in previous battles in Darfur in 2014 and 2015. "The pattern, scale, and frequency of rape suggests that Sudan's security forces have adopted this sickeningly cruel practice as a weapon of war," HRW's Africa Director Daniel Bekele said on Wednesday. Khartoum is yet to comment on the recent accusations. Darfur has been the scene of violence since 2003, when rebels took up arms against the government in Khartoum. There has also been tribal fighting in the region. The United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) was launched in 2007 in a bid to protect civilians and restore stability to the restive region. The UN estimates that the violence in Darfur has so far killed some 300,000 people. Khartoum, however disputes the figure, estimating the death toll to be no more than 10,000. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US slams Taiwanese president for S China Sea trip Iran Press TV Wed Jan 27, 2016 3:54PM The US has sharply criticized Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou's planned trip to the Taiwanese-held island of Itu Aba in the disputed South China Sea, saying it is "extremely unhelpful" and won't do anything to resolve disputes over the waterway. Ma's office announced Wednesday that the president, who will step down in May, would fly to Itu Aba Island, also known as Taiping, on Thursday to offer Chinese New Year wishes to the residents there. The one-day visit, however, drew criticism from the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the de facto US embassy in Taipei in the absence of formal diplomatic ties. "We are disappointed that President Ma Ying-jeou plans to travel to Taiping Island," AIT spokeswoman Sonia Urbom told Reuters in an email. "Such an action is extremely unhelpful and does not contribute to the peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea," she added. Urbom further noted that Washington wanted Taipei and all sea claimants to lower tensions, instead of taking actions that could raise them. Itu Aba lies in the Spratly archipelago, which is comprised of more than a hundred islands, reefs and atoll. Taiwan has just finished a $100 million port upgrade in the island. It has also built a new lighthouse on Itu Aba, which has its own airstrip, a hospital and fresh water. There are about 600 people living on the 46 hectares (110 acres) island, most of whom are military, coast guard and support personnel. Both Taiwan and China claim most of the South China Sea, which routes more than $5 trillion worth of commercial shipping each year. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei are other claimants. China's construction of seven artificial islands in the sea has been heavily criticized by Washington, which accuses Beijing of a "land reclamation program" to build up to 800 hectares (2,000 acres) of artificial islands. On his trip to Beijing, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that America and China need to find a way to ease tensions in the sea. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemen retaliatory shelling attack kills Saudi trooper Iran Press TV Wed Jan 27, 2016 11:14AM At least one Saudi trooper has been killed in a retaliatory shelling attack by Yemeni army soldiers and allied forces against a border guard station in the kingdom's southwestern border region of Jizan. An unnamed spokesman for Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry announced on Wednesday that the border guard was killed on Tuesday afternoon after "heavy firing from inside Yemeni territory" targeted the station in the southern al-Harath district of Jizan, Arabic-language Okaz daily newspaper reported. The official identified the guard as Ali bin Mohammed Yahya Sharahili, but did not provide any further details about the extent of damage and other possible casualties. The development came on the same day that Yemeni army soldiers, backed by fighters from Popular Committees, targeted two Saudi troopers in al-Tabba Ramazeh military camp in Jizan. Additionally, Yemeni army soldiers and allied forces fired a barrage of artillery rounds and rockets at al-Khoba, al-Khashal, Jahfan and several other districts of Jizan. However, there were no immediate reports of casualties and damage. Also on Wednesday, Saudi military aircraft carried out a number of airstrikes against various regions across Yemen. At least four fighters from the Houthi Ansarullah movement lost their lives when Saudi warplanes bombarded al-Sabra district of the southwestern Yemeni province of Ibb, located 194 kilometers (121 miles) south of the capital, Sana'a. A woman also sustained injuries when a Saudi aerial attack struck a residential neighborhood in Razih district of the northwestern province of Sa'ada. Yemen has been under military attacks by Saudi Arabia since late March last year. The Saudi military strikes were launched to supposedly undermine the Ansarullah movement and bring fugitive former president, Abd Rabbu Mansur Hadi, back to power. At least 8,278 people, among them 2,236 children, have reportedly been killed and 16,015 others injured, since March 2015. The strikes have also taken a heavy toll on the impoverished country's facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, and factories. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Five killed in fresh US drone strike in eastern Afghanistan Iran Press TV Wed Jan 27, 2016 5:38AM At least five people have lost their lives when US military forces launched a fresh drone strike in Afghanistan's troubled eastern province of Nangarhar. Attaullah Khogyani, the spokesman for the provincial governor, said on Tuesday that the aerial assault struck Achin district of the province, which is located 120 kilometers (74 miles) east of the Afghan capital, Kabul, killing five members of the Taliban militant group. He added that a Taliban militant commander, identified as Qari Hidayatullah, was killed in the airstrike. The attack came only two days after US forces carried out a drone strike in Dih Bala district of the same Afghan province, killing 25 members of the Daesh Takfiri militant group. On January 22, ten people were also killed in a US drone attack in Nangarhar Province, which has seen a rise in the presence of Daesh militants over the past months. A US drone strike in the Achin district of the province had claimed the lives of three people three days earlier. Local officials said a Daesh militant commander, identified as Qari Sajjad, and two of his comrades were killed in the airstrike. The CIA spy agency regularly uses drones for airstrikes and spying missions in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt near the Afghan border. Washington has also been conducting targeted killings through remotely-controlled armed drones in Somalia and Yemen. The United States says the airstrikes only target members of al-Qaeda and other militants, but according to local officials and witnesses, civilians have been the main victims of the attacks in most cases. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address International Court To Probe 2008 Georgia-Russia Conflict For Alleged War Crimes January 27, 2016 by RFE/RL International Criminal Court (ICC) judges have authorized prosecutors to open an investigation into alleged war crimes committed "in and around South Ossetia" during 2008 when Russia fought a brief war against Georgia over the breakaway region. In a January 27 statement, the judges said there were grounds to believe that "crimes against humanity" were committed from July 1 through October 10, 2008 -- including the time of the conflict, which led to Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and another breakaway Georgian region, Abkhazia, as sovereign states. The investigation will be the first by the ICC to examine a conflict outside of Africa. Russia has maintained troops in South Ossetia and Abkhazia since the five-day war in August 2008 against Georgia, which at the time was led by President Mikheil Saakashvili, a vocal Kremlin critic whose efforts to bring Georgia into NATO rattled Moscow. The ICC statement said the alleged crimes included "murder, forcible transfer of population and persecution, and war crimes, such as attacks against the civilian population, willful killing, [and] intentionally directing attacks against peacekeepers." It said it received "the representations by or on behalf of 6,335 victims on this matter" on December 4. The three-judge ICC panel's January 27 decision noted allegations of war crimes by Georgian, South Ossetian, and Russian forces. ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda asked for a green light for an investigation in October, after finding that up to 113 ethnic Georgian civilians had been killed and up to 18,500 victimized in a "forcible displacement campaign" run by self-proclaimed authorities in South Ossetia, a mainly Russian-speaking region. ICC prosecutors estimate "that the ethnic Georgian population living in the conflict zone was reduced by at least 75 percent." Bensouda also said in October that opposing Georgian and South Ossetian forces appeared to have killed 12 peacekeepers, both Russian and Georgian, while Georgian forces had attacked a medical facility. The ICC panel said that a "campaign of violence against ethnic Georgians by South Ossetian forces" warranted an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity. The judges noted that "there is sufficient indication" that Russia "exercised overall control over the South Ossetian forces," meaning that "the period before the direct intervention of Russian forces may be seen as an international armed conflict." They added, however, that this is "irrelevant at the present stage" because "the war crimes under consideration exist equally in international and non-international armed conflicts." Saakashvili, a pro-Western leader who established close ties with the United States and the EU in a bid to diminish Moscow's influence on his country, launched an offensive to reclaim South Ossetia on the night of August 7-8, 2008. He says Tbilisi was provoked by Russia and the separatists. Russia responded with a counteroffensive in which its forces routed the Georgian military and swept beyond South Ossetia, which Tbilisi has not controlled since 1990, and deep into Georgian territory before withdrawing. Only a handful of countries have recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which comprise around 20 percent of Georgian territory, and Moscow's backing of the regions has drawn broad international condemnation. The ICC is currently considering whether to open an investigation into crimes committed in Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists have battled Kyiv's forces in the east of the country in a war that has killed more than 9,000 since April 2014. Russia is not a party to the ICC, which has been criticized for launching investigations only in Africa since it was established 13 years ago. With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and AP Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/icc-to-probe-georgia- russia-war-war-crimes/27515135.html Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Watchdog Says Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan Among World's Most Corrupt January 27, 2016 by Pete Baumgartner An international monitoring group says people around the world demonstrated to governments in 2015 that they must become more transparent and tackle the large-scale corruption that continues to plague so many countries and hinder their development. In its 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released on January 27, Transparency International ranked 168 countries based on perceived levels of public-sector corruption, with Denmark edging out Finland to win the title as the least corrupt country in the world and Somalia and North Korea being declared the most corrupt. The high levels of corruption in Afghanistan -- which was ranked 166th -- Iraq (161st), Turkmenistan (156th), and Uzbekistan (153rd) placed them all near the bottom of the index. Central Asian countries as a whole did poorly, with Tajikistan tying with Nigeria for 136th place and Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan seen as equally corrupt and listed 123rd on the index. "All five countries of Central Asia areat the bottom of the CPI table," said Svetlana Savitskaya, Transparency International's regional coordinator for the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Europe and Central Asia, told RFE/RL. "[The low score] is a signal that corruption is endemic, it is deeply ingrained, and it has a systemic nature [in Central Asia]," she said. Savitskaya said there have been no big changes or improvement in corruption levels in any of the Central Asian countries since 2012, saying the situation is one of "stagnation all over the region." She said the situation is similar in several other former Soviet republics such as Russia (119th), Ukraine (130th), Moldova (103rd), Armenia (95th), and Azerbaijan (119th). "If you analyze what is going on as far as anticorruption reforms [in Ukraine], not so much is going on," Savitskaya said. "The political will is pretty weak -- the government doesn't demonstrate that it is so committed to perform well on [taking] anticorruption [actions]." Savitskaya said Transparency International (TI) has not seen any positive changes in Russia in recent years, even though the government has declared that it is trying to fight corruption. "[Russian authorities] continue to limit space for civil society; they continue to press nongovernmental organizations including [Transparency International Russia]; to exert pressure on investigative journalists, on independent media," she said. Savitskaya said Transparency International "has not registered any tangible changes [in Russia regarding corruption] when you speak to ordinary citizens they don't sense any positive change yet." She said Belarus (107th) recently adopted a new anticorruption law which envisages regulations on conflicts of interest, public officials making income and asset declarations, and the participation of civil society in anticorruption efforts. "It will be interesting to see how this will materialize in real life because this country doesn't have any freedoms like political or civic liberties; it doesn't have independent mediaand these things are very important for qualitative anticorruption work," Savitskaya said. Corruption is currently one of the leading topics in Moldova, which is embroiled in a political crisis due to the disappearance of more than $1 billion from state banks and numerous reports of corruption among the country's political leaders and oligarchs. TI's office in the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, said in a statement that "as never before, the link between corruption and state capture has become visible." It added that there has been a delay in the approval of several laws addressing "the system of integrity and the failure in taking a prompt action against those responsible for overseeing the security of the banking sector." Corruption Perceptions Index (Click On Each Country To See Its Score) Source: Transparency International) Turning to the Caucasus, Savitskaya said "Georgia (ranked 48th on the CPI) as usual is the champion, it is the best performer of all in the whole region." She added that there has been no change in Azerbaijan's score and that Armenia had actually gone down from 2014 to 2015. Savitskaya pointed out that "in most of the countries of the former Soviet Union Belarus, Moldova, and [those in] Central Asia there exists this nexus, this link between political parties and businesses is so strong [and] which causes huge political corruption." The Transparency International report says that "a failure to tackle corruption is feeding ongoing vicious conflicts" in Afghanistan (186th) and Pakistan (117th). It points out that the setting up of anticorruption commissions in these countries and others in the region is a good first step, but such efforts are often undermined by "political interference and inadequate resources." Iran is in a stagnant position (130th) and Iraq checks in as one of the 10 worst countries on the Corruption Perception Index (161st). Mass public demonstrations in several Iraqi cities in 2015 resulted in pledges by Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi to reduce government largesse and to implement several other reforms, but the actions thus far seem to have not satisfied the people or some important religious leaders. A minimum of three opinion polls among residents of a country on their perception of public corruption is needed for Transparency International to secure a "score" for a country on the Corruption Perception Index. As the report points out, no country came close to achieving a perfect score, and it lists a string of corruption scandals that occurred in Denmark -- considered the world's least corrupt country -- and fellow upstanding countries Finland, Sweden, and Norway. The report says the way to fight corruption is to attack graft within politics and to reform a country's financial sector. But it points out that these things are impossible unless a country's civil society and the media are "genuinely free" -- preconditions that are unfortunately missing in many of the countries in RFE/RL's broadcasting regions. Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/watchdog-says-afghanistan- turkmenistan-uzbekistan-iraq-among-worlds-corrupt/27513892.html Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Anti-Taliban Turboprops: Kabul Adds A-29s to Air Force Sputnik News 16:01 27.01.2016 The A-29 turboprop attack aircraft may play an important role in helping the Afghan Army destroy the Taliban, according to the military news website warisboring.com. Despite having some hurdles to overcome, the Afghan Air Force's use of A-29 turboprop attack aircraft may add significantly to the country's military getting the better of the Taliban, journalist Joseph Trevithick wrote in an article for the military news website warisboring.com. He recalled that four such planes touched down at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan on January 15, in an event that Trevithick touted as a "major milestone." He also recalled that the A-29, a version of the Embraer EMB-314 Super Tucano, can be described as a "light, flexible turboprop that serves as a trainer and supports troops on the ground." In this context, Trevithick quoted US Air Force Colonel Michael Pietrucha as saying that light-attack planes like the A-29 are especially relevant when it comes to "counter-insurgent warfare." "The A-29 is relatively easy to maintain, rugged, massively fuel efficient compared to jets, and has pretty decent endurance," Pietrucha said. Touching on the plane's characteristics, Trevithick in turn said that the single-engine Super Tucano has a maximum speed of about 370 miles per hour and a range of almost 700 miles while carrying more than 3,000 pounds of weaponry. "The plane has a 50-caliber machine gun in each wing and can carry a variety of bombs, rockets and gun pods. To help spot targets, the aircraft have powerful cameras that work in poor weather or at night," Trevithick said. He added that the deployment of this "very good plane" in Afghanistan is being done just in time, given that the US-led coalition in the country "draws down", and "the aerial support it provides to Kabul's forces will eventually leave as well." In this vein, Trevithick cited an Afghan air force public affairs officer, referred to only as Col. Bahadur, as saying that the A-19 "will destroy the centers of enemies in the country," and that the plane will also "provide security and combat support from the ground units in ground operation." "With the new A-29s, the Afghan air force hopes to take an important step toward plugging this dangerous gap," Trevithick pointed out. Paradoxically the biggest problem pertaining to using the A-29 planes against Taliban militants is the Afghan Air Force itself, according to Trevithick. He recalled that despite Kabul's air arm numbering about 6,700 people, the service only had around 160 trained pilots by December 2015. Again, Trevithick quoted Colonel Michael Pietrucha as saying that "the biggest challenge will be finding and training individuals with sufficient education to build a modern air force, pretty much from the ground up." Another trouble is maintaining the planes, Trevithick said, adding that the Pentagon has repeatedly warned of "the inability of Afghan mechanics to keep various types of equipment running due to a lack of spare parts, poor training and other complications." He concluded by saying that despite a spate of problems, Kabul should be quick about putting the A-29 aircraft into service. "With the Taliban stepping up their attacks on major urban centers like Kunduz and a rare winter offensive in progress, the A-29s will have to be ready to go consistently to have any serious impact on the fighting," Trevithick said. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Japan Considers Lavrov's Remarks on Southern Kurils 'Unacceptable' Sputnik News 08:55 27.01.2016(updated 10:31 27.01.2016) The Japanese government considers remarks made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the territorial issue between the two countries "unacceptable," Japan's Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Hagiuda said Wednesday. TOKYO (Sputnik) On Tuesday, Lavrov said that Russia separates its territorial dispute with Japan and the peace treaty issue. He noted that SovietJapanese Joint Declaration of 1956 prioritizes the signing of the peace treaty independently of the settlement of the controversy over the islands. "The statements of the Russian side are absolutely unacceptable," Hagiuda told reporters. He stressed that Japan's policy to strengthen its political dialogue with Russia, including with respect to the Kuril Islands issue, remains unchanged. Japan and Russia never signed a permanent peace treaty after the end of World War II because of a disagreement over four islands. In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held bilateral talks on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, agreeing to step up negotiations on a mutually acceptable solution to their countries' territorial dispute. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US to Deploy Newest Missile Attack Drones in South Korea Sputnik News 07:43 27.01.2016(updated 08:10 27.01.2016) The United States intends to deploy in South Korea the newest MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones, that can not only conduct reconnaissance flights, but also missile attacks, a South Korean news outlet reported Wednesday. TOKYO (Sputnik) According to the Chosun Ilbo, citing a US military source, deployment of Gray Eagle unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), that are superior in combat characteristics to drones used in Iraq and Afghanistan, is scheduled for July. Equipped with night vision cameras, they can make flights lasting up to 30 hours, and are designed to monitor the areas along the demilitarized zone separating South and North Korea. With the new drones the US and South Korean armed forces will be able to strike helicopters, as well as enemy's tank within distance of about 4,9 miles. For that purpose, each vehicle is equipped with four anti-tank missiles "Hellfire", four glide bombs GBU-44/B, and also can be equipped with air-to-air missiles "Stringer," according to the source. The United States began a new strategic deployment of weapons in South Korea, following a hydrogen bomb test announced earlier in the month by Pyongyang. The United States has already deployed a B-52 strategic bomber capable of carrying nuclear cruise missiles and up to 31 metric tons of bombs to South Korea. On January 6, Pyongyang claimed it had carried out its first hydrogen bomb test, triggering condemnation from the international community which denounced the test as provocative and undermining stability in the region. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Update: air strikes in Iraq and Syria 27 January 2016 British forces have continued to conduct air operations in the fight against Daesh Latest update Daesh terrorists in both Syria and Iraq have been repeatedly struck by numerous Royal Air Force attacks over recent days. On Wednesday 20 January Typhoon FGR4s and Tornado GR4s provided close air support to Iraqi ground forces in and near Ramadi. Four successful attacks were conducted using Paveway IV guided bombs, striking two Daesh-held buildings, a group of extremists, and an armoured personnel carrier which was being converted into a large truck-bomb. The latter attack also detonated the stockpile of explosives close by. A Typhoon mission also provided support to Iraqi troops near Fallujah, hitting a terrorist mortar position with a Paveway IV. The following day, a pair of Typhoons patrolling Ramadi and Haditha, delivered four Paveway attacks on three Daesh strongpoints and a further explosives stockpile. Further north, a Tornado flight used a pair of Paveway IVs to destroy a terrorist fighting position and a mortar team near Qayyarah. On Friday 22 January, Typhoons worked closely with another coalition aircraft to target a group of terrorists concealed beneath trees, scoring a direct hit with a Paveway. A Typhoon mission on Sunday 24 January operating near Ramadi, identified an anti-aircraft gun and ammunition store and attacked with two Paveways which destroyed both targets. The Typhoons then switched their focus to a network of Daesh trenches located near Habbaniyah, where they were joined by a pair of Tornados. The two RAF aircraft conducted six attacks with Paveways on the trench positions and a bunker. Tornado GR4s also patrolled south-east of Mosul, where they struck three terrorist-held buildings. A further Typhoon mission dropped six Paveways on a terrorist command compound north-west of Ramadi. Meanwhile in Syria, Tornados used Brimstone missiles to successfully attack three mobile cranes, being used by Daesh to repair damage from coalition air strikes. Monday 25 January saw a further two cranes destroyed by Brimstones, south-west of Raqqa, whilst a Reaper remotely piloted aircraft hit a Daesh position with a Hellfire missile, just on the Syrian side of the border. In northern Iraq, Tornado GR4s bombed a mortar position and a sniper team which had opened fire on Kurdish forces advancing south of Sinjar. Previous air strikes 1 January: An RAF Reaper supported coalition air strikes in Ramadi, and on 2 January, another Reaper used a Hellfire missile to destroy a mortar position near Fallujah. 3 January: A busy day for RAF aircraft: Typhoons delivered four successful attacks in Ramadi against terrorist positions, including a mortar team. A second Typhoon mission over Ramadi conducted no less than six attacks, accounting for five machine-guns and a sniper position. Near Haditha, Tornados destroyed a truck-bomb, while a Reaper used Hellfires against two armed pick-up trucks and a group of terrorist fighters. Over northern Iraq, two more flights of Tornado GR4s successfully attacked a total of two mortar and four machine-gun positions. Daesh terrorists have suffered further losses following intensive Royal Air Force strikes as part of the coalition's air campaign over Iraq and Syria. 4 January: A pair of RAF Typhoon FGR4s operated over northern Iraq and used Paveway IV precision guided bombs to attack eight terrorist mortar and rocket positions. Meanwhile, Tornado GR4s provided close air support to the Iraqi army as they continue their operations to eliminate the remaining terrorist fighters in and around Ramadi. When an Iraqi unit came under rocket-propelled grenade and mortar fire from several Daesh-held buildings, the GR4s conducted a very accurate attack on all four buildings using Paveway IVs. The Tornados were tasked to deal with a group of terrorists who were preparing for a counter-attack. Despite this being a difficult target for most weapons, the GR4s were able to score a direct hit with a Brimstone missile. An RAF Reaper was also patrolling over Ramadi it provided surveillance support for three air strikes by coalition fast jets, and also conducted two attacks using its own weapons, employing a GBU-12 laser guided bomb against a Daesh machine-gun team, and destroyed two terrorist trucks with a single Hellfire missile. On Monday evening, a Tornado patrol, supported as ever by a Voyager air refuelling tanker, used a Paveway IV to strike a Daesh-held building near Mosul. 5 January: RAF Typhoon patrols over Ramadi continued, they used Paveways to destroy two terrorist machine-gun positions, as well as an anti-aircraft gun that had opened fire on an Iraqi Air Force helicopter. Near Haditha, Reapers provided close air support to Iraqi security forces as Daesh attempted to mount an attack on them Hellfire missiles and a GBU-12 were used against two armed pick-up trucks, two machine-gun teams and groups of terrorist fighters. In the area around Mosul, Tornado GR4s hit two Daesh rocket teams. 6 January: Following their loss of control of key areas in Ramadi, Daesh extremists attempted to mount attacks against Iraqi ground forces near Haditha. Coalition aircraft provided extensive close air support to Iraqi troops, and a pair of RAF Tornado GR4s used two Paveway IV bombs in attacks on with an Iraqi terrorists who were engaged in close combat unit. The Typhoons then flew south to Ramadi, where operations continued as the Iraqis sought to eliminate those Daesh positions that remain in the city. Working closely with other coalition aircraft, the Typhoons conducted four Paveway attacks, destroying two machine-gun positions and two armoured personnel carriers. In northern Iraq, Tornado GR4s supported Kurdish forces; south of Sinjar, a Paveway IV destroyed a terrorist team manning rocket launchers, while near Mosul, three fighting positions and three accommodation blocks used by Daesh were destroyed by six Paveways. Later in the day, Typhoons were once again over Ramadi, where they struck two terrorist positions, including a heavy machine-gun team that was firing on Iraqi troops. 7 January: Operations over Ramadi continued with Typhoons delivering six successful Paveway IV attacks on Daesh positions, including two more machine-gun teams. In the north, the Tornados were likewise again patrolling over Mosul and Kisik, and these missions used Paveways against a group of extremists and a rocket position. 8 January: Tornado GR4s conducted two more Paveway attacks near Mosul, striking rocket and machine-gun teams. 10 January: The focus turned to a series of targets inside Syria. Near Raqqa, a pair of Tornados bombed a pair of Daesh-held buildings, one of which was a confirmed command and control centre, and used a Brimstone missile to destroy a supply truck. A second pair of GR4s dropped four Paveway IVs on a tunnel complex, again near Raqqa, whilst a Reaper engaged a terrorist position with a Hellfire missile. During the evening, a further Tornado flight and a Reaper used a combination of Brimstone and Hellfire missiles to attack a number of mobile cranes brought in by Daesh to attempt to repair the severe damage inflicted by previous RAF and coalition air strikes on the Omar oil field. 11 January: A milestone was passed on Monday morning when an RAF Reaper flew the 1,000th sortie by the type since they were committed to operations against Daesh in October 2014. Iraqi ground forces have made repeated successful advances against the Daesh terrorist network, with recent major successes at Sinjar and Ramadi. Mosul remains the largest Iraqi town held by the terrorists, and they have concentrated much of their command and control functions within the city. Patient intelligence assessment allowed a walled compound in the northern part of Mosul to be identified as a major headquarters of the Daesh security organisation, which is responsible for terrorising the civilian population and indeed demoralised elements of their own membership into compliance, and is thus associated with many of the terrorists' worst atrocities inside Syria and Iraq. Very careful planning allowed three key targets within the compound to be identified, and an attack carefully planned to minimise any risks to civilians in Mosul. 11 January: RAF aircraft have also continued very active air operations against Daesh targets inside Syria. A Reaper identified a terrorist check point one of the methods used by Daesh to attempt to impose their will on the civilian population and successfully attacked it using a Hellfire missile. 12 January: Reapers maintained surveillance over the oilfields in eastern Syria which have been targeted by coalition air strikes, including by the RAF, to deny Daesh the ability to use the oil to finance their operations. The Reapers identified a mechanical excavator which was being used to attempt repairs, and an oil pump which had evidently been brought back on line, and destroyed both with Hellfire missiles. In north-eastern Syria, Tornado GR4s meanwhile patrolled in the area of Al Hasakah, where they used Paveway IVs to strike two Daesh-held strongpoints. While other coalition aircraft conducted a series of strikes on a range of other key Daesh targets within Mosul, Typhoon FGR4s from RAF Akrotiri, supported by a Voyager air refuelling tanker, used Paveway IV guided bombs to attack the security headquarters compound, and initial analysis indicates that the attack was a success. 13 January: Typhoon FRG4s provided Iraqi ground forces with close air support as they continue to eliminate terrorist positions in and around Ramadi and conducted two successful attacks with Paveway IV guided bombs on Daesh machine-gun teams. Further north, south-west of Sinjar, Tornado GR4s supported operations by the Kurdish peshmerga and used a Paveway to destroy a machine-gun position which had opened fire on the troops. 14 January: Typhoons were again in action over Ramadi, where they delivered three Paveway IV attacks on a group of Daesh fighters preparing for an assault, a firing position and a mortar team. Tornados patrolled east of Mosul, where they used a pair of Paveways to attack a mortar position and an armed pick-up truck. Typhoons operated in the same area that night, and successfully bombed three buildings in a terrorist-held compound. 15 January: Tornado GR4s struck a Daesh barracks near Raqqa, with two Paveway IVs, also destroying one of their vehicles parked close by. 17 January: GR4s conducted two successful attacks with Brimstone missiles, destroying a vehicle near Tabbaqah, west of Raqqa, in Syria and a terrorist supply truck south of Sinjar in Iraq. 18 January: Typhoons operated over northern Iraq, working in close cooperation with Kurdish forces. North-west of Mosul, our aircraft identified two groups of armed terrorists and struck both with Paveway IV guided bombs. The Typhoons then flew west to the area south of Sinjar, the scene of a significant Kurdish victory in November, where they employed a third Paveway to destroy a concealed Daesh vehicle. 19 January: Typhoons and a Reaper patrolling over Ramadi to assist the Iraqi ground forces as they continue to clear the city of Daesh positions. The Typhoons conducted successful Paveway attacks on a terrorist mortar team and a group of Daesh armed with rocket-propelled grenades. The Reaper used its Hellfire missiles to destroy a group of terrorist vehicles, including a fuel tanker, a supply truck and a mechanical excavator used for constructing defensive positions. Meanwhile, a second Reaper was operating near Haditha, where it attacked a large truck-bomb, terrorist fighters and a supporting vehicle with three Hellfires. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Central African Republic: Security Council renews sanctions, stresses urgent need to end impunity 27 January 2016 Stressing the urgent need to end impunity in the Central African Republic (CAR) and bring to justice those who violate humanitarian law, the United Nations Security Council today renewed its sanctions against individuals or groups implicated in the country's ongoing sectarian tensions. In today's unanimously adopted resolution, the 15-member Council noted the critical importance of effectively implementing the sanctions regime as the situation in CAR "continues to constitute a treat to international peace and security in the region." Plagued by decades of instability and fighting, the country witnessed a resumption of violence in December 2012 when the mainly Muslim Seleka rebel coalition launched a series of attacks. A peace agreement was reached in January 2013, but the rebels seized the capital, Bangui, in March, forcing President Francois Bozize to flee. A transitional government was established to restore peace but the conflict took on increasingly sectarian overtones as the mainly Christian anti-Balaka movement took up arms and inter-communal clashes erupted again. The UN recently reported an upsurge in violence, in particular last September and October, committed by armed elements. In light of this, the Council today renewed a series of sanctions until 31 January 2017, calling on all UN Member States to maintain a series of measures, including an arms embargo, travel ban and asset freeze. It applies to those designated by the Sanctions Committee "as engaging in or providing support for acts that undermine the peace, stability or security of the CAR, including acts that threaten or impede the political transition process, or the stabilization and reconciliation process or that fuel violence." The resolution also emphasized that any sustainable solution to the crisis should be "CAR-owned," and called upon the transitional authorities to hold legislative elections and the second round of the presidential elections "in a free, fair, transparent and inclusive manner." According to the agreed time frame, the transition should be ending by the last day of March. Meanwhile, the UN Integrated Multidimensional Mission in CAR (MINUSCA) and the French forces were commended by the Security Council for their ongoing work to helping the current authorities improve the security situation, which remains fragile. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pentagon: US Forces in Libya; Looking for 'Worthy' Partners by Jeff Seldin January 27, 2016 U.S. military forces are on the ground in Libya looking for potential partners in what could soon be an expanded campaign against the Islamic State (IS) terror group. "There have been some U.S. forces in Libya trying to establish contact with forces on the ground," Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook told reporters Wednesday. "Get a better sense of who the players are, who might be worthy of U.S. support and support from some of our partners going forward." Cook described the U.S. contingent as a small group, adding they were in Libya "at the concurrence of Libyan officials." While not the biggest fighting force in Libya, IS has been growing stronger there in recent months, cementing its hold on the city of Sirte and surrounding areas. A U.S. official familiar with the intelligence recently told VOA about 500 key IS officials and fighters who left Syria and Iraq during the last several weeks of 2015 and moved to Libya in what appeared to be a calculated move. Western officials estimate IS may now have upwards of 5,000 fighters in Libya. "This is a situation that does cause us concern, and we're considering what our options might be going forward should that threat, ISIL, become an even bigger threat," Cook said, using an acronym for the terror group. Growing threat in Libya Cook's comments come just days after the top U.S. military officer warned the Islamic State in Libya posed a pressing regional threat. "You want to take decisive military action to check ISIL's expansion and at the same time you want to do it in such a way that's supportive of a long-term political process," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Joseph Dunford, told a small group of reporters Friday. "My perspective is we need to do more," Dunford added, saying key decisions about U.S. involvement in Libya could come within a matter of weeks. The U.S. has already shown a willingness to strike IS in Libya, killing Abu Nabil, believed to have been the top IS leader in Libya, in an airstrike this past November. Islamic State has long used Libya as a training ground for fighters destined for Syria and Iraq, but increasingly it has become part of the terror group's expansion plans. "It now is a destination," said Levantine Group security analyst Michael Horowitz. "The local branches of ISIS have spared no efforts to promote Libya as a land for jihad." Like in Syria and Iraq, the terror group has taken advantage of large tracts of ungoverned spaces as well as political turmoil. "The current fragmentation between and within rival Libyan political camps is also helping ISIS to grow by eroding trust and legitimacy in Libyan politics and politicians as a whole amongst a large swath of the Libyan population, especially the youth," according to Jason Pack, a researcher of Middle Eastern History at Cambridge University and president of Libya-Analysis.com. Despite the presence of U.S. special forces on the ground in Libya, the Pentagon rejected the notion of sending traditional U.S. forces, or "boots on the ground," to Libya. "Right now, that's not something that's under consideration," said spokesman Peter Cook. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address IS Radio Expands Reach in Afghanistan by Zabihullah Ghazi January 27, 2016 The Islamic State group in Afghanistan has added new programming to its radio broadcasts that the Afghan government has failed to take off the air. The IS-run FM station "Voice of the Caliphate," which broadcasts from a remote mobile transmitter on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, this week added Dari broadcasts to its lineup. Now it airs programs in Pashto and Dari, the two official languages of Afghanistan. "Voice of the Caliphate" was launched last year and has been airing a message of terror in a region where IS fighters are active. The broadcasts reach Jalalabad, capital of Nangarhar province, as well as nearby districts bordering Pakistan. The station has attracted a large audience in Jalalabad. Local residents say its broadcasts are different from others. "I have been listening to this radio for the last three months. It airs Quranic verses and sayings of the Holy Prophet," said Ahmadullah, 14, who joins a daily gathering of locals who listen to the IS radio. The broadcasts, which run from 7 to 9 p.m. daily, also include anti-government and anti-Taliban propaganda, invitations to join IS, threats against government employees, interviews with IS fighters, and religious chanting in Arabic, Pashto and Dari. "I have seen a few people who I don't know if they were joking or serious who said if the radio keeps broadcasting, they would join IS," Abdul Rahman, a civil society activist in Jalalabad, told VOA. 'They keep moving' At first, Afghan officials said they would shut down the IS broadcasts and claimed success. However, the provincial government now admits it has failed to hunt down the IS broadcasters. "They keep moving from one area to another. They are not staying in one place. That's the reason we have failed to take it off air," Attaullah Khogyani, the Nangarhar governor's spokesperson, told VOA. That does not please residents who fear IS's spreading influence. "The government should have stopped the radio, but it is unfortunate the government has failed in doing its job," said activist Rahman. IS has vowed that NATO and Afghan forces will not able to shut down "Voice of the Caliphate." Nangarhar has recently seen an increasing presence of IS fighters, who have launched multiple attacks on Afghan security forces in several districts. In an interview with VOA's Afghan service this week, U.S. Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said IS has become a threat to Afghanistan. "IS will be very hard to beat. They are growing not only in Afghanistan, but in Libya, Egypt and numerous other countries," McCain said. "We don't have a strategy that I believe will stop the growth of IS in Afghanistan." VOA's Noor Zahid and Ibrahim Nasar contributed to this report from Washington. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN Seeks $393 Million for Afghan Humanitarian Aid by Ayaz Gul January 27, 2016 The United Nations on Wednesday launched an appeal for $393 million in humanitarian assistance to conflict-torn Afghanistan this year to meet "the acute life-saving" needs of millions of vulnerable people across the country. Mark Bowden, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator, said Wednesday support related to food, health care, nutrition, safe water and sanitation will reach an estimated 3.5 million people under the 2016 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for Afghanistan. Bowden spoke while launching the appeal together with Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah in Kabul. Bowden said he anticipated an increase in conflict-driven humanitarian needs. "It is now one of the world's most long-running, protracted humanitarian crises, in which conflicts remain the main driver of humanitarian needs," he said. "Last year, violence led to more than 300,000 people fleeing their homes for safety. That's a 160 percent increase over the year before. This year we estimate that a quarter of a million people will flee their homes due to armed conflict," Bowden added. Taliban attacks There has been no let up in Taliban attacks in Afghanistan over the past year and the insurgency's advances have sparked concerns of increased bloodshed when the traditional spring fighting season begins in April. Bowden said Afghanistan is currently hosting an estimated 40,000 refugee families from neighboring Pakistan who fled the counterinsurgency army operations in the Pakistani border areas. Moreover, the powerful earthquake that struck the northeastern province of Badakhshan in October left an estimated 130,000 people in need of humanitarian assistance, in a country prone to natural disasters, he said. Donor nations Chief Executive Abdullah said the government is hopeful donor nations will match commitments of previous years to assist and support the needs of the Afghan community. Addressing Wednesday's event, German Ambassador to Afghanistan Markus Potzel warned, "It is essential that the most vulnerable Afghans receive appropriate life-saving assistance, quickly. If their needs are not met, Afghans will choose to migrate out of their country as a last resort." Afghanistan is one of the world's poorest countries, with high levels of poverty, a lack of livelihood and income generating opportunities, chronic health problems, and poor infrastructure contributing to its humanitarian challenges. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address S. Sudan Rebel Leader To Raise Peace Plan Issues at AU Summit by James Butty January 27, 2016 South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar is taking his campaign against President Salva Kiir's plan to create 28 states to the African Union Thursday. Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, secretary for foreign affairs of the SPLM-in Opposition, said Machar will attend the African Union summit in Addis Ababa from January 28-31 to urge the African leaders who are guarantors of the August peace agreement to tell President Salva Kiir to drop his creation of 28 states. "We wanted to make sure that the peace is implemented. We will be engaging with many leaders in Africa, especially the guarantors of the peace agreement. So most of the key guarantors of the peace agreement will be in the AU summit, and we will be engaging them to make sure that they pressure President Salva [Kiir] to revoke his creation of 28 states because the agreement is talking about 10 states only, not 28," Gatkuoth said. Creation of new states In a decree in October, Kirr announced the creation of 28 new states, up from the 10 previous ones. Kiir said his decision was guided by South Sudan's Transitional Constitution. He also said one purpose of the new states is to decentralize power, placing resources closer to the rural population while at the same time reducing the size of the national government. Rebels leaders have said the division of South Sudan into 28 states will bring about more community unrest because it takes away land from one tribal group and gives it to another. Machar, a vice president-designate in the country's soon-to-be formed national unity government, returned from the Ugandan capital, Kampala, Tuesday where he urged Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to tell the South Sudanese president to scrap his 28 states decision because it is hindering implementation of the peace agreement. Seeking new chapter Gatkuoth said Machar told the Ugandan leader that the rebels wanted to start a new chapter of peace and friendship, and also asked Museveni to continue to play the important role he has been playing in the peace process. "You know, if it is not because of President Museveni, Salva Kiir would not have signed the [August peace] agreement. If you recall, [President] Salva signed the agreement nine days after Dr. Riek Machar signed agreement in Addis Ababa," Gatkuoth said. Museveni sent Ugandan troops to South Sudan at the start of the conflict. Withdrawal of the troops had been a key demand of the rebels during negotiations to end the conflict. A panel of U.N. experts Tuesday released a report calling on the Security Council to impose sanctions on both Machar and Kiir for their roles in the country's civil war. Gatkuoth said Machar had no role in the violence cited in the UN report. "You definitely need to know that when the war started Dr. Riek was running for his life. He was almost killed, more than 11 ambushes on the way. Myself, I was captured and arrested, taken to court and tried accused of making a coup. But at the end the court of Salva Kiir acquitted us, declaring that there was no coup. So, Dr. Machar had no role in instigating this violence," Gatkuoth said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Cameroon Closes Border Markets After Boko Haram Attack by Moki Edwin Kindzeka January 27, 2016 Cameroon has closed most of its northern markets on the border with Nigeria after a series of bomb attacks Monday left at least 35 people dead and 70 wounded in the town of Bodo. The country's government spokesperson, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, said it was the 30th attack by suspected Boko Haram fighters on Cameroon since the start of the new year. Businessman Inoussa Yegie says shock and consternation has gripped the town of Bodo, where Monday's attack took place. He says it will take time for them to recover, in spite of the heavy deployment of troops. The 33-year-old says the decision by the government to close all border markets in their locality may backfire, especially now that Boko Haram fighters are recruiting young people to steal and seize money and goods from farmers and traders. Yegie says traders are becoming poorer because all their shops have been sealed. He says youths who use commercial motorcycles to transport goods and people from the market to supply towns in Nigeria no longer have jobs, and they may now be tempted to join Boko Haram fighters who promise them better lives. Bombers disguised as traders Midjiyawa Bakari, the governor of the far north region of Cameroon, says the decision to close markets on Cameroon's northern border with Nigeria until further notice was taken for security reasons because the four female suicide bombers who attacked Bodo were disguised as traders and hid explosives in bags of vegetables they pretended to sell. "The decision has been taken to close some markets in the border but people have been persisting to sell and to buy things. They should know that Boko Haram is looking for where people are gathering to do these attacks," he said. After Monday's attack, Cameroon soldiers launched raids on the Nigerian town of Achigashia, from where they believe the suicide bombers came. Cameroon's spokesperson Issa Tchiroma Bakary says 17 insurgents were killed in the operation. He says Cameroon has counted at least 30 attacks on its territory this year. "Faced with such harassment both un-grounded and unjustified, our defense and security forces have always retaliated leading the enemy to incur several setbacks that has considerably weakened the group and reduced it to mere acts of cowardice, especially suicide bombings, which have become its modus operandi," he said. Solidarity in fight against Boko Haram In Cameroon's capital, Yaounde, groups of people have been visiting and sympathizing with Bodo's elite. Ngufor Jacob, leader of Cameroon's university students association, says that by visiting with people from Bodo, his group shows solidarity with Cameroon and Nigerian forces fighting Boko Haram terrorism. "I came out to show solidarity with my brothers and sisters in the north who are suffering from the onslaughts of Boko Haram insurgents. I came out to show to the military that we are one, we are together. We may not have guns to join them in the north but they should know that we have them at heart. We are praying for them, we are supporting them," he said. Cameroon believes the militants have resorted to attacking mosques, markets, churches and palaces of traditional rulers because the terrorist group's firepower has been drastically reduced following attacks on their strongholds within the past two months by Cameroon and Nigerian troops. Boko Haram's six-year insurgency has killed more than 20,000 people and displaced close to 2.3 million, according to Amnesty International and the United Nations. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address ICC Authorizes Investigation Into 2008 Russia-Georgia Conflict by Isabela Cocoli January 27, 2016 International Criminal Court (ICC) judges have authorized an investigation into allegations that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed during the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict. A three-judge panel at the Hague-based court on Wednesday gave prosecutor Fatou Bensouda approval to investigate crimes allegedly committed in and around the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia in August 2008, by rebels possibly backed by Russian forces, as well as by Georgian forces. The ICC said in a statement that the alleged crimes included "crimes against humanity, such as murder, forcible transfer of population and persecution, and war crimes, such as attacks against the civilian population, willful killing, intentionally directing attacks against peacekeepers, destruction of property and pillaging allegedly committed in the context of an international armed conflict." This is the first such ICC inquiry outside of Africa and the second time an ICC prosecutor has attempted to examine the possibility that war crimes were committed during the brief conflict between Russia and Georgia. In 2010, then-ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo looked into the allegations, and both Georgian and Russian officials briefed the ICC about the events surrounding the 2008 war. Bensouda submitted her request to open an investigation into the Georgia situation last October. On August 7, 2008, Georgia's then-president Mikheil Saakashvili, who was backed by the West, ordered an offensive to reclaim South Ossetia. Russian forces quickly reacted, entering Georgia's territory. After winning the war, Russia officially recognized both South Ossetia and another breakaway Georgian region, Abkhazia, as independent states. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, several hundred people are believed to have died in the conflict, and more than 138,000 were temporarily displaced. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Candidates Complain About C.A.R. Poll Cancellation by Nick Long January 27, 2016 In the Central African Republic, the results of the parliamentary elections held on December 30 have been annulled and candidates will have to run again. The constitutional court Monday upheld the results of the first round of the presidential elections, but ruled there were too many irregularities in the parliamentary poll. In Bangui, the prime minister explained that the biggest irregularity in the poll was the lack of ballot papers. C.A.R.'s Prime Minister Mahamat Kamoun said in a media interview Wednesday that the country's polling stations were short of 500,000 ballot papers for the parliamentary elections on December 30. Kamoun was defending the Constitutional Court's decision to invalidate the result of those elections a decision that has not gone down well with candidates who thought they had won. Former government minister Ambroise Zawa was one of those candidates. "In my constituency," he said, adding, "we had ballot papers. I won with 82 percent of the votes and I deeply regret that the court has rejected the results and is telling us to stand again." "Who is going to pay our bill?" he asked, "when we're already elected." Zawa also says it's unfair that the first round of presidential elections was not cancelled, as there were many complaints about them as well. Journalist and commentator Eric Bondo rejects Zawa's claim that the court's decisions were inconsistent. He said the court was very clear, that as regards the presidential election, there was no proof shown of irregularities at particular polling stations, whereas in the parliamentary elections there was proof. For example, he said, there was no parliamentary vote at his local polling station. A spokesman for the national electoral authority, Julius Ngouade-Baba, told VOA the ballot papers had been printed at the last moment and there was no time to ensure they reached all the polling stations. Why the last minute rush? Ngouade-Baba says it's because they wanted to organize inclusive elections so they were very tolerant with the 1,000 or so candidates who didn't submit their candidatures on time. He said the time for submitting applications for the parliamentary elections is now over. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ma reiterates Taiping Island is an 'island,' not a 'rock' ROC Central News Agency 2016/01/28 21:45:13 Taipei, Jan. 28 (CNA) President Ma Ying-jeou () on Thursday reiterated that Taiping Island in the disputed South China Sea is an 'island,' not a 'rock', as he sought to solidify Taiwan's sovereignty claim over the island, after he visited it earlier in the day. Ma's description about Taiping Island came after the Philippines initiated a case against Beijing at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague, saying Taiping Island and other islands China claims are only rocks with no fresh water, no arable soil, and are unfit for human habitation so that no sovereignty claim can be made in territorial waters beyond 12 nautical miles of them. Earlier in the day, Ma said in a statement that the Philippines' description of Taiping Island is 'totally wrong' and has no scientific or factual basis. He pointed out that Taiping Island can support human habitation because it has high quality fresh ground water, as well as arable soil, not to mention plant life and animals. Ma's reiteration about Taiping Island was made in a news conference after he returned from the island. Several countries, including Taiwan, China, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam claim all or parts of the islands located in South China Sea. Taiping Island, which lies 1,600 kilometers south of Taiwan, is the largest natural island in the Spratly islands chain in the disputed sea. Taiwan has controlled it since 1946. In the news conference, Ma said that he had previously planned to visit Taiping Island last year to propose a road map for his South China Sea Peace Initiative, but for some reason he did not make it. Also on Thursday, Ma proposed the South China Sea Peace Initiative Roadmap, in which he called on all parties concerned to exercise self-restraint, set aside their territorial disputes, and settle disagreements through peaceful means and negotiations. Ma said that Taiping Island should be transformed into an island for peace and disaster-rescuing purposes, an island for ecology development and an island for carbon emission reductions. In the news conference, a video was played, showing Ma paid tribute to the coastguard personnel dispatched by Taiwan. The president said that paying such tribute to the coastguard officers stationed there ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday was one of the purposes of his visit. Mark C. Toner, Deputy Spokesperson, U.S. Department of State said earlier in the week that Washington was disappointed by Ma's then planned visit to Taiping Island. The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the de-facto embassy in Taiwan, said that Ma's move would not help resolve disputes in the region. But Ma on Thursday said that his trip was not provocative at all, and he simply used it as an opportunity to convey his peace initiative. 'I do not think that my visit will raise any political tensions in the region,' the president said. Ma said that the U.S. State Department has praised the South China Sea Peace Initiative he proposed last year and voiced support for the proposal, which calls for all claimants to jointly explore and share resources in the region, while maintaining their sovereignty claims. In addition to a rebuttal to the Philippines' claim, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Ma's visit to the Taiping Island was necessary at a time when China was engaged in a military buildup in the region. (By Tai Ya-chen and Frances Huang) enditem/cs NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ma reaches Taiping Island, proposes map for peace initiative ROC Central News Agency 2016/01/28 16:39:11 Taipei, Jan. 28 (CNA) President Ma Ying-jeou () landed on the Taiwan-administered Taiping Island in the South China Sea at around 11 a.m. Thursday and shortly after his arrival, made a speech in which he proposed a road map for his South China Sea peace initiative. As part of the road map, Ma said, all parties concerned should be included in a mechanism for talks so that they can cooperate on important issues in the region, according to a statement released by the Presidential Office that contained the full text of the president's speech. The mechanism should be 'a provisional arrangement of a practical nature,' and should not undermine the position of any party concerned, or hamper the reaching of a final agreement on the South China Sea disputes, Ma said. In the short term, all parties concerned should shelve their disputes, pledge to replace military confrontation with peaceful consultations, refrain from taking actions that might affect stability and peace in the South China Sea, and ensure the freedom and safety of navigation and flight through the region, Ma said. After building trust, the parties should negotiate codes of conduct regarding unexpected sea or air encounters in the South China Sea area, as well as the establishment of hotlines and other security mechanisms, the president said. In the mid term, all parties concerned should cooperate on a variety of issues, such as the conservation and management of living resources, the exploration of non-living resources, marine environmental protection and scientific research, crime prevention at sea, as well as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, Ma said. In the long term, Ma proposed establishing a mechanism for 'zonal development,' meaning that parties concerned could designate specific maritime areas for bilateral or multilateral development. Ma said the road map is based on a framework of three yeses and three noes: 'yes' to cooperation, sharing and pragmatism and 'no' to confrontation, monopolizing and intransigence. The proposal for the road map follows Ma's announcement of his South China Sea peace initiative on May 26 last year. The initiative calls on all parties concerned to reduce tension, increase dialogues, abide by international law, uphold the freedom of navigation and flight, maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea, and settle disputes peacefully. Several countries, including Taiwan, China, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam claim all or parts of the South China Sea. Ma was accompanied by officials and scholars on his trip to Taiping Island Thursday, the first such visit by a Republic of China president since Ma's predecessor, Chen Shui-bian (), went to the island in February 2008. No reporters were invited on the trip. The visit took place as the government moves to reinforce Taiwan's sovereignty claim over the island in the wake of China's buildup in the region and the Philippines' case against Beijing at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague. During his speech, Ma also rebutted a claim by the Philippines that Taiping Island has no fresh water, no arable soil and is unfit for human habitation, and therefore should not be described as an 'island,' but a 'rock,' in which case no soverignty claim can be made in territorial waters beyond 12 nautical miles. Ma said such statements are 'totally wrong' and have no basis in science or fact. He said Taiping Island, formed around 3 million years ago, is the only island in the Nanshas to have its own sources of potable water. Annual rainfall on the island reaches roughly 3,000 millimeters and the island has an abundance of natural vegetation, Ma noted. He said the government is working to transform Taiping Island 'into an island for peace and rescue operations, as well as an ecologically friendly and low-carbon island.' (By Hsieh Chia-chen and Christie Chen) ENDITEM/J NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S. 'disappointed' over Ma's Taiping Island visit ROC Central News Agency 2016/01/28 12:35:10 Washington, D.C., Jan. 27 (CNA) The United States government on Wednesday expressed its disappointment over a visit by President Ma Ying-jeou () to Taiping Island in the South China Sea, saying that such action is 'unhelpful' to resolving the dispute in the region. 'Frankly we're disappointed. We view such an action as unhelpful. And it does not contribute to the peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea,' Mark Toner, deputy spokesman of the U.S. State Department, said at a daily press briefing in response to a question about the U.S.'s view of Ma's visit. 'We urge Taiwan and all claimants to lower tensions and de-escalate tensions rather than taking actions that could possibly raise them,' said Toner, whose comments came after the United States' de-facto embassy in Taiwan expressed disappointment and called the visit 'extremely unhelpful.' When asked by a CNA reporter if it is fair for the U.S. to use the words 'disappointed' and 'unhelpful' to refer to Ma's visit when it did not use those words to describe China's land reclamation activities on other atolls in the region, Toner paused before saying that the U.S. disagrees with China's actions and also views them as unhelpful. 'We want to see a halt among all claimants to further land reclamation, construction of new facilities, militarization of outposts. All of that would help lower tensions and create space for a peaceful resolution,' he said. Toner did not directly reply to a follow-up question on whether Ma's visit will affect U.S.-Taiwan relations, saying only that the two sides have 'very strong relations' and that the U.S. looks forward to building stronger relations with Taiwan under Tsai Ing-wen, who was elected president on Jan. 16. As to whether the U.S. will make sure that Taiwan is invited to the table to participate in a diplomatic approach to the South China Sea disputes, Toner said he cannot speak to whether the U.S. will invite Taiwan to take part in any diplomatic conversations, but called the country a 'valued partner' with which the U.S. has strong dialogue. Meanwhile, the Philippine government issued a statement Thursday apparently in response to Ma's visit. 'We remind all parties concerned of our shared responsibility to refrain from actions that can increase tension in the South China Sea,' Philippine Foreign Ministry spokesman Charles Jose said in the statement. Ma landed on Taiping Island late Thursday morning after departing from Taiwan's southern county of Pingtung on board an Air Force C-130 transport plane for the 1,600-kilometer trip. It is the first such visit by a Republic of China (Taiwan) president since Ma's predecessor, Chen Shui-bian () went to the island in February 2008. The visit comes as the Taiwan government moves to reinforce Taiwan's sovereignty claim over the island in the wake of China's buildup in the region and the Philippines' case against Beijing at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague. The islands in the resource-rich South China Sea and their surrounding waters are fully or partially claimed by Taiwan, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. Taiping Island has been administrated by Taiwan since 1946. (By Rita Cheng and Christie Chen) ENDITEM/J NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S. Department of Defense Press Operations News Release No. NR-031-16 January 28, 2016 Statement by Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook on US-Russia Video Conference Discussing the Flight Safety Memorandum of Understanding The Department of Defense today held a video conference co-chaired by Acting Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs Elissa Slotkin and Joint Staff Director for Strategic Plans and Policy Lt. Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. with Russian Ministry of Defense counterparts to discuss ongoing implementation of the U.S.-Russia memorandum of understanding (MOU) on flight safety over Syrian airspace. The two sides discussed measures to enhance operational safety for counter-ISIL coalition and Russian military forces operating in Syria, including the means to avoid accidents and unintended confrontation between coalition and Russian forces whenever the two sides operate in close proximity. Today's meeting follows previous video conferences between the Department of Defense and the Russian Ministry of Defense in October 2015 to discuss the safety of coalition air operations in Syria. The conversation was constructive and the two sides agreed to continue safety discussions in this format in the future. http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/645700/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Southern Africa's food crisis in numbers* By Obi Anyadike, Africa Editor NAIROBI, 28 January 2016 (IRIN) - Southern Africa is facing the threat of extensive crop failures this year as a result of record low rainfall in a region in which 29 million people already don't have reliable access to enough affordable and nutritious food. "With little or no rain falling in many areas and the window for the planting of cereals closing fast or already closed in some countries, the outlook is alarming," the World Food Programme has warned. "The region is ill prepared for a shock of this magnitude, particularly since the last growing season was also affected by drought. This means depleted regional stocks, high food prices, and substantially increased numbers of food insecure people," the UN agency said. Southern Africa is feeling the impact of an intense El Nino that began last year. According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, continued below-average rainfall and high temperatures are likely to persist in 2016, with the food crisis lasting into 2017. The following are the worst-affected countries: South Africa The biggest victim of the drought. It's the region's main maize producer, but last year output fell 30 percent below the bumper 2014 season and it may have to import around 6 million tonnes. Planting of the 2016 cereal crop began later than normal due to delayed rains. Small-scale farmers have been hammered by the drought, with emergencies declared in five out of nine provinces, as well as areas of two other provinces. There have been reports of farmers committing suicide. Malawi The 2014/15 cereal harvest was 24 percent down on the five-year average. Currently, 2.8 million people are 'food insecure' (they lack access to food that's sufficient to lead healthy and active lives) out of a population of 16 million as a result of flooding and drought last year. Average maize prices were at a record high in December 2015. The government's $146-million Food Insecurity Response Plan is so far 48 percent funded. Zimbabwe The 2014/15 cereal harvest was 42 percent down on the five-year average. An estimated 1.5 million people are food insecure, with 600,000 in 'crisis' - meaning they are forced to skip meals, there are high rates of malnutrition, or have sold their livestock to make ends meet. A new vulnerability assessment is under way and the figures are likely to be even worse. Zimbabwe's $132-million drought response plan is 44 percent funded. Angola A drought that scorched Namibia spread into Angola's three southern provinces Cunene, Huila, and Cuando Cubango. Whereas Namibia is on top of its crisis, Angola, even though it is Africa's second largest oil producer, is not. In Cunene, 800,000 people 72 percent of the population have been hit by crop losses and livestock deaths, with child malnutrition rates beyond the emergency threshold of 15 percent. "The situation is worsened by insufficient resources, including human, logistical, critical nutritional and medical supplies, and funding," according to UN sources. Nationwide 1.25 million are at risk. Mozambique El Nino's climate impact splits the country in two in the north there has been flooding, in the south drought. More than 176,000 people are in crisis in the provinces of Gaza, Inhambane, Sofala, and Niassa, until at least the next harvest. A further 575,455 people are food insecure, especially in Zambezia, Maputo, and Niassa provinces. Around 50,300 people are receiving food assistance in Gaza and Sofala. Zambia Zambia has been an exporter of maize to the region, but last year's production was 21 percent down on 2014. Zambia's ample stocks enabled it to still export to neighbouring and needy Zimbabwe, but close to 800,000 Zambians are also at risk of food and livelihoods insecurity. Lesotho Some 650,000 people one third of the population do not have enough food. Some projections indicate the numbers affected could surpass 725,000. Water rationing is under way in several districts, impacting not just agriculture, but also industries, schools, and hospitals. Water shortages are increasing the likelihood of waterborne and livestock diseases. The government has committed $9.7 million towards a $36.5 million appeal. Madagascar Nearly 1.9 million people 46 percent of the population were "food insecure" in 2015, with 450,000 of them in crisis. The drought-hit southern regions of Androy, Anosy, and Atsimo Andrefana are struggling badly, with 380,000 people 30 percent of the population affected. Swaziland One of the countries least able to cope with crisis. Though nominally a low-middle income country, levels of stunting among children are historically around 31 percent. More than 201,000 people out of 1.1 million one fifth of the population are food insecure. Maize prices have increased by 66 percent in a country in which just under half of the population are unemployed, and which has the world's highest rate of HIV infection. Livestock have succumbed to the drought, and carcasses of cattle are now a common sight in the fields that used to feed them. Swaziland is ruled by an executive monarchy, with a reputation of lavish spending on white elephant projects. And yet its central bank has released only $75,000 for drought relief. Namibia The 2015 maize crop was 44 percent lower than 2014's (above-average) output. Around half of all dryland commercial farmers experienced total crop losses as a result of the drought and high temperatures. An estimated 370,316 people are food insecure and the target of a government drought relief programme. The Democratic Republic of Congo Fighting in the east of the county worsens DRC's food insecurity. Orientale, Equateur, South Kivu, and Katanga provinces are already at emergency levels. An estimated 6.6 million people face food shortages. oa/ag * The story has been amended to better define 'food insecurity' Theme (s): Aid Policy, Food Security, Natural Disasters, Copyright IRIN 2016 This material comes to you via IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations or its Member States. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China Coast Guard Vessels Patrol near Diaoyu Islands, Refuting Japan's Warning People's Daily Online By Zou Luxiao (People's Daily Online) 00:29, January 28, 2016 Four China Coast Guard vessels sailed within a 12-nautical-mile range of the Diaoyu Islands and patrolled there for about 2 hours in the morning of January 27, 2016, reported the Janpanese news agency Jiji Press. This is the third time that China's official ship patrolled the Diaoyu Islands within 12 nautical miles since 2016. According to Japan 11th Regional Coast Guard, they issued "warnings", asking the Chinese vessels to sail off immediately, but China Coast Guard refuted the warning, saying that "we do not accept the standpoint of Japan". China's State Oceanic Administration has confirmed on its website that China Coast Guard Vessel 2337, 2151, 2506, and 31239 were patrolling the Chinese territorial waters near Diaoyu Islands on Wednesday. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO weighing first talks with Russia in 2 years: Stoltenberg Iran Press TV Thu Jan 28, 2016 3:27PM NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says the western military alliance is discussing whether to hold first formal negotiations with Russia after ties between the two sides strained in 2014. "We are looking into the possibility of holding a NATO-Russia Council (NRC) meeting," Stoltenberg told a press conference in the Belgian capital city of Brussels on Thursday, adding that the time is ripe for such an event. "No final decision has been taken but we will also discuss that with the Russian delegation at NATO and then make a final decision on when to have such a meeting," the NATO chief further said. Stoltenberg did not elaborate on the timing of a possible NRC meeting, but it is widely expected to take place late next month after a meeting of NATO defense ministers, or in early March. The last NRC meeting was held in June 2014. Elsewhere in his remarks, Stoltenberg noted that NATO and Moscow needed transparency to avoid misunderstandings and incidents such as the recent downing of a Russian fighter jet on the Syrian soil by Turkey, a NATO member state. On November 24, 2015, Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24M Fencer aircraft with two pilots aboard, claiming the fighter jet had repeatedly violated the Turkish airspace. Moscow, however, dismissed Ankara's claims, stressing that the plane was brought down in Syrian airspace, where Russia has been conducting operations against Takfiri terrorists since late September last year upon a request by the Damascus government. Reacting Stoltenberg's comments, Russia's Federation Council Deputy Speaker Ilyas Umakhano welcomed the initiative for a NATO meeting with Moscow. Relations between Russia and NATO specially soured after Crimea separated from Ukraine and rejoined the Russian Federation following a referendum in March 2014. The military alliance ended all practical cooperation with Russia over the ensuing crisis in Ukraine in April 2014. The United States and its European allies accuse Moscow of destabilizing Ukraine and have imposed a number of sanctions against Russian and pro-Russia figures. Moscow, however, rejects having a hand in the Ukrainian crisis. Russia has repeatedly slammed NATO's military buildup near its borders, saying such a move poses a threat to both regional and international peace. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemenis down Saudi jet, destroy warships Iran Press TV Thu Jan 28, 2016 2:17PM Yemen's army forces, backed by Houthi Ansarullah fighters, have downed a Saudi fighter jet and destroyed a number of its gunboats in retaliation for Riyadh's incessant airstrikes against its impoverished neighbor. Military sources told Yemen's official Saba' Net agency that the army brigades downed a Saudi warplane in the northern Yemeni province of Sa'ada, with no immediate reports on the fate of crew and location of the incident. The warplane was pounding residential areas in Sa'ada before being downed by a surface-to-air missile. The Yemeni army said its forces also targeted three Saudi warships that were sailing off the port of al-Mokha, in the southern province of Tai'zz. It said in a statement the attack was carried out from al-Mukhatam region near Mokha, adding that two more Saudi vessels escaped the scene after receiving partial damage. Yemenis also launched rocket attacks at the Saudi military positions south of the country, killing one Saudi soldier and three Qatari servicemen in al-Makhruq military base in the province of Najran. Attacks by Houthis and allies on Saudi targets came hours after Riyadh carried out another round of deadly bombardments across Yemen, with reports suggesting that at least five civilians were killed in the city of Maswar in the northern province of Amran. Saba' Net said huge losses were also inflicted on the properties of local residents. Yemen has been under incessant air strikes by Saudi Arabia since late March, 2015 with health sources estimating that more than 8,300 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been displaced in the attacks. The aggression is meant to undermine the Houthis and restore power to fugitive former president Abd Rabbuha Mansour Hadi. A bomb on Thursday exploded near the residence of Hadi in the southern port city of Aden, killing 12 people and injuring 12 others. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian Oil Execs Agree To Talk With OPEC About Boosting Prices January 28, 2016 by RFE/RL Russian oil executives and energy officials decided this week they should talk to Saudi Arabia and the OPEC oil cartel about cutting output to boost world oil prices, the head of Russia's pipeline monopoly said on January 27. The comments by Nikolai Tokarev, head of Transneft, gave the strongest indication to date of possible cooperation between the cartel and Russia, the top non-OPEC oil producer, and helped spur a sharp rise of more than 5 percent in world oil prices. A vice president of Lukoil, Russia's No. 2 oil producer, said earlier this week that Moscow should start talking to OPEC. Tokarev said oil executives and government officials met in Moscow on January 26 and reached the conclusion that talks with OPEC were needed to shore up oil prices. 'At the meeting, there was discussion in particular about the oil price and what steps we should take collectively to change the situation for the better, including negotiations within the framework of OPEC as a whole, and bilaterally,' he said. 'The main initiative is being shown by, of course, our Saudi partners. They are the main negotiators. That means that they are the ones we need to discuss this with first of all.' He said Russia was willing to discuss output cuts with OPEC, calling that 'one of the levers or mechanisms that would allow us to in some way balance the oil price.' The oil executives meeting in Moscow, moreover, discussed the technical feasibility of cutting production in Russia, he said, and agreed that because oil field activities are frozen in during the winter, production cuts would only be possible in the summer. A Russian Energy Ministry representative confirmed to Reuters that possible coordination with OPEC had been discussed at the meeting, which the ministry hosted. 'The meeting participants discussed the possibility of coordination of actions with OPEC members amid unfavorable market conditions on the global oil market,' the official said. Premium crude prices have fallen from around $115 a barrel in the middle of 2014 to a little above $30, causing problems for oil producers everywhere, from bankrupting shale producers in the United States to forcing first-time reforms such as the elimination of expensive energy subsidies in wealthy Persian Gulf states. In Russia, the price collapse along with economic sanctions imposed by the West over the crisis in Ukraine has pushed the economy into recession and severely depleted government revenues. Hard-hit Venezuela and other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries want coordinated output cuts to push up prices, and they have been pressing Russia to play its part. But Russian officials have always resisted such calls in the past, citing the futility of trying to counter entrenched market trends like the current downturn. A Kremlin spokesman told Reuters on January 27 that while Russia holds regular discussions with other oil-producers on the situation in world markets, there are no plans as of now for coordinated actions. Thus it would be a major reversal for Russia if discussions with OPEC begin in earnest following this week's apparent agreement among oil executives in Moscow. Russian production reached a new post-Soviet high in December of 10.80 million barrels per day. That puts it in the same league as Saudi Arabia, OPEC's biggest producer, which also pumps more than 10 million barrels a day. Agreeing to output cuts would also be a big change for OPEC, which accounts for one-third of global output. The cartel failed to agree to any cuts at a meeting last month, with the Saudis and other participants sticking to their game plan of maintaining output to maintain their market share and drive out high-cost shale producers in North America. The meeting broke up in disarray after Iran, previously kept from international markets by Western sanctions, insisted on its right to dramatically increase production by up to 1 million barrels a day with the lifting of sanctions this year. Economists estimate that suppliers already are producing about 1.5 million barrels per day more than global consumers need. That has produced a glut of oil on world markets so acute that some countries are running out of space to store it cheaply. So far, within OPEC, only Algeria and Venezuela have clearly expressed support for a production cut. However, Iraq, OPEC's second-biggest producer after Saudi Arabia, softened its stance this week, saying it is now willing to reduce its output if all major producers inside and outside of OPEC agree. Iraq, like Iran, has been ramping up production and hit record production levels last month, in a development that shook markets and sent oil prices spiraling lower earlier this week. But while Russia and Iraq now seem more willing to tighten the oil spigot, Iran remains bent on increasing production, leading many analysts to be skeptical that any agreement on output cuts is on the way. With reporting by Reuters and TASS Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/russian- oil-exects-agree-talk-with-saudi-arabia- opec-output-cuts-boost-prices/27515979.html Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Afghan Engineering Brigade Incapacitated Despite US Training Efforts Sputnik News 19:30 28.01.2016 Afghan National Engineer Brigade (NEB) is incapable of operating independently, according to the report of Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The Afghan army's engineering corps is unable to function without support despite efforts by the US military to train them, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said in a press release on Thursday. 'SIGAR published an audit of the Afghan National Engineer Brigade (NEB) that found despite US training efforts, the brigade is incapable of operating independently,' the release stated. US Forces Afghanistan, the release added, 'was unable to achieve its goal of training the NEB to a 'partially capable' level by December 31, 2014.' According to SIGAR's audit, many of the same issues that plagued US efforts with the Afghan army also bedeviled the engineering training program, including unstable security conditions, poor reading comprehension skills and absences due to holiday leaves and political events. The US Department of Defense, the release noted, were overly optimistic in forecasting that the NEB could be partially capable within eight months and fully capable within ten. A Defense Department official told SIGAR that the US military does not even know the number of NEB personnel within each unit, which is still missing much of at least $29 million in vehicles and equipment. SIGAR has previously reported that the Defense Department has wasted billions on training and reconstruction efforts since the mission began in Afghanistan because of poor oversight, mismanagement, corruption and fraud. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia Provides Int'l Court of Justice Materials on South Ossetia Conflict Sputnik News 13:43 28.01.2016(updated 15:24 28.01.2016) Russian Investigative Committee's spokesman Vladimir Markin said that the Russian Investigative Committee has carried out a thorough investigation of crimes committed by Georgian forces in the military conflict in South Ossetia in 2008 and all the evidence and materials have been submitted to the International Court of Justice. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Moscow has provided the International Criminal Court with the Russian Investigative Committee's materials on crimes committed during the military conflict in South Ossetia in 2008, committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said Thursday. On Wednesday, the court announced that its Pre-Trial Chamber I authorized an investigation for the crimes within the ICC jurisdiction, allegedly committed in and around South Ossetia between July 1 and October 10, 2008. 'The Russian Investigative Committee has carried out a thorough investigation of crimes committed by Georgian forces. All the evidence and materials gathered by the Russian investigators have been submitted to the International Court of Justice,' Markin said. The ICC considers murder, forcible transfer of population and persecution to be crimes against humanity, while attacks against the civilian population, willful killing, intentionally directing attacks against peacekeepers, destruction of property and pillaging are considered war crimes. In 2008, Georgia launched a military offensive against the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which escalated into a five-day war with Russia. Both regions declared independence from Georgia in the early 1990s. Their statehood was recognized by Russia following the 2008 conflict. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Requests NATO's AWACS Surveillance Planes for Anti-Daseh Fight Sputnik News 13:42 28.01.2016(updated 14:42 28.01.2016) NATO is considering a US request for use of the bloc's AWACS system, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday. BRUSSELS (Sputnik) NATO is considering a US request to send the bloc's AWACS (airborne warning and control systems) surveillance planes to assist the international coalition fighting Daesh in Syria and Iraq, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday. 'We have got the request from the US to provide support to the efforts of the coalition, and to help them with the NATO AWACS surveillance planes, and we are now looking into that request,' Stoltenberg said during a press conference in Brussels. The US-led international coalition has been conducting airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against Daesh (ISIS/ISIL), a terrorist group which has been banned in Russia and many other countries, since 2014 without the approval of the UN Security Council or the Syrian government. Russia launched its own air campaign against the extremist group in Syria on September 30, at the request of Damascus. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US General Sees Afghanistan 'Deteriorating' by Jeff Seldin January 28, 2016 The U.S. Army general picked to lead U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan warns the security situation there is deteriorating despite a valiant effort by Afghan forces. Lieutenant-General John 'Mick' Nicholson told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that terror groups like Islamic State and al-Qaida continue to see Afghanistan as an attractive sanctuary. He warned the U.S. may need to take a more aggressive approach. 'We still see attempts by terrorist organizations to get into Afghanistan,' Nicholson said. 'Do we have the right level of CT [counterterrorism] capability to deal with that?' Of particular concern to U.S. military and intelligence officials is the spread of the Islamic State group, which has sought to establish a sanctuary in Nangarhar province, and a resurgent al-Qaida in Kandahar province. The Taliban have also re-emerged as a threat, briefly seizing the northern city of Kunduz last year while also taking key districts in Helmand province. There are concerns, too, that the Taliban have hopes of retaking their spiritual home in Kandahar. Nicholson assured lawmakers he would not let the U.S. sit idly by. 'We need to prevent Kandahar from falling into the hands of the Taliban,' Nicholson said, adding he would 'absolutely' recommend using U.S. military force to prevent the Taliban from retaking the provincial capital. If approved by lawmakers, Nicholson would take over as the commander for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan from Gen. John Campbell, who is expected to retire. 'Crisis situation' The U.S. currently has about 9,800 troops in Afghanistan for counterterrorism activities and to train and advise Afghan security forces. But that number is expected to drop to about 5,500 by the end of the year, worrying lawmakers. 'I believe we are in a crisis situation,' said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, a constant critic of the Obama administration's Afghanistan policy. 'It makes no strategic or military sense to continue the withdrawal of American forces.' Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte also expressed alarm at the way the administration has telegraphed troop levels in Afghanistan to U.S. enemies. 'This has been a constant kabuki dance,' Ayotte said. 'We cannot afford to take on risks that allow obviously safe havens, again, for al-Qaida and ISIS engagement.' Nicholson said that, if confirmed, he would review U.S. troop levels during his first 90 days in command and make an appropriate recommendation, warning he saw the need for a long-term commitment. Realistic expectations needed But he also said the U.S. needed to have a realistic expectation of what can be achieved. 'This is Afghanistan. There will always be some level of violence in Afghanistan,' Nicholson said. 'We're not trying to create a Western-style society here,' he added. 'We are looking at an adequate level of security to prevent the re-emergence of transnational terrorist threats.' Nicholson is currently the commander of NATO's Allied Land Command, based at Izmir, Turkey. He has served several tours of duty in Afghanistan and also commanded the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment and the 82nd Airborne Division. Lawmakers praised Nicholson for his experience. Nicholson's nomination could go before the full Senate for vote as early as next week. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Taiwan President Visits Disputed South China Sea Island by Ralph Jennings January 28, 2016 The president of Taiwan, a staunch but overlooked claimant in Asia's biggest maritime territorial dispute, flew to a contested island Thursday to send a signal that has reached as far as Washington. President Ma Ying-jeou boarded a military aircraft before 9 a.m. for Itu Aba, a tropical atoll in the South China Sea also known as Taiping Island. He visited about 200 people stationed there as coast guard personnel, medical workers and scientific researchers before returning to Taipei by evening. Ma called for "peaceful" development of Itu Aba, citing infrastructure developments including a 10-bed hospital and a lighthouse. 'All this evidence fully demonstrates that Taiping Island is able to sustain human habitation and an economic life of its own. Taiping Island is categorically not a rock, but an island,' he said, adding it will be transformed into an island for peace and rescue operations, as well as an ecologically friendly and low-carbon island. "In other words, we have these services related to peace and humanitarian work," Ma said at a news conference in Taipei upon his return from the island. "We can develop those on the island and extend them to fishermen or people from nearby places." "President Ma emphasizes that Taiping Island is an inherent territory of the Republic of China," his spokesman Charles Chen said Wednesday, using the constitutional name for Taiwan. Ma's visit to the islet 1,600 kilometers away from Taiwan follows an unusually stern statement this week from the foreign ministry calling the sea's four major tropical island archipelagos parts of the Republic of China under international laws. The Republic of China is Taiwan's legal name. The statement says Taiwan has "stood by" Itu Aba and other islets for 60 years. Regional dispute The president's visit may help spotlight Taiwan's position. Despite its claim to nearly the whole 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea, Taiwan normally struggles to get attention for lack of diplomatic relations in Asia. China, the most powerful claimant in the maritime dispute, says Taiwan itself belongs to Beijing and forbids other countries from forming diplomatic ties. Taiwan has built Itu Aba, an atoll covering half a square kilometer in the Spratly archipelago, into a coast guard outpost with solar energy projects and medical staff to help storm-battered ships. Those developments on the ocean's largest natural islet are parts of Taiwan's effort to gain international attention. In a statement Thursday, the president called for "peaceful" use of Itu Aba. Analysts say other claimants around the South China Sea are more likely to protest Ma's visit than endorse development on the islet. Five other governments claim all or part of the sea that stretches from Taiwan southwest to Singapore. Ma's trip to the waters comes as China landfills other islets and the Philippines protests the basis for China's claims to a United Nations tribunal. Taiwan uses a nearly identical basis. US reaction On Wednesday the U.S. State Department called the Taiwan leader's trip unhelpful to easing disputes in the South China Sea. "Frankly, we're disappointed,' State deputy spokesperson Mark Toner said. 'We view such an action as unhelpful and does not contribute to the peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea. We urge Taiwan and all claimants to lower tensions and deescalate tensions rather than taking actions that could possibly raise them." Vietnam, another claimant that has landfilled some of the ocean's 500 islets, normally protests when Taiwan tries to shore up its claims. China may also sound off despite efforts under Ma's eight-year tenure to improve relations. Ma must step down in May due to term limits and hand power to the opposition party's president-elect, Tsai Ing-wen. The opposition party has chafed with China in the past and Tsai said last year that if elected she would pursue dialogue with all governments with stakes in the South China Sea. Beijing would protest that move to block those countries from strengthening ties with Taiwan. But China is unlikely to take action now at the risk of offending the United States, said Shane Lee, a political scientist at Chang Jung Christian University in Taiwan. Washington wants all claimants to work harder on getting along. "[China] will be irritated at least, probably make some noise and so on," Lee said. "I don't think they will take any actions, because the Americans are there, too." 'On the one hand, Taiwan ... [doesn't] want to give up the claims of China,' said Jerome A. Cohen, a China legal scholar and professor at New York University, speaking at a discussion hosted by the Asia Society on Wednesday. On the other hand, he added, Taiwan lacks the formal diplomatic ties within the UN system to challenge competing claims such as the lawsuit the Philippines' lodged against China at The Hague. Cohen instead urged Taiwan to aim to become the 'Switzerland of Asia,' opening Taiping to all international entities for conferences, negotiations, research and dialogue, and thereby asserting a new conciliatory in the disputed maritime region. Competing claims Brunei and Malaysia also claim parts of the sea. Competing claims have sparked occasional clashes between vessels since the 1970s. In 2014, Chinese and Vietnamese boats jousted after Beijing allowed an oil rig to be stationed off Vietnam's coast. The South China Sea is rich in fisheries as well as possible reserves of oil and natural gas below the seabed. Half the world's shipping traffic by tonnage also passes through the sea. The islets, many submerged in high tides, have no indigenous population. Political experts in Taiwan say President Ma considers the Itu Aba visit a key personal milestone. He has been criticized at home for forming ties too fast with Beijing and being too soft on foreign policy. The opposition's president-elect was invited on the trip but declined without giving a reason. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Marine Biologists: Artificial Islands Devastating South China Sea Ecosystems by Shannon Van Sant January 28, 2016 For years, overfishing in the territorially contested South China Sea has depleted local fish stocks. But since 2012, the controversial construction of artificial islands has ecologically devastated the disputed water way. Recently released satellite images show man-made scarring on at least 28 reefs. "The impact of the dredging and land reclamation projects are compounding the pre-existing impacts of fishing," said Dr. Terry Hughes, a James Cook University professor of Marine biology, adding that the Asian countries building artificial islands there are having a substantial environmental impact. Between 2012 and 2015, Chinese fishermen have used large, extended propellers affixed to utility boats to chop the reefs and prepare for the construction of artificial islands. Fishermen scour the ocean floor for giant clam shells, which are prized as jewelry and luxury items that sell for up to $150,000. According to Dr. John McManus, a University of Miami marine biologist, while building on the reefs is not new, China's large-scale construction of a military base and runways is resulting in unprecedented environmental damage. "Suddenly we have this massive situation where large areas of coral reef are being buried,' he said. 'In the end it was almost 13 square kilometers 13 million square meters that was destroyed, just in terms of being buried under these islands, and this was a huge, huge shock." China's Foreign Ministry has said the artificial islands are to be used for civilian purposes, search and rescue missions, as well as defense. In an interview with Australian media, Wu Shicun, president of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, said China has been building in the sea according to a "green construction ethos," with strict ecological protection measures guiding the construction. But Samantha Lee of the World Wildlife Fund says any construction in the waterway risks damaging the reefs and the already depleted fish stocks that rely on them to survive. "If the sediment concentration of the water is too high, it will block off the sunlight and which will cause adverse impact to the growth of the coral,' said Lee, a marine conservation advocate. 'And again, if the sediment content is too high, it will block the gills of the fish." McManus has long argued for the establishment of a peace park in the sea and the brokering of a joint resources management agreement which would include a code of conduct and a freeze on territorial claims. He says this would protect the vital ecosystems. Recently, Vietnam and Taiwan began smaller-scale construction work on islands in the contested waterway. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ivory Coast's Gbagbo Declares Innocence at Start of ICC Trial by VOA News January 28, 2016 Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo entered a not guilty plea Thursday in the opening day of his trial at the International Criminal Court. Gbagbo, the first former head of state to be tried at The Hague, is facing charges of crimes against humanity, including rape and murder, for his involvement in a protracted post-election battle in 2010 and 2011 that left 3,000 people dead. Prosecutors say the 70-year-old Gbagbo and his co-defendant, former youth leader Charles Ble Goude, plotted and launched vicious attacks against supporters of his rival, Alassane Ouattara, after Ouattara was declared the winner of the presidential election runoff. The bloody conflict ended in April 2011 after France, Ivory Coast's former colonial ruler, sent in troops to restore order and arrest Gbagbo, who was holed up in the presidential palace during the war. Pro-Gbagbo demonstrators Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the ICC headquarters before the start of the trial Thursday to show their support for Gbagbo, accusing France of orchestrating his ouster and extradition to The Hague. Presiding Judge Cuno Tarfusser vowed the ICC would not allow the trial to be used as a political tool 'in any way whatsoever.' The ICC also has a warrant for the former president's wife, Simone, on charges of crimes against humanity. She was sentenced last year to a 20-year prison sentence by an Ivorian court. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Gbagbo Supporters Take Cynical View of ICC by Emilie Iob January 28, 2016 Former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo went on trial Thursday at the International Criminal Court, facing charges of crimes against humanity. Gbagbo is the first former head of state to be tried at the ICC, and human rights groups say his trial is a milestone in the search for justice for victims of war crimes. Some Africans, however, see the ICC as a tool of the West and argue the continent should have its own court. In Abidjan, the trial is all over the news. 'The Beginning of the End,' reads the headline on a pro-government newspaper. 'The Chances of Gbagbo and Ble Goude,' reads the headline on a different paper that favors the former head of state and his top aide. In some neighborhoods, Gbagbo supporters have organized live broadcasts of the trial. 'I came to watch the trial of my president, said Basile Konan Dessi, adding 'I hope he will be released, because there is no evidence against him.' The charges The 70-year-old Gbagbo and Ble Goude are charged with four counts of crimes against humanity, allegedly committed in 2010 and 2011 when Gbagbo supporters clashed with supporters of politician Alassane Ouattara over the results of the presidential elections. About 3,000 people were killed. Eventually, Gbagbo was arrested and Ouattara became president. Ouattara was reelected last year. The trial has rekindled criticism that the court is biased. Since its inception in 2002, the court in The Hague has prosecuted cases from eight countries, all of them African. Some argue Gbagbo should be tried on the African continent, as in the case of former Chadian leader Hissene Habre, who is being tried by a special court in Senegal. Boubacar Kone, acting spokesperson of a branch of Gbagbo's party, the FPI, says the trial is unfair because pro-Ouattara individuals accused of crimes during the post-election violence are not being brought to justice. 'Here is a conflict in which only one camp is being prosecuted,' he said. Topic of conversation Samassi, who owns a cafe in a popular Abidjan neighborhood, says the trial is the main topic among his customers these days. He says he hopes the trial will shed light on atrocities committed during the crisis. 'I would like that justice be done on this matter,' he said. 'On Laurent Gbagbo, on the killings and the crimes committed, to call the attention of all Ivorian and also all African heads of state, because no crime must remain unpunished.' Drinking his morning coffee, Kakohi John Guie says his only hope is that the trial is peaceful. 'I think justice will decide and then the situation in Ivory Coast will be stable again,' he said. The trial is expected to last three to four years. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Carter Encourages Cyber Command to Intensify Fight Against ISIL By Lisa Ferdinando DoD News, Defense Media Activity WASHINGTON, January 27, 2016 Defense Secretary Ash Carter today encouraged U.S. Cyber Command to 'intensify the fight' against the Islamic State of Iraq the Levant, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said. Carter and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., visited Cybercom headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, Cook told reporters. They discussed a range of cyber-related topics with Cybercom leadership, the press secretary said, including efforts to degrade ISIL's messaging campaign. Targeting ISIL's Internet Messaging 'The effort to accelerate the campaign to deliver a lasting defeat to ISIL includes targeting their use of the Internet to spread their message of hate, recruit fighters and inspire acts of terror,' he added. Cybercom is charged with supporting interagency partners in the whole-of-government effort to counter ISIL messaging, in addition to other aspects of the counter-ISIL campaign, Cook explained. In a meeting with personnel directly engaged in cyber operations, Carter encouraged those workers and the entire Cybercom team to 'do what they can to intensify the fight against ISIL,' Cook said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address HRW: Security Fears Increasingly Trumping Human Rights Protections January 27, 2016 by Robert Coalson Growing state and public fear in an age of terrorism, conflicts, and mass migration is producing an increasingly bleak human rights picture in many parts of the world, international watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) has warned. "Fear of terrorist attacks and mass refugee flows are driving many Western governments to roll back human rights protections," HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth writes in the introduction to the international NGO's annual rights roundup, World Report 2016. The 650-page report issued on January 27 surveys human rights practices and trends in 90 countries worldwide. "If we are looking back at 2015, the key trend that we are seeing is what we call 'the politics of fear,'" says HRW European Media Director Andrew Stroehlein. "Fear that drives refugees out of war-torn countries like Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan and also oppressive countries like Eritrea, and drives people away into places where others fear them and politicians make use of those fears throughout Europe." Moreover, many authoritarian governments are using the guise of combating terrorism and extremism to crack down on peaceful dissent at home in what HRW calls "the most intense crackdown on independent groups in recent times." Increased Surveillance The report argues that the spread of high-profile terrorist attacks by militant group Islamic State (IS) and the refugee crisis have resulted in growing Islamophobia, racist manifestations, and general fear-mongering that most governments have failed to respond to adequately. In addition, it says, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France have all made moves to increase state mass surveillance. The report says evidence indicates that improving law enforcement's "capacity to pursue targeted leads" does more to bolster security than measures that "undermine privacy rights." On the other hand, the report criticizes countries like Russia, Turkey, and China for cracking down on civil society and independent media out of fear of popular movements spearheaded by civic organizations such as the Arab Spring movements, the "umbrella protests" in Hong Kong, and Ukraine's Euromaidan. "We've seen a real acceleration in the trampling of rights in places like Russia, in places like Turkey," Stroehlein says. "We've seen a kind of retrenchment of authoritarianism and the use of fear, the political use of fear, to justify all sorts of rights abuses." Russia's crackdown, now in its fourth year, "took a more sinister turn in 2015," the report states. Key laws aimed at isolating civil society from foreign contacts came into effect. Opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was assassinated in February. Russia also bucked the global trend toward stronger rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people as LGBT events were disrupted and activists harassed. Internationally, Russia is criticized for "positioning itself as a global leader in defending 'traditional values' and state sovereignty." In the United Nations, Moscow voted against "all country-specific resolutions" on rights, including measures criticizing Syria, North Korea, Belarus, and Iran. Baku Brutality Azerbaijan comes under harsh criticism from HRW for an "unrelenting crackdown [that has] decimated independent nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and media." Lawyers, activists, and journalists have been "prosecuted, convicted," and imprisoned, it says. The group notes that the Baku bureau of RFE/RL's Azerbaijan Service was shut down and RFE/RL contributor and investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison on charges widely seen as retribution for her reporting on official corruption. Police torture and mistreatment "continue with impunity," HRW says. Turning to Iran, the HRW report notes that Tehran executed at least 830 people in 2015, many for nonviolent offenses or following "flawed trials." At least four of those executed last year were likely under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan were criticized for giving broad power to security agencies in the face of the deteriorating security situations. Although Afghan President Ashraf Ghani approved an action plan against torture in January 2015, HRW says, it was slow to be implemented and cases of torture by security officials actually increased in 2015 compared to 2014. In Pakistan, the military gained significant constitutional powers in 2015 and stepped up the "muzzling of dissenting and critical voices in nongovernmental organizations and media," the report says. There were disturbing reports of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, torture, and arbitrary detention. In addition, at least 19 people are awaiting execution after being convicted under Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws, while hundreds of others await trial. Many of those targeted for prosecution under such laws are from persecuted religious minorities. Such cases often stem from unrelated personal disputes and many of the trials are characterized by "inadequate evidence or lack of legal counsel," HRW says. HRW Executive Director Roth, writing in the report's introduction, warns against setting up a false dichotomy between rights and security. "The wisdom enshrined in international human rights law provides indispensable guidance to governments that seek to keep their nations safe and serve their people most effectively," Roth writes. "We abandon it at our peril." Stroehlein agrees. "You do not have long-term security without respect for basic rights and fundamental freedoms," he says. "It is the trampling of those rights that causes security problems. Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/human-rights-watch-report-security/27514293.html Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Zika virus spreading explosively, warns WHO Iran Press TV Thu Jan 28, 2016 3:37PM The head of World Health Organization (WHO) has voiced alarm over the Zika outbreak around the Americans, saying the virus is "spreading explosively." Speaking at a meeting of WHO member states on Thursday in the Swiss city of Geneva, Director-General Margaret Chan said that the UN health agency is deeply concerned over the situation as the level of alarm over the virus has become "extremely high." She said the mosquito-borne virus has gone from a "mild threat" to "alarming proportions.' The WHO chief also called for an emergency meeting on the virus, which is taking hold across South and Central America and the Caribbean, on Monday to determine if the outbreak should be declared an international health emergency. Meanwhile, WHO Assistant Director Bruce Aylward has emphasized the importance of coordination among the member state to prevent viruses from spreading. "This is an important consideration of the director-general in calling (the meeting) is to ensure that there are no inappropriate measures taken by member states in terms of travel or trade. That is a major consideration of the director-general," Aylward said on Thursday. The Zika virus is suspected to cause serious birth defects. It is linked to microcephaly disease, in which babies born to women infected during pregnancy have abnormally small heads. Elsewhere in her remarks, the WHO chief said the relationship between Zika and birth defects has not yet been fully established but is "strongly suspected." There is no sure prevention or treatment for the disease and affected countries are reportedly doing their best to eliminate the breeding grounds for Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which bite all day long. Cases of Zika virus have so far been reported in nearly two dozen countries. Brazil has been the country hardest hit by the outbreak. There is currently no specific treatment for the virus and no way to prevent it other than avoiding mosquito bites. US media reports say at least five people in the New York area have also been diagnosed with the virus. There is no sure prevention or treatment for the disease and affected countries are reportedly doing their best to eliminate the breeding grounds for mosquitoes. At this point, no specific travel advisory has been issued by the WHO, but national centers could issue travel advice to their own citizens, based on the evidence they have. Zika virus was first isolated from a monkey in Zika Forest, Uganda, in 1947. In Brazil, three people were reported dead due to the Zika virus in November 2015. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Flu Outbreak Kills 107 People in Russia Health Ministry Sputnik News 20:07 28.01.2016 Russia's Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said that the death toll of the flu outbreak stood at 107 people, including four pregnant women and eight children. ST. PETERSBURG (Sputnik) An influenza outbreak has killed 107 people in Russia over the past three weeks, with most death cases attributed to its H1N1 strain, also known as swine flu, Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said Friday. 'As of yesterday, the death toll stood at 107 people, including four pregnant women and eight children,' Skvortsova told reporters at a press briefing. 'Yes, it was mostly swine flu,' she confirmed. None of the victims had been inoculated against flu and all of them delayed seeking medical advice, Skvortsova underscored. The Russian health chief warned the media against hyping up the flu epidemic. In comparison, 4,500 people died of heart attack and 6,000 of stroke, while road accidents claimed a further thousand lives over the same period, she said. A swine flu epidemic in 2009 killed 687 people in Russia. The H1N1 strain carries a higher risk of fatality compared to the common flu. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Kendall Describes Novel Way of Contracting for Space-Launch Services By Jim Garamone DoD News, Defense Media Activity WASHINGTON, January 27, 2016 The undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics described a novel concept to acquire access to space during his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee today. Frank Kendall told the committee that the proposed acquisition strategy will prepare the Defense Department for the future in space as well as driving down costs. And, he said, it will be an American solution -- one not reliant on Russian-made RD-180 rockets as is today's Atlas 5 system. Kendall's solution would not replace one Russian-made rocket with an American counterpart, he explained. He is looking to meet DoD's priorities of short access to space with at least two affordable and reliable sources of launch services. This will ensure competition, which should drive down costs and end any use of the RD-180 Russian engine for DoD launches, the undersecretary said. "The first thing I would like to emphasize is that the department does not buy rockets or engines. We do not buy launch systems or propulsion systems," he told the senators. "What we do buy is the transportation of our satellites to space by launch service providers." Given Russia's actions in Ukraine, the United States would like to stop using the Russian RD-180 engine. "The obvious and direct thing for the department to do would seem to be to pay for a new engine to replace the RD-180," he said. "There are three problems with this." Challenges The first is that engines are designed for a specific rocket and are not interchangeable, Kendall said. If the U.S. government decided to build a copy of the RD-180, it would only fit on the Atlas rocket and would benefit only one company -- United Launch Alliance, the undersecretary said. "Second, this would be expensive," he said. "Current estimates are that this would take about $3 billion." Finally, Kendall explained, DoD doesn't need an engine; it needs reliable, affordable and efficient access to space through commercial companies. "The commercial space launch business and space as an operational domain are both in transition," he said. "A number of commercial enterprises are planning large-scale constellations involving hundreds or even thousands of satellites." Capitalize on Commercial Investments Given this, DoD should be able to take advantage of the economies of scale, Kendall said. "This potential market is motivating launch service companies, like SpaceX, ULA and others to invest in more modern and efficient space launch systems," he said. "The department does not need to and should not carry all the cost of developing more efficient space launch systems. We need to capitalize on these commercial investments," the undersecretary said. But, he noted, DoD has additional concerns and requirements than purely commercial companies. "The department is concerned about the ongoing foreign military acquisition of anti-satellite systems by countries like Russia and China," Kendall said. "This development is causing a major rethinking of our space system designs, with a resiliency to possible attack now a much more important operational and technical consideration." One approach is to replace the small number of existing highly capable satellites with a larger number of satellites with more distributed capabilities. "This development also suggests the need for more efficient launch service providers to fill those constellations," the undersecretary said. All this combines to give DoD the opportunity to enter business arrangements with prospective launch service providers using a commercial model, Kendall said. "The basic business deal we have in mind is that the department will, through competition, provide at least two launch service providers with some of the capital they need to develop, test and certify the launch systems they will use to provide us with launch services in the future, including any unique DoD requirements," he said. In return, Kendall said, DoD will acquire the right to purchase launch services in the future at competitive prices and some degree of assurance that those systems will actually be available. The exact form of these business arrangements will be dependent on the unique needs of each competing prospective launch service provider, he said. "The department has received industry responses to formal requests for information which tell us that this concept has a real chance of success," the undersecretary said. Requests for Proposals Kendall told the committee that the department will release a draft request for proposals shortly, in hopes that the final requests will be released by the end of the year. DoD hopes to award contracts in fiscal 2017, he said. "In most acquisition strategies, the department specifies the product or service that it desires and industry bids to provide the specified deliverables," the undersecretary said. "In this case, industry will have an important role in defining the terms of the arrangement or contract. Each selected launch service provider is expected to offer unique terms that will have to be negotiated." Kendall said that some factors to be weighed in awarding any contract will include "the technical risk of completing the launch system and achieving certification, the schedule to provide launch services without Russian engines, the soundness of the business case to provide commercial launch services officially, the cost of any not to exceed future launch service options for DoD and of course the amount and timing of DoD funding needed to complete development and certification of the proposed launch system." The undersecretary asked the committee to support this approach. "We are anxious to move forward so that we can end the use of the RD-180 and take advantage of the emerging commercial space launch service market," he said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address James Describes Way Forward to U.S-Built Complete Space-Launch System By Jim Garamone DoD News, Defense Media Activity WASHINGTON, January 27, 2016 Everyone agrees the United States depends on space-based assets as part of the defense of the homeland and the ability to command and control forces worldwide, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning. What's at issue is launching these critical capabilities into orbit using Russian-made RD-180 rocket engines, she said. The United Nations imposed sanctions against Russia last year for its actions in Ukraine and James and Frank Kendall, the defense undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, testified before the committee on DoD efforts to encourage commercial providers to develop systems not reliant on Russian products. "Space is key to projecting credible and effective power around the world to support our allies and deter aggression," James said. "Maintaining our advantage requires the ability to modernize and replenish our space architecture through a reliable launch capability." By law, this so-called "short access" to space must be provided by commercial companies. Right now, that requires having access to "about 18 RD-180" engines used in the first stage of the U.S. Atlas 5 rocket, James said. But the Air Force is looking beyond the Russian rockets and is encouraging commercial companies to create a new generation of innovation in launch capabilities. "We're optimistic about these new commercial entrants and have contributed our time, resources, energy and expertise to help develop their systems, understand needs, certify them for government applications, learn from their failures, and celebrate their successes," she said. No Alternative Yet But while there is hope in the future, there is no alternative to the Russian rockets. "We must keep in mind the only launch vehicles that can reach the full range of orbit and carry our heaviest payloads today, remain the Atlas and Delta families," James said. United Launch Alliance builds and flies the Atlas and Delta for the U.S. government and other commercial customers. The company enjoys an unprecedented record of successful launches, 90 of which were accomplished under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program, the secretary said. "Funding for these government-mandated mission assurance requirements, along with the costs of maintaining launch infrastructure and a skilled workforce, came through a contract vehicle with the government known as the [Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle] launch capability arrangement, otherwise known as the ELC," she said. The Air Force wants to get away from this type of deal. "DoD must look for ways to meet the mandate of at least two commercially viable launch vehicles or family of launch vehicles capable of launching national security payloads," she said. "In a global launch environment, commercial viability is all about cost." Public-Private Partnership The answer appears to be a public-private partnership as the best way to ensure access to at least two domestic launch service providers, James said. "This business model I want to say again is a better deal for the taxpayer because it uses to a degree other people's money to help eliminate our dependency on the RD-180," she said. "And our [fiscal year] 2017 budget requests will reflect this approach." The next budget request would ensure the availability of a complete launch system through public-private partnerships, she said, with launches of the new system set for fiscal 2022 or 2023. "We believe this is the best approach to achieve our mandate of assured access to space with two certified, commercially competitive domestic launch providers," she said. She asked the senators to remove language in the fiscal 2016 budget that restricts the use of these funds to engine development alone so the service can shift to the complete launch system. "So far, of the $260 million authorized and appropriated we have obligated just over $176 million," she said. "The balance will be obligated soon pending of course successful outcome on negotiations with industry." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sen. McCain vows to ban use of Russian rocket engines Iran Press TV Thu Jan 28, 2016 7:38AM US Senator John McCain has said he plans to introduce legislation to reinstate restrictions on the use of Russian rocket engines for US military space launch. McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, rebuked senior Pentagon officials who sought to defend the use of Russian rocket engines to send US military satellites into space. However, Air Force Secretary Deborah James and the Pentagon acquisition chief, Frank Kendall, reassured the frustrated lawmakers on Wednesday that they were moving quickly to rely more on American-made rockets for the launches. McCain, his voice rising at times, said using the $30-million Russian RD-180 engine was enriching President Vladimir Putin's inner circle, and putting US national security in danger. 'So we now have senior Russian politicians, friends of Vladimir Putin, that are making tens of millions dollars in the pass-through money that is paid for the Russian rocket engines,' McCain said, asking the Air Force secretary whether she found that disturbing. James answered affirmatively, but added she could not be certain whether any Russian officials were benefiting from the sales. McCain said he would introduce the legislation on Thursday to repeal a provision-- tucked into a $1.1 trillion spending billthat allows the purchase and use of rocket engines manufactured by a Russian company. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, is a co-sponsor of the bill. The US Congress banned the use of the RD-180 rocket engine for military use as part of a series of sanctions against Russia imposed over the conflict in eastern Ukraine. However, US lawmakers weakened the curb late last year, worrying that it could drive United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, out of business. Shortly after the ban was loosened, ULA announced that it had ordered 20 new RD-180 rocket engines from Russia on top of 29 engines it had ordered the previous year. The Russian engines would be used to lift off the Atlas-5 rockets until a new American-made engine was developed and certified, ULA said at the time. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 3 Chinese naval ships arrive in Bangladesh for goodwill visit People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 20:22, January 27, 2016 CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh, Jan. 27 -- Three Chinese naval ships, comprising the guided-missile frigates Liuzhou, Sanya and the comprehensive supply ship Qinghaihu Wednesday arrived at Bangladesh's southeastern seaport city Chittagong, some 242 km southeast of capital Dhaka, for a five-day goodwill visit. The ships were welcomed by top Bangladesh Naval officers including Commodore M Rashed Ali, captain of BNS (Bangladesh Naval Ship) Issa Khan, and scores of Chinese living in the country. Bangladesh navy held a welcome ceremony for the Chinese ships. Many Chinese living in Bangladesh, waving Chinese national flags, expressed their regards to the officers and crew of Chinese ships. Bangladesh Navy Ship Bijoy welcomed the Chinese navy taskforce soon after they reached Bangladesh waters in the Bay of Bengal. A statement distributed during the welcome ceremony expressed the hope that the visit of the ships will further strengthen the cooperation and friendship between the navies of the two countries. Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Ma Mingqiang, who was present in the welcome ceremony, has also expressed his confidence that the visit of the ships will further promote the fraternal friendship between China and Bangladesh. The Chinese ships are expected to leave Bangladesh on Jan. 31. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Kerry to China: US 'Will Protect Allies' in Face of North Korean Threat by Pamela Dockins January 27, 2016 The United States and China agreed Wednesday to work together to ensure that North Korea ends its nuclear-weapons program, but high-level talks in Beijing indicated the two sides disagree on whether and what sort of sanctions to use against Pyongyang following its underground nuclear test three weeks ago. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, meeting with China's foreign minister in Beijing, stressed the North Korean issue is a high priority for Washington. "The United States will take all necessary steps to protect our people and allies," Kerry said at a news conference after his talks with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi. Kerry and Wang Yi met for more than five hours Wednesday - much longer than scheduled. Wang said China supports a new U.N. resolution opposing Pyongyang's nuclear program, and will discuss possible sanctions. However, he added, any international action against the North should not provoke new tensions. Kerry called for strong and united U.N. action against North Korea's nuclear tests, and noted, "this is a threat the United States must take extremely seriously." He noted that Iran, which does not have nuclear weapons, has been the target of more sanctions than North Korea has been, despite its defiance of international condemnation of its nuclear activities. "We don't want to heighten security tensions," Kerry said, "but we won't talk away from any options." He apparently was referring to possible deployment of a missile-defense system in South Korea. The South's president, Park Geun-hye, said after North Korea's nuclear test three weeks ago that she would consider accepting the U.S. defense system. Meeting with Xi After his firm talk about North Korea and sanctions, Kerry met later Wednesday with President Xi Jinping, who spoke warmly about his visit to the United States last year. Speaking through an interpreter in the Great Hall of the People, the Chinese president said: "Generally speaking, when China and the United States work together we can make good things happen ... for both sides, and that contributes to peace, prosperity and stability in the world." "The Chinese side is prepared to work with the U.S. side" on many issues, Xi said, "and I am prepared to work with President [Barack] Obama to make efforts to advance a new model of major-country relationship between China and the United States, based on no conflict and no confrontation, 'win-win' cooperation and mutual respect." Kerry left China later for a return flight to the United States, heading for Washington via a refueling stop in Alaska. China-North Korea relationship On the question of China's relationship with North Korea, analysts say Beijing sometimes appears hesitant to impose additional penalties on Pyongyang, because of the two countries' competing interests. "For China, the challenge is balancing the need to punish North Korea with their concerns about stability in North Korea. So, they want to push but they don't want to push too hard," said Scott Snyder, a Korean studies analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken, who traveled to Asia ahead of Kerry, has been discussing the North Korean situation with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts. Blinken said they stand firmly united "in strongly condemning this test, and in our determination, to impose costs for the DPRK's (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) flaunting of its international obligations." South China Sea In addition to North Korea, Kerry and Wang said they also discussed the thorny issue of competing territorial claims in the South China Sea. Regional tensions have flared recently over the overlapping claims of China and its Asia-Pacific neighbors, including Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines. The latest incident to aggravate the dispute came when China tested a runway on one of its artificial islands in the sea - structures Chinese crews created by dredging enough material onto tidal reefs to erect permanent structures. Kerry flew to Beijing Tuesday from Cambodia, where he held meetings on human rights issues and bilateral trade possibilities. He also visited Laos earlier this week. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sitting on a Mineral Mine: North Korea Hopes Rare Metals Win Over Investors Sputnik News 18:01 28.01.2016(updated 18:10 28.01.2016) A South African expert helping North Korea examine its mineral deposits told The National that he thinks the resource could prove to be a 'dynamo' for the country's economy. Rare earth deposits recently discovered in North Korea could be the kick-start the country needs to attract foreign investment, geologist Louis Schurmann told the Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National. 'In 2011 I was asked to travel to North Korea, me being a Principal Metals Geologist in Australia at the time,' Mr. Schurmann, a South African born geologist based on Australia, told the newspaper on Tuesday. 'The brief was to have a look at several mineral occurrences and provide them with general geological and due diligence reports." 'I have always seen mineral deposits as basic dynamos especially in Africa and most recently in Asia that could support development and growth. Development and growth in most 'stressed' nations and regions can be utilized as catalysts to induce change.' Emerging market specialist Kevin Virgil, chief executive of Frontera Investment in London, told The National that there are signs that foreign investors may soon find it easier to do business in North Korea. 'This is best evidenced by the recent government reshuffle that created the ministry of external economic relations, which has the mandate to attract foreign direct investment,' Virgil said. However, last year North Korean-focused website NK News expressed skepticism about announcements from North Korea about the minerals, and Schurmann's investigations. 'We do not have any data regarding this issue, and the article does not really give us the solid proof about the amount of rare minerals the DPRK has nor how profitable it is,' a representative from the Information Systems for Resource of North Korea told NK News, after North Korean tourism website DPRK Today published an article about the discovery. In December 2013 North Korea and private equity company SRE Minerals announced the discovery of what they believed to be the largest deposit of rare earth metals (REM) anywhere in the world. SRE announced it had signed a joint venture agreement with the Korea Natural Resources Trading Corporation for rights to develop REE deposits at Jongju, an area in the south of North Pyongan Province, which is located in the west of the country and borders with China. According to SRE Minerals, the Jongju rare earths deposits have the potential to be the largest in the world, and indicate a total mineralization potential of 6 billion metric tons, including 216.2 million metric tons of rare earth oxides. The company values the estimated resource in the ground at $64.9 trillion. Rare earth metals, also referred to as rare earth elements (REE), are a group of 17 chemical elements that occur together in the periodic table. They have many similar properties, which often causes them to be found together in geologic deposits. Because many of them are typically sold as oxide compounds, they are also referred to as 'rare earth oxides.' Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Japan Reports North Korea Readying Long-Range Missile Launch 'Next Week' Sputnik News 02:54 28.01.2016(updated 09:05 28.01.2016) According to an anonymous Japanese government official, North Korea may be preparing to launch a long-range missile in the coming days. Citing an unnamed government official, Japan's Kyodo news agency reports that satellite imagery appears to show Pyongyang preparing to launch a long-range missile from a test site known as Tongchang-ri. The official estimates that the launch could come as soon as one week from now. If true, this would be North Korea's first long-range missile launch since 2012, when it successfully placed an object into Earth orbit. Pyongyang already faces sanctions over its missile programs, and a new test could intensify penalties implemented by the United Nations Security Council. North Korea is also under intense scrutiny following a nuclear test conducted earlier this month. While the North Korean government claimed it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, experts doubt those claims, believing the blast to have been a less powerful atomic device. Regardless, the UN is considering applying additional sanctions in relation to that incident. On Wednesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. 'We agreed on the importance of a strong UN Security Council resolution, and we agreed to accelerate our work at the UN immediately in order to try to reach an understanding of what should be in it and how we achieve our goal,' Kerry told reporters. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address IRGC Navy commander gives fresh account of capturing US marines IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Jan 27, IRNA -- The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy Commander Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi on Wednesday gave fresh account of capturing US marines. According to IRGC public relations department, Fadavi explained details of the capturing US marines near Farsi Island some 128 kilometer away from Iranian baseline in the Persian Gulf waters. He said that the Navy was monitoring entry of US marines into Iranian territorial waters in Persian Gulf from the beginning. He said that two hours after the capture, the US warship and its allies made some illogical moves, but, the IRGC Navy gave them a timely warning to avoid any adventurism. Following the incident, 18 fighter jets, some helicopters and some drones hovered over the area and wanted to make a tense situation but the US found out that IRGC military might can create them serious problems and to the same reason they revised their approach, Fadavi said. Iran's logical strength prevents escalation of any conflict in the region, he said, adding that the humanitarian treatment of the Iranian forces with captive US marines was surprising for them. He explained the harmony between Iran's foreign diplomacy and military forces at scene of operations something which shocked the enemies. 1430**1416 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran Navy drills go into main phase ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency Wed 27 Jan 2016 - 13:36 TEHRAN (ISNA)- Ongoing military maneuvers by Iran's Navy have entered their main stage, during which the naval forces practice countering an enemy invasion. Iran's Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari announced the launch of the "Velayat 94" drills' tactical stage early on Wednesday. The stage has witnessed marines simulating the interception of invaders while on board surface vessels and submarines across a large expanse of territorial and international waters covering parts of the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Indian Ocean south of Iran. Support units, comprising surface-to-sea missile launchers, rocket launchers, commandos, coastal artillery, and mobile electronic warfare systems, were also deployed to littoral areas. The Navy fielded its domestically-built Tareq submarine during the drills, which also featured torpedo launchers, destroyers, and speedboats. The four-stage drills are the biggest annual ones by the Navy, which assesses all its tactics and combat routines through the maneuvers. According to Sayyari, the drills seek to "to display the defensive might of Iran as a country announcing the message of peace and friendship to the countries of the region." "The drills are sought to display to the people of the entire world the Islamic Republic of Iran's competence and authority in establishing security and defending the country's maritime borders across seas, especially in the Strait of Hormuz, the Sea of Oman, and northern Indian Ocean." End Item NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US warship leaves Iran's drill area after warning Iran Press TV Wed Jan 27, 2016 6:55PM A US warship was forced to leave the area used by Iranian forces for military exercise in the Persian Gulf waters after the vessel reportedly approached the area to "know of the Iranian military tactics," Iran's Navy commander said Wednesday. "As we anticipated that the Americans may approach the drill zone to learn about our tactics, we warned them once by maritime patrol aircraft and again by the Alborz destroyer," said Admiral Habibollah Sayyari in an interview with Fars News Agency. The Iranian commander said the US warship "accordingly left the area," adding that the vessel was accompanied by patrol aircraft when it was approaching the drill zone. The communication between Iranian and US forces was the first since 10 US sailors were captured by naval forces of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) earlier this month. The sailors were shortly released after admitting that they wrongly drifted into Iranian territorial waters. The ongoing "Velayat 94" drills are the biggest annual military exercises by Iran's Navy, which assesses all its tactics and combat routines through the maneuvers. Sayyari announced early on Wednesday the launch of the tactical stage of the drills, during which the marines were planned to simulate the interception of invaders while on board surface vessels and submarines across a large expanse of territorial and international waters covering parts of the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Indian Ocean south of Iran. "The drills are aimed at showing to the people of the entire world the Islamic Republic of Iran's competence and authority in establishing security and defending the country's maritime borders across seas, especially in the Strait of Hormuz, the Sea of Oman, and northern Indian Ocean," Sayyari had said earlier. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran's Rohani In France To Finalize Business Deals, Meet Hollande January 27, 2016 Iranian President Hassan Rohani has arrived in France for an official visit in which he is expected to finalize a series of commercial deals -- including the purchase of 114 passenger planes from Airbus and a partnership with French carmaker Peugeot. French officials have said the partnership between Peugeot and Iran's Khodro would result in the production of 200,000 Peugeot vehicles in Iran beginning in 2017. The French oil firm Total is also said to be interested in buying Iranian crude oil. Rohani will also be meeting with French President Francois Hollande in Paris. Meanwhile, exiled Iranian opposition leaders and activists have planned a human rights demonstration in Paris to coincide with Rohani's visit. Earlier on January 27 in Rome, at the end of the first leg of his first European visit since sanctions against Iran were lifted under a nuclear deal with world powers, Rohani said Tehran could have better relations with the United States. But he said it was up to Washington to change what he called a "hostile" stance toward Iran. "It's possible that Iran and the United states might have friendly relations. But the key to that is in Washington's hands, not Tehran's," Rohani said at a news conference in Rome on January 27. "I would like to see the Americans set aside their hostility and chose another way, but inside the U.S. there are some problems, there is no unified voice," he said, noting that "the Zionist lobby" was "very influential." Rohani, on the first state visit by an Iranian president to Europe in nearly two decades, is seeking foreign investment after the lifting of international sanctions against Iran on January 16 under its nuclear accord with world powers. Based on reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/iran-rohani-france-us-ties/27514457.html Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Rouhani: Imposing Sanctions failed policy IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Jan 28, IRNA -- President Hassan Rouhani said on Thursday that sanctions are regarded as failed policy as highlighting the privileges of the Iranian economy at global level. Speaking to business entrepreneurs and industrialists of the private sectors in Iran and France, he said having a crystal clear and stabilized rules and regulations in absorbing foreign investments, along with stability, security and craftsmanship of Iranian workforces are among Iran's economic privileges. Both Iran and France private sectors and state-run organizations are determined to broaden economic relations and cooperation, President Rouhani said. Iran and France had deeply rooted commercial, scientific, technological and economic cooperation which were to the benefit of both nations, President Rouhani said. Imposing unfair economic sanctions against Iran was a wrong policy which resultes in lose-lose game for both sides, he said. Sanctions never being regarded as a correct policy which backfired but mutual understanding and convergence will be to the benefit of all nations, he said. Iran patiently and with perseverance overcame very complicated economic problems and today all witness resumption of new era in both sides relations, said the Iranian president. Iran is now regarded as a stable country in the region and is to broaden ties and cooperation with France as one of the powerful countries in Europe and the world, he said. Grounds for expansion of all our relations and cooperation between Iran and France are well prepared, underlined President Rouhani. French Premier Manuel Valls, for his part said Paris suffered a lot due imposing economic sanctions against Iran but nuclear deal between Iran and G5+1 opened a new chapter in broadening mutual cooperation and France calls for expansion of all-out relations and cooperation with Iran. Signing a number of economic deals between the two sides private sectors is a good sign for broadening wide-scale cooperation leading to expansion of political relations between Tehran and Paris, he said. 1430**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Basij stages massive drills in Hormuz, Qeshm islands IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Jan 28, IRNA -- The Iranian Basiji (Voluntary) forces started massive exercises codenamed 'Towards Beit al-Moqaddas' in Hormuz Island in the Persian Gulf, Southern Iran on Thursday. 'Defending the country and confronting the defense and security threats are the most important mission of Beit-al-Moqaddas battalions. The Basij forces have taken part in exercises in the Western province of Kurdistan and the Northern provinces of Semnan and Gilan. '20,000 Basij forces who have been organized within the framework of different battalions participated in 'Towards Beit al-Moqaddas' wargames to exercise preparedness to fight against possible threats in the region,' Commander of the IRGC's Beit al-Moqaddas Corps in Kurdistan Brigadier General Mohammad Hossein Rajabi told reporters in Sanandaj city. He said that the drills will be held in all towns and cities of Kurdistan in the coming days. In Semnan province, three Beit al-Moqaddas battalions and Kosar battalions comprising women volunteer forces are taking part in Basij massive drills. In the Northern city of Astara in Gilan province, the Basij forces also staged drills to enhance their preparedness against enemies' threats. Last month, the Basij Forces staged two days of massive drills also dubbed 'Towards Beit al-Moqaddas' in Hamedan province, Western Iran. 'Three 'Beit al Moqaddas' battalions took part in the wargames conducted in Hamedan province,' Commander of Hamedan IRGC Hassan Barzegar told reporters on October 16. He reiterated the high level of preparedness of 'Beit al Moqaddas' battalions to confront the enemies. Barzegar mentioned that ambush and counter-attack tactics as well as sensitive centers protection and defense operations will be exercised in the drills. The Towards Beit al-Moqaddas drills started three years ago and have been conducted in 28 provinces of the country so far. In Early September, Basij force started two days of wargames in Northeastern Iran to show its defensive preparedness against any possible threat. 'We are trying to stage in the best possible way these 'towards Beit al-Moqaddas' drills codenamed Ya Rasoulallah that started in Ardebil province today,' Commander of Brigade 37 of Hazrat Abbas (AS) of Ardebil province Farhang Mostae'ed said. He announced that during the wargames, the Basij forces' combat and defensive preparedness as well as their relief and rescue skills will be tested. 2050**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Nuclear fuel exchange with Russia very profitable: Salehi Iran Press TV Thu Jan 28, 2016 10:44AM Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi says the recent exchange of nuclear fuel with Russia was "very profitable." The exchange was a significant move through which "the Islamic Republic was able to acquire international recognition for [uranium] enrichment" and "offer its enriched uranium on international markets," Salehi said on Wednesday. Last December, the AEOI announced that Iran had received 220 tonnes of natural uranium or "yellowcake" from Russia in exchange for 11 tonnes of low-enriched uranium. The exchange was a key step in fulfilling Tehran's commitments under a landmark nuclear agreement clinched between the Islamic Republic and the P5+1 group of countries. The P5+1 refers to the US, Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany. Under the nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran agreed to restrict certain aspects of its nuclear energy activities in return for the removal of sanctions. Salehi said Iran had three options in terms of reducing its stockpile of enriched uranium, as required by the JCPOA. 'We could either dilute it, which was meaningless, or sell it - and the other option was to turn it into the required fuel for the Bushehr" nuclear plant, he said. The Bushehr plant is Iran's first nuclear power generation facility in operation. The country plans to build a fuel complex for the facility, which Salehi foresaw to take two years to complete. "A number of countries have expressed readiness to cooperate in this regard, which is another opportunity provided through the JCPOA where we can use other countries' experiences." Elsewhere in his remarks, the Iranian nuclear official touched on possible nuclear cooperation between Iran and Spain, saying the issue has not been finalized yet, and 'thus details cannot be revealed at this point.' NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iraqi forces gain more ground in Anbar Province Iran Press TV Wed Jan 27, 2016 4:36PM Iraqi forces carried out successful offensives against Daesh Takfiri terrorists on Wednesday, liberating more strategic areas in the western province of Anbar. Forces with Iraq's anti-terrorism unit regained control of the area of Abu Tayban as well as parts of the village of al-Zankoura in the northwest of Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar, according to the Arabic-language al-Baghdadia News. The report added that the forces are advancing toward the city of Hit to liberate it from the control of Daesh terrorists. Additionally, Commander of the Iraqi Federal Police Force Lieutenant General Raed Shaker Jawdat said at least 35 Daesh militants were killed in Husaybah city, east of Ramadi, adding that the Iraqi forces retook a number of houses and buildings in the city that were used by terrorists. Also on Wednesday, dozens of Daesh terrorists were killed in airstrikes by the Iraqi air force in the city of Hawijah, southwest of Kirkuk, the capital of the province with the same name. The developments came following a recent visit to Cairo by Iraq's Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi to hold talks with Egyptian officials on military matters. Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman, Nasir Nouri, said an agreement on military cooperation between Baghdad and Cairo will be announced as soon as Iraqi experts finish examining the Egyptian proposals for providing the Iraqi army with weapons and military equipment as well as training. Egypt has expressed readiness to provide all possible facilities to strengthen the military relations with Iraq, the Iraqi official stated. He also said that the Egyptian side was willing to open all the military training centers to the Iraqi forces, adding that the Iraqi Defense Ministry will determine the number of the trainees. Violence has plagued the northern and western parts of Iraq ever since Daesh terrorists launched an offensive in June 2014, and took control of parts of the Iraqi territory. Army soldiers and fighters from allied Popular Mobilization Units are currently battling to win back militant-held regions in joint operations. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Daesh Takfiris kill fellow commanders in northern Iraq Iran Press TV Wed Jan 27, 2016 7:7AM The Daesh Takfiri militant group has executed four of its own commanders in Iraq's oil-rich northern province of Kirkuk on charges of fleeing the battlefield. Jabbar al-Mamouri, a commander of the pro-government Popular Mobilization Units, said Daesh terrorists killed the commanders along with three other members of the terrorist group by firing squad in Hawijah district, located about 282 kilometers (175 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad, on Tuesday, English-language online newspaper Iraqi News reported. He added that the slain militants were accused of escaping clashes with Iraqi government forces in the predominantly Sunni village of Tal Kusaiba, situated some 35 kilometers (20 miles) east of Salahuddin's provincial capital city of Tikrit, nearly a fortnight ago. On January 24, Daesh executed three of its own commanders in Iraq's embattled northern province of Nineveh after the militants sought to break away from the terrorist outfit and escape the city of Mosul, located some 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of Baghdad. On October 10, 2015, Daesh terrorists killed 50 fellow extremists in the western city of Khan al-Baghdadi, situated about 180 kilometers (110 miles) northwest of Baghdad, after accusing them of espionage and passing confidential information to Iraqi security personnel. The execution came on the same day as Daesh terrorists publicly beheaded 10 fellows in Hawijah on the ground that they had collaborated with government forces and leaked information about militant commanders. Gruesome violence has plagued the northern and western parts of Iraq ever since Daesh Takfiris launched an offensive in June 2014, and took control of portions of Iraqi territory. The militants have been committing vicious crimes against all ethnic and religious communities in Iraq, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds and Christians. The Iraqi army and fighters from Popular Mobilization Units are engaged in joint military operations to win back militant-held regions. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Defense Secretary Prepared to Request More Troops in Iraq if Needed Sputnik News 23:02 27.01.2016(updated 23:58 27.01.2016) US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is prepared to ask for additional troops in Iraq, the Pentagon announced. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is prepared to ask for additional troops in Iraq if additional actions need to be undertaken against the Islamic State terror group, US Department of Defense spokesperson Peter Cook told reporters on Wednesday. "We're about 3,700 US troops right now in Iraq and that's the level right now that the Secretary [Carter] feels is the appropriate level and if he feels like he needs to request more than he's prepared to do that," Cook stated during a press briefing. Cook noted that a proposal to send more troops to Iraq was not yet on the table, and would ultimately depend on the "circumstances going forward" as well as if "unique capabilities" would be needed to be brought into the fight against Daesh. In December 2015, Carter announced that Washington would send a special expeditionary targeting force to Iraq to assist Kurdish forces fight the Islamic State. Carter made the announcement after President Barack Obama said earlier that he would deploy some 450 more troops to Iraq over the summer. In recent months, Carter as well as other current or former officials have urged the Obama administration to send more US troops to Iraq and Syria to strengthen the efforts to defeat the Islamic State. Obama has previously vowed not send additional US ground troops to the region. The Islamic State, also known as Daesh, is a designated terrorist group that is outlawed in the United States and Russia as well as in numerous other countries. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US military warns of 'catastrophic' Mosul dam collapse Iran Press TV Thu Jan 28, 2016 3:31PM The US military is gearing up to deal with the catastrophic consequences of a potential collapse of Mosul dam in northern Iraq, the top US general in the Arab country says. US Army Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland, head of the US-led coalition against Daesh (ISIL) in Iraq and Syria, said Thursday that Iraqi authorities are aware of 'the potential' for the collapse and the need for constant grouting of the hydroelectric dam's foundation to prevent it. He said the Pentagon and the Iraqi government were working on a plan to protect Iraqi civilians from the impact of a burst, which would send a surge of water down the heavily populated Tigris river valley. 'The likelihood of the dam collapsing is something we are trying to determine right now... all we know is when it goes, it's going to go fast and that's bad,' MacFarland told reporters in Baghdad. 'If this dam was in the United States, we would have drained the lake behind it. We would have taken that dam out of commission,' he noted. The dam, formerly known as Saddam Dam, fell to Daesh in August 2014, raising fears the terror group might blow it up and unleash a wall of water on Mosul and Baghdad that could kill hundreds of thousands of civilians. According to a recent assessment by the US State Department, up to 500,000 people could be killed and over one million rendered homeless should Iraq's biggest dam collapse Kurdish fighters recaptured the dam two weeks later but according to coalition spokesman US Army Colonel Steve Warren the threat of a collapse never went away since ISIL militants had stolen equipment and chased away technicians. 'There was a steady grouting schedule that had been maintained for a long time. When that stopped, obviously the deterioration of the dam increased accordingly,' he said. Baghdad is finalizing a contract with an Italian company called the Trevi Group, to upgrade the 3.6-km (2.2-mile) long dam, which has suffered from structural flaws since it was built in the 1980s. The dam has a main 750 megawatts power station and is ranked as the fourth largest dam in the Middle East. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Tokyo Calls on Pyongyang to Scrap Plans of Alleged Ballistic Missile Launch Sputnik News 09:12 28.01.2016(updated 09:14 28.01.2016) The Japanese government calls on North Korea not to conduct a test fire of indigenous ballistic missiles, Japan's Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Hagiuda said Thursday. TOKYO (Sputnik) Earlier, Japanese media reported citing government sources about alleged Pyongyang's preparations for the test launch to be carried out next week. 'The government [of Japan] will continue to work closely with the United States, South Korea and other countries and calls on North Korea to refrain from provocative actions and to respect the provisions of UN Security Council resolutions and the joint statement of the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program,' Hagiuda told reporters. He added that the National Security Council of the country would hold later in the day a meeting to discuss the potential test fire. Tensions around North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs escalated after on January 6, Pyongyang said it had successfully carried out a hydrogen bomb test which triggered a wave of condemnation from the international community. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Libyan Official: De-link Humanitarian Aid From Libyan Politics by Lisa Schlein January 27, 2016 A senior Libyan official is appealing to the international community not to tie humanitarian aid to his country's political process. He warns the health needs of the Libyan people cannot wait until a government of national unity is formed. Libya has been in a perpetual state of war since its people took up arms in 2011 to oust dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Libya's health minister, Reida El Oakley, warns his country's health system is near collapse. He says up to 70 percent of the hospitals are shut down or dysfunctional. El Oakley says 80 percent of Libya's highly skilled medical staff was composed of foreign expatriates who left the country. He says the economy is in shambles because Libya is exporting very little oil, once its main money-earner. He says people are unable to obtain the health services they desperately need because of the lack of money. El Oakley says the international community is reluctant to provide humanitarian aid to Libya because the country's two competing administrations cannot agree on a government of national unity. He tells VOA this linkage is hurting Libya's health system and the poor patients who cannot receive treatment for their illnesses. "I think the international community, including the U.N., should divorce humanitarian need of Libyan people away from any political dialogue," he said. "Anything short of that, I would consider to be a crimeA similar thing is happening in Syria today where people are dying of hunger simply awaiting a conclusion of a political dialogue." Vulnerable Population The World Health Organization reports nearly half of Libya's population of 6.3 million is vulnerable and in need of humanitarian assistance. Of this number, it says 1.9 million are in need of health services. The WHO representative in Libya, Jaffar Hussain, says most of these people are unable to get even the most basic primary health care. He says the international community cannot afford to ignore their difficult circumstances. "Complacency would lead to much more serious consequences, and we will end up with massive outbreaks. We will end up with mortality and morbidity rates rising exponentially and we will end up compromising the health and the future of the people of Libya, if we do not act now," he said. WHO reports Libya is at increased risk of communicable diseases, including tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV-AIDS as a result of large numbers of migrants, many from sub-Saharan Africa, and a collapsed surveillance system. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Libya: UN envoy strongly condemns abduction of parliamentarian, calls for his immediate release 28 January 2016 The most senior United Nations official in Libya today strongly condemned the abduction of a member of the House of Representatives, just days after a significant step forward in the quest to end the country's political divisions and armed conflict. According to the UN, Mohamed al-Ra'id was abducted yesterday on his way to the airport after participating in a House of Representatives session in Tobruk, a port city on Libya's eastern Mediterranean coast. "I am extremely upset by this unjustified and unacceptable act," said Martin Kobler, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), in a press release. "I call on all influential actors to spare no effort to ensure his immediate and unconditional release. MP al-Ra'id should not pay the price for his courageous decision to uphold the national interest, risking his life to rejoin the House of Representatives in accordance with the Libyan Political Agreement,' he added. Last Monday, Mr. Kobler welcomed the endorsement, in principle, of the Libyan Political Agreement by the House of Representatives, taking note of the reservation of the House on an article related to the division of power. The UN-brokered deal was signed last December in Morocco, agreeing to form a Government of National Accord with a Presidency Council, Cabinet, House of Representatives and State Council. "We will continue consultations with all parties to find consensual solution to all outstanding issues,' the Special Representative said in a press release. He also took note of the House of Representatives' decision to refer back the list of the cabinet to the Presidency Council, and urged both them to take the necessary decisions as soon as possible. UNSMIL was established in 2011 by the UN Security Council at the request of the Libyan authorities following six months of armed conflict to support the country's new transitional authorities in their post-conflict efforts. The four-year crisis has left nearly 2.4 million Libyans in desperate need of humanitarian aid. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Saudi prince: Iran war in nobody's interest Iran Press TV Thu Jan 28, 2016 3:30PM A senior member of the ruling family in Saudi Arabia says he hopes it will not take too long for the kingdom and Iran to restore diplomatic ties. Riyadh severed relations with Tehran after angry protesters attacked Saudi embassy in Iran following the kingdom's execution of prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. In an interview with France 24 news network, Prince Turki al-Faisal accused Iranian police of "sitting back and letting protesters attack" the embassy. Faisal, the former head of Saudi Arabia's intelligence service, claimed the assault had been authorized by Iranian officials. "I think there is no way that we can interpret it in Saudi Arabia other than that," he said. Iranian police have arrested dozens of people over the attack which senior officials, including President Hassan Rouhani, have condemned. Saudi Arabia pounced on the attack to cut relations with Iran as international condemnation grew over the execution. The incident also helped Riyadh to raise the ante in its escalation of tensions following Iran's nuclear agreement with world powers. While Saudi rulers have denounced the deal, Faisal said the agreement "may be good," but "Iran has to change its course." He also dismissed the likelihood of a military confrontation between the two regional powers, saying it "is not going to be in anybody's interest." On Wednesday, President Rouhani said Iran has fulfilled all of its duties to reduce tensions. "We condemned the raid on the embassy, and identified and arrested the assailants They will be tried. But Saudi measures in continuing tensions are unjustifiable," he said in Rome. President Rouhani also ruled out an Iranian apology over the incident, saying it was rather up to Saudi Arabia to apologize over many of its actions. 'Why should we apologize? Because Nimr al-Nimr was executed? We are the ones to apologize because they are killing the people of Yemen? Apologize to them because they are helping terrorists?' he asked. 'We do not want tensions with Saudi Arabia to continue,' he said, but insisted there was 'no justification' for Riyadh's 'aggressive' policies in the region. 'They are the ones who should apologize to Muslim people, hundreds of times,' Rouhani said. Attack on President Assad In the interview, Faisal called Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who is fighting foreign-backed militants in the likes of Daesh and Nusra Front as the "biggest terrorist." The Saudi prince said the Syrian government should be excluded from Geneva peace talks planned for Friday. "As far as Daesh and other terrorists are kept from the (negotiating) table, I think Bashar al-Assad should be kept from the table," he said. "If Bashar is going to stay in a responsible position, it means we have given up our principles of not allowing terrorists to participate in these talks," he added. The Takfiri ideology followed by Daesh and other terrorists has its roots in Saudi Arabia where it is promoted by clerics and tolerated by rulers in the kingdom. Many of the militants fighting in Syria are also supported by the kingdom and its allies. Faisal, meanwhile, defended a Saudi military campaign against neighboring Yemen which have killed hundreds of people, including many women and children. "If Saudi Arabia had not interfered, the situation would have been much worse," he claimed, calling it "a necessary decision." "Yemen is not a quagmire," Faisal further said, dismissing a view widely held by many observers who criticize the kingdom's confrontational policies under its new rulers and brand them as rash. "The kingdom has been very steadfast and very rational and logical pursuing common interests for everybody including Saudi interests in Yemen and Bahrain, or in Iraq or Syria," he said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Should airdrops be tried to save starving Syrians? By Annie Slemrod JERUSALEM, 27 January 2016 (IRIN) - Between 400,000 and two million Syrians (depending on who's counting) are living under siege. Madaya forced their plight onto the international stage. Since then, voices calling for airdrops to save starving civilians have only become louder. A petition to "start aid drops to the starving people of Syria" has garnered more than 59,000 signatures, prompting the predictable reply from the British government that "airdrops cannot operate effectively" in the complex Syrian warzone. But is it that simple? International organisations likely have cover for airdrops under UN Security Council Resolution 2165, which says "United Nations humanitarian agencies and their implementing partners are authorised to use routes across conflict lines" for aid delivery, with notification to the Syrian authorities. However, airdrops are usually only the humanitarians' last resort. Ideally, they require safe access to airspace, and an infrastructure on the ground to collect and distribute supplies to those who truly need it. That's why the UN's World Food Programme has effectively ruled them out, telling IRIN that the conditions aren't right. "WFP acknowledges that the humanitarian situation in besieged areas of Syria is critical," the organisation said by email. "What we need is unimpeded access, and we can't consider airdrops at this time. Airdrops require approvals for use of airspace, staff on the ground to organise and distribute, and a drop zone that is clear of obstacles. Those conditions are not met in besieged areas of Syria." The counter-argument is that you don't know until you really try. Airspace approval would be difficult to achieve for sure, but it might not be impossible. Conditions on the ground aren't perfect for distribution, but even a flood of goods into the black market would presumably drive down prices and still be of some benefit to civilians. If airdrops are too risky for the UN, could the countries bombing in Syria step in instead? UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien certainly doesn't appear opposed. In a recent letter responding to a British government minister, he suggests that Britain shouldn't feel constricted by UN guidelines seeking permission from Damascus if it was to consider such a move. O'Brien recommends that "all options be considered, as we must find a way to break this impasse." Perhaps, the strongest argument in favour of taking a harder look at the airdrop option is that they're already being done, just not on an equitable basis. Across Syria, President Bashar al-Assad's forces use planes to get aid where they want it to go, helping out civilians in loyalist communities but not others. Russia says it has been also dropping aid into the besieged city of Deir Ezzor, where so-called Islamic State surrounds part of the town and Assad's forces are preventing aid delivery to some 180,000 people. Critics point out that this appears to be a PR move. A local activist group reported that Russian supplies were only being collected by pro-government forces. To help weigh up the pros and cons of attempting airdrops in Syria, here's a quick look at airdrops elsewhere: South Sudan Starting in 1992, WFP began regularly running planes over southern Sudan and Darfur to people displaced by conflict or who were otherwise inaccessible because of flooding. Between 1992 and 2005, it transported nearly 500,000 metric tons of food and non-food aid from Loki Airbase in Kenya. WFP shut up shop there anticipating increased road access to South Sudan with independence in 2011, but due to renewed conflict, the airdrops have continued. In May 2015, WFP carried out its first successful drop of vegetable oil, for thousands displaced around the South Sudanese town of Ganyiel. In the last two years, the International Committee of the Red Cross, which rarely delivers aid in this way, also dropped food rations and other supplies into remote areas of South Sudan accessible only by boat or aircraft. Angola Attempts to bring aid to those affected by Angola's bloody civil war were hampered by long negotiations and interference by warring parties. The effort to drop help by air got off to a rough start the first sortie in June 1993 was shot at. For some time, private aid agencies chartered planes into Angola, often with UN aid on board. Later, the UN was able to commence aid flights in earnest to besieged populations on both sides of the war. Unable to access large parts of the country because of landmines or poor road infrastructure, the WFP conducted airdrops into Angola again in 2003. East Timor Violence following East Timor's pro-independence vote from Indonesia in a 1999 referendum sent tens of thousands of East Timorese into mountains and forests. The UN dropped rice, high-protein energy bars, and blankets. Afghanistan In 2001, a woman was killed and a child injured when humanitarian aid from a US Air Force plane carrying wheat, blankets and cold weather equipment hit a home in Mazar-i-Sharif. Mount Sinjar, Iraq Some 50,000 Yazidis, a Kurdish religious minority, fled an IS advance into their Iraqi hometown for nearby Mount Sinjar in August 2014. US and British planes dropped food, water, and medicine, flying low and picking up desperate people. The scenes on the ground were sometimes chaotic, but this offers one example at least when the United States stepped in and even said it was breaking a siege. "Because of the skill and professionalism of our military, and the generosity of our efforts, we broke the [IS] siege of Mount Sinjar, we helped vulnerable people reach safety, and we helped save many innocent lives," US President Barack Obama said at the time. as/ag Theme (s): Aid Policy, Conflict, Food Security, Copyright IRIN 2016 This material comes to you via IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations or its Member States. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address No non-Syrians invited to peace negotiations, says UN Iran Press TV Wed Jan 27, 2016 4:49PM The United Nations says no non-Syrians have been invited to upcoming peace negotiations aimed at finding a solution to the deadly conflict in the Arab country. The announcement, which was made on Wednesday, came a day after Turkey suggested that it would be part of the talks that are scheduled for Friday. On Tuesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Ankara would "boycott" the meeting in case the Syrian Kurdish group, Democratic Union Party (PYD), was invited. Ankara accuses the PYD and its military wing, the People's Protection Units (YPG), of links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region inside Turkey since the 1980s. Khawla Mattar, a spokeswoman for the UN's Syria envoy, Staffan de Mistura, said there was "no plan to invite" non-Syrians in response to a question about the possible inclusion of observer delegations from Turkey, Russia, the United States or France. The official, however, refused to reveal which parties were asked to attend the talks. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, meanwhile, has called for the participation of Kurds in the peace talks and insisted that the meeting would not be successful if Kurdish representatives are not invited. To attend or not to attend? The development comes as Syria's so-called opposition backed by Saudi Arabia is yet to decide whether to take part in the Friday meeting. The group that calls itself High Negotiations Committee (HNC) met in the Saudi capital city of Riyadh for a second day on Wednesday to discuss its participation in the talks. The foreign-backed group that was formed last month in a bid to unite Syria's foreign-backed opposition, wants to be the sole opposition delegation in Geneva. It has demanded "clarifications" after the UN issued invitations to other opponents. The meeting was supposed to be held on Monday but it was postponed over the issue of who will represent the so-called opposition. The Committee has also set other conditions for taking part in the negotiations including the lifting of the Syrian government's siege on areas held by the foreign-backed militants. Mattar, however, stressed that there were "no preconditions" attached to joining the talks, suggesting the HNC could not view the guest list before deciding whether to come to Geneva. Damascus has already announced its readiness to attend the talks, with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov saying on Wednesday that Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem would head the government delegation. "An invitation from De Mistura was sent to Walid al-Muallem as head of the government delegation," Gatilov was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency. Elsewhere in his comments, the official added that the PYD might take part in a later stage of the peace talks in Geneva, but has not been invited to the first round of discussions. The UN Security Council last December adopted a resolution, calling for a nationwide ceasefire in Syria and the formation of a "credible, inclusive and non-sectarian" government within six months. The Syrian conflict, which began in March 2011, has reportedly claimed the lives of more than 260,000 people, and displaced almost eight million others. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Syrian Kurds Not to Recognize Outcome of Geneva Talks Sputnik News 20:03 27.01.2016 Abd Salam Ali, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party's representative to Russia, said that Syrian Kurds did not receive an invitation to take part in the negotiations, while terrorists did. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Syrian Kurds will not recognize the outcome of the upcoming intra-Syrian negotiations in Geneva as the talks will be held without their participation, a representative of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) said Wednesday. PYD has not been invited by the United Nations to the talks between the Syrian government and the opposition that are scheduled to begin in Switzerland on Friday. The Kurdish party accused Ankara of throwing its weight behind the UN decision. "Syrian Kurds did not receive an invitation to take part in the negotiations, while terrorists did. For example, the groups Ahrar ash-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam will be represented the very groups that fired missiles at the Russian Embassy in Damascus," Abd Salam Ali, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party's representative to Russia, told RIA Novosti. The Syrian Kurds have been supporting Damascus in the fight against the Islamic State, also known as Daesh, and the Nusra Front jihadist groups, both of which are outlawed in Russia and many other countries, for several years. "They received an invitation, they will be represented, while the Kurds who have fought against these groups and the Islamic State for five years are not invited," he added. Syria has been in a state of civil war since 2011, with the country's government fighting a number of opposition factions and radical Islamist groups. The UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2254 on Syria's civil war settlement on December 18, which calls for an immediate ceasefire and defines a January deadline for UN-facilitated peace talks to commence. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Syrian Army Liberates 18 Towns, Villages in Northeast Latakia Province Sputnik News 08:54 27.01.2016(updated 09:30 27.01.2016) The Syrian Army and the country's National Defense Forces have reportedly liberated more than 18 towns and villages in the northern countryside of Latakia Province in western Syria. More than 18 towns and villages located in the northern countryside of Latakia province have been liberated by the Syrian Army and the country's National Defense Forces (NDF), media reports said. The Syrian Army's General Command released a statement saying that militants had been squeezed out of a number of strategic towns and villages, including al-Ghnaimiye, al-Qalai'e, Beit Sukkar, al-Ouainat, Khan al-Joz, Beit Riha, Bradon, al-Souda, al-Khadra, Reef Mekhtaro, al-Jamousiye, al-Saraya, al-Rayyana and al-Shakria. The statement came after the Syrian troops managed to take control of the town of Rabia, one of the major Islamist strongholds in Latakia. The statement underscored the importance of establishing control over Rabia, something that the Syrian Army command said would help the government forces destroy the remaining terrorist groups in Latakia's contested northeast. In another development, the army and the NDF reportedly took full control of a strategic district located near Kweiris Airbase in the northern province of Aleppo. The liberation of the district from Daesh came after the Syrian troops and the NDF took back the strategic villages of Qatar and Tal Hattabat, located to the north of Kweiris Airbase late last week. Adding to the Syrian Army's anti-terror effort is Russia's ongoing air campaign in Syria, which was launched on September 30, when more than fifty Russian warplanes, including Su-24M, Su-25 and Su-34 jets, commenced precision airstrikes on Daesh targets in the country at the behest of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Russian General Staff said on Monday that combat aircraft from the Russian air group in Syria have carried out 169 sorties in the last three days, hitting more than 480 terrorist targets. The statement came as dozens of Daesh terrorists were killed and many more wounded after the Syrian Army foiled a spate of militants' attempts to seize hilltops located near the strategic town of Baqaliyeh in the eastern province of Deir ez-Zor. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Besieged Syrians 'believe the world has forgotten them,' UN relief chief says, urging political solution to end conflict 27 January 2016 With United Nations-backed political talks on Syria set to begin later this week, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O'Brien, today urged the entire international community to get behind the process which seeks to ease the suffering for millions of desperate people and end "one of the most savage and brutal conflicts of the 21st century." "This political process offers a genuine window of opportunity for the international community to come together and find solutions that reduce suffering and finally bring an end to the conflict. I cannot stress enough that we must not let this opportunity pass," Mr. O'Brien told the Security Council in a briefing on the humanitarian situation in Syria, which comes just two days before UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura is to facilitate intra-Syrian talks in Geneva. Mr. O'Brien, who briefed the Council alongside World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director Ertharin Cousin, said that after five long years of conflict, the facts speak for themselves: over 250,000 people killed, well over a million injured, 6.5 million displaced within Syria, almost 4.6 million refugees, and much of the remaining population some 13.5 million people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance. "We must never forget that behind each of these figures are the individual and personal stories of girls, boys, women and men whose lives have been uprooted; whose dreams for the future have been shattered; and who have witnessed and been subjected to unspeakable fear and suffering," he said, and the vicious cycle of death and destruction carries the grave risk that it is seen as the "new normal" in Syria as the search for a political solution continues. [But] this tragedy is man-made. It is hideous but it is avoidable. And we you must come together to stop it," emphasized Mr. O'Brien, who is also the UN Under-Secretary-General for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Indeed, he continued, "every time we think we have reached the nadir of human suffering in this crisis, it continues to sink deeper and deeper before our eyes." The recent pictures of emaciated, starving children in the besieged town of Madaya seemingly shocked the collective conscience of the world. Humanitarian missions to Madaya and similarly besieged Zabadani, Foah and Kefraya, undertaken by the UN, the ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), have delivered desperately needed food, medical and other aid sufficient for one month for over 60,000 people. Negotiations continue to allow the free safe passage in both locations whose lives are at serious risk. These negotiations with all parties must conclude urgently to avoid more senseless death and suffering. In the meantime, health supplies in Madaya are dwindling fast, and recent UN and SARC requests to Syrian authorities for medical teams to enter Madaya must be approved without delay or hindrance. "And why do we negotiate? Why do we request safe access from all parties, but principally the Syrian Government? Because although this Council has agreed a resolution to allow for safe, unimpeded access, it does not always exist for the brave men and women on the ground trying to deliver assistance into these areas," Mr. O'Brien stressed, adding: "Some simply say to me: 'the UN should break the sieges' but that would be reckless. It would entail sending convoy drivers and humanitarian workers into the line of fire." "We have asked this Council repeatedly to demand that the parties to the conflict facilitate unhindered, unconditional, and sustained access across Syria, but this is simply not happening," he said, noting that active conflict and insecurity are limiting factors, but all parties to the conflict continue to deliberately delay or obstruct the delivery of aid. Yet: We are in a race against time. More and more people are slipping out of our reach every day as the conflict intensifies and battle lines tighten." Urging an end to the targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure and calling for more action to facilitate unhindered, unconditional and sustained access to all people in need, including in besieged and hard-to-reach areas, for all types of assistance, Mr. O'Brien underscored that the continued suffering of the Syrian people cannot be blamed on relief organizations and staff; "rather, it is the failure of both the parties and the international community that have allowed this conflict to continue for far too long." "And try as we may, humanitarian action cannot be a substitute for political action. The only solution is through political dialogue that reduces and ultimately ends the violence. The key stakeholders in the Syria crisis must do what has never been done up to this point and put people before politics," he said, underscoring that on the eve of further political talks, "it is my hope, and the hope of all humanitarians, that the key stakeholders finally take the bold, unselfish and courageous decisions necessary to bring an end to this ruinous war and the unimaginable suffering of the Syrian people." In her remarks, WFP chief Ms. Cousin said told the UN Security Council on Wednesday (27 Jan) the agency's work in Syria was being disrupted because UN resolutions were not being met. "To prevent people from imminent starvation, we need the support and action of every Council Member and every Member State," she said. "Preventing mass starvation requires more than a four-town agreement. "Preventing a humanitarian crisis requires unimpeded and sustained access for humanitarian organizations to bring immediate relief including food to all those in need inside Syria," she said, also calling for humanitarian pauses and unconditional, monitored ceasefires to allow food and other urgent assistance to be delivered to civilians, to support the necessary vaccinations and other health campaigns. Ms. Cousin said the time for fully and collectively realizing the resolutions is long overdue. "Access must not be arbitrary. Access must not be ad hoc. Access must not be one-time. Effective access must not require unreasonable approvals. Access must be reasonably safe, regular, transparent and accountable," she emphasized. Spotlighting the difficulties facing humanitarian agencies and workers due to sporadic and ad hoc access, she said that as the Council was meeting, people in as many as 18 besieged areas could be completely out of water and food, but "we simply do not know. It is just a matter of time before the brutal images we have witnessed these past few weeks hit our screens again." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Key Syrian Opposition Groups to Decide on Attending Peace Talks by VOA News January 27, 2016 A committee of key Syrian opposition groups is expected to decide Wednesday whether to participate in U.N.-brokered peace talks in Geneva. U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura sent out invitations to the negotiations on Tuesday, but did not disclose who was on the list. The High Negotiations Committee contends it should be the sole opposition delegation, and while members have signaled a positive leaning toward the talks, their final decision is due after more discussion Wednesday. Several other opposition figures who are not a part of the committee have said they were also invited, including Haytham Manna, a prominent opposition figure who is co-chair of the political wing of a Kurdish-Arab alliance. Manna on Wednesday criticized the exclusion of some Kurdish and Arab leaders and said he hoped organizers hear those concerns and form a "strong and representative delegation." "I'll go with my friends or not," he said. "There is no compromise in this question." Democratic Union Party (PYD) not invited Syria's most powerful Kurdish party, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), said it had not been invited. Russia wants to include the Syrian Kurds at the talks, but Turkey remains adamantly opposed to their participation. Turkey considers the PYD and its armed wing to be an offshoot of the banned Kurdistan Worker's party (PKK), which has waged a bloody, three-decade fight against the Turkish government for autonomy in mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Tuesday that the talks "cannot achieve the results we want, a definitive political resolution in Syria," if the Syrian Kurds are excluded from the talks. More than 260,000 people have been killed in Syria since the civil war began with anti-government protests in March 2011. At a news conference, the top Russian diplomat said Moscow has not asked Assad to step down and has not offered him political asylum. Putin's response Russian President Vladimir Putin had hinted in an interview earlier this month that taking in Assad would be no problem. Lavrov said that Russia's four-month air campaign backing Assad has helped "turn the tide" in Syria, where the government has been battling rebels for nearly five years and, more recently, the Islamic State group as well. Western nations have criticized Russia's military operation in Syria, saying it focuses on the rebels in an attempt to prop up Assad, and not on Islamic State, which a U.S.-led coalition has been targeting with an aerial bombardment. The violence continued Tuesday with a double suicide bombing in the western city of Homs that state media said killed at least 22 people and wounded more than 100 others. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Making gains Russia appears to be hardening its position on Syria, as it backed government forces making gains against rebels before the peace talks start. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the Syrian Army, with the help of Russian airstrikes, seized control overnight of a strategic rebel-held town near the border with Jordan. Syrian opposition groups had signaled they would not participate in talks unless the Russian and Syrian airstrikes were halted and sieges against towns were lifted. Lavrov said Russia's air support had drastically altered the situation in Syria and "helped narrow the area controlled by terrorists." He added, "Moreover, we also got a clear picture of who is fighting the terrorists and who is acting in the role of their accomplices, trying to use them in their own egotistic, one-sided goals." Russia began accusing Turkey of supporting terrorists in Syria after a Turkish warplane shot down a Russian bomber in November along the Turkish-Syrian border. Ankara denies the accusation. Turkey is part of the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State and other terrorist groups in the region. Russia labels all the rebel groups fighting Assad as terrorists and is accused by Assad opponents of targeting rebels instead of Islamic State terrorists. Russia is accused of having killed hundreds of civilians in its air campaign, while Moscow claims no civilians have been killed. Moscow-based political scientist Victor Mizin said the differences between the sides vying for control of Syria are stark. "The rivalries and the divergences in approaches are quite visible. And, I think that ... it is quite evident that they would be also visible in the coming negotiations," Mizin said. VOA's Daniel Schearf in Moscow and Ken Bredemeier in Washington contributed to this story. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Syrian army regains control of 2 villages in Aleppo Iran Press TV Thu Jan 28, 2016 4:55PM Syrian army soldiers, backed by fighters from allied popular defense groups, have liberated two villages from the grips of foreign-backed Takfiri militants in the country's northwestern Aleppo Province. An unidentified military source said on Thursday that the army troops and allied forces managed to restore security and stability to Aleppo's Balouzeh village. The source told Syria's news agency SANA later in the day that Ein al-Jamajmeh, another village in Aleppo Province, came under the Syrian army's control. Army units targeted gatherings of the Takfiri Daesh terrorists and destroyed their weapons, ammunition and machine-gun equipped vehicles during operations across Aleppo. Elsewhere in Syria, the army inflicted heavy losses on different Takfiri terror groups, including the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front and the so-called Jund al-Aqsa terror group in the provinces of Idlib, Hama and Dara'a. Earlier this week, Syrian forces liberated the towns of Shaykh Maskin and Salma located in the provinces of Dara'a and Latakia, respectively. The recent advances of the Syrian forces against Daesh and other terrorist groups have been expedited by the air cover provided by Russia, which began on September 30, 2015, at the request of the Damascus government. The crisis in Syria, which flared in March 2011, has so far claimed the lives of over 260,000 people and displaced nearly half of the Arab country's population within or out of its borders. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US urges opposition groups to attend Syria talks Iran Press TV Thu Jan 28, 2016 4:47AM The United States is urging the invited Syrian opposition groups to participate in the upcoming talks in Geneva "without preconditions." The talks on a ceasefire were supposed to have started on Monday, but they have been put off until Friday due to disagreements over who should sit at the negotiating table. At a press briefing on Wednesday, State Department Spokesman Mark Toner called on opposition groups to seize 'a historic opportunity' to show up in Geneva and propose practical ways to implement a ceasefire and ease the humanitarian crisis. 'We believe it should seize this opportunity to test the [Syrian] regime's willingness and intentions and expose before the entire world which parties are serious about a potential peaceful political transition in Syria and which are not,' Toner said. Opposition groups concluded their meetings in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday without reaching a final decision on whether they would attend the Geneva talks. The so-called High Negotiations Committee has postponed until Thursday a decision. The Syrian government delegation will attend the talks. While the United States says representatives of the Syrian government should participate in the talks, it insists President Bashar al-Assad cannot be part of Syria's future. Russia and Iran, two participants in the talks, say that decision is up to the Syrian people. The US, Saudi Arabia and over two dozen other countries are taking part in the talks. Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Tuesday it was "the biggest mistake" to set "irrelevant conditions" instead of focusing on the fight against terrorism. "When there are attempts to put conditions for collective fight against terrorism, conditions that are irrelevant, such as 'if you agree to a regime change, for example, in Syria, then we will for real begin to fight terrorism collectively'... that is, I believe, the biggest mistake," he said. On December 18, 2015, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution, calling for a nationwide ceasefire in Syria and the formation of a "credible, inclusive and non-sectarian" government within six months. Syria has been grappling with a foreign-backed militancy since early 2011. More than 260,000 people have reportedly been killed and almost eight million others have been displaced. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia, US Agree Intra-Syrian Talks Have No Chance to Succeed Without Kurds Sputnik News 18:23 28.01.2016(updated 19:06 28.01.2016) Russia and the United States agree that the Kurds must participate in the intra-Syrian talks, according to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Russia and the United States agree that upcoming intra-Syrian negotiations in Geneva have no prospects to succeed without the participation of Syrian Kurds, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said Thursday. 'We mean Kurds, of course, without whom there is no point to hope for any progress or decisions being made. We believe that the Kurds must participate,' Gatilov told RIA Novosti. Asked whether Washington agrees with this, he stated 'as far as we understand, yes.' Syrian Kurdish fighters have put up a fierce resistance against Islamic State (ISIL), also known as Daesh, militants, outlawed in many countries including Russia, in northern Syria. Last summer, they recaptured a string of villages along the Turkish borders from Daesh and took the road to Raqqa under their control. But Ankara, a key regional player, has been opposed to involvement of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Geneva talks, claiming it is linked to the pro-independence Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant movement, which is active in southeastern Turkey. PYD's exclusion prompted protests in the Kurdish community, with PYD calling to recognize its five-year-long struggle against Daesh which gives it the right to be present at Syrian peace talks, according to Abd Salam Ali, the group's representative in Russia. The talks between Syrian opposition factions and the government of President Bashar Assad were due to begin Monday, but they were put back until Friday pending a UN response to opposition's demands, including the end of the government siege on rebel-held areas. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Full Throttle: From Aleppo to Daraa, Syrian Army Advances on Militants Sputnik News 08:50 28.01.2016(updated 10:00 28.01.2016) Scores of Daesh and al-Nusra Front terrorists have reportedly been killed after the Syrian Army launched major offensives in the key provinces of Aleppo, Damascus, Daraa, Deir ez-Zor, Hama, Homs and Idlib. The Syrian Army and the National Defense Forces (NDF) have staged a spate of major military operations all across Syria over the past twenty-four hours, in which dozens of Daesh and Al-Nusra Front militants were killed and many more wounded, according to media reports. In particular, militants' strongholds were destroyed in the key provinces of Aleppo, Damascus, Daraa, Deir ez-Zor, Hama, Homs and Idlib. In the city of Daraa, the Syrian troops obliterated the militants' fortifications, hideouts and vehicles in the neighborhoods of al-Mahatta and al-Balad, also striking the towns of Rakham and al-Karak in Daraa Province's northeast. In another development, the army, backed by the Russian and Syrian warplanes, managed to drive the militant groups out of the strategic city of Sheikh Meskeen. 'The Syrian Army and the NDF continued to advance against the militants in Sheikh Meskeen and took full control over the strategic city after killing and wounding scores of terrorists,' an army source said. In the city of Aleppo, Syrian Air Force fighter jets destroyed positions held by Daesh militants in the neighborhoods of al-Rashedin, al-Lairamoun, Bustan al-Bacha, Bani Zaid, Karem al-Maysar and al-Sheikh Said, as well as a number of strategic areas in the eastern part of the province. Dozens of Daesh terrorists were also killed in Deir ez-Ezor, where the Syrian forces clashed with militants in the village of Baqaliyeh and the al-Rushdiye neighborhood in the city of Deir ez-Zor. In Damascus, the Syrian Army and the NDF launched an attack on the checkpoints of Al-Nusra Front militants, seizing back one of their main supply lines in Western Ghouta. Additionally, the army cracked down on al-Nusra Front terrorists along a road linking the two strategic cities of al-Moadhamiyah and Darayya. In a separate development earlier this week, the militants' strongholds based near the town of Tamanna in the south of Idlib Province and in Kafr Zita in the northern part of Hama Province were reportedly massively bombed by Syrian warplanes. As for Russia's ongoing air campaign in Syria, it was launched on September 30, when more than fifty Russian warplanes, including Su-24M, Su-25 and Su-34 jets, commenced precision airstrikes on Daesh targets in the country at the behest of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Russian General Staff said on Monday that combat aircraft from the Russian air group in Syria had carried out 169 sorties in the previous three days, hitting more than 480 terrorist targets. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Syria Talks Off to Difficult Start by Luis Ramirez January 28, 2016 After being delayed from Monday, talks are set to get underway in Geneva Friday on what promises to be a long road to peace in Syria where the conflict soon entering its sixth year has killed a quarter of a million people. Just hours before the start, it was still unclear who would take part in the talks, which organizers say will not be peace negotiations, but proximity talks meant to lay the groundwork for negotiations. Syrian government representatives decided to attend after discussions earlier this month with U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura in Damascus. Despite the odds presented by an escalating campaign by both the Russian-backed Syrian government and a fractured opposition that includes al-Qaida and Islamic State terrorists, the U.N. envoy sees the talks as an important first step. "My job is to be always optimistic," he said after his meetings with Assad government officials recently. De Mistura sent out invitations to the talks on Tuesday. U.N. officials indicated the list would not be made public until the start of the talks. Setting the stage for negotiations has proven a difficult and fragile process. The talks are starting against a backdrop of unceasing violence. On Tuesday, two bombs killed 22 people in Homs, an opposition stronghold now largely back under government control. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility. As U.N.-designated terrorists, Islamic State militants are not invited to the Geneva talks. Amid speculation by some in the opposition that another delay could happen, organizers are working until the last minute to avoid the talks being spoiled before they start. Separate rooms, no face-to-face For one, organizers are leaving potential troublemakers off the list of participants. After Turkey threatened to withdraw support of the process, word came from France that the Syrian Kurdish party, whose forces have been supported by both the U.S. and Russia, was out. "The PYD, the Kurdish group which was causing the most problems, Mr. de Mistura told me he had not sent them an invitation letter,' French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters in Paris Wednesday. Once talks start in Geneva, the plan is to keep all parties in separate rooms, with no face-to-face meetings. The important thing, say analysts, is that something is being done. David Butter, a Middle East politics expert at Chatham House in London, said the outcome of the talks is uncertain at best, but they may serve as a necessary sign that the world community is doing something to stop a seemingly endless and profoundly destabilizing conflict. "This is a realistic appraisal of international consensus that we need to have some sort of political process going on, perhaps a recognition of the parties, certainly the opposition parties, that they're starting to get exhausted with the conflict itself and it has been so damaging on every level, humanitarian and otherwise," Butter said. Pressure to enter into negotiations is largely external, with the United States, the European Union, Russia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia all pushing for a solution. In the West, that urgency has been fed by terrorist attacks in Paris and the United States, and by the migrant crisis. The number of migrants flowing mainly from Syria and Iraq to Western Europe is expected to reach four million by the end of next year. Officials say nearly 40,000 have entered Western Europe in the three weeks since the start of 2016. On Thursday, there were renewed doubts of whether the talks would start on Friday as planned. A major opposition group known as the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee said it is postponing its decision to attend. The group, meeting in Riyadh this week, wants to be the only opposition delegation at the talks and was awaiting a response from de Mistura with details on who else will be attending before deciding whether to go to Geneva. The talks had been set to begin on January 25 but were delayed to Friday by discussions on who should represent the opposition. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Showcasing New Weapons, Taiwan Launches Military Exercises Aimed at Beijing Sputnik News 01:11 28.01.2016(updated 01:16 28.01.2016) Amid Chinese demonstrations of its growing influence in the South China Sea, Taiwan is staging a massive military exercise. Beginning Tuesday, Taiwanese military drills began on the island of Kinmen, ending on Wednesday. Included were knife-fighting and explosives demonstrations by the Army's Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion (ARB), as well as amphibious assaults along the island's beachfront. The drills highlighted a number of new weapons produced or purchased by the Taiwanese military. T-91 assault rifles, Sniper Rapid Engagement Rifles, and Barrett anti-material sniper rifles were used. Air defense exercises were conducted by the 455th Tactical Fighter Wing, which operates out of Chiayi Air Force Base. Flight capabilities of Taiwan's F-16 fighter fleet were demonstrated, as were the loading of AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-120 air-to-air missiles. Having bought three EC225 Super Pumas for $111 million in 2010, the air force also displayed its helicopter fleet, including the EC225s and a Sikorsky S-70C Blue Hawk. Naval demonstrations included anti-submarine warfare (ASW) drills, carried out by the 124th Fleet. These exercises included a Kidd-class destroyer and La Fayette frigate acting in conjunction with a S-70C helicopter. The new Tuo Chiang-class corvette and Kuang Hua-6 were also displayed, both equipped with Hsiung Feng anti-ship missiles. The exercises are timed to take place ahead of the Chinese New Year on February 8, and intended to instill confidence in Taiwanese citizens. The island views itself as independent, but Beijing views Taiwan as part of its own territory. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Taiwan's pro-independence party, recently won massive election victories. Tsai Ing-wen, the first female president of the country, will be inaugurated in May, after running on a campaign strongly opposing Chinese rule. The exercises come amid rising tensions in the South China Sea. Beijing's construction of artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago has led to an intense outcry from Washington. While China maintains that it has every right to build within its own territory, and that its Spratly installations will be used primarily for humanitarian purposes, the US has taken aggressive steps to assert its dominance in the region. The Pentagon has coordinated a number of joint military drills in the region, and launched naval patrols within the territorial limit of China's land reclamation projects. A highly contested region through which nearly $5 trillion in trade passes annually, Beijing lays claim to most of the South China Sea. There are, however, contradicting claims by Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, and Taiwan. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address State Dept Disagrees With Claims of Turkey's Role in Daesh Oil Smuggling Sputnik News 23:18 27.01.2016(updated 00:07 28.01.2016) The United States disagrees with the accusations by Greece and Israel of Turkey's involvement in the Islamic State (ISIL or Daesh) oil smuggling, US State Department Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner told reporters on Wednesday. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The United States disagrees with the accusations by Greece and Israel of Turkey's involvement in the Islamic State (ISIL or Daesh) oil smuggling, US State Department deputy spokesperson Mark Toner told reporters on Wednesday. On Tuesday, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon accused Turkey of sponsoring terrorism by buying oil from Daesh terrorist group, while Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos said that Turkey was a major conduit for terrorist oil and money flows to and from Syria hampering international efforts to fight effectively the ISIL threat. "We disagree with that assessment," Toner said in a press briefing. "We have not seen any inclinations of that, any kind of sign of that." The spokesperson explained that Washington believes that such involvement would not make any economic sense. Cook added that there was no evidence to the allegations that " high-level Turkish government" was involvement in Daesh oil smuggling. Daesh controls large swathes of land in oil-rich Syria, Iraq and Libya. In December, the Russian Defense Ministry presented evidence showing that the jihadist group has been smuggling oil across the porous Syria-Turkey border in large volumes. According to Russian envoy to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin, Daesh illicit exports of oil, primary via Turkey, allows it to gain approximately $1.5 million a day. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly denied profiting from Daesh oil trafficking. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Separatist Leader Admits To Razing Ukrainian Village, Hails 'Good' Soviet Ideology January 27, 2016 by Anna Shamanska A separatist leader in eastern Ukraine has admitted to burning down a village at the height of fighting more than a year ago, while praising a proposal for restoring the place. Aleksandr Zakharchenko's remarks came as his pro-Russian separatist group, which calls itself the Donetsk People's Republic, held a Youth Socio-Political Forum that was billed as a platform for local students to present a range of project proposals. Students from the so-called Donbas National Academy of Construction and Architecture presented their concept for the tiny village of Kozhevnya, once home to around 69 residents, according to Census data. The area was the site of some of the fiercest battles between Ukrainian national forces and separatists in the summer of 2014. The Russia-backed separatists held the village until July 23, 2014, when troops loyal to Kyiv forced them to retreat. At the time, a separatist representative told Interfax news agency that the populated areas had been abandoned and that no separatists had been killed in action. It was not until his January 25 admission that Zakharchenko explained how they pulled it off: by burning everything to the ground. "This village was a milestone for me. ... It was our first offensive. Unfortunately, in the course of fighting we practically destroyed this village," he said. "By burning down houses, we saved our lives and the lives of our people": Fighting in eastern Ukraine broke out in April 2014, and more than 9,100 people have been killed in the conflict. More than 1.4 million Ukrainians have been internally displaced, while more than 600,000 others have fled to neighboring countries. Russia-backed separatists continue to control swaths of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and a shaky, internationally brokered cease-fire is largely holding, but a long-term solution remains elusive nearly two years after the onset of the separatism-fueled violence. New Republican Values In his eight-minute speech, Zakharchenko spoke not only about physical rebuilding but also about the return of what he called "cultural values." "In the Soviet Union, which the majority of you don't remember...the ideology of that state was good. Of course, there were some exaggerations, a lot of shortcomings, but the things that were done were done for the people," he said. Zakharchenko went on to suggest that children were raised on "true" values back then -- those of "family, loyalty, brotherhood, and love for the motherland." Millions of Ukrainians died during Stalin's orchestrated famine known as the Holodomor in 1932-33, when the Soviet leadership aimed to collectivize land and labor and at the same time eliminate its perceived opponents. But according to Zakharchenko's reading of history, the West imposed its own values on the Ukrainian people after Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. "Now we understand that we are raised on Coca-Cola, Mickey Mouse, blue jeans, and so on, on Playboy, on a democracy that implies that the family could have two dads or two moms," he said. "This is absolutely unacceptable." The latest Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on the situation in eastern Ukraine accuses the separatists who control parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of killings, torture, ill-treatment, illegal detention, and forced labor. A former commander of separatists in Donetsk, Russian Igor Girkin, recently said that he executed four people in the city of Slovyansk in 2014 -- killings he said were carried out in accordance with Stalin-era laws. Zakharchenko, a university dropout with a technical-school education, tried to end his speech on an inspiring note. He said that creating the so-called "republic" -- which is not recognized as an independent state by any country -- should be a source of pride. "You are proud of us for doing it and we will be proud of you for having done it," he said. Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-russia- zakharchenko-razing-village-good-soviet-ideology/27515228.html Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Donetsk Proposes Compromise on Ukrainian Constitution Amendment Sputnik News 13:47 27.01.2016 Donetsk People's Republic proposed to the Contact Group to review a compromise to the amendment in the Ukrainian Constitution that provides actual guarantees for Donbass's special status, according to DPR delegation head of the Contact Group Denis Pushilin. DONETSK (Sputnik) The self-proclaimed eastern Ukrainian Donetsk People's Republic has proposed a compromise in the Ukrainian Constitution that would guarantee the republic's special status, DPR delegation head of the Contact Group Denis Pushilin said Wednesday. "The DPR has proposed to the Contact Group to review a compromise to the amendment in the Ukrainian Constitution that was prepared by our lawyers. It provides actual guarantees for Donbass's special status and the political rights of our people, for which we have spilled blood," Pushilin was quoted as saying by the Donetsk News Agency. Earlier in the day, meetings of the political and security subgroups of the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine reconciliation kicked off in the Belarusian capital Minsk. Parts of eastern Ukraine have been suffering from a humanitarian crisis, caused by a military operation launched by the Kiev authorities in April 2014 against local militias. The latter refused to recognize the pro-Western government in Kiev, which came to power in 2014 after what they consider to be a coup. In February 2015, the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France worked out a deal on Ukrainian reconciliation in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. Key points of the Minsk deal include a ceasefire, weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, constitutional reforms, including a decentralization of power in the country, and the granting of special status to the Donbas region. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Thanks for visiting ! The use of software that blocks ads hinders our ability to serve you the content you came here to enjoy. We ask that you consider turning off your ad blocker so we can deliver you the best experience possible while you are here. Thank you for your support! Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine took steps to protect almost 300 Danville jobs earlier this month, urging the International Trade Commission to extend an anti-dumping order on tape from Italy. It is with the continued economic growth of Southside Virginia that we ask you to strongly consider maintaining this anti-dumping order, the senators said in the letter. As strong supporters of international trade, we understand the ITCs important role in ensuring that our domestic producers operate on a level playing field. The anti-dumping order, which has been in effect since 1977, seeks to protect American businesses like the Intertape Polymer Group, which employees 279 people at its Danville location. The plant manufactures hot melt and acrylic carton sealing tapes, stretch wrap and other film products. In a news release, Intertape explained that the influx of tape products from Italy which are over capacity in that country could have negative effects on the domestic producers of the products. The order has been renewed three times by the commission since 1977. Revoking the order at this time could have devastating effects on U.S. employment in this industry, said Warner spokesperson Rachel Cohen said. The company also applauded Warner and Kaines effort to sustain job growth in the Dan River Region. We greatly appreciate the support from Sens. Warner and Kaine, Intertape CEO and President Greg Yull said in a news release. Maintaining the existing anti-dumping order on the importation of certain Pressure Sensitive Plastic tape from Italy helps ensure a fair and level playing field. We are thankful for the senators proactive leadership to help safeguard the US economy and our local employment at our Danville facility. Intertape Polymer Group is based in Montreal, Quebec, and operates in 17 locations, including 12 manufacturing facilities in North America. The company employs about 2,000 people worldwide. The International Trade Commission will hold a hearing discussing the anti-dumping order on Feb. 2. - U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the "Corps") published the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), signifying achievement of a major milestone toward permitting Donlin Gold - A five-month public comment period has been initiated - NOVAGOLD continues to maintain a solid financial position with cash and term deposits of $127 million as of November 30th, 2015, more than sufficient to complete permitting of Donlin Gold and sustain other planned activities for the Company VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Jan. 27, 2016) - NovaGold Resources Inc. (TSX:NG)(NYSE MKT:NG) today released its year-end financial results and project update for its flagship 50%-owned Donlin Gold project in Alaska and its 50%-owned Galore Creek project in British Columbia. Details of the Company's financial results for the year ended November 30, 2015 are presented in the consolidated financial statements and in the annual report filed on Form 10-K with the SEC that will be available on the Company's website at www.novagold.com, on SEDAR at www.sedar.com, and on EDGAR at www.sec.gov. All amounts are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated and all resource and reserve estimates are shown on a 100% project basis. In 2015, NOVAGOLD achieved the following: Reached a major milestone in permitting Donlin Gold: The Corps published the Donlin Gold draft EIS, initiating a five-month public comment period Advanced multiple major permits - Section 404, integrated waste and water management permits, reclamation permit Received State comments on the air quality permit application with targeted permit issuance in 2017 Advanced Galore Creek project design: Continued optimization of the integrated mining, waste rock and water management concepts Awarded generalized tunneling practice study to assess access and material handling; phase 1 is already underway Continued in depth engagement with local communities through outreach in Alaska and British Columbia: Completed over 30 village visits in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region Released 4-part Alaska Video Series featuring the vibrant yet harsh realities of life in the remote communities Funded youth initiatives, delivered safety messages & equipment, donated books and sponsored internships Participated and volunteered in numerous state-wide and local events, including a children's literacy camp in Northern British Columbia Maintained strong financial position: Total spending for our operations and investments in Donlin Gold and Galore Creek was 21% lower than planned NOVAGOLD ended the year with $127 million in cash and term deposits, sufficient to complete permitting of Donlin Gold, fund activities at Galore Creek and fulfill other current obligations President's Message This was a year marked by a number of achievements that required tremendous efforts by all parties involved in the permitting of our flagship asset, the Donlin Gold project. As time passes, this unique and industry-leading development asset has only become more valuable, representing an incredible opportunity for all of NOVAGOLD's stakeholders. Our most important achievement in 2015 was the publication of the Donlin Gold draft EIS, a major milestone in the permitting process for the project. NOVAGOLD and its joint-venture partner Barrick Gold are particularly gratified with the professionalism of all the parties involved in the process and the level of constructive engagement of the Native Corporations, local communities, various levels of government and non-governmental organizations. We are all working together to achieve an important common goal of permitting this world-class project. Permitting a major project such as Donlin Gold, within the framework of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), requires collaboration and team spirit from all parties who participate in the process. Now, three years into permitting, with significant and early input by cooperating agencies as well as the public, many issues have been identified and thoroughly considered in the EIS process. The five-month public comment period, which commenced in December, will include public meetings in 15 villages in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region and Anchorage. The Corps will host the public meetings and present an overview of the draft EIS, which considers the potential environmental, social, and economic impacts of the proposed project along with seven alternatives: no action; proposed applicant action; upriver port at Birch Tree crossing; pipeline route alternatives; haul trucks fueled by liquefied natural gas (LNG) versus diesel; diesel pipeline versus natural gas pipeline; and dry stacked tailings. The Corps will accept comments on the draft EIS until the close of the comment period at the end of April and will subsequently review and respond to all the comments in a final EIS, which the Corps' schedule anticipates should be published in 2017. Concurrent with the NEPA analysis, Donlin Gold has been submitting major permit applications to relevant agencies to obtain the more than 100 individual permits required for the project. Beyond permitting activities at Donlin Gold, NOVAGOLD and Barrick remain aligned and committed to also evaluating alternatives to reduce initial owner capital through third-party owner-operator agreements and optimized development scenarios that would increase the project's value and reduce execution risk. With respect to owner-operator agreements, a Request for Expression of Interest (RFEOI) for third-party participation in the natural gas pipeline was issued to potential candidates in 2015. As anticipated, responses came from experienced and responsible bidders. Capital costs matter to both partners who are on record stating that they will not be proceeding with construction without ensuring that the project provides the owners with an attractive rate of return, which, in turn, will largely depend on the price of gold. On that note, our corporate view on the gold price is bullish and predicated rationally on the declining supply and increasing demand for gold. This outlook was further supported by a recent report published by Jeffrey Christian, who is the Managing Partner at CPM Group, where he states that the gold outlook largely depends on two important factors: on the demand side, investor (including central bank) demand and on the supply side, mine production. Based on CPM's assessment of the fundamentals, over the longer-term he sees rising private and central bank demand and a sharp decline in gold production around the world. Such a gold-price environment, coupled with recent dramatic reductions in the cost of energy and other commodities that comprise the individual components of the total capital and operating costs for Donlin Gold, could in our view, give a huge boost to its overall project economics at just about the perfect time. We plan on updating the economic study on Donlin Gold as we get closer to securing permits for Donlin Gold. Relationship-building with our local partners is the foundation for the successful advancement of our projects. The alignment we enjoy on many fronts did not happen by chance. Through our 2015 outreach program in Alaska, approximately 60 project updates to villages in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region, trade organizations as well as State and Federal elected officials were completed. Workforce development is another key element of our outreach initiative; increasing awareness of potential job opportunities for residents and stimulating early career development efforts. NOVAGOLD's collaboration with its Native Corporation and First Nations partners in Alaska and British Columbia, respectively, as well as local communities, has very deep roots. Our tenure in these jurisdictions is sufficiently time-tested, enabling all parties to have common objectives and share the same vision. These stakeholders view Donlin Gold and Galore Creek as promising future profitable businesses capable of providing much needed socio-economic benefits to all parties who share in the success of these projects. At Galore Creek, with our partner Teck, we have advanced project design by gathering additional information to complement earlier work to optimize integrated mining, waste rock and water management conceptual designs. Additionally, we have initiated a generalized tunneling study to assess access and material handling. In 2015 we continued with local outreach efforts in Northern British Columbia, where Galore Creek and NOVAGOLD sponsored local fundraising events and supported the Tahltan literacy camps. Galore Creek also awarded ten bursaries to Tahltan members pursuing post-secondary education in Canada based the following criteria: academic achievement, community involvement, as well as educational and career goals. Over the past four-year period, we have been careful stewards of the Company's financial resources. Our total expenditures of $39 million in 2015 were $6 million lower than planned. Given our current cash and term deposits of $127 million as of November 30, 2015 and anticipated spending of approximately $25 million in 2016, NOVAGOLD is expected to end 2016 with sufficient financial resources to complete permitting of Donlin Gold and conduct necessary activities at Galore Creek. NOVAGOLD and its team see unprecedented opportunity in the years ahead as we continue to advance Donlin Gold. It is a one-of-a-kind asset with all the key attributes you could wish for in a mining project - size, quality, longevity, exceptional exploration potential, great partnerships and the jurisdictional appeal of being located in the United States. With 39 million ounces of gold in the Measured and Indicated resource categories, grading 2.2 grams of gold per tonne (more than twice the grade of a typical project in our sector), and anticipated annual gold production greater than one million ounces per year over a 27-year mine life and multiple exploration targets along the 8-kilometer gold-bearing mineralized trend, Donlin Gold simply has no peer in the gold industry. There is no doubt that the development of a major mine such as Donlin Gold represents a significant permitting, technical, logistical and financial challenge, but I am confident that the hard work, determination, conviction and patience of our experienced team will be rewarded. We feel privileged to have a portfolio of high-quality, company-making assets such as Donlin Gold and Galore Creek. More importantly, we enjoy strong relationships with the Native Corporations, Calista and TKC, in Alaska, and with the Tahltan First Nation in British Columbia. We also appreciate the support of various government and non-government agencies. As always, we thank our shareholders for their faith in the future of this great company and, last but not least, we express our gratitude to a very dedicated Board of Directors for providing us with valuable guidance as NOVAGOLD continues to advance two exceptional projects up the value chain. Financial Results For the year ended November 30, 2015, NOVAGOLD reported a decrease in loss from operations of $6.3 million from $38.0 million in 2014 to $31.7 million in 2015. The decrease resulted from lower general and administrative expense and lower losses from equity investments in the Donlin Gold and Galore Creek projects. General and administrative expense decreased $2.2 million, primarily due to lower professional fees and favorable foreign exchange translation of expenses incurred in Canadian dollars. Our share of losses at the Donlin Gold project decreased by $3.0 million, as 2015 activities continued to focus primarily on permitting. At the Galore Creek project, our share of losses decreased by $1.5 million due to reduced activity and a gain on the sale of surplus equipment. Evaluation expense includes $0.4 million for the Company's share of the Donlin Gold project joint studies with Barrick. Net loss decreased from $40.5 million ($0.13 per share - basic and diluted) in 2014 to $32.0 million ($0.10 per share - basic and diluted) in 2015. The decrease resulted primarily from the $6.3 million reduction in the loss from operations in 2015 compared to 2014. Interest expense decreased by $1.7 million primarily due to the repayment of the remaining $15.8 million of convertible notes in 2015. in thousands of U.S. dollars, except for per share amounts Year ended November 30, 2015 $ Year ended November 30, 2014 $ General and administrative expense 19,887 22,046 Share of losses - Donlin Gold 11,016 13,985 Share of losses - Galore Creek 392 1,941 Evaluation 366 - Depreciation 35 36 Total operating expenses 31,696 38,008 Loss from operations (31,696 ) (38,008 ) Other income (expense) (103 ) (2,213 ) Income (loss) for the period (31,952 ) (40,484 ) Income (loss) per share, basic and diluted (0.10 ) (0.13 ) Cash and term deposits 126,731 165,325 Total assets 433,584 524,546 Total liabilities 104,288 119,430 Liquidity and Capital Resources During 2015, cash and cash equivalents decreased by $28.6 million and term deposits decreased by $10.0 million. The total decrease in cash and term deposits of $38.6 million was primarily related to the $15.8 million repayment of the remaining convertible notes, $11.4 million used in operating activities for administrative costs and interest payments and $11.0 million to fund our share of the Donlin Gold and Galore Creek projects. 2016 Outlook In 2016, we expect to spend approximately $25 million, including $9 million to fund our share of expenditures at the Donlin Gold project, $1 million at the Galore Creek project, $1 million for our share of joint Donlin Gold studies with Barrick, $12 million for general and administrative costs and $2 million for working capital and other corporate purposes. Looking at the year ahead, NOVAGOLD will continue to focus on five key areas: to advance the Donlin Gold project toward a construction/production decision; advance Galore Creek mine planning and project design; maintain a healthy balance sheet; maintain an effective corporate social responsibility program; and evaluate opportunities to monetize the value of Galore Creek. Conference Call & Webcast Details The conference call and webcast to discuss these results will take place January 28, 2016 at 8:00 am PT (11:00 am ET). The webcast and conference call-in details are provided below. Webcast: www.novagold.com North American callers: 1-866-426-5215 International callers: 1-704-908-0398 Conference ID: 21642231 The webcast will be archived on NOVAGOLD's website for one year. For a transcript of the call please email info@novagold.com. About NOVAGOLD NOVAGOLD is a well-financed precious metals company engaged in the exploration and development of mineral properties in North America. Its flagship asset is the 50%-owned Donlin Gold project in Alaska, one of the safest jurisdictions in the world. With approximately 39 million ounces of gold in the measured and indicated resource categories (541 million tonnes at an average grade of approximately 2.2 grams per tonne), Donlin Gold is regarded to be one of the largest, highest grade, and most prospective known gold deposits in the world. According to the Second Updated Feasibility Study (as defined below), once in production, Donlin Gold should average approximately 1.5 million ounces of gold per year for the first five full years, followed by decades of more than one million ounces per year on a 100% basis. The Donlin Gold project has substantial exploration potential beyond the designed footprint which currently covers only three kilometers of an approximately eight-kilometer long gold-bearing trend. Current activities at Donlin Gold are focused on permitting, community outreach and workforce development in preparation for the construction and operation of this top tier asset. The Donlin Gold project commenced permitting in 2012, a clearly defined process expected to take approximately five years. NOVAGOLD also owns 50% of the Galore Creek copper-gold-silver project located in northern British Columbia. According to the 2011 Pre-Feasibility Study (as defined below), once in production, Galore Creek is expected to be the largest copper mine in Canada, a tier-one jurisdiction. NOVAGOLD is currently evaluating opportunities to sell all or a portion of its interest in Galore Creek and would apply the proceeds toward the development of Donlin Gold. NOVAGOLD is well positioned to stay the course and take Donlin Gold through permitting. Scientific and Technical Information Scientific and technical information contained herein with respect to Donlin Gold is derived from the "Donlin Creek Gold Project Alaska, USA NI 43-101 Technical Report on Second Updated Feasibility Study" compiled by AMEC with an effective date of November 18, 2011, as amended January 20, 2012 (the "Second Updated Feasibility Study"). Kirk Hanson, P.E., Technical Director, Open Pit Mining, North America, (AMEC, Reno), and Gordon Seibel, R.M. SME, Principal Geologist, (AMEC, Reno) are the Qualified Persons responsible for the preparation of the independent technical report, each of whom are independent "qualified persons" as defined by NI 43-101. Certain scientific and technical information contained herein with respect to Galore Creek is derived from the technical report entitled "Galore Creek Project British Columbia NI 43-101 Technical Report on Pre-Feasibility Study" dated effective July 27, 2011 (the "2011 Pre-Feasibility Study"). The Qualified Persons responsible for the preparation of the independent technical report are Greg Kulla, P. Geo., Principal Geologist (AMEC Americas Limited), and Jay Melnyk, P. Eng. (AMEC Americas Limited), each of whom are independent "qualified persons" as defined by NI 43-101. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release includes certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable securities legislation, including the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including, without limitation, the timing of permitting and potential development of Donlin Gold, statements relating to NOVAGOLD's future operating and financial performance, outlook, and the potential sale of all or part of NOVAGOLD's interest in Galore Creek are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently, but not always, identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "potential", "possible", and similar expressions, or statements that events, conditions, or results "will", "may", "could", or "should" occur or be achieved. These forward-looking statements may include statements regarding the 2016 outlook; perceived merit of properties; anticipated permitting timeframes; exploration results and budgets; mineral reserve and resource estimates; work programs; capital expenditures; timelines; strategic plans; completion of transactions; market prices for precious and base metals; or other statements that are not statements of fact. Forward-looking statements involve various risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from NOVAGOLD's expectations include the uncertainties involving the need to obtain permits and governmental approvals; the need for additional financing to explore and develop properties and availability of financing in the debt and capital markets; uncertainties involved in the interpretation of drilling results and geological tests and the estimation of reserves and resources; the need for continued cooperation with Barrick Gold Corp. and Teck Resources Ltd. for the continued exploration and development of the Donlin Gold and Galore Creek properties, respectively; the need for cooperation of government agencies and native groups in the development and operation of properties; risks of construction and mining projects such as accidents, equipment breakdowns, bad weather, non-compliance with environmental and permit requirements, unanticipated variation in geological structures, ore grades or recovery rates; unexpected cost increases, which could include significant increases in estimated capital and operating costs; fluctuations in metal prices and currency exchange rates; and other risk and uncertainties disclosed in NOVAGOLD's Annual Report filed on Form 10-K for the year-ended November 30, 2015 with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, Canadian securities regulators, and in other NOVAGOLD reports and documents filed with applicable securities regulatory authorities from time to time. NOVAGOLD's forward-looking statements reflect the beliefs, opinions and projections on the date the statements are made. NOVAGOLD assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law. Cautionary Note to United States Investors This press release has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the securities laws in effect in Canada, which differ from the requirements of U.S. securities laws. Unless otherwise indicated, all resource and reserve estimates included in this press release have been prepared in accordance with Canadian National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") and the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM)-CIM Definition Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves, adopted by the CIM Council, as amended ("CIM Definition Standards"). NI 43-101 is a rule developed by the Canadian Securities Administrators which establishes standards for all public disclosure an issuer makes of scientific and technical information concerning mineral projects. Canadian standards, including NI 43-101, differ significantly from the requirements of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and resource and reserve information contained herein may not be comparable to similar information disclosed by U.S. companies. In particular, and without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the term "resource" does not equate to the term "reserves". Under U.S. standards, mineralization may not be classified as a "reserve" unless the determination has been made that the mineralization could be economically and legally produced or extracted at the time the reserve determination is made. The SEC's disclosure standards normally do not permit the inclusion of information concerning "measured mineral resources", "indicated mineral resources" or "inferred mineral resources" or other descriptions of the amount of mineralization in mineral deposits that do not constitute "reserves" by U.S. standards in documents filed with the SEC. Investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of "measured" or "indicated resources" will ever be converted into "reserves". Investors should also understand that "inferred mineral resources" have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and great uncertainty as to their economic and legal feasibility. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of the "inferred resources" will ever be upgraded to "indicated resource", "measured resource", or "mineral reserve" status. Under Canadian rules, estimated "inferred mineral resources" may not form the basis of feasibility or pre-feasibility studies except in rare cases. Investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of an "inferred mineral resource" exists or is economically or legally mineable. Disclosure of "contained ounces" in a resource is permitted disclosure under Canadian regulations; however, the SEC normally only permits issuers to report mineralization that does not constitute "reserves" by SEC standards as in-place tonnage and grade without reference to unit measures. The requirements of NI 43-101 for identification of "reserves" are also not the same as those of the SEC, and reserves reported by NOVAGOLD in compliance with NI 43-101 may not qualify as "reserves" under SEC standards. Accordingly, information concerning mineral deposits set forth herein may not be comparable with information made public by companies that report in accordance with U.S. standards. Vancouver - Uracan Resources Ltd. (TSX.V:URC) (Uracan or the Company) has been advised that on January 26, 2016, Clive Johnson, Chairman and Director of the Company, acquired ownership and control over 500,000 common shares of the Company representing 0.69% of the issued and outstanding common shares of the Company.After this acquisition, Mr. Johnson now owns in aggregate 13,091,033 common shares, representing 18.19% of the current issued and outstanding common shares of the Company, 790,000 options representing 18.61% of the outstanding options and would own 13,881,033 common shares, representing 19.08% of the then-issued and outstanding common shares of the Company on a partially diluted basis, assuming exercise of all convertible securities held by Mr. Johnson.Mr. Johnson acquired the securities for investment purposes and has no present intention to acquire further securities of the Company, although he may in the future acquire or dispose of securities of the Company, through the market, privately or otherwise, as circumstances or market conditions warrant.A copy of the early warning report relating to the above holdings will be available under the Companys profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Uracan Resources Ltd. (TSX.V:URC, OTC:URCFF) is a Canadian-based exploration company focused on exploring for uranium deposits in Saskatchewan and Quebec, Canada. In early 2013, Uracan signed an agreement with UEX Corp. , whereby Uracan acquired the option to earn from UEX a 60% participating interest in the Black Lake Property along the northern margin of the Athabasca Basin. UEX currently holds an 89.99% interest in the Black Lake Project with AREVA Resources Canada Inc. (AREVA) holding the remaining 10.01% interest.In July 2014, Uracan signed an agreement with Forum Uranium whereby Uracan can acquire up to a 70% interest in the Clearwater Property near the southwestern margin of the Athabasca Basin, immediately adjacent to Fission Uraniums Patterson Lake South discovery. Forum is the 100% owner of the Clearwater Property.Uracan continues to review additional opportunities worldwide to capitalize on management's exploration and financing capabilities.ON BEHALF OF URACAN RESOURCES LTD.Clive Johnson, ChairmanMarc Simpson, President and CEOMarc Simpson, President and CEO604-506-6996www.uracan.caNeither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. IRVING, TX--(Marketwired - Jan 28, 2016) - DynaResource Inc. (OTCQB: DYNR) ("DynaUSA", and "the Company") is pleased to announce that Mineras de DynaResource S.A. de C.V. ("DynaMineras"), the 100% owned subsidiary of DynaUSA and the exclusive operator of the San Jose de Gracia Property in northern Sinaloa, Mexico ("SJG"), is reporting the delivery for sale on January 25, 2016 of an approximate 300 Oz gold contained in concentrates (exact weights in gold and silver oz. to be determined at final settlement). DynaMineras further reports the contract mining at San Pablo mine, and test mill runs of the pilot mill facility at SJG are continuing. DynaMineras -- Mine Plan and Mill Operations (Pilot Operations) DynaMineras is conducting operations at SJG according to internally developed mine plans for the San Pablo Mine (compiled using Surpac software), and through the internally designed SJG Pilot Mill facility (consisting of a basic gravity-flotation circuit) which was previously operated by DynaUSA during the 2003-2006 period. There is no preliminary economic assessment report completed for SJG so the precise cutoff grade for underground mining has not yet been determined. The operations are being funded internally by DynaMineras and DynaUSA. The mine plan was developed from the block model of resources as defined in the DynaMexico NI 43-101 Mineral Resource Estimate; and from the analysis of underground mining works conducted in 2003-2006. SJG Ownership DynaMexico owns 100% of the SJG Project. DynaUSA currently holds 80% of the total outstanding Capital of DynaMexico, and, DynaUSA currently holds 100% of DynaMineras. On behalf of the Board of Directors, K.D. DIEPHOLZ; DynaResource Inc.; Chairman and CEO IMPORTANT CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING CANADIAN DISCLOSURE STANDARDS The Company is an "OTC Reporting Issuer" as that term is defined in Multilateral Instrument 51-509, Issuers Quoted in the U.S. Over-the-Counter Markets, promulgated by various Canadian Provincial Securities Commissions. Accordingly, certain disclosure in this news release or other disclosure provided by the Company has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of securities laws in effect in Canada, which differ from the requirements of United States securities laws. In Canada, an issuer is required to provide technical information with respect to mineralization, including reserves and resources, if any, on its mineral exploration properties in accordance with Canadian requirements, which differ significantly from the requirements of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") applicable to registration statements and reports filed by United States companies pursuant to the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. As such, information contained in this news release or other disclosure provided by the Company concerning descriptions of mineralization under Canadian standards may not be comparable to similar information made public by United States companies subject to the reporting and disclosure requirements of the SEC and not subject to Canadian securities legislation. This news release or other disclosure provided by the Company may use the terms "measured mineral resources", "indicated mineral resources" and "inferred mineral resources". While these terms are recognized and required by Canadian regulations (under National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects), the SEC does not recognize them. United States investors are cautioned not to assume that any part or all of the mineral deposits in these categories will ever be converted to reserves. In addition, "inferred mineral resources" have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and economic and legal feasibility. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of an inferred mineral resource will ever be upgraded to a higher category. Under Canadian securities legislation, estimates of inferred mineral resources may not form the basis of feasibility or pre-feasibility studies, although they may form, in certain circumstances, the basis of a "preliminary economic assessment" as that term is defined in National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. U.S. investors are cautioned not to assume that part or all of an inferred mineral resource exists, or is economically or legally mineable. CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION This News release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27 A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Certain information contained in this news release, including any information relating to future financial or operating performance may be deemed "forward-looking". All statements in this news release, other than statements of historical fact, that address events or developments that DynaResource expects to occur, are "forward-looking information". These statements relate to future events or future performance and reflect the Company's expectations regarding the future growth, results of operations, business prospects and opportunities of DynaResource. These forward-looking statements reflect the Company's current internal projections, expectations or beliefs and are based on information currently available to DynaResource. In some cases, forward-looking information can be identified by terminology such as "may", "will", "should", "expect", "intend", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "projects", "potential", "scheduled", "forecast", "budget" or the negative of those terms or other comparable terminology. Certain assumptions have been made regarding the Company's plans at the San Jose de Gracia property. Many of these assumptions are based on factors and events that are not within the control of DynaResource and there is no assurance they will prove to be correct. Such factors include, without limitation: capital requirements, fluctuations in the international currency markets and in the rates of exchange of the currencies of the United States and Mexico; price volatility in the spot and forward markets for commodities; discrepancies between actual and estimated production, between actual and estimated reserves and resources and between actual and estimated metallurgical recoveries; changes in national and local governments in any country which DynaResource currently or may in the future carry on business; taxation; controls; regulations and political or economic developments in the countries in which DynaResource does or may carry on business; the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development, including the risks of obtaining necessary licenses and permits, diminishing quantities or grades of reserves; competition; loss of key employees; additional funding requirements; actual results of current exploration or reclamation activities; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; accidents; labor disputes; defective title to mineral claims or property or contests over claims to mineral properties. In addition, there are risks and hazards associated with the business of mineral exploration, development and mining, including environmental hazards, industrial accidents, unusual or unexpected formations, pressures, cave-ins, flooding and gold bullion losses (and the risk of inadequate insurance or inability to obtain insurance, to cover these risks) as well as those risks referenced in the Annual Report for DynaResource available at www.sec.gov. Forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and actual results and future events could differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking information. All of the forward-looking information contained in this news release is qualified by these cautionary statements. Although DynaResource believes that the forward-looking information contained in this news release is based on reasonable assumptions, readers cannot be assured that actual results will be consistent with such statements. Accordingly, readers are cautioned against placing undue reliance on forward-looking information. DynaResource expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, events or otherwise. VANCOUVER, Jan. 28, 2016 /CNW/ - Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation ("Nevada Sunrise" or the "Company") (TSXV: NEV) is pleased to announce that it has signed a letter agreement for an option to purchase water rights in the Clayton Valley of Nevada. The pre-existing water rights allow for 1,770 acre/feet of water use for mining and milling per year (the "Permit"). "The acquisition of water rights by Nevada Sunrise is an important step toward the potential development of any lithium brine discoveries on our Clayton Valley exploration properties," said Warren Stanyer, President and CEO of Nevada Sunrise. "We believe that any consumption of water in the Clayton Valley requires valid water rights to meet State regulations, especially in Nevada, the most highly-regulated state for water use in the U.S." In December 2015, Nevada Sunrise received a written appraisal from an independent appraiser certified in the State of Nevada, which valued the Permit at US$1.42 million. According to the appraisal report, the Clayton Valley basin is currently "over-appropriated", with Albemarle Corp.'s Silver Peak lithium mine being the largest consumer of water in the area. The report further states that any new application for water use in an over-appropriated basin would be carefully reviewed by the Nevada Division of Water Resources, and it is uncertain if any new applications would be granted. Nevada Sunrise believes that its acquisition of the existing Permit will be a key factor in future lithium exploration and development by the Company for brines in the Clayton Valley. In consideration for an option to purchase the Permit, the Company has agreed to pay the vendors a combination of cash, common shares and common share purchase warrants, on the following schedule shown below: Schedule of Payments Date of Payment Cash (USD) Common Share Payments Common Share Purchase Warrants $50,000 to be paid upon execution of a letter agreement a further $75,000 to be paid upon execution of a definitive agreement $125,000 200,000 on execution of a definitive agreement 750,000 @ CDN$0.50 750,000 @ CDN$0.70 750,000 @ CDN$1.00 Issuable on execution of a definitive agreement 1st Anniversary of the Agreement $150,000 250,000 n/a 2nd Anniversary of the Agreement $175,000 300,000 n/a 3rd Anniversary of the Agreement $200,000 350,000 n/a 4th Anniversary of the Agreement $300,000 400,000 n/a 5th Anniversary of the Agreement $350,000 500,000 n/a Total $1,300,000 2,000,000 2,250,000 Nevada Sunrise has paid to the vendor a non-refundable deposit of US$50,000 to obtain an exclusive 60-day due diligence period, during which the vendors will not entertain or negotiate offers for the Permit. During the due diligence period, Nevada Sunrise will have the right to conduct such due diligence in respect of the Permit with the State of Nevada as it deems necessary or advisable. At any time during the 60-day period, Nevada Sunrise can give notice to the vendor that it wishes to proceed to the execution of a definitive agreement (the "Agreement"), and will be obligated to pay the remaining $75,000 of the initial payment upon the earlier of execution of the Agreement and the date that is 60 days after the date of the letter agreement. Should Nevada Sunrise decide not proceed to an Agreement, the letter agreement will terminate with no further obligations to the vendor. In addition to the above, the parties agree that the Agreement will include the following terms: a. If within 10 years after the execution of the Agreement, Nevada Sunrise sells the Permit to a third party, the vendor will receive 50% of the proceeds of such sale, less the amounts already paid to the vendor in cash and common shares, with the common shares valued by way of a 20-day volume-weighted average price (the "VWAP"), with the VWAP to begin following the day the 4-month hold has expired for each tranche of common shares released. Upon a sale of the Permit in total to a third party, the Company's obligations under the Agreement will terminate. b. The payment of $75,000 cash and 200,000 common shares made upon execution of the Agreement will be refundable to Nevada Sunrise within the first year from the date of execution of the letter agreement should the Company's ability to use the Permit to its fullest extent be restricted by any regulation or statute. c. Nevada Sunrise will have the right to accelerate the timing of cash payments and common share payments to the vendor, at its discretion. All common shares issued by Nevada Sunrise are subject to a 4-month hold period according to the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange, and would bear a restrictive legend under Rule 904 of Regulation S of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933. The final Agreement is subject to the production of a definitive agreement in a form satisfactory to both parties, approval by the Board of Directors of Nevada Sunrise, and acceptance for filing of the transaction by the TSX Venture Exchange. Nevada Sunrise currently has three lithium exploration projects in the Clayton Valley, which hosts known lithium brine deposits, including the Silver Peak lithium mine. A drilling permit for the Neptune Project was obtained in December 2015 by Nevada Sunrise from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and the Company plans exploration drilling for lithium brines in February 2016. For further information on the Company's lithium properties, see the Nevada Sunrise website under "Projects-Nevada Lithium" at: http://www.nevadasunrise.ca/projects/nevadalithium/ About Nevada Sunrise Nevada Sunrise is a junior mineral exploration company with a strong technical team based in Vancouver, BC, Canada, that holds interests in nine exploration projects in the State of Nevada, USA. Nevada Sunrise began acquisitions of Nevada lithium properties in September 2015, which include options to earn 100% interests in the Neptune and Clayton Northeast projects, and a 100% interest in the Aquarius Project, all located in the Clayton Valley. The Company also holds options to earn 100% interests in the Jackson Wash and Atlantis projects, and has a 50% participating interest in the Gemini Project, each located in playas proximal to the Clayton Valley. Our three key gold assets include a 21% interest in a joint venture with Pilot Gold Inc. (TSX: PLG) at Kinsley Mountain near Wendover, a 100% interest in the Golden Arrow project near Tonopah, and a 100% interest in the Roulette gold property in the southeastern Carlin trend near Ely, with each of the properties subject to certain production royalties. FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS All statements in this release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to Nevada Sunrise Gold Corp. ("Nevada Sunrise") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws, including statements that address the potential acquisition of water rights, future mineral production, reserve potential, exploration drilling, the future price of lithium, potential quantity and/or grade of minerals, potential size of a mineralized zone, potential expansion of mineralization, the timing and results of future resource estimates, or other study, proposed exploration and development of our exploration properties and the estimation of mineral resources. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "plan", "continue", "estimate", "expect", "project", "predict", "potential", "targeting", "intends", "believe", "potential", and similar expressions, or describes a "goal", or variation of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "should", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievement of Nevada Sunrise to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information. Such factors include, among others, risks related to the the potential acquisition of water rights, the interpretation and actual results of historical exploration at Nevada Sunrise's exploration properties, reliance on technical information provided by third parties on any of our exploration properties, including access to historical information on exploration properties, current exploration and development activities; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; current economic conditions; future prices of commodities; possible variations in grade or recovery rates; failure of equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; the failure of contracted parties to perform; labor disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals, financing or in the completion of exploration, as well as those factors discussed in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis for the Year Ended September 30, 2015, which is available under Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Although Nevada Sunrise has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Nevada Sunrise disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and accordingly are subject to change after such date. Except as otherwise indicated by Nevada Sunrise, these statements do not reflect the potential impact of any non-recurring or other special items or of any dispositions, monetizations, mergers, acquisitions, other business combinations or other transactions that may be announced or that may occur after the date hereof. Forward-looking statements are provided for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans and allowing investors and others to get a better understanding of our operating environment. Nevada Sunrise does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that are included in this document, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of accuracy of this release. The Securities of Nevada Sunrise Gold Corp. have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to the account or benefit of any U.S. person. SOURCE Nevada Sunrise Gold Corp. Pancakes plus profiteroles: Profiterjes filled with chocolate-hazelnut sauce. Photo: Wayne Taylor Address 105 Victoria Street Seddon, Victoria 3011 View map Book online Opening hours Thu-Sun 11am-4pm; Tue-Sat 5.30pm-11pm Features Accepts bookings, Bar, Business lunch, Degustation, Family friendly, Gluten-free options, Licensed, Long lunch, Outdoor seating, Wheelchair access, Vegetarian friendly Prices Moderate (mains $20-$40) Chef Ashley Davis Payments eftpos, AMEX, Visa, Mastercard Phone 03 8590 3505 Eaten any snails lately? You should, and not just because they are an excellent excuse to marinate yourself in melted butter. Firm, salty sea snails (Tasmanian periwinkles) also offer a good reason to visit Copper Pot, the first restaurant from chef Ashley Davis. The menu says they're served "how they should be" and I'd agree: bobbing in green-tinged shells, they're meaty and unadorned, slow-cooked then lavishly loved up with garlicky butter. The snails are a signpost. Copper Pot bills itself as "a foodies' roadtrip around Europe" and it visits some lesser lights: Croatia, Portugal and Germany as well as the power trio of France, Italy and Spain. The produce, by contrast, is a passionate, ethical exploration of Australia. The 'Michelin man' welcomes diners to Copper Pot. Photo: Wayne Taylor Bread should be a point of pride in a European restaurant: Copper Pot's sourdough comes with schmaltz, a gleaming spread of duck and pork fat with crunchy, fatty crumbs. I would bathe in it. Spaetzle with gruyere think mac-and-cheese made by a storybook Alpine grandmother is such exemplary comfort food that I took my shoes off to eat it. Spanish-style squid with ink-dyed black rice cooked in a balanced fish stock is the best hot wet rice I've had for a long time. Portuguese paprika-spiced chicken is cooked on the bone so it's nice and juicy. Slow-cooked periwinkles with garlic butter. Photo: Wayne Taylor Profiterjes, the Dutch lovechild of pancakes and profiteroles, ooze with chocolate hazelnut sauce. A mural of a rotund Michelin man fills a wall of this one-room restaurant, a friendly guide to the continent, rather than a looming spectre of the powerful restaurant guide. It sometimes feels that a chef only needs to pass through Heathrow Airport for the words "Michelin star" to pop up on their CVs. Davis isn't one of those. He was head chef at London restaurant Helene Darroze when it climbed from one Michelin star to two and he stuck around for three years to retain those stars. Spanish-style squid with ink-dyed rice served in a copper pot. Photo: Wayne Taylor Originally from Sunshine, Davis returned from Europe with his German wife (and business partner) Janine, to Pure South, a Tasmanian showcase restaurant in Southbank, lifting it to a Good Food Guide hat. So Davis has the chops, not that he bangs on about it; he'd rather let his polyglot food do the talking. Copper Pot is articulate and enthusiastic, fuelled by varied food traditions, yet anchored in the pan-European notion that great food can be found anywhere, on country byways as well as in big cities and why not? in urban villages such as Seddon. Rating: Four stars (out of five) http://www.copperpotseddon.com/ The classic margherita pizza, with an authentic charred crust. Photo: Glenn Hunt Address 174 Grey Street South Brisbane, Queensland 4101 View map Opening hours Daily 8am-late Features Wheelchair access, Licensed, Accepts bookings Prices Moderate (mains $20-$40) Chef Steve Wildermoth Phone 07 3844 8556 In Italy, the art of pizza making is taken so seriously, that the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (the True Neapolitan Pizza Association) even stipulates to its members the pH of the water that must be used in dough production. In Australia, on the other hand, with no such culinary rule book, we cheerfully stuff our pizza crusts with hamburgers, or top them with tandoori chicken, corn chips and other cross-cultural contaminants. The wind of change is blowing though and it carries with it the scent of woodsmoke. Perhaps it's a result of more frequent travel; this growing weaning off the "more is better" approach and the embracing of something closer to the beauty of a "verace" pizza? Mister Paganini has a cheerful country ambience. Photo: Glenn Hunt Whatever the reason, there's a burgeoning number of good, authentic pizzerias in Brisbane and the flame once carried solely by Teneriffe's Beccofino could just as easily be passed to Julius in South Brisbane, Coppa Spuntino in the CBD, Fortitude Valley's Tartufo, Sorrelina in Woolloongabba, Kenmore's Pizzeria Violetta or Red Hill's Colle Rosso, among others. Or perhaps even South Bank's newest, Mister Paganini. Opening just before Christmas, Mister Paganini moved into the double street frontage that for years operated as Poppy's Basket/Bakery/Deli. Like most venues in this South Bank strip, it doesn't really stick its head above the parapet, staying true to the same casual, colourful, alfresco-oriented design as its neighbours. There are jade-and-black chequerboard floors and matching bentwood chairs, banquettes and bifold doors that beckon a welcome river breeze. The clams with corn and 'njuda sounds unlikely but it works. Photo: Glenn Hunt Charmingly-accented staff don't always get the social niceties spot-on, but add a pleasing sense of authenticity. Warm, laid-back soul music from Marvin, Aretha and the like may not be so in keeping with the Italian theme, but eminently preferable to ear-worm Euro pop or Italian opera "lite". Mister Paganini's wood-fired pizza oven, a black-tiled beast tended by a handsome moustached pizzaiolo, is also the real deal. From its 400-degree belly come pizza the Verace Pizza Association would probably happily sign off on. There are 10 altogether, democratically divided between "rosso" (with tomato sauce) and "bianco" (without). They come out at a clip, needing just a minute or so in the flames to make their crust, known as "cornicione" puffy and air-filled, with just the right amount of chewiness and bready flavour. Slices are properly pliable, rather than crisp, with the point of the triangle able to be folded neatly into its centre, eliminating the need for pesky cutlery. Salsicce (sausage) pizza. Photo: Glenn Hunt The pizza litmus test of any pizzaiolo's skill is the classic margherita, but we liked the salty, briny punch of the "salsicce" with nubs of sausage, whole black olives and thin wafers of sweet purple onion. The wine list dips into classic and contemporary Italy, from aperativi such as Aperol spritz or an Americano, to a Tuscan vermentino or a Sardinian red blend, mixed up with some made-in-Australia Italian varietals. By-the-glass choices are casually pre-poured into love 'em or loathe 'em stemless glasses. There are a few Italian beers, too: Peroni, plus a Birra Moretti and a wild-card beer from Sicily. As is the current fashion, the menu is divided into piccolo (small) and grande (large) plates, such as a porchetta with mustard fruit or an 800g steak to share, along with pizza and pasta, and antipasti and salumi. The wood-fired oven at Mister Paganini. Photo: Glenn Hunt While the pizza passes all tests, some of the other dishes lose points for a certain restraint that means they are missing that rustic, full-flavoured, bread-mopping oomph of Italian cooking. Clams with 'nduja (a spicy spreadable salami) and corn sounds odd but it works, although surprisingly un-piquant, and the broth too delicate. Also from the piccolo plates section, vitello tonnato; veal carpaccio with tuna mayonnaise and horseradish, is pretty on the plate but both the tuna and horseradish are overwhelmed by the mayonnaise. Spaghetti with spanner crab is shrouded in breadcrumbs. Photo: Glenn Hunt Spaghetti with spanner crab comes blanketed, rather than just garnished, with golden breadcrumbs, smothering the flavour of the crab and the promised chilli is barely discernible. Conversely, a simple artichoke salad is perfect, fresh and zingy, properly seasoned, the artichokes tender, with little apple cubes dressed with apple cider vinegar, crunchy Spanish almonds and a tangle of greenery. While we eat with our eyes, it's the taste we ultimately remember and Mister Paganini's chefs would do well to be bolder and more confident with flavour. Ultimately, however, the tweaks needed are minor and I'd certainly go back. Mister Paganini is a welcome addition to South Bank and to the growing education of the "thick-crust meat-lovers" hold-outs. http://www.misterpaganini.com.au/ SHARE By Justin Zamudio Drought in the Concho Valley has claimed another victim ? this time a large and long-established company and jobs for hundreds of employees. San Angelo Packing Co. Inc., a cattle-slaughtering and meat-processing plant at 1809 N. Bell St., closed Tuesday because severe drought conditions led to a lack of livestock supply, said John C. Sims, a member of the company's board of directors. "There was some hope that there will be some increase (head of cattle) at the first of the year, but that didn't materialize. We couldn't find the cows and the numbers to keep it going," Sims said. "It's closing not because of economic losses; it was going to mount up in the future. We just couldn't get enough (cattle) to get the plant (workers) pay," he said. "The plant has plenty of assets, though. They did not want to use up the equity in the company." San Angelo Packing Co. had been in business since 1983, and was locally owned by Jimmy Stokes. The business stayed in the family after Stokes died in 2001, and Sims oversees the estate that owns all the stock in San Angelo Packing. About 200 employees were laid off, Sims said. Employees were notified Tuesday, he said. Texas Workforce Solutions will hold a rapid-response program for the displaced workers at 9 a.m. April 4 at the packing plant, said Cathy Ballard, planning director at the Concho Valley Workforce Development Board. "We'll tell them what benefits are available to them. We'll work with the employees to get them into another job," she said. "Right now the job postings are double from what they were a year ago. There's all kinds of jobs available. When you have something like the oil industry open up the way it has, it opens up all sorts of jobs in a lot of industry sectors." Until recently the company processed 350-400 cattle daily, Sims said. Before the drought became severe in 2011, that number was closer to 700, and the company purchased its cattle from within a 100-mile radius of San Angelo. The past few years the company broadened its purchase area, crossing state lines into Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, he said. If the drought were to break and the Concho Valley's parched landscape were to get its overdue quenching, the packing facility could reopen ? though not until at least three years after the drought broke, Sims said. "If the drought stops today, the time it takes a rancher to rebuild its herd is three years," Sims said. "In other circumstances you might have a situation where the ranchers buy replacement cows, but they are not inclined to do that at this time." Only a trace of rain has fallen this month in San Angelo, and 1.82 inches so far this year ? significantly lower than the average of 3.56 inches, according to the National Weather Service. Year-to-date rainfall in 2012 was 7.16 inches. "Last year ranchers saw their herds cut in half and now are seeing them cut into thirds," Sims said. "This kind of problem is happening all around Texas. Just the other day north of here (Plainview), they closed a plant that had 2,000 employees. The drought is too much." The company's owners could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Lake View Chiefs feeling sense of urgency to get in playoff chase The Lake View High School football team hopes to get its first District 2-4A win of the season on the road against Big Spring on Friday night. SHARE In its continuing efforts to address dramatic personnel shortfalls in several areas of health care, Angelo State University's Department of Nursing has moved to the forefront of online nursing education. With Texas and the U.S. facing a severe shortage of registered nurses (RNs), rural physicians and nurse educators, online programs are becoming increasingly necessary to meet the demands for nurses at all levels. Online programs are also growing in popularity because they can be tailored to nurses' challenging schedules, which often feature varying shifts and inconsistent days off. "It is very difficult for them, while they are working at a hospital, to get off a certain day every week to attend class," said Dr. Susan Wilkinson, head of the ASU Nursing Department. Often, a traditional, in-class every week course just does not work." For its newest program, ASU partners with hospitals in San Angelo, Big Spring and Brownwood to put selected licensed vocational nurses (LVNs) through an accelerated curriculum to achieve their RN credentials while continuing to work fulltime. All course work is done online and clinical work is done at their home hospitals. "Because they are able to do their class work online and do their clinicals in their place of work, they can go from LVNs to RNs in just 21 weeks," Wilkinson said. "That increases their pay and puts more RNs in the workforce." The LVN-to-RN program is funded by a three-year, $1.27 million grant from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and is projected to graduate an additional 140 RNs over the grant period. Current RNs wanting to move into leadership roles or branch out into community and preventative health programs can take advantage of ASU's online RN-to-B.S.N. (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) program. The state's first fully-integrated online program for RNs, it allows participants to complete their bachelor's degree in as little as 12 months. "In our RN program, students learn the basic nursing role, a technically focused role," Wilkinson said. "With the B.S.N. program, they get a more in-depth focus on leadership, professionalism and the importance of research and evidence-based practice." The Master of Science in Nursing online program is for bachelor's degreed nurses who want to become advanced practice nurses or nurse educators. Advanced practice nurses can prescribe medications as well as diagnose and treat many minor ailments and injuries. ASU's online nursing classes are taught through a learning management system called Blackboard, a Web-based "frame" through which instructors can communicate with students, distribute information and facilitate the exchange of ideas, information and resources. Blackboard offers students easy and immediate access to discussion forums and chats, course materials, assignments and resources, announcements and course calendars. Online courses are also similar to classroom courses in that they have syllabi, required books to purchase, weekly assignments, projects, papers and tests. ASU currently has about 150 nurses enrolled in its three online degree programs. They live and work throughout Texas and as far away as New Mexico, Colorado, California, New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Hawaii. For more information on online or on-site nursing courses, contact the ASU Department of Nursing at (325) 942-2060 or go online to >www.angelo.edu/dept/nursing. Tom Nurre Jr. is a news and information specialist in the ASU Office of Communications and Marketing. SHARE Hughes Incident Monday left two injured By Jennifer Rios Gabriel Hughes was asked to leave the residence on Sutton Road where he allegedly shot his mother and former attorney, according to a Tom Green County Sheriff's report made public Friday afternoon. San Angelo attorney Theodore "Tip" Hargrove called 911 about the shooting, then drove his pickup toward a Tom Green County Sheriff deputy who was responding to the call. The truck stopped on March Road just north of U.S. 87 North, and a limping Hargrove got out of the truck and gave orders to "take care of her," indicating Cathleen Hughes. She was slumped over in the front passenger seat and appeared to be unresponsive and bleeding, according to the report written by Deputy Keith Muncey. Hughes, 31, was charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, including assault against a family member. One is a first-degree felony punishable by five to 99 years in prison, and the other is a second-degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison. Both carry a fine up to $10,000. Events began just after 4 p.m. Monday when law enforcement authorities responded to a report of two shooting victims on U.S. 87 and March Road, said Tom Green County Sheriff's Lt. Christina Lopez said. The shooting victims were found in Hargrove's 2013 Toyota pickup about 10 miles south of the residence on Sutton Road where Gabriel Hughes was later found. The property is owned by Gabriel Hughes' parents, Don and Cathleen Hughes, according to Tom Green County Appraisal District records. In his report Muncey said that Hargrove told him Gabriel Hughes was in the guesthouse just north of the main house. Hargrove said Cathleen had asked if Hargrove could go to the house and help her get her son to leave the property. "Her son, he has a drinking problem," Hargrove was reported as saying. "He has been drunk for a couple of days." An altercation, which included Hargrove grabbing him, followed when "Gabe started ordering us around, order us out," the report quotes Hargrove as saying. At that point Hughes "went out and then he came out with an AR-15 and started shooting," the report states. Muncey left Hargrove in the care of Constable James Smith and arriving paramedics from the San Angelo Fire Department and Grape Creek Volunteer Department, the report states. Officers had received information that Hughes could have been in possession of "numerous high-powered weapons" and called Abilene Police Department to request an armored personnel vehicle, called a Bearcat, to get officers closer to the house. About 10:30 p.m. San Angelo SWAT members approached the house in the Bearcat and deployed several rounds of tear gas into the house. About 11 p.m. Gabriel Hughes exited the residence and was taken into custody by SWAT. No contraband was found on Hughes, who was taken into custody by Muncey. "As I secured Gabriel onto the rear seat by the seat belt, I could smell an odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from his person," Muncey's report reads. Hughes was taken to the Tom Green County Sheriff's Office without incident. Before he left, Texas Ranger Nick Hanna gave Hughes a drink of water and offered him food, which he declined. Hughes talked to Hanna about the well-being of his dogs that were left at the scene and about Hanna's duties as a Texas Ranger ? saying one of his family members was a former Ranger. Hughes also voluntarily made a statement to Hanna about his mother. "I am sure she knows, but could you tell my mother that I love her," the report quotes him as saying. Hanna promised to do so. Cathleen Hughes was taken to Shannon Medical Center. Shannon said they could not release information on her condition. Hargrove was wounded in the foot. Business / Companies by Staff reporter The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned Zimbabwe to start implementing its plan to resolve the country's external debt arrears or risk losing momentum in its bid to re-engage international financiers.The country last year tabled proposals to clear US$1,8 billion in arrears to the World Bank (WB), IMF and the African Development Bank (AfDB), to pave way for new funding. The country has been unable to access offshore funding due to international arrears to the multilateral financial institutions and other lenders.The arrears clearance plan, which was presented to international creditors during an IMF and WB annual meetings in October last year by the government in Lima, Peru, entails Zimbabwe clearing arrears to IMF amounting to $110 million, WB (US$1,15 billion) and AfDB ($601 million) by the end of April this year.Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's exports to the European Union (EU) were down by 29% for the first 10 months of 2015 due to a slump in diamond and cane sugar exports to the bloc, latest data has shown.For the 10-month period from January to October 2015, Zimbabwean exports to Europe stood at 350 million from 493 million.Diamond exports to Europe went down to 18,5 million for the period under review compared to 95,8 million in 2014, while cane sugar exports in 2015 stood at 76,1 million from 115,2 million in 2014.Despite the fall in diamonds and cane sugar exports, EU ambassador to Zimbabwe Phillippe van Damme said the "positive side is that the country's exports to EU are diversified and mostly agricultural products". Tobacco exports slumped to 83 million during the 10-year period from 99 million in 2014, he said. As state lawmakers head into the budget-writing season, some will face the unpleasant task of figuring out how to fill projected shortfalls. In most cases, that conversation will include a debate on whether to withdraw cash from the states rainy day fund.Some states count on their rainy day savings during recessions to limit budget cuts, while others strive to put away enough savings to avoid cuts altogether. But many states lack clear guidance about when to take money out of rainy day accounts, for what purposes and how much.Rainy day funds have been around for decades. Among the 46 states that have them, only half have laws that clearly express what they're seeking to achieve with them, according to a recent Pew Charitable Trusts report . Two states -- Wyoming and Kentucky -- lack any statutory or constitutional direction about their purpose or proper use.That means legislators have to argue each time finances become a problem.In Wyoming, for example, the state is facing a projected $300 million shortfall due to declining energy revenues. Tapping the $1.8 billion rainy day fund is a potential solution, but some lawmakers are wary about relying on a one-time infusion to plug a revenue hole that could remain a problem for years to come. With no set policies in place, the discussion about whether to take money out or tap other funds first will take up a considerable amount of time.There is no consensus on financing the deficit cash flow of the state for the next three years, said state Rep. Michael Madden, who co-chairs the Revenue Committee.In Texas, lawmakers have been arguing about how best to use the $7.5 billion rainy day fund, an amount equivalent to 15 percent of the states general fund expenditures. With lawmakers also looking to take on issues such as improving water and transportation infrastructure and reducing the states total amount of outstanding debt, they've been divided over whether the current level of reserves is sufficient or excessive.Its become a surprisingly emotional issue in the political debate, Dale Craymer, a former legislative aide who was involved in establishing the Texas fund in 1987, told Pew. The last two sessions, the rainy day fund has taken on this sacred nature that was never really intended. It was intended as a management tool.Many states' statutes say rainy day funds should help stabilize revenue during economic recessions; a few are more explicit. Virginias Constitution, for example, says state leaders can use the fund to cover no more than 50 percent of a shortfall in a fiscal year. Thus, the policy also requires lawmakers to make spending cuts or tax changes to balance the budget during periods of revenue decline.The rules that do guide the use of rainy day funds are sometimes seemingly arbitrary. In particular, savings targets for the funds have typically been a percentage of the states spending that's politically palatable. During the growth years of the mid-2000s, 21 states hit their savings targets and then stopped putting money away. That resulted in most of those states relying more heavily on spending cuts and tax increases to balance their budgets during and after the Great Recession," according to Pew.Pew recommends that states define the purposes of their rainy day funds more clearly and suggests that policymakers study their states patterns of financial volatility to anticipate how much revenues could drop in a downturn. Such information would help them determine how much they'll want to rely on rainy day accounts to offset shortfalls.Minnesotas rainy day fund policy, according to the report, is a model worth replicating. It's one of just four states that requires periodic evaluations to make sure its savings targets actually reflect the states revenue volatility. It's also the only state to determine its risk tolerance -- that is, the tolerance policymakers have for not fully covering a potential shortfall, which affects how much the state should save. Minnesotas current savings target is the amount deemed necessary to cover 90 percent of all possible downturn scenarios.Establishing this type of policy is difficult and will still require compromise.Connecticut, for example, established new rules for its rainy day fund last year to require automatic deposits whenever the most volatile tax streams -- personal and corporate income -- produce revenue above historic norms. It will also raise the funds target to 15 percent of net general fund appropriations. But in order for the bill to get through the legislature, implementation was put off until 2020.Still, helping a state institutionalize its own buffer against downturns is time well-spent, says Brenna Erford, co-author of the Pew study."Of course it's not easy to agree on a purpose for the fund," she said. "But once you have an agreed-upon purpose, the question isn't, 'Should we or shouldn't we?' The debate then becomes, 'Are we now in a scenario where the fund is in play?'" Inmates earn credits $24 million war chest L.A. chief's view Arbitrary and racist Only nonviolent offenders Gov. Jerry Brown is putting his weight and likely his campaign war chest behind a November ballot initiative that would allow inmates to get out of prison earlier and require judges, not prosecutors, to decide whether to charge juveniles as adults.The Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016 initiative would roll back parts of Proposition 21, the ballot measure voters approved in 2000 that gave prosecutors the right to try minors as adults. It also would give inmates with nonviolent offenses the chance to seek parole after serving time on their primary, most serious offense.That would mean that inmates whose sentences were lengthened because of secondary offenses or enhancements -- tougher penalties due to drug, gang or weapons violations -- might not have to serve the extra time."It's pretty dramatic," said Joan Petersilia, a Stanford law professor who has studied the state's prison system for decades. "With enhancements, a base term of 4 years can quickly turn into 20 years. In one fell swoop (Brown) is eliminating that."Brown said that only well-behaved inmates would be considered for early parole. The initiative would let inmates strive for a reduced sentence through a revised credit system for good behavior, education and rehabilitation."This says before the add-ons are served, there will be a possibility a person can be considered for parole if their behavior has been exemplary," Brown said in a conference call with media. "It allows credits to be earned and it allows for parole consideration to be given. Those two experiences depend on the inmate making definite steps to change what got them in prison in the first place."The proposed initiative needs necessary signatures to qualify for the November ballot.The reason for the changes, Brown said, is to give inmates an incentive to rehabilitate."In its essence, it's to provide an incentive, both reward and punishment, because those who misbehave can lose credits they attain," Brown said.Brown's support of the measure is the first indication of what he will do with $24 million in campaign funds he's been sitting on. Brown would not say whether he would use his campaign funds because that would be using government time to discuss campaign spending. He did, however, say he would do "whatever it takes to get this done."Petersilia said some sort of sentencing reform was anticipated as the state looks for long-term solutions to dealing with prison overcrowding, as required by a three-judge federal court panel.Brown said the ballot measure would allow prisoners to take control over their lives by giving them the ability to show they are ready to return to society. He called it a partial return to indeterminate sentences, in which prisoners were given broad sentences -- such as five years to life -- and had to show a parole board they were rehabilitated and had a plan for their release.The governor was joined by faith leaders and law enforcement in his announcement."We have a very finite resource in which to deal with crime in California and that is our prison system and our jail system, and we have to effectively use those systems and we do not when we keep the wrong people incarcerated for the wrong length of time, thereby not freeing up space for people who deserve to be there," said Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, who did not take an official position on the measure.Brown has called for criminal sentencing reform for more than a decade after becoming a critic of the state's determinate sentencing practices, fixed prison terms which he helped create. Determinate sentences give prisoners a set release date, which itself was considered a reform 40 years ago.During Brown's first stint as governor in 1975, the state's prisons used indeterminate sentencing, which had been a staple of the system for nearly 60 years.That system wasn't without its critics, who argued that the parole board's decisions were arbitrary and racist, and that sentences without a release date led to prisoners acting out violently while incarcerated."One of the things that created the movement for determinate sentences was there was a distrust that was created by the decisions made at the parole review hearings," said Patrick McGrath, the district attorney in Yuba County and president of the California District Attorneys Association. "In many people's minds there was a wide disparity between who was getting out and when and what prison officials were considering."The Legislature stepped in and passed a bill to create determinate sentences, which Brown signed into law in 1977.McGrath said returning to indeterminate sentencing could be problematic, even if it applies only to nonviolent offenders."The emphasis has been on this not affecting violent offenders, but I think most members of the public would be surprised at what qualifies as a nonviolent offense under the penal code," McGrath said. "Domestic violence, driving under the influence that causes death, residential burglary -- these would be eligible for early release."Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber (Tehama County), said the measure would weaken the criminal justice system and "increase the victimization of California citizens." RESPONSE TO PROTESTS MUNICIPAL COURT COMMUNITY POLICING, TRAINING AND USE OF FORCE The proposed agreement, negotiated over the course of months and behind closed doors, provides broad principles under which police officers should operate: Build community trust. Increase transparency. Strengthen accountability.But then it hones in on the details of their daily functions: Wear working body cameras at all times. Don't stop people only to check for warrants. Specifically articulate reasonable suspicion and probable cause when writing reports.Now the City of Ferguson is asking residents to review the 131-page proposed consent decree between the city and the U.S. Department of Justice and give elected leaders their thoughts.The agreement, which touches on nearly every aspect of the city's police and courts, has the potential to cripple the city financially, and residents have little time to scrutinize it.Over the next two weeks, the city will hold public hearings, and then, on Feb. 9 -- the 18-month anniversary of Michael Brown's death -- the Ferguson City Council will decide whether to accept its conditions or reject them.Should it choose the latter, Ferguson faces a costly lawsuit from the Justice Department.The proposal allows the city to retain control of the police department and municipal court -- two operations critics have called for disbanding, but also specifies that Ferguson pay for a monitor to ensure the reforms are implemented -- estimated at $350,000 for the first year.In recent weeks, the city council has agreed to put two tax increases on the April ballot -- an economic development sales tax and a property tax raising roughly $1.5 million per year.The city's firefighters may also form a fire protection district, leaving Ferguson without the cost of its own fire department, saving another $2.2 million annually.A statement from Ferguson described the negotiations as hard fought but having occurred in good faith."This agreement, if approved, avoids the time and cost of litigation and allows the City to continue its focus to ensure constitutional policing and court practices, and thus provides these benefits to the citizens of Ferguson," the statement said.U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, said he was pleased with the amount of ground the agreement covered."It addresses all of the concerns of the Ferguson community, the people that were victimized by the structure of government in Ferguson, by the police department," Clay said in an interview with the Post-Dispatch.But he brushed off complaints about cost saying, "if they had conducted themselves in a manner that abided by the Constitution of the United States and the state of Missouri, they would not be in this position."The enormous amount of detail mirrors other Justice Department consent decrees, which leave little disagreement over what is expected and provide recourse if any provisions are not carried out. Agreements can last for several years.Negotiations between the two parties began months ago, shortly after the Justice Department denounced Ferguson's police and municipal court for constitutional violations and predatory policing in the aftermath of Brown's death.As protest erupted, police responded with dogs, tear gas and armored vehicles with snipers. The images were broadcast throughout the nation, making Ferguson, a majority African-American community in north St. Louis County, appear as if it were under military occupation.Journalists documenting events were arrested. Protesters were given orders to disperse that were later declared unconstitutional. Officers pointed rifles at the crowds using their scopes to search for threats.The tactics, carried out mostly under the direction of St. Louis County Police, were widely condemned. As months wore on, Ferguson officers were sometimes left to respond to gatherings on their own, using measures also criticized.The agreement prohibits any officer but the chief or the assistant chief from declaring an assembly unlawful. It forbids officers from ticketing or arresting anyone using a recording device, and demands the city establish a complaint process.One provision seems to directly address criticisms that arose out from a gathering outside the police department on Feb. 9, 2015, the six-month anniversary of Brown's death, when someone scrawled profane messages in chalk on the department's walls, including a racial epithet directed at an African-American officer.A video taken by a demonstrator shows an officer shouting, "Everybody here is going to jail," as police chase down protesters, eventually knocking a man down as he filmed the events and accusing him interfering, although his actions do not appear to obstruct police.Officers also seized a camera worth an estimated $20,000 from an independent filmmaker and briefly turned it on inside the station. The filmmaker, Christopher Phillips, said the device's memory card was damaged when it was returned.The agreement says officers must obtain warrants before seizing recordings or reviewing the contents of a recording device.A Justice Department report published in March condemned what it called an often merciless and "constitutionally deficient" municipal court in Ferguson that operates "not with the primary goal of administering justice or protecting the rights of the accused, but of maximizing revenue."Ferguson's court did not act as a neutral arbiter of law, the report said, but "primarily uses its judicial authority as the means to compel the payment of fines and fees that advance the city's financial interests."The proposal takes a kitchen sink approach to reform -- incorporating almost every idea put forward by activists and legal experts."It's pretty comprehensive," said Thomas Harvey, co-founder and executive director of Arch City Defenders, a nonprofit law group that has spearheaded municipal court reforms. "Some of the provisions are a little vague and it would be nice to have some bright-line rules but overall it looks pretty strong."Under the agreement, municipal codes would be driven by public safety, not revenue. They would not use arrest warrants to collect civil court debts or hold people in custody who can't afford to post a bond.The proposal addresses another tactic St. Louis-area police departments have used for years to arrest people without warrants. Police in St. Louis and St. Louis County routinely list someone as "wanted," allowing them to make an arrest and hold a suspect for 20 hours without a warrant -- a practice unique to St. Louis.The agreement gives Ferguson a year to research legal alternatives to "wanted.""Wanteds are a way the police in the region subvert requirements for a warrant," Harvey said. "It's a massive problem for people."Among additional court reforms, the city would remove the court's oversight from the city finance director, drop pending cases and warrants initiated before Jan. 1, 2014, and all pending charges, fines and fees related to any charge of "failure to appear" in municipal court.If the agreement is approved, police officers will attend numerous small meetings to foster trust between residents and establish various long-term programs to interact with the city's youth. The proposal directs the department to collect and analyze data to address crime trends, policing complaints, neighborhood quality of life issues and create a new board and committee to oversee the community policing plan."Our first, initial, cursory review of the proposed consent decree reveals that it is broad-ranging and covers many of the areas that are indicators of good community-oriented policing," said Jeffrey Mittman, executive director of ACLU of Missouri. "Obviously, we'll want to review in greater detail, and more importantly we'll also want to hear from the affected members of the community in Ferguson who had concerns about prior actions of the police department."The agreement enumerates an extensive amount training for officers, including approximately 50 hours of annual in-service training.The event that led to the decree occurred in August 2014 when Officer Darren Wilson encountered Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old on Canfield Drive. Wilson told investigators that Brown attacked him, reaching into his patrol SUV and trying to grab his gun.Outside the vehicle, Brown charged Wilson, forcing the officer to shoot him multiple times, Wilson said. The incident drove many African-American residents from the county and elsewhere to the streets in protest.Separate federal and state investigations found no evidence Wilson committed a crime.The proposed decree, however, devotes 15 pages to regulating officers' use of force, outlining specific conditions under which they can use their firearms, Tasers, pepper spray and batons. The overall theme is that the department promote de-escalation techniques that create "space, resources, and options to resolve incidents," and to consider options other than force whenever possible.Protester Robert Hudgins, a Ferguson City Council candidate, said that although the report seemed thorough, he was concerned some of the use of force provisions would not be enforceable because they were too subjective."I would say that in the use of force area, we often find that we will never be able to ascertain certain information," he said. "I guess I'm just coming from a place of pessimism. I just hope there's a real change in the culture."Brown's death reinvigorated a national debate about race, police brutality, and unequal treatment of African-Americans in the court system, bringing the region's peculiar patchwork of municipalities under immense scrutiny.Several cities in north St. Louis County depend on traffic tickets and arrest warrants for their revenue, often disproportionately targeting African-Americans. Legal advocates have acknowledged that Ferguson was far from the worst example.John Ammann, a St. Louis University law professor and legal clinic supervisor who has sued numerous municipalities over court abuses, praised the agreement for its detail.But, he said, many other cities accused of the same abuses need to be held accountable."This wasn't just about Ferguson," he said. "Two years ago, had you asked us which were the five worst cities for the operation of their municipal courts, Ferguson wasn't in the top five. So if the Justice Department is coming down this hard on Ferguson, it should be doing the same with these other cities too." A day after the arrest of armed occupiers of a national wildlife refuge turned deadly, authorities surrounded the isolated outpost as a final band of holdouts broadcast vows to fight to the death."There are no laws in this United States now! This is a free-for-all Armageddon!" a heavyset man holding a rifle yelled into a camera transmitting from the refuge Wednesday. He urged others to join those at the protest site, adding that if "they stop you from getting here, kill them!"The dramatic claims from within the compound came even as authorities promised free passage to anyone who left peacefully.Wednesday afternoon, one of the group's recently arrested leaders, Ammon Bundy, urged the remaining occupiers to "stand down," leave the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and "go home and hug your families.""This fight is ours for now _ in the courts," Bundy said in a statement read by his attorney outside the federal courthouse in Portland, where Bundy and several other defendants made their initial court appearances Wednesday afternoon. "Please go home."Bundy and other leaders of the group were arrested Tuesday after a traffic stop on a highway north of this rural town in eastern Oregon. One, Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, an Arizona rancher who had insisted this week that he would die before returning the refuge to federal control, was shot and killed during the confrontation.At a news conference Wednesday, federal officials provided no details about the incident, citing the ongoing investigation. Gregory T. Bretzing, special agent in charge of Portland's FBI division, called the law enforcement operations "a very deliberate and measured response." A pair of unverified videos from a man and a woman who said they were traveling with the protesters when they were arrested said that Finicum was shot after he sped away from officers during the traffic stop.Even as many weary residents expressed hope that the arrests would speed the end of the standoff, it was also clear that neither they nor law enforcement had wanted it to end violently."This has been tearing our community apart," Harney County Sheriff David Ward said of the armed protest during a news conference in Burns, where he urged "everybody in this illegal occupation to move on.""There doesn't have to be bloodshed in our community," Ward said. "We have issues with the way things are going in our government; we have a responsibility as citizens to act on those in an appropriate manner. We don't arm up and rebel. ... This can't happen anymore. This can't happen in America."Bundy, 40, and his brother, Ryan Bundy, were among a small group that took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 2, saying they were protesting federal land management policies in general but also the prison sentences of two local ranchers who set fires that spread to federal land.A federal complaint unsealed Wednesday at the arraignment of the Bundys and five others in U.S. District Court in Portland accused the defendants of using threats, intimidation or force to stop federal officers from doing their duty.The complaint alleges a pattern of intimidation by some of the defendants in the Burns area in the weeks before the occupation.One employee of the federal Bureau of Land Management said Jon Ritzheimer, an anti-Muslim activist involved in the occupation, and another man accosted her in a grocery store for wearing a BLM shirt."When she turned around, the second individual shouted, 'You're BLM, you're BLM,' at her," FBI Agent Katherine Armstrong wrote in the affidavit."That person further stated to (the BLM employee) that they know what car she drives and would follow her home. He also stated he was going to burn (her) house down."A week later, a white truck with a Confederate flag sticker in the rear window tailgated her and flashed its lights.Meanwhile, the standoff continued.On Wednesday morning, law enforcement blocked roads around the refuge, where armed protesters were still operating heavy machinery and refusing to leave, according to an activist's online live stream from the surrounded site.A group in contact with the occupiers, calling itself the Pacific Patriots Network, urged supporters to "stand by" as it urged peace and gathered more information about what was happening.Activist Jason Patrick told Oregon Public Radio that about seven to 12 occupiers remained at the refuge.The Tuesday arrests came as the Bundys and others were traveling to a community meeting north of Burns."Law enforcement agencies put a lot of work into doing the best tactical plan they could to take these guys down peacefully," Ward said.Gunfire broke out when the FBI and Oregon State Police intercepted the group on a rural stretch of U.S. Highway 395 about halfway between the refuge and the town of John Day."It was planned in an area that would minimize injury to others and to law enforcement," said a law enforcement official who requested anonymity to discuss an incident that was under investigation.Details of what happened on the highway were scant. Officials would only say that shots were fired.Ryan Bundy, 43, of Bunkerville, Nev., was shot in the arm, and the 55-year-old Finicum was killed, his daughter and Nevada state Assemblywoman Michele Fiore said.The void of official information about the incident has been filled by unverified videos circulating widely on social media among occupation supporters.A man named Mark McConnell, who is identified as Ammon Bundy's security guard, posted a video on Facebook early Wednesday in which he said that he was driving one of the group's vehicles and that Finicum had been driving the other.McConnell said that after officials detained him and the other passengers in his vehicle, including Ammon Bundy, Finicum sped away with Ryan Bundy, Shawna Cox, 59, and "an 18-year-old girl" riding with him."LaVoy is very passionate about this ... about what we're doing here. ... But he took off," said McConnell, who said he was released after two hours of interrogation. He said he was not among the original occupiers."Don't put speculation, don't put nonsense out there," McConnell said, scolding Facebook commenters who were not at the scene. "Get to business, we have work to do here, all right. Let's not let LaVoy's death be in vain." High-tech mapping (TNS) -- One of the biggest regrets of some investigators of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy is not preserving a door frame.Nearly five decades after the presidential candidate was gunned down at a hotel in Los Angeles, conspiracy theorists insist that there could have been a second gunman, whose bullets struck the frame. But the frame has long since been destroyed, along with at least some crime scene photos. Witnesses and investigators have died.And memories have faded.St. Louis police Lt. Roger Engelhardt doesnt ever want to forget the metaphor of the door frame when conducting one of his high-profile investigations of officer-involved shootings.So, as the leader of the Force Investigation Unit, he has partnered with a company called St. Louis Accident Reconstruction to use its surveying equipment as an economical way to provide digital records of shooting scenes. Their devices and precise measurements let detectives create electronic three-dimensional models.In a sense, this preserves that door forever, Engelhardt said.The gear, known as a total station, uses lasers to measure distances. The data are transferred to a computer program that generates a three-dimensional model of the scene, both as images on paper and in animated clips.But it can only survey outdoor scenes.Within months, Engelhardt said the department will acquire additional technology that will create animated models so detailed that the user can control his or her own perspective. For now, the department controls the point of view.The new technology, for which the department will begin training in February, is known as a Leica Geosystems Scanstation . Company representatives say the closest agency to St. Louis with any is Chicago, which uses them to investigate officer-involved shootings.The cable TV channel A&E has a show called Crime Scene 360 that shows how forensic investigators use the machines.The department paid $185,000 for the new machine. Initially, it will be used only for officer-involved shootings, but, depending on its success, it could be used to digitally preserve other crime scenes, such as homicides, Engelhardt said.In the meantime, a representative for Leica, which also manufactures the total station, called St. Louis use of it to map police shootings innovative.Theyre in the top 2 percent of the agencies who have total stations that are using it in that regard, so my hats off to them, said Tony Grissim, major account representative for Leica Geosystems Inc . The total station is a subjective system and totally dependent on what the operator thinks is important at the time. The Leica nukes everything.So far, the department has used Tom Morris of St. Louis Accident Reconstruction as a consultant. He has surveyed six police shooting scenes using a total station at a total cost of about $10,000.Indoor spaces have too many angles and points that take too long to calculate, Morris said.The incoming Leica system can do either in about half the time it takes Morris to take measurements in the field, Engelhardt said.One of the largest scenes Morris has been hired to map was a nonfatal shooting near Ridge and Academy avenues. In April, three officers opened fire on Alfred Graves , 41, who they said flourished a gun at them. He survived his wounds, and has since been charged with attempted assault on a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest and armed criminal action.In mid-December, Morris, Engelhardt and Officer Eric Moran returned to the scene for a third day to survey the alley where Graves ran and officers fired. Typically, Morris said, it takes him four to six hours to survey a scene.In the alley, he laid out small orange plastic pyramids with pingpong balls attached to the tops, and a robotic camera used a laser to measure the distance between them. He photographed buildings and other objects along the way, to draw them in a computer program later, based on calculations from the placement of the cones.The Kajieme Powell investigation is the only one so far in which Morris work was included in the departments final report to prosecutors.Just 10 days after the controversial police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, two St. Louis officers fatally shot Powell as he came toward them with a knife. A bystander caught video of the encounter on his cellphone , which proved useful to Morris efforts to map out the event.But it also showed how video evidence doesnt tell an entire story, he said. For example, it looks in the video as though the officers parked their SUV nearly on top of a light pole before approaching Powell. Morris analysis showed the car was really about 21 feet away from the pole, but the cameras focal length had compressed the distance.That accounted for some discrepancy in the witness testimony, Engelhardt noted, without being specific.Morris measured sidewalk squares, utility poles and other objects, and took the cellphones characteristics into account in calculating Powells pace and the officers distance. He also used crime scene photos, Powells dimensions, officers dimensions and witness statements to conclude that Powell was about 15 feet from the closest officer when the first shot was fired.If you saw the video and nothing else, you would have had a totally different interpretation of what happened, Morris said.Powell continued toward police for about 10 feet before falling, and was about 1.2 to 2.4 seconds away from that officer when the first shot was heard on the bystanders cellphone video, Morris said.That case was all about the reactionary gap, Engelhardt said. That was one of the most important questions, How long did the officers have to react, and was that reasonable to be afraid that those distances would close?Ultimately, the department stood behind the officers actions and prosecutors found no cause to file criminal charges But the ultimate goal is not exonerating officers, Engelhardt said.Its about justice, and proving as objectively as possible what happened. Now, if a (new) witness comes forward even years from now, and casts doubt on a conviction, we can put it into this virtual crime scene and test those theories.Judges, juries and prosecutors have almost come to expect to see three-dimensional representations of crime scenes in court, said Tom Bevel, an expert on the use of forensic technology. He is president of Oklahoma-based Bevel, Gardner and Associates Inc., a forensic education and consulting company.Bevel said he believes St. Louis use of the total station in the absence of the gold-standard Scanstation technology could hold up in court, even though its use for a crime scene is unorthodox.If it can re-create everything thats physically there in a crash scene, it can certainly do the same thing in other incidents, such as officer-involved shootings, he said.Engelhardt said he hopes the technology will make it easier for jurors and the public to grasp crime scene evidence that otherwise may be hard to visualize.This way, he said, all of the information will be presented to prosecutors, at trial or to the civilian review board because the more facts we can give them, the more digestible the facts become.I think this is going to become like DNA, everyone will want videos of crime scenes to look at in court. News / Africa by Staff Reporter Mourners at a funeral in South Africa had to kill a police officer suspecting him of being the man who was on the police wanted list.Daily Sun reported that all the officer wanted to do was protect the people from a suspect the police had been hunting down for some time.Instead he ended up being the one caught and killed by the same community he was trying to protect.And the suspect got away!In a case of mistaken identity Warrant Officer Joel Seloga (57) had received a tip off about the whereabouts of a man wanted by the North West police.Seloga was stationed at Hlogotlou Police Station.At the time of his death he had been part of a team that had been set up to assist North West police in tracing a suspect wanted for crimes committed in Brits.The team had found that their man was attending a funeral at Madibong Village near Jane Furse.They then set out to arrest him.According to police spokeswoman Colonel Ronel Otto, when the policeman wearing plain clothes tried to catch the suspect, the man screamed for help.And sadly, the residents simply jumped in without asking any questions and tried to rescue the suspect.They mistook the policeman for a criminal and even suspecting him of being involved in the dead man's murder.Otto said: "They started chasing the policeman who had retreated and caught up with him."They disarmed him of his work pistol and shot him in the head. He died on the spot."She said they have since managed to arrest 11 people and recovered the policeman's firearm.Provincial commissioner Lieutenant General Fannie Masemola has expressed shock at the incident."I am also disappointed and very angry at the community for taking the law into their own hands," he said."There now is an innocent man's blood on their hands."The right thing for all leaders in the community to do is assist the police with their investigation," he said. (TNS) -- A new survey by the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development aims to pinpoint the need for broadband services in rural areas and how it can improve the states future economic growth.TNECD Commissioner Randy Boyd launched the statewide survey earlier this month and said he hopes it will attract small business owners, entrepreneurs and those in rural areas without an Internet connection. Boyd spent much of 2015 visiting rural communities on an initial set of listening tours, where he said the biggest takeaway was how being connected has become an essential tool for business.Overwhelmingly, probably 30 minutes out of every hour was focused on rural broadband. Of all the notes that we took from across the state, that was the number one issue people raised for multiple reasons, Boyd said. For one, it serves educational purposes and connections to school with adults studying from home. The second is for businesses. Any business in a community is going to have to have it to be successful today.Another component of the study is how broadband is used for telehealth services, or healthcare support via digital technologies.For it to work, youve got to have broadband. For all of those reasons, it became pretty apparent that this is kind of like the electricity or water of the past, Boyd said. You have to have these basic services to exist and be successful, so with that in mind we wanted to determine what the problem was and to define it.The survey will continue through March 15. It takes about 20 minutes and is available at www.tn.gov/broadband . It aims to determine which areas have the greatest need for broadband services, how it is used in businesses, and how costly it would be to fix it, he added.The information will be compiled and presented to state legislators and Gov. Bill Haslam in May. Boyd said he hopes the results will clearly define what broadband is, what percentage of the population has it, what they use it for and how much it will cost to provide it to those needing it.About 7,000 have participated in the TNECD survey so far, but Boyd says there needs to be more, especially those in rural communities.Seven thousand is okay, but we need more, and in a lot of cases its the people in rural communities, or the ones were trying to serve the most, that have participated the least, Boyd said. Any way we can promote them into participating, the better.TNECD has partnered with broadband economists from Strategic Networks Groups (SNG) and NEO Fiber for the initiative.The South Central Tennessee Development District oversees 35 municipal and 13 county governments and broadband has been discussed among board members as a priority, Mayor Dean Dickey said. Hickman and Perry Counties are two that have shown a need for the service, he said.That could hurt us as a region as far as recruiting jobs at some point, and I believe our legislators are aware of that, Dickey said. Its mainly those counties to the west of us that need it.Expansion of broadband is also a high priority for companies like Farm Bureau, not just in providing an affordable and needed service to rural citizens, but because technological advancements have historically helped communities in the past.Theres no doubt this is one of our top priorities. As a farm organization, we think farmers and rural people need broadband access, Lee Maddox, Farm Bureaus director of communications said. Were promoting this economic and community development survey to all of our folks across the state. Actually, our president sent out a letter to all 95 county presidents encouraging them to take it.A report in Feb. 2008 from Connected Tennessee measured the economic impact of broadband adoption in the state, including Maury County. It saw a $2.4 billion economic impact that would create 49,000 jobs and generate $1.6 billion in direct income growth. It would also save Tennessee residents roughly $13 million in average healthcare costs, $130 million in gas mileage costs and cut down on more than 66 million pounds of annual CO2 emissions, according to Connected Maury Countys strategic technology plan. (TNS) -- The Flint water crisis loomed large over a hearing Tuesday on a bill that would provide an exemption from Freedom of Information Act laws for some public documents surrounding cyber security and critical energy infrastructure.Were trying to strike a balance here to protect against people with evil intent, said the bills sponsor state Rep. Kurt Heise, R-Plymouth.The bill would allow companies to share information with state regulators about cyber security and critical energy infrastructure issues without fear that the documents would become public. Thats important, said State Police Inspector Matt Bolger, for companies who want to alert authorities about hacking attempts without that information getting out to the public and spooking shareholders.Cyber security is new and upcoming, he said. Any time there is an incident, like in Ferguson or Baltimore or even Flint, there is a cyber component. Hurley Hospital got hit (with a hacking attempt) in response to this Flint water crisis. Somebody across the other end of the world says lets hit them.A FOIA exemption for information like that would make companies more comfortable with sharing information with authorities, he said.The bill would not exempt information about compliance with state safety and environmental standards, Heise said.But others said the FOIA exemption would act as a shield for companies behaving badly. Opponents testified about the 2010 Enbridge oil spill into the Kalamazoo River, the possibility of problems with Pipeline 5 an aging pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac and, more recently, the ongoing controversy over lead leaching from pipes into homes in Flint."We come at this from the perspective that transparency is really important to protect our natural resources and the public health, said Charlotte Jameson, policy manager for the League of Conservation Voters. Theres a lot of attention on Flint, and rightfully so, as a prime example of Michigans failing record on transparency.State Rep. Ken. Goike, R-Ray Township, said hes concerned about the impact on property owners who have pipelines running across their property."My biggest crutch is that these pipelines are going across private property thats been taken from condemnation and these people dont have access to that information, he said. I dont believe youre proactive enough in your communications."But John Griffin, of the American Petroleum Institute, said much of that information is already publicly available. He said he sees no practical need for anyone to be able to access blueprints or schematics that are shared with governmental bodies.The bill sets up a process to appeal a FOIA denial on cyber security or critical energy requests. The first request would go the appropriate agency, such as the state Department of Environmental Quality. If the FOIA request is denied, it then goes to the state Office of Energy. And if its denied there, the person requesting the information can appeal the decision in their county Circuit Court.Open government advocates, including the Michigan Press Association and the Coalition for Open Government, opposed the bill, saying it was a step backward.It clearly favors operators of so-called critical infrastructure businesses. What is proposed allows the proverbial fox to guard the chicken house," said Jane Briggs Bunting, of the Open Government coalition in a letter to the committee. "The ongoing temptation, post-9/11, is to close off all information. It's been done repeatedly and represents a grave threat to the ideals of a democracy and republic.The bill HB 4540 had been languishing since it was introduced last May, unable to get enough support to pass in the House Oversight committee and was transferred to the House Natural Resources Committee. No vote was taken on the bill Tuesday, but it could be considered again in the next few weeks. Pirelli is looking to tackle the complexity of the new tyre rules for 2016 by divulging more live information to the public during races. With the sport looking to spice up the action by offering drivers three compounds of tyres per weekend, Pirelli and the FIA had heads scratching when the actual rules were published. That is because of the complex usage instructions for the extra compound, with former F1 driver Karun Chandhok tweeting at the time: "I've got a headache after reading that!" Brazil's Globo Esporte, however, reports that Pirelli is now planning to disclose in real time information such as which tyres are being used by drivers, and which compounds are still available. "We have all the data," Pirelli's racing manager Mario Isola is quoted as saying, "and an integrated system with FOM that generates and sends information to the media (broadcasters). "We are working together to send this information, live, to the viewer during the race, so everyone will know and understand what it happening," he added. (GMM) Entertainment / Music by Bongani Ndlovu Source - chronicle Comments RAUNCHY dancer Noleen "Zoey" Sifelani, who has been keeping a low profile, is back with a bang with an explicit music video that is set to be released next month.Titled Muzvambarara, the video, a collaboration with Mafriq Music Factory entertainer Brown Sugar, has sent tongues wagging on the showbiz scene. Some have since concluded that because of the X-rated lyrics and near striptease, the video will not see the light of day on ZBC-TV.Heavy with sexual undertones by way of female buttocks dancing faced to the camera and sexual innuendo in the lyrics of the song, the racy video had by yesterday garnered over 13,000 views.Zoey sings: "Daddy vangu vanorova nemuzvambarara, zishamu zihombe hombe, muzvambarara . . . kundimutsa ndakarara nemuzvambarara"(loosely translated - Daddy uses a huge stick to beat me, he wakes me up with it even if I'm asleep).Zoey said they were working on a censored version of Muzvambarara which they intend to send to ZBC-TV."There're two versions of the music video which was shot in Harare. We're hoping to release it at Private Lounge," said Zoey.She defended the sexual undertones in her lyrics saying only those with dirty minds were going on overdrive."I'm simply singing about my father who has a huge stick which he uses to discipline me. People who think it means otherwise are just dirty minded."The dancer-cum-musician plans to release a dancehall track Ndiri One, just after the music video.Muzvambarara will likely be a social media hit like Zim dancehall artiste, Lady Bee, who has numerous raunchy videos that have garnered over 100,000 views on YouTube. News / Local by Ndou Paul Bulawayo based journalist Nqobile Bhebhe is fearing for his life after a MDC-T official Swithen Chirowodza issued a string of unspecified threats on him.Sources close to Bhebhe, who writes for NewsDay in Bulawayo said Chirowodza has been on the journalist's neck for over a decade now.On Wednesday evening, Bhebhe is said to have made a police report after Chirowodza extended the threats to his son."He (Bhebhe) is not known to easily panic but he got fed up and made a police report at Bulawayo Central Police Station."He said the threats have gone too far and vowed to tackle Chirowodza," said a source in Bulawayo.By Thursday morning police in Bulawayo where hunting for Chirowodza who masquerades as a journalists.Reliable detectives at the station said they are frantically pursuing Bhebhe's case filled under initial report number, 771/16.Chirowodza is attached to a discredited MDC-T Veterans Activists' Association (MDCVAA). News / National by Felex Share ZIMBABWE is a sovereign state and chooses countries and institutions it desires to monitor its electoral processes, Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa said yesterday.In an interview, VP Mnangagwa, who oversees the Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs ministry, also asserted that any institution willing to assist Zimbabwe on elections would do so on government terms of reference.This comes in the wake of reports that the European Union, at the instigation of Britain, wants government to allow United Nations emissaries to observe the 2018 elections.Britain, which has always tried to meddle in Zimbabwe's political affairs, is reportedly pushing for the adoption of a resolution within the EU to force the country to accept UN observers.The move, according to diplomatic sources, is purportedly trying 'to avoid a repeat of the disputes that have characterised previous elections.'Said VP Mnangagwa: "Our position as Zimbabwe has not changed. We're a sovereign state and we run our own elections like a sovereign state and we choose as to who will observe our elections. I hear that the media is talking about such a push but as government, we've not been approached by the EU to say they wish that the UN observes our elections."He said government knew whom to invite to observe its elections and would not be influenced by anyone."Normally we always have our sister countries in Sadc who send observer missions," VP Mnangagwa said."We always have the African Union which also sends missions to observe elections. Also other member countries may do so in Africa and a few from outside Africa whom we accept to come and observe."The elections Zimbabwe has held since independence have received wide endorsement from the UN, AU, Sadc and other countries.In most cases, it is only the United States, Britain and Australia who have cast aspersions on the poll results.The countries' relationship with Zimbabwe hit a low at the turn of the new millennium when the country embarked on a land reform programme and they responded by imposing illegal sanctions on the nation.VP Mnangagwa said the UN Needs Assessment Mission, which visited Zimbabwe late last year, should stand guided by government's terms of reference when offering electoral assistance.He said refusal to stick to those terms would see a repeat of the 2013 scenario when government barred the UN assessment team from getting into the country and subsequently cancelled the poll funding request it had made.The UN team rejected terms of reference laid down by government and wanted to meet entities and civil society organisations that had nothing to do with elections."In 2013, the UN team was refused to work here because they were coming on their own terms and we told them that we can only accept them to come and work under the terms of the sovereign government of Zimbabwe," VP Mnangagwa said."Last year when they came in, they came to complement our own work on the financial and technical side to capacitate our own areas which we needed capacitation. The terms of their participation is our own terms. They can't come operate in Zimbabwe on their terms, NO!"On plans to introduce the biometric voting system during the 2018 elections, VP Mnangagwa said the idea was still under consideration."That idea has been mooted and we passed it on to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) which is now in the process of considering whether or not this should be taken on board," he said."They're looking at various implications of the usage of biometric process and once they are through with their due diligence in that area they will make their report to the government. They have not yet come to a conclusion whether or not to take it on board. Once they have done that, they will come and make their recommendations for or against."The electoral reform process in Zimbabwe is already underway, with Zec having taken over from the Registrar-General, the responsibility to register voters and conduct all national elections in terms of the Constitution.As part of the electoral modifications, Zimbabwe is likely to use polling station-based voting as the country seeks to engender greater transparency and dispute-free elections.The electoral body is piloting the system. The Commission was already reviewing the EU type-approval framework for motor vehicles prior to the Volkswagen revelations. It has since concluded on the need for more far-reaching reform to prevent cases of non-compliance from happening again. The proposal for a Regulation on the approval and market surveillance of motor vehicles complements efforts to introduce more robust emissions testing (Real Driving Emissions testing). The European Commission is proposing a major overhaul of the EU type-approval framework (Whole Vehicle Type-Approval System, WVTA). Under current rules, national authorities are solely responsible for certifying that a vehicle meets all requirements to be placed on the market and for policing manufacturers compliance with EU law. The new proposals will make vehicle testing more independent and increase surveillance of cars already in circulation, as well as give the EC itself enforcement capabilities. In a Single Market where goods circulate freely, everyone must play by the rules. The Volkswagen revelations have highlighted that the system which allows cars to be placed on the market needs further improvement. To regain customers trust in this important industry, we need to tighten the rules but also ensure they are effectively observed. It is essential to restore a level playing field and fair competition in the market. Jyrki Katainen, Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness The Single Market requires rigorous enforcement across sectors, including the car industry. With our proposals today we will raise the quality and independence of vehicle testing and improve the oversight of cars already in circulation. This complements our efforts to introduce the most robust emissions testing procedures in the world, which we will keep refining and reviewing to ensure the strictest emissions limits are really met. Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska, responsible for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs The current type approval system is based on mutual trust: once a car is certified in one Member State, it can circulate freely throughout the EU. While the EU sets the legal framework, national authorities are fully responsible for checking car manufacturers compliance. The draft Regulation on the approval and market surveillance of motor vehicles maintains the principle of mutual recognition, which is at the core of the EU Single Market, but seeks to correct the flaws in the system. The proposal for a Regulation will help to achieve three objectives: Reinforce the independence and quality of testing that allows a car to be placed on the market. The majority of Member States designate technical services, which are paid directly by car manufacturers, for the testing and inspection of the vehicles compliance with EU type approval requirements. Technical services are dependent on these revenues and compete for this work. Under the new Regulation, technical services may no longer receive direct payments from manufacturers but instead all fees will be collected by the Member States. Under the proposa, Member States have to establish a comprehensive national fee structure (pools) to cover the costs for testing and inspections carried out by the technical services they have designated, as well as to cover the costs for the type approval certification, market surveillance activities and conformity of production review assessments. This is to avoid financial links between technical services and manufacturers, which could lead to conflicts of interest and compromise the independence of testing. The proposal also foresees more stringent performance criteria for these technical services, which should be regularly and independently audited to obtain and maintain their designation. There will be a centralized auditing system for technical services (e.g. joint audits by the Commission and national experts, peer reviews which include on-site visits to testing facilities) with the right for the Commission to suspend or withdraw designations. Introduce an effective market surveillance system to control the conformity of cars already in circulation. While the current rules deal mainly with ex ante controls, in the future Member States and the Commission will carry out spot-checks on vehicles already on the market. This will make it possible to detect non-compliance at an early stage, and ensure that immediate and robust remedial action is taken against vehicles that are found to be non-compliant and/or to present a serious safety risk or harm to the environment. All Member States should be able to take safeguard measures against non-compliant vehicles on their territory without waiting for the authority that issued the type approval to take action. Member States will have to review regularly the functioning of their market surveillance activities and make the results publicly available. Reinforce the type approval system with greater European oversight. The Commission will have the power to suspend, restrict or withdraw the designation of technical services that are underperforming and too lax in applying the rules. In the future the Commission will be able to carry out ex-post verification testing (through its Joint Research Centre) and, if needed, initiate recalls. By allowing the Commission to impose financial penalties, the proposal will deter manufacturers and technical services from allowing non-compliant vehicles onto the market. The Commission will also chair an Enforcement Forum which will develop common compliance verification strategies with Member States and organize joint audits of technical services and peer reviews of type-approval authorities. The Commissions proposal maintains the current ban on defeat devices, which national authorities have a standing obligation to police and enforce, but goes a step furtherunder the draft Regulation, the manufacturer will have to provide access to the cars software protocols. This measure complements the Real Driving Emissions package, which will make it very difficult to circumvent emission requirements and includes an obligation for manufacturers to disclose their emissions reduction strategy, as is the case in the US. The proposed Regulation increases the deterrents for unscrupulous manufacturers and underperforming technical services that place or admit non-compliant vehicles on the market, by empowering the Commission to levy penalties. Car manufactures who are in breach of type approval legislation (e.g. defeat devices or fake declarations) risk administrative fines of up to 30,000 per vehicle which can be levied by the Commission if no fine is being imposed by the Member State. Fines can also be imposed on technical services if they fail to carry out the tests rigorously. The level of fines will depend on an assessment of the gravity and extent of the non-compliance. The system of administrative fines and their calculation needs to be specified by a Commission delegated act. The Regulation maintains the existing obligation for Member States to lay down rules for effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties. In the future, Member States have to inform the Commission every year on the penalties they have imposed. The type approval specific legislation complements the general civil and criminal law of Member States that may be applicable if allegations of fraud are confirmed. In the current system, the responsibility to remedy wrongdoings lies with the Member State in which the type approval has been granted. Neither other Member States nor the Commission can initiate a recall. The Commission can only take action indirectly, as it did recently by referring Germany to the Court of Justice of the EU over its failure to take remedial action to comply with the Directive on Mobile Air Conditioning. Under the proposed Regulation, all national authorities as well as the Commission will carry out compliance verification checks on vehicles already placed on the market to verify that they comply with applicable EU legislation. Where tests and investigations show non-compliance, the market surveillance authority can decide to demand a recall or, in severe cases, full withdrawal from the market. Other national authorities will then be notified so they can also take similar action. The Commission will also have the right to order recalls or market withdrawals. This will allow the remedial measure to have an EU wide effect, which does not currently exist. The Commission will evaluate and decide on whether the measures taken by a manufacturer to remedy the situation are sufficient. The draft Regulation will now be sent to the European Parliament and Council for adoption. Once adopted, it will be directly applicable. It will repeal and replace Directive 2007/46/EC (the Framework Directive). The lights were on, but the doors leading into the Krazy Moose restaurant were locked Tuesday afternoon. The restaurants closure was announced suddenly Monday evening on the Krazy Mooses Facebook page. Blair Graham, the restaurants owner, declined an interview Tuesday, saying the closure was like a death in his family. He also said he wishes the employees well and thanked the community for their years of patronage. While the restaurant has closed, the Red Feather will remain open as it is a separate business under a different owner. For a few residents, the restaurant was more th... Sandee Gunter and Robert Gordon, members of Castle Rock Hospital District's Board of Trustees, listen to employees Tuesday night as they discuss perceived problems with the district's administration. More than 40 people showed up to a Castle Rock Hospital District board meeting last night, a few of whom had concerns about the district's administration. The audience, which nearly filled the conference room the meeting was hosted in, was moved into Castle Rock Medical Center's lobby during an early executive session called to discuss legal and employee matters. An executive session is a legal means for boards and councils to discuss sensitive topics, which are limited by Wyoming Law. Both topics are among the list of subjects an executive session can be called to discuss. After about half... Ninety years ago yesterday, the first live television demonstration took place. An anniversary such as this, I thought should not go unnoted. I came to the realization of this by a simple Google search. The Google Doodle for the online search engine on Jan. 26, 2016 was made in celebration of this historic event. After all, the invention has lead to so many innovations in technology. Surely, the event, the date, and the inventor deserve a shout out. John Logie Baird, the inventor of the mechanical television, successfully demonstrated live TV to a group from the Royal Institution and a sce... News / National by Staff reporter Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa yesterday went overdrive bootlicking President Robert Mugabe, describing the 91-year-old as a sophisticated, charismatic, iconic and morally upright leader.Mnangagwa proceeded to describe his boss as a rare gift to Zimbabwe, whose visionary leadership was unparralled, a steadfast thinker and an intellectual giant.Mnangagwa was introducing Mugabe at State House at the launch of a book about the late former Tanzanian leader, Julius Nyerere, titled Julius Nyerere, Asante sana, Thank you, Mwalimu. Across North America, February is recognized as Black History Month. Although it may not be evident today, African Americans played an important role in the settling of the west. In Wyoming, the Equality State, many former slaves found freedoms that were not granted to them in other parts of the country even after the Declaration of Independence had been signed and the Civil War was over. Many African American men came west with the expansion of the Transcontinental Rail Road. Most of the black laborers who worked on the rail roads were employed in rear end jobs, according to an artic... Five Green River High School band students had the chance to play in a band comprised of students from across the state. Last week, GRHS band students made their way to Cheyenne for the All-State Music clinic and conference. GRHS band director Jerrid Washburn said students participating in All-State Band auditioned in November. They found out in December whether or not they had been accepted. Students who were accepted and attended the conference were trombone player Sam Bayles, tuba player Morgan Burbank, orchestra percussion drummer Ali Dewey, flutist Ashlie Gold and clarinet player Kate... Americans wine drinking is in a bit of a slump. It increased last year for the 22nd year in a row but only by 0.2 percent. Still, were not drinking less. Were branching into other beverages. Most of the rise was in trendy sparkling wines such as prosecco. Consumption of other wines declined for the fourth year in a row, as more fans turned to hard cider and spirits, says a report in the industry website Shankens Impact Databank. Wineries neednt worry. Soon, a new wave of wine fans will reach drinking age, supplementing the millennial generation. The new sippers, called Generation Z, were born after 1995 and already show interest in wine when theyre old enough, according to a survey in Decanter Magazine. There are about 93 million regular wine drinkers in the U.S., and here are some things they can look for in 2016. Cider: Ciders rise is promoted by new uses in cocktails, with producers arguing that its cheaper and lower in alcohol than bubbly. Sonoma Cider of California is pushing the Mint Apple Swizzle, made of Sonomas The Hatchet cider, apple brandy, lime juice, bitters, mint leaves and apple slices. Flavor: Customers also are upping their quest for more flavors unexpected ones in their beverages. Flavored whiskey is soaring. It grew 50 percent in 2014 and another 40 percent in 2015, led by brands such as Fireball and Royal Regal Apple, reports Shanken News Daily. A popular Royal-based cocktail in cutting-edge bars is the Washington Apple, with De Kuyper Sour Apple Pucker Schnapps and cranberry juice. At home, tipplers are doing it themselves by infusing inexpensive gins with cucumber, bourbon with cherries and so on, bloggers say. The quest for more flavor extends to wine. The Champagne house Veuve Clicquot has launched a new bubbly dubbed Rich. Its a bold move, breaking the old rules about prime champagne. Rich is sweeter, with more sugar, and its meant to be drunk from a wide-mouthed glass, with ice cubes and juices such as lime, pineapple and strawberry, and veggies such as cucumber and bell peppers. It sells for about $64. Drones: It had to happen. Drones are coming to U.S. vineyards. Flown at altitudes of about 150 feet above the vines, they can take videos that show drought and disease before they might be picked up otherwise. Diseased vines visibly droop, and drought-stricken vines lose their leaves altogether. Wine as exercise: Heres news we can abuse. University of Alberta researchers say studies with rats suggest that drinking red wine can be as good for the heart as an hour exercising in the gym. The compound called resveratrol is the secret. The study was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Physiology in May. Sustainable wine: Sustainable wine is hot. In California, Domaine Carneross winery recycles pressed-out grape skins by spreading them on pastures for cows, who like them so much they follow the truck around, says the California Wine Institutes newsletter Down to Earth. News / National by Staff reporter Transport minister Joram Gumbo says government is restarting the dualisation of the Beitbridge-Harare-Chirundu road and rehabilitation of the country's border posts.The minister said the move had been necessitated by the problems encountered on the Plumtree-Harare highway and other issues the State had overlooked, which led to the cancellation of an earlier tender.Gumbo said the process would be segmented to involve more people, instead of giving the contract to one player. Gumbo also noted that Cabinet needed to discuss the projects before announcing the winning bidders.The whole project is estimated to cost $2 billion, but Gumbo said costs were likely to increase given bridge constructions and border post redevelopments. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Just as few regions prospered as much as the Naugatuck Valley at the height of industry, few were as damaged when the factories left town. But previous eras left behind the kind of downtowns that companies are once again seeking in the new economy, local leaders said on Thursday, while acknowledging that persuading businesses to come wont be easy. Compact, walkable, vibrant town centers rose around industry, said Mark Nielsen, director of planning at the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments. With those kind of communities again in demand, he said, the region has plenty to offer to companies and younger workers. The conference Thursday was organized by NVCOG and featured an array of state and local leaders who described how the economy has changed and what towns can do to get ahead. Though the Valley is marked in many ways by its past, in terms of closed factories, depopulated Main streets and an aging populace, its towns are poised for growth, speakers said. Amenities are primary to attracting talent, said Laura Brown, a planner with the University of Connecticuts extension program. In the new economy, we have to embrace what we already have, and the waterfronts, the downtowns and the people are what we have. The conference was held at the Palace Theater in downtown Waterbury, where NVCOG has its headquarters. The group includes towns from the former Valley Council of Governments, which included Shelton, Derby, Ansonia, Seymour, Oxford and now include Southbury, as well. The Valleys relatively compact towns make them ideal for transit-oriented development, said David Fink, of the nonprofit Partnership for Strong Communities, who said the states oversupply of single-family homes portends trouble in coming years. The market is demanding multifamily housing, he said. More than preference is affordability, he said, with current retirees having less savings than their predecessors, and younger people lacking the financial means to buy a detached home in the suburbs. We need to be thinking smaller, denser, more affordable, he said. Fink said the average family spends about a third of its budget on housing, and about 19 percent on transportation. But for those who live within walking distance of mass transit, that number shrinks to 9 percent on transportation. Housing near transit is in demand, and we need to make sure its available, he said. While Valley towns have potential, much of the land is held back by the departed manufacturing industry because of contaminants in the ground. In many cases, the cost to clean up the pollution created by factories would would be far higher than the value of the land. Tim Sullivan, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Economic and Community Development, runs the states brownfields programs, and said polluted properties require public help. The market is not going to solve these problems themselves, he said, and without it sites will sit unused indefinitely. Sullivan pointed to worldwide trends that show more people moving to cities with even more saying they favor the type of amenities cities can offer. Young people and companies are showing that they want to be in walkable, mixed-use communities, he said. Technology is driving reurbanization, and its not just a mega-city story. Unmentioned but hovering over the discussion was the recent decision by General Electric, one of the worlds most recognizable companies, to leave its suburban Connecticut base of four decades for the thriving, tech-savvy city of Boston. The trends that lead companies to such actions are what local cities need to be following, officials said, using the regions history as a guide. We have a remarkably strong asset to market, Sullivan said, citing a history of manufacturing brass, clocks, Wiffle balls and more. We have to embrace that identity. hbailey@ctpost.com; 203-330-6233; @hughsbailey News / National by Stephen Jakes Harare Residents Trust has warned the government and the local authorities to stop taking people who vote for Zanu PF and the MDC-T who control Harare City as illegal land occupants."Harare Housing delivery remains under the control of party Housing Cooperatives, shared between Zanu PF and the MDC-T," said the trust."In the majority of the cases, these housing cooperatives have occupied unserviced land on the outskirts of Harare, and the occupants of these residential stands have ended up being registered to vote, and have actually voted, deciding elections, yet they are considered illegal by the Government of the Day."The trust asked why should the people who have always voted in the past elections today be regarded as illegals, when the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has put voting centres in those so-called illegal residential areas? Should the outcomes of the elections in which these so-called illegal settlers be set aside because the people used illegal addresses?"There is so much that has to be dealt with. Besides the political actors behind the confusion, regularisation of these properties required the council to be engaging with the affected residents, educating them on the legal requirements of the council when processing the allocation of housing stands," said the trust."But the overall issue that must be dealt with today is on the sincerest of politicians to address housing as a priority of the citizens. Because from HRT investigations it is evident that the City of Harare workers in the planning and housing departments are the ones who are pointing out the vacant land to the housing cooperatives, and telling them they could proceed to occupy and process their papers later, upon payment of huge amounts of money in bribes for that to happen." This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A proposed five-unit multifamily development on Hawthorne Street South got a big thumbs down from residents Tuesday when it was presented to the Planning and Zoning Commission. Neighbors said they did not oppose development in the area, but were concerned about the proposed size in the tightly-knit Pemberwick neighborhood. It basically amounts to a row house, which is not within the character of the neighborhood at all, Judson VanIngen, a neighbor immediately adjacent to the property and a retired member of the Greenwich Police Department, told the commission. The street already has a number of families with small children. ... putting in a project of this size would dramatically alter that feel of the neighborhood. Neighbors also said they worried about flooding, traffic flow and blasting, since several homes in the area are built on rocky ledges. Lynn Cunningham, a 50-year resident, told the board she has only half a basement in her home because of the rocks in the area. Between the end of our house and our property line theres a rock in the middle of the yard that just kind of hangs out there, Cunningham said. Im too old to have damage done to the house. It really bothers me that theyre going to blast when this rock is right underneath my house. Its what my house sits on. The project developer, 16 Hawthorne Street South LLC, had presented a preliminary site plan for the property. Casey ODonnell, attorney for the project developers, said the three-bedroom home that had once been at 16 Hawthorne Street South had already been demolished. Members of the commission also expressed concerns about the impact the structure would have on the neighborhood. Just looking at the aerial photographs, theres nothing else like it there, commission member Richard Maitland said to ODonnell. Were not really raising a density question with you so much as asking you about character because the character is two side-by-side units facing the street, commission member Margarita Alban said. Its a pretty consistent character in the neighborhoodWhen we worked on the Plan of Conservation and Development, we got a lot of pushback and have ever since then about what happens to the feel of a community of a neighborhood when we begin to migrate away from it. The commission deferred a decision on the preliminary site plan so more information could be provided. We feel this plan meets the regulations but we recognize you have some questions and would rather see a multi-building site rather than a single building site, ODonnell said. ODonnell said clustering the development to one building would reduce the amount of bulk and clutter in the neighborhood and allow for more open space. I dont think in order to match the character of a neighborhood it has to be identical, ODonnell said. If we build two more two-family homes or a two-family and a three-family that is, I would argue, identical to whats already there and Im not sure I see that means the goals of the planning. ODonnell said he believed the development was in keeping with the towns Plan of Conservation and Development because the residential character was protected and the towns housing stock was increased. The Plan encourages the town to provide a wide cross-section of housing types, ODonnell said. The purpose and need for a range of housing from large homes to multifamily residences is being addressed here. Its a key characteristic of Greenwich, particularly of Pemberwick and this area of Pemberwick. ODonnell said he would take the criticisms of the plan back to his principles and meet with developers; once changes are made, the project would be brought back to the Planning and Zoning Commission at an unspecified date. kborsuk@scni.com This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Officers last year fired stun guns at blacks and Hispanics at a higher rate than at white suspects and warned but didn't fire at white suspects at a higher rate than they did blacks or Hispanics. Those are the findings of an upcoming report based on preliminary data from Connecticut, the first state to require police to document their use of stun guns. The new data gathered by Central Connecticut State University in New Britain comes as police across the U.S. face increasing scrutiny over their use of force in the wake of high-profile fatal shootings by officers, especially of black suspects. Although stun guns have been billed as non-lethal alternatives to firearms, they have resulted in deaths, and reliable information on how police use them has been lacking. In Connecticut, 17 people have died since 2005 after police hit them with stun guns, 12 of them minorities, according to the ACLU. The CCSU report shows Hartford topping the list of incidents of stun gun use at 51, followed by Norwalk (40), East Hartford (36) and state police (34). The state's largest city, Bridgeport, reported 16 uses, while New Haven had 15. In Bridgeport, police Detective Capt. A.J. Perez said the use of electronic devices have probably saved an unknown number of lives over the years. In the old days, we really didnt have many options if, for example, someone was coming at you with a knife, he said. But now, when you pull your Taser, and the suspect sees that little laser light dot on his chest well, that usually will defuse the situation right then and there. No one wants to get Tased. The CCSU report will be released in the coming weeks. It was unclear whether stun gun in the report referred to both stun guns and Tasers, which are two different devices. Both are called electronic defense weapons and theyre often confused with one another in news reports. Among the figures revealed in the raw data, obtained and reviewed by The Associated Press ahead of an official report expected in coming weeks: State and municipal police reported 641 incidents involving stun guns last year, including 437 actual firings and 204 threats of use. Within the overall number of stun gun incidents, officers fired them 60 percent of the time in cases involving whites, 80 percent of the time in cases involving blacks and 69 percent of the time in cases involving Hispanics. Officers warned about firing but did not do so at white suspects 40 percent of the time, black suspects 20 percent of the time and Hispanic suspects 31 percent of the time. When officers fired their stun guns in 2015, 43 percent of the suspects were white, 35 percent were black and 21 percent were Hispanic. But when officers only threatened to use stun guns and did not fire them, 61 percent of the subjects were white, 19 percent were black and 20 percent were Hispanic. Thirty percent of the people involved in the overall incidents were black and 21 percent were Hispanic. Perez said that when cops in Bridgeport fire their Tasers, the officer using the device has to fill out a full report on the incident thats reviewed by the police chief. Bridgeport officers also have to fill out a Use of Force report every time the Taser is removed from its leg holster during an encounter with a suspect, whether or not the darts are actually fired. He has to completely explain the circumstances, and this report goes right up the line from sergeant to captain to chief to the city attorney, and theres also a review board, Perez said. And the board will issue a verdict on the incident good, bad or indifferent. Perez said that if the Taser is fired, the suspect is taken to a hospital to have the barbed darts removed. A 2014 law made Connecticut the first state to require all police departments to report every instance in which an officer discharges or threatens to use a stun gun. Researchers at Central Connecticut State University are reviewing the data and will submit a report with analysis to state officials, possibly by the end of February. Tasers come equipped with a data device that records the time of each discharge as well as the ambient temperature. The figures don't include data from several smaller towns that didn't submit reports. Researchers have contacted them and are awaiting responses. State officials cautioned against making quick conclusions about the figures, saying they have just begun to analyze them after the Jan. 15 deadline for police departments to submit the reports. Civil liberties advocates also said that the data appear to show racial disparities on the surface, but that more analysis is needed. "It seems like in the cases where it was threatened but not used, there were far more white people involved," said Michael Lawlor, state undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning. "Why that is and whether there is some other explanation, we're going to go through the data and try to figure it out." Amnesty International has reported that at least 540 people in the United States died after being shocked with stun guns from 2001 to 2012. The Connecticut data showed one death last year, in the community of Branford, researchers said. Media reports and the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut show two deaths in the state the one in Branford and an additional one in Hartford. The reason for the discrepancy wasn't immediately clear. Among injuries, the vast majority were from removal of the darts that deliver the shock, researchers said. Of the new data on stun gun use, David McGuire, legislative and policy director for the Connecticut ACLU, called the statistics "alarming." "I think this data will be helpful for policy makers and police chiefs in Connecticut to get a handle on the issue," he said. Local police officials also cautioned against making quick judgments about the data. Differences between departments, including percentages of officers carrying stun guns, make it difficult to compare cities and towns, they said. Norwalk Police Chief Thomas Kulhawik said all 177 officers in his department have stun guns, while other departments don't require all officers to carry them. He also cautioned against comparing stun gun use figures with population race data. "The officers don't pick and choose who's going to resist arrest or flee," Kulhawik said. "Tasers have proven to be a less lethal method that avoids injury to the officer and the suspect. Serious injuries to suspects have dropped dramatically since the Taser became a tool." Hartford Deputy Police Chief Brian Foley said police officials are reviewing their data and plan to use the information to improve how the department serves the city. He said 136 of the department's 400 officers carry stun guns. Civilians can use a Taser or a stun gun in Connecticut, but only in the home. Theyre legal for civilian use in about 45 states; some require a permit, some dont. Connecticut Post writer John Burgeson and Associated Press reporter Dave Collins contributed to this report. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate BRIDGEPORT Lisa Bahadosingh and Cathy DiTuri spent Tuesday night walking the East End and East Side, searching for homeless Bridgeporters. Halfway through their route, they had found none but those are the sort of results they hope for. Bahadosingh and DiTuri, childhood friends who grew up together in Trumbull, volunteered for a Point-in-Time count of the areas homeless. Each year, volunteers help the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness count the number of homeless in several towns and cities throughout the state by visiting shelters and other areas where people might live, such as under bridges or in abandoned buildings. During an hourlong training session Tuesday, officials from the coalition told the roughly three dozen volunteers that fanned out from Bridgeport that finding no homeless people on their routes was the best possible outcome. Each team spent four hours traversing its sections of the city and its surrounding towns. Bahadosingh, who has volunteered f or counts in years past, said that sometimes she has found homeless people. We go the same time, year after year, so its cold, people are bundled up, she said. Sometimes they are really willing to talk to us. And sometimes, not so much. The volunteers carry two-page surveys for the homeless men and women they encounter, with questions about everything from age and ethnicity to whether they are veterans, victims of domestic violence or suffer from disabling conditions. Theres things that you just dont think about when youre not working with the homeless the fact that they have to carry all their belongings with them, all day, said Bahadosingh, who works for Supportive Housing Works, which creates homeless opportunities for people in New Haven and Fairfield counties. Its just really inhumane. She frequently recruits friends and acquaintances to join her on the count. I usually work in the city on Mondays and Tuesdays, so Im not around, said DiTuri, who lives in Derby but does fundraising work for the nonprofit American Numismatic Society in Manhattan. This time I was around. The numbers, to be compiled after Tuesday nights volunteer count, will also reflect the number of homeless people living in shelters compared to those on the streets, and detail other demographic breakdowns, such as family, chronic and veteran homelessness. Similar efforts are conducted across the country each year at the end of January, so data can be compared between geographic areas. In 2015, the count identified 4,038 homeless people in Connecticut, a 4 percent decline since 2014 and a 10 percent drop from 2013. Of those, the number of people living on the streets decreased by 32 percent since 2013, according to a summary of the 2015 count. The report also showed chronic homelessness in Connecticut declined by 21 percent in 2015. Bahadosingh projected an end to chronic homelessness this calendar year, but added that different organizations had to cooperate more. The way it seems now, there are no new resources coming for housing, she said. Staff writer Alexander Wolff contributed to this report. News / National by Staff reporter PRESIDENT Mugabe has left the country today for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the 26th Summit of the African Union.The President, who is also AU chairman, will officially open the Summit on Saturday.Vice Presidents Emmerson Mnangagwa and Phelekezela Mphoko, Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi and Home Affairs Minister Dr Ignatius Chombo bidding President Mugabe farewell at Harare International Airport before departing for the 26th Summit of the AUHis two-year tenure comes to an end this week when he hands over the AU chairmanship to the next chairperson.President Mugabe was seen off at the Harare International Airport by his two Vice Presidents, Cdes Phelekezela Mphoko and Emmerson Mnangagwa, government ministers, service chiefs and senior government officials.More to follow . . . IT'S far from a secret that Grimsby has a namesake on the other side of the Atlantic. On the shores of Lake Ontario, Canada, lies a small town populated by barely more than 20,000 people which, more than 200 years ago, took its name from our Lincolnshire original. Being in the centre of one of Canada's main tourist areas, many Grimbarians have made the trip there to see what it's like. Last week, we waxed lyrical about what makes Grimsby great, so what is it that makes the other Grimsby great and how much does this little outpost in the world's second largest country have in common with our town aside from its name? It has a place called Lincoln to the south! They're even closer together than our neighbours to the south too, with fewer than ten miles between them. Lincoln got its name in the 1790s when the Canada Bill placed the area in English Upper Canada following the reformation of Quebec to accommodate the English-speaker settlers loyal to Great Britain who had arrived from the United States following the American Revolution. This allowed the Loyalists to live under British laws and institutions while the Francophone population of Lower Canada could maintain their familiar French civil law. Upper Canada was divided into a number of counties by its first lieutenant governor John Graves Simcoe, with Lincoln among them. In it were a number of townships named after places in Lincolnshire including Caistor, Gainsborough, Grantham, Louth and, of course, Grimsby. And the Humber and York to the north! Toronto Canada's largest city is around 50 miles from Grimsby and is full of nods to Yorkshire. In fact, Toronto's original name was York, chosen by Simcoe to please King George. It stayed that way until it was incorporated into the City of Toronto in 1834. Today, the city is comprised of six boroughs Toronto, East York, North York, York, Scarborough and Etobicoke. Though it lies on the edge of Lake Ontario, there are also three rivers running through it the Rouge, the Don and the Humber. We make food, they make drink While our Grimsby is Europe's food town, with its seafood processing industry and fishing heritage, the Canadian namesake would be more than capable of providing the alcohol for any sort of Grimbarian get-together (though Canadian Grimbarians are actually known as Grimsbonians). The town is at the heart of the Niagara wine region and the sweet smell of vineyards is hard to escape during the summer months. Grimsby also has its very own brand of whisky. Forty Creek Whisky, named after the nearby Forty Mile Creek, comes in numerous guises including Barrel Select and Copper Pot, which have won several prestigious awards. Visitors can even take a free tour around the distillery with complimentary tastings! It used to be an industrial centre During the 1800s, Grimsby, Canada, was home to a number of industries which developed in the area. Among them was businesses making state-of-the-art farm machinery, carriages, stoves, hospital furniture and metal goods. Fruit-growing and canning industries were also dominant parts of the local economy for almost a century. Today, Grimsby is more of a residential community. It has its own renewables industry The Canadian province of Ontario gets absolutely none of its electricity from coal-fired power stations. The Niagara area, where Grimsby is located, is home to the Niagara river and the famous falls are just 30 miles away. The wild river is one of the world's greatest sources of hydroelectric power as its steep descent from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario creates a spectacular stretch of waterfalls and rapids. It doesn't have a direct train to the capital! Unlike our Grimsby, the Canadian equivalent is not near the end of the line and lies more or less equidistant between Toronto and Niagara Falls. A train line exists between the two but, of course, Toronto isn't Canada's capital, Ottawa is! Still, even though there's just one train a day in each direction, you'd be hard pressed to complain you can't go anywhere interesting. Head west for an hour or so and you reach Toronto, head east and, with just brief stop at the US border, you can go all the way to New York City in 12 hours! Broadway Panhandlers Norman Kornbleuth is pondering opening a knife store. Photo: Shanna Ravindra This week, the disheartening news came out that beloved kitchen-supply shop Broadway Panhandler will shutter in the spring. The shop has been family-owned for all four decades of its existence, but unlike another independent food-world favorite, Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks, Panhandler owner Norman Kornbleuth has no plans to relocate his shop or sell it, and landlord issues arent the reason hes closing up. In fact, hes choosing to retire on his own terms, so that he can spend more time with his family. Here he explains how his business has evolved over the years, why hes at peace with saying good-bye, and what he plans to do next. How are customers taking the news? Were getting a lot of customers coming by now that weve made the announcement. People recall buying things 30 years ago that theyre still using today. They feel very sentimental about us not being around. On the other hand, when I get a chance to speak with people, they understand that Ive been doing this for 40 years, seven days a week. Ive been a workaholic, in terms of being at the store, and Ive gotten to the point where Im 72 years old, and I want to spend more time with my family. People understand that, and theyre happy for me that I made that decision to move on. How long have you been thinking of closing the shop? It came into focus this past year. I think it was a combination of things but primarily, my wife not being in as good health as she has always been. When you get to my age, a greater sense of how fragile life is sets in. At least for me. I felt that I didnt want to be away from my family as much as I have been. It was just time for me to do this. Ive had friends who have passed away unexpectedly. Its not something I was thinking about for a long time, but for the past several years, I have. Why do you feel its right to close, versus passing on the shop to a family member or selling it? My daughters especially Heather, who works with me and does sales and marketing never were interesting in the back-office part of the business. Heather was not really a candidate, as she always said, Im happy to be working with you, Dad, but when its time for you to move on, Im moving on, too. That was clear from the beginning. My other daughter is a successful psychologist, and although she loves to cook and help out in the store, she has a full-time job and a child. She was not going to change careers at this particular point. Ive been approached by outside people who are interested in this store, and things just didnt work out. Maybe I just wasnt ready, or the person wasnt quite qualified. Has running the store changed now that chains like Williams-Sonoma and Sur La Table are all over the city? I cant say that its changed a lot. Williams-Sonoma has been around for as long as Broadway Panhandler has been around. But I welcome an awareness of food and good-quality equipment. I wasnt overly concerned about those expansions because our products are different: We work with upscale manufacturers, as well as some really small suppliers who sell handcrafted, unique products. Our mix has never been the same as larger chain stores. We can pick and choose and make things special. Im sure those stores have taken away some sales, but the mix of product and the value is different. I never looked at them as competition. Does your decision to close have anything to do with declining sales? Sales may have had some impact. Obviously, the internet has had an impact on, if not all retailers, hard-goods retailers. We have a website, and it was doing pretty well, but were not as focused and sophisticated on running our business as a website operation. Our focus has always been on one-on-one interaction with our customers, to try and give them information to make a selection to fit their particular needs. That aspect of what we do and what we trained the staff to do is important. What are your future plans? The Times story about the closing said you might open a small knife shop. The knife story was the easy answer because Ive always been involved with knives. I was a Cub Scout. Its always been a passion. When I was working for my fathers wholesale business, we sold knives to the government. Its one of those things that I can always equate to jewelry: You cant tell how good a knife is by looking at it; there are performance-based qualities. I find that someone like myself, who knows a lot about it, can select knives that can do the job. Sometimes not terribly expensive knives, but knives that can take on the task. If I was going to do something, which I most likely will, at some point, I tend to drift into the knife arena. How have you seen your business evolve over the years? What drove my business had to do with changes in peoples eating habits: Nearly 40 years ago, my customers wanted to re-create, at home, what they ate in restaurants. I think it was the evolution of food, and peoples understanding of food, that got me very enthusiastic about what I was doing. How have you seen peoples cooking habits change? Everyone makes their own choices. Healthy choices have been an important driver of food, certainly at home. I think when someone is concerned about what theyre eating How much salt is in there? How many carbs? you can control that at home. I think, learning from chefs and recipes, people are recognizing that they have this ability. I think thats helping people eat food thats healthier and more flavorful and experimental. Whats recently been your best seller? Basically, I always feel if you buy something good, its going to last, and you wont have to buy it again. So, many of the things that drive sales are new things and innovations. Nonstick coatings have evolved. Some people are concerned about Teflon, and how food browns when youre using a nonstick pan, so there have been innovations in that area. Nonstick continues to sell well. Are there any cooking trends that have annoyed you? I wouldnt say a trend, but a lot of the newness in kitchenware is really gadget-oriented. That doesnt drive what we do at Broadway Panhandler, but were always attuned to new things coming out, and were skeptical. We test nearly every product that we sell to make sure it matches our expectations. So many old-school New York businesses close because of rent increases. Whats your relationship with your landlord been like? Landlords have a product, and they have to get the most for it. As someone who has rented this space for a very long time, I understand that. The thing thats difficult for many retailers is that when things happen online, you dont need to spend money in real estate and rent. The landlords are very slow to come around to that, and I think thats a big problem for everyone who sells merchandise in a retail environment. Generally speaking, over the years, Ive had a good relationship with my landlord, but Im always trying to negotiate the rent. Were seeing stores go out of business at a faster pace than before. The new ones coming in are mostly banks and nail salons and drugstores things that are on every corner. There are less and less shops like Broadway Panhandler. Thats the reality of today. I had a good run, and Im happy that I was able to do as much as I did, and had a following of good customers. I look forward, in the next month or two, to continue to serve those customers and be there. Do you have a specific closing date? Basically, I havent fixed an exact date on it, but it depends on a great extent to how quickly I I sell my merchandise, and other promotions and events that are in the works. Right now, its really open from six weeks to three months. Are you emotional about saying good-bye? I have mixed feelings I described myself as a workaholic, so Im not sure what Im going to be doing, and how that will impact my life. I will try to keep busy and do volunteer work and a whole variety of things. Theres no limit to what I might do. Im not going to be sad about it; Im just going to be doing something else. And maybe cooking more. Oy vey. Photo: Scott Eells/Bloomberg via Getty Images This lawsuit may cause a double take: A white Eataly line cook claims he suffered racial discrimination while working at Mario Batalis food hall. As SNL-parody-worthy as it sounds, the 39-year-olds lawsuit against the company describes the struggle of being the lone white dude in a sea of Hispanic co-workers who wouldnt stop saying gringo. Per todays Post: Scott Silberlight, of Staten Island, started working at the Flatiron food emporium last August, prepping ingredients and assembling dishes for $12.50 an hour, according to his Manhattan Supreme Court suit. Silberlight, 39, said his mostly Hispanic coworkers regularly called him gringo, a Spanish term for non-Hispanics. When he complained to his supervisor, who was also Hispanic, the boss told him to keep quiet or there would be problems, the suit claims. Scott, you are Gringo. Its not easy for Gringos to work with Mexicans, one of them said, according to the lawsuit, adding: If Gringos were to run this (food assembly) line this place would not work. Other Latino cooks called him estupido and a pendejo. Silberlight maintains that all of his complaints fell on deaf ears. When he told supervisor Leo Gonzalez, his boss allegedly said things would get harder if he didnt learn to deal. He then went a level higher up the chain, to a head chef (who allegedly advised he forget about the insults) and another top Eataly manager (who allegedly told him to simply hang in there). In short, Silberlight says, My cries for help went unheard. He quit after just two months on the job. According to the Daily News, he now holds another cooking job at an undisclosed restaurant in the city and gets regular psychological counseling. A rep for Eataly says the company has a culturally diverse staff and will see Silberlight in court. [NYP, NYDN] Come prepared for a wait. Photo: Jim Bennett/Corbis Theres no doubt that New Yorkers are bona fide line-waiting pros, but their mettle would be tested at Texass famed Franklin Barbecue. The joint outside Austin, whose line sometimes stretches for seven hours, is arguably the nations most fanatical spot for cue, and one that the New York Times recently sent a reporter to check out (much like the Gray Ladys other discoveries, like Brooklyn and #FreeTheNipple). Still, the Times offered an in-depth look at the countrys craziest line. Heres the highlight reel: The first rule of Franklin Barbecue club is, you do not cut at Franklin Barbecue. The restaurants ridiculous line is our nations great equalizer. Kanye West wanted to cut the line and we didnt let him, general manager Benjamin Jacob tells the Times. Everybodys equal. Well, except for Obama: On a trip to Austin in 2014, President Obama was apologetic as he cut to the front and stood at the counter. Thats old news, actually, but what readers learn is that POTUS felt morally obligated to buy three pounds of brisket for the family behind him. (Hold on how many folks are yall feedin? he apparently half-joked at the time.) At least two couples who met in line ultimately got married. Wonder who catered those receptions? Lots of people eat while waiting to eat. Taco runs are commonplace. Besides eating, other activities include playing beer pong and corn hole, reading Milton Friedmans Capitalism and Freedom, and bringing your own funk band. Workers say theyve been offered thousands of dollars to let people butt in line. Each time, theyve refused. After first opening the business in a trailer back in 2009, owner Aaron Franklin has sold out of meat every day since. Line-sitting is now banned by the restaurant, but Desmond Roldan, an eighth-grade entrepreneur who created the BBQ Fast Pass line-sitting service, made an amount of money in the five figures, according to his dad. Two men at the front of the line said they showed up at 7:43 a.m., for a total wait of three hours and 17 minutes. Oh, thats not too bad, Franklin replied. I like the slow season were in right now. [NYT] Leah Chase with President Barack Obama, whom she chided for adding hot sauce to his gumbo. Photo: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty images Through the late 1940s and early 50s, Leah Chase and her husband, Edgar Dooky Chase Jr., began to transform the family business, Dooky Chases Restaurant, into a destination-worthy Creole restaurant. At 93, she continues to fire up the burners as the restaurants chef. And now Leah Chase, since dubbed the queen of Creole cooking, is being honored by the countrys premier culinary body. The James Beard Foundation announced on Thursday that Chase will be the recipient of this years Lifetime Achievement Award, an honor thats previously gone to chefs and restaurateurs such as Wolfgang Puck and Chicagos prolific Richard Melman. Chase, though, is much more than just a gumbo master. Shes been lauded as an advocate for civil-rights causes, once flouting New Orleanss segregation laws by serving both black and white customers. The restaurant became a center for African-American culture and a meeting place for black activists (they would meet here and plan all of that over gumbo and fried chicken) and organizations like the NAACP. Those customers included the writer James Baldwin, Thurgood Marshall, and Ray Charles, who mentions the restaurant in his song Early in the Morning. When Chase first took over the kitchen, she told the Times in 1990, she tried to serve dishes like lobster thermidor and wanted to have a restaurant like the ones on the other side of town. That didnt work out, so she turned to the food she grew up with: jambalaya, gumbo, a particularly renowned fried chicken, and so on. This turned out to be an excellent move. Over time, Chase developed an exacting reputation and commitment to tradition. When the Southern Foodways Alliance, for which she served as the first president of its board of directors, named her the 2000 recipient of its Craig Claiborne Lifetime Achievement Award, the organization described her as a opinionated self-taught cook. In addition to the aforementioned awards, Chase was inducted into James Beard Foundations Whos Who of Food & Beverage in America in 2010 and had a gallery at New Orleanss Southern Food and Beverage Museum named in her honor in 2009. Together with her husband, she founded the Dooky Chase Foundation to further the causes she had supported during the civil-rights era. Like so many other businesses in New Orleans, Chases restaurant was affected by Hurricane Katrina, becoming inundated with five feet of water. She persevered, telling nola.com, Theres nothing you can do about it, but accept it. You take a good cry and you keep going. Her restaurant reopened in 2007, thanks in part to a benefit that helped raise $40,000 for the restaurant. Seven years later, a Times-Picayune judging panel named her fried chicken the citys best, with one judge calling it damn near perfect. Samsung was the top smartphone vendor worldwide last quarter, capturing 21.4% of the market, up from 20% it claimed last year, according to latest data revealed by market research firm IDC. The South Korean company shipped a total of 85.6 million smartphones in Q4 2015, up from the 75.1 million figure it reported in the same quarter the year prior. On the other hand Apple, which retained its second spot, shipped 74.8 million iPhones last quarter, claiming 18.7% of the market. Huawei, Lenovo, and Xiaomi rounded up the top five with 8.1%, 5.1%, and 4.6% share, respectively. Talking about 2015 as a whole, there wasn't any change in the rankings - Samsung was still at the top with around 325 million smartphone units shipped, followed by Apple, Huawei, Lenovo, and Xiaomi, shipping 231.5, 106.6, 74.0, and 70.8 million units, respectively. Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei reported the strongest year-on-year growth in the top five. "Usually the conversation in the smartphone market revolves around Samsung and Apple, but Huawei's strong showing for both the quarter and the year speak to how much it has grown as an international brand," said Melissa Chau, Senior Research Manager with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. "While there is a lot of uncertainty around the economic slowdown in China, Huawei is one of the few brands from China that has successfully diversified worldwide, with almost half of its shipments going outside of China. Huawei is poised to be in a good position to hold onto a strong number 3 over the next year." Total global smartphone shipments in 2015 stood at over 1.4 billion, up 10.1% compared to 2014. Source With Mobile World Congress now being less than one month away, the companies that are going to participate are starting their respective teaser campaigns for their events in Barcelona. Case in point - Oppo. The Chinese smartphone maker has not only talked about a new F1 Plus model at the launch of the F1 in India, but it's also released its first teaser for MWC. You can see that image to the left, but even more important is the PR text that accompanied it. Oppo says we should expect it to unveil a couple of big things at MWC. First off, a "groundbreaking power solution" is mentioned, obviously without any additional details that could help us discern what this might be - it is, after all, just a teaser. What's also coming in February from Oppo is "an unprecedented smartphone camera innovation". Here too the wording is vague enough that it could mean anything - software, hardware, or even a mix of the two. Clearly though the company thinks you should get excited about these innovations it plans to bring forth. Together, these are said to "offer tomorrow's consumers a reinvigorated user experience". Perhaps Oppo will elaborate on these things somewhat in subsequent teasers in the coming weeks. News / National by Staff Reporter The City of Harare wishes to advise all residents of Greater Harare that there will be a complete shutdown of Morton Jaffray Water Treatment Plant from Friday 29 January at 1400hrs to Monday 1 February 2016 at 0900hrs.This means that there will be no water supply in the whole of Harare, Norton, Ruwa,Epworth and Chitungwiza.The complete shutdown is being done to allow major rehabilitation works at Morton Jaffray Waterworks.This involves the installation of valves at the trunk mains to the Central Business District and Lochnivar and repair of leaks at the treatment plant and mains.The City will also be carrying out other routine maintanance works.This is part of the ongoing Harare Water and Sanitation Infrastructure Rehabilitation Programme meant to improve reliability of water supply.Council therefore appeals to residents to use the available water sparingly Haiti - FLASH : Martelly solicits the OAS as mediator in the crisis Wednesday, the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) held a special meeting at the Simon Bolivar Room at OAS headquarters in Washington, DC, to receive a status report on the Electoral Observation Mission of the OAS in Haiti. The Permanent Representative of Haiti to the OAS, Ambassador Bocchit Edmond, indicated that the Haitian government remains convinced that elections are the only acceptable way to ensure democratic change "We believe in the good neighborhood policy through mediation to avoid political chaos. Compliance with the reliability of the results has always been a major challenge for the Government. The President [Martelly] does not request an appeal for interference, but a call to solidarity," specifying "the President solicits the OAS to send a high-level mediation mission, to avoid falling into political chaos." The Haitian Ambassador also praised the OAS, whose collaboration remains useful for stability in Haiti. HL/ HaitiLibre News / National by Staff Reporter President Robert Mugabe has arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the 26th African Union summit.He was met at Bole International Airport by Ethiopian Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Dr Workneh Gebeyehu.Also at the airport to welcome him was Zimbabwe's permanent representative to the AU Ambassador Albert Chimbindi, Minister of Tourism and Hospitality Industry Walter Mzembi, Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary Ambassador Joey Bimha and staff members from the Zimbabwe embassy in Ethiopia.A quarter guard was mounted to honour the AU chairman and after greeting the welcoming party that gave him a warm welcome, President Mugabe who was accompanied by Dr Gebeyehu proceeded to the dais for the national anthem.Mugabe will join other heads of state and government from the African continent for the summit.The AU chairman is credited for bringing back the continental body on the world map and for encouraging AU member states to be self-reliant.African diplomats and AU commissioners are reportedly pushing for President Mugabe to be re-elected for a 2nd term so that he finishes the various programmes that he started, especially his push for Africa to be represented in the United Nations Security Council. Haiti - Politic : The Economic Forum asks to Opont to resign ! Wednesday in a letter from the Economic Forum of Private Sector signed by its Coordinator Gregory Brandt addressed to Pierre-Louis Opont, the President of the Electoral Council Provioire (CEP), the Forum asked the President of the CEP to please remove from office to allow to find a solution to the crisis. Letter of the Economic Forum : "Port-au-Prince, January 27, 2016 Pierre-Louis Opont President of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) In offices Mr. President, The Economic Forum of Private Sector notes that on 27 January 2016, the process led by the Provisional Electoral Council, which you assume the Presidency, could not and will not be able lead to the installation of a new President of the Republic from democratic elections on 7 February. While thanking you for your time and for your efforts to complete this difficult mission and serve the higher interests of the country, the Economic Forum of Private Sector solicits by this that you please remove from office to allow the Nation to find a solution to the current crisis. While thanking you for your attention to this request, the Economic Forum takes this opportunity to renew to you, Mr. President, its best regards. For the Board of Directors of Economic Forum of Private Sector Gregory Brandt Coordinator" HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Diplomacy : The Ambassador of Haiti in DR supervises border Tuesday, Magalie Magloire Ambassador of Haiti to the Dominican Republic and directors of migration : Gen. Ruben Dario Paulino Sem, of CESFRONT (Cuerpo Especializado de Seguridad Fronteriza Terrestre) and the General Carlos Manuel Reyes Aguirre Paulino, conducted a supervisory visit to the border. During her visit to the border town of Pedernales, Magalie Magloire arrived in a private helicopter to the "Enriquillo Fortaleza" of the 21th Company of the Army in Pedernales, accompanied by the two directors of the Dominican migration, then traveled to Haiti in Anse-a-Pitres where held discussions with the Director of the Immigration Office on the migratory situation. She also visited the Dominican immigration office in Pedernales, where she spoke with the director of that office, accompanied notably by the Governor Angel Odalis Zabala Segura. When asked about that first visit to the border line of Pedernales the Haitian diplomat did not elaborate on the relations between the two countries "We visited to see how it goes and seek solutions to the border," convinced that it is with the dialogue that we can reach agreements. During his tour, Magalie Magloire also went to Jimani to see what was going on repatriation of our compatriots and the behavior of authorities on both sides of the border. S/ iciHaiti Haiti - Politic : The CARICOM calls for urgent resolution of the political crisis In a statement the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has called on all the stakeholders in Haitis electoral process to do their utmost to resolve the current political crisis. "The Caribbean Community condemns the acts of violence which have, in recent days, marred the ongoing electoral process in Haiti https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16398-haiti-flash-situation-of-violence-and-anarchy.html . These events have contributed to the decision to postpone the second round of the Presidential elections and the elections for the remaining members of the legislature https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16394-haiti-flash-elections-of-january-24-are-canceled-update-7h10-pm.html In the circumstances, the Community calls on all the stakeholders, and in particular the major political actors, to do their utmost to resolve, as a matter of urgency, the current political crisis in a calm and peaceful atmosphere by facilitating the negotiations being conducted. The Caribbean Community looks forward to the continuation of the electoral process and to an improved management and conduct of the polling process. It is imperative that voting take place in a secure and peaceful environment that will encourage citizens to carry out their civic duty and exercise their right in large numbers." HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - News : Electoral Zapping... Haiti seeks the assistance of CELAC On the sidelines of the participation of Haiti in the 4th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the CELAC taking place in Quito (Ecuador), the electoral issue in Haiti was at the center of debate. The Haitian Chancellor Lener Renauld took the opportunity to solicit the collaboration of CELAC as part of the continuation of the electoral process in Haiti. According to Ricardo Patino, Ecuador's foreign minister, the Haitian government wants CELAC to issue a statement of support for democracy in Haiti. The G8 promises other 2 days of protests A week after the 4 days of violent protests, the G8 mobilization table announces new mobilization schedule, Friday 29 and Saturday, January 30 in front the National Palace. Jovenel calls Jude for dialogue "Haiti is a country that was created in the 'leve kanpe'. The transition is not good for Haiti. The country will go nowhere with a transitional government. Today, the biggest debate is how to plan and find a date for the second round of elections. Haiti deserves it," delcared Wednesday Jovenel Moise presidential candidate of PHTK, adding "I think the time has arrived for Jude Celestin and myself, we sit together, to tell the Nation what we want. We owe it to Haiti !" Replacement of resigning advisers In accordance with the provisions Law at the resignation of members of the Electoral Council, the President Martelly has written to 4 sectors (Media, Protestant, Human Right and Catholic Church) to ask these institutions to replace their resigning representative to the CEP. The return to the CEP of Yolette Mengual criticized The decision of Yolette Mengual to reinstate the CEP https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16431-haiti-news-electoral-zapping.html by ignoring the resignation instructions given by women institutions who have designated her to the CEP and that of the "Collectif Feminin Haitien pour la Participation Politique des Femems", whose she was a co founder, caused many reactions in the feminist movement. "Fanm Yo La" believes that "This attitude, in breaking with feminist values and exemplary behavior feminist of personalities who have served in state institutions, is and must remain only an unfortunate and lamentable deviation for the whole women's movement. Welcoming the organizations that have asked Ms. Mengual to withdraw from the Provisional Electoral Council. Stating that "The case Mengual will not be a reference !" HL/ HaitiLibre Published on 2016/01/27 | Source Hallyu Star Lee Min-ho met with almost 10,000 Japanese fans at his talk concert 'MINOZ MANSION' held in Yokohama on the 25th. Advertisement The concert started with a footage of Lee Min-ho thanking those who helped him with his autobiography. Then followed 'Lee Min-ho's 20s Analysis Data'. Lee Min-ho has been communicating with his fans through key words such as 'chae-bol', 'handsome', 'fan boy', MINOZ', 'private life' and SNS. Then Lee Min-ho looked back on classic scenes from the KBS 2TV drama "Boys over Flowers", "The Heirs", "City Hunter", "Faith", "Personal Taste" and more. Lee Min-ho participated in preparing the concert from stage display, structure, choosing songs and other parts. He sang a few songs off his single album for his fans and sang a Japanese version of the song "My Everything". The 150 minutes long concert was filled with honest talk, fan service and touching live performances. Lee Min-ho said, "Communication starts with talking to one another. There will be more events like this where I can talk to my fans". Harlow is a former New Town in Essex with a population of 86,000. Located in the upper Stort Valley, it was built in the decades after the Second World War to ease overcrowding and London and provide homes for people bombed out during the Blitz. It includes Britain's first pedestrian precinct and first modern residential tower block, The Lawn. Old Harlow, the historic part of the town, was mentioned in the Domesday Book. David and Victoria Beckham's former home, Rowneybury House, nicknamed 'Beckingham Palace', is nearby. 11:21, 20 OCT 2022 News / National by Staff Reporter Former ZIPRA cadre Retired Brigadier General Jimmy Mhandu has died.Family spokesperson Cairo Mhandu told the state media that Retired Brigadier General Mhandu died this Thursday morning at his Mabelreign home after a long illness.According to ZBC, family spokesperson Cairo Mhandu said Retired Brigadier General Mhandu died this Thursday morning at his Mabelreign home after a long illness.Born on November 11, 1947, the late Retired Brigadier General Mhandu joined the struggle in 1971 after crossing to Zambia through Botswana.After independence he served in the Zimbabwe National Army where he was attested as colonel in the military police and special investigations branch.He is survived by his wife and seven children.Mourners are gathered at Number 3, 89th Avenue in Mabelreign. hristchurch HR manager who stole more than $400,000 from her former employer was jailed for three years yesterday after a judge said shed been motivated by greed, rather than need. Your motivation appears to have been lifestyle choices, Judge Alistair Garland told 44-year-old before denying her appeal for name suppression. Mother-of-two Charmain Herron had already pleaded guilty to two counts of theft by a person in a special relationship, having falsified 148 payroll entries over nine years. The fabrications, made while working for a nationally-recognized law firm, meant $400,969 was fraudulently paid into her own account. Judge Garland maintained name suppression for the firm, agreeing that full disclosure could cause further financial harm. Herron resigned from the unnamed firm last year after partners indicated she was under investigation for fraud her eventual cooperation with authorities helped secure a shorter sentence. "All I wanted to do was save my family," the disgraced HR professional told Fairfax Media. I'm really sorry that I betrayed everyone. Herron has already used the proceeds from the sale of her house to begin reparation payments but falls short by more than $200,000. (HedgeCo.Net) Agecroft Partners announced that all profits from its new conference Gaining the Edge 2016 Hedge Fund Marketing Leadership Summit taking place on April 28th at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City will be donated to non-profit charities that benefit children. Hedge Fund Cares and the World Pediatric Project will be the main beneficiaries. This reflects an ongoing commitment by Agecroft Partners, to help organizations that benefit children. We are happy to support these wonderful charities both financially and to enhance their awareness throughout the hedge fund industry. stated Don Steinbrugge, Managing Partner of Agecroft Partners. The focus of the conference is How to Enhance the Asset Raising Capability of Your Hedge Fund Organization and will feature many of the worlds most influential hedge fund marketing experts. Panelists will include most of the heads of capital introduction from the top prime brokerage firms such as Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi Global Markets, Inc., Deutsche Bank Securities, Goldman Sachs, Jefferies & Company, Societe Generale and Wells Fargo Prime Services. Some of the key topics that will be covered include: What are the firms that raise significant assets doing differently? What factors do institutional investors use to evaluate hedge fund managers? How to create an effective marketing strategy. How to improve your marketing presentation to enhance investors perception of your firm. What fund strategies are the most attractive to investors right now? What type of investors are allocating to hedge funds? Where is money being allocated outside the US and how do you raise assets outside the US? Gaining the Edge 2016 Hedge Fund Marketing Leadership Summit is expected to sell out quickly, with over 600 registrants. Registration for hedge fund managers is free, although they are asked to make a voluntary donation. Sponsors for the event so far include: US Bancorp Fund Services, Kleinberg Kaplan, Baker Tilly, Imagineer Technology Group, CME Group and Anchin. Agecroft Partners is also the co-organizer of Hedgeopolis New York where the firm has donated all of its profits to non-profit organizations that benefit children. For more information about the upcoming conference, please visit the website www.apgainingtheedge.com. Hedge Fund Cares/Help for Children is an international charity, supported largely by the hedge fund industry, whose sole mission is preventing and treating child abuse. Each year, HFC gives grants to community based nonprofit organizations throughout the US, Canada, the Cayman Islands and the UK that address child abuse through education, support (for victims or at risk families), research, and training. Over 50,000 people are directly impacted by HFCs grants every year. World Pediatric Project provides critical-care health services to children in the Caribbean and Central America. The WPP helps children by sending surgical and diagnostic teams to partner countries to provide onsite treatment to children in need and to educate and train local nurses and doctors in order to create a sustainable, long-term healthcare solution. WPPs vision is to give every child, regardless of geography, access to quality, critical care in order to live a full and productive life. Tiilikainen announced on Wednesday that he will propose that the Housing Fund of Finland contribute nearly one hundred million euros towards the construction costs of Raide-Jokeri, an orbital light rail connection between Itakeskus, Helsinki, and Keilaniemi, Espoo. Economists and decision-makers in Helsinki have heaped praise on Kimmo Tiilikainen (Centre), the Minister of Agriculture and the Environment, and the Government of Juha Sipila (Centre). Several local decision-makers have previously voiced their concerns that the proposal to replace trunk line 550 with a light rail connection would receive little support from the Centre-led Government. Tiilikainen explained in an interview with Helsingin Sanomat that the funds will be disbursed from the Housing Fund of Finland because the rail infrastructure project will promote residential construction in Helsinki and Espoo. The funds, however, will only be granted if the municipalities in question commit to considerably stepping up zoning for residential use, Tiilikainen specified on Twitter. Hence the jubilant reception. The sluggish rate of housing production has already pushed housing costs in the capital region so high that they have become an obstacle to labour mobility. A study published earlier this week by the Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) found that Helsinki alone has a shortage of 20,000 housing units. The decision is praiseworthy. It will lead to the creation of tens of thousands of housing units in the capital region, wrote Kari Jaaskelainen, a director at the executive office of the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK). Excellent news for residential construction and the entire country, said Sami Pakarinen, the chief economist at the Confederation of Finnish Construction Industries (RT). A positive surprise! Municipalities should now start zoning for dense urban development around the stations, wrote Juhana Brotherus, the chief economist at the Finnish Mortgage Society (Hypo). Local decision-makers similarly voiced their delight with the announcement. Laura Rissanen (NCP), a councillor for the City of Helsinki, and Anni Sinnemaki (Greens), the Deputy Mayor of Real Estate and City Planning in Helsinki, received the news with joy. Tiilikainen also told Helsingin Sanomat that he hopes both Helsinki and Espoo will commence the preparatory work without delay. The funds cannot be granted unless construction activities are stepped up, he underlined to the daily. The Finnish Centre Youth, meanwhile, estimated that the announcement will take away ammunition from those who have accused the Centre Party of neglecting Helsinki. The decision demonstrates that the Centre has a realistic and constructive vision also for how the capital region should be developed. It is no use claiming that the Centre is only interested in provincial issues, Emma Koskimaa, the chairperson of Helsinki Centre Youth, stated in a press release. The youth organisation described Raide-Jokeri as the Centre's gift to Helsinki. Helsingin Sanomat reports that the Government has committed to contributing 83 million euros towards the 275 million euros the rail infrastructure project is estimated to cost. The funding will be disbursed in 20172019. Aleksi Teivainen HT Illustration: WSP Source: Uusi Suomi The shared border has for decades been taken care of in a congenial spirit. Russian border officials are currently not only choosing not to stop those crossing the border without a visa, they are part of the plot, Sarvamaa writes on his blog for Iltalehti . Petri Sarvamaa (NCP), a Member of the European Parliament, believes the flow of asylum seekers across the eastern border of Finland is being used by the Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB) as a means to pressure Finland. He also estimates that Russian President Vladimir Putin must be aware of the situation because the FSB has been established under the President and the Border Service under the FSB. If something organised is taking place at the border, the President has either approved or issued an order to take such action. In this equation, the asylum seekers arriving at the border-crossing points in Salla and Raja-Jooseppi are primarily a means for the FSB to pressure Finland, he argues. Petteri Orpo (NCP), the Minister of the Interior, is reluctant to rush to such conclusions, pointing out that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, shares his concerns about the situation. What's important is that we're both willing to take action. I don't want to make any guesses on how the issue will be addressed internally in Russia, but what's is important is that a solution is found, Orpo said in an interview with Uusi Suomi. Sarvamaa is less diplomatic in his assessment of the situation. Russia and the FSB are playing with high stakes. The going may get tough for Finland. A political solution is there to be found, of course. The question we should rather be asking is how much will it cost to make the decision with the FSB, with an undemocratic nation. Finland may well be used as a means to drive a wedge within the EU. Is there a set of circumstances in which Finland should pay that price? he asks. Aleksi Teivainen HT Photo: Petteri Paalasmaa Uusi Suomi Source: Uusi Suomi Meadows endorses Cruz U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows on Wednesday endorsed Ted Cruz for president, calling the Texas senator "the best-positioned leader to restore power to the people and uphold the Constitution." Related Stories We are approaching a historic election that has the potential to fundamentally change our nation as we know it. Ted Cruz is the principled, conservative leader we need in the White House," Meadows said in a news release. On issue after issue, Cruz has told the truth and done what he said he was going to do. It may not make him a lot of friends in Washington, but it is exactly what the American people expect of their leaders. Folks across this great nation are sick and tired of the Washington-way, and demand real change. Ted Cruz is the best-positioned leader to restore power to the people and uphold the Constitution at this historic moment in time. Ive worked closely with Ted on a number of issues from pro-Israel initiatives to fighting for school choice, and I know that he always puts the interest of the country first," Meadows added in the statement. "Thats his consistent record. I am proud to join with the millions of conservatives coalescing around his campaign, coming together to force Washington to finally listen to the American people. I look forward to working with Ted in North Carolina and around the country to make him the next President of the United States. Youd be hard-pressed to find a more principled conservative in the House than Mark Meadows, Cruz said. He has been a champion for limited government and has the battle scars to prove it. As a small businessman, he is acutely aware of the challenges men and women face in the Obama economy and is going to be a tremendous voice for us on the campaign trail. I am thrilled to have Marks support and am eager to have his help in the Tar Heel state. Henderson Oil awards $7,000 to schools School principals pose with Henderson Oil Co. executives. Henderson Oil Company awarded a total of $7,000 in ExxonMobil Educational Alliance grants to 14 Henderson County public schools on Thursday, supplying elementary, middle and high school principals with extra funds for necessary materials and programming. Related Stories Receiving grants of $500 each were Atkinson Elementary, Bruce Drysdale Elementary, Clear Creek Elementary, Glenn C. Marlow Elementary, Edneyville Elementary, Mills River Elementary, Upward Elementary, Flat Rock Middle, Hendersonville Middle, Rugby Middle, Hendersonville High, West Henderson High, North Henderson High and East Henderson High. Edneyville Elementary, Clear Creek Elementary, Glenn C. Marlow Elementary, Bruce Drysdale Elementary, Hendersonville Middle, Rugby Middle, and East Henderson High intend to spend their funds on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) resources. Flat Rock Middle will use the $500 to purchase new 6th grade science tables for labs, while North Henderson High and Atkinson Elementarys grant money will go toward collaborative technology. Upward Elementary intends to purchase a couple Chromebooks for students to use for math and science lessons and West Henderson High will purchase a new set of calculators for the schools math department. Hendersonville High will use the $500 toward the purchase of a spectrophotometer for science labs, and Mills River Elementary will use the funds to support its participation in the Muddy Sneakers outdoor science program. ExxonMobil Educational Alliance grants are awarded on a first-come, first-served basis. This year 4,200 grants totaling $2.1 million were awarded to schools across the country. Henderson Oil Company, which owns and operates Energy Marts, was awarded 31 of these $500 grants for a total of $15,500. Since 2000, Henderson Oil Company and ExxonMobil have provided $188,250 in education grants to North Carolina, South Carolina and east Tennessee. Of that number, $95,250 has been awarded to schools in Henderson County. As long as its available, were going to keep doing it, said Barry Edwards, vice president of Henderson Oil Company. Gardai at the scene of the search in Sallins, where they are trying to locate the last remains of Kenneth OBrien (Photo: Collins) Detectives investigating the grisly murder of Kenneth O'Brien may travel to Australia in an attempt to get a full picture of the gangland victim's life in Perth. The butchered father-of-one spent most of his final three years in Australia, and sources say that while gardai have already been liaising with Interpol over Mr O'Brien's life there, they want to get more information. Most of the dismembered body has now been recovered, but it is understood that parts of the victims' hands remain missing. Searches were carried out again yesterday along two stretches of the Grand Canal at Sallins, Co Kildare, where parts of the body were recovered on Sunday and Monday. Gardai may now extend their investigation to Perth, where Mr O'Brien was recently working to help support his partner and their young son, who remained in Ireland. Killers The 33-year-old JCB driver and diesel fitter, who lived in Lealand Road, in Clondalkin, had only returned home a month before his death. "It is very likely that gardai will be sent to Australia in the coming weeks as part of this investigation," a source told the Herald last night. The development comes as gardai still search for the location of Mr O'Brien's murder and the handgun that was used in the crime. A post-mortem examination established that Mr O'Brien was shot once in the head before his body was cut up with an electric saw. Gardai are working on the theory that he knew his killers and met with them on the morning of Friday, January 15 - the day before his torso was found in the Grand Canal at Ardclough, Co Kildare. He had told his partner the previous night that he intended to travel down to the country for work. Gardai have yet to establish whether he was collected as he left his estate or used public transport. The next major development in the case happened eight days later, when more of the victim's body parts were found in the canal near Sallins. It is understood that Mr O'Brien's head was discovered on Monday morning. The body parts were found in bin bags and a sport bag, and examinations have shown that Mr O'Brien was not tortured before he was shot dead. Investigations are continuing to focus on a prolific west Dublin heroin-dealing gang. Mr O'Brien is suspected of either laundering their cash or providing them with money for their trafficking network when a dispute broke out. However, gardai stress that this is not their only line of inquiry. The investigation team believes his killing and all aspects of the disposal of his remains were planned before he was lured to a meeting with people he knew. Ruthless Detectives believe the gang scattered the victim's remains at different locations in an attempt to hinder the investigation into the murder. They also believe that, in a shocking show of power, the ruthless west Dublin gang wanted the victim's body parts to be found so that a grim message would be sent out to anyone who dared to rip them off or challenge them in the future. Gardai are continuing to appeal to anyone who may have seen anything suspicious along the Grand Canal since January 15 to contact them. A school caretaker has been accused of stealing fruit from lunches for disadvantaged pupils that had been delivered as part of a healthy eating scheme. Thomas Byrne (55) is alleged to have taken bags of apples, oranges and bananas that were to have been given to children in a north Dublin primary school. Mr Byrne, of Howth Road, Raheny, denies eight counts of theft at Scoil Fhursa, Cromcastle Green, Kilmore, where he worked as caretaker at the time. The thefts - of 12 bags of apples, 14 bags of oranges and five bags of bananas worth a total of 67.25 - are alleged to have happened on dates between February 24 and March 5, 2014. Judge Ann Ryan adjourned the case for continued hearing on a later date at Dublin District Court. Principal Martin Stynes said the school was in a disadvantaged area and one initiative undertaken to allay this was the healthy eating scheme. It involved Dublin City Council, suppliers Glanmore Food and the Department of Health. Irregularities The school began to notice irregularities in the supply. An investigation was carried out and the accused was dismissed. Mr Stynes accepted other people had access to the school's alarm code, including the secretary and senior teachers as well as the caretaker for neighbouring Scoil Ide. There was no policy or practice of people taking leftover food themselves, he said. A gunman on a motorbike fired five shots at mobster Karl Wynne as he was standing at a busy roundabout in Tallaght. Wynne (45), of Russell Avenue, Tallaght, Dublin 24, sustained gunshot wounds to the head, neck and abdomen after he was shot by a pillion passenger on a motorbike in May 2013. Dublin Coroner's Court heard that the gunman dismounted the motorbike and stood over the man lying on the footpath to fire two more shots from a semi-automatic pistol. Wynne died on July 19, 2013, two months after he was shot. Wynne, a convicted armed robber, had been previously arrested in connection with the non-fatal shooting of well-known bodybuilder Sean Enright at a Cabra gym, but was released without charge after being questioned for five days. It is believed that he was then murdered because of his involvement in the botched hit. Wynne was dubbed the 'Loan Ranger' when he was jailed for seven years in 1999 for holding up the EBS building society in Cork, and making off in a taxi. At the time of his death, he had been charged with a number of other robberies, including a hair salon and pharmacy. Father-of-one Wynne left his partner, Lorraine Lynch, and their son to meet someone on May 30, 2013. Shooting Ms Lynch, who broke down in tears as she entered the witness box, said he talked on the phone with someone she felt he knew before leaving the house. Witness James Reid saw the shooting in his rear-view mirror as he passed St Dominic's Shopping Centre in Tallaght. "I saw a black motorbike with two men. The driver was crouched down and didn't move. The second guy had his arm out, pointed at a man standing on the footpath. I heard two shots," he said. The motorbike sped off in the direction of the Tallaght by-pass so fast that the passenger was almost thrown from the bike as it passed over a speed bump, Mr Reid said. Ballistics specialist, Det Garda Seamus O'Donnell found five shots had been discharged from a semi-automatic pistol. Neither the weapon nor the motorbike have been recovered, Det Insp John Walsh told the court. Some 100 statements were taken by gardai and a file was submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions, but no charges were brought due to insufficient evidence. Mr Wynne spent 50 days in the intensive care unit of Tallaght hospital but was responsive and could speak to his partner. The cause of death was bronchial pneumonia due to gunshot wounds to the head and neck with wounds to the abdomen as a contributory factor. The jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing. Opinion / Columnist The story goes that a man bought a horse on the mistaken belief that the animal was a strong animal with many productive years ahead of it. It was a strong beast alright but did not have many productive years left; he assumed the animal was six years old when in fact it twelve years old.The wise King, before whom the case had been brought to settle the bitter dispute, asked the man how he had worked out the horse's age."The horse is a strongly built animal with bulging muscles so I guessed it was six years old. A week after taking delivery of the animal I noticed its molars were no more than stump where a great tree had once proudly stood!""Excellent! Excellent!" commented the wise King. "You had the opportunity to inspect the horse before you paid for it but chose to judge the animal on the basis of his size and bulging muscles alone. It was your fault!""Caveat emptor!" Latin for "Let the buyer beware!" The buyer buys "as is" complete with all the defects; it is for the buyer to examine, judge and test the good and satisfy himself or herself of its suitability for the purpose or need.If no GPA reforms are implemented BEFORE the next elections, as happened in the 2013 elections, then Mugabe will once again rig the elections. "Caveat populo!" (Let the people beware!)Zimbabwean elections are infamous for the horse trading after each election. The opposition always complain that the elections were rigged and Zanu PF, with the feigned angelic innocence of the devil's imp, countered claimed that the elections were free, fair and credible. If people take part in the next election with no implemented reforms it is their fault; they must not complain after the elections that they were rigged because they knew up front Mugabe would rig the elections.In the 2013 elections SADC leaders, amongst many others, literally begged Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends not to take part in the election without implementing the GPA reforms; MDC ignored the warning. They took part in the elections with their tails raised high like a warthog, bristling with enthusiasm and confidence the party will have land slide electoral victory."We in the MDC were wrong in participating in that (2013 general) election," admitted the deflated Morgan Tsvangirai after Mugabe blatantly rigged the vote to register landslide victory for himself and Zanu PF. "On the assumption and belief that the sheer numbers of Zimbabweans would overwhelm whatever shenanigans Zanu PF had planned to subvert the will of the people."Tsvangirai, MDC and the nation at large were warned, without implementing the reforms first, Mugabe would rig the elections. The warning was valid before the 2013 elections it is still valid today.Instead of implementing the GPA reforms Tsvangirai and his party have come up alternative electoral law reforms, listed in the party's National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA); wishy-washy reforms which will never deliver free and fair election even if Zanu PF was to implement them. A few days ago; after two and half years since the rigged July 2013 of time wasting on NERA, MDC-T has now admitted implementing NERA alone will not deliver free and fair elections."Whilst the MDC welcomes any moves to ensure and guarantee the holding of a free and fair plebiscite in 2018," wrote MDC-T spokesman, Obert Gutu. He was welcoming the Zanu PF government's announcement that the country will have the biometric voting system ready for the next elections (one NERA demand)."Once the impartiality and independence of ZEC is placed in doubt, Zimbabwe can never hold free and fair elections that can pass the test of legitimacy," he continued, getting to the meat of the problem." It is a notorious fact that since the year 2000, all elections that have been held in this country have been hugely disputed."ZEC's impartially and independence will only be restore by implementing the GPA reforms. The same is true with all the other institutions like the Police, Judiciary, etc."Zimbabwe can simply not afford the luxury of holding another disputed election in 2018.Without holding a free and fair election that is credible, it is virtually impossible to extricate Zimbabwe from the prevailing political turmoil and socio-economic collapse," concluded Gutu.Here are the two explicit national demands (it would have been too much to expect MDC-T to be explicit even in the light of their "later day enlightenment) to Mugabe and his Zanu PF cabal:- They must accept they have failed to govern the country and accept the full implementation of all the GPA reforms followed by the holding of free, fair and credible elections. This is the only way the country is going to end the worsening economic meltdown that is dragging the nation dangerous close to the precipice.- Mugabe and Zanu PF must accept the appointment of an independent body to implement the GPA reforms; it is naive to think Mugabe can be trusted to fully and judiciously implement the reform.To pile on the pressure on Mugabe to accept the above demands the people of Zimbabwe, the opposition parties in all their myriad variations and povo wherever they are, must now pledge that they will never again take part in an elections in Zimbabwe until the GPA reforms are fully implemented.Mugabe has a war chest full of cash from the wholesale looting and plundering of the nation's resources by this regime's ruling elite. He got $2 billion from the looting in Marange in 2012 alone, according to Partnership Africa, a Canadian NGO monitoring the illicit trade of diamonds. With all this money he has bankrolled very elaborate vote rigging schemes; for the 2013 he has paid NIKUV, the Israeli company notorious for corrupting voters roll, a princely sum of $10 million for its services! Over and above this Mugabe commandeers all the state resource we wants top up on what he has already.MDC-T and all the other opposition parties have very little money; indeed most of them are stone-broke! The only reason some opposition parties have continued to take part in such elections is for scraps Mugabe throws at them; to give the electoral process some semblance of a democratic contest Mugabe has allowed the opposition to "win" a few seats.What the people must do is chastise the opposition politicians continue to grant the Zanu PF regime some measure of legitimacy for the sake of the scraps; this nation cannot afford to continue turning a blind eye on those who run with the hare and hunt with the hounds especial when the very stability and survival of the nation is at stake!The people of Zimbabwe have waited for 36 year now for free, fair and credible elections. Whilst they waited, this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship has dragged the whole nation deeper and deeper into this hell-on-earth. Enough is enough; there is absolutely no excuse why the people should have to wait even one more election before they can finally enjoy their God given right to a free and meaningful vote.Zimbabwe's next election WILL be free, fair and credible; we WILL implement all the democratic reforms BEFORE the said election to be absolutely sure it is indeed free and fair. Any other fraudulent elections with Mugabe free to rigs such election will not count.We have had a very good look over of the Zanu PF horse, we are not fooled with the dyed coat or the puffed up muscles pumped full of Botox; the horse is half-dead already and we do not want it!Caveat populo! If you vote in the present system, your vote will be counted as a vote for Zanu PF whether you voted for Zanu PF or not and the party has ways of multiplying to increase the Zanu PF votes whilst dividing to reduce the opposition's votes. If push comes to shove, Zanu PF will not hesitate to use violence to secure election victory. The only way to end this system is by insisting on implementing the GPA reforms Mugabe agreed to in 2008 but were never implemented during the GNU! The 20-year-old son of a man who died after being stabbed in the leg was still being questioned by gardai last night. Marcus 'Murt' Brennan (46) died after the incident at a house on Frederick Avenue in Carlow town at around 1.30pm yesterday. It is understood a number of people were in the house when he was involved in a heated argument before the stabbing took place. His son, Marcus Hannon, who works as a kitchen porter in a local hotel, was arrested at the scene. "This is a very tragic incident. What happened here happened in the heat of the moment," a source told the Herald. Sources said that toxicology reports will be crucial in determining how the investigation proceeds. While Brennan had numerous convictions and was very well-known to gardai, sources said the dead man was "not the worst of them". "This unfortunate man was no criminal mastermind. He was in trouble for most of his adult life but all his problems related to his drug addiction," a source said. Brennan had served a number of prison sentences, including a three-year stretch handed down at Kilkenny Circuit Court in February 2005 for stealing more than 6,000 while armed with a hammer at an EBS in Kilkenny. He was also previously given a four-year sentence for robbery at Naas Circuit Court and was serving a separate three-and-a-half-year term for robbery in 1998. He later launched a High Court challenge to the legality of his detention at Portlaoise Prison because of what he claimed were degrading conditions there. In recent times he had been involved in a low-level dispute with other criminal elements in Carlow. Conduct He was due before the courts again in March, when he was to face charges of possession of a knife, criminal damage and burglary. Forensic investigators were searching the scene last night in order to piece together the events leading up to the stabbing. A team of gardai were also conducting door-to-door interviews. Neighbours said they were shaken by the incident. "It's very frightening," said Rocio Thompson, who lives two doors from where the incident happened. "I have young children and I didn't know what to do." Supermac's has lost a major battle in its brand war with fast-food giant McDonald's in a ruling that deals a hammer blow to the Irish firm's international expansion plans. In the surprise decision, the EU office that decides on trademark disputes has upheld McDonald's opposition against Supermac's using its own brand across Europe to sell its famous snack boxes or to operate fast-food restaurants. Ruling In a split decision, the ruling does allow Supermac's the consolation that it can use its brand name and trade name in the EU - but not to operate fast-food restaurants or to sell meat, fish, poultry, chicken nuggets, chips, onion rings or hamburgers under that brand name. The precedent set by the ruling also puts into doubt Supermac's expansion plans in Australia, where McDonald's is also opposing the Supermac's trademark being used. The Irish firm's arguments were roundly rejected by the EU Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM). In a 24-page ruling, the OHIM agreed with McDonald's that Supermac's application for a trademark is likely to cause confusion amongst the public over the two different fast-food brands and their fast-food products. In his submission, Pat McDonagh argued that he has used the Supermac's brand in Ireland since 1978 and there has never been any confusion between the two brands here. The OHIM stated that Mr McDonagh considered this to be sufficient to prevent the public from establishing a link between the brands. However, the OHIM dismissed Mr McDonagh's argument as irrelevant because the rights of McDonald's trademark are earlier than Supermac's trademark application. The OHIM gives Supermac's the right to appeal and it has four months in which to do so. Mr McDonagh described the ruling as "contradictory" and "questionable". "It is difficult to understand why they would allow the brand name but not allow us to sell the food we sell. We are quite surprised," he said. Lucy Agnes Smyth was born in 1882 and lived in Amiens Street, Dublin. She was a fluent Irish speaker and joined Cumann na mBan at its inception in 1914. By 1921, having been a section leader, she had ascended to the position of 1st Lieutenant in the Ard Craobh, Central Branch. During Easter week Lucy mobilised as a member of the GPO garrison. In this role she was highly active. She hid arms, mobilised Cumann na mBan, delivered dispatches, and tended the wounded - including James Connolly - at the GPO and The Hibernian Bank. She was also part of a group of 11 Cumann na mBan nurses who escorted the wounded - under fire in the battlefield - to Jervis Street Hospital at the time of the evacuation of the burning GPO. Executed In 1916 Lucy was romantically linked with Volunteer and IRB member Con Colbert, who called her "the nicest girl in Dublin". Colbert, who had fought at Marrowbone Lane, sent her a final message via a priest on the night before he was executed, shortly after the Rising was suppressed. In 1919 Lucy married Capt Tom Byrne (known as 'Boer Tom') who had arrived in the GPO after marching from Maynooth with 15 men overnight. Lucy had brought him a basin of water and a pair of clean socks. He gave her his watch and some money for safe-keeping. She assisted his escape in disguise to the North after the surrender. Neither were imprisoned in 1916. In the years following the Rising, Lucy was an integral member of the Irish National Aid Association and Volunteer Dependents' Fund. She was also awarded the 1916 Easter Rising medal, the Service (1917-1921) medal, the 1916 survivors medal and the Truce (1921) Commemoration Medal in recognition of her services to her country. She was awarded a military pension in 1938. Raid In 1920, Lucy and Tom tragically lost their first-born child, Maureen, at seven weeks old as - she later stated - "a result of a British military raid". Lucy was a known as a very private and dignified person. In later years she did not speak of the role she played in 1916, nor did she leave a Bureau of Military History witness statement to record her significant contribution. She had four surviving children, Eileen, Sheila, Lila and Myles. Lucy was present at the GPO for the 50th anniversary commemoration of the Rising. She died in 1972 and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery with her husband and son Myles. She is survived by her daughter Sheila, now 94 years old. Details submitted by Maeve O'Leary (grandaughter) In July 1917, a 31-year-old recently widowed woman entered the waves at Skerries and began to swim. Different versions exist about what subsequently occurred, but Maud Gonne put it succinctly in a letter when writing that Muriel MacDonagh "swam out to sea towards Howth and never returned. She was such a lovely girl". In the popular imagination the Easter Rising's final casualty was James Connolly, executed on May 12, 1916. This ignores the fate of eight-year-old Walter Scott, shot when walking in East Wall during the Rising, who died in Mercers Hospital on July 5 - after history's gaze had moved on. But it could be said that this distraught young widow of the executed poet, Thomas MacDonagh, was the Rising's last casualty. Muriel MacDonagh was in Skerries with her two children - and with other widows and children of executed leaders - for the temporary respite of a short holiday. Pregnant If ever a group of women needed collective support it was these widows. Three were pregnant when their husbands were shot and two miscarried afterwards. Muriel stood out among the gathering in Skerries as being among the least militant-minded. Similarly, she stood out among her strong-willed sisters as possibly the least radicalised of the fiercely independent-minded Gifford sisters. These included Grace Gifford, whose marriage in Kilmainham Gaol to Joseph Mary Plunkett, hours before his execution, had entered folklore by 1917. That Skerries holiday must have seemed low-key compared to Muriel's long childhood holidays, when her prosperous parents often decamped to the seaside with a bevy of servants from their large house in Temple Villas on Palmerston Road in Rathmines. The Gifford children always stood out. Their father, Frederick, was an affluent Catholic solicitor. Their mother however was resolutely Protestant and the dominant force in the home: rigidly respectable and rigidly unionist. All twelve Gifford children were raised as Protestants. The six sons retained unionist beliefs and led respectable, unremarkable lives. In contrast, all six Gifford daughters rebelled against their mother's beliefs. In different degrees they embraced a radical tide of new ideas about nationalism and the rights of workers and women. Grace - a talented artist - is now immortalised in Jim McCann's popular song, Grace. While deeply moving about the circumstances of her marriage, the song conveys little of the struggles of her later, impoverished life. While Grace and Muriel were important witnesses to the Rising, their elder sister, Helen Gifford Donnelly - known as Nellie - was the only Gifford to play an active role in it, as the sister most actively engaged in radical politics. The two social milieus in which she moved came brilliantly together during the 1913 Lockout. It was Nellie Gifford who booked a room in the Imperial Hotel in O'Connell Street, pretending to be the respectable niece of an elderly clergyman. When this clergyman threw off his disguise and stepped onto the balcony, he revealed himself as Jim Larkin and delivered a speech to workers gathered below, despite being banned from doing so. But while Nellie was the most politically active and another sister, Sydney, became a campaigning journalist (using the name 'John Brennan'), it is Grace who remains locked in the public imagination. Impoverished No marriage that is only allowed to last three hours can expect a happy ending, but her husband could not have predicted how impoverished and marginalised her final decades would be. No two sentences better display the sad dichotomy between romance and reality than the description left by her sister-in-law, Geraldine Plunkett, of visiting Grace soon after the Rising: "When I went into her bedroom I saw a large white chamberpot full of blood and foetus. She said nothing and I said nothing." Initially disowned by her own mother, Grace met an even more formidable foe in her mother-in-law, Countess Plunkett. This vindictive, rack-renting owner of numerous Dublin properties spent years fighting to deny Grace the inheritance bequeathed to her in Joseph Mary Plunkett's will. Having taken the anti-Treaty side, Grace received only a measly state pension. She lived in a small flat near O'Connell Street, eating in cinema restaurants. The government gave her a military funeral in 1955, but it was small compared to the crowds at her sister Muriel's burial in 1917. Dubliners were given no chance to bury the 1916 leaders, but here was their chance to pay their respect to one of the widows. Nobody knows what Muriel's intentions were when entering the waves. A story was quickly spun that she had wished to plant a tricolour on an nearby island. But perhaps this widow, who suffered several previous nervous breakdowns, could cope with her grief no longer. She deserves to be remembered, not just in her own right and for the hardships endured after her husband's execution - when British soldiers callously rendered her house uninhabitable - but as part of a group of remarkable sisters. They were six young women who turned their back on safe respectable lives to embrace revolutionary ideals - no matter what personal cost. Opinion / Columnist MDC-T embattled president, Morgan Richard Tsvangirai, is spot on when he says Zanu-PF Government has put in place a vast array of electoral reforms in recent months in preparation for the 2018 electoral reforms. This is a total shift from his usual rhetoric of booming unnecessary noise against the ruling party over some trivialities.This time around, he is really in a concordial agreement with Government efforts to level the playing ground and one wonders what his excuse will be to boycott the 2018 elections.The Zanu-PF Government should be commended highly for taking progressive measures towards electoral reforms. Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has been resourced to enable it to draw a new voters' roll as per the SADC electoral guidelines and in line with the laws of the country. That is a plus to the Zanu-PF Government.In addition, Zimbabwe is engaging international experts for the implementation of a bio-metric voting system for the forth-coming 2018 general elections. This system will enable scanning for either finger prints or the iris of the voter for purposes of eradicating electoral frauds.The biometric voting is swift, precise, consistent, and upholds the uprightness of the electoral processes by minimizing suspicion and irregularities. This will certainly add value to the local voting processes which have been given the thumbs up by regional observers.In its attempt to ensure maximum transparency, free and fair as well as dispute free polls, the ZEC will for the first time in history, use polling station based voting. This is an efficient and effective system which will eradicate all speculations which have been leveled against the pre-existing strategies which have been used in conducting polls.Numerous civic organisations including political parties have been licensed to offer civic education to the electorate without any impediments. This is the most clear-cut way of boosting transparency which will motivate political elements to work freely as they mobilise and create a public awareness amongst the prospective voters across the nation. This has great potential to stimulate confidence and trust among all stakeholders.ZEC of late, managed to extend the soft copy of the voters' roll to all stakeholders that need it and they can also request for the updated voters' roll if they so wish at reasonable times. There is massive democratization of the voting process in motion which is worth appraising at this point in time.Unfortunately, Tsvangirai's MDC-T election boycott in the country has no correlationship to these electoral reforms. The boycott was a crystal-clear testimony of a donor driven party which ran dry as soon after as all western donor pulled out their funding owing to the part's failure to champion their regime change agenda in the country. MDC-T failed dismally of this aspect leading to an acute frustration to its financiers.This untimely dumping by the traditional sponsors left the party with no cash even to participate the all the recent by-elections which took place across the country in various constituencies in 2015. The boycott gimmick was a way of covering up their bankruptcy. However, this poor strategy has cost them many votes as society lost faith in the party's ability to defeat the current government.Till this day MDC-T is sauntering around the world carrying a begging bowl for cash from anyone who dares listening to their doomed political ordeal. Recently they were snubbed by western donors that feel duped by the part's habitual extravagant squandering of cash with no political mileage covered.In the meantime, the party is contemplating on how it can exist and offer a better deal to its support base as it is poised to operate under some strict conditionality dictated to them by the western funders. The westerners did not mince words as they told the party clear-blank that it had lost its relevance, sparkle and glitter on the political landscape. The only option available for them is to join some irrelevant opposition political parties and move forward along that line as they failed to stand alone for purposes of creating an alternative government.Recently, the European Union itself drifted back to Zanu-PF by removing all sanctions after discovering its mistake of continuing to fund a sinking ship driven by a drunken political vagabond like Tsvangirai who spurred the party to break into several fragments since its formation in 2000.His drunken stupor weakened and ultimately destroyed the party which was once promising. Tsvangirai's personal dispossession is blamed for causing the total collapse of the democratic movements which never tested democracy during his reign up to this day. He is perfect in frustrating all democratic voices so that they break away to form some useless political entities like Job Sikhala's MDC99, Professor Welshman Ncube's MDC-N, and Tendai Biti's Peoples' Democratic Party among other editions. He failed to keep the party intact. This was used as the trump card by the voters never to elect him president since he elicited classic leadership disability demonstrated by his mental faculty deficit.At the moment MDC-T is in turbulence after about $1, 2 million mobilised for party business disappeared into thin air at the party headquarters. No-one can account for its expenditure at Harvest house. However, there are strong rumours and allegations that Morgan Tsvangirai himself diverted the money for is personal use after he hit hard times in the post-inclusive government.He is reportedly surviving on hand-outs from well-wishers as he can hardly buy himself even groceries for his private home in the capital. He has become a burden to the party which at one time resolved to mobilise cash for his upkeep by requesting part supporters to send at least one US$1 per month through eco-cash towards his welfare fund. This was the party's desperate effort to keep the face of its leader who is a clear testimony of a pauper that dreams to be a national president.In the post-inclusive government, he failed to buy the Government house that he used as the Prime Minister of the Republic of Zimbabwe. If he fails to pay for it, he risks being evicted out of that house sooner or later.Tsvangirai is the only high-profile party personality that has no profession to fall back-on like what happened with Tendai Biti, Advocate Eric Matinenga, Nelson Chamisa, Jessie Majome, Douglas Mwonzora, Professor Welshman Ncube and Obert Gutu who all legal practitioners. Neither does he have a viable business enterprise apart from being a mere penniless politician.From the outset, he was the only character of dubious academic and professional credentials. This is a pointer as to why most of these well-to-do personalities had to depart the party for them to pursue their careers. All said in earnest surely it is practically impossible for such intellectuals to exist comfortably under the stewardship of such a dunderhead. Opinion / Columnist It is now evident that the European Union (EU) intervention in Zimbabwean politics has hit a brick wall following its call for the United Nations to supervise elections in Zimbabwe. The organisation aimed to effect regime change in the country through the imposition of sanctions but they failed to remove the ruling party from power.The only alternative the EU has to meet their economic interests in Zimbabwe is to engage the ruling party through its government rather than its dream of engaging the MDC through regime change. The ongoing re-engagement efforts of the EU have further intensified, with a multimillion dollar rescue packaged being pledged by Brussels for the ZANU PF government.Almost $320 million dollars is available for grabs from the EU, which indicated that the money will be made available as soon as it lifts the restrictive measures it still has in place against President Robert Mugabe and the First Lady Dr Grace Mugabe. They are the only two that remain targeted after the EU removed the bulk of the restrictions recently. Now if the organisation is sincere it should engage the Zimbabwean government.The EU is claiming and alleging that it has been steadily re-engaging with ZANU PF despite the flawed and highly disputed elections held in 2013, despite a failure by the regime to implement any reforms previously stipulated by the Brussels based bloc. Originally, the EU wanted to see key changes in Zimbabwe, including democratic, free and fair elections before removing any targeted sanctions.Europe has moved to secure its economic interests in Zimbabwe through the removal of the targeted measures. The Belgium based Antwerp World Diamond Council even admitted that it lobbied on ZANU PF's behalf of the removal of the measures, in order to secure Zimbabwe sales from its auction floors.The re-engagement has also been justified by academics as the only possible way forward and according to London's Chatham House think tank, a pragmatic diplomacy is required to normalize relations with President Robert Mugabe not to preach regime change as it has proved to be a non-starter. On the other end the EU is also seeking for UN-observed polls in Zimbabwe. The move is viewed as a tactic to penetrate the country through the world body as EU members also belong there.Elections are a vital part of transitions, decolonization and the implementation of peace agreements around the globe, and the UN plays a major role in providing international assistance to these important processes of change. Today, the UN focuses its electoral efforts on providing technical assistance to help member states build credible and sustainable national electoral systems.More than hundred countries including Zimbabwe have received UN election observation so there is nothing new; but we are only worried about the EU's interest in the polls. The EU has shown its true colours that it is really interested in Zimbabwe's resources. Woe to these brood of vipers for they failed in their regime change crusade. Opinion / Columnist Morgan Tsvangirai's references to himself as being imbued with leadership qualities are laughable and misplaced in a serious autobiography. The man has no nationalist institutional memory apart from five insignificant years at the local ZANU PF office in Bindura. This lack of nationalist credentials is a further warning of his questionable motives and suitability to occupy the highest office in Zimbabwe.Despite himself, Tsvangirai expresses admiration and envy for the leadership qualities of President Robert Mugabe. His efforts to blame President Mugabe's decision making on economic matters is both importune and unfortunate and leads to the conclusion that the leader of the MDC-T is a lightweight on issues of economic importance. It seems he believes that Zimbabwe's economic woes, past and current, should be blamed at the door of one man and his party.Tsvangirai is in a desperate mode to raise his political profile. The truth is that this man suffers from an extreme case of premature self congratulation. The MDC-T we know is clueless, unorganized bunch of cartoons. Fighting is the order of the day. That is why it split more than five times. This is all about leadership crisis and also shows that no one of them has the nation at heart.In some countries, silly seasons come and go, but in MDC-T, silliness is not seasonal. It is a perennial feature, going on for years, to the point of unmasking all pretenses of wisdom and revealing deep levels of idiocy. The elements of heckling, booing and fist fighting continue to dominate and characterize the MDC-T.Recently chaotic scenes reportedly marred an MDC-T rally held at Njube Hall in Bulawayo resulting in some members being beaten up for supporting another faction. The Njube rally was so tense that it led to the exchange of blows. The rally was addressed by MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai. The MDC-T Bulawayo province is split into two- one faction supporting Gift Banda, Bulawayo deputy mayor and the other backing Senator Matson Hlalo.Hlalo and Banda, the MDC-T Bulawayo provincial chairperson, have been at loggerheads over the control of the city's structures. But the MDC-T spokesperson, Obert Gutu denied that the skirmishes happed. Previously Tsvangirai was forced to call off a provincial meeting due to simmering tensions over the control of the Bulawayo province, as Banda's rivals continuously heckled him.It is quite surprising for the MDC-T spokesperson, that he had the audacity to claim that nothing like that ever happened in Bulawayo. He has the guts to declare that things went on smoothly and they never had any instances of violence during their meetings. This is the anti-thesis of reality.It is quit plausible to remind the progressive citizens of this country and the likeminded that the MDC-T has a perennial appetite for violence. The violence is both intra-party and inter-party. Previously hit squads have been orchestrated to fight other party supporters and the victims included Trudy Stevenson and Elton Mangoma. The hit squads were also used to fight ZANU PF supporters in a by-election campaign in Bikita West constituency.If the MDC-T really wants to rule and govern this country it should desist from violence and adopt the tenets of democracy which guarantees people to choose candidates of their choice. Tsvangirai should stop the habit of imposing candidates of his choice. Surely this buffoon of dubious revolutionary credentials is messing the once vibrant opposition party. Opinion / Columnist While disciplinary action is necessary in ZANU PF when its supporters are going against the principles and ideology of this revolutionary party but some of such disciplinary actions need to be actioned with caution as they have some chances of creating divisions within the ruling party leaving it exposed to infiltrations and penetrations by the opposition political parties especially the yet-to-be launched People First (PF) project.Recently one of the Politburo members, Cde Josiah Hungwe is reported to have admonished the ZANU PF Masvingo Provincial Coordinating Committee (PCC) against random sacking of its members in the province saying that doing so was campaigning for the People First movement. Cde Hungwe's fears come on the backdrop of that almost all of those fired from the ruling party in Masvingo had sought to resurrect their political relevance by joining this yet-to-be launched People First political movement. Some people like Kudakwashe Bhasikiti, Claudius Makova and the host of others in Masvingo province have confirmed their allegiance to this new political movement, People First.For that reason, Cde Hungwe's advise to the Masvingo PCC should be taken seriously and it is not only the Masvingo PCC which needs to take Cde Hungwe's advice aboard alone but all the ZANU PF PCC across the country should take that advice seriously. While there is no one who could tolerate indiscipline within the ruling party but the way how disciplinary actions have been carried out leaves a lot to be desired. Some of the dismissals that have been taking place across the country seem to have been propounded by those with a borne to chew against each other. Some reasons put forward against some victims cannot be used as means to chuck out someone from the party if really those people carrying out such dismissals have the ruling party ZANU PF at heart not fighting for its disintegration.Close analysis of what have been taking place since the time when the vote of no confidences were carried out against party cadres across the country show that there is a hidden hand causing all these issues. The ruminants of the Mujuru cabal in ZANU PF working as some of the disciplinarians could be the ones fighting for the downfall of ZANU PF from within as a way of propping up their People First project. Actually some of the issues that are raised causing other people to be dismissed are so trivial to the extent that they can be solved amicably without necessarily causing one to be sacked or dismissed from the ruling party.ZANU PF is facing a serious challenge from various opposition political parties in the 2018 harmonized elections due to some deteriorating economic situations in the country, but the so called proponents of those vote of no confidences are doing nothing for the economy. They are seized with their project of destroying the ruling party from within through the carrying out of those vote of no confidences against any dissenting voice. Such a move makes one to conclude that those proponents of the vote of no confidences against others have no ZANU PF at heart but are fighting to destroy it so that the People First project gets momentum.Zimbabweans in general and ZANU PF supporters in particular thought that the sacking of the former Vice President Dr Joyce Mujuru in 2014 would come up with unity in the ruling party but alas the opposite is the centre of everything. Some top officials within ZANU PF are creating problems in the ruling party as they hope that their People First project would survive the test of time. The way how things are being handled in ZANU PF shows that the sacking of former VP Mujuru left behind other Mujuru sympathisers who are now campaigning for that project to succeed, through some dubious vote of no confidences against those seen to be not towing their line of thought.People should be aware that the same people who created some factional wars during the Mujuru era are also the same proponents of the current factional wars which are threatening to destroy the ruling party, ZANU PF. It is now clear that those people creating factional wars within ZANU PF have no love for the survival of the party but are now fighting for the People First project to succeed. For that reason people should appreciate that Cde Josiah Hungwe was right to come out openly in advising the Masvingo PCC to stop dismissing allegedly rowdy ZANU PF members as that could add in the campaign for the People First project.It is clear that those who have the ruling party at heart doing not spend their time on fighting for positions within the party but they do spend their time finding solutions for the economic problems in the country. Zimbabwe is currently facing one of its worst economic problems in history and such a situation does not augur well for the ruling party to spend its time on factional wars while the economy is decaying.Zimbabweans are looking forward to the ruling party to come up with solutions on how the economic problems can be solved. Everyone is putting his hope to the top ZANU PF gurus to take drastic measures in solving the economic situations in the country. The unemployment rate is increasing every year once some colleges churn out their graduates. For that reason Zimbabweans are not prepared to read day in and out political fights within the ruling party with no economic fights being put forward. So the ruling party should be seized with some efforts on how it would tackle these economic problems not only seized on who would take this position and that one. Such political bickering creates problems for the ruling party leading to some opposition parties to boost their support bases.As such people want to know about business investments opportunities and prospective economic solutions being proffered in the country not factional wars within the ruling party. They also want to listen and hear about some economic debates coming from national radios and televisions that could give hope on what to expect in the country. Some factional wars allegedly coming from the ruling party do not bring any bread and butter issues on people's plates, hence, those proponents of such factional wars should focus more on the turnaround of the economy and give some Zimbabweans a break.Zimbabweans in general and ZANU PF members and supporters in particular should take Cde Josiah Hungwe's advice seriously for unity to prevail in the ruling party ZANU PF. Next on the To-Do List: Ikigai Many moons ago, I worked as a career counselor, first for a college and then for a nonprofit in a... Voters need a third option at the polls I ran for a public office a few years ago. After winning a battle with Genesee County Parks the NRA... Wendy Wolcott best choice for Mott College We have a very special candidate running for Mott Community College Board of Trustees in Wendy Wolcott. Mrs. Wolcott is... Smith and Goyette are not fine men I am responding to Tamara Carlones editorial regarding Davison School Board members Matthew Smith and Nicholas Goyette. I disagree with... This weekend might be the last warm one we have in awhile We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message. This domain has expired. If you owned this domain, contact your domain registration service provider for further assistance. If you need help identifying your provider, visit https://www.tucowsdomains.com/ CHICAGOSix months after publishing a scientific paper analyzing the results of his worldwide Vaginal Beauty Contest, Autoblow 2 inventor Brian Sloan has released The Balls Paper, shedding light onto a previously unstudied topic. The Autoblow Balls Beauty Contest fielded more than 1,000 entries from 35 countries giving an anonymous PhD statistician plenty of data to work with. Whereas the Vulva Papers analysis of the Vagina Contests data found clear vulva style preferences that held true across most of the world, the Balls Paper found the voting public gave nearly all scrotums low and similar scores, regardless of scrotal appearance. Sloan still intends on keeping his end of the bargain, awarding $10,000 of prize money and having the Top 3 rated scrotums 3D scanned and turned into items of home decor. The marketability of those items though, is now seriously in question. The statistician hired to evaluate the data found there were six distinct scrotal styles based on how empty or full the scrotum appeared, the ratio of its width and height, and how similar the testicles were to one another. Unexpected facts emerged during the data analysis including Hungarians rating their own countries scrotums five times higher than other countrys scrotums, intense Taiwanese participation and scrotums were rated higher on weekends and lower on Mondays. The three winners, two Americans and one Australian with unusually large scrotums, ranked significantly higher than their competitors, averaging approximately 6 out of 10 stars compared with all entrants who averaged only 3.4 out 10. I am saddened that the data showed no statistically significant preferred class of scrotum, Sloan said. Given the scrotums important biological function of holding and protecting the life-giving testicles, I figured the public saw beauty in it, but never discussed it, preferring perhaps to talk about the penis instead. Now I know why the scrotum has always lived in the shadows: because people think its ugly. Sloan will receive the 3D scans of the winners scrotums over the next month, and will then begin production of a set of scrotum-themed book-ends and paperweights. Read the results of the contest and data analysis at BallsPaper.com. Ghorepani is the ultimate answer to those whose quest is to dwell on paradise; like the landscapes we see in movies, but rarely come across in real life. A mixed delight of trekking and sightseeing at high altitude, Ghorepani trekking is otherwise known as Annapurna Sunrise Trek or Poon Hill Trek. Located in the north-central region of Nepal, Ghorepani is easily accessible from Pokhara, which demands a 4-5 hours of uphill trek through Ulleri. Based on comfort, it is listed as one of the easiest trekking routes. An early morning climb next day ends up in one standing at the elevation of 10,000 feet on top of Poon Hill. Situated at the height of 3,210 meters, Poon Hill provides spectacular views of Annapurna, Dhaulagiri, Machhapuchhre and many other mountains. Poon Hill is widely popular as one of the best places for up-close views of the Himalayas. During March of 2015, 500 tourists were already lined up, very early in the morning to observe the sun paint the mountains into red. Autumn and spring are considered best travel seasons. It is believed that 4 am is the best time to be at the spot as the time ensures that you do not miss the beautiful site in all its glory. And its not only the destination that is rewarding; its more about the journey. Ghandruk, a home stay destination and homes to Gurung natives, provides any visitor with unforgettable memory of the local life. The hospitality of the Mothers Group (a local forum) towards the visitor never goes unspoken of. The trail welcomes visitors with forests decorated with flowering Rhododendron plants during April and March. Given the presence of various resting spots like Ghandruk, Ulleri and Tadapani, this trek is extraordinarily flexible for duration if one cant get enough of the natural abundance. Here is an example of a detailed itinerary for curious travelers who want to get more information on the trip. Chungkham Sanjit Meitei. When I heard that name on Wednesday, a series of images flashed across my mind: Two murders, grieving families, a toddler playing with a red plastic car, angry villagers, road blockades and protests. It was August 2009. Sanjit, a suspected member of the insurgent group Peoples Liberation Army, had been killed rather murdered a few weeks earlier in Imphal by the Manipur Police. The state, even though it is used to violence and bloodshed unleashed by the State and the parallel State the insurgent groups was on the boil by the time I reached Imphal. They killed my son he was not a militant. Such fake encounters anger the youth push them to militancy, his mother Chungkham Taratombi told me and angry neighbours raised slogans against chief minister Ibobi Singh, who has been in the saddle since 2002. In Manipur, young boys often get accosted by militants but that doesnt mean they are members of these groups, she added. Thats true: The people of the state are in the same boat as tribals in Chhattisgarh; caught between the security forces and the militants/Maoists, they have become collateral damage in this shadowy war between the State and the insurgents. Now, six years later, the case is back in the news after Herojit Singh, a Manipur Police head constable, confessed before the media that he shot an unarmed Sanjit because his then boss Akoijam Jhalajhit the current superintendent of police of Imphal (West) ordered him to do so. Jhalajhit has denied the charge; and the Centre has asked for a report. It is important to remember here that the police dont have the Afspa shield and the law is not applicable in the capital city. Why is Herojit saying this now? He says he fears for his life. Thats not good enough an explanation; there is more to it than meets the eye in this murky world of security forces and insurgent groups. The confession also goes against the versions that the police gave in court and to the CBI. Herojit is one of the nine accused policemen in the case being probed by the investigative agency. While the media is agog with Sanjits and Herojits story, it would be criminal to forget Rabina Devi, a 22-year-old mother who was hit by a stray bullet minutes before Sanjits killing. Who killed her and why? There are no answers. Encounters and cover-ups are daily here nothing... absolutely bloody nothing works in the police force. Whereas this is the department that actually runs the state, providing legal protection for corruption and killing, writes senior journalist Kishalay Bhattacharjee in Blood on my hands: Confessions of Staged Encounters. The opening chapter of his book, Manhunts, recounts the way security forces are involved in body shopping for meeting their month-end targets. Along with State-sanctioned killings, there are a large number of unknown, unnamed and unclaimed men and women who have been hunted down by the state for its officials advancement or gratification. Thats body-shopping. A visit to Imphal gives the feeling that anything can happen in this state. And, there is something in the citys air: A mix of fear, uncertainty, anger and helplessness. Manipur is a failed state. No ones really interested in it. Insurgency and the killings will not end. In fact, they cant. There are too many vested interests involved there: Promotions and political careers, and, most importantly, insurgency is a money-spinner and everyone, just about everyone in power, has their hand in the till. Its Manipurs one and only functioning industry. (The views expressed by the writer are personal.) SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The world economy is experiencing a turbulent start to 2016. Stock markets are plummeting; emerging economies are reeling in response to the sharp decline in commodities prices; refugee inflows are further destabilising Europe; Chinas growth has slowed markedly in response to a capital-flow reversal and an overvalued currency; and the US is in political paralysis. A few central bankers struggle to keep the world economy upright. To escape this mess, four principles should guide the way. First, global economic progress depends on high global saving and investment. Second, saving and investment flows should be viewed as global, not national. Third, full employment depends on high investment rates that match high saving rates. Fourth, high private investments by business depend on high public investments in infrastructure and human capital. Lets consider each. First, our global goal should be economic progress, meaning better living conditions worldwide. Indeed, that goal has been enshrined in the new Sustainable Development Goals adopted last September by all 193 members of the United Nations. Progress depends on a high rate of global investment -- building the skills, technology, and physical capital stock to propel standards of living higher. In economic development, as in life, theres no free lunch: Without high rates of investment in know-how, skills, machinery, and sustainable infrastructure, productivity tends to decline (mainly through depreciation), dragging down living standards. High investment rates in turn depend on high saving rates. A famous psychological experiment found that young children who could resist the immediate temptation to eat a marshmallow, and thereby gain two marshmallows in the future, were likelier to thrive as adults than those who couldnt. Likewise, societies that defer instant consumption in order to save and invest for the future will enjoy higher future incomes and greater retirement security. (When American economists advise China to boost consumption and cut saving, they are merely peddling the bad habits of American culture, which saves and invests far too little for Americas future.) Second, saving and investment flows are global. A country such as China, with a high saving rate that exceeds local investment needs, can support investment in other parts of the world that save less, notably low-income Africa and Asia. Chinas population is aging rapidly, and Chinese households are saving for retirement. The Chinese know that their household financial assets, rather than numerous children or government social security, will be the main source of their financial security. Low-income Africa and Asia, on the other hand, are both capital-poor and very young. They can borrow from Chinas high savers to finance a massive and rapid build-up of education, skills, and infrastructure to underpin their own future economic prosperity. Third, a high global saving rate does not automatically translate into a high investment rate; unless properly directed, it can cause underspending and unemployment instead. Money put into banks and other financial intermediaries (such as pension and insurance funds) can finance productive activities or short-term speculation (for example, consumer loans and real estate). Great bankers of the past like J.P. Morgan built industries like rail and steel. Todays money managers, by contrast, tend to resemble gamblers or even fraudsters like Charles Ponzi. Fourth, todays investments with high social returns such as low-carbon energy, smart power grids for cities, and information-based health systems depend on public-private partnerships, in which public investment and public policies help to spur private investment. This has long been the case: Railroad networks, aviation, automobiles, semiconductors, satellites, GPS, hydraulic fracturing, nuclear power, genomics, and the Internet would not exist but for such partnerships (typically, but not only, starting with the military). Our global problem today is that the worlds financial intermediaries are not properly steering long-term saving into long-term investments. The problem is compounded by the fact that most governments (the US is a stark case) are chronically underinvesting in long-term education, skill training, and infrastructure. Private investment is falling short mainly because of the shortfall of complementary public investment. Shortsighted macroeconomists say the world is under-consuming; in fact, it is underinvesting. The result is inadequate global demand (global investments falling short of global saving at full employment) and highly volatile short-term capital flows to finance consumption and real estate. Such short-term flows are subject to abrupt reversals of size and direction. The 1997 Asian financial crisis followed a sudden stop of capital inflows to Asia, and global short-term lending suddenly dried up after Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008, causing the Great Recession. Now China is facing the same problem, with inflows having abruptly given way to outflows. The mainstream macroeconomic advice to China -- boost domestic consumption and overvalue the renminbi to cut exports fails the marshmallow test. It encourages overconsumption, underinvestment, and rising unemployment in a rapidly aging society, and in a world that can make tremendous use of Chinas high saving and industrial capacity. The right policy is to channel Chinas high saving to increased investments in infrastructure and skills in low-income Africa and Asia. Chinas new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and its One Belt, One Road initiative to establish modern transport and communications links throughout the region are steps in the right direction. These programs will keep Chinas factories operating at high capacity to produce the investment goods needed for rapid growth in todays low-income countries. Chinas currency should be allowed to depreciate so that Chinas capital-goods exports to Africa and Asia are more affordable. More generally, governments should expand the role of national and multilateral development banks (including the regional development banks for Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Islamic countries) to channel long-term saving from pension funds, insurance funds, and commercial banks into long-term public and private investments in twenty-first-century industries and infrastructure. Central banks and hedge funds cannot produce long-term economic growth and financial stability. Only long-term investments, both public and private, can lift the world economy out of its current instability and slow growth. Jeffrey D Sachs is professor of sustainable development, professor of health policy and management, and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is also special adviser to the United Nations secretary-general on the Millennium Development Goals. The striking thing about Rohith Vemulas case is not just that he decided to kill himself in the circumstances that he did. It is also the fact that the Indian media --often criticised for being blind to caste discrimination and insensitive to issues of injustice faced by those on the margins--chose to tell his story in detail, made it a national issue, and has over the past week, kept its eyes on the ball and not dropped scrutiny of those responsible for his suicide. Some caveats are important--there is criticism that the media did not highlight the story enough when Dalit students were battling the university administration and state authority and if it had done so, maybe Vemulas death could have been avoided. This may be true. It is also true that the medias attention span is limited and it could move on to the next story, and forget all about this tragedy. Neither does it indicate that the media will focus on all atrocities against Dalits as strongly, as consistently, in the future. But a question is worth asking. Does the coverage of the Vemula death indicate a turn in the relationship between the Indian media and Dalits? If the December 16 Delhi rape incident forced gender and sexual assault on to the centre-stage of mainstream discourse, will the University of Hyderabad episode force the media become more inclusive, and look at the issue of caste and the manner in which discrimination happens in cities, universities, work-places more closely? Newsroom diversity To answer this question, HT looked at two related issues: one was the presence of Dalits in the mainstream media and the diversity of the newsroom. This is important because a newsroom that is a mirror reflection of established power-structures is poorly positioned to reflect the concerns of all sections of a diverse, hierarchical society. READ |The medias caste: How its to blame for Rohith Vemulas death In 1996, in an important article titled In Search of the Dalit Journalist, the journalist B N Uniyal wrote that he had, in 30 years of being in the media, not met a single Dalit journalist. His introspection was triggered by a request from a foreign journalist to pass on a contact of a Dalit reporter. Uniyal thought hard, asked editors and columnists, carefully went through the Press Information Bureau booklet listing accredited journalists and came up with his startling discovery - there was no Dalit journalist in Indias mainstream press. Ten years later, in 2006, political scientist Yogendra Yadav and Anil Chamadia, chairperson of Media Study Group, did a survey of 37 top media organisations and found not a single Dalit held any of the top ten positions in any of the outlets. Media scholar Robin Jeffrey could not meet a single journalist while researching the Indian language press, in over twenty towns and after conducting 250 interviews. Students shout slogans from a bus after they were detained by police outside the office of HRD Minister Smriti Irani during a protest on January 28 in Delhi against the death of Rohith Vemula. (AFP) Two years ago, the journalist Ajaz Ashraf did a significant three-part essay in the media watchdog site, thehoot.org, based on conversations with 21 Dalits who had graduated from journalism school, are or were journalists and their experience. Ashraf concluded that Dalits sought to enter the media because they felt it offered an opportunity to highlight issues affecting their community; that Dalits had a greater presence in the Hindi or vernacular media than the English media; that discrimination against them was rampant in the Hindi and vernacular media and was less so in the English media; that this discrimination was a primary factor which drove them away from media jobs to government jobs; and their weak economic base made them more insecure of private sector and diluted their ability to take risks. READ | Rohith Vemula, death of a philosopher to purify higher education There is no fresh data on the number of practicing Dalit journalists in the Indian press. But Chamadia, who was a part of the 2006 research, is conducting a new survey, and told HT, Our data is not processed completely. But initial findings indicate that in the last ten years, there has been no change in the structure. There is still no Dalit or tribal editor in any top national newspaper or television channel in India. Dalits remain peripheral in shaping public discourse even as the medias power is growing exponentially. In a recent essay, Yashica Dutt, a former journalist with the Hindustan Times, and now a freelance writer based in New York, has come out as a Dalit. She spoke about hiding her identity in college, in her jobs, and began a series documenting stories of Dalit discrimination. Dutt had to face an online backlash--which critiqued her privilege, attacked her for not prioritizing her Indian identity, underplayed or denied the discrimination that came with being a Dalit, for borrowing from western discourse and more. If the response to Dutt is any indication, it tells us why the few Dalits who are in the media prefer to hide their identity, and choose to anonymously, inconspicuously, go about their jobs. But does the Vemula death represent a turning point? Will it put caste discrimination on the front pages? And will it result in enhancing the credibility of the media among Dalits? Experts are sceptical Chamadia cautions from reading too much into the coverage, and suggests that the Indian media - particularly the English media - had always spoken out strongly against instances of untouchability and atrocities against Dalits. I remember in 1977, when landlords killed 11 Dalits in Bihars Belchi village, the media covered it. They have done it ever since. The problem however is that other forms of discrimination - which are more subtle, more minute - are not covered. In universities itself, from admissions to appointments, there are a range of issues Dalits face, but that will not find space. READ | Indias on fire: Letter to Rohith Vemula from his transgender friend He claims that this is not a turning point, and instead calls it seasonal, which will fade away from the news pages in a few days. The other thing that happens is the issue gets diverted. We are already seeing an effort to divert the issue from discrimination within universities to a backward versus Dalit fight. Satish Prakash, an associate professor at Meerut College and a BSP sympathiser, is sceptical too. Prakash was more interested in the politics behind the coverage and offered an explanation. In this particular case, it was not as much love for Dalits but anger against the RSS and dislike for the BJP that drove the news agenda. Dalits represent a key voting constituency. Both BJP and its rivals are vying for Dalit votes. The Rohith issue is an effort to ensure that Dalit votes dont turn to the BJP. He, however, added that there was definitely a change in the media too. The media cannot remain under the control of only community. It has to cover social issues. Dalits can see that the English media has been fair in the coverage of the Rohith issue. He felt that the Hindi media, especially in the heartland, had covered the issue more out of compulsion than choice. They had to cover it once it became a political issue. The Indian media has done well in the past week, in bringing the story of Rohith Vemula to millions of homes. But its true test, on the yardstick of truth-telling and justice, is if it stays with the stories of Dalit discrimination across spheres, and willingly embarks on an internal course correction. (The views expressed are personal.) SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Five years ago, when The Table now a popular South Mumbai restaurant opened, it introduced a menu segregated into small plates and large plates. Barring a few high-fliers and globetrotters in the city, most diners had never experienced this concept before. At this modern European restaurant, the small plates feature dishes like fish tacos, Swiss chard ravioli, among others, and the large plates consist of spaghetti, asparagus risotto and Australian slow-roasted lamb shank, all signature dishes. Then, in 2012, at Ellipsis another Colaba restaurant small plates made an appearance again, setting the stage for a trend that was going to dominate restaurants across the city in the years to come. Small plates, big appetite Walk into any newly opened neighbourhood bar today, and youll find patrons sipping on their cocktails as they chomp on small plates from tacos to a quirky take on our desi vada pao or baos stuffed with pretty much anything. For instance, at One Street Over, Kelvin Cheung (previously the executive chef at Ellipsis) plates up his arty take on burrata and roasted cauliflower. At Monkey Bar, Manu Chandra serves tacos stuffed with baingan pakoda, and Goan chorizo pao, both signature dishes. At The Bombay Canteen, Floyd Cardoz and Thomas Zacharias put together a menu with dishes labelled as chota (small) and bada (large). So, desi tacos (with refried beans, or rajma) and Goan pulled pork vindaloo feature in chotas, whereas the badas consists of multi-grain khichdi and banana leaf-wrapped fish. Cauliflower dish at Kelvin Cheung One Street Over. Like all food trends that travel to our shores from the west, small plates, too, have been hugely popular in American restaurants over the last few years. Inspired by the Spanish tapas-style food, they are chefs favourites, as they allow them to experiment with big, bold flavours and offer variety. At the same time, thanks to shows like MasterChef Australia and increased exposure to international trends, diners want to experience everything they see or read about. With appetisers and entrees, you are less inclined to take a risk. But with small plates, the risk is less because, even if you dont like it ,therell be someone on the table who will like the dish and the food wont go waste, reasons Alex Sanchez from The Table. Even for gourmands, the interest in small plates stems from the desire to experiment; to be able to talk about different kinds of food during conversations. And to further this curiosity, three-Michelin starred chef Atul Kochhar will open Lima (next to NRI in Bandra-Kurla Complex), a bar that focusses on tapas-style food from Peru, Mexico and Brazil. At the two-year-old Eddies in Bandra, Nishant Mitra, too, is introducing a bunch of dishes as small plates. We will use seasonal and local vegetables like ridge gourd, bitter gourd, string beans, yams and flat beans infused with Persian flavours, says Mitra. Phaldari Chaat at Atul Kochhar s NRI. The economics of sharing As a concept, I had always been keen on small plates but never really had the right opportunity until Monkey Bar came along, says Chandra. For him, the idea fit into the gastro pub mould. Small plates allow us to create a bunch of dishes that can be shared and ordered in multiples. This gives the customer a larger variety to choose from, and for us to focus on quality and presentation rather than quantity, he adds. While the focus, globally, is on quality, quantity remains a grouse with diners. Noted critic and food writer Pete Wells of the New York Times, in his piece, The Big Problem With Small Plates, writes: At places where there is some skill and dedication in the kitchen, this style of eating (small plates) leads to a curious phenomenon: the sensation of having eaten a delicious meal without feeling truly satisfied at the end of it. Kukure Bahl at 145, Kala Ghoda. Not all small plates lend themselves to sharing, especially when there are more than two people to claim their share. I often go out with a large group of friends. We end up ordering two or three portions of a dish, says Prachi Gaur, a marketing professional who dines out thrice a week on an average. This indicates that small plates also translate into better profits for restaurants. More food sent out of the kitchen means more money spent on each table. In a country where eating out, traditionally, consisted of appetisers/starters (kebabs and tikkas) and main course (gravy with breads and rice) followed by desserts, small plates have come as an aberration. When we came in, initially, there was criticism about the portions, but it took some education to make people understand the concept of small plates and large plates, says Sanchez, adding, However, we still get people who want to have the whole portion by themselves. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Actor Rishi Kapoor, who recently won a lifetime achievement award, says award functions hold no significance. I use trophies as doorstops in my home. What they have done to film awards is truly tragic. Agar sabko khush karna hai toh phir award ka matlab kya hua? the actor said in an interview to DNA. He added, I couldnt believe it when they gave an award to Parineeti Chopra for losing weight. Will they give me one for gaining weight? Read: Parineeti Chopra debuts sexy new look after losing SO much weight About his award, he said, They pleaded with me to accept it. They think my work is over, so they keep giving me lifetime achievement awards. Kapoor, who has received another lifetime achievement award, this year, continues: My work continues irrespective of whether they give me an award or not. Outraged by popular awards and their commercialisation, the actor also said awards today were all for television. Read: Let the Pakistan govt demolish it, Rishi Kapoor on Kapoor haveli One or the other of these awards keep playing in some corner of the world. Ive personally seen our awards functions being televised in Mauritius, New York, Los Angeles and many other parts of the world, he said. Known for not mincing his words and giving it to the world (and media) as it is, Kapoor had only recently proved his no-nonsense way of life. Little before his son actor Ranbir Kapoor and his alleged girlfriend called it quits, the Bobby actor had clarified that Ranbir and Katrina might be in a relationship, but Katrina wouldnt dare to call him papa. Read: Katrina does not call me papa, its rubbish, says Rishi Kapoor A newspaper reported that she has started calling me, Papa. Rubbish, she wouldnt dare to take such liberties with me. Why am I always being dragged into his (Ranbirs) private life? Im not the sort to duck questions. As far as Im concerned, Katrina has been very well behaved. I worked with her in Namastey London, he was quoted as saying. Never one to mince his words, Kapoor had earlier spoken out on Twitter on a range of issues, including the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as FTII chairman and godwoman Radhe Ma: Most recently about how he felt former media tycoon Indrani Mukerjea weird when she approached him some years ago to offer him a television project. Read: Indrani Mukerjea was a real weirdo, says Rishi Kapoor Remember the time India was all caught up with the sensational Sheena Bora murder case, the Bollywood actor had then described Mukerjea, the accused, as a real weirdo on Twitter. He had tweeted: Indrani Mukherjee came to offer me something on TV years back. She was a real weirdo then too. Imagine killing your own daughter! Real shocking (sic). Coming back to Parineeti: Along with Sonakshi Sinha, Parineeti was a Bollywood star often trolled for her weight. While Sonakshi has been emphatic in her responses, often shaming the bodyshamers back, Parineeti chose to slim down. And heres the proof... (YouTube) (YouTube) (YouTube) (YouTube) (YouTube) Follow @htshowbiz for more. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan on Thursday revived the debate on the method of calculating gross domestic product (GDP), saying there are problems as it only talks about growth and leaves out a wider context. On the point about GDP, there are also problems with the way we count GDP Sometimes we get growth when people move to a different area but we have to ensure that when people move, they do something that is value adding (to the economy)... We do lose some, we gain some and what is the net, let us be careful about how we count that, Rajan said while addressing students at the 13th convocation ceremony of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research. Rajan illustrated his point by saying that if two mothers were to take care of each others children and pay each other for that work, there would be some growth in GDP due to the sum of their earnings. However, this growth would not add anything to the economy. The new methodology of calculating GDP, which was launched in January last year, relies on linking economic activity to market prices instead of the earlier method of basing it on the cost of production. While the new method is reflective of the trend used in most countries, the shift in calculation fuelled criticism as it showed a sharper economic recovery last year; the old method would have indicated stagnation. Rajan highlighted the importance of examining whether GDP growth reflects jobs in the economy. Lets be careful how we count and how we improve our accounting of GDP, which is something we have to think about as we go forward. A good job is the best form of inclusion but also difficult to create conditions for jobs. Of course we need infrastructure, roads, marketing of small business products, the RBI governor said, adding, across the world, governments are looking for new models because the effects of technology and globalisation have an impact on employment. Economies should also move subsidies away from capital and towards subsidising labour. Trying to incentivise employment of labour, especially employment which will add skills to labour, is extremely important, Rajan said. Pranab Bardhan, professor of graduate school at the department of economics, University of California, Berkeley, who was the guest of honour at the ceremony, said 30% of Indias youth is neither in the workforce nor in education, the largest in top 10-15 economies. This means that these young people are not immediately employable, which is one of the biggest hurdles in percolation of economic growth to the entire population, Bardhan said. In a major setback to Gujarat-based Adani Hazira Port Pvt Ltd (AHPPL), the Supreme Court on Thursday declined to interfere with the National Green Tribunals (NGTs) order, which cancelled the environmental clearance granted to Hazira Port. A bench headed by chief justice TS Thakur, however, issued notice to the ministry of environment and forest (MoEF) on AHPPLs appeal against the NGT order. It also directed AHPPL to deposit Rs 25 crore as penalty for damages caused to the environment and restrained the company from carrying out any fresh construction activity there. In a response to the stock exchanges, Adani Ports and SEZs said neither our construction nor operations are affected in any manner. Adani Ports had challenged the NGT order before the apex court. It wanted the CJIs bench to stay the green courts direction cancelling the companys environmental clearance, which came on a petition filed by a union of local fishermen, who alleged that there was non-compliance on the part of the AHPPL. The union also challenged the multi-crore infrastructure project on the ground that besides damaging the ecology, the project also led to the displacement of more than 300 poor fishermen families. The Pune bench of the green tribunal not only cancelled the MoEF clearance to the port given in 2013, but also slapped a penalty of Rs 25 crore. The NGT had held that the clearance was illegal and must be set aside. Senior advocate and former finance minister P Chidambaram, arguing for AHPPL, said the cancellation order had hit the operations, and the port could not be operated smoothly. Investments to the tune of Rs 3,300 crore have been called into question because of one single order. Shipping operations have become dysfunctional, he said. However, the bench took the view that cancellation of a clearance does not affect the shipping and port operations. It said giving any interim order at this juncture, without hearing those who petitioned the NGT, would not be fair. While seeking the MoEF and the fishermens response, the bench said it would take up the matter within four weeks. Besides MoEF, the court also issued notices and sought responses from the Gujarat government, the Gujarat Pollution Control Board, the Gujarat Maritime Board and the Gujarat Coastal Zone Management Authority. The court has asked the authorities to file reports on environmental compliance by AHPPL. The government, which opened its second tranche of sovereign gold bond scheme between January 18 and 22, has received subscriptions for 2,790 kg of gold worth Rs 726 crore. As many as 316,000 applications came in, a finance ministry statement said. The government is likely to bring in a third tranche before the end of the financial year. Second tranche of gold bonds..outcome significantly better than first tranchescheme picking up, tweeted Shaktikanta Das, secretary, department of economic affairs. The bonds would be allotted on February 8. The government has already launched a co-ordinated media campaign to create awareness for its gold schemes. The gold bonds would be issued in denominations of 5, 10, 50 and 100 for a term of 5-7 years. The rate of interest would depend on the value of the metal at the time of investment. The gold schemes, which include the gold monetisation scheme and introduction of the gold coin besides the sovereign gold bond, were launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 5 last year with a view to wean away investors from physical gold. This is part of the governments overall plans to not only dig deep into the household stock of gold to channelise idle gold for productive use but also reduce imports of the metal. Every year, Indias gold imports stand at an average 1,000 tonnes, which strains the fiscal deficit by impacting the countrys foreign exchange reserves. The government can rake in over Rs 6 lakh crore if it adopts the Telecom Regulatory Authority of Indias (TRAIs) recommendation of auctioning spectrum in various bands at a base price of Rs 11,500 crore per megahertz (MHz). The recommendations propose base prices for spectrum across seven bands in the 700-2,500 MHz range. Last years spectrum auctions had fetched the government about Rs 1.1 lakh crore. In a first, the telecom regulator, which put up the recommendations for comments on Wednesday, also suggested putting the spectrum in the 700 MHz band under the hammer for commercial purposes. The spectrum, 35 MHz of which will be up for sale, can help provide 4G services and is expected to rake in about Rs 2-3 lakh crore. Operators bagging spectrum in the 700 MHz band will have to mandatorily cover all towns and villages with a population of 15,000-50,000 within five years. Revenues from spectrum auction can help the government deal with an already widening fiscal deficit, which will be under further pressure as soon as the recommendations of the 8th Pay Commission kick in. For customers, more spectrum will mean improved call and data services. Telcos have cited lack of spectrum who have cited lack of spectrum as one the key reasons for call drops. We have submitted our recommendations as asked by the Department of Telecommunications. It is for the DoT to take a call when they want to hold the auctions, TRAI chairman RS Sharma told HT. The regulator has fixed a base price of Rs 2,873 crore per Mhz for spectrum acrosss the country in the 1,800 MHz band, also known as 2G spectrum, 31% higher than the previous auction. The government plans to hold the next round of spectrum auction in May-June. The recommendations have just come in, we will examine it, telecom secretary Rakesh Garg told HT. The reserve price is high and could result in undue benefits to some, said Rajan Mathews, director-general, Cellular Operators Association of India. HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif.XR Brands took home the 2016 AVN O Award for Outstanding Packaging honoring its now famous Tom of Finland Pleasure Tools collection. The Tom of Finland collection is a historic line of erotic products inspired by the artist and his iconic drawings. This line lets fans bring their favorite Tom of Finland fantasies to life with products in eye-catching packaging that features detailed depictions of some of the artists most famous drawings and paintings. From design to packaging, every element of the Tom of Finland Pleasure Tools line was made to reflect the artists aesthetic while giving fans tangible pieces of erotic art. Like Tom of Finlands drawings, the products artful packaging is playful and cheeky while maintaining his artworks hyper-masculine and unabashed energy. This thoughtful approach to merchandising made it easy for retailers to introduce this brand new collection of intimate products to the world while preserving Tom of Finlands legacy and lifes work on the show floor. Beloved by people of all genders and lifestyles, Tom of Finlands work features mostly men with exaggerated sexual traits in hyper-masculine scenarios that depict homosexuality with a confident and powerful attitude, and thats exactly what our packaging showcases, XR Brands Sales & Marketing Director Rebecca Weinberg said. Tom of Finland is one of the most influential erotic artists of the 20th century and was the first to depict homosexuality in a positive, confident and powerful way, so it was essential that we capture that not only in the products but in their packaging, too. Never before has a body of artwork been transformed into such a physically and visually stimulating series, and were so honored to have been recognized for our hard work. The XR Brands team worked hand-in-hand with the Tom of Finland Foundation museum to confirm and execute each intricate detail, including the final packaging design and its signature blue, black and grey-toned boxes. These important details help convey a lifestyle beyond the products themselves allow fans to bring a little bit of Tom with them everywhere they go. For product information, email [email protected] To view the full XR Brands lineup, visit XRBrands.com. A five-year-old boy died after falling inside an open septic tank in his school in southwest Delhis Kapashera area on Wednesday afternoon. The boy Ankit Kumar, a student of Class 1 of MCD school number 2 had reportedly gone to use the washroom after school hours around 12 pm when he accidentally slipped and fell inside the open septic tank. Ankit reportedly was trapped inside the tank for over an hour before choking to death. Some students, who heard the boys scream for help, apparently raised an alarm but couldnt do much as most of the staff, including teachers, had already left for the day. Deputy commissioner of police (southwest) RA Sanjeev, said that the police had registered a case of negligence against the school authorities and had asked the principal to join the probe. Sources said a few of the boys classmates tried to reach down and pull him out too, but failed. They then rushed inside the school building to seek help. The students went and informed a security guard about the incident who called some sewage workers who were cleaning drains in the area, a senior police officer said. The sewage workers then went to the school and the boy was fished out from the tank. He was then rushed to Columbia Asia hospital on Gurgaon Road but was declared dead on arrival. The hospital authorities informed the police and the school staff also made a PCR call around 1:34pm. The boy was wearing his identity card with the help of which we identified him and informed his parents. The body has been sent for post-mortem to ascertain the exact cause and time of death, a senior police officer said. The police said it was a case of negligence on the part of school authorities who had left the septic tank uncovered. It is the duty of the school to ensure that the sewage tank in covered. We have recorded detailed statements of the students who tried to help Ankit and have asked the staff members of the school, including the principal to join the probe. We have sought details of when the last inspection of the school was conducted, and whether the issue of the uncovered septic tank was raised in it, police sources said. An MCD spokesperson later told HT that they had initiated a separate inquiry into the matter. A report will be submitted in the matter in three days. South Delhi mayor Subhash Arya has also sent out notices to schools asking them to take precautionary measures to ensure the safety of children inside the schools, he said. In August last year, Union water resources minister Uma Bharti and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had agreed to set-up a special purpose vehicle for cleaning up and rejuvenating the Yamuna. A month later that year, the Delhi Jal Board chairperson had said: I will bathe in a clean Yamuna 36 months from now. Three months later, far from being any cleaner, the extremely high levels of pollution especially ammonia in the Yamuna has forced water treatment plants in Delhi to shut down operations. The level of ammonia in Yamuna was five times above the acceptable limit at 2.5 parts per million between Wednesday and Saturday. The acceptable limit is 0.5 parts per million. The primary reason behind the recurrent problem is the failure to ensure ecological flow in the river. Ecological flow which is described as the minimum amount of water that should flow throughout the river at all times to sustain underwater and estuarine ecosystems and human livelihoods must be maintained at 10 cumecs (cubic meter per second) at all times. This was finalised in a memorandum of understanding signed between the governments of Haryana and Delhi in 1994. Haryana has interpreted this MoU erroneously. Ten cubic meters per second of flow means that this should be the flow in the river at any given time. This means that even if the state has to release 20 cumecs of water to maintain that flow, it should do that. Haryana, however, does not maintain the flow, said a senior Delhi Jal Board official. Shutting of water treatment plants due to the accumulation of pollutants particularly ammonia has become very common over the past three- four years as the minimum river flow cannot be maintained. There is barely any release of water in the river. As a result the bed is running dry and pollutants are getting deposited. After this, unless ecological flow is maintained, the water will become tough to clean, the official said. The problem, experts however say, is with industrial units operating in Panipat and Sonepat. The pollution levels in water increase in winters. The pollution from industrial units in Haryana becomes apparent during this time. A stringent check on these units along with maintaining the rivers ecological flow is the need of the hour. Leave the river alone. It will clean itself, said Yamuna activist Manoj Misra. According to Delhi water minister Kapil Mishra, talks between the state government and the Centre is in progress. I have asked DJB to prepare a plan to ensure that even if the pollution level in the river goes up, the water supply to the city is not affected, Mishra said. Politics over garbage is gaining momentum in the Capital, with Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal demanding the dissolution of the BJP-ruled municipal corporations and fresh elections to the civic bodies. Kejriwals comments came amid an ongoing strike by municipal employees to demand pending salaries and arrears. Leaders of the BJP and AAP are already engaged in a war of words over the disbursal of funds to the civic bodies. The chief minister, who is undergoing naturopathy in Bengaluru for a cough problem, tweeted: Management of an organization, which cant pay salaries to employees, doesnt hv rt to continue. MCD shud be dissolved. Hold fresh elections (sic.). His deputy, Manish Sisodia, asked the Centre to dissolve the three MCDs as the ruling dispensation had failed on all fronts of governance. BJP not being able to run the MCDs. People who cant run civic bodies, who are cant keep the city clean and who are unable to pay even the salary of employees have no business being in power. We demand the Centre to dissolve the three MCDs, Sisodia told reporters. The next round of elections to the three municipal bodies are due in April 2017. The Bharatiya Janata Party has been in power for the last nine years in the municipal corporations. The BJP was successful in retaining power in all the three corporations after the trifurcation of the unified MCD in 2012. The deputy CM reiterated the AAP governments stand that all estimated funds to pay salaries for the entire year had been disbursed and that the BJP leaders needed to give details where these funds were spent. When we formed a committee to look into the expenditure, the BJP leaders opposing it saying the government had no authority to audit utilisation of funds. We are duty-bound to provide funds but not to enquire about expenditure. What kind of power is that?, said Sisodia, adding that the government released all funds despite the corporations failing to submit the mandatory utilisation certificate. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Dozens of municipal workers dumped garbage and shouted slogans outside Deputy CM Manish Sisodias camp office on Thursday morning to demand the immediate release of their salaries that have not been paid for almost three months. The municipal employees had called for a complete municipal shut down on Wednesday due to non payment of salaries for over three months, bringing services like sanitation, primary health and primary education to a halt. Delhi: MCD workers place mounds of garbage outside Manish Sisodia's residence in a protest over non-payment of dues. pic.twitter.com/6z6PkhF7MS ANI (@ANI_news) January 28, 2016 Delhi: MCD workers place mounds of garbage outside Manish Sisodia's residence in a protest over non-payment of dues. pic.twitter.com/qvEXKe21vh ANI (@ANI_news) January 28, 2016 Adequate deployment by the local police was made. The protest by the employees is the second such stint in two days, the agitators had on Wednesday carried out massive protests outside Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwals house and Jantar Mantar. They had even burned Kejriwals effigy. According to union leaders, while the municipal shut down will continue till Friday, they will dump garbage onto streets if their demands are not complied to. The municipal corporation has a total employee strength of 1.3 lakh, including teachers, para-medical and administrative staff, engineers and sanitation workers, all of whom are on strike. The protest triggered fears of a rerun of last Octobers stinking situation when piles of garbage on roadsides during a strike sparked fears of disease. It has been two-three months that the workers have not received their salaries. Despite repeated requests, our demands have gone unheard. Hence, we have staged a protest here. We will call off work for an indefinite period if our demands are not met, Sanjay Gehlot, president of Mazdoor Vikas Samyukta Morcha, said. Gehlot claimed that employees from all the three civic bodies have taken part in the strike. Besides salaries, the employees are seeking payment of arrears, regularisation of contract-based employees and unification of the three corporations. The Delhi government clarified that it has disbursed funds to the municipal corporations for payment of salaries and that all the three civic commissioners written back about receiving the amount. The strike started on a day the Delhi high court issued notices to the Centre, the Delhi government and the municipal corporations over non-payment of salaries. A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath also directed the Delhi police to ensure that sanitation workers, who have been spearheading the protest, do not face any difficulty at work. The AAP government counsel Rahul Mehra asked the bench to order the strike called off, stating that the government has released 100% funds to the corporations. Delhi tourism minister Kapil Mishra alleged that the corporations had Rs 300 crore that they are not spending. You are creating a drama. What happened to the money the corporations get from parking, advertising, house tax, toll tax, and property conversion? What happened to the money? Why arent you paying the poor employees? This is deep-rooted corruption. There is also a conspiracy hatched by the BJP to bring shame to the city and force Delhiites to live in filth, he said. The BJP countered with north Delhi mayor Ravinder Gupta saying that chief minister Kejriwal has lost his mind. He should go to a mental hospital instead of naturopathy, he said, taking a dig at the chief ministers medical trip to Bangaluru. An official said employees of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation have been receiving salaries on time but joined the strike in solidarity with their colleagues from the other two agencies. Its astonishing to see that the governments are busy blaming each other for our unpaid salaries, rather than actually helping us. The situation has reached a point where we must go on strike if we want to get paid our dues, said a doctor at a civic hospital. Having burnt its fingers at the University of Hyderabad where a Dalit PhD scholar committed suicide, the union human resource development ministry is treading cautiously at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). According to officials, the HRD ministry on Wednesday asked the registrar of Jawaharlal Nehru University to address genuine grievances of students. A Dailt scholar has threatened to commit suicide at JNU over harassment regarding his fellowship. On Tuesday, Madan Meher, who is registered with the International Organisation Division at the universitys Center for International Politics Organisation and Disarmament (CIPOD), alleged that he was refused an extension under 9b. 9b is a one-year extension given to students to complete their PhD after the usual term of four years, if the student has completed 90% of the work. The student is given an extension of one year and four months. However, Meher alleged that despite submitting required documents, he was not given an extension. The ministry has asked the university to interact with the students and listen to their grievances. We were later informed that the registrar met the students and that he would take the necessary action, the HRD spokesperson said on Wednesday. Sources in the ministry said that the university was reviewing fellowships on an urgent basis to ensure there was no delay in releasing funds. Meher, who has qualified NET/JRF too, claimed that an RTI reply revealed that not a single Dalit student had received their PhD from his centre. Vice-chancellor SK Sopory on Tuesday said that he had asked the administration to keep a watch on the student and prevent him from taking any extreme step. Many countries, including India, pursue a policy of affirmative action to ensure that members of disadvantaged groups get enough opportunities and support to achieve their goals. In keeping with this spirit, the Cabinet on Wednesday approved the enhancement of the authorised share capital of the National Scheduled Castes Finance and Development Corporation (NSFDC) from Rs 1,000 crore to Rs 1,200 crore. This will enable the NSFDC to increase disbursements of funds to more Dalit borrowers, who often dont get enough credit to start their businesses. This move comes on the heels of the announcement of the Stand-up India programme that aims at promoting entrepreneurship among 250,000 scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and women. Despite legal safeguards and affirmative action, Dalits still face discrimination and biases. The recent suicide of PhD scholar Rohith Vemula at the Hyderabad Central University and the explosive note that he left behind only shows the scale of challenge that people with his kind of background continue to face in India. Even those who manage to cross those hurdles and become entrepreneurs face a different set of challenges. While access to credit is not that big a problem, the main hurdle is the gap that exists between what is allocated and what reaches the beneficiaries since there is often diversion of funds meant for specific social groups. Even if they get the capital, there is always the difficulty in securing land and providing collateral security for bank loans. The decision to hike the authorised share capital in NSFDC is a sound move. It comes at a time when the Vemula case has damaged the BJP, especially ahead of elections in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Punjab which have a sizeable chunk of Dalit population. But while affirmative action for budding entrepreneurs of the nature that the government has envisaged is required, it must ensure that the road to becoming an entrepreneur is cleared of biases. As a starter, this means accepting and understanding what Vemula tried to say in his last letter that the biases are deep rooted, pervasive and in many cases, sanctioned by those in positions of power. The Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE), an all-India entrance test to screen candidates for their comprehensive understanding of various undergraduate subjects in engineering, technology, architecture and postgraduate level subjects in science, will be conducted between January 30, 2016 and February 7. All thats new in GATE 2016 GATE 2016 has gone through a few of changes from the previous edition. Announced by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, these changes will be incorporated from now on. An online virtual calculator will be available to candidates and no physical calculator will be allowed. The tool has been uploaded on the GATE 2016 website for practice before the test. In another first, all answer keys will be made available for dispute within a short time after the test. Every answer key can be challenged. GATE 2016 will check the basic knowledge of students, hence more conceptual questions are expected. Also, the questions may be more twisted and research-oriented this time. Students can use online calculators for solving questions, which will make it easy for them to complete the paper on time. Candidates should know the test syllabus and pattern and the answering methods for two different forms of questions. Prepare five technical subjects in addition to math and general aptitude. Start your preparation with the subject which is your strength. Concentrate on the subjects which involve mathematics, formulae or logic, says Nitin Rakesh Prasad, co-founder, GATE Academy, a test preparation institute. Read more: Planning to apply for GATE 2016? Check your eligibility here The three-hour single paper contains 65 questions carrying 100 marks out of which 10 questions carrying a total of 15 marks will be on general aptitude. For one-mark multiple-choice questions, 1/3 mark will be deducted for a wrong answer. Likewise, for two-mark multiple-choice questions, 2/3 mark will be deducted for a wrong answer. There is no negative marking for numerical answer type questions. Experts say that in these last few days, it is best to choose any five subjects of your interest. You should be able to answer any question from these five subjects. Ensure that your selection of these five subjects is such that they all are numerical subjects and together they have a weightage of 45-55 marks. However, you shouldnt be ignoring other subjects. Avoid negative marks or deductions from your positive score as it will hamper your overall score. Few questions will have confusing options or wrong answers deliberately included as options. These wrong answers are results of some common mistakes and/or misappropriate selection or conversion of units. Some examiners solve questions with mistakes and/or wrong selection of units and keep the results in options. Be very careful with the units and review your solution at least once. If you are unsure about correct option of a theoretical question, just skip it, advises Prasad. It is also important to prepare a proper plan and stick to that. Traditional methods to solve numerical problems are time-consuing processes. Try to use short techniques to save time. Prepare a list of important definitions, equations, derivations, theorems, laws in every subject and try to prepare notes after studying a particular topic. Analyse previous years GATE papers and see the weightage each topic has, and then start preparing for topics that have higher weightage. Based on your experiments in the mock test series, you can fine tune your own exam strategy. Some people like to start solving a paper from the first question, while some people like to glance through the entire paper and start answering questions from their areas of strength, says JK Sinha, director, Gateforum. GATE 2016 results will be announced on March 19, 2016. About GATE It is a test for admissions to the MTech, ME courses and direct PhD at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs), other government-funded technical institutions and many private universities and institutes across the country. This years GATE is being jointly conducted by the IISc and seven IITs on behalf of the National Coordination Board - GATE, department of higher education, ministry of human resource development. Admission to postgraduate courses (masters and doctoral) in the country, with MHRD and other government scholarships/assistantships in engineering, technology, architecture and science is open to those who qualify GATE. The GATE score is also used by some PSUs for their recruitment. The GATE score is valid for three years. There is no restriction in the number of attempts for taking the test. The online paper will contain some questions for which numerical answers need to be keyed in by the candidate using a virtual keypad. The remaining questions will be multiple choice type. A candidate is expected to appear in a paper appropriate to the discipline of his/her qualifying degree. However, the candidate can choose any paper according to his/her admission plan, keeping in mind the eligibility criteria of the institutions in which he/she wishes to seek admission. Topper talk Deepak R, all-India rank 2, GATE 2015 Nearly half of the questions in GATE 2015 were easy. Some questions required a bit of thinking. I completed the general aptitude section in the first 10 minutes and started answering the two-mark questions in the subject section. I did not spend too much time on any one question. I skipped those which would required more time. Then I attempted one-mark questions. Finally, there was about half-an-hour left to go through the remaining unanswered questions (some 8-10 of them). In the end, I had attempted all 55 questions in the subject section and nine out of 10 in general aptitude. I attribute my rank to sound conceptual understanding, consistent preparation and self-assessment through mock tests. Shubham Neema, all-India rank 4 GATE 2015 My analysis of GATE 2015 tells me that a score of 65 marks or more will fetch a rank below 100. I was more focused on problem solving and practising mock tests and that had helped me identify my problem areas. My advice to candidates would be that they should attempt the one-mark questions first and then move on to the other questions. My aim in GATE 2015 was to answer 50 questions accurately. The target simply can be answer 20 questions of one mark each and 20 questions of two marks and others. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Two social organizations in Madhya Pradesh have approached the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and the State Human Rights Commission to direct the state board not to allot exam centres to board students other than their schools, Guardians Guild president Zamiruddin said on Wednesday. The examinations of Class 10 and Class 12 are held in March every year. However, the state board follows the changed centre system which puts students to a lot of inconvenience and affects their performance, social organizations, Guardian Guild and Citizens Forum of Bhopals office-bearers said. The organizations had submitted a written plea with the two bodies on Saturday. A notice in this respect would also be served on the CBSE and the MP Board of Secondary Education (MPBSE), office-bearers said. Guardians Guild president and member of the forum Zamiruddin said, Regular students of a school are not allowed to take their school as the examination centre on the plea that they may be unfairly assisted by the teachers. It is like presuming that all the 18 lakh students and their teachers are cheats and cannot be trusted. This is a criminal breach of human rights. Former high commissioner to Fiji and member of the forum IS Chauhan said, The change in the centres during the board exams puts extra burden on the students. It also affects their performance. This is more a punishment than an arrangement. The board should rely on flying squads and school administration rather than allotting students exam centres other than their schools. A school principal admitted that changing centres was a bad practice. For students, it is a trauma as they have to cover long distances to take their exams, he said. Forum convener Harish Bhavnani said before serving the notice, they would first write a letter to both the boards in this respect. If they dont initiate anything to stop this practise, we will take this issue to MHRD, he added. Sahodaya Group of CBSEs Schools president PS Kalra said, It is not possible for all the schools to conduct examination on their campus. Lack of resources with the schools is another reason for off-school examination centres. MP Board exams: 663 centres declared sensitive The Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education has released the list of sensitive and extremely sensitive centres on Wednesday. The number of these centres has been significantly increased from last year. The board has declared 663 centres sensitive in 2016, adding 249 to the 2015 list. This time the number of students has increased and thats why there are higher number of centres which need better security, said SK Chourasia, Public Relations Officer, MPBSE The Board also said that extra police force would be appointed at such centres. Secretary General MPBSE, Dhananjay Singh added, I have written a letter to all district collectors saying that this year sensitive and extremely sensitive centres have to be videographed as we want the examination to conclude in a fair and just manner. This year is going to be challenging for MPBSE as nearly 20 lakh students will appear for board examination across the state. This would be first time in the history of MP Board that such a huge number of students will appear for the boards. There would be 3835 centres to conduct the examination. About 12,28,000 will appear for class 10th boards while 7, 71,000 will appear for 12th boards. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Are you one of those who love the world famous weaves from Banaras or chikankari embroidery, but dont know how to differentiate between whats real and whats fake? Take note of some important indicators before you make a purchase. Tips on how to judge the originality of a weave: 1 The best way to determine if a particular handcrafted product is from India or not is to buy from brands that have certifications from local agencies like Craft Mark. Read: Four fashionable ways to drape your saree 2 To judge whether the chikankari on your cloth is by machine or not, it is suggested that one should see the kind of embroidery the piece of art boasts of. If it is handcrafted, the cloth will have French knots, shadow stitch, criss cross embroidery. In the machine made ones, you do not find these embroideries. 3 Patola weaving technique has travelled far overseas and some countries like Indonesia and Japan still have fabrics woven with this technique. However, there is quite a difference in the colours and motifs in India. Patola from Gujarat has an overdose of colour and intricacy. Although both double and single Ikat is being practised elsewhere, but design is something that can be copied assuming that the technique has been well mastered. Authentic Banarasi weaves can be judged by looking at the reverse side of the sari. The ones done by hand will be heavy on thread work at the back and will look very different from the front. (Shutterstock) 4 When it comes to Assam silks, the silks used here are Muga, pat, eri. Pat is a very soft silk and to differentiate between handwoven and machine made, is by the locking system noticeable at the back of the sari. 5 Also, in machine made saris, there are a lot of limitations like colour and sharpness of the designs. The special aspect of handwoven Assam saris are that the border is woven separately and stitched on the sari. Read: The first-ever saree flash mob 6 One can differentiate a machine made sari from a handwoven one by the pallu and its border. In a handwoven piece, the backside of the pallu or border is a replica. In a machine made one, you will find a lot of threads hanging. Also in machine made, there are a lot of limitations like colour, sharpness of the design and intricacy. The best way to determine if a particular handcrafted product is from India or not is to buy from brands that have certifications from local agencies like Craft Mark. (Shutterstock) 7 Authentic hand block prints will have small flaws in the printing and drops of extra colours here and there. There will also be very distinct designs in bright colours whereas printed designs will be 100% consistent. 8 Authentic Banarasi weaves can be judged by looking at the reverse side of the sari. The ones done by hand will be heavy on thread work at the back and will look very different from the front. Also, only an original sari would have floats. Read: Our never-ending love affair with saris 9 Another way to identify a real Banarasi sari is to check for a six to eight inch long patch of plain silk on the pallu of the Banarasi saree. 10 An original sari will mostly carry Mughal patterns like amru, ambi and domak. A fake Banarasi saree wouldnt have these Indian hand made Persian designs on it. Follow @htlifeandstyle for more. Just as the world seemed to be coming to terms with incurable ailments such as AIDS and ebola, in flew the aedes aegypti mosquito also the carrier of dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever with a whole new challenge for the human race. Named after the Zika forest in Uganda, where it was observed in rhesus monkeys for the first time, the virus is responsible for one of the most alarming health crises to hit Brazil in decades: Thousands of babies are being born with unusually small heads. Heres everything you should know about the Zika virus. Whats with all the panic? Soon after the virus appeared in Brazil around November last year, the country saw a sharp jump in cases of microcephaly children born with contracted heads, severely limiting their mental and physical abilities. Officials say they have found 4,180 suspected cases of microcephaly since late October, though only 270 have been confirmed. Health technician Willian Araya shows the cultivated Aedes aegyti mosquito larvae at a laboratory in Ministry of Health in San Jose, Costa Rica. (REUTERS) What are its symptoms? Around 2-7 days after getting bitten by an infected mosquito, the affected person is affected by a mild fever accompanied by skin rash, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, and general malaise. It lasts no more than a week. Can a Zika virus infection prove fatal? Considering that Zika is a new virus with very limited geographical and demographic distribution (at least till now), there is no evidence of it causing fatalities. Nevertheless, there have been reports of people with pre-existing medical conditions being further weakened by the ailment resulting in their death. Solange Ferreira bathes her son Jose Wesley in a bucket at their house in Poco Fundo, Pernambuco state, Brazil. Ferreira says her son enjoys being in the water, she places him in the bucket several times a day to calm him. (AP Photo) How does the Zika virus spread? The aedes aegypti mosquito is the most able carrier of the Zika virus. However, it can also be passed on from mother to child, blood transfusion and sex. It is not known to spread through impersonal person-to-person contact. Does it have a cure? The infection has no known cure or vaccine. However, its effects can be minimised through symptomatic treatment for pain and fever. Doctors also recommend relaxing and drinking plenty of water to control the fever. Luiza has her head measured by a neurologist at the Mestre Vitalino Hospital in Caruaru, Pernambuco state, Brazil. (AP Photo) Which countries have fallen to Zika, besides Brazil? Most of the Zika-hit nations are located in Latin America and the Caribbean. They are Colombia (16,419), Caribbean nations (at least 200), Ecuador (33), Bolivia (4), El Salvador (2,474), Guatemala (68), Mexico (18), Panama (42), Costa Rica (1) and Nicaragua (2). Can it come to India? India is particularly vulnerable to mosquito-borne diseases, something aptly demonstrated by the 40,197 dengue cases that cropped up in 2014. All thats needed by the virus to arrive here is a single Zika-affected person walking out of a plane from Brazil. Read: India prepares for Zika virus, health ministry readies testing kits Filmmaker Zack Sydner has revealed he turned to Christopher Nolan, the last man to bring Batman to the big screen, to ask permission for helming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Snyder said that he told the Dark Knight and Interstellar director you tell me if you dont want me to do it. After what is described as a silence, Nolan gave a blessing. Read: Batman v Superman trailer teases Doomsday, the death of Superman Well, we dont own these characters, Snyder recalled Nolan saying in response, adding, When youre done making Batman movies, someone else will [make them]. Snyder said that he thinks Nolan who acted as an executive producer on 2013s Man of Steel, the first movie in Warners current DC output found it a little bit hard, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Watch the Batman v Superman trailer here Synder, however, added, I would feel the same way. Part of that attitude, for Snyder at least, comes from the fact that he considers Batman v Superman to be more intimate than the average superhero movie. In a lot of ways Batman v Superman is a very personal concept, he explained, calling the movie just two people trying to understand each others point of view. Read: Suicide Squad: Could it be the best trailer ever? No seriously Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice opens in the US theatres March 25. Follow @htshowbiz for more Union minister Sarbananda Sonowal will be the BJPs chief ministerial candidate in Assam, the party declared on Thursday. This comes nearly two months after he was appointed president of Assam BJP in November. The (BJP) parliamentary board has decided that the Assam assembly elections will be contested under the leadership of Sarbananda Sonowal, health minister JP Nadda said after a meeting of the BJPs parliamentary board on Thursday. This is the second time first being Kiran Bedis projection in Delhi after its 2014 victory that the BJP has decided to approach an assembly election with a face. It did not name any CM candidate in the assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand, Bihar and J&K, and depended on PM Narendra Modi to pull off victories. The BJP leadership realised it needed to project a face to capitalise on the anti-incumbency of 15 years faced by CM Tarun Gogoi. In 2014, the BJP won seven of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam, polling about 37% votes. Its 2014 performance was close to the Congress 2011 assembly election figure of 39.4% vote share, which helped Gogoi win 78 out of 126 assembly seats. In April and May, Assam will go to polls along with West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. BJP national president Amit Shah, elected unopposed recently for a second term to steer the party, faces an immediate and formidable challenge to win assembly elections in four states in the next few months. The 51-year-old hit the ground running a day after his re-election with a rally in Howrah where he took on Mamata Banerjees Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal over terror taking roots in the state and rampant corruption in the form of chit funds. Pushing to break new grounds for the BJP, Shah gave a glimpse of his plans to Shishir Gupta, executive editor of Hindustan Times. Congratulations on your second term. What will be your priorities for the next three years? Nearly two years after he was elected, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is still the most popular leader in the country. Since he belongs to the BJP, it is natural that the party will benefit from his popularity. My biggest priority is to use the country-wide popularity of PM Modi to strengthen the BJP for times to come. It was to translate this popularity that we started the BJP membership campaign. To date, we have added 12 crore, 80 lakh new members. They are only well-wishers as of now. My priority is to turn these well-wishers into full-time party workers. I want to use PM Modis popularity to strengthen the party organisation in places where it is weak and give permanence to the growing acceptability of the party and its ideology in those parts of the country. On the organisational front, I want the new members to imbibe the good policies of the Centre, BJP governments in states and use the party as a medium for them to participate in the nations development process. I will use these members to expand the BJP in regions where the organisation is still missing by setting up offices and libraries in all districts of the country. Want to use the expanded cadre to identify the problems facing the country and sensitise the party headquarters. My plan is to use innovation and research to suggest the Modi government on policy issues and resolution of issues facing the country. And to give maximum publicity and reach for implementation of the Modi governments new policies using the party cadre. This will be my focus for the next couple of years. Where does social media fit in with this party expansion? Even today my party, I believe, is far ahead of its rivals in terms of conveying its message through social media. But a lot of work has to be done so that my party acquires the cutting edge. I want to attract the aspiring Indian youth towards the party using the popularity of PM Modi and his good governance. You face a formidable challenge in assembly elections in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu? Is your party geared up for it? One must understand that there were six assembly elections after BJP came to power in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. In none of these states, the BJP was in power. But despite that, the BJP formed the government in four out of six states. We formed a full majority government for the first time in Haryana and Jharkhand, in Maharashtra theres a chief minister from the BJP for the first time and the party came to power for the first time in Jammu and Kashmir. We lost both Bihar and Delhi but our electoral support has not decreased dangerously. This means we have not lost our supporters even in these two states. When politics of the country changes, then the centre-point of politics also changes. There used to be a time when the politics of the country ran on Congress versus all or Indira (Gandhi) versus all. Today, the political pattern is BJP versus all or Narendra Modi versus all. I believe this is the indicator of the BJPs powerful rise. This has increased the credibility of the BJP. Otherwise, how could parties having ideological and policy differences with others join hands against the BJP? They have done it for purely electoral survival. Elections, one must understand, is a numbers game in the end. The BJP will have to now strategise for politics of 51%. As far as the forthcoming elections are concerned, the BJP is in an expansion phase in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. We are increasing our footprint in these states. But I firmly believe that the BJP will break all past electoral records and have a major role in government formation in these four states with maximum edge in Assam where we never had more than 20 MLAs. But your main challenge is going to come in 2017 with Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat going to polls? The BJP has maximum stakes in these elections. In all these states, the BJPs position is very good. We play the role of younger brother in Punjab. I believe with hard work, good political strategy and popularity of PM Modi, we will be able to galvanize our workers towards government formation in each of these states. Technically, this is your first full three-year term as party president since you were standing for Rajnath Singh for the past 16 months after he joined the Modi government as Union home minister? We should not get into this first term or second term. I always believe that it is very important to work for the party as we are guided by the Constitution in a democratic framework. I am eternally grateful towards the crores of party workers and leadership for believing in me and allowing me to lead the party organisation. Your detractors find your way of functioning too autocratic and not approachable. Is this true? As far as teamwork is concerned, none of my office-bearers would say that because all decisions are taken after detailed discussions with them. Delhi may think that I am not accessible but my workers do not share this belief. When are you planning to reorganise the party? Are there any plans on the anvil? I have told you my priorities. Only an experienced team of workers can take these plans to a logical conclusion. I alone cannot do it. So those people who have worked at the grassroots, capable of hard work and committed to the party ideology will find their way into my team. We have a lot of committed workers who will help me achieve the partys objective in focus areas. The reorganisation may take some time. I have not discussed this with all the senior leaders of the party. It will take some time. How much role the RSS has in this party reorganisation? Media over-exaggerates the Sanghs role. The BJPs decisions are its own. The Sangh does not interfere in day-to-day internal policy decision-making. When you were made party president in August 2014, you decided to increase electoral focus on the eastern states, keeping in mind the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and offset any losses in the west. I did not say this. I only said there are seven states, Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where the BJP needed to increase its electoral footprint. In the past 16 months, we have really focused on these states and I am convinced that the party will do very well in elections in these states. And the feedback I am getting from the Northeastern states Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura are very encouraging. For the first time the BJP has emerged a political force in these states. During the Bihar elections, anti-BJP forces were seen joining hands to defeat Modi? How will you counter such moves? The simplest way is to spread the BJPs ideology to the maximum number of people and increase its public support base. The BJP has always fought elections with the help of its cadre or organisation and the popularity of its leaders. I believe, we will be able to increase our strength on both fronts. And as I have said before, the BJP electoral strategy should be aimed at politics of 51%. And the BJP is doing a new kind of politics. In the past decade, wherever we got electoral support in states, we have successfully and repeatedly countered political barriers of caste and regionalism. The BJP has for the first time introduced politics of performance and achieved success to a certain degree. I like to give you examples of Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Goa and Rajasthan. We have been re-elected on the basis of our performance. I believe the BJP will be able to do the same in states and the Centre. Your term ends in 2019. Are you prepared for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and give a second consecutive term to the Modi government? This is a challenge for each and every worker of the BJP because the kind of transformational change we want for India cannot be achieved in just five years. We will fulfil the promises made in the five years. But the BJP will definitely bring about fundamental changes under the leadership of Narendra Modi in the second term. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Nitish Kumar-led Grand Alliance in Bihar faced further embarrassment on Thursday when a Congress party MLA the partys alliance partner went missing, allegedly accompanied by a girl. Only last week a Janata Dal (United) MLA was arrested for allegedly misbehaving with a woman on board the Rajdhani Express. An FIR was lodged against Siddharth Singh, who represents the Vikram assembly seat, at the Masaurhi police station based on a statement by the girls father, a resident of Sunkudra village located 30 kms south of the state capital. According to senior superintendent of police, Patna, Manu Maharaj, the girl was taken away in an Endeavour SUV around 6 am. She was a student in Patna and lived in a hostel. This is the second time that Singh has disappeared with the girl. However, this time, five of his private security guards and three government security guards have also disappeared. Maharaj said a search was on to locate the group through their mobile phones. The MLA, who is married and has a son, was earlier awarded a life term in connection with the murder of an eminent doctors son in 1998 when he was 15 years old. He spent several years in Beur jail before being released in 2009. Though he contested and lost in the 2010 Bihar assembly election on a Lok Janshakti Party ticket, Singh managed to win in 2015 on a Congress ticket. This last week, the Nitish Kumar government has been dealing with MLA run-ins with the law, much to its embarrassment. Sarfaraz Alam, the Jokihat MLA of JD-U, was arrested and later released on bail for misbehaving with a women on board a train last week. In another instance, Ranjit Yadav, son of Rashtriya Janata Dal lawmaker Kunti Devi, allegedly thrashed a doctor at a government hospital at Gaya on Wednesday night. The Indian Medical Association has taken up the issue and threatened immediate action while a delegation will meet the Director General of Police on Thursday evening. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Narendra Modi government has sent Gujarats controversial anti-terror legislation the Gujarat Control of Terrorism and Organised Crime (GCTOC) Bill back to the state government after President Pranab Mukherjee kept it pending for nearly four months. The GCTOC Bill cleared last year was patterned on the anti-terror law Modi first piloted through the assembly in 2003. But the Rashtrapati Bhavan rejected the bill on two occasions, the first in 2004. As CM, Modi often called the then Congress-led central governments refusal to clear the bill a reflection of its feeble resolve to fight terrorism. Government sources told HT that the home ministry sent the bill to the President for his assent last year. But the Rashtrapati Bhavan is learnt to have had reservations and decided to hold back its approval, quite the same way as presidents in the past sat on home ministry recommendations to reject mercy pleas. A government official said the Centre saw the writing on the wall, withdrew the bill from the President and sent it to the Gujarat government with some queries. In July last year, the Centre sought clarifications from the state on certain issues raised by the ministry of information and technology. The home ministry will provide additional information about the bill to the President after obtaining the same from the Gujarat government, a home ministry spokesman said. Officials said it was a euphemism for telling the state to amend the bill to make it palatable to the Centre. We have learnt that the home ministry has withdrawn the bill from the Presidents office. What are the clarifications sought by the President is not known yet. The Gujarat government will act accordingly once it will get the documents from the MHA, Gujarat BJP vice-president IK Jadeja said. The Congress said introducing the bill was vote bank politics. The BJP knew that some clauses were in contradiction with the Constitution as well as national law. There was no possibility it would get clearance, Congress national spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil said. Tension gripped the University of Hyderabad on Thursday as a section of students staged a demonstration seeking resumption of classes even as four teachers launched a relay hunger strike seeking the vice-chancellors resignation over the suicide by a Dalit scholar. The sharp division among the student community came into sharp focus on the 11th day of suspension of classes at the university following the suicide by Rohith Vemula, 26, an incident which has sparked a furore over alleged caste bias on campuses in the country and led to a political battle between opposition parties and the ruling BJP. Shouting slogans and holding placards, the students of life sciences department staged a demonstration at the university close to where other students are on protest demanding the resignation of VC Appa Rao, who went on along leave few days ago. The students were shouting slogans like We want classes and Politics hatao campus bachao (End politics, save the campus). Attempts to conduct some classes in the Life Sciences department met with resistance from the protesting students. A majority of those who staged the protest demanding classes are said to be from the right-wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), which is in the centre of the storm. Rohith and four other scholars were suspended for allegedly assaulting an ABVP leader. The Joint Action Committee (JAC) spearheading the agitation against the VC alleged that interim vice-chancellor Vipin Srivastava had provoked the some students to hold such demonstration to create a rift among the community. The counter-protests came shortly after four teachers drawn from two universities of the city launched a relay hunger strike. Three of the teachers are from the University of Hyderabad while the other is from the Osmania University. The hunger strike is by both SC/ST Teachers Forum and concerned teachers, Joby Joseph, one of the fasting teachers said. Our demands are simple. The vice-chancellor should step down and the interim VC should also resign from the post as he was part of the decision to suspend Dalit students, he said. Attempts to conduct some classes in the Life Sciences department met with resistance from the protesting students. The JAC has said that students would intensify the struggle till all their demands are met. . Pakistan on Thursday said it expects India to go ahead with a planned meeting of the foreign secretaries even as it called on New Delhi not to indulge in a blame game because it undermines efforts to counter terrorism. Pakistan high commissioner Abdul Basit said during a television interview in New Delhi that the two sides had acted maturely after the terror strike on Pathankot airbase and not disrupted their engagements. I do not see any reason as to why the talks should not happen, he said. Both the sides, the two foreign secretaries, agreed to have a meeting in the very near future. I can tell you they are in touch with each other but as yet they have not been able to pencil in the dates for their meeting, he said, attributing this to a scheduling problem. In Islamabad, Foreign Office spokesman Qazi Khalilullah said terrorism is not only Indias problem and it was important to do away with the practice of unsubstantiated allegations as it undermines efforts to eliminate...terrorism from our region through a cooperative approach. He was reacting to the joint statement on counter-terrorism issued after French President Francois Hollandes visit to India that specifically asked Pakistan to bring to justice the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks and sought decisive action against the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, blamed for the Pathankot attack. Read | 26/11 attacks trial is test of Pakistans sincerity, says India Both Basit and Khalilullah raised the 2007 bombing of the Samjhauti Express train and called on India to bring to justice the perpetrators of that attack, which killed more than 40 Pakistanis. Basit acknowledged Pakistani prosecutors have been struggling for closure in the Mumbai attacks case because of several problems that arose from what he described as lack of cooperation between the two countries. He said a Pakistani judicial commission came to India almost four years after the Mumbai incident and wasnt allowed to interview and cross-examine key people. Pakistan is committed to expedite the Mumbai attacks trial but much will hinge on Indian cooperation, he said. If the seven Pakistani suspects in the case are acquitted, it would amount to a failure for both countries, he added. The two sides should not repeat mistakes made in the investigation of the Mumbai attacks while probing the Pathankot incident, Basit said. Some leads were shared with us by India and we moved immediately, started working on the basis of those leads. Meanwhile, we also constituted a six-member special investigation team. So that demonstrates our seriousness of purpose, he said. Basit was cagey when asked whether Pakistan has detained JeM chief Masood Azhar, blamed by India for masterminding the Pathankot attack, and said: I personally feel it serves no useful purpose to discuss in public whether JeM leaders or operatives are in protective custody or in detention. I think (whats) important is for the two countries to get to the bottom of things as to how the Pathankot attack happened, and then move against those who were the handlers...and masterminds and then take action against them to bring to justice so that should be our ultimate objective. The JeM was proscribed by Pakistan in 2002 but it went underground. This time, Basit said, Pakistan will deal with such groups decisively as there is a national consensus that there is no room for these militants in our country. Without specifically naming Azhar, Basit said no militant organisation or outfit will be spared under the countrys National Action Plan for counter-terrorism. Read | Pak accuses India of making unsubstantiated terror allegations (With inputs from agencies) Call it an indirect admission of caste-based discrimination in universities or a knee-jerk reaction by a government caught on the wrong foot. Within days of Dalit student-activist Rohith Vemulas suicide at the University of Hyderabad, which triggered countrywide outrage, the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry has decided to conduct workshops in central universities to sensitise administrators about issues concerning socially, educationally and economically disadvantaged students. The ministry had absolved itself of any wrongdoing after being accused of putting pressure on the university administration to suspend Vemula, considered the main cause of his suicide. It contended that it was following procedures by sending five reminders to the university about labour minister Bandaru Dattatreyas letter in which he termed the Ambedkar Students Association as anti-national. Vemula was part of this Dalit association at the university. The ministry will now organise workshops to sensitise administrators, starting from Assam University on February 1 followed by similar workshops at the Hyderabad university on February 8. A special module has been prepared for this programme, which will also be held in Delhi University, Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya, Wardha, and the University of Bihar. That they have agreed upon this workshop or training is an acknowledgment of the fact that there is discrimination on campuses. The training should be seen as a first step but strict implementation of the prevention of atrocities act is required. At the same time, they need to put in place a platform within the universities where Dalits can speak openly without fear, said Kavita Srivastava, national secretary of the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). Academic administrators, including vice-chancellor, deans of student welfare, registrars and hostel wardens, will attend these workshops. An effort should be made to integrate rather than segregate. The fact that they are conducting this workshop is an admission of discrimination, said PL Punia, chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes. BJP MP and Dalit leader Udit Raj supported the move, saying there was an immediate need for such workshops because of discrimination on campuses across the country. Concerns of Dalit students need to be addressed. I was depressed during my university days as I came from a rural background and there was a huge divide in terms of language, status. My professors were unable to realise this. So it is good that the ministry is planning to do this, Raj said. Subhash from the Kranti Yuva Sangthan, a student association, said more needs to be done by the government, including reviving the equal opportunity cell, to ensure Dalit and poor students could learn English a language that often creates social divisions on campuses. A fact-finding committee set up by the ministry had pointed out that lack of dialogue between the Hyderabad university administration and the students proved fatal. VCs and other senior functionaries have to engage with students. They also need to understand how to reach out to them, especially the socially and economically disadvantaged students, a senior HRD official said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Originally from Punjab, Inderjit Singh Reyat was working as an auto mechanic and electrician in Vancouver Island, British Columbia when he plotted and executed the Air India flight Kanishkas bombing over the coast of Ireland on June 23, 1985. All 329 passengers and crew died in the incident. He was arrested on June 6, 2001, by Canadian police on charges of murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy in the bombing. He was convicted of procuring the dynamite, detonators and batteries used in the Kanishka bomb. He was also convicted of the murder of two bag-handlers at the Narita International Airport in Tokyo when a second bomb blew up nearly simultaneously with the bomb on the Air India flight. He was the only person convicted in the twin incidents. Read more: Reyat, 1985 AI Kanishka bombing convict, released from prison He served a total of 15 years for that crime and was later sentenced to nine more years in jail for perjury repeatedly lying during the course of the trial which led to the release of two other accused Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri. He was released on January 28, 2016 after serving two-thirds of the nine-year sentence. All throughout the trial Reyat remained silent, refusing to name anybody else for the crimes. At one point, he even said that he did not know one co-conspirator named Mr X who had stayed in his house with his family for week before the incident. The Canadian Broadcasting Company described his silence as omerta the mafias code of silence. As countries in South and Central America grapple with the Zika virus which has been linked to microcephaly a birth defect where babies are born with smaller heads which limits brain development India is preparing for any intrusion of the virus. Read more: All you need to know about the Zika Virus The Union health ministry is in the process of getting testing kits for detecting the virus which is spread by the bite of Aedes Aegypti mosquito that also spreads dengue, a disease that has a high prevalence in India. We are in the process of procuring testing kits for detecting Zika virus. The government is also writing to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to know more about the infection and prepare accordingly, said a senior official from the Zoonosis unit of the union ministry of health and family welfare. Sources said the ministry is also establishing protocols to keep a close watch on any sudden rise in birth defects in any region of the country. Reliable sources in the ministry said that in a couple of days, the files regarding the procurement of buying the testing kits will be cleared. Indias preparedness is not unwarranted as Pan American Health Organisation stated that the body anticipates that the virus will con- tinue to spread and will likely reach all regions where Aedes mosquitoes are found. . In the past two weeks, the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune has prepared itself to offer testing for Zika virus detection. NIV has molecular test ready, if needed Zika virus suspected acute samples can be tested, said DT Mourya, director of NIV. When asked about Indias vulnerability to the virus, Dr Mourya cited the example of Yellow Fever which, like Zika, is transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. We have Aedes Aegypti but for ages we dont have Yellow fever in India. This virus never got introduced in India and never got established as public health problem even in Asia. Similarly, a similar prediction can be made at this moment about Zika virus, said Dr Mourya. Maharashtras health department is waiting for guidelines from the centre on the disease. We discussed Zika virus in our epidemiology meeting. As we have the vector that spreads the virus it is better to be prepared for any sporadic cases, said a senior state health official. Maharashtra anti-terrorism squad ( ATS )s investigations have revealed that the Indian recruits were being given online training to make bombs by ISISs foreign handlers. The ATS also gathered that Khalid alias Rizwan Ahmed Ali Nawazuddin played a key role in the brainwashing the youngsters from Malwani, who he may have met at least twice. He is the second in command of ISIS India and has travelled throughout the country to propagate the outfits views, said an ATS source, who does not wish to be named. Read more: ISIS hitlist had Mumbai, Delhi as prime targets The modus operandi of the foreign handlers was to target a two to three people from one area, recruit them, bind them in small cells and train them online. This pattern can be seen in Hyderabad, Mumbai, UP and Bangalore where ISIS modules were busted, another ATS source said. Apart from training, those recruited in Ansar-ut Tawhid fi Bilad al- Hind, the Indian wing of ISIS, were handed over a four-point programme in a bid to radicalise them, he added. The youngsters arrested by the ATS and the national investigating agency ( NIA) were trained online. No one in India had any physical training in arms, the source said. While Khalid was paid in India a few times, some of the others were funded by foreign handlers. Khalid has been a part of ISIS since early 2015, while Muddabir Mushtaq Sheikh from Mumbra, who is allegedly the amir (chief) of ISIS India, has been in touch with the outfit since late 2013. Investigators have found that those arrested knew each other well and had even met several times. The 20-year old Khalid was in touch with top foreign handlers of ISIS. Khalid, the son of a government servant [father is with the revenue department of the UP government], is a Class 12 student. Sources said he has been using several SIM cards to avoid being tracked by the security agencies. ATS sources added that so f ar the investigations have revealed that the ISIS modules in Maharashtra were in the initial stages of making preparations for a strike. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Former Allahabad high court judge Ashok Kumar Roopanwal on Thursday was appointed by the Centre to investigate the circumstances that led to the suicide of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula. According to a senior HRD official, Roopanwal will review the entire sequence of events and the circumstances, and establish facts and correctives in connection with the incident at the University of Hyderabad. The one-man judicial commission will submit its report within three months. Meanwhile, interim vice-chancellor Vipin Srivastava said he was hopeful that normalcy would be restored on the varsity campus in the coming days, claiming that the protesting students have agreed to allow research activity in the life sciences department to resume from Friday. The agreement was reportedly reached after the deans held talks with the leaders of the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of agitating student groups. Srivastava said the university would hold classes on Saturdays and the semester would also be extended to make up for the days lost due to the strike. Even as Srivastava expressed hopes of an early resolution to the ongoing crisis, four teachers from two universities in the city launched a relay hunger strike on Thursday demanding his resignation. Three of the teachers are from the University of Hyderabad while the other is from the Osmania University. The hunger strike is by both SC/ST Teachers Forum and concerned teachers, Joby Joseph, one of the fasting teachers said. Our demands are simple. The vice-chancellor should step down and the interim V-C should also resign from the post as he was part of the decision to suspend the Dalit students. Srivastava, who headed the committee which suspended the five Dalit students, including Rohith, has defended the action taken and dismissed demands for his resignation. A vigilance court in Kerala ordered the registration of an FIR against chief minister Oommen Chandy and power minister Aryadan Muhammed in connection with the solar scam. Chandy is accused of taking bribes from industrialists for allotting solar panels at cheaper rates. On Wednesday, the prime accused Saritha Nair had told the judicial commission probing the case that she had paid Rs 1.90 crore as bribe to Chandy to get a government subsidy and other benefits for her solar energy venture. Nairs allegations come a day after Chandy refused to undergo a lie-detector test while deposing before the judicial commission. Nair and her live-in partner Biju Radhakrishnan together floated the firm Team Solar Renewable Energy Solutions Private Limited in 2011, and were arrested in 2013 for allegedly duping investors from whom they collected crores for a solar power project. Last month, Radhakrishnan, now serving life term for the murder of his wife, claimed before the commission that he had paid Rs 5.5 crore to Chandy as bribe. Three personal staff members of the chief minister were suspended after investigations, but Mr Chandy has denied any direct link. Chandy on Wednesday denied the charges saying it was an attempt by Saritha to wriggle out of the case. Let her state what benefit she got after bribing us, Chandy told reporters in Thiruvanthapuram. The cheques Saritha had handed over for relief fund had also bounced, he said. Earlier on Thursday, CPI(M) activists protested outside the state governments headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram demanding Chandys resignation. The protestrers were lathi-charged by the police. Urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday announced the first list of 20 cities to be developed as Smart Cities, with Bhubaneswar topping the list and Pune and Jaipur coming in second and third respectively. The others on the list include Surat, Kochi and Ahmedabad. These cities will be developed to have basic infrastructure through assured water and power supply, sanitation and solid waste management, efficient urban mobility and public transport, IT connectivity, e-governance and citizen participation. The states selected cities and sent us a list of 97 names. There was a competition among these names and 20 cities have been selected, Naidu told a news conference. Bottom up approach has been the key planning principle under Smart City Mission, he said. The Smart City Challenge Competition was as rigorous and demanding as the civil services competition conducted, Naidu quipped. These are the 20 cities named in the first list Bhubaneswar Pune Jaipur Surat Kochi Ahmedabad Jabalpur Visakhapatnam Solapur Davanagere Indore New Delhi Coimbatore Kakinada Belgaum Udaipur Guwahati Chennai Ludhiana Bhopal In the subsequent years, the government will announce 40 cities each to be developed as smart cities as per Prime Minister Narendra Modis plan to develop 100 smart cities in the country. Congrats to winners of Smart City Challenge. I wish the cities the very best as they move forward with implementation and transform urban India, Modi tweeted on Thursday. I thank all those who took part in the comprehensive deliberations on various forums to decide winners of Smart City Challenge, he added. The government plans to build these smart cities by 2022 to help accommodate its swelling urban population, which is set to rise by more than 400 million people to 814 million by 2050. The cities are competing on a variety of matrices, including urban reforms and their plan of action in four key areas -- Swachh Bharat, Make in India, good governance (modern accounting system, rationalisation of property taxes) and e-governance. Naidu said that a total of 15.20 million (1.52 crore) citizens had participated in the preparation of the ambitious Smart City plans at various stages. Some sent their ideas to city officials via Twitter, Facebook or SMS. Others entered local contests for designing logos or writing essays. Bhubaneswar, the capital of the eastern state of Orissa, unfurled a 10-kilometer-long canvas banner across the city and invited residents to scroll down their suggestions. Many of the proposals mentioned a need for better transportation, sewage treatment or trash management. The Rajasthani heritage cities of Jaipur and Udaipur, and Agra, the city of the iconic Taj Mahal, all wanted to clean up their downtown tourist areas, while people in Amritsar, best known for its Golden Temple and location near Pakistan, suggested CCTV cameras and an emergency call center to address their main concerns about safety and security. He further said that Smart City plans will demonstrate how integrated planning and smart technologies can deliver better a quality of life. The Centre and states will equally split the overall cost of the project estimated at Rs 96,000 crore. The central government will provide on an average Rs. 100 crore per chosen city per year. The project cost of each smart city will vary depending upon the level of ambition, model, capacity to execute and repay. Raising funds is the key challenge as also is developing older cities with limited scope to overhaul. Heavily populated areas may need complete rebuilding which will then involve temporarily rehabilitating people and, in some cases, acquiring land. The imposition of Presidents Rule (PR) in Arunachal Pradesh on Republic Day was the 30th instance for the eight-state Northeast since 1967. Political instability triggered by dissension and insurgency have primarily been the reasons. No state has undergone PR as many times as Manipur. The first of its 10 spells Uttar Pradesh follows with nine was for 66 days from January 12, 1967 to facilitate the first elections in the state, then a union territory. Manipur had another bout of PR that year, induced by secessionism and statehood demand led by separatist group United National Liberation Front founded in 1964. Read more: Arunachal crisis: Fresh ammo for opposition ahead of budget session Insurgency of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) kind was responsible for the Prafulla Kumar Mahanta government being dismissed on November 28, 1990. It was the last of the four phases of PR in Assam, violence during the anti-foreigners Assam Agitation having triggered the earlier three between 1979 and 1982. Nagaland, which has experienced longest spell of insurgency, experienced PR four times like Assam but defection or party-hopping was the reason in each case. The first of Mizorams three brushes with PR for more than a year in 1977 was also due to insurgency. Chhunga had that year quit as chief minister apparently for facilitating peace talks with the underground Mizo National Front led by Laldenga. Ethnic divisions have caused political instability in Arunachal Pradesh. But unlike the other north-eastern states, it has had the longest break between two instances of PR. The first was for 76 days from November 3, 1979 after more than one-third of the MLAs the assembly size was 33 then changed sides several times. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON In the second volume of his memoir, The Turbulent Years: 1980-96, President Pranab Mukherjee shares an insiders account of several significant events during the 1980s and early 1990s. In this extract, Mukherjee, a cabinet minister in the Indira Gandhi government, justifies Operation Bluestar, the 1984 military action to flush out terrorists from the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Excerpt: The Punjab crisis dominated Indian politics between 1980 and 1984. In 1981, the Akali Dal submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of forty-five religious, political, economic and social demands and grievances, including the issue of sharing Punjabs river waters between Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan and the quest for the transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab, and launched a virulent campaign around them. Very soon, the issue of the implementation of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution was raised-specifically, that certain areas from the adjoining states (Una tehsil and Dalhousie from Chamba district in Himachal Pradesh; Pinjore and Kalka from Panchkula district, Sahabad block from Karnal district and the city of Ambala From Ambala district in Haryana and the union territory of Chandigarh) be merged with Punjab. The Akalis held that these areas were deliberately not included in Punjab at the time of the creation of the state, although historically and culturally they were part of it. ALSO WATCH | RIP Pranab Mukherjee: From teacher to minister to President, an era ends Though the 1973 Anandpur Sahib Resolution had called for a high degree of autonomy for Punjab, the Akali Dal was not satisfied with that proposal. In April 1981, one of its leaders, Jathedar Jagdev Singh Talwandi, called for an autonomous state to be set up in North India forthwith, wherein Sikh interests would be recognized as of primary and special importance. This proposed state of Khalistan would have its own Constitution and not be governed by the Indian Constitution. In November 1982, the foremost Akali leader, Sant Harcharan Singh Longowal, in a new elucidation of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution, said that a Sikh religious state with all Punjabi-speaking people within it should be created to preserve Sikh tradition and religion. In Punjab, Amrik Singh, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and several others started advocating the use of violence for a break-up of the Indian union and the creation of an independent Khalistan. Raising the slogan Raj Karega Khalsa, they claimed that an independent Khalistan was a historical necessity for the Sikh youth. Clearly, the Akali Dal was constantly changing goalposts and was not clear about whether it wanted autonomy within the Indian union or an independent state. The Akali Dals organized effort to confront the government with its demands soon resulted in the rise of extremism. Both violent action as well as public incitement to violence became commonplace. Criminals, smugglers and anti-social elements took advantage of the situation and associated themselves with this movement. Even Naxalites used the crisis to expand their influence and areas of domination. Several outfits supporting the separatist movement sprouted within the Sikh community abroad, especially in Pakistan, Canada and the UK. Taking full advantage of the governments policy that the police would not enter any religious institution, the Golden Temple in Amritsar became a safe haven for their activities. Deliberate efforts were also made to sow bitterness between the Sikh community and Followers of other religions. Read | Babri demolition one of Narasimha Raos biggest failures: Pranab Mukherjee Had the Punjab movement been limited to the original demands of the Akali Dal, it may have found an easier resolution. But as it progressed, the establishment of an independent Khalistan emerged as its principal goal. It thus became a movement challenging Indias unity, territorial integrity and security. Sadly, the Akali Dal never took a clear position regarding the hijacking of the movement by separatist elements. Instead, its leaders often used provocative language very similar to that used by the militants. Sometime towards the end of 1981, L.K. Advani of the BJP approached me in the Rajya Sabha and expressed grave concern regarding the happenings in Punjab. Speaking agitatedly, Advani accused the government of total indifference. He said that the situation was rapidly deteriorating and the way extremists were spreading violence and arbitrarily killing people was terrible. He warned that conditions could become even more serious in the future, especially in view of the murder of Lala jagat Narain, Member of Parliament (MP), journalist and owner of Punjabs leading newspaper, Punjab Kesari (on 9 September 1981). A staunch nationalist, Lala Jagat Narain had, in his newspaper, been strongly condemning the militants and campaigning against Khalistan. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards after the Operation Bluestar at the Golden Temple, triggering a further wave of retaliation in which nearly 3,000 Sikhs were killed. After getting the memorandum from the Akali Dal in September 1981, Indira Gandhi invited its representatives for discussions. She sat with them not once but thrice, in October 1981, November 1981 and April 1982. Talks were held at different levels between ministers and Akali Dal representatives; in trilateral meetings involving other political parties as well; and between government officials, from the Cabinet Secretary and Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, and Akali Dal representatives. Indira Gandhi selected the ministers who would be part of the discussions. P.V. Narasiinha Rao presided over the largest number of meetings. While I, as Finance Minister, presided over some. Minutes of all the meetings were sent to the Prime Minister, even though officials from the Prime Ministers office were part of the dialogue. However, all these efforts failed because of the Akali Dals rigid stance. Even a few days before Operation Blue Star, an attempt was made to find a. solution by holding a meeting with the Akali Dal leaders who were brought from jail to the lounge of the Chandigarh airport at midnight. P.V. Narasimha Rao, Cabinet Secretary Krishnaswamy Rao Sahib and I represented the government in that meeting. Unfortunately, the talks remained unsuccessful. Each time we came close to a consensus, militant groups seemed to increase their terrorist activities and the Akali Dal would shift its position. It often appeared as though the movement was not under the control of the Akali Dal but being manipulated by extremist Sikh groups---the Akali Dal was only providing political cover to these groups, or so it seemed. Read | How Rajiv Gandhi became PM after Indiras death, recalls Pranab Mukherjee By May 1984, it became increasingly clear that there was no alternative but military action to flush out the terrorists within the Golden Temple-particularly as the negotiations and discussions had not yielded the desired results. On 3 June, the Indian army entered the Golden Temple in a military operation codenamed Operation Blue Star. Some believe that this course of action could have been avoided. But the reality that confronted the government at that time was that Bhindranwale and his followers had occupied and taken control of the Golden Temple, disregarding its sanctity. Extremists had turned it into a fortress and a base for operations aimed at the separation of Punjab from India. While some of us were worried about the. reaction of the Sikh community and whether drastic action would be counterproductive, leading to a flaring-up of the communal tension, a final decision to storm the Golden Temple was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA). Its members at that time were the Prime Minister, Home Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, R Venkatraman (having taken over as Defence Minister), Energy Minister P. Shiv Shankar and I. That day, no officials were present at the CCPA meet. I still vividly recall Mrs Gandhi telling me, Pranab, I know of the consequences. She understood the situation well and was clear that there was no other option. Aware that her own life was at risk, she took a conscious decision to go ahead in the best interest of the nation. It is easy to say that the military action could have. been avoided. However, nobody really knows if any other option would have worked. Such decisions are always taken based on the conditions prevailing at that time. The situation in Punjab was abnormal. Urgent action was needed to put an end to the indiscriminate killings, the misuse of religious sites for terrorist activities and all efforts to break up the Indian union. Intelligence officials and the army both expressed confidence that they would be able to neutralize the militants in the Golden Temple complex without much difficulty. No one anticipated the protracted resistance. While the Punjab situation was an aberration and a crisis of this nature is unlikely to recur, the lesson for future generations is that fissiparous tendencies have to be resisted at any cost. The Punjab crisis provided external elements an opportunity to take advantage of the disunity within India and sow the seeds of anarchy. Its wounds took a long time to heal and, even today, residual incidents do occur from time to time. The biggest tragedy, of course, was the loss of Mrs Gandhi. Her last speech in Orissa, two days before her assassination, was prophetic. She said, I am alive today, I may not be there tomorrow... I shall continue to serve until my last breath and when I die. I can say that every drop of my blood will invigorate India and strengthen it. Read | Exclusive stories from President Pranab Mukherjees memoirs Allegations that Pranab Mukherjee aspired to be the prime minister after Indira Gandhis assassination and had to be persuaded otherwise cost him his relationship with the Congress, forcing him out of the party in April 1986 when he formed his own party, the Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress. Mukherjee returned to the party two years later and it emerged that Rajiv Gandhi had never signed the letter of his expulsion. In the second volume of his memoir, The Turbulent Years: 1980-96, Mukherjee shares an insiders account of several significant events during the 1980s and early 1990s. Here is an excerpt on his expulsion from the Congress: The results to the 1984 Lok Sabha elections were declared on 24 December 1984. The Congress swept the polls, winning 404 seats out of 514. While the BJP got only 2 seats. The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) got 30 seats, the CPI(M) 22, the AIADMK 12 and the Janata Party 10 seats. On the morning of 31 December 1984, Rajiv was elected as leader of the CPP at 11 a.m. in a meeting held in the Central Hall of Parliament. l chaired the meeting and stood next to him when he announced to the media that the swearing-in would be held at 3 p.m. Even then I was clueless about the manner in which the day would unfold. I kept waiting for the call. Being dropped from Rajivs Cabinet was not even peripherally in my mind. I had heard no rumours, nor had anyone in the party ever vaguely hinted at it. As it happened, P.V. Narasimha Rao, too, was on tenterhooks, calling me several times to check if I had received a call. When I learnt of my ouster from the Cabinet, I was shell shocked and flabbergasted. I could not believe it. But I composed myself, and sat alongside my wife as she watched the swearingin ceremony on television. As soon as it concluded, I wrote to the Ministry of Urban Development asking to be allotted a smaller house in place of my 2 Jantar Mantar residence (which was a ministerial allocation), pointing out that I had ceased to be a ministerthis was something I had done in 1977, too. I then went off on a holiday with my family who had long suffered my neglect. All India Congress session chaired by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at New Delhi. (HT File Photo) Later I learnt that R.K. Dhawan, Indira Gandhis trusted private secretary of twentytwo years, had also been summarily dismissed. He was literally thrown out of 1 Safdarjung Road, and not even allowed to take his papers with him; rather, he was told that they would be bundled and sent to his residence. Another person who got axed was Ghani Khan Choudhury, my compatriot from West Bengal. In March 1985, Rajiv gave an interview to Sunday magazine: Q. When you formed your first government, after the elections, why were people like Pranab Mukherjee and Ghani Khan Chowdhury dropped? A. Well, we really wanted to give a bit of a new look, try and get things moving a bit. Q. But, seriously, why was Pranab Mukherjee dropped? I grant you the privilege of retaining only those you trust and can work with, but the dropping of a finance minister is clearly a serious matter. I cannot but ask this question. A: The Finance Ministry was not run tightly enough. I thought we needed a change. The Finance Minister has to be very tough. He cant be goody-goody. I dont think he (Mukherjee) was tough enough. Once the new government had settled in, I returned to Delhi. Though not in government and no longer the Leader of the House, I continued as an MP and an important Congress functionary. My role in Parliament was akin to that of an ordinary member of the party. I made no special effort to reach out to Rajiv or ask why I was dropped. The only time I met Rajiv between 1985 and 1988 was when I went to invite him for my daughters wedding. He did not come, but sent a cordial letter. My absence from the Cabinet resulted in a change in attitude towards me, even within the party. Read | Pranab, I know of the consequences: Indira on storming Golden Temple In March 1985, Rajiv appointed me President of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee. I saw the appointment as an opportunity, and focused on the immediate task of contesting the elections to the Calcutta Corporation, which were being held after a long gap, in May-June. I put up candidates for all 141 seats. However, the selection process was rife with factionalism. A senior Congress leader, Ashoke Sen, who was the sitting MP from Calcutta and was made a Cabinet Minister in Rajivs government, launched a bitter campaign against me. He accused me of supporting a group led by Subrata Mukherjee (now a member of the Trinamool Congress and a senior minister in West Bengal). But this allegation is not correct. In the process of selecting candidates I had consulted Ashoke Sen and all important leaders, including Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, Somen Mitra, Mamata Banerjee and Ajit Panja. Having been an MLA from two constituencies in Calcutta for several years, Subrata was well-acquainted with the Calcutta Corporation. He had been Minister of State in the state government when Siddhartha Shankar Ray had been the Chief Minister and had held the charge of Panchayati Raj and Local Bodies (197277). As the minister, he had virtually been the administrator of the Calcutta Corporation, since there was no elected body at that time. Therefore, he knew the Calcutta Corporation well. The intra-party squabbles saddened me but did not affect my work. In the Lok Sabha elections, held soon after the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, the Congress had done well, winning 16 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal, thanks to a sympathy wave. All 4 Lok Sabha seats from Calcutta, including Jadavpur, had been won by the Congress. It was, therefore, expected that the Congress would secure a majority in the Corporation elections. However, when the results were declared, the Congress lagged behind CPI(M) by 1 seat. While we had given a tough fight, we lost, albeit by a narrow margin. By that time, the Left Front government headed by Jyoti Basu had established firm control over West Bengal, having ruled the state for eight years from 1977. The Left Front got 70 seats out of 141, the Congress 69 and the BJP 2 seats. ln spite of the loss, the Congress has not performed as well in any Corporation election since then. It is now widely accepted that local body elections are fought on local issues and their results do not mirror those of assembly elections, even if they are held in quick succession. To be one seat behind the formidable Left Front was actually a creditable performance; besides, I had held the office of PCC President only for a few weeks and had hardly had any time to prepare. My opponents, however, saw the Corporation defeat as an opportunity, and started demanding my resignation. Ashoke Sen publicly called for a change of command in the state Congress. Taking moral responsibility for the defeat, I declared that I would tender my resignation from the presidency of the PCC. I was asked by the Congress President to continue till a new President was appointed. In September 1985, Rajiv Gandhi expanded and reshuffled his Cabinet. Ghani Khan Choudhury, who had been dropped from the Cabinet along with me on 31 December 1984, was brought back as Minister for Programme Implementation. But l was still not rehabilitated and, instead, was replaced by Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi as President of the West Bengal PCC. After the finalization of the Assam Accord by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (August 1985), elections were held to the assembly and the vacant Lok Sabha seats of Assam in December 1985. A by-election was simultaneously held to the Bolpur Lok Sabha seat (in my district) of West Bengal. Siddhartha Shankar Ray was put up as the Congress candidate against Somnath Chatterjee of the CPI(M), who had been unseated by Mamata Banerjee in the Lok Sabha elections of December 1984. While I was campaigning for Siddhartha Shankar Ray, I received an unexpected call from M.L. Fotedar who told me that my services were needed in Silchar in Assam for campaigning for the Congress in the assembly elections. I, therefore, moved to Silchar and continued to actively campaign for the Congress in the state. (Siddhartha Shankar Ray was eventually defeated by a huge margin of more than a lakh.) During this period, Kamalapati Tripathi, who was then Working President of the Congress, and Rajiv were at loggerheads. Though Tripathi had not been present at the meeting of the CPB at which P.V. Narasimha Rao and I elected Rajiv as the leader of the CPP, he had played an active role in the CPP meeting held after Mrs Gandhis funeral. Tripathi had presided over that meeting which unanimously elected Rajiv Gandhi as the leader of the Congress party in Parliament and fully endorsed the resolution of the CPB. Constitutionally, Rajiv as Prime Minister and leader of the CPP was entitled to preside over a CPP meeting. However, he let Kamalapati Tripathi preside. All through 1985, though, relations between Kamalapati Tripathi and Rajiv deteriorated. It was reported that Rajiv accused him of not doing much work. Tripathis response to that was, I have made Rajiv the Prime Minister of the country. Openly critical of some of Rajivs policies, Tripathi often wrote to him with his take on various issues relating to the party and the government. These letters were often leaked to the media and, at times, those close to Rajiv accused me of drafting some of them. Though Kamalapati Tripathi sometimes discussed the contents of those letters with meand, as was always the case, I gave him my frank viewsl certainly did not contribute to drafting the letters. The centenary session of the Congress (2729 December 1985) in Bombay (now Mumbai) was an important event. It was here that Rajiv made his famous speech targeting the socalled power brokers in the party. Millions of ordinary Congress workers throughout the country are full of enthusiasm for Congress policies and programmes. But they are handicapped, for on their backs ride the brokers of power and influence, who dispense patronage to convert a mass movement into a feudal oligarchy. They are selfperpetuating cliques who thrive by invoking the slogans of caste and religion and by enmeshing the living body of the Congress in their net of avarice. For such persons, the masses do not count. Their lifestyle, their thinkingor lack of ittheir self-aggrandizement, their corrupt ways, their linkages with the vested interests in society, and their sanctimonious posturing are wholly incompatible with work among the people. They are reducing the Congress organization to a shell from which the spirit of service and sacrifice has been emptied. The presidential address is normally approved by the CWC before it is finally delivered by the Congress President in the open session. As I was then a member of the CWC, I was aware of the contents of the speech and was therefore not surprised when it was delivered. Rajiv asked me to move the main centenary declaration at the session. I suggested that P.V. Narasimha Rao, whose Hindi was better than mine, move it and I second it. Rajiv agreed to this. P.V., who was fluent in a number of languages, moved the resolution in chaste Hindi. I began my speech seconding the resolution, but could not complete it. Contrary to the normal practice of announcing a lunch break only after the person seconding the resolution finished his speech, someone decided to announce the lunch break prematurely, forcing me to cut short my speech. A Cheerful Rajiv Gandhi explaining a point with Pranab Mukherjee beside him at the release of the Congress Manifesto in New Delhi. (HT File Photo) After being asked to move the main centenary declaration, to my utter shock and dismay, I was dropped from the CWC when it was reconstituted in January 1986. This was a blow which hurt even more than being dropped from the Cabinet. As a Congressman, I had always considered membership of the CWC as the highest recognition possible within the party. I had held that post uninterruptedly since 1978. I was also dropped from the CPB, the very body to which P.V. Narasimha Rao and I had recommended that Rajiv (as leader of the CPP) be invited by the President to form the government. However, this was to be anticipated, as the CPB is a sub-committee of the CWC. In 1986, I organized a series of programmes in West Bengal Congress in the Light of the Centenarywhich was well received by Congress workers. A dozen public meetings addressed by me in different districts of Bengal met with a huge response from Congress workers. But my rivals in the state party organization saw this as parallel activity and complained to Rajiv. My successor as the state PCC President wrote to me requesting me to stop these programmes. I immediately did so and announced in the press that all future programmes would now stand cancelled: As a disciplined Congressman, I obey the orders of the state Congress party and the programmes would not be held henceforth. Dasmunsi appreciated my action and publicly thanked me through the media. Nonetheless, my opponents within the Congress lost no opportunity to poison Rajivs mind against me. Read | Babri demolition one of Narasimha Raos biggest failures: Pranab Mukherjee In April 1986, Pritish Nandy, Editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India, requested me for an interview and I agreed. Little did I know that he was out to make mischief. The Illustrated Weekly carried a twelve-page story titled The Man Who Knew Too Much, which created a furore in political circles. The report implied that I knew something which would harm the party, the government and Rajiv. It claimed that I was waiting for an opportunity to use such information and that Rajivs power base was weakening. There was nothing objectionable in any of the responses I gave to Pritish Nandys questions, but the magazine talked about my popularity ratings improving in comparison to Rajivs, my growing power base, and so on. None of these observations were based on what I had said on record. The questions in the interview had been deliberately framed to compare Mrs Gandhis rule to Rajivs, and I could not but give honest responses. Some of my anguish at being dropped from the CWC and CPB and being treated as an outcast also came through. However, I had made it absolutely clear that there was no move to split the party, that there was no question of destroying a national institution like the Congress and that the party would survive all dissent. On 26 April 1986, I was at Kamalapati Tripathis residence when his daughter-in-law, Chandra, brought me the shocking news that I had been expelled from the party for six years. She had heard it as a newsflash. No one from the party leadership had bothered to inform me. Even so, I remained unruffled. In May 1986, I told Inderjit Badhwar of India Today: I have been a proud Congressman... Nobody can take my contribution away... To those who think I have no power base, I can only say that I will remain an activist. I believe in the Congress ideology, and in whatever way I can, I will propagate that. The news of my expulsion disturbed Kamalapati Tripathi, and he immediately wrote to Rajiv, lodging his strong protest. Vasantdada Patil, the former Chief Minister of Maharashtra and Governor of Rajasthan, also protested against my expulsion. Sadly, most of my colleagues in West Bengal did not utter a single word. In an interview on 31 May 1986, India Todays T.N. Ninan asked Rajiv Gandhi several questions, including the reasons guiding the action against me. TNN: What was your understanding of what the dissidents in the Congress (I) were up to? RG: I thought a few people were going beyond the limits of normal... what should I say... freedom of action within the democratic processes of the party, especially when elections in the party are due [,] so that all the feelings could be vented in the election process. So we took some action. TNN: What exactly did they do? Was it just the interview that Pranab Mukherjee gave to The Illustrated Weekly of India? RG: Well, a series of things. TNN: What specifically? RG: l have told them specifically. TNN: Did you think that interview went beyond the limits of party discipline? RG: Certain words in it, yes. And some other actions also. TNN: Why did you pick on Pranab Mukherjee? There were others who wrote you letters. RG: He didnt write me a letter. TNN: He said hes written to you on the Muslim Bill. RG: I havent got that letter. I dont know where it is... TNN: What is the basic problem with the dissidents? RG: Well, one basic problem is that party elections are coming and its going to expose all the paper tigers. We have not had elections for 13 years; so we have people whove lost their base, who dont have any standing. That will all get exposed. Now what weve got to do is to see that the elections are fair, because if its not fair then the pressures in the party will be much more, and instead of the elections letting off steam they will create much greater pressures... TNN: The question keeps coming up whether Pranab Mukherjee really did stake a claim to the prime ministership in October 1984. What is the truth? RG: I dont know. I was in the hospital. TNN: No, in the aeroplane from Calcutta. RG: We didnt really talk about it. I dont know what he talked with the others. I didnt discuss it with any of them. TNN: Did Pranab overestimate his real strength and therefore become a fall guy, because he is prominent and he doesnt really have a following? So if you pick on him you get the message across? RG: We picked the four or five people who we thought, were making... trying to destabilise the party... who were going beyond the limits of democratic freedom in the party. And we took action. There is no...sort...of...further motivation than that. I spent many sleepless nights wondering why I was dropped from the Cabinet and driven out of the party. I can only speculate. My personal equation with Rajiv was always good, though limited, before Mrs Gandhis assassination. Prior to his joining politics, we just exchanged pleasantries when we happened to run into each other. His reaction was sharper than that of Sanjay when Mrs Gandhi was arrested on 3 October 1977. After Sanjay Gandhis death, there was a Rajiv Lao campaign. While people like H.K.L. Bhagat and Buta Singh actively campaigned for his entry into politics, I took the position that he was most welcome but it was for him to decide. After being elected an MP from Amethi, he was made the AlCC General Secretary. The frequency of our meetings increased. We interacted on all major issues. I attended programmes he organized to interact with Congress workers and there was no animosity between us or a divergence of views. There was no cause for him to suspect or distrust me. I was, however, a very busy person in the early 1980s, handling several important and demanding portfolios, including Finance. Rajiv, on the other hand, had a group around him comprising people like Arun Nehru, Arun Singh and Vijay Dhar. Janardhan Poojary, my Deputy Minister in the Finance Ministry, used to tell me frequently that these individuals were plotting against me, but I didnt pay heed, assuming this was idle gossip. Then, there was the tussle between Swraj Paul and DCM/ Escorts, which I have already discussed in a previous chapter. Both Swraj Paul and H. P. Nanda have written in their memoirs about the role played by Rajiv during the controversy, and its final resolution. Rajiv discussed the matter with me several times, but at no point did he express any displeasure with my actions. After Rajiv assumed office, many foreign correspondents asked me whether he was an interim Prime Minister. l categorically replied that there was no provision for an interim government in our Constitution, and Rajiv Gandhi had been appointed as a regular Prime Minister by the President on the advice of the CPB and this decision had been subsequently ratified by the CPP. Perhaps I should have sensed Rajivs growing unhappiness and the hostility of those around him and taken preemptive action. However, I remained engrossed in my work, as is my usual way. Many of my actions, all without malice or ill-intent, were used by my detractors to project me as someone unwilling to accept Rajivs leadership. Petty things were blown up into huge issues. For example, an interview I gave on 31 October 1984-in which I stated that the economic policies of the government would be continuedwas interpreted as questioning the authority of the Prime Minister. While I had given the interview to quell any uncertainty about India in the international markets following the assassination of Mrs Gandhi, it was portrayed as presumptuous and unmindful of Rajivs authority. Similarly, when Rajiv Gandhi visited West Bengal to campaign for the 1984 elections, I was unable to accompany him because of important meetings in Delhi. I had invited some foreign guests in my capacity as Chairman of the G-24 developing countries group of finance ministers associated with the World Bank and IMF. I was accused of ignoring the Prime Minister and Congress President when he was campaigning in my home state. Read | Pranab Mukherjee recalls how Rajiv Gandhi became PM after Indiras death Another incident occurred during the meeting of the CPB to select Congress candidates for the general election of 1984. The nomination of the incumbent Lok Sabha members, Kamal Nath from Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh and Professor Nirmla Kumari Shaktawat from Chittorgarh, Rajasthan, was opposed by some people close to Rajiv, including Arun Nehru. I strongly protested and insisted on their nomination. The vehemence of my protest perhaps displeased Rajiv, who repeatedly said, Reserve it for the consideration of the President--meaning himself. Clearly, Rajiv did not like my proximity to Kamalapati Tripathi. Media reports speculating about dissident activities may also have angered him. To return to the question of why he dropped me from the Cabinet and expelled me from the party, all I can say is that he made mistakes and so did I. He let others influence him and listened to their calumnies against me. I let my frustration overtake my patience. Overall, the difference in age between Rajiv and I was only nine years. When I was dropped from the Cabinet, I was not even fifty years old. But we were clearly of very different backgrounds and temperaments. Rajiv was a reluctant politician. He was forced by circumstances to become Prime Minister at the age of forty. He was ahead of his times. He wanted rapid change and saw the old guard in the Congress as an obstacle to his vision. He was forward-looking, tech-savvy and welcomed foreign investment in India as well as an enlargement of the market economy. In contrast, I was a conservative, conventional political leader who favoured the public sector, a regulated economy and wanted foreign investment only from NRls. Sumit Mitra of India Today perhaps best described why Rajiv did what he did: The loyalists thought him to be a bridge between the old and the new. But the newcomers did not quite trust him. Cautious and suave, Mukherjee is too much of a bhadralok to have posed any real threat to Rajiv, or even to drop a hint ever that he would indeed like to be in the race. He was a symbol of a past that Rajiv wished to get away from. As the order of the round-table ended, he had to slip out of the limelight. Read | Exclusive stories from President Pranab Mukherjees memoirs Over the past three decades, late Sanjay Gandhi has been a subject of intense criticism for his role during the Emergency. President Pranab Mukherjee, in the second part of his memoir, heaps praise on the Congress leader and calls him the principal architect, along with his mother, of the Congress victory in 1980 general elections. Excerpt: Sanjay Gandhi had played a crucial role in the elections. He had planned as well as executed a nationwide campaign and he worked hard to ensure the success of the party in the assembly elections. He revamped the organizational machinery in the states and, post the elections, hand-picked new chief ministers --- ensuring that those who had stood by Mrs Gandhi during her days of crisis were suitably rewarded. **** After Sanjays death, Indiraji asked Maneka to sit by her side atop the truck carrying Sanjays body from the hospital to 1, Akbar Road --- a gesture that led some to think that Indiraji was projecting Maneka as the rightful successor to Sanjay. But she put such speculation to rest when, in the wee hours of the morning of the 24th (June 1980), she welcomed Rajiv Gandhi, returning from Italy, with the words, Now you alone have been left for me. When asked whether he would take on Sanjays mantle and enter politics, he replied, I am not a political man. Later, seventy members of the Congress party signed a proposal urging Rajiv to join politics and took the request to Indiraji. Indiraji left the decision to Rajiv, who said, If my mother gets help from it, I will enter politics. **** In much of post-Emergency literature, Sanjay Gandhi has been characterised as a villain, devoid of any good qualities. This animosity and venom against him was to a large extent the result of the euphoria surrounding the Janata Partys creation, a wave of anti-Mrs Gandhi sentiment and the division in the Congress. Every human being is a mixture of good and bad. However, no one can fault the intentions guiding Sanjays decisions --- whether these pertained to population control, tackling illiteracy or afforestation. His ideas were good, and all targeted at bringing about positive change. And, as someone who knew him well and worked with him for six years of his political life, I was privy to many of his positive virtues. **** While Indiraji may have planned the strategy leading to the downfall of the Janata government, it was Sanjay who executed it. It is to his credit that none of his followers deserted him in the post-Emergency period, unlike many of Indirajis supporters. The Supreme Court on Thursday recalled its December 2015 verdict appointing retired Allahabad high court judge justice Virendra Singh as the Lokayukta of Uttar Pradesh and appointed former HC judge Sanjay Misra as the new ombudsman. A bench headed by justice Ranjan Gogoi regretted that the constitutional authorities in the state - the chief minister and high court chief justice - were unable to arrive at a consensus. The order came on a petition asking it to recall its December 16, 2015, order on the ground the state government had failed to apprise the bench about the CJs objection to justice Singhs name. The apex court agreed with the petitioners contention but expressed disappointment that the reservations were not placed before it prior to the bench appointing justice Singh. Its unfortunate that functionaries like the CM and chief justice of the HC were unable to arrive at a name for the post of Lokayukta, the bench said. Law prescribes that a collegium, comprising the chief minister, the state high court chief justice and the Leader of Opposition, has to take a unanimous decision to appoint a Lokayukta. But the three failed to arrive at a consensus for 20 months prompting the SC to invoke its special powers to appoint Justice Singh. On January 20, when the SC reserved its verdict on the plea to remove justice Singh, the bench had categorically said it would not let the collegium select a new Lokayukta in case it decided to recall its order. For 20 months you failed to arrive at a consensus over a name for the post. The order (of December 16, 2015, appointing Justice Singh) was delivered under very painful and distressing circumstances. We are not sending it back (to the constitutional authorities) even if we recall our order. We shall do whatever is appropriate and appoint someone, it had told the counsel representing various parties including the CJ. Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and chief justice DY Chandrachud were not on the same page regarding the new Lokayukta. The delay in finalising a name prompted the top court to pass an order. Later, allegations surfaced that the state government had not informed the apex court that the chief justice had not approved Justice Singhs appointment, citing lack of integrity. The SC had in its last hearing agreed with the contention of justice Chandrachud that it was misled by the state government. But the state government contested justice Chandrachuds opinion before the apex court, saying the name was not withdrawn at all. It accused the chief justice and the state governor of unnecessarily trying to block the appointment. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The man, who shot dead a Class 6 boy for denying him passage on a Kanpur street on January 19 last, is a drug addict and was jittery for not being able to get his dose of smack on the fateful night. Shah Alam killed Heera after he refused passage to him on Tuesday night. Alam was produced in court on Wednesday. In his confession to the police, Chakeri resident Shah Alam, who was arrested on Wednesday, said he was wandering around looking for drug peddlers when he stumbled upon Heera, 14, fixing his cycle. Alam got infuriated when Heera refused to make way for him and instead told him that there was enough space there already for him to pass. At this, he took out his pistol and shot him five times and fled from TT Park in Barra area of Kanpur. Alam was arrested in Akbarpur, Kanpur Dehat where he was in hiding since the day of killing. Police said that he was arrested after one of his friends, with whom he had confided, shared the information with them. Alam has confessed to the crime; we have recovered his pistol that he buried near his house in Sanigawan area, said Vishal Pandey, circle officer, Govind Nagar. His motorcycle too has also been recovered, he said. Heeras death had sent shockwaves across the city on January 19 when he was found brutally murdered near TT Park gate. His bicycle was lying close by. Since the place was desolated, the police were clueless about as to who could commit such a ghastly crime. On Tuesday, the Akbarpur police infor med the Barra police about Alam putting up at a relatives place. Hed been taken into custody, the Barra police were told. For more about my academic work, please see my website I'm Rebecca Farnum, an American studying in the United Kingdom. This blog is so titled because "Bex" is a common nickname for Rebecca in Britain. Ashu baba aayenge... this song has been an integral part of the monthly gathering ( bhandara) of the Nur mahal-based Divya Jyoti Jagriti Sansthan (DJJS). However, in the past two years, sect preachers have been using the song to make followers believe that their clinically dead head, Ashutosh Maharaj, would come out of deep freeze for the welfare of humanity. Ashutoshs dera has 36 centres in Punjab and presence across the globe. Its properties are valued at over 1,000 crore. Whats the need to invite unnecessary trouble by intervening in this sect matter? A govt should intervene when there is a law and order problem. If the followers want to keep the body, how does it matter to the state? In the wee hours of January 29, 2014, senior political leaders of Punjab had started getting calls from the sansthan, informing them that its spiritual head and founder had died of cardiac arrest. A few hours earlier, on the intervening night of January 28 and 29, an ambulance had been called from Ludhiana-based Satguru Partap Singh Apollo Hospital after Ashutosh complained of chest congestion. Following an examination, a team of doctors declared him dead. However, the arrival of four Delhi-based DJJS leaders turned things on its head. The dera started claiming that Ashutosh was in samadhi (state of deep meditation) and he would come out of it very soon. Two years on, dera managers continue to assure Ashutoshs disciples that he will be back. The devotees themselves look forward to this second coming as Ashutosh had told them: My soul will disappear and return after completing a few important tasks of mankind. NO ACCESS TO PUBLIC After being declared dead, Ashutosh was shifted to a mortuary chamber hired from the local Bhootnath temple. Later, on the insistence of DJJS leaders, his body was kept in a freezer under a controlled temperature. However, sources in the dera claimed that in September last year, the body was shifted to a 12x15 ft glass room in the special enclosure where the sect head used to reside. The room is guarded 24x7 by DJJS security guards. Only the sects top brass has access to the body. In January 2015, when the Punjab and Haryana high court had told the state government to give a status report on the body, officers of Jalandhar district were not initially allowed to see it. However, when the district administration took a tough stand, a one-time access to the body was granted. An officer who saw the body in January last year told HT, The body has turned completely black and shrunk to a great extent. It has been kept under observation of the sansthan doctors who inspect it on alternate days. A special chemical is used to ensure its preservation. SUCCESSION ROW The DJJS succession row, termed as the main reason behind the sect not admitting to Ashutoshs death in the absence of a worthy successor has not yet been settled. The dera is now being governed by DJJS leaders from Delhi. Local leaders, including Swami Arvindan and, who hails from nearby Bilga village, have been sidelined. However, dera officials say that the DJJS is already being governed by a Delhi-based registered trust and all its properties belong to the trust. The case has witnessed several twists and turns, with Puran Singh, former driver of the DJJS head, and Bihar native Dalip Jha, who claims to be Ashutoshs son, filing petitions in the Punjab and Haryana high court, seeking permission to perform his last rites and demanding a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into his death. On November 30, 2014, a high court bench led by justice SK Mittal (now transferred as chief justice of the Rajasthan high court) had told the state government to make efforts to settle the issue amicably. The court had directed the DJJS to come up with a proposal to make a temple/shrine (samaad) in Ashutoshs name and consider performing the last rites. On December 1, 2014, the single-judge bench told the state government to perform the last rites within 15 days. However, the division bench later stayed the order. The next date of hearing in the case is February 24, 2016. The state government has preferred to keep itself at a safe distance, calling a religious matter. A government should intervene when there is a law and order problem. If the followers want to keep the body, how does it matter to the state? said a senior government functionary. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Students of a private medical college in Tamil Nadus Villupuram, where three women committed suicide accusing its administration of charging excess fees and torture, said on Thursday all the allegations levelled against the institute are true. They say facilities at the SVS Naturopathy and Yoga College are far from adequate and they are treated shabbily inside the classrooms and in the hostels. Many of them are now seeking transfer from SVS Naturopathy and Yoga College to other government colleges. On Thursday, the vice-chancellor of the MGR Medical University met a delegation of students and assured them that the matter would be looked into, discussed at the highest level and a decision will be taken whether the students could be transferred to government colleges. The three students T Monisha, E Saranya and V Priyanka had committed suicide by drowning themselves in a well near their college last Saturday. Their bodies were found by local residents. A note from the three women had alleged that the administration of SVS Naturopathy and Yoga College had been charging exorbitant fees from them. Officials of the institute were also accused of discriminating against some students because they had gained admission through merit, and were therefore exempt from paying substantial sums of money as fees. The students and parents say they have lodged formal complaints with the district collector against the college, but no action has been taken they allege. It is only after the three women committed suicide that the issue was highlighted in national media and forced the university into listening to their grievances. Dont talk to seniors Many students who have come to Chennai to meet the vice-chancellor said that it was only after interacting with their seniors for the first time since joining the college that they came to know about other shocking stories. I joined the college as I was allotted the college after counselling and had no choice. Besides, I knew nothing about the college and it is only after joining that one realised what I was in for, A Saranya, a first-year student of Diploma in Homeopathic Medical System, told HT on Thursday. She said that it is only now that they have come to know the truth about the institution and how students are threatened into silence to help the college cover up its deficiencies. We are not asked not to speak or mingle with senior students. If we did we could be punished and there is always a threat of getting thrown out of the college. Someone always kept an eye on us to ensure that we did not dare disobey them. In the college bus too, the girls were made to sit in the front and the boys at the back and each lot was dropped at their hostels, Saranya said as her classmates nodded in agreement. They also alleged that you will be thrown out is the main threat that is often used by the authorities. Since the beginning of this academic session, we have had only three classes in one stretch and classes for another three weeks. Only one teacher used to come to the class, read out something from the book and then ask us to do it ourselves, she said. She alleged the condition in the hostels was equally bad where 40 students were asked to share food meant just for 20 and there was no scope for any arguments as they were cooped up in a small apartment. Cover-ups Indumathi, one of their seniors and a second-year student, alleged that she doubled up as a nurse in the college hospital when any team came for an inspection. I used to be the nurse and another senior of mine a doctor, and others were rounded up as patients, she said adding that the college management played one trick after another to portray an impression to the outsiders that all was well. It is a 6X6 room, generally used as a storeroom for waste, cleaned up a little and made to function as a medical room, S Kumar, another second-year student, said. At times, even outsiders are hired for as little as Rs 100 or Rs 200 per day to act as doctors, nurses and patients, he added. Overcharging, he said, was a fact and absence of facilities and teaching faculty is ruining the future of students. There is no lab. In a medical college, if there is no lab you can understand the situation, another student piped in. Although the college began functioning in 2008, not a single student has passed out and become a doctor, many students alleged saying most are forced to drop out somewhere along the course. Liaquat Ali, father of Afsan, a first year student, had paid for the management seat more than three times the prescribed fees and rues the decision. We did not know anything about the college other than the fact that our child would become a doctor, Ali said. I have receipts for Rs 89,000. But they gave me no receipt for nearly Rs 1 lakh. There are others who have paid as much as Rs 4 lakh, he alleged. Blame game Damning revelations from students and indifference of the state government to act against the college despite a spate of complaints have sparked off an intense blame game among political parties. The DMDK accused Pattali Makkal Katchi leader and chief ministerial candidate Anbumani Ramadoss for permitting the college as it was during his tenure as the Union health minister that it started functioning. Ramadoss hit back saying it was the DMK, which then was the ruling party, for giving a clearance to the college as the state government had issued an essentiality certificate following which the Centre processed the same. The college has been sealed and police have registered a case of suicide and are investigating the matter. They have arrested four people, including its chairperson Vasuki Subramanian. Brushing aside police assertions that the case was being investigated impartially and properly, the Madras high court ordered a second autopsy to be conducted on the body of Monisha, one of three students who committed suicide, after her father moved the court seeking fresh autopsy in Chennai saying did not trust the local Villupuram authorities. Other students and their parents too debunk the suicide theory and want fair investigations into the case. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A Kolkata sessions court on Thursday found six of the eight accused men guilty of gangraping and murdering a 20-year-old women at Kamduni village in West Bengals North 24 Parganas district in 2013. While three men could face capital punishment as they were found guilty on both counts, three others were found guilty of gangrape and other charges and two were acquitted. Bankshall court judge Sanchita Sarkar pronounced the verdict in the case where nine men were named in the charge sheet and one died during the trial. While Ansar Ali Mollah, Saiful Ali, Amin Ali were found guilty of sections 302 and 376(d) and may face the death penalty, Bhola Naskar, Imanul Islam and Aminur Islam will face a minimum of rigorous imprisonment for at least 20 years. Rafikul Islam Gazi and Noor Alam were acquitted. The quantum of punishment will be announced on Friday. The woman, a second-year college student, was abducted, gangraped and brutally murdered by the nine men on June 7, 2013, while returning home from college at Kamduni. The men had tore apart her legs up to the navel and slit her throat before dumping her body in a fish pond. Kamduni villagers, infuriated with the brutality, caught hold of one of the key accused, Ansar Ali, and handed him over to the police. Eight more men were arrested by the police subsequently. The ghastly rape and murder triggered an explosion of protest in Kamduni as villagers burst into agitation against the police and the ruling party. In a bid to pacify the protesters, chief minister Mamata Banerjee had announced that the police would file the charge-sheet within 15 days and the perpetrators would be punished within a month. But the ruling Trinamool Congress and the police were at the receiving end of the villagers wrath right from the beginning. The chief minister had dubbed the protesters as Maoists during her first visit to the village 10 days after the brutal rape and murder enraging its people further. The Kamduni Protibadi Mancha was formed soon and its members traveled across south Bengal demanding change in government attitude and increased safety for women. The police filed the charge sheet seven days after the deadline and the accused persons were charged under sections 376A (causing injury during the course of rape that leads to death), 376D (gang-rape), 302 (murder), 201 (tampering with evidence) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC. Sections 376A and 302 have provisions for death sentence. The chargesheet was filed on June 29 but in the wake of mass protests outside the Barasat sub-divisional court, where the accused were being tried, and alleged life threats on the accused and their lawyers, the case was shifted to the city sessions court in Kolkata. On Thursday, the government lawyer pleaded for the maximum punishment of death. Hundreds of students, activists and villagers of Kamduni had gathered at the court premises and demanded that the culprits be awarded capital punishment. We had to face severe pressure from the ruling party. They also tried to buy us off. Finally, we are happy that justice has been delivered, said Tumpa Koyal, a friend of the victim and one of the faces of the protests that followed the 2013 brutality. All of them should have be awarded capital punishment, said Mousumi Koyal, another prominent protester and a homemaker. The shadow of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks fell on the India-Pakistan peace process on Thursday even as the neighbours are yet to find a mutually convenient date to hold foreign secretary-level talks postponed after the Pathankot airbase attack this month. We see the Mumbai terror attack trial in Islamabad as a test of Pakistans sincerity in combating terrorism directed against India. The planning, training and financing of the Mumbai terrorist attack was done in Pakistan where 99% of the evidence is, external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said. Swarup was reacting to reports about the Islamabad high court turning down a request for getting voice samples of seven suspects charged with the 26/11 attacks on account of the prosecutors not pursuing the matter. Though the spokesperson qualified his statement by saying the government did not receive any word on this through the official channel, the court order is seen as a setback. Read: Balloon shot down over Barmer came from Pakistan: Govt source The Mumbai terror attacks launched by Pakistan-based terrorists that killed 166 people had brought ties between the nuclear-armed neighbours to a new low in 2008. The Pathankot attack has been blamed on the Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed and India welcomed the initial first steps the neighbour took on its leads in hunting down the attackers. It is Pakistans responsibility to unearth and present the requisite evidence in the ongoing trial so that the perpetrators are brought to justice, the spokesperson said about the Mumbai attacks case. The Pakistani government had filed an application in the Islamabad high court seeking voice samples of the suspects to compare with the communications intercepted by Indian intelligence agencies and present those before the anti-terrorism court as evidence. But the court dismissed the petition. As of now, we dont have a mutually convenient date, Swarup said when asked about the status of the foreign secretary-level talks. It is not incorrect to say that foreign secretary-level talks will happen in the first fortnight of February. I see no reason why talks should be discontinued despite the Pathankot attack, Pakistans high commissioner to India Abdul Basit told a television channel. On the progress of the probe by Pakistan in the Pathankot terror strike, Swarup spokesperson said the two governments were in continuous communication regarding the matter but refused to give any further details. India will also raise with Pakistan the issue of a balloon coming from there that was shot down by an Indian Air Force fighter over Rajasthan. The defence ministry has written to the MEA and we will raise it (the issue) with Pakistan, Swarup said. A US-made helium-filled balloon was shot down by a Sukhoi-30 fighter aircraft over Rajasthan on January 26 with top government sources maintaining that it had come from Pakistan and could have been an attempt to gauge Indias response time. While a state-level function will be held in Dhudike village in Moga to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of its son, the legendary freedom fighter Lala Lajpat Rai on Thursday, Jalandhar too has reasons to remember the martyr. Punjab Kesari Lala Lajpat Rai has a Jalandhar connect. The Sher-e-Punjab established a Tuberculosis hospital in memory of his mother in Lahore in 1927 and named it Gulab Devi hospital. He formed a trust which had seven members. After partition, the trustees moved to Jalandhar and built the Gulab Devi hospital over 33 acres. The hospital was once the only hospital in the north which would be preferred by everyone. It would have as many as 271 beds at the time. According to an elder working in the hospital, The Lala Lajpat Rai trustees when moved to India after partition had selected Jalandhar as an appropriate place to set up the hospital. However unfortunately, the hospital has lost its glory over the years. Founder of Dayanand Anglo Vedic (DAV) institute Lala Lajpat Rai who is also known as Punjab Kesari made a great contribution in the field of education. His famous quote: Milk for the infants; Food for the adults; Education for all. Rai along with Mahatma Hansraj and Gurudutt Vidyarthi was the founder of Dayanand Anglo Vedic (DAV) institute in 1886 under which several educational institutes are run across the country. DAV College and Dayanand Model School (DMS) are the oldest educational institutes in Jalandhar. Principal of DAV College BB Sharma said the great freedom fighter had played a crucial role in the DAV andolan. Assistant professor of history in DAV College, Rajkumar who is pursuing PhD on the life of Lala Lajpat Rai said, The lion of Punjab was the man behind the start of the DAV institute in 1886 along with Mahatma Hansraj and Gurudutt Vidyarthi. He also said that Servant of the People Society, started by Rai, continues to be active and has 13 centers across the country. Jalandhar visit Rai came to Jalandhar on December 26, 1913 and laid a foundation stone of hostel of Saidass Anglo Sanskriti High School and named it Brahmchari Ashram. Hundreds of students stayed in the ashram. Secretary of Lala Lajpat Rai trust Jalandhar Rajesh Pasricha said he would often visit Jalandhar to listen to Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati. The UT police on Thursday nabbed six persons, including three juveniles, who allegedly broke a Punjab and Sind Bank ATM in a bid to loot, near the Sector 23-24 light point in the wee hours of Thursday. The accused have been identified as Rahul Kumar (22), a resident of Maloya, Lakhwinder (23), a resident of Palsora, and Jatinder Kumar (21), a resident of Sector 54. The police have also recovered a three-wheeler from their possession. The police said the incident took place at 1am on Wednesday night when they had come by the auto and entered the ATM. The police said a cyclist, who had informed the cops, had seen them breaking the ATM machine with help of bricks and stones. The police said they had asked the bank to provide CCTV camera footage of the ATM to cross-verify their identity. The police registered a case under Section of 398 of the IPC at the Sector 39 police station. All accused have been sent to judicial custody. Punjab Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh answered a wide range of questions while interacting with the media at Chandigarh on Wednesday. On arresting Badal If I come to power, I will not arrest chief minister Parkash Singh Badal again on corruption charges. About the case against the Badals falling flat, what can I say, you know our legal system well. I dont intend to move the Supreme Court or re-open the cases. On delay in announcing boycott decision I am not like CM Badal who can take a decision sitting at home. Ours is a national party and I have to put up my recommendations before the party high command for approval. On Aam Aadmi Party In war, no enemy should be underestimated. But I dont think the AAP is as big as people are making it out to be. If Lok Sabha elections are held today, all its four MPs will lose. I am not taking the AAP lightly but I am not taking it seriously either. TV channels are showing that the common man in Delhi is not happy with the AAP. Their graph will only go down further. On Prashant Kishor We want to rope in Prashant Kishor for Punjab polls as he has a reputation of winning elections. But the final decision has to be taken by the party high command as UP also goes to polls along with Punjab. I disagree with his statement, wherein he said he worked for Modi, not the BJP, and for Nitish, not the JDU. I cannot be divorced from the Congress and we go hand-in-hand. On Jagmeet Brar He is not the PPCC. Our decision has the stamp of the high command. Brar likes to plough a lonely furrow and let him do so. Yechurys no to grand alliance I have read that CPM leader Staram Yechury has advocated not forging an alliance with us in Punjab. But in politics, a week is a long time. The BSPs decision will depend on whether we go with or against it in Uttar Pradesh. Wont ask Congress cadre, voters to boycott voting We will not ask anyone to boycott voting. But the polling percentage is expected to come down. No chairmen posts for MLAs If voted to power, we will not appoint MLAs as chairmen of trusts, boards and corporations. These posts will go to other party leaders. Missing aggression When I used to say Akalis te daang chukanga (beat Akalis with sticks) said talk agenda. Now when I am talking positive agenda, you say daang chako (pick up the stick). Please make up your mind as to what you want. No chairmen posts for MLAs If voted to power, we will not appoint MLAs as chairmen of trusts, boards and corporations. These posts will go to other party leaders. Missing aggression When I used to say Akalia te daang chakunga (beat Akalis with sticks), you (media) said talk agenda. Now when I am talking positive agenda, you say daang chako (pick up the stick). Please make up your mind as to what you want. Dip in mercury, dense fog and long working hours have turned fatal for the Police Control Room (PCR) motorcycle crew. In the last five days, when the mercury was its lowest level at night, two of the PCR cops died due to cardiac arrest, while two PCR cops have met with road mishaps and suffered severe injuries. Additonal deputy commissioner of police (ADCP) headquarters Dharuv Dahiya has called on officials of PCR squad and discussed the matter with them to sort out the issue. The officials in the PCR wing said that though the officers had been showing concern over the issue, but there were thin chances in redressing the things, as the police department had been facing acute staff crunch. If the officers wanted to streamline the squad, minimum 210 more employees were needed. It is pertinent to mention here that a cop head constable Surjit Kumar had died of cardiac arrest at the wee hours of January 25, while performing his duty, day after death of his colleague head constable Husan Lal that was also collapsed while performing his duty. Husan Lal also suffered cardiac arrest, and was rushed to hospital. Husan Lal had history of heart problem. PCR cops said the mercury used to dip at zero degree at midnight. Due to Pathankot terrorist attack and sighting of suspects in Ludhiana they were pressed in patrolling duty those days, the acute chilling weather had added to their problems. Due to dense fog these days, two of the cops have also met road mishaps. According to department officials 105 PCR motorcycles are patrolling the city 24X7. When the PCR squad had started, they used to work in 8 hours shift, but, due to staff crunch they were forced to work for 12 hours. ADCP Dharuv Dahiya said that the department would make sure that the PCR cops have adequate woolens and wood at halting points of PCR so cops could warm themselves. The department would also take up health issues of cops. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON At the show of strength of Congress youth wing National Students Union of India (NSUI) on Thursday at Panjab University here, Punjab Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh had to face some tough questions from youth, and to his credit, he did not duck any. The interaction was part of Jago Punjab campaign of the Congress to reach out to youth before the 2017 state elections and know their aspirations. Most questions were targeted at the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) government in Punjab but some were shot direct at Amarinder, ranging from his coterie to the boycott of the Khadoor Sahib by-election. Will you also boycott the 2017 assembly elections if the case of desecration of Guru Granth Sahib remains unresolved? someone asked him. Quick to reply, Amarinder said: The sacrilege case has been handed over to the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation), which will give its report in about 10 years. Tab tak te Parkash Singh Badal ne vi nahi rehna (by then even the CM may not be alive). He added that the 2017 elections would be fought on agenda of dethroning the Akalis, whom the Congress would try its best to dislodge. One of the students asked Amarinder how would he run the government if he came to power in 2017. By yourself or as earlier with the help of a coterie that includes controversial people such as Bharat Inder Singh Chahal? Captain fielded this one, too, saying a chief minister could not do everything alone and even he needed team support. Everyone has some or the other controversy; but in our next term, we will have the right people to assist the CM and ensure that he gets the best possible advice, said Amarinder. Another student wanted to know why the Congress couldnt gherao Badal familys buses like Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) president Simranjit Singh Mann had done. Amarinder replied: They (Badals) are operating on illegal routes. (If we came to power) We will distribute these permits among the unemployed youth and also provide them with loans to buy buses. A girl from the University Institute of Chemical Engineering and Technology (UICET) asked Amarinder if his prospective government would provide jobs to youth, something every government promised. Captain said at least one member of each family should get a job, for which, his potential government would attract industry to the state and improve the quality of education from the primary level. It is Punjabs misfortune that 80% of our children educated in government schools fail to get jobs later on, he added. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on Thursday told the Punjab and Haryana high court that he had no interest or concern with the cable business in Punjab. His response came on a petition filed by the cable operators from Bathinda, Faridkot, Ferozepur, Moga and Sangrur, who had alleged harassment by authorities and sought a CBI probe into the operation of cable business in the state. It is denied that respondent no 10 company (Fastway) belongs to the answering respondent (Sukhbir) and that the same is run through his frontman respondent no 12 (Gurdeep Singh). It is emphasised that answering respondent has no concern and interest in the said cable business in any manner, Sukhbir told the court, further denying his role in the FIRs being registered against the cable operators. The petitioners had approached the high court, alleging that by misusing the police and political power, they were being implicated in false FIRs and being pressed by Fastway officials and workers to withdraw a case filed by them over cable operation dispute before the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), New Delhi. The TDSAT had ordered in operators favour and stayed the instructions by Fastway. When the petitioners refused to withdraw the case, Fastway had started getting false cases registered against them, they alleged. It was further alleged that the company belonged to Sukhbir Badal and Gurdeep Singh was a mere frontman for him and due to political pressure, the authorities were not hearing the grievances of the operators. Following this, the high court had sought response from Sukhbir and Gurdeep among others. The matter has been posted for further hearing on March 16. Meanwhile, an application was filed by the petitioners, wherein it was alleged that Fastway had been registered with the ministry of information and broadcasting for operating as multi system operator (MSO) in digital addressable system in the cities of Ludhiana and Amritsar only, but it was operating as MSO in the entire state. He is not a man known to keep his secrets. But Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh kept even his loyalists guessing when it came to boycotting the Khadoor Sahib bypoll. Till Tuesday morning, MLA Rana Gurjit Singh, political mentor of party candidate Ramanjit Sikki, who was to accompany him for filing the nomination papers, could only guess as several others if a boycott was in the offing. Before Amarinder let the cat out of the bag on Wednesday, he had tested the waters by leaking news of the possibility of a boycott before a few in media and Congress circles. He had tried to know the mind of senior leaders such as campaign committee chairperson Ambika Soni and his predecessor Partap Bajwa on the same day as announcement of the bypoll at the latters luncheon at his native Qadian on January 12. Talking to HT on the sidelines of the meet-the-press programme here, Amarinder said it was as early as January 16-17 that he had sent his inputs to the party high command that they should boycott the bypoll. Downplaying reports that the advice came from Prashant Kishor, the poll-winning strategist of PM Narendra Modi and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar who Amarinder wants to rope in to manage the Punjab polls, he said, We got Prashants inputs much later. We had sent our views before he sent his to us. Sikkis sentiments against contesting the bypoll, which Amarinder cited as the main reason for opting out, came only days later as Amarinder stated January 21 as the date of Sikkis letter to him. Read: Captain announces Cong boycott of Khadoor Sahib byelection The following are the reasons why Amarinder chose to give the bypoll a miss: Fear of govt might With their prestige at stake and their political graph only moving downwards after sacrilege incidents, Amarinder feared the ruling Badals would unleash the entire state force to win Khadoor Sahib through lure and intimidation. He often says bypolls are not a barometer of popularity of a political party but the might of the government. Sikkis reluctance The reluctance of Sikki to recontest a seat he resigned from on a highly emotive issue with no headway in investigations into them gave Amarinder a protagonist for the boycott script. As had been questioned by his detractors within and outside his party, Sikki would have to justify not only why he was re-contesting but also why he forced a bypoll on the people in the first place. The Congress needed to find answers to both before it could hit the campaign trail. An emotional and devout Sikh, Sikki was clear his reasons for resignation remained unaddressed. Panthic card The party decided to use Sikkis resignation and reluctance to contest to its advantage by playing the religion card. Amarinder, who had earlier resigned from the Congress at the Centre in 1984 over Operation Bluestar and later from the Surjit Singh Barnala government in Punjab in 1986 after yet another commando entry into the Golden Temple to arrest radicals demanding Khalistan, has struck a more-Panthic-than thou pitch to steal the thunder of Akalis and AAP, the party which is also eying the Panthic votes. Wary of defeat Among reasons that could make the difference between contesting and not contesting, fear of defeat weighed the most. A bypoll defeat could seriously dent the partys image for the big contest in 2017. It would also have emboldened the dissenting voices against Amarinder within the party. Though Amarinder said it was a consensus decision taken keeping senior state Congress leaders in the loop, that they were not consulted is evident from the silence of Ambika Soni, Partap Bajwa, former Congress Legislature Party leader Sunil Jakhar and PCC senior vice-president Lal Singh and the eagerness of those like former CM Rajinder Kaur Bhattal and CLP leader Charanjit Channi in endorsing it. If AAP can, so can we Senior Congress leaders say it is for the first time that the party is shying away from a contest in Punjab. But Amarinder found a precedent in the AAP, which has clearly set its eyes on 2017 and is not ready to waste time, money and resources on a bypoll that usually swings the ruling partys way. So the logic: if the AAP can, so can the Congress. And though he says the AAP is not a serious threat, the message behind the Maghi mela rallies of Aam Aadmi Party, Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal is clearthe AAP is a serious challenger and the Congress can no longer rely on riding the anti-incumbency wave in a revolving-door poll history. Read: Cong opted out of contest fearing defeat: SAD Read: With Congress opting out, it is SAD vs independents SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON After more than three decades of the terrorist bombing of Air India Kanishka Flight 182, the widow of its first officer killed along with all 329 on board is hurt that the only man convicted of the crime now walks free but the victims never got justice. Amarjit Kaur Bhinder still chokes as she recalls the moments she learnt that the flight had crashed over the coast of Ireland with her husband, Captain SS Bhinder, in the cockpit. I am finished I replied to the phone call from London. Being a pilots wife, I knew no one could survive a mid-air crash, she tells HT. Asked after the release of lone convict Inderjit Singh Reyat if she thinks justice was done, she replies: No justice was done. It will never be done. It was Sunday on June 23, 1985. I was in Bombay (now Mumbai), as Air India used to have just one base to operate the specific aircraft. I got a call from Punjabi film actor Veerendra, who had got to know about the crash from another Punjabi actor in London. He enquired about my husband. I told him he was landing in London. He asked me whether I was sure he was on that Air India flight. I asked him what had happened... and he told me there had been a crash, she recalls in a stifled voice. Reyat served 15 years for the Kanishka bombing and nine more for perjury (lying repeatedly during the course of the trial, which led to the release of two other accused, Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri). He was also convicted of the murder of two baggage handlers at Tokyos Narita International Airport in an almost synchronised explosion. If the law of the land permits his release, I do not have any problem. He has hidden the identity of the other culprits, says Amarjit Kaur. When Malik and Bagri were tried in 2004, we went to attend the proceedings on the invitation of the Canadian government. But nothing came out of that, says Amarjit Kaur. She had also requested former prime minister Manmohan Singh for a memorial in Delhi dedicated to the crash victims. Nothing happened. After 30 years, I have stopped asking for anything, she adds. Amarjit Kaur was in her 30s when the crash took place. She had a son and a daughter to look after. Just a month before the crash, the family had been to Washington on sojourn. Her life changed forever but she went on with the task of bringing up her children. She says the crash did not deter her son from following his dream of becoming a pilot, and though persuaded not to go for it, even her daughter, later, married a pilot. Both children loved a pilots life. My son (Captain Asham Singh Bhinder) wanted to fly since he was 3. When I couldnt persuade him to choose some other career, I supported him, she says. Capt Bhinder had retired from the Indian Air Force as squadron leader and joined Air India in October 1977. After the crash, Amarjit Kaur got a job at the Air India office in Sector 17, Chandigarh, and she moved to Malaysia, later, as the carriers country manager. A lot of years have passed. Our loss is our alone. Nothing can compensate us, she says. She has her husbands image as display picture on WhatsApp, along with the status Kuchh door aur to chalte saath mere (wish you could go a little further with me on this journey). SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The premier of Canadian province of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne, is scheduled to sign a slew of agreements and memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with the Punjab government in the fields of trade, industry, agriculture and education during her visit to India beginning January 30. Wynne is leading a delegation of experts from Ontarios sustainable development and urban infrastructure, business, and higher education sectors across India to create opportunities for new partnerships, said a spokesman here. The delegation will travel to New Delhi, Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Mumbai between January 31 and February 5, the spokesman said. Among those who will accompany the premier are minister of economic development, employment and infrastructure Brad Duguid, minister of citizenship, immigration and international trade Michael Chan, and associate minister of health Dipika Damerla, besides the members of provincial parliament Harinder Takhar, Amrit Mangat, Vic Dhillon, Indira Naidoo-Harris and Bob Delaney. Ontario and India have much in common we are both committed to making record infrastructure investments that will create jobs and strengthen our economies. We both understand the urgency of creating a sustainable future. I look forward to meeting with political and business leaders to share Ontarios expertise in priority areas to strengthen our existing partnerships, said Kathleen Wynne in a statement. With Patiala MP Dr Dharamvira Gandhi also a suspended Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader meeting Akal Takht jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh on Wednesday to gather support for the passing of a law mandating separate registration of Sikh marriages, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) could soon find itself in a tight spot in the budget session of Parliament in Februray, when the Bill is placed before the House. Gandhi had introduced a Private Members Bill Sikh Marriage Bill, 2015 in the winter session. The move was then seen as hijacking a panthic issue that has traditionally been a favoured topic for the SAD. Political pundits say that if the bill is passed, Dr Gandhi will emerge as big leader among the Sikh masses that have been demanding separate registration of Sikh marriages for long. SAD has always betrayed the Sikhs on panthic issues. With Gandhi introducing the bill, they have to be careful. If they support the bill, Gandhi will emerge as big leader of the Sikh masses. If they do not vote for it, they will lose the authority to raise this panthic issue again and face the ire of Sikhs, said Manjit Singh Calcutta, a former Akali Dal Leader. I have requested the Akal Takht jathedar to write to all 750 parliamentarians (the Lok Sabha as well as the Rajya Sabha) requesting them to help pass this bill. He has assured me his full support, Gandhi said, adding that the bill had been drafted by Sikh scholars and has also been deliberated in detail in the House. Sikhism is a separate religion and there is need to have a separate Marriage Act for them. I hope MPs from the SAD and it s coalition partner, the BJP, will support this bill, he said. State has failed to make rules Interestingly, the SAD has been demanding for many years that the Sikhs be allowed to register their marriages under the Anand Marriage Act of 1909 instead of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. In 2012, the Centre even made an amendment to the Constitution to facilitate the process. Yet, the process could be translated into reality as the Punjab government failed to make rules that would govern the registration of marriages under the Anand Marriage Act. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Pained over the non-inclusion of Sikh Regiment in the Republic Day Parade, Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) chief Avtar Singh Makkar has decided to take up the matter with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Pranab Mukherjee. The SGPC chief said it was very disappointing that the Sikh regiment was not part of the Republic Day parade in which French President Francois Hollande was the chief guest. Last year when US President Barack Obama was chief guest on the occasion, the Sikh regiment was very much included in the contingent and the turbaned soldiers were a treat to watch. Why the regiment was ignored this time cant be understood and we will take up this matter with the PM, added Makkar. Claiming that around 30 percent Sikhs were part of the Indian navy, air force and army and have been part of important battles and have brought glory to the nation, he said, Its shocking that the government ignored them. Already Sikhs in France have been facing many issues as far as their identity is concerned. We especially wrote to the PM to take up the Sikh issues with the visiting French President. But shockingly, the Sikh Regiment was kept away from the Republic Day parade, said Makkar. He added that at a time when the SGC was trying its best to tell the importance of turban to the French President, the Union government did not include the turbaned soldiers in the parade. Accusing the Centre of partiality, Makkar said the act of the government had left many Sikhs around the world disappointed. Australian prosecutors allege a teenage suspect discussed with a British accomplice ways to pack a kangaroo with explosives before setting it loose on police officers. Sevdet Ramadan Besim was ordered in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday to stand trial on charges of planning an Islamic State group-inspired terrorist attack at a Veterans Day ceremony that included targeting police officers. The 19-year-old pleaded not guilty to four charges relating to a plot to attack commemorative services in Melbourne or the neighboring city of Dandenong to mark ANZAC Day, the annual April 25 commemoration of the 1915 Gallipoli landings in Turkey. The campaign was the first major military action fought by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during World War I. Besim faces a potential life sentence in prison. The release on parole of Inderjit Singh Reyat, the only person convicted for the 1985 bombing of the Kanishka airliner, may cause more trauma for relatives of victims of that terrorist incident but it again underscores how the Canadian investigative and legal system did scant justice to their case. Reyat, often accused of being the maker of the bomb that brought down Air India flight 182, was not even imprisoned on terrorism charges, but rather for perjury. A judicial system that had been unable to work with the woeful evidence submitted by investigative agencies, handed him a hefty sentence for perjury. At least, they caught him lying. On June 23, 1985, the Air India Boeing 747 was flying from Montreal to London when it imploded, destroyed by a bomb placed by Khalistani terrorists. Remnants of the jet were strewn over the coast of Irelands Cork region, while the remainder of the airliner fell into the North Sea. The attack claimed the lives of all 307 passengers and 22 crew members. Read | HT Special: 30th anniversary Kanishka aircraft bombing Reyat was released from a Canadian prison on Wednesday after serving two-thirds of a nine-year sentence for perjury in the deadliest terror attack before 9/11. Reyat, convicted of lying in court to cover for his co-accused, earlier served more than 15 years in jail for making the bombs that were planted on planes leaving Vancouver. The problem, of course, was that this wasnt taken as a Canadian tragedy but rather one that happened to someone else, even though a substantial number of victims were Canadians citizens or residents. Retired Canadian Supreme Court Justice John Major recalls listening to the news on his car radio and being unable to glean the Canadian connection. Years later, Major headed a Commission of Inquiry looking into the incident. The report he delivered was pointedly titled, Air India Flight 182: A Canadian Tragedy. In that, he wrote: This remains the largest mass murder in Canadian history, and was the result of a cascading series of errors. In an interview to the Hindustan Times last year on the 30th anniversary of the tragedy, Major said, I think it (the report) was worthwhile for the people who suffered loss. It, at least, showed them that the Government, Canadians cared about what happened to other Canadians. It was trying to repair the damage many years after the event. However, pro-Khalistan elements remain active in Canada some gurdwaras showcase images of Khalistanis, and a boycott Air India campaign was launched last year after Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to the country. As some of these separatists were wooed by political parties during last falls federal election campaign, that taint of the Kanishka case being somehow foreign to Canada persists. (The views expressed by the writer are personal. He tweets as @anirudhb) SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A 30-year-old US doctor, who made headlines last week after attacking an Uber driver under the influence of alcohol, apologised on live television for her behaviour. Dr Anjali Ramkissoon, a fourth-year neurology resident employed by Jackson Health System, appeared on Good Morning America on Wednesday and apologised for her actions saying it was the worst night of my life. I see a person that is not me, I am ashamed, I cant see that video myself again, she said during the show. A video which captured the assault went viral last week garnering more than 55 lakh views after it was uploaded on YouTube by a person who witnessed the altercation. Ramkissoon tried to explain in the show what led to the meltdown on that day. My dad was placed in the hospital and just minutes prior to that altercation my boyfriend for past two years had broken up and I was there by myself. I knew that I had a few drinks and wanted to get home soon, she said. Ramkissoon was suspended from clinical duties by the teaching hospital and Uber suspended her rider account. But she escaped arrest as the Uber driver did not press charges. There is absolutely no excuse for my actions, Im ashamed, I have hurt so many people with this... My family, my friends, my job, the Uber driver, nobody deserves to be treated that way and thats not me. I apologised to the driver and settled in cash for the damages. Im really grateful that he did not press charges. Since the attack, her employer Jackson Health Systems Facebook timeline was bombarded by social media users who asked the hospital to take strict action. Satellite imagery analysis suggests North Korea may be preparing a long-range ballistic missile launch, Japans Kyodo News reported Thursday, citing a Japanese government source. Imagery collected over the past several days suggested the launch from the western Dongchang-ri site could come in about a week, Kyodo said. While the report did not provide any details on the source of the analysis, Japans key security ally the United States regularly monitors North Korea from space while Japan itself in 2003 began its own satellite monitoring of the country. Deputy chief cabinet secretary Koichi Hagiuda told a news conference the Japan would continue to cooperate with nations such as the United States and South Korea to urge North Korea to refrain from provocative action and comply with UN resolutions. South Korean defence ministry spokesperson Kim Min-Seok declined to confirm or deny the report, saying the ministry did not comment on intelligence matters. He added, however, that South Koreas military was monitoring for any signs of a long-range missile launch. The report came as the international community discusses further sanctions against Pyongyang for conducting its fourth nuclear test earlier this month. The reclusive countrys supposed action could be aimed at flouting the (UN security) council and any plans among its members to tighten sanctions over the latest nuclear detonation, Kyodo said in its report. Washington is pushing for a strong United Nations response, including enhanced sanctions, to respond to the Norths latest atomic blast. But China, North Koreas chief diplomatic protector and economic benefactor, is reluctant, despite their ties becoming strained in recent years as Beijings patience wears thin with its neighbours ambitions for nuclear weapons. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches a rocket firing drill by anti-aircraft units of the Korean People's Army (KPA) in this undated file photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang. (REUTERS) US Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing Wednesday and said they had agreed to mount an accelerated effort to try to resolve their differences on a new resolution. But Kerry, who said nuclear-armed North Korea poses an overt threat, a declared threat to the world, acknowledged that the two had not agreed on the parameters of exactly what it would do or say. Pyongyang said the blast earlier this month was a miniaturised hydrogen bomb, though experts have largely dismissed the claim. The South Korean defence ministrys Kim added that officials were on guard for any changes in North Koreas previous behaviour. In the past, North Korea always fired a long-range missile ahead of a nuclear test. But since it didnt this time, we are concerned that it could launch one afterwards, he said. Kim also stressed that Pyongyang used to notify China and the US before carrying out nuclear tests, though this time did not. We believe that North Korea could launch grave provocations by surprise -- without pre-warning -- from now on. The possible preparation of a missile launch also came after the North said it carried out a submarine-launched ballistic missile test in December. Pyongyang hailed that test as a great success and released a video that researchers at the California-based James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies concluded had been heavily doctored and edited to cover up a catastrophic failure. (With inputs from Reuters) Some Indian-Americans have formed a political action committee (PAC) in support of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, calling him the best hope for America. Indian-Americans for Trump 2016, as the committee is titled, was registered with the countrys Federal Election Commission on January 21. This is only the first step. We are on the side of Trump for this election, AD Amar, a professor at New Jerseys Seton Hall University who is heading the panel, told PTI. It was not immediately clear what kind of support the committee was expecting to generate for Trump, whose boycott of the Republican debate scheduled for Thursday is dominating headlines. Trump, who is self-funding his campaign, has been extremely critical of PACs that other candidates tend to use to supplement their campaigns with outside support and funds. The Indian-Americans for Trump PAC said in a statement: On realising that the agenda of Donald J Trump for President 2016 is focused on reviving the American economy, rightly bringing America on the world stage, defeating terrorism and establishing peace through strength; many Indian-Americans believe that he is the best hope for America and the right candidate to be the next president of the United States. It added, The officers of the Indian-Americans for Trump 2016 urge all Americans to join in the effort and support Donald Trump in his endeavour to make America great again by electing him the next President of the USA. Indian-Americans have historically voted Democratic, but many of them have gravitated towards the Republican party in recent years, attracted mostly by its tax-less fiscal conservatism. The only two Indian Americans ever elected governors Bobby Jindal in Louisiana (he is now out of office) and Nikki Haley in South Carolina are Republicans. And, Hindu Indian-Americans in the party recently started Republican Hindu Coalition, a group modelled on the powerful Republican Jewish Coalition, to raise funds and bolster their clout. A man carrying two handguns, ammunition and a Koran was arrested on Thursday at a hotel in Disneyland Paris, and his girlfriend was also held, police sources said. The man was detected upon his arrival at the Disneyland hotel where he had a reservation. Hotel security found two handguns, a Koran and ammunition on him, said the source. A separate police source said that the metal detector had rung out as the man passed through. Police were called and arrested the suspect while they secured his vehicle. They then tracked down his girlfriend in the Paris region who was also taken into custody. Papers found on the suspect indicated that he lived in Paris, however no further details were available about him. A police source said initial elements of the investigation did not point to terrorism, and that the man had said he was carrying the guns because he feared for his safety. Disneyland Paris is situated about 30 kilometres east of the French capital and is the most visited theme park in Europe, with some 10 million visitors in 2014, according to that years Global Attractions Attendance Report. France is on high alert after a devastating terror attack in November saw Islamic State group gunmen and suicide bombers target Paris cafes, a concert hall and the Stade de France national stadium, leaving 130 dead and hundreds injured. The bloodshed was the second major attack in France within a year, as the country has become a prime target for the jihadist group operating out of Iraq and Syria. In January 2015, three days of terror gripped Paris as a series of attacks left 17 people dead, including an attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. France imposed a three-month state of emergency after the November attacks, which President Francois Hollande hopes to extend for another three months, despite fierce opposition from rights activists. A large number of schools across Pakistan were shut on Thursday as government agencies warned of a possible attack on educational institutions a week after Taliban fighters killed 21 people at the Bacha Khan University. There is a scare across the country and school authorities are not taking any chances, said Mirza Kashif of the All Pakistan Private School Federation. Schools run by the army have been closed for more than a week, with authorities putting in place elaborate security measures in response to the threat. The number of students affected by the threat runs into hundreds of thousands. The chairman of the Defence Authority in Karachi, Brig Zubair Ahmed, said no stone will be left unturned to ensure the safety of children. We are introducing metal detectors and guards at the gate as well as snipers on the roofs of the schools, he said. The schools that remained open reported thin attendance, and authorities said social media played a major role in causing a scare and panic among parents. Norbert Almedia, a security analyst, commented no one in Pakistan felt safe any more. We have guards in homes, offices, mosques and now schools, he said. What else is there left to guard? Read: Pak points finger at Afghanistan for Bacha Khan University attack But parents described the idea of introducing guards and snipers at schools as absurd. Adeeb Javedani of the Karachi-based Private School Parents Association said the answer to the threat would be to secure the country, not just the schools. People have to realise Pakistan is in a state of war and the enemy can target all vulnerable targets, he said. Authorities have said they cannot set a date for the reopening of schools. It is a matter for schools to decide. Our job is to ensure that the measures we have asked for are introduced in schools, said police official Javed Odho. It can be any school and anywhere, said Odho, who confirmed threats had been received against some schools in Lahore and Islamabad. A faction of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan that claimed the January 20 strike on the Bacha Khan University has threatened to carry out more attacks across the country. The leader of the group, Umar Mansoor, said in a video released on social media that last weeks assault was just the start and promised that his followers would hit the evil democratic system at its base by targeting educational institutions. Thank you! You've reported this item as a violation of our terms of use. This content was contributed by a user of the site. If you believe this content may be in violation of the terms of use, you may report it. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against DeVry University, one of the country's largest for-profit colleges, accusing it of repeatedly lying about post-graduate job placement rates and salary prospects, reports The Huffington Post. In a complaint filed in federal court in Los Angeles, the FTC takes specific issue with DeVry's various TV, radio, online and print advertisements, which claim that 90 percent of students land a job in their field within six months of graduating, and that those students made 15 percent more than people who graduated from other universities. The true number of DeVry graduates who obtained jobs in their field "is significantly smaller" than 90 percent, the FTC said. The FTC also alleges that DeVry falsely claimed that numerous graduates were working in their respective fields when they were not. "A significant percentage of the jobs that [DeVry counts] as being in the graduate's field of study include jobs that employers, industry experts, graduates, and consumers would not reasonably consider to be in the graduate's field of study," the lawsuit says. The FTC pointed to one student who specialized in health services management but works at the Cheesecake Factory, another with a degree in human resources who works as a mail carrier, and graduates with human resources and health services management degrees doing unpaid work at medical centers, according to the New York Post. "Millions of Americans look to higher education for training that will lead to meaningful employment and good pay," FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said in a news release. "Educational institutions like DeVry owe prospective students the truth about their graduates' success finding employment in their field of study and the income they can earn." The suit asks a judge to provide refunds and restitution to all students who were deceived since 2008 - potentially 50,000 people. The suit also requests that DeVry be permanently banned from using faulty statistics in promotional material, according to The Wall Street Journal. DeVry said in a statement that it plans to "vigorously contest" the lawsuit, according to Reuters. "DeVry Group believes that the FTC's complaint - filed 40 years after DeVry University began publishing accurate graduate employment statistics - is without a valid legal basis," the company said in a statement. "In addition, the FTC's complaint contains anecdotal examples that exaggerate the allegations but do not prove them." DeVry University is operated by Illinois-based DeVry Education Group and has campuses in 25 states. The company's stock was down 17.43 percent to $19.60 a share following the announcement around noon on Wednesday, according to CNBC. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Transparency International released its annual Corruption Projections Index on Wednesday, listing Somalia and North Korea as the most highly corrupt nations on earth, each scoring eight out of a possible 100 on the index. Jose Ugaz, chair of Transparency International, said the report shows corruption is still a "blight" across the globe, according to Voice of America. "But 2015 was also a year when people again took to the streets to protest corruption," he said. "People across the globe sent a strong signal to those in power: It is time to tackle grand corruption." Transparency International's report, which lists 168 countries, relies on what it calls expert opinion from around the world to measure perceived levels of public sector corruption. The report said that the majority are still generally seen as more corrupt than not, but with more countries that saw their score improve rather than decline, according to CNBC. The United States had its best ever showing since the survey began in 1995, placing 16th on the list, according to USA Today. The German lobbying group's report said that in addition to conflict and war, "poor governance, weak public institutions like police and the judiciary, and a lack of independence in the media characterize the lowest ranked countries." The bottom 10 are: - Guinea-Bissau - Venezuela - Iraq - Libya - Angola - South Sudan - Sudan - Afghanistan - North Korea - Somalia Characteristics such as a free press, publicly available budget information and judiciaries which do not treat people differently depending on their wealth were shared by top-performing countries, with Denmark listed as the least corrupt country, according to The Telegraph. Transparency International said that corruption is "rife worldwide," with the average score being 43 out of 100 and more than two-thirds of countries scoring less than 50. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The previously extinct quagga, an animal relative of the zebra, has been brought back by a group of scientists outside Cape Town as a part of the Quagga Project, according to CNN. Many people have never heard of the unique animal due to its disappearance more than 100 years ago but now, they will get the chance to see them again. Quaggas have stripes much like zebras, although they only cover the front half of their bodies; the rear half is covered in a solid brown coat. Although they used to roam South Africa in large numbers, they were killed off swiftly by European settlers who hunted them down, and by the 1880s, the species was completely extinct, according to News 96.5. Using DNA and selective breeding, the Quagga Project has now bred animals that look almost identical, essentially resurrecting the little-known species for the first time ever. The group claims that the key to their success was genetic analysis, which revealed that they were a sub-species of the plains zebra. After concluding that quagga genes were likely still present in the zebra, they began breeding and noticed colorings that became stronger and more defined as time went on. "The progress of the project has in fact followed that prediction. And in fact we have over the course of four, five generations seen a progressive reduction in striping, and lately an increase in the brown background color showing that our original idea was in fact correct," said Eric Harley the project's leader. Of course, there have been many detractors, some saying that the project is a stunt, others saying that all they have done is create a different kind of zebra with no regard for the behavioral and ecological adaptations of the original quagga, which as of now, are mostly unknown, according to Science Mic. "There are a lot of detractors who are saying you can't possibly put back the same as what was here," said fellow project leader Mike Gregor. "What we're saying is you can try and do something or you could just not. And I think us trying to do, trying to remedy something, is better than doing nothing at all." "If we can retrieve the animals or retrieve at least the appearance of the quagga, then we can say we've righted a wrong," Harley added. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A principal in Indiana sacrificed her life Tuesday by jumping in front of a bus to save her students. Susan Jordan, the principal at Amy Beverland Elementary School, passed away on Tuesday after saving the lives of her young students when she pushed them away when a bus drove directly onto the school's curb. Only the heroic principal was killed in the incident, but two other students were injured. One of the witnesses, Debbie Thie, said that the bus couldn't stop and almost hit the students who were lining up to ride their buses. "It was as if the bus wouldn't stop," Thie said, according to the Associated Press. "The bus came up on the curb and kept going, across the sidewalk and into the grass. Susan immediately started saving the children. She backed up toward the school trying to beat the bus. She's grabbing kids and scooting them out of the way," she added. The Amy Beverland Elementary School board and Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township noted the dedication of Jordan as an educator. The whole district did not conduct classes on Wednesday to honor her death. "Susan was an amazing educator. She had a remarkable way of making everyone she came in contact with feel valued and important," the elementary school board said in a statement, CNN reported. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence went to the school Wednesday morning to pay his respects for Jordan. Karen & I stopped by Amy Beverland Elementary. Please keep the students, faculty & entire community in your prayers pic.twitter.com/HVB7e9HFvm Governor Mike Pence (@GovPenceIN) January 27, 2016 "Our hearts ache for her family, the school community and for all the children who were fortunate enough to be part of her world," Pence stated during his visit, according to ABC News. "Hoosiers will never forget that Principal Jordan lived the life of a hero and can always be grateful for her service and courage." @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are set to headline a benefit concert for Bernie Sanders in an attempt to raise funds for his campaign. The benefit concert will take place at the Theatre at Ace Hotel on Feb. 5 and the tickets, which will range from $40 to $2,700, will go on sale on the same day beginning 10 a.m. PST through AXS, according to Rolling Stone. "So excited to be playing this concert for Bernie Sanders next week. Feels great to support someone I believe in," band member Flea wrote on his Instagram page. "The RHCP offered to give him the money to pay for the theater that night but he wouldn't accept, he only accepts small donations from individuals. Every other politician greedily grabs every cent they can get from any scumbag lobbyist. This is a man with integrity. If you can please buy the expensive seats to help out the campaign. Thank you so much. Bernie Sanders for president." Back in September, all four members of the American rock group signed a letter of endorsement on Sanders' website, effectively backing his efforts in attaining higher office. The Democratic presidential candidate has been gathering lots of support from celebrities since he announced that he would be running for president. Sanders prides himself in his commitment of raising funds in a grassroots manner rather than receiving campaign money from Super PACs and other corporations, according to Loudwire. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The Republican National Committee has "respect" for Donald Trump's decision to skip Fox News' GOP debate on Thursday evening, committee's chief strategist and communications director said Thursday. Trump initially threatened to boycott the debate if Fox News host Megyn Kelly was a moderator, as the real estate mogul felt she posed unfair questions to him in a previous debate, The Washington Post noted. Fox News refused to accommodate the request and issued a press release mocking his efforts, which Trump said was the last straw. Instead of debating, Trump will hold a separate event in Iowa at the same time to raise money for veterans. RNC Chief Strategist and Communications Director Sean Spicer appeared on MSNBC Thursday to address the issue, according to The Washington Examiner. MSNBC host Joe Scarborough asked Spicer why the RNC didn't dispute Kelly's role as moderator, noting that when CNBC moderators asked controversial questions during a previous debate, the RNC suspended all future debates with NBC. Spicer said that the two situations are vastly different, and while he has respect for Trump's decision, the matter is ultimately between Trump and Fox News. "I think with respect to this we have a disagreement between a candidate and a moderator in terms of a tone and some of the questions," Spicer said. "There's a difference between an entity coming out pro or con a particular candidate and someone disagreeing with the tone and tenor of a particular moderator. So while I have respect for Mr. Trump's decision, ultimately that's between him and Fox News." Spicer also denied that the RNC was negotiating to get Trump to show up, saying that the RNC is updating the campaign about the debate. "We'd love him there; we'd love all of the candidates there. The same way we asked Senator [Rand] Paul to join the last debate, we're going to continue to hope that he changes his mind," Spicer said, according to The Washington Times. "We can make the accommodations up to pretty close to go time," Spicer added. "But this is an opportunity for all these candidates to show up to give the American people the opportunity [to] hear them right before, especially the Iowa caucuses." @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A vulture from an Israeli nature reserve was intercepted and detained on charges of espionage after it was discovered by locals who caught the suspected spy flying in Lebanese airspace. The Gamla Nature Reserve tracked the bird to near Bint Jbeil, a southern Lebanese village that's just a few kilometers away from the shared border with Israel, when reports began to emerge that the bird had been detained by locals who feared the bird was an Israeli spy due to the tags and devices from Tel Aviv University found on its body, according to CNN. A series of photos came afterward, showing the vulture with the tags and rope tied around its leg, another showing a transmitter on the bird's back and a third showing two men displaying the vulture's wingspan. The Israel Nature and Parks Authority released a statement after the group learned of the vulture's plight: "Reports passed to us show the vulture tied with a rope by local people who write that they suspect Israeli espionage apparently because of the transmitter attached to him." "In the 21st century, we expect people to understand that wild animals are not harmful. We hope that the Lebanese will release him," the statement continued, according to The Guardian. The vulture was later released by locals "after examining the bird to make sure it was not carrying listening or spy equipment," reported local Arabic news site bintjbeil.org. However, Israeli Nature and Parks Authority workers have been unable to locate the vulture and fear for its health. This incident highlights the level of distrust that Israel and its neighbors shares for one another, and it isn't the first time an animal has been inconvenienced as a result. In 2010, Egypt accused Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, of being responsible for a series of shark attacks in the Red Sea aimed at crippling Egypt's tourism agency. Later, Saudi officials detained a different vulture on suspicion of it being a Mossad spy. The most recent attack last year after Hamas, a militant Palestinian group, apprehended a "Zionist spy dolphin" off the coast of Gaza. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Iran said Thursday that Saudi Arabia should not bring "terrorists in a new mask" to the negotiation table for preliminary peace talks between the Syrian government and opposition groups. Syria has been engulfed in a near six-year-long civil war that has left 250,000 dead as a number of opposition groups supported by outside countries fight to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. The United Nations Security Council adopted a Jan. 30 deadline for peace negotiations to begin between Assad, who is backed by Iran and Russia, and opposition forces, who are backed by Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Talks were set to begin on Monday in Geneva but were delayed until Friday due to disagreements over which rebel groups should be invited. "Terrorists with a new mask should not sit down at a negotiating table with the representatives of the Syrian authorities," Deputy Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told a news conference during a visit to Russia, reported Reuters. "This is the most important condition." Amir-Abdollahian asked Saudi Arabia to stop meddling in Syrian affairs because it increases tensions in the region, and he accused the country of attempting to wield more influence at the negotiations by adding "terrorists" to the opposition negotiation list. "We believe that Saudi Arabia's insistence on including recognizable terrorists ... in one list or another, is certainly not a constructive action on its part," Amir-Abdollahian said. He added: "In regard to the opposition groups that will participate at the Geneva negotiations, we have presented to U.N. Special Envoy for Syria [Steffan de Mistura] some Syrians who think they may be useful at these talks," according to Sputnik News. Organizers say that the talks will not be direct peace negotiations, but proximity discussions designed to lay the groundwork for later peace talks, according to Voice of America. Haitham Manna, co-president of an Arab and Kurdish opposition group, said Thursday that he doesn't believe that the talks will begin Friday due to "technical reasons," while another opposition figure said that it will be difficult to begin talks Friday because many in the opposition still need to obtain visas and make reservations to travel to Geneva, reported the Associated Press. Another opposition group, backed by Saudi Arabia, says that before it agrees to participate, the Syrian government should stop bombing rebel-held areas. The Syrian government, with the support of Russian airstrikes and Iranian militia forces, has been gaining ground against the rebels, capturing the key southern town of Sheikh Maskin on Monday and cutting off rebel factions from valuable supply lines, reported Al Jazeera. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A Los Angeles-bound American Airlines flight was forced to return to London's Heathrow Airport Wednesday after a mysterious illness spread through the jet that caused at least six people onboard to fall ill. American Airlines Flight 109 took off from Heathrow at around 12:05 p.m. as it departed for Los Angeles, reported CBS News. However once in the air, two passengers and some of the flight attendants complained of light-headedness. Witnesses reported that two people fainted and one person vomited on himself. As news of the illness began to circulate throughout the cabin, the pilot spoke to the crew asking if any doctors, nurses or medical professionals available to help. "About 2.5 hours into the flight just as we were passing Iceland we had a Tannoy announcement asking for any doctors, nurses or medical professionals on board to report to the boarding doors to assist with unwell passengers," passenger Lee Gunn told The Daily Mirror. "The lights then came on in the cabin and there was lots of commotion." The pilot made a second announcement shortly afterward, revealing that he decided to turn the plane around and return back to London, rather than risk continuing the flight. "The pilot came on and spoke to everyone and said, 'Listen, the three of us are safe up front. We have zero problems, we're taking us back to London,'" passenger Eric Winter recalled. Teams of paramedics and fire crews were lying in wait of the aircraft after it made its return-landing, who came onboard to evaluate the passengers, reported The Telegraph. No one other than those sickened while in the air needed additional help, and were released from the scene. American Airlines later confirmed the incident in a statement, calling it a "medical emergency." It added that a hazmat team checked the plane and all the luggage for "elevated levels of substances," but all tests turned up negative. Regardless, the aircraft is being thoroughly cleaned to be on the safe side. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. French police have arrested a man carrying two handguns and ammunition Thursday at the entrance to a hotel near Disneyland Paris, Europe's most-visited tourist attraction, authorities said. The 28-year-old male was trying to enter the New York Hotel, however the belongings in his backpack triggered metal detectors, leading to his arrest, said Michel Le Prevost, deputy chief of criminal police of the French city of Meaux, reported BBC. French media reported that the guns inside the backpack were handguns, and ammunition, as well as the Quran, were found inside along with it. It's not clear what he needed guns for, but he argued that the guns were for his own protection during police questioning, according to CNN. News of the arrest comes as the Paris area remains on edge and under a state of emergency following two major Islamist attacks last year. In January, 17 people were killed at the office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in Paris, while in November, 130 people were killed in shootings and suicide bombings at high-traffic locations throughout the Paris area. In the meantime, police are still on the lookout for a woman who is believed to be affiliated with a man who they arrested. Police previously announced they arrested her, but since retracted the statement after finding that she was the wrong person. Employees at both the New York Hotel and several others at the park say the hotel is operating under usual conditions following the arrest, according to the Associated Press. Disneyland Paris and the French Interior Ministry have yet to leave an official comment about the incident. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The Department of Homeland Security says that thousands of badges and hundreds of firearms and cell phones have been lost or stolen over the past few years. As part of a Freedom of Information Act request, news outlet The Complete Colorado obtained DHS inventory reports showing that various federal agencies reported more than 1,300 badges and credentials, 165 firearms and 589 cell phones as being lost or stolen between October 2012 and April 2015. "It's scary that you'd have that number of credentials out there that someone could manipulate," retired Secret Service special agent Tim Miller told FOX News. DHS' Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported the most lost or stolen badges and firearms, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) also topped the list. Thirty-one of the firearms were listed as lost, while all but two of the rest were reported as stolen. However, the DHS inspector general has previously said that the reported number of lost guns may be misleading because law enforcement often believe that reporting a stolen firearm is more acceptable than reporting a lost firearm. A number of recent shootings have been committed with firearms stolen from law enforcement. In July, Kate Steinle was shot and killed in San Francisco by an illegal immigrant who used a gun issued to a Bureau of Land Management Law Enforcement Ranger. The gun used in September to kill Oakland muralist Antonio Ramos was stolen from an ICE agent, and in January, Edward Archer used a gun stolen from a police officer to shoot Philadelphia police officer Jesse Hartnett. Former Homeland Security Undersecretary and FEMA Director Michael Brown says the missing credentials pose a great enough risk that it should be investigated by the inspector general. "Law enforcement credentials, badges or ID cards can be used to access areas closed to the public, restricted access areas, and allow a person to pose as a law enforcement official where lax inspection of the credential to match it with the person carrying it allows that person entry to restricted areas," Brown said in a statement to CompleteColorado.com. "Possession of these kinds of credentials gives terrorists or criminals the basic information needed to counterfeit other credentials. For example, a terrorist cell could use these credentials or counterfeited credentials to access public events posing as law enforcement officials, bypassing security measures designed to detect explosives or other contraband." @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. In what may be the latest military provocation enacted against the U.S. military, a Russian Su-27 jet fighter came within 20 feet of a U.S. RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft over the Black Sea, according to U.S. Navy officials. Navy Capt. Daniel Hernandez, chief spokesman for the U.S.-European Comman, spoke to The Washington Free Beacon about Monday's incident, saying, "On Jan. 25 an RC-135 aircraft flying a routine route in international airspace over the Black Sea was intercepted by a Russian Su-27 in an unsafe and unprofessional manner." Defense officials went into further detail about the incident, saying that the RC-135, an electronic intelligence-gathering aircraft, had been flying 30 miles from the coast, well within international airspace and far away from Russian airspace at the time of the encounter. The Su-27, catching sight of the RC-135, flew alongside it for a few moments before making an aggressive banking turn away from the intelligence aircraft, which "disturbed the controllability." "We are looking into the issue," Hernandez concluded, declining to discuss the status of the disturbed aircraft. News of the close call is the latest in a series of Russian military activities that experts claim are aimed at coercing or harassing the U.S. military. In October, four F/A-18 fighter jets were deployed to intercept two Russian Tu-142 Bear aircraft that were flying near the USS Ronald Reagan while it was participating in a training exercises with South Korea in the Pacific Ocean, according to CNN. That incident was preceded by a July 4 encounter when U.S. fighter jets intercepted Russian fighters off the coasts of California and Alaska. At the time, the Russian fliers claimed that they came close to U.S. shores to wish America a happy Fourth of July. Such incidents have been on the rise over the past two years, and experts have since concluded that the purpose of Russia's actions is to show off its military prowess. "Much of what Russia is doing today is aimed at generating fear of Russian military power and the possibility of war," former Pentagon Russia expert Mark Schneider said back in October. "That is broadcast on a daily basis in the state media and through Russian military actions," Schneider added. "Provocations involving aircraft are now common place. Russia also tends to be paranoid concerning foreign espionage and the protection of state secrets." The U.S. also recently revoked the credentials of five of six honorary Russian consuls, claiming that the country had been harassing U.S. diplomats. "This action is being taken in response to continued Russian interference with our diplomatic and consular operations in Russia, including, but not limited to, widespread harassment of our personnel, as well as the forced closure of the American Center in Moscow," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, according to Reuters. "We are prepared to take further appropriate measures if there are additional efforts to impede our diplomatic and consular activities in Russia," he added. These incidents highlight a larger problem between the two nations: deteriorating diplomatic ties. While not nearly as bad as the Cold War, relations between the two have grown increasingly frigid, with the two only cooperating on certain issues, such as the curbing of Iran's nuclear program or a memorandum on activities in Syrian airspace. Things have reached a point where the U.S. has imposed a number of sanctions against Russian and pro-Russia figures, primarily due to the Ukrainian conflict, and Russia has imposed sanctions of their own in return. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a bill Thursday that would impose stricter sanctions on North Korea over its recent nuclear test, past cyber activities and human rights record. The bipartisan North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act was passed by a unanimous voice vote, three weeks after Pyongyang declared it had detonated its first hydrogen bomb. The measure builds on legislation that passed the House two weeks ago, and it's expected to go to the Senate floor in mid-February, reported the Associated Press. If the bill passes both chambers and is signed by President Barack Obama, new sanctions would be imposed against the North Korean government and anyone who assists it in acquiring goods or technology relating to weapons of mass destruction. The bill would target the trading of key industrial commodities, as well as those who engage in human rights abuses, cyberterrorism, money laundering and counterfeiting on behalf of the regime. Foreign countries would also be banned from providing deadly military equipment to the country. "Both the House and the Senate bill focus on mandatory sanctions, which is a dramatic change from the sanctions regime we have in place today," said the bill's lead author, Republican Cory Gardner, according to Voice of America. "But it also goes a step further in cyber security policies, codifying executive orders and making sure we are focusing on human rights. Our bill also goes into sanctions on minerals that can be used to fund proliferation activities." Violations would be met with asset seizures, visa bans and denial of government contracts, according to Reuters. The U.S. has already imposed broad sanctions against North Korea, and U.N. resolutions ban it from trading arms and importing luxury items, but such measures have been largely unsuccessful in preventing the advancement of its nuclear programs. Because lawmakers are unsure whether North Korea will respond to additional pressure, committee members said that the new sanctions are also intended to send a stern message to other entities that the country relies on for its nuclear program and other activities. China is by far North Korea's closest business partner. "We must also send a strong message to China... that the United States would use every economic tool at its disposal" to stop North Korea, Gardner said. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. As our team of hotel lawyers returns from the Americas Lodging Investment Summit (or ALIS) in Los Angeles, we all noticed a big change. This is the first industry conference since the beginning of the recovery from the Great Recession where we have seen a clear turnaround in hotel investor sentiment that seems to be gaining traction. Unfortunately it is a negative turnaround. Until now, the discussions have always been about how long the recovery will last (what inning are we in)? And how high values and fundamentals will go before they peak and start down in the next cycle. Not so much this time. The irony is that hotel industry fundamentals remain sound and continue to improve, although perhaps a bit more slowly. But the downturn in the price of hotel REIT and C-corp stocks (many are about half of their value a year ago) now seems to be shaping an important part of the industry psyche and investment mindset. In this scenario, Wall Street is driving Main Street, instead of the other way around. In other words, the jaundiced perspective of Wall Street is having a real world effect on the hotel industry. What is happening on Wall Street? Here is how it works according to one industry analyst: Wall Street investors became infatuated with hotel REITs and stocks because of record growth rate in RevPAR and other indicators as the industry recovered from the Great Recession. For decades, an annual RevPAR growth rate of 5% or 6% was remarkable, perhaps record-setting. For several years in a row, hotel RevPAR growth in many markets has equaled or exceeded the 5% or 6% records, and Wall Street loved it. Now, that we are back to peak levels (or near there in most markets), growth rates are slowing a bit. And the prospect of a "mere" 4% RevPAR growth rate is freaking out Wall Street investors . . . or at least making them think that they should direct their attention elsewhere where growth rates are more robust. Plus, New York City is perceived as being symbolic of the entire US. The Manhattan hotel market has been stagnant after leading the US hotel markets for years, and is now struggling with an explosion of supply. And, Manhattan has the worst issue in the country with an Airbnb rooms supply equal to 50% of the available rooms in market. (But have you tried to get a hotel room in Manhattan, or seen what you have to pay?) Corporate negotiated rates, long the basis for most urban hotel rooms business, have been slow to recover from the Great Recession yet those rates are now starting to exceed peak year levels again Institutional grade hotel assets are still trading at 4% to 6% Cap Rates, hardly a sign of a declining market For these, or other reasons, the hotel industry has lost its "preferred darling" status with stock analysts and investors. They have decided that the hotel industry cannot sustain the high levels of growth it has produced in the past few years. They are downgrading the industry's investment potential and re-directing their capital. As a result, stock values of hotel REITs and C corps are down and they are effectively prevented from raising new capital at attractive rates to buy more hotels. Side-lining these companies is starting to significantly affect the buyer-seller balance, and therefore the market prices of hotel properties. How bad is it? Well the hotel REITs and C corp stocks are down as much as 40-50% (or more) from a year ago. In fact, you can buy hotels at a 30% discount from what it would otherwise cost you if you buy hotel REIT stocks. What is the real world effect of Wall Street's reassessment of hospitality? At first blush, one might wonder how the stock market could possibly affect the real world of hotel investment and ownership. Who cares what the price of a stock is when your hotel is profitable, and things are looking to get better? On closer examination, however, Wall Street is a vast and important source of capital for the hotel industry. It has provided billions of dollars of capital to public REITs and C corps who have been active buyers of hotel properties over the past few years. How often have you heard the complaint that someone couldn't compete to buy a hotel because a hotel REIT had cheaper, immediately available capital and bid up the price? Well, the REITs no longer have that kind of access to cheap capital when their stock is at half the price it was a year ago. This has effectively removed the REITs as active buyers for major properties. In addition, Wall Street's concern over the hotel sector has given real estate investors pause. Everyone is starting to rethink their investment in hotels. Are they paying too much? Is it too late in the cycle to be buying? Everything should be fine but At a special session of the Lodging Industry Investment Council (the "think tank" of the hotel industry), David Loeb of RW Baird gave a great presentation on why Wall Street is making a mistake in downgrading hotel investment. RevPAR growth rates have been at record levels for too long and these levels are not sustainable over the long haul. Supply growth remains slower than demand growth. Demand growth continues. RevPAR growth continues with assistance from both the occupancy and the rate side. The hotel stocks and REITs significantly undervalue their assets. And so on. And so forth. However you come out on the merits, the noteworthy fact here, folks, is that this is a complete turnaround in the investor sentiment. We are now being defensive on whey negative news should not be taken too seriously. This is a complete turnaround in our industry. No one has been talking about these kinds of concerns until now. This changes the entire dynamic for the industry. Implications for the industry Perhaps these developments will prove to be a small blip on the screen and have little significance. But if they are an early indication of a trend, there could be many ramifications. We will have to see whether a slowdown in REIT investment becomes a precursor of slowing investment by all other investors as well. Perhaps it will be a buying opportunity for other investors who have had difficulty competing with the REITs until now. If the slowdown in buyer enthusiasm metastasizes, hotel values will peak and even falter. This will create opportunities, but also could precipitate significant declines leading to a broader selloff. In the good times, the hotel industry tends to be liberal in spending to attract new customers, and maintain a high level of standards for the consumer. If the downturn is imminent, it will be important to control costs early while aggressively continuing to market properties. The kind of hesitation we are seeing in the market raises the prospect for developers that if you have not already started the entitlement process on your project, it may be too late. We don't know when, but the development window is likely to close sooner rather than later. You cannot assume that you have another three years. (Or you need to be prepared to open in a down market and weather the storm until recovery.) Early indications suggest that lenders are wary of these developments and at hotel financing that is becoming more difficult to obtain. This raises the prospect of lesser amounts of financing and higher costs. You need to run your own sensitivity analysis on what that will mean to you. We suggest that the sky is NOT falling, but that was just a drop of rain. We continue to believe that fundamentals for the hotel industry are solid and very positive. It does seem ironic that unrealistic and "unfair" expectations of Wall Street should precipitate a downturn in the hotel industry, but that is a possibility. In any event, hotel owners must consider whether this is the time to sell or if it is already too late. Sellers will need to be realistic in setting their valuation goals, and buyers are likely to be more conservative in their pricing analysis. Many buyers are likely to delay or forgo hotel purchases. In any event, prices offered are likely to be more conservative. Perhaps this is a healthy rebalancing. In all events, we hope that we do not "talk ourselves into" a downturn when none is justified by the reality. The Sales Academy will feature hands-on exercises designed to help industry sales and marketing professionals increase market penetration, grow sales, develop accurate customer profiles and generate dynamic competitive intelligence. Barham is president of Hotel Resources, which she founded in 1994 to offer a full range of sales and marketing services, and author of the blog, Internet Prospecting Guru. In 2013, she appeared as a "guest expert" on Disney Channel's "Hotel Impossible," a show about helping hoteliers improve their properties' performance. "Lisa Barham, who has spent two decades helping the hotel industry increase revenues through innovative sales and marketing, will show us how to 'speak' on LinkedIn to generate opportunities for increased sales and use that social media channel successfully to find key decision-makers," said Fran Brasseux, HSMAI executive vice president. Registration will open at 3 p.m., and the three-hour-long program will begin promptly at 4 p.m., followed by a networking session at 7 p.m. Hospitality sales, marketing and revenue management professionals are welcome to register. The cost is $45 for HSMAI members, $60 for nonmembers and $15 for students. Seating is limited. Click HERE for more information and to register. About HSMAI's Washington DC Chapter HSMAI's Washington DC Chapter is an affiliate of the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International, an individual membership organization based in McLean, Virginia, composed of more than 7,000 members worldwide, with 40 chapters in the Americas Region. HSMAI is committed to growing business for hotels and their partners and is the industry's leading advocate for intelligent, sustainable hotel revenue growth. The association provides hotel professionals and their partners with tools, insights and expertise to fuel sales, inspire marketing and optimize revenue through programs including HSMAI's MEET, Adrian Awards and Revenue Optimization Conference. Click here to join HSMAI. For more information, go to www.hsmaidc.org. Rajawali Property Group and Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, the world's leading luxury hospitality company, today announced that Four Seasons will manage a new, all-suite luxury hotel in Capital Place, a luxury mixed-use development located in the heart of Jakarta's bustling Sudirman Central Business District. Recognised as one of the safest developments in Jakarta, Capital Place, a collaboration between the Rajawali Property Group and GIC, achieved an impressive accident-free safety record during construction and was recently chosen by the DKI Jakarta Government as the launch venue for National Safety Month 2016. Located along Jalan Gatot Subroto, the integrated business development will also include a 47-story office tower and upscale retail and dining outlets. "Capital Place is a remarkable project that represents our bold vision for the city of Jakarta," says Shirley Tan, CEO, Rajawali Property Group. "We are excited to introduce Four Seasons Hotel Jakarta as the centrepiece of this important development and extend Four Seasons legendary hospitality and services throughout the entire development. By leveraging Four Seasons experience and flexibility gained in similar mixed-use projects around the world, we are creating the first luxury mixed-use development in Jakarta to offer a seamlessly integrated five-star experience." Four Seasons is well-known for operating some of the world's greatest hotels in key global financial centres including Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Tokyo, London, New York and Paris. Four Seasons Hotel Jakarta will replace the current Four Seasons hotel located on Jalan H.R. Rasuna Said, which is also owned by the Rajawali Property Group, and has been closed for renovation since late 2014. "Four Seasons has proudly operated in Jakarta for 20 years. We have tremendous confidence in this market and look forward to a long and bright future here," says Michael A. Crawford, President Asia Pacific, Four SeasonsHotels and Resorts. "This is a unique opportunity to operate a new luxury hotel in Jakarta, while continuing our successful relationship with the Rajawali Property Group. We always strive to bring our guests the best, most remarkable properties and experiences, and we feel privileged to do so with the addition of this spectacular hotel, one that unites the vibrancy of downtown Jakarta with Four Seasons unparalleled level of personalisation and service," continues Crawford. "We look forward to welcoming back the many loyal guests and patrons of Four Seasons Hotel Jakarta as we mark the beginning of our exciting new chapter in this great city." With 125 spacious suites offering panoramic views of Jakarta's skyline, the Hotel will be an impressive addition to the Jakarta cityscape. The architects of the development are the internationally acclaimed Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, whose design celebrates the Indonesian architectural principle of transparency between indoor and outdoor spaces. The clean lines of the French Deco-inspired Hotel interiors, designed by the renowned New York interior designer Alexandra Champalimaud, will gracefully complement the impressive outdoor spaces created by tropical urban landscape designer Bill Bensley. Guests of Four Seasons Hotel Jakarta will enjoy a world-class facility including state-of-the art spa, fitness, and event and meeting facilities combined with the highly customised service synonymous with Four Seasons. Four Seasons is also known for running some of the world's most dynamic and locally relevant restaurants, and the dining and bar offerings at Four Seasons Hotel Jakarta will be no exception lively gathering places designed to appeal to locals and visitors alike. About Rajawali Property Group Rajawali Property Group is the real estate investment and development arm of Rajawali Group. Rajawali Group is one of Indonesia's largest investors. Driven by the philosophy of value creation, the Group has successfully engaged across a wide range of industries, including hotel & property, agriculture, mining, infrastructure, transportation and media. Over the last three decades, the Group has built a solid reputation for strategic investments, including Indonesia's first privately-owned television network Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia (RCTI), the nation's first private mobile services operator PT XL Excelcomindo Pratama, and growing PT Express Transindo Utama into the country's second largest taxi operator by fleet size with a business model recognised by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as an effective poverty reduction program for emerging economies. The Group's track record in value creation includes the turnaround of PT Perusahaan Rokok Tjap Bentoel and partnering with the Government of Indonesia to significantly increase the shareholder value of the country's largest cement maker PT (Persero) Semen Gresik Tbk. As part of the Group's vision of a sustainable future for Indonesia and Asia, it established the Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia and initiated the Harvard Kennedy School Indonesia Program to enhance research and education in public policy and governance issues. Sorya Ingrid Gaulin Director, Global Corporate Public Relations and Social Media +1 416 441 4767 Four Seasons It looks like you've reached a page that doesnt exist (anymore). Please use the navigation or search above to find content on Hospitality Net. Go back to home This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Reject AccorHotels today announced that it has entered into exclusive negotiations with a new hotel investment company for the sale of 85 owned and leased hotels that it currently operates. The portfolio comprises one Pullman, 19 Novotel, 13 Mercure, 35 ibis, 3 ibis Styles and 14 ibis budget hotels. Transacton Highlights: A portfolio of 85 hotels in Europe in the Economy and Midscale segments, for an asset value of 504 million, including: 28 hotels assets and the business interest of all 85 hotels, sold by AccorHotels for 146 million. 57 hotel assets covered by the purchase agreements containing a substitution clause for the buyer signed with Fonciere des Regions, Axa IM Real Assets and Invesco, for a total amount of 358 million. All of the hotels included in the transaction will maintain their AccorHotels brand via long-term franchise agreements and will benefit from an ambitious renovation program to be carried out within 36 months after the transaction has been finalized. The entity's management team will be partially made up of AccorHotels employees who are leaving the Group to contribute their expertise to the new franchisee. The newly created entity will be owned by Eurazeo (70%) and AccorHotels (30%). This ownership structure may rapidly be strengthened by the arrival of an additional institutional investor. Pursuing the transformation of HotelInvest's hotel portfolio, AccorHotels today announces that it has entered into exclusive negotiations with a new hotel investment company for the sale of 85 owned and leased hotels that it currently operates. The portfolio comprises one Pullman, 19 Novotel, 13 Mercure, 35 ibis, 3 ibis Styles and 14 ibis budget hotels. The majority of these hotels are located in France (61 hotels, primarily in regional cities and on the outskirts of urban agglomerations) and Spain (9 hotels), while the remainder are spread across Italy, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands. All of the hotels will remain under AccorHotels brands via franchise agreements. The new company will be up and running by the end of first-half 2016 and will become HotelServices' largest franchisee. AccorHotels will sell to its new partner the 28 owned hotels and the business interest of all 85 hotels involved in the transaction for a total of 146 million, corresponding to the gross asset value of these assets. The 57 other hotel assets are currently owned by Fonciere des Regions, Axa IM Real Assets, acting on behalf of its clients, and Invesco, and are covered by purchase agreements that include a substitution clause for the buyer. They will be acquired directly by the new entity under the terms and conditions announced in October and December 2015, for a total of 358 million. The buyer is a newly created hotel investment company, which will be owned by Eurazeo (70%) and AccorHotels (30%). The two partners may rapidly be joined by a third institutional investor. The newly created entity will have access to significant resources to restructure and develop its portfolio, including a budget of more than 100 million for hotel renovations. The transaction will be the subject of a consultation procedure with employee representatives. John Ozinga, Chief Operating Officer of HotelInvest, commented: "This wide-reaching, innovative transaction is another key step in the transformation of HotelInvest. We are delighted to be contributing to the emergence of a major new hotel investor in the European market, which we intend to support over the long term. The deal will create value for AccorHotels, for all of the employees and entities involved in the transaction, and for the new entity, which will serve as a key partner for the Group going forward." TPG Hotels & Resorts announced today that it has been selected to operate the first Moxy hotel in Washington, DC. In coordination with Owner/Developer Douglas Development Corporation of Washington DC, TPG Hotels & Resorts will provide technical development services assistance throughout the development process and manage the property upon completion, currently targeted for Q1 2017. Moxy DC Hotel will be located on the corner of 11th & K Streets in Washington DC. We are thrilled to partner with Douglas Development and to be the first hotel company to manage a Moxy branded hotel in the Greater DC area, states Paul Sacco, TPG Hotels & Resorts Chief Development Officer. Moxy DC Hotel, an exciting new Marriott-family brand, is yet another example of new lifestyle hotels TPG is actively engaged in throughout the US which complements our successful history of operating core, full-service brands for over three decades. Douglas Design plans involve incorporating an existing historic building into the overall design and function of the Moxy brand. The 13-story hotel will contain 200 guestrooms, a rooftop lounge, an outdoor street level patio, and also feature a live Instagram Wall capturing images in real time from Moxy travelers worldwide. From the communal NOW public space to smart, flexible bedrooms, Moxy DC Hotel will offer a bold, surprising design for the socially extroverted, energetic consumer. The design and style will feature an industrial chic look and aesthetic of polished concrete floors, exposed concrete columns, and open ceilings. The propertys owner, Douglas Development Corporation (DDC), is one of the most prominent real estate developers in the Washington area and has earned a national reputation as a leader in redevelopment of historical properties. This site at 11th and K embodies all the key characteristics we look for when considering historic restoration and repurposing through thoughtful expansion, states Douglas Jemal, DDCs Founder & President. The conversion of this property to a Moxy Hotel will add excitement and vibrancy to this high profile location. We look forward to delivering another marquis development to the greater DC area. Moxy DC Hotels bedrooms will intermix edgy with functionality. The open storage concept will feature a peg wall for ultimate flexibility when unpacking. A comfy lounge chair, small work surface and stool for unpacking will also be included. The platform bed will be outfitted with underbed motion sensor lighting. The bathroom will be a one-compartment layout with textured glass door and wall, shower and signature vanity. The Moxy B&F strategy was thoughtfully designed with the target audience in mind seamless, smart and fun. Moxy DC Hotels 24/7 self-service concept gives guests access to what they want, whenever they want it. The layout will allow guests to hang at their own pace on a couch with mobile device in hand or in a lively scene at the bar with beverage in hand. The hotel will feature keyless entry, screencasting, abundant plugins, tech-enabled rooms, motion sensor lighting under bed, and furiously fast and free wifi. The Moxy brand is a new disruptive hotel experience that is spirited, fun, and always thoughtful, catering to the next generation of travelers. We are thrilled to bring the Moxy lifestyle to Washington, DC, said Toni Stoeckl, vice president of Marriott Internationals Lifestyle brands. It is not just about offering a value proposition, it is also about responding to the changing needs of todays consumers and offering an edgy and dynamic hotel experience that emotionally resonates with the young and the young at heart. The Moxy DC project comes on the heels of a highly active 2015 for TPG which included multiple new development and/or management assignments. Additionally, TPG Hotels & Resorts has several lifestyle properties currently under development including Californias first Marriott AC Hotel in San Jose and other ground-up lifestyle hotel development projects in New Orleans, Providence and other major U.S. cities. During 2015, TPG Hotels & Resorts also celebrated the opening of the HyattHouse Atlanta Downtown located next to the Atlanta Aquarium in the emerging Downtown District of Atlanta, GA. Last night Rihanna unlocked the final door of #ANTIdiaRY and dropped her 8th studio album ANTI exclusively on TIDAL. Lets take a moment to revisit the old Rihanna cuts specifically Pon de Replay, her 2005 breakout hit and still one of her catchiest songs ever. A quick trip to Wikipedia reveals that Pon de Replay means play it again in Bajan Creole, one of Barbados two official languages. Indeed, the dancehall vibes are strong on this one. Remarkably, Rihanna had just turned 17 when this single dropped. Anyone else remember watching this video on MTV? Quotable Lyrics Come Mr. DJ song pon de replay Come Mr. DJ wont you turn the music up All the gyal pon the dance floor wantin some more what Come Mr. DJ wont you turn the music up Rumours of a brace of gigs at Croke Park have been quashed by Bruces Irish promoter, Peter Aiken. Hot Press can confirm that rumours that Bruce Springsteen will be playing Croke Park this year are completely unfounded. Hot Press has spoken to promoter Peter Aiken, of Aiken Promotions who have handled all of Springsteens Irish shows, since he first appeared here at Slane Castle in 1985, opening the Europeam leg of the Born In The USA tour. I have no idea where the story came from that Bruce was going to play Croke Park, Peter, who is currently in the States, told Hot Press. It astonishes me that someone can just run with a story like that. No one spoke to me about it at any stage before it was printed and we have consistently promoted Bruce Springsteens shows in Ireland. I can tell you that there is no truth whatsoever in it. It is not happening. It is as simple as that. Advertisement The story has been picked up by media all over the globe and Peter Aiken has inevitably been fielding calls from promoters anxious to find out whats going on or not as the case may be. It went worldwide, Peter told Hot Press. Its on websites and in newspapers. And I have been talking to promoters, who have been asking me whats happening. Thats what Ive been doing for the past few hours: telling everyone the same thing, which is that there is no truth in it. Its crazy to be put in this position but what can you do?" In today's hyperpartisan political climate, Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson's straightforward description of the grand jury's findings in its investigation of charges that Planned Parenthood was selling fetal tissue for profit was a breath of fresh air: "We had to follow the evidence where it led us," she said, and that evidence exonerated Planned Parenthood. But it didn't stop there. In a stunning twist, the grand jury handed down indictments against David Daleiden, director of the anti-abortion front organization Center for Medical Progress, and Sandra Merritt, an employee, who created the videos at the heart of the allegations. We can only imagine how shocked and chagrined Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick must have been at the news. Back in August, when the videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood personnel discussing the sale of fetal tissue hit the news, Patrick demanded that Anderson, a Republican, launch a criminal investigation. He surely expected her pro-life standing to trump her pro-law credentials. But the evidence that led the grand jury to its conclusions was indeed straightforward. Donating fetal tissue for research is legal and has over the decades contributed to development of important vaccines, including for polio and rubella. Recouping the costs associated with those donations is legal. On the other hand, altering a governmental document for nefarious purposes is illegal - creating a fake driver's license whether to buy liquor, for example, or to scam your way into Planned Parenthood offices with the intent to defraud. Buying or selling - as opposed to donating - body parts, whether to secure a kidney to be transplanted into an adult or to procure fetal tissue for research, is illegal. Daleiden and Merritt were indicted on the charge of tampering with governmental records when they created false California driver's licenses, a second-degree felony that carries a sentence of up to 20 years. Daleiden was also charged with violating a Texas ban on buying "human organs, namely, fetal tissue for valuable consideration," a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year. Planned Parenthood lawyer Josh Schafer has said Daleiden ran afoul of this ban when he sent an email to Planned Parenthood offering to pay $1,600 per sample for fetal tissue, an offer so outrageous that Planned Parenthood did not respond. Now it is up to a jury to determine their fates. Will Texans never tire of having their top political officials spend our tax dollars on personal crusades? Texas is the 12th state to have investigated these allegations and found no wrongdoing on the part of Planned Parenthood; eight states never even bothered to investigate. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Patrick announced they had no intention of suspending their probes into Planned Parenthood. These include ongoing investigations by the Health and Human Service Commission's Inspector General and the attorney general's office, as well as the Senate's Health and Human Services Committee. We use the term "investigation" loosely. These are not efforts to get at the truth - the Harris County DA's investigation did that. No, these are witch hunts meant to destroy Planned Parenthood, which if successful will deprive low-income women of much-needed health care, including contraceptive services, STD testing and cancer screening. The state has already withdrawn Planned Parenthood's funding for HIV prevention, and efforts are underway to disqualify the organization for Medicaid reimbursement. It is reassuring that 12 Harris County grand jurors were able to see past the politics to the facts. If only the Republican leadership in Austin was as fair-minded. Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print. Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition. If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create. As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content. When you click get started below it will walk you through creating an online account to attach your print subscription number to. After your account is created it will ask you to either add a subscription for online access or click on the print subscriber button. Click the print subscriber button header and it will open a dropdown, now click on get started. The page will reload and you will be prompted to enter an account number and a zip code. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE THE NUMBER OFF OF THE MOST RECENT ISSUE OR ANYTHING AFTER JANUARY 28, 2019 TO GAIN ACCESS! OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those. Evas Village Welcomes Machinery Services Corp. As a Corporate Sponsor Funding Their Community Kitchen Program for a Day Corporate donors help feed the hungry as part of the Fund-A-Meal program at Evas Village, a New Jersey anti-poverty charity. Posted by Press Releases on Thursday, 01-28-2016 5:11 am Currently 0.0/5 Stars. 1 2 3 4 5 0.0 from 0 votes Paterson, New Jersey (PRWEB) January 25, 2016On January 26th Evas Village, New Jerseys most comprehensive anti-poverty organization will welcome a volunteer team from Machinery Services Corp., a local Paterson business owned by Rich Taylor, to serve the noon meal in its Community Kitchen program. The Taylors have proudly operated their successful business in Paterson, NJ since 1978 and have always believed in giving back to the community. Machinery Services Corp. and the Taylor family have been community partners with Evas Village for many years and look forward to our day of service helping those most in need, stated Mr. Taylor. Serving at Evas allows our employees to connect with the community that they work in while providing a necessary service to those less fortunate.Many corporations have corporate giving programs, donating some of their profits or resources to charity. The Fund-A-Meal (FAM) program at Evas Villa... Close Forgot Your Password? Enter in your email address and we will send it to you. Send Email An HR.com member profile provides you with access to a multitude of information and education along with the opportunity to network with the largest HR community on the web. If you need any help, call .877.472.6648 and ask for our Member Experience Co-ordinator. Hi Please check your email for an activation link. If you do not receive your activation email within a few minutes, check your spam folder or call our Help Desk at 1.877.472.6648 For faster assistance, dial extension 4. Thank you! Continue Hi Verification error - Please enter the correct code above. Verified Wow! You have successfully verified the account Continue Hi your HR.com account is ready Your Profile completion: 30% Complete your profile Live Innovations Relaunch in London Event-based marketing firm, Live Innovations have revealed the details of their relaunch in London, Waterloo. Posted by Press Releases on Thursday, 01-28-2016 5:22 am Currently 0.0/5 Stars. 1 2 3 4 5 0.0 from 0 votes (PRWEB) January 25, 2016Live Innovations have recently undergone several changes so that they can relaunch a new, even more personalised direct marketing service on behalf of their clients brands. The firm have revealed that they will be specialising in event marketing only, which makes them stand out from other direct marketing firms. As Live Innovations will be focusing all of their attention on event marketing campaigns this means they are able to deliver a truly unique and personalised service to consumers, which is something the firm prides itself on.About Live Innovations: http://liveinnovations.co.uk/company-info-2/Live Innovations have re-opened in London, Waterloo, an exciting area surrounded by huge industry professionals which the firm can work alongside and gain advice from. Waterloo is in central London and benefits from huge crowds all year round, perfect for Live Innovations unique events. The area is also close to several London Universities which mea... Close Forgot Your Password? Enter in your email address and we will send it to you. Send Email An HR.com member profile provides you with access to a multitude of information and education along with the opportunity to network with the largest HR community on the web. If you need any help, call .877.472.6648 and ask for our Member Experience Co-ordinator. Hi Please check your email for an activation link. If you do not receive your activation email within a few minutes, check your spam folder or call our Help Desk at 1.877.472.6648 For faster assistance, dial extension 4. Thank you! Continue Hi Verification error - Please enter the correct code above. Verified Wow! You have successfully verified the account Continue Hi your HR.com account is ready Your Profile completion: 30% Complete your profile Top 10 Developments/Headlines in Trade Secret, Computer Fraud, and Non-Compete Law in 2015 Posted by Press Releases on Wednesday, 01-27-2016 8:42 pm Currently 0.0/5 Stars. 1 2 3 4 5 0.0 from 0 votes Top 10 Developments/Headlines in Trade Secret, Computer Fraud, and Non-Compete Law in 2015 By: Robert B. Milligan, Paul E. Freehling , Seyfarth Shaw LLPContinuing our tradition of presenting annually our thoughts concerning the top 10 developments/headlines this past year in trade secret, computer fraud, and non-compete law, herein no particular orderis our listing for 2015 and a few predictions for 2016. 1) Enactment of federal trade secret legislation moves closer, while federal non-compete bill gains no traction. In last years Top 10 listing, and in several blog posts from 2015, we described the ongoing effort of a large bipartisan group of U.S. Senators and Representatives to create a federal civil cause of action for trade secret misappropriation (according to govtrack.us, as of January 11, 2016 there were 23 cosponsors of such legislation in the Senate and 107 in the House). The proposed bill is entitled The Defend Trade Secrets... Close Forgot Your Password? Enter in your email address and we will send it to you. Send Email An HR.com member profile provides you with access to a multitude of information and education along with the opportunity to network with the largest HR community on the web. If you need any help, call .877.472.6648 and ask for our Member Experience Co-ordinator. Hi Please check your email for an activation link. If you do not receive your activation email within a few minutes, check your spam folder or call our Help Desk at 1.877.472.6648 For faster assistance, dial extension 4. Thank you! Continue Hi Verification error - Please enter the correct code above. Verified Wow! You have successfully verified the account Continue Hi your HR.com account is ready Your Profile completion: 30% Complete your profile Dubbed Generals, employees who dominate meeting are the most despised (30 per cent) Black Hats those who are always negative came in second (27 per cent) Phone Junkies followed up third (26 per cent) is across the country may be questioning their conduct today as new research has revealed the most common traits likely to cause offence or just plain irritation in a business meeting.Conducted by Colmar Brunton, the study identified a number of different attributes that antagonize employees and employers, including dominating people, negative people, and people who are more interested in their phones.Other pet hates include the Bully (25%) who wants everyone to agree with them, the Hijacker (23%) who goes off topic and distracts everyone else and the Chatterbox (23%) who talks too much and says nothing useful, says Jessica Balbas, a representative for the Takapuna-based market research firm.Kiwi workers hatred of bossy colleagues likely comes from the fact that the majority (29 per cent) describe themselves as Wallflowers someone who simply has nothing to say.People were second most likely (12 per cent) to identify themselves as Fiddlers someone who cant stop playing with papers, jewellery or anything else at hand followed by Eager Beavers (13 per cent) who talk over others.At 12 per cent and six per cent respectively, the study also found that Kiwi men are twice as likely as women to be the Nuclear Bomb in meetings a person whose ideas silence the entire room. OTTAWA Law enforcement agencies should try to see if they can charge convicted Air India bomb maker Inderjit Singh Reyat with any new offences so he can be potentially sent back to prison, a Conservative MP says. Erin OToole, the critic for public safety, told The Huffington Post Canada on Tuesday that laying new charges would be one way to keep Reyat the only person convicted for the 1985 Air India bombing that killed 331 people in Canadas worst terrorist attack off the streets. Advertisement Tory MP Erin O'Toole says law enforcement agencies should consider new charges against Inderjit Singh Reyat that could potentially send him back to prison. (Photo: Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press) Reyat was released on parole Wednesday. The National Parole Board had no choice but to let him leave prison after he served two-thirds of his nine-year sentence for perjury. It was a statutory release. If he committed a number of offences that he wasnt charged with at the time, this is what law enforcement should be looking at, even his protection of certain officials or certain people involved is that inherently a crime, OToole told HuffPost. Is there another way that this could be looked at? This is what the government needs to look at. 'You cant just keep trying' to charge someone, expert says Several criminologists, however, told HuffPost, this is nearly impossible to do. You cant charge someone for something that they have been convicted of and served sentence [for], or acquitted of. You cant just keep trying, University of British Columbia law professor Isabel Grant said. There are protections in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that say once someone is finally acquitted, you cant come back and charge them again. Advertisement But Grant hypothesized that it might be possible to charge him with the killing some of the victims. There is no limitation on charging someone with the lives of the people who died in the flight, but do they really want to retry Air India? It didnt work out well the last time they did that. Inderjit Singh Reyat, seen in an undated photo, was released on parole this week. (Photo: Canadian Press) Reyat, a Sikh extremist, had previously served 15 years in prison for manslaughter he had made the bombs that were placed into suitcases on the airplanes, including on Air Indias flight 182. While Reyat struck a deal with the Crown, he refused to point the finger at his two other accused conspirators, Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri. Subsequently, they were acquitted. He was sent back to prison for perjury after telling the court flat-out lies to protect other people involved. Advertisement For the next two years, Reyat will be living at a halfway house with numerous conditions laid out for his release: Not to associate with any person he knows or has reason to believe is involved in criminal activity, extremist views or political activity. Not to participate in any political activities for any organization. No direct or indirect contact with any member of the victims families. Not to possess any components that could be used to build an explosive device. Immediately report all contacts with males with whom he associated to his parole supervisor. Participate in counselling with a mental health professional to be arranged by the parole supervisor to address violence, empathy and cognitive distortions. Not to access or possess any extremist propaganda. But OToole said he worries that Reyat will just reintegrate over time with the same circle of acquaintances from before he went to prison. This is someone that knows all the parties involved, and many of whom are likely still in the Greater Vancouver Area. Were very concerned about that. The Conservative MP suggested that, at the very least, the government should ensure that intelligence agencies keep close tabs on him. Advertisement This is what intelligence does. There are people who havent been charged with crimes that can be under observations. Also on HuffPost: Edmonton's city council voted Wednesday to pass its vehicle-for-hire bylaw, becoming the first city in Canada to legalize Uber. The ride-sharing app will officially be legal in Edmonton as of March 1, provided the company can provide all drivers with insurance. Advertisement The decision came at the end of a heated debate that saw the city's council chambers closed to the public Tuesday, after over 100 taxi drivers caused such a ruckus that police had to step in to restore order. On the city council's video feed, viewers could hear cabbies chanting "Shame! Shame!" through the walls as politicians attempted to proceed with the discussion. The public was allowed to attend Wednesday's session, but Mayor Don Iveson made it clear that no disturbances would be tolerated. Most of the taxi drivers left before council voted on the bylaw. Cab drivers rallying at #yeg city hall. Not allowed into council chambers #uberpic.twitter.com/xMLrOZBuQd Elizabeth Hames (@ElizabethHames) January 26, 2016 Advertisement It wasn't the first time Edmonton's city council saw heated protests against Uber. In September, taxi drivers swarmed city hall removing their shirts, yelling, banging on walls and demanding pizza all because council had suggested expanding the number of available taxi licence plates. The drivers fear that Uber will drive them out of business, and are furious that Edmonton even considered allowing the company to operate (albeit, with some added regulations such as adding a minimum price to make competition more fair.) Taxi drivers release black balloons outside city hall. "It's a black day for democracy." #yegccpic.twitter.com/av0s4nYwa0 Laura Osman (@LauraOsmanCBC) January 26, 2016 The taxi industry, the regulated industry can not compete with Uber, driver Manjinder Punia told Metro News. Within six months to a year the industry will be done. Punia might not be wrong. Edmonton's taxi industry has good reason to be afraid now that Uber will be regulated, and it might be their own fault. Advertisement Complaints have piled up In 2014, Edmonton received 135 complaints against taxi drivers. That's on top of 336 enforcement tickets handed out to taxi drivers the same year. Those statistics are a perfect example of the growing frustration against what Edmonton Journal columnist David Staples referred to as the "broken, non-competitive business model that has resulted in poor service" in an editorial Wednesday. Taxi drivers' behaviour at council is one reason for support for Uber is growing in the city 90,000 riders have signed up for the app in Edmonton. It's also a sign that cabbies are terrified of losing their monopoly on the market. It's official! #YEG is the first Canadian city to regulate ridesharing! Thank you to all our supporters! pic.twitter.com/6VmGNcQCn7 Uber Edmonton (@Uber_Edmonton) January 27, 2016 Up until this point, Uber had operated in a legal grey area in the city. Now, once drivers are provided commercial insurance, the company will be allowed to legally enter Edmonton's vehicle-for-hire market. Two insurance companies are already working on drafting policies for Uber drivers, CBC News reported. Advertisement The bylaw also opens the door to other ride-sharing services like Lyft and SideCar, meaning Edmonton's taxi industry will need to adapt to keep up with the changing market. "I think that the taxi industry has been complacent," said Edmonton Coun. Michael Oshry. "They have to provide a better service than in the past." Also on HuffPost: With the millions of people crossing in and out of Alberta each year, officials at the Canada Border Service Agency are bound to find some weird stuff. Last year, officials executed 256 seizures along Alberta's southern border with the U.S., 1,270 at Calgary's airport and 1,700 in Edmonton, according to the border service agency's year in review. Advertisement Here are some of the odd things they found. Calgary International Airport Officers seized over 184 packages of narcotics in 2015, and some of those drugs were hidden in creative ways. In May, officers discovered a hollow, porcelain clown statue filled with cocaine. Officers also opened up a book from Albania to find it had been stuffed with bottles of Rivotril, a tranquilizer considered a controlled substance in Canada. Detector dog Kodiak made an interesting find in December, when he sniffed out food in a traveller's suitcase: 9.55 kg. of whole raw duck; 6.6 kg. of whole raw chicken; 3.33 kg. of pastrami; 1.77 kg. homemade butter; 92.5 grams of loose seeds; and 750 grams of milk. The man did not declare any food to agents prior to the search. He ended up paying a $650 penalty for the nearly 50 lbs. of food. Advertisement That's one heavy suitcase. (Photo: CBSA) A number of flyers also attempted to bring weapons into Canada. Blow guns and crossbows were among the items found in 29 seizures. Edmonton International Airport Edmonton, similar to Calgary, also saw some odd weapons seizures. Seven weapons were confiscated by officers, among them included nunchuks and throwing stars. As for bizarre food discoveries, Edmonton's detector dog Max found some interesting packages. From one couple, Max busted a couple who forgot to declare 2.5 kg of swan meat, 5.5 kg of chicken, dried chrysanthemum flowers, ginger root, dried fish, dried fruit and seeds in their carry-on. Another person attempted to sneak 300 g of pork fat in their purse. Officials also discovered when examining a package marked as "replica hippopotamus tusks" that the tusks were actually real. Advertisement The "replica" hippo tusks seized by border officials have growth marks and discoloration. (Photo: CBSA) Edmonton officers also confiscated 87 packages of drugs, including ingredients making a date-rape drug and fentanyl. Southern Alberta Detector dog Trooper retired in 2015, after helping with over 100 seizures. (Photo: CBSA) Officials at Alberta's southern border crossings enjoyed a busy year, making over 60 drug seizures. In one case, officers found a bag of marijuana hidden in the base of a potato-chip can with a false bottom. Advertisement In another case, officials found three guns hidden under the bed in a trailer. A total of 51 firearms were seized at the border, the biggest weapons haul since 2012. One unauthorized non-human traveller also managed to sneak back into the States after attempting to sneak into Canada. The traveller, a rattlesnake, slipped into the examination room at the Wild Horse, MT crossing, then slithered back to the U.S. before pest control showed up. Also on HuffPost: America Needs Fatima exists to win the heart and soul of America for Mary with the Fatima message. America urgently ... Conservative MP Candice Bergen responds during question period in the House of Commons 2013. (Photo: Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press) A former Conservative minister chastised the federal government on Wednesday, saying new mechanisms in the pipeline review process will leave decision-making to Liberals rather than scientists and by evidence. Advertisement Candice Bergen, the Opposition critic for natural resources, made the comments after the government announced all resource projects will be evaluated by projected greenhouse gas emission levels and after consultation of indigenous communities. At an Ottawa press conference, Bergen lambasted the Liberal process for taking decisions out of the hands of experts and arms-length bodies and really centralizing it in the prime ministers office. The Manitoba MP said that will absolutely give way for a lot of political interference. So our first look at this is its not positive, Bergen said. Its unfortunately a trend that seems to be very, very quickly developing with this government. Advertisement Conservative MP Candice Bergen passes cameras on the way to Conservative caucus in Ottawa in November 2015. (Photo: Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press) Bergen served in the cabinet of Stephen Harper, who was condemned by domestic and international scientists for muzzling civil servants and slashing funding. On Wednesday, she claimed the Liberal changes will prioritize politics over scientific reason. It looks like a lot of room for political decision-making by this government as opposed to decisions by scientists and by evidence, she said, before taking a swipe at Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr. The minister of natural resources, who should be, I believe, a champion and cheerleader for Canadian natural resources, has absolutely abdicated that role, said Bergen. The minister of natural resources, who should be, I believe, a champion and cheerleader for Canadian natural resources, has absolutely abdicated that role. Candice Bergen, Tory MP She added Carr has basically become the minister ... and assistant to the minister of climate change, and has kind of forgotten what it means to be the minister of natural resources. Bergen, however, failed to acknowledge how the former government made amendments to the countrys laws that made environmental assessments no longer a mandatory requirement with project proposals under review. The changes, introduced in Bill C-38, became law in 2012. Tories now want science-based perspective Debate over the Trans Mountain and Energy East pipelines has sparked renewed political attention over the approval process for Canadian natural resource projects amid plummeting oil prices. But Bergen isnt the first Conservative this week to attempt to reuse, recycle, and redirect the war on science argument against the current Liberal government. On Monday, interim party leader Rona Ambrose accused the Liberals of abandoning science, specifically in acknowledging advancements made to pipeline safety technologies. Advertisement Ambrose urged Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre to consider a science-based perspective in his "unfortunate" opposition against the proposed Energy East pipeline. Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose speaks during a news conference in Ottawa earlier this week. (Photo: Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press) This isn't in the spirit of Confederation, Ambrose said. It's not in the spirit of national unity. It's not in the spirit of Canadians who always reach out when people are having a tough time. The Alberta MP suggested Coderre and other Quebec mayors are taking critical stances based on pure local politics rather than looking at it from an evidence-based, fact-based, science-based view. Advertisement Science and national values The previous Conservative government faced years of public scrutiny and backlash for its role in a rapid decline in freedoms and funding of federal scientists. On Thursday, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said scientific evidence will be an important part of the assessment process for new natural resource projects but political and economic issues will also be taken into consideration. Carr, who joined McKenna at a news conference, said: The government of Canada is free to establish its own review and its own criteria for those reviews in whatever context it chooses, adding its ultimately up to the cabinet to decide whether or not a project meets the natural interest of all Canadians. Bergen is expected to introduce a motion in the House of Commons on Friday in an attempt to force a vote on the Energy East pipeline. It will put Liberals in a difficult spot on a project Tories have accused them of having an unclear position on. A veteran MP losing his voice to the ravages of Lou Gehrig's disease found an innovative way to make himself heard in the House of Commons Wednesday. And Mauril Belanger made history in the process. Though he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) last fall, Belanger has stayed on as an MP for Ottawa-Vanier and is now pushing a private member's bill to make "O Canada" gender neutral. He's proposing that the English lyric "in all thy sons command" be changed to "in all of us command." Advertisement An identical bill from Belanger seeking the change was defeated in second reading last April by a vote of 144-127. Liberal MP Mauril Belanger speaks in the House of Commons in December 2015. (Photo: Sean Kilpatrick/CP) Belanger used a program on his iPad that read his remarks for him through the microphone on his desk. It marked the first time a speech has been delivered electronically in the House. Advertisement Changing just two words, he argued, would render Canada's national anthem more inclusive. He noted that different members from all parties voted for the bill in the last Parliament. "I commissioned an opinion poll on this issue which showed solid support for this initiative," he noted. "A total of 58 per cent supported this measure and only 19 per cent disagreed." "By the way, Mr. Speaker, it is 2016." Belanger said he looked forward to working with colleagues to address the matter once again. "By the way, Mr. Speaker, it is 2016," he said, riffing off Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's much-lauded line about his gender-balanced cabinet. Belanger's speech sparked a standing ovation. NDP MPs Peter Julian and Romeo Saganash came across the aisle to shake his hand, as did the prime minister. With a file from The Canadian Press Advertisement Also on HuffPost Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was put on the defensive Thursday after being grilled by Thomas Mulcair over Canadas intention to sign a controversial trade deal inherited from the previous Conservative government. The Liberals still havent released an economic impact study on the deal, Mulcair said in question period. The NDP leader followed up by asking why the prime minister would sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement amid reports that its ratification risks tens of thousands of Canadian jobs. Advertisement Trudeau responded by saying trade creates middle-class jobs and economic growth. And that is why we are a pro-trade party, he said. The prime minister added the Liberals have consistently pledged to discuss the deal in consultations with Canadians and among Parliamentarians. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair exchange words in question period in the House of Commons on Thursday. (Photo: ParlVu) Advertisement In order to do so, however, we cant stop debate on it. And therefore, we will be signing it as a way to consider it through ratification, Trudeau said. Mulcair continued to take aim at the TPP and the air of secrecy that continues to surround details of the deal. Apparently, the government has no problem signing an agreement that was negotiated in secret, the NDP leader continued in French. Does the prime minister often sign things he doesnt agree with? The prime minister responded by saying signing an agreement and ratification are two different things. In order to study the proposal, we have to sign it to be able to go to the next step. We want to debate it here in the house, and this is why were going to sign it. Advertisement Too soon for firm decision International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland announced on a government website Monday that Canada will sign the TPP which, once ratified, would create the largest global trade deal in history. Twelve countries, including Canada, Japan, and the U.S., are expected to sign the agreement next week. It is too soon to endorse the TPP. Freeland said skipping the meeting would have shut the door to future debates about the deals possible economic implications. However, she was also quick to caution that signing the deal is a formality, and doesnt signify the federal governments intention to ratify it. It is too soon to endorse the TPP, it is also too soon to close the door, she wrote in an open letter. Signing does not equal ratifying. Only a majority vote in our Parliament can allow the agreement to take force. Signing is simply a technical step in the process, allowing the TPP text to be tabled in Parliament for consideration and debate before any final decision is made. Advertisement Essence of Crown corporations being 'traded away' Canadian protectionist measures related to the countrys dairy market made TPP negotiations last year incredibly frustrating, according to a New Zealand government trade envoy. Some critics lobbying against the deal, including the Council of Canadians, argue the TPP will hurt state-owned enterprises from acting in the public interest. Sujata Dey, one of the groups trade campaigners, said in a news release last year that the deal will alter the mission of the CBC into a profit-driven model and that Canada Post will essentially act as a private company. The essence and mandate of our Crown corporations are being traded away in favour of private corporate profit, she wrote. Advertisement Also on HuffPost Thunder Bays two local TV stations are in such financial trouble that they are running on life insurance money from a recently deceased station owner, station management told Canadas broadcast regulator this week. The CRTC is holding public hearings into the future of local TV in Canada, and local broadcasters are taking the opportunity to bring attention to their growing financial problems. Advertisement Thunder Bays two local stations CTV affiliate CKPR and Global affiliate CHFD are both owned by Thunder Bay Electronics, also known as Dougall Media. The companys vice-president and general manager, Don Caron, says the stations may have to shut down by Sept. 1, Global News reports. A view of central Thunder Bay. (Getty Images) The reason we are still in business and still operating is the fact that we unfortunately had a general manager and a owner who passed away in the last year and the company had fairly significant life policies on them, Caron said, as quoted at The Chronicle Journal. He was referring to Fraser Dougall, who passed away last August. Caron said the possible shutdown of the Thunder Bay stations would blacken Northern Ontario, noting the area the stations serve is larger than France. Advertisement Im not doing that as a threat, Caron added. Im just telling you the realities of the financial scenario we face at this point. Thunder Bays local affiliates arent the only ones facing financial problems as traditional broadcast TV jostles with new media for audience attention. A report submitted to the CRTC by Friends of Canadian Broadcasting ahead of the hearings warns that half of Canadas local TV affiliates could be off the air by 2020, costing some 1,000 jobs, unless they see a revenue boost. Private local stations have seen revenue decline by 25 per cent since 2010, the report said. Changes to Canadian TV distribution rules will cost a cumulative total of more than 15,000 jobs, and will reduce GDP by a total of $1.4 billion by 2020, a report prepared for Friends of Canadian Broadcasting predicts. (Chart: Nordicity) Advertisement Broadcasters are also concerned about the CRTCs changes to cable and satellite TV rules. Starting this year, TV providers will have to unbundle specialty channels and offer them on a pay-per-channel basis, among other things. But the CRTCs new rules, designed to be consumer-friendly, have raised concerns in the industry. Media unions and guilds issued a report earlier this month warning the changes could lead to 15,000 direct and indirect job losses in Canada, draining $1.4 billion out of the economy. Ruskpp via Getty Images Cooperation flags. In an apparent and welcome reversal, Ottawa seems to be reconsidering its position on the $15-billion contract for Canadian-made military equipment with Saudi Arabia -- one of the worst human rights violators in the world. Only days after Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion seemed to signal the irreversibility of the contract, declaring emphatically that "what is done is done," an official statement from his department stated: "Should we become aware of reports that would be relevant to Canada's export control regime, the government can consider whether existing permits should be suspended or cancelled." For once, Ottawa conceded that existing arms deal authorizations can be reassessed. Advertisement The peculiar wording in this statement suggests that reports relevant to Canada's export controls -- or the Saudi arms deal in particular -- are merely an eventual possibility. Yet there are at least a dozen existing relevant reports. Most recently, a UN report leaked to The Guardianreveals that a panel established by the UN to investigate the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen exposed "widespread and systematic" attacks on civilian targets "in violation of international humanitarian law." Just a few weeks earlier, Saudi Arabia made international headlines for the summary executions of nearly 50 individuals. "The fact remains that the government has not once explained how the Saudi deal satisfies the human rights safeguards of the existing export control regime." Saudi Arabia rates a failing grade in virtually every conceivable category of human rights. In its World Report 2015, Human Right Watch stated that "Saudi Arabia's discriminatory male guardianship system remains intact despite government pledges to abolish it." It further stated that "ministerial policies and practices forbid women from obtaining a passport, marrying, traveling or accessing higher education without the approval of a male guardian." Advertisement In December 2014, Saudi Arabia's grand mufti said that he had "no intention to discuss" the call to restrict marriage to girls at least 15 years of age. In a 2014 interview, he described marriages of girls below that age as "permissible." This from the most senior religious leader in the Kingdom, a royal appointee. According to Freedom in the World 2015 by Freedom House, in Saudi Arabia "allegations of torture by police and prison officials are common, and access to prisoners by independent human rights and legal organizations is strictly limited." Amnesty International has reported that the Saudi regime targets "the small but vocal community of human rights defenders, using anti-terrorism laws to suppress their peaceful actions." Ottawa can expect reports relevant to arms exports authorizations to emerge with troubling regularity. And unless it indulges in willful blindness, it will "become aware" of them. But while the government has apparently acknowledged that it "can" reassess existing exports permits, the fundamental question is not whether it can, but whether it will. Though the government's latest statement constitutes a shift in the right direction, it stands as a testament to the erratic manner in which Ottawa has attempted to rationalize the deal. The fact remains that the government has not once explained how the Saudi deal satisfies the human rights safeguards of the existing export control regime. Meanwhile, the new federal government has announced its intention to join -- finally -- the international Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). This was not only one of Trudeau's election pledges, but a priority in minister Dion's mandate letter. Advertisement This decision should be applauded and has been welcomed enthusiastically at home and abroad. But how can Canada reconcile plans to join the ATT, with its provisions for transparency and accountability, with an apparent unwillingness to reveal any details about the Saudi deal? Two successive governments have failed to address legitimate questions about the human rights implications of this deal. At the same time, traditional supporters of human rights in Canada -- including political parties and labour unions -- have shied away from this vital debate. If the deal with Saudi Arabia is cancelled, jobs, primarily in southwestern Ontario, might well be at stake. Some say the number could be as high as 3,000, although these claims have not been supported. But no one ever said that sticking to principle is a cost-free proposition. No line taken by the government in this matter will please everyone. Perhaps it will plough through with the deal and weather the heat from critics, no matter how persistent. Alternatively, if it decides to open the books on the Saudi deal, and the contract is altered, suspended or cancelled, there will be complaints from those concerned for the economy. The Saudi arms deal presents the new government with an admittedly complex policy challenge. But challenges can result in opportunity. And make no mistake: this is an opportunity unlike many others for Justin Trudeau's government not only to start cementing its legacy, but to show its true colours. Advertisement Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook MORE ON HUFFPOST: Tooga via Getty Images Side view of musican playing trumpet with spotlight shining on him A former student reminded me that the Colours of Jazz art exhibition, a show featuring the 1920s modernist art of the Beaver Hall Group, was about to close at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. As the Canadianist in my department entrusted to teach historical Canadian art, I felt obliged to make the effort. While the title left me pondering how jazz might fruitfully enter the exhibition and open new avenues of critical analysis, the promotional materials, which included a portrait of a pale-skinned, dark-haired white female, gave me pause. To what extent did the conspicuous whiteness of the chosen model indicate the whitewashing of jazz in the show? Advertisement Although not a connoisseur, I know enough about jazz to understand that its roots lie indisputably in black, diasporic and mainly African-American musical and expressive cultures which can be traced to earlier forms of creolized slave cultures. As my frustrated friend expounded on Facebook after seeing the MMFA poster, the history of jazz is "black-blackety-black!" Jazz stood for modernity in part because of its unofficial or extra-official nature, which was embedded in practices like improvisation, but also fundamentally born when slavery's memory was still very fresh. The exuberant, transgression, performative, uncalculated nature of jazz allowed black musicians to reclaim self-expression and cultural practices which had been suppressed by slavery. But the ongoing stain of anti-black racism and the practices of segregation meant that superlative black musicians and dancers were often performing for all-white audiences in racially segregated nightclubs. This is no doubt what prompted some jazz greats to forsake (North) America altogether and migrate to Europe, especially Paris, where one of the Jazz Age's brightest stars, the African-American Josephine Baker, reigned on Parisian concert stages. The segregation of social life in the USA and Canada helped to ensure the continuation of the colonial logic of race, which had underpinned slavery in the first place. Thus, although the legal enslavement of blacks had been abandoned, white insistence on the racial uniformity of their social spaces ensured the continuation of their racial privilege and helped to perpetuate the idea that the role of the black artist was to perform for the benefit of whites. Advertisement "The absence of black subjects was a profound error which arguably falsified and retroactively whitened the cultural landscape of the period and the city of Montreal itself." Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave (2013) got it right. There is a disturbing scene in the movie where Patsey, played by the Oscar-winning Lupita Nyong'o, and her fellow slaves are forced to arise from their slumber to entertain the inebriated and maniacal Master Epps, played by Michael Fassbender. White slave owners often compelled the enslaved to "make merry" and perform for the benefit of the white households. Across the Americas, the enslaved were routinely rented out to white households who paid their owners for the privilege of their musical talents. Just as in Harlem, NYC, jazz became indelibly linked to Montreal during the early to mid-twentieth century. As a city free of prohibition close to the U.S. border, Montreal attracted top black American jazz acts and ardent white American jazz tourists. But local whites also frequented such clubs, and local jazz talent -- the likes of Oscar Peterson, Charlie Biddle and Oliver Jones -- also emerged. It is with this history in mind that I entered the exhibition. While the organizers took pains to lay out the background and chronology of the Beaver Hall Group, "jazz" and its social and cultural history never made an appearance. In a show dominated by portraits, and admittedly vibrant, stunning and accomplished ones, I failed to find even one black sitter. Advertisement While a range of genres including landscapes, nudes and genre works were included, even Prudence Heward's provocative black female nudes (nakeds) were absent; to my mind a missed opportunity to talk about the racial politics that underpinned the Jazz age. While claiming to narrate the social complexity of modernity as it intersected with and was inspired by jazz in a city which was for a long time Canada's economic capital, the absence of black subjects was a profound error which arguably falsified and retroactively whitened the cultural landscape of the period and the city of Montreal itself. Despite the lack of established black Canadian artists at this time when compared to the U.S., the organizers arguably could have addressed the centrality of black culture in other ways. Popular culture like newspaper clippings of jazz shows, photographs of musicians and dancers, record covers, playbills and concert tickets could have easily opened a window into the complex social world of jazz in which the titillation of cross-racial contact was, for white concertgoers, a big draw. Therefore, the lack of established, classically trained Canadian black visual artists could have been addressed as a facet of Canadian racism, which was also self-evident in the racially segregated jazz scene. But not only was this dynamic "modern" context withheld, but also the majority of the paintings failed to evoke the context and mood of jazz modernity: the smoke-filled, often dingy, out-of-the-way, in-the-know night life of jazz music; the sky-scraper-lit-against-a-night-sky vibe of a moody, haunting trumpet melody. Advertisement Cityscapes are rare in this show and I don't recall seeing one set at night. Instead, snow-covered hills and trees in rural settings dominate. In the one "moody" dark room where you as a visitor would finally have heard jazz music, the song that was playing (at least when I was visiting) was one of the whitest jazz songs that I've ever heard! Thus, in the end, an exhibition that promised jazz and modernity did not deliver. Indeed, jazz as I understand it did not show up at all. As someone with an appreciation for Canadian art, it was a pleasure to see the striking portraits, nudes and landscapes of Lilias Torrance Newton, Prudence Heward and Adrien Hebert. However, the organizers must be held to account for whitewashing their own jazz theme, especially with Concordia University's jazz archive within spitting distance, their proximity to the living legacies of Canada's black jazz greats and their location in Canada's greatest jazz city, Montreal! An opportunity was surely missed. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook MORE ON HUFFPOST: Bloomberg via Getty Images Justin Trudeau, Canada's prime minister, gestures as he speaks during a panel session at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Friday, Jan. 22, 2016. World leaders, influential executives, bankers and policy makers attend the 46th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos from Jan. 20 - 23. Photographer: Matthew Lloyd/Bloomberg via Getty Images The diversity of the Canadian economy is a critical part of our economic success as a nation and this diversity is particularly important when the global economy slows. We saw this during the 2008-09 global recession, and we are witnessing this now amid a major drop in global commodity prices. During the global recession it was our resource sectors that helped Canada weather the recession better than most developed economies. Today, we hope that sectors such as manufacturing, the services sector, agriculture and others can pick up the slack left by this resource price dip. Advertisement The role of the Canadian government in both the short and long term should be to embrace and foster the growth of all parts of our diverse economy. The government should certainly not champion some sectors and demoralize others. Sadly, we have already started to see that approach by the Trudeau government and I worry the tone being set is one that is not good for Canada. Many voices discount the diversity of our economy and suggest that we do nothing beyond the classic depiction of Canadians as hewers of wood and drawers of water, or the more modern depiction of Canada as nothing more than an oil and gas producer. Voices like these clearly do not understand the modern Canadian economy. Oil, gas and the resource sector more broadly are a very important part of our economy, representing 10 per cent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Canada has been blessed with a natural abundance of natural resources from forestry and minerals, to oil and gas development, but it is naive to suggest that the sale of the commodities themselves is the only benefit we gain. For decades, resource development in Canada has led to world-class technological innovations and advancements in exploration, extraction and processing methods. Perhaps even more importantly, Canada's major stock market (the TSX) and our capital markets grew out of our resource sector. Advertisement The TSX remains a top destination for raising capital for resource exploration in Canada and around the world, and the capital market players that finance this exploration and development employ tens of thousands of Canadians directly and indirectly in Toronto and across the country. The modern Bay Street in Toronto would not exist to its size and importance to our economy if not for our century-long role as a global centre for mining finance. "Pitting one sector against another shows a profound lack of understanding of the economy and is particularly insensitive to families struggling with layoffs in the resource and manufacturing sectors." If the resource sector represents only a modest percentage of our GDP, it is clear we rely on more than just this important sector for our growth as a nation. Our technology sector is equally as impressive and important. From early trailblazers like Nortel, to global players like Blackberry and Open Text, to exciting new companies like Hootsuite, Shopify and BuildDirect, Canada continues to innovate in the digital economy and develop jobs and intellectual property across the country. Our biggest challenge in this sector remains cultivating a large enough venture capital network in Canada that is less risk-averse to help Canada retain some of the world-class talent produced at our universities to allow them to remain in Canada beyond the idea or start-up stage. Healthcare and education are not just important services delivered to Canadians by Canadians, but our world-class service providers and institutions are also selling our expertise in this sector around the world. Advertisement Our agricultural and fisheries sectors also remain critically important, particularly in regions of the country that benefit the most from these traditional industries. Recent trade agreements negotiated by the Harper government should be very positive for all of these sectors in the coming years and hopefully this growth will help make up for less activity by resource companies. I raise the subject of the diversity of our economy because this issue has come into sharp focus in the week following Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's comments at the important World Economic Forum meetings in Davos. In his keynote speech to global business leaders, our prime minister appeared to make light of the role of the resource economy in Canada suggesting that this was what Canada did in the past. We were "resourceful" now, according to the prime minister. These comments echo the tone of previous remarks the prime minister had made before the election, suggesting that Ontario should transition away from manufacturing industries, which employ thousands of people in my province. Appearing to dismiss one part of our economy, or even worse, pitting one sector against another, shows a profound lack of understanding of the economy and is particularly insensitive to families struggling with layoffs in the resource and manufacturing sectors. Days later, this tone was echoed by prime minister Trudeau's former parliamentary colleague, Denis Coderre (now the mayor of Montreal) when he held a press conference that appeared to many to be nothing more than an unnecessary attack on the Energy East pipeline. Advertisement This project is subject to independent regulatory review by the National Energy Board, which is tasked with the important job of weighing the national interest alongside the environmental, aboriginal and local concerns about a project. Despite this fact and with a complete understanding that the pipeline would bring thousands of jobs in Western and Atlantic Canada, Mr. Coderre still thought it appropriate to wade into an area that is not even within the jurisdiction of his municipality. It was an exercise in parochialism at its worst and I worry that it appears to be following the tone set by the prime minister. I was told that PC leader Robert Stanfield once said that "it is far easier to unite one part of Canada against another part of Canada than it is to unite all Canadians." I have long sought to confirm this quote, but even without a perfect provenance, it illustrates why I am gravely concerned by the prime minister's approach on the economy. Canada is a large and diverse country in many ways. We should embrace not only the diversity of our people, but the diversity of our geography and of our economy because these things are fundamentally related. The success of one region will help all regions, just as the struggles of one will also affect all. Our prime minister should not appear to pick favourites amongst the sectors of our economy any more than he should pick favourites among the provinces or territories making up our confederation. The prime minister is not a dispassionate referee or a traffic cop for the provinces, but he must be a responsible advocate for opportunity for us all. Advertisement Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook MORE ON HUFFPOST: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young Mental health matters. What happens to someone who belongs to a community that is already being stigmatized and they have mental health issues? Unfortunately in many cases it leads to further isolation, feelings of rejection and depression. According to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), one in five Canadians experience a mental health or addiction problem. There is an influx of Syrian refugees arriving in Canada thanks to our amazing new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, 25,000 to be exact; the majority of whom are expected to arrive by the end of March 2016. We cannot imagine much of what these families have endured. Most if not all have lost family members: parents, siblings, children, friends. In some instances they have had to watch them being murdered or raped right in front of their eyes. Most of us cannot bear to hear of the atrocities these families (including children) have faced much less imagine experiencing them for ourselves. Advertisement My family has been in touch with some of the new families that have arrived in Montreal over the past few weeks. The experience has been humbling to say the least. They are so afraid, so timid, yet so thankful and appreciative of any good that comes their way. They have left everything behind. In most instances they do not know how to speak English or French, they do not know anyone and have to deal with brutally cold temperatures (contrary to the desert heat they are accustomed to). All these factors make them exponentially more susceptible to depression or further exasperates any existing mental health condition. These families have to learn to gradually trust once again. We recently introduced our children to one of the newly settled Syrian refugee families. They have young boys around the ages of our children. They met one another, and in the wondrous way that children do, they played together sharing games and all the while communicating using the universal language of friendship: a smile. They did not speak each other's language. They eventually tried teaching each other words and simple expressions by using hand gestures but none of that really mattered to any of them. All that mattered is they found a new friend to play with. Somehow as we grow older, things begin to change. We over complicate things. We see things through politically motivated lenses. My daughter went to school and as her class was learning about the Syrian refugee crisis, she shared that she had recently met a family that had arrived in Montreal. Her classmates were intrigued. They asked if they spoke English or French; she told them neither. She told them that she communicated using gestures, and trying to use Google Translate on Mommy's cellphone. She also told her classmates that they have so little that it makes her sad. The boys only have one pair of pyjamas, one pair of school clothes and limited personal belongings. Her fifth grade class, encouraged by their teacher, immediately sprung into action brainstorming ways they could help out. My heart burst with pride and gratitude that my daughter is surrounded by such wonderful children that wanted to join together to help this family they had never met. They recently got the green light from the school principal to collect items to help the new refugees. Advertisement These families have to learn to gradually trust once again. It will take them time to feel safe in their surroundings, to trust others and with time, to enter into the folds of our society. The onus of responsibility falls on us. Those who live here, to reach out, to do what we can to help out. There are organizations working tirelessly; many of which are run by volunteers wanting to make a difference. I absolutely love the #BellLetsTalk campaign. It helps raise awareness, create dialogue and raise money for mental health initiatives in Canada but the question that I want to ask is what happens after January 27th? What happens when everyone stops talking about mental health? What happens to those who will continue to suffer? I worry for the families who arrive to this foreign country with a small bag of their belongings and the task of learning a new language, new culture and new life. Winters are brutal for so many of us. Imagine being stuck inside of a small apartment afraid to go outside because it's 30-40 degrees colder than anything you've ever experienced before? Imagine sitting inside because you do not speak the language of the locals? Many of the refugees that have arrived recently are very well educated hold multiple degrees and may have had highly lucrative careers back home. Home being the place that was bombed out of recognition, their belongings ransacked, families killed and life savings spent transporting their families to safety. I worry for these families and their mental health. I worry for the mental health of their young children who have had to witness horrors no child should ever have to witness. They have had to travel on foot for thousands of miles and risk their lives for a chance at a future. The future is now. They have arrived in our backyard. Scratch that, they have arrived on our front porch. It is our duty as Canadians to welcome them as our ancestors were once welcome to the beautiful land we call home. It is time we show them what it means to be a Canadian and welcome them to Canada. Advertisement This post was originally published on CanadianMomeh.com Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook ALSO ON HUFFPOST: ASSOCIATED PRESS Swedish diplomat and World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg, is shown in this undated photo. Russia for the first time conceded Friday, that Soviet authorities wrongfully persecuted Wallenberg, who saved tens of thousands of Jews from being sent to Nazi concentration camps before dying in a Soviet prison. The Russian prosecutor-general's office posthumously rehabilitated Wallenberg, saying he was wrongfully imprisoned in a KGB jail for political reasons until he died more than a half-century ago, at the age of 34. (AP photo/Pressens Bild) International Holocaust Remembrance Day is a reminder of horrors too terrible to believe but not too terrible to have happened. This year, it marked the 71st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the most brutal extermination camp of the 20th century. From 1941 to 1944, 1.3 million people were murdered at Auschwitz, and 1.1 million of them were Jews. Let there be no mistake about it: Jews were murdered at Auschwitz because of anti-Semitism, but anti-Semitism did not die at Auschwitz. As we have learned only too tragically and too well, while it begins with Jews, it does not end with Jews. Advertisement As it happens, it has been a dark January. Thus far, 2016 -- not unlike January of last year -- is witnessing ongoing and tragic terrorism, atrocity, anti-Semitism and assaults on human rights. Saudi Arabia began the year with the execution of 47 people, among them Shi'ite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, while recently arresting Samar Badawi, sister of the imprisoned blogger Raif Badawi. North Korea, itself a mass human rights violator, began by boasting the detonation of a hydrogen bomb. Iran continues executing more people per capita than any other country in the world, while remaining in standing violation of international agreements. The UN reports gang rapes by Burundi security forces and discovery of mass graves. The Islamic State continues its terrorist incitement and bombings, with recent attacks in Istanbul and Jakarta, and Islamic State-inspired assaults on Jews in Marseille. Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda terrorists mount a murderous assault in Burkina Faso, where six Canadians were among the murdered. "This disappeared Hero of Humanity -- whom the UN called 'the greatest humanitarian of the 20th Century' -- demonstrated that one person can make a difference, that one person can resist evil and prevail." In the Middle East, the killing fields continue unabated and have even intensified with the scorched earth policies of both the criminal Assad regime and ISIS. These organizations are responsible for death, destruction and devastation on a daily basis, resulting in the worst humanitarian catastrophe since the end of the Second World War. As for Israel, where I have just delivered a lecture in remembrance and reminder of Raoul Wallenberg's humanitarian legacy, the year began with the terrorist assault in the heart of Tel Aviv; threats by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to turn Israel into a cemetery; and the discovery and thwarting of major planned terrorist attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah. January also began with the reaching of a dreaded milestone -- 100 days of terrorist attacks. At times like these, the evil in the world can feel overwhelming and it can be tempting to cede to despair, aggravating the problem of the international community as bystander to atrocity and injustice. How appropriate, then, that January 17 of last week -- the day of Raoul Wallenberg's disappearance in the Soviet Gulag in 1945 -- has been designated Raoul Wallenberg Commemorative Day in Canada in honour of this disappeared hero. It is also fitting that one of the themes of this International Holocaust Remembrance Day is remembrance and tribute to the Righteous Among the Nations. Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, was a beacon of light during the darkest days of the Holocaust, and his example remains so today. Prior to his arrival in Budapest in July 1944, some 430,000 Hungarian Jews had been deported to Auschwitz in the space of 10 weeks -- the fastest, cruelest and most efficient mass murder of the Nazi genocide. Yet Wallenberg rescued some 100,000 Jews in six months in Hungary in 1944, demonstrating that one person with the courage to care, and the commitment to act, can confront evil and transform history. Advertisement His heroism was celebrated in the international Wallenberg exhibit during the centennial year of his birth, titled, in Wallenberg's own immortal words: "To me there is no other choice" -- reflecting a singular courage and commitment. Canada Post also unveiled a stamp to mark the centennial of this Swedish non-Jew, whose heroism embodies the Talmudic idiom that "if you save a single life, it is as if you have saved an entire universe." This disappeared Hero of Humanity -- whom the UN called "the greatest humanitarian of the 20th Century" -- demonstrated that one person can make a difference, that one person can resist evil and prevail. Indeed, in transforming history and saving human "universes," Raoul Wallenberg, in his incredible heroism, may from a justice perspective be said to have presaged today's foundational principles of international human rights and humanitarian law. For example: First, in the distribution of schutzpasses -- diplomatic passports conferring protective immunity on their recipients -- and in the establishment of safe houses conferring diplomatic sanctuary on their inhabitants. Raoul Wallenberg is credited with saving 50,000 Jews by these means alone. His deeds affirmed and validated the principle of diplomatic immunity -- the remedy of diplomatic protection -- a foundational principle of international law and model of the diplomatic capacity to save lives. Second, in his singular protection of civilians amid the horrors of the Holocaust, he manifested the best of what we today call international humanitarian law. Third, in his organization of hospitals, soup kitchens, orphanages =- the staples of international humanitarian assistance that provided women, children, the sick and the elderly with a semblance of dignity in the fact of the worst of all horrors and evils -- Wallenberg symbolized the best of what we today would call international humanitarian intervention. Fourth, in saving Jews from certain death, deportation and atrocity, he symbolized what today we would call the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. Finally, Wallenberg's last rescue was perhaps his most memorable. As the Nazis were advancing on Budapest and threatening to blow up the city's ghetto and liquidate the remaining Jews there, he had the Nazi generals put on notice that they would be held accountable and brought to justice, if not executed, for their war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Nazi generals desisted from their assault and some 70,000 more Jews were saved, thanks to the indomitable courage of one person prepared to confront radical evil. In so warning the Nazi generals that they would be held responsible for their war crimes, Wallenberg was a forerunner of the Nuremberg principles and what today we would call international criminal law. Indeed, Wallenberg's heroism embodied and symbolized the universal lessons of the Holocaust, with their contemporary international resonance and importance for our time: The dangers of forgetting -- the responsibility to remember; The dangers of state-sanctioned cultures of hate and incitement -- the responsibility to prevent; The dangers of indifference and inaction -- the responsibility to act; The dangers of impunity -- the responsibility to bring war criminals to justice; The dangers of mass atrocities -- the responsibility to protect: The dangers of la Trahison des Clercs -- the responsibility to speak truth to power; The dangers of race and anti-Semitism -- the responsibility to confront and combat. Yet, while Wallenberg saved so many, he was not himself saved by so many who could have done so. Rather than greet him as the liberator he was, the Soviets -- who entered Hungary as liberators themselves on January 17, 1945 -- imprisoned Wallenberg. He disappeared into the Gulag, and the Soviets first claimed that he died in July 1947, and subsequently that he was murdered -- also in July 1947. But these Soviet claims have been contradicted by several inquiries, including the International Commission on the Fate and Whereabouts of Raoul Wallenberg, inspired by Wallenberg's brother, the late Guy von Dardel, from Sweden, and in which I participated, along with US Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, Russian scholar Mikhail Chlenov and former Israeli attorney-general Gideon Hausner. Indeed, in 1985, a U.S. Federal Court found the evidence "incontrovertible" that Wallenberg lived past 1947, "compelling" that he was alive in the 1960s, and "credible" that he remained alive into the 1980s; but precisely what became of him remains a mystery. Advertisement Recently, a group of international Wallenberg experts launched a new international research project, the Raoul Wallenberg Research Initiative (RWI-70), coordinated by long-time researcher Susanne Berger. The group will be convening a Raoul Wallenberg International Roundtable anchored in the repository of the experience and expertise of the scholars, in order to develop, in Susanne Berger's words, "a blueprint for solving the Wallenberg case... and to discuss how to obtain access to essential documentation in Russian and other international archives." Most important, this group is seeking justice for Raoul Wallenberg -- which has been denied all these years -- to unlock the secrets of history so that we, and particularly his long-suffering family, can finally learn the truth about this disappeared Hero of Humanity. For us, there should be no other choice. The writer is an emeritus professor of Law at McGill University, the Founder Chairman of the recently established Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and a former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook MORE ON HUFFPOST: In a US election cycle in which "outsider" candidates have dominated both races, traditional forms of TV advertising have struggled to gain traction. The grassroots campaign of Bernie Sanders for the Democrats, and its more unhinged parallel run by Republican Donald Trump, have undercut the customary importance of spending millions in campaign donations buying space on TV to leverage a message, a biography or an attack. However, with the primary elections starting next week, all the candidates, including Sanders and Trump, have started to pour money into TV, with mixed results. Advertisement Called 'Off The List,' the advert (below) was paid for by Mike Huckabees super PAC, one of the many political action committees that collect campaign funds to be used to boost its own candidate or attack a rival, in this case Texas Senator Ted Cruz. After an opening shot of the Bible and a jibe about gay marriage, a woman says: I also hear Cruz gives less than 1 percent at church. He doesnt tithe? replies her co-star. The performances are so wooden you can almost identify the species of tree. Yet the point is clear: Ted Cruz is a phony Christian. It's a damning charge fired at Iowas evangelicals that have a huge say in who leaves the state with a glut of delegates after Monday's caucuses. Advertisement According to the PAC, $400,000 will be spent buying airtime for the advert in the days leading up to the vote. It's a last-ditch effort for Huckabee's team, which needs a strong showing from their candidate if he is to continue in the race. The former governor of Arkansas relies heavily on the evangelical vote currently being courted by Cruz, hence the sting. It does, however, get worse. Earlier this month, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, another candidate for the GOP nomination, was snapped sporting a pair of rude Cuban heels. This garb is OK for Harry Styles but not for a potential commander in chief, so the blogs bemoaned. Marco Rubio is rocking some seriously fashionable black boots today in New Hampshire. pic.twitter.com/lwiSWuuCUt Michael Barbaro (@mikiebarb) January 4, 2016 Soon after, an attack was posted online by Jeb Bush's super PAC Right To Rise that painted Rubio as a political flip-flopper, a fair charge considering the senators history of changing positions on immigration. The advert features a man in large heels strutting to Nancy Sinatras Boots with altered lyrics and a psychedelic background. Advertisement However, the 2016 campaigns have also given birth to some very good adverts. Entitled 'These Hands,' this spot from Ben Carson's PAC was revealed in early December. The film shows everyday Americans revealing their palms in a message of unity. Unfortunately for the campaign, Carson has spent the intervening months hobbling himself with talk of China intervening in Syria and the pyramids being used as grain silos. Last week an advert was aired that was immediately lauded as one of the best in recent election history. So good is the Bernie Sanders film currently running in Iowa and the second primary state New Hampshire that even his main rival Hillary Clinton conceded that she loved it. Advertisement The advert, which received more than a million views within 24 hours of its launch, shows scenes of Americana cut with shots of the candidate at huge rallies. Simon and Garfunkels 1968 folk anthem America thrusts the edit along. Theres no talking, no denunciations. More an uplifting if schmaltzy vision of the US, far removed from the lines of division peddled by Trump. The advert could well be decisive for Sanders who is tied with Clinton in Iowa and far ahead in New Hampshire. And unlike the myriad politicians that have fallen foul of irate musicians in recent years, Art Garfunkel gave the Sanders campaign permission to use the iconic song, noting that, monied interests have gone too far and have rigged the system. Advertisement The attorney for Steven Avery has hit out at critics attacking the objectivity of the Netflix series 'Making a Murderer'. Dean Strang argued that judgement should instead be aimed at the failings of the American judicial and police systems. Advertisement Warning: This article may contain spoilers for the Netflix series 'Making a Murderer' In an interview with The Progressive, he said: "We live in a country in which every time the police department or a prosecutor wants to issue a press release or hold a press conference, the overwhelming majority of media outlets treat what the police or prosecutors say as received wisdom. "Theres almost never a critical examination of what the police or prosecution has to say. Now when one film doesnt hue to the prosecution line that's where the criticism falls: 'Youre imbalanced, or youre offering an unbalanced view, or youre displaying hubris,'" he said. Dean Strang, Steven Avery's former attorney Strang discussed articles which have been vocal in issuing responses to the series, questioning whether the evidence shown skewers public opinion on the case. Advertisement A particular piece in question is Kathryn Schulz's, 'Dead Certainty: How Making a Murderer" goes wrong'. Strang said he was sad to see such a talented writer "fall into the same trap that the media constantly do". The attorney used District Attorney Ken Kratz as an example, and said his March 2, 2006 press conference "turned out to be factually unsupportable", and said that for ten months preceding his trial his words were accepted and repeated by the media as truth. Criticism for the series followeda high-profile petition against the jurors decision to send Avery to prison for life for the murder of Teresa Halbach. The only man with the power to free Avery, Governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker, vowed the 'Making A Murderer' subject would not be released despite the hundreds of thousands of signatures on the petition. Advertisement "Just because a documentary on TV says something doesn't mean that's actually what the evidence shows, he told WQOW television. Giant letters reading "London Calling" was sprawled across the artwork, with Jobs being used as substitute for the letter "I". Vandals smashed the protective glass case that was placed over the painting, which was left by the anonymous street artist last month to highlight Europe's migration crisis. Advertisement Banksy's mural of Steve Jobs in the Calais 'jungle' has been defaced The original artwork depicts the Apple founder, who was the son of a Syrian migrant, with a black bin bag thrown over his shoulder and carrying an original Apple computer in his hand. It shows that the founder of the multi-billion pound company was only able to achieve his phenomenal success because America "allowed in a young man from Homs" to enter the country after the Second World War. Banksy said in a statement at the time: "Were often led to believe migration is a drain on the countrys resources, but Steve Jobs was the son of a Syrian migrant. Advertisement "Apple is the worlds most profitable company, it pays over $7 billion a year in taxes - and it only exists because they allowed in a young man from Homs." Banksy's artwork of Steve Jobs before it was deface Days after the mural was spotted, entrepreneurial migrants in the camp began charging people to see it. One migrant who emerged from a tent beside the concealed artwork said: "If you haven't got five euros (3.60) then go away." Last year, Banksy donated the timber and fixtures from his Dismaland Bemusement Park creation to provide shelter for refugees in Calais. Advertisement Anti-vivisectionists have lambasted the "cruel" and "flawed" creation of the world's first ever autistic monkeys. Scientists in China have genetically engineered eight macaques to carry a gene linked to autism in humans. According to science journal, Nature, researchers said that the animals have begun to show signs of the disorder, including running "obsessively in circles", ignoring their peers and grunting anxiously when stared at. Advertisement Chinese scientists claim to have created the world's first autistic monkeys Up until now, research into autism has predominantly used mice and rats. Lead scientist Dr Zilong Qiu, from the Institute of Neuroscience at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told a press conference: The mouse model is not close enough. There's no choice. We have to go to a non-human primate species. He added: We think this non-human primate is absolutely required in the long run for the development of therapies and drugs for human psychiatric and neurological diseases, the Press Association reports. But the study has been criticised by anti-vivisection campaign group, Cruelty Free International, who said not only is the research likely to fail but it also causes immense suffering to the macaques. Advertisement Dr Katy Taylor, Director of Science at Cruelty Free International, said: Autism is a complex disorder and the genetic causes are far from clear. Attempts to improve the utility of using monkeys to model human diseases is in our view flawed and unlikely to succeed. Whilst you may be able to alter one or two genes, you cannot overcome the massive differences between us and other non-human primates in other areas including gene expression. It is also cruel; several monkeys in this recent work became very ill and were killed. Instead of developing techniques that may lead to a rise in the use of monkeys in research, scientists should be focusing their efforts on the development of more human-relevant approaches. The team of researchers gave the MECP2 gene - thought to be linked to autism in humans - to dozens of monkey eggs, which were fertilised using IVF. Advertisement This week's Commons People Podcast was all about Google, and information we found using Google. George Osborne hailed it a major success, but the deal struck between HMRC and Google was not been as warmly welcomed by others. The internet giant has agreed to pay 130million in taxes as part of a deal stretching back to 2005, but some experts claim this represents just three per cent of its UK profits over the time period. Advertisement Other countries, including Italy, seem to be striking better deals with Google, and the company bosses, along with HMRC officials, will be hauled before Public Accounts Committee on February 11th to explain the arrangement. David Cameron provoked outrage in Prime Ministers Questions this week when he claimed Jeremy Corbyn visited a bunch of migrants in Calais. Even Tory MPs were stunned into silence by the remark, and former Labour leadership candidate Yvette Cooper demanded the prime minister withdraw his remark given it was made on Holocaust Memorial Day. David Camerons hopes of calling the EU Referendum in June this year appear to be floundering, with the PM cancelling a planned trip to Scandinavia to arrange a meeting with European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker Advertisement The renegotiation of the UKs relationship with the EU appears to be stumbling over the thorny issue of migration, with Camerons plan to set a salary bar for migrants before they could claim in-work benefits losing support particularly with the Germans. If the details arent ironed out before next months European Summit, it could mean the much mooted referendum date of June could be scrapped. There was also problems in the Leave campaigns, with rumours that the two at the top of Vote Leave Dominic Cummings and Matthew Elliot were subjects of a failed ousting. It wasnt a great week for Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith. The Court of Appeal ruled the so-called Bedroom Tax discriminated against a domestic violence victim and the family of a disabled teenager. Labour asked a Urgent Question in the Commons today, but instead of answering directly, IDS decided to sit whispering in the ear of his junior minister Justin Tomlinson who was tasked with responding from the front bench. Advertisement When David Cameron stood at the Commons despatch box yesterday and dismissed those camped in Calais as a "bunch of migrants", debate over the rhetoric used to discuss people seeking sanctuary in Britain reached a peak. Commentators - and indeed most of the public - are divided on whether Cameron's choice of words deliberately belittled the plight of migrants, which include hundreds of asylum seekers, or were simply a statement of fact. Advertisement 'Refugee Action', a charity that supports those fleeing political persecution to Britain, said it was "disappointed" at the language employed, claiming the phrase lumped genuine refugees together with those simply migrating out of choice. "Many in Calais are refugees. And all of them are human beings," the organisation wrote on Twitter. Disappointed by @David_Cameron's #bunchofmigrants comment at today's #PMQs. Many in Calais are #refugees. And all of them are human beings. Refugee Action (@RefugeeAction) January 27, 2016 It was a sentiment echoed by parliamentarians, including MPs Ronnie Cowan and Diane Abbott, and Scottish Government minister for Europe Humza Yousaf. David Cameron during PMQs refers to refugees in Calais fleeing war torn countries as "a bunch of migrants" . Completely out of touch. Ronnie Cowan MP (@ronniecowan) January 27, 2016 Advertisement Did PM really just refer to refugees as "a bunch of migrants"? How low can this PM go? Inflammatory language won't help anyone #PMQs Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) January 27, 2016 So Cameron refers to refugees in #CalaisJungle camp as "bunch of migrants" #PMQS#callous Diane Abbott MP (@HackneyAbbott) January 27, 2016 Many took issue with the comment seemingly devaluing the experiences of many who have travelled to Calais; some have lost whole families travelling by sea to Europe on ramshackle or overcrowded people-smuggling boats. Owen Jones was among the crowd of people who thought the "bunch" remark did not do justice to the "misery few of us will ever suffer". I went to Calais. I found misery few of us will ever suffer. Cameron calls them a "bunch of migrants". A disgrace. https://t.co/M25i4PKs4q Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) January 27, 2016 Advertisement Other commentators disparaged the quip as having come just minutes after Cameron paid tribute to Jews across the world, marking Holocaust Memorial Day. Bizarre that the same PM speaks in hushed tones of of Holocaust Memorial Day then 15 mins later dismisses 'a bunch of migrants'. Miranda Green (@greenmiranda) January 27, 2016 "A bunch of migrants". His comment on the Holocaust are just lip-service to decency. You judge a man by how he talks about his own times. Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) January 27, 2016 Can think of better days to employ the phrase 'bunch of migrants' than #HolocaustMemorialDay. James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) January 27, 2016 While BuzzFeed's Tom Chivers explained it was not the word but the sentiment and context surrounding it that enflamed people's tempers so greatly. Advertisement "Can we all agree that it's not the word "bunch" itself that makes Cameron's phrase unpleasant?" he wrote. "It's the whole sentence, and its context." Can we all agree that it's not the word "bunch" itself that makes Cameron's phrase unpleasant? It's the whole sentence, and its context. Tom Chivers (@TomChivers) January 27, 2016 Several prominent figures, Labour's Chuka Umunna among them, pointed out they thought the language was "unbecoming" of a prime minister. The PM refers to "a bunch of migrants" in Calais at the Dispatch box just now. Inflammatory and unbecoming of his office. Shameful #PMQs Chuka Umunna (@ChukaUmunna) January 27, 2016 Cameron's "bunch of migrants" attack on desperate people in Calais is unworthy of a Prime Minister. Gutter politics #pmqs Kevin Maguire (@Kevin_Maguire) January 27, 2016 Advertisement But a hefty number of people took contention with any suggestion Cameron's comment was inflammatory or disparaging. Julia Hartley-Brewer said she was "intrigued" why the term 'bunch' had been interpreted as a bad phrase. I'm intrigued why "a bunch of migrants" is such a bad phrase. Don't we refer to "a bunch of" people all the time without it being an insult? Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) January 27, 2016 She proceeded to highlight several instances where the word had been used without causing a stir, including by Guardian columnist Jones, once the pair engaged in a heated exchange of messages. @OwenJones84 "a bunch of people coming to dinner" or "a bunch of kids" or "a bunch of meat-eaters" (that last from Labour MP Kerry McCarthy) Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) January 27, 2016 Advertisement @OwenJones84 I can't find a single dictionary definition of "bunch" which implies any negativity. Genuinely, I can't. Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) January 27, 2016 Others voiced their support, saying they saw no problem with Cameron's language. I genuinely don't understand the problem with the phrase "bunch of migrants". George (@George_ivil) January 27, 2016 If calling those in #CalaisJungle "a bunch of migrants" offends #Labour sensitivities how about "a swarm of illegal economic opportunists"? David Vance (@DVATW) January 27, 2016 I've just read the outrage over Cameron saying that Corbyn "met with a bunch of migrants". Where's the outrage? What if he said "group"? Rincks (@RickHincks) January 28, 2016 One view that garnered significant support was that people seemed more offended by a phrase uttered in Prime Minister's Question than the "mass molesting" of women in Cologne on New Year's Eve. Advertisement (Police confirmed the perpetrators of sex attacks in Germany were "almost exclusively" of a migrant background, mainly North African and Arab.) Regressive leftists are more offended about Cameron saying #BunchOfMigrants than they were about migrants mass molesting women in Cologne. Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) January 27, 2016 Katie Hopkins was also one of those to defend the Prime Minister, congratulating him for employing the phrase but agreeing it was "dismissive". Thank you to @LBC for letting me get that off my tiny tits. Bunch of migrants?! Well said Dave the Rave @LBCpic.twitter.com/tWMQgjNJo0 Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) January 27, 2016 There was division, too, over whether Cameron had meant to speak as he had done. The Huffington Post UK's executive editor for politics, Paul Waugh, claimed the line had been deliberately deployed and scripted in advance by the PMQs prep team. Advertisement The most notable thing was Cameron "bunch of migrants" line was not a slip of the tongue. It was a deliberate, scripted line Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) January 27, 2016 Those who agreed were left torn, though, over whether it had been engineered to ease pressure on the government over condemnation of its 'sweetheart deal' with Google to backpay 10 years of tax. The technique of diverting attention away from one issue by presenting another is affectionately referred to as the "dead cat". Suspect Cameron MAY apologise for 'bunch of migrants' comments. But with Google still prominent, could be 'dead cat on table' strategy Ross McCafferty (@RossMcCaff) January 27, 2016 I'm not convinced the "bunch of migrants" was a dead cat strategy. I don't think Cameron gives a stuff how we react to it. Conor Pope (@Conorpope) January 28, 2016 Advertisement But Anna Soubry, the government's small business minister, played down any claims Cameron had rehearsed the line, saying she didn't believe them to be true. "I would be amazed if that was a scripted line," she told BBC Radio 4's 'The World At One'. "I dont believe that for one moment. If anyone says that they are being silly." Jeremy Corbyn, who was sparring with Cameron in the Commons when "bunch of migrants" was first uttered, has written to his opposite number saying the comment "demeans peoples suffering and demeans the office of Prime Minister". Corbyn writes to Cameron: "I found it shameful that you referred to the people in those camps as 'a bunch of migrants'". George Eaton (@georgeeaton) January 27, 2016 Leaving one journalist to ponder: Corbyn has written to Cameron blasting his "bunch of migrants" comment. If only he'd had an opportunity to confront the PM in person. Jamie Ross (@JamieRoss7) January 27, 2016 Advertisement But regardless of whether Cameron's outburst on Wednesday was pre-mediated, numerous people have noticed a theme emerging in his language when it comes to describing migrants. They took issue with the word "bunch" being used several months after the PM branded those trying to enter the UK a "swarm". First "a swarm", next "a bunch of migrants". The language David Cameron uses to describe refugees is routinely dehumanising. Elena Cresci (@elenacresci) January 27, 2016 British Prime Minister David Cameron moved closer to securing a renegotiated European Union deal for the UK after the EU proposed an "emergency brake" to ease pressure from migrants on public services. Cameron had insisted a four-year ban on migrants claiming in-work benefits was required for him to support Britain staying in the EU. Advertisement Details of the emergency brake are to be unveiled by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker when he meets with the British PM in Brussels on Friday. Prime Minister David Cameron addresses the media after an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Dec. 18, 2015 Reports suggest the plan would bar EU migrants from claiming UK benefits for up to four years when British public services are under strain. Advertisement Reacting to the news during a visit to Scotland on Thursday, Cameron said he was "glad others in Europe are now taking on board this issue and looking at strong alternatives to the proposal I put forward." "The problem is clear, people coming to the UK getting instant access to our welfare system, that's the problem I put on the table and I've said my proposal remains on the table until I see something equally potent being brought forward," he said. "But what's good is that others in Europe are bringing forward ideas to address this problem so we have better control of movement of people into our country," Cameron added. "I'm pleased that people are bringing forward ideas. It's a complex negotiation this, there's a lot of work to be done not just on migration but on the other things I've spoken about." However, the workings of the emergency brake mechanism have yet to be revealed, specifically which body the EU or the British government will say when the brake is to be applied. As well as Juncker, Cameron is to meet with European Parliament President Martin Schulz on Friday, and then meet with European Council President Donald Tusk in Downing Street over the weekend. Advertisement Tusk is currently working on integrating Britains proposals, and is due to publish his findings in the coming weeks ahead of the EU summit on Feb. 18. Should Cameron leave the summit with the agreement of the 27 EU leaders, the referendum could be held as soon as this summer. However, Arron Banks, co-founder of the Leave.EU campaign, said: "People watching the slow-motion disaster overtaking Europe don't want an emergency brake on immigration, they want control of the steering wheel so we can avoid the car crash up ahead." Not content with gazing upon the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World during a recent trip to Egypt, 18-year-old Andrej Ciesielski climbed to the top of the Great Pyramid, also known as the Pyramid of Cheops, filming his travail. Scaling the 4,500-year-old structure took around eight minutes, according to teenager from Munich, who enjoyed rarely seen views from the zenith of the stone monolith. Advertisement Speaking to BuzzFeed, Ciesielski said he waited until police were not looking, and then dashed up the side of the monolith while listening to music on his earphones. He was, of course, arrested after he descended. I went to the police station for maybe one hour, he said. They asked me many questions about why I did this, but they let me go. Watch a video of the climb above. Pictures are below. Jeremy Hunt was ordered by a judge to delete a "highly inappropriate" tweet commenting on a manslaughter trial while it was still going on. Hunt sent the tweet two weeks ago during the trial of an NHS trust and an anaesthetist over the death of a mother in surgery in 2012. Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust was accused of corporate manslaughter over the death of schoolteacher Frances Cappuccini, 30, in the first prosecution of a health service body since the offence was introduced in 2008. Advertisement Jeremy Hunt's tweet was 'highly inappropriate,' the judge said Locum consultant anaesthetist Errol Cornish, 68, was accused of gross negligence manslaughter over his role in the care of the mother-of-two, who died after postnatal surgery at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury, Kent, in October 2012. On the second day of the trial, Hunt tweeted a link to a news report about it, calling it a "tragic case from which huge lessons must be learned". A judge said the message could have prejudiced jurors' views of case, which could amount to contempt of court. When they are sworn in, jurors are reminded to avoid reading media reports of trials or doing their own research. Advertisement Mr Justice Coulson dryly noted that there are no professional lawyers in the House of Commons and ruled the tweet had to be immediately removed. He said: It is highly inappropriate for anybody to pass comment which might be said to know the result of a trial before that result is known. "I suppose, potentially, in a very serious case, it could be regarded as a contempt of court. I would hope that everybody would know that. Sadly, these days, many people in public life dont know that. I think its right that there be no future comment about possible results in this case until it is known. That includes the tweet from the present health secretary that Ive been shown. Advertisement "These days it is hard to have the word tweet without ill-advised before it. The judge's order for Hunt to delete can only be reported now, after the trial collapsed this week. The Huffington Post UK has approached The Department for Health for comment. Mr Justice Coulson instructed the jury at Inner London Crown Court to acquit both defendants, just over two weeks into their trial, having ruled on Wednesday that they had no case to answer, The Press Association reports. In his ruling, he praised the Cappuccini family's "dignity" during the trial and said: "There is no question that Frances Cappuccini should not have died at the trust hospital on October 9. "It's inevitable that her family will want to know why she died and hold someone to account." But the judge outlined a series of flaws in the prosecution case, including evidence that showed some of locum Dr Cornish's actions had been "about as far from a gross negligence manslaughter case as it is possible to be". He also branded some of the arguments against the trust as "perverse". Mrs Cappuccini's widower Tom, who had attended court throughout the trial, was not present as the foreman of the jury of 10 women and two men returned formal not guilty verdicts on the order of the judge. Advertisement Frances Cappuccini Mr Justice Coulson told them that he had agreed with arguments from the defence barristers that neither had a case to answer. He said: "On my direction, as a matter of law, both defendants are not guilty." Mrs Cappuccini lost around four pints of blood after her second son Giacomo was born by Caesarean section at the hospital in Kent. She was subsequently operated on for a postpartum haemorrhage but never woke up from the anaesthetic. She went into cardiac arrest just over three hours after the operation had finished on October 9, 2012, and died at 4.20pm. Justice Secretary Michael Gove is to ditch plans to completely overhaul legal aid, reversing yet another policy by his controversial predecessor Chris Grayling. The Conservative minister repealed pledges to create a 'two-tier' contract system for cases affecting criminal legal aid in a move described by one journalist as "another humiliation" for Grayling. Legal aid is government money that helps pay for legal advice or representation for those accused of crime. Advertisement The coalition government approved plans for a drastic reduction - from 1,600 to 527 - in the number of legal aid contracts for duty solicitors attending magistrates' courts and providing round-the-clock cover at police stations. Actress Maxine Peake protesting with lawyers with an effigy of Grayling Solicitor firms wiped from the duty-cover phonebooks would have been forced to rely only on clients who referred themselves to their practices. Changes to legal aid under Grayling enraged lawyers, who argued the cuts would limit poorer peoples' access to justice. Advertisement Ex-Justice Secretary, now Commons Leader, Chris Grayling But in a written statement published on Thursday afternoon, Gove said he was scrapping the planned contracts cull. "I have decided not to go ahead with the introduction of the dual contracting system," he said. Gove, who took over the justice brief from Grayling after the election in May last year, also declared he would suspend the second-half of a 17.5% fee cut for those providing legal aid at state expense. "I have also decided to suspend, for a period of 12 months from 1 April 2016, the second fee cut which was introduced in July last year," he added. Advertisement Gove announced the U-turn on Thursday Explaining the move, Gove wrote: "By not pressing ahead with dual contracting, and suspending the fee cut, at this stage we will, I hope, make it easier in all circumstances for litigators to instruct the best advocates, enhancing the quality of representation in our courts... "Thanks to economies I have made elsewhere in my department, HM Treasury have given me a settlement which allows me greater flexibility in the allocation of funds for legal aid." The climbdown was mocked by the Daily Mirror's deputy political editor Jack Blanchard. Another day, another humiliation for Chris Grayling. Huge U-turn on legal aid cuts announced by his replacement as Justice Sect Michael Gove Jack Blanchard (@Jack_Blanchard_) January 28, 2016 It signals the fifth serious reversal of Grayling policies by Gove, following the lift of a ban on friends and family sending books to prisoners, dplans for a 100 million youth 'mega prison being axed, a U-turn on Saudi prison contracts and criminal court charges being scrapped. Advertisement Lord Falconer, Labour's shadow justice secretary, said the reversal was "a staggering admission from the Tory government" and represents a final confirmation that their plans to reform criminal legal aid have descended into utter chaos. "The government must now come clean about how much public money has been wasted on this doomed endeavour, so that ministers can be held fully accountable for this fiasco." Barristers piled in to celebrate the move on social media, saying they were "delighted" at the news. Dual contracting has ended. The Lord Chancellor must be commended for some sensible decision making & for properly engaging with us. Zoe Gascoyne (@Zoe_Gascoyne) January 28, 2016 MoJ's own expert advice from KPMG made clear that the fee cut and two tier contracts were unsustainable. Delighted Gove has pulled the plug. Dinah Rose (@DinahRoseQC) January 28, 2016 Advertisement Although John Hyde, deputy news editor at the Law Society Gazette, suggested Gove would be commended for backing down with little consideration that it took him so long to do so. Police have asked Facebook users to be aware of scam artists fooling people into handing over personal information such as bank account details. Hackers have been posting misleading adverts on timelines, fooling the victim's friends into thinking the post, which normally promises money, is genuine. Advertisement Northumbria police have issued a warning urging for caution. Once someone 'likes' the fraudulent post, they message the "friend" who posted the ad without realising they are contacting the scammer. "A man then makes contact and offers two 'opportunities,'" Northumbria police said. "The first is that he has a business that can obtain Government funding and he can claim money on their behalf and split the fund. "In the second he states that he has a mobile phone business and requires new phones to sell on." Some victims have also had payday loans taken out in their name. Incidents of fraud happening over the social media platform date back to 2014. Rachel Stevens has responded to those who criticised her for leaving her daughters alone in the car. The former S Club 7 singer, 37, said her girls were "her life" and she found it hard to read the comments slating her parenting skills. "Parenting is always going to split judgement and you never have all the answers," she told Essentials magazine. "I would never do anything to intentionally harm my girls." The mum to Amelia, four, and Minnie Blossom, one, faced critisim on social media in September 2015 when she was pictured leaving her daughters alone in her car while she popped out to run errands. Advertisement Stevens added: "Whatever you do as a parent, you will be judged by other people. "You can only do your best." Stevens said she had previously put pressure on herself to be the "perfect parent", but has learned to stop self-criticising. When the photos emerged of Stevens leaving her daughters alone in the car first emerged, parents took to social media to publicly condemn her decision. Rachel Stevens shouldn't be surprised at the reaction after leaving her kids in the car unsupervised. Anything could have happened. John Kelly (@ardjohn21) September 23, 2015 Advertisement At the time, Supernanny's Jo Frost also waded in on the debate, but disproved of the public shaming. "I'm sure @MsRachelStevens is now aware that her parenting choice was not a smart one but truly so fed up with celebs being publicly shamed," she wrote. I'm sure @MsRachelStevens is now aware that her parenting choice was not a smart one but ..truly so fed up with celebs being publicly shamed Jo Frost (@Jo_Frost) September 20, 2015 It's the tone of this public parenting police I don't like, Stones and glass houses. Lets teach,love and educate. #jofrostnannyontour Jo Frost (@Jo_Frost) September 20, 2015 Advertisement After Frost tweeted, other mums and dads agreed with her and admitted to being part of the "public parenting police". One mother tweeted: "I'm sure we've all done it, there's a lot worse she could have done, leave her alone." "People are demanding that Rachel Stevens be jailed for leaving her kids in a locked car for 10 mins. My Dad did this all the time," tweeted another. On the Government's website it states: "The law doesnt say an age when you can leave a child on their own, but its an offence to leave a child alone if it places them at risk. "Use your judgement on how mature your child is before you decide to leave them alone, e.g at home or in a car." Advertisement Baroness Shirley Williams Parliament.tv Veteran Lib Dem peer Baroness Shirley Williams used her final speech in Parliament this afternoon to urge politicians from all parties to come together to help fix the NHS. The former Cabinet Minister, who was first elected as Labour MP in 1964, is standing down from the Lords after 23 years in the Upper Chamber. Advertisement Baroness Williams was one of the so-called Gang of Four Labour politicians who quit the party in 1981 to form the SDP which later merged with the Liberals to become the Liberal Democrats. This afternoon Baroness Williams used her valedictory speech to call on politicians to protect great British institutions such as the NHS, the BBC and the Open University. She dubbed the public sector organisations examples of the special genius of the United Kingdom, and referring to the NHS Baroness Williams said: I still have to say to my fellow politicians why cant you get together to propose, regardless of party, ways in which we can sustain the NHS over the years? She also called the BBC one of the great institutions of the Kingdom and one that is widely recognised throughout the world. Advertisement With former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg watching on from the bar of the Lords, Baroness Williams explained that while she was retiring from Parliament, she was still looking to play a key role in the upcoming EU referendum. The 85-year-old called the vote the most central question this country has to answer as she reaffirmed her lifelong pro-European views. The Baroness, who took a leading role in the 1975 referendum on whether the UK should stay in the European Economic Community, said issues such as climate change and tax avoidance could only be dealt with through closer cooperation with the UKs international neighbours. It was a typically outward-looking speech from Baroness Williams, who chose not to dwell on her own career and achievements but instead to focus on the problems she sees facing the country. A woman who was told she couldn't have kids after a 50ft fall while sleepwalking, has given birth to a baby boy. Amy Wigfull, 25, suffered serious injuries after falling from a fifth-floor window three years ago. She had metal screws inserted to hold her pelvis together and was told she would be unable to cope with the weight of a baby. But Wigfull gave birth to Ralph last month and says being a mum is the best thing that's ever happened to her. Advertisement "Now Ralph is here I feel incredibly lucky," she said. "I'm alive, I've learned to walk again and now I'm a mum. "Ralph is my little miracle. It seems too unbelievable." Wigfull was told she wouldn't be able to have children Wigfull was on holiday celebrating her mum Shelly's 40th birthday when she suffered the fall. While sleepwalking, she got out of bed, walked into the bathroom, climbed into the bath and opened the fifth floor window, before crawling out and falling onto the concrete below. Doctors said had she fallen a few metres to the left she would have hit a motorbike, or a few metres to the right she would have hit some boulders. Advertisement After the fall, she was found almost immediately by a man who had gone for a walk. Wigfull was immediately rushed to hospital to be treated. She suffered a broken wrist, shoulder and pelvis, a punctured lung, bleeding on the brain and broken vertebra in her back. After a month in a Spanish hospital she returned home to Goldthorpe, South Yorkshire, and continued to get better. As she learned to walk again, Wigfull, who has no recollection of the fall, was told that her body wouldn't be able to cope with pregnancy. She said: "When the doctors said it was unlikely I'd be able to have children, I was heartbroken. "I was so relieved to be alive, I tried to push it to the back of my mind but the worry never went away." Advertisement Wigfull after the fall Wigfull - who never had a history of sleepwalking - believes her night-time wandering was caused by sunstroke. "At first I thought I'd never walk again but I was so determined," she said. "Six weeks after the fall, I was taking a few steps. "Then I broached the subject of babies again with my consultant. My periods were all over the place, which I blamed on the accident, and I wanted to know if my injuries would stop me from conceiving. "Two metal rods were holding my pelvis together so the consultant said it was very unlikely that I'd be able to carry a baby. "Even if I conceived there was a huge risk I'd have a miscarriage because there wasn't enough room in my pelvis for the baby to grow. Advertisement "Although having children wasn't on my list of priorities, I knew I wanted to be a mum someday, so to be told it might never happen was devastating." Wigfull and her partner Andy struggled to come to terms with the news, but Wigfull focused on her recovery. Last May she realised her period was late and recalled: "We hadn't bothered using contraception because I didn't think I could get pregnant, so I didn't see the point. "After four pregnancy tests, the news started to sink in, but I was terrified I'd lose the baby. I was on edge until the moment Ralph arrived." Advertisement Wigfull was given regular scans to check the baby's growth. "Seeing the heartbeat at my first scan was amazing and people were constantly commenting on the size of my bump so my instincts told me the baby was growing well," she said. "I carried the baby high up, which is probably how it found the room to grow. "When I was three months' pregnant I was told I wouldn't be able to have a natural birth because the baby wouldn't be able to pass through my pelvis, so a caesarean at 39 weeks was the only option. "As I got bigger I started to get pain in my hip and back, but all I cared about was the baby and that it was healthy. "My body had been through so much after the accident and I've still no idea how I managed to carry a baby to full term." Ralph was born on 29 December weighing 6lb 13oz at Rotherham Hospital. Star Wars fans rejoice, as Disney have revealed plans to continue the sci-fi saga past the trilogy this is already in the works. READ MORE: The seventh episode in the Star Wars series, The Force Awakens, has already been a smash global success, with the eighth and ninth instalments already in the works, as are several other spin-offs, including an origin story about Han Solo. Advertisement However, Disney CEO Bob Iger has said that they have no intention of stopping things there. 'Star Wars' There will be more after that, I don't know how many, I don't know how often. As long as the quality stays as high as The Force Awakens, then as far as were concerned, they can churn them out whenever they like. The news that yet more Star Wars films are in the pipeline comes after fans of the franchise were dealt a blow earlier this month, when the release date for the next film was pushed back. Advertisement The yet-untitled Star Wars: Episode VIII will now hit cinemas in December 2017, despite initially being slated for release in May. Episode VIII will see Rian Johnson taking over directing duties from JJ Abrams, who will be staying on as executive producer. Benicio Del Toro has been confirmed to be joining the franchise in the next film, while writer Kathleen Kennedy has already announced that the majority of the films cast will be back for the sequel. Two men of no fixed abode have been charged with murder after homeless man Daniel Smith was found dead inside a burning tent in Salford. Adam Acton, 24, and Luke Benson, 25, both appeared before magistrates in Manchester on Wednesday and were remanded to appear at Manchester Crown Court on Friday. Police have arrested 11 people in connection with Smith's death. Advertisement Two men have appeared in court charged with murder over the death of homeless man Daniel Smith who was found dead near these railway arches close to Salford Central Station Smith, 23, was discovered after firefighters were called to a tent fire under railway arches off Irwell Street and Trinity Way, close to Salford Central Station, at about 1.20am on January 20. A post mortem later revealed Smith, who is originally from Ashton-Under-Lyne but had been homeless for some time, died from multiple injuries. Advertisement Blood splatters were reportedly found in Smith's tent and it was believed he was assaulted before the fire was deliberately lit, the Manchester Evening News earlier reported. Detective Superintendent Jon Chadwick from Greater Manchester Polices Major Incident Team said despite making almost a dozen arrests police still had "much more to do". He said: We have had quite a good response from the public to this appeal and I would like to continue to ask for their invaluable support and urge anybody with information to please come forward. Chief Superintendent Mary Doyle, head of Salford Police, earlier said Smith had "suffered a number of injuries" before his body was discovered when firefighters extinguished the fire. She said police were yet to establish a motive, saying, "it could be robbery or it could be a dispute with other homeless people". The sun has just set in England, marking the start of the third night of Hannakah, when I reach Eva Schloss on the phone. At 86, she still leads a busy life, and is preparing for a trip to Los Angeles for the premiere of "No Asylum," a documentary exploring Otto Frank's desperate, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempts to seek refuge in America. Otto Frank was Eva Schloss's step-father, and Anne Frank, the diarist through which most American children learn of the Holocaust, was her step-sister. In 1990 she co-founded the Anne Frank Trust in the UK where she still sits as the organization's honorary lifetime president. "It doesn't look very positive I'm afraid. Things are getting worse and worse I think." There's a sadness in her voice that reminds me of my grandmother's tone when she's worried about us. I've called her to ask for her insight on the refugee crisis and the response of the West, but she's interested in my thoughts on what's happening in America. Advertisement "Do you think that the Republicans have a chance with Trump? Do you think he can actually win?" Before I can answer she says "Well actually...probably yes, right?" and sighs. The creeping fascism of Donald Trump's proposals has led some to throw out Godwin's Law and compare Trump rhetoric to that of Hitler. He wants to monitor all mosques, require special ID's for Muslims, and ban all Muslims from entering or re-entering the country, even US citizens who are abroad. In an opinion piece for Newsweek, Mrs. Schloss makes the comparison herself stating that Trump "is acting like another Hitler." A less discussed comparison is to pre-WWII America. These proposals, as well as official US policy and public opinion, are very similar to the American response to Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler in the lead up to, and during, the second world war. "I was a refugee you know, and suffered a lot. I lost all my confidence. I had to leave family behind. It was very similar, but in many ways it's worse for these people," Eva tells me. "We didn't have to walk through the whole of Europe, to use boats which were sinking, and then not be allowed entrance anywhere." Advertisement "I blame the world for the Holocaust, because nobody tried to prevent it. People knew what was going on. President Roosevelt was confronted very early on by a Polish diplomat who had been to Auschwitz who told him what was happening and he just didn't care." Polls in Fortune magazine from 1938 show over two-thirds of Americans opposed accepting any Jewish refugees from Europe. Another poll from the following year, well after the events of the Kristallnacht, show an equal number of Americans opposed to accepting 10,000 Jewish refugee children. Perhaps not coincidentally, 10,000 is the same number of Syrian refugees President Obama has committed to accepting this year. David Cameron has committed to only 4,000 a year over the next half decade. Mrs. Schloss is indignant at those numbers, "They're quite ridiculous to mention only a few thousand. It's a matter of millions of people who need refuge." "It's worse for these refugees. We were not put in those terrible displaced people camps. It's no good putting them in camps where they are like in prison. Those people are valuable." "Like what is happening in Calais. It's outrageous. And now winter's coming. It's awful. It's really, really, awful to see that decent human beings are treated like cattle." Advertisement Conditions at these camps have become so bad that over 600 refugees seeking refuge in Australia, housed at the Manus Island Regional Processing Centre off the coast of Papua New Guinea, have asked the Australian government to end their lives. In an open letter to the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, the refugees write "we realise that there are no differences between us and rubbish - but a bunch of slaves that helped to stop the boats by living in hellish condition." They go on to state "We are dying in Manus gradually, every single day we are literally tortured and traumatized and there is no safe country to offer us protection." Stating that "This is not a joke or a satire" and to "please take it serious" the refugees suggest "a navy ship that can put [them] all on board and dump [them] all in the ocean," "a gas chamber" or "an Injection of a poison" to end their lives. Just as Eva Schloss blames the world for the Holocaust, she blames the world for the refugee crisis. "It's partly through their actions that we caused the refugee problem. America, England, France, they attacked Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Syria. Before these horrific wars there was no refugee crisis. Without these wars, these people wouldn't have to flee their homes." "It's not easy for people to leave their home and culture. They don't do that because they enjoy doing all this; taking risks on boats, walking through half of Europe. They are desperate to save their lives and the lives of their families." Advertisement "I'm actually sorry I had to leave Austria. I loved it there. I loved the mountains, the lakes, I loved my family. I didn't want to leave. It's the same with the Syrians. They love their country, their families have been there for generations. Why would they go to Europe or America, a different climate, a different language, and start a completely difficult new life? They are forced to flee the wars caused by the western powers." "We have to accept that it is necessary to find a way to accept these people. We have to." In 1939, Anne Frank's mother, Edith, wrote a friend ""I believe that all Germany's Jews are looking around the world, but can find nowhere to go." Otto Frank, Anne's father and Eva's step father, spent months filling out the colossal amount of paperwork necessary to be granted asylum in America. He acquired affidavits of support from family already stateside. He wrote friends in positions of power. In the end, fueled by fears of "Nazi spies" being among the refugees, a fear very similar to today's claims of ISIS infiltrators among Syrian refugees, the US would deny his and thousands of others. The similarities between the western response to the Jewish refugees in the 30's and 40's and the current response to Syrian refugees leads me to ask a question I've been dreading asking; "Would your step sister Anne Frank be alive today if the US hadn't denied sanctuary?" "Of course!" She doesn't hesitate, "No doubt about it." "The refugees who struggled to get out would have contributed enormously to culture, to medicine, to science. It is a great crime of humanity that we deprived people of the knowledge and contribution of these people." "The fact is that six million people were not able to find refuge and were murdered," she tells me, "And that is what is happening to these people. They have to leave because their lives are threatened!" Advertisement The sadness in her voice has given way to anger, but it returns when I ask what she would say to the refugee child fleeing the wars in Syria and elsewhere, the children who have to risk the boats across the Mediterranean or cross an entire continent on foot. "That's very difficult" she says. "I'd tell them 'You have to trust your parents. They are trying the best they can to get you a safe place where you will be accepted, and go to school, and have a decent life." She begins to choke up, "That might never happen for them...but you must not take the hope away from them." She pauses, "It's a very, very, sad world I'm afraid. It will get worse and worse if people don't act." Her despair, however, is pierced by hope. "I have five grandchildren who all want to help those people. There are plenty of young people who want to help, who see that justice has to be done for these people." It was fascinating to read the latest description of a two-tier Britain - in which meaningful job creation is lagging behind in vast swathes of the Midlands and the North compared with London and the South East, outlined in the new, annual Cities Outlook Report. Fascinating, but all too familiar. Centre for Cities' report found that 29 of the UK's biggest cities have low-wage, high-welfare economies. And their Chief Executive Alexandra Jones says, "one of the most pressing issues is the need to tackle skills gaps...especially in low-wage cities, to help those places attract businesses and jobs, and support more people to move into work, particularly in high-skill sectors." She's right. But there are a group of organisations which are already investing in low-wage cities. And they already have a proven record of supporting businesses and creating jobs in local communities. They could do even more. These Responsible Finance providers work throughout the UK, and in 2015 they lent 224m to 11,894 businesses and social enterprises, creating and protecting over 25,000 jobs. Yet impressive as these figures are they sit against a backdrop of a 33% drop in capital available to responsible lenders to on-lend. It's a stark reminder of the imbalance in supply and demand that our sector faces and it's a missed opportunity to support more businesses where they are needed most. 2015 was a record year for the responsible lending market with a 45% rise in overall lending to small businesses, social enterprises and local communities. But it was a year in which demand surged too: to nearly 50,000 enquiries from businesses and 2000 enquiries from social enterprises. Advertisement And the gap in access to finance from mainstream lenders is still significant: over the past 4 years the banks have withdrawn 26 billion from the SME market. So our part of the financial services industry is needed more than ever before. Growing and stimulating the economy through access to finance is also about quality of delivery. A responsible industry invests and reinvests locally, empowering cities, towns and regions especially those that have historically received little inward investment. If Government wants initiatives such as devolution and the Northern Powerhouse to truly succeed, they need a mechanism to deliver investment to the businesses in these places. Responsible Finance is already a big part of the solution to the imbalanced economy in the UK. Our members need to be viewed as allies and as a crucial part of the local growth engine - and valued for the key economic contribution they make at a regional and local level. Government must endorse responsible finance more. And crucially, Local Enterprise Partnerships could be leading the charge, and leveraging the Northern Powerhouse, Midlands Engine and the broader Growth Fund to collaborate with, and deliver investment through, providers of responsible finance. This week a report from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IME) said they think the "capacity gap", the difference between the demand for electricity and the likely supply, could be a massive 55% in 2025 as old coal and nuclear plants exit the system. This 55% figure is overblown. It arises from very pessimistic assumptions about the amount of capacity that can be provided by renewable's and a forecast of much higher energy demand in a decade's time. In fact National Grid reckons that in most scenarios electricity demand in 2025 will be about the same as it is today (although after that date increasing use of electricity for heating and transport means it will start to take off). And though the Government has scaled back subsidies for onshore wind and solar, they are still hoping to increase the supply of offshore wind in the next 10 years. Meanwhile advances in wind technologies mean that more onshore wind is able to generate more of the time. . Advertisement But elsewhere the IME report gets it right. At the moment there's a lot more certainty about the power stations coming offline in the next 10 years than about the capacity coming up to replace it. The Government has made a historic commitment to phase out the use of coal for power generation, as recommended by IPPR last year. This is a hugely positive step, since coal is the most polluting form of large-scale electricity generation and also releases harmful particulates - the last thing we need while fighting to keep the UK's air pollution within the EU's legal limits. But what is needed to follow on from that is a much clearer plan for incentivising the next wave of clean generating capacity that the country needs. This must include the digital technology that will maximise the efficiency of the system and keep costs low for households and businesses. The Government should start by reforming the 'Capacity Market', an auction of power generation capacity intended to guarantee enough electricity supply to keep the lights on. So far the Government has managed to set up a system that provides huge subsidies to some of the most highly polluting technologies. As well as coal, IPPR's report Mad Maths last year showed that small scale diesel generators - with emissions even higher than coal - are getting access to millions of pounds' worth of subsidies. This is absurd. It doesn't even seem to be what the Government wants - Minister for Energy and Climate Change Andrea Leadsom recently told Parliament that really they want to see new gas plants built instead. The Government also needs to provide more certainty over its support for renewable energy into the future. As the CBI has pointed out today, renewable energy offers considerable benefits to the UK, but investment has stalled as a result of recent government policy changes. Advertisement But supplying more capacity is only part of the picture. We also need to develop the exciting new energy storage and demand-response technologies that can help businesses and consumers make better use of electricity - and get paid for doing it. For example, businesses monitoring their own energy use can automatically dial down their use when demand on the grid is high. That way we can steer clear of sharp peaks in demand and avoid having to build big and expensive new power stations that will only be used part of the time. The 55% capacity gap by 2025 may be a doomsday scenario, but the Institute for Mechanical Engineers' report is right when it says that reducing electricity demand is the first step to keeping the lights on in the future. Pierre Suu via Getty Images As an avid pop music fan, I feel it's time we ask for more from our male popstars, and with Zayn Malik's debut solo single, Pillowtalk, about to drop, I'm optimistic that this is the turning point. Scouring the current pop scene, it's clearly the women who are ruling the show. We've got Rihanna putting out one of the most shocking music videos we've seen in years for Bitch Better Have My Money, all in the name of standing out, while Ariana Grande is marking her new album campaign by dying her hair lilac and sounding off about everything from feminism to body-shaming. Advertisement Then there's Miley Cyrus, who essentially personifies what it is to be a popstar in 2016, dishing out quotable and ridiculous soundbites like confetti, and putting on an outrageous show wherever she goes. Even new kid on the block Meghan Trainor, for all her faults, has her own distinct look, and a distinct sound (regardless of whether it's a sound you'd actually subject yourself to listening to for more than a minute and a half before chucking the towel in). Meanwhile, what are the men in pop up to? Sam Smith, pouting away in his turtleneck, looking up from his woe-is-me Twitter rant just long enough to pick up his 20th Grammy. Ed Sheeran, who - while lovely - does often look like he got off his bus at the wrong stop and ended up on stage at Wembley Stadium. And One Direction, four white boys, stood in a line, waiting for their hiatus to start so they can spend five minutes away from each other and maybe, just maybe, sleep for more than four hours a night. Frankly, the guys just aren't cutting it at the moment, and I think it's because we're not expecting enough from them. With a female popstar, we demand 'iconic' performances every time they show up to an awards show, we want 10/10 looks every single time. And yet when it comes to the men, we're so used to fawning over mediocrity, and them phoning it in, that all it takes for a man to win critical acclaim is, essentially, showing up. Advertisement Nick Jonas, for example, was on Top Of The Pops over Christmas and didn't take his coat off. I rest my case. That's all about to change, though. I can feel it. And it's all thanks to Zayn Malik. Zayn is the first guy to come along in a long time, who actually seems as though he gets what it takes to be a properly decent, worldwide popstar. True, he isn't exactly a novice, having spent five years in one of the most famous pop groups in the world, but it does seem that now he's flying solo, Zayn will be able truly to thrive. During his 1D days, it felt like Zayn's star quality was lurking just beneath the surface, but having to share a stage with Liam 'Funtime Frankie' Payne and Louis 'Laugh-A-Minute' Tomlinson meant he had to keep his head down. Cynics scoffed at Zayn's post-1D remarks about feeling like the direction the group were headed in wasn't for him, suggesting he was ungrateful, or just trying to create drama and publicity for himself. But listening to more dirge-y tracks like Midnight Memories and post-Zayn offerings Perfect and History (more fitting for a drunken minibus sing-a-long than the world's biggest pop band) it's clear that Zayn deserved better - and we, as pop fans, deserve better too. The first thing that Zayn did after leaving One Direction was shave his head, pierce his nose and show up to the British Asian Awards. His date for the evening was not his then-fiancee Perrie Edwards, but his mum. This was a 22-year-old who was doing things on his own terms, and this is what we need more of from popstars in general, but in particular from men, who have become corporate and monotonous compared to their female counterparts. Advertisement In the lead-up to his debut single Pillowtalk, released this Friday, Zayn has rarely put a foot wrong as one of the UK's leading popstars, which is particularly impressive as we're yet to actually hear him sing a note. He's given candid interviews where he reveals just enough about his personal life, his inspirations and his life in One Direction. He's been linked with Gigi Hadid, one of the most famous young women in America right now. And, perhaps most crucially of all, he's already had an array of really good hairstyles, in the space of a few short months. If that's not the signs of a man who "gets it", show me what is. David Cameron has recently announced the sum of 20million for English classes (ESOL) to help Muslim women who can't speak English. This he says, will increase integration, and thereby reduce the tendency towards radicalisation. If this is the case, one wonders, why has his party spent the past five years eroding funding for ESOL provision by 50million, particularly when there were ample warnings that this move would disproportionately affect women? The funding for ESOL is very much needed. It never should have been cut in the first place. Ability to speak the majority language is not just important for inclusion; it is important for minorities to be able to claim their rights and entitlements. But it is not just Muslim women that are unable to access services due to language barriers: the second most common language in the UK is Polish, not Punjabi or Arabic. As a patron of the hardworking UK charity IKWRO, which supports women from the Middle East, I am very aware that abusive men can deliberately restrict their wives and daughters from learning English, in order to keep them in subordinated positions and prevent them from seeking help if they are at risk of violence or abuse. However, I am extremely concerned about the suggestion that women who fail to learn English will be deported: what will happen to women restricted by their husband or in-laws from learning English, and then consequently returned to their families? Cameron's suggestions risk providing abusive men with an additional tool for their arsenals of oppression: not only can they prevent their wives from learning English, they can also hold the threat of deportation over their heads, intimidating them into living in fear of authorities, with no ability to regularise their status and obtain their rights, facing the fear of being 'returned' in disgrace. In traditional Muslim societies, they might face exclusion as divorced or 'shamed' women upon return; or at the most extreme, the prospect of 'honour'-based violence, from families unwilling to support an unmarriageable "shamed" woman. This, presumably, is Cameron's idea of inclusion: the scapegoating of some of the most vulnerable women in the country. Advertisement If anything, this rhetoric demonstrates the very low status Muslim women have in British politics. We are not encouraged to learn English for the sake of increasing our life satisfaction, to ensure our safety, to increase our employability, or to gain the ability to chat with our neighbours, but for the slight and speculative possibility that this might, in some unspecified way, decrease radicalisation. Very few radicals are grandmothers speaking Urdu, or young brides fresh off the plane from Bangladesh. They are mostly young men, educated in British schools, who pepper their speech with Arabic phrases delivered in distinctly British accents, who reject the local cultures of their parents' generation for the universalist fantasy of Islamic radicalism. The problem with Muslim women is less that we cannot speak the language, but that no-one listens to us. Many times more Muslim women struggle with finding employment than speaking English. For years, the most prominent voices in the public discourse have been those of older, conservative males, courted by the political elite on both sides, while women's voices have gone unheard. Many of us have spoken out against racism, against terrorism and radicalisation, spoken for asylum seekers, for human rights, for legal aid, for the support of specialist domestic violence services. Meanwhile, we see attacks on Muslim women increasing, the imprisonment of women asylum seekers, the gutting of legal aid, and those specialist services that provide support for Muslim women cutting their services, or going out of business altogether. Advertisement Ten years ago this week, Banaz Mahmod was murdered, by her father, her uncle and their associates, in a so-called 'honour' killing. She appealed for help five times, and was rebuffed each time, in a devastating failure of services to protect her. She told the police the names of the men who wanted to kill her. It didn't help her: she still died, garrotted, gang-raped, buried in a suitcase on waste-ground. A recent report from HMIC tells us that nothing much has changed in the policing of 'honour'-based violence since then: that the recommendations made by the IPCC in the aftermath of her murder have been almost completely ignored. Banaz spoke perfect English, and was studying to be a care worker. If another woman like Banaz were to walk into a police station in many parts of the country today, she could tell the desk sergeant she was facing an 'honour' killing, and still he would not understand the risk she was in. She might as well be speaking Kurdish. If she sought help from people with expertise, she would find that many of the charities that could have helped her have disappeared. While violence against women is rising, the precious expertise of women who have fearlessly worked with passion and commitment for Muslim women is being squandered. In January 1977, the UN Commission for Social Development (CSocD) met in Geneva for its 25th session, under the chairmanship of Romania. It was an important event in the efforts to reform the UN social sector. Based on a Romanian proposal, CsocD put, for the first time, the Youth topic on the UN agenda. The Commission also reviewed progress made by the UN in applying a unified approach to development, requested Member States to prepare monographs on national experience in mobilizing resources for social development, examined government policies on equitable distribution of food production, called for the creation of social development regional research centers, and proposed that the Secretary General appoints a group of experts to make recommendations with regard the role of social development in the UN. Almost 40 years later, on 3-12 February 2016, CSocD will meet again under the Romanian chairmanship and, as Ambassador of Romania to the UN, I will chair this 54th session. The reform of the UN social sector is once more on its agenda, this time in the context of implementing the sustainable development goals (SDGs) adopted last September. After all, as the UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson remarked a few days ago: "Development is a work in progress. Development is never finished". Advertisement Problems of today may be similar to those of 40 years ago, but the environment is different. In the last decades, we have witnessed that peace and security depend on a multitude of factors and that for the international system to work, peace, development, good governance and human rights have to coexist at the same time. We have also learned the immense value of partnerships. Bringing together key actors - governments, civil society, private sector and academia - helped significantly the UN action in sectors like energy, education or food security. It would be wise to extend this multi-stakeholder approach to other areas. CSocD will be the first of the functional commissions of ECOSOC to meet in the new context. If successful, its outcome could eventually inspire the work of other UN bodies. The compass was given by the Report of the Secretary General on critical milestones towards coherent, efficient and inclusive follow-up and review at the global level, released on 19 January 2016: "Under the guidance of ECOSOC, the functional commissions will need to integrate the 2030 Agenda in their review work... The functional commissions of ECOSOC will support the High Level Political Forum Thematic Reviews of progress in achieving the sustainable development goals". As the Agenda 2030 includes a strong social dimension, it feels natural for CSocD to bring its contribution to the monitoring, implementation and follow up of all social development aspects pertaining to SDGs. Sustainable development requires an integrated approach of economic, social and environmental policies, and the fine tuning may be on the social dimension because Agenda 2030's ultimate goal is to "leave no one behind". Poverty favors violence, conflicts, mass migration and instability, and President Obama said that "sustainable development is part of countering violent extremism". Topics like poverty eradication, social integration and gender equality are interrelated and mutually reinforcing and, in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, they have to be pursued simultaneously. Advertisement Twenty years after the World Summit for Social Development (Copenhagen, 1995), its core commitments remain largely unfulfilled and acutely relevant. Poverty has been reduced, but it is far from being eradicated. Unemployment remains as high as it was in 1995. Youth, women, older persons, persons with disabilities and indigenous people still encounter barriers in participating to social, economic and political life. CSocD priority theme for this session is "Rethinking and strengthening social development in the contemporary world". A high-level panel discussion will engage Member States and other stakeholders on concrete policy options, with particular attention to the inter-linkages between social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. A resolution will be proposed for adoption. Another panel will be on "Implementing the Agenda 2030 for sustainable development: moving from commitments to results in achieving social development", with focus on the most marginalized and vulnerable people. The UN Secretary General's Special Envoy on Youth is invited to deliver a keynote address, and a resolution on the Commission's methods of work is envisaged. CSocD will also hold a multi-stakeholder panel discussion on the "Implementation of the post-2015 development agenda in light of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities", with the Special Rapporteur o the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as keynote speaker. Yesterday, Tom Watson MP launched the Labour party's new digital initiative to explore ways improve the party can interact with members, supporters, and voters. This is most welcome. A lot of work has been going on behind the scenes not just to make it happen, but to ensure the findings can be acted on. As founder of Represent, an open civic platform moving us beyond petitions towards a modern, internet-age democracy, I'd like to share six key ideas. Advertisement 1. Talk about ideas and solutions, not parties "It starts with user needs," says Tom in the launch video, getting things off to an encouraging start. He continues, "What do you need to make your experience of being involved and engaging with the Labour party better in the digital space?" Ah. Well. Here's the problem: I don't know of any needs that require me to engage with the Labour Party. There are many things I'd love to change, I have plenty of values opinions and ideas I'd love to share with politicians and businesses to improve the world, but like many others I suspect that party politics might be part of the problem. Don't get me wrong, I'm no anarchist, and I would dearly love for political parties to be part of the solution; but experience suggests they are led more by ideology than evidence. (More on that later.) Advertisement At elections we are presented with all-or-nothing manifestos. Why can't we vote for policies if we want to? Or even vote for the principles which the policies must follow? Why is it always about what parties think people want, and not about what people have asked for? How can Labour reinvent what parties mean, and ensure they truly work for us? At Represent we've flipped it to put people first. You vote once a week (or as often as you like) on topical issues, as well as questions which show your fundamental values and opinions. You can see how you compare to your friends, neighbours, and fellow citizens; and we build a detailed picture of the world we all want, and publish anonymised results and insights publicly, in real-time. This means decision makers everywhere - from all parties, in the EU, at the UN, businesses, organisations, even foreign governments - can align their goals towards people's goals. This is why a digital revolution in politics can be so exciting. We have the opportunity to create a world in which everyone's values are heard where they need to be; which empowers people to lead and participate in change where, however, and in as much detail as they choose. 2. Be led by evidence We need evidence based policies which draw upon the expertise of those who understand the follies and wisdom of that which already exists. Advertisement Consulting large numbers of people is no longer difficult or expensive. Digital technology makes it ridiculously easy for any group (health workers, teachers, residents on a floodplain) to raise, discuss, and vote on issues. And because it's digital, we can analyse to sort by consensus, show correlations and consistency between issues, or show trends by location or age. This lets a government test new ideas where there's most support, accurately tailor policy, and make rapid progress by engaging citizens in change. 3. Harness public expertise Since there would no longer be any excuse to neglect evidence and expertise, can we do more than just listen to it? If we are happy to learn from and trust them, why not let us delegate our votes to them, too? Why not use digital technology to empower more people within the decision making structure? And if delegates also want to stand for election they'll already have support. This is known as delegative democracy and is being used to great effect in other parties around the world. It will be making its debut on Represent this spring, in time for the May elections. 4. Use digital to help us help ourselves As well as willingly sharing our values and lending our expertise, please make it easy for us to participate. If I think that school pupils should have more sport opportunities, then show me how to volunteer to help make it happen. If I think that new local development is an eyesore, point me towards the planning department. Advertisement Digital can help us organise to solve our own problems where we can, and help us use existing policy more effectively where we can't. 5. Challenge us Modern life makes us think we really can have whatever we want, with no trade-offs or hidden costs. We are rarely challenged to prioritise the things we care about, or explain ourselves when we want two things which contradict with each other. MPs fume at the contradictory petitions filling their inboxes. A smarter democratic platform would make it easy for all sides to vote and debate issues, share and vote on ideas, and present results as a single constituency dashboard. If we are treated like adults we will make decisions like adults. 6. Let us help. Naturally, Represent does all this and more. We are data geeks who want to help change the world, who believe in open data and powerful APIs. Represent is open to anyone, immediately, and works for MPs and citizens alike. We'd love to work with you, too. A step-change in gender diversity has taken to seed with the recent findings from the Women and Equalities Committee. It probably isn't going to be a game-changer, but it certainly provides the roots from which progress can flourish. Nonetheless, some commentators continue to spread vile prejudice against trans people. Columnists like Richard Littlejohn and Jeremy Clarkson, encouraged by their editors, too often discard any sense of responsibility. The old adage that 'sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me' is nonsense, as they do hurt so many people. Let's not forget that it was Mr Littlejohn's column in the Daily Mail that humiliated Lucy Meadows three years ago, tragically leading to her suicide. More recently in the same newspaper, Littlejohn said: 'let's stop pretending that 'trans' is the new normal.' In the same piece Littlejohn distorts jihadist terrorist sneaking over Middle Eastern borders with the dignity of trans people to freely travel. He wrote: Advertisement 'We've got enough trouble already with male jihadis trying to sneak across borders by disguising themselves under burkas. We don't need long queues at airport security behind men and women who refuse to declare their gender to immigration officials, even though it's bleedin' obvious to a myopic mole in bottle-top bi-focals.' 'You can't say you weren't warned. I've been writing for the past ten years about 'trans' being the next frontier for the diversity warriors.' As recognised by the Parliamentary Committee, barometric passports and diversity of people's presentation, gender markers aren't necessary. Their absence isn't going to create airport chaos, nor a rampage of cross dressing transgender terrorists. Littlejohn goes on to say that: 'It's been full steam ahead to adapt society in line with the demands of a noisy, belligerent, but minuscule number of people -- with the police and local councils, naturally, in the vanguard.' 'We have now ended up with an official approach which turns nature, reason and common-sense upside down.' As a Labour politician it isn't often that I defend a Tory. Maria Miller's past misdemeanors over expenses have been dealt with, losing her Cabinet seat. That has nothing to do with the recent Commons report on gender identity. Littlejohn's attack is just another cheap and nasty 'character assassination' in a desperate effort to undermine the report's legitimate findings. Advertisement Jeremey Clarkson, in his latest diatribe in the Sunday Times, brushes aside the deep rooted feelings of some children over gender identity by castigating their parents for 'indulging their whims'. He argues that the issues encountered by trans children and adults are over exaggerated. He adds that left-wing activists 'have decided that we must now all turn our attention to the plight of people who want to change their name from Stan to Loretta.' Referring to his recent attempt to seek out a parent at a social function, Clarkson said: 'I wanted to seek them out and explain that they were free to live a lunatic life, they must not - and I was going to emphasise this with spittle -, be allowed to poison the mind of a child.' 'It's what kids do: dream impossible dreams. You don't actually take them seriously. You don't take them to a hospital when they're 10 and say, "He wants to be a girl, so can you lop his todger off?' 'Because what's going to happen five years later when he's decided that being a man isn't so bad after all and he's in the showers at the rugby club?' Whilst Clarkson would doubtlessly describe me as one of those left-wing activists, there is no evidence that any parent pursues a 'lunatic life' just to 'poison the mind of a child' about gender transition. No parent is asking doctors to 'lop off his todger', nor is there evidence of many people regretting their transition. However, we have significant evidence of people taking their lives or contemplating suicide because they feel trapped, unable to be their true selves. Clarkson went on to attack trans prisoners by arguing they are: 'Pretending to be trans so "they get a bit of make-up and some breasts to play with.' 'They are then transferred to a women's prison, where they can spend the rest of their lives being a lesbian. It's every man's dream.' Clarkson doesn't have the faintest idea of the tough journey people go through. That was so evident in December 2011 when he commented on The One Show about train delays owing to incidents when people have taken their lives. He said: 'Trains should resume their journey as soon as possible following a suicide and leave the body parts for scavenging animals.' Advertisement In his most recent intervention, Clarkson says: 'As far as I was concerned, men who want to be women were only really to be found on the internet or in the seedier bits of Bangkok They were called lady boys, and in my mind they were nothing more than the punchline in a stag night anecdote.' These interventions are cheap, nasty and beyond the pale, but columnists like Littlejohn and Clarkson still persist with their mindless rants - encouraged by their editors. If their child was trans or gay, I suspect they would reject them out of hand and not care that suicide might be a consequence. Yet there is hope with the coverage of the Women and Equalities Report, as much of the media has taken an inquiring approach, if not enthusiastically supporting the recommendations. At least there is growing recognition that society is embracing difference. It seems a long time since Google adopted the 'don't be evil' mantra. Now recast as Alphabet the company has been taking a kicking this week in the UK and all over Europe for paying 130m in back tax on years of substantial earnings. Media commentators, politicians and regulators alike have queued up to denounce the company, as well as HMRC and the Treasury, for the paucity of this settlement. This may seem uncomfortable for Google / Alphabet. But should it really care? After all, this is hardly the first time it has been the subject of criticism: its tax affairs have been a running sore for years, and it has been castigated by some for carrying videos by ISIS on YouTube. Yet the users keep coming. It makes absolutely colossal, and ever-growing, revenues, and there is no serious prospect that its users are about to flee elsewhere, horrified by the company's ethical stance. That, then, calls into question whether businesses like Google, those sitting right at the top of the tree, need to worry about their corporate reputations. After all, it seems that whatever is said about the company it sails on, adding daily to its mountain of cash. Of course, I would argue strongly that it should be concerned. Advertisement My case is not that this controversy or that slip up will cause irreparable damage today, but rather that by continuing to court this bad publicity its corporate brand will corrode over time. The impact may not be seen straightaway in user numbers or revenue figures, but perhaps employees will shy away - no small issue for a business competing for scarce tech talent. Or regulators will start to reshape its business environment. Or advertisers will become more circumspect. Slowly, steadily, its hard-won reputation could trickle away, with major impacts on its bottom line. THE BIG SHORT OUT IN CINEMAS Adam McKay / Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling / Comedy / 2016 / 15 / 130mins For a film with perhaps one of the least imaginative titles going, The Big Short sure does give you one hell of an introduction to the recent banking crisis. I am the last guy on Earth who's going to understand banks, economics and maths ( I think the statement "I did an English degree" explains all) but the way The Big Short enticed me so was because it was interesting. Most banking films nowadays are comedies because they are visual satires - an overt metaphor mocking the farcical system the global economy once employed. The Wolf of Wall Street mocked the 80s; The Big Short mocks the 00s. Wit pleases the critics, laughs please the fans, and money comes tumbling in for the studio - BOOM. In an age of postmodern irony, The Big Short fits in rather snuggly. The obvious comparison, as previously noted, is The Wolf of Wall Street, except The Big Short is less funny and more intelligent. It's unique, and a wonderful adaptation of the text, staying true to correct terminology and dialogue. I must say the editing is great: a meta-layered script, with use of pop culture and visual cues of footnotes, diagrams and whatnot making for a cinematic Tristram Shandy - utilising the visual, as well as the audible, to mock the market. Advertisement Christian Bale was Oscar nominated for his performance as Michael Burry. Yes, it's outstanding, but Steve Carrell is at least on a par with him. Ryan Gosling goes all out too - a combination of Oscar-chasing-DiCaprio and pure Cagean revelry. He was probably the funniest, certainly the most quotable. Bale was simply the most serious out of the core actors: he plays a man with Asperger's and learned drums so he could, in effect, play 'air drums' (oh, and one scene where he plays drums... one scene). My question is: why does the Academy shy away from comedy? Everyone knows they have a twisted sense of humour given that no black actors have been nominated for the second year in a row. So why can't they appreciate some good irony? Probably because they all have besties on Wall Street - quick, call the conspiracy police. I wouldn't be surprised if The Big Short scraped an Oscar or two. Best Picture, Director and even Supporting Actor for Bale are all long shots, but editing and best adapted screenplay... who knows? Financial mumbo-jumbo with fun, facts and lots of swearing. (*)(*)(*)(*)* CREED OUT IN CINEMAS Ryan Coogler / Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson / Drama / 2016 / 12A / 133mins Fuck it, I'll just say it: this is easily the best Rocky film. "But Harry, nothing can beat the original!" Well, Creed just did mate - sorry. Actually, I shouldn't apologise, crack director-actor duo Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan should. Their previous venture, Fruitvale Station, was a surprise critical hit in 2013 and they appear to have continued their form. Advertisement What Rocky did was pretty much invent an entire film genre - it was in some ways revolutionary and took everyone by surprise, paving the way for such cinematic greats as Raging Bull, The Fighter and Warrior. Obviously, we remember it for making star out of Stallone, he of the archetype rags-to-riches story. The films that followed led to a downward spiral that even the most diligent fans found hard to accept (let's face it, Rocky IV is just Cold War propaganda). What does Creed bring to the Rocky canon? It brings a return to the original format, akin to how The Force Awakens was similar to A New Hope. It's not too original in the literal sense of the word, but it gives everyone a fresh start without the complications of a reboot. I like the whole hyperlink cinema thang goin' on. Whenever Adonis Creed comes across a new fighter his stats appear beside him: world ranking, fight technique etc. It reminds me of a video game - it has a contemporary feel that fits in with the internet age, where we learn facts instantaneously. Coogler modernises the franchise with aplomb. WARNING: Stallone actually acts. Yeah, I know, I was shocked myself. His Golden Globe win is debateable, but an Oscar nom? Hmm. This seems more of a send-off for a man whose last nomination was for the same character back in 1977. Some old fans of his seem to have taken pity on him methinks. Not getting on the #OscarsSoWhite train or anything, but Michael B. Jordan should have been nominated. I thought he was damn good and at least on a par with Stallone. Tony Bellew as Ricky Conlan - the less said about him the better. They've recruited a lairy Liverpudlian and rolled with it because he's got eyes that burn into your soul and the American masses will barely understand a word he's saying - therefore he's evil! Burn him at the stake! Although some might argue that's good stereotype-casting, especially by American standards, and fits the typical Rocky rival cliche, he's still off the pace of those around him. The shots are great, the choreography is great, and the acting isn't too shabby. It's cheesy, but I enjoyed it - who doesn't love a Rocky film? I doubt it will win any Oscars. But that Golden Globe for Stallone has got me thinking he could nick one. Advertisement Reinvents and reinvigorates the Rocky franchise. (*)(*)(*)(*) Everyone loves Sir Michael Caine. He's done many great films. My favourites are probably Zulu, the Italian Job and Educating Rita. Of course he's a brilliant actor but there's also something quintessentially English about him. And because we love him we should, of course, listen to his opinion on whether Britain should stay in a reformed European Union or walk away. Why not? His opinion matters just as much as yours or mine. Although he admitted that he found either outcome to be "scary" and that like many people he was still in two minds he told Radio 4's Today programme last week that he was "sort of pretty certain we should come out". This less than ringing endorsement has been described as a coup for the Leave campaign, struggling as they are to come up with substantive endorsements from well known people. Sir Michael blames decision-making by "faceless bureaucrats" for his "sort of certain" view and says that if leaving costs us money we'll just have to work harder. The only problem is he's sort of certainly wrong and if it does cost us money it sort of certainly won't be him that has to work harder! And what if some willing workers lose their jobs as a result? Sir Michael is wrong because faceless bureaucrats don't make the policy of the EU, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament do that and both are our democratically elected representatives. But he's also wrong because he seems not to have fully considered the effect leaving the EU would on our trade and on European security. Advertisement Yes, I know, the European Union isn't perfect. It's over-reached itself with the Euro and the consequent moves to make the single currency work better. It could definitely be more democratic and accountable and I'd argue its remit and its budget should both be reduced. I support the Prime Minister's efforts to get a better deal for Britain but whatever he comes back with won't change the certainly with which I'll be voting when the time comes. That's because although I'm a strong advocate for reforming the EU my decision whether to stay engaged or quit forever won't depend on access to "in work benefits", the migrant crisis, the Euro, the budget, red tape or even its current level of democratic accountability, since I believe the people do and always will have the final say. In truth my vote hinges on two incredibly powerful arguments, a commitment to free trade and to cooperation with our neighbours. The European Union is a single trading bloc of 500 million people, the largest economic unit in the world. It's 45% of our export business worth 229billion per year. Of course that trade won't stop entirely if we leave. But since all goods going between the UK and Europe would be subject to customs clearance (like Switzerland, like Norway) trade would be slower, less convenient and more expensive if barriers to trade were re-imposed. I can't believe Sir Michael is seriously contemplating such a backward step for the UK. This is not the time to play fast and loose with British jobs. I've never won an Oscar but I have built two European freight businesses so I know a thing or two about the glories and the challenges of cooperation across the continent. Just like in a marriage or in a business partnership it's sometimes been tempting to think life would be easier if we could've just made all the decisions ourselves! But that's not the reality of our world in 2016 and nor should Sir Michael wish it to be. Advertisement The fact is working together with our neighbours makes us safer and more prosperous. Don't believe me? Imagine if the EU ceased to exist. After all we can't take its existence for granted if we ourselves are prepared to leave. Look at Eastern Europe where the EU has ensured major countries like Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic transition to become successful democracies and market economies, incidentally creating new opportunities for UK companies. Or Finland, to whom EU membership provides confidence in the integrity of its Eastern border. Or even Ireland where EU membership has eased the peace process in the North. With the middle east in turmoil, terrorism on the rise and Russia continuing to menace, this is not the time to duck our responsibilities to protect our backyard. From its original conception, the European Union has always produced a two way debate on the effectiveness of Britain's membership. However, this debate has intensified in recent years with predominately right-wing Eurosceptics and rebellious Conservatives leading the campaign to take Britain out of Europe. The debate now finds itself steaming towards an imminent climax as David Cameron seeks to fulfil his promise of an In-Out referendum. However, with this being potentially less than 12 months away, will the British public receive enough information in-time to make an educated decision come polling day? In terms of public opinion, recent polls have uncovered a complete divide between "In" and "Out" campaigns with a recent YouGov example stating that each represent 41% of the public. However, to understand why this split in public opinion has become so prominent it is important to analyse the driving forces that exist behind the Out campaign's motives. Advertisement Upon analysis, it is apparent that migration will be a prominent theme. This is supported by a separate YouGov poll that discovered immigration and free movement topped the British public's list of concerns when asked about Cameron's current negotiations. However, when asked about their own right to freely move and live around Europe, 63% of a separate British sample believed that they should be able to do so. This is a contrast from opinions regarding the free movement of other EU citizens with only 36% believing that the same rights should exist outside of Britain. In addition to this, the same poll asked another sample of individuals, with 15% opposing free movement for Britains while 48% opposed EU citizens' right to do so. This poll also discovered that a net total of +47 within Britain support free movement for themselves whereas support for other EU nations' free movement scored a net total of -12. This contradiction conveys an ignorance towards EU principles, which in combination with attitudes towards migration, suggest that popular Brexit opinions are being based on emotion rather than facts. Advertisement As the rise of UKIP has shown, anti-immigration supporters benefit on the spreading of basic information within complex issues. Take EU immigration for instance, as UKIP's recent election campaigns have successfully gained votes on the pretence of misguided stereotypes it would be naive to assume that similar tactics won't be used within this referendum. An example of this is a 2014 UKIP advert that claimed "26 million" immigrants were coming for the jobs of UK citizens. This shows how studies such as a UCL report on immigration, which discovered EU immigrants contribute 5bn to the economy, can be easily undermined by emotional tactics. Despite a general perception of Brexit campaigners being right wing, this debate differs from others in one major way. This refers to how each campaign isn't restricted to one political alignment with portions of the left also voicing opposition. As the EU conveyed a ruthless character when dealing with Greece, it could be argued that principles such as austerity and Brussels bureaucracy represent opposition to left-wing ideology. If so, an argument for the left to join forces with Brexit campaigners may actually be quite valid. There is also the EU's support for TTIP, which currently being negotiated by the unelected European Commission represents a severe risk to democracy within Europe. This is due to the potential of TTIP handing US companies access to European education, transport, water services and public health, which would include the NHS in Britain. As if this wasn't worrying enough, TTIP also includes a clause known as "ISDS", (Investor-State Dispute Settlements), which would enable private corporations to sue elected governments. Advertisement There is also an issue of apathy towards EU affairs. As statistics from 2014's EU elections show, only 35.60% of the eligible UK public actually voted. This was considerably smaller than other notable EU states with Germany receiving a turnout of 48%, Belgium 89.64%, and Ireland 52.44%.The average election turnout was 42.67%. If this apparent apathy is accurate then a similarly low turn-out could be on the cards. However, with Cameron now planning to hold his referendum as early as June, will this really leave enough time for apathy to turn into interest? This concern has been raised by various figures with Scotland's First Minster Nicola Sturgeon adding that a June referendum would clash with May's local UK elections. This limited time-frame between the events could potentially cause confusion amongst voters as campaigning for both would run almost simultaneously. Reoffending blights lives and communities, carrying personal, social and economic costs of between 9.5billion and 13billion a year. Having a job or training to go to on release is crucial in helping people to turn their lives around. As chief executive of Timpson, the UK and Ireland's leading retail service provider, I have found that this is not only a great way of helping people, but also of getting great people to work for us. My work with people in prison started over a decade ago when, during a visit to HMYOI Thorn Cross, I came across a young man called Matt. I was so impressed with his attitude and personality, that I gave him a guarantee of an interview following his release. Matt gave an outstanding interview and has remained in our paid full-time employment ever since. Today, 10% of Timpson colleagues are recruited directly from prison. We actively interview prisoners from a pool of some 80 prisons, with a view to employing them on release. We offer work experience, placements on temporary release or in the prison-based Timpson Foundation Academies. Whilst there is no "guarantee" of a job, there is a guarantee of an interview for employment and a work-trial period. Advertisement I want to see more employers benefiting from the skills of former prisoners by providing opportunities for people on release. For every prisoner who successfully gains work on release, we know that many more will face rejection and unemployment. For about half of all job vacancies, employers are likely to reject most people with a criminal record. I am currently chair of the Employers Forum for Reducing Reoffending (EFFRR), a group of likeminded employers who offer a second chance to people with a criminal conviction. EFFRR members actively encourage other employers to recruit ex-offenders and guide businesses along the way to help maximise the success of any placements. Greater attention is also needed on improving treatment and conditions in our overcrowded prisons, and on reducing any needless use of imprisonment and its social and economic costs. We can't keep locking up 85,000 people today knowing that hardly any of them will manage to find work and that around 50% of them will be back in again within a year of release. There are currently too many people in prison, and we have a system that seems to keep bringing them back there time and time again--that has to stop. Prison reform means fewer prisons and better prisoners. This is why I'm delighted to be joining the Prison Reform Trust's board as chair, and steering a charity with a strong track record of driving policy and practice change. Lord Woolf, who has served as chair during the last four years, has kindly agreed to take on a new honorary role at the Prison Reform Trust. Advertisement Syrian refugees arriving in Greece by CAFOD Photo Library @flickr Greece was on the defensive again this week as it faced a new threat to its EU member status, this time because of its mismanagement of the Syrian refugee crisis. The European Commission has given the country an ultimatum: rein in migration, respect your obligations under the Schengen rules, or be expelled from the passport-free area. Valdis Dombrovskis, a commission vice-president complained that "Greece seriously neglected its obligations" and graciously extended a three month period to Athens to get its house in order. While Greece has found itself at the epicentre of the refugee crisis through geographical misfortune rather than through its own failures, the real reason EU member states can so readily countenance the idea of cutting Greece adrift is its ailing economy. For some time now, Greece has been the sick man of Europe and now the EU is raising the temperature, trying to persuade Athens to pay back its medical bills. As such, threatening to expel Greece from Schengen is nothing more than a new strategy being used by the EU to force Athens to go through with the painful bailout agreement signed in July 2015. Advertisement This is not the first time that the "swarm" of refugees arriving from the Middle East has been used as a bargaining chip in the dialogue over Greek debt. In March last year, Panos Kammenos, Greek defence minister and head of junior coalition member the Independent Greeks, launched a warning shot across the bows when he cautioned that if the EU allowed Greece to flounder, "we will flood it with migrants". This human tide, he reminded member states with a spectacular lack of subtlety, would probably include "some jihadists of the Islamic State too." In the not so gracious words of Panos Kammenos, blow us out, and we'll enable them to blow you up in return. Such reckless comments surely did not endear Greece to the creditors, but that does not mean that the EU should stoop to the level of strong-arming Athens tit-for-tat. Instead of this adversarial approach, isn't it time both sides approached things from a more adult perspective? Firstly, Greek immigration minister Yiannis Mouzalas' recent criticisms that Turkey was failing to effectively stem the flow of migrants might sound like sour grapes but in reality they do hold water. Turkey is set to receive significant financial aid - 3bn - to help it deal with its refugees, on the condition that it cuts the illegal flow of migrants to Europe. Ankara is well aware of the power it holds as one of the main routes of entry and has not been shy about stepping-up or stepping-down its counter-efforts as a way of extracting further concessions from the EU. If the EU is paying Turkey to keep the refugees on its side of the border, and Ankara defies Brussels, then is Greece truly to blame? Secondly, the upcoming scuppering of the Dublin Regulation, responsible for the "first point of entry" principle that governs which country should handle asylum claims, paves the way for a more equitable way of managing the burgeoning humanitarian crisis. A revamped system should incorporate the "quasi-automatic" system of allocating the refugees washed ashore Greece's islands to different EU countries as well as providing financial relief for Athens' cash strapped budget. Holding Greece responsible under rules that are currently under revision is cynical to say the least. Advertisement Thirdly and most importantly, the Troika should use its positive influence to push the Greek government to implement reforms that will benefit both the country and its creditors. While the draconic austerity programs imposed by Greece's creditors have single-handedly caused an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Greece, giving in to the populist mirage offered by some of Syriza's policies will not do much to end the suffering. The middle way may not get hearts pumping, but it's the most sensible course of action. So for a start, Tsipras should seek to remove the influence of the Independent Greeks (ANEL) led by the divisive Panos Kammenos. After Syriza purged its radical wing led by former Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, Tsipras shifted track and signalled his desire to embrace the propositions put forward by the creditors to reform the country - a move that put the Prime Minister at loggerheads with ANEL. With the election of Kyriakos Mitsotakis to lead New Democracy, Syriza stands a much better chance of keeping the country on an even keel if it reaches out to the opposition. From this vantage point, Tsipras and his cabinet should start implementing much needed reforms and inch Greece's economy back into the green. While it may not sit well with Syriza's ideology, one of the most important tools in its armoury is without a doubt privatisation. While creditors expressed their satisfaction at news that the Piraeus port will be bought by China's COSCO, the deal is not cleared yet, mostly because of opposition from Shipping Minister Theodoros Dritsas. The latter claims the sale is an absolute mistake and has threatened to derail the deal - an outcome that should be strongly opposed by Tsipras. Why? Because if Greece has failed to properly manage its state-owned assets, privatizing them is not just a logical solution but the only one that would create jobs and boost state coffers. The monarch may seem to make Britain appear different to other countries, but is it time to change this system and have a democratically elected head of state? Many people in Britain aspire to become the head of state and none of them will ever achieve their dream. If fellow developed countries like the USA can elect its head of state then why can't the UK? The monarch is born into a position of power. People moan at politicians, but at the end of the day at least somebody voted them into Parliament. In theory, the monarch has no Parliamentary power as such, but they do have the power to sign international treaties, give honorary titles (including Lords) and deploy British troops abroad. Since the monarch can appoint Lords, they are likely to have similar views to the monarch themselves which can create a bias in Parliament. The monarch also has to, conventionally, sign every law that Parliament passes. If we had an elected head of state, they could veto any decision or law which may put the lives of British people at risk. Because the monarch is unelected it creates the idea that certain people are born superior to others. As a 16 year-old I aspire to live in a country where anyone from any background can become, or at least stand to be, our head of state. We could elect our new President similarly to how the USA elect theirs. They would have to win the popular vote, so the majority of the electorate would have supported them. People can vote for whoever they want to stand- say, every 4 years- and we could have a head of state that truly represents the whole of the nation, not just the privileged few. Let the people decide who they want to be our head of state and represent our country at home and abroad. Advertisement Secondly, the monarchy simply costs too much money. The total cost of keeping the monarch is thought to be around 334million (over 100 times more than the Irish President.) Some argue that those who pay this fee in their taxes will never receive their money back- that some people gained money but not the individual tax payer. We should not have to involuntary fund the system through our taxes. This kind of money should be spent on homeless people who desperately need it. People who are struggling to survive. Buckingham Palace is thought to be able to provide shelter for 1,000 refugees (or for most of the homeless people in London.) There are people who are struggling to survive and as a civilised country we should be helping them. Tourists would still visit London if we didn't have a monarch. For example, Paris gains more money than London from tourism, and France doesn't have a monarch. People may argue that the monarchy is what makes Britain unique from other countries. The truth is that Britain will always be unique for its wonderful history. Thirdly, the monarchy leads to religious discrimination. To become the Prime Minister of Britain, you must be the same religion as the monarch, Church of England. This rule is completely outdated, considering we now live in a much more multi-cultural nation. There are people who have changed their religion after becoming Prime Minister, such as Tony Blair who converted to Catholicism, but it shouldn't be a rule that people must change their religion. Advertisement Andrew Slough Prior to launching BSC over eight years ago, Zoe has spent the last decade building high- impact awareness campaigns for global lifestyle brands, developing and executing creative platforms and co-branded alliances. Before founding Brandstyle, she was the Director of Public Relations for SHVO, a luxury real estate marketing company working with high-end design and hospitality brands including Armani Casa, Aman Resorts, Philippe Starck and W Hotels. Zoe was a Vice President at Rubenstein Public Relations where she was a crisis communications resource for global real estate brands and lead luxury lifestyle accounts including Lockes Diamantaires (now Ivanka Trump jewelry). She was a Senior Account Executive for several of the city's most respected public relations firms including Harrison & Shriftman where she lead the Mercedes-Benz account and its title sponsorship of New York Fashion Week, Euro RSCG Magnet where she launched the Evian Flowers ad campaign, Porter Novelli, and Burson Marsteller. Advertisement How has your life experience made you the leader you are today? Going through any challenging or uncomfortable situations in life and learning from them has helped me 'get' many different personalities. I think if you can understand people, you have a better time working together. How has your previous employment experience aided your tenure at BSC? Before I started BRANDSTYLE, my background was primarily at PR agencies. Early on in my career there were so many times that I thought; 'and why am I doing this?' Taking the time to understand the overall goal on a project went a long way. It turns out a lot of what I was doing helps me immensely with my business today. What have been the highlights and challenges? So many highlights! Having the most dedicated, loyal staff - with a great sense of humor - that I get to work with everyday, having clients who do cool things, and opening a Miami office this past summer. The challenges are too numerous to count but a few that come to mind are managing the operations side of the business, being as efficient as possible every day, knowing when to be hands on and when not to... always ensuring we are offering the highest level of creativity and customized experience our clients expect from us, and more! What advice can you offer to women who want a career in your industry? Understand media on every level - how it works, what purpose it serves. What is the most important lesson you've learned in your career to date? Nothing happens over night; there are no 'overnight successes!' That's a little secret on how media often likes to package a business piece - the overnight success story. Bottom line: it all takes hard work, patience and fighting for what you want. It will happen... just maybe not tomorrow. Advertisement How do you maintain a work/life balance? I spend a lot of time with my kids. Also, I love to cook; it allows me the time to think and problem solve. What do you think is the biggest issue for women in the workplace? One issue is maternity leave - for some reason media has celebrated women who take very little time off after giving birth. In my opinion, there should be longer + paid maternity and paternity leave in the US. How has mentorship made a difference in your professional and personal life? Getting advice from people I respect has helped me realize what I'm capable of. Personally, it has helped me understand that it's a good thing to ask for help, talk to people about what you have going on and seek advice. Which other female leaders do you admire and why? Mothers - everywhere! What do you want to accomplish in the next year? In-between the parties, private meetings and panel discussions, gender was back on the agenda this year in Davos. It's just unfortunate that the headline story was that of the 2,500 participants at the annual meeting, just 17.8 per cent were women. The issue was, to some extent, a side-note and at it was reported that at least one debate on gender diversity was made up entirely of men. But now the party has ended, the question needs to be asked how debate will turn into action back down the mountain. How will it change the prospects of the young women working today? I come to this as the female CEO of a leading creative agency employing 450 staff. I am also a mum. At Grey, we aren't doing too badly. When it comes to the top positions of CEO, Chairman and MD, two are held by women (myself included) and one by a man. The gender split of those heading up departments is relatively equal as well, with just a 4% difference. Advertisement But we have to do more, and I know it is my responsibility to drive the change. We need to identify the crunch points at which diversity is lost and make an effort to retain it - whether that is gender diversity, race diversity, diversity of social class or disability. It won't happen by chance. As a business leader, you have to make a conscious effort to make your company more diverse and to do that you need to understand why it is not. OVERCOMING CULTURAL BARRIERS Despite the fact that women are now leading countries and companies, this has only changed in recent decades and we're still searching for role models. Gender diversity is a social and cultural problem as well as a business one. I come from a family with an impressive legacy which includes Professors of Medicine, a doctor to the Queen, a Governor of Singapore, and the founder of Jameson Irish whisky. Despite that lineage, I am the first woman in my family to have a career. In one review of my all-female school, we were described as being "good at music and good marriers". Advertisement The pathway to leadership isn't always clear. And this is especially true if people aren't encouraging you, or in some cases dissuading you, albeit often unintentionally (my mother always said it was a shame I got the brains and not my brother). As business leaders we need to seek out diversity both at the entry point into the workplace and then, after that, foster leadership potential in everyone. A recent KPMG report revealed that the barriers to women reaching leadership positions starts in childhood, and despite 60% of women having an ambition to reach a leadership role the same percentage agree that "as women" they are more cautious in seeking out those positions. We need to give women not only role models, but advice and guidance. We need to give them the courage of their convictions at a young age to be less cautious in pursuing what they want to be, rather than what they should be. MAKING ROOM FOR EQUALITY In a creative business like ours we rely on diversity. We need different perspectives, the friction of ideas and broad experience that comes from that, but when it comes to women, there is an additional challenge which you don't face when making your team more socially or culturally diverse. That challenge is that it is still extremely hard for a mother to have a successful double working career in a top job. Advertisement Introducing equal parental leave was a well-intended policy decision, but there are societal norms that prevent men from taking it. In the workplace, the role of parent is almost exclusively focused towards women. We have to open up the space for equality to flourish, making it more acceptable for men to take parental leave. We have to encourage a better attitude to parents working flexible hours across the board and we need a more inclusive approach to parental support. There are plenty of groups for mothers and women, but few for men. TAKING ACTION So we should let the world leaders debate, but I believe it is up to the people running businesses to start making the change today. Those that do want to see a change can't expect it to come without work and some uncomfortable compromises to normal behaviour. We have to employ targeting, the active pursuit of different people, the support and encouragement of those people that would not naturally come to you, or may not feel the strength to drive themselves ahead. We must be strict, but fair on pay equality. If someone has a year off, don't let them fall behind when they come back to work. Make sure they're given the opportunities to make up that time and get ahead. Advertisement Fundamentally, we have to understand that men and women work in different ways. A Deloitte survey recently highlighted that women focus more on a company's culture. So why not try to build a working environment that favours collaborative, open working practices, as well as targets? We've all been on a bit of learning curve in the last few weeks, receiving an education in the role of junior doctors and why it is that they have been driven to call their first strike in 40 years. Until that point most of our knowledge came from Scrubs but given that J.D, Elliot, and Turk resolved their difficulties with a high-five and a hug and never appeared to age I guess that never was the most accurate representation of life on the ward for a newly graduated doctor. But the need to inform the public about the reasons behind the strike has produced a range of messages with no clear unifying narrative. Advertisement The British Medical Association, the trade union for doctors, has focused primarily on the risks that the new junior doctors' contract poses to patient safety. This argument states that the increased hours that doctors could be forced to work will make them tired and more likely to make basic but potentially life or health threatening errors. It's understandable why the BMA would choose to emphasise this message: it is the simplest way of explaining the problems created by the new contract and the one that is most likely to gain public support - no one wants to be operated on by sleepwalking doctors. But, for the media, it wasn't enough. The frame lacks the basic requirement of any news story: describing a battle between good and evil. Not known for their sympathy with strikes, the press nonetheless felt compelled by the weight of public opinion to throw in their lot with the doctors. The need to construct a clearer and more emotive narrative however meant that Jeremy Hunt entered stage left. In the hands of the media the strike became more about doctors standing up to the intentions of the evil Jeremy Hunt - there wasn't such a need to explain why they were standing up to him because the public have already largely bought into the "Jeremy Hunt is evil" frame. There was of course nuance to this and some of the more "lefty" journalists have turned the dispute into a wider debate about the future of the NHS. Owen Jones writing in the Guardian argued that junior doctors were "standing up for the NHS". He sees the new contract as part of a wider government strategy for marketising and privatising the NHS - although the link between the changes to doctors hours and this hateful process are not made entirely explicit in his argument (unless one thinks that Hunt is actually hoping for dischord so that doctors are forced out of working for the public NHS and turn to the private sector instead - don't underestimate him). Advertisement Finally, there was the narrative of the protesters who came out in solidarity with doctors on strike. Here a third message emerged: that of the doctor as a "hero" and the "life-saver" to whom we owe a great deal. There is no doubt that what doctors do is essential, that doesn't need to be said. But, this frame is probably the least helpful in the debate. What it does is say that doctors deserve decent working rights because they are heroes, not because it's a basic right that we all share. In short, it's not a common cause frame that furthers wider debates about the need to uphold all of our rights. The impact of this has already been seen this week with the press' reaction to the news that tube workers are planning a series of strikes over their pay and plans to introduce an all-night service. From being the vanguard of workers' rights one week, the press quickly turned their ire on the tube workers whose efforts to secure decent pay and working conditions cause, in their eyes, nothing but "misery" for others. There wasn't space for a debate about why they were striking and the merits of their action because the narrative that tube workers are inherently disruptive and greedy had already been created. Their labours are not seen in the same light as those of the life saving junior doctors. We shouldn't be surprised that such an interweaving of narratives took place. The problem that the BMA always faced was in developing a campaign narrative in reaction to events that were largely forced upon them - the imposition of the new contract. In such circumstances they did an exemplary job in finding a key narrative at all and, for a while at least, having this is as the primary argument that was presented to the public. The complex nature of the contract, the rise of mass support for the strikes, and the added complexity that the NHS does need reform, just not like this, meant that the narrative was ultimately taken out of the BMA's hands. The media were probably all too happy for the "doctor is hero" argument to be developed knowing full well that this would do nothing to further the interests of workers in other sectors who might be considering strike action. Greek Coast Guard officers escort refugees from a patrol ship after rescuing them from sinking dinghies. Many in the last few days have been rocked by news of the Greek 'ultimatum'. Which is to say, the threat by member states of the Schengen zone to Greece that it must 'secure its borders' and stop refugees entering within the next six weeks, or be expelled from the elite passport-free club. Which is unfair and makes no sense on so many levels that I can't help wondering if it was one of those ideas we all have in the middle of the night that seem groundbreakingly brilliant at the time but that, as you try to decipher your somnambulatory scrawls the next morning, stand up about as well as a one-legged centipede. Advertisement First of all, this has never been a Greek problem. Greece has never dropped bombs on Syria, or sent troops into Afghanistan or Iraq, causing the problems forcing people to flee. Greece has never advertised an open-doors immigration policy for all Syrians and Afghans, catalysing a rush of refugees trying to enter before those doors swing shut. Greece has problems, yes - plenty. Problems of its own (largely caused, arguably, by the same EU member states blackmailing it now) that it was struggling to deal with well before tens of thousands of people started arriving weekly on its islands. Despite these problems, Greece is doing more than most other countries in recognising its human responsibilities and trying to do its best by these people arriving as part of a crisis that others caused for it. On top of its economic and political problems, plus endeavouring to address the needs of the hundreds of thousands of refugees passing through its lands, Greece is now also having to absorb the fallout from the (legally questionable) Balkan policy of only admitting Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis through the border at Idomeni. This means that all the thousands of people coming from other countries must stop in Greece, apply for asylum in Greece, be processed by Greece, and many - more than would have chosen thus - stay and live in Greece. The country is barely coping, and a few controversial moves which sparked outrage, like the recent arrest of a group of foreign volunteer lifeguards, look like cries for help as the country strains to look after itself and its newest visitors. The decision not even to process Moroccans, who become stuck intractably in temporary camps, is indicative of the nation's inability to handle the situation. Advertisement A ship sails the stretch of water between Lesvos's northern and Turkey's southern coasts. Greece is not finding this crisis any more fun than Austria or Germany is - much less, in fact. Greece is experiencing the effects of this crisis not only economically, but also in the trauma suffered by its islanders, many of whom have witnessed first-hand the tragedy of families displaced and people drowning, and in the polarisation of its society into those 'for' and 'against' helping refugees. The window of six weeks is laughably simplistic, and worryingly reductive of the problems faced. If there were an easy way to solve the disaster recurring daily in its nation, Greece would have been the first to implement it - and the other countries wouldn't have stood around watching for long, all wanting a bit of the credit. But the fact is that there is no easy answer. And it is not Greece's responsibility, nor in its power, to provide these answers to a problem initiated by, controlled by and fought between other people. Greece is an unlucky onlooker who happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. And now, other EU states are trying to punish Greece for its geography and their own actions. When Greece sent its Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, to Lesvos in October to witness the situation and consider a response strategy, the boats stopped arriving. The Turkish smugglers, fearing a crackdown threatening their revenue, did not allow Tsipras to see the situation at its most acute, and the PM left the island having seen only a few hundred people arrive, after weeks of receiving 5,000+ people daily. Realistically, what do the Schengen states expect Greece to do to 'secure its border'? Perhaps it could take a leaf out of the book of Medieval monarchs and surround itself with a 10km moat, adding high waves and strong tides for good measure. Oh, wait... A naval patrol along just the northern coast of Lesvos costs thousands of euros daily; for a country still economically in tatters, increasing these patrols is inconceivable. And even if naval patrols were placed nose-to-nose along the Greek-Turkish border and stopped every single boat from entering, what would that mean for the people on board? This short-sighted suggestion by Austria's interior minister overlooks the fact that the people on board those boats will remain in existence (let's hope the contrary doesn't figure in her plan). Sending them back to Turkey is equally unfeasible; Turkey, already accommodating 2 million refugees - compared to the 1 million across the whole of Europe - has a much more real 'crisis' of refugees than anywhere in the EU. Even the countries that thus far have led the humanistic response to the crisis, like Germany, now seem to have forgotten that "refugees" are real people, not just numbers. Advertisement The same stretch seen from the Turkish side; Lesvos on the horizon. Instead of an ultimatum for Greece to 'secure' its 13,676km of coastline and essentially tourniquet the human symptoms of the crisis - an all but impossible feat, and a futile one at that - how about targeting the root causes of the problem, and issuing the UK with an ultimatum to cease the arms trade to Saudi Arabia, or for the UK and France to stop bombing Syria? I will say it time and time again: instead of squabbling and passing the blame like a bad smell, EU member states need to grow up, sit down together and come up with a coherent, fair and mature approach to resolving not just our own self-interested problems, but also those of the people seeking our help. The EU is about unity, alliance and mutual support, and I am a backer of it in that capacity, but this dog-eat-dog backstabbing is corroding its very foundations and questioning the validity of the very high regard in which the rest of the world holds us. "We make war that we may live in peace." --Aristotle "I exhort you never to debase the moral currency or to lower the standard of rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives, and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on wrong." --Lord Acton "Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end...liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition...The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." --Lord Acton "It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" --Patrick Henry "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." --Thomas Paine "The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice" --John Adams "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." --Thomas Jefferson "No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain hima?the idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural rights." --Thomas Jefferson "An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens." --Thomas Jefferson "The protection of our citizens, the spirit and honor of our country, require that force should be interposed to a certain degree." --Thomas Jefferson "To draw around the whole nation the strength of the General Government as a barrier against foreign foes... is [one of the] functions of the General Government on which [our citizens] have a right to call." --Thomas Jefferson "It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it." --Thomas Jefferson "I am ever unwilling that [peace] should be disturbed as long as the rights and interests of the nations can be preserved. But whensoever hostile aggressions on these require a resort to war, we must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies." --Thomas Jefferson "By nature's law, man is at peace with man till some aggression is committed, which, by the same law, authorizes one to destroy another as his enemy." --Thomas Jefferson "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." --Thomas Jefferson "Our duty to ourselves, to posterity, and to mankind, call on us by every motive which is sacred or honorable, to watch over the safety of our beloved country during the troubles which agitate and convulse the residue of the world, and to sacrifice to that all personal and local considerations." --Thomas Jefferson "It is an essential attribute of the jurisdiction of every country to preserve peace, to punish acts in breach of it, and to restore property taken by force within its limits." --Thomas Jefferson "By nature's law, man is at peace with man till some aggression is committed, which, by the same law, authorizes one to destroy another as his enemy." --Thomas Jefferson "Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it. But the temper and folly of our enemies may not leave this in our choice." --Thomas Jefferson "We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." --Benjamin Franklin "I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." --James Madison "Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed." --Abraham Lincoln "At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." --Abraham Lincoln "The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me." --Abraham Lincoln "Property is the fruit of labor...property is desirable...is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built." --Abraham Lincoln "We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word many mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny." --Abraham Lincoln "If all do not join now to save the good old ship of the Union this voyage nobody will have a chance to pilot her on another voyage." --Abraham Lincoln "It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." --Theodore Roosevelt "Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." --Theodore Roosevelt "The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group." --Franklin D. Roosevelt "War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others. It will end in a way, and at an hour, of our choosing." --George W. Bush "When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and true maxim that 'a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.' So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and which, once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing him of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause is really a good one." --Abraham Lincoln "To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man's character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours." --Mark Twain "It is with trifles and when he is off guard that a man best reveals his character." --Arthur Schopenhauer "When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them." --Plato "He that has light within his own clear breast may sit in the center, and enjoy bright day: But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts benighted walks under the mid-day sun." --John Milton "Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries." --James A. Michener "We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it." --Abraham Lincoln "I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "A man's character is his guardian divinity." --Heraclitus "Character develops itself in the stream of life." --Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe "Do what you know and perception is converted into character." --Ralph Waldo Emerson "Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character." --Henry Clay The announcement by Google that it will magnanimously pay 130 million for the tax it has avoided since 2005 has rightly been greeted with outrage and derision. To put this in context, in 2014 Google's revenue in the UK was 6.5bn. What Google are up to is a skilful attempt to remain in control of their tax liabilities in the face of intense focus by politicians to finally introduce a fairer global tax regime. Before reaching its agreement with HMRC Google had carefully reorganised its corporate structure within the umbrella group it has called Alphabet, perhaps because they were kindly spelling out for us their new and more sophisticated approach to tax avoidance. For corporations like Google, tax avoidance represents such a huge financial investment that it is worth their while undergoing this sort of investment to stay one step ahead of government tax authorities. And now they can reach an agreement safe in the knowledge that most of their profits can still avoid tax. However, in my role on the European Parliament's special tax committee, I can tell you that we are hot on their heels. Shortly before Christmas we passed a report which included some powerful measures to ensure a fairer tax regime. For example, we proposed a strong and extended definition of a tax haven with sanctions for countries defined as tax havens and companies using them to avoid taxes. This would end the right to receive any EU funding including payments from companies that have a base in a tax haven. Perhaps most importantly of all, we also supported public country by country reporting for all companies that have activities in the EU so that we know where companies do business and whether it matches where they pay taxes. Advertisement Over the last two years, the UK participated to an international tax reform process called BEPS (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting). The outcome announced in November 2015 is far from perfect but one of the key measures was to ensure that multinationals like Google could be taxed in the UK because they have a permanent establishment and real economic activity here. The deal between Google and HMRC puts at risk the implementation of these new rules and comes at a time when the European Union launches a new Corporate Tax Package. This package, launched today by the Commission, is a welcome step. While from a Green perspective it does not go as far as we would like, it none-the-less contains a number of ambitious measures to fight tax avoidance. Member states now face a test. If they are serious about fighting corporate tax avoidance they should demonstrate this by adopting this new directive within a year. Disappointingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the UK Tory government have been one of the most reluctant and obstructive members in the negotiations. Ireland is another member state central to the tax avoidance strategies of tech giants Google and Apple. With its ultra-low corporate tax rate of 12.5% and its encouragement of profit-shifting schemes such as the notorious Double Irish, the Irish government has facilitated the starving of public coffers across the EU. Just before Christmas we had a glimpse of the scale of the tax avoidance, when the government received 50% more in corporate tax revenue than it was projecting. This unexpected windfall appears to be the result of corporations voluntarily changing their activities in the expectation that the Double Irish rule will be abolished. It gives a clear indication of the vast scale of tax avoidance. So why was the Google tax deal struck in the UK when the UK government has stated publicly its support for tax competition? As Richard Murphy argues, this negotiation effectively condones Google's dubious Irish tax base and, when combined with Diverted Profits Tax, which Murphy labels as 'a deliberate BEPS spoiler by George Osborne', HMRC and the British government are effectively colluding in rather than challenging tax competition. Advertisement Google made its announcement of back-payment of taxes with great fanfare. Corporations invest heavily in their PR departments so they can control the debate in this way. By contrast, our work in the European Parliament is rarely reported. As European Greens, we are calling for 10 key steps towards tax justice. Repeat after me: "We have some of the most stringent export controls anywhere in the world." Got that? Sure? Let's be safe, though, and check again. So listen carefully, it goes like this: "We have some of the most stringent export controls anywhere in the world." Easy, isn't it? Now I think you're ready. You too can be like the prime minister and his senior colleagues. So if anyone happens to ask you whether the UK is doing the right thing in selling billions of pounds worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia just remember those invaluable words: "We have some of the most stringent export controls anywhere in the world." This, the government's mantra when it comes to answering questions about the wisdom of showering weapons on Saudi Arabia at the very same time that Saudi Arabia's military bombardment of Yemen has killed thousands of civilians, seems about as credible as ... well, about as credible as many other things we're told about the devastation in Yemen and the UK's part in it. Advertisement Effectively we're being told: "Don't worry about all those reports regarding Saudi bombing raids on Yemeni hospitals, schools and homes because there is no 'deliberate targeting' of such places" (such was the Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond's explanation to the House of Commons recently). As the bodies stack up in Yemeni mortuaries this may be some sort of solace for bereaved families who've suffered grievous losses as a result of such non-deliberate targeting. (Then again ... it may not). Another thing we're being told is that UK officials are actually in the "control room" during Saudi military operations in Yemen. Despite its unsettling echo of Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, UK and Saudi ministers presumably mean this to sound reassuring - "Look, don't worry, we know you've heard about all those dead children in Yemen but we've got some highly-trained staff working very closely with our Saudi colleagues and ...". Er, and well nothing. Because the Ministry of Defence has also said that these unnamed, unquantified, and almost completely unexplained officials do not themselves decide on targeting. They merely advise on "best practice." Reassured yet? Feeling better about the way this massive military operation to quell the Shia Houthi insurgency is being conducted? Maybe not. But well, let's look at it another way. The UK was a leading light in the creation of the Arms Control Treaty (2014), an important international law designed to eliminate arms sales that fuel human rights abuse. When the UK signed on the dotted line of the treaty in April 2014 Foreign Secretary William Hague said it would "make the world safer, by placing human rights and international humanitarian law at the heart of decisions about the arms trade." Stirring stuff. It was all about minimising risk. The guiding ideal was: we must always operate a safety-first principle. No arms exports where there was a credible risk of misuse. (The word "risk" crops up a lot in the actual text of the treaty). Advertisement Right. Fairly clear. But where does this leave things as regards that very biggest purchaser of UK-manufactured arms, Saudi Arabia? Surely, after the bloodbath in Yemen this is exactly the type of high-risk export the ATT was designed to halt? Er, yes, you would think so, wouldn't you? (And certainly some of the most eminent lawyers in the UK think exactly this). But no! Mr Hague's successor as Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has another way of assessing the risk: he's relying on Saudi Arabia itself to investigate allegations of indiscriminate and reckless aerial attacks by the Saudi-led collation in Yemen. When Mr Hammond's FCO colleague Tobias Ellwood was asked in November how these "investigations" were progressing he could only say "they will be ongoing" (a curiously theoretical way of putting it: ARE they ongoing, or are they not?). Meanwhile, away from possible investigations by a major party to the conflict, the weapons continue to flow from the UK to Saudi Arabia ... How does all this sound? A safe and sensible course of action? Perhaps it sounds OK in the Dr. Strangelove-like world of the FCO and the MoD, but then they appear to be desperate to justify weapons sales to Riyadh at almost any cost. In just a year of King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud's reign in Saudi Arabia, early hopes of reform (always misplaced?) have been completely dashed. We've seen mass executions, a string of dissidents jailed and of course the huge military campaign in Yemen (the latter spearheaded by the controversial young Defence Minister, Prince Mohammed bin Salman). Yet even all this doesn't seem to have spooked the UK government. It lowered flags for Salman's predecessor King Abdullah, and it seems to be lowering its voice - and its own self-proclaimed standards on arms sales - for King Salman. Advertisement But maybe we shouldn't fret. As with the old reggae producers (King Tubby et al), we've apparently got our top people in the control room when it comes to the Saudi-Yemen onslaught (Philip Hammond, you might say, is "at the controls"). No, let's stop worrying and learn to love the bombing campaign in Yemen. Now repeat after me, "We have some of the most stringent export controls ...". Technology outages. Just seeing the phrase written down is enough to give people cause for concern, as there is very little more annoying than attempting to sign-in to your favourite online service to find a blank page or the dreaded 404 error message due to their servers being down. Regardless of the outage, one thing you can count on is that people will flock to social media websites to complain when a service is down. However, last week this wasn't possible as Twitter itself suffered downtime which saw the site forced offline for hours. Exactly how #TwitterDown was the top trend during this time I don't know, but that's another story for another day. Twitter's trending Managing the fallout following a public IT outage is of paramount importance, especially for a brand which is now an intrinsic part of how we live - from breaking news across the globe to a platform for the latest viral videos, Twitter has it all. This is why it's so important such outages are stopped, as any time they occur people seemingly lose their minds and the news agenda of our national media shifts in line with this. In short, Twitter must learn from its mistakes. After all, fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us. Fool us a third time, we'll start trying to remember our Myspace log-in details. Advertisement As with any service people sign-up for, we deserve to know we can access it around the clock without the possibility of being locked out at a moment's notice. Although the repercussions aren't as disastrous as have been seen with widespread banking outages, if they persist it will only be a matter of time before its popularity nosedives. Simply tweeting an apology isn't enough; Twitter needs to ensure IT failures stop before brand loyalty dies. Saving social media Although there were many instances of Twitter outages in the early days and the "fail whale" became a norm for a while during peak times, Twitter hasn't suffered downtime in quite some time. However, social media at large has suffered, with the likes of Facebook and Instagram suffering outages previously. Due to the popularity of these sites, they use reputable data centres to minimise the risks associated with hosting vast amounts of public data. However, when outages like these occur data centres can't prevent the downtime - instead they act to ensure the potential harm is minimal and glitches are resolved swiftly. How does this work, I hear you ask. High quality data centres have systems in place to ensure back-ups automatically kick in when an outage occurs so any services relying on this data don't suffer any downtime. With the vast range of connections and structures which combine within data centres, providers are continuously asking "what will happen if this element fails?" to ensure consumers can continue shopping online or setting up direct debits without interruption. Yesterday I wrote to the National Audit Office (NAO) to ask if they will investigate the process by which HMRC agreed the settlement with Google UK for tax owed between 2005 and 2015. Google UK has over 2,000 employees in the UK and is a good employer. It provides essential online services for UK companies and tens of millions of us who use it every day. It's a very successful company, and we want it to be continue to be successful and grow its UK operations and workforce further. But this is an issue of fairness. When a multinational company that, according to its own global accounts, shows UK revenues of around 4billion and, according to the same accounts, and with its global pre-tax margin figure of 26% suggesting the UK figure could be similar, Google is likely to have made over 1billion profit in 2014 alone. Advertisement So individuals submitting their tax returns this week, and companies based in the UK like our high street stores, paying their fair share of tax, will be asking why large multinational companies, whether or not they are internet-based, should not be paying their fair share of tax in the UK. Tax revenue not collected is revenue foregone - this has important implications for the funding of public services that British businesses - including Google - and citizens rely on every day. MPs from all parties are concerned that HMRC appear to have accepted Google UK's argument that the only economic activity that it undertakes in this country - where it asserts that it does not have a permanent establishment - is sale of adverts, not their actual display or use. But Google UK provides advertising for UK businesses on a website that is explicitly UK-focused and that most of the revenue that Google UK earns is entirely dependent on people in the UK clicking on these adverts. To members of the public this would suggest that the revenue is based on UK activity and should be taxed in the UK. Advertisement If Google were paying the corporate tax rate on all its UK earning in 2014 alone it could well have paid around 200million. Yet HMRC has settled for just 130million over ten years, without any transparency or clarity. Little wonder that after George Osborne on Friday heralded this as a "victory", Downing Street has backtracked. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and commentators have called the deal "derisory." The investigation of Google, which started under a Labour Government in 2009, has taken over six years. Questions need to be asked about why it took so long. During this time Osborne has cut HMRC's budget and staffing which many believe may have hit the efficient collection of tax revenues. That's why I have also asked the NAO to look at whether Osborne's cuts have impacted on HMRC's ability to negotiate fair tax settlements with multinational corporations such as Google. The British people have a right to know whether they have received a fair deal. We had plenty of big historical anniversaries last year - the Magna Carta, Agincourt and Waterloo - but one that went unmarked by politicians and the media was the centenary of the Glasgow rent strike of 1915. A hundred years ago, Highlanders and Irish migrants had been streaming into the second city of the British Empire and the population had increased by 65,000 in three years but only 1,500 new housing units were built. A big chunk of the city's housing stock was vacant due to speculation, while tenants paid over the odds to crowd into the remaining squalid tenements. With many of the young men away fighting in France, landlords spotted an opportunity: assuming the workers' wives would be a soft touch, they jacked up the rents still further. Advertisement That assumption was misplaced. Led by a fiery carpet-weaver and mother-of-two called Mary Barbour, as many as 30,000 households refused to pay their rent, pelting sheriff's officers with flour and wet clothes if they moved in for eviction. Striking from April to November, 'Mrs Barbour's Army' forced the government to pass the Rent Restriction Act of 1915, freezing rents for the duration of the First World War. It was intended as a temporary measure but the pressure of people standing together kept rent control as a key factor in UK housing policy well into the Eighties. Relevant I'm a politician not a historian but I hope it's not hard to see why the situation in Glasgow a century ago is relevant to my campaign as the Green Party's candidate for Mayor of London. Just as Glasgow was then, modern London is rapidly expanding in population, while a growing number of properties stand vacant because they are being used as investment commodities by wealthy people all over the world who are so rich they don't need to rent them out. House building has failed woefully to keep pace with demand, and the kinds of properties being built are tailored more to investors than the people who are going to live in them. Meanwhile house prices have soared so that the bottom rung of the housing ladder is way too high for first-time buyers, even if they're earning well above average. The result is that a one-time home-owning segment of society is now in the rental market, fuelling demand still further and spurring landlords - both professional and amateur - to charge more and more. Average rents in London have risen 11% since 2012, while average pay rose just 1% in the same period. Advertisement Impact The impact on ordinary people's lives can be horrible. I've seen families in Camden given a couple of months' notice because they can't afford a the latest rent hike, when they've got children in school and can't find anything new in the same area because prices have gone up so much. My Green colleague Caroline Russell has this week been helping an unemployed private rental tenant who was evicted because his landlord in Islington wanted to redevelop his building. He ended up cramming what he could into three suitcases and is now seeking emergency shelter having lost most of his furniture and possessions, making a fresh start all the more of a challenge. And my young friend Clifford, trying to rent a flat in Brixton with his partner and their friend, lost a 250 'holding' deposit which the estate agent demanded to reserve an apartment which it promptly gave to someone else. Even though Clifford has a professional job with good prospects, the reference agency decided his employer had the wrong kind of email address - straight up - and the estate agent said they couldn't move in unless they paid six months' rent (a whopping 11,000) up front. All this was happening three days before they had to move out of their previous place, and Clifford says it's the most stressful experience of his adult life. Horrific prospect If you rent yourself - as I do - you won't be surprised by those stories and you could probably match them with tales of your own. People always used to say that buying and selling a home was one of the most stressful life-episodes you could go through, but it's now becoming true of renting one as well - which is a horrific prospect when you may have to do it every couple of years. For a whole swathe of people - including pretty much everyone under the age of about 35 in the capital - renter angst has become part of life, spawning vibrant campaign groups such as Generation Rent and Priced Out. It's an unsustainable situation in a city like London, which will eventually stop functioning properly if the people who make it work can't afford to live in it. We desperately need the government to bring in root-and-branch reforms to address the problems faced by a private renters. That's why I have been lobbying MPs and my fellow candidates for Mayor to press for legislation allowing the Mayor of London to replace Assured Shorthold Tenancies with much better contracts with stronger protection for tenants. Advertisement But with the end of a tenancy now the leading cause of homelessness in the capital, accounting for four in 10 cases, the problem is urgent and Greens at City Hall won't just sit and wait for those reforms. Instead I will take a lead from Mary Barbour, who concluded a century ago that the Glasgow private rental system wasn't fit for purpose and decided the best way of changing it was by mass organisation. This morning I am unveiling a plan to set up the London Renters Union if I'm elected Mayor. All of London's estimated 950,000 private-rental households - comprising 2.3 million people - will be eligible to join. Funded initially by City Hall but independently run by renters themselves, it will enable members to organise to rein in private rents, expose rogue lettings agents and launch a Londonwide Landlord Register. It could also provide advice and support to individual renters, support tenants taking legal action against private landlords, and give private renters a stronger voice able to feed into and lobby for policies developed by London's boroughs and the Mayor. And of course it will build on the amazing work already being done by existing renters' groups in London. A brilliant example is the New Era estate in Hackney, where tenants kicked up such a fuss when a US investor bought their homes and threatened to evict them that the new owner sold them on to a charity which introduced rents based on ability to pay. At our proposed Union, we may draw a line at encouraging members to pelt council officers with flour and wet clothes. But it's certainly time someone fixed this broken market. I believe the people who know first-hand the extent of the problem - the private renters themselves - are the best people to start doing it, and that's why I want to help them to help themselves. Joining forces always makes people stronger, and renters need no longer be the soft touch their landlords take them for. Advertisement Backpacking with family can be a one of a kind experience, one that will undoubtedly bring you closer together as a family unit and it will help to broaden the minds of your children. But it's no secret that family backpacking adventures have to be catered for with a different approach. Family friendly / kid friendly places will make all the difference and here are some of the best family travel destinations to consider. Take a look at these 6 great places to go backpacking if you have children. 1. Australia Australia is a vast country and it definitely has something for people of all ages. Not only that, but it's considered to be one of the safest places in the world to travel and repeatedly comes up top as the leading destination for solo, female or first time travellers. So if you want a place with plenty to see and do (and lots of children's attractions / theme parks / activities) that is also safe, head down under with the family. Advertisement "Sydney Harbour Bridge, Australia" by Lenny K Photography is licensed under CC BY 2.0 2. Morocco Morocco is a beautiful destination which offers great hospitality, plenty of culture, delicious cuisine (that can be appreciated by even the most fussiest of eaters) and incredible natural gems such as the Sahara Desert (with camping packages), the Atlas Mountains (with trails for all hiking levels), wonderful cities like Marrakech and plenty of beaches to keep the whole family entertained. 3. Costa Rica The great thing about Costa Rica, other than its outstanding wildlife which will give your entire family a first-hand experience and education, is the large number of family friendly resorts, hotels, cabins and holiday rentals. Although prices are high relative to other neighbouring countries in Central America, you can still make some fantastic savings by planning ahead. Advertisement "HDR Sunset, Costa Rica" by kansasphoto is licensed under CC BY 2.0 4. Malaysia Malaysia makes a great alternative to destinations such as China or India; in size, it's easy to cover when you're travelling with the patter of little feet and there's also a great mix of beach, city and jungle so your family can get a little taster of everything. Spend a few days exploring Kuala Lumpur, spend a few nights enjoying authentic Malay island life on Redang and then go trekking around the child-friendly Taman Negara National Park. "Seri Warisan Bridge, Putrajaya Malaysia" by Elviz Low is licensed under CC BY 2.0 5. Sri Lanka The island of Sri Lanka is a compact destination offering some of the world's most spectacular beaches, amazing culture and incredible history all for an extremely affordable price. There's plenty of outdoor space for your kids to run around at most resorts but the truly outstanding thing about family travel in Sri Lanka is the warm reception; Sri Lankans are amongst the friendliest people in the world and they love children. Your whole family will be well catered for and you will never feel out of place or deprived of kid friendly amenities. Some of the best beaches include Bentota, Unawatuna, Koggala, Hikkaduwa and Kalutara. Advertisement "Sri Lanka : Sigiriya" by POTIER Jean-Louis is licensed under CC BY 2.0 6. Canada Like Australia, Canada is considered to be one of the safest places in the world to travel. It's a favourite amongst young female travellers so if you're after a beautiful family travel destination where you will feel safe and looked after, Canada should be at the top of your list. Multiculturalism is abundant across all major cities which sets a wonderful example for young children; additionally, you'll find Canadians to be extremely welcoming to tourists. EXCLUSIVE Labor leader Bill Shorten has sent a fiery letter to Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz, after the U.S. Senator claimed Australia's 1996 gun buyback program led to an increase in rape. Cruz, polling at second place in the Republican presidential field with 19 percent in a recent poll, said in an interview on January 12 that Australia's gun reforms after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre led to a jump in sexual assaults. Advertisement "After Australia did that [gun buyback program], the rate of sexual assaults, the rate of rapes, went up significantly, because women were unable to defend themselves," Cruz said. Cruz was widely lambasted, with the Washington Post's fact-checker labelling the assertion a "four Pinocchio" or "whopper" of a claim, finding no evidence to support the claim. After the claim was covered in Australian media in recent days, opposition leader Shorten wrote an admonishing letter to Cruz. "These claims are both offensive and incorrect," Shorten wrote in the letter, shared exclusively with The Huffington Post Australia. Advertisement "After a terrible massacre at Port Arthur in 1996, where one gunman murdered 35 innocent people with semi-automatic weapons, Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition Leader Kim Beazley (later to serve as Ambassador to the United States) took swift, bipartisan action to tighten gun ownership restrictions in our country. This was indisputably the right thing to do." Shorten commented that he thought the gun reforms were Howard's "finest achievement in office". "Contrary to your comments, reducing the number and restricting the availability of semi-automatic weapons did not lead to an increase in the rates of violent crime, rape or sexual assault," Shorten continued. The right kinds of food, how much to buy, plus all the other things (coolers!) you probably didn't think about. The frontrunner with the irritatingly pouty face will not attend tonights GOP debate, though the second-place candidate with the irritatingly pouty face will. Senate Democrats are asking for $400 million in emergency relief to help their reelection chances and for Flint, too. And Bernie Sanders flip flopped on a gun bill because nothing matters and all you eager-eyed college students tromping around Black Hawk county with yard signs should just give up now before your spirits are irrevocably crushed. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Thursday, January 28th, 2016: HUCKABEE JOINING TRUMP ANTI-DEBATE EVENT - He'll make a great executive director of Trump's Presidential Council on Terrible Dad Jokes About Brown People. Maggie Haberman: "Mike Huckabee, the winner of the 2008 Iowa caucuses who has been struggling to gain traction in this years race, will appear with Donald J. Trump and an event for veterans that the billionaire businessman has scheduled as counterprogramming to tonights debate on Fox News, which he is skipping...The move is basically a win-win for all involved. Mr. Huckabee will get more attention than hes been able to garner in months, and he will be affirming Mr. Trumps decision to skip the debate. Whats more, it helps shift attention away from Senator Ted Cruz, Mr. Trumps main competitor in the race, and the candidate who is appealing to the evangelical voters that helped Mr. Huckabee win in 2008." [NYT] Advertisement SENATE DEMS SEEKING $400 MILLION FOR FLINT - Niels Lesniewski: "Senate Democrats are seeking as much as $400 million in emergency federal money to fix or replace the corroded pipes polluting the water in Flint, Mich., part of a proposed amendment to the bipartisan energy bill being considered in the Senate. As drafted, the amendment would require the state of Michigan to match the federal contribution, dollar for dollar, and would give the state greater flexibility to forgive loans for water infrastructure. It would also call for spending $200 million in federal money for a center that would support the children and adults exposed to lead in the tainted waterThe bulk of the money would pay for emergency bottled water and filtering supplies, local health inspections, home lead abatement and blood testing. The state is asking the federal government to expand Medicaid health care eligibility to cover all Flint-area residents up to 21 years of age and provide Medicaid match dollars for lead abatement activities, according to The Detroit News." [Roll Call] Guest list for tomorrow's HuffPost Politics podcast: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Big Short director Adam McKay, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz challenger Tim Canova. Go HERE to subscribe to "So That Happened" in iTunes. DELANEY DOWNER - It's not just Flint: there are millions of lead pipes all across America, putting children at risk of stunted growth, brain damage and a lifetime of diminished potential. Just this week, residents of Sebring, a town of 8,000 in rural Ohio, were told not to touch their tap water out of lead fears similar to Flint's. "This is a situation that has the potential to occur in however many places around the country there are lead pipes," Jerry Paulson, emeritus professor of pediatrics and environmental health at George Washington University, said in an interview. "Unless and until those pipes are removed, those communities are at some degree of risk." Roughly 10 million American homes and buildings receive water from service lines that are at least partially lead, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. [HuffPost] Advertisement Does somebody keep forwarding you this newsletter? Get your own copy. It's free! Sign up here. Send tips/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to huffposthill@huffingtonpost.com. Follow us on Twitter - @HuffPostHill BERNIE FLIP FLOP - But 95 percent of two-thirds of the bottom quartile of all upper third guns control a plurality of the top four percent of bullets. Got it? Samantha Lachman: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) agreed to co-sponsor a bill Thursday that would repeal a law he voted for which gives broad legal immunity to gun makers and dealers, after months of attacks from rival presidential candidate Hillary Clinton concerning his gun safety record. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was passed in 2005, after the National Rifle Association made its passage a priority in order to shield gun manufacturers and sellers from lawsuits. Suits filed in the 1990s and early 2000s argued that they should make their products safer or track where their products are sold. The NRAs Wayne LaPierre called the PLCAA the most significant piece of pro-gun legislation in 20 years.' Sanders voted for the legislation; Clinton voted against it." [HuffPost] MORE BERNIE SADS - Dave Jamieson: "A powerful Las Vegas labor union said Thursday that staffers of the Bernie Sanders campaign wore union pins in order to gain access to employee areas at four of the city's unionized hotels. Culinary Workers Union Local 226, an affiliate of Unite Here, said it was 'disappointed and offended' by what it suggested was an unethical move by the Vermont independent's campaign. The union, powerful in Nevada politics, hasn't yet endorsed a candidate in the presidential race, and the Democratic candidates have all been wooing the union in hopes of securing its support." [HuffPost] Advertisement "Can she have it all? update: "A prominent Ohio politician is questioning whether his female opponent is fit to serve, saying in a recent interview that she might not be up to the job because she's a 'young gal' with children. 'The gal that's running against me is a 30-year-old, you know, mom, mother of two infants,' Ohio Senate Majority Leader Tom Patton (R) said in a Jan. 18 interview on America's Work Force Radio." [HuffPost's Amanda Terkel] WHITE WORKING CLASS REALLY, REALLY LOVES THE DONALD - Just great. Just fantastic. Beautiful. Beautiful. Dave Jamieson: "Here are some scary findings for anyone who doesn't support Donald Trump for president. Working America, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO union federation, just spent five weeks canvassing in the Cleveland and Pittsburgh areas, focusing on likely voters who live outside the city and have household incomes at or below $75,000 (read: white and working class). The group's canvassers spoke to 1,689 people, 90 percent of whom cast ballots in 2012. While the report serves as a non-scientific "front porch focus group," rather than a representative sample of the states' voters, its findings offer a glimpse into some voters' minds. Of the entire Democratic and Republican fields, the most popular single candidate was Donald Trump -- and it wasn't even close. Thirty-eight percent of people who had already made up their minds said they wanted to vote for the Republican real estate magnate. The candidate with the next highest share was Democrat Hillary Clinton, with 22 percent." [HuffPost] STRANGE BEDFELLOWS - AKA, we found a senator who actually liked Russ Feingold. Jordain Carney: "Former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), under fire from Republicans on national security, is getting a boost from ex-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. The former Pentagon chief, who stepped down amid tensions with the White House, donated $1,000 to Feingold's campaign during the latest fundraising period, which ended on Dec. 31. Feingold is challenging Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). Feingold's campaign has until the end of the month to file its latest report with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), but a campaign official confirmed the donation to The Hill. Asked about the donation, Hagel, who previously served as a Republican senator from Nebraska, touted their work together in the Senate. '[I've] worked with him on many issues. I believe that the Senate needs more senators like Senator Feingold who [will] work across party lines to help govern our country,' the former Defense secretary said in a statement to The Hill." [The Hill] ROBIN GIVHAN, SWEATER SLAYER: "When the men of the 2016 presidential campaign are not in the traditional power uniform of dark suit and red or blue tie, they are pulling on zip-collar sweaters. They are not all wearing the exact same sweater -- but they might as well be. They are stuck in sartorial sameness. The candidates choose this particular costuming when they commune with voters in an intimate, down-home setting such as a New Hampshire diner or an Iowa rec center. And although their suit jackets seem to come with an American flag pin permanently affixed to the lapel, these sweaters are flag-free. Is there something inherently all-American about them? A presumed authenticity and earnestness such that they do not require patriotic embellishment?" We don't know. [WashPost] BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Here's an evolved cat IT'S REALLY AMAZING THAT PAUL LEPAGE HASN'T ENDORSED TRUMP YET - Now there's a presidential ticket for the ages. Amanda Terkel: "Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) wants state residents to start shooting drug dealers on sight in order to help alleviate Maine's heroin crisis. 'Everybody in Maine, we have constitutional carry,' LePage said Wednesday. 'Load up and get rid of the drug dealers.' Since October, Maine has allowed legal firearm owners to carry concealed handguns without a permit. LePage frequently talks about the state's heroin epidemic, often focusing on penalties for drug traffickers. On Tuesday, he said he wants drug dealers to face the death penalty, even suggesting that they be subjected to the guillotine. At the very least, he wants them to face 20 years to life in prison." [HuffPost] COMFORT FOOD - If this isn't served at your Super Bowl party, you're a chump. - Guys, listen to this supervillain: touch yourselves. - Steven Hawking plays chess with Paul Rudd. TWITTERAMA @HeerJeet: The only form of income redistribution USA has is Jeb Superpacs (from super rich to consultant class) @pourmecoffee: I assume there is a safe word we're supposed to say to let Trump know when it's too much. Advertisement book with shredded pages closed on desk The Fall 2015 edition of Northwestern, Northwestern University's quarterly alumni magazine, featured an article entitled "Expanding LGBT Research." It was an innocuous report on the work being done by psychologist Brian Mustanski, who is the director of Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine IMPACT LGBT Health and Development Program and the co-director of the new Third Coast Center for AIDS Research. Thanks to an $8.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, Mustanski is leading a five-year study at Chicago's Center on Halsted, investigating the biological, behavioral and social factors behind the finding that, even after all these years, forty percent of gay and bisexual men between the ages of thirteen and twenty-nine may contract HIV by the age of forty. What a worthwhile study! Cool. Moving on. Advertisement Not so fast. Of course, lurking behind a dark corner, as always, is an old crazy Christian man to spoil our gay fun. Enter Lake Forest, Illinois' own Warren E. Anderson, his arrival underscored by the furious pulse of a Ted Nugent tune. The aforementioned article, which was full of only encouraging news, somehow ticked off Warren the Stuck-In-The-Past-Osaurus. (A Stuck-In-The-Past-Osaurus is a breed of dinosaur that sees red when it finds itself unable to "Make America Great Again.") Lucky for our septuagenarian villain, Northwestern welcomes letters from its readers, and Bigot Anderson -- which is what I will henceforth be calling our buddy Warren -- sent in the following epistle: The article 'Expanding LGBT Research' leads me to believe that many so-called medical professionals never took epidemiology 101. The National Institutes of Health is giving $8.7 of taxpayer money to Northwestern so that researchers can explain why 40 percent of gay and bisexual men will become infected with HIV. Let me explain the mystery. Very few monogamous people contract HIV. But those in the LGBT community tend to be notoriously promiscuous. Our culture is abandoning truth, calling good evil and evil good. Thus we are overcome in our obsession with tolerance and political correctness. We refuse to be objective in understanding the HIV problem. Northwestern imparts knowledge to its students, but wisdom is in short supply. Sin distorts the thinking of society and its citizens. Our school was founded by people who recognized that true wisdom comes from God and what He has revealed in the Bible. Unsurprisingly, Bigot Anderson's letter was widely shared on social media. I myself first heard about it on Facebook, and I was enraged. Bigot Anderson's letter oozes with sex negativity, as he pathetically attempts to portray homosexuals as boogeymen. Take a gander at American queer history, and you'll see that, as we were fighting for LGBT+ civil rights, our opponents were suggesting we were child rapists, or comparing us to zoophiles, or claiming that all of us eat poop. Bigot Anderson is using the oldest trick in the gay bashers' handbook. Advertisement I'm an atheist Jew. This means two things: I think ultra religious people like Bigot Anderson are coo-coo-ca-choo, and I love to complain to the management when I feel I've been treated unfairly. (I'm convinced that the line, "And God said unto the Israelites, 'Ask to speak to the manager,'" was originally in the Torah but got cut for time.) Take my mother. (Please.) My mother uses Tide detergent. Always has. Recently, Tide came out with a new product, which my mom tried, only to find that said product stained one of her blouses. Terrible, right? Now, a Gentile would accept the fate of their blouse as the sacrifice that one must sometimes make when trying something new. Ob-la-di. Ob-la-da. Life goes on. But not a Jew. My mother, a Jewish princess reared in New Jersey who "saw Bruce in Asbury before he got big," called Tide to complain about the stain. Their new detergent was terrific, the people at Tide explained, but my mother had unfortunately bought a faulty batch, so the schmucks at Tide SENT MY MOTHER AN AMERICAN EXPRESS GIFT CARD TO COVER THE COST OF A NEW BLOUSE. Emboldened, my mother bought a new bottle of this cutting-edge detergent and put it in the wash, but guess what: another shirt got stained. A tragedy, really. Now, a Gentile would accept the fate of their blouse as the sacrifice that one must sometimes make when using a product that they know stains clothes. But not a Jew. My mother called Tide to complain yet again, and those schlemiels SENT MY MOTHER ANOTHER AMERICAN EXPRESS GIFT CARD WITH WHICH TO BUY MORE FREE CLOTHES. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking now the story is pretty much over. Now will come the denouement, where Aaron's mom will learn the fairly obvious lesson -- don't use a product you know sucks -- and she will go back to using the old Tide. But boy would you be wrong. No, my mother did not pour the clearly cursed detergent down the sink. Once again, she used it. Once again, clothing was ruined. And, once again, no ob-la-di. No ob-la-da. No shrugging of shoulders. The Strong Jewish Woman picks up the phone and complains to Tide, and Tide, seeing in their files that this woman with a lot of time on her hands has called with the same complaint twice before, reflexively sends her another American Express gift card. ANOTHER AMERICAN EXPRESS GIFT CARD! Astonishing, I know, but this is how Jewish people roll when we feel we've been treated unfairly. I can't even count the amount of movies I've seen for free, using vouchers I received after complaining to the management about crummy service. Upon reading Bigot Anderson's letter to Northwestern, I knew that it was my duty as a child of Israel to write Northwestern's editor, Stephanie Russell, a letter of my own. I titled the subject of my e-mail "Shame" to make my wrath extra clear: Ms. Russell, In reading the Feedback section of the recent edition of your Northwestern magazine, I was appalled to see that you thought it acceptable to publish bigot Warren E. Anderson's letter responding to LGBT research. You, ma'am, should be ashamed of yourself. Judging from Anderson's graduation year, I am comforted by the fact that this bird-brain and other bird-brains like him will hopefully all be dead soon, but you, Stephanie, manage to not only promote Bigot Anderson's brand of misinformation but also to promote his brand of hate by publishing his offensive letter. Now, I don't know you. You might agree with everything Bigot Anderson says. But I assume that someone in your position at an institution like Northwestern does not agree with what Bigot Anderson says. However, even if you do agree, you should know better than to publish a letter that is riddled with lies and based not at all in truth. Bigot Anderson says that 40 percent of gay and bisexual men will become infected with HIV. That is complete and total, hot, stinking bullshit and you know it. Why publish what this crazy bigot has to say? You are only perpetuating his dangerous ideology, which serves no purpose other than to further stigmatize an already stigmatized group, a group to which I belong. I have been called a "faggot" out in public going about my day eight times in the past two years. Most of the time, it happened when I was surrounded by groups of strangers and not one of them ever came to my defense. Bigot Anderson's frightening, bonkers opinions only work to make that kind of occurrence more likely and more acceptable, and your publishing of his letter does no better. Shockingly, Bigot Anderson says one accurate thing in his insane letter: "Thus we are overcome in our obsession with tolerance and political correctness." This is something to which you are contributing. Our culture is strangely obsessed with giving equal airtime to two sides of an argument when one side is based in truth and the other side is total baloney. Just because Bigot Anderson is loud and angry and nuts, that doesn't mean that you should publish his thoughts as if they are valid. The world doesn't become a fairer place when you make false equivalencies. It isn't politically correct to be tolerant of this ultra-religious, gay-hating nutbag. That's not what tolerance means, and you know that. Shame on you. I am disgusted by your behavior in this edition of your magazine, and you better believe that I will never make a single charitable contribution to the University's alumni organizations ever again. I will also make it my business to encourage all of the alumni I know to do the same. That is, until you apologize for this grave error you have made and refute Bigot Anderson's ridiculous claims in the next edition of your magazine. We live in 2015. Gay people are nothing to be afraid of. Stop publishing things that make it seem like we are. I repeat: you know better. Quite sincerely, Aaron Ricciardi And can you believe it? She responded: Dear Aaron, Thank you for your email regarding the letter by Warren Anderson that was published in the winter 2015 issue of Northwestern magazine. I appreciate your taking the time to write. You raise a good point about whether we should have run Mr. Anderson's letter as it was written, and upon reflection, I agree with you that we should not have done so. It was an error in judgment on our part, and I apologize for that. Northwestern magazine's letters to the editor column is named "Feedback," and, as is printed in the magazine, the opinions expressed are not those of the editors or the institution, but of the letter writers. Nevertheless, the letters we print should not attack any individual or group of people in the manner that his letter did. We will review our guidelines regarding letters to the editor to ensure that this does not happen again. Again, I apologize for the pain that Mr. Anderson's letter and our decision to run it have caused you. Sincerely, Stephanie Russell Editor Northwestern magazine This all might seem like a trifle to some. A university's alumni periodical published a letter from a wacko in ten-point font. Big deal. But I wasn't the only one who wrote in to complain. Russell heard from many other Northwestern graduates, and now eight of our letters are on display where Bigot Anderson's hateful rhetoric once was. Because of all the letters she received, Russell has changed the publication's policy on the kinds of letters they will publish. It's an example of how fighting for what you believe in can lead to actual change. In my letter to Russell, I bemoaned our culture's obsession with "giving equal airtime to two sides of an argument when one side is based in truth and the other side is total baloney." As we start this election year, I think our collective resolution should be to adopt the same attitude as Northwestern did in regards to their Feedback column. Let's stop pretending that destructive nonsense deserves airtime. Bigot Anderson's vitriolic, backward worldview -- the kind of thinking which ends up legitimizing the systematic discrimination of queer people -- is nowhere near as important as the noble efforts of AIDS researchers. The burden that the legalization of gay marriage places on the religious freedom of right-wing Fundamentalist Christians -- whose lives, for the record, are entirely unaffected by gay people committing their lives to each other -- is nowhere near as great as the burden that preventing gay people from marrying places on actual gay people. The occasional occurrence of police officers getting killed on the job -- which is frankly just a hazard of law enforcement--is nowhere near as dire as the epidemic of police officers murdering unarmed people of color and getting away with it. The threat of a Middle Eastern refugee entering the United States and carrying out a terrorist attack -- a threat which is practically nonexistent -- is nowhere near as alarming as the humanitarian crisis posed by millions of homeless refugees fleeing warzones. Hillary Clinton's slightly foolish server set-up is nowhere near as troubling as Chris Christie's staff's strange, vindictive bridge closing, and nowhere near as horrifying as Donald Trump's endless onslaught of misinformation. Balancing two unequal sides of an issue is part of how our popular news media functions today. "Fair and Balanced" Fox News is the master of this sort of deceptive truth-twisting. This comes, I think, from our having only two major political parties. Perhaps this is why George Washington and John Adams warned against such a system. Advertisement There was no reason for Russell to publish Bigot Anderson's stupid letter. She shouldn't have done it, and now she knows that, which is progress. But, when it comes to newsmakers like Donald Trump, Ted Cruz or any of the countless anti-gay rights groups with "Family" in their name, their megaphones are simply too loud. The media can't not cover them. But the media can end their pointless, labored charade of impartiality. For months, reporters have been talking on loop about how Trump is "striking a chord" with angry voters. But we've rarely heard reporters drive home the message that Trump is a pathological liar. There will always be those who swallow demagoguery no questions asked. These people are the base of the far-right wing. But, for the rest of the country who actually respond to reason, they deserve to be told if a public figure is saying something completely unfactual. If Trump pulls some bogus claim out of his rectum, the story shouldn't read, "Trump said this today." Instead, it should say, "Trump said this today, and it was not true at all." That wouldn't be biased; it would be honest. This is the real problem we have with political correctness in this country, Donald. Our journalists should be following in the footsteps of Edward R. Murrow (and Jon Stewart) and calling out bullshit when they see it, just as the alumni of Northwestern did in response to Bigot Anderson, and, as a matter of fact, just as our president did in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. Good night, and good luck. Rodeo FX re-created 19th-century Nantucket, Massachusetts, for Ron Howards latest film, In the Heart of the Sea , including concept art, seamlessly interwoven set extensions, and evocative matte painting for a total of more than 260 visual effects shots. The VFX studios work demonstrates the power and impact of visual effects, not only for bringing period films to life, but also for expanding the storytelling palette by conveying drama and atmosphere in support of the unfolding narrative. In the Heart of the Sea has been nominated for a VES Award in the Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects category. (For an in-depth look at the creation of the water, see Highwater Mark in the January.February 2015 issue of CGW. Also, for a story on creating the whale, see Whale of a Character in that same issue.) In the Heart of the Sea introduces the audience to 19th-century Nantucket and the whaling industry that spurred its phenomenal growth from the early 1800s through to the middle of the century. Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) seeks out a survivor of a whaling ship that was sunk by a mammoth whale, a meeting that would form the germ of his novel Moby-Dick. The film is based on the sinking of the Essex by a sperm whale in 1820 and the subsequent months-long ordeal of the survivors at sea. Ron Howards team chose Rodeo FX to help bring the whaling era to life for modern audiences through the combination of practical assets, CG set extensions, and digital matte painting. (A video summary of the work can be found at https://vimeo.com/153023451.) Showing the growth of Nantucket The productions art department built an extensive set depicting Nantucket at the Warner Bros. studio in Leavesden, near London, UK, complete with streetscapes lined with building exteriors and interiors. It was a detailed set and provided an excellent starting point for constructing the rest of the town, said Francois Dumoulin, visual effects supervisor at Rodeo FX. Our task was to expand the physical set, filling the space with hundreds of realistic houses and industrial buildings that lead down to the ships on the wharves, with all the pollution of the whaling industry, and finally out to sea. Its a visual journey that gives the audience a sense of time and place. Rodeo FX modeled close to 20 different buildings, basing their construction on common 19th-century architecture, including period windows, doors, roofs, and chimneys, and refining these based on feedback from Mark Tildesley, the production designer. We ensured realism by referencing old maps and pictures of Nantucket as well as photos from the Leavesden set, said Dumoulin. Then we worked Rons feedback into our concepts to accent and augment the historical representation of the town to support his vision for the storytelling. An entity, such as a town, is like a character in a story, so the qualitative details, such as scale, perspective, mood, all contribute to that character, and thus the story itself. Adding to the complexity of the task, Rodeo FX arrayed its virtual Nantucket over a rolling landscape taken from images of an unpopulated island in the Canary Islands. To accomplish this, the team combined plates of the practical set with its CG set extensions, then crafted matte paintings to re-create the feel of a village bustling with the industry of whale oil production. In the Heart of the Sea covers three distinct periods from 1819 to 1850, during which Nantucket grew rapidly. For each era, Rodeo FX had to adjust the look of the city by altering its CG asset and digital matte paintings. We reused most of the model for each iteration as Nantucket went from being a village to a city, said Olivier Martin, VFX art director and concept artist at Rodeo FX. For the city of 1850, we redid neighborhoods, replacing houses with industrial buildings in some areas, adding more ships, piers, and whaling boats. Ron and Mark [Tildesley] wanted to show the contrast between the beautiful, untouched coast of Maine and the pollution created by the whaling industry in the city itself, Martin explained. To support this theme in the films narrative, we designed our Nantucket to be dirty, from the chimney smoke and the extraction of whale oil on the beaches. To create concept art for Nantucket, Martin looked at 19th-century artists such as Turner, Sargent, and John Atkinson Grimshaw for inspiration. Studying these painters gave us ideas of how to depict the era, he said. The mood, the light, and the composition of their paintings helped in bringing new visual ideas to our work. The Essex The art department built a full-scale replica of the actual Essex, floating it within the tank at Leavesden. The ship rested on a gimbal rig that allowed it to be moved to mimic a ships rolling on the waves. Scenes of the Essex sailing on open water were shot in the tank as well as at sea. Rodeo FX had to ensure continuity between the two types of shots, for which they used a combination of practical footage from the production, together with their CG water assets, creating waves and the look of wind on water. We had to extend the water all the way to the horizon, said Mikael Damant-Sirois, CG Supervisor at Rodeo FX. We made lots of CG water so we could match the different types of water. We made the tank water darker and more dramatic to simulate the roiling sea. One shot that highlights the combination of practical assets with CG set extensions and matte painting occurs as the Essex leaves port for the open sea. The camera hovers above the ship and swoops around, doing a 360-degree reveal of the sea and the bay of Nantucket. Rodeo FX replicated this intricate camera move in CG, then extended the sequence to reveal more of the city. Once the client was happy with the shot composition, Rodeo FX added lighting to the 3D model, adjusted details such as matching the sky to that on the plates, and then completed a CG render. With huge camera movement like this, we have to keep the parallax to maintain the depth of the image, said Damant-Sirois. We divided the render into multiple layers, created a matte painting on each layer, and then re-projected the layers and handed them off to our compositing team. Chimney smoke, mist, seagulls, and city movement including sailors walking on the streets were added as practical or CG elements. We enjoyed bringing to life Ron Howards vision of this amazing and touching true story, said Sebastien Moreau, president of Rodeo FX. We take great pride in supporting powerful stories by re-creating past eras and real environments with invisible visual effects. It is very gratifying when beautiful imagery marries itself seamlessly to a great film. Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, In the Heart of the Sea was directed by Ron Howard and stars Chris Hemsworth, Ben Whishaw, and Cillian Murphy. The New York State Alliance for Quality Education( AQE) condemns Governor Andrew Cuomo's proposed education budget as "woefully inadequate." Cuomo requested an additional $961 million for New York schools. The Board of Regents, the governing body for education in New York, requested a $2.4 billion budget increase. AQE argues that a $2.9 billion increase in school aid is needed to ensure every student's constitutional right to "a sound basic education." AQE claims that the Cuomo proposal violates court decries in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) case and a 2007 legislature agreement requiring that New York State provide additional funds to poorer school districts. Cuomo proposes allocating only $266 million to satisfy CFE funding mandates, but AQE argues that a $1.1 billion increase is needed to rectify the chronic underfunding of high need schools. According to AQE figures the "current spending gap between rich and poor schools is $8,733 per pupil." In the past Cuomo has demanded action to turn around low performing schools and school districts. AQE finds the budget fails to satisfy Cuomo's own priorities. The proposed "budget includes $100 million for turning schools labeled as 'struggling' and 'persistently struggling schools' into community schools, but some schools and districts will receive as little as $17,000, hardly enough to make a difference. AQE charges that based on last year's allocations, "the state should be providing least $535 million for 144 schools." Advertisement There are toxic proposals buried in the Cuomo budget request. The Governor wants to allocate $150 million to cover an Education Tax Credit which is a subterfuge voucher plan that would drain money and children from the public school system. The tax credit would circumvent separation of church and state laws by allowing corporations and individuals to receive a tax credit equal to 75% of their contributions to private and religious schools. In addition, instead of tuition, private and religious schools could mandate tax deductible "donations." The Cuomo budget includes making new funding for pre-K as part of a competitive grants that will leave some districts underfunded or unfunded. Because inadequate pre-K funding is opposed by the Board of Regents, Cuomo wants to create a new level of political bureaucracy more responsive to his agenda. Cuomo's proposals are also highly favorable to Charter School networks, another drain on public money for public schools. He wants to allocate additional per pupil aid to charter schools, increase the amount of funding New York City must transfer to charter schools by $12.4 million, and make permanent the requirement that privately operated charter schools receive rent free use of public facilities. This comes at the same time that the State University of New York and the federal Office of Civil Rights are investigating the Success Academy Charter School Network fin New York City for discriminatory discipline practices aimed at Black and Latino children and students with disabilities. In addition, to its budget proposals, AQE requests that the state's receivership law should be repealed. It does not provide parents an adequate voice in the process and the provision that allows for the "firing of up to 50% of teachers" is "highly disruptive and counterproductive." AQE is also demanding that the state eliminate the 2% spending cap on school districts that forcing them to cut back on services to children. Advertisement The New York State Board of Regents is currently in the process of being reorganized. The NYS Allies for Public Education endorsed Dr. Betty Rosa for Chancellor of the Board of Regents and Regent Beverly Ouderkirk for Vice Chancellor because of their long records fighting for public education. In addition I am being considered for a soon-to-be vacant seat on the Board. I endorse the Alliance for Quality Education positions and if selected will join Rosa and Ouderkirk in challenging Cuomo's anti-public school agenda. In early January, law enforcement in the Seattle area shut down a popular website used by sex workers to advertise their services and by customers to review sex workers. Police also raided a number of luxury apartments in Bellevue where women were allegedly selling sex and arrested a dozen men and two women for arranging the liaisons and moderating The Review Board (TRB) website. In a recent interview, Bellevue Police Chief Steve Mylett told me that his men, working with the King County Sheriff's office and the FBI, had broken up a "well-organized ring promoting sex slavery." He called the shuttered website an "anti-list of the underworld sex trafficking industry." Advertisement There's just one hitch. The women whom law enforcement said they "rescued" in this raid may not actually have been trafficked. U.S. law defines trafficking as "the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for labor or services through the use of force, fraud or coercion." It's worth noting that King County's prosecutor did not charge any of the people arrested with trafficking, only with promoting prostitution. The women rounded up in the January 6 raid were all from South Korea, and while police say that some of them may have been doing sex work to pay off debts their families owed back home, the question remains: were these women being coerced or forced into sex work? I'll get to that in a moment, but a larger question looms: is shutting down websites and arresting customers the most effective approach to curbing sexual exploitation and helping sex workers who may or may not want to get out of the life? Sex work advocates certainly don't think so. "The overwhelming majority of sex workers who advertised on TRB were white cisgendered [straight] women who were not being coerced into a damn thing," says Savannah Sly, a Seattle sex worker and president of Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP), a national advocacy group. "Now these women have one less safe advertising venue." As I discovered in researching my book, Getting Screwed: Sex Workers and the Law, being able to advertise on online sites like TRB allows sex workers to more carefully screen potential customers and work indoors. Research shows that when sex workers can't advertise online, they are often forced onto the street, where it is more difficult to screen out violent clients and negotiate safe sex (i.e. sex with condoms). They are also more likely to have to depend on exploitative pimps to find customers for them. Advertisement Shutting down such websites make sex work more dangerous in other ways as well. "What the removal of these advertising sites do is remove low-risk clients who have a lot to lose from the client pool," Sly says. "That leaves high-risk or violent predators who don't respond to increased law enforcement. And because you have reduced demand, you're more likely to agree to see the guy who is more dangerous." That's exactly what happened in Sweden, when that country began making the purchase of sex illegal in 2000, studies show. Sex workers there were exposed to more violent clients and less able to negotiate safe sex (i.e. sex with condoms). Yet the criminalization of buyers did not reduce trafficking in the region or the overall number of people selling sex in Sweden, according to the Swedish government's own reports. Criminalizing prostitution, whether from the demand or supply end, is not going to curb trafficking or make significant inroads into the soaring global demand for commercial sex. Indeed, one recent study found that in countries where sex work is illegal, trafficking increased to meet the demand. What this New York University study found was that when voluntary sex workers leave the business because they fear being penalized, traffickers step in to the fill the vacuum with women who aren't doing the work by choice. If such findings are true, then spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a ten-month undercover investigation (as Seattle law enforcement did) makes no sense. It will only make it more dangerous for sex workers and allow violent clients (who prey on non-prostitutes as well) to operate with impunity. Sex workers are like canaries in the coal mine when it comes to violent predators: they are often the first to spot such men but they can't raise an alarm for fear of being arrested themselves. That's one reason why Amnesty International and the World Health Organization, among other groups, call for the decriminalization of sex work. Now back to the issue of whether we're really dealing with trafficking in this case. The court documents include no affidavits or victim statements from the women themselves. According to sex work advocates, law enforcement did mention one woman who said her family in South Korea was in debt bondage and that if she didn't do sex work and pay off their debt, her family might be hurt. If that's true, such coercion shouldn't be permitted, here or in South Korea. But I can't help but wonder about the element of coercion involved in obtaining the statement of an illegal immigrant who knows she may be jailed or deported unless she depicts herself as a trafficking victim. Advertisement According to the court documents, the South Korean women who sold sex in the Seattle area paid their own way to travel there "on their own volition." That doesn't sound like they were being transported against their will. There is also no evidence that these women were being forced to stay in the apartments or forced to sell sex. Indeed, the instructions on the TRB site says explicitly that "No means NO. Regardless of your particular expectations, what is offered is completely up to the provider." The website goes on to say, "Providers are encourage to report continued boundary testing by any client." Sex work advocates acknowledge that some of the South Korean sex workers might have been exploited. "These women are trying to keep a low profile and they're isolated," Sly says. "Those are ripe instances of abuse." She adds that in a world in which Seattle-area sex workers felt safe to go to law enforcement (without fear of being arrested themselves), they might have approached local police about their concerns. And that brings up yet another argument for decriminalizing sex work. In countries where prostitution is legal (such as the Netherlands and New Zealand), sex work advocates feel comfortable working with law enforcement to target traffickers and abusive clients. As a result, working conditions for sex workers are much safer and there are lower levels of violence against all women. Greg Rakozy Take a moment to consider your day. Has your stomach churned? Your heart raced? Have your shoulders seized up like there's an orangutan on your back? That full body clench that comes from clutching the hot wire of worry. Yuck. I get it. AND... Worry doesn't move your life along. It just keeps you stuck. Imagine your favorite vehicle, decked out and detailed. You're cruising along, looking way cooler than Matthew McConaughey and suddenly you have a flat tire. You pull over and just sit there, not using the jack or the spare or AAA to fix it. Sometimes our lives have been wadded up with worry so long, we think we are permanently stranded, defective, doomed. We've forgotten what's under the hood, failed to remember we are designed and created for power and performance. We're so focused on the blasted tire, we miss the trip Advertisement What a waste. Waste -- that's what worry is in a nutshell. A waste of time, energy, assets, capacity, talents, gifts, faith, and opportunities. In the book the Worry Cure, a study revealed that 85 percent of what participants worried about turned out better than they expected. Even negative outcomes, they handled better than they worried they would and learned a valuable lesson from the experience. So why do we worry? An article by Victoria Stern in the Scientific American says, "Chronic worry stems from a craving for control." Ironic, right? Worry is born from our desire to control things and the very act of worrying causes us to feel totally out of control. That must be why Jesus tells us not to worry, because he doesn't want us to feel stressed and spinning out of control. Advertisement I've often heard people say, "control is an illusion," that we aren't really in control of anything. That's dumb. We have more control than we know how to claim, but we've learned to be "settlers." Have you seen that Direct TV commercial with the family of settlers? I'm putting it here just in case you haven't because it's brilliant. I believe this is what we often do as children of God who don't recognize our inheritance and authority; we settle. We settle for lives that are less than God has prepared for us. We settle for joyless jobs, mediocre marriages, disconnected families, haphazard health, emotional unrest, shallow spirituality, unmet callings, and floundering finances. We settle for what the world says is (and is not) available to us and we don't ask and read and believe what God says. (There's so much good stuff I can't cover it in this post but there's a program for that.) We settle; then we sit on the sideline of our lives and worry about it. Here's my point, let's stop settling. Next time you think or say, "I'm worried about (fill in blank)," replace it with, "I'm settling for (fill in the blank)." Then don't. Don't settle for that! Lay it all the way down and pick prayer all the way up. Not, "Oh please, Jesus... if you don't mind and it's not too much trouble, but I hate to bother you with this..." kind of prayer. That's weak sauce. Advertisement And Jesus wants you to bring the awesome sauce- The kind of prayer that says, "No. Way. I'm not settling for (fill in the blank). You are the bomb-diggety, Jesus. I love you and I trust You in every nook and cranny of my life. I am grateful for exactly where I am AND expect You will do infinitely more than I know or think or ask. I am believing for BIG, BOLD, BEAUTIFUL things. Nothing is off limits or beyond You and I belong to you, so I'm. Done. Settling." We are loved by an infinitely good Creator, who does not settle. And everything He has is ours. Want to stop worrying and start winning in life? Stop expecting small, dreaming small, hoping small, believing small. Don't worry; pray. Don't settle; make way. As the world braces for what may be fresh terror attacks by Islamic State, Muslim scholars, clerics and lay people are speaking up about troubles within the house of Islam. The culturally diverse and decentralized Muslim populations of the 21st-century are dealing with the implications of not having a single coherent authority in one of the world's biggest faiths. Although no single authority can speak for the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, the overwhelming majority maintains that terror is anathema to Islam's religious ethic. The most urgent question is how to stem the surge and influence of the cult of Daesh, the Arabic acronym for ISIS. But another question gaining traction is simple and yet complex: Who should control Islam's holiest sites? Mecca and Medina are the spiritual focal points for Muslims around the world. The Masjid al Haram, or Great Mosque of Mecca, houses Islam's central shrine, the Kaaba, which symbolizes the first house of worship built for the One God; the world over Muslims face toward the Kaaba in prayer. Medina is home to the second holy mosque, Al Masjid an-Nabawi, or the Prophet's Mosque, which is built around the Prophet Mohammed's house. Both have been expanded over time to accommodate increasing numbers of worshippers. Presently, Saudi Arabia controls both cities, but this is becoming increasingly controversial among Muslims. Advertisement Concerns about Saudi Arabia's authority over the two sites have been simmering for some time, but the deadly stampede that took place there during the 2015 hajj pilgrimage has lent greater urgency. Two months of the tragedy at the Jamarat Bridge where pilgrims perform the hajj's penultimate ritual, the death count was more than 2,400. Criticism and blame were quick to follow, and many leveled accusations of inept management against the Saudi government. Riyadh in turn placed the fault with the pilgrims for allegedly failing to follow instructions. Muslim leaders looking for a solution have begun to suggest that it might be time for the reigning the House of Saud to relinquish its absolute control over the two cities, which lie within the geographic boundaries of the kingdom - boundaries won by conquest. The California-based Muslim Public Affairs Council suggested, "If Saudi Arabia cannot handle the scrutiny and answer the challenging questions, it is time to re-evaluate its roles and responsibilities for the hajj." London's Islamic Human Rights Commission chimed in, suggesting "some sort of Islamic Waqf, as it was at the time of Ottomans, [to make] sure that the main Muslim nations will actually have a say and they coordinate how this whole thing [is] run." Over the past 80 years, swift and dramatic changes are sweeping the two cities. Entire neighborhoods near the Kaaba have been razed to make way for ritzy hotels and high-end shops. The Abraj al Bait clock tower, the second-tallest building in the world, looms over the shrine like a steel-and-glass Godzilla. Advertisement When Saudi officials flattened the Ottoman-era Ajyad Fortress in 2002 to build the tower, Turkey's ministry of culture declared "cultural vandalism" and "a war on legacy." Historic surroundings of the Medina mosque are likely doomed to meet a similar fate. Amid these changes to the holy cities' landscapes, the Saudi government asks for little input beyond the advice of engineers, architects and crowd-control experts. At a 2013 press conference in Mecca on the expansions underway at the time, I asked with whom the city's governors had consulted. After all, major municipal development in U.S. cities often requires town hall meetings and referendums. The Saudi spokesperson looked at me quizzically and said, "We don't have to consult anyone." Indeed. All of the annual hajj rituals and the daily practices of worship at the Kaaba are practiced by Muslims, not just Saudis. Yet the kingdom maintains its grip over them through its claim to power, not by popular preference. With absolute visa control the Saudis determine how many people from outside the Kingdom may make the hajj. And as protest quietly mounts against Saudi Arabia's administration of the hajj, unsafe conditions for pilgrims on the rise, and challenges to the rampant destruction of archaeological sites growing increasingly vociferous, pushback against the kingdom's custodial role will likely get stronger as time goes on. So what alternatives exist? One option could be modeled on the Vatican. The sacred center of Roman Catholicism is inside the borders of Italy, but Vatican City functions as a separate political entity. The Vatican is not Italian, just as Catholicism is not Italian. But without a single, central Muslim authority akin to the pope, what is an Islamic option? Advertisement One place to look is into Islam's past: The Prophet Mohammed used the shura model to make decisions, and it stabilized the Muslim community after his death. Perhaps a similar rotating consultative council made up of representatives elected by the world's Muslim laymen and clergy could be the solution. Islam's reformation will no doubt be as turbulent and bloody as the century-long Protestant Reformation of the 1500s. The formation of an international committee that presides over Mecca and Medina may become a marker along the rocky road empowering Muslims to reclaim their religion from those who abuse its name. Or What Is It the Scandinavians Have That We Don't? This is a joint TomDispatch/Nation article and appears in print in slightly shortened form in the new issue of the Nation magazine.] Some years ago, I faced up to the futility of reporting true things about Americas disastrous wars and so I left Afghanistan for another remote mountainous country far away. It was the polar opposite of Afghanistan: a peaceful, prosperous land where nearly everybody seemed to enjoy a good life, on the job and in the family. Its true that they didnt work much, not by American standards anyway. In the U.S., full-time salaried workers supposedly laboring 40 hours a week actually average 49, with almost 20% clocking more than 60. These people, on the other hand, worked only about 37 hours a week, when they werent away on long paid vacations. At the end of the work day, about four in the afternoon (perhaps three in the summer), they had time to enjoy a hike in the forest or a swim with the kids or a beer with friends -- which helps explain why, unlike so many Americans, they are pleased with their jobs. Advertisement Often I was invited to go along. I found it refreshing to hike and ski in a country with no land mines, and to hang out in cafes unlikely to be bombed. Gradually, I lost my warzone jitters and settled into the slow, calm, pleasantly uneventful stream of life there. Four years on, thinking I should settle down, I returned to the United States. It felt quite a lot like stepping back into that other violent, impoverished world, where anxiety runs high and people are quarrelsome. I had, in fact, come back to the flip side of Afghanistan and Iraq: to what Americas wars have done to America. Where I live now, in the Homeland, there are not enough shelters for the homeless. Most people are either overworked or hurting for jobs; housing is overpriced; hospitals, crowded and understaffed; schools, largely segregated and not so good. Opioid or heroin overdose is a popular form of death; and men in the street threaten women wearing hijab. Did the American soldiers I covered in Afghanistan know they were fighting for this? Ducking the Subject One night I tuned in to the Democrats presidential debate to see if they had any plans to restore the America I used to know. To my amazement, I heard the name of my peaceful mountain hideaway: Norway. Bernie Sanders was denouncing Americas crooked version of casino capitalism that floats the already rich ever higher and flushes the working class. He said that we ought to look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway, and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people. He believes, he added, in a society where all people do well. Not just a handful of billionaires. That certainly sounds like Norway. For ages theyve worked at producing things for the use of everyone -- not the profit of a few -- so I was all ears, waiting for Sanders to spell it out for Americans. Advertisement But Hillary Clinton quickly countered, We are not Denmark. Smiling, she said, I love Denmark, and then delivered a patriotic punch line: We are the United States of America. Well, theres no denying that. She praised capitalism and all the small businesses that were started because we have the opportunity and the freedom in our country for people to do that and to make a good living for themselves and their families. She didnt seem to know that Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians do that, too, and with much higher rates of success. The truth is that almost a quarter of American startups are not founded on brilliant new ideas, but on the desperation of men or women who cant get a decent job. The majority of all American enterprises are solo ventures having zero payrolls, employing no one but the entrepreneur, and often quickly wasting away. Sanders said that he was all for small business, too, but that meant nothing if all of the new income and wealth is going to the top 1 percent. (As George Carlin said, The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it.) In that debate, no more was heard of Denmark, Sweden, or Norway. The audience was left in the dark. Later, in a speech at Georgetown University, Sanders tried to clarify his identity as a Democratic socialist. He said hes not the kind of Socialist (with a capital S) who favors state ownership of anything like the means of production. The Norwegian government, on the other hand, owns the means of producing lots of public assets and is the major stockholder in many a vital private enterprise. I was dumbfounded. Norway, Denmark, and Sweden practice variations of a system that works much better than ours, yet even the Democratic presidential candidates, who say they love or want to learn from those countries, dont seem to know how they actually work. Why Were Not Denmark Proof that they do work is delivered every year in data-rich evaluations by the U.N. and other international bodies. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's annual report on international well-being, for example, measures 11 factors, ranging from material conditions like affordable housing and employment to quality of life matters like education, health, life expectancy, voter participation, and overall citizen satisfaction. Year after year, all the Nordic countries cluster at the top, while the United States lags far behind. In addition, Norway ranked first on the U.N. Development Programs Human Development Index for 12 of the last 15 years, and it consistently tops international comparisons of such matters as democracy, civil and political rights, and freedom of expression and the press. Advertisement What is it, though, that makes the Scandinavians so different? Since the Democrats cant tell you and the Republicans wouldnt want you to know, let me offer you a quick introduction. What Scandinavians call the Nordic Model is a smart and simple system that starts with a deep commitment to equality and democracy. Thats two concepts combined in a single goal because, as far as they are concerned, you cant have one without the other. Right there they part company with capitalist America, now the most unequal of all the developed nations, and consequently a democracy no more. Political scientists say it has become an oligarchy -- a country run at the expense of its citizenry by and for the super rich. Perhaps you noticed that. In the last century, Scandinavians, aiming for their egalitarian goal, refused to settle solely for any of the ideologies competing for power -- not capitalism or fascism, not Marxist socialism or communism. Geographically stuck between powerful nations waging hot and cold wars for such doctrines, Scandinavians set out to find a path in between. That path was contested -- by socialist-inspired workers on the one hand and capitalist owners and their elite cronies on the other -- but it led in the end to a mixed economy. Thanks largely to the solidarity and savvy of organized labor and the political parties it backed, the long struggle produced a system that makes capitalism more or less cooperative, and then redistributes equitably the wealth it helps to produce. Struggles like this took place around the world in the twentieth century, but the Scandinavians alone managed to combine the best ideas of both camps, while chucking out the worst. In 1936, the popular U.S. journalist Marquis Childs first described the result to Americans in the book Sweden: The Middle Way. Since then, all the Scandinavian countries and their Nordic neighbors Finland and Iceland have been improving upon that hybrid system. Today in Norway, negotiations between the Confederation of Trade Unions and the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise determine the wages and working conditions of most capitalist enterprises, public and private, that create wealth, while high but fair progressive income taxes fund the states universal welfare system, benefitting everyone. In addition, those confederations work together to minimize the disparity between high-wage and lower-wage jobs. As a result, Norway ranks with Sweden, Denmark, and Finland among the most income-equal countries in the world, and its standard of living tops the charts. So heres the big difference: in Norway, capitalism serves the people. The government, elected by the people, sees to that. All eight of the parties that won parliamentary seats in the last national election, including the conservative Hyre party now leading the government, are committed to maintaining the welfare state. In the U.S., however, neoliberal politics put the foxes in charge of the henhouse, and capitalists have used the wealth generated by their enterprises (as well as financial and political manipulations) to capture the state and pluck the chickens. Theyve done a masterful job of chewing up organized labor. Today, only 11% of American workers belong to a union. In Norway, that number is 52%; in Denmark, 67%; in Sweden, 70%. In the U.S., oligarchs maximize their wealth and keep it, using the democratically elected government to shape policies and laws favorable to the interests of their foxy class. They bamboozle the people by insisting, as Hillary Clinton did at that debate, that all of us have the freedom to create a business in the free marketplace, which implies that being hard up is our own fault. In the Nordic countries, on the other hand, democratically elected governments give their populations freedom from the market by using capitalism as a tool to benefit everyone. That liberates their people from the tyranny of the mighty profit motive that warps so many American lives, leaving them freer to follow their own dreams -- to become poets or philosophers, bartenders or business owners, as they please. Advertisement Family Matters Maybe our politicians dont want to talk about the Nordic Model because it shows so clearly that capitalism can be put to work for the many, not just the few. Consider the Norwegian welfare state. Its universal. In other words, aid to the sick or the elderly is not charity, grudgingly donated by elites to those in need. It is the right of every individual citizen. That includes every woman, whether or not she is somebodys wife, and every child, no matter its parentage. Treating every person as a citizen affirms the individuality of each and the equality of all. It frees every person from being legally possessed by another -- a husband, for example, or a tyrannical father. Which brings us to the heart of Scandinavian democracy: the equality of women and men. In the 1970s, Norwegian feminists marched into politics and picked up the pace of democratic change. Norway needed a larger labor force, and women were the answer. Housewives moved into paid work on an equal footing with men, nearly doubling the tax base. That has, in fact, meant more to Norwegian prosperity than the coincidental discovery of North Atlantic oil reserves. The Ministry of Finance recently calculated that those additional working mothers add to Norways net national wealth a value equivalent to the countrys total petroleum wealth -- currently held in the worlds largest sovereign wealth fund, worth more than $873 billion. By 1981, women were sitting in parliament, in the prime ministers chair, and in her cabinet. American feminists also marched for such goals in the 1970s, but the Big Boys, busy with their own White House intrigues, initiated a war on women that set the country back and still rages today in brutal attacks on womens basic civil rights, health care, and reproductive freedom. In 1971, thanks to the hard work of organized feminists, Congress passed the bipartisan Comprehensive Child Development Bill to establish a multi-billion dollar national day care system for the children of working parents. In 1972, President Richard Nixon vetoed it, and that was that. In 1972, Congress also passed a bill (first proposed in 1923) to amend the Constitution to grant equal rights of citizenship to women. Ratified by only 35 states, three short of the required 38, that Equal Rights Amendment, or ERA, was declared dead in 1982, leaving American women in legal limbo. Advertisement In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, obliterating six decades of federal social welfare policy as we know it, ending federal cash payments to the nations poor, and consigning millions of female heads of household and their children to poverty, where many still dwell 20 years later. Today, nearly half a century after Nixon trashed national child care, even privileged women, torn between their underpaid work and their kids, are overwhelmed. Things happened very differently in Norway. There, feminists and sociologists pushed hard against the biggest obstacle still standing in the path to full democracy: the nuclear family. In the 1950s, the world-famous American sociologist Talcott Parsons had pronounced that arrangement -- with hubby at work and the little wife at home -- the ideal setup in which to socialize children. But in the 1970s, the Norwegian state began to deconstruct that undemocratic ideal by taking upon itself the traditional unpaid household duties of women. Caring for the children, the elderly, the sick, and the disabled became the basic responsibilities of the universal welfare state, freeing women in the workforce to enjoy both their jobs and their families. Thats another thing American politicians -- still, boringly, mostly odiously boastful men -- surely dont want you to think about: that patriarchy can be demolished and everyone be the better for it. Paradoxically, setting women free made family life more genuine. Many in Norway say it has made both men and women more themselves and more alike: more understanding and happier. It also helped kids slip from the shadow of helicopter parents. In Norway, mother and father in turn take paid parental leave from work to see a newborn through its first year or more. At age one, however, children start attending a neighborhood barnehage (kindergarten) for schooling spent largely outdoors. By the time kids enter free primary school at age six, they are remarkably self-sufficient, confident, and good-natured. They know their way around town, and if caught in a snowstorm in the forest, how to build a fire and find the makings of a meal. (One kindergarten teacher explained, We teach them early to use an axe so they understand its a tool, not a weapon.) Advertisement To Americans, the notion of a school taking away your child to make her an axe wielder is monstrous. In fact, Norwegian kids, who are well acquainted in early childhood with many different adults and children, know how to get along with grown ups and look after one another. More to the point, though its hard to measure, its likely that Scandinavian children spend more quality time with their work-isnt-everything parents than does a typical middle-class American child being driven by a stressed-out mother from music lessons to karate practice. For all these reasons and more, the international organization Save the Children cites Norway as the best country on Earth in which to raise kids, while the U.S. finishes far down the list in 33rd place. Dont Take My Word For It This little summary just scratches the surface of Scandinavia, so I urge curious readers to Google away. But be forewarned. Youll find much criticism of all the Nordic Model countries. The structural matters Ive described -- of governance and family -- are not the sort of things visible to tourists or visiting journalists, so their comments are often obtuse. Take the American tourist/blogger who complained that he hadnt been shown the slums of Oslo. (There are none.) Or the British journalist who wrote that Norwegian petrol is too expensive. (Though not for Norwegians, who are, in any case, leading the world in switching to electric cars.) Neoliberal pundits, especially the Brits, are always beating up on the Scandinavians in books, magazines, newspapers, and blogs, predicting the imminent demise of their social democracies and bullying them to forsake the best political economy on the planet. Self-styled experts still in thrall to Margaret Thatcher tell Norwegians they must liberalize their economy and privatize everything short of the royal palace. Mostly, the Norwegian government does the opposite, or nothing at all, and social democracy keeps on ticking. Its not perfect, of course. It has always been a carefully considered work in progress. Governance by consensus takes time and effort. You might think of it as slow democracy. But its light years ahead of us. Advertisement In Pixar's movie, Inside Out, the character Disgust looks like this: In politics, disgust often looks more like this: This second example references not the Holocaust, but a few years before it. This was a time when entire groups of people - Jewish people, gay people, and mentally and physically disabled people, among others - were the targets of propaganda campaigns working to transform ordinary human beings into something disgusting in the public eye. It's now about 75 years later, and the word "disgusting" is getting thrown around in presidential politics, referring to groups like women, Mexicans, and Muslims. Should we be alarmed? Yes, we should. In this post, I'm going to give a quick rundown of how disgust works as a political strategy, and why it's so powerful. Then I'll get into how we can counter it. Advertisement How disgust works Biologically, disgust is a reaction to substances that might harm us by making us sick, like poop, blood, rotting flesh, and spoiled food. It's different from fear, which is a reaction to imminent bodily harm (like seeing a shark fin approach). Fear and Disgust in Pixar's Inside Out If you're a politician speaking at a podium, it's actually pretty hard to make the people listening physically feel fear. Low-grade dread is the best you can hope for. Disgust, on the other hand, is simple. Feeling grossed out is visceral and automatic, and it's easy to get there with words alone. Think about it - have you ever asked a friend to stop telling all the gory details of their recent surgery, or how their dog got sick, because it just made you feel too gross? Not only is disgust an easy emotion to evoke, it's also special because it's highly contagious. If you touch a disgusting object (like a fly swatter) to a clean object (a sandwich), the clean object becomes contaminated. This easily translates to politics: if you rhetorically tag Hillary Clinton with a toilet, BOOM, she's disgusting. This actually happened recently. During a debate, Hillary Clinton was a few minutes late returning from a bathroom break. Here's what Donald Trump said about it: Advertisement "I know where she went, it's disgusting, I don't want to talk about it. No, it's too disgusting. Don't say it, it's disgusting, let's not talk." The reality is that all the candidates regularly use the bathroom, including him. But that fact doesn't diminish at all the emotional power of the image he invoked with his words. He specifically wants you to think of a toilet when you think of Hillary Clinton. Shortly after this incident, Donald Trump tagged Clinton with disgust again, using a different angle. In his "Hillary and her friends" Instagram video, he shows images of her alongside Bill Clinton, Bill Cosby and Anthony Weiner. This time, instead of a toilet, he's tagging her with "the blue dress", serial rape, and dick pics. The contamination feature of disgust is just as easy to apply to social groups or moral issues as it is to individuals. It has a subliminal, distancing effect, and it's scary how easily it can go unnoticed. As Soraya Chemaly writes, "Disgust is step one of othering people, step one of justifying injustice." The myth that "Jews smell bad" might actually have seemed like a silly thing at first - but it was a step on the path to dehumanization. It should come as no surprise that the groups most likely to be tagged with disgust are lowest in the social hierarchy, and disgust is often used to prevent them from "infecting the integrity" of a better-positioned social group. I want to say a few more words about Donald Trump, since he's the person who's been making the news the most lately for invoking disgust. The first time Trump really got in trouble for it was when Megyn Kelly called him out at the August 2015 Republican presidential debate, saying "You've called women you don't like, 'fat pigs,' 'dogs,' slobs, and disgusting animals" to which he responded "Only Rosie O'Donnell" and then later described the exchange by invoking period blood: "You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever." He's "contaminating" women by associating them with animals and blood. Advertisement Donald Trump has also called Mexicans and Muslims disgusting, as well as handshakes and elevator buttons and windmills. Here's a nice list of 32 things he's called disgusting. His excessive use of the word is becoming a joke at this point. The thing is, if you think elevator buttons are disgusting, that's fine - you can't dehumanize an object. But if you're running for the highest political office in the country and you think entire groups of people are disgusting, that's scary. It's particularly scary if you are representing a party with conservative political beliefs, because studies have shown that conservatives are significantly more sensitive to disgust than liberals. One study was even able to predict political leaning based on disgust sensitivity with 95% accuracy. If you want to learn more about the science behind this, there have been a couple of great breakdowns in the Washington Post and the New Republic. In a nutshell, Trump's strategy of tagging people and groups with things like toilets and pigs and blood is extra powerful politically, because he knows his audience. He's exploiting his party's elevated sensitivity to disgust. The antidote to disgust as a political strategy Now that we know how disgust works, what do we do about it? Because disgust has a distancing effect, the solution is to eliminate that distance. We need to find ways to bring people closer to the "disgusting" person or group and invite them to develop empathy. The only way past disgust is through it. Here is a step-by-step approach: Step 1. Expose disgust as an othering strategy When disgust appears in politics, the first step is to identify which person or group is being pushed away. What -isms or -phobias do we see? Might be racism, islamophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia. We can ask ourselves, why is that person or group being othered? What is the political reason they are being distanced? We can also look at our internal assumptions: Do we personally feel distanced from that person or group? Why? Advertisement Step 2. Zero in on the ignorance involved Ignorance is an absolute requirement for political disgust to exist. For example, the GOP has cultivated ignorance around women's lives and bodies, maintaining that there will always be a "mystery," about the "opposite sex." They do the same thing around Mexicans and Muslims, painting them as the un-relatable, un-understandable "other" who needs to be held back by walls and laws. When you see disgust being evoked against a group of people, you'll rarely see a personal story - the narrative is all vague generalizations. Our tendency as humans is to love and care about other humans. If we start to understand and identify with a member of a group, that'll erode ignorance. But first we have to recognizing that ignorance is being purposefully cultivated. Step 3. Use empathy Disgust and empathy are processed in the same part of the brain (the anterior insula) and both focus on protecting the self from discomfort. Disgust protects from discomfort via getting sick or "contaminated", by causing us to draw away from the source of discomfort. Empathy does the opposite. It forces us to get close to another person or group and feel their pain. The worse we feel as a result of our empathy, the more motivated we are to help the person or group feel better, because it will make us feel better. It's a little bit selfish, really, but it works. And the result is that the feeling of discomfort is no longer just far away, it's actually gone. But it doesn't just happen automatically. How do we make that switch from feeling disgust to feeling empathy? Step 4. Make it personal Here is where we bring in those powerful individual stories that are suppressed in order to cultivate ignorance. It's time to let them out, because they are the secret to closing the distance. Where can you find them? Look to your social networks, or start googling. The stories are there if you're motivated to find them. A few great examples I've seen recently involve people trying to counter period disgust, such as this art project by Rupi Kaur and this video for the guy who hates period commercials. Both are heavy on exposure: they aim to bring a traditionally "othered" taboo into a balanced reality. Advertisement Another great example is the stereotype-breaking "I'm Muslim, But I'm Not" video (definitely watch it if you haven't already: the messaging transforms amazingly into "I'm Muslim, And"). In this video, a group that is usually otherized by American mainstream media as a homogenously scary, incomprehensible group, is able to deliver its own personal messages to communicate varied, relatable self-identities. Lastly, back to that Hillary Clinton bathroom thing. Soraya Chemaly's piece on the subject gets into what bathroom inequality actually looks like in reality. The otherizing message on women's bathroom use is that women take forever because they waste time on a combination of frivolous (gossiping, primping) and unmentionable (periods) activities. Chemaly's piece exposes inequalities in bathroom construction, the differing realities of women's bodies and clothes, and disproportionate childcare responsibilities. There's nothing mysterious about it. Creating a blog post or a video or an art project takes a lot of time and energy. But sharing one with your network does not - you can easily boost the signal this way. Hashtags are another powerful method of personalization, because they allow us to easily participate as well as access a huge, connected volume of personal stories very quickly - like #MuslimApologies and #periodsarenotaninsult. These might seem like small things, but they're so important. You never know who's listening. Step 5. Repeat Transforming disgust is not a one-time thing. It requires repeated, positive exposure. In our social-media saturated environment, this is extremely doable. But it will involve a lot of people pushing back in personal ways and sharing their experiences to counter the disgust narrative. When it comes to women's bodies, it will also be important for the platforms themselves to stop "protecting" men from non-sexualized realities of periods, breast milk, and body hair. Why can't we just flip the script and talk about how Trump is actually the disgusting one? The last thing I want to mention is how some groups have started to try to use the word "disgust" against Donald Trump. Advertisement Like this skywriting: Or the recent Slate article calling Trump's anti-Muslim plan "disgusting but not surprising." My initial reaction to turning the term "disgusting" against Donald Trump is that it's a weak strategy because it maintains the feeling of disgust front-and-center, which doesn't really get us anywhere. Dan Kelly, an assistant professor of philosophy at Purdue University, takes a more philosophical point of view, saying "It's not ethically appropriate to deliberately depict any group of people as disgusting because disgust makes it very easy to dehumanize, and that would do the very thing we seek to undo." *This piece originally appeared on the Aspen Idea blog. We don't need to look any further than this presidential campaign season to see the fragmentation and polarization of American culture and politics. We live in an age when growing diversity, demographic flux, and social changes are pushing out the prominent American identity of the past, an identity that really only ever fit white males. Perhaps we should not be surprised by the nostalgia of so many who want to "Make America Great Again." Meanwhile, we are seeing unprecedented inequality because of a concentration of wealth and opportunity. Our great America seems to be "of the people, by the people, for some of the people." Americans, both new and old, are faced with a challenge. We must make a common culture that mirrors our new America -- an America where "us" is no longer "white" by default, where the population has never been more diverse, where our role in the world is shifting rapidly. Advertisement As Eric Liu, executive director of the Citizenship and American Identity Program has said, we need a common culture "that's greater than the sum of our increasingly diverse parts." Our diversity should be our strength, not our fragility, but we need the binding force of common knowledge in order to bring millions of identities together to become a unified America. Failing to build this common knowledge is failing to activate our diversity, and condemning ourselves to fall short of our full potential as Americans. Indeed, in this age of economic and civic inequality, understanding what it means to be American has never been more important. That's why the Citizenship and American Identity Program created the initiative called What Every American Should Know. We are crowdsourcing ideas from a wide range of Americans about what we all need to know to be aware, effective, and engaged citizens. Literacy in the culture allows us to understand what is being said, and also what is missing from the conversation. This kind of understanding grants us access to power. On the other hand, someone who is culturally and civically illiterate, intentionally or not, is isolated from power. This endeavor therefore makes it easier for those who are not culturally literate to become so, helping to close the civic opportunity gap. The goal of our experiment is to counter pervasive fragmentation and polarization to sustain strong citizenship in America. In order to do so, we must develop a 21st century sense of cultural literacy. It must be diverse, inclusive, and it must come from all of us. So, we're asking: What do you think every American should know in order to be culturally literate? Advertisement One of the 10 things Anne-Marie Slaughter, president and CEO of New America, told us that Americans should know about is the Korematsu dissent, which argued that excluding all Japanese-Americans into internment camps was unconstitutional. This choice is interesting not only by nature, but also because in order to learn this term, we must first be familiar with the context of World War II and Japanese-American Internment. Along the same lines, Matt Kibbe, senior advisor of Concerned American Voters, said that one of his top 10 things Americans should know about is Edward Snowden. Therefore we should also know about the National Security Agency and the ethics of surveillance. Of the hundreds of submissions we've received so far, the terms that have made the top of the aggregated list are: Bill of Rights Trail of Tears World War II Manifest Destiny I Have a Dream Gettysburg Address White Privilege Declaration of Independence Civil War Constitution of the United States My fellow millennials often choose #BlackLivesMatter to make the top of their lists, and I would add Newtown and Flint. These top 10 terms might change. In fact, we hope that they do! This 21st century sense of cultural literacy should be an organic, ever-evolving document. As the network of contributors grows and changes, terms will move up and down on the list to mirror the priorities and values of our new America. I hope you will contribute 10 things that you think every American should know. Advertisement The full aggregated list of submissions, as well as featured lists from contributors like Anne-Marie Slaughter and Matt Kibbe, can be viewed at www.WhatEveryAmericanShouldKnow.org. My fellow Americans. I have today signed an executive order requiring any company with a federal contract to disclose how much they spend on politicians and lobbyists, and who is receiving their money. There are several reasons for this. First, federal contracting is big business. In 2013 alone, the United States government spent about $460 billion dollars on contracting, with $177 billion of that going to just 25 companies. Since the year 2000, the top 10 contractors have raked in $1.5 trillion in federal contracts. That's your money. All of it comes from taxpayers. And as the economic analyst Robert Reich reminds us, you are footing the bill twice over. You pay for these corporations to lobby for those contracts. Then you pay for the stuff they sell us. It's only fair that you see how much it costs for corporations to buy influence. Second, there is a direct relationship between what a corporation spends on campaign contributions and the amount it receives back in government spending. Federal contractors have long been banned from contributing to federal candidates, parties or political committees, but that ban does not apply to their executives, shareholders and political action committees. In fact, since the Citizens United decision in 2010, contractors have been free to contribute unlimited amounts of undisclosed money to super PACs and the shadowy operations known as "social welfare organizations." It's now possible for companies that get government contracts to secretly -- let me say it again, secretly -- spend untold amounts to elect and re-elect the very legislators who are awarding them those contracts. That's wrong. It's a terrible conflict of interest that undermines the integrity of government. Some of you will remember that I said the Citizens United decision would harm democracy. I wish it were not so, but I was right; this secrecy in influence peddling by federal contractors is a bad thing. It wastes your money. It distorts the relationship between your government and business. It works against start-up entrepreneurs who can't afford to hire lobbyists or make political contributions while entrenched old-line companies hire former government officials -- members of Congress and their staffs in particular -- to steer business their way. Let's put an end to these practices, once and for all. Third, an open democracy is an honest democracy. Disclosure is the foundation of public trust in government and business, while secrecy invites corruption. Even the Supreme Court justice who wrote the majority opinion for Citizens United acknowledged this to be true. Justice Anthony Kennedy belongs to another party than I. He adheres to a different ideology. But listen to what he wrote: "With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of [political] expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters. Shareholders can determine whether their corporation's political speech advances the corporation's interest in making profits, and citizens can see whether elected officials are 'in the pocket' of so-called moneyed interests." I agree with Justice Kennedy. You see, undisclosed money -- "dark money" -- is not "free speech" as its proponents claim. To the contrary. It's a threat to free speech, especially to citizens like you. Even if you believe money is speech, don't you and every other American have a right to know who's speaking? Secrecy weakens democracy's backbone, causing it to become brittle -- so brittle that fractures are now commonplace. That's one reason Washington is broken and dysfunctional. As Justice Kennedy himself -- the author of the Citizens United decision, remember -- recently admitted, our system "is not working the way it should." The executive order I have signed today is a step toward helping us see why it is not working and giving us a way to start fixing it. We are casting sunshine on a system badly in need of light. Sadly, I must report to you that Republicans in Congress are opposed to sunshine. They prefer government do business in the dark, out of your sight and away from the prying eyes of reporters. But the Sunlight Foundation has discovered that over one recent five-year period 200 of the most politically active corporations spent a combined $5.8 billion on federal lobbying and campaign contributions and, in return, got $4.4 trillion in federal business and support. Yes, $4.4 trillion -- with a "t". That's an enormous return on their investment in lobbyists and politicians. Earlier this month I delivered my last State of the Union address to you. I told you that, "We have to reduce the influence of money in our politics, so that a handful of families or hidden interests can't bankroll our elections. And if our existing approach to campaign finance reform can't pass muster in the courts, we need to work together to find a real solution." My record on this issue may not inspire confidence, but I offer this executive order as an act of genuine penitence. And I pledge to you that in my remaining months as president I intend to take more steps to put right what I have helped to keep wrong. When I leave this office next January there will be no private citizen in the country more active in the fight to save our public life from the pernicious grip of private greed. I am not a saint; I am a sinner. But I have been born again -- again. And this time, I will keep the faith. If you believe in democracy, join me. Thank you and good night. Income inequality concept protest people. As Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign has gained momentum, Sanders has come under attack from Democrats and Republicans. Some mock Bernie's identification as a "Democratic Socialist," while others lament his supposed policy deficiencies. The critics miss the point. Sanders is running to call attention to a national emergency: the influence of money on politics, and economic inequality in general. In the last 20 years, Democratic presidential candidates have run on the basis of their policies ("bring the troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq," "implement national healthcare"). In contrast, Republicans have run on the basis of personality. (In 1992, George W Bush won because he was more likable than Al Gore.) Advertisement In 2008, Barack Obama won the presidency because of his charismatic personality, his slogan "change we can believe in," and enough detail on major policies to keep his critics at bay. In 2016, Hillary Clinton is running a similar-style campaign based upon a slogan, "Hillary for America," and detailed policy positions. In contrast, Bernie Sanders is focusing on a single issue, money in politics. At the conclusion of the January 17th Democratic Presidential debate, Sanders explained: Very little is going to be done to transform our economy and to create the kind of middle class we need unless we end a corrupt campaign finance system which is undermining American... what we have got to do is create a political revolution which revitalizes American democracy, which brings millions of young people and working people into the political process. To say loudly and clearly that the government of the United States of America belongs to all of us and not just a handful of wealthy campaign contributors. As Sanders has closed in on the Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, she and her surrogates have attacked his policy positions. During the January 17th debate, Clinton attacked Sanders' healthcare proposal saying, "There are things we can do to improve [Obamacare]. But to tear it up and start over again, pushing our country back into that kind of a contentious debate I think is the wrong direction." Her attack was supported by Paul Krugman who noted, "the virtual impossibility of achieving single-payer," Sanders' proposal must be taken in context. In his opening remarks, Sanders said: Our campaign is about... thinking big. It is understanding that in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, we should have health care for every man, woman, and child as a right. That we should raise the minimum wage to at least 15 dollars an hour, that we have got to create millions of decent paying jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. So what my first days [in office will be] about is bringing American together to end the decline of the middle class, to tell the wealthiest people in this country that yes they are gonna start paying their fair share of taxes, and that we are going to have a government that works for all of us and not just big campaign contributors. Advertisement Recall that when Barack Obama took office, he was confronted by a financial crisis - the Great Recession of 2008. Obama had run on a different set of issues -- withdrawing troops from Iraq, universal healthcare, energy independence... -- but shifted focus in response to a national emergency. Bernie Sanders regards money in politics/economic inequality as a comparable national emergency. Sanders is not alone in this assessment. Early this year, Paul Krugman wrote about Twin Peaks Planet: "It is now obvious that income and wealth are more concentrated at the very top than they have been since the Gilded Age." University of California Economics Professor Robert Reich concurred: Surely 2016 is a critical year. But, as the reformers of the Progressive Era understood more than a century ago, no single president or any other politician can accomplish what's needed because a system caught in the spiral of wealth and power cannot be reformed from within. It can be changed only by a mass movement of citizens pushing from the outside. Bernie Sanders is not running a campaign based upon personality or a list of policy positions. He is running for president because he believes the US has a national emergency; Let's be truthful. Very little is going to be done to transform our economy and to create the kind of middle class we need unless we end a corrupt campaign finance system which is undermining American democracy... we have got to do is create a political revolution which revitalizes American democracy, which brings millions of young people and working people into the political process. To say loudly and clearly that the government of the United States of America belongs to all of us and not just a handful of wealthy campaign contributors. Sanders is right. We are facing a national political crisis because of economic inequality. We must address this before we address a laundry list of other important issues. That's why we need "a political revolution which revitalizes American democracy." The Wall Street sign near the front of the New York Stock Exchange August 5, 2011. AFP PHOTO/Stan HONDA (Photo credit should read STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images) Of course we need hardheaded, pragmatic political leaders. But we also need to know the object of their pragmatism, the ends that they hope to achieve. Pragmatism can be a legitimate reason to compromise, to accept incremental progress that falls short of an unachievable ideal. It can also be a pretext to defeat achievable reforms without an honest debate. Advertisement American voters are usually wary of radical, jarring change. Sincere reformers gladly take half a loaf, fight rear-guard skirmishes to protect past reforms, and wait for a moment when more is possible. One such moment was 1933. Another was 1965. A third was 2009, at least for reforms that addressed the immediate causes of the financial crisis and the deep recession, despite Republicans' scorched earth opposition. Americans strongly favored tough, even radical reforms to Wall Street, not cosmetic tweaks to the bailed-out financial system. The elites who have filled economic policy roles in recent administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, did not share the public's enthusiasm for tough reform. And they regarded economic policy as the province of experts into which the opinion of the rabble should not intrude. "Our job was to fix it," former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said, "not to make people like us." Advertisement When public opinion was considered, it forced tougher reforms than elites wanted. The Dodd-Frank Act as first introduced did not include a limit on proprietary trading by banks, the Volcker Rule. When President Obama embraced the idea with great fanfare, Wall Street sources were "startled and disappointed" that the President went beyond "the more moderate approach Geithner proposed" with Wall Street's support. The Obama Administration defended the idea on the merits, but privately acknowledged to reporters that the idea had "the political value of seeming tough on Wall Street." Geithner bit his tongue in public. "Just because things seem populist doesn't mean they're not the right thing to do," he said. But elites won more fights against tough reform than they lost, usually in behind-the-scenes maneuvers, not public debate. Elites dismissed tough reforms as simplistic in "not for attribution" interviews with favored reporters, despite the strong intellectual support for many proposals. Even proposals that sounded sensible, they argued, could have "unintended consequences." Administration elites privately lobbied against legislation to allow judicial modification of mortgages in bankruptcy. The legislation would have helped millions of families save their homes from foreclosure but would have complicated the effort to help shaky banks appear sound. President Obama supported the legislation as a candidate and never publicly wavered from that position. The legislation was defeated in a Senate vote. They privately opposed the effort to limit shadow bank loans. The week before Lehman Brothers entered bankruptcy it had $200 billion in overnight shadow bank loans, which made an orderly insolvency impossible. A run in the shadow bank system led to Lehman's catastrophic collapse. Advertisement Sheila Bair and the FDIC proposed to limit the favored treatment of shadow bank loans in insolvency. Leading scholars, including one then on the faculty of Harvard Law School, Elizabeth Warren, supported the proposal. The proposal passed the House but died in the Senate. The administration never took a public position on the proposal by Senators Ted Kaufman and Sherrod Brown to cap the size of banks, which would have broken up the six biggest banks. But when the proposal failed in the Senate, administration elites privately took credit. "If we'd been for it," an unnamed "senior Treasury official" said, "it probably would have passed. But we weren't and it didn't." young white woman is much crying her eyes closed I've noticed a trend within the communities of liberal white activists that I frequent. No, not artisanal cheeses. It's the problem of our privilege. We don't know what to do with it. And the more we learn about it, the more uncomfortable we become. "We're not the problem!" we grumble to ourselves. "And we can't help being white." And it's true. None of us--barring profound public deception--got to pick our race, or our gender, or our sexual identity, or our family members, or the country we call home. We're stuck with all of it. And somehow, we're learning now, that's bringing other people down. Advertisement The history is complicated. We didn't create the system, and yet we are subject to its benefits and consequences. To that end, I have spent a great deal of time examining privilege and how it has affected me, a 30-something white woman. And through the exploration of my earlier, "less-evolved" self, I have made some startling discoveries. September 20, 1999 Pulling into the gas station across the street from work, blue lights flashed behind me. I don't remember why he pulled me over. I'm sure I was doing something heinous, as was my practice. I had planned on going into the gas station, so I opened my car door and began to step out. "GET BACK IN THE CAR!" The officer bellowed with such fear and force that I panicked. After ensuring I hadn't peed myself, I scurried back into my midnight blue Saturn and slammed the door. "You don't do that!" he exclaimed. Then, approaching me cautiously, "You don't get out of the car when you get pulled over." I apologized profusely, feeling deeply embarrassed. This kind of thing, I thought to myself, is the reason people call me naive. This is the stuff you're supposed to know. Advertisement And that was the end of it. I don't remember the rest of the scene. I'm sure he told me why he had pulled me over. He must certainly have given me a warning. And bonus, I had learned something new. December 30, 2014 The tone was casual at first. Officer Braheme Days calmly explained why he had pulled the men over. Leroy Tutt had run a stop sign. Seemingly out of nowhere, things got loud and tense. Officer Days saw what he thought was a weapon in the glove compartment, and recognized Jerame Reid--the passenger--from a prior arrest. As a teenager, Reid had shot three state police officers, and subsequently had spent 13 years in prison. Everything was a blur after that. Days began screaming obscenities, and demanded that Reid stay put. At the same time, he forcefully instructed the driver to get out of the car. Despite the officer's warning, Reid tried to push open the passenger side door, and in the heat of the moment--Reid's hands raised in the air--Days fired seven shots, fatally wounding Jerame Reid. July 14, 2004 My friend and I decided to hit up The Breakfast Club, an 80's themed bar in downtown Charlotte, NC. I had $36 on me. With it, I purchased a Red Stripe beer and two Long Island iced teas. I have no recollection of what happened after my second drink--nor the six hours that followed. Either my drinks had been spiked, or they were much stronger than I thought. I came to in a parking lot on the opposite side of town. I was handcuffed and directed into the back of a police vehicle. At one point, I tried to light a cigarette, because I recognized, even in my stupor, that I would not be able to smoke wherever they were taking me. I argued with the officer when he told me to put it out, but eventually he got me into the car, and off we drove to the county jail. Advertisement My night in jail was remarkable--for me. From what I understand, I was manipulative and insolent. I tried to talk my way out. I attempted to show them that I was a good citizen by helping with the other detainees arrested that night. When that didn't work, I became irate and erratic. Eventually, they had to put me in a confined cell. In the morning, my parents paid my bail. I was supposed to be at work at 9am. Not shockingly, I lost my job. June 24, 2014 Antoine Hunter had been spotted driving recklessly when the police tried to pull him over. He sped up, and eventually crashed into a parked car. According to the police report, he'd been in possession of a loaded gun, but never held it or pulled the trigger. 10 shots were fired, however, by the two deputies on the scene, and Antoine Hunter lost his life. "I'm not going to sit here and say he's some angel, but I've never known my son to carry a gun. Never," Martha Willis lamented. "Take his little butt to jail if he was doing wrong; why did they have to kill my baby?" (CBS Los Angeles) Privileges It might be argued that these are bad comparisons. I was a young girl without a record. Jerame Reid had broken the law in the past and Antoine Hunter was in the midst of law-breaking when he was shot. Fair point. But we didn't arrive here in a vacuum, and because I am a 34-old-year white woman, almost everything reminds me of a quote from the movie Ever After (actually a quote from Thomas More's Utopia, which predictably, I have not read): "For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them." Advertisement Privilege manifests itself in many ways. Let's explore three of them, just for kicks. The Second Chance Privilege Let's be clear, I am no saint. Before the night I was arrested, I had definitely done things that would have warranted serious consequences. Notably, I have never owned a gun. But also notably, I did not grow up in an environment where I felt my life was in danger. It's not my place to speculate on the circumstances of others. I can only say this: for years I lied, cheated, and stole. I imbibed and fornicated. The moment I decided to stop, supportive family and friends showed up in droves. The White School Privilege In college one summer, I worked for a nonprofit temp agency. For one job, I was hired by DC public schools to help schedule high schoolers for the upcoming school year. There were a dozen of us, all given the daunting task of making sure that 10,000+ predominantly black students were placed in their correct classes. In most cases, this had not been happening. Some kids had needlessly taken 9th grade English twice. Others somehow skipped algebra and went straight to geometry, which, predictably, they failed. The DC public school dropout rate is nearly 40 percent--almost double the national average--and we began to see why. I was shocked. Growing up in my small, white town in Virginia, not once had I worried that the grown-ups in charge of my schedule would fail me. The Implicit Bias Privilege Depending on your gender, race, or sexual preference, you probably could detail various assumptions people have made about you. I've been labeled ditzy, overly perky, and smart with a wild streak. My white privilege dictates that, more often than not, those assumptions won't harm me. In fact, they often benefit me. Advertisement In the realm of police violence, it works two ways. The police's implicit biases have taught large pockets of the black community to be suspicious and combative. This creates a vicious cycle of fear and violence, and we have to talk about it if we want it to change. Even--or especially--if we're not directly affected by it. Because we can't be the beneficiaries in a system of oppression without facing the consequences eventually. That's built into the natural laws of the universe. The Bottom Line According to The Counted, a project created by The Guardian listing the names of every person killed by the police this year, over 300 black people were killed by police in 2015. MappingPoliceViolence.org estimates that 71% of them were unarmed, which means that Jerame Reid and Antoine Hunter were in the 29% minority. Though black people in the U.S. make up only about 13% of its population, a black person is three times more likely per capita to be killed by a police officer than a white person (http://mappingpoliceviolence.org). The way our justice system is supposed to be set up, you are innocent until proven guilty. Honestly, that's been my experience. For many black people, it's the opposite. Their guilt is assumed; they have to prove their innocence. White privilege is awkward for me. It's uncomfortable for well-meaning activists desperately trying to change the system we were born into. I'm not trying to don a cape and be the next White Savior. God, no. But a little humility goes a long way. Can we start with that? Brandy is a freelance writer, teacher and speaker making light out of the dark stuff on brandyglows.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram. "Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life." So said Oscar Wilde. The Obama administration's scorn for due process is exemplary. In Chapter III of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Mouse relates a "long and sad tale" of his history and encounter with Fury. "Let us both go to law: I will prosecute you," the Fury responds. When Mouse observes that a trial would be futile without a judge and jury, Fury retorts: 'I'll be judge, I'll be jury...I'll try the whole case, and condemn you to death." Alice's Adventures were apparently the inspiration for Department of Justice's Operation Choke Point. As revealed in a 2014 Staff Report of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the program would be envied by the Fury. Advertisement The Department decides whether a legal industry skates to close to the line. Since close is in the eyes of the beholder, Operation Choke Point leaves the Department with limitless discretion. Its prime target is the short-term lending industry that is as legal as selling gasoline. Other targets include online tobacco, firearms, ammunition, or pharmaceutical sales. After an industry is identified, the Department issues subpoenas to federally regulated banks under section 951 of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 for records of members searching for evidence of mail or wire fraud. The banks are encouraged to shut down accounts marked as questionable by the Department without notice to the holder or an opportunity to respond. Compliance is typically forthcoming. Banks are hostage to the regulatory state. Their financial fate is in the hands of federal regulators. Why would they risk an expensive lawsuit or audit headaches with federal overseers like the F.D.I.C., the Federal Reserve Board, or the Comptroller of the Currency over a single or few high maintenance accounts? Advertisement An inability to maintain a bank account, however, is the death knell for many companies. Thus, like Alice's Fury, the Department plays judge, jury, and prosecutor in Operation Choke Point to wreak financial destruction on members of targeted industries. Two samples of bank termination letters to licensed money service businesses and lenders illustrate the success of the Department's friendly persuasion: *Bank of America: "[W]e reviewed the nature of your business in light of current regulatory trends affecting your industry. After careful consideration we've decided to close your existing Small Business checking account...." *Bank of Hawaii: "Bank of Hawaii has made a business decision to close your above-referenced business deposit accounts. The primary reason for this account closure is the Bank's increasing business expenses involved with servicing this type of account for a customer that operates as a money service business and/or payday lender." Operation Choke Point de facto makes banks agents of the government. That makes bank terminations of blacklisted accounts without due process constitutionally suspect under the Supreme Court's ruling in Bantam Books v. Sullivan (1963). In that case, the Court condemned as unconstitutional censorship the practice a State Commission's practice of sending book distributers a list of forbidden books whose distribution should cease if they wished to avoid the risk prosecution. The distributors predictably dropped all books on the list without any notice or opportunity to the book publishers to defend them as protected under the First Amendment. Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo) and Jeb Hensarling (R-Tx) deserve credit for introducing the "Financial Institution Customer Protection Act of 2015" (H.R. 766) to diminish Operation Choke Point's due process shortcomings. It would prohibit federal banking agencies from requesting a depository institution to terminate a specific customer account or group of customer accounts absent a material justification beyond the reputational risk of the customer's industry. Under the bill, all banking agency requests would be in writing, and would delineate the need the account termination and any suspected violations of laws or regulations by the account holder. Advertisement Remembering Joe Bower 1978 - 2016 We miss our Top 12 Global Blogger Joe Bower very much. Joe, a progressive and gifted educator from Red Deer, Alberta, Canada recently died of a massive heart attack at the age of 37. Through his regular contributions to the Top 12 Global Teacher Blogger series each month, Joe inspired our team enormously as well as thousands of educators around the world. On a personal note, I was delighted to discover I shared a mutual passion with Joe when I worked with him on our November 2015 blog that focused on games that really help students learn. During the back and forth on his article, he asked me if he could write about board games (versus video games). He explained that he'd been working in a Children's Inpatient Psychiatric Assessment Unit, and he found that board games were a great way in the first instance to establish a trusting, caring relationship with an emotionally challenged child. Being a lover and believer all my life in the many merits of board games, Joe's idea completely resonated with me. He wrote in his "For the Love of Learning" blog on this topic and noted that beyond being an important relationship builder, this form of play was also "a great way of assessing children's skills including their creativity, collaboration, adaptability, resiliency, critical thinking, problem solving, patience, literacy and numeracy." Advertisement And so Joe - thank you for your amazing mind, your compassionate soul, your ideas, your commitment to education - all of which will live on through your legacy. "For the Love of Learning" from you and from each other, so that we may ultimately help learners everywhere to shine, we shall continue to share teachers' perspectives each month as I know you would want us to. This month, we posed this question to our Top 12 Global Teacher Bloggers: What lessons can teachers offer to designers of software for the classroom? New learning tools can mean new ways to engage students, but this month our experts from classrooms around the world have shared their ideas and feedback on this topic. So listen up Silicon Valley! Richard Wells' (@EduWells) book on New Zealand education will be released in 2017. In his blog this month, Richard emphasizes the importance of making technology adaptable to the learner's needs saying, "successful apps need to reflect a world where everyone expects to be able to personalize their own experience." Read More. Pauline Hawkins (@PaulineDHawkins), author of Uncommon Core: 25 Ways to Help Your Child Succeed In a Cookie Cutter Educational System, notes that students are not easily fooled: "Students are not impressed with cheesy gimmicks or things that try to imitate what they like but in an "educational" way." High school students in particular are sophisticated consumers and should be treated as such by tech manufacturers. She also says that students learn at different rates and educational programs should be easily adjustable to different complexity settings. Read More. Advertisement In his blog, Adam Steiner (@steineredtech) observes that while there are great programs that give students the power to create amazing multimedia content, "what has lagged behind are tools that support specific subject areas. There are too few options for maximizing student engagement in social studies, English, science, and math." He urges education tech companies to never overlook the importance of content. Read More. Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher) brings to light the important fact that different kids have different achievement motivators. Some students value socialization or exploration while others need success markers like status upgrades and leader boards. She also emphasizes the consideration of aesthetics: "Face it, many education technology platforms need a face lift." Read More. Todd Finley (@finleyt) believes that a good way for tech companies to make sure they meet the needs of students and educators is to actually invite education researchers, kids, and teachers to help the design team. He also thinks that software should not distract or take away from learning. "Software should be intuitive enough for instructors to learn quickly. More importantly, the tool should not add to students' cognitive load." Read More. In his post, Craig Kemp (@mrkempnz) calls attention to the social needs of students. Students are human animals with the strong urge to interact with each other. They are best engaged by technology that consists of some form of communication. Read More. Tom Bennett (@tombennett71), Joe Bower (@joe_bower), Susan Bowles (@FloridaKteacher), Lisa Currie (@RippleKindness), Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher), Todd Finley (@finleyt), Pauline Hawkins (@PaulineDHawkins), Craig Kemp (@mrkempnz), Karen Lirenman (@KLirenman), Adam Steiner (@steineredtech), Silvia Tolisano (@langwitches) and Richard Wells (@EduWells) are The Global Search for Education 2014 Top 12 Global Teacher Bloggers. Advertisement Remembering Joe Bower 1978 - 2016 Join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (U.S.), Dr. Leon Botstein (U.S.), Professor Clay Christensen (U.S.), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (U.S.), Dr. MadhavChavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (U.S.), Professor Andy Hargreaves (U.S.), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (U.S.), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Honourable Jeff Johnson (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. EijaKauppinen (Finland), State Secretary TapioKosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Geoff Masters (Australia), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (U.S.), Richard Wilson Riley (U.S.), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Professor Manabu Sato (Japan), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (U.S.), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (U.S.), Yves Theze (LyceeFrancais U.S.), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (U.S.), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today. The Global Search for Education Community Page As of late, I get a lot of questions on what to take a preteen to from adults who want something they see as slightly more mature than a Disney show but not really an adult one. It's odd but there are very few things that sort of fall in that exact sweet spot, which is because it's sort of a ridiculous question. Wicked is of course a hit with preteen girls worldwide. I've always said Matilda, which I believe is the smartest "children's musical," is not appropriate for small children, so perhaps that is a perfect show. I would never personally recommend Finding Neverland for anyone, but I guess maybe it fits the request. I was excited when Joe Iconis and Joe Tracz were announced as the writers of the pre-Broadway musical Diary of a Wimpy Kid the Musical. I thought they would bring just the right amount of smart aleck to the character and the story. I spoke to Iconis about the challenges of the project this summer, which included finding the correct tone and working with high-profile backers. (The show's non-profit premiere is being produced by special arrangement with Fox Stage Productions and Kevin McCollum.) I had high hopes. Iconis and Tracz have now been replaced by librettist Kevin Del Aquila (Altar Boyz) and songwriting team Michael Mahler and Alan Schmuckler (who co-wrote the show How Can You Run with a Shell on Your Back? together). I have to admit to being not that familiar with the work of Mahler and Schmuckler - though I have heard some of Schmuckler's music. (Mahler contributed lyrics to the revival of Miss Saigon, which I am so looking forward to seeing next season.) Hopefully they'll get it right. I guess we'll see when it premieres at the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis in April. However I also hope Iconis' work for the show will seep into his concerts, because I'll be curious to hear it. While writing teams sometimes get swapped out before a show premieres (I could write a list!), it is rather rare for the change to occur at all close to a show's premiere. Advertisement Speaking of the Children's Theatre Company - they recently offered another show, Cheryl L. West's stage adaptation of the film Akeelah and the Bee, that would be perfect for this age group. I caught it at the Arena Stage in DC and found it sweet and engaging. It's a heartwarming tale that tackles some mature subject matter and might make children fall in love with theater (if they haven't already). I am not sure it is the right fit for a long Broadway commercial run, that is a "maybe" in my mind, but I hope it at least finds a real life regionally. I could see it playing in cities everywhere. I also highly recommend the off-Broadway show, The Woodsman, based on the beloved writings of L. Frank Baum. This show, which uses actors and puppets to tell the story of how the Tin Man lost his heart, is simply beautiful. At 70 minutes, I wanted it to go longer when I saw it at a previous engagement at 59E59. It represents such creativity. We all know the story of Dorothy in Oz, but very few people know the origin stories for the other characters. And even those that do will be surprised by this version and its enchanting and evocative presentation of the tale. It's not for the super young by any means, but for those looking to take a preteen to something beyond a big piece, something a little different, this is it. Its return engagement at New World Stages will hopefully last, giving a great opportunity for everyone to be lost in Oz. Advertisement UNHCR together with other humanitarian and development agencies in Iraq launched an appeal this week (26/1) seeking $298m to assist refugees in the country and reinforce their resilience for the coming year. There are an estimated 250,000 Syrian refugees living in Iraq - the vast majority staying in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KR-I). Some 94,500 refugees live in ten camps directly supported by UNHCR; but the majority live outside camps and can face great hardship during winter. Caroline Gluck has met some families in Sulaymaniyah province, KR-I, where temperatures this week dropped to below zero, who have benefitted from extra winter help from UNHCR, including heating and cash assistance. Winter is an especially difficult time in Sulaymaniyah province and other high-elevation areas of northern Iraq. Temperatures can regularly drop to below zero and it often snows. Snow-covered mountains, Sulaymaniyah Advertisement Farhad Mohmmed Ali, 26, wife Samira Mala, 25 and three young children live in one room in Sitak - a high-elevation area, popular with local visitors in the summer. The house owner allows them to stay rent-free but the room leaks and is cold. "We really need more help; blankets, mattresses, stoves, anything to make life better," said Farhad Farhad and his family 37 year-old mother of three, Adla Omar Osi, says every day brings new worries. "Our biggest need is cash. We need money to pay the rent, electricity, kerosene and food. We haven't paid the rent for the last four months", she confided. "We have absolutely no cash in the house. My husband wants to borrow more money, but I'm telling him no! We're so much in debt - how can we pay it all back?" Adla and her family Widower and mother-of-three, 37 year old Amina Mohammed Sadiq, dreads winter. Water drips from the ceiling of the corrugated iron roof and its bitingly cold at night, as they have to turn off their kerosene heater. "The children are always getting colds and flu. Its freezing cold here and my youngest has been sick four times last month" Mother, Amina, dreads winter Father of four, Mustafa Hamo Mughary, has lived in this tent in Arbat refugee camp since October 2014. He used to work in a timber yard in Syria, but has been unable to work after an accident left him with serious leg injures. "We used to live in a very good house in Kobane, Syria", he said. "Here it is very cold and the children are always getting sick. Sometimes its so cold, we cant sleep at night". Mustafa and his family in Arbat refugee camp Advertisement Also in Arbat refugee camp, 68 year old widower, Aasiya Yousef Hussain lives alone in her tent. She's scared to use a kerosene heater, instead relying on an electric heater. When it gets too cold, and the electricity cuts out, she visits her neighbour, who has built a small concrete house, to get warm. Widower, Aasiya, finds it hard on her own 17 year old Rima Absulsalam gave birth to two year old Mizgin two days ago. They've been staying in bed, wrapped up in blankets to keep warm. "It's difficult to live here", said her husband, Ahmed, 25. "I haven't got work for the last few months and we're in debt I owe around $1000 as we have borrowed money for food and diapers." A young family have to deal with the cold Sharing the same house in Bainjan town, Bazyan sub-district, are Ahmed's sister, mother of four, Khairia Ibrahim, 26, and her husband, Hogir Abdul-fareed, 28. Hogir and Khairia "It's very cold here", said Khairia, who gave birth to a baby son a week ago. Often, we get sick because of the cold. It's much, much colder than where we lived in Syria...I would say its ten degrees colder . I often have to go to the clinic with the children, who've got sick. I try to stop them going outside, to stop them getting ill" Khairia and her baby Advertisement Woman with hands clasped on lap, close-up Last week, the Bureau of Justice released a comprehensive study on the prevalence of college sexual assault, incorporating responses from 15,000 women and 8,000 men from nine schools across the United States. It confirms what we already knew: sexual assault on college campuses is a very serious issue that can't be ignored. The federally-funded study echoes previous research demonstrating that as many as one in four women experience sexual assault during their college years. Despite outrageous and unfounded claims aimed at debunking this statistic and perpetuating the cycle of victim-blaming, it's clear that there is a very real problem at our nation's universities. While the prevalence of college sexual assault may not come as a surprise to many familiar with the topic, the most alarming revelation of the study was that a majority of students who have been sexually assaulted never report it to law enforcement or to their schools. The question is: why? Advertisement Digging deeper into these data points paints a clearer picture of the climate on college campuses and our society at large. The figure below depicts reasons why survey respondents didn't report their rape or sexual assault to their school or law enforcement. Hands down, with a clear and present lead: "did not want action taken/not serious." This is followed by: "others might think you were partly at fault." These findings provide incredibly telling insight about how our society treats victims of sexual assault. Instead of reporting the assault, many women and men often blame themselves for what happened to them. This is a notion that is perpetuated and echoed by our society -- in media, on Twitter, in daily conversations and throughout our legal and justice systems. And it needs to change. According to the study, most victims told family or friends about the abuse; but only four percent reported to law enforcement and only seven percent reported to their school. The issue is more nuanced than simply underreporting. Survivors are reporting to friends and family in a majority of cases -- which can, in many cases, help them feel supported, safe and heard. Unfortunately, this type of peer reporting does not always provide the recourse needed to bring perpetrators to justice, hold universities and the legal system accountable and create pathways for change. Family and friends of those who have experienced an assault are in a unique position to help disrupt the cycle of victim-blaming and empower survivors to come forward. Instead of making women and men feel isolated and at fault for their assault, we must believe and support them, and ensure they get the help they need. Schools and law enforcement must create survivor-centric and trauma-informed systems that encourage reporting. We must empower survivors to step out of the dark and take recourse, rather than shaming them into feeling like they drank too much, sent the wrong messages or did something to incite the assault. Advertisement The takeaway from this study is not that college sexual assault is a prevalent and rampant issue. We already knew that. The real takeaway is that we all have a role to play in changing the status quo that has kept victims and survivors of assaults quiet for so long. Campus presidents need to take a stand and transform the culture of their campus so that survivors are not afraid to get help. Students need to put pressure on their school's administration, be an upstander when they see something that's not right and play an active role in promoting a culture of respect on campus. And friends and families need to support and empower survivors who come forward about their assaults, and reinforce that it's never their fault. Parents and daughter (8-10) holding hands on balcony, rear view "I don't know how to ask this, but um," my friend said to me. "Just ask," I interrupted. "Well, my boss is in a strange place and I was wondering if you could talk to him. He just found out this his little girl, er boy, er well, he found out that one of his children is transgender. You're the only person I know that's Trans and just by knowing you, it's helped me a lot, so I just thought maybe you could talk to him." "Of course," I said and he gave me the number. I texted the man and we began a dialogue. We decided to meet at one of those gourmet sandwich shops. Now I'm not one for public places, but this was something I felt I needed to do. I waited by the end of the line, watching to see if anyone walked in matching the description I had been given. Then he arrived. Advertisement I could see by the look on his face that he was trying to find someone as well, so I waved and he waved back. He walked up to join me in line. We exchanged pleasantries as we went through the line ordering our food. Ken told me that he had attended seminary courses and that this was so counter to everything he had been taught and to the religion he had chosen. As we sat and ate our meal, he told me the story of how he found out his child was transgender. Let me first tell you a few other things about Ken and his family. His wife suffers from MS. He started riding in the local Bike MS event, calling his fundraising efforts Ride For My Bride. His youngest daughter has slight Asperger's Syndrome. Ken is doing well for himself which is good because life has given him many people to support. People who need him dearly. Ashur, as Ken would come to learn, is the name of his son. In Hebrew it means Blessed. As "Kendra", "she" was the epitome of the girly girl. At one point "she" even owned every Disney princess dress! Advertisement Everything seemed normal. Then one day "Kendra" told them that "she" was gay. Not many months after that, "she" asked to be called "Kasey" which would eventually become Ashur. From there it progressed to cutting. It became so bad that they took "her" to the Children's Medical Center of Dallas. While there, they suggested that Ken and his family sweep Ashur's room for anything unusual. What they found was a suicide note. This is the moment they learned that their son was Transgender. They confronted Ashur and learned that he had indeed already attempted his plan weeks ago and it had failed. The note made clear that if Ashur couldn't be who he felt inside, there was no point in living. Take heed of that. When a person is making it known that they wish to take their own life, they are asking for help. When they say nothing, they've given up hope. In the bustle of everything happening they realized that they needed to bring Ashur some clothes. They went into his room to gather some for him. Of course, all that was there were clothes for girls. As they went off their checklist of needs, they came to underwear. Ken went to get some from Ashur's drawer but noticed something odd. "There was nothing there," he told me. "All the girl panties were gone and nowhere to be found. I don't know what this kid was doing, walking around commando?! We couldn't find anything anywhere!" Advertisement So his wife suggested they go to the department store to purchase new clothes for their son. "I thought, 'well this is as good a time as any,'" Ken said. When they got to the underwear aisle, they were at a loss. "I didn't know what the kid would want, you know?" Ken said. "I mean, we never had this talk. Boxers, briefs, boxer briefs... so we decided to just get him a couple pairs of each and let him decide." They purchased other clothes for boys while there. It was a new experience for them, picking out clothes for their son, but as they went along they found it calmed them and brought normalcy to the situation. They began to enjoy it. "Batman or superman? Spider-Man or Ninja Turtles? Suddenly there were so many choices in front of me that I realized I didn't even know my son," Ken said. After packing everything into a bag, they brought it to Ashur at the hospital. "When he opened that bag," began Ken, "his eyes lit up like nothing I had ever seen. I hadn't seen a smile on his face like that in ages. He had never been so happy. It was that moment that I knew. This is my boy. I don't care what anyone has to say. When I saw that look on his face, I knew what I had to choose and I chose my son." It was all I could do to hold back my tears in that restaurant. It was something I wished I had heard my own father say. Advertisement "You know, I may not understand being transgender, in fact I know I never will," Ken said. "But I understand this, that's my child and I would rather have a life with my son than a tombstone with my daughter's name on it." Parents, please see it as such. If your child has the courage to come to you and tell you that they are transgender, then honor that. If you are not open enough with your children then they may fear telling you in the first place. Talk to professionals. Seek help. Remember, this is your child we are talking about. The one you gave life to. Someone you love. This article is the second of two posts examining Charles Koch's campus investments, as reported in Jane Mayer's Dark Money. The first post examined the history, long-term strategy, and true intent of the university "philanthropy" coordinated by Charles Koch. This post examines how Koch's academic network is openly dishonest about their work, lobbying for Koch's interests and recruiting students into his network. From 2005-2014, Koch spent $109.7 million on 361 distinct campuses, according to Greenpeace's updated analysis of IRS filings from Koch's nonprofit foundations. KOCH-FUNDED DECEPTION Using examples spanning from the 1960s to 2014, Jane Mayer shows that Koch-funded operatives and professors know they are in the business of deceiving others. Presenting to a conference of Koch donors in June, 2014, a Koch-funded professor describes how he tricks his progressive colleagues into supporting a Koch-funded indoctrination campaign on human "well-being:" [A] speaker explained to the donors just how deliberate and politically disarming the term was. James Otteson, a conservative professor of political economy at Wake Forest University, called it "a game changer." In fact, he told the donor group that he was planning to build a "well-being" center at Wake Forest, where he already was executive director of the BB&T Center for the Study of Capitalism. One anecdote, he said, illustrated "the power of framing" free-market theories as a movement to promote well-being. He recounted that a colleague, whom he described as a prominent "left wing political scientist" who "rails" against Republicans and capitalism, had been so entranced by the idea of studying the factors contributing to human well-being that he had said, "You know, I'd even be willing to take Koch money for that." Upon hearing this, the donors laughed out loud. "Who can be against well-being? The framing is absolutely critical," Otteson exclaimed. [p. 363] This was not a unique instance in Mayer's research. One of Charles Koch's closest advisors was even more explicit as early as 1976: [Koch advisor George Pearson] suggested that libertarians needed to mobilize youthful cadres by influencing academia in new ways. Traditional gifts to universities, he warned, didn't guarantee enough ideological control. Instead, he advocated funding private institutes within prestigious universities, where influence over hiring decisions and other forms of control could be exerted by donors while hiding the radicalism of their aims. As [former George Mason University professor Clayton] Coppin summarized Pearson's arguments, "It would be necessary to use ambiguous and misleading names, obscure the true agenda, and conceal the means of control. This is the method that Charles Koch would soon practice in his charitable giving, and later in his political actions." [p. 56] Another key figure in wrangling money from Olin, Koch and others for campus indoctrination was even more frank. Mayer quotes James Piereson of the William E. Simon Foundation and the Manhattan Institute: Advertisement The key, Piereson explained, was to fund the conservative intelligentsia in such a way that it would not "raise questions about academic integrity." Instead of trying to earmark a chair or dictate a faculty appointment, both of which he noted were bound to "generate fierce controversy," he suggested that conservative donors look for like- minded faculty members whose influence could be enlarged by outside funding. [...] To overtly acknowledge "pre-ordained conclusions" would doom a program. Instead of saying the program was designed to "demonstrate the falsity of Marxism" or to promote "free- enterprise," he advised that it was better to "define programs in terms of fields of study, [like the] John M. Olin Fellowships in Military History." He wrote, "Often a program can be given a philosophical or principled identity by giving it the name of an important historical figure, such as the James Madison Program [in] American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University." [pp.103-104] Mayer illustrates this deceptive birth of corporate-funded academics using the field of "Law and Economics," an entire discipline that was created with funds from John M. Olin. The field continues to be financed by Koch, and was one of the trojan horse programs that James Piereson candidly describes: "Piereson, however, admitted that the beauty of the program was that it was a stealth political attack and that the country's best law schools didn't grasp this and therefore didn't block the ideological punch it packed. 'I saw it as a way into the law schools--I probably shouldn't confess that,' he told The New York Times in 2005. 'Economic analysis tends to have conservatizing effects.' [...] "'If you said to a dean that you wanted to fund conservative constitutional law, he would reject the idea out of hand. But if you said you wanted to support Law and Economics, he would be much more open to the idea,' he confided. 'Law and Economics is neutral, but it has a philosophical thrust in the direction of free markets and limited government. That is, like many disciplines, it seems neutral, but it isn't in fact.'" [p. 108] Koch uses Piereson's exact model today, financing receiving six, seven and eight-figure donations from Koch and its donors partners. Recent examples include: KOCH'S PET PROFESSORS As suggested by Piereson, Koch officers use relationships with individual professors to get the Koch-funded operations started. At the 2015 "Western Civilization Summit" at the Koch-funded Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), the Charles Koch Foundation's director of higher education policy said: "I think what's important is to--when a university is coming to solicit, or when you're having those conversations with a university, as I was suggesting earlier--to push really deep on what the programs they have in place that do talk about these kinds of ideas. Or, is there even one professor who does that. And then, talk with that person, with that professor, and learn more about what they're doing so don't allow the university to just paint in broad strokes 'we're all about diversity, we're all about this, we're all about that.' [Footage at 0:53:10] STUDENT INDOCTRINATION Koch-funded operatives have admitted the unpopularity of their manipulation in college classrooms, urging the need to sell their unpopular ideas with soft language. Koch's tactic of selling used cars--in this case, an ideology of virtue in an unregulated, belligerent pursuit of personal wealth--has been tested and refined for decades. Mayer looks at Brown University as an example of Koch's long-term investments in action: At Brown, which is often thought of as the most liberal of the Ivy schools, Charles Koch's foundation gave $147,154 in 2009 to the Political Theory Project, a freshman seminar in free-market classics taught by a libertarian, Professor John Tomasi. "After a whole semester of Hayek, it's hard to shake them off that perspective over the next four years," Tomasi confided "slyly," according to a conservative publication. Charles Koch's foundation gave additional funds to Brown to support faculty research and postdoctoral candidates in such topics as why bank deregulation is good for the poor. [p.155] KOCH'S STUDENT-TO-ELECTION "TALENT PIPELINE" In the process of influencing the thinking of "millions" of students, Koch officers have boasted to other political donors about their university "talent pipeline" for training future lobbyists. As Koch lobbyists explained to the Koch donor network, the Charles Koch Foundation and Institute for Humane Studies pull students into paid internships at Koch-funded advocacy groups, teaching them Koch's preferences along the way. Mayer cites a obtained by The Undercurrent's Lauren Windsor, as by the Center for Public Integrity: "At the June summit, [Charles Koch Foundation executive Ryan] Stowers stressed to the donors that this 'investment' in education had created a valuable 'talent pipeline.' Assuming the thousands of scholars on average taught hundreds of students per year, he said, they could influence the thinking of millions of young Americans annually. 'This cycle constantly repeats itself,' he noted, 'and you can see the multiplier effect it's had on our network since 2008.' "In summation, [Kevin] Gentry stressed to the donors, 'So you can see, higher education is not just limited to an impact on higher education.' The students were 'the next generation of the freedom movement,' he said. 'The students that graduate out of these higher-education programs populate the state-based think tanks and the national think tanks.' And, he said, they 'become the major staffing for the state chapters' of the 'grassroots' groups. Those with passion were encouraged to become part of what he called the Kochs' 'fully integrated network.' At this point, he paused and said, 'I got to be careful how I say this.' He paused again. 'They populate our program.'" [pp. 365-366] Mayer notes that this may be a violation of IRS tax law for Koch-controlled "charities" involved: "The reason Gentry had to be careful was that the Kochs described their educational activities to the IRS as nonpolitical charitable work, qualifying them for tax breaks and anonymity. Yet what Gentry was describing could scarcely be more political. It was a full-service political factory. As he addressed the donors, cajoling them to 'invest' more, he couldn't resist adding further detail. 'It's not just work at the universities with the students,' he went on. 'It's building the state- based capabilities, and election capabilities, and integrating this talent pipeline. So you can see how this is useful to each other over time. No one else has this infrastructure. We're very excited about doing it!'" [p.366] ACADEMIC STEALTH LOBBYING At times, Koch-funded professors have played overtly political roles, engaging directly in lobbying on issues that affect Koch Industries' business. At West Virginia University, the Charles Koch Foundation's donation of $965,000 to create the Center for Free Enterprise came with some strings attached. The foundation required the school to give it a say over the professors it funded, in violation of traditional standards of academic independence. The Kochs' investment had an outsized impact in the small, poor state where coal, in which the Kochs had a financial interest, ruled. One of the WVU professors approved for funding, Russell Sobel, edited a 2007 book called Unleashing Capitalism: Why Prosperity Stops at the West Virginia Border and How to Fix It, arguing that mine safety and clean water regulations only hurt workers. "Are workers really better off being safer but making less income?" it asked. Soon, Sobel was briefing West Virginia's governor and cabinet, as well as a joint session of the Senate and the House Finance Committees. The state Republican Party chairman declared Sobel's antiregulatory book the blueprint for its party platform. [pp.154-155] These lobbyist-professors continue to teach classes, affecting the ways that students are taught to prioritize information: Advertisement Students complained that the Koch influence was nefarious and omnipresent. Jerry Funt, an undergraduate, said that in the public university's introductory economics course, "We learned that Keynes was bad, the free-market was better, that sweatshop labor wasn't so bad, and that the hands-off regulations in China were better than those in the U.S." Their economics textbook, he said, was co-written by Russell Sobel, the former recipient of Koch funding at West Virginia University who had taught that safety regulations hurt coal miners. The textbook, which Funt described as arguing that "climate change wasn't caused by humans and isn't a big issue," had been given an F by an environmental group. But when critics raised objections, the Kochs defended their purchase of influence over public universities as merely providing "fresh" college thinking. [p. 365] Academics, reporters and activists have gone to great lengths to document more instances of Koch's use of campuses for political lobbying. Ms. Mayer dug up more examples, which are sure to be of interest to the academic community. The Mercatus Center at George Mason University lobbied for the infamous Enron loophole deregulation scheme, after hiring Enron executive Wendy Gramm [pp.154-155]. Mercatus also leveraged attacks on President Obama's stimulus package, the plan to spend the economy out of recession [p.171]. SUPPLANTING PEER-REVIEW Koch and its predecessors like Olin and Bradley have discovered how out of touch most Americans are with the (ideally) rigorous academic process of peer-review. While professors and other academics are familiar with assessing the validity of varying publishing bodies, the public and the media they rely upon often do not require exhaustive vetting of information before accepting it. This has allowed Koch-funded professors to publish reports--incapable of passing a true peer-review--using universities names in order to bolster the credibility of their advocacy. Without the rigorous peer-reviewed standards required by prestigious academic publications, the Olin Foundation was able to inject into the mainstream a number of works whose scholarship was debatable at best. Advertisement This has been illustrated as recently as 2015, with Koch-funded professors at Utah State University advocating against subsidies for competitors to Koch Industries: wind and solar companies. Professors at the Koch-funded Institute for Political Economy at USU, and its off-campus, Koch-funded affiliate organization, Strata Policy, have written dishonest op-eds and testified in other states' legislatures to support Koch-backed campaigns against clean energy subsidies. Previously, professors at Kansas University and Suffolk University were financed by Koch to advocate for removal of clean energy subsidies, via reports that were not published in academic, peer-reviewed journals. (Suffolk has since committed kick its Koch-funded think tank off-campus by the end of 2016). Koch's use of professors for lobbying isn't restricted to energy issues, nor state-level politics. George Mason University's Mercatus Center has been cited repeatedly in the Congressional record, as reported by the Center for Public Integrity: Congress is also paying more attention to the Mercatus Center, which from 1999 to 2008 was mentioned by name 32 times in either the Congressional Record or congressional committee reports. Since 2009, it's been mentioned 93 times, often in reference to Mercatus Center faculty who were testifying before Congress. This year, Congress even cited Mercatus Center research in the text of budget bills. House Concurrent Resolution 27 and Senate Concurrent Resolution 11 note that a Mercatus Center study "estimates that Obamacare will reduce employment by up to 3 percent, or about 4 million full-time equivalent workers." In North Carolina, the Mercatus Center published a report cited by Koch's flagship lobbying group, Americans for Prosperity, in a push against healthcare expansion. Advertisement In Arizona, a Koch-funded campus center has advanced the priorities of Governor Doug Ducey. The Koch-funded Center for the Study of Economic Liberty at Arizona State University appears to have for Governor Ducey's plan to and prematurely spend $2 billion in savings. Ducey, a regular attendee of the Koch brothers Freedom Partners political summits, has ignored the warnings of defunded future education from Arizona's state treasurer. PERPETUAL VULNERABILITY The opportunity to leverage large grants to university programs and endowments is no secret in the Koch network. One of Koch's partner donors, billionaire Home Depot founder Ken Langone, expressed his frustration frankly after a public finance scandal: "if it wasn't for us fat cats and the endowments we fund, every university in the country would be fucked." [p.14] The question for professors, students and university administrators is what hoops they will have to jump through as a result of selling endowments and campus operations to private donors. FILE - In this Nov. 9, 2015, file photo, a member of the black student protest group Concerned Student 1950 gestures while addressing a crowd following the announcement that University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe would resign, at the university in Columbia, Mo. The roots of the protest began decades ago, when the University of Missouri, founded in 1839, enrolled its first black student in 1950. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File) As I reflect on this year's MLK day, I am taken back many years. I was a young teenager living in a suburb and learned that a black family purchased a home a couple of miles from my home. When the neighbors learned that the family was black they tried to buy the house to prevent the family from moving in. The neighbors were unsuccessful but their actions bothered me, and I soon joined a group named the Congress on Racial Equality. On a hot and muggy August day, I was one of the 250,000 people gathered on the Washington mall in D.C.--the largest such gathering in history--to speak out in support of equality for all. I was standing at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial when Dr. King gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. What I remember more than the speech is seeing thousands of people of all colors and races, religions and economic backgrounds, joining hands and singing the civil rights movement's national anthems. Advertisement For the nation it was a pivotal event, and within a year the Congress and President responded by enacting the most sweeping civil rights act in our history. For me personally, it was a defining moment, convincing me that I would someday go to law school and become a civil rights lawyer. As I look back it is clear that we have come a very long way toward equality and justice since that day over 50 years ago. Yet, as I look around, I realize that there is still much work to do. It is sad for me to say that too often today we witness a world where differences are used as justifications for hatred, for injustice, and for violence. Racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender and economic differences are literally tearing apart the world. During the past semester we have witnessed unrest over racial issues on campuses across the country. While the demonstrations have been sparked by specific incidents, they represent much deeper, widespread and real concerns. In the past decade, colleges and universities have become more diverse, not only with respect to race but also across cultural and ethnic lines and with respect to gender identity. This diversity is a wonderful development. But, in many instances much more effort has been focused on increasing the number of students who add to diversity and less attention has been directed to ensuring that all students feel welcomed and included on their campuses. The current campus demonstrations also occur within a larger national and international context. Vivid racial events over the past few years remind us once again of our continuing national struggle to address racial injustices. Recent debates over immigration highlight the discomfort with cultural and religious differences. Similarly, the battles over gay marriages underscore the uneasiness with differences related to gender identity. We are hearing politicians who use fear as a justification to fuel hatred rather than understanding. Advertisement It is clear that the growing interconnectedness of the world will continue to highlight the differences that exist throughout our local, national and global communities. As one writer observed, "Difference has now become part of the texture of daily life. . . . That can be an enriching experience or a threatening one." Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that one of the most important roles for higher education is to prepare students to live and work with people who are different from themselves--to make sure that difference is viewed as an enriching experience rather than a threatening one. We are preparing future leaders who are the hope for much needed change. To create that change, however, students must have the skills and understanding to foster interdependence. How do we do this in higher education? First, we must start with a common understanding and agreement that preparation of students to view difference as a positive, enriching experience, is indeed a core mission of a great education. Second, we must create a campus community that has the richness of racial, cultural, religious, gender and economic diversity among its students, faculty and staff. Finally, we must create curricular and co-curricular programs that emphasize our diversity as well as our interdependence and commonalities. This is not an easy challenge. It requires that our commitment to diversity rise above lip service and become part of the very fabric of the school. It requires work, and sometimes hard work that involves a level of discomfort. In addition to committing to development of a plan to ensure that we attain our objectives with respect to diversity and inclusion, I ask that each member of our campus community commit to speaking out when he or she sees incidents of intolerance. Each of us has a responsibility to speak up if we see our friends and colleagues behaving in a manner that is inconsistent with respect for the dignity of others. Silence is not an option if we are truly committed to creating an inclusive campus. Indeed as King said: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Advertisement A New York Times foreign correspondent tweets, "2 brave Muslim women ... dissect IS videos 2show just how grounded they r in Islamic scripture." "Courageous push for [women's] rights in Muslim world," reads a Des Moines Register headline to describe a campaign challenging Iran's religious dress code. The Boston Globe spotlights, "Four Courageous Women Who Are Making a Difference," in Kenya, Pakistan and Syria. Advertisement Muslim women are often celebrated as courageous when pushing back against legal, social and cultural norms within their faith communities. But, Rose Hamid's recent silent protest at (and ejection from) a Trump rally while sporting a hijab and T-shirt that read, "Salam, I come in peace" begs the question: aren't Muslim women pushing back against Islamophobia "courageous," too? We haven't always viewed them that way. But, perhaps we should. Consider these examples. Muslim Women Create Their Own Fashion Norms (By Embracing Modesty) Abrar Shain, a Palestinian-American voted best dressed by NJ high school seniors last year. (Credit: Emirates 247) From Dina Tokio to Haute Hijab, from Dolce & Gabbana to DKNY, from models to fashion bloggers, Muslim women have changed fashion norms while remaining true to their faith beliefs. In a world where following the latest trend is everything, these Muslim women have made their mark by ignoring it, with a modest sense of style. Brave. Courageous Muslim Women Fight to Attend School (in Belgium and France) Muslim schoolgirls sent home from school in Belgium for wearing long skirts. (Credit: Channel 24) Last year, European Muslim women were denied the right to an education - a human right that everyone should enjoy - for wearing a long skirt to class. Advertisement In France, where the hijab and other religious "symbols" have been banned since 2004, more than 130 Muslim schoolgirls (who had already abandoned their headscarf) were sent home because officials disapproved of their modest skirts (e.g. too provocative, conspicuously religious, etc.). Muslim students in Belgium had a similar experience. These developments triggered a Twitter campaign, #JePorteMaJupeCommeJeVeux which translates into 'I'll wear my skirt how I like.' As a result of the public pressure, Belgian school officials eventually permitted the brave Muslim schoolgirls to pursue their studies. Brave Muslim Women Go Online, Take to the Streets to Challenge Status Quo (Islamophobia) Amara Majeed. (Credit: Baltimore Sun.) American Muslim women are creating online initiatives, networking sites and blogs to counter negative messaging and views about their faith and religious community. For example, Amara Majeed is a 17-year-old high school student who created "The Hijab Project" to challenge hostility towards Muslim religious attire. Her desire to remedy misconceptions about Muslims motivates her to also write for CNN and The Huffington Post. Majeed's courage has even inspired her mother, who grew up in Sri Lanka, to reclaim the hijab she had abandoned out of fear post 9/11. Like Majeed, Rana Abdelhamid also created a social media campaign - "Hijabis of New York" -- to raise awareness about the experience, perspectives and identities of American Muslim women. A graduate student at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Abdelhamid's project represents her courageous, peaceful response to a prevailing climate of Islamophobia. Advertisement Others, like Mona Haydar, have taken to the street to challenge stereotypes. Last year, together with her husband, Haydar set up a "Ask a Muslim," stand outside a public library in Cambridge, Mass. The allure of free coffee and doughnuts drew folks into conversation. Haydar later shared her reflections -- hopeful, inspiring and optimistic -- on Facebook. Brave Muslim Women Succeed in their Careers (Despite Alarmingly High Rates of Religious Discrimination in Employment) Mishal Hussain/CREDIT: BBC. Research evidence tells us that Muslim women face formidable challenges overcoming employment discrimination because of their faith identities. A recent British study found, for instance, that Muslim women are 70% more likely to be unemployed than their white Christian counterparts with identical credentials and language skills. And, anecdotal evidence suggests that anti-Muslim animus isn't just directed to those who have embraced the hijab. Still, some British Muslim women are pushing back against Islamophobia and succeeding anyway. Last year, the UK saw a historic 13 Muslim women become Members of Parliament. The BBC's Mishal Husain, a Muslim of Pakistani heritage, was also named Broadcaster of the Year. And, Nadiya Hussain - of Great British Bake Off fame - won her nation's heart. Advertisement Each of these Muslim women were courageous enough to believe in themselves, and in the possibility of change. Muslim Women Speak Out Against Community Violence (Bias Attacks) Darlene Hider/CREDIT: Aljazeera. As a guest on a European radio station observed last year, "It takes courage to wear a scarf." In the past decade or so, Muslim women here and in Western European have been increasingly targeted by anti-Muslim hate violence. More than 80% of hate crimes in France are experienced by Muslim women; similar rates prevail in the U.K. as well. American Muslim women are also vulnerable. But, they are speaking up and fighting back. Literally, at times. After she was physically assaulted in an anti-Muslim hate crime, Rana Abdelhamid - the Harvard grad student referenced above - developed self- defense classes to protect other women. She's not alone. After Australian Muslim Nasrin Amin experienced two separate hate attacks in Melbourne, she organized a community wide forum to raise awareness about Islamophobia, and Muslim women's experiences. Interestingly, her message is one of friendship. "There's nothing to be scared of," she shared at the forum, "we can be friends." While some have overcome violent hate crimes, other Muslim women's experiences haven't involved physical injuries but are perhaps just as traumatic. Advertisement Representative is Darlene Hider's encounter with Islamophobia during her Delta Air Lines flight last year. While traveling with her family, Hider was moved to the back of the plan after another passenger began complaining about her kids. She apparently told Hider, who wears the hijab, "This is America!" Still, Hider's message was one of forgiveness. "This made me stronger," Hider told HuffPost. "Our faith teaches us to forgive, and I do." And, that too takes courage. Welcome to Line Danci Read more [...] FILE - This file photo combination made from Aug. 6, 2015, photos shows Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, left, and Fox News Channel host and moderator Megyn Kelly during the first Republican presidential debate at the Quicken Loans Arena, in Cleveland. Trump is welcoming Kelly back from a vacation with a broadside of criticism, tweeting that he liked her show better when she was away. Trump has been attacking Kelly ever since her tough questioning of him during the debate. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File) A quick recap of the tumultuous, on-again/off-again relationship between Fox News and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump: Trump has an ally in Fox News. Trump doesn't like Megyn Kelly. Trump irons things out with Roger Ailes. Trump is boycotting Fox News. Trump is no longer boycotting Fox News. Trump spends New Year's Eve with Fox News. Trump might not show up at Fox News' GOP debate. Trump is kind of a chicken for ducking Fox News' debate. Trump is "definitely not" going to the debate. Why can't these two frenemies just get along? Like the bickering Sam and Diane duo from Cheers sitcom fame, Trump and Fox News obviously belong together (they like all the same things!), but they just can't get past their stubborn differences. Advertisement Thursday night's Fox-hosted primary debate on the eve of the Iowa caucus has now been completely overshadowed by the roiling feud between friends/enemies Trump and Fox, as the two institutional bullies lock horns. Is the current impasse a lasting one, or will the harsh words be papered over in the days and weeks to come the way previous Trump vs. Fox skirmishes ended in handshakes and smiles? It's too soon to tell. What's so strange about the discord is that Trump is practically the living personification of the Fox News id: He's a bigoted nativist who wallows in Islamophobia and thrives on dividing Americans and insulting President Obama as an un-American radical. After the traditionally nice campaign of Mitt Romney in 2012, you'd think Fox News would be loving the insult-throwing Trump, a candidate who, like so many Fox anchors and hosts, isn't afraid to make stuff up. Trump mirrors the often-tasteless brand of divisive rhetoric that Ailes helped hallmark at Fox. But the truth is, Trump seems to hold Fox in the same general contempt that he holds the rest of the press. Meaning, from the Trump worldview, Fox doesn't operate on a similar plane as him. Fox is subservient to Trump and -- in his mind -- should be in the business of touting his campaign. If and when it does not, Trump loses his cool because he doesn't like to be second-guessed by "lightweight" journalists. Advertisement This represents a whole new world for Fox, which has controlled the conservative debate, and in turn controlled Republican politicians, for more than a decade. Fox sets the parameters. Fox picks the agenda. Fox grooms a handful of Republicans for right-wing media stardom. That's why I can't recall anyone ever picking such a public fight with Fox News from inside the GOP tent the way Trump has. It's simply not done. And Fox's frantic, off-key corporate response to Trump's jabs has confirmed that executives there have very little practice fighting intramural skirmishes. Forget that Fox cemented Trump's right-wing celebrity status in 2011 when it handed over uninterrupted airtime for him to unfurl his misguided birther campaign against President Obama. Forget that Sean Hannity's basement is probably lined with Trump for President posters. Without Fox News' exaggerated generosity over the years, and without Fox providing endless free airtime in the form of promotional blitzes to tout Trump as a possible presidential player, it's unlikely Trump today would be perched atop the Republican field. Trump this week is exercising a power play, pure and simple. (He knows he's the reason Fox likely sold ads for the debate at a sky-high rate.) Bottom line: Roger Ailes is finally facing someone who's willing, and eager, to out-bully him. And do it in public. Of course what makes all this angry back-and-forth so funny is that one combatant is supposed to be a news organization. News organizations aren't supposed have bizarre, on-going public spats with one party's leading candidate. Anchors on a news channel aren't supposed to plead with candidates to show up at debates. And the head of a news channels doesn't usually try to patch things up by directly phoning powerful politicians. But this is Fox News, so all the normal rules go out the window. Advertisement Indeed, the underlying truth here is that if Fox News conducted itself as an ethical news outlet, these kinds of messy spats and hurt feelings wouldn't be an issue. Instead, Fox is often run as a Republican National Committee marketing arm, or a GOP clubhouse, raising expectations from Republicans in terms of how they'll be treated. Trump clearly senses a weakness there and is now trying to exploit it. In August, I suggested that Fox News, via the unwieldy Trump charade, had "eaten the Republican primary season" and that the "slow-motion fiasco is only going to get much, much worse for Republicans." Boy, has it. Democrats are likely pointing and laughing this week. TEHRAN, IRAN - JANUARY 23 : Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (L) shake hands during an official welcoming ceremony prior to their meeting at Saadabad Palace in Tehran, Iran on January 23, 2016. (Photo by Pool / Iranian Presidency/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) Chinese President Xi Jinping's three-country tour of the Middle East and North Africa offers yet another example of Beijing's expanding drive for increased global influence. During his first visit to the region, Xi traveled to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran where he inserted his government into the mix of some of the world's most volatile regions. Advertisement That Xi chose to visit these countries for his first overseas trip of the year, a highly symbolic act that is closely watched by Chinese foreign policy observers, is not surprising given China's increased dependence on oil from the Middle East and Persian Gulf. Experts contend, though, that there was much more to the trip than the usual cash-for-resources tours that Chinese leaders often do elsewhere in Africa. In this instance, there's a lot more at stake. One Belt, One Road Both Egypt and Iran are critical pieces in China's rapidly evolving global trading strategy that aims to revive the ancient silk road that once connected Persia with China. Known commonly as One Belt, One Road initiative, China hopes to link its economy with markets in Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa through expansive new maritime routes, international rail lines and other overland connections. If successful, OBOR promises to bring billions of dollars in Chinese development funds to these countries and further integrate them into China's trading orbit. A Region in Flux Xi's visit also coincides with a series of dramatic power shifts in the region that provides a unique opportunity for Beijing to expand its influence there. Saudi Arabia's growing alienation from the United States, a once unshakable alliance, over Washington's rapprochement with Iran allowed for Xi to receive a much warmer welcome in Riyadh than he would have just a few years ago. Separately, across the Persian Gulf in Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei expressed his eagerness for building a deeper relationship with China to serve as a potential counterweight to the United States. Similarly, in Egypt, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's turbulent relationship with Washington no doubt contributed to his enthusiastic courtship of Chinese investment and development during Xi's visit. Risks Everywhere While the strategic logic of China's desire to broaden its reach in the Middle East and North Africa is obvious, the key question is whether or not Beijing is capable of successfully navigating the region's volatile, often violent politics. This is new diplomatic terrain for the Chinese and the risk of policy missteps are very high. For now, the Chinese don't bring much more to the table than money. If their people and big new investments get sucked into the sectarian conflicts that are ravaging the region, it will not be easy for China to extricate itself without suffering considerable losses -- both human and financial. Advertisement Lina Benabdallah is a China-Africa scholar at the University of Florida's Center for African Studies where she is pursuing her Ph.D. Lina's research focuses on Chinese foreign and security policy in Africa, and as a native Arabic speaker from Algeria, she also closely follows China's diplomatic activity in North Africa and the Arab world. Lina joins Eric & Cobus this week -- in the podcast above -- to discuss Xi's recent Mideast trip and what it says about the current direction of Chinese foreign policy. Vampire, Steampunk, Neo-Victorian styled Balls, embellished with elegance, where the illusions of alternate realities are created, are the type of events that I love to attend. Now the Edwardian Ball in San Francisco has been added to my list. I have been around the world and attended many such events on my fang making adventures. They include, secret Masque Balls of Venice Carnival, The Memnoch Ball (in 1995 celebrating the release of Anne Rice's film Interview with the Vampire) in New Orleans to the amazing Gala Nocturna in Belgium. All of these events inspire the Endless Night Vampire Ball I organize every year in New Orleans. I know what goes into producing these elegant events on a much larger scale, and this was one of the best I have experienced in my travels. The organization was very professional, and the costumes were immensely creative. The audience's participation of costume and spirit, seemed as though it was a collaboration with the production itself. The little details, from artistically designed faux money for games, to the performances on stage, finally topped off with the beautiful former Freemason Temple, today called the Regency Ballroom. This venue was the perfect setting which induced an atmosphere that transported us, the audience -- to another time and reality. In the crowd was a collection of Silicon Valley techies, steampunks, costume lovers and Burning Man audience. With music from bygone eras, from swing to Jazz and to what you would expect to hear in Paris during the Belle Epoque era. The Edwardian Ball has just celebrated its 16th annual event. Both nights were sold out with a total attendance of over 4000! The theme was World's Faire, perfect for an Edwardian Era theme event, which you get to dance amongst people who are transported to the turn of the 20th century in spirit and atmosphere. The performances were endless, with new surprises, eye candy and new delights, around every corner. Advertisement Playing with a real steam whistle, and taking a stroll through the halls of the Regency during one of my brief breaks from fang making, I found to be incredible. The lower level consisted of the vendors market, while the main floor hosted the main stage, accompanied a stunning ball room. Within the top floors the VIP section took place in a historic Freemason temple, which any conspiracy theorist could indulge in. The best part for me was making fangs for such a great audience. They were enthusiastic and all in good spirits. There is now a good Vampire World budding in the Bay area... I could tell each individual would bring a new spirit to my ever evolving Vampire World. Edwardian Vampires? Perfect! Absolutely! Vampires are time travelers, hailing from every era in human history. I enjoyed meeting my fellow vendors from around the world, people travelling as far as France, Bali and Israel to vend their wares. Mysteriously, some of them fell in love with my fangs and became members of my fanged family immediately. Making fangs in many different places such as Burning Man, Edwardian Ball, Hellfest in France and the darkest corners of the world has helped me craft such an interesting family of fang clients. The Edwardian Ball gave me inspiration and a new spirit, which I fully embrace. I am a critic of every detail when it comes to producing historical themed events, and the Edwardian Ball didn't let me down. Advertisement The next Edwardian Ball will be a special edition at the Fonda Theatre in LA on February 27 2016... I am definitely going to return next year and bring even more people into the Vampire World... Love, Loyalty and Rock & Roll! Vampire Fang Photos by Father Sebastiaan and Marco Sanchez In President Obama's final State of the Union Address, a new "moon shot" to cure cancer was launched into orbit, and Vice President Joe Biden is at the controls. The talk of a "moon shot" is the exact mindset that we need -- and America can and should lead the way. And the good news is, we're already half way there. Since 2013, we have been working together as a Republican from Michigan and a Democrat from Colorado, united in the belief that the country needs and is ready for a renewed effort to support biomedical research and harness innovation to turn discoveries in a lab into the treatments and cures that change patients' lives. We are passionate about finding faster cures and better treatments for diseases that touch every family in America, including the Vice President's and our own. Advertisement Our legislative approach was different. We listened. We engaged. We solicited input. We drafted. We listened some more. It was an inclusive, unique, transparent process, a comprehensive effort that criss-crossed the country, engaging experts in every related field, from academia to government to private industry and everything in between. And most importantly, we listened to patients. Our efforts culminated in legislation that would safely speed the discovery, development and delivery of new drugs and devices: H.R. 6, the 21st Century Cures Act, which overwhelmingly passed the House 344 to 77 six months ago. The bill invests nearly $9 billion in new resources for a medical research innovation fund at the National Institutes of Health that will target diseases for which there is not yet a cure. 21st Century Cures also supports the Food and Drug Administration with new resources to keep pace with medical innovation, including new drugs and devices that need expert review. This bill also brings the patient perspective to the heart of research and development, and seeks to foster better use of personalized medicine and more participation in clinical trials. The bill is now in the Senate, and movement is on the horizon. Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) recently announced that the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee has scheduled a series of votes on its medical innovation package. With continued commitment and effort, the House and Senate can work together to get a final bill to the president's desk this year, making that "moon shot" within reach. Vice President Biden will surely offer some other new ideas that encourage more collaboration among scientists and use the latest genomic technology to end the scourge of cancer. We welcome those ideas as the White House's effort fits well with the framework we developed and further underscores something we all agree on -- we can't wait any longer. Every day we don't act is another day we lose loved ones to disease and people suffer needlessly. We must act, and we must act now. Advertisement We can debate ideas and get input forever, but that won't cure a disease or save a life. The American people expect Congress to come together on matters that can improve lives. The 21st Century Cures legislation and the Biden "moon shot" initiative together can fulfill that promise. We look forward to working with Vice President Biden and our colleagues in the Senate to get this done in the next several months. The recent announcements by the president and Senate are just the latest positive milestones in the effort to give patients and their loved ones more hope. But we have much work left to do to make 21st Century Cures a reality. Flag of the country Haiti Vector illustration in official colors. "Evidence is the bones of an opinion." The quote is from a novel by Mark Twain that explores the life of Joan of Arc through a fictionalized version of Joan of Arc's page, Louis de Contes. Twain's reflection on the interdependence of evidence and informed opinion is a cautionary example of the challenge writers have when sorting out the morass facing Haiti in the current elections. Some opinion astoundingly favors current President Michel Martelly and his vile antics both on the musical and international stages. Martelly's narcissistic and pornographic performances are too blue to write about, but the New Yorker presents the evidence of a disturbed personality, for those who can handle the unpleasant descriptions. Advertisement At issue today is the decision by the Organization of American States (OAS) to send a special mission to Haiti to ostensibly "help" Haiti resolve the electoral and political crisis gripping the nation. Elections have been postponed over allegations of voter fraud, and the opposition candidate Jude Celestin has refused to participate, leaving only President Martelly's hand-picked successor, "Banana Man" Jovenel Moise, in the non-existent "run-off." The definition of run-off assumes there is a contest involving more than one individual. Martelly is constitutionally mandated has to leave office by February 7. The Associated Press (AP) quoted the OAS chairman, Antigua Ambassador Ronald Sanders, saying there would be "utter bloodshed" in Haiti," without the intervention of the OAS. Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the OAS, wrote a letter to Sanders at the behest of Martelly. I have the honor to write to you to request convening an extraordinary session of the Permanent Council to present an updated "Status Report of the OAS Electoral Observation Mission to Haiti" no later than Wednesday, January 27. This request is made in accordance with Article 24, paragraph 3 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which states, "Electoral Observation missions shall present a report on their activities in a timely manner to the Permanent Council through the General Secretariat." In addition, I would like to inform you your Excellency that in direct conversations I recently maintained with Haiti's President Michel Martelly, he expressed the urgent need for the extraordinary session to take place under the terms established in Article 17 of the aforementioned document. Whether the OAS can be helpful is a matter of opinion that bears no evidence of record. The evidence is overwhelming that the OAS, with the complicity of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her chief of staff Cheryl Mills, changed the votes in 2010 to place Michel Martelly into the runoff. The Clinton email dump, the statements by the head of Haiti's Election Commission (CEP), Pierre Louis Opont, and the testimony OAS insider Ricardo Seitenfus are part of the body of evidence that the OAS cannot be Haiti's savior. Martelly is turning to an old ally to further his own political agenda. Advertisement In his book, International Crossroads and Failures in Haiti, Brazilian professor Ricardo Seitenfus, former Organization of American States (OAS) Ambassador to Haiti, details international meddling in Haiti's 2010 elections, discussions by the "core group" of a coup to force then-President Rene Preval from office, and ballot box tinkering that guaranteed candidate Jude Celestin would not advance to the runoff election. Michel Martelly won the March 2011 runoff with less than 17 percent of eligible voters participating, defeating conservative former first lady Mirlande Manigat. The Clinton emails offer more evidence of collusion, bribes and fixing. Hillary Clinton email C05781668_2011_B_Parliament suggests possible bribes and payments where made or attempted to change elections results. 'It is unclear if the CEP will bow to pressure/ payments." The Clinton emails offer evidence of election fraud and more. Email CO5779428 has Cheryl Mills crowing to Haiti Ambassador Kenneth Merton and others: You do great elections. And make us all look good. I am so very grateful for all you have done. Dinner on me in Haiti next trip.[And we can discuss how the counting is going! Just kidding. Kind of (smiley emoticon)] I asked former Ambassador Seitenfus his opinion about the recent OAS intervention. His response was swift and emphatic. His opinion is backed up by the fact that he was present at a 2010 meeting of the OAS core group when vote fixing and a possible coup against then president Rene Preval was openly discussed. "TRES MAUVAISE IDEE!!" (A very bad idea) "OAS is part of the problem and can not be associated with seeking a solution.OAS duped in Haiti in 2010 and 2011, Seitenfus wrote." Advertisement "It is Haitians to decide the future of Haiti," says Celso Amorim, the head of the Election Observation Mission (MOE) of the OAS. Amorim discussed a possible OAS intervention during an interview broadcast on Radio France International (RFI) earlier this week. Amorim was firm in his convistion that the U.S. and the European Union should allow Haiti to decide what is best for Haitians. Regine Barjon, former U.S. State Department, Congress, Senate and U.S. Southern Command advisor voiced a very personal opinion as a member of the Haitian Diaspora. "I think it's very sad that personal ambition has trumped putting Haiti first!" Barjon explained in an email, decrying politicians who are unable to put aside personal differences. "The quest for democracy seems very far away from the intent and purpose of the transitional government. Rather, the transitional government, which seems inevitable at this point, seems more like a quest for power and control of the electoral process. And though Martelly's mistakes are compounded in having aggravated the whole process, I'm very disappointed," Barjon wrote. She further stressed that the electoral conflict "Also reflects a disorganized elite also unable to work together." Advertisement A letter from citizen of member countries of the Core Group, wrote an evidentiary letter to the OAS. In it, they stated that they felt "very uncomfortable in the position taken by our representatives, we do not understand it, and want to know." "Have they not heard the alerts issued by numerous personalities from the human rights sector? They are unaware that clashes linked to the electoral process block entire cities? "In such an explosive context, and after months of jusqu'au-boutisme, actors of diplomacy, often accused of meddling in the country, should, in our view, to stick to a clear neutrality and refrain from any ambiguity. The resolution of the current crisis lies with Haitian actors, the letter said; signed by 53 foreign nationals living in Haiti and witnesses to what is happening on the ground there. "Jusqu'au-boutisme." Hard line. Dogmatic. Without facts or reference to reality. Being a woman can be difficult in many ways. Even apart from of the social disadvantages imposed by sexism, women deal with certain physical issues that men just don't. There are, however, certain areas where these physical burdens and sociopolitical pressures collide. I'm talking about menstruation. For a long time, the stigma surrounding this event in women's lives prevented discussion. But, as more and more women are willing to speak up about their periods, we are finally able to construct policies better for the sake of women's overall health. The absurd expense of tampons is one of these circumstances that policy makers are now addressing. Democrat Cristina Garcia recently introduced AB 1561, or "Sales and use taxes: exemption: sanitary napkins: tampons", which is a California bill that would legally re-label feminine hygiene products such as pads and tampons as being medical necessities. This would make them exempt from taxation. This bill is extremely important. Taxes such as those on tampons are harder on poor women, even though all women menstruate. More and more policy makers are accepting that proper menstrual management is important essential to women's health and wellbeing. Tampons are expensive enough as it is. Advertisement According to Conscious Period, a company that provides menstrual products to homeless women, 247,174 women in the United States are currently homeless. While shelters receive many very helpful donations, they rarely have a surplus of feminine sanitary products. This means that homeless women are left to fend for themselves during their periods. When you're living on the streets and struggling to feed yourself, the added expense of tampons or pads can be too much to bear. For a woman making decent money, a simple tax on tampons may be unnoticeable, but for someone who is poor who spends a larger percentage of her money on tampons, a "small" difference may strip away her ability to afford a product entirely. Having a period can be difficult for some women. However, there are a lot of things more affluent women are able to do to manage any inconvenience. My usual routine consists of warm blankets, chocolate, and Tylenol. But those are just luxuries, and realistically I can probably do without most of them. Certain menstrual products, however, are medical necessities, and the tampon is one of them. As Christina Garcia points out: "Having a period is not a choice for women." If women don't have the resources to handle their periods effectively when they arrive, there can be severe impacts on their health, and day-to-day activities. Advertisement According to UNICEF, it's important to use clean feminine products, and to change them often: "Not doing so can result in you getting fungal infections. Repeated infections lead to serious reproductive tract infections and can cause infertility in the long term." Increasingly we are seeing stories about women in less developed countries leaving school at puberty because of period shaming. The Girl Effect reports: "In Sierra Leone, more than a fifth of girls miss school because of their periods. In Afghanistan and Nepal, three out of 10 girls miss school for the same reason." Unfortunately, this period shaming is not a narrative unique to countries in the global south. As Chris Bobel from the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research writes, ...from my living room in the US, steps away from a washing machine/dryer and a reliable bathroom, I didn't dismiss the possibility (of girls missing school due to their period) too quickly. The menstrual taboo, after all, does complicate period management when you spend the day with boys, boys who must not know what your body is up to-this takes time and energy. I too can remember stepping out of class when I was in high school to wash menstrual blood out of my skirt. It was a rural, small town, conservative community. I was always so worried at such moments that someone else had seen the stains on my clothes as I left the room; bullying is not uncommon, especially in high school or middle school. A young woman caught in the act of menstruation, with bloodstains on her clothing to prove it, is a visible target for harassment. For me this situation was a mishap; but for a young woman who simply can't afford menstrual supplies this embarrassment would be a daunting reoccurring risk. Advertisement Last year, Huffington Post author Jessica Kane reported that, over her lifetime, the average woman will spend $18,171 on period-related purchases. Kane estimated that the cost of panty liners and tampons alone would be over $2000, however this cost may be an underestimation. I spoke with my former high school friend Mandie Fagerness, from Dolores Colorado, about this usage metric. She and I used to bond over our menstrual management troubles when we were young. She says that today, even a "super" sized tampon won't remain effective for more than two hours for a woman with a heavy menstrual flow. One woman in twenty has periods of this kind. One seven dollar box comes with only 36 tampons. For women of any kind of menstrual flow those recurring costs add up quickly. While passing AB 1561 would be a huge step in creating more equal treatment across gender lines, more progress must be made. Currently, only five states don't tax feminine hygiene products. On a positive note, three other states, California, New York, and Ohio, have introduced new bills pushing for a similar change. You can use the BillCam embedded in this article to talk to your representatives about this solution for women's health and well-being, and together we can push for true equality. Radon gas is invisible and odorless. But it reveals itself in a deadly footprint it can leave behind -- lung cancer. In fact, exposure to radon gas is the second leading cause of lung cancer, and one in 15 homes in America is at risk from elevated levels of radon. January is National Radon Action Month and the perfect time to take action to protect you and your loved ones from this invisible killer. Understanding Radon Radon is a naturally occurring invisible, odorless and tasteless gas. It occurs when uranium in the soil and rock underground breaks down to form radon. As radon decays, it releases radioactive byproducts that are inhaled and can cause lung cancer. Radon enters a home through cracks in the walls, basement floors, foundations and other openings, and can build up to dangerous concentrations. Radon causes approximately 21,000 lung cancer deaths each year. Fortunately, these deaths are preventable. The good news is that accurate and inexpensive tests exist to measure radon levels in your home, and if levels are too high, economical radon mitigation systems can be easily put in place to reduce it to a safe level. Advertisement A National Plan to Save Lives As part of Radon Action Month, the American Lung Association calls on Americans to test their homes for this naturally occurring gas. But individual, voluntary testing is just the first step. Our nation as a whole must set into motion strategies to eliminate these avoidable lung cancer deaths. That's why the Lung Association has partnered with leaders from the private sector and the federal government to drive this change and end these preventable deaths. The Lung Association led a national workgroup to create a National Radon Action Plan that identifies proven, effective strategies to reduce exposure to radon gas. Implementing these strategies would prevent an estimated 3,200 lung cancer deaths by 2020. The Plan seeks to reduce exposure in 5 million high-radon homes, apartments, schools and childcare centers. Two top priorities in the plan approach radon mitigation from the finance/insurance side and through the state building codes. The first strategy is to make radon testing and systems to reduce radon a standard practice in housing finance and insurance programs. In other words, before a home can be financed or insured it must be tested and, if needed, radon mitigation measures put in place. The second strategy would incorporate radon risk reduction systems in state building codes. The Lung Association and partners are already working to put these priorities in place by meeting with groups, including housing finance and building code developers. This plan builds on the work of the Federal Radon Action Plan adopted in 2011. Under that plan, federal agencies made several key steps using available authority and resources to advance the battle against radon. Key federal partners leading the way in the National Radon Action Plan are the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Over the past few years, this plan has transitioned from a strictly federal plan to a broader, national plan involving multiple agencies and non-governmental organizations. These groups identified key strategies that could effectively build in radon protection across the nation. But you don't have to wait to get that protection for your family. Advertisement Protecting Your Home January is a great month to test your home for radon. Do-it-yourself test kits are simple and inexpensive. Testing can also be done by a certified radon-testing professional. Test kits are available at many local hardware stores or online. (In New Jersey, test kits may only be purchased online through New Jersey Resident Test Kits.) Questions about radon gas testing may be directed to the Lung Association's free Lung HelpLine (1-800-LUNGUSA). "I never dared to be radical when young," Robert Frost said, "for fear it would make me conservative when old." Joan Baez is Exhibit A that Frost was wrong. Celebrating her 75th birthday with the taping of a PBS show at the Beacon Theater, Joan Baez looked like an advertisement for Pilates, meditation and the examined life. She wore black jeans, a black satin blouse and a tuxedo jacket, and my first thought was: Joanie Cash. But all that black was more than a folkie uniform. The black contrasted with her cropped white hair and the unlined glory of her face, and my second thought was: Her beauty has as much to do with her life choices as with genetics. The first words she sang were from a song by Steve Earle --- "I believe in prophecy/ Some folks see things not everybody can see/ And once in a while/ they pass the secret along to you and me." The accuracy brought shivers. From 1960, when she released her first album, her life has been an unbroken stream of gestures that should have condemned her to the margins of music but have instead made her a role model. [She's on tour through March. Ann Arbor, Toronto, Ithaca, Concord (New Hampshire), New Haven, Burlington, Englewood, Red Bank, Frederick (Maryland) Lexington, Charleston, Atlanta, Birmingham, Durham, Wilmington, Albany and Buffalo. For information and tickets, click here.] Advertisement A role model who's never wavered, even as, she says, "We head into the abyss." Her credo: People say to me how do you maintain your optimism? Guess what? I never had much. The miracle is to go off and do something anyway. To whatever extent you can lead a decent life and also do something for other people is the thing. I never remember where this comes from, but someone said there is only the trying and the rest is not our business. The New York concert, which will be broadcast in the "Great Performances" series on PBS in June, was built around duets with musicians who endorse that philosophy: David Bromberg, Jackson Browne, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Judy Collins, David Crosby, Emmylou Harris, Indigo Girls, Damien Rice, Paul Simon, Mavis Staples, Richard Thompson, and Nano Stern. Not that she needed others to bolster her aging voice. She still owns the lower register and when she reaches for the soprano, the familiar tremble dazzles. The set list was her greater hits --- the early Dylan songs that introduced him and made her, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," "Diamonds and Rust") , but it was the surprises that made the night for me. David Crosby, looking like a Chinese tea master from a distant century, sang "Blackbird" with her. Duets with Jackson Browne ("Before the Deluge") and Paul Simon ("The Boxer") were no-brainers. And, no surprise, Mavis Staples challenged her to reach for the heavens ("Freedom"). For her encore, she sang "Forever Young." Of course. Every year, I get invited to Glamour Magazine's "Women of the Year" Awards. I bring my daughter because anything that didn't happen in the last two weeks is news to her. ("Barbra Streisand? Is she still alive?") So for those who know of Joan Baez because their parents --- or grandparents -- used to listen to her, here's a short guided tour. Advertisement Her story starts with the ultimate impeccable credential: a romance with young Bob Dylan She was arrested during a protest against the Vietnam War. She sang at Woodstock. In this century, she sang "We Shall Overcome" at the White House. And she sang for Occupy Wall Street protesters. Advertisement Give her the last word: "Action is the antidote to despair." I got a message the other day from someone who told me they had no personal brand. It wasn't quite true. We all have a personal brand. They happened to have one that was suffering from neglect. They had been in the same position at the same company for over ten years and did what many of us do. They forgot to pay attention to it. We all do it. Trust me, I've been there. I did the same thing in my last years at corporate. I forgot that in order for a personal brand to stay healthy it needs food, water and sunlight to survive - just like a houseplant does. But when we're in a place where we're not thinking about leaving our position, or we're so caught in getting the current job done, or we think it's a bunch of nonsense to even think of ourselves as a brand, we don't give it the attention it deserves. Pretty soon it starts to show. The leaves get brown edges. They start to droop. You notice the plant literally leaning too much in one direction as it strains itself to get the sunlight it deserves. Just like different plants require different care to thrive, so goes your personal brand. If you're happy where you are, your personal brand may not need as much care and feeding as someone who is actively looking for the next gig, building their customer base, starting a new business venture or wants to build a tribe of followers. A philodendron requires a much lesser commitment than an african violet. Whether we're talking houseplants or personal brands they all need some measure of the following on a consistent basis. Water. No plant will survive very long with at least one drink of water a week. For your personal brand, mark out time in your weekly schedule to spend with it. How much time you allot depends on what you want your brand to do for you. At the bare minimum you should devote at least one hour a week, daily if you're in active growth mode. Advertisement Fertilize. Food is good. For a plant to really thrive you're going to need to add some fertilizer into that water periodically. This is especially important if you're building and maintaining a customer base, trying to impress investors in your new company or actively looking for your next great job. That could mean blogging, podcasting, or engaging in conversations on social networks like LinkedIn or Twitter. Again - how much fertilizing is determined by what you want your personal brand to do for you. Too much of the wrong fertilizer can burn a plant. Talk to them. My mother clued me in long ago that the secret to nurturing anything - from people to baking and yes - to plants was to show them a little love and talk to them. Plants have been shown to thrive from verbal communication. Your personal brand will too. In other words, engage with those you want to connect with. Online and offline. Sunlight. Very few plants will survive kept entirely in the dark. Neither will your personal brand. It's hard to stand in the spotlight for many of us, but if we don't let a little sunshine come our way, we're never going to grow it. Plants will literally start bending toward the light. We might develop back pains and muscle aches. Check for pests. Bad stuff happens to the healthiest plants. That's why we need to give them a closer inspection every now and then. Check behind the leaves. Take a look at the soil. If you see something rotten, do something. You might simply need to move the plant to another location or transplant it into a new container. Once a month is optimum to do this for your personal brand. At the very least, once a quarter. Any less and you could put yourself in the danger zone and find yourself like my friend has, thinking they don't have a personal brand. The good news is even wilted and tired looking plants can thrive again. You don't have to have a green thumb to make that happen. But you need to be willing to give them a little attention. Advertisement I don't claim to have a green thumb when it comes to my plants. But I do have two houseplants that have traveled with me since the nineties from Philadelphia to DC to New York and are still thriving. All because I gave them the water, food, care and attention they need and crave. Periodically, I talk to them. Your personal brand deserves the same. Sex on laptop computer. Pornography Recently, my colleagues and I accidentally reinvigorated public discussions of pornography's impact on the treatment of women by publishing an archival study examining the correlates of pornography use. Although limited in its scope, and never really intended for public consumption, our findings, which surprised many people (including us to some extent), captured media attention for a few weeks, and appear to have briefly rekindled public interest in porn research. For those who are not familiar with our study, we examined the responses of over 25,000 Americans collected over the course of 35 years, and found evidence -- in contrast to pervasive cultural beliefs -- that pornography users in the sample held more gender egalitarian attitudes than non-users on three of our five indices. Specifically, those who indicated that they had watched an X-rated movie in the past year were more likely to agree that women are suited for politics, should be free to work outside the home, and should be able to access abortion. Advertisement While we are the first to admit that the interpretation of our findings must be qualified by several important shortcomings with the study, the pushback we have received in some public forums -- including accusations that we are uncritical apologists of Big Porno -- is quite at odds with the actual weaknesses of the study, and has reminded us that most people lack access to basic research concerning pornography use. Mirroring trends in public discourse, it may surprise some people to know that the topic of pornography has contributed to considerable conflict within academic circles for nearly 50 years. Since the late 1960s, researchers have asserted many (sometimes conflicting) effects of viewing the stuff, the most controversial of which concerns the idea that pornography use increases the risk for sexual assault. Considerable research has been conducted on both sides of the argument, but a research consensus remains elusive. Because concerns about sexual assault, rape culture, and pornography use have all risen to cultural prominence (and for good reasons), I thought this to be a good time to discuss one of the fundamental reasons that the link between sexual assault and pornography use remains unclear. Academics don't really understand what porn is. These days, many people argue that sexual depictions on the whole aren't the issue, but rather, pornography featuring violent content is the root of the problem. In the same breath, such people often point to a content analysis which claims that 88 percent of popular mainstream porn videos (DVD and VHS) contain depictions of aggression. While that would certainly be concerning if the figure was meaningful, there are several reasons to be critical of this study. One common criticism of content analyses is that the researchers conducting them tend to find what they're looking for, and Ana Bridges, the leading author of this paper, has known affiliations with prominent contemporary anti-pornography feminists Robert Jensen and Gail Dines. Another point of concern is that these results literally stand alone: You will not find another content analysis of porn conducted in last 40 years (and there have been dozens) that report numbers anywhere near that high. There are also problems with the methodology. For example, this study considered insertion of a penis into the mouth in a manner that obstructs breathing, which occurred in 54 percent of analyzed scenes, as "gagging," a form of violence. I don't know about you folks, but the last I checked, sometimes going down on a guy involves holding one's breath -- that's just how things work. Relatedly, this study has also been formally criticized for its lack of differentiation between consensual and nonconsensual "aggressive" acts, which arguably shouldn't influence nonconsensual behaviors, due to their desired nature. So, how much porn is violent? Virtually all of it or almost none of it -- it depends who you ask. Advertisement Concerns about the prevalence and nature of violent pornography are related to a much broader issue that the research community is only just beginning to grapple with: Pornography itself is not well understood. Despite years of trying, scientists, researchers, academics, and clinicians just can't seem to agree when it comes to what counts as pornography. Depending on who you talk to, porn is: something that is "obscene or licentious; foul, disgusting, or offensive; tending to produce lewd emotions" a verbal or pictorial representation that involves "the degrading and demeaning portrayal of the role and status of the human female...as a mere sexual object to be exploited and manipulated sexually" "any kind of material aiming at creating or enhancing sexual feelings or thoughts in the recipient and, at the same time containing explicit exposure and/or descriptions of the genitals, and clear and explicit sexual acts," but not "posing or acting naked such as seen in Playboy" This problem is compounded when measuring porn use or exposing people to porn in the lab, as all researchers go about it in a slightly different way. In other words, two studies which say they're looking at pornography use may be measuring or exposing people to very different things. This problem extends to the very few studies that have actually made the effort to examine who uses violent pornography. The natural consequence is that we have no idea how many people watch porn, how frequently they're doing it, and what they're watching. Given this state of affairs, how are we supposed to reach meaningful conclusions about the impact porn has on attitudes toward women or sexual assault? Advertisement [ ] Kohut, T., Baer, J.L., & Watts, B. (2016). Is pornography really about "making hate to women"? Pornography users hold more gender egalitarian attitudes than nonusers in a representative American sample. Journal of Sex Research , 53 (1), 1-11. [ii] Donnerstein, J. & Hallam, J. (1978). Facilitating effects of erotica on aggression against women. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41(4), 710-724. [iii] Ferguson, C.J., & Hartley, R.D. (2009). The pleasure is momentary... the expense damnable? The influence of pornography on rape and sexual assault. Aggression & Violent Behavior, 14(5), 323-329. [iv] Fisher, W.A., & Grenier, G. (1994). Violent pornography, antiwoman thoughts, and antiwoman acts: In search of reliable effects. Journal of Sex Research, 31(3), 23-28. [v] Hald, G.M., Malamuth, N.M., & Yuen, C. (2010). Pornography and attitudes supporting violence against women: Revisiting the relationship in non-experimental studies. Aggressive Behavior, 36(1), 14-20. [vi] Bridges, A.J., Wosnitzer, R., Scharrer, E., Sun, C., &Liberman, R. (2010). Aggression and sexual behaviour in best-selling pornography videos: A content analysis update. Violence Against Women, 16(10), 1065-1085. Advertisement [vii] McKee, A. (2015). Methodological issues in defining aggression for content analyses of sexually explicit material. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 44, 81-87. [viii] Kohut, T. (2014). An empirical investigation of the concept of "pornography" (Doctoral dissertation). Western University, London, ON. [ix] Willoughby, B.J. & Busby, D.M. (2015). In the eye of the beholder: Exploring variations in the perceptions of pornography. The Journal of Sex Research. Advance online publication. [x] Byrne, D., Fisher, J.D., Lamberth, J., & Mitchell, H.E. (1974). Evaluations of erotica: Facts or feelings? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29(1), 111-116. [xi] Longino, H.E. (1980). Pornography, oppression, & freedom: A closer look. In Lederer, L. (Ed.), Take back the night: Women on pornography (40-54). New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc. Advertisement [xii] Hald, G.M. & Malamuth, N.M. (2008). Self-perceived effects of pornography consumption. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 37(4), 624-625. [xiii] Kohut, T. (2014). An empirical investigation of the concept of "pornography" (Doctoral dissertation). Western University, London, ON. GILBERT, SC - JANUARY 27: GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump throws an issue of Time Magazine into the crowd at a campaign rally January 27, 2015 in Gilbert, South Carolina. Trump is leading in the polls among the GOP presidential candidates leading up to the Iowa Caucus. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images) Donald Trump bragged that he could shoot someone and still win the nomination. But he's about to find that skipping the Fox News debate might actually be more costly to his campaign, especially if his followers see it as an insult or cowardice. Ever heard of Mexican Presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador? Probably not. He was from the leftist PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution) and had a commanding lead over the bookish Felipe Calderon Hinojosa of the PAN and the corrupt PRI, led by Roberto Madrazo in 2006. Lopez Obrador had a commanding lead, almost Trump-like, until he decided not to attend a key debate with his rivals. All that remained was an empty chair, la silla vacia. Advertisement Calderon performed well, Lopez Obrador lost his big lead, as Mexicans saw his absence as an insult, and he amazingly lost the election. Eight years ago, John McCain threatened to skip the debates during the financial crisis, to a general outcry. Four years later, Clint Eastwood harangued an empty chair, hampering Mitt Romney's chances in the 2012 election. Angry that Megyn Kelly was tapped to host the Fox News debate, Trump announced wouldn't participate, according to Robert Sobel with The Examiner. "Based on Megyn Kelly's conflict of interest and bias she should not be allowed to be a moderator of the next debate," Trump tweeted out over the weekend. As the article notes, Corey Lewandowski, Trump's campaign manager said that it was possible that the GOP front runner would not attend the upcoming Fox News debate because Kelly would be a moderator. "Lets [sic] see what happens," Lewandowski said, noting, "It's fair to say Mr. Trump is a significant ratings driver for these debates." Going even further, Lewandowski said there is talk about hosting a televised town hall event at the same time the Fox News debate is set to air, calling it a "great idea."" It didn't take long for Fox News and GOP rivals to accuse Trump of being afraid to face Kelly, noting he can't just run from ISIS, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and China's leader Hu Jintao the way he's ducking a debate moderator. By suggesting a last minute rival town hall meeting, Trump is also undercutting his own appeal. It's unlikely that event will beat Fox News in ratings that night. Interest in Trump's rivals will grow, and he won't be around to suck up all the oxygen in a debate, as he usually does. Students and fellow Southern residents that I spoke to today seemed bewildered by Trump's latest statements about shooting people, and skipping debates because of fears about the moderator. Trump then said he'd leave it up to his followers. According to Igor Bobic, his fans voted for him to participate in the debate, but it seems he's going to ignore their wishes, and will skip the debate anyway. Well, so much for caring about what your supporters think. There's a chance that Trump might still show up. Given that he portrays himself as a straight-shooter, it would be a John Kerryesque flip flop. There's nothing Trump can do to evade this problem. It's a huge opportunity for the others. If they can show some bold leadership, and ideas for implementing their plan, they can benefit tremendously from Trump's gaffe. But don't make the night about Trump. Let the front-runner's absence speak for itself, without spending time harping on it. Otherwise, Trump will keep his lead, even if he drops in the polls due to his error. Advertisement Illinoiss former Governor Edgar had it right months ago. Edgar characterized current Governor Rauners refusal to negotiate a budget until he wins concessions on his ideological policy agenda as hostage taking. Governor Rauners plan all along has been to force opponents to agree to his Turnaround Agenda before he will agree to engage in the budget process, including ensuring the revenues needed for a responsible budget. He set that situation up by asking the Democrats in the General Assembly to allow the temporary 5% income tax to expire a year ago, when it could have been extended prior to his being sworn in as governor. Governor Rauner wanted to propose his own budget solution. His own budget solution last February was to announce that he would not even consider or negotiate revenue until he had won the Turnaround Agenda. In other words, as Governor Edgar disapprovingly noted, Governor Rauner announced that he had taken hostages. Infants, children, seniors, people with disabilities, students, victims of violence and many others in need of state services are all being held hostage to Governor Rauners no-revenue budget proposal. Advertisement Like most hostage-takers, Governor Rauner knew that if his demands were not met, at some point the hostages would have to begin to die, literally or figuratively. And, sure enough, the dying is underway. For months now, thousands of service providers have been making layoffs and reducing services because of the state not paying them for services rendered. Last week the situation went to another level. Lutheran Social Services of Illinois (LSSI) announced late last week that, due solely to the states failure to pay over $6 million for services LSSI has rendered since last July, it is laying off 750 workers43% of its workforceand shutting down vital services for almost 5,000 people. The termination of these servicesincluding residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation, mental health counseling, and help for homebound senior citizensis not a consequence of a budget cut or a policy change; it is simply caused by the states failure to pay for services already renderedone side keeping a contract, the other welching. LSSI, by all accounts, is an exemplary, responsible, low-overhead, values-driven provider of essential services to people deeply in need. LSSI partners with the state to implement state policies. But LSSIs partner turned it into a hostage and let LSSI and the people it serves be casualties of the hostage stand-off. Advertisement Another example: low-income students at the states public and private colleges and universities are dropping out of school by the thousands as the state fails to pay need-based student financial aid for which the students qualify and which they were promised. Many students cannot afford to start the second semester this month and are dropping out.Their schools fronted the grants in the first semester but cannot afford the millions of dollars it would cost to cover for the state again this semester. All of these students are from low-income families, and virtually all of them are African American or Hispanic. They were following a dream of upward economic mobility through their own study and workthe American Dream. What kind of Turnaround Agenda, purportedly meant to strengthen Illinoiss economic picture, blocks the upward striving of low-income minority students and treats them as dispensable hostages? In our form of government, the executive branch, led by the Governor, has the duty to execute state laws and policiesto govern. The Governor has decided instead that those laws and policies and the people they are meant to serve should be hostages. With the news that incumbent Nguyen Phu Trong is poised to continue as General Secretary of the Viet Nam Communist Party, following a secretive leadership race with outgoing Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, he must urgently move to rehabilitate the country's longstanding appalling human rights record. Viet Nam is increasingly trying to project itself as a responsible member of the international community - it holds a seat on the UN Human Rights Council and has recently ratified the Convention against Torture. But you don't have to scratch far beneath the surface for a very different picture to emerge. Human rights violations in the country continue unabated. The reality is, the same secrecy that characterized the leadership race, shields Viet Nam's human rights record from scrutiny and allows the government to avoid the scorn of the international community. The case of Le Van Manh illustrates this point well. He was convicted of the 2005 rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl, but always maintained his innocence and says that he was tortured into a "confession". Le Van Manh was scheduled to be executed in October last year. Normally the authorities keep a tight lid on any information on death penalty cases until executions have been carried out, but in this case, Le Van Manh managed to get information about his impending death to the outside world. Following an international outcry, state media reported the execution had been postponed just a day before Le Van Manh was to be put to death, and that the Supreme Court would "re-examine" his case. Advertisement But since the postponement, there has been a blackout on information. Despite repeated requests for further information to the authorities, Manh's mother is still being kept in the dark about what will happen to her son. The legal and judicial system has closed ranks, refusing to disclose information and shielding itself from assessment and accountability. In order to move the country forward, the General Secretary must initiate inclusive reforms and ensure an end to the repressive tendencies of his previous administration. Little information clarifying the meaning of these figures has been made available to the public. The numbers presumably do not include the physical assaults on human rights defenders and government critics which have become routine throughout the country. In 2015, 69 men and women are known to have been targeted in 36 violent attacks, perpetrated by police or men in plain-clothes, widely believed to be working for, or with, the police. Advertisement A prominent example is the December beating of lawyer and prominent human rights advocate Nguyen Van ai. In December, ai was brutally assaulted along with three colleagues after they had delivered a human rights training event to a rural community in the north of the country. Ten days later, he was arrested on his way to a human rights dialogue with European Union delegates. He has since been charged, along with colleague Le Thu Ha, with spreading propaganda against the state, an offence which could leave them languishing in jail for 20 years. Viet Nam's human rights journey follows a well-established pattern; where there appears to be one step forward, there are often a number of steps back. In October 2015, it was involved in the discussions leading to the conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement which will require signatory countries such as Viet Nam to allow independent unions, something hitherto unknown to the Southeast Asian nation. However, since the conclusion of the text of the agreement in October, attacks against workers' rights advocates have continued. In November, o Thi Minh Hanh and Truong Minh uc - two labour activists and former prisoners of conscience - were beaten by men in plainclothes before being detained by uniformed police. In the early morning hours of January 14, 2011 my 4-year-old daughter Alexis appeared different. Her breathing had changed. It was shallow, forced and audible. In retrospect there were other subtle changes that now make sense given what was occurring. Shortly after 3:00 pm on Friday January 14, 2011, after being on hospice care in her home since October 2010, Alexis' bedroom grew silent as we witnessed her small chest grow still. In April 2008, at 27 months old, Alexis was diagnosed with DIPG, an inoperable and almost universally fatal brain cancer. During her long fight, she demonstrated a sublime dignity and character that I did not fully grasp until several months after her death. Over the course of the next 5 years that have now unfolded, I have come to view my daughter's death as a transformative gift in many respects. This statement should not be mistaken to mean the fact that Alexis actually died is a gift. Rather, the journey she guided me towards that unfolded before my eyes, her legacy, and the hard fought perspective I live with is the gift. When Alexis was diagnosed, I was a partner in a law firm that I formed with two other partners. I defended insurance companies and their policyholders against all forms of civil litigation. I was a trial lawyer. In fact, I was a damn good trial lawyer. Despite the fact that my partners had more conflicts with each other than I could count, I can safely state that I was one of a small population of truly happy practicing lawyers in Washington, DC. After that fateful day in April 2008 when we learned that Alexis was marked for death, I immediately pulled back from my practice and was supported by my family as well as my partners and clients alike. I never missed a medical appointment, treatment, MRI or clinic visit. The singular purpose that our family operated upon was to be there for Alexis and normalize her life as best as we could in what was a very abnormal world for a small child. At the end of the day, I can safely say that our efforts achieved this goal. Advertisement Fast-forward to March 2011, two months after Alexis died, and I attempted to find my trial legs and focus on being the best trial lawyer I could be. By that time, my law firm was not the same as I left it as one of my partners moved on. I decided to stick it out in hopes that I would rediscover my zeal for the law, and more importantly, I had no idea where my own journey was leading me. Many days were spent in front of a blank computer staring at simple darkness as my mind focused only upon Alexis and childhood cancer. My former professional life was quickly moving forward without me, and frankly, I was moving as well. Daily, I was disengaging with the profession that I once truly enjoyed. Small talk, discussions regarding the latest Supreme Court cases and trying to convince new insurance carriers why my firm should handle their business felt a lot like having a cavity drilled. Unable to find a common connection with colleagues and clients alike, I struggled to create meaning and income within my law firm that also allowed me to earn a living working in the childhood cancer space. Childhood cancer consumed me. Oftentimes, as I devoted ever-increasing time to this passion, I thought of little else outside of this world besides my family. Whether I knew it or not, I was fundamentally changed forever and had little ability to return to my previous professional existence. This journey of professional and personal renaissance unfolded over the course of three and a half very difficult and challenging years. Those years, from March 2011 until January 2015, and beyond, brought me to the brink on many occasions. Challenges with business partners, internal struggles and the inability to launch several new ventures tested every ounce of my fabric. A combination of hard work, a perfectly matched skill set, dedication, support, the good fortune of my life circumstances, and most importantly luck, combined together allowing this transition and growth. Every day, through my work as the General Counsel and Institutional Officer for the Children's Cancer Therapy Development Institute (www.cc-TDI.org) and the Executive Director of the Max Cure Foundation (www.maxcurefoundation.org), I am able to tell Alexis' story, honor her fight and live her legacy in an authentic manner. Never have I experienced such immense professional satisfaction. Advertisement Through my journey, I have embraced the idea that perspective is life altering. Perspective allows us to step back and understand clearly that life challenges do not need to break us as human beings. Rather, as the waves pound us from every direction, there is purpose in standing strong and rising again and again. Before Alexis died, I lost my older sister Gina as a result of a single vehicle accident. After I had the excruciating task of convincing my parents to remove my sister from life support, I sought to find purpose and direction as a result of her death. Ultimately, life got in the way of life. Enter Alexis. Experiencing life for thirty-three months with a child who never lived to be 5, who died of cancer in front of my eyes, and who showed me how to live each day while dying presented me with the perspective and courage to come to this rebirth. My professional metamorphosis and life direction since January 2011 have been painful, and many moments have brought me to my knees, but in the end it is the backdrop of Alexis' death that has provided me with the opportunities to find significant fulfillment and contentment. In the wake of a protest against a reception featuring an Israeli community group at a recent LGBTQ conference, there has been widespread controversy. We have read blog posts and articles, watched videos of the protest, and heard from friends and allies who were present at the demonstration. Yet, what was perhaps most painful for many of us is that we value and embrace much of the good work of these activists and organizers. They are some of our nation's leading advocates, working to secure justice and fair treatment to all. Often they stand as allies in our work for justice and equality. Unfortunately, though, this fissure is not a new experience. Since starting as the CEO of ADL last summer, I personally have heard from many college students that their Jewish faith renders them pariahs on their campuses -- unless and until they affirmatively denounce Israel. Advertisement Campus Hillels and other Jewish organizations that have long worked with LGBTQ campus groups, student of color organizations, and other progressive clubs on campus to host film festivals, panels, and other events increasingly are being shut out, rejected from participating, even when Israel is not on the agenda. Where other students are not being subjected to a litmus test on their views on Israel, Jewish students have been singled out and questioned about their objectivity and position on the issue. As racial tensions flared across the country the past few years, we heard anecdotes from Jewish racial justice advocates that they were called "kikes" or targeted with other anti-Jewish slurs. When they tried to address the epithets, they were told they need to understand that "it's because of Israel." Here's the thing, though. It's not. It's anti-Semitism. Let's be clear. No government is immune from criticism. Surely neither the U.S. government nor the government of Israel nor any other. Indeed, we have criticized policies and practices of Israeli leadership when we felt appropriate to do so. We recognize that anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian activists will condemn Israel. That is a reality. That is their right. We disagree - vigorously - with their accusations of pinkwashing, with claims that Israel is an apartheid state, and with other efforts to demonize Israel. And we will speak out, challenge their mischaracterizations, and dismantle their indictments with facts and truths, as is our right. Advertisement But when that criticism of Israel crosses the line into anti-Semitism, we will condemn it. It is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated anywhere, especially not in social justice circles.To be specific, when a person conflates Jews, Israelis, and the Israeli government, it is anti-Semitic. When all Jews and all Israelis are held responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, it is anti-Semitic. When Jews would be denied the right to self-determination accorded to all other peoples, it is anti-Semitic. And when protesters chant "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea," it is appropriately interpreted by most people as a call for the erasure of Israel - and it is anti-Semitic. Giving protestors the benefit of the doubt, it is unlikely that most intend their message to be anti-Semitic. However, regardless of the intent of the protest, the impact matters. Yet, too often, when students, individuals, or organizations raise the specter of anti-Semitism it is quickly rejected, disregarded, or written off. Israel's critics literally have written best-selling books decrying their so-called inability to criticize Israel. But President Obama himself noted that anti-Semitism is on the rise. And, as he eloquently reminded, "When any Jews anywhere is targeted just for being Jewish, we all have to respond.. 'We are all Jews.' " Indeed, we know that women are best positioned to define sexism, people of color to define racism, and LGBTQ people to define homophobia, transphobia, and heterosexism. But, does this mean that all women must reach consensus on what offends them? All people of color? Everyone in LGBTQ communities? Hardly. Advertisement So too, we Jews are best situated to define anti-Semitism, even if all of us may not likely reach consensus on the definition. Our millennial experience with intolerance demands the same acknowledgement as other forms of bigotry. Indeed, it is the collective responsibility of activists and organizers across the ideological spectrum to stop and listen when someone says, "You've crossed the line." By Adele Charbonneau In the development sector, giving a clear, quantifiable picture of a program's impact helps beneficiaries and funders ensure that grant money reaches its target, and it also assists foundations, governments, and NGOs in making better funding choices. Yet, such methods and behaviors are not always widespread or consistent, leading to inefficiency and poor cost recovery. This article presents three Asian examples from Surabaya, Indonesia; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and Mumbai, India of innovative strategies to improve monitoring and evaluation and the collection of data to measure impact. Often, poverty reduction programs are designed without the active participation of the poor themselves. Consequently, indicators tend not to reflect local conditions, a situation that explains the failure of many poverty reduction programs. In Surabaya, the Participatory Approaches to Poverty Assessment and Monitoring (PPAM) program has been developed to solve that problem. The primary role of the PPAM team is to collect data and information. Several activities are conducted, such as selecting locally based poverty indicators, preparing questionnaires, testing and refining the questionnaires, debriefing enumerators and implementing data and information collection, as well as data verification and clarification. The data collected is processed to produce dynamic poverty baselines that display information on the number of poor people -- who, where, how many -- the most influential factors of poverty. The data is later analyzed to understand the cause of poverty, to identify opportunities and local potentials to escape poverty, as well as to formulate achievable action plans. Finally, PPAM uses monitoring and evaluation approaches aimed at observing the level of poverty and measuring the relevance and impact of poverty alleviation policies and programs. Advertisement In India, Mumbai-based Vera Solutions also believes that data can transform the efforts of social-change organizations. The company uses mobile data and cloud-based systems to build customized databases. These databases can be automatically analyzed and give important programmatic information to staff in home offices and in the field to understand quickly the effectiveness of particular approaches and programs. Time, effort and funds can be spent more efficiently and effectively with easily accessible numbers from the field. In Mumbai, Vera Solutions worked with the Foundation for Mother and Child Health (FMCH), a program that aims at improving nutrition and health for underprivileged communities in the city, to build a clinic management system. Now, with mobile data, when a child comes to a FMCH clinic seeking assistance, all healthcare providers -- from doctors to nurses to social workers -- have access to real-time information entered on tablets where anyone connected can have up-to-date data on the child. As this example proves, access to reliable data is about more than simply reporting accurately and transparently to donors. FMCH's live database allows organizations to interact more efficiently among themselves, as well. Indeed, for children visiting one of the FMCH clinics, accessing this type of information leads to more informed decisions by doctors and other clinicians -- and could likely even save lives. In Ho Chi Minh City, the LIN Center for Community Development in HCMC is an organization that assists local NGOs in a necessary yet sometimes neglected task: assessment. One main part of this project has been to leverage LIN's five years of consulting experience into developing the 10 toolkits that help NGOs to self-assess and improve their work. The Program Evaluation Toolkit is especially detailed, providing specific, clear templates to assess NGOs' projects and programs from different angles -- progress evaluation, outcome evaluation and beneficiary satisfaction. It also includes examples, as well as guidelines to utilize these evaluations to go back and improve the program or project at hand. These toolkits are free to download from the LIN website, in both Vietnamese and English, offering any NGO -- partnering or non-partnering -- a valuable resource. Based on the objective to provide accountability and information to stakeholders about the impact of the project, the consultants developed a set of SMART indicators. In Vietnam, the final evaluation was presented to key sponsors, beneficiaries, partners and the public to learn whether the project had succeeded or failed, to what extent and why, with recommendation for future improvement and replication. Advertisement Check out more of the discussion on measuring the impact of urban development project on URB.im and contribute to the debate. In the January 28, 1986 Challenger shuttle accident, two technologies -- aerospace and television -- flexed their muscles and revealed their tragic flaws. The same powerful thrust of fuel and engines that promised to bring glory to NASA's "Teacher-in-Space" Christa McAuliffe and the other members of the shuttle crew also sealed their fate, leaving them ten miles up, in an inferno, without protection or parachutes. Advertisement Similarly, the media blitz that thrust Christa into our lives left our emotions up in the air, raw and exposed to the elements. Most of us never met Christa or her family. Yet we found ourselves dwelling on the fate of her children and husband, her parents and her Concord, New Hampshire, students. Christa McAuliffe's death continues to overshadow those of the other six astronauts, just as the shuttle accident eclipsed most of the other news events of 1986. Of course, our sense of intimacy with Christa was no accident. Realizing that television deals better with personalities than with the abstract idea of "space exploration," NASA decided to involve us in its next shuttle flight by focusing publicity on a single person, the first civilian, someone like you and me. Christa was chosen to be our representative, the first extraordinary ordinary person to travel into space. Surely, her TV-game-show-like enthusiasm played a part in her selection. And through the media attention, NASA and the press sent her into an orbit of celebrity. The six other astronauts were kept out of the television picture. Advertisement NASA knew that television is unlike any other medium in that it allows millions of people to see and experience the same person or event at the same moment. Yet along with the massive size of its shared arena, television is a close-up medium that fosters intimacy and involvement. With television, millions of us came to feel that we "knew" and had "met" Christa, her family, and her students. We saw Christa's smiles and heard her giggles. We experienced her in a way that, before televisual media, we shared only with people we knew from face-to-face interaction. NASA had also planned to harness the power of television in the shuttle send-off and, later, for two in-flight lessons. In 1986, only television could allow children in schools and adults at work, parents at home and executives in boardrooms, prisoners in cells and a president in the oval office, to witness an event "together." But then everything went wrong. Neither the technology of physical force nor of information transmission proved flawless. Christa's spacecraft could not withstand the explosion of fuel, and television also became fully engulfed in the heat of grief and disbelief. On takeoff day, television accomplished the very opposite of what NASA had planned for it. Millions of children were required to watch the takeoff in their schools, in part to demonstrate the miracles of science and, ultimately, to reinforce the authority of teachers and the importance of educational curricula. Instead, students saw the bewilderment of their teachers and learned of the dangerous fallibility of science. Challenger explosion. Photo from Wikipedia Commons Television's immediacy was meant to involve us all in a pageant certifying NASA as a worthy beneficiary of continued and increasing funding. Instead, television revealed NASA's lack of control over the situation. TV's immediacy showed us an explosion that had not yet been seen by NASA's narrator for the takeoff, who was still looking at his instruments. And television's moment-by-moment coverage -- particularly CNN's then-innovative live satellite images -- heightened our awareness of the length of the delay between the accident and NASA's first public comment on it. Advertisement NASA had no doubt hoped that the very concrete, personal dimension of Christa's flight would overshadow in the public mind the more abstract debate over the relative usefulness of shuttles versus disposable space vehicles. Instead, the televised disaster magnified the degree of human risk and blotted out the overall success of the shuttle program. The televised "teacher in space" was to become another Reagan administration publicity coup, an event that would give the image of leadership in support for education without any actual increase in educational funding. But television's speed undermined Reagan's image of leadership too. When we turned quickly to the President for some guidance, we discovered that he hadn't even watched the takeoff live, that millions of us average citizens already knew what our leader did not. What was to have been both good politics and good television became instead an exposure of the dangerous symbiosis of government and news agencies, caught in the webs of their own routines and desires. The networks, enjoying their access to dramatic images, allowed themselves to be duped into believing that shuttle takeoffs were safe and routine. NASA, dependent on the news media for publicity, allowed itself to feel the heat of not keeping the media waiting any longer after several delays -- despite the freezing weather and the warnings of the engineers at contractor Morton Thiokol that their rocket booster's O-rings could fail from the cold. The President's State of the Union address was scheduled for that night, and NASA wanted the planned publicity plug. The disaster gave NASA a less enviable sort of publicity and delayed the President's State of the Union address for a week. The many comparisons notwithstanding, the trauma surrounding the explosion of the Challenger was different from the grief surrounding the death of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and other beloved media figures. For millions of children and adults witnessed the shuttle accident as it happened, before it was channeled through authorities or described to us by journalists. Only retroactively, did we realize we had witnessed death. The ambiguity of the raw visual experience created long moments of bewilderment and a vacuum of understanding and authority that has been difficult for many of us to forget. Advertisement Television, which gave us our relationship with Christa, felt obligated to play the major role in the mourning. Her fellow astronauts were dutifully named and pictured, but the coverage dwelled on Christa. Other, more remote -- and perhaps more important -- news events disappeared. In death, McAuliffe became larger than life. Her name itself a variation of Christ's, she became an ambiguous, but all-purpose symbol of innocence, one who had been chosen to ascend to the heavens in our place, and then return to dwell among us. But she died instead for our sins of technological hubris, her mission unfulfilled. And television was there again to report on the investigation of fault, the search for a Judas. Because NASA knew that few people could stand the thought of Christa and the other astronauts plunging toward the ocean alive, rather than having been killed instantly in the initial explosion, it suppressed this information until months after the public attention had subsided. Beneath the since-uncovered tangle of politics and mismanagement and lies, our contrived media relationship with Christa McAuliffe remains emotionally powerful and real, perhaps unique in its brevity and intensity. Indeed, the same, single event that was to establish McAuliffe's importance -- the shuttle takeoff -- was transformed instead into a moment of tragedy and death. With some warning indications emerging in the economy, it is helpful to understand the potential effects this may have. Yet, one must caution their self before assuming a conclusion, for indications only produce predictions. This being said, these indications that have been emerging in the economy tend to cause a movement in people due to conflict and tension at home. This movement of people tends to cause disturbances in the places where they go due to communal beliefs of the locals that tend to be encouraged or discouraged by other events. Currently, China's economy is experiencing downward trends, which means the people who rely on China's economy will also be affected by this downward trend. Another strong indication China's economy is doing poorly is the movement of money from Chinese currency to the United States of America's currency. Now, the news is slowly pointing attention to Africa because it had developed strong ties with China in the past few years. The middle and southern parts of the African continent are being heavily impacted by the downward trend of China's economy. This will lead to companies in these African countries to dismiss employees, which tends to lead to protest due increasing unemployment rates and lack of livelihood. This possible instability that is being produced is furthered by the low oil prices because it lowers the revenue of countries that depend on oil. As the instability furthers, these countries will be faced with protest, rise in crime, and so on. Eventually, it will hit a point of contention, and this will lead the people to leave their countries for better hope. Similar to the reason people in Central and South America leave their country for the United States of America. Advertisement But, people of the African continent cannot cross the Atlantic Ocean to get to the United States of America. It is a high fail rate to do so. These people will need to go north to Europe, yet this continent is experiencing a refugee crisis already. They have and are taking stricter measures to limit their boards. Also, these countries are seeing rises in crimes against asylum seekers. Therefore, these possible refugees from Africa will increase the tension in Europe due to fears of economy and personal safety. These factors will shift more people towards far right policies. Eventually, the European continent will hit a contention point. The European Union will need to ask the United States of America to help with the refugee crisis. But, with current political issues this country is experiencing, it will be slow to help. If America helps, with this crisis, the voters will slowly start drifting towards far right policies, which may get a boost from the Zika Virus. The republicans will most likely use the Zika Virus as another reason to close the borders with southern countries. Essentially, the world is developing contention points at each end. Where this may go is hard to say. All that has been written is a prediction based on trends that have occurred throughout history. I recently saw a paper written by a fourth grader that was returned by her English teacher with more red ink than student handwriting. And, the teacher had literally re-written the entire student piece in red. There was a rather sarcastic, nasty comment to boot that went something like this: "Why would you even think the main character's return to the forest was so important?" The student received an "I," for incomplete. Under the classroom rules, she could re-write the paper and resubmit it, basically copying the teacher's red edits in her own handwriting to achieve a good grade. Can you see the smoke rising from my head? The assignment asked the students to write a paragraph long summary of a book they had read together as a class. To complete the task, the students had to be able to identify the key elements of the story and describe the book's essential themes. That's a quality assignment as it requires the students to process what they have read and then cull out the story's meaning. We hope students can do this with everything they read as they progress along the educational pipeline. The student paper I just described reveals - clearly - that the either student did not understand the assignment or, if she understood the assignment, she did not know how to do what was required. Or, the student's sense of what mattered in the story was different from the teacher's view; perhaps she really did not know what mattered. What the teacher did - in red - fails to address any of these options. Advertisement Let's start with the use of red pen. There is a rich literature both in the US and the UK suggesting that the use of the red pen has to stop. The color itself blinds students to the teacher's mark-up; the student literally sees red and nothing else. Also, as colors go, red is not a positive color. It signals danger (like a hot fire) and stop and negativity. Why use a color to correct a paper that is so loaded with negative thoughts? There is a reason for the expression "seeing red" to describe anger. Here's the point on color. All corrections are hard for students to receive, even when meant constructively. It is not easy to see that one's work has not met the bar and that the teacher has identified a myriad of flaws. Pick another color - green or blue or even purple. Why not let students choose the color they want for corrections? But, the flaws by the teacher extend way beyond color. Rewriting a student's work does not enable the student to do the task. Yes, I appreciate it took time for the teacher to do the rewriting. Rather than rewriting, the teacher could outline more clearly what the paragraph could look like in sentence one, sentence two etc. And, in this instance, the teacher should have met with the student to help her think about what ideas are important in the story and why. An added strategy would be to show all the students an example of a quality summary paragraph and then let them self-correct based on the model and ask them specifically to identify the difference between the quality model and what they wrote. Self-revelation has a way of sticking that copying does not. As to the nasty comment, also in red, there is nothing to say except that's bad. Come on. We want to encourage students; we want them to learn, not be embarrassed. And, why not ask the student why she thought the return to the forest was so important. Perhaps to her it was - for reasons that may not be evident on the surface. Moreover, I can picture a youngster relating differently from the teacher to the key elements of a story. The literature on combining positive with negative comments is abundant and clearly part of best practices across the educational pipeline. Advertisement I can hear the voices of critics suggesting that I am being too soft, that students need to accept criticism and tough it out. I can hear folks saying things like: when I was a student, the teacher hit me with a ruler and ripped up papers. I can hear the claim that we are raising a generation that is coddled and pampered. To these criticisms, I would respond that the literature on learning and psychology do not support their observations. Learning involves risk and creating a safe environment for learning is the way to accomplish that goal. Positive comments, personal attention, non-red ink - these are just the beginning ways to create a climate of learning that is tied to enhancing student success, student self-belief and student progression through the educational pipeline. Waiting with a neighbor at the bus stop the other day, I heard that PARCC results are starting to trickle out in Maryland, where I live. PARCC, of course, is one of the new assessments intended to help inform parents and educators whether students are on track to graduate from high school ready for either college or career training. Eleven states administered PARCC in the spring, and because these new tests have multi-step problems and require much more in the way of knowledge and skill than most of the old state tests, a student who was proficient on old state tests may no longer be considered proficient by PARCC standards. Writ large, this means that states that once reported that 80 or 90 percent of their students were proficient are now having to report that 30 or 40 percent are proficient. Maryland's one of those states, and it has been a bit of a shock. Advertisement But the point isn't to shock people. At least, I don't think that's the point. The point should be for parents and educators to be able to look at the new scores and think about what more their children and students need in order to be more successful. This was the conversation I just had with my neighbor. She told me that her very smart, very inquisitive fourth-grade son scored at the top of level 3 in math. (PARCC has a five-point scale, which means that 3 is considered as approaching expectations, or almost proficient.) But her son only scored at level 1 in reading, which means he was not even close to meeting standards. The mother wasn't particularly alarmed, though she was puzzled. She knows very little about PARCC and a lot about her son. He asks penetrating questions and clearly understands a great deal about what he is learning, she said. She was inclined to dismiss the test results as unimportant. But when I asked her more about her son's reading, she said he didn't like to read. He much prefers her to read to him. They are in the middle of reading a pretty complex book together, and she said he has a wide and extensive vocabulary and clearly understands what they are reading. But, she added, when he reads to her she notices that he has trouble identifying words. He often guesses what words are by looking at the length of the word and the initial sound. That can lead to some pretty wild guesses, she said (think pumpkin for platform). Advertisement She said, sounding pretty exasperated, "I'll ask him, 'Does that word make any sense at all?'" I am anything but an expert in reading, but I've talked to a bunch of experts in reading over the years, and what she said raised an alarm for me. That may not of course be the issue with her son. But to me the point of PARCC -- or any other testing -- is to help begin that process of figuring out what more kids need in order to be successful. This particular mother was a little leery of asking the teachers for anything above what they are already doing. She never thought her child would be a kid who needs extra help. But the PARCC results should be a signal to the school to put a plan in place to help him, and if it isn't doing so she needs to ask for it. When I looked at the school's PARCC results on Maryland's website, it turns out that only about 7 percent of the fourth-graders scored at level 1. That means her son's school has a manageable number of kids who need really intensive help, and they don't necessarily need to rethink their core instruction the way schools with much larger numbers do. Of course, not all the kids who scored at level 1 necessarily have the same issue -- each child needs to be evaluated for what is impeding his or her success. Again -- that's the point. A test score is a jumping off point for parents and educators to ask, "Why did this child score in that way and what more can we do to help that child be more successful?" Advertisement That's true no matter where students are -- but it is essential for those who aren't even close to meeting standards. In my last few months of high school, I, Katherine Miga, have so much going on all of the time, however, constantly going through my head are the memories I made last summer when I traveled 11, 604 km from Canada to Thailand. I had spent months looking for the perfect program, which ideally consisted of not only volunteering so that I could immerse myself into the foreign culture, but also seeing the major highlights of the country. The program with Volunteering Solutions had it all -- and was cost-friendly, making it almost impossible to pass up such an amazing opportunity. Going to Thailand alone at 17, I was anxious, yet felt ambitious and adventurous. I arrived, not knowing what to expect, but soon felt safe and quickly made friends from all around the world. I loved the girls I traveled with, we often shared how our lives at home were so different and learned much from one another. I participated in Thailand summer program and loved every second of it. We Started in Bangkok where we were given a thorough tour of the major temples and markets. On our last day in the capital we had the privilege of volunteering at a school where we spent the day teaching the kids the names of fruit and body parts in English. In exchange they taught us songs and games in Thai. It was an amazing experience that permitted me to really overcome the language barrier and make a connection to the kids in my group. Advertisement Surin, being eight hours away from Bangkok, is the extreme opposite from the big capital. It's a small city with a lot of culture and anyone who has been there can tell you that you stand out like a celebrity. I absolutely fell in love with Surin and made the best memories there. Spending four days and working in an Elephant Village, with no Wi-Fi or any connection to my home in Canada, was the most incredible experience in my life. I felt so connected to the people and the culture around me and was able to appreciate so much more in my life when I witnessed the huge differences in the Surin community to mine back at home. The happiness and serenity that I experienced when I was in the Elephant Village was beyond anything I'd ever felt before. At the Elephant Village we were lucky enough to be able to ride the elephants, which was definitely a highlight of my trip. Not only that, but we also cut sugar cane, fed the elephants and had a free afternoon in which we were able to kayak along the river close by. Two other girls and I were so upset at the time because we fell into the water twice when we wanted to stay dry but it ended up being a really great memory and still something I laugh about. After leaving the Elephant Village, we volunteered another four days at a temple childcare, playing and teaching the sweet children there. I really enjoyed this experience, as we were again able to engage in the lives of the local people and their children. The following weekend was a free weekend and we were given the opportunity to cross the border into Cambodia for 2 nights. This was definitely a big highlight of the trip, as we made our way to Angkor Wat Temple, which is a massive temple that is so beautiful and has so much history. After visiting the main tourist attraction, we spent the rest of our nights enjoying the markets and getting massages and pedicures! Back in Surin, the last stop on our trip before heading back to Bangkok at the National Park, Khao Yai. We went on a two-hour trek through the forest, saw so many animals, watched a waterfall, fell in love with the gorgeous view from a lookout point, and of course, took lots of pictures! It was the perfect way to end off the trip before we went back to Bangkok! Advertisement Greeks love conspiracy theories. We often tend to think of ourselves as victims of dark plots against our country; secret plans to manipulate us; Big Power intrigues over which we have no control. Given the latest developments in the European Union's refugee crisis, this is one of the few times we may be justified to think so. Over the past few months, Greece has been under intense pressure by many of its EU partners to stem the flood of refugees. It has been criticized, with increasing vehemence, for "not doing enough" or "not doing its homework." Most recently, some EU nations have even gone as far as to threaten Greece with exclusion from Europe's passport-free -- Schengen -- travel zone, if it does not "control" the flow of refugees on their way to more popular destinations such as Germany, Austria and Sweden. Specifically, Greece has been asked to secure (and faulted for not securing) its maritime border with Turkey, since the vast majority of refugees crossover to Greece by boat from the Turkish coast. If we disregard the fact that efforts to prevent people from getting on those boats in the first place have failed, the question that arises is how exactly does one "secure" maritime borders? How do you police and enforce those borders? With land borders, it is relatively straightforward: you close them. You put up walls, barbed wire, electric fences, checkpoints. You physically stop the flow. But how do you stop the flow by sea? How do you "push back?" Do you shoot at incoming boats? Do you sink them? Do you force them to turn around and go back to where they came from? The dozens or hundreds piled up on those boats every day barely make it to the Greek shores. Some of them have drowned trying -- most likely many more will. Sending them away would be sending many to their death. Yet, such an aggressive approach is exactly what some EU nations have demanded of Greek authorities, couched in language that implies that we simply are not trying hard enough. Advertisement To their credit, the Greeks have refused. How do you stop the flow by sea? How do you "push back?" Do you shoot at incoming boats? Do you sink them? Do you force them to turn around and go back to where they came from? The interior minister of a landlocked EU nation that doesn't even have a navy claimed that Greece is perfectly capable of enforcing its maritime border with Turkey on the grounds that it has "one of the biggest navies in Europe." So I have a proposal: Greece will provide the boats and other EU nations can provide the crews. That way we can learn what effective maritime border enforcement looks like, from those who clearly have a better idea. Greece is expected to resolve the European refugee problem by reducing the numbers that enter Europe -- or by keeping them within its borders. By closing the Schengen door on Greece, its EU partners will effectively turn it into the EU's refugee camp -- Europe's very own ghetto -- and all that when the country's economy is on the brink of collapse and barely able to support its own population. Advertisement Under such unprecedented circumstances, it cannot be Greece's sole responsibility to manage the flow of migrants passing through its borders -- which are essentially the EU's borders. Hasn't Greece done more than its share, with almost nonexistent material resources, but with extremely generous reserves of altruism and compassion, to respond to the humanitarian crisis that landed on its shores, while just emerging from a devastating financial crisis? What happened to EU solidarity? And why, instead of EU nations agreeing on a proactive, joint approach, more and more of them are ganging up on an easy target - the Union's weakest link? By closing the Schengen door on Greece, its EU partners will effectively turn it into the EU's refugee camp - Europe's very own ghetto - and all that when the country's economy is on the brink of collapse and barely able to support its own population. This is not about Greece's inability to enforce the unenforceable. This is about nations in panic, choosing the easier, every-country-for-itself-and-Greece-as-the-scapegoat approach, rather than a coordinated response to the biggest crisis in their Union's history. Not only is such an approach shameful, it will also not solve the problem, because Greece will not remain a ghetto for long. The thousands trapped within its borders will not want to stay there anyway. Living conditions in the makeshift refugee camps on the island of Lesvos, in the northern border with Macedonia or in Athens, where those who don't make it out of the country are sent, are already dire and will get worse as the numbers rise with the weather improving. These desperate thousands will find their way to where they want to be -- and that's not a poor state on the verge of collapse with 25 percent unemployment and nonexistent opportunities. They will find alternative routes to their promised lands. Many of them may die in the process -- again; and let us not forget the potential for violent outbursts when such a huge bottleneck seeks release. Advertisement What is the EU plan for containing that? Or, even worse, what if, being pushed on the brink once again, this time Greece does collapse under the pressure? What does the EU plan to do then? Maybe it is the secret that we all chose to hide from the people around us, trying to turn our gaze far from the ugliness of the reality. Or maybe we ignore it or we do not care about what happens to all those people, the survival of whom depends on our own contribution. In any case, organ donation constitutes a process which is almost unknown in Greece. This is confirmed by the official statistics of the National Transplant Organisation. According to them, Greece occupies the last place in the ranking among the European countries, having just 33 organ donations in October, which means 3 donors per one million of the population. Advertisement As a consequence, people of any age have to stay in the waiting list for many years, until the donor who will give them the right to live is found. After discussing with a family who has decided to donate the organs of one of its members, with young people waiting for a graft to be found, as also with the first woman in Greece, who has had an organ transplant and who has now become a mother, i have written down their experiences on this urgent issue. THE FIRST ORGAN DONATOR IN IOANNINA In this country there are bright examples of people who decide to donate the organs of a relative at the crucial moment of his death. One such example is the Bahoura family from Ioannina. "In 2008, my brother Andreas had an ischemic stroke at the age of 41. For almost two weeks he was hospitalized in the intensive care and ended up with brain death. At that moment, the first thing we thought about, was to donate his organs", says Irini, Andrea's sister. Irini claims that although she and her family did not know much about transplantation, the thought that Andrea's organs would give life to some people who are in need of them, was a consolation for the family. Advertisement So although Andreas is not alive, his liver, his cornea and his kidney gave life to three individuals and he became the first organ donor at Ioannina. "He always used to offer his help, on any way he could. In his whole life he supported any kind of donation. That's why we decided to proceed with this act when he died. I am sure that my brother would also wish that we did it", says Irini, expressing the complaint that none of the donators approached the family. ON THE WAITING LIST Moreover, what one can hardly accept is the fact that, on the waiting list there are also young people, who are in need of a heart transplant. Young people, whose health used to be in an excellent condition, people who had a job and lived their daily routine like all other people did, are now forced to live with the support machine until the moment that a suitable donor will give them the coveted graft. A typical example is the case of thirty-year-old Anna Palaiopanou, who has been living with a heart support machine for the last six months. Everything started almost one and a half years ago, when she felt an intense tiredness, which she attributed to the fact that she was working for many hours. But as time went by, tiredness became more and more intense and, after a series of medical examinations, the doctors concluded that something was wrong with her heart. "I had the defibrillator in January of 2015 and for the next six months my life was very difficult. I suffered from heart failure. I was wearing my blouse and I needed an interval of twenty minutes to rest and then wear my trousers" she says while talking to "F". Advertisement When she was told that she needed a transplant she was shocked and unable to believe that she was in such a bad condition. After visiting various specialists, she joined the waiting list for a transplant in June 2015 and has since lived with mechanical support. Her two sisters are her guardian angels, who stand by her side 24 hours a day, as somebody must be always close to her in case that the mechanism is damaged. "Although sometimes I forget it, I talk and laugh with my sisters, fear always exists deep inside. Don't forget that everything is just a machine, a stranger which can be damaged any time. If it breaks down, I am lost". Apart from her family and her husband who stands by her from the first moment that this health problem unexpectedly appeared into her life, the doctors of Onassio Hospital also help her feel optimistic. Her confidence towards them is such, that she is not afraid at all to enter the surgery again, when she knows that the operation will be undertaken by these individuals. "As long as I have Dr Adamopoulos, Dr Sfirakis, Dr Louka and mrs Gouziouta, I am cool, even if I know that heart operations are always hard and dangerous" she says obviously thrilled by the effort made not only by the doctors, but also the nurses. Another such instance is the case of 29-year-old Tina who suffered from stomach ache and intense tiredness last June. Although she was initially supposed to enter the surgery for bile operation, after thorough medical examinations the doctors concluded that there was a problem with her heart. Tina herself cannot forget the moment when she was transferred from Thessalonica to Athens in an ambulance. When she asked the doctor who was accompanying her, why they were going to Athens and he answered that they were going for a pre-transplant check up, she was speechless. "I remember me sitting on the corner of the ambulance, looking at myself in the pane and thinking that this couldn't be happening to me, it was just a nightmare. We arrived at Onassio Hospital and within one week I was informed that I would have a defibrillator, an artificial heart and then, heart transplantation. For Tina, a particularly active girl with a zest for living, these unpleasant news about her health, were like death. But what shocked her more than anything else was the fact that she used to be such a healthy person and suddenly she found herself having an artificial heart, without being able to get out of her house, not even for a short walk. Advertisement "I miss freedom, being able to leave home at least for a while, going somewhere on my own. I live with my parents who stand by me all day long and not a single day passes without the thought of the telephone ringing to tell me that a graft has been finally found". The most important for both Anna and Tina is informing people about everything that has to do with transplantation. "Surely one cannot persuade somebody to become an organ donor, but think of how many people lose their lives every day. If all those people donated their organs, there wouldn't be any waiting lists and the state wouldn't be burdened with additional expenditures for artificial hearts, as a machine costs 200.000 " concludes Anna. A LITTLE "MIRACLE" The story of Zoi Kostarides could surely be the script of a movie, as it is the story of the first woman in Greece who has ever undergone a transplant operation and despite the doctors' objections, she got pregnant and gave birth to a healthy little boy. Her health problem was made known to her by some medical examinations she had when she was thirteen years old. Given that there were not obvious symptoms, she didn't pay much attention. Ten years later at the age of 23, the fist symptoms- among them faints- appeared. At the age of thirty she was suffering from serious heart failure and she entered the intensive care. "It was the worst phase in my life. I couldn't even serve myself. One day the telephone rang and we were informed that a graft was found. A seventeen-year-old boy had died and I had mixed feelings. On the one hand there was a mourning family and on the other hand, there were we, waiting for something better" she says. Finally everything ended well and the seventeen-year-old boy's heart is now "beating" into Zoi's body. Advertisement U.S. Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) seem to have very little in common. They are in different generations, running for the nominations of different parties, and seem to be on the exact opposite of the ideological spectrum. Besides being white men, these two should have very little they can agree upon. However they seem to have a similar message when it comes to the disproportionate power of big business. I was recently in Boston, just a couple of weeks before the New Hampshire primary and I was deluged by the many commercials being blasted into the Granite State from both political parties. The one advertisement that kept grabbing my attention was for the Bernie Sanders campaign in which he tells an audience, "the federal government does not regulate business, business regulates the government. This would change under a Sanders administration." What Sanders is alluding to is a concept known as "regulatory capture," which is a form of political corruption that happens when a regulatory agency, created ostensibly to act in the public interest, instead advances the objectives of the actual companies they are suppose to regulate. Advertisement There are many examples of this throughout U.S. business history. A great example was the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which passed and became law under the George H. W. Bush administration. By the time this bill became law, the vast majority of Americans -- included those in business -- wanted to make sure people with legitimate handicaps were able to get the service they wanted or needed without obstructions at the places they do business. The law, when it was passed, had detailed and expensive regulatory requirements for implementation that literally put many small companies out of business. Who pushed for requirements that would put small businesses on the ropes? Mega corporations and their lobbyists who had already implemented those type of policies in their own companies and were actually pushing for the federal government to require them on businesses of all sizes. In a way, it is form of protectionism for the largest companies that can easily comply, but could put smaller businesses into bankruptcy. Calls by groups such as the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) for a reasonable approach that called for objectives rather than tactics (allowing companies instead of the government to determine the way the law was implemented), fell on deaf ears both in the Bush administration and the Democrats that held majorities in both Houses of Congress. Politicians argued that such a bill was pro-business because organizations representing companies were advocating for them. They did not seem to get that it was only big businesses advocating for such. Regulatory capture is a powerful tool used by corporations to avoid rules that would harm their bottom line or to punish companies they see as competition. This is not the type of regulatory capture that Sanders says he is concerned about. I doubt seriously if he worries about the fate of small businesses under such onerous laws. He seems only concerned about businesses not being regulated "enough." Rand Paul also argues against regulatory capture, particularly the type described above. The type that cripples a small business and gives a leg up to mega corporations. Advertisement How would Sanders reduce regulatory capture? Basically by continually consolidating the power of the federal government and giving it more authority. He would make these laws uniform nationwide and shrink the power of the states in fighting this battle in a more competitive way in which the best approaches to regulation would rise to the top. Because he would continue to put the power in the federal government, Sanders would also make it easy for big business to lobby in order to get the regulations they can live with and use DC as a tool to hamper its small business competition. Back to my question, how would Sanders reduce regulatory capture? He would not, it would be, surprisingly, business as usual. How would Rand Paul reduce regulatory capture? From day one he would wage a systematic war on the current Federal Register of Regulations and would put particular focus on those that favor big business at the expense of small ones (which, arguably, is the vast majority of them). He would shift as many logical regulations as possible to the states' responsibility, which would provide a "divide and conquer" approach in dealing with big business and its propensity towards regulatory capture. Clearly the big business lobby would prefer dealing with the federal government with its "one size fits all" approach than being required to go to 50 states to get its agenda passed. This attitude to government would also address another problem millions of Americans are concerned about -- too much money in federal political campaigns. Reduce the federal government's influence and watch the power of big business fade. Karel Schwarzenberg is the Prince of Schwarzenberg, Duke of Krumlov, former first Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and honorary Chairman of Top 09 party. Schwarzenberg was also a Member of the Senate of the Czech Parliament and a candidate for the President of the Czech Republic in the 2013 presidential election. He is noted as a pro-European member of the center-right governing coalition. Schwarzenberg's family, who once ranked among the oldest and wealthiest aristocrats in Central Europe, had to leave the Czechoslovakia after the Communist coup of 1948. He spent most of his adult life in Austria to plot against communism. He is a great proponent of human rights and has been for his entire life. In 1989, he was awarded, together with Lech Waesa, the Council of Europe's Human Rights Award. Lan Anh Vu sat down with Schwarzenberg to learn more about his political life, the challenges he faced and his advice for young people across the world when it comes to pursuing a career in politics. As told to Lan Anh Vu My Career in Politics In my early childhood, I was an observer of politics. In 1948, when the Communists took over, I was ten years old when I had to leave the Czechoslovakia and move to Austria. When I went to the school in Vienna to study law, I engaged in some political activities and became active in promoting human rights. At Munich university where I studied Graz and forestry, I was elected to student government. Due to the early death of my adoptive father, Jindrich Schwarzenberg, I had to cut my studies short and start managing the family properties. Advertisement From 1984 to 1991, I became president of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights. I pushed for human rights in Europe and was negotiating the question of human rights in the former USSR, Bulgaria, Kosovo and the Czech Republic. When the Communist regime fell in 1989 , I returned to live in the Czechoslovakia and work for the late President Vaclav Havel. In 1990, I was appointed as the Chancellor of the Office of the President. Some people told me I should become a senator. I first ran in the senate elections in 2002 and was unsuccessful, and in 2004 I ran again, succeeded and was elected a senator. Three years later, I became the foreign minister of the Czech Republic. Politics has been a constant part of my life ever since childhood. My whole life I fought for liberty and democracy. I always thought that if you had opportunities ahead, you have responsibilities and should do something for your country. Advertisement Challenges In the eighties, when I fought for human rights, it was a daily challenge for me. So often politicians in parliament talked nonsense, discussing topics without any knowledge of them. This made me mad. Based on my experience, you never expect the loss that defeats you. The greatest challenge does not appear where you have prepared yourself, fought and worked for years. The greatest challenge sometimes comes from a totally unexpected side. Then you have to pull yourself up, sometimes very unexpectedly, to face the thing you didn't expect or something you are not really willing to do. Lessons Learned I have learned that no tree in the world goes into heaven. Secondly, you can't make a tree go faster when you want it to, nor can you expect people to change quickly: they need time to change, quite a lot of time indeed. What I Believe Makes a Strong Leader A strong leader in politics needs to know how politics run and then to become a statesman. He also needs to have a vision. The difference between a politician and statesman is his vision. And of course, a strong leader needs to have some talent and charisma to attract people, and he must be interested in people. These are the elementary qualities of a strong leader. My Advice for Young People Young people who would like to pursue a career in politics need to find their own way and what they are fighting for. They can't simply say, "I would like to go into politics." They need to ask themselves these questions. For what? What do you wish for? What do you wish to achieve? What do you wish to change? What ideas do you want to promote? Aspiring politicians need to know why they want to become politicians, what their intent is. The world is changing so quickly that the conditions when I went into politics no longer exist. So many changes have occurred. Would-be politicians should find out if they like people, if they are interested in people. If they are not interested in people, then they shouldn't go into politics. Advertisement I would advise young people not to go into politics immediately, but to try after graduation to engage somewhere in their county or a professional organization. If they are successful in their county, then they can get elected to the local council and slowly continue. But no one should have the illusion that he will be a big star in the beginning. To make a career in politics, a lot of time and lots of experience are required. I only made it in politics after fifty, when I was sixty years old. Of course under special circumstances, there are rare cases where people make it in politics when they are young. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. Look, politicians respond. If the people are asleep and not involved, they respond to the lobbyists and donors. But when people speak up and fight, if you want to survive [as a politician], you have to respond. My job is to activate people to fight for their rights and to force Congress to respond to the needs of working families. What the president can do is to say to the American people, "OK, if you think that it is important that public colleges and universities are tuition-free, and that that program be paid for based on a tax on Wall Street speculation, well, on March 15th there is going to be a vote in the House, and let's see if we can bring large numbers of people here to Washington to say hello to members of Congress. Let us make every member of Congress aware that millions of people are involved in this issue. They know how you are going to vote." Of course we'll win that. Bernie Sanders, Nov. 2015 If Bernie captures the nomination, then what does his "political revolution" look like? Arguably, whether he wins or loses the nomination, our task will be roughly the same. Advertisement We will need to build a massive national organization with staying power to push for a broad-based agenda for justice -- along the lines of the platform Sanders is spreading so successfully. We can't let this golden political moment slip away....again. Occupy Wall Street gave us a similar moment. In six short months it grew to 900 encampments around the world. It changed the national discourse. Before OWS, President Obama was proudly pursuing a bi-partisan austerity bill -- a "grand bargain" that would have included cuts in Social Security. After Occupy Wall Street put runaway inequality on the map, the national debate radically shifted... and it's still shifting in the direction of taking on the "billionaire class" as Bernie puts it. But Occupy Wall Street essentially disappeared within six months. What can we learn from its demise? The standard line is that repression from city governments took them down. But while police actions did take place, OWS faded primarily because it didn't believe in organization. Rather it called for "horizontal" organizing and mass consensus decision-making that supposedly would avoid the pitfalls of oppressive hierarchical organization. . Advertisement This was akin to believing in spontaneous political combustion -- much like the Arab Spring. While such spontaneous uprisings can change discourse in profound ways and even topple governments in some countries, they can't survive without organization. (It was the well organized Muslim Brotherhood that harvested the fruits of Egypt's mass uprising, and now the Egyptian military has taken over with a vengeance .) The problem however goes far beyond Occupy Wall Street. The rest of us were asleep at the switch. OWS showed us that the American people detested runaway inequality and Wall Street's financial strip-mining of the economy. As the Tea Party demonstrated on the right, the moment was ripe to build a national progressive movement. But we didn't do it. Why? The answer in large part lies in how our generation of progressive organizations are structured. We are entangled in thousands of issue-based silos, each struggling to raise money, survive and do good work. Although the talent level of staff is enormously high, when the 2007-08 crash occurred, our silos were totally unprepared. We did not reach out to each other to build a massive national response, even as the national piggy bank was donated to Wall Street bailouts. That kind of action just wasn't on the to-do list of our siloed organizations. That's not what most of our funders were funding. We refused to realize that progress on our siloed issues was doomed unless we banned together to take on Wall Street. Many of us today still don't get it. Bernie does. He offers us another critical moment to build a lasting movement for economic and social justice. His campaign has hit the same raw nerve as Occupy Wall Street --- except on steroids. Advertisement There is great national sentiment to break up the big banks, to tax Wall Street to pay for free higher education, to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour, to stop the billionaire tax evaders. Sanders has put a social democratic agenda on the political map in full relief. But as Sanders knows full well, none of it is attainable unless we apply massive, sustained political pressure on every aspect of government. And this is the case whether he wins or loses. It's on us, not him, to build that movement and those structures. Here are some of the basic features that we need to consider: 1. A coherent short agenda and common analysis that binds us together: Sanders is field testing a common agenda each and every day. We know it must include a vast redistribution of income and wealth from the "billionaire class" to the rest of society. It also must confront the fact that we're the largest police state in the world, bar none. We need to get all of it down to no more than a 10-point plan that clearly reflects the anger we feel towards the super-rich, the rigged political system, and systemic racial and ethnic injustices. The trick will be to blend a mix of class and discrimination issues without ripping ourselves apart. We need a common analysis of how financial strip-mining and runaway inequality are harming the 99 percent. Advertisement 2. A national educational infrastructure to spread the agenda and analysis: The populists of the 1880s during their anti-Wall Street revolt fielded 6,000 grass roots educations to spread the word about the need for cooperatives, public banks, progressive income taxes and popular control over railroads and communications systems. Given the growth of our population, we will need to develop more than 30,000 educators to spread our message and agenda. Yes, social media can facilitate the process but nothing beats live discussion of these vital issues. The Communications Workers or America and Citizens Action New York already have launched such mass economic and social justice training. It could become a model for other unions and community groups to use. 3. A coherent national organization with state and local chapters: All of us need to belong to something with a common identity --that concretely expresses our movement. Our opponents are strong. A demonstration or two will not remove their iron grip on the economy and the political process. We need to prepare for a ten to twenty year struggle in order to break down their plutocracy. Therefore we need solid organizational structures that can sustain themselves. We should be able to travel anywhere in the country and join in a local meeting of our new organization and engage in common debate, discussion and political activity. Advertisement Building such a structure takes people and money. The Sanders campaign will have a surplus of both. Either in victory or defeat, it will amass millions of small donors and tens of thousands of volunteers and staff who are likely to be willing to build, join and contribute to such a formation. 4. A new movement identity: This is perhaps the highest hurdle for us to clear. We need to see ourselves as movement builders. We must make our silos more porous. Our identities as enviros, racial justice fighters, labor activists and so on also must include a common movement building identity. Our traditional approach to coalition and alliance building is unlikely to succeed unless we place a much higher value on building a new common movement identity. None of this will come easy. It cuts hard against the grain of how progressives are organized. Our separate identities give us nourishment and a sense of empowerment. It's also not something our "funders" are likely to embrace because they too have their silos. It will disrupt our to-do lists and put us into strange new organizing space. And there are likely to be rivalries among organizations and individuals who may vie for leadership. This is tough stuff. Is it possible to imagine that climate justice, Black Lives Matter, the fight for a $15 minimum wage, prison reform, and union organizing could all come together in a common movement? Not easily. But runaway inequality will stifle all of these movements unless we do band together. The elite plutocracy gives us no choice but to try. Of course, this kind of mass organizing becomes somewhat easier if Sanders is elected. However, win or lose, it is the challenge of our lifetimes -- it is the promise of the Sanders political revolution. Advertisement RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - 2002/02/15: (EDITORS NOTE: Image contains nudity.) - Valeria Valenssa, former Mulata Globeleza, Samba Schools Parade, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by Ricardo Beliel/Brazil Photos/LightRocket via Getty Images) "Don't let them make you believe that our role is to attract foreign tourists to the country by playing the role of the mulatto woman." --Yzalu, Brazilian musician Promotional ads hyper-sexualizing the bodies of black women have just started airing, ahead of Rio de Janeiro's Carnival, which will kick off on February 5. Advertisement This is the moment I ask myself if we will ever be able to bring up something other than the "Mulata Globeleza" when we address media depiction of black women. That is the reference we've been using since 1993, when the Globo TV network created this character to promote its Carnival transmission. It doesn't take much to realize that this character's image contributes significantly to the hypersexualization of black women's body, and bolsters stereotypes. I would really like to believe that we are living a new reality where black women are empowered. Anyone capable of the most basic critical thinking should know that by now. This wiggling, samba dancing mulatto woman became a hit, stirring the imagination of millions of Brazilians. She was created by Hans Donner, a German designer who, coincidentally, is married to Valeria Valenssa, the first "Globeleza." Valenssa played the role for over a decade. Advertisement She continued to play the role even when she became pregnant, but in 2005, she was replaced by Giane Carvalho. From then on, three other actresses played the role: Aline Prado, Nayara Justino and Erika Moura. I would really like to believe that we are living a new reality where black women are empowered, and where there is resistance to stereotypes in mainstream culture. The year 2015 was very special for black women, thanks to the first edition of the Black Women's March, representing the daily struggle against racism, sexism and eurocentrism, as well as demonstrating the strong presence of black women in the country. Sadly, however, the Brazilian media still surprises us by showing the same old images of black women playing the same old roles. And Carnival remains the pinnacle of this phenomenon. Amidst all the beauty and sophistication of Carnival, "Globeleza" insists on representing black women as mere sex objects. Advertisement And when we consider the reality of the Brazilian population, we realize how perverse this is. Black women represent the majority of domestic workers and of women prisoners in Brazil. They suffer from obstetric violence, and they are a minority in public universities and in Congress. And what does the Globo TV network and its "Mulata Globeleza" character insist on showing us? That "Globeleza" is nothing but a collection of stereotypes. "Globeleza" is a naked black woman, dancing provocatively, silently, connecting with the viewer only through the image of her body. It is impossible to watch one of her vignettes without realizing that it is not about the woman Valeria Valenssa. Instead, it is only about her body, her sensuality and her sexuality. "Globeleza" is just a body that dances the samba sexually, nothing else. That it is OK to be called "Mulata Globeleza." The term "mulata" (mulatto woman) is extremely violent. It came from the word Mula (Mule), which refers to the cross between a donkey and a mare; a cross-bred and barren animal. During slavery, around the 16th century, the word was used to refer to children born to Portuguese white men and black slaves. Although many people today don't feel uncomfortable with the use of this term, I believe that, considering the condition of the black Brazilian population, especially black women, such derogatory terms worsen the living conditions of such people. The term "mulata" (mulatto woman) is extremely violent. It came from the word Mula (Mule), which refers to the cross between a donkey and a mare; a cross-bred and barren animal. During slavery, around the 16th century, the word was used to refer to children born to Portuguese white men and black slaves. Although many people today don't feel uncomfortable with the use of this term, I believe that, considering the condition of the black Brazilian population, especially black women, such derogatory terms worsen the living conditions of such people. That "Globeleza" is not a popular icon, but a product created by Globo TV network. Brazilian pop culture is extremely rich. There are several popular icons that bear cultural significance and that could easily be part of Carnival imagery. The "Mulata Globeleza," however, doesn't come from pop culture. It is the creation of the German-born Brazilian designer Hans Donner. And yet, it is clearly the image many foreigners have of Brazil. The problem is the fact that we passively accept that image. Brazilian pop culture is extremely rich. There are several popular icons that bear cultural significance and that could easily be part of Carnival imagery. The "Mulata Globeleza," however, doesn't come from pop culture. It is the creation of the German-born Brazilian designer Hans Donner. And yet, it is clearly the image many foreigners have of Brazil. The problem is the fact that we passively accept that image. That the naked body of black women is always available to men's pleasure. A naked black woman with only a few colored paint strokes to cover her sexual organs, always smiling and dancing. This image is closer to the sexual desire of European white men than to the sincere expression of happiness during Carnival. The image created by Hans Donner is firmly rooted in the history of colonial Brazil. Think about it: in colonial Brazil, black women were separated from their families and forced to work in the farmhouses of their owners, and forced to have sexual intercourse with their masters. "Globeleza" is a symbol of the injustice that took place in Brazilian history, and that still takes place today. A naked black woman with only a few colored paint strokes to cover her sexual organs, always smiling and dancing. This image is closer to the sexual desire of European white men than to the sincere expression of happiness during Carnival. The image created by Hans Donner is firmly rooted in the history of colonial Brazil. Think about it: in colonial Brazil, black women were separated from their families and forced to work in the farmhouses of their owners, and forced to have sexual intercourse with their masters. "Globeleza" is a symbol of the injustice that took place in Brazilian history, and that still takes place today. Advertisement That the beauty of black women is only recognized during Carnival. It is a fact... During Carnival, everyone wants to be like her, to dance like her and to have the attitude of a real samba dancer. In February, the black woman is considered a role model. During the rest of the year, though, the situation changes. They often play secondary roles in soap-operas, never the main characters. They have no place in Brazilian movies or TV shows. When they appear in comedy shows, such as Zorra Total , they are ridiculed. According to the logic of Brazilian TV channels, black women are only beautiful during Carnival; the rest of the year, as if by magic, they are no longer beautiful. It is a fact... During Carnival, everyone wants to be like her, to dance like her and to have the attitude of a real samba dancer. In February, the black woman is considered a role model. During the rest of the year, though, the situation changes. They often play secondary roles in soap-operas, never the main characters. They have no place in Brazilian movies or TV shows. When they appear in comedy shows, such as, they are ridiculed. According to the logic of Brazilian TV channels, black women are only beautiful during Carnival; the rest of the year, as if by magic, they are no longer beautiful. That the "Mulata Globeleza" sets the standard for black women. Thin, tall, slender, big breasts, big butt, curly hair with a few blonde locks, and lighter skin. That is the acceptable standard for a black woman (even if only as a sex object). But most black women don't fit that standard. Fat black women with darker skin, thicker lips, stronger features, who cannot dance the samba or are not willing to be regarded merely as sex objects, have no place in the media. Thin, tall, slender, big breasts, big butt, curly hair with a few blonde locks, and lighter skin. That is the acceptable standard for a black woman (even if only as a sex object). But most black women don't fit that standard. Fat black women with darker skin, thicker lips, stronger features, who cannot dance the samba or are not willing to be regarded merely as sex objects, have no place in the media. That the "Mulata Globeleza" can cause depression. This point is connected to the previous one. In 2014, the actress Nayara Justino was elected "Globeleza" by popular vote. But the general public didn't receive her very well, mainly due to the fact that her skin was darker than that of previous actresses. When the news came out that Globo network would replace her, several Internet users posted racist comments about her skin color. Consequently, she was overcome with depression. This disease also befell Valeria Valenssa when she knew she would be replaced in 2005. After her pregnancy, her body changed significantly, and she believed that was the reason she had been replaced. A child with special needs due to chromosome 8P inversion duplication syndrome with a volunteer. Humans. I'm sure I don't need to tell you; we are one fragmented and flawed race. So many complex issues for, against, and with other humans. So many small infractions upon each other and some days those small dings compound into too much. In my world, I am witness to an ongoing phenomenon called ableism. Oh no, not another ism! Cry the masses. I know! It's a thing -- an action, a reaction, a statement, a way of thinking that I didn't even realize had a name until a few years ago. The short version, if this is a new term to you, is this: ableism is when a person is discounted, discriminated against, or even physically abused, because of a disability. Like any ism, people are often affected via micro-aggressions that come so subtly, and so frequently, that the person targeted is encouraged to ignore it and the people perpetuating the offense claim to not see it or understand what the problem is, anyway. As someone who loves someone with a developmental disability, I felt the ding recently in a blog shared by an author I respect. She wrote of the challenging experience, admittedly mostly to her own preconceived perceptions, when her 6-month-old son required helmet therapy. While this mom learned that the flat spot requiring the helmet was not "her fault," she also learned that people do stare but that she could help teach them and decided to use this experience to educate and reassure. Advertisement What did she reassure? She assured people "it was a physical, not mental issue." This is where the ding comes in, because of the implication that a "mental issue," well...that would be worse. That would be a cross too much to bear and would make her child, somehow, less than. I felt the nudge. I shuddered to imagine the real life moment, when she had these conversations, and the other mom silently bit her tongue, knowing her own child, or brother/sister, or friend, was duly branded with this "at least it's not that" status. No, I don't think those three months appreciating her child's uniqueness, taught the entire lesson. The lesson that we should celebrate every child's uniqueness, helmet or no, "mental issue" or no, what about that lesson? (Sigh.) Another more obvious example is the r-word. It is a slur that has made its way into the American vernacular and is thrown around as a bully tactic and spewed with such bitterness that it has become a profanity of hate. Advertisement Even when a stick figure says it, the r-word is a slur that is never okay. Fortunately, there are allies who speak up. Like these: Hey #Blobla #BelikeBill is being offensive! The R word is not acceptable. Lets join Ink4Autism and let Blobla... https://t.co/n0VVycBdef Muddling thru the MiddleA Legion for Liam (@ALegionForLiam) January 23, 2016 This is Nicole. Nicole loves many people with intellectual disabilities. Nicole knows that it's not kind or cool to... Posted by Nicole Salisbury on Sunday, January 24, 2016 Yet, even within the disability community, and those who proclaim to be allies, there is a hierarchy. A running stream of ableism that cuts and curves through our own and holds people with developmental delays firmly submerged under the rest. Let me share a few more examples of these small pushes downward. Advertisement Another writer in the community recently demonstrated this when a person in an office role designed to help people with disabilities used the r-word. Mr. Hingsburger recognized that this person was likely: "Betting on the fact that as I had a physical disability and not an intellectual disability that I'd be in your camp, on your side. You were betting on my being so wrapped up in my insecurities that I'd be pleased to be included with you, and not them. That I'd be one of the ones who liked it to be clear that 'at least I'm not r#tarded.'" ("What He said" begins: Dear Sir. And it is, as all of Dave Hingsburger's blogs are, an articulate and personal response to the moment and I am thankful to have him in this universe as an ally.) What upsets me is, as his blog showed, how many others who claim to be allies, or maybe I too boldly assume should be allies, are not. They are just not; and they don't even seem to know or care. The most upsetting example, that clarified this whole hierarchy of ableism, is the widely acclaimed book Wonder. As a bit of explanation, the protagonist of the book is a boy who has mandibulofacial dysotosis named Auggie, in his case this means he has a craniofacial disorder. A pretty extreme one, based on the descriptions and reactions demonstrated in the book. Now, technically, this is not a disability. David G. Roche, who also has a facial difference, calls this a social model of disability, because life for a person with facial differences has varying degrees of extreme and unique challenges and humans, as previously noted, are not always open and kind to those who are different. Advertisement That's really where the book steps in. It is acclaimed as a tool to open conversations between people who may be different and proud to take a hard look at what it means to bully and to befriend. And yet, R. J. Palacio, the author, chose to use the r-word in our young protagonist's dialogue. OK. I'm a writer. I get the importance of imperfect characters and emotional dialogue. Sadly, those reasons don't appear to be Palacio's intention. I have come to this conclusion based on two factors: One) When I read the book, of course, I hiccupped at that moment. I stumbled over the word in the text, and moved on. However, after I closed the last page and slept on it, the language stuck with me. The reason it stuck with me is because it was obviously the word and sentiment Palacio meant and intended to use. One of the currents that ran strong and fast through the book was this: Auggie's intelligence. He's smarter than many of his class. His school is not "special needs" inclusive, very clearly pointed out in the plotline is: his school does not even accept "special needs" students. Why is this important? Because it demonstrates the opinion that developmental disability is worse, much much much worse than anything else, it is a need to be separated, and consequently worthy of the venom and disgust the protagonist boy spat in a moment of anger and frustration. This saddened me. Two) The response by the Palacio to a callout by another mom on this subject saddened me even more. I knew I couldn't be the first and only person to notice this grievous inconsistency with what is touted as the book's overall themes of acceptance. The blog Love that Max, explained a mother's letter, and the publisher/Palacio's reply here in "A shocking truth about the bestseller Wonder and its disability dis" The blog shares Palacio's reply which is, basically, the word was used because that's what kids say. I can easily and swiftly counter this with many an argument regarding her word choice, but the aforementioned blog does a fine job of rebuttal, so I'll leave it at: Nope. Not acceptable. Advertisement Essentially, Wonder exemplifies ableism in a strong and non-apologetic way, because, to have a book with a touted theme of kindness and acceptance put people with developmental disabilities at the bottom of the pool, both overtly and subversively, is heartbreaking. The good news about humans is this, we can learn. I, for example, continue to notice and change my own word choices and active responses and am also noticing that my friends and family are evolving as well. When the book Wonder is discussed in classrooms, although Palacio has not included this point in the discussion notes suggested to teachers, I hope that teachers will notice and encourage this issue to be part of the discussion. Words matter. If kindness becomes part of our stream of consciousness, accepting all others of varying abilities is part of that motion. There's still more to teach. (Unfortunately, even our teachers currently have an #UnacceptableExample in leadership, but that's a whole other blog here and will send you into another rabbit-hole that demonstrates ableism in our systems and schools.) Wait, I was wrapping up with the good news. Well, the good news begins and ends, as it always does, with you. First, I hope that you will make yourself a little more diligent to recognizing these small aggressions in action. Secondly, I hope you consider taking steps to educate others, children, family and friends, on these aggressions, including word choices. And Lastly, I hope, when you witness an ablest moment, from a person being knocked to the floor physically, to the person being demeaned (whether they are present or not) verbally, consider taking action. Just as the small dings build up into big issues, small corrections can also change the course of our systems and societies until we have changed minds and actions as well. One last thing, keep teaching me, and let's keep teaching each other. Advertisement When a young Civil Service Commissioner named Theodore Roosevelt wanted to publicize his corruption-busting in 19th Century Washington, he couldn't turn to Twitter or Facebook. Instead, Roosevelt spent years cultivating elite political journalists who would cover him for the rest of his public career, bringing "Teddy" into the homes of millions of Americans. The symbiotic relationship between Roosevelt and what became the White House Correspondents Association set the standard for how politicians talk to the public. The media became powerful gatekeepers of American civic awareness, deciding what the public heard and from whom they heard it. Presidential candidacies rose and fell on their ability to garner press (and voter) attention. With the launch of Change Politics, the Roosevelt model is shifting. Voters no longer need to hope their interests are addressed in a televised debate. The power to ask questions directly to presidential candidates -- and for those candidates to share their messages directly with voters -- marks a fundamental shift in American political culture. Advertisement Change Politics is the only platform that provides tools for voters to engage directly with candidates on the issues they think are the important in the lead up to election day, and to connect with a network of the people they trust most to specifically source recommendations in the form of endorsements. It's a bold experiment in making democracy more democratic. And it's working. Since Change Politics launched on January 14, thousands of users have asked questions on topics often overlooked by network and cable news debates. Voters are letting candidates know their concerns and hopes for the United States, and major media outlets are following the discussions as a new kind of voter-centric political power. Candidates from both political parties jumped at the chance to connect directly with voters, free from the shifting attention of political reporters or the strict format of a debate. Here's just a sample of what they've been up to over the past two weeks: Democrats Hillary Clinton, Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders offered video and text responses to a question about universal preschool asked by voter E.J. Wallace. Then, after nearly 400 people asked about Super PACs, the campaigns tackled the influence of money in the political process. O'Malley even added a backing beat to his response: Advertisement Republicans are taking time to answer voter questions, too. Many of the candidates are using Change Politics to talk directly to their base, including Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee. When Lindsay Weiss submitted a video question urging the candidates to share their views on comprehensive tax reform, every Republican candidate directly addressed her concerns. By taking action and building a coalition of supporters, Weiss became a major voice in the 2016 Republican Primary. As the role of moderators hits the headlines ahead of tonight's Republican debate, Weiss shows the promise of a democratic system for selecting questions from the people most affected by the actions of politicians. You are the debate moderator. Throughout political history, individual voters never had much expectation that their concerns would get a hearing from some of the most powerful political leaders in the country. By empowering voters to become megaphones for their passions and hopes, a first-time voter from New Hampshire can now harness the power of her social network to become a power player in the presidential campaign. Advertisement Under this new model, each citizen is both debate moderator and newspaper editor. By gathering friends and supporters who feel as they do, voters become influential civic voices in a presidential debate too often structured to pit candidates against each other on insubstantial issues. As a result, presidential candidates treat them with the respect and seriousness previously reserved for heavy-hitting political pundits from The Des Moines Register or The Washington Post. That's a historic shift. Civic technology like Change Politics aims to better fulfill the promise of American democracy: that Americans, banding together to make their voices heard, should be every bit as influential and powerful in an election cycle as major media outlets, PACs or lobbyists. space shuttle atlantis clears... It was January 28th, 1986, and I was ten years old. My fellow elementary school students and I had gathered proudly in the auditorium, eager to watch a teacher fly into space. She had plans to teach two fifteen minute classes from orbit, and millions of students all over America were watching her go. When we saw what looked like an explosion, the first thing we felt was confusion. Then fear. Then tears. Administrators called parents to pick us up early. Children at the school where she had taught were furiously chasing out the press. Advertisement At such a young age, I didn't fully understand the significance of the president canceling his State of the Union address that night, or the concerns that the Russians could exploit the tragedy for their own purposes, or the fear that the entire space program might be brought to a quick end. It would be years before I'd learn that the astronauts were likely still alive when they hit the water. But I remember that President Reagan's Oval Office address about the tragedy was amazing. It flowed like poetry, sending the country into mourning with an enormous sense of pride. The crew of that ship had been, at the time, the most diverse ever, and Christa McAuliffe, the teacher, the first civilian to be sent to space, was a hero to everyone - especially to us kids. Thirty years later, the Challenger has not been forgotten, but unfortunately, it seems that much of its spirit has. Exploring the heavens was an enormous point of national pride in 1986, a boldfaced arrow to the future. The space program inspired countless young Americans to become scientists and projected an image around the world of a country that could do extraordinary things - and do them together. NASA was, in today's terms, one of the most beloved and esteemed "brands" in the United States, not only changing the way Americans thought about science, but the way we thought about ourselves. Even so, the space program did much more than inspire: it also directly paved the way for the technologically extraordinary world that we take for granted today. To pick just one of hundreds of examples, if you are reading this article online, it almost certainly came to you through a satellite. Who was figuring out how to get satellites into space efficiently and relatively inexpensively, long before their benefits were obvious to the average terrestrial? It was NASA - perhaps the greatest single research and development program ever undertaken, with economic and technological benefits still rippling out today. Advertisement Sadly, the space program of today is a shell of what it once was. The shuttles are all retired, on display in museums alongside relics like the Apollo capsules, and Cape Canaveral, once regularly rumbling with shuttle launches, is the Detroit of aerospace. The Martian may be nominated for Academy Awards in Hollywood, but in real life, NASA doesn't even currently have the capability to launch American astronauts to the International Space Station. Recent budget increases are a positive step but are nonetheless barely a shadow of the agency's glory days. Unless you're a multi-millionaire who can afford to pay for private sector space tourism (a venture which is itself still very much in a beta phase), the only way to get to space is through a Russian facility in Kazakhstan. Private sector space exploration has its place, of course. Companies like Space X and Blue Origin are doing extraordinary things, and their development of reusable rockets will significantly reduce costs. Citizen space groups like the Open Space Agency are also doing exceptional work, with citizen astronomers just last year discovering countless new planets and galaxies from telescopes in their backyards. But these companies and organizations could do much more if they were part of a national effort to advance science and technology through aeronautics, as partners with NASA instead of pale replacements. Working in partnership with the private space industry, a better funded NASA could advance the sector at a rate not seen since the 1960s. They could establish a base on the moon, with low gravity launch-pads from which to explore our solar system and new telescopes that would peer into the deepest reaches of space, laying the groundwork for advances we can barely imagine. When I was a child, astronauts were a symbol of the future, of what humanity - and America - was capable of. For my young son, I fear that astronauts may be a symbol of the past, of an adventurous age gone by. I don't want that to be the case. I want him to look to the heavens and know that if he studies hard at science and math, he can get there. I want his friends to know the same thing, for the very notion of it to inspire them like NASA inspired the kids of my generation - many of whom ended up working in places like Silicon Valley, inventing the future. I want him to see with his own eyes the living testament to human achievement that is embodied in every spacefaring venture, to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is nothing the human mind and the human spirit cannot achieve when we try. This June 10, 2011 photo shows David Kaczynski in a park near a family member's home in Wheaton, Ill. Kaczynski gives talks about how he decided to turn in his older brother, Ted, leading to his conviction as the Unabomber, the anti-technology terrorist who conducted a two-decade mail bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23 others. Since his decision, the bomber's brother has become a tireless advocate for victims of violence. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green) A deeply personal encounter with David Kaczynski and Linda Patrik, family members of the man who was once the most sought after terrorist in America. We meet in the middle of nowhere, a vast prairie in the Southwest. David Kaczynski and his wife Linda Patrik don't want it to be known where exactly they live, even after all these years. "My brother has a fan club," David says. Theodore "Ted" Kaczynski, the Unabomber, was once the most sought after terrorist in the US. Between 1978 and 1995, he mailed 16 bombs, killed three people, and injured 23. The FBI dubbed him the Unabomber, because he sent his bombs to universities and airlines. In David Kaczynski's forthcoming book Every Last Tie: The Story of the Unabomber and His Family (Duke University Press Books), he tells the story for the first time from his own perspective. Ted Kaczynski got a life sentence, but in some ways, his family did, too. Michaela Haas: Why did you spend the last 20 years advocating against the death penalty? David Kaczynski: Because the death penalty is a false solution; it just causes more pain. After the Unabomber crisis, I became a man on a mission, committed to putting a human face on my mentally ill brother and changing people's minds about the death penalty. The question is: How do we heal? How do we heal in a way that actually helps transform society? Over a 15-year period, I travelled to 39 states and gave more than a thousand public speeches in which I repeated my painful family story endlessly and outlined the reasons why I thought capital punishment was a terrible mistake. Advertisement Is this why you have reached out to many of your brother's victims? DK: After Ted was arrested and we were haunted by the media, I got quite depressed and I went through this "poor-me" phase, because the government had betrayed us. They had assured us nobody would ever know that it was us who identified my brother as the Unabomber, but the same day my brother was arrested in April 1996, that same government turned into a leaky sieve of information about the Kaczynskis. Linda gave me a tough love talk, reminding me that others suffered much more, "You've got to think about all the other people who got hurt, it is not about you." I understood that I was part of a much bigger picture of suffering. Not long after that I decided to write letters to the victims and apologize. Most of them didn't respond, but I ended up having a phone call with one of them, Gary Wright, who became a very good friend. We need to make the world wider than our ego. How did you realize that your brother was the Unabomber? DK: I would never have guessed it. To me, he was my big brother I had always admired. The brother who had genuine empathy for children, animals, and people living on the margins of society.. The brother who looked out for me. The last time I saw him was in 1986, and I did not suspect anything. Then he broke off all contact. At its peak, 125 FBI agents were searching for the Unabomber full-time, but in the end it was Linda, a private citizen, who had never even met him, who cracked the case. Linda Patrik: I was the one who first thought his brother was the man they were looking for, and it took me three or four months to convince David that this was a real possibility. Advertisement Ted, 9, and David Kaczynski, 2, with their parakeet in 1952. Photo: Courtesy David Kaczynski It's astonishing to me that you had this intuition though you had never met him. LP: He wrote us letters that made it clear to me that he wasn't mentally well. He told us he had a heart condition and was seeing a woman doctor in Montana, but in his letters to us he described how he wanted to date this woman (in 1991), and it was very creepy. I convinced David to take these letters to a psychiatrist, and the psychiatrist agreed that Ted was disturbed, but when we asked if anything could be done, the psychiatrist said that this was virtually impossible, because Ted hadn't committed any crimes. David phoned the doctor and followed up with a letter hoping to have his brother referred for mental health treatment In reality, though, he had already committed crimes. DK: Yes, he started in 1978, but the FBI concealed all the information. They had the strategy that they didn't want the public to know what they knew. After my friend Gary was hurt in 1987, the FBI acknowledged for the first time that these different events might be linked. LP: In August 1995, I couldn't keep my suspicion to myself anymore. We were actually in Paris, on a trip celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary, when I asked David: Do you think your brother might be the Unabomber? DK: I thought this was out of the question. Then we went through the process of comparing my brother's letters to the Unabomber's manifesto that the New York Times published in September 1995. When I read the manifesto I was no longer completely dismissive, but I still thought we would find out he wasn't. So it was a slow process for me to catch up with Linda's intuition. Where were you when your brother was arrested in his hut in Montana in April 1996? DK: We watched it on TV. I have never seen anybody who looked so tattered and bedraggled. They found a bomb under his bed, ready to be sent. So we had done the right thing. Immediately, the media hounded us. Reporters somehow gained access to our bank records. They dug through our garbage. They called our unlisted numbers. They besieged our friends and relatives with interview requests. It felt as if we had not a shred of privacy or dignity left. I'm surprised you speak with the media at all. DK: The media later became our ally when we fought against the death penalty. It would have been much easier for me to turn my brother in if I didn't potentially surrender him to being executed. I thought it would kill my 79-year-old mother too, having to watch the execution of her son, because her other son turned in his brother. Advertisement How did you help spare your brother the death penalty? LP: Do you know about the Harvard experiments? Ted was highly intelligent and was admitted to Harvard University when he was only 16. They did a psychological study about him when he entered college as a freshman, and it showed indications of schizophrenia. Instead of helping him, or informing the family, they conducted experiments that some trace back to the CIA. Harvard was one of the few major universities that had not signed an agreement after World War II not to conduct experiments with human beings without telling them what the experiment is about and obtaining "informed consent" from the participants. They selected the most maladjusted, most alienated freshman. David's brother was the second worst in terms of maladjustment. DK: Every week for three years, someone met with him to verbally abuse him and humiliate him. He never told us about the experiments, but we noticed how he changed. He became harder, more defensive in his interactions with people. If the case had gone to trial, what happened to Ted as a helpless guinea pig in a government-funded study would have come out in open court. Why did you decide to publish the book now? DK: Our story has been told so many times by other people. Almost always it came out a little wrong. I wanted to set the record straight and tell it from my perspective. It is also to memorialize a family, our parents, who were the best parents they knew how to be. And then I guess, I would like people to take away some degree of empathy, have greater awareness regarding mental illness and the struggles many families experience when a family member becomes sick. A lot of people have stereotypical notions about mental illness. i.e. that a person is completely disconnected from reality, or that none of Ted's ideas could be valid if he's "crazy." I think it is much more complicated. What I see in his diaries is a person drowning in their pain and loneliness and totally losing perspective on who they are, what the world is and what it means to be human. This is someone I once loves, and still love. Because I know his potential, the goodness buried in him somewhere. If there is something I would like the book to do is for people to think less simplistically about mental illness, to take it seriously and to understand it as a much more complex phenomena. You have worked with at-youth-risk, as the director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty, and as an advocate who met with countless family members of other terrorists or their victims. Did you find the healing you were seeking? DK: Yes and no. Yes, because through this work I have met so many incredible people. It is quite hard to listen to their stories, and yet inspiring, because they all have this arc of spiritual epiphany of some kind. Advertisement And no, because I promised my mother on her deathbed not to give up on my brother, and yet he denies me any opportunity for reconciliation. I still write to him in the Supermax prison in Colorado. I never get a response. Maybe one day the door will open. Sweden has a long tradition of promoting free and open trade. Our prosperity as a nation has extensively been built upon our trade with the rest of the world. The international dimension of the Swedish economy is significant and the success of our companies, at home or in international markets, ultimately depends on their ability to stay competitive in a globalised economy. In short, they need to constantly adjust, upgrade and innovate in a context of ever increasing global competition. As trade evolves, policies and rules need to be up-dated to reflect the new trade patterns. My government is committed to working for progressive international trade agreements and to dismantle trade barriers. We will do this in a way that ensures the protection of the environment, labour interests and public health. As the Swedish experience shows, the promotion of such public policy objectives is fully compatible with open trade. The Swedish tradition of close and constructive cooperation between business and labour has been an asset in this regard. Advertisement Our trade and investment relationship with the US is extremely important. We signed our first bilateral trade agreement back in 1783, making Sweden the first neutral nation not involved in the Revolutionary War to officially recognize the young American republic. Today, the US is our biggest trading partner outside of Europe. Ultimately, our close economic ties boil down to jobs - jobs in Sweden, but also jobs in the US. It is estimated that economic interactions with Sweden support around 330 000 American jobs. In return, our National Board of Trade estimates that 140 000 jobs in Sweden are due to our economic interactions with the U.S. The Swedish Government is committed to bringing the negotiations on a deep and comprehensive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership to a successful conclusion. An ambitious TTIP agreement, which addresses the most costly barriers in transatlantic trade, holds great promise. The economic potential underlying TTIP is obvious. These are historic negotiations - in terms of size, in terms of the potential gains, and in terms of the precedent that the partnership could set. TTIP is ambitious. And we need to be ambitious if we are to achieve the goals we have set for ourselves. 2016 will be an important year, and my government will do its utmost to bring forth a successful conclusion of the negotiations. Yesterday, I was proud to strengthen our presence in New York by opening Sweden's upgraded Consulate General in New York City. Today I will continue in Washington and meet officials from the U.S. Administration, including U.S.Trade Representative Michael Froman. Advertisement Phased retirement is a catchall term that covers a variety of part-time and reduced-hour work arrangements for workers getting close to retirement age. Whether you're within a few years of retirement or maybe looking ahead a decade or two, the trend of "phasing out" one career or maybe moving on to another is apparently here to stay. Washington is leading the way. The federal government authorized the move for its own employees several years ago and began accepting applications in late 2014 from workers aged 55 and up with a desire to switch to half-time employment in exchange for receiving half their salary and annuity. What's behind this move? Employers are considering phased retirement as a way to preserve a diverse workplace in terms of seniority so older workers don't bottleneck opportunities for younger workers. At the same time, waves of departures by experienced workers can send substantial amounts of intellectual capital out the door. Some employers are looking at phased retirement paired with organized mentorship programs to make sure valuable knowledge and skills are left safely with the next generation of workers and managers. Advertisement For employees with a long-term view, phased retirement can offer significant benefits, but it requires due diligence and planning. Among the advantages, phased retirement means that there doesn't need to be a hard stop on a successful career. In fact, a 2014 study by Merrill Lynch in partnership with Age Wave found that 72 percent of pre-retirees over the age of 50 report that their ideal retirement will include working "often in new, more flexible and fulfilling ways." The study also noted that 47 percent of current retiree respondents were already working or planning to work during their retirement years. Additionally, a 2015 study by the TransAmerica Center for Retirement Studies found that 41 percent of respondents envision transitioning into retirement by reducing their hours to allow for more leisure time to enjoy life (26 percent) or by working in a different capacity that is less demanding or brings greater personal satisfaction (15 percent). Here are ways to evaluate this choice, no matter what your age: Determine what's next. The first question workers should ask about phased retirement is, "What do I want to phase into?" For some workers, retirement really will mean a classic vision of travel and leisure leading into old age. But for others, the picture may be different. Some retirees will want to work and some will have to work due to their financial situation. If you're considering phased retirement, think through the next stage carefully before you settle on a decision. See what options your employer offers over time. While the federal government is moving its agencies into a phased retirement mindset, private employers are generally behind in setting up formal phased retirement programs. The Society for Human Resource Management, in a 2013 benefits study, noted that only 6 percent of employers had a formal phased retirement program that provided a reduced schedule and/or responsibilities prior to full retirement. In short, these programs are evolving and very likely to reflect the state of the economy over time. Advertisement Listen to your senior colleagues. As phased retirement evolves, keep a conversation going with your older colleagues and friends about how they're preparing for retirement. There's nothing like direct advice from individuals getting ready for such a transition to help you build the retirement you want. Even if there's no phased retirement program at your organization right now, it's still worth talking about retirement preparation with more senior colleagues willing to do so. Also, keep in mind that you're never really too young to start asking those questions. Know that retirement planning needs to start early regardless of how you want to end your career. The decision to make a full or transitional exit from one's employer actually requires years of saving and investing both at home and at work. Before deciding how you want to leave your employer, talk to qualified retirement experts about your personal financial circumstances and what you want to do in the next phase of your life. If it's a new career, volunteer work or full retirement, above everything, know what you want to do and plan for it. Ask how phased retirement will affect all of your current benefits. Realize that your final pension benefits will be tied to your salary level before you leave your employer for good. If phased retirement is an option, ask how working fewer hours for less money at the end of your career could affect your pension and benefits overall. Also make time to investigate how working at a lower salary level before official retirement may affect your federal benefits and if your company offers a profit-sharing plan, whether you might see a lower payment from that program as a result. In short, make a list of all the benefits and perks you now receive as a current, full-time employee and investigate how every single one of them could be affected by phased retirement. If you leave the company permanently before qualifying for Medicare, know how you'll pay for health insurance. If you have the opportunity to consult with a qualified financial or tax advisor, bring them into this discussion. Bottom line: Phased retirement allows workers to gently transition into full retirement or perhaps new careers. Before you accept, ask every conceivable question about how such a move will affect your long-term financial picture once you leave employment. Advertisement Nathaniel Sillin directs Visa's financial education programs. To follow Practical Money Skills on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PracticalMoney To Iowa? That sounds like travel not time. We know what the media means. Or do we? I live in Iowa. So, a few things I would like to say "on the way to Iowa" from one who is already here: Misconceptions about Iowa; Curiosity about a Caucus; Disbelief about Participatory Democracy; and Even the children, Especially the children. First, people in Iowa do not use hay bales for chairs. Iowa is not totally flat. (We live in hilly Dubuque, on the bluffs of the Mississippi.) You don't drive through miles of corn at this time of year. We are covered with snow. Iowa is an urban as well as a rural state. Most important, Iowans are diverse in religion (no, not all Evangelicals), ethnicity, race, age, occupations, sexual orientation, and more. Iowans are well educated and informed. Iowans, both rural and urban, have a global perspective. And Iowans take their responsibility of being the first-in-the nation caucus state very seriously. Second, my friends from Michigan to North Carolina to Australia are curious about the Iowa Caucus. They ask, "What really goes on there?" So I try to explain, "Where do you vote?" One responds, "At the high school about 2 miles from my home." I go on, "Imagine that everyone who votes there all day long comes together at, 7:00 p.m. Imagine that instead of going into a private voting booth, you all sit together in the auditorium and talk to each other in a civil way. You have a conversation about important issues. You listen to one another." (No, people do not wave banners and shout at each other, and senselessly follow the loudest leader.) It's well organized and orderly. My friend is incredulous. Anyone can attend. The caucus is open to the public and the press. You can register as a Republican or Democrat that night, but that does not obligate you to vote that party ticket in November. Observers who are not eligible to vote because of age or residency in another state or country, watch and learn. It's fascinating. Advertisement Third, Caucus night is about participatory democracy. When international students from the seminary where I teach observed 4 and 8 years ago, they were amazed that people could express their political views in public without fear of losing their jobs, or worse. That is still true here, and I trust it will continue, even with the proliferation of gun violence in our society. The first amendment is as important as the second. We need people of all faith traditions to participate: institutional separation and functional interaction. Faith leaders should not tell people how to vote but encourage people to vote and be engaged in working for good government for the welfare of all. Participatory democracy is about much more than casting a vote for a candidate, although that is what will be reported in the news, even before caucus-goers enter the building from the parking lot. It is about being a participant rather than a spectator. Republicans begin with a straw poll and then in precincts build a party platform and choose delegates. Democrats begin with preference groups, test for numeric viability, realign, count, and then discuss issues. They choose delegates to the country and state conventions, "regardless of race, sex, age, color, creed, national origin, religion, ethnic identity, sexual orientation, gender identity, or economic status." Fourth, even children in Iowa are informed participants. Eight years ago when our granddaughter, Jennaya, was 3 , and reporters were swarming all over Iowa, a Washington correspondent in an ice cream shop, possibly running out of adults to interview, asked Jennaya, whom she was for. Jennaya spoke right up, "I like Hillary, but I think I'm going for Barack Obanga." She has followed the political process ever since. Iowa schools provide opportunity to discuss government and the political process and take straw polls. Advertisement Our son, Joel Everist, sent a picture this morning, of Jennaya, now 11 and her brother, Jackson, 9, with Bill Clinton, who spoke in Mason City, Iowa, last night. Joel told how Jennaya and Jackson suffer from diseases with no cure. "We thank the Clintons and President Obama for their work to ensure access to healthcare throughout their lifelong battles. We stand with Hillary Clinton who stands to protect, continue, and improve healthcare coverage for all. The future must be inclusive, not exclusive." Jennaya texted to me, "Bill Clinton talked about how Hillary says 'What can I do to help?'" What that must mean to Jennaya who faces surgery next month! Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz speaks at a pro-life rally Jan. 28, 2016 in West Des Moines, Iowa. Andrew Clark/Huffington Post Pollster Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz held a pro-life rally Wednesday night, emphasizing the importance of human life and his track record of protecting it. "The right to life is fundamental," Cruz, the junior U.S. senator from Texas, said to the roaring crowd. "Without life there is no liberty, without life there is not pursuit of happiness, and every human life is a precious gift of God and should be protected from the moment of conception until the moment of natural birth." Advertisement The Texas senator touts a heavy record as a pro-life politician. As Solicitor General for the state of Texas, Cruz went before the United States Supreme Court and defended the federal ban on partial birth abortions, Cruz said at the event. When the Texas state legislature voted to defund Planned Parenthood in the state, a local district court struck it down and Cruz led the appeal process and ultimately won, Cruz said. The state of Texas has some of the most strict laws in the entire country when it comes to abortion. There were six restrictions in effect as of December 1, 2015, according to the Guttmacher Institute. This included a restriction saying a woman had to have an ultrasound before she could have an abortion, according to the institute. The rate of legal abortion is going down in the state of Texas, down to 13.5 percent in 2011. Photo from the Guttmacher Institute. But, it is estimated that up to 100,000 women between the ages of 18-49 in the state of Texas self abort, according to a study from the University of Texas. Advertisement Millennials at the rally were very passionate about pro-life issues, but most millennials identify as pro-choice, according to a 2014 Gallup poll. "I believe that every human life deserves that chance. As a human being, you have a right to have a chance at human life," said David Frisch, 27, of West Des Moines, at the pro-life event. "The opposing view... I feel like that's totally against our values, especially regarding Christian beliefs." Frisch said he thinks it's important for America to embrace a pro-life view and would not vote for someone who was pro-choice. "You want to try to find a candidate who is as similar to your views as possible," Frisch said. "If that connection is there, that support is going to be there and it's someone that's representing you." Kaleb Dammeier, 20, and Claire Birchmier,17, both from Des Moines, also said at the event they wouldn't vote for a candidate that was pro-choice. Advertisement "If (there are two candidates) and one is pro-choice and (one is) pro-life, I'm going with the pro-life guy every time," Dammeier said. Both identified as pro-life, and said they saw abortion as murder. "It's a potential life... It's not right to me. It doesn't ever seem right to me to kill something that can blossom into a human," Birchmier said. In 2014, 50 percent of millennials identified as pro-choice and 40 percent identified as pro-life, according to the Gallup poll. Of the two other age groups surveyed, millennials have the largest gap between the two. Overall, Americans identify mostly as pro-choice, but it's a very small gap. 47 percent identify as pro-choice and 46 percent of Americans identify as pro-life, the Gallup poll says. The greatest amount of change however, is in the middle. In 2014, 21 percent of adults said they thought abortion was illegal in all circumstances, the highest it has been since 2002. This has led to those who think abortion should be legal in a few circumstances to be down to 50 percent, an all-time low. Advertisement "I feel like it's very important that American culture embraces a more pro-life view, and it's just crucial, in my opinion, to sustain the positive direction that this country is headed," Frisch said. Photo Credit: TEDSalon NY2014 At O'Reilly's Next:Economy conference in San Francisco, the venture capitalist talks about the value of studying philosophy, his investment strategy and how to think independently. Nick Hanauer is a co-founder and partner in Seattle-based venture capital firm, Second Avenue Partners. He has managed, founded and financed over thirty companies, creating aggregate market value of tens of billions of dollars. For example, he co-founded aQuantive, which sold to Microsoft for $6.4 billion, and was the first non-family investor in Amazon. He also serves as a Director for The Democracy Alliance and as a board advisor to the policy journal Democracy. He has a degree in philosophy from the University of Washington, is married with two children and lives in Seattle, Washington. Advertisement What did you learn from studying philosophy? How to analyze things. How to think carefully about complicated things is what you learn. How to deconstruct ideas and arguments and distinguish between things that are true and those that are bullshit. How did you learn to think independently? Thinking critically and thinking independently are different. The ability to think independently is a psychological trait, not an intellectual trait. Some people are comfortable running against the grain and most people are not. This is something that I don't know where it comes from. Maybe you are born with it, or your parents give it to you. The ability to think independently is not correlated to IQ. What kind of advice would you give to your younger self? Don't be such an asshole. What is the best advice you ever received? It is not what you do but what you choose not to do that ofen makes the difference. What is your investment philosophy? I look for businesses that have created a product or service that delivers what I call transformational value, which means that it is ten times better than the alternative or 1/10th the price of the alternative, while being of the same quality. Some massive differential in the quality or price versus its competitors that makes it one of those things that would be indispensable in the lives of those who bought it. I believe that all great enterprises start that way. One day one it created that kind of transformation. How do you curate information and make sure you don't get flooded with too much information? Twitter is a good tool. I have a small number of people that I follow that I respect. Some of the things I read include Scientific American, The New York Times, Science and The Atlantic. Advertisement How do you take different insights that help you inform your investment philosophy? Having a broad perspective is really helpful. I try to have a lot of perspective. I take science very seriously. That can have a huge impact on how you think about investing. I have a degree in philosophy and my main interest was the philosophy of art and aesthetics. That informs life in a way. What makes you more effective when you set a goal? Persistence and trying to think about the problem objectively and strategically. What kind advice would you give millennials to find their purpose? To the greatest extent possible devote yourself to things which make your community better. There really is a difference in working for a company that cures cancer and one that creates cancer, even if they pay you the same amount, or even if the companies are of equal size. These moral decisions are very important that people should take them very seriously. What is one of your favorite books? Anyone considering travel to the equatorial regions of the Americas has in recent days undoubtedly been advised of the appearance of an unwelcome new addition to the litany of potential health threats in the region -- the Zika virus. The headlines are indeed alarming at first glance. After reaching the Americas only last year, confirmed cases of people infected with the virus have been reported in more than 20 countries and health authorities say it is only a matter of time before it spreads everywhere in the hemisphere. Pregnant travelers are being advised to avoid the region, and women in some countries are being advised to avoid getting pregnant until public health authorities can get a handle on things. There are even reports of a rise in cases of a rare nerve disorder known as Guillain-Barre in tandem with cases of Zika, but investigators have yet to nail down any concrete links between the two. When these new viral threats first appear, the headlines are always scary and often off-putting to people considering travel to areas affected. The reality of the threat is, however, hardly as sensational as some of the articles would have us believe. Tropical America has always been home to a host of threats similar to Zika -- dengue, yellow fever, malaria to name but a few -- and, at least in the last century or so, the vast majority of sensible travelers go home without ever having contracted so much as a sniffle. Advertisement Like its cousins dengue and chikungunya, Zika is transmitted by mosquitos -- specifically those of the Aedes species. That is the only way to get it. If one is not bitten by mosquitos, one does not contract Zika. Only about 1 in 5 people exposed to the virus actually contract the disease, and, except in the case of pregnant women, that disease is relatively benign. Usually no worse that a case of the flu, with fever, joint pain, headaches and sometimes red-eye. The symptoms usually last up to a week and then pass. Complications requiring hospitalization, according to the Centers for Disease Control, are extremely uncommon, and death is all but unheard of. There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika. Doctors tell afflicted patients to simply get plenty of rest, stay hydrated and take acetaminophen or paracetamol to relieve the fever and pain. They do advise against taking painkillers such as ibuprofen, aspirin or other anti-inflammatory drugs until dengue can be ruled out as those can complicate its symptoms. That's it. Pretty much what your doctor would tell you if you had the flu. Zika has been endemic to equatorial regions in Africa and Asia since the 1950s. It only made the leap across the Pacific in 2014 when cases were reported in French Polynesia and Easter Island, then reached mainland America a year or so later. Brazil was the first country affected in our hemisphere, but it has spread quickly. The CDC now says cases have been reported in Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, the Guyanas, Surinam, Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. Most of the Caribbean islands have seen cases, along with Mexico and every country in Central America with the exception of Nicaragua. At least a dozen cases have been reported in the United States so far, all of them among people who had recently traveled to the tropics. Advertisement Much of Latin America is currently under what is called a Level 2 travel warning from the CDC, meaning that travelers to regions where the virus is present should take enhanced precautions to prevent mosquito bites. Since the mosquitos that carry the virus bite predominantly during the daytime, travelers should consider covering exposed skin by wearing long pants and long sleeve shirts and definitely carry and use insect repellant. Sleeping in air-conditioned or screened-in places is also recommended. The only caveat to these relatively measured recommendations is for pregnant women. The virus can spread from pregnant women to their unborn babies and there have been reports of a serious birth defect called microcephaly (children born with smaller-than-usual heads and less-developed brains) among the children of infected mothers. Doctors are still trying to trace a link between the two, and until they decide whether there is one the CDC recommends out of an abundance of caution that pregnant women avoid travel to any areas where the virus has been documented and take strict preventive measures if they must do so. In the end, for non-pregnant travelers, the measures recommended by the CDC are no different than those doctors have been recommending to avoid dengue and other viruses common to tropical regions all over the world. They are, in fact, measures that most travelers who hate mosquitos (and who doesn't?) would take regardless of whether the little parasites transmitted any sort of nasty viruses. So before you cancel any long-planned trips to Latin America, stop and take a deep breath. By all means educate yourself about the symptoms and come prepared with suitable clothing and lots of insect repellant. Check the CDC's website for the list of recommended vaccines and inoculations for travelers to the region. But unless you are pregnant or thinking of getting pregnant soon, don't let a few scary headlines keep you from experiencing everything the world has to offer. Life is too short. Peg Fairbairn, a former middle school science teacher, is the author of In Focus: Panama, a weekly newsletter published by Access Panama and Live and Invest Overseas LLC. Advertisement Earlier on Huff/Post50: These questions originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights. Answers by Matt Charman, Screenwriter, Bridge of Spies (Academy Award nominee, Best Original Screenplay), on Quora. A: Sitting opposite Steven Spielberg, while he turns the pages of your script and talks about each scene as he goes, is about the best film school you can get. I learnt so much that it's hard to boil it down, but here's one thing: he wanted me to embrace complexity and the grey areas in characters. That is a gift of a note to a writer, because it means that you can create roles that actors will truly want to inhabit, roles that have both good and bad qualities to them. And audiences love to be compelled by watching those kind of characters too. Steven pushed me to do that, the total opposite of streamlining and dumbing down. Advertisement ... A: I spent time on set in New York and Berlin sitting next to Steven Spielberg while he worked, which was the biggest thrill of my life. Seeing him direct Tom Hanks, or block a scene with Mark Rylance or get the lighting just right was mind blowing and I just kept thinking "you've got to remember as much of this as you can." ... A: I found a footnote about James Donovan and the part he played in this spy swap in a biography of JFK. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck and I was desperate to know more. I pieced the story together through articles and archives but it wasn't until I met James Donovan's son that the enormity of this story really landed with me. Sitting opposite John Donovan and seeing the emotion in his eyes when he spoke about not only his father, but what the family had endured being regarded as traitors or friends of the communist cause, made me realise just how important it was to tell this story right and do justice to everyone involved. I wanted the Donovan family to watch the movie and be able to recognise their father up there on screen. When I sat behind them at the premiere in New York I was obviously nervous, but their reaction was the most wonderful review you could ever get and I feel proud we put the real man up there. It takes work to plot a course that is both thrilling and truthful, but it's worth it. Advertisement ... Once upon a time I was an intelligent and intelligible adult. I even used to have conversations with other intelligent adults about business, politics, and deep existential topics. Analyze data? Run statistical models? Advise on acquisitions? Quantify market growth rates? Present advice to CEOs? Yep, yes, and yep. Oh, I also forgot to add bullshit to the list. Yes, I was an accomplished bull-shitter. In interviews I said things like, "I want to join consulting because of the steep learning curve -- you learn more in two years at (insert consulting firm name) than in 10 years at a regular corporation." Advertisement Ha! How things have changed. After two years on maternity leave, I now know what steep learning curve really means. And in case you're a man reading this, no, maternity leave is not a vacation like business school. But like business (or law, or medical, or any graduate) school, two years of pregnancy, childbirth and childrearing can put a dent in your finances. Except no scholarships exist to cover your ass (or exorbitant tastes) anymore. On the bright side, after an extended maternity leave, you are way (and I mean waaaaay) more employable. Take me as an example. Not only have I acquired a larger number of transferable skills, I am also now highly employable in many more fields. Just look at the evidence: I would make an excellent terrorist negotiator. Yes, the gold standard is "we don't negotiate with terrorists." But when you live with a 2-year-old one, you learn that you actually have some leeway as demonstrated by my ability to prevent my oldest daughter from killing her baby sister. Granted these skills mostly involve bribery (if you don't sit on top of your baby sister I will give you a kinder surprise egg!) and threats (if you roll her off the bed you won't see the iPad for a week) but hey, they work. Advertisement Also, as Chief Boo-Boo Curing Officer my medical expertise is now second to none. I am even recognized as the 'go-to' person for all (and I mean all) body-related queries. Constipation? Vomiting? Leaking urine? Boogers on fingers? I can deal with all kinds of shit all day long. As testament to my abilities, I've never been sued and my patients keep coming back (even when I've begged them to stop). I'm now also a qualified psychiatrist who's well versed in the complexities of jealousy, neediness, attachment, stubbornness, identity exertion, and banging-head-on-the-floor tantrums. My subjects are so impressed with my ability to decipher their unintelligible requests that they share with me all their emotions, trust, opinions, and even their food (who cares if it's half a mushy banana or the leftovers of a cold boiled egg they didn't feel like finishing). If ever I find myself bankrupt, I can now also resort to my experience as an artist for income. After all, who wouldn't want to hang pictures of hands and stick figures in every shade of the rainbow on their walls? My most popular painting - as evidenced by high demand - is that of a horse (or maybe it's a donkey or a cat or a duck, I'm not quite sure but my client says it's a horse). You can't argue with impressionism. I can certainly apply to be a litigation lawyer as well since my arguing skills have been remarkably honed from repeated use (yes sweetheart the socket is round, and yes the pencil is round, but no we cannot stick it in there like we do with your shape sorting toy) AND (even though mummy loves to kiss your feet, you cannot put your feet on your nursery teacher's face and demand she kiss them every time she changes you) To add to all the professions I am now qualified for, I have also acquired a set of highly transferable skills that would make me a great asset to any employer. Advertisement As an expert multi-tasker I can cook, talk on the phone and prevent injuries arising from my daughter's inability to judge the effects of placing several pounds of wooden blocks on her baby sister. I can also shower while delegating tasks to my husband (200ml formula in blue bottle) and carrying a conversation in Yiddish or Sanskrit with a toddler (antalon ink jama! TRANSLATION: She wants to wear her pink pajamas) In addition, my work in a thriving fast paced environment has increased my tolerance level for all nighters (why sleep when you can be up making milk, feeding milk, changing diapers, and playing super hero who wards off bad guys from dreams?) Particularly relevant to today's environment, are the organizational skills I have mastered from doing things like ensuring that we never (I mean rarely) run out of diapers and wipes, and that my youngest makes it to her monthly weight checks 3 times a year, and that my eldest always goes to school with her bottle of milk (even if it's just the bottle without the milk) and don't give me that look, it's only happened twice. I am now also an expert at problem solving from the small scale (where are my yellow pants and no not this yellow one but the other one that looks exactly the same) to the more existential problems like convincing my toddler to eat something (anything actually) that isn't pasta or chips. But the most important skill of all gained from being on a long (ahem... indefinite) maternity leave is confidence (aka I don't give a shit what people think anymore). My baby sitter skipped town for a while so I recently had to take my 3-month-old to several professional meetings for a project I'm working on. Babies are apparently excellent conversation starters. Advertisement It is with great pleasure that I encourage your vote for my dear friend, Criminal Court Judge Tom Greenholtz. I have known Tom for over 20 years, first meeting him at UTC as fellow student and as time has passed, as a loyal friend. I first met Tom at UTC in the 1990s. He was living on his own and struggling to put himself through undergraduate studies. But he had many friends who supported and encouraged him as his dream was to be a lawyer, following in the footsteps of his father who had passed several years previous. After spending 20 minutes talking to Tom, you knew he would work to make that dream come true. He worked hard and graduated with honors from UTC with a degree in political science; no easy feat while working to put himself through school. He stayed here in Tennessee and graduated with highest honors from the University of Tennessee College of Law; again, no easy feat while juggling Law Review and studying full time. Summers are a time for relaxing and catching up with family and friends, but Tom worked every summer studying criminal law with local lawyer Jerry Summers, continuing to further his knowledge, and would study and research far into the hours of the night. After Tom graduated from law school, he married his wife, Kathy, and they settled in Ooltewah. Tom worked for three years as a law clerk to Justice Muecke Barker on the Tennessee Supreme Court before he went into private practice, initially with Jerry Summers and later with Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel. In between working full time and raising two children, Tom and Kathy are both involved with the community and various organizations such as Chambliss Center for Children, Orange Grove, the United Way, and their childrens school, giving back to the Chattanooga community that is their home. Tom is a dedicated husband and father, who is also dedicated to the law. He is honest, fair, and has never lost sight of where he came from and the hard lessons he learned growing up. He is a fine man who never lost sight of his goals, and I am proud to call him a friend. Governor Haslam made an excellent choice in choosing Tom to serve as our Criminal Court judge. I ask you to join me in voting to keep this trustworthy man. Amanda Mills * * * I have been privileged to know Tom Greenholtz for over 20 years. Toms the very definition of a true American success story. After Toms dad died when he was 15-years-old, he was faced with the choice of hard work to succeed or live as a victim of his circumstances as a homeless kid with no support. He made the right choices then and now influences lives of others every day as judge in Criminal Court to make similar choices that may be tough but the right ones. Tom and his wife Kathy are not strangers to serving others and have been busy doing just that with the Chambliss Center for Children and the Orange Grove Center. To Tom, serving as judge is more than a job. Among his peers and legal colleagues, Tom is held in high esteem for his legal experience and abilities. He is truly committed to excellence. I am able to personally guarantee that there is no better fit for Hamilton County Criminal Court judge than Tom Greenholtz. Vote for the right choice. William T. Elliott Coalmont * * * For the past 10 years I have known, and worked on a daily basis with Judge Tom Greenholtz of the Hamilton County Criminal Court. Based upon my experience with Judge Greenholtz, and with the state courts, no one is better qualified for this position than Tom. Of the candidates contending for the position, Judge Greenholtz not only possesses the legal skill as an excellent lawyer with proven ethics, but also the necessary temperament to serve best as judge. Hamilton County is very fortunate to have Judges Barry Steelman and Don Poole serving in the other Criminal Court positions. Judge Greenholtz is both personally and professionally equipped to sit alongside each of them. Tom has the character and integrity to be a firm and fair judge. And he has shown these traits already in his time on the bench. Tom is a rare talent. I encourage you to vote in the upcoming Republican primary to keep Judge Tom Greenholtz as our Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge. Tom is the right choice. Hugh Moore When PBS announced their American Masters documentary on Mike Nichols, I was relieved. Like so many admirers of his work --as a comedian with his partner Elaine May, as a director of theater (Death of a Salesman starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, to name one) and film (The Graduate, THE film of its era, to name one), I grieved when he died in November of 2014. Perhaps a film would bring closure. Deeply satisfying, the film that airs on January 29, directed by Elaine May and produced by Julian Schlossberg, features so many who have worked with him: Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, but best of all, it has Mike Nichols. Julian Schlossberg had filmed an interview with Mike Nichols, and realized he could make a film and direct it, but then suggested to Elaine May that she should do it: "Okay, I will," she said. When I spoke to Schlossberg this week, he was speaking for both of them, saying they were most pleased to have Nichols narrate his own story, talking about his leaving Berlin as a little boy, as Hitler's power rose, his strengths and weaknesses as an artist. Nichols was forthcoming on how he was "strange" in high school, and how, when people commented on a seven year gap between projects suggesting he was afraid. "Well, maybe I was afraid," he admitted on camera. They captured his wit and wisdom, his preference for directing over acting. When he talks about Meryl Streep, he gets caught up with her talent and cries. Advertisement Of course there were some who Schlossberg wished they could have interviewed, like Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Daniel Craig--"He was busy with the next Bond movie. Everyone was great; everyone wanted to talk." Like Schlossberg who frequently had lunch with Nichols, everyone had stories. Schlossberg said whenever he was with Nichols, he always learned something: "On plot and story, Mike would say, 'here's a plot. The king is dead. The queen is dead. But here is a story: The king is dead. He died of a broken heart.'" The stories and more may make for another film. For those of us who have not yet had enough of Mike Nichols, Julian Schlossberg is planning a sequel, The Pleasure of his Company, featuring friends and colleagues recounting all the great anecdotes. In addition, he said, Doug McGrath made a film for HBO, done at the end of Nichols' life, to air at the end of February. And no, Diane Sawyer was not interviewed. Solitary confinement cells on Alcatraz Island, San Francisco. Correctional officers and their unions need to join the growing chorus to shut down solitary confinement in the U.S., not only to get on the right side of one of the major human rights issues of our day, but to address the long overdue subject of the well-being of workers in U.S. prisons and jails. New bold actions by unions calling for an end to the torture of solitary confinement would embody what unions stand for in the first place -- respecting the dignity of the human person. The dignity of workers and those who are incarcerated alike are trampled by the over-reliance on solitary confinement. Advertisement There is a growing, multi-faceted human dignity movement to close down the torture of solitary confinement in the U.S. Driving it are conservatives and liberals, the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated, faith leaders, enlightened political leaders, and the heads of state prison systems and jails themselves. Civil rights and civic organizations, as well as a broad spectrum of respected think tanks and opinion leaders are calling for reforms in solitary confinement. And now, President Obama, who first noted in a speech in July 2015 that solitary confinement makes no sense, just released, through his Department of Justice, the "Report and Recommendations Concerning the Use of Restrictive Housing." This report includes more than fifty "Guiding Principles" for addressing the use of solitary confinement within all correctional systems in the U.S., as well as new policies for the federal prison system. So widespread is the consensus that is building, that it is time to ask: Where are the corrections officers and their unions and why are they, for the most part, the last to see that this benefits workers as much as it benefits those held in solitary confinement? Ironically, an AFSCME union local in Texas was a proponent of solitary confinement reform well before President Obama caught hold of the issue. In early 2014, when solitary confinement reforms were being implemented across the country, Lance Lowry, President of AFSCME Local 3807, wrote a letter to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice asking them to scale back the use of solitary confinement on death row and allow low-risk individuals time out of cell and more interaction with others. His reasoning? That it would "positively impact both the correctional staff and offenders on Texas death row." Advertisement As it turns out, reducing solitary confinement is not just the right thing to do, it's good for staff wellness. With the full support of Mayor Bill de Blasio, in less than two years Commissioner Joseph Ponte has reduced the population in solitary confinement at New York City's Rikers Island jail from 611 to 142. Commissioner Ponte has also launched aggressive new staff training and staff wellness components at Rikers. State prison systems in Colorado and New Mexico, taking action to release incarcerated people from solitary confinement and minimize its use, report that once-skeptical staff are now buying into the reforms, and supporting them because they work for everyone. Management is way ahead of the unions on caring for staff wellness, and no one currently seeking to reduce solitary confinement in state institutions or jails sees the safety of their workforce as secondary to their cause. Reforms underway in places like Rikers Island jail in New York City, in the state prison systems in Colorado and New Mexico, and elsewhere are creating a growing body of evidence that reducing the overreliance on solitary confinement has tremendous benefits for staff well-being. Leaders like Gregg Marcantel, head of the New Mexico state prison system, are moving forward knowing that they are on the right track. By allowing mostly low-risk inmates to earn their way out of solitary, New Mexico has cut the solitary confinement population from 10 percent of the state prison population to under 6 percent. Both the ACLU and prison officials say there has been no measurable increase in violence in New Mexico prisons, and that prison conditions have improved. In Colorado, the results are even more striking. There, reforms began in 2011, when more than 1,500, or roughly 7 percent of the state prison population, languished in solitary confinement. By combining administrative reforms with a new Residential Treatment Program to transition those with serious mental illnesses out, less than 1 percent of those incarcerated are now in solitary confinement in Colorado. And, Rick Raemisch, head of the Colorado Department of Corrections, frequently cites growing correctional officer support for the reforms, with the numbers to back him up. The rate of assaults on staff are now half of what they were in 2006. Four ethical considerations can guide the thinking of correctional officers: The Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) is a better set of values than the "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" mentality that too often has been the hard shell corrections officers build around themselves to survive in one of the toughest work environments there is. True, the case for more solitary confinement often rests on how these are the "worst of the worst." In fact, very few of those in solitary confinement are there for an act of violence in the prison. Corrections officers on the front lines should take a stand against the ethics of retribution and a stand for prisons shaped by accountability and rehabilitation. The massive warehousing of human beings in solitary confinement has got to end (there are approximately 100,000 on any given day in U.S. prisons, though the number is much higher when counting jails and detention centers). For too long corrections officers have been made daily witnesses to torture. This violates not only the human rights of those serving sentences, but also the sacred principle of work as vocation for jail and prison staff. The spiritual, physical and mental toll of solitary confinement in prisons on workers can no longer be tolerated by society. Both those incarcerated and staff suffer the same symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, the same higher incidence of suicide and violence, and the same permanent psychological damage. For correctional officers, they take these problems home with them, doing harm to themselves and their families. For those in solitary confinement, they often inflict the damage on themselves, isolated and alone. Suicides are high in both groups. God did not create humans to endure this kind of treatment, and it is harmful to prisons, communities, and families. Cell extractions, a routine procedure needed to move those with the deteriorating mental illness that characterizes everyone who is in solitary over time, puts worker safety at risk. The physical deterioration of inmates and workers in U.S. prisons is well documented. Talk to any correctional officer and he or she will tell you they age before their time, and don't live long past retirement age. The same is true for those who have been incarcerated. Though acts of violence against corrections officers are serious and are often lifted up as a reason to keep everyone in solitary, the far greater risk to workers is to continue down the current path. Problems that have been largely ignored by society, most notably the lack of community services for the mentally ill, have been kicked down the road to correctional officers in the nation's solitary confinement wings and in prisons in general. Even so, correctional officers and their unions are pledged to do their part for community safety. One of the things that compelled President Obama to act was the recognition that releasing incarcerated individuals directly from the torture of solitary confinement to the streets was widespread in the U.S. National Public Radio recently reported that of the 24 states that keep records on solitary confinement, 10,000 people were released directly from solitary confinement into the streets in 2014. That's 10,000 people who went directly from conditions of torture - 23 hours a day locked in a tiny cell, with no human contact and near total sensory deprivation - to being released directly to the streets upon serving their time. Union families live in these communities, as do others. This makes the larger case for rehabilitation being the goal for every U.S. jail and prison, but given the known psychological trauma of solitary confinement, it is even more poignant. Faith leaders have a long-stated common understanding that there is absolutely no moral or practical justification for the torture of another human being. Pope Francis recently said that "torture is a sin against humanity," and he has said that the extreme isolation of high security prisons is a form of torture. U.S. religious groups from conservatives to liberals - the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the Southern Baptist Convention, the U.S. Catholic Bishops (in a 2000 pastoral statement Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration), and virtually all others - have given strong support for over decades for broad criminal justice reform. Most understand that ending the torture of solitary confinement is a key component of this reform. This pastoral concern of faith bodies extends equally to those incarcerated and to those who work in our prisons and jails. It's time for corrections officers and their unions to join this consensus and get to work on helping to end the mutually assured destruction of solitary confinement in our jails and prisons. Rev. Ron Stief is Executive Director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, and formerly the Minister for Labor and the Director of the Washington DC Office of the United Church of Christ (1998-2008). He was a member of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees (now BMWED-IBT Teamsters) for 4 years before embarking into the ministry. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a rally at Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center at University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Watching the fourth Democratic debate in South Carolina on January 17, many people understandably got the impression that Hillary Clinton was campaigning for President Obama's third term. But in the aftermath of the debate, her team attacked Bernie Sanders for supporting President Obama's efforts to engage Iran. The attack was dishonest. An honest attack would have been: look, Hillary Clinton has a difference of opinion with President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry about diplomacy with Iran. Obama and Kerry want to accomplish whatever can be accomplished through engagement with Iran. Yes, enforce the agreement on Iran's nuclear program, but don't stop there. See if we can work with Iran to help defeat ISIS in Iraq. See if we can work with Iran to end the civil war in Syria. See if we can work with Iran to end the war in Yemen. See if we can work with Iran to help end the war in Afghanistan. Advertisement Clinton, on the other hand, wants to jack up confrontation with Iran on every possible front. She wants to define the "Iran deal" to be as small as possible, limited exclusively to Iran's nuclear program, so she'll have a free hand to escalate against Iran on other fronts. And her problem with Bernie Sanders on Iran diplomacy is that he supports the Obama-Kerry view, that we should accomplish whatever we can by engaging with Iran, rather than the view that we should try to have as much confrontation with Iran as we can get away with without attacking the Iran deal directly. That would have been an honest attack. But such an honest attack, Team Clinton might have feared, could provoke pro-diplomacy, anti-war sentiments among Democrats. So instead of the honest attack, Team Clinton took the Obama policy, crossed out Obama's name and wrote in "Sanders," and launched the same attack they did on Obama in the 2008 campaign: Obama/Sanders is naive on dealing with Iran. If you think I'm exaggerating, please examine with an open mind the following evidence. On January 21, the New York Times reported that Clinton campaign senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan had attacked Bernie Sanders for supporting efforts to establish normal diplomatic relations with Iran, based on Sanders' comments in the South Carolina debate [my emphasis]. "Normal relations with Iran right now?" Mr. Sullivan says. "President Obama doesn't support the idea. Secretary Clinton doesn't support that idea. And it's not at all clear why it is that Senator Sanders is suggesting it." This was a completely dishonest account of what happened during the debate. Sanders was responding to a question which cited President Obama saying that the U.S. should re-establish normal diplomatic relations with Iran; and while Sanders agreed with President Obama that the U.S. should work towards normal diplomatic relations with Iran, he did not say that the U.S. should do so "right now." Here is the relevant section of the debate transcript, courtesy of CBS News: [my emphasis] HOLT: Charleston, Andrea Mitchell has questions now starting with Iran. MITCHELL: Thank you Lester. Senator Sanders, the nuclear deal is now enforced. Iran is getting it's billions of dollars, several Americans who have been held are now going to be heading home. The president said today, "it's a good day. It's a good day for diplomacy. It's a time now to restore diplomatic relations for the first time since 1979 and actually re- opened a U.S. Embassy in Tehran." SANDERS: I think what we've got to do is move as aggressively as we can to normalize relations with Iran. Understanding that Iran's behavior in so many ways is something that we disagree with; their support terrorism, the anti-American rhetoric that we're hearing from of their leadership is something that is not acceptable. On the other hand, the fact that we've managed to reach an agreement, something that I've very strongly supported that prevents Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and we did that without going to war. And that I believe we're seeing a fall in our relationships with Iran is a very positive step. So if your question is, do I want to see that relationship become more positive in the future? Yes. Can I tell that we should open an embassy in Tehran tomorrow? No, I don't think we should. But I think the goal has go to be as we've done with Cuba, to move in warm relations with a very powerful and important country in this world. For folks who don't follow such things, "normal diplomatic relations with country X" and "opening an embassy in country X" are different words for the same thing. When we have "normal diplomatic relations" with a country, it means we have an embassy and an ambassador in that country's capital city, and they have an embassy and an ambassador in Washington. When we "restore diplomatic relations" with a country, it means we re-open our embassy in that country's capital and they re-open their embassy in Washington. When we "restored diplomatic relations" with Cuba, we re-opened our embassy in Havana, and the Cubans re-opened their embassy in Washington. "Normal diplomatic relations" doesn't mean "best buddies." It's like passing your neighbor in the street and saying hi. It doesn't mean you're best buds. It means you have normal relations. If this kind of dishonest, gratuitous and manipulative Iran-bashing is what Team Clinton is doing now, I fear what they would do if they get back in power. I don't fear at all that a President Clinton would "tear up the Iran deal on her first day in office"; I'm very confident that she wouldn't do that. I'm afraid that she would try to undermine the scope of the deal from the margins. I fear that she would try to provoke Iran by doing some anti-Iran thing not explicitly prohibited by the agreement. If the Iranians retaliated in kind to her provocation, which is certainly something they might do, then she would likely say: OMG! Did you see what the wicked Iranians just did? And she would use that as an excuse for further escalation. And the thing is, it's not even Iranians who would likely be the primary victims of such a policy. The Iranians, one suspects, are going to be more or less fine, because the Europeans are very unlikely to accommodate a U.S. effort to overturn the Iran deal wholesale, no matter who the next President of the U.S. is. The most likely victims of a renewed U.S.-Iran confrontation in the next Administration will be Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis, and Afghans. Because when two big countries want to mess with each other but don't want to pay the cost of a direct confrontation, they fight a proxy war somewhere else, someplace where people aren't in a position to defend themselves from being used as pawns in someone else's proxy war. And I fear that the Saudi government, in particular, might see the prospect of an incoming Clinton Administration the way that the South Vietnamese government saw the prospect of the incoming Nixon Administration in 1968: there's no urgency to end the wars in Syria or Yemen now, because with the incoming Clinton Administration, we get to continue the wars. Sewage drainage system with polluted water The flip of a switch in April 2014 that led to the massive water contamination in Flint, Michigan, is now a public health crisis that will take years and millions of dollars to remedy. The immediate challenge is to replace the corroded pipes that are carrying contaminated water as soon as possible, and to ensure that the city of nearly 100,000 has access to clean water. But if we step back from the immediate crisis, the situation in Flint has broader lessons for public health -- lessons about the consequences of cost cutting, about government negligence, and about environmental racism. There is no "silver lining" to the fact that thousands of children have been needlessly exposed to high levels of lead in the water supply. But the events in Flint may teach us how to do better in the future in ensuring that public policy safeguards public health -- no matter who "the public" may be. Advertisement First, let's agree that clean drinking water is a fundamental human right, as reiterated in resolution 64/292 passed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2010. In Flint, that right was sacrificed -- and violated -- repeatedly over the years by public officials concerned with saving money. The core etiology of today's Flint problems goes back 18 years, to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality's decision not to enforce the installation of corrosion control systems in accordance with the Federal Lead and Copper Rule of 1998. This set the stage for severe corrosion in the water pipes. That problem was compounded by a subsequent financial crisis that led Flint to stop paying the Detroit Water and Sewerage board for water from Lake Huron and convert to a different supply line. In April 2014, Flint started to source water from the Flint River as a temporary measure. Soon after, residents started to complain about the taste, smell and appearance of the water and voiced health concerns, such as skin rashes. Flint officials rejected an offer from Detroit to revert to the original water supply in January 2015, despite a growing drumbeat of concerns. It was not until early 2015 that Flint sought an independent review of the water supply, due to concerns about high levels of trihalomethanes, a byproduct of disinfecting efforts. A research team led by Dr. Marc Edwards of Virginia Tech conducted a study that found the Flint River water contained eight times the amount of chlorine as Lake Huron water and was highly corrosive. This caused pipe corrosion and leaching of dangerous levels of lead into the water supply. Lead is a potent neurotoxin that can cause developmental delays in children as well as a host of other effects, including mood disorders, memory impairment and miscarriages. It goes without saying that elected and appointed officials are charged with balancing budgets and using public resources responsibly in the face of competing demands. But the thinking that informed what went on in Flint was that short-term, cost-saving measures to the public health infrastructure could be implemented without consequence. Advertisement There are ample historical examples that roundly reject this idea. Some years ago, a group of us published an analysis of the impact of the New York fiscal crisis in 1975 on the tuberculosis, HIV, and homicide epidemics in New York City. Our work showed that budget and policy decisions designed to alleviate the fiscal crisis contributed to the subsequent epidemics by reducing the public infrastructure and resources that protect health. In fact, our study estimated that $10 billion in cuts to services were followed by costs exceeding $50 billion to control the epidemics -- not counting the tragic human costs. Second, as the Flint story becomes clearer, it is apparent that there was ample opportunity along the way to reverse course, as local residents raised the alarm about water quality. For example, the findings of Dr. Edwards and Dr. Hanna-Attisha of the Hurley Children's Hospital in Flint, who called attention to significant increases in the blood lead levels of children, were refuted and ignored until October 2015, when the Department of Health and Human Services urged residents to stop drinking the water. This represents in many ways a failure of responsive governance -- an example of government treating public concerns as a nuisance or public relations problem that does not warrant a serious response. Those of us in public health know that governance is, in fact, a key determinant of the health of populations. Elected and appointed officials hold the power over how the foundational drivers of health -- be they social, cultural, or economic resources -- are distributed. The failure of government to respond to the outcry and evidence in Flint suggests that we need to promote -- and demand -- responsive governance as a core tenet of public health. Third, the situation in Flint raises the specter of environmental racism, as concerns from a predominantly minority and marginalized community went unheeded. There is little doubt that the consequences of racism are deep and pernicious, especially when it comes to public health. Health inequities, in terms of outcomes and access to resources, remain pervasive challenges in the U.S. The Flint episode highlights yet another way in which race, class, and power influence the health of the public. It is easier for those in authority to ignore concerns raised by people who are already marginalized and who wield little effective power. This reinforces the responsibility of public health to address the challenges that are disproportionately faced by vulnerable low-income and minority populations. Advertisement Fourth, but not least, the Flint issue brings to the fore the importance of values, which underlie how we act, how we prioritize, and how we make decisions about what kind of society we want to see. It's a given that we all have the right to our own value systems. But within those systems, health must stand as an unassailable value - a collective responsibility that should animate public action, no matter the zip code or skin color of those at risk. Fixing the pipes in Flint will take an outpouring of money. Travis Leslie and Prince McClinton, the co-founders of Art of Visuals. "Did you know these guys were from Boise?" It was a question I overheard more than once at the Art of Visuals' magazine launch party on the evening of January 7th in San Francisco. Attendees seemed quite curious about co-founders Travis Leslie and Prince McClinton, the duo behind AOV. Travis and Prince may be from small-town Idaho, but they packed the house at Monroe, the sophisticated North Beach lounge where they held their first-ever in-person gathering. The crowd hits capacity at the Art of Visuals magazine launch party at Monroe, photo by @_ghost_xxii_. Turns out they weren't the only two from out of state. While many of the 200 guests trickled in from around the Bay Area, others flew in from across the country or drove up from LA. One young man traveled six hours with his mom to attend, only to discover it was a 21-and-older event. Travis and Prince took the time to meet him outside and hook him up with one of their limited edition magazines. Advertisement Just recently DailyTekk a popular online startup publication, ranked AOV number eight among the top 100 Instagram accounts of 2016. This put them ahead of well-known billion-dollar companies like GoPro and RedBull. Art of Visuals' custom Lightroom preset used to create artistic photos with a certain look. But what started as just an Instagram account has grown to something much bigger. Aside from a quarterly magazine, AOV sells gear (apparel, camera straps and gear) and Lightroom presets or trendy "looks" or filters to apply to digital photos. There's also an app in development that will connect photographers around the world, help them discover new locations to shoot and organize photo walks. Photographers gather around at AOV's recent photo walk at the Sutro Baths in SF, photo by @markymethod. The sold-out party helped reinforce the success of two young friends who had taken their love of photography, exploring and community and turned it into a calling for their peers, as well as an expanding visual arts lifestyle brand. "Being able to gather 200 people in-person gives us positive feedback," says Prince. "It tells us we're on the right path." Advertisement "I've followed a lot of these photographers (via Instagram) for years. It's like I know them," said one guest. "Getting to meet them in person and explore our mutual love for photography is a real treat." The elegant room was buzzing with energy. People crowded together in small groups, flipping through the high-quality 72-page magazine, which is designed like a coffee table book with lots of dreamy images and minimal text. A couple checks out the magazine at the launch party, photo by @_ghost_xxii_. Unlike traditional magazines, all of the images come from Instagram. Their hash tags (#artofvisuals and #aov) have more than two million tags combined just a year after AOV created the account. Travis hand-selects the images for both the Instagram account and the magazine. The magazine's first issue displays the work of 106 artists, with a focus on seven artists, each of whom is featured in a full-page spread. "To see these guys take the art from Instagram and bring it to print is really cool," one attendee said to me. "It's very current." Advertisement Art of Visuals magazine issue 01, photo by @dripping_balls. "We wanted to create something our community could be proud of. Something they could physically touch and hold, and show to friends and family," Prince explains. The print magazine, with a cover price of 17 dollars, sold out, all 200 copies, in under an hour. The digital magazine is still available for free download on the AOV website. At the end of the party, even the 20 copies that had been laid out for display were gone. "We'll take it as a compliment that people walked off with them!" Travis laughs. Future issues will be twice as long and feature 200 artists each. Art of Visuals' magazine covers, issues 01 and 02. "We want to honor the accomplished artists in our community by displaying their work in our independent magazine," Prince explains. "We're providing a place for people to gain exposure that they might not get elsewhere." Want to be featured in one of their upcoming issues? No. 3 Alison McCauley Photography is primarily a means of expression and communication for me. I've always felt happiest expressing myself visually - first by drawing and painting and then through photography. Alison McCauley Photography takes me to places and people that I might not experience without a camera. It gives me a reason to connect with the people and locations that interest me. My approach to my photography has become looser and more personal over the years. I prefer not to be defined by a genre or a style and I need to feel free to shoot what and how I want. I like to mix things up and to follow my intuition and respond instinctively to what surrounds me. Advertisement Alison McCauley My aim, with each photograph or series of photographs, is to combine these ideas ... this desire to communicate and express with a need to make work that is meaningful and true to me. Alison McCauley is a photographer who has recently relocated to Singapore, where she will be based for the next few years. One in four. When we send our daughters and granddaughters to college, those are the odds that they will become victims of sexual assault before they graduate. According to a new campus survey released by the Department of Justice last week, at least one in 14 of our sons and grandsons will be victims of sexual assault as well. This is an epidemic and a stain upon our nation -- and it is long past time that Congress took action to address it. Advertisement Anyone who has seen the ground-breaking film The Hunting Ground knows that we are failing our children and grandchildren. We are failing at the most basic task -- keeping them safe from harm. When my daughter, Nicole, first showed me the powerful documentary by filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering about campus sexual assault, I was shocked. I watched in tears as victim after victim recounted their stories. You could see the trauma and heartbreak in their faces. Even worse, you saw their sorrow and their rage as they were victimized all over again while seeking justice from a system that too often protects the perpetrators of these heinous attacks. As a former House member who helped lead the fight to pass the original Violence Against Women Act, I knew we had made some progress in our decades-long fight against sexual assault, harassment and domestic violence. But as the heart-rending stories in this film made clear, we have barely made a dent when it comes to the violence that is taking place at colleges and universities across this country. A survey by the Association of American Universities released this fall -- which included 150,000 students at 27 campuses nationwide -- found that 27 percent of female college seniors reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact, ranging from groping to rape. As President Obama said when he created a White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, "sexual violence is more than just a crime against individuals. It threatens our families, it threatens our communities; ultimately, it threatens the entire country." Advertisement As a lawmaker for nearly four decades, I have always found that we get our best ideas when we listen to the public, when we hear their voices. And the stories of these survivors are too compelling to ignore. It was these voices that led my colleagues, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Claire McCaskill, to introduce the Campus Accountability and Safety Act, a bipartisan bill that would help support survivors while increasing transparency and accountability at schools nationwide. It was these voices that led me to introduce my own bill, the SOS Campus Act, which would ensure that every campus has a confidential independent advocate to help sexual assault survivors every step of the way - from reporting the assault, to obtaining emergency medical care and counseling. Last year, I wrote to every school in California asking them to voluntarily implement the bill. I received overwhelmingly positive feedback, with all 33 public universities agreeing to do so. Now, all 10 University of California campuses, and all 23 California State Universities, have an advocate in place to assist sexual assault survivors. But there is so much more we need to do. After attending the Sundance premiere for The Hunting Ground along with Senator Gillibrand last year, I warned that there would be fallout from this film -- that those on the side of the status quo would fight efforts to bring meaningful change. Advertisement We faced the same resistance when we tried to change the system for sexual assault in our military. Let me be clear: much more work needs to be done, but after years of effort, we were able to enact some important reforms to better protect our military men and women from these crimes, and to provide survivors with the support and the resources they need. For too long, college students have suffered in silence in the face of these attacks, hurt by a culture that encouraged these crimes to be swept under the rug. But now, more and more of these courageous young people are speaking out. They are challenging the status quo. They are demanding justice and they are demanding a change in the culture on campus that has allowed rape and abuse to become commonplace. These students inspire us to act. If they are willing to go on-camera and share their stories with the world, if they are willing to risk retaliation in the pursuit of justice, the least we can do is put in place policies to support them and to prevent other young people from becoming victims of these brutal crimes. We cannot turn away from this epidemic any longer. Enough is enough. ___________________ Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, speaks during a campaign event at Music Man Square, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016 in Mason City, Iowa. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson) 1. A vote for Bernie Sanders in Iowa and New Hampshire is not a vote for Sanders to win the presidency. In Iowa and New Hampshire, Republican voters have the opportunity to more or less hand Donald Trump the Republican nomination. Should Trump win both states going away, it's likely that at least eight of the remaining eleven Republican candidates -- including Trump's closest competitor, Ted Cruz -- will no longer have any obvious path to the nomination. This is especially true given the "Iowa bump" Trump would receive heading into New Hampshire, and the "New Hampshire bump" Trump would receive were he to then go on and win New Hampshire. Advertisement By comparison, Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats will play no significant role in determining who wins the Democratic nomination for President. In fact, all they can do -- the only thing they can do -- is decide whether or not Bernie Sanders' long-shot campaign will continue. If Sanders loses Iowa and New Hampshire, and perhaps even if he merely loses Iowa, his candidacy will have no momentum heading into Nevada and South Carolina and he will get crushed in both of those statewide votes. If he wins both Iowa and New Hampshire, he will be permitted by the nation's political winds to continue his campaign. Then, voters in later and larger caucuses and primaries than those in Iowa and New Hampshire will get to determine whether Sanders amasses even enough delegates to be a distantly credible threat to Clinton. (This is an almost impossibly tall order, given the veritable legions of Clinton "super-delegates" to the Democratic National Convention; indeed, Clinton super-delegates already outnumber those for Sanders more than 45-to-1.) A vote for Bernie Sanders is therefore merely a vote for the Democratic primary season to continue rather than ending abruptly in the first week of February with (in effect) a Clinton coronation. 2. A vote for Bernie Sanders is a vote for Hillary Clinton. Hillary is a thoroughly (and notoriously) unlikeable candidate for high office, even as most Democrats agree she's a fully competent administrator when and as she is elected to a position of authority. This campaign against Bernie Sanders not only forces Clinton to improve her political chops in the view of an electorate that generally dislikes her (given her upside-down favorability ratings), it also has prompted her to take stronger positions on issues she otherwise would vacillate on unattractively. The more Clinton is forced to articulate her progressive values, the more human she seems -- including to independent voters scared of a Trump or Cruz presidency -- and she requires the continued presence of Bernie Sanders in the race to realize this type of critical but easily overlooked political gain. Advertisement Clinton is not going to run out of money any time soon -- and likely not ever -- so it can reliably be said that Sanders simply makes Clinton a stronger candidate for the fall election. With Sanders gone, Clinton, if history is any guide, will backslide into the same bad habits as a campaigner and public figure that kept her from the presidency in 2008 and have seen her unfavorables rise every additional week she's in the public eye. In short, Clinton needs Sanders -- and desperately. 3. Michael Bloomberg's backchannel announcement that he will enter the presidential race if Sanders is the nominee makes it certain that Sanders is more likely to beat Trump in the fall than Clinton. Sanders already polls better against Trump than Clinton -- let's start there. Sanders also has much better favorability ratings than Clinton, a much more energized electorate behind him, and the sort of "outsider" message that seems to be en vogue this election cycle. But more importantly, Michael Bloomberg's political profile and history confirms that he will draw many more voters from Trump than the Democrats. Without Bloomberg in the race, Clinton might well lose head-to-head to the equally disliked Trump in the "change" election we're likely headed for. If Bernie wins the nomination, that means it's a three-way race that is substantially more likely to end in a Democratic victory due to Bloomberg siphoning (primarily) Trump votes. Advertisement 4. Sanders is a better negotiator than Clinton -- perhaps half-accidentally -- in a way that suggests he would, in fact, get more done in service of progressives than would Clinton once in office. As any negotiator knows, you don't start a negotiation by asking for what you think you can get; you start the negotiation by asking for everything you could possibly want. In this view, Clinton "demanding" a relatively modest $12/hour minimum wage virtually ensures that any victory she wins on that front will be statistically insignificant -- at best, something in the range of $10/hour. Meanwhile, Sanders' $15/hour demand is a much smarter opening salvo for a negotiation, as he could meet other Democrats and moderate Republicans halfway and still end up with a much better deal for the working class than Clinton would. The same is true with Sanders' pie-in-the-sky proposals regarding healthcare: Clinton will ask Republicans for an incremental change and get nothing; Sanders will ask for a radical overhaul of the system and then settle for a substantial but not revolutionary alteration to the healthcare system. Skeptics say that Sanders is less likely to be able to work with Congress than Clinton. However, as Robert Reich has noted, if the Republicans hold the House -- which they're almost certain to do -- no Democrat, Sanders or Clinton or anyone else, will be getting anything done in the White House between 2016 and 2020 by any means other than an executive order. And as noted above, Sanders' executive orders will be better than Clinton's in the view of progressives, because, unlike Clinton, Sanders does not make the Negotiating 101-level error of negotiating with himself before the real negotiations have even started. Moreover, given that the entire Republican base is currently clamoring for Hillary Clinton to not only be indicted but imprisoned, and short of that for the next four years to simply be a slow-motion replay of the Clinton impeachment proceedings, Clinton's argument that she can work with Congress is laughable. Negotiating 101: if you aren't seen as being legitimately at the table, no one will negotiate with you. Advertisement Republicans may not take Bernie seriously, but (a) they don't personally dislike him (in fact, they clearly admire his integrity if not his policy positions), and (b) assuming Sanders has won the presidency we would also have to assume that he had, in fact, built a political movement that Washington could not ignore. In short, the Clinton partisans arguing that realpolitik militates against voting for Sanders in Iowa and New Hampshire are pulling a bait-and-switch on unsuspecting Democratic voters -- positioning themselves as pragmatists when in fact their insistence that Sanders must be defeated in Iowa and New Hampshire ignores every immovable political chess-piece that's already in play. 5. A vote for Bernie Sanders ensures the Democrats will have a voter-backed candidate for the fall election, rather than a last-minute replacement selected by the Democratic establishment. The odds of Clinton being indicted over her private email server are long, but not nearly as long as many Democrats would like to believe. The word coming out of the FBI is that there is a strong sentiment for indicting Clinton, even if it's on relatively minor charges -- though any indictment at all might well scuttle her campaign (or, at a minimum, the Democratic establishment's willingness to have her be their standard-bearer in the fall). The more one reads about Clinton's actions, and her statements about those actions, the more the whole episode seems to raise legitimate red flags about both Clinton's character and the extent of the legal jeopardy she's in. If Bernie Sanders loses Iowa and New Hampshire, and Clinton is indicted, the Democrats will be left without any credible options for the fall election; in effect, a vote for Bernie in Iowa and New Hampshire is an insurance policy against any calamity befalling Clinton and the party later in the spring or over the summer. Advertisement And while it's true that President Obama could scuttle any indictment of Clinton, were he to do so the damage to Clinton and her party's national reputation would be so severe as to make Sanders a more competitive candidate at the national level than his rival. As we celebrate National School Choice Week, I can't help but think of how a single choice changed the course my life and how differently things would have ended up for me had I not been given the chance to experience the transformative power of a high-quality education. But, at the same time, I can't help but think about the kids on my block, my fellow students in Newark's South Ward, who weren't afforded that very same opportunity - and the injustice that many of them faced being trapped in a persistently failing educational system with no way out. It's those bright, talented kids - now adults, whose limitless potential was never realized - that motivate me to do this work and push me to fight for educational opportunity for our next generation. Every child in this country deserves access to a high-quality public education - no matter the block they're born on. It's the fundamental civil and human rights issue of our time. Thankfully, through the hard work and dedication of thousands of advocates, educators, families, and elected leaders, we've made significant headway toward expanding public school choice and educational opportunity to more American students than ever before. Together, we've expanded access to high-performing public charters for millions of children - particularly children of color and those in low-income communities. We've helped raise educational standards, lift graduation rates to record highs, send more kids off to college, and narrow the achievement gap - to name a few. Advertisement Places like New Orleans, Washington state, Washington, D.C., and my hometown of Newark have taken the lead in investing in education opportunity for their students, and it's paying off more and more each year. According to a 2012 Stanford University study, Newark ranked 2nd in both reading and math for the impact of charter school enrollment on students' average annual learning gains, with a total gain of 7.5 months per year in reading and 9 months per year in math. When it comes to progress in New Orleans and Louisiana, there's so much to celebrate - not least of which is a new crop of Democratic education champions taking office at all levels throughout the state. Today, 95% of students in New Orleans attend a charter school and Louisiana's commitment to accountability means charters offer high-quality educational options for families. The percentage of New Orleans students attending a failing schools has dropped from 62% before Katrina to just 6% in 2014. The high school graduation has increased from 54% to 73% and college enrollment jumped from 37% to 59% between 2004 and 2014. Over in Washington State, families and advocates are out in full force to protect their children's futures, campaigning fearlessly to enact a new public charter law that will permanently ensure that the 1,200 plus charter students will continue have access to expanded educational options. Similarly in Washington, D.C., families are clamoring for additional high-quality seats. In a recent poll, 83% of parents, agreed that in order to ensure DC remains an attractive place for families, that the city needed to both improve quality at DCPS schools and expand the top-performing public charter schools so more parents can choose the school that's best suited for their child. Advertisement This progress is phenomenal, and it's been my absolute privilege to see first-hand the precious souls whose lives have been touched and transformed through the power of education. But there's still plenty more to be done to protect and further the achievements of the past decade in order to ensure that this important work continues in communities across the country. But let me be perfectly clear here - this isn't about the act of making a certain choice; it's about the power of opportunity and having a choice in the first place. I wouldn't dare to tell you whether your neighborhood public school or a public charter is a better fit for your child. I'm not here to advocate that we sacrifice one school or degrade one system for the other. What I am fighting for is the best possible public education with the richest set of options for all children, so that families are empowered to make the choices that are best for them - so that they aren't trapped in the same situation as most of my neighbors growing up. The truth is we're all in this together, advocating for the same educational promise and opportunity that every American student deserves. As School Choice Week winds down, I'm glad that we have the chance to lift up the important work of public school choice advocates across this country and their tireless devotion to our students. But we all know that this mission continues on well after this week's celebrations subside, so I look forward to working alongside each one of you to ensure that more kids in this country get to realize the power of opportunity and have a better shot at a brighter future through education. Former Hamilton County Corrections Officer Ryan Epperson is not a criminal in the typical sense, but an addict in a real sense, says attorney Bill Speek. Epperson, 27, pled guilty at Criminal Court Wednesday to several counts of theft, burglary, criminal trespassing, vandalism, and drug possession. He also pled guilty to one count of impersonating a licensed professional. In May 2015 the defendant was arrested for breaking into secure areas in Chattanooga hospitals and stealing powerful narcotics. He dressed in scrubs on May 27 to pose as a licensed medical professional at Erlanger Hospital on East 3rd Street. Epperson had never worked at Erlanger in the past. Security personnel at the hospital searched him and found syringes and other medical tools in his jacket. Large stashes of narcotics were also found in his car, as well as in a 32-quart cooler in his home. Epperson was released a month after his arrest on a $93,000 bond. Several months later he was arrested again for breaking into Erlanger East and Parkridge Hospital to steal narcotics. On Aug. 15 an Erlanger doctor ran into the defendant in the hospital. Per the doctors report, Epperson was looking to go to the bathroom and told the doctor his name was Ryan. The officer who responded to the burglary at that location the same day reported that a restricted medical room had been broken into and the narcotics drawer had been tampered with. Our client is someone in a real sense addicted to medications, attorney Speek said. He stated Epperson never tried to sell any of the prescription drugs he stole, and he cooperated fully when he was caught. On Wednesday the defendant pled guilty to nearly half of the 35 counts against him regarding the burglaries at Erlanger and Parkridge that took place from April 2015 to August 2015. The rest of the counts were dismissed. Judge Don Poole accepted Eppersons pleas. He furloughed the defendants six-year sentence to Drug Court because the court found Eppersons criminal actions to be driven and fueled by his addiction to medications. Attorney Speek said as long as Epperson complies with Drug Court, he will not have to serve his sentence in the penitentiary. But if he does not comply, his sentence still stands. As part of his plea deal, Epperson is not allowed to have any contact with Erlanger or Park Ridge hospitals, unless it is an emergency. An old McCormick tractor sits in the Handsaker's barn during the cold temperatures in Iowa. RADCLIFFE, Iowa- Jacob Handsaker is a 33-year-old, fourth generation farmer who is young enough not to remember the farm crisis of the 1980's, but old enough to wonder why this year's crop of presidential candidates aren't addressing the problems facing young farmers. "I have no doubt that farming is one of the backbones of America," Handsaker said. "Unfortunately it's a game of money and to get the money you're not going to go after the young farmers." Jim Handsaker, Jacob's father and a life-long farmer, is more blunt. "If somebody were going to start farming now, he would have to inherit it, or marry into it," said Jim. Advertisement Jacob Handsaker is raising three young children in the same house his great-grandfather raised his grandfather, who raised his father. Handsaker works along side his father, Jim, and his brother. The family raises corn, soybeans and just recently started planting sweet peas into their family-owned fields. But the Handsakers are facing the same hardships farmers all across the nation are dealing with- the continuing growing cost of farming. The costs associated with daily farm operation in addition to land costs and machinery is adversely affecting young farmers trying to get into the business. These problems contrast starkly against the economic problems of the 1980's. Starting in 1980, farmers in the Hawkeye state were hit with a 33 percent drop in land value. That resulted in thousands of farmers declaring bankruptcy. "I was born in '82 so I didn't live or don't remember the farm crisis, but from what I've heard, people are in a lot better position now," said Jacob, the son. "People are a lot smarter and they've learned. And that's great, we need to learn from history as we move forward." Advertisement Government regulation, healthcare tax, and the inheritance tax are among the top problems affecting U.S. farmers, the Handsakers said. And it seems as if the politician's are turning their attention to everyone except the farmers. They argue that only farmers, not politicians, in America know what's best for the agriculture. The younger Handsaker insisted American farmers, no matter where they are, are the best in the world at what they are doing. A New Holland combine sits in the barn during the winter seasons, until it is time to be used for harvesting. Father and son point to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its regulations, such as the Clean Water Act, as farmers' biggest problem. Jim, the father, suggested the government should take a step back from regulating the farm industries and listen to what the local farmers have to say. He acknowledged EPA administrators have held many meetings in Iowa but the elder Handsaker said those conversations were a waste of money. "They never take any of those suggestions," said Jim. "They never try to understand where the farmer is coming from." Advertisement Living your life dependent on crops and agriculture can be challenging for some, especially with the high price of land and machinery. Although the price of land in Iowa has fallen in the past year, a study from Iowa State University showed that the farmland values in Iowa are still double the price than what they were 10 years ago. Right now an acre of high-grade land in Iowa is valued at $7,773. In 2005, an acre of high-grade land was as low as $3,511. The elder Handsaker remembers that when he began farming he could educate his children through college off the profit from 160 acres of land. Now the problem is, it takes a profit from 160 acres just to pay the premium for health insurance, he said. According to United States Department of Agriculture, the average yearly salary for a farmer is around $86,000. Jacob, the son, wants the presidential candidates to realize that the farm community could have an impact on Election Day. Advertisement 'Raiders of the Lost Ark': Anything that can go wrong, will. Learn to improvise Whether you're planning to steal an ancient artifact from an army of Nazis or just trying to visit as many museums as you can by the end of the day, you can't expect everything to go perfectly. Between delayed flights, bad weather, and straight-up bad luck, travel is full of variables and as hard as you might try, you can't be prepared for all of them. In cases like these, it's time to channel your inner Indiana Jones and start thinking on your feet. (Photo: Machu Picchu via Shutterstock) "God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty. God intends for all of his children to have the basic necessities of life, and He has left in this universe "enough and to spare" for that purpose." Martin Luther King, Jr. House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Catholic who described himself as a "big fan" of Pope Francis, wants to fight poverty by reinventing the federal government's social welfare programs. For Ryan to accomplish this goal, he should not only heed the words of a transformational religious and political leader like Pope Francis, but also Martin Luther King Jr. Despite widespread praise showered upon MLK through the years, few have championed his dream of a basic income and employment for all. Those ideas served as the bedrock of MLK's anti-poverty crusade, yet have been largely forgotten today. Advertisement In his 1967 book "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?," MLK described Washington's anti-poverty efforts as "piecemeal and pygmy." Essentially, MLK felt that indirect and reactionary efforts by the government on fighting poverty were too small and unorganized to be effective. Paul Ryan shared similar sediments when in a 2014 article he wrote federal programs aimed at the poor are "fragmented and formulaic." In both cases, MLK and Ryan consistently based their viewpoints on poverty from deeply held religious convictions. This is where the similarities between Paul Ryan and MLK end. Whereas Ryan wants less government intervention in fighting poverty, MLK sought more. MLK's concept of a basic minimum income and national jobs program came from the realization that no amount of economic growth and prosperity could eliminate poverty or create jobs for all. Thus in 1965, MLK argued for a national jobs program when he stated, "At the present time, thousands of jobs a week are disappearing in the wake of automation and other production efficiency techniques." With a four decades year low of 94 million people not in the labor force, MLK's statement rigs true today. Advertisement Rapid technological advancements have contributed to manufacturing and high-tech jobs being occupied by a select few, while the vast majority of new jobs created since the Great Recession have primarily been low-skill and easy to replace. For example, Netflix, the undisputed king of streaming movies and television shows online, generates $5.5 billion in revenue and has about 2,400 employees. Compare that to its now defunct competitor, Blockbuster, which at its peak employed nearly 60,000 employees. In the book "Freedom From Fear, The American people in Depression and War, 1929-1945," author David M. Kennedy writes about the impressive productivity of American capitalism. Kennedy highlights that by 1925, a completely assembled Model T Ford was created every 10 seconds at Henry Ford's Highland Park plant. Less than a decade before, it would've taken 14 hours to assemble the very same car. MLK realized this technological trend will only accelerate, which meant a federal jobs program aimed at full employment was an absolute necessity. MLK's support for a basic minimum income was seen as a serious proposal in the 1960s. In 1962, economist Milton Friedman released a book titled "Capitalism and Freedom," in which he believed a negative income tax, or basic minimum income, could replace most of the current social welfare programs. In 1966, devout Catholic Sargent Shriver, considered the chief architect of the War on Poverty, suggested to President Lyndon Johnson he adopt Friedman's idea on the negative income tax so long as all able bodied citizens find employment. Advertisement President Nixon in 1969 and his Democratic opponent in the 1972 presidential election, George McGovern, both unsuccessfully advocated their own form of the basic minimum income. Go back to the early days of the American republic and you'll find one of the greatest political thinkers of the time, Thomas Paine, advocate for a social insurance system for youth and seniors which formed the basis for today's Social Security program. In his 1797 pamphlet, "Agrarian Justice," Paine argued for a 10 percent tax on inherited property to combat the growing inequality of natural property. From this national fund, those 21 years old would receive a onetime payment of 15 pounds and those over 50 years old 10 pounds each year. Paine believed such compensation was a small measure of justice for young citizens in particular, since most owned no land. In one of the more notable passages of Agrarian Justice, Paine declares, "It is wrong to say God made rich and poor; He made only male and female, and He gave them the earth for their inheritance." Furthermore, Paine reasoned the poor shouldn't have to rely solely on charity and suffer the stigma it carried. Paul Ryan, who strongly believes private charities should take the lead on anti-poverty efforts, would likely disagree with Paine on this last point. In 2013, when Pope Francis critiqued capitalism and blasted trickle-down economics for the exclusion and indifference it creates towards the poor, Paul Ryan responded by stating, "The guy is from Argentina, they haven't had real capitalism in Argentina. They have crony capitalism in Argentina. They don't have a true free enterprise system." Advertisement Perhaps Pope Francis could've defended himself against Ryan with a critique on our economic system from someone who actually lived and experienced 'real capitalism'. The pope could turn to someone like MLK, who in a speech delivered less than a month before his assassination, said this about our economic system: "Well that appears to me to be a kind of socialism for the rich and rugged hard individualistic capitalism for the poor." Cross-Posted from DeSmogBlog Aubrey McClendon, the embattled former CEO and co-founder of Chesapeake Energy, has announced his entrance into Argentina to begin hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") in the country's Vaca Muerta Shale basin. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons Though he retired as Chesapeake Energy's CEO back in 2013 in the aftermath of a shareholder revolt, McClendon wasted little time in creating a new company called American Energy Partners (AEP). AEP, like Chesapeake, has found itself mired since its onset in legal snafus over its treatment of landowners. With AEP not getting a red carpet roll-out in the U.S., McClendon has looked southward for other lucrative business adventures. DeSmog reported in September that McClendon has also teamed up with a private equity company affiliated with former Mexican president Vicente Fox to begin tapping into Mexico's portion of the Eagle Ford Shale basin. We also reported that he has begun doing business in Australia. Advertisement All of those countries have something in common that makes them different from the U.S.: lax royalty and land deal laws. As McClendon boasted in an investor call -- and as Chesapeake formerly acknowledged on a portion of its website, since taken down -- the company chose the land grab as a key part of its business model. Mexico, Australia and Argentina are still in the "land grab" phase of development, with zero production scale fracking taking place in any of the three countries. AEP attempts to preempt "land grab" charges on its website. "We work hard to earn - and maintain - your trust," writes AEP. "We practice open, honest communication with our owner partners to strengthen those partnerships forged in mutual trust." Advertisement Banana Republic Land Laws In Mexico, unlike in the U.S. in which in most states' landowners own the minerals underneath their land, the government maintains mineral rights. The same goes for Australia. Argentina's government, in a presentation posted online by the Undersecretariat of Mining, brags about how its legal landscape permits foreign investors and companies to come in and commandeer land. Image Credit: Argentina Undersecretariat of Mining McClendon did not say so overtly, but it appears "land grab" could be a key part of his plans in Argentina moving forward. "[W]e intend to bring US-style shale drilling and operating expertise, completion techniques and cost structure to the Vaca Muerta, which we believe will prove transformative for the play," McClendon stated in an AEP press release announcing the deal. I've been rattling on about a trend I'm seeing in college enrollment deception and the ability for people to file a claim to discharge, in full, their federal student loans. See this article. I've advised haste to get claims in and what to do before the door closes on this current process. See this article. The basic issue is students were induced by misleading facts and claims made by college recruiters in both the for-profit, public, and non-profit world. This led to students, who had practically zero chance of ever receiving the benefit of the education to go deeply in debt so the school could profit. Advertisement When it comes to education, these ideas of deception are rebuffed by many. But it is interesting that an automobile manufacturer like VW can get caught making false claims about emission tests and everyone is outraged and government investigations ensue. But when it is shown over and over that some schools only have 11 percent graduation rates and 85 percent of students can't pay their student loans because they don't go on to make enough money as the school claimed, the blame is placed on the student by many. My argument is the school should bear responsibility to make a substantial effort to only admit students who have a likelihood of achieving the promised results before pushing them into a lifetime of debt. Here's another example. If you walked into a car dealership and bought a car because the salesperson and window sticker said you'd get 50 MPG and then you found out 90 percent of purchasers only got 10 MPG, you'd be pretty upset. In fact it could be argued you had been intentionally deceived in order to encourage you to buy the car since the car company knew what the actual performance was. Yesterday the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed suit against DeVry University and alleged the school deceived students into enrolling in programs and loans. The case did not go as deep into the deception as this whistleblower case did against ITT, but in my mind it's a case to watch. DeVry University isn't the only school under investigation. Even the University of Phoenix is under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission and they are pushing back in an attempt to not release data. Advertisement In the case filed by the FTC the claim is specifically made DeVry engaged "unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce" and misrepresentations or deceptive omissions of material fact which constitute deceptive acts or practices prohibited by Section 5(a) of the FTC Act. The complaint, which you can read here, goes on to say: Consumers have suffered and will continue to suffer substantial injury as a result of Defendants' violations of the FTC Act. In addition, Defendants have been unjustly enriched as a result of their unlawful acts or practices. The FTC said, "In its complaint against DeVry, the FTC alleges that the defendants' claim that 90 percent of DeVry graduates actively seeking employment landed jobs in their field within six months of graduation was deceptive. The complaint charges that another key claim made by DeVry, that its graduates had 15 percent higher incomes one year after graduation on average than the graduates of all other colleges or universities, also was deceptive." It would be unreasonable to expect everyone who goes to college is going to graduate. Life happens and things come up that prevent people from making it to the finish line and obtaining the degree. But as much of a critic as someone might be of this idea some schools enrolled students to get federal and private student loan disbursements, using lies, mistruths, and deception; it is a fact. And if it is a fact, then those holding federal student loans can file a claim to have their loans discharged and the money clawed back from the school to repay the government for the fraudulent behavior. The Department of Education has their eye on such activities as well. "As required by the law and expected by the public, institutions need to be accurate in their marketing and recruiting to prospective students," said Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell. Advertisement You might want to stay tuned for more information on this by subscribing to my free newsletter. Steve Rhode Get Out of Debt Guy - Twitter, G+, Facebook If you have a credit or debt question you'd like to ask, just click here and ask away. Facing being put down the next day, these lovely puppies were rescued and made it safely to new homes, thanks to some awesome teamwork. Participants in this rescue: Flight Coordinator: Colleen Fennell, Save A Dog A Day - Rescue Colleen Fennell, Save A Dog A Day - Rescue Sending Party: Gigi Colaiacovo, Save A Dog A Day - Foster Gigi Colaiacovo, Save A Dog A Day - Foster Flight Volunteer: Mike Taylor Mike Taylor Additional Pilots: Tony Minervini, Delaware to New York Advertisement Become one of our extraordinary Patreon supporters to see the extended version of the video above. Click here. Colleen from Save A Dog A Day sent out a request to help transfer Holly and her four puppies to their forever homes in New York and Connecticut. Once we heard their story we knew had to play a role in their rescue. Gigi, the foster mom, went to the shelter to save a dog from being euthanized on a particular day. As she was leaving she saw Holly and her five puppies. Holly and her puppies were to be euthanized the next day. Gigi couldn't let that happen so she went home with all of them too. Gigi had never fostered a mother and babies before and wasn't sure she was up to it but she said it was the best experience she could of had. Holly was an amazing mom and made things easy for her. Advertisement Colleen couldn't find a pilot to fly from South Carolina to Raleigh, North Carolina where we are based so Gigi drove the dogs up to Raleigh herself in a van. She drove five hours in the pouring rain, spent the night and was at the airport early the next morning for our flight. A big thank you is owed to both Plato Pet Treats and Smiling Dog Coffee who donated gifts to us to share with the rescues and pilots we connected with. It's their way of thanking the service of the volunteers. Please visit Plato Pet Treats and Smiling Dog Coffee because they are awesome. Mike Taylor was our volunteer that day and he and Pam met Gigi in the parking lot. We met several of her dogs who were traveling with her, and Holly. Unfortunately at the last minute Holly's adoption fell through and she was to go back home with Gigi until they could find her another home. But the mission to fly the puppies was still on and so we loaded the puppies into the plane. Both, Gigi and Holly were so sad to see the pups go. Gigi said she and Holly comforted each other for the next few days, both missing the babies. One of Holly's five puppies had been adopted by a friend of Gigi's so she would be able to see him grow up. Advertisement On our flight was, Noah, Rudy, Emma and Lucy and soon we had them ready for takeoff. Steve and Mike were up front while Pam was in the backseat and the puppies in a crate in the baggage area, protected with all sorts of blankets. Once we took off, Pam soon had all of the puppies out of the crate and cuddling with her in the backseat. She had blankets all around to keep them warm and comfortable. They were so adorable. Rudy had not been adopted yet but was going to be fostered by Emma's new family until they could find him a new home. He was a real cuddlier and of course Pam wanted to take him home. Occasionally Pam allowed Mike to have a pup up front but the puppy usually wanted to go back to Pam and their brothers and sisters. Everyone snuggled together and it was a great flight. We arrived at Georgetown, Delaware and met Tony, the next pilot fly the dogs to all of their furever homes. We took a pup at a time to Tony so he could get them settled for their flight. Noah decided he wanted to stay with Pam. He was the last one to get out and Pam took him to Tony's plane. Neither wanted to let go of the other. The look he gave her tore at her heart when she loaded him into the crate and closed the door. As usual another tearful goodbye was said. After an exchange of hugs, and some much needed lunch we departed for Raleigh. The flight home was non eventful and Mike told us about his Huskies and how they were rescued. His female Husky is a therapy dog at Rex Hospital in Raleigh. Evidently to get your dog on the approved list at the hospital you need to call them and they will tell you what paperwork is needed and who your dog has to see to get approved. It's really a great help give patients a little comfort and relaxation while in the hospital. Advertisement We heard back from all of the dogs owners except Noah. Gigi and I were so worried about him. Then, Tony sent us a picture of Noah surrounded by 3 happy children petting him at the airport. We knew then that he would be well loved and cared for. Beautiful woman looking at books in a library. Ambient light to emphasize the mood and location. Converted from RAW. The real world is often overwhelmingly complicated. Literature can help. This is true at universities too: courses in comparative literature offer students new insights into their chosen disciplines by unlocking new, varied perspectives. How can those studying political science truly grasp the terror of living under a dictator? Perhaps by reading Mario Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat, a magnificent historical novel about the tyrannical Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic. Students who read it are unlikely to forget the dizzying Cold War political intrigues that led the US to first support Trujillo and then implement sanctions against him. Advertisement In area studies, students must learn about the politics of postcolonial government. Chinua Achebe's 1966 novel, A Man of the People, explores how rapidly post-independence revolutionary zeal can turn venal as the corrupt, greedy postcolonial elite seizes the reins of power from the coloniser only to further strangle the majority. I would suggest that teaching these and other subjects - history, economics, sociology, geography and many others - can only be enhanced by including novels, short stories and artistic feature films. Students will also benefit from learning the methods of critical reading that are inherent to literary study. In this article I will explore why this is the case, focusing largely on the important but contested field of international development studies. Why development is about more than economics International development studies cries out for a literary component precisely because it is such an ideological and normative subject. "Development" is itself a term that should demand ideological evaluation. It is more than economics. This is made clear by the UN's Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals. These reiterate that "development" also focuses on cultural change, such as gender equity through empowering women and girls. But the syllabus of almost any international development studies course contains a heavy dose of development economists: Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs. Or, if the professor is slightly more left-leaning, there will be works by anthropologists like James Ferguson and Arturo Escobar or brilliant political science professor Timothy Mitchell. Why only these? This is an area in which books in the humanities and arts are pertinent, yet one never sees a postcolonial novel on these syllabi. Advertisement It is frankly criminal. Development was constituted as a field of study and area of practice during the years of decolonisation after World War II. This was the very same time period which spawned the birth of what is today called postcolonial literature. But international development studies courses seldom broach the fundamental question of what is truly meant by development. Developing to what? For whose benefit? Under whose aegis? This question, however, is interrogated in a vast body of excellent fiction. I have prescribed Nuruddin Farah's 1993 novel, Gifts - inspired by Marcel Mauss' classic ethnography The Gift - to my students. When development aid from powerful countries is donated to impoverished 1980s Somalia, a fine line is walked by both the West which "gives" and the Somalis who "receive." The book is a long meditation on the tightrope act that teeters between donation and domination. Certainly my students learned more about how it really feels to be the recipient of donor aid from this novel than any of our social science readings, which were mostly written from the donors' point of view. Exploring different points of view This isn't to suggest that such novels are stand-ins for "native informants", who are perceived to be experts about a culture, race or place simply because they belong to it. Quite the contrary. They should be read as literature, which literary critics like Mikhail Bakhtin describe as a jumble of competing viewpoints depending on language that always struggles to convey actual truth. Point of view might be an easier concept for students to grasp at first than Bakhtin's theory. It is a basic narrative technique that is explored in Literary Criticism 101 because it can change the way a story is told or perceived. In the rich 2006 film Bamako the people of Mali put the World Bank on trial to determine why their poisoned "gift" of development aid has left the country with such a debilitating debt burden. From the World Bank's perspective, development might mean one thing but for those "beneficiaries," it means something quite different. Art has the power to convey that point of view with visceral impact. Isn't this essential for international development students who aim to help the "other" to "develop"? Advertisement Room for myriad insights The end state of "development," which is implied but hardly ever explicitly theorised in international development studies, is "modernity" and becoming "modern". This is a subject on which literature and literary theory can offer myriad insights. Zakes Mda's wonderful 2005 novel Heart of Redness depicts the tale of a contemporary village in post-apartheid South Africa. Here, two groups of villagers hold radically different positions on what development means to them. Does it mean street lamps and a casino resort that will bring tourists? Or maintaining a more "traditional," environmentally-sustainable lifestyle albeit with some "modern" amenities? The villagers' differing positions are also informed by their different views on their history of colonisation. History is, of course, essential for understanding any subject. For this reason I've not restricted myself to postcolonial literature only in teaching my classes. Robinson Crusoe, first published in 1719, is an excellent novel for introducing the study of British imperialism which is a prerequisite for understanding our contemporary global cultural economy. Pushing for positive change In our globalising world, the stakes could not be higher. Many of our students will end up making policy, allocating aid, driving the global economy. They will change the world. Literature and humanistic thinking enable them to change it for the better. Advertisement Human activities are the cause of this century's record warm years, according to a study in the journal Scientific Reports. "We find that individual record years and the observed runs of record-setting temperatures were extremely unlikely to have occurred in the absence of human-caused climate change," the authors say. "These same record temperatures were, by contrast, quite likely to have occurred in the presence of anthropogenic climate forcing." The study, written before the release of 2015 temperature data, put the odds between 1 in 770 and 1 in 10,000 that 13 of the 15 warmest years spanning from 2000 to 2014 happened without human influence (subscription). With the inclusion of 2015 temperature data, the group's computer simulations widened those odds to between 1 in 1,250 and 1 in 13,000, lead author Michael Mann, a professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University, told Reuters. Advertisement "Climate change is real, human-caused and no longer subtle--we're seeing it play out before our eyes," Mann said. Mann and his co-authors ran statistical analyses of real-world measurements and comprehensive computer simulations of the climate system to distinguish human-caused climate change from natural climate variability, such as that triggered by volcanic eruptions and shifts in the sun's output. "2015 is again the warmest year on record, and this can hardly be by chance," Stefan Rahmstorf, a co-author from the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact in Germany, said. "Natural climate variations just can't explain the observed recent global heat records, but man-made global warming can." Study: Low Electricity Costs and Low Emissions Not Mutually Exclusive A new study by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and University of Colorado Boulder researchers in the journal Nature Climate Change finds that the United States could reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation (using future anticipated costs for wind and solar) by more than 75 percent relative to 1990 levels by 2030 at approximately the same cost as 2012. The key? Using new high-voltage power lines to move renewables nationwide, eliminating the need to add new fossil fuel storage capacity. Advertisement "What the model suggests is we can get a long way, and wind and solar and natural gas can be a bridge," said Christopher Clack of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. "There is a path that could be possible to achieve those goals, and it doesn't necessarily need to drive up costs." Using NOAA's high-resolution meteorological data, the researchers built a model to evaluate future cost, demand, generation, and transmission scenarios and found that with improvements in transmission infrastructure, the wind and the sun could supply most of the nation's electricity at costs comparable to today's. "The model relentlessly seeks the lowest-cost energy, whatever constraints are applied," Clack said. "And it always installs more renewable energy on the grid than exists today." In the expected future scenario--in which renewable energy costs continue to fall while natural gas costs rise--the model predicted that the power sector could cut emissions 78 percent compared with 1990 levels at an electricity cost of 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, up from 9.4 cents in 2012 (subscription). That finding is predicated on creation of a new high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) transmission grid, which according to the authors lowers the chance of energy losses, reducing utilities' need to amass reserves of excess capacity through natural-gas-powered generators. "With an 'interstate for electrons,' renewable energy could be delivered anywhere in the country while emissions plummet," said Alexander MacDonald, co-lead author and former director of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory. "An HVDC grid would create a national electricity market in which all types of generation, including low-carbon sources, compete on a cost basis. The surprise was how dominant wind and solar could be." Advertisement Update to Social Cost of Carbon Unnecessary A new interim report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine suggests that there is little benefit to updating estimates of the social cost of carbon in the near term. Written by a 13-member expert panel, the report recommends ways to change federal technical support documents on the social cost of carbon to enhance estimates. "We recommended against a near-term update to the social cost of carbon" based off the IPCC report's finding, said Richard Newell of Duke University. Newell co-chaired the panel, which includes Sanford School Professor and Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions Faculty Fellow Billy Pizer. To set an efficient market price on carbon emissions, it's helpful to know the social cost of those emissions--that is, the estimate of the economic damages (in dollars) associated with an increase in carbon dioxide emissions, usually one metric ton, in a given year. The last revised estimate, in 2015, was $36 per metric ton of carbon dioxide. A final report will examine potential approaches for a more comprehensive update to social cost of carbon estimates and is expected in early 2017. Im a novelist married to a classical figurative sculptor. This comes with intense pressure, as independent careers do, especially today. Essentially, Sabin and I are entrepreneurs running small businesses. Ive blogged before about the unceasing demands of the independent artists journey. We do it because we must, because its who we are. We do it hoping to reach and to serve a larger audience with our talents, not just for financial gain, but because it is the ultimate fulfillment of talent to be used in service to a larger cause. Last spring, Justin Shubow of the National Civic Art Society sent Sabin notice of an open design competition for the National World War 1 Memorial in Pershing Park in Washington D.C. Sabin was intrigued and hes ambitious and he liked the historical richness of the project. Sabins dad, before he retired, taught history in high school; his mom was a tenured professor of Chinese history at Rutgers. The study of history runs in Sabins blood. Advertisement Thats what I want to do: sculpt monuments, he told me. He contacted a well-known classical architect. They created a beautiful design. There were over three hundred sixty anonymous submissions, of which five were selected. Sabins was not one of them. Next, Sabin said, shrugging. I knew he was disappointed but Sabin is one to carry on. Weeks later, Sabin received an email from a young architect-in-training. Look how polite this letter is, Sabin said. Hes one of the five finalists in the WW1 memorial competition. His name is Joe Weishaar. Hes 25 years old. I read the email. I think you possess the same desire for quality and the same passion for creating something beautiful which is made to last and to inspire as I do. This is one of those rare opportunities in life to really do something much bigger than a client or a style, but rather to capture the vitality and spirit of a historic generation, Joe wrote. I urge you to fully consider this collaboration. Id better call him right now, Sabin said. Later Joe told Sabin that hed researched dozens of sculptors, but he threw out his list when he saw Sabins work online. He knew he wanted Sabin on his project. Advertisement So Sabin worked with Joe Weishaar, a wunderkind in Chicago with a gift for design. They spent hours on the phone. Joe wanted walls with reliefs as well as a sculpture in the round in his design, to tell the story of the war. Sabin came up with the idea for the content of the bronze reliefs and the sculpture. In the way that wives do, I tagged along for the ride. Sabin researched the Great War as he made drawings for the reliefs. We saw the evocative film Testament to Youth based on Vera Brittains book. We scoured Netflix for documentaries and watched 14 Diaries of the Great War, an international documentary drama series that showed the vastness and sweep of the war from a human perspective. Sabin assigned the reading to me. Dinner conversations revolved around trench warfare, poisonous gasses, and the psychic devastation of a whole generation of bright young men lost to the war. Sabin contacted costume and antique shops, looking for authentic WW1 uniforms. He hired models and a photographer to shoot photos from which he made the relief drawings. Our research indicated that horses were essential to this war, so Sabin took a model and the photographer to a stable upstate. He wanted more than one soldier in the image so he donned a uniform himself and gripped the horses reins. I took special pride in watching my husband work so diligently. The purpose of this memorial is to commemorate the over 4,000,000 American men and women who served in uniform during the Great War and the over 116,000 Americans who gave their lives in it, and to educate the public about the war and its far-reaching effects. It mattered to me because my father was career military. He was a submarine sailor and a Chief in the U.S. Navy. Advertisement I grew up with two knowings: one is that military service is honorable service to our country, and two is that it means that sometimes lives are lost. My father never saw combat, but we knew about the USS Thresher, a sub that went down at sea. It is psychologically wholesome for military personnel, not just those in uniform but also their families, to know that lives that are lost are not forgotten, but are cherished and remembered. Even if the war was 100 years ago, it matters. Joe and Sabin met with the Design Committee, received input, took that input to heart, and incorporated it. They ended up with a design that is gracefully elegant and simple, that communicates the history of the war in understandable visual images, that makes an emotional impact on viewers, and that incorporates the park as a park. Sabin made it clear to the committee that the content of the reliefs wasnt fixed but was open to their input. He knew, if they won, that the art work would be adjusted. Yesterday the committee was slated to announce the winner. The competition has been conducted according to ethical standards of transparency, so the morning proceedings included conference call-in capacity for the public to listen in. Sabin and Joe declined but I called in. The first ninety minutes concerned the committees business in raising awareness of events from so long ago. It was exciting to hear about national and international outreach efforts, but my heart thundered in my chest as I waited to hear about the competition. Sabin was shipping a sculpture to a client and needed me to sit in the car while he lugged the crate into the shipping office; in New York city, youre always trying to avoid parking tickets. He returned to the car as the conversation finally turned to the competition. Advertisement You might want to listen, I said breathlessly. I put the call on speakerphone. Someone said that the committee had come to a unanimous decision and the design team that had been selected was Joe Weishaar and Sabin Howard with their design proposal Weight of Sacrifice. Holy sh*t, we won, Sabin exclaimed, with wonderment. Then, Im so honored. We have so much work to do. We have to get this rightthe whole world will see it. It has to be beautiful and it has to show the war correctly. For TueNight.com by Dionne Ford (Photo courtesy of New England Historic Genealogical Society's online resource, AmericanAncestors.org) In the late 1800s, my great-grandmother Josephine started writing to the Southwestern Christian Advocate, a newspaper based in New Orleans that primarily served black Methodist Episcopalians in the south. At first, her notes were two or three line missives - "I am a girl sixteen years old. I take the Southwestern and enjoy reading it. My sister died April 18, 1889." But by the time she was almost 19 and soon to be married, she was writing editorials. They're very spicy. She says stuff like, "A bold and specious humanitarianism is destroying worship" and "Heart sins that are not opposed, not warred against arrest prayer." I've spent long passages of time rereading her words, trying to understand what exactly was destroying worship, twisting my hair and equating her editorials to wars against all the things she must have been up against. She was the youngest child like me. Her parents were a former slave and her former master. One of her brothers was lynched in a manner so dramatic that news of it appeared in papers all across the country. Some of her siblings took their enslaving father's last name, but not Josephine. Until she married, she was a Burton like her mother. I know because I read it right there in her byline - Josephine Burton. Her name. Her words. Her battle cry. Advertisement "I was at the camp meeting Saturday night and heard Rev. I. Pratt preach a most excellent sermon," she writes in one issue. "All my family belongs to the ME church except one," she says in another. "Brother, truly God is good to the children of men. Why can't they serve him?" I feel sorry for whoever "they" is. Religion was close to Josephine's heart, and she had no problem calling you out if you weren't praising right. Just read her editorials. She'd call you out for other things too. In between an editorial condemning separate but supposedly equal rail cars for blacks and a report that the annual Colored Methodist Episcopal conference had voted against admitting women appears this notice she published in the March 17, 1892 issue of the Southwestern: "Miss Josephine Burton, of Ocean Springs, Miss., justly complains against certain persons who have been writing letters to this paper in her name." I haven't come across anything penned under her married name. Maybe she stopped writing when she became a Ford. She must have met her husband, the Reverend James Ford, through the church. James was an itinerant minister who traveled all around the Gulf Coast of Mississippi preaching. In the summer of 1888, he wrote an ad in the paper announcing an upcoming camp meeting in Ocean Springs. During the 1892 Mississippi Conference of the ME church, the paper reported that James was appointed to the periodical committee. He and Josephine married two years later, and, of course, they invited The Southwestern editor to the ceremony. "We acknowledge receipt of invitation and wish the happy pair very much joy," the editor replied via the paper. Their wedding announcement in the next issue was simple and sweet, the way love should be. Advertisement Like his grandfather James, my father is a preacher. But his name, Joseph Burton, he inherited from Josephine. I'd like to think I inherited something from her too. I started writing for my high school newspaper my senior year, and I've worked at all kinds since -- dailies, monthlies, and a quirky community weekly called the Villager run by a gray-haired couple who turned that money-losing paper of the 90s into an award winner. I think all that reporting was practice for the main story I wanted to uncover -- my family's history. In my house (and my classrooms), we did not acknowledge that some of our ancestors had been slaves or the sexual oppression that went hand-in-hand with the dreaded institution making my great-great-grandparents slave and master as well as family. It was our silent shame. And the legacy lingers. When Ben Affleck was profiled on the PBS show, "Finding Your Roots," the actor asked producers to omit the fact that one of his ancestors owned slaves. In 2010, the Texas state school board voted to take the word slavery out of textbooks, replacing it with Atlantic Triangular Trade. That would make me a descendant of triangles. Just this week, McGraw Hill came under fire for calling enslaved Africans "workers" in the latest edition of their Texas textbooks. My grandfather did the same thing when he first told me about his grandmother, Tempy. He said she "worked" on his grandfather's farm. Thirty-five percent of all African American men hail from a black woman and white man from the slavery era, most likely slave and master, but it's difficult to find information about these unions. Slaves like Josephine's mother were numbers in censuses and property sometimes only referred to by their color in their enslavers' wills and deeds. I wanted to beat back this erasure. I wanted the names. I wanted their stories. I found them in the paper. "Mr. Editor: I desire to find my people. Mother's name was Eliza Burton, sisters, Nancy, Polly, and Liberia Burton." That's how Josephine's mom, Tempy, begins her June 4, 1891 ad in the Southwestern Christian Advocate. The ad appeared in a column called "Lost Friends," which helped former slaves find their lost family, separated by slavery. Preachers would often read these columns from the pulpits on Sunday. Advertisement A slave until she was in her 40s, Tempy probably never learned how to read or write. A 1900 census states she could do neither. But someone (probably Josephine) carefully wrote her petition and sent it to the Southwestern. 120 years later, a complete stranger who loves historic newspapers and was reading through them online, was struck by Tempy's quest. So she checked out the AfriGeneas message boards to see if anyone today was looking for Tempy the way she looked for her people back then. My cousin Monique had posted a query on AfriGeneas, an online community for genealogists researching their African ancestry, looking for any information on our common ancestor, Tempy. It's so rare for descendants of slaves to learn much about their enslaved ancestors, but because of the paper trail Josephine and Tempy left behind, I know who my third great grandmother was: Eliza Burton. And the irony that I only found these newspapers because they were digitized and archived online is never lost on me. We all were found. I keep copies of Tempy's ad and her follow-up thank-you letter tacked to my office wall. "The Southwestern Christian Advocate has been the means of recovery of my sister, Mrs. Polly Woodfork and eight children," Tempy reported in the paper a few months after publishing her ad. Recovery. That's my battle cry. That's my great-grandmother realigned in me, warring against sins -- the untold story, the ancestor lost to time -- that break my heart. About TueNight: TueNight is a weekly storytelling publication for women in life's middle. www.tuenight.com Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park invites the public to attend a special living history program, including a short hike up Snodgrass Hill, at Chickamauga Battlefield on Saturday, Feb. 13. This program will last approximately 45 minutes and will take place multiple times during the day, beginning at 10 a.m., noon, 2 p.m., and 4 p.m. at Snodgrass Hill (Tour Stop 8).John Davenport was an ordinary Confederate soldier. A reluctant enlister from Autauga County, Al., Mr.Davenport joined the Confederate Army in the summer of 1862. Throughout the war, Mr. Davenport wrote love letters home to his wife Mary. One of his letters vividly described his frantic struggle up Snodgrass Hill on Sept. 20, 1863. During this program, visitors will have the opportunity to "meet" Private John F. Davenport and experience the Civil War and the Battle of Chickamauga through the words of this common soldier.Visitors are encouraged to wear comfortable shoes, to bring a bottle of water, and to dress appropriately for the weather.For more information about upcoming programs at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, contact the Lookout Mountain Visitor Center at 423-821-7786, the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center at 706-866-9241, or visit the parks website at www.nps.gov/chch Much has been made of Bernie Sanders's single-payer health care plan, released last week in a nine-page document titled "Medicare for All." The once-protest candidate is offering to deliver one of the promises responsible for transforming him into a mainstream cultural phenomenon over the past seven months. Yet as his poll numbers climb in Iowa and New Hampshire, Senator Sanders's policy prescriptions have drifted further away from reality. Even as a graduate student, with only a working understanding of health economics and the American health care system, I can tell you that Medicare for All isn't remotely sensible - neither in its details, nor in its broad-stroke goals. At its best, it is scratches on a white board at the Sanders campaign HQ in Burlington, acting as a conversation starter for policymakers in some distant future. And at its worst, Medicare for All panders to populism and exploits middle-class frustrations. It is a pie-in-the-sky promise, like building a wall straddling the US-Mexican border, or banning Muslim immigration, that speaks in a language of political tactics not so different from the rhetoric of Donald Trump. These are bold accusations to levy against Senator Sanders, so let me explain. Critics have questioned the veracity of the plan's projected savings and tax collection figures, and have expressed skepticism over its political viability. But beyond its challenges with feasibility, Medicare for All takes a slanted approach to explaining America's failure to deliver a fair health care system to all of its citizens in recent history. Senator Sanders tells a story of winners repeatedly exploiting losers, discussing "private health insurance companies that put profits before people," and a need to "stand up to drug companies" playing God with our citizens. Advertisement It really is the case, however, that many actors have added to the chaos of our health care system, driven by profit or misinformation. Senator Sanders is correct that insurance companies have engaged in price discrimination when negotiating reimbursement rates with different hospitals, and that pharmaceutical companies have priced their products far above reasonable expectations. These forces have undoubtedly contributed towards an enormous and frankly immoral burden felt by most Americans - through fostering the "administrative waste" and the bewildering complexity of the health care system which he describes - but they are not the only culprits. Congress refuses to increase Medicare funds earmarked for residency programs, creating a bottleneck of physicians who have the skills needed to practice medicine, but lack the opportunities to undergo the training required to obtain a license. Bureaucrats burden medical professionals with ineffective job performance measures and slash their productivity. Physicians over-diagnose their patients, and exhibit financially-motivated behaviors encouraged by a market rewarding them for the number of services they order, instead of the quality of their patient outcomes. Hospitals overwork their employees and routinely face allegations of fraud. Patients often demand medically unnecessary treatments, abuse expensive narcotics, and sue the clinicians that refuse to cave in to their demands in civil court. And our society, by and large, has perpetuated an irrational fear of rationing health care - insisting that any treatment, however beneficial, is worth any cost, however expensive. Senator Sanders ignores this cultural norm, and appears to be only interested in raging against insurance companies and pharmaceutical juggernauts, while offering shallow solutions for systemic issues featuring outside of this political narrative. He emphasizes preventive medicine, which may create a healthier population, but has been proven to have little effect on total health care costs in the long run. He offers a vague promise to increase "federal investments for training health professionals," but backs away from providing a concrete proposal outlining how our short-staffed health system will cope with the rising demand of patients seeking care. And for all of his scholarship of single-payer health systems, Senator Sanders curiously ignores the need for cost-effectiveness in his reforms. After the passage of the ACA, the United States became the only nation in the world to effectively ban cost-effectiveness research - clinical studies that factor both the therapeutic benefits of a treatment, as well as its fiscal cost, amongst a group of alternatives - from being conducted in its public institutes crafting health policies. Yet cost-effectiveness research is the hallmark of every functioning single-payer health care system, and its findings are factored into allocating medical resources and designating preferred interventions. Our laws enshrine our fear of rationing health care, and Senator Sanders still refuses to confront this harsh truth. The term "cost-effectiveness" is nowhere to be seen in his pitch for a single-payer system. Advertisement These are just a few of the ways, out of many, that Medicare for All strangely differs from the single-payer health care systems Senator Sanders has openly admired during his campaign. While most single-payer programs are funded through broad-based means, involving a mix of national sales taxes and progressive income taxes, Medicare for All is effectively bankrolled by only the very richest of Americans. While most single-payer programs embrace collaborative solutions across industries to drive down health care costs, Medicare for All promotes an "us versus them" mentality, singling out the crimes of a select few corporations. Lastly, while most single-payer programs embrace realities of rationing health care, Medicare for All only offers a fantasy, in which we continue to spend thousands of dollars on expensive treatments with little benefit, without suffering any financial consequences. However politically untenable it may be, it is morally sensible for Senator Sanders to acknowledge these trade-offs, as our society continues to pursue the noble goal of universal health coverage. www.neftu.edu.in NEW DELHI -- Governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa cited cow slaughter and terror as reasons for recommending the imposition of President's Rule in Arunachal Pradesh. On Wedensday, the Supreme Court gave the Narendra Modi government two days to respond to the Congress Party's petition challenging the imposition of central rule in the northeastern state, and asked Rajkhowa to produce the reports he submitted to the Centre, recommending President's Rule. Advertisement The Congress Party has accused Rajkhowa of trying to destabilise its government in Arunachal Pradesh at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre. The BJP government has compared the political turmoil in Arunachal Pradesh to an emergency-like situation. Following a recommendation by the Union Cabinet, last week, President Pranab Mukherjee signed the order to impose central rule in the northeastern state on Tuesday. In his report, which makes a case for the breakdown of law and order in the state, Rajkhowa attached photographs of a cow being slaughtered outside Raj Bhavan, The Indian Express reported today. Advertisement On Wednesday, Rajkhowa counsel Satya Pal Jain told the Supreme Court that a series of reports were sent to the Centre, IE reported. We will show you (judges) the photographs of cow slaughter too it is there in one of the reports," he said. Several Congress Party lawmakers sacrificed a cow outside Raj Bhavan after the High Court suspended the advancing the Assembly Session, which Rajkhowa had ordered, as well as the ouster of Chief Minister Nabam Tuki (now former), the newspaper reported. In a four page report, Rajkhowa also accused Tuki, of engaging with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang [a terrorist outfit]. The Nagaland-based insurgent group, which carried out a deadly ambush in Manipur that claimed the lives of 18 army personnel in June, was banned as a terrorist organisation in November. In his report, which The Hindu has accessed, Rajkhowa accused Tuki of encouraging indiscipline, lawlessness and politicking by government officials by inciting, provoking and funding Nyishi Elite Society, an apex communal organisation of Nyishis, mainly comprising government officials. Advertisement This report, "Failure of Constitutional Machinery in the State of Arunachal Pradesh," is one of the 15 reports which Rajkhowa sent to the Centre since September 2015. The State is virtually being run by a minority government for the past several months," it said. The law and order situation has been deteriorating every passing day, and there was a total collapse of the law and order machinery on December 15, 16 and 17 in particular when no semblance of State government was seen. Only anarchical situation prevailed." I was abused, scolded by threatening words, even attempted to be physically assaulted and Ministers tried to physically restrain me. I was rescued by my alert staff on December 15," said the report as quoted by The Hindu. Advertisement Contact HuffPost India Also see on HuffPost: Bloomberg via Getty Images A man operates a Apple Inc. iPhone at a mobile phone store in this arranged photograph in Mumbai, India, on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2015. The government auction of telecom wireless spectrum starting March 4 is expected to raise as much as $15.6 billion from service providers including those controlled by billionaires Kumar Mangalam Birla, Sunil Mittal and Anil Ambani, according to ICRA Ltd. Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg via Getty Images SAN FRANCISCO/MUMBAI -- As China sales show signs of cooling, Apple Inc is touting India's appetite for iPhones, betting that rising wages and an expanding middle class will pull consumers away from the cheap alternatives that currently dominate the market. In an earnings call in which the company reported meagre iPhone growth and forecast its first revenue drop in 13 years, the Indian market stood out as a rare bright spot for Apple. Advertisement Sales of the company's flagship smartphone climbed 76 percent in India from the year-ago quarter, Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said. According to data compiled by Counterpoint Technology Research, Apple sold an estimated 800,000 iPhones in India in the fourth-quarter, its highest ever amount but one that is a fraction of the 28 million smartphones sold during that period. Growth in India is a tantalizing prospect as Apple grapples with the economic downturn in China, its second largest market. While revenue in Greater China rose 14 percent in the last quarter, Apple is beginning to see a shift in the economy, particularly in Hong Kong, Maestri told Reuters in an interview. But with nearly 70 percent of smartphones selling for less than $150 in India, Apple's high-end phones remain out of reach of most consumers. The basic iPhone 6S sells at just under $700 in India, or nearly half the average annual wage. Advertisement "In many ways India is very similar to what China was a few years ago, but the middle class here is still very small and it can be two to three years before Apple gets a similar level of success in India," said Counterpoint Technology Research analyst Tarun Pathak. Apple CEO Tim Cook struck a more optimistic note, saying the company was "increasingly putting more energy" into India, citing a largely youthful population with rising disposable income as more people join the workforce. With faster 4G coverage expanding, Apple has already asked Indian government for a license to set up its own retail stores just as the market seems to be turning in its favour. As in China, Apple products are a coveted status symbol in India, a market that analysts say is likely to overtake the United States next year to become the world's second largest smartphone market. "The love for the iPhone is there," said Carolina Milanesi, chief of research and head of U.S. business at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, a consumer research firm. Advertisement Contact HuffPost India Also On HuffPost: Dream Wanderlust/Twitter IAS officer Aparna Kumar has completed a feat that many brave people may only dream of doing. Kumar successfully climbed the 17,000-feet-high Mount Vinson Massif the highest peak in the Antarctic sub-continent on 17 January 2016 making her the first woman officer of any All-India Services to have achieved the feat. According to a report in SportsKeeda, Kumar, who started her expedition on 6 January, is not new to the adrenaline-pumping sport of mountaineering. Advertisement In fact, she had even joked that it would be a 'walk in the park'. Compared to the Mount Everest climb it wont be that difficult, but its the weather we will be fighting more than the mountain. The temperature falls to around -39 degrees, so you can imagine how difficult it is to maintain form at that point of time. I have done special training in heavy sledge pulling, which will help me out there. Exercises like the tyre drag were a part of my routine," she had told SportsKeeda in an earlier interview. Facing loss of communication, suffering from frostbite and having lost over six kilos in the process, Kumar was still exultant as she climbed the peak and waved the Indian national flag, reported The Times of India. Now setting her goals higher, Kumar plans to scale the Mount Everest in April-May, and Mount McKinley in Alaska in July-August. Advertisement Contact HuffPost India Also On HuffPost: HuffPost India When India-born, New York-based millionaire philanthropist Meera Gandhi welcomed New York Senator Hillary Clinton into her 8,850 square-foot townhouse that once belonged to another former FLOTUS, Eleanor Roosevelt, chatter had long begun about Ms. Clintons POTUS ambition. That was 2004. Cut to 2016. Hillary is in her second (some may say fourth!) race to the White House and at the centre of one of the most sensational and acrimonious US Presidential bids there ever has been (and to think the primaries have yet to begin). And Meera finds herself in the thick of the action as part of Hillarys National Finance Committee --Hillblazers-- raising funds for Clintons primary election race. Advertisement So how did a rendezvous at a soiree turn into a seemingly close friendship and land a charming, Indian immigrant socialite such an important position deep inside a US Presidential-hopefuls campaign? She doesnt care what people say about her. For Hillary, its always about the mission She never lets it get personal. Hillary is smart. But even smarter are her trusted aides who quickly realised that their hostess was not just another socialite. The ease with which Meera could put together and hold sway over a roomful of ultra-rich people was just one of the things that caught their eye. Her accessibility to HNIs, thanks to her husband (now ex) Vikram Gandhis then high-profile job at Morgan Stanley (co-head, global financial institutions group), was another. It also helped that by then Meera had established herself among New Yorks powerful high society circuit as a resourceful fund raiser for numerous charities through her own NGO, The Giving Back Foundation. Advertisement And Meeras degree in Economics from the Delhi University and her MBA from the Graduate School of Management at Boston University also kinda made it all rather serendipitous. For Meera to be included in the inner coterie of a very important New York senator, a former First Lady no less and a woman who the chatterati had already then prophesised to be Americas first woman President, was too good a chance to miss. The first meeting It was in 2004 that the charity ERVK (Eleanor Roosevelt Centre at Val-Kill) called Meera and asked her if she would host a fundraiser at her historical tony townhouse for their Girls Leadership Worldwide program, where Hillary Clinton would be guest of honour. If you are going to run a country and manage the sensibilities of 250 million people you have got to have a very clear head on your shoulders. Hillary has that. I immediately said yes, says Meera, who we met during her recent Mumbai trip where she was a speaker at the second annual Harvard US-India Conference. We really hit it off, she recalls. Meera also hit it off with Huma Abedin and Hillarys other main aide Dennis Cheng, her campaigns finance director. Meera had actually met Hillary before at a breakfast get-together organised by New York hotelier and Clinton supporter Sant Chatwal. And while Hillary and her managers did curry (no pun intended) financial favour with Chatwal, it was Meera who was asked to get involved in the campaign. Not one to waste time, Meera went on to support Hillarys work in the Clinton Initiative as well and host some crucial preliminary meetings for Hillarys campaign at her (Meeras) London home in 2010. A revived connection It was at a meeting at Beyonce and Jay-Zs nightclub in Manhattan in April 2015 that Meera was inducted into the core committee of Hillblazers. What may sound as the effects of drinking the Hillary kool-aid, especially to sceptics and critics of the former Secretary of State, Meeras belief in Hillary seems to run deeper than just her hope that the latter will win the election. She doesnt care what people say about her. For Hillary, its always about the mission; the mission to make the country a better place. She feels she is the person to do it. She never lets it get personal. And I have seen myself and others learn a lot from that, says Meera. Advertisement I predict, sitting here in Mumbai, that come the 58th Quadrennial US presidential elections on 8 November, 2016, Hillary Clinton will be the next President... Meera, who counts another former first lady, Cherie Blair, among her close friends adds, One of Hillary Clintons main mandates is that the minimum wage will go up to 15 dollars. She is going to bring the middle class up. Declares the Hillary loyalist, Look, the campaign she is running is a multicultural, multidimensional, multiage one. Were all Americans and this multiculturalism is reflective of what America truly is. Donald Trumps rhetoric of alienating the Latins and Mexicans is bad. If you are going to run a country and manage the sensibilities of 250 million people that live within the USA, and around the world --6 billion people -- you have got to have a very clear head on your shoulders. Hillary has that. I predict, sitting here in Mumbai, that come the 58th Quadrennial US presidential elections on 8 November, 2016, Hillary Clinton will be the next President of the United States of America. I will definitely host a fund-raiser for her in my townhouse soon. Before she heads to the Iowa caucus, where she will talk to people about the merits of Hillary Clinton, as a final parting shot, Meera says, And I will definitely host a fund-raiser for her in my townhouse soon. But life will truly come a full circle for the two headstrong women, one, Chicago-born, the other, Delhi, who pledged to support each other more than 10 years ago in that very same historical townhouse of a former FLOTUS, on 8 November, 2016. That is if Hillary and her aides manage to win the primaries. We hope we are invited for that soire. Advertisement Contact HuffPost India Also on HuffPost: PTI Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday warned government officials who faced repeated complaints that stern action will be taken against them if they refused to mend their ways. Modi was chairing the ninth meeting of PRAGATI (Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation), an IT-based multi-modal platform under which he interacts with top officials of various central departments and state governments via video conferencing. Modi is said to have asked secretaries to carry out assessment of such employees and recommend action, including dismissal and slashing their pension, reported Times of India. Advertisement "Though he (the PM) specifically asked the excise and customs department to identify and take action against such officials, he said the message is for all secretaries and chief secretaries," TOI quoted a secretary-level official as saying. Modi specifically took strong exception to people's complaints and grievances related to the customs and excise sector. He asked all Secretaries, whose departments have extensive public dealing, to set up a system for top-level monitoring of grievances immediately. A PMO statement said Modi reviewed the progress of vital infrastructure projects in the road, railway, coal, power and renewable energy sectors, spread over several states, including Maharashtra, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan. He also reviewed the Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link, the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), the Jal Marg Vikas Project from Allahabad to Haldia and the progress of the Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY). Advertisement The Prime Minister also reviewed the implementation of the National Old Age Pension Scheme and emphasised the need to ensure that beneficiaries receive the payment on time. Contact HuffPost India Also on HuffPost: qamoos bukhari As Kashmiri artisans put up a brave battle against machine-made creations to preserve Kashmirs dying arts, a young photographer has immortalised their flailing efforts by capturing their stories, and their lives devoted to art. Qamoos Bukhari, a self-taught Kashmiri photographer recently released his book titled Borderless: The Artisans of Kashmir at Bikaner House, New Delhi. The book is a is a beautiful collage of Bukhari's conversations with the artisans and his portraits of them. Advertisement The photographer/ author Qamoos Bukhari Bukhari treats his readers to glimpses of the lives of these artisans. The men and women open their hearts to Bukhari about their struggles and the long hours spent inside workshops. With each individual, Bukhari (a student at Delhi University) uncovered some beautiful anecdotes of extraordinary lives, their battles and their dreams. Here are some stunning images from his book. Advertisement Contact HuffPost India ASSOCIATED PRESS A member of the National Students Union of India (NSUI), the student wing of India's main opposition Congress party, shouts slogans as he got entangled in police barricade during a protest against the death of Rohith Vemula in New Delhi, India, Friday, Jan. 22, 2016. The students were protesting the death of Vemula who, along with four others, was barred from using some facilities at his university in the southern tech-hub of Hyderabad. The protesters accused Hyderabad University's vice chancellor and a federal minister of unfairly demanding punishment for the five lower-caste students after they clashed last year with a group of students supporting the governing Hindu nationalist party. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri) As news reports go, its bland and factual. The Times of India reports that a secret intelligence report forwarded to National Security Advisor Ajit Doval claims that both the mother and grandmother of Rohith Vemula declared the familys caste as Vadera which is backward but not Dalit. And thus the suicide of Vemula, research scholar at Hyderabad Central University, takes another twist. How bizarre to think, that in 21st century India, the caste of a dead student is now of concern to the national security advisor. Many of us, upper middle-class and upper caste, claim in entirely good faith that we grew up in a society that is increasingly caste-less. We are not sure about the caste of our classmates, we say, and we dont care. We dont know who is cooking our food in a restaurant and we dont care. Caste is relegated to orthodox grandmothers and the back and beyond of rural India both vanishing segments of an old India. If caste exists at all, it is as a number, a quota in jobs or college admissions. Class, we say with conviction is the new caste. Advertisement Vemulas death shakes that belief to the core and that is why it has caused consternation beyond those wanting to use it to political ends. This is caste at its most lethal in a university in a metropolitan city not in a remote village. And that is why we have tied ourselves in knots to make it not about caste at all. We have tried to use his suicide note to absolve ourselves even though Vemula was not holding anyone in particular, neither his vice-chancellor nor the HRD minister, to account. And because he did not name them they jumped on the note to wash their hands off it as well. The HRD minister, Smriti Irani, engaged in her own bit of what-aboutery in Bengal where she said while Trinamool MP Derek OBrien went to Vemulas campus, he did not go to the house of Dalits murdered in Nadia in West Bengal. She called it the tamasha of the votebank. If OBrien is guilty of politicking, Iranis frantic bid to strip the story of caste, is no less political. What kind of society do we live in that the quantum of tragedy of Vemulas death is being measured against his caste? Rohith Vemula, from all evidence in plain sight, is a depression story not a Dalit story, writes Manu Joseph in the Hindustan Times as if the twain can never meet, as if he or anyone else can determine where one begins and one ends. A remarkably investigative piece in the same paper actually uncovers far more layers in Vemulas story. For most of us reading it while we drink our morning cup of coffee, these are terms that were meaningless until Vemulas death Mala vs Vadera. Vemulas mother was born into a Mala family but adopted into a Vadera one and initially not told about it. She was adopted but might have been little more than a glorified domestic help, married off at 14, her caste kept secret from her new husband. Even the adoption itself is redolent of the power of the haves over the have-nots. The grandmother tells HT The baby belonged to a migrant labourer couple that was working on the railway tracks outside our house. I had just lost a baby girl. I was reminded of my own girl. So she asked the couple to give her the child and they happily agreed. There was no official record of the transaction. That transaction, which is what Vemula might have called the fatal accident of my birth, is noted with such casualness on both sides it is hard to believe it is about a human being. And yet surely, both sides saw it then as a win-win which itself is a horrifying reminder of the desperation of the caste-trap. What is astonishing, and almost obscene in this story, is it feels like the investigation into Vemulas death is now an investigation into his caste. As if the truth of that answer could change entirely the circumstances of his death, turning the tragedy of his truncated life into some macabre game of hoodwinking at the bottom of the caste pile. Would there really be relief in knowing if he was truly Dalit or merely OBC or whether he was Dalit raised as OBC or Dalit passing as OBC? By parsing those differences we try to take shelter in the details whereas Vemulas death actually points fingers at a larger and more uncomfortable truth. ON THE BLOG: The Continuing Harassment Of Radhika Vemula Must Stop Rohith Vemula died a Dalit, abandoned by the other solidarities that ought to have rescued him: the camaraderie of studenthood, the fraternity of campus life, the shared, subversive delight of being young in a middle-aged world, writes Mukul Kesavan in The Telegraph. His fate reflects the rejection of fraternity in our institutions, in their hostility to reservations, their barely concealed contempt for students on a quota. What is astonishing, and almost obscene in this story, is it feels like the investigation into Vemulas death is now an investigation into his caste. None of those killed Vemula per se. He died by his own hand. And yet its hard not to think all of those played their part. Those who have picked up his fight have their own demands from the removal of a vice-chancellor to the resignation of a minister. But the more troubling question goes beyond that checklist. ON THE BLOG: How To Kill A Dalit Research Scholar What kind of society do we live in that the caste of a dead student is now part of a secret report sent to the national security advisor? What kind of society do we live in that the quantum of tragedy of Vemulas death is being measured against his caste? In the death of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri, the state spent its resources investigating whether the meat in his refrigerator was beef or mutton as if the answer to that question should in any way affect the horrific tragedy of his death by lynching. That question itself was obscene and immoral. All that mattered was what the mob thought he was eating. Likewise the tragedy of Vemulas suicide is in his death at 26. It does not matter if he was really Mala or Vadera anymore. The mob thought Akhlaq had beef. The world thought Vemula was Dalit. And they are both dead today. In 21st century India that should be discomfiting enough for all us. Advertisement Contact HuffPost India Also on HuffPost: www.flickr.com/photos/nevilzaveri/sets/72157603710740428/" data-caption="now the people has bethrone their symbolic god and are worshipping enchanting 'aarti' and other religious 'bhajans'.see others from this festival @ www.flickr.com/photos/nevilzaveri/sets/72157603710740428/" data-credit="nevil zaveri Flickr"> As a grand military parade rolled out in Delhi to raise a toast to our great republic, a few thousand kilometres away in Shingnapur, Maharashtra, a strange spectacle unfolded. Hundreds of women tried to enter the Shani temple in the town, a place that traditionally does not permit women entry into its sanctum sanctorum. They were stopped by other women and the police. The group that sought to storm the sanctum sanctorum sparred with the police and some of its activists were consequently detained. Advertisement The clash at the Shani Shingnapur temple had built up over the past couple of months, in tandem with the demand to let women enter the Sabarimala temple in Kerala. When Pune-based Bhumata Ranragini Brigade announced that they will 'breach' the innermost sanctum of the temple, a prohibitory order was placed against people gathering outside the temple. "It's a black day," the leader of the protest told the media. The temple's trust, whose chairperson is a woman, couldn't explain why women cannot enter the sanctum sanctorum. In contrast, the Sabarimala temple authorities had blithely offered that since the resident deity was a bachelor, women of reproductive age aren't allowed to enter the temple. The Shani Shingnapur trust's inability to explain the ban on women inside the sanctum sanctorum holds a mirror to how religion is followed everywhere--with blind and unquestioning trust. The Shani Shingnapur trust's inability to explain the ban on women inside the sanctum sanctorum holds a mirror to how religion is followed everywhere--with blind and unquestioning trust. When religious institutions that are influential in society excludes women on the logic of "menstrual impurity" or other spurious reasoning, honoured by time and tradition as it may, it nonetheless perpetuates the idea that women are inferior, which is the lifeblood of all discrimination. Advertisement So the struggle to gain temple entry is worthwhile, and very much rooted in a long history of such movements that fought back 'tradition' that banned lower castes from entering temples, for instance. But the paradox here is that the language and logic of progress and modernity is speaking to an institution based on mythology and whose promoters have demanded absolute, uncritical adherence to it. The rational demand of gender equality, therefore, has only met with criticism and opposition from supporters of an institution that is not built on logic. Facade of the Shani temple in Shingnapur. Demanding entry into a Sabarimala or a Shani Shingnapur, therefore, amounts to seeking a better, more comfortable place within patriarchy, when the need of the hour is to outright reject it. It amounts to seeking a compromise with a social narrative that for ages has actively discriminated against women and curtailed their rights in plain sight. Most people's religion is not a choice they make, but one that they follow due to the accident of birth. The propensity to adhere to what a religion allegedly preaches is a part of our upbringing. We follow rituals in an act of grudging respect for the wisdom of those older than us. Most of us don't even bother to read what our religious texts say or question what we have been told is right. The reason for this acquiescence is not typically a fear of an afterlife without air-conditioning, but a cultural reluctance towards offending relatives and parents, who hold these ideas dear and wish the same from us. We don't question several regressive religious practices because we don't want to question people who we love and are important to us. Advertisement However, if religion in practice has to be reformed, if not completely rejected, it has to begin with the smaller battles. It has to begin with questioning and protesting discrimination thriving in plain sight. For example, several intelligent, informed people we know, who have extensively rejected patriarchy on social media will not make an effort to question peers and relatives why a Lakshmi Puja at home has to be officiated by a male priest. In fact, in average Hindu pujas at home, women priests are nearly unheard of, even though the women in the family are traditionally the ones doing the preparations for the ceremony. Now consider the irony: we are praying to a woman god, but we need a male interlocutor. Now consider the irony: we are praying to a woman god, but we need a male interlocutor. We probably know more than one smart, bright woman, who enthusiastically rejected patriarchal excesses in several occasions, but have probably not questioned why she has to be walked down the aisle by her father or 'given away' in sampradan by the father during her wedding, instead of both the parents. Or why, the same wedding, has to be officiated my a male priest and not a female one. And it's not just in average Hindu families. One hasn't heard of a female maulvi or a woman priest in either Islam or Christianity. The right to be the spokesperson for 'god' lies exclusively with men in almost all religious narratives. Devotees wait in a queue to get inside the Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala. That is the kind of religious discrimination that's more immediate, rampant and practically unopposed. However, this is also the kind of discrimination that's within our power to end. Opt for a registry wedding instead of a religious one, stay away from the religious shenanigans of ceremonies even if you are participating in the social interactions and copiously explain why. Question a few people in real life, answer their questions and don't hide behind the convenient aloofness of social media accounts. Advertisement Question a few people in real life, answer their questions and don't hide behind the convenient aloofness of social media accounts. Twelve years back, my maternal grandfather passed away from a massive stroke. As relatives swarmed around our house--some stealing smoke breaks in dimly lit corners and others noisily organising tea for the mourners--an anxious debate broke out in hushed tones. Which of my uncles, my mother's cousins, will light the pyre, they debated enthusiastically, studiously weighing who qualifies to be the closest to my grandfather. Or will it be my father? My mother after all, was their only child and custom says only a man can light a pyre. My grandmother, a devout Hindu and a fiercely practical woman, ended the argument with one question: "Who else but the man's own child, who he had cared for all his life and vice versa, deserves to light the pyre?" It didn't matter to her, like it shouldn't have mattered to anyone else, that the child was a woman. Later, my grandmother, on her part, tried to put away her old life as per custom by shoving all her saris with red borders to the back of the wardrobe and then gingerly looking away from non-vegetarian food cooked in the kitchen. "Widows don't eat fish," she told my brother, shaking her head vigorously. "How do widows who love fish then plan to live?," my mother quipped, spooning a big serving of fish curry, fragrant with green chillies and mustard oil right on to her plate. A wave of delight mixed with guilt washed over her sixty-two-year-old face. "God can't hold me to task for this. It's your fault," she retorted at my mother, delicately picking the bones off and sticking them on the edge of the steel plate to form a scraggly fence. That was the last we ever heard of 'things-widows-can't-do'. This was a story that had taken various faces and names in homes of my friends, my colleagues and people I knew. If our country knows how to tighten the fences of patriarchy and regression preached by religion, it also knows exactly where to strike so that it all unravels, slowly but steadily. We just need to choose a few more battles than we have. Also see on HuffPost: Attorney Jerry Summers says five adopted children of the late J. Don Brock, wealthy longtime CEO of Astec Industries, do have standing to contest his will that left them out of his large estate. The widow (and second wife) of Mr. Brock, Sammye Sprouse Brock, is asking that the will contest be dismissed, saying the plaintiffs do not have standing. The will contest was brought by Walter Brock of Soddy Daisy, Darryl Brock of Soddy Daisy, Jennifer Brock of Rossville, Missy Brock Adcock of Soddy Daisy and Krissy Brock Parker of Hixson, who were omitted from the will. Attorney John Lawrence earlier said the plaintiffs were not included in either of two wills made by Dr. Brock. Dr. Brock had several wills, and the one submitted for probate was signed Oct. 1, 2013. Dr. Brock died last March 10 after battling cancer for the last three years of his life. Attorney Summers said a successful challenge to 2012 and 2013 wills "would leave three of the contestants with $800,000 under the 2006 will. A successful challenge to the 2006 will also would leave three of the contestants with a percentage of a very large estate. A successful challenge to the 1998 will would leave four of the contestants with a percentage of a very large estate. A successful challenge to the 1994 will may then provide for intestate succession or an even earlier will in which all five of the contestants are provided for." He also said, "A successful challenge to the 2013 will, without any prior wills being submitted, would result in the contestants taking by intestacy. So on contestants' 'best day' they could be awarded a significant portion of J. Don Brock's estate." Attorney Summers is asking Chancellor Jeffrey Atherton to certify the will contest and send the matter back to Circuit Court. It started in Probate Court, then was sent to Circuit, then back to Probate. Dr. Brock and Sammye Brock at the time of his death had nine children between them from former marriages. The second Mrs. Brock was his longtime receptionist. They were married in 1998 after he was divorced from first wife, Lynne Williams Brock, after 31 years of marriage and Ms. Sprouse was divorced from her husband. Both of those divorces were in 1996. The Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled that Lynne Brock would receive 45 percent of Astec stock and Dr. Brock get 55 percent. Those getting bequests in the will were Christie, Devin and Ben Brock of Lookout Mountain and Elizabeth Brock of Harrison. The will says after the death of his current wife, Sammye, that the proceeds will be distributed 50 percent to Ben, who is a top official of Astec, and 16 and two-thirds each to the other three. The matter was moved from Probate Court to Circuit Court, then back to Probate. As grounds, the will contest alleges improper execution or attestation, lack of testamentary capacity, and fraud or undue influence. The five children left out were adopted by Mr. Brock and Lynne Williams Brock in 1983, joining two other adopted children, Ben and Elizabeth. The will contest says the Brock divorce had alleged a long affair between Mr. Brock and Ms. Sprouse. It says his second wife often signed his name on documents and says at the time the will was signed he was undergoing aggressive treatment for cancer. The will contest says the children who were left in the will had a confidential relationship with Mr. Brock and used their influence over him. Those left out said they only learned that they had been disinherited when they were mailed a copy of the will after their father's death at the age of 76. They said they had been told by Dr. Brock that they would be provided for when he died. Attorney Summers produced a timeline of the case in which he quoted the divorce decree of J. Don and Lynne Brock as saying, "Many of Mrs. Brock's contributions to Astec are made more significant because of the hurt and resentment Mrs. Brock felt over a 21-year period because of Dr. Brock's relationship with one of his employees. This source of great tension between Dr. and Mrs. Brock during their marriage was Dr. Brock's relationship with Mrs. Sammie Sprouse. Mrs. Sprouse is a long-time employee of Astec." Ex-officer was a churchgoer, family man. Police say he may be a serial rapist. Aristocrat falls for shop girl in a 1950s taboo romance in the pretty but solemn 'Carol.' 'Carol': Sings a Sad Song It often takes a long time, sometimes forever and then perhaps never, for someone to become tolerant of something that he or she doesn't understand. More often than not, it's because they feel threatened by it. Director Todd Haynes, who with "Carol" champions for lesbians what his "Far From Heaven" (2002) embraced for male gays, knows homosexuality is way up there on the list. To illustrate the scope of this prejudice, he finds dramatic effect by reaching back to the 1950s and showing how, just yesterday, countless lives were ruined by this primeval bigotry. This isn't to say civilization has now cured itself of centuries devoted to enforcing strict taboos against alternate lifestyles. However, at the very least, the liberal activism of the '60s initiated a dialogue. As Haynes so artistically examples, prior to that enlightenment, being gay was accorded full pariah status. Thus, all but the most provincial minds will be aghast at what Cate Blanchett's Carol and her female lover, played by Rooney Mara, must endure. It is 1953, all buttoned up and proper, especially around the suburban New Jersey neighborhood where the Aird manse sits in pristine glory. But scratch the surface just a touch beyond the stone Tudor opulence and therein resides some pretty unhappy people ... specifically, Harge and Carol Aird. They don't mention the cause of their disaffection, but rather talk around it, the reticence to be direct indicative of the myopic disdain hubby feels for this unexplainable thing that has torn his perfect little world asunder. Cut from the same social fabric, her breeding evident with nearly every gesture, Carol feels badly for the disappointment she represents. But clearly, even though the times they are not yet a changin', she's had it. Being asked to pursue a path that only feels wrong can't be right. She has sued for divorce, the lawyers of the rich and tony sharpening their knives at the prospect of big profits. Doubtless there's an extra-added bonus buried in the bill for avoiding scandal. But just to add heartache to the misery, there'll be a custody fight for the Airds' dear little daughter, Rindy. To this scenario, courtesy of the screenplay by Phyllis Nagy, adapted from the novel by Patricia Highsmith, Haynes injects the necessary love story. It begins when Carol, looking for a Christmas gift for Rindy, becomes enamored of Mara's Therese, a shop girl. While the classification is belittling now, it is all the same vital to conferring the disparity in social class and just about everything else, save for the mutual chemistry the ladies feel for one another. The relationship builds subtly, Haynes deftly arranging the stumbling blocks to their verboten liaison. The Chattanooga Audubon Society will hold the fifth annual Little Owl Music and Arts Festival, Saturday, May 14 from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. at their Audubon Acres sanctuary. "Hear music, storytelling and local authors. Join us as we announce the winners of a student poster contest. View all entries in that contest at our clothesline art show. See craft exhibits and shop for unique items created by our arts and crafts vendors. Food vendors will have a variety of items available for purchase," officials said. "Audubon Acres is Chattanoogas oldest nature sanctuary and has a history of presenting cultural events for both school groups and the general public. Chattanooga Audubon has included arts and crafts vendors, storytellers and local musicians in these events. It is a natural addition to include art and writing as other forms of creative expression. Join us for a fun filled day of music, art and nature."Beautiful and historic Audubon Acres is the perfect place for this festival. Not only is this East Brainerd sanctuary the homestead of Chattanooga Audubons founder Robert Sparks Walker, it reflects his values and creative genius as an author and editor. Authors and storytellers will join local musicians in presenting programs from the stage. The festival takes place at the height of the spring season. Migrating birds have already arrived. Spring wildflowers are in bloom."As our region continues on a path of development, small sanctuaries like Audubon Acres will grow in importance as wildlife habitat and recreational areas. Members of our community count on opportunities to hike our trails and view such species as Hermit Thrush, Brown Creeper, Cerulean Warblers and Wild Turkeys."Audubon Acres is a 130 acre Wildlife Sanctuary and is maintained so that visitors can enjoy and experience wildlife in its natural setting. There are over five miles of walking and hiking trails running on both sides of South Chickamauga Creek. On the trails, trees and plants are labeled with green signs as part of the Cherokee Arboretum. These signs include scientific, common, and Cherokee names, as well as uses that the Native peoples made of the plants. The Cherokee Arboretum assists in identifying trees, shrubs, and other woody plants for the benefit science, conservation and the visiting public. We are pleased to provide educational and recreational opportunities at all of our properties." New Zealand Team Preview T20 World Cup 2022: 'Nice Guys' New Zealand May Once Again Surprise With Final Finish 'India Doesn't Take a Single Penny From Asian Cricket Council': Former Opener Claims Pakistan Will Definitely Take Part in ODI WC India to Tour Bangladesh For 2 Tests And 3 ODIs in December 2022 'Bumrah's Absence is a Big Loss For India But Facing Shami And Bhuvneshwar Will be a Challenge For Pakistan' The American Heart Association and HealthSouth Chattanooga Rehabilitation Hospital have partnered to support the American Heart Association "Together to End Stroke" campaign in the Tennessee Valley. "Throughout the year, the two organizations will launch new education programs for the local community that will help generate awareness and prevention for the number 4 killer and number one disabler of Americans," organizers said. As part of this awareness campaign, the American Heart Association and HealthSouth Chattanooga Rehabilitation Hospital will teach the acronym F.A.S.T. to help people recognize the warning signs of a stroke. F.A.S.T. stands for:F - Face Drooping: Does one side of the face droop or is it numb?A - Arm Weakness: Is one arm weak or numb?S - Speech Difficulty: Is speech slurred, are they unable to speak, or are they hard to understand?T - Time to call 9-1-1: If the person shows any of these symptoms, even if the symptoms go away, call 9-1-1 and get them to the hospital immediately.Im proud that our organization is teaming up with the American Heart Association for Together to End Stroke, said Scott Rowe, CEO of HealthSouth Chattanooga Rehabilitation Hospital. Every 40 seconds, one of our siblings, grandparents, neighbors or coworkers has a stroke. While we are helping stroke survivors recover from devastating effects of stroke and regain their independence, we also realize that knowing the warning signs of stroke can dramatically affect the health outcomes of those experiencing one.The American Heart Association and American Stroke Associations Together to End Stroke initiative aims to educate all Americans that stroke is largely preventable, treatable and beatable. Through Together to End Stroke, efforts are focused on increasing awareness and driving action among Americans across the entire stroke continuum of care; prevention, acute treatment, and post-stroke rehabilitation."HealthSouth Chattanooga Rehabilitation Hospital and the American Heart Association want everyone in the Tennessee Valley to know the major stroke risk factors and how to reduce their risk, and the F.A.S.T. warning signs and the importance of calling 911 at the first sign of a stroke to minimize the long-term of effects of a stroke and even prevent death. By doing this, HealthSouth Chattanooga Rehabilitation Hospital and the American Stroke Association can directly impact lives in our community," officials said.Together, we can keep our loved ones and their hearts healthy for years to come, said Mr. Rowe. FourBridges Capital Advisors, an investment banking firm serving business owners across the Southeast, Thursday announced that East Tennessee serial entrepreneur Mike Hatcher has joined the firm as a senior advisor. Mr. Hatcher is the founder and CEO of Knoxville-based Medical Waste of America, Medical Supplies of America and Hatcher-Hill Properties, and a founder and former chief operating officer of TeamHealth. In his role as senior advisor, Mr. Hatcher will be working with the FourBridges team to advise Southeastern business owners who are thinking about selling, acquiring or refinancing a company, or securing debt and equity capital. Mr. Hatchers focus will be on East Tennessee, although his background in medical services and technology will be applicable to companies throughout the Southeast. I engaged FourBridges when I was preparing to sell my company," said Mr. Hatcher. "As a business owner, I experienced firsthand the unique expertise and proven process that the FourBridges team offers their clients. East Tennessee has a strong portfolio of successful middle market companies, but theres a real void in capital advisory services in this part of the state. Its a privilege to partner with FourBridges and improve access to these much-needed services. A certified accountant with more than 40 years of experience in finance and operations, Mr. Hatcher co-founded Knoxvilles TeamHealth, now a publicly traded company that generated $2.82 billion in net revenue in 2014. He also co-founded and successfully sold Nutritional Support Services, Ltd., a parenteral and enteral nutrition company, and White Stone Group, a health care software provider. When FourBridges advised Mike on the sale of Medical Supplies of America, we worked closely with him and were impressed with his successful business ventures, as well as his tenure in the health care space one of the regions highest-growth industries, said Andy Stockett, managing director of FourBridges Capital Advisors. Mikes seasoned experience in raising capital and growing and selling companies gives him an on-the-ground advisory perspective for business owners in all sectors. His presence in East Tennessee will be a welcomed resource. Mr. Hatcher sits on the board of directors for East Tennessees Mountain Commerce Bank and The Convenience Network, a Knoxville-based digital media company. He is also active with Vanderbilt Universitys Owen Entrepreneurship Center. Mr. Hatcher is a graduate of the University of TennesseeKnoxville and holds a masters degree in business administration from Vanderbilt University. Press Release:IMF Executive Board Completes the Third Review of the Precautionary and Liquidity Line for Morocco Press Release No. 16/26 January 28, 2016 On January 27, 2016, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the third and last review of Moroccos economic performance under a program supported by a two-year Precautionary and Liquidity Line (PLL) arrangement, and reaffirmed Moroccos continued qualification to access PLL resources. The current two-year PLL arrangement in an amount equivalent to SDR 3.2351 billion (about US$5 billion at the time of approval or 550 percent of Moroccos quota at the IMF) was approved by the IMFs Executive Board in July 2014. (See Press Release No. 14/368). The arrangement supports the authorities program to rebuild fiscal and external buffers and promote higher and more inclusive growth. It will expire in July 2016. Moroccos first 24-month PLL arrangement was approved on August 3, 2012, with an access equivalent to 700 percent of the quota, and expired in July 2014. The PLL arrangement has provided insurance against external risks. The Moroccan authorities are treating the arrangement as precautionary, as they did with the 201214 PLL arrangement, and do not intend to draw under the arrangement unless Morocco experiences actual balance of payments needs from a significant deterioration of external conditions. The PLL , which was introduced in 2011, provides financing to meet actual or potential balance of payments needs of countries with sound policies, and is intended to serve as insurance or help resolve crises under wide-ranging situations. Following the Executive Board discussion on Morocco, Mr. Mitsuhiro Furusawa, IMF Deputy Managing Director and Acting Chair of the Board, made the following statement: Moroccos overall economic performance has continued to improve in 2015. Strong policy implementation has helped reduce fiscal and external vulnerabilities and significant progress has been achieved on reforms. In an environment that remains vulnerable to important downside risks, continued efforts to move ahead with difficult but necessary reforms will be key for reducing the remaining vulnerabilities while promoting higher and more inclusive growth. Fiscal developments have been positive and consistent with the authorities objective to reduce the deficit to 4.3 percent of GDP in 2015. Substantial progress has been achieved on the subsidy reform, while support to the most vulnerable has expanded. Now that the draft legislation on the public sector pension reform has been approved by the government, its timely adoption by parliament and implementation will be key. Progress has also been made in upgrading the financial policy framework, including implementing recent Financial Sector Assessment Program recommendations, in addition to implementing Basel III norms and the new banking law. An important further step should be to finalize the new central bank law in order to enhance its independence and extend its supervisory and resolution powers. Preparations for a more flexible exchange rate regime, which will help preserve competitiveness and the economys ability to absorb economic shocks, are progressing well. Moroccos external position has improved considerably, owing mainly to strong policies, rising exports in newly developed sectors, lower oil prices, and robust FDI, with reserves reaching a comfortable level. Structural reforms to improve the business climate and enhance competitiveness continue to be a priority in order to build on those gains. The implementation of the National Strategy for Employment will help address constraints in the labor market and reduce unemployment, especially among the youth. The arrangement under the Funds Precautionary and Liquidity Line (PLL) remains on track. The PLL, which the authorities continue to treat as precautionary, has provided Morocco with insurance against external risks while supporting the authorities economic strategy. Deputy Secretary Blinken's to Travel to California Washington, DC - Deputy Secretary Blinken will travel to California from January 28-29 to meet with technology industry leaders for discussions on future trends and our joint efforts to better infuse an understanding of technology and innovation trends into our policymaking. Additionally, as part of our response to the urgent Syrian refugee crisis, Deputy Secretary Blinken will kick off a day-long event to generate innovative solutions to provide education to millions of children displaced from their homes by the ongoing conflict in Syria. This event builds on ideas generated at an event hosted by White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Heather Higginbottom at the Department of State in November 2015. While in California, the Deputy Secretary will also meet with students participating in educational exchange programs. Ag statistics for 2014 show trends for farm sales, exports Sacramento, California - In 2014, the most recent year for which a full crop-year report is available, Californias 76,400 farms and ranches received approximately $54 billion for their output. This represents an increase of 5.1 percent over 2013. California is the leading US state in cash farm receipts with combined commodities representing nearly 13 percent of the US total. Californias agricultural abundance includes more than 400 commodities. Over a third of the countrys vegetables and two-thirds of the countrys fruits and nuts are grown in California. The dairy industry, Californias leading commodity in cash receipts, generated a record $9.36 billion for milk production in 2014, up 23 percent from 2013 and 22 percent above the record year of 2011. Californias top-ten valued commodities for 2014 are: Milk $9.4 billion Almonds $5.9 billion Grapes $5.2 billion Cattle and calves $3.7 billion Strawberries $2.5 billion Lettuce $2 billion Walnuts $1.8 billion Tomatoes $1.6 billion Pistachios $1.6 billion Hay $1.3 billion In 2014, Californias agricultural exports amounted to $21.59 billion in value. As a percentage of the total US agricultural exports for 2014, Californias share represents 14.3 percentslightly less than the 14.9 percent share reported the previous year. Californias top 10 export destinationsEuropean Union, Canada, China/Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, Korea, India, United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Vietnamaccounted for 69 percent of the 2014 export value. For 2014, India showed the largest growth in total export value compared to the previous year at 19.1 percent. California agricultural statistics derive primarily from the United States Department of Agriculture/National Agricultural Statistics Services (USDA/NASS) reports. The California Department of Food and Agriculture also publishes statistics related to California dairy production and, in cooperation with the University of California at Davis, statistics for California agricultural exports. For most timely research into California dairy statistics, please see our dairy pages under Division of Marketing Services. Please see also links in the right hand column for USDA National Agricultural Statistics and Economic Research Service reporting. For county-level reporting please see the CDFA County Liaison site. Governor Brown Joins Law Enforcement and Faith Leaders to Support Public Safety Ballot Measure Sacramento, California - Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today joined law enforcement and faith leaders to announce support for the amended Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016, an initiative to protect and enhance public safety, reduce wasteful spending on prisons, improve rehabilitation and prevent federal courts from ordering the release of prisoners. Final amendments to the initiative, which is expected to appear on the November 2016 ballot, were filed yesterday. The initiative: Authorizes parole consideration for nonviolent inmates who complete the full sentence for their primary offense. Allows inmates to earn credits for good behavior, education and rehabilitative achievement. Requires judges rather than prosecutors to decide whether juveniles as young as 14-years-old should be tried as adults. Californias prisons are under a court-ordered population cap, the prison population is expected to grow, and there are almost 5,000 inmates housed in out-of-state prisons. Without further action, the court will order the release of prisoners. This initiativethrough its nonviolent parole and earned-credit provisionswill help ensure that any release of rehabilitated inmates is consistent with public safety. Currently, prosecutors often must decide within 48 hours whether a juvenile should be charged as an adult. The initiative will require a judge, instead of a prosecutor, to carefully review all of the circumstances and make the decision. Youth Summit El Centro, California - Saturday, February 13, the Imperial County Probation Department and the Imperial County Juvenile Justice Commission will host the 6th Annual Youth Summit in El Centro. The event will run from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Corfman Auditorium located at McCabe School. The annual event is an opportunity to bring awareness to our youth and their families as to the resources within our communities and to educate them on the importance of an Education and Healthy Lifestyles. This years keynote speaker is Fabian Debora, a counselor and mentor at Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, CA. Mr. Debora will speak of his challenges living in East Los Angeles, his gang involvement, and how he has overcome those obstacles. Mr. Debora began his art career in 1995 and has been showcased throughout the United States. Mr. Debora uses his art as a vehicle to educate and influence people throughout his journey. 2016 P3 Impact Award Applications Open Washington, DC - The U.S. Department of State Secretarys Office of Global Partnerships (S/GP), along with Concordia and the University of Virginia Darden School of Business Institute for Business in Society opened the application process for the third annual P3 Impact Award today, which honors exemplary public-private partnerships (P3s) from around the world. The P3 Impact Award was created by the three partners in 2014 to recognize P3s that are improving communities and the world in impactful ways. It aims to share and advance best practices in P3s, and encourage the creation and scaling of the P3 model worldwide. Finalists from 2014 and 2015 were highlighted in special issues of the Darden Schools Ideas to Action publication. The 2014 winner was CocoaLink, a partnership between The Hershey Company, the Ghana Cocoa Board, and the World Cocoa Foundation, which seeks to use mobile technology to give cocoa farmers more access to information and improved farming techniques. The 2015 winner was the TV White Space Partnership in the Danajon Reef, a partnership between the Government of the Philippines, USAID, and Microsoft to use an innovative technology to extend Internet access to remote coastal communities to support government efforts to register fisherfolk and sustainably manage the nations fisheries. The winning partnership of the 2016 competition will be announced at the Concordia Summit in New York City from September 19-20, 2016 and receive a full scholarship for a weeklong Darden Executive Education course. The finalists will again be featured in a special issue of the Darden Schools Ideas to Action publication, promoted through the partners websites, and recognized throughout the Summit. Applications are being accepted until April 4, 2016, and will be reviewed by an independent panel of judges. Judges will review the applications based on the partnerships measurable impacts, economic and social benefits, innovation, financial effectiveness, and scalability. The finalists will be selected and notified in June. For the purpose of the application, public-private partnerships are defined as any cross-sector collaboration that features public, private, nongovernmental, or nonprofit organizations that address societal problems. Full criteria and application instructions can be found on the P3 Impact Award website. FTC Brings Enforcement Action Against DeVry University Washington, DC - The Federal Trade Commission has filed suit against the operators of DeVry University, alleging that DeVrys advertisements deceived consumers about the likelihood that students would find jobs in their fields of study, and would earn more than those graduating with bachelor's degrees from other colleges or universities. Millions of Americans look to higher education for training that will lead to meaningful employment and good pay, said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez. Educational institutions like DeVry owe prospective students the truth about their graduates success finding employment in their field of study and the income they can earn. In its complaint against DeVry, the FTC alleges that the defendants claim that 90 percent of DeVry graduates actively seeking employment landed jobs in their field within six months of graduation was deceptive. The complaint charges that another key claim made by DeVry, that its graduates had 15 percent higher incomes one year after graduation on average than the graduates of all other colleges or universities, also was deceptive. The complaint notes that these claims appeared in the defendants advertising on television, radio, online, print and other media. The 90 percent claim was central to their marketing efforts since at least 2008 and the income superiority claim began in 2013. For example, one television ad that ran on national television as well as on YouTube showed people in business attire hanging hundreds of offer letters on a wall, with a voiceover discussing the importance of getting a job offer to college students. The voiceover said all of the offer letters seen came from just the last year followed by the 90 percent claim. Another ad portrays a student saying And when I finish my degree in business, a new job at a great company thats the graduation present I want, followed by the 90 percent claim. The complaint alleges that DeVry counted numerous graduates as working in their field when they were not, including these examples from the 2012 graduating class: a graduate who majored in business administration with a specialization in health services management working as a server at a restaurant; multiple graduates with majors in technical management whose employment was listed as unpaid volunteer positions at medical centers; a graduate who majored in technical management with a human resources specialization working as a rural mail carrier and another who worked as a driver delivering rain gutters for a construction company; and a graduate who majored in business administration with a health care management specialization working as a car salesman. The complaint also alleges DeVrys calculations included graduates who were working in jobs they held prior to enrolling at DeVry, as opposed to those they landed after graduating. In addition to counting these and other graduates as working in their field, the FTCs complaint also alleges that DeVry excluded graduates from their count of those seeking employment as inactive when they were in fact actively seeking employment. This included, for example, a graduate who had viewed more than 175 job openings in DeVrys jobs database, interviewed for six jobs in the two months prior to being classified as inactive, repeatedly e-mailed the DeVry career services department, and attended a DeVry career fair. The FTCs complaint alleges that Defendants had reason to question the reliability of the conclusions and information contained in a third party survey and report that DVU used as the basis for the income superiority claim. In addition, according to the complaint, comparing income information that Defendants obtained directly from its graduates with publicly available income data showed that DVU graduates did not in fact earn significantly more than graduates from all other schools combined a year after graduating. In a related action, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) is also taking action against DeVry for its marketing practices. ED is providing notice to DeVry that it will be requiring the institution both to stop certain advertising regarding the post-graduation employment outcomes of its students and to take additional steps to ensure that DeVry can substantiate the truthfulness of its post-graduation employment outcomes. As required by the law and expected by the public, institutions need to be accurate in their marketing and recruiting to prospective students. And we confirm this truthfulness of advertisements through the backup information schools provide upon request, said Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell. The Department and the FTCs related announcements today are the result of much collaboration and cooperation. We are grateful to our partners at the FTC for their hard work and dedication on this matter. The FTCs case alleges that these deceptive claims by DeVry Education Group, DeVry University, Inc. and DeVry/New York Inc. violated the FTC Act. The FTCs complaint asks the court to provide redress to consumers and prohibit DeVry from further violations of the FTC Act. The Commission vote authorizing the staff to file the complaint was 4-0. Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen issued a separate statement. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Ambassador Richard Olson Travel to Brussels and Berlin Washington, DC - Ambassador Richard Olson, Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, will travel to Brussels and Berlin from January 28 to February 4. In Brussels, he will participate in a North Atlantic Council briefing for NATO Allies, partners, and other donors focused on a secure future for Afghanistan. He will meet with senior NATO and European Union officials to discuss continued support to the people and Government of Afghanistan ahead of the July 2016 NATO Summit in Warsaw and the October 2016 Afghanistan development conference in Brussels. In Berlin, Ambassador Olson will participate in the meeting of the International Contact Group, the primary international forum for political coordination focused on bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan. The Government of Afghanistan, group member states, and multilateral institutions will meet to discuss shared commitments to Afghan security, governance, and reconciliation efforts. Art Institute Of Chicago Receives Largest Cash Gift In Its History By Marielle Shaw in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 27, 2016 8:42PM Photo by Marielle Shaw for Chicagoist Art Institute of Chicago. It wasn't long ago we checked out The New Contemporary, a huge gift of contemporary art from Gael Neeson and Stefan Edlis that was valued at 400 million dollars. The donation added a new gallery full with amazing work by the likes of Warhol, Jasper Johns and Ellsworth Kelley, and was the largest gift of art in the museum's history. And the historic gifts keep on coming, too. Tuesday, it was announced that the Art Institute of Chicago had received the largest cash gift in its history, of over 35 million dollars earmarked for acquiring new works. The generous gift comes from one of the museum's long time financial supporters, Dorothy Braude Edinburg. Edinburg passed away in January of 2015, but left the instructions for the enormous donation in her will. Edinburg was also a well known art collector, and had contributed over 1500 works to the Art Institute in the last 25 years, according to the Tribune. She was an avid collector with a special relationship with the Art Institute, always looking to help improve their collection along with her own. In a statement to the Tribune, Douglas Druick, the president of the Art Institute, named Edinburg as one of the most generous benefactors in the history of the museum, calling the bequeathal "extraordinary double duty" for someone who had already made "transformative" changes to the museum with earlier gifts. We don't know what the rest of 2016 will bring for the Art Institute, but we're excited to see what such a gift could bring to the already amazing institution. And with winter weekdays boasting free admission until Feb. 11, you have little excuse to miss out on what's new and exciting at the Art Institute. Analyses of the results of a survey of Colorado high school students suggest there may be a potential association between substance use and indoor tanning, according to an article published online by JAMA Dermatology. The research letter by Dr Robert Dellavalle of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, and co-authors suggests any lifetime use of steroids was most strongly associated with indoor tanning, especially among adolescent boys. More than 220 schools and 40,000 students in 21 regions participated in the 2013 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey that was administered from August through December 2013, with a total of 12,144 students answering the question, During the past 12 months, how many times did you use an indoor tanning device such as a sunlamp, sunbed, or tanning booth?. Following analysis of the data last year, alcohol consumption in the past 30 days, marijuana use and lifetime use of select illicit drugs were also associated with indoor tanning, according to the article, which stipulated that females were approximately twice as likely to engage in indoor tanning as males. Identifying risky health behaviour patterns may facilitate preventative health efforts to reduce indoor tanning among adolescents, the article concludes. For example, a physician treating a patient who uses indoor tanning may also choose to assess that patient for use of steroids, particularly in male adolescents. JAMA Dermatology. Published online January 20, 2016. doi:10.1001/jamadermatol.2015.5663. The Consumer and Competition Protection Commission (CCPC) is closely watching plans by the NAGP to facilitate the formation by GPs of a new national network of eight co-operatives, in the event they contravene competition law, IMT can reveal. The NAGP was due to announce its facilitation of the formation of the co-operatives, which could potentially negotiate contracts for the provision of GP services with the HSE, at its AGM in Maynooth this weekend, a move that could set the medical representative body on a collision course with the CCPC the body that enforces competition and consumer protection law. Following reports of the development in the press, a spokesperson for the CCPC told Irish Medical Times that the Commission was aware of the reports and it was considering what competition law issues might arise if the proposed structures were to be used in the manner indicated. In defiance of the Commissions directive not to engage in collective action, the trade unions CEO told IMT in an interview: We are not changing our view, as an organisation, that, as GPs are fully self-employed as was determined by the European Court of Justice, we could still take opinions and advices from GPs collectively if we didnt agree with something. In fact, we are facilitating the formation of GP co-operatives around the country, which will be announced at our AGM. Chris Goodey elaborated that the new groupings, to be based along regional lines, would be different from the existing GP out-of-hours services, which he said were not co-operatives in the true sense of the word. The new co-ops, Goodey outlined, would be modelled along the lines of the farmers enterprise, the Kerry Co-op. The joint undertakings would be able to negotiate in respect of the terms and conditions for the supply of services such as MRI scans or telephony amenities, he explained. So, collectively they will be able to negotiate better terms and conditions, and that could be extended to GP contracts, Goodey disclosed. The co-operatives are very much in their infancy at the moment, but we are taking legal advice to make sure that they are all in line with the law and that its the right way to go, and we are hoping to have the formation starting by the AGM. We might have two co-ops formed by then. For now, we might have a few members in them, but the process for their formation would have started. A Southern and a Western co-op were being set up initially. lloyd.mudiwa@imt.ie NAGP Vice-President Dr Emmet Kerin is expected to become the second President of the representative body for general practitioners, taking over from founding President Dr Conor McGee, at the Associations AGM this Saturday (January 30), IMT reports. The Limerick GP and clinical lecturer studied medicine at the National University of Ireland, Galway. With an interest in emergency medicine and rehabilitation, he worked as a Resident Medical Officer in Australia. On returning to Ireland, Dr Kerin completed a four-year vocational training scheme in Limerick, graduating with membership of the ICGP and he is listed on the Specialist Register of General Practice. He is also an Adjunct Senior Clinical Lecturer at the Graduate Entry Medical School, University of Limerick. Other NAGP leadership positions will only be determined following elections to be held in a closed session during the AGM in the afternoon. At time of going to press, the NAGP had received 35 nominations for the positions on its 24-member representative body, with CEO Chris Goodey commenting: This year will be fully competitive. The NAGP currently has a five-member National Council, comprising the outgoing President, who is based in Co Clare, his Vice, and Chairman Dr Andy Jordan, Treasurer Dr Jim Stacey, and Secretary Dr Keith Swanick, who is separately running in the Seanad Eireann Elections. The Association also has a seven-member National Executive comprising Dr Jordan, Dr Kerin, Dr Stacey, Dr Bill Moore, Dr Stephen Murphy, Dr Tadhg OCarroll, and Dr Claire ODriscoll. It then has four regions, South, West, Dublin North East, and Dublin Mid Leinster, each ranging from four to seven members. lloyd.mudiwa@imt.ie The Irish Cancer Society (ICS) is encouraging women to be aware of how to reduce their risk of cervical cancer, as the Society marks the start of European Cervical Cancer Prevention Week 2016. Approximately 306 Irish women are diagnosed with cervical cancer in Ireland every year and around 93 women die from the disease annually. Naomi Fitzgibbon, ICS Cancer Nurseline Manager, said European Cervical Cancer Prevention Week offered an opportunity for women to think about when they had their last smear test. If you have not had one in the last three-to-five years, depending on your age, it is important that you put your health first and make an appointment. This year, the Society is supporting the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) and its Pearl of Wisdom campaign. The Pearl of Wisdom is the international emblem of cervical cancer prevention. The Society is reminding women to call CervicalCheck and find out when their next appointment is due. If women are concerned or affected by cancer, they can call the ICS Cancer Nurseline on Freephone 1800 200 700 or visit cancer.ie. Stray Dog Beaten to Death in MP, Two Booked After Video Goes Viral The Chicagoist will be launching later but in the meantime please enjoy our archives. Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyArts email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The historical staples of romance and death, have been closely intertwined ever since Tristram and Isolde drank that pesky potion, and their potent combination still informs most genre writing. There is lots of historical fiction mixed with romance in coming weeks: Shirley Barrett's title, Rush Oh! (Virago, 14.99) was the cry of the New South Wales fishermen when they spotted a whale, a task in which, according to press reports, the men of the small town of Eden were aided in the early 1900s by a pod of killer whales who would help trap and catch their bigger cousins, the black or "right" whales. "Tom", with a recognisable lumpy fin, seemed in particular to have a camaraderie with humans, though remaining bloodily cannibalistic as far as other cephalopods were concerned. Barrett has fictionalised archival material to good effect, telling the story through the mouth of a young girl who falls in love with a mysterious recruit to the whale-boat. Moby-Dick this ain't, but it's charming and a perfect stylistic pastiche. Less successful, though painstaking, with its historical research, is Elizabeth Wilhide's If I Could Tell You (Penguin, 12.99). It's primarily a romance, set in wartime London, where married Julia Compton falls in love with a documentary film director. There's much period detail but it feels rather lifeless, Brief Encounter painstakingly worked through on the page, and the main tension is wondering who's going to get bombed. Good for libraries. Culture news in pictures Show all 33 1 /33 Culture news in pictures Culture news in pictures 30 September 2016 An employee hangs works of art with "Grand Teatro" by Marino Marini (R) and bronze sculpture "Sfera N.3" by Arnaldo Pomodoro seen ahead of a Contemporary Art auction on 7 October, at Sotheby's in London REUTERS Culture news in pictures 29 September 2016 Street art by Portuguese artist Odeith is seen in Dresden, during an exhibition "Magic City - art of the streets" AFP/Getty Images Culture news in pictures 28 September 2016 Dancers attend a photocall for the new "THE ONE Grand Show" at Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin, Germany REUTERS Culture news in pictures 28 September 2016 With an array of thrift store china, humorous souvenirs and handmade tile adorning its walls and floors, the Mosaic Tile House in Venice stands as a monument to two decades of artistic collaboration between Cheri Pann and husband Gonzalo Duran REUTERS Culture news in pictures 27 September 2016 A gallery assistant poses amongst work by Anthea Hamilton from her nominated show "Lichen! Libido!(London!) Chastity!" at a preview of the Turner Prize in London REUTERS Culture news in pictures 27 September 2016 A technician wearing virtual reality glasses checks his installation in three British public telephone booths, set up outside the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The installation allows visitors a 3-D look into the museum which has twenty-two paintings belonging to the British Royal Collection, on loan for an exhibit from 29 September 2016 till 8 January 2017 AP Culture news in pictures 26 September 2016 An Indian artist dressed as Hindu god Shiva performs on a chariot as he participates in a religious procession 'Ravan ki Barat' held to mark the forthcoming Dussehra festival in Allahabad AFP/Getty Images Culture news in pictures 26 September 2016 Jean-Michel Basquiat's 'Air Power', 1984, is displayed at the Bowie/Collector media preview at Sotheby's in New York AFP/Getty Culture news in pictures 25 September 2016 A woman looks at an untitled painting by Albert Oehlen during the opening of an exhibition of works by German artists Georg Baselitz and Albert Oehlen in Reutlingen, Germany. The exhibition runs at the Kunstverein (art society) Reutlingen until 15 January 2017 EPA Culture news in pictures 24 September 2016 Fan BingBing (C) attends the closing ceremony of the 64th San Sebastian Film Festival at Kursaal in San Sebastian, Spain Getty Images Culture news in pictures 23 September 2016 A view of the artwork 'You Are Metamorphosing' (1964) as part of the exhibition 'Retrospektive' of Japanese artist Tetsumi Kudo at Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany. The exhibition runs from 25 September 2016 to 1 January 2017 EPA Culture news in pictures 22 September 2016 Jo Applin from the Courtauld Institute of Art looks at Green Tilework in Live Flesh by Adriana Vareja, which features in a new exhibition, Flesh, at York Art Gallery. The new exhibition features works by Degas, Chardin, Francis Bacon and Sarah Lucas, showing how flesh has been portrayed by artists over the last 600 years PA Culture news in pictures 21 September 2016 Performers Sean Atkins and Sally Miller standing in for the characters played by Asa Butterfield and Ella Purnell during a photocall for Tim Burton's "Miss Peregrines Home For Peculiar Children" at Potters Field Park in London Getty Images Culture news in pictures 20 September 2016 A detail from the blanket 'Alpine Cattle Drive' from 1926 by artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner is displayed at the 'Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum for Contemporary Arts' in Berlin. The exhibition named 'Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Hieroglyphen' showing the complete collection of Berlin's Nationalgallerie works of the German artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and will run from 23 September 2016 until 26 February 2017 AP Culture news in pictures 20 September 2016 A man looks at portrait photos by US photographer Bruce Gilden in the exhibition 'Masters of Photography' at the photokina in Cologne, Germany. The trade fair on photography, photokina, schowcases some 1,000 exhibitors from 40 countries and runs from 20 to 25 September. The event also features various photo exhibitions EPA Culture news in pictures 20 September 2016 A woman looks at 'Blue Poles', 1952 by Jackson Pollock during a photocall at the Royal Academy of Arts, London PA Culture news in pictures 19 September 2016 Art installation The Refusal of Time, a collaboration with Philip Miller, Catherine Meyburgh and Peter Galison, which features as part of the William Kentridge exhibition Thick Time, showing from 21 September to 15 January at the Whitechapel Gallery in London PA Culture news in pictures 18 September 2016 Artists creating one off designs at the Mm6 Maison Margiela presentation during London Fashion Week Spring/Summer collections 2017 in London Getty Images Culture news in pictures 18 September 2016 Bethenny Frankel attends the special screening of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" to celebrate the 25th Anniversary Edition release on Blu-Ray and DVD in New York City Getty Images for Walt Disney Stu Culture news in pictures 17 September 2016 Visitors attend the 2016 Oktoberfest beer festival at Theresienwiese in Munich, Germany Getty Images Culture news in pictures 16 September 2016 Visitors looks at British artist Damien Hirst work of art 'The Incomplete Truth', during the 13th Yalta Annual Meeting entitled 'The World, Europe and Ukraine: storms of changes', organised by the Yalta European Strategy (YES) in partnership with the Victor Pinchuk Foundation at the Mystetsky Arsenal Art Center in Kiev AP Culture news in pictures 16 September 2016 Tracey Emin's "My Bed" is exhibited at the Tate Liverpool as part of the exhibition Tracey Emin And William Blake In Focus, which highlights surprising links between the two artists Getty Images Culture news in pictures 15 September 2016 Musician Dave Grohl (L) joins musician Tom Morello of Prophets of Rage onstage at the Forum in Inglewood, California Getty Images Culture news in pictures 14 September 2016 Model feebee poses as part of art installation "Narcissism : Dazzle room" made by artist Shigeki Matsuyama at rooms33 fashion and design exhibition in Tokyo. Matsuyama's installation features a strong contrast of black and white, which he learned from dazzle camouflage used mainly in World War I AP Culture news in pictures 13 September 2016 Visitors look at artworks by Chinese painter Cui Ruzhuo during the exhibition 'Glossiness of Uncarved Jade' held at the exhibition hall 'Manezh' in St. Petersburg, Russia. More than 200 paintings by the Chinese artist are presented until 25 September EPA Culture news in pictures 12 September 2016 A visitor looks at Raphael's painting 'Extase de Sainte Cecile', 1515, from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence during the opening of a Raphael exhibition at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, Russia. The first Russian exhibition of the works of the Italian Renaissance artist Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino includes eight paintings and three drawings which come from Italy. Th exhibit opens to the public from 13 September to 11 December EPA Culture news in pictures 11 September 2016 Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd perform during Otis Redding 75th Birthday Celebration - Rehearsals at the Macon City Auditorium in Macon, Georgia Getty Images for Otis Redding 75 Culture news in pictures 10 September 2016 Sakari Oramo conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC Singers at the Last Night of the Proms 2016 at the Royal Albert Hall in London PA Culture news in pictures 9 September 2016 A visitor walks past a piece entitled "Fruitcake" by Joana Vasconcelo, during the Beyond Limits selling exhibition at Chatsworth House near Bakewell REUTERS Culture news in pictures 8 September 2016 A sculpture of a crescent standing on the 2,140 meters high mountain 'Freiheit' (German for 'freedom'), in the Alpstein region of the Appenzell alps, eastern Switzerland. The sculpture is lighted during the nights by means of solar panels. The 38-year-old Swiss artist and atheist Christian Meier set the crescent on the peak to start a debate on the meaning of religious symbols - as summit crosses - on mountains. 'Because so many peaks have crosses on them, it struck me as a great idea to put up an equally absurd contrast'. 'Naturally I wanted to provoke in a fun way. But it goes beyond that. The actions of an artist should be food for thought, both visually and in content' EPA Culture news in pictures Culture news in pictures Culture news in pictures Mary Paulson-Ellis's The Other Mrs Walker (Mantle, 12.99), much of which is set in the same period, is far livelier: it moves about between the 1930s-1940s and modern Edinburgh, where Margaret Penny, middle-aged, drunken and down-and-out, comes home to her mother's squalid flat. Margaret's life begins to revive when she starts to trace the history of another old lady who has died alone and has no one to follow her coffin to the funeral service. What mystery is here, and what is the significance of the emerald-green dress folded carefully away? With absorbing characters, it wears its history lightly and Paulson-Ellis manages the time-hopping neatly. So does Elly Griffiths in The Woman in Blue (Quercus, 16.99), where forensic archaeologist, Ruth Galloway, finds trouble past and present in Walsingham, along with her old pal, the Druid Cathbad. Death stalks the ruined shrine, evidently insufficiently reformed by Henry VIII, as Ruth and her policeman ex-lover search for a killer who has struck amid a gathering of women priests. Who hates women in holy orders enough to actually finish them off? Griffiths has become a dab hand at plotting and cranking up the tension. The murders, and the muddled humanity of the characters, keep us turning the pages. Edinburgh is still a favourite setting for "noir" and Gothic, as Oscar de Muriel's Fever of the Blood (Penguin, 7.99) testifies. Here we plunge back into the Victorian city with a plot that moves at a frantic rate as Detective "Nine-Nails" McGray (all too identifiable by his tartan trousers) and Inspector Ian Frey chase around satisfyingly squalid alleyways and crumbling stately homes in pursuit of a murderer who has escaped from a psychiatric hospital. There's scarcely a pause, giving us no time to reflect on characterisation and the other usual staid props of the traditional novel. But the story is fun to read and a fast page-turner, as we rush from Edinburgh to Lancaster in pursuit of witches with the "Commission for the Elucidation of Unsolved Cases Presumably Related to the Odd and Ghostly". And someone has left the strychnine lying around again! But there's a girl in peril who's rescued in the end, so all the requirements of Victorian Gothic, including its mysterious romance, are satisfied. Yes, love and murder they go together like strawberries and cream. Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the The Life Cinematic email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Dons Plum, also known as the film Leonardo DiCaprio never wants you to see, has been removed from a free streaming site yet again. The five-time Oscar nominee has spent twenty years trying to keep the low-budget black-and-white indie, which he shot over just a few days in 1996, from the public eye. Released online in 2001 after failing to make it to cinemas, Dons Plum is widely considered the worst movie of DiCaprios acclaimed career. The largely improvised film focuses on a group of young friends spending a raucous night in a Hollywood diner, with Kevin Connolly and Tobey Maguire also starring. Both DiCaprio and Maguire insist that they made the movie as a favour and only envisaged it being shown at independent film festivals. They were paid around $500 each per day. In the year after shooting, DiCaprio rocketed to global fame for his role in Titanic, with Maguire shortly to follow suit as Spider-Man. Their huge successes prompted Dons Plum director RD Robb to organise meetings with distributors in the hope of getting the film out to wider audiences. Producer David Stuntman sued DiCaprio and Maguire for allegedly launching a fraudulent and coercive campaign to prevent the release of the film because they feared it might reveal personal experiences or tendencies. He failed and Dons Plum is banned from ever being screened in the US or Canada. It was briefly released in Germany in 2001 to mixed reviews. Leonardo DiCaprio's roles as a rich maniac Show all 8 1 /8 Leonardo DiCaprio's roles as a rich maniac Leonardo DiCaprio's roles as a rich maniac Leonardo DiCaprio's roles as a rich maniac The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) - Jordan Belfort Rex Features Leonardo DiCaprio's roles as a rich maniac Leonardo DiCaprio's roles as a rich maniac The Great Gatsby (2013) - Jay Gatsby Leonardo DiCaprio's roles as a rich maniac Leonardo DiCaprio's roles as a rich maniac Django Unchained (2012) - Calvin Candie Leonardo DiCaprio's roles as a rich maniac Leonardo DiCaprio's roles as a rich maniac Inception (2010) - Cobb Leonardo DiCaprio's roles as a rich maniac Leonardo DiCaprio's roles as a rich maniac The Aviator (2004) - Howard Hughes Leonardo DiCaprio's roles as a rich maniac Leonardo DiCaprio's roles as a rich maniac Catch Me If You Can (2002) - Frank Abagnale Jr. Leonardo DiCaprio's roles as a rich maniac Leonardo DiCaprio's roles as a rich maniac Leonardo Di Caprio as John Edgar Hoover in J. Edgar (2011) Leonardo DiCaprio's roles as a rich maniac Leonardo DiCaprio's roles as a rich maniac Blood Diamond (2006) - Danny Archer Fed up of the censorship, another producer, Dale Wheatley, recently created website freedonsplum.com and hosted a Vimeo link allowing viewers to stream the film in full. I can no longer remain silent. I can no longer allow the defamation and lies that you perpetrated against Dons Plum to scar the great work of the artists who created it, he wrote. Access unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up Im not afraid of you or your lawyers anymore. I have endured enough. Im going to speak with the freedom that our Constitution affords me. Im going to stand up for our film and for every one of the people who helped make it. I dont know you anymore, Leo, but I hope that youve learned a little bit about film preservation and your responsibility to protect and contribute to the ongoing experiment of filmmaking you are not bigger than art, Leo. The link was quickly taken down after a third-party notification by Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire, but the website remains. Wheatley has announced his intention to appeal the decision to overlook what he believes is fair use of copyright as an author of the material. He said: If only Leonardo DiCaprio would follow in the footsteps of the director who admires and works with more than any other, Martin Scorsese, and preserve American cinema rather than suppress it. Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyArts email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} It's only been a matter of weeks since the Fox Network announced that the planned 24 reboot would go ahead without Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer - but the series has now scored a female lead in the form of Miranda Otto. Otto will be playing Rebecca Ingram, the 'blazing smart' former head of the series' fictional Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) - amidst a terrorist threat, Ingram has second thoughts about leaving the agency. Straight Outta Compton actor Corey Hawkins was announced as Sutherland's replacement earlier on this week; he'll be playing Eric Carter, a military hero who returns to the US to discover trouble has followed him. The actress most recently starred as Allison Carr in the fifth season of Homeland which is produced by the team behind 24. The Lord of the Rings actress was also due to star in HBO's upcoming sci-fi series Westworld, but dropped out last year. 24 ran for eight seasons from 2001 until 2010 before returning with a limited run in 2014, but there are no plans to induct any of the show's former characters into Legacy. Actress Mary Lynn Rajskub - who played fan favourite Chloe from seasons three onwards - revealed on Twitter she knew nothing about the planned reboot. The pilot will be written by returning stalwarts Evan Katz and Manny Coto and is expected to film this winter. Events, as ever, will occur in real time. Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyArts email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Netflixs latest series Making a Murderer has stirred up viewers around the world, creating a legion of armchair detectives all looking into the Teresa Halbach murder case. Steven Avery - the man convicted of Halbachs murder - is at the centre of the discussion, with many wondering whether he is really guilty or not. However, some viewers believe the filmmakers were trying to prove the convicted killer innocent by not showing numerous pieces of evidence. Recommended Read more Everything we know about Making a Murderer season 2 Averys defendant, Dean Strang, has since defended the Netflix series. In an interview with The Progressive, he explained that the filmmakers didnt have time to keep everything in. The editorial decisions these filmmakers made in taking 200-plus hours of evidence in the Avery case and distilling it to three plus hours on the trial in the film were easily defensible decisions, it seems to me. Not the only decisions you could have made, but easily defensible decisions. Strang went on to speak about the media scrutiny the show has since received, drawing comparisons to when newspapers jumped on Ken Kratzs 2006 statement that condemned Brendan Dassey and Avery before the trial went ahead. Timeline: Steven Avery's convictions Show all 5 1 /5 Timeline: Steven Avery's convictions Timeline: Steven Avery's convictions 1985: Steven Avery is falsely convicted of raping a Penny Beernsten She was jogging along the shore of Lake Michigan when she was threatened with a knife and attacked. Ms Beernsten identified Avery as her rapist from a line-up that did not include the actual attacker. AFP/Getty Images Timeline: Steven Avery's convictions 2003: Conviction overturned Avery's 32-year prison sentence was overturned after DNA testing by the Wisconsin Innocence Project proved his innocence and found a hair from Gregory Allen. He was convicted of the rape and Avery was released. Timeline: Steven Avery's convictions 2004: Avery files federal lawsuit against Manitowoc County police A Wisconsin Department of Justice investigation found police had committed no criminal offences or ethics violations, sparking a lawsuit from Avery seeking $36 million compensation. Timeline: Steven Avery's convictions 2005: Avery is arrested for Teresa Halbach's murder His Avery Auto Salvage business was the freelance photographer's last appointment of 31 October. She was reported missing four days later and police later found her car, bones, teeth and belongings at the site. Avery pleaded not guilty but was sentenced to life in prison in 2007. Timeline: Steven Avery's convictions 201: Netflix releases Making a Murderer The 10-episode documentary came after Avery's conviction was upheld in a 2011 appeal. "We live in a country in which every time the police department or a prosecutor wants to issue a press release or hold a press conference, the overwhelming majority of media outlets treat what the police or prosecutors say as received wisdom, he said. "Theres almost never a critical examination of what the police or prosecution has to say. Now when one film doesnt hue to the prosecution line that's where the criticism falls: 'Youre imbalanced, or youre offering an unbalanced view, or youre displaying hubris. Making A Murderer- Where are they now? Referencing a piece recently published by The New Yorker by Kathryn Schulz, he criticised outlets for parroting claims without doing the research. It reveals, I think, one of the real weaknesses of our media, to be blunt about it. Right down to the level of Schulz simply parroting this claim of Mr. Kratz that sweat DNA was found on the hood latch of Teresa Halbachs car as if thats true, and it isn't. There is no such thing as sweat DNA. There is DNA that may be transferred in sweat or other bodily fluid potentially, if theres loose epithelial cells sloughing off in your perspiration, but there was no evidence at trial of sweat. There wasnt even any testing to establish that there wasnt blood. You can read all the evidence apparently missed from the show here, and check out all the latest news in the Steven Avery case here. Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyArts email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Following Sunday night's US premiere of The X-Files revival, a difficult week for die-hard fans based in the UK has followed, uncertain as to when the episode will be showing on British soil. It's time to rest easy because Channel 5 have finally announced an airdate - and you don't have too long to wait: episode one will be shown at 9pm on Monday 8 February. Series creator Chris Carter has teased how the relationship between FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully (David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson) is "on the rocks" when we catch up with them for the first time since 2008 film I Want To Believe. The premiere episode of the limited series - which will run for six episodes - received widespread negative reviews from critics, with The Hollywood Reporter hailing it "messy," "tedious" and "limp." The fans' reaction, on the other hand, was less lukewarm with many praising the episode on social media. Critics did note, however, that the following two episodes are a vast improvement with The Guardian even claiming that episode three "is one of the best The X-Files has ever done." Just what UK audiences think will be discerned when The X-Files airs from Monday 8 February on Channel 5. Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyArts email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} It's been almost three years since Top of the Lake first aired and it's still hard to shake the series' sense of creeping dread. Brace yourself for more - lead actress Elisabeth Moss has revealed that filming for season two commences this Spring. Ive read three scripts so far and Im incredibly excited where Jane is taking the story and the character, Moss exclusively told Deadline. The 'Jane' in question is The Piano director Jane Campion who will return to oversee what is expected to be six episodes. It is also believed that Sydney, Australia will be standing in for New Zealand when the show starts filming in March. Season one of the mystery series followed Detective Robin Griffin (Moss) and her investigation into the disappearance of a pregnant 12-year-old girl; the actress won a Golden Globe for the role in 2014. Moss' co-stars included David Wenham, Peter Mullan and Holly Hunter who played spiritual leader, GJ; Nicole Kidman is rumoured to be joining the cast for the second season. The Golden Globe and Emmy award-winning actress, who played Peggy Olson in Mad Men, was at Sundance Film Festival to promote drama The Free World which follows a recently exonerated man who attempts to assimilate his way back into society after 20 years behind bars. Since it premiered, it has drawn comparisons to hit Netflix documentary Making a Murderer. Top of the Lake season two is expected to air late 2016. Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Lifestyle Edit email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The biannual Paris haute couture shows may well be over but, for a (very) select elite, those two weeks in January and July serve not just as a glimpse at some of the world's most elaborate garments, but also as a buying trip. One is multi-hyphenate Daphne Guinness: heiress-socialite, model-muse, actress-musician, but chiefly clothes-horse. Guinness is famed for her couture wardrobe, so much so that it became the subject of an exhibition hosted by the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York back in 2011. So to celebrate both couture week and one of the world's most well-turned-out ladies, I've compiled a Daphne-in-my-dreams shopping list. Wear its at: Draft Guinness Show all 5 1 /5 Wear its at: Draft Guinness Wear its at: Draft Guinness Alexander McQueen jacket 1,445, Alexander McQueen, net-a-porter.com Wear its at: Draft Guinness Philip Treacy hat 1,950, Philip Treacy, lovehats.com Wear its at: Draft Guinness Stephen Webster ring 8,950, Stephen Webster, harrods.com Wear its at: Draft Guinness Daphne 90, Comme des Garcons, doverstreetmarket Wear its at: Draft Guinness Daphne Guinness Heiress-socialite, model-muse, actress-musician, but chiefly clothes-horse First on the stylistic litany of any self-respecting Guinness fan is a spree at Alexander McQueen. The late designer was one of Guinness's best friends and she continues to wear the designs of his successor Sarah Burton with aplomb, and gravity-defying shoes. This low-key structured blazer (1 - see gallery above) is timeless. Millinery is an important part of Guinness's wardrobe, and you won't go wrong with a Philip Treacy titfer (2) . Equally, no heiress's look is complete without a smattering of fine jewellery, although you'll need the big bucks to invest in this amethyst and Purple sapphire ring (3) by Stephen Webster. Last, not least, but definitely most attainable, is fragrance. Not many folk get to create their own scent in collaboration with Comme des Garcons. But "Daphne" (4) the scent is a heady mix of orange, saffron, rose and jasmine. While you may not be able to imitate Guinness's style without remortgaging, you can at least smell like her. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Your next Android phone might be able to see like a real human being. Google has announced that it is to integrated deep learning into its phone operating system, allowing the phones to use algorithms to recognise what is in pictures and think about it like a person. The company has begun a tie-up with Movidius, a company that makes chips that help with machine vision. The two companies have already worked together on Googles Project Tango, which uses a series of cameras to allow computers to be able to see spaces in 3D. Recommended Read more Android hidden settings can be accessed with range of secret codes Now, similar technology could be on its way to Android phones. The new features could allow the phones to tell what theyre looking at without relying on the internet, according to reports. It might also allow the phone to tell what street signs or words it is looking at, and then feed that data to the phone so that it can process it. It might even be used for completely new devices and phones, of the kind not before seen, according to Google. Gadget and tech news: In pictures Show all 25 1 /25 Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gun-toting humanoid robot sent into space Russia has launched a humanoid robot into space on a rocket bound for the International Space Station (ISS). The robot Fedor will spend 10 days aboard the ISS practising skills such as using tools to fix issues onboard. Russia's deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin has previously shared videos of Fedor handling and shooting guns at a firing range with deadly accuracy. Dmitry Rogozin/Twitter Gadget and tech news: In pictures Google turns 21 Google celebrates its 21st birthday on September 27. The The search engine was founded in September 1998 by two PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in their dormitories at Californias Stanford University. Page and Brin chose the name google as it recalled the mathematic term 'googol', meaning 10 raised to the power of 100 Google Gadget and tech news: In pictures Hexa drone lifts off Chief engineer of LIFT aircraft Balazs Kerulo demonstrates the company's "Hexa" personal drone craft in Lago Vista, Texas on June 3 2019 Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures Project Scarlett to succeed Xbox One Microsoft announced Project Scarlett, the successor to the Xbox One, at E3 2019. The company said that the new console will be 4 times as powerful as the Xbox One and is slated for a release date of Christmas 2020 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures First new iPod in four years Apple has announced the new iPod Touch, the first new iPod in four years. The device will have the option of adding more storage, up to 256GB Apple Gadget and tech news: In pictures Folding phone may flop Samsung will cancel orders of its Galaxy Fold phone at the end of May if the phone is not then ready for sale. The $2000 folding phone has been found to break easily with review copies being recalled after backlash PA Gadget and tech news: In pictures Charging mat non-starter Apple has cancelled its AirPower wireless charging mat, which was slated as a way to charge numerous apple products at once AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures "Super league" India shoots down satellite India has claimed status as part of a "super league" of nations after shooting down a live satellite in a test of new missile technology EPA Gadget and tech news: In pictures 5G incoming 5G wireless internet is expected to launch in 2019, with the potential to reach speeds of 50mb/s Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Uber halts driverless testing after death Uber has halted testing of driverless vehicles after a woman was killed by one of their cars in Tempe, Arizona. March 19 2018 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie 'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway, resembling a giant panda, is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A visitor tries a Nissan VR experience at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv Getty "Our collaboration with Movidius is enabling new categories of products to be built that people haven't seen before," the head of Googles machine intelligence group, Blaise Agera y Arcas, told Computer World. Deep learning uses computers that are structured something like the human brain, allowing them to recognise and understand things in the same way that we do. Google already uses the technology in some of its products such as Google Photos, which allows people to search for specific objects or people in their pictures. Fox Lake Cop's Wife Charged With Money Laundering, Misuse Of Funds By Kate Shepherd in News on Jan 27, 2016 10:59PM Vigil is held for the fallen Fox Lake police officer Charles Joseph Gliniewicz as manhunt for his killers continues. By Marielle Shaw/Chicagoist The widow of the Fox Lake police officer who staged his suicide to look like a murder has been charged with felony counts of misuse of charitable funds and money laundering, according to the Tribune. The indictments stem from Lt. Joe Gliniewicz's alleged theft of money from the police department over a long period of time. Melodie Gliniewicz and her husband allegedly used money from the Police Explorers program fund to pay from their own expenses including a trip to Hawaii. But her attorneys say that she was just a "victim of her husband's secret actions," the Tribune reported. A grand jury heard the case against Gliniewicz on Wednesday morning and the charges were announced this afternoon. Authorities issued an arrest warrant along with a $50,000 bond but it appears that she has turned herself in already. The widow could get probation or a prison sentence if convicted of the charges. In November the charity that helped the Gliniewicz family following the lieutenant's death asked for their money back. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Call centre workers working for recently cyber-hacked company TalkTalk in India have been arrested on suspicion of stealing customer data. The phone network company confirmed that as part of a "forensic review" into its cyber hacking scandal in October last year, three employees at a Kolkata-based call centre had been detained by police. The suspects, who are unnamed, are not directly employed by TalkTalk but by one of the company's contracted call centres called Wipro in north-east India. But the telecoms company refuted a media report by Channel Four that the employees may have conned customers out of "thousands of pounds." "The workers are being investigated because they've breached the way we work," a spokesperson told The Independent. "We're working with police in Kolkata to crack down on scam calls. We are looking at whether these workers have taken part in data theft. "But there is no evidence to suggest they have taken thousands of pounds from customers." Wipro in Kolkata, a contracted call centre with TalkTalk where three employees have been arrested by local police (Google Street View) About 157,000 TalkTalk customer details, including bank account numbers, were stolen in one of the largest cyber hacks in British history. The telecoms company said in a statement that it was conducting a "forensic review to ensure that all aspects of our security are as robust as possible" and had begun working with Wipro after concerns over possible misconduct had arisen. Wipro told Channel Four it has a "zero tolerance policy" on security breaches. "We would like to reassure our customers that the Company continuously evaluates and strengthens its internal processes to protect itself and its customers from any data breach," it said in a statement. Wipro reported potential illegal activity to the relevant law enforcement authority in India, as soon as it came to the companys attention. Wipro is working closely with the customer in the investigation and will continue to extend its full co-operation to the investigating authorities. TalkTalk faced accusations of a "cover-up" in October 2015 after one of the biggest cyber attacks in British history (AFP/Getty Images) TalkTalk, which was founded as a subsidiary of Carphone Warehouse in 2003, was also accused of a "cover-up" over the October data breach - reportedly keeping it secret for at least a week before admitting the scale of the hack. At the time the telecoms company said accusations of a cover-up were "deeply unfair." Customers suffered attacks on their home computers as well as scam calls by thieves who knew their names and account details. A Russian-based team of Islamic extremists also claimed responsibility for the attack on website Pastebin in claims which have not been verified. Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Lifestyle Edit email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} If your motivation to exercise begins to wilt by the end of January, would working out in the company of adorable bunny rabbits give you a boost? Fortunately, this is exactly what one gym is offering its members. Unfortunately, Bunny Yoga is currently only available at one facility in Richmond, British Columbia in Canada a city in the midst of a rabbit overpopulation crisis. Sunberry Gym in the coastal city is holding the classes to raise money for an abandoned rabbit charity. Pet rabbits in the city are abandoned in streets and parks across the city, according to the Bandaids for Bunnies webiste. As former house-pets, the creatures are unable to survive. "They end up malnourished, injured, sick, hit by cars, and attacked/killed by predators, both animal and human. These rabbits need help," the website warns. During the $20 classes, 27 class members must be particularly careful about where they put their feet as 10 rabbits hop around the room, under posing legs and arms. How Much Energy You Need To Burn Off 8 Junk Foods - in pictures Show all 8 1 /8 How Much Energy You Need To Burn Off 8 Junk Foods - in pictures How Much Energy You Need To Burn Off 8 Junk Foods - in pictures Buddy Loans How Much Energy You Need To Burn Off 8 Junk Foods - in pictures Buddy Loans How Much Energy You Need To Burn Off 8 Junk Foods - in pictures Buddy Loans How Much Energy You Need To Burn Off 8 Junk Foods - in pictures Buddy Loans How Much Energy You Need To Burn Off 8 Junk Foods - in pictures Buddy Loans How Much Energy You Need To Burn Off 8 Junk Foods - in pictures Buddy Loans How Much Energy You Need To Burn Off 8 Junk Foods - in pictures Buddy Loans How Much Energy You Need To Burn Off 8 Junk Foods - in pictures Buddy Loans The idea first came about as a joke between Sunberry Gym owner Julia Zu and one of her members Janet Keating, who is part of the Bandaids for Bunnies charity. Holding their first classes in November 2015 and January 2016, the women hoped that classes would encourage people to adopt rescued rabbits and to raise awareness of the problems the creatures face in Richmond. Ms Keating told Canadas Metro newspaper: "[The bunnies] made a lot of friends and we got a lot of interest in adoptions and fosters. She added: "We take rabbits that we know are going to be a good experience for the class." Ms Zu told Buzzfeed News that the rabbits linger by their cages at first, but soon become brave enough to explore the room. "They like to choose their human. Youll have two or three girls in the room and the bunnies really like their mats," she said. Class members who cant adopt pets because of rent rules also enjoy the experience, added Ms Keating. After holding two classes, the charity has raised over $1,000. The gym hopes to advertise another class for Eastertime. Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Lifestyle Edit email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Sharing photos online is now a central part of the life of a model and blogger but one woman has shared a photo of her cervix to the thousands of people who follow her in order to raise awareness of cervical cancer. The form of cancer is particularly difficult to diagnose in the early stages, as only some women experience the unusual vaginal bleeding linked to the disease. Such symptoms are can be easily mistaken for "spotting" during periods. In order to raise awareness of the condition which claims the lives of around 1,000 women in the UK each year, model Tracy Kiss has shared an image of her cervix on her blog. The image that Ms Kiss shared of her cervix on her blog. The white spots are abnormalities. (YouTube/Tracy Kiss) The 28-year-old from Buckinghamshire, who has over 150,000 followers on social media and has raised money for cancer charities in the past, wrote on her website how she had felt "weak and sick" and had noticed that her periods had been changing. Worried that she may have a serious disease, she visited her doctor for a smear test. Women are advised to have cervical screenings at the age of 25, and every three years afterwards under the NHS. During a smear test, a small sample of cells is collected from the cervix. These are then checked in a lab for signs of underlying diseases. Miss Kiss describes he experiences in a YouTube video below. Ms Kiss wrote on her blog that she felt so sick and scared when her test returned with an abnormal result. She then underwent examinations including a colposcopy to ensure that she did not have cancer or any other conditions. The tests returned negative for cervical cancer. However, she tested positive for HPV - a common virus which can trigger cervical cancer in some women. Ms Kiss is now awaiting a LLETZ procedure, where a thin wire loop is used to burn away abnormal cells in order to reduce the risk of developing the disease. Here is my #smearforsmear selfie for @JoScervicalcancertrust helping to raise awareness for women to attend your smear... Posted by Tracy Kiss on Monday, 25 January 2016 The model and blogger is now calling on her followers to donate to the charity Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust, and has shared a selfie with smeared lipstick as part of the #smearforsmear campaign. Health news in pictures Show all 40 1 /40 Health news in pictures Health news in pictures Coronavirus outbreak The coronavirus Covid-19 has hit the UK leading to the deaths of two people so far and prompting warnings from the Department of Health AFP via Getty Health news in pictures Thousands of emergency patients told to take taxi to hospital Thousands of 999 patients in England are being told to get a taxi to hospital, figures have showed. The number of patients outside London who were refused an ambulance rose by 83 per cent in the past year as demand for services grows Getty Health news in pictures Vape related deaths spike A vaping-related lung disease has claimed the lives of 11 people in the US in recent weeks. The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has more than 100 officials investigating the cause of the mystery illness, and has warned citizens against smoking e-cigarette products until more is known, particularly if modified or bought off the street Getty Health news in pictures Baldness cure looks to be a step closer Researchers in the US claim to have overcome one of the major hurdles to cultivating human follicles from stem cells. The new system allows cells to grow in a structured tuft and emerge from the skin Sanford Burnham Preybs Health news in pictures Two hours a week spent in nature can improve health A study in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that a dose of nature of just two hours a week is associated with better health and psychological wellbeing Shutterstock Health news in pictures Air pollution linked to fertility issues in women Exposure to air from traffic-clogged streets could leave women with fewer years to have children, a study has found. Italian researchers found women living in the most polluted areas were three times more likely to show signs they were running low on eggs than those who lived in cleaner surroundings, potentially triggering an earlier menopause Getty/iStock Health news in pictures Junk food ads could be banned before watershed Junk food adverts on TV and online could be banned before 9pm as part of Government plans to fight the "epidemic" of childhood obesity. Plans for the new watershed have been put out for public consultation in a bid to combat the growing crisis, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said PA Health news in pictures Breeding with neanderthals helped humans fight diseases On migrating from Africa around 70,000 years ago, humans bumped into the neanderthals of Eurasia. While humans were weak to the diseases of the new lands, breeding with the resident neanderthals made for a better equipped immune system PA Health news in pictures Cancer breath test to be trialled in Britain The breath biopsy device is designed to detect cancer hallmarks in molecules exhaled by patients Getty Health news in pictures Average 10 year old has consumed the recommended amount of sugar for an adult By their 10th birthdy, children have on average already eaten more sugar than the recommended amount for an 18 year old. The average 10 year old consumes the equivalent to 13 sugar cubes a day, 8 more than is recommended PA Health news in pictures Child health experts advise switching off screens an hour before bed While there is not enough evidence of harm to recommend UK-wide limits on screen use, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health have advised that children should avoid screens for an hour before bed time to avoid disrupting their sleep Getty Health news in pictures Daily aspirin is unnecessary for older people in good health, study finds A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that many elderly people are taking daily aspirin to little or no avail Getty Health news in pictures Vaping could lead to cancer, US study finds A study by the University of Minnesota's Masonic Cancer Centre has found that the carcinogenic chemicals formaldehyde, acrolein, and methylglyoxal are present in the saliva of E-cigarette users Reuters Health news in pictures More children are obese and diabetic There has been a 41% increase in children with type 2 diabetes since 2014, the National Paediatric Diabetes Audit has found. Obesity is a leading cause Reuters Health news in pictures Most child antidepressants are ineffective and can lead to suicidal thoughts The majority of antidepressants are ineffective and may be unsafe, for children and teenager with major depression, experts have warned. In what is the most comprehensive comparison of 14 commonly prescribed antidepressant drugs to date, researchers found that only one brand was more effective at relieving symptoms of depression than a placebo. Another popular drug, venlafaxine, was shown increase the risk users engaging in suicidal thoughts and attempts at suicide Getty Health news in pictures Gay, lesbian and bisexual adults at higher risk of heart disease, study claims Researchers at the Baptist Health South Florida Clinic in Miami focused on seven areas of controllable heart health and found these minority groups were particularly likely to be smokers and to have poorly controlled blood sugar iStock Health news in pictures Breakfast cereals targeted at children contain 'steadily high' sugar levels since 1992 despite producer claims A major pressure group has issued a fresh warning about perilously high amounts of sugar in breakfast cereals, specifically those designed for children, and has said that levels have barely been cut at all in the last two and a half decades Getty Health news in pictures Potholes are making us fat, NHS watchdog warns New guidance by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the body which determines what treatment the NHS should fund, said lax road repairs and car-dominated streets were contributing to the obesity epidemic by preventing members of the public from keeping active PA Health news in pictures New menopause drugs offer women relief from 'debilitating' hot flushes A new class of treatments for women going through the menopause is able to reduce numbers of debilitating hot flushes by as much as three quarters in a matter of days, a trial has found. The drug used in the trial belongs to a group known as NKB antagonists (blockers), which were developed as a treatment for schizophrenia but have been sitting on a shelf unused, according to Professor Waljit Dhillo, a professor of endocrinology and metabolism REX Health news in pictures Doctors should prescribe more antidepressants for people with mental health problems, study finds Research from Oxford University found that more than one million extra people suffering from mental health problems would benefit from being prescribed drugs and criticised ideological reasons doctors use to avoid doing so. Getty Health news in pictures Student dies of flu after NHS advice to stay at home and avoid A&E The family of a teenager who died from flu has urged people not to delay going to A&E if they are worried about their symptoms. Melissa Whiteley, an 18-year-old engineering student from Hanford in Stoke-on-Trent, fell ill at Christmas and died in hospital a month later. Just Giving Health news in pictures Government to review thousands of harmful vaginal mesh implants The Government has pledged to review tens of thousands of cases where women have been given harmful vaginal mesh implants. Getty Health news in pictures Jeremy Hunt announces 'zero suicides ambition' for the NHS The NHS will be asked to go further to prevent the deaths of patients in its care as part of a zero suicide ambition being launched today Getty Health news in pictures Human trials start with cancer treatment that primes immune system to kill off tumours Human trials have begun with a new cancer therapy that can prime the immune system to eradicate tumours. The treatment, that works similarly to a vaccine, is a combination of two existing drugs, of which tiny amounts are injected into the solid bulk of a tumour. Nephron Health news in pictures Babies' health suffers from being born near fracking sites, finds major study Mothers living within a kilometre of a fracking site were 25 per cent more likely to have a child born at low birth weight, which increase their chances of asthma, ADHD and other issues Getty Health news in pictures NHS reviewing thousands of cervical cancer smear tests after women wrongly given all-clear Thousands of cervical cancer screening results are under review after failings at a laboratory meant some women were incorrectly given the all-clear. A number of women have already been told to contact their doctors following the identification of procedural issues in the service provided by Pathology First Laboratory. Rex Health news in pictures Potential key to halting breast cancer's spread discovered by scientists Most breast cancer patients do not die from their initial tumour, but from secondary malignant growths (metastases), where cancer cells are able to enter the blood and survive to invade new sites. Asparagine, a molecule named after asparagus where it was first identified in high quantities, has now been shown to be an essential ingredient for tumour cells to gain these migratory properties. Getty Health news in pictures NHS nursing vacancies at record high with more than 34,000 roles advertised A record number of nursing and midwifery positions are currently being advertised by the NHS, with more than 34,000 positions currently vacant, according to the latest data. Demand for nurses was 19 per cent higher between July and September 2017 than the same period two years ago. REX Health news in pictures Cannabis extract could provide new class of treatment for psychosis CBD has a broadly opposite effect to delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main active component in cannabis and the substance that causes paranoia and anxiety. Getty Health news in pictures Over 75,000 sign petition calling for Richard Branson's Virgin Care to hand settlement money back to NHS Mr Bransons company sued the NHS last year after it lost out on an 82m contract to provide childrens health services across Surrey, citing concerns over serious flaws in the way the contract was awarded PA Health news in pictures More than 700 fewer nurses training in England in first year after NHS bursary scrapped The numbers of people accepted to study nursing in England fell 3 per cent in 2017, while the numbers accepted in Wales and Scotland, where the bursaries were kept, increased 8.4 per cent and 8 per cent respectively Getty Health news in pictures Landmark study links Tory austerity to 120,000 deaths The paper found that there were 45,000 more deaths in the first four years of Tory-led efficiencies than would have been expected if funding had stayed at pre-election levels. On this trajectory that could rise to nearly 200,000 excess deaths by the end of 2020, even with the extra funding that has been earmarked for public sector services this year. Reuters Health news in pictures Long commutes carry health risks Hours of commuting may be mind-numbingly dull, but new research shows that it might also be having an adverse effect on both your health and performance at work. Longer commutes also appear to have a significant impact on mental wellbeing, with those commuting longer 33 per cent more likely to suffer from depression Shutterstock Health news in pictures You cannot be fit and fat It is not possible to be overweight and healthy, a major new study has concluded. The study of 3.5 million Britons found that even metabolically healthy obese people are still at a higher risk of heart disease or a stroke than those with a normal weight range Getty Health news in pictures Sleep deprivation When you feel particularly exhausted, it can definitely feel like you are also lacking in brain capacity. Now, a new study has suggested this could be because chronic sleep deprivation can actually cause the brain to eat itself Shutterstock Health news in pictures Exercise classes offering 45 minute naps launch David Lloyd Gyms have launched a new health and fitness class which is essentially a bunch of people taking a nap for 45 minutes. The fitness group was spurred to launch the napercise class after research revealed 86 per cent of parents said they were fatigued. The class is therefore predominantly aimed at parents but you actually do not have to have children to take part Getty Health news in pictures 'Fundamental right to health' to be axed after Brexit, lawyers warn Tobacco and alcohol companies could win more easily in court cases such as the recent battle over plain cigarette packaging if the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is abandoned, a barrister and public health professor have said Getty Health news in pictures 'Thousands dying' due to fear over non-existent statin side-effects A major new study into the side effects of the cholesterol-lowering medicine suggests common symptoms such as muscle pain and weakness are not caused by the drugs themselves Getty Health news in pictures Babies born to fathers aged under 25 have higher risk of autism New research has found that babies born to fathers under the age of 25 or over 51 are at higher risk of developing autism and other social disorders. The study, conducted by the Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment at Mount Sinai, found that these children are actually more advanced than their peers as infants, but then fall behind by the time they hit their teenage years Getty Health news in pictures Cycling to work could halve risk of cancer and heart disease Commuters who swap their car or bus pass for a bike could cut their risk of developing heart disease and cancer by almost half, new research suggests but campaigners have warned there is still an urgent need to improve road conditions for cyclists. Cycling to work is linked to a lower risk of developing cancer by 45 per cent and cardiovascular disease by 46 per cent, according to a study of a quarter of a million people. Walking to work also brought health benefits, the University of Glasgow researchers found, but not to the same degree as cycling. Getty She told The Mirror: "I am urging women to go for a smear test it would be amazing if this advice saved somebody." Ms Kiss added: "It is a bit uncomfortable and embarrassing but these feelings won't bring you back from the dead." For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} An American au pair has been found dead in Vienna and authorities are treating the case as murder. Lauren Mann, 25, was discovered partially clothed in her apartment, lying face down on a mattress near a considerable amount of blood, according to reports. Firefighters went to Ms Manns apartment after her boss became alarmed when she did not show up for work. Ms Manns door was knocked down on Tuesday night and she was found lying in total darkness as all the lights had burnt out. The autopsy of the woman has not revealed the cause of death. Vienna police spokesman Thomas Keiblinger said that investigators are awaiting results of toxicological tests over the next few days. We are still awaiting the final autopsy report, but are presently treating this as a homicide case, Mr Keiblinger told NBC. The alleged victim was born in Colorado, where she took a degree in French, and had been working in Vienna for three years while studying German. The US embassy in Vienna said it was assisting Austrian authorities in their investigation. Additional reporting by AP. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Google has spoken in the row over its tax payments. In a letter in the Financial Times, Peter Barron, vice president of public affairs, said that Google paid $3.3 billion in tax in the US in the last year. Google is "paying the full amount of tax that HM Revenue and Customes agrees we should pay", Barron said, including 130 million in so-called "back taxes" due since 2005. "Governments make tax law, the tax authorities independently enforce the law, and Google complies with the law," Barron said. Google's response comes as the furore over its tax deal escalates to the European Commission, which has said it will publish plans that may force Google and other multi-national companies to pay more in tax. Margrethe Vestager, the European Competition Commissioner, said she would investigate Google's tax arrangements if someone complained about them. The SNP swiftly released a statement to say that a letter was on its way. Apple is also under pressure to pay back billions of dollars in back taxes in the EU. Apple chief executives have hit back at the investigation into its European tax arrangements, saying that the company doesn't expect to have to pay. Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year. Barron said taxes were a matter for Governments to decide, and for companies to comply with. "In all the coverage of Googles tax settlement, little has been said about the international tax rules and how they work. Corporation tax is paid on profits, not revenue, and is collected where the economic activity that generates those profits takes place," he said. On Wednesday, European MEPs called for the Chancellor George Osborne and Google to appear in front of the committee on tax rulings to explain the tax deal. Eva Joly, vice chair of the Special European Parliamentary Committee on Tax Rulings, said that the deal was not fair competition and looked like the UK wanted to become a tax haven. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Britains tax authorities have conceded that Google need not pay tax on profits from advertising sold in this country, The Independent has learnt. As a result the firm will escape paying tens of millions of pounds to the Treasury. HM Revenue and Customs is understood to accept that Googles complex arrangements to minimise its UK tax bill are legal. That means the firm is liable to hand over only a fraction of the tax it would have to pay had HMRC ruled that it was permanently based in Britain. The ruling, which has never been publicly disclosed, explains why the American multinational is paying only 130m of additional tax covering the past decade. Recommended Read more Jeremy Corbyn tells David Cameron that Geoff wants to know how he can The agreement has been widely condemned, with critics claiming that, in effect, Google was paying a 3 per cent rate of tax. Anna Soubry, the business minister, conceded: It doesnt sound like an awful lot of money; of course it doesnt. It would be silly to say otherwise. The HMRC decision could also have ramifications for the tax affairs of other multinationals, such as Amazon and Apple, that use similar arrangements to minimise their UK tax bill. The decision comes after a six-year investigation into Googles tax affairs by HMRC and will pile more pressure on politicians to close legal loopholes that have allowed US tech companies to base themselves in low-tax jurisdictions even when the majority of their sales are carried out elsewhere. Leaders clash over Google In the case of Google, the company limits its reported profits by booking revenues made from advertising sold to UK clients through its international headquarters in Ireland. All the UK operations are carried out by a separate company that works exclusively for Google in Dublin and is paid a fee. This fee is minimised to ensure that the UK company makes as small a profit as possible. It is only this profit that would be liable for UK corporation tax. Company sources told The Independent that HMRC had accepted their case that the arrangement was legal and could not be successfully challenged in the courts. Steve Hilton, formerly David Camerons director of strategy, said he understood public anger that big companies increasingly appeared to be above the law. The Prime Minister also came under fire last night for the close links between Google and his administration. The media mogul Rupert Murdoch tweeted: Google has cleverly planted dozens of their people in White House, Downing St, other governments. Most brilliant new lobbying effort yet. Vaizey on Google In angry clashes in the Commons the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, seized on the regularity of meetings between Google executives and ministers. He said people filling in their tax returns would wonder: Why is there one rule for big multinational companies and another for ordinary, small businesses and self-employed workers? Mr Cameron retorted: Were talking about tax that should have been collected under a Labour government, raised by a Conservative government. Its quite right this is done independently by HMRC, but Im absolutely clear that no government has done more than this one to crack down on tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance. The French MEP, Eva Joly, vice-chairwoman of the Special European Parliamentary Committee on Tax Rulings, said the committee would ask the Chancellor, George Osborne, to give evidence. She described the Google deal as very bad news for everybody as it showed Britain was preparing to become a kind of a tax haven to attract the multinationals. The frequency of meetings between Google executives and ministers, as well as other links between the company and the Government, has prompted accusations that Mr Cameron is presiding over a cosy relationship with the tech giant. Asked why ministers, including Mr Cameron, had met Google chiefs so often, his spokeswoman replied: There are a number of important policy issues where the Prime Minister might be engaging with companies such as Google. The Government and Google: The connections Google has had 24 meetings with 18 ministers in the past two years George Osborne (Chancellor) January 2014 Francis Maude (Paymaster General) February 2014 Nick Hurd (Minister for Civil Society) February 2014 Oliver Letwin (Minister for Government Policy) April 2014 Francis Maude (Paymaster General) April 2014 Jo Johnson (Cabinet Office minister) June 2014 Matt Hancock (Business minister) July 2014 Nick Boles (Skills minister) September 2014 Sajid Javid (Culture Secretary) October 2014 Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Business minister) October 2014 Matt Hancock (Business Minister) November 2014 Grant Shapps (Tory chairman) November 2014 Nick Boles (Skills minister) December 2014 George Freeman (Business minister) January 2015 Nick Boles (Skills minister) January 2015 Penny Mordaunt (Communities minister) February 2014 Baroness Anelay (Foreign Office) March 2015 Baroness Shields (Culture minister) June 2015 Theresa May (Home Secretary) July 2015 Francis Maude (Trade minister) July 2015 Grant Shapps (International Development minister) July 2015 Justin Tomlinson (Work and Pensions minister) July 2015 Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Business minister) July 2015 Jeremy Hunt (Health Secretary) September 2015 Google boss Eric Schmidt is a member of the Prime Ministers Business Advisory Group. Tim Chatwin was Mr Camerons head of strategic communications. He joined Google in 2012. CCHQ press officer Amy Fisher used to work for Google. In 2013 David and Samantha Cameron went to the wedding of a Naomi Gummer, a senior Google executive. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The 130m Google tax deal faces an investigation by the European Commission into whether the agreement amounted to state aid in breach of EU rules. Brussels added to the pressure on George Osborne over the internet giants payment of a decade of back taxes, which the Chancellor again insisted had been a major success for Her Majestys Revenue & Customs (HMRC). Critics claim the deal, which has triggered a bitter political row, means that Google is paying an effective three per cent rate of tax on its British operations. Recommended Read more Google has a spiritual obligation to pay as little tax as possible Margrethe Vestager, the EUs competition commissioner, indicated that she was ready to look into complaints that the settlement breached EU rules, prompting an immediate request by the SNP for an inquiry. She told BBC Radio 4: If we find there is something to be concerned about, if someone writes to us and says this is maybe not as it should be, then we will take a look. Ms Verstager said that so-called sweetheart deals for big companies were unfair and could amount to illegal state aid. Formally requesting the investigation, the SNPs deputy leader Stewart Hosie said it was unclear, because of a lack of transparency, whether the settlement was a fair deal for British taxpayers and complied with rules over state aid. The Labour MP Margaret Hodge, former chair of the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC), said she believed Ms Vestager should take a look at the deal. The whole thing here is that we need greater transparency. If we think it is unfair we lose confidence in the integrity of the tax system, she said. Executives from Google and HMRC are to be cross-examined by MPs on the PAC on 11 February as part of an inquiry into tax settlements struck by multinational companies. Mr Osborne came under fire at the weekend when he claimed that the Google deal, which was ridiculed as derisory by Labour, has been a major success. He repeated the claim yesterday, although he told Sky News that he understood the frustration and anger people felt over major firms avoiding paying big bills. When I became Chancellor, Google paid no tax. Now Google is paying tax and I have introduced a new thing called a diverted profits tax to make sure they pay tax in the future. I regard that as a major success. Is there more to do? Clearly there is. Weve got to make sure the international rules catch up and we are leading that effort. Google has defended its controversial deal, insisting it had complied with the law. Margrethe Vestager at the EU headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday (AP) In a letter to the Financial Times, Peter Barron, Googles vice president of communications and public affairs, said: After a six-year audit we are paying the full amount of tax that HM Revenue & Customs agrees we should pay, including 130m in additional back tax. Governments make tax law, the tax authorities independently enforce the law, and Google complies with the law. The European Commission has announced a drive to align tax laws in all 28 member states, to help in the fight against aggressive tax practices by large companies. Economic affairs commissioner Pierre Moscovici said: Billions of tax euros are lost every year to tax avoidance money that could be used for public services like schools and hospitals or to boost jobs and growth. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Italy has claimed 227 million in unpaid tax from Google from between 2009 and 2013. Google paid 2.2 million of tax in Italy in 2014 on revenues of 54.4 million generated in the country, Reuters reported. Recommended Read more Jeremy Corbyn tells David Cameron that Geoff wants to know how he can The Italian Communications Authority estimates that Google's Italian revenues are 10 times that. Google is paying back 3 per cent in tax, or 130 million, to the UK tax authority in a deal slammed by MEPs as "not fair competition". Commenters have rubbished Osborne's initial claims that the UK tax deal was a "major success". "It looks like Osborne's 'major success' over Google has made the UK the laughing stock of Europe," said Wes Streeting, Labour MP for Ilford North. Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition, fired four questions about the Google deal at David Cameron during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, including one from a working man in his thirties called Geoff. Geoff speaks for millions of people when he says to me, 'Is there a scheme that I can join that has the same rate of tax as Google?' Corbyn said. Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year. Cameron deflected the question, choosing to blame Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling for Google's low rate of tax. Corbyn reminded Cameron that he is the Prime Minister currently responsible for addressing taxes. Eva Joly, vice chair of the Special European Parliamentary Committee on Tax Rulings, said that the deal looked like the UK wanted to become a tax haven. Leaders clash over Google On Wednesday, Margrethe Vestager, the European Competition Commissioner, said she would investigate Google's tax arrangements if someone complained about them. The SNP swiftly released a statement to say that a letter was on its way. The European Commission is due to publish plans on Wednesday that may force Google and other multi-national companies to pay more in tax. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Shells $47bn (33bn) takeover of rival oil and gas producer BG is almost certain to become official on Thursday, after the Anglo-Dutch companys shareholders waved through the deal. Shell investors voted overwhelmingly in favour of the deal at an extraordinary meeting in The Hague, with 83 per cent backing the tie-up, despite concerns about the plunging oil price. The vote represented the last potential obstacle to the takeover being approved, since the final step in the process a poll of BG shareholders is widely expected to back the plans. It is a tremendous opportunity to create value for BG shareholders and our Shell holders. It will accelerate and de-risk our strategy, said Shells chief executive, Ben van Beurden. While the vote passed with a clear majority, a sizeable minority opposed the deal, worrying that Shell may be paying too much for BG given the sharp drop in the price of crude, which has tumbled from $55 a barrel when the deal was struck last April to about $31 now. Standard Life, one of Shells major investors, voted against, arguing that it was value destructive for investors. Cavendish Asset Finance also voted against the deal, which its senior investment manager Paul Mumford wanted to see renegotiated at a lower price. When Shell first made an offer for BG, the BG share price was struggling and at that stage it looked to be a valuation that was fair on both parties. Now one feels that maybe the deal should have been renegotiated, he said. Mr Mumford added that Shells case was helped because many of the large institutions owned shares in both firms. This made them more likely to vote for the deal in their capacity as Shell investors because the deal was so good for BG, in which their funds also owned shares. But Shell continued to stress the benefits of the deal, arguing that it was better off with BG than alone while the downturn lasts. Mr van Beurden said the acquisition would put Shell in a much stronger position by creating the worlds biggest trader in liquefied natural gas and greatly increasing its access to Brazils deepwater oil reserves. Shares in Shell rose 41.5p to 1,462p, while BG gained 34.6p to 1,029.5p. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Major airlines are refunding tickets to travellers who have booked flights to countries affected by the Zika virus. The mosquito-born virus is particularly dangerous for pregnant women because of its connection to a neurological disorder, which might result in their babies being born with an abnormally small head. Experts say the Zika virus, which has already spread to 24 countries, has the potential to become an "explosive pandemic". There are fears it may have already crossed to the common mosquito thereby increasing its chances of spreading around the world. Last week, the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) urged pregnant women and women trying to conceive to postpone visits to Puerto Rico, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname and Venezuela. On Friday it added Barbados, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guadeloupe, Saint Martin, Guyana, Cape Verde and Samoa to the list. Some airlines are offering refunds in light of this. They include: British Airways British Airways said pregnant customers due to travel up to and including February 29 who no longer wish to travel can either change their booking free of charge, delay their journey or amend to an alternative destination. The policy applies to passengers flying to Brazil, Mexico, Barbados and the Dominican Republic. The company told the Independent that they will continue to review the situation American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta All three major US airlines are allowing passengers to ask for a refund or delay their holiday to areas affected by the virus American Airlines has expanded its refunds for pregnant customers visiting areas impacted by the Zika virus to include Puerto Rico, Martinique and nine countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean, a spokesman said Wednesday. The world largest airline said it was giving refund to pregnant travellers to five cities in Central America on Tuesday. United, the second-largest US airline by capacity, said it will allow customers who hold tickets to regions impacted by the Zika virus to postpone their trip or receive a full refund. We are offering customers who are traveling to the affected regions the opportunity to rebook at a later date or receive a full refund, United spokesman Charles Hobart said in a statement. Customers with current reservations who are concerned about travelling to destinations affected by Zika Viral Illness should call the company or their local reservations office and speak with a Delta Representative, according to the airlines statement. Customers may qualify for a change to alternate destinations, travel dates or a refund. Customers may make fee-waived changes to future reservations/tickets. However, changes need to be made by February 29, 2016, Delta said. Lufthansa Lufthansa took the decision to issues a goodwill policiy valid as of Thursday January 28. Europes largest airline has issued the following statement to the Independent: "Medically certified pregnant women and their traveling companions booked on international flights to Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and other affected Latin American and Caribbean countries holding a ticket for flights with a flight number of the Lufthansa Group airlines mentioned above (including code share) are permitted one rebooking free of charge. This policy applies to all flights from/to Latin/Central American and Caribbean countries from 28 January 2016 until 31 March 2016, tickets must be issued on/before 28 January 2016," the German airline said. There are no changes in our flight schedules related to this issue. We will continue to monitor the situation closely and we stay in contact with the relevant authorities, Boris Ogursky, a spokesman for Lufthansa Group told the Independent. Battling the zika virus - in pictures Show all 19 1 /19 Battling the zika virus - in pictures Battling the zika virus - in pictures A worker of the Salvadorean Ministry of Health fumigates a house in Soyapango, 6 kilometers from San Salvador, El Salvador. Salvadorean authorities have began a three days campaign of fumigation to reduce the presence of the mosquito that transmit the Zika virus. EPA/Oscar Rivera Battling the zika virus - in pictures A Health Ministry employee fumigates a home against the Aedes aegypti mosquito to prevent the spread of the Zika virus in Soyapango, six km east of San Salvador. Health authorities have issued a national alert against the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, because of the link between the Zika virus and microcephaly and Guillain-BarrE Syndrome in foetuses. AFP PHOTO/Marvin RECINOSMarvin RECINOS/AFP/Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures A pediatric infectologist examines a two-months-old baby, who has microcephaly, on 26 January 2016 in Recife, Brazil. Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures A woman walks through the fumes as Health Ministry employee fumigate against the Aedes aegypti mosquito to prevent the spread of the Zika virus in Soyapango. Marvin RECINOS/AFP/Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures A health ministry employee sprays to eliminate breeding sites of the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, which transmits diseases such as the dengue, chicunguna and Zica viruses, in a Tegucigalpa cemetery on January 21, 2016. The medical school at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) recommended that women in the country avoid getting pregnant for the time being due to the presence of the Zika virus. If a pregnant woman is infected by the virus, the baby could be born with microcephaly. AFP PHOTO/Orlando SIERRA Battling the zika virus - in pictures A man walks away from his home with his son as health workers fumigates the Altos del Cerro neighbourhood as part of preventive measures against the Zika virus and other mosquito-borne diseases in Soyapango, El Salvador REUTERS/Jose Cabezas Battling the zika virus - in pictures A three-months-old, who has microcephaly, in Recife, Brazil. Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures A pregnant woman waits to be attended at the Maternal and Children's Hospital in Tegucigalpa. The medical school at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) recommended that women in the country avoid getting pregnant for the time being due to the presence of the Zika virus. If a pregnant woman is infected by the virus, the baby could be born with microcephaly. ORLANDO SIERRA/AFP/Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures Army soldiers apply insect repellent as they prepare for a clean up operation against the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is a vector for transmitting the Zika virus in Sao Paulo, Brazil. AP Photo/Andre Penner Battling the zika virus - in pictures Workers disinfect the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro to fight the spread of the Zika virus Battling the zika virus - in pictures Dr. Vanessa Van Der Linden, the neuro-pediatrician who first recognized the microcephaly crisis in Brazil, measures the head of a 2-month-old baby with microcephaly in Recife Battling the zika virus - in pictures Mother Mylene Helena Ferreira cares for her son David Henrique Ferreira, 5 months, who has microcephaly, on January 25, 2016 in Recife, Brazil. In the last four months, authorities have recorded close to 4,000 cases in Brazil in which the mosquito-borne Zika virus may have led to microcephaly in infants Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures U.S. women who are pregnant from traveling to many South American countries Battling the zika virus - in pictures In the last four months, authorities have recorded close to 4,000 cases in Brazil in which the mosquito-borne Zika virus may have led to microcephaly in infants. Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures Dr. Vanessa Van Der Linden, the neuro-pediatrician who first recognized the microcephaly crisis in Brazil, examines a two-month-old baby with microcephaly on January 27, 2016 in Recife, Brazil Battling the zika virus - in pictures Washington Post Battling the zika virus - in pictures Battling the zika virus - in pictures Battling the zika virus - in pictures Air France The Zika virus has had no impact on the companys flight operations or to services to the destinations concerned, Air France said. Air France does not offer special conditions for customers who would like to cancel or postpone their booking following the Zika threat, the company told the Independent. Air France continues to closely monitor the situation and is in direct contact with the French and international health authorities. Inside Chicago's Romantic, Boundary-Filled Cuddle Parties By Tony Peregrin in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 28, 2016 6:41PM Three way hug, Chicago Adventures Meetup, November 2015. Photo by Matt Koziel. Cuddling to connect, even with strangers, creates a space of innocent intimacy and helps alleviate loneliness, something that cant always be achieved in the swipe right, app-enabled world. Private cuddle sessions and public cuddle-up events attract both singles and couples looking to reduce anxiety and to feel physically rejuvenated through the curative power of spooning. Some say cuddling is the new yogaand there are definite similarities, according to Madelon Guinazzo, co-founder and director of training for Cuddlist, a network of certified cuddlists trained to empower their clients through consensual, nonsexual touch. We are very present in a cuddle sessionpresent with ourselves and with another person, said Guinazzo, who leads both individual and group cuddle sessions in Chicago. Cuddling involves a specific degree of self-awareness of our bodies and minds. And similar to yoga, its physical. Stretching changes the chemical balance in the body and cuddling releases oxytocin which produces a sense of well-being and happiness. Cuddlist group at a social get-together in New York City, on Jan. 9, 2016. via Cuddliest.com Best practices for cuddling boil down to boundaries and consent. Cuddlist, which launched in 2015, provides their professional cuddlers and clients with a Code of Conduct that encourages confidentiality, bans exchanging saliva, and requires minimum clothing of tank top and mid-thigh shorts. Public eventssuch as those hosted by the Cuddle Party network (Guinazzo is a party facilitator for the Chicago outpost)also follow a set of rules designed to make participants feel safe and accepted. No alcohol is permitted, pajamas stay on the whole time, and the following guiding principal is honored by everyone in attendance: If youre a yes, say yes, if youre a no, say no. If youre a maybesay no. The Code of Conduct is the fence around the playground; within the playground you can play safely. This could include spooning, hugs, foot rubs, neck rubs, cradling, scalp massagea session looks like whatever works for both parties involved, said Guinazzo, who sees a dozen clients a week, mostly men, in her role as a professional cuddlist. Men seem to be more touch deprived, while women have more access to socially acceptable touch, added Guinazzo, who charges $80 an hour, a figure she said is comparable to a massage therapy session. While overt sexual touching is outside the playground parameter, Guinazzo frowns on sex shaming. We dont have a problem with honesty. If you need that, go find it somewhere else. Its all about being human, and responses, like an erection, are normal, healthy responseswe simply dont have to act on them. She said when someone is sexually aroused, in a private or group session, participants are urged to change positions or take a break. If the participants want to talk about it they can or they can just move on. We know erections can happenwere not anti-sex at allbut when you enter the realm of sex it changes the cuddle experience, said Dwight Okita, co-organizer of Cuddle Adventures for Gay Men, which had its first Meetup event at the Center on Halsted in November 2015. Just because this experience isnt meant to be sexual, that doesnt mean its not sensual. It often feels romantic, too. One of my favorite cuddling moments is when I am holding someone and we are both closing our eyes, just holding each other it speaks to an intimacy that a single person doesnt always have access to, said Okita. Okita also compared the transformative benefits of cuddling to yoga and meditation. There are parallels to yogaboth are about using your body in new ways to create better energy flow, he explained. I think they are both about mindfulness and how to be more present. When you are cuddling someone you arent thinking about your laundry, youre thinking about who this person is, and who you are in that moment. And akin to yoga, Okitas group promotes specific positions to ensure the benefits of cuddling are shared by everyone. Cuddle positions include the starfish, where participants lie on their backs with their heads at the center of a circle, holding hands and looking at the ceiling; and the fork which has cuddlers lying face to face ideally with their eyes open. Were different from other cuddle parties because we like to try positions. Weve found that if you dont provide structure, people might sit on the sofa and not interact. This way, everyone is always cuddling someone. One of the main differences between Madelons Cuddle Party and ours is that cuddling is not required for that group. They can sit and chat and so on like they are at a party, explained Okita. The Cuddle Adventures for Gay Men group, which has about 130 members, was formed to address issues that Okita says are endemic of some gay men, specifically an attraction to what some perceive as an ideal physical form. I used to be involved in massage groups and there came a point when peoples appearances were not relevant, that it was not about who was hot. I wanted to replicate that in the cuddle group. Even in the most nonjudgmental, stress-free setting, Guinazzo freely admits that not everyone is going to be open to cuddling as a transformative experience. People are different. Some are picky eaters, others need a certain amount of sleep not everyone benefits from being touched, she said. Nevertheless, the platonic touch phenom continues to expand. In 2014, the film Cuddle: The Documentary was released with the aim of dispelling preconceived notions about group and one-on-one cuddling sessions. For Okita, cuddling make him more cognizant of his existing relationships. Cuddling makes me aware of how tactile my friendships are, he said. I am more conscious of how much time we spend together without any physical contact. Even its just putting my hand on someones shoulder, that small gesture connects you. The next Cuddle Adventures for Gay Men Meetup is March 11. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Damian Lewis has hit back at critics who suggested his Eton-education made him a poor choice for a guest appearance at a local comprehensive school by accusing them of missing the point. Lewis was the subject of an online petition by former students of Acland Burghley school in Tufnell Park, London who suggested Lewiss elitist education made him a wholly inappropriate choice for an event to celebrate the schools 50th-anniversary celebrations. However, the Homeland actor did attend the event at the north-west London school, of which he is a local resident. According to the Press Association, he also responded to the criticism saying: For those people out there who suggested by kindly writing into the newspapers this morning that perhaps I shouldnt be here at all because I wasnt at the school, what I would say to them is I think they are missing the point slightly because it seems to me that this evening is about more than that. People news in pictures Show all 18 1 /18 People news in pictures People news in pictures 7 October 2015 Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in an ice hockey match between former NHL stars and officials at the Shayba Arena in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Vladimir Putin spent his 63rd birthday on the ice, playing hockey with NHL stars against Russian officials and tycoons EPA People news in pictures 6 October 2015 German designer Karl Lagerfeld (R) and model Cara Delevingne (C) appear at the end of his Spring/Summer 2016 women's ready-to-wear collection for fashion house Chanel at the Grand Palais which is transformed into a Chanel airport during the Fashion Week in Paris, France Reuters People news in pictures 5 October 2015 Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne addresses the Conservative party conference in Manchester. The Chancellor argued that reducing the payments to people in low paid jobs would give them economic security by reducing the Governments spending deficit Getty Images People news in pictures 4 October 2015 Cowboys captain Johnathan Thurston takes a moment in the centre of the field with his daughter Frankie Thurston, holding dark-skinned doll, after winning the 2015 NRL Grand Final match between the Brisbane Broncos and the North Queensland Cowboys at ANZ Stadium in Sydney. The image quickly became the talking point of Australias National Rugby League Final and provoked a strong reaction on social media, with many praising Thurston for giving his child a toy that promotes inclusiveness and diversity Getty Images People news in pictures 3 October 2015 Pope Francis gives a thumbs-up as he greets people at the end of an audience to the participants of a meeting organized by the "Food Bank" at the Paul VI audience hall in Vatican Getty Images People news in pictures 2 October 2015 Britain's Finance Minister George Osborne (L) throws an American football as he meets with former American football players Dan Marino (2nd R) and Curtis Martin (not pictured) at 11 Downing Street in London, ahead of the New York Jets playing against the Miami Dolphins at London's Wembley Stadium on 4 October Getty Images People news in pictures 1 October 2015 An honor guard opens the door as Russian President Vladimir Putin enters a hall to attend a meeting with members of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia People news in pictures 30 September 2015 Former Mrs America Lisa Christie, who alleges misconduct by Bill Cosby, holds up photos of her younger self during a news conference at the law office of attorney Gloria Allred in Los Angeles People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Matt Damon has defended himself against claims that he instructed gay actors to remain in the closet. He had said I think youre a better actor the less people know about you and sexuality is a huge part of that. Whether youre straight or gay, people shouldnt know anything about your sexuality but an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show said, I was just trying to say actors are more effective when theyre a mystery. Right? Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Marion Cotillard has said that there is no place for feminism in Hollywood. Speaking to Porter magazine, she saidFilm-making is not about gender/ You cannot ask a president in a festival like Cannes to have, like, five movies directed by women and five by men. For me it doesnt create equality, it creates separation. I mean, I dont qualify myself as a feminist." Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Paul Walkers daughter, Meadow, is suing Porsche over her fathers death in a lawsuit that claims he was trapped in the burning car because of design flaws and the seat belt. The Fast and Furious star was killed when the Porsche Carrera GT he was a passenger in hit a pole in California in 2013. The driver, his friend Roger Rodas, also died when the vehicle burst into flames. AP People news in pictures 28 September 2015 Robert Mugabe waits to address the United Nations General Assembly. The leader of Zimbabwe reportedly exclaimed 'We are not gay!' as he criticised Western nation's "double standards and attempts to prescribe new rights that are contrary to our values, norms, traditions and beliefs. In 2013 he described homosexuals as worse than pigs, goats and birds. Reuters People news in pictures 28 September 2015 South African comedian Trevor Noah hosts the first 'Daily Show' since taking over from Jon Stewart as host. Stewart had presented the US satirical news show since 1999 and was described by Noah during the show as a 'Political father' 2015 Getty Images People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Sir Elton John may have received a phone call from the real Vladimir Putin. Mr Putin's spokesman announced he had made contact weeks after the singer was duped by pranksters pretending to be the Russian President. Getty People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Actor Leonardo DiCaprio was mistakenly declared as the artist who produced the Mona Lisa by Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. It was in fact Leonardo da Vinci. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 A new biography claims Donald Trump expected to be dead by 40 and never marry. The Guardian says the a new book also claims that in 1980, Mr Trump manufactured a fake vice-president of his real estate conglomerate, whom he called John Baron. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 The Dalai Lama has said that Britain's policy towards China is just about 'Money, money, money.' And asked 'Where is morality?' People news in pictures 24 September 2015 Puff Daddy secured the number-one spot on the Forbes Hip Hop Cash Kings list, with the publication calculating he made an estimated $60million (39m) between June 2014 and June 2015. It seems to me that this evening is about a celebration of our community here in Tufnell Park and the role the school has played here in Tufnell Park in the last 50 years. Critics of the decision have questioned why high profile alumni such as reggae singer Eddy Grant and Mercury Prize Winner Ms Dynamite were not chosen for the event instead. However, petition leaders were reportedly told by event organisers that they were unable to secure any ex-Burghley students from the arts world by the time the event went ahead. The headteacher of the school, Nicholas John, has defended their decision to invite Lewis to proceedings, telling the Camden New Journal the school he went to is of no consequence and despite the large number of prestigious alumni the school has, the community extends to people living in our neighbourhood. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Russias controversial living-pain performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky has been transferred from pre-trial detention to a Moscow psychiatric hospital to undergo evaluation, his partner has reported. Mr Pavlensky, a dissident best known for nailing his scrotum to the cobblestones of Red Square, was set to attend the first hearing in his criminal case of vandalism on Wednesday, but was transferred to the Serbsky psychiatric institution instead. Recommended Read more Performance artist Laurie Anderson plays concert for dogs in New York His partner, Oksana Shalygina, discovered his whereabouts only hours after news that Mr Pavlenskys had been moved by police on Wednesday night. She says that her partner could be kept at the psychiatric institute for up to three weeks. The Serbsky institute was quarantined immediately after Pyotr was admitted. Nobody, not even his lawyers, was allowed in, Ms Shalygina told The Independent. Its quite possible that they did that to deprive him of all contact with the outside world. Forensic tests on him began straight away. The Serbsky psychiatric institute itself became the site of one of Mr Pavlenskys protests in 2014. In a performance entitled Segregation, he climbed onto the wall surrounding the institute and sliced off his ear lobe with a kitchen knife. The act, he said, was a demonstration of how the politically motivated use of psychiatry by the Russian government can sever an individual from society. During Soviet times, authorities would silence dissidents by forcefully sending them to psychiatric wards, a practice Kremlin critics say has returned in the years following the anti-Putin protest that shook Russia in 2011 and 2012. Recommended Read more Woman stabbed in gallery attack mistaken for performance art Mr Pavlensky says that instruments of state power are vital to his performances. Every movement by the authorities pulls them deeper and deeper in. They become involuntary participants in the production of my art, he said last year. His criminal case was opened in 2014 after he and other activists burned car tyres and waved a Ukrainian flag in a St Petersburg square. The activists called it a show of solidary with the Maidan protests in Kiev which ousted pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych earlier that year. Mr Pavlensky was arrested again last November when he torched the front doors of the headquarters of the FSB security service in Moscow. He called the performance a protest against the behaviour of the FSB, who act using the method of unending terror and holds power over 146 million people. This is a fight for the naming and establishment of borders and forms of political art, Ms Shalygina said. Pyotr and I are fine. We are in the process of political art. Sign up for a full digest of all the best opinions of the week in our Voices Dispatches email Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Voices Dispatches email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The ancient Babylonians used a complex form of geometry to compute the movements of Jupiter about 1400 years earlier than the invention of the same technique in medieval Europe a technique that became the basis of modern-day graphs, a study has found. An historian of science has discovered evidence that Babylonian priests living between 350BC and 50BC invented and used an abstract form of geometry that until now was thought to have been invented in the 14th Century, eventually evolving into calculus, the mathematical study of how something changes over time. One of the clay tablets containing the cuneiform text Although algebra and geometry were both well known in ancient Babylonia a culture extending back to 1800BC as well as in the later period of ancient Greece, this is the first time that anyone has found evidence to show that Babylonian scholars knew how to use geometry to plot the irregular movements of a planet, said Mathieu Ossendrijer, professor of the history of ancient science at Humboldt University in Berlin. What is new is that the Babylonians also used geometry in their astronomy. We have evidence that they used geometrical figures to gauge the motion of planets but the really exciting thing is that the kind of geometry they used is very special, Professor Ossendrijver said. What we have found essentially is almost like a modern-day graph a geometrical figure that represents an abstract mathematical space. Thats really new and exciting as it was thought to have been first invented much later, around 1350, he said. Babylonian cuneiform text etched onto clay tablets held in the British Museum in London has revealed that the priests were calculating the movements of Jupiter during the first 60 days it appeared above the horizon by plotting the planets irregular motion away from the regular path of the Sun. Babylonian ruler King Marduk-Nadin-Akke pictured on a boundary stone (Getty) Jupiters movement across the sky appears to slow, although it is in fact due to the relative movements of its orbit with respect to the Earths. A graph of Jupiters apparent velocity against time would therefore slope down so that the area under the curve forms a trapezoid a four-sided shape with a sloping top. It is clear from the clay tablets that the Babylonians were able to plot Jupiters movements as a line on a graph of movement against time, and then calculating the distance moved by measuring the area formed by the four-sided trapezoid shape of the graph a shape the Babylonian priests called the oxen head. Recommended Read more Site of ancient massacre yields the secrets of a lost Greek city It was this ability to compute the movements of an object moving with a changing velocity using geometric principles that was unheard of before the 14th Century AD, Professor Ossendriver said. Science news in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Science news in pictures Science news in pictures Pluto has 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen Pluto has a 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen that is doing strange things to its surface, Nasa has found. The mysterious core seems to be the cause of features on its surface that have fascinated scientists since they were spotted by Nasa's New Horizons mission. "Before New Horizons, everyone thought Pluto was going to be a netball - completely flat, almost no diversity," said Tanguy Bertrand, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and the lead author on the new study. "But it's completely different. It has a lot of different landscapes and we are trying to understand what's going on there." Getty Science news in pictures Over 400 species discovered this year by Natural History Museum The ancient invertabrate worm-like species rhenopyrgus viviani (pictured) is one of over 400 species previously unknown to science that were discovered by experts at the Natural History Museum this year PA Science news in pictures Jackdaws can identify 'dangerous' humans Jackdaws can identify dangerous humans from listening to each others warning calls, scientists say. The highly social birds will also remember that person if they come near their nests again, according to researchers from the University of Exeter. In the study, a person unknown to the wild jackdaws approached their nest. At the same time scientists played a recording of a warning call (threatening) or contact calls (non-threatening). The next time jackdaws saw this same person, the birds that had previously heard the warning call were defensive and returned to their nests more than twice as quickly on average. Getty Science news in pictures Turtle embryos influence sex by shaking The sex of the turtle is determined by the temperatures at which they are incubated. Warm temperatures favour females. But by wiggling around the egg, embryos can find the Goldilocks Zone which means they are able to shield themselves against extreme thermal conditions and produce a balanced sex ratio, according to the new study published in Current Biology journal Ye et al/Current Biology Science news in pictures Elephant poaching rates drop in Africa African elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years, an international study has found. It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017. Reuters Science news in pictures Ancient four-legged whale discovered in Peru Scientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale. Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planets oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago A. Gennari Science news in pictures Animal with transient anus discovered A scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a transient anus that appears only when it is needed, before vanishing completely. Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species. However, as the animal gets full, a pore opens up to dispose of waste Steven G Johnson Science news in pictures Giant bee spotted Feared extinct, the Wallace's Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years. An international team of conservationists spotted the bee, that is four times the size of a typical honeybee, on an expedition to a group of Indonesian Islands Clay Bolt Science news in pictures New mammal species found inside crocodile Fossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago. The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animal New Mexico Museum of Natural History Science news in pictures Fabric that changes according to temperature created Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat, expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold Faye Levine, University of Maryland Science news in pictures Baby mice tears could be used in pest control A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males Getty Science news in pictures Final warning to limit "climate catastrophe" The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase Getty Science news in pictures Nobel prize for evolution chemists The nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution. Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes, while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodies Getty/AFP Science news in pictures Nobel prize for laser physicists The nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers. Arthur Ashkin (L) was awarded for his "optical tweezers" which use lasers to grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells. Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasers Reuters/AP Science news in pictures Discovery of a new species of dinosaur The Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa. Recently discovered by a team of international scientists, it was the largest land animal of its time, weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet. In Sesotho, the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered, its name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn" Viktor Radermacher / SWNS Science news in pictures Birth of a planet Scientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever. This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star. ESO/A. Muller et al Science news in pictures New human organ discovered that was previously missed by scientists Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the interstitium. These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins Getty Science news in pictures Previously unknown society lived in Amazon rainforest before Europeans arrived, say archaeologists Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest. These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs Jose Iriarte Science news in pictures One in 10 people have traces of cocaine or heroin on fingerprints, study finds More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test. Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly. Getty Science news in pictures Nasa releases stunning images of Jupiter's great red spot The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth. Pictures by: Tom Momary Its like a precursor if you like of what we know today as integral calculus, which allows us to calculate the movements of decelerating or accelerating objects. Its a concept that was invented twice; once in ancient Babylonia and then re-invented around 1350 in medieval Europe. The ancient Greeks never did this, he said. There are no geometrical shapes or graphs depicted on the clay tablets, and all the descriptions are in cuneiform script. However, it is clear from the well-documented terminology used by the priests that they were referring to this form of abstract geometrical calculation, Professor Ossendrijver said. The tablets were written by priests in the temple. They computed the position of all five planets that they knew about, but Jupiter had the largest number of texts devoted to it. This was probably because Jupiter was associated with the supreme god of Babylon, Marduk, Professor Ossendrijver said. The study is published in the journal Science. Sign up for a full digest of all the best opinions of the week in our Voices Dispatches email Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Voices Dispatches email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Children and adolescents are twice as likely to exhibit suicidal or aggressive behaviour if they take commonly prescribed antidepressants, according to a new study. Researchers also found that reports on clinical trials by drug companies frequently downplayed the most serious side-effects, which they only discovered by looking at the raw patient data. More than half of the suicide attempts and episodes of suicidal thoughts were described as the worsening of depression or emotional lability - a term which usually refers to bouts of uncontrollable crying or laughing - by the pharmaceutical company. Tarang Sharma, the lead author of a paper published in the British Medical Journal,said the researchers had looked at clinical trial reports and the raw data relating to more than 18,500 patients. They did not find evidence of increased cases of suicidal or aggressive behaviour among adults, but the risk of both was at least double for those under the age of 18. We suggest minimal use of antidepressants in children, adolescents, and young adults, as the serious harms seem to be greater, and as their effect seems to be below what is clinically relevant, the BMJ paper said, suggesting exercise or psychotherapy could be used as alternatives. None of the children in the studies killed themselves, Ms Sharma said, but she added that they were all heavily monitored at the time as they were taking part in clinical trials. The study looked at selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), which are the most commonly prescribed drugs for depression. Ms Sharma was surprised by the extent to which serious side-effects were downplayed by the companies. Its been actually quite shocking to me to see this kind of stuff. What they are doing is wrong. They give a very inaccurate picture of what the true harms [side-effects] are, she said. You cannot really trust them that much because they are really often exaggerating the benefits and the harms are minimised. I was quite disturbed actually. It did not expect it to be that bad. Sixteen adults died and the paper said the circumstances of four were misreported by the company concerned in all cases favouring the active drug. A patient receiving venlafaxine attempted suicide by strangulation without forewarning and died five days later in hospital, the paper said. Although the suicide attempt occurred on day 21 out of the 56 days of randomised treatment, the death was called a post-study event as it occurred in hospital and treatment had been discontinued because of the suicide attempt. Ms Sharma, a PhD student at Copenhagen University and a former pharmaceutical company employee, said regulators did not always ask for the raw data and urged them to make this routine. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A group claiming to behind hoax bomb threats at dozens of schools in England and France is taking requests to cause evacuations at schools, offices, courts and sporting events across the world. The "evacuators", as they have been calling themselves, have had their Twitter account suspended but continue to operate using online messaging and email. Recommended Read more West Midlands schools hit by another wave of bomb threats A mission statement was posted on the internet shortly after 6am on Tuesday morning, inviting people to send in requests for your school/work/business/etc to be sent a bomb threat. Hello, and we are EvacuationSquad, it read. We do what we do for a few reasons: We hate the American government,we hate authority and we LOVE to cause mayhem. The post gave contact details including an email address with a .ru Russian domain and XMPP messaging address ending .su the country code assigned for the Soviet Union which has since become a haven for cyber criminals. It went online hours before six prestigious schools in Paris and 14 across the West Midlands, London and Cornwall were evacuated after receiving threats. Police found no evidence of suspicious devices and said the incidents were being treated as malicious communications. As security checks continued, gloating tweets were sent from the @Ev4cuati0nSquad Twitter profile, which carried a photo of a wryly smiling Vladimir Putin and part of a flag linked to Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah. Schools in Paris dropping like flies, one said. Hows the West Midlands doing? another asked. Bomb threats made to schools in Paris on Tuesday were believed to be linked to those in England. (Reuters) Tweets used the hashtags #SWATTED and #SwatTheWorld in an apparent reference to a type of hoax known as swatting" in the US, where emergency services are deliberately duped into deploying armed units or bomb squads. The Evacuators 2K16 account, which has since been suspended, also announced its support for Bashar al-Assads Syrian regime and claimed it was controlled by six individuals based internationally. A pinned tweet read: Want to get out of school for a day? Want to divert the police away from a crime youre going to commit? Email us. A separate advert posted online contained a pricelist ranging from $5 for a school and $50 for major sporting events. Businesses, workplaces, courts and conventions were also on an optional list of targets, although the post said anything not listed would be negotiable. Police and bomb disposal experts found no evidence of any explosive devices (AFP/Getty Images) Additionally, you may have a person of your choice framed for an extra $5 in Bitcoin, it added. If you wish to have this done, please send us their contact details and/or social media accounts. Thank you. The post, ending peace out, was still online advertising the groups supposed services on Thursday as police investigated the latest round of bomb threats around Birmingham. West Midlands Police said its officers found there was no credible risk to the 14 affected schools after teachers raised the alarm when calls started rolling in at around 8am. Detective Inspector Colin Mattinson said: At this stage there is nothing to suggest there is any credible threat to any of the schools. Our response officers have been sent to the locations to ensure there is no threat to anyones safety and support the schools. UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 15 September 2022 Members of the public in the queue on in Potters Fields Park, central London, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 14 September 2022 The first members of the public pay their respects as the vigil begins around the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Hall, London, where it will lie in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2022 Crowds cheer as King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort arrive for a visit to Hillsborough Castle Getty UK news in pictures 12 September 2022 Crowds line the Royal Mile, Edinburgh, as King Charles III joins a procession from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to St Giles Cathedral following the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS UK news in pictures 11 September 2022 Members of the Public pay their respects as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, is driven through Ballater AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 10 September 2022 Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales, Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, wave at well-wishers on the Long walk at Windsor Castle AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 9 September 2022 King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort wave after viewing floral tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Buckingham Palace Getty UK news in pictures 8 September 2022 A screen commemorating Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in Piccadilly Circus, London Britain EPA UK news in pictures 7 September 2022 Police officers stand guard after Animal Rebellion activists threw paint on the walls and road outside the Houses of Parliament in protest, in London, Britain Reuters UK news in pictures 6 September 2022 Queen Elizabeth II welcomes Liz Truss during an audience at Balmoral, Scotland, where she invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2022 Visitors at the PoliNations garden in Victoria Square, Birmingham, which is made up of five 40ft high tree installations and over 6,000 plants. The PoliNations programme aims to explore how migration and cross-pollination have shaped the UKs gardens and culture PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2022 Undergraduates at the University of St Andrews take part in the traditional Pier Walk along the harbour walls of St Andrews before the start of the new academic year PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2022 The Massed Pipes and Drums parade during the Braemar Highland Gathering at the Princess Royal and Duke of Fife Memorial Park PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2022 Number 12 Company Irish Guards at Wellington Barracks, central London, before commencing their first Guard Mount at Buckingham Palace PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2022 A salmon leaps up the weir at Hexham in Northumberland, despite the drought warnings and low water levels, the River Tyne is still flowing well allowing the salmon and sea trout to head up river to spawn. Every year tens of thousands of salmon make the once-in-a-lifetime journey along the Tyne to spawn, having been out a sea PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2022 Flowers are placed at the gates outside Kensington Palace, London, the former home of Diana, Princess of Wales, on the 25th anniversary of her death PA A police investigation is on-going to find the person responsible for these calls. Several of the affected schools in Birmingham, Oldbury, Tipton and other parts of the county were evacuated on Tuesday after similar threats. The Paris schools received practically identical calls for an hour starting at 10.20am (9.20am GMT), French police said. Students at Charlemagne, Fenelon, Montaigne, Condorcet, Henri IV and Louis le Grand schools were moved to secure areas while police carried out searches, while schools in England were temporarily shut down. Similar phone threats started with four schools in the Black Country, causing hundreds of pupils to be evacuated before police confirmed they were hoaxes. Police could not confirm whether the threats were from the same source or part of a co-ordinated hoax and inquiries continue. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} At least 14 schools have been targeted with another wave of bomb threats in an emerging pattern of false and malicious phone calls. West Midlands Police said its officers found there was no credible risk following investigations on Thursday morning, as investigations continue to find the person responsible. Teachers raised the alarm when calls started rolling in at around 8am. West Midlands Police said there was no evidence of a credible threat (West Midland Police) Detective Inspector Colin Mattinson said: At this stage there is nothing to suggest there is any credible threat to any of the schools. Our response officers have been sent to the locations to ensure there is no threat to anyones safety and support the schools. A police investigation is on-going to find the person responsible for these calls. Several of the affected schools in Birmingham, Oldbury, Tipton and other parts of the county were evacuated on Tuesday after receiving similar threats. Bomb threats made to schools in Paris on Tuesday were believed to be linked to those in England. (Reuters) More than a dozen schools were temporarily shut down as a precaution in the West Midlands, London and Cornwall on that day, seeing thousands of children evacuated. A Twitter profile using the handle @Ev4cuati0nSquad appeared to claim responsibility for those threats and ones at a similar time in Paris, claiming to be able to divert the police away from a crime youre going to commit, the Birmingham Mail reported. The page, which has since been suspended, carried a photo of Vladimir Putin and announced its support for Bashar al-Assads Syrian regime. Advertising its services, the account claimed it was controlled by six individuals based internationally that could carry out bomb threats on request. A separate advert posted online contained a pricelist ranging from $5 for a school and $50 for major sporting events. Police found no evidence of suspicious devices and said the incidents were being treated as malicious communications. Similar phone threats started with four schools in the Black Country last week, causing hundreds of pupils to be evacuated before police confirmed they were hoaxes. Police could not confirm whether the threats were from the same source or part of a co-ordinated hoax and inquiries continue. The schools affected on Thursday were: Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Aberdeen is to receive up to 250 million from the UK Government as part of a new City Deal to protect its status as a hub for the countrys oil and gas industry, under a new agreement. Funding for the long-awaited agreement, which comes after a global slump in the value of oil prompted major producers such as BP and Shell to announce severe job losses and salary cuts for existing employees, will be matched by the Scottish Government. It is hoped that the City Deal will provide a much-needed shot in the arm for the economy of North East Scotland, allowing for the creation of a new energy innovation centre and helping the industry to exploit remaining North Sea oil and gas reserves. The funding will also help with the expansion of Aberdeen harbour, enabling the city to compete for decommissioning work, ministers said. Greater digital connectivity and support for growing pharmaceutical and agri-food industries are also promised. David Mundell, the Scotland Secretary, will visit Aberdeen later to sign the deal on behalf of the UK Government. David Cameron will then announce further measures to safeguard oil and gas sector jobs as he meets local workers. Oil and gas is a crucial sector, not just for the North East of Scotland but for the whole of the UK. I know its a very tough time for people who work in the industry and their families, and I am determined that the UK Government will do what it can to support them, Mr Mundell said. We need action which will help in the short, medium and long terms building a bridge to the future of the North Sea; helping the UKs oil and gas industry to export its world-class expertise around the globe; and encouraging diversification of the economy to create new opportunities in other sectors too. Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire councils submitted a bid for a UK City Deal worth 2.9 billion to both Governments last year, but negotiations have been rushed through in light of the downturn in the oil industry. A week ago Nicola Sturgeon, Scotlands First Minister, wrote to David Cameron urging him to sign an agreement on the citys future as a matter of urgency. City Deals are UK Government initiatives in which investment is targeted to boost local economic growth. A similar agreement worth 1.1bn for Glasgow and the Clyde Valley region was signed in 2014. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} An American Airlines flight to Los Angeles was forced to return to London Heathrow after seven flight staff and many passengers collapsed due to mysterious illness. Passengers were shocked to see flight attendants collapse in the aisles, sparking fears about contamination in the air conditioning. When Flight AA109 was airborne near Keflavik in Iceland, an announcement in the passenger cabin asked for any doctors onboard to come forward. One passenger, Lee Gunn, told the Mirror: "About 2.5 hours into the flight just as we were passing Iceland we had a tannoy announcement asking for any doctors, nurses or medical professionals on board to report to the boarding doors to assist with unwell passengers. "The lights then came on in the cabin and there was lots of commotion. "It was also reported that seven of the crew - 13 on board in total I believe - had fallen ill, along with 'many passengers'." Another passenger, Alan Gray, told MailOnline: "One of the flight attendants was walking down the aisle when she collapsed. Then up to six other cabin crew members said they felt light-headed and as though they were going to faint. "It was at that point the captain said he was turning the plane around. He said he wasn't willing to take the risk to keep going and hadn't got the crew to do it. "It was just a bit mad. We didn't really know what was going on." Why you need to watch the in-flight safety briefing The American Airlines flight landed at Heathrow airport, five hours after it had left. Passengers were not allowed to disembark while the plane was surrounded by police cars, ambulances and fire crews. London Ambulance crews checked over six patients who were feeling unwell and discharged them on the scene. A spokesperson for American Airlines confirmed the plane turned round due to a medical emergency and said it was not security-related. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A man found dead near the site of a 1949 air crash is no longer believed to be a childhood survivor of the disaster who was making a forlorn pilgrimage to the scene, but police believe he could be a grandfather who has been missing for 22 years. Detectives have spent more than a month investigating the death of the smartly-dressed man, who is believed to have travelled more than 200 miles from London to the remote Saddleworth Moor in Greater Manchester, where his body was discovered. One theory being investigated by police was that the man may have been trying to make a pilgrimage to the scene of a plane crash in August, 1949, which killed 24 people. Two young boys were among eight people saved from the wreckage of a British European Airways Douglas DC-3 Dakota, although one of them later died in a second accident. The other boy, who is now a 72-year-old professor, has now contacted police. Recommended Read more The mystery of a pensioner who dressed up to die in the Pennines Professor Stephen Evans, who lives in Southampton and works part-time at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, believes he is the last survivor of the disaster. My younger brother was killed in the crash, but my parents and I were the only family with more than one survivor, he told the Manchester Evening News. "There were boy scouts from the Oldham area among the first on the scene and they carried me to a farmhouse. The dead man was found above a reservoir close to the summit of Indians Head on the moor on 12 December. He was carrying three train tickets purchased at London stations and 130 all in 10 notes. The man caught on CCTV in London It has emerged he was also carrying an empty plastic medicine bottle containing medication for hypothyroidism. An image of the man was captured on CCTV at Ealing Broadway train station on 11 December, where he bought a ticket to Euston. He travelled from London to Manchester Piccadilly, where he spent 53 minutes walking around and buying food, and later arrived at The Clarence pub in Greenfield, Saddleworth, where he asked for directions to the Indians Head summit. The landlord warned him he would run out of daylight while making the journey, but he set off undeterred. He was discovered dead the next day lying face down on the path by a walker. A second post-mortem is due to take place next week. Detectives now believe that the dead man could be a grandfather named Hugh Toner, who disappeared from a hospital in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, on 7 February, 1994. Professor Stephen Evans was a childhood survivor of Saddleworth Moor plane crash 1949 (Manchester Evening News) Mr Toner, who had links in Bath and Swindon, has never been found. Detectives have now contacted his family and have asked them to provide DNA samples in a bid to solve the mystery. Police Service Northern Ireland has confirmed that it has been contacted by Greater Manchester Police. Officers re-appealed for information about Mr Toner's whereabouts on the 20th anniversary of his disappearance in February, 2014. Detective Sergeant John Coleman, who is leading the Greater Manchester Police investigation, said: We are keeping a completely open mind. We are investigating many possible avenues, one of which is missing persons. With that in mind, we have requested DNA samples from the family of Mr Hugh Toner. There is a resemblance between him and the man whose death we are currently investigating and they will allow us to either eliminate him from our enquiries or identify him. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Storm Gertrude is set to batter the UK on Friday, bringing wind gusts of up to 80mph and drenching some areas with heavy rain. The Met Office has issued an amber weather warning for wind in Northern Ireland and most of Scotland. We warn the public and emergency responders of severe or hazardous weather which has the potential to cause danger to life, the website reads. A yellow warning for snow, ice and rain has also been issued for the majority of Scotland and parts of northern England. Met Office spokesperson Lindsay Mears told The Independent: Storm Gertrude is expected to come in [on Thursday night]. Its impact will be [felt] in the early hours of Friday morning, mostly in Northern Ireland, Scotland, north-west England and north-east England." Gusts between 60mph and 80mph, especially near costal areas, and heavy rain threaten to lash these areas between 3am and 10am on Friday. Western Scotland and north of central Scotland could receive between 40mm and 60mm of rain. Ms Mears said public safety issues were associated with amber warnings, such as structural damage and disruption to power supplies. Storm Gertrude, the result of an Atlantic low moving across the UK, will then travel down the country bringing heavy winds of up to 70mph for the Midlands and rain for south-west England up until around 6pm on Friday. But temperatures will be mild. Ms Mears said: Wetter, windier weather is associated with milder temperatures. So it will be 8C or 9C in Scotland and around 11C in the north of England. Saturday will be a continuation of the wind, with gales in central and north-eastern areas of the UK. Ms Mears said the weather would be quite unsettled, with heavy rain expected in the west. Temperatures in Scotland will take a dip on Sunday. It will be quite cold, with more gales. There could be some snow in northern areas, said Ms Mears. Were looking at 5C or 6C in Scotland and the north of England. In the south of England, temperatures will hover between 10C and 11C, hitting around 13C in London. Chicago Police Records Shed Light On The Causes Of Dashcam Malfunctions By Mae Rice in News on Jan 28, 2016 4:17PM A still from the Laquan McDonald dashcam video, which had minimal audio due to mic issues Have Chicago police been tampering with the dashcams and microphones in their squad cars? Answering that question conclusively requires knowing officers' intent, (which we don't), but newly-released police maintenance records do shed some light on department's technical difficulties. They document widespread mechanical issues, and slightly less widespread misuse of machinery by police officers, according to the Sun-Times. From September 2014 to July 2015, an 11-month period, squad vehicles were missing mics 86 of the 1,700 times they were sent to the shop for maintenance, the Sun-Times reports. Another 29 times, their microphones werent synced to their camera systems correctly. That amounts to technology issues in less than 10 percent of maintenance cases, most of them caused by hardware issues or over-stuffed hard drives. However, there were dozens of cases where tampering wasnt out of the question, the Sun-Times notes. (In at least two cases, maintenance logs mentioned a chance that mics were intentionally defeated.) Interest in these records has grown since officer Jason Van Dyke shot Laquan McDonald 16 times, killing him. The incidentfor which Van Dyke has been charged with six counts of murderwas caught on dashcam, but with only very faint audio, prompting questions about how officers are using their recording equipment. The McDonald shooting wasnt an isolated incident, either. There were 22 police-involved shootings reviewed by the Cook County states attorneys office last year, the Sun-Times notes, and none of those cases had audio and only a few had dashcam footage, according to officials. The Chicago Police Department is trying to ensure officers use their equipment properly by disciplining officersmore than 20 since the McDonald footage was releasedfor improper dashcam use. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Abusive online trolls are inadvertently raising money for refugees thanks to one womans social media strategy. Libby Freemans Calais Action, devoted to delivering essentials such as clothing to thousands at the French port and more recently in Greece, introduced the innovative TrollAid on Tuesday. When someone criticises the charity on Facebook or Twitter, typically posting anti-refugee or racist sentiment, the group replies with a rehearsed response and a link inviting all and sundry to donate. Libby, a 34-year-old Hackney-based set designer, says the initiative is as much about education as it is about "shutting down" trolls. "We've always had issues on social media," said Libby, originally from Northampton. "There is a very big split in the country and in Europe as to whether people are dead against helping refugees or for it. "We were talking about the problem when my friend said what about if people could sign up to some kind of initiative, or pledge, every time someone puts something negative on the page." Libby struggles to count the number of trolls the charity has witnessed, believing about "40-odd" have been banned, but one comment in particular sticks in her memory: The abuse posted to Calais Action's Facebook page Calais Action will respond with a link to its message on Facebook, and a Crowdfunding page, which reads: "Introducing TrollAid - A way for trolls to directly raise money for refugees." Calais Action Info PackFollowing on the success from our Q&A on the 19th December, LOTS of you are asking what you can... Posted by Calais Action on Thursday, 24 December 2015 The page has raised more than 800 since its launch. In a further tongue-in-cheek twist, the charity can later grace the troll with the news of how much they have single-handedly raised if people have accompanied their donation with a personal "thanks" to the troll. Libby, who previously handed out duvets to homeless people in London, first drove out to Calais with six others in two Transit vans in August. The Calais Action team and members from the Sunday Assembly (Calais Action) Most recently the team shipped out a container to refugees in Greece filled with 1,200 survival packs containing hats, gloves, toys and messages. "I first drove down because the Government wasnt doing anything, or any other charities, and it just felt really inhumane," added Libby. There are more than an estimated 7,000 refugees in the "Calais "Jungle". Libby says anyone is welcome to respond to their own Twitter trolls with the same link to the crowdfunding page. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The Zika virus could infect up to four million people, the World Health Organisation has warned. The virus, which is strongly suspected of causing birth defects including the shrinking of foetuses' brains and heads, has the potential to become an "explosive pandemic", WHO also said. Marcos Espinal, head of communicable diseases at the WHO's Americas arm, said a study would soon be published suggesting a correlation between Zika and microcephaly in Brazil. "We don't know yet if this virus crosses the placenta and generates or causes microcephaly. We think it plays a role. There's no doubt about that," he said. A three-months-old, who has microcephaly, in Recife, Brazil. (Getty Images) It comes as Brazilian experts at Oswaldo Cruz Foundation said the virus - thought to be confined to the Aedes Aegypti mosquito in the tropics - may have already crossed over to the culex mosquito - which would increase its chances of being spreading around the world The culex is 20 times more common in Brazil and present in parts of Africa and Asia. The Zika virus has been linked to the epidemic of microcephaly in Brazil and the Americas, which causes babies to be born with small heads with a circumference of less than 31.5-32 cm at birt Constancia Ayres, research co-ordinator said: "The interaction of the mosquito with the virus may explain the epidemiological profile of disease transmission," reported the Telegraph. A pediatric infectologist examines a two-months-old baby, who has microcephaly, on 26 January 2016 in Recife, Brazil. (Getty Images) Ms Ayres added that if culex mosquitoes do carry the virus, "it means much more combined efforts from a lot of other countries are going to be needed to combat the virus". US scientists have urged the World Health Organisation (WHO) to learn from the Ebola outbreak and take urgent action on combatting the virus, which they say has "explosive pandemic potential", and plan to organise an emergency committee of disease experts the BBC reported. Battling the zika virus - in pictures Show all 19 1 /19 Battling the zika virus - in pictures Battling the zika virus - in pictures A worker of the Salvadorean Ministry of Health fumigates a house in Soyapango, 6 kilometers from San Salvador, El Salvador. Salvadorean authorities have began a three days campaign of fumigation to reduce the presence of the mosquito that transmit the Zika virus. EPA/Oscar Rivera Battling the zika virus - in pictures A Health Ministry employee fumigates a home against the Aedes aegypti mosquito to prevent the spread of the Zika virus in Soyapango, six km east of San Salvador. Health authorities have issued a national alert against the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, because of the link between the Zika virus and microcephaly and Guillain-BarrE Syndrome in foetuses. AFP PHOTO/Marvin RECINOSMarvin RECINOS/AFP/Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures A pediatric infectologist examines a two-months-old baby, who has microcephaly, on 26 January 2016 in Recife, Brazil. Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures A woman walks through the fumes as Health Ministry employee fumigate against the Aedes aegypti mosquito to prevent the spread of the Zika virus in Soyapango. Marvin RECINOS/AFP/Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures A health ministry employee sprays to eliminate breeding sites of the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, which transmits diseases such as the dengue, chicunguna and Zica viruses, in a Tegucigalpa cemetery on January 21, 2016. The medical school at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) recommended that women in the country avoid getting pregnant for the time being due to the presence of the Zika virus. If a pregnant woman is infected by the virus, the baby could be born with microcephaly. AFP PHOTO/Orlando SIERRA Battling the zika virus - in pictures A man walks away from his home with his son as health workers fumigates the Altos del Cerro neighbourhood as part of preventive measures against the Zika virus and other mosquito-borne diseases in Soyapango, El Salvador REUTERS/Jose Cabezas Battling the zika virus - in pictures A three-months-old, who has microcephaly, in Recife, Brazil. Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures A pregnant woman waits to be attended at the Maternal and Children's Hospital in Tegucigalpa. The medical school at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) recommended that women in the country avoid getting pregnant for the time being due to the presence of the Zika virus. If a pregnant woman is infected by the virus, the baby could be born with microcephaly. ORLANDO SIERRA/AFP/Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures Army soldiers apply insect repellent as they prepare for a clean up operation against the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is a vector for transmitting the Zika virus in Sao Paulo, Brazil. AP Photo/Andre Penner Battling the zika virus - in pictures Workers disinfect the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro to fight the spread of the Zika virus Battling the zika virus - in pictures Dr. Vanessa Van Der Linden, the neuro-pediatrician who first recognized the microcephaly crisis in Brazil, measures the head of a 2-month-old baby with microcephaly in Recife Battling the zika virus - in pictures Mother Mylene Helena Ferreira cares for her son David Henrique Ferreira, 5 months, who has microcephaly, on January 25, 2016 in Recife, Brazil. In the last four months, authorities have recorded close to 4,000 cases in Brazil in which the mosquito-borne Zika virus may have led to microcephaly in infants Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures U.S. women who are pregnant from traveling to many South American countries Battling the zika virus - in pictures In the last four months, authorities have recorded close to 4,000 cases in Brazil in which the mosquito-borne Zika virus may have led to microcephaly in infants. Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures Dr. Vanessa Van Der Linden, the neuro-pediatrician who first recognized the microcephaly crisis in Brazil, examines a two-month-old baby with microcephaly on January 27, 2016 in Recife, Brazil Battling the zika virus - in pictures Washington Post Battling the zika virus - in pictures Battling the zika virus - in pictures Battling the zika virus - in pictures Authorities have reportedly put troops on the street and deployed health workers in a bid to combat the virus spreading further. Dilma Roussef, Brazils president said at a summit in Ecuador that sharing knowledge between Latin American countries is the best way to combat the epidemic. Already, thousands of people have been affected by the disease, which has spread across 20 countries since late 2015. There are fears Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes have been transported to Britain in the tread of tyres, where females lay their eggs in trapped water, following several sightings. A doctor measures the head of a baby with microcephaly in Brazil Howard Carter, one of the countrys leading bite experts, has seen the mosquitoes, which can carry the virus, on the Kent coast and in West Sussex. He added the mosquitoes are not in the UK in "any great number", but thinks it is "only a matter of time before that becomes the case", suggesting global warming is creating a warmer and more attractive climate in Britain, reports the Mail Online. Brazil has been worst hit by the virus, with around a million people thought to be infected. People travelling to the Americas are warned to cover up to protect from bites and use a repellent with PMD in it, which is effective against the Aedes Aegypti mosquito. A five-months-old baby, who has microcephaly, on 25 January 2016 in Recife, Brazil. (2016 Getty Images) Three Britons have already contracted the disease after travelling to South and Central America, which was confirmed by Public Health England on Saturday. Women in Latin America have been urged by the El Salvador government not to get pregnant for as long as two years, in a bid to avoid the birth defects associated with the virus. While those who are already pregnant should stay covered outdoors to reduce the risk of bites. Symptoms include flu-like aches, joint pain, rashes, itching, and inflammation of the eyes, headaches but not everyone has symptoms, according to government guidance on the virus. It was first found in Africa in the 1940s, but was not a threat to humans. There is currently no vaccine for the virus, but scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch have visited Brazil to carry out research in order to find one. The best way to prevent the virus spreading is to clear stagnant water, where the mosquitos lay eggs and to protect against bites. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} David Cameron has reportedly defended his dismissal of refugees in Calais as "a bunch of migrants", rejecting criticism over his use of the phrase. The Prime Minister was speaking in an interview with Sky News, where he insisted he did not believe use language to be "intemperate". Asked if he regretted using the phrase, he said: "No, I was very clear what I meant yesterday which was that Labour has an open door migration policy. They don't think there's any limit on the number of people that we should let in. I don't think that's the right approach. "Those people in France should be claiming asylum in France. It is a safe country, so we shouldn't support the idea that it is a jumping-off point to Britain." Bunch of migrants extended He said he "doesn't accept at all" that the phrase was unpleasant. "I was making a very clear point that Jeremy Corbyn was meeting with migrants and telling them they could all come to Britain." He also clarified his comments about Britain taking more unaccompanied refugee children, saying the UK would only take more orphans "from the region" in the Middle East so as not to encourage people to make the journey to Europe. "I think our approach is compassionate, I think it is generous and I think it is right," he said. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The House of Lords has voted strongly to reject a sharp planned cut to disability benefits. Ministers had wanted to cut 30 from the 102.15 rate of Employment and Support Allowance given to people deemed likely capable of work in the future. New claimants to so-called Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) would get the lower rate. Recommended Read more Almost nobody thinks the Government is making life better for disabled Peers rejected the cut by 283 votes to 198 a majority of 85 for the opposition, which mainly comprised of Labour, Liberal Democrat, and crossbench peers. Disability charities have mounted a campaign against the changes. Previous surveys of people in the WRAG have found that over half per believe they would struggle to stay healthy if hit by the cut. Around a third people getting help from the ESA WRAG also believe they would be unable to heat their homes or eat. Research commissioned by charities has also previously warned that the reductions will make it more difficult for people with disabilities to move into jobs a stated goal of the Government. Crossbench peer Lord Low, who voted against the move, said the cut would create unnecessary hardship. A drop of 1,500 a year in their benefit income from 5,300 to 3,800 will be catastrophic for many disabled people, he told peers. It will exacerbate poverty among the disabled a third of working age disabled adults live in poverty already compared with only a fifth of those who are not disabled. The Government's proposals would push many further towards, or actually into, poverty. The proposals would cause unnecessary hardship and anxiety to people who have been independently assessed as unfit for work, and the measures are likely to have a disproportionately adverse impact on disabled people. Former Health Secretary Lord Lansley however claimed that cutting the benefits would encourage disabled people to get jobs. What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? Show all 8 1 /8 What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? Welfare payments will be slashed One of the most controversial parts of the Conservative manifesto was to cut benefits for the working age poor by 12 bn over the next three years. But during the campaign they only said where 2 bn of these savings would come from. That leaves 10 bn still to find. Some experts think the only way they can close that gap is by means testing child benefit with millions of families losing out Getty What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? There will be tax cuts for those in work and those who die The Tories will increase the threshold at which the 40p rate of tax becomes payable to 50,000 by 2020. They havent said so but it is also likely that at some point in the next five years they will abolish that 45p rate of tax altogether for the highest earners. They also want to increase the effective inheritance tax threshold for married couples and civil partners to 1m Getty What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? There will be an in/out EU referendum in 2017 The next two years are going to be dominated by the prospect of a referendum on Britains membership of the EU. First off David Cameron has the daunting task of negotiating a deal with other EU leaders an acceptable deal that he can sell to his party so he can go into the referendum campaigning for a yes vote. This may be unachievable and it is possible that the Tories may end up arguing to leave. Opinion polls show Britain is divided on EU membership, one poll this year showed 51% said they would opt to leave compared to 49% who would vote to stay in Getty What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? There will be more privatisation of the NHS Having won the election the Tories now have a mandate to go further and faster reforming the NHS. In order to make cost savings there is likely to be greater private involvement in running services, while some smaller hospitals may lose services they currently provide like A&E and maternity units Getty What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? There will be many more free schools and traditional state schools will become a thing of the past The Tories plans to create 500 new free schools and make 3,000 state schools become academies. They will also carry on reforming the Department of Education and remove more powers from local authorities over how schools are run Getty What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? On shore wind farms will be a thing of the past and fracking will be the future Government spending on renewable energy is under real threat now the Lib Dems are no longer in power with the Tories. Subsidies are likely to be slashed for off-shore wind farm and other green energy supplies. Meanwhile there will be generous tax break for fracking as ministers try and incentivise the industry to drill for onshore oil and gas Getty What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? There maybe more free childcare but not necessarily In the campaign the Tories pledged to double the amount of free early education for three- and four-year-olds from 15 hours a week to 30. The extra hours would only be offered to working families where parents are employed for at least eight hours a week. However they have not said where the money will come from to fund the pledge Getty What does five more years of the Tories mean for Britain? Workers' rights could be reduced The Tories want to slash business regulation, merge regulator and cut costs. The Lib Dems stopped them from reducing the employment rights of workers in power but these are now under threat Getty The bigger the gap between income in work and income through benefits, the greater the likelihood for people seeking work and finding it, he said. The Government can either accept the peers' amendment or overturn it in the House of Commons. The defeat came the same day as the Court of Appeal ruled that the Government's bedroom tax was unlawful. It is appealing the decision at the UK Supreme Court. Elliot Dunster, group head of policy, research and public affairs at disability charity Scope, said the cuts would not achieve the Governments stated aim. Were pleased the Lords have recognised the impact that cutting Employment and Support Allowance will have on disabled people, he said. Reducing disabled peoples incomes wont incentivise them to find a job. It will just make life harder. Rob Holland, parliamentary manager at Mencap and co-chair of the Disability Benefits Consortium, warned the policy would be self-defeating. Disabled people will be hugely encouraged that Peers have listened to their concerns and voted against cutting the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), he argued. The Government wants to get more disabled people into work, but as a sector we have warned that cutting ESA WRAG, and its equivalent payment in Universal Credit, will directly undermine that commitment whilst pushing disabled people further from work and closer to or into poverty. Michelle Mitchell, the chief executive of the MS Society, said the Government should back down. Were delighted Peers have seen sense and defeated the governments plans to reduce Employment and Support Allowance for people in the Work Related Activity Group, she said. More than 100,000 people are living with multiple sclerosis in the UK and many of them would be hit hard if these changes go through. We urge the government to now think again. A DWP spokesman said: Our reforms are focused on ensuring people get the best support possible. The vote in the House of Lords is a routine part of the legislative process and next steps will be announced in due course. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The Government has been accused writing a blank cheque to lawyers to mount legal defences of its so-called bedroom tax policy. Yesterday the Court of Appeal ruled the controversial under-occupancy charge was unlawful and discriminatory because of its effect on a severely disabled teenager and a rape victim. The Government instantly said it would appeal the decision at the Supreme Court, but Labour said ministers were wasting money on legal fees to defend a policy that has failed in every regard. Recommended Read more DWP forcing rape victim to pay the Bedroom Tax on police panic room Can the minister confirm there are 280 victims of domestic violence that have had panic rooms installed house under the Sanctuary scheme affected by the policy and can he confirm that exempting those people from the bedroom tax would cost the Government a mere 200,000, Owen Smith, shadow DWP secretary asked in the House of Commons. By comparison can he tell us how many hundreds of thousands of pounds hes spent on legal fees defending this policy and how much more hes prepared to spend? Is this a blank cheque to defend this to the end? DWP minister Justin Tomlinson, who was fielding questions for the Government, did not respond directly to the question. We fundamentally disagree with yesterdays court of appeal ruling, he said. Asked later by another MP why the Government was spending taxpayers money on an appeal, Mr Tomlinson replied: Because we want to make sure those who are vulnerable get the right support. One of the two successful appeals was brought by a woman identified as A who had been a victim of domestic violence. Her home has been specially adapted by police to include a panic room. UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 15 September 2022 Members of the public in the queue on in Potters Fields Park, central London, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 14 September 2022 The first members of the public pay their respects as the vigil begins around the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Hall, London, where it will lie in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2022 Crowds cheer as King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort arrive for a visit to Hillsborough Castle Getty UK news in pictures 12 September 2022 Crowds line the Royal Mile, Edinburgh, as King Charles III joins a procession from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to St Giles Cathedral following the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS UK news in pictures 11 September 2022 Members of the Public pay their respects as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, is driven through Ballater AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 10 September 2022 Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales, Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, wave at well-wishers on the Long walk at Windsor Castle AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 9 September 2022 King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort wave after viewing floral tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Buckingham Palace Getty UK news in pictures 8 September 2022 A screen commemorating Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in Piccadilly Circus, London Britain EPA UK news in pictures 7 September 2022 Police officers stand guard after Animal Rebellion activists threw paint on the walls and road outside the Houses of Parliament in protest, in London, Britain Reuters UK news in pictures 6 September 2022 Queen Elizabeth II welcomes Liz Truss during an audience at Balmoral, Scotland, where she invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2022 Visitors at the PoliNations garden in Victoria Square, Birmingham, which is made up of five 40ft high tree installations and over 6,000 plants. The PoliNations programme aims to explore how migration and cross-pollination have shaped the UKs gardens and culture PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2022 Undergraduates at the University of St Andrews take part in the traditional Pier Walk along the harbour walls of St Andrews before the start of the new academic year PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2022 The Massed Pipes and Drums parade during the Braemar Highland Gathering at the Princess Royal and Duke of Fife Memorial Park PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2022 Number 12 Company Irish Guards at Wellington Barracks, central London, before commencing their first Guard Mount at Buckingham Palace PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2022 A salmon leaps up the weir at Hexham in Northumberland, despite the drought warnings and low water levels, the River Tyne is still flowing well allowing the salmon and sea trout to head up river to spawn. Every year tens of thousands of salmon make the once-in-a-lifetime journey along the Tyne to spawn, having been out a sea PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2022 Flowers are placed at the gates outside Kensington Palace, London, the former home of Diana, Princess of Wales, on the 25th anniversary of her death PA UK news in pictures 30 August 2022 Edinburghs waste workers clearing mountains of rubbish at Forrest Road as they return to work following their 11 days of industrial action PA UK news in pictures 29 August 2022 Competitors take part in the World Gravy Wrestling Championships at the Rose 'N' Bowl, in Rossendale, Lancashire PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2022 People from the Emancipated Run Crew who are running the carnival parade all in green to remember the 72 people that died in the Grenfell fire during the Family Day at the Notting Hill Carnival in London, which returned to the streets for the first time on two years, after it was thwarted by the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 27 August 2022 Competitors in the bog section during Rude Health Bog Triathlon at Llanwrtyd Wells, in Wales PA UK news in pictures 26 August 2022 Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson meets patient Rita Thomson after she had a complete hip replacement during a visit to South West London Orthopaedic Centre Getty Her lawyers claimed the policy discriminated against her because she would have to leave a room that had been adapted for her safety. The second successful appeal was brought by Paul and Susan Rutherford on behalf of their severely disabled grandson Warren. Warren suffers from a rare genetic disorder and requires 24 hour care because he cannot walk, talk or feed himself. The couple was hit by the bedroom tax because they have a room that is used for overnight carers and storing specialist medical equipment. The court found the policys impact on disabled children was contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights. A DWP spokesperson said the people found to have been discriminated against were in receipt of discretionary housing payment payment provided by councils to cancel out the effects of the bedroom tax. We are pleased that the court found once again that we have complied with the Public Sector Equality Duty, the spokesperson said in a statement. We fundamentally disagree with the courts ruling on the ECHR, which directly contradicts the High Court. We have already been granted permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. We know there will be people who need extra support. That is why we are giving local authorities over 870m in extra funding over the next five years to help ensure people in difficult situations like these dont lose out. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A Foreign Office minister has raised eyebrows after claiming he had not received a UN report about Saudi Arabia's invasion of Yemen - whilst holding a copy of the report. Tobias Ellwood, a Conservative, said he had not officially been sent the report but had obtained a copy of it through other means. "Yes of course I've got it, but I haven't received it," Mr Ellwood told MPs in the House of Commons, to howls of derision. Recommended Read more British arms companies ramp up bomb sales to Saudi Arabia by 100 times The report, into Saudi Arabia's military campaign in Yemen, was drawn up by a UN panel of experts. The panel identified "widespread and systematic" attacks on civilian targets and violations of international humanitarian law by Saudi Arabia. David Cameron has previously defended giving assistance to Britain's autocratic petrostate ally in the region. British military advisors are helping to target Saudi Arabian air strikes, while the latest figures show the UK has sold 6.7 billion worth of arms to the country since Mr Cameron took office. This figure, originating from official Government statistics, includes 2.8 billion in sales since the attack on Yemen began. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The UK will take in more refugee children from Syria and other conflict zones, the Home Office has announced, but the Government will not act on calls to resettle 3,000 children living unaccompanied in Europe. In an apparent compromise, Britain will work with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) to bring unaccompanied refugee children to the UK from Syria and other war-torn regions. Officials said the exact numbers of refugee children to be resettled in the UK would be assessed by UNHCR experts working in Syria and elsewhere, but confirmed that new arrivals would be additional to the 20,000 Syrian refugees the Government has pledged to take in by 2020. Ministers had said this week that they were considering calls to take in some of the thousands of unaccompanied refugee children currently in Europe, who charities say are especially vulnerable to exploitation and traffickers. However, the new pledge appears to extinguish any prospect of the UK taking in refugees from Europe. Instead, a new 10 million fund will be established to support migrant and refugee children in Europe. Immigration minister James Brokenshire said the vast majority of refugees were better served staying in the region so they can be reunited with surviving family members. So we have asked the UNHCR to identify the exceptional cases where a childs best interests are served by resettlement to the UK and help us to bring them here, he said. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Evidence of attacks on civilians by Saudi Arabia during its military campaign in Yemen may have been fabricated by media savvy Houthi rebels, a government minister has said. Tobias Ellwood, the Minister for the Middle East, made the claim in the House of Commons as he answered questions about a leaked UN report which suggests the Saudi-led bombing campaign has specifically targeted civilians. The report, which documents 119 separate sorties relating to violations of international humanitarian law, has led to renewed concerns that British-made weaponry sold to the Saudis by the Government may have been used to commit war crimes. FCO Ellwood MP - I have report, but have not received it Mr Ellwood said he took the reports allegations very seriously, but pointed out that the authors had not visited Yemen in person and suggested that the evidence of possible attacks on civilians was largely based on hearsay and satellite photographs. He then claimed that some of the devastation might have been caused by Houthi rebels, who are fighting the Yemeni government in the brutal civil war. We are aware that the Houthis, who are very media-savvy in such a situation, are using their own artillery pieces deliberately, targeting individual areas where the people are not loyal to them, to give the impression that there have been air attacks, he said. That is not to exonerate Saudi Arabia from any of the mistakes it might have made, but it is why it is so important to have a thorough process to investigate absolutely every single incident. Tobias Ellwood wants to check the allegations against Saudi Arabia with a fine toothcomb (Rex) Mr Ellwood said he would not dismiss the report and promised to sit down with the Saudi Arabians to make sure that we go through this with a fine toothcomb. He added that existing export licences with Saudi Arabia were compliant with UK criteria. Recommended Read more Minister holding UN report says he has not seen UN report The Independent revealed how Mr Ellwood recently urged Saudi Arabia to do a better job of trumpeting its human rights successes during an official visit to the country less than a month after it carried out the mass execution of 47 people. Human rights organisations described his remarks as astonishing given Saudi Arabias involvement in the military campaign in Yemen and the recent surge in executions in the kingdom. It has also faced international condemnation for its treatment of the blogger Raif Badawi and Ali al-Nimr, who was sentenced to death at the age of 17 for taking part in a pro-democracy protest. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} An Eritrean minister has denounced a story about the countrys male population facing life in jail if they fail to marry at least two women as fabricated and "ludicrous". The story has gained widespread attention on news sites and it has become the source of jokes and memes on Twitter. But Eritreas Minister of Information, Yemane Meskel, said he was appalled by the story. On Twitter, he said: Media frenzy to parrot this ludicrous, fabricated & trite story of the Muftis presumed religious decree on mandatory polygamy is appalling. He then tweeted: The story illustrates vileness of [the] dark forces of disinformation & proclivity of others to readily embrace [the] negative narrative on Eritrea [sic]. According to Crazy World, a Kenyan news website published by The Standard, so-called activists posted a document typed in Arabic, which they claim is from the Government of Eritreas department of Religious Affairs, on Facebook. In their translation, it says the department has decided that every man shall marry at least two women and the man who refuses to do so shall be subjected to life imprisonment. The reason is because Eritrea is supposedly experiencing a men shortage, according to the document. It goes on to state that women who prevent their husband from being polygamous also face life in prison. Another official confirmed to the BBC that the story was a hoax: Even a madman in Asmara [Eritreas capital] would know this story was not true. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Anne Franks step-sister has said Donald Trump is acting like another Hitler by inciting racism. Eva Schloss - whose mother married the father of the German born diarist who became one of the most well known Jewish victims of the Nazi regime - spoke out about the would-be Republican presidential candidate in an interview to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. If Donald Trump became the next president of the US it would be a complete disaster," Ms Schloss told Newsweek, Criticising the current British, American and Canadian refugee policies, Ms Schloss said: "Fewer people would have died in the Holocaust if the world had accepted more Jewish refugees." It is even harder for todays Syrian refugees," Ms Schloss said, because they have a very different culture. As "assimilated" European Jews, Schloss family was still treated as if we had come from the moon when they arrived in the Netherlands in 1938, she said. I was shocked that I wasnt accepted like an ordinary person," she said. Anne Frank writing in her diary in the 1940s (Rex) Her family fled Austria in 1938 after it was annexed by Nazi Germany, settling in Amsterdam where they knew the Franks. Both families went into hiding in 1942, but were betrayed and taken to concentration camps two years later. While Ms Schloss was liberated from Auschwitz in 1945, Anne Frank died of typhoid weeks before her camp, Bergen-Belsen, was reached by Allied troops. Anne Franks father, Otto, married Ms Schloss mother, Fritzi, after the war. Ms Schloss praised modern Germanys acceptance of over a million refugees, and its governments organised response. The country has not gone under, she said. Anne Frank and her family would have lived, Ms Schloss suggested, had the US accepted Otto Franks visa applications in 1940. He tried everything to save his family from the Holocaustbut his request was rejected," she said. "America didnt want to take any more refugees. The situation today is worse than it was under Hitler because at that time all the Allies - the US, Russia and Britain - worked together to combat the terrible threat of Nazism. If we don't work together, the world will never be able to resolve the threats it faces today. 'Don't Stand By' is the theme of this year's Holocaust Memorial Day, but "more people than ever are being bystanders", said Ms Schloss. We haven't really learnt anythingIm depressed by the current situation. She is not the first to compare Donald Trump to Hitler. Following the presidential nominee's December call for a ban on Muslims entering the US, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter accused Mr Trump of taking a page from the play book of Hitler", saying his comments "engender a level of fear mongering that we have not seen literally since the 1930s and 1940s". Former New Jersey Republican Governor Christine Todd Whitman also told CNN that Mr Trump's remarks were the kind of rhetoric that allowed Hitler to move forward." "You have people who were scared the economy was bad - they want someone to blame," she said. The Philadelphia Daily News responded to Mr Trump's call for a ban with a cover that punned on Fuhrer, the German word for 'leader' and Hitler's title. In November, fellow presidential nominee Jeb Bushs advisor Max Boot also called Mr Trump "a fascist" on Twitter. Ramen Powerhouse From Tokyo Will Make Midwest Debut In Wicker Park By Mae Rice in Food on Jan 28, 2016 8:13PM Photo of one of Kizuki Ramen's ramen bowls (via Facebook) Earlier this week, we named the best seven bowls of ramen in the city, and already, Tokyo-based Kizuki Ramen & Izakaya is coming to town to contest their seven-seat throne. The ramen powerhouse will open its first Midwest location in Wicker Park, in the storefront once occupied by Maxs Wine Dive at 1482 N. Milwaukee Avenue. Partner Kevin Yu told according to Chicago Magazine that the 85-seat eatery will have the creamiest brothwith gluten-free, vegetarian, and chicken incarnations, as well as traditional pork broth and ramen noodles shipped in from California. The chefs will complement the ramen with roughly 18 small plates, like Japanese-style chicken wings, and a bar stocked with Japanese liquor, sake, sochu, and beer, Chicago reports. Theres also a strong chance that Wicker Park will get its own, exclusive line of Japanese-style cocktails, according to the magazine. Though the restaurant will be new to the Midwest, it wont be the Kizuki Ramen & Izakayas first Stateside location. There are already four locations in the Pacific Northwestthree in Seattle and one, seemingly randomly, in Beaverton, Oregon. You can check out their menus here. (Dont worry that the name on the website is Kukai Ramen; the whole chain recently changed its name.) Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A petition to make daylight saving time permanent in South Dakota is one step closer to becoming law after the politician who proposed it said she was "sick" of changing her clocks. Senator Betty Olsons bill, which the South Dakota Senates Commerce and Energy Committee voted 5-2 to send to the full Senate for debate on Tuesday, elects to reject standard time. Ms Olson says she, along with her neighbours, are darn sick of changing the time of their clocks and adjusting to the change, which happens twice a year in March and November. And while she said she likes using standard time, her husband prefers using daylight saving time - so she went with that as a compromise in the bill, Keloland Television reported. Republican senator Brock Greenfield, who co-sponsored the petition, said times have changed" since daylight savings was introduced. He told Dakota Broadcasting he feels South Dakotans are tired of changing clocks each year and as a society have "passed this tradition". World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty He added he "didnt see the harm" in more discussion on the matter. If passed, South Dakota would join Arizona and Hawaii, which are currently the only states that no longer change clocks twice a year. They operate on standard time all year round. Daylight saving time was first introduced in America in 1918, in a bid to support the war effort during World War 1, by President Woodrow Wilson. The idea was encouraged to be used in America by Robert Garland, often called the father of Daylight Saving, following its success in the UK. Additional reporting by Associated Press Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Beer, fries, cheese, waffles, culture, music, art, museums - Donald Trump is not tempted by Brussels one bit since his last visit 20 years ago. Over the past six months, the Republican candidate and business tycoon has insulted various races, religions and countries. His barrage of assault has hit Paris and London, where he said there are areas the police are too frightened to go. He also threatened to pull out millions of pounds from Scotland. Recommended Read more Donald Trump to boycott next Republican debate Now, he has solicited a wave of anger and baffled amusement from Belgians after their European capital came under attack. Mr Trump told the Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo that there is something going on with Muslims but failed to reveal details. Theres something going on, Maria. Go to Brussels. Go to Paris. Go to different places. Theres something going on, and its not good. Where they want Shariah law, where they want this, where they wantyou know, there has to be some assimilation. There is no assimilation. Mr Trump said living in Brussels is like living in a hell hole now, even though he admitted he has not visited the capital for two decades. I was in Brussels a long time ago. 20 years ago. So beautiful, everything is so beautiful. Its like living in a hell hole right now. Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com The Mayor's office reacted with quiet defiance, as reported by The New York Times. We dont react to Mr Trumps comments, the office of Mayor Yvan Mayeur of Brussels said. Have a nice day. The hashtag #hellhole started to trend on Twitter. David Zylberbert, Diplomatic Adviser of the Minister-President of the Brussels-Capital Region, who stressed he was giving his own opinion, posted a picture of Mr Trump with a giant waffle in his mouth. You just messed with the wrong guys, he said. Ive had Muslims call me up and say thank you because they need dialogue," Mr Trump said in the Fox interview. "I bring people together. Obama has been the great divider. Mr Trump has said he will boycott the Republican debate on Thursday night due to a fall-out with Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly. Fox News reponded that Mr Trump would not be allowed to "terrorize" or have his "pick" of journalists that he wants to deal with. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Michigan state is poised to spend $28 million more on solving the water crisis at Flint as part of an emergency bill to be voted on Thursday. The money is proposed for extra bottles of water and filters and systems to monitor any developmental delays in young children. It is the second round of funding since the polluted water supply was officially recognised by authorities last year. In October President Obama signed off on $9.3 million to help Flint reconnect with its original water supply in Detroit. Governor Rick Snyder has also promised more funding for the city of 100,000 people in his forthcoming budget proposal. Dr Marc Edwards, the man leading the research team that exposed the lead contamination in the water, was interviewed on Wednesday night on the MSNBC Rachel Maddow show. He has been appointed to an emergency task force to resolve the crisis. He said to Ms Maddow that there should be a three-pronged solution, which starts with getting the corrosion of the lead pipes under control, to prevent lead leaking into the water supply. We have to determine if and when the water is safe again and longer-term in Flint, we have to figure out a way to get these pipes replaced, Dr Edwards said. Theres really is no precedent for this type of man-made disaster. The extra funding also covers monitoring children who have drunk the water to see if they experience any developmental delays. Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the Hurley Medical Center pediatrician who discovered high lead levels in the children of Flint, said not every child will have a problem. There are things we can do right now. Nutrition plays a tremendous role. We dont have any grocery stores in Flint. We need to get them to their primary care doctor. We need a whole child approach. Additional reporting by AP. Sign up to our free fortnightly newsletter from The Independent's Race Correspondent Nadine White Sign up to our free fortnightly newsletter The Race Report Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the The Race Report email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A civil rights leader who spoke out against the use of a racial epithet has landed at the centre of a fresh controversy after he made inappropriate remarks about a female reporter. Don Harris, president a local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) held a press conference to condemn six Arizona schoolgirls who had spelled out the N word with their t-shirts. But as he left the event in Phoenix, Mr Harris was caught on camera saying to a local reporter: Nice t***. Don Harris has reportedly offered to resign (YouTube) Having realised what he had done, Mr Harris then a series of bizarre comments in which he appeared to apologise for his actions, and also defend his record. I apologise if anyone was offended. I could have said nothing . . . I'm really f***ing sorry, he told the Phoenix New Times. I'm going to slash my wrists. Better yet, Im going to throw myself out of a f***ing window, except that Im on the first floorIm one of the best goddamned people in the state. Mr Harris, 77, who is white, is facing calls for his resignation. Rev Jarrett Maupin, an activist who leads the citys Fellowship Baptist Church, told the New York Daily News he did not mind a white person leading the NAACP chapter, but believed that white privilege lay behind his comment to the reporter, Monique Griego, who is Latina. When you have a certain amount of privilege in your mind, youll say what you want about anything, he said. Six teenagers sparked outcry lat week when posing for a photograph in which they spelled out the racial epithet on their T-shirts. They have since been suspended from Desert Vista High School, despite their subsequent apologies. Mr Harris said told the Arizona Republic Wednesday night that he had emailed the executive board of the Maricopa County NAACP saying that he would resign if the group wants him to leave. The 12 News channel released a statement saying Ms Griego had not heard Mr Harriss remark and that it would not be commenting further. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The biggest veterans charity in the US has been accused by its own former and current employees of spending too much of the money it raises on parties and events and not enough on helping former soldiers. The Wounded Warrior Project raised more than $372m (259m) last year, much of it via small donations from older supporters. But new reports by The New York Times and CBS News suggest the organisation spends only about 60 per cent of donations on veterans programmes, and the remainder on overheads. Other, smaller veterans charities typically spend more than 90 per cent of donations on veterans, according to the US watchdog Charity Navigator. Recommended Read more Bryan Adams on photographing wounded veterans WWP was founded by US Marine veteran John Melia in 2003, shortly after the first wounded troops began coming home from the Iraq War. Mr Melia, who was injured in a helicopter accident in Somalia in 1992, began visiting military hospitals to hand out backpacks filled with supplies and gifts, such as CD players. The charity grew rapidly in size and reputation, and its current chief executive, Steven Nardizzi, took over from Mr Melia in 2009. Tax forms show that WWPs spending on conferences and other events soon increased dramatically, from less than $2m in 2010 to more than $25m in 2014, when its revenue was about $342m. That year, it also spent more than $34m on fundraising and $7.5m on travel, while Mr Nardizzi, a former lawyer, was paid a salary of $473,000. The New York Times spoke to about 50 former and current staff, including Iraq War veteran William Chick, who worked for WWP for five years until he was sacked in 2012 after a dispute with his supervisor. The charity, he said, slowly had less focus on veterans and more on raising money and protecting the organisation. In 2014, the charity reportedly hosted a four-day, $3m conference for 500 staff at a five-star Colorado resort. Mr Nardizzi made a dramatic opening-night entrance by abseiling down the hotels 10-storey bell tower. Hes come in on a Segway, hes come in on a horse, one erstwhile WWP employee told CBS. Their mission is to honour and empower wounded warriors, said Army Staff Sergeant Erick Millette, a decorated Iraq veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and spent two years as a public speaker with the charity. But what the public doesnt see is how they spend their money. Youre using our injuries, our darkest days, our hardships, to make money, so you can have these parties. Wounded: The Legacy of War Show all 15 1 /15 Wounded: The Legacy of War Wounded: The Legacy of War Wounded: The Legacy of War Marine Mark Ormrod, injured in Afghanistan, aged 24 Bryan Adams Wounded: The Legacy of War Wounded: The Legacy of War Private Alex Stringer, injured in Afghanistan, aged 20 Bryan Adams Photography Wounded: The Legacy of War Wounded: The Legacy of War Private Karl Hinett, injured in Iraq, aged 18 Bryan Adams Wounded: The Legacy of War Wounded: The Legacy of War Sergeant Rick Clement, injured in Afghanistan, aged 30 Bryan Adams Wounded: The Legacy of War Wounded: The Legacy of War Private Jaco Van Gass, injured in Afghanistan, aged 23 Bryan Adams Wounded: The Legacy of War Wounded: The Legacy of War Private Jaco Van Gass, injured in Afghanistan, aged 23 Bryan Adams Wounded: The Legacy of War Wounded: The Legacy of War Corporal Simon Brown, injured in Iraq, aged 28 Bryan Adams Wounded: The Legacy of War Wounded: The Legacy of War Rifleman Craig Wood, injured in Afghanistan, aged 18 Bryan Adams Wounded: The Legacy of War Wounded: The Legacy of War Corporal RickyFergusson, injured in Afghanistan, aged 24 Bryan Adams Wounded: The Legacy of War Wounded: The Legacy of War Sergeant Rick Clement, injured in Afghanistan, aged 30 Bryan Adams Wounded: The Legacy of War Wounded: The Legacy of War Lieutenant Will Dixon, injured in Afghanistan, aged 25 Bryan Adams Wounded: The Legacy of War Wounded: The Legacy of War Sergeant Mark Sutcliffe, injured in Iraq, aged 27 Bryan Adams Wounded: The Legacy of War Wounded: The Legacy of War Corporal Rory Mackenzie, injured in Iraq, aged 25 Bryan Adams Wounded: The Legacy of War Wounded: The Legacy of War Marine Joe Townsend, injured in Afghanistan, aged 19 Bryan Adams Wounded: The Legacy of War Wounded: The Legacy of War Wounded: The Legacy of War, photography Bryan Adams, Edited by Caroline Froggatt, (Steidl 50) all proceeds to charities which support servicemen Mr Nardizzi is an advisory board member of the Charity Defense Council, a non-profit established in 2013 to counter public perception that charities waste money on overheads and executive compensation. In 2014, WWP hired the PR firm Edelman, which has also represented firms such as Shell, Walmart and Starbucks. Mr Nardizzi told The New York Times that Starbucks and firms like it were the model to which he aspired for WWP companies that are getting it right, treating their employees right, delivering great services ... then are growing the brand to support all of that, he said, arguing that large spending on fundraising and other overheads fuelled the charitys speedy growth, allowing it to serve more veterans. The Wounded Warrior Project did not respond to The Independents request for comment. Its Director of Alumni, Captain Ryan Kules. denies excessive spending on conferences. He told CBS: Its the best use of donor dollars to ensure we are providing programmes and services to our warriors and families at the highest quality. The charity, which spends $26m a year on its biggest programme, combat stress recovery, estimates it has served 80,000 veterans. It recently launched a drive to raise $500m for a trust to fund lifetime supplemental healthcare for the most severely wounded servicemen and women. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} With four million cases now predicted across the Americas, one of the first Brazilian medics to make the link between the Zika virus and birth defects has spoken of her frustration at Brazils failure to control the outbreak. Dr Adriana Melo, who works as a consultant obstetrician at the Elpidio de Almeida Health Institute maternity hospital in Campina Grande, Paraiba state, first warned of the connection between Zika and microcephaly in November 2015. I started to get concerned at the end of last year when I noticed an increase in the incidence of malformations in foetal nervous systems in ultrasound examinations during pregnancy, she told The Independent. In all my 18 years of practising as a doctor, I had never seen such a virulent level of destruction in the brains of foetuses. Recommended Read more How the Zika virus spread around the world All Dr Melos patients had suffered a red rash and itching during the first weeks of pregnancy, she said. A foetus I was monitoring that had been developing normally, began to show an enlargement in of the posterior fossa and reduced cerebellar size and the cerebellar vermis. These structures are located on the back of the brain, she added. Throughout the summer, claims of the virus emerging in Paraiba state were dismissed as a mild form dengue fever. Dr Melo said she sent, in November last year, samples of amniotic fluid from two foetuses from her base in Paraiba, to the Flavivirus Oswaldo Cruz Laboratory Institute in Rio. Two women were also sent to a Sao Paulo research centre for tests. What is Zika virus? Two weeks after Dr Melo sent her samples, the Brazilian Ministry of Health declared a public emergency. The fact that there is nothing in scientific literature talking about the association between microcephaly and Zika virus hindered the acceptance of the relationship by the scientific community and health officials, Dr Melo said. Zika virus in numbers 2 weeks to declare emergency after samples received 4,000,0000 Cases predicted across the Americas 20 Number of countries where Zika detected 1947 Year virus discovered in Uganda 4,180 Suspected Brazil cases of microcephaly since October Declaring that the Zika virus is spreading explosively, the World Health Organisation said it will hold an emergency meeting of independent experts on Monday to decide if the outbreak should be declared an international health emergency. At a special meeting in Geneva, the WHOs director-general, Dr Margaret Chan, said the virus was becoming much more of a threat. The Zika virus was first detected in 1947 and for decades only caused mild disease, but Dr Chan noted that the situation today is dramatically different. It is now found in more than 20 countries, including Britain, but mostly in Central and South America. It is spread by the Aedes agypti mosquito, which also spreads dengue and yellow fever. Battling the zika virus - in pictures Show all 19 1 /19 Battling the zika virus - in pictures Battling the zika virus - in pictures A worker of the Salvadorean Ministry of Health fumigates a house in Soyapango, 6 kilometers from San Salvador, El Salvador. Salvadorean authorities have began a three days campaign of fumigation to reduce the presence of the mosquito that transmit the Zika virus. EPA/Oscar Rivera Battling the zika virus - in pictures A Health Ministry employee fumigates a home against the Aedes aegypti mosquito to prevent the spread of the Zika virus in Soyapango, six km east of San Salvador. Health authorities have issued a national alert against the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, because of the link between the Zika virus and microcephaly and Guillain-BarrE Syndrome in foetuses. AFP PHOTO/Marvin RECINOSMarvin RECINOS/AFP/Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures A pediatric infectologist examines a two-months-old baby, who has microcephaly, on 26 January 2016 in Recife, Brazil. Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures A woman walks through the fumes as Health Ministry employee fumigate against the Aedes aegypti mosquito to prevent the spread of the Zika virus in Soyapango. Marvin RECINOS/AFP/Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures A health ministry employee sprays to eliminate breeding sites of the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, which transmits diseases such as the dengue, chicunguna and Zica viruses, in a Tegucigalpa cemetery on January 21, 2016. The medical school at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) recommended that women in the country avoid getting pregnant for the time being due to the presence of the Zika virus. If a pregnant woman is infected by the virus, the baby could be born with microcephaly. AFP PHOTO/Orlando SIERRA Battling the zika virus - in pictures A man walks away from his home with his son as health workers fumigates the Altos del Cerro neighbourhood as part of preventive measures against the Zika virus and other mosquito-borne diseases in Soyapango, El Salvador REUTERS/Jose Cabezas Battling the zika virus - in pictures A three-months-old, who has microcephaly, in Recife, Brazil. Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures A pregnant woman waits to be attended at the Maternal and Children's Hospital in Tegucigalpa. The medical school at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) recommended that women in the country avoid getting pregnant for the time being due to the presence of the Zika virus. If a pregnant woman is infected by the virus, the baby could be born with microcephaly. ORLANDO SIERRA/AFP/Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures Army soldiers apply insect repellent as they prepare for a clean up operation against the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is a vector for transmitting the Zika virus in Sao Paulo, Brazil. AP Photo/Andre Penner Battling the zika virus - in pictures Workers disinfect the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro to fight the spread of the Zika virus Battling the zika virus - in pictures Dr. Vanessa Van Der Linden, the neuro-pediatrician who first recognized the microcephaly crisis in Brazil, measures the head of a 2-month-old baby with microcephaly in Recife Battling the zika virus - in pictures Mother Mylene Helena Ferreira cares for her son David Henrique Ferreira, 5 months, who has microcephaly, on January 25, 2016 in Recife, Brazil. In the last four months, authorities have recorded close to 4,000 cases in Brazil in which the mosquito-borne Zika virus may have led to microcephaly in infants Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures U.S. women who are pregnant from traveling to many South American countries Battling the zika virus - in pictures In the last four months, authorities have recorded close to 4,000 cases in Brazil in which the mosquito-borne Zika virus may have led to microcephaly in infants. Getty Images Battling the zika virus - in pictures Dr. Vanessa Van Der Linden, the neuro-pediatrician who first recognized the microcephaly crisis in Brazil, examines a two-month-old baby with microcephaly on January 27, 2016 in Recife, Brazil Battling the zika virus - in pictures Washington Post Battling the zika virus - in pictures Battling the zika virus - in pictures Battling the zika virus - in pictures Declaring a global emergency usually brings more money and action to address an outbreak. The last such emergency was announced for the devastating 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which killed more than 11,000 people. The WHO was criticised for its slow response to Ebola; almost 1,000 people had died before WHO declared it to be an international emergency. The US says it has potential candidates for a vaccine and may begin clinical trials in people by the end of this year. No vaccine will be widely available for at least two years, officials said as Argentina confirmed its first case. Jimmy Whitworth, professor of international public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told The Independent that the Olympics this summer in Brazil could be under threat. Theyre going to have a meeting on Monday about whether this is an emergency of international concern, in which case I think all bets are off. We simply dont know. Wed be going into an emergency contingency mode, he said. I think the worry would be, people would come from all round the world to Rio, potentially get infected then all go home again and disseminate it all round the globe. Speaking from Paraiba, Dr Melo admits to being pessimistic. Our climate favours the proliferation of mosquitoes, we have sanitation problems and no vaccine, she warned. Our only hope is that women develop immunity soon and fight it that way. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} On the outskirts of the Afghan capital, down a lane of shin-deep mud, through mounds of rubbish picked over by children, is Shahrak police station, the final resting place for the wrecks that carried Kabuls car bombs. To understand the terror the Taliban has brought upon Afghanistan, and Kabul in particular, is to visit the charred husks of more than a dozen vehicles outside the police station. Like exhibits in a macabre museum, the ruined cars recall the violence that has consumed the city in recent years. There is the skeleton of a Taliban truck bomb that targeted the Afghan parliament. Nearby is the scorched turban of a suicide bomber. Years of pain are piled up at Shahrak. We are used to it by now, says Miragha Gulbahari, a police officer, holding the turban up for reporters to see. We have seen a lot of terrible things. Afghans are hoping the terror ends soon. This month, officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the US met for the second time to plan a tentative peace process. In a statement the four countries said they had made progress on a road map toward initiating peace talks with Taliban groups. Unlike several cities overrun by the Islamists in 2015, Kabul has remained firmly under government control since the Taliban fled in 2001. Yet a glance around this vehicular graveyard shows that even the capital is now well within the Talibans deadly reach. This one happened about a week ago, said a young police officer, pointing to a shredded white Toyota Corolla. The driver detonated his suicide vest near Kabul airport but managed to kill only himself. A few hours later, in almost exactly the same spot, a powerful Taliban truck bomb proved deadlier, killing one bystander, injuring dozens, shattering concrete blast walls and leaving a 15ft crater in the road. The double blasts brought the weeks tally of car bombs to four, including another Taliban attack near the airport and a Taliban siege of an upmarket restaurant frequented by foreigners and Afghan officials. Authorities said the string of attacks was both seasonal and a negotiating tactic ahead of potential peace talks. Whenever the summer is gone we have a decrease in attacks in the provinces, and then the cities become the target, said interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi. And whenever you hear about peace talks, you also see an increase in attacks. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Mr Sediqqi said having four car bomb attacks in one week was worrying. Imagine how they get ready for this, how they prepare themselves for this, how they assemble all these explosives in a truck and bring them, he said. There is a big possibility that they make these bombs in areas surrounding Kabul, but we do not know exactly where they come from or how they get here. Wherever they come from, many of the cars eventually end up here in Shahrak. So, too, do the vehicles that were on the streets near the explosions. If the car bomb goes off inside the city, they bring the wreckage here so it doesnt disturb people, Mr Gulbahari said. If it happens outside the city, they just throw it on the side of the road. The Washington Post For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} North Korea appears to be preparing to fire a long-range missile, according to a government source in Japan. Photographs taken by satellite showed what looked like preparations to launch a missile, Japans Kyodo news agency reported. The totalitarian state - the worlds only example of hereditary communism - has in the past test-fired missiles over Japan into the Pacific Ocean. Following the report it was preparing to fire another missile, Commander Bill Urban, of the US Defence Department, urged restraint. Recommended Read more Strong words are only weapons the world can deploy against North Korea While I wont discuss matters of intelligence, I will say that we urge North Korea to refrain from actions and rhetoric that threaten regional peace and security and focus instead on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its international commitments and obligations, he told South Koreas Yonhap News Agency. We are concerned that additional North Korean provocations could heighten tensions, lead to a cycle of escalation and threaten the peace and stability on the [Korean] Peninsula. Kyodo reported that the missile launch from Dongchang-ri could take place within a week. Earlier this month, North Korea caused uproar when it carried out a nuclear bomb test. North Korea claims hydrogen bomb test As a result, the United Nations Security Council and the United States are both considering new sanctions. Ahead of the nuclear test, North Koreas state-controlled KCNA news agency reported that its scientists were in high spirits to detonate H-bombs capable of wiping out the whole territory of the US all at once. The creation of its nuclear arsenal was designed to cope with the USs ever-more undisguised hostile policy towards North Korea, it added. However the nuclear tests were neither to threaten anyone nor to provoke someone for a certain purpose, KCNA added. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A British 15-year-old and an Australian terror suspect planned to fill a kangaroo with explosives, paint an Isis flag on its flank and then set it loose on police officers, court documents have alleged. The unnamed Briton and 19-year-old Sevdet Besim are alleged to have discussed the bizarre tactic on the Telegram messenger service, as part of broader plans to commit a major terror attack in Melbourne during commemorative services for Anzac Day. Mr Besim stands trial accused of planning to use a car to run over and then behead a police officer. In court documents presented on Thursday by Melbourne Magistrates Court, he was alleged to have written: I'd love to take out some cops. I was gonna meet with them then take some heads. He and four alleged co-conspirators were arrested in Melbourne one week before last years 25 April Anzac Day commemorations, which were to mark a century since the 1915 Gallipoli landings and are more generally held honour Australian and New Zealander servicemen and women. In the summary of Telegram conversations between Mr Besim and the British boy, prosecutors alleged that communications resume in the early hours of Thursday 20 March 2015 with an image being sent by BESIM with a comment of 'look what I got ahaha'. The conversation continues with BESIM detailing what he did that day and they have a general discussion around animals and wildlife in Australia including a suggestion that a kangaroo could be packed with C4 explosive, painted with the Isis symbol and set loose on police officers. Sevdet Besim in a picture posted to Instagram in March 2015 (Sevdet Besim/Instagram) Mr Besim allegedly also said he was ready to fight these dogs on there (sic) doorstep and Main thing I guess is that I send the dog to hell. Police alleged the teenager was motivated by extremism and had expressed support for terrorist organisations, particularly the Isis movement. The court documents claimed evidence he conducted internet searches in February 2015 including Anzac day parade 2015, shrine of Remembrance and Melbourne Anzac Day 2015. ANZAC Day in pictures Show all 12 1 /12 ANZAC Day in pictures ANZAC Day in pictures Anzac-Day2-ap.jpg AP ANZAC Day in pictures Anzac-Day7-gt.jpg Getty Images ANZAC Day in pictures Anzac-Day18-gt.jpg Getty Images ANZAC Day in pictures Anzac-Day1-gt.jpg Getty Images ANZAC Day in pictures Anzac-Day4-afp.jpg AFP/Getty Images ANZAC Day in pictures Anzac-Day3-gt.jpg Getty Images ANZAC Day in pictures Anzac-Day5-afp.jpg AFP/Getty Images ANZAC Day in pictures Anzac-Day9-gt.jpg Getty Images ANZAC Day in pictures Anzac-Day8-gt_1.jpg Getty Images ANZAC Day in pictures Anzac-Day6-afp.jpg AFP/Getty Images ANZAC Day in pictures Anzac-Day17-ap.jpg AP ANZAC Day in pictures Anzac-Day16-gt.jpg Getty Images Mr Besim has pleaded not guilty to four charges relating to planning a terrorist attack, and faces a potential life sentence if convicted. Prosecutors have withdrawn another charge of conspiring to commit an attack. In Britain the 15-year-old from Blackburn, who cannot be named due to his age, was sentenced at Manchester Crown Court for his part in the Anzac Day plot. Handing down a life sentence with no chance of parole for five years, Judge John Saunders said the teenager would be released only when he was no longer a danger to the public. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The first visit to Paris by an Iranian leader this century was greeted by a near-naked woman protester dangling from a rope, an avalanche of trade deals and no official lunch. President Hassan Rouhani and his delegation signed a score of trade agreements worth around 40bn including the purchase of 118 Airbuses which are partly built in Britain. The French car maker Peugeot agreed to build vehicles for the Iranian and Middle Eastern markets in a factory near Tehran. Recommended Read more Diplomatic row breaks out between France and Iran over wine Mr Rouhani made a similar multibillion-pound shopping expedition to Italy earlier this week. Much of Irans civilian hardware from planes to cars to railways is old or out of action. The international trade embargo on Iran has been lifted but some American sanctions are still in place. Mr Rouhani urged France and other European countries to take advantage of this favourable terrain. The visit did not pass off without controversy. A near-naked woman from the Femen movement dangled from a rope under a Seine footbridge in a simulated hanging. A banner on the bridge read: Welcome Rouhani, executioner of freedom. Iran is second only to China in its use of the death penalty. Femen said that it had organised the mock hanging to make Mr Rouhani feel at home. Unusually for an official visit by another head of state, Mr Rouhani the first Iranian leader to visit Paris since 1999 was not invited to lunch or dinner at the Elysee Palace. Tehran said that Mr Rouhani could not attend a meal if wine was served. France insisted no wine, no meal. Irans agreement in principle to buy 118 Airbuses, including 12 wide-bodied A380s, is estimated to be worth 25bn alone. Other Franco-Iranian deals signed were said to be worth 15bn. The French oil company Total is to buy up to 200,000 barrels of Iranian oil a day. The French and Iranian state railways are to twin stations and France will help to modernise rail services in Iran. The Peugeot deal is a resurrection of an old relationship with the Iranian car maker Khodro, broken off in 2012 after the French firm went into partnership with General Motors in the United States. In two hours of talks, Francois Hollande and Mr Rouhani discussed the multiple crises in the Middle East. Afterwards, Mr Hollande said that he had raised Irans human rights record but France wanted to start a new chapter in its relations with Tehran. This would included trade but also solving conflicts and crises in the region. Terrorism is our joint enemy, Mr Hollande said. The People's Bank of China. [Xinhua] China's central bank has made a big injection of funds into the financial system for the second time this week to ease a short-term liquidity strain before the Lunar New Year holiday. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) pumped 260 billion yuan (39.7 billion U.S. dollars) into markets through 28-day reverse repurchase agreements (repo) and 80 billion yuan of seven-day reverse repo, a process in which central banks purchase securities from banks with agreements to resell them in the future. The injection, following Tuesday's 440-billion-yuan reverse repo operations, the largest single-day liquidity injection in three years, has resulted in a net 590 billion yuan being pumped into the market this week. The 28-day reverse repo was priced to yield 2.6 percent while that of the seven-day reverse repo was 2.25 percent, unchanged from Tuesday's operations, according to a PBOC statement. In Thursday's interbank market, the overnight Shanghai Interbank Offered Rate (Shibor), which measures the cost at which Chinese banks lend to one other, fell slightly to 1.992 percent. China's financial markets and business operations will be closed from Feb. 7 to 13 for the Lunar New Year holiday, when a surge in cash demand is expected because of travel expenses and holiday shopping. The PBOC usually pumps extra funds into the financial system ahead of the holiday. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A lunch between the French and Iranian presidents in Paris has been scrapped after the hosts refused to take wine off the menu. Irans President Hassan Rouhani had been due to eat lunch with French President Francois Hollande in an upmarket restaurant as part of Mr Rohanis tour of Europe - but negotiations broke down after the Iranians requested a halal, alcohol-free meal. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (3rd-L) and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (2nd-L) attend a meeting with French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron (2nd-R), Movement of the Enterprises of France (MEDEF) president Pierre Gattaz (3rd-R) and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius (4th-R) in Paris on 27 January 2016. (Getty Images) French officials insisted on serving traditional local food and wine and said making a meal Iran friendly went against their Republican values. The Elysee Palace suggested the heads of state share breakfast instead but this was rejected as too cheap. A source told French radio station RTL: The leaders have missed out on a great opportunity to meet in the relaxed environment of a meal. Mr Rouhani is currently visiting several European countries to sign business deals worth billions of pounds as Iran comes back in from the diplomatic cold after years of economic sanctions. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius (left) greets Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during an official welcoming ceremony at the Invalides in Paris (Getty Images) World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty His visit to Italy went much more smoothly with officials keeping alcohol off the menu at state dinners and even covering up its ancient nude statues in Rome as they signed 12bn worth of business deals. Iranian officials did not request the statues be covered up but were said to appreciate the gesture. But some Italians thought it was a sign of cultural suicide: Meanwhile, French protesters have demanded Mr Hollande challenge Mr Rouhani over human rights abuses in Iran - where people are jailed, executed and flogged or speaking against the regime or being gay and women are treated as second class citizens. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo unleashed a wave of murderous violence against supporters of his political opponents in a desperate bid to remain in power after defeat in the 2010 election, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been told. The court heard that murder, rape and widespread persecution by Ivorian security forces and supporters loyal to Mr Gbagbo followed in five months of bloody clashes between him and those for President Alassane Ouattara, which left as many as 3,000 dead and thousands more wounded. Nothing would be allowed to defeat Mr Gbagbo. If politics failed, violence was seen as politics by other means, prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told the three ICC judges sitting in The Hague in the Netherlands. Recommended Read more Former Ivory Coast first lady sentenced to 20 years in prison This is the first trial of a former head of state by the ICC, which is facing widespread criticism for the way it has tried to hold the powerful leaders of African nations to account for crimes. Mr Gbagbo, 70 and Charles Ble Goude, 44, a former minister in his administration, deny charges of inciting atrocities after the presidential run-off in the West African nation. A crowd of several hundred demonstrators protested outside the court, denouncing the trial as victors justice. The trial is expected to last several months. A total of 138 witnesses including victims of violence and members of Mr Gbagbos inner circle would testify about the mens involvement in plotting the post-election violence even before the 2010 vote, Ms Bensouda said. One witness, a woman arrested by police after attending a peaceful pro-Ouattara political rally, was repeatedly gang-raped at police headquarters over a three-day period, Ms Bensouda said. The purpose of this trial is not to determine who won the elections or who was to win the elections. The purpose of this trial is establish individual responsibility of the two accused of the crimes committed, she added. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty The court heard that Mr Gbagbo, a former university professor who spent many years living in exile in France, won the first round of the 2010 presidential vote with 38 per cent. However, he lost in the run-off against his rival Alassane Ouattara. In December 2010, Mr Gbagbo refused to step down when the Independent Electoral Commission and international observers proclaimed his rival, Mr Ouattara, the winner of the run-off. In the resulting five months of violence and armed conflict, at least 3,000 people were killed and more than 150 women raped, with military forces on both sides targeting civilians according to their political, ethnic and religious affiliations. As defeat loomed, prosecutors say the defendants marshalled security forces, youth militias and mercenaries to attack groups perceived as opposition supporters. Mr Ble Goude, as leader of the pro-Gbagbo militia called the Young Patriots, was a key member of Mr Gbagbos inner circle. Ms Bensouda described him in court as a self-proclaimed general of the streets who manipulated the youth with hateful rhetoric. Security force units closely linked to Mr Gbagbo are accused of abducting rival political leaders. In some cases they were dragged publicly from restaurants or from their homes. Their bodies were later discovered in morgues from gunshot wounds. Pro-Gbagbo militias who set up impromptu checkpoints are accused of murdering scores of rival supporters. The ICC has yet to bring any charges against those who supported President Ouattara and who have been accused of similar atrocities. Mr Gbagos son Michael told the BBC that he expected the truth to be heard and his father freed. He questioned the ICCs impartiality. Its not a question of innocence my question is about the credibility of this kind of justice because one side is persecuted. Were not sure this high court is very credible and can deliver justice, real justice, he said. Ms Bensouda has pledged to bring both sides to justice. This is our first case to reach trial, linked to Ivory Coast crimes, Ms Bensouda said. There will be others. The trial continues. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A man has been arrested at Disneyland Paris after two guns and a Koran were found in his suitcase. The 28-year-old was on his way into the resorts Hotel New York when the weapons were detected on, a spokesperson for the judicial police in Meaux told The Independent. A compulsory X-ray of his luggage revealed the firearms and the man was detained by Disney security staff before being handed over to police, who discovered the Koran and ammmunition during further searches. The man is believed to have told police that he took the guns and ammunition to the resort because he "feared for his safety", the BBC reports. Police say they arrested him without a struggle. Officers are still looking for the man's partner - a young woman - who is believed to still be on the run. Police initially arrested a woman - believing she was the man's partner - but she was later released without charge after it emerged it wasn't her. Man arrested at Disneyland Paris with two guns (Getty Images) The mans car, parked on the premises, had been cordoned off and was being searched this afternoon as inquiries continued. The suspect is not believed to be known to the police or French intelligence services. French newspaper Le Parisien reports that the man was of European origin but police have not released any further information or confirmed speculation about a possible terror plot. Francois Banon, a spokesman for Disneyland Paris, said: "During a routine security screening checkpoint at one of our hotels, weapons were discovered in a guest's luggage through our X-ray machine. The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures Show all 25 1 /25 The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks Members of the public gather to lay flowers and light candles at La Belle Equipe restaraunt on Rue de Charonne in Paris Getty The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks People lay a memorial to honour victims of the Paris terror attacks at Federation Square in Melbourne, Australia The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks Soccer fans display the colors of the French flag in response to the deadly terrorist attack in Paris, France before the soccer match between the New York Cosmos' and the Ottawa Fury for the North American Soccer League championship at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, USA The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks Pakistani Civil society activists shout slogans during a protest against Isis militants near the French consulate for the victims of the 13 November Paris attacks in Karachi, Pakistan The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks People gather and view messages written on the ground at Place de la Republique in Paris The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks French flags and a note reading "We will not let you spoil our children's lives" at the site of the attack at the Cafe Belle Equipe on rue de Charonne in the 11th district, in Paris The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks A rose is placed beside a bullet hole at La Belle Equipe restaraunt on Rue de Charonne following the terrorist attack in Paris. As France observes three days of national mourning members of the public continue to pay tribute to the victims of deadly attacks The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks Bono and band members of U2 pay their respects and place flowers on the pavement near the scene of yesterday's Bataclan Theatre terrorist attack in Paris The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks A man kneels as he pays tribute to victims at Place de la Republique near the deadly attack sites in Paris The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks Tributes to the victims at the Place de la Republique square in Paris AFP The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks An electronic billboard on a canal show solidarity with Paris in Milan EPA The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks People lay down flowers and light candles to tribute victims of Friday's attacks in Paris as the Brandenburg gate is illuminated in blue, white and red in the colors of the French flag, in Berlin Reuters The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks A man leaves flowers as a tribute following the deadly attacks in Paris, outside the French consulate in Istanbul Reuters The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks People take pictures of flowers placed in bullet holes in the window of a Japanese restaurant next to the cafe 'La Belle Equipe' AFP The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks People gather at a makeshift memorial next to the Bataclan theatre in Paris on November 14, 2015, The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks A woman carrying flowers cries in front of the Carillon cafe and the Petit Cambodge restaurant in Paris AP The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks People gather in front of flowers that were laid outside the French embassy in Rome AP The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks People react near the cafe 'La Belle Equipe' at the Rue de Charonne AFP The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks A young girl places a candle in front of the Carillon cafe in Paris AP The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks Flowers placed outside the cafe 'La Belle Equipe' at the Rue de Charonne in Paris, the scene for one of the attacks AFP The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks A woman is comforted by others outside the Carillon cafe and the Petit Cambodge restaurant in Paris The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks The Brandenbourg Gate featuring French national colors is pictured in Berlin, on November 14, 2015 a day after deadly attacks in Paris The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks Flowers are laid in front of the French embassy in Rome EPA The world mourns Paris attacks - in pictures The world mourns Paris attacks A candle is lit next to flowers outside the French Embassy in Berlin AFP "The police were immediately notified and the individual was arrested. We continue to work closely with the authorities, and the safety and security of our guests and cast members is our utmost priority." The Hotel New York is one of the most expensive in the resort, bordering Lake Disney and within walking distance of the Disney Village dining and shopping area, as well as the railway station and entrances to Walt Disney Studios and Disneyland parks. France remains in a state of emergency following the Paris attacks in November. Isis militants killed 130 people in a series of shootings and suicide bombings across the capital. Additional reporting by AP For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Swedens controversial plans to deport up to 80,000 asylum-seekers are in line with EU rules and could even strengthen embattled migration policy across the Continent, the European Commission argued yesterday. Commission officials said the returning of failed asylum-seekers fits into the EUs wider efforts to build a coherent migration strategy that distinguishes between different claims. Countries are entitled and indeed obliged to return people who are not entitled to stay in the European Union. It is essential to make sure genuine asylum-seekers have their asylum applications processed quickly, Natasha Bertaud, the commissions spokeswoman on migration, said. It is a matter of credibility that we do return these people because we do not want to give the impression that Europe is an open door. Sweden has been the second most popular destination after Germany for the nearly one million migrants who have made their way to Europe in the past year. By population, it has taken in more than any other EU country: more than 160,000 people sought asylum in Sweden in 2015, and of around 58,800 asylum cases processed so far, 55 per cent were accepted, the highest acceptance rate in Europe. But arrivals in Sweden have dropped sharply in the wake of tougher border controls, from 10,000 a week last October to 100 a day. Refugee crisis - in pictures Show all 27 1 /27 Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugee crisis - in pictures A child looks through the fence at the Moria detention camp for migrants and refugees at the island of Lesbos on May 24, 2016. AFP/Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Ahmad Zarour, 32, from Syria, reacts after his rescue by MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) while attempting to reach the Greek island of Agathonisi, Dodecanese, southeastern Agean Sea Refugee crisis - in pictures Syrian migrants holding life vests gather onto a pebble beach in the Yesil liman district of Canakkale, northwestern Turkey, after being stopped by Turkish police in their attempt to reach the Greek island of Lesbos on 29 January 2016. Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees flash the 'V for victory' sign during a demonstration as they block the Greek-Macedonian border Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants have been braving sub zero temperatures as they cross the border from Macedonia into Serbia. Refugee crisis - in pictures A sinking boat is seen behind a Turkish gendarme off the coast of Canakkale's Bademli district on January 30, 2016. At least 33 migrants drowned on January 30 when their boat sank in the Aegean Sea while trying to cross from Turkey to Greece. Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A general view of a shelter for migrants inside a hangar of the former Tempelhof airport in Berlin, Germany Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees protest behind a fence against restrictions limiting passage at the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Since last week, Macedonia has restricted passage to northern Europe to only Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans who are considered war refugees. All other nationalities are deemed economic migrants and told to turn back. Macedonia has finished building a fence on its frontier with Greece becoming the latest country in Europe to build a border barrier aimed at checking the flow of refugees Refugee crisis - in pictures A father and his child wait after being caught by Turkish gendarme on 27 January 2016 at Canakkale's Kucukkuyu district Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants make hand signals as they arrive into the southern Spanish port of Malaga on 27 January, 2016 after an inflatable boat carrying 55 Africans, seven of them women and six chidren, was rescued by the Spanish coast guard off the Spanish coast. Refugee crisis - in pictures A refugee holds two children as dozens arrive on an overcrowded boat on the Greek island of Lesbos Refugee crisis - in pictures A child, covered by emergency blankets, reacts as she arrives, with other refugees and migrants, on the Greek island of Lesbos, At least five migrants including three children, died after four boats sank between Turkey and Greece, as rescue workers searched the sea for dozens more, the Greek coastguard said Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants wait under outside the Moria registration camp on the Lesbos. Over 400,000 people have landed on Greek islands from neighbouring Turkey since the beginning of the year Refugee crisis - in pictures The bodies of Christian refugees are buried separately from Muslim refugees at the Agios Panteleimonas cemetery in Mytilene, Lesbos Refugee crisis - in pictures Macedonian police officers control a crowd of refugees as they prepare to enter a camp after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A refugee tries to force the entry to a camp as Macedonian police officers control a crowd after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees are seen aboard a Turkish fishing boat as they arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea from the Turkish coast to Lesbos Reuters Refugee crisis - in pictures An elderly woman sings a lullaby to baby on a beach after arriving with other refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A man collapses as refugees make land from an overloaded rubber dinghy after crossing the Aegean see from Turkey, at the island of Lesbos EPA Refugee crisis - in pictures A girl reacts as refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees make a show of hands as they queue after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures People help a wheelchair user board a train with others, heading towards Serbia, at the transit camp for refugees near the southern Macedonian town of Gevgelija AP Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees board a train, after crossing the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Macedonia is a key transit country in the Balkans migration route into the EU, with thousands of asylum seekers - many of them from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia - entering the country every day Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures An aerial picture shows the "New Jungle" refugee camp where some 3,500 people live while they attempt to enter Britain, near the port of Calais, northern France Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A Syrian girl reacts as she helped by a volunteer upon her arrival from Turkey on the Greek island of Lesbos, after having crossed the Aegean Sea EPA Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Beds ready for use for migrants and refugees are prepared at a processing center on January 27, 2016 in Passau, Germany. The flow of migrants arriving in Passau has dropped to between 500 and 1,000 per day, down significantly from last November, when in the same region up to 6,000 migrants were arriving daily. Swedens Interior Minister, Anders Ygeman, said chartered flights would be used to send people back. The first step will be voluntary return, but if that doesnt work, we will need to have returns backed up by force, he said, adding Sweden was seeking deals with Afghanistan and Morocco to accept returned migrants. Mr Ygeman said Sweden still expects 45,000 applications in 2016. Recommended Read more How one charity is using Twitter trolls to raise money for refugees Finland is also preparing similar deportations, but on a smaller scale: it is expected to expel nearly 20,000 migrants out of the 32,000 who sought asylum last year. While the principle of returning asylum-seekers is in the EUs 2008 Return Directive, this is the first time any member state has announced such a large expulsion. Although most refugees heading for Europe hail from war-torn countries like Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, there are many from regions considered safe to return to, such as the Balkans. The deportation plans came as the Netherlands announced an initiative to ferry migrants and refugees arriving in Greece immediately back to Turkey. Amnesty International condemned the Dutch plan as illegal, as it would label Turkey a safe third country despite a record of shackling and beating up refugees. Sign up to our free fortnightly newsletter from The Independent's Race Correspondent Nadine White Sign up to our free fortnightly newsletter The Race Report Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the The Race Report email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Austrias carnival authority has banned jokes targeting asylum seekers, foreigners, minorities and defenceless people in the traditional celebrations. Festivities in the run-up to Lent include parades, costume balls, music and performances across the country, where participants dress up and wear intricate wooden masks. Comedy is a key part of the period, known as Fasching or Karneval, but the Austrian Carnival Guild (Bund Osterreichischer Faschingsgilden) has drawn up a new ethics code on acceptable jokes. 'Fasching' in Austria and Germany sees participants wear costumes and wooden masks for parades and performances (Getty Images) Hurtful attacks on defenceless people, majorities sneering at minorities, cutting mockery and malice, irony and sarcasm - even if they get roars of laughter from the audience - are inappropriate, the code reads. Laughing at others' expense always leaves a bitter aftertaste. The guild said Fasching is open to social and societal changes over time and that a current challenge is to ensure the integration of migrants into traditional events to secure their future. In a section on respecting values and limits, its code says that although fun is the top priority, human dignity is inviolable and peoples feelings should not be hurt. Costumed participants tossing a so called 'Jackel' perform in the annual carnival parade on February 12, 2015 in Mittenwald, Germany. (Getty Images) This is especially the case for dealing in religious matters, it says, adding that all religions should be treated with respect. The new guidelines are in line with those applied to the carnival period in Germany and Switzerland, The Local reported. Adi Mittendorfer, the Austrian Carnival Guilds president, told the website: People should be aware of the effect of such jokes. Anything which drags human dignity or faith in the dirt is not allowed. His deputy, Alfred Kamleitner, said sexist jokes were also frowned upon, adding: I dont think it's funny to see scantily clad nuns running around on stage. Refugees settle in Germany Show all 12 1 /12 Refugees settle in Germany Refugees settle in Germany Germany Mohamed Zayat, a refugee from Syria, plays with his daughter Ranim, who is nearly 3, in the one room they and Mohamed's wife Laloosh call home at an asylum-seekers' shelter in Vossberg village on October 9, 2015 in Letschin, Germany. The Zayats arrived approximately two months ago after trekking through Turkey, Greece and the Balkans and are now waiting for local authorities to process their asylum application, after which they will be allowed to live independently and settle elsewhere in Germany. Approximately 60 asylum-seekers, mostly from Syria, Chechnya and Somalia, live at the Vossberg shelter, which is run by the Arbeiter-Samariter Bund (ASB) charity 2015 Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany A refugee child Amnat Musayeva points to a star with her photo and name that decorates the door to her classroom as teacher Martina Fischer looks on at the local kindergarten Amnat and her siblings attend on October 9, 2015 in Letschin, Germany. The children live with their family at an asylum-seekers' shelter in nearby Vossberg village and are waiting for local authorities to process their asylum applications. Approximately 60 asylum-seekers, mostly from Syria, Chechnya and Somalia, live at the Vossberg shelter, which is run by the Arbeiter-Samariter Bund (ASB) charity Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Kurdish Syrian asylum-applicant Mohamed Ali Hussein (R), 19, and fellow applicant Autur, from Latvia, load benches onto a truckbed while performing community service, for which they receive a small allowance, in Wilhelmsaue village on October 9, 2015 near Letschin, Germany. Mohamed and Autur live at an asylum-applicants' shelter in nearby Vossberg village. Approximately 60 asylum-seekers, mostly from Syria, Chechnya and Somalia, live at the Vossberg shelter, which is run by the Arbeiter-Samariter Bund (ASB) charity Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Mohamed Ali Hussein ((L), 19, and his cousin Sinjar Hussein, 34, sweep leaves at a cemetery in Gieshof village, for which they receive a small allowance, near Letschin Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Mohamed Zayat, a refugee from Syria, looks among donated clothing in the basement of the asylum-seekers' shelter that is home to Mohamed, his wife Laloosh and their daughter Ranim as residents' laundry dries behind in Vossberg village on October 9, 2015 in Letschin, Germany. The Zayats arrived approximately two months ago after trekking through Turkey, Greece and the Balkans and are now waiting for local authorities to process their asylum application, after which they will be allowed to live independently and settle elsewhere in Germany Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Asya Sugaipova (L), Mohza Mukayeva and Khadra Zhukova prepare food in the communal kitchen at the asylum-seekers' shelter that is their home in Vossberg village in Letschin Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Efrah Abdullahi Ahmed looks down from the communal kitchen window at her daughter Sumaya, 10, who had just returned from school, at the asylum-seekers' shelter that is their home in Vossberg Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Asylum-applicants, including Syrians Mohamed Ali Hussein (C-R, in black jacket) and Fadi Almasalmeh (C), return from grocery shopping with other refugees to the asylum-applicants' shelter that is their home in Vossberg village in Letschin Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Mohamed Zayat (2nd from L), a refugee from Syria, smokes a cigarette after shopping for groceries with his daughter Ranim, who is nearly 3, and fellow-Syrian refugees Mohamed Ali Hussein (C) and Fadi Almasalmeh (L) at a local supermarket on October 9, 2015 in Letschin, Germany. All of them live at an asylum-seekers' shelter in nearby Vossberg village and are waiting for local authorities to process their asylum applications, after which they will be allowed to live independently and settle elsewhere in Germany 2015 Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Kurdish Syrian refugees Leila, 9, carries her sister Avin, 1, in the backyard at the asylum-seekers' shelter that is home to them and their family in Vossberg village in Letschin Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Somali refugees and husband and wife Said Ahmed Gure (R) and Ayaan Gure pose with their infant son Muzammili, who was born in Germany, in the room they share at an asylum-seekers' shelter in Vossberg village on October 9, 2015 in Letschin, Germany. Approximately 60 asylum-seekers, mostly from Syria, Chechnya and Somalia, live at the Vossberg shelter, which is run by the Arbeiter-Samariter Bund (ASB) charity, and are waiting for authorities to process their application for asylum 2015 Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany German Chancellor Angela Merkel pauses for a selfie with a refugee after she visited the AWO Refugium Askanierring shelter for refugees in Berlin Getty Images Mocking the follies of everyday life and prominent politicians and celebrities is, however, perfectly acceptable. It comes after German carnival organisers in Cologne and Bonn printed leaflets in Arabic and Farsi instructing refugees not to kiss people without consent or urinate in public. Austrias carnival tradition mirrors similar celebrations across historically Catholic parts of Germany and Europe dating back to the 13th Century. It officially starts on Epiphany (6 January) and celebrations continue until Shrove Tuesday, which will fall on 9 February this year. Austria expected to receive 80,000 asylum applications last year and is planning to cap the number of new arrivals at 37,500 for 2016. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Sweden is preparing to expel up to 80,000 asylum seekers who sought refuge in the country last year, according to its interior minister. In an interview with Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri published today, Anders Ygeman said he estimated that about 60,000 to 80,000 of 2015s record number of asylum seekers would be expelled and forcibly deported or would voluntarily leave after their applications were rejected. It is feared by the government that many of those who will leave will go into hiding, according to the newspaper. We have a big challenge ahead of us. We will need to use more for this and we must have better cooperation between authorities, Mr Ygemen was quoted as saying. I think that it could be about 60,000 people, but it could also be up to 80,000. Refugee crisis - in pictures Show all 27 1 /27 Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugee crisis - in pictures A child looks through the fence at the Moria detention camp for migrants and refugees at the island of Lesbos on May 24, 2016. AFP/Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Ahmad Zarour, 32, from Syria, reacts after his rescue by MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) while attempting to reach the Greek island of Agathonisi, Dodecanese, southeastern Agean Sea Refugee crisis - in pictures Syrian migrants holding life vests gather onto a pebble beach in the Yesil liman district of Canakkale, northwestern Turkey, after being stopped by Turkish police in their attempt to reach the Greek island of Lesbos on 29 January 2016. Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees flash the 'V for victory' sign during a demonstration as they block the Greek-Macedonian border Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants have been braving sub zero temperatures as they cross the border from Macedonia into Serbia. Refugee crisis - in pictures A sinking boat is seen behind a Turkish gendarme off the coast of Canakkale's Bademli district on January 30, 2016. At least 33 migrants drowned on January 30 when their boat sank in the Aegean Sea while trying to cross from Turkey to Greece. Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A general view of a shelter for migrants inside a hangar of the former Tempelhof airport in Berlin, Germany Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees protest behind a fence against restrictions limiting passage at the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Since last week, Macedonia has restricted passage to northern Europe to only Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans who are considered war refugees. All other nationalities are deemed economic migrants and told to turn back. Macedonia has finished building a fence on its frontier with Greece becoming the latest country in Europe to build a border barrier aimed at checking the flow of refugees Refugee crisis - in pictures A father and his child wait after being caught by Turkish gendarme on 27 January 2016 at Canakkale's Kucukkuyu district Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants make hand signals as they arrive into the southern Spanish port of Malaga on 27 January, 2016 after an inflatable boat carrying 55 Africans, seven of them women and six chidren, was rescued by the Spanish coast guard off the Spanish coast. Refugee crisis - in pictures A refugee holds two children as dozens arrive on an overcrowded boat on the Greek island of Lesbos Refugee crisis - in pictures A child, covered by emergency blankets, reacts as she arrives, with other refugees and migrants, on the Greek island of Lesbos, At least five migrants including three children, died after four boats sank between Turkey and Greece, as rescue workers searched the sea for dozens more, the Greek coastguard said Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants wait under outside the Moria registration camp on the Lesbos. Over 400,000 people have landed on Greek islands from neighbouring Turkey since the beginning of the year Refugee crisis - in pictures The bodies of Christian refugees are buried separately from Muslim refugees at the Agios Panteleimonas cemetery in Mytilene, Lesbos Refugee crisis - in pictures Macedonian police officers control a crowd of refugees as they prepare to enter a camp after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A refugee tries to force the entry to a camp as Macedonian police officers control a crowd after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees are seen aboard a Turkish fishing boat as they arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea from the Turkish coast to Lesbos Reuters Refugee crisis - in pictures An elderly woman sings a lullaby to baby on a beach after arriving with other refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A man collapses as refugees make land from an overloaded rubber dinghy after crossing the Aegean see from Turkey, at the island of Lesbos EPA Refugee crisis - in pictures A girl reacts as refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees make a show of hands as they queue after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures People help a wheelchair user board a train with others, heading towards Serbia, at the transit camp for refugees near the southern Macedonian town of Gevgelija AP Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees board a train, after crossing the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Macedonia is a key transit country in the Balkans migration route into the EU, with thousands of asylum seekers - many of them from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia - entering the country every day Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures An aerial picture shows the "New Jungle" refugee camp where some 3,500 people live while they attempt to enter Britain, near the port of Calais, northern France Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A Syrian girl reacts as she helped by a volunteer upon her arrival from Turkey on the Greek island of Lesbos, after having crossed the Aegean Sea EPA Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Beds ready for use for migrants and refugees are prepared at a processing center on January 27, 2016 in Passau, Germany. The flow of migrants arriving in Passau has dropped to between 500 and 1,000 per day, down significantly from last November, when in the same region up to 6,000 migrants were arriving daily. The minister said the asylum seekers would be removed from the country by charter aircraft, but that the process would take many years. His spokesman Victor Harju later confirmed Mr Ygemens estimate, adding that the minister was simply applying the current approval rate to the record number of asylum seekers that arrived in 2015 and that the rate could of course change. This week, Swedens Prime Minister Stefan Lofven pledged more resources for the police to deal with the countrys refugees. The Scandinavian nation reversed its open doors-policy on immigration late last year and has since introduced border controls and identification checks to slow the flow of asylum seekers. At the end of last year, Sweden's migration minister Morgan Johansson said: Were willing to do more than anyone else. But even we have our limits. We can handle the 160,000 people who came this year. But we cant handle it if there are another 160,000 people next year. Our whole asylum system would break down. Around 163,000 asylum applications were made in 2015 in Sweden, which, along with Germany, has been one of the top destinations for refugees and migrants entering the EU. On Tuesday, 22-year-old Alexandra Mezher, a staff member at an asylum shelter for unaccompanied children near Gothenburg, was stabbed to death. A 15-year-old asylum seeker was arrested on suspicion of murder. Additional reporting by Reuters For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The fact that we officially commemorate the Holocaust on January 27, the date of the liberation of Auschwitz, means that remembrance of Nazi crimes focuses on the systematic mass murder of Europes Jews. The other victims of Nazi racism, including Europes Sinti and Roma are now routinely named in commemoration, but not all survivors have had equal opportunities to have their story heard. One group of victims who have yet to be publicly memorialised is black Germans. All those voices need to be heard, not only for the sake of the survivors, but because we need to see how varied the expressions of Nazi racism were if we are to understand the lessons of the Holocaust for today. When Hitler came to power in 1933, there were understood to have been some thousands of black people living in Germany they were never counted and estimates vary widely. At the heart of an emerging black community was a group of men from Germanys own African colonies (which were lost under the peace treaty that ended World War I) and their German wives. They were networked across Germany and abroad by ties of family and association and some were active in communist and anti-racist organisations. Among the first acts of the Nazi regime was the suppression of black political activism. There were also 600 to 800 children fathered by French colonial soldiers many, though not all, African when the French army occupied the Rhineland as part of the peace settlement after 1919. French troops were withdrawn in 1930 and the Rhineland was demilitarised until Hitler stationed German units there in 1936. Denial of rights and work Black people were regarded as being of 'alien blood' in Nazi Germany (Hulton Archive) (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) The 1935 Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their German citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with people of German blood. A subsequent ruling confirmed that black people (like gypsies) were to be regarded as being of alien blood and subject to the Nuremberg principles. Very few people of African descent had German citizenship, even if they were born in Germany, but this became irreversible when they were given passports that designated them as stateless negroes. In 1941, black children were officially excluded from public schools, but most of them had suffered racial abuse in their classrooms much earlier. Some were forced out of school and none were permitted to go on to university or professional training. Published interviews and memoirs by both men and women, unpublished testimony and post-war compensation claims testify to these and other shared experiences. Employment prospects which were already poor before 1933 got worse afterwards. Unable to find regular work, some were drafted for forced labour as foreign workers during World War II. Films and stage shows making propaganda for the return of Germanys African colonies became one of the few sources of income, especially after black people were banned from other kinds of public performance in 1939. Incarceration When SS leader Heinrich Himmler undertook a survey of all black people in Germany and occupied Europe in 1942, he was probably contemplating a round-up of some kind. But there was no mass internment. The only physical memorial to a black concentration camp victim, the actor Bayume Mohamed Husen (OTFW, Berlin) Research in camp records and survivor testimony has so far thrown up around 20 black Germans who spent time in concentration camps and prisons and at least one who was a euthanasia victim. The one case we have of a black person being sent to a concentration camp explicitly for being a Mischling (mulatto) Gert Schramm, interned in Buchenwald aged 15 comes from 1944. Instead, the process that ended with incarceration usually began with a charge of deviant or antisocial behaviour. Being black made people visible to the police, and it became a reason not to release them once they were in custody. In this respect, we can see black people as victims not of a peculiarly Nazi racism, but of an intensified version of the kinds of everyday racism that persist today. German supermarket denies neo-nazi symbolism Sterilisation: an assault on families It was the Nazi fear of racial pollution that led to the most common trauma suffered by black Germans: the break-up of families. Mixed couples were harassed into separating. When others applied for marriage licences, or when a woman was known to be pregnant or had a baby, the black partner became a target for involuntary sterilisation. In a secret action in 1937, some 400 of the Rhineland children were forcibly sterilised. Other black Germans went into hiding or fled the country to escape sterilisation, while news of friends and relatives who had not escaped intensified the fear that dominated peoples lives. The black German community was new in 1933; in most families the first generation born in Germany was just coming of age. In that respect it was similar to the communities in France and Britain that were forming around families founded by men from the colonies. Recommended Read more Jews rescued from the Nazis believe in helping Muslim refugees Nazi persecution broke those families and the ties of community. One legacy of that was a long silence about the human face of Germanys colonial history: the possibility that black and white Germans could share a social and cultural space. That silence helps to explain Germans mixed responses to todays refugee crisis. The welcome offered by German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and many ordinary Germans has given voice to the liberal humanitarianism that was always present in German society and was reinforced by the lessons of the Holocaust. The reaction against refugees reveals the other side of the coin: Germans who fear immigration are not alone in Europe. But their anxieties draw on a vision that has remained very powerful in German society since 1945: the idea that however deserving they are, people who are not white cannot be German. This article was corrected on January 27 to clarify the situation in the Rhineland between the two world wars. Eve Rosenhaft, Professor of German Historical Studies, University of Liverpool This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The peace talks between Syrian government and opposition scheduled to begin on Friday in Geneva were preceded by furious arguments about who should or should not attend. This did not augur well for ending or even de-escalating a war that has torn Syria apart and forced more than half its 22 million people to flee their homes. Several of the most important parties taking part in the fighting will not be present in Geneva, including Isis, the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra and the Syrian Kurds. Taken together, the groups control two-thirds of Syrian territory, though much of it is scantily populated. Prospects for the Geneva talks are further hobbled because they are solely about Syria, though the war is taking place in both Syria and Iraq. Isis straddles the two countries, so the fighting cannot stop in one and continue in the other. But the diplomatic chaos in the run-up to Geneva masks important changes on the battlefield and in the balance of power between the forces supporting the Syrian government and those opposing it. The most important development was the start of Russian air strikes in support of the Syrian army on 30 September, coming a year after the US began giving air support to the Syrian Kurdish Peoples Mobilisation Units (YPG) to stop the Isis assault on Kobani. The Syrian army has advanced under a Russian air umbrella in Latakia (Getty) The deployment of the worlds two largest air forces, Russia in co-operation with the Syrian President Bashar al-Assads armed forces, and the US with the YPG, gives these armies vastly increased firepower and military strength out of proportion to their numbers. Unsurprisingly, they have won victories against Isis and the non-Isis Syrian armed opposition, the YPG supported by US air strikes capturing territory 250 miles long between the Tigris and Euphrates along Syrias border with Turkey. Arab fighters allied to the YPG are 30 miles north of Isiss Syrian capital, at Raqqa, while others have crossed the Euphrates at the Tishrin Dam and are close to sealing off Isis from Turkey and the outside world. Recommended Read more Iraqi Shia want their share of Russian firepower in fight against Isis The Syrian army has been advancing under a Russian air umbrella in Latakia province in the north and in Deraa in the south, retaking towns and villages held by the rebels for two or three years, though it has not recaptured cities such as Idlib and Palmyra. Whatever the outcome of the war, few now expect Mr Assad to lose, even if his army is not strong enough to win a decisive victory. The war in Syria and Iraq now has important common features: the Syrian army, the YPG, the Iraqi army and Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters advance on fixed positions held by Isis or other armed opposition. Ground forces identify targets, which are then obliterated by planes so the defenders suffer heavy casualties, if they decide to stand and fight, while the attackers, whose losses are small, mop up the survivors. Such tactics are effective but they are not a sure-fire formula for complete victory, because those under air attack may disperse and resort to guerrilla warfare. Iraqi and Syrian infantry may take positions because of intense Russian or US air strikes, but they do not have the manpower to occupy permanently the ground they have taken. A year ago, the Iraqi army recaptured Tikrit from Isis and the Iraqi Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, visited his victorious soldiers in the city amid scenes of jubilation. But a week ago, in the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Irbil, an elderly man called Fadel Ali Shaher and his wife, Aida, who had returned to their home neighbourhood in Tikrit after the Iraqi army success, explained why they had had to flee a second time. It was too dangerous to stay, Aida said. The government is in the centre of Tikrit, but Daesh [Isis] is in the villages around it and there was too much shooting between the two for us to stay. Recommended Read more Kurds providing lesson in how US air strikes can defeat Isis in Syria Another feature of the fighting is the near-total destruction of cities because ground forces rely on calling in air strikes. Fadel and Aida said that during their return to Tikrit we had to live in an empty house people found for us because our old neighbourhood was completely destroyed by bombing. Kobani, Sinjar and Ramadi have seen even greater levels of destruction than Tikrit. Massive use of US and Russian air power is the decisive development in the war since the summer of 2014. This in turn has transformed the political landscape in a way that may not be obvious as rancorous Syrian parties, factions and militias along with their non-Syrian supporters denounce each other before and during the Geneva meeting. The Syrian problem will be decided on the battlefield, says Fuad Hussein the chief of staff of the Iraqi Kurdistan President, Masoud Barzani, one of several powerful players in the Syria-Iraq war not represented in Geneva in an interview with The Independent. In pictures: The rise of Isis Show all 74 1 /74 In pictures: The rise of Isis In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters Fighters of the Islamic State wave the group's flag from a damaged display of a government fighter jet following the battle for the Tabqa air base, in Raqqa, Syria AP In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters Fighters from Islamic State group sit on their tank during a parade in Raqqa, Syria AP In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters Fighters from the Islamic State group pray at the Tabqa air base after capturing it from the Syrian government in Raqqa, Syria AP In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters Fighters from extremist Islamic State group parade in Raqqa, Syria AP In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis kidnapping A video uploaded to social networks shows men in underwear being marched barefoot along a desert road before being allegedly executed by Isis Getty Images In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis kidnapping Haruna Yukawa after his capture by Isis In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis kidnapping Khalinda Sharaf Ajour, a Yazidi, says two of her daughters were captured by Isis militants Washington Post In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters Spokesperson for Isis Vice News via Youtube In pictures: The rise of Isis A pro-Isis leaflet A pro-Isis leaflet handed out on Oxford Street In London Ghaffar Hussain In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters Isis Jihadists burn their passports In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis controls Syrian Aid A man collecting aid administered by Isis in Syria In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis controls Syrian Aid A woman collecting aid administered by Isis in Syria In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis controls Syrian Aid Local civilians queue for aid administered by Isis. Since it declared a caliphate the group has increasingly been delivering services such as healthcare, and distributing aid and free fuel In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi security forces detain men suspected of being militants of the Isis group in Diyala province In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Mourners carry the coffin of a Shi'ite volunteer from the brigades of peace, who joined the Iraqi army and was killed during clashes with militants of the Isis group in Samarra, during his funeral in Najaf In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraqi refugees An Iraqi Shiite Turkmen family fleeing the violence in the Iraqi city of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, arrives at a refugee camp on the outskirts of Arbil, in Iraq's Kurdistan region In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi A photograph made from a video by the jihadist affiliated group Furqan Media via their twitter account allegedly showing Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi delivering a sermon during Friday prayers at a mosque in Mosul. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared an Islamist caliphate in the territory under the group's control in Iraq and Syria In pictures: The rise of Isis Islamic extremists destroying mosques in Iraq Shiite's Al-Qubba Husseiniya mosque explodes in Mosul In pictures: The rise of Isis Islamic extremists destroying mosques in Iraq Smoke and debris go up in the air as Shiite's Al-Qubba Husseiniya mosque explodes in Mosul. Images posted online show that Islamic extremists have destroyed at least 10 ancient shrines and Shiite mosques in territory - the city of Mosul and the town of Tal Afar - they have seized in northern Iraq in recent weeks In pictures: The rise of Isis Islamic extremists destroying mosques in Iraq A bulldozer destroys Sunni's Ahmed al-Rifai shrine and tomb in Mahlabiya district outside of Tal Afar In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi security forces celebrate after clashes with followers of Shiite cleric Mahmoud al-Sarkhi, in front of his home in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi security forces arrest a follower of Shiite cleric Mahmoud al-Sarkhi after clashes with his followers in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi security forces arrest a follower of Shiite cleric Mahmoud al-Sarkhi at his home after clashes with his followers in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi security forces arrest a follower of Shiite cleric Mahmoud al-Sarkhi after clashes with his followers in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis A vehicle burns in front of a home of a follower of Shiite cleric Mahmoud al-Sarkhi after clashes with his followers in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraqi refugees An Iraqi woman holds her exhausted son as over 1000 Iraqis who have fled fighting in and around the city of Mosul and Tal Afar wait at a Kurdish checkpoint in the hopes of entering a temporary displacement camp in Khazair In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraqi refugees Displaced Iraqi women hold pots as they queue to receive food during the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, at an encampment for displaced Iraqis who fled from Mosul and other towns, in the Khazer area outside Irbil, north Iraq In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria A militant Islamist fighter waving a flag, cheers as he takes part in a military parade along the streets of Syria's northern Raqqa. The fighters held the parade to celebrate their declaration of an Islamic "caliphate" after the group captured territory in neighbouring Iraq In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Isis fighters wave flags as they take part in a military parade along the streets of Syria's northern Raqqa province Reuters In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Isis fighters travel in a vehicle as they take part in a military parade along the streets of Syria's northern Raqqa province In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Fighters from the Isis group during a parade with a missile in Raqqa, Syria. Militants from an al-Qaida splinter group held a military parade in their stronghold in northeastern Syria, displaying U.S.-made Humvees, heavy machine guns, and missiles captured from the Iraqi army for the first time since taking over large parts of the Iraq-Syria border In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Isis fighters during a parade in Raqqa, Syria In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Fighters from the Isis group during a parade in Raqqa, Syria. Militants from the splinter group held a military parade in their stronghold in northeastern Syria, displaying U.S.-made Humvees, heavy machine guns, and missiles captured from the Iraqi army for the first time since taking over large parts of the Iraq-Syria border In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Isis fighters hold a military parade in their stronghold in northeastern Syria In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Isis fighters during a parade in Raqqa, Syria In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria A member loyal to the Isis waves an Isis flag in Raqqa In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi anti-government gunmen from Sunni tribes in the western Anbar province march during a protest in Ramadi, west of Baghdad. The United Nations warned that Iraq is at a "crossroads" and appealed for restraint, as a bloody four-day wave of violence killed 195 people. The violence is the deadliest so far linked to demonstrations that broke out in Sunni areas of the Shiite-majority country more than four months ago, raising fears of a return to all-out sectarian conflict In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi security forces hold up a flag of the Isis group they captured during an operation to regain control of Dallah Abbas north of Baqouba, the capital of Iraq's Diyala province, 35 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Iraq Isis fighters parade in the northern city of Mosul In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Volunteers, who have joined the Iraqi army to fight against the predominantly Sunni militants from the radical Isis group, demonstrate their skills during a graduation ceremony after completing their field training in Najaf In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Kurdish Peshmerga troops fire a cannon during clashes with militants of the Isis group in Jalawla, Diyala province In pictures: The rise of Isis Lieutenant General Qassem Atta speaks during a press conference Iraqi Prime Minister's security spokesman, Lieutenant General Qassem Atta speaks during a press conference about the latest military development in Iraq, in the capital Baghdad. Iraqi forces pressed a campaign to retake militant-held Tikrit, clashing with jihadist-led Sunni militants nearby and pounding positions inside the city with air strikes in their biggest counter-offensive so far In pictures: The rise of Isis A police station building destroyed by Isis fighters An exterior view of a police station building destroyed by gunmen in Mosul city, northern Iraq. Iraq's new parliament is expected to convene to start the process of setting up a new government, despite deepening political rifts and an ongoing Islamist-led insurgency. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani issued a decree inviting the new House of Representatives to meet and form a new government In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Iraq Smoke billows from an area controlled by the Isis between the Iraqi towns of Naojul and Tuz Khurmatu, both located north of the capital Baghdad, as Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces take part in an operation to repel the Sunni militants In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraqi refugees An elderly Iraqi woman is helped into a temporary displacement camp for Iraqis caught-up in the fighting in and around the city of Mosul in Khazair In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraqi refugees An Iraqi Christian woman fleeing the violence in the village of Qaraqush, about 30 kms east of the northern province of Nineveh, cries upon her arrival at a community center in the Kurdish city of Arbil in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraqi refugees An Iraqi woman, who fled with her family from the northern city of Mosul, prays with a copy of the Quran AP In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Iraq The body of an Isis militant killed during clashes with Iraqi security forces on the outskirts of the city of Samarra Reuters In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi civilians inspect the damage at a market after an air strike by the Iraqi army in central Mosul EPA In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Members of the Al-Abbas brigades, who volunteered to protect the Shiite Muslim holy sites in Karbala against Sunni militants fighting the Baghdad government, parade in the streets of the city AP In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Shia tribesmen gather in Baghdad to take up arms against Sunni insurgents marching on the capital. Thousands have volunteered to bolster defences AFP/Getty In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis A van carrying volunteers joining Iraqi security forces against Jihadist militants. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced the Iraqi government would arm and equip civilians who volunteered to fight AFP/Getty In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Fighters of the Isis group parade in a commandeered Iraqi security forces armored vehicle down a main road at the northern city of Mosul In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq An Islamist fighter, identified as Abu Muthanna al-Yemeni from Britain (R), speaks in this still image taken undated video shot at an unknown location and uploaded to a social media website. Five Islamist fighters identified as Australian and British nationals have called on Muslims to join the wars in Syria and Iraq, in the new video released by the Isis In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Al-Qaida inspired militants stand with captured Iraqi Army Humvee at a checkpoint belonging to Iraqi Army outside Beiji refinery some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Baghdad. The fighting at Beiji comes as Iraq has asked the U.S. for airstrikes targeting the militants from the Isis group. While U.S. President Barack Obama has not fully ruled out the possibility of launching airstrikes, such action is not imminent in part because intelligence agencies have been unable to identify clear targets on the ground, officials said In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Militants attacked Iraq's main oil refinein Baiji as they pressed an offensive that has seen them capture swathes of territory, a manager and a refinery employee said In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Militants from the Isis group parading with their weapons in the northern city of Baiji in the in Salaheddin province In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq A smoke rises after an attack by Isis militants on the country's largest oil refinery in Beiji, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad. Iraqi security forces battled insurgents targeting the country's main oil refinery and said they regained partial control of a city near the Syrian border, trying to blunt an offensive by Sunni militants who diplomats fear may have also seized some 100 foreign workers In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Militants of the Isis group stand next to captured vehicles left behind by Iraqi security forces at an unknown location in the Salaheddin province. For militant groups, the fight over public perception can be even more important than actual combat, turning military losses into propaganda victories and battlefield successes into powerful tools to build support for the cause In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq An injured fighter (C) from the Isis group after a battle with Iraqi soldiers at an undisclosed location near the border between Syria and Iraq In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Fighters from the Isis aiming at advancing Iraqi troops at an undisclosed location near the border between Syria and Iraq In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Fighters from the Isis group taking position at an undisclosed location near the border between Syria and Iraq In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Fighters from the Isis group inspecting vehicles of the Iraqi army after they were seized at an undisclosed location near the border between Syria and Iraq In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq One Iraqi captive, a corporal, is reluctant to say the slogan, and has to be shouted at repeatedly before he obeys Sky News In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Iraqi captives held by the extremists Sky News In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Iraqi captives held by the extremists Sky News In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Militants of the Isis group force captured Iraqi security forces members to the transport In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Militants of the Isis group transporting dozens of captured Iraqi security forces members to an unknown location in the Salaheddin province ahead of executing them In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq A major offensive spearheaded by Isis but also involving supporters of executed dictator Saddam Hussein has overrun all of one province and chunks of three others In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Militants of the Isis group executing dozens of captured Iraqi security forces members at an unknown location in the Salaheddin province In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Isis militants taking position at a Iraqi border post on the Syrian-Iraqi border between the Iraqi Nineveh province and the Syrian town of Al-Hasakah In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Isis rebels show their flag after seizing an army post AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Isis militants waving an Islamist flag after the seizure of an Iraqi army checkpoint in Salahuddin Getty Images In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Demonstrators chant slogans as they carry al-Qaida flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul, 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad. In the week since it captured Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, a Muslim extremist group has tried to win over residents and has stopped short of widely enforcing its strict brand of Islamic law, residents say. Churches remain unharmed and street cleaners are back at work But Mr Hussein notes that the politics of the war have changed since Russia and the US both became fully engaged. He says that the war in Syria has gone through three stages. The first was determined by local forces when the conflict began in 2011 and the second saw the dominance of regional players such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran and Hezbollah of Lebanon. The third stage of the conflict is its internationalisation as the US and Russia increasingly take charge, something he sees as a hopeful development: If the crisis is going to be solved, it will be by an agreement between Russia and the US. Recommended Read more The Kurdish Peshmerga have come to rely on US air strikes Russian and American military and diplomatic action in Syria is a curious mix of co-operation and rivalry: an offensive by YPG proxy forces attacking Isis west of the Euphrates in recent weeks was supported first by US and later by Russian air strikes. Farther west, in Idlib province, on the other hand, the US is supplying armed opposition groups battling the Russian-backed Syrian army. The military and political engagement of what used to be called the superpowers reduces the influence of regional Sunni states which stoked the Syrian war between 2011 and the fall of Mosul to Isis in June 2014. One UN negotiator said in frustration at the time that the West seems to have subcontracted its policy on Syria to Saudi Arabia. But when Isis made spectacular advances, it became clear that the Sunni powers had no policy except the overthrow of Mr Assad, and this they were failing to achieve. At the same time, Turkey tolerated or was complicit in the growth of extreme Islamist terrorist movements such as Isis and al-Nusra. The military balance in northern Syria could change again if Turkey sends its army across the border. Mr Hussein believes that direct Turkish military intervention is now unlikely in the face of Russian air power and air defences. Others are less certain, the veteran Syrian Kurdish leader Omar Sheikhmous warning that the PYD [Syrian Democratic Union Party] should not make the mistake of thinking that they are stronger than they are and that the Turks will not act. Local powers in Syria and regional powers in the Middle East have failed to bring an end to the Syrian cataclysm either through war or diplomacy so real progress towards peace depends on action by the US and Russia. The room to be used for the Intra-Syrian talks at the European headquarters of the UN, in Geneva, Switzerland (EPA) Geneva talks: Whos acceptable? Fridays peace talks in Geneva, assuming they do start as expected, will be as much about who is not there, as who is. Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra will not be represented, despite violently opposing each other and, between them, controlling large areas of Syria. Both are seen as far too radical to have any part in Syrias future. The Saudis have drawn up a list of acceptable opposition groups, the so-called Higher Negotiating Committee. This has infuriated one of the non-Saudi-backed organisations, the Syrian Democratic Council, which has proposed its own Democratic Secular Syrian List. That list is likely to include the main Kurdish faction, the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, whose YPG fighters are considered terrorists by Turkey: Ankara is adamant the PYD will not take part. With such an alphabet soup of opposition groups, it will be a triumph if the negotiations begin on time. Alistair Dawber Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for weekly expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Simon Calders Travel email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The mysterious seemingly endless tunnels and secret staff codes of the Tube have long been a point of fascination for ordinary Londoners. Books titled "Secrets of the Underground" feature in many tourist bookshops - but how many tell you what "person on the tracks" really means? And, is there any point running for the last train? One Metropolitan line driver, who asked to remain anonymous, shared a series of tips and little-known facts with The Independent about what it is really like on the world's oldest metro system. 1. There is a false wall passengers don't know about at Elephant and Castle Engineering works at Elephant and Castle were abandoned, leaving a sealed tunnel (Corbis) Lots of well-used Tube carriages spend the night at rest down a long, apparently dead-ended tunnel at Elephant and Castle Tube station. But the dead end is a false brick wall and the tunnel actually continues for quite a while, according to our inside source. Engineering works were begun and then abandoned - and the tunnel is now sealed. 2. You can never miss the last train With the very important caveat that you must already be through the barriers before the scheduled departure time, your underground journey home is a sealed deal. Once you've tapped in with your Oyster, station staff will be radioing down to the Tube driver telling them to wait. Top tips to avoid pickpockets on the Tube So there's no need to career three steps at a time down the escalator, about to break your neck, to make the 11.59pm. In pictures: Tube strike in London (July 2015) Show all 12 1 /12 In pictures: Tube strike in London (July 2015) In pictures: Tube strike in London (July 2015) London People queue for buses at Stratford station In pictures: Tube strike in London (July 2015) London Commuters crowd on a platform as they wait for a train on the c2c line at Upminster station In pictures: Tube strike in London (July 2015) London Metropolitan Police with crowds of people queuing for buses at Stratford station In pictures: Tube strike in London (July 2015) London People queue for buses in Stratford In pictures: Tube strike in London (July 2015) London People queue to get on a bus outside Victoria Station In pictures: Tube strike in London (July 2015) London A long line of people waiting at a bus stop in Wimbledon, south west London, as tennis fans leaving the All England Club faced a difficult journey home due to a tube strike In pictures: Tube strike in London (July 2015) London People wait in line for taxis in Wimbledon In pictures: Tube strike in London (July 2015) London A closed entrance to Stratford underground station, as commuters face travel misery trying to get to work because of a strike which has brought London Underground to a standstill In pictures: Tube strike in London (July 2015) London District Line tube trains parked at the Upminster depot during a 24-hour walkout of London Underground staff In pictures: Tube strike in London (July 2015) London Commuters try to board a tube train at Westminster station as workers across the British capital begin a 24-hour strike on 7 July In pictures: Tube strike in London (July 2015) London Commuters crowding around one of the entrances to Oxford Circus Tube station, the rush hour on 7 July started early in London as commuters left work to beat a Tube strike In pictures: Tube strike in London (July 2015) London Commuters crowding around one of the closed entrances to Oxford Circus Tube station. Picket lines were mounted outside stations by members of four trade unions involved in a 24-hour walkout in a row over the new all-night Tubes, due to start in mid-September 3. Most fights seem to happen on the relatively glamorous Metropolitan line between "wealthy drunk people" An experienced Tube drivers' words, not ours. 4. Bakerloo is slowest line and Central is fastest There you have it. But the Central is worst for overcrowding as a result, apparently. 5. Drivers live in almost complete darkness There is no little side lamp or overhead lamp inside a cabin - only the tiny dashboard and a few bleeping sensors. Every new station is like a rush of brightness as their lonely office whizzes out of the pitch-black again. Tube drivers have no light with them in the cabin, and are often in complete darkness 6. A "person on the tracks" could have died - or may just be be strolling around Both trespassers and people attempting suicide are referred to using this term, for fear of upsetting people. If it really upsets you not to know which, for some reason, you can apparently have a quiet chat with staff afterwards to find out. 7. Your train is going really slowly for a reason If youre going really slowly in a train, chances are youre only half a carriage away from another train in front, and the driver will not risk going faster in case they crash into them. Londoners gather at Aldwych Tube station to listen to music as Nazi bombers fly overhead during the Second World War (Corbis) 8. David Attenborough might enjoy driving a Tube train Did you know that more of the Underground is above ground than under it? Neither did we. Train drivers see a lot of wildlife on their travels - from hawks to herons and rabbits to green woodpeckers. Our driver remembers when a deer hit the train and got stuck underneath. Engineers had to come out to get it out. 9. Not every train is born equal Four Tube lines are completely automated, except when there's a problem and the driver takes control back. Otherwise, they mainly man the doors. These intelligent tubes are the Jubilee, Northern, Central and Victoria trains. "I'd be really bored personally," said our candid source. Four lines are completely automated, which bores some drivers (Rex Features) 10. People frequently bunch at one end of the train Train drivers are experts in sheep psychology. On their cameras they can see entire carriages empty at one end of their train, while everyone is "nose-in-armpit" at the other. 11. There is no reason to miss the doors There is one way of knowing almost exactly where the train's doors will open before it arrives. Look at the scuff marks on the yellow line, says our driver. They will tell you where to wait alongside other impatient commuters. 12. There is one elderly couple in Uxbridge who thank our driver every time they use her train Our driver says she wishes people did that more. 13. Children have been behind the controls of trains Despite the Tube holding endless nightmarish fears for many children, others are desperate to get behind the wheel. And, unbelievably or not, parents quite frequently make requests for their offspring to have a go in the cabin as a birthday treat. According to our inside source, this wish has been known to be granted. Click here to view UK Tours and Holidays, with Independent Holidays. Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for weekly expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Simon Calders Travel email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A cost-conscious teenager found the perfect way to save on his journey home - by booking a flight via Berlin. Jordon Cox, 18, realised it would cost him 50 to travel from Sheffield to Shenfield in Essex by train but if he went the extra 1,017 miles he could fly via the German capital and save 7.72. Blogging about his money saving adventure for MoneySavingExpert, Mr Cox said he knew it wasnt the most environmentally friendly way to travel but it gave him the chance to save money and visit a city he had always wanted to go to. He said: I was teaching a class on couponing in Sheffield and I had booked a cheap train up there from Essex, but coming back home the cheapest one-way rail ticket was 47, so it needed some blue-sky thinking. It turned out that flying out from East Midlands Airport to Berlin, spending seven hours exploring the city and then flying to Stansted and getting the bus home was cheaper than a single train journey in England. 10 best life hacks Show all 10 1 /10 10 best life hacks 10 best life hacks Drinking a glass of water while drinking coffee will protect your teeth. 10 best life hacks Add one teaspoon of baking soda when boiling an egg. It makes the eggshell come off effortlessly. 10 best life hacks Put a small amount of water in a glass when you microwave your pizza to keep the crust from getting chewy. Getty Images 10 best life hacks Put a straw through your tab to stop it from rising out of the fizzy drink can. 10 best life hacks Cut open toilet paper rolls and use them as a cuff to save your wrapping paper and keep it from unrolling. 10 best life hacks You can use the sticky side of a post-it note to clean your keyboard. Run it between the keys to pick up dust and dirt. 10 best life hacks To remove the stem from a strawberry poke a straw all the way through. 10 best life hacks Use paper clips to find the end of a tape roll easily. 10 best life hacks Place your smartphone in a cup to crank up the volume of your morning alarm. 10 best life hacks Use dental floss to cut cake into perfectly sized pieces. But thats not all, I also figured out I could buy a return train ticket to Berlin city centre, enjoy a free tour of a government building and lunch while I was out there and STILL save money. He broke down what he spent on his adventure: Train from Sheffield to Derby: 4 Bus from Derby to East Midlands Airport: 4.20 Ryanair flight to Berlin: 11.83 Train from airport to Berlin city centre: 5 Currywurst sausage for lunch: 1.50 Ryanair flight to London Stansted: 9.54 Bus home to Hutton from Stansted Airport: 8 Total: 44.07 This is in comparison to the 47 train ride, a 2.99 sandwich and the 1.80 bus home at the other end - coming to 51.79 - if he took the train. He said his technique would not suit everyone as it means an entire day of travelling but if your focus is saving money and you fancy a little walk around a European city, its worth a look. The money saving blogger said on certain train routes it can often be cheaper to fly via Ireland or elsewhere in Europe than travelling directly. He warned it would take "a bit of trial and error" so consumers needed to be wary about extra booking fees. Searching for the positive in everyday life Wang Jianlin and Manuela Carmena [File photo] Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group stated today that reports about its Chairman Wang Jianlin denouncing the Madrid government as it "treated (him) like a dog" were fabricated. The statement released on the company's Weibo account came after reports said Wang Jianlin, Chairman of Wanda Group, blasted the Madrid's government for "treating him like a dog." The statement asserted there were no talks between Wanda and Madrid regarding the Edificio Espana renovation project recently, and that Wang would never say things like that. A new round of comprehensive assessment of the project is underway, it added. Wanda acquired the landmark building Edificio Espana in Madrid for 260 million euros (US$358.6 million) in 2014, and planned to convert it into a luxury hotel, residential and retail complex. The construction work is expected to create almost 4,000 jobs, between direct and indirect roles. Edificio Espana [File photo] However, the two sides haven't reached an agreement regarding its refurbishment plan. Wanda wants to demolish the building and rebuild it because its weathered materials are not strong enough, but Madrid is insisting on maintaining the historic building's facade and part of the sides. It was reported that Wang said he felt humiliated and was treated like a dog during negotiations with the Madrid government on January 26, prompting speculation that Wanda would perhaps give up the project. However, Madrid Mayor Manuela Carmena clarified the next morning that such reports were inaccurate, and that Wanda didn't show up with her because a consensus had not yet been reached. Completed in 1953, the Edificio Espana is considered a fine example of Spanish architecture in the post-war period. Most recently, it housed apartments and offices. However, it has been empty since the previous owner's redevelopment project ran short of funds in 2007. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} To those who have campaigned against the so-called bedroom tax from the beginning, Wednesdays decision by the appeal court to rule the policy discriminatory and unlawful will come as no surprise. To those who continue to defend the policy, this ruling should act as a stark reminder of its remarkable failure. When it was first introduced by the coalition government in 2013, the bedroom tax aimed to cut the welfare bill and free up in-demand housing. The policy works by cutting the benefits tenants receive by 14% if they have one spare bedroom and a staggering 25 per cent if they have two or more. At first, it may seem reasonable to some to cut peoples benefits if they are living in a house with one or more spare bedrooms. The idea is that this significant reduction in income will encourage the occupant to move to a house where all the rooms are used, therefore freeing up the larger property for those who require more than one room. However, when you begin to look at the implications of the policy, as well as the failure to achieve one of its main goals, it becomes clear that the bedroom tax has been a disaster from the off. According to the governments own research published in 2014, almost 60 per cent of those affected by the bedroom tax were in rent arrears as a result of the policy. Furthermore, according to a survey carried out by the National Housing Federation in the same year, around one in seven families had received eviction letters and faced the prospect of losing their homes. Even more worryingly, research carried out by the governments Department for Work & Pensions found that three-quarters of those affected by the policy have had to cut back on food, while 46% had to cut back on heating and 33 per cent on travel. Clearly, the bedroom tax is having an extreme impact on those who are already struggling, forcing them to scale back on the essentials. Such a situation is simply unacceptable and confirms the fears many raised when the policy was first introduced. In addition, many have also criticised the bedroom tax for discriminating against vulnerable people. For example, Wednesdays ruling by the appeal court dealt with a case involving a seriously disabled child who requires overnight care in a specially adapted room. The other case involved a single mother living in a three-bedroom council house fitted with a secure panic room to protect her from a violent ex-partner. In both cases, judges ruled that the bedroom tax amounted to unlawful discrimination. As a result of similar cases, the UN special investigator on housing called on the government to scrap the bedroom tax, pointing to what she described as shocking accounts of how the policy was damaging the lives of vulnerable citizens. However, there is yet more evidence demonstrating the failure of the policy. As aforementioned, one of the main aims of the bedroom tax was to move those with spare bedrooms into smaller houses. However, according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act, only around 6% of those affected by the policy have actually moved, showing that for many, downsizing is not a viable option, either for personal reasons or because housing is in such short supply. Looking at the evidence, it is clear the bedroom tax has been a complete failure in terms of rehousing tenants and the impact it has had on thousands of people up and down the country. The government may have saved around 1bn since its introduction, but this has been at the expense of struggling families and vulnerable citizens. Following the appeal courts decision to rule the policy discriminatory and unlawful, it is now time for the government to finally admit it was wrong and abolish the bedroom tax. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Is Jihadi Jack fighting for ISIS on the frontlines in Iraq or carrying out humanitarian work in Syria? Despite claim and counter-claim being light on detail at this stage, Jack Letts is already on trial in the court of public opinion. His story so far has similarities with that of Australian teenager Oliver Bridgeman. Initial reports in May 2015 also based on social media activity and comments from school friends - identified Bridgeman as a radicalised, blonde jihadi, fighting with the al-Nusra Front in Syria. By August however, footage had emerged of Bridgeman distributing aid for the Live Updates from Syria organisation. Bridgeman has subsequently played an active and visible role in their online campaign, removing many of the doubts surrounding his presence in Syria. Yet some of the details provided by Letts and his parents point to potentially concerning differences between the two, particularly Letts time in Isis-controlled areas and the de-facto capital Raqqa. Sally Letts is right to point out that large numbers of those in Isis-controlled areas are not Isis supporters. They are suffering under an occupying (and increasingly foreign) army. As Isis feel the squeeze from airstrikes and military setbacks, the need for medical support and humanitarian relief for civilians in Raqqa and elsewhere will only increase. But if Letts is not working for or with Isis, it seems unlikely that they would allow him to operate freely in areas under their control. Or access the internet on a regular basis. His parents hope that Letts "integration into day-to-day life with Syrian people will keep him safe. But Isiss execution of other western aid workers including Alan Henning and David Haines, suggests this is an insufficient protection. Equally however, if Letts has been fighting with Isis since September 2014, it is surprising that he is yet to feature in Isis propaganda material that is increasingly focused on the UK. While their media capabilities are often overplayed, Isis recognise the impact and media coverage that white, western converts generate. As with the recent Isis video featuring Jihadi Johns British successor, using Letts would demonstrate that ISIS is able to attract and recruit British citizens. This is designed to be unsettling, highlighting the threat from the enemy within. And the message would be so much more potent coming from a white convert with a solid middle-class background. Conversely, this greater sense of shared identity and the fear it invokes may increase the chances of Letts being given the benefit of the doubt. But regardless of Letts true feelings towards Isis and their hateful ideology, if what he says is true, Letts is likely to be of interest to the group. And media coverage over the past few days will only have increased that interest. White Westerners are valuable to Isis as either their victims or their mouthpiece. If Letts really is doing humanitarian work in Isis-controlled parts of Syria, we should probably expect clarification of his current status sooner rather than later. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} On Tuesday the Sri Lankan government destroyed its biggest illegal ivory haul ever, in a bid to show poachers that the island is serious about fighting the tusk trade. More than 350 African elephant tusks, weighing about 1.5 tonnes, were crushed before being fed into an industrial furnace. The international trade in ivory has been banned in most of the world since 1989, but illegal smuggling still goes on in many parts of Asia, where ivory is highly prized for medicinal and decorative uses. Sri Lanka has become a trailblazer for the anti-poaching cause in the East, being the first South Asian nation to publicly destroy ivory obtained through elephant poaching. It is now the sixteenth country in the world to destroy confiscated elephant tusks so that they cannot be traded on the black market. The haul was seized at Colombo's port nearly four years ago en route to Dubai from Kenya. "There are some very small tusks which would have come from baby elephants," Colombo Customs Director Udayantha Liyanage told reporters. "We are trying to demonstrate that there is no value for blood ivory... It is horribly cruel and the elephants suffer for about a week before they die," he said. Blood ivory is a term used by activists to describe tusks that are obtained illegally by slaughtering elephants. The organisers of the ceremony observed a two-minute silence for the slain elephants before Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Muslim leaders performed funeral rites for the animals. The ivory came from northern Mozambique and Tanzania and travelled through Kenya to Sri Lanka on the way to the United Arab Emirates, said Secretary General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), John E. Scanlon. Scanlon, who was present for the crushing, said: "this shows the effectiveness of Sri Lankan customs in detecting this contraband in transit." Most Sri Lankan elephants do not have tusks and the animals are venerated and protected by law. However, nearly 200 elephants are killed each year by villagers after accidentally straying onto farmland, while the animals themselves also kill about 50 people each year. Sri Lanka's elephant population has reduced to just over 7,000, according to a census five years ago, down from a population of over 12,000 at the start of the last century. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} On the 29th and 30th April 2016, the President of Kenya is convening the inaugural Giants Club Summit, supported by Space for Giants, to address the elephant poaching crisis in Africa and work towards a lasting solution for the conservation of the continents wildlife. The Giants Club Summit will be the largest gathering of African presidents that has ever taken place to solely focus on protecting the continents natural heritage. They will be joined by the worlds leading conservationists, corporate leaders, philanthropists and global celebrities to discuss and implement solutions that will lead to the effective protection of elephants, as well as the natural landscapes that Africas wildlife depends on. The Giants Club was founded by the Presidents of Botswana, Gabon, Kenya and Uganda, with support from Space for Giants and its patron, Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of The Independent and Evening Standard newspapers. Its objective is to provide the political will, financial resources and technical capacity that is so urgently required to save Africas remaining elephant populations. The day after the Summit, in Nairobi, the Kenyan government will destroy the largest stockpile of ivory in Africa's history, demonstrating its zero tolerance to the illegal ivory trade. The Giants Club and the Government of Kenya will be announcing further details about the Giants Club summit shortly. For more information about the summit please email: giantsclub@spaceforgiants.org or go to: www.spaceforgiants.org/giantsclub Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Our campaign to raise money to help Great Ormond Street Hospital treat critically ill children and support their parents has now raised more than 3m, smashing all previous records for our seasonal appeal. The appeal, now in its final two weeks, ends on GOSHs birthday, 14 February, and a party will be held that week for patients and staff. Reaching 3m means that all the 1.5m in match-funding provided by the Chancellor, George Osborne, has been used. A new funder, the Hunter Foundation, has now provided a further 100,000 in match-funding to help boost donations during the appeals final stretch. Dr Peter Steer, chief executive of GOSH, said everyone at the hospital had been deeply touched by the publics generosity. It has been a fantastic response, he said. The money is invaluable. It is also hard to overstate what it has meant to the staff. Thank you. Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of the London Evening Standard and Independent newspapers, said he wished to thank everyone who had backed the appeal. I have seen for myself the incredible work being done by the tireless and inspirational doctors and nurses at Great Ormond Street Hospital, and talked with parents who are going through an almost unimaginably difficult and emotional time, he said. Elliott Livingstone, a patient at GOSH, and his parents, Adrian and Candace, celebrate with Evgeny Lebedev, owner of The Independent (John Shand-Kydd) Every penny will go on essential projects to help them. More children will now be treated and their time in the hospital made much more comfortable. That is something we can all be proud of. As well as postal and online donations, the funding includes money raised through the Give it up for GOSH initiative, which ends on Sunday. The hundreds of people who took part were sponsored to give up a treat for January through our partner, the fund-raising website JustGiving. Meet the patients and doctors of GOSH Show all 9 1 /9 Meet the patients and doctors of GOSH Meet the patients and doctors of GOSH Elliott Livingstone Two-year-old Elliott is a cheeky little boy who has a Thomas the Tank Engine sticker on his Berlin heart machine, which has kept him alive since his own heart failed eight months ago. Elliott has two tubes pumping blood around his tiny body. It keeps him alive but the machine has left him confined to the wards of Great Ormond Street Hospital until a new heart is found Meet the patients and doctors of GOSH Melissa Strickland As the ward sister on Koala Ward, Melissa Strickland leads a nursing team with the challenging job of looking after children with craniofacial and neurological conditions. You have to have all the skills and knowledge to do this job but personally for me you cannot do it unless you have passion but also compassion, she said. You dont get used to the sad side of things but you do learn to manage it. Meet the patients and doctors of GOSH Amy Willis Amy Willis carries a discreet black medical bag everywhere she goes. It contains the cutting-edge HeartWare device that is keeping her alive. A smaller, more advanced version of the Berlin artificial heart, it was fitted in April after she was emergency airlifted to GOSH from Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool. The device means that 14-year-old Amy can be home in Flintshire this Christmas while remaining on the heart transplant waiting list. She is doing well but 15 per cent of patients with a HeartWare device or Berlin heart die while waiting for a new heart, so money raised by the appeal will also go to help researchers identify ways to keep children alive while they await transplant Lucy Young Meet the patients and doctors of GOSH Myra Bluebond-Langner Professor Myra Bluebond-Langner represents the vital work of the Louis Dundas Centre for Childrens Palliative Care, GOSHs world-class centre dedicated to research and care for children with life-limiting illnesses. The LDC is named in honour of Louis Dundas, a four-year-old boy who died in unspeakable pain after suffering a brain tumour in April 2008. Its aim is to ensure that no child suffers unnecessarily in their final days. Money raised from The Independents Give to GOSH appeal will go to fund the teams work to manage pain, and also fund vital research into palliative care in children across the whole of the UK. Professor Bluebond-Langner, who heads the research, said: Paediatric palliative care is a relatively new field where practice has outstripped research. We look to change that. Meet the patients and doctors of GOSH Finella Craig Together with with Professor Myra Bluebond-Langner, Dr Finella Craig represents the vital work of the Louis Dundas Centre for Childrens Palliative Care, GOSHs world-class centre dedicated to research and care for children with life-limiting illnesses. The LDC is named in honour of Louis Dundas, a four-year-old boy who died in unspeakable pain after suffering a brain tumour in April 2008. Its aim is to ensure that no child suffers unnecessarily in their final days. One of the worst experiences for a family is to witness their child in pain and discomfort, and for them to feel totally powerless to do anything about it, said Dr Craig, a consultant in paediatric palliative medicine at GOSH since 2002. Money raised from The Independents Give to GOSH appeal will go to fund the teams work to manage pain, and also fund vital research into palliative care in children across the whole of the UK. Meet the patients and doctors of GOSH Rowan Pethard Like most little boys, Rowan Pethard loves playing football. At the start of 2015 the seven-year-old Spurs fan baffled his doctors in Hemel Hempstead with a string of coughs, colds, tummy bugs, aches, pains and rashes. It wasnt until quite late on that doctors discovered he had leukaemia. He spent two days in intensive care while he had emergency chemo. He has two years of follow-up treatment ahead. Hes amazing, a little superhero, his mum said. It makes it easier for his father and I and his brother to cope. Joe Plimmer Meet the patients and doctors of GOSH Martin Elliott Paediatric heart and lung surgeon Martin Elliott, 64, is one of the longest serving doctors at GOSH, leading groundbreaking research and treating thousands of patients over the past 30 years. His work has bridged the gap between surgery and research with skills ranging from heart-bypass surgery to correcting congenital lung disorders. Meet the patients and doctors of GOSH Ralph Frost For Ralph the hardest thing about having to live at GOSH while he waits for a new kidney isnt missing his toys. He has plenty of those and can terrorise the nurses by pushing his little red motorbike down the corridors of Eagle Ward. The hardest thing for the six-year-old is battling not to cry out during his nightly dialysis sessions. It really hurts, he said. But the other kids are sleeping and I dont want to wake them up. Ralph suffers from nephrotic syndrome and is currently waiting for a kidney from his father, Nick. Hes called the kidney Chase and his parents, who have been trained to operate his dialysis machine, hope to be home by Christmas Lucy Young Meet the patients and doctors of GOSH Lynsey Steele The strongest praise for Lynsey Steele, 33, comes from the parents of the children she helps. The children here wouldnt get by without Lynsey, said Ralphs mother Amie Frost. If she wasnt here then wed have cracked up. Lynseys role, which is funded by the Great Ormond Street Hospital Childrens Charity and will be supported by The Independents Give to GOSH appeal, is to help children play and relax, but also to have the difficult conversations explaining their treatment Ash Knotek Corporate backing came from organisations including Morgan Stanley and Trailfinders, while Tesco ran a four-day fundraising drive at all 500 of its London stores last week. The supermarkets initial estimate is that Londoners gave more than 100,000. Professor Martin Elliott, a cardiothoracic surgeon at GOSH, said he was gobsmacked by the success of the appeal, which The Independent is running with its sister papers i, The Independent on Sunday and the Evening Standard. He added: I travel on the Tube every day and see people reading the reports in the paper. I cannot tell you what it means to me being able to witness how people want to be part of what we are trying to do for the children here. The Hunter Foundation, which is providing the extra match-funding, was set up by Scotlands first self-made billionaire, Sir Tom Hunter. For every pound donated, up to 100,000, the foundation will give a further pound. Give to GOSH - Great Ormond Street Hospital fundraiser Great Ormond Street Hospital is an outstanding facility offering hope and help to thousands of young people and their families, and thats why we are delighted to offer these new funds, Sir Tom said. Lets hope everyone digs deep and doubles our support to help a tremendous cause. The appeal is helping fund research programmes and the creation of a specialist unit for children waiting for a heart transplant. It will also support care programmes for patients and their families and will aid the hospitals Louis Dundas Centre for Childrens Palliative Care, which supports children with life-threatening illnesses and conducts vital research. Adrian Livingstone, whose two-year-old son Elliott is being treated at GOSH while he waits for a heart transplant, said: We are delighted how well the campaign has gone and really pleased to be part of it. We have had such support from all the staff at the hospital and it is a pleasure to be able to help GOSH. It is amazing to see how people have responded to the appeal. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Another lovely view of old London. View across the Thames from the original Richmond House, by the Houses of Parliament, by Canaletto, 1747. Thanks to Mr Memory. My colleague Mark Leftly reported on Sunday that the modern Richmond House, home of the Department of Health, is top of the shortlist for temporary accommodation for the House of Commons when the Palace of Westminster is refurbished starting in 2020. Most popular French boys' names by province 1946-2011. Jean to Lucas via Kevin and Enzo. Lovely animated map from Le Monde via Brandon Sheffield. Another important piece of research helps to explain why the opinion polls got the 2015 election wrong. Paul Whiteley and Harold Clarke have looked at the British Election Studies, which have been checked against the marked electoral registers. The registers show who has actually voted, and can be compared with people's report of their vote in BES questionnaires. The proportion of non-voters who claim to have voted rose from 7.6 per cent in 2001 to 10.4 per cent in 2010.> This might help to explain why mis-estimated turnout has become worse, if this trend continued in 2015. Although it still doesn't explain why the pollsters got the 2010 election pretty much right. One extra story about the 2006 reshuffle that Ed Balls told the "Blair Years" class at King's College, London, on Monday, that I didn't have time for in my previous report. Sean O'Grady liked the new Dad's Army. Prime Minister's Questions yesterday was interesting for some outstandingly duff lines from David Cameron. He said he wanted to "build a bridge to the future" for the North Sea oil and gas industry, which is sinking beneath the break-even oil price. (He is in Aberdeen today to offer some more silly metaphors.) Jeremy Corbyn's questions about Google's tax affairs were not particularly pointed, but they didn't have to be. No one has the slightest idea how much tax Google should pay, but nearly everyone in the country agrees that it is not paying enough. Unfortunately for Labour, Yvette Cooper chose to make a fuss about the Prime Minister talking about Corbyn meeting "a bunch of migrants" in Calais. It wasn't statesmanlike language but as pejoratives go, "bunch" is neutral enough. As a result, the news bulletins yesterday led on refugees, on which Cameron is aligned with public opinion, rather than Google's tax, on which he isn't. And finally, thanks to Glenny Rodge for this: COMPUTER: Enter new password. ME: [types "posh_people's_tea"] COMPUTER: Your password is too weak. ME: [high fives computer] Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Its offensive to compare us to the Nazis! reads The Guardians speech bubble attached to the Danish PM as he is depicted wearing a brown Nazi uniform, complete with armband, while he inspects the arse of a pig. The satire drawing was in response to the bill passed this week in Danish Parliament allowing the police to seize refugees assets upon arrival in Denmark. A fair satirical take on the news? Perhaps. What has been widely reported is that the police will now seize all assets, not just monetary ones, but also jewellery, golden teeth and whatever else they can get their hands on. The legislation has even been nicknamed the jewellery bill by some quarters of the media. This, however, is misleading. The government have chosen not to include jewellery and assets containing emotional value, and it is important to note that this is not part of the bill. That being said, what the bill does contain is the clause that any assets valued above 10,000 DKK (1000) will be seized. In addition to this the period before the asylum seeker can achieve family reunification has been raised from one to three years. Both of these policies deserve attention. First, seizure of assets has been put in place because Denmark has one of the world's best care-taking systems for refugees, which reflects our Scandinavian welfare model. We spend around 200,000 DKK every year on each refugee. That is the second highest in the world right after Sweden. Thus we justify taking refugees assets as a sort of hotel fee. Personally, I think it is inhumane for one of the richest countries in the world to take pocket money from people who have carried everything they own (thats after the traffickers have taken their cut) 4,000 kilometres across continents. At the end of the day, it is yet unclear how these assets should be handled and the policy is more symbolic than anything else a deterrent to all extents and purposes. The second policy is potentially much more damaging, reflected in its violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. It mirrors a concern that Denmark will be too popular for refugees because of the comparatively high amount of welfare they receive. Thus were basically telling them if you come here, well take good care of you, but your wife and children that you left in a war torn country youre gonna have to see through a Skype connection for the next 36 months, alright? France have previously been convicted at the European Court of Human Rights for taking longer than 12 months to process family reunification, which shows exactly how this bill violates the ECHR rules. What our government has sorely missed is that refugees fleeing war do not necessarily have access to comprehensive information on what country to target in order to maximise their benefits. Many or most, in fact, will have little interest anyway. Better, surely, to assume that they want to live and contribute in any way they can to the societies that open their arms and give them the shelter they so desperately need. Does all of this justify an elegant Nazi comparison? No, not in my opinion, but it does display Denmark as a greedy country lacking basic human empathy. Is this image reflected on the streets of Copenhagen? Are people treating refugees, immigrants and Muslims like second tier citizens? No. While the refugee-sceptical Danes have remained passive and refrained from protesting on the street like Pegida in Dresden, a large proportion of Danes who welcome refugees have organised themselves in multiple welcome committees, determined to help and integrate those who have come. Danish industry giants such as Novo Nordisk have openly spoken against the new policies, as well as the Confederation of Danish Industry. Our government is simply catering to The Danish Peoples Party, a far-right populist party, which holds the political balance and keeps the government from having to resign. What is far more worrying is the fact that the Danish Peoples Party has managed to set a populist agenda (not unlike Mr Trumps) and therefore drawn the governing liberal party Venstre and opposition leaders of the Social Democratic Party into a race-to-the-bottom of hostile, inhumane and narrow-minded policy-making. At the end of the day, very few things should justify a Nazi-comparison, with all atrocities taken into account. But the populist right-wing message of fear and self-centrism, and the evaporatiom of liberal ideals in the political centre now spreading across Denmark and the rest of Europe (including the UK) deserves all the opposition we can mobilize. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Turning on the radio a couple of days ago, I heard Justin Forsyth, the admirable head of the charity Save the Children, arguing calmly and eloquently that the UK should accept 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children as a matter of urgency. This 3,000 would be in addition to the 20,000 people the Government is committed to bringing in from Syrian refugee camps by 2020. Forsyths case was so compassionate, so coherent and so reasonable, that it was seductive. His was not the hyperbolic, tear-jerking suffer-the-little children approach. That would have been easier to dismiss. No, this was empathy writ large. Nonetheless and, dear liberal and generous Independent readers, you may be shocked to read this but my immediate response was not to rush round to Downing Street with a placard demanding Let the innocents in, now, nor to race to Calais with a lorry-load of soft toys, nor even to retweet or like Forsyths appeal. It was rather concern that David Cameron and his ministers would find it hard, nay impossible, to resist such expert pleading. How could they rebuff Save the Children without re-awakening the spectre of the Nasty Party? Calculated or not, the timing of the plea on the eve of International Holocaust Day made resistance all the harder, inviting as it did comparisons with the Kindertransport that saved so many Jewish childrens lives. Remember, too, how the Prime Ministers personal susceptibility to childrens causes led him to shovel taxpayers money into the leaky vessel that was Kids Company. Yet, even knowing all this, I still silently willed David Cameron and Theresa May to resist the tugging of their heart strings. Even if it meant slaughter at Prime Ministers Questions, and days of pillorying by the great and the good. Even if it laid the Home Secretary open to unpleasant sniping about not having children, such as Liz Kendall had disgracefully suffered during the Labour leadership contest. (I dont have children either, so you can direct your heartless fire at me, too.) Then yesterday, the Government broached a compromise of sorts. The UK would accept an unspecified number of unaccompanied children, but not from those already in Europe. The number would be in addition to that already announced a consolation for Forsyth but the principle of taking only those in greatest need from camps in and around Syria was unchanged. So why is it such a bad idea for a rich European country, such as ours, to fast-track lone children even from the anarchic squalor of the Calais jungle to a place so obviously safer in every respect? Why should not children who, of course, bear no responsibility whatsoever for their situation be given possibly that one chance of a better life: to go to school, then to college, and then, in that overused phrase, to give something back? Do we not feel, if not a high moral duty, the visceral pull of humanity? But it is precisely at such times that the small voice of reason needs to be heard. Fast-tracking unaccompanied children is nowhere near as simple as it sounds. Consider the perverse incentives. Once the word gets out that unaccompanied children will receive preferential treatment, their numbers will grow exponentially. Some adults will abandon their offspring and disappear in the genuinely selfless hope that at least the next generation will have a better life. Others may take a less altruistic view. Once the child is settled they will apply to join him or her, along with other relatives. Wouldnt you, in similar circumstances, at least keep that chance at the back of your mind? Whether the motives are selfless or not and those who entrusted their children to the Kindertransport saw them off with no expectation of seeing them ever again you have only to look at the recent movement of children through Central America to appreciate another risk. A regulatory change that was interpreted as making entry to the US automatic for unaccompanied minors led to an exponential rise in numbers of children making for the US (and of those exploited, abused and killed on the way). If the UK, or the EU, opened the doors unconditionally to unaccompanied children, there would be a similar knock-on effect many, many miles away. Then there is the difficulty of who qualifies. In our minds eye, we see a small child, probably a girl, of around five or six. But many (the majority, perhaps) of lone children are young men in their teens. And, aware that children are already more likely than adults to be accepted as asylum-seekers, there are those rather older who try to pass themselves off as under 18. Testing age causes tensions and is not foolproof; deception, already rife, will increase. And while it might seem invidious to mention cost, there is a cost to the public purse and a high one. The care system in the UK leaves much to be desired and is already strained. Even young children may be scarred in many ways by their experience and require treatment or long-term therapy to adjust. A new Kindertransport may be seen as a noble undertaking or, more mercenarily, as a long-term investment, but the sums in the short term education, health, housing are all negative. No government, as even Angela Merkel now concedes, can admit all comers. And if resettlement arrangements are skimped, we only store up trouble for the future. After announcing its compromise, the condemnation rained down. We will hear more from the likes of Justin Forsyth in the weeks to come. But unless generous sponsors come forward, David Cameron must gird himself for more flak. Fast-tracking unaccompanied children as the rule, rather than the exception is far from being the compassionate, common-sense solution it sounds. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} In his 1873 bestseller, Sex in Education, Or a Fair Chance for the Girls, Edward H Clarke laid out his arguments for single-sex schooling. Among other things, the American academic and doctor explained that if girls were subjected to the rigours of studying alongside boys while having their period, they could damage their reproductive organs irreparably. Things have moved on since then, a bit. There is still a tendency when discussing single-sex schools to deal in stereotypes and gender waffle. Even the arguments for it tend to cast girls as easily distracted flibbertigibbets or delicate flowers who can only truly blossom in the chemistry lab if there arent any noisy, naughty boys around, poking fun at their safety goggles and looking up their lab coats. The arguments against it largely revolve around the false idea that when girls leave school after seven chaste, happy years of never clapping eyes on a male their own age they will get the shock of their lives when they enter the real world, which is full of the spotty brutes. Earlier this month, Richard Cairns, head of Brighton College, helpfully mansplained that girls from single-sex schools are at a huge disadvantage if they dont learn to socialise with the opposite sex before the age of 18. He may have confused schools with convents. One matter that is now fairly indisputable is that girls educated at all-girls schools do better academically than those at mixed schools. Research published yesterday by SchoolDash showed that, in single-sex state schools, the proportion of girls getting five good GCSEs was 75 per cent, dropping to 55 per cent in mixed schools. Even when skewing factors single-sex schools tend to be grammars; co-ed schools have a greater proportion of pupils from poorer backgrounds are taken into account, the results still show that pupils at all-girls schools have a clear advantage. They are also more likely to study traditionally male-dominated subjects such as maths and science. Boys gained much less advantage from single-sex education. Recommended Read more Granting a home to refugee children is not as simple as it sounds My own schooling was mixed, with classes taught separately until GCSE options, but with a fully mixed sixth form and co-ed extra-curricular activities. It suited me very well; perhaps more schools should try it. Certainly, the SchoolDash research suggests that some schools are serving girls far better than others. The next step must be to work out exactly why that is, identify what it is that theyre doing better not least encouraging girls to study every subject, whether traditionally male or not and roll it out to all schools. A step back for diversity Who better, really, to play Michael Jackson than Joseph Alberic Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes a quintessentially English actor best known for playing William Shakespeare and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester? Fiennes will play the King of Pop in a new film based on the urban legend which holds that, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando fled to Ohio in a rented car. Its one way to draw attention to your new opus, I suppose, announcing a piece of racially dubious casting at the time of the biggest diversity row Hollywood has ever seen. At the risk of being racist to white people, this is pure provocation. In 2014, 73.1 per cent of characters in the top 100 films were white. There is already an unholy trend for casting dark-haired white actors as Syrians, pharaohs and any other characters casting directors think they can just about get away with. If white actors are now willing to play black characters, diversity might as well pack its bags and go back to waitressing on Sunset Strip. He was probably closer to my colour than his original colour, Fiennes said. Oh thats OK then, Joe. As you were. I look forward to your Martin Luther King. Saints preserve us, theyre back! The 1990s have never been more now. The cast of Friends has announced a sort of reunion, Point Break is back in cinemas and theres a new series of Cold Feet filming. This week, All Saints hooray! announced that they were getting back together, while Kula Shaker wait, what? have sold out Londons Roundhouse next month. Its the done thing to moan about comebacks, to huff about nostalgia and declare ones fears about damaged legacies and so on, while secretly feeling old and glad that its now OK to have Pure Shores on your playlist again. How can the band that never quite left your iPod be reuniting already? I am mainly thrilled about All Saints, having spent my GCSE years wearing combat pants and droning the opening to Never Ever at every house party. There is one piece of cultural excavation, though, which crosses the line: Top Gun 2, which was all but announced this week. Tom Cruise back on screen looking younger than Maverick did in 1986 is the last thing anyone wants. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Perhaps the best that can be hoped for is that, as the tea is poured in Geneva this morning, there will be someone around to drink it. It remained unclear last night which members of the Syrian opposition, if any, would attend the third round of peace negotiations. As a precondition for their attendance, the rebels had demanded an end to government bombardments and sieges. Such guarantees have not been given. Even if the rebels do take their seats, they will do so in different rooms from Bashar al-Assads regime. What momentum there is behind the Geneva III talks comes largely from the US Secretary of State, John Kerry. Mr Kerry has shuttled across the globe in an effort to bring a bewildering variety of factions around a table. It may be, however, that this amounts to the limit of what America and the West can achieve at present: a conference, far away from the scenes of devastation, and from which increasingly little is expected. Before the talks began, Mr Kerry was forced to reiterate that America had not caved in to demands that Mr Assad be allowed to remain in power. The position of the United States has not changed, he said. We are still supporting the opposition politically, financially and militarily. The problem is that the level of support offered pales in comparison to that being given to the Syrian government by Russia and Iran. After months of bombing using indiscriminate weaponry Russia has shored up Mr Assads position and started to provide cover for gains, to the degree that the regime feels little incentive to negotiate. The tide may be turning in its direction. Recommended Read more Agreement at Syrian peace talks depends on action by the US and Russia Quite how much stock Russia sets by the Geneva peace process can be judged by its decision to blitz al-Sheikh Miskeen, an area held by US-backed rebels, just days before the conference was due to begin. The UKs special representative to Syria, Gareth Bayley, issued a statement condemning its hypocrisy, the targeting of moderate opposition and the killing of civilians. Increasing levels of violence undermine any chance of a diplomatic solution respected by the rebels on the ground. It is, in all, unclear what the opposition might gain here. Its case has been lost amid squabbling by the great powers over who exactly constitutes the legitimate voice, with Russia seeking to choose the negotiating parties (a delegation suggested by the Kremlin appears more likely to submit to the regimes will). Mr Assad is not about to step down, nor is he being pushed to by Russia and Iran. If the temporary lifting of regime sieges could not be agreed before the conference, it is hard to see what the opposition could offer to achieve a permanent end to them. Meanwhile, the number of towns suffering under Mr Assads policy of submit or starve has, according to US officials, risen to 18 in recent weeks, with 500,000 people at risk of starving to death. The overwhelming likelihood is that these peace talks will collapse. The West may then increase arms supplies to beleaguered rebels, who have been calling for additional support, or accept the gradual erosion of their positions. A less ambitious strategy might pay higher dividends: specifically, supporting the rebels in their quest for ceasefires, by bolstering their forces in contested areas and calling for all truces to be overseen by Russia and Iran. As of this morning, the war in Syria appears too hot for talks of peace. First it must be cooled. Taiwan leader Ma Ying-jeou on Thursday visited Taiping Island, the largest of the Nansha Islands in the South China Sea, to meet personnel and deliver a speech ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year. In the speech, Ma said that Taiwan will work to end disputes, pursue peace and reciprocity and promote joint development in the South China Sea. Islands in the South China Sea were first discovered, named and used by the Chinese in the Western Han Dynasty. They were incorporated into the maritime defense system no later than 1721, in the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, with patrols and other management measures, Ma said. After the Republic of China was founded in 1912, the government published maps of the South China Sea islands in 1935 and 1947, reaffirming its sovereignty over the islands and their surrounding waters, according to Ma. He added that Taiping Island will be transformed into an island for peace and rescue operations, as well as an ecologically friendly and low-carbon island. "China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands," Ma Xiaoguang, spokesperson for the mainland-based Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said Wednesday when commenting on Ma Ying-jeou's visit. Both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China, and people on both sides have the common obligation to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity and safeguard the Chinese nation's overall and fundamental interests, Ma Xiaoguang said. The Knockrabo site in south Dublin is thought to have sold for more than 23m The strongest sectors of the development land market this year are expected to include prime office and retail development sites in Dublin as well as some residential areas south of Cork City. In contrast Dublin residential land prices are expected to see slower growth or simply stabilise. Mark Reynolds of Savills expects land values to increase by between 10 and 15pc for both the south Cork residential sites and the Dublin retail sites. "Prime Dublin office sites are flying. Last year they increased by between 15 and 20pc in value and could rise between 5 and 15pc this year," he added. JLL's Des Lennon and CBRE's Wesley Rothwell concur about the prospects of increased land values in 2016 but declined to put any figures on the rate of acceleration. Reynolds estimates that the strongest land markets in 2015 were in commuter counties of Meath, Westmeath, Kildare, Wicklow as well as in Cork where interest and values increased by about 20pc. Donal Kellegher of DTZ Sherry FitzGerald estimates that 2015 saw a total of 711m generated from the sales of 156 development sites in the Greater Dublin Area and the other regional centres of Cork, Galway and Limerick. Greater Dublin Area (GDA) including Dublin and the commuter counties of Meath, Kildare and Wicklow, dominated activity with 673 million transacted, accounting for 95pc of the total value. Dublin alone accounted for 82pc of the total activity. CBRE says the national figure was even higher with about 770m - up from 680m in 2014. That figure does not include loan sales such as the 503m reported for the Project Clear portfolio. The first quarter of 2016 also looks set to be strong as DTZ says that at the end of 2015 almost 50 GDA sites were sale agreed with a total value of about 160 million. One of those which closed this week was the 20.3 acre Knockrabo site at Mount Anville Road, Dublin 14, which was bought by an Irish residential developer. It is believed to have sold for significantly more than the 23m. quoted by DTZ. Part of the site has planning permission for 88 houses and apartments and the whole site is expected to accommodate at least 170 houses and apartments. Next month will see a prime 1.85 acre Spencer Dock site come to the market for which EY receivers have received planning permission for up to 425,000 sq ft of offices, 165 apartments, a 169 bedroom hotel and 1,270 sq m gross of retail and restaurant space. Controlled by Nama and CIE, the site will be marketed by joint agents JLL and BNP Paribas Real Estate. Both Lennon and Kellegher expect an increased number of sites to come to the market this year with the latter forecasting that some of those who purchased close to the bottom of the market may sell while Lennon expects receivers to sell lots which were held pending a market improvement. Wesley Rothwell expects 2016 to see a similar volume and value of land sold to that of 2015. "Premium prices will be achieved for strategic sites buoyed to some extents by continued increases in capital values, particularly in the commercial property markets," he adds. "Outside of Cork, Galway and the commuter counties, he doesn't expect "a dramatic improvement in provincial land values however, with many of these sites still proving unviable." "The appetite for ready to go residential sites will continue to be particularly strong considering the supply shortages that continue to prevail, although it remains to be seen what impact the central bank mortgage affordability rules and Government supply side measureswill have on pricing." While Des Lennon expects a "continued steep acceleration of commercial land values throughout 2016 and an increase in residential prices from 2015 levels" he also sounds a note of caution. "It may be harder to find value in all sectors and the risk reward balance will be less clear. The gathering clouds over the global scene suggests some caution will be required." "There would be greater risk if supply of office and residential accommodation was coming close to demand but at present demand far exceeds supply. The development game has always been a rollercoaster ride with fast approaching surprises impacting upon the risk reward balance but with continuing strong demand from occupiers in a buoyant economy tilting the balance in most sectors firmly to "reward" in 2016 our advice to the development community in the next 12 months is: "Just get on with it". CBRE's Marie Hunt also forecasts that more firms may follow the route adopted by Cairn Homes, which lead the largest deal of the year, Project Clear. Cairn and Lone Star are reported to have paid 503m for this Ulster Bank loan portfolio which included the Adamstown land bank in west Dublin and 80 acres in Portmarnock. Cairn also paid 18m for 6 Hanover Quay, a 1.06 acre site with frontage to Grand Canal Dock with permission for 100 apartments. Savills handled the sale known as Project HQ. One of the last deals to close before the end of the year saw Paddy McKillen's Oakmount Group purchase a half acre site at Charlemont Place, Dublin 2, for over 15m. in a deal brokered by Knight Frank. The ready to go site has permission for 5,348 sq m of offices. A Knight Frank survey also found that 78pc of developers plan to increase their land bank over the next year with 48pc targeting acquisitions with planning compared to 30pc without planning. Director James Meagher says this reflects capital funders preference for sites with planning as the cost of funding for schemes without planning can be prohibitively high. "The availability of finance is now greater than any period in the past five years. Senior debt providers are now starting to compete against providers of mezzanine and equity finance, while the two pillar banks have re-emerged as lenders for projects with permission," he added. Fast food minnow Supermac's has suffered a major setback in its on-going David versus Goliath brand war with rival McDonald's after an EU office ruled the Irish company cannot use its brand name to operate restaurants across Europe. The shock decision has dealt a major blow to Supermac's international expansion plans. The EU office that decides on trademark disputes yesterday upheld McDonald's opposition to Supermac's using its own brand across Europe to sell its famous snack-boxes and other items or to operate fast food restaurants. However, in a split decision by the EU Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM), it ruled that Supermac's can still use its brand name and trade name in the EU - but not to sell meat, fish, poultry, chicken nuggets, chips, onion rings or hamburgers. It said confusion may arise for English speakers between products offered by the two rivals. Responding to the ruling last night, Pat McDonagh, founder and managing director of Supermac's, described it as "contradictory" and "questionable". He said he was confident that "ultimately common sense will prevail on the part of the decision makers". Expand Close Supermacs Pat McDonagh has promoted the chain on a display in Times Square but McDonalds has challenged use of the brand outside Ireland / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Supermacs Pat McDonagh has promoted the chain on a display in Times Square but McDonalds has challenged use of the brand outside Ireland "It is difficult to understand why they would allow the brand name but not allow us to sell the food we sell. We are quite surprised." Mr McDonagh said he is now taking legal advice. "We haven't been turned down. Maybe it is a mistake they made. We are not 100pc sure. We're delighted that Supermac's is now recognised in Europe. We will be continuing with the battle." He plans to take Supermac's to Australia - however McDonald's is also opposing the use of the Supermac's trademark in that jurisdiction. Mr McDonagh said the Australian application will be decided upon shortly. The Galway man travelled to the OHIM offices in Alicante in Spain last year to hand-deliver Supermac's rebuttal of McDonald's arguments. McDonald' had sought to protect its registered trademarks - 'McDonald's', 'McFish', 'McMuffin', 'McNuggets', 'McWrap' and other McDonald's products. In a 24-page ruling, the OHIM agreed with McDonald's that Supermac's application for a trademark is likely to cause confusion amongst the public over the two different fast food brands and their fast food products. It found that consumers may believe that Supermac's is a new version of McDonald's 'Big Mac' and assume that the goods come from the same business and as a result may confuse the conflicting goods. In his submission, Mr McDonagh argued that he has used the Supermac's brand in Ireland since 1978 and there has never been any confusion between the two brands here. The OHIM stated that Mr McDonagh considered this to be sufficient to prevent the public from establishing a link between the brands. However, it dismissed his argument as irrelevant because the rights of McDonald's trademark are earlier than Supermac's trademark application. It said it found "that there is a likelihood of confusion for the English speaking part of the public in the European Union". A McDonald's spokeswoman said the company was pleased with the ruling. "As with all companies around the world, McDonald's defends the values of our brand." Former ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet addressses members of the Oireachtas Banking Inquiry at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. Photo: Frank McGrath The soft landing predicted by former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern never materialised From Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and ex Anglo Irish Bank executive David Drumm, the banking inquiry made findings on the key players. Here's what it found: Bertie Ahern Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern predicted there would be "a soft landing" for the Irish economy. The almost "universal adoption" of the theory was a "key failing for the Government, Central Bank and Finance Department, the Bank Inquiry found. Its report notes how Mr Ahern said he was "horrified" when he learned there were only "15 or 20" staff supervising the five main banks. Elsewhere, the report notes Mr Ahern accepted government expenditure "was too high by 2007". The report also says Mr Ahern acknowledged that reliefs in relation to the construction sector had helped create and sustain the property bubble. During his testimony to the Inquiry, Mr Ahern spoke of how he "got a lot of things right". Apologising for his mistakes, he said: "If hindsight was foresight, I'd be a billion- aire." Patrick Neary THE Banking Inquiry found that the Financial Regulator adopted a "light touch" approach and that it and the Central Bank "had the powers to intervene [to prevent the crisis], but neither did so decisively". Patrick Neary was chief executive from 2006 to 2009. The Inquiry heard the office could have "done more" in imposing capital requirements on the banks. Mr Neary accepted "there were tools available to us". Elsewhere, Mr Neary acknowledged that "the banks were effectively able to breach the [lending] limits without fear of any consequence". The Inquiry heard how the Central Bank had a role in regulating and promoting financial services. Mr Neary called this "irreconcilable with the role of a regulator". On September 25, 2008, four days before the bank guarantee, he advised that it could cost around 500m. David Drumm CONTROVERSIAL Anglo banker David Drumm refused to appear before the Banking Inquiry to discuss his involvement with the institution at the centre of the country's financial collapse. Mr Drumm is currently sitting in a US prison awaiting the outcome of his extradition trial. The inquiry requested that he appear before a hearing last year to give evidence regarding his time at the helm of Anglo Irish Bank in the years leading up to its collapse. Mr Drumm turned down the request, but said he would appear by video link and also submitted written evidence. After a number of days of debate and advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions, the inquiry decided it would not accept either offer from Mr Drumm. Other Anglo bankers, including Sean FitzPatrick, could not attend hearings due to ongoing legal actions. Brian Cowen FORMER Taoiseach Brian Cowen was aware of problems in the financial sector as far back as January 2008, according to the Banking Inquirys final report. Mr Cowen admitted he was aware of a Department of Finance report setting out the options available to the Government in case of a financial collapse, which included the possibility of a bank guarantee in early 2008. He signed off on both the controversial guarantee and Troika bailout programme. Both measures resulted in the taxpayer picking up the tab for the failed investments of bankers and developers. In his opening statement to the Oireachtas Committee, Mr Cowen insisted that nothing he would tell the inquiry should be seen as him passing the buck. We made policy decisions with our eyes wide open, he said. He admitted that policy decisions he made when Taoiseach and before that as Minister of Finance were influenced by approaching general elections. Mr Cowen said he received regular updates from the regulators, but concerns were not raised. I would have expected that any concerns would initially be escalated through the existing channels of the Central Bank and Financial Regulator through the Secretary General of the Department, he said. Any briefings I received from the governor of the Central Bank and through the financial stability reports were overall conclusively positive, he added. Mr Cowen said that during the good times banks were seen to be a good business to be in and no one was aware that there were any problems in the industry. Patrick Honohan WHILE government ministers claimed that the country was not seeking a bailout in November 2010, then Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan went on radio and said he expected the opposite. The inquiry heard how the late Finance Minister Brian Lenihan was irritated by it, but only ever irritated briefly, according to an adviser. Was I trying to contradict the Taoiseach? Was I trying to contradict other ministers? No, I wasnt trying to do that, Mr Honohan (right) told the Inquiry. Maybe I wasnt sufficiently attuned to the political happenings that were going on in Dublin because Id been in Brussels and Frankfurt. When the Taoiseach [Brian Cowen] said, Were not in negotiations, I took that to be the standard thing, understood by informed people, to say, Oh youre not in negotiations, youre in pre-negotiations. The Inquiry report outlines how Mr Cowen commented on the infamous Morning Ireland interview, saying he did make the point in the interview that this is a matter for the Government and he went on to give an opinion. The Inquiry report also outlines Mr Honohans view of a letter from ECB boss Jean-Claude Trichet to Mr Lenihan later that month. The letter instructed Ireland to apply for a bailout and sign up to agree financial reforms with the Troika. Mr Honohan said that given that Irish officials were already preparing for a bailout application, the letter and other overtures by ECB officials were gratuitous. The report also explains how the role the Central Bank had in promoting financial services was removed by a 2010 law and this was considered necessary by Mr Honohan. Jean Claude Trichet FORMER European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet left the Irish people saddled with billions of euro of debt by refusing to allow the Government to burn bondholders who invested in the countrys failed banks, the Banking Inquiry found. The ECB is heavily criticised in the inquirys report for its role in the bailout following the collapse of the economy. The report published yesterday found the ECB put Ireland undue pressure on Ireland in 2008 and effectively forced the country into a bailout programme. Mr Trichet (inset) was ECB president at the time of the bailout, and the report found financial assistance given to Irish banks would have been cut off if the Government did not enter the Troika bailout. The report also found the ECB insisted senior bondholders who invested in Irelands failed banks should not be forced to bear their fair share of the financial burden during the bailout. Rather, bondholders received a return on their investment while the taxpayer was forced to take on the bank debt. The report states: The ECB position in November 2010 and March 2011 on imposing losses on senior bondholders contributed to the inappropriate placing of significant banking debts on the Irish citizen. Mr Trichet also caused headaches for the Banking Inquiry by refusing to appear before a public hearing in Leinster House. Instead, he insisted he would only answer questions at a neutral venue. Inquiry members were forced to attend an Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) event in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham to speak with him. The European Central Bank's former president Jean-Claude Trichet bullied Ireland into the Troika bailout and then betrayed the country by saddling us with up to 9bn in debt. Ireland's descent into financial turmoil came after a slow build up that saw our political and business leaders ignore warning signs that the economy was overheating, the Banking Inquiry has concluded. However, the 6.5m taxpayer-funded report fails to apportion direct blame for the crisis on any one sector, instead suggesting it was the culmination of poor government policy, a regulatory system that did not do its job and banks that engaged in risky lending. But it lashes out at the ECB and its former president Jean-Claude Trichet who it says failed to engage with the inquiry. Mr Trichet first threatened Brian Lenihan that if Ireland did not enter a bailout programme he would cut off Ireland's supply of emergency funds. The report notes that Mr Lenihan wanted the ECB to publicly say it stood behind Irish banks in November 2010 as he tried to avoid a bailout. Instead the French banker wrote a "threatening" letter saying that the ECB would cut off emergency funding to Irish banks if the Government sent a request for a formal bailout. The inquiry concludes that a month before that letter Ireland's fate had already been decided by "factors outside the Government's control" and entry into a bailout was inevitable. "Jean-Claude Trichet's letter caused the Irish government position to crystallise," says the report. Following the General Election in February 2011, Mr Trichet then took on the newly-appointed Michael Noonan whose party had pledged to burn the bondholders as part of its election campaign. And it can be revealed for the first time that the National Treasury Management Agency compiled figures for Mr Noonan just a fortnight after he entered office on how much Ireland could save by burning senior bondholders in the banks. The document marked 'strictly private and confidential' and dated March 28, 2011, states that almost 2.3bn could have been saved by writing off senior bondholders in Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society. This was based on repaying the holders of these bonds only 37pc of their face value. The agency estimated that the exposure to the taxpayer could have been reduced by a further 6.9bn if senior bondholders in the four functioning banks were also burnt. The IMF was in favour of imposing losses on senior bondholders as part of the Troika programme and their legal officials had even helped the Attorney General explore the possibility in November 2010. In March 2011, Irish senior unsecured bank bonds were trading at levels consistent with clear anticipation of a cut, reflecting that some burden-sharing was anticipated. However, the report chronicles conversations between Mr Noonan and Mr Trichet, including one where the "irate" ECB boss is reputed to have warned that if bondholders were burnt "a bomb will go off and it won't be here, it'll be in Dublin". Ultimately in its strongest finding, the Banking Inquiry report states the withdrawal of funding support again used "an explicit threat to prevent the Government from imposing losses on senior bondholders". It concludes: "The ECB position in November 2010 and March 2011 on imposing losses on senior bondholders, contributed to the inappropriate placing of significant banking debts on the Irish citizen." Last night the brother of former Taoiseach Brian Cowen said the Banking Inquiry report makes "no mention" of the alleged economic treason he was accused of by former Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore. Offaly TD Barry Cowen also hit out at Taoiseach Enda Kenny, saying his previous claim that the inquiry would uncover the truth behind an "act of collusion" between Anglo bankers and Fianna Fail has not materialised. Key recommendations of the report The Central Bank and Financial Regulator were aware as early as 2003 that the Irish banking sector was placing increasing reliance on lending to the property sector, but neither intervened The 'soft landing' theory began to enter the public discussion as early as 2000 but nobody tested the idea, let alone validated it. The failure to take action to slow house price and credit growth is attributed to this shortcoming. In 2001 there was a proposal by the European Commission to censure the Irish Government for their proposed fiscal strategy - but it was dropped. The Central Bank & Financial Services Authority of Ireland was set up in an "unnecessary complex" manner in 2003 and led to a "real or perceived" ambiguity in the respective roles of the Central Bank and Financial Regulator. The Central Bank and Financial Regulator were aware as early as 2003 that the Irish banking sector was placing increasing reliance on lending to the property sector, but neither intervened. In late 2005 the Financial Regulator was given powers to issue administrative sanction for breaches of lending limits but didn't deal with banks in an intrusive manner. The Department of Finance relied on the overall assessment of the Central Bank's Financial Stability Reports as the basis for assessing threats rather than responding to specific risks identified in reports. Stress tests carried out on the banks in 2006 were inadequate. If steps had been taken to reduce or abolish property tax incentives as planned for 2002 to 2004, the severe overheating from 2003 to 2007 could have been mitigated. Pierre Moscovici, European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs New anti-tax avoidance rules will not touch Irelands 12.5pc corporate tax rate, the EU has insisted. Our idea is certainly not to impose any kind of corporate tax rate at the national level, said EU tax chief Pierre Moscovici today. And we are not going to tell this or that country, you cannot any more have, lets say, 12.5pc - I say that without any purpose - tomorrow, he told reporters in Brussels. We are not going to force any country to raise its corporate tax rate. He was speaking after publishing a series of draft laws to to stop multinationals from shirking their corporate tax bills in the EU. The proposals are designed to prevent large companies shifting profits to tax havens and shopping around the bloc for sweetheart tax deals. However, Mr Moscovici - a former French finance minister - did call out countries that were softer on large companies operating on their territory. Until now, member states that make great efforts to fight abusive tax practices are being undermined by those that take a more lenient approach, he said. Some struggle to enforce their national tax rules simply because others have more avoidance-friendly regimes. The new draft rules have to be unanimously approved by all 28 EU governments and the European Parliament before they become law, which Mr Moscovici estimates could happen within six months. The Government will then have two years to implement them. He added that he doesnt expect any reservations from Ireland on the new rules, and praised the Government for signing up to international standards agreed last year by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECDs 15-point plan to combat what they call base erosion and profit shifting (or Beps) is not legally binding. I have had several occasions to emphasise how Ireland is implementing Beps measures now and the way theyre doing it is quite remarkable, and I cant see any reservations arising, Mr Moscovici said. The EU rules announced on Thursday use Beps as a starting point, bringing into EU law the non-binding OECD rules. They include moves to block the most common methods used by companies to avoid paying tax and to get countries to share tax-related information on multinationals operating on their territory. Todays draft laws will be followed later this year by new rules on how large companies should calculate their corporate tax bills - knowns as the common consolidated corporate tax base. Almost 1,000 long-serving Tesco workers face a pay cut of over 16pc, the loss of guaranteed overtime and a bonus. Last night, their union Mandate vowed it will ballot for industrial action if the company forges ahead with plans to slash their pay without agreement. The supermarket giant wants to get rid of a contract agreed 20 years ago that it claims is "inflexible". Staff moving to a new contract would suffer a wage reduction of over 2 an hour from over 14. Tesco has asked staff to sign a new contract, negotiated in 2006, which would mean lower pay of 11.97 an hour, later working hours and rostering on Sundays. They would also lose a guaranteed bonus, which would now be based on performance. The supermarket chain has promised to "compensate" staff for the loss of earnings and will discuss this with them in the coming weeks. Mandate said workers on the old contract, who earn 14.31 an hour, would suffer a cut of 16.5pc, or 2.35 an hour. They said this represents a minimum cut in annual earnings of 6,591, as well as the loss of late night and early morning allowances, and the guaranteed share bonus scheme. "Tesco says it is open to negotiations, but if it drives through these cuts without agreement, we will ballot for industrial action," said Mandate Assistant General Secretary Gerry Light. "Tesco's antics led to shock for all of the staff concerned but that shock has quickly turned to anger". He said the "mischievous" attempt to attribute these cuts to "customer services" has gained no traction with anyone. "This is quite simply a case of Tesco attempting to increase its profits for the parent company at the expense of its most long-standing members of staff. "Tesco is saying it made a loss last year when in reality the company made bad investment in the United States, bad investments in the Middle East and was caught overvaluing properties and mismanaging its accounts, so much so that shareholders are now suing the company for millions." Tesco said the pre-1996 contract is inflexible and was agreed at a time when its stores did not open on Sundays or late at night. As a result, it said it has too many staff rostered during the quietest days. It said their guaranteed overtime did not take account of a store's needs and meant other staff did not have the opportunity to work it. "Our customer shopping habits are changing," said a spokeswoman. "More customers are shopping online, at weekends and at different times of the day and our customer service needs to be able to meet these needs." It said it wants to "unlock this inflexibility" so it can have more staff on the shop floor at its busiest times. It pointed out that the changes affect just six percent of its 14,500-strong workforce. Despite its record losses, Mandate claims Tesco is still highly profitable, although it will not reveal its results for Ireland. It said it controls 24pc of the grocery market. The union estimates its profits to be in the region of 250m to 300m a year. Last April, Tesco suffered its biggest ever loss of 9bn and axed a 250 Christmas bonus for staff the following month. Mandate is already seeking a 3pc pay rise for staff, backdated to last March. The Labour Court is due to consider the claim following a hearing in a fortnight. You are here: Home A girl in south China was sentenced to three years in prison after she pretended to have lost relatives in explosions in north China's Tianjin last year in order to swindle money from sympathetic netizens. Yang Cailan, 19, was also fined 8,000 yuan (US$1,221) and her cellphone was confiscated, according to the Fangchenggang District People's Court in Fangchenggang City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. She was found guilty of raising 96,576 yuan (US$14,740) from netizens after posting three fake stories on microblog Sina Weibo on Aug. 13. Her posts said that her father had gone missing following the Tianjin accident and her mother had died, prompting a wave of sympathy and 3,856 donations from 3,739 netizens. Sina Weibo closed Yang's account the following day. All the money was returned. Yang confessed and requested leniency. On the night of Aug. 12, two explosions ripped through a warehouse storing hazardous chemicals in Tianjin Port, killing 173, including 104 firefighters. Taoiseach Enda Kenny at the official opening of Credit Suisses first trading floor in Dublin. Photo: Conor McCabe China is doing "just fine" and what's happening in the global economy is not a repeat of 2008, the President of Morgan Stanley told a conference in Dublin. China's highly volatile shares ended lower again yesterday, after plunging on Tuesday, taking losses so far this year to about 22pc or 12 trillion yuan. The new year has seen a number of weak economic indicators from the world's second biggest economy, including data yesterday showing profits at Chinese industrial firms fell 4.7pc in December from a year earlier, the seventh straight monthly decline. The Chinese economy grew 6.9pc last year, the weakest in 25 years. But at the European Financial Forum in Dublin, Irishman Colm Kelleher was upbeat on China. "China's like marmite, you either like it or you don't. We are of the view that China is just fine. 6.9pc growth is OK, we believe those numbers broadly," he said. "There's no new news here." Sharing a platform with Tim O'Hara, Credit Suisse's chief executive of global markets, Mr Kelleher claimed the markets were undergoing a correction, and he dismissed suggestions from the likes of billionaire investor George Soros that the world faced a repeat of 2008. "This is not 2008. There is no systemic risk, there's no smoking gun," he added. It was a view shared by the Irish ambassador to China, Paul Kavanagh, who decried the "constantly negative" headlines on China and highlighted the opportunities for Ireland. Speaking from the floor of the conference in Dublin Castle, Mr Kavanagh complained of the "lack of balance" in the coverage of the sprawling Asian economy. "A lot of people are reading these headlines and can become discouraged whereas in fact a rebalancing Chinese economy and a burgeoning middle class will continue to need all of the things that Ireland does best," Mr Kavanagh said. "Food, top quality education, a platform for investment in the only English language country in the Eurozone. Ireland is a perfect market for China and they will continue to need, want and be able to pay for everything that Ireland does best. I would encourage people in Ireland who are reading these headlines not be blown aside by the ambient constantly negative headlines. Keep your eye on the ball and see the opportunities that are there for Ireland in particular." Mr Kelleher, who was this month announced as President of the US investment banking giant, said Ireland had been "far sighted and brave" in its attitude towards bondholders in 2011. He said one has to follow the rules of capital markets. "Ireland did the right thing. Some other countries didn't. Ireland is now one of the richest issuing countries in the west," Mr Kelleher said. His comments came in the wake of a report from the EU's Court of Auditors, which stated that the European Central Bank's refusal to let Ireland burn senior bondholders was not explained to authorities in Brussels. The "vilification" and repeated targeting of those earning over 70,000 smacks of a system that wants to penalise rather than reward success, the head of the country's biggest business body has claimed. IBEC director general Danny McCoy, inset, also warned that scrapping or dramatically cutting the Universal Social Charge (USC) risked hollowing out the tax base. The lobby group warned that business was increasingly concerned that "populist" election positions risked repeating serious economic mistakes of the past. "Yes, we need tax reform, but it needs to be focused on where we are most out of line internationally," Mr McCoy said. "The vilification and repeated targeting of anyone earning over 70,000 smacks of a country that wants to penalise rather than reward success." The Government introduced USC reductions in the last two Budgets, but capped the benefit at 70,000. Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said talk of an economic recovery will lead to high wage expectations but the abolition of the USC can relieve pressure on employers. The Irish Independent reported earlier this month that Fine Gael is planning to introduce a new levy on workers earning over 100,000 after it scraps the controversial tax. Mr McCoy said Ireland's income tax system is already "unbalanced" and claimed political promises risk making the problem worse. "The clamour to narrow the tax base by dramatically cutting or abolishing the USC is a race to repeat past mistakes," he said. "It will hollow out the tax system, make it overly reliant on a small pool of taxpayers and leave Ireland vulnerable to future economic shocks at a time of heightened global uncertainty." Norway regards news media as vital to the country's cultural and economic health, and applies the special zero VAT rate to encourage publishers. Photo: PA Norway is slashing tax on all news publications to zero, in line with the country's policy of encouraging a diverse and healthy media sector. Norwegian authorities will introduce a zero VAT rate for electronic news services from March, bringing the country's tax treatment of online news into line with printed newspapers. "This will promote the consumption of news and current affairs media published in electronic form, which is of increasing importance for customers in Norway," said Sven Erik Svedman, president of the European Free Trade Association's (EFTA) surveillance authority which approved the measure. Customers in Ireland are charged VAT at a rate of 9pc when they buy a newspaper. Norway regards news media as vital to the country's cultural and economic health, and applies the special zero VAT rate to encourage publishers. "The new zero VAT rate makes it possible for news media, including the large number of local and regional newspapers in Norway, to publish and sell their content electronically without being disadvantaged by the VAT system," Sven Erik Svedman said. The measures give a tax advantage to publishers, but promote an objective of common interest, namely media pluralism and diversity, he added. The rate will also apply to electronic news services from outside Norway. A LEADING pensions organisation has challenged political parties to commit to creating a ministry for pensions in the next government. The Irish Association of Pension Funds (IAPF) says a fear of dying has been replaced with a fear of living longer than your financial resources will last. President of the IAPF Jim Foley said the lack of pensions coverage and inadequate retirement savings for those with a pension was one of the biggest issues facing the country. Mr Foley said the ticking pensions time-bomb was set to explode if radical action is not taken. "The traditional fear of dying early has been replaced by a fear of living longer than your financial resources will last," he said. The organisation, which represents pension savers, said there is a need for a pensions ministry in the next government. Mr Foley said: "There are huge challenges facing the next Government in terms of how it will support people in retirement. "While the current structure supports people from different sectors to varying degrees, it is abundantly clear that tough decisions are required as a matter of urgency, to ensure that we have a pension system that is wholly sustainable and at the very least adequate for the people of Ireland." He said the State pension is already running at a loss, and it will be clear in 20 to 30 years that it will be unaffordable. "The State Pension is a fundamental part of income in retirement and it is important that this is sustainable so that people can plan for their future with certainty," he said. The IAPF invited three opposition party members to set out in front of 100 leading pension practitioners what they the next steps in terms of pension planning for the country should be. They include Senator Darragh O'Brien of Fianna Fail, Deputy Aengus O Snodaigh of Sinn Fein and Eddie Hobbs, president of Renua. The IAPF say that whether they like it or not the incoming Government will have to tackle the thorny issue of the sustainability of public sector pensions. Mr Foley said: "This system currently operates on an unfunded pay-as-you go model. The next Government needs to put this on a sustainable and affordable footing." He said public servants need to know that the pension promises made to them now are affordable. The Irish tech sector is at risk of becoming a men-only club, with less than 3pc of venture capital going to startups with a female founder and only 0.6pc of funding to tech firms with a female chief executive. An Irish Independent investigation shows a startling gap in the Irish tech industry. In the first 10 months of 2015, the average investment round for a VC-funded tech firm in Ireland with a female chief executive was 591,000. This was just one-tenth of the average funding round (5.46m) to a company with a male chief executive. Of 415m raised by Irish tech firms last year, just 2.3m went to female-led companies while 10.9m went to startups with at least one female co-founder. The research was compiled from figures released by the Irish Venture Capital Association. Despite rising numbers of female tech founders in Ireland, there is a lack of female participation in top executive roles. Of 88 companies to receive venture capital funding in Ireland last year, just four list a female chief executive while 12 list a woman as a co-founder. Of the four firms run by a female chief executive, all were founded solely by women. The Irish funding gap has emerged after Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg warned that women were being dismissed as 'non-leaders' in the workplace. Vodafone Ireland CEO Anne O'Leary and head of consumer fixed Ciaran Barrett at this week's launch of the new service. Last week, Vodafone launched a new TV service in Ireland. Called Vodafone TV, the service is a fairly straightforward alternative to both Sky and Virgin, with practically all of the same channels as its competitors and at around the same price. It's bundled with Vodafone broadband on a landline that needs to be capable of over 40Mbs. But other than a zippy interface and a Netflix-friendly remote control, the new service has one intriguing feature which could prove to be both its most attractive and its most controversial. Vodafone has 'zero-rated' the TV service on its own phones. In other words, if you take a TV subscription with Vodafone, you can also watch the channels live on two phones or tablets outside your home with no effect on your monthly Vodafone mobile data limits. This means that even if you have the cheapest Vodafone pay-as-you-go mobile plan, you can stream live TV on 4G for hours every day on your phone, racking up tens of gigabytes of additional monthly data and not pay a cent for it. Given that Vodafone is the most expensive operator for data charges (although also easily the fastest on 4G), this is a very big move. Commercially, it is very clever. More and more people are diversifying from a traditional sitting room experience to TV-on-the-go, largely through mobile networks and wifi. So this move will play right into their hands. But for those who pay close attention to the regulation of the internet, it will also raise some eyebrows. There is a concept called net neutrality which is being hotly debated in Europe and the US right now. In a nutshell, this is about greater commercialisaion of the internet. The basic rule of net neutrality is that internet providers like Vodafone, Eir or Virgin should not be allowed to give priority to some web services over others, especially for commercial consideration. In other words, Tesco shouldn't be allowed to pay Eir 1m so that Tesco's website loads way faster than, say, Supervalu's when accessed from an Eir broadband service. The principle is meant to protect smaller players, startups and ordinary internet users by keeping the web as unbiased (in access terms) as possible. The issue is important enough for both the US and the European Commission to tie themselves in knots debating the issue. While the EU has talked about protecting net neutrality, it has actually started to water down its thinking on the issue. Last summer, the European Commission announced a compromise on net neutrality that would see "specialised services" such as internet television allowed in new prioritised fast lanes. Does Vodafone's latest move to favour its own live TV streaming on its mobile service count as a breach of net neutrality? Vodafone executives argue that it doesn't, as the TV service is its own initiative, not a deal struck with a commercial third party. In that vein, the operator argues that it has adhered to net neutrality principles by not zero-rating services such as Spotify, which it offers separately in a different promotional package. Those who take a stricter interpretation of net neutrality may disagree with this, however. It is not hard to see a scenario where internet traffic over Vodafone's servers is prioritised to provide optimum service to Vodafone TV streams at the expense of other streaming services. The real question is whether, and to what extent, net neutrality is going to be taken seriously by European regulators. Vodafone's TV service aside, there are numerous examples of creeping encroachment on the principle. All over Europe, mobile operators are starting to bundle services such as Whatsapp (which sends videos and photos as well as text) on a zero-rated policy. No-one appears willing to take responsibility for slapping them down when they do so. So if it proves popular with customers, it may not be long before we start to see bolder violations of the net neutrality doctrine. There are also some who argue that strict net neutrality is naive and wilfully ignorant. This position holds that operators routinely make decisions about prioritising some types of data over others for operational reasons, even to the point of disadvantaging some customers over others. Making grandiose proclamations about what operators can or can't with traffic prioritisation, they say, ignores the reality of what such operators have to do to provide a smooth experience. The position is complicated further by companies like Netflix, which now offers to pay for equipment that will allow operators to speed up access to its online video streaming service. On one level, this is a breach of net neutrality. On another, it's a practical response to make sure that a new type of service works properly. Where does the real benefit to the end user lie? Privately, operators say that ever-more commercialised prioritisation is morally justified because internet services such as YouTube, Facebook and Netflix have been getting a 'free ride' on their networks for years. End users people probably wouldn't agree. Few of us want to see a situation where the services you get access to are increasingly the ones who pay the broadband or mobile operator. Getting Vodafone TV free on 4G may be a small step in this direction, even if it turns out to be a commercially popular one. The average individual investment to female-led companies is ten times less than to those run by men Under 3pc of tech venture capital in Ireland goes to companies led by women, with the average individual investment ten times less than for male-run firms, an Irish Independent investigation shows. And while almost one in eight VC-funded tech firms here has a female co-founder, only one in 20 has a female chief executive. The research, from figures released by the Irish Venture Capital Association, shows that the average investment for a VC-funded tech firm with a female founder last year was 911,000, while the average for a company with a female chief executive was 591,000. This compares to 5.46m per investment for companies founded and run by men during the same period. Of 88 companies to receive venture capital funding in Ireland last year, 12 list a woman as a co-founder while just four list a female chief executive. Despite rising numbers of female tech founders in Ireland, the research shows a lack of female participation in top executive roles. According to the figures last year, two-thirds of the tech companies founded or co-founded by women also choose a male chief executive to run the business. Of the four firms run by a female chief executive, all were founded by women. A further nine companies, while started and run by male entrepreneurs, list female executives in senior positions such as chief scientific officer, financial controller, chief marketing officer or chief operating officer. "It's a bit of a systemic issue," said Jayne Ronayne, co-founder and chief executive of KonnectAgain, a Dublin-based startup that connects colleges with alumni and which raised 300,000 in funding last year. "There are still a low number of female entrepreneurs that get interest from funders. It's the same in places like San Francisco. "Calling a spade a spade, it's widely known that the average male investor will tend to invest in the same type of person, with the same upbringing or from the same college, as him." Ronayne, whose company has been growing over the last 12 months, says that many investors do try and focus on the company as opposed to the gender of its founders. But sometimes, she says, the differences become a barrier. "Other female entrepreneurs have noticed that they get labelled as being too aggressive if they go actively seeking investment. I'm not sure it's getting worse, it's probably about the same as it has been before." Other successful Irish female entrepreneurs agree that there is a big gulf in senior executive roles between men and women in the tech sector. However, not all come up against gender-based bias. "While I agree there is a massive imbalance in the numbers of male and female C-level executives, entrepreneurs and board members, I personally don't experience much negativity being a female entrepreneur or CEO," said Dorothy Creaven, co-founder and chief executive of Element Wave, a Galway-based analytics, gaming and mobile marketing startup. "I've gone through the fundraising process a few times recently. I haven't experienced any obvious negatives, questions or concerns because I'm a female CEO," says Creaven. Her company has racked up significant deals with Bwin, Colossus and the Irish Greyhound Board. In the US, recent figures paint a mixed picture of VC funding for tech companies run by women. According to Female Founders Fund, the number of female-led tech firms that attracted 'series A' funding (between $3m and $15m) shrank by 30pc last year in the country's most important tech market, San Francisco. Of 204 Silicon Valley startups that received such funding last year, just 16 of them (8pc) were led by women, according to research from the organisation. This was somewhat mitigated, Female Founders Fund said, by a rise in female-led funded startups in New York and Los Angeles. But in wider industrial boardrooms, a glass ceiling appears to remain in place. A recent study showed that the number of female chief executives of S&P 500 Index companies fell from 25 to 21 last year. "Despite all of the attention placed on increasing the number of female executives at American companies, the needle on the gender gap has hardly moved," said Pavle Sabic, director of market development at S&P Capital IQ. "The gender gap at the CEO level of S&P 500 companies is not closing. The growth rate for new female CEOs is only 1pc every two years." However, some see a brighter picture emerging. "There are definitely still barriers," said Brian Caulfield, chairman of the Irish Venture Capital Association. "But I can see change happening. The number of very high quality companies that I've seen with female founders or female CEOs has expanded pretty dramatically here in the last few years." Caulfield, who is also an active investor at venture capital firm Draper Esprit, said that some institutional moves have helped cause movement in the number of female executives going for funding. "I think it's interesting that when Enterprise Ireland launched its Competitive Start Fund for Female Entrepreneurs, there was a jump in applications. And that happened even though the offering was identical to the original generic offering. It created an opportunity for some women to self-identify as entrepreneurs." Caulfield said that he expects to see more female-led companies achieve funding rounds in the near future. "I think we're going to see progress there," he said. "Apart from anything else, not to have progress would be a scandalous waste of half the talent pool." The Prince of Wales makes a speech on stage next to the Duchess of Cornwall during a visit to Wilton's Music Hall in London The Prince of Wales took a turn on the stage of the world's oldest surviving grand music hall as it was official re-opened after years of restoration work. Like an old pro, Charles had the audience of Wilton's Music Hall in stitches when he said he was drawn to the attraction after his first visit in 2006 - "I'm afraid I'm rather a sucker for these sorts of projects." Despite its then-dilapidated state, he became Wilton's patron and returned to see the results of the final restoration phase to safeguard the unique building opened in the 1850s by entrepreneur John Wilton. At the time it was described as the "Handsomest Room in Town'' and had a sun-burner chandelier with 300 gas jets and 27,000 cut crystals in its mirrored hall. The building has played host to may famous stars including Champagne Charlie, who played a key role in the 1889 Dockers Strike which resulted in the formation of the UK's first trade union, and it also acted as an evacuation centre during the two world wars. Today it is the only intact survivor of the early grand music hall era and a precursor to the empires and palaces of the late 19th century. It reopened for regular productions in 1999 after restoration work had begun on the derelict site and it is once again a popular venue. In a short speech, Charles told the audience who included impersonator Rory Bremner and lyricist Sir Tim Rice: "It's been a very special morning and I'm thrilled to have had the chance of meeting at least some of the people involved in putting all of this back together again. "I know how difficult these projects can be and the frustration of trying to find the money and everything else." Charles was joined by Camilla for the visit to see the final phase of work, costing 4.5 million, that sympathetically repaired the hall and 17th century houses that make up the front of the building while retaining its faded and weathered appearance. In the famous hall, comic Barry Cryer performed with son Bob in what was dubbed the "Simon Callow Breakfast Show" by Charles after Callow had introduced acts from a bill that could have come from Wilton's heyday. Barry Cryer joked afterwards: "We can boast we were in a royal variety show that was over very quickly. I bet Charles and Camilla were thinking, 'This is good, bang, bang, bang'." Speaking about Wilton's, he added: "It's a hidden treasure that's the cliche, it's just magnificent this place. People can't believe it the first time they come and walk in and I couldn't the first time I came." Video of the Day By the 1960s Wilton's had fallen out of use and was threatened with demolition by a London County Council proposed project to clear much of the area around it for development. A campaign was launched to save the building led by theatre historian John Earl who persuaded the poet John Betjeman and the newly formed British Music Hall Society to back it. They were successful and the attraction in Wapping, London, was saved in the mid 1960s. Comic Spike Milligan also worked to safeguard the building but it suffered more damage as it remained empty, and audiences would have to wait until 1997 to see a production - The Wasteland. The attraction was finally put on a firmer footing with the formation of the Wilton's Music Hall Trust in 2004 and a major programme of works began eight years later to make all areas of the building safe and habitable. Mr Earl, now aged 87, said he did not think he would see this day after first having walked into the building in 1963: "It's taken many many years for this to come about - my goodness - I've lived to see it. "The great thing to me, I know the history of music halls, I know this place is important, I'd never walked into it before that time and it worked on me then and it still works on me. "You walk through a dark hall, from a little alleyway, and you find yourself in an even darker corridor, then you open the door and there's this incredible room - it still works, I gasp every time I walk in." Many of Wilton's walls remain unplastered, with much of the joinery like doorframes and skirting boards missing, creating a faded grandeur to the building. Tim Ronalds, the architect who oversaw the restoration work, said: "If you plaster the walls, it just becomes an ordinary building. We had the principal 'do as little as possible', we didn't do anything that wasn't necessary - we wanted to keep the atmosphere." Speaking about the significance of the building, he added: "During the 20 years from 1850-70, the time Wilton's Music Hall was open, that's when variety theatre was developing. "It came out of places like Wilton's, they exported it around the world and X Factor has come from it." When Charles and Camilla first arrived they were greeted by posey girl Clara Bierman, aged two, whose mother Kate is the attraction's development director. They toured the building and met school children involved with theatre projects from learning music hall songs to making bunting decorations for the attraction. The heir to the throne joined in with a rendition of Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay, a famous vaudeville song, when a group of school children began singing it. Summing up the appeal of Wilton's, Simon Callow said: "In itself it's a beautiful, beautiful theatre, so any actor who walks into this place, and theatre maker who doesn't immediately want to do a show here must be dead - it's just thrilling." You are here: Home Lawmakers in east China's Jiangxi Province have a new task at this year's legislative session -- to review an environment work report, the first of its kind at provincial level. The 13-page report was delivered to the plenary session of the Jiangxi Provincial People's Congress on Wednesday, by Wu Xiaojun, head of the provincial economic planning department. It includes the progress made in pollution control last year and the plan for this year's work. Jiangxi is a pilot province for environmental progress. According to the report, air and water quality in Jiangxi were much higher than the national average last year, with its forest coverage rate hitting 63.1 percent, second in the country. "It is a precedent for the country to let lawmakers review the environment report in addition to the routine reports on economic and social development, budgets, legislation and justice," said Chen Rong, deputy head of the Jiangxi Provincial Environmental Protection Department and a deputy of the provincial legislature. "I feel a heavy responsibility," he said. The report also pointed out problems Jiangxi faces, such as the slow industrial upgrades, poor sewage treatment and smog. Last year, more than 3,000 factories in the province were punished for breaking environment protection rules, said Chen. "The move deserves applause," said Dong Xiaojian, mayor of Xinyu City which vetoed 120 industrial projects for failing to meet environmental standards last year. "The government will face more monitoring from lawmakers and society," said Dong. "Public awareness of environmental protection will also be enhanced." Liu Bing, an official with the ecological and economic zone of Poyang Lake, China's largest freshwater lake, said green industries could make Jiangxi a model of environmental progress. "Workable plans for green development should be laid out and implemented," said Shen Yang, Party head of Wuning County. Annual sessions of provincial legislatures take place every year ahead of the national legislative sessions in March. Irelands broadcasting watchdog has rejected two complaints made against The Ray DArcy Show on RTE Radio 1, just over a month since it partially upheld the presenter had breached fairness standards. The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland's Complaints Committee unanimously ruled out one of the complaints, which related to two episodes in May 2015, and dealt with the Marriage Equality referendum. Complainant Brendan ORegan referred to a show on May 7, which featured an interview with the family used on a No campaign poster while they were actually in favour of a Yes vote. Mr ORegan said the show was a lopsided, unbalanced and partial discussion about the poster, and focused on the views of the Yes campaign. RTE defended the show by saying the story had been widely reported in the media that day, adding that a response from campaigners Mothers and Fathers Matter was also read out on the programme. Mr ORegan also highlighted another show on May 25, where presenter Ray DArcy called the victory of the Yes campaign truly historic in his introduction. The complaint also states Mr DArcy said he cried tears of pride on hearing the result, adding that the presenter had excluded approximately 40pc of the electorate. But RTE argued that listeners had been advised that the show would be a celebration of the result, giving the audience an opportunity to stop listening if they wanted to. RTE also noted that impartiality guidelines issued for dealing with the referendum no longer applied after polling stations closed two days before the broadcast. Meanwhile, June Twomey lodged a complaint about The Ray DArcy Show, claiming that an interview with Fine Gael Councillor Kate OConnell in August did not meet fairness and impartiality standards. On the show, Ms OConnell had said she would have no problem supporting the repeal of the 8th Amendment and having a referendum on the issue. The complainant alleged that no differing opinion was offered, and that the presenter endorsed the view of his interviewee. However, RTE stated that the Ray DArcy show generally did not host debates, and that the interview focused on Ms OConnells personal experience of learning her unborn child had a 10pc chance of survival. The BAI agreed with RTE in this instance, adding the interview was carried out in the exploratory, conversational style which is known and expected by the shows audience. In December, the BAI partially upheld a complaint about an interview between Ray DArcy and Amnesty Ireland chief Colm OGorman in relation to Irelands abortion legislation. Video of the Day It found listeners would have assumed that Ray D'Arcy "endorsed" the views of Colm O'Gorman, and had been articulating a "partisan position." The BAI published seven decisions on complaints made about RTE 1 Television, RTE Radio 1, Cork Community Radio and iRadio. All seven complaints were rejected. Gardai are on the hunt for an alleged flasher who exposed himself to a woman while she strolled along a popular seafront. The incident happened yesterday evening as the local woman, in her 30s, was alone on a coastal walkway near Clontarf in North Dublin. According to Gardai, as the woman passed the man he stood up from a shelter overlooking the seafront and dropped his trousers and began masturbating. Arriving shortly afterwards, officers from Clontarf Station were were unable to locate the flasher, a Garda spokesperson told Independent.ie. I was absolutely shocked I should have taken a picture of him but I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, he could have done anything, the terrified victim told the Irish Daily Star. Describing the flasher as a middle-aged man who was overweight and around six feet tall, the victim said he fled after she told him she was calling the police. Families use that path and I had just passed a lady walking with her child. This man is obviously very dangerous, she added. Anyone who might have seen the man is asked to contact the Clontarf Garda Station on 016664800 or the Garda Confidential Hotline on 1800-666111. Sitting TD Sean Conlan, who is accused of assault, has had his case adjourned until after polling day. The former Fine Gael deputy and now Independent appeared at Carrickmacross District Court yesterday. He is accused of assault causing harm on Enda Duffy of Annahia, Ballybay, at Conlan's Bar, Main Street in the town on August 23, 2015. The Cavan-Monaghan Deputy is further charged with the production of a broken pint glass during the course of a dispute at the same location and date. Yesterday, Inspector Kevin Gavigan told the court that the matter was in for a decision on whether the court could accept jurisdiction. Judge Denis McLoughlin said he was adjourning the case to allow for more time to make his decision. At a previous hearing photos of the alleged injuries were submitted to the court. Mr Conlan (42), of Main Street, Ballybay, Co Monaghan, had his case adjourned to March 9. Contact Judge McLoughlin remanded Mr Conlan on his existing bail of 100 - which stipulates he must not contact the alleged victim or any witness. Mr Conlan attended court yesterday with his partner, and did not speak during the short hearing. He was also accompanied by his solicitor James McGuill. Mr Conlan will run as an Independent in the general election which is expected to take place next month. A flight attendant who claims she was injured when a suitcase toppled down an airport escalator has settled her High Court action against the Dublin Airport Authority. Jean Nolan (57), who works for Aer Lingus, was in Terminal 2 when she heard a shout and a case came hurtling down the escalator behind her and struck her, the court heard. She sued the DAA and the case's owner Kate Doyle, Kitestown, Crossabeg, Co Wexford, as a result of injuries she allegedly received on May 3, 2011. The legal action was due to resume when Mr Justice Kevin Cross was told it had been settled against the DAA and could be struck out. Bruce Antoniotti SC asked the court to note the settlement was based on a 40pc payout to Ms Nolan. Mr Justice Cross congratulated all parties for reaching a settlement. Ms Nolan, of Castle Cove, Malahide, Dublin, was out of work for 10 weeks after the accident and later had to have a hip operation, the court heard. It was also claimed she suffered post-traumatic stress disorder. The DAA and Ms Doyle have denied all claims. Signs for lifts at Terminal 2 have been modified. Escalators now have a barrier to stop bags being carried on, the court also heard. A FORMER Bank of Ireland employee has been sent forward for trial accused of stealing 144,000 from branches in Dublin over a nine-year period. Alice Warnock, 54, from Rathbeale Ct, Swords, in Dublin was arrested at her home by officers from the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation (GBFI). She was then charged with 77 counts of theft of various sums. She also faces 26 counts of false accounting contrary to Section 10 of the Theft and Fraud Act as well as one charge for attempted false accounting. The offences are alleged to have occurred from 2003 until 2012 at Bank of Ireland's Malahide, Dublin Airport and Talbot St branches. Det Garda Siobhan Moore had told Dublin District Court there were 114 charges and the woman made no reply to each one. Det Gda Moore said the DPP consented to Ms Warnock being returned for trial to the circuit court and also said that she can be sent forward on a signed plea of guilty should that arise. The former bank executive appeared again before Judge Anthony Halpin at the district court to be served with a book of evidence. Judge Halpin made an order sending her forward for trial to the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court where she will face her next hearing on February 19th next. She has not yet entered a plea and must notify the prosecution within 14 days if she intends to use an alibi in her defence. There was no objection to bail but Ms Warnock was warned she must notify the GBFI of any change of address. A FORMER member of the Church of Scientology was warned by a judge today that he would face serious consequences if he interfered with any member or did not stay away from the church or mission. Embalmer John McGhee was given the warning by Judge James ODonohoe in the Circuit Civil Court after being told by barrister Frank Beatty, counsel for two church members, that Mr McGhee had breached an existing court injunction. McGhee, of Armstrong Grove, Clara, Co Offaly, told Mr Beatty that he had sent leading Scientology Church member Zabrina Collins a text connected with the death of Jim Carreys girlfriend in which he had stated: Now you must see why your cult must be stopped. He also agreed with Mr Beatty that he had attended the Church on New Years Eve and had sent Ms Collins a Christmas card because she was still on my mailing list. When asked by Judge ODonohoe why the Church had not gone back to court about the breaches of the court injunction, Mr Beatty said: There is a bit of a circus associated with court appearances and the Church has to perform a balancing act with regard to appearing in court. McGhee, a father of two, and Peter Griffiths, of Cual Gara, Teeling Street, Ballina, Co Mayo, have been sued by Zabrina Collins and fellow church member Michael ODonnell for assault while they distributed anti drugs literature in Capel Street in December 2014. Both men denied having assaulted Ms Collins, of The Boulevard, Mount Eustace, Tyrrelstown, Dublin, and Mr ODonnell, a marketing consultant, of Cherrywood Lawn, Clondalkin, Dublin. Mr McGhee, who represented himself, when told by Judge ODonohoe it was possible to assault someone without physically touching them and by putting them in fear, said he would not have done what was alleged against him had he known this. Judge ODonohue told Mr Seamus O Tuithaill SC, who appeared with barrister John Smith and solicitor Cormac OCeallaigh for Griffiths, that he accepted their client had not breached the existing court injunction but he was not so sure about Mr McGhee. Collins and ODonnell told the court that McGhee had assaulted them while they attempted to deliver anti-drugs leaflets to shops in the Capel Street area. Both said they had been put in fear of both McGhee and Griffiths who had videoed the protest with a chest camera. Judge ODonohue, continuing the injunction until he has given his reserved judgment, told McGhee not to have any further contact with the Church, its members or lawyers, pending further order of the court. The judge had already heard a defamation claim by Griffiths against Collins in relation to an e-mail she admitted sending to the principal of St David's CBS in Artane, Dublin, following a talk on cults that Mr Griffiths had given to leaving cert boys at the school. Judgment was reserved in both cases. A youth club worker at an evangelical church who indecently assaulted a teenage girl 'every day' has been jailed for two years. Richard Blackburn (57), a Land Rover mechanic from Carnone, Raphoe, Co Donegal, pleaded guilty to three specimen charges relating to a series of sexual assaults on the girl between 2000 and 2002. Most of the attacks took place in the back of a converted Mercedes van which he used to take children to and from a youth club in Raphoe run by the Congregational Church. The victim, who is now aged 29, wrote to the court from abroad, where she now lives, to ask the court to allow her attacker to be named in the media. In her powerful victim impact statement, read to the court by investigating officer Det Sgt Ciaran Brolly, she told how she was now afraid to return home to Ireland for fear of meeting Blackburn. Her life, she said, had been destroyed and simple things for most people like going to the shop were now nerve-racking experiences. "It is like my teenage years didn't exist at all. What happened to me was life-altering, dark and very scary. Richard Blackburn was a trusted family friend. "He knew me from birth and therefore he knew my age. I was abused daily. For years, he convinced me it was all my fault but I now know it wasn't my fault. "When I go home to Ireland I am afraid to meet him in the street. I wanted to spend time there when my granny was unwell and she died recently. I didn't get to spend that special time with her." The victim, now a school teacher, said she doesn't sleep at night and constantly feels nervous. Judge John O'Hagan said Blackburn had breached the trust of an impressionable young girl in her formative years. Blackburn, said the judge, had put his victim through an "absolutely traumatic" experience which had left deep scars on her life. He sentenced Blackburn to three two-year prison sentences to run concurrently, with the last year suspended. Zabina Collins, a leading member of the church of Scientology in Ireland, has told a judge she could have been a little more temperate about what she had to say in an e-mail to a school principal complaining about a former Church members talk to schoolboys on cults. Collins, who admitted in court to having had a teenage drugs and heavy drinking problem, is being sued for defamation by Peter Griffiths, Cual Gara, Teeling Street, Ballina, Co Mayo, for what his counsel Seamus O Tuathail SC described as a vicious character attack. I could have dealt with it in a more temperate way, Collins said of her complaint to the headmaster of St Davids CBS in Artane, Dublin, following a posting on the internet by Griffiths of what he had said to the schools leaving cert boys in a talk on cults. She told barrister John Smith, who appeared with Mr O Tuathail and solicitor Cormac O Ceallaigh, that she had sent the headmaster a link to an on-line video showing a picture of Griffiths naked, with only a Guy Fawkes mask covering his genitals. Collins, a Dublin chiropractic clinic director, of The Boulevard, Mount Eustace, Tyrelstown, Dublin 15, told Judge James ODonohue she had written to the school principal as a concerned parent and not to besmirch Mr Griffiths. She earlier told her barrister Frank Beatty that while she did not have a child attending St Davids she was involved in tutoring children on drugs awareness and felt she had a duty to complain. In her e-mail Collins alleged that Griffiths talk had centred on the scientology religion which counts Tom Cruise and John Travolta as members and accused him of openly and viciously slandering the church. She accused him of being an avid hate campaigner against scientologists and hate mongering against the church and of being under garda surveillance. The court heard that a teacher from St Davids had asked Griffiths to address school pupils on cults and that it was Mr Griffiths who had posted on the internet an audio of his talk which warned the boys of the dangers of getting involved with the Church of Scientology which, he said, might destroy their lives. Mr Griffiths said he had been shocked, horrified and appaled when he had obtained sight of Ms Collinss allegations in which there was not a grain of truth. He said her statements had lowered his reputation in the minds of right-thinking people while holding him up to hatred, ridicule and contempt. Ms Collins (nee Shortt) is a daughter of publican Frank Shortt who was falsely accused by corrupt gardai of allowing drug dealing in the nightclub he owned in donegal. In 2007 the Supreme Court more than doubled to 4.6million damages awarded by the High Court to Mr Shortt who was wrongly convicted in 1995 of allowing the sale of drugs at his Point Inn premises in Quigleys Point, Innishowen, Co Donegal. He was imprisoned for three years before being cleared. Judge ODonohue has reserved his judgment on the defamation case which he has heard over several days. Today (Thurs) he started hearing a second case in which Collins and fellow scientologist Michael ODonnell, a marketing consultant of Cherrywood Lawn, Clondalkin, are suing Griffiths and John McGhee, an embalmer, of Armstrong Grove, Clara, Co Offaly, for alleged assault, battery, trespass and nuisance which both men deny. [Cartoon by Zhang Jianhui/Beijing Times] History is made up of many important moments and surprise events. In the past 2015, the international community witnessed quite a few "black swan" events, a metaphor used to describe events that come as a surprise and have major and long-term effects. The historical agreement reached at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris and the whirlwind stirred by the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank have shown that no matter how deep the divergence might be the international community can reach consensus in certain fields. Meanwhile, the escalation of geopolitical clashes in Eastern Europe, the growing threat from the Islamic State, the economic downturn in Southern Europe and the biggest human tide of refugees in Europe since Second World War signal that common international practices on security theories and governance have begun to weaken. Those events and phenomena have not only impressed the international community in 2015 but also set the scene for uncertainties in international politics in 2016, which can all be highly demonstrated by the following six events. First is the polarization of the emerging economies. According to their performance in 2015, some emerging economies like Russia, Brazil and South Africa will experience recessions in 2016 due to the appreciation of the U.S. dollar, capital outflow and economic sanctions. International research institutes estimate that the Brazilian GDP (Gross Domestic Product) may drop by 2.8 percent in 2016. As a member of the emerging economies, the Chinese economy is still expected to perform well in 2016 despite the downturn pressure in 2015. This year is the first year of China's 13th Five Year Plan period. It is estimated that the Chinese economy will keep a growth rate of 6.5 percent in the coming five years, leading global economic growth. It should be noted that the downturn of Chinese economy is the result of actively adjusting economic structure instead of an economic slump. With the growing of new economic factors, China's economic driving force will steer itself towards a healthier track. The polarization of emerging economies does not mean their growth patterns have failed. In developed economies, polarization is also visible the United States is recovering from the financial crisis while Europe is facing a termination of its integration due to the concussion of the debt crisis. As an economy in a process of transition, China has to learn lessons from the plights in the other emerging economies and to avoid repeating them. For example, China has to nurture a diversified driving force and multileveled market mechanism, cautiously evaluate the course of capital convertibility when capital outflow appears and reform the fiscal and tax systems to encourage the growth of enterprises and economic restructuring. In 2016, emerging economies represented by China will face many challenges and many opportunities. Second is the escalation of the Syrian Crisis. The crisis, which will have lasted five years by this March, has triggered the rise of the IS and refugee inflows. All parties concerned have finally realized the necessity of establishing a peace process in Syria and fighting against the IS on the basis of healing the rift between them. According to the resolution on the Syrian peace process passed by the United Nations Security Council last December, Syria will decide the agenda and program of establishing the new constitution within six months and will conduct elections in a free and fair manner within 18 months. That means that all parties concerned will pass a new constitution and get ready for a recognized new government in the first half of 2016. However, this process will not go smoothly. On the one hand, there is big divergence among the Syrian parties on whether Assad's government will be the organizer of the new government or what role the present government will play in the new government. On the other hand, the outside forces behind the Syrian parties have different interests as well. As a result, it's hard for them to reach a balance of interest through consultation. Moreover, if the political agenda fails to reach an agreement, the peace process may be suspended and then initiate a comeback in the form of an IS attack. The Syrian peace process concerns the situation of the global fight against terror. As for the motive, Russia, a big supporter of Assad's government, has sincerely promoted the reconciliation, as a peaceful resolution of the Syrian Crisis will help solve its conflicts with the EU and the U.S. regarding the Ukraine issue and further lift Western sanctions on Russia. Meanwhile, Europe, while facing a tide of Syrian refugees, also wants to promote the peace process. Therefore, the attitude and sincerity of Turkey and Saudi Arabia who support the oppositions are paramount in successfully addressing the issue. Third is whether the United Kingdom will leave the European Union. Prime Minister David Cameron announced to deliver an "in or out EU referendum" in 2017 during his election campaign. However, the U.K. media reported that Cameron was considering the option of holding the referendum in 2016 ahead of German and French elections in 2017. Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation. A vet has appealed to all pet owners to keep their animals under control after a savage attack at a dairy farm in which two dogs chewed the ears of cows down to bloodied stumps. John Collins, from the busy Mallow Vets practice in Co Cork, said he was forced to issue the appeal after he was called out to the farm to help care for the two cows. With dog attacks more commonly reported among flocks of sheep, Mr Collins said this was the first time he had ever encountered an attack on cows. "There were lacerations and the cartilage of the ears was gone. "It was literally torn out of them," he said. The distressing footage which Mr Collins uploaded online has received many comments from people distraught at the blood seeping from the ears of the cows. "Owners need to keep their dogs under control as their lovely pets can turn when the pack instinct kicks in," he said. Mr Collins said the farmer phoned him to come out after the dog attack at the dairy farm in the Mourneabbey area on Monday evening. "One ear was off one of the cows and both were gone off the other," he explained. "I had a mammoth task to patch them up and they're both in calf to expensive bulls but so far they haven't aborted," he said. "I've the cows on painkillers and antibiotics and I had to go back and trim off the dead and dying tissue. It was a big job." Mr Collins said they were in a shed with the rest of the herd and had their heads out through the bars eating silage. However, he says it appears they panicked when the dogs attacked and didn't manage to pull their heads back in through the bars. "The owner claims he heard barking and he lives around 50 yards from the farm but by the time he got down the dogs were gone," he said, adding the noise of the engine probably drove them off. He said they were confident it was a dog attack, rather than foxes, as the owner had clearly heard dogs barking in his shed shortly before he discovered the attack. Read More Dogs are believed to kill or injure an estimated 4,000 sheep a year in Ireland, according to figures compiled by the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA). However, some believe this figure is underestimating the problem as it only includes reported incidents to the IFA database. Farmers hope the planned introduction of microchipping of dogs, which comes into effect in March, will identify the pets involved in such attacks and will raise awareness among pet owners about their social responsibilities. Advice from our guidance counsellor on making changes to your CAO application and interviews for PLC places. Question: I heard you can still make changes to your CAO even when the February 1 deadline has passed. Is this true? Aoife replies: The main deadline for CAO applications is February 1, but students may make changes between February 5 and March 1 for a fee of 10. Most applicants will not need to take advantage of this option as changes can be made, free of charge, during the 'Change of Mind' period (May 5 to July 1). One of the main reasons applicants choose to avail of the facility between February 5 and March 1 is because they forgot to enter a restricted entry course to their CAO application. Restricted entry courses are clearly marked in the CAO handbook. These courses require applicants to undergo early assessment procedures which may begin as early as February. For example, art courses will require applicants to submit a portfolio of work, a drama or music course may require an audition, and medicine will require students to take a suitability test. These courses should be included on the CAO by February 1 so applicants can be invited to attend tests and auditions or submit work. This facility allows students to rectify any mistakes or omissions made before February 1. Mature applicants may also benefit from making use of this facility if they find they have made an error or submission or have entered their incorrect date of birth. Question: What is a 'Statement of Choices' and should I be expecting one? Aoife replies: If an applicant has submitted an online application they will, almost immediately, receive an email confirming which courses they have entered. If, however, an applicant has made a paper application they will receive a statement of course choices by post (along with their CAO number for the first time). The statement of course choices is due no later than February 15. Once received, applicants should carefully check all courses they have listed to ensure they appear on this statement in the way the applicant intended. If an applicant notices any problems with the courses listed or the order in which they were placed they can use the facility described above to make any changes they feel necessary. Question: A lot of my friends have interviews for Post-Leaving Cert (PLC) colleges this week. Am I too late to apply? Aoife replies: A number of PLC colleges are holding interviews this week, however the majority are still accepting applications. If you have not already applied there is still time to do so. First, visit the college website to research the courses they have on offer. Then make an application to the particular college through their website and they will notify you of upcoming interview dates. Even if a college has already begun their interviews they may still accept candidates for some courses. Contact the PLC college itself to find out if there are still places available on some courses. Aoife Walsh is a guidance counsellor at Malahide Community School, Co Dublin Important Dates Today Open Day - Ballsbridge College of FE Open Day - Ballyfermot College of FE Open Day Dunboyne -College of FE Live Online Q&A - UCC Tomorrow NUI Galway Information Evening - Clonmel Postgraduate Open Day (two days)-RCSI January 29 NUI Galway Information Evening - Clonmel Deadline for Ad Astra Elite Athletes and Performing Arts Scholarships - UCD February 1 CAO - Normal closing date for applicationsnGAMSAT Ireland -Registration Closes HPAT Ireland - Late Registration Closes February 2 Open Day - Inchicore CFE Second level school visits welcomed to Maynooth University Since 2008, consultations we have carried out among our members, primary school principals and deputy principals, have highlighted increasing levels of child emotional ill-health, encompassing issues such as depression, neglect, obesity, bullying, anxiety and both physical and sexual abuse. Between 2009 and 2015, there was a four-fold increase in the number of principals who believe children who are experiencing emotional well-being issues is one of the greatest child welfare challenges facing schools today. Ireland has the fourth-highest rate of suicide and self-harm in Europe and our research shows that principals feel "insufficiently trained" or "not trained at all" to identify and effectively address the emotional well-being of students. While it is recognised that the home and family are the primary source of nurturing and support for children, emotional well-being is everyone's business and involves the whole school community, parents/guardians and other relevant stakeholders. It is worth noting that the Department of Education and Skills' Chief Inspector's report 2010-2012 stated that 94c of primary pupils felt safe in school. But what more can we do to create space where children feel safe to express their anxieties, feelings and emotions and where we can help them to develop the skills and resilience necessary to cope with the challenges they face in their daily lives? It was a major topic for discussion at our annual conference this time last year. Arising from that, we held a symposium in November to explore the issue further, to challenge our own thinking and to develop a strategy, building on existing work in this area, to support schools in creating a culture of emotional well-being, and not only for pupils but the entire school community. Some 550 primary, and post primary leaders, teachers support staff and representatives of educational agencies and third level attended. Among the speakers was Angela Lynch, the IPPN's principal advice manager, who reminded us that it is not about educators being mental health experts or about the school solving another societal problem. Rather, she told us it was about applying rules, regulations and procedures with respect, compassion and kindness for all, about having a culture that is welcoming and where we examine how behaviours affect us and others. She encouraged educators and parents to get to know themselves more, know their emotions, strengths and beliefs as well as their vulnerabilities and dark places. We cannot give to our children what we do not have ourselves. If emotional well-being is valued at a school then it can be prioritised in the process of School Self Evaluation and School Improvement Planning. Angela encouraged school leaders to start a conversation on emotional well-being with staff, students, boards of management and parents. While it may be challenging, it is worth remembering that 'a ship is safe in the harbour but that is not what ships are made for'. She told us to be proactive, advising that if we do the things that we have always done, then we will get the results that we have always got. Since the symposium, much work has been carried out in building on these discussions. We have met with the Ombudsman for Children and representatives of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD), the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) and the Teaching Council to discuss how best to leverage the interest among educators in embedding a culture of emotional well-being across our school communities. Work in this area and among this group will continue with the aim of developing an Action Plan for Emotional Wellbeing in Schools, at both primary and post primary level Sean Cottrell is CEO of the Irish Primary Principals' Network Environment Minister Alan Kelly was last night canvassing in Tipperary while the Dail was debating a motion on homelessness. The Labour TD posted a photograph of himself and a group of female canvassers on social media just as the Dail was preparing to vote on a Fianna Fail bill. The Opposition party's motion called on the Dail to note that there are over 1,600 children and up to 780 families in emergency accommodation and to accept that families and children being placed in hotel rooms rather than proper accommodation "is totally unacceptable". It also criticised the Government for only allocating 10pc of Nama housing stock for social housing. Fianna Fail's environment spokesman Barry Cowen hit out at the minister for missing the conclusion of the debate which started on Tuesday night. "For a long time, it's been clear that Alan Kelly's interest in dealing with the homelessness crisis is wafer thin. "His decision to cry off from a debate on the issue tonight and instead turn up on social media canvassing to save his seat is a neat illustration of how seriously he's really taking it," Mr Cowen told the Irish Independent. "Tonight 1,600 children are in emergency accommodation and the minister actually responsible for housing can't be bothered to turn up for a special debate on dealing with it." In response, Mr Kelly's spokesman said the minister had a long-standing commitment at a business event in Tipperary at 5pm yesterday and as a result would have not made it back to Leinster House in time for the debate which ran from 7.30pm until 9pm. He said Mr Cowen was "as usual clutching at straws". The image of Mr Kelly, captioned 'Amongst ladies', showed him in Roscrea around 8pm. "Minister Kelly has visited more homeless organisations, shelters and emergency accommodation centres than any previous minister, including Fianna Fail ministers," his spokesman said. "He made his views known on the Private Members Bill in the Oireachtas on Tuesday night. "The Government was ably represented by Housing Minister Paudie Coffey in the Dail." The spokesman added: "This Government has allocated more resources to help the homeless than Fianna Fail allowed for in any of their pre-budget submissions during the lifetime of this Government." Meanwhile, embattled Fine Gael TD Noel Coonan launched a scathing attack on his Coalition colleague as the fallout from the Michael Lowry controversy continues. At what is likely to be Fine Gael's final parliamentary party meeting of the current Dail, Mr Coonan, who is also a Tipperary TD, said he believed Mr Kelly's "ego might burst", adding: "He is not my colleague." Dissatisfaction And the backbencher voiced his dissatisfaction at Fine Gael ministers who he complained had not mentioned his name in public discussions about the prospects of taking coalition support from Mr Lowry. The continued failure by Taoiseach Enda Kenny to publicly rule out doing business with Mr Lowry after the general election has caused tensions within both Fine Gael and the Labour Party. Although Mr Kenny has privately assured TDs that he has no intention of seeking Mr Lowry's support for a future coalition, his refusal to rule out such a prospect publicly has frustrated members of his own party. Mr Kenny again last night would only reiterate his position that he "does not contemplate" doing business with Mr Lowry. Senior party sources say Mr Kenny's approach is "calculated" given that there is a doubt over whether Fine Gael and the Labour Party can form a government on their own. Nonetheless, Fine Gael TDs believe Mr Kenny only has himself to blame for allowing the "damaging" controversy to dominate the news agenda since the weekend. Fine Gael TD Alan Shatter has criticised ministers who "complain in public" in a thinly veiled swipe at his party colleague and Health Minister Leo Varadkar. Mr Shatter pointed to several shortcomings in the country's health service and said it was a "disappointment" that Fine Gael had failed to "deliver on reforms". Addressing the Fine Gael parliamentary party, Mr Shatter said Fine Gael must do much more to put an end to the "completely unacceptable" conditions in the Accident and Emergency Departments. He also expressed deep concern about the prevalence of hospital diseases such as MRSA which he says have affected two of his loved ones in recent times. But without referencing Mr Varadkar by name, the former Justice Minister said ministerial responsibility has to be accepted by all members of Cabinet and that one "simply cannot blame everybody else around you". During a lengthy but calm contribution, Mr Shatter said that Mr Varadkar's predecessor James Reilly had "arm-wrestled" with Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin in private "unlike what we have seen more recently". He also said that it is important in the run-up to the General Election that ministers are not "seduced" by the media into making public comments that could cause difficulty for their colleagues. He also expressed concern about reports that Mr Varadkar has rowed back on a previous decision to force doctors and nurses to admit when they have made a mistake. Mr Shatter said that he is unsure whether he will be back in the parliamentary party in an indication that he feels his seat in Dublin-Rathdown is at risk. The vital service will now continue until the end of the summer Fears for the only ferry service to the Aran Island of Inis Mor have abated after a short-term agreement was reached between the operator and officials from the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The service operator, Island Ferries, threatened to cease the service from Sunday in a row over an 80c passenger fee. However, last minute talks with department officials led to an agreement to provide extra funding to Island Ferries. The vital service will now continue until the end of the summer. Locals want the minister to place a contract on the route to ensure the service is secured into next winter. Cathy Ni Ghoill of Comharchumann Forbartha Arann welcomed the news but said islanders needed certainty. "We still have no idea how long this service will run. As it stands, it could end after the summer. We can't go through this again. We need a contract to ensure the island has a service all year around," she added. While a previous attempt to introduce a contract for Inis Mor received no interest, Fine Gael TD Sean Kyne said he would be calling for a Public Service Obligation (PSO) contract if a basic contract failed to illicit any interest. A PSO would allow only one operator to service the route. Mr Kyne said there was interest from European countries in tendering for such a PSO. Transportation is closely related to people's daily life. Taxis are the choice of many people, often because of convenience. However, you might not have any idea of how long you have to wait for a taxi in some Chinese cities, especially during the peak traffic hours. China's Big Data Intelligent Transportation Report 2015 revealed the ranking of the Chinese cities where it's most difficult to get a taxi. Based on the data provided by Didi, the largest one-stop consumer transportation platform in the world, it is most difficult to get a taxi in the southwestern city of Chongqing, followed by Xiamen of Fujian Province and Shanghai. Beijing unexpectedly ranks 10th on the list, thanks to the popularity of intelligent transportation. Beijing's penetration rate of intelligent transportation (number of people who use intelligent transportation per the number of permanent residents) is in second place with Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province taking the top spot. Covering the major cities across the country, it is China's first comprehensive report for urban transportation patterns. The report was jointly published by Didi, Watching, an intelligent media platform, and China Business News Data, a business data publication platform. Here's the list of the top 10 Chinese cities where it's difficult to get a taxi. Beijing Beijing [Xinhua] Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation. A woman who lost her husband and a friend in a road traffic collision has described the trauma of being involved in such a devastating event. Ann ODowd Fogarty was a back-seat passenger in her car with her husband Ed and her friend Pearl Jackson, when they were travelling through Stepaside village, Co Dublin in the early hours of June 28, 2001. Ann told RTEs Ryan Tubridy Show this morning how they were admiring Dublins city lights in the valley below when suddenly she noticed an object like a spinning top with lights hurtling towards their car. This object was an out-of-control Audi A4 quattro car. I remember chatting and we were admiring the lights. My friend had never seen the lights of the city as you come down from Lamb Doyles. We were leaving Stepaside in what was the 30mph zone at the time and there was a right-handed bend. All of a sudden I saw this thing. It was like as if you spun a top that had lights on it. I couldnt figure out what it was but I knew that it was something out of control he was at my eye level hurtling towards us. In that split second, I had the thought: this is coming for us and we have nowhere to go, and that was it. The next thing I woke up in the crashed car. I remember nothing of the impact. I woke up I dont know how long after, presumably it was a very short time afterwards and I knew I was trapped by the ankles in the back of the car, and I knew that the other two passengers Ed and Pearl my friend were very seriously injured. I thought that Pearl might have been dead there wasnt a sound coming out of her, but there was noise coming out of Ed so I knew he was still alive, but struggling, Ms ODowd Fogarty, who is a member of Promoting Awareness Responsibiily and Care (PARC), said. Ann would wave in and out of consciousness for the remainder of the night, but while she was alone and awake in the car, she told her husband and her friend that she loved them, but she got no response. I told them both that I loved them. I asked them to stay with me. I encouraged them to stay with me. It was eerily quiet. I could almost touch the ivy on the wall outside the window. It was that close to me. We were right up against the stone wall. I prayed and I stayed very calm and I knew that some help would come, but I certainly couldnt get out of [the car] on my own. Ann tried to hug her husband as she waited for emergency services to arrive at the scene. There was a voice next and it asked was there somebody there hearing them and I said yes and I gave them all the contact numbers and the next of kin. I heard someone saying pull the plugs on this one - shes leaking petrol all over the place. It was only then it occurred to me that the car could actually go on fire and Im in here trapped by the ankles, and Pearl and Ed are in here too, and theyre trapped. I knew we were in very good hands because its the fire brigade that go to these things and theyre very well trained. And then I knew they were there and they could do the job and I could relax about it, so I was then going in and out of consciousness at that stage. Ann, Ed and Pearl were removed from the wreckage soon afterwards, but before she was removed from the scene in an ambulance, Ann knew that her beloved husband was dead. I remember vaguely sliding out on top of something like a stretcher, and I felt at the time it was through the back window but I could be wrong. Just before the door closed on mine I heard a command to go up and it said take the women to Vincents, theres a theatre there, take the man to Loughlinstown, theres no theatre there, so then I knew that my lovely husband of 17 years was dead. I asked my sister Mary who was absolutely a star, she stayed with me practically the whole time [in the hospital], I said to her one day: where is Ed? and she said hes in Loughlinstown, and I said Ed is dead isnt he, and she said yes, Ann, he is. Through her work with Parc, Ann says shes been enabled to continue the search for justice. She told her story on the national airwaves today to raise awareness about a guide for families of victims following the death or serious injury of a loved one in a road traffic collision. The guide, Finding Your Way, which is now in its third edition, outlines what is involved in the investigation of fatal and serious injury collisions and the legal proceedings which follow. By doing so it seeks to ease the burden on families devastated by such collisions, and it is being distributed by Garda Family Liaison Officers, as part of the assistance they provide. The guide can be gound here . Ann explained: I recovered very well, I had pain admittedly for about six years, but Im perfectly OK again. [Ed] was a great person for justice and the manner of his death brought out the kind of person he was. Hes just not there any more physically, but I believe hes there spiritually for me. I believe that hes with me wherever I go. The new chairman of the Pensions Authority David Begg has accused a TD who questioned his qualifications for the job of a "vitriolic, cowardly and unfair" attack. Mr Begg said he took enormous exception to comments by Clare Daly over his handling of an airline pension scheme in the Dail. The former trade union leader also revealed he had considered running for the Seanad, but it might be "completely unviable" given the "hostile abuse" he received in the past few days. Mr Begg has been under fire since it emerged Tanaiste Joan Burton offered him the role without going through the public service advertising or appointments process. The retired Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) general secretary stoutly defended his suitability for the new position at a Dail committee yesterday. "I took enormous exception to your contribution in the house last week," he told Ms Daly. "It was vitriolic, cowardly and unfair." He said it "never seems to go through your head at all the damage you inflict on a person's family". Mr Begg said Ms Daly had used Dail privilege to make "unreasonable" claims about his expertise in dealing with a deficit of over 700m in the Irish Aviation Superannuation Scheme. He said that while he served on the Aer Lingus board, he never got a phone call from Ms Daly. Ms Daly told the Dail that people were gobsmacked when they heard Mr Begg was appointed, and questioned his expertise. Speaking at the committee yesterday, she said it was appropriate to question his expertise in dealing with the pension scheme, as he was on the board of a company that "stood over" decisions taken. She claimed the ICTU engaged with deferred members, but not retired members who are losing half a million euro from their pensions each month. The TD said Mr Begg's prior role on the board of the Central Bank had to be discussed to examine his approach to "oversight". Mr Begg attached a copy of his CV for members of the committee, which he said would help them make their own judgment about his suitability for the role. The canal searches are focusing on the gun used in the murder as well as the missing body parts. Picture Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin. GardaI have drawn up a shortlist of suspects from Dublin's gangland as they step up their investigation to identify the killers of Kenneth O'Brien. Most of the body parts of the dismembered murder victim have now been recovered, following a huge response from the public to garda appeals for help. However, it is understood that parts of the victim's hands remain missing. Searches were carried out again yesterday along two stretches of the Grand Canal at Sallins, Co Kildare, where parts of the body were recovered on Sunday and Monday. Divers checked out the canal from the bridge in the village up to an area close to the Dublin-Cork rail line, while further searches were focused on the aqueduct where the canal flows over the River Liffey down to Digby Bridge. Officers have also made inquiries with the owners of land and outsheds nearby as they try to locate the scene where the 33-year-old victim was shot in the head and then dismembered. The canal searches are focusing on the gun used in the murder as well as the missing body parts. Investigators are also attempting to track down the vehicle used by the killers and have issued another appeal for assistance to anyone who spotted a car or van being driven in a suspicious manner on Friday, January 15 or Saturday, January 16, near the Grand Canal at either Ardclough or Sallins, the Royal Canal near Carton House, in Maynooth, or in the early hours of Friday morning close to Mr O'Brien's home at Lealand Road in Clondalkin. As a result of the public response, the team has more than 400 lines of inquiry to pursue and additional officers may be seconded to the investigation from other divisions in the Garda eastern region. Detectives may also travel to Australia in an attempt to get a full picture of the gangland victim's life in Perth, where he had been living for the past three years. THE Northern Ireland Prison Service has been slammed for imposing a "shroud of secrecy" over the funeral of serial child killer Robert Black. Prison chiefs have refused to reveal if the notorious paedophile's funeral has taken place, if his remains have been removed from Northern Ireland, or provide details of any cost to the public purse. Black died at Maghaberry Prison more than two weeks ago at the age of 68. He was serving 12 life sentences for the kidnap and murder of four little girls. Under prison rules the State has a duty to cover the burial costs of every convict who dies behind bars. Following his death demands were made that his remains not be kept in Northern Ireland, where he abducted and murdered Ballinderry schoolgirl Jennifer Cardy in 1981. Black was expected to be cremated, with his remains discarded outside of the province. However, the Prison Service in Northern Ireland has repeatedly refused to answer any questions from the Belfast Telegraph relating to the killer's funeral. Ukip MLA David McNarry described the authorities' silence as "outrageous". "We don't need to know all the ins and outs of the funeral arrangements, but the public has a right to know if this man's remains are still in Northern Ireland and what cost there has been to the public purse for his funeral, if it has even taken place," said Mr McNarry. "This shroud of secrecy is just treating the public with contempt. The public has a right to know if this child killer, who caused so much pain and suffering, has been laid to rest here. "We need reassurances that he has not. Just tell us the truth and put an end to all of this. The way the Prison Service is carrying on is outrageous." Justice committee member Edwin Poots said while he had no interest in funeral details, he would welcome confirmation from the Prison Service that the killer's remains were no longer here. "I would be happy to know that his remains are not in Northern Ireland," the DUP MLA added. "After that, the less we know about the whereabouts of Robert Black the better. "Robert Black was a particularly evil individual. He will be getting his true justice as we speak." Black was jailed in 1994 for the murders of Susan Maxwell (11), from Cornhill-on-Tweed, Northumberland, in 1982; Caroline Hogg (5), from Edinburgh, in 1983, and Sarah Harper (10), from Morley, near Leeds, in 1986. In 2011 he was also convicted of the murder of Jennifer (9), from Co Antrim, in 1981. At the same time he was convicted over a failed abduction bid on Teresa Thornhill in Nottingham in 1988 when she was 15. He was finally caught in 1990 when he tried to abduct a six-year-old girl, who was found gagged and stuffed in a sleeping bag in his van in Stow in the Scottish Borders. Following his death, detectives said they were days away from charging him with the abduction and murder of Genette Tate (13), who went missing in Devon in 1978 and whose body has never been found. Black never expressed any remorse and refused to co-operate with police investigating other killings. It recently emerged that he may have murdered up to 16 girls. Environment Minister Alan Kelly with pupils at the launch of the Capital Programme for Public Libraries at Tallaght Library, Dublin 24, yesterday. Photo: Lafayette Environment Minister Alan Kelly is to propose the introduction of a levy on the profits of insurance companies in response to the industry's "stubborn" approach to the flood crisis. Mr Kelly will ask his Cabinet colleagues to consider the introduction of a 0.5pc levy on firms' profits in a move that will be strongly resisted by the industry. The Labour Party deputy leader believes a so-called profit levy, which would require the introduction of legislation, could be used to provide financial help to homeowners and businesses which are being refused flood cover. Mr Kelly also believes the proceeds could be used to fund flood infrastructure in areas worst affected. But any such move would need Cabinet approval and is unlikely to be agreed before the general election. The decision by Mr Kelly to raise the prospect of a levy on profits comes as the Government prepares to announce the provision of 106m for local authorities. The funds, which will be announced by Transport Minister Paschal Donohoe, will be earmarked for road and rail repairs. Mr Donohoe will today acknowledge the toll the floods have had on the lives of families and he will insist that critical repairs are carried out as soon as possible. He will pledge that works will take place in the coming weeks and that his department will continue to engage with local authorities. The Government's response to the flood crisis has come back under the spotlight after the insurance industry snubbed calls for it to reconsider its refusal to insure all homes in areas where permanent flood defences are already in place. In a letter to Taoiseach Enda Kenny, the industry made no pledges whatsoever to change its approach, instead encouraging the Government to create its own "social compensation scheme" for homeowners who cannot secure cover. It also refused to budge on its opposition to temporary flood defences known as 'demountables'. But Mr Kelly is now to press his colleagues for the introduction of a levy solely on firms' profits, which is likely to be in the region of 0.5pc, once other options are exhausted. "While the preference would be to work in co-operation with insurance companies and come to a common agreements so that people won't feel abandoned (as they currently do), we can't guarantee that co-operation and other measures may have to be considered," Mr Kelly's spokesman said last night. "Mr Kelly is mindful of the residents he met in Clonmel in particular where people miles away from water can't get insurance only because of their address." Shoppers watched in horror as a newsagent employee was slashed repeatedly with a knife in a raid on a Dublin grocery store. A young man working at a checkout bravely resisted a knife-weilding thug who inflicted several wounds on his hands before stealing cash from the register. The robbery happened at the Eurospar shop on Ballymun Road in Glasnevin shortly before 7pm on Tuesday. A 33-year-old woman was being served by the brave shop assistant when he was attacked. cutting "It was terrifying. There was blood all over the floor," the mum-of-one told the Herald. "The robber was a tall man wearing a black hoodie. He was standing very close to me as I was being served. "As soon as the young assistant opened the till, the guy reached over with a knife and began cutting the young man's hands. "The robber never said a word. He just kept slashing at the young man's hands. I was screaming at the top of my voice. He grabbed money from the drawer and the young man chased him out of the shop. "That young man was so brave. He could be anybody's son. There were a lot of elderly people in the shop and they were just shocked." A senior member of staff declined to comment last night. Separately gardai have arrested three suspects and are questioning them about a spate of armed robberies that have happened on Dublin's southside in recent weeks. One of the men is a 26-year-old career criminal from Crumlin who previously had his testicles set on fire by a gang who also super-glued his eye lashes together over a drugs debt in 2011. This suspect's younger brother was also arrested in yesterday morning's garda operation along with a close associate of the siblings. The trio were being questioned at Crumlin Garda Station. They were being quizzed about seven separate robberies that have happened in the Crumlin, Terenure and Rathfarnham areas in recent weeks. It is understood that four shops, two petrol stations and a bookies have been targeted. "The modus operandi for all these crimes is very similar. The raiders entered the businesses armed with knives and sticks and threatened staff," a source said. Hopeful "They demanded the contents of the till and escaped with sums ranging from 150 to 600 in each case." The arrested men are aged between 27 and 19 and sources said that gardai are hopeful of pressing charges in the case. Meanwhile, a surge in retail crime has seen 90pc of retailers become the victim of shoplifting in the last 12 months. Fancy 18-and-a-half hours in economy? That could soon be possible if Qatar Airways gets its way. The airline has announced plans to launch the worlds longest direct flight: a 9,034-mile schlep from Doha to Auckland. Should the route get the green light, it would beat the current record holder Qantass Dallas-Sydney service by almost 500 miles. The journey time would be an estimated 18 hours and 34 minutes, according to the journey planning website travelmath.com. Akbar Al Baker, Qatar Airways CEO, told Bloomberg Business that it was also hoping to fly from Doha to Santiago in Chile: a 8,956-mile journey, as well as launch new routes to Marrakech, Lisbon and Phuket, but no start dates have yet been announced. The Qantas Dallas-Sydney service, which takes up to 16 hours and 55 minutes, will be overtaken by a new Emirates route from Dubai to Panama City on March 31. That journey will cover 8,595 miles and take approximately 17 hours 41 minutes. Emirates and Qatar Airways will both use Boeing 777-200LR aircraft, which seats 217 passengers in economy class and 42 in premium, on their new ultra long-haul routes. But the Middle Eastern pair could be topped in 2018 by Singapore Airlines. The carrier recently expressed a desire to restore its direct New York-Singapore service, and the manufacturer Airbus is reportedly working on a variety of its A350-900 aircraft which would allow it do so more economically than before. The journey from New York to Singapore, discontinued in November 2013, covers 9,535 miles and takes around 18 hours 50 minutes. Singapore Airlines previously used an A340-500 on the route. Meanwhile, United has said it will introduce daily flights from San Francisco to Singapore from June 2016, an 8,446-mile route. Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022] The 'night of the guarantee' is something of a myth, according to the Banking Inquiry team. They argue that the concept of the State guaranteeing the banks was first raised in January 2008 - nine months before the panic button was pressed. The report also suggests that former Taoiseach Brian Cowen was wrong when he told the inquiry: "We had one shot at it, or Ireland could have been set back 25 years." In fact we now know that the Central Bank had put in place sufficient measures to ensure that all the banks, including Anglo, would have opened the next morning. But that's where the trail goes cold. On the surface, the committee appears to have established a clearer narrative of the events of September 29, 2008, but there are still so many unanswered questions. The old saying goes that journalists write the first draft of history, but in reality that honour can often go to an anonymous press officer. At 9.11pm on September 19, 2008, the assistant secretary in the Department of Finance William Beausang received an email from the Central Bank with a draft press release announcing a six-month bank guarantee on deposits and interbank lending. "It appears to have been authored earlier in the evening in the Central Bank in advance of the commencement of the meeting in Government Buildings," he told the inquiry in written evidence. Representatives of the two main banks, Bank of Ireland and AIB, didn't arrive at Government Buildings until 9.30pm. So it begs the question was the guarantee decided before the talks even began? The report doesn't tell us whether, as former Central Bank governor John Honohan claimed, Brian Lenihan was overruled by the Taoiseach on the issue. And perhaps the most glaring thing missing from the report is any analysis on whether the guarantee was the least worst option or a costly mistake. At this stage we're unlikely to ever know the answer to that question. Premium Dan O'Brien Opinion While we catastrophise about Covid, we ignore risk of running out of cash We Irish view the world in an increasingly strange and unhealthy way. We catastrophise about Covid in a way other European countries do not. We focus on how bad the effects of the virus could get, on how many more restrictions might be imposed by Government and how helpless we are in the face of the virus. The vessel used by migrants docked at the village of Kokkari on the eastern Greek island of Samos (AP) Eighteen people, half of them children, have died after a migrant boat sank off an eastern Greek island, the country's coast guard said. Nine children were among the dead - four girls and five boys - while eight men and one woman also died, the coast guard said. Vessels from the European border agency Frontex are assisting the Greek coast guard in the search for others possibly missing, after 10 people were rescued off the island of Samos. Despite toughening European border controls, refugees and migrants have continued to travel to the Greek islands near the Turkish coast at a rate of roughly 1,500 per day since the beginning of the year, braving the bad weather in dinghies and old wooden boats. French President Francois Hollande faces revolt in his security crackdown in the wake of the Paris terror attacks, after justice minister, Christiane Taubira, resigned over his drive to strip convicted jihadists of French citizenship. The French president announced the ministerial resignation just before a cabinet meeting, and hours before a parliament commission debates the controversial bill. Ms Taubira, a Leftist and a brilliant orator, who became a darling of her camp for championing the legalisation of gay marriage, said that "sometimes to resist is to stay, sometimes to resist is to leave". To her supporters, the 63-year-old from French Guiana on the Caribbean coast is a pioneer for women and minorities in French politics. But over the past four years, she has become a figure of hate for many French opposition conservatives and the far-Right for her perceived soft law and order policies. Several times, the black politician was the victim of racist jibes. Jean-Jacques Urvoas, the current president of the parliamentary laws commission will replace Ms Taubira to "carry out... the constitutional reform", said the justice ministry. Mr Hollande called for the "loss of nationality" measure to be written into the constitution in the aftermath of the November jihadist attacks in Paris which left 130 people dead. It is part of a raft of measures meant to clamp down on hundreds of French citizens - many holding dual nationality - who leave to join Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) in Iraq and Syria, and in the case of the November attackers, return to wreak carnage in France. "Removing French nationality from those who blindly kill other French in the name of an ideology of terror is a strong symbolic act against those who have excluded themselves from the national community," Prime Minister Manuel Valls said, after the measure was announced. However, many in the ruling Socialists were uncomfortable with the measure, including Ms Taubira, warning that it would drive a wedge between those who are only French, and those who hold a second nationality. Just a day before the reforms were presented, she announced it would be dropped because it was "discriminatory", only to be overruled at the last minute by the prime minister and Mr Hollande. Polls suggest most French support the idea, but opponents fear it would unfairly target Muslims, and some have likened it to the revocation of citizenship of French Jews during World War Two. A law already exists that allows for naturalised citizens to be stripped of their nationality, but not those born French. Mr Valls announced yesterday the phrase "dual citizen" would not feature in the reforms, raising the prospect that convicted terrorists with sole French nationality risk being made stateless citizens. The reforms also aim to inscribe the right to declare a state of emergency into the constitution, including powers to raid homes and place people under house arrest without judicial oversight. The current three-month state of emergency is due to expire on February 26 but Mr Valls last week said it would continue until Isil had been defeated. Parliament is due to start debating the reforms in early February, followed by a vote in Versailles uniting members of the National Assembly and Senate. Marine Le Pen, the Front National leader, said her departure was "a relief" and "good news for France", while Guillaume Larrive, of the centre-Right opposition party, The Republicans, said: "She was the worst justice minister of the Fifth Republic." But Yann Galut, a leftist Socialist MP, said: "We have lost a great lady, a minister who commanded unanimous support among Socialist MPs. Her resignation will destabilise the government's centre of gravity, which is becoming increasingly liberal." Olivier Faure, a Socialist spokesman, denied her departure had sparked a "political crisis" ( Daily Telegraph, London) Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022] Police in Denmark have sparked anger by telling a teenage girl that she faces prosecution for using pepper spray to fend off an attacker near an asylum-seekers' centre (Stock picture) Police in Denmark have sparked anger by telling a teenage girl that she faces prosecution for using pepper spray to fend off an attacker near an asylum-seekers' centre. The 17-year-old, from the coastal town of Sonderborg, was forced to the ground by an English-speaking man who tried to undress her. She was later warned by police that the pepper spray she used on him was illegal for private citizens to possess, and that she would face a 500 kroner (70) fine. The man who allegedly attacked her has not yet been caught, and it remains unclear as to whether he was a migrant or a resident at the asylum centre. The case has caused outrage on social media. "Self-defence is a human right," said one user. Others offered to pay the girl's fine for her. Refugees disembark from a train as they arrive to the transit centre for refugees near northern Macedonian village of Tabanovce (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski) Greece faces the prospect of being sealed off from the rest of Europe within three months over its "serious" failure to control its external border, the European Commission has said in a report. The report comes amid growing pressure on Athens to deal with the flow of migrants, with some fellow European Union states suggesting that Greece could be suspended from the Schengen passport-free area. "The draft report concludes that Greece seriously neglected its obligations and that there are serious deficiencies occurring out of border controls that must be overcome," commission vice president Valdis Dombrovskis told reporters. The report is based on an evaluation mission which went in November to the Greek-Turkish land border and several islands in the Aegean Sea - the main landing points for the one million migrants who arrived in Europe in 2015. If the report is adopted by a majority of the 28 EU member states, the Brussels-based Commission will then draw up an "action plan" to shore up Greece's borders, especially its sea frontier with Turkey. "Greece will then have three months to implement actions," Mr Dombrovskis said. A failure by Greece to act would open the door for Brussels to authorise member states to exceptionally extend border controls within the Schengen area for up to two years, instead of the normal six months. Mr Dombrovskis said the report found that there was a failure to do sufficient registering and fingerprints of migrants who have entered Greece from Turkey, the main gateway for refugees fleeing war in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. He insisted that the EU would not link Athens's failings on the migration crisis to how it deals with Greece's huge 86bn bailout, sealed last year after the country looked to be on the brink of crashing out of the eurozone. "We are not linking the Greek (bailout) programme with Schengen related issues," said Mr Dombrovskis, who took a leading role in the drawn-out bailout negotiations last year. EU interior ministers had asked the commission on Monday to draw up a plan for a possible two-year extension to the controls - which threatens the idea of free movement embodied in the 26-country Schengen area. In the last few months, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, France and non-EU member Norway have all introduced temporary controls over the migrant crisis, but with a limit of six months. They took the step to deal with a huge wave of migrants moving mostly from Greece towards Germany and Sweden, the main destination for refugees and migrants in Europe. Flash Syrian oppositions have ended their meetings Wednesday without reaching a final decision over whether they would participate in Syrian peace talks in Geneva, Al Arabia local news reported on Wednesday. Head of the Kurdish Democratic Party Sheikh Salem Al Muslat told Al Arabia the meeting will continue on Thursday, adding that their fellow opposition members will continue to wait for the UN response of their demands. The oppositions released on Tuesday a statement demanding genuine improvements on the ground before starting the negotiations. The group said it is open to the eventual participation in the talks scheduled to begin on Friday. The talks stem from an agreement reached in Vienna, Austria, in November by the International Syria Support Group, comprising the Arab League, the European Union, the United Nations, and 17 countries including the United States, Russia and China, as part of an effort to end the five-year-long war with an agreement on new governance, a new constitution and new elections. The first phase could last two to three weeks before preparations are made for further phases and there will be no opening ceremony, de Mistura said, stressing that there will be a substantial presence of civil society and women, who represent 51 percent of the total population. The founder of Bikram yoga has been ordered to pay nearly $6.5m (6m) to his former legal adviser who said he sexually harassed and sacked her for investigating a rape claim. The punitive damages are in addition to the $924,000 (850,000) compensation that Bikram Choudhury must pay to Minakshi "Miki" Jafa-Bodden, bringing the total award to about $7.4m (6.8m). "This is a good day for women," Ms Jafa-Bodden said after the Los Angeles jury's verdict. Choudhury's lawyer, Robert Tafoya, did not return calls for comment. Ms Jafa-Bodden was head of legal and international affairs at Choudhury's LA yoga school from spring 2011 until March 2013, when she said she was abruptly sacked from her six-figure-salary position for refusing to cover up a rape allegation. "Jafa-Bodden faced retaliation and intimidation when she refused to stay silent about witnessing illegal behaviour," her lawyer, Mark Quigley, said. Ms Jafa-Bodden also said Choudhury sexually harassed and inappropriately touched her, and tried to get her to stay with him in a hotel suite. Choudhury (69) has built an empire around Bikram yoga, a rigorous, 90-minute routine performed in a room that can reach more than 38C. The technique is taught at more than 650 studios worldwide and has drawn a throng of devoted followers, including celebrities. Choudhury claims he is now nearly bankrupt. Ms Jafa-Bodden's wrongful termination action is separate from sexual assault lawsuits filed by six other women, five of whom accuse Choudhury of raping them. One of the lawsuits is in the process of being settled while the rest are set for trial later this year. Choudhury's lawyers have said he never sexually assaulted any of the women suing him and that prosecutors had declined to bring charges in their cases. But Mary Shea, one of the lawyers representing the women, said prosecutors never investigated the claims and just because charges were not filed did not mean the women were not telling the truth. Ammon Bundy, pictured, and seven others are facing charges over the occupation of the wildlife refuge (AP) The jailed leader of an armed anti-government group has urged the remaining militants to abandon the Oregon wildlife refuge they have occupied for more than three weeks. Mike Arnold, a lawyer for Ammon Bundy, read out a statement from the militant leader after he made his first court appearance in Portland on Wednesday. "Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is now in the courts," the statement said. It is unclear whether the remnant of Bundy's followers still at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge south of Burns are ready to heed his advice. The refuge is now surrounded by US government agents. Meanwhile, details began to emerge about Tuesday's confrontation on a remote highway that resulted in the arrest of Bundy and other leading figures in the group of occupiers and the death of militant Robert Finicum. Bundy followers gave conflicting accounts of how Finicum died. One said he charged at FBI agents who then shot him, but a member of the Bundy family said Finicum did nothing to provoke the agents. Oregon man Raymond Doherty, who says he witnessed the shoot-out, said the shooting happened quickly - over perhaps 12 or 15 seconds. He told KOIN-TV that he was about 100 feet back and could not see who specifically was shooting, but added: "I saw them shooting at each other." Authorities refused to release any details about the encounter or even to verify that it was Finicum who was killed. A federal judge in Portland unsealed a criminal complaint that said the armed group had explosives and night-vision goggles and that they were prepared to fight at the refuge or in the nearby town of Burns. Someone told authorities about the equipment on January 2, when the group took over the Malheur refuge, according to the document. Bundy and seven others are charged with felony counts of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats. The criminal complaint states that the 16 employees at the wildlife refuge "have been prevented from reporting to work because of threats of violence posed by the defendants and others occupying the property". Federal officers and Harney County sheriff Dave Ward held a news conference on Wednesday in which they called on the rest of the occupiers to go home. There is a huge law enforcement presence in the region, and the FBI has now set up checkpoints outside the refuge. FBI agent Greg Bretzing said people could leave through checkpoints "where they will be identified". He did not say whether any of them faced arrest. He said negotiators were available to talk if they have "questions or concerns". Ammon and Ryan Bundy are the sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a high-profile 2014 stand-off with the government over grazing rights. The group, which has included people from as far away as Michigan, calls itself Citizens for Constitutional Freedom It came to the frozen high desert of eastern Oregon to condemn what it calls onerous national land restrictions and to object to the prison sentences of two local ranchers convicted of starting fires. Progress toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians requires that Israel freeze its settlement-building in the West Bank, the UN secretary-general said, calling the settlement activities "an affront to the Palestinian people and to the international community." Addressing the U.N. Security Council's periodic Middle East debate, Ban Ki-moon also urged both sides to act now "to prevent the two-state solution from slipping away forever." He condemned rocket fire from militant groups in Gaza into Israel but focused his strongest comments on Israel's settlement-building. "As oppressed peoples have demonstrated throughout the ages, it is human nature to react to occupation," the UN chief said. Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war. Palestinians demand the territory as part of their future state. Last week, Israel approved the expropriation of some 370 acres (150 hectares) of land in another part of the territory. Most of the international community views Israeli settlements in the territory as illegal or illegitimate. The last four months have seen near-daily Palestinian attacks that have killed 25 Israelis and an American student. At least 149 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, about two-thirds of them identified by Israel as attackers. The rest have been killed in clashes with Israeli troops. Israel blames the violence on Palestinian incitement. Palestinians say the attacks stem from frustration at nearly five decades of Israeli military rule. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Ban's comments "give a tail wind to terrorism," and he said the UN "long ago lost its neutrality and its moral strength." A suicide car bomb killed seven people outside Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Rabbu Hadi's residence in the southern city of Aden on Thursday, local officials and eyewitnesses said. "A suicide car bomb targeted a security checkpoint about 500 metres yards from the Maashiq palace," the official told Reuters. "Seven people were killed and 10 were wounded. The majority of the casualties are civilians," the official said of the latest in a series of deadly attacks by militants on government and security targets. The officials said President Hadi was inside the building at the time of the attack and was unharmed. Hadi was forced to flee the capital Sanaa in 2014 and is now based in Aden, Yemen's second largest city, where his embattled government is trying to project its authority after its loyalists, backed by Arab forces, seized it in July. Backed by a Saudi-led military alliance of Arab states, Hadi's forces have been battling the Iran-allied Houthi militia and followers of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh who are based in Sanaa, in a war that has killed 6,000 people. Islamic State has also stepped up operations, emerging as a forceful rival to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the main Islamist militant group in the country in recent years. Suicide bombers from Islamic State killed 15 people in an attack on a hotel housing the government in Aden and seven at a Houthi-run mosque in Sanaa on October 5. Dozens of armoured vehicles and troops from the United Arab Emirates arrived in Aden's port on Wednesday, security officials said, as part of a plan to tackle security chaos. A British-accented man dubbed the "Saharan Jihadi John" has appeared in an al-Qaeda video in which he threatens the life of a Swiss nun kidnapped in northern Mali. The nun, Beatrice Stockly, was abducted three weeks ago from her home in Timbuktu, where she had returned to work despite a previous kidnapping ordeal at the hands of Islamists in 2012. In a video released on the internet, a masked English-speaking militant says that she has been targeted again for attempting to spread Christianity, and says she can be freed in exchange for jailed Islamist fighters. The militant, who says he belongs to the group al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AGIM), is not named in the video, but his camera presence and rhetoric are similar those of the Isil killer Jihadi John. His voice also resembles that of another masked English-speaking fighter who appeared in a different AQIM hostage video last June. The June video showed two other AQIM prisoners, Stephen McGowan from South Africa and Johan Gustafsson from Sweden, and appealed to their governments to negotiate for their release. While al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) operating areas are mainly former French colonies such as Mali, Niger, Algeria and Burkina Faso, it is thought the group sees a propaganda gain in using an English speaker to front some of its broadcasts. As well as widening its potential recruitment net, it also gives its enemies the impression that it is truly fighting a jihad "without borders". Mr McGowan was riding back home from Britain through Africa on a motorbike when he and Mr Gustafsson were kidnapped from a hotel in Timbuktu in November 2011. Neither had been seen publicly for almost two years. The eight-minute video featuring Ms Stockly shows her dressed in a veil and stating that the clip was filmed on January 19. The English-speaking narrator states: "We, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Sahara region, declare our responsibility for the kidnapping of this Christianising kaffir (unbeliever) Beatrice Stockly, who by her work, drove out many from the fold of Islam by seducing them with crumbs of this worldly life." The video also outlined the terms of the group's demands, which included the release of members imprisoned by the Malian government and Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi, a militant who is now in the custody of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Mali's expansive north has been unstable since 2012, when separatist rebels and jihadists seized the area. Although French forces scattered them from cities the following year, they have stepped up attacks in recent months. AQIM claimed responsibility for a November assault on a Bamako hotel in which gunmen took hostages and killed 20, as well as an attack on January 15 on a Burkina Faso hotel and restaurant in which 30 people died. Ms Stockly has lived in Timbuktu for years and was previously kidnapped from the same house in April 2012. At that time, she was thought to be the last Westerner living in the desert city, which was falling under the increasing control of AQIM and other anti-government groups. Two weeks later, special forces from Burkina Faso flew into northern Mali in a helicopter and whisked her to safety in a pre-arranged handover by Islamist rebels. After Ms Stockly's kidnapping in 2012, the Swiss foreign ministry said it had discouraged her from another stay in Mali. Residents of Timbuktu say her second abduction took place on January 8, when armed men in four cars grabbed her from her house and then sped away, leaving track marks in the sand. "One vehicle parked in front of the house and armed men got out and abducted the woman, while the other three cars secured the area from a distance,' said the source. "People were sleeping but neighbours heard the noise - the woman screamed a lot," said Bilal Mahamane Traore, a town councilor in Timbuktu. "Not a single neighbour, though, called security forces." MI5 and MI6 are believed to be studying both hostage videos for clues to the identity of the narrator, whose mannerisms and swagger mimic those of the Isil killer Jihadi John. Jihadi John was killed by an air strike last year, having previously been identified as Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born Londoner. ( Daily Telegraph London) Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022] SHARE By Independent Mail After a car chase down the street and a foot chase through the woods, the Anderson County Sheriff's Office arrested a suspect who they say was trying to break into a car Wednesday night. The Sheriff's Office got a call at 6:55 p.m. about someone breaking into a car at Mt. Zion Church on S.C. Highway 81, said spokeswoman Lt. Sheila Cole. When the police got there, the suspect drove off in a car that police later learned was stolen from Elbert County, Georgia, Cole said. Police chased the suspect for 2 minutes before the suspect wrecked the car on Keys Street. The suspect then ran into the woods. A canine unit was called and the suspect was arrested, Cole said. The Sheriff's Office is not releasing the suspect's name. What is it like to be a barbecue competition judge? dining SHARE By Vince Jackson, special to Independent Mail CENTRAL At a Pickens County Municipal Association meeting this week, the county's legislative delegation said roads are their primary concern. State Sen. Larry Martin said a 12 cent per gallon tax increase on gasoline would raise about $300 million in state revenue each year. The impact could be offset by a reduction in state income tax, favored by some legislators. "Thirty percent of the gas tax is currently paid by truckers and people visiting South Carolina. I favor letting them pay for the roads they are driving on," Martin said at the gathering Monday. Other members of the Pickens County legislative delegation in attendance were Sen. Thomas Alexander and Reps. Neil Collins, Gary Clary and Davy Hiott. The delegation members said they agreed the recent coal ash controversy in Pickens County is a matter for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control and the Pickens County Council. Pickens County is filing a lawsuit against MRR Pickens, the company that owns the landfill where coal ash might be deposited. Alexander said issues he is thinks are important for the legislative session include administration of the state's Local Government Fund, continuation of workforce development and revamping the state's retirement system. Local Government Fund administration is a sore point with many cities and counties because municipalities feel they are being cheated out of funding mandated by state law. According to information from the Municipal Association of South Carolina, the General Assembly created the Local Government Fund in 1991. The goal was to simplify the distribution of tax dollars collected by the state on behalf of local governments. During the Great Recession everything changed. Municipal budgets were squeezed when funding dwindled and was no longer available. As the economy recovers, some local governments are now challenging the manner in which the funds are distributed. Clary, a former circuit court judge, said Monday that he believes this year's race to determine three State Supreme Court justices is of major importance. The State Legislature elects members to the court. Flash At least a dozen people were killed following suicide attacks in Chibok town of Nigeria's northeastern state of Borno, security sources and a rescue team coordinator said Wednesday. Hassan Chibok, a rescue team leader, said 12 lifeless bodies were found during rescue operation but the death toll might increase afterwards. The number of injured people so far rescued has reached 28, the emergency worker said. Two unnamed security officers told Xinhua five suicide bombers were suspected to have entered Chibok on its weekly market day but only three detonated their improvised explosive devices, wreaking havoc on the town. The two other suspected suicide bombers, yet to be apprehended, immediately fled the scene, the security officers said. One of the bombers detonated an improvised explosive device right inside a local market, said a witness identified as Manasseh Hassan. Another bomber blew himself up at a security checkpoint, hitting a "soft target", while the third bomber detonated his improvised explosive device near the same market, out of fear of being lynched. Local residents are blaming the attack on Boko Haram, a terror group which has proved to be a hard nut to crack in Nigeria since 2009. More than 200 school girls were abducted from Chibok town 21 months ago by Boko Haram. The abduction has aroused international outrage. None of the missing girls has been found, although government said it is making efforts to know their whereabouts and ensure their freedom. 'Airlift', the film that's based on the real life story of air evacuation of the Indians during the Iraq- Kuwait war is receiving innumerable applauds from all across. Everyone who has seen the movie can't stop appreciating this patriotic cinema. The story that was kept under secret warps for so long to avoid political hassle is finally out just because of 'Airlift'. The film reveals the details of the story that had remained untold for years. To mark the importance of this patriotic docu drama, the Uttar Pradesh Government that's led by Akhilesh Yadav has made 'Airlift' Tax Free across the State. Akshay Kumar took to his social media account and shared the news: "Just been informed the Uttar Pradesh Govt. has declared 'Airlift' as Tax Free. Thank you to the young & progressive team led by @yadavakhilesh" Looking at this it can be surely said that the movie that's expressing the tale of such an important National move is worth becoming tax free across the whole Nation. Do comment below your views. Priyanka Chauhan Thailand was surpassed by India as a rice exporter in 2015 but traders have projected 9 million tons will be sold this year if the global economic downturn and drought crisis can be overcome. Thai Rice Exporters Association Chairman, Pol Lt Charoen Laodhammatas, disclosed that Thailand exported 9.8 million tons of rice in 2015, or 150 trillion baht worth, down 10.8 percent year-on-year. He attributed the downturn to the global economy's contraction, especially among countries with high rice demand, noting that the falling price of oil also impacted the buying power of such countries. Thailand ended 2015 behind India for rice exports with the South Asian country selling 10.23 million tons of rice. Vietnam was third globally while China remained the number one importer of rice. The association expects Thailand will sell 9 million tons of rice this year, or 144 trillion baht worth. While the figure is close to last year's, the US farming department has projected the Kingdom will return to its status as the world's number one exporter. Factors that could impact the sector are the continuing drought situation, which is weighing down production, as well as the global economy, which is depressing buying power. The Thai Rice Exporters Association expects a decrease in the volume of rice exports this year. Charoen Laothamatas, president of the association, said that the volume could fall to 9 million tonnes this year, a decrease of 8 per cent from last year. The exports are expected to generate US$4.3 billion, or $439 per tonne on average. In 2015, export volume also dropped by 10.7 per cent to 9.8 million tonnes. In the year, Thailand was the world's second largest rice exporter, following India which exported 10.23 million tonnes. Vietnam's rice exports hit 6.6 million tonnes. Powered by Commodity Insights AAI Worldwide Logistics Inc. (AAI), a leading logistics and freight-forwarding firm in the Philippines and its new Express Courier business unit: Black Arrow Express, today announced that it will implement Ramco Systems Logistics Software, to streamline its domestic and international freight forwarding operations.Ramco, a leading enterprise software provider on Cloud, mobiles and tablets, will roll out its Cloud-based integrated ERP solution for Logistics Service Providers across AAIs five entities in and around the Philippines. The system will enable AAI to manage its Warehouse & Transportation, Freight Forwarding, Fleet Planning, Courier Management, and Facility Management integrated with Finance and HR all from a single unified system.An exclusive agent of the World Air Cargo Organisation, as well as an International Air Transport Association agent for major carriers, AAI is the first logistics and freight-forwarding firm to be accorded the Philippine Quality Award, which is the highest national recognition for performance excellence that a Philippine company can receive.Arnold Brizuela, President, AAI Worldwide Logistics Inc., and Allan Brizuela, President, Black Arrow Express said, To achieve our goal of becoming the No.1 logistics company in Philippines, there certainly was a dire need of an innovative and integrated technology that could help us yield efficient results. Ramcos fully integrated Logistics offering suited our business needs perfectly. The solution will enable us to effectively plan and organize vast logistic shipments throughout the Philippines and beyond.Virender Aggarwal, CEO, Ramco Systems said, We are glad to announce AAI, a leading name in Logistics industry, as our customer. After a rigorous evaluation of both global and local vendors, AAI decided to choose Ramco ERP. We are confident this partnership will further strengthen our position as a leading Logistics software provider, globally."The logistics industry is at a crossroads, as traditional players face stiff competition from a smarter Uberised world. The need to optimise operations, arrest revenue wastage, and gain visibility is driving organisations to adapt latest technology. Our integrated suite of offering on Cloud with in-built mobility, is gaining favour as it addresses the complete value chain of a Logistics Service Provider, added Aggarwal.Allan Brizuela, Black Arrow Express looks at the Uberisation and Grabbing as an opportunity. Technologically-integrated companies such as ourselves in partnership with Ramco, could only maximise the added retail booking opportunities that platform providers present. While booking and grabbing couriers are now literally within the hands of the customers, Black Arrow and Ramco make it possible for these customers to gain access to our assets, and even an entire universe of logistics solutions.Ramco Logistics Software is an integrated Cloud-based platform for Third Party Logistics, Freight Forwarders, and Parcel/ Courier service providers seeking a high-performance logistics software. An Integrated end-to-end solution that can link every stage of a logistics chain and bring all the functionalities under a single technology platform, which is flexible, scalable, cognitive, and ready to adapt to change is helping the solution attract customers, worldwide. Bharti Airtel: Bharti Airtel will announce its Q3 results today. IIFL forecasts the companys net profit for Q3 FY16 to fall 21.1% to Rs. 25.6 crore yoy and 25.6% qoq.HDFC: HDFC reported standalone net profit of Rs. 1,520.51 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2015, registering growth of 6.66% yoy but decline of 5.23% qoq. The companys Net Interest Income (NII) stood at Rs. 2,390 crore, clocking growth of 10.10% yoy.Graphite India: Graphite India reported standalone net profit of Rs. 19.70 crore for the quarter, registering decline of 3.43% yoy.SKS Micro Finance: The company announced a 93.4% jump in its net profit over a year ago, at Rs.79.5 crore, for the third quarter ended December.Dabur India: Dabur India will announce its Q3 results today. IIFL expects net profit to surge 23.10% to Rs. 348.20 crore yoy and 2.1% qoq.Maruti Suzuki: Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, one of the leading players in passenger car market, will announce its Q3 results today. IIFL expects net profit to rise 63.4% to Rs. 1,310.50 crore yoy and 6.9% qoq.Emami: The company will announce its Q3 results today. IIFL forecasts the companys net profit for Q3 FY16 to fall to Rs. 129.80 crore, at a rate of 29.3% yoy; however, it is expected to rise 111.6% qoq.United Spirits: The company has posted a net profit of Rs. 41 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2015 as compared to Rs. 74.7 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2014. The companys revenue stood at Rs. 2,650.58 crore, expanded 21.74% yoy.Rane Engine: Rane Engine Valve reported its net loss at Rs.8.5 crore for the third quarter that ended on December 31, 2015.Sagar Cements: Sagar Cements, a mid sized maker of the commodity, reported standalone net profit of Rs. 3.12 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2015, registering growth of 172.97% yoy.ICICI Bank: ICICI Bank Ltd, the largest private sector lender in India, will announce its will announce its Q3 results today. IIFL expects EBIDTA margin at 3.4%, with a yoy fall of 5 bps and qoq fall of 10 bps.Neyveli Lignite Corporation: The company has posted a net profit of Rs. 476.10 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2015 as compared to Rs. 3,094.70 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2014.Ortel Communications: Ortel Communications reported a 37.5% increase in standalone net profit at Rs.3.89 crore for the third quarter that ended on December 31, 2015.Bharti Infratel: Bharti Infratel, leading telecom tower infrastructures provider, reported consolidated net profit of Rs. 565.40 crore for the quarter ended Q3FY16, registering growth of 11.54% yoy.Axis Bank: Axis Bank, Indias third largest private sector bank announced its partnership with Apollo Munich Health Insurance Company to offer its customers bespoke health insurance products and services.Indosolar: The board of directors of Indosolar has informed the exchanges that banks, at their joint lenders meeting, have not considered the second restructuring proposal of the company as of now.SPARC: The pharma company received Sebi nod for rights issue of Rs. 250 crore.Lakshmi Precision Screws: The company said its board approved sale of its entire 49% stake in LPS Bossard Pvt Ltd. The 49% stake is valued at Rs.40.18 crore.Granules India: Granules India will announce its Q3 results today. IIFL expects net revenue to increase to Rs. 393 crore at 22.7% yoy and 7% qoq.RCOM: The company is likely to seal mobile tower deal with Tillman Global Holdings and TPG Capital in two weeks.The company increased its capital expenditure for the current financial year and next fiscal to about Rs. 4,000 crore.Shanthi Gears: Shanthi Gears, power transmission products manufacturer, reported standalone net profit of Rs. 5.15 crore for the quarter ended December 31,2015, registering growth of 36.96% yoy.Kirloskar Oil: Kirloskar Oil Engines reported a 36% decrease in net profit at Rs.21.8 crore for the third quarter that ended on December 31, 2015.Kajaria Ceramics: The company has posted a net profit after taxes, Minority Interest and Share of Profit/(Loss) of Associates of Rs. 581.90 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2015 as compared to Rs. 456.10 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2014.Colgate Palmolive: The company has posted a net profit of Rs. 159 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2015 as compared to Rs. 130.8 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2014.BEL: Bharat Electronics Ltd has posted a net profit of Rs. 296 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2015 as compared to Rs. 271.8 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2014.Havells India: The company reported an increase of 3.92% in standalone net profit at Rs. 120.77 crore for the December quarter.SKF India:The company announced its solar mission with the inauguration of one of the largest rooftop solar installations among manufacturing companies in Pune, with 1MW capacity.Aurobindo Pharma: The pharma company has received final approval from the US Food & Drug Administration (USFDA) to manufacture and market Voriconazole Tablets, 50 mg and 200 mg.Ramco Systems: The company said that AAI Worldwide Logistics Inc., and its new express courier busines unit Black Arrow Express will deploy its Logistics Software to streamline to streamline domestic and international freight forwarding operations.Godrej Consumer: Godrej Consumer reported a 23% rise in consolidated net profit for the quarter ended 31 December on account of lower commodity costs and stringent cost management.National Buildings Construction Corporation Ltd: The company said it has bagged a Rs. 21.5 bn order from the Indian Trade Promotion Organisation for redevelopment of exhibition venue PragatiMaidan in New Delhi.HCC: The company will announce its Q3 results today. IIFL forecasts the companys net profit for Q3 FY16 to tank to Rs. 8.9 crore, at a rate of 67.30% yoy.Aegis Logistics: The company will announce its Q3 results today. IIFL expects net profit to fall 23.1% to Rs. 30 crore yoy; however, it is expected to rise 11.1% qoq.Mirza International: Mirza International Ltd, manufacturer and Marketeer of leather and leather footwear, reported standalone net profit of Rs. 15.08 crore for the quarter, registering decline of 2.89% yoy.Century Ply: The company will announce its Q3 results today. IIFL forecasts the companys net profit for Q3 FY16 to marginally rise to Rs. 414.90 crore, growing at a rate of 0.3% yoy; however, it is expected to fall 10.3% qoq. Bharti Airtel, countrys largest telecom firm, announced its financial results for the quarter ended December 2015 on January 28, 2016. Here are 7 things that mattered:The top telecom company reported 22 % decline in net profit at Rs. 1116.9 crore for the quarter that ended on December 31, 2015 as compared to Rs. 1436.5 crore YoY.Total income was at Rs. 24103.4 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2015 as compared to Rs. 23228.1 crore in the same period last year.The company's EBIDTA Margin stood at 35.1% while the net revenue was registered at Rs. 24065.9 crore in Q3 FY16 as compared to Rs. 23835.7 crore in Q2 FY16.India revenues for Q3 FY16 at Rs 17,694 crore grew by 11.6% Y-o-Y impacted by reduction of termination rates and led by growth of 10.1% in Mobile, 19.1% in Airtel Business (B2B) and 19.1% in Digital TV on Y-o-Y basis.The company said that Africa revenues were adjusted for the impact of divestment of tower assets and grew by 4.6% Y-o-Y. Christian de Faria, MD and CEO, Africa, said, Data consumption and revenues in Africa have grown by 111.6% & 40.8% respectively Y-o-Y. Operational efficiencies have resultant in improvement in EBITDA margin for a second consecutive quarter.Active Airtel Money customer base increased to 8.9 million, boosting the total transaction value on Airtel Money platform by 80.9% to $ 4.9 billion.The company said that the roll-out of 3G/4G sites has resulted in acceleration of data usage growth to 73.3% along with data ARPU reaching Rs 200. The company added 8.1 million customers in the quarter.: Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India & South Asia, said, We have launched Project Leap, a network transformation programme, to deliver a truly differentiated customer experience and reinforce our commitment to build a future ready network.Bharti Airtel and Axiata Group Berhad signed an agreement to merge Robi Axiata and Airtel Bangladesh. The transaction is expected to complete in the first half of 2016. Axiata is likely to hold the major stake 68.3% in the combined entity, while Airtel is expected to hold 25%. The remaining stake is to be held by NTT Docomo of Japan. Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (POWERGRID) announced its results for Q3FY16, where the net turnover and net profit stood at Rs. 5505 crore and Rs. 1613 crore respectively. Total fixed assets were Rs. 145,067 crore. I.S.JHA, Chairman and Managing Director, POWERGRID, while in a media interaction concerning results, gave a detailed picture of the quarter, as well as elaborated on the transmission business of the company. Here are some of the key highlights of the media interation.Q3 has been a good quarter for us due to healthy Capitalsation numbers, which stood at nearly Rs. 17,207 crores. When clubbed with the other two quarters, this figure stands at Rs. 26,802 crores till Dec 2015. This has led to a nearly 31% rise in net profit and an associated 23% surge in the income. We have set the target of Rs. 26,000-28,000 crore capitalisation in FY17. Revenues from the core transmission business (accounting for 95 per cent of total revenues) clocked 25 per cent growth y-o-y. The performance of the quarter was boosted on the basis of completion of more than 11,750 circuit kilometres of transmission lines in October and November 2015.The other important feat that PowerGrid achieved in Q3, and which will soothe a lot of investors' nerves, is the sharp reduction in the capital work in progress by nearly 26%. We also registered a single market price of the energy all over the country on 29/12/2015, and it was possible due to huge boost in the transmission sector. We can now say that congestion is a thing of the past.One of the most important achievements during Q3 has been the commissioning of Pole -I of +/-800kV Biswanath Chariyali - Agra transmission line. This is the world's longest multi-terminal HVDC, and will facilitate harnessing of hydro-potential in NER and Bhutan. The other milestone remained the completion of, and well within the time and cost, of 400kV D/C Khamman-Nagarjunasagar. We were also able to deliver the 2nd power line between India (Tripura) and Bangladesh, on 16th December 2015, which was the Vijaya Diwas for Bangladesh.Well, this year we are targetting Rs.22,500 crore in Capex, out of which, Rs. 16,891 crore has been disbursed till Dec-15. According to the XII Plan capacity outlay, we are targetting Rs. 110,000 crore and going by the current trend, we will be able to match that figure. However, it is important to note that we do not work to set targets, but according to requirements. We are also not looking to raise any funds, since the cash flow from operations are enough to cover the capex.The basic boom in the business is due to the 4G proliferation in the country. Every operator has worked on improving their network, scaling up the operations. Moreover, international players like Microsoft and Google have shown keen interest in this sector and this has boosted the growth. Revenues of telecom business was up 46 per cent y-o-y in Q3 of FY16.The implementation of the Green Energy Corridors involves intra-state and inter-state transmission system strengthening for evacuation of renewable generation and transfer to major load centers as well as enlarging balancing area. The intra-state scheme is to be implemented by the respective states. The work on the inter-state scheme, to be implemented by Powergrid, has commenced.The company has also been assigned the work of transmission system for Ultra Mega Solar Parks in 7 states (UP, MP, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Meghalaya) and the implementation has commenced. We have divided it into several parts. In July last year, board had approved a Rs 2,247.37 crore investment plan for the third part of the inter-state electricity transmission (ISTS) Part-C project.In April, PGCIL's board had approved investment for Green Energy Corridors: Inter-State Transmission Scheme-Part A and B at an estimated cost of Rs 1,479.30 crore and Rs 3,705.61 crore, respectively. Indian government has unveiled the list of 20 smart cities that will be the first to receive funds among the 100 cities listed by the Modi government. The 20 smart cities are Bhuvneshwar, Pune, Jaipur, Surat, Cochin, Ahmedabad, Jabalpur, Vishakapatnam, Sholapur, Dhavangiri, Indore, New Delhi, Coimbatore, Kakinada, Belgaum, Udaipur, Guwahati, Chennai, Ludhiana & Bhopal.During the launch, Venkaiah Naidu, Union Minister of Urban Development said that smart cities have been alloted Rs. 3 lakh crore by the government.Venkaiah Naidu further said, "Today marks a historic landmark in the annals of urban development in our country as we get to know the first batch of smart cities. Smart city challenge required cities to come up with integrated plans, proposals, so that there is maximum analysis and planning."The Urban Development Minister informed that 16 percent weightage was given to citizen participation for the smart cities plan and a total of 15.20 million (1.52 crore) citizens have participated in the preparation of smart city plans at various stages. With plans to sell 10 per cent of its stake in Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) and 25 per cent of the same in National Aluminium Company (Nalco), the government is contemplating a buyback route in place of an offer for sale (OFS), says a report in a leading publication.While OFS is likely to get Rs. 5,600 at the existing market valuations, Rs 9,000 crore is expected to be accumulated from the buybacks which are being planned. The move is being considered for minting a meatier price from the sale of the stake, by the means of divestment, the report said.Compensating for a shortfall of Rs. 7,000 crore, the buyback route would make way for generating increased funds via divestment.While the government has not completely met the Rs. 69,500 crore-divestment target outlined in FY16 Budget, it has managed to raise only Rs 12,700 crore as of now. Out of the total target set for the current fiscal year, R41,000 crore was to be met through regular stake sales and Rs. 28,500 crore via strategic disposals, as mentioned in the report.In order to meet the divestment target, the government has stretched its stake sale in Nalco from 10 per cent to 25 per cent. The company lost above 30 per cent since June 2015 due to its margins getting adversely affected by declining commodity prices globally and increase in cheap imports from China, as per the report.The public sector company BHEL, on the other hand is bearing losses of over Rs. 35,000 crore in terms of market capitalization, with shares dipping by above 50 per cent in the last six months, added the report. As the Corporate Debt Restructuring (CDR) for Jindal Stainless Steel is over and is now being demerged into three verticals, the Economic Times spoke to VC, Abhyuday Jindal about the companys onward plans.Jindal expressed plans of expansion of its cold rolling division, which is currently functioning at 40% capacity. The company plans to expand it to roughly 75%, which will boost the margins through value addition, according to Jindal.Presently, the investment committed to Jindal Stainless Hisar Limited is around Rs 100-150 crores, said Jindal. He went on to state that the company is planning to finance the investment primarily through internal accruals. He added that the company is aiming to spread this investment over a period of two years.As a debt of Rs 9,000 crores still sits in the books of the company, Jindal told ET that Hisars debt is relatively lower and thus, its balance sheet is in a good position. He said that the company can resume borrowing and has reduced its payback period to roughly around 10 to 12 years. Jindal Stainless Ltd will take a while to come off the debts, added Jindal.Given the current global volatility, Jindal sees some impact on margins as China continues to dump its produce in India. However, the sound Indian economy gives enough space to Indian producers to compete with China, asserted Jindal. The Indian producers are still among the premium category in India, as per him.Based on these views, Jindal anticipate EBITDA margins to average out around 20% by 2020, which are currently at 11% to 12%. Ahead of the budget, Jindal expects the government to lift import duty on certain raw materials that are unavailable in the country such as stainless scrap, nickel based raw materials, mild steel scrap, etc. He believes that its time for the government to do away with import duties on these raw materials.In the end, Jindal ruled out any plans of taking more debt. He said that the company will not take any debt for Jindal Stainless Hisar Limited, at least for now. Flash Seven policemen were killed and six others injured in an attack by suspected leftwing rebels in the Palamu district of the central Indian state of Jharkhand Wednesday evening, said local media. The policemen were ambushed by suspected Naxal rebels with improvised explosive devices when returning to their base after a patrolling operation in a jungle area of the district, according to the reports. One of the vehicles of the police convoy was blown up in the attack in what is said to be a hotbed of the rebels. Several other policemen also remained missing after the attack. The attack took place at the Kasiyar village in Palamu district's Kala Pahar region. The injured were taken to hospital in the state capital Ranchi. Reinforcement had been rushed to the spot and the senior police officers were monitoring the rescue operations, said HIndustan Times online. The Naxal rebels are estimated at around 10,000 and are active in about 10 states in central and eastern India, mostly in poor rural areas. In the august presence of Minister of Railways, Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu two separate Memoranda of Understandings (MoUs) between Ministry of Railways and State Governments of Andhra Pradesh and Kerala for Formation of Joint Venture Companies for Development of Railway Infrastructure in the States of Kerala and Andhra Pradesh were signed. On the event of Signing Ceremony, Railway Boards officials namely Member/Mechanical Shri Hement Kumar, Member/Staff Pradeep Kumar, Financial Commissioner S. Mookerjee were also present among others.On behalf of the Railway Ministry Ved Prakash Dudeja, Executive Director/Works signed the MoUs whereas on behalf of Government of Andhra Pradesh P. K. Srivastava OSD/Govt. of A.P. and Sivasankar M./Secretary, Transport Department, Govt. of Kerala signed the MoUs. The MoUs were signed in the background of Railway Ministers Budget announcement regarding setting up of Joint Ventures with States for focused project development, resource mobilization, land acquisition, project implementation and monitoring of critical rail projects.Speaking on the occasion, Union Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu said that the Indian Railways is happy to have a dream come true today i.e. of Cooperative Federalism. He said that there are few activities which are directly administered by the Central Government i.e. Defence, Foreign Policy and currency etc. and Railways is one of those which directly administered by the Central Government. He said that it is always necessary that we must have partnership in other ground level sectors whether it is State Govt., Local Self Govt, PSUs and others. Railway Minister thanked those 17 State Governments who have consented for formation of Joint Venture Companies in collaboration with the Ministry of Railways for development of rail infrastructure in their respective States. Emphasizing the need of working together, Railway Minister said that the relationship with the State Governments is beyond a project and not a transactional relationship. Railways has introduced decentralized decision making formula which is completely remarkable change. The current moves will improve the initiative of the State Governments which will help implementation of rail projects in a speedy manner.Railway Minister said that Railways is creating more companies and ultimately we are going to leverage the funds. Railways has started revamping of 400 Railway Stations which is a very massive activity and this will mobilize large resources for the Railways. Massive investment effected in road transport sector while railway has not invested so much despite this Railways have been the cheapest mode of transportation. He said that Rail and Road will have to work together and Indian Railways is also committed to develop a Multi-Modal Transport Cooperation.Shri Suresh Prabhu further said that todays MoUs are very important MoUs which will help in developing infrastructure in the States of Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. Railway Minister said that Railways have a large shelf of ongoing New Line, Gauge Conversion and Doubling projects needing about Rs.3.5 lakh crores to complete and thus Formation of Joint Venture Companies with these State Governments will go a long way in faster commissioning of critical rail infrastructure projects as it will not only help in mobilization of funds but also in facilitating various clearances and land acquisition.In his Welcome Address, Member Staff, Railway Board Shri Pradeep Kumar stated that the Signing of Memoranda is going to be a stepping stone for formation of JV companies. He stated that on earlier occasions also Memoranda have been signed for formation of JV companies with Maharashtra and Odisha. The MoUs envisages formation of a Joint Venture company having 51% stakes of state Govt and 49% stakes of Ministry of Railways. Thus, the JV company shall be fully owned by the Government. The company will primarily identify projects and possible financing avenues in addition to Govt of India and the state Govt. After finances for a project are tied up, a project specific SPV or special purpose vehicle shall be formed. This SPV can have other stake holders from Industries, Central PSUs, State PSUs etc. However, the JV company shall be a mandatory stake holder with minimum 26% shares in the SPV. The Ministry of Railways will sign a concession agreement of 30 years with the project SPV for safe and sound operation, revenue sharing and providing technical & marketing logistics to the SPV. The revenue sharing shall be based on already established formula being used for inter zonal apportionment of revenue.Member Staff, Railway Board also stated that the most important aspect of the MoU is that the ownership of the land shall vest with the SPVs which is a departure from previous practice. This will give financial leverage to the company to exploit commercial potential of the land.Vote of Thanks was proposed by Shri Laj Kumar, Additional Member, Works, Railway Board.In view of the growing demands for railway lines in various states and huge requirement of funds to execute them, Honble Minister for Railways announced in his budget speech regarding setting up of Joint Ventures with states for focused project development, resource mobilization, land acquisition, project implementation and monitoring of critical rail projects.17 State Governments consented for formation of Joint Venture Companies in collaboration with the Ministry of Railways for development of rail infrastructure in their respective States. Draft MoUs were sent to these State Governments and discussions were also held with them to clarify various provisions of the MoU. MoUs have already been signed by the Ministry of Railways with the State Governments of Odisha and Maharashtra. Today, MoUs are being signed with the State Governments of Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. This signing of MOU is going to be a stepping stone for formation of JV companies. The MoU envisages formation of a Joint Venture companies having 51% stakes of the respective State Govrnment and 49% stakes of Ministry of Railways. Thus, the JV companies shall be fully owned by the Government. The companies will primarily identify projects and possible financing avenues in addition to Govt of India and the State Governments. After finances for a project are tied up, project specific SPVs or special purpose vehicles shall be formed. These SPVs can have other stake holders from Industries, Central PSUs, State PSUs etc. However, the JV companies shall be mandatory stake holders with minimum 26% shares in the SPVs.The ministry of Railways will sign a concession agreement of 30 years with the project SPV for safe and sound operation, revenue sharing and providing technical & marketing logistics to the SPV. The revenue sharing shall be based on already established formula being used for inter zonal apportionment of revenue.The most important aspect of this MoU is that the ownership of the land shall vest with the SPVs which is a departure from previous practice. This will give financial leverage to the company to exploit commercial potential of the land. This is likely to result in making project viable which are otherwise not viable.At the end of concession period, the railways will have option to take over the assets at a nominal price. This is largely in line with average codal life of the assets as most of the assets will need large scale replacement after 30 years.Indian Railways has been playing a major role in national integration by connecting the remotest places and bringing people closer to each other. Railways receive a large number of demands for network expansion as a railway line acts as an engine of growth for the area it serves.However, Railways have a large shelf of ongoing New Line, Gauge Conversion and Doubling projects needing about Rs 3.5 lakh crores to complete. We have been trying to meet the aspirations of public within limited availability of funds.To expedite the projects, Railways have been trying to mobilize resources through other than Gross Budgetary Support. However, on the initiative of Honble Minister for Railways Sh. Suresh Prabhu ji, Indian Railways have tied up funds for critical capacity enhancement project of doubling, third line , electrification etc. An MoU was signed with LIC of India and we have already taken first tranche of Rs 2000 Cr for these projects. This tied up loan will ensure dedicated and assured funding for such critical projects.Indian Railways have targeted to commission 2000 Km New Lines, 4000 Km Gauge Conversion and 11000 Km Doubling/Tripling/ Quadrupling projects over 5 years i.e. from 2015-16 to 2019-20. In 2015-16, we had kept quite ambitious target of commissioning 2500 Km Broad Gauge track. It is a matter of great satisfaction that we are poised to not only achieve these targets but to surpass them. We have already commissioned about 1300 Km Broad Gauge track till December, 2015 against 800 Km track commissioned in the corresponding period of the previous year (Due to monsoons, major commissioning takes place in the last quarter of the financial year).Formation of Joint Venture Companies with the State Governments will go a long way in faster commissioning of critical rail infrastructure projects as it will not only help in mobilization of funds but also in facilitating various clearances and land acquisition. Registration is opens for this years Opportunity Indianapolis, LEAD, and Civic Boot Camp programs. Leadership Indianapolis is kicking things off with early bird reduced pricing for those who register by February 5! Use this link to register and pay with a credit card Use this link to register and request an invoice Opportunity Indianapolis April 14 15 or August 18 19, 2016 Early Bird Registration until Feb 5: $575 Registration after Feb 5: $650 Are you new to the Indianapolis area and want to learn more about the city? Or maybe you are a lifelong resident looking for new ways to get involved. Or perhaps you are a young professional wanting to figure out how you can have a bigger impact on the community. Opportunity Indianapolis may be just what you are looking for! Opportunity Indianapolis is a unique two-day program that offers an introduction to the places, leaders, and issues of Indianapolis. Well hop on a bus for a field trip around town to meet with community leaders and discuss current issues including public safety, education, arts and culture, and sports. We will also learn about opportunities for getting more involved in addressing these issues. LEAD: Leadership Education and Development Fridays in June (June 3, 10, 17, 24) Early Bird Registration until Feb 5: $900 Registration after Feb 5: $1000 Have you experienced challenges in your community leadership that you wish you knew how to handle more effectively? Are you just getting started in civic leadership roles and want to be an effective, collaborative leader? Our LEAD program is designed for emerging and experienced civic leaders who want to be more effective in their community leadership endeavors. Throughout the four sessions, we help participants develop and hone the key skills necessary to achieve success in the civic arena, and provide the opportunity to practice them. Youll have a chance to develop your collaborative leadership skills, learn ways to manage conflict, build the confidence to lead and more. Civic Boot Camp September 16-18, 2016 Early Bird Registration until Feb 5: $425 Registration after Feb 5: $500 A community leadership program just for young professionals! If youre considering getting involved in our community in a leadership level, Civic Boot Camp is perfect for you. Civic Boot Camp is a three-day, fun-filled and interactive weekend at camp! This program is designed to help civic-minded young professionals under age 35 prepare for civic leadership and identify ways to get involved. Youll build your network, your understanding of community issues and needs, and your civic leadership skills. With School Choice Week underway at the Indiana Statehouse and the Indiana Department of Education releasing the AF school accountability grades, its safe to say there has been a huge focus on education in recent days. One neighborhood is looking to establish a healthy educational environment for its students by dreaming big. The sky is the limit at the Near Eastside Education Summit held Jan. 30 from 9 a.m.1 p.m. at Thomas D. Greg School 51. During this free summit, hosted by The Near Eastside Innovation School Steering Committee, members who have children attending area schools and those who work or play in the area are encouraged to let their thoughts and voices be heard. Everyday citizens will get a chance to share their biggest hopes and dreams for their educational community, while assessing what resources are already available to help make them a reality. The goal from the start is to get information from the community on what makes for a great school. Our objectives are to come away from the summit knowing what the neighborhood expects, wants and desires, said CoraLyn Turentine, director of neighborhood engagement at the John H. Boner Community Center, an organization providing a variety of services to residents. The steering committee has heard a variety of requests thus far. Turentine said many parents simply want their children to attend a high-quality school located in their own neighborhood, and they also want their child to attend a school where parents feel connected to the staff. Big concerns lie in the effectiveness of each teacher and the states current A-F grading scale. Turentine noted parents want teachers equipped with skills to meet the individual needs of multiple children and are frustrated with current grading systems for Indiana schools and how success is monitored. Many parents are sitting back and thinking about their own school experience and how their children can have the same educational opportunities they had, if not better, mentioned Turentine, who also oversees the communitys neighborhood and quality-of-life summits. They want school to be a fun place where their child can engage and discover their talents, and thats not necessarily happening right now. Lynn Smith, director of resource development at the Boner Center, said the community is very tight knit and loyal. This isnt the first time the neighborhood has convened on a large scale. Several years ago when the Near Eastside Neighborhood Quality of Life plan was developed, more than 531 neighborhood participants spent at least 1,000 volunteer hours helping to build the strategy according to the written plan. We are a unique community where our neighbors actually drive our programs. What we learn from any summit, we take back to our leadership and assess those needs, commented Smith. Its not about us; its about the community. We may not agree on everything, but at the end of the day, we think about what our neighbors want. The Near Eastside Innovation School Steering Committee is a neighborhood-driven, grassroots education group that emerged from the Local Initiatives Support Corporations (LISC) Great Places 2020 Initiative, a visionary community development project transforming strategic places in Marion County neighborhoods into dynamic centers of culture, commerce and community. Each Great Place focuses on livability, opportunity, vitality and education. The Near East neighborhoods are a part of that initiative. Turentine and Smith said the steering committee has a good balance of members composed of neighbors, Boner employees, those surrounding Englewood, Thomas Greg and Near East Area Renewal. The committee wants attendees to know this is not a time to complain or speak on challenges, but about dreams in a positive environment. This is not a town hall meeting, said Turentine. Its a time for neighbors to come and brainstorm together in a way that is positive, uplifting and inspiring. There is big push for parents to attend. Members of the Near Eastside Education AmeriCorps will be providing programming for children in pre-school through 12 years old during the summit. Id hate for any parent to think this event is about bringing big names into the room to talk about education reform and policy, because thats not what this is about. When youre sitting at the barbershop saying, Man, I wish my kid had a better tutor, thats exactly the kinds of conversations we want to have, said Turentine. When asked about The Mind Trust and Indianapolis Public Schools partnership to develop Innovation Network Schools, autonomous public schools that will operate under a contract with IPS and will have access to district buildings at no cost, the steering committee said it will look for a consensus at the summit to see if that is something desired. If not, they are still looking to mobilize their vision. During the summit, lunch will be provided. Attendees are encouraged to RSVP on the events Facebook site. For more information or to RSVP, visit facebook.com and search, Near Eastside Education Summit or contact CoraLyn Turentine at cturentine@jbncenters.org or (317) 406-6111. What is the A through F school grading system? Indianas A through F grading system gives parents, students, educators and communities a clear and concise assessment of how well their schools are doing. This system is a new and better way of measuring and reporting school performance each year, as required by state law. How are letter grades calculated for Indiana schools or districts? High schools Performance: Schools receive English/language arts and math scores based on the percentage of students who passed the end-of-course assessments for each subject by the end of grade 10. Improvement: A schools letter grade may increase, decrease or remain the same based on student improvement from grades 8 to 10 and from grades 10 to 12. Graduation rate: Schools receive a score based on their four-year (on-time) graduation rate. College and career readiness: Schools receive a score based on the percentage of graduates who receive at least one of the following: A passing score on an Advanced Placement exam A passing score on an International Baccalaureate exam Three college credits A passing score on an approved industry certification exam Elementary and middle schools Performance and improvement: Schools receive preliminary English/language arts and math scores based on the percentage of students who passed the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress Plus (ISTEP+) or other state assessments. Growth: The Indiana Growth Model measures how much progress each student makes during a school year. A schools preliminary score may increase, decrease or remain the same depending on how many students demonstrate high or low growth on the ISTEP+ exam. Participation: A schools score is lowered if too many of its students are not tested. Source: Indiana Department of Education Days before the Iowa caucuses, the nations largest association of black Republicans is endorsing Donald Trump, a candidate with little history of working on civil rights, housing or other traditional African-American issues. We, the grassroots activists of the National Black Republican Association, are pleased to announce our endorsement of Donald J. Trump for President of the United States of America, Frances Rice, co-founder and chairman of the National Black Republican Association, wrote Jan. 22 in an essay on the associations website. As citizens who happen to be black, we support Mr. Trump because he shares our values, Rice wrote in an essay that alluded to the candidates current position on abortion. We, like Mr. Trump, are fiscally conservative, steadfastly pro-life and believers in a small government that fosters freedom for individuals and businesses, so they can grow and become prosperous, she wrote. The black Republican group contrasted sharply with a recent conclave of all-Democratic mayors. Led by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D Baltimore), two weeks before the first votes are cast in the 2016 presidential race, a multicultural coalition of local chief executives from across America met in Des Moines, Iowa, to shift the debate to urban issues. Gathering in the Hawkeye States largest city, these key mayors presented their proposal at The Brown & Black Presidential Forum. The 2016 Compact for a Better America: A Call to Action urges the Democratic presidential candidates and the Republican-controlled Congress to boost federal spending and invigorate Americas urban centers. According to the 2010 Census, 81 percent of Americans live in cities and metropolitan areas. These mayors aimed to explain how smaller municipalities often experience some of the same social challenges that plague inner cities across America. We believe mayors are the elected officials closest to the people and, thus, are best suited to know the challenges working families grapple with every day, Rawlings-Blake, president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, told Urban News Service. We also know that, many times, those challenges are felt more acutely in minority communities, she said. This is precisely why we are calling on the presidential candidates and Congress to take seriously our mayors Compact for a Better America urging that we invest in and protect our cities and urban centers. Large cities and small towns alike are experiencing similar problems including insufficient jobs, limited access to quality healthcare, illegal immigration, rising crime, unlawful guns and scarce affordable housing, the mayors said. The mayors also released a 16-point plan to overhaul U.S. urban centers. It specifically recommends that America bolster the Metro-City economic engines that drive the national economy; invest in and modernize the D+ rated transportation system; and educate and train a 21st Century USA workforce. The issues of Des Moines and of cities around Iowa are the same issues that face mayors around the country each and every day, Tom Cochran, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said in a statement. We support The Brown & Black Forum in its mission to present to the next President of the United States the challenges and opportunities before us, and we believe it is critical that mayors participate. The mayors urban agenda arrives just as the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates prepare for the all-important Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses and court voters in major cities and rural areas. Race figures prominently among Democratic presidential contenders, in part, because most African-Americans traditionally vote Democrat, although some black Republicans are becoming more vocal in this contest through blogs and online pronouncements. Meanwhile, Democrats say they support policies that would revitalize urban centers, if they could get the Republican-controlled Congress to cooperate. As presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D Vermont) appeals to black voters by backing the Black Lives Matter movement, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton recently secured the endorsement of 50 African-American current and former mayors. This could help Clinton solidify the black vote behind her presidential bid. Neither of the two Republican front-runners has offered an urban blueprint. However, real estate tycoon Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R Texas) both say they want to create jobs and strengthen the economy, which, they say, will benefit all Americans. Jobs, growth and opportunity will reignite promise for millions of American families who are currently being crushed by the Obama economy, says Cruzs website. The best way to jump-start growth is through fundamental tax reform. Real immigration reform puts the needs of working people first not wealthy globetrotting donors, says Trumps website. We are the only country in the world whose immigration system puts the needs of other nations ahead of our own. That must change. Trump currently leads Cruz nationally and, increasingly, in Iowa and New Hampshire, according to most major polls. Voters will decide in November which candidate and whether Democrats or Republicans has the best plan to lead America forward. In a recent roundtable with black leaders in Baltimore, where black gang-related homicides and shootings are climbing, Mayor Rawlings-Blake offered sobering support for her campaign to increase funding for urban centers. This is a very important conversation, Rawlings-Blake said about the growing crime problem. Its almost exclusively us killing us. Were losing a generation one life at a time. Twitter In barely five days of its release, Akshay Kumar and Nimrat Kaur's Airlift has managed to cross the Rs 70 Cr mark. The audience has certainly matured and they've clearly understood the difference between a bad film and a good film. The audience's reaction to the film has left Akshay Kumar absolutely overwhelmed. The film, that revolves around the evacuation of Indians from Kuwait during the 1990 Iraq-Kuwait war, has stunned the audience and the entire film fraternity. Akshay's film-buddies can't stop gushing about the film after watching his performance. From badminton star Saina Nehwal to Shabana Azmi, people can't stop praising Bollywood's Khiladi Kumar. Take a look at the love Akshay has received since Airlift released: @akshaykumar Superb performance loved it amazing really enjoyed it #Airlift and u are excellent in the movie sir Saina Nehwal (@NSaina) January 22, 2016 #airlift is a heartwarming film about the triumph of the human spirit!! @akshaykumar in his career best portrayal was the soul of the film.. Karan Johar (@karanjohar) January 22, 2016 #Airlift is a terrific story expert narration and very covincing performance by Akshay Kumar.Raja Menon and team Airlft take a bow! Azmi Shabana (@AzmiShabana) January 26, 2016 So proud of my brother, my friend @akshaykumar - airlift is an extraordinary film- and he is brilliant in the film- #MustWatch Riteish Deshmukh (@Riteishd) January 25, 2016 Happy Republic day! #Airlift is so deserving of all d success. Congrats @akshaykumar @mrsfunnybones n team. My Republic Day well spent! Hrithik Roshan (@iHrithik) January 26, 2016 Taking it as a blessing, Akshay feels such films only come "almost once in an actors lifetime". I have been flooded with messages about Airlift, so much positivity and love...I couldn't have asked for more and for... Posted by Akshay Kumar on Wednesday, January 27, 2016 Well deserved Akshay! :) We live in a shady and messed up world, where life of a person is taken away by a loved one, where goddesses are worshipped while women (of any age) are maimed and harassed. The only way out to keep an eye on such horrific happenings is to make laws and rules stricter to keep a check on the horrendous crimes. Having laws doesn't suffice when they are broken. Most people are unaware of their legal rights until they hire a legal firm for their problems. Merely a handful of them would say, 'Yes, we know' to this and most of them are not women. So, to help women know their rights and to help them fight back, here are 10 legal rights that they should know. Right To Free Aid womens When a woman goes to the police station without being accompanied by a lawyer she is either quoted wrong, ignored or humiliated for her statements. She should be aware of the fact that she has a right to get the legal aid and that she should demand for it. "According to a Delhi High Court ruling, whenever a rape is reported, the senior house officer has to bring this to the notice of the Delhi Legal Services Authority. The legal body then arranges for a lawyer for the victim," says Saumya Bhaumik, a women rights lawyer. Right To Privacy youtube A woman who has been raped has a right to record her statement in private, in front of the magistrate without being overheard by anyone else. She also has a freedom to record her statement with a lady constable or a police officer in personal. Under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the cops will have to give the privacy to the victim without stressing her in front of masses. Right To Untimely Registration There are many reasons as to why a woman would postpone going to the police to lodge a complaint. She considers her reputation, dignity of the family and threats from the culprit to take her life away. Police in any way cannot say no to register her complaint, no matter if it's too late to register. The self-respect of women comes before anything else. She cannot be denied of anything. Right To Virtual Complaints According to the guidelines issued by the Delhi Police, a woman has the privilege of lodging a complaint via email or registered post. If, for some reason, a woman can't go to the police station, she can send a written complaint through an email or registered post addressed to a senior police officer of the level of Deputy Commissioner or Commissioner of Police. The officer then directs the SHO of the police station, of the area where the incident occurred, to conduct proper verification of the complainant and lodge an FIR. The police can then come over to the residence of the victim to take her statement. Right To Zero FIR indianexpress A rape victim can register her police complaint from any police station under the Zero FIR ruling by Supreme Court. "Sometimes, the police station under which the incident occurs refuses to register the victim's complaint in order to keep clear of responsibility, and tries sending the victim to another police station. In such cases, she has the right to lodge an FIR at any police station in the city under the Zero FIR ruling. The senior officer will then direct the SHO of the concerned police station to lodge the FIR," says Abeed. This is a Supreme Court ruling that not many women are aware of, so don't let the SHO of a police station send you away saying it "doesn't come under his area". Right To No Arrest aclu According to a Supreme Court ruling, a woman cannot be arrested after sunset and before sunrise. There are many cases of women being harassed by the police at wee hours, but all this can be avoided if you exercise the right of being present in the police station only during daytime. "Even if there is a woman constable accompanying the officers, the police can't arrest a woman at night. In case the woman has committed a serious crime, the police requires to get it in writing from the magistrate explaining why the arrest is necessary during the night," says Bhaumik. Right To Not Being Called To The Police Station Women cannot be called to the police station for interrogation under Section 160 of the Criminal Procedure Code. This law provides Indian women the right of not being physically present at the police station for interrogation. "The police can interrogate a woman at her residence in the presence of a woman constable and family members or friends," says Abeed. So, the next time you're called to the police station for queries or interrogation when you have faced any kind of harassment, quote this guideline of the Supreme Court to exercise your right and remind the cops about it. Right To Confidentiality Under no circumstances can the identity of a rape victim be revealed. Neither the police nor media can make known the name of the victim in public. Section 228-A of the Indian Penal Code makes the disclosure of a victim's identity a punishable offense. Printing or publishing the name or any matter which may make known the identity of a woman against whom an offense has been committed is punishable. This is done to prevent social victimization or ostracism of the victim of a sexual offense. Even while a judgment is in progress at the high court or a lower court, the name of the victim is not indicated, she is only described as 'victim' in the judgment. Right To Get A Medical Report A case of rape can't be dismissed even if the doctor says that rape has not taken place. A victim of rape needs to be medically examined as per Section 164 A of the Criminal Procedure Code, and only the report can act as proof. "A woman has the right to have a copy of the medical report from the doctor. Rape is crime and not a medical condition. It is a legal term and not a diagnosis to be made by the medical officer treating the victim. The only statement that can be made by the medical officer is that there is evidence of recent sexual activity. Whether the rape has occurred or not is a legal conclusion and the doctor can't decide on this," explains Bhaumik. Right To No Sexual Harassment wikipedia It is the duty of every employer to create a Sexual Harassment Complaints Committee within the organization for complaints. According to a guideline issued by the Supreme Court, it is mandatory for all firms, public and private, to set up these committees to resolve matters of sexual harassment. It is also necessary that the committee be headed by a woman and comprise of 50% women, as members. Also, one of the members should be from a women's welfare group. Inviting widows to auspicious functions is still considered a taboo, more so in rural areas. But Mehsana-based businessman, Jitendra Patel, trashes these parochial beliefs with contempt. hindi.oneindia On Wednesday, Patel, better known as Jitubhai, invited as many as 18,000 widows from five districts of north Gujarat, to bless his younger son Ravi and his bride. Widows from Banaskantha, Mehsana, Sabarkantha, Patan and Aravalli districts were special guests at the marriage venue at Derol, about 12km from Himmatnagar. "It was my heartfelt desire that the couple should be blessed by widows, who are mostly neglected by the society. Their presence is considered a bad omen at auspicious functions but I wanted to prove that all these beliefs are nothing but superstitions," Jitubhai told. What's more. Every widow was presented a blanket and a sapling with a promise that they would carefully nurture the plant in their backyard. Around 500 widows, who came from poor families, were also given a milking cow each so that they become self-sufficientfinancially. "I can hope of earning a decent livelihood now that I have a cow. I never expected getting so much importance after becoming a widow," said 55-year-old Hansa Thakore of Vijapur town in Mehsana district. Even as Akshay Kumar insists that there is a real Ranjit Katyal who directly helmed the herculean airlift of 1.7 lakh Indians, Ministry officials and air staff associated with the operation say otherwise. The only truth, in fact, might have been that 1.70 lakh Indians did escape a war-torn Kuwait; not in days as shown in the movie, but over several weeks. Considering how easily pop culture depictions can replace history, it is important to identify and edify the men behind the worlds biggest rescue airlift. Tony Jashanmal tony-jashanmal Currently CEO of Jashanmal National Company, one of the biggest Indian retail and wholesale outlets in the Gulf region, Jashanmal was appointed head of an executive committee that provided food, shelter and escape from a quickly escalating war zone, he personally coordinated 15-16 flights everyday to India from Jordan. In 2003, he spoke to Rediff.com about his role in the operation, which included regular 600 km trips to Baghdad, moving consignments of food from Baghdad. "It was good that we had several Indian food merchants and they were quite good. We managed to get food from them in the required quantities. "We made a packet of ten products, like rice and oil, sugar, tea, dal. It was ten products and we made a packet enough to last a family of four for one-and-a-half months. Facing fleeting Jordanian support, he also pulled strings with the Dubai Indian business council, "After three or four days I went down and had lunch with the Indian business council in Dubai. Then they all started helpingwe needed water in the day time for the heat and we needed blankets and tents at night for the coldOur communities in Dubai, Qatar and Bahrain all helped a lot. K.T.B Menon racingpulse In the Indian Foreign Affairs Journal ( January-March 2011), K.P. Fabian recalls the unconditional support given to him by K.T.B Menon. I recall another incident, when one Mr. K.T.B. Menon called me on 2 August, saying that if finances were the problem he would pay for the air passage of any Indian who wished to leave. KTB was the richest Indian in Kuwait. His generosity touched us. He is no more and I do not know whether the Government honoured him for his gesture. Menon was a Kuwait-based Indian business tycoon; he was reportedly also the third Indian to come to Kuwait, and founded an industrial empire specialising in major electrification projects and construction of water desalination plants. It is not known how much money he donated, but the gesture was a bold one certainly priceless in a time of such desperation. Inder Kumar Gujral outlook Unlike the films depiction of diplomatic silence, Indian government representatives Inder Kumar Gujral, former MEA Minister and KP Fabian, head of Gulf Division, MEA officials met with Saddam Hussein to achieve repatriation for Indian nationals: We conveyed our official viewpoint and also our plans to evacuate our nationals. He listened to our views and repeated his known position, and agreed to facilitate the repatriation of our nationals, Fabian remembers. I. K. Gujral soon laid the blueprint for the rescue operation. The Indian MEA knew that Iraq did not have enough supplies to feed its own, agreed to grant Indians safe passage to neighbouring Jordan. Indian embassy officials Embassy officials coordinated with local bus providers, and moved refugees 2,000 kilometres (via Basra and Baghdad to Amman) in daily 80 bus convoys. KP Fabian Working closely with Gujral, Joint Secretary (Gulf Division, Ministry of External Affairs) coordinated the evacuation initiative. This involved working with officers across Ministries working in the Gulf, and respond to the needs of the stranded people in Kuwait. He also was personally responsible in keeping the Air India crew motivated in this emergency that the government never had prepared any contingencies for. Sunny Mathews According to Airlift director Raja Krishna Menon, Katyal is a fusion of two men, Sunny Mathews and Harbhajan Vedi, who volunteered time and energy to keep Indians safe during the evacuation. Sunny Mathews granddaughter wrote a post about her grandfather on Facebook: Talk to any returnee from Kuwait, who has undergone the ordeal of having escaped from Kuwait and hell tell you about Toyota Mathews. Mathews is the person who has helped many Indians by either organising their transport, or giving them some money which would come handy on the way, or more importantly, providing them with food and water for the arduous journey. Ashoke Kumar Sengupta, the then officer-in-charge of the Indian embassy in Kuwait, had told The Times of India in 2014: The first challenge was to prepare over 100,000 travel documents. Delhi had sent two planes for evacuation. Ships began arriving a lot later. With nearly a lakh people stranded, I had to look at the an alternative of bulk evacuation by road. Sunny Mathews, an extremely resourceful Indian working in Toyota, did a great job negotiating with private bus operators for evacuation via Iraq to Jordan by road,. Captain Vijay Nair scroll Captain Nair was among the 3 Air India officials personally overseeing the evacuation from Amman (Jordan) to India. Harbajan Singh Vedi indianfrontliners 4 years before Airlift hit theatres, Vedi succumbed to cancer. An architect, he was a consultant to many Kuwaiti projects, and close to the ruling Al- Sabah family. According to Indian Frontliners, a portal for the Indian community in Kuwait, he "studied under the street light of Delhi after the partition of India in 1947", executing villas for the royal family, Sheikhs and prominent Kuwaitis. IK Gujral gave him the freedom to issue and sign passports and travel documents, and he played a pivotal role in the initiative. He also, according to some unverified reports, formed a 51 member unofficial committee coordinating evacuation execution. Michael Mascarenhas Air India's regional director of the Gulf and the Middle East. Michael Mascarenhas role was even acknowledged by Akshay Kumar in a video on Facebook Flash Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday termed as "groundless" recent accusations by a U.S. official that Russian President Vladimir Putin was corrupt. Russian President Vladimir Putin at a government meeting held in Moscow, on Jan. 27, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] Earlier British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) published an article and video featuring U.S. Department of Treasury (DoT) official Adam Szubin, who said that Putin was corrupt. "We've seen him enriching his friends, his close allies, and marginalizing those who he doesn't view as friends using state assets. Whether that's Russia's energy wealth, whether it's other state contracts, he directs those to whom he believes will serve him and excludes those who don't. To me, that is a picture of corruption," BBC quoted Szub, who "oversees U.S. Treasury sanctions," as saying. In response, accusing the BBC report as another media hoax, Peskov expressed great surprise that the "unfounded slander" was given by a U.S. official. "This makes the situation different, this is an official accusation," Peskov said, adding that "content of this BBC report is pure speculation and defamation." "Proof is needed because the voicing of such accusations from a department like the U.S. Treasury without any concrete facts casts doubt on the department itself," RIA Novosti news agency quoted Peskov as saying. According to Peskov, the new comments were unlikely to negatively affect US-Russia relations as the bilateral ties are currently "not in their best shape." "To the extent that such deceitful comments are unlikely to complicate the situation even more," Peskov said. The U.S.-Russia relations has serious deteriorated over the two-year-old Ukrainian crisis, while both sides also disagreed about various international key issues including Syrian crisis and anti-terrorism fight. Owing to some wonderful humans who worked relentlessly to save his life, Kalu's story is as inspiring as it is heartbreaking. The dog, who was being eaten alive by maggots in a ditch, was not only rescued but also nursed back to health, so much so that his disappearing face started to resurface once again! Watch Kalu's incredible recovery here before you read any further: Kalu was found stuck in a ditch by aid workers from the Animal Aid Unlimited charity. Kalu's infested face had already been eaten away by maggots when he was rescued and a major part of his skull had been exposed. But the workers took him back to their shelter in Udaipur, Rajasthan. Kalu was in so much pain that euthanasia was considered as a resort. However, the dog showed exceptional fighting spirit and gradually, the infestation was removed and his wounds were cleaned. With proper bandaging and rest, Kalu slowly started to feed and set himself on the path to recovery. After a few days, Kalu's left eye reappeared and skin had regrown on his destroyed muzzle. The little guy was getting better with each passing day. A deafening round of applause to the aid workers for championing the cause of animals. On Tuesday we celebrated our 67th Republic Day and praised the bravado, sacrifice and efforts of our soldiers; both active, martyred and retired. A day later we face a reality check! A retired BSF personnel allegedly committed suicide by consuming poison behind the Haryana Secretariat in Chandigarh on Wednesday. NewX via YouTube In a note recovered from his bag, the victim blamed some police personnel as being responsible for his suicide. Sandeep, from Kharkhoda in Sonepat district of Haryana consumed poisonous substance at the Secretariat following which he was rushed to a government hospital. As his condition was serious, he was referred to PGIMER where he died, police said. His wife helped policemen rape their 15-year-old daughter! In the note Sandeep accused his wife of having illicit relations with some police personnel in Kharkhoda. He also accused her of forcing his 15-year-old daughter into having physical relations with them. Sandeep alleged that he was ending his life as he was being harassed by police officials. A case under Section 306 (abetment of suicide) of the IPC has been registered in this regard, SHO of Sector 3 police station Neeraj Sarna said. Several letters addressed to Haryana chief minister, DGP Haryana and CBI, have also been recovered from the deceased's bag, he said, adding investigation is on. Social Welfare Minister Kavita Jain has mourned the death and assured impartial investigation. You can see Sandeep speak to reporters before his death in this video: We wish that instead of taping his story for news, the reporters should have taken him to a hospital. Maybe then we could have saved him. Sikh immigrant to Canada Inderjit Singh Reyat is the only person to receive conviction over the 1985 Air India bombings that killed 331 people. Yesterday, he was released from a Canadian prison after serving 20 years in jail. ap This is two-thirds of his nine-year perjury sentence (lying in court), for his involvement in deadliest airline attacks in history, a Parole Board of Canada spokesperson said. hindustantimes Mr Reyat, convicted of lying in court to cover for his co-accused previously served more than 15 years in prison for making the bombs that were stuffed into two suitcases and planted on planes leaving Vancouver. One bomb tore apart Air India Flight 182 as it neared the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people aboard. The second exploded at Japan's Narita airport, killing two baggage handlers as they transferred cargo to another Air India plane. The near-simultaneous bombings on opposite sides of the world was in retaliation to Operation Blue Star - the Indian army action to flush out militants from the Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1984. Mr Reyat was working as a mechanic in westernmost Canada and had purchased the dynamite, batteries and detonators used to construct the bombs. The person who later checked-in the baggage containing the explosive devices at the Vancouver airport never boarded the jetliners. Bal Gupta, who lost his wife in the attacks, said he would never be able to forgive those responsible. irishtimes "We have learned to live our lives slowly, but a thing like this, the wounds are deep," he told public broadcaster CBC. "It's not only me," he said, recounting the lives lost of 86 children under the age of 12 and the 29 families that were "completely wiped out". "If I had to face him (Reyat), I would tell him that if you have any shred of humanity in you, come forward and tell the name of the conspirators that worked with you... and be honest so that the criminals can face their time and justice will be done," he said. In 2010, Mr Reyat was convicted of lying while testifying in the mass murder trial of alleged co-conspirators Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, who were later acquitted for a lack of evidence. He had avoided being tried alongside the pair by pleading guilty to lesser manslaughter charges, and was called to testify about the plot. Longest sentence for perjury in Canadian history ndtv Prosecutors say the verdict in the trial of Malik and Bagri would have been different if Mr Reyat had told the truth on the stand instead of protecting his alleged co-conspirators, while Judge Ian Josephson called him "an unmitigated liar." His nine-year perjury sentence was the longest ever handed down by a Canadian court. Mr Reyat has been ordered to live at a halfway house until August 2018, when his perjury sentence will expire, and abide by several strict conditions set by the parole board, including having no contact with victims' families or alleged co-conspirators, and no political activities. He must also have counseling to address violent tendencies, a lack of empathy and "cognitive distortions" -- or what one official described as his exaggerated beliefs. A 2013 psychologist's report found that Mr Reyat lacks "true empathy and remorse" for the bombing victims, and he has only recently accepted a small measure of responsibility for his crimes. "If at any time his parole officer feels there's a risk to the community he can return Mr. Reyat to prison," parole board spokesman Patrick Storey told. Canadian federal police continue to investigate the bombings, 30 years on. In what can only described as a twisted idea, the Norwegian Heart and Lung Association came up with a unique way to create awareness highlight the dangers of dust on children's toys causing asthma. LHA And to do that they came up with a set of ads, featuring teddy bears that look like Hitler, Colonel Gaddafi and former North Korea dictator Kim Jong-Il. Through the campaign, called Teddy Bears Can Be Dangerous, the authorities hoped that parents will wash their childrens teddy bears no less than four times per year, in order to reduce the risk of asthma and allergies. Stvsamlere Sover barnet ditt trygt?Ga inn pa https://www.lhl.no/stovsamlere for a lre mer om hvordan du gjr barnerommet tryggere. Posted by LHL Astma og allergi on 10 January 2016 Stvsamlere Har du et trygt barnerom?Ga inn pa www.lhl.no/stovsamlere for a lre mer om hvordan du gjr barnerommet tryggere. Posted by LHL Astma og allergi on 18 January 2016 Stvsamlere Gir du barna en trygg start pa livet?Ga inn pa www.lhl.no/stovsamlere for a lre mer om hvordan du gjr barnerommet tryggere. Posted by LHL Astma og allergi on 20 January 2016 However the deception of Hitler as a Teddy Bear didn't go down well with the Jewish community in the country. They alleged that the stuffed animal might soften the image of 'evil' and it should be banned. After facing massive outrage on social media from holocaust survivors and activists, the government decided to ban the ad. The creators of the ad however defended the campaign by saying that with a simple and clear message, combined with a very bold idea, they managed to create awareness among the public. Follow us on india investment summit to take place in delhi on feb 4 5 New Delhi: In order to attract investments in infrastructure sector, the Finance Ministry will organise a two-day India Investment Summit from February 4, which would see the participation of various global investors. "India Investment Summit organised by Finmin will be held in New Delhi on February 4-5. Global long-term investors will participate," Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das tweeted yesterday. India has been trying to attract foreign investment for Make in India campaign with a view to boost economic growth and generating employment. Other economic ministries, Roads, Highways, Oil and Gas and Railways are expected to participate in the summit. Various global private equity funds and sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are likely to participate in the event, which is being organised by the Finance Ministry. The ministry is seeking participation from SWFs for the Rs 40,000 crore National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), which will act as a nodal agency for fund long-term projects, including stalled ones. The ministry is in the process of finalising the first set of foreign investors in NIIF. Since coming to power in May 2014, the NDA government has relaxed foreign direct investment norms in over a dozen sectors including defence, banking, railways, construction and medical devices. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has on several occasions said the country needs to attract foreign investment to supplement domestic efforts to accelerate growth. Latest Business News Follow us on mukesh premji shanghvi among top 50 in world wealthiest list New Delhi: Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries, Azim Premji of Wipro and Dilip Shanghvi of Sun Pharma are the only three Indians to have made it to a global list 50 of the wealthiest people in the world. The list is topped by American philanthropist, investor, and computer programmer Bill Gates. Mukesh Ambani was ranked 27th on the list with a net worth of $24.8 billion, while Azim Premji and Dilip Shanghvi were ranked at the 43rd and 44th place with assets worth $16.5 billion and $16.4 billion respectively by Wealth-X in collaboration with Business Insider. The list of top 50 wealthiest people in the world have a combined fortune of $1.45 trillion, nearly equal to the GDP of Australia, the report noted. The list was topped by Bill Gates who has a staggering wealth of $87.4 billion, followed by Spanish businessman Amancio Ortega Gaona and Warren Buffett in the second and third place with wealth of $66.8 billion and $60.7 billion respectively. Amazon's Jeffrey Bezos with a net worth of $56.6 billion and US business tycoon David Koch with $47.4 billion made the top five richest people in the world. As per the list, the United States is home to 29 billionaires on the list, more than any other country. While, only four billionaires from China and three from India made the top 50. The youngest billionaire on the list is 31-year-old Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, ranked 8th with a net worth of $42.8 billion. Only four female billionaires are on the list. The oldest billionaire, 93-year-old L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, is one of the four. She is ranked 17th, with a net worth of $29 billion. Sector-wise, the technology space dominated the list with 12 billionaires - more than any other sector, including finance. (With inputs from PTI) Latest Business News Follow us on nepal india propose to build six power corridors Kathmandu: Nepal and India propose to construct at least six cross-border power corridors to ensure trading in energy between the two close neighbours on a long-term basis. These 400-kV lines will be constructed on the Attariya-Uttarakhand, Lamki-Tikuniya, Kohalpur-Rupaidiha, Butwal-Gorakhpur, Muzaffarpur-Dhalkebar and Inaruwa-Bihar corridors. A six-member joint technical team formed to prepare a master plan for such power corridors identified the six points on the Nepal-India border in accordance with the Power Trade Agreement (PTA) signed in 2014. The energy secretaries of Nepal and India are scheduled to meet in Kathmandu on Wednesday and Thursday to approve the master plan prepared by this technical team, Nepal's Energy Ministry said here. Nepal has a huge hydropower potential -- theoretically estimated at 83,000 MW -- with the perennial nature of Nepali rivers and the steep gradient of the country's topography providing ideal conditions for the development of some of the world's largest hydroelectric projects in the Himalayan nation. India is the closest and natural market for Nepal's hydel power. Conservative estimates place Nepal's economically feasible hydropower potential at approximately 42,000 MW -- of which it has developed barely 700 MW. Officials told IANS that these proposed lines will transmit electricity to India, in addition to the Karnali-Chisapani (10,800 MW) and Pancheshwor (6,720 MW) multi-purpose projects that have their own dedicated transmission lines. "Synchronisation and installation of energy corridors were the key intricacies of the PTA and we have to set up transmission lines first," Nepal's Energy Secretary Suman Sharma, leading the Nepali delegation to the talks, told media persons ahead of the meeting. Power Secretary Pradeep Kumar Pujari is leading the Indian delegation. At present, a 400-kV transmission line on the Muzaffarpur-Dhalkebar route is under construction. With its completion, Nepal will soon be able to import 90 MW electricity from India to ease its own power crisis. Latest Business News Follow us on world bank slashes oil price forecast to 37 a barrel Washington/New Delhi: Even as the World Bank revised sharply downwards its oil price forecast for 2016 to an average of $37 a barrel -- from $51 predicted in October -- in context of the continuing supply glut and low demand prospects from emerging economies, the Indian basket of crude oils fell to a 14-year low on the last trading day on Tuesday. "World Bank is lowering its 2016 forecast for crude oil prices to $37 per barrel in its latest Commodity Markets Outlook report from $51 per barrel in its October projections," the multilateral lender said in a release in Washington on Tuesday. The Indian basket, comprising 73 percent sour-grade Dubai and Oman crudes and the balance in sweet-grade Brent, fell on Tuesday at $26.63 for a barrel of nearly 160 litres, official data showed on Wednesday. It had touched exactly the same monthly price in June 2001. In this regard, the bank also scaled down its growth forecast for emerging and developing economies to 4 percent in 2016, from an expected 4.6 percent previously, and said the prediction was "subject to considerable downside risks in a fragile global environment". Explaining that the lower forecast reflects various supply and demand factors, the World Bank said "these include sooner-than-anticipated resumption of exports by Iran, greater resilience in US production due to cost cuts and efficiency gains, a mild winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and weak growth prospects in major emerging market economies". The bank forecast crude oil prices at $37 a barrel for 2016 by using an average of UK Brent, Dubai and the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil prices, equally weighted. "Many of the factors underpinning the slowdown in recent years -- including low commodity prices, weak global trade and slow productivity growth -- are expected to persist," the report said. Besides, deteriorating growth prospects in many emerging economies were eroding their fiscal and monetary policy buffers, it added. The price of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) basket of 12 crudes closed on Tuesday at $25.11 a barrel -- marking a 13-year low -- compared to $25.58 on Monday, the organisation's secretariat said. During early trade on Wednesday, WTI crude was trading down nearly 2 percent at $30.86 a barrel, while Brent crude was down 1.35 percent at $31.37 a barrel. With OPEC deciding last December against cutting output, traders are betting that the cartel is less likely to cut output now to prevent easy passage of Iranian crude into the market, particularly at a time of tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia. In comments posted on the Iranian petroleum ministry's website last week, Deputy Minister Roknoddin Javadi said Iran is determined to regain its market share, which collapsed after the international sanctions were imposed. He said Iran plans to increase oil production by 500,000 barrels a day. Meanwhile, the Indian government said in New Delhi on Wednesday that the continued slide in crude prices would enable India to cut its oil import bill by $48.5 billion to $64.22 billion in the current fiscal, which would be 43 percent lower from $112.75 billion in the previous fiscal. The New Delhi-based Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) said India's crude oil basket price averaged around $35.68 per barrel during December 2015, as against $42.50 per barrel in the previous month. PPAC said India's import bill is likely to be $64 billion in the current fiscal, down from $112.75 billion in the last financial year, presuming a price of $40 per barrel and an exchange rate of Rs.65 per US dollar for the remaining three months of this fiscal. India imported 149.4 million tonnes valued at $52.8 billion during the April-December 2015 period, as against 142.2 million tonnes for $95.8 billion during the corresponding period of the last fiscal. Latest Business News Follow us on aishwarya hollande luncheon here s what beauty queen talked with french president see pics New Delhi: Actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is said to have had a "hospitable" experience when she met French President Francois Hollande at a special luncheon here on Tuesday, looking radiant and ravishing in a red Banarasi sari. Their conversation ranged from talking about movies to her experiences at Cannes, a guest at the lunch told IANS, adding that Hollande even made Aishwarya join him at his table. "The French president was very warm," the insider said. Aishwarya, who has been in the midst of shooting her new film "Sarbjit", took out time from her busy schedule to attend the lunch, which was hosted by French Ambassador Francois Richier here. The former beauty queen, a past recipient of the prestigious 'Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters', a civilian award by the French government, was the only Indian actor to be present. Hollande attended the lunch following his appearance at the country's colourful Republic Day parade on Rajpath as the chief guest. Other guests at the lunch included designers Ritu Beri, who has earlier received the Chevalier Des Arts et Des Lettres award, one of the highest civilian awards by the French government, for her contribution to the enrichment of Indo-French cultural relations; and Manish Arora, who shares a deep connect with Paris, the source said. There were other politicians and businessmen at the gala. For the occasion, Aishwarya chose a perfectly suited ensemble -- a sari from designer duo Swati and Sunaina. Made in Banaras -- age-old weavers from where are poised for a facelift courtesy Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- the six-yard wonder that the actress wore, was woven with fine mulberry silk and zari made from pure silver threads dipped in gold. Only natural fibres and eco-friendly dyeing was used in the making of the sari, a source close to the designers, told IANS. It was only fit that that Aishwarya chose a creation so deeply rooted in Indian technique and craft to meet the president of France, a country that she's had a great connect with for long. She's a regular at the Cannes International Film Festival, where the first look of "Jazbaa" -- her comeback film post pregnancy -- was launched last year. An actress who has featured in Bollywood films like "Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam", "Dhoom 2", "Guru" and "Devdas", Aishwarya is also an ambassador of French cosmetics and beauty company L'Oreal Paris, for which she recently starred in an ad with Eva Longoria. In fact, she even shot for her international film "Pink Panther 2" in Paris. Latest Bollywood News Follow us on aww rahul sharma expresses love for asin in most romantic way post wedding view pics New Delhi: Asin Thottumkal and Rahul Sharma have become the shutterbugs favourite ever since they tied the knot on January 19. The adorable couple is all over the place with their wedding and reception pictures Now, as they complete one week of their marriage, here is some PDA coming from the handsome groom of actress Asin. Micromax co-founder Rahul Sharma has sent a romantic message to his soul mate on the micro blogging site Twitter. Rahul posted a picture of their wedding reception along with a heart touching caption. Here's what he posted. Rahul and Asin settled in matrimony in a fairy-tale style wedding. The two first said I Do in Christian wedding in the morning and then took saat pheras in Hindu ritual wedding in the evening. While Rahul has expressed his love in open for his life partner, Asin has made her Instagram feed into a wedding album of sorts. Well! All these gestures from Asin and Rahul are clearly reflecting the intense love between the two. Latest Bollywood News Flash Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry discussed the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, the South China Sea situation and other hot-spot affairs during a meeting in Beijing on Wednesday. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry attend a joint press conference after their talks in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 27, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] Wang expounded on China's stance on several issues of common concern at a joint press briefing following their close-door talks lasting about four hours. KOREAN PENINSULA NUCLEAR ISSUE China agrees the United Nations Security Council should pass a new resolution on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) following its nuclear test earlier this month, Wang said. "The new resolution should aim to bring the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue back to the negotiating table, rather than stirring up tension or causing chaos on the peninsula," he stressed. Sanctions are not an end in themselves and it is vital to restart dialogue and negotiation, said Wang. China is willing to maintain all-round and profound consultations with all parties in a responsible way, including the U.S., said Wang. Wang said China's stance on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue is clear, consistent and responsible, and will not be changed by any single incident or affected by sentiment. China is committed to the denuclearization of the peninsula, maintaining its peace and stability, and resolving the issue through dialog and consultation, he said. "China adheres to above-mentioned position and has made tremendous efforts over the years and fulfilled its responsibilities and obligations," said Wang. "China refuses all groundless speculations and misinterpretations on its stance," he said. SOUTH CHINA SEA On the South China Sea situation, Wang urged the United States to be objective, fair and reasonable in the way it deals with the issue. "On the islands and reefs stationed by China, we have built some necessary facilities for self defence. International law grants all sovereign states the right of self protection and self defence, and it has nothing to do with the so-called 'militarization'," said Wang. Wang said the islands in the South China Sea have been China's territory since ancient times. China has the right to protect its territory, sovereignty and legitimate maritime rights and interests. China is committed to maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea, with dialogue playing an integral role in any dispute, and solutions achieved through peaceful negotiation, he added. He said China and the United States should manage the sensitive issues in a constructive manner to prevent them from interfering the bilateral cooperation. TAIWAN AFFAIR The Taiwan issue is the core issue of China-U.S. relations and the U.S. should abide by the one-China policy, Wang said. "No matter what changes occur in Taiwan, the basic fact that both the mainland and Taiwan belong to one China is unchanged and will not change," Wang said. Sticking to the 1992 Consensus and opposing "Taiwan independence" is an important prerequisite and political basis for peaceful development of cross-Strait relations, Wang said. He urged the United States to support the peaceful development of cross-Strait ties with concrete actions. Kerry said that the U.S. will continue its one-China policy and encourage cross-strait dialogue. PRAGMATIC COOPERATION Wang and Kerry also touched on a slew of topics regarding pragmatic cooperation during their talks, according to an official press release. China backs the U.S. to host a successful nuclear security summit on March 31-April 1 in Washington, D.C., Wang told Kerry, adding China welcomes President Barack Obama to attend the G20 summit in Hangzhou in September. China is willing to work with the U.S. to continue a number of dialogue mechanism in the year ahead, said Wang, stressing China hopes the two countries will vigorously push forward negotiations for a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT). China also wants to enhance coordination with the United States on macroeconomic and financial policies as well as global economic governance, he said. Wang called on the two countries to actively expand cooperation in finance, nuclear power, aviation, infrastructure and other areas. In addition, both sides should further cooperation in military-to-military ties, anti-corruption, cyber security and climate change, said Wang. He also called on both sides to provide more convenience for people-to-people exchanges between the two countries. Kerry said that the United States is willing to strengthen cooperation with China in economy, trade, military, people-to-people exchanges, anti-corruption and other areas. Chinese President Xi Jinping and State Councilor Yang Jiechi also met with Kerry, respectively, on Wednesday. Follow us on ranveer singh s befikre to hit the screens on december 9 Mumbai: Ace filmmaker Aditya Chopra's directorial comeback Befikre, starring Ranveer Singh and Vaani Kapoor in the lead, will release on December 9. The release date of the highly anticipated project was announced by Ranveer and Vaani through a video published on the official YouTube handle of Yash Raj Films (YRF) on Wednesday. With "Befikre", Aditya is returning to the director's chair after seven years. He is best known for his films like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Mohabbatein and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. In the over 30-second video, Vaani can be seen announcing the release date of the film in French after which the Bajirao Mastani actor translates it into Hindi. Talking about "Befikre", Ranveer earlier said: "I'm happy that I'm collaborating with Adi (Aditya) sir on his freshest story and endeavour. Whatever you expect normally out of an Aditya Chopra film, this is unlike anything that he's made before." This will be the first time when Aditya will direct a film without Shah Rukh Khan in the lead role. Latest Bollywood News Follow us on fed up of high prices in mumbai anil kapoor buys luxurious flat in dubai Dubai: Actor Anil Kapoor can now proudly call a plush flat in Dubai his home as he booked a two-bedroom apartment in Ritz by Danube' housing project on Tuesday. The Dil Dhadakne Do' actpr addressed a press conference in the populous city of the United Arab Emirates. It was at the media interaction that he said was his "Sindhi" wife Sunita Kapoor who froze the deal in Mumbai a fortnight ago. "I am an actor and must admit that I do not have that nose to smell business, but my better half being Sindhi is apt at it" he said amid guffaws from those he was addressing. Calling Dubai his "second home" which over the years had endeared itself to him and his family, he said the "deal appeared lucrative" as real estate was set to appreciate in value in the city owing to the World Expo-2020. He said Danube Group chairman Rizwan Sajan informed them about Spanish technology being used in the project to optimise the use of space, which was another reason to go in for the buy. Dressed in a black suit, Kapoor couldn't stop praising Rizwan and the Danube Group's initiative. The actor later told IANS that property in Mumbai was "out of reach for even the richest" and that he and his wife had a harrowing time in finding an appropriate place for their actress daughter Sonam Kapoor. "Either the place was not good or it was not affordable," he said, contrasting his experience in Mumbai with his Dubai buy which was "both within reach and good". Sajan said 'Ritz by Danube' was a 300 million Dh project being planned in Al Furjan neighbourhood in Jebel Ali area that was in close proximity to Dubai south, the Dh 120 billion and 140-square km mixed use development, which will host the Al Maktoum International airport and the World Expo 2020. With inputs from agencies Latest Bollywood News Follow us on priyanka chopra spills beans about her current boyfriend and wedding plans New Delhi: Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra is over the moon these days. The diva recently won the People's Choice Award for Best Actress for Quantico', becoming the first South-Asian actress to win the award. And now Priyanka is conferred with Padma Shri Award, the fourth highest civilian honour in India. Indeed, the actress is winning accolades for her professional achievements. But, apart from her success at the work front, it's her personal life which is also bagging eyeballs. The Barfi' actress has always been reserved about her personal life, but she recently spilled the beans about her love life. During an interview with a leading daily, when Priyanka was quizzed about her relationship status, the actress gave a smart reply making people wonder if she has actually found her prince charming'. She said, Who says I don't have a partner? I might not be with him because I am travelling. All my life I have never commented on the fact whether I am in a relationship or not. I have a personal life. I don't like talking about it. I am private about it. I've never flaunted my relationships, I have protected them. I believe in buri nazar. So if something is important to you, keep it close to your heart, she further added. The Mary Kom' actress also opened up on her marriage plans and said that she doesn't want to remain single and want to get married to have lots of babies. She stated, I have always wanted babies. Lots of them. For that reason I want to get married, It is not fair to bring a child to this world without marriage. Society is mean like that. I want to get married but no one can claim me until someone really claims me. But Priyanka clearly stated that she hates double standards in a relationship. Infideltiy in relationships should never be accepted. Marriage kya hai? Once you commit your heart to someone, have the balls to confess to your partner instead of continuing to cheat on her. I would, if I wanted to be with someone else. Because then you are stripping them of their pride. That is the reason why Kashi was important to me. Why do people lie? Because they are scared to say 'I love someone else'. It's your cowardice. Don't be a coward. Walk up and confess. Give them the respect because you have been in a relationship with that person whatever it may be been. That is the reason why I am totally against and judgemental about infidelity and lying, Priyanka was reported saying. Earlier, there were reports that the Quantico' actress is dating a US man and is quite happy with him. But, as of now there is no more information on her mystery man'. We wonder if we will hear some good news from Priyanka Chopra anytime soon. Latest Bollywood News Follow us on tusshar mandana s kyaa kool hain hum 3 banned in pakistan New Delhi: Bollywood actor Tusshar Kapoor is making to the news for his recently released adult comedy Kya Kool Hain Hum 3'. The actor is quite popular for his comic roles and is on the way to become the king of adult comedy now. His recent release Kya Kool Hain Hum 3' is another gag bag of raunchy jokes. But it seems that Tusshar's KKHH3 hasn't gone down well with the censor board of Pakistan as the movie has been banned there. According to the media reports, the Central Board for Film Certification (CBFC) and its provincial censor boards both decided after a meeting yesterday that the film was unsuitable for public exhibition. CBFC chief Mobashir Hasan said the film was found to be an 'out and out obscene film' with vulgar dialogues and nudity. He also stated that the film couldn't be allowed for public viewing even with an adult rating as it was over the top vulgar. "The film is full of nudity and has a lot of vulgar content in its dialogues. The board has officially disallowed the film from public viewing," he said. Interestingly, some cinemas had started screening the film since Friday after its release. However, the general manager at a cinema said that just after two days they got orders from their distributor to suspend the screening of the film which has reportedly grossed about Rs130 million in India in its first two days of release. "We have issued a showcause notice to the distributor and he faces a hefty fine for importing this film and selling it to some exhibitors without first going through proper channels," Hasan said. Fakhre-Alam, chairperson of the Sindh Board of Film Certification (SBFC) said all the provincial censor boards, including Punjab and Sindh, found it unsuitable for public exhibition in cinemas. 'Kya Kool Hain Hum 3' starring Tusshar Kapoor and Aftab Shivdasani is a story of two boys, who end up joining the adult film industry, but have to pretend to be sober to win the heart of the girl's family. The movie is directed by Umesh Ghadge and was released on January 22. Latest Bollywood News Follow us on when sunny leone s denial made mr perfectionist aamir khan sad New Delhi: Sunny Leone has been recently making to the headlines because of her recent interview to a leading news channel. The actress faced sexist' questions about her past during the interview, however, Sunny put up with the entire episode strongly and confidently. While several B-town celebs came in support of Sunny, Mr. Perfectionist recently confessed that he was quite hurt by Sunny's statement about him. Reportedly, Sunny was questioned about working with Aamir to which the Jism 2' actress had said no' Aamir Khan not just felt dejected with Sunny's response but also stated that he doesn't have any problem with her past and wouldn't mind working her. I felt bad about how she was questioned during the interview. I even felt sad when she refused to work with me. But yes, if the script and the character suits, I have no problem in working with her. I have nothing to do with her past life, Aamir was reported saying while celebrating the 10th anniversary of his film Rang De Basanti. I have nothing to do with her personal life. She is a woman and I respect her. I seriously would like to work with her. I hope that she would also like to work with me, he said. The Dangal' actor earlier took to his twitter handle to voice his support for Leone. I think Sunny conducted herself with a lot of grace & dignity.I wish I could have said the same about the interviewer, he tweeted. Sunny, I will b happy 2 wrk wid you. I have absolutely no problems with your past, as the interviewer puts it.Stay blessed.Love .a, added Aamir. About the interview that has gone viral, Sunny said that she agreed for it anticipating that it would revolve around her upcoming movies and not her past career choices. Currently Sunny Leone is busy promoting her forthcoming movie Mastizaade' also starring Tusshar Kapoor and Vir Das, which is slated to hit the screens on January 29. Latest Bollywood News Follow us on all you need to know about beating retreat ceremony It is going to be colourful. It is going to be musical. The Beating Retreat 2016 will be at its best. The 67th Republic Day celebrations this month promises to be a grand affair. The Republic Day parade is a wonderful experience and a very proud tradition of our nation. Unlike previous year the much awaited Beating Retreat, that signals the end of the Republic Day festivities, will undergo a slight change. Beating the Retreat Ceremony' in Delhi is observed keeping in mind the age old tradition, according to which, soldiers called a close down to the war at sunset. The ceremony officially marks the finale of the Republic day celebrations. This ceremony is conducted after 3 days of the beginning of the Republic day celebrations, on 26th January. The tickets for the Beating Retreat Ceremony (Full Dress Rehearsal) on January 28, 2016 are in the category of Rs. 50 and Rs. 20 and do not have reserved seats. This year the end of the Republic Day celebrations will see new blend of music instead of the long tradition of only military music. This year the sitar, santoor and tabla, will be heard for the first time along with military bands. These newly introduced percussion instruments will bring a change from the usual bugles, pipes and drums usually featured in the show by the colonial military band. More people will be able to participate as all tableaux and music bands will be showcased for three days till January 29 at the Red Fort. As for the first time in 66 years, the iconic BSF Camel contingent will not be the part of Republic Day Parade. So this inheritor of the heritage of the Bikaner Royal Camel Force will also not be a part of the Beating the Retreat Ceremony where they stand along the ramparts of the North and South blocks on Raisina Hill. Along with this Raisina Hill will witness approximately 50 musicians playing classical Indian instruments at its south and north block ramparts. Last year's crowd favourites were 'Vir Bharat', 'Chhana Bilauri', 'Jai Janam Bhumi' and 'Athulya Bharat'. But this is it would be amazing to see how the latest upgrade in the military band adds to the performance. The Republic Day parade this year will be shorter by at least 15 minutes. The government has planned to hold a 90-minute parade instead of the nearly two hours. It has cut down the number of marching military contingents and mixed together the mechanised ones. An event of national pride, the Beating Retreat this time will also feature retired military soldiers, central armed police forces and state police bands. For the better view of the programme for the crowd LED screens, spider-cams and surround sound systems will be installed. And at exactly 6 pm, the buglers sound the retreat and the National Flag is lowered to the National Anthem bringing the Republic Day celebrations to a formal end. The ceremony just like every year will create nostalgia for the times gone by. Latest India News Follow us on def min wants cbi to probe two serving major generals for corruption New Delhi: In a possible first, the Union Defence ministry today asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate two serving Major Generals of the Indian Army on allegations related to bribery and possessing assets disproportionate to their known sources of income. Major General S.S. Lamba of the Army Service Corps (ASC) and Major General Ashok Kumar of the Army Ordinance Corps (AOC) are the two officers said to be under the scanner. Accrding to sources, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has already written to the CBI to carry out the the probe against the two senior officials. Maj Gen Lamba is currently posted in Kolkata, while Maj Gen Kumar is posted in Delhi. Complaints against the two first reached the Defence Ministry in September 2015. Allegations against the two include trying to bribe the army's Promotion Board for being recommended to the post of Lieutenant General. An internal inquiry was initiated against the two by the ministry, following which the case has now been referred to the CBI. There have also been complaints against the two officers with regard to corruption and DA, the sources said. Both officers are recipients of the Seva Medal and the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal, the highest decoration for distinguished service, in 2015. In the past too, the Indian Army has proceeded against several officers - some as senior as Lieutenant Generals - but these have been in the shape of in-house General Court Martial. If taken forward, this will probably be the first time that the Defence Ministry has directed a probe into the dealings of such decorated and senior officials of the military establishment. (With IANS inputs) Latest India News Follow us on government to announce first 20 smart cities today New Delhi: The first 20 cities to be developed as Smart Cities will be announced today. Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu informed that 'there are 97 cities in the Smart City Challenge and the names of the first 20 winners of the competition will be announced on Thursday'. These cities will be developed to have basic infrastructure through assured water and power supply, sanitation and solid waste management, efficient urban mobility and public transport, IT connectivity, e-governance and citizen participation. In the subsequent years, the government will announce 40 cities each to be developed as Smart Cities as per Prime Minister Narendra Modi's plan to develop 100 Smart Cities in the country. Speaking on challenges and the way ahead for urban development, Naidu said perpetuation of inequities in urban areas has serious implications for national security and hence, the government is committed to ensuring inclusive development under new initiatives like Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), Smart City Mission, Swachh Bharat and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban). Naidu stressed on the need for inclusive urban development, noting that "it was the need of the hour with 'Young India' becoming more and more aspiration". He expressed concern regarding the exploitation of urban spaces by the well-to-do sections of the society at the cost of the poor and the marginalised and stressed on inclusivity while taking decisions related to urban governance. Latest India News Follow us on india to formally take up balloon intrusion incident with pak mea New Delhi: The Indian government today said that it will raise the issue of a suspicious balloon seen over Rajasthan on January 26, which it believes flew in from across the border in Pakistan. Spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs Vikas Swarup today said that the issue would be taken up with Pakistan officially. We will take up this matter with Pakistan, he said. The balloon was picked up by the Indian Air Force radar on Tuesday and shot down by a Sukhoi-30 warplane. A top government source said it had come from Pakistan and may have been an attempt to test India's defences and response time. According to the IAF, no dangerous payload was found from the debris of the balloon. The MEA also informed that no mutually convenient date had been determined so far for Foreign Secretary-level talks with Pakistan. We do not have a mutually convenient date as of now. Will inform as soon as both foreign secretaries decide on it, Vikas Swarup said. The meeting was earlier scheduled for January 15 but was called off in wake of the Pathankot terror attack on January2. The timetable and modalities of the resumed peace dialogue were slated to be discussed during the meeting. India has said that Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad carried out the attack on the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot and has put the onus of the continuation of the peace process, including Foreign Secretary-level talks, on action by Pakistan against the group. Discussing the progress achieved so far in the probe, Swarup said that the governments of India and Pakistan were in continuous communication with each other. He refused to provide further details. New Delhi also asserted that the trail of the 2008 Mumbai attack case was a test of Pakistan's sincerity in combating terrorism directed against the country. We see Mumbai terror attack trial in Islamabad as a test of Pakistan's sincerity in combating terrorism directed against India. The planning, training and financing of the Mumbai terrorist attack was done in Pakistan where 99% of the evidence is. It is Pakistan's responsibility to unearth and present the requisite evidences in the ongoing trial so that the perpetrators are brought to justice, Swarup said. Noting that the government had seen media reports about the Pakistan high court dismissing government's petition seeking voice samples of 26/11 mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Swarup said India has not received any word on this through official channels. (With PTI inputs) Latest India News Follow us on now muslim women s group seeks entry into mumbai s haji ali dargah Mumbai: Continuing the rebellion against the restricted participation of females in the religious domain, a Muslim women's group today protested against the norm of barring entry for women into the Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai. Following in the footsteps of women activists who wanted to gain access to the Shani temple in Ahmednagar, this group too tried entering into the premises of the holy place. It was male patriarchy', not religion, which was imposing restrictions on women, Zeenat Shukat Ali, professor of Islamic studies, said expressing her resentment. I am an Islamic Scholar and nowhere in Islam is it said that women cannot go to graveyards. This is the dictum of the prophet. When Islam has not excluded women, then why should male patriarchy dominate? Male patriarchy is dominating the Hindus, Male patriarchy is dominating the Muslims, she added further. In an unpleasant battle with the trustees of the Haji Ali Dargah for barring women's entry in 2011, a Muslim women's group displayed intensified protests against the officials. Taking a firm stand, Zeenat said, This is against what Islam has taught. The Constitution has given you equal rights, Islam is supporting the Constitution. However, the trust has defended its decision of ban on women saying that it was a grievous sin as per Islam for women to be in close proximity of the grave of a male Muslim saint. The Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) has petitioned the Bombay High Court seeking a ruling that the ban is unconstitutional. Latest India News You are here: Home Flash Chinese people from the mainland and Taiwan have a shared responsibility to protect the Nansha Islands, a spokesperson said on Thursday following Taiwanese leader Ma Ying-jeou's trip to the Taiping Island in the South China Sea. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying made the comment when asked about Ma's trip at a regular news briefing, describing the Nansha Islands as "patrimony" of the Chinese nation. "Nansha Islands have been China's territory since ancient times," Hua said, adding China has been working to make South China Sea a place of peace, friendship and cooperation. "China will continue efforts to protect navigation freedom, peace and stability, prosperity and development in the South China Sea," Hua added. Follow us on rohith vemula suicide sc/st teachers to go on hunger strike today Hyderabad: SC and ST teachers of Hyderabad Central University have announced they will go on a hunger strike from today over the demand for the resignation of the vice chancellor and the in-charge VC in the wake of the suicide by Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula. Intensifying their protest, students held a demonstration outside the residence of interim VC Vipin Srivastava when he was in a meeting with non-teaching staff. The protesters then marched outside the campus and burnt an effigy of the vice- chancellor. Mr Srivastava later visited the protest site to initiate a dialogue, but faced the ire of the students who raised slogans asking him to "go back". He was forced to beat a retreat in a few minutes as someone banged his car when it was about to move. Students of most universities in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana boycotted classes in solidarity with the agitators as they sought "justice" for Rohith, who was found hanging in a hostel room on January 17. The SC and ST Teachers Forum said in a statement that its members would go on a hunger strike today to press for the resignation of VC Appa Rao and the interim VC "in order to resume academic and administrative activities". Several members of the Forum have already given up their administrative responsibilities in solidarity with the agitating students. "We have been criticised constantly that no one is making an effort. The truth is that police have been stopping me (from venturing out). It is stopping us, Prof Rao (the VC who has gone on leave) as well as me. Because they felt it may result in a law and order situation," said Mr Srivastava. He, however, said that he later convinced police to let him go and talk to the protesting students. Mr Srivastava said he could have stayed longer at the protest site but felt that would serve no purpose. "I could have stayed for longer. But then I did not see any purpose because they were not willing to talk. I thought they wanted somebody to come and talk to them. So I went, but there was no possibility," the in-charge VC said. The selection of Mr Srivastava as interim VC was opposed by the students and SC/ST staff forums as they claimed he headed the Executive Council sub-committee whose decisions were "responsible for the death of Rohith" and that he was one of the accused in the death of another Dalit student in 2008. Meanwhile, in a bid to blunt the attack it has faced over the raging issue, BJP's student outfit ABVP has announced a nationwide campaign to highlight its version of events on the campus leading to Vemula's suicide. Latest India News Follow us on 1985 air india bombing convict inderjit singh reyat released from canadian prison Toronto: Inderjit Singh Reyat, the lone person convicted for the 1985 Air India Kanishka bombing that killed all 329 people on board, was yesterday released from prison in Canada after serving two decades behind bars. A spokesman for the Parole Board of Canada confirmed Reyat's statutory release after serving two-thirds of a nine-year sentence for his involvement in one of the deadliest airline attacks in history. Air India Kanishka's Flight 182 from Montreal to Delhi was blown off mid-air near the Irish coast on June 23, 1985, killing all 329 people and crew on board. Within an hour, another bomb meant for another Air India flight from Tokyo to Mumbai went off during luggage transfer at the Tokyo airport, killing two baggage handlers. Both the bombs were hidden in suitcases and checked in at Vancouver airport. Vancouver-based Khalistani extremists had planned the bombing to avenge the 1984 army action at the Golden Temple in Amritsar to flush militants. Reyat -- an electrical mechanic -- had assembled and tested the bomb that went off at Tokyo airport for which he was given 10 years in jail in 1991. After this, he was given another five years in jail for his role also in the Air India Kanishka bombing. After his release, Reyat was charged in 2010 with lying under oath during the trial of the two main Air India bombing accused -- Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri -- in 2003 when he was brought from jail to testify. Both Malik and Bagri were eventually found not guilty and freed in March 2005. After his perjury trial, Reyat was jailed for another nine years in January 2011. After getting credit for the time already served, he was to serve seven years and seven months in jail. Since under the Canadian laws convicts can be released from jail after two-thirds of their sentence to serve the remainder of the term in the community, Reyat will get an automatic release from jail. Under terms of release by Parole Board of Canada, Reyat will be regularly monitored after his release. He is forbidden from propagating extremist views or associating with those who hold extremist views. He is also not allowed to possess anything for building explosive devices. Reyat will be forbidden from contacting the families of Air India victims. With Agency Inputs Latest World News Follow us on arunachal row governor cites cow slaughter to justify prez rule New Delhi: Arunachal Pradesh Governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa has cited 'cow slaughter' as a sign of complete collapse of law and order in the state while recommending President's Rule, Indian Express reported today. Governor's counsel, Satya Pal Jain, in the Supreme Court yesterday produced photographs of a 'cow' (Mithun) being slaughtered outside Raj Bhavan as a material justifying the proclamation of emergency. This came after the top court yesterday asked the Governor to submit the report he gave to the Central government making the recommendation for President's rule in the state "We will show everything to the court. We will show you (judges) the photographs of cow slaughter too... it is there in one of the reports," Jain said, adding that a series of reports had been sent by the Governor to the President and the 'Ministry of Home Affairs'. On December 17, according to the Governor's letter to the President, after the Gauhati High Court kept in abeyance the Governor's decisions to advance the assembly session, several Congress leaders sacrificed a Mithun outside Raj Bhavan. Mithun, the pride animal called as 'Cattle of Hilly Region' of north-eastern hilly region and tropical rain forest of China. The animal plays an important role in the day to day socioeconomic life of the local tribal population. The animal is recognised as the state animal in Arunachal Pradesh. Terming the matter of imposing Central rule in the state as 'too serious a matter', the apex court constitution bench comprising Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar, Justice Dipak Misra, Justice Madan B Lokur, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh and Justice NV Ramana issued the notice giving the Centre time till January 29 to file its response and directed the hearing of the matter on Monday. The court also gave liberty to petitioner Congress chief whip in Arunachal Pradesh Rajesh Tacho to amend the plea to include challenge to the presidential proclamation. The bench was also of the view that no interim order can be obtained unless the parties see the grounds for proclamation for President's rule. The Congress on Monday had moved the Supreme Court challenging the cabinet decision on Sunday to impose President's Rule in Arunachal Pradesh based on the recommendation of state Governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa. The petition moved by Tacho has assailed the report of Governor for imposition of President's Rule and its acceptance by the Union Cabinet and subsequent recommendation to the President. The Supreme Court had earlier agreed to a fresh plea by Congress' counsels Fali S Nariman and Kapil Sibal to hear the matter on an urgent basis and referred the case to a larger constitution bench which is already hearting other petitions on the matter. Congress has 47 seats in the 60-member Arunachal assembly. It suffered a setback when 21 of its MLAs in the state assembly rebelled. Eleven BJP MLAs backed the rebels in the bid to upstage the Nabam Tuki government. Later, 14 rebel Congress MLAs were disqualified. The Governor then called assembly session on December 16 where deputy speaker revoked the disqualification of 14 rebel Congress MLAs and removed Rebia from the post of Speaker. This sitting was held in a community hall in Itanagar. Various decisions of the governor and the deputy speaker were challenged by Rebia in Gauhati high court which passed an interim order keeping in abeyance these decisions till February 1. Follow us on arunachal crisis nabam tuki files fresh petition in sc against president s rule New Delhi: Former Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Nabam Tuki today filed a fresh petition in the Supreme Court challenging the promulgation of President's rule in the crisis-hit state. The plea filed by the Congress leader is likely to be taken up for hearing on Monday by a five-judge constitution bench headed by Justice J S Khehar, along with other petitions moved by persons like Rajesh Tacho, Chief Whip of Congress Legislature party in the state assembly. The plea has been filed after Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, representing the Centre, had raised the objection that the earlier petitions have not challenged the imposition of President's rule which was invoked after filing of those pleas. Yesterday, the imposition of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh had come under the scanner of the apex court which sought the report of Governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa recommending central rule in the state, saying "it is too serious a matter". The bench had asked the Attorney General not to raise "technical objections" when he persisted with his plea arguing that "rules are rules" and they apply equally to all. It had then posted the matter for February one asking the Governor and the Ministry of Home Affairs to file responses by Friday, by when the petitioners have been allowed to amend their plea. The bench, for its own perusal, sought in a sealed cover the report and recommendation on imposition of the President's rule. "Unless we get the grounds for recommending the President's rule, we cannot proceed. If grounds are not same in the proclamation then it is totally a different ball game," the bench, also comprising justices Dipak Misra, M B Lokur, P C Ghose and N V Ramana, had said. The bench was also of the view that no interim order can be obtained unless the parties see grounds for proclamation for President's rule. "We will not pass any order without hearing all the parties. It is a sensitive issue," it had said. A battery of senior lawyers including Fali S Nariman, Kapil Sibal, Rajeev Dhawan and Vivek Tankha had opposed the plea of governor seeking to maintain secrecy of his report and recommendation, saying that larger bench of more than five judges have already laid down the proposition on this aspect. The five-judge bench is examining the constitutional provisions on the scope of discretionary powers of Governor, amid continuing month-long impasse over Nabam Tuki-led Congress government in Arunachal Pradesh. An earlier plea filed by Nabam Rebia, who was allegedly removed from the post of Speaker by rebel Congress and BJP MLAs in an assembly session held at a community hall in Itanagar on December 16, has listed out legal questions, including the Governor's power to convene the assembly session without the aid and advice of the government for adjudication by the apex court. It was also alleged that the Governor had advanced the assembly sitting from January 14 to December 16 without the aid and advice of the Chief Minister and his council of ministers. Congress, which has 47 MLAs seats in the 60-member assembly, suffered a jolt when 21 of them rebelled. Eleven BJP MLAs backed the rebels in the bid to upstage the Nabam Tuki government. Later, 14 rebel Congress MLAs were disqualified. The Governor then called assembly session on December 16 in which Deputy Speaker revoked disqualification of 14 rebel Congress MLAs and removed Rebia from the post of Speaker. This sitting was held in a community hall in Itanagar. Follow us on never desired to become prime minister president pranab mukherjee New Delhi: Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, at the launch of the second volume of his memoir, The Turbulent Years: 1980-96, retorted to the long-standing theory about his aspiration to become interim Prime Minister after Indira Gandhi's assassination and declared these speculations false and spiteful.' Opening up on the conjecture, Mukherjee said, "Many stories have been circulated that I aspired to be the interim Prime Minister, that I had staked claim and had to be persuaded otherwise. And that this created misgivings in Rajiv Gandhi's mind. These stories are completely false and spiteful." Released by Vice-president Hamid Ansari, the book contains a detailed conversation between Rajiv Gandhi and Pranab Mukherjee, which they had in a bathroom, about Prime Ministership. Time was ticking away and I was very keen to talk to him. I went near the couple (Rajiv and Sonia) and gently touched Rajiv on the back of his shoulder to indicate that I had some very urgent work with him. He released himself from Sonia's arms and turned around to talk to me. "Knowing that I would not have disturbed him unless the matter was very urgent and confidential, he quickly led me to the bathroom attached to the room so that we could talk without being noticed by anyone else who may enter the room," Mukherjee said. The two had a discussion on the political situation then and views of partymen about appointing Rajiv as the Prime Minister, which he had agreed to become. Later, "I came out of the bathroom and conveyed Rajiv's decision to everyone". Talking about circumstances that led to his ouster from Rajiv's Cabinet and then from the party, Mukherjee admitted to "have sensed Rajiv's growing unhappiness and the hostility of those around him and taken pre-emptive action". "To the question of why he dropped me from the Cabinet and expelled me from the party, all I can say is that he made mistakes and so did I. He let others influence him and listened to their calumnies against me. I let my frustration overtake my patience," he said. The President was forced to leave Congress in April 1986 after which he formed Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress (RSC). However, Mukherjee feels he could have avoided the RSC fiasco. "I should have the wisdom to realise that I was (and am) not a mass leader. Those who left the Congress rarely succeeded. I could have been of some help to the Congress party and the government during those crucial years of 1986 and 1987 when everything seemed to go wrong for Rajiv," Mukherjee, who returned to Congress after two years, said. Mukherjee said Rajiv was a "reluctant politician" who was forced by circumstances to become Prime Minister at the age of 40. "He was ahead of his times. He wanted rapid change and saw the old guard in the Congress as an obstacle to his vision. He was forward looking, tech savvy and welcomed foreign investment in India as well as enlargement of the market economy. "In contrast, I was a conservative, conventional political leader who favoured the public sector, a regulated economy and wanted foreign investment only from NRIs," the President writes. The "unconscionable" anti-Sikh riots, which broke out in the name of revenge for Indira Gandhi's assassination, caught the Rajiv Gandhi government unprepared, he writes. "The government was just not ready for an eventuality such as Mrs Gandhi's assassination and the riots that followed. Every mature government has mechanisms to deal with a crisis such as this. Unfortunately, overwhelming grief overtook the nation and miscreants took advantage of the situation, causing loss of life and suffering," Mukherjee says. (With PTI inputs) Were excited to announce that indmin.com is now part of fastmarkets.com. A new look and an improved experience means you can still stay ahead of this fast-moving market with price data, news and market intelligence right here on Fastmarkets. Discover more than 2000 prices, news and analysis in primary and secondary metals markets. We cover base metals, industrial minerals, ores and alloys, steel, scrap and steel raw materials. If you already have a Fastmarkets account, youll still have uninterrupted access to your markets by logging in with your current details. The Doomsday Clock at 3 Minutes to Midnight By Matt Novak January 26, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Gizmodo " - The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced today that the Doomsday Clock, which represents our proximity to an apocalyptic event, will remain at three minutes to midnight. But thats still terrifying. That decision is not good news but an expression of dismay that world leaders continue to fail to focus their efforts and the worlds attention on reducing the extreme danger posed by nuclear weapons and climate change, the group said in a statement. In a world that hasnt seen nuclear warfare in over 70 years, the so-called Doomsday Clock sounds like a joke. But when you look at the number of near-misses weve had throughout our nuclear history, one thing becomes abundantly clear: The Doomsday Clock is no fucking joke. Yes, the Doomsday Clock is admittedly a gimmick thats been used by the anti-nuclear proliferation group and its journal, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, since 1947. But unlike other media-bait events, like National Popcorn Day or Valentines Day, this one actually matters. The Doomsday Clock is a representation of the danger from threats like climate change, weapons technologies, and perhaps most importantly, the potential for nuclear war. The closest the clock has ever come to midnight was in 1953 when the Soviet Union conducted its own hydrogen bomb tests following tests by the United States. At that time the Doomsday Clock was two minutes to midnight. When we call these dangers existential, that is exactly what we mean: They threaten the very existence of civilization and therefore should be the first order of business for leaders who care about their constituents and their countries, the group said in a statement. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded in 1945 by a group of scientists who had participated in the Manhattan Project. They helped bring nuclear weapons technology to the world, and they were terrified about what they had helped unleash. Its easy to dismiss their warnings as over-the-top or foolish. After all, a nuclear weapon hasnt been used in warfare since 1945. But since 1945 weve been one button push away from starting World War III. Whether it was a mistaken order given to a US Air Force Captain in 1962, or a computer simulation in 1979 falsely alerting NORAD to an incoming nuclear attack from the Soviet Union, weve had too many brushes with nuclear winter. Despite our focus on other issues, nuclear proliferation and the security of the worlds nuclear stockpile should remain in the international consciousness. Thats what the Doomsday Clock is for. The tough part is that unlike the rhetoric of so many politicians, this isnt a problem that can be solved by bombing our way out of it. Questions like What if ISIS gets a nuclear weapon? or What happens if China or Russia accidentally launch a first strike against the United States? or even What happens if the United States accidentally launches a first strike against a near-peer adversary? arent questions that can be solved with an answer like build more bombs. You cant bomb your way out of this particular threat. The bombs themselves, after all, are the threat. Its three minutes to midnight. So what do we need to do? According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: Dramatically reduce proposed spending on nuclear weapons modernization programs. Re-energize the disarmament process, with a focus on results. Engage North Korea to reduce nuclear risks. Follow up on the Paris accord with actions that sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fulfill the Paris promise of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius. Deal now with the commercial nuclear waste problem. Create institutions specifically assigned to explore and address potentially catastrophic misuses of new technologies. Obviously all of those things arent something that can be achieved on an individual level. Take your reusable bags to the supermarket, and drive your electric car. But if the Doomsday Clock serves any purpose beyond that of a media gimmick, its to remind us that none of these issues can be addressed without global cooperation. Its three minutes to midnight. Good luck, humanity. Freedom! 19,000 Iraqi Civilians Killed in Less Than Two Years By Peter Van Buren January 27, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - that works out to about 28 dead every day. It is also an estimate, given that many areas of the country are not readily accessible, and because the death toll from the siege of Ramadi is not accounted for in the figures. More than 3.2 million Iraqis are internally displaced and/or homeless. Iraq is now an ungoverned, failed state, a killing field on the scale of genocide. At least 18,802 civilians were killed and 36,245 wounded in Iraq over the last 22 months, according to the UNs Report on the Protection of Civilians in the Armed Conflict in Iraq. Another 3,206,736 Iraqis are internally displaced, including more than one million children. The study emphasizes that these are conservative estimates. The UN also is careful to note that the number of civilians killed by secondary effects of the violence, such as lack of access to food, water or medical care, is unknown. In many areas of Iraq schools are closed and basic infrastructure is not functioning. All that is in addition to the more than one million people already killed during the American occupation period. These horrors are directly caused by the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation. In addition to unleashing near-total chaos in the nation, the U.S. invasion led directly to the rise of Islamic State, which found the consuming violence fertile soil for growth. ISIS went on to see a new role to emerge, protector of the Sunni population, which was being slaughtered and impoverished by the Shiite majority empowered by the Americans and Iran. Armed violence continues to take an obscene toll on Iraqi civilians and their communities, remarked the UN high commissioner for human rights. The so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant continues to commit systematic and widespread violence and abuses of international human rights law and humanitarian law. These acts may, in some instances, amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly genocide. ISIS is targeting non-Sunni ethnic and religious communities, systematically persecuting them, subjecting them to violent repression and crimes, the UN notes. Women and children are particularly affected by these atrocities. Women face extreme sexual violence and even sexual slavery. Children are being forcibly recruited as fighters. In addition to ISIS violence, the UN notes that civilians have been killed and kidnapped, and that civilian infrastructure has been destroyed by pro-government forces, militias and tribal fighters. Moreover, civilians are being killed by U.S. airstrikes. Adding to the depth of horror in Iraq, many Iraqi refugees have sought asylum in the West, but have been largely unwelcome. In a time of heightened Islamophobia, some European countries and many right-wing American politicians including more than half of the U.S. governors have made it clear they do not want to accept Muslim refugees. The Davos Blind Eye: How the Rich Eat the Poor and the World The Big Lies By Prof. John McMurtry January 27, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " GR " - The just-released Oxfam Davos Report which the mass media have ignored arrestingly shows that 62 individuals 388 in 2010 now own more wealth than 50% of the worlds population. More shockingly, it reports from its uncontested public sources that this share of wealth by half of the worlds people has collapsed by over 40% in just the last five years. Yet the big lies persist even here that the progress has been made in tackling world poverty and extreme poverty has been halved since 1990. Reversing Undeniable Fact as Ultimate Justification Unbelievably, the endlessly repeated assertion of the form that the poor are being lifted out of poverty in ever greater numbers continues on untouched despite the hard evidence that, in fact, the poorer half of humanity has lost almost half of their wealth in just the last five years. This big lie is significant in its implications. For not only is a pervasive claim about the success of globalization undeniably falsified while no-one notices it. Basic market theory and dogma collapses as a result. What is daily claimed as an infallible benefit of the global market is shown to be the opposite of reality. What does it mean for trickle-down theory when, in truth, the trickle down goes up in hundreds of billions of dollars to the rich from the already poor and destitute? What can we say now of the tirelessly proclaimed doctrine that the global market brings more wealth for all when, in fact, unimpeachable business evidence shows the opposite reality on the ground and across the world. For the poor have undeniably lost almost half their share of global wealth while the richest have multiplied theirs at the same time. The evidence proves, in short, that the main moral and economic claims justifying the global market are very big lies becoming bigger all the time. Worse than delusional, the lived reality of impoverishment of billions of people is reversed, the victims are continually proclaimed to be doing better under the system that increasingly deprives them of what little they have, and a trillion dollars worth of loss to the poorer half of humanity ends up in the pockets of the rich within only five years. While the ever bigger lies go on justifying the global system that eats the poor alive as poverty amelioration, ever more of the same policies of accumulation by dispossession justify still more stripping of the majority as more austerity, more welfare cuts, and more labor flexibility in a word, more starvation and depredation of peoples lives and life conditions as more freedom and prosperity for all. The Statistical Shell Game that Masks the Life-Devouring Reality As World Bank, IMF and like figures claim to show the uplifting of the poor out of poverty across the world, media of record like The Guardian and the New York Times report the claims with headlines to show all is well and getter for the poor and the majority as they are in fact grindingly reduced in their actual lives, work and life security. Thus the very big lies are instituted as given facts which economists and social scientists propagate without a blink. In fact, these alleged great gains for the poor out of poverty and absolute poverty alike are based on income gains of less than a cup of coffee a day, an observation that is so well blocked from view that readers may now be seeing it for the first time. Thus the hypnotic thrall of the big lies are sustained, while no other life support system is. I have had economists and interviewers of high note respond angrily when this delusion is pointed out, as if I was letting down the poor rather than exposing the big lies. In this way, we find that the masking falsehoods have gone so deep into expert and public assumption that the real-life world can no longer be engaged. These big lies then work in the background to the non-stop big lies that precede endless foreign conflicts and wars to defend the free world No-one appears to observe that the income gains lifting the poor out of poverty typically refer to emigrants from the countryside into polluted cities, insecure and dehumanized life conditions for those who formerly had at least a family dwelling, clean air and water and living horizons. In short, the standard $1.50 +/- measure of uplift out of poverty and extreme poverty is inhumanly absurd, but triumphally used as proof that the system is serving the least too. The Counter-Revolution against Social Evolution that Engineers Deepening Recession Throughout the unseen redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich (now buried in much talk of inequality), ever more market reforms are enforced as enhanced competition, liberalized de-regulation, reduced welfare costs and austerity programs to correct excesses. The excessive entitlements of the system are all projected on the victims so that the truly insane entitlements of the richest to multiply their fortunes with no committed life function, value or coordinate but still more money-demand for them is somehow not noticed. This is yet another level of normalized big lies forming the ruling thought system. In fact beneath the pervasive propaganda conditioning citizens to believe in the private money shell game devouring the world, the poorer half of humanity has been deprived of one trillion dollars of wealth while the 62 richest people have gained almost twice as much for themselves by the operations of this global disorder. Yet the Davos Report further emphasizes that still another US $760 billion goes annually to non-producing investors by immense transnational tax evasion with impunity across the world. Again the borderless money-capital freedom of globalization vastly enriches the richest, while simultaneously doubling down on deprivation of the poor as poverty reduction. Here the system is programmed in effect to strip the funding of all public sectors and institutions which have evolved to serve the common life interest. Public services and infrastructures too are perpetually driven towards bankruptcy not only by never-ending defunding, cutbacks, privatizations, and corporate lobby control of public policies and subsidies, but by ever-soaring public tax evasion near one trillion dollars annually about which governments and trade treaties have done nothing to correct yet. Thus governments which could invest in sustaining humanitys social and ecological life support systems from growing deterioration and collapse are now systematically bankrupted or debt enslaved along with most citizens. In consequence without governments knowing why, the world economy slips into ever deeper recession from the collapse of economic demand at the public and majority levels. Eating the World Alive as Global Competition The new law of human evolution is that are required to compete for more money and commodities for themselves as necessary to survive, with the borderless system de-regulated and structured to increasingly impoverish the great majority while multiplying the wealth of the rich. The facts are now long in. Corporate globalization is not only out of control. It is eating the world alive at all levels towards cumulative collapse of organic, social and ecological life organization. Global competition means, in fact, the majoritys life means and security keep falling as the environment is looted and polluted on ever larger scales of depredation. Yet only more growth of this system is imagined as a solution. The system is clinically insane While the common life-ground is blinkered out a-priori by the ruling value system, those deprived and left behind disappear into multi-level big lies proclaiming the opposite. This is why the facts are not reported. This is why claimed actions to stop the world bleeding blinker out the system disorder causing them. This is why even progressives assume economic falsehoods as if they were true. Like a cancer system at the macro level, this exponentially multiplying private money-sequence system has only one set-point to blindly grow itself while masking the life-devouring disorder as enhancing peoples well-being. John McMurtry is University Professor Emeritus at the University of Guelph and elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. His work has been translated from Latin America through Europe to Japan, and he is the author/editor of UNESCOs three-volume Philosophy and World Problems, as well as more recently, The Cancer Stage of Capitalism; From Crisis to Cure. Copyright Prof. John McMurtry, Global Research, 2016 Survival Day Australia's Dark Secrets and Dishonest Politics By John Pilger Australia is a version of apartheid South Africa? Ask a black South African who has looked behind the facades. On 26 January 2016, John Pilger spoke at a rally at Sydney Town Hall on the hidden meaning of 'Survival Day'. Why are we here? Why are we doing this every 26th January - year after year? Of course, we know why - Indigenous people are saying to Australia: 'Look, we are still here. We have survived the massacres and the cynicism. We have survived.' But is that enough, I wonder? Is survival without action ever enough? The sources of power in Australia - especially political and media power -- draw both comfort and delusion from the very idea of Survival Day. Yes, yes, they say, we understand. We have a place for you on the great Australian facade, next to Qantas and Anzac and Fair Go. Their delusion is that as long as Indigenous people have a token role in the theatre of Australia Day, then all is well. As long as there's a bit of dancing and a smoking ceremony down by the Harbour Bridge, then all is well. Societies like Australia - with dark secrets and dishonest politics - feed off image and tokenism. They admire their own image of gormless, unthinking patriotism, while secretly admiring their capacity to silence and divert dissent and to control and co-opt people and never to change. It's a clever system of divisiveness. How does it work? Take the idea of 'reconciliation'. It sounds good, but what does it mean? What is there to reconcile between oppression and suffering, poverty and privilege? Does it include 'justice'? Of course not. Reconciliation is to make the majority feel good with symbolic gestures and symbolic speeches. Nothing more. Is this acceptable to us, here today? Is this acceptable to those of us who know that Australia is a version of apartheid South Africa? Ask a black South African who has looked behind the facades. Is the idea of Survival Day enough for the young Indigenous men who die before they reach the age of 40? Is it enough for those who succumb to terrible sadness and violence in prison and police custody? Is it enough for a 22-year-old Indigenous woman from Western Australia - her name was Ms. Dhu - who died in custody and who was laughed at by police officers as she lay in her own vomit? Is it enough for the children who go deaf and blind from diseases of poverty? Is it enough for the hundreds of families who are raided in the early morning and their children stolen from them? The Australia Day banners out there in George Street, Sydney, tell us to: Chill. Enjoy. Reflect. I would add another banner, blood-red in colour, on which is printed the following: 'No country since apartheid South Africa has been more condemned by the UN for its racism than Australia.' It's time to tear down the facades. The image is a lie. No other settler nation has done so little to come to terms with its indigenous people. No other settler nation has done so little to discharge the colonial mentality that imprisons all of us in the past. What I find especially tragic is the unspoken fear instilled into the tiny Indigenous educated class. This fear says that that, unless they wave the flag, however defensively, they'll be dropped off the bus of white privilege. For until a moral and legal treaty is signed with the first nations of this country, there'll be only pockets of privilege, and no justice whatsoever. By treaty, I mean an historic series of laws that return to Indigenous people power over their own lives and communities, and a rightful share of the vast wealth of Australia... a treaty that carries the legal obligation of education and housing and health care. And this will happen only if every day is not just survival day, but a day of action. Direct action. The kind of direct action that horrifies the media that guards a system of divide and rule. Above all, you must not be afraid. Direct action is the only reason we have certain freedoms in Australia. Read the high court judgement of Lionel Murphy, the great reformer and jurist, who in 1982 said that Aboriginal people had every right to fight back. Murphy quoted Oscar Wilde that without what he called "agitation" - direct action - "there would be no advance towards civilisation." It's up to you how you take action. But you must do it. There is no alternative now. One thing is absolutely certain: no matter how many flags are waved today, until Indigenous Australia can take back its nationhood, the rest of us can never claim our own. Follow John Pilger on twitter @johnpilger In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Information ClearingHouse endorsed or sponsored by the originator.) Privacy Statement How Did The US Go From A War On Terror To A War Of Terror? Perhaps the notion of U.S. exceptionalism shouldnt be derided as a myth. Indeed, the U.S. is exceptional in the violence it perpetrates upon innocent people around the world. By Robert Fantina January 27, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Mint Press " - KITCHENER, Ontario (OPINION) On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech in which he discussed the violence he saw in the streets of the United States and the violence of the Vietnam War. He described meeting with desperate, rejected, and angry young men, encouraging them to seek non-violent change in their communities and the country at large. But they asked, and rightly so, What about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasnt using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. In his speech, Dr. King didnt use the words terror or terrorist. Although liberally present in nearly every speech made by any politician running for office today, these words were not part of the U.S. political vocabulary in 1967. And it would be another 34 years before the war on terror was declared. But if, as Dr. King said, the U.S. is the greatest purveyor of violence [read: terror] in the world, how could the U.S. declare a war against it? This question begs two additional ones: Is the U.S., in fact, the greatest purveyor of terror in the world? And, if so, what benefit does the U.S. derive from its war on terror? The beginnings of the war of terror A study of the violence and terror that the U.S. has caused in its 240 year history would take volumes. We will, therefore, confine our investigation to the current millennium. In December 2000, George W, Bush was appointed president by the U.S. Supreme Court after losing the popular vote to Vice President Al Gore. In September 2001, the U.S. was attacked with hijacked airplanes, and within weeks, Mr. Bush had coined the term war on terror, and the United States ongoing war of terror had a new target: terrorists. The U.S. determined that the masterminds of the Sept. 11 attacks were in Afghanistan, a nation that had been war-torn for a decade, first from the Soviet invasion and then the civil war that followed. The U.S. demanded that Afghanistan surrender Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the attack, who had been living in Afghanistan for several years. The Taliban, in control of that nation, agreed to try bin Laden in Afghanistans Supreme Court if the U.S. would provide evidence of his guilt. Rather than turning over any such evidence, Mr. Bush decided instead to invade just one month after the attacks had taken place. Since then, at least 92,000 people have been killed, including more than 26,000 civilians. Close to 100,000 people have been injured, and the Afghan Ministry of Public Health reported in 2009 that two-thirds of Afghans suffer from mental health problems. But it wasnt just Afghanistan that bore the anger of the U.S. following the 9/11 attacks. The U.S. then set its murderous sites on oil-rich Iraq. On Sept. 12, 2002, Mr. Bush addressed the United Nations. He dropped a bombshell that stirred the wounds in the American psyche still festering from the previous years attacks: Today, Iraq continues to withhold important information about its nuclear program weapons design, procurement logs, experiment data, an accounting of nuclear materials and documentation of foreign assistance. Iraq employs capable nuclear scientists and technicians. It retains physical infrastructure needed to build a nuclear weapon. Iraq responded by sending a letter to the U.N. Security Council, saying that it would accept the return of weapons inspectors without conditions. The Iraqi government said this decision was based on its desire to complete the implementation of the relevant Security Council resolutions and to remove doubts that Iraq still possesses weapons of mass destruction. The letter also called on members of the Security Council to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Iraq. From November 2002 to March 2003, U.N. weapons inspectors combed Iraq, looking for those illusive weapons of mass destruction. After 16 weeks, some evidence of undeclared activities was found, but the Security Council did not feel that military force was necessary. Regardless of the facts on the ground, the U.S. and British forces invaded in March 2003. By 2013, death toll estimates ranged from 242,000, including at least 151,786 civilians, to 500,000. Combining all the deaths from the U.S.-led war on terror in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, estimates range from 1.3 million to more than 2 million, and the carnage continues continues today, with the U.S. bombing Syria. While U.S. bombs dropping in Syria and, again, in Iraq, sometimes warrant a news story, much less is said about the United States utilization of drones to spread death and terror. In 2009, President Barack Obama authorized the first of his deadly drone strikes in Yemen. This strike killed 41 people, including 22 children. A 2014 report stated that the U.S. had targeted 41 suspected terrorists in Pakistan, and, in attempting to kill them, killed 1,147 civilians. In total, at least 5,000 people, including hundreds of civilians, have been killed by U.S. drone strikes. What other country on earth can match these horrific numbers? One country comes to mind, and although the number of deaths it has inflicted pales in comparison to that of the U.S., its horrific killing of men, women and children is all financed by the United States. Israel, which in 2015 received nearly $4 billion from the U.S. in aid, killed over 2,000 people in the summer of 2014, including over 500 children The worlds foremost purveyor of war, and the weapons needed to fight it There can be little doubt about the accuracy of Dr. Kings words as applied to the present day. But why, since the U.S. is the worlds greatest purveyor of violence and terror, has it launched a war on terror? When looking at reasons for any U.S. policy, one is advised to look first at the money trail. Last year, for example, three of the five top corporate donors to political action committees were military contractors, and members of the U.S. House and Senate are not known for biting the hands that so generously feed them. But the constant flow of campaign contributions is not the only reason for the ongoing war on terror. In December, Time magazine reported that U.S. weapons sales the previous year had increased by 10 percent to a staggering total of $36.2 billion, ensuring the United States continued place as the worlds top purveyor of weaponry. Russia was a distant second, with a mere $10.2 billion in global weapons sales. Let us summarize: The U.S. drops bombs around the world (right now, its focused on the Middle East) in order to destroy terrorists, some of whom it has created. Other countries assist this ignoble effort, and many of them purchase armaments from the U.S. in order to do so. The companies that manufacture these weapons lobby the U.S. government, by way of contributions to various PACs, to legislate in their favor. The governing officials of the U.S. invent new enemies (right now, its Islam) with which to frighten a gullible populace, allowing them to continue that most profitable of U.S. businesses, war. Meanwhile, we all watch and listen as spokespeople for the only nation ever to have used nuclear weapons decry the crimes of other nations. We hear them talk about the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, but note their silence about a nuclear-armed Israel. We watch incredulous as Mr. Obama sheds tears over children who are victims of gun violence in the U.S., while he remains silent about children who are victims of U.S. bombs and materiel around the world. American Jews and Israel: A Divorce In The Making? By Alan Hart January 27, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - In a very interesting piece on the news website Mondoweiss, Philip Weiss has speculated that the day is coming when American Jews will divorce Israel. If it really happens, the president of the day will be free to use the leverage America has to cause or try to cause Israel to end its defiance of international law and denial of justice for Palestinians. And if an American president gave that lead, European governments would follow him or her. According to Weiss an important sociological trend is underway. American Jews, even mainstream ones indoctrinated to love Israel, are breaking more and more publicly with the Jewish state. The Netanyahu government is proving to be embarrassing to American Jews; they do not want to be associated with right-wing apartheid policies The divorce that we have long predicted on this site is now on the horizon; and in years to come this separation will yield an even bigger reward: mainstream American Jews will declare themselves anti-Zionist. This crisis will not end until American Jews declare Zionism is racism. And one day they will. In support of his speculation Weiss quoted Gary Rosenblat. Hes a hard-core supporter of Israel and the editor and publisher of The Jewish Week. In an article for it, and as summed up by Weiss, he revealed that Jewish leaders are saying that its getting impossible to sell Israel to young Jews. American Jewish leaders confide that generating support for the Jewish state is becoming increasingly difficult these days even within the Jewish community, and especially among younger people. The hard fact is that Israels leadership is moving in a direction at odds with the next generation of Americans, including many Jews, who want to see greater efforts to resolve the Palestinian conflict and who put the onus for the impasse on Jerusalem. It is not only President Obama who feels that way Whether or not it is fair, the strong perception today is that the Israeli government is moving further right, and intransigent, at a time when the rest of the world is fed up with the Israel-Palestinian impasse. A related point made in Weisss article was that when the present generation of major Jewish funders passes, raising substantial dollars for Israel will be much harder. Weiss concluded with this prediction. This crisis will not end until American Jews declare Zionism is racism. And one day they will. Serious consideration of whether Weiss is guilty of wishful thinking and being naively optimistic or could be proved right by events to come requires the asking and answering of this question. Why, really, have the overwhelming majority of the Jews of the world, American Jews especially, supported Israel (the Zionist not Jewish state) right or wrong and/or remained silent even when they were deeply troubled by its policies and actions? Its worth recalling for starters that prior to the Nazi holocaust, and as I document in detail in my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, most Jews of the world did not support Zionism and many were opposed to it. Those who voiced their opposition believed the Zionist enterprise was morally wrong. They also believed it would lead to unending conflict. But most of all they feared that if Zionism was allowed by the major powers to have its way it would one day provoke anti-Semitism. Though it was Britain that gave Zionism a spurious degree of legitimacy with the Balfour Declaration in 1917, if there had been no Nazi holocaust it is most likely that there would have been no Israel because without Adolf Hitler as its best recruiting sergeant Zionism would probably have failed to command enough financial and political support to impose its will on the Palestinians. Also to be recalled is that from the creation of Israel mainly by Zionist terrorism and ethnic cleansing in 1948 until the Six Days War of 1967, most Jews of the world were not much interested in Israel. At an early point in its life Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion was very concerned that not enough Jews were coming in to start a new life there and give Israel the manpower needed for territorial expansion. One consequence of Ben-Gurions concern was that Mossad agents posed as Arab terrorists and bombed Jews out of Iraq and into Israel. It was the 1967 war that dramatically changed how most Jews of the world thought about Israel and that was because they believed without question the big, fat lie Zionism told in the countdown to the war. The lie was that the Arabs were intending to attack and that Israel was in real danger of being annihilated. The truth was that despite some stupid Arab rhetoric to the contrary, which played into Zionisms hands, the Arabs were not intending to attack. It was a war of Israeli aggression not self-defence. For those readers who still believe that Israels Jews were in danger of being driven into the sea I recommend Chapter 1 of Volume Three of my book which is titled America Takes Sides, War With Nasser Act II and the Creation of Greater Israel. In this chapter I quote a number of Israeli leaders who years after the events said on the record that they knew that the Arabs were not intending to start a war. Here are just five examples. In an interview with Le Monde on 28 February 1968, Yitzhak Rabin, who was chief of staff in the 1967 war, said: I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions which he sent into Sinai on 14 May would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it. On 14 April 1971, a report in the Israeli newspaper Al-Hamishmar contained the following statement by Mordecai Bentov, a member of Israels wartime national government: The entire story of the danger of extermination was invented in every detail and exaggerated a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territory. On 4 April 1972, General Bar-Lev, Rabins predecessor as chief of staff, was quoted in the Israeli newspaper Maariv as follows: We were not threatened with genocide on the eve of the Six Days War and we never thought of such a possibility. In the same newspaper on the same day, General Ezer Weizman, who was chief of operations during the Six Days War, was quoted as saying: There was never any danger of annihilation. This hypothesis has never been considered in any serious meeting. In an unguarded public moment in 1982, Prime Minister Menachem Begin said this: The Egyptian army concentrations did not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We decided to attack him. But the vast majority of the Jews of the world (probably 99 per cent of them) believed Zionisms pre-war propaganda. They were absolutely convinced that the Arabs were about to attack and that Israels existence was in real danger. In the absence of the truth, which was not on the mainstream medias agenda, they were brainwashed by Zionist propaganda. One result of Israels stunning military victory was that most Jews of the world were not only greatly relieved, they were proud like never before to be Jewish and campaigners for Israel. Some took Israels victory as indication of divine intervention, proof that the Jews were indeed the Chosen People and evidence that God would be with Israel whatever it did. And that was the beginning of the real love affair between most Jews everywhere and Israel. Now to my answer to the question of why, really, the overwhelming majority of the Jews of the world, American Jews especially, have supported Israel right or wrong and/or remained silent even when they were deeply troubled by its policies and actions. For starters, it has to be said that criticism of Israel can and does tear Jewish families apart. And that alone seems to be reason enough for some, or many, American and European Jews to remain silent. But theres much more to it. The root cause of American and European Jewish support for Israel right or wrong and/or silence on the matter of its defiance of international law and denial of justice for the Palestinians is the unspeakable fear that a second holocaust may at some point be inevitable. This fear is the product of persecution on and off down the centuries which climaxed with the Nazi holocaust and Zionisms propaganda to the effect that the world has always hated Jews and always will. Zionisms message to the Jews of the world is in effect, You will need Israel one day so dont question whatever it does to keep itself secure. It is therefore not surprising that very many Jews of the world believe that in the event of another great turning against them, Israel will be their refuge of last resort, so, they tell themselves, say nothing and do nothing that could assist Israels enemies and put this insurance policy at risk. Despite all of that I think its not impossible that Weiss could be right and that time and events will see American (and European) Jews breaking with Zionism and all its represents. But, in my view, it wont happen as a consequence of more and more Jews becoming embarrassed by Israels policies and actions. Embarrassment is not a strong enough motivation to cause the Jews of the world (American and European Jews especially) to do what they must if they are to best protect their own interests. What is it that they must do? Short answer: they must open their closed minds to the truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel. If they did they would discover that Israels existence has never, ever, been in danger from any combination of Arab military force and that it could have had peace with the Palestinians many years ago on terms which any rational government in Israel would have accepted with relief. In other words, exposure to the truth of history would prove to them that Zionisms version of it a version to which most Western politicians and the mainstream media are still attached is, generally speaking, a pack of propaganda lies. Perhaps even more to the point is that exposure to the complete truth of history would make American and European Jews of today aware of the warnings that were voiced by Jewish leaders who opposed Zionism before the Nazi holocaust. As I indicated above, their main fear was that if Zionism was allowed by the major powers to have its way it would one day provoke anti-Semitism. What it has been provoking for many years is a rising, global tide of anti-Israelism, but the danger for American and European Jews is that this could be transformed into anti-Semitism if American and European Jewish support for Israel right or wrong is interpreted as complicity (even if by default) in Zionisms crimes. The most explicit warning of this danger was delivered by Yehoshafat Harkabi, the longest serving director of Israeli military intelligence in his 1986 book, Israels Fateful Hour. In my book I quote him at length but here in one paragraph with my emphasis added is the essence of his warning. Israel is the criterion according to which all Jews will tend to be judged. Israel as a Jewish state is an example of the Jewish character, which finds free and concentrated expression within it. Anti-Semitism has deep and historical roots. Nevertheless, any flaw in Israeli conduct, which initially is cited as anti-Israelism, is likely to be transformed into empirical proof of the validity of anti-Semitism. It would be a tragic irony if the Jewish state, which was intended to solve the problem of anti-Semitism, was to become a factor in the rise of anti-Semitism. Israelis must be aware that the price of their misconduct is paid not only by them but also Jews throughout the world. If Harkabi was alive today (he died in 1994), and given that Israel is not going to change course and that its brutal oppression of the Palestinians will only get worse and worse, I think he might agree with me that unless the Jews of the world divorce themselves from Zionism, anti-Israelism will be transformed into anti-Semitism at some point in the future. Its that vision of the future that ought to motivate American, European and other Jews of the world to come to grips with the truth of history and the conclusion it invites that Zionism is their real enemy. The problem for some and perhaps many American, European and other Jews of the world is that divorcing Zionism would mean that they were saying, in effect, that they no longer had need for the insurance policy of Israel as a refuge of last resort. And that would raise a perfectly valid question. How can they be certain they will be safe and secure in their American, European and other homelands if they do abandon the Zionism? My answer (as in my book) is this. After the Nazi holocaust, and because of it, the giant of anti-Semitism would have gone back to sleep, remained asleep and, in all probability, would have died in its sleep If Zionism had not been allowed by the major powers, first Britain and then America, to have its way, as Balfour put it, right or wrong. In that light I say there is every reason to believe that the Jews of the Western world will remain safe and secure if they demonstrate by divorcing Zionism they are not complicit, even by default, in its crimes. Alan Hart, Middle East specialist who has worked as a foreign correspondent for Britains Independent Television News (ITN) and the BBCs Panorama programme. His Latest book, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, is a three-volume epic in its American edition. He blogs at www.alanhart.net and tweets at www.twitter.com/alanauthor. See also - Israel feels the heat of U.S., EU and U.N. criticism : The United States, European Union and the United Nations have issued unusually stern criticism of Israel, provoking a sharp response from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and raising Palestinians' hopes of steps against their neighbor. The Poisoning of Flint Was Not an Accident - It Was a Crime By William Rivers Pitt January 27, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Truth Out " - What does lead do to the human body? Infants and small children can suffer brain and nervous system damage, weakened immune systems and general physical collapse that can lead to death. Pregnant women have a higher risk of stillbirth or miscarriage. A raft of studies has pretty much concluded that lead can cause cancer. It causes cardiovascular diseases and kidney damage which, like cancer, can also kill. The people of Flint, Michigan, are now subject to all of these impacts and more, due to the lead in their water. The people of Flint and other surrounding towns have been drinking, cooking with and bathing in lead-poisoned water for two years. More than 8,000 children have been exposed along with tens of thousands of other people. This was not an accident. This was a crime committed against a predominantly Black, predominately poor population that Michigan's Republican Gov. Rick Snyder couldn't give less of a damn about. The story in short: In order to "save money," Governor Snyder's hand-picked emergency manager (read: hatchetman) decided to change Flint's water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River. That "save money" claim, however, has been brought into serious question by reports that Flint would have actually saved money if they stayed on the Huron line. There have been allegations that Governor Snyder made the switch in order to undermine the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department so he could ultimately privatize it. Others suggest his motivation was founded in a desire to open up new areas for fracking. The governor has made no comment on these allegations. One thing seems clear: This decision appears to have little to do with "saving money." If you tried to jump into the Flint River, you'd bounce off the surface. General Motors used the river as its personal dumping ground for decades; it is highly polluted, and more importantly is highly acidic. When Flint River water began flowing through Michigan's ancient water supply system, it stripped the lead right off the pipes and delivered it to thousands of homes. To be more precise: In the spring of 2015, city officials tested water in the home of LeeAnne Walters, a stay-at-home mother of four and a Navy wife. They got a reading of 397 ppb, an alarmingly high number. But it was even worse than that. Virginia Tech's team went to Walters' house to verify those numbers later in the year. They were concerned that the city tested water in a way that was almost guaranteed to minimize lead readings: They flushed the water for several minutes before taking a sample, which often washes away a percentage of lead contaminants. They also made residents collect water at a very low flow rate, which they knew also tended to be associated with lower readings. The highest reading registered at 13,000 ppb. Five parts per billion of lead are a concern. 5,000 parts per billion is considered "toxic waste." From April 2014 until October 2015 (and later, and still) the people of Flint were drinking water with up to 13,000 parts per billion of lead in it. Governor Snyder finally got around to declaring a state of emergency just the other day. Tamara Rubin - filmmaker, executive director of Lead Safe America and the mother of lead-poisoned children - told Truthout: "The biggest problem with this state of emergency is that the people of Flint are getting biased, incomplete and incorrect information at every turn - information influenced by either politics or financial interests or both. No one is providing them with current, scientifically accurate and complete information about their children's future - and how in so many cases, their lives will have now been profoundly changed forever." Two years ago, the people of Flint turned on their faucets and a brown horror came flowing out. Many people complained to the state's government but were roundly ignored and dismissed. Meanwhile, lead, along with a gruesome rainbow of other contaminants, poured into people's houses day after day, and Snyder's crew ignored the whole thing. It went on for a long string of months before anyone decided to do anything about it, and the problem remains ongoing. Here's the kicker: Flint residents are still getting billed for water the Virginia Tech study described as toxic waste. Some are getting dunning letters for refusing to pay for water that could kill them or their children. In France long ago, it was "Let them eat cake." Today, in Flint, it's "Let them drink bottled water" ... except a whole lot of people in Flint can't afford bottled water, and they sure as hell can't bathe in it. The story of Flint is the story of the United States, and it isn't pretty. Flint once boasted 80,000 General Motors employees, but thanks to outsourcing now only has a tenth of that. Unemployment is rampant. The river is disgusting after years of industrial pollution. Our national indifference toward our crumbling, sometimes century-old infrastructure left those pipes in the ground to deliver that lead to children thanks to the austerity policies of a right-wing governor and his national party. Hovering over it all are the matters of race and poverty. This debacle began two years ago and should have been immediately addressed, but it wasn't, because the people affected have no voice in Gov. Rick Snyder's government. "Everybody knows," wrote Flint native Michael Moore, "that this would not have happened in predominantly white Michigan cities like West Bloomfield, or Grosse Pointe, or Ann Arbor. Everybody knows that if there had been two years of taxpayer complaints, and then a year of warnings from scientists and doctors, this would have been fixed in those towns." Moore described what is happening in Flint as a "racial crime," and he's exactly right. The story of Flint is the story of the United States, of outsourcing, privatizing, rampant pollution, a stark lack of corporate accountability, poverty, joblessness, collapsing infrastructure, right-wing austerity politics and above all a crushing and pervasive racism that is literally and figuratively poisoning children. "You can't talk of the dangers of snake poisoning," said former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, "and not mention snakes." These snakes poison with lead. The truth of what has happened and continues to happen to the town of Flint, Michigan, is a national disgrace, and the people enduring it will have to live with the consequences for the term of their lives. 2016 Truthout Bush/Blair legacy continues Rescuers Unable to Help 31 Refugees Who Drowned Due to Laws Preventing People Smuggling Lifesavers were in international waters while the sinking boat was stranded on the Turkish side of the sea By John Hall January 27, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " The Independent " - At least 31 refugees drowned in the Aegean Sea after rescue workers stationed nearby were initially left unable to assist them until the boat had left Turkish waters. Australian national Simon Lewis says he and a team of rescue workers were sailing in international waters near the Greek island of Lesbos when they heard reports of a refugee boat nearby. Because the boat was still in Turkish waters at the time, Mr Lewis crew were not dispatched to the scene and were therefore not in a position to help when the vessel subsequently started to sink, leaving 31 people dead. Had the vessel made it into international waters before sinking then rescue workers could have approached them and helped. Volunteer observes silence as baby girl washes up on beach That's the nature of lifesaving, we put ourselves in that situation to help prevent people from drowning and yet because it's across the way in international water you're restricted and can't actually do anything about it, Mr Lewis told Australias ABC News. Maritime law states that refugees must cross borders under their own steam and that anybody assisting them in doing so by piloting or towing vessels could be charged with people smuggling. Due to these rules, rescue workers usually assess refugee boats from a distance while waiting for them to cross maritime borders unaided. Should the initial assessment reveal that the boat is taking on water or presenting a threat to the refugees lives, then lifesavers would not delay intervention. Mr Lewis described reports in Australia that his team had simply stood by and watched as refugees a boatload died in front of them as having been hyped up. Mr Lewis revealed that he had been inspired to help refugees after seeing harrowing photographs of Syrian toddler Alan al-Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach last year Speaking to The Independent, he said: We didnt actually have 31 people drown right in front of usTheir boat was either going to come towards us or come towards [the Greek island village] Skala. The [people smuggling] rules may still apply but what lifesaver would not [intervene]?, he added. Mr Lewis also spoke of a separate incident in which he thought a desperate refugee mother was considering throwing her baby into the sea in the hope rescuers would have no choice but to dive in and save its life. This was an inflatable boat crammed with people and we were kind of near the boat as we intercepted it. The mother turned and went to pass us her child and we were like oh f*** - because we knew what she was doing. So we pulled away and she was just like why dont you want my child? the look on her face; she stared me in the eye like wed just broken her heart, he added. We realised exactly what she was about to do so we just pulled away. We had to make that snap call knowing that she was about to drop the kid in the ocean and push it towards us, Mr Lewis said. Had the mother dropped the child into the sea, the risk to the child and any rescue worker who went in after it would have been immense. Thankfully the sinking vessel was subsequently escorted to shore by Mr Lewis team with no loss of life. Mr Lewis, who went to Greece as part of a joint venture between the Greek Lifeguards and the International Surf Lifesaving Association, said his team were able to save the lives of 517 people in just 10 days. He estimates 2,000 refugees passed through the waters in that time. He also revealed that he had been inspired to help refugees after seeing harrowing photographs of Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach last year. I didnt go there for any political reason, he said. I didnt go there for anything other than Im a life guard and I saw the image of the infant that drowned and I realised that Ive got this unique set of work skills, so I asked myself why am I not going to this crisis?. I couldnt answer that question but in a way I just felt I had no excuse. So I just went yep, Im going Im going to go there and Im going to try and help, so I just volunteered. Upon returning to Australia, Mr Lewis ran a crowd-funding campaign which raised A$22,000 to pay for a rescue jet ski which Greek lifeguards will use to help them reach stricken refugees more speedily. Seeking Bibi's Favor - It's A Waste of Time... By Philip Giraldi January 27, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Unz Review " - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu certainly knows how to return a favor. To express his gratitude for the United States having engaged in laborious 17 month multilateral negotiations that succeeded in eliminating Irans ability to construct a nuclear weapon, Netanyahu is now demanding more money from Washington because the agreement has, in his esteemed opinion, made Israel more vulnerable. As Israel is already the largest recipient of United States military assistance at $3.1 billion a year the jump to $5 billion might seem relatively inconsequential, but for Netanyahu it will mean that 25% of his entire defense budget will now come from the United States, enabling Israel to free up funds to provide free university education and medical treatment for its citizens, something that the American taxpayers who come up with the money do not enjoy. And our government has repeatedly expressed its disapproval of the Israeli settlements for the building of which there is no shortage of funds in the Israeli budget, some of which surely comes from us. We are helping them to do what we ask them not to do. Insanity? And it seems that beyond that there is no limit to Israels own particular form of expressing thank you America. Even as Israel prepares to accept the additional money it seems disinclined to restrain either its actions or its rhetoric towards anyone who questions its behavior, including the President of the United States. One would think the prospect of receiving an extra $20 billion dollars would produce at least a little moderation but the Israeli government appears to be intent on sending a message to the Barack Obama White House telling the world who is really in charge. Last Tuesday, with Netanyahu off attending a meeting of global movers and shakers in Davos Switzerland, the Israeli government announced that it would be seizing from Arab owners 380 acres of arable land near Jericho in the Jordan River valley. The land has been up until now considered an Israeli Army security zone so even though it was Palestinian property the owners were not allowed to use it. Settlers are reportedly already encroaching on the land and it will no doubt soon transition into a new settlement bloc with the blessing of the military and government. Israel has also announced the destruction of West Bank buildings used by Bedouin tribesmen that were financed by the European Union (E.U.), presumably so it can declare the land vacant, permitting its annexation to construct permanent homes for Israeli Jews. The seizure and demolitions produced predictable protests from the Europeans, the Arab League, the Palestinians themselves and also from Washington. But as in the case of the all too fungible money flowing incessantly from Washington, Israels having already stolen tens of thousands of acres of Arab land on the West Bank while planting something like 600,000 illegal settlers, many in heavily guarded compounds, a few hundred more acres matters little. But that would be to ignore the essentially political reality that the Netanyahu government always responds to critics by taking the offensive, in this case carrying out actions that are gross violations of international law a few days before a U.S. delegation is due to arrive in Tel Aviv to discuss Israels new aid package. It demonstrates Israels contempt for the interests and sensitivities of the United States. Indeed, Netanyahu does not behave as he does because he is compelled to do so or has some good reason for responding to critics disparagingly. He does so because standing up to the world community enhances his political stature among his extreme right wing supporters in Israel, who rejoice in telling critics that they do not care one bit about the increasing international sentiment condemning their behavior. And Netanyahu knows he can in reality behave with impunity because he de facto owns the U.S. Congress and the mainstream media and has said as much, noting that for him I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They wont get in the way. Several recent incidents demonstrate the Netanyahu disdain for the opinion of the United States as well of the rest of the world. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro was on the receiving end of Bibis wrath when he commented that continued settlement growth raises honest questions about Israels long term intentions, adding that the Israeli authorities do not investigate attacks on Palestinians vigorously, that there was increasing vigilantism by settlers, and that there are two standards to the rule of law one for Israelis and another for Palestinians. Shapiro was referring to civil law prevailing in Israel while the army operates on the West Bank under martial law, which has far fewer protections for the accused and where shoot to kill policies against Arab demonstrators have become common. The criticism, as mild as it was, drew an angry response from Netanyahu, who called statement unacceptable and untrue. A political ally of Netanyahu called the American Ambassador a little Jewboy. Israel, which fancies itself a democracy, does indeed have different standards of justice. As part of a new program of action against terrorists, Israel last week began arrests of anyone who posts content on Facebook that the government considers to be anti-Israeli. As it is not necessary to actually do anything to fall afoul of the new regulations, the offense is in the nature of a thought crime. Inevitably, Arabs have been arrested but no Jews. It is also interesting to consider whether Israel believes its extraterritoriality on what it considers terrorism to extend to Americans and Europeans who criticize Israeli actions. Many of those who are reading these words might well find themselves arrested if they should ever have to enter Israel for any reason. Israel and its friends have also responded sharply to a European Union demand first put in place last November that products derived from the Israeli settlements be labeled as such, enabling consumers to avoid them if they choose to do so. Last week, the E.U. also indicated that any business or government to government dealings with Israel must not involve the settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Israels point of view is that the West Bank settlements are de facto part of Israel. The Swedish foreign minister Margot Wallstrom has also been subjected to Israels wrath after she suggested that it might be worthwhile to investigate whether Israeli police and military have been executing Palestinian prisoners extra-judicially. More than 141 Palestinians have died in the recent unrest versus 24 Israelis. There have been numerous reports that some of the Arab victims have been shot and killed after they were either incapacitated or arrested while a leading Rabbi has called for all Palestinians to be executed. The Netanyahu government has attacked Wallstrom, stating that her comments were a mix of blindness and political stupidity. She has been officially banned from travel to Israel. Israels pit bulls in the think tanks and media have inevitably joined in the discussion. Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post explains Why its correct to label the Obama administration anti-Israel, citing, among others, the deranged Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute, who describes identifying settlement produced goods as blatant anti-Semitism coupled with a warning that that it should be clear to Jews everywhere that the 1930s are returning. Rubin also cites the ever reliable Elliott Abrams, who sees a broad movement to discredit Israel, commenting that the U.S. failure to condemn the E.U. action means that Obama is joining the jackals. Rubin and her friends seek to twist the argument by maintaining that other areas in dispute do not have their products labeled, but they ignore the fact that there is no other situation anywhere in the world quite like Israels continued military occupation coupled with the introduction of settlers, destruction of the local economy and exploitation of aquifers and other natural resources. And the West Bank is hardly disputed, except by the Israel first last and always crowd. It is clearly Palestinian land. Giving Israel more money will not make Netanyahu behave but there is no possibility that the largesse will somehow be terminated because Americas timorous leadership is afraid to confront the obvious. The whole world understands that Israel is the ultimate rogue nation, propped up by the only remaining superpower, which appears to be a helpless giant whenever it is confronted by the Israeli Prime Ministers demands. Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard has recently suggested that the most influential papers within the U.S. mainstream media might want to consider featuring on their opinion pages more foreign power realists and a lot fewer neocons, in part because the former have been consistently right while the latter have nearly always been wrong. How true. It would be a breath of fresh air to open a newspaper and not be confronted by Elliott Abrams, Jennifer Rubin, Robert Kaplan, Charles Krauthammer and the Kagans spewing their nonsense about the Middle East. A fashion designer, Funmi (pseudonym), has been abducted and gang-raped by seven men on Powerline Road, Oko Oba, in the Agege area of Lagos State. PUNCH Metro learnt that the Elere Police Division, where the rape was reported, had arrested a 32-year-old man, Abiodun Ariyo, as one of the suspects. Ariyo, who is a cobbler and reportedly made advances to Funmi in the past which she refused, allegedly led six of his friends to abduct and gang-rape the 20-year-old lady. Our correspondent learnt that on Sunday at about 9pm, Funmi was returning home from her shop when she was said to have been waylaid by Ariyo on Powerline Road. The suspect, who reportedly came with six men, allegedly dragged the lady to a place where she was gang-raped. Our correspondent gathered that Funmi was thereafter taken away to a yet-to-be-identified building where she was kept till the evening of Monday. The victims family members were said to have looked everywhere for the lady without success, after which they reported at the police station. PUNCH Metro learnt that the gang later sneaked into the area at about 11pm on Monday and dropped off Funmi on her street. The lady was said to have become unconscious, as she could not talk for about a day. Speaking with PUNCH Metro, Funmis elder brother, Olasunkanmi, said the family was distraught while trying to find out the whereabouts of the victim. He said, Abbey (Ariyo) had earlier disturbed my sister, but she was not interested. Later, he bought her a phone which she collected. When we learnt about it, we told her to return it as Abbey was not a responsible man. She went to return the phone to Abbey on Saturday. On Sunday, she was returning home around 9pm from her shop when Abbey led some guys To Molest her. They took her to a place where they slept with her. We searched for her all through Sunday till Monday. I went to her shop, but her friends said they did not see her. Around 11pm on Monday, she staggered back home. We asked her what happened, but she could not say anything. It was on the second day, Tuesday, that she told us that it was Abbey and his friends that gang-raped her. She could not recall other faces well, but she recognised Abbey. However, the police have yet to arrest the other suspects. A social worker, identified only as Ike, who took Funmi for medical examination, said the result was being awaited to know if the victim had any complication. She said, The lady could identify only one person who has now been arrested. The suspect and his parents live in the same house. The man is still denying the incident. She has been taken for a medical test and we are awaiting the result. PUNCH Metro learnt that the matter had been brought to the attention of the Lagos State Domestic and Social Violence Response Team. The teams Coordinator, Lola Vivour-Adeniyi, said the Department of Public Prosecutions had prepared a letter to request the duplicate case file once the matter was charged to court. She said, When the victim was brought to our attention, we engaged the Divisional Police Officer and the police ensured the arrest of one of the key suspects. This is a drug-addicted rape, so the lady could barely recognise the faces. She narrated to us that when she saw Abbey, they were talking about his phone. She suddenly saw different men behind him, and one of them used a handkerchief to cover her nose. That was the last thing she knew. We are waiting for the result of the medical tests. So, once the matter is charged to court, we have stood by with the DPP to request the duplicate case file for advice. The Police Public Relations Officer, SP Dolapo Badmos, had yet to get back to our correspondent on the incident. Source: Punch At least 160 young Iranians are currently awaiting execution and 73 others have been put to death between 2005 and 2015, a chilling new report from Amnesty International says. As the worlds leading executioner of offenders under 18 and one of the worlds largest users of the death penalty overall, Iran had nearly 700 people executed in the first half of 2015 alone. The situation overall is shocking and distressing, Raha Bahreini, the reports lead researcher, told The WorldPost. It is absolutely shocking that the majority of countries in the world have rejected the death penalty, but Iran continues to sentence girls as young as 9 and boys as young as 15 to death. Among the 73 executed youth was Makwan Moloudzadeh, who was sentenced to death as a 13-year-old and executed eight years later, in 2007. Moloudzadeh was accused of having forced male-male anal penetration with another boy, but withdrew his pre-trial confession in court, saying he had been coerced and tortured into confessing. Two boys who had also accused Moloudzadeh of raping them retracted their accusations, saying they had lied or had been forced to lodge complaints by the police. Iran also hanged Janat Mir, an Afghan boy believed to be 14 or 15 at the time of his execution, in 2014. Mir was executed following an arrest for drug offenses after his friends house, where he was living, was raided. The boy was reportedly denied access to a lawyer and consular services, according to Amnesty. Huffington Post. President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, paid hommage to the Kenyan soldiers serving in the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), who were killed in El Adde during an attack, at a memorial mass at the Moi Barracks in Eldoret before proceeding to Nairobi for bilateral talks on Thursday with Kenyan Government officials led by President Kenyatta. Buhari also briefly visited the United Nations Nairobi offices and was conducted around the United Nations (UN) Complex by the UN Director General Sahle-Work Zewde and the UN Habitat Executive Director Joan Clos. The President inspected a UN Guard of Honour and was introduced to senior UN Officials before planting a tree to commemorate his visit. He also toured the UN Green Building which Headquarters both UNEP/UN Habitat. President Buhari also addressed a cross-section of UN staff. At the end of his visit to Kenya on Friday, President Buhari would travel to Addis Ababa for the 26th Summit of African Union Heads of State and Government. He is expected to participate in a meeting of the African Unions Peace and Security Council before returning to Abuja on Sunday. A Chicago man who had an unfortunate encounter with a nail gun on his second day of carpentry shared X-ray images showing how the two nails just missed his bones. The man, posting on Imgur as ILLMATIC1994, shared photos of the two nails embedded in his knee as well as X-ray images showing how the nails narrowly missed striking his bones. Condos we were framing near Wrigley Park in Chicago. I was all the way up top sheeting the roof when I had to step over the gap left between two units for a fire wall. [Accidentally] stepped on the gas hose connected to the gun, gun jerked forward, met perfect with my knee, [thats] all she wrote, wrote the man, who gave his first name as Jesse. The man said adrenaline initially prevented him from feeling any pain from the embedded nails, so a cherry picker brought him down to the ground and a coworker drove him to Swedish Covenant Hospital. Doc tried to numb the area and yank them bad boys out. Nails.did.not.budge. after lifting my entire leg off the bed numerous times, he realized that due to the outward facing prongs I would need surgery, he wrote. Jesse said he underwent surgery 11 hours later and the nails were removed. Doctors said he very narrowly missed puncturing his femoral artery, which could have been a life-threatening injury. I had 6 doctors come into my room to tell me how lucky I was. All the years spent at a hospital in the lovely Chicago area and they had never seen such superb aim, the man wrote. Jesse said the accident happened on his second day as a carpenters apprentice, which also turned out to be his last day. He said he has since moved to a different job behind a desk. UPI. The former governor of Sokoto State, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa, who is one of the Nigerians standing trial in court for alleged misappropriation of public funds has aired his thoughts on corruption and the war against it which has landed him in the trouble he currently is in. Bafarawa who was recently detained for 21 days and later charged to court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) left many Nigerian surprised when he espoused President Buharis anti-corruption war. At this instance, INFORMATION NIGERIA brings you what Bafarawa had to say about corruption He said corruption has become a general thing and that 90 per cent of Nigerians are corrupt, starting from the grassroot. The electorate are corrupt; the politicians are either corrupt or forced to be corrupt because when they get to the office they are elected for, their first concern is how to pay the money back. Whether he borrowed from the bank or his godfather will sponsor him is immaterial. He said it was common for a man who had nothing before he became governor, to leave office having properties in every city and the society would not probe to find how he got the money to own the buildings he got while in office. He said if corruption is ignored, it is going to swallow the country, therefore everyone must support Buhari in this fight, as he (Buhari) isnt fighting but warring against corruption. For this administration to survive the fight against corruption, he said it is just not about using EFCC or ICPC but that government should open an office for public awareness against corruption. According to him, before arresting people or taking any prosecutorial steps, we better start with how to prevent corruption instead of curing the ailment. Do you agree with him??? Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State on Wednesday justified his decision to stop the salaries of a sizeable number of the states workforce, saying though the decision may be unpopular, it was in the best interest of the state. The governor had in a statement on January 17, announced the stoppage of salaries to workers in 19 parastatals, agencies and departments in the state with effect from January 4, a directive the affected workers ignored as they resumed for official duties. Okorocha, who just returned from an overseas trip, noted that the amount paid by the state as salary every month is far in excess of what accrues to the state from the Federation Account. According to him, Imo collects the smallest Federal Allocation among the states in the Southeast but has the highest salary structure, adding that, in December Imo get N1.9 billion and our monthly wage bill was N4.2 billion and we cannot continue to operate with this deficit. Our five oils wells are shutdown, I have been managing this situation for long time because I dont want outsiders to know our true financial position. The decision we took to suspend indolent and lazy workers is in the best interest of the state. He further warned that no worker will frustrate the state government anymore, stressing that, this bogus salary scale was smuggled in by the civil servants shortly before I took over. If salary payment is for compensation then we should share the Allocation among all Imo people monthly. We cannot continue to source for N3 billion monthly to pay salaries every month. The only saving grace is the Local Government Allocation. Meanwhile, Governor Okorocha assured that his administration will complete the abandoned Oak Refinery started by his predecessor, Chief Ikedi Ohakim as part of the industrial drive of the state government. Giving assurance during an interactive session with journalists at the Government House, Okorocha said he had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Chinese experts concerning the construction of the Refinery, as a continuation of his discussions with the Federal Government on the need to build a refinery in the state. The Minister for Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, has identified major factors preventing Nigerians from enjoying uninterrupted and regular power supply, including vandalisation of power supply equipment, creating stumbling blocks in the way of power lines, blowing up of gas pipelines and litigations in courts over power projects are some issues the Minister listed. Mr Fashola made the observation after inspecting the distribution sub power station in Pankshin, Plateau State, where equipment at the substation have been vandalised by hoodlums. The Minister, who had earlier been conducted round the ongoing construction of an overhead bridge along Yakubu Gowon Way before proceeding to the sub-power distribution station where the act of vandalism has slowed down the pace of work and thus affected distribution of power, appealed to Nigerians to guard power installations in order to have regular and adequate power supply. Fashola also warned Nigerians to desist from wasting the available energy, especially during the day. The Action Group of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State has condemned Tuesdays visit of Governor Ayodele Fayose to Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State. In a statement yesterday in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital by its spokesman, Segun Dipe, the APC-AG described the visit as a macabre dance, which Fayose should be allowed to dance alone and not involve other APC governors. It said: Fayose must be avoided by every normal person. We see the visit as a highly dishonourable one, in view of the several spats he had made against APC and President Muhammadu Buhari. The group further expressed doubts about Fayoses honesty to fight for the unity of the Yoruba, adding that his actions could not have been credible. APC-AG said: We are not convinced that Fayose meant well with his visit to Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, who is a thoroughbred progressive and a Yoruba leader of worth. What relationship has darkness with light? The group noted that Fayoses trip to Aregbesola within a short notice and with such a retinue of followers a few days after he allegedly insulted President Buhari on air, was questionable and condemnable. It said: He claimed it was in the spirit of Yoruba unity. What unity can someone in disunity with himself preach? What Yoruba virtue does he exemplify? Fayose symbolises evil. He symbolises all the ugliness that we are fighting to change in our body politic. He is an embodiment of all that is indecent and his values are antithetical to all that our party and our President stand for. If the whole world must know, Fayose has set Ekiti State backwards several years and removed the values from us. He has affected the psyche of an average Ekiti man and woman. He is now a virus, which no reasonable person wants to come in contact with for fear of being infested. Even within his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), his name evokes disaster. APC-AG, therefore, advised Gov. Fayose to keep his antics within the PDP, adding: We dont want him to come and contaminate APC and all that we represent in Nigeria today. Fayose has a lot of baggage that no other party can accommodate now. We, therefore, advise all progressive governors to keep him at arms length and allow him to keep dancing his macabre alone. A bipartisan group of state lawmakers are aiming to reform a state law that they say hampers citizens due process rights when private property is connected to an alleged crime. The Senate is considering a bill that would reform the states asset forfeiture law, which currently allows law enforcement officers to seize property from citizens who are suspected of a crime, regardless of whether they are ever indicted or convicted. The Senate Committee on Labor and Government Reform heard public comment on the bill Tuesday. The bill would narrow the government's authority over private property it suspects was involved in a crime. It would require private property that has been seized to be turned over to its owner if there is no criminal conviction. Law enforcement officers could only retain property if the suspect is convicted, or if the suspect had knowledge of the crime related to the property. It also allows citizens to petition the court to have their property returned under certain circumstances. In addition, the legislation mandates that law enforcement agencies and the Department of Justice publish annual public reports on seizures and forfeitures. All proceeds from the sale of forfeited property would be directed to the state school fund. Democrats and Republicans are on this bill. We can all agree that government should not be taking peoples private property until theres been due process, said Sen. Robert Wirch, D-Kenosha. Current law allows law enforcement officers to sell any property that has been forfeited and share the proceeds with other local law enforcement agencies or use it for its own budget. The proposal has garnered support from some unlikely political allies. The Wisconsin American Civil Liberties Union and the Wisconsin GrandSons of Liberty, a small-government advocacy group that promotes an originalist view of the Constitution, have partnered to support the bill. Both groups say current law infringes on personal property rights, disproportionately hurts minorities and the poor, and provides an incentive for law enforcement officers to unnecessarily keep private property to pad their agencys pockets. Its really something that is impacting and concerning people across the political spectrum, said Chris Ahmuty, executive director the Wisconsin ACLU. People are concerned about this because theyre concerned about property rights and due process rightsseveral constitutional amendments are implicated by this. Law enforcement groups say the proposal will strip them of necessary funding to fight the drug war and wipe out drug units in counties statewide. There is a huge fiscal impact to 18 drug units in the state of Wisconsin, said Eau Claire County Sheriff Ron Cramer, president of the Wisconsin Sheriffs & Deputy Sheriffs Association. Wisconsin citizens shouldnt have to pay taxes to fund investigations into drug dealers who are making profits, he said. Money from the sales of forfeited property is crucial to the budget of the West Central Drug Task Force, which covers six counties from the Mississippi River to the center of the state. The 13-agency group aimed at combating drug trafficking has $80,000 in forfeiture money in its current budget, Cramer said. Sen. Stephen Nass, R-Whitewater, sponsored the bill and said though he understands the need for law enforcement agencies to fill budget holes, he is concerned the current system creates perverse incentives without due process. My rights as a citizen are more important than money. They are, he said. So its a matter of working with the property thats seized to make sure that person gets their property back without a lot of hassle. The bill also has support in the Assembly, co-sponsored by Rep. Gary Tauchen, R-Bonduel, and Rep. David Craig, R-Big Bend, who spoke in favor of the bill at the hearing. Rep. Craig said the current system unfairly flips the burden of proof from the government to the individual to retrieve seized property. Far too often due process rights are ignored, he said. States nationwide have moved to make changes to their asset forfeiture laws. New Mexico was the first state to completely outlaw the practice last year. Lawmakers in other states including North Carolina, Montana, Michigan and Maryland have enacted or are considering reforms aimed at narrowing the governments authority to retain property. The Senate committee will vote on the legislation before it heads to the full Senate for consideration. In a chilling turn of events, some taxi drivers in Japan are claiming to have picked up ghost passengers in the aftermath of the tsunami that devastated the nation in March 2011. As many as seven of the 100 drivers interviewed by Yuka Kudo, a student of sociology at Tohoku, admitted to having encountered phantom fares. Kudo conducted the interviews as a part of her graduation thesis, traveling to the coastal town of Ishinomaki every week for a year to speak to taxi drivers waiting for fares. She asked over 100 drivers the same question: Did you have any unusual experiences after the disaster? Many of them ignored her, some even got angry, but seven drivers agreed to describe their strange encounters. One driver recounted a particularly unsettling story in the summer of 2011, a woman dressed in a coat climbed into his taxi near Ishinomaki station. She said, Please go to the Mianmihama Station. When he pointed out that there was nothing left standing in the district, she asked him in a shivering voice, Have I died? The driver immediately turned around, only to find the back seat empty. Another driver recalled how a young man who looked to be in his 20s got into his taxi. When the driver looked in the rear-view mirror for directions, the man kept pointing towards the front. The driver then asked for a destination, to which he replied, Hiyoriyama (mountain). When the taxi reached the area, the man had disappeared from the taxi. Its easy to dismiss these stories as hallucinations or imaginations, but the drivers logs are proof that they really might have occurred. When these ghosts got into their cabs, the drivers started the meter, which is recorded. So even though these passengers disappeared during the ride, they were still counted as clients. The drivers then had to pay their fares out of their own pockets. Some of the drivers even wrote down their experiences in their logs. OCentral. A vulture that flew across the border between Israel and Lebanon was captured on suspicion of being a spy. The vulture was attached with a tracking device from Tel Aviv University, raising the suspicions of residents of Lebanese town Bint Jbail who captured the bird. [Locals in Lebanon] caught the bird for sure, bird ecologist Ohad Hatzofe said according to CNN. They were holding the bird in their hands. Staff at Gamla Nature Reserve were able to track the vulture as it crossed the border but lost signal shortly after the bird entered Bint Jbeil. The bird had been allowed to fly freely in an attempt to increase the dwindling vulture population in Israel but residents in Lebanon sought to make certain there was no foul play considering the history between the two nations. It would not be the first time residents of south Lebanon have found birds that serve Israel for research purposes, Haaretz reported. After examining the bird to make sure it was not carrying listening or spy equipment it was returned to nature. Authorities in Israel have been unable to track the vulture since its capture despite the birds release. UPI. A 33-year-old man, Ekwere Alex was Wednesday arraigned at an Ogudu Magistrates Court, Lagos for allegedly assaulting his pregnant wife, Ekwere Esther. According to the prosecutor, Sgt. Ihiehie Lucky, the complainant, Esther, had lodged a complaint that her husband, an applicant, collects her salary every month end. The prosecutor alleged that the accused assaulted and battered his wife on January 14, because of her refusal to part with her December salary. He said that Esther, whose delivery date was near, was paid her December salary and preceded on her vacation. The accused chased her with her pregnancy around the house premises and beat her up. According to the complainant, her husband threatened to kill her if she dares come back to their house, the prosecutor noted, adding that the accused had refused to supply his wife with basic needs, knowing fully well that her health and that of the baby were at risk. The accused of No 5, Owodunni Street, Oworonshoki, is facing a four- count charge of assault, intimidation and failure to supply necessaries. Lucky said the offences contravened Sections 170, 171, 56 and 245 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011. The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the four-count charge. The Magistrate, Mrs O Sule Amzat granted the accused bail in the sum of N 50, 000 with two sureties who must be gainfully employed. Amzat then adjourned the case to February 22. Source: Daily Post The running mate to late Prince Abubakar Audu in the November 21, 2015 governorship election in Kogi State, James Abiodun Faleke, Wednesday expressed optimism that before the year 2016 runs out, he would reclaim his mandate through the courts, as the duly elected Governor of Kogi. Faleke was yesterday expectedly absent at the swearing-in of Yahaya Bello as governor of the state. Bello was chosen by the All Progressives Congress (APC) to replace the late Audu, whose death occurred before the conclusion of the election as its flag bearer in the supplementary polls, a move that was vehemently rejected by Faleke, who vowed not to be his deputy. Faleke, who is currently representing Ikeja Federal Constituency of Lagos State in the House of Representatives, further approached the election petition tribunal to challenge the declaration of Bello as winner of the Kogi polls on the ground that he ought to have been declared the governor-elect, following the demise of Audu. While the swearing-in ceremony was taking place yesterday in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, Faleke and the eldest son of the late APC flag bearer, Mohammed Audu, were at a stakeholders meeting reiterating their stand on the Audu/Faleke ticket in Abuja. Justifying his decision not to go to court to prevent the inauguration of Bello as governor of Kogi yesterday, the lawmaker said it was due to his strong belief that he [Bello] will be sent out soon. Today, our supporters might not feel free to walk in to the Lugard House but before the end of the Year, we will occupy the seat of power. I am saying all this because of my strong confidence in the Judiciary. Whatever am doing is on principle. Am doing all this because I believe we won the Nov. 21st election. I will not allow the mandate to die. This is not about tribal fight, I am not against the Ebira nation but the process that produced Bello as a supplementary governor. This tough road we are passing through is to set a standard for the upcoming generation. We must be able to stand for the truth at all time, Faleke said in a series of tweets on Wednesday. The Lagos State Police Command has arrested one Samuel Onochie, for sexually assaulting a pregnant woman in Jakande, in the Eti-Osa Local Government Area of the state. The woman who was said to be eight-months pregnant, was passing through the area at about 6am, when Onochie ambushed her, threw her on the floor and stripped her wrapper. The obviously sex starved man then dipped his finger into the womans private parts and was about to penetrate her when a man was drawn to the scene by the womans wailing. It is very disturbing that a man could commit such an act, especially with a pregnant woman. As if it was not enough, he did it in broad daylight. He has not been able to tell us why he committed the act, said a source. Samuel Onochie was brought before a Tinubu Magistrates Court on Wednesday on one count of sexual assault by a police prosecutor, Inspector Philip Osijale. The charge read, That you, Samuel Onochie, 34, on January 24, 2016, at about 6am, at Jakande, Lekki, in the Eti-Osa Local Government Area, within the Lagos Magisterial District, did sexually assault one Esther, by inserting your finger into her private parts, thereby committing an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 259 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, Nigeria, 2011. He pleaded not guilty to the charge and elected summary trial before the presiding magistrate, Mr. L.A. Owolabi who granted him bail in the sum of N100,000 with two sureties in like sum. One of the sureties must be related by blood to the defendant, adding that both sureties must have paid three years tax to the Lagos State Government. Mr. Owolabi ordered that the defendant should be remanded in prison pending the time he would perfect his bail conditions. Source: BreakingTimes A UPS package delivered to Herrick District Library contained a book that had been checked out of the library since 1967. The package also included a note that explained the sender was a student at Hope College at the time and was possibly researching World War II when they forgot to return the book. Somewhere along the way it got mixed up with my personal things and put into a trunk and shipped back to New York, the unidentified man wrote. I have moved the trunk many times but until recently never opened it. Upon doing so, I found your book. The man also included an undisclosed amount of money to make up for the overdue book fees he would have accumulated throughout the years. Please accept the book and my modest donation to cover what I am sure is a tremendous fine, he wrote. Herrick District Library director Diane Kookier declined to disclose the mans identity nor the amount of money he sent but expressed her gratitude for the gesture. It more than covered the cost of the book, she told Michigan Live. We enjoyed the trip down memory lane and realize that there are good, honest people who have inadvertently misplaced a book. UPI. The Minister of Science and Technology, Mr. Ogbonnaya Onu, yesterday, called on all state governments to establish science and technology ministry in their various states as Nigeria cannot diversify the economy without the application of science, technology and innovation. I call on every state in Nigeria to emulate Taraba by creating the ministry of science and technology because the only way out of the woods for the nation is the application of scientific research and innovation in harnessing the abundant natural resources that the country is endowed with, the Minister said, when the Taraba state Commissioner of Science and Technology, Mr. Alhassan Hamman paid him a courtesy visit in his office in Abuja. Recall that the federal government in 2012 reviewed the 1976 science policy holistically to cater for the diverse natural endowment of the country using its research institutes as driver of harnessing its rich mineral resources, he added. He explained that China and India moved out of their poverty levels to their current development level through the application of science, technology and innovation. He expressed regret that the country had for several years neglected the sector, hence its present economic and social challenges. Onu, therefore, promised that the ministry would collaborate with Taraba state and other states ministries of science and technology to create jobs, develop the economy and increase the countrys revenue. Speaking earlier, the Taraba state commissioner said he was in Abuja to tap from the experience of the minister and the ministry to advance the newly created science and technology ministry in his state. Punch A 27 -year-old lady has died of Lassa fever at the Ijede General Hospital in Lagos. Vanguard ABUJA PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, sent his first two executive bills to the Senate, seeking to prohibit money laundering and criminal activities in the country. The Sun EXECUTIVE Vice Chairman, of the Nigerian C o m m u n i c a t i o n s Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, has said that the Commission may consider MTN Nigeria plea to settle its dispute out of court. Guardian The Senate yesterday passed the 2016 Appropriation Bill for second reading after concluding debate on the general principles of the bill, which started Wednesday last week. Daily Trust Bello on excursion to Kogi government house PDP The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said the Kogi State governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello is on excursion to the states government house. National Mirror A witness brought by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to testify against former Governor of Imo State, Ikedi Ohakim yesterday told Justice Adeniyi Ademola that his life was in danger Leadership Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana yesterday said he is not perturbed by the attack on him by former finance minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala over his petition to the Special Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Nation Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has asked Senate President Abubakar Bukola Saraki and House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara to open the financial records of the National Assembly since 1999 for external bodies. Tribune With the issue of litigation surrounding the Rivers State governorship election laid to rest on Wednesday by the Supreme Court, Governor Nyesom Wike, has said his victory will lead to greater delivery of democracy dividends in the state. Immediately after Wednesdays judgment by the apex court, which validated his victory in the April 11, 2015 governorship election, Wike trekked on major streets of Port Harcourt, the state capital in a show of appreciation to the residents before returning to the Government House. During the trek, he was greeted by joyous people. Speaking to reporters, Gov. Wike said that his victory at the Supreme Court is for the rule of law and the people of Rivers state. He noted that the apex courts judgment was a victory for democracy and a confirmation that the will of God would always prevail over the machinations of men. The Rivers governor noted that the judgment that validated his election was a confirmation of the mandate freely given to him by the people. He, therefore, extended a hand of fellowship to the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers, Dr. Dakuku Adol Peterside, urging him to join hands with his administration to develop the state. Wike lauded the APC flag bearer for having faith in the judiciary, rather than resorting to violence. He also assured that Rivers people would continue to benefit from the pro-people projects and programmes of his administration. Governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2015 general elections in Rivers State, Dr. Dakuku Adol Peterside, has said he will creatively offer help to the administration of Governor Ezebunwo Nyesom Wike, through the provision of virile opposition. Peterside, made this known in a statement issued in Port Harcourt, the state capital on Thursday in reaction to yesterdays judgment by the Supreme Court, which validated the election of Wike as governor of Rivers State. He said, Consequently, we shall do our best to work for the peace and development of Rivers State and all who reside in it. We shall creatively offer our help to Governor Nyesom Wike. We will provide a virile opposition, serving as a mirror for the conscience of government, in the interest of Rivers people. When encouragement is needed towards a just and proper course of dealings, we will offer our commendation to the government. Conversely, we will constructively express objection to policies and actions we consider inimical to the overall interest of Rivers people. It is our hope that Governor Wike and his team will appreciate the suggestions and proposals that would be made in the interest of Rivers people. If we sometimes sound strident, he should pay heed to the message of passionate and zealous Rivers people rather than dismiss the messenger. Peterside, a former member of the House of Representatives, stated that there is the need not to allow the countrys electoral process to be subject to the decision of antidemocratic elements, especially those who he said deploy their personal armed groups to molest and kill voters. He said, Although we have accepted the Supreme Court verdict, it would be remiss of me not to point out that this is also an opportunity for our people to engage in deep introspection on the electoral process. Beyond party affiliation, must we continue to allow the electoral process to be subject to the whims and caprices of anti-democratic elements, especially those who deploy personal militia to molest and even kill voters. Those who hold the electoral umpire captive or compromised; and thus generally prevent electoral outcomes reflective of the will of the voters, as envisaged by law? It is understandable that an attitude of cynical expediency in some politicians may inevitably conclude that the end justifies the means. However, those who are governed by such a cynical mentality need to be reminded that a huge moral burden would perpetually sour such temporary victories. Like the myth of Sisyphus, it is surely a backward slide in our political evolution. Let us think deeply please. UW-Madison student demonstrators Friday released a list of demands aimed at making the University of Wisconsin System more inclusive, adding UW to a growing group of institutions across the country where black students have sought changes from administrators to improve their experiences on predominantly white campuses. The students are calling for mandatory racial awareness training for every member of the UW System, from students to Regents, and for increased funding for mental health services, among other changes. The list of five demands was distributed during a meeting of the UW System Board of Regents, where about 20 students sat silently in the front row of public seating holding signs protesting racism on campus. Some of the students later sought to interrupt the meeting by reading a statement as the Regents moved into closed session. UW System President Ray Cross and Regent President Regina Millner had agreed to meet with the demonstrators and hear their demands on Friday afternoon. But demonstrators later canceled after UW officials denied their request to record the conversation and allow the media to observe it. The students list of five demands is aimed at improving the racial climate at all UW System schools, said Kenneth Cole, who took part in the demonstration Friday and helped organize an earlier protest at UW-Madison. The simple fact is, what weve been doing hasnt been working, Cole said. It has to do with a lack of effort, the lack of funding, the lack of real gumption to get behind this movement from the University of Wisconsin. Its not something (the university) has made a top priority. The students are demanding: A statement from Cross and Millner acknowledging the failure of progress on diversity within the UW System. Mandatory comprehensive racial awareness and inclusion curriculum and trainings for all UW System students, faculty, staff, administrators and Regents. A task force to evaluate the experiences of students of color at UW institutions. A re-evaluation of an earlier diversity plan and, if necessary, a new 10-year plan to address diversity on campus. Increased funding for mental health professionals on campus, particularly those of color. Cole said students also plan to release a list of demands specifically for officials at UW-Madison, and are working with their peers at other UW institutions to develop demands for each of their campuses. Students at more than 70 colleges and universities across the country have written lists of demands for their administrators, many of which make similar calls for diversity curriculum or increased mental health services, according to an analysis of demands by The New York Times. Millner addressed the demonstrators near the end of Fridays meeting. We welcome your input and concerns, Millner said. All of us chancellors, faculty, staff and students seek to do a better job of serving all students. Nneka Akubeze, executive director of the United Council of UW Students, said the demonstrators asked to present their demands to the Board of Regents on Friday and to the boards Education Committee on Thursday but were turned down. Millner and Cross instead planned to hold a private conversation with protest leaders after the Regents meeting, a UW spokesman said. When the demonstrators asked to record the meeting and allow media to attend, however, the UW officials said no. The expectation going in was that it would be a private opportunity to talk, UW System spokesman Alex Hummel said. Protesters wanted journalists to attend the meeting to keep Cross and Millner accountable, Cole said, ensuring the officials couldnt make promises in private that they wouldnt keep. Rather than attend the meeting without media coverage or a record of the conversation, Cole said, the demonstrators called it off. Both Cole and Millner said they would be open to future meetings between protesters and UW officials. On this day in 2009, Mallam Ibrahim Gaidam was sworn in as Governor of Yobe State Ibrahim Geidam was elected Deputy Governor of Yobe State on the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) platform, and was sworn into office on May 29, 2007 and as fate would have it, Governor Mamman Bello, the Executive Governor at the time, died in Florida of a liver problem and his deputy (Gaidam) was eventually sworn in. Before he became Governor, Ibrahim Geidam worked in several government ministries in the old Borno State, later Yobe State. He was Assistant Director of Finance in the Directorate of Foods, Roads and Rural Infrastructure, acting Director of Finance and Supplies in the Yobe Information and Culture Ministry. Ibrahim Geidam, an accountant, left the civil service in 1995 when he was appointed the Commissioner for Youths and Sports, and then Commissioner of Commerce and Industries. He returned to the civil service and from 1997 to 2007, he was a Director in the State Finance Ministry and Permanent Secretary in various other ministries. Over the past year, machine learning has gone mainstream with a bang. The sudden arrival of machine learning isnt fueled by cheap cloud environments and ever more powerful GPU hardware alone. It is also due to an explosion of open source frameworks designed to abstract away the hardest parts of machine learning and make its techniques available to a broad class of developers. Here is a bakers dozen of machine learning frameworks, either freshly minted or newly revised within the past year. These tools caught our attention for their provenance, for bringing a novel simplicity to their problem domain, for addressing a specific challenge associated with machine learning, or for all of the above. [ See InfoWorlds review of the best frameworks for machine learning and deep learning: TensorFlow, Spark MLlib, Scikit-learn, Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit, and Caffe. | Get a digest of sthe days top tech stories in the InfoWorld Daily newsletter. ] Graphics processors power more than the likes of Call of Duty: Black Ops III; they also provide the number-crunching for modern machine learning systems. But GPUs are largely proprietary hardware devices, led in the market by Nvidia, which is notorious for its poor reputation as an open source player. Leave it to Nvidia's competitor AMD, long beleaguered by slumping sales and shrinking market share, to develop a plan with the partial goal of advancing the state of GPU-accelerated high-performance computing. [ See what hardware, software, development tools, and cloud services came out on top in the InfoWorld 2016 Technology of the Year Awards. | Cut to the key news in tech with the InfoWorld Daily newsletter, our summary of the top tech happenings. ] Thus, while AMD hopes to make GPU programming less of a black box with GPUOpen, the company is trying to rescue its own business as well. After all, AMD's reputation with open source users is also shaky, thanks to unfulfilled promises. Upon the project's official launch, Nicolas Thibieroz, senior manager of worldwide gaming engineering at AMD, described GPUOpen's three main goals: Allow developers to exert more control over the GPU; use open source software to drive the development process; and collaborate with the developer community via open source. Outwardly, it sounds like the usual goodwill gestures employed by proprietary companies trying to build bridges with modern, open source-driven development communities. But the technical side is intriguing. It builds on top of AMD's previously announced work on Heterogenous Computing, a common path to programming workloads for GPUs and CPUs alike. Many modern machine learning frameworks are designed to run on either kind of hardware, but they have to address CPUs and GPUs separately, with GPUs typically programmed with the Nvidia CUDA framework. AMD's plan is to allow GPU and CPU applications to be written using a single C11 or C++11/14 set of libraries using a specially designed compiler (the Heterogenous Compute Compiler, or HCC). The compiler and its supporting software would be open source, as would future projects in the same vein -- such as the Lightning Compiler, a new compiler stack based on LLVM. Nvidia also uses LLVM for its own CUDA compiler, but key pieces of the Nvidia CUDA stack remain closed source. Also, AMD boasts it can cross-compile for Nvidia's stack as well as its own, thus reducing the reliance on any one stack, although it's not clear what performance penalties might arise. However, AMD is not yet making any actual GPU hardware designs open source, likely due to the massive legal tangle involved in such a project, in much the same way Java was only open-sourced after great and laborious effort. Also, various efforts to create open source GPU hardware have come and gone, such as the Open Graphics Project, but none of them ever delivered a product. If AMD elects to throw its effort behind such a project -- whether by itself or in alignment with other industry partners-- it would be the logical extension to the work it's describing now. Enterprise interest in Windows 10, getting onto it and off Windows 7, is at an unprecedented level, research firm Gartner said today. Although in virtually all cases tha interest has not yet translated into actual deployments, it signals a faster move to the new OS than for past editions, including Windows 7, Gartner analyst Steve Kleynhans contended in an interview. "The level of interest expressed by our customer base, the type of questions they asking, indicates a much more rapid shift to Windows 10 than any previous operating system," said Kleynhans. In past migrations, Gartner's clients went through a consistent set of steps in the queries to the firm's analysts, added Kleynhans: From 'What is it?' to 'Why should we care?' to 'How do we do it?' "Those stretched out over a year-to-year-and-a-half," said Kleynhans, talking about past migrations, including the one starting in late 2009 for Windows 7. "Here we have seen that compressed, to about nine months. [Enterprises] are already asking 'How should we do it?' and 'How are others' pilots doing?'" Many of those questions have come only recently, Kleynhans acknowledged, which he argued made the shift even more impressive. "From an enterprise standpoint, Windows 10 wasn't complete or stable until about eight weeks ago. So from their perspective, the OS is only a couple of months old." Kleynhans was referring to the Nov. 12 upgrade, tagged as 1511, that was Windows 10's first refresh since the July launch. Among the new features of interest to enterprises in 1511: Update, upgrade and security patch management under the "Windows Update for Business" (WUB) umbrella; and a Windows app store specifically for businesses. Microsoft has been boasting of Windows 10's adoption pace for months, asserting three weeks ago that 200 million "active devices" running the OS -- the metric, typically touted by service-based firms, was new for Microsoft -- and claimed that it "continues to be on the fastest growth trajectory of any version of Windows -- ever." Twenty-two million of the 200 million, or 11 percent, were in enterprise and education customers, Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's lead marketing executive for the Windows and devices group, said in a Jan. 4 post to a company blog. Mehdi also trumpeted other enterprise-specific statistics, saying that three-fourths of Microsoft's enterprise customers were in "active pilots" of Windows 10. He did not detail the size of those pilots, or the trajectory of mainstream enterprise migrations. For his part, Kleynhans reiterated Gartner's previous forecasts of corporate adoption. "Most of 2016 for most [enterprises] will be about piloting and early deployment," Kleynhans predicted. "The big fleet deployments will mostly start in 2017. Realistically, they won't do that in a year, so most will finish them off in 2018." Caveats abounded in Gartner's prognostication, however. "What we could see happen is that [enterprises] see the process as smoother than they now believe will be the case," said Kleynhans. Or migrations could hit hitches, and lag behind his cadence conjecture. One factor that plays to faster, not slower, upgrade schedules is that for many companies, this is deja vu all over again. "A big thing is there is some pent-up demand for devices like the Surface Pro 4, that class of 2-in-1 and convertible devices," said Kleynhans, referring to the small-but-quickly-growing category of hardware with detachable or pivot-style screens. Corporations tried, but failed, to support those devices with Windows 8, and a year later, Windows 8.1, Kleynhans observed. "IT made promises to users a year ago, but failed to deliver," he said. "Now they're trying to reinstate those projects with Windows 10." Others besides Gartner have scrambled onto the fast Windows 10 adoption bandwagon. Adaptiva -- a Bellevue, Wash. company that specializes in systems management, specifically for Microsoft's System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) -- recently publicized a survey of IT professionals that showed 12 percent of the respondents' companies had installed Windows 10 on 5 percent or more of their PCs. Forty percent of those companies -- thus representing about 5 percent of the total -- said that Windows 10 was on half or more of their systems. And 60 percent of the firms what now have 5 percent or more of their machines running Windows 10 -- or just over 7 percent of the total -- claimed that they would have half or more of their PCs on the new OS within the next year. Adaptiva characterized enterprise interest in Windows 10 as "unprecedented adoption of the new operating system." But the small fraction of those that have broken the 5 percent barrier with pilots actually illustrates that, while interest in Windows 10 may well be significant, the bulk of corporations will almost certainly conduct large-scale deployments on Gartner's timeline, meaning in 2017 and 2018. It's no coincidence that businesses will shoot for that schedule: All Windows 7 support ends in January 2020, and under a new scheme Microsoft just revealed, support for the older OS on newer hardware will come to a halt in July 2017. "Part of the interest in Windows 10 is that enterprises are very aware of the end-of-life of Windows 7," said Kleynhans. As they should be: Many companies learned the hard way when, as Windows XP's support wound down in the spring of 2014, they had to scramble to purge the ancient operating system. "They want to avoid those issues," Kleynhans said. This story, "Enterprises eye a fast switch to Windows 10" was originally published by Computerworld . GOLD Thursday Forecast Kolhanov.com - 2 minutes ago The downtrend may be expected to continue, while market is trading below resistance level 1645.6, which will be followed by reaching support level 1622.2 1613.3 Cotton Stronger into Thursday Barchart - 15 minutes ago Morning cotton action has the board up by 85 to 114 points. Cotton futures hit their limit a couple of times to the downside on Wednesday, with December ultimately closing there. The other front months... CTZ22 : 78.91 (+0.79%) CTH23 : 78.77 (+1.03%) CTK23 : 78.33 (+1.16%) Thursday Shows Stronger Start in Wheat Barchart - 15 minutes ago So far on Thursday, wheat futures are working with 5 to 10 cent gains and are setting pushing the overnight highs. Front month wheat futures traded lower through the midweek session, but ended off... ZWZ22 : 849-0 (+0.92%) ZWH23 : 867-4 (+0.93%) ZWPAES.CM : 7.7583 (-1.05%) KEZ22 : 948-6 (+0.74%) KEPAWS.CM : 9.0621 (+0.78%) MWZ22 : 961-4 (+0.84%) Stronger Cash Trade Props Up Cattle Barchart - 15 minutes ago Front month live cattle futures ended the day with gains of $0.72 to $1.57. The December contract went home $1.02 under the contract high and just 5 cents under the day sessions high. Feeders faded... LEV22 : 149.350s (+0.59%) LEZ22 : 151.350s (+1.05%) LEG23 : 154.250s (+0.97%) GFV22 : 175.225s (+0.23%) GFX22 : 178.075s (+0.14%) Export Demand Data for Hogs Barchart - 15 minutes ago At the close on Wednesday, lean hog futures were $0.85 to $1.20 higher at the close. The CME Lean Hog from 10/17 was $93.19, down by 16 cents. The National Average Base Hog price for Wednesday afternoon... HEZ22 : 87.375s (+1.04%) HEJ23 : 92.750s (+1.09%) KMZ22 : 96.875s (+0.36%) Soy Market Strong for Thursday Barchart - 15 minutes ago Morning soy action has the board trading with gains across the complex. Meal and Oil are u by 1%, while beans trade 0.3% to 0.8% higher. The Wednesday soybean market saw afternoon strength push beans fractionally... ZSX22 : 1382-2 (+0.71%) ZSPAUS.CM : 13.3612 (+0.74%) ZSF23 : 1391-6 (+0.65%) ZSH23 : 1401-2 (+0.68%) Corn Mid-range But Higher into Day Session Barchart - 15 minutes ago Corn futures are trading at near their overnight midpoint which has the board 2 to 3 1/2 cents in the black so far ahead of the Export Sales release. Corn futures were still down by 1 1/4 to 2 3/4... ZCZ22 : 680-6 (+0.37%) ZCPAUS.CM : 6.6816 (+0.37%) ZCH23 : 687-2 (+0.40%) ZCK23 : 688-0 (+0.44%) Attorney General Brad Schimel said Wednesday state lawmakers are the ones to address how quickly a government agency must respond to open records requests. Schimel's comments come after a lawsuit was filed earlier this week by a public-interest law firm against the Department of Natural Resources for taking months to respond to three records requests, and after an open government advocate suggested on Tuesday that records custodians have been emboldened to take a long time to respond because attorneys general have declined to tackle the issue of delayed responses. "The law does not establish a bright-line rule on how quickly an agency must respond to a public records request. The Attorney Generals role is advisory in nature, however, this is an area where the legislature could clarify the public record law," Attorney General Brad Schimel said in a statement. Department of Justice spokeswoman Anne Schwartz didn't say whether Schimel believes a time frame should be defined in state law within which government agencies must respond to requests. Madison-based Midwest Environmental Advocates, a public interest law firm, filed a complaint this week in Dane County Circuit Court against the Department of Natural Resources alleging the state agency is violating the state's Public Records Law by taking months 10 months in one case to respond to three requests for information related to a group of wetlands permits, concentrated animal feeding operations and air testing data. Last month, the nonprofit group Midwest Environmental Defense Center also filed a lawsuit against the DNR for not responding to a records request the group filed on July 3 and for providing an incomplete response to a request filed on July 22. Both requests sought pollution discharge data. Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, said in response the specter of the Legislature making "matters worse by building in long response times" into state law is a concern, and there's also a chance that courts could issue decisions that allow "long delays." "It would be good if we all agreed that improving response times is a state priority," he said. Spokeswomen for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. State law currently tells government agencies to respond to requests "as soon as practicable and without delay." Other states have chosen to define response times with a specific number of days. For example, Illinois' open records law gives records custodians five business days to respond and allows another five days if the custodian says the request will take that long to fulfill. Lueders said the language in state law was chosen, as opposed to a set period of time, "because the drafters did not want to let custodians take ten days to provide a record that should be provided in ten minutes." "If the language were changed, I would like it to retain this feature, something like: 'as soon as practicable and without delay but in no event more than five working days,'" Lueders said. Just when we think the STEM locomotive might be slowing down, it speeds up again. The news this time is that STEM education just got another substantial, high-profile investment from philanthropy, this one from media and real estate tycoon Mort Zuckerman. His $100 million STEM Leadership Program, announced in New York City, is designed to support graduate level and post-doc scientists in the U.S., and extend their training at four leading science and technology institutions in Israel. The scholarship initiative, which Zuckerman's foundation has committed to support for 20 years, is also designed to foster greater collaboration between scientists and businesspeople in the two countries, the result of what are hoped to be lasting relationships. Starting this year, the program will give American students the chance to work with researchers at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University; and the Weizmann Institute of Science. The program is open to all qualified American students. Israel's STEM community is disproportionately productive in terms of both academic and business innovation. The Zuckerman announcement says the scholarship program will give American students experience in Israel's research and start-up culture. Meanwhile, researchers in Israel benefit from the program's substantial funding. At a time when collaboration is essential to advanced scientific research, this program gives the next generations of leading American and Israeli academics the ability to work together on cutting-edge research in ways that stand to benefit their fields for years to come, Zuckerman said in a press release. The result will help transform not just the work of the scholars involved, but the way the United States and Israel approach collaboration and cooperation across the sciences. For more information on the scholarship, including how to apply, check out the programs website. Zuckerman, who was born in Canada but is now a U.S. citizen, owns the Daily News and U.S. News and World Report, as well as real estate investment trust Boston Properties. He's worth an estimated $2.4 billion, but his influence is reflected in the people quoted in the press release announcing the scholarship program: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. This is not Zuckerman's only big philanthropic movewe've discussed, for example, his $200 million give to Columbia University, to endow the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. He has also supported Israel and Jewish causes. Of course, if you're looking for STEM grants for programs in this country, you'll have to find other programs. We still need more investment for U.S. students at the K-12 and undergraduate levels, per the experts who worry that the U.S. will lose its edge in tech. The best way to build that capacity is by making it easier for every American kid to get solid STEM educationthrough broad-based increases in STEM education in our public schools. Related: A Wall Street Journal article published earlier in the decade examined the fact that at the time, fewer than 5 percent of graduates from many top business schools take jobs at nonprofit organizations right out of school. Part of the reason for this is that most traditional nonprofits don't offer the financial rewards that finance and consulting careers do. Just 9 percent of students from Yale School of Management's 2011 class entered nonprofit jobs with an average salary of just below $80,000, compared to an average starting salary of $120,000 for consulting gigs. On the other hand, the WSJ article notes a point we write about often, which is that the line between nonprofit and for-profit is increasingly blurring and that some MBAs are "pursuing private-sector jobs that address global poverty, supply-chain issues and environmental or sustainability concerns, or other social needs." We might add that in our own coverage, we keep bumping into MBA types involved in the social sector in various ways. Some are on the impact investing side of things, others work for consulting firms with nonprofit clients, and some work in nonprofits or foundations or funding intermediaries that are particularly geared toward using market mechanisms to solve societal problems. For example, we've written about a guy named Roger Ullman, a former Wall Streeter with an MBA who works for the Linden Trust for Conservation, a funder looking at market solutions to environmental challenges. We've also written about New Profit, Inc., a funding intermediary that's long had MBAs on staff. And we often see MBA types in the education reform world. Related: Is This Wall Street Dropout the Future of Environmental Philanthropy? Now, a $4 million gift to the University of Chicago Booth School of Business from the Neubauer Family Foundation will establish a scholarship program for professionals working in the nonprofit and government sectors. The donor behind the foundation is Joseph Neubauer, retired chairman of Aramark Corp., who earned his MBA from the University of Chicago in 1965 and currently chairs UChicago's board of trustees. Neubauer has been on the board of trustees at his alma mater since 1992. His family foundation is rather robust, by the way, holding nearly $240 million in assets and giving away just under $12 million in a recent fiscal year. A good portion of the Neubauer Family Foundation's grantees are in education. Neubauer has given to his school in the past, including a $26.5 million gift in 2012 to create the Neubauer Family Collegium for Culture and Society. The family gave the University of Chicago a $1.715 million grant through their foundation, according to the most recent available tax records. Neubauer's $4 million gift to UChicago will fund a Civic Scholars Program, providing annual full-tuition scholarships to Chicago Booth's Weekend MBA Program for eight professionals working in nonprofit and government fields. So-called Neubauer Civic Scholars will be able to continue working full time as they pursue their degrees, allowing them to translate classroom skills into real world experiences. "This is an opportunity to strengthen the development of future leaders from the public and nonprofit sectors across the United States, and Booth's data-driven and collaborative approach will help these professionals drive change within their organizations that has a dynamic impact," said Neubauer. Again, MBAs are traditionally underrepresented in public and nonprofit sectors, but this gift aims to foster more participation in these fields. It's worth mentioning that the Civic Scholars Program will also partner with other Booth School outfits including the Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State, as well as with faculty from the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy. Over the past few months, I've been writing about a number of large public policy gifts on campus, and this element in Neubauer's gift is worth noting, too. Related: Don't Worry, Campus Policy Wonks. Funders Haven't Forgotten You Whos in charge here? Thats a question an outsider might well ask about the curious world of philanthropy. Is there a clear group of leaders who are setting the direction of all this giving? Are there key institutions that knit these leaders together? Is there a shared set of norms and expectations that govern behavior? And is there rough agreement on where philanthropy should go? The short answer to these questions is no. There is not a single philanthropy establishment. Rather, the philanthrosphere is becoming more fragmented all the time, with distinctive groupings of funders who operate in different ways with different goals and connect through different institutions. Nobody is in charge, and thats mostly a good thing. Twenty years ago, philanthropy was far more cohesive. In the mid-1990s, when I first started following this sector, you really could talk about a philanthropy establishment. It was centered in New York, with outposts in places like Chicago and Boston, and very much shaped by the top legacy foundations such as Ford, Rockefeller and Carnegie. There were almost no big foundations on the West Coast or in the Southwest, and many fewer individual mega-donors. The Council of Foundations and several other institutions played an important role in framing shared conversations across the sector and helping set philanthropys agenda. Then all hell broke loose. First came the rise of West Coast philanthropy in the late 1990s, with the establishment or scaling up of the Hewlett, Packard, Moore and Gates foundationsall of which were bigger than many of the top East Coast foundations. (In Gates case, a lot bigger.) Pierre Omidyars operation emerged during this period, too. Next, and related, we saw ever-growing numbers of living mega-donors arrive on the scene, loaded with cash from the new Gilded Age booms in tech, finance, energy, retail and more. Many did things their own waysometimes creating professional foundations, other times not. Walter Annenbergs massive education gift in 1993 and Ted Turners $1 billion gift to the U.N. in 1997 presaged a new era in which huge sums of money were increasingly deployed by the super rich for very specific purposes. Just to take one area: In the early 2000s, several wealthy LGBT funders, most notably Tim Gill and Jon Stryker, emerged with a laser focus on advancing LGBT rights. While these funders would eventually work closely with more established foundations, they initially were quite isolated, collaborating mainly with each other and doing their own thing. Even more dramatically, the area of education saw an influx of major new donors like Gates, Eli Broad, the Walton family, Julian Robertson, and Doris and Donald Fisher, who largely rejected the ed agenda of established philanthropy, charting their own reform course. These funders created their own mini-establishment, with its own institutions, like the Charter School Growth Fund. The fragmentation has only accelerated. The number of mega-donors entering the philanthrosphere has risen sharply in just the past few years, many with little attachment to existing philanthropy circlesand some with clear contempt for the old order. Sean Parker is a case in point. Along the way, though, various groups of new donors have become well organized among themselves. Ive already mentioned the distinctive ecosystems that LGBT and ed funders created. But there are others. In New York City, the Robin Hood Foundation emerged as the hub of a new and supercharged Wall Street philanthropy. That group has pulled any number of wealthy finance people into philanthropy, hooking them up with more experienced donors, and guiding their giving. A significant thing about Robin Hood is that while its become a hugely important philanthropic community in New York, its top donors seem to have little connection with the many legacy foundations that also operate in the city. The Silicon Valley Community Foundation has played a role similar to Robin Hood's, but for tech donors. Its assets have swelled dramatically as its served as an intake center for emerging givers in Silicon Valleya group thats come to have its own distinctive worldview, as Ive described elsewhere. The tech philanthropic community is still taking shape, but its already quite cohesive in some respects because so many donors here have long known each other through business. Meanwhile, the doings of, say, the Rockefeller Foundation barely register on these folks. West Coast philanthropy is not influenced by East Coast pronouncements, Emmett Carson, the president of SVCF, told the New York Times last year. The emergence of much more robust local philanthropic ecosystems has been another striking trend of late. The great wealth boom of recent decades has spawned new philanthropy everywhere, with an ever proliferating number of foundations in many cities that have bolstered local philanthropy scenes that once were pretty dormant. Southern California is a great example, and I wrote recently about how the emergence of many new funders in this region has created new opportunities to unite people within a more cohesive community. The Southwest is another region where a lot of new funding has been happening lately, and is starting to gel into a larger, more mature philanthropic ecosystem than existed before. (See our Southwest coverage.) All told, funders are becoming more organizedbut in a very decentralized way, with donors turning more to peers for cueswithin in their industries, issue areas or regionsas opposed to knitting themselves into whatever remains of a national philanthropic establishment. So what does remain of such an establishment? Thats hard to say. Last year, I went to the annual conference of the Council of Foundations, and I thought the organization put on a really nice event. But others talk about the declining relevance of COF, and I was struck by how many of the newer funders that we regularly write about at Inside Philanthropy were not at the conference. Maybe thats unsurprising, since a growing number of new donors dont even have foundations, and operate instead through donor-advised funds. The Center for Effective Philanthropy did an impressive job of connecting up some of the different worlds in philanthropy at its biennial conference last year, and CEP also plays an important role in shaping the sector. The Foundation Center is another key outfit helping set standards and norms, for instance, through its work on transparency. A few other groups, like the Independent Sector, NCRP, and Exponent Philanthropy, also knit together various ideas or people. Large intermediaries like NEO and consulting firms like Bridgespan are other places where different roads meet. But none of this in total adds up to a philanthropy establishment. Its hard to speak of an establishment with any real sway if many of the biggest new players in philanthropy dont belong to it. All this is part of a larger story of fragmenting U.S. elites. The wealth boom of recent decades, spread across different industries and regions, has created more centers of power than existed in the past. Also, nearly all mainstream institutions have been losing influence. Just look at media, where digital newcomers have disrupted a pecking order that once revolved around the top newspapers and networks. Or look at politics, where the two parties have lost sway amid an influx of mega donors, Super PACs, and rogue candidates. We live in the age of the triumphant outsider. It isnt just that theres no establishment in philanthropy. There arent many establishments anywhere in society. Is this kind of free-for-all good or bad? Well, I cant speak for other sectors, but philanthropy is definitely benefitting from fragmentation, with a flourishing of diverse ideas and approaches. Just to take one example: Its been fascinating to see some of the newer donors characterize the idea of perpetuity as totally lame and embark on urgent efforts to deploy as much capital as is needed to solve problems. The rise of impact investing is another example of how norms are being challenged by newcomers. Its hard to say where all this will lead, but it is sure fun to watch. David Callahan is founder and editor of Inside Philanthropy (davidc@insidephilanthropy.com) The Gulf island kingdom needs to strengthen its ties between the feuding neighbors if it is going to gain back traction as a financial center. The January execution of a prominent Shia cleric by Saudi Arabia inflamed sectarian tensions across the Middle East and provoked a rupture in relations between Riyadh and Tehran. Few countries are as vulnerable to the passions as Bahrain. Sandwiched between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the Gulf island nation has long been caught in a tug-of-war between the feuding regional powerhouses and the strands of Islam they represent. Bahrain doesnt just sit on the regions Sunni-Shia fault line; it embodies it. King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa heads a Sunni monarchy that rules uneasily over a largely Shia population. Those tensions erupted five years ago, when protesters, inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, took to the streets to demand sweeping democratic reforms. The government accused Iran of inciting the demonstrations and welcomed the deployment of Saudi troops in the capital, Manama, to buttress the monarchy. After a month of mass protests, the government unleashed a brutal crackdown that left dozens dead and thousands injured and imprisoned. Since then an uneasy calm has prevailed, with sporadic small protests taking place in Shia villages. The furor over the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr threatens to blow the lid off Bahrains fragile peace. The sheikh rose to prominence during the Arab Spring by campaigning for greater rights for the Shia population in eastern Saudi Arabia. After being shot in the leg and arrested at a rally in 2012, Nimr was convicted of disloyalty to the House of Saud seeking foreign meddling in Saudi affairs and inciting sectarian discord. After the execution was announced, protesters attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran and set the building ablaze with Molotov cocktails. Within 48 hours Saudi Arabia had severed diplomatic ties with longtime rival Iran. As a staunch Saudi ally, Bahrain quickly followed suit, along with the United Arab Emirates and Sudan. Outraged Bahraini Shia took to the streets. While some marched peacefully holding images of Nimr, others set fire to cars and clashed with police. There were some skirmishes and protests here and there, especially in Shia villages, Jasim Husain, a former member of Parliament for Al Wefaq National Islamic Society, the largest Shia opposition party, told Institutional Investor a week after the demonstrations. But now the streets are generally fine. Western countries sought to promote a political reconciliation between Bahrains regime and the Shia population in the aftermath of the 2011 turmoil, but they abandoned those efforts because of the rise of radical Islamic group ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Most of the Gulf states, including Bahrain, have gained a lot of diplomatic leverage over the United States because now the U.S. needs their cooperation on combating these threats, explains Justin Gengler, a senior research fellow at Qatar University. The rise in political tensions could carry an economic cost to Bahrain, analysts say. By severing relations with Tehran, the government has chosen to close off potential trade opportunities in favor of preserving its relationship with Saudi Arabia. With the nuclear deal and sanctions being lifted, countries close to Iran could benefit from trade, Husain says. Ravi Shankar Chaturvedi, a research fellow at Tufts University, agrees. Bahrains best interest in the medium term is to deepen economic ties with both Iran and Saudi Arabia if it wants to realize its dreams of becoming the Singapore of the Middle East, he says. If it needs inspiration, it need not look far beyond its own neighborhood. Dubai is already well on its way there. Follow Jess Delaney on Twitter at @jdelaney_NYC. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Tuesday that he personally apologized after calling a New Jersey shore official a crazy mayor and forcefully rebutted critics who suggested the state hasnt done enough to help residents dealing with the aftermath of flooding from this weekends storm. While campaigning in New Hampshire Monday, Christie lashed out at Republican North Wildwood Mayor Patrick Rosenello after he said that flooding in his Cape May County town was worse than during Superstorm Sandy. But at a Statehouse news conference Tuesday, Christie said Rosenello is a longtime friend and that he got carried away at the town-hall style event. I had a night to sleep on it and I didnt feel good about what I said, so I called him to apologize, Christie said. It merited an apology and I gave him one. Christies comments Monday came in response to a question from a woman asking why he was campaigning instead of staying in New Jersey to oversee the cleanup. Christie laid out what the state had done and then said he had heard one crazy mayor down in South Jersey say this is worse flooding than Sandy. North Wildwood did not get hit by the October 2012 storm, which caused catastrophic damage along the coast and in other areas of the state. So of course its worse than Sandy for him! Christie said. When the questioner persisted, Christie said: I dont know exactly what you expect me to do. You want me to go down to Cape May with a mop? Rosenello said Monday that he was disappointed that (Christie) would lower himself as much as he did, noting that he was one of his earliest supporters during both of his runs for governor. Rosenello also said he has met and interacted with Christie and his family numerous times. I think he recognizes that he misspoke. And he did, Rosenello said Tuesday on Coast 98.7 FM, a Cape May-based radio station. I think he knows he misspoke. We know that he misspoke. The mayor said his towns dune system suffered major damage and was severely compromised by the weekend snowstorm. He also said roughly 150 people were safely evacuated from their flooded homes. Christie said Tuesday his administration did not get any requests for state assistance after reaching out to mayors in Cape May County after the storm came in with record-level storm surges during high tide on Saturday morning. He said that the state is about two-thirds of the way through a review to determine whether it is eligible to apply for federal disaster assistance. He said that the state has inspected for beach erosion and is assisting businesses and residents affected by flooding. But Christie pushed back at the notion that the storm was as bad as Superstorm Sandy in 2012. I gotta tell you, everybody, I went through it bit by bit and there was not a thing that happened Friday and Saturday that even resembled Sandy, he said. Meanwhile, residents in North Wildwood and neighboring towns were still working to clear water-logged carpets, appliances and other items damaged by the flooding. West Wildwood resident Bob Steffney told The Press of Atlantic City that he saw flooding creep up to his front porch before it receded without getting into his home. It was scary. You had piles floating down the street like it was a river, the 66-year-old Steffney said. I dont have flood insurance. Im retired. I cant afford it. Related: Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Flood New Jersey After ocean waters poured into lower Manhattan during Superstorm Sandy, experts began dreaming up a solution: a U-shaped barrier of earthen berms, walls and gates that would keep floods out and the nations financial capital dry. Now, more than three years later, a version of that idea has stacked up over $600 million in backing, including a $176 million shot in the arm from the federal government last week. But it is still hundreds of millions of dollars and several years away from being finished. Weve been full steam ahead, said city resiliency director Daniel Zarrilli, knowing that we dont really know how long we have before these things need to be in place. Officials aim to start building next year and finish by 2022, building segments that can begin providing some protection before the more than 5-mile-long project is complete. Still, theres no final plan yet for what the project will look like, how much it will cost, or where the city will get the minimum of $300 million more it has said is needed to finish. A devastating flood could come in decades or as soon as the next storm. Theres much more hope after the latest infusion of funding, said state Sen. Daniel Squadron, a Democrat who represents some affected areas. But theres ongoing anxiety. Because this is not something that can be a generation-long project. Sandy struck in October 2012, killing over 180 people and causing $65 billion in damage in the U.S. alone. The storm swamped downtown Manhattan apartment houses and office buildings, flooded subways and cut power to almost everywhere south of the Empire State Building. Architects and engineers participating in a federal design competition later sketched out a 10-mile-long Big U of barriers that varied by neighborhood. The citys current proposals echo that idea but cover less territory, extending around Manhattans southern end roughly from Bellevue Hospital on the East Side to half a mile north of the World Trade Center on the West Side. The path wraps around Wall Street and trendy neighborhoods, but also around several public housing developments hard by the East River. Plans describe a mosaic of different approaches: a big, grassy berm in a park, floodwalls under an elevated highway, a levee system at Manhattans southern tip, and in other spots moveable flood barriers, pumps and more. The proposal also calls for flood-proofing vulnerable public housing and weaving plazas and park improvements into the water barriers. Planning experts say it sets an example for multifaceted flood protection that combines engineering with ecology with community instead of just walling off water, says Rob Freudenberg of the Regional Plan Association, a research and advocacy organization. The federal Housing and Urban Development Department two years ago put up $335 million for the first, roughly 2-mile chunk. HUD awarded another $176 million last week toward the remainder of the project, adding to $115 million in mostly city money pledged last summer. Still, the total is about $320 million short of what the city sought for that piece. Zarrilli says officials are working to line up the rest and can put in place some substantial improvements with what we have, as a start. Meanwhile, some institutions, utilities and building owners in low-lying lower Manhattan are doing their own storm-proofing. Transit officials have been working on seals for subway stations. And the city itself is working on other projects in Manhattan and elsewhere as part of a $20 billion plan to help New York weather storms and floods. Communities along the lower Manhattan waterfront are keenly waiting, both inside and outside the planned flood defenses. Obviously, we need a `Big U, not a `Big J, says Tobi Bergman, chairman of a community board in the West Village, which saw some flooding in Sandy but is outside the protections planned so far. But, he added, I think every New Yorker is glad to see progress begin. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Flood London-based Liberty Specialty Markets (LSM), which is part of Liberty Mutual Insurance Group, has joined the Lloyds China platform. LSMs Underwriting Division of Lloyds Insurance Company (China) Ltd. (LICCL) has appointed Eve Li as its first representative in Beijing, China. Li is based at LICCLs Beijing branch and will underwrite a range of reinsurance business lines for LSMs underwriting division of LICCL. She was formerly a China-based Energy and Construction Underwriter for Liberty, a position she held for five years. Previously LSM had underwritten Chinese reinsurance business via its London and Paris offices, but Lis appointment means that treaty and facultative reinsurance lines of business can now be written locally in China by LSMs Underwriting Division of LICCL, the company said in a statement. An LSM spokesman explained that Lloyds managing agents and their syndicates are not individually licensed by the China Insurance Regulatory Commission but instead join the Lloyds China platform via an underwriting division, which is set up for an individual syndicate. LSMs Underwriting Division is not an independent legal entity but is a department of Lloyds China, the spokesman explained. For the business written by the Liberty Specialty Markets Underwriting Division, Lloyds China will cede the risks to LSMs syndicate through a retrocession agreement, he added. John McCammon, LSMs head of international network offices, said: Growing our presence in China has always been our goal as we see considerable potential in this market. We are now planning to add to our Beijing presence with a new representative in Shanghai during 2016. This move also allows us to continue underwriting Chinese reinsurance risks in the most effective way possible given the regulatory changes taking place in China. The move is part of LSMs plan to increase penetration into international markets the hub strategy outlined in 2015 by president and managing director Nick Metcalf who said that the company wants to build a presence in significant insurance hubs outside of London because of their ability to attract business in local markets. Source: Liberty Specialty Markets Topics Excess Surplus Underwriting Reinsurance Lloyd's New Markets China London Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem ruled out a private sale of ASR Nederland NV, the insurer nationalized during the financial crisis, as parliament signaled its support for an initial public offering of the asset. Dijsselbloem reiterated his plan to hold the ASR IPO in the first half of 2016, following parliaments approval. The size of the sale may be larger than the 23 percent stake sold in ABN AMRO Group NV in November, he said. We became an owner of this company due to unforeseen circumstances, Dijsselbloem said in parliament. It has always been clear that we didnt acquire the company as an investment. Parties forming a majority expressed support for the sale during the debate in The Hague Thursday morning, while no formal vote was taken. ASR, based in Utrecht, has a book value of 3.2 billion euros [$3.4 billion] and said in August that it was ready for a future as a private company. Net profit more than doubled in the first half of the year to 397 million euros [$422.9 million] from 171 million euros [$182.2 million] a year earlier. The discussion in parliament was the final step before Dijsselbloem can formally start the IPO process. The government split up Fortis Banks Dutch banking and insurance operations to create ABN AMRO and ASR after rescuing the units for 16.8 billion euros [$17.9 billion] during the 2008 crisis. Fortis joined a 72 billion-euro [$76.7 billion] takeover of ABN AMRO Holding NV with Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Banco Santander SA in 2007. The deal, the largest financial services takeover ever, turned sour during the credit crunch a year later. Related: Dutch Government Plans to Float ASR, Former Fortis Insurance Unit Copyright 2022 Bloomberg. The prosecutors in the halted John Doe probe into Gov. Scott Walkers campaign want to take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court with help from the same law firm that successfully argued a case involving similar issues. The motion for the first time spells out that district attorneys John Chisholm of Milwaukee County, Ismael Ozanne of Dane County and Larry Nelson of Iowa County plan to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the state courts July decision ending the probe. In July the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a 4-2 decision said the prosecutions legal theory that was used to obtain search warrants in 2013 had no basis in law, effectively ending the investigation. Critics of the decision said at least two of the justices in the conservative majority should have recused themselves because the groups under investigation spent heavily to help get them elected. The motion also reveals the prosecutors are seeking outside legal representation from the same law firm that argued a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, Caperton vs. A.T. Massey Coal Co., in which the court forced a West Virginia Supreme Court justice to recuse himself because the defendants CEO had donated $3 million to a group that supported the justices election. The John Doe probe was looking into whether Wisconsin Club for Growth, led by Walker campaign adviser R.J. Johnson, acted as a hub for political contributions that it funneled to groups such as Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce to help beat back the 2012 attempt to recall Walker and several Republican legislators. The club spent $1.78 million and WMC spent $5.56 million to elect conservative justices to the court over the past six elections. The motion asks the state Supreme Court to grant three lawyers and an administrative assistant from San Francisco-based law firm Reed Smith LLP and a printing company access to sealed case files. The motion was filed under seal on Monday and partially released by court order on Wednesday. Brian Sutherland, one of the Reed Smith lawyers, didnt immediately respond to a request for comment. The other two lawyers are Kasey Curtis and M. Patrick Yingling, who referred questions to Sutherland. The filing says the law firm has offered its services at no expense to prepare a filing and present oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court. The prosecutors have until March 1 to file a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court. The state Supreme Court gave other parties involved in the case until Monday to respond to the motion before ruling on whether to allow the private lawyers access to the case files. The state Supreme Court allowed the prosecutors to intervene in the case after removing the investigations only representative, special prosecutor Francis Schmitz, from the case in December. Chisholm launched the investigation in 2012 based on evidence collected in a previous John Doe investigation into Walkers Milwaukee County executive office that yielded six convictions. Walker has not been charged in the investigations. Chisholm asked then-Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen to take over the case, but he declined citing a potential conflict of interest. Chisholm then worked with the Government Accountability Board and four other district attorneys before handing the case over to Schmitz, who identified himself in court filings as a Republican. The Dodge and Columbia county district attorneys involved in the case, both Republicans, declined to intervene. Chisholm, Ozanne and Nelson are all Democrats. A bill introduced in the South Dakota House would clarify state law on when part-time employees injured on the job should also receive workers compensation benefits for their other part-time positions. The proposed legislation stems from a 2015 state Supreme Court ruling that found state law was ambiguous on the issue. In that case, Patricia Wheeler, a Sioux Falls resident injured at her fast-food job, wanted her workers compensation insurer to cover lost wages from all three of her part-time jobs. Most people can see that it is the right outcome under the intent of workers compensation, which is to replace lost wages and provide a remedy for injured workers, said attorney Jolene Nasser, who represented Wheeler. If youre injured at work, and its work-related, you dont have any right to sue your employer for negligence. Your only remedy if youre injured at work is workers comp. The bill introduced by Rep. David Anderson, R-Hudson, would allow for the aggregation of wages from multiple jobs, but also define when it applies and limit the new law to claims filed after the May 5 ruling. Many of the details and compromises were hashed out ahead of the session by the Workers Compensation Advisory Council, chaired by Republican Lt. Gov. Matt Michels. Anderson said he disagrees with the high courts ruling, as state workers compensation law has been consistently interpreted for decades, and he doubts legislators had any concept of the aggregation of wages when they wrote the law. Andersons bill stops short of requiring seasonal employers from covering wages for non-seasonal jobs, and includes additional wages from other jobs only when an injury prevents the employee from doing their other jobs. Anderson said he feels more comfortable with legislators setting policy than judges. Thats part of what happens when the Supreme Court makes a ruling on an individual case, but then it gets interpreted all across the spectrum of possible cases, Anderson said. There gets to be questions and things that dont fit. Nasser said she lobbied for the law to cover earlier cases, but businesses and insurers didnt want the new law to apply to old cases. Shortly after the Wheeler decision, the National Council on Compensation Insurance warned that the ruling could result in an increase in workers compensation costs. South Dakota has the highest percentage of multiple job holders 8.9 percent according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics compared to other states. The bill now heads to the House Commerce and Energy Committee, where members can make changes before deciding whether to send it to the full chamber. Anderson said the bill has a provision that requires the Workers Compensation Advisory Council to report back to legislators in three years about the impacts of the policy change. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Legislation Workers' Compensation MetLife Inc., looking to avoid tougher oversight, was examining options for a breakup or restructuring of the firm 14 months before announcing this year that its considering a sale, spinoff or public offering for part of the domestic retail business. Chief Executive Officer Steven Kandarian told regulators including Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew in November 2014 that MetLife might break up if it were subjected to stricter capital requirements. The insurer had hired an investment bank to determine how bad does it get if MetLife were designated as systemically important, he said. What we have under consideration is a breakup of MetLife, Kandarian told members of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, according to portions of a transcript released in a federal court Wednesday. You should be aware of that. And I say it to you only in the sense that I dont want people to say later on, Geez, we had no idea that you were thinking of this. MetLife, the largest U.S. life insurer, is suing the FSOC. The panel designated the firm systemically important in December 2014, a little more than a month after Kandarian made those remarks. The lawsuit is the biggest challenge yet to the FSOC, which was created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law. Market Pressure FSOC should not assume that it can designate MetLife, see how it goes, come back to it two or three or four years later, and maybe we are not so systemic after all, and we can reverse things, Kandarian told the council. The market wont allow us to operate that way, especially if the capital rules are really harsh. Activism investment alone will put tremendous pressure on the company to do a number of things, including restructuring the company. Kandarian said Jan. 12 that hes weighing different options for much of the insurers U.S. retail operation, saying that its systemically important status could put that business at a significant competitive disadvantage. The New York-based insurer joins General Electric Co.s finance unit in taking steps to shed assets and simplify operations after being designated systemically important. The MetLife unit slated for separation would have about $240 billion of assets, similar in size to Lincoln National Corp. The operation would include some life-insurance entities and would also be a provider of variable annuities, retirement products that international regulators have said might have higher capital requirements. American International Group Inc., a systemically important insurer that has been facing pressure from activist investor Carl Icahn, said this week it will offer a 19.9 percent stake in its mortgage insurer to the public in a step toward a complete exit of that business. Icahn has been urging AIG to break up and has called the systemic-risk tag a tax on size. MetLife and the FSOC are scheduled to make oral arguments in a Washington, D.C., federal court next month. Copyright 2022 Bloomberg. Consumers will soon be able to simplify the buying of auto insurance by snapping a photo of their license plate and texting it to a phone number provided by the new site, Insurify.com, which will then generate price quotes. The license plate photo triggers the process during which a virtual insurance agent asks additional questions before the consumer receives quotes and recommendations that include contact numbers to call to purchase the policy. Insurifys patent-pending license plate option currently is known as Evia short for expert virtual insurance agent. There is no mobile app to be downloaded or installed; consumers simply text a photo of their license plate. (In 2012, Progressive Insurance came out with an app, called Mobile Quoting App, that allows consumers to send a photo of their license plate and their vehicle identification number from their smartphone to start the buying process.) Evia is built on machine learning and natural language processing. It scours millions of records to verify personal information and driving history, and then delivers policy quotes and recommendations via text message. While Insurify.com is now up-and-running, Evia is in limited public beta at this time. The site is accepting registrations from people who want to be among the first to use Evia. The company says it hopes to roll out the full Evia service over the year. The license plate option is just one of the shortcuts to coverage that Insurify offers. Consumers can also simply click on buttons that correspond with their situation: Single? 25 or over? Have kids who drive? Own home? Car worth over $5K? Insurify.com is currently available in 30 states and searches for quotes from 82 carriers, either direct or through agencies. Travelers, Mapfre and Safeco are among the carriers identified on the site as participating. Instech Funding The company this week announced a $2 million seed funding round, led by Rationalwave Capital Partners, along with its limited public beta release of Evia. Cambridge, Mass.-based Insurify and Evia are the brainchild of Snejina Zacharia, an MIT Sloan fellow and former director of Business Development at Gartner. Zacharia is joined on the board of directors by Giorgos Zacharia (Kayak), George Kassabgi ( Bit9 and Keas) and Mark Rosenblatt (RationalWave). Zacharia says Insurify differs from other online insurance sites in its capacity to continually update itself to improve the consumer experience and in its use of qualitative information and not just price. Its analytics also take into consideration the risk appetite of individual insurers when recommending policies. Insurify has spent two years developing RateRank, software that analyzes patterns and matches each users risk profile with insurance carriers and coverage packages. According to Zacharia, Insurify is able to offer service like that of a real human insurance agent because it includes both qualitative and quantitative information for buyers and carriers. This makes us really unique and different, she told Insurance Journal. Zacharia says that although drivers care about price, they also care about reviews, discounts, customer service and benefits such as whether a carrier offers roadside assistance or a mobile app. Recommending the right coverages may include explaining why some people should select higher coverage or lower coverage, depending on their consumer profile. Things like that that can only come from the knowledge and understanding of a mature and intelligent insurance agent, she said, adding that Insurify has this knowledge. Consumers are also interested in the general experiences with particular carriers and whether people are satisfied with them, according to Insurifys research. So Insurify includes information based on surveys of consumer opinions. There is another way that Insurify seeks to capture the experience of working with a human agent. According to Zacharia, not every carrier is equal and it is important to know the very significant differentiation that exists among carriers. We want to make sure that we tailor the right types of consumers to the right set of carriers and their particular appetites, as well as matching the right type of carriers to the consumer, because its not just about picking a brand, its trying to match the right risk to the carriers that will tolerate that risk. I think thats huge, she said. Insurify is not a static site that uses the same formula all the time; rather it utilizes analytics in an ongoing process to make the buying experience faster and more customer-friendly, she says. We are making the intelligence that a super agent might be able to provide in terms of a consumer shopping experience and making it fully data-driven and transparent, she said. Zacharia believes simplifying the buying process is of particular concern to younger buyers, who she says are accustomed to having everything at their fingertips and being able to conduct business where and when they want to. So its not just just about the price. Its empowering them to make the decision on their own, she said. Zacharia says she is not out to replace human insurance agents or providers but that platforms like Insurify can help agents make buying a better experience for their customers who want the personal experience of a real agent. Topics Carriers Agencies Funding Named a severe violator by federal safety officials, a frozen seafood distributor operating a plant in Brownsville, Texas, has been hit with $155,000 in fines over workplace safety hazards. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued citations for 11 serious and three repeat violations against Rich Products Corp. on Jan. 22. The citations are the result of OSHAs inspection of the anhydrous ammonia refrigeration system at the companys plant. Rich Products has been placed in OSHAs Serious Violator Enforcement Program. Some of the 11 serious violations cited include failing to: Provide written notice of annual audiograms. Refit workers for hearing protection and training. Test ammonia detectors, and implement an emergency response plan for potential release of anhydrous ammonia. Provide an annual fit test for respirator use. Provide a medical evaluation to determine employees ability to use a respirator. The repeat violations include failing to: Include a relief design system for the process safety information to maintain adequate pressure. Provide accurate calculations for the ventilation system design. Provide adequate procedures for draining oil pot vessels. Headquartered in St. Simons Island, Ga., Rich Products is a manufacturer and distributor of frozen seafood products. The company has 15 business days from receipt of their citations to comply, request an informal conference with OSHAs area director, or contest the citations and penalties before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. Source: OSHA Topics Texas Workers' Compensation Sheral Kellar has been appointed director of the Office of Workers Compensation Administration at the Louisiana Workforce Commission. Kellar, a licensed attorney with more than 25 years of experience in labor, employment and workers compensation law and most recently the workers compensation chief judge, will oversee the adjudication of claims under Louisianas workers compensation laws and related matters. She serves as a member of the board of directors and the curriculum committee of the National Association of Workers Compensation Lawyers. In July 2015, Louisiana Chief Justice Bernette J. Johnson appointed Kellar to the Louisiana State Bar Associations Access to Justice Commission. LWC Executive Director Ava Dejoie also has appointed Cathy Wells as LWC deputy executive director and chief of staff, and Bennett Soulier as chief financial officer. Wells joins the LWC team with nearly 25 years of legislative experience in both the Louisiana House of Representatives and the state Senate. As chief financial officer, Soulier oversees the LWC Office of Management and Finance, which includes human resources and other administrative services. Source: Louisiana Workforce Commission Topics Workers' Compensation Louisiana A former Miami-Dade County police officer has pleaded guilty to accepting bribes in an illegal towing scheme. News outlets report Yuri Millan admitted he took kickbacks from tow-truck operators Oriel Ugardes and Jose Guim in exchange for information on stranded motorists. The three were charged in November. Millan was convicted Friday of conspiring to commit bribery. Prosecutors say Millan also allowed Ugardes and Guim to rent his police radio so they could listen to encrypted police conversations to locate accidents before their competitors. Detectives say Ugardes and Guim admitted that they paid thousands of dollars in the scheme to Millan and former Miami-Dade police aide Elina Rodriguez, who pleaded guilty last month to related federal conspiracy charges. She will be sentenced in February. All three men will be sentenced in April. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Florida South Carolinians who were originally refused help following last Octobers historic floods will be getting about $10 million in aid. The State of Columbia reports that the money became available through a program in which Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster applications were reviewed a second time. Agency spokesman Jim Homstad says that, after the review, an additional 4,500 South Carolinians were deemed eligible for help. The agency studied more than 100,000 applications submitted after the storm to find those who might be eligible for help. Homstad said something as simple as information missing on the application could have resulted in its being denied originally. FEMA has approved almost $85 million in disaster aid statewide for individuals and households. Related: Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Flood South Carolina A single Ohio County, West Virginia Marcellus Shale well yielded enough natural gas in 2014 to provide electricity for 24,315 homes, according to new numbers released by the West Virginia Geological & Economic Survey. Theres also plenty of what industry leaders term light crude oil being produced right here in the local region, including 45,260 barrels of oil from a well in the name of the Ohio County Commission in 2014. Overall, with traditional vertical drilling included with horizontal fracking, West Virginia produced more than 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2014. Drillers also extracted more than 8.3 million barrels of natural gas liquids (consisting of ethane, propane, butane, pentanes and other liquids) in 2014, according to the most recent data available from the states Geological & Economic Survey, an arm of the Department of Commerce. The state also produced another 5.2 million barrels of oil. They are remarkable. They are shocking, Charlie Burd, executive director of the Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia, said of the numbers. We were at about 260 billion cubic feet in 2008. Now, it just keeps going up because of fracking and horizontal drilling. Production, Prices and Pipelines One billion cubic feet of natural gas can provide electricity to 24,315 homes for an entire year. Therefore, a single EQT Corp. well in Wetzel County provided sufficient fuel in 2014 to generate power for 77,322 homes for one year with its 3.18 Bcf. This was the most prolific well in the entire Mountain State in 2014, and serves as an easy example as to why natural gas prices are currently about $2 per Mcf. I remember when we got to 100 Bcf and thought that was great, Corky Demarco, executive director of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association, said. The thing is, weve probably only permitted about 5 percent of the potential Marcellus wells in West Virginia. According to the New York Mercantile Exchange, the price for an Mcf, or 1,000 cubic-foot unit, of natural gas late last week was about $2.25. This is down from about $6 per Mcf in early 2014. However, industry officials said the lack of adequate pipelines in the Marcellus and Utica regions covering West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania means producers are now only getting about 75 cents to $1 per Mcf. There is way more gas being produced than there is capacity to ship it out of the basin, Burd said, noting the lack of adequate pipeline networks to move the material to market. At this time, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission continues reviewing five major pipelines, collectively valued at about $15 billion, that would allow states such as West Virginia and Ohio a chance to reach their full potential as Marcellus and Utica producers: the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, the Rover Pipeline, the Leach XPress Pipeline, the Mountain Valley Pipeline and the Nexus Pipeline. In these markets, it is tough. We are still seeing companies struggle. At these prices, it cant be sustained. They are sending out so much gas and oil and liquids, but not making enough to sustain it, added Tim Greene, owner of Land and Mineral Management of Appalachia and a former inspector for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. Well Comparisons and Payments Overall, the 2014 market remained strong for both oil and natural gas. Data show the Ohio County Timmy Minch well which includes acreage from both the Wheeling Park Commission and the city of Wheeling produced 200 million cubic feet of natural gas and 16,956 barrels of oil. Southwestern Energy Co. took over this and other West Virginia Chesapeake Energy operations in late 2014. A well on property in the name of the Ohio County Commission, in addition to the 45,260 barrels of oil, yielded 690 million cubic feet of gas in 2014. Another well on commission property produced 600 million cubic feet of gas and 29,006 barrels of oil, data show. Demarco said this oil is a light crude, adding that drillers once found it to be more of a nuisance than an asset. Oil production in West Virginia has increased from about 27,000 barrels in 2009 to the 5.2 million barrels produced in 2014. We dont have any oil pipelines in West Virginia. It is just taken out by tanker truck, he said. DeMarco did not have a price point at which the oil is being sold. Greene said these depressed prices are not just a problem for drillers and frackers, but also for the mineral owners. Many mineral owners would rather leave it in the ground and wait until the price comes back up. But, some companies have to drill to hold leases, Greene said. They may have an agreement to send a specific amount of gas somewhere, which could make them keep drilling at these prices. Demarco and Greene said mineral owners are paid based on a number of factors, most of which are specified in ones contract. If you have an 18-percent royalty, you are paid 18 percent of whatever the gas and oil sell for, Demarco said. For example, when natural gas was selling for $6 per Mcf, 18 percent of that is $1.08. Greene emphasized it is more complex than that, though. It depends on how much of your acreage is included in the well pad, he said. Your royalty rate applies to the acreage that you have in that pad. Future Greene said mineral owners who are not getting payments now should understand the down market. If youre not getting much now, just wait. It will come back, he said. If there is already this much production, try to imagine what there can be when we get more pipelines. Burd said the low prices are leading some drillers to store the gas they extract, while some are shutting down wells altogether. Still, he remains optimistic for the long-term. We are just scratching the surface of what we can do here, he said. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Trends Energy Oil Gas Ohio Virginia Alteris Insurance Services Inc. announced it will serve as insurance administrator for the newly formed CalMutuals Joint Powers Insurance Authority (JPIA) working with nonprofit water systems in California. The new program will work in partnership with the California Association of Mutual Water Companies (CalMutuals) and the American Association of Water Distribution & Management. CalMutuals JPIA was recently established as a result of Californias legislature passing AB 656 in September 2015. This legislation was initiated by CalMutuals and supported by Alteris as well as other independent insurance brokers, Valley (Central) Ag Water Coalition, California Firefighters Association, and dozens of mutual water companies. It allows mutual water companies the opportunity to form and participate in a JPIA for purposes of insurance and supporting services. CalMutuals JPIA provides customized insurance to mutual water companies domiciled in California whose operations comprise the development, transportation, management, storage, treatment or distribution of water. Adjacent entities such as water districts, sewer districts, conservation districts, and community services districts are also eligible to secure insurance coverage through CalMutuals JPIA. Serving as Insurance Administrator, Alteris will oversee member services in the areas of underwriting, claims, risk management and control, legal and regulatory compliance, and continuing education. CalMutuals JPIA will begin enrolling members in February. Alteris Insurance Services, Inc. (Alteris) is a member of Argo Group International Holdings, Ltd., and operates as a full-service managing general agency providing a broad spectrum of products and services to brokers and clients throughout the United States. Targeted industry segments include water-related entities, emergency service organizations, wineries, breweries, forest products, and landscape contractors. Topics California The Chippewa County Sheriffs Office is asking homeowners to use caution after investigating reports of theft by fraud and learning of similar reports from elsewhere in Wisconsin and in other states. Sheriff James L. Kowalczyk said Danny Joles, 53, and David Zimbauer, 30, both of Fairchild, are fraudulently posing as subcontractors for a lightning protection and a separate driveway sealant company. In Chippewa County, Joles operated under Danny Joles Electric and Robbins Lightning Protection. According to Kowalczyk: In one case in Chippewa County, Joles performed lightning protection and electrical work to a home without first being contacted by the homeowner. Joles then quoted the homeowner $1,000. But when it was completed, Joles told the homeowner that the labor and work totaled $7,795, but was willing to settle for a lower amount. Joles then got the elderly homeowner to take out a $5,000 line of credit against her home to pay Joles for installation. Neither Joles, Zimbauer, Danny Joles Electric, or Robbins Lightning Protection show contractor registration information with the state of Wisconsin. The sheriffs office continues its investigation after finding out of similar scams taking place recently by Joles and Zimbauer in Burnett, Clark, Eau Claire, St. Croix and Grant counties. The Chippewa County District Attorneys Office is reviewing the sheriffs office investigation for consideration of criminal charges. Joles is well known to law enforcement agencies in several states, according to KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City, which reported there have been incidents involving Joles in Oregon, Idaho, Nebraska, Arizona, Oklahoma as well as Wisconsin. In a Jan. 14 report, the station reported Joles promised an elderly homeowner in Oklahoma that he would fill the cracks in her driveway, but instead performed shoddy work that washed away after a big rain. According to the Arizona Registrar of Contractors: Danny James Joles is known to work in eight different states and was last seen in Arizona in January 2013. He is known to work in concrete, floor sealing and resurfacing. He performs poor work and also is known to take money and abandon the job without any work being done. Kowalczyk reminds homeowners that responsible businesses wait for the homeowner to make a contact and to always get a written contract before major repairs or work is done. Any information or inquiries should be made to Investigator Chris Kowalczyk of the Chippewa County Investigative Division at (715) 726-7714. To view the KFOR report on Joles, click here. Join ITR and TMF Groups tax experts at 2pm CET (1pm GMT) on November 15 as they discuss how finance leaders are increasingly faced with doing more with less, and how CFOs should adapt. Hedge funds are alternative investments that use a variety of methods such as leveraged derivatives, short-selling, and other speculative strategies to earn a return that outperforms the broader market. Hedge funds invest in domestic and international markets alike. They typically impose $1 million minimums and target high-net-worth individuals, pension funds, and institutional investors. As a result, hedge funds invariably carry higher risk than traditional investments. They are not subject to the same regulations as mutual funds and may not be required to file reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Below is our analysis of the 10 hedge fund firms that dominate the space, based on total assets under management (AUM) as of June 2021. 1:57 The Worlds Top 10 Hedge Fund Firms 1. BlackRock Advisors BlackRock (BLK) is a New York-based investment manager that manages trillions in assets. The largest BlackRock entity, BlackRock Fund Advisors, has been in operation since 1984 and oversees $1.9 trillion in assets. BlackRock Financial Management was founded in 1994 and oversees $2.25 trillion. BlackRock Advisors, its internal hedge fund, started in 1994 and now handles $789.57 billion. 2. AQR Capital Management AQR Capital Management is based in Greenwich, Conn., and uses quantitative analysis to develop financial models focused on value and momentum investing. ACR implements its strategies via mutual funds, a type of mutual offered in Europe known as Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities, and sponsored funds and managed accounts. As of March 31, 2020, AQR had $164billion under management. It also earned advisory feeds on another $224.8 billion in assets. Cliff Asness founded the company along with partners John Liew, Robert Krail, and David Kabiller. The four had worked together on a hedge fund at Goldman Sachs. AQR launched its Absolute Return fund in August 1998, the same month Long Term Capital Management imploded. 3. Bridgewater Associates Bridgewater Associates is based in Westport, Conn., and provides services to pension funds, foreign governments, central banks, university endowments, charitable foundations, and other institutional investors. Co-chair and co-chief investment officer Ray Dalio founded the firm in 1975 from his two-bedroom New York apartment. The company offers four main funds: Pure Alpha, which focuses on active investment strategy Pure Alpha Major Markets, which targets a subset of opportunities that the Pure Alpha fund invests in All Weather, which uses an asset allocation strategy Optimal Portfolio, which combines aspects of the All Weather fund with active management As of March 27, 2021, the fund had $154 billion under management. 4. Renaissance Technologies Renaissance Technologies is a New York-based quantitative hedge fund that uses mathematical and statistical methods to uncover technical indicators that drive its automated trading strategies. Renaissance applies these strategies to U.S. and international equities, debt instruments, futures contracts, forward contracts and foreign exchange. As of June 3, 2021, the fund had $130 billion under management. Mathematician Jim Simons founded Renaissance Technologies in 1982. Forbes lists Simons as the 68th wealthiest person in the world as of Jan. 13, 2021, worth $23.5 billion. Mathematician Peter Brown is the current chief executive. 5. Man Group This British hedge fund has more than 230 years of trading experience. It started in 1784 as an exclusive supplier of rum to the Royal Navy, later getting into the sugar, coffee and cocoa trading business. As of December 31, 2020, Man Group had $123.6 billion in assets under management. 6. Elliott Management Elliot Management describes its investment mandate as "extremely broad" and encompassing of almost every asset type: distressed securities, equities, hedging and arbitrage positions, commodities, real estate-related securities, etc. In August 2019, Elliot acquired book retailer Barnes & Noble. It had earlier acquired British bookseller Waterstones. The company is based in New York and was founded by Paul Singer in 1977. As of November 13, 2020, Elliot had $73.5 billion in assets under management and $40 billion of net assets under management on a discretionary basis. 7. Two Sigma Investments Two Sigma Investments is based in New York and was founded by John Overdeck and David Siegel in April 2002. The company uses quantitative analysis to build mathematical strategies that rely on historical price patterns and other data. As of March 31, 2021, Two Sigma Investments had $68.9 billion under management. 8. Millennium Management Millennium Management is based in New York and was founded in 1989. The company offers discretionary advisory services to private funds. As of December 31, 2019, Millennium had $42 billion under management. The company is lead by Chair Israel Englander, who founded Millennium with $35 million in capital following a career as a floor broker, trader, and options specialist on the American Stock Exchange. 9. Davidson Kempner Capital Management Davidson Kempner Capital Management is based in New York and has affiliate offices in London, Hong Kong and Dublin. The company began managing capital for investors in 1987. It focuses on bankruptcies, convertible arbitrage, merger arbitrage, distressed investments, event-driven equities and restructuring situations. As of May 31, 2021, Davidson Kempner had approximately $37.3 billion under management. 10. Citadel Advisors Citadel Advisors is based in Chicago and focuses on equities, fixed income and macro, commodities, credit and quantitative strategies. As of March 31, 2021, Citadel had $33.1 billion in assets under management. In 1987, founder Kenneth Griffin began trading from his dorm room as a 19-year-old sophomore at Harvard University. He founded Citadel in 1990. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), total production in the U.S. economy grew at a 2% clip in the third quarter of 2015. In the second quarter, real gross domestic product (GDP) was revised up to 3.7% growth. There are some problems with relying on GDP to gauge economic health, but these were still encouraging signs for a country fighting through the slowest post-recession recovery in its history. Positive economic numbers only added to expectations about a potential interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve heading into 2016. The Fed had not raised interest rates since before the Great Recession. A momentous 0.25 Fed funds rate hike is only one challenge the U.S. economy faced in 2016. Labor force participation was still historically low. Politicians continued to rack up enormous deficits and finance them with cheap credit. And the entire global financial system teetered because China's economy finally slowed after years of ravenous growth. The following are three challenges that American businesses and policymakers will likely confront in the coming year. The Fed's Difficult Balancing Act The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) openly toyed with the idea of raising interest rates beginning in at least 2012. The Fed likely did not raise them in 2016 because it was caught between a rock and several hard places. There is ample historical evidence to suggest low interest rates fuel bond, equity, and housing prices. The opposite tends to occur when rates increase. The 2015 recovery was likely built on higher asset prices and lower energy costs. There were concerns that raising interest rates would not cause oil prices to jump, but also drive down assets, turning the small recovery into a contraction. Then again, interest rates couldn't stay at zero forever. The economy had already suffered the terrible results of unchecked housing and stock market growth in 2007-2008, and the Fed did not want to double down on that mistake. Additionally, savers and retirees had been crippled by record low payments on traditional income devices such as CDs and bonds. Just as critically, the federal government did not want rates to rise. First, the illusory growth from low interest rate policies was politically popular. Second, the United States had an enormous interest payment on the debt. These interest payments suddenly get much larger when the government has to issue new bonds with higher coupons. Weakness in Europe and China The U.S. is not immune to the ebbs and flows of a complex global economy, and the two largest foreign markets, Europe and China, seemed poised to struggle in 2016. When the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite more than doubled between October 2014 and August 2015, many pronounced China as the economic superpower of the future. That optimism all but disappeared in a flash after Chinese equities fell by nearly 40% over the next two months, despite massive purchases of failing companies by the Chinese Security Finance Corporation. It turns out China had a real estate and stock market bubble that felt disturbingly similar to the American experience in 2007-2008. The "red economy," seemingly impervious to a slowdown the year prior, seemed on the brink of a multiyear struggle. News out of Europe was not much better. Recorded growth in the eurozone was just 0.5% in Q1 2015, and numbers were even worse for Q2 and Q3. Germany and the United Kingdom had been reluctantly dragging the rest of the continent out of the red for years, but economic and political concerns were numerous in the new year. Sluggish Jobs Market The U.S. economy added jobs each month in 2015. This is the good news. The bad news was that very few of those jobs were full-time, productive jobs in the private economy. The middle class was still struggling, and the economy did not seem well equipped to provide new, lasting and high-paying opportunities. Total government employment increased by more than 1.1 million between November 2014 and November 2015. Over the same time frame, over 500,000 jobs were added to an increasingly bureaucratic health care sector. And, as the November jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics pointed out, "the number of persons employed part-time for economic reasons, sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers, increased by 319,000 to 6.1 million." The labor force participation rate was near decade-long lows all year, standing at under 63%. And, even though 211,000 jobs were added in November 2015, there were 2.3 million workers only "marginally attached to the labor force" or who were discouraged and not believing there are jobs out there for them. This means that, by a factor of eight-to-one, more people gave up looking for jobs than found them. Fortune 500 Rank CEO Company Fortune 500 Rank in 2021 Karen Lynch CVS Health 4 Rosalind Brewer Walgreens Boots Alliance 18 Gail Boudreaux Anthem 20 Mary Barra General Motors 25 Carol Tome United Parcel Service 34 Jane Fraser Citigroup 44 Corie Barry Best Buy 68 Tricia Griffith Progressive 79 Thasunda Brown Duckett TIAA 90 Safra Catz Oracle 91 Source: Fortune 4. Mary Barra CEO, General Motors (GM) Ranking third, Barra is the first female CEO of General Motors and pretty much the first for a major automobile company in the United States. She slid into the drivers seat at GM in January 2014, taking over from Daniel Akerson, the man credited for turning the company profitable after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2011. Barra is leading the charge for GM to transition to electric vehicles by 2035. She ranked fifth on Fortunes 2021 Most Powerful Women list and fourth on Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women in the World 2021. 5. Carol Tome CEO, United Parcel Service (UPS) Tome came out of retirement to take the helm of UPS in June 2020. She retired as chief financial officer (CFO) of Home Depot in 2019. Tome is the first female CEO at UPS and the first UPS CEO who wasnt promoted from within. During the first 100 days as CEO, she prioritized planning the logistics for the 2020 holiday season and ultimately the delivery of a COVID-19 vaccine. Throughout the pandemic, UPS has been an essential service. She is listed on Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women in the World 2021 and Fortunes 2021 Most Powerful Women lists. 6. Jane Fraser CEO, United Parcel Service (UPS) Tome came out of retirement to take the helm of UPS in June 2020. She retired as chief financial officer (CFO) of Home Depot in 2019. Tome is the first female CEO at UPS and the first UPS CEO who wasnt promoted from within. During the first 100 days as CEO, she prioritized planning the logistics for the 2020 holiday season and ultimately the delivery of a COVID-19 vaccine. Throughout the pandemic, UPS has been an essential service. She is listed on Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women in the World 2021 and Fortunes 2021 Most Powerful Women lists. 7 . Corie Barry CEO, Best Buy (BBY) Barry was named CEO of Best Buy in 2019 at the age of 44. She was the youngest CEO of a Fortune 100 company at the time. Previously, Barry held positions including chief financial and strategic transformation officer and CFO. Barry joined Best Buy in 1999. In terms of career advice, Barry says, Have those uncomfortable moments. Because my strong personal belief is it is those moments that cause you to grow the most yourself, but that also differentiate you the most in your career. Barry ranked 13th among Fortunes Most Powerful Women of 2021. 8 . Tricia Griffith CEO, Progressive (PGR) In 2016, Griffith was named CEO of Progressive, after prior roles as Personal Lines COO and chief human resources officer. Progressive, a property and casualty insurance firm, reported more than $47 billion in revenue in 2021. Under Griffiths leadership, Progressive is a top-rated company in diversity and inclusion. More than 20% of management are minorities, 45% of management roles are held by women, and there is no gender pay gap. Griffith ranks 51st among Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women in 2021 and 21st among Fortunes Most Powerful Women of 2021. 9. Thasunda Brown Duckett CEO, Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) Retirement and investment manager TIAA named Duckett its CEO in February 2021. TIAA has more than $1 trillion in assets under management. Like Brewer, she is among a handful of Black women CEOs to lead a Fortune 500 company. Duckett succeeded Roger W. Ferguson Jr., who was one of only five Black CEOs in the Fortune 500 before retiring. Prior to TIAA, she was CEO of Chase Consumer Banking. Duckett is ranked 45th among Fortunes 2021 Most Powerful Women and 45th among Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women in 2021. 9% The percentage of Fortune 500 company CEOs who were women as of May 2022. 10. Safra Catz CEO, Oracle (ORCL) Former Oracle CFO Catz was appointed as one of two company CEOs in 2014 after Lawrence Ellison stepped down from the position. Following the death of co-CEO Mark Hurd, Catz became the sole CEO in 2019. Under her leadership, the tech giant has pursued an aggressive acquisition strategy, completing more than 130 acquisitions. She is listed on Fortunes Most Powerful Women 2021 list and two Forbes lists: 100 Most Powerful Women in 2021 and Americas Richest Self-Made Women. Who is the most famous woman chief executive officer (CEO)? Karen Lynch, chief executive officer (CEO) of CVS Health, runs the fourth-largest Fortune 500 company, with more than $292 billion in revenue in 2021. Along with Lynch, Rosalind Brewer is at the helm of Walgreen Boots Alliance, the 18th-largest Fortune 500 company, and Mary Barra, who is CEO of General Motors. How many CEOs are women? As of May 2022, 44 women were CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, or roughly 9% of the total. Two CEOs are Black women, one CEO is transgender, and one CEO sits within the top five largest companies overall. It marked a record year for women in the highest-ranking corporate role. Which companies have women CEOs? As of May 2022, the largest Fortune 500 companies with women CEOs include CVS Health, Walgreens Boots Alliance, General Motors, Anthem, Citigroup, United Parcel Service, Best Buy, Progressive, TIAA, and Oracle. BROWNSVILLE, Minn. A Canadian Pacific freight train derailed Tuesday night in Houston County, Minn., sending six cars into the Mississippi River and spilling food-grade oil into the water. The southbound train derailed around 10 p.m. about three miles south of Brownsville. There were no injuries reported. CP spokesman Andy Cummings said a small amount of sodium chlorate powder spilled from one of the 15 derailed cars but none of the chemical reached the river. Primarily used in a bleaching agent for the pulp and paper industry, sodium chlorate can cause fire or explosions when mixed with other materials, according to the manufacturer. It could kill algae and other aquatic plants if spilled into the river, said Mark Sandheinrich, a professor of biology and director of the River Studies Center at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. CP has not said what other materials the mixed-freight train was carrying. Dozens of contractors and government officials were on the scene Wednesday removing overturned cars and repairing the damaged track. Crews were cutting through ice to install wooden barriers downstream after discovering a sheen consistent with soybean oil, according to the railroad. CP said Monday afternoon that it planned to empty the tanker cars before pulling them from the river. Canadian Pacific takes this incident extremely seriously, Cummings said. Safety will be our top priority. The railroad said it anticipated the line, which carries about six trains per day, would reopen Wednesday night. Removal of the oil tankers depends on how quickly it could get empty cars to the site to hold the oil. The Federal Railroad Administration had inspectors on the scene, though it could take months to determine a cause, said deputy regional administrator Michael Bodah. The Environmental Protection Agency, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Coast Guard and Mississippi River Basin Association were also at the site. Sabrina Chandler, refuge manager for the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, said oil can coat fish and mussels, preventing them from absorbing oxygen. We always have a concern if theres anything going in the river thats not supposed to be there, Chandler said. The derailment occurred under a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service overlook that is a popular spot for watching tundra swans and other migratory birds. Chandler said it wasnt clear what impact the activity might have on future migrations but noted the oil itself would not pose a risk. Its certainly not the same situation as if it was crude oil, Chandler said. Canadian Pacific had two derailments in Minnesota during 2015, according to the FRAs accident database, which includes incidents through the end of October. Both occurred at relatively slow speeds and did not result in major damages or hazardous material spills. About 31,000 gallons of liquid fertilizer and an unknown amount of diesel fuel leaked into the Mississippi River when two CP trains collided in 2008 near Dresbach, Minn. Railroads have come under increased scrutiny in recent years with the rapid growth of crude oil shipments. According to the latest available reports, an average of nine trains per week run on the CP line through Houston County carrying more than a million gallons of crude. Most cross the Mississippi River at La Crescent, continuing east through La Crosse County. Last year the railroad launched four projects on its southeastern Minnesota line, including a bridge replacement and new sidings to allow trains to pass on the Marquette line, which continues south through Iowa and west to Kansas City. A CP train carrying crude oil derailed Nov. 8 in Watertown, Wis., one day after a BNSF train derailed near Alma, Wis., spilling ethanol into the Mississippi River. No injuries were reported in either of those accidents. Citizens Acting for Rail Safety issued a statement Tuesday saying the derailment brings to light the potential for serious accidents that can cause disastrous consequences to our communities and environment. The rail safety group noted that hazardous materials besides oil and ethanol traverse the area daily. Today's workersunless they've been in the workforce a very long time with the same employer or work in certain public sector or union organizationswill never know what a retirement pension, or defined benefits plan, looks like in real life. That's because these retirement plans are going the way of the dinosaur, replaced by the defined contribution plan, typically a 401(k) account. What's the difference? A pension plan pays a guaranteed amount each month, based on salary and years of service. A 401(k) plan, on the other hand, depends on employee and sometimes employer contributions and reflects the performance of the investments within them. While the vast majority of businesses now offer 401(k) plans for retirement, there's a great deal of difference between the most and least generous among them. For example, some employers offer a generous employer match and even additional contributions based on salary. Others offer a better mix of investment options with lower fees. It's a good idea to look at the fine print to see what you're really getting when you enroll. If you are wondering which companies do the best job setting up their employees for financial security in retirement, take a look at our list for the best retirement plans. 1. ConocoPhillips (COP) ConocoPhillips has a generous employee matching programit automatically pays a 6% match after you invest 1% of your income. In addition, the company offers a discretionary additional match of between 0% and 6% based on company performance and other factors including employee age. The goal is a 9% total match. In addition, investment options are broad, including a mix of stock, bond and international index funds. Vesting is immediate at 100%. Enrollment is voluntary, but employees must contribute a minimum of 1% to receive the company's contributions. 2. The Boeing Company (BA) Boeing transitioned all non-union employees from a pension to a 401(k) retirement plan in 2016, and the results have been amazing. With over $47 billion in assets, it is the second-largest plan in the country. The company matches 75% of the first 8% of employees' contributions. There's also a discretionary contribution of between 3% and 5% per year based on the employee's age. Boeing automatically enrolls employees in the plan, and there is a broad selection of stock, bond, and international index funds to choose from. 3. Amgen Inc. (AMGN) Amgen is another company with one of the best retirement plans, and is one of the more generous companies when it comes to employer contributionsit makes a 5% core contribution upfront, whether or not the employee makes a contribution to the plan. In addition, the company matches employees' contributions up to 5% of their salary for a total of 10%. There's also an employee stock purchase plan. Amgen's funds include a broad mix of stock, bond and international index funds. Employees are 100% vested immediately and are automatically enrolled in the plan. 4. Philip Morris International Inc. (PM) You may have qualms about working for the king of tobacco, but Philip Morris does its best to reward and retain top talent. In addition to matching the first 5% of employee contributions, the company adds an additional 7% of eligible employee compensation for a total of up to 12%. There are no bond funds to select, but a broad range of stock and international index funds are available. Eligible employees are automatically enrolled and are 100% vested immediately. 5. Citigroup Inc. (C) This banking giant does a good job with its retirement plans, matching 100% of the employee's first 6% of contributions. There's an additional 2% added in, but it's important to note that Citigroup makes its contributions in a lump sum at or after year-end and not at the same regular intervals that employee contributions are made. Fund options include stock and international index fundsno bond funds are available. Enrollment is automatic, and employees are fully vested immediately. The Catholic Diocese of Palm Beach, Florida has claimed that Father John Gallagher, the Irish priest who made headlines earlier this week alleging that he is being punished by his parish for whistleblowing against a pedophile colleague, is blatantly lying and in need of professional assistance. Father Gallagher, a native of Co. Tyrone, spoke out on Monday against what he described as the dioceses mishandling of a sexual abuse case involving a visiting priest, as well as the apparently punitive actions taken against Fr. Gallagher since he reported the abuse to authorities being demoted and locked out of his parochial house. In January 2015, Gallagher, 48, who has served in Florida since 2000, helped to report criminal misconduct by Fr. Jose Palimattom, a priest of the Franciscan Province of St Thomas the Apostle in India, who was serving a two-year residency at Holy Name of Jesus Parish in West Palm Beach. Palimattom, who had been at the parish for just one month, approached a 14-year-old boy one day after Mass and showed him as many as 40 images of naked boys. Police later classified this as an attempt to groom the boy for future encounters. Gallagher claims that he went against a church officials instructions to put Fr. Palimattom on a plane to Bangalore and not keep written notes of the incident. Rather than following the Churchs instruction to make him go away, Gallagher interviewed Fr. Palimattom along with one of his parishioners, a retired police officer, who took notes at the meeting. Palimattom admitted to showing nude pictures of boys to the teen. He also admitted that he had sexually assaulted boys in India before arriving in the US. A few hours later he repeated this confession to detectives from the specialist unit of the West Palm Beach Police. Gallagher contacted the police, following the rules the Catholic Church had set down after hundreds of cases of sexual abuse carried out by the clergy on children. At the time, the Palm Beach diocese released a statement saying that despite prior investigation they had no knowledge of Palimattoms previous assaults in India, despite conducting a background check. ABC news reported that Palimattom admitted the prior assaults, saying they were not on record as they had not been reported to police. It was also claimed by the media that Palimattom was under orders from the Church to avoid being in the company of minors without other adults in attendance. Now, in what the Palm Beach Post described as an extraordinary public rebuttal, the Palm Beach Diocese has stated that they are very disappointed in the actions of Father John Gallagher who, through a complete misrepresentation of the case of Father Jose Palimattom, has brought unfair and slanderous allegations against the Church and the Diocese of Palm Beach. They further suggest that this is not the first time they have been disappointed by Fr. Gallagher, claiming that he has acted in a manner in other situations in the past and has been given every opportunity for correction, including the possibility of professional assistance, and imply that the Irish priest greatly exaggerated his role in reporting Fr. Palimattoms crime to authorities. This is despite the fact that police have praised Fr. Gallagher for his help with the case, writing to Church leaders including Bostons Cardinal Sean OMalley, the head of the Pontifical Commission for Child Protection, a group established by Pope Francis in 2014. Chief Deputy in the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office Michael Gauger, who has been a cop for 44 years, wrote, Due to Fr. Gallagher's co-operation the case was swiftly resolved and the opportunity for additional crimes was diminished. He urged Cardinal O'Malley to ensure the Irish priest received accolades for his compliance with criminal investigators and note that this was not the first time that the Church has impeded investigations. The diocese, however, contents thatFather Gallagher is blatantly lying and is in need of professional assistance as well as our prayers and mercy. The diocese also expressed disappointment in the medias handling of Fr. Gallaghers complaints, adding The Diocese is very concerned regarding the manner in which the media is presenting this case, especially when the Diocese had released to it information that should have caused more than reasonable caution in presenting misleading information from Father Gallagher. Gallagher, who has not yet commented on the statement, has claimed that the Bishop of Palm Beach, Gerald Barbarito, demoted him instead of giving him a promotion he was in line for, blocked his access to his parochial house after Gallagher had spend time in hospital recovering from a heart attack, and placed him on extended medical leave. Fr. Gallagher is now staying in the vacation home of one of his former parishioners and has taken his case to the Vatican. Yesterday in Palm Beach, a group of Fr. Gallaghers supporters former parishioners gathered to protest the churchs treatment of him. The EU has offered a compromise deal to David Cameron in an effort to break the deadlock on his reform demands. The proposal would give the UK the right to apply a so-called "emergency brake" to halt EU migrants coming into the country. The companys revenue rose to $5.84b from $3.85bn (5.36bn 3.5bn) a year earlier, with ad revenue increasing 56.8% to $5.64bn in the holiday shopping period, when spending on advertising typically spikes. Facebook, whose shares were up 6% in after-hours trading on Wednesday, said mobile ads accounted for 80% of total ad revenue in the quarter, compared with about 78% in the third quarter and 69% a year earlier. The company, which has the worlds most popular smartphone app, has also been benefiting from a surge in video views that has attracted advertising dollars. Facebook said that it had 1.59 billion monthly active users as of December 31, up 14% from the end of 2014. Of those, 1.44 billion used the service on mobile devices, an increase of 21%. The number of Facebook users has jumped to 1.5 billion https://t.co/dcrfroOTfq pic.twitter.com/MjsK3Kbqpm Irish Examiner (@irishexaminer) January 27, 2016 Analysts had expected the company to report 1.58 billion monthly active users, with 1.43 billion accessing the service through smartphones and tablets, according to market research firm FactSet StreetAccount. Net income attributable to common shareholders rose to $1.56bn, or 54c per share, in the three months ended December 31 from $696m, or 25c per share in the same period of 2014. Excluding items, the company earned 79c per share. Analysts on average had expected earnings of 68c per share and revenue of $5.37bn, according to Thomson Reuters. Apart from focusing on mobile, Facebook has been ramping up spending on several big bets, including virtual reality, artificial intelligence and drones to connect the remotest parts of the world to the internet. The company has also begun monetising some of its other units, such as photo-sharing app Instagram, which surpassed 400 million users last year and began selling ads in September. In January, Facebook also began taking orders for a consumer version of the Oculus Rift, a head-mounted virtual reality unit. Chairman and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, who returned from two months of paternity leave on Monday, has said virtual reality represents the next major computing platform. Up to Wednesdays close of $94.45, Facebooks stock had risen nearly 25% in the past 12 months. Self explanatory title. I abhor that nicey nicey, politically correct, pseudo-Christianity which almost always supports leftwing attitudes - which in most cases are profoundly anti-Gospel. This Blog supports persecuted Christians. This Blog exposes cults. This Blog opposes junk science. UPDATED DAILY. This is not a forum. This Blog supports truly Christian websites and aids their efforts. It is hardhitting and unashamedly evangelical so if it offends - please do not come to this site! Sales in Greater China, which also includes Taiwan and Hong Kong, grew 84% to $58.7bn (54.2bn) in 2015, making it the companys second-biggest market after the US. Apple chief executive Tim Cook showered the region with praise at the time for its importance to the companys future. Apples reliance on the country is now being put to the test. On a conference call with analysts after its Tuesday earnings report, Mr Cook said the company is beginning to see economic softness in the region, particularly in Hong Kong. China is no longer able to offset sluggishness elsewhere or counter the broader slowdown in the global smartphone market. You need to take into account the business opportunities that we have but also the realities of an economic environment that is not ideal right now, said Luca Maestri, Apples chief financial officer, noting sales in Brazil, Canada, Japan, and Russia also are being affected by global economic malaise. Mr Cook remains optimistic about China and vowed that Apple will invest through any downturn. And given the companys resources (theres still a whopping $216bn on its balance sheet), he has the luxury of playing the long game. It has 28 stores in mainland China now and will have 40 by this summer. Demographic trends are working in the companys favour. Roughly 80% of people in the country are still using older phones that run on 3G networks. Those customers will be up for grabs when they finally decide to upgrade. In 2010, Cook said less than 50 million people in China were considered middle class, but by 2020, that number is expected to jump to 500 million. Apple is poised to benefit in the longer term if China shifts toward a more consumer-led economy, away from its emphasis on manufacturing. I dont subscribe to the doom and gloom predictions, he said. China May No Longer Be Apples Great Firewall https://t.co/chIgg0DNXc via @satariano Robert Fenner (@Robert_Fenner) January 27, 2016 Even so, the results make clear Apple is no longer a hyper-growth company thats riding the twin coattails of a booming smartphone market and buoyant Chinese economy. For the first time since Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in 2007, the company is projecting that quarterly phone sales will fall. Meanwhile, other products such as the iPad and Apple Watch show no signs of filling the void. In an interview after its earnings report, Maestri said Apples expanding services business will be a source of future growth. The company generated $31bn (28.5bn) in such revenue from the App Store, Apple Music, iCloud, Apple Pay, and other services last year, he said, making Apple one of the biggest internet services companies in the world. However, investors remain sceptical, sending the stock down about 20% in the past six months. Speaking at the launch of Ryanairs winter 2016 route schedule in Dublin, yesterday, the airlines chief marketing manager Kenny Jacobs said the company has a good relationship with the Dublin Airport Authority and feels Transport Minister Paschal Donohoe has the right approach on the proposed project. Mr Donohoe has backed the need for a second runway at the countrys main airport, especially if 2015s strong user numbers are replicated. The DAA recently reported a record 25 million passengers used Dublin Airport last year. Asked if Ryanairs positivity was a sea change in thinking, Mr Jacobs said that the DAAs new plans are more sensible than the previous blueprint. He said that Londons three main airports Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted each need additional runways and Dublin could set a good example in showing how to quickly build a low-cost runway that benefits the national economy. However, Mr Jacobs said Ryanair would not support the project if it were to be funded by an increase in airport charges for airlines and it must be ensured the overall cost doesnt exceed 250m and balloon to 500m or higher. The DAA is expected to make a final decision on the runway later this year and has 250m as its estimated cost. The move could however, result in an increase in airport charges, at Dublin, of 59c per passenger from the current maximum of 9.87. His comments coincided with those of Ryanair chief executive Michael OLeary who yesterday addressed a European aviation strategy conference in Brussels, chaired by Fine Gael MEP Deirdre Clune. Speaking about over-priced airport charges, Mr OLeary said: In the last 10 years airport charges rose by 90% at the 10 largest European airports while airline fares dropped 20% over the same period. "While airlines have reduced their fares, EU passengers continue to be fleeced by excessive airport charges. Its in consumers interests to benefit from lower EU airport costs. He said that the new airline association, A4E, of which Ryanair is a member will campaign for the effective regulation of monopoly airports on behalf of European passengers. Ryanair yesterday said its winter 2016 schedule will add 1.2 million new passengers. In the surprise decision, the EU office that decides on trademark disputes has upheld McDonalds opposition against Supermacs using its own brand across Europe to sell its famous snack boxes and a host of fastfood items or to operate fastfood restaurants. In a split decision, the ruling does allow Supermacs the consolation that it can use its brand name and trade name in the EU but not to operate fastfood restaurants or to sell meat, fish, poultry, chicken nuggets, chips, onion rings, or hamburgers under that brand name. The precedent set by the EU ruling also puts into doubt Supermacs expansion plans in Australia where McDonalds is also opposing the Supermacs trade mark being used. The firm putting forward its curry chips and snack box products as to why it should win its battle with McDonalds and other arguments were roundly rejected by the EU Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM). McDonalds was seeking to protect registered trademarks around McDonalds, McFish, McMuffin, McNuggets, McWrap and other McDonald products. In a 24-page ruling, the OHIM agreed with McDonalds that Supermacs application for a trade mark is likely to cause confusion amongst the public over the two different fastfood brands and their fastfood products. Last June, Supermacs founder Pat McDonagh flew to the OHIM offices in Alicante, Spain, to deliver Supermacs rebuttal of McDonalds arguments. However, the OHIM found consumers may believe that Supermacs is a new version of McDonalds Big Mac and assume that the goods come from the same business and as a result may confuse the conflicting goods. It dismissed Mr McDonaghs argument as irrelevant because the rights of McDonalds trademark are earlier than Supermacs trademark application. In its ruling, the OHIM said it found there is a likelihood of confusion for the English-speaking part of the public in the European Union. The OHIM gives Supermacs the right to appeal. Mr McDonagh said last night the ruling was contradictory and questionable. It is difficult to understand why they would allow the brand name, but not allow us to sell the food we sell, he said. A spokeswoman at McDonalds European head offices in London said the ruling was welcome. We are pleased that the EU has rejected the application in connection with those goods and services deemed to be similar or identical to those of McDonalds, she said. He, generally speaking, either lost the cool or made you feel like an idiot. Obviously, Finance Minister Michael Noonans years as a teacher or his study of economics in UCD did not go to waste. Why else would he use novel expressions such as fiscal space when talking about how much financial leeway is available to him as he infers the availability of more post-election goodies? That is, if only his party or the current Coalition is re-elected. Most of us had no clear understanding of the meaning of that expression until a few short days ago. Yet we did not want to hold up our hands and question the master lest we appear to be foolish. According to Samuel Johnson, the last refuge of a scoundrel is patriotism. Perhaps we should re-adjust that to the last refuge is the person who uses jargon to confuse the audience. Its obviously seen as a useful artifice to divert attention from what is really being said. The problem is that we are misled, partially because we allow ourselves to be misled, and we accept what is being said without questioning what is really meant. In this case, all of the political parties outside of the Coalition are working to the fiscal space figure released by the Department of Finance while Mr Noonan is quoting another figure. The minister is giving himself more flexibility in the Coalitions current main agenda that is, to get re-elected. But digging deeper into this fiscal space shouldnt fill us with hope for a more prosperous future. Sure, Government, and indeed the Opposition, are doling out promises and goodies like there was no tomorrow. Yet, what they are failing to do is to tell us that some of these goodies are simply our own money being handed back to us as in, Michael Noonan taketh with one hand and giveth back with the other. It could even be described as a sleight of hand. In the Coalitions case, it appears to be that additional funds are being accrued through failing to index the tax bands. In other words, we pay more tax or contributions on an ongoing basis as our salaries increase. Its almost a zero sum gain. Unfortunately though, all of the goodies that are being promised cannot be so described. Mr Noonan is betting on recent improvements in the economy and recent windfall increases in corporation tax take continuing into the future. It would appear that he and his Government colleagues are alone in that belief. The EU, the Fiscal Council, and the rest are not convinced that these incomes are sustainable. Indeed, they have pointed out that our debt levels are high risk in the medium term. The potential impact of a Brexit or a tsunami being created by the Chinese economy faltering is simply being ignored. In these highly charged times its easy to be described as a doomsayer. As we slowly creep out of recession we dont want someone telling us to hold our horses. However, we are all hoping for the best but we have to accept there is much outside our control. We must prepare for the possibility that not everything is going to slot into place just the way we want it to. EU changes to the way corporate taxation might operate in the future can theoretically be vetoed. But we can be brow-beaten into accepting some change. Each time we submit we cut away some of the potential corporation tax that we need desperately. Despite what we see in larger and far more influential economies around us we should not only be hoping for the best but also planning for it. If the EU, and the rest, are correct, anything could happen and we would suffer a repeat of 2007. Its best that we all hope for the best but plan for the worst. At least then we can be prepared to be pleasantly surprised. It is about an old farmer, and the balloon he brought with him from his home below the Curlew Mountains to the modern geriatric hospital which countrymen of his era always thought of as the County Home. Maybe this yarn is a slight thing about a green balloon. Maybe it is much more than that. I cannot be sure, and that is the pure truth. The nurse who told me the story was born and raised in the same townland as Mikey and Molly. They had a handy small farm. They had no children, but a nephew who lived nearby was like a son to them always. The couple were popular. Mikey had been a thatcher for three parishes when he was young, when there were a lot of thatched roofs. After that, he still made wicker baskets and creels. He was very handy. There were often lively card games of Twenty Five in their kitchen, up until relatively recent times. It was a lively house until Molly died two years ago, suddenly, at home, at the age of 87 years. The nephew and his family and the neighbours kept an eye on Mikeys wellbeing after that. He was two years older than his wife. He managed well enough for the first while, but then started to go downhill fast enough, and was not that happy for visitors to call any more. Thats an old story, is it not. The nephew was always welcome though, and it was common knowledge he would inherit the place when the time came. He is a good, caring sort. It was him who told the nurse that Mikey was not able to look after himself safely any more, and that he should go into the hospital where she works. She called shortly afterwards, as a neighbour rather than as a nurse, and was quite surprised to see how frail Mikey had become. He was sitting in his old fireside chair beside a dead hearth. She noticed the green balloon floating over the back of the chair. He told her he remembered thatching her fathers house. After that, and a conversation with the nephew and two other concerned neighbours, she called several times again, and herself and the nephew put pressure on Mikey to go into the hospital for at least a while. He resisted quite fiercely for months, but at last agreed. She was on duty in his unit that evening, when the nephew drove him to the hospital. He arrived with a large suitcase, was on a walking stick, and was carrying the green balloon with him. The nephew tied it to the head of his new bed. It dropped down and was out of sight, except when the fan was turned on overhead in hot weather. Then, she said, it would flutter over his head on the pillow like something alive. Mikey had begun to slip away last December. The week before they put the screens around his bed, she asked the nephew what was the significance of the green balloon. Mollie blew up the balloon as a surprise for the nephews eldest daughter, and tied the neck of it, and then slipped out of her chair on to the floor and was dead. Just like that it happened. Mikey showed him the balloon after the funeral, and said that it was special because it contained Mollies last breath in this world. Mikey, being handy, even put glue in the neckpiece so the air within would not escape. None of it did, either. He died in his sleep in the first days of this year. Later, before the undertaker closed the coffin, the nephew put the balloon in the space between Mikeys head and his dead shoulder. The nurse, as a neighbours child, attended the funeral in a small calm graveyard below the Curlews. When they were lowering the coffin into the loamy grave below, somebody slipped a little and the coffin lurched downwards sharply. Everybody around the grave heard the green balloon bursting with a pop within. Most had no idea what caused the sound, but the nurse and the nephew knew. Mollys last breath escaped at last. The nurse told me she felt as if they had sent two souls to paradise rather than just one. Thats the story as it was told to me. I dont quite know why I am passing it on like this, except I suspect it is about a lot more than just a Green Balloon... The group has three aims: gaining access to relevant information and data. establishing a local/ regional network of organic farmers, processors and service providers. providing group representation, where necessary. A group meeting was held on January 18 at Ballykisteen, Co Tipperary, where the main focus was on how the sector will adapt to a large increase in both numbers of farmers and in livestock to be processed. The attendance of 90 or so from as far afield as Cork and Galway, included Minister of State Tom Hayes, farmers, representatives of the Departments Organic Unit, the certification bodies, and the main organic meat processors, Good Herdsmen and Slaney Meats. It became clear that numbers are up, with Minister Hayes pointing to 650 new Organic Farming Scheme entrants in 2015. Joan Furlong of the Organic Unit noted that there are currently 1,175 full symbol organic farmers and 226 processors, and Department figures suggest that there are 33,000 suckler and dry stock organic animals registered at present. Leakage of organic animals into the conventional sector is running at over twice the rate for sheep (22%) as for cattle. Most interest was reserved, however for what the processors had to say. Of these, Good Herdsmen were more upbeat. Slaney slaughter 50 plus animals per week, and expect an additional 7,000 animals per year, or 130 per week, coming on stream. This they saw as a significant challenge, although new markets were opening up in the US and Canada. John Purcell of Good Herdsmen said the company slaughtered 5,500 cattle in 2015 (15% up on 2914) and 3,500 lambs He sees growth in their European markets, especially Germany, France, Denmark and Sweden, but not the Netherlands, the UK or the US. Beef consumption is down 3% in the UK ,he noted. Cow beef and calves would also cater for some small but growing markets. Cow beef will be processed roughly one day per month. Following questions with respect to re-opening a market for calves, Mr Purcell expected this would be small during 2016 (about 300 cattle) and would increase toabout 2,000 animals in 2017 Capacity-wise, he suggested that Good Herdsmen are confident they can consume an additional 100 plus cattle if available now. However, sporadic supply was cited as a concern. Questions from the floor included references to new tillage farmers not being catered for within the 2016 organic farming scheme, and the shortage of Irish-grown cereal availability. A question was raised concerning the impact of ABPs equity investment within Good Herdsmen and its joint venture plans with Slaney Foods. John Purcell sought to reassure farmers that each processors sites are run independently as stand-alone profit centres. As ever, there were numerous questions about payments. Some queried the crossover between GLAS and organic scheme payments, and the lack of benefit in the organic farming scheme. This was refuted by Joan Furlong who pointed to the numbers joining the scheme. There were also questions with respect to payment dates for 2015 subsidies. A department representative pointed out that farmers have received 85% of outstanding payments, and that exceptions concern issues with paperwork. However, its surely a good sign that not all the talk was about subsidy payments. Indeed, there is justifiable hope for the organic movement with this sort of broad approach to developing the capacity of everyone involved (with thanks to Thomas Finucane of the Limerick Tipperary Organic Farmers Group). Mr Coonan is the second TD to become embroiled in a war of words with the environment minister this week after Independent TD Michael Lowry described him as arrogant. Yesterday, Mr Coonan fiercely criticised Mr Kelly at a Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting in Leinster House. Speaking after the meeting he said: If he was that concerned about Labour going into government after the next election he should have had a better relationship with the members of the other party in government. Fr John Fitzgerald, the parish priest of Millstreet, Co Cork, said 18-year-old Alex Ryan was too young to die, and that his mother, Irena, and sister, Nicole, have been robbed of their tomorrows. He made his comments in his homily yesterday as hundreds of people gathered in the towns St Patricks Church to say goodbye to Alex, who died in Cork University Hospital (CUH) on Saturday after taking the psychoactive stimulant N-Bomb at a house party in the Greenmount area of Cork City last week. He is believed to be the first Irish victim of the drug. As you came face-to-face with his remains last night in the funeral home, beautifully dressed, looking lovely, as he is in all those photographs, we have to be challenged by the fact that Alex was too young to die, said Fr Fitzgerald. We all know the reasons why, because theyve been well recorded in media in the last few days. And this should cause us all to reflect on the reasons for his death, because weve all been warned for many years about the dangers of drugs, and I would encourage you to reflect. Fr Fitzgerald reminded the many young people in the congregation of the two-fold pledge they took at their Confirmation to abstain from drink until a certain age and to abstain from drugs for life. I put that before you again this morning that you have the strength of character to say no so that you yourselves can reach your full potential, achieve your own targets, and find a niche in life where youll be happy and content, he said. His drugs warning was driven home by Nicole, who paid a moving tribute from the altar to her younger brother. Flanked by her mother, she remembered Alex as a fighter with a lions heart, as a brother, a son, a boyfriend, a friend who always looked up to her. He was the joker, the giver, the happy one, he was creative, and he had compassion for everyone and anyone he met. He hated seeing people suffer, said Nicole. Alex hated to conform. He did not see the point of spending your life working nine to five. He wanted to be free to live life on his terms and his rules. I often thought this was unrealistic but the more I think about it, the more I see his point of view. The thing that breaks my heart the most is that he will never know my children, he will never be at my wedding, we will never have a night out together all these little things that people may take for granted, I will never get to share with him and thats tragic, said Nicole. She said she will be forever grateful that he got to see her graduate. He was so happy that day. I used always joke with him that I would put mum in a home and he would always say he would come save her. We had a great time together. We were very different but the same in many ways. Nicole paid tribute to the two men who came to party-goers aid last Tuesday. She thanked the staff at CUH, and the team in its intensive care unit; Alexs girlfriend Triona for giving him the love they could not; Kanturk rugby club and the people of Millstreet for their generosity, support, and sympathy. She said that her little brother had done more in his 18 years than she imagines she will ever do in a lifetime. But I will try to keep making him proud. I will do you and mum proud, I promise, said Nicole. I will take care of her, I promise. I wont put her in a home, I promise. Well stay strong for you, we promise. We will love you forever, we promise. Fr Fitzgerald said Alexs death should remind people of how fragile life really is. He paid tribute to Alexs many friends who journeyed with him, even to the point of being with him in CUH as he drew his final breaths. He recalled his love of playing guitar and ukulele, and also remembered how he played the ukulele at Millstreet Community Schools Leaving Certificate Mass last May. Many of you can recall the 6ft 7in Alex, with his little ukulele, playing the communion reflection, said Fr Fitzgerald. That was probably the last time I spoke to him, and I thanked him for that. I think he was proud that he was able to play it for his classmates. As we look at the lovely photos of him, Alex will never grow old. When you come for your class reunions in 10 years time, or in 20 or 25 years, this is how you will remember Alex, as he is in those photographs there. He wont age, get the grey hairs, or lose hair like the rest of us. He will remain, in one sense, forever young. The funeral was also told that Alex was remembered at an Orthodox service in Irenas sisters home town in the Ukraine. Fourth, fifth, and sixth year students of Millstreet Community School provided a guard of honour as the coffin was carried from the church. Alexs remains were cremated in a private ceremony in Ringaskiddy afterwards. The Fianna Fail governments of Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen missed three key warnings which would have prevented or vastly reduced the scale of the Irish crash, the inquiry also found. The embattled inquiry released its final report yesterday amid accusations from one of its own members, Pearse Doherty, that its weaknesses represented a disservice to the people. Citing a previously unpublished National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) report, the inquiry said the ECBs decision not to allow either the late Brian Lenihan or Michael Noonan impose losses on senior bondholders cost 9.1bn. Had we done so without agreement, Irelands access to emergency funding would have been stopped, the inquiry said. The report was deeply critical of the ECBs treatment of Ireland, saying it put the government under undue pressure to enter a bailout in November 2010. The timing of the entry into the programme was determined by factors outside the Governments control, the report concludes. It also found that the adoption of the soft-landing theory without any substantial testing must be regarded as a key failing for the government, the Central Bank and the Department of Finance. It also concluded that both the Central Bank and the financial regulator had sufficient powers to intervene to prevent the bad lending practices in the banks, but both failed to act decisively. Fine Gael senator Michael Darcy said that 29 developers were lent a total of 34bn, which he said was equivalent to the national debt in 2007. There was also a culture of excessive executive pay in the banks, who moved away from prudent lending decisions, the report found. The report detailed how the salaries of the six bank CEOs in 2007 totalled 14.2m, with Brian Goggin of Bank of Ireland receiving 3.9m in salary, bonus and benefits. The committee also sought to end the myth of the night of the bank guarantee. Chairman Ciaran Lynch said: The night of the guarantee has become a thing of myth. The idea of a guarantee was not conceived on a single Monday night in September 2008; Department of Finance documents show that it was considered as part of a range of options as early as January 2008. Senator Marc MacSharry and committee chairman Ciaran Lynch during the report launch. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins Decision-makers, however, were forced to decide on a course of action in the absence of accurate information about the underlying health of financial institutions; no independent in-depth deep dove investigating of the banks had been commissioned by the authorities by September 2008. But the limitations of the report were to the fore of questioning of committee members yesterday, several of whom voiced their frustrations as to what they were unable to do. It was deeply frustrating for us as members not to be able to delve into the Anglo story in far more detail and those who were in charge of the bank could not come before us. We were only scratching the surface, Fianna Fails Michael McGrath said. Significant legal and procedural limitations precluded the inquiry from examining many key areas of the crash, but also prevented them from making hard-hitting findings of fact against any individuals. As a result, two members of the inquiry independent senator Sean Barrett and Socialist TD Joe Higgins have already produced so-called minority reports with more robust findings and recommendations. Joe Higgins Mr Higgins, in his report, concluded that a cabal of senior politicians, bankers, bondholders and developers in place during the crash should have been jailed despite the fact 99.9% of what they did was legal. The refusal of the ECB to allow the burning of bondholders in 2010 amounted to a one-sided extortion of the Irish government, Mr Barrett found in his report. The ECB abused its role to place unduly stringent demands on Irish taxpayers by refusing to allow the burning of bondholders, the independent senator said. Cowen cleared - Fiachra O Cionnaith However, the then Fine Gael-Labour opposition made the same mistakes by failing to flag concerns, while state watchdogs did not stop excessive bank lending despite having the powers to do so and at times edited facts to hide the threat facing the nation. The findings are made in the bank inquiry report, finally published yesterday after months of internal concerns that the year-long investigation into what caused the crash was destined to never see the light of day. However, the report which says no single event or decision caused the crash has already faced a backlash it is deliberately spreading out the blame for what took place in order to ensure the final report could be agreed by members, leading to claims it has failed to find out what it was set up to examine. Bertie Ahern arrives at the Banking Inquiry According to the 375-page report, which is based on evidence given by 131 witnesses over 400 hours last year and thousands of previously unreleased documents, the Fianna Fail government had at least three clear opportunities to stop or lessen the crash between 2001 and 2008. In 2001, the European Commission wrote to Ecofin asking it to censure the government for its reliance on cyclical taxes and property income. While this plan was ultimately withdrawn, the inquiry said the early warning was a missed opportunity as the underlying message remained valid. Between 2002 and 2004, the report said abolishing property tax incentives was originally planned and could have resulted in the severe overheating from 2003 to 2007 being mitigated. However, the policy failed to be introduced. And the report is equally critical of the then governments approach to other tax issues, saying its erosion of the income tax base before the crash failed to result in sufficient concern a mistake allegedly being repeated by the current Coalition while internal Department of Finance budget warnings were repeatedly ignored and spending ceilings exceeded. However, despite the criticism of the then government the report has also heavily criticised the then opposition, accusing all the main political parties of the same approach. From left: Committee members Kieran ODonnell TD, Michael McGrath TD, and Senator Marc MacSharry during the launch of the banking inquiry report. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins The report places further blame with then financial regulator Patrick Neary and the Central Bank, saying Mr Neary had sufficient powers to revoke licences, suspend banks and impose lending limits but banks were allowed through the inaction of theregulator to breach sectoral lending limits on property without fear of any consequences. It also states the Department of Finance was too reliant during the boom on external European Central Bank advice, which in turn relied too heavily on the Central Bank, which was unaware of its exact responsibility and did not do sufficient analysis of risks. This failure, the report said, included editing and reducing the risks highlighted in the international reports and in speaking notes for the minister to hide the threat facing Ireland. Bible: God is Judging the USA Because of Trump Voters SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 28, 2016 / National disobedience to God is the real cause for the mess in Washington, ISIS, the open borders, harm to the earth and Christian persecution, he explained. He gives riveting proof that current events are Biblical signs that most voters are provoking God in his new nation-saving book, "Trump serves money not God. Supporters of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio and others who don't make God top priority also anger God," he said. "These politicians would probably jail Christians who believe same-sex marriage is sinful." "We know God judges turning to worldly people for leaders, 'Should you help the ungodly, and love them that hate the LORD? therefore is wrath upon you from before the LORD'," explained the pastor referring to 2 Chronicles 19:2. "The founding fathers used this verse so people would choose Christian leaders," he said. Mike Huckabee ranks number one as who Scripture says to choose as president, according to the pastor's popular "People being more divided, the Supreme Court attacking marriage, Barack Obama giving Iran billions, terrorists crossing the borders and more financial troubles all happened after voters supported politicians who don't know God's agenda. Judgments came after ministers not following Scripture said it was okay to vote for Trump," said the pastor who reaches millions of people. He is hopeful people will humble themselves, cry out to God for mercy and receive forgiveness by Jesus' blood for this great sin. "God sees friendship with the world as adultery to God," he said, based on James 4:4. To save the USA, "God's Plan for the USA" gives seven important Bible Truths that God promises will end His judgment and restore His blessings of liberty, abundance, national security and peace. "God's Plan for the USA" (ISBN 9780977955091) is available wherever books are sold. A free chapter and volume discounts for church groups are available at Share Tweet Contact: Rev. Steven Andrew, USA Christian Church , 877-537-8734SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 28, 2016 / Christian Newswire / -- "God is not with Donald Trump," said Rev. Steven Andrew, who leads USA Christian Church. "The people supporting Trump and other worldly people have caused God's judgment on the USA," he said. This is based on Scriptures that forbid turning to non-Christians as leaders.National disobedience to God is the real cause for the mess in Washington, ISIS, the open borders, harm to the earth and Christian persecution, he explained. He gives riveting proof that current events are Biblical signs that most voters are provoking God in his new nation-saving book, "God's Plan for the USA". "Trump serves money not God. Supporters of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio and others who don't make God top priority also anger God," he said. "These politicians would probably jail Christians who believe same-sex marriage is sinful.""We know God judges turning to worldly people for leaders, 'Should you help the ungodly, and love them that hate the LORD? therefore is wrath upon you from before the LORD'," explained the pastor referring to 2 Chronicles 19:2. "The founding fathers used this verse so people would choose Christian leaders," he said.Mike Huckabee ranks number one as who Scripture says to choose as president, according to the pastor's popular Christian Voting Guide that ranks the candidates. "It is urgent we repent right away. God raised up Huckabee who is closest to John Hancock, George Washington and John Adams; Switch to Huckabee," he said."People being more divided, the Supreme Court attacking marriage, Barack Obama giving Iran billions, terrorists crossing the borders and more financial troubles all happened after voters supported politicians who don't know God's agenda. Judgments came after ministers not following Scripture said it was okay to vote for Trump," said the pastor who reaches millions of people.He is hopeful people will humble themselves, cry out to God for mercy and receive forgiveness by Jesus' blood for this great sin. "God sees friendship with the world as adultery to God," he said, based on James 4:4.To save the USA, "God's Plan for the USA" gives seven important Bible Truths that God promises will end His judgment and restore His blessings of liberty, abundance, national security and peace."God's Plan for the USA" (ISBN 9780977955091) is available wherever books are sold. A free chapter and volume discounts for church groups are available at USA Christian Church A Limerick grandmother revealed yesterday how dark, tragic days in her past helped her through the torment of the December floods. One of the abiding images of the floods were pictures and news reports of Vera ODonnell cradling her pet dog, Princess, who drowned when waters gushed through Veras home, trapping the tiny chihuahua in the sitting room. The death of her favourite pet dog was compounded by the loss of precious family photos. A lot of the photos were taken during summer holidays in Spanish Point. They included two of my nine children, Georgina and Jason, who died tragically when they were in their 20s, said Vera. The ODonnells home was one of 14 houses at Richmond Park, Corbally, which flooded when lock gates at a nearby canal were not opened in time. Their daughter, Georgina ODonnell, who was murdered in a nightclub in Limerick in 1998. Picture: Press 22 The drying out process was completed yesterday and the humidifier, which has been in non-stop use since the flood, was finally unplugged by Veras husband, Anthony. Builders will move in shortly to replace flooring at an estimated cost of 40,000. Vera, 65, and, Anthony, 66, have remained in the house throughout the process, only going to a daughter who lives nearby for meals. Vera said they have learned to cope with distress and bad fortune having gone through the darker days of the deaths of Georgina and Jason. She spoke for the first time publicly about Georginas murder in a Limerick nightclub when she was gunned down in a case of mistaken identity, and how she prays for the killer. Georgina ODonnell was shot dead in a Limerick nightclub on May 3, 1998. Jason was deeply affected by her death and died tragically, aged 22. A gunman, Mark Cronin, mistook Georgina for another woman he wanted to target and shot her dead as she walked across the dance floor. She was just 20 at the time. Jason, then aged 10, was deeply affected by her death and his life went into a downward spiral of depression and he died on September 2, 2010. Georgina worked at St Johns Hospital and after work that day, she was asked by friends to go to some do at this nightclub. Apparently she didnt want to go. A man she did know [Mark Cronin] walked in with a gun and shot her, having mistaken Georgina for another girl, said Vera. Jason was just a boy and took her death badly and never came out of it with depression, and he died at the age of 22. He loved his sister and I could not believe how he changed. He had been into sport at that time and became very depressed. I kept telling all of the children after her death that although the fellow who killed her still enjoyed his life, we had to forgive him. I go to daily Mass and even had a Mass said for her killer, and I pray that when he gets out of jail, he will be a better person when he comes out. My faith keeps me going, it really does. I keep up the prayers. I keep the man who killed Georgina in my prayers, despite everything that happened and what he did. Last night, Vera and Anthony attended a residents meeting where they were hoping to find out how their applications for humanitarian flood relief were progressing. Anthony said he is annoyed that nobody has taken responsibility for the delay in opening the lock gate, which led to the flooding of the houses. There were only two involved in managing the lock gate, the council and Irish Waterways. It shouldnt have happened and that bothers me. I worked for the council for 40 years and if somebody made a mistake they would say it. Somebody must be at fault. However, the real figure for damage will be far higher, as this total doesnt include damage to the countys national roads, pier, harbours and local authority houses hit by the deluge on December 29/30. There are also a number of areas where roads remain submerged and council engineers have been unable to inspect the damage caused to them. Mayor of County Cork Cllr John Paul OShea (Ind) said it was vital the Government release all the 11.76m as quickly as possible to allow repairs to begin, especially as there could be more storms on the way. He said the cash-strapped council couldnt foot the bill on its own. Last September, the council also wrote to the Department of Transport for 2.3m in emergency funding for storm damage in West Cork. However, it only got 850,000. Mr OShea said this wasnt acceptable and the Government had to step up to the plate. If repairs arent carried out now, then the situation will only deteriorate even more and it will end up costing even more money to fix the damage. There are roads in many parts of the county in a serious state and causing damage to vehicles. People deserve more for the motor tax they pay, said Mr OShea. A copy of the letter sent by Mr Lucey, which was seen by the Irish Examiner, outlined the extensive rainfall which hit the county in December. Mr Lucey said it was three times the average monthly rainfall, while it reached 342% at Roches Point, the highest recorded since December 1955. Tim Lucey There was 912mm of rain recorded at a gauge at Gougane Barra in the month up to 6am on December 30. He said this led to landslides, collapsed road embankments, and serious damage to bridges, culverts and roads. Mr Lucey intemised damage to each of the councils municipal areas. The Skibbereen area topped the list, with 1,952,130, and in second spot was the Midleton area, at 1,695,319. For the first time in living memory, the towns main street was inundated. The least damage done was in the Fermoy area, at 536,395. Flood defences installed by the OPW proved very effective, even though the River Blackwater was at its highest level for decades. Mr Lucey said it was essential the council got all this money, as its ability to fund repair bills had been severely impacted by cuts. Education Minister Jan OSullivan has also promised to look at the provision of guidance counsellors which have been cut in many schools due to government cutbacks, leaving many students without access to such services in schools. The change to the school leaver age is among several proposals in the National Skills Plan which includes 50,000 modern apprenticeship and traineeship places by 2020. A new National Skills Council to oversee research, forecasting and prioritisation of skills needs in the economy will also be established as part of the strategy. Students must currently stay in education until the age of 16 but this could now be increased to age 17 or 18. Ms OSullivan is concerned some pupils are leaving education after the Junior Cycle. She wants to keep people in education for longer. However, a spokesman for the Department if Education said those who drop out of mainstream school but take up apprenticeships or training would be facilitated. The strategy also promises a review of guidance services and careers information for students to identify options for improvements. Changes to how second-level schools are staffed since 2012 mean no guarantee of dedicated hours for career guidance or counselling support. These cuts have been criticised by teachers and parents who feel students are missing out on vital support. The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) welcomed the commitment to review the guidance service but said a key element of this must be a return to an ex-quota guidance service in all schools. A spokeswoman said more needs to be done on providing choices available to second-level students for vocational orientation and work experience as provided for in the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme and Leaving Cert Applied models. Specific measures to broaden programme choice at senior cycle would be more influential in retaining young people in school than merely raising the school leaving age. ESRI research demonstrates that one of the main reasons disadvantaged young people leave early is the non-availability on non-academic programmes, she said. At the launch of the strategy, Taoiseach Enda Kenny yesterday said the Government is committed to providing 50,000 modern apprenticeship and traineeship places by 2020. Ms OSullivan said: This strategy will ensure increased access to high quality and relevant education and training and skills development opportunities. The strategy has been developed around six key objectives and set of actions and measures aimed at improving the development, supply and use of skills over the next 10 years. Ibec also warned against unrealistic pay level demands or increases in salaries, eroding the competitiveness of the economy, as parties prepare to set out their campaign pledges. The employers body will today launch a guide to key policy promises of the major parties, but also voice concern that populist election positions risk repeating serious economic mistakes of the past. The clamber of parties to slash the USC which at one stage collected 4bn yearly for the exchequer and therefore narrow the tax base ignores the lessons of the past, warn Ibec. Politicians will today debate the pros and cons about reducing taxes, future investment in infrastructure, and what should be priorities as the country moves away from recession at an event hosted by the body. Ibec chief executive Danny McCoy is expected to stress that reducing the overall tax income would leave Ireland vulnerable to future economic and global shocks. Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has said his party wants to abolish the USC, if returned to power, while Labour say they would phase out the levy but keep some kind of charge in place for those earning over 70,000. Renua Ireland says a flat rate of tax at 23%, replacing all income taxes, would treat all earners the same. Others, including Sinn Fein and People Before Profit, are advocating an increase in taxes for those earning over 100,000. Ibec, however, does agree that some sort of tax reform is needed. There will also be calls from the employers group to reform how welfare is paid and for entrepreneurs to have their tax credits equalised with employees. David Ford said there was a need to clarify Mr Justice Horners judgement, which declared elements of the law incompatible with human rights legislation. The ruling focused on ending the ban on women accessing abortion in cases of sexual crime, or after a diagnosis of fatal foetal abnormality (FFA). However, Mr Ford warned that the judges words could be interpreted as advocating a blanket relaxation of abortion legislation. Northern Irelands attorney general, John Larkin, is also appealing against the judgement, but on different grounds. Mr Larkin is appealing against the entirety of the ruling, but Mr Ford, whose department supports a law change in cases of FFA, is challenging specific elements. While Northern Irelands laws on terminations are more restrictive than Britains, the justice minister says the judgement could turn that on its head and the region would then have the UKs most liberal abortion laws. The judgment from the [Norths] high court does not fully clarify the law, and potentially leaves open the possibility there could be abortion on demand in Northern Ireland, on an even wider basis than is the case in the rest of the United Kingdom, said Mr Ford. The ministers departmental lawyers became aware of the issue during detailed scrutiny of the judgement. He said it focused on a section of the ruling. Justice Horner stated that an unborn childs right to life, under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), does not apply until the foetus could viably survive outside the womb. The minister said this could be interpreted as giving an expectant mother a free rein to abort before the point of viability, which is usually estimated at 22 to 24 weeks. While there is a similar legal limit for abortions elsewhere in the UK namely 24 weeks the British department of justice contends some restrictions that apply in the UK would not necessarily apply under Justice Horners ruling. Shahzad Hussain, aged 35, with a last address at Woodland Avenue, Mosney, Co Meath, was previously jailed for life for murdering his wifes cousin and his own distant relative Muhammad Arif, 32. He was also sentenced to seven years for seriously injuring his wife Rashida Bibi Haider, 44, and two years for assaulting her on January 6, 2011, at Mr Arifs apartment in Fitzwilliam Court, Dyer St, Drogheda, Co Louth. He had denied the charges. However, in July 2014, the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed his murder conviction and ordered a retrial after a three-judge court found there was a very real risk of injustice in the manner in which the central question of provocation was explained to the jury by the trial judge. Yesterday, Shane Costelloe, prosecuting, told the Central Criminal Court that in circumstances where the court of appeal had directed a retrial, he had been instructed by the DPP that Hussain could be arraigned on count one. Hussain then pleaded not guilty to the murder but guilty to the manslaughter of Mr Arif. Mr Costelloe told the court that this plea meets the case in the circumstances. The court previously heard evidence that all three, who were from Pakistan, had lived together in Fitzwilliam Court. However, difficulties arose in the arranged marriage of Ms Haider and the accused after he began to suspect that she was having an affair with her cousin. Both husband and wife moved out separately in December, 2010. Dominic McGinn, defending, told Ms Justice Margaret Heneghan there was a lot of evidence to go through and she remanded Mr Hussain in custody until April 4 for sentencing. The court heard Hussain was serving a sentence on the other two counts on the indictment as those were not overturned by the court of appeal. Mr McGinn told Ms Justice Heneghan his client has been in custody for the last five years during which he has been in four prisons. He asked for a governor report from each of those. The Oireachtas banking inquiry has produced its final report. And what a colossal waste of paper it is. After months of chaos, internal wrangling and redrafts, the reports failures, limitations and flaws were finally laid bare. No matter how much the members of the inquiry yesterday attempted to sell its virtues, any cold assessment of the final report has to be on the balance of things overwhelmingly negative. As someone who either sat through or read every line of testimony given at the inquiry over the past 13 months, the end result is a simply a gross insult to the taxpayer who has had to bear the cost of the crash. Senator Marc MacSharry and committee chairman Ciaran Lynch during the report launch. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins That total cost of the Irish financial crash was yesterday put at 100bn by Fine Gaels Michael Darcy, who was one of a few decent performers at the inquiry. Criticisms of the process are not necessarily directed at the 11 members of the committee, who sacrificed much time and energy to produce a report at all costs. No, my criticisms for this farce lay with the Government, who insisted on a political inquiry. It was Enda Kenny and his Cabinet who delayed for more than three years establishing the inquiry. It was Enda Kenny who insisted on an Oireachtas inquiry. A political circus, aimed at damaging Fianna Fail, rather than going for a judicial-led inquiry where witnesses would have been probed far more aggressively than they were due to the ridiculous legal limitations imposed on it. The inquiry was hamstrung before it began and the greatest losers in all of this were the taxpayers, who have been deprived of a proper examination of how the greatest financial crash in modern history occurred. It was Enda Kenny who cynically moved to add two government senators Darcy and Labours Susan OKeeffe to the inquiry team after they lost a vote to select members. Enda Kenny Defending his move, Kenny admitted he couldnt rely on opposition members of the committee to do the right thing. Days later, independent TD Stephen Donnelly resigned from the inquiry before it began in protest at Endas arrogance. Such a bloated team added needlessly to the length of sessions and meant repetition of questions was a frequent occurrence. Then before Christmas we had the farce of the first draft of the report having to be scrapped as it was deemed to be in a woeful state. Despite a major re-write by Eoghan Murphy and OKeeffe, major difficulties remained and forced both Socialist TD Joe Higgins and Sinn Feins Pearse Doherty to abandon ship. But the greatest failures of the inquiry were the fundamental ones people like me flagged at the very beginning. Pearse Doherty The report was never able to make adverse findings of fact against any one individual or institution. Hence we have no explicit criticisms of specific bankers in what was a report into the banking crisis. The inquiry also could not tackle what was the heart of the crisis Anglo. Because the inquiry had to play second fiddle to ongoing cases in the courts, most of what happened in the most rotten bank in the world had to be ignored and danced around. It was a case of Hamlet without the Prince. That it also felt the need to spread the blame politically to all parties about their economic policies rather than put the boot into the likes of Brian Cowen, Charlie McCreevy and Bertie Ahern, speaks volumes. One of the inquirys most colourful witnesses, US regulator Bill Black, decried the inquiry for being fundamentally flawed because it could not deal with the Anglo or Irish Nationwide material. So, in the end we are left with tepid, insipid findings and recommendations which will carry no weight, and more importantly, affect no change whatsoever. That is the greatest indictment of a Government that promised a new way of doing politics. On the 25th February a democratic revolution took place in Ireland. Old beliefs, traditions and expectations were blown away, goes the Programme for Government agreed by Fine Gael and Labour. The stroke of a pen, in thousands of polling stations, created this political whirlwind. The public demanded change and looked to parties that would deliver the change they sought. In that election record numbers of Irish people turned to, and chose, Fine Gael and Labour. The people chose our two parties to begin mending the pieces of a fractured society, a broken economy and to provide a sense of collective hope in our shared future, the document states. But, those promises have been roundly broken. Our political system has seen precious little reform since the crash. In truth, you could argue the centralisation of power within the Cabinet over the Dail has become more pronounced with the advent of the Economic Management Council. That four-person committee within Cabinet is the real decision-making body in Irish politics these days and we have seen nothing of the democratic revolution that was promised. But worse still, the sort of mistakes that led to the crash, which formed the basis of much of the testimony given at the committee and the final report, are being repeated again. The EU Commission has warned the Government against repeating the mistakes of the past by narrowing the tax base and giving tax cuts when the economy is already booming. This final report will quickly be consigned to the dustbin of history and its failures are a sorry but accurate reflection of our sorry political system. Key dates in the inquiry December 17, 2014: The inquiry begins with Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan; 130 more witnesses give evidence. April 22, 2015: NTMA CEO Brendan McDonagh confirms he was kept out of the room on bank guarantee night. Also confirms the NTMA wanted to stop Irish bank investment in 2007 due to concerns over the safety of deposits. April 30: Ex-ECB head Jean Claude Trichet attends at a neutral Dublin Castle location. He denies he threatened finance minister Brian Lenihan in 2010 to enter a bailout. May: Banks give contradictory accounts of guarantee night; Ex-financial regulator Patrick Neary finally apologises. June 18: Finance departments ex-secretary general Kevin Cardiff confirms Ireland was pushed, quite strongly into a bailout. June/July: Ex-taoisigh Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen deny they were too close to Anglo Irish. July 25: Ex-Anglo Irish chief executive David Drumm refuses to attend inquiry due to US extradition hearings but denies reckless lending. September 10: Ex-IMF boss AJ Chopra confirms the ECB gave Ireland a bailout ultimatum. November/December/January, 2015/16: The report is accused by its own members of not being fit for purpose. The banking inquiry exposed the best and the worst of what public life has to offer. There was much on which to commend the 11 members of the committee. They put in long, dogged hours to a task that offered zero electoral advantage, and the possibility of public opprobrium. The chairman Ciaran Lynch performed his function with a steady and firm hand. Contrary to some commentary, the quality of interrogation was often of a high standard. Ciaran Lynch In particular, Michael McGrath and Pearse Doherty showed themselves to be consistently up to the task. At various times all the other members made contributions of a similar order. The much tossed around notion that some hot shot senior counsel, practiced in interrogating witnesses, could have delivered a gotcha moment is entirely fanciful. What the inquiry really exposed was that there was no gotcha moment, just a prolonged period of bad politics, negligible regulation, and reckless trading. One valid criticism of the committee is that it had too many members, which led to some repetition in questioning. The blame for that lies with the executive as the number was extended from nine to 11 when defections meant that the original complement would not have had a government majority. Michael McGrath It was another example of how Enda Kenny and those around him saw this exercise in terms of how it would serve the government parties rather than the public good and posterity. What is really damning about the inquiry is that it took so long to get up and running. There is no valid excuse for having to wait eight years for yesterdays report. Some blame attaches to the judiciarys interference in parliamentary inquiries dating from Abbeylara in 2001. Last December, retiring president of the High Court Nicholas Kearns warned of judges being too interventionist in areas where the boundaries of the judicial and executive function intersect. He made particular mention of inquiries. Since Abbeylara an Oireachtas inquiry cant make adverse findings against an individual. The electorate had a chance to reverse that decision in 2011, but chose not to. However, it is a major constraint to parliamentary inquiries. One other sour political note was the failure of all members to sign up to the report. Joe Higgins defection is understandable on purely ideological grounds. Pearse Dohertys decision to jump ship less so. Pearse Doherty He claims he couldnt stand over the final report, but suspicion will linger that he was acting on party orders. With an election looming, Sinn Fin is particularly sensitive not to leave its left flank exposed, and if Doherty had remained on board, the Shinners would have fretted that Higgins group might accuse them of so-called establishment politics. As for the meat of the inquiry, we learned little new but had details coloured in here and there. All of the main parties in the Dail pursued pro-cyclical policies in the run-up to the crisis, favouring both tax cuts and spending increases. Fianna Fail, however, as the party in power at the time, bears the greatest responsibility for that recklessness. The watchdogs were asleep at the wheel. Both the Financial Regulator and the Central Bank could have intervened to put a stop to the reckless lending in banks. It would have been interesting to explore what might have unfolded if either had acted. Would Bertie Aherns government have allowed somebody whip away the punchbowl from the party, telling everybody to go home? The evidence from Ahern, and particularly Charlie McCreevy, was notable for the lack of awareness either possess about their respective roles in driving the ship of state onto the rocks. Then we come to the bank directors and executives, who had hoovered up small fortunes through the years of reckless trading. In they trooped, apologies at the ready. Many were self-serving, but former AIB chair Dermot Gleeson, and the banks former CEO Eugene Sheehy appeared genuine in the sense of responsibility they feel for what unfolded. That will be of little comfort to those who have borne the greatest hardship from a recession that was brought on by the banking collapse. One issue that has not been addressed to any great extent, despite all that has happened, is repercussions for dragging a country to the brink. All of those involved, including politicians, senior public servants, and banking personnel have sailed away from the fallout with iron-clad extravagant pensions and nothing to bother them but their conscience. There is still no real reason why a bank executive in pursuit of excessive profits should pause to consider whether he or she might be imperilling the countrys future. Despite everything, the culture remains. The inquiry did throw a little further light on the two big bangs of the crisis the bank guarantee and the failure to burn the bondholders. The guarantee is still regarded in many quarters as the worst night in the States existence. It was a bad night, no more. The inquiry showed that the guarantee didnt have to be as wide as it was. Yet as Patrick Honohan pointed out in evidence, there was no magic solution by 29 September, 2008. Austerity could have been reduced somewhat but not all that much according to Honohan if a different course was taken. The real damage was done in the years leading up to the night in question, and particularly the preceding 12 months. The bondholder issue is another that has loomed large in recent years. The inquiry found that had Brian Lenihan gone ahead and burned bondholders in November 2010 an agreement for the troika intervention in the country would not have been possible. Brian Lenihan Lenihan had been told by ECB head Jean Claude Trichet that the Irish take the hit or hed turn off the funding that was then keeping the banking system afloat. Lenihan wasnt going to gamble the countrys future by playing chicken with the money men. Michael Noonan had another cut at it the following March. On that occasion he was told that a bomb would go off in Dublin if he unilaterally decided not to cough up. Again, he wasnt going to gamble. Critics say that neither man made a real effort to burn the bondholders. That doesnt stack up. Some refuse to factor in the reality that by the time the bondholders became an issue the country was on its knees financially and economically. As far as Frankfurt was concerned, wed made our own national bed, and, to a certain extent, that was correct. All the evidence at the inquiry suggested that neither Lenihan nor Noonan could be faulted for acting in a conservative manner at a time of huge uncertainty. The outcome was a grave injustice, but as with other elements of the economic collapse there is plenty of blame to go around, much of it dating from years before the showdowns with the ECB. This report will not form a huge part of the legacy of the crash. It was good work done despite bad design and severe constraints, including time. A more appropriate legacy of the whole thing is available on the streets of the States cities where rough sleepers bed down, and particularly in dingy hotel rooms warehousing adults and children because they have no homes in which to live. Today, with the publication of the National Maternity Strategy 2016-2026, the women of Ireland have custody, again, of their own bodies in labour in theory. This is not the end of the battle, but perhaps it is the beginning of the end. It has been a battle fought by brave, outspoken people, mostly women, such as the leaders of the advocacy group, AIMS Ireland, by writers, such as Jo Murphy-Lawless and Patricia Kennedy, and by survivors and victims of horrific malpractice in Irish maternity hospitals. You could fill a book with their names, but the following are some of them: Savita Halapanavar, whose sepsis was not diagnosed, whose voice was not heard and whose tragedy prompted this strategy to be commissioned; Valerie Neary, a qualified midwife, whose healthy womb was cut out of her body by Dr Michael Neary, in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, in 1996, while she begged Dont do a hysterectomy on me!; Catherine Dunne, whose voice of alarm went unheard in the National Maternity Hospital, in 1982, prior to her son Williams birth with cerebral palsy; Joshua Keyes Cornally, who was born in the Midlands Regional Hospital, Portlaoise, in 2009, but lived less than an hour due to a mishandled labour, following the use of the artificial birth hormone, Syntocinon, and the incorrect reading of the foetal heart monitor. A vigil for Savita Halapanavar You could fill books with outpourings of gratitude to doctors and midwives in Irish hospitals. But a fact remains: there is no respect for the mother in the Irish maternity system. Her voice is not heard. It is a system developed to silence the labouring woman. This is made plain by the National Maternity Hospitals handbook, Active Management of Labour, which shackles a labouring woman to a schedule called a partogram: In the National Maternity Hospital, announces the handbook, prolonged labour was defined as thirty-six hours in 1963, reduced to 24 hours in 1968 and, finally, to 12 hours in 1972. A formal decision was taken on January 1, 1972, to restrict the duration of labour to 12 hours. This magicians trick is performed thanks to Syntocinon, an artificial copy of the womans natural birth hormone. In Irish maternity hospitals, women are routinely hooked up to this stuff referred to by my midwives as the jungle juice as if they had no hormones of their own and their bodies did not know how to start labour. This is despite the WHOs recommendation that it should be used only when there is a clear medical indication and the expected benefits outweigh the possible harms, and despite mounting international evidence of its misuse. At Londons Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Dr Philip Steer says the routine use of Syntocinon is like somebody saying the screw is stuck, lets hit it with a hammer. He has banned its use, except when a baby is overdue or a mother has pre-eclampsia, reckoning that 70% of malpractice cases worldwide result from Syntocinon use. I am outraged by an approach to labour which turns a woman and her baby into products on a production line controlled by the hospital. But active management, controlled by Syntocinon, is used in every maternity hospital in Ireland and the Dublin method of childbirth has been exported all over the world. This is to add to our already high reputation for intervention, established in the Rotunda Hospital in the 19th century, when Fielding Ould invented the episiotomy, an incision in the vagina to allow the baby out, which can affect a womans sexual response and whose effectiveness is debated. When it comes to controlling women in childbirth, we are world leaders. This is very worrying, because it reveals in the culture an underlying fear of womens bodies, of their sexuality, of their otherness and of the babies they bear. It isnt any wonder we have the lowest breast-feeding rate in the developed world. I think younger Irish women know they deserve better. Ceaseless advocacy from a small number of women, easily dismissed as loolas by the medical establishment, finally grew into a movement headed up by AIMS Ireland. An independent review of maternity practice in the Greater Dublin Area, carried out by KPMG and published in 2008, deemed midwife-led care as safe, and cheaper for low-risk women than consultant-led care. It advocated almost exactly the changes finally suggested yesterday by the new 10-year strategy. The plan aims to normalise pregnancy and birth as far as possible. The majority of births are to be led by midwives and, whether at home or in alongside birth centres, without routine access to epidurals, oxytocin, or electronic foetal monitoring. Currently, only 5% of births are midwife-led. The kind of wards in which most women labour will be redesignated specialised birth centres and they will serve women at greater risk or who have more complications. There is a plan for community midwives to work in tandem with local health centres. Critics will point to the lack of provision in the plan for free-standing birthing centres, as opposed to birth centres attached to hospitals. It wouldnt matter so much if the hospital birthing centres were genuinely led by empowered midwives, but this will be hard to achieve in Irelands authoritarian hospitals. The new UK National Institute for Care and Excellence recommendations say the option of a free-standing birth centre should be open to women, along with hospital birthing centres, home birth, and consultant-led hospital care. But the holes in the strategy are not the main issue. The main issue is implementation. More than 20 years ago, the NHS published a maternity strategy called Changing Childbirth. This has still not been fully implemented. We are decades late in even expressing our intention to move away from maternity services that are founded on a horror of womens bodies to maternity services in which pregnancy and birth are normal events in the lives of a large part of the population. The National Womens and Infants Health Programme must finalise its plan to implement this strategy within six months and will be required to report annually thereafter. But there are no firm costings in this report, and even with health budgets repeatedly running over, it is anyones guess whether the extra funds will ever materialise. Irish women now have a manifesto for change. The campaign starts to make it a reality. A Danish tourist has been infected by the Zika virus after visiting southern and central America, Danish hospital officials said yesterday. But authorities said yesterday that it was not the first case in Europe. Aarhus University Hospital said the patient ran a fever, had a headache and muscle aches and was found to have the virus on Tuesday. The hospital released no further details about the patient but said there is little risk of it spreading in Denmark because the mosquito carrying the virus is not found in the country. Romit Jain, from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in Stockholm, Sweden, said there have been confirmed cases of imported Zika virus infections in Germany and Britain. A Zika virus case was also confirmed in Sweden last summer, said Sara Rorbecker of the Swedish Public Health Agency. She said the patient contracted the virus while travelling, adding that there was nothing dramatic about the case. Zika virus is not a notifiable disease in the European Union, meaning that EU countries are not required to report cases to the ECDC. Therefore, there is wide variation on reporting by member states. US President Barack Obama, meanwhile, has called for the rapid development of tests, vaccines, and treatments to fight the virus, which has been linked to birth defects and could spread to the US in warmer months. US health officials are stepping up efforts to study the link between Zika virus infections and birth defects, citing a recent study estimating the virus could reach regions where 60% of the US population lives. Mr Obama was briefed on the potential spread of the virus by his top health and national security officials on Tuesday. The virus has been linked to brain damage in thousands of babies in Brazil. There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, a close cousin of dengue and chikungunya, which causes mild fever and rash. An estimated 80% of people infected have no symptoms, making it difficult for pregnant women to know whether they have been infected. On Monday, the World Health Organization predicted the virus would spread to all countries across the Americas except for Canada and Chile. Donald Trump has said that he will boycott the last Republican debate before the Iowa caucuses, prompting Texas senator Ted Cruz to challenge him to a one-on-one debate. Meanwhile, the White House said President Barack Obama would host Vermont senator Bernie Sanders for an Oval Office meeting, adding intrigue to the Democratic race. The dual developments created new ripples of uncertainty six days before voting begins in the presidential race. Both parties are bracing for close contests in Iowa that will determine which of their two candidates will carry the momentum from a victory into the New Hampshire primary and beyond. On Monday, Iowa residents will gather in schools, churches and even private homes to choose among the Republican and Democratic candidates battling to be their partys 2016 presidential nominee the first in a series of state-by-state contests to choose delegates to each partys presidential nominating convention. Republicans condemn Donald Trumps choice to skip the next GOP debate https://t.co/6kIo69x9Na pic.twitter.com/AVpurFKgq4 Bloomberg (@business) January 28, 2016 Mr Trump raised the prospect of skipping the debate as he blasted Fox News Channel for playing games and including anchor Megyn Kelly as a debate moderator. Mr Trumps campaign later said he definitely will not participate. The race among Democrats was no more settled, with Mr Sanders and Hillary Clinton locked in a close contest and details about their debate plans unclear. Mr Trump said that he would hold his own event in Iowa during the debate to raise money for wounded veterans. The billionaire businessman dismissed Ms Kelly as a third-rate reporter who is bad at her job and had been toying with him reprising a squabble that erupted after a debate Ms Kelly co-hosted last year. She shot back on her nightly show, arguing that Mr Trump is used to getting his way but cannot control the media. She said that her network and CEO Roger Ailes had made it clear to Mr Trump for months that they would not change their line-up. Ill be there, Ms Kelly said. The debate will go on with or without Mr Trump. The pullout came after Fox News mocked Mr Trump for asking his Twitter followers whether he should debate. The network, in a sarcastically worded statement, said: A nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings. On the Democratic side, as Mr Sanders left Iowa and Minnesota for his meeting with Mr Obama, it was being watched for signs of the presidents leanings. He has avoided showing favouritism, and White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the meeting would be informal, with no formal agenda. Mr Obama has met Ms Clinton, his former secretary of state and 2008 primary opponent, periodically. Hollande announced justice minister Christiane Taubiras resignation just ahead of a cabinet meeting and hours before a parliament commission takes up the citizenship bill. Ms Taubira, a leftist best known for championing the legalisation of gay marriage, tweeted that sometimes to resist is to remain, sometimes to resist is to leave. As a black woman from French Guiana on the Caribbean coast, she has been a pioneer for women and minorities in French politics but sometimes a target for racist slurs by far-right militants. Ms Taubira is being replaced by Jean-Jacques Urvoas, a Socialist politician from Brittany considered a specialist on security issues who is seen as close to prime minister Manuel Valls. The citizenship bill, prompted by the deadly November 13 attacks in Paris, is popular among conservatives and the far right but is especially divisive for the governing Socialists. #France: Justice minister Christiane #Taubira quits government over controversial citizenship reform https://t.co/clambMBrBW FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) January 27, 2016 Polls show most French support the idea, but opponents fear it would unfairly target Muslims. Some critics compare it to the revocation of citizenship of French Jews during the Second World War. French and Belgian extremists linked to IS, some of Moroccan descent, were behind the Paris attacks, which killed 130 people and wounded hundreds. French anti-racist organisation SOS Racisme praised the courage of a great lady. As a justice minister, despite racism she has faced too often in the silence of her peers, Christiane Taubira has been able to stand up for her values and try to change the justice system, it said. The prime minister, however, made a last-minute modification to find a consensus that would satisfy both the left and the right. Mr Valls said no mention of dual nationality would appear in the constitution and France would respect its obligations under international law to prevent it from leaving a person stateless. The bill is to be debated next week in Frances lower house of parliament, the National Assembly. Rescue crews recovered the bodies of three men, two women, a boy and a girl. There were two survivors a man and a woman. A search and rescue operation in the area by vessels from the Greek coastguard and the European border patrol agency Frontex, a helicopter and Greek rescue volunteers was called off after all on board the boat were accounted for. Meanwhile, an EU investigation has found major flaws in Greeces management of its borders, which could pave the way for its EU partners to introduce long-term ID checks to restrict the entry of migrants further into the continent. Backing up the suspicions of several EU nations, surprise inspections by expert teams in Greece, including on Aegean islands near the coast of Turkey, found that Greek authorities were failing to properly register and fingerprint people or correctly check their travel papers. The EUs top migration official, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said its report shows there are serious deficiencies in the management of the external border in Greece. More than 850,000 people are thought to have entered Greece last year seeking sanctuary or jobs in Europe. Greece only has shelter for about 10,000 people. The Greek coastguard is overwhelmed, and thousands of migrants have moved north, hoping to find a home in wealthy EU countries such as Germany or Sweden. The report is important because Germany has temporarily reintroduced border controls in its part of the passport-free Schengen area until May 13 after around one million people applied for asylum in Germany last year. Beyond that date, Berlin has no legal means of maintaining ID checks. However, if the EUs executive commission rules Greece has demonstrated serious deficiencies in carrying out external border control, countries such as Germany, Austria and Sweden could possibly keep their border controls on for up to two years. The reports wording of serious deficiencies is a sign that this will happen in the near future. EU nations would have to vote in favour of the move by around a two-thirds majority, but Greece alone could not stop them. Asia Thais Turn to Child Angel Dolls as Economy Struggles A craze for lifelike dolls thought to bring good luck is sweeping Thailand, reflecting wider anxiety as the economy struggles nearly two years after a coup. A craze for lifelike dolls thought to bring good luck is sweeping Thailand, reflecting widespread anxiety as the economy struggles and political uncertainty persists nearly two years after a coup. Thailand is predominantly Buddhist and has been modernizing rapidly over the past two or three decades but many people are highly superstitious, their Buddhist beliefs co-existing with notions of animism, astrology and black magic. The plastic dolls, about the size of a real baby, are called look thep or child angel. Devotees buy them in shops or online and invite benevolent spirits to possess them, hoping they will bring good luck. The economy is bad right now. Everybody needs something to hold on to, said Mananya Boonmee, 49, a doll owner and seller. Mananya told Reuters her doll, called Nong Petch, or baby jewel, had helped her win the lottery by telling her what numbers to buy in her dreams. Panpimon Wipulakorn, deputy director-general of the Department of Mental Health, said the economic downturn exacerbated the phenomenon. There have always been groups in Thai society that hold such beliefs and economic worries only help to heighten these beliefs, Panpimon told Reuters. These people do not have mental health problems. Thailand has been ruled by a junta since a May 2014 coup and the generals have struggled to revive the export-dependent economy, while promising to restore democracy with an election next year. Such fads have happened before. After a 2006 coup, many people turned to plasticine amulets, or charms, in the belief they would bring riches. Devotees of the dolls lavish attention on them. My life has changed a lot, for the better, said beauty salon owner Natsuda Jantabtim, 45, who has had her dollNong Ruay Jung, or baby so richfor eight months. When I hug her, I know its love. I tell her I love her all the time. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha weighed in on Monday saying people who could not afford to buy the dolls should not do so. Ive never raised a child angel doll, he quipped. The dolls cost from 1,500 baht ($40) to up to 30,000 baht ($800) and some businesses are tapping in on the craze. Thai Smile, a subsidiary of national flag carrier Thai Airways, said it would charge passengers who bring dolls on board and would serve them snacks. But the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand said it would stop airlines selling tickets for dolls over concern they could be used to smuggle drugs. Asia US, China Spar over North Korea, South China Sea Top US and Chinese officials are at odds over how to deal with North Koreas latest nuclear weapons test and ease tensions over the South China Sea. BEIJING Top US and Chinese officials sparred Wednesday over how to deal with North Koreas latest nuclear weapons test and ease tensions over territorial disputes in the South China Sea. US Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met for more than four hours and said their discussions were constructive and candid. But at a joint news conference, they presented sharply opposing positions on the two issues. Kerry acknowledged that our differences will continue to test us. Still, he stressed that the world benefits when the United States and China are able to work together, including on the Iran nuclear deal and climate change. On North Korea, Kerry said the United States wanted new UN Security Council action that would impose significant new measures to punish Pyongyang for its test this month and boost pressure on the North to return to disarmament talks. Theres been a lot of talk about North Korea through these past years. Now we believe is the time for action that can bring North Korea back to the table, Kerry said. Wang said China, which is North Koreas most important ally, chief trading partner and a key source of economic assistance, agreed on the need for a new resolution. But he suggested that Beijing would not support new penalties even though it has condemned the testing. Sanctions are not an end in themselves, he said. The new resolution should not provoke new tension in the situation, still less destabilize the Korean Peninsula, Wang said. Later Wednesday, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, told reporters that countries need to accelerate progress on negotiating a UN resolution. Kerry noted that sanctions had brought Iran to the nuclear negotiating table. More significant and impactful sanctions were put in place against Iran, which did not have a nuclear weapon than against North Korea, which does. All nations, particularly those who seek a global leadership role, or have a global leadership role, have a responsibility to deal with this threat, he said, referring to China. Kerry said the sides agreed both on the need for a strong new resolution on North Korea, but also to accelerate talks on what that would entail. Its good to agree on the goal. But its not enough to agree on the goal, we believe we need to agree on the meaningful steps necessary to get to the achievement of the goal to the negotiations that result in denuclearization, Kerry said. Wang also took umbrage at US complaints that China is not doing as much as it can with the leverage it has on North Korea. He noted that Chinas position has been consistent in opposing North Koreas nuclear weapons program and supporting a diplomatic resolution to the matter. For many years China has been working hard to implement these, he said. We have delivered on our obligation. Kerry said China is North Koreas main link to the outside world, and that it could do more to limit cross-border transactions that benefit North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his government. Kerry also called on China to halt land reclamation and construction of airstrips in disputed areas of the South China Sea. Those steps have alarmed its smaller neighbors. I stressed the importance of finding common ground among the claimants and avoiding the destabilizing cycle of mistrust or escalation, Kerry said. Wang denied that China has was doing anything other than protecting its territorial sovereignty. He rejected assertions by the United States and others that China was not interested in peaceful resolutions to the disputes or militarizing the areas. In a later meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Kerry hailed the critical role China played in the Iran nuclear agreement and on tackling global warming. The effort on climate was really historic and you made a key decision with President Obama to change the whole debate, Kerry said. Xi, who met with Kerry at the Great Hall of the People in the heart of Beijing, described the bilateral relationship as smooth and on the way up in the past year. Generally speaking, when China and the United States work together we can make good things happen with win-win results for both sides and that contributes to peace, prosperity and stability in the world, Xi said. China claims sovereignty of much of the territory in the South China Sea. It rejects claims from countries such as the Philippines and Vietnam and has bristled at US warnings that its activities threaten the freedom of navigation in some of the worlds busiest commercial shipping lanes. Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei also have overlapping claims in the strategically vital sea, through which around US$5 trillion in world trade passes each year. The US says it takes no position on the claims but says developments in the South China Sea are a national security interest. It has urged that the disputes be settled peacefully and that a binding code of conduct be established for the area. Tensions have been especially high since Beijing transformed seven disputed reefs into islands, where it is now constructing runways and facilities that rival claimants say can be used militarily. China has said it built the islands primarily to foster safe civilian sea travel and fishing. In response, the US sent a guided-missile destroyer close to one of the Chinese-built islands, called Subi Reef, in October in a challenge to Beijings territorial claims, sparking warnings from China. US officials vowed to continue maneuvers to protect freedom of navigation and overflight. Recent developments, including Chinas movement of an oil rig into a zone disputed with Vietnam and warnings against Philippines overflight of what it claims to be its territory, have raised those levels of concern. China dismisses the warnings as unwarranted, but has harshly criticized a US-Philippines defense pact that allows American forces, warships and planes to be based temporarily in local military camps. China says that will escalate tensions and undermine peace and stability in the region, echoing language the United States uses to criticize Chinas actions. Burma 2 More Student Activists Declared Fugitives in Mandalay Two more student activists are declared fugitives by a Mandalay court, facing charges of unlawful assembly for their role in a demonstration. MANDALAY Two more student activists have been declared fugitives by a Mandalay Division court, facing charges of unlawful assembly for their role in a demonstration against the detention of their peers. Kaung Zaw Hein and Shine Min Htet Zaw are accused of taking part in a protest in Mandalays Chan Aye Tharzan Township last year demanding the release of scores of students and supporters who were arrested in March during a crackdown on the student movement for education reform. The court has accepted the case against the pair and a warrant has been issued for their arrest. Their whereabouts are unknown. Another student activist who is currently in detention, Ye Yint Paing Mu, was also dealt an additional charge this week. Ye Yint Paing Mu was arrested last December for his alleged involvement in graffiti at Mandalays Yadanapon University, where protesters had spray-painted anti-government messages and called for the release of all political prisoners. He now faces charges in Amarapura and Chan Aye Tharzan township courts. Earlier this week, 10 students were informed that they will also face charges for their alleged role in a protest more than a year ago. Fifty-three other students and supporters of the movement have been detained in Pegu Division since the crackdown in Letpadan, while more than a dozen others have been released on bail and are awaiting trial. Burma ANP Riven by Power Politics as New Governments Term Approaches Cracks appear in one of Burmas strongest ethnic political parties as an Arakan National Party leader is tapped for a parliamentary deputy speakership. RANGOON In a rare bright spot for ethnic political parties, Arakanese politicians from two camps managed to patch up their differences ahead of Burmas 2015 election and merge into one political entity, the Arakan National Party (ANP), which proved to be the countrys best-performing ethnic electoral force in the Nov. 8 poll. Less than three months on, however, that Arakanese unity appears strained as jockeying continues over precisely what form Burmas new political order will take. In early 2014, the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP) and Arakan League for Democracy (ALD) merged to form the ANP, in hopes of preventing vote-splitting as the two sides looked ahead to the 2015 election. The move paid off, with the new Arakanese incarnation securing 45 seats out of the 77 constituencies it contested. Success in the Arakan State legislature was viewed as particularly crucial to the partys goal of going into 2016 with the political leverage it needed to convince the National League for Democracy (NLD), which emerged victorious by a landslide in all but Arakan and Shan states, to appoint an ANP parliamentarian-elect as state chief minister. So it was no doubt with dismay that the Arakan partys leaders learned last month that the NLD fully intended to choose one of its own MPs-elect for the post, which is presidentially appointed. Maybe the ANP can obtain the regional parliament speakership post but the state chief minister will be from the NLD, Nan Khin Htwe Myint, an NLD central committee member, told The Irrawaddy. And in mid-January, fellow NLD central committee member Nyi Pu, who has been tipped by some for the chief minister position, visited the state capital Sittwe to meet with civil society organizations and ANP representatives, reportedly reiterating Nan Khin Htwe Myints assertion. Despite this being mere recitation of constitutionally enshrined ruling party prerogatives, the local CSOs and ANP members in attendance urged Nyi Pu to push for his party to make an exception in the case of Arakan State. Official backlash came about a week later, when on Jan. 19 the ANP said in a statement that it wont join any government organization, but stand as an opposition party for the interests of Arakan people, unless it was allowed to form its own government. By all accounts, the incoming NLD government and one of Burmas strongest ethnic political parties looked headed for confrontationexcept that the official ANP statement appears to have taken some in the party leadership by surprise. Internal Division Two days after the ANP statement was released, political prognostication went into overdrive after NLD spokesman Nyan Win told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that senior party member Win Myint had been selected to serve as speaker of the Union Parliaments Lower House, while the ethnic Karen MP-elect Mahn Win Khaing Than, also of the NLD, would get the partys backing for the Upper House. In ANP circles, it was an additional veiled disclosure that likely garnered more attention: Nyan Win told the news agency that his party was eyeing an ANP member for the Upper House deputy speaker post. The NLD on Thursday confirmed ANP patron Aye Tha Aung as its selection for the job, but even before that he had found himself in speculations crosshairs, as a veteran politician with longstanding ties to the NLD who won an Upper House seat on Nov. 8. Asked by The Irrawaddy whether he had been tapped for the post, Aye Tha Aung pled ignorance last week. I dont know yet, but I wasnt offered this [the Lower House deputy speakership], so its impossible to comment on that, he said on Jan. 21. The following morning, the ANP released a second statement, saying that if any of its MPs-elect accepted the offer of another party to serve in a ministerial post or other leadership position without informing the party, the individual would be expelled. The statement was signed by Phoe Min, one of three ANP vice chairs. Then on Monday, Aye Tha Aung was returning from a trip to Japan when several journalists at Rangoon International Airport asked the ANP patron about reports of tension between his party and the NLD, as well as perceived internal ructions. We dont know about the [ANP] statements and they didnt inform us, so I have no comment regarding the statements, he said. Until the reporters asked me, I didnt know it. According to ANP central committee member Myo Kyaw, party bylaws state that if an important announcement is proposed, the party leadership must call an urgent meeting to discuss the matter. While not all 39 of the partys central committee members must be present, a minimum one-third attendanceor 13 membersis required, he said. When The Irrawaddy phoned ANP vice chairwoman Aye Nu Sein this week, she declined to provide any clarification on party procedures or discuss confusion surrounding the two statements this month. Too many arguments have happened, it doesnt make sense to rehash at this time, she said. Sitting Lower House legislator Pe Than was more forthcoming, admitting that senior members of the ANP leadership did not inform the full central committee before releasing the two statements. He defended that decision, saying that under exceptional circumstances, the chairperson and seven other central committee members who form the top echelon of the party hierarchy have full power to make an announcement [unilaterally]. That group of eight includes party chairman Aye Maung, the three vice chairs and four secretaries, all of whom were members of the RNDP before the merger. Pe Than said the second statement, signed by Phoe Min, was released in part to encourage party-to-party interactions and discourage a party-to-person approach, the latter being dangerous for ANP unity. Myo Kyaw, formerly of the ALD, criticized the decision. If the party chairman and secretary team wanted to announce a statement, they should not put it out on behalf of the CEC [central committee]. It is against party procedures, he said. I am not sure whether they only ignored [the rules, unintentionally], or intentionally did it to disintegrate the party, he said, adding: Seven people neglected 39 CEC [members] desire. How can we be satisfied with that? ALD-NLD Ties The ALD was founded in 1989 in Rangoon and its chairman was Aye Tha Aung, who contested the 1990 election and won, along with 10 other ALD candidates in a vote dominated by the NLD. That electoral outcome was ignored by the military, however, which went on to imprison many of the victorious candidates from the NLD and ALD, including Aye Tha Aung. Years later he would become a member of the Committee Representing the Peoples Parliament (CRPP), formed by the NLD and victorious ethnic politicians to push for the convening of a parliament seating the 1990 election winners. With ties dating back more than two decades, Aye Tha Aung and the NLD leadership have long been considered to be on friendly terms. Both the ALD and NLD boycotted Burmas 2010 election, in part citing the polls basis in a military-drafted Constitution that the two parties deemed illegitimate. That year, the newly founded RNDP contested 44 seats and won 35. With its success and the ALDs return to the political arena in the aftermath, discussion turned to uniting the Arakanese forces ahead of the 2015 election, when otherwise voters might be asked to choose between two political parties competing for the same ethnic vote. That merger came about, and the new ANP was officially registered, in January 2014. Every Party Has Similar Problems An ANP central committee member, who asked for anonymity to discuss internal party matters candidly, said Aye Tha Aungs CRPP ties have not helped his standing in the eyes of some. RNDP people think that Aye Tha Aung and the NLD are so close; they dont like it, he said. The ANPs success in November belies a merger that has not been as smooth as might be apparent on the surface. Former ALD members complain that the RNDP has dominated the party, the result of a lopsided distribution of past party ties on the central committee, where 31 members are ex-RNDP, compared with only eight former ALD. Pe Than said the reason for the imbalance was that the RNDP argued ahead of the merger that it deserved a greater proportion of representation on the central committee because it was the incumbent party and had established networks among voters in rural constituencies. Myo Kyaw said recent internal contention would need to be resolved if the merger was to remain viable in the coming years. He highlighted what he claimed was the top leaderships willingness to violate the partys own bylaws as disrespectful to its supporters and the public. Merger dynamics are not good at the moment, said Myo Kyaw. Pe Than acknowledged internal frictions between ALD and RNDP party members, but he downplayed the significance of the divide. Every party has similar problems. You can see from the USDP crisis, our party is not as bad as that, he said, referring to the high-profile purge of ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party chairman Shwe Mann in August. All our party members stand together for the [Arakanese] national interest. But speaking to reporters at Rangoon International Airport on Monday, Aye Tha Aung sounded a less confident note. My future is uncertain with the ANP, he said. Burma Burma Still Among Worlds Most Corrupt Countries, Index Finds Burma remains among the worlds most corrupt countries, according to a new index, though it has shown marginal improvement over the past year. RANGOON Burma remains among the worlds most corrupt countries, according to a new index by Berlin-based graft monitor Transparency International, though it has shown marginal improvement over the past year. Perceived corruption levels were assessed for 168 countries on a scale of zero to 100, with higher scores representing cleaner governance. Burmas global rank147 out of 168was a marked improvement over last years 156, though the country scored only one point better than it did in the 2014 assessment. Burma earned a score of 21 points, a slight improvement over last years 22. With some minor fluctuations, Burmas score has improved by 15 points since 2012, indicating an initial upward trend that has slowed over the past two years. Burmas perceived deceleration on the corruption front reflected concerns expressed by a number of lawmakers that the current government has done little to tackle graft. President Thein Seins Anti-Corruption Commission was primarily formed of retired military officers directly appointed by the head of state, himself a former general. The commission was formed in April 2014 following the promulgation of Burmas Anti-Graft Law. Asked last year what measures had thus far been taken to address corruption, chairman Mya Win admitted that the commission had no plans to audit government officials. A new Parliament dominated by the National League for Democracy (NLD) will convene next month after its landslide win in the Nov. 8 general election. The party has vowed to establish a corruption-free society, though analysts predict that the new government will face difficulties reforming Burmas bureaucracy, which has long been regulated by corrupt officials. Those predictions are bolstered by Transparency Internationals finding that [n]ot one single country, anywhere in the world, is corruption-free. Countries that ranked the lowest were those with conflict, poor governance, weak public institutions such as security forces and the judiciary, and a lack of press freedom. Those at the top shared the characteristics of a relatively free press, access to budget data and independent judiciaries. Denmark topped Transparencys list as the cleanest country, while North Korea and Somalia shared the lowest rank. More than two-thirds of countries were labeled as highly corrupt. Thailand and India were found to be among the worlds 80 most corrupt countries, while Singapore was the only Asian nation to make the top 10. Editors note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Burmas global rank remained the same as the previous year. Burma Outgoing Parliament Approves Presidential Protection, Immunity Bill On the penultimate day of the outgoing Parliament, MPs approve a bill guaranteeing lifetime personal security and legal immunity for former heads of state. RANGOON On the penultimate sitting day of the outgoing Parliament, lawmakers voted to approve the Presidential Security Bill that guarantees lifetime personal security and legal immunity for former heads of state. In a Union Parliament session on Thursday, lawmakers hashed out disagreements between the Lower and Upper houses before voting to pass the controversial bill that was first introduced in mid-December. The bill had raised eyebrows as it appeared to have been expedited for the benefit of outgoing President Thein Sein whose term will expire in March. The bloc of military MPs reportedly objected to a revision which stipulated that the presidents security would be appointed by the Home Ministry, not by either the Home Ministry or Defense Ministry as was stated in the original draft. Lower House lawmaker Pe Than of the Arakan National Party, who was reelected in November, told The Irrawaddy that with a majority of lawmakers in agreement, that revision was approved. The original draft stipulated that former presidents be immune from any prosecution for his actions during his term. The proviso in accordance with the law was subsequently added, an addition that was objected to by only three MPs, including Pe Than. Who will decide whether the presidents actions are in accordance with the law and how? It is unclear Pe Than said in Parliament on Thursday. New parliamentarians, the majority of whom will represent the National League for Democracy, will take up their seats on Feb. 1. Burma Parliament Defers Military Takeover of Immigration Portfolio Parliament decides not to approve a proposal from outgoing President Thein Sein to bring immigration matters under the authority of the military-controlled Home Affairs Ministry. RANGOON Burmas Union Parliament decided on Thursday not to approve a proposal from outgoing President Thein Sein to bring immigration matters under the authority of the military-controlled Home Affairs Ministry, as lawmakers opted not to consider the bureaucratic reshuffle with less than two days until their terms end. Out of 590 lawmakers in attendance for Thursdays parliamentary session, just three stood against a recommendation to postpone consideration of the proposal, which would see the Ministry of Immigration and Population subsumed by Home Affairs, until after a new batch of lawmakers is seated next week. The legislatures Joint Bill Committee had advised postponement, citing the dwindling parliamentary term. Union Parliament Speaker Shwe Mann of Thein Seins Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) was among those in favor of the committees recommendation. Several lawmakers including Aye Maung, an Upper House parliamentarian, had told local media that the idea of bringing the Immigration and Population Ministry under military auspices was an appropriate move but should not be rushed through the legislature under an outgoing government that was handily defeated in last years general election. Though Aye Maung was not re-elected to his seat on Nov. 8, he is likely to retain indirect influence in Parliament as chairman of the Arakan National Party (ANP). While appearing to have some support in principle, the proposal by Thein Sein was also widely criticized as an attempt to expand the militarys power before the impending political handover to Aung San Suu Kyis National League for Democracy (NLD). Under the military-drafted Constitution, the countrys armed forces currently control three powerful ministries: Defense, Border Affairs and Home Affairs, the ministers of which are appointed by the Burma Army commander-in-chief. Early this month, the Ministry of Defense also acquired five factories from the Ministry of Industry that manufactured heavy machinery and automobile accessories, a restructuring also interpreted as a move to consolidate the militarys powerful before Suu Kyis government is sworn in. A new legislature dominated by the NLD will convene on Feb. 1 and Suu Kyi has vowed in her partys electoral manifesto that her administration will eliminate or merge some of Burmas 36 ministries to reduce state expenditures and establish a lean and efficient government. Immigration and border security have become sensitive issues in recent years in Burma, where citizenship claims by Rohingya Muslims, some of whom have lived in the countrys western Arakan State for generations, have been denied by successive governments that view the minority group as immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh. Burma Senior NLD Member Confirms Nominations for House Speakers A senior member of the National League for Democracy confirms early reports that the party has selected speakers for the new Parliament. RANGOON A senior member of the National League for Democracy (NLD) has confirmed early reports that the party has selected speakers for the new Parliament that will convene next week. Central committee member Win Htein told reporters in the capital Naypyidaw on Thursday that Win Myint and Mahn Win Khaing Than, both NLD members and the latter ethnic Karen, have been chosen to steer the Lower and Upper houses, respectively. Ethnic Kachin T Khun Myat, a member of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), will serve as deputy speaker of the Lower House, while Aye Tha Aung, patron of the Arakan National Party (ANP), will hold the position in the Upper House. The announcement, which Win Htein said was approved by party chairwoman Aung San Suu Kyi, confirmed reports that surfaced last week after another party spokesman, Nyan Win, made a similar revelation to newswire AFP. The NLD swiftly responded to the initial reportswithout denying that the nominations had been madewith a statement designating Suu Kyi as the only person authorized to make statements about the partys political maneuvers. Suu Kyi has previously vowed to appoint ethnic minorities and members of other political parties to important roles to promote national reconciliation, though the partys choice of T Khun Myat as deputy speaker has raised eyebrows. The sitting USDP lawmaker is said to be a close ally of current Speaker Shwe Mann, and has been accused in a series of investigative reports in Shan media of involvement in the narcotics trade and ties to a government-allied militia in his Kutkai constituency. The NLD secured a landslide victory in the Nov. 8 general election and is set to assume a majority of both houses of Parliament on Feb. 1. Burma Thein Sein Touts Reformist Legacy in Last Assembly Address During a farewell address to Parliament, the president uncritically describes his administrations major achievements. RANGOON During a farewell address to the Union Parliament in Naypyidaw on Thursday, President Thein Sein described what he felt were his administrations achievements and suggested that Burma in transition is more stable than its Middle Eastern counterparts. Five years on, terrorist attacks are happening in Middle Eastern countries in democratic transition. Millions of civilians have fled as war victims. Anarchy and extremist uprisings have pushed them far from their original democratic goals, he said, without listing any countries by name. It was not the first time that the president has drawn comparisons between Burma and the Arab world. In the lead-up to November general election, Thein Sein posted a video to his Facebook page featuring a montage of violence following the 2011 push for political change known as the Arab Spring. The events were contrasted with selected peaceful images of Burma under his own administration. Many saw it as a cautionary message to voters, not to stray from the leadership of his Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). Although our country has some difficulties and challenges, [we have] implemented democratic transitions step-by-step and our processes are stable, he said on Thursday. In his speech, Thein Sein described what he felt were his governments accomplishments: the release of political prisoners, the signing of a nationwide ceasefire agreement and a successful general election. On January 17, Human Rights Watch described a more tainted presidential legacy. Burmas growing number of political prisoners is the most glaring indictment of President Thein Seins human rights record, said Phil Robertson, director of the Human Rights Watch Asia division. The group highlighted an increase in the arrest of students and land rights activists in 2015now numbering more than 400. Robertson also criticized Thein Seins administration for passing discriminatory race and religion laws regulating marriage, religious conversion, and, in some cases, birth rates. However, the laws celebrated by Thein Sein in his speech included those enacted regarding revenue, media and foreign investment. Many of the developments the President spoke of centered on economic growth; the formation of an independent central bank, the relaxing of some US sanctions, and cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. Thein Sein admitted that the practices of corruption and malpractice in the country are difficult to curb immediately; The Irrawaddy reported on Thursday that Transparency International has, for the second year in a row, designated Burma one of the worlds most corrupt countriesranked 147 out of 168 states. The outgoing president thanked international governments, organizations, media and citizens who collaborated with his administration. He said that he prays for the new government to build a better country. Aung San Suu Kyis National League for Democracy (NLD), which around 80 percent of contested seats in the November vote, is set to officially assume power in early April. Books Metamorphosis: Tracing the Transformation in Burma A new collection of academic essays offers a nuanced and well-researched look at the events over the past five years in Burma. The obvious peril of trying to pen any analysis of Burmas political transition is that publication will render any insight redundant or dated. This is especially true for notoriously slow academic collections. A new collection of essays edited by Renaud Egreteau and Francois Robinne, Metamorphosis, is a welcome exception. The chapters overviewing an array of political, social, religious and ethnic issues is a fine compendium of sound research and argument that serve to deepen our understanding of the complex events of the past five years, and with historical framing that gives them a deeper currency. The first part on evolving political ecologies is mercifully free of the speculation and surface description that marks much analysis. Egreteaus chapter on military lawmakers and their voting behavior in the national Parliament is a great way to start such a volume, and is followed by an illuminating profile of the Arakan politician U Maung Nyo against the backdrop of vexed Arakan States political and conflict dynamics. Elliot Prasse-Freemans work on grassroots movements, their concepts of the political and struggles for justiceviewed through the tactics and narratives of land protestors, especially those involved in the Letpadaung demonstrationsis an important and eloquently argued addition to one of Burmas major political fault lines between aggrieved communities and authorities. A section on identity politics is one of the best recent collections on various ethnic perspectives, many of them either lamentably overlooked or hotly contested, including a study of contesting identities and work in the Myiek Archipeligo, a detailed overview of the Kachin and their experiences during the brutal civil war that has raged since 2011, and Jacques P. Leiders deeply researched and meticulously argued overview of the history of Rohingya Muslims. Jane Fergusons chapter on ethnicity in Shan State is a standout in the volume, traversing not just the ethnic-Burman divisions that characterize much center-periphery relations, but divisions between ethnic groups within Shan State. The chapter also closely examines Shan communities in exile or displaced along the Thailand-Burma border, and the multiple challenges they face for development and peacemaking that is not well understood in either Rangoon or Naypyidaw. As Ferguson clearly states, [g]iven the long history of contested sovereignty, war, strife and poverty, residents of Shan State stand at a complex crossroads for their political and economic future. Few local people exhibit the optimism that some international observers seem to expect of them. Social issues are presented through captivating chapters on transnational activism, Burmese actors in exile and those who have returned, and a fascinating overview of medical services in Thandwe in Arakan State. Rosalie Metros excellent essay on the education system is worth the price of the book in itself. In her overview of the poor state of national education standards, one of the major crimes that successive military regimes wrought on Burmese society through neglect and paranoia, Metro presents through closely observed ethnographic research some of the innovative approaches to education reform that some teachers and students are engaging in as first steps in a long journey of redressing poor standards. As she argues, Burmese students and teachers are neither unaware of nor helpless in the face of the problems of the education system. Some of them, in particular those on the systems peripheries where governmental oversight is minimal or non-existent, are actively seeking solutions by themselves(t)heir priorities include ameliorating ethnic discrimination, addressing language barriers, rethinking teaching methods based on rote memorization and reducing corruption. These efforts support the process of democratization and national reconciliation that government and civil society representatives have highlighted as crucial in building the countrys future. This chapter should be required reading for anyone working on Burma, whether they work on education or not. The final part on religion is both timely and fine reading. Hiroko Kawanamis chapter on Buddhist nuns is a welcome exploration of the often maligned role of the thilashin in contemporary society. Benedicte Brac de la Perrieres detailed history of the Buddhist Sanghas role in democratic transitions is solid background to anyone seeking to understand where the current religious ultra-nationalism of the Ma Ba Tha is coming from. The concluding chapter by one of the editors on ethnicity and religion is a sound companion, especially in its exploration of relations between Buddhists, Christians and Muslims. The most glaringly obvious and utterly perplexing shortcoming of the book, acknowledged by the editors, is the absence of academics from Burma amongst the contributors. More open research and collaboration between scholars from Burma and the outside world, unfettered by security concerns, has been a significant marker of progress during Burmas metamorphosis, and it is a real pity this book fails to show how fruitful that has been. Nevertheless, many of the issues this book analyzes will be important markers of change to understand in Burmas near future. Any attempt to do so will be immeasurably assisted by reading these illuminating essays before you start. Renaud Egreteau and Francois Robinne, editors, Metamorphosis. Studies in Social and Political Change in Myanmar, Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2016. David Scott Mathieson is a Senior Researcher in the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. Ethnic Issues Khun Htun Oo: Without a Guarantee of Equality, How Can We Work Together? The Irrawaddy speaks with the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy chairman Khun Htun Oo about the intricacies of building a genuine federal union. Among the many challenges facing the incoming National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government will be addressing the political aspirations of Burmas ethnic nationalities. Federalism was high on the agenda at the recent Union Peace Conference, with some ethnic leaders proposing a system of eight ethnic states to replace the current configuration of seven states and seven divisions. The Irrawaddys Htet Naing Zaw recently spoke with Khun Htun Oo, chairman of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), about the role of ethnic peoples in building a federal Union. Do you think a federal system will be introduced to Burma after Daw Aung San Suu Kyi comes to power? They have made promises and people have also voted for them because they believe in them. We have to wait and see what they will do. They understand well what ethnicities want. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has difficulties. Article 59(f) [of the Constitution, which bars her from the presidency] still cant be amended. It is not yet clear whether she can assume the presidency. If she doesnt, how would she be welcomed when she goes to foreign countries? Whether the red carpet should be rolled out for her is open to question. But anyway, her government will be much better than the current one. People have voted for her party with only one thing in mindthey no longer want the current system. Is it possible to establish a federal Union without changing the 2008 Constitution? Impossible. Utterly impossible. There are many reasons. How can we establish a federal Union without changing the fundamental facts related to federalism? The Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) proposed the concept of eight states at the Union Peace Conference. Would it work in practice? It will if [stakeholders] have the will to do it. In our view, this [lack of federalism] is the reason behind the problems of the country. The Panglong Conference made the same commitment but it has not been realized until now. If guarantees cant be given, how can we move forward? We are not treated on equal terms. Without a guarantee of equality, how can we work together? Our rep said the same at the Union Peace Conference. Will the SNLD hold talks with Daw Aung San Suu Kyis government on the principle of eight states when it comes to power? Do you think the NLD government will be able to bring about reconciliation with ethnic groups? Well discuss it. Who else are we supposed to hold talks with on this if we do not talk with them? But rather than holding direct talks with [Suu Kyi], we will bring it forward to the parliament. The NLD government will surely work for reconciliation with ethnic people. But Im afraid there are lots of constitutional hurdles. The military staged a coup in 1962 on the pretext of saving the country from breaking up. Arent you worried that it could intervene again if the system of eight states is introduced? I am not worried. The country has become the worlds poorest country because of their intervention. It should do its own duties, and well do our own duties. We need not care. Wont you try to convince the military about it? We have plans. If [the military] comes for talks with us, well discuss it. Which federal systems has SNLD studied? Have you seen any federal system that is suitable for Burma? We have studied dozens of federal systems. The best one is of Germany. The system adopted by the US is also good. Rather than choosing the best federal system of the world, we should adopt what is most suitable for us. There has been an argument in the Parliament that if greater autonomy is given to states, there is no need to introduce a different federal system. Do you accept that view? It is impossible. They need to re-study the Panglong Agreement. Just study it. Who will do so if there is no equality? Please also take armed groups into consideration. It is not fair to ask us to move ten steps backward just to make one step forward. Im afraid it will be difficult to designate a Burman State according to the proposed eight-state system. What are we supposed to do with the Dawei and Beik tribes in the Burman ethnic group? And there are also dozens of tribes under the Shan ethnic group. I have no idea about the Burman ethnic group but for Shan, the Shan Federation could be re-formed. Does the Burmese governments administrative power have influence on the Wa [Special] Region in Shan State at present? Can it open its offices there? That place has been open for a long time. Arent you afraid Burma will meet the same fate as Crimea? Burman people will make up the majority in a federal system. So, they need not to worry. Regarding the Dawei and Beik tribes you have said, it is up to the Burmese government. Would you accept if the NLD government offered you a Union-level post? It depends on terms and conditions. We need to consider if their policies meet what we want. If I accept the post without considering these, problems might arise later if their policies fail to meet our goals. Do you have any final comments about federalism? They [the government] talks about 14 units [14 states and divisions], but for us, [the best] federal system would be eight units. No matter what federal system is adopted, it is important that it enshrines equality and self-determination. If not, it is not a federal system. You can have 100 divisions and 100 states in the country, but the most important thing is there must be coordination between upper and lower [administrative] levels. The country has gone through years of hardship because there is no such coordination. The Lower House is for Burman and the Upper House or House of Nationalities or House of Ethnicities is for minorities, for us. Do you know the 1947 constitution? Well take according to that constitution. Burmans said one thing before independence and talked another way after independence. Thats why there have been booms-booms-bangs-bangs across the country. Thursday, January 28th, 2016 (8:20 am) - Score 504 The UK Government has today signed a new City Deal, which will pump up to 250 million into Aberdeen (Scotland). Most of the investment will go towards propping up the citys gas and oil industry, as well as expanding its harbour, although some will be used to further boost digital connectivity. The exact details of how Aberdeens digital connectivity will be improved are not yet known, although the original plan said, Major investment in digital infrastructure is required in the Aberdeen area to improve connectivity which can enable an acceleration in economic growth, stimulate innovation and retain and create employment in the region. Government Statement The agreement will be Scotlands second UK City Deal, following Glasgows arrangement agreed in 2014, and will again see equal funding committed by the UK and Scottish Governments. The City Deal will address a number of proposals from the region including a new energy innovation centre, supporting the industry to exploit remaining North Sea reserves, as well towards the expansion of Aberdeen harbour, enabling the city to compete for decommissioning work. The City Deal also sets out how the region will diversify the biopharmaceutical and agri-food industries, diversifying the areas economy and creating new jobs and export opportunities, as well as commitments to improve digital connectivity across the area. At present around 90% of Aberdeen should already be able to access a superfast broadband (24Mbps+) connection, albeit more via BTs hybrid-fibre FTTC (VDSL2) network than Virgin Medias faster cable infrastructure because the latter has almost no presence in the city. On top of that Cityfibre has of course been busy expanding their 1000Mbps capable fibre optic broadband (FTTP) network in the area (Aberdeen Core), although that infrastructure is primarily focused upon connecting businesses and public sector sites. However theres clearly still a fair gap left to fill and thats where some of the funding could help. Thursday, January 28th, 2016 (3:13 pm) - Score 7,190 Its a familiar story, you buy a newly built house only to find that it could take months before BTOpenreach get around to connecting you to even a basic broadband or phone service and then when it does go live the service could be slow. Meanwhile the property developer blames BT and vice versa. Sadly ISPreview.co.uk has had to cover a fair few stories like this over the years (e.g. here, here and here) and so in that sense the latest reports from Cable.co.uk (here and here) and the BBC do not come as much of a surprise. However the underlying problem may be on the right track towards a resolution. The report notes that several large new-build estates (e.g. the Sandmartins development in Darlington, the Coopers Edge development in Brockworth and the Portland Wynd development in Northumberland) are struggling to either get connection or to receive a good broadband speed once the service has finally arrived. The situation is particularly galling because by far and away the cheapest and quickest approach to deploying new telecoms services is to put infrastructure in the ground BEFORE any of the houses and streets are even built, but this requires both the telecoms operator and property developer to be cooperating. Easier said than done. Chi Onwurah MP, UK Labour Party, said: The incremental cost of laying fibre when youre putting gas or electricity ducts in the ground is insignificant in comparison to digging up streets, so its a huge opportunity The obstacles that new homeowners or people moving into new homes are having I just find incomprehensible really. One problem is that some property developers do not see the situation as being their responsibility to solve, which is exactly what Barratt Homes told residents at one of their developments in Plymouth. We do not have an obligation to provide any Broadband services and I must confirm that Barratt Homes will not consider any further investigations to upgrade the existing Broadband provision, said the developer. In fairness existing developments are not yet strictly required to include the provision of good broadband in their builds. On the flip side Ofcoms current Universal Service Obligation (USO) only mandates that BT and KC (Hull) deliver, following the reasonable request of any End-user, a telephone service that includes the ability to offer data rates that are sufficient to permit functional internet access; technically that can include ancient dialup. A Spokesperson for Openreach added: The rapid growth in the number of new homes being built around the country has resulted in some owners of new build properties having to wait longer than usual for their phone and broadband service. Openreach would like to apologise to any affected customers and is working hard to fix this issue. We have also stated our ambition to provide infrastructure to all homes in new build developments before customers move in. The good news is that this problem isnt universal and a number of developers, such as the Berkeley Group, have already made commitments to ensure that their builds will be prepared for fibre optic broadband infrastructure by 2016 (here). The Government are also encouraging local authorities to consider the need for superfast broadband when judging planning applications (here). Likewise Europe has called for All new buildings and those undergoing major renovation for which applications for building permission have been submitted after 31 December 2016 must be high-speed ready (here). Not that home builders were happy about that, with some warning that it could seriously damage future construction (here). On top of that the Government are also about to start consulting on their proposal to introduce a new legally-binding USO, which would require BT and possibly other telecoms operators to ensure that everybody can access a minimum broadband speed of 10Mbps (Megabits per second). But this wont be introduced until 2020 and by then 10Mbps may not look as attractive. One problem with the above improvements is that they dont affect existing developments and indeed it can sometimes take years for a new build to go from the planning to construction phase, which means that many new builds will continue to be constructed without provision for good broadband and it could thus take a while for the measures to have a real impact. This domain name expired on 2022-10-16 00:20:10 Click here to renew it. Library bond unanimously approved Voters waited in line for 45 minutes Tuesday to participate in an eight-minute meeting that resulted in the unanimous approval of a $600,000 bond to help renovate the North Road... Ferryboat business told to halt operations The ferryboat company operating from the municipally owned docks at East Ferry is illegally using that space, according to correspondence mailed to business owner Bill Munger. Town Administrator Jamie Hainsworth... A DOGGONE NEW BUSINESS A former business that used to clean peoples clothes is reopening as a groomer to tidy up the fur of those peoples four-legged companions. The defunct laundromat at the McQuades... Media Invite I wonder how many of you are as excited about food as I. The excitement escalates even more when I hear of super good value promotions that can get me good quality food. Eating is more than an activity to me Its an enjoyment and a lifestyle, and I savor every moment that I can enjoy good food with my loved ones. When I was on a staycation recently at Hotel Jen Tanglin, the hotel staff kindly hosted us lunch at Ah Hois Kitchen as well. Ah Hois has been around for years, with a reputation for really well done crab dishes. Located at Level 3 of Hotel Jen Tanglin, Ah Hois is homely, spacious and boasts of a relaxing view while dining (the hotels swimming pools right outside!). We were told to give their 12-at-12 lunch promotion a try. As its name suggests, 12-at-12 literally means you pay $12 nett for 12 dishes served to you at 12pm (lunch hour). The 12 dishes are pre-fixed and change everyday, so even if you want to dine there everyday, youll get something new everyday! Located right smack in town, where lunch hours are usually bustling with crowds and noise, having lunch at Ah Hois will be a relaxing and rejuvenating experience. As a working adult myself, I know I relish having quiet lunch time when I can recharge and take a good break before getting back to work again. The lunch promotion includes a drink as well, so before our wonderful dishes were served, we did a customary toast To greatness! =P Check out our impressive spread! So pretty and delicious-looking, we cant wait to tuck in! Let me show you what we ate that day. :) Sweet & spicy clams Steamed egg Curry crabs & Braised beancurd sticks with mushrooms Stir-fried veggies Soya Sauce Chicken Prawn Paste Fried Chicken Braised cabbage with enoki mushrooms Fruit Rojak The spread also included a super yummy soup, stir-fried french beans with belachan and roasted pork. Makes 12 delicious dishes in all! Ah Hois Kitchens 12-at-12 is ongoing until further notice, so make your way there anytime during the weekdays to enjoy the promotion. Thats not all! If there are 12 of you, the 12th person gets to eat for free! In view of the Chinese New Year season, they will be preparing special dishes for 12-at-12 such as Braised Pork Knuckle with Chinese Mushrooms, Salted Egg Yolk Prawns, Braised Duck with Ground Nuts and Crispy Nian Gao! This CNY promotion is available from 1 to 29 Feb 2016 (excluding 7,8,9 Feb). Of course, they also have Reunion meal packages, Pen Chai & Yusheng. Check out their link to find out more. Thank you Ah Hois for a wonderful meal for my family. Well certainly be back for more! :) Disclosure: The J Babies were invited for a media tasting at Ah Hois Kitchen. No other financial compensation was received. All photographs and opinions presented in this post are, as usual, ours. The FBI recently prevented a mass shooting that is intended to 'terrify the world.' A 23-year old man planned to murder 30 people at a Milwaukee Masonic temple but the authorities were able to thwart him. Officials at the Department of Justice have identified the man as Samy Mohamed Hamzeh who was immediately charged with illegal possession of a machine gun and a silencer. In a statement, Gregory J. Haanstad, acting United States Attorney General said the man "wanted this mass shooting to be 'known the world over' and to 'ignite' broader clashes." "It is difficult to calculate the injury and loss of life that was prevented by concerned citizens coming forward and by the tireless efforts of the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force," Haanstad added. The man is now facing federal charges after he allegedly made a deal with undercover agents to buy two machine guns in his plan to shoot innocent people in a Masonic temple. This was proven by court documents showing federal prosecutors charging Hamzeh on Tuesday for illegal possession of a machine gun and for receiving and possessing firearms that are not registered under his name. It was not clear if he was represented by an attorney at the time he was charged. An FBI affidavit revealed that in September, FBI agents were tipped off that Hamzeh planned to go to Israel in October, in the West Bank, to attack citizens and soldiers. But he discarded this plan presumably because of "family, financial and logistic reasons." Apparently, Hamzeh later changed his plans and decided to attack a domestic target instead and chose to execute a mass shooting at a local Masonic Temple. The document also said that the accused divulged his plans in detail to two FBI informants. It said that these discussions were recorded by the FBI starting in October. Netflix has good and bad news for the Doctor Who fans, as reported by RadioTimes on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the streaming service for the US will be discontinued and will depart on 1 February, but shall remain available for the UK fans. Netflix took to their Twitter account to confirm the news that Doctor Who is saying goodbye to its fans in the US. It was a response to a lot of tweets from people noticing that their Doctor Who episodes appeared to expire on their accounts on the first day of the month of February. Doctor Who Online told Netflix that removing the show from the library is a bad idea, but added that they should not just take their word for it. They ended the tweet with: "[Cue the fans] :)" "Is it a rights issue and do you hope to have it back at some point in the future?" asked @DrWhoOnline, to which @Netflixhelps, the customer service Twitter account, responded that at times, they have to remove comtent when the licensing expires but are always happy to work in getting it back. This issue does not affect both the UK and Canada streaming. Doctor Who is a science-fiction television show produced BBC from 1963 up to the present times. The program follows the adventures of The Doctor - who is a himanoid alien that time-travels. It is a relevant and significant part of the British popular culture and has become a cult favorite for everyone else. The basis of the show is that the Time Lord experiences a life process in which the character of the Doctor takes on a new body and personality after earning fatal injuries. Hence, twelve actors have already headlined the series as the Doctor. This concept of the show which involves time travel means that on certain occasions, different doctors have met one another. The leader of the forced occupation of a federal wildlife reserve in Oregon was arrested after the FBI confronted members of the armed group. In the skirmish, one protestor was shot dead, authorities said. The month-long occupation staged by the Oregon activists finally ended. Ammon Bundy, the leader, along with four others were taken in to custody by FBI officials. According to the FBI, gunshots were heard after several officers stopped a vehicle that carried Bundy and his group close to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Robert LaVoy Finicum, a rancher and an activist, was shot dead. He is supposed to be the spokesman of the group. Law enforcement officials told Reuters that on Tuesday night, FBI agents erected a perimeter around the place where some of the activists were holding out, sustaining their defiance of federal control of huge tracts of the United States. Jason Patrick, one of the holdouts, told Reuters on the phone that they would remain on the ground until their grievances are redressed. "I've heard 'peaceful resolution' for weeks now and now there's a cowboy who is my friend who is dead - so prepare for the peaceful resolution," said Patrick. The nine apprehended activists were travelling in two vehicles approximately 45 miles from the wildlife refuge when they were accosted by FBI agents. Some of them tried to escape, and gunfire ensued. It was not clear who fired their guns. "We all thought it would end, but not like this," Challice Finicum Finch, daughter of the dead activist said. "My dad did stress that they couldn't pull a gun on them [officers] unless they pulled a gun. They were all committed to not firing on federal agents," she added. In an NBC News report, Finicum, the dead man, said the he preferred death to jail. "There are things more important than your life, and freedom is one of them. I'm prepared to defend freedom," he said. On Newsstands Now: Here's Everything You'll Find in CityBeat's Latest Issue From a Bigfoot hunt to delightfully spooky ghost stories from one of Cincinnati's watering holes, here are the stories you'll find in CityBeat's latest print edition. By CityBeat Staff Oct 19, 2022 For many of us, Bigfoot is a legend present only on an episode of Ancient Aliens, or perhaps only among the towering, mysterious pines of the Pacific Northwest. However, for CityBeat's latest issue, we went on a hunt for Bigfoot in a place where the massive furball had allegedly been spotted before Ohio's Pleasant Hill Lake Park... This blog contains articles and commentary on Climate Change / Global Warming. These changes will have an affect on the entire planet and all of us who reside therein. Life as we know it will change drastically. There is also the view that there is a high likelihood of climate change being a precursor of conflits triggered by resource shortges. remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. By of the A third top aide has quit state Sen. Chris Larson's campaign for Milwaukee County executive, this time in the wake of a criminal investigation of the aide. Michael Wilder, 30, resigned on Wednesday afternoon as political outreach director and deputy manager for Larson's campaign, said Josh Kilroy, the campaign manager. Wilder, who had been the No. 2 aide with the campaign since late November, was paid $5,000 a month -- though the specific sum is not disclosed on Larson's latest campaign report. "He said he had a personal matter that demanded his full attention," Kilroy said. He added, "He was not fired." In a statement released Thursday, Kilroy said the campaign was "shocked and saddened" by the situation. "We are learning about this with everyone else and have no additional facts to provide at this time," Kilroy said. Wilder could not be reached for comment by phone or at his Tosa residence on Wednesday evening. Larson, a Milwaukee Democrat, is challenging Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, also a Milwaukee Dem. Earlier on Wednesday, Kent Lovern, chief deputy district attorney for Milwaukee County, confirmed that a case involving Wilder had been referred to prosecutors. Lovern would not discuss the details of the case. "The matter is under review in our office," Lovern said. Sherwin Hughes, host of "The Forum" talk show on WNOV-AM (860), discussed a "prominent black leader" who Hughes said was under investigation by authorities for his relationship with a teenager. Hughes did not name the black leader. Several sources confirmed that he was talking about Wilder. Kilroy said it was his understanding that Wilder's situation was discussed on Hughes' show, though Kilroy said he was unaware of any details. "I've never dealt with this particular situation before," Kilroy said. As for the exodus of staffers, he added, "Life happens." Late last year, two other Larson staffers -- campaign manager Rick Coelho and field director Maureen Dunn -- exited Larson's campaign without explanation. Insiders said Wilder began work with Larson's campaign around Nov. 23 during the transition in campaign managers. Campaign records show Wilder was paid less than $200 last year for consulting work. But Kilroy said Wilder was being paid for his staff position through the state Democratic Party, which he said was acting as the campaign's payroll manager. Kilroy said Wilder was hired as a senior staffer making $5,000 a month. He said the sum is disclosed on state Democratic Party filings. Previously, Wilder had worked for a handful of liberal groups, including Wisconsin Voices, Wisconsin Jobs Now and Citizen Action of Wisconsin. He also served as legislative assistant to former Milwaukee County Supervisor Eyon Biddle and constituent liaison for then-U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Dem. Pulse News and notes on health, medicine and fitness SHARE By of the A 10-year study of more than 1.3 million Kaiser Permanente members in North California found that on average blacks, Latinos and Asians had lower risks of coronary heart disease than whites. "Racial and ethnic differences in diabetes, cardiovascular-disease risk factors and their outcomes, especially in blacks, are well-documented, but population health estimates are often confounded by differences in access to high-quality health care," said Jamal S. Rana, lead author of the new study which appears in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Rana said that in the current study, "we were able to evaluate ethnic differences in risk of future coronary heart disease within a diverse population, which included not only black, but also large Asian and Latino populations, with uniform access to care in an integrated health care delivery system." Rana cautioned, however that, "it is a complex issue, and further research is needed to address the differences in health status and outcomes related to race and ethnicity across the country. These findings may inform policy development and interventions designed to identify and eliminate racial and ethnic disparities." SHARE By of the Facing stiffening competition in its niche, online costume and party supplies retailer BuySeasons Inc. said Thursday it will eliminate 130 full-time jobs more than a third of its workforce. The cuts will leave the New Berlin firm with a little under 200 permanent full-time employees, spokesman Stephen Lyons said. Its just increased competition, he said of the factors driving the layoffs. Theres pricing pressure, and we just thought that we needed to do this. Employees were told of the decision Thursday. Layoffs will begin next week and be completed over the next few months, Lyons said. Jobs being eliminated include positions in the corporate headquarters and in the warehouse. The cutbacks are part of a larger restructuring that could alter the companys business model. One possibility is a greater emphasis than in the past on wholesale trade, Lyons said. That is one of the options that we are looking at, he said. ...Were reviewing everything, and the restructure will have some of that component. But some of the ways we deliver the product now will continue, as well as looking at other avenues. Lyons declined to disclose annual sales. He said the restructuring would help ensure that BuySeasons remains in business for many, many years to come. Started by entrepreneurs Jalem Getz and Jon Majdoch in 1999, BuySeasons grew rapidly into one of the areas start-up success stories, and the countrys largest online costume retailer. It was sold in 2006 to Liberty Interactive Corp. of Englewood Colo. Majdoch already had left BuySeasons by then. He owns the Halloween Express stores in the area. Getz, who left BuySeasons in 2010, since has started Wantable Inc., an online retailer offering personalized makeup and accessories to women. By of the A merger agreement filed Wednesday by Johnson Controls Inc. and Tyco International calls for Alex Molinaroli to receive a retention bonus of $10 million plus another $10 million in stock that he would receive 21/2 years after the deal is done. The bonus and stock provisions for Johnson Controls' top executive were disclosed in a merger agreement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. It also includes details regarding a "breakup fee" either company would have to pay if the deal isn't completed. That breakup fee is pegged at $375 million to $500 million. The agreement was filed as Johnson Controls prepares to release its first-quarter earnings Thursday. The companies announced a merger this week that will create a $32 billion company focused on products for commercial buildings combining Johnson Controls' heating and cooling equipment and controls business with Tyco's fire and security system products business. Under the deal, expected to be completed by the end of September, Johnson Controls would become a subsidiary of Tyco International. Tyco would then change its name to Johnson Controls PLC, to qualify for the tax-friendly corporate structure that Tyco now enjoys. The deal would save Johnson Controls $150 million a year in taxes savings that have led politicians in recent days to question U.S. corporate taxation policies. Tyco is based in Cork, Ireland, but its management team is based in Princeton, N.J. The agreement spells out terms of employment for the Tyco executive who will become Johnson Controls' CEO 18 months after the deal is completed. Though it will become an Irish company, Johnson Controls would be run from Milwaukee. Company spokesman Fraser Engerman said the merger is expected to be positive for the community. Under the deal, Molinaroli would be CEO for 18 months and then that role would transition to George Oliver, now Tyco's chairman. After that, Molinaroli would be chairman for a year, with Oliver to succeed him after that. The employment contract gives Molinaroli the ability to take a paid vacation during the 90-day period before the merger or "if more favorable" to him, he could take the time off after the deal closes. The vacation will be "in accordance with the most favorable plans, policies, programs and practices" of the company. Molinaroli's current salary has not been disclosed. His total compensation for 2015 was $21.74 million. Oliver will be paid $1.25 million a year, with a potential bonus of up to $1.69 million. He will be required, under terms of the agreement, to be based in Wisconsin once he ascends from the combined company's president to the CEO role. Oliver will receive temporary housing and "reasonable relocation benefits," the filing says. The agreement also contains special job security protection for both Oliver and Molinaroli. Instead of requiring just a majority vote, any decision to change the employment status for either Molinaroli or Oliver will require the approval of 75%, or seven of the nine independent directors of the company. Under terms of the deal, Johnson Controls will nominate six members of the board while Tyco will nominate five. The deal needs approval of regulators and both companies' shareholders. Also under terms of the deal, Johnson Controls shareholders can elect to receive either $34.88 in cash or one share of stock in the combined company. Tyco this week said it has obtained a $4 billion in financing to fund the cash payout. Tyco shareholders will receive 0.95 shares for each current share of Tyco they now hold. Johnson Controls shares closed Wednesday at $35.14. Tyco's shares closed at $31.26. Cary Spivak of the Journal Sentinel contributed to this report. SHARE By of the Strattec Security Corp. said Thursday that its net income fell 41% in the second quarter, as the company continued to see diminished demand for parts after it completed work for General Motors on a major recall last year. The Glendale-based auto parts supplier said net income was $3.4 million, or 93 cents per share, down from $5.8 million, or $1.58 per share, in the previous year. The company said expenses rose in part because of $600,000 it paid a vendor on a new product. Sales were nearly unchanged, at $102.5 million compared with $102 million in last year's October-December quarter. Strattec makes keys, locks, latches and other car parts. The company's sales to General Motors fell by $3 million, with that reduction offset in part by higher sales to Ford Motor Co., Hyundai and Kia and other customers. Strattec makes components on high-volume vehicles for those customers, including the Ford F-150 pickup truck and the Kia Sedona minivan. Separately, Strattec announced that along with its global joint venture partners, including Michigan-based Adac Automotive, it will build a factory in Leon, Mexico, to paint and assemble door handles, primarily for cars built in Mexico. "Based on newly awarded customer business, we anticipate our current joint venture sales to double within the next two years," said Frank Krejci, president and CEO, in a statement. Before the announcement, Strattec's shares closed Thursday at $47.95, down 69 cents. The shares have fallen 40% over the past year. Brie Larson (left, with Jacob Tremblay) is nominated for an Oscar for best actress for Room. The movie has four nominations in all, including best picture. Credit: Uncredited SHARE By of the Here are where (and whether) you can see the movies nominated for this year's Academy Awards. Also, a reminder: This year's Oscar-nominated live-action shorts and animated short films are showing this week at the Oriental Theatre. "Amy"(1 documentary feature): Available on DVD, streaming on iTunes. "Anomalisa"(1 animated feature): Showing at Oriental. "The Big Short"(5 picture, supporting actor for Christian Bale, director for Adam McKay, film editing, adapted screenplay): Showing at Fox-Bay, Hillside, Mayfair Mall, North Shore, Ridge. "Boy and the World"(1 animated feature): No word on Milwaukee or video release date. "Bridge of Spies"(6 picture, supporting actor for Mark Rylance, original score, original screenplay, production design, sound mixing): Showing at Oak Creek Budget; due out on DVD Tuesday. "Brooklyn"(3 picture, actress for Saoirse Ronan, adapted screenplay): Showing at Downer, Hillside, North Shore, Ridge. "Carol"(6 actress for Cate Blanchette, supporting actress for Rooney Mara, adapted screenplay, cinematography, costume design, original score): No longer in theaters. "Cartel Land"(1 documentary feature): Streaming on Netflix, iTunes. "Cinderella"(1 costume design): Available on DVD, streaming on iTunes, Amazon. "Creed"(1 supporting actor for Sylvester Stallone): Showing at Rivoli/Cedarburg; due out on DVD March 1. "The Danish Girl"(4 actor for Eddie Redmayne, supporting actress for Alicia Vikander, costume design, production design): Showing at Mayfair Mall. "Embrace of the Serpent"(1 foreign-language film): No word on return to theaters (played at 2015 Milwaukee Film Festival). "Ex Machina"(2 original screenplay, visual effects): Available on DVD, streaming on Amazon, iTunes. "Fifty Shades of Grey"(1 original song for "Earned It"): Available on DVD, streaming on iTunes. "45 Years"(1 actress for Charlotte Rampling): Showing at Downer. "The Hateful Eight"(3 supporting actress for Jennifer Jason Leigh, cinematography, original score): Showing at Mayfair Mall. "The Hunting Ground"(1 original song for "Til It Happens to You"): Available on DVD, streaming on iTunes, Amazon. "Inside Out"(2 animated feature, original screenplay): Available on DVD, streaming on Amazon, iTunes. "Joy"(1 actress for Jennifer Lawrence): Showing at Menomonee Falls, Ridge. "The Look of Silence"(1 documentary feature): Available on DVD, streaming on iTunes. "Mad Max: Fury Road"(10 picture, director for George Miller, cinematography, costume design, film editing, makeup and hairstyling, production design, sound editing, sound mixing, visual effects): Available on DVD, streaming on iTunes. "The Martian"(7 picture, actor for Matt Damon, adapted screenplay, production design, sound editing, sound mixing, visual effects): Showing at Oak Creek Budget; available on DVD, streaming on iTunes, Amazon. "Mustang"(1 foreign-language film): No word on Milwaukee release date; due out on DVD April 12. "The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared"(1 makeup and hairstyling): Available on DVD, streaming on iTunes, Amazon. "Racing Extinction"(1 original song for "Manta Ray"): Due out on DVD Feb. 23. "The Revenant"(12 picture, director for Alejandro G. Inarritu, actor for Leonardo DiCaprio, supporting actor for Tom Hardy, cinematography, costume design, film editing, makeup and hairstyling, production design, sound editing, sound mixing, visual effects): Showing at Avalon, Fox-Bay, Hillside, IPic/Bayshore, Majestic, Mayfair Mall, Menomonee Falls, North Shore, Ridge, Saukville, Showtime, South Shore, Times. "Room"(4 picture, director for Lenny Abrahamson, actress for Brie Larson, adapted screenplay): Showing at Majestic, Oriental, Ridge, Saukville, South Shore. "Shaun the Sheep Movie"(1 animated feature): Available on DVD; streaming on Amazon. "Sicario"(3 cinematography, original score, sound editing): Available on DVD, streaming on Amazon; also showing Friday and Saturday at UWM Union Cinema. "Son of Saul"(1 foreign-language film): Reportedly due in Milwaukee Feb. 19. "Spectre"(1 original song for "Writing's on the Wall"): Showing at Oak Creek Budget; streaming on Amazon, due out on DVD Feb. 9. "Spotlight"(6 picture, director for Tom McCarthy, supporting actor for Mark Ruffalo, supporting actress for Rachel McAdams, original screenplay, film editing): Showing at Downer, Mayfair Mall, Menomonee Falls, Showtime; due out on DVD Feb. 23. "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"(5 film editing, original score, sound editing, sound mixing, visual effects): Showing at Hillside, Majestic, Mayfair Mall, Menomonee Falls, North Shore, Ridge, Rosebud, Saukville, Showtime, South Shore, Southgate. "Steve Jobs"(2 actor for Michael Fassbender, supporting actress for Kate Winslet): Due out on DVD Feb. 16. "Straight Outta Compton"(1 original screenplay): Available on DVD, streaming on Amazon, iTunes; also showing Thursday at UWM Union Cinema. "Theeb"(1 foreign-language film): Available for streaming on Amazon Feb. 19; due out on DVD May 17. "Trumbo"(1 actor for Bryan Cranston): No longer in theaters. "A War"(1 foreign-language film): No word on Milwaukee release date. "What Happened, Miss Simone?"(1 documentary feature): Streaming on Netflix. "When Marnie Was There"(1 animated feature): Available on DVD. "Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom"(1 documentary feature): Streaming on Netflix. "Youth"(1 original song for "Simple Song#3"): No longer in theaters; due out on DVD March 1. Chris Foran Juan Carlos Helmstedt Nearly 25 years ago, Juan Carlos Helmstedt moved from his native Spain to his wife's hometown of Port Washington. Trading in his dreams of being an international lawyer, he found a job landscaping. When that turned out to be a less-than-perfect fit, he landed a job teaching Spanish to adults. He found he liked teaching, along with the evenings and summers off. He's been teaching Spanish for 22 years, currently working with middle and high school students in Sheboygan. In an effort to embrace local flavors, he learned all about potato salad, creamed herring and bratwurst. Still, he missed traditional Spanish chorizo. He called his aunt in Spain, got her recipe and made his own. Fifteen years ago he founded his business, named Tia Paquita after the aunt who taught him the recipe. He sells two styles of chorizo: fresh and smoked. You'll find it at grocers including Sendik's, Outpost, Grasch Foods and Groppi's and also in dishes at local restaurants including La Merenda, Braise and Colectivo. Helmstedt, 57, a father of two, lives with his wife, Catherine Ann DeMerit, in Port Washington. Basque beginnings I was born in Madrid. My father died when I was 8 years old. My mother was from the Basque region in north Spain. She had her own clothing business, and in summertime I was just running around the streets. I used to belong to a little gang, and I did a few mischievous things. My mom decided to remove me from that environment. When I was 9, she started sending me every summer to my aunt's farm in the north of Spain. It was gorgeous, and they fed me like a king. I remember taking over the pigs, and driving the tractor, riding the horses without a saddle like a wild thing. It was a great time, with great food. Smells like Spain I identify so much with the smells of the food from my country. I come from a time when the moms stayed home and cooked. I remember coming home from school; just by smelling you knew what the people on the first floor were eating and your other neighbor was eating. It was wonderful. And when your mom makes the best, you are lucky. I ate fancy all my life, but I was never rich. Lawyer, landscaper, language teacher I met my wife in Spain. She was a student and I was studying international law. I wanted to be a judge. I came here in 1991, with my wife and daughter. I was hired by Berlitz International. They do languages. They were looking for a native (Spanish speaker). I thought, "Well, I cannot speak English, but I can definitely speak Spanish!" I got the job. Before that I was doing landscaping. I like teaching. Finding flavor All the food here, nothing was like my home. They have brats, but I miss my chorizo. We put it in everything: soups, pasta, tomato sauce, not just on the grill. That flavor was missing in my life. I needed to fix this. I called my aunt and asked. Can I just buy the spices and make chorizo at home? She said sure, why not? I wrote down all the directions and called Spain for an order of the right spices. I gave the spices to my butcher and said, "You know how to make sausages, so get me some good-quality meat, use these spices." I'd (order) 40 to 50 pounds for my family for Christmas. I'd hang the chorizo and let them dry, for myself, in the natural way. The law doesn't allow me to sell them that way. A business is born This restaurant, Don Quixote, opened on the east side. My friends and I from Spain went there, and the owner was from Spain. One day we were talking about chorizo. She said, "Wow, you have chorizo?" She couldn't find the chorizo from Spain. I said I ordered it from my butcher for Christmas. She asked me to bring 10 pounds. She loved it, started ordering 40 to 50 pounds every month. I thought maybe others will like it. Across the street was Sendik's on Downer, and she introduced me to the person in charge. They said you put a label and package, we'll take it. I went to UWM and learned what I needed to do, created a label and boom. I was not a chorizo maker, but life surprises you. Made in Wisconsin The pig is local. The paprika and spices all come from Spain. Every other week, we're doing a batch. Kewaskum Frozen Foods manufactures for me, and they only have the Wisconsin stamp, so I don't sell outside of Wisconsin. Maybe when I retire in three or four years I will have the time and energy to make it bigger. Spanish style Fresh is the original, but I sell more smoked chorizo than fresh. I haven't changed a thing in the recipe, the fresh is the same recipe created 500 years ago. When he goes back to Spain I look for suckling pig and roasted lamb. I also love rabbit with garlic. I'm a meat guy. Wonders of Wisconsin I love Spotted Cow, and I'm not really a beer drinker. When I moved here, my father-in-law introduced me to martinis. Herrings in cream and a martini. That's almost better than my chorizo. Just one martini. Two would put me under the table. His Milwaukee meal My wife cooks like an angel. When somebody comes from Spain I invite them to try steaks, brats and German potato salad. My wife makes a good German potato salad. That says Wisconsin for me. When I take my kids back to Spain, what they get their hands on is seafood. Razor clams, anything with shells. They go for that. That is a very expensive thing! I remind them I'm a teacher. Whenever I can, I do take my kids to Chicago to Cafe Iberico on LaSalle. It is like going to Spain. Fork. Spoon. Life. explores the everyday relationship that local notables (within the food community and without) have with food. To suggest future personalities to profile, email nstohs@journalsentinel.com. As facilities manager for Rockwell Automation, Steve Strzok is responsible for ensuring the giant, four-faced Allen-Bradley clock keeps time. Credit: Michael Sears By of the Oddly enough, the guy who keeps the Western Hemispheres largest four-sided clock ticking doesnt wear a watch. Maybe its not so odd. After all, Steve Strzok merely has to tilt his head and look up like the rest of Milwaukees south-siders to see the time. As facilities manager for Rockwell Automation, Strzok is responsible for ensuring the Allen-Bradley clock keeps time. Because if its a few minutes off, neighbors arent shy about calling and pointing out the obvious. If hes asked what he does for a living, sometimes Ill say Im the clock master, Strzok joked. People think its cool, that I get to come up to the clock tower. On a recent late afternoon, it was cool. Not cool enough to see ones breath, but chilly in the unheated area between the clock faces and the space that houses the elevator, stairwell and water and electrical systems in the clock tower. Theres actually not much room to pass behind the clock faces, more like a four-foot-wide catwalk, behind the clock that stretches from the 14th to 16th floors. And its actually four separate clocks running on individual one-third horsepower motors. The Allen-Bradley clock is easy to take care of once a month, greasing the gear boxes that drive each clock. One-inch fluorescent light bulbs illuminating the clock faces are changed every now and then when they blink out. But after LED lighting was installed a couple years ago, rarely do bulbs need replacing. Although Strzok climbs behind the clock at least once a week, he figures he spends a total of one hour a month working on it. It just keeps going. Its like Timex, it keeps ticking, said Strzok, who was hired six years ago. Twice a year, when everyone changes their clocks by pushing the hour button or turning a dial, it takes a bit more effort to fall back or spring ahead the Allen-Bradley clock. A security guard stands outside with a radio looking up at each clock face while someone with a special key turns four key switches inside a small, locked room on the first floor. Next to each key switch is a compass point scribbled in black marker. On the wall above the key switches are tiny clocks that look exactly like their outdoor counterparts and compass points underneath. It takes about 30 seconds to move each clock face one hour. And rather than doing that at 2 a.m., when daylight-saving time officially happens, its usually done the next day when its light out. Years ago, when wrist and pocket watches were expensive, it was common for factories and churches to build large clocks to ensure workers and parishioners arrived on time. The original Allen-Bradley clock was housed in the tower that now shows the temperature. When the clock tower building was constructed, the clocks were built by Allen-Bradley engineers and master craftsmen before it was turned on for the first time on Halloween 1962. Among the craftsmen building the 20-foot minute hands and 15.8-foot hour hands was Strzoks father. George Strzok spent 38 years working in the department that fabricated the clock parts, and he loves the fact that his son is now the keeper of the flame, so to speak. He was very excited when he found out I had a job offer at Rockwell, Strzok said in the observation room on the 17th floor as a scarlet sun set behind him. He said I had to take the job, no matter what. Its my legacy, I guess. For 48 years, the clock sometimes called Big Stosh and sometimes known as the Polish Moon as a nod to the immigrants who originally settled in the neighborhood, was the Big Kahuna: the largest four-sided clock in the world. Until a bigger clock was built in Saudi Arabia in 2010. The worlds second-largest four-faced clock didnt have quite the same ring, so now its called the biggest in the Western Hemisphere. You dont like to hear youre surpassed, but its an awesome thing they did, its four times bigger than ours, said Strzok. But its a landmark here, an anchor in Walkers Point. Strzok has only a few clocks at home, waking up to a digital alarm playing country music at 5 every morning. And when he wants to know what time it is while hes at his desk, he checks his iPhone. ABOUT THIS FEATURE This Is Us is a recurring feature in the Green Sheet, with stories on the people, places and things reflecting the spirit and heart of our community. Sister Maria Luther demonstrates her then-high-tech teaching tool, the Magic Eye. The photo was taken at St. Francis Convent, 3221 S. Lake Drive, and published on the cover of The Milwaukee Journals Green Sheet section on Aug. 2, 1949. Credit: Milwaukee Journal photo SHARE By of the Editor's note:Although the historic Green Sheet often was the home for vignettes about celebrities and pop-culture figures, it also included stories about Milwaukee and Wisconsin folk who did things that were just a little out of the ordinary. Case in point: Sister Maria Luther, a Milwaukee native who in the 1940s invented what she called the "Magic Eye" a classroom gadget that, as the caption that ran with the original picture noted, "makes her classroom as lively as a quiz program." The following story ran in The Milwaukee Journal's Green Sheet on Aug. 2, 1949. Flashing red and green lights have an obvious place guiding traffic, but Sister Maria, O.S.F., of St. Francis Convent, has given them a new role. She uses them to direct young minds in the classroom. They are part of her "magic eye," a visual education aid that winks at children with the right answer. The device is a wooden cabinet faced by an electric contact board. It is used primarily to teach pupils from kindergarten through fifth grade. Topping the board are a red and a green eye that light only for the correct answer. Answers on white cards are hung at the various contact points on the front of the board. When a teacher asks a question, she puts her pointer on one of the contact points on top of the cabinet. Pupils two may use the answer board at the same time scramble to touch their pointers to the contact point at the right answer. If they are both right, both eyes light up, because the pupils' pointers close the circuit. If they are both wrong, there will be no wink. One light responds for the pupil choosing the right reply. During vocabulary drill, for example, Sister Maria may ask, "What's another word for make believe?" Two anxious pupils will scan the board for answers, then touch pointers to the answer, "pretend." A green eye and a red eye will twinkle in reward. The eye helps to make learning child's play. The youngsters get "public" recognition for knowing the answer, and they enjoy the zest of competition with a fellow classmate. Members of the class not participating actively follow the contest and see the results. Sister Maria says her invention rather painlessly implants the 35 impressions necessary to root an idea or fact in the average child's mind. For youngsters slow in learning, it makes drill easy and appealing. For those hard of hearing, it gives the right-wrong decision visually. "The magic eye is limitless in what a person can teach with it," Sister Maria commented. She has made 3,000 answer cards covering subjects from science to explorers. Companion pieces to the magic eye are arithmetic boards, which give drill in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. One child acts as teacher in pointing to certain combinations of numbers while a second finds the answer at the top of the board. If he is right, the light flashes green. "Actually, these arithmetic boards got me interested in perfecting a magic eye," Sister Maria said. They were set up by Father John Gorman at his rural life center at Granger, Iowa, where I took a course in shop work." She taught primary grades at the center, too, and became impressed with the value to children of learning to work with their hands. "So I decided to make a magic eye muscle coordination as well as help children to learn," she said. Using the idea of the arithmetic board, Sister Maria expanded the area of possible subject matter and added an "eye." She has patented the device in the name of Cardinal Stritch College, which has a teaching staff from her order, the Sisters of St. Francis. (According to the order, Luther applied for the patent but there is no record that she received it.) The mechanics of the eye are simple, according to Sister Maria. Just a complete electrical circuit within the box with contact points outside, it is charged with ordinary flashlight batteries. The magic eye inventor has used her new device for the last two years. She has taught in the primary grades about 18 years. She has taught in rural schools throughout Wisconsin, and currently is on the elementary school staff at Granger, Iowa. She is a native of Milwaukee. Her eye already has found its way to schools in 20 states and to China, Germany, Australia and Canada. Originally, she called it "mastermind," but later decided in favor of "magic eye." Postscript:According to records provided by Jean Merry, communications director of the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi in St. Francis, Luther entered the St. Francis convent in 1934, about a month shy of her 24th birthday. After attending Marquette University and earning a degree from Clare College (now Cardinal Stritch University) in 1944, she went into teaching. At the time this story was published in the Green Sheet, Luther had been teaching in Granger, Iowa, for five years. She came back to Wisconsin two years later, where she taught until 1971, before returning to Granger. She taught in Iowa until her retirement in 1984, after which she trained teachers and volunteered at an adult day care program with the Sisters. Luther died in 1990 at age 79. *** Editor's note: An earlier version of this story said incorrectly that Luther was 89 when she died. ABOUT THIS FEATURE Each Thursday, the Green Sheet will bring back some of the stories and features that gave the old Green Sheet its distinct identity. Look for them in print and online at jsonline.com/greensheet. SHARE By of the A Wisconsin woman will be allowed to withdraw guilty plea in a drug case because judges failed to explain the possible immigration consequences of conviction, a divided Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Thursday. Melisa Valadez, a native of Mexico, became a lawful permanent resident of U.S. in 2001, when she was 15, but is not a citizen. She has three children born in the U.S. In 2004 and 2005, she pleaded guilty to possessing cocaine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia. Contrary to the law, two Walworth County judges who took her pleas failed to mention the possible immigration consequences. Valadez did jail time and successfully completed probation for the offenses and has had no further convictions. But when she went to renew her green card in 2013, she learned her record would prevent that. Further, if she left he country, she would likely be denied readmission. She then sought to withdraw the guilty pleas. "All those years, she had no idea" she could have been deported, or blocked at the border if she had left the U.S. and tried to re-enter, said Valadez's immigration attorney, Marc Christopher of Milwaukee. He said he has several other clients in similar situations who did leave, and are now stuck in Houston detention centers. The trial court ruled the adverse immigration consequences were not likely, because Valadez wasn't subject to any present deportation action, but conceded the law was unclear. Valadez appealed and the Court of Appeals certified the issue to the Supreme Court. In a lead opinion, Justice Shirley Abrahamson said that Valadez need not show that the federal government is actively trying to deport her, and that rules against admission of people convicted of drug crimes is enough to show a "likely" immigration consequence, and that Valadez need not leave the U.S. and be denied readmission to prove the point. Justice Annette Ziegler agreed that Valadez had shown that she was likely to face exclusion from the U.S. based on her convictions, but said rather than order the trial court to vacate the convictions and permit Valadez to withdraw her guilty pleas, she would just have the trial court reconsider the whole matter, because it may decide that Valadez waited too long to seek withdrawal of her guilty pleas. "The issue of timeliness was not pursued in the case at issue; thus, it remains undecided," Ziegler wrote. Justice Michael Gableman joined her opinion. Justice Ann Walsh Bradley joined Abrahamson in her opinion. Justice David Prosser, joined by Chief Justice Patience Roggensack, dissented, citing the timeliness issue. "Permitting noncitizens to withdraw their pleas to serious crimes whenever they want to and regardless of the circumstances simply because they did not receive the statutory warning is too incongruous and unreasonable to be accepted," Prosser wrote. Christopher, Valadez's attorney, said he thinks for the law requiring disclosure of potential immigration consequences to have any teeth, it can't have a time limit. "People don't know what they don't know," he said, "and it's the court's responsibility to issue the warning." He said in Valadez's case, he hopes Walworth County prosecutors will just dismiss the case, since she has completed the sentence and had no police contact since, or let her plead to lesser charges that would not affect entry to the U.S., renewing her green card or becoming a naturalized citizen. The case was argued before Justice Rebecca Bradley joined the court, and she did not participate in the decision. SHARE John Galanis, a Milwaukee lawyer and the son of Greek immigrants, is the leader of the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association. Rick Wood By of the It was a toast of friendship that choked up Milwaukee attorney John Galanis. Earlier this month, Galanis was part of a delegation of Greek- and Jewish-American leaders on a trip to Greece, Cyprus and Israel. At an officers' club in Athens, Galanis offered a toast to a large group of people, including several military officials. He told them of his own roots as the son of Greek immigrants. "I got emotional," he said. "If my parents could see me." Galanis, 78, is in the midst of a whirlwind year, serving a 12-month term as president of the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association. The organization was founded in 1922 in Atlanta to help Greek-Americans assimilate into society at a time when immigrants were among the groups threatened by the Ku Klux Klan. "Our mission is to promote Hellenism (ancient Greek ideals and culture), education, philanthropy, civic responsibility, individual and family excellence," Galanis said. The organization has more than 500 chapters in the United States, Canada and Europe. "The Greek people are a very proud group," Galanis said. His parents were part of a wave of Greek immigrants in the early 20th century. Galanis said his father, William, arrived in the United States around 1912, worked for a time in Iowa, came to Milwaukee and then returned to Greece to take a bride, a woman named Angeline. William and Angeline Galanis settled in Milwaukee. William worked as an auto mechanic and then, after getting sick, took a job as a custodian at Cutler-Hammer. Angeline raised three children: Dimitra, the oldest; John, the middle child; and George, the youngest. After graduation from Washington High School, John Galanis earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison money from his father helped him make ends meet and he got his law degree from the University of Michigan. "My parents didn't speak English very well," he said. Yet they succeeded in the U.S., creating better lives not just for themselves but their children. 'Best kept secret' Galanis has carved out a successful career as a business attorney. He also served roles in civic leadership as a past president of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation and Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee. For Galanis, being part of AHEPA was a way to share good times and do good works with other Greek-Americans. He joined the local chapter decades ago. He has now risen to the highest rank. During his tenure as president, he hopes to increase the organization's visibility. "I kept on hearing from people that we're the best kept secret," he said. "There is a continuing effort to educate people about who we are and what we do." In recent years, AHEPA has helped Greece with humanitarian aid, including medical supplies. The organization is in the midst of trying to reach a $1 million fundraising goal to help with the construction of the St. Nicholas National Shrine in New York. The original St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church sat in the shadow of the World Trade Center and was destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001. On the recent 10-day trip, Galanis and others met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, President Nicos Anastasiades of Cyprus and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece. The trip included representatives of the American Hellenic Institute, B'nai B'rith International and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. "We want to be supportive and learn what is going on and what we can do to help," Galanis said. Among the highlights, Galanis said, was visiting Jerusalem, where the group toured the Old City and met with Netanyahu in the prime minister's office. "He was very relaxed, obviously intelligent," Galanis said of Netanyahu. "He was candid with us on his hopes and needs and dreams." Galanis is now back to work at the law firm he helped found in 1988. He'll juggle his responsibilities as an attorney and as the leader of AHEPA until his presidential term concludes in the summer. "I enjoy what I do," he said. "I don't feel like retiring." SHARE By The majority of Muslims openly and loudly reject violent extremism regardless of the religious or ethnic identity of the perpetrator, but that is not what the Western media focuses on. If we closely look into a broad poll, we will see hundreds of Muslim leaders denouncing terrorism, and one of these Muslim voices that we don't listen to is Fethullah Gulen. Gulen is a Turkish-Muslim teacher, preacher, thinker, dialogue and peace promoter. He is a social advocate, whose decades-long commitment to education, service and interreligious dialogue has inspired millions in Turkey and around the world. His message on promoting education, defending human rights and denouncing terrorism in the article titled "Muslims Must Combat the Extremist Cancer," published by The Wall Street Journal in August, needs to be taken heed of. In a powerfully expressed statement on Nov. 14, Gulen also condemned the terrorist attacks in Paris, calling on all to join in rejecting terrorism "without 'ifs' and without 'buts' and without hiding behind any excuse." In fact, he was the very first Muslim leader who condemned the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, repeating the famous remark, "A true Muslim can never be a terrorist and a terrorist can never be a true Muslim." In his article, Gulen not only condemns terrorism, but also puts more responsibility on the shoulders of Muslims to combat extremism. If they do not take the necessary actions, he says, Muslims "will be partly responsible for the smeared image of (their) faith." In this context, first, Gulen clearly rejects the approach that blames the West for all the unwanted developments both in the Middle East and the world. Even suffering oppression cannot be an excuse for causing terrorism or failing to condemn violent extremism in Gulen's own words. Second, it is crucially important to endorse a holistic understanding of the Qur'an and Islam as a way of life and realize the fact that Islam's core teachings, such as "taking the life of a single innocent is a crime against all humanity" (Qur'an 5:32) are not open to interpretation. Gulen also admits that "mainstream voices" never make it to the newspapers and on TV or anywhere, yet he underscores that "instead of blaming the media, (Muslims) should find innovative ways to ensure (their) voices are heard." Third, Gulen reminds his fellow Muslims that while respecting religious diversity, they should promote universal human values; "dignity, life and liberty" and emphasize once again that human life is sacred and should be respected. Fourth, Gulen firmly believes that in today's world, Jews, Christians and Muslims have three common enemies that they have to face together: ignorance, poverty and conflict. In the article, he strongly writes that this ignorance in the Muslim nations must be eradicated through an appropriate universal education. Over the years, he has proposed establishing schools founded on modern sciences and morality and encouraged people to support quality education. With donations of these volunteers, the civil society movement called Hizmet (service in Turkish) has established many schools and colleges from Central Asia to the United States, from the Far East to Africa. Fifth, considering the human being consisting of body, mind and spirit, Gulen affirms that not only natural and social sciences, but also spiritual and religious education must be provided to Muslims. Otherwise, "faith grows in the shadows, leaving it to be interpreted by unqualified and radical figures." At the end, Gulen writes that terrorism has no religion, yet there will be always people with exclusivist views who misinterpret and abuse the sacred scriptures. Violent extremism, according to him, "is a multifaceted problem, so the solutions should address the political, economic, social and religious layers." He calls on Muslims around the world to be part of the solution, and I personally think if Muslims truly and wholeheartedly listen to Gulen's messages, as he puts it, they "can be beacons of peace and tranquillity in their societies." Fatih Harpci is an assistant professor of religion at Carthage College. President Franklin Roosevelt gives a speech from the back of a railroad car in Milwaukee in 1934 at the old Northwestern railroad depot. Wisconsin Gov. Albert Schmedeman is to the far right on the platform. Credit: Journal Sentinel files SHARE By Gov. Scott Walker would do well to remember Wisconsin history before he signs the current bill that changes the civil service protections that are Wisconsins proud and hard-earned history. He risks becoming Boss Walker who returns a spoils system if he ignores the will of the people and the lesson of history. In 1932, during the Franklin Roosevelt landslide in the midst of the Great Depression, 59 Democrats were elected to the state Assembly. Wisconsin also elected Albert Schmedeman, a Democrat, as governor. This was the first time since 1895 that the Democrats secured a majority in the Assembly and the first time since 1897 that a Democrat was governor. During the prior legislative session there were 89 Republicans and only two Democrats in the Assembly. The other nine members were Socialists. Unemployment was rampant throughout Wisconsin and many of the new legislators thought that their supporters should be given state jobs. Wisconsin had long provided civil service protections for state employees and the newly elected Democrats looked longingly at eliminating those protections. In one of the first bills of the 1933 legislative session, Democratic Sen. William Carroll of Prairie du Chien said the civil service system cost too much and the taxpayers would benefit by reducing or abolishing it. He proposed to give the power to appoint state employees to the governor. We need have no fear of giving the present governor large powers in a time like this, Carroll said. A man entrusted with the high office of governor should be given the power to reduce expenses. State employees will be far better off in the hands of the governor than they are now with some other individual. It sounds a lot like the arguments for hiring efficiency made by todays Republicans to justify giving the hiring power to the governors appointee who heads the Department of Administration. A spoils system results when the party that wins the election fires most of the state employees and hires those who worked in the election for the winning party. It eliminates the objective standard for hiring employees, such as a competitive examination, and replaces it with subjective criterion, such as selections based on resumes, and allows the discharging of employees at will instead of following the objective standard of finding just cause before a worker could be terminated. On July 15, 1933, the last days of the session, the Democrats realized that they were out of step with the will of the people who did not want to return to the spoils system. They defeated the bill by a vote of 70 to 8. Even offering the bill to reform the civil service system caused voters to turn against the Democrats. In 1934, Schmedeman was defeated along with 25 Democratic Assembly members. It was not until 1958 that Gaylord Nelson was able to lead the Democrats to a majority in the Assembly. It took 28 years for voters to forgive the recklessness and voraciousness of Democrats in 1933. The voters of Wisconsin want the best people to be hired, based on merit, not those whose selection depended on their work on behalf of a party. Walker should remember that. State Rep. Frederick P. Kessler (D-Milwaukee) represents the 12th Assembly District. Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump (left) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) participate in the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum and Performing Arts Center on Jan. 14 in North Charleston, S.C. Credit: Getty Images SHARE By Keosauqua, Iowa "Awaken the body of Christ that we might pull back from this abyss." When Sen. Ted Cruz closed his prayerful plea to a crowd of about 150 people here late Tuesday night, the "abyss" he had in mind was something larger than the prospect of a Donald Trump victory in Monday's caucuses. But the final days of the battle for Iowa have come to resemble political Armageddon. In fact, it involves two overlapping struggles, beginning with the one for the ideological souls of conservative white evangelical Christians. Are they still motivated, as Cruz hopes, by traditional issues such as abortion, gay marriage and religious liberty? Will solidarity push them toward a candidate who uses evangelical language and comfortably invokes Scripture? Or has Trump redefined social conservatism by returning to a harder form of backlash politics that shaped the late 1960s and early '70s? Trump draws in evangelicals on the basis of shared anger and resentment rather than shared faith. Both Trump and Cruz, of course, are playing identity politics. But a Trump triumph here could mark the end of the religious right as we have known it since the Reagan era by splitting this important GOP constituency in half. At the same time, there is the larger fight within the Republican Party over Trump himself. A profound fear has gripped many of its elected officials: With apologies for paraphrasing Frank Sinatra's hymn to the "New York values" Cruz has condemned, the worry is that if Trump can make it here, he can make it anywhere. The anxiety and trepidation over Trump among old-line evangelical political leaders but also among conservative intellectual elites and what passes for the party establishment could turn Cruz into a temporary savior. Many in the party who don't like Cruz at all may still hope he wins here for a very practical reason. Stopping Cruz in later contests could be far easier than derailing a Trump juggernaut. Many aspects of the new dynamic were on display in this city of about 1,000 people near the Missouri border. An unscheduled speaker at Cruz's rally was Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), who is not even a Cruz supporter. In the final hours before the first votes are cast, Sasse who combines establishment and tea party credentials with a Yale Ph.D. in history has made stopping Trump a personal cause. He took a page from Trump's playbook on Sunday night by issuing a series of hard shots at the front-runner on Twitter. Sasse is calling on Iowa Republicans to vote for anyone except Trump, and he spoke Wednesday at an event for Sen. Marco Rubio. His central concern, he told me here, is Trump's authoritarian side. "He's a strongman with a will to power," Sasse said. "Trump has been the only guy on the Republican side of the aisle that regularly campaigns and says things like, 'If I'm elected president, I'll be able to do whatever I want.'" Republicans like himself who are critical of President Barack Obama's use of executive orders, Sasse said, should apply the same standards to Trump. In the meantime, supporters of socially conservative candidates in the single digits such as Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Ben Carson are beginning to move to Cruz. Troy Scheuermann, a 43-year-old chiropractor who attended the rally, cited principled pragmatism for his own switch. "I was in Camp Huckabee until last week," he said. "I decided that if I voted for Huckabee, it's a vote for Donald Trump. It's now a two-man race." A rallying to Cruz, of course, could weaken Rubio, who is looking for a strong third-place finish here to strengthen him in the Feb. 9 New Hampshire primary. So Rubio, too, as The Washington Post's Sean Sullivan reported, is now invoking God a great deal, hoping to move at least some of the evangelicals his way. Trump seems confident he's on a path to win Iowa. His attacks on Cruz have been reinforced by sharp jabs from Rubio, who has reason to hope that if Trump won here, he would dispose of Cruz's candidacy right at the start. But Cruz may yet profit from a form of political providence if horror over the specter of a Trump nomination becomes the dominant emotion between now and Monday. Iowa has thus come down to this: Who do the state's swing voters fear and loathe more, Trump or Cruz? You can imagine the choice will drive even the most secular Republicans to rounds of intense prayer. E.J. Dionne is a columnist for The Washington Post. Email ejdionne@washpost.com. Twitter: @EJDionne SHARE By of the Treatment of youths at the Lincoln Hills School for boys and Copper Lake School for girls in northern Wisconsin is inhumane, Milwaukee County Circuit Chief Judge Maxine White said this week while asking county officials to provide judges with alternatives in sentencing young offenders. After visiting the adjoining juvenile prisons north of Wausau on Jan. 15, White said, she was unable to sleep for a few days. We have subjected them to harm, White said of county youths incarcerated there. About 160 Milwaukee County teens at the states prisons for juvenile offenders in northern Wisconsin would be transferred to other secure facilities around Wisconsin as quickly as possible, as part of a proposal by several county supervisors. Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele on Thursday said he visited the prisons with White and is working with the district attorneys office, Childrens Court, Behavioral Health Division administrators and others to find space locally for those youths as fast as we responsibly can. As an interim step, Abele will seek to hire additional county staff to regularly monitor programs at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake and check on the safety of youths there, he said. White on Wednesday urged the County Boards Health and Human Needs Committee to act on behalf of the youths and judges. We need something else, White told committee members. Were demanding something new. The committee on Wednesday recommended board approval of a resolution urging Abele to seek immediate remedies and authorizing the county Health and Human Services Department to identify secure detention options. The board will act on the measure on Feb. 4. The resolution was authored by Supervisor Supreme Moore Omokunde and board Chairman Theodore Lipscomb Sr. Space for an estimated 24 youths could be set aside at the House of Correction following limited reconstruction, according to Abele. The county also is evaluating space for up to 44 youths in buildings west of the Mental Health Complex at the Milwaukee County Grounds, Health & Human Services Director Hector Colon said Thursday. Colon also has contacted the Racine County Juvenile Detention Facility regarding available space for Milwaukee County youths. We have to make sure we have treatment programs and educational programs in place before transfers are made, Colon said. And each transfer will require a court hearing. The process will take months, he said. A joint federal and state probe of the two juvenile prisons near Irma in Lincoln County is investigating allegations of prisoner abuse, excessive use of force, child neglect and sexual assault, as well as retaliation against accusers. The probe became public in early December when about 50 state agents and attorneys raided the prisons and spent days there to conduct interviews with staff and inmates. Since mid-December, a dozen boys and two girls have been transferred out of the Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake facilities and placed at the Milwaukee County juvenile detention center in Wauwatosa, according to Thomas Wanta, delinquency and court services administrator. There are only 24 beds available there. A few youths are held there up to 10 days while waiting for court hearings, Wanta said. Most of the youths in detention are participating in the Milwaukee County Accountability Program as an alternative to prison, Wanta said. They are provided full treatment and educational services for up to six months and earn credit toward a high school diploma. One of the boys who was transferred to county detention was injured in a Nov. 29 incident when a Lincoln Hills employee pushed the teenager partially into his room and his foot was caught in the door as it was slammed shut. The inmates foot was badly injured. White confirmed the boy was one of those now in county detention. In December, the Milwaukee County Board adopted a resolution asking county judges to stop sentencing youths to either Lincoln Hills or Copper Lake. As of Nov. 30, there were 160 Milwaukee County juveniles at the prisons: 141 boys at Lincoln Hills and 19 girls at Copper Lake. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (from left) and independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont are nearly deadlocked among Wisconsin Democratic voters, while businessman Donald Trump leads among Republicans. Credit: Getty Images, Associated Press By of the Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont are nearly deadlocked among state Democratic voters, while businessman Donald Trump leads among Republicans, according to Thursday's Marquette University Law School poll. Clinton was backed by 45% of those polled compared with 43% support for Sanders, well within the poll's margin of error. In November's poll, Clinton held a 50% to 41% advantage. Trump recorded 24% support, ahead of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at 18% and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at 16%. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who led in November's poll with 22%, slumped to 8%. Poll director Charles Franklin cautioned that the survey can't be used as a firm prediction of how state primary voters will cast ballots in April. That's because the results of actual voting in earlier states will affect the race, starting with the Iowa caucuses on Monday, he said. "People drop out of the race pretty quickly and voters shift their expectations," Franklin said. "When we ask this the next time, we will have some of those events behind us." Forty-nine percent of Republicans expected Trump to become the GOP nominee, while 65% of Democrats expected Clinton to emerge as the nominee of their party. In head-to-head matchups, Clinton led Rubio and Cruz by 1 point and Trump by 9 points. Sanders had an 11-point lead over Rubio, a 12-point lead over Cruz and an 18-point lead over Trump. The poll of 806 people was conducted Jan. 21-24. The margin of error on the full sample was plus or minus 4.2 percentage points. The margin of error was larger, plus or minus 6.5 percentage points, for the party presidential primary figures. Here are the other main take-aways: Senate race. Democrat Russ Feingold was backed by 50%, and incumbent U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican, received 37% support. Feingold, who lost his place in the Senate to Johnson in 2010, came in at the 50% threshold considered critical for a political candidate. But the rematch between the men, though one of the highest profile U.S. Senate contests in the country, is still more than nine months away. Franklin said there were still no strong signs that voters are homing in on the Senate race in Wisconsin. For instance, 41% of those polled had no opinion of Johnson and 25% had no opinion of Feingold. A Johnson spokesman, Brian Reisinger, said "Early polls are meaningless. Senator Feingold led all the early polls in 2010, but voters still fired him." Feingold spokesman Michael Tyler said, "It's nice to lead in the polls, but it's this grass-roots support that really matters in this campaign." Scott Walker. Four months after suspending his presidential campaign, the Republican governor's job approval was stuck at 38%, with 57% disapproving of his performance as governor. Just 36% would like the governor to run for a third term, while 61% said they would not. That left the governor's poll numbers as steady and difficult in recent months as they had been firm and favorable throughout his first term. Schools. On state aid for local public schools, 57% said the state was spending too little while 30% said the state was spending enough and just 7% said Wisconsin spends too much. Fifty-five percent of those polled said they would be inclined to vote for a referendum raising taxes for public schools, 35% were against. Notably, Walker has begun to talk about increasing state aid to schools in forums such as his "state of the state" speech this month. Guns. On the issue of guns, Wisconsin's concealed carry law was strongly favored by 63% and opposed by 31%. In 2012, when the legislation was being proposed, concealed carry was favored by 47% and opposed by 50%. Of those with a gun in the household, 80% favor the concealed carry bill, while among households without firearms, only 43% favored concealed carry. Those findings were welcomed by state Rep. Joel Kleefisch (R-Oconomowoc), a longtime hunter and gun owner. "The most prominent take-away of those numbers is that people are supportive of good people having guns," Kleefisch said. Democrats found their own areas of backing in the poll on guns. There was overwhelming support to expand background checks for private sales and gun show sales. Eighty-five percent favor the checks, just 12% were in opposition. Walker and Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel are considering legal action to block President Barack Obama's actions on background checks without congressional approval. By 65% to 31%, those surveyed were against proposed legislation to allow concealed-carry permit holders to carry guns on school grounds, and in some cases into school buildings. Water. For the first time, the poll dug into the issue of water. Just 27% statewide had heard of problems with radium levels in Waukesha city water, while 72% had not heard of the issue. Even in the Milwaukee media market, just 38% had heard of the problem. On Waukesha's request to divert Lake Michigan water to the city and surrounding areas, 34% favor the proposal and 51% statewide oppose the diversion. In the Milwaukee media market, 40% support the diversion and 48% are opposed. Seventy-seven percent of those polled supported management of the Great Lakes for environmental purposes and just 12% for economic purposes. Gov. Scott Walker signed a right-to-work law last march at Badger Meter in Brown Deer. The law blocks unions and private employers from reaching contracts that required workers to pay labor fees. Credit: Journal Sentinel files SHARE By of the Madison Union membership in Wisconsin collapsed in 2015, falling well below the national average for the first time and thinning the ranks of the labor movement by tens of thousands of workers in one of its former bastions. The number of dues-paying workers within the states labor groups has fallen steadily since GOP Gov. Scott Walker signed his signature legislation, 2011s Act 10, which repealed most collective bargaining for most public workers. But new federal statistics show that trend intensified in 2015 after Walker and GOP lawmakers followed up on Act 10 by approving so-called right-to-work legislation last spring. That measure blocked unions and private employers from reaching contracts that required workers to pay labor fees. In 2015, 8.3% of Wisconsin workers, or 223,000 in all, were members of unions. That was down sharply from the 306,000 people, or 11.7% of the states workforce, who belonged to unions in 2014. Theyre pretty remarkable, Will Jones, a labor historian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said of the numbers. But Jones said he wasnt convinced that the numbers mainly reflected the effects of the right-to-work law. Thats because that law wont affect private-sector unions here until the end of contracts in place at the signing of the law in March. Instead, Jones said, the numbers likely reflect the effects of several factors, including potential job cuts at unionized plants and businesses and the last public-sector unions having long-running contracts end and coming under the effects of Act 10. Teasing out the potential factors is difficult, since the Wisconsin union membership numbers do not distinguish between private and public-sector workers. I would think its the long-term effects of Act 10 more than right-to-work, Jones said of Thursdays figures. Wisconsins union membership rate is now also well below the national average, a stark reversal from 2014, a year in which the states labor groups still fared better than those of the nation. In 2015, union membership nationwide stood at 11.1%, steady from the previous year, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The effect is even more noticeable when considering the numbers from 2010, when union workers made up 14.2% of the workers in Wisconsin but 11.9% of those in the nation. The long-term shift in the state has sweeping implications for the bottom lines of ordinary households, companies and governments as well as the upcoming 2016 elections. Labor unions had been in decline long before Walker and GOP lawmakers took control of state government in 2011. But the trend has intensified in the state since, leaving unions with fewer members, tinier staffs and substantially smaller budgets to spend on advertising to sway voters and lobbyists to woo lawmakers. Supporters of unions say that means theyre less effective at fighting for workers and their families at the bargaining table and in the broader public debate. But opponents say the shift means less distortion of the marketplace. They say labor groups drive up the costs of public services for taxpayers and private goods for consumers, making the state and nation less competitive in an increasingly unforgiving global marketplace. Rep. Joel Kleefisch (R-Oconomowoc) said workers in Wisconsin now have more options about how theyll interact with their employer and spend their salaries. Its good in the sense that workers in Wisconsin have more choices whether theyd like someone to represent them or theyd like to represent themselves, Kleefisch said. Union leader Phil Neuenfeldt said that freedom had done little for the workers or the states economy, saying Wisconsin has lagged the nation in job creation. Our economy is out of whack, inequality is rising, wages are falling and working people are suffering. Instead of helping families by strengthening collective bargaining, Governor Walker stacked the deck against workers, Neuenfeldt said. SHARE By of the Two men and a woman from Milwaukee have been indicted in federal court in connection with an interstate conspiracy involving sex trafficking and narcotics, authorities in North Dakota announced Wednesday. Kurtis William Johnson, 26, has pleaded guilty to two counts of sex trafficking of children and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, according to a news release from the United States Attorney's Office District of North Dakota. Tara Malinda Ridley, 26, has pleaded guilty to one count of interstate travel in aid of prostitution, according to the release. The case came to the attention of law enforcement after the North Dakota Highway Patrol pulled over a rental vehicle driven by Johnson, who was with a woman and a 17-year-old girl who Johnson transported from Milwaukee to Bismarck for the purpose of prostitution. Investigators learned that Johnson was provided with narcotics by Tyrice Akins, 29, in exchange for transporting women and the girl to various locations throughout the U.S., including Florida, Louisiana and North Dakota in 2014 and 2015 for prostitution, according to the release. Ridley allegedly rented vehicles for Akins that were used by Johnson to transport the women to North Dakota and elsewhere, according to the release. Akins was indicted in May, 2015 and is currently awaiting trial, according to the release. Doing Nothing class at Lawrence University garners national attention The Doing Nothing course meets for one hour every week and is taught by a new professor each week. Students are graded either pass or fail and can't have their phones during the class. SHARE By of the A Fitchburg man who has never been issued a driver's license was cited for the 29th time Wednesday for operating a motor vehicle without one when he blew a red light in Dane County, the sheriff's office said. Melvin Gates, 25, was stopped by a sheriff's deputy at 10:30 a.m. at U.S. Highway 12 and U.S. Highway 51 in the town of Blooming Grove, according to a news release from the Dane County Sheriff's Office. Gates has amassed thousands of dollars in unpaid fines ranging between $200 and $300 each for driving offenses that go back to 2009, according to state court records. His last previous offense was July 2 in Dane County, where the majority of the citations have been issued, according to the records. Francis J. Deisler (wearing hat) and Wayne Leo Casper enter the Continental Savings and Loan at 6500 N. 76th St. to rob it on Oct. 4, 1972. He was later convicted and sent to prison. Credit: Criminal court file exhibit SHARE By of the State regulators and Francis Deisler have agreed that the rapist/bank robber turned licensed social worker would forever give up his Wisconsin professional license an agreement that comes seven months after he said he would surrender his license. The state determined that in 1993 Deisler lied on his license application when he said he had never been convicted of a crime, according to the final order issued by the state regulatory board that oversees social workers and was released late Wednesday. The stipulation, between Deisler and the state Department of Safety and Professional Services board, also requires that Deisler immediately return all records of his Wisconsin social workers license to state regulators. The state orders list Deislers age as 71, but online Wisconsin court records say he is 77 years old. It took seven months to reach the agreement because Deisler, who lives in Indiana, balked at signing a stipulation after he initially told a state investigator in June that he would surrender his license, according to an internal memo by Tiffany Brussow, the investigator. After Brussow told Deisler he was being investigated for failing to disclose his criminal history, he responded, It doesnt matter, Im not going to renew, Brussow wrote in the memo. Deisler also told Brussow that he knows where this complaint is coming from adding that the company he used to work for is spreading lies about him, Brussow wrote. Hannah Zillmer, a spokeswoman for the Department of Safety and Professional Services, said Deisler signed the stipulation this month after the state threatened to prosecute him through regulatory channels if he did not. Deisler remains a licensed social worker and marriage and family therapist in Indiana. He permanently surrendered his Michigan license last year. He didnt want to say that he did anything wrong, Zillmer said. Attorney David R. Keesling of Tulsa, Okla., who has represented Deisler in the past, did not immediately respond to a reporters call for comment Thursday. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported last June that despite Deisler spending a decade behind bars for a variety of convictions, including raping and kidnapping a 14-year old girl, regulators in Wisconsin and two other states licensed him to work as a social worker. In 1973 Deisler was sentenced to 15 years in prison for armed robbery. He was sentenced to an additional 15 years the following year for rape and burglary though the sentences handed down in Milwaukee and Washington counties ran concurrently. He was also committed to Central State Hospital in Waupun for treatment following a 1973 conviction for rape. After doing his time, Deisler entered the social work field and was licensed in Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan. He specialized in treating addicts and sex offenders, launched several social service businesses, and founded a national social worker training and accreditation organization. Disclosures about Deislers past and the ease of his obtaining and keeping a Wisconsin social workers license sparked a bipartisan legislative effort to enact a law that would make lying on a license application a criminal offense, punishable by nine months in jail and a fine of up to $10,000. The Assembly committee on Workforce Development on Thursday scheduled a public hearing on Assembly Bill 812 on Feb. 3. Wisconsin regulators depend on an honor system when processing applications for social workers and most other licenses it issues. That is, for the most part, the department depends on applicants to disclose any criminal history they may have. Next year, however, state regulators will run background checks on about 5% or about 500 of the approximately 10,000 social workers licensed in Wisconsin. The checks will provide regulators charges and convictions of crimes in Wisconsin. However, the check will not provide information about federal crimes or crimes committed in other states. Reddit Email 0 Shares By Ramzy Baroud | (Maan News Agency) | Whenever Mariam Aljamals children hear the sound of thunder at night, they wet their beds. Their reaction is almost instinctive, and is shared by a large number of children throughout the Gaza Strip. Mariams three children Jamal, Lina and Sarah were all born a few years after the Gaza siege was first imposed in 2006, and all of them have experienced at least one Israeli war. My kids feel scared when the electricity goes off, which is most of the time, says the 33-year-old mother from Nuseirat refugee camp, who has a degree in communication and is currently pursuing her MA. They are still living the trauma of the 2014 offensive. War is still haunting my family, and life has become so hard for us. Indeed, after years of trying, Mariam is yet to find work. Unemployment in Gaza is the highest in the world, according to the World Bank. The siege on Gaza was imposed in stages, starting January 2006, when the Hamas movement won the legislative elections in the Occupied Territories. Donors money was immediately withheld, so the new government could not pay the salaries of its employees. The conventional wisdom, then, was the new government would soon collapse, and Hamas rival, Fatah, would quickly resume its control over the Palestinian Authority (PA). The Israeli hope, which was reinforced by the US and also shared by PA President Mahmoud Abbas and many in his party, never came to fruition. To speed up the projected collapse, Israel began sporadic bombardment of Gaza and carried out a sweeping campaign to arrest many of its elected MPs, coupled with a Fatah and Hamas dispute, which eventually turned into street battles in the summer of 2007. It was then that the siege became complete, now ongoing for ten years. During this time, Fatah resumed its control over the PA in the West Bank, reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah largely failed, the Rafah border has been mostly sealed, and Israel has launched three major wars that have killed thousands. The destruction in Gaza as a result of three consecutive wars (2008-9, 12 and 14) has been so severe, it has affected almost every aspect of the Strips already dilapidated infrastructure. Power outages, for example, have become part of life in Gaza. If all goes according to plan, Palestinians here have only 8-10 hours, per day, to utilize electricity, and for the rest of the day they suffer in darkness. The UN had already declared that life in Gaza will become uninhabitable by 2020. But there are aspects of this drama that do not receive a fair share of attention, such as how the siege is hindering human development for an entire generation. When the siege was imposed, Ahmad Ghazal was only 13 years old. Now, he is 23 and works at a local library in Gaza City. Life here is not pleasant, he says. In the last ten years my family has suffered the lack of food, clean water, proper medical care and the most basic of human needs. But what frustrates me most is the fact that I am not able to move freely. The Israeli-Egyptian shut down of border crossings has brought our life to a standstill. I feel trapped. Maher Azzam is 21 years of age and he, too, feels imprisoned. He teaches English at Smart International Centre for Languages and Development and aspires to be a writer. However, he sees life in Gaza as a slow death. The number of martyrs in the Strip over the course of 10 years has exceeded 4,000, but those innocent people only died once, he says. People who are still alive in Gaza, have been dying every day for a whole decade. But we must stay optimistic and hopeful. We have learned to be creative to survive, to express ourselves and to carry on without submitting, despite Israels ongoing crimes and the silence of the international community. Heba Zaher, a 21-year-old graduate from the Islamic University, also understands the centrality of hope to the Gaza narrative. She says, We have survived all of these years without losing hope, we certainly cant lose it now. Ten years of hardship have taught us to be stronger, to cope with life and to defeat the siege. But defeating the siege is not an easy endeavor, as it has affected all aspects of our life, according to Heba. Many students have lost their opportunities of studying abroad. Many patients have died, waiting for the crossings to open so that they may get proper treatment. Construction is tied to the crossings, and life is now more expensive than ever. The consequences of the siege are far-reaching to the extent that Anas Almassri, a student-intern at the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor in Deir al Balah, says that whatever remained of Gazas middle class is now dwindling. The middle class in Gaza continues to shrink as a result of the diminishing economic opportunities, and this affects the income of families terribly, who cannot send their kids to universities and, therefore, cannot maintain their standard of living. For Ghada Abu Msabeh, 20, also from Deir Al-Balah, the siege has now become so rooted in the collective psyche of Gazans that it has grown to become the new norm. I think that we have come to the point that the siege has become a part of our daily life and routine, she argues. I honestly cannot imagine what life would be if we are able to move freely or even go for an entire day without power outage. It is honestly difficult to remember how life used to be before the siege. Hana Salah, 25, a writer and humanitarian worker with Oxfam Italy, tried to seek an opportunity outside Gaza, but she was not successful. I didnt try again because seeing others attempt and fail was enough to depress me, she says. I feel that we are living in a cage and have no idea what is transpiring outside this cage. I dont know what will happen, but can only hope and pray for Gods mercy. Some of those who were able to leave to pursue their education outside Gaza, were stuck when they attempted to return for a visit. Rafaat Alareer, a writer and lecturer, embarked on his PhD studies at Universiti Purra Malaysia in 2012, but has been trapped in Gaza since 2014. He came to visit his family as the 2014 offensive destroyed their home and killed his brother. Its been a year and a half now, and I cannot go back because of the siege and the closure of the Rafah crossing, which has been practically shut down for a year. The same was experienced by Belal Dabour, a young doctor at the Shifa Hospital, who is unable to leave Gaza to gain more experience and attend conferences, which he had hoped could bolster his academic qualifications. I had just graduated when the 2014 war started, he says. It was very traumatic. What I have experienced in one month at Al-Shifa is more than what other doctors would experience in many years of their practice. But now I have no job and like many of my colleagues have no source of income. Walaa Al-Ghussein, a 23-year-old student at Al-Azhar University, concludes that, although more people now acknowledge the existence of a cruel siege on Gaza, life for Gazans remains the same. We need more than just protests; real pressure needs to be exerted on Israel so that this siege ends. Hundreds of patients are dying, students are losing their opportunities of studying abroad and a whole people are stranded. Local journalist Yousef Aljamal in the Gaza Strip contributed to this report. Ramzy Baroud is an internationally-syndicated columnist, author and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gazas Untold Story. The views expressed in this article are the authors and do not necessarily reflect Maan News Agencys editorial policy. Related video added by Juan Cole: Journeyman Pictures: Gaza Fishermen Under Siege Reddit Email 77 Shares Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | Virtually as soon as the Iran nuclear deal was finally approved by the UN Security Council, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani headed for Europe. He met first with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Rinzi and with Pope Francis. Now he is in Paris at the invitation of President Francois Hollande. Rouhani is trying to make economic deals, but his tour has a strong diplomatic element, as is revealed by the communique issued by Italy and Iran. The communique calls for bilateral cooperation in: supporting the UN-sponsored political process and intra-Syrian dialogue toward a peaceful solution to the conflict in Syria; continuing the fight against Daesh and affiliated terrorist groups, while supporting the Government of Iraq in its efforts to advance governance and national reconciliation; These passages underline the ways in which Iran is now seen as increasingly an important partner for Europe, not only economically, but also strategically. Shiite Iran is positioned as the most effective bulwark against Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). It is also seen as a power broker in Iraq and Lebanon, both countries important to Italy. Italy and Iran also signed economic deals worth 17 bn. (US $18.49 bn.). Euronews explains: The Italian deals cover areas including energy, infrastructure, steel, shipbuilding and aviation. There was a 3.7 billion euro contract for oil services group Saipem, up to 5.7 billion euros in contracts for steel firm Danieli, up to 4 billion euros of business for infrastructure firm Condotte dAcqua, 4 billion euros for rail and road company Gavio and 400 million euros for planes from Finmeccanica. Rouhani also met with Pope Francis. BBC Monitoring translated an important article by an Iranian reformer trying to interpret this meeting: Etemad [reformist]: President Hassan Rouhanis meeting with Pope Francis, as well as Tehrans increased interactions with the Vatican, is a natural and obvious move as they are two religious poles in the world. But, currently these relations can lead to different outcomes. On the one hand, the Islamic Republic of Iran as a religious and Muslim government is seeking to increase its international prestige and international legitimacy. On the other hand, the Middle East is facing an unprecedented number of conflicts within which terrorist groups, under the flag of religion, have destabilised countries in the region and spread their violence to the heart of Europe. So we can say that all the monotheistic religions are suffering from the plague of terrorism and treating this plague will not be possible without dialogue and more interaction between the religions. Therefore, the 11th governments decision to interact with monotheistic religions is a clever move that can improve Irans anti-terrorism policy in the regional and the international arena. (Commentary by Karen Khanlari headlined: Coalition with the worlds theists against terrorism) So on both the European and Iranian sides, the chance for trade is welcomed, especially given the slowdown in the world economy. But at the same time, Irans potential as an anti-Daesh, anti-terrorism force is being prized. These themes, of counter-terrorism and trade, continued to be salient as Rouhani landed in Paris. He met with 20 CEOs and with President Hollande. Iran is angling to by over 100 airbus civilian airliners, and Hollande is eager to facilitate the sale. Automakers Renault and Peugot are also seeking Iran deals. It seems clear that for European business, the end of sanctions on Iran is creating a potential business bonanza. But diplomatically, Irans ability to gradually defeat and roll back Daesh is part of the equation of partnership. Related video: Euronews: Irans President Rouhani seeks to revive business ties in Paris Reddit Email 0 Shares By Liam Kennedy | (The Conversation) | When Richard Hofstadter described a paranoid style in American politics in 1964, he was referring to the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that was roiling the Republican Party. Sound familiar? Throughout the 2016 Republican primary campaign, the electorates fears and resentments have been whipped into a frenzy. Jobs are insecure and living standards stagnant or falling; immigration is destroying the fabric of the nation; national security is imperilled by imminent terrorist attacks; the government is scheming to take away Americans guns. Trump has proven a master of this genre, and is taking it to a new rhetorical pitch. At a recent gathering he warned against political correctness because youre gonna have more World Trade Centres. Its gonna get worse and worse. His stock-in-trade is the flat, sweeping declaration, his doom-laden pronouncements feeding hungrily off a broad sense of malaise in the US. Our country is in serious trouble. We dont win anymore, is the message. The American dream is dead. Observing the paranoid style in the early 1960s, Hostadter noted that it had a particularly strong appeal for those who see themselves as dispossessed and feel that America has largely been taken away from them and their kind. This holds true today, a sense of dispossession is felt particularly keenly by the white working class, among whom there is a deep distrust of government and a real anger that their cultural and religious identity is under siege. And they are tired of being taken for granted by the Republican leadership. It is a constituency to which the absolutism of Trumps rhetorical style plays well and in appealing to it he has revealed the chasm that has opened between the Republican establishment and its base. The mainstream American right and its media allies have long exploited fears about social issues to build support among white working class conservatives, but they have simply lost control of this process. Enter Trump a Frankenstein of the Republican Partys making. Fear and loathing Trump has used the rhetoric of fear against the interests of the Republican establishment, and has done so by transgressing the remaining red lines of taste or tact that have just about held the right-wing mainstream media in check. He has trashed liberal shibboleths of public discourse, saying explicitly what is otherwise only said in code or in dog whistles. He validates racist opinions and stretches the discourse of political culture to xenophobic extremes. The efforts to lampoon and dismiss Trumps campaign have stalled in recent weeks with the growing concern that it represents a potentially seismic shift in American political culture. For several months there was a broad expectation that his insurgency would eventually flame out, and that something like normal political relations would be restored. Now, there is an abiding sense this may never happen that his campaign has unleashed a genie of repressed grievances and public distemper that can never be put back in the bottle. David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, questioned whether the Republican Party will in fact survive the 2016 election. Veteran conservative pundit George F. Will preached doom in the Washington Post: If Trump wins the nomination, prepare for the end of the conservative party. And most remarkably of all, the National Review, tribune of the conservative establishment, rounded up a symposium of right-wing icons and thinkers to present a united front to Stop Trump. Its surprising it has taken so long for these laments to fully emerge. Trumps campaign, while enigmatic in certain respects, is clearly symptomatic of a deeper transformation of Americas conservative political culture. The new age From the longstanding nativist refusals to accept Obama as a real American to extravagant Republican obstructionism in Congress and ugly battles over debt ceilings, and the refusal of Congress members to help constituents with problems involving the Affordable Care Act, the tone of political discourse has been progressively poisoned and the ideological spectrum polarised. The long-cherished establishment assumption that American politics inevitably re-centres itself through the electoral process is now being sorely tested. There is growing evidence that negative partisanship is taking over American politics and the electorate has become more ideological and tribal. This will be a challenge for the Democrats too but right now, the Republicans are being consumed by a storm of animosities and passions which they simply cannot control. Whether or not Trump wins the nomination, the fallout could shatter the party for years to come. The GOP has been here before. In 1964, the conservative insurgent Barry Goldwater eventually lost heavily to the incumbent Lyndon Johnson, but his campaign kicked off a conservative revolution that radically transformed the Republican Party. It was, after all, at the 1964 Republican National Convention that nominated Goldwater in which Ronald Reagan made his debut as a true political star, heralding a radical shift to the right that the Republicans of the early 1960s would scarcely recognise. So like Goldwater, Trumps candidacy could both utterly fail and still turn the party in a new and frightening direction. Maybe todays Republican Party really has something to be paranoid about. Liam Kennedy, Professor of American Studies, University College Dublin This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Related video added by Juan Cole: CNN: Donald Trump and Fox News feud escalates VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Jan. 28, 2016) - Revelo Resources Corp. ("Revelo" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:RVL) informs that Kinross Minera Chile Limitada ("Kinross" - a subsidiary of Kinross Gold Corporation) has elected to withdraw from the Option and Joint Venture Agreement ("the Agreement") signed in April 2014 relating to Revelo's Las Pampas Project in northern Chile. With its withdrawal from the Agreement, and without having fulfilled the minimum requirements to earn an initial interest, Kinross is returning 100% of the Las Pampas Project properties to Revelo, together with all exploration data collected by Kinross to date. Revelo will review all Kinross data and provide further updates on the project in due course. Tim Beale, President & CEO of Revelo stated that, "Although unfortunate that Kinross has decided to abandon the Las Pampas Option and JV Agreement, we continue to believe that Las Pampas comprises a series of highly attractive targets, principally for precious metals, and we will strive to find a new partner to continue the exploration and discovery journey there." ABOUT LAS PAMPAS The Las Pampas Property is an approximately 50,000 hectare land package located in an exceptional position along the highly prospective Palaeocene mineral belt in northern Chile. The property is centred along strike and approximately 35Km southwest of the multi-million ounce gold and silver mining district at El Penon and related deposits. Key targets include: High-grade, low-sulphidation "bonanza"-style gold-silver veins along the Cerritos Trend as evidenced by widespread quartz-vein float, significant pathfinder geochemical anomalies, geophysical anomalies typical of epithermal vein systems, and drill results with anomalous intercepts of gold and silver. The anomalous belt is more than 8Km x 1km in size, and is largely obscured by post-mineral gravels and mud flows, generally <100m thick (and often only a few metres thick). High-grade, low-sulphidation "bonanza"-style gold-silver veins beneath the eroded remnants of a large silica sinter field at Cerros Bayos that extends over at least 3Km, and which displays low level anomalies in gold, silver and arsenic in rock chip samples, together with linear geophysical features that may represent mineralised feeder systems at depth. The sinter, unusually, has been shown to carry trace amounts of silver minerals including native silver together with the silver sulphide and sulphosalt minerals of argentite, pyrargyrite and proustite. Disseminated precious metals mineralisation of high-sulphidation type focused principally on a large area of advanced argillic alteration at Cerro Buenos Aires, together with subsidiary outcrops at Cerro Intermedio and Cerro Turmalina, covering a total strike length of approximately 10Km. Detailed hydrothermal alteration mapping, surface geochemistry and CSAMT and HoistEM geophysical data show large volumes of highly anomalous rock with potential for precious metals mineralisation. Very limited drilling to date has cut anomalous gold and silver values. An extensive area of advanced argillic alteration with "wormy" quartz veining at Cerro Blanco may represent a "lithocap" above a potential porphyry copper target. Several other target areas, principally prospective for high-grade precious metals veins, also occur on the property. A NI43-101 compliant geological report for Las Pampas, dated December 2014, is available on Revelo's website. Revelo controls a highly prospective land position along the Paleocene Mineral Belt, with the wholly-owned Magallanes, Las Pampas, Loro, Limbo, Reprado and San Guillermo precious metals properties - totaling around 80,000 Ha. All six properties contain abundant evidence for vein-hosted styles of precious metals mineralization, and all six are located close to and along trend from either producing mines or significant in-ground mineral resources. ABOUT REVELO Revelo is building a sustainable exploration business focused on securing prospective land along the prolific mineral belts of northern Chile, and by implementing effective exploration and capital management strategies to grow, advance and de-risk its portfolio to provide shareholders with multiple opportunities for exploration success. Revelo controls more than 350,000 hectares of 100% owned exploration tenement along proven mineral belts in northern Chile. The portfolio is comprised of 21 high-quality exploration projects prospective for copper, gold and silver including the Montezuma project already under JV agreement with a subsidiary of Newmont Mining. In addition, Revelo retains a 2% royalty interest in the Victoria Project, an important copper-gold-silver exploration project in northern Chile. Revelo is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX VENTURE:RVL). For more information please visit Revelo's website at www.reveloresources.com. Dr. Demetrius Pohl, PhD., Certified Professional Geoscientist (CPG), an independent consultant, is the Company's Qualified Person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosures for Mineral Projects of the Canadian Securities Administrators, and has approved the written disclosure of the technical information contained in this news release. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD Timothy J. Beale, President & CEO Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENT This news release contains certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical fact, that address events or developments that Revelo expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential", "indicate" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although Revelo believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA--(Marketwired - Jan. 27, 2016) - NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES Perseus Mining Limited ("Perseus" or the "Company") (TSX:PRU)(ASX:PRU) reports on its activities for the three month period ended December 31, 2015 (the "Quarter"). An executive summary is provided below. However, full details of activities in the December Quarter, including reconciled production and all-in site cash costs, are included in the Company's December 2015 Quarterly Activity Report released to the market on January 28, 2016. The full report is available for download from www.perseusmining.com, www.asx.com.au and www.sedar.com. OPERATIONS - EDIKAN GOLD MINE, GHANA ("EDIKAN") Increased mining activity at Fetish, Chirawewa and Fobinso open pits to accelerate access higher grade fresh ore supplies; Pending access to higher grade ore zones, lower grade ore plus stockpiled ore provided mill feed resulting in quarterly gold production of 32,426ozs, and 76,693ozs of gold for the December 2015 Half Year; Significant operating cost improvements achieved in prior quarters maintained with unit mining and processing costs of US$2.45/tonne mined and US$9.28/tonne processed respectively; All-in site costs (including all development and sustaining capital) of US$1,208/oz for the December 2015 Half Year, close to midpoint of Half Year cost guidance range; Quarterly gold sales of 32,616ozs at an average sales price of US$1,247/oz; Infrastructure works for housing to relocate former residents of the Eastern Pits and Esuajah North mine take areas is on schedule and under budget. DEVELOPMENT - SISSINGUE GOLD MINE, COTE D'IVOIRE ("SISSINGUE") Spent US$5.1M of capital on an early works programme, pending decision on full-scale project construction; Full scale development decision deferred due to weakening global economic environment and a desire to preserve balance sheet in a volatile capital market; Continued implementing integrated security and community development programs in the Sissingue area to maintain social licence to operate. CORPORATE At December 31, 2015, Perseus's $164.9M of working capital included: Immediately available cash and bullion of $99.1M; Gold forward sales contracts for 120,267ozs of gold sold forward at an average price of US$1,276/oz and valued at $35.3M; No third party debt (other than accounts payable in the ordinary course of business). Note: All dollar amounts are expressed in Australian dollars unless notified otherwise. FY2016 Production and Cost Guidance Taking into account actual production and cost performance for the December 2015 Half Year, the production and cost guidance for the next Half Year and for the 12 month periods ending June 30, 2016 is as shown below. Parameter Units December 2015 Half Year June 2016 Half Year Financial Year 2016 Gold Production Ounces 76,693 95,000-115,000 172,000-192,000 All-In Site Cash Costs US$/oz 1,208 1,100-1,3001 1,130-1,2501 1 This compares to Perseus's current hedge position of 120,267ozs of gold sold forward at a weighted average price of US$1,276/oz The above represents a change from previous guidance as it incorporates the impact of the Quarter's production on the gold production schedule going forward. In terms of costs, a number of significant, sustainable cost savings have been achieved in recent periods but this improved cost performance is also impacted by the reduced production forecast when reported on a cost per ounce basis. PROGRAM FOR MARCH 2016 QUARTER Edikan Gold Mine Produce gold at a total all-in site cost that is in line with Half Year guidance; Continue to fine-tune plant metallurgical performance and maximise SAG mill throughput; Continue training of operating and maintenance staff; Continue to implement business improvement initiatives across all departments at Edikan; Commence construction of houses to relocate former residents of the Eastern Pits mine take area; Complete a feasibility study for mining the Esuajah South deposit using a selective underground mining method in preference to the currently planned open pit mining method; and Complete the current re-assessment of geological datasets with the aim of formulating near mine exploration programmes targeting high grade mineralisation that can be mined using either underground mining or open pit mining methods. Sissingue Gold Mine Development Project Complete early works programme including but not limited to certain site works at Sissingue; Continue to engage with all national, regional and local government and community security stakeholders to ensure that peace and security is maintained in the vicinity of Sissingue; Review development plans and take a decision regarding the timing of the development of Sissingue; and Continue exploration on the Mahale exploration licence and at Sissingue. Corporate Continue to evaluate corporate opportunities for creating wealth without materially reducing balance sheet strength and in particular preserving cash reserves. Jeffrey A Quartermaine Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Competent Person Statement: All production targets for the Edikan Gold Mine referred to in this report are underpinned by estimated Ore Reserves which have been prepared by competent persons in accordance with the requirements of the JORC Code. Caution Regarding Forward Looking Information: This report contains forward-looking information which is based on the assumptions, estimates, analysis and opinions of management made in light of its experience and its perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors that management of the Company believes to be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances at the date that such statements are made, but which may prove to be incorrect. Assumptions have been made by the Company regarding, among other things: the price of gold, continuing commercial production at the Edikan Gold Mine without any major disruption, development of a mine at Sissingue, the receipt of required governmental approvals, the accuracy of capital and operating cost estimates, the ability of the Company to operate in a safe, efficient and effective manner and the ability of the Company to obtain financing as and when required and on reasonable terms. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list is not exhaustive of all factors and assumptions which may have been used by the Company. Although management believes that the assumptions made by the Company and the expectations represented by such information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that the forward-looking information will prove to be accurate. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any anticipated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, among others, the actual market price of gold, the actual results of current exploration, the actual results of future exploration, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be evaluated, as well as those factors disclosed in the Company's publicly filed documents. The Company believes that the assumptions and expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things, the Company's ability to carry on its exploration and development activities, the timely receipt of required approvals, the price of gold, the ability of the Company to operate in a safe, efficient and effective manner and the ability of the Company to obtain financing as and when required and on reasonable terms. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Perseus does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. Vancouver, Canada / TheNewswire / January 28, 2016 - Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. (TSX-V: BAY) ("Aston Bay" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has signed an exclusive Letter of Intent ("LOI") with a wholly owned Canadian Subsidiary of BHP Billiton Ltd. ("BHPB") to cooperatively advance the Storm Copper Project ("Storm"). Under the terms of the LOI, BHPB may earn a 75% interest in Storm, with a provision in place to convert into a Joint Venture agreement. To earn a 75% interest in Storm, the LOI anticipates BHPB spending a minimum of CDN$40 million on exploration at Storm within nine years (including a minimum of CDN$2.5 million within two years) of signing a definitive agreement (the "Definitive Agreement"). Aston Bay will have no required exploration expenses for four years from the date of signing the Definitive Agreement. BHPB and Aston Bay are currently discussing terms of the Definitive Agreement, and are targeting completion during the second quarter of 2016. Aston Bay is to hold a gross overriding royalty ("GOR") of 0.3% on all mineral claims covered by the agreement outside of Aston Bay's area of mutual interest with Commander Resources Ltd. ("Commander"). "We are very pleased to have attracted, as a partner, a top-tier global mining company with a track record of building and operating some of the world's largest copper mines. This new partnership is a testament to the exploration potential at the Storm Copper Project," said Benjamin Cox, Chief Executive Officer of Aston Bay. "Our agreement with BHP Billiton will advance the Storm Copper Project without significant equity dilution for Aston Bay's shareholders, leaving Aston Bay with a meaningful interest in the project." BHPB has also agreed to pay Aston Bay CDN$325,000 at the time of signing the Definitive Agreement. The Storm Copper Project, located on Somerset Island, Nunavut, covers a 100km-plus strike length of mineralized showings within stratigraphy favourable for sediment-hosted copper mineralization. Historical drilling focused on the mineralized zones cropping out at surface and included 110 metres (m) of 2.45% copper and 56m of 3.07% copper at the 2750N zone, as well as 49m of 1.79% copper at the 2200N zone. Exploration by Aston Bay has identified a number of coincident conductivity and gravity anomalies that are consistent with regional mineralizing processes that have significance for property-wide exploration. Please visit Aston Bay's website (http://astonbayholdings.com/storm-copper) for more information on the Storm project. "BHP Billiton's involvement underscores the prospective nature of the Storm project," commented Benjamin Cox. "BHP Billiton brings technical depth and expertise to the project and we are eager to begin exploring the property with their exploration group. Their creative ideas for exploration are innovative and add significant exploration value." Aston Bay is also in the process of closing its agreement with Commander Resources (TSXV: CMD) after receiving over 60% shareholder approval. When all approvals are received and once shares are issued to Commander in accordance with the agreement, Aston Bay would own 100% of the Storm Copper Project. For more information, see the Company's press release dated December 17, 2015. Qualified Person The content of this news release and the technical information that forms the basis for this disclosure has been prepared under the supervision of Michael Dufresne, M.Sc., P.Geol., who is the Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101 and a Director of and Consultant to Aston Bay. About Aston Bay Holdings Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. (TSX-V: BAY) is a publicly traded mineral exploration company focused on the 641,415-acre (259,570 hectares) Aston Bay Property located on northwest Somerset Island, Nunavut. The Property hosts the Storm Copper and Seal Zinc prospects, where historic drilling has confirmed the presence of sediment-hosted copper and zinc mineralization. On behalf of the Board of Directors, Benjamin Cox, Chief Executive Officer Telephone: (360) 262-6969 For further information about Aston Bay Holdings Ltd or this news release, please visit our website at www.astonbayholdings.com. About BHP Billiton Further information on BHP Billiton can be found at: bhpbilliton.com. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange Inc. nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release contains certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. In the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law. We seek Safe Harbor. THIS PRESS RELEASE, REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE CANADIAN LAWS, IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWS SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES, AND DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER TO SELL OR A SOLICITATION OF AN OFFER TO SELL ANY OF THE SECURITIES DESCRIBED HEREIN IN THE UNITED STATES. THESE SECURITIES HAVE NOT BEEN, AND WILL NOT BE, REGISTERED UNDER THE UNITED STATES SECURITIES ACT OF 1933, AS AMENDED, OR ANY STATE SECURITIES LAWS, AND MAY NOT BE OFFERED OR SOLD IN THE UNITED STATES OR TO U.S. PERSONS UNLESS REGISTERED OR EXEMPT THEREFROM. THIS PRESS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES OR TO U.S. NEWS AGENCIES Copyright (c) 2016 TheNewswire - All rights reserved. US investment firm Schulze Global Investments has acquired a 45% stake in Ethiopian dairy firm MB plc. Robert Kariuki, a former Coca-Cola and Diageo executive, has joined the business as CEO. MB plc, which trades as Family Milk, is based in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa. Kariuki said Schulze Global had been attracted to the company because of its strong potential as a market leading dairy processor. He also pointed to the hugely unexploited market for dairy products in Ethiopia, as well as the fact the country has the largest dairy cow population in Africa. The company has plans to export processed dairy products to neighbouring countries. Our plan is to expand into new horizons. We will introduce a new dairy based product portfolio and massively enhance the production capacity of Family Milk over the next two years, Kariuki told just-food. However, the group is prioritising improvement standards from its suppliers before further expansion, he added. We are committed to training and improving the methods and practices of our suppliers in Ethiopia before we branch out. We want to advance local animal healthcare and also enhance breed of cattle. This is crucial. COLUMBUS A Schuyler-area officers response to a crash scene on the outskirts of the community a few years ago is an example of the importance of staying abreast of changes in search and seizure law. The officer arrived at the scene that evening to find a driver with a load of wrapped Christmas presents in his vehicle. One package smelled suspiciously of marijuana. In a court case a few months earlier, the Supreme Court had spelled out the rules for searching presents that were wrapped and ready to go under the tree, Colfax County Attorney Denise Kracl said. The court ruled that wrapped presents could be searched if the officer gently cut the tape on the package in a way that allowed it to be easily rewrapped. I sent out a memo to officers (after that ruling) explaining the courts decision, Kracl said. The officer at the crash scene that night searched the gift package and found a box of brownies laced with marijuana. The driver eventually was convicted of felony possession of marijuana with intent to deliver. Kracl said that story is an example of a small quirk in a criminal justice system that is always evolving and a reason she, Platte County Attorney Carl Hart and Columbus Police Chief William Gumm have invited law enforcement personnel to search and seizure training at Educational Service Unit 7 in Columbus on Friday. Additional training or a brush-up on existing laws is always helpful, Kracl said. ESU 7 is a larger facility that allows us to draw people from farther away and the officers will have the opportunity to ask questions. Fridays free training will feature two identical three-hour sessions, 8:30-11:30 a.m. and 1-4 p.m. The sessions, which are not open to the public, are each limited to 60 people. Greg Ariza of the Nebraska Attorney Generals Office is conducting the training for officers and staffers of area county attorneys' offices. City streets should be teeming with patrol cars on Friday. So far, law enforcement personnel from Columbus, Platte, Colfax, Madison, Saunders, Washington, Dodge, York and Seward counties and the Nebraska State Patrol are planning to attend the training. Im expecting 70 to 80 law enforcement officers and county attorney staff to attend, Kracl said. Detention Center The inmate count at the Platte County Detention Facility Wednesday was 86, with 47 from Platte County and 39 from out of county. Police Department Nov. 30 8:51 a.m. In the 3400 block of 23rd Street, Jakob Delozier, 18, 1754 45th Ave., was cited for shoplifting. Jan. 9 1:27 p.m. At the intersection of 25th Avenue and Eighth Street, Todd Ewald, 46, 2015 Sixth St., was cited for failure to yield right of way and second-offense driving under the influence. Jan. 11 1:42 p.m. At 818 E. 23rd St., Joshua Diggs, 25, 26405 247th Ave., No. 516, was cited for shoplifting. Jan. 12 9 a.m.-1:05 p.m. In the 3300 block of 16th Street, an unknown vehicle struck a parked vehicle owned by Stephanie Reed, Bellwood, and left the scene. Jan. 13 1:02 p.m. At the intersection of 26th Avenue and 23rd Street, Jerry Jantz, 66, Kansas, was cited for a traffic signal violation. Jan. 19 2 a.m. In the 700 block of 30th Avenue, an unknown vehicle struck a parked vehicle owned by Cindy Podany, 769 30th Ave., and left the scene. Jan. 23 3 p.m. At 420 S. Fourth St., Jorge Portillo, 48, 420 S. Fourth St., was cited for third-degree domestic assault. Jan 25 9:50 a.m. At the intersection of Linden Drive and 30th Street, a vehicle driven by Joseph Beltran, 19, 2215 30th St., struck a parked vehicle owned by Britt and Janice Brummer, 3051 Linden Drive. 10:53 a.m. In the 1700 block of 26th Avenue, traffic accident. Drivers were John Petersen, 28, 2211 31st St., and Reynold Nunez, 46, 1910 32nd St., No. 204. Petersen was cited for no valid registration and no proof of insurance. Jan. 26 8:05 a.m. Theft from a vehicle at 2652 Sioux Drive, no loss amount. 8:46 a.m. Theft from a vehicle at 3522 12th St., no loss amount. Sheriffs Department Jan. 26 8:16 a.m. Domestic dispute at 26375 247th Ave., No. 518, Rudi Cortes-Mateo of Columbus cited for third-degree domestic assault and strangulation. Fire Department Jan. 25 12:18 p.m. In the 2400 block of 39th Avenue, medical. 3:08 p.m. On South Road, medical. 3:48 p.m. Ambulance intercept with Humphrey Rescue, medical. 5:27 p.m. Structure fire in the 700 block of 30th Avenue, smoke from furnace, no damage. 8:56 p.m. In the 3200 block of 36th Street, medical. 10:14 p.m. In the 3300 block of Linden Drive, medical. 11:03 p.m. Fire alarm activated in the 1800 block of 10th Avenue. Jan. 26 8:13 a.m. - In the 2400 block of 33rd Avenue, medical. 10:01 a.m. - In the 4000 block of 38th Street, medical. 11:17 a.m. - In the 8400 block of 36th Avenue, medical. 4:11 p.m. - In the 30000 block of 190th Avenue, medical. Interest in growing vines has been on the rise. Vines are used to soften buildings, provide privacy or shade, and screen unsightly views, not to mention providing fruit to eat and blooms to enjoy. A question asked about vines is if they can damage the building they grow on. I will address this question and share information about how vines climb and some that will grow in Nebraska. According to the University of Illinois Extension, the answer to the question about vines damaging buildings can be yes and no. Generally, vines have not been shown to cause damage to sound masonry, brick or stone. However, if there are loose joints or mortar, vines can get into such areas and loosen them further. Another issue is openings around windows, frames, fascia, gutters, ventilation louvers and shutters. Vines can grow behind and possibly push these away from the structure. This can be avoided with regularly scheduled pruning to remove stems around these features. Vines growing on wood siding may cause damage by getting under clapboards and pulling them away. Vines growing directly on a building reduce air flow, which can result in moisture retention that may cause wood decay. Also, vines that support themselves by aerial roots or hold fasts that attach to structures can leave unsightly marks when vines are removed. Illinois Extension recommends growing vines on some type of trellis or support that is positioned six inches away from the building. Having space between the trellis and building also increases air circulation to reduce moisture retention. There are a number of vines for Nebraska. Vines are classified based on how they attach to or climb a structure. Knowing this, along with the eventual size or weight of the vine, is important in determining what type and size of structure or trellis to provide. Twining vines climb by wrapping stems around the support they grow on. Supports used include sturdy wire, string, netting, small poles, or slats. Examples of twining vines are American bittersweet, gold flame honeysuckle, Wisteria, hardy kiwi, silver lace vine and chocolate vine or Akebia. Clasping vines have tendrils. They climb by wrapping tendrils, not stems, around the support. They require thin, but sturdy wire or netting to climb. Clasping vines include grapes, clematis, English ivy, wintercreeper, or euonymous and porcelain berry or ampelopsis. Clinging vines have aerial roots or adhesive-like pads, which adhere to the structure. Ideally, do not use these types of vines on wood siding. Examples of clinging vines are climbing hydrangea, Virginia creeper and Boston ivy. As with any plant selection, it is important to know what function you want for a vine before selecting one. Are you trying to cover a large arbor built over a patio or a small trellis to screen a utility from view? Do you want fruit to eat or flowers for ornament? Always consider the growing conditions of the site. Is it full sun or part shade? What is the soil type and how well drained? Select a vine adapted to those conditions. And always determine the eventual size and growth rate. Some vines can grow 30 feet in one season and require very sturdy support structures. If this is not feasible, consider an annual vine like morning glory. Annuals die each year and may be easier to manage. Source: University of Illinois Extension http://extension.illinois.edu/vines/buildings.cfm. Data-supported solutions for improving business performance Certificate in Analytics: Optimizing Big Data Understand why big data is so important in today's business decisions Improve your data management skills Join the rapidly growing analytics field This certificate program brings together the computational, analytical and communication skills necessary to discover and implement data-supported solutions to business questions, and introduces students to the tools needed to analyze large datasets in order to make more informed business decisions. Students learn to gather and organize data for more effective analysis and how to communicate their analyses in a clear and concise manner. Classes run February 18-May 25, 2016 UD Downtown Center, 8th and King Streets in Wilmington, DE For more information or to register: www.pcs.udel.edu/data 302-831-7600 continuing-ed@udel.edu Joe Messick, Certificate in Analytics: Optimizing Big Data graduate "I have used this knowledge to meaningfully engage my clients and colleagues, structure project opportunities and help advance my clients' business interests through data analytics." Hear more from Joe... University of Delaware | Rte. 896 N., 209 John M. Clayton Hall | Division of Professional and Continuing Studies | Newark | DE | 19716 When actor So Ji Sub was interviewed for the February issue of the Korean magazine @Star1, he spoke about marriage. The subject seems to naturally come up in many interviews he does. And it's not always the reporter who brings up the question. During the interview So Ji Sub discussed his recent drama "Oh My Venus," his lovable co-star Shin Min Ah, and was then asked about his wishes for the new year. They were romantic. "It's been a long time since I've been in a relationship," he said. "I want to be in love. If I meet the right person, I want to get married." A year ago the 38-year-old actor was interviewed by the Chinese media outlet Sina and expressed the desire to get married before he was 40. "Since I don't have much time left, I think it'll be difficult," he said. "I personally believe that once you start seeing someone, you have to see them for at least a year before getting married. I think it will be hard for me to get married before I'm 40." He said that it had been a long time since he was in a relationship, although he has been involved in dating rumors. Marriage rumors linked him with actress Han Ji Min in 2010, but he denied them, and apologized to her for any potential damage to her career. In 2013 dating rumors linked him with After School's Joo Yeon. He denied those dating rumors too. Why is he still single? He obviously wants to get married. What is he looking for in a woman? He once said that his ideal woman would be "very understanding and comfortable to be around." He especially needs women to be understanding of his career and the demands that it places on his time. In the Sina interview he said that many women think they can understand his profession, but find it difficult. "When I want to see them, I can't," he said. "I often can't go see them because of work." Do you think he should make more of an effort to date? Perhaps he will be inspired to date more by the story of his best friend, 39-year-old actor Song Seung Hoon, who recently went public with his relationship with Chinese actress Liu Yifei. Let's hope So Ji Sub finds true love this year and there's a happy ending. Most k-movie stars start out in dramas. For example, Kim Soo Hyun, acted in dramas for four years before landing a role in a full-length film. Some actors prefer the way films are shot and never return to the hectic schedule of drama filming. Others, such as Kim and Lee Min Ho, do both. After two films, Lee Min Ho is currently considering another small screen role. Recently three other actors long absent from dramaland said they wanted to make a comeback. It was beginning to seem that Kang Dong Won was a film actor that never thought about returning to dramas, but after a 12-year-absence, he's thinking he might like to try one again. Kang's last drama was the 2004 "Magic." He made his first film a year after debuting in a drama and has made more than a dozen since then. "I want to be in a drama," he said in a recent interview with the Korean media outlet Daily Sports. It's not that he hasn't looked at drama scripts over the years, he says. It's just that none felt right to him. He also did not care for the continuous alterations to scripts that are made when dramas are filmed close to air date. Now that some dramas are being produced in advance, he is curious, what it might be like. It would be more like making a film. "I heard the production environment has changed a lot," he said. "I also want to make a drama with my movie people. It would be fun to make a drama that is really a long film. It won't be just two hours but 10." Actress Jeon Do Yeon already has plans to make a small screen comeback. She signed on for the k-drama remake of the American television show "The Good Wife." The seven-season American program focuses a housewife whose detective husband goes to jail so she becomes a detective herself. The k-drama version will run on tvN. Jeon Do Yeon has not worked on a drama in 11 years. Her last role was in the 2005 SBS drama "Lovers In Prague." Actress Im Soo Jung has also been away from dramaland for a long time. Although she acted in a film before appearing in the 2004 drama "Sorry, I Love You," she stuck to films after that. She can currently be seen in the film "Perfect Proposal." But Im says she has not stopped reading drama scripts either. Many still come her way and she hopes that one will soon catch her eye. What do you think about seeing these stars on the small screen? Are there any k-movie stars you would like to see make a small screen comeback? Let us know. Actors Park Bo Gum, Ryu Jun Yeol, Go Kyung Po and Ahn Jae Hong are currently in Namibia filming the travel reality program "Friends Over Flowers - Africa." It's a reunion for the actors, who recently co-starred in the nostalgic hit drama "Reply 1988," and they barely had a chance to miss each other. They learned they would travel together on the reality show while enjoying the reward vacation they received after completing their successful drama. They will get the chance to miss fellow co-star Lee Dong Hae, who could not make the trip due to a conflict in his schedule. The variety show, which focuses on celebrities taking a vacation in a foreign country, has been shooting for several days now. It's a spin off of the original travel variety show, "Grandpas Over Flowers" which featured older actors, "Noonas Over Flowers" followed, with actresses, and now there is "Friends Over Flowers," also known as "Youth Over Flowers," with a much younger cast. Fortunately, fans can get a peek at what's happening on set. A Korean traveler named Kwang Ju Lee ran into the production team while they were filming in the desert and took a few photos that he posted on Facebook. The photos offer behind-the-scenes looks at the environment the show is filmed in. The wind-rippled sand dunes in the photos are what many people associate with Namibia as it is the country with the least rainfall in sub-Saharan Africa. "Friends Over Flowers - Africa" will be aired throughout Asia, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Cambodia and Myanmar, starting on March 5. The actors will probably be even busier when they return as their careers got a boost from "Repy 1988." Park Bo Gum is also known for his roles in the film "Coin Locker Girl" and the drama "Hello Monster." He has not decided what to do next. Ryu Jun Yeol has already decided. Although "Reply 1988 was only Ryu Jun Yeol's second drama, he made an impression. He was recently cast in Jo In Sung's film "The King." Go Kyung Po also appeared in the critically acclaimed "Coin Locker Girl" as well as the film "The Treacherous." He did several dramas before "Reply 1988, including "Warm and Cozy." As soon as he returns he will review new script offers. Ahn Jae Hong, who played Ryu Jun Yeol's older brother, is the third "Reply 1988" star to appear in "Coin Locker Girl." This will make three projects that he and Park Bo Gum and Go Kyung Po have done together. This year he can also be seen in the film "The Sound of a Flower." The highly anticipated action series, "Descendants of the Sun," will finally hit airwaves on February 24. The KBS2 drama pairs Song Joong Ki (A Werewolf Boy, Nice Guy) with Song Hye Kyo (That Winter, The Wind Blows) for a landmark blockbuster that could set the standard for post-production filming. Song Joong Ki is Yoo Shi Jin, a captain who is tasked with leading a UN peacekeeping mission in a perilous foreign territory. Song Hye Kyo portrays Kang Mo Yeon, a physician who becomes embroiled with the military envoy and Shi Jin, as a member of Doctors Without Borders. Kim Ji Won, who captured the attention of drama viewers with her portrayal of Rachel Yoo in "The Heirs," is Yoon Myung Joo. Notable film star Jin Goo (The Admiral: Roaring Currents) rounds out the central cast as Seo Dae Young while SHINee's Onew appears in a supporting role as Lee Chi Hoon. "Descendants of the Sun" is slated for a 16-episode run in the Wednesday-Thursday 9:55 KST time slot currently occupied by "The Merchant Gaekju 2015." Acclaimed K-pop soloist and actor, Rain, returns to television in the SBS series, "Please Come Back, Mister." In his first role since the well-received Chinese drama, "Diamond Lovers," Rain is Lee Hae Joon, a man who literally works himself to death, before receiving the opportunity to return to the realm of the living as a handsome person. Former girl group member-turned-actress, Oh Yeon Seo (Shine or Go Crazy), Hong Nan. Lee Ming Jung (Cunning Single Lady) appears as Shin Da Hye, her first role since motherhood. Former Miss Korea Lee Ha Nui (Honey Lee) and Choi Won Yo (Twenty Again) round out the main cast. "Please Come Back, Mister" faces off against "Descendants of the Sun," premiering on February 24 in the Wednesday-Thursday 9:55 p.m. KST time slot. Teen actress Kim So Hyun (Who Are You: School 2015) appears opposite bad boy heartthrob, Ji Soo (Angry Mom), in the three-episode KBS special, "Page Turner." Kim So Hyun is Yoo Seul, a piano prodigy who is relentlessly driven to succeed by her mother while Ji Soo portrays Jung Cha Sik, her close friend who helps her overcome the setbacks she experiences from a tragic accident. "Cheese in the Trap" continues its momentum as one of the most-watched cable dramas of 2016. While "Reply 1988" capitalized on the nostalgia of a bygone era and the mysterious revelation of which neighborhood boy would grow up to marry Duk Sun (Hyeri), "Cheese in the Trap" compels viewers with its romantic portrayal of Yoo Jung (Park Hae Jin) and Baek In Ho (Seo Kang Joon). Jung and In Ho each exhibit traits that attract and repel female characters within the series. They are unlikely protagonists who battle panty-stealing neighborhood guys, stalkers, and academic cheaters. The tvN drama is consistent with the bulk of prime time programs which highlight outliers that most filial daughters would avoid bringing home to meet their parents. A trending article published by the domestic outlet Han on January 28 examined the romantic appeal of bad boys, as portrayed in the webtoon-turned-collegiate series. In the piece titled "Who actually wants romance with a bad guy?" the writer explores the psychological undertones of "Cheese in the Trap," particularly focusing on the exploitative tactics of Jung. "Yoo Jung holds enough information to impact the weakness of people, as is his means of manipulating others through intimidation," said the Han writer. Jung is a popular student, who is seemingly innocent as he manipulates various situations surrounding the object of his affection, Hong Seol (Kim Go Eun). He insinuates his way into her mundane life with a forcefulness that is so disturbing, she takes a break from school, in an attempt to avoid him. In Ho is less diabolical in his pursuit of Seol but he is also a dark knight whose charm lies within his attractiveness. Korean drama bad boys are usually attractive conglomerate heirs who are the unlikely saviors of "Candy." Han examined the parallels between "Cheese in the Trap" and Candy or the Cinderella-like story that pervades Korean romantic comedies. The tale of Candy is the focal point of the Hong Sisters' "Master's Sun," as Joo Joong Won (So Ji Sub), a wealthy conglomerate heir, provides Tae Gong Shil (Gong Hyo Jin) with a financial and physical safety net from her ghost-plagued life. Whereas Joong Won repeatedly reminds Gong Shil of her place within his social strata, Jung withholds facts about his financial background from Seol, while placing her deeper within his debt. The situation appears to be innocuous, but his stronghold over their burgeoning relationship will likely unravel, in future episodes. His actions parallel the dramatic moves of Gu Jun Pyo (Lee Min Ho), the leading man of the 2009 teen series, "Boys Over Flowers." Jun Pyo initially bullies Geum Jan Di (Gu Hye Sun) until he slowly begins to empathize with her situation as a poverty-stricken scholarship student. He quickly transitions from someone who orchestrated a physical attack that nearly results in sexual assault to her boyfriend. In "Cheese in the Trap," Jung also helps the previously independent Seol maintain her personal safety, as she is approached by a sexual predator and a former-student-turned-stalker. By contrast, In Ho serves as a confidant and friend to Seol, as well as a potential adversary, as someone who recognizes Jung as a master manipulator and confabulator or someone who twists the truth for their own benefit. In Ho evokes several traits of Choi Young Do (Kim Woo Bin) from the 2013 series, "The Heirs." He is aware that he is not the leading man in the love story of Seol, but that does not thwart his attempts to befriend her. Bad boys are also highlighted in dramas like 'Reply 1988,' 'Angry Mom' and 'Who Are You: School 2015.' Supporters of Jung Hwan (Ryu Jun Yeol) may argue against the theory that he could be considered the dark knight of "Reply 1988," as the boy who broke the heart of a teenaged Duk Sun by refusing to wear the shirt she gifted to him, before jokingly confessing to her, years later. While his actions were motivated by his attempts to protect his friend, Taek (Park Bo Gum), his sullen interactions with Duk Sun are on-par with characters like Choi Young Do. Teen dramas also tend to elevate bad boys above their studious counterparts. Ji Soo was the breakout star of the 2015 series, "Angry Mom," after receiving accolades for his portrayal of Go Bok Dong, a rough-around-the-edges bully. BtoB's Yook Sungjae catapulted to stardom as an acclaimed acting idol after transforming the role of Gong Tae Kwang, the problematic son of a principal in "Who Are You: School 2015," into an iconic character. What are your thoughts on K-Drama bad boys? Do you think Jung from "Cheese in the Trap" is an unlikely hero? Comment below. Melodie Gliniewicz, 51, of Antioch,Ill., appearars at the Lake County sheriff's office after she was indicted in Waukegan, Ill., by a Lake County grand jury. The grand jury on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, indicted the 51-year-old Gliniewicz on felony counts of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority for personal benefit. (Mark Welsh/Daily Herald via AP) LINCOLN Concerns about gun violence in Nebraska's two largest cities trumped an effort to banish local firearm laws in the Legislature on Wednesday. A proposal to eliminate cities' ability to restrict firearms beyond what is included under state law failed to overcome a days-long filibuster, falling short by a single vote. "It was an exceedingly sweeping bill," said Speaker Galen Hadley of Kearney, who joined opponents in voting to block the measure. As written, the bill would have pre-empted local ordinances in Lincoln that ban guns from domestic violence shelters and drug abuse treatment centers, and prohibit a wider range of offenders from possessing firearms than is covered under state law. In Omaha, the measure would have dashed a local law aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of juvenile gang members and a registration requirement that allows police to deny handguns for those who are mentally ill or involved in documented gang activity. Supporters, including the bill's sponsor, Sen. Laura Ebke of Crete, said those local ordinances encroach on Nebraskans' constitutional right to bear arms, and threaten responsible gun owners who might unknowingly break the law while traveling throughout the state. They also called the local laws ineffective. "These feel-good attempts have done nothing," said Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte, pointing to Omaha's climbing murder rates and calling that city's handgun registry requirement a joke. Still, Ebke and senators from Lincoln and Omaha spent days attempting to hammer out a compromise that could protect certain city ordinances while preserving the essence of the overall bill. Those talks failed, and both sides Wednesday morning accused each other of being unwilling to waver using virtually identical language. Several senators said they were prepared to support Ebke's bill with an amendment proposed by Lincoln Sen. Adam Morfeld. His proposal would have rewritten the measure to reflect a federal law protecting gun owners who travel between states. That point to protect responsible gun owners from elsewhere in the state from unknowingly breaking local laws was the main argument raised in favor of Ebke's bill during a public hearing on the measure last year, Morfeld said. Ebke said Morfeld's proposal would have gutted her bill. It's unclear whether the amendments could have been adopted anyway, with Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers saying he would use legislative rules to block changes that would cause more of his colleagues to support the bill. During debate that grew emotional at times, opponents argued cities are best positioned to restrict guns in their communities, based on the first-hand experiences of local law enforcement. "They live on those streets every single day," Morfeld said. Sen. Rick Kolowski of Omaha recounted being held at gunpoint with a group of travelers on the Amazon River in Peru in the 1990s. One member of his group was shot. "You don't want that to happen in your life," Kolowski said. "You don't want to see that happen to a member of your family. You don't want to see someone bleeding on the floor in front of you while pressing his wound with a tablecloth." Ebke read an email from a Lincoln defense attorney, Korey Reiman, who questioned the city's ordinances on practical and legal terms. Reiman argued anyone who brings a gun into a domestic violence shelter with the intent to do harm wouldn't be worried about the city's ban because that person would already be facing felony charges for making terroristic threats. And people convicted of misdemeanor crimes already unknowingly break the law under Lincoln's more expansive gun ban. "A city should not have the power to add on (an) additional misdemeanor offense, where a guy gets a $100 fine, to strip him of his constitutional right," Reiman said. But opponents of Ebke's bill cited concerns raised by the Omaha police union and Lincoln Mayor Chris Beutler. Sen. Heath Mello of Omaha said the handgun registry is a tool law enforcement uses every day in his city. "We could have more homicides if this would go away," he said of the registry. Wednesday's vote made Jan Hobbs, an anti-gun-violence activist from Franklin, ecstatic. She survived 15 minutes at gunpoint by a friend's abusive husband 38 years ago, and says she drove 2 1/2 hours from her hometown to the state Capitol each day this week to watch the debate. The outcome doesn't just protect people in Omaha and Lincoln, she said. "I think that it was a very good thing for Nebraska." The 50 most dangerous cities in the world have been named and shamed, and an astonishing 21 of them are in Brazil. Latin America features highly in the ranking, released by Mexicos Citizens Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice, as it is home to some 41 of the cities listed. Drug trafficking, gang wars, political instability, corruption and poverty are to blame for the high homicide rates across the region, which has just 8 per cent of the worlds population, according to UN data. But the list doesn't just include Latin America, with U.S. cities St Louis, Baltimore, Detroit and New Orleans also featuring. +9 Anger: A demonstrator wields two rocks in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas in February 2014, which has been named the world's most dangerous city +9 Dangerous: A demonstrator throws a Molotov cocktail in the Venezuelan capital city of Caracas, which a homicide rate of 119.87 per 100,000 inhabitants Confrontation breaks out in Caracas between police and students Progress: 0% 00:00 Play Mute Current Time 0:00 / Duration Time 1:45 Fullscreen Need Text Venezuelas capital city Caracas has taken the top spot for the ranking which is based on the number of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants of the city in 2015, and doesn't take war zones into account. Just this month, Venezuelan first lady Cilia Flores insisted that two of her nephews have been kidnapped by the U.S. authorities, after they were indicted on drug trafficking charges. Franqui Flores de Freitas, 30, and Efrain Campo Flores, 29, sparked a public scandal when they were arrested in Haiti in November in an operation involving the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Caracas snatched the Number One place from San Pedro Sula, in Honduras, which had been in first place for the past four years. Venezuela's increasingly volatile political and economic situation has been blamed for the spike in violent crime. The notoriously dangerous city of San Pedro Sula dropped to second place, after slashing its homicide rate from 171.20 to 111.03. Honduras hit headlines last month after the violent killing of Rangers football star Arnold Peralta at the hands of gangsters. +9 Protection: Armed police line up in a street in violent San Pedro Sula in an attempt to control the violence aggravated by Mexican drug cartels. The city has managed to slash its homicide rate from 171 to 111 per 100,000 inhabitants +9 Arrest: Members of the MS-13 gang are detained near the crime scene where two men were killed as they rode a motorcycle on their way to work, in San Salvador, El Salvador in January 2016 +9 Violence: Supporters and opponents of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez fight during a protest in Caracas in March 2013. The capital city took the top spot from San Pedro Sula, in Honduras, which has taken first place for the past four years +9 Gangsters: An imprisoned member of street gang Mara 18 at the Izalco prison, in San Salvador in May 2013. Drugs trafficking and street gangs are blamed for the high levels of violence in Latin America He was gunned down in broad daylight while sitting in his car at a shopping mall in La Ceiba. Journalist Sonia Nazari told the U.S. Congress last year how 'people are found hacked apart, heads cut off, skinned alive', and described hijackers who thought little of slaughtering a bus full of people if they didn't hand over their money quick enough. El Salvadors San Salvador, Acapulco in Mexico and Maturin in Venezuela make up the rest of the top five. Although the list is almost entirely made up of cities in Latin America, it also features Cape Town, in South Africa, in ninth place; St Louis, in Missouri, in 15th; Baltimore, Maryland, in 19th; Detroit, Michigan, in 28th; New Orleans, in Louisiana, in 32nd; Kingston in Jamaica in 33rd; Durban, South Africa, in 41st; Nelson Mandela Bay, in South Africa, in 42nd; and Johannesburg, South Africa, in 47th. One dead, dozens injured in violent protests in Acapulco Progress: 0% 00:00 Play Mute Current Time 0:00 / Duration Time 1:48 Fullscreen Need Text +9 Force: A protester holds a stick in front of riot police officers evicting demonstrators during a blockage on the road to Acapulco in February 2015. Mexico's Acapulco is fourth in the list of most dangerous cities in the world +9 Bloody: The body of a man who was murdered in February 2011 in Acapulco, Mexico, which has been named as the fourth most violent city in the world. But Mexico has also seen the most number of cities drop off the list this year +9 Unrest: A man walks past a flaming police van in April 2015 in Baltimore, U.S., which has been placed 19th on a list of the most dangerous cities in the world We make this ranking with the political objective of calling attention to the violence in the cities, particularly in Latin America, so that their governments are under pressure to improve their obligation to protect their citizens, to guarantee their right to public security, said Citizens Council in the report. Mexico is home to the most number of cities which dropped off the list this year, with five cities no longer featuring. The cities of Chihuahua, Cuernavaca, Juarez, Nuevo Laredo and Torreon are no longer included on the list, thanks to significant decreases in their homicide rates. Meanwhile, Palmira in Colombia saw the most dramatic increase, rising from 32nd place in last year's list to eighth. Its homicide rate almost doubled in 2015, rising from 37.66 to 70.88. The ranking only takes into account cities with a population of more than 300,000, and doesnt include deaths in combat zones or cities with unavailable data this explains why some cities that would be expected on the list dont feature. 826 Shares Share The promise that information technology holds for health care is, quite literally, amazing. So far, it has enabled us to get rid of paper charts (not to mention the age-old problem of illegible doctors handwriting), negated the need to trawl through mountains of files to find old clinical data, and introduced much-needed safety improvements such as medication alerts. But anyone practicing at the frontlines of medicine over the last few years will also be very familiar with the negatives: reduced face time with patients, lost productivity, and daily clinician frustrations with the IT solutions that have been put before us. As someone who has personally witnessed the information technology roll-out in several different hospitals up and down the east coast, Ive also keenly been observing the relationship between the world of health care IT and clinical medicine. A recent online article about the problems with information technology, citing legitimate concerns from a clinical standpoint, attracted a comment from an IT professional that particularly caught my attention. The comment stated that he had worked in hospitals during the roll-out process, and couldnt understand why physicians were not embracing IT. He then went on to lament how physicians shouldnt resist change and must learn to work accordingly. This comment alone summed up the gulf that exists between the two worlds one that at times seems almost unbridgeable. The most palpable problem from the clinical world is that whether we are talking about IT programmers, designers, entrepreneurs or simply administrators, these professionals consistently fail to recognize that the work of a physician is primarily one that involves people and relationships. To many of them, the more time a physician spends at a computer terminal and the more IT tasks that can be given to them, the better. After all, in their world, its all about computers and technology right? So heres three things for all IT folk to remember, whatever their pay grade: 1. Most physicians, unlike many other professions, went into medicine to deal with human beings. Information technology, while very much the future, should be a minimal part of what a physician does on a daily basis (at least as minimal as possible when it involves desk work). 2. Health care is an intensely personal and human arena. It is about relationships and very raw emotions of illness and sickness. Remember that. What you do is a vital adjunct, but is far (and not even close) to being everything that health care is about. Data collection, cloud solutions, and mobile apps are not at the core of good clinical medicine. 3. The majority of patients right now, and for the foreseeable future, are elderly and, in reality, dont care too much about computers and technology at the frontlines of health care. They want good thorough bedside medicine, a compassionate and caring ear, and to get better as soon as possible Our two worlds need to exist together. Most physicians know that technology represents the future and want to help make IT better. Perhaps consider shadowing a physician to better understand what frontline medicine is really all about? Because tomorrow it could be your mum, dad or other loved one that requires a good and competent doctor. The IT solutions of the future need to be super-efficient, seamless and mobile. They need to be seen and not heard and ultimately, help take doctors and nurses back to where they belong: with their patients. Only when the world of technology reconciles itself to the world of clinical medicine, can we truly fulfill the immense promise of health care IT. Suneel Dhand is an internal medicine physician and author of three books, includingThomas Jefferson: Lessons from a Secret Buddha. He is the founder and director, HealthITImprove, and blogs at his self-titled site, Suneel Dhand. Image credit: Shutterstock.com 459 Shares Share Health care in America is fracturing right down the middle, and doctors are going to have to figure out if or how long they can straddle the divide between what patients want and what the government and corporate America want them to have. Up until this point, the momentum has been with the payers, Medicare, and the insurance industry. But the more heavy-handed they become, the more inevitable the public backlash is becoming. It will come down to this, a kind of straight face test for health care: Would patients pay for this? The annual wellness visit, better named Medicares non-physical and some forms of population management are examples. Both are great ideas; an annual health review and planning session as well as doctors maintaining an overview of, and reaching out to, high-risk groups of patients in theory neither would be anything to argue with. But the way it has to be done today, if we want to get paid, micromanaged from afar through bureaucratic edicts, is alienating the patients this was all intended to benefit. Totalitarian health care is doomed I grew up and went to medical school in a socialist country. I admit Sweden had a kinder, gentler, soft-core socialism, but I also visited and followed the news about the Soviet Union, the Baltic states, East Germany and the former Czechoslovakia. American health care, as manifested by Medicare and the big insurance companies, is more and more starting to look like my visit to the Soviet Union with my surgery class in 1977. The most striking example of disregard of individual customer preference I saw was at a very large restaurant near the Red Square. The sour-faced, haggard breakfast waitstaff told our group bluntly that we could all have either coffee or tea, but they could not accommodate individual orders for different beverages. The planned economy of the Soviet Union collapsed, and I suspect its counterpart in American health care eventually will, too. I think our system will split in two: One system for what patients see value in, and would pay for, and another system, which the politicians want them to have, but which most people would have nothing to do with if they had any say in where their health care dollars go. Two dichotomies are driving this inevitable split down the middle of our health care system: First, the improbable marriage of public health and medical care; and, second, the opposing ideals of standardization and individualization. Public health vs. medical care It is insanely inefficient to mandate that highly trained physicians, with an opportunity cost of $7 to 10 per minute in primary care, and multiples of that in many procedural specialties, carry forth the nations public health agenda with their patients one by one during their office visits. Medicares requirement that we document an intervention for every patient we see with a body mass index over 30 is a glaring example of that. Having our nurses or other staff members do that isnt much better. Our teams have a lot of tasks and routines to maintain proficiency in, and since obesity affects a large proportion of our society, it would be better addressed on a national, cultural and political level. It suddenly became our job, it seems, as health care professionals, because whoever had the ball before us failed at fixing the problem. But soft drinks and breakfast cereals are made by big, powerful corporations, and our Government lacks the guts to reign them in. So, someone thought, let the docs spin their wheels for a while; they dont have enough to do. A health care system designed for setting fractures, treating pneumonias and removing appendixes is ill-suited for treating societal ills. Quite frankly, it doesnt pass the straight-face test: Ask citizens if they want their health insurance premiums (or out-of-pocket costs in a direct primary care model) to cover a la carte anti-obesity campaigns or if that should be included in State and Federal budgets. I know what the answer will be. The difference here isnt subtle: If public health is financed through workers insurance premiums, its cost is more evenly spread, and thus affects middle and lower income people more than if it comes out of corporate (think Pepsi, Coke, General Mills and Ocean Spray) and progressive personal income taxes. Standardization vs. individualization There is a rapidly growing interest in personalized health care in America today among patients and health care entrepreneurs. Genetic profiling is now used in choosing which medications to prescribe, for example. At the same time, payers are tying reimbursement to doctors adherence to blanket recommendations (read evidence-based treatments) derived from large population studies that were designed to find lowest common denominators: In general, for example, low dose aspirin, beta blockers, lower blood pressures and blood sugars are helpful, but we are now seeing that there are more and more subgroups of patients who dont have the expected benefits from any given evidence-based intervention. In some cases, people are harmed by them. As long as Medicare and the insurance companies hold the purse strings actually, dole our own money back to us according to their standards the welfare of a few is routinely sacrificed for the benefit of the many. Again, applying the straight face test, patients wouldnt want to pay us for delivering care to them that was designed or chosen to help someone else, just so we could show off high compliance rates. If doctors are held in too tight a grip of uniformity by the conventional insurers, patients in this new era of deepened insight into the variation of disease expression will take their money to providers and insurers who will respect their preferences. A moral compass The straight face test has to be our moral compass as we work our way through our daily allotment of twenty-odd patient encounters with fifteen minutes to spend as wisely as humanly possible. People can vote their politicians out of office; they can form cost sharing cooperatives or sign up for direct primary care. But we, physicians, need to make sure we dont forget who ultimately are our customers. Even without politicians and insurance conglomerates, there will always be doctors and patients. May we never lose our trust in each other. A Country Doctor is a family physician who blogs at A Country Doctor Writes:. Image credit: Shutterstock.com DO YOU have a Boulevard Aristide-Briand near you? Or do you send your child to school in a Jules-Ferry or a lycee Emile Combes? If so, you are already familiar with key names in the construction of the French Republic. Between them, these three politicians were responsible for free state schooling, obligatory education for girls and the rock of state neutrality towards religion on which la Republique is built: the principle of laicite. The term is very much in the news, with a new laicite charter being introduced into schools this autumn alongside classes in morale laique. Presenting the charter, Minister for Education Vincent Peillon explained: Everyone is free to have his own opinions but no one has the right to contest teaching content or miss a class in the name of religious precepts. Public debate over the Muslim community in France pops up in the news regularly and is nearly always related in one way or another to perceived challenges to this element of the Constitution. Peillons remarks refer also to repeated evangelist pressure to alter class content, in particular regarding the theory of evolution. A recent example was the proposal to swap two Christian holidays with Jewish and Muslim ones: confusing whether France was secular or multi-religious. Left and Right politicians often unite to initiate laws to protect laicite. Once the source of conflict with the Catholic Right over private education funding, the principle, an important element in the integration process, regularly generates ill feeling these days among extremist sectors of the Muslim community. That is why, a century after the original 1905 law, several new laws have been passed to protect it. First, a few explanations. Laicite does not translate well. Secularity is close but confusing. Laicite is not easy to define either. It has evolved over two centuries and is evolving still. The concept was born of the Revolution, which guaranteed freedom of conscience to all and first separated State and Church. Napoleon backtracked, signing a concordat with the Vatican in 1801 that was to poison Church-State relations during the 19th century and put laicite on the back burner for much of it. (For historical reasons, this concordat still applies in Alsace and Moselle.) Having been suppressed by the Vichy regime (along with liberte, egalite, fraternite without which laicite could not function), the principle was cast in the constitution of the Fourth Republic in 1946 the State is indivisible, laic, democratic and social and remains firmly in that of todays Fifth. To understand the concept is to go a long way towards understanding the French. Maybe it could be defined as their permanent search for a delicate balance between sharing what they all hold in common, the Republic, and catering for diversity. It is the principle that protects both personal and collective liberty and, as such, is the responsibility of both State and citizen. The indivisibility of the State is the States refusal to recognise any religious or ethnic community. France is one. There are two major dates in the history of laicite: 1881 and 1905. In 1881-82, Minister of Education Jules Ferry decreed school to be publique, gratuite et laique state-run, free and non-clerical. Teaching in French to a national programme provided children, whatever their linguistic background or beliefs, with the theoretical possibility of equal opportunity. It created a framework in which adults could bring no pressure to bear on pupils to adhere to any philosophy, religion or political idea. That remains the basis of the French educational system today. The 1905 law, engineered by Emile Combes and Aristide Briand, enforced the neutrality of the State and State institutions through the separation of the Churches and the State. Since that date, the State recognises no religion and therefore cannot directly fund any either. If the same law grants the individual total liberty and privacy regarding beliefs, there is one condition: they must not disturb public order. Given the repeated trauma that religion has caused in Frances recent history from the Wars of Religion to the expulsion of the Huguenots and the Dreyfus affair this means no proselytising and nothing that could be remotely interpreted as such. It also explains why, in France, religious belief is far more than a private matter. Things spiritual belong to the realm of intimacy. It is extremely unusual to see anyone wearing any conspicuous religious symbol in public. To do so is perceived as a deliberate act, a message to others. It is unthinkable to ask someone what their religion is and most people will be frankly embarrassed by anyone saying what theirs is. When Nicolas Sarkozy publicly announced he had appointed Frances first Muslim prefect, he sent shockwaves throughout the land. Knowing this helps in understanding intense French reaction to young girls wearing veils. It is seen not only as an unacceptable way of bringing religion into the public sphere, but also a form of peer pressure on other girls to do the same. Which takes us back to Jules Ferry and neutrality in the classroom. This insistence on the privacy of beliefs was of course also reinforced after World War II by the fate of Frances Jews under the Vichy regime, and the obligation to publicly show their religion by wearing the yellow star. As a result of the trauma of State responsibility in their deportation and extermination, no statistics may be made regarding peoples religious beliefs, ethnic origin or colour. All citizens are not only equal, but remain neutral in the eyes of the State. The mosque debate The 1905 law was finally well accepted by both Catholic and Protestant churches in France, who benefited financially when the State handed existing buildings and their costly maintenance over to local authorities. But the State cannot fund new religious buildings. Hence the mosque-building debate and recent legislation allowing local authorities to contribute. For with generous donations from Saudi Arabia and Muslim foundations abroad pouring in, the inherent risk of encouraging fundamentalist movements to develop in France is obvious. Under the Nicolas Sarkozy government, the training of imams in France to Republican principles was considered. But the State cannot finance religious education either. The impasse has been paradoxically circumvented by the Catholic University offering courses, and Algerian imams due to work in France being trained in French and laicite at the government-funded Institut Francais in Algiers. Conspicuous symbols and full-face veils After a number of potentially inflammatory cases in which some schools were confronted with Muslim girls wearing Islamic headscarves, legislation was passed in 2004 banning the wearing of any conspicuous religious symbol or sign in state schools. Never specifically aimed at the Muslim community (kippas, large crosses and Sikh turbans fall under the same category), the new law, despite fears it would be perceived as discriminatory and arouse further reaction, had the almost immediate effect of calming the situation, though some veiled Muslim girls and turbaned Sikhs found their way to private schools. But this legislated solely for public schools, not privately run establishments. In March of this year, Fatima Afif, an employee dismissed in 2008 from the privately run Baby Loup creche in the Yvelines for refusing to remove her headscarf, won on appeal for wrongful dismissal on the grounds of religious discrimination. New legislation is now under consideration to cover pre-school structures and religious symbols in the workplace, none of which are currently covered by law. When, in late July, a police officer in the town of Trappes stopped a fully veiled young women for an ID check in the middle of Ramadan, he did not know he was unleashing days of rioting. But Cassandra, 22, was not infringing any law on laicite. This time it was the one against dissimulating the face in the public sphere, put into effect by the Sarkozy government in 2011. Introduced ostensibly as anti-terrorism legislation, many felt its real purpose was more anti-veil. In fact, the number of women in France wearing the niqab is extremely small, and the number of women fined likewise. Laicite with an adjective The latest solution of Frances politicians to calm the debate has been to add adjectives. Sarkozy invented laicite positive, in which the government took into account the existence of religious groups in France. He created a representative Muslim council, through which to address the Muslim community in France. Representative of only a portion of Frances Muslims, many of whom are non-practising, it has created more problems than it has solved. The Hollande government has coined laicite apaisee, a low-profile approach in which negotiation would replace legislation as the best way of winning over those who regard the principle with suspicion. True laicistes believe the principle cannot survive any moderating tags. It must exist alone. Universities oppose campus headscarf ban proposal In early August, Le Monde published a report signed by members of the Haut Comite de lIntegration (HCI), a body no longer briefed to deal with laicite since the creation of a separate mission last April. It called for a Muslim headscarf ban in universities. Government replies were swift but hardly in unison. Minister of the Interior Manuel Valls stated evasively that the subject needed to be considered, while Genevieve Fioraso, Minister for Higher Education, warned that we should avoid problems where there are none. For Gerard Blanchard, president of La Rochelle University, and vice-president of the national CPU, Conference des Presidents dUniversite, laicite is not an issue on his campus or anywhere in France. We have 14% foreign students in La Rochelle, mostly from South East Asia, and we only ask women students to take off their veils in science laboratories, for safety reasons. That has never posed a problem. The University Presidents Conference has issued a public statement against any specific university ban. For Blanchard, the over-mediatised debate that burst upon us mid-summer is without foundation. He is adamant that he has never had a complaint from a teacher. An environmentalist, he is far more concerned by pressure that could be brought on teachers to introduce non-scientific versions of the origins of the universe into the syllabus. No university teacher should ever have to submit to any pressure on the content of his teaching. Jean-Loup Salzmann, president of the CPU, and president of Paris XIII, in the heart of Seine- Saint-Denis, one of the most multi-cultural universities in France, firmly believes in laicite, but sees no need for new laws on the campus. His main concern is elsewhere. He is angered by the incongruity of the State promoting laicite on the one hand, while financing the Catholic universities on the other. Expressing a personal opinion, he said: The main issue for these young Muslim women, who have enough problems coping with family pressure, is to achieve independence and emancipation through their studies, whether they wear a veil or not. An anti-veil law would achieve the opposite of what we want. Many of these women would then not have access to university at all. How the principle of laicite is applied today NICOLAS Cadene, chairman of the Observatoire de la Laicite, a watchdog committee created last April by President Francois Hollande to report on how the principle of laicite is applied in France today, spoke to Connexion. Can you define this difficult concept for our readers? Laicite is a principle which allows us all to live together. It is not a ban on religion or religious practices. On the contrary, it guarantees believers and non-believers alike the freedom to express themselves, to practise or not to practise a religion as they choose, on condition that public order is not disturbed. The State adopts an attitude of total impartiality towards citizens, who are all equal in the eyes of the State. Do the current religious bank holidays not favour one religious group? Christian festivals have, for the majority, become traditional holidays with little religious significance. Still, the State does not want to be seen as favouring one religion over another. In 1905, there was no Muslim population. But I dont think this poses a real problem. Employees can use their RTT (recuperation of unpaid overtime in the form of days off) as they wish. The Stasi Commission (set up by President Jacques Chirac in 2003) went a long way towards identifying issues in the workplace. We shall build on that. The conspicuous religious symbols ban was seen as directed only at women. Is that not a form of discrimination? If people set out to present themselves in a way which is obviously a proselytising or a provocative attitude, that is not acceptable. It is not so much what people wear or their physical appearance, as the reason behind the choice. This is one of the subjects we shall be working on. Islam has no clerical hierarchy. Isnt the laicite legislation trying to apply to individuals a law aimed at an institution? Doesnt the 1905 law need to be adapted? Not at all. The principle enables us all to live together. But, of course, we must avoid situations in which one group feels stigmatised by the law. That is one of our major subjects of reflexion. But there is no question of adapting the principle to new circumstances. It is one of bringing people to understand that laicite is not a ban on religious practice but a system of personal freedom and helping them to adapt to the principle. There has been talk in the press over banning the Islamic headscarf at university. [The full-face veil is already banned anywhere in public]. The State has a duty to protect minors from any form of ideological persuasion, hence the headscarf ban in schools. University is a world of adults. But the Republic has a duty to protect its citizens against the dangers of extremism. Some people attribute to laicite powers it simply does not have. There is an urgent need for strong political action, at state and local level, in order to resolve the many problems the threat of extremism has brought to certain sectors of society. The Observatoire has published its first report, a history and background to the concept. What else has it achieved? We helped draw up two important documents: the laicite charter and the syllabus for non-religious morality for schools. Both take effect this year. In addition, our report has pinpointed situations needing close attention in public administrations and local authorities (non-Metropolitan France included), as well as in the private sector. How do you see your work developing? We need a better definition of laicite that reiterates the States position of neutrality and is more clearly understood by all, in France and at an international level. We are drawing up guidelines for the application of laicite and religious practice in the workplace, and in the wake of the Baby Loup issue [see main article], for pre-school structures. We must show people how to react to situations. Overreaction is one of the major problems we face, when so much could be achieved by negotiation and taking things calmly. (Kitco News) - Germanys gold repatriation plan continues to progress, picking up momentum in 2015, according to a press release from the Deutsche Bundesbank. Thursday, the German central bank said that Frankfurt is now its largest gold storage location, holding about 1,402.5 tonnes of the yellow metal, representing 41.5% of its global holdings. In an update to it repatriation plan, the bank said that it transferred 110 tonnes of gold from Paris vaults and 99.5 tonnes of gold from New York. Since the project started, the central bank has transferred a total of 366.3 tonnes of gold back to Germany, representing 54% of the total gold to be transferred. "The transfers are proceeding smoothly. We have succeeded in once again significantly increasing the transport volume compared with 2014. This means that operations are running very much according to schedule," said Carl-Ludwig Thiele, member of the executive board of the Deutsche Bundesbank, in the Bundesbanks press release. The German central bank has five more years to complete to reach its repatriation goal, transferring a total of 673.3 tonnes of gold from Paris and New York. The plan, which was announced in late 2012, was to transfer all of Germanys gold in Paris and about 8% of its total holdings in New York. The bank is not transferring any of its gold held in London vaults. Along with its gold holdings in Frankfurt, the bank said that it still holds 1,347.5 tonnes of gold in New York, representing 39.9% of its holdings; 434.7 tonnes of gold in London, representing 12.9% of its holdings; and 196.4 tonnes in Paris, or 5.8%. According to the data compiled by the World Gold Council, Germany has the second-highest gold reserves in the world, just behind the U.S., and its gold represents 66.5% of its total foreign reserves. While Germany continues to make headlines with its gold transfer, it was not alone in wanting its gold bank. 2015 was a busy year as the Dutch central bank moved 122.5 tonnes of its gold back to Amsterdam. The Belgium and Austrian central banks have also expressed interest in repatriation of their reserves. By Neils Christensen of Kitco News; nchristensen@kitco.com Follow Neils Christensen @neils_C WEDNESDAY, Jan. 27, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Antidepressants appear to be much more dangerous for children and teens than reported in medical journals, because initial published results from clinical trials did not accurately note instances of suicide and aggression, a new study suggests. Young people actually have a doubled risk of aggression and suicide when taking one of the five most commonly prescribed antidepressants, according to the new analysis published in the Jan. 27 issue of BMJ. Earlier published drug trial results masked those risks by not accurately reporting suicide attempts or suicidal thoughts, and by not emphasizing instances of increased aggression, said study author Tarang Sharma, a researcher with the Nordic Cochrane Centre at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. The new analysis revealed these risks by skipping the published studies, and instead gathering information from detailed clinical study reports filed with government regulators as part of the drug approval process, Sharma explained. Sharma said the differences between the published results and the data provided to regulators has shaken her faith in the summary findings of clinical trials that appear in medical journals. "For me, the biggest lesson was never to trust a journal publication of a trial again," she said, arguing that all drug trial data should be made public. "We all need to move towards developing guidance and doing systematic reviews using the original complete data, at the individual patient level." The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America responded to the new analysis by pointing out a set of principles for responsible clinical drug trial data sharing that went into effect for its members in 2014. "While we cannot comment on the specific clinical trials of various companies, our members are committed to sharing data," the industry trade group said in a statement. Anecdotal reports have been piling up of suicidal behavior and aggression in children taking two types of antidepressants -- selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), the study authors said in background information. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a public warning in 2004 about the risk of suicide in children and teens treated with SSRIs. That warning came after a government review found youngsters who took the drugs were twice as likely to try to harm themselves as those who took inactive "placebo" pills. The agency expanded its black box warning on the drugs in 2007 to include adults younger than age 25. But more recent research has challenged the idea that antidepressants are dangerous for kids and young adults. To try to assess the true extent of the dangers, Sharma and her colleagues requested clinical study reports for approved SSRIs and SNRIs from two European regulatory agencies. The research team wound up focusing on 68 clinical study reports from 70 drug trials that involved more than 18,500 patients. The trials involved five specific antidepressants: duloxetine (Cymbalta), fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil), sertraline (Zoloft) and venlafaxine (Effexor). Researchers analyzed the data in those reports, and compared their findings to results published in medical journals. Their analysis concluded that the risk of aggression and suicide doubled in kids taking one of these antidepressants, a result that had not been reported in earlier published reports. They found no similar association in adults. Risks to children from antidepressants included deaths, suicidal thoughts and attempts, as well as aggression and akathisia, a form of restlessness that may increase suicide and violence. Published reports from clinical trials appeared to misclassify deaths and suicidal events in people taking antidepressants, the researchers found. For example, four deaths were misreported by a pharmaceutical company, in all cases downplaying the role of the antidepressant, the authors of the new analysis said. Researchers also found more than half of the suicide attempts and instances of suicidal thoughts in the clinical trials were coded as "emotional lability" or "worsening of depression," again downplaying the seriousness of side effects, the study authors said. In summary trial reports from drug maker Eli Lilly and Co., almost all deaths were noted but suicidal attempts were missing in 90 percent of instances, and information on other outcomes was incomplete, according to the new analysis. "I would not like to speculate whether the drug companies left out certain information from their results on purpose or why," Sharma said. "That said, most of the errors favored the drug of interest, which is disturbing, and the obvious financial conflict of interest is overwhelming." In response to the findings, Eli Lilly issued a statement "to set the record straight." "There is nothing more important to Lilly than the safety of our medicines. The medical issues about these antidepressants have been addressed in our data submissions to the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] or regulators in other countries and in scientific journals and conferences for more than 20 years," the statement said. "No regulatory authority has ever determined that Lilly withheld or improperly disclosed any data related to these medications." Joanna Moncrieff, a senior lecturer of psychiatry at University College London in England, said this is the first analysis that links antidepressants to increased aggression in children. "Doctors should be more cautious about prescribing to everyone and to young people especially, and regulators should put a warning on drug labels about aggressive behavior as well as suicide," said Moncrieff, who wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal. Sharma suggested that parents whose children take antidepressants should talk with their doctor. "No one should stop taking their antidepressants suddenly, that would be very dangerous," she said. "In my view, patients and their families should work with their clinical professionals to plan a stopping strategy, which could be a very long process as many people have long-lasting withdrawal effects from the drugs. This should also be done in combination with starting other effective alternative therapies." Sharma and her colleagues also expressed concern that the risks to kids may be even greater than what they reported in their new analysis. Clinical study reports could not be obtained for all drug trials and all antidepressants, and individual listings of adverse outcomes for all patients were available for only 32 trials. Moncrieff and Sharma agreed that the data from these drug trials need to be made publicly available, so independent researchers can assess the true risks of antidepressants. However, Moncrieff said even that may not be enough to gain a complete understanding. "Drug company information, even that supplied to regulators, is not reliable," she said. "We need studies of risks and benefits of antidepressants and other drugs that are funded and conducted by organizations that do not have profits at stake." More information For more on depression, visit the U.S. National Institutes of Health. (Kitco News) - As the fear trade continues to push more investors towards gold, an interesting infographic began circulating the wire giving three reasons why it may be a good idea to hold some of the yellow metal in your portfolio this year. Investors have shown a renewed interest in gold since the beginning of the year as they look for a safe-haven asset amid turmoil in equity and oil markets as well as concerns over emerging market economies, particularly China. And Visual Capitalist is no different. Tuesday, the company, which focuses on created exclusive inforgraphics to showcase business opportunities and investment trends, released its latest visual focused entirely on the yellow metal. As seen on the inforgraphic, the first reason to hold gold is to stay the course. Its often mentioned that by buying and holding stocks through good and bad times is the best way to guarantee returns, the visual showed. The infographic added that returns on gold since pre-financial crisis are more than double that of the returns on equity over the same period. This is true even with gold declining roughly 40% in price since late 2011, it added. Another reason to hold gold, it showed, is that equities tend to suffer catastrophic losses in the final years of a two-term president, which is the case in 2016 with Barrack Obama looking to wind down his presidency. Finally, another reason to hold gold is related to its relation to oil prices. According to the inforgraphic, the gold-to-oil ratio tends to be high in times of financial turmoil. Currently the ratio is 37, which is the highest it has ever been in history, the infographic said. The research also noted that gold miner production is expected to have peaked and start declining this year. Yet, this declining output is not yet seen in the gold price, it said, suggesting that fundamentally, prices should rise. By Sarah Benali of Kitco News; sbenali@kitco.com Follow me on Twitter @SdBenali SHARE By Kitsap Sun Staff BREMERTON Solid Curtain/Citadel Shield, an annual security exercise, will take place at Naval Base Kitsap installations from Feb. 1 to Feb. 12. People accessing base installations should plan for possible delays at the gates. Communities surrounding the bases might see increased military activity, and possible traffic and pedestrian congestion associated with the exercise. Solid Curtain/Citadel Shield is a force protection and anti-terrorism exercise conducted on all Navy installations in the continental United States. The annual exercise uses realistic scenarios to ensure Navy security forces remain ready to respond to threats. SHARE By Kitsap Sun Staff BELFAIR A North Mason High School student was arrested Wednesday after being accused of raping a female student in the parking lot of the high school. The girl told a school employee about the assault, and the employee contacted deputies, according to a statement from the Mason County Sheriff's Office. The student told the school employee that an older student she knows lured her to a vehicle in the school parking lot during school hours and raped her, according to the statement. Further, the female student said the suspect told her not to tell anyone. The girl's guardian took her to Harrison Medical Center for an evaluation. Detectives arrested the male student Wednesday. "We can't stress enough how important it is for sexual assaults to be reported so that victims can begin receiving the clinical care they need as well as to help us stop future abuse from occurring," Chief Deputy Ryan Spurling said in the statement. The suspect was reportedly being held in Mason County Juvenile Detention. SHARE Kristi Margaret Bell of Port Orchard Nov. 8, 1956 to Jan. 24, 2016 Kristi M. Bell was known for her brilliant smile, sparkling eyes, and caring personality. Kristi, 59, left this world on Jan. 24, 2016, after fighting a courageous battle with her third bout of cancer (pancreatic this time). She was born Nov. 8, 1956, in Seattle, Washington, and dedicated her entire life to making small contributions towards making the word a better place. She attended massage school in Olympia and became a licensed massage therapist. She worked in partnership with Carol Dudley and Roger Cloutier, dedicating her career to providing healing touch to the community of Port Orchard. She is survived by her dear husband, Andy Cloward; daughter, Amber Bell; sister, Sharon Robertson; brother, Ken Bell; her extended family, a huge community of amazing friends, and her pets (the bunnies, deer, and pink flamingos who live in the yard). A celebration of her life will take place later in the year. Kristi had an amazing love of whimsy and went out of her way to bring small moments of joy to friends, family, and strangers alike. She was an especially prolific letter writer, making sure every piece of mail had a sufficient number of stickers attached. She also loved the water and nothing made her happier than walking around the beaches of Port Orchard searching for special rocks and watching the wildlife. Kristi would "borrow" the rocks, take them home, and paint little scenes on them. Later, she would leave them on forest trails or other places for strangers to find. Injecting some fun surprises into the lives of others always made her happy. Kristi was a sparkling delight to the world and we will all miss the vibrancy and love she gave all of us. In lieu of sorrow, express your love. Send a thoughtful note to someone you admire. Give a stranger a small gift. Live your life with gratitude and to the fullest. And say hello to the ocean for Kristi. Shenandoah, IA (51601) Today Sunshine and clouds mixed. High 72F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 44F. Winds light and variable. Welcome to the Running in Cork blog, home of the Cork running community. This is the largest website in Cork & Munster for news on road races and general running news. Included are a current race calendar, race previews, photos, results as well as some local, national and international news items. The CSA is an independent, autonomous, non-partisan, non-governmental & privately funded India-centric think tank. We focus on geo-political & strategic issues related to peaceful & harmonious rise of India as a global superpower. | || Larry Rossini, who has been director of the Knoxville branch of the Tennessee Small Business Development Center for 25 years, is retiring at the end of March. He has seen a lot of success stories over the years and guilded a lot of businesses through tough times. Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL) SHARE Larry Rossini, who has been director of the Knoxville branch of the Tennessee Small Business Development Center for 25 years, is retiring at the end of March. He has seen a lot of success stories over the years and guilded a lot of businesses through tough times. Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL) By Ed Marcum of the Knoxville News Sentinel Larry Rossini has seen the business world go through a lot of change in the 25 years he has been with the Tennessee Small Business Development Center, and most of it has been over the past few years, especially through the Great Recession. Rossini, who is retiring at the end of March as director of the Knoxville branch of the organization, started out helping people who had lost jobs start businesses, then later helped many businesses navigate the recession. "But, the biggest change has been social media," he said. "There was a tremendous change in the way financing worked (during the recession), but today, the biggest change I see is if you are not in the social media world, if you don't have a website, you don't have a web presence, you don't have a way to monitor and monetize the web, you are at a disadvantage." The Knoxville branch of the Small Business Development Center, which is headquartered with the Knoxville Chamber on Market Square downtown, provides free guidance to businesses and to people considering starting businesses. It serves a seven-county area in East Tennessee and provides educational seminars, workshops, and individual consultation, plus use of a resource center. The center is run as a division of Pellissippi State Community College and is part of a network of centers affiliated with the Tennessee Board of Regents. Pellissippi State is looking for someone to succeed him in his post, Rossini said. Before joining the Small Business Development Center, Rossini was an owner in the London Fog apparel company. He worked in Knoxville and then abroad, overseeing production. A Catholic, Rossini said he felt a calling from God to leave this work and return home to Knoxville before getting involved with the small business center. He became a consultant for the Small Business Development Center at Walters State Community College in 1990, focusing on startups, then transferred to Pellissippi, where he helped out-of-work people start businesses. In 1994, the center moved to the Knoxville Chamber location. Rossini became director in 2005. Under his leadership, the center started efforts to train business people to deal with new loan requirements banks instituted in 2010 as a result of the financial crisis, and more recently began classes in social media marketing and website development. SHARE Go! Contemporary Dance Works will dance a new ballet telling the story of the Scots-Irish. Seen here are dancers Ceci Bradley, Isaiah Recker, Megan DuCote and Maggie Bendy. Photo special to the News Sentinel. Amy McRary/News Sentinel staff This big-eared, hooked-nose creature is part of a ceramic censer bowl found in modern day Gutemala. Its part of the exhibit Maya Lords of Time at the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture. Maya, Valentines featured at McClung The McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture hosts a free Family Fun Day on Jan. 30 that focuses on the museum's latest exhibit "Maya: Lords of Time." The Fun Day is 1-4 p.m. at the museum. Visitors can tour the exhibit that explores the Maya's intricate calendar system and how their kings used the calendars, write their birth dates in Mayan symbols and make a take-home craft. The University of Tennessee museum also hosts a Valentines-centered event for babies, toddlers and their parents or caregivers in February. The museum's upcoming stroller tour at 10 a.m. Feb. 8 focuses on "Love Around the World." The stroller tour is free but participants must register at the events section of the museum website http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu. Red Riding Hood at Hiwassee A version of the Red Riding Hood fairy tale will be told by the Missoula Children's Theatre in two shows Jan. 30 at Hiwassee College in Madisonville. Performances are 3:30 and 5:30 p.m. In this telling, the Big Bad Wolf may not be so bad and a friendly neighborhood Forest Ranger is part of the story. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for students and available through the hosting Monroe Area Council of the Arts, 423-442-3210, www.monroearts.com. GO! dances Scots-Irish story Go! Contemporary Dance Works performs a new full length contemporary ballet "In the Shadows of Pine Mountain: the Scots-Irish exodus from Ulster to the hills of Appalachia" Feb. 6-7. Shows are 8 p.m. Feb. 6 and 3 p.m. Feb. 7 at the Bijou Theatre, 803 S. Gay St. The ballet will tell a story that ranges from 15th-century Ireland to America's Appalachian region. Fifty dancers and seven choreographers have collaborated on the performance. Tickets are $22 for adults and $17 for children, students and senior citizens in advance at www.gocontemporarydance.com or by calling 865-539-2475. Tickets at the door are $27 and $22. SHARE Pastor Jack Wilder of Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, 6632 Chapman Highway, invites the community to the Candlemas service at 7 p.m. Sunday. A South Knoxville congregation is spending its 60th year in ministry returning to its roots by reconnecting with the community it was formed to serve. Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, 6632 Chapman Highway, will launch its renewed efforts to reach South Knoxville with a Candlemas service at 7 p.m. Sunday. "Candlemas is new for us, but it's not outside the Lutheran tradition," explained Gloria Dei Pastor Jack Wilder, who served the congregation as an interim pastor for six months starting in 2013 and returned to the church July 21. "It is a service celebrating the presentation of Christ in the Temple, as described in the New Testament, and traditionally is celebrated on Feb. 2, but we wanted to do ours on a Sunday night." Candlemas was suggested by Albert Pope, a congregation member who thought it would be a different way to kick off the church's 60th anniversary. The music will be entirely violin and harp, Wilder noted, and the service will be liturgical, with responsive readings, prayers and Bible readings, all printed in the bulletin, and a homily based on the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 2. "It's going to be fun and different and probably unique for the South Knoxville community as a whole," he said, stressing the public is invited. Any offering given at Candlemas will be given as a donation to the FISH Food Pantry at Vestal United Methodist Church, Wilder added, which goes to help the South Knoxville community. Although Gloria Dei will celebrate its 60th anniversary on Palm Sunday, with the bishop as guest preacher and a communitywide potluck afterward, the church's congregation got its start much earlier in 1808 at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, which no longer exists. "In June 1955, the Zion congregation split after their third building burned down," Wilder explained. "A faction, including the pastor, wanted to relocate the church onto Chapman Highway, where it could reach more people in the South Knoxville community." According to a brief history penned in 1991, Gloria Dei (which means "Glory to God") formally organized on Palm Sunday 1956 with 63 members and 17 "baptized minors." The congregation met in various locations, including a parsonage located on Rebecca Lane, Berry's Funeral Home and the basement of Colonial Drug Store. The Chapman Highway property where the church now stands was purchased in 1956-57, but construction of the building did not begin until 1961. Some renovations have taken place since then, Wilder said, but it's still essentially the same church as it was when it opened its doors. "Roy Burchell wrote in the 1967 annual report, 'Gloria Dei is a landmark. Often you hear people giving directions and referring to that pretty little Lutheran church on Chapman Highway,'" according to the written history. That may not be the case anymore, Wilder worries. The congregation has dwindled in number to 84 baptized members in 47 households and averaged 41 in worship at the end of 2015. "We sit here on Chapman Highway, but it's as if we're invisible," he said. "Why do they not see us? We aren't out there in the community sharing life with them. Since the decline of the congregation what is it we are actually doing to show the community the face of this congregation?'" The original vision was to serve the South Knoxville community, Wilder noted. That's why church members are using Gloria Dei's 60th anniversary to focus on doing that again. "This is a very friendly congregation," the pastor said. "Here, if they ask you how you are, they really do mean it. They care. They are very excited to see new people come in." Wilder also wants to work on connecting Gloria Dei to other faith communities in South Knoxville. A former president of the Hudson Interfaith Council, Wilder has a strong ecumenical background. (Merriam-Webster defines "ecumenical" as "involving people from different kinds of Christian churches.") One of the churches Wilder pastored during his 17 years in upstate New York even partnered with a new Roman Catholic congregation that was looking for a place to meet, and that relationship led to holding joint worship services, during which they occasionally offered joint communion, with the Catholic bishop's blessing. "Their gratitude was overwhelming," Wilder remembered of the Roman Catholic congregation, which used the Lutheran church's entire facility. "We would support their confirmation classes, and they supported ours. We partnered for Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter vigil and healing services." Wilder also developed a pulpit exchange with a local rabbi, who would preach sermons for him in the Lutheran church from time to time. When Hudson and his family returned to East Tennessee in 2008, where he had earned his bachelor's degree at Carson-Newman College and his master's at East Tennessee State University, he was disappointed in the lack of ecumenical opportunities. He sees Gloria Dei's 60th anniversary year as a ripe opportunity to change that. "South Knoxville seems both economically and psychologically depressed, and something needs to be done," said Wilder, who already has been meeting with others who are interested in getting an ecumenical movement started. "Together we can do things that we cannot do as a single congregation." One thing he'd like to explore after Lent is a pulpit exchange with other South Knoxville clergy. "That begins to put a human face on the church down the road that you drive by all the time," he said. "The Lutherans are in full communion with the United Methodists and the Presbyterians, and I would like to reach out to other faith communities, too." For more information about Gloria Dei, its upcoming Candlemas service or other opportunities to connect, call 865-573-5911 or visit www.gloriadeiknox.org. SHARE Patricia Williams/special to the news sentinel Stewart still shows signs of the eye injury he suffered in October falling off an emergency room bed. An encounter with swarming bees set off a stinging turn of events for Darius Stewart. The oldest of Clarence and Felicia Stewart's three children, he's allergic to bee stings. In October of last year, bees found him twice. The first time, his mother rushed to his house with her emergency lights flashing and administered Benadryl. Stewart recovered with only one day off from work. A few weeks later, while walking his dog "Fry," Stewart encountered a swarm of yellow jackets that sent him to the emergency room and left him unable to work for many months to come. As a result, Stewart is dependent on his family, food stamps and hopes of financial help through a Go Fund Me page. At 36 years old, Stewart has many accolades to his credit. Over the summers while he was in high school at Austin-East, Stewart was a congressional page to U.S. Rep. John J. "Jimmy" Duncan Jr. and to then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Stewart also had the honor of introducing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a Youth Leadership Summit in Philadelphia. Stewart, a 1998 Austin-East honors graduate, received a Rotary Scholarship he parlayed into a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Tennessee. He earned a master's in creative writing from the University of Texas and is a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity. He has published three books of poetry, enjoyed some elite speaking engagements across the country and was content with his job as a waiter at Chesapeake's Seafood House in downtown Knoxville. For the time being, Stewart had put his literary career on hold. The second time he was stung, the Benadryl was no match for the yellow jackets. Stewart's mother took him to the emergency room a day later. The next thing he recalls is getting an EKG to determine the extent of head injuries he suffered while in the emergency room. "The attendants told me that I rolled off the emergency room bed and hit the floor. I have no idea to this day what happened or how long I was out," he said. After surgery to repair a fracture to his left frontal orbital lobe from the fall, Stewart recalled that his body was swollen, bruised and sore in many places from his allergic reaction to the bees, a black eye from the fall and the surgery to repair the damage. He was in and out of the hospital but continued to experience fatigue, shortness of breath and pain on the left side of his abdomen. The next diagnosis and treatment was for pneumonia; then more tests showed that his heart was functioning at about a quarter of its capacity. That resulted in a diagnosis and treatment for congestive heart failure that still gave Stewart no relief. "It got to where I dreaded going to his appointments. The doctors not once had anything good to say; the news just kept getting worse," said Stewart's mother who is caring for her son with the help of family at her home in East Knoxville. On Stewart's persistence and discomfort, the doctor did a heart catheterization and found significant injury to a section of his heart. He was recently fitted with an external defibrillator and cannot be left alone because doctors say his heart could suddenly stop beating. With more tests results pending, his doctors want time for his heart to heal enough to possibly implant a pacemaker. His next doctor's appointment is in March. "I miss my job, my co-workers and the customers. I'm ready to go back to work," said Stewart, who continues to be optimistic for a full recovery and being able to work again. With no income or medical insurance, Stewart is hoping to raise $15,000 to bridge the gap across this difficult time until he can take control of his life and the mounting medical bills that were over $86,000 at last count. "It has made me reassess my life and see all that I have taken for granted. Now I have a five-year plan. That gives me a goal and hope for the future something to look forward to. I want to advance my career into some form of counseling and social work," he said. Stewart said he hopes his experience will result in an encouraging and inspirational book of poetry that will help others in similar circumstances. To make a donation, visit https://www.gofundme.com/fsjfaxws. Tennessee Supreme Court justices question David Eldridge, at podium, during oral arguments Wednesday in the appeal of Lemaricus Davidson, sentenced to death for his role in the 2007 killings of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. Left to right are Holly Kirby, Cornelia A. Clark, Chief Justice Sharon G. Lee and Jeffrey S. Bivins. Davidson was tried in October 2009 and convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, two counts each of especially aggravated robbery and especially aggravated kidnapping, three counts of aggravated rape, and one count of facilitation of aggravated rape. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL) SHARE Hugh Newsom, left, father of Christopher Newsom, and Gary Christian, father of Channon Christian, talk in the hallway before the Tennessee Supreme Court oral arguments Wednesday in the appeal of Lemaricus Davidson, sentenced to death for his role in the 2007 killings of Christian and Newsom. Davidson was tried in October 2009 and convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, two counts each of especially aggravated robbery and especially aggravated kidnapping, three counts of aggravated rape and one count of facilitation of aggravated rape. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL) Tennessee Supreme Court Chief Justice Sharon G. Lee raises questions during oral arguments Wednesday in the appeal of Lemaricus Davidson, sentenced to death for his role in the 2007 killings of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. Davidson was tried in October 2009 and convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, two counts each of especially aggravated robbery and especially aggravated kidnapping, three counts of aggravated rape and one count of facilitation of aggravated rape. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL) Mary and Hugh Newsom, parents of Christopher Newsom, during the Tennessee Supreme Court oral arguments Wednesday in the appeal of Lemaricus Davidson, sentenced to death for his role in the 2007 killings of Newsom and Channon Christian. Davidson was tried in October 2009 and convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, two counts each of especially aggravated robbery and especially aggravated kidnapping, three counts of aggravated rape and one count of facilitation of aggravated rape. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL) By Jamie Satterfield of the Knoxville News Sentinel For torture-killing ringleader Lemaricus Davidson, his appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court on Wednesday brought good news and bad. The good? The high court justices are interested in his strongest argument for a new trial. The bad? They look to that issue to craft new law that would dash Davidson's appellate hopes. The justices heard arguments Wednesday in Knoxville in the appeal of Davidson, who was sentenced to die for his role in the January 2007 carjacking, kidnapping, beating, rape and killings of Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23. It is an appeal guaranteed by law in all capital cases. The justices will weigh various issues surrounding Davidson's case, but made clear by their questions they are interested in using a search warrant foul-up to explore the possibility of what is known as a "good faith exception" under the law. Federal courts long have used such an exception to essentially forgive honest mistakes, such as clerical errors, by police that lead to flawed legal documents, such as search warrants. Typically, if a search warrant is deemed legally flawed, whatever evidence is discovered as a result of that search is tossed out. If, however, a court determines the police were acting in good faith officers didn't lie, for instance when obtaining and executing the warrant, the evidence can be saved. Tennessee courts have repeatedly declined to adopt a good faith exception. In 2011, the state Legislature created one. That law would not apply in Davidson's case, though, and the state's high court has not yet been asked to rule on whether that 2011 law is constitutionally valid. Justice Jeffrey Bivins said during Davidson's appeal the high court already has one case ripe for consideration of the creation through case law of a good faith exception, and Davidson's case could provide fodder in that as well. "This court has the authority to adopt that, and we want to know if we should adopt that," Bivins told attorney David Eldridge, who represents Davidson. A good faith exception is intended to cover innocent, clerical mistakes a wrong time or date, for instance. The justices Wednesday repeatedly said it appears the mistake in Davidson's case a missing signature line and a signature in the wrong place on the warrant was an honest one. Eldridge countered the mistake at issue is more serious than a clerical error. Here's why: An officer's signature on a search warrant application is proof that officer swore under oath that the facts therein are true. No signature, no proof, Eldridge said. Also, because the officer in Davidson's case signed the warrant in a slot reserved for the signature of the officer who served the warrant, it runs afoul of a provision of the law that bars the officer seeking the warrant from also executing it. "Failure to comply with the legal rules of procedure is pretty significant," Eldridge said. The state Court of Criminal Appeals has held that because police already had amassed evidence against Davidson as a suspect and had discovered Newsom's body and Christian's missing vehicle near Davidson's house, authorities inevitably would have found Christian's body through legal means. It's known as the doctrine of inevitable discovery and in Davidson's case, it saved the day for prosecutors at trial. The warrant mix-up occurred because lead investigator Todd Childress chose the wrong size paper to fax a copy of the warrant and supporting affidavit to a Knox County General Sessions Court judge for approval. The signature line wound up cut off from the document, and Childress inadvertently signed the document in the wrong place. The mistake was discovered within minutes of the entry into Davidson's home, by then left vacant, but an officer found Christian's body before commanders ordered the raiding team to back out. A second search warrant with the proper signature line and signature was then obtained. It could be months before the justices rule. Christian and Newsom were carjacked and kidnapped outside the Washington Ridge Apartments and taken to Davidson's house, where both were beaten and raped. Newsom was taken from the house to nearby railroad tracks, where he was shot execution-style and his body set on fire. Christian was held captive for several more hours and repeatedly raped. She was stuffed alive inside a trash can and left to die. Thongsavanh Vandarack (LOUDON COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE) SHARE By Mamie Kuykendall of the Knoxville News Sentinel The man fatally shot in Loudon County after brandishing a weapon at detectives attempting to serve a warrant Wednesday had a violent criminal history and is thought to have planned "suicide by cop," according to 9th District Attorney General Russell Johnson. Thongsavanh Vandarack, 40, a Laotian man with a Murfreesboro address, was charged with aggravated statutory rape for allegedly having sex with a 13-year-old girl, a Class D felony, Johnson said Thursday. Four detectives were attempting to serve the warrant and arrest Vandarack at a residence on 265 Grand View Drive in the Martel Estates East subdivision north of Lenoir City when the shooting occurred. Vandarack was living in the home with his girlfriend and her three children, according to Johnson. The rape victim was not one of the children living in the home, Johnson said. Due to his violent history, two of the Loudon County detectives serving the 3:30 p.m. warrant took positions outside the home to prevent any flight attempt, while the other two were let inside by Vandarack's girlfriend, according to Johnson. When his girlfriend called him into the front room where detectives were waiting, Vandarack came from the kitchen with both hands in his pockets, according to Johnson. When ordered to show his hands, Vandarack produced what appeared to be a handgun, and both detectives opened fire, striking Vandarack multiple times, according to Johnson. Vandarack was taken by helicopter to the University of Tennessee Medical Center. He either died en route or at the hospital, according to Johnson. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation suspects Vandarack planned "suicide by cop," due to information gathered during investigation and interviews with Vandarack's girlfriend, who indicated Vandarack anticipated his arrest for the rape and knew he would be sent back to prison, according to Johnson. Vandarack's lengthy criminal history includes two Wisconsin convictions for attempted homicide and other felonies that netted him a prison sentence up to 49 years, according to Johnson. Vandarack was in prison from 1993 until 2010 for those crimes, before his parole was transferred to Tennessee, where he was monitored by a Murfreesboro parole officer. In 2012, Vandarack was charged with a DUI in Loudon County, a charge disposed of by his submitting to a parole violation that returned him to prison for two more years, with a discharge in 2014, according to Johnson. Vandarack also is suspected to have a gang affiliation in Wisconsin, according to Johnson. An autopsy will be performed at the Regional Forensic Center, according to the TBI. A toxicology test also will be performed. Both investigators involved in the shooting are on administrative leave and will receive mandated counseling, which is standard procedure in such cases, according to Johnson. They will be allowed to return to regular duties once counseling is completed and they feel comfortable. More details as they develop online and in Friday's News Sentinel. SHARE By Frank Munger of the Knoxville News Sentinel OAK RIDGE A Department of Energy review team identified some "significant deficiencies" in the management of safety systems at a Y-12 storage facility that houses the nation's largest stockpile of bomb-grade uranium. The safety systems would be critical if there was a fire and potential dispersion of nuclear materials. The "targeted review" evaluated the reliability of processes for operating, maintaining and overseeing safety systems at the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, which was constructed in 2005-2008 at a cost of about $549 million. Loading of uranium was completed in 2011. While the overall results of the review were positive, a team from DOE's Office of Enterprise Assessment cited three significant problems in its December report: Technical safety requirements for some system components "contained several errors." Consolidated Nuclear Security, the government's managing contractor at Y-12, had not been performing the semiannual "bearing lubrication" for two cooling fans that support the uranium facility's Secondary Confinement System. That raised questions about the fans' reliability during extended operations at high temperatures. The Y-12 contractor had not fully demonstrated the capabilities for high-efficiency filters as required by safety criteria at the fortresslike storage facility. CNS spokeswoman Ellen Boatner said the contractor is addressing all issues raised by the DOE review. The 30-page report contains analyses of safety-related documents and procedures at the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, which was designed to house up to 12,000 drums and 12,000 cans of weapons-grade uranium. The amount of nuclear material being stored there is classified. The review team also looked at the oversight role performed by the National Nuclear Security Administration's Production Office and said the federal overseers were "generally successful" in monitoring the contractor's safety management. The report had some good things to say about Consolidated Nuclear Security, noting the Y-12 contractor is operating and maintaining the storage facility's "safety significant" Secondary Confinement System and the safety significant Power Distribution System in accordance with the safety-related documents and technical safety requirements. "For the most part, systems are acceptably maintained and capable of performing their safety functions when needed," the report's executive summary stated. The report credited CNS with a program to improve the quality and delivery of preventive maintenance for safety and "mission critical" systems at the uranium storehouse. Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created the series in Dover, New Hampshire. The negatives for that first comic, printed in 1984, have surfaced and the owner, a Colorado collector, came to Biddeford In September to look around. Assistant math professor Brittany Mosby lectures on statistics during her class at Pellissippi State Community Colleges Division Street Campus on Wednesday. Instead of enrolling students who need extra math and English help into non-credit prerequisite classes before an intro class, the school is using a new approach of having students take both at once. (ADAM LAU/NEWS SENTINEL) SHARE Emily West listens during a math class led by assistant professor Brittany Mosby at Pellissippi State Community Colleges Division Street Campus on Wednesday. Instead of enrolling students who need extra math and English help into non-credit prerequisite classes before an intro class, the school is using a new approach of having students take both at once. (ADAM LAU/NEWS SENTINEL) By MJ Slaby of the Knoxville News Sentinel Wednesday was the day before the first quiz in probability and statistics at the Division Street campus of Pellissippi State Community College. Assistant Professor Brittany Mosby was teaching definitions for classifying and collecting data, giving examples for each. Examples of qualitative data include eye color and majors. Quantitative data can be age, weight and grade-point average. "This classification system is pretty much what we are going to stick with for the rest of the semester," Mosby said. "It's going to come back in chapter five and six and seven and eight." The roughly 25 students are using the same syllabus and will take the same final exam as students before them. However, about half of the students are part of a new approach that all state community colleges started in the fall to help more students complete their first college-level math and English classes. Traditionally, students who aren't ready for college-level math and English courses are required to take and pay for remediation classes, which usually don't give them credit toward their degree. Only after they pass remediation classes can they enroll in the college-level class. But the new approach allows students to take the remediation class and the college-level class at the same time in hopes of higher success rates in college-level classes. "It's not just getting them through," Mosby said. 'Statistics is the same as it's always been." The Tennessee Board of Regents, which oversees all state colleges and universities not in the University of Tennessee system, piloted the program in the 2014-15 school year. Pellissippi was part of the pilot for math and English. Before the pilot at Pellissippi, 45 percent of math students and 20 percent of English students completed the remedial and college-level course in a year. With the pilot, completion of both classes in one semester was about 59 percent for students in each subject. There was similar success across the TBR system, no matter students' age, income, race or ACT score, said Tristan Denley, TBR vice chancellor for academic affairs. He said the gains in the pilot were reason enough to roll the approach out systemwide in fall 2015, allowing each college to implement the program. Mosby taught the program during the pilot, and she helped develop the program on the Division Street campus. Her students in the program enroll in the college-level course that meets Monday to Thursday with their peers, but then also have class on Friday. Instead of Friday being a second math class that's algebra-heavy like most remediation classes, Mosby teaches algebra concepts that apply to the current unit in the college-level statistics class. With the same teacher, it feels like a continuation of the other class, not an additional class, she said. "We are not trying to fully remediate for algebra. We want to remediate so they are successful," she said, noting the goal is to have students pass the college-level class. Under the pilot program's approach, she said the students in the Friday class become leaders and stronger students in the college-level class because they've had extra time to study and work with her. It's the added support through the Friday class, review sessions and tutor center visits that makes the approach work for so many students, she said. "They see it as, 'helping me to be better in statistics every day,' " she said. By Michael Collins of the Knoxville News Sentinel WASHINGTON Seven decades later, Roddie Edmonds' bravery still has not been forgotten. Edmonds, an Army master sergeant from Knoxville who stared down the barrel of a Nazi officer's gun during World War II and in the process saved the lives of 200 Jewish American prisoners of war, was honored Wednesday with the highest award Israel bestows upon non-Jews. Edmonds was given the Righteous Among the Nations award, which recognizes the heroics of non-Jewish people who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. He is the first American serviceman to receive the award, which is granted by Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust remembrance and educational organization. He's also one of only five Americans to be so honored. "Would we have the courage of Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds?" President Barack Obama asked during the awards ceremony at the Embassy of Israel in Washington, in which Edmonds and three others were presented with the honor posthumously. Edmonds "went above and beyond the call of duty," Obama said. "His moral compass never wavered. He was true to his faith." Edmonds' son, Chris Edmonds, a Baptist preacher in Maryville, accepted the honor on behalf of his father, who died in 1985. The younger Edmonds, accompanied by a dozen family members, described the award as "a fitting tribute" to his father, who he said lived by a sincere Christian faith and loved everyone. If he were alive today, "Dad would say, 'Son, what is all the fuss? I was just doing my job,' " Chris Edmonds said. But, "what he did is right today, it's right tomorrow, it's right always," the son said. Roddie Edmonds' honor came 71 years to the day of his act of defiance against a German Nazi officer. Edmonds had participated in the landing of the American forces in Europe and was taken prisoner by the Germans. In January 1945, the Germans ordered all Jewish POWs in the camp to report the following morning in front of their barracks. Edmonds, the highest-ranking officer in the camp, ordered all of the camp's POWs Jews and non-Jews alike to stand together. An estimated 1,000 American servicemen assembled in front of their barracks the next morning, Jan. 27, 1945 the same day the Russians liberated Auschwitz. Upon seeing the mass of prisoners, the German officer in charge said, "They cannot all be Jews." "We are all Jews," Edmonds replied. Edmonds stood his ground, even when the German officer pulled out his pistol and threatened to shoot him. "If you shoot me," Edmonds said, "you will have to shoot all of us, and after the war, you will be tried for war crimes." The German officer finally gave up and left the scene. Because of Edmonds' refusal to give in, some 200 American Jewish soldiers were saved that day. At Wednesday's ceremony, Lester Tanner of New York, one of the soldiers standing by Edmonds' side that day, recalled overhearing his confrontation with the German officer. "Roddie could no more turn over 200 of his men to the Nazi persecution that he could stop breathing," Tanner said. In his remarks, Obama, the first sitting president to speak at the Israeli embassy, described Edmonds' bravery as "an instructive lesson" for other Christians. An attack on any faith "is an attack on all our faiths," he said, and, for Americans in particular, it's an assault "on the very idea that people of different backgrounds can live together and thrive together." "When any Jew anywhere is targeted just for being Jewish," Obama said, "we all have to respond as Roddie Edmonds did 'We are all Jews.' " The other honorees recognized Wednesday were Lois Gunden, a French teacher from Indiana who established a safe haven for Jewish children in southern France, and Polish citizens Walery and Maryla Zbijewski, who risked their own lives by hiding a Jewish girl in their home. Zenobia Dobson listens to Knoxville Police Chief David Rauschs response to her question, Are you closer to charging anyone in Zaevions death? during the Stop the Violence: A Community Conversation forum at Fulton High School on Wednesday. Rausch said that a grand jury will review the case against one suspect in custody and the police are still looking for another suspect in the death of Dobsons son. (SAUL YOUNG/NEWS SENTINEL) By Hayes Hickman of the Knoxville News Sentinel Emotions were raw among a near-capacity crowd at a community forum on gang violence carried live by local news outlets Wednesday night from the Fulton High School auditorium. The event was billed as an opportunity to seek solutions to the recent street violence that has claimed more a half-dozen lives in Knoxville since Nov. 1. Many in the audience, however, pressed for answers to what they see as the problem's true root causes poverty and lack of opportunity among Knoxvillians in the inner city. "We're focusing on crime when we should be focusing on the lack of jobs, the lack of money," said East Knoxville resident an community outreach activist Rhonda Gallman. Without investment in the community, young people continue to be lured into street gangs because "they have nothing to do," she said. And those with a felony criminal record often are denied a second chance in the job market. "That's one strike and you're out for life," Gallman said. Echoing a common theme among the event's 15 panelists, Big Brothers Big Sisters of East Tennessee Chief Executive Officer Doug Kose encouraged the audience to make an individual effort to become involved in the life of a child. "We don't have a shortage of capacity," said Kose, whose mentoring agency currently has a waiting list of more than 100 children. "We have a shortage of volunteers. We need volunteers to step up and be a part of the solution. That is the call to action tonight." Several such youth organizations were represented on the panel, including 100 Black Men of Greater Knoxville, Emerald Youth Foundation and the Boys and Girls Club. And in addition to volunteers, those efforts also require funding to succeed, audience members noted. "What are you committed to do tonight in terms of funding for groups like these?" attendee Xavier Jenkins asked during a testy exchange with Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero. The mayor said the city continues to invest in initiatives such as Save Our Sons, and capital projects, including expanded facilities for the Boys and Girls Club. "I can't give you a number tonight," Rogero said. "But I agree, it does take more resources." The forum, titled "Stop the Violence: A Community Conversation," comes a month after the death of 15-year-old Fulton High School sophomore Zaevion Dobson, who was killed when he shielded two friends from gunfire in Lonsdale. Police say Dobson and his friends had no gang affiliations and were mistakenly targeted in an attempted retaliation for an earlier incident. Dobson's sacrifice was noted by President Barack Obama in his speech to announce measures to curb gun violence, and has brought the issue of Knoxville's violence back to the public attention. As the forum was carried live on the television news stations WBIR, WVLT and WATE and live-streamed by those outlets and the News Sentinel, viewers were encouraged to submit questions through social media using the hashtag #ZaevionDobson. #ZaevionDobson Tweets Zaevion's mother, Zenobia Dobson, who was among the forum's more than 300 attendees, asked when someone will be charged in the case. One suspect 20-year-old Christopher Drone Bassett is being held without bond on a felony weapons charge. A second suspect in the attack, Brandon Perry, 23, was found fatally shot in a separate incident hours later. Police continue to search for a third suspect believed to be involved in Dobson's death. Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch announced at the forum that authorities currently are seeking an indictment on homicide charges against Bassett. Zenobia Dobson declined to comment after the event, but spoke privately with Rausch. Related: Mother: Time for a change after Zaevion Dobsons shooting death Obama invokes Knox teens slaying in calling for gun control Mayor Rogero: Zaevion Dobsons death not in vain Hundreds gather at Fulton High to remember shooting victim, pray for end of violence Photos: Thousands attend funeral for Zaevion Dobson Saying goodbye: Crowds pack church to lay fallen Fulton player to rest Slain teen's mother asks for privacy 'He saved my life': Survivor describes Lonsdale shooting that killed friend Obama tweet: Knoxville teen who died shielding friends 'a hero at 15' Remember his name: Knoxville teen killed by gunfire praised for sacrifice Photos: Candlelight vigil for Fulton High hero Friends, family mourn slain teen REACT: Social media outpouring over death of Zaevion Dobson Teen dies shielding friends from gunfire SHARE Once again, the Rev. Daryl Arnold, pastor of the Overcoming Believers Church, has taken leadership to explore ways to find solutions for our community social problems. He was instrumental in opening the doors of his church for dialogue with the family of Trayvon Martin at a time of much discord. I was pleased to read that he is attempting to seek community support to prevent gang violence. Arnold is to be commended for his boldness and courage in addressing this problem on behalf of the city of Knoxville. Patricia Thomas, Powell South Korean companies' business outlook has fallen to the worst level in seven months for February as they remain worried about shrinking consumption and bleak prospects of exports in global markets, a poll showed Thursday. According to the survey of 600 South Korean companies conducted by the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), the business survey index (BSI) for February stood at 86.3, the lowest reading since July when it was at 84.3. A reading below 100 means that companies that are pessimistic about business conditions down the road outnumber optimistic companies. The BSI has been on the decline in recent months since peaking at 101.2 in October last year. The index for February was down from the previous month's 93.2. Weak consumer spending was cited as one of the most worrying factors, with 30.6 percent of those surveyed singling out it as a major risk. Companies were also concerned about the slowing growth in China as it could undercut their exports. The index for domestic demand, exports and investment stood at 89.8, 92.3 and 96. Those for employment and profitability were also below the 100-mark, the survey showed. "Despite the (positive) impact of the Lunar New Year holiday in February, the reason why the BSI fell sharply is because there are concerns not just over external factors such as the slowing growth in China and currency instability but also slumping consumer spending," an FKI official said. (Yonhap) By Lee Hyo-sik Kim jung-rae KNOC CEO nominee The former chief of Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) will likely head the Korea National Oil Corp. (KNOC), replacing current CEO Suh Moon-kyu whose term expired last August, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Thursday. The state-run oil company has submitted a shortlist of three candidates to the trade ministry, which will hold an ad-hoc committee to select one of the candidates to be the next KNOC CEO. Trade Minister Joo Hyung-hwan will then forward the recommendation to President Park Geun-hye. Once she approves the recommendation, the nominee will then manage the state-run enterprise for a three-year term. According to the ministry, Kim Jung-rae, who served as HHI CEO from 2013 to 2014, will likely become the next KNOC CEO. "I heard former HHI CEO Kim has been nominated to head the KNOC," said a person familiar with the matter. "If things go as scheduled, he will take office early next week." Kim, who earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from Seoul National University, began his career at Hyundai Engineering and Construction in 1976. He also served as the CEO of Hyundai Corp., HHI's trading unit. KNOC, which has been reeling from snowballing losses following a number of failed oil exploration projects abroad, was at a standstill under the leadership of Suh whose mandate was concluded five months ago. Cho Seok, right, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power CEO, poses with Sebastian Strada, vice president of Nucleoelectrica Argentina Sociedad Anonima at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Buenos Aires, Wednesday, after signing a memorandum of understanding for technological cooperation. / Courtesy of KHNP By Park Jin-hai Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) is striving to expand its presence in the Argentinean nuclear energy market. The state-run nuclear power operator announced Thursday it had signed a memorandum of understanding for technological cooperation with Nucleoelectrica Argentina SA (NASA). Under the MOU, the two firms will cooperate in a range of areas including the engineering, construction and operation of nuclear power plants. KHNP also said it has been in practical talks to participate in the Embalse nuclear power plant project in which NASA has been seeking to extend the plant's operation life. The Korean nuclear power company wants to export its technology that has been proven by the successful extension of the Wolseong unit 1 reactor's life span, which gained 10 more years after its 30-year operation license expired in 2012. Argentina, as an effort to diversify its energy sources, introduced the Argentine Nuclear Plan, whereby it plans to extend the Embalse nuclear plant's operational life by another 25 years as well as increasing its power-generating capacity by 7 percent. KHNP has been providing technological advice for the operation of nuclear power plants to NASA since 2008. It dispatched engineers and technicians to the country when NASA began designing the refurbishing project for the aging Embalse plant in 2011. KHNP CEO Cho Seok, who is also chairman of the World Association of Nuclear Operations, will meet the head of Argentina's energy and mining ministry, Friday, to discuss bilateral cooperation. South Korea plans to ramp up efforts to explore untapped overseas markets such as Iran and Cuba and boosting its exports this year in the face of a slowdown in China and fast-falling oil prices, the finance ministry said Thursday. In its first meeting of foreign economy-related ministers led by Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Yoo Il-ho, the government outlined the 2016 economic plan for overseas trade strategies. The plan calls for expanding economic cooperation with Iran who has newly entered the world economy after the lifting of economic sanctions. It also calls for forging diplomatic ties with Western countries as the country needs wider markets to export its products amid a Chinese slowdown and a slump in oil-rich emerging countries. South Korea's outbound shipments plunged nearly 8 percent in 2015, with their monthly figure posting minus growth in every 12 month. Following a landmark nuclear accord that lifted international sanctions on the oil-rich country, Iran has emerged as the most lucrative country in the world. Iran has the world's fourth-largest known crude oil deposits and ranks No. 1 in terms of natural gas reserves. The ministry said South Korea is moving swiftly to grab first-movers' opportunities in the once-reclusive Mideast nation. A Seoul-Tehran economic meeting will be held in February to discuss various issues including Iranian gas and oil field development projects, iron mill construction projects, and financial and healthcare cooperative plans, according to the finance ministry. In the first 11 months of last year, bilateral trade between Seoul and Tehran came to US$6 billion, compared to $17 billion in 2011, according to separate government data. The South Korea government is also paying attention to Cuba which started to open its market since it established diplomatic relations with the United States. It said it will form an economic cooperation committee to help local companies expand into the untouched nation and send a business delegation to the trade show to be held in November in Havana, Cuba. Other efforts this year include reaching open trade pacts with partners in the Latin America and Central Asia, and capitalizing on free trade agreements it has signed with countries such as China. It will also map out plans to participate in other multinational trade blocs including the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal, which would create the world's largest trading bloc, accounting for about 40 percent of global gross domestic product. Besides these efforts to boost trade, the ministry said it will strengthen itself to become stronger and better insulated to cope with any external shocks. It has drawn out contingency plans to respond to a sudden change in Asian emerging nations and oil exporting countries to minimize financial jitters and market instability, added the ministry. (Yonhap) By Kim Jae-won The government plans to exchange financial information on multinational firms doing business here with members of the OECD and G20 countries in order to make them pay appropriate taxes to countries where profits are generated, officials said Thursday. The Ministry of Strategy and Finance said that it will follow the 15 actions of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project initiated by the OECD and G20. The project is better known as the "Google tax" after the U.S. tech giant unwittingly initiated it by shifting registration of its profits in the U.K. to Ireland to avoid corporate tax. "We will exchange global companies' financial information with other countries to keep the agreements of the BEPS project," said Ahn Taek-soo, a director at the ministry. "We will prepare for it step by step, aiming to complete it by June next year." The 15 actions include disclosure of aggressive tax planning, preventing harmful tax practices and tax treaty abuse. The actions equip governments with domestic and international instruments to address tax avoidance, ensuring that profits are taxed where economic activities are generating them and where value is created. The comments came after Google agreed with the U.K. government to pay 130 million pounds in tax dating back to 2005. Last month, Apple made a $348 million tax settlement with the Italian government. Korea also plans to levy a Google tax on foreign companies doing business here, as part of its strategy to boost tax revenues, but international tax specialists questioned on its effectiveness, referring to the small market share of global firms being targeted. "The Google tax was designed in the U.K. and Europe where Google is enjoying a dominant presence. But, the company has little presence in Korea, lagging behind local players, Naver and Daum," said a former high-ranking official in the National Tax Service who now works as an advisor for a major law firm, asking not to be named. Since last year, the government and lawmakers have pushed for introducing the Google tax, accusing global firms of not fully paying taxes on their profits here. Rep. Hong Ji-man of the governing Saenuri Party submitted a bill to impose the tax on global companies last year; but it is pending in a subcommittee at the National Assembly. "We aim to set up a basic legislation which enforces Google and other foreign firms pay for copy rights of materials they provide," said Min Sang-ki, an aide to Rep. Hong. "But, I'm not sure whether the bill can be passed as the Assembly term is coming to an end." The 19th term of parliament finishes in May. Min said that Rep. Hong would submit the bill again in the 20th term if it fails to be passed this time, and he is re-elected in the general election scheduled for April 13. Google Korea said that it is uncomfortable to see that the name of the tax targeting multinational companies is called Google tax because it is one of many being targeted by the tax. The company said it has kept the country's tax rules and will keep them even if they are changed. "As we've always said, we support the process put in place by the OECD and G20 countries. We have always complied with tax rules in all the countries where we operate, and will, of course, follow new rules that will be implemented," said Google in a statement. By Kim Hyo-jin A K-2C assault rifle photo posted on twitter account @greenlemon. South Korean-made rifles are being traded on the black markets of Iraq and Syria, igniting concerns that they could fall into the hands of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group. A twitter post uploaded Tuesday showed photos of a K-2C assault rifle, claiming that it is available on the Iraqi black market. "A Korean K-2C rifle ended up on the black market. The 16th & 17th Div. received some brand-new K-2s in 2015," wrote twitter account @green_lemon, which is apparently run by a military analyst focusing on Iraq and Syria. Many military supplies imported by the Iraqi army have been looted by militants, sources said. They added it was also not difficult to buy Korean rifles on the black market in Syria, indicating that IS has access to the assault rifles through the black markets. Last year, the terrorist group posted a photo of a K-2 to promote their activities through social networking services. An IS member was shooting the South Korean rifle on a battlefield in northern Iraq. The K-2C is an upgraded version of the K-2, the main assault rifle used by the South Korean Army. The rifle was developed by the private military supplier S&T Motiv, formerly Daewoo Precision Industries, and has been exported to countries in Africa, South America, and the Middle East including Iraq since 2012. The rifle is known to be popular among IS members for its light weight, reliability and high accuracy. "Due to its short barrel, it seems to be popular with the IS group that engages in street battles" said Yang Wook, a fellow of the Korea Defense and Security Forum (KODEF). Last year, the Ministry of National Defense officially acknowledged that IS had seized the K2C assault rifle, saying the terrorist group looted those exported to Iraq. Korea's Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) failed to confirm if the rifle was the K-2C this time. "It is hard to tell if it is a K-2C by looking at the photo," a DAPA official said. South Korea's key wire service Yonhap News Agency will release the Korean translation of news articles from the online edition of People's Daily, one of China's largest media companies, starting Monday. Yonhap will post five People's Daily Online articles translated into Korean every day in the "world news" category of its website while the Chinese portal will do the same for Chinese-language articles from Yonhap. In addition, the two companies will post each other's banner ads on their homepages so users can easily move between the two services by simply clicking on the banner. In September, Yonhap signed a memorandum of understanding with the People's Daily during a forum hosted by the Chinese daily in Beijing for exchanges of news articles between the two sides. People's Daily is the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, published worldwide with a circulation of 13 to 14 million. Its Internet edition boasts a daily average of 400 million to 700 million page views. (Yonhap) Lee Hoe-sung, chairman of the International Panel for Climate Change, stresses the need to prevent climate disasters with preemptive moves. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk Head of climate change panel: Korea has very much to gain from new regime By Choi Sung-jin Lee attends the 32nd conference of IPCC in Busan in 2010. / IPCC Korea Thousands of travelers who were stranded at the airport of a snow- stricken, wind-swept Jeju Island last weekend may now be getting over their nightmarish experience, thinking it was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. Citizens of Seoul, who shivered during the lowest temperatures recorded in 15 years, might also wish that they will not have to endure a similar cold snap for at least another decade and a half. Unfortunately, these can and will become annual events. In summer, long droughts and floods will alternate while spring and autumn will vanish before most Koreans even realize they have begun. That is, unless Korea and the rest of the world start to act right now, not sometime later. This explains why the Geneva-based World Economic Forum has chosen climate change neither the refugee crisis nor terrorism as the risk factor that will exert the biggest influence on this planet this year. The futurologist Jeremy Rifkin, when asked by a journalist to cite the three most important global issues of 2016 and thereafter, said, "You tell me to name three problems? I don't need that many. There will be only one most pressing issue climate change." And that also shows why in Paris last month 195 countries "voluntarily" submitted their respective targets for reducing the global emission of greenhouse gases, the main cause of global warming. One of the international organizations leading such efforts is the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), which provides theoretical grounds for global action through combining and coordinating research from scientists across the world. Its chairman, Dr. Lee Hoe-sung, seems to be considerably more upbeat about humankind's self-correcting ability than many experts who are skeptical about the accord's practicability. "We may have few realistic means to coerce the governments to abide by their commitments," Lee said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. "Yet I am certain almost all member countries will keep their promises if for no other reason than peer pressure." The IPCC head noted that organizers of the Paris conference managed to work out a reinforcing mechanism, which calls for governments to submit voluntary and transport reports on their progress every five years for review. "There may be no penalties, but those failing to do their share will be too ashamed to lift their heads up," Lee said. Korea vowed to slash its emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases by 37 percent on a business-as-usual basis by 2030, in order to help limit the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius or ideally 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Seoul, however, caused a controversy by deciding to meet 11 percent of its reduction target overseas, failing to set an example befitting a country that has one of its countrymen at the chair of the global agency. Its environment minister came under fire by leaving for home even before the close of the Paris meeting and having a lawmaker read an address on his behalf. The Federation of Korean Industries, a lobby group for large businesses, issued a statement during the period dubbed the "most important two weeks in history" by global media against Korea setting up what it saw as too ambitious an emission target. A blessing in disguise As Lee views it, however, the new regime of worldwide emission cuts is a sheer blessing for Korea. "Our country, which produces not a single drop of oil, has nothing to lose and much to gain from the shift from coal, oil and gas to non-fossil energy," the IPCC chief said. "Businesses that regard such a shift as just costs need to see it from a far longer perspective." Lee recalled that giant oil companies such as Exxon Mobil wished the conference's success, and cited the example of the Microsoft that has already introduced an "internal carbon pricing" system that rewards departments reducing the emission of greenhouse gases and punishing those failing to do the same. Citicorp Group has reportedly included would-be borrowers' carbon footprints in deciding their credit standing, he added. "It will only be a matter of time before large Korean businesses with global operational networks also find climate change affecting their suppliers in one region and their consumers in another," Lee said. "Companies can be either winners or losers, and if I were them, I would rather be on the winning side." The energy and resources expert, who graduated from Seoul National University and earned his Ph. D. at Rutgers University, compared the transition from fossil to non-fossil energy to a shift from the Stone Age to Iron Age, skipping the Bronze Age. "Once left behind, businesses will hardly be able to have opportunities to catch up," he said. "They can ill afford to mind short-term cost increases." Commenting on those skeptical about the urgency of the matter, Lee likened the effects of global warming to a cancer. "When you have subjective symptoms and begin to feel pains, like the Earth does about its climate now, you are already at a tipping point. One moment of hesitation, it will be too late." The road ahead may not be smooth for the implementation of the Paris agreement, however. What if some politicians, who are climate skeptics, take power and withdraw commitment to emission cuts? The IPCC head is confident about their eventual acceptance of the reality, though. "When we first cautioned against the depletion of ozone layer, not many people would believe it. Now that it has become evident that the steep increases of skin cancers and cataracts were due to ozone depletion caused by excessive use of CFCs, few doubt it," he said. "The harms of climate change will be far more serious and diverse beyond comparison." Entry into post-fossil fuel era Sadly, Korea -- its government, businesses and people -- is lagging far behind foreign countries in both the awareness and behaviors with respect to climate change. "Journalists from few other countries began their questions with what climate change means and why it is important," Lee said. Various business associations also lobbied hard against the introduction of a cap-and-trade system in which they can buy and sell emission rights on markets like stocks or commodities. Pointing to its sluggish trade and low prices in the initial stage, the opponents say, "I told you so." Yet Lee noted that the market has just begun and trade can't help but go slowly because both buyers and sellers know each other. "It will begin to have more vigor if the domestic cap-and-trade market is linked to six regional markets in China," he said. Lee instead called for the introduction of a carbon tax as a more direct type of carbon pricing; a sin tax of sorts like tobacco tax. "There will be some resistance to another special purpose tax, but there is more than sufficient justification," he said. Cigarette tax is justified to save individuals' lives but a carbon tax will be crucial to saving the planet. The climate change guru acknowledged the limitations of renewable energies, such as solar and wind as they are now, because of their unreliable dependence on weather patterns. "This can be solved with the development of technology to store surplus energy in batteries," Lee said, adding that such technology is advancing far faster than expected. Asked to share his opinions about "resources diplomacy" conducted by the former Lee Myung-bak administration, including efforts to develop oil and gas fields abroad, the energy expert did not directly criticize the wasteful and anachronistic attempts. "From now on, such money should be spent for more future-oriented purposes," he said. "The Paris conference marked the entry into post-fossil fuel era some mixture of renewable and nuclear energy in the transitory stage and ultimately to renewable energy alone." Noting that some of the former presidents have left their respective legacies for the development of the nation's energy industry and policy, Lee said that he hoped President Park Geun-hye will be remembered as the one who began to make that bold transition. "Any substantive changes should come on fundamental and institutional levels, and this is why I think the government and businesses should take the initiative based on the free market principle," he said. "Individuals can of course produce electricity with solar panels and other methods but for the time being they can help more by walking and riding bicycles whenever possible instead of using vehicles fueled by fossil energy." Lee, 71, is one of the nation's pioneers in energy and resources area who set up Korea Energy Economics Institute and became its inaugural president in September 1986, and has been involved in the IPCC's work since it was established in 1988, under the joint auspices of the World Meteorological Organization U.N. Environmental Program. He is a brother of Lee Hoi-chang, who ran for the nation's top job against two progressive presidents, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun. This soft-spoken but hard-nosed realist, whom the media often describe as an iron fist in a velvet glove, faces an uphill battle with skeptics and deniers at home and abroad. Lee, who gave 98 out of 100 points to the Paris agreement, said, "I'll do my best to fill the remaining 2 percent." Gwangju High Court has upheld a six-year jail sentence for a monk, 62, who repeatedly raped a young monk under his care. But the court on Thursday dismissed a prosecution request that the monk be required to wear electronic anklet that would determine his whereabouts, saying the court saw no grounds that he would repeat the offense. The court said the senior monk's offense was grave and the victim had not pardoned him. But the court took into consideration that the older monk had cared for the youth, now 18, and entrusted 20 million won to him. The monk was head of a temple in Jangseong, South Jeolla Province, when he took in the victim. The senior monk was found guilty of repeatedly raping the girl since 2011. (Yonhap) By Jhoo Dong-chan The deep web, a secretive network of hidden websites also called the darknet, is increasingly being used as a channel for illegal trafficking of drugs and firearms, sources said Thursday. Tor, a free software product based on onion routing, enables anonymous access to the hidden underbelly of the Internet. It bypasses Internet traffic through complicated global networks to conceal a user's location and activities, and thus is often used for illegal trade of drugs, firearms and even human organs. The Korea Times installed the Tor browser to access the deep web and test accessibility to such illegal activities. The most popular web directory in the deep web is the Hidden Wiki, which provides direct links to pornographic and snuff videos as well as online drug traders. With a membership of nearly 3,000, High Korea is one of the drug community sites introduced on the Hidden Wiki. "We provide qualified marijuana products, and safety during the trade is guaranteed," said High Korea's operator, identified only as Neo, in the webpage. The site also introduces marijuana dealing manuals, how to grow cannabis and even tricks to evade police crackdowns. The members use bitcoins instead of fake bank accounts or cash. Buyers and sellers communicate only by e-mail or encrypted Telegram Messenger and rarely meet in person. Kakao Talk is not recommended, it says. Not only drugs but also firearms are also traded on the deep web. A deep web user identified as movad posted a comment on a page saying, "I am selling a SIG Sauer sp2022 pistol made in China. I have two magazines with 15 bullets each." Despite such rampant illegal activities on the deep web, the drug enforcement authorities do not even know about the deep web or the drug trading activities there. "I do not know what the deep web is," an agent from Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's narcotics department told The Korea Times. "If it is Internet-related activity, it is not our jurisdiction but probably for the cyber investigation team." A National Police Agency (NPA) cyber investigation team officer said that criminal activities like trade of illegal drugs and firearms are extremely difficult to trace on the deep web. "Tor browser detours through three different virtual IPs by using thousands of fake servers around the world. Thus, it is extremely difficult to track deep web users," the officer said on condition of anonymity. Prof. Kim Seung-joo at Korea University's Graduate School of Information Security called for immediate countermeasures to deal with criminal activities on the deep web. "I would say it is completely impossible for the nation's investigative authorities to trace deep web users with their current capabilities," Kim said. "When Islamic State terrorists attacked Paris last year, Tor browser was their main tool for communication. The U.S. National Security Agency has since developed a deep web surveillance program while the Korean government has been sitting on its hands. Not only because of drug or firearms trading, the authorities should do something before it reaches terrorism here." By Chung Ah-young More than 1,000 citizens have donated 100 million won ($82,700) to establish a foundation supporting Korea's wartime sexual slavery survivors. The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, a non-government organization for the victims, joined with 400 other civic groups for a fundraising campaign launched Jan. 14 to set up their own foundation for the victims. The campaign started in protest of the government's Dec. 28 agreement with Japan, in which Japan promised to contribute 1 billion yen (10 billion won) to establish a foundation in Korea to support the 46 remaining survivors. The civic groups aim at raising 10 billion won from 1 million citizens, equivalent to the amount Japan offered. According to the council, Thursday, a total of 1,033 citizens nationwide have donated 100.2 million won as of Wednesday. The council said that individual donors come from all walks of life from high school students to professors, Japanese nationals and taxi drivers and they have made donations ranging from 10,000 won to 1 million won. Kim Bok-dong, 90, one of the survivors, also contributed 1 million won to the fund. The foundation will carry out commemorative, educational and fact-finding activities. Further donations are expected, as not only individuals but also groups have expressed their intention to contribute, the council said. The civic groups will accelerate their activities to push for the foundation plan, by involving more high-profile figures for the project, including former Gender Equality Minister Ji Eun-hee and Seong Youm, Korea's former ambassador to the Holy See. "Citizens who keep their eyes on the wartime sex slavery issue seem to be joining in, in the wake of the Korea-Japan agreement," Yoon Mee-hyang, director of the council, said. "We think this is a good turning point for our movement and we will continue to draw support from citizens." The council also plans to hold campaigns both at home and abroad to call for the repeal of the agreement, which failed to reflect the victims' demands. The Lawyers for a Democratic Society, a social organization of progressive lawyers, said that it has filed a petition to the United Nations on behalf of 10 victims to review whether the agreement conforms to the international human rights standards. "We asked the U.N. to review whether the deal can be seen as Japan's acknowledgement of legal responsibility and an official apology," an official of the lawyers' group said. According to their petition, the agreement failed to meet international standards for resolving the problem because it did not consider the victims' interests. It also said the deal did not include measures such as fact-finding investigations and punishment of those responsible. Increased movement of equipment, personnel detected at launch site By Kang Seung-woo North Korea may test a long-range ballistic missile soon amid increased activity at its northwestern launch site, sources and military officials said Thursday. Their analysis came after Japan's Kyodo News reported that Pyongyang may be preparing for a missile launch in a week or so, citing an unnamed government source. "We have detected increased movement of equipment and personnel at the Tongchang-ri launch site," an intelligence source said. "We estimate that the North can carry out a missile launch without a notice at any time after it extended its missile launch pad at the facility." Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok also said the North had always fired a long-range missile ahead of a nuclear test in the past, but it did not do it before the Jan. 6 nuclear test. The military was therefore concerned that the North would launch a missile afterwards. According to intelligence authorities, late last year, the North successfully finished upgrading the Sohae Satellite Launching Station at Tongchang-ri, raising the height of the gantry tower on the launch pad to accommodate a wider range of missiles. Experts estimate the upgrade could theoretically enable the North to launch a missile that could travel 13,000 kilometers, enough to strike the U.S. mainland. The North also has laid railroad lines from an assembly building to the launch pad as part of efforts to modernize the facility, and placed a cover over the pad last year to evade surveillance from spy satellites. By Kang Seung-woo South Korea, in close cooperation with the United States, will make vigorous efforts to persuade China to punish North Korea for its nuclear test, Cheong Wa Dae said Thursday. The reaction came a day after the U.S.-China foreign ministers' meeting ended without any progress over how to sanction the Kim Jong-un regime. While the international community, led-by the U.S., is seeking strong actions against the North to curb its nuclear ambitions, China says such measures could provoke new tensions in the region. "Based on close cooperation with the U.S., we will try to ensure that China will join the United Nations (U.N) sanctions on the North," said presidential spokesman Jung Youn-kuk. By Kim Se-jeong The government is preparing a new law to toughen punishment for stalkers, it said Thursday. Stalkers may be sentenced up to two years in prison or fined up to 20 million won, while, stalkers are currently fined only 80,000 won for minor offenses. It is part of the government's plan to fight against sexual, domestic and school violence. Stalking has resulted in serious and tragic incidents, even death, so for stalking to be a minor offense does little to protect the victims. In a case in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province, last week, a 29-year-old woman killed a man in her home who stalked her and turned herself in, triggering a debate on self-defense. In July last year, a 49-year-old housewife was murdered by her stalker outside her home in Daegu on her way to work in the morning. Later, police found that she had asked police to protect her against the stalker several times but to no avail. Women's rights groups have welcomed the move. "We welcome the government's decision. Stalking is a serious issue but has not drawn attention from policymakers and the government," said Lee Mi-kyeong, chairperson of Korea Sexual Crime Relief Center. She said out of the 1,308 people who sought help from the center last year, 58, or 4.4 percent of the total, were victims of stalking. The ratio increased by 1 percentage point from the previous year. Lee said stalking should be taken seriously because it often results in injury or even a death. The National Assembly has been attempting to establish a law to deal with stalking, but to no avail. Since 2012, four bills have been proposed, but all are still pending. Regarding other types of sexual violence prevention, the government vowed to bolster therapy programs for sex offenders, especially those who take photos of others' bodies with hidden cameras. The number of offenses involving hidden cameras rose from 6,623 in 2014 to 7,623 in 2015, according to the government. It also said it would strengthen the monitoring of chatting rooms on smartphones and on the Internet. To prevent domestic violence, the government said it would announce comprehensive preventive measures in February. The measures will focus on preventing child abuse, it said. To address school violence, the government vowed to come up with a manual to protect vulnerable children, as well as to protect teachers from being bullied or beaten by students or parents. By Kim Hyo-jin Chung Ui-hwa National Assembly Speaker Chung Ui-hwa proposed a bill to ease requirements for parliamentary votes on bills backed by a majority of lawmakers, Thursday. The move comes as the Assembly impasse over labor and economic bills continues while rival parties fail to narrow the gap in their views. Under the National Assembly Law, the Assembly speaker cannot call a parliamentary vote on contentious bills unless 60 percent of lawmakers agree. The bill enables the speaker to shorten the deliberation of bills from 330 to 75 days. "The bill includes the solution to the current legislative deadlock," Chung's aide said. The bill was also signed by Reps. Lee Jae-oh, Yoo Seong-min and Chung Doo-un of the Saenuri Party and Reps. Kim Dong-chul and Hwang Ju-hong, who recently quit the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK). The bill is expected to be discussed in the National Assembly steering committee today, but it remains to be seen if parties will endorse the proposal, lawmakers said. "We still cannot budge on easing the requirements for the Assembly speaker to call a vote," Rep. Cho Won-jin, vice floor leader of the Saenuri Party told reporters. The Saenuri Party, which holds 158 of 300 seats in the unicameral Assembly, has argued that the strict procedural rules are bogging down the legislature and pushed for the law to be revised. It earlier proposed a bill that would enable the National Assembly speaker to exercise his authority when the majority of lawmakers demand it. Under the National Assembly Act, a National Assembly speaker can table a bill to a plenary session only in the event of a natural disaster, a state emergency or under an agreement reached between rival parties. But Chung voiced opposition to the unilateral move and instead proposed the arbitration plan to quicken the deliberation of bills. The MPK that was opposed to both proposals changed the stance, following Chung's move. "Basically we are opposed to the idea of fast deliberation, but we will take a close look at the proposed bill and further seek an alternative," said floor leader Rep. Lee Jong-kul. South Korea renewed its pledge Thursday that it will make various efforts to induce China to play a constructive role over North Korea's nuclear weapons program. "We expect China and Russia to play a constructive role," presidential spokesman Jeong Yeon-guk told reporters. He also said South Korea will closely work with relevant countries to ensure that the U.N. Security Council can adopt a resolution for strong and effective sanctions on North Korea over its fourth nuclear test earlier this month. China and Russia are two of the five permanent veto-wielding members of the council. The two countries have also been involved in long-stalled six-nation talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program in return for political concessions and economic aid. The nuclear talks -- which also include the two Koreas, the U.S. and Japan -- were last held in 2008. On Wednesday, China expressed disapproval of the U.S.-led drive to slap the toughest-yet sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear test. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said after talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Beijing that China agrees that the council needs to take further action and pass a new resolution, but sanctions shouldn't be the objective. China is believed to have significant leverage over North Korea as more than 90 percent of North Korea's trade comes from China. Still, China is apparently against going too far on North Korea out of the concern that strong sanctions could destabilize North Korea, which in turn could hurt Beijing's national interests. (Yonhap) South Korea has agreed to repatriate a new set of remains of Chinese soldiers who were killed in the Korean War and had remained buried in this country, the Ministry of National Defense said Thursday. South Korea will send the remains of 36 Chinese soldiers back to their home country in a ceremony scheduled for March 31, the third repatriation since the first in 2014, according to the ministry. South Korean and Chinese working-level officials held talks in Beijing on Wednesday to agree on the latest round of repatriations. Through the two previous repatriations, South Korea sent home the remains of 505 Chinese soldiers. Many Chinese soldiers fought alongside North Korea against the South and United Nations forces during the three-year war that ended in a truce in 1953. An enemy cemetery in South Korea's border city of Paju is home to the soldiers of the enemy side who perished during the war. (Yonhap) North Korea could conduct a long-range missile launch as early as in a week, a Japanese news report said Wednesday, in what would be serious defiance against the international community just a few weeks after its fourth nuclear test. Kyodo News Agency cited an unidentified Japanese government source as saying that satellite imagery analyses conducted over the past several days suggest the North may be preparing to conduct a ballistic missile launch from the Dongchang-ri launch site in the country's northwest. The source also cautioned that the launch could occur in about a week at the earliest, Kyodo said. The report did not provide any further specifics. The U.S. Defense Department declined comment on intelligence matters, but urged the North to refrain from any actions threatening regional stability. "While I won't discuss matters of intelligence, I will say that the we urge North Korea to refrain from actions and rhetoric that threaten regional peace and security and focus instead on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its international commitments and obligations," Cmdr. Bill Urban, a spokesman of the U.S. Defense Department, told Yonhap News Agency. "We are concerned that additional North Korean provocations could heighten tensions, lead to a cycle of escalation and threaten the peace and stability on the Peninsula," he said. Such a launch would add to international outrage over the North's Jan. 6 nuclear test. The U.N. Security Council is working on a new set of sanctions on Pyongyang, and the U.S. is also working on unilateral sanctions to punish the regime. The North's missile program has long been a key security concern in the region and beyond. The communist nation is believed to have developed advanced ballistic missile technologies through a series of test launches, including the most recent and successful launch in 2012. That test sparked fears that the North has moved closer to ultimately developing nuclear-tipped missiles that could potentially reach the mainland United States. The country has so far conducted four underground nuclear tests in 2006, 2009, 2013 and this month. Pyongyang claimed that the latest nuclear test involved a hydrogen bomb, a more sophisticated type of nuclear weapon with much greater yields than ordinary atomic weapons. But the U.S. has cast doubts about the claim, saying initial analysis is not consistent with the North's claims. In the run-up to October's 70th anniversary of the founding of the North's ruling Workers' Party, fears had grown that the North could conduct its fourth nuclear test or a long-range rocket launch, but the country didn't do so at the time. (Yonhap) Almost 60 percent of South Korean experts on North Korea said that the two Koreas should leave a joint industrial park in the North intact despite Pyongyang's latest nuclear test, a survey showed Thursday. A total of 57.7 percent of 104 experts polled said that the operation of the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in the North's border city of the same name should be maintained as it is, according to the poll by the National Unification Advisory Council, Seoul's presidential advisory panel on unification. The survey showed that 11.5 percent of the respondents said the operation of the factory zone could be scaled down depending on the situation. The industrial complex, which opened in 2004, is the only remaining symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation. It has served as a major revenue source for the cash-strapped North, while South Korea has benefited from cheap but skilled North Korean labor. There are concerns that an extension of inter-Korean tension sparked by the North's nuke test early this month may lead to a temporary closure of the complex. South Korea has recently limited the entry of its nationals into the factory zone to ensure the safety of its people there. The government has said that it is not considering temporarily shutting down the complex or withdrawing South Koreans from it despite the North's nuclear test. But a total of 124 South Koreans firms operating at the factory park expressed concerns about a possible repeat of what happened back in 2013, when operations were suspended for a while. In April 2013, the North shut down the complex for about four months, citing what it called heightened tensions sparked by a military drill between Seoul and Washington. The survey also showed that 43.3 percent of the surveyed said sanctions by the U.N. Security Council would be the best way to punish North Korea. It said that 61.5 percent of the respondents said China has the largest leverage in reining in North Korea, followed by the U.S. with 37.5 percent. (Yonhap) By Yi Whan-woo North Korea has moved closer to developing a long-range missile that can ultimately hit the U.S. mainland. Pyongyang's future missile tests will also be geared to attain this goal, analysts said Thursday. Pyongyang is believed to have built a missile that has a range of 13,000 kilometers and is capable of directly reaching the continental U.S. as well as Alaska and Hawaii. "North Korea successfully fired the Unha-3 rocket in 2012, and it would make sense to say the military regime has continued to carry out its rocket program since then to extend the range of its missiles," said Kim Jong-dae, a military commentator. On Dec. 12, 2012, the Kim Jong-un regime launched the Unha-3 rocket that allegedly put a satellite into orbit. South Korea and other U.S.-led allies suspect that Pyongyang's rocket program is merely a cover for ballistic missile tests. The Unha-3 rocket, which had a range of 10,000 kilometers, may have been used in developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Yang Uk, a senior research fellow at the Korea Defense and Security Forum, agreed with Kim Jong-dae. By Zerougui Abdelkader Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir does not seem to understand the new geopolitical order and Iran's rapprochement with the West and the U.S. in his contribution entitled "Can Iran Change?" published recently in the New York Times. The questions that Al-Jubeir should be asking is whether Saudi Arabia is willing to disavow its Wahhabi doctrine, dismantle the madrasas and stop financing proxy wars in the Arab and Muslim world, embrace pluralism and democracy and retire its medieval octogenarian monarchy. The House of Saud, the ruling royal family of Saudi Arabia, is on fire, and instead of adopting diplomatic means and embracing the "Other," Al Saud has been engaged in very schizophrenic behavior, bankrolling every single terrorist group since the inception of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Hijacking Sunni Islam, the petro-dollars have been consistently used to blackmail countries from Pakistan to Jordan even Somalia received recently $50 million for severing its diplomatic relations with Iran. The recent "change" in Iran's behavior, and the restoration of diplomatic relations with Western countries including the United States has further alienated the spoiled kingdom, which seems to be completely detached from the waves of change that are taking place in the Middle East. Iran is here to stay, and the United States as well as Western Europe realized with cunning perception and diplomacy that the Mullahs are not interested in a continuous confrontation, thus a deal was made that guarantees Iran's compliance with international law, and dismantling of its nuclear program. By that, the West shifted the elements of change inside Iran itself, making it easier for the Western world to watch Iran closer by slowly integrating its economy into the world. After all Iran has a population of 76 million with an abundance of oil and gas reserves. Saudi Arabia is coming under financial pressure. With oil prices drifting towards $20, the wars in Yemen and Syria, and an economy that is 99 percent dependent on oil, foreign reserves will be depleted within three years. Iran has its strategic interests in the region, which seem to collide with Saudi Arabia's fear of becoming a peripheral kingdom in the region. However, change and integration in the world economy, freedom of expression, democracy and the rule of law are the only guarantors for the future of Saudi Arabia and Iran, and which ever succeeds in their implementation would possibly become a dominant force in the region. So far Iran seems to be winning. Zerougui Abdelkader, Ph.D., is an adjunct professor of sociology at American University in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at zerouguiabdelkader@yahoo.com. The interim leader of the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK), Kim Jong-in, faces difficult tasks after the departure of former Chairman Moon Jae-in. Kim has swiftly taken control as head of the party's emergency planning committee and chief campaign manager. The party's sagging popularity has been improving since he joined the party two weeks ago, despite his ties to Chun Doo-hwan's military regime. In the coming weeks, Kim faces internal and external tasks. The first test will be how well he can manage candidate nominations for the April 13 general election. Candidate selection should be based on strict principles of expertise and integrity, with an aim to transform the party's image of incompetence. Externally, Kim has to deal with challenges from a new party led by Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, co-founder of the Minjoo's predecessor, the New Politics Alliance for Democracy. Ahn quit the largest opposition after a power struggle with Moon. Some MPK lawmakers quit to join Ahn's party. Kim needs to ensure that no additional defections occur. Most importantly, Kim should focus on developing policies that can improve the economy and people's livelihoods amid deepening socio-economic polarization. Kim has established a task force to create election pledges. The task force should prepare a fresh economic and welfare platform that can win voters' support. As an economic strategist, voters expect him to present viable alternatives for lifting Korea out of its protracted low growth, and alleviate social and economic inequalities. The MPK's successive election failures under Moon's short-lived leadership show the voters' discontent with the party's factional feuding and unproductive policies. It has been losing support even in its traditional stronghold of Honam. Voters are also getting weary of the protest culture of the "386 Generation," the dominant group within the party comprising of dissents against dictatorships in the 1980s. Kim said the MPK should no longer be swayed by such people. It remains to be seen whether Kim, who successfully led the economic democratization campaign for then-presidential candidate Park Geun-hye in 2012, can initiate fundamental changes in the party's culture and lead it to victory in the upcoming vote. By Donald Kirk Donald Gregg, U.S. ambassador to Korea as the country was making the transition to democracy in the early 1990s, did not take kindly to my column in which I quoted him, accurately, as praising Kim Jong-un "for improving the North Korean economy and downplaying nuclear threats and nuclear weapons development." The timing of publication of Gregg's commentary was newsworthy in itself. It appeared on websites in Seoul and Hong Kong on January 12, six days after North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test on January 6. In an email to me, however, Gregg said "I wrote the article you refer to in early December, at the request of the East Asia Foundation." Unfortunately, he claimed, it ran "the day before the North Koreans fired their fourth blast." The article was actually published a week later, but that detail did not stop him from wishing "you had done a bit more checking before writing what you did." What to check? When an article by such a prominent person appears, it's immediately quotable. The question is why Gregg didn't alert the recipients of his article that he would like to update it in light of the test. For that matter, why did the editors delay publication for so long -- and why, as they were about to run it after the test, did they not ask him for timely revisions? The answer to such questions, in part, is that the article reflected Gregg's view, tests or no tests, that the U.S. is at fault for conducting military exercises, issuing tough demands and threatening North Korea with nukes loaded onto ships and planes in the western Pacific. Gregg has come to accept North Korea's nuclear program for defense against a perceived American threat. While "Kim Jong-un seeks serious dialogue with Washington," he wrote in The New York Times soon after the North's third nuclear test in February 2013, "he will push toward full nuclear status for Pyongyang unless he becomes convinced that the United States means him and his country no harm." Pity Kim Jong-un the poor guy had to face President Park Geun-hye's "hard-line predecessor," as Gregg characterizes President Lee Myung-bak, before her inauguration shortly before the third test. Gregg hoped that Park's "trustpolitik" toward the North would go somewhere. I wonder what he thinks of her now after repeated rejections of her proposals in cascades of vulgar insults. And I wonder what he thinks of Kim Jong-un in view of the execution of his number two, Uncle Jang Song-thaek, and numerous others, high and low? Gregg in a follow-up email to me said he remained "very annoyed" by my "misrepresentation" of his article, but he doesn't say where or how he was misrepresented, and he didn't respond to my requests for comment in the aftermath of the fourth test. Against the background of all that he's been writing for the past 20 years, often for the sympathetic New York Times, I would assume he's sticking by his extraordinary hope of the North adopting "a non-threatening posture" despite "predictions of collapse" and "Western focus on human rights violations." Or would he be a little skeptical as Kim Jong-un boasts of his nuclear prowess? For a reality check, one might turn to Evans Revere, deputy chief of the mission at the U.S. embassy several years after Gregg had departed and later principal deputy assistant secretary of state for the region. "North Korea is without question an urgent and dangerous problem for the U.S.," Revere remarked at a conference in Seoul staged by the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy and the Brookings Institution. "The fact North Korea has threatened to use nuclear weapons," he said, is something the strategists "will have to plan for in a contingency." No matter what, Revere thinks "the U.S. will have to greatly increase pressure on North Korea." He suggests, among other things, "economic measures" via the banking system, limiting the North's "access to foreign exchange" complemented by "much more explicit warnings to the North." Oh yes, he also believes "we should increase the tempo of military exercises" and "increase the focus on the North's terrible human rights." These are fighting words and anathema to all that Gregg believes. It's as though he and Revere were engaged in a contest of wills, the former a believer in ever more dialogue, the latter convinced that sheer power is needed to bring the North to heel. Could it be that both are wrong, that there is no solution, through dialogue or force? Revere had it right when he remarked, "We've tried threats, accommodation dialogue all efforts have failed." Gregg's confidence in "reconciliation" after the North achieves "a satisfactory level of deterrence" whatever that might be is a formula for disappointment. Donald Kirk, www.donaldkirk.com, has been following the ups and downs of dialogue with North Korea since first visiting Seoul in 1972 to cover talks between the Red Cross organizations of both Koreas for the Chicago Tribune. He's at kirkdon4343@gmail.com. South Korea's central bank chief called for a careful watch for changes in the Chinese economy Wednesday, noting the ongoing troubles in the local economy may have been partly caused by a slowdown in the world's second-largest economy. "Considering its impact on the global economy, we cannot but be sensitive to changes in the Chinese economy," Bank of Korea (BOK) Gov. Lee Ju-yeol said in a monthly meeting with economists. The top central banker noted should there be a new global recession, it will have been caused by slowing growth in China. Lee said the difficulties his country currently faces may have also been caused by uncertainties concerning the future of the Chinese economy. "The economy is continuing to show signs of instability with the global financial market showing great fluctuations at the beginning of the year, while in the local market, stock prices plunged and the won-dollar exchange rate continued to drop," the BOK chief said. "The reason may have been the result of many elements, such as the possibility of oil prices continuing to fall and uncertainty over the direction of U.S. monetary policy, working together, but the instability in the Chinese economy may have also been a reason," he added. Since the beginning of the year, foreign investors have remained net sellers of South Korean shares, continuing their record selling streak for 37 consecutive sessions as of Tuesday. The local currency also continues to remain weak against the U.S. dollar, once dipping to the lowest level since July 29, 2010. "We are always carefully watching the Chinese economy but believe we must more closely analyze any changes in the Chinese economy and begin taking necessary measures," Lee said. On Tuesday, the central bank reported South Korea's economic growth dipped to a three-year low of 2.6 percent in 2015, hurt by slumping exports and sluggish domestic consumption. (Yonhap) Rep. Chun Soon-ok of the Minjoo Party of Korea, right, examines shoes in a shoemaker's shop in eastern Seoul last month. The seamstress-turned-politician assists craftsmen in marketing and sales by establishing special centers focusing on their activities. / Courtesy of Rep. Chun Soon-ok By Kim Jae-won Minjoo Party of Korea Rep. Chun Soon-ok used to work as a seamstress. She worked at a small clothing factory in Dongdaemun, eastern Seoul, from the age of 16, before moving to the U.K. to study labor sociology in 1989. After coming back to Korea in 2001, she established a social enterprise helping women who worked as seamstresses to develop their skills and protect their rights. She became a lawmaker in 2012 so she could support them more effectively. The one-term lawmaker of the opposition party expanded her aid to shoemakers, tailors, bag makers and jewelers, calling them "small craftsmen" because they have practiced their skills for decades and have risen to the level of craftsmen. Last year, she wrote a book "Small Craftsmen" after interviewing nine craftsmen. "The government has never reached out its arms to small craftsmen, though they are the backbone of the grassroots economy," said Chun at a dinner meeting with The Korea Times earlier this month. "By supporting them so they can keep doing their work, we can strengthen our economy from the bottom up." Chun said more than 600,000 workers are making a wide variety of products at 300,000 small factories and shops throughout the country, but the numbers are dwindling as old craftsmen die off but young workers are not interested in taking up their work. She said it is important to allow small craftsmen to be proud of their work because they have long been neglected by society. Many of them are reluctant to say what they do because people look down on their jobs. Chun told the story of encouraging seamstresses and tailors to host a fashion show in which they showed the clothes which they made. They objected to the idea, worrying that people will find out what they do, but later accepted it by listening to Chun who told them that she appreciated their work. "It was a success," she said. "They were happy that their families and friends were proud of their work," Chun wrote in her book. Reflecting on her four years in the National Assembly, she said it was interesting to meet many people and to listen to their encouraging words about her work as a lawmaker. "I enjoyed it a lot. I realized that a legislator can help people and this is thrilling." Chun said that she will seek a second term in parliament and is considering running for a seat in the Jung-gu district in Seoul where she worked as a seamstress. The general election is scheduled for April 13, and it remains to be seen how her dreams will unfold. Nokia Vice President Han Hyo-chang, second from left, awards the winners of a startup competition co-sponsored by LG Uplus and a creative economy center in North Chungcheong Province at the center, Thursday. / Courtesy of LG Uplus By Kim Yoo-chul LG Uplus, the telecom unit of LG Group, said Thursday that it will support local startups by taking them to next month's mobile convention to be held in Barcelona, Spain. In a statement, LG Uplus said it invited six Korean startups asking them to take part in the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in the Spanish city, the world's top telecommunications exhibition that happens every February. The designated venture companies were the winners at last year's competition co-sponsored by LG Uplus and the Cheongbuk Creative Economy Center. Local startups competed for the title by demonstrating their business ideas about strategy for the Internet of Things (IoT). LG Uplus Vice Chairman and CEO Kwon Young-soo will lead the way on the sidelines with his participation in the MWC by virtue of his rich experience in the display and battery industries, as Kwon is a seasoned high-ranking LG executive. "LG Uplus also teamed up with Huawei Technology to gain perspective in venture ecosystems in China through an organized trip to China in March of this year. A series of business meetings with venture capital firms to attract investments from Chinese companies has also been set," the company said. "LG Uplus will be consistent in supporting local ventures which have new business ideas," Kwon Joon-hyuck, vice president at the company's industrial IoT unit said. Samsung Electronics headquarters in Seocho-dong, southern Seoul. The company expressed caution for this year's outlook. / Yonhap Electronics affiliate remains cautious about biz outlook By Kim Yoo-chul The Samsung Life Insurance building in Jung-gu, central Seoul / Korea Times photo by Hong In-ki Samsung Group is accelerating efforts to set up a financial holding company after Samsung Life Insurance acquired a 37.4 percent stake in its credit card affiliate. Samsung Life, Korea's No. 1 life insurer, said Thursday that it purchased 43.3 million shares in Samsung Card from Samsung Electronics for 1.5 trillion won. The takeover price was 35,500 won per share. The acquisition has made Samsung Life the largest shareholder of Samsung Card with its stake increasing to 71.8 percent. This is expected to clear the way for the life insurer to emerge as a financial holding firm of the nation's largest family-run conglomerate, or chaebol. The takeover came right after Samsung Electronics approved the deal in a board of directors meeting early in the day. "The deal was intended to maximize synergy between Samsung Life and Samsung Card in the finance segment," said a manager at the Samsung Corporate Strategy Office after the financial market closed. The move is in line with Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong's drive to streamline the ownership structure and reorganize the group affiliates by selling non-core business affiliates and consolidating core units to enhance productivity, efficiency and profitability. "Samsung is helping Vice Chairman Lee get greater control over the conglomerate," said a Samsung director. The latest share deal came after Samsung Electronics posted 6.14 trillion won in operating profit in the last quarter, up 16.2 percent from a year earlier. Net profit fell 39.7 percent to 3.22 trillion won on weak demand for premium smartphones and weaker chip prices, it said early Thursday. Its quarterly sales came in at 53.32 trillion won, up 1 percent. For the full year, it posted 200.6 trillion won in sales, down 3 percent, and 26.4 trillion won in operating profit, up 5.5 percent. It expressed caution for this year's outlook. "The business outlook for this year isn't good because weak IT demand may make it difficult to maintain this year's profits at the level of the previous year," Samsung said in a statement. The company added it will focus more on profitable logic chips, premium mobile DRAMs with expanded memory capacity and small- and medium-sized organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays. But the financial market paid more attention to the ending of profit growth on a quarterly basis as Samsung failed to continue its winning streak for the first time in five quarters. Shares of Samsung Electronics closed at 1,145,000 won on the Seoul bourse, Thursday, down 2.55 percent from the previous trading session. During a conference call to analysts and investors, the firm said it will boost the output of advanced computer memory chips such as mobile DRAMs and logic chips with finer processing technology. "Samsung will expand the use of advanced computer memory chips in a strategy to offset growing concerns over corporate profitability in the financial market. Samsung's top priority is to sell more chips to be used in corporate servers," the company said. Its component unit was the biggest profit source last year. Out of the 26.41 trillion won that Samsung earned as operating profit in 2015, its component unit created 14.89 trillion won, taking up 56 percent. Samsung is the global leader in memory chips. Usually, its entire corporate profit structure is dependent upon moves of its components business. Samsung expects growing demand for the DDR4, which will be used to develop chips to be used in wearable devices and vehicles. "For data-intensive devices, Samsung is paying attention to NAND flash memory chips for solid state drives (SSD)," the company said. In handsets in which Samsung is fiercely competing with its bitter long-time rival Apple, the company will release cheaper phones. "Samsung will try to sell more budget handsets. Also, we hope this year will see more penetration of our mobile payment system Samsung Pay to customers in international markets," it said. In OLEDs, which Samsung was hesitant to jump into, unlike its local rival LG Display, it hinted at advancing into the large-sized OLED market. "Our focus is small-sized OLEDs for smartphones. But we will proceed with projects for the development of large-sized OLED displays for more applications. We are also on the way to develop devices with flexible OLED displays; but the exact timing for such products will be dependent upon talks with our clients," the company said. A South Korean committee consisting of government and business officials has asked the Chinese government to delay introducing tougher safety rules on lithium-ion batteries, a local business lobby group said Thursday. The request by the committee chaired by a senior commerce ministry official here was recently delivered to a Chinese agency in charge of monitoring product quality and licensing, according to the Korea International Trade Association (KITA). In October, the Chinese government said it will closely look into whether imported lithium-ion batteries meet safety rules when issuing its product quality certification. This new rule is to be enforced from Sunday. South Korean producers of lithium-ion batteries mostly used in mobile phones and laptop computers have voiced concerns that they might not be able to conform to the new safety rules in such a short period of time, worrying that they could serve as non-tariff barriers to their products in China. "With about 90 percent tariffs to be lifted through the recently ratified free trade deal between Korea and China, there are still many non-tariff barriers that put a burden on our companies," a KITA official said. "The committee will keep working to address this matter in cooperation with the government." (Yonhap) Chanel is more than happy to wrap its style in K-pop packaging to make headways into Asia. G-Dragon (Kwon Ji Yong), the leader of Big Bang, one of K-pop's most popular idol groups, managed to capture the attention of international media outlets after his recent appearance at Chanel's Paris runway show. Known for his artistry and style, the K-pop artist is the perfect icon to help Chanel further expand in Asia, and South Korea in particular. G-Dragon, who has more than 7.6 million Instagram followers, has been appearing at Chanel's shows for several years in what the New York Times describes as a planned move by Chanel in the company's quest for dominating more of the international luxury goods market, particularly in Asia. "His chameleon style, kaleidoscopic hair shades and catchy songs have won him an army of fans in the millions in Asia, especially in his home country," wrote The Times' Elizabeth Paton on Wednesday. "This no doubt explains part of his appeal for Chanel, who has identified South Korea as a leading luxury growth market." Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld took a picture with G-Dragon at the recent Paris event and the two have been seen together at previous shows that the Big Bang member attended. G-Dragon's rise to front and center at Chanel shows, which has led to the highest praise from world-renowned fashion magazine Vogue, comes at a time when Chanel has all eyes set on the Asian market. As the leader of Big Bang and one of the wealthiest young celebrities in South Korea - and while many in Asia are taking cues from Korean pop culture - G-Dragon is better than any ad campaign. Chanel has a walking, talking billboard in the form of G-Dragon to attract Asian customers, a huge feat when considering that more than half of the world's population lives on the continent. There are also more than 35 million dedicated fans of Korean culture around the world, according to a recent report from the Korea Foundation. Trends change constantly in South Korea and the daily outfits of an innovator like G-Dragon are talked about by fashion bloggers and magazines both inside and outside the country. By putting G-Dragon front and center, Chanel and Lagerfeld apply their kiss of approval on the pop star as a fashion icon and likely hope that the rest of Korea follows. It wouldn't be incorrect to compare G-Dragon to the likes of Justin Bieber when it comes to popularity in Asia, with Big Bang's songs being some of the most popular domestically and internationally in 2015. Of course, Bieber hasn't held his own art exhibit at a major museum. G-Dragon, who has floundered during a few drug and dating scandals, can do no wrong musically or in the fashion world; he's the poster child of K-pop and Korea's forward thinking innovation, and nothing beats that in Asia nowadays. 2015 brought Big Bang to new heights with their "MADE" album and a worldwide tour that brought them to major music venues throughout the globe, with G-Dragon at the front and center of everything and that's exactly the type of publicity Chanel is looking for in South Korea, the current heart of Asian fashion. In May 2015, Chanel held its first show in South Korea, featuring a cruise line that incorporated Korean and Asian traditional style elements. At the time, Lagerfeld described Korea's society as "young and playful" and described Asia as "the future." After the show in Paris, the New York Times spoke to G-Dragon about his role as a fashion innovator and potentially as a fashion designer. "I would only create clothes myself if I felt I could do something really different - create a new style subculture for my generation and that is very ambitious," said the Big Bang member. "What is more interesting to me is how all my worlds appear to be colliding at the moment - music, film, fashion and art - you can be one man, but be a force that combines all of those sectors together. There are business opportunities to be found within that." --- Wildfires in Princeton, Kuttawa Kuttawa is blanketed with smoke Major wildfires are burning in Princeton and Kuttawa this afternoon. A volatile mixture of high winds and la... Marion City Council meets Monday night Here is how to contact your city leaders. Click image to enlarge Marion City Council will meet at 5pm Monday, Oct. 17 night in regular sessi... Full Report from last night's council meeting Tuesday's Marion City Council meeting was quite interesting from many aspects. Unless you've followed the water crisis closely from... Homestead Auction Saturday in Marion Click Image to Enlarge Homestead Auction Realty will auction a 3-bedroom Marion home and its contents Saturday, Oct. 15. In addition to seve... The United States government would continue to assist Sri Lanka with their negotiations with the IMF and the debt restructuring Read more The SLFP does not condone the continuation of the Emergency Regulations (The Public Security Ordinance) more than a day necessary Read more Via The Guardian: Brazil's president declares war on mosquitos to slow spread of Zika virus. President Dilma Rousseff has said that Brazil must wage war against the Aedes aegypti mosquito that spreads the Zika virus, focusing on eliminating the insects breeding grounds. Since September, Brazil has registered nearly 4,000 cases of babies with microcephaly, a condition linked to Zika infection in which children are born with an abnormally small head and a brain that has not developed properly. The jump in cases has prompted a global health scare, with several countries cautioning pregnant women against traveling to the 22 nations in the Americas where the virus has been reported. Without a Zika vaccine and with little known about the causes of microcephaly, Brazil has few options available for fighting the spread of the virus and the birth defect. The mosquito thrives in dense tropical cities, and Rousseff called for the elimination of stagnant water spots where it lives and reproduces. We must wage war against the Aedes aegypti, the vector of dengue, of chikungunya and of Zika, Rousseff said through her Twitter account, referring to two other viral diseases transmitted to humans by the bite of infected mosquitoes. While we do not have a vaccine against the Zika virus, the war must be concentrated on the elimination of breeding grounds for the mosquito, Rousseff added. Getting rid of Zika is the responsibility of all of us. The move comes as Brazil desperately looks to raise awareness of the virus and encourage people to combat the mosquito. Brazilian health minister Marcelo Castro on Monday promised 220,000 troops would be deployed next month to distribute educational pamphlets and help scour cities for mosquito breeding grounds. Similar moves have been successful in the past. A huge eradication effort in the 1940s and 1950s, motivated by the spread of yellow fever also carried by Aedes aegypti, led Brazil to be declared free of the mosquito in 1958. But as the program was relaxed, the insect returned. With Carnival celebrations just over a week away and the Olympic Games set for Rio de Janeiro in August, Brazil is poised to receive hundreds of thousands of visitors in the coming months, adding to concerns over the spread of the virus. Via The Guardian: Epidemic fears prompt Venezuela doctors to demand Zika virus statistics. Excerpt and then a comment: Doctors in Venezuela have called on the government to publish statistics about the Zika virus, warning that the South American country, which borders nations that are hotbeds of the illness, could already be facing an epidemic. Venezuelas ministry of health has so far limited itself to confirming the presence of the mosquito-borne illness suspected of causing birth defects. It used to publish weekly data on all epidemic diseases, but stopped making those statistics public last year. Meanwhile, other Latin American countries are stepping up mosquito eradication efforts and officials in some, including neighboring Colombia and Brazil, have been so concerned that they have recommended women consider postponing pregnancies. The ministry of health must be the first to issue warnings about the existence of a public health threat; they cannot be the last one to speak, said Jose Oletta, who was formerly Venezuelas health minister and now works with the Network to Defend National Epidemiology. We already have a weakened healthcare system, which tends to make these problems spread more rapidly. Add to that the lack of information and its a perfect storm. Zika, which is spread by the same mosquito that transmits dengue and yellow fever, hit Brazil last year at the same time the country saw a sudden, dramatic jump in cases of microcephaly, in which people are born with unusually small heads. Investigators are also studying a possible link to Guillain-Barre syndrome, which can cause temporary paralysis. Brazilian officials estimate that there have been hundreds of thousands of Zika cases there. Colombia says it has seen more than 16,000 suspected or confirmed cases and expects that number to multiply. The Venezuelan Society of Public Health has chastised the socialist administration for remaining silent. It said a study by non-governmental organizations that sought reports of fevers found a rise in cases of acute fever in the past six months that could correspond to 400,000 cases of Zika here. If the Venezuelan health authorities seem reticent, wait until Zika hits Cuba and North American tourism suddenly dries up. Via Haveeru Online: Finland announces first Maldives-related Zika virus case. Excerpt and then a comment: A Finnish tourist had contracted Zika virus after visiting the Maldives last year, announced Finlands health research and development institute. According to Epidemiologist Jussi Sane at the National Institute for Health and Welfare, the man who had fallen ill due to Zika virus after visiting the Maldives last June had not been severely infected and had been sent home after a quick treatment. However, this is the first Zika virus case related to the Maldives, Sane noted. The Maldives are an island nation in the Indian Ocean, and must have been hit by Zika early on in its eastward sweep from Africa to Polynesia. But the case reflects northern peoples' fondness for going south at every opportunity (even in June, apparently, when they could stay at home and enjoy the midnight sun). A Dane returned from Mexico and Brazil has also returned Zika-positive. So countries like Finland, Sweden, and Canada will have to deal with some mighty sick homebound citizens, even if they're outside the range of A. aegypti and even A. albopictus. Via Nigeria Health Watch, an important statement by Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu: Lack of trust in health sector: the underlying cause of the large Lassa Fever outbreak in Nigeria. Excerpt: Strange deaths in a community in Niger State in 2015 left the community confused, this was followed by a period of uncertainty and anxiety, and they reached out to the only rational explanation they could imagine the supernatural. By the time the public health authorities were informed and a diagnosis of Lassa Fever was made, the outbreak had spread to many states. Control efforts included a mixture of persuasion to report suspicious cases to health authorities, establishment of task teams, and even an emergency meeting of the National Council of Health. One patient is reported to have escaped the hospital where he was being treated. The community was scared; they did not know who to trust. The Nigerian Centre for Disease Control is evolving and Prof. Abdulsalami Nasidi has promised that its new Reference Laboratory in Kaduwa, Abuja will be ready for commissioning soon. On a morning television broadcast on the Nigerian Television Authority on the 20th of January he praised the efforts of the seven diagnostic centres in the country and promised to redouble control efforts. Colleagues in the Nigerian Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Programme, as an epidemiologist myself, there is little that will make me prouder than a vibrant, professional Centre for Disease Control in Nigeria. However, the reality of this Lassa Fever outbreak, and all outbreaks that I have worked on in my many years as an infectious diseases epidemiologist have taught me that while epidemiology and diagnostic capacity are important components of health security, the most important line of defense may not be improved technology or quicker response times by my colleagues epidemiologists, virologists, clinicians or surveillance officers. The single most important factor in the control of outbreaks is trust in the health care system by the citizens of a country. A great Centre for Disease Control, is worth very little in the context of a public health care system that is largely dysfunctional, which its citizens do not trust. A lack of trust would not have prevented a few cases of Ebola emerging, but it was at the centre of the exponential spread of the Ebola outbreak in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, and at the heart of the challenges we faced during the response that I participated in, on the ground in Liberia. The need to focus on building trust in communities, and with their health care system is the most important lesson that I learnt from the response to the Ebola outbreak. A lack of trust in the public health care system is the most important reason the current Lassa Fever outbreak continues to spread. PRESS RELEASE U.S. General Slams Drug Legalization Jan. 27, 2016 (EIRNS)Not for the first time, Gen. John Kelly has attacked the drug legalization drive in the United States for the problems it creates for U.S. joint efforts with its southern neighbors to stop the flow of narcotics into the United States. Kelly delivered this message again in an interview with Military Times, published Jan. 16, two days after he retired as head of the U.S. Southern Command, which coordinates security cooperation with Central and South America and the Caribbean, of which drug interdiction is a major component. Kelly told Military Times that the drug cartels make "insane profits" from the consumption of narcotics and stimulants in the U.S. and Western Europe. "So if youre a Latin American, and were harping on them to do more to stop the flow of drugs, they say: Wait a minute.... Why would we do more when you seem to be legalizing this stuff?" There is no doubt that marijuana is a gateway to use of harder drugs, Kelly also said, and the "hypocrisy" of legalization favors cartel operations that are an integral component of global terrorism: "Drug trafficking. Human trafficking. Weapons trafficking. Its all connected." "We know that as that cocaine [bound for Europe] moves up through the Mahgreb [in Africa], ... some of the al Qaida type organizations allow it to pass but charge a fare, just like we know that some large amount of the money that comes out of the United States is laundered by banks and organizations in the Caribbean and Latin America that had relationships with Lebanese banks, and theres a certain skimming that we know goes into certain Islamic terrorist group coffers." In a May 20, 2015, presentation at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., Kelly had elaborated: "Theres nothing these groups cant movefrom drugs, to heavy weapons, to precursors for methamphetamine, to counterfeit software, to illicitly mined gold and sex slaves.... With submarines, jets, trucks, and a logistics operation that Amazon would envy . . . they are no longer the cocaine cowboys or even cartels. "Many of the problems in the region, such as the mass migration of children from Central America fleeing horrific cartel violence, are "the direct result of our drug consumption," Kelly said. PRESS RELEASE U.S. European Command Wants More Troops To Target Russia Jan. 27, 2016 (EIRNS)U.S. European Command released a new theater strategy document, yesterday, that identifies Russia as the number-one threat to Europe and warns that the U.S. troop drawdowns of the past 25 years put the regions stability at risk. "Russia is presenting enduring challenges to our allies and partners in multiple regions; therefore, it is a global challenge that requires a global response," the report says. Tackling that challenge will require EUCOM to work carefully with other military components to ensure that "collective DoD deterrence efforts are synchronized and achieve the desired effect without causing unwarranted escalation or provocation." Defense News reports that despite this Russian "aggression," the United States has been reluctant to divert more troops to Europe because of new crises that keep cropping up in the Middle East and Asia. Yet EUCOMs new strategy, the Defense News report continues, warns that "fully addressing" Europes security challenges "and their long-term implications requires a reformulation of the U.S. strategic calculus and corresponding resourcing levied towards Europe," the report said. The Eucom report, which bears the signature of Gen. Philip Breedlove, the commander of both Eucom and NATO, unabashedly advocates the permanent stationing of troops in Eastern Europe in place of the current rotational presence. "Reduced U.S. forward presence and degraded readiness across the services are inhibiting the United States ability to favorably shape the environment," it says. "USEUCOM cannot fully mitigate the impact felt from a reduction in assigned military forces through the augmentation of rotational forces from the United States," it goes on. "The temporary presence of rotational forces complements, but does not substitute for an enduring forward deployed presence that is tangible and real." Since the bulk of U.S. forces present in Europe on a rotational basis are located in the Baltics, Poland, Hungary, and Romania, this would seem to be an outright call for the permanent stationing of U.S. troops in Eastern Europe. Not only would such a U.S. troop presence violate the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997which some NATO member governments still regard as in effect; Russia would also find it a provocation. PRESS RELEASE Senate Democrats Urge Debt Restructuring for Puerto Rico Jan. 27, 2016 (EIRNS)Speaking from the Senate floor yesterday, Minority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced that the entire bloc of Senate Democrats had signed a letter to Majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), urging bipartisan cooperation to pass legislation that will address Puerto Ricos desperate economic and humanitarian crisis. Two days before Puerto Ricos government advisers will sit down with bondholder representatives and present the Commonwealths restructuring proposal for its $72 billion in debt, 44 Democrats and two Independents called on Republicans to finally address the deepening crisis affecting 3.5 million American citizens on the island, noting the devastating effect of Congress having failed to do so in the 2016 Omnibus Appropriations Bill. A responsible solution, the letter reads, "must allow Puerto Rico to restructure a meaningful portion of its debt," although it stipulates the end of March timeframe set by House Speaker Paul Ryan as the deadline for producing a plan for the island. This is far too late to respond to a crisis which the letter admits is of a "catastrophic" nature. Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla has already indicated that a number of payments due between now and July cannot be made, and two bond insurers have filed legal suits against the Governor and several top officials. Litigation could become a costly nightmare for everyone involved. Up until 1984, when Congress "inexplicably excluded it," Puerto Rico was included in Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, the letter notes. "We urge you to commit to working with us to swiftly enact legislation to give Puerto Rico access to appropriate restructuring tools." Reid himself had argued from the floor that any solution that doesnt grant the Commonwealth the ability to restructure its debt "would be an abject failure." The reason South African-born film editor Margaret Sixel and her husband, director George Miller, slept in on the day the Oscar nominations were announced in L.A. is that they were at home in Sydney, Australia. Due to the time difference, they were up past midnight to learn theyd both been nominated. Though shed collaborated with Miller before Sixel edited Babe: Pig in the City (1998) and Happy Feet (2006) Mad Max: Fury Road was her first action film, requiring a 10-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week schedule to shape the two hours of fast-paced excitement from roughly 470 hours of footage. When the whispery-voiced Sixel was reached by phone recently, she spoke of her editing process, her dislike of repetition and what its like to live 7,500 miles from Hollywood and hear youre up for a film editing Oscar. It feels like were so far from the main action, she said. Were used to it, but sometimes you still think, Oh! They like us! FULL COVERAGE: Oscars 2016 While your husband was shooting on location in the Namib Desert of southern Africa, you were at home receiving daily shipments of footage and building the cut. Did you often discuss what footage youd be getting? Or was it like unwrapping a present every morning? Advertisement The film had been around for so long that we didnt really have to talk a lot. We didnt really have dailies because there was so much there was 10 or 20 hours [worth] coming every day. You wouldnt do any work if you watched them all. So Id sort of triple-speed through the [footage] so I could actually do some work. How many cameras were filming at any given time? Sometimes we had 12 cameras, sometimes 20, in any given scene. [George] was incredibly grateful to [director of photography] Johnny Seale and so was I because there were so many options. In many ways, it created a rhythm in the film. It couldnt have happened without all those camera angles. Meaning? If you cover a scene with just two cameras, your cutting pattern is slower than when youve got five to 10 angles. For instance, when Max falls off the top of the War Rig and Furiosa grabs him? It was difficult to cut because you never had a master shot. But with the editing style and the action, you could do sharp cuts and quick cuts because you have so many camera angles. How closely did you follow the storyboards? I never really followed them. Believe it or not, George had to cut a lot of stuff when he was on set and you didnt often know what was being cut. For instance, the bogging of the War Rig. That was a huge sequence in the storyboards, but George was forced to cut big sections due to time pressures. I had heaps of the War Rig getting stuck, tires spinning, mud spraying, and Max, Furiosa and the girls trying to lever the vehicle out of the mud, but little of the approaching war party. I thought, Theres nothing to cut back to. My solution eventually was to compress the whole segment and simplify it. Your husband says he wanted you to edit Fury Road because he wanted it to look like no other action film. Hes my biggest fan. He just likes everything I do. But I did bring my own sensibility to [Fury Road]. Im not a Michael Bay fan. I dont like meaningless cutting. It irritates me. The guys in the cutting room would laugh. Give an example. Id cut a shot of the Interceptor out. [laughs] The V-8 Interceptor being Maxs super-charged car that first appeared in 1979 in Mad Max" We had a few hardcore fans in the cutting room and theyd [gasp] and say, You cant do that! Id say, Why cant I? Theyd say, The fans want to see the Interceptor. And Id say, [groaning] But it just slows everything down. Moving on here! I wanted every single shot to progress the story. I dont like repetition. And I think we applied that rule religiously throughout the film. The rule being No similar shots? Or ones that have no added information. I watched a film last night and they kept cutting back again and again and the expression on the actors face was exactly the same. I felt like, Youve used the shot three times already! Thats what I dont like. Thered better be some progress. How did your two teenage sons react to the fact that you were editing one of the most anticipated of action films? They werent too interested in Happy Feet. It was like, Oh, penguins. But with this, they were fantastic. Theyd come by the cutting room about 6 p.m. and watch the stuff over and over again. They were always like, Its going to be so good! My eldest son, he was amazing. When we did the test audience screenings, hed read all the comments and be like, Yes, do that! and Dont do that! Warners kept saying, We need him to come work with us. He just predicted everything unbelievably well. calendar@latimes.com Even those who didnt embrace The Revenant, Alejandro G. Inarritus brutal frontier story of survival, surely will concede that the movies images are stunning and, as captured by Oscar-nominated cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and his crew, are a must to experience on the big screen. But if the more than 200,000 people who follow Lubezki on Instagram are any indication, his images can be just as powerful on a smartphone. Below are the raw images. Lubezki, who after consecutive Oscar wins for Gravity and Birdman could be the first cinematographer to take home the prize three years in a row, uses the photo-sharing site as a visual on-set diary, catching moments between filming that enrich and expand his movies already heady visuals. Looking at these stills created while shooting The Revenant in Canada and Argentina (and, for the most part, titled here as he has them on Instagram), Lubezki reflects in an interview with The Envelope on the rigors of the notoriously difficult shoot, the ephemerality of natures beauty, and why the best moments are often the ones when the cameras arent rolling. Advertisement Its the Elbow River in Alberta, a couple years before we shot there. It created a lot of chaos and a lot of roads were destroyed. In this photo, it looks simple and beautiful. As youre scouting [the location] and you see the roads that are destroyed, you know youre getting into trouble. You cannot tame nature. Nature is much more powerful than anything. So we knew that we were going to get into trouble at one point or another as we were shooting the movie. It was already winter. The days were close to 0, -4, -5 [Celsius]. We said, Oh, were going to triumph. This winter is incredible because its snowing, it looks beautiful, and its very manageable. And the next day, boom, the weather changed, and it dipped into -27, even during the day. It became very hard to work. It was the first shock. It really brought fear to us because at that point, we didnt know what to expect anymore. The river that surrounded our location started freezing into chunks of ice, and the river started to go off its course and started flooding our location. It was one of the main locations, where [the characters in the film] Fitzgerald and Bridger abandon Glass. It was a little peninsula surrounded by water, and it started to disappear. We had to evacuate the crew. And then we had a couple days where the weather got even worse. Every time we start a movie with Alejandro, we have a little ritual that he invented. Its very beautiful and very moving. Its not religious. It is spiritual. And it really helps everybody to know how passionate he is about the movie and it gets people close together. On top of that, we were working in native lands, and we had a couple of Native American people in the crew, who were not only acting in the movie but trying to keep us honest. Part of the day was to meet each other, and Craig Falcon, the gentleman that is doing the blessing, had invited some elder people and was blessing the movie and blessing the set and thanking the gods for allowing us to be there and protecting us. When you work with very good people, you can see the transformation of the extras and all the people into characters the makeup, the hair and, in this case, the incredible costumes. But there was something else this time. I felt that the people coming were much more than extras. They were people that knew the land, and people that had a lot of respect for this story. Its hard to tell you, and thats why I sometimes dont like to talk about it; its something you can see in the photos but you cannot explain with words. This photo, its a man that came from the north of Argentina to work in the movie, and were shooting in the south of Argentina, in Ushuaia, so its thousands of miles away, and I just thought he had a very powerful face. I had seen photos of a frozen lake farther north in Alberta. What happens there is that the water freezes, and big bubbles of methane get stuck. It almost looks like glass, and you can see these massive bubbles underneath. But just a few days later, after the scout, it snowed again, so you could not see the glassy surface anymore. It was all white. Thats what happens when you shoot in nature. You have to be very flexible and fast. Many times, the most beautiful things and the most magical things happen when youre not shooting. What I love is just the patches of light and how fast the clouds were moving. You can see a patch of hard light on the surface of the lake. You can see the hard light of the sun. That patch of light was moving really, really fast, and it was just really spectacular. I love the depth of the picture. You can see thousands of meters away. You have to deal with the unpredictability of the weather and of nature, but if you move fast, you can capture these fleeting moments. When you are able to show that to people, you express something that is hard to express on film, that is the ephemeral -- how ephemeral are these magic little moments, and how ephemeral is our life. [Production designer] Jack Fisk made this small dwelling out of wood and we had some propane inside. That afternoon, we started playing with the actors and suddenly I said, Why dont we use fire? So we started playing with fire, me telling them to burn the walls of the dwelling. We asked for a little more, and suddenly the dwelling caught on fire. And the moment that the fire was real, and not organized by the effects people, it started to be more magical and more interesting. Then we got a gust of wind and we couldnt control the fire anymore. The special effects guy said if we dont shut it down, its going to burn the dwelling, we wont be able to use it again. It doesnt matter. Let it burn. We saw this forest many times while we were driving from one location to another. Its a very special forest because its sick, one that has been attacked by some insects. Its a very weird color. The trunks look almost lead-ish, metallic, and there is no growth underneath, and they have almost no leaves. So its very graphic. You have a lot of depth. You can see 1 kilometer deep. We didnt want to use artificial light at all. [But] there was a big bright light that we had put there just for the crew and horsemen to be able to know where we were for between the takes. So this happened before we turned that artificial light off. Its beautiful because its a single source, which you are not sure what it is, if its an artificial light or the sun or the moon, and you can see the shadows of the trunks toward the lens and the little silhouettes of the horses. That was incredible. Id never seen an aurora borealis before. We were almost at the end of the shoot, running out of snow, so we had to go up to this place called Fortress Mountain 8,000 feet, almost to the top of the highest mountain in that area. The actors left, and while we were picking up the gear, we suddenly started seeing the aurora borealis. It was pretty spectacular. I ran to the camera Ski-Doo, and I realized the camera was already going down the mountain. Suddenly, we started seeing the green reflection of the aurora borealis in these massive walls that are thousands of feet tall. It looked incredibly mysterious. You cannot even think about it if you are doing a movie in the studio, that you are going to shoot the reflection of the aurora borealis in the wall of a mountain. Its an incredible miracle that happened right in front of us. We were waiting for Leo [DiCaprio] and his team to come to the set to rehearse, and suddenly these incredible clouds, this incredible light happened right in front of us. Again, its those moments that you are not really shooting. You are just waiting to make the movie. This is one of the extras in the fort in Canada. His beard looks unkempt, and he looks period. Again, I dont know how to explain it, but when these people arrive to the set, sometimes it felt like they had been there for hundreds of years waiting for this to happen. Its incredibly difficult to find faces like this. People now look like theyre watching TV and the Internet. I think Alejandro and his team did an amazing job, and obviously the makeup and wardrobe helps a lot. But when you find a person like this, you are very lucky. We were looking for a burnt forest. There are big areas in that part of Canada that were burnt by a big fire that happened just a couple years ago, but they are very hard to access, so we had to rent a helicopter to fly around and get to this place. What I love is all these different textures that you can see: the flat ice, the frozen lake in the distance, and in the foreground you have all these trees. We scouted, it was a very hard walk, because the snow was very high. It took hours to recon the place. A couple weeks later, we decided it was too hard to get the crew there, and we shot the scene somewhere else that wasnt as beautiful as this. calendar@latimes.com Via The Guardian Nigeria: Undergraduate, 18 others under watch for Lassa fever. Excerpt: Ogun State government said yesterday that it had placed 19 people, including a female undergraduate student of Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNNAB) suspected to have contacted the Lassa fever under contact watch. The Commissioner for Health, Dr. Babtunde Ipaye who spoke at a press conference in Abeokuta, the State capital said the undergraduate had contact with the index case recorded in Ahmadiyyah Hospital in Ojokoro area of Lagos state According to him, the 18 other cases are workers of the same hospital but reside in Ogun State. Ipaye said the undergraduate (name withheld) had been given thermometer to monitor her temperature while other cases have a Disease Surveillance and Notification officers attached to each of them. The Commissioner explained that two suspected cases of lassa were reported last week in the state but that clinical examinations did not support the fever. Ipaye explained that the first case of a seven year old boy who started vomiting blood after a day old fever was reported in General Hospital, Ijaye in Abeokuta but was treated and responded to anti-malaria and other antibiotics. According to him another suspected case of a 10-year-old girl who arrived from Kaduna and started passing dark stool is under examination and expecting the result of clinical examination. He said, As a state, we are being extremely proactive, we do not have a confirmed case of lassa in Ogun State, but in the last three days, we have two reported suspected cases, but I need to let you know that none of these cases has been confirmed to be lassa fever." There isnt really time for hellos when Zach Galifianakis has a pressing question. If you see a mouse yawn, does that then make you yawn? The 46-year-old comedian had just sat down for an interview during a recent round of promotion for his new FX series Baskets, and his stream of consciousness introduced itself. See more of Entertainments top stories on Facebook >> Advertisement Lions yawn all the time. If Im in a safari, would seeing a lion yawn make me yawn? asked Galifianakis, whose scruffy facial hair would surely make for a strong frame to such deep inhalation. Like, does it translate over? And since were so close to monkeys, would we yawn if we see them yawn? Do you think Hitler ever yawned? You dont ever imagine him yawning. Then Baskets executive producer and showrunner Jonathan Krisel arrived, confused at first, but soon was fully engaged: Well, like, do pigeons yawn? I sometimes yawn when I see my dog yawn. But is that because were essentially family? Its an exchange that could rival the Schweppes drive-thru scene from the first episode of the FX comedy, which made its debut last week as cables top comedy premiere in more than a year (1.8 million viewers tuned in over a three-day period, according to Nielsen.) Baskets, which airs at 10 p.m. Thursdays ET/PT, is the first project under FX Productions overall deal with Louis C.K. and his production company, Pig Newton. Galifianakis, in addition to serving as an executive producer, stars as a clown with dashed dreams who is forced to get a job as a rodeo clown after undergoing expensive circus training in France. The Times spoke to Galifianakis and Krisel about more than just yawning. See what they had to say about the unusual premise for the show, the wonder of Martha Kelly and, well, the levels of Costco memberships. When there are four hundred and something scripted shows out in the universe, things can start to look and feel the same. And then theres Baskets, about a clown with failed dreams who turns in Paris for Bakersfield. League of its own. ZG: Its fun to me because you try to put out something new, but you dont know if people would be attracted to it. JK: Yeah, I think we were just trying to make each other laugh. There was one time we were shooting a scene where ... a big pratfall was going to happen. And Zach goes, You have to make sure that the camera is very far away. And thats sort of what the show is. Were doing big things, but theyre hidden. So its like Louie Anderson in a wig were not going, Look at this! Look at this! Were trying to show restraint so it can feel a little more authentic. G: And I think this show is really going to be good for the clowns in Bakersfield. How was it when you told FX CEO John Landgraf what the premise of the show would be? JK: It was brought in under the Louis C.K. deal, so there wasnt much pitching. But then as the budget started going up and we needed [rodeo] bulls and stuff, they were like, we need to see this. But they were fine. This show evolved a bit from what you initially set out to do, which was a behind-the-scenes type show of Between Two Ferns (Galifianakis Funny or Die talk show). What prompted the shift to this? ZG: Well, I think what happened was Jonathan basically talked me out of doing a behind-the-scenes of Between Two Ferns. I was kind of like, God, OK. I thought this was going to be easy. And then I remember sitting around thinking, and a rodeo clown popped into my head. I think thats how it went down. JK: Which to me was just perfect. When he told me that, I was like, Yes, exactly. Thats exactly it. You could just see the world that could take shape around that. And then I think it was Louis C.K. who said, He was trained in France. And then we were all like, OK. We have a show. ... Its the dream, the hope, the beautiful version of it: Paris, versus Bakersfield. The wife that he has versus Martha. The dreams that you have, versus your own life. And the reality that you came into and this whole, How can I make these two things work? But if you dont have the dream of Oh, I can be this magical clown if you dont have that, you kill yourself. But if you always have that thing, it keeps you going. Look, hes a terrible clown, but he has that dream. And you want him to get it. You want to loan him $40. ZG: Yeah, you want to root for him, even though hes kind of ugly and mean a bit. I dont mean physically ugly. He is very prickly, and yet poor Martha finds him endearing and shuttles him around with a cast on her wrist. ZG: I think in my mind, its a forced friendship. Theyre both lonely. They happen to meet. She has really no other option, as far as socializing. He doesnt either. And they kind of stick to each other for that reason. Hes mean, but she can take it. Well, something does happen down the road. JK: But the chemistry between the characters is their real chemistry, so its not forced. Thats actually how they are. Off-camera, they are exactly the same. Im obsessed with Martha Kelly. ZG: We all love Martha. She was at the red carpet for the premiere thing, and I look over and shes like this [mimics hiding from the cameras]. I feel bad for her about that because I dont want her to be exposed to that. Did it take much cajoling to get her to do it? ZG: Over the years, I tried to get Martha to do stuff with me, and she would say no. She was apprehensive. And still, even after we hired her, her confidence level was at zero. I mean, at a complete zero. JK: There [were] several times where shed be like, I cant do this. ZG: I dont know how to emote. But shes so ... good. Shes hilarious. Jonathan, whats it like for you as a showrunner trying to run this ship full of funny people? JK: This is my preferred method. I want to work with extremely, genuinely charismatic people. And I want it to feel like the whole thing is going to fall apart at any second. Like, Ernie Adams, who plays Eddie, the cowboy guy, he could die at any point in a scene. But he is so committed and so great, and also, you never know what hes going to say. The first scene in the pilot, where he and Zach are talking, Zach did not know who he was. ZG: I could not stop laughing. I was going to ask how in the world you guys keep a straight face in some of these scenes. ZG: I had to walk off set that day. On the pilot, I had to walk off. I just could not stop breaking. This job was tiring as heck, but I would get up so excited to drive in to work. I have never been as excited to drive to work as I was with this show. JK: Zach is one of the funniest people in the world. And Louie Anderson is like ... he is so funny. ZG (to JK): If theres a Season 2, Im just going to play the straight guy to him. Just let him go. JK: Well, you really are the straight guy of the show. Martha and Louie get to shine. ZG: I love it. I love it. What discussions were had about the balance of comedy and drama in this series? Because it would seem hard to find the seriousness in it all. ZG: I would talk to Jonathan a lot about this a lot. About how the tone and the balance is going to be the hardest thing. But these editors, they found it. They found it in the stuff we shot. JK: I think a lot of times we were shooting scenes, and our instincts are so teed up for jokes and funny things. And a lot of times I said this scene could have no jokes because it might undermines it. Theres a lot of comedy stuff that is very serious and pretending to be sad. And I said, this has to really be that way. If we make a joke out of it, then weve lost our way. So we have to really restrain it. ZG: Theres an element of surprise in the show, which I think is such a great trick in comedy. Its my favorite thing when I watch things to not see something coming. JK: And also, in my own life, when something is really serious, you do start to laugh sometimes. So thats what we were trying to do. Can we get into these situations that are really serious and sad and make you laugh. One of my favorite scenes is coming up in the church episode. I dont want to spoil it, but its something to look forward to. Zach, who do you like playing more: Chip or Dale? ZG: Dale. Hes so much easier. Chips quieter. My mind, for some reason, I wanted Chip to be quiet. Dale, thats so easy to come up with things. Chip is a little bit more layered and complicated, so hes a lot harder. Did you do a lot of clown research? ZG: I did all the stuff. Well, yeah, when we first started, I looked up a lot of interviews on the gentleman who runs the clown school in Paris [Ecole Philippe Gaulier] that we base this one on. Sacha Baron Cohen went to that school, and so did Isla Fisher, I believe. Ive talked to people who have gone to it. JK: Yeah, and we watched some videos about the school. ZG: He and I also stupidly went to a rodeo. But I had a 5-month-old baby with me. It was so loud. I stayed maybe two minutes. I was surprised, rodeos now are so corporatized. Everyone has a sponsor. That was part of what we want to highlight on the show; we wanted to be blatant about corporate infusion in everyones life. Like, Kirkland is not a brand that has been on television. JK: That encapsulates it. Thats what the show is its Kirkland. The show is about the background moments of life. And Kirkland is the background moments of life. And they didnt give me money. Wait. Maybe they gave us free water? What level membership do you have at Costco? JK: Currently I have none. Growing up, my parents had the executive membership. Theyd be the ones who could go in 30 minutes before it opened. ZG: Wait, wait. Is that a thing? You dont have to be so snobby about it. I had a membership years ago, but I dont now. I mean, Im not going to have seven years of dandruff, why do I need such huge bottles of shampoo? What about this notion of Peak TV, which has become the topic of the industry thanks to your boss? What do you think of it or how has it worked or not in your favor? ZG: Look, I dont think this show would have been made had it been conceived as a movie. I mean, try to go sell this to a studio. Theres no way. Thats the business now. JK: The excessive amount of stuff, all that means is youre just waiting for someone to help you navigate it. Everyone is sort of taking a step back from having to watch anything yet, cause nobody wants to invest unless they know its good. Were hoping people realize this show is worthy of some viewing. I tweet about TV (and other things) here: @villarrealy Californias bullet train could take longer to build than previously estimated and its ultimate cost is difficult to predict, the head of the high-speed rail authority told state legislators Wednesday. It may take us a little longer than we said to do this, rail authority Chairman Dan Richard said in testimony to an Assembly transportation committee. He did not elaborate. But Richard also said that a forthcoming update of its business plan for the high-speed link between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area will show a reduction in the estimated cost of $68 billion, despite delays that have slowed construction. Advertisement The project is more than two years behind the schedule the authority announced in 2012, when it expected to start building 29 miles of rail structures. The work began in July and remains at a slow pace. The oversight hearing was called by Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica), who described the bullet train as one of the most complex projects not only in the state but in the nations history. Bloom said construction of the rail system will be difficult and full of risks. In a brief interview after the 90-minute hearing, he said he believed the project is being managed well. The hearing was limited to testimony from three officials, two of whom work for the authority and a third who is chairman of a peer review panel. In a public comment period after the testimony, a series of speakers sharply criticized the project, but their remarks were limited to one minute apiece. Assemblywoman Patty Lopez (D-San Fernando), who was among those in the public comment line, said she had asked rail authority officials to work with her on some of the effects of the project on her working-class community but did not receive any response. Other objections were raised by the Train Riders Assn. of California, farmers and other rural residents. Two labor union officials praised the project. Richard and state rail authority Chief Executive Jeff Morales spent much of their testimony during the hearing attacking an October 2015 Times story that concluded that the state was highly unlikely to complete an initial operating segment from Burbank to Merced by its 2022 deadline or to bring the project in on budget. The Times found that the years remaining before the deadline were not enough to construct 300 miles of track, bore 36 miles of mountain tunnels, build six train stations, erect high-voltage electrical systems and construct a heavy maintenance facility. The story was based on comments by tunnel engineers, construction experts and geologists. The story also reported that the agencys primary consultant, Parsons Brinckerhoff, had submitted a cost estimate in October 2013 that projected a 31% increase in the cost of the initial construction segment and a 5% increase in the cost of the full 500-mile system. The estimate, which was the culmination of a two-year effort by a team of engineers, was not used when the state issued its 2014 business plan several months later. Morales told lawmakers the Parsons Brinckerhoff estimate was just a draft, subject to revision and among other analyses used for the official cost estimate that was made public. A large number of the rail agencys reports and documents are marked draft in large letters, including the written testimony that Richard and Morales read from a witness table at Wednesdays hearing. They are hiding behind the draft stamp, Assemblyman Jim Patterson (R-Fresno) said after the hearing. Morales testified that part of the $9-billion increase reported by The Times was based on construction of more miles of track and longer viaducts, an explanation he did not provide in an interview before the story was published. The full documentation behind the Parsons Brinckerhoff cost estimate has yet to be disclosed. The rail authority had refused to provide the estimate, which was contained in a detailed PowerPoint presentation, under the Public Records Act. The Times subsequently obtained the document from an individual close to the project. Richard also told the committee that The Times had refused to interview the rail agencys own tunneling experts. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> In fact, The Times made a request to interview the authoritys tunnel engineers. Lisa Marie Alley, who was then the press secretary, offered an interview with Lombardi, an Italian subcontractor, and also asked that The Times speak with an outside expert, Anthony Cording. In a July 23, 2015, email, The Times wrote that it would be happy to talk to the Lombardi people and Cording. The authority subsequently withdrew the offer for the Lombardi interview. The Times independently contacted Cording, who declined to comment publicly. The Times did speak to three of the worlds foremost tunneling experts, none of whom are affiliated with the project. They were highly skeptical the tunnels could be bored by the 2022 deadline. Patterson asked Richard whether, as The Times reported Sunday, the rail authority was rethinking its plan to build the first segment between Burbank and Merced. The Times said the authority was considering a plan to build instead from the Bay Area south a change that would avoid the difficult tunneling of the southern route until much of the system had been completed. Richard did not elaborate on what the authority is considering. He said, Nobody is going to be left behind no matter what we do. Patterson said testimony by Richard and Morales was ambiguous, adding, The interest here was to have a show hearing. Louis Thompson, chairman of a peer review panel that was mandated under state law, also testified Wednesday, suggesting the project should have significantly closer oversight by a well-funded and long-term branch of the state government. ralph.vartabedian@latimes.com ALSO Three more arrests at Oregon refuge as some holdouts leave voluntarily Alleged gang members arrested in O.C. jailbreak probe, but 3 escapees still at large Good time turned ugly after teasing for Blake Griffin and Clippers assistant Im Davan Maharaj, editor of the Los Angeles Times. Here are some story lines I dont want you to miss today. TOP STORIES A Dangerous California Gas Field Goes Tick. Tick. Tick. Advertisement The placards from residents of Porter Ranch, where the worst environmental disaster in recent memory is unfolding, have declared: SHUT. IT. ALL. DOWN. Someones listening. Regulators are considering a permanent shutdown of the Aliso Canyon natural gas field from where massive volumes of methane gas is spewing, exacerbating global warming. One expert hears Tick. Tick. Tick. Voters: Big Data Is Watching You Political candidates want to know if you can be persuaded to vote for them, and their campaigns are turning to data crunchers to find you. Buy frozen vegetables? One firm says you are more likely to oppose abortion. Drive a Chevy truck and like Starbucks? You may want tougher immigration enforcement. But is all that data being kept safe from hackers? Last Stand in Oregon What happened at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Ore., when a spokesman for the armed protest group was killed and several people were arrested? Officials arent giving details of how Arizona rancher Robert LaVoy Finicum was killed, citing an ongoing investigation. A final band of holdouts has broadcast vows that they will fight to the death, even as authorities promise free passage to anyone who leaves peacefully. Here is the latest and a closer look at the man who died. Thoughtful or Insane? Almost four decades ago, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law mandating strict sentences for the most serious crimes. Now, hes proposing a ballot measure that would ease its effects, giving inmates convicted of nonviolent offenses a chance at early release. Its thoughtful, Brown said. The director of a pro-death penalty foundation called the proposal insane. Read on for more details and let us know how you would vote if it makes it to the ballot in November. Supermarket Challenge Bringing a new supermarket to the food desert in South L.A. looked like a done deal around the middle of last year. Less than four months after the City Council unanimously agreed to a new Numero Uno market at 94th Street and Broadway, the company backed out, and the land sits empty today. How did the plans go awry? Thats where the finger pointing starts. And Stop Calling Me Shirley! Its been 36 years since Airplane! came out during the heyday of spoof movies in the 1970s and 80s. Actor, writer and producer Marlon Wayans grew up during this time, and the genre has stuck with him ever since. His latest, Fifty Shades of Black, takes on the E.L. James erotic bestseller. Even though spoof movies have been around since the silent era, heres why Wayans says doing them now is more difficult. Roger that? CALIFORNIA -- The Orange County escapees are still at large, but gang members have been arrested in connection with the jailbreak. -- Prosecutors wont charge LAPD officers who mistakenly fired at two newspaper delivery women during the 2013 manhunt for Christopher Dorner. -- Californias snowpack is its deepest in five years after recent storms. NATION-WORLD -- Fox News Channel and Donald Trump get into a war of words after he drops out of tonights debate. -- Is Obama tilting the scales in the Democratic race? I dont believe that at all, Bernie Sanders says. -- Many experts are skeptical that Iran can quickly deliver on promises to ramp up oil production. -- Haitis leadership is in limbo as political crisis looms. -- What sweat can tell you about your health. HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS -- Could the hit Broadway musical Hamilton teach Hollywood about diversity in casting? -- Singer-songwriter Jenny Lewis talks about the 10th anniversary of her album Rabbit Fur Coat and that time she played a song with Jimmy Buffett. -- Photo diary: The Revenants cinematograper shares Instagram pics and memories from the films making. -- Review: Disguise: Masks and Global African Art at the Fowler Museum adds a modern touch to an ancient tradition. -- Swedish actress Alicia Vikander is having a big year, including an Oscar nomination for The Danish Girl. -- Art fair weekend comes to Los Angeles, starting today. BUSINESS -- Is the U.S. due for a recession or not? A case can be made either way. -- The FCCs chairman proposes freeing Americans from getting those pricey set-top boxes from TV providers. -- Lyft settles a lawsuit over worker misclassification for $12.25 million, as Uber fights it. SPORTS -- Even if the legal system passes over the Blake Griffin incident, the NBA can have a say. -- Andre Ethier bemoans the Dodgers losing Zack Greinke but remains optimistic about the upcoming season. -- Hall of Fame L.A. Kings announcer Bob Miller takes a leave to have heart bypass surgery. WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING -- A 76-year-old English researcher believes he can reverse spinal paralysis. (The New Yorker) -- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the #OscarsSoWhite uproar. (The Hollywood Reporter) -- What El Chapo is reading: Don Quixote. (The Guardian) ONLY IN L.A. It appeared in movies such as Grease, Terminator 2, To Live and Die in L.A. and music videos starring Madonna, Kanye West and Kid Rock. In October, it hosted a raging party. And like some in showbiz, it had a self-destructive streak. Demolition of the 6th Street Viaduct starts this week, as the 1932 bridge succumbs to a chemical reaction within its concrete. Heres how folks made their final farewells. Do you have any memories of the bridge? Share them on our Facebook page. Please send comments and ideas to Davan Maharaj. The Los Angeles police sergeant was worried. He and a group of officers were responsible for protecting the Torrance home of a police captain believed to be a target of Christopher Dorner, a rogue former cop who was in the middle of a vengeful rampage against police and their families. Sgt. Rudy Vidal had never been involved in a protective detail. He was concerned he didnt have enough officers for the job. Armed with only shotguns and handguns, he feared they would be outgunned by Dorner, who had bragged about having access to sniper rifles and surface-to-air missiles. Vidal learned that Dorner had attacked officers in Riverside and Corona that night, killing one. The sergeant discussed with his officers how theyd react to the fugitive, depending on how many of them Dorner doesnt take out. Advertisement The tense scene and chaotic moments that followed were described in detail in a memo released by the district attorneys office Wednesday, when prosecutors announced they would not charge the officers who opened fire on two newspaper delivery women they mistook for Dorner. The mother and daughter were in a blue Toyota Tacoma truck; the officers had been warned that Dorner was driving a blue or gray Nissan Titan pickup. A sergeant and seven officers stationed outside the home unleashed more than 100 rounds, mistakenly believing they were under fire. The Feb. 7, 2013, shooting remains a controversial episode in the dramatic, days-long search for Dorner, who killed four people and wounded three others before dying in a gun battle with police. The women received $4.2 million in a legal settlement from the city of Los Angeles, along with money to buy a new truck. The officers were faulted by LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and the Police Commission, and received weeks of extensive retraining before returning to the field. The barrage of gunfire was tremendous, and troubling, prosecutors wrote, but not criminal. The fear of Dorner was understandable and justified, the memo said. There is no evidence to suggest that the officers did not honestly believe that Dorner was in the vehicle, nor is there evidence to suggest that the officers did not honestly believe they were being fired upon. Prosecutors emphasized, however, that their decision was not an endorsement of the officers actions or the LAPDs tactical decisions. The officers judgment was clouded by heightened fears of Dorner, the memo said, which were compounded by limited planning, instruction and resources. The situation could not have been worse, the memo read. The LAPD declined to comment Wednesday. One of the victims, Margie Carranza, told investigators the shooting was a giant atrocity and a savage deed. Carranza was cut on her hand as the hailstorm of bullets flew; her 71-year-old mother, Emma Hernandez, was struck twice in the back. Their attorney, Glen Jonas, criticized the district attorneys handling of the case, saying a special prosecutor should have been appointed. Prosecutors, he noted, redacted key information from the 52-page memo that was made public, including statements from the officers who opened fire. Im not looking to have people charged when they shouldnt be charged, he said. But how do we have any faith in this decision based on the letter that were reading? A spokeswoman for the district attorneys office said prosecutors could not release the compelled statements of officers who fire their weapons because those comments are part of their personnel records, which are confidential under state law. Gary Fullerton, an attorney representing the officers, said the district attorneys office made a wise decision. Fullerton blamed the shooting on a big chain of mistakes stemming from how top police brass handled the manhunt, saying the officers in Torrance didnt have the proper equipment, training or information. They truly thought they were fighting Chris Dorner at that moment, he said. When they realized what they did, they all felt terrible. But at the time that they did it, they felt absolutely that they had to do what they had to do. The president of the union that represents rank-and-file officers said police leaders hadnt trained the officers to protect a high-profile target, yet the chief still faulted them for the shooting. The officers, Craig Lally said, were put in a very bad position. Police across Southern California were on edge during the massive manhunt for Dorner, a former LAPD officer who alleged he was wrongly fired and was seeking revenge. The manhunt began after the daughter of a former LAPD captain and her fiance, a USC public safety officer, were found shot dead in their car in Irvine. Investigators quickly discovered a 17-page manifesto that Dorner had posted online, vowing unconventional and asymmetrical warfare against officers and their families. He named specific LAPD personnel, including a captain who lived in Torrance. The LAPD scrambled to deploy dozens of protective details across the region, warning officers and their families that they were at risk. In a 2014 report, Beck said there were 40 locations being protected at the time of the Torrance shooting a number that grew to as many as 77 stretching LAPD resources well beyond normal deployment means. About 1:30 a.m. on Feb. 7 just hours after police went public with their search for Dorner the wanted former cop shot at two LAPD officers in Corona. About 10 minutes later, police say, he ambushed two Riverside officers stopped at a light, killing one. Vidal learned of the Corona and Riverside shootings and warned his officers in Torrance to be on high alert, according to the memo from prosecutors. That night, the patrol officers had replaced a violent crime task force a seemingly more qualified team, the memo said that had been assigned earlier to protect the captains house. Join the conversation on Facebook >> The task force had more officers and was able to cover more ground, Vidal said. At some point, Vidal was replaced by another sergeant and left the scene. About 4:20 a.m., a woman called 911 about a light gray Nissan Titan she believed it was Dorners weaving across the 105 Freeway. The pickup was seen heading south on Sepulveda Boulevard possibly toward Torrance, a lieutenant told the new sergeant on scene. Less than an hour later, the officers saw a truck creep down the street, its headlights and hazards on. The officers thought the vehicle was Dorners. When one officer heard what he thought was a gunshot, the group opened fire. The sound, however, had come from a newspaper hitting the ground. As the officers unleashed a barrage of bullets, the captain they were assigned to protect flew out of his bed, the memo said. Believing Dorner was at his doorstep, Capt. Justin Eisenberg grabbed his gun and a flashlight and told his family to get on the ground. Eisenberg, he recalled to investigators, aimed his gun at the door as his family prayed. During a lull in the shooting, he went to his garage to get a rifle. When he saw the bullet-riddled truck on the street, Eisenberg asked about Dorner. Where is the suspect? he said. Hes not here, an officer replied. Hes not here. joseph.serna@latimes.com | Twitter: @JosephSerna kate.mather@latimes.com | Twitter: @katemather ALSO Three more arrests at Oregon refuge as some holdouts leave voluntarily Alleged gang members arrested in O.C. jailbreak probe, but 3 escapees still at large Good time turned ugly after teasing for Blake Griffin and Clippers assistant Southern California Gas Co. is providing air purifiers to schools within a 5-mile radius of its leaking natural gas storage well in Aliso Canyon, officials said Wednesday. The largest number of devices, 210, is going to the largest campus in the area, Granada Hills Charter High School. These purifiers will be in every classroom and office, according to a statement from the public relations firm Sitrick and Co., which is representing the utility. Advertisement The school requested the purifiers even though the telltale odor has not reached the campus, according to administrators. The gas company also is providing active carbon filters that will be installed in all heating and air conditioning units. FULL COVERAGE: Porter Ranch gas leak>> Although the school has not received any notice of increased or unsafe levels of methane or other compounds in the area of the school, we have chosen to work with SoCal Gas to procure and install the purifiers and filters at the gas companys expense in order to do all that we can to ensure the safety of our campus, school officials said in a statement. The school also has arranged for independent air sampling, which it expects the utility to pay for, said Marilyn Koziatek, the schools community outreach coordinator. Since early December, the utility has been drilling a relief well to intercept gas from the damaged one and seal it. The leaking well continues to spew methane, but at a decreased rate, dropping to 18,400 kilograms per hour as of last week. At its peak in November, the well released 58,000 kilograms of methane. The leak was detected Oct. 23. Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is considered harmless to people in the open air, although it can pose problems if it accumulates in enclosed areas, including the risk of explosion. Mercaptan is added to natural gas, which is odorless, to make leaks noticeable. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> Many residents say the gas or the noxious-smelling mercaptan, or trace elements of other airborne agents, have been making them sick. The leak has displaced thousands of Porter Ranch residents, many of whom have complained of headaches, nausea, respiratory problems and other health maladies. The Los Angeles Unified School District has already relocated the two schools most affected by the fumes. Eighteen additional schools are affected by the expanded range of concern. Twitter: @howardblume ALSO Life near the Aliso Canyon gas leak: When its breezy, Im lethargic First significant storm in weeks forecast to hit L.A. Sunday State regulators set to vote on new costs for solar owners Final farewells were visible all over the 6th Street Viaduct on Wednesday. Spinning tire trails were burned onto the bridges asphalt deck; declarations of love and poetry were scribbled onto its concrete railings and incomprehensible graffiti was blasted across its high metal arches. So long and thanks for all the fish, read one note. Even the pigeons made a final flight over the concrete span, along with a clattering LAPD helicopter. Advertisement Join the conversation on Facebook >> The great thing about this bridge is that no matter where you stand, you have a great view, Los Angeles Councilman Jose Huizar said as he led a final walk across the bridge Wednesday morning. Demolition of the crumbling bridge is scheduled to begin this week and could take up to nine months to complete, as crews cart away more than 110,000 tons of concrete. Among those who walked along with Huizar was Los Angeles City Engineer Gary Lee Moore and Michael Maltzan, the designer of the replacement bridge. The work is expected to contribute to traffic snarls as soon as Feb. 5, when crews are scheduled to tear down the eastern section of the bridge that passes over the 101 Freeway. As a result, a 2 1/2-mile section of the Hollywood Freeway will be closed for 40 hours. While Im more aware that the closure will cause delays, believe me, it will be worth it in the long run, said Mayor Eric Garcetti. I cant wait to be here in just a few short years to cut the ribbon. City officials say they have made improvements to surrounding intersections in an effort to mitigate some of the congestion. We certainly want to thank the public for their patience and allowing us to demolish the bridge, said Moore. 1 / 15 Councilman Jose Huizar, center, accompanied city engineer Gary Lee Moore, left, by the new Sixth Street Bridge designer Michael Maltzan on a final walk across the bridge, which is set for demolition. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 15 A view of Sixth Street bridge on January 27, 2016 morning, as some visitors and city officials went for a final walk across the bridge, which is set for demolition. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 15 Lynette Romero, an anchor/reporter KTLA, jumps in air for a photo on Sixth Street Bridge which is set for demolition. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 15 A view of Sixth Street bridge on Wedneday morning, as some visitors and city officials went for a final walk across the bridge, which is set for demolition. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 15 A view of Sixth Street bridge on Wednesday morning, as some visitors and city officials went for a final walk across the bridge, which is set for demolition. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 15 Lanchen Mihalic, 27, left, and Blake Waddell, 26, look out over L.A.'s 6th Street Bridge, a 3,500-foot concrete span that connects the downtown Arts District to Boyle Heights, before its closure on Wednesday in Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 15 Traffic and pedestrians cross L.A.'s 6th Street Bridge, a 3,500-foot concrete span that connects the downtown Arts District to Boyle Heights. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 15 A lone pedestrian crosses L.A.'s 6th Street Bridge before its closure on Wednesday in Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 15 L.A.'s 6th Street Bridge glows like a beacon on the last day it was open to traffic and pedestrians before its closure on Wednesday in Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 15 People gather along the Los Angeles River during the Sixth Street Bridge Farewell Festival in Los Angeles on October 24, 2015. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 15 People attend the Sixth Street Bridge Farewell Festival in Los Angeles on October 24, 2015. Festivities were held on and around the bridge and featured bands, food trucks, live mural paintings and fireworks. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 15 People attend the Sixth Street Bridge Farewell Festival in Los Angeles on October 24, 2015. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 15 People gather along the Los Angeles River with their vintage cars during the Sixth Street Bridge Farewell Festival in Los Angeles on October 24, 2015. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 15 People park their vintage cars along the Los Angeles River during the Sixth Street Bridge Farewell Festival in Los Angeles on October 24, 2015. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 15 People attend the Sixth Street Bridge Farewell Festival in Los Angeles on October 24, 2015. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) The new 6th Street Bridge, a $449-million project expected to be completed in 2019, will echo the design of the old one: a four-lane road framed by curved arches of varying heights following the approximate path of a stone skipped across a pond. Planners imagine the bridge as one that dedicates equal space to pedestrians, bicyclists and cars and integrates the two very different communities it connects. Built in 1932, the 6th Street Bridge is the citys longest extending about 3,500 feet and had become a historical landmark. During its lifetime, the bridge played a supporting role in numerous movies, television shows and music videos. Unfortunately, the bridge also suffered from a terminal case of concrete cancer, according to engineers. Its cement supports began to disintegrate because of a chemical problem known as alkali silica reaction. We couldnt reverse that, Moore said. The 6th Street Bridge east of downtown Los Angeles is scheduled to close for demolition. On Wednesday, some visited the bridge for a final walk. As a result, the bridge is vulnerable to failure in a major earthquake. While Im sad today and I hate to see it go and were doing it because of public safety concern Im looking forward to the future the new bridge will provide, Huizar said. Over the last few months, Angelenos have made their way to the bridge for a final visit. There was a 6th Street Bridge Farewell Festival held in October, and more than 100 people gathered on its deck Tuesday night for a boisterous farewell party. (The LAPD eventually put an end to the festivities, telling the crowd to leave.) On Wednesday morning, Tony Garcia, 40, of Boyle Heights, said he and his brother used to ride their bikes on the bridge. He, his father and brother got up early in the morning to take photos of themselves standing on the structure. He said he plans to do the same when the new bridge opens. Its sad to see it go, he said. Its like your first car, even if it doesnt work, you dont want to let it go. Follow @LATvives on Twitter ALSO Green Dot Charter Schools founder Steve Barr weighs 2017 challenge to Garcetti A boisterous final farewell to 6th Street Bridge before demolition begins Commission probing permanent closure of Aliso Canyon gas field amid massive leak The pitched legal battle over the constitutionality of a Los Angeles County law that requires porn actors to wear condoms during sex scenes appears to be coming to a close. Attorneys for Vivid Entertainment and affiliates of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation told a federal magistrate judge last week that they had reached a tentative settlement in a lawsuit that contested Measure B, the initiative approved by county voters in 2012, according to papers filed in federal court. The measure, which was sponsored by five people affiliated with the Los Angeles-based AIDS foundation, requires porn actors to wear condoms during scenes with anal and vaginal intercourse and imposes a permitting and penalty scheme to enforce the law. Advertisement See more of our top stories on Facebook >> Details of the tentative settlement were not contained in court papers. But Michael Weinstein, the president of the foundation, told The Times that Vivid Entertainment has agreed not to contest the constitutionality of the laws condom requirement. The battle is effectively over, Weinstein said, noting that the porn industrys arguments against condom requirements have fallen one by one. The pending deal comes as California voters weigh an initiative on the November ballot that would make the condom requirement a state law. Weinstein also proposed that measure. In a statement, Vivids founder and co-chairman, Steven Hirsch, called the tentative settlement agreement a positive outcome, but he declined to further elaborate. It would not be appropriate for me to comment on the details until approved by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, Hirsch said. Shortly after Measure B was passed, Vivid sued the County of Los Angeles, calling the condom mandate an infringement on 1st Amendment rights of free expression. Vivid also said the laws enforcement provisions violated the 4th and 14th amendments. AIDS Healthcare Foundations affiliates, including Weinstein, were not initially part of the lawsuit, but they successfully argued for inclusion since they had proposed the ballot measure. The county had said it would not fight the suit. In the tentative settlement, Vivid was not the only side to make concessions. Under the agreement, county health inspectors must provide notice before inspecting porn sets, and filming permits cannot be denied on the basis of poor compliance with the condom requirement, Weinstein said. L.A. County has also tentatively agreed to conduct a study to develop a fee structure that is not punitive, Weinstein added. The settlement, which holds each party responsible for its legal fees, still needs approval by the county Board of Supervisors. The porn industry had threatened to sue the county over Measure B and had vowed to move productions to other locales in the Southwest. In the months after the measure passed, the number of film permits issued for X-rated film productions dropped sharply in the county. Since Vivid filed the lawsuit in 2013, the federal courts have whittled down parts of the original law passed by voters. In an Aug. 16, 2013, ruling U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson struck down parts of Measure B that allowed searches of film sets without a warrant, noting that adult films could occur anywhere -- even a private home. He also shot down the laws broad scheme for suspending and revoking a permit. But Pregersons ruling upheld the condom requirement as a means to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, noting that evidence indicates that merely testing actors for STDs was an inadequate alternative to condoms. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower courts ruling, with a three-judge panel concluding that a condom mandate has a minimal effect on expression and is narrowly tailored to help reduce the spread of infection. Its unclear when the Board of Supervisors may take up the settlement agreement. The court imposed a deadline of March 31 for filing papers to dismiss the lawsuit. For breaking news in California, follow @MattHjourno. ALSO Bullet train may take longer to build but cost less than originally estimated, official says Alleged gang members arrested in O.C. jailbreak probe, but 3 escapees still at large Good time turned ugly after teasing for Blake Griffin and Clippers assistant Several alleged gang members were arrested Wednesday as part of the investigation into the jailbreak at Orange Countys largest lockup as Sheriff Sandra Hutchens said she believed that the three men who escaped had help from the outside. Five people were taken into custody, and additional arrests will take place overnight and Thursday, she said as the sprawling manhunt for the fugitives entered its sixth day. Hutchens did not identify those arrested or say why they were taken into custody, but said some had a connection to a street gang. They have some kind of connection to the individuals who escaped, she said. Some of them knew these individuals. Some of them were on probation or have warrants. Advertisement She did not say whether authorities believed those arrested directly helped with the escape plot. Hutchens would not identify the gang that deputies are investigating. Over dessert at Creamery Pop in Little Saigon, high school students Evelyn Dang, left, Emily Pham, Dorothy Au and Elaine Lai chat about the hunt for three escaped inmates. (Christina House / For the Los Angeles Times) Wednesdays announcement came after Hutchens agency drew criticism over the escape of the three inmates, who cut their way into a series of plumbing tunnels, climbed through an air duct to the jails roof and then descended five stories to freedom Jan. 22. It is every sheriffs nightmare, she said. You never want to have an escape from any jail. They do happen. You certainly dont want maximum security prisoners who are a danger to the public to get out of your jail. So it is not a good day. Hutchens said changes have been made to jail head count policies that some believe enabled the men to gain a 16-hour head start on their pursuers. Jonathan Tieu, Bac Duong and Hossein Nayeri escaped from the jail sometime after 5 a.m. Friday, following the first of two physical inmate counts that are conducted each day. Their escape went undetected until late Friday night, when deputies realized they were missing during a second head count. Other paper checks that involve reviewing records to account for inmate movements to educational classes, medical facilities or court were conducted from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. that day, but failed to discover the escape. Hutchens said Wednesday that deputies will now be required to conduct more thorough checks by confirming that inmates actually moved to other locations during the day. In terms of the count, that was a breakdown, and we are looking at who helped these individuals because they did have help, she said. Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens announced the arrest of several gang members as part of an ongoing probe into an escape from the Mens Central Jail in Santa Ana. (Richard Winton / Los Angeles Times) Investigators have yet to recover the tools the men used to cut through four layers of steel, metal and rebar. Police have not provided an update about the fugitives possible whereabouts since Monday, but have turned their attention to the Little Saigon neighborhood of Westminster and Garden Grove. Aside from his local gang connection, Tieu lived in the neighborhood, and Duong is a Vietnamese national who entered the U.S. legally in 1991. The sheriff said she was interviewed on local Vietnamese radio and television stations Wednesday, and police previously made pleas for the publics help in locating the suspects in English and Vietnamese during a news briefing earlier this week. Hutchens said Wednesday that she believes Nayeri, a 37-year-old awaiting trial in a brutal torture plot, was the mastermind behind the escape. Based on his past, he is a little more sophisticated than the other two fugitives, she said, adding that Nayeri has a military background. Nayeri once served as a U.S. Marine and also volunteered with the American Red Cross in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, according to court records filed in connection with Nayeris arrest for vehicular homicide in Madera County in 2005. Nayeri was drunk when he was involved in a car crash that claimed the life of his passenger, Ehsan Toussi, according to David Linn, a spokesman for the Madera County district attorneys office. Nayeri was sentenced to 180 days in prison and probation under a plea agreement in 2006, Linn said. He was arrested after posting bond and fleeing the state, according to an attorney for the Toussi family. In his most recent case, Nayeri was awaiting trial on charges accusing him of taking part in a violent 2012 plot to extort $1 million from a marijuana dispensary owner in Newport Beach. Prosecutors alleged that Nayeri and several others kidnapped the man, took him to the Mojave Desert and tortured him, burning him and severing his penis in an attempt to make him surrender the cash. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> Tieu, 20, had been charged in a 2011 gangland killing, and was awaiting retrial. Duong, 43, was charged with attempted murder in November 2015. Follow @lacrimes and @JamesQueallyLAT on Twitter for crime and police news in Southern California. ALSO Three more arrests at Oregon refuge as some holdouts leave voluntarily Good time turned ugly after teasing for Blake Griffin and Clippers assistant Police in errant Dorner shooting wont be charged; memo details how things went wrong The City of Industry has effectively non-existent accounting controls that paid tens of millions of dollars to city contractors without keeping track of how the money was spent and what services were provided, according to a state audit released Thursday. City officials charged expensive meals, wine tastings, massages, an iPad and a 65-inch television to city credit cards, the audit found. Auditors discovered a record of one meal that cost $560. Auditors criticized city leaders for failing to provide proper oversight over the citys finances and raised questions about how they spent public money. Advertisement Over an eight-year period, the City Council met for an average of 18 minutes per meeting and unanimously approved all resolutions and ordinances but one. This is the most recent in a series of reviews performed by my auditors showing a disturbing pattern of weak fiscal controls in a handful of cities, Controller Betty Yee said in a statement. City of Industry officials said the audit identified many of the same issues that a new group of city leaders is trying to fix. As part of an ongoing government-reform process, the city has reviewed each of its contracts, hired an independent auditor, recalled all fuel and credit cards from city officials and staff and analyzed contractor invoices to make sure the city isnt being improperly charged. Our city is under new leadership, and the new City Council has made clear their commitment to adopt best practices, increased transparency, and reforms to serve our residents, businesses and the regional environment, City Manager Paul Philips said in an emailed statement. The state audit, along with a Los Angeles County District Attorneys investigation, was spurred by a city-commissioned KPMG financial review last summer that found that companies owned by former City of Industry Mayor David Perez and his family were paid $326 million in city contracts over two decades. Auditors found that Perezs company, Zerep Management, had reaped huge profits from the city without providing complete documentation, charging six times as much as a competitor for street-cleaning services, and had collected $28 million for vehicle and equipment rentals over 11 years enough to buy several fleets of the same vehicles. After Perez stepped down in 2012, the city led by then-City Manager Kevin Radecki terminated its contract with Zerep (Perez spelled backward) and sued the Perez family last year, alleging that its companies fraudulently billed the City of Industry for millions of dollars. An election last June saw three Perez-backed candidates regain a majority on the council. One of the new councils first acts was to fire the attorney who spearheaded the lawsuit against the Perez family. Radecki, the brother of current Councilman Mark Radecki, stepped down as city manager after stating concerns that the new council would fire him for challenging the Perez familys contracts. The lawsuit has stalled. The City of Industry, which has about 400 residents and about 2,500 companies, previously was investigated for voter fraud, but no charges were filed. A Times analysis of voter-registration records found that 85% of registered voters live at properties owned by either the city or the Perezes. The citys cozy relationship with the former mayor and his familys companies was laid out by a Times investigation in 2009. The state audit reviewed the citys finances over a two-year period. It found that the city approved contract extensions without considering other bids. The city paid $12.3 million to Zerep even though invoices didnt properly describe the work provided. The Industry Manufacturers Council reaped $14.7 million in payments for advertising and promotion of the city, but state reviewers couldnt find any documentation of what work was provided. The city also did not maintain timesheets to track work hours and may have paid employees twice for the same work, the audit said. frank.shyong@latimes.com Twitter: @frankshyong Join the conversation on Facebook >> ALSO 22 indicted in illegal gambling and drug ring led by former USC athlete, feds say 55-hour road closure to shut down major streets in downtown L.A. Ex-Uber driver charged with trying to extort money from passenger California State University trustees Wednesday appointed two women to lead the campuses in San Jose and Sonoma and got some good news about efforts to reduce the time it takes for students to earn a degree. San Jose State University, one of the largest campuses in the system, will be headed by Mary A. Papazian, a veteran East Coast educator, trustees announced Wednesday. Judy K. Sakaki, a California native now vice president of student affairs in the office of University of California President Janet Napolitano, will become president of Sonoma State University. Advertisement At UC, Sakaki, 62, has overseen policies and services for 238,000 students at 10 campuses as a member of Napolitanos cabinet. She has also led fundraising efforts for scholarships and other student programs. She previously served as vice president for student affairs at UC Davis and as a vice president at Fresno State University. Sakaki earned a bachelors degree in human development and a masters degree in educational psychology from Cal State Hayward, now Cal State East Bay. She also has a doctorate in education from UC Berkeley. Sakakis experience with California education systems and her work with students stood out, said Cal State trustee Lupe Garcia, chairwoman of the search committee. Her extensive and stellar work in student affairs complements the universitys mission of improving student retention and graduation rates, Garcia said in a statement. Sakakis salary was set at $298,000, $7,000 less than her predecessor and based on her experience and length of service, Chancellor Timothy P. White said. She will also receive a $60,000 housing allowance and a $1,000 monthly auto allowance. Papazian, 56, currently serves as president of Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, which serves 11,000 students. In her new role as president of San Jose State, she will be responsible for nearly 33,000 students. She will take over for interim president Susan Martin, who was appointed in August following the departure of President Mohammad Qayoumi. Qayoumi left after four years to take an advisory position with the Afghanistan government. I look forward to working alongside the many dedicated faculty and staff who guide students along their academic journey and prepare them for achievements beyond the classroom, Papazian said in a statement. In Connecticut, Papazian oversaw the creation of several undergraduate and graduate programs as well as an expansion of academic buildings and other facilities. She previously served as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Lehman College of The City University of New York, as dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Montclair State University in New Jersey and as associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich. Papazian is a Southern California native and holds bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees from UCLA. She has extensive academic leadership experience and a knack for connecting campus, organizational and political leaders to higher education, trustee Rebecca Eisen, said in a statement. Papazian will receive a salary of $371,000, $72 less than her predecessor, and will be required to live in the university-owned presidents residence. She will also receive a monthly $1,000 auto allowance. The appointments of Sakaki and Papazian come a day after White called for more diversity in hiring and in the development of curriculum throughout the 23-campus system. With the new appointments, 15 of the campuses will be led by women or minorities. On the second day of their meeting in Long Beach, the trustees learned that the Cal State system exceeded its goal of raising six-year graduate rates. The universities set out to raise the six-year graduation rate for freshmen who enrolled in 2009 from 46% to 54%. In reality, about 57% of freshmen who entered Cal State in 2009 earned their degree within six years. Over the last decade, less progress was made in closing achievement gaps between ethnic, racial and socioeconomic groups. From 2005 to 2015, the six-year graduation rate increased from 27% to 42% for African American students, from 40% to 52% for Latinos students, from 47% to 61% for Asian American students and from 52% to 64% for white students. Nearly 52% of students who qualified for low-income federal Pell grants graduated in 6 years, while 60% of non-Pell students graduated in that time. The disparity in four-year graduation rates was starker; about 11% of Pell students graduated in that time versus 22% of non-Pell students. Gov. Jerry Brown has criticized the university system for failing to graduate more students within four years. His recent budget proposal included unflattering comparisons with other public universities around the country that are doing far better. The national four-year average for public universities is about 34%. The system-wide four-year average at Cal State is about 17%. White wants to raise that rate to 24% by 2025. Looking at those numbers in the governors budget report, you want to say, Ouch, they are painful numbers to see, trustee Peter Taylor said. White said that the median time to earn a degree was 4.7 years at Cal State and 4.3 years at the University of California. Cal State officials argue that 4-year graduation rates dont accurately measure how students are performing because many work while attending school and are unprepared for college-level English and math. The whole issue here can paint a misleading picture of underperformance, White said. But he added: I will never apologize for the complexity of our students. Follow me on Twitter @CarlaRiveralat. ALSO Cal State chancellor tackles tuition, diversity and salaries Graduation rates are on the agenda as Cal State trustees meet in Long Beach From L.A. Unified teacher to superintendent: Who is the real Michelle King? Via BBC Brasil: Relacao entre microcefalia e zika so foi descoberta gracas ao Brasil, diz orgao de saude europeu.[Relationship between microcephaly and Zika was discovered thanks to Brazil, says European health agency] Edited excerpt from the Google translation: The Zika epidemic in Brazil allowed a finding of the relationship between the virus and microcephaly, an expert of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the EU agency responsible for health has told BBC Brasil. Previous outbreaks in other parts of the world had not affected big enough populations to make up the remarkable increase in the birth of babies with malformations. "In a way, I would say the size of the population affected in Brazil was to serve as an eye-opener for the association with microcephaly," said Denis Coulombier, head of ECDC's surveillance unit and response. Comparing the Brazilian epidemic to that in the Pacific islands, Coulombier explained that there are two reasons why the link has not been noticed before. "There were so many infected women and there were few cases (microcephaly), which could hardly be noticed. Now, apply the same risk to a large population without virus resistance in Brazil, which is more concentrated in a matter of space, you end up seeing suddenly tens of thousands of cases in the same hospital at the same time," he said. "Looking back at other countries' experience, it is clear that there were cases of microcephaly and malformations of the central nervous system." California long has been considered a trendsetter. And right now, that should be worrying the Republican Party. Things often happen here first. Auto smog controls. Taxpayer rebellion. The fight against climate change. California also is where the Republican Party virtually destroyed itself by scaring Latinos while bashing illegal immigration. Advertisement Like GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump has been doing. One of his main rivals, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, sounds almost as insulting. And none of the partys White House wannabes is exactly Reaganesque. This is what Ronald Reagan the revered Republican icon had to say about Mexican migrants during a 1980 primary debate with George H.W. Bush: Rather than talking about putting up a fence, [we should] make it possible [for Mexicans] to come here legally. Its the only safety valve right now they have with [their high] unemployment. Reagan and Bush had been asked by someone in the audience whether the children of illegal aliens should be allowed to attend public schools. Bush answered first: If those people are here, he said, they should get what their neighbors get. He added: These are honorable, decent, family-loving people.... Good people, strong people, part of our family and making their 6- to 8-year-old kids totally uneducated is wrong. That portrait is the opposite of the one Trump painted of Mexicans migrating illegally. Rapists, drug dealers and violent criminals, he called them last year, adding that only some, I assume, are good people. I cant imagine Trump giving an inaugural speech, says Ken Khachigian, a longtime GOP strategist who wrote Reagans first swearing-in address. I cant place him there, putting that mantle of dignity on him, looking out over those monuments. As president, Reagan signed legislation granting amnesty to immigrants here illegally. These days, Republican presidential candidates consider amnesty a dirty word. They, especially Trump, are making the old California GOP rhetoric sound like a Sunday sermon. While running for reelection in 1994, Republican Gov. Pete Wilson crusaded for Proposition 187, which denied most government services including schooling to immigrants here illegally. Voters passed the measure overwhelmingly. But the federal courts later ruled it unconstitutional. The ugliest part of the pro-187 campaign was a TV ad that showed grainy news footage of a group of people running north across a U.S.-Mexico border checkpoint. It proclaimed in a doomsday, Darth Vader tone: They keep coming. Yes, they did. Straight to the voter registrar at least their citizen cousins and sisters did. And they turned against Republicans. Since 1994, more than 3 million Latinos have been added to the voter rolls, according to Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc. Latinos make up 23% of the California electorate. And their share will only climb. They now account for roughly 40% of the population. As voters, Mitchell says, theyre aligned 54% Democrat, 24% independent, 17% Republican. Although many were probably only 6 or 8 years old when Prop. 187 passed, Mitchell says, it still lingers with them, as well as with people who werent even born then. Texas is going to go from a red state to a blue state in the next 10 years. Look at the numbers. Stu Spencer, political strategist California has basically changed its 1990s view: A poll released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 78% of likely voters believe people here illegally should be allowed to stay if certain requirements are met; 61% consider immigrants a benefit to the state. It might seem preposterous to think that the Republican Party nationally could be sent tumbling downhill by rhetoric insensitive to Latinos, especially given its strong control of Congress and domination of statehouses. But consider this: 22 years ago, California reelected a Republican governor and chose GOP candidates for four of its other six statewide partisan offices. Republicans also won a slim majority in the state Assembly. Today, no statewide elected official is a Republican. And Democrats outnumber the GOP nearly 2 to 1 in each legislative house. During a 40-year stretch of presidential elections, Republicans carried California nine out of 10 times. But since 1992, we have been solidly blue. In 1994, Republicans were 37% of the registered voters. Today theyre 28%. Democrats also have fallen, from 49% to 43%. Independents have gained the most, from 10% to 23%, largely among young Latinos. The GOP should be especially leery of following Californias path in western states particularly in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Texas where Latino populations are growing. If Republicans arent careful, says veteran GOP consultant Rob Stutzman, they could essentially lose the entire West. Texas is going to go from a red state to a blue state in the next 10 years, predicts Stu Spencer, Reagans top political strategist. Look at the numbers. To the California GOPs credit, its candidates have significantly tempered their anti-illegal immigration demagoguery in the last five years. And they have tried to lay off the social issues principally abortion that turned many libertarian-minded Californians against them. But now comes Trump, who also has bellowed about barring all Muslims from entering the country. Not just terrorists, but anyone of that religion. Its the height of constitutional absurdity, Stutzman says. Unless Trump is broadly condemned by the party, he could have a hugely damaging effect. Mike Madrid, the grandson of Mexican immigrants who is a Republican consultant, puts it this way: The party that began with Lincoln may end with Trump. That would be a sad American story. If theres any California trend that Republicans nationally should follow, its the recent calming of rhetoric. george.skelton@latimes.com Twitter: @LATimesSkelton ALSO Three more arrests at Oregon refuge as some holdouts leave voluntarily Alleged gang members arrested in O.C. jailbreak probe, but 3 escapees still at large Good time turned ugly after teasing for Blake Griffin and Clippers assistant As the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon dragged on for most of January, local law enforcement was spread thin and federal agents were nowhere to be seen. Behind the quiet facade, however, the FBI was running surveillance on the occupation and recording the activists public statements, mostly drawn from media reports and the activists use of social media, while FBI agents encouraged locals to report their experiences with the new strangers in town. According to the allegations in an indictment and supporting affidavit, the FBI was collecting information that confirmed the occupiers were armed, angry and willing to die. Advertisement The court documents detail how a source told a Harney County sheriffs officer that the protesters had explosives, night vision goggles, and weapons and that if they didnt get the fight they wanted out there they would bring the fight to town. The documents show that authorities grew concerned as the occupiers used increasingly heated rhetoric when discussing their plans and the occupation. One activist, Robert LaVoy Finicum, 55, was shot and killed Tuesday in an altercation between some of the occupiers and authorities. Ryan Bundy suffered a gunshot wound to his arm. On Wednesday afternoon, U.S. Magistrate Judge Stacie F. Beckerman unsealed the governments criminal complaint against two brothers, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, and Jon Ritzheimer, as well as five others arrested in connection with the occupation. All stand accused of conspiring to use threats, intimidation or force to stop federal officers from doing their duty, a charge also used against tax protesters Edward and Elaine Brown, a New Hampshire couple who holed up in their home in 2007 and engaged in an armed standoff with federal agents for months. It eventually ended peacefully with their arrest. A significant amount of the FBIs information used to charge Ammon Bundy came from an activist named Pete Santilli, who was living inside the refuge and broadcasting live his conversations with fellow activists. To demonstrate a conspiracy, the government has a lower burden than it would with similar charges, such as aiding and abetting, or solicitation. A conspiracy charge in federal court does not require the underlying offense to have taken place, so prosecutors can charge the defendants based on their statements, without proving they actually committed a crime. That is where Santillis broadcasts proved so useful to the FBI. Were continuing the stand at the Malheur National Wildlife Reserve, Ammon Bundy told Santilli in a conversation on Jan. 2, the day the occupation began. Let everybody know that. Later, Bundy was recorded telling Santilli, Malheur, Malheur, at which point, the FBI affidavit says, Santilli nods and then introduces Bundy, who gives a speech. At one point in a video, Santillis cameraman is recording Bundy speaking to another activist when the cameraman seems to realize he shouldnt be broadcasting it. The cameraman steps away and bumps into someone. I was trying to get away from that conversation, he explains. The charges filed Wednesday detail activists behavior in the media and the behavior reported to the FBI by federal employees who said they endured threats from the protesters in town before the occupation. One employee with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, a prime target of the protesters, said Ritzheimer, an anti-Muslim activist who led an armed protest at a mosque last May, and another man accosted her in a grocery store for wearing a BLM shirt. When she turned around, the second individual shouted youre BLM, youre BLM, at her, FBI Special Agent Katherine Armstrong wrote in the affidavit. That person further stated to [the BLM employee] that they know what car she drives and would follow her home. He also stated he was going to burn [her] house down. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> Then activists began targeting her, she said. A vehicle matching one she saw Ritzheimer and the other man driving began to appear parked in front of her home and in front of her workplace, she said. A week later, a white truck with a Confederate flag sticker in the rear window tailgated her and flashed its lights, the affidavit says. The documents are also sprinkled with repeated references to the occupiers principle concernsupholding the Constitution, protecting the rights of individuals and crushing socialism. It also quotes various protesters using social media to urge good patriots to join the occupation. Twitter: @nigelduara ALSO Californians bought a years worth of Powerball tickets in 10 weeks Alleged gang members arrested in O.C. jailbreak probe, but 3 escapees still at large Good time turned ugly after teasing for Blake Griffin and Clippers assistant Migrant children in the governments care were placed in U.S. homes and left vulnerable to human trafficking due to sometimes nonexistent screening by the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a congressional report released Thursday. The investigation says HHS failed to run background checks on the adults in the sponsors households, failed to visit sponsors homes and failed to realize some sponsors were accumulating multiple unrelated children, which can be a sign of human trafficking. Some lawmakers contend that the government weakened its child-protection policies as it was overwhelmed by tens of thousands of children crossing the border. A Senate subcommittee held a hearing Thursday to release the report and examine weaknesses in the departments placement of migrant children. Advertisement At the hearing, HHS officials declined to fully answer many of the senators questions, at times saying they did not have the legal authority from Congress to follow up on the children. The investigation by the panel echoes the findings of an Associated Press investigation that found more than two dozen unaccompanied children were sent to homes across the country where they were sexually assaulted, starved or forced to work for little or no pay. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), the chairman of the panel, said the HHS placement program for migrant children suffers from serious, systemic defects. The congressional investigation and hearing are in response to a case in Portmans home state, where six Guatemalan unaccompanied minors were placed with human traffickers, including sponsors and their associates. Lured to the U.S. with the promise of an education, the teens instead were forced to work up to 12 hours a day on egg farms under threats of death. The report said the department did not conduct any home visits in the Ohio case and has performed visits in less than 5% of cases overall from 2013 to 2015. Mark Greenberg, acting assistant secretary for HHS Administration for Children and Families, testified at the hearing that the Ohio case is a deeply dismaying event but said he is not able to discuss details due to an ongoing criminal investigation. He said policies in place at the time were followed. Lawmakers from both parties bristled at the officials answers, saying they werent adequate when the lives of children had been endangered. The panels top Democrat, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, said she is disgusted and angry by the results of the investigation. The bottom line is when a child is admitted into our county, the United States of America should be an example for the world of how we care for those children, McCaskill said. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) criticized the overly legal tenor of many of the officials responses and asked if they understood why the senators were angry. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) stopped his line of questioning and left the hearing after saying that the witnesses were the definition of noncooperative. Portman said federal officials dont know how many migrant children theyve sent to live with convicted criminals across the U.S. over the last three years. Perhaps the most troubling, unanswered question is this: How many other cases are there like the Marion trafficking case? Portman asked. The answer is HHS doesnt know. The panels report said the agency still cant track whether an adult is attempting to sponsor multiple children at the same time. The agency also commonly places unaccompanied children with alleged distant relatives or family friends without setting eyes on the sponsor or their environment. In addition, current policies allow sponsors to prevent children from being contacted by social workers who go to the home for a check-up visit. The report also noted that HHS did not spend all of the money it had left in the program, even though it said it was overwhelmed. HHS bars releasing children to anyone convicted of child abuse or neglect or violent felonies such as homicide and rape. The department said it recently signed a contract to open new shelters, and is strengthening its protection procedures as the number of young migrants is once again rising. According to emails, agency memos and operations manuals obtained by the Associated Press -- some under the Freedom of Information Act -- the agency relaxed its procedures as the number of young migrants rose in response to spiraling gang and drug violence in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. The number of armed occupiers of a remote wildlife refuge continued to dwindle Thursday as just four people appeared to be holding out by late morning, surrounded by a large show of federal law enforcement that has blocked off roads to the area. Were the grunts that get stuck behind because nobody informed us of whats going on, one of the four, Sandy Anderson, said in a phone interview with the Los Angeles Times. In interviews with The Times, Anderson and two others, including her husband, Sean, conveyed a complicated position: They said they would leave peacefully -- but only if they are assured they will not go to prison. They said they had not spoken with an FBI negotiator since about midnight. Advertisement 1 / 4 A television truck and a reporter in a car sit along Highway 78 near Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon on Jan. 27. (Rob Kerr / AFP/Getty Images) 2 / 4 Ammon Bundy, leader of a group of armed anti-government protesters, arrives to speak to the media at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Ore., on Monday. (Rob Kerr / AFP/Getty Images) 3 / 4 Ryan Bundy talks on the phone at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Ore. on Sunday. Bundy, son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, is one of the people occupying the refuge. (Rebecca Boone / Associated Press) 4 / 4 Federal buildings at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Protesters are occupying the refuge in Oregon to object to a prison sentence for local ranchers. (Rebecca Boone / Associated Press) They noted that since the occupation began on Jan. 2 many people had been able to freely come and go from the refuge. That changed Tuesday, when several leaders of the occupation were arrested during a traffic stop north of Burns and one of them was killed. In the hours afterward, law enforcement set up roadblocks around the refuge but allowed several people to leave without arrest. Some were arrested, however, including three on Wednesday. Others chose not to leave, at least initially. The small group remaining Thursday repeatedly said they faced what they viewed as an impossible choice: being arrested -- wrongfully in their view -- or being killed by law enforcement. Why cant I get in my vehicle and drive home like Ive done four other times since I got here? said Sean Anderson, 47, of Riggins, Idaho, who was at the refuge along with wife Sandy, David Fry, 27, of Ohio and another man, Jeff Banta. Because I didnt leave the night they told us to do that? I hope my life and my wifes life and Daves and Jeffs are worth more than that. Earlier Thursday, the group believed only Sean Anderson faced arrest. But they said in the interviews that a fifth person, whose first name they said is Jake, was arrested after he left early Thursday with the belief that he would not be. By late Thursday morning, the four remaining presumed they would face the same felony charges others have who have been arrested in relation to the nearly month-long occupation. More than 20 people marched through Burns, Ore., to celebrate the life of Robert LaVoy Finicum, who was fatally shot during an encounter with the FBI and other agencies. (Rob Kerr / AFP/Getty Images) The FBI has not confirmed the arrest of anyone named Jake in the last 24 hours. In a release late Wednesday, the FBI did not say those remaining would not face arrest, only that law enforcement would continue to work around the clock to empty the refuge of the armed occupiers in the safest way possible. Earlier Wednesday, Greg Bretzing, the special agent in charge for the FBI in Oregon, said at a news conference that the armed occupiers were given ample opportunities to leave peacefully. They were given the opportunity to negotiate. As outsiders to Oregon, they were given the opportunity to return to their homes and have their grievances heard through legal and appropriate means. They chose, instead, to threaten the very America they profess to love with violence, intimidation and criminal acts. On Thursday, Sean Anderson echoed his wifes concerns. We were the grunts and now were the shining stars who stayed, he said. Were either going to accept the charges or theyre going to kill us. When a reporter noted that their choice was not necessarily between going free and dying -- that they could yield to law enforcement and the judicial system, as others who left the refuge had -- they rejected the notion. You think were going to put ourselves into a corrupt court system? Sandy Anderson said. They also pointed to the shooting death during the traffic stop on Tuesday of Robert LaVoy Finicum, one of the leaders of the group. Fry has been posting live videos from the refuge for several weeks. Were asking them just to just drop the charges and were willing to go -- and nobody dies, he said on a video early Wednesday. But if theyre not willing to do that, were all just kind of willing to stay here. Fry said that in the chaotic two days since one of the occupiers was killed by law enforcement during a traffic stop, many people had been allowed to leave without arrest -- some departed so quickly they left behind their guns -- and that the same option should be offered to those who remain. Everybody feels its unfair, Fry said of Seans situation. Right now, were trying to tell the negotiator guy: Why dont you just give us the other option, that first option, just let us leave if were willing to leave? Fry said the occupiers were willing to let the FBI check their guns to see if they were stolen. Were being reasonable, he said. Were trying to be peaceful, you know? And they keep saying cant do that. He has to be charged is what they keep saying. Robert LaVoy Finicum died during a clash between law enforcement and his group during a traffic stop. Finicum told the Associated Press in early January that the occupation of a wildlife refuge was intended to be peaceful. He also said, indicati The developments came hours after Ammon Bundy, the leader of the standoff who was among several people arrested on Tuesday, urged his colleagues-in-arms to stand down Wednesday. By late Wednesday, several protesters still inside the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge were heeding the request, as three more people were arrested and several others were allowed to leave freely, according to the FBI and other sources. The FBI, which began setting up checkpoints around the refuge early Wednesday, said eight people had left through the checkpoints, including the three who were arrested. One of those detained, Duane Leo Ehmer, 45, of Irrigon, Ore., had become a symbol of the occupation. He made a custom of going on morning patrols carrying an American flag while riding his horse, Hellboy. Another, Jason Patrick, 43, of Bonaire, Ga., had become an unofficial leader of the remaining group after the arrest of much of the occupations top leadership in a traffic stop a day earlier. Sgt. Tom Hutchison stands in front of an Oregon State Police roadblock on U.S. 395 between John Day and Burns. (Dave Killen / Associated Press) Officials identified the third person arrested Wednesday as Dylan Wade Anderson, 34, of Provo, Utah. Each chose to turn himself in to agents at a checkpoint outside the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, the FBI said in a statement Wednesday night. All three face the same charge faced by the eight taken into custody Tuesday: a federal felony count of conspiracy to impede federal officers from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation or threats. The FBI and our partners continue to work around the clock to empty the refuge of the armed occupiers in the safest way possible, the agency said. Earlier in the day, at least some at the refuge were still expressing defiance. There are no laws in this United States now! This is a free-for-all Armageddon! a heavyset man holding a rifle yelled into a camera transmitting from the refuge. He urged others to join those at the protest site, adding that if they stop you from getting here, kill them! But that was before Bundy, arrested with other protesters Tuesday in a law enforcement operation that killed one of their comrades, called for those remaining in the high-desert refuge to go home and hug your families. Bundy and several codefendants appeared in U.S. District Court in Portland on Wednesday afternoon and were ordered held without bond. Right now, Im asking the federal government to allow the people at the refuge to go home without being prosecuted, Bundy said in a written statement read after the hearing by his attorney, Mike Arnold. To those remaining at the refuge, I love you. Let us take this fight from here. Please stand down. Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is ours for now -- in the courts. The standoff took shape in early January when about 15 men and women took over the wildlife refuge after a march in support of Oregon ranchers Dwight and Steve Hammond, a father and son who had been sentenced to prison for setting fires on federal land. Over the weeks, protesters issued a muddled set of demands for ending the occupation. They demanded freedom for the imprisoned Hammonds and asked that federal land be returned from the U.S. government to local landowners, the county and the town of Burns, near the refuge. And they made it clear they were willing to resort to violence if the federal government moved against them, but also said they did not want such a confrontation. MORE: Get our best stories in your Facebook feed >> ALSO Where was the FBI during the armed standoff in Oregon? Out of sight, but listening and watching Vote on new costs for solar owners is politically a historic moment More arrests expected as O.C. jail break dragnet expands Though President Obamas Affordable Care Act continues to animate political debate in Washington and on the campaign trail, Americans are more concerned with basic healthcare issues such as the cost of their health insurance, a new national poll shows. The health law ranked eighth among issues voters identified as most likely to be extremely important to their vote for president this year, with 23% identifying the 2010 legislation, commonly called Obamacare. Concern about how much people were paying personally for healthcare and health insurance tied for third, with 28% of voters saying the issue would be very important. Advertisement The top two issues were terrorism, cited by 38% of voters, and the economy and jobs, picked by 34%, according to the survey by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. The findings underscore a transition underway in the national healthcare debate, nearly six years after the Affordable Care Act was enacted. While the public remains deeply divided over the law, particularly along partisan lines, Americans increasingly point to pocketbook concerns including drug prices and surprise medical bills as issues they want elected officials to tackle. At the same time, Americans also remain generally satisfied with their own health insurance and medical care, a sentiment illustrated again by the latest Kaiser poll. These complex public sentiments are helping drive contrasting healthcare platforms from the 2016 presidential candidates. The Republican contenders all pledge to repeal the health law, amid pledges to replace it with something that will further reduce costs. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is advocating an even more sweeping healthcare proposal that would move all Americans into a single government-run health insurance plan that he claims would lower their premiums. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sanders rival for the Democratic nomination, has offered a more incremental platform that would build on the current law by imposing new regulations on drug makers and insurance companies. There has always been a bit of a disconnect between peoples views of the overall healthcare system and their own personal experiences with medical care and health insurance, said Mollyann Brodie, who directs Kaisers polls. Nearly three quarters of non-elderly adults with health coverage say they believe their insurance is worth the amount it costs, and more than 6 in 10 say their health plan is either an excellent or good value. The Kaiser survey also picked up limited concern about narrowing insurance networks, even though health plans moves to restrict the number of doctors and hospitals in their networks have gained increasing attention in the news media and among policymakers. Just 12% of non-elderly Americans with insurance said they were very dissatisfied or somewhat dissatisfied with the choice of doctors in their health plan, while 87% said they were very satisfied or somewhat satisfied. Only 12% said they had needed to switch doctors in the previous 12 months because their doctor wasnt in their health plan network; 5% said the change had been a big problem for them. The poll was conducted Jan. 13-19 among a nationally representative sample of 1,204 American adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the full sample. For more on healthcare, follow @NoamLevey Snapchat premieres campaign docuseries Good Luck America Best parts of @PeterHamby's new election Snapchat show: Field work shout out! Lady in pink onesie pic.twitter.com/vnTVs8F8bG John Buysse (@JohnBuysse) January 28, 2016 Snapchat introduced a political docuseries to its chat-and-video app Thursday, with the first 4-minute, 30-second episode describing Iowas role in the presidential election process. The Venice start-up had produced comedies and other shows before deciding to temporarily scrap content efforts last fall, but the premiere of Good Luck America shows politics is one area where Snapchat sees opportunity. The series stars Snapchats head of news content and former CNN political correspondent Peter Hamby as he visited several campaign events in Iowa. In a colorful tone welcoming to political newbies, as many of Snapchats mostly under-25 users likely are, Hamby describes how long-shot candidates have always looked to early-voting states to help propel them into the national spotlight. Theres also as much entertainment as information. In describing an event for presidential candidate Chris Christie, Hamby says of the New Jersey governor, Christie is desperate for media attention. Good thing I was there. The show features production elements that Snapchat first experimented with last year, such as showing two sides of conversation simultaneously by training a different camera on each subject. It was a novel approach for vertically oriented video on smartphones. Campaigns collectively have begun spending six-figure sums to buy an expanding variety of ads on Snapchat in hopes of driving young people in key states to volunteer and vote for them. Most candidates, and even the White House, now have Snapchat accounts where they are posting photos and videos daily. With the company looking to reach aggressive revenue goals, the 2016 election represents a goldmine. Episodes of Good Luck America will air on major dates throughout the election season, and are accessible by clicking an icon in the apps Discover news section on those days. Anyone who has driven through the California deserts especially those who have wandered away from the freeways has experienced the subtle majesty of vast open spaces, of the arroyos that wind back to jagged steep-sided mountains and of the magnificent plants and wildlife that thrive despite the low water, intense heat and relentless sun. The world tends to think of California nature in terms of beaches and redwoods and mountains, Big Sur and the Sierra Nevada, but the deserts are also part of who we are. There are two movements afoot that would help expand conservation protections in the deserts while also allowing for development of solar, wind and geothermal energy. Both deserve support. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has for years sought to expand federal protection to land that wasnt included in the 1994 California Desert Protection Act, which covered nearly 7.6 million acres, elevated Death Valley and Joshua Tree to national parks and created the Mojave National Preserve. But her more recent legislation to establish two new national monuments and expand the Mojave National Preserve has gained no traction in a Congress that has been slow, to put it charitably, to designate additional conservation lands and parks. So Feinstein and conservation groups are petitioning President Obama to use his power under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to create the monuments, and to expand the covered areas even beyond her legislative proposal. Advertisement The president should grant her request. Feinstein has asked for creation of a Mojave Trails National Monument, which would connect the Mojave National Preserve with Joshua Tree, adding protections to federal lands that encompass sweeping vistas as well as habitats for such species as the desert tortoise and bighorn sheep. The monument would also include the Cadiz Valley, which contains dunes and the remnants of training grounds used by Gen. George Pattons armored divisions before they deployed during World War II, and culturally and wildlife-rich areas in the Sacramento Mountains. Feinstein also has asked Obama to create a Sand to Snow National Monument, which would include 135,000 acres between Joshua Tree and the San Bernardino Mountains as well as the Black Lava Butte and Flat Top Mesa (holding 1,700 petroglyphs and several natural springs). And she wants the picturesque, habitat-heavy Castle Mountains, which were omitted from the 1994 Desert Protection Act because an active gold mine was located there, to be designated a national monument now that the mine has closed. Meanwhile, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is separately reviewing final requests for changes to its part of what is known as the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, an enormous project to allocate 10 million acres of federal land for recreation, conservation and renewable energy production. The plan sets aside 388,000 acres for solar, wind and geothermal projects, 5.3 million acres for conservation areas and 3.8 million acres for recreational use, including off-road vehicles. A second phase of the plan being developed by counties and cities for about 12.5 million acres under their jurisdiction is expected to designate even more public and private land for renewable energy development. The Antiquities Act gives the president the power to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest to be protected as national monuments. BLM officials decided that 800,000 acres didnt clear that hurdle, nor would they be suitable for energy development, and they remain unallocated. Now conservation and wilderness groups want the BLM to reconsider some of the unallocated areas covering the Big Maria Mountains in Riverside County, Bristol Valley east of Joshua Tree National Park, and the Lower Centennial Flat between the Inyo National Forest and Death Valley. In addition to offering stunning vistas, those lands provide habitat for desert animals and plants and contain scattered Native American sites. The conservationists make a persuasive case that they should be protected. The BLM land reviewers should give these areas a second, closer look. It makes sense for the government to be as inclusive as possible in protecting fragile desert lands. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook Twenty years ago, Los Angeles was a pretty dangerous place to grow up. In many neighborhoods, kids were joining gangs, dying in drive-by and street shootings, and getting locked up. Seemingly everyone thought an even bloodier teen apocalypse was imminent. Headlines in this newspaper predicted that scary, violent, killer kids would take over the streets, bringing a new wave of mayhem. Magazines, documentaries and anxious policy forums reinforced the idea that local youths were increasingly out of control. In media and expert commentary, the subtext was coded but unmistakably racial. Deadly demographics in scholarly terms, the disproportionate growth in the number of black teens and young adults who perpetrate higher rates of violence translated into sensational fears of superpredators and teenage wolf packs of ever-wilder black and Latino gangsters spreading violence and moral poverty from ghettos and barrios to white suburbs. Advertisement The strange thing is, the apocalypse never materialized. Among the most lethal places to grow up in the past, Los Angeles is now among the safest. All those pundits and policy wonks were not just wrong they were spectacularly wrong. Over the last quarter-century, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gun fatality rates fell by an astonishing 83% among L.A. residents ages 15 to 24, and by 94% among children ages 14 and younger. Although other cities gun fatality rates declined too, L.A.'s drop-off was uniquely large and sustained, encompassing inner city and suburb alike, suicides, homicides, accidents, both sexes and all races. In 2014, not a single one of the countys 3.5 million inhabitants younger than age 25 died from an accidental shooting. Guns arent L.A.'s only success story. Although certain parts of the city are still dangerous, overall rates of violent, felony, and lesser crimes of all types have plunged among young people by 70% to 90% in recent decades a staggering decline unmatched elsewhere. In 1980, according to the Criminal Justice Statistics Center, 129,000 Los Angeles teenagers were arrested for criminal offenses; in 2014, just 32,000 were even as the countys teenage population rose. Drug offenses decreased by 65%, violence arrests by 70%, felonies by 76%, property crimes by 86%, and homicides by nearly 90%. Reported rapes fell from 523 in 1980 to 122 in 2014, even as the policing of rape was expanded to include same-sex, domestic and intoxicated victims. Incarcerations of L.A. youths in state and local facilities fell from 7,000 two decades ago to fewer than 1,500 today. What explains L.A.'s phenomenal decline in youthful deaths and crime? The truth is, we dont know. Experts asserting the inherent crime and risk propensities of the teenage brain, or (as President Obama once remarked) that crime and drugs are just stupid things teenagers do, might have had a case back in 1980. Then, teenagers made up more than one-fourth of L.A.'s criminal arrests, double the proportion of those over age 40. Its a very different picture today. Teens now make up fewer than 12% of the countys arrests; people over age 40, nearly 30%. Yet another encouraging development: L.A. teenagers did not join the opiate epidemic plaguing all age groups across the country. In 1970, L.A. teens and young adults died from drug overdoses at six times the national average; in 1990, at twice the average; today, at rates 40% below the national average. What explains L.A.'s phenomenal decline in youthful deaths and crime? The truth is, we dont know. Neighboring Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Diego counties also saw declines in youth crime and related metrics but they were less dramatic. Local laws and policing affecting young people did not change significantly over this period. Heres what did change: demographics. In 1980, the countys youth was 56% nonwhite. Today that figure is 83%. Notably, other cities with large influxes of Latino and Asian immigrants, such as New York, Houston and Phoenix, joined L.A. in sharply reduced youthful gun killings. Perhaps, contrary to racist stereotypes, diverse younger generations are less inclined to crime, drug abuse and gunplay than older, mostly white generations. Or perhaps millennial youths responded to mass incarceration to seeing their parents and other adults put in jail, often for drug-related crimes by staying in school and out of trouble. Indeed, more students than ever are graduating from high school and enrolling in higher education. But, again, we dont really know. Given the emotional rhetoric from the White House and national media about the high incidence of campus rape, school shootings, and heroin deaths, youd think that researchers would be flocking to L.A. to determine the causes of its astonishingly positive trends. Youths under age 18 now make up just 6% of the citys criminal arrests, 4% of its gun deaths and 2% of its illicit-drug deaths. You cant do much better at protecting our kids from gun violence (to cite Obamas State of the Union address), drugs or crime than Los Angeles. Mike Males is a senior researcher for the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco. He is the author of four books on youth issues. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook If you think the stock markets steep slide this month hammered your personal portfolio or 401(k), imagine what its done to Californias state pension system, CalPERS. Years of overoptimistic stock purchases and inadequate contributions have left it terribly vulnerable, and just a few years of down markets could leave it insolvent. Financial statements released last month (for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2015) showed that the pension system was only 77% funded and that percentage has certainly dropped alongside all the stock indices in recent weeks. If taxpayers are going to avoid having to bail out CalPERS, the system needs an overhaul. Even before the recent market downturn, CalPERS was struggling. Advertisement Two state laws are to blame for the systems financial struggles. Proposition 21, passed in 1984, allowed CalPERS fund managers to move its investments from safe and predictable bonds to risky and volatile stocks and hedge funds to try to generate a higher return. SB 400, passed in 1999, increased pension payouts by 50% for California Highway Patrol employees, a move quickly replicated at other state agencies and local governments. In the midst of a bull market such as the late 90s tech bubble, perhaps that seemed fine. But it was irresponsible. At the top of a market cycle, a healthy pension system should be overfunded and then should hold onto the excess to ride out bear markets. CalPERS didnt do that, and so market corrections suddenly become an existential threat. CalPERS actuaries rely on earning a 7.5% annual return on investment to meet the current and future pension obligations to 1.8 million participants. But current stock market conditions make achieving that goal much harder if not impossible over the next several years. And that will leave taxpayers on the hook for billions. How much taxpayers contribute to the pension fund each year is determined by two factors: how much CalPERS owes in current and future benefits, and how much it expects to earn on its investments. If expected earnings are high, the hundreds of public agencies and school districts contribute less money up front. But later, when those mythical 7.5% returns dont materialize, taxpayers are left to make up the shortfall. Even before the recent market downturn, CalPERS was struggling. In the fiscal year that ended June 30, the fund earned a net return of only 2.4% on its $301.1 billion of invested assets. If CalPERS had earned its target 7.5%, it would have made $22.6 billion; instead it made only $6.6 billion. To make up that lost ground this fiscal year, it would have to earn 12.8% hardly realistic in this volatile market. In November, the CalPERS board of governors finally voted to lower the funds projected rate of return but only to 6.5% per year. And even that modest cut is being implemented incrementally so that it wont fully take effect for 20 years. Meanwhile, new market realities may make even a 6.5% rate of return too optimistic. Exacerbating the funding problem is the fact that CalPERS retirees are living longer, and more and more of them are post-1999 retirees collecting those 50% bigger pensions. For the last three years, CalPERS has paid out about $5 billion more in pension disbursements than it has collected in contributions. There just arent enough workers, and they arent contributing a fair amount to their pension plan, for this to be sustainable. Currently, there are 1.3 working participants for each retiree drawing money out. Just a decade ago, that ratio was 2 to 1. Meanwhile, the employees share of contributions to CalPERS has actually declined by almost 5% in recent years, while the taxpayers share has risen by more than 24%. The solution for what ails CalPERS is simple, but getting it done will prove politically challenging. CalPERS can start by supporting policies that reverse the effects of Proposition 21 and SB 400. CalPERS was instrumental to getting both passed; now it needs to reform them to restore financial health to the system. For example, if CalPERS lowered the rate at which active workers accrue pension benefits going forward not even retroactively that would go a long way. CalPERS also needs higher contribution rates from employees. Today the state (read: taxpayers) pays in about $3 for every $1 in employee contributions. A private sector employer offering a generous contribution to a 401(k) plan usually has a 1-to-1 ratio. Taking these steps immediately can avoid more painful solutions later, and keep the public pension system viable. Unless the country slides into another prolonged recession. Then all bets are off. Ed Ring is the executive director at the California Policy Center. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook On an icy highway in rural Oregon on Tuesday afternoon, occupier and protest leader Ammon Bundy finally found the government confrontation that some fear he craved. But rather than a perilous frontal assault on the occupied federal building at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, FBI agents and the Oregon State Police opted for a cautious strategy. They stopped two cars of protesters on a remote road heading to a community meeting, arresting five and fatally shooting one. The details of that shooting arent yet clear. Federal agents arrested two other protesters in the nearly town of Burns, and another surrendered in Arizona. After debacles like Waco and Ruby Ridge, it seems the federal government has finally learned how to handle a standoff. If the rebels extend an invitation to a headline-grabbing siege, politely decline. If they frame the dispute as a fight between liberty and tyranny, brush your shoulders off. The governments 31-page affidavit in support of the complaint against the eight occupiers is chock-full of their own words. Its enough to make a defense attorney weep. Advertisement Just as the arrest was cautious, so is the charge. In the federal criminal complaint which the FBI didnt obtain until after the arrests the U.S. attorney for the District of Oregon charges the eight defendants with a single count of conspiracy to impede an officer of the United States. That federal criminal statute doesnt see much use, and its not one of the Justice Departments big guns: Its maximum penalty is only six years. To prosecutors, the virtue of such conspiracy charges are their flexibility: The government need prove only that two or more of the defendants agreed to prevent some federal employee from discharging his or her duty by force, intimidation or threat. Prosecutors dont have to prove they were successful. It used to be hard to prove what defendants agreed to do: You had to infer it from their actions, or find a snitch to repeat their conversations, or wiretap them. But this is 2016, and we arrange our affairs in the open. The governments 31-page affidavit in support of the complaint against the eight occupiers is chock-full of their own words: statements in press interviews, statements in videos posted to YouTube, statements in widely distributed emails. Its enough to make a defense attorney weep. The governments theory thoughtfully supported by the defendants public relations strategy is that occupiers agreed to an armed takeover of federal buildings, thus preventing U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees from carrying out their duties. There are a few references to unspecified threats against federal employees and some rumblings about how the occupiers would defend themselves against a raid, but the core of the complaint is modest and straightforward: These people got together with guns and took over federal buildings and now the employees cant do their jobs. The defendants have a right to indictment by grand jury within a few weeks, and that indictment may include more charges and more creative theories. For now, though, it seems the government is taking a low-key approach. Of course, even if the criminal complaint doesnt support a narrative of martyrdom, the occupiers may use the federal court proceedings as a stage. Expect to see the rhetoric of tax protesters and sovereign citizens seeking to elevate mundane prosecutions into constitutional conventions. If the judges and prosecutors are wise, they wont get drawn into that dialogue. A matter-of-fact and methodical application of constitutional rights and procedural safeguards is the best way to counter claims of tyranny. Twenty years ago I prosecuted a tax protester who claimed as one does that the gold fringe on the courtroom flag made it an admiralty court. Ill pretend youre a boat, the judge said dryly and proceeded with the mundane business of the case. Professionalism and protection of rights, not trading drama for drama, is the way to handle a self-styled revolutionary. It wont entertain the media, but it will refute the assertion that the system cant get it right. Ken White is a partner at Brown White & Osborn LLP in Los Angeles. He is a former federal prosecutor and criminal defense attorney. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook As Claudia Chaparro drives her car toward the census tract in East L.A. where we will begin counting homeless people, her sister, Victoria Covarubbias, points to a man sitting on a sidewalk. Do people on our way count? she asks. They dont. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which organizes the count, has divided the county into different areas to be surveyed Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. At deployment centers in each area, volunteers are handed maps with specific census tracts painstakingly outlined and told to count within the lines. Im along for the ride with a team of three counters -- Claudia, Victoria, and an Occidental College freshman, Ava Gempler, whos doing an assignment for her urban and environmental policy class. Were trailed by a local TV news van. The first night of the count, in particular, brings a lot of media attention. Which is fine, if a bit bizarre for homeless people who otherwise are generally ignored or shooed away from doorsteps and sidewalks. Advertisement We park near Saybrook Park and set off across the grass, the TV news cameramans lights illuminating the way. It is ghostly quiet except for a train whistle in the distance. Two cats skitter across Saybrook Avenue. Out of the park and on a quiet side street, one of the sisters spots an RV. Someone for sure lives here, says Claudia, looking at the silvery material on the vehicle. The foil keeps the cold away. The news cameraman peels off for other parts. We make our way to Whittier Boulevard, passing small stores, fast-food restaurants and brightly lighted taco trucks every other block. Claudia, who works for the countys Department of Public Social Services, sees people every day on the verge of homelessness. I have clients come in and I think, man, I wish I could take them home. Do you know how hard it is to have a woman whos a victim of domestic violence with a kid and I have to tell her I have nowhere for them to go? she says. She makes the calls to different places that will take someone in that situation and, too often, they say, Nothings available. No space. I say, Dont give up. Victoria sees a woman huddled in a dark doorway across the street. Is she homeless? None of us can tell. We scurry across the expanse of Whittier Boulevard for a closer look. As soon as we get to the other side, we see she is talking on a cellphone and looks perfectly not homeless. Much of this counting involves close scrutiny people have a way of ingeniously hiding themselves in corners and judgment. Its better than not counting, but this is an estimate at best. A homeless person sleeps under a blanket in front of a bank, oblivious to the four of us who have stopped in front of him -- two with clipboards, one with a reporters notebook, all jotting down notes. In front of a Department of Public Social Services office on Whittier, we count three people. They have fashioned individual refuges out of cardboard, tarps and various flotsam and jetsam. One person has placed an open umbrella on the ground as a barrier against the cold. Claudia approaches one man and quietly speaks to him in Spanish. They chat, and she shakes his hand before leaving. He said people bring him food, she says. By 11 p.m. we have finished the tract. Its possible that weve seen as many taco trucks as homeless people. We head back to the car, with the moon and Jupiter bright in the sky above us. Wandering the streets of East L.A., says Claudia chuckling. She grew up here. This is her home. It feels peaceful, doesnt it? Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion Only Donald Trump could make a debate without Donald Trump all about Donald Trump. Thats one plausible scenario for what Thursday nights GOP candidate face-off could turn into should the Republican presidential front-runner follow through on his vow to boycott the session because of a spat with Fox News. With Trump on the sidelines and an audience of the partys base, the remaining candidates surely could see value in coming to the defense of moderator Megyn Kelly and the network whose prime-time lineup she anchors. Of course, predictions about how Trumps absence may play out are only as reliable as all of those forecasts over the last six months about the durability of his lead in the polls. A new Monmouth University survey showed Wednesday that Trump had vaulted into the lead in Iowa, with 30% support to Ted Cruzs 23%. Advertisement TRAIL GUIDE: All the latest news on the 2016 presidential campaign >> Among several ironies in the situation: Trump could have a bigger presence in the debate by his absence than by showing up. Except for a few zingers and dramatic exchanges in the six previous debates, he has more often been a muted presence -- particularly when the candidates talk policy. At the second debate, in Simi Valley, he logged the most talking time, but the vast majority of it came in the opening minutes when he was the center of discussion. Trump has unquestionably been a ratings magnet for previous televised debates. The most recent one on Fox Business Network drew 11 million voters, the smallest audience so far, but still far beyond what the numbers were in previous election cycles and ahead of all but one network prime-time offering in the same time slot. Any calculation on the Republican side about how to respond to his threatened absence begins with the question of what the debate audience would look like without him -- especially if he draws eyeballs elsewhere with a competing event. If significant numbers of Trump supporters skip watching, candidates could be well-served by using the debate to draw sharper contrasts with him than they have been willing to do in the past. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich have already been comfortable confronting Trump to his face in the most recent debates, inviting the billionaires scorn. But other candidates, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and, to an extent, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, must balance the potential benefit of doing so against the perception that they are only willing to take on the bully when hes not in the room. Rubio issued a statement Wednesday that was a political twofer, taking on Trump and Cruz, the senator from Texas with whom he has clashed more directly. These kinds of theatrics by Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are an entertaining sideshow, but they have nothing to do with defeating Hillary Clinton, Rubio said. Im going to stay focused on uniting the Republican party so we can defeat Hillary Clinton and turn the page on eight years of liberal failure. Will he have the choice? That depends on what Kelly and her fellow moderators do if Trump remains offstage. They could certainly force the issue on the candidates by asking about Trumps absence. Trumps campaign manager took to MSNBC Wednesday to argue that Fox had an obsession with attacking Trump and tried to make the debate about themselves. Trump has made demands of debate hosts before. He threatened to pull out of a CNBC debate in October unless the network agreed to limit the encounter to just two hours and let candidates make opening and closing statements. And it was only four years ago that Trump was the target of a debate boycott. He had signed on in 2011 to moderate a forum hosted by Ion Television and the conservative publication Newsmax. Of the wide field of candidates, only Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum agreed to appear. Trump ultimately bowed out once it was clear the event would not go ahead. His face-saving explanation then? I am not willing to give up my right to run as an independent candidate. Follow @mikememoli for more 2016 campaign coverage. MORE ON DONALD TRUMP Donald Trump erotica novel is a huuuge hit on Amazon Donald Trump helps rally Iowas Latinos mostly to caucus against him Donald Trump, hoping to slow Ted Cruzs surge, makes inroads with evangelicals Marco Rubio bet his presidential campaign on being the optimistic Republican with an uplifting message about the promise of America. But hoping to tap into the voter unrest that has propelled his rivals, the Florida senator more recently began displaying an angrier, gloomier side. He has painted a grim portrait of a great nation in decline, particularly when it comes to terrorist threats endangering national security. The results have been mixed: Negative Rubio has not amounted to a more popular Rubio. Advertisement He has failed so far to sway voters away from billionaire Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) the tough-talking Republican front-runners. Nor has he been able to lock in support from more measured or moderate voters, according to polls of the early voting states. TRAIL GUIDE: All the latest news on the 2016 presidential campaign >> As a result, Rubios attempt to balance his once-cheerful message with a more ominous one risks diminishing the very quality that gave rise to his star power -- without reaping the kind of rewards Trump and Cruz have found by putting an exclamation point on voter fears. This is hard for me say this, but its the truth and you need to hear it: Your country is a nation in decline, Rubio said in mid-January at New England College, according to New Hampshire Public Radio. It is headed in the wrong direction, and its headed in the wrong direction fast. A day earlier, at the Republican debate in South Carolina, Rubios new angrier tone was apparent. He warned, Let me tell you, if we dont get this election right, there may be no turning back for America. Rubio only occasionally flashed his telegenic smile during a national security speech Monday in Des Moines, where he promised that when he is president, Were going to have a real war on terror. Matt Strawn, a former GOP chairman in the state, is worried Rubios new tone may backfire. He was glad to see the candidate pivot during the speech to close with the message of hope embodied in his parents immigrant story. Thats what we need to hear more of, said Strawn. I dont know if he needs to paint a picture of a dark and scary world. Its on our TV every day. Rubios presidential bid started with so much optimism it drew comparisons to Barack Obama, another young senator who had a gift of oratory. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> Many supporters say Rubios forward-looking tone yesterdays gone -- was part of what attracted them to his candidacy in the first place. They see him as the kind of messenger the GOP needs to regain the White House. But after the terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, and with Trump and Cruz dominating the polls, Rubio allies say he needed to harden his message to avoid sounding out of touch with the mood of the GOP electorate. It resonates with people -- I know it did with me, said Ted Weaver, a city councilman in the Des Moines suburb of Clive, who believes Rubios tougher tone helps compensate for his youth and his boyish looks, which may be a hindrance to some voters. Weaver said voters have very much responded to his message, his language, his tone of concern. The new assertiveness also came after Rubio was widely ridiculed for wearing some high-ish heeled black boots, which other candidates quickly mocked as not very manly. Rivals have seized on the new Rubio to suggest the campaign is adrift, scrambling to reach new audiences in the final days before voting begins. People like Rubio who smiles, and whos enthusiastic, whos youthful and energetic, said Cruz advisor Rick Tyler. People havent seen that Rubio in a while. The question now is which Rubio will show up at Thursdays final debate before voting begins in Iowa. Opponents also note that while Rubio talks tough on national security issues, he skipped many of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee meetings that he has boasted give him the international expertise needed to be commander-in-chief. A pro-Jeb Bush group, Right to Rise, has pounded Rubio with negative ads over his Senate voting record, hoping to capitalize on Iowans strong work ethic. Rubios spokesman said the senators attendance is in line with other senators, and that Foreign Relations Committee meetings are often held at the same time as the mostly classified Intelligence Committee briefings, which Rubio viewed as a higher priority. The senators message of optimism has remained the same, said spokesman Alex Conant. His idea that Americas a great country, that hasnt changed, said Conant. He always leaves the audience believing the future can be better than the past. With national security rising as a top issue among voters, Rubio was smart to begin portraying himself as a strong candidate who can keep us safe, said Bobby Kaufmann, a state representative in Iowa who is backing Rubio. NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >> I dont think hes lost all his optimism but he has to focus, Kaufmann said. It would be tone deaf to stick to your original campaign message and be unable to reflect world events. Supporters believe Rubio will finish strong in the Hawkeye State. But even when he won the coveted endorsement of the influential Des Moines Register, the newspapers editorial noted its preference for the candidates original approach. At his best, Rubio offers an uplifting message of a new American century, the newspaper wrote. Yet more recently, he has pandered to rising pessimism in his party. We hope Marco Rubio and his party take a different path, one that can lead to the opportunity and optimism he so eloquently articulates. Twitter: @lisamascaro ALSO How Martin OMalley could decide who wins the Democratic caucuses in Iowa 5 things to watch for in the GOP debate, even without Donald Trump After Fox News public battle with Trump, network stays true to Megyn Kelly Ted Cruz sought to shore up support among social conservatives and gain an edge over Donald Trump at a boisterous campaign stop outside Des Moines on Wednesday night that was billed as an antiabortion rally. Joined by high-profile conservatives who dubbed themselves a coalition for life, Cruz attacked Trump on issues important to evangelical Christian voters, a bloc that Cruz long drew support from but from which he has recently lost ground to Trump. Cruz is furiously trying to regain backing from social conservatives in the final days before Iowas first-in-the-nation presidential nominating contest. Advertisement When have you ever defended marriage? When have you ever defended religious liberty? the Texas senator demanded of the absent Trump, to loud cheers in suburban West Des Moines from the standing-room-only audience that spilled into an anteroom. Dont tell me youre pro-life. Show me. Terry Butler, 57, of West Des Moines wears a sticker for Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz as he listens to the senator. (Paul Sancya / Associated Press) One day after Trump said he was withdrawing from Thursdays GOP debate, Cruz challenged him to a one-on-one dialog over the weekend. Cruz drew applause when he said his campaign had reserved a time and venue: Saturday night in an auditorium in Sioux City, in the socially conservative western edge of Iowa. This entire process is a job interview, Cruz said of the presidential primary. Imagine if somebody said, Id like the job, but Im not showing up for the interview. Many crowd members responded with Trumps trademark reality-TV phrase: Youre fired! Cruz, the son of an evangelical pastor and a vocal opponent of gay marriage and abortion, will need a big turnout from social conservatives to win Monday. He called in heavy hitters for Wednesday nights rally, including former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Iowa Rep. Steve King and Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, which advocates for socially conservative causes. They and other Cruz supporters drew sharp contrasts between him and Trump, whom they portrayed as a flip-flopping liberal who adopted conservative religious views only when it was politically expedient. Bob Vander Platts, an influential Iowa conservative, suggested Trump has a pride and an arrogance and a temperament that is not in line with Christian values. Cruz, he said, is one of us. U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas acknowledged that some voters may be torn between Cruz and Trump. Thats a struggle, he said. But Gohmert urged Iowans to nominate the guy who knows who he is, he knows who God is, and he knows the Creator that our founders wrote about. Cruz, he said, knows that our rights dont come from government; they come from God. Many voters seem to agree with the perception that Trump, a billionaire real estate mogul and reality television star, is not particularly religious. A national survey from Pew Research Center released Wednesday showed that 47% of Republicans think Trump is not very or not at all religious. By contrast, three-quarters of those surveyed said they viewed Ted Cruz as a religious person. Yet Trump is still leading in the polls, despite data that show about half of U.S. voters say they think its important to have someone in the White House who shares their religious perspective. Suzette Henriksen, a sales manager in Des Moines who attended the Cruz rally, says she believes some Christian conservatives see Trump as a more viable option, even though he is less religious than Cruz. Iowans chose evangelical pastor Mike Huckabee as their candidate in 2008 and conservative Catholic Rick Santorum in 2012 -- two socially conservative candidates who ultimately failed to capture their partys nomination. Some people are under this belief that [Trump] is the only person who can beat Hillary [Clinton], Henriksen said. Some might say its OK that hes not a strong Christian because he is a strong businessman. Henriksen, who was wearing a Cruz button and plans to caucus for him on Monday, says she is not in that camp. Im not willing to compromise, she said. Terry Butler, 57, a retired engineer from West Des Moines, says a candidates religion also matters to him. He is pandering a bit, Butler said of Trump. Butler was disappointed when Trump botched a biblical reference during an appearance a few weeks ago at a Christian university. It didnt seem like he spends any time reading Gods word, Butler said. Butler, who is still undecided, says he probably wont end up voting for Trump. Still, rather than watching Thursdays GOP debate, he says hell probably go to Trumps event instead. Follow me on Twitter: @katelinthicum Im Christina Bellantoni, todays Essential Politics host. We saw action with just about every political faction Wednesday, starting with Gov. Jerry Browns major decision to propose California prison inmates convicted of nonviolent offenses be given a chance at early release. As John Myers explains on the front page of the Los Angeles Times, the issue is an evolution for Brown, who four decades ago signed a law mandating strict sentences for the most serious crimes. Advertisement The Democratic governor is seeking to ask voters to streamline the rules aiming to allow corrections officials to more easily award credits toward early release based on an inmates good behavior, efforts to rehabilitate or participation in prison education programs. Brown estimated it could affect thousands of current inmates but first the governors political team will need to gather more than 585,000 valid voter signatures to qualify the measure for the Nov. 8 ballot. You can follow the latest from Sacramento on our Essential Politics news feed. CAMPAIGN TRAIL LIGHTNING ROUND The Republicans running for president some of them, at least meet tonight on a Fox News debate stage for their eighth gathering of the campaign season, and the final forum before Mondays Iowa caucuses. Donald Trump has opted to hold an event for veterans instead. Sen. Ted Cruz has shifted his debate strategy with the front-runner opting out of showing up. An adviser tells Seema Mehta that Cruz is preparing for incoming from Sen. Marco Rubio, and will aim to tie Rubio, Trump and Hillary Clinton together. Watch the debate with us on Trail Guide, and join us at 5:30 p.m. PT tomorrow before the debate for a Twitter chat with our politics team. Theyll let you know what to look out for and who stands where in the polls. Tweet your questions to @latimespolitics. To get ready, here are some things to watch for from Lisa Mascaro. She also explores how Rubio has shifted from being a sunny candidate to showing his gloomier side. The results have been mixed: Negative Rubio has not amounted to a more popular Rubio. And a Trump erotica novel is a huuuge hit on Amazon. As Democrats kicked off their policy retreat in Baltimore, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi took on Bernie Sanders, pouring cold water over his plans for healthcare. Does anyone in this room think that were going to be discussing single payer? Pelosi said at a news conference, Sarah Wire reports. Ive been for single payer for 30 years, Pelosi said. But, she said, thats not going to happen. Back in Washington, Sanders sat down with President Obama for 45 minutes to discuss domestic and foreign policy issues, specifically how to fight Islamic State and the presidents assessment of the U.S. relationship with Iran. HEADED TO IOWA? Are you a Californian whos going to Iowa to help, observe or participate? Tell us why! Email us or tweet @LATpoliticsCA using #IAtoCA. RHCP FEELING THE BERN The Red Hot Chili Peppers are holding a fundraiser for Sanders on Feb. 5 at the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, Colleen Shalby reports. Tickets range from $500 to $2,000. Those who dish out the big bucks will get to meet the California rockers, and receive a commemorative poster signed by the band and notable street artist Shepard Fairey the man behind the Obama 2008 Hope posters. MODERN FAMILY STAR RAISES CASH FOR HARRIS A star-studded list of LGBT activists and Hollywood elites gathered in Hancock Park on Wednesday night to raise money for Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris Senate campaign. David Cooley, owner of West Hollywoods iconic gay bar the Abbey, hosted the event for tickets ranging between $250 and $2,700, according to an invitation obtained by The Times. Other hosts for the fundraiser included: Beverly Hills philanthropist and tech entrepreneur David Bohnett; actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson of Modern Family and his husband, Justin Mikita; Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl; Susan LaVaccare, a founding member of the Los Angeles County Lesbian and Bisexual Womens Health Collaborative; philanthropists Dr. Bill Resnick and Michael Stubbs; and attorney Dana Perlman and his husband, Hugh Kinsellagh. Harris will be in Laguna Beach on Thursday night for a stop on her Winning Results for California tour. ANOTHER GARCETTI CHALLENGER Peter Jamison and Howard Blume report that Steve Barr, who established the successful Green Dot Charter Schools group and has been a high-profile player in the battle to overhaul the L.A. school system, is considering running for mayor in 2017. Hes the second person in as many days to muse aloud about challenging Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. (Former Obama operative Mitchell Schwartz also has jumped in the race.) As we reported, Barr attended a pro-Clinton event last fall. GUN-CONTROL EFFORTS Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) introduced legislation Wednesday to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which prevents people from suing gun manufacturers, sellers and interest groups. Schiff told Sarah Wire that because the gun industry is shielded from liability and negligence charges, it has no incentive to make weapons safer or keep a close eye on who is buying them. He acknowledged it would take a seismic shift in Congress to pass the bill, but said its important to keep putting pressure on gun control issues. It takes years of sustained pressure and suddenly you reach a tipping point when something gets done, Schiff said. TODAYS ESSENTIALS George Skelton takes a look at the presidential race and warns Republicans about anti-immigrant rhetoric. With the owners of L.A.'s professional sports teams lined up in support, the state Assembly on Wednesday approved a bill that would license daily fantasy sports websites including DraftKings and FanDuel to operate in California, Patrick McGreevy reports. The Assembly cleared a bill mandating double pay on Thanksgiving for large retailers. Melanie Mason explains its chances this second time around. The Supreme Court is being asked to make a quick decision on another of President Obamas far-reaching regulations and to put on hold climate-change rules that would force a 32% cutback in carbon emissions by 2030, writes David Savage. LOGISTICS Miss yesterdays newsletter? Here it is. Did someone forward you this? Sign up here to get Essential Politics in your inbox daily. And keep an eye on our politics page throughout the day for the latest and greatest. And are you following us on Twitter at @latimespolitics? Please send thoughts, concerns and news tips to politics@latimes.com. Lawmakers moved Thursday to ban the injection of new gas into 1950s-era wells in Aliso Canyon until experts certify the operations are safe. In the wake of a leak at the site that has forced some 3,000 Porter Ranch families from their homes, state officials placed a moratorium on Southern California Gas Co.s operations. NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >> Advertisement The state Senate bill would put that moratorium into law and stop the withdrawal of gas at 18 wells similar to the one that is leaking. Operations would be allowed to resume when the Division of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources determines them to be safe. The measure now goes to the Assembly for consideration. Its very important as the weeks wind down and the leak is eventually stopped that we have in place some safeguards so these 3,000 families will consider moving back into their homes, Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) told her colleagues. They want to know that those older wells, similar to this one, have been inspected and are safe. Pavley said many families are frankly scared to death of going back home. The legislation proposes that if other wells are found to be unsafe, they should be shut down and state officials should examine the feasibility of reducing or ending operations in Aliso Canyon. The bill won bipartisan support in the Senate, with Sen. Bob Huff (R-San Dimas) calling the Aliso Canyon leak a public disaster. The uncontrolled leak of natural gas creates an emergency by anyones definition. Rodger R. Schwecke, a vice president for the gas company, told lawmakers that the company already had decided to plug 18 older wells with characteristics similar to the leaking one until they were inspected. We do not plan to inject any gas into Aliso Canyon until it is safe to do so, he said. He estimated that work on a relief well to stop the leak should be completed by mid- to late February. Lawmakers on Thursday also called for hearings on the slow response to the leak. Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) accused state regulatory agencies of showing undue deference to naked utility assurances in not ordering a moratorium earlier. The space shuttle Challenger takes off from the Kennedy Space Center. 73 seconds later, the shuttle exploded. (Getty Images) Officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and executives and engineers of Morton Thiokol Inc., which built the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters, spent much of the 24 hours before the Jan. 28, 1986 launching debating whether cold weather would interfere with the functioning of the boosters' all-important O-rings. Here is the account of those discussions, as chronicled by the presidential commission on the Challenger disaster. Key moments on January 27, 1986 1 p.m. (all times EST) -- Minutes after scrubbing Challenger's launching because of wind conditions, NASA resets it for 9:38 a.m. Jan. 28. NASA asks Morton Thiokol if the company is concerned about cold temperatures predicted overnight at the launching pad. Thiokol's Ebeling is contacted in Utah to prepare an engineering evaluation. 2 p.m. -- In a management team meeting, expected launch-time temperatures are discussed by Lucas, Moore, Aldrich and Mulloy. 2:30 p.m. -- In Utah, Ebeling informs Boisjoly and other Morton Thiokol engineers about cold temperatures at Cape Canaveral. 4 p.m. -- At the Kennedy Center, McDonald receives phone call from Ebeling expressing concerns from Morton Thiokol engineers about the effects of cold temperatures on rocket booster seals. McDonald asks the engineers to prepare for a telephone conference with NASA officials and then contacts Cecil Houston to make the arrangements, for the first time informing a Marshall Center official of Morton Thiokol's alarm over temperatures. 5:45 p.m. -- In the first teleconference, Reinartz at the Kennedy Center and Lovingood at the Marshall Center hear Morton Thiokol officials in Utah recommend that launching be delayed until noon or later because of concern that cold morning temperatures might hurt O-ring performance. A second conference is set for 8:15 p.m. to discuss data with a larger number of managers and engineers. 6:30 p.m. -- In a call to Reinartz, Lovingood says the launching should be postponed if Morton Thiokol's objections persist. 7 p.m. -- Reinartz and Mulloy visit Lucas and Kingsbury in their Kennedy Center motel rooms to inform them of Morton Thiokol concerns and the plans for a second teleconference. 8:45 p.m. -- From Utah, four Morton Thiokol vice presidents and 10 engineers participate in the second teleconference. Lund presents the engineering data and recommends no launching below 53 degrees. On the line from Marshall Center with Lovingood and others is Hardy, who tells Morton Thiokol he is "appalled" by the recommendation to delay. At the Kennedy Center, Mulloy challenges the credibility of the data and the conclusions of Morton Thiokol's engineers, who recall Mulloy's saying, "My God, when do you want me to launch--April?" In Utah, Kilminster asks to go off-line for five minutes so that company engineers can discuss their recommendation privately. The crew for the Challenger flight leaves their quarters for the launch pad. Front to back are Commander Francis Scobee, Mission Spc. Judith Resnik, Mission Spc. Ronald McNair, Payload Spc. Gregory Jarvis, Mission Spc. Ellison Onizuka, Payload Spc. Christa McAuliffe, and pilot Michael Smith. (Steve Helber / Associated Press) 10:30 p.m. -- The subsequent caucus is an emotional one. Referring to the charts and drawing their own crude diagrams, Thompson and Boisjoly voice strong objections to a launching. It is the unanimous position of all 10 engineers. Lund is also reluctant to launch. Mason tells Lund to take off his engineering hat and put on his management hat. Mason, Kilminster, Wiggins and Lund then vote to approve a launching. Meanwhile, at the Kennedy Center, McDonald argues with Reinartz and Mulloy that the launching should be delayed. 11 p.m. -- When the teleconference is resumed, Kilminster reports that Morton Thiokol has reassessed its recommendation and determined that the data on the effects of cold is inconclusive. Morton Thiokol now recommends launching. Hardy asks that the rationale for launching be put in writing and telefaxed to the Kennedy and Marshall centers. 11:15 p.m. -- At the Kennedy Center, McDonald continues to argue with Mulloy and Reinartz against launching, not only because of the cold's effects on O-rings but because of high winds in the recovery area and ice on the launching pad. He is told that this is none of his concern but that it will be passed along. McDonald says that, if anything happens to this launching, he would not want to have to support the decision to launch to a board of inquiry. 11:45 p.m. -- At Kennedy Center, a telefax arrives from Utah containing Morton Thiokol's launching recommendation. It is signed by Kilminster. McDonald delivers the copy to an office where he overhears Reinartz and Mulloy on the phone to Aldrich in Houston. The Marshall officials do not mention the O-ring concerns. Midnight -- The Kennedy Center meeting breaks up. January 28 5 a.m. -- Mulloy tells Lucas about Thiokol's O-ring concerns and shows the Marshall Center director a copy of the Kilminster telefax. 7 a.m. -- Ice team members survey the launching pad area and record temperatures on the right solid rocket booster of about 8 degrees (F) near the aft section. Because surface temperatures of the booster are not considered in pre-launching reviews, these readings are not reported. 9 a.m. -- In another mission management team meeting, the ice conditions at the launching complex are reviewed, but there is no discussion of temperature effects on the O-rings. 11:38 a.m. -- In Utah, a troubled Thompson refuses to watch the launching on television. In his office with a colleague, he relives the frustration of his futile effort to delay the flight. At Kennedy Center, Challenger thunders for the heavens. The five Democrats expected to vie to replace outgoing Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Glendale) often shared similar views on issues during a two-hour forum before nearly 80 people Sunday afternoon at the Sparr Heights Community Center in Montrose. Glendale City Councilwoman Laura Friedman, Glendale City Clerk Ardy Kassakhian, former La Canada Unified school board member Andrew Blumenfeld, Burbank High School teacher Dennis Bullock and Rajiv Dalal, former economic development adviser to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, took part in the Democratic forum for the 43rd state Assembly District. Question topics ranged from environmental issues to charter schools, and there was little disagreement among the participants. All supported the minimum-wage increase, which will grow to $15 an hour in Los Angeles and Los Angeles County by 2021. L.A. got it right, Dalal said. Put people together to put forth meaningful legislation. We need to do the same research and make sure it works for every city. Bakersfield is not L.A. In some places, we need to speed it up, and others slow it down. Blumenfeld said there cannot be a conversation about minimum wage without including expanded economic opportunities. Regarding the environment, Kassakhian said middle-class families need to be able to afford cars that dont rely on petroleum, and that people should be encouraged to use their cars less. Build infrastructure not reliant on gas guzzlers and have an interconnected transportation system, he said. Bullock remembered the tickle in his throat from the smog as a child after playing outside. With pollution levels being monitored and regulated by entities such as the South Coast Air Quality Management District, a lot has been done over the last few decades. It interrupts some incentives for the powers that be, and creates new ones, he said. It should be abundant energy, but clean energy. As oil prices come down, that should change incentives again. Friedman said the world is just starting to see the effects of climate change on the planet, and added that the focus needs to be placed on the goods movement, such as diesel trains, boats and other large pollution emitters. Regarding charter schools, Blumenfeld, a classroom teacher, said decisions need to be made locally to make a true impact on quality, noting that some charter schools have the potential for success. Bullock said charter schools strengths are their own weakness because they are often experiments, and experimentation should not be the norm, citing philanthropist Eli Broads plan to build many charter schools in the future. If we have charter schools taking away funding and resources in way that overcomes what we have [in public schools], then we will continue to have difficulties, he said. Friedman said she supports public schools and is concerned about private companies setting up for-profit education business models. The forum was organized by the Canada Crescenta Democratic Club, and all questions submitted to the moderator were provided by attendees. Matt Sanderson is a freelance writer. When NASA launched the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft in 1977, its mission was to explore the outer planets and beyond, the mysterious region Voyager project scientist Ed Stone would later refer to as the space between the stars. Today, the craft are more than 10 billion miles away from their home planet nearly four times farther than Pluto still collecting and returning valuable data from interstellar space. NEWSLETTER: Stay up to date with whats going on in the 818 >> Meanwhile, back on Earth, Stone continues his long tenure on the Jet Propulsion Laboratorys La Canada campus, where he has worked as project scientist for the past 44 years and served as director from 1991 to 2001. On Monday, Stones numerous personal and professional achievements were recognized in a celebration at JPLs Pickering Auditorium. The event coincided with the scientists 80th birthday the preceding Saturday, as well as the 30th anniversary of the Voyager 2 spacecrafts flyby of Uranus, which took place on Jan. 24, 1986. 1 / 11 Former Jet Propulsion Laboratory Director Ed Stone, the only person to serve as project scientist for the Voyager mission, smiles during a question-and-answer session. JPL celebrated Stones birthday in the Pickering Auditorium on Monday, Jan. 25, 2016. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 2 / 11 Former JPL Director Ed Stone, a project scientist for the ongoing Voyager mission, received recognition by his peers on Monday inside the Pickering Auditorium at JPL. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 3 / 11 Former JPL Director Ed Stone, a project scientist for the ongoing Voyager mission, received recognition by his peers on Monday inside the Pickering Auditorium at JPL. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 4 / 11 Former JPL Director Ed Stone, a project scientist for the ongoing Voyager mission, received recognition by his peers on Monday inside the Pickering Auditorium at JPL. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 5 / 11 Former JPL Director Ed Stone, left, shakes hands with Joseph Savino. Stone, a project scientist for the ongoing Voyager mission, received recognition by his peers on Monday inside the Pickering Auditorium at JPL (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 6 / 11 Former JPL Director Ed Stone, a project scientist for the ongoing Voyager mission, received recognition by his peers on Monday inside the Pickering Auditorium at JPL. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 7 / 11 Former JPL Director Ed Stone, a project scientist for the ongoing Voyager mission, received recognition by his peers on Monday inside the Pickering Auditorium at JPL. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 8 / 11 Former JPL Director Ed Stone, a project scientist for the ongoing Voyager mission, received recognition by his peers on Monday inside the Pickering Auditorium at JPL. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 9 / 11 Former JPL Director Ed Stone, a project scientist for the ongoing Voyager mission, received recognition by his peers on Monday inside the Pickering Auditorium at JPL. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 10 / 11 Former JPL Director Ed Stone, a project scientist for the ongoing Voyager mission, received recognition by his peers on Monday inside the Pickering Auditorium at JPL. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) 11 / 11 Former JPL Director Ed Stone, a project scientist for the ongoing Voyager mission, received recognition by his peers on Monday inside the Pickering Auditorium at JPL. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer) Speakers shared their fondest memories of Stone as a scientist, Caltech professor and researcher, JPL director and mentor. He is so humble, said Mondays host and JPL director of communications Blaine Baggett. This is someone who is the one and only project scientist whos led the science of Voyager and taken us for the first time into interstellar space. Yet (while) he doesnt yearn the limelight, the limelight seeks him out. Colleagues speaking in person and in video interviews recalled Stone as a passionate collaborator, unparalleled listener and realist, who in his time as director saw JPL through the lean post-Soviet years when budgets were slashed and missions forced to become smaller, scrappier and more inventive. During a special video presentation the audience was introduced to students at Edward Stone Middle School, a namesake campus in Stones hometown of Burlington, Iowa, whose team name is, appropriately, the Jets. Edward Stone is a living legend of a man, one male student said. He is kind, he is smart, he is curious he is everything that makes a great man. Time may move on but the Voyager mission will be remembered, idolized in legend. JPL Deputy Director Larry James, presenting a special plaque of recognition, thanked Stone as a visionary who forged the path for science in the 21st century. We make history every day here, and its really because of the path Ed set us on, James said. Mondays celebration wasnt the only time the scientists accomplishments have been formally recognized. In July 2014, he received a lifetime achievement award from the American Astronautical Society in a Washington, D.C., whose past honorees include rocket developer Wernher von Braun and fellow former JPL Director William H. Pickering. In his remarks, Stone credited his successes to timing, good fortune and good company. Ive really been remarkably lucky, and part of that luck is just having so many outstanding colleagues over the years, Stone said. Time after time, I was lucky to have had these kinds of opportunities and thats something I think could only have happened at Caltech and JPL. -- Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com Twitter: @SaraCardine USC wont be featured during ESPNUs football signing day coverage on Wednesday. The network has not scheduled to send a reporter to campus. However, three Trojans recruits are scheduled to announce their decisions on where they will attend college during the broadcast special. Defensive lineman Rashan Gary from Paramus Catholic in New Jersey is scheduled to announce his decision during the 10 a.m. PT hour on ESPN2. Advertisement Gary, the consensus top recruit in the 2016 class, will choose from among Auburn, Clemson, Michigan, Mississippi and USC. Gary has made official visits to four of the schools and will tour the Clemson campus on his final visit this weekend, according to reports. Devin Asiasi and Boss Tagaloa of De La Salle High in Concord, Calif., are scheduled to announce their choices during the 1 p.m. hour. Asiasi and Tagaloa made official visits together to UCLA, Washington and Michigan. Tagaloa also made a trip to California. Both players are scheduled to make a final visit to USC this weekend. Questions or comments about USC? Email me at LNThiry@gmail.com or tweet @lindseythiry and select messages will be featured in a weekly mailbag. Found a news story to share? Email a news item by clicking on the button below. Please give URL to original article (where available). Do not attach Word documents. Keep each separate news item to a separate email. Thank you! Wading into choppy political waters, Taiwans outgoing president Thursday paid a visit to a disputed islet in the South China Sea and called for peace as China, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines vie more aggressively for territory and influence in the region. Ma Ying-jeou largely couched his visit to Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba, in conciliatory and eco-friendly terms. But even before his airplane touched down on the 0.2-square-mile outcropping, the trip was drawing criticism from U.S. officials, with one calling it extremely unhelpful for resolving disagreements. Taiping -- the largest naturally occurring land mass in the Spratly Islands -- is claimed by the Philippines, mainland China and Vietnam and Taiwan, but is administered by Taiwan. Taiwans government under Ma has expended considerable effort to make the islet low carbon and turn it into a haven for storm-battered vessels of any nationality. Advertisement The palm-covered islet boasts a 10-bed hospital, a lighthouse and $129 million worth of solar panels, along with a small airport for military use. The hospitals three doctors can treat people from any country, and Taiping sees about 10 foreign boats a year from mainland China and Vietnam as their captains seek safety during storms, Taiwanese authorities say. About 200 Taiwanese, including coast guard personnel, medical workers and scientists, are stationed on Taiping. Ma on Thursday reiterated a proposal he made last year that the rival claimants put aside their territorial disputes and instead start talking about how to share resources in the 1.35 million-square-mile South China Sea, which is rich in fisheries and possibly fossil fuel reserves and is a key international shipping lane. The different players should reach a consensus that sovereignty disputes be shelved, Ma said in a speech by a national monument. Political analysts said Thursdays visit was an effort by Ma -- who must step down from the presidency in May after eight years because of term limits -- to shore up what he sees as his legacy as a peacemaker. In addition to his South China Sea initiatives, Ma and his Nationalist Party have forged closer trade and tourism links between Taiwan and mainland China. He certainly wants to make Taiwan a player in the whole South China Sea controversy and up the ante a little bit for the succeeding government, said Raymond Wu, managing director with Taipei-based political risk consultancy e-telligence. Ma has been frequently criticized at home as weak on foreign policy, though Taiwans unusual political status and relatively few territorial holdings in the South China Sea have also kept the island of 23 million people fairly marginalized in international discussions about how to settle conflicts in the region. Taiwan struggles for attention in part because it lacks formal diplomatic relations with the rest of Asia. Though Taiwan has its own government, Beijing regards it as part of Chinese territory and pressures other governments not to treat it as a country. Taiwanese President-elect Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party declined an invitation to join Mas trip Thursday. She has said she will seek dialogue with the other South China Sea claimants but has not said whether she will champion Mas peace proposal or keep developing the islet -- one of two that Taiwan holds in the Spratlys. Mas predecessor, Chen Shui-bian of the DPP, also visited Taiping shortly before he left office in 2008. The surrounding Spratlys are claimed all or in part by China, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines as well as Brunei. China and Vietnam have irritated other claimants with landfill projects to enlarge islets for development; recently, the U.S. has viewed Chinas efforts to build airstrips and other facilities on the infill with alarm. The Philippines in 2013 asked the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague to make a determination on Chinas South China Sea claims, and the court said last year it would hear the case. China, though, has boycotted the proceedings and said it will ignore any ruling. Beijing says the issues raised by the case cannot be considered without making determinations on sovereignty -- something the tribunal is not empowered to do. The Philippine case, however, is also making Taiwan nervous, as it touches on the status of Taiping Island as well. Ma told a news conference Thursday his trip proves that Taiping is an island, not a reef. Its label could affect how the arbitration court rules. Friction at sea has sparked occasional clashes between vessels since the 1970s. In 2014, Chinese and Vietnamese boats sparred after Beijing allowed a Chinese state oil company to park a drilling rig off Vietnams coast. Taiwan, however, has avoided direct confrontation. Last year Taiwans coast guard chief, Wang Chung-yi, called Mas solar energy and humanitarian efforts a novel approach for a tense situation. Ma proposed Thursday that the sea claimants pursue zonal development in tracts of the sea with a view to establishing a joint management and monitoring mechanism. But he also used the speech to throw in a stern reminder of Taiwans claim to the whole sea. That the island has been garrisoned and managed by the Republic of China over a long period is further proof of the Republic of China exercising its sovereignty over Taiping Island and the surrounding areas, Ma said. The Republic of China is Taiwans constitutional name. Mas trip on Thursday irked U.S. officials. Such an action is extremely unhelpful and does not contribute to the peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea, said Sonia Urbom, spokeswoman for the de facto U.S. embassy in Taipei. The United States says it does not take a position on the territorial claims in the region but has reacted with increasing concern as China has piled huge amounts of sand on formerly tiny outcroppings, turning several of them into land formations bigger than Taiping. Washington sent a guided missile destroyer near one of those formations, Subi Reef, in October sending a not-so-subtle message to Beijing that it does not recognize the surrounding waters as Chinese territory. Mas visit may rub Beijing, Hanoi and Manila the wrong way, some experts said, though none are expected to take action against Taiwan. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying reacted mildly to Mas trip, saying that the islands in question have historically been Chinas territory. Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits share the responsibility to protect the ancestral property of the Chinese nation. Attention to Taiwans maritime claim also helps Chinas because the two have the same historic roots, analysts say. Alan Romberg, East Asia Program director with Washington think tank the Stimson Center, said other leaders were unlikely to follow Mas lead and start visiting islets. Not only is [the trip] inconsistent with Mas constructive advocacy of setting aside sovereignty disputes, Romberg said, but if other heads of claimant governments followed suit, it would raise tensions to no useful end. Special correspondent Jennings reported from Taipei and Times staff writer Makinen from Beijing. Follow @JulieMakLAT for news from China With Haitis presidential elections postponed again and just over a week left until the current leaders term expires, various political factions are negotiating to avert a constitutional crisis that could leave the Western hemispheres poorest nation with nobody clearly in charge. The vote was supposed to occur last Sunday, but election authorities last week postponed it indefinitely due to security concerns, including attacks that had occurred on election offices. It was the third time the vote -- a runoff originally scheduled for Dec. 27 -- has been delayed. President Michel Martelly must leave office by Feb. 7. The crisis threatens to throw the poor and troubled Caribbean country back into the instability and political morass that it has long struggled against. Advertisement See more of our top stories on Facebook >> Youre looking at a country absolutely mired in institutional chaos, said Eduardo Gamarra, a professor of political science at Florida International University. They are teetering on the brink. They are there on the edge of the precipice. The elections were already troubled, with opposition candidate Jude Celestin planning to boycott. The former government construction ministry director alleged vote rigging in the first round of elections that took place in October. The ruling party candidate, Jovenel Moise, a banana exporter and political newcomer, won that round but failed to secure the required majority, thereby necessitating the runoff. Now the countdown has begun to avert a political catastrophe. The negotiations include Martelly, parliamentary leaders, opposition groups and members of the private sector. International observers and academics with knowledge of the proceedings said several scenarios are being weighed. Among them is shelving the current elections, ensuring that Martelly leaves office as scheduled, installing an interim government and holding a completely new vote within weeks or months. There has been a deeply fraudulent and violent electoral process up until now, said Brian Concannon, executive director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, a Boston-based human rights group. There is an opportunity now to step back and create a much better process. If elections are forced through, it will be setting Haiti up for another very difficult five years. Jake Johnston, a research associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., who observed last Octobers elections, said a new government would need to consider deeper restructuring, such as an overhaul of the electoral process. You have a lot of systemic problems which require not just cosmetic fixes but serious reforms, he said. NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >> Martelly, a popular former musician who came to power after winning a presidential runoff in 2011, for years failed to hold local and parliamentary elections and has essentially ruled by decree since January 2015. The country has struggled to establish a steady democracy since the Haitian Revolution of 1986 that toppled President Jean-Claude Duvalier, whose family had ruled the island with an iron fist since 1957. Longtime polarization among Haitian politicians and a history of intransigence is going to make it difficult to reach a consensus of any kind, analysts said. Haiti has a zero-sum political environment, which means if you dont win, you lose, Gamarra said. In a zero-sum environment, losers are never going to accept the outcome. Its going to be a long, long negotiation because people are not going to cede. Tensions have flared for the last several days as unruly protesters have taken to the streets in Haitis capital Port-au-Prince, triggering clashes with security forces. Haitian police patrol the street during a protest in Port-au-Prince on Monday. (Hector Retamal / AFP/Getty Images) The United States, which considers Haiti a policy priority and backed Martellys presidency, is calling for calm. Washington, which has pumped $33 million into the elections, had been pushing for the final round to take place before the Feb. 7 deadline. But since the postponement last week, U.S. officials have acknowledged that the chance of new elections happening quickly was unlikely. Realistically speaking, we may be looking at some sort of temporary solution until there is a handover to a new elected president, U.S. Haiti Special Coordinator Kenneth Merten told Reuters. Our fear is that we go into a situation that is open-ended. In our analysis, that is a dangerous place to go, Merten said. Since an earthquake in 2010 devastated Haiti, killing hundreds of thousands and rendering just as many homeless, the U.S. has made available nearly $4 billion to the impoverished nation to help with post-disaster relief as well as reconstruction, development programs and longer-term recovery. But continued progress in rebuilding the fragile island nation will likely be halted unless Haiti emerges smoothly from its political quagmire, analysts said. Twitter: @AMSimmons1 ALSO Can Iran deliver on promises to ramp up oil production? In Italy, same-sex civil union debate going to lawmakers World health agency expects Zika virus, linked to birth defects, to reach U.S. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived in Paris on Wednesday on the second leg of a whirlwind tour promoting his countrys opening to the world economy now that nuclear-related sanctions have been lifted. We dont see any obstacles for companies that would want to come and invest in Iran, Rouhani, speaking through an interpreter, told a delegation of French business leaders. Iran is ready for investments. After arriving from Rome, Rouhani and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron. Rouhani then hosted leaders of Frances business community in his Paris hotel. Advertisement France is the second and final stop on Rouhanis four-day trip to Europe on a mission to bolster European investment in the Islamic Republic after years of international penalties have throttled the Iranian economy. Nuclear-related sanctions against Iran were lifted Jan. 16. That was after the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency certified that Iran had complied with its vow to constrain its atomic activities in line with an agreement reached with six world powers, including the United States. Iran has always insisted that its nuclear program was purely for peaceful purposes, despite suspicions in the West and Israel that Tehran was seeking to build an atomic bomb. U.S. officials say the new deal makes it much less likely that Iran could build a bomb. Rouhani, who has staked his presidency on improving Irans battered economy and attracting foreign investment, has hailed the end of sanctions as a beginning of a new economic era for Iran. In France, Iranian officials have indicated they are on the verge of signing a multibillion-dollar deal with Airbus, the aircraft manufacturer. Auto manufacturers Peugeot and Renault may also be in line for deals, according to reports, and oil giant Total has also been linked to possible Iranian business contracts. Rouhani was also expected to meet with French President Francois Hollande during his visit. Iran has already signaled its intention to purchase 114 Airbus passenger jets in a bid to modernize the nations aging fleet, which has suffered from lack of new aircraft and spare parts. The Iranian presidents swing through Rome included a private meeting with Pope Francis the first encounter in 16 years between a pontiff and an Iranian leader. Rouhani also sat down with sundry business leaders. While Rouhani was in Italy, the Iranian press reported, contracts worth $17 billion were inked between Iran and Italian companies. Italy and France put on a warm welcome for Rouhani, dramatizing Europes desire to get in on what many see as a business bonanza after the lifting of sanctions. The Italy leg of the trip drew some controversy when a Rome museum covered up statues of naked figures in an apparent deference to Rouhani, a Shiite Muslim cleric. Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini later labeled the action incomprehensible. He said neither he nor Prime Minister Matteo Renzi had been informed beforehand of the plan to cover up the statues. Rouhanis reception in France appeared slightly more low key than in Italy, a reflection perhaps of Frances close ties to Saudi Arabia, Tehrans regional rival, and Paris robust backing of efforts to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad, a close ally of Iran. Tehran has provided military and economic aid to Assads government, which has been fighting a five-year war against insurgents. Its true that Iran has returned to the international community, Fabius said Wednesday. But it doesnt mean we agree on everything, especially on Syria. For months, foreign business delegations from Europe and Asia have been beating a path to Tehran, anticipating that the lifting of sanctions would open up a raft of opportunities to do business with the nation of 80 million. Absent in the rush to do business with Iran are U.S. firms and corporations. Most U.S. sanctions remain in place, making it difficult for American companies to conduct commerce in Iran. Despite the business frenzy, there is still residual hesitancy on the part of some companies to dive headlong into Iran investments. Some corporate executives fear the nuclear accords so-called snapback provisions, which would swiftly restore sanctions if Iran is found to have violated the terms of the deal. Those seeking to invest in Iran also face an antiquated and complex internal financing and banking system, another daunting hurdle. Still, analysts say Iran with a highly educated population, huge oil and gas reserves and a strategic position in the Middle East represents attractive business terrain. The business deals being signed in Europe represent a clear victory for Rouhani, who was elected in 2013 on a platform of ending sanctions and opening up to the West as means of dragging Iran out of its economic malaise of high unemployment, rising prices and a faltering currency. Rouhanis surprising landslide victory was a rebuke of hard-liners who rejected any overtures to the West and downplayed the effects of sanctions. Still, Rouhani and other moderates face considerable political challenges in Iran from conservatives opposed to his policies. Hard-line critics in Iran fear that economic liberalization could lead to increased political and cultural influence in the Islamic Republic, weakening power elites such as the Revolutionary Guard Corps, a military and economic power in the country. Despite stiff internal opposition, Rouhani has remained consistent in his vow to boost Irans economy and complete a nuclear deal with world powers. Two years ago, during a visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Rouhani told world leaders that Iran was open for business. With sanctions lifted, Rouhani seems determined to follow up on his desire to attract international investors and businesses to Iran. Asian companies and nations have also been eyeing Iran for business opportunities in a post-sanctions environment. Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping capped a three-nation tour of the Mideast with a visit to Tehran, where he signed accords on an array of trade, energy and other topics, officials said. He was the first Chinese president to visit Iran in 14 years. Times staff writer McDonnell reported from Paris and special correspondent Mostaghim from Tehran. MORE ON THE MIDDLE EAST Can Iran deliver on promises to ramp up oil production? Iranian leader, saying nation stable and safe, meets pope On eve of peace talks, Syrian forces make fresh gains against rebels Many women's rights and gender equality groups from across the world are heavily criticizing government advice to delay pregnancies as a viable solution to the Zika virus problem. They argue that the Latin American government fails to recognize the harsh reality of unplanned pregnancies. In a report with The Guardian, the dreaded Zika virus has shown its devastating effects in countries like Brazil and Colombia. Health officials from across five countries have issued these health recommendations. In Brazil alone, it was reported that the South American country had registered 4,000 cases of babies born with microcephaly, a condition in which infants are born with an abnormally small head and an underdeveloped brain. So far, there is no Zika vaccine. Governments from across the globe are expediting efforts to contain the virus. Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff has declared a war on Zika by deploying 220,000 troops to scour and eradicate possible breeding grounds of the Aedes Aegypti mosquito. However, women's advocates groups believe that the efforts made by both the government and health officials are not enough. Alejandro Gaviria, health minister of Colombia, advised women in the country to delay pregnancy for six to eight months. The South American nation is the second hardest nation hit by the mosquito-borne disease, with 890 pregnant women affected by the virus. Gaviria said that it is a "good way to communicate the risk." He added that people will be aware of the serious consequences involved. Many women's rights advocates, particularly reproductive rights advocates argue that the different governments have failed to address the issue altogether since they have skirted over the fact that pregnancies can be unplanned, especially among the poor. Paula Avila-Guillen, of the US-based Center for Reproductive Rights, said that many men and women in the rural areas of the region have little to no access to contraceptives. She added that many pregnancies are also the result of sexual abuse and even rape, especially among young girls. Reuters reported that activists have called the health advice "irresponsible" and "naive." Countries like El Salvador advised women to delay pregnancy by as much as two years. They also argue that women across these regions have little say on the matter on getting pregnant, which is another blind spot that needs to be addressed. Monica Roa, vice president of strategy for Women's Link Worldwide, said that in countries like Colombia, where sexual violence is prevalent, the health advice is moot. She also lamented that the outbreak of the Zika virus has also exposed many weak areas in the government, such as the lack of sexual education. "Health ministries should inform rather than recommend," Roa declared. The women's rights groups also blamed health officials for failing to address the role of men, arguing that the burden once again falls on women to protect themselves from the dreaded effects of the Zika virus. 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Argentina's government has announced huge hikes in the country's wholesale electricity rates. The price hike will be effective starting in February, the Argentine Energy and Mining Ministry said in Wednesday. It has not been established yet how much retail customers will be paying, but it will vary by region, according to a report from EFE (via Fox News Latino). Although it constitutes the withdrawal of subsidies, rate discounts will still be given to homes that reduce their power consumption, the news outlet wrote. In addition, there will be a minimum rate for families with low income. Power distributor Edenor, power transporter Transener, and Pampa Energia, which provides the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity in Argentina, are regarded as three of the biggest gainers in the South American country's stock market benchmark index, the Merval. The latter recently saw a 3.2 percent increase to a two-week high, Reuters reported. Edenor's shares went up to 3.7 percent, Transener's rose 5.6 percent, and Pampa Energia's climbed 5.5 percent, Reuters listed. Rates for clients of Edenor and Edesur, another electricity distributor, will be announced this week, according to officials from the two firms, the news outlet added. The companies' clients reside in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, where citizens pay one of Argentina's lowest rates. The monthly bill there for a three-bedroom house is usually around 50 pesos ($3.61), and rates are almost frozen for the last 13 years. The state news agency Telam said that the rate increase will be between 200 and 300 percent for the biggest consumers, but this will be reduced if consumption is less than 300 kilowatts per month. The Energy Ministry defended the price hike by noting "the existing disconnect between real costs and prevailing prices," EFE further reported. Edenor and Edesur officials said that the wholesale rate hike mirrors a sharp reduction in state subsidies, Reuters added. Those subsidies had permitted distributors to purchase cheap power. Officials also said that the new rates represented the wholesale component of the consumer's tariff, and that the final bill would indicate fees to the power generator and local taxes. An Edesur official said that "there will be a new tariff structure on Friday, once we've done the calculations with these new prices," the news outlet reported. In December, President Mauricio Macri's administration announced that the country is anticipating the reduction of funds allotted to the state to subsidize household consumption of gas and electricity, according to EFE. Cutting energy subsidies is one of Macri's priorities to address a primary fiscal budget deficit, which increased 5.8 percent of national output in 2015 under Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's presidency. 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Democrats in the US Senate have expressed their plan to help Puerto Rico with its current crisis through congressional action, which will restructure the country's debts. Reuters reported said the 46 Democrats and independents penned a letter to the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, and asked him to take action regarding the economic situation of the US territory. "Restructuring legislation would not cost the federal government a single penny and would instead save U.S. taxpayers from the growing cost of inaction," the letter read. It was noted that the correspondence was meant to challenge the Republicans who are not in favor of allowing the US to restructure debt. There have been previous bills which only bring the country's finances "under federal oversight," but does not include the restructuring of debt. "Puerto Rico was included in Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code until 1984, when Congress inexplicably excluded it from the nationwide approach to resolving municipal insolvency," the letter furthered. The country has run out of cash because of its $70 billion debt with the US Congress. According to Huffington Post, the Senate has not yet made a decision if it will consider the legislation or not. Because of this, Democrats are strongly pushing for this solution, even warning Congress that if there will be no restructuring efforts from them, fiscal crisis will worsen in the country and more Puerto Ricans will move to the United States. The same report highlighted that about 84,000 people left the country and migrated to the US mainland --most of them are now living in Florida. This number is said to be 38 percent higher than the statistics in 2010. "Without congressional action, Puerto Rico will face a long and difficult recovery that could have harmful consequences," said Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew in a Bloomberg report. He added that passing the legislation would mean helping 3.5 million American residents in the country. Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla asked Congress earlier to craft a "formal debt-restructuring process" for the country to help it and its residents recover from their financial losses. The U.S. offered two options for Puerto Rico to recover. CNN Money said the first option was to offer the country "cash, tax cuts and oversight but no legal power." The second one had no monetary offering, but would give the country the legal power for it to be able to restructure some of its debts. 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The United States is mulling over new plans of military action in Libya, due to threats that the terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS) could close in on the country. According to The Guardian, the Pentagon is already exploring its military options to stop ISIS from acquiring this oil-rich country, as per spokesperson Peter Cook. This move comes four years after the country also conducted an air campaign to stop the dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi. "We want to be prepared, as the Department of Defense always wants to be prepared, in the event that ISIL in Libya becomes more of a threat than it is even today," Cook mentioned in an AFP report published by Al Arabiya. Cook noted that the United States is currently identifying allies in the country to prepare for a possible confrontation with the Islamic militant group. In a WBT report, the Pentagon spokesperson clarified that their options for now do not include having American troops on the ground. "Right now, that's not something that's -- that's under consideration," he noted. Cook said that they have forces in Libya, but their role is to establish contact to be able to understand the situation in the country. He likened their mission to the one done in November last year, where special operations forces from the US were forced to leave the country. It was also noted that the United States is not the only country interested in getting the real picture in Libya, but other partner nations are as well. The Financial Times bared the U.S. plan of resorting to air strikes and the deployment of special operation forces in the event that ISIS "becomes more of a threat than it is even today." It also noted that the concern in Libya has been growing for the past weeks, especially with the fact that ISIS has already gained control of some areas around the city of Sirte. The group has also attacked oil facilities in the country. According to AFP, ISIS took control of the city last June, claiming its airport and power plant. This has alarmed the US that the terrorist group will soon gain ground on a third country after taking over Iraq and Syria. There has reportedly been a surge in the number of ISIS fighters, close to 3,000, entering Libya because of control measures in Syria and Turkey. But with the United States plan for military action, Financial Times said this could impede the ongoing process of establishing a new national unity government in the country. 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A lot of people are shifting to organic diets for a healthier lifestyle, including residents of Latin America. For those wanting to try organic food in the region, below are some popular options: 1. Banana According to Dole Organic, Ecuador is the biggest supplier of organic bananas in the region, with growers starting this agriculture trend since 1998. Research Gate added that banana growers in the country shifted to organic production because this gives them more produce and earnings. It added that the through organic farming, fungicides are not used to grow bananas, resulting in higher prices of the fruit. Before It's News highlighted that eating organic bananas can help peopl overcome depression, cure muscle cramps and improve mood. It also claimed that bananas help reduce swelling and can also protect people from diabetes and other diseases of the nervous system. "Bananas act as a prebiotic, stimulating the growth of friendly bacteria in the bowel. They also produce digestive enzymes to assist in absorbing nutrients," added the same report. 2. Citrus Fresh Plaza said organic citrus has paved a good path for the production in Cuba. It noted that farmers in the country take good care of their crops using organic fertilizers. Because of this, growers are able to harvest about 6,000 metric tons of orange and grapefruit. Drinking organic citrus juices, like orange, can lower cholesterol levels and boost vitamin C in your body, according to Uncle Matts. Citrus is also effective in preventing ulcers and kidney stones. 3. Coffee Another popular organic item in South America is coffee. IFAD said organic coffee is famous in Mexico, especially in Chiapas. Pacific Standard said farmers were encouraged to shift to organic farming because of the premium prices of the products. They had to learn about organic ways of producing coffee through workshops and meetings. According to Healthy Eating, consuming organic coffee will save people from ingesting chemical residue from fertilizers and pesticides, which is found in regular coffee. 4. Wine Chile is a famous source of organic wine in Latin America. Organic Market noted that the organic production of wine was envisioned in the 1980s. It then grew after growers explored "organic and bio-dynamic agriculture." Vineyards were then converted to organic plantations. 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Cuba's tourism has never been booming this much, but can the country handle it? According to Reuters Africa, the tourism industry in the Caribbean country is currently under strain after the detente with the United States last year prompted a sudden influx of American tourists to Cuba. Known for their rich culture, tropical weather and exotic sights, Cuba is now open for foreigners --including Americans -- to visit and trade in. Effective on Wednesday, an amendment from Washington removed "restrictions on payment and financing terms for authorized exports and re-exports to Cuba of items other than agricultural items or commodities" in a bid to improve ties between the mainland and the Latin American nation, as reported by the International Business Times. These changes now allow easier access to the country, paving the way for professional meetings and even media and artistic productions to be held in Cuba. "Today's amendments to the Cuban Assets Control Regulations build on successive actions over the last year and send a clear message to the world: the United States is committed to empowering and enabling economic advancements for the Cuban people," Treasury and Commerce Department Secretary Jack Lew declared in the statement. While this development has been expected to improve the country's economy, it appears like the Caribbean island nation under communist rule is not prepared for it. In fact, NBC described the tourism situation to be "heating up," as the country welcomed 3.52 million visitors last year. This marked a historical 17.4 percent increase compared to tourism statistics recorded in Cuba in 2014. "Cuba is over the top with tourists right now. I've seen so many Americans, it's not even funny," 44-year-old Nashville resident Ana Fernandez told Reuters. Meanwhile, Berlin schoolbook editor Gisela Hoiman was hoping to see the country "before it changes" as tourists arrive, but was disappointed to see masses of tourists flocking the airport. "It was too much to handle, too many other tourists. We stood in line and were sent back and forth to different counters," she said, adding that it appears like the country is not prepared for the sudden influx of tourists. According to Collin Laverty, the founder of Cuba Educational Travel, the tourism amenities and infrastructure in Cuba has already been "maxed out" after Americans bit off a huge chunk of the so-called "forbidden fruit," which remained out of their reach for the past decades --until now. 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Mexico's Catholic Church is being accused of protecting a priest who allegedly sexually abused about 100 children. During a press conference, a letter written by the mother of one victim was read aloud, according to EFE (via Fox News Latino). It was directed to Pope Francis, who is scheduled to visit Mexico in February. In the letter, the mother asked the pontiff for justice for the victims in order to assure that "this doesn't happen again," the news outlet added. The accused is Rev. Gerardo Silvestre Hernandez, whose first sexual abuse allegedly took place almost a decade ago. Alejandro de Jesus of the Oaxaca Children's Forum said that "in 2006, Gerardo Silvestre abused a 9-year-old boy during a six-month internship" in San Pablo Huitzo, a parish in the southern state of Oaxaca, EFE further reported. De Jesus added that after that, "more than 100 victims were dragged in" during the years in which he served as a priest at seven different locations. The Oaxaca attorney general accused Silvestre of abusing two boys from the indigenous community of Villa Alta, Mexico on Aug. 12, 2013, EFE added. The priest is currently detained in a prison while waiting for trial. In Tuesday, the Oaxaca Children's Forum was joined by a number of priests and activists in accusing the South American country's Catholic Church for protecting Silvestre, according to EFE. The complaint is accusing the archbishop of Antequera-Oaxaca, Jose Luis Chavez Botello, for covering up the sexual abuses by not conducting a thorough investigation of the cases. The Oaxaca Children's Forum has asked for sanctions for the Church, which is "indirectly" involved in the case. The group is also accusing the Church of "protecting the victimizers instead of safeguarding the victims," de Jesus said, as reported by EFE. Among those who joined the press conference was Rev. Apolonio Merino, who condemned Silvestre's alleged crimes, EFE noted. This month, a German attorney assigned to investigate the abuse of minors in a famous Catholic boys' choir in Bavaria discovered that 231 children had been violated over a period of decades, the New Yorker wrote. The lawyer, Ulrich Weber, who was commissioned by the Diocese of Regensburg to investigate the inquiry, found that there were 50 credible cases of sexual abuse. There are also a large number of cases concerning other types of physical abuse, ranging from beatings to food deprivation. According to the New Yorker, the news got widespread attention not only because of its troubling nature, but because the Regensburg boys' choir director from 1964 to 1994 was Georg Ratzinger, the older brother of Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI and is Pope Francis' predecessor. 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A study shows that the Mayans have a very similar conception on how cancer develops as Western doctors, but have a better understanding of how it can be cured. Researchers probed the Mayan healers' understanding of cancer in a study published in the Journal of Global Oncology. They found that they share fundamental concept with Western medicine. According to the study's lead author Monica Berger-Gonzalez of the Institute for Environmental Decisions in Switzerland, the Mayans have "remarkably similar ways to Western doctors." The health expert noted that acknowledging this fact "is the first step to bridging the gap between cultures" in order to deliver "better, more effective services for indigenous populations." According to News Wise, the study was conducted in Guatemala, where almost half of its 5.4 million residents rely on Mayan medicine. Based on the study, Maya healers have a very good understanding of the concept of cancer, with 85 percent of the traditional doctors able to explain how malignancy is the core characteristic of the disease. Researchers also found out that these healers clearly understand the concept of metastasis and were even able to cite 10 out of 17 causes of cancer that have been identified in Western medicine. However, the study uncovered the main difference between Western and Mayan medicine, which is basically the latter's belief that treating cancer should be holistic in order to restore balance. This not only includes the physical body, but also a person's emotions, mind and spirit. The study thereby concluded that understanding the Mayan way of treatment -- and not shrugging it off as a myth -- will most likely help Western doctors find a cure for cancer. "If health care professionals do not understand indigenous peoples' conception of cancer, these patients are far less likely to accept and adhere to treatment in the public health care system," Dr. Berger-Gonzalez explained. Mayans, whom many associate with stone pyramids, have healing methods that are also impeccably similar to Eastern forms of healing. In fact, Vitality Magazine noted that the Mayan healers' concept of a life-force called "ch'ulel" is no different than the "chi." The magazine also revealed that Mayans have six principles in healing: the Life Force, the connection between Body and Soul, the recognition of natural cycles and the veneration of plants, the understanding that healing is an "integrative, comprehensive approach," the Status of the Blood, and the principle of Hot and Cold. 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Latin American and Caribbean governments have all agreed that it is necessary to end the armed conflict between Colombia and rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). According to Yahoo!, the leaders of the summit said that the mission of their organization is to oversee an accord between the Colombian government and the Marxist rebel group. Speaking at the 4th Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said, "In the past CELAC summit our region was declared a peaceful area, the armed conflict in Colombia is the only one that persists in the entire region, that's why CELAC members have said it must come to an end soon." Hosting the summit is Ecuador president Rafael Correa, who said about their stand on the conflict, "We are offering CELAC with all its capability to support the verification of the agreement," TeleSur noted that the war inside Colombia, which lasted about five decades, has displaced over 6.7 million people and has taken the lives of over 220,000. However, the conflict is over with the government and rebel group negotiating peace with the help of the United Nations, who, in an unanimous decision on Monday, approved the creation of a special mission to verify the bilateral ceasefire and subsequent disarmament of the members of the guerrilla group. President Santos said that the UN will choose the countries to take part in monitoring the deal and ensure its implementation. He told the summit, "The United Nations have told us that they have already received offers from a great many countries because many countries are interested in taking part. It could involve any country that belongs to CELAC." The negotiation process is still ongoing; however, peace talks in Cuba's capital, Havana, has seen several key advances in the last few months, and both sides have already set a March 23 deadline to sign the final agreements. It has been noted that despite the deadline, the FARC has warned that "substantial" obstacles could still get in the way. Still, both the government and the rebel group members are ready to put the past behind them for good, with some FARC members even looking forward to returning to their own homes. For instance, Independent UK noted that a rebel leader known by the name Juan Pablo said that he's thinking of a future outside the FARC camps in the jungle, even planning on running for mayor in the poor village that he left as a teenager. When the final agreement is signed, maybe then he, along with the other FARC members, can finally rest in a world beyond guns and violence. 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Russian President Vladimir Putin just made an aggressive move as he sought "revenge" for the downed jet that was shot near the Turkish border in November. According to Western Journalism, Russian forces are now rampaging through the Syrian town on the lookout for the man who admitted to killing the pilot. Turkish citizen Alparslan Celik said in a video that the man killed the pilot as revenge for the Russian bombing raids. Celik told Turkey's Hurriyet Daily News, "That pilot bombed us five minutes [before Turkey downed the Russian jet] and our brothers were killed or wounded by these bombs.There is no place for a person who has bombed civilian Turkmens every day. Reprisal is the most natural right." After this, Moscow demanded Celik's arrest on December 30, 2015. Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement, "We demand that the Turkish authorities take immediate steps to apprehend Alparslan Celik and his accomplices and bring them to justice for the murder of the Russian pilot." Fox News noted, however, that Putin's government did not make clear on what consequences will be waiting for Celik once soldiers find him. However, they are sure to "take revenge," as noted by the state media. The video showing the pilot's killers celebrating did not sit well with him either, especially after Syrian rebels released a video showing about a dozen men in fatigues celebrating while surrounding the dead body. Turkish and Russian conflicts have since then elevated. Express UK noted that Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu went so far as accusing Putin of protecting the Islamic State. Shots were fired when Davutoglu said in a thinly veiled swipe that his bid to wipe out the jihadis were "obstructed by certain foreign powers," adding that the Russian jets appear to be protecting ISIS within Syrian air space." Davutoglu also said that he will retaliate in "whatever form it deems necessary" for anyone who attacks his country. For now, it looks like both Russia and Turkey have been sidelined by their own conflicts instead of pushing towards fighting ISIS and Syrian jihadists together. For now, Russia's top priority is to apprehend Celik and his accomplices, with an order from Zakharova to ensure the detainment of Celik and his accomplices. What do you think of this conflict regarding the downed Russian jet -- is it worth it to dissolve ties with Turkey in the fight against ISIS? 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. HIV Rates in Latin America 2016: Cases on the Rise in Venezuela Indigenous Sites; 5 Facts to Remember media@latinoshealth.com By Rachel Cruz Jan 28, 2016 04:30 AM EST Cases of HIV infection are rising among indigenous people in Venezuela and here are five facts you need to know about it: Who are infected? Latin Correspondent reported that HIV cases were first reported in Warao communities in 2007. However, the disease has since spread to many other areas in the Orinoco Delta region. Fox News Latino reported that researchers estimated the disease was already present in the community 15 years before. However, as of 2013, some 9.55 percent of the Warao population have been tested positive for HIV. Venezuela has a 0.56 HIV positive rate overall. "Our estimates are that 10 percent of Warao people could be infected, that's more than 10 times higher than the overall level of HIV occurrences in Venezuela at large, which is less than 1 percent," Flor Pujol, an expert studying HIV cases in the region, told the news outlet. How do Waraos live? The Warao tribe is composed of South American Indians whose livelihood is focused on fishing, gathering and hunting. Britannica informed that they live in beehive-shaped thatch huts near riverbeds and swampy areas. They follow strict rites and rituals led by shamans, priests or chiefs. Experts noted that, because of their living conditions, with poverty and lack of health care as some of the primary concerns, the tribe is vulnerable to diseases. Warao Org cited that many of the indigents also suffer from tuberculosis, diarrhea, fever and vomiting, including the children. How did HIV reach the community in the first place? The experts are not clear as to how the disease reached the isolated communities. However, a study published in PLOS One suggested links to the Orinoco Delta trade routes taken by ships that supply the mining and oil industries in the region. It's the men in the tribe who are mostly infected, with scientists assuming homosexuality and prostitution as likely factors. Why is the disease spreading and killing at a faster rate? Apart from poverty and limited access to health care, the indigents know little about the disease. "The sad thing is, when we do manage to get them the retroviral, they take them for one or two months and, once they start feeling better, they stop taking the medication," said Pujol. "They don't understand that HIV is something they will have to deal with their whole lives." What else is being done? With many of the men population dying due to HIV, women tribe members are abandoning their communities. Ekklesia reported that an advocacy group is calling on the help of the United Nations and Venezuela officials to uphold tribal land rights to protect indigents. More details are found at Survival International. Subscribe to the latinos health newsletter! Intelligent People More Likely to Have Better Health: Study media@latinoshealth.com By Staff Writer Jan 28, 2016 05:30 AM EST Researchers from the University of Edinburgh found that intelligence and health are tied to the same genes, which suggests that clever people are usually healthy as well. The research is detailed in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. "The study supports an existing theory which says that those with better overall health are likely to have higher levels of intelligence," said study author Dr. Saskia Hagenaars. The researchers found that the genes that influence learning, memory, thinking and understanding are also linked to certain diseases including schizophrenia, autism and Alzheimer's disease. However, the study also revealed that higher intelligence increased the risk of the mentioned diseases. It was previously believed that the environment and financial capability were responsible for poor health and low education. However, the new study shows that genetics could be a factor. In the analysis of the genetic data of approximately 100,000 people held in the U.K. Biobank, researchers tested their cognitive capacities including memory and verbal-numerical reasoning. The results were compared with 22 health markers as well as their genome results. The researchers found out that type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure risk increased in people who have lesser educational attainment and lower verbal-numerical scores. There is also a correlation between body mass index and intelligence where clever people are less likely to be overweight. Another co-author Ian Deary said in a press release that intelligence is also linked to physical features such as body shape and brain size. "This study tests whether genes that are linked to mental abilities and educational attainment are also genes that are related to some disorders," Dr. Stuart Ritchie of Edinburgh University said, as reported by Telegraph. "We found that there are many overlaps: to take one example, genes related to being taller are also related to obtaining a college or university degree. "We also asked whether the sets of genes associated with many disorders and traits predicted people's actual levels of cognitive abilities. We found many overlaps there, too. To take one example, people with more genes linked to cardiovascular disease tended to have lower reasoning ability." Dr. Sarah Harris, another researcher, adds that their further studies should be conducted to investigate the biological pathways that are linked to cognitive abilities and health related traits. Subscribe to the latinos health newsletter! Vitamin C Myths & Facts Everyone Should Know About media@latinoshealth.com By Staff Reporter Jan 28, 2016 05:30 AM EST Commercials for orange fruit juices and vitamin C supplements often mention protection against colds and other viruses, but more recent research refute the claims of these products and the widely accepted belief that vitamin C can, in fact, prevent the common cold. CNN reports that this all began with renowned scientist Linus Pauling, who, back in the 1960s and 1970s published a book in which he highly recommended regular doses of vitamin C, which he personally tested and believed to have protected him from the common cold. However, according to the National Institutes of Health, "Overall, the evidence to date suggests that regular intakes of vitamin C at doses of at least 200 mg per day do not reduce the incidence of the common cold in the general population." What vitamin C can do, in fact, is shorten illnesses. This is backed by research that has found that preventive vitamin C intake was linked with colds that lasted for 8% shorter in adults and 14% shorter in kids. Here are some other myths associated with vitamin C: 1. Citrus fruits are the best sources of vitamin C. Orange juice is often go-to for a daily dose of the C, but according to Health, the food that packs a punch is bell peppers, as it contains 200 to 300 mg of vitamin C, which amounts to more than one cup of orange juice. You can also get your vitamin C from Brussels sprouts, kiwi, strawberry, papaya, pineapple, and cantaloupe. 2. Vitamin C deficiency is uncommon. This is untrue, as vitamin C is an essential nutrient that the body cannot produce on its own, and therefore relies on food and supplements as a source. Endocrinologist Dr. Marvin Lipman told NPR, "Without vitamin C, the immune function deteriorates, the intercellular cement deteriorates, the linings of blood vessels deteriorate, the membranes of cells deteriorate." In addition, vitamin C also helps decrease the formation of arterial plaque and helps fight free radicals that may damage cells. 3. It's okay to consume a large amount of vitamin C, since it is water soluble. People who regularly take their daily doses should note that too much of something can be a bad thing, as more than 2,000 mg of vitamin C per day may also cause nausea, diarrhea, and stomach cramps. The Guardian reports that a study published in the "Journal of the American Medical Association" revealed that during 47 trials with more than 180,000 participants, those who took vitamin supplements of vitamins A, E and beta-carotene were at risk of dying younger than those who did not take any supplements. It's always best to consult one's doctor for the correct amount of vitamin supplements in case you opt to take them for deficiency or health maintenance reasons. Subscribe to the latinos health newsletter! Paracetamol, Painkillers use During Pregnancy Affect Fertility of Future Generations: Study media@latinoshealth.com By Staff Writer Jan 28, 2016 05:30 AM EST Pregnant women who take paracetamol and other common painkillers may be jeopardizing their offspring's fertility, a study suggests. Mice tests reveal that when a pregnant woman is given painkillers such as paracetamol or the aspirin-like drug indomethacin, her female children had smaller ovaries, fewer eggs and less litter of babies. Male children were found to be affected as well. When they are born they have fewer cells that develop into sperm. When they reach adulthood, however, their fertility recovers. Researchers wrote in a press release that the phenomenon may be caused by prostaglandins reacting to painkillers. Some painkillers may also affect the fetus' germ cells, or cells that give rise to egg and sperm. These hormones are associated with female reproduction and other functions including ovulation, menstruation and labour induction. The study was made by University of Edinburgh researchers and published online at Scientific Reports. For their research, they exposed the mice with either indomethacin for four days or paracetamol for nine days. They found that painkiller use can affect the immediate offspring and the next generations. In females, however, granddaughters of mothers who were given the drugs had smaller ovaries and unusual reproductive function. However, researchers note that the studies were done in mice and not humans and foetal development time varies so it is unclear if it is applicable. "It's important to remember that this study was conducted in rats not humans, however, there are many similarities between the two reproductive systems. We now need to understand how these drugs affect a baby's reproductive development in the womb so that we can further understand their full effect," said Prof. Richard Sharpe, co-leader of the study, in a press release. According to co-author Professor Richard Anderson, the research done was focused on the long term use of painkillers. Additional investigations should be made to determine if the effect is the same on short-term use, Telegraph reports. The researchers recommend for pregnant women to only take painkillers only when needed in the lowest dose and in the shortest time possible. The recommendation was supported by a statement by the chairman of British Fertility Society, Professor Adam Balen. "This is an interesting study of long-term use of paracetamol in pregnant rats and so, whilst we must be cautious extrapolating to humans, it is sensible for pregnant women to minimise use of paracetamol and other painkillers and seek medical advice if they experience problems with significant pain in pregnancy," he said as reported by Express. Subscribe to the latinos health newsletter! Zika Virus Treament: Vaccine, Cure Still A Decade Away: Scientists media@latinoshealth.com By Staff Reporter Jan 28, 2016 04:39 AM EST The mosquito-borne Zika virus that is linked to unusual brain deformity in thousands of babies in Brazil is predicted to spread in almost all countries in Latin America. The government is beginning to research into a possible vaccine for Zika virus. There is no known cure or vaccine for Zika virus. It has already affected more than 20 countries causing panic mainly in Brazil where thousands of people have been infected. Now, the United States government is beginning to search for a possible vaccine, according to BBC reports. The research is being led by scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch. They have visited Brazil to collect samples that are being analyzed in a suite of high-security laboratories in Galveston. Access to the building is strict with police and FBI controlling the premises. However, researchers warn that it could take years for the vaccine to be developed. Typically, vaccines could be ready for testing in two years time. However, it may take another 10 years for it to be approved. "This is not going to be overnight," Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said in an interview Tuesday, U.S. News reports. NIH researchers have started initial work a few months ago. They also have plans to increase funding to a number of Brazilian scientists to advance Zika-related research. The team intends to use existing vaccines for dengue fever and similar infections as a platform for their work. Dengue fever, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis and West Nile disease are caused by the same member of the flavivirus family. U.S. News further reports that President Barack Obama met on Tuesday with his senior health advisers, including Fauci, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell and Centers for Disease Control Director Thomas Frieden. The White House has urged them to expedite research for possible vaccines and cure. In an exclusive interview with BBC, professor Scott Weaver, director of the Institute for Human Infections and Immunity, said that there's no way to reverse the effects of microcephaly once it develops. The result could leave the child mentally incapacitated for life and, worse, it could be fatal. The Zika virus was first discovered in 1947 in Uganda's Zika forest. The first human infection was recorded in Nigeria in 1954. The disease was ignored by the scientific community thinking there's not enough risk involve. In the past year, the cases have increased significantly, infecting thousands across Latin America. There's evidence that Zika can be transmitted through saliva and semen, although this is rarely the case. However, the main concern goes out for the unborn babies since Zika is difficult to diagnose. Researchers admit that they are still at the beginning stages in formulating a vaccine. For more information about the Zika virus, check out the video provided by BBC: Subscribe to the latinos health newsletter! The U.S. Senate has confirmed Latino judicial nominee John Michael Vazquez on Wednesday evening to serve as a judge in the Federal District Court in the District of New Jersey. Confirming John Michael Vazquez The Senate voted 84-2 to confirm Vazquez. Fourteen senators were not present to vote, including Latino Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas. The sole Latino Democrat in the Senate, Bob Menendez of New Jersey, voted in favor of Vazquez, who was nominated by President Barack Obama on March 26, 2015. Ahead of the vote, Menendez addressed the Senate to speak about Vazquez -- a fellow New Jerseyan with impressive credentials. "When I think about the breadth and scope of what comes before a federal district court judge, I can only think about the breadth and scope of his experience," said Menendez. "He understands both sides of the legal equation: the prosecution and the defense of a case. ... He is an eminently qualified nominee with impressive credentials and experience who will fill a 'judicial emergency' vacancy in the District of New Jersey." "And in addition to intellect, judgment, temperament, observance to the rule of law and the separation of powers, he diversifies our Judiciary as a Hispanic American -- something that I think is also very important to be able to have any American walk into any court in the land and believe that the possibility of someone like them may very well be sitting in judgment of them," added Menendez. In the end, only two Republican voted against Vazquez: Dan Sullivan of Alaska and James Lankford of Oklahoma. As previously noted, Republican presidential candidates Cruz and Rubio were not present to vote. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a Democratic presidential candidate, also was not present for the vote. "I was not surprised by the John Michael Vazquez vote because he was a well qualified, consensus nominee and New Jersey desperately needs to fill the four judicial emergency vacancies because they delay cases," said Carl Tobias, law professor at the University of Richmond, to Latin Post. "There was never any controversy over [Vazquez] and his hearing went smoothly. There was no reason to delay his final vote so long." Confirming Troubles for Dax Eric Lopez Vazquez is the latest Latino judicial nominee to receive his confirmation vote, just a couple weeks after the Senate confirmed fellow Latino Judge Luis Felipe Restrepo on Jan. 11, to Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Fellow nominee Eric Dax Lopez was nominated on July 30, 2015, to serve on the U.S District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, which, if confirmed, would have him become the first Latino to serve as a lifetime-appointed federal judge in Georgia, but the process was officially blocked on Jan. 21. As Latin Post reported, Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., said he was "uncomfortable" with Lopez's relationship with the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials (GALEO), which the Republican senator labeled as "controversial." With Perdue's opposition, he, therefore, will not submit the "blue slip" to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which home-state senators usually submit as a sign of approval before the hearing. "I think Sen. Perdue's blocking of Lopez was unfortunate," said Tobias. "The blue slip rule allows one home state senator to veto any nominee. The preferable approach would have been to grant Lopez a hearing and let Sen. Perdue ask him questions about issues that trouble the senator and give Lopez a chance to respond." According to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Perdue had submitted Lopez's name to the White House for consideration to the Federal district court. "There is nothing in Judge Lopez's record to suggest that he could not or would not be an impartial judge. ... Those who oppose Judge Lopez have decided that because he was on the Board of Directors of an organization that advocates certain policies with which they disagree, they refuse to even consider his record or his own merits," said Leahy. "This new litmus test for his membership in a nonpartisan organization sets a dangerous precedent that senators should reject." Lopez, who has been serving as a judge for the State Court of DeKalb County since 2010 -- appointed by then-Georgia Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue -- is also a Republican. __ For the latest updates, follow Latin Post's Politics Editor Michael Oleaga on Twitter: @EditorMikeO or contact via email: m.oleaga@latinpost.com. Ahead of Thursday nights final Republican presidential debate before Mondays Iowa caucus, immigration advocates called for a more constructive conversation on the issue. Mike Tupper, the police chief in Marshalltown, Iowa, shared that he has seen the effects of the broken immigration system on a daily basis. While he welcomes the conservation of immigration, Tupper said the ongoing rhetoric made during the campaign trail has been "disparaging" and is not helping the dialogue. "I think it's important that we all remember that immigration is about people," said Tupper during a press call. "We're talking about real people. We turn it into a political issue and we leave the people and the families out of the discussions sometimes and we forget that these are real people being impacted by this discussion. We have a very diverse community ... they want to contribute, they want to be part of our community, they want to work with law enforcement, they want to work with local government and the rhetoric makes it difficult for them to do that." Tupper, as a law enforcement official, said negative immigration discussion makes it difficult for fellow officials to be effective and keep everyone safe and called for comprehensive immigration reform, which he believes can advance public safety and strengthen communities. The Marshalltown police chief recently made headlines in opposing Arizona's Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's visit to Marshalltown. Arpaio, who has been criticized for his hardline stance on immigrants, flew to Iowa on Tuesday to endorse Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump. "Donald Trump is a leader," Arpaio had said in a statement. "He produces results and is ready to get tough in order to protect American jobs and families. I have fought on the front lines to prevent illegal immigration. I know Donald Trump will stand with me and countless Americans to secure our border. I am proud to support him as the best candidate for President of the United States of America." Rev. Tony Suarez, executive vice president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC) and son of Colombian immigrants, referenced the Bible and how it's a bedrock of the U.S., which "is a nation of immigrants." Suarez said anti-immigrant rhetoric villanizes hard-working families and does nothing to represent concerns from the conservative and evangelical communities. "As a Hispanic leader, it's very saddening to see the dehumanization of our immigrant brothers and sisters. For us, this is not a political issue, this is a life issue. ... We need a better laws," added Suarez, who also supports comprehensive immigration reform that will pull 11 million undocumented immigrants "out of the shadows," which he clarified is not necessarily "mass amnesty." Suarez has the belief that there is middle ground in the conversation of immigration reform, which will respect immigrants' human dignity. Suarez and Tupper are among the faith, law enforcement and business leaders who held a panel discussion in Davenport, Iowa, on Wednesday night about the need for "broad" immigration reform. "Iowans recognize that immigration is about people, not politics, and they're not alone," said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum. "Across the country, local economies, businesses and communities are benefiting from immigrants' contributions. The event came as Iowa will have its caucuses on Feb. 1. __ For the latest updates, follow Latin Post's Politics Editor Michael Oleaga on Twitter: @EditorMikeO or contact via email: m.oleaga@latinpost.com. California police arrested 16 people at an immigrant rights protest in San Francisco on Tuesday for disrupting traffic in the city's Financial District. Over 200 demonstrators rallied near the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in San Francisco at 630 Sansome St. Tuesday morning in protest against the White House's deportation raids targeting Central American families. According to reports, ICE has apprehended 121 Central Americans across multiple states so far this month. Protesters say the raids are rounding up undocumented immigrants who should be granted refugee status since they fled their homes to escape ongoing violence in countries like El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. As a result, sending them back to their home countries puts their lives in jeopardy, activists say. Government officials, on the other hand, justify the raids as a deterrent to immigrants from illegally crossing the border. The Department of Homeland Security has even announced they may expand the raids to include undocumented children who entered the U.S. without a guardian. In effort to stop the deportations of immigrants fleeing violence, protesters chained themselves together and blocked off intersections near the ICE office, while other demonstrators marched in circles around them, reports KRON 4. Ten protesters chained themselves together at the corner of Sansome and Washington streets, blocking traffic in all directions, while six other chained demonstrators blocked traffic at the corner of Sansome and Washington streets. San Francisco police spokeswoman officer Grace Gatpandan said those 16 protesters were arrested for disregarding police orders to move. They were then taken into custody and cited for refusing to comply with an officer's order and failure to yield the traffic right-of-way before being released. Still, protesters said risking their temporary freedom is a light sacrifice to save the lives of immigrants. "I'm doing this for one of my cousins who was deported twice in the same year after he tried to flee after being jumped into the Mara Salva Trucha [gang]," said 22-year-old Berkeley student Christopher Lopez, a chained protester who was arrested at the rally. "Unfortunately, the detention center didn't recognize this as a reason for political asylum and unfortunately he was deported back to Honduras. "We need to recognize people currently fleeing Central America a legitimate refugees and also political asylum seekers [because of the violence there]." Protester Kitzia Esteva, an organizer with Causa Justa :: Just Cause, said her organization has seen several immigrants taken into custody as a result of raids. "Those raids leave no space for rehabilitation or real needs, and treat people like they're disposable," she said, according to Mission Local. In response to the protest, ICE officials released a statement defending the raids. "The Department of Homeland Security remains committed to sensible, effective immigration enforcement that focuses on its priorities," reads the statement. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders praised President Barack Obama for being "evenhanded" in the Democratic primary race after meeting with him at the White House on Wednesday. During a brief news conference following his private meeting with the president, Sanders said he believes Obama has been fair in the election without showing his 2016 rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, favoritism. "What the president has tried to do, what Vice President Biden has tried to do, is to be as evenhanded as they could be," Sanders said outside the West Wing after the more than 45 minute meeting, reports The New York Times. When asked if he thought Obama was biased towards Clinton in a recent interview with Politico, the Vermont Senator replied, "I don't believe that at all. I think he and the vice president have tried to be fair and evenhanded in the process, and I expect they will continue to be." Sanders went on to describe the meeting as "positive and constructive." He also said they discussed domestic and international issues, "a little bit of politics" and the White House strategy for defeating the Islamic State. "What he is trying to do is keep our young men and women in the military out of a perpetual war in the quagmire of the Middle East," Sanders said. "What he has tried to do, what I will try to do. is put together a coalition of the major powers, with the Muslim people." He also noted that despite his differences with Obama over taxes and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, he has still remained very supportive of his administration. "There's no secret that we have, as is the case in a Democratic society, we have differences of opinion," Sanders said, according to CNN. "I was on the floor of the Senate disagreeing with him over taxes. We disagree over (the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal). By and large, over the last seven years on major issue after major issue, I have stood by his side to where he has taken on unprecedented Republican obstructionism." Thursday's presidential debate in Des Moines may the first and only one without Republican front-runner Donald Trump at center stage, though his announced absence may not have an affect on Iowa caucus-goers. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio called Donald Trump's decision to bow out of Thursday night's Republican presidential debate an "entertaining sideshow" to what candidates should discuss.Texas Sen. Ted Cruz proposed a one-on-one meeting -- void of Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and any "mean questions" she may ask. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush tweeted a similar response, comparing Trump's thin-skinned actions to those President Obama would take. The most pertinent statement may have come from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who simply said "You gotta show up" before outlining how each of the 11 remaining Oval Office hopefuls can benefit. "It gives us more time to talk," Christie said in speaking with Fox News. "And that'll be good for me and good for the other people on the stage." The Main Card A total of seven candidates are participating in Thursday's primetime debate, starting at 9 p.m. EST. Aside from Trump and the four Republicans who denounced on his decision, the other participants include retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. Paul returns to the main stage after falling below Fox Business Network's polling threshold for the Jan. 14 debate. To quality this time around, candidates must have averaged sixth or better in recent national polls, or rank in the top five of Iowa or New Hampshire polls. Cruz is preparing for increased attacks now that the Party's front-runner is out of the picture. His campaign is re-working their debate strategy in light of scathing television ads questioning his citizenship, his definition of "New York values" and copious ties with Washington lawmakers. Rubio, of all candidates, has the most to gain. He continuously recalls Cruz's murky immigration reform record, specifically his support for mass expansion of temporary guest worker programs. Trump still leads most national polls, just days away from pivotal Iowa caucuses on Monday. The real estate mogul carries a 41 percent approval rating in a CNN/ORC Poll conducted last week, well ahead of Cruz (19 percent) and Rubio (8 percent). This substantial lead, more than his feud with Kelly, may have contributed to Trump refusal to participate. The Undercard Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore will make his since the GOP's initial primary in early August. He joins former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum in the early debate, scheduled for 7 p.m. EST. Unlike primetime prerequisites, these candidates needed only one percent in five of the most recent polls. Online Viewing Fox News is live streaming both Republican debates, beginning with the undercard at 7 p.m. EST. Live stream options will be available on all desktop and mobile devices through Fox News Mobile and Fox News Go apps. "How thin-skinned is he that he can't take any criticism and how will that effect his ability to be the president?" This was Chris Christie's initial reaction after finding out that Donald Trump won't join them for Fox's News debate this Thursday, Jan. 28. As per TIME's report, just a few minutes after Trump declared that he "might not" show up for the Fox debate, his campaign manager confirmed that Trump won't be joining the activity. Donald Trump passed on the debate because he "feels" that Megyn Kelly, the moderator, is being biased against him. Trump also mentioned that his opponents are doing their best to distract his focus toward the upcoming elections as per Politico's report. A statement that was released by his campaign manager mentioned that Trump will engage in other activaties instead of attending the said debate. It emphasized that "He will not be participating in the FOX News debate and will instead host an event in Iowa to raise money for the Veterans and Wounded Warriors, who have been treated so horribly by our all talk, no action politicians." Trump's irrevocable decision to skip the Republican debate ended up with a mock from his fellow GOP candidates. One of the candidates Jeb Bush even placed a bet for Trump to show up, "I've got a $20 bet he shows up." Jeb Bush also mocked Trump's reason on why he declined to show up for Thursday's debate, "Really? He complains about not being treated fairly by the press? He consumes all the press, He's a Stradivarius violinist in the Vienna symphony, man. I mean, the press is just being played like nobody's business. Poor little Donald, Barack Obama doesn't go on Fox either, so now they have that in common." Aside from Jeb Bush and Chris Christie, Trump's biggest opponent Ted Cruz also challenged him to a one-on-one debate; Donald trump however didn't respond to Cruz's offer. Even though I beat him in the first six debates, especially the last one, Ted Cruz wants to debate me again. Can we do it in Canada? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2016 Donald Trump had been throwing jabs at Fox News after the "debate conflict" made the headlines. He even called on Fox News' Megyn Kelly referring to her as a "lightweight reporter" in one of his Twitter posts Pathetic attempt by @foxnews to try and build up ratings for the #GOPDebate. Without me they'd have no ratings! https://t.co/2bx54VKpQh Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2016 As per Deadline's update in regards to Thurday's Republican debate, Fox News released an official statement saying, "Megyn Kelly has no conflict of interest. Donald Trump is just trying to build up the audience for Thursday's debate, for which we thank him." Researchers from Uganda are saying that the Zika virus is not considered a threat in Africa despite the mosquito-borne disease originating in the continent, per the Associated Press. The virus was first discovered in a monkey back in 1947 and was named after the Zika forest located near Uganda's capital city of Kampala. Leading virologist at the Uganda Virus Research Institute and Zika virus expert Julius Lutwama told the media on Wednesday that no outbreak of the disease ever occurred since its discovery. However, he confirmed that there have been a few reported cases the past few years, but they don't consider it a threat because malaria is still the number one hazard in Africa. According to Zika Virus Net, the first major epidemic of the disease occurred in 2007, affecting several areas in the Pacific including the Cook Islands, Easter Island, Micronesia, New Caledonia, Polynesia and Yap Island. There were 49 confirmed cases during the outbreak with 59 unconfirmed cases, no recorded hospitalizations and zero deaths. The increase in the number of microcephaly cases in Brazil has been linked with the virus bringing more attention, especially that it has spread all over Latin America, the Caribbean and the Northern Hemisphere. The New York Times also noted that the experts also looking for a link between the Zika virus and Guillain-Barre syndrome. Guillain-Barre is a rare condition where the immune system attacks the nervous system leaving the victim paralyzed have increased in number in Brazil and El Salvador where Zika virus is prevalent. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has already issued a travel warning for pregnant women that are planning or scheduled to travel to 25 countries and territories in the with confirmed Zika virus cases, per the CDC. The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed positive cases of the virus brought by the Aedes aegypti mosquito in Germany, the U.K., Denmark and Sweden, as reported by The Independent. The Zika virus is also not considered to be a threat by EU nations as it does not require reporting cases to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. The U.S. government has already started research to make a vaccine for the Zika virus led by scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch, per BBC News. However, professor Nikos Vasilakis noted that even though the vaccine is ready for testing in one or two years from now, it could take longer for it to be used publicly. "What would take the longest time would be the process of passing it through the US Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory agencies to allow it for public use and that may take up to 10 to 12 years," Vasilakis said. The political battle between Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump continues in Iowa as the two battle head-to-head in another presidential debate, according to Fox News Latino. However, even before the debate started, Trump was nowhere to be found and announced boycotting the event, giving Cruz another opening to slam his opponent. The debate, which will happen on Thursday with Megyn Kelly of Fox News, has recently been the center the Texan senator's statements against Trump. Slamming Trump's announcement to boycott the debate, Cruz said that Trump owes it to the Iowans to show respect, the news agency reports. Furthermore, Cruz also claimed that Trump was boycotting the debate because he was avoiding some questions from Kelly, who had been known to be bold in her statements against Trump. "He doesn't think he should have any questions on his record. And it's really quite astonishing that Donald is apparently so afraid of Megyn Kelly," Cruz said as quoted by the publication. Cruz even directly stated just how Trump proved that he is not worthy of the seat at the White House. "He's admitting that he cannot stand the scrutiny, and that means he's not up to the job of being commander-in-chief. Anyone scared of Megyn Kelly is not going to be able to stand up to Hillary Clinton or Vladimir Putin. And we need a strong, principled, conservative president," he added as quoted by the news agency. Meanwhile, CNN reports that even though Trump may seemingly win Iowa votes, tables may turn and people might just start voting for his opponent, Cruz. Monmounth University released its latest poll on Wednesday showing that Trump is up 30 percent against Cruz at 23 percent. However, it is still 50-50 according to some, including Iowa Rep. Steve King who said, "This has now become a binary decision," he said as quoted by CNN adding, "Either you're from Trump, or your vote needs to be Cruz." Meanwhile, the news that Trump will be boycotting the Iowa caucuses may just put Cruz in a better position than how he initially kicked off in the state. Cruz even said that voters must think hard if they will vote for Trump or not because Iowa's votes are significant in the electoral race, the news agency reports. "To be honest, even if you want another candidate to win the nomination, if Trump wins Iowa, that just sucks the oxygen out for everyone," Cruz said as quoted by the news outlet. Despite the monster snowstorm that buried the nation's capital and much of the East Coast in several feet of snow last weekend, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, pointed out that only female senators toughed it out to make it into work on Tuesday. "Something is genuinely different," noted the Alaska lawmaker while speaking on the Senate floor during Tuesday's brief morning session. "As we convene this morning, you look around the chamber, the presiding officer is female. All of our parliamentarians are female. Our floor managers are female. All of our pages are female," she said addressing the few assembled legislators. Murkowski, who was one of only a handful of lawmakers in the Capitol building in the aftermath of the weekend blizzard, praised her female colleagues for showing up to work following the deadly storm. The Republican senator also took on the task of handling the formalities of delaying Senate business until her colleagues were able to return to work. Once she completed the parliamentary business, Murkowski noted that she and Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who served as the presiding officer, did not plan to lead an all-women session. Instead, she said the absence of men goes to show that women in Congress had the guts and resolve to brave the conditions in order to make it into work. "Perhaps it speaks to the hardiness of women -- that put on your boots and put your hat on and get out and slog through the mess that's out there," she said. Likewise, Collins released a statement on Wednesday commending herself and Murkowski. "We are hardy, we know how to deal with snow, and we don't let a blizzard stop us from doing our jobs," she said, according to the Poland Press Herald. In addition to bringing Washington, D.C. to a standstill with 22.4 inches of snow, last weekend's winter storm was also responsible for the deaths of 36 people across multiple states over the weekend. A new high-rise hotel will soon be opening its doors to the people in Miami as a Spanish-owned international hotel from the Melia group of hotels recently announced its interest to open their business in the artsy and modern district in Miami, the Miami Herald reports. The publication reveals that the hotel will be called ME Miami. It will open this coming March at Miami's famous Biscayne Blvd. The boulevard is known for all the art galleries and restaurants that the hotel wants to be associated with as it aims to lure guests in the culture that Miami offers. The news agency further reveals that the rising 129-room hotel will also be sharing Spain's culture through its high-class service and Miami's own, mixing the two together to create a new kind of hotel vibe according to the publication. "Miami was, for us, something that was making a lot of sense," Olivier Servat, ME Miami's general manager said as quoted by then news outlet. Servat added that Miami's Latin American character gives a "stunning combination where you have a lot of artists, a lot of character." Meanwhile, EFE reports that the hotel's location, which is exactly at 1100 Biscayne Blvd., will be surrounded by artists and art enthusiasts since the hotel is just near the Perez Art Museum and the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science. According to Servat, the ME Melia hotel in Miami is aimed to give a unique experience for travelers, giving them a huge dose of culture. It will provide a raw look on how the people in Miami interact with each other as well as create unique memories with them. "What's cool for you when you're traveling? It has to do with who is there, who am I going to meet there, what are the kind of people and the kind of profile that enjoy going to that hotel," Servat told the Miami Herald. Furthermore, the hotel's standards are reportedly well-tested since it also has successfully operated in other parts of the world like Cabo, Cancun, London, Ibiza, Madrid, Mallorca and Milan, EFE reports. The international hotel company will also not stop expanding, proving that their service is very efficient. According to the publication, Melia Hotels International will soon be opening 25 new hotels in 15 other locations. These new hotels will open every two weeks. Added sugar consumption has increased by more than 30 percent over three decades in the United States. Thus, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is contemplating a new food label that details the amount of added sugar in foods. Today, sugar consumption has been considered a problem due to the increasing rate of obesity among American adults and children. According to Obesity Society, many Americans are consuming so much added sugar and the consumption is still well above the recommended amount. World Health Organization also revealed that the maximum daily amount of sugar consumed should be less than 10 percent of your daily caloric intake but they strongly recommend to reduce the consumption to 5 percent. So, what are added sugars exactly? Added sugars are sugars and syrups incorporated into foods and drinks when they are processed or prepared, MyPlate.gov defined. The term "added" is used because there are other sugars that occur naturally in healthy and nutritious foods like milk and fruits. Added sugars are usually found in sweets including candy, soft drinks, sports drinks and many others. In addition, they are also covertly added in pasta sauces, condiments and salad dressings. But did you know several fast food favorites contain added sugar? Here are 14 fast food treats you should avoid due to hidden sugar, as per Business Insider. 1. Jamba Juice's "Orange Dream Machine" Smoothie (16-oz) Total Grams of Sugar: 71 grams Percent of Recommended Daily Intake: 284 percent 2. KFC's Baked Beans (Large) Total Grams of Sugar: 61 grams Percent of Recommended Daily Intake: 244 percent 3. Starbucks' Non-fat White Chocolate Mocha sans whipped cream (Grande) Total Grams of Sugar: 58 grams Percent of Recommended Daily Intake: 232 percent 4. Wendy's Apple Pecan Chicken Salad Total Grams of Sugar: 40 grams Percent of Recommended Daily Intake: 160 percent 5. Domino's BBQ Hawaiian Pizza with Ham, Pineapple and Onion (Small) Total Grams of Sugar: 33 grams Percent of Recommended Daily Intake: 132 percent 6. Chick-fil-A's Sweet Tea (Medium) or Subway's Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki Footlong Total Grams of Sugar: 32 grams Percent of Recommended Daily Intake: 128 percent 7. Chipotle's Salad (sofritas, brown rice, fajita veggies, corn salsa, sour cream, cheese, guacamole, and dressing) Total Grams of Sugar: 26.5 grams Percent of Recommended Daily Intake: 106 percent 8. Panera Bread's Fuji Apple Chicken Salad Total Grams of Sugar: 20 grams Percent of Recommended Daily Intake: 80 percent 9. Arby's King's Hawaiian Fish Deluxe Sandwich Total Grams of Sugar: 19 grams Percent of Recommended Daily Intake: 76 percent 10. Pret A Manger's Korean BBQ Pulled Pork Quinoa Bowl Total Grams of Sugar: 17 grams Percent of Recommended Daily Intake: 68 percent 11. McDonald's Artisan Grilled Chicken Sandwich or Shake Shack's SmokeShack Burger Total Grams of Sugar: 11 grams Percent of Recommended Daily Intake: 44 percent 12. Burger King's Bacon and Cheese Whopper Total Grams of Sugar: 9 grams Percent of Recommended Daily Intake: 36 percent 13. Five Guy's Single Cheeseburger Total Grams of Sugar: 8.5 grams Percent of Recommended Daily Intake: 34 percent 14. Taco Bell's Grilled Stuft Burrito (XXL) Total Grams of Sugar: 6 grams Percent of Recommended Daily Intake: 24 percent Tourists from Denmark and Switzerland were diagnosed with the Zika virus after returning from Latin America, where the case is now an epidemic. According to the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health, two people from Switzerland who traveled from Colombia and Haiti were also infected with the virus. Both were not pregnant and are already doing well. Neither of them even required hospital care. Meanwhile, Straits Times reported that a young Danish, also been infected with the virus, is now getting better and is expected to recover soon, said Dr. Lars Ostergaard, Aarhus Hospital's head. "A Danish tourist who traveled to Central and South America was diagnosed on his return with the Zika virus," a staff of the hospital in eastern Denmark said in a statement, Tuesday, Jan. 26. Experts from European countries traced records of Zika cases as early as Mar. 2015. Britain confirmed five while the Netherlands 10, all of which were infected after travelling from South America. Recently, 22 Caribbean and Latin American countries are now affected with the Zika outbreak. The virus was carried by infected people to the U.S. states of Hawaii, Florida and New York. As stated by The Guardian, Vladimir Putin is now urging people to work together to win this battle with the Zika virus. Putin said: "We need to pay attention to this ... work with transportation companies, airlines, understand the signs and react quickly. Of course mosquitoes cannot fly over the ocean, but infected people can and do." The Brazilian Health Minister Marcelo Castro states that the government has plans to spread awareness regarding the outbreak by deploying 220,000 troops per day starting Feb. 13. Personnel from different groups of the armed forces will conduct the activity. They will start by visiting houses handing out pamphlets. Though experts and infectious-disease specialists welcomed the government's plan to deploy troops, they still expressed their disappointment saying, "This is something that should have been done years ago." The Zika virus caused 163 cases of deformity in Brazil alone with an average of 3,893 in 2015 where 49 babies have died. There is still no available vaccine or treatment for the virus. Experts said it will take more than a decade to generate one. So far, there are still no known cases of local transmission in Europe or even in U.S. Except for France which has stated that such cases had occurred within the territories and department of the Caribbean basin. In light of the Zika virus outbreak in several countries, two U.S. airline giants -- United Airlines and American Airlines -- have announced their offer of refunds for traveling pregnant women going to Zika virus-infested countries, Fox News Latino reports. The virus, which has widely spread in 25 countries, has been an alarming issue for travelers especially pregnant women who are usually the common people infected by the virus. The virus will be passed on to their unborn children, who will have head deformities and possible brain damage, the publication reports. That is why two of the biggest airlines in the U.S. have both offered pregnant women refund if they are going to certain Latin American countries or the Carribean, the news agency reports. Furthermore, the two airlines have both cited the countries that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has included in their list of countries to temporarily avoid traveling to. These include Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname and Venezuela for the Central and South American. Meanwhile, the Caribbean list includes Barbados, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Martinique, St. Martin and Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, CNN revealed that United Airlines is also offering travelers "who are traveling to the affected regions the opportunity to rebook at a later date or receive a full refund," the company said as quoted by the publication. On the other hand, in order to get a refund from American Airlines, the company requires a doctor's note from pregnant passengers as proof that they are unable to fly to the countries or cities. In the meantime, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines are all still mum on their latest actions regarding the matter as they are still monitoring the situation, per Fox News Latino. Meanwhile, Southwest Airlines has given travelers the option to reuse the value of their tickets when they cancel their flights in advance. In light of the current outbreak, President Barack Obama has already urged immediate action. "The president emphasised the need to accelerate research efforts to make available better diagnostic tests, to develop vaccines and therapeutics, and to ensure that all Americans have information about the Zika virus," a White House statement reads, per BBC. French Minister Christiane Taubira has resigned amid political concerns against her government. According to BBC, Taubira has chosen to relinquish her position because of how the French government treats its convicted people, stripping them off of their citizenship if convicted. She also believes that the proposed anti-terrorism law has targeted only those with dual citizenship. In her statement, she said, "I left the government over a major political disagreement. I am choosing to be true to myself, to my commitments, my battles and my relationships with other people." The proposal came after the Paris attacks and France declared a state of emergency within the region. France's state of emergency declaration permitted authorities to put suspects under house arrest. As opposed to what Taubira said, the revised article that was submitted to the parliament by Prime Minister Manuel Valls said nothing about aiming at people with dual citizenship. Sadly, the proposed revised article was presented shortly after Taubira declared her resignation. Taubira's history in the government position has not been easy. She has also been the target of racial taunts, but she remains to be one of President Francois Hollande's closest allies, who has respected her decision to resign. A spokesperson for the Elysee Palace said, "They agreed on the need to bring her role to an end at a time when debate on constitutional revision begins in the National Assembly." Taubira has also been a supporter of the same-sex marriage law in the country. The issue on the state of emergency has also been questioned by human rights activists, primarily because of its scope that disallows demonstrations and meetings. This was after the government declared that the state of emergency "can continue" under "imminent danger" issues. Patrice Spinosi, League of Human Rights lawyer, implied that the government should not continue to impose the state of emergency under "unidentified threat." Valls however, firmly believes that the declaration of the state emergency will be effective for as long as it's necessary. Valls also disclosed to BBC how France will remain to be under the state of emergency until such time they are able to overcome the threat of the Islamic State. According to France 24, Taubira's strength in keeping her principles has been the total opposite of the government she's currently working for. For Taubira, it is not proper to strip a person of his citizenship, even if he or she is convicted and especially if that person has a dual citizenship. Greece has not been pleased with what the EU is saying about their mandate on the border protecting the Schengen area. According to BBC, the European Commission has implied that Greece has been lax on securing the border by failing to follow basic procedures when entering the passport-free Schengen zone. The influx of migrant people entering the zone has been apparently monitored by the EU and has since alleged Greece of passing over basic protocols, especially in the process of checking their documents, properly registering those who arrive at the border as well as fingerprinting. In a press release by the European Commission, it said that in the event a member fails to control and secure the border, the EU can either send its own force to guard and implement strict rules within the border or they can release a memorandum that tells the member exactly how they will deploy their own force along the border. In the event that such actions still fail after three a three-month probationary period, the EU can assign another member to add more force to the border. The issue on Greece's inability to protect the Schengen zone came out after officials made an unannounced trip to the Greek-Turkish border. Dimitris Avramopoulos, EU Commissioner for Migration, said, "The report shows that there are serious deficiencies in the management of the external border in Greece. We know that in the meantime Greece has started undertaking efforts towards rectifying and complying with the Schengen rules." According to The Guardian, Greece retaliated against the three-month probation, where they country is supposed to remedy the said neglect on the border. Although Greece cited Turkey's failure to follow the deal with EU, government spokesperson Olga Gerovasili said, "Greece has surpassed itself in order to keep its obligations. We expect everyone else to do the same." Valdis Dombrovskis, a commission vice-president, detailed how the border control is bound to fail. He said,"There is no effective identification and registration of irregular immigrants. Fingerprints are not being entered systematically into the system, travel documents are not being systematically checked for authenticity or against crucial security databases." Greece is at the receiving end of Europe and Turkey's main gateway. And with a record of at least 35,000 people especially from the Middle East making their way to the Greek Islands within the last month, the influx sees a bleak slowdown. Teofilo Rodriguez Cazorla, known in Venezuela as the notorious crime boss "El Conejo," has been murdered outside a nightclub in the city of Porlamar, located on Margarita Island. He has just been released from prison in 2015, according to The Daily Mail. El Conejo spent 12 years behind bars before he was ultimately set free. Despite his absence, however, prisoners in Venezuela still considered him as a visionary. In a lot of ways, El Conejo was the very personification of the social and political breakdown in the country. During his incarceration at San Antonio prison, Cazorla was able to rise up the ranks of the prison system, establishing himself as a leader who was extremely capable. Innovative and an avid risk-taker, he was able to turn the very prison he was confined in into a very lucrative personal fiefdom. In fact, one of the biggest ironies in Venezuelan history came about as a result of his leadership. Venezuela is a country that is constantly embroiled in chaos, with murders and other crimes taking place practically every day. San Antonio prison, on the other hand, with a notorious crime boss leading the prisoners, featured a society that was far more orderly and better-governed. Due to his influence in the prison system of the country, El Conejo was even dubbed as the "Steve Jobs" of prison gang bosses, reported The Business Insider. His operations within the prison were undoubtedly illegal, with most of them involving drugs and the like. What made his system quite unique, however, was the fact that he was known for fairly distributing his empire's earnings among the prisoners. Doing so got him the inmates' respect, and more importantly, their loyalty. A prominent personality that was recognizable even by the layman in the country, Cazorla actually stated that he was considering a career in the nation's politics. After all, he was the one who, through a series of unorthodox yet undoubtedly effective strategies, was able to make Venezuela's prison system work for the inmates. As for his previous underlings, the memory of the fallen leader was very much alive, as inmates from all over San Antonio took to the open fields of the prison and gave El Conejo a final, grandiose salute, in the form of hundreds of bullets from automatic weapons being fired in the air, according to The Daily Star. Though news of the inmates' unusual send-off to the crime boss was met with criticism, it does exhibit just how influential El Conejo was to the Venezuelan prison system. And that is one thing, regardless of how the public might perceive it, that could never be denied. Latin America is forecasted to be "the world's highest proportion of professional working women of 2025," Mercer, a consulting firm, reported Wednesday, Jan. 27. The country's rate for women's representation in the workforce is projected to increase from 36 percent in 2015 to 49 percent after a decade. Mercer's projections were based on a survey conducted in 42 countries of Asia, Australia, Europe, New Zealand and the Americas. The consulting firm surveyed 583 organizations which employ an average of 3.2 million people. According to the report, women hold 28 percent of profit and loss roles in the world's economy with Latin America ranking first, 47 percent. The list is followed by Asia, 27 percent, Australia and New Zealand, 25 percent, the U.S. and Canada, 22 percent and Europe with 17 percent. As stated by the Voice of America, the study also showed that Latinas will most likely be promoted in their jobs in every level than their male counterparts especially in executive positions. In fact, Mercer said that they are now expecting Latinas to overtake 44 percent of executives in 2025 which is 17 percent more than today's rate. The 10-year forecast also showed that New Zealand and Australia will only increase up to five percent, Europe will remain flat at 37 percent and U.S. and Canada will just improve by just one percent. Meanwhile, Asia is expected to take the lowest proportion of professional working women with figures only rising to 28 percent within 10 years, as posted by the Irish Times. Globally, the rate of women working professionally is expected to comprise 40 percent by 2025. Patt Miligan, Mercer's global leader of When Women Thrive, said that what causes women's workplace progress to struggle is the failure to build "talent pipelines." "While leaders have been focusing on women at the top, they're largely ignoring the female talent pipelines so critical to maintaining progress," Milligan said. She also shared that though most college graduates are women, women oftentimes don't have the opportunity to participate in the workforce as compared to men. The current promoting, hiring and retention of women are what limit them to be more productive than what is expected from them. Miligan said, "The traditional methods of advancing women aren't moving the needle, and under-representation of women around the world has become an economic and social travesty," She also added that if executives want to have a change it's urgent for them to take action today. Founded in 2014, When Women Thrive was established with a purpose to help other organizations grow through "active and productive participation of the women's workforce." Pope Francis is set to visit Mexico. He will reportedly talk about immigration, family issues and race, among others, and will also host a US-Mexico border Mass. According to Catholic Online, Pope Francis is set to visit Mexico from Feb. 12 to 17, 2016. His main reason for coming is to see the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He will also go to the US border city of Ciudad Juarez and Chiapas, one of the poorest parts of Mexico. Catholic Online cited Mariano Palacios Alcocer, Mexican ambassador to the Holy See that the people of Mexico are excited and overjoyed that the Pope is coming to Mexico. Pope Francis, an Argentine, is the first Latin American Pope, so Mexicans feel very close to him. The US-Mexico border Mass will be held in at Benito Juarez Stadium in Ciuded Juarez, which will gather thousands of pilgrims from both countries. The Popes visit to Lampedusa, as well as his continuous appeals for migrants and individuals who are trying to escape prosecution indicates that his message is about showing respect to the human dignity of emigrants and their families. Although the issue is well-noted by the Pope, Mexicans do not expect him to talk about politics. ABC News wrote that according to Vatican officials, Pope Francis also plans to address drug trafficking and violence. The Pope wanted to cross the border during his US visit but the plan was eventually cancelled due to logistical issues. The Pope will also visit a prison and meet with workers on the same day as the border Mass. The prison visit will show mercy to people who do not enjoy liberty. His discussion with workers will address issues related to capital, employment, production and the economy. Juarez is a significant location for the Papal visit because one side of the Rio Grande features the most powerful economy in the world while the opposite side showcases countries that are still developing. We consider that the theme of migration is an issue that is in the Popes agenda, Alcocer said. He added that for Mexicans, the Papal visit is purely pastoral in character and should encourage initiatives in various countries that would favor their citizens. Another vital part of the Popes visit is the national meeting of families in Chiapas on Feb. 15. Families are generally broken as Mexicans migrate to the United States to look for opportunities. More updates and details on the Mexican Papal visit are expected soon. Explore the cultural assets of some Latin American countries and you will discover unique traditions, grand backdrops and world-class food fare. But while on the trip, it is a must to maintain etiquette and respect local cultures to fully enjoy the tour. With that said, as a traveler, you must know the things that are considered taboos in the Latam country that you intend to visit. Being aware will not just make your trip stress-free but you will not offend the locals as well. Do you remember Justin Bieber being kicked out of the Mayan archaeological site when he recently went sightseeing in Mexico? His behavior led the Mexican officials to make him leave the premises, so avoid this from happening to you by taking note of these taboos (do's and don'ts) when in Latin America. Mexico The "OK" gesture with the thumb and index finger is seen as vulgar. Men must not put their hands in their pockets because it is rude for the Mexicans. Using religious profanity is very offensive. Placing hands on the hips shows that one is asking for a challenge. Taking off the shoes is considered rude so leave them on anywhere you go. After a meal, leaving some food on the plate is being polite. Make eye contact even as you navigate the streets. This is another polite gesture. Brazil Learn Portuguese because Brazilians hate being talked to in Spanish. The "OK" gesture is vulgar for Brazilians. Never talk about anything related to sex because it is offensive to their religious background or beliefs. Colombia Using two fingers to show the length of something is considered an obscene gesture. Never joke about drugs. Homosexuality is hardly accepted , especially by the elders, so keep keep a low profile if you are one. Cover your mouth when yawning, sneezing or coughing. It is normal for Colombians to stand so close when talking to someone. Never back or move away because that is rude. Peru Men and women should avoid wearing shorts or short skirts when roving the streets. When visiting churches, dress appropriately. Even sleeveless tops are a "No." Never call the natives as "indio" because it is insulting for the Peruvians. Never go out without a shirt. Don't take pictures of someone without their permission. Never wear jewelry when on tour because you can be targeted for a crime. Argentina Don't be offended when the locals talk in loud and direct manner because that is just how they are. Argentines tend to stare , especially at women, so it is considered alright. Eating in public such as in public transportation or street will earn you a stare of disapproval. Argentine like to joke and their humor may sound insulting to you since they usually poke fun of the appearance. Don't get offended. It is rude to put feet on top of furniture. Never give a thumbs up sign because it is like telling someone off. These tips will be a big help when you go on a trip to Latin America. You will be able to interact and get along better with the natives and experience a great adventure. Now you are ready to impress the Latino with the right etiquette you know! The current outbreak of the Zika virus across large swaths of South America presents a public health threat of "alarming proportions" and could affect as many as 4 million people, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Jan. 28. Margaret Chan, the U.N. health agency's director general, reiterated the disease has become associated with neurological complications, as thousands of women infected with the virus have given birth to severely or mortally disabled infants. The WHO will now convene an International Health Regulations Emergency Committee meeting on Feb. 1, according to a statement. WHO 'Scaling Up Surveillance Systems' The agency was "supporting the scaling up and strengthening of surveillance systems in countries that have reported cases of Zika and of microcephaly and other neurological conditions that may be associated with the virus," it noted in the statement. The Geneva-based organization also promised that it would heighten surveillance in affected countries and "convene experts to address critical gaps in scientific knowledge about the virus and its potential effects on fetuses, children and adults." Zika 'Spreading Explosively,' WHO Warns Chan, meanwhile, warned on Jan. 28 that the Zika virus is "spreading explosively" in the Americas, Voice of America reported. "As of today, cases have been reported in 23 countries and territories in the [Americas] region," Chan said. "The level of alarm is extremely high. Arrival of the virus has been associated with a steep increase in the birth of babies with abnormally small heads." Virus Originated in Africa, Spread to Brazil in 2015 The Zika virus, a mosquito-transmitted infection, was discovered in the Zika forest in Uganda in 1947 and is common in Africa and Asia, The New York Times reported. After an outbreak in Brazil last May, it began spreading widely in the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now recommend that pregnant women avoid travel to almost 30 destinations, including Bolivia, Brazil, Cape Verde, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname and Venezuela; a number of Caribbean islands; as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Costa Rican ambassador in Washington, D.C. says the United States can learn from his country as it tries to address complex issues surrounding immigration. His Central American country is a "destination for migrants of all types," and Costa Rica's immigrant population includes up to 120,000 American expatriates, Ambassador Roman Macaya Hayes told an audience at the Ronald Reagan Building on Jan. 20, the Tico Times reported. Congressmen 'impressed' with Costa Rican approach Macaya recounted a recent trip to Costa Rica, during which he was accompanied by two Texas congressmen, Reps. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat, and Kay Granger, a Republican. The ambassador showed the lawmakers a number of immigration-related sights in his country, including shelters housing Cuban migrants and the border with Nicaragua, and Cuellar and Granger later also had a meeting with Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis. "They were very impressed with how we took care of these migrants, making sure they were documented and legal, and taking them in an orderly fashion through this process," Macaya noted. U.S. rapprochement with Cuba spells trouble for Costa Rica Costa Rica has seen a huge influx of migrants recently because the rapprochement between Washington and Havana made many Cubans worried that the unique immigration benefits they enjoy in the United States might soon go away, the diplomat explained. "With the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba, a lot of people in Cuba who might have thought of immigrating to the U.S. have started to fear that the Cuban Adjustment Act ... might disappear," he said. Migrant crisis resolved by regional cooperation Many of those trying to escape the communist island now travel to Ecuador and then try to make their way north to the U.S., Macaya explained. "Suddenly, thousands of migrants sort of surfaced in Costa Rica, and they didn't have anyone to lead them. They went to the border with Nicaragua to continue north, and Nicaragua shut the border on them," he reported. Late last year, Costa Rica had been the site of a migrant crisis when thousands of Cuban migrants ended up stranded in the country, Reuters recalled. The situation was eventually resolved when several Central American nations reached a deal to jointly address the issue. Members of a Ted Cruz super PAC are offering $1.5 million to charities for veterans if Republican front-runner Donald Trump agrees to debate their candidate one-on-one before next week's Iowa caucus. "Not only would this be a heck of a debate, but it would also be a terrific opportunity to generate millions of dollars for the veterans," donors from the pro-Cruz group, "Keep the Promise," said in a joint statement Wednesday night, NBC reported. Trump recently announced he would not take part in the next Fox News debate, scheduled for Thursday night, because of an ongoing dispute with the network and his opposition to anchor Megyn Kelly serving as one of the event's moderators. In his offer, announced during a West Des Moines rally, Cruz laid out his plans for how the two GOP leaders could make his offer come to fruition. He told a crowd he had reserved a venue in nearby Sioux City that seats up to 800 for Saturday night. He said half of the seats would be available to Trump to do with them as he pleased. "We have the venue," he said. "We have the time. All we're missing is the candidate." Indeed, Trump plans to be in Iowa Saturday night, where he has a rally planned for the Davenport area. Earlier on Wednesday, Trump responded to Cruz's offer on Twitter: Even though I beat him in the first six debates, especially the last one, Ted Cruz wants to debate me again. Can we do it in Canada? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2016 As for his running feud with Kelly, Cruz chided Trump by asserting, "I promise you Putin is a lot scarier than Megyn Kelly. I'd like to hear Donald explain to the American people and to the people of Iowa how he is prepared to be commander-in-chief if he's terrified by a television host." In a Monmouth University poll released on Wednesday, CNN reports Trump now leads Cruz in Iowa 30 percent to 23 percent. The Peruvian Navy on Jan. 27 commissioned its first-ever training vessel, Union, which will be the largest such sailing ship in Latin America. During the flag raising ceremony at the main naval port of Callao, President Ollanta Humala celebrated the ship's incorporation as a demonstration of the advancements in Peruvian naval engineering. "This training ship shows how we have strengthened our infrastructure," the president boasted. "Today more than ever, our shipyards are exporting services, and we are showing the international community that we can build the kinds of vessels that we were previously used to buying." Peru's Shipyard Marine Industrial Services, or SIMA, built the ship in collaboration with the Spanish firms CYPSA and Navantia. Defense Minister Jakke Valavivi praised Union's completion, calling it "a lesson of national unity and testimony to the technical capacity of Peruvians who carried out this project following the highest international standards." Ship Serves Double Purpose: School and Embassy Union will have a crew of up to 250 sailors and holds an auditorium, a library, a computer lab and classrooms where officer candidates will study various subjects, including astronomical navigation, meteorology, oceanography, hydrography and naval navigation, the radio station detailed. Predictions that Donald Trump would not be able to hold on to his front-runner status have failed to materialize days before the Iowa caucuses, but most Americans say they nevertheless are uncomfortable with the idea of the real-estate tycoon moving into the White House. In a poll conducted by the Washington Post and ABC News, 69 percent of respondents say the prospect of a "President Trump" made them anxious, suggesting that Trump would face an uphill battle in the general election if Republicans were to crown him their nominee, the newspaper reported. Only 3-in-10 Americans have no worries about the former "Apprentice" star running the country. Author: Trump 'lacks connections' to traditional politics Historian Rick Perlstein, the author of the 2014 bestseller "The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan," meanwhile, told Slate that voters were right to fear a Trump presidency. "Donald Trump is perhaps most interesting in his lack of connections to (the traditional political) world," Perlstein noted. "The first sign that something very different was happening was when he basically rejected Fox News, threw them over the side, and had no interest in kowtowing to them." Trump's surprisingly tense relationship with the news channel, of course, was on display this week as the GOP front-runner refused to participate in Fox's Jan. 28 presidential debate after the station refused to remove Megyn Kelly as one of the event's moderators. Americans full of doubts about presidential hopefuls Nevertheless, the billionaire businessman is not the only one causing concerns, the Washington Post noted. Fifty-one percent of Americans say they had similar doubt about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner. Pollsters discovered, meanwhile, that 43 percent were unsure if they would trust Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton's main challenger, in the Oval Office. And almost 50 percent expressed angst about Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, some of Trump's key rivals in the Republican race. Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus has used its invite-only system for all of its phones. After a little over three months, the OnePlus X is available without an invite. OnePlus is removing the invite requirement to purchase a OnePlus X smartphone after 92 days, Tech Radar reports. The first OnePlus model took 362 days before it dropped the invite requirement. Fastest Release to the Public This is the quickest time frame that OnePlus has allowed one of their phones to go on sale without an invite. The invite system is annoying for most potential buyers, but OnePlus says it is necessary to ramp up demand for the phones. OnePlus says with the invite-only system, it shows that OnePlus phones are exclusive and it helps the company keep up with supplying the phones based on demand. "We're extremely excited to be making the OnePlus X invite-free more quickly this time around. With every device we release, we grow more mature and more adept at handling the demands and expectations of our community. We largely owe our success to your unrelenting support, so we hope that this development will make the process of purchasing your very own OnePlus X as smooth and effortless as it can possibly be," OnePlus said in a blog post Thursday. Low Price and Pure Android OS There are two main advantages to OnePlus phones, their low price and the pure and open version of Android used by the phones called Oxygen OS. The OnePlus X can be purchased without an invite for $249, directly from OnePlus. OnePlus is not the only affordable Chinese smartphone maker offering an Android phone. Huawei, Xiaomi and ZTE are making their push into Europe and the United States and could force OnePlus to reevaluate their invite-only system. "We're always looking for ways to adapt the invite system to get more phones in more people's hands," said a OnePlus spokesman. Invite-Free for the OnePlus 3? Now that OnePlus has released three phones (the OnePlus One, the OnePlus 2 and the OnePlus X), the company has developed a reputation and history. It is possible the OnePlus 3, which is expected later this year, could go invite-free right when it is released. Yahoo is downsizing its regional operations, especially in Latin America, closing offices in Mexico and Argentina. Yahoo's closure of offices in Mexico City and Buenos Aires, Argentina was confirmed by Tech Crunch. Yahoo will keep Latin American teams in Sao Paulo, Brazil and Coral Gables, Florida. Employees Informed, No Outsourcing Planned A Yahoo spokesperson said employees in Argentina and Mexico were told the offices would be closing. The spokesperson said all employees that are affected will be treated with respect and fairness. Yahoo considers Latin America an important region for business. They plan to continue to invest in people and products in the region and do not plan to outsource operations to third-party workers. International Operations Downsized in the Past CEO Marissa Mayer and Yahoo have been downsizing their international operations for quite some time. The company has reduced staff and closed offices in India, China, portions of Asia and Europe and the Middle East as necessary. Yahoo's previous closures and staff reductions were done to keep the company fresh and try to recover after years of poor performance compared to Google. Mayer was in charge of acquiring new startup companies and developing new talent. Yahoo decided to close regional offices and cut staff so that they could focus on the core business. Investors Frustrated Investors are frustrated with Yahoo's failure to turn around the business. Some investors are calling for spinning off or selling different parts of the company, while others want Mayer to be gone completely. Yahoo might be waiting until they release their earnings on Feb. 2 and seeing how investors react, before they make more big decisions like laying off staff or closing more offices, according to a report from Reuters. For now, Yahoo is still hiring and looking for new talent to help the company stay competitive. Libyan political rivals who have expressed opposition against the establishment of a new unity government in their nation stand to face sanctions should European Union diplomats make a joint decision to implement it. The sanctions come in the form of travel bans and frozen assets. Fears that Libya is becoming a launching pad for ISIS plans to destabilize Europe, compounded with unrest from LIbya spiling over into the continent, is provoking this discussion. Yahoo News discloses the two names of the Libyan leaders who have come to the attention of the European diplomats: Nouri Abusahmain, who heads Libya's General Congress; and Khalifa al-Ghwell, the leader of one of its two parliaments. According to Business Insider, these two hardliners have been instrumental in delaying the new unity government which the United Nations regards as the only solution to put Libya's unrest to an end. But they are not the only ones opposing the U.N. proposal. At least five Libyan military commanders, legislators in LIbya's House of Representatives, and the General National Congress have blocked attempts to create a new government. Al Arabiyah English says that without an opposition, that government can be created in just ten days. The urgency is spurred by European fears of ISIS creating a Libyan launching pad that can pose a threat to the continent's security. The terrorist group is taking advantage of the chaos and unrest happening in Libya, using the dissatisfaction of the people to gain an increasing number of recruits. Civil war erupted in Libya five years ago at the ouster of strongman Moamar Quaddafi. Warlords vied for power and set up different centers of government; one is based in the capital Tripoli, while the other is in the internationally-recognized national center, Tobruk. The United Nations concluded that only a new government can bring unity and peace to the country. The European Union supported this recommendation, and was adamant in removing all opposition to a fresh administration. This in turn led to its proposed sanctions against non-cooperative Libyan leaders who will spoil the peace process. Israel's defense minister Moshe Yaalon accused Turkey of buying oil from the Islamic State for a "very, very long period of time," which means the country is sponsoring the terrorist group. During a meeting with Greek defense minister Panos Kammenos in Athens, Yaalon said he hope Turkey's purchase of Daesh oil will end. Turkey, however, denied allegation, according to a report by BBC. The country said it prohibits IS smuggling. Meanwhile, the US recently denied the allegations from Russia that Turkey is coordinating with the radical Muslims. ISIS has vast oil fields under their territories in Syria and Iraq. During his meeting with Kammenos, Yaalon said, "It's up to Turkey, the Turkish government, the Turkish leadership, to decide whether they want to be part of any kind of cooperation to fight terrorism." Yaalon even accused Turkey of letting jihadist freely travel from Europe to Syria and Iraq to expand Daesh's terrorist network. Jewish and Israel News reported that Turkey and Israel are trying to rebuild their diplomatic ties after it deteriorated in 2010 due to the Mavi Marmara flotilla issue. These allegations come as Israel, Greece, and Cyprus are conducting a series of diplomatic activities. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsiparas will head to Jerusalem Wednesday along with 10 other Greek government officials to meet with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Asbarez wrote that PM Netanyahu and Tukey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan have both expressed willingness to patch up the rift between the two nations. Erdogan told the media last month that normalization between the two countries is achievable if both sides agree on a compensation deal for the victims of the raid, and if Israel will lift the blockade on Palestinians. The Turkish president said the region can benefit a lot if normalization pushes through. Meanwhile, Netanyahu told Turkish media that he was hopeful that normalization between Israel and Turkey can be achieved. North Korea is furious against Japan's claim on the South Korean islets of Dokdo. The North Korea's state-controlled propaganda website, Uriminzokkiri, posted a statement lambasting the claims, saying it is "unabashed." According to Asia Times, Tokyo's foreign minister Fumio Kishida announced Friday that those islets are Japanese territory. This made North Korea mad, slamming Japan's claim as "nonsensical sophistry." North Korea said Korea discovered and maintained the islands 1,000 years before Japan did. Uriminzokkiri's post even called for the crushing of "Japan's ploys to take away Dokdo." "That Dokdo is the sacred territory of our nation has been proved clearly and sufficiently by historical facts and materials as well as on geographical and legal grounds," said the post in the website as reported by Korea Times. "The truth can never change however hard and frequently Japan claims it is their territory." Korea Herald reported that Japan has declared sovereignty over the islets for a long time. However, Dokdo is closer to South Korea compared to Japan. The dispute is one of the most problematic diplomatic issue facing the neighbouring countries. Japan colonized the eastern most islets of South Korea from 1910 to 1945. Meanwhile, Seoul rejects Japan's claim on Dokdo, saying that the islet is South Korean territory by geography, history, and national law. "There would be no more unabashed claim than Japan's assertion of its territorial rights to the Dokdo islets," North Korea's website added. This website, however, has recently been in the center of a legal battle last week after a South Korean was acquitted of violating the anti-communist National Security Law of South Korea. The man followed the twitter account of North Korea's website and retweeted it more than one hundred times. On the other hand, the Japanese Foreign Minister has also been in the center of a controversy in both North and South Korea due to his recent statements on Japan-Korea affairs. Just last week, he said "sex slaves" is not the appropriate term for describing women who were forcibly brought to military brothels in the heights of World War II. 'Fast and Furious 8' is an upcoming action-thriller film intended as a sequel to James Wan's 2015 release, 'Furious 7'. Director F. Gary Gray intends to set up the biggest explosion in the history of Iceland, as confirmed by the town mayor of Arkanes, West Iceland. Production for the upcoming eighth installment in the popular action series will take cast and crew to various locations around the world. According to a report by Cinema Blend, director F. Gary Gray is planning to film on-location in Iceland. The crew may set up one of the biggest explosions in the history of Iceland, reportedly even surpassing a volcanic explosion. Sources say that crew members have already been scouting for possible locations around the region. It was suggested that Arkanes' harbor and cement fields may appear in the film. According to Collider, Arkanes' town mayor Regina Asvaldsdottir confirmed that Gray and the rest of the cast and crew of 'Fast and Furious 8' will be arriving in April. Asvaldsdottir added that the residents of Arkanes are already "excited". Majority of the filming will take place in the United States, specifically in New York and Atlanta. Gray hinted during a previous interview, "We're really pushing to make sure the audience feels like it's not more of the same. They feel like its fresh, they feel like the characters they've come to know and love are there, but this is gonna be different, and that's probably the most I can give you right now. It's kind of top secret." Meanwhile, the 46-year old director is reportedly looking to shoot in Cuba as well. According to The Hollywood Reporter, a statement from Universal Pictures revealed that film authorities are in the process of seeking approval from both the United States and Cuba to shoot in specific locations for the upcoming installment. 'Fast and Furious 8' is the latest film in the 'Fast and Furious' action franchise scheduled to be released on April 14, 2017. It is directed by F. Gary Gray and produced by Vin Diesel and Neal H. Moritz. It will feature the return of Diesel, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and Michelle Rodriguez to the series. Lithuanian authorities have opened a mass trial against former soviet officials who had a hand in the deadly January 13, 1991 crackdown. Over 65 former Soviet soldiers will be on trial for their involvement in war crimes, torture, crimes against humanity and other offenses. Only two suspects attended the hearing: Former tank officer Yuri Mel and a Vilnius resident who is reportedly cooperating with the authorities. Both entered a plea of not guilty and argued that they were merely following orders. Mel has been under Lithuanian custody since March 2014 at the Lithuanian border effectively preventing him to cross with Russia's Kaliningrad enclave, according to Reuters. The other defendants including the last Soviet defense minister Dmitry Yazov, KGB officers, military leaders and members of the Communist party are believed to be in Russia. Lithuanian prosecutors intend to proceed with the trial in absentia, DW reported. The massacre had left 14 civilians dead and 1000 injured. Ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has been sought by Lithuanian prosecutors as witness but Russia refused extradite him along with other suspects. Then pro-independence leader Vytautas Landsbergis criticized the prosecutor's office decision not to pursue a case against Gorbachev. In response, prosecutor said that the non-pursuit was due to lack of evidence, Washington Post reported. "They should go to kindergarten, to elementary school, read books about those events and read testimonies of witnesses. These are pathetic prosecutors," said Landsbergis in Baltic News Service. Gorbachev has gained praises from the west after acceding to Germany's unification and liberal reforms. However, Lithuanians blame him for failing to prevent the bloodshed. In 1991, Soviet troops showed force when they entered Vilnius. The troops stormed the city's television power as tens of thousands of people formed human shields in protest. The secessionist movements in the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia helped down the USSR rule. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the three states eventually became members of NATO and the European Union in 2014. The state of Massachusetts is threatening to sue biotechnology firm Gilead Sciences if it continues to sell its hepatitis drugs at steep prices. According to an official representative from the state, the current market values of the company's medications, namely Sovaldi and Harvoni, violate the state's laws. Spearheading the potential case against the California-based firm is Attorney General Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Stat News has learned. She noted that at their current prices, the antiviral medications designed to combat hepatitis C are being marketed through an unfair trade practice. Healey brought up the issue to Gilead Sciences through a letter she sent to the company's CEO, John Martin, last week. In the letter, she mentioned that through the high prices, the firm is violating the state's Consumer Protection Act. According to CNBC, the attorney general detailed that the retail cost for a full treatment with Sovaldi is valued at around $84,000. Going through a 12-week program with Harvoni, on the other hand, would cost $94,500. If Massachusetts covers the price of treatment for the state's prisoners diagnosed with hepatitis C, then it would greatly exceed the allocated prison healthcare budget. Aside from Healey, other officials including Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders also lashed out at Gilead Sciences for the high prices of its drugs, Fierce Pharma reported. The politician said that based on the medications' current values, it seems the company is more focused on earning than providing the public with easier access to effective treatment methods for serious diseases. Sanders even called on the Food and Drug Administration to void Gilead Science's patent on the two drugs to allow generic manufacturers to produce cheaper alternatives. Gilead Sciences, on the other hand, has said that it had already responded to Healey's letter and is currently scheduling a meeting with the attorney general to talk about the matter. The company also said that it is opened to carrying out programs to provide financial assistance and other forms of support for hepatitis C patients who are having a hard time settling their treatment costs. Senegal has launched a security operation following terrorist attacks in Burkina Faso and Mali. The West African country have detained 900 people for security checks. Security analysts say that Senegal's capital Dakar is location vulnerable to terrorist attacks due to a sizeable number of expats who stay there. In response, Senegal Ministry of Justice Spokesman Soro Diop confirmed with the Associated Press that security has been heightened on all levels. The officials clarified that those who are being detained are not being targeted as terrorists. Instead, they are being questioned for variety of offenses ranging from possession of drugs to counterfeiting currency and for not having proper documentation for vehicles, BBC reported. In the nation's capital, Dakar, police and military visibility has increased. Both forces are on the lookout for anything that might be used by terrorists to infiltrate their territory. "The police carried out these security measures as part of an operation against the threat of terrorism," he said. The officials also asked hotels in Senegal to improve in their security. In the last three months, the terrorist targeted Splendid Hotel and Cappucino Cafe in Burkina Faso and the Radisson Blu Hotel in Barmako, Mali that killed 30 and 20 people respectively. The responsibility for both attacks has been claimed by al-Queda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), BBC reported. In an interview, the group's leader threatened countries and regions that are allied with France, according to NDTV. Senegalese President Macky Sall warned that extremism has no place in the country where both Christians and Muslims can live in peace. Likewise, he also warned the public to stay vigilant of their surroundings. Meanwhile, neighboring West African nations also spoke about the attacks. Nigeria's Interior Minister Hassoumi Massaodou told civilians to avoid crowded areas. Chadian leader Idriss Deby Itno described the terror attacks to be worse threat than Ebolo that imposes additional burden to poorer countries. CARLISLE Police continue to investigate a shooting that happened late Wednesday night in the 500 block of North Hanover Street. As of Thursday morning, no arrests had been made and Carlisle Police Chief Stephen Margeson said his department did not have any known suspects after shots rang out around 10 p.m. sending two people to the hospital with what were believed to be non-life threatening injuries. We dont think it was random, Margeson said. We doubt that it was random. Of course thats a possibility, but its doubtful. Hopefully, we will be able to come up with more to solidify that thought process. ... We dont think the way it played out that its random. A witness told abc27 News that he heard numerous shots coming from multiple guns, indicating that there was more than one shooter firing at each other. Margeson said he was not able to confirm this as investigators were still gathering evidence. I cant confirm that. Its possible but at this point we cant confirm that, he said. There were multiple gun shots. That we know. The question is at this point it cant be determined how many different weapons. Were there one or more weapons, one or more shooters involved and we cant determine that at this point. Margeson said Carlisle Police were out all night long investigating the scene and he said he would be meeting with detectives Thursday morning to go over what they had found. Were simply trying to pick up more evidence and clues about what happened and how it happened, he said. We spent the night interviewing people in the neighborhood who may have seen or heard portions of what happened, looking for physical evidence, and the investigation continues. Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call the Carlisle Police crime tip line at 240-6660. "Again, if you see something or hear something, say something," Mayor Tim Scott said in a written statement. "Tips from neighbors and the community often help investigators solve these crimes much faster" Posted earlier on Cumberlink CARLISLETwo people were shot in the 500 block of North Hanover Street Wednesday night at approximately 10 p.m., according to Carlisle Police Chief Stephen Margeson. Margeson said both people were transported to area hospitals. The extent of their injuries is unknown at this time. We dont know about their condition, we dont have anyone under arrest, we dont have any suspects, but police are on the scene and theyre investigating this, Margeson said. This is pretty fresh. Officer David Rogers of the Carlisle Police Department told abc27 News there was one shooter and that person is still on the loose. A witness told abc27 he heard numerous gunshots. He waited in an alley in hopes of seeing the suspect and then being able to give a description or see which direction the suspect ran in. I heard a distinct pop, pop. I found that to be odd, and after a second or two, I heard three more shots, well call them, and then a bunch of back and forth return fire from two distinct firearms, Francis Johns said. For updates on this story, check back to www.cumberlink.com Thursday. Hyundai Santa Cruz pickup to spawn Kia-badged model? Jan 28, 2016, 7:11am ET An inside source suggests Kia\'s first light-duty truck is right around the corner. Kia could enter the lucrative pickup truck segment before the end of the decade, a new report finds. Sister company Hyundai has all but confirmed the well-received Santa Cruz concept (pictured) that was unveiled at last year's edition of the Detroit Auto Show has been given the green light for production. Speaking to Australian website Motoring, a source close to the car maker suggested that the production version of the Santa Cruz is almost certain to spawn a Kia-badged model. "You can guarantee that if Hyundai builds the Santa Cruz, we will have our own [version]. We have observed how popular the utility is for many different buyers, and a Kia model would also be very popular, I think," explained the source. Giving Kia its own version of the truck will allow Hyundai to benefit from economies of scale. The two pickups will share most mechanical components, but each one will wear a distinct, brand-specific design. Hyundai's first-ever light-duty pickup truck is expected to make its official debut either later this year or early next year. When the Kia-badged model will land -- and, more importantly, how execs will differentiate two trucks fighting in essentially the same niche -- is up in the air at this point. Photos by Brian Williams. Is this the 2017 Aston Martin DB11? Jan 28, 2016, 4:01am ET The DB11 will greet the public for the first time in March at the Geneva Auto Show. A blurry, low-resolution spy shot taken in sunny Spain might have given us an early look at the upcoming Aston Martin DB11. Published by Dutch website Autojunk, the spy shot suggests the DB11 wears an evolutionary design. It looks much sharper and more aggressive than the aging DB9 it's replacing thanks in part to striking styling cues such as C-shaped tail lamps and vents cut into the front wheel arches, but it's still instantly recognizable as a member of the Aston lineup. It should be noted that some sources have cast doubts on the picture's authenticity. Some say it's the real deal, while others believe it's merely a Photoshopped fake. What's certain is that the DB11 will launch with a brand new, twin-turbocharged 5.2-liter V12 engine that's expected to make a little over 600 horsepower. Buyers who don't need twelve cylinders will be able to order the DB11 with an Aston-specific version of the twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V8 engine that powers Mercedes-AMG's GT and C63. Most models will come with an automatic transmission, but Aston Martin remains committed to offering a manual transmission in the foreseeable future. Stay tuned, Aston Martin will introduce the DB11 at this year's Geneva Auto Show. We'll be on location to bring you live images of it as soon as the veil is lifted. BURNS, Ore. A day after eight members of an armed anti-government group were arrested, their jailed leader on Wednesday urged a handful of remaining militants to abandon the Oregon wildlife refuge they have occupied for more than three weeks and where they are now surrounded by federal agents. After militant leader Ammon Bundy made his first court appearance in Portland on Wednesday, his attorney, Mike Arnold, read this statement from his client: Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is now in the courts. It was unclear whether the remnant of Bundys followers still holed up at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge south of Burns was ready to heed his advice. Meanwhile, details began to emerge about the confrontation Tuesday on a remote highway that resulted in the arrest of Bundy and other leading figures in the group of occupiers, and in the death of militant Robert Finicum. Bundy followers gave conflicting accounts of how Finicum died. One said Finicum charged at FBI agents, who then shot him. A member of the Bundy family said Finicum did nothing to provoke the agents. An Oregon man who says he witnessed the shootout says he heard about a half-dozen shots but didnt see anyone get hit, and that the shooting happened quickly over maybe 12 or 15 seconds. Raymond Doherty said he was about 100 feet back and couldnt see who specifically was shooting. But, he added, I saw them shooting at each other. Federal law officials and Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward held a news conference on Wednesday in which they called on the rest of the occupiers to go home. There is a huge law enforcement presence in the region, and the FBI has now set up checkpoints outside the refuge. Bundy followers took to social media to offer conflicting accounts of Finicums final moments. In a video posted to Facebook, Mike McConnell said he was driving a vehicle carrying Ammon Bundy and another occupier, Brian Cavalier. He said Finicum was driving a truck and with him were Ryan Bundy Ammons brother as well as three others. He said the convoy was driving through a forest when they were stopped by agents in heavy-duty trucks. He said agents first pulled him out of the vehicle, followed by Ammon Bundy and Cavalier. When agents approached the truck driven by Filicum, he drove off with officers in pursuit. McConnell said he did not see what happened next, but he heard from others who were in that vehicle that they encountered a roadblock. The truck got stuck in a snowbank, and Finicum got out and charged them. He went after them, McConnell said. Relatives of Ammon Bundy offered similar accounts, but they said Finicum did nothing to provoke FBI agents. Briana Bundy, a sister of Ammon Bundy, said he called his wife after his arrest. He said the group was stopped by state and federal officers. She said people in the two vehicles complied with instructions to get out with their hands up. LaVoy shouted, Dont shoot. Were unarmed, Briana Bundy said in an interview with The Associated Press. They began to fire on them. Ammon said it happened real fast. Ammon said, They murdered him in cold blood. We did everything they asked, and they murdered him. We complied with their demands, she said. McConnell had a different perspective. Any time someone takes off with a vehicle away from law enforcement after theyve exercised a stop, its typically considered an act of aggression, and foolish, he said in the Facebook video. bethlehem area school district bus.jpg The Bethlehem school board passed a 2016-17 preliminary budget Wednesday night. (lehighvalleylive.com file photo) ( ) The Bethlehem Area School District is facing a $15.2 million deficit in its 2016-17 budget. The school board voted Wednesday night to approve a $266.2 million preliminary budget and file for exceptions to exceed its 2.9 percent cap on annual property tax increases. At this time last year, the budget gap was $11.4 million. The district ended up raising taxes by 2.9 percent this year. "We are going to have harder work to close (the hole)," Superintendent Joseph Roy said Thursday. "It is really hard to see our way to doing that when we don't know what's happening with the state." After almost seven months, Pennsylvania still has no state budget. "I was really optimistic a year ago when (Gov. Tom) Wolf got elected," Roy said. "I thought, maybe we will get out of these constant budget issues and have some reliable funding. I'm more pessimistic now." The budget gap is largely driven by the district's employee pension contribution obligation growing by $5.3 million and its charter school payments rising by $5.1 million. The remaining $4.7 million comes from district spending. Charter schools are projected to cost Bethlehem almost $26 million next year, or 10 percent of its budget. The district has initially put in all of the programs it hopes to expand or add next school year but may have to drill down, Roy said. The budget focuses on the district's early literacy program -- aimed at having all students reading on grade level by third grade -- and funds the continued rollout of the high school Project Lead the Way curriculum, he said. It also includes more support for hybrid learning offerings and technology upgrades. There's a huge focus on staff professional development in connection with those initiatives. The board has scheduled budget workshops on March 30 and April 27. The preliminary budget approved this week will change before the board takes its final vote in June. Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts ribbon-cutting Sept. 3, 2015 The Bethlehem school board is raising concerns about the bidding process for Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts' new school building. (lehighvalleylive.com file photo) The Bethlehem Area School District believes a city charter high school violated state bidding laws when it built its new building. The school board voted Wednesday night to notify Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale of the alleged violation and to raise a potential conflict-of-interest claim with the project's contractor. The company that sold Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts its land gave the charter a $570,000 loan toward the purchase. The principal of that real estate company is the president and vice president of the contracting company that was awarded the $17.6 million bid to build the school, Superintendent Joseph Roy said. "They should be doing things according to the law and in the same way school districts are doing them," Roy said, adding the state charter school law may need clarification. Charter Arts sent DePasquale a letter ahead of the school board's vote and released a statement. The school contends that since its foundation built and owns the new $26 million school, it was not subject to public school bidding laws. "We are confident that the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts and the Charter Arts Foundation complied with all Pennsylvania laws and requirements," attorney Marie McConnell said in the statement. Charter Arts requested the Pennsylvania Department of Education clarify if the state's charter school law would apply to a charter foundation. DePasquale's office will consider the issues raised in the letters during an already scheduled audit of Charter Arts, scheduled to begin in the summer, he said. The dispute highlights the need for charter school reforms DePasquale said he's been calling for since 2014. "This is another example of how poorly crafted our Pennsylvania charter school law is," he said. School district attorney Donald Spry argues that the foundation is an extension of the school, according to the letter sent to the auditor general. The foundation would not exist without Charter Arts and the school guarantees the loans the foundation took out. And the charter's board appoints the majority of the foundation's board, he said. If Bethlehem had raised these issues prior to the project being bid, Charter Arts would have followed the state charter law, McConnell wrote in her letter. The district acknowledges it doesn't know if there are any consequences for not complying with state law because the school opened in August. An audit report is months away and the Auditor General's Office is not an enforcement agency. If Charter Arts violated the state's school code, DePasquale would refer the matter to the Department of Education, he said. Law enforcement is contacted in cases of criminal wrongdoing, which he emphasized is rare. Public schools must bid the four major components of a construction project separately and accept the lowest bid, Roy explained. That is for taxpayer protection and to keep costs down. If one contractor is awarded the entire job, they can then hire subcontractors, who could potentially charge less than the bid award and a contractor could pocket that money, Roy said. The district only recently learned of the potential conflict of interest regarding the land sale, according to Roy. "The district is muddying the legal issue by adding serious, inaccurate allegations to its letter and passing on these allegations to the public," McConnell wrote in the charter school's letter to DePasquale. Charter Arts' foundation bought the property at Third and Polk streets on Dec. 27, 2013. The foundation made the purchase from Third and Polk Development LP, and the school was given a $570,000 seller's assist loan that was to be paid back in six months. The school's June 2014 audit found it still had not been repaid and that "no official repayment schedule has been set," according to Spry's letter. Records indicate the debt was satisfied on Dec. 27, 2015. Charter Arts awarded the school's construction bid to Bucks Development and Contracting Corp., whose president and vice president is Leo DeLong. DeLong is also the managing member of the company that executed the sale agreement with the school. Spry did not name DeLong in his letter, referring to him only by the initials L.D. Charter Arts offered to sit down with DePasquale and the Department of Education to review its "thorough" and "transparent" bidding process. The school notes that it received a $3 million state grant and had to comply with the program's competitive bidding requirements. As the chartering entity for Charter Arts, Bethlehem Area is tasked with oversight of the school. The district is reviewing bidding compliance at Charter Arts and Lehigh Valley Academy Regional Charter School, Roy said. The reviews were sparked when Lehigh Valley Dual Language Charter School wished to move into Charter Arts' former school building. The space needed updating to accommodate elementary and middle school students. Initially, dual language did not plan to follow the public school bidding process but did so at the behest of Bethlehem Area. Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Posted on backpage.com, a known prostitution website, the advertisement appeared to offer sex in exchange for drugs, court records say. A Northampton County man, who had just turned 36 about two weeks prior, responded about having a friend, Crystal, and said he "liked going fast," according to police. But it wasn't a prostitute that had placed the ad. It was Bethlehem Township police, with Sgt. Rick Blake playing the role via a series of text messages, records say. Brett M. Diproperzio (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com) The would-be john, Allen Township resident Brett M. Diproperzio, is headed for trial after waiving his right to a preliminary hearing Tuesday on charges of drug possession and possession with intent to deliver, court records say. His attorney, Bethlehem-based Erv McLain, asserts police entrapped Diproperzio, who faces formal arraignment scheduled March 31 in Northampton County Court. "We are discussing a resolution, whether that is with a plea to something or some other non-plea, non-trial disposition because this case, it begs ... to go to omnibus pretrial motions, on a motion to dismiss because of the method by which they did this," McLain said Wednesday. Blake called the ad "very much a legitimate tactic." Entrapment occurs when law enforcement coerces someone into committing a crime, he said. "If I offer somebody the opportunity to commit a crime, it's not entrapment," Blake said. "Obviously we were offering sex. It was a fictitious backpage ad for prostitution. Instead of money, we were looking for narcotics." McLain said the concept of police entrapment is illustrated by the 1982 arrest of automobile engineer John DeLorean on cocaine-trafficking charges. He was cleared at trial in 1984 because it was the government that proposed a multimillion-dollar cocaine-smuggling operation, not DeLorean, McLain said. "In order to do a sting of this nature, in order for it to be legal, they have to be going after someone with a predisposition to commit the crime that they are trying to get them set up for," McLain said, turning to Diproperzio's case: "In this case they ran an ad for basically a prostitute. Absolutely the police put it out there not knowing who was going to call. In my opinion it is absolutely entrapment." DiProperzio, now 37, of the 3200 block of Cherryville Road, told Blake via text he would bring a gram of crystal meth to a location set by the purported prostitute, court records say. Just after 4 p.m. Oct. 27, 2014, Blake observed Diproperzio pull in to the set location in the 2000 block of Willow Park Road in Bethlehem Township and uniformed officers took him into custody, according to police. Blake called the number with which he'd been texting, and Diproperzio's phone rang, police said; a search of Diproperzio turned up a plastic bag of a crystalline substance that field-tested positive for methamphetamine. Diproperzio admitted to police he was bringing meth to what he thought was a prostitute in exchange for sexual intercourse, according to court records. He was arraigned in the case Dec. 16 before District Judge Nancy Matos Gonzalez and initially jailed in lieu of 10 percent of $25,000 bail, which was posted on his behalf Dec. 17. The 2014 case took more than a year to result in an arrest because police had been having discussions with him, then "he went off the radar for a while," Blake said. Police then learned he had been arrested on a bench warrant issued Oct. 16 in a theft case from last June 23 handled by Colonial Regional police, according to Blake and court records. "I stand behind our work," Blake said. Blake compared the backpage.com ad to police setting up a fake pawn shop to try and catch thieves. "We were saying, 'Hey, if you're on backpage answering escort ads, you're already entering the realm of prostitution,'" he said. Police in the Lehigh Valley region have made multiple arrests in recent years by tapping into backpage.com, usually going after prostitutes themselves as they pursue bigger cases involving human trafficking, pimping and drug addiction. "It's just another tactic," Blake said of pursuing the demand end of the supply-and-demand equation of prostitution. "We try to switch things up." Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Andrew Pascal Andrew Pascal is escorted to his preliminary hearing by Northampton County deputy sheriffs in 2006. (lehighvalleylive.com file photo) A gang member convicted of first-degree murder in a May 2006 shooting death in Easton has failed to convince an appellate court that he may be innocent. Pennsylvania Superior Court on Wednesday issued an order denying post-conviction relief to Andrew D. Pascal, a member of Easton's Cash Money Boys street gang. He was convicted of the ambush-style killing of Marcellus McDuffie outside Larry Holmes' old Ringside Restaurant and Lounge. A Northampton County jury in September 2007 found him guilty of the crime and he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the chance for parole. Witnesses testified at his trial that they saw Pascal open fire from a slowly approaching SUV as the victim unlocked his car outside the restaurant about 2 a.m. May 14, 2006. Pascal's defense during the trial was that he was nowhere near the scene of the crime when it happened. In his latest appeal, he argues that two credible witnesses could testify to his whereabouts that day. If their testimony would have been introduced at trial, it would have likely changed the outcome, he argued in the appeal. That new evidence, the appeal claims, should be enough to give the appeal special consideration even though it was filed after a deadline. But the Superior Court wrote in its opinion that the argument didn't carry any weight because it's the same argument he made at trial. "Appellant has always maintained he was not present at the murder," the court's opinion says. "It can not be the basis of an exception." Pascal is serving his life sentence at the State Correctional Institute in Somerset, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. Nick Falsone may be reached at nfalsone@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickfalsone. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. John Reinhart Superintendent John Reinhart at an Easton Area School Board meeting May 12, 2015, at the district education center. (Rudy MIller) Easton Area School District's superintendent said he's "hopeful" for districtwide full-day kindergarten soon. But it's difficult to say when, in part due to the lack of a state budget. Superintendent John Reinhart told parent Andrew Gillespie at Tuesday's school board meeting he's "hopeful" to bring the program to all seven elementary schools. Full-day kindergarten came to March, Paxinosa and Cheston elementary schools this school year, but not to four other schools. "We hope as funding becomes more clear to us and our Legislature gets into the business of approving budgets, we look forward to adding full-time classes to the other buildings," he said. "That's our goal." Gov. Tom Wolf and the Pennsylvania Legislature haven't been able to agree on a budget since July 2015. The state continues to operate without a budget. Some parents have complained on social media they'd like to see the program expanded to all Easton Area schools. The three Easton Area schools with full-day kindergarten were eligible for grants because of the population of low-income families at those schools. Reinhart has stressed early education as the key to future academic success. Research shows kindergarten through third grade is the most critical time in a child's learning development and can have a profound impact on a child's educational future. "Full day kindergarten is an essential step in placing all kids on the same 'playing field' regarding success in school. This nation should direct its resources and energies into best utilizing the critical learning years prior to grade three," he said last year prior to the vote to implement full-day kindergarten at March, Paxinosa and Cheston. Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook. Lower Nazareth proposed warehouse by F. Greek DevelopmentJPG A rendering is displayed at a conditional use hearing Wednesday night for a proposed 300,000-square-foot warehouse east of Route 33 in Lower Nazareth Township. (John Best | lehighvalleylive.com contributor) Residents who oppose plans for a massive warehouse in Lower Nazareth Township said they feel like it's deja vu all over again. More than 30 residents turned out Wednesday night to oppose plans for the warehouse, which developers said would be built on 28 acres and have room for up to seven tenants. (John Best | lehighvalleylive.com contributor) Township supervisors held a conditional use hearing Wednesday night for a 300,000-square-foot warehouse planned on 28 acres just east of Route 33, between Hecktown and Newburg roads. FGC Hecktown LLC, an affiliate of F. Greek Development, is seeking approval for the building. Owner and developer Frank Greek said the warehouse will be divided into seven suites that will be owned by his company and leased to tenants. Greek's proposal borders land to the west that was approved in October 2014 for Industrial Developments International to build an 822,500-square-foot warehouse. "They keep coming," neighboring Val Vista Drive resident George Cortelyou said. "Nobody is safe in this town." Cortelyou was one of several people who hired attorneys who unsuccessfully tried to stop approval of the IDI warehouse that was debated over nine months in 10 hearings and often drew a crowd of 75 to 100 opponents. Greek said his company's portfolio includes 120 buildings, many in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, for a total of 15 million square feet. Cortelyou and more than 30 others packed the Wednesday meeting to ask the developer questions and tell township officials they object to another warehouse near their homes. Many were part of a petition taken in May with 500 signatures to stop Liberty Property Trust's attempt to construct two warehouse-distribution buildings totaling 525,000 square feet on Nazareth Pike (Route 191). Supervisors denied conditional use for those buildings in May, claiming more than 200 trucks going in and out of the facilities each weekday classified them as truck terminals. Under the township zoning ordinance, any building that will serve an average of more than 100 trucks per weekday will be considered a truck terminal, which is not allowed under conditional use in the light-industrial zoning district. Greek's plans claim there will 96 trucks per weekday, which would be just under the limit. Fidel Gonzalez, a project manager for Langan Engineering and Environmental Services, testified Wednesday about Greek's development. Gonzalez said plans include a berm that will run between the warehouse and Val Vista Drive and any other residences that abut the property. Engineers increased the proposed berm from 10-feet to 15-feet-tall, in response to concerns raised by the township's planning commission. In consideration for Val Vista Drive residents, all truck loading docks will be on the opposite side of the building from the residences and face the IDI property, according to Gonzalez. Supervisors' Chairman James Pennington told Greek he is concerned that the area is being overbuilt with warehouses and many residents object to the Lehigh Valley becoming a "warehouse mecca." "At some point you reach a saturation level," Pennington said. Greek said with a large port in Newark and the Northeast's dense population, there is still a growing need for warehouses in the Lehigh Valley. "As long as we don't lose population, as long as we have importing needs, there will be a need for warehouses," he said. Residents grilled Greek and his representatives for nearly two hours and many complained that the warehouse will have a negative effect. Township solicitor Gary Asteak adjourned the hearing, which will resume at 6:30 p.m. March 9 at the former municipal building at 306 Butztown Road in Lower Nazareth. John Best is a freelance writer. Find lehighvalleylive on Facebook. The campaign to rescind the deportation of Effrinagh man Jimmy Gralton in 1933 is stepping up a gear for 2016. December 29 last, marked the 70th anniversary of Gralton's death in New York. He was the only Irish citizen to be deported from his own country. Ken Loach's film 'Jimmy's Hall' which was filmed in Sligo and north Leitrim and released in 2014 brought Jimmy's story to a national and international audience, but it also inspired locals to step up the campaign for an apology to the Gralton family. Relatives of Gralton, along with community activists and politicians are driving a campaign to have his unnecessary deportation rescinded by the Government in this special year that we commemorate 1916. There have been letters to the Minister for Justice and both Sligo and Leitrim County Councils have supported motions for the campaign, but a new online petition is hoping to gain national support. One of the men behind the campaign, Sligo Cllr Thomas Healy said, This year is the centenary of the Easter Rising which guaranteed religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all citizens. Jimmy Gralton was denied these rights and we want to see justice done. As part of the campaign an online petition has been launched with the hope of presenting 10,000 signatures to the Minister for Justice later this year. Cllr Healy said, We want to change the ending of his story. It was a political decision that deported Jimmy. Now it will be a political decision to lift the deportation order. 245 people had signed the petition at the time of going to press. The petition states I am signing this petition to ask the Minister for Justice, Frances Fitzgerald, to formally rescind the deportation order on Jimmy Gralton and acknowledge the injustice done to Jimmy and his family by the enactment of this order." The petition can be signed online at the following website:http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/rescind-the-deportation-order-on-jimmy-gralton-and In 1998 I worked in a long forgotten Venezuelan presidential race. The contest featured a celebrity outsider with perfect hair running against corrupt political insiders. The insiders werent long serving officials or hangers on who became ethically bankrupt they were members of COPEI (an acronym for the Independent Political Electoral Organization Committee) that were criminally corrupt, and many were jailed. Irene Saez, a former Miss Venezuela and Miss World, was the celebrity outsider. Saez formed her own party called Integrated Representation of New Hope, which sounds clunky in English, but very Trumpy in Spanish since the initials formed the acronym IRENE. Her unofficial campaign song was Barbie Girl, which pretty much topped off the package. The combination of celebrity, outsider and iconoclasm catapulted Irene into what appeared to be an insurmountable lead. In the last poll of 1997, a year before the election, her support was 70 percent with none of Trumps built in negatives. Saezs peroxide blonde hair received as much vilification as Trumps does now. And even though she was mayor of a highly-regarded suburb of Caracas, pontificators viewed her as a lightweight who would soon discover running Venezuela is much different from sashaying down the runway at the Miss World pageant. Her supporters were denigrated much the same way Trumps are: Undereducated, unwashed masses lured by the siren song of celebrity. The only thing they werent accused of being was white, since after all it was Venezuela. The experts mistake was overlooking the three steps to voter persuasion. Celebrity only gives candidates a head start on step one: I.D. Voters know who they are and know they are running. The second step Identity makes them winners. Saez identity was that of an outsider, as is Trumps. Once disenfranchised, denigrated voters find someone who reciprocates their outrage, theyre happy to take the third step: Investment. Meaning the candidate has their vote. When the Saez bubble didnt burst there was panic at the possibility of a gravy train derailment. Just as is happening here now, both establishments scrambled to find a way to ooze into the outsiders orbit. Trump looks out his limo window and sees Sen. Chuck Grassley tapping on the glass trying to hitch a ride on the bandwagon. For Saez it was the loathsome COPEI dumping its preferred miscreant and instead endorsing her candidacy. Saezs response should have been an immediate and noisy rejection. Instead she made a disastrous mistake and accepted the mantle, which proved to be just a loan. Saez support imploded as voters saw their outsider surrounded by the same old insiders. She finished with 3 percent of the vote and had the additional indignity of seeing COPEI jilt her just before the election and support a third candidate. Here the GOP establishment is cozying up to Trump because Ted Cruz is unthinkable as an alternative because hes a genuine Constitutional conservative. As one GOP reptile told the New York Times: We can live with Trump...theres a feeling that he is not going to layer over the party or install his own person. Whereas Cruz will have his own people there. A disaster since influence peddlers and timeserving incumbents wont continue to dip into the taxpayer trough under a Cruz administration. Trumps crucial test is the one Saez failed. As far as the insiderloathing voter is concerned theres not a dimes worth of difference between Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham. Yet Trump may not recognize that. After Grassley wedged his way into the limo Trump told a rally, You know what? Theres a point at which, Lets get to be a little establishment. Weve got to get things done folks, OK? Believe me, dont worry. Were going to make such great deals. Thats exactly the wrong response. Trump should have told Grassley and the insiders to join the illegals at the back of the line. If Donald doesnt believe me he should check with Saez. It wont even be an international call. She lives quietly in Florida now. Michael Shannon is a commentator and public relations consultant, and is the author of A Conservative Christians Guidebook for Living in Secular Times. He can be reached at mandate.mmpr@gmail.com. You would think, wouldnt you, that if there was a chance to defeat the Government, especially if it was to do with helping out low paid workers, Labour Lords would show up, wouldnt you? Certainly that would be a triumph of hope over experience in this Parliament, given that they never bothered to kill of the tax credit rise when they had the chance. Nor, of course, did they turn up to secure votes at 16. Again tonight, they failed to show up to vote for a Liberal Democrat motion to get rid of the cuts to Universal Credit from April 2017. These are exactly the same cuts that were going to happen to tax credits. Speaking after the defeat of the Lib Dem motion (by 91 votes to 202, which is a pretty spectacular turnout for our peers, Lords Chief Whip Dick Newby said: Trade Unions Trade Unions are backing an IN vote reports the International Business Times. The TUCs assessment is that if Britain was to leave the EU there would be really big risk to rights that matter to peoples real lives, from paid holidays to parental leave, health and safety at work, these are the sorts of rights that people depend on week by week, OGrady said, referring to a possible British exit. If you take that floor away, workers will be worse off. Its a hell of a gamble for those who want to leave Europe, to depend on particularly the government we have now to protect the rights on which so many peoples working lives depend. Cheaper flights IN EasyJet CEO Carolyn McCall has said EU membership means lower fares and the airline intends to communicate this passengers, reports Reuters. Our Environment Environmental experts say Brexit poses a risk to a greener future, reports Business Green. Analysis of what would happen post-Brexit The Telegraph and Open Europe hosted a war game in which experienced politicians role-played the UK and other countries after Brexit and things worked our badly for post-Brexit Britain. There has been a lot of analysis by financial institutions that Brexit will harm Britain. Deutsche Banks has added to this analysis that Brexit would also undermine the EUs standing in the world. Women Women IN has launched, campaigning for Britain to stay in the EU. A letter signed by dozens of women prominent in national life says: Were setting up a Women for IN network to spread the word about the benefits of our membership of the EU and to make it clear we cannot take risks with the future of our country. We hope as many women as possible get involved in this campaign. The stakes couldnt be higher. Wales: Crabbs IN. Words are confused. The referendum question may be slightly different in Wales, reports Wales Online, do avoid confusion between Welsh words for remain and bread. Some of us think remain is not an ideal word in English and that stay is preferable. Welsh Secretary, Stephen Crabb, is making the case for Wales to stay in the EU. Ireland Some in the DUP are getting hot under the collar about the Irish Government expressing its wish that Britain will stay in Europe, reports Irish News. Criticism of Stronger IN The Spectator says Stronger IN has made a lazy start and criticises Lord Roses performance in particular. Cameron and Juncker to meet Friday The PM has cancelled a trip to Scandinavia today to meet with Commission President Juncker on Friday to discuss his re-negotiation, reports the Telegraph. Why earlier not later for referendum date The Chicago Tribune summarises the reasons why an IN vote is possibly easier to be won earlier rather than later, as we look towards a prospective June referendum date. How should ethnic minorities vote? UKIP MEP Steven Woolfe is one of the first people I have seen raise questions about the particular position of ethnic minority voters in the Referendum. Woolfes argument is that EU migration is at the expense of migrants from India and other Commonwealth countries and therefore British voters of non-European heritage should vote for Brexit. He may be wrong but Woolfe is a more intelligent and sophisticated opponent than Farage will ever be. The IN campaign will have to explain why membership benefits us all, whatever your ethnicity. It will also have to convey its narrative is a way that connects with the distinctive experiences of non-white voters. Remember if you want IN to win, you can donate to the Lib Dem IN campaign today. * Antony Hook was #2 on the South East European list in 2014, is the English Party's representative on the Federal Executive and produces this sites EU Referendum Roundup. Tim Farron has been doing the rounds on the media this morning to talk about the Governments announcement that it will allow some child refugees into the UK. However, there are no plans to take unaccompanied children who are already in Europe. Tim has been arguing since the Summer for the Government to do more to help these children and was the first party leader to back Save the Childrens campaign for 3000 refugee children to be given sanctuary in this country so that they didnt have to spend their lives in refugee camps, or vulnerable to exploitation. He has questioned the Prime Minister on this at every opportunity and before Christmas presented a Bill to enshrine that commitment into law. Laura Kuenssbergs assertion in the BBC report that the announcement comes after pressure in recent days does not recognise Tims long-standing efforts. Tims initial reaction to the announcement was that it didnt go far enough as it didnt do enough for those children who had already made it to Europe. This is an important step, but it is far from the guarantee these desperate children need, and action must follow immediately. Thousands of children are travelling across Europe. They are cold, alone and scared. They deserve a safe, welcoming home and I wont stop until thats what weve given them. As a country we must pull together and offer them a home, while encouraging our European neighbours to do the same. I want to pay tribute to Save the Children and have been proud that the Liberal Democrats were the first party to back their campaign, and will continue to work with them to make sure this announcement becomes a reality. The images of the children I met in Calais and Lesbos will stay with me forever. This funding is welcome news, but there is still more to be done. Hes talked to Good Morning Britain, Sky and LBC this morning and said that the Governments announcement was more to do with media management than anything else. Of the failure to make adequate provision for children in Europe, he said: .@timfarron tells @GMB 'it's not just heartless, but stupid' of David Cameron to ignore the issue of unaccompanied child refugees in Europe. Lib Dem Press Office (@LibDemPress) January 28, 2016 Personally, I would rather that my government was open-hearted enough to instinctively do its fair share to help people in need, but instead they have to be dragged kicking and screaming to do something approaching the basics. Im glad that the leader of my party is willing to put so much time and effort into speaking up for these desperately vulnerable children. Hes not about to give up on this until the Government does what is actually needed. Its not just about the leader, though. The team around him works tirelessly to help him prepare the case. Fionna Tod is the member of staff working on this issue and her research and strategic advice has been invaluable. * Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings As a doctor, every day I see the enduring effects of short-term political spin on my patients. Hospitals bursting at the seams, short-staffed and lacking beds, are told desperately needed nurses will only be available if there is surplus winter funding. Patients ready to leave hospital wait weeks for exceptional funds to secure specialist accommodation, while we face a 12% rise in delayed hospital stays. The Commonwealth Fund rightfully praised the NHSs quality. Yet BMA Chair Dr Mark Porter warned we mustnt be complacent over the perils of short-term partisan meddling. A combination of rising patient demand, staff shortages and falling funding is undermining the very foundations of the NHS, as is the constant short-term interference from politicians of all colours. Reinforcing his counsel, unprecedented strikes showed the peril of capriciously uncosted manifesto pledges. This week NHS Chief Executive Simon Stevens called for a national consensus on social care by 2018, as we learned we lag behind similar countries in spending. Its now clear we need consensus on safely funding and staffing health and social care into the next decade. Ex-Minister Norman Lamb introduced a bill for such cross-party work, warning the system will drift into a state of crisis [unless] we confront the existential challenge now. Supporters include Green MP Caroline Lucas, several Labour MPs including Liz Kendall, and Conservative medical MPs Andrew Murrison, Daniel Poulter and Phillip Lee. Today the Commons will debate Lambs backbench Bill. Prof Sir John Oldham, who chaired Labours 2013 Care Commission, backs the call, as does Royal College of GPs ex-President, Labours Dr Clare Gerada. And its not just politicians on both sides calling for a brisk consensus. 40 charities, including British Red Cross, Mencap, Stroke Association, and Macmillan Cancer Support, wrote to the Prime Minister urging politicians to put aside political differences and work together to face these challenges, otherwise it is the sick, frail and elderly in our country who will lose out. Their call was echoed by 2000 grassroots signatures collected by the nonpartisan NHS Survival. Older commissions, such as Oldham, Barker, and Dilnot, have already identified the prescription we need. Yet we still need a new consensus to implement their work, not duplicate it. It must generate the political will to genuinely fund and deliver that prescription over a decade. It must do this before the pace of social care and public health cuts makes delivery impossible. And it must be rapid finishing by this summer, not next year. Charities, the professions, and Parliament must then hold the Governments feet to the fire to ensure recommendations are enacted, not left on dusty shelves. As Dr Poulter argues, We must build on the work of the Five Year Forward View and the Barker Commission, to urgently achieve a responsible long-term consensus now. Last April the Health Secretary promised this, albeit with some terms and conditions. He has already said he cannot back down from his near-impossible 7-day NHS electoral promises so why ignore his pledge for consensus? Health and care demand is expected to soar by 50% in the next decade, with only 10% growth in funding from current trends. Every day the public bear the brunt of politicians lacking consensus. We must act now. As the Royal College of Surgeons warns, for the sake of patients this long overdue debate with the public has to happen now * Dr Mohsin Khan is the Chair of Lib Dem Campaign for Race Equality. He is also a directly elected member of Federal Policy Committee Over the last year there has been a lot of talk about refugees in the UK, much of it based on the politics of fear. Newport, in particular, has seen is fair share of wolf whistle politics around the issue. 1 refugee for every 319 people is the latest attention grabbing figures in the South Wales Argus. I dont blame the editor though, in fact his editorial on the issue, although not a position I fully agreed with, was at least honest and brought some humanity to the issue. What is often forgotten is that for years refugees werent distributed around the UK, they were concentrated in the South East costing the government a huge amount of money on private housing. The decision to distribute refugees was made in Westminster, last time Labour were in power, to reduce the costs to the government finances. This was a decision that even our own wolf whistle politician, Paul Flynn MP, voted in favour of. The truth is that, in Newport, it is only 0.3% of the population that are refugees. A tiny fraction, we are told, that is putting undue pressure on our health service and on our schools, but any system that cant handle an increase of 0.3% has much deeper rooted problems. Take a look at the Royal Gwent Hospital, as an example. It is overstretched, with A&E based out of Portakabins. For years, Labour have been telling us it is going to be replaced with a new Critical Care Centre, but every announcement seems to be about another delay. The creaking infrastructure is not due to an increase of less than 500 people in a population of 147,000. It is a symptom of many years of under-funding and poor political leadership from the Welsh Assembly. Newports population is growing much faster from commuters than it is ever likely to from refugees. The people of Newport should be proud that as a city we are so welcoming. I encourage anyone to really see what its like to be a refugee. From being housed in some of the poorest private housing stock while being provided with little to no furniture, to having to survive on only 36.95 per week, only half what someone on job seekers allowance gets. Even the allowance is paid on a card and can only be used on food and essentials. Most have fled wars and persecution that we have to take at least some historic responsibility for. Most have lost friends and family, risking everything they have to find safety. For those lucky enough to be granted asylum, their previous experiences as teachers, nurses, scientists and entrepreneurs are boosts to the new communities they call home. Lets not forget that 1 in 7 new companies are started by people not from the UK. So, instead of scaremonger politics and blaming refugees for a struggling infrastructure, lets be proud of what we are doing as a city, lets make refugees welcome so that if they are granted asylum they choose to make Newport their home, bringing benefit to all of us. As for the infrastructure, our health service and our schools, Labour have been in charge for 17 years in Wales, so maybe it is at the politicians we should be directing our anger, rather than at those who have lost everything just trying to find safety. * Paul Halliday is a Lib Dem Christian Forum Exec Member Newport & Severnside Welsh Liberal Democrats Chair, was PPC for Newport East General Election and is Newport East Candidate for Welsh Assembly Elections A YOUNG man who allegedly threatened to shoot a 13-year-old boy during a 20 minute "violent crime spree" earlier this week, has been refused bail. Clyde Keogh, aged 20, of Ballyclough Avenue, Ballinacurra Weston, appeared before Limerick District Court this Wednesday, after he was charged with three counts of robbery and one count of attempted robbery. It is alleged all of the victims were teenagers three of whom were juveniles. Gardai strongly objected to bail and after his application was refused, Keogh threw a bottle of coke in the direction of Judge Marian O'Leary. While she was not struck by the bottle, Judge O'Leary expressed her dissatisfaction that Keogh had been able to have something which was capable of being used as a missile in court. She asked that in future, prisoners not be allowed to have such items in their possession. During the contested bail application, Detective Garda Enda Haugh alleged Keogh threatened to stab a 15-year-old boy who walking to school at Athlunkard Street at 7.55am on Monday. It's also alleged that ten minutes later, he threatened to stab another student, who was walking in the same area. The court was told it will be further alleged that a 13-year-old boy was threatened around the same time that he would be shot if he didnt hand over his mobile phone. Detective Garda Haugh said he was concerned the accused would commit further serious offences if bail was granted, given the nature and seriousness of the charges. Addressing the court, the defendant said his only child, a three month old baby boy, is due to be christened in three weeks time. "I don't want to be in jail for his christening. He is my first child," pleaded Keogh who said he would abide by any bail conditions and would live outside of Limerick. Refusing bail, Judge O'Leary said: "Children must be allowed to walk to school without fear or intimidation." The defendant, who was granted legal aid, was remanded in custody until next Tuesday, February 2. A REVIEW into allegations of irregular financial practices at the University of Limerick and the treatment of several employees who raised concerns will not be published this Friday. The review, which has been conducted by independent consultants Mazars, will be completed this Friday and passed to the Higher Education Authority (HEA) straight away. However, the HEA confirmed to the Limerick Leader that the report will not be made available to the public this week, as they wish to take some time in considering the report, its implications and their responses to matters raised. The HEA said it hopes the report will be published by the end of next week, after it is viewed by UL and whistleblowers who made submissions to Mazars. We will clearly need some time to digest the findings of the review before making any public statement so it will probably be next week before we are in any position to make a public statement, said a spokesperson for the HEA. While there is a commitment that the report will be published, this will not take place immediately, as we wish to consider the findings and their implications. Once the HEA is satisfied with any points of clarification that need to be resolved by Mazars following our receipt of their report on Friday, we will then release the report to UL and Persons A, B and C at some point next week to provide them with the opportunity for first sight of the findings. The report will then be published, and I would hope that this will happen by the end of next week. There had been concern in some quarters that the publication of the report could be delayed under after the general election. Fianna Fail deputy Willie ODea, who raised the employees concerns in the Dail alongside his party colleague Niall Collins, said if this was the case it would be highly suspicious. He argued that the report should be published on Friday, with the HEA allowed a number of days to draft their response to the findings. I find it very unfair and unjust to the complainants, whose lives and livelihoods are on the line. Its a most inappropriate course of action and just not acceptable. If they took until Monday to publish it that would be acceptable. In Government, a report is released and you're then given time to respond, Deputy ODea told the Leader. He continued: I think it's highly irregular. The parties involved are entitled to know whats in the report straight away. They need to publish it, warts and all. It is not the HEAs report and Id be asking the Minister for Education, Jan OSullivan, to release it now. Deputy Collins also urged that the report be published immediately in the public interest. Minister O'Sullivan, who saw an interim report some months ago, said that while she believes the report should be published as soon as possible, I appreciate that the HEA must go through its established processes. The completion date for the report had been delayed twice due to the volume of submissions. The original completion date was set for November 30, after the review began in October. The review arises after an article was published in the Limerick Leader in September last, which detailed the claims of two UL employees in relation to alleged inappropriate payment of expenses and invoices, and their treatment by UL as a result of raising concerns. UL has sued the Leader and its editor, Alan English MORE than 30 commemorative events will take place at Mary Immaculate College of Education (MIC) to commemorate 1916. Speaking at the launch of the programme recently, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan said he expects that the people of Limerick and indeed the entire Mid-West region will attend the commemorative events in large numbers and I wish the college well for 2016. These events will range from educational conferences to exhibitions and from public lectures to theatrical productions in the Lime Tree Theatre. Highlights include a 1916-style classroom reconstruction illustrating aspects of the life of a child at school in 1916; a conference entitled Memory and Vision which will compare Irish social and educational policy and practice in 1916 with policy and practice during the subsequent century; the Abbey Theatres new production of The Plough and the Stars, set amid the tumult of the Easter Rising; and The Illusion of Consensus Photographs of Limerick in 1916, an exhibition featuring the multiplicity of life in Limerick in a time of transition and chaos with a focus on in the exceptional year of 1916. Michael A Hayes, president of MIC, said the college will reach out to the community, our students and our alumni and ask them to share in our celebration of Irelands independence. During the launch, Mr Noonan also said that Arts Minister Heather Humphries Protestant background will help make the 1916 commemoration events more inclusive. Mr Noonan said that the sensitivities of Ms Humphries Presbyterian co-religionists in the border counties would be acknowledged. The commemorations should help bring people closer together, he said. We must be cognisent of the past and that is the way Ireland will go forward. I am delighted the commemorations have got off to a good start. Programme details can be viewed at www.mic.ul.ie. Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content. Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist. If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider contributing and/or subscribing to our free daily Newsletter . Support our mission and join our community now. THE leaders of Irelands seven major parties have been invited to take part in a televised RTE debate at the University Concert Hall. As soon as the general election is called with many observers predicting this will be in the next week the national broadcaster will confirm details of the live debate, which will be presented by Clare Byrne. It is anticipated the event will take place on either Monday, February 8 or the following Monday. Fine Gael leader, Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Labour leader, Tanaiste Joan Burton, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, Fianna Fails Micheal Martin and Renua Irelands Lucinda Creighton have all been asked. Also asked to send a representative are the Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit alliance and the Social Democrats. Asked why Limerick was chosen, a spokesperson for RTE said: We felt it was important to be outside Dublin. To be fair, UL has a fabulous facility, and have been really great to work with. This seven-way debate will be one of two televised by RTE ahead of polling day. The other will feature Mr Kenny, Ms Burton, Mr Adams and Mr Martin only. The Green Party has objected to its exclusion from the leaders debates, with its leader Eamon Ryan saying the format is unfair and will adversely affect his partys electoral chances. But the broadcaster says the debates are based on representation. Local Green candidate James Gaffney said: We are running 40 candidates and it feels we are being denied a big opportunity show to the public what the Greens offer. A JUDGE has said that he has finds the daubing of anti-Pakistani, expletive-laden graffiti on the outside of a county Limerick fast-food restaurant extremely disturbing. Mark Hobbs, aged 50, of Herlihys Flats, Lord Edward Street, Kilmallock admitted causing criminal damage at Mega Bites in Kilmallock on September 14, 2014. However, he had pleaded not guilty to acting in a manner likely to stir up hatred contrary to Section 2 of the Incitement to Hatred Act. A 'nolle prosequi' was entered at Limerick Circuit Court this Thursday morning in relation to this charge after the court heard that the prosecution was unable to enter evidence. In relation to the charge of criminal damage the court heard that on September 14, 2014 Hobbs wrote Pakis out now perverts s*** c**** and murders in white paint on the door of Mega Bytes, Sarsfield Street, Kilmallock, a restaurant owned by Pakistani nationals. Michael Collins, BL,instructed by State Solicitor Aidan Judge, said that when interviewed by gardai, Hobbs said;I think they are anti-English people in relation to the proprietors. When asked why he thought that, Hobbs, the court heard, replied; Because they are Muslims, arent they? Michael Collins BL, said that when asked by gardai if he had a problem with their religion, Hobbs replied; No, not at all, but I do have a problem with people abusing 10 and 11 year olds and chopping innocent peoples heads off. While he said in his garda statement that he didnt know what the proprietors of the fast food outlet had done, he said; Its Muslims I have a problem with. Mr Collins said Hobbs showed anti-Pakistani sentiment throughout the interview. All they want to do is take over everywhere. All they want to do is kill us," Hobbs told the gardai. CCTV footage of the incident was shown in court of Hobbs applying paint from a bucket with a sponge and daubing it on the front of the premises. The court heard that Hobbs had consumed alcohol on the night in question. In court, Garda John Curtin of Ballylanders garda station said that Hobbs was identified and arrested. He has a problem with alcohol. He has informed me he has been to Bruree House and stayed there for a term, said Garda Curtin. Lorcan Connolly BL, representing the defendant, said his client, who has been living in Ireland for over a decade, was born in the UK. He suffered a significant setback when his father died. In his own words, he hit the drink badly, said Mr Connolly. The court heard that Hobbs has been treated for depression. Mr Connolly said his client was shocked by his behaviour when shown the CCTV footage of the incident. He accepts that offensive graffiti has no place in Kilmallock or in society, said Mr Connolly, adding that his client offers his apologies to the injured party. He is a man of strong views in respect of certain matters, he added. The court heard that Hobbs had previous convictions for matters including intoxication in a public place, engaging in threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour, and threatening to kill or cause serious harm. Judge Tom ODonnell said he wanted to hear Hobbs apologies in the witness box. Under oath, Hobbs apologised to the proprietors - an entirely innocent party - and said he was going through a lot of personal problems at the time of the incident and was having difficulty sleeping. He said he carried out the offence on the spur of the moment. I was watching telly - people getting their heads cut off, he said. As soon as I done it, I thought what have I done that for?, he said. Ive been trying to make a life for myself. Im doing my best to stay off the drink but its bloody hard - very hard, he said. Judge ODonnell noted Hobbs apology but on lifting up a photograph of the graffiti and showing it to the court said; I find this extremely disturbing, extremely disturbing. He adjourned sentencing until this Friday morning. Jan 28, 2016, 4 AM Warsaw-born Carlos Roloff y Miaflosky fought for Cuba in the war against Spain in the 1890s, earning his portrait on the high-denomination stamp of Cubas 1910 Patriots set. A 10-centavo special delivery stamp rounds out the set of eight regular issues in Cubas 1910 Patriots set. The stamp shows a bicycle messenger with doctor and wartime general Juan Bruno Zayas y Alfonso. By Kathleen Wunderly As in so many parts of the world since the beginning of history, Cuba, the largest island in the Caribbean, has repeatedly been invaded, fought over, and occupied. First came the Spanish, conquering the resident Amerindians in 1510. Over the next two centuries, visiting aggressors included the French, the Dutch, and the English, some repeatedly, but essentially Cuba was Spains colony since the first visit in the 16th century. By the 1860s, the Cuban population was a complex mixture of white people, free people of color (mixed-race), black slaves and imported slaves that included Chinese. Growing hostility against Spanish rule led to the first war of Cuban independence, also known as the Ten Years War, 1868-78. The uprising never really stopped, but the next major Cuban revolution is generally considered to have been from 1895-98, entangled with the Spanish-American War in 1898 (remember the Maine). Connect with Linn's Stamp News: Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Keep up with us on Instagram The Treaty of Paris on Dec. 10, 1898, ended the Spanish-American War, and Spain relinquished sovereignty over Cuba, ceding power to the United States. A U.S. provisional governor took control, and 1898 Cuba postage stamps surcharged in cents were used, until a pictorial set of Cuban subjects palms, a cane field, and so on was issued in 1899 (Scott 227-231). A Cuban republic was briefly established during 1902-06, the 1898 issues were surcharged, and some denominations of the 1899 stamps were re-engraved and used until 1907. A revolt against the president brought U.S. troops back, and a U.S. governor was in charge again as of October 1906. Home rule returned to Cuba on Jan. 28, 1909, and a new set of portrait stamps was issued Feb. 1, 1910. Their designs closely resemble the single issue of 1907, Scott 238, which portrays Maj. Gen. Jose Antonio Maceo y Grajales, who was killed in the 1895-98 revolution and is considered by many historians to be the greatest Cuban war general. The 1910 set includes eight regular stamps (Scott 239-246), a special delivery stamp (E4), and seven telegraph stamps. All of the men depicted on the postage stamps were generals in the two wars of independence; the telegraph stamps include military men and politicians. In their 1988 Handbook of Cuba, Part III, The Republic 1902-1961, William McP. Jones and R.J. Roy Jr., wrote that the stamp subjects were the idea of collectors, initially proposed by the Sociedad Filatelica de Cuba in June of 1904, and a number of Cuban heroes were selected in 1909 to be honored on the projected Patriots issue. Jones and Roy relate that a search ensued of archives and family albums to find photographs and portraits from which authentic images of the subjects could be made. The bicolor stamps were engraved and recess printed in panes of 100 by American Bank Note Co. of New York. Jones and Roy state that advance reports of the stamps said they would be printed on watermarked paper with an R interwoven with a C, but the additional cost of the special watermarked paper led the government to select instead white, wove, unwatermarked paper. The stamps are perforated gauge 12. The designs, denominations and colors are as follows: Scott 239, 1 centavo green and violet Bartolome Maso y Marquez; 240, 2c carmine and green Maximo Gomez y Baez; 241, 3c violet and blue Julio Sanguily y Garritte; 242, 5c blue and green Ignacio Agramonte y Loynaz; 243, 8c olive and violet Calixto Garcia y Iniguez; 244, 10c brown and blue Jose Maria Rodriguez y Rodriguez; 245, 50c violet and black Jose Antonio Maceo Grajales; 246, 1 peso slate and black Carlos Roloff y Miaflosky; E4, 10c orange and blue with a messenger on a bicycle at left and Juan Bruno Zayas y Alfonso at right. Inverted examples of the 1c, 2c and 10c regular issues and the 10c special delivery stamp were discovered soon after the stamps were released and reported to U.S. stamp publications. The discussions continued in the next few years. Mekeels Weekly Stamp News of July 1, 1911, quoted the Revista del Circulo Filatelico de Cuba of April 1911, which expressed having been very much surprised by the news of the inverts, because the seriousness, respectability and honorableness of a firm as the American Bank Note Co. made it difficult to believe in the alleged errors. However, after considering the evidence before their eyes, the publication was forced to accept the inverts reality, while still believing that some very few examples were placed in determined spots for motives of propaganda and popularity, the main bulk of the stamps [being] in the hands of persons well known to us, and that these people hardly need to make a business out of these stamps. The inverts surely had nothing to do with seriousness or honor and everything to do with the hazards inherent in two-color printing, in which each sheet of stamps must be placed on the printing press two separate times. The error-prone bicolor process resulted in U.S. stamp inverts in 1869, 1901 and, most famously, in 1918, with the 24 Inverted Jenny (Scott C3a). The press run for the 1c Maso y Marquez stamp was four million examples, and Jones and Roys 1988 handbook tallied 1,100 inverts (Scott 239a) found. Of the eight million 2c Gomez y Baez stamps printed, only 200 errors (240a) were found. The authors reported 100 inverts (Scott 244a) of the 10c Rodriguez y Rodriguez stamps (500,000 printed) and 200 inverts (E4a) of the 10c special delivery stamps (200,000 printed). As valued by the 2016 Scott Classic Specialized Catalogue of Stamps and Covers 1840-1940, acquiring an unused set of the regular Patriots stamps plus the special delivery stamp would cost about $65; a used set would cost not much more than $10. As expected, the inverts are another story: $260 for Scott 239a; $575 for 240a; $850 for 244a; and $1,250 for the scarce E4a. The 1st Ministerial Meeting of Arab-India Cooperation Forum was held on 24 January 2016 in the Bahraini capital Manama. The meeting, which was opened by Bahrain's Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, was attended by Minister of External Affairs and Overseas Indian Affairs Sushma Swaraj, foreign ministers of Arab States, and the Secretary General of the League of Arab States Nabil Elaraby. The meeting reviewed the achievements of the Arab-Indian cooperation since the establishment of the Arab-Indian Co-operation Forum in New Delhi in 2008 and adopted the Manama Declaration. The declaration called for enhanced cooperation on bilateral, regional and global issues including terrorism, Palestine, Syria, Arab-Israeli conflict and reforms in the UNSC by expanding its permanent and non-permanent membership. Highlights of the Manama Declaration Arab-Israeli conflict: A comprehensive and permanent solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict should be achieved on the basis of UN Security Council resolutions 242 of 1976 and 338 of 1973, Madrid Peace conference of 1991 and the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative in Beirut. Palestine issue: It called on Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian Arab territories it seized in 1967 and implementation of the two-state principle on the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestine State with East Jerusalem as its capital. Arab-Iran conflict: They further emphasized the importance that cooperative relations between Arab States and the Islamic Republic of Iran be based on the principles of good neighbourliness, non-interference in internal affairs, and resolution of disputes through peaceful means. Israel-Lebanon conflict: It called upon Israel to withdraw from the remaining occupied Lebanese territories and to immediately end all its violations of the Lebanese sovereignty by land, sea and air. UAE-Iran conflict: The sides expressed their support to all peaceful efforts, including the efforts of the United Arab Emirates, to reach a peaceful solution to the issue of the Islands of Greater Tunb, Smaller Tunb and Abu Musa with Iran through bilateral negotiations and in accordance with international law. Terrorism: They supported the efforts of the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee [CTC] and adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism [CCIT], at the earliest. Syria: Both sides affirmed the need for the establishment of a transitional governing body in Syria in accordance with the Vienna Statements of October and November 2015 issued by the International Syrian Support Group and the UN Security Council Resolution 2254 (2015). Iraq: It strongly condemned crimes committed by all terrorist organizations, especially those committed by ISIS terrorist organization against all Iraqi people. Libya: The leaders welcomed the Sokhirat Agreement on political solution to the crisis in Libya that was initiated by most Libyan political forces in July 2015, and appreciated the efforts of the Kingdom of Morocco in facilitating this agreement. Yemen: The leaders supported the legitimate Government in Yemen represented by the President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and condemned the unilateral procedures by the Houthi group as it undermines the transitional political process in Yemen. Sudan: They welcomed the National Dialogue Conference which was launched in Khartoum and called upon the armed movements to stop fighting and engage in this National Dialogue, in response to the initiative of Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir, the President of Sudan. Somalia: Both sides supported the African Union's effort to assist Somali's peace and security through the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISON), as well as the Somali National Army. They supported the State of Kuwait's orientation to organize a Donors' Conference for education in Somalia in 2016. They welcomed the granting of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding Award to Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the king of Bahrain, in recognition of his contributions in promoting meaningful dialogue in the region. We and our partners use cookies to Store and/or access information on a device. We and our partners use data for Personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. An example of data being processed may be a unique identifier stored in a cookie. Some of our partners may process your data as a part of their legitimate business interest without asking for consent. To view the purposes they believe they have legitimate interest for, or to object to this data processing use the vendor list link below. The consent submitted will only be used for data processing originating from this website. If you would like to change your settings or withdraw consent at any time, the link to do so is in our privacy policy accessible from our home page. Exam study brings for its reader daily updated quizzes that cover the topics like Smart Cities, Global Ayurveda Festival and Largest known Solar System among others. 1. The Union Government on 28 February 2016 released the list of 20 smart cities. Which one of the following cities is not part of this list? a) Pune b) Jaipur c) Jodhpur d) Coimbatore 2. Name the freedom fighter whose 150th birth anniversary was celebrated on 28 January 2016. a) Aurobindo Ghosh b) Bipin Chandra Pal c) Bal Gangadhar Tilak d) Lala Lajpat Rai 3. As per a statement of Union Government, what kilometer of National Highways is being built every day? a) 15 b) 30 c) 18 d) 12 4. Who is the Brand Ambassador of the 14th edition of Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) 2016 that began on 28 January 2016? a) Shyam Benegal b) Jackie Shroff c) Akshay Kumar d) Priyanka Chopra 5. Where will be the third edition of Global Ayurveda Festival held in February 2016? a) Rishikesh b) Kangra c) Gangtok d) Kozhikode 6. What is the name of the largest known solar system that was discovered by the astronomers in January 2016? a) 2MASS J2126-8140 b) 3MASS J2621-4180 c) SS4 J2126-8140 d) S2MASS J2126-4180 7. Who is the author of the book "The Turbulent Year: 1980 1996" that was released on 28 January 2016? a) Manmohan Singh b) Pranab Mukherjee c) Lal Krishna Advani d) Murli Manohar Joshi 8. The chief minister of which state on 28 January 2016 directed its official to impose ban on use of polythene in the entire state from January 2017? a) Uttar Pradesh b) Jharkhand c) Bihar d) Madhya Pradesh 9. Union Government on 28 January 2016 signed 80 million US dollar loan agreement with Asian Development Bank (ADB) for improving infrastructure in which two state capitals of North East India? a) Kohima and Gangtok b) Kohima and Guwahati c) Agartala and Aizwal d) Aizwal and Kohima 10. Which country became the world's largest exporter of rice overtaking Thailand in the year 2015? a) China b) Sri Lanka c) Bangladesh d) India 11. Name the Managing Director of Times of India newspaper who died on 28 January 2016. a) Vinnet Kumar Jain b) Jaideep Bose c) Arindam Sengupta d) Arun Arora 12. The members of which international organisation on 27 January 2016 signed a tax co-operation agreement to enable automatic sharing of country by country information? a) International Monetary Fund (IMF) b) World Bank c) Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) d) Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) 13. Name the India's top pistol shooter who on 28 January 2016 secured an Olympic quota for the country, by claiming the gold medal in women's 10-metre air pistol event at the Asia Olympic Qualifiers for Shooting in New Delhi. a) Heena Sidhu b) Tejaswini Sawant c) Anisa Sayyed d) Dola Banerjee 14. Which Regiment was adjudged as the Best Marching Contingent amongst the three Services in the Republic Day Parade held on 26 Jan 2016? a) Rajputana Rifles b) Parachute Regiment c) The Grenadiers d) Assam Regiment 15. What is the strike range of indigenously-developed Surface-to-Air Akash missile that was successfully test fired on 28 January 2016 from the Integrated Test Range (ITR), Chandipur? a) 50-km b) 25-km c) 60-km d) 30-km Answers 1-(c) 6-(a) 11-(c) 2-(d) 7-(b) 12-(c) 3-(c) 8-(d) 13-(a) 4-(b) 9-(c) 14-(d) 5-(d) 10-(d) 15-(b) If a child passes out, parents can help them by performing a simple first-aid technique known as putting them in "the recovery position," a new study suggests. Children in the study who became unconscious because they fainted or had a seizure but were still breathing and were placed in the recovery position were almost 30 percent less likely to be hospitalized compared with children whose parents did not perform this first-aid method, researchers in Europe found. The maneuver involves laying a child on his or her side with the head tipped slightly back, which helps to keep a child's airway open and allows fluids to drain from the mouth, preventing the child from choking, according to the study, published (Jan. 25) in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood. The finding shows that putting kids on their sides during a seizure really does help, and it works to keep kids from needing to be hospitalized, said Dr. David Mandelbaum, a pediatric neurologist at Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, who was not involved in the research. Now, doctors can tell parents that this position greatly decreases the likelihood that complications will occur after a child loses consciousness, he added. [9 Weird Ways Kids Can Get Hurt] Children who have seizures often vomit and have excessive amounts of saliva, Mandelbaum told Live Science. For those reasons, it's better for the child to be rolled on their side than to lie flat on their back, so these secretions will fall out of their mouth, he said. Putting a child in the recovery position also likely improves a child's breathing, leading to a better recovery, the researchers said. But too few parents use the technique, and some perform inadequate maneuvers instead, they noted. Parents should never move or turn a child who may have a spinal cord injury, they noted. Although Mandelbaum said that he does instruct parents to lay children on the floor when they're having a seizure as well as to protect the child's head with a pillow, loosen tight clothing, roll the child on one side and never put things in a child's mouth he said he was not familiar with the phrase "recovery position," and he doesn't necessarily refer to the position that way when he educates parents. First-aid websites from Europe, Australia and Canada do refer to the technique as the "recovery position." To put a toddler or child in the recovery position, they recommend turning children to their left side, placing one of the child's hands under their cheek to prop up the head slightly and placing the other arm at a 90-degree angle. Once the child is on their side, bend their top (right) leg to prevent them from rolling over. For infants, the recovery position is different. Parents should hold the baby face down in their arms, with the infant's head slightly lower than the rest of the body. In this position, the baby's head and neck are supported by the parent's hands, to keep the infant's mouth and nose clear. Regaining consciousness In the new study, the researchers looked at 553 children who had been taken to the emergency room because of a loss of consciousness. Data was collected from interviews with parents in 11 different hospitals in six European countries. Parents were asked what steps they took after their child lost consciousness, where they learned these techniques and how long it took for their child to regain consciousness. The researchers found that only 26 percent of parents said they used the recovery position, which they learned about from doctors or during first-aid training. Parents were more likely to report trying other techniques that they learned from other family members or the media to help revive their child. The findings showed that 17 percent of parents reported shaking their unconscious child, which doctors consider potentially dangerous, especially in infants younger than 1 year old, because it can lead to severe brain injuries. Fourteen percent of parents said they put water on their child's face, 11 percent said they slapped the child and 7 percent blew on the child's face. Slightly more than half of the children in the study who lost consciousness needed to be admitted to the hospital. The study found a 10-fold reduction in hospitalization rates when the recovery position was performed on children younger than age 2. The difference in hospital admission rates when the recovery position was done in kids under 2 was very high and really striking, Mandelbaum said. One drawback of the study is that the researchers didn't say whether it was the first time a child had a seizure. Parents might not receive instructions about safely positioning their child during a seizure until after their child had the first one, and first-time seizures typically have higher hospitalization rates, Mandelbaum said. [Epilepsy: Symptoms and Treatment] The results also don't tease out whether it was parents performing the recovery position that helped reduce hospital admission rates, or whether it was the firsthand experience of parents when it was not a child's first seizure that shaped a physician's comfort level and decision not to hospitalize a child, Mandelbaum said. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science. Faraday's law of induction describes how an electric current produces a magnetic field and, conversely, how a changing magnetic field generates an electric current in a conductor. English physicist Michael Faraday gets the credit for discovering magnetic induction in 1831, but American physicist Joseph Henry independently made the same discovery at about the same time, according to the University of Texas at Austin (opens in new tab). It is impossible to overstate the significance of Faraday's discovery. Magnetic induction enables the electric motors, generators and transformers that form the foundation of modern technology. By understanding and using induction, we have an electric power grid and many of the things we plug into it. Faraday's law was later incorporated into the more comprehensive Maxwell's equations, according to Sacred Heart University (opens in new tab). Maxwell's equations were developed by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell to explain the relationship between electricity and magnetism, essentially uniting them into a single electromagnetic force and describing the electromagnetic waves that make up radio waves, visible light and X-rays. Related: 9 equations that changed the world Electricity Electric charge is a fundamental property of matter that governs how some elementary particles in that matter are affected by an electric or magnetic field, according to Britannica (opens in new tab). The electric field from a localized point charge that is, a hypothetical electric charge located at a single point in space is relatively simple, Serif Uran, a professor of physics at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, told Live Science. He describes it as radiating equally in all directions, like light from a bare light bulb, and decreasing in strength as the inverse square of the distance (1/r2) in accordance with Coulomb's law, according to Georgia State University (opens in new tab). When you move twice as far away, the field strength decreases to one-fourth, and when you move three times farther away, it decreases to one-ninth. Protons have positive charge, while electrons have negative charge. However, protons are mostly immobilized inside an atom's nucleus, so most of the electric currents we're familiar with come from electrons. Electrons in a conducting material, such as a metal, are largely free to move from one atom to another along their conduction bands, which are the highest electron orbits, according to Austin Community College (opens in new tab). A sufficient electromotive force, or voltage, produces a charge imbalance that can cause electrons to move through a conductor from a region of more negative charge to a region of more positive charge, according to Iowa State University (opens in new tab). This movement is what we recognize as an electric current. Magnetism To understand Faraday's law of induction, it is important to have a basic understanding of magnetic fields. The magnetic field is more complex than the electric field. While positive and negative electric charges can exist separately, magnetic poles always come in pairs one north and one south, according to Boston University (opens in new tab). Typically, magnets of all sizes from subatomic particles, to industrial-size magnets, to planets and stars are dipoles, meaning each has two poles. These poles are called north and south after the direction in which compass needles point. Interestingly, opposite poles attract and like poles repel, so Earth's magnetic North Pole is actually a south magnetic pole because it attracts the north poles of compass needles. A magnetic field is often depicted as lines of magnetic flux, according to Florida State University (opens in new tab). In the case of a bar magnet, the flux lines exit from the north pole and curve around to reenter at the south pole. In this model, the number of flux lines passing through a given surface in space represents the flux density, or the strength of the field. Notably, however, this is only a model. A magnetic field is smooth and continuous and does not actually consist of discrete lines. Magnetic field lines from a bar magnet. (Image credit: snapgalleria Shutterstock ) Earth's magnetic field produces a tremendous amount of magnetic flux, but it is dispersed over a huge volume of space. Therefore, only a small amount of flux passes through a given area, resulting in a relatively weak field. The flux from a refrigerator magnet is tiny compared with that of Earth, but its field strength is many times stronger at close range, where its flux lines are much more densely packed, according to a lecture (opens in new tab) by UMass Lowell physicist Jean-Francois Millithaler. However, the field quickly becomes much weaker as you move away. Induction If you run an electric current through a wire, it will produce a magnetic field around the wire. The direction of this magnetic field can be determined by the so-called right-hand rule. According to the physics department at Buffalo State University of New York (opens in new tab), if you extend your thumb and curl the fingers of your right hand, your thumb points in the positive direction of the current and your fingers curl in the north direction of the magnetic field. Left-hand and right-hand rule for a magnetic field due to a current in a straight wire. (Image credit: Fouad A. Saad Shutterstock) If you bend the wire into a loop, the magnetic-field lines will bend with it, forming a toroid, or doughnut shape. In this case, your thumb points in the north direction of the magnetic field coming out of the center of the loop, while your fingers point in the positive direction of the current in the loop. In a current-carrying circular loop, (a) the right-hand rule gives the direction of the magnetic field inside and outside the loop. (b) More detailed mapping of the field, which is similar to that of a bar magnet. (Image credit: OpenStax) If you run a current through a wire loop in a magnetic field, the interaction of these magnetic fields will exert a twisting force, or torque, on the loop, causing it to rotate, according to the Rochester Institute of Technology (opens in new tab). However, it will only rotate so far until the magnetic fields are aligned that is, it will wobble back and forth instead of spinning. For the loop to continue rotating, you have to reverse the direction of the current, which will reverse the direction of the magnetic field from the loop. The loop will then rotate 180 degrees until its field is aligned in the other direction. This is the basis for the electric motor. Conversely, if you rotate a wire loop in a magnetic field, the field will induce an electric current in the wire. The direction of the current will reverse every half turn, producing an alternating current, according to the University of Texas at Austin (opens in new tab). This is the basis for the electric generator. Importantly, it is not the motion of the wire, but rather the opening and closing of the loop with respect to the direction of the field, that induces the current. When the loop is face-on to the field, the maximum amount of flux passes through the loop. However, when the loop is turned edge-on to the field, no flux lines pass through the loop. It is this change in the amount of flux passing through the loop that induces the current. Another experiment involves forming a wire into a loop and connecting the ends to a sensitive current meter, or galvanometer. If you then push a bar magnet through the loop, the needle in the galvanometer will move, indicating an induced current. Once you stop the motion of the magnet, however, the current returns to zero. The field from the magnet will induce a current only when it is increasing or decreasing. If you pull the magnet back out, it will again induce a current in the wire, but this time, it will be in the opposite direction, according to the University of Florida (opens in new tab). Magnet in a wire loop connected to a galvanometer. (Image credit: Fouad A. Saad Shutterstock) If you were to put a light bulb in the circuit, it would dissipate electrical energy in the form of light and heat, and you would feel resistance to the motion of the magnet as you moved it in and out of the loop. To move the magnet, you have to do work that is equivalent to the energy being used by the light bulb. In yet another experiment, you might construct two wire loops, connect the ends of one to a battery with a switch and connect the ends of the other loop to a galvanometer. If you place the two loops close to each other in a face-to-face orientation and turn on the power to the first loop, the galvanometer connected to the second loop will indicate an induced current and then quickly return to zero, according to the University of California, Santa Barbara (opens in new tab). What is happening here is that the current in the first loop produces a magnetic field, which, in turn, induces a current in the second loop but only in the instant when the magnetic field is changing. When you turn off the switch, the meter will deflect momentarily in the opposite direction. This is further indication that it is the change in the intensity of the magnetic field, and not its strength or motion, that induces the current. The explanation for this is that a magnetic field causes electrons in a conductor to move. This motion is what we know as electric current. Eventually, though, the electrons reach a point where they are in equilibrium with the field, at which point they will stop moving. Then, when the field is removed or turned off, the electrons will flow back to their original location, producing a current in the opposite direction. Unlike a gravitational field or an electric field, a magnetic dipole field is a more complex 3D structure that varies in strength and direction according to the location where it is measured, so it requires calculus to describe it fully. However, we can describe a simplified case of a uniform magnetic field for example, a very small section of a very large field as B = BA, where B is the absolute value of the magnetic flux, B is the strength of the field and A is a defined area through which the field passes, according to Eastern Illinois University (opens in new tab). Conversely, in this case, the strength of a magnetic field is the flux per unit area, or B = B/A. Faraday's law Now that we have a basic understanding of the magnetic field, we are ready to define Faraday's law of induction. It states that the induced voltage in a circuit is proportional to the rate of change over time of the magnetic flux through that circuit, according to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (opens in new tab). In other words, the faster the magnetic field changes, the greater the voltage in the circuit will be. The direction of the change in the magnetic field determines the direction of the current. We can increase the voltage by adding more loops to the circuit. The induced voltage in a coil with two loops will be twice that with one loop, and with three loops, it will be triple. This is why real motors and generators typically have large numbers of coils. In theory, motors and generators are the same. If you turn a motor, it will generate electricity, and if you apply that voltage to a generator, it will turn. However, most real motors and generators are optimized for only one function. Transformers Another important application of Faraday's law of induction is the transformer, invented by Nikola Tesla. In this device, alternating current, which changes direction many times per second, is sent through a coil wrapped around a magnetic core. This produces a changing magnetic field in the core, which, in turn, induces a current in a second coil wrapped around a different part of the same magnetic core, according to Milwaukee Area Technical College (opens in new tab). Transformer diagram (Image credit: photoiconix Shutterstock ) The ratio of the number of turns in the coils determines the ratio of the voltage between the input and output current. For instance, if you take a transformer with 100 turns on the input side and 50 turns on the output side and you input an alternating current at 220 volts, the output will be 110 volts. According to Georgia State University (opens in new tab), a transformer cannot increase power, which is the product of voltage and current. So if the voltage is raised, the current is proportionally lowered and vice versa. In our example, an input of 220 volts at 10 amps, or 2,200 watts, would produce an output of 110 volts at 20 amps again, 2,200 watts. In practice, transformers are never perfectly efficient, but a well-designed transformer typically has a power loss of only a few percent, according to the University of Texas at Austin (opens in new tab). Transformers make possible the electric grid we depend on for our industrial and technological society. Cross-country transmission lines operate at hundreds of thousands of volts in order to transmit more power within the current-carrying limits of the wires. This voltage is stepped down repeatedly using transformers at distribution substations until it reaches your house, where it is finally stepped down to 220 and 110 volts that can run your electric stove and computer. Live Science contributor Ashley Hamer updated this article on Feb. 7, 2022. Additional resources For a visual demonstration of Faraday's law, check out this video (opens in new tab) from the PhysicsHigh YouTube channel. from the PhysicsHigh YouTube channel. See how the right-hand rule works, with this interactive activity (opens in new tab) from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Learn about induction from this classic Richard Feynman lecture (opens in new tab) , courtesy of Caltech. Bibliography Richard Fitzpatrick, "Faraday's Law," University of Texas at Austin, July 14, 2007. https://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/302l/lectures/node85.html (opens in new tab) Lindsay Guilmette, "The History Of Maxwell's Equations," Sacred Heart University, 2012. https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1002&context=wac_prize (opens in new tab) Georgia State University, "Coulomb's Law." http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/elefor.html#c1 (opens in new tab) Austin Community College, "Ben Franklin Should Have Said Electrons are Positive? Wrong." https://www.austincc.edu/wkibbe/truth.htm (opens in new tab) Iowa State University, "Voltage." https://www.nde-ed.org/Physics/Electricity/electricalcurrent.xhtml (opens in new tab) Boston University, "Magnetic Fields." http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/sc526_notes09/B_field.html (opens in new tab) Florida State University, "Generators and Motors," 2015. https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/electromag/electricity/generators/ (opens in new tab) Jean-Francois Millithaler, "Chapter 8: Magnetism & Electromagnetism," UMass Lowell. https://faculty.uml.edu//JeanFrancois_Millithaler/FunElec/Spring2017/pdf/Ch8%20-%20Magnetism%20n%20Electromagnetism.pdf (opens in new tab) Buffalo State University of New York, "Right-Hand Rules: A Guide to finding the Direction of the Magnetic Force." http://physicsed.buffalostate.edu/SeatExpts/resource/rhr/rhr.htm (opens in new tab) Michael Richmond, "Magnetic Torques and Amp's Law," Rochester Institute of Technology. http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys213/lectures/amp/amp_long.html (opens in new tab) Richard Fitzpatrick, "The Alternating Current Generator," University of Texas at Austin, July 14, 2007. https://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/302l/lectures/node90.html (opens in new tab) University of Florida, "Direction of Induced Current." http://www.phys.ufl.edu/courses/phy2049/f07/lectures/2049_ch30B.pdf (opens in new tab) University of California, Santa Barbara, "Mutual induction with coils and galvanometer." https://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~lecturedemonstrations/Composer/Pages/72.48.html (opens in new tab) Eastern Illinois University, "Faraday's Law," February 15, 2011. https://ux1.eiu.edu/~cblehman/phy1161/0handouts_sp11/phy1161Lect14_Faraday_law_handout_short.pdf (opens in new tab) Doris Jeanne Wagner, "Introduction to Magnetism and Induced Currents," Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2002. https://www.rpi.edu/dept/phys/ScIT/InformationStorage/faraday/magnetism_a.html (opens in new tab) Georgia State University, "Transformer." http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/magnetic/transf.html (opens in new tab) Jim Mihall, "Electromagnetic Induction," Milwaukee Area Technical College, 2016. https://ecampus.matc.edu/mihalj/scitech/unit3/induction/induction.htm (opens in new tab) Richard Fitzpatrick, "Transformers," University of Texas at Austin, July 14, 2007. https://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/302l/lectures/node106.html (opens in new tab) The Zika virus is spread by bites of infected mosquitoes in the Aedes genus. The virus was first identified in the Zika Valley, in central Africa, in 1947, according to the Mayo Clinic. Over the years, it spread to southeastern and southern Asia, Pacific islands and the Americas. While it can be particularly dangerous to fetuses and newborns, it is not generally dangerous to children or adults. Zika belongs to the flaviviruses family of viruses. This family includes West Nile, dengue, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis and tick-borne encephalitic viruses. In early 2016, a team led by Purdue University researchers identified regions within the Zika virus structure. The team viewed the virus using cryo-electron microscopy, near-atomic resolution, and found the structure was very similar to that of other flaviviruses. Zika has a RNA genome surrounded by a fatty membrane inside an icosahedral protein shell. This research could be critical to the development of effective antiviral treatments and vaccines because the structure could reveal how the virus is transmitted and manifested. The structure of the virus provides a map that shows potential regions of the virus that could be targeted by a therapeutic treatment, used to create an effective vaccine or to improve our ability to diagnose and distinguish Zika infection from that of other related viruses, said Richard Kuhn, director of the Purdue Institute for Inflammation, Immunology and Infectious Diseases (PI4D), who led the research team with Michael Rossmann, Purdues Hanley Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences. Determining the structure greatly advances our understanding of Zika a virus about which little is known. It illuminates the most promising areas for further testing and research to combat infection. Symptoms According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one in five people infected with the Zika virus will become ill. Most people infected with Zika virus have few or no symptoms, and may be unaware that they are infected with the virus. Those who do feel ill may experience fever, rash, joint pain, and red eyes (conjunctivitis)," Dr. Robert Amler, vice president for government affairs, dean and professor of public health and professor of pediatrics and environmental health science at New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York, told Live Science. "These symptoms are usually mild and last only a few days or up to one week. Symptoms typically occur about two to seven days after the mosquito bite, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Risk Deaths and hospitalizations caused by the Zika virus are rare. Fetuses and newborns are particularly at risk, though. Birth defects have been linked to the Zika virus, including severe brain damage in babies. Fetuses in the first trimester are particularly susceptible to birth defects from this virus, according to the Pan American Health Organization. Zika can also lead to miscarriages. The greatest risk of Zika complications might be to newborn babies," Amler said. "Although a definite cause has not been proven, a sizeable increase in newborns with microcephaly, a serious birth defect, has occurred in Brazil in babies born to mothers who were infected during their pregnancies with Zika virus. Zika virus infection also may be associated with Guillain-Barre syndrome in adults, a serious form of paralysis. Though rare, Zika can be passed from a mother to child during birth. There have been no cases of the virus passing from mother to child through breastmilk, according to the CDC. Treatment Zika is typically diagnosed after a series of blood tests. There are no vaccines or medications available to prevent or treat Zika infections, though. If Zika is found, a medical professional will likely prescribe plenty of rest and fluids to help the body naturally combat the infection. Acetaminophen or paracetamol may also be used to help with fever and pain, according to the Mayo Clinic. Prevention There are several ways prevent Zika infection. First, avoid traveling to countries that are currently experiencing an outbreak. The greatest risk of Zika virus infection is among people exposed to mosquito bites in Zika-affected areas," Amler said. "Currently these include Puerto Rico and a number of countries in Central America, the Caribbean, South America, and certain other island locations in tropical parts of the world." As of January 27, 2016, the list of affected countries includes Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Saint Martin, Suriname, U.S. Virgin Islands, Venezuela, Samoa and Cape Verde. This list may grow as additional laboratory-confirmed cases are reported in residents or in others who have traveled to Zika affected locations. No locally caused cases of the Zika virus have been reported in the continental United States, but cases have been reported in returning travelers, according to the CDC. Travelers can check the CDC or WHO websites to obtain the most up-to-date list of travel advisories for destinations around the world. If travel cant be avoided, prevent mosquito bites to avert infection. Amler suggested that mosquito bites are best avoided by local vector control. This is the prevention of mosquito breeding by eliminating standing water and applying larvicide and by taking personal measures. Minimize outdoor activity, wear long clothing or permethrin-treated clothing including boots and socks, sleep in enclosed and netted spaces, and using effective insect repellants such as 20 percent DEET, picaridin, IR3535 or oil of lemon eucalyptus (OLE) to prevent mosquito bites. All EPA-registered insect repellants can be used safely by pregnant and breastfeeding women, said Amler. Additional Resources Octopuses are well-known masters of camouflage and skillful escape artists, but they aren't exactly famous for their social skills. Scientists have long thought that this many-armed denizen of the deep was strictly solitary and didn't interact much with its fellows, reserving its color-shifting ability for intimidating predators or hiding from them. But a new study reveals that both male and female octopuses frequently communicate with each other in challenging displays that include posturing and changing color. And certain behavior patterns emerged that accompanied different color-shifting displays. If two octopuses approached each other and displayed dark colors, the encounter was likely to escalate aggressively and lead to physical confrontation. But an octopus displaying paler colors usually indicated that it was preparing to retreat, the researchers found. A diver in Jervis Bay, Australia, initially spotted the unusual octopus behavior, writing about it in an online post that attracted the scientists' attention. To decode the octopuses' social "language," the scientists captured and screened 52 hours of footage of the Octopus tetricus species, a mottled, grayish-brown cephalopod known as the common Sydney octopus and also somewhat more amusingly the gloomy octopus. Despite its mopey-sounding name, what the scientists observed wasn't a community of isolated sulkers, but a highly engaged and interactive bunch. [Video: Watch Octopuses Argue Through Body Patterns And Postures] "Because octopuses were known to kill each other at times and be cannibalistic, the general sense is that they wouldn't interact a lot and wouldn't use signals," David Scheel, the study's first author, told Live Science. But Scheel, who is a professor of marine biology at Alaska Pacific University, had already found a scattering of reports from prior studies that suggested "there was another story going on," he said. "Some octopuses have been seen in displays that may have occurred to woo potential mates, and some have [been] found in aggregations. So, there have been hints in the literature that suggest this may have been possible, but no focused reports that looked just at signaling among octopuses." What Scheel and his colleagues observed was novel a site where the gloomy octopuses would visit and confront each other, over and over again. "One of the early bits of video that I saw showed one octopus approaching another in a fairly dramatic way dark and standing very tall, and the other one crouched down, turned pale and then fled," Scheel told Live Science. "It just looked to me like they were signaling, so we just followed from there to try and explore that idea." An octopus (foreground) displays pale color and stretches out one arm before it withdraws from an approaching octopus (background). The approaching octopus displays a dark color, 'stands' tall, and spreads web and arms. (Image credit: David Scheel) Anywhere from three to 10 octopuses appeared at the site on a given day, the researchers noted. In the 52 hours of recorded footage, over 7 hours showed octopus interactions, with 345 instances of changing colors and 512 examples of physical movements, such as grappling or reaching toward each other. Reaching was the most common interaction the scientists saw, making up 72 percent of all the physical interplay; the octopuses touched each other very infrequently, the scientists recorded. They observed one posture repeatedly when the octopus would "stand tall," extending its arms outward and drawing itself upward. An octopus that was standing tall would usually also display a dark color and raise its mantle, all of which, the researchers said, appeared to signify aggression toward another octopus. Other cephalopods, like cuttlefish, are known to assume a darker color during disputes, with males displaying a "dark face." If two male cuttlefish show each other dark faces, the confrontation usually turns physical, while if only one of the males puts on his dark face, the paler-faced cuttlefish typically backs down, a behavior pattern strikingly similar to the one the researchers observed in the octopuses' color displays. "Signaling is well-documented in cuttlefish and squids," Scheel said, "so in that way it isn't really surprising to suggest that octopuses do the same thing." [Cuttlefish Cuties: Photos of Color-Changing Cephalopods] One of the most surprising things that Scheel saw in the videos was how the octopuses used a piece of flotsam embedded in the silt at the study site, he said. It stuck up higher than the surrounding seafloor, and a displaying octopus would sometimes climb up on top of it to perform the "stand tall" posture. "That's something that's kind of interesting that makes use of the particular layout of the environment," Scheel said. The structure stood at the center of the site, so perhaps the presence of that "high ground" was what drew displaying octopuses to that area in the first place, Scheel suggested. The next step, Scheel said, is to look more closely at the context of all the signaling, in which both octopus sexes participated. "Males interacted with females, males interacted with other males, females interacted with males, and we're pretty sure that females were interacting with other females as well," Scheel said. But whether all the signaling is part of a complex mating system or some other form of behavior entirely remains to be seen, he added. The findings were published online today (Jan. 28) in the journal Current Biology. Follow Mindy Weisberger on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. The mosquito-spread Zika virus known for its links to brain damage in babies born to infected mothers has the potential to target and destroy brain cancer, scientists have found. New research has revealed that the Zika virus breaks into brain cells by using a special molecular key, and scientists think the virus could be tweaked so that it infects only brain cancer cells, leaving healthy cells unharmed. The aggressive brain cancer glioblastoma often defies standard cancer treatment because the disease transforms normal brain cells into stem cells . While typical neurons stop dividing after so many replications, stem cells can reproduce indefinitely and grow a whole new tumor from just a handful of cells. Patients typically survive less than 20 months after being diagnosed with glioblastoma; even if the cancer can be forced into remission, the tumors typically regrow and take the life of the patient within 12 months. But where standard treatments fail, the Zika virus may offer a new strategy to wipe out the deadly disease, according to a pair of studies published Jan. 16 in the journals Cell Reports and Cell Stem Cell . Related: The 9 Deadliest Viruses on Earth "While we would likely need to modify the normal Zika virus to make it safer to treat brain tumors, we may also be able to take advantage of the mechanisms the virus uses to destroy cells to improve the way we treat glioblastoma," senior author Dr. Jeremy Rich, director of neuro-oncology and of the Brain Tumor Institute at UC San Diego Health, said in a statement . (Rich and his colleagues authored the Cell Stem Cell paper.) When the Zika virus infects developing fetuses, the virus stunts brain development by targeting neural stem cells and stunting their proliferation. Rich and his co-authors wondered whether the virus' strategy could be co-opted to shrink brain tumors. In a 2017 study published in The Journal of Experimental Medicine, the team put their theory to the test and found that the Zika virus actually prefers to infect glioblastoma stem cells over normal brain cells at least in petri dishes and mouse models of the disease. The reason behind this preference remained a mystery, until now. To learn how Zika breaches the membranes of cancer cells, the team scanned the virus' surface for integrins receptors that viruses often use to latch onto their victims' cells and slip inside. Having identified various integrins on the viral surface, the researchers then blocked each with a protein. Then, they unleashed the modified virus into a lab dish holding a mix of normal brain stem cells and cancerous ones. If a particular integrin helped Zika hack into brain cells, blocking the receptor should stop the infectious virus in its tracks. Through trial-and-error, the team learned that an integrin called v5 serves as the key that lets Zika into brain cells. "When we blocked other integrins, there was no difference," Rich said. "But with v5, blocking it with an antibody almost completely blocked the ability of the virus to infect brain cancer stem cells and normal brain stem cells." Related: 5 Facts About Brain Cancer According to the study, v5 consists of two halves: v and 5. The former half appears in abundance on brain stem cells, which may help to explain how the virus targets both healthy and cancerous brain stem cells. The latter half, however, mostly appears on cancer cells and renders tumors more aggressive, regarding how quickly they can spread. For this reason, glioblastomas may be more vulnerable to Zika infection than normal brain stem cells. The team confirmed the idea by injecting Zika into human brain organoids tiny models of the human brain grown in a lab dish. In the mini-brains, the virus reliably infected cancer cells more often than healthy cells. But without an intact v5 receptor, the virus could not infect the cells at all. The second study, published in Cell Reports, also confirmed that v5 grants Zika its cancer-crushing powers. Using the CRISPR gene-editing technique, the researchers selectively deleted specific genes from glioblastoma stem cells and exposed each mutant tumor to the Zika virus. When they deleted the gene that contained instructions to build v5, Zika could no longer grab hold of the cancer cells. The discovery "made perfect sense" because v5 appears in such large quantities on neural stem cells, the virus' primary target, senior author Tariq Rana, professor and chief of the Division of Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center, said in the statement. Related: 7 Odd Things That Raise Your Risk of Cancer (and 1 That Doesn't) With the knowledge that v5 may be a soft spot in aggressive glioblastomas, the researchers now aim to genetically modify the Zika virus to target the cancer while sparing healthy cells. Other deadly viruses could also serve as weapons against brain cancer. In a study published in 2018 in The New England Journal of Medicine , researchers treated glioblastoma patients with a genetically modified poliovirus and found that more than 20% remained alive three years later, as compared with 4 percent of patients who received a standard treatment, Live Science reported at the time . As the field of virotherapy continues to grow, once-deadly diseases may prove to be powerful weapons in the fight against cancer. BERLIN For a text that may rewrite the history of mathematics, it looks rather sloppy. The brown clay tablet, which could fit in the palm of your hand, is scrawled with hasty, highly abbreviated cuneiform characters. And, according to science historian Mathieu Ossendrijver, it proves that the ancient Babylonians used a complex geometrical model that looks like a rudimentary form of integral calculus to calculate the path of Jupiter. Scientists previously thought this mathematical technique was invented in medieval Europe. "It sounds minute for a layperson, but this geometry is of a very special kind that is not found anywhere else, for instance, in ancient Greek astronomy," Ossendrijver said. "It is an application in astronomy that was totally new. Thus far everybody thought Babylonian scholars only computed with numbers." [The 7 Most Mysterious Archaeological Finds on Earth] A sophisticated invention The tablet has long been in the collection at the British Museum in London, and it was likely created in Babylon (located in modern-day Iraq) between 350 and 50 B.C. Ossendrijver recently deciphered the text, and he described his discovery in an article that's featured on the cover of the journal Science this week. From his office at Humboldt University here in Berlin, which is decorated with posters of both the Ishtar Gate and the Antikythera mechanism (thought to be the world's oldest known computer), he explained that the tablet plots the apparent decreasing velocity of Jupiter from the planet's first appearance along the horizon, to 60 days later, and then 120 days later. If drawn on a graph, this relationship is represented in the shape of two conjoined trapezoids. The area of each trapezoid describes Jupiter's total displacement (measured in degrees) along the ecliptic, or the path of the sun. "It's not an actual trapezoid that describes the shape of a field, or some configuration of the planets in space," Ossendrijver told Live Science. "It's a configuration in a mathematical space. It's a highly abstract application." Ancient Greek mathematicians and astronomers were using geometry around the same time, but only to make calculations involving real, 3D space, such as using circles torepresent the orbits of planets around Earth. Students of math might take it for granted today, but the abstract use of geometry was, until now, unheard of at the time. "Anyone who has studied physics or a little bit of math is familiar with making graphs plotting one quantity against time but actually this had to be invented once," Ossendrijver said. Current textbooks on the history of math say this invention took place around A.D. 1350. In the mid-14th century, mathematicians at Merton College in England who were referred to as the "Oxford Calculators," and another scholar collaborating with them in Paris, were interested in understanding the velocity and displacement of an object over time. They came up with the Merton mean speed theorem, which holds that the distance a uniformly accelerating body travels in a given interval of time is the same distance it would travel if it were moving at a constant velocity (with that constant velocity being the average of the accelerating body's initial and final velocity). [Images: The World's 11 Most Beautiful Calculations] But the mean speed theorem now seems to be a reinvention of a lost model; about 1,400 years earlier, it seems the Babylonians had their own technique to make calculations based on this principle. "When I looked at the text, I was immediately convinced," said Jens Hyrup, an expert in Babylonian mathematics at Roskilde University in Denmark, who was not involved in the new study. "There are words that indisputably point to geometric understanding not a geometric model of how the planets move, but a geometric technique to make some arithmetic calculations." Missing piece To build its collection in the 19th century, the British Museum gathered crates of clay tablets by methods that would not be considered scientifically sound today; namely, buying artifacts that had been dug up around Babylon and Uruk without any archaeological context. Since the 1880s, scholars have been making sense of the astronomical concepts described on many of the tablets. [See Images of Ancient Babylonian Cuneiform Texts] Four of these astronomical tablets had stumped historians, because they included computations mentioning trapezoids, even though the Babylonians had never been known to use geometry in their astronomical calculations. At left is another Babylonian astronomical tablet. At right, this diagram shows how the distance traveled by Jupiter after 60 days, 1045', is calculated as the area of the trapezoid. The Babylonians knew they could then divide this trapezoid into two smaller ones of equal area in order to find the time in which Jupiter covers half the distance it travels in 60 days (Image credit: Trustees of the British Museum/Mathieu Ossendrijver) The newly deciphered tablet was essentially the missing piece in the puzzle. Last year, a colleague handed Ossendrijver a stack of photographs, including an image of a tablet he had never seen before in the British Museum. In September, Ossendrijver went to London to hold it in his hand and read it himself, confirming what he already suspected the calculations describe. "Actually, this particular tablet has ugly handwriting," Ossendrijver said. "It's slanted. It's like cursive if it were written very rapidly. It's very abbreviated. He left out everything that is not absolutely necessary to follow the computation." Jupiter is not even mentioned in the newly deciphered tablet, but the computations it describes were already partly known from the other trapezoid tablets that do mention Jupiter, Ossendrijver said. Scholar-priests reading the skies The period between 400 and 200 B.C. might be considered the last period of innovations in Babylonian science, Ossendrijver said, and this is the time the zodiac and the horoscope were invented. In general, the question of what the ancient Babylonians did with their astronomy is not fully answered, Ossendrijversaid. But they believed everything that happened on Earth was connected to whatever was happening in the sky. "It was thought that if you are able to predict the motion of Jupiter, you would also be able to predict the price of grain, the weather, the level of the river Euphrates," Ossendrijver said. Part of his work also involves trying to understand the social context of Babylonian astronomers, and learning more about the kind of families and elite clans they belonged to. Certainly, the job description for an astronomer was much different 2,000 years ago. Before the rise of personal horoscopes, astrology was a state affair. A court astrologer would have been called upon to interpret omens and predict plagues or other events, which could have real-world consequences. For instance, Hyrup said, if the astrologer was certain the king was going to die, the Babylonians could install a proxy king for six months, kill him at the end of his service, and let the original king return to the throne. "The purpose of all this refined astronomy is astrology," Hyrup said. "They never speak about themselves in a way that suggests that they were pure astronomers or mathematicians; their profession was to be scholar-priests." Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. The medieval fortified palace in Aleppo is a UNESCO world heritage site, and the city itself is one of the oldest continuously occupied cities on the planet. This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. In March 2001, the Taliban blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, two of the tallest Buddha sculptures in the world. This horrific attack on an important and beautiful example of the patrimony of central Asia shocked the world. It also forever changed the landscape of cultural preservation, archaeology and global heritage. Even back then, we had some of the 3D scanning technologies that could have allowed us to digitally document and preserve the Buddhas. We did not yet anticipate the scale of destruction that would leave hundreds of global heritage sites damaged or obliterated (opens in new tab) in the 15 years since that event. The loss of this cultural heritage has spurred teams of researchers and nonprofit organizations to race to make 3D scans, architectural plans and detailed photographic records of heritage sites around the world, knowing they could be destroyed at any time. Advances in 3D scanning technologies, drone use and even tourists' online posting of images are giving preservationists a new set of tools to prevent the permanent loss of cultural artifacts. The preservation race begins In the 1990s, several international heritage organizations were created to highlight the importance of cultural heritage to history, tourism and ethnic identity. One such group is UNESCOs World Heritage Centre, founded in 1992. The archaeological and heritage communities cheered these efforts at preservation of important places, sites, buildings and landscapes that were being threatened or destroyed by expanding cities, hydroelectric projects, coastal erosion and other perils. They also acknowledged that heritage, largely for the first time, had become a target of military campaigns. Once heritage sites became identified with particular cultures, beliefs or histories, those places became vulnerable to people, including the Taliban and the Islamic State group, seeking to destroy those identities. Just last week the destruction of a sixth-century Christian monastery in Iraq caught the attention of the world. This is just one in a long list of sites destroyed by the IS group that began in 2014, and caught the attention of the world with the February 2015 video release of the destruction of the Mosul Museum, where some of the most important early Assyrian sculptures were housed. Project Mosul, created one week after the video was released, is the brainchild of Chance Coughenour and Matthew Vincent, Ph.D. student researchers in Europes Initial Training Network for Digital Cultural Heritage (ITN-DCH). They scoured the Internet for photographs of the sculptures and artifacts, crowd-sourced for tourist photos and collected images from U.S. military personnel who had visited the museum. That material became the basis for the digital reconstruction of the destroyed artifacts using basic photogrammetry. This technique uses photos from multiple angles of the same object to construct a 3D model of it. The destruction of Buddhist sculptures in Bamiyan led to an early success in digital preservation: Dr. Fabio Remondino of the Bruno Kessler Foundation in Trento, Italy, used photogrammetry among other techniques to digitally reconstruct the Bamiyan Buddhas. The effort is spreading. The Zamani Project from the University of Cape Town has spent the last 12 years documenting Africas most important cultural and heritage buildings, sites and landscapes. Importantly, its data are freely available and accessible. The Democratization of Science project at the newly formed Center for Virtualization and Applied Spatial Technologies located at the University of South Florida has a similar mission: documenting, preserving and protecting the worlds cultural and natural heritage through the use of digital visualization and 3D virtualization. And like the Zamani Project, it will democratize science by delivering digital data and heritage resources to the global community. Our project at the University of South Florida is using 3D imaging to scan entire museum collections, archaeological sites and ancient landscapes around the world. Sites and collections are chosen based on their research potential and need for preservation. Projects and laboratories with similar missions are beginning in many universities and research centers, especially in the U.K., Italy and Spain. New technologies are making this work easier and more comprehensive. Unmanned aerial vehicles are transforming our ability to document large structures and landscapes at extremely high resolution. New methods and software for stitching together photographs to create accurate 3D reconstructions have made the creation of virtual reconstructions affordable for both students and the public. However, the development of high-resolution 3D laser scanners has made the largest impact. This equipment aims laser beams at surfaces, records the reflected light and assembles a very sharp 3D image of the space. Combining all these, we now have the tools to digitally preserve what extremist groups would like to destroy. The attempts to destroy some of the worlds heritage have had quite the opposite effect: an entirely new area of research and scientific practice that has transformed archaeology, heritage, paleontology, museum studies, architecture and a suite of other disciplines. Equally relevant is the new emphasis on the democratization of knowledge through the digital availability of these data. Now any student, scholar or interested individual has access to some of the most important historical and archaeological specimens, buildings and cities in the world. These efforts bring our global cultural heritage to everyone, while helping to ensure the preservation of our heritage in an increasingly hostile world. Herbert Maschner, Professor of Anthropology and Geosciences, and Executive Director of the Center for Virtualizaiton and Applied Spatial Technologies (CVAST), University of South Florida This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates and become part of the discussion on Facebook, Twitter and Google +. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science . Napoleon Bonaparte was more than a master tactician, emperor and leader of the French military he was also a great romantic. And now, a marriage contract signed by him and his first wife, Josephine, will be sold online just in time for Valentine's Day, according to Lion Heart Autographs, a New York-based dealer handling the sale. The 19th-century document celebrates the marriage of Gen. August Hulin and Marie Jeanne-Louise Tiersonnier on May 30, 1804, in Paris. It is one of the first documents Napoleon and Josephine signed as witnesses after becoming emperor and empress of France. Moreover, it is one of only a handful of such documents bearing Napoleon's signature known to be in private owners' possession. The marriage contract will be sold at the Palm Beach Jewelry, Art and Antique Show from Feb. 10 to 16, along with several other documents bearing signatures of historical dignitaries. The artifact is expected to sell for at least $20,000, according to Lion Heart Autographs. [10 Epic Battles That Changed History] Napoleon's own marriage contract with Josephine sold for 437,500 euros in 2014 (about $563,700 based on the conversion rate at the time), The Guardian reported. It was purchased by the privately owned Museum of Letters and Manuscripts for more than five times the original estimate and can still be viewed at the museum today. Napoleon and Josephine's love affair is well documented in history. A well-connected socialite, Josephine engaged in several love affairs with political and military leaders before she caught Napoleon's eye. They were married on March 9, 1796. However, Napoleon left on his Italian campaign just days later. He sent Josephine many love letters during his absence and penned more throughout their marriage. The couple caused a lot of controversy because Josephine was a widow with children and was six years older than Napoleon. Rumors circulated of her infidelities, and Josephine's inability to give birth to a son strained the marriage, historian Andrew Roberts wrote in "Napoleon: A Life" (Viking, 2014). In 1810, Napoleon had the marriage annulled and went on to marry Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma. Yet on his deathbed, Napoleon's last words were reported to be "France, armee, tete d'armee, Josephine." (France, army, head of the army, Josephine). "I don't think there is a person anywhere who isn't fascinated by Napoleon and Josephine's love story a truly romantic couple joined together during a remarkable period in history," David Lowenherz, founder and owner of Lion Heart Autographs, said in a statement. In addition to the famous couple, several other notable figures including six of Napoleon's original 18 marshals, two queens and two kings signed the 19th-century marriage contract. Lowenherz said the document "offers a rare glimpse into the splendid affairs of the royal household." Other items up featured at the Lion Heart Autographs sale include a letter by Albert Einstein on how intellectuals and the working class should collaborate; doodles by former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower on White House stationery; a decorative proclamation signed by former U.S. President Harry Truman declaring the end of World War II; and an unpublished handwritten letter by Charles Darwin sending his photograph to a former shipmate aboard the HMS Beagle. More information about the sale can be found on the Lion Heart Autographs website. Follow Knvul Sheikh on Twitter @KnvulS. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. School & Education, Local News, Press Releases By Long Island News & PR Published: January 28 2016 Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced a partnership between the New York State Department of Health and the State University of New York to help college faculty, staff and students identify sexual assault and interpersonal ... Albany, NY - January 27, 2016 - Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced a partnership between the New York State Department of Health and the State University of New York to help college faculty, staff and students identify sexual assault and interpersonal violence, as well as learn safe methods of intervention. This collaboration is the latest in a long line of efforts by Governor Cuomo's "Enough is Enough" campaign to end sexual violence on college campuses. "New York is a national leader in the fight against sexual assault on college campuses and this new training further strengthens our efforts," Governor Cuomo said. "If we are to truly put an end to these very serious crimes, New Yorkers must not only understand how to protect themselves, but also know how to help when others are in danger." The trainings utilize existing research related to sexual violence prevention on college campuses to teach bystanders how to intervene safely before, during and after an incident of sexual abuse, relationship violence, or stalking. Following these trainings, SUNY faculty and staff are certified to implement bystander intervention training programs and share their new knowledge and skills with the entire student body. These bystander trainings are made possible thanks to an existing $496,000 federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Rape Prevention and Education Program grant. All SUNY campuses are eligible to participate at no cost to the school. SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher said, "Through these training programs, we will provide students, faculty, and staff with new insight into how to recognize an incident of violence before it occurs and teach them a few actions they can take that may prevent it from happening. Thank you to Commissioner Zucker and his staff for their continued support and partnership as we work to prevent sexual and interpersonal violence on SUNY campuses and in New Yorks communities." New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said, "The Department of Health is extremely pleased to support SUNY's efforts to prevent sexual and interpersonal violence on its campuses. Community attitudes play a significant role in its tolerance for sexual violence, and we commend SUNY for fostering a culture of nonviolence across their campuses." In July 2015, Governor Cuomo signed the "Enough Is Enough" legislation to combat sexual assault on campuses statewide. Considered the most aggressive policy of its kind nationwide, the legislation requires all colleges to adopt a set of comprehensive procedures and guidelines, including a uniform definition of affirmative consent. The legislation also calls for a statewide amnesty policy that grants immunity to students who report assaults from campus rule violations such as those on drugs and alcohol. In addition, the policy calls for more law enforcement on New York State campuses, comprehensive training requirements for new students and partnerships with existing rape crisis centers. Congresswoman Louise Slaughter said, "As one of the original authors of the Violence Against Women Act, I know that smart public policy can make a meaningful difference in all of our lives. Since its passage, weve been able to cut violence rates by more than half, but instances of assault on campuses are still far too common. Thats why I'm proud that New York is taking this important step forward for our communities." Congressman Eliot Engel, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, said, "Sexual assaults on college campuses are among the most pressing issues facing our higher education system. I applaud New York State DOH, SUNY administrators, and Governor Cuomo for taking a proactive lead on this issue by using vital funding from the CDC Rape Prevention and Education Program to educate students on how to identify and safely intervene in instances of sexual assault. This is a critical first step towards ending the scourge of sexual violence that has plagued our nations colleges for too long." Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney said, "I applaud Governor Cuomo and the SUNY system for their commitment to combating sexual violence on college campuses. This partnership between the Department of Health and the State University of New York will ensure that more students understand how to identify and intervene to prevent sexual assault and relationship violence, which have become far too prevalent on campuses across the nation." Congressman Joe Crowley said, "Sadly, the incidences of sexual violence remain much too prevalent across our state - and there is no question that we need to continue to strengthen prevention efforts to help ensure the safety of New Yorkers, especially on our college campuses. That's why this collaboration between the Department of Health and the State University of New York is so critical. These new training programs will not only educate the college community and help raise awareness, but they will also help faculty and students effectively combat sexual assault whenever it takes place. New York has been at the forefront in the battle against sexual violence and I applaud Governor Cuomo for his continued commitment to making our campuses safer." Congressman Paul Tonko said, "Students everywhere should be free to study and learn without fear of violence. This discussion is vital in helping survivors of these ugly crimes to overcome their challenges and in preventing future violence from happening. I applaud the Governor, DOH, and SUNY for this collaborative effort, and look forward to working with them on a federal level to ensure we are doing everything we can to make our college campuses safer in New York State and beyond." Congresswoman Kathleen Rice said, "This partnership will help equip school officials and students with the knowledge and skills they need to identify sexual assault, relationship violence and stalking and safely intervene to help prevent these crimes. Bystander intervention training is one of the most effective tools we have to combat sexual violence on college campuses, and this program will help ensure that parents who send their kids to school in New York can trust that they will be provided with a safe, secure and supportive learning environment." For additional information on the "Enough Is Enough" campaign, visit online Family & Parenting, Sports & Recreation, Press Releases, Seasonal & Current Events By Long Island News & PR Published: January 28 2016 A series of free ice fishing clinics are scheduled across New York State to educate people about the unique sport and how to safely enjoy time on the ice, New York State Department of Environmental ... Albany, NY - January 27, 2016 - A series of free ice fishing clinics are scheduled across New York State to educate people about the unique sport and how to safely enjoy time on the ice, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Acting Commissioner Basil Seggos announced today. The clinics, conducted by DEC, are part of Governor Cuomo's I FISH NY program, which aims to increase participation and awareness of the outstanding fishing opportunities in New York. "Interest in this wintertime sport is increasing every year, and we are thrilled to provide these free clinics to introduce residents and visitors to the sport and provide them with tips on how to safely enjoy this winter tradition," Acting Commissioner Seggos said. "Anglers do need to allow solid ice to set up before venturing out for their fishing trip, and our clinics will provide information on how to check for appropriate conditions." In addition to these free fishing clinics, Governor Cuomo has designated February 13-14, 2016 as the state's first free fishing weekend where the requirements for a fishing license has been suspended. Residents and visitors age 16 and older will be able to fish the fresh or marine waters of New York State without a license, providing a great opportunity for people to learn about this popular sport. While a DEC fishing license is not required to participate in these clinics, all other statewide regulations remain in effect. Children under age 16 must be supervised. Free fishing clinics scheduled in New York State include: Canadarago Lake - Otsego County - January 30 The Otsego County Federation of Sportsmen and the New York Farm Bureau are co-sponsoring a free ice fishing clinic from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, January 30 at Canadarago Lake in Otsego County. Yellow perch and chain pickerel are the main target species for ice anglers in Canadarago Lake, while sunfish, black crappie, rock bass, black bass and walleye are also present. The event will be held at the public boat launch about three miles south of Richfield Springs on the west side of the lake off Route 28. A warming area and refreshments will be available. DEC will supply most of the bait and tackle but experienced anglers are encouraged to bring their own fishing gear. There will be a short lesson on the basics of ice fishing and filleting your catch, and DEC staff and volunteers will be on hand throughout the day to assist participants on the ice. Long Island - Brookhaven Town Beach on Lake Ronkonkoma - February 6 DEC will team up with Newsday Columnist and Associate Editor of On the Water Magazine, Outdoor Tom Schlichter, to guide participants in a free ice fishing seminar and clinic on Saturday, February 6 from Noon to 2 p.m. It will be held at the Brookhaven Town Beach on Lake Ronkonkoma. The event is in conjunction with the Town of Brookhaven Parks and Recreation Department and the I FISH NY program will provide free fishing rods on loan and bait. No registration is required and the event is open for all anglers ages 10 and up. Participants are encouraged to bring a chair or stool and may opt to bring their own fishing rod and equipment. If there is safe ice on Lake Ronkonkoma participants will get a chance to try their hand at ice fishing. For more information, call 631-444-0283. Cazenovia Lake - Madison County - February 6 This free fishing clinic is scheduled for February 6 from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Cazenovia Lake in Madison County. The event will be held at the Route 20 Department of Transportation (DOT) rest area parking lot on the south end of Cazenovia Lake. DEC will supply bait, tackle and the drilling of holes. There will be a short lesson on the basics of ice fishing and DEC staff will be on hand throughout the event to assist participants on the ice. Cazenovia Lake has bluegill, pumpkinseed sunfish, black crappie, yellow perch and chain pickerel. Otsego Lake - Otsego County - February 17 DEC and the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (State Parks) will co-host a free ice fishing clinic from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Wednesday, February 17, at Glimmerglass State Park in the town of Springfield, Otsego County. DEC will supply most of the bait and tackle, but experienced anglers are encouraged to bring their own fishing gear. After a short lesson on the basics of ice fishing and filleting your catch, DEC and Parks staff will be on hand throughout the day to assist participants on the ice. A warming area and refreshments will be available. Anglers can expect to catch yellow perch and chain pickerel. Sunfish, black crappie, rock bass, black bass, walleye and lake trout are also present in Otsego Lake. The event will be moved to the public boat launch at Canadarago Lake just south of Richfield Springs on NYS Route 28 if there is not sufficient ice on Otsego Lake. Casterline Pond - Cortland County - February 18 DEC will host a free ice fishing clinic on Wednesday, February 18 from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Casterline Pond fishing access parking area on Route 11, just north of Homer in Cortland County. DEC will supply bait, tackle and the drilling of holes. There will be a short lesson on the basics of ice fishing, and DEC staff will be on hand throughout the event to assist participants on the ice. Casterline Pond has brown and rainbow trout, along with bluegill and pumpkinseed sunfish. Carter's Pond - Washington County - March 5 DEC, NYS Conservation Officers Association, and the Washington County Federation of Sportsmen's club will host a free ice fishing clinic on Saturday, March 5 from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Carter's Pond Wildlife Management Area parking lot on State Route 49 in Greenwich, Washington County. More information about Carter's Pond Wildlife Management Area, including a map can be found on the DEC website. There will be a short lesson on the basics of ice fishing, and DEC staff will be on hand throughout the event to assist participants on ice. DEC will provide spikes, tackle, jigging rods and instruction to all participants. Supplies are limited, so people are encouraged to bring their own equipment if they have it. Bait will be provided. Anglers can expect to catch crappies, perch and bluegill. A fire, hot dogs and hot chocolate will also be available. For more information contact event coordinator, Environmental Conservation Office Steve Gonyeau, 518-567-2104. Some events may be postponed depending on ice conditions, and interested participants are encouraged to call the regional DEC office to confirm events are still planned. A listing of DEC regional offices is available. Anglers are reminded that four inches of ice is usually safe for accessing ice on foot. Double that thickness for traveling on white ice. Ice thickness can vary on every body of water or even within the same body of water. Anglers should be particularly wary of areas of moving water and around boat docks and houses where bubblers may be installed to reduce ice buildup. The presence of snowmobile tracks or footprints on the ice should not be taken as evidence of safe ice conditions. Individuals are strongly encouraged to check ice conditions and avoid situations that appear to present even a remote risk. Testing the thickness of ice can easily be done with an auger or ice spud at various spots. Governor Cuomo's NY Open for Fishing and Hunting Initiative is an effort to improve recreational opportunities for sportsmen and women and boost tourism activities throughout the state. This includes streamlining fishing and hunting opportunities in New York State. In support of this initiative, $10 million in NY Works funding has been dedicated to fish hatchery repairs and 50 new land and water access projects such as boat launches, hunting blinds, trails and parking areas. To further encourage fishing in New York State, Governor Cuomo signed legislation in 2012 expanding the opportunity for free fishing clinics, allowing more New Yorkers to experience fishing for the first time by enabling DEC to increase the number of free clinics that can be held throughout the state. The Free Fishing Days program began in 1991 to allow all people the opportunity to sample the incredible fishing New York State has to offer. Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Press Releases By Long Island News & PR Published: January 28 2016 Nassau County Executive Edward P. Mangano and Acting Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter recognized members of the Nassau County Police Department, including father and son Nassau County Police Officers, for helping save the life of a ... Nassau County, NY - January 27, 2016 - Nassau County Executive Edward P. Mangano and Acting Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter recognized members of the Nassau County Police Department, including father and son Nassau County Police Officers, for helping save the life of a Franklin Square resident who had fallen in the frigid waters at the Bay Park Fishing Station. The gentleman was filling his docked duck hunting boat with gasoline after returning from a duck hunting trip when he slipped on the dock and fell into the water. The man was unable to pull himself out of the water as his waders were filled with water. He was in 10 feet of water for approximately 30 minutes. He tried numerous times to call for help using his cell phone and was finally able to reach his son who then called 911. Nassau County Police Officers from the Aviation Unit and Fourth Precinct began searching for the Franklin Square resident. NCPD Police Communications Operator Supervisor Nancy Stanley utilized the 911 System to locate the gentlemans cellular device with a one mile radius at the Bay Park Fishing Station. This information gave officers and aviation a smaller area to search. Fourth Precinct NCPD Police Officer James Sarnataro, Jr. arrived on scene and was able to rescue the aided and pull him out of the water. The gentleman was rendered aid at the scene by NCPD Police Officers and AMTs. He was stabilized and transported to South Nassau Hospital. Assisting in the operation was the NCPDs Aviation Bureau, which was piloted by Police Officer Justin Wocel and Officer Sarnataros father Aviation Bureau NCPD Police Officer James Sarnataro. I had the privilege of honoring four members of the Nassau County Police Department for assisting in saving the life of a Franklin Square resident that had fallen into 37 degree water, said County Executive Mangano. Working together, these officers and Communications Supervisor utilized department resources collaboratively to avert a tragic end. Moments like these give me great pride as County Executive. It is the men and women of the Nassau County Police Department that made Nassau one of the safest large suburban counties in America. Under another contract awarded last month, a tunnel approach will be built and a bridge rebuilt in Sunnyside, Queens. The total value of both contracts is nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars. These are a significant milestones for East Side Access and will turn raw underground caverns into the modern station that LIRR customers will use when they head directly to and from the East Side of Manhattan, said MTA Chairman and CEO Thomas F. Prendergast. And the Sunnyside contract will make it possible for trains to reach Grand Central Terminal. East Side Access will save Long Island and Queens customers up to 40 minutes a day in travel time, demonstrating why transit expansion is a key element of our 2015-19 Capital Program. The Manhattan contract will transform two enormous 1,143-foot-long caverns carved out of solid rock into a terminal station, with more than 12 miles of track work from Queens to Manhattan, including eight tracks and four platforms in the station; elevators, escalators and staircases to carry customers to and from the underground station; and all architectural finishes through the caverns. With the award of these contracts, the eventual completion of East Side Access is starting to come into view, said Dr. Michael Horodniceanu, President of MTA Capital Construction, which is building the project. This is the next chapter in the long history of Grand Central Terminal and the growth and development of New York City. The MTA selected the Tutor Perini Corporation for the 3-year caverns project at a contract value of $663 million. During the year-long procurement process, 34 firms requested the RFP documents and seven submitted separate technical and cost proposals. The selection committee unanimously selected low cost proposer Tutor Perini from among three firms that submitted best and final offers. The contract award was approved on Monday by the Long Island and Finance Committees of the MTA Board and by the full MTA Board today. The contract to make upgrades to railroad infrastructure in Sunnyside, Queens, was also awarded to Tutor Perini Corp., in December, and is valued at up to $79 million. The upgrades will enable LIRR trains to access Grand Central Terminal. The work the contractors will perform in Sunnyside includes excavation and construction of an approach structure that will allow the LIRRs existing tracks to connect to one of the four rail tunnels that have been built below Sunnyside Yard. This will complete the physical connection that will run from the tunnels under Grand Central all the way to daylight in Sunnyside, Queens. Approaches to the other tunnels will be built separately through other contracts. Workers will also replace of one of the five bridges that carry tracks over 48th Street. Additional work that will be performed under this contract includes switch installation; retaining wall construction; installation of electrical utilities; demolition of an electrical substation; and installation of overhead wire support structures. The contract is structured to take 19 months and is valued at $53.3 million. If the MTA deems that the work is going well, the contract allows the authority to exercise options valued at approximately $26.5 million that would expand the scope of work to be undertaken and extend the duration of the contract to a total of 30 months. Construction activities for this contract are planned to be underway in late February. The award of these contracts closely follows the completion of two other major contracts, one for a subsurface ventilation structure at 55th Street in Manhattan and one for major civil infrastructure work in Harold Interlocking in Queens. This past November, the project made its first leap forward into the public realm when the contract to fit-out the future LIRR concourse broke through to the Lower Level Dining Concourse in Grand Central Terminal, where escalators and a stairway will be installed to connect to the new concourse. The East Side Access project will increase the LIRRs capacity into Manhattan, and dramatically shorten travel time for Long Island and eastern Queens commuters traveling to the east side of Manhattan. It is projected to reduce crowding at Penn Station and nearby subway stations and provide easier access from East Midtown to JFK International Airport via the AirTrain at LIRRs Jamaica station. The completion of the East Side Access project will also free up LIRR tracks in Penn Station, allowing trains from the MTA Metro-North Railroads New Haven Line access to Penn Station through Queens. The Penn Station Access project will construct four new stations in the East Bronx, significantly cutting travel times to and from Manhattan. Some public benefits of the East Side Access project already have been realized. Sixteen months ago, the MTA opened 50th Street Commons, a comfortable pocket park between Park and Madison Avenues in Manhattan. A year before, the MTA opened a new entrance to Grand Central inside 245 Park Avenue that faces 47th Street between Park and Lexington avenues. The entrance is now the most direct way to access Grand Centrals platforms from points east of Lexington Avenue and north of 47th Street. East Side Access is scheduled to be completed in December 2022. Looking to stay up to date about all of the news stories and local headlines that are important to Long Islanders? We've rounded up the top coverage for all of the important topics from multiple sources around Long Island, so you can be sure you've got the most recent update on the top stories for Long Island. Have an idea for a news story? Email us at news@longisland.com Columnists Press Releases Just because a neighborhood is filled with construction cranes, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the best area to invest in. In NeighborhoodX's latest analysis, it shows that a landlord is more likely to achieve highest gross rental income returns on Southeast neighborhoods like Anacostia and Barry Farms. Northwest neighborhoods more often than not get the most attention and the most construction, but the rental yields in these neighborhoods aren't always the greatest. The analysis primarily focused on one- and two-bedroom rentals and purchase figures. Additionally, the analysis excluded real estate taxes, commissions, and monthly fees and only took into account all-cash purchases in order to eliminate mortgage from the calculations. According to NeighborhoodX's analysis, the Southeast neighborhood Shipley Terrace, otherwise known as Randle Heights, is the best investment. Against a $1 million investment, it has the highest gross rental income returns at $81,615. The neighborhood features an average annual rent per square foot of $18.69 and a purchase price per square foot of $229. With that, a $1 million investment would be able to buy 4,366 square feet and generate $81,615 in gross rent per year. When comparing the four neighborhoods directly behind Shipley Terrace, the highest gross rental income for each one is almost identical. Between $76,981 to $74,652 in gross rental income returns, the second to fourth best neighborhoods to rent in in order from highest returns to lowest include: Anacostia, Barry Farms, Dupont Circle, and Mount Pleasant. As a whole, the average annual rent per square foot for Washington, D.C. neighborhoods ranged from $16.32 in Anacostia to $46.58 in Dupont Circle. For a closer look at the data, be sure to check out NeighborhoodX's interactive graph here. Gross rental yields in DC (Dec. 2015) [NeighborhoodX] Mapping Washington, D.C.'s Most Home-Flipped Neighborhoods [Curbed DC] Washington, D.C.'s Best Neighborhoods for Renting [Curbed DC] Here Are the Best Family-Friendly Neighborhoods in D.C. [Curbed DC] These New York Neighborhoods Are the Best Investment [Curbed NY] These Miami Neighborhoods Are the Best Investment [Curbed Miami] These Boston Neighborhoods Are the Best Investment [Curbed] Teen-aged jihadists training in an Islamic State Khorasan province propaganda video. The Islamic States branch in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, called Wilayat Khorasan or Khorasan province, is training children to wage jihad. It is unclear where the childrens training center is located, but it is likely situated in Afghanistans eastern province of Nangarhar. The Islamic State showcased the training of young boys in a video entitled Cubs of the Caliphate Camp. The training camp appears to be relatively small compared to others operated by the group in the region. Most of the training shown is weapons related, including how to properly handle and fire different variants of the Kalashnikov assault rifle. The last instructions shown include training in small unit tactics in an open field. This facility joins at least three other Islamic State training facilities in the region. In October, the jihadist group showcased the Sheikh Abu Omar al Baghdadi camp and the Sheikh Abu Musab al Zarqawi camp, which are also likely in Nangarhar. The two facilities are named after the former leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the founder al Qaeda in Iraq (the predecessor of the Islamic State), respectively. These images offer the first official visual evidence of Islamic State training centers in Afghanistan. [For more information, see LWJ report, Islamic State promotes training camps in Khorasan.) In August, photos emerged purporting to show the Shahid Hakeemullah Mehsud camp, which is named after the last leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan and is thought to be located somewhere in Pakistans tribal areas. This facility has yet to be officially confirmed by the jihadist group. Much has been made of the Islamic States presence in Afghanistan by the Western media. While it has training centers for both adults and children in the country, it has so far been contained to the province of Nangarhar after defeats elsewhere in the country, particularly in Farah and Helmand provinces. The Taliban, al Qaeda, and their allies are far more potent in Afghanistan and Pakistan at this time, having overrun dozens of districts. Additionally, other jihadist groups, including the Turkistan Islamic Party, operate training centers for children in the region. The Islamic State has been in competition with al Qaeda for the mantle of leadership in the global jihad, and the establishment of the Khorasan province is a direct threat to both al Qaeda and the Taliban. Screenshots from the Islamic State video: Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of The Long War Journal. Caleb Weiss is a research analyst at FDD's Long War Journal and a senior analyst at the Bridgeway Foundation, where he focuses on the spread of the Islamic State in Central Africa. Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here. Earlier this month, readers named Petworth the 2015 Curbed Cup champion, giving it bragging rights as the number one Washington, D.C. neighborhood of the year. Once again, it's time to put the Northwest neighborhood in the spotlight by featuring the five most expensive houses currently on the Petworth market. Below, in order from the highest $1.4 million to the lowest $850,000, you will be able to search through all of the photos and information you need to understand what the big spenders are focusing on. A few of these listings might be closer to other neighborhoods, but Curbed stuck with the listings Redfin provided in the Petworth section of their search engine. For those who might be interested in knowing what a typical listing is worth in the neighborhood, the median listing price is $395,000, while the median sale price is $316,000, according to national real estate brokerage Redfin. If interested in taking a tour of pricey properties in another neighborhood, let Curbed know by leaving a comment or by emailing our tipline. 816 Taylor Street NW Price: $1,395,000 Size: 5-bed, 5.5-bath, 4,275-square-foot townhome The Skinny: This restored, four-story abode comes with a Nest thermostat, wide plank red oak hardwood flooring, and a wraparound porch. Other striking details include its dual staircases and the fact that it offers enough off-street parking for three cars. Despite this listing being the most expensive house currently on the Petworth market, its price-per-square-foot price ($326) is in line with the area ($394), according to UrbanTurf. 1404 Decatur Street NW Price: $1,229,000 Size: 5-bed, 5-bath, 3,816-square-foot townhome The Skinny: The Roupas Group landed this renovated townhome on the Petworth market in September 2015 with an asking price of $1.45 million. Despite its gourmet kitchen and private landscaped backyard, it needed a price chop in order to appeal to buyers. Don't be swayed, though. Some of the more attractive features include its front porch, stainless steel appliances, and in-law suite. 1341 Shepherd Street NW Price: $1,150,000 Size: 5-bed, 3.5-bath, 2,054-square-foot townhome The Skinny: Despite being built in 1913, this townhome is new from the inside outfrom its roof to its electric wiring to its plumbing to its solar panels. Even the windows are new. Other highlights include its sun room, rear brick patio, and fully finished basement. 1501 Crittenden Street NW Price: $999,000 Size: 6-bed, 3-bath, 2,766-square-foot townhome The Skinny: With exposed brick walls, hardwood flooring with walnut inlay, and a myriad of chandeliers, this listing is for those who crave wow factor with their interior design. Other features that may appeal to homebuyers include its sunroom and in-law suite. 3716 9th Street NW Price: $849,950 Size: 3-bed, 1.5-bath, 1,020-square-foot townhome The Skinny: Last on this list is this three-story townhome. It was first listed in October 2015 for $925,000, but a month later got a price chop, dropping it to its current ask. According to the listing, this property is "well kept" and comes with a new furnace, new hot water heater, new tiles in the kitchen, and refinished flooring. For those in need of some off-street parking, the listing also offers one underground parking spot and two rear parking spots. Inside the 5 Most Expensive Homes Currently on the D.C. Market [Curbed DC] Inside the 5 Most Expensive Homes in Bethesda Right Now [Curbed DC] As the US and China continue to push for Afghan peace negotiations, the Taliban maintains that it wants no part in sharing power with the existing Afghan government. In a statement released on its official website, Voice of Jihad, that mocked US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carters recent statement that the Talibans existence in Afghanistan was only a temporary phenomenon, the group concluded with the following [emphasis mine]: The Islamic Emirate has not readily embraced this death and destruction for the sake of some silly ministerial posts or a share of the power. On the contrary they epitomize the nations hopes and aspirations for a just and peaceful government that will strive to build our beloved nation on the basis of Islamic law, social justice and national interests. The people of Afghanistan readily sacrifice their sons to achieve this objective. And the Emirate as the true representative of our people will not end its peaceful and armed endeavors until we have achieved this hope of Afghanistan. This objective mentioned in the above quote is the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Talibans official name of its government. The Taliban has insisted from the very beginning that it will settle for nothing less than regaining full power. In its most recent statement, the Taliban discusses the Vietcong and its protracted fight and ultimate victory in outlasting the US in Vietnam: Has Ashton Carter forgotten that the Americans made similar statements about the Vietcong during the Vietnam War and yet some forty years later the Vietcong (or its successors) are very much alive and in control of their country? The Taliban continue to deftly manipulate Western leaders desire for a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan in order to extract concessions. But the Taliban will not denounce al Qaeda, and will not settle for anything less than a full return to power. Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal. Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here. Luton is a large town, borough and unitary authority area of Bedfordshire. Luton and its near neighbours, Dunstable and Houghton Regis, form the Luton/Dunstable Urban Area with a population of about 258,000. Luton is home to Championship team Luton Town Football Club, London Luton Airport and The University of Bedfordshire. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter. For all the latest news from Luton sign up to our newsletter here. Privacy Overview This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful. 'Hola Havana' JetSuite Introduces Private Jet Service to Cuba Family visit (A 515.561); Official business of the U.S. government, foreign governments, and certain intergovernmental organizations (A 515.562); Journalistic activity (A 515.563); Professional research and professional meetings (A 515.564); Educational activities (A 515.565); Religious activities (A 515.566); Public performances, clinics, workshops, athletic and other competitions, and exhibitions (A 515.567); Support for the Cuban people (A 515.574); Humanitarian projects (A 515.575); Activities of private foundations or research or educational institutes (A 515.576); Exportation, importation, or transmission of information or informational materials (A 515.545); and Certain export transactions that may be considered for authorization under existing Department of Commerce regulations and guidelines with respect to Cuba or engaged in by U.S.-owned or-controlled foreign firms (A 515.533 and A 515.559). Travelers to Cuba can now visit the formerly off-limits Caribbean destination on an ARGUS Platinum-rated charter provider. Passengers may charter a six-passenger JetSuite Edition CJ3, or four-passenger Phenom 100, non-stop to Havana from any of the Cuba gateway airports listed below. JetSuite serves more than 2,000 U.S. airports but all flights to Havana must depart from one of these Cuba gateway airports.Our mission continues to revolve around making private air travel accessible to more people than ever before, and offering an unprecedented level of transparency, explains JetSuite CEO Alex Wilcox. We are thrilled to expand our service to Cuba, a destination I know our clients will be eager to explore."One-way pricing, for up to six passengers, includes:Key West, FL (EYW) $11,152Ft. Lauderdale(FLL) $11,319Miami, FL (MIA) $11,519Ft. Myers, FL (RSW) $11,502Palm Beach, FL (PBI) $11,585Tampa, FL (TPA) $12,144Orlando, FL (MCO) $14,712New Orleans, LA (MSY) $17,556Atlanta, GA (ATL) $17,140Houston, TX (IAH) $18,831Austin, TX (AUS) $19,767Dallas, TX (DFW) $20,752Pittsburgh, PA (PIT) $21,095Baltimore/Washington(BWI) $21,659New York, NY (JFK) $22,449Chicago, IL (ORD) $23,675JetSuite prides itself in pricing transparency and always provides guaranteed quotes on. Due to the restrictions surrounding US citizen travel to Cuba, pricing listed above is estimated at our June 2015 50K Member rate.The United States Government limits travel to Cuba. JetSuite passengers traveling to and from Cuba are responsible for securing their own permissions and must declare that they are authorized to travel or send remittances to Cuba under the following general license as set forth in 31 CFR A 515.560:JetSuite suggests referencing the United States' Department of State website for further information and does not provide approvals, permissions or advice of any sort. Once permissions are secured, all JetSuite passengers must complete the Cuba Traveler Certification Form.For a formal price quote to Cuba, please e-mail GuestServices@JetSuite.com or call 866-779-7770, ext. 2 . For more information, visit www.jetsuite.com Puglia Hailed as 2016's Hottest Holiday Destination Italy's boot is a delightful off-the-beaten track holiday destination, and has been pegged as one of this year's hottest new locations to explore.Highly respected travel publications such as Tatler, The New York Times T magazine and Conde Nast have all recently written about Puglia's beauty, encouraging discerning travelers to try it out in 2016. The region is also mentioned in ABTA Travel Trends 2016 Report, citing the charming trulli houses of Alberobello, and noting that Apulia has some of Italy's best beaches.Chiara Tenuzzo, Director of Aria Luxury Apulia said, It's incredible to see that esteemed travel journalists are writing about Puglia and inspiring readers to visit the region's towns and coastlines which are off the beaten track. Because it's a fairly undiscovered part of Italy, the region is still peaceful and has kept its authenticity, which makes it a fantastic holiday destination. 2016 is definitely the time to visit Puglia.The article in Conde Nast Traveller magazine starts with stating that nobody had ever heard of Puglia back in the 1980s but now all that is about to change. After being featured in the ABTA Travel Trends 2016 report, a new wave of holidaymakers are expected to explore Italy's hidden gem this year. The most recent coverage of the region, in Tatler's February 2016 issue, proclaims Puglia is no longer the outsider.The Puglia region covers the entirety of Puglia's boot, encompassing hundreds of miles of stunning coastline, rustic countryside and picturesque Italian towns such as Lecce, Bari and Salento. The region has its own distinctive culture and cuisine, which can be enjoyed at local markets and restaurants, vineyard and olive grove tours and gastronomy experiences.Aria Luxury Apulia is a London based travel company which specialises exclusively in exceptional Puglia villa holidays. With travel company scattered all over the region, the company also offers bespoke itineraries and one-of-a-kind experiences to create holidays on another level to any other villa holiday. As the company is fully focused on one destination, its knowledge is supreme and it is well positioned to give five star advice and recommendations on all Puglia destinations.Chiara added, From the stunning scenery to its sensational history and architecture Puglia has it all. Contact us today to find out more about 2016's hottest travel destination in Europe.To find out more about Aria Luxury Apulia visit: Solage Calistoga Named One of the Best Hotels in Napa Valley Today, the publication released its annual evaluation of hotels that offer high-quality amenities and exceptional experiences."We are thrilled to see Solage Calistoga recognized as a top destination in Napa Valley in U.S. News & World Report Best Hotels awards," said General Manager, Marcus Mueller. "Showcasing the finest hotels and resorts in the region, this is fantastic recognition for Solage and we look forward to continuing the resort's reputation for excellence throughout 2016 and beyond."The Best Hotels methodology combines a hotel's industry accolades with expert and guest reviews and hotel class ratings. U.S. News scored luxury hotels, identifying the top 10 percent in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean with Gold badges and the top 30 percent within specific markets with Silver badges. The rankings feature over 2,500 hotels across the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean."Travelers don't have to waste time searching for a great hotel," said Erin Shields, travel editor for U.S. News. "The 2016 Best Hotels are adored by industry experts and travelers alike for their great amenities, comfortable rooms and exemplary service."Solage Calistoga had a celebrated year in 2015, debuting multi-million dollar renovations to both the seven-time Michelin Star-rated Solbar restaurant and wellness destination, Spa Solage. These upgrades to the resort amplified the guest experience, leading to recognitions from both trade and consumer publications; Solage Calistoga was ranked #5 in the Top 15 Resorts in Northern California in the 2015 Conde Nast Traveler Readers' Choice Awards.For more information and reservations, please contact Solage Calistoga at (707) 226-0806 or visit Turkish Airlines Partners with Warner Bros. Pictures for Batman v Superman The film features a pivotal scene aboard a 777 Turkish Airlines plane where Batman and Superman will face off for the first time ever on the big screen. The film comes to cinemas worldwide on March 25, 2016.M. Ilker AycA, Turkish Airlines' Chairman, said, We're extremely excited to partner with Warner Bros. Pictures on the most anticipated movie of the year. The excitement around Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice will enable Turkish Airlines to showcase our global network and unrivaled hospitality to a legion of moviegoers across the world.Gene Garlock, Warner Bros. Pictures' Executive Vice President, Worldwide Promotional Partnerships also commented: We are delighted to be partnering with Turkish Airlines to take Batman and Superman into the skies and to fans everywhere.What made Turkish Airlines such an inspiring partner was their aspiration to dream up something more than just a promotional program but an experience that would be as original and epic as the film.To coincide with the release of the film, Turkish Airlines is unveiling innovative movie-themed experiences that will give fans around the world an inside look into the world of the iconic Superheroes. The Star Alliance member has created an array of experiences, beginning with an invitation for travelers to book flights to two new U.S. destinations Gotham City and Metropolis. Turkish Airlines currently flies to 113 countries, more than any other airline, with flights to 284 destinations which now includes the home cities of Batman and Superman.Showcasing Gotham City and Metropolis as our newest U.S. destinations' reinforces our commitment to grow Turkish Airlines' visibility in the U.S., a vital and increasingly developing market for the airline, said AycA.Beginning February 8th through to Mid March 2016, Turkish Airlines is inviting fans and newcomers alike to visitorwhere they can reserve flights and begin their journey into the world of Gotham City and Metropolis. In doing so, participants will get an exclusive insight into the life of each city, by means of virtual reality and experience the activities, culture, nightlife and more.With the Gotham City and Metropolis virtual experience as the centrepiece of its partnership with Warner Bros., Turkish Airlines is also sponsoring the movie's premieres and will offer eight lucky fans the opportunity to attend one of these events. Furthermore, beginning today, Turkish Airlines will begin unveiling its movie-themed activations, including: An exclusive 777 Turkish Airlines wrapped in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice imagery Limited edition movie-themed in-flight amenity kits for adults, which includes an eye mask and slippers; Limited edition movie-themed in-flight amenity kits for children, including headphones, slippers, and a watch; Movie-themed in-flight menu items, such as branded cookies and cupcakes; A Time Out travel guide featuring content focusing on Gotham City and Metropolis, which will be distributed to moviegoers, passengers and at select venues; A special edition frequent flyer Miles & Smiles cardFans can also join the online conversation around the movie using the hashtags #flytogotham and #flytometropolis.Visit website: Africa is a haven for counterfeiters. Yet things are changing. With the World Health Organisation estimating that 30% of the pharmaceutical market in Africa is counterfeit, African governments understand that counterfeiting creates public health, fiscal and societal problems. They know that they need to provide effective IP enforcement measures. Such measures now feature prominently in much of the new IP legislation in Africa. We will look at a few countries. South Africa The Counterfeit Goods Act, 1997 provides procedural mechanisms that assist IP owners. An IP owner can request the police and Customs authorities to search premises where it suspects that counterfeit goods are being stored or entering the country, and seize those goods so that they can be used in evidence in infringement proceedings. The legislation also creates various criminal offences. Kenya There is an Anti-Counterfeit Act of 2008, which provides for the seizure and detention of goods, and lays down harsh penalties for infringers. An Anti-Counterfeit Agency was formed after the introduction of the Act. In 2012 Kenya's High Court ruled that the Anti-Counterfeit Act was too broad, because it could interfere with the flow of generic medicines. In a recent case involving copyright infringement a Kenyan court issued a search and seizure (Anton Piller) order to preserve evidence. The Kenyan authorities recently amalgamated a number of IP bodies including the Anti-Counterfeit Agency, to cut bureaucracy and improve co-operation in enforcement. Ghana On July 25 2014 the Trademarks (Amendment) Act came into force. Various forms of intentional trade mark infringement are now criminal offences. A court can order forfeiture and destruction of goods where criminal offences are being investigated. Tanzania In 2008 Tanzania passed the Merchandise Mark Regulations. There is provision for the appointment of inspectors, powers of detention and seizure of goods, and criminal prosecutions. Angola In 2014 the Copyright and Related Rights Law came into effect. This provides for the seizure of infringing goods while legal proceedings are pending, as well as for damages and the destruction of infringing material and equipment used in an infringement. Morocco On 18 December 2014 the new Industrial Property Law came into force. Customs authorities have the power to detain counterfeit goods that are in transit, and infringers can be required to pay the cost of warehousing and destroying counterfeit goods. Uganda Uganda's Anti-Counterfeit Goods Bill 2009 (not yet in force) clarifies that counterfeiting is limited to trade mark and copyright infringements the earlier version had referred to patent infringements as well. Zambia The Intellectual Property Bill of 2011 (not yet in force) provides for a five-year prison term for counterfeiting, and for border seizures of counterfeit goods. There may be some way to go, but things are moving in the right direction. Wayne Meiring Spoor & Fisher Jersey Africa House, Castle Street St Helier, Jersey JE4 9TW Channel Islands Tel: +44 1534 838000 Fax: +44 1534 838001 info@spoor.co.uk www.spoor.com IP enforcement in Vietnam saw continued development in the past year. As we have reported previously, 2014 saw several breakthrough cases in patent infringement, domain name dispute resolution and other areas. In 2015, the law continued to evolve as more and more complex questions arose. Patent jurisprudence Key developments in patent litigation in 2015 arose in a case in which a European agrochemical company filed a civil action against a Vietnamese agrochemical producer in Ho Chi Minh City, charging that the Vietnamese company had infringed the European company's pesticide patent. In response, the local company filed an invalidation action in relation to the patent. Notably, the HCMC Court did not stay the patent litigation case pending the outcome of the invalidation proceeding, but rather proceeded to issue its judgment declaring patent infringement and imposing orders for the infringer to pay damages and attorney's fees. This was an important development in jurisprudence that should be noted by practitioners. Another positive development in jurisprudence was that in the same case, the HCMC Court took a rare stance in crafting its judgment to effectively act as a permanent injunction prohibiting the infringer from committing further infringement of the patent in question. Typically, in Vietnam, judgments do not contain such language, and therefore often leave winning rights holders dissatisfied. A related development in patent litigation jurisprudence was the increasing role of opinions from the National Office of Intellectual Property (NOIP) in the handling of cases. Previously, enforcement authorities such as the Inspectorate of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) would adjudicate a case based solely on an opinion from VIPRI, a quasi-governmental agency which can issue expert opinions. However, due to the increasing complexity of patent cases in Vietnam, as well as the high-profile nature of the cases, now that more of them involve local generic producers, there has been a trend for the enforcement authorities to also ask the NOIP for an expert opinion to be considered along with the VIPRI opinion. In a sense, MOST or other agencies feel more comfortable in handling a case when there are two expert opinions affirming the infringement. Although having two positive opinions puts the rights holder in a very strong position, this new step may prolong the time needed for settling a case. Parallel imports The past year also saw new developments in relation to the handling of parallel imports under the law. Parallel imports are generally allowed under Vietnamese law. However, in a case involving a major European research-based pharmaceutical manufacturer, the manufacturer was able to employ a strategy to effectively prevent parallel imports into Vietnam based on regulatory issues. In this case, the rights holder learned that a Vietnamese company was importing diabetes drugs into Vietnam that the company had manufactured for the Turkish market. While these drugs were "genuine" products of the manufacturer, and drugs under the same brand name had been authorised for circulation in Vietnam, Turkey requires different standards for storage than Vietnam, and the company believed the quality of the drugs would deteriorate more rapidly in Vietnam's tropical climate, negatively impacting consumer health as well as the manufacturer's reputation. At the company's request, the Hanoi Market Control Department in cooperation with the Inspectorate of the Department of Health conducted a sweep action against two major distributors of the products. After the raid, the authorities seized hundreds of parallel import products, and decided to sanction the distribution of the parallel imports by relying on regulatory aspects, especially labelling regulations, imposing a monetary fine on the infringers. The authorities then sent a letter to the Drug Administration of Vietnam (DAV), bringing the DAV's attention to the regulatory violations in particular and the parallel import situation in general. It is hoped this will lead the DAV to take further precautions in granting licences for parallel importation. Domain name disputes In 2015, MOST continued to rule that various domain name registrations constituted IP infringements if the domain name included the trade mark of a rights holder. However, the way in which such decisions were implemented has shifted. In 2014, a few cases were implemented by the Ministry of Information in Communications, which ordered the Vietnam domain name registry to revoke the names and allow the rights holders to register them. However, in 2015, as the domain name regulations are in flux, and the authorities are still debating how to handle such cases, there was a trend toward the authorities merely revoking infringing domain name registrations but not allowing the true rights holders to register them. Thus, the domain names are effectively suspended, and no one is allowed to register them. What's ahead in 2016? In 2016, we expect some of the following to be key developments: Vietnam may adopt long-awaited legislation to help solve problems in combatting infringing company names, as well as infringing domain names, in the form of a joint circular between relevant competent authorities. There will be increased action in the area of licensing of copyrighted works such as films and music due to more effective enforcement programmes by rights holders. Generic pharma companies will seek to fight back more strongly on the patent side. Vietnam may enact implementing regulations relating to TPP provisions (such as relating to patent term extension). Thomas J Treutler Loc Xuan Le Tilleke & GibbinsHAREC Building, 4th Floor4A Lang Ha Street, Ba Dinh District, Hanoi, Vietnam Tel: +84 4 3772 6688Fax: +84 4 3772 5568vietnam@tilleke.comwww.tilleke.com The Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council of China has recently released the latest draft of the amended Patent Law on its website for public opinions (the 2015.12 draft). According to the 5th Plenary Resolution, China places innovation as its primary policy priority. Innovation at the theoretical, institutional and technological levels are highly encouraged by the government. The 4th amendment of the Patent Law is widely considered as a promising opportunity to support technology innovation initiatives in China. The latest draft was prepared by the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) and is now submitted to the State Council Legislative Affairs Office for review. A new draft may be available for public comments later this year or early next year. A major discussion point so far about this draft is the administrative endowment of patents. The dual-track approach of patent enforcement system in China is unique. A patentee is allowed to choose between judicial and administrative remedies for patent enforcement, although in practice few patent owners rely on administrative enforcement approach. One common issue, as patent owners and practitioners have often noted, is that local patent offices do not have enough manpower and always use a mediation approach to resolve disputes. In this fourth amendment, it seems that the SIPO wishes to significantly add more utility to the administrative enforcement mechanism. It has aroused lots of attention that the 2015.12 draft proposed that in order to combat wilful infringement that disturbs market order such as group infringement and repetitive infringement, patent administrative authorities have the power to issue injunctions, and to confiscate or destroy infringing products and tools for infringement. There has been some concern that the expansion of administrative enforcement powers may increase the risk of patent trolls. Some people argue that China should centralise its patent enforcement in the hands of judges, rather than allowing patent offices across the country to handle disputes. The final outcome of this debate remains to be seen. A pleasant surprise is that SIPO proposes that China should allow partial designs to be patentable. The scope of design patent is expanded to partial design of a product from merely the design of a product (Article 2 of 2015.12 draft) This would further promote industrial designs, especially graphical user interface designs. Besides, as China plans to sign up to the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs, the protection term of a design patent is extended to 15 years as required by the Hague Agreement (Article 42 of 2015.12 draft). In addition, a domestic design patent application is entitled to enjoy priority of six months, which gives foreign and domestic applications equal treatment (Article 29 of 2015.12 draft). But industry experts have been proposing China may follow the US practice, giving a one year grace period to patent applicants, without imposing harsh conditions. Another pleasant improvement in the 2015.12 draft relates to damages. Punitive damage of up to three times for wilful infringement are introduced in the amendment of the Patent Law. Statutory compensation is significantly increased from Rmb10,000 to Rmb 1 million up to Rmb100,000 to Rmb 5 million (Article 68 of 2015.12 draft), although the lower limit Rmb100,000 is not meant to be a requirement. Considering that in practice the statutory compensation is adopted by a court in most patent infringement cases, the change on statutory compensation may be good news for patentees. At the same time, some small medium enterprises raise a concern that a statutory damage of Rmb100,000 may be burdensome and even unfair if the scale of infringement is small. Similar to what we have seen in the China Trademark Law, the proposed amendment also sets a mechanism regarding the burden of proof. After the infringement is concluded, if the patentee tries its best to collect evidence on damages, a court may shift the burden of proof to the infringer to provide evidence such as account books (Article 68 of 2015.12 draft). SIPO also makes an encouraging change to the idea of the indirect infringement liability in the patent law. This was dropped in 2008 when China amended its patent law. SIPO seems to intend to change this through the new draft. In the 2015.12 draft, any one who knowingly provides raw materials, intermediaries, components or equipment that is specifically designed for infringing a patent, shall bear joint and several liability with an infringer. Besides, anyone inducing others to infringe a patent shall bear joint and several liability with an infringer (Article 62 of 2015.12 draft). This provision expands the scope of indirect infringement and may provide broader protection to patent holders. A related rule is for online infringement. To combat online patent infringement, the SIPO now proposes that if an internet service provider knows or should know an infringer uses its internet service for patent infringement, but does not timely take any action to stop the infringement, the internet service provider shall bear joint and several liability with the infringer (Article 63 of 2015.12 draft). Similar rules often appear in the copyright law sector. It is a bit surprising that the SIPO wishes to impose contributory liability in the online space in the patent law. We expect some debate will take place. The 2015.04 draft further regulates standard essential patents (SEPs). For example, if a SEP fails to be disclosed by a patentee during its participation in a national standard formation, that SEP shall be deemed to be licensed to a standard implementer. Both parties could negotiate a royalty afterwards. If the negotiation fails, the parties may request the SIPO to make a determination. Industry players, patent practitioners and academics should follow the developments closely to make substantial improvements to China's innovation ecosystem. Li Binxin Wang Ying AnJie Law Firm26/F, Tower D, Central International Trade Center6A Jianguomenwai Avenue, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100022, PR ChinaTel: +86 10 8567 5988Fax: +86 10 8567 5999wuli@anjielaw.comwww.anjielaw.com This month we take a detour from trade mark issues to cover recent developments in data privacy, a subject that has been the focus of considerable attention from Chinese regulators over the past few years. On September 29 2015, China's National People's Congress promulgated the Ninth Amendment to the PRC Criminal Law, broadening the scope of protection afforded to citizens' personal information, while also inserting new provisions aimed at combating online fraud, pornography and other illegal online content. The Amendment is one in a series of recent data privacy-related pronouncements harmonising the country's data privacy requirements across the civil, administrative and criminal spheres. It follows the release in mid-2015 of a draft PRC Network Security Law that would create significant new obligations for businesses in China that collect, process, and use personal information. Background As China transitions from a manufacturing to a service economy, Chinese leaders view the internet as a critical tool to provide jobs and spur domestic consumption. In March 2015, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced the country's Internet Plus strategy, under which internet technologies such as big data and cloud computing are to be integrated with manufacturing, business and government to drive economic growth. Top Chinese officials are now considering the shape of the nation's next five-year development plan, which early reports indicate will place "innovation" at the forefront of development. With the internet seen as a crucial driver of economic growth, Chinese officials are increasingly tasked with ensuring a proper regulatory environment to govern this new online ecosystem. Over the past few years, this has been reflected in the issuance of several laws and regulations establishing baseline protections for the personal information of Chinese citizens. And while China lacks a comprehensive national data privacy regulation, the patchwork of regulations that have emerged since 2011 now include many of the requirements commonly found in other, more developed legal systems, in particular for data relating to online and offline commerce. Personal information protections expanded From a data privacy perspective, the most significant aspects of the Amendment are the changes it makes to PRC Criminal Law Article 253. First added in 2011 under the Eighth Amendment to the PRC Criminal Law, the previous Article 253 prohibited government employees and employees in certain public-facing industries (such as healthcare or telecommunications) from selling or "illegally providing" citizens' personal information obtained through their employment to third parties. But the Article's imprecise wording gave rise to uncertainty over its scope, in particular with regard to the types of industries covered. Under the newly amended Article 253, no individual or organisation in any industry is permitted to sell or illegally provide citizens' personal information to a third party in violation of "relevant state regulations". Unlike the previous formulation, this prohibition now applies to all personal information, not only to personal information obtained through employment. Where personal information is transferred in violation of the law, criminal liability may be assessed against both the provider and the recipient. In addition to the previous punishment of three years or less of criminal detention for "serious" violations, the Amendment now adds a new category of "extremely serious" cases that are subject to three to seven years' imprisonment plus fines. No further information is provided as to what constitutes a "serious" or "extremely serious" offence, though the Amendment does add a provision stating that those parties illegally selling or providing personal information obtained in the course of performing "official duties" will receive a "heavier sentence" under these remedial provisions. With this new language, Chinese regulators have significantly broadened the scope of Article 253 to leave no doubt that all personal information collected within China must be transferred in accordance with China's relevant laws governing user notice and consent, collection, and scope of use. New prohibitions for online acts The Amendment also inserts two new provisions criminalising certain types of online conduct. Under new Article 286(a), a "network service provider" that has failed to institute legally mandated IT-security mechanisms and refused subsequent orders by the authorities to adopt such measures may be criminally prosecuted where such oversight has resulted in: transmission of a large volume of illegal information; disclosure of user information causing serious consequences; destruction of evidence used in a criminal case, where the circumstances are serious; or other "serious" circumstances (undefined). The Amendment also inserts a new Article 287(a) that provides for up to three years' detention and a fine in instances where an individual or organisation uses a data network to: set up a website or mailing list to conduct fraud, transmit criminal information, or make or sell prohibited or controlled items; publish information relating to the production or sale of controlled items, such as drugs, guns, pornography or other illegal online content; or publishes information for committing fraud or other illegal or criminal activities. Similar penalties are provided for in Article 287(b) for any party that assists the aforementioned acts by providing technical (such as server hosting or web storage) or other assistance. China's e-commerce market is now the world's largest, and with these new provisions Chinese authorities seem determined to ensure that it develops under the healthy guidance of the state. As China acts to further its Internet Plus ambitions, companies with local operations will want to continue to monitor national regulations for compliance and exercise careful oversight and monitoring of company data collection practices and employee use. Scott Livingston SIPS Hong KongLockhart Road No 3Wanchai, Hong KongChinamail@sips.asiaTel: +852 2866 6400Fax: +852 2866 6408 Sergeant Matthew Sprankle, a mortarman with Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response-Africa was awarded the Marine Corps Medal for saving a local man from drowning in Dakar, Senegal, last August at Moron Air Base, Spain, Jan. 26 . Sprankle received the Navy and Marine Corps medal, the highest non-combat decoration awarded for heroism by the Department of the Navy, from Maj. Gen. Niel Nelson, commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa. You couldnt ask for a finer tribute to [SPMAGTF] than the ceremony for Sgt. Sprankle, said Nelson, [His actions] really put a fine touch on SPMAGTFs capabilities. They do everything and they also have some fantastic Marines in their ranks. Sprankle recalled the ordeal on August 28, 2015 down in Senegal. I was out to eat one night with a bunch of the other guys and it started to get dark and then we heard some screaming from the water So we went to check it out and it just happened to be [someone] struggling to stay afloat. Said Sprankle, I noticed there was actually another local national that tried to go out there and get him and he made it about halfway and just decided to turn around and go back so I was just like alright well I guess Ive got to go get him. So I just grabbed the buoy and hopped in and swam out there, stuffed it in his chest and drug him back. Sprankle was in Senegal to conduct partner-nation training with the Senegalese military and had actually been conducting swim assessments with Senegalese military personnel. I had just finished [Marine Corps Water Survival Training] about a month before that so Id been swimming constantly for a solid three weeks; my conditioning was good. I also had all the information that I needed as far as what to do in certain situations so it definitely paid off, Sprankle said. The effects on Senegalese-American relations that this particular action had were not lost on Sprankle, especially since one of the missions of SPMAGTF-CR-AF is to strengthen foreign partnerships. Word got to the U.S. Ambassador and even the Senegalese military; it definitely helped strengthen our relationship with them because I was willing to risk my life to save somebody in a foreign country that I didnt know. While extremely appreciative of the award, Sprankle explained that his actions are simply indicative of the bond he has formed with his team on deployment. I dont really do anything for awards. I really dont. Its not really something that Ive ever been big on. I do stuff for other people, like my Marines, thats really what I care about more than anything. The Marines are postured in Europe in support of U.S. Africa Command and conduct theater security events with partner nations in Africa, improving capabilities and maintaining relationships with host nation militaries and communities. Art Anderson Associates and partner EESImarine have been developing concepts for an all-electric ferry and are now teaming to generate funding for the implementation of the concept for Skagit Countys Guemes Island-Anacortes passenger and car ferry replacement. After careful study of the Guemes Island Ferry route, Art Anderson Associates proposed to the Skagit County Board of Commissioners the all-electric ferry as a viable replacement for their aging ferry with additional benefits of reducing the lifecycle costs and environmental impacts a traditional diesel ferry would have. The Skagit County Board of Commissioners signed a resolution on December 29, 2015 directing its Public Works Department to conduct an all-electric ferry feasibility study with Art Anderson Associates. The all-electric ferry being developed will be a practical alternative for operators of shorter run ferries throughout the world who want to accomplish zero emissions and achieve a reduction in overall costs of operations. It is projected the all-electric ferry will reduce owner costs by up to $170,000 per year and provide an overall breakeven cost after five years of operation compared to an engine driven vessel. The vessels propulsion and power would be supplied by two battery banks using low maintenance technology. The battery banks can be easily arranged around required structural support, significantly simplifying vessel arrangements due to the elimination of many engine and fuel support systems. The power system design requires no exotic hull materials or design and can also be used to retrofit an existing vessel. New all-electric vessel construction costs are estimated at approximately 5% more than an engine-driven version. This design concept has the potential to be a true differentiator in the marine industry as an alternative form of vessel propulsion. With demonstrated performance and future advances in battery technology, this propulsion system can be scalable and ultimately contend with other means of propulsion for cost of construction and operation, and having zero environmental impact, stated Eric Engelbrecht, Vice President at Art Anderson Associates. Funding is being sought through a variety of public and private sources. Skagit County has committed funds to conduct a propulsion study on the current ferry route and Art Anderson Associates is developing technical content for further funding outreach. Currently, Art Anderson Associates is supporting Skagit County as it submits a proposal for a grant from Washington States Clean Energy Fund among other opportunities. If successful, this project would be the first all-electric, battery-powered vehicle ferry in North America. We are extremely excited to be working with Art Anderson Associates to conduct a feasibility analysis for this innovative technology that can have so many positive impacts to the citizens of Skagit County, Washington states marine industry and the environment, said Captain Rachel Rowe, Ferry Operations Division Manager for Skagit County. Chinese iron ore and coal imports to fall in 2016 - Clarkson Freight rates for capesize bulk carriers on key Asian routes are likely to stay flat as vessel volumes outpace cargo demand and the approaching Chinese New Year holiday further dampens chartering activity, ship brokers said on Thursday. There is little hope of any improvement in rates, which remain at near 16-1/2-year lows, even after the Chinese New Year holiday which starts on Feb. 7, brokers said. Forward freight rates for March on the Australia-China capesize route are at levels of $3 a tonne currently, a Shanghai-based capesize broker said. "People don't give much hope there at all. The market is flat and gloomy," the broker said. Shipowners have idled up to 50 capesize ships in Asian waters rather than sail ships at a loss as average daily freight rates are at levels that are about half that of daily operating costs. "I think you'll see operators are going to struggle. The market is at rock bottom," a Singapore-based capesize broker said. That came as ship broker Banchero Costa (Bancosta) said the capesize fleet would grow by 4 percent in tonnage terms this year, while Chinese imports of iron ore and coal, the two staple cargoes for capesize ships, are forecast to fall, Clarkson said. China's iron ore imports will drop to 919.2 million tonnes in 2016 from 924 million tonnes last year, while coal imports will fall 8 percent to 156.1 million tonnes this year, Clarkson said. A new record level of capesize scrapping is expected this year, after a record 14-15 million deadweight of capesize tonnage was sold for demolition last year, said Ralph Leszczynski, head of research at Bancosta in Singapore. "The lack of long-term optimism will probably prompt even less older tonnage to be considered for scrapping," said a senior executive at a Singapore ship management company. Capesize charter rates for the Western Australia-China route nudged up to $3 per tonne on Wednesday, from $2.90 a tonne a week ago. Rates for the Brazil-China route were higher at $5.46 a tonne on Wednesday, against $5.35 a tonne on the same day last week. Panamax rates for a north Pacific round-trip voyage dropped to $2,118 per day on Wednesday, the lowest since January 2009, from $2,587 per day on the same day last week. "(There is) no where to hide in the Panamax market," Norwegian ship broker Fearnley said in a note on Wednesday. Freight rates for smaller supramax vessels dropped to around $2,500 per day for a voyage from Indonesia to India. The Baltic Exchange's main sea freight index dropped to a new all-time low of 337 on Wednesday from 358 the same day last week. Reporting by Keith Wallis Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. (MOL; President & CEO: Junichiro Ikeda) today announced that on January 20, 2016, the MOL-operated car carrier TRIUMPH ACE safely rescued a survivor about 80 km offshore of Mexico. Details of the rescue follow: At 08:50 (all times in local time) on January 20, 2016, the TRIUMPH ACE, sailing from the Port of Mazatlan, Mexico to Port of Balboa, Panama found a drifting person and immediately changed course to approach the castaway, and started rescue operations. At 10:48 of the same day, the survivor was safely rescued. At 13:45 of the same day, the survivor was turned over to a ship of the Mexican Navy. [Outline of TRIUMPH ACE] LOA : 199.9 m Gross Tonnage : 55,880 MT Crew : 24 (Indian) Registry : Panama 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the Port of Beaumont, a major deepwater port in Southeast Texas. A series of celebrations and public events began October 20th, when the Greater Beaumont Chamber of Commerce presented the port with its Spindletop Award for outstanding corporate citizenship. A record crowd of 800 people were on hand for the 112th annual Chamber meeting, where keynote speaker, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, saluted the port for 100 years of service. Port officials have planned a number of events over the next six months to commemorate the Centennial. A Centennial history book will be released in early summer. Other activities in celebration of the history of the port will be announced during the next few months. How did the once narrow, winding and shallow Neches River in Beaumont, known for riverboat trade and floating timber, evolve into one of the busiest waterways in the nation? In 1909, the newly established Beaumont Navigation District secured funds to build a ship channel that would allow ocean-going vessels to reach the city of Beaumont. The first nine- foot channel allowed passage only by shallow-draft boats. Funds were matched by the government through the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1911, and construction on the deepwater channel began. In 1913, the City of Beaumont created a Wharf and Dock Commission, and steps were made for the development of international trade at the port. In the spring of 1916, near the foot of Main Street, the city completed its first wharf and welcomed its first ocean-going ship. By the 1920s, additional waterfront land was purchased and the waterway was deepened to 30 feet. The waterway was deepened in 1937 to 34 feet and again in 1947 to 36 feet. In 1949, a new political subdivision, the Port of Beaumont Navigation District, was created by the 51st Texas Legislature to own and operate the port. Over the years, bonds, earned revenues and grants have allowed the port to expand and improve infrastructure, gaining the Port of Beaumont the reputation as one of the most competitive and innovative ports on the Gulf Coast. Since its founding, the development of the port and its ship channel, the Sabine-Neches Waterway, have helped transform Beaumont from a sleepy little timber town into an industrial Mecca. The growth of the energy industry in Southeast Texas, combined with public and private investment, allows the Sabine-Neches Waterway to be recognized as one of the most productive ship channels in the world, handling some 71,000 commercial transits and 100 million tons of cargo annually. Most of the cargo is crude oil, and places the waterway third on the list of the nation's busiest waterways. The Port of Beaumont has offered 100 years of uninterrupted service and owes its growth and success to the vision of forefathers who worked diligently to attract international commerce to Beaumont. The Port of Beaumont has been successful, in part, because of its flexibility and ability to respond to changes in the international marketplace, said CEO and Port Director Chris Fisher. Once known almost exclusively for handling bagged agricultural products, the port has evolved into a highly diversified marine facility with the ability to efficiently handle a wide variety of import, export and domestic traffic. Recent reports that some would-be rescuers do not fully understand the legal context of rescue at sea, and may have been deterred from helping people in distress because of possible legal action by local authorities seeking to counter trafficking activity are misplaced, according to the International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF). Bruce Reid, IMRFs Chief Executive Officer, says: Great work is being done by professional rescue crews from all over Europe, coordinated by our friends in the Italian and Hellenic Coast Guards, with the assistance too of SAR colleagues in Malta and Turkey. But we are concerned by reports of less well-prepared responses at sea, by people whose good intentions are undoubted but who may not fully understand the procedures internationally agreed for maritime SAR procedures which make a well-tried system work efficiently, to save more lives. The IMRF has noted with particular concern recent reports that some would-be rescuers may have been deterred from helping people in distress by concerns about territorial waters. International maritime law in respect of rescue at sea is clear, says Reid who said it is important to recognise that rescue of people in distress is a duty placed on everyone at sea. That applies whether in territorial or international waters, and regardless of the legal status of the people in distress or the circumstances in which they are found. All vessels at sea (with certain very specific exceptions such as warships, which are nevertheless encouraged to comply) must try to rescue people in distress if it is reasonably safe for them to do so. Distress is defined in common-sense terms: people should be considered in distress, and in need of rescue, if there is a reasonable certainty that [they are] threatened by grave and imminent danger, according to the International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue the SAR Convention, which is overseen by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the United Nations technical body for maritime matters. States which are Parties to the SAR Convention are required to establish SAR services and to assist in rescue, including enabling vessels to land rescued people at places of safety. Anyone involved in SAR at sea should report to the relevant Rescue Coordination Centre, who will help them as necessary. Its important too, says Reid, to emphasise that we are talking about rescuing people in distress here people who will die if not rescued. This is different to highly important but less immediately urgent humanitarian responses, where lives are not imminently at risk. And its different to border control issues, too. SAR takes place within that broader context, of course and the IMRF understands that the overall situation is complex. But SAR is simple in principle, he added, and its procedures are established in international law. If people are in distress at sea they must be rescued if possible, and rescue includes being brought to a place of safety. The IMRF urges all concerned to find solutions to the wider issues, and to enable the maritime SAR services to do their lifesaving work. The International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF) is coordinating the work of its SAR organisation members in support of the relevant SAR authorities in the main receptor countries Greece and Italy especially. Its common aim is to provide properly coordinated and properly trained and equipped units where they are most needed. Travelling by ship, whether for trade, exploration or war, has been one of the most important parts of human history. As the global economy progressed and developed, the importance of shipping skyrocketed. While the advent of the car and plane heralded new eras of transportation, shipping has always been of vital importance to humanity. Vessels have changed dramatically over the years, but continue to be responsible for the bulk of international trade. However, piracy continues to be a major problem, and as developed in line with International Shipping. Attacks cost the international economy an unparalleled amount of money, which explains why crews and companies go to such lengths to protect themselves. Modern Piracy and its Impact Piracy is synonymous with two images; swashbuckling, romanticized pirates of the past, and modern Somali pirates replete with assault rifles and RPGs. Both have been incredibly problematic for international shipping, and their ubiquity is not unfounded; Somali based Piracy cost the international community over $6bn in 2012 alone. Somalia is not the only source of Piracy either, and it is easy to see just how much these attacks impact on world shipping. However, the past few years has seen a decrease in Pirate attacks, and particularly in and around Somalia. There are many reasons for this, though one important cause is the increased reliance on Maritime Security. International Shipping makes up 80% of all world trade, and so it is no surprise that both pirates and Maritime Security Personnel are so common. Nevertheless, there are a variety of solutions available to vessels and shipping crews, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. While overall attacks may have decreased, piracy is still rife, and has shifted to areas of increasing trade and shipping. For example, there has been a dramatic rise in Piracy in South East Asia. Similarly, the scope of attacks has widened, meaning pirates are increasingly attacking any and all ships. Surprisingly, even warships can be targeted, with pirates attacking two separate warships in 2010. As part of this increase in scope, attacks are becoming more and more deadly, with Pirates increasingly using high-powered weapons. The ultimate aim of any attack is to board the target, which happens in 75% of all attacks. The methods used to stop this include passive methods that aim to make boarding physically impossible and more aggressive solutions that directly combat Pirates. These range from Private Maritime Security, to advanced Acoustic Weaponry. Combating Pirates The most aggressive methods are often seen as the most effective, as they are said to provide a more permanent solution to piracy. This is not necessarily true however, as attacks from pirates continue to increase despite a more concerted global effort to combat it. Nevertheless, having arms and armor available to crews is a popular method of providing security. The weapons used are not necessarily lethal, however, and non-lethal explosives for example have proven to be effective in keeping pirates away from ships. One of the more fantastical examples of non-lethal weaponry is the Long-Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), which uses focused sounds well above the human threshold to incapacitate potential attackers without any permanent damage. One of the most common methods of fighting piracy involves the employment of Armed Security. Studies have shown that the presence of Private Security dramatically reduces the chances of a successful Pirate attack, and simply by having Security Personnel present potential attackers can be deterred and crews can feel more confident in traveling through certain areas. Security forces can also make use of non-lethal weaponry, making them a more palatable solution for many crafts. This is important because piracy has increasingly shifted its sights to civilian crafts, and having discreet protection will be important to these vessels. This can be achieved by non-lethal weaponry and covert Kevlar vests, helping to keep the security forces secure. Preventing Attacks On the other hand, there are methods that seem far less aggressive. These methods are often referred to as passive solutions, in that they offer static deterrents to Piracy, and in particular boarding. Water hoses, for example, are employed by many ships as a cheap yet effective method of preventing the boarding of a ship. Even at low pressures water hoses can be enough to deter and disorient Pirates, and when used in tandem with other methods can successfully keep ships safe from attack. Using foam, for example, can create slippery surfaces that will make boarding impossible even if Pirates can get past other methods being used. Other so called passive methods are even less active than the ones mentioned above, but are no less effective. One common example of this is barbed wire, which has been used on some ships simply to provide a psychological deterrence to pirates. Furthermore, it can make it far more difficult for Pirates to board a ship. One method which is completely passive, however, is for ships to simply change course and avoid the major areas of piracy. This does not necessarily guarantee the avoidance of an attack, however, but certainly reduce the likelihood. Research has shown though that piracy shifts to reflect major shipping routes, and evasion adopted en masse may only serve to delay pirates for a short while. Nevertheless, for some smaller ships evasion may be a viable method of avoiding attack. (As published in the January 2016 edition of Maritime Reporter & Engineering News - http://magazines.marinelink.com/Magazines/MaritimeReporter) Wilhelmsen Ships Service (WSS) is aiming to consolidate its position within the Ships Agency segment by building stronger agent-customer relationships. By doing so, Frederic Fontarosa believes the firm can offer enhanced efficiency, understanding and value. Frederic Fontarosa is a people person. Mixing an easy going, laid back French-American drawl with suddenly energetic outbursts on subjects close to his heart, hes engaging to talk to and easy to like. Seated in his Houston office, although rarely sitting still, the WSS Director Ships Agency Americas is taking Maritime Reporter & Engineering News through his ambitions for a division of the global business that serves 581 regional ports and an average of 2000 vessel calls every single month. Its about the people, he said. Our people getting closer to the customer, and the customers customers, to understand their trading patterns, requirements and how our service solutions can help them meet their individual objectives. Were a big company, but that doesnt mean we cant have close customer relationships in fact our size actually makes it easier. Fontarosa isnt wrong about being big. Ships Agency is one of the oldest divisions of the worldwide Wilh. Wilhelmsen Group, and over its 40 year history has grown into a giant; boasting 1250 employees, 182 dedicated offices (alongside 438 sub agency offices), with the capacity to service ports in 132 countries. This size, as Fontarosa points out, brings obvious benefits for customers: With a trading environment of low earnings, tight credit and high costs, a ships agency with our global network can offer international shipowners compelling advantages. These include the standardization of services, global reach, compliance, certified employees, quality assured processes, E&O insurance coverage, data availability, and modern, integrated IT systems. The efficiencies associated with this breadth of offer are immense. Small agencies, which are normally represented in only one port, simply dont have the financial capability, geographical spread, or the desire to ensure those standards are embraced. That gives us, and our customers, a clear advantage. But for all those benefits, some would argue that, in the world of ships agency, small is beautiful. Being small means these mom and pop businesses can be personality focused, allowing them to forge close relationships with repeat customers. Isnt this something an agency the size of WSS struggles with? The return of Fontarosas smile suggests not. Local Knowledge, Global Reach Fontarosa describes WSS relationship with its customers as peer-to-peer. implying that it views each other as partners, rather than service provider and client. To build the bonds within that partnership the firm has created something called the Global Agent Desk. This means we appoint one person that is globally responsible for that shipping company, he explains. In essence this gives them the chance to build that mom and pop style relationship, but in a global sense rather than just at one port. That person becomes the customer single point of contact worldwide and, as a consequence, this drives huge efficiencies as the firm no longer needs to deal with a myriad of mom and pops. And such through-the-line efficiency, Fontarosa remarks, is key to the new breed of international ship operator. If you look at the evolution of the industry over the past decade theres been a shift from traditional maritime to more business orientated values, he states. Customers today expect ships agents to understand their entire business, not just the vessel. That means they want us to have an overview of their entire point-to-point trade, but also the needs of their customers the person who theyre shipping the products or commodities for. WSS global reach and resources allow us to achieve this. In assessing the evolution of the business, Fontarosa has a long history personally and institutionally from which to draw. Ships agency, and shipping in general, remain a very traditional business, Fontarosa said. If I was to point out one element that drove changes into the industry, it would be the arrival of internet and its various means of communication which brought more transparency. Intelligence to the Fore When outlining the benefits of his firm theres a coterie of keywords that continually spring from Fontarosa: The efficiency that comes with global reach and scale, the standards that one unified international operation can deliver for shipowners, and, the final one, intelligence. Translating the vast amount of information from our ports across the world into relevant intelligence yields real competitive advantages for our customers, he says. When asked what he means by this he responds with an explanation of WSS Trade Talk Desk. That encapsulates our added value/intelligence proposition, and is an area for investment for the company, Fontarosa said. In 2013 WSS created the Trade Talk Desk in four strategic locations around the world here in Houston, Singapore, Geneva and Dubai. The desks, which work across their time zones to give our customers 24-hour coverage, deliver relevant, timely and accurate information to our customers. They structure this data and package it in a way that is easy to understand and access. This information is broad-based and comprehensive, covering everything from port news and port facilities developments, through to cargo statistics, vessel line-ups and breaking news, such as a port closure due to bad weather. By presenting this vital information in one package, from one source, customers get the intelligence they need, when they need it, Fontarosa stresses, rather than being swamped by a million different emails from a range of different companies all round the world. Its streamlined, intuitive and intelligent, setting a new standard for adding value to ships agency deliverables. In addition, Trade Talk Desk is an embodiment of the future of the ship agency business. I foresee the future ships agent to develop into a relevant source of local market intelligence information enabling customer to make sound commercial decision, said Fontarosa. To this end, WSS is investing in dedicated people and system (Trade Talk Desk) who will become customer central focal point of contact for local market intelligence. On the Right Road Despite his passion and obvious enthusiasm for his cause, Fontarosa is candid enough to admit that seen against the totality of the shipping industry, ships agency is somewhere near the bottom of the food chain. He likens the segment to road building and the wider industry to car owners. And when people are buying a new car, he comments, theyre not thinking about the road. But you take away that road, or give them one thats full of potholes, and then they notice. So were working behind the scenes in a way, ensuring the smoothest, most efficient turn around in port. Thats a fundamentally important role within the industry. As the interview draws to an end, WSS Ships Agency Director Americas reveals that he is as almost as global as his employer. I was born in France, to an Italian mother and Spanish father, moved to the U.S. to study, liked it and stayed. After graduating Ive lived and worked in the Caribbean, Scandinavia, the Middle East, Southern Europe and now Im back in the U.S. He laughs: That international perspective gives me a foundation to understand and adapt to different business cultures and the opportunities and challenges they represent. WSS is the same. Its global understanding and local knowledge helps it provide the best services to all its customers. And, when it comes down to it, thats what is most important in this industry, and any other, the people. Frederic Fontarosa Joined Wilhelmsen Ships Service within the Operations department in France in 1994. Since then has held roles as Development Manager in the Africa, Middle East & Black Sea region (20012005), Vice President International Sales (2005-2009) and, in 2009, was made Business Director, Ships Agency and Bunkers. In 2013 took on his current role as WSS Director Ships Agency Americas. Fontarosa on Fontarosa: Every day is different, with a different challenge, I love it. From behind my desk in Houston, thanks to WSS global reach, the world is my playground! (As published in the January 2016 edition of Maritime Reporter & Engineering News - http://magazines.marinelink.com/Magazines/MaritimeReporter) The Coast Guard is seeking the public's help identifying the owner of a 13-foot white sailing dinghy found near Kaneohe Bay, Wednesday. Anyone with information that may help identify the owner of the sailing dinghy is asked to contact the Coast Guard Sector Honolulu Command Center at 808-842-2600 808-842-2600 FREE FREE. Watchstanders at the Sector Honolulu command center received a report at 5:25 p.m., from MCB Hawaii Waterfront Operations that a Marine Corps helicopter crew spotted an unmanned adrift paddleboard while conducting training near Kaneohe Bay. Waterfront Operations launched a small boat crew to relocate the paddleboard. Once on-scene, the crew reported that it was not a paddleboard, but a small sailing dinghy with no mast, sail or means of propulsion. Attempts to contact the owner have been made, however the vessel is not currently registered. There are currently no reported signs of distress or missing persons in the area. The Coast Guard offers free "If Found" decals to be placed in a visible location on small, human-powered watercraft through the Operation Paddle Smart program. The information on the sticker can allow response entities to quickly identify the vessel's owner and aid search and rescue planners in determining the best course of action. Positive identification may also allow the item to be returned to the owner. The stickers can be obtained for free at local harbormasters, through the Coast Guard Auxiliary, from Honolulu Sail and Power Squadron offices and at select marine retail and supply stores. In addition to providing 24-hour security for base and a waterborne search and rescue capability, MCB Hawaii Waterfront Operations personnel also conduct mission and training support for the many Marine, Navy, and Coast Guard units in Hawaii. They also provide MCB Hawaii with a readily accessible Environmental Response Team in case of an oil spill in Kaneohe Bay. McQuilling Services has announced the release of the 2016-2020 Tanker Market Outlook. This report is a five-year outlook for eight vessel classes across 18 benchmark trades and represents the companys 19th forecasting cycle. After over 10 years of tanker rate forecasting, McQuilling Services is a leader in the industry and continues to support a variety of stakeholders in the energy, maritime and financial services industries with its annual Tanker Market Outlook. Our full-year 2015 projection from last years Tanker Market Outlook tracked within 5% of actual market levels on the 15 trades forecasted. For the nine DPP trades, the original forecasts ended the year within 3% of recorded levels, while the six CPP trades ended within 7%. Methodology The McQuilling Services rate forecast is based on the evaluation of historical and projected tonnage supply and demand fundamentals in the tanker market within the current and projected global economic environment, including oil supply and demand expectations. The forecasting process begins with the development of quantitative models, which are used to measure the correlation between historical freight rates and tanker supply and demand. This fundamental approach has proven to be reasonably predictive over the past 18 years. However, the forecasting process evolves past the modeling stage when the quantitative results are balanced with experiential knowledge and reasonable market assessments. Findings from 2015 Between 2014 and 2015, global ton-mile demand to transport crude and residual fuels increased by 2.4%, supported by an 11.9% increase in Suezmax demand amid higher European refinery utilization and more distant supply sources for this region. VLCC demand rose by less than 1%, while Aframax demand declined for the fourth consecutive year. Meanwhile, clean product ton-mile demand grew by 9.5% in 2015 versus year ago levels, as expanded Middle East refining capacity and naphtha arbitrage opportunities supported trade to the Far East and Northern Europe. Increasing gasoline and jet fuel demand from the United States was met by supplies from the Far East and the Indian Sub-Continent in greater volumes, while delayed refinery projects in the Caribbean and South America resulted in healthy export volumes for US Gulf refiners. Actual vessel deliveries in 2015 totaled 110 vessels. This was 45 below our expectation given at the start of the year. This represents a slippage rate of approximately 29% in deliveries from our original forecast. The slippage can be attributed to yard delays and cancellations from the large orderbooks in previous years, owners altering ship type during the construction phase and financing constraints. Vessel deletions were notably lower than our January 2015 estimates with only 19 vessels being removed from the trading fleet amid a strengthening earnings environment and declining steel prices. New tanker contracting in 2015 increased to 345 from 203 new orders in 2014. We analyzed changes made to the 2014 orderbook that may not have been reported at time of writing last year to include bulker order conversions and product tanker classification of Aframaxes and Panamaxes. The 2015 orderbook was led by robust ordering for crude tankers as 65 VLCCs, 69 Suezmaxes and 62 Aframaxes were contracted. For the clean side, LR2 and LR1 orders of 30 and 27, respectively, were recorded in addition to 75 MR2 orders. Looking forward The IEA projects that world oil demand will rise by 1.2 million b/d in 2016, followed by annual average growth of 1.16 million b/d through 2020. OECD demand growth is expected to stagnate over the forecast period due to improvements in efficiencies and fuel switching. Oil demand growth will continue to be driven by non-OECD economies. As a result, non-OECD countries will make up 54% of estimated oil consumption by the end of the forecast period. Chinas oil consumption will rise by roughly 1.7 million b/d to just shy of 13 million b/d through 2020. However, improving economic sentiment in both the US and to some extent, Europe, could provide further support from OECD countries. The relaxation on the US crude export ban will see about 200,000 b/d (in addition to Canadian exports) of US crude flows to Europe and South America. Combined with an expected production decline of 400,000 b/d in North America, US refiners will look to augment domestic feedstocks with increased foreign imports. US Gulf refiners will revitalize trade with Middle East and Caribbean producers, while US Atlantic Coast refiners seek supply from West Africa in larger quantities. Within the tanker sectors, limited supply growth in the Aframax sector of only 3.5% through the end of 2020 in addition to paradigm shifts in demand (US exports, Panama Canal) will enable this sector to outperform the larger crude tankers. Aframax earnings are likely to outperform and may benefit from additional triangulation opportunities in the Atlantic Basin. Additional Caribbean exports to the US and Europe are likely to result in increased demand for tonnage and with a measured supply outlook; we anticipate owners will earn US $28,396/day on average through 2020 for Aframax trades. For the clean sector, expected demand growth of 4.5% in 2016, will be slightly less than average inventory growth of 4.6%, providing minimal pressure on rates for the larger clean tankers which are expected to increase market share of transported clean petroleum products. Clean tanker earnings on the TC1 and TC5 routes are projected to be US $30,462/day and US $23,750/day in 2016. A continuation in MR2 fleet inventory growth, coupled with gradually slowing demand growth, will place moderate pressure on freight rates in 2016, before the balance tightens, enabling rates to flatten out and eventually turn north in the outer years of the forecast. On a triangulated basis (TC2/TC14), owners are likely to see returns of US $16,498/day over the forecast period. Over the next five years, we maintain our thesis that the 10-year old tanker sector is likely to exhibit the firmest price appreciation. By 2020, we expect values for 10-year old crude tankers to be approximately 35% higher than their 2015 average prices. Specifically in 2016, we anticipate VLCC, Suezmaxes and Aframaxes to rise by an average of 21%. LR2s are projected to average US $37.5 million, their highest level since 2008. LR1s and MR2s are projected to reach US $27.5 million and US $20.0 million in 2016, 21% and 9% increases from January 2016 levels. Investors looking to enter the tanker markets will likely be rewarded by investing in the 10-year old segment of the market. We estimate that a 10-year old VLCC would return investors an annualized 17% unlevered IRR if acquired at January 2016 levels and held to maturity. On the clean side, the LR1 is projected to offer investors the best returns at just over 17% on an unlevered basis. Suezmax and Aframax 10-year old vessels would return 13% and 14%, respectively. Whats New in 2016? In this years 2016-2020 Tanker Market Outlook we have incorporated a variety of new features to provide our clients with a more robust view of global trade flows and major tanker trades: Expanded our five-year forecast for freight rates and TCEs by five additional trades, totaling 18 Included a five-year outlook for one and three-year time charter rates Increased coverage of global trade flows to provide a more reliable demand picture for tankers Introduced demand model which focuses on position data overlaid with proprietary tanker fixture data to give clients a real-time view of trade dynamics An in-depth look at the North American market with more precise regional breakdowns for a more comprehensive view of ton-mile demand Additional Features This years report will answer some of the most challenging questions facing the tanker industry today, such as: France's CMA CGM, the world's third-largest container shipping group, will expand its presence in Iran after signing a landmark deal on Thursday with the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL). Many Western businesses are seeking to invest in Iran, a nation of 80 million people, after many sanctions linked to the Persian nation's nuclear program were lifted this month. The preliminary agreement between CMA CGM and IRISL, signed during a visit to Paris by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, covers vessel capacity sharing, joint operating of routes, and cooperation in using port terminals, the French government said in a statement. The partnership is the first struck between a major international line and IRISL and marks a further resumption of shipping trade after CMA CGM and some competitors resumed port calls in Iran last year. Cooperation would focus on sharing capacity between CMA CGM and IRISL's vessels, the French group said in a separate statement, adding that the agreement was subject to other sanctions that are still in place. "The progressive lifting of sanctions should bring strong growth in trade between Iran and the rest of the world. This agreement opens new opportunities for CMA CGM to expand in this region," it said. IRISL is Iran's top cargo and container carrier and was taken off the sanctions list earlier this month. Iran had once depended on foreign ships for much of its imports. But since 2012, when sanctions led to an exodus of Western shipping firms, it relied more on land routes and its own commercial fleet, leading to supply disruptions. CMA CGM and Evergreen of Taiwan, the world's No. 4 player, were the first to resume direct services to Iran last August. The French group now operates three direct services to and from Iran, linking the country to Africa, Asian and India. It separately offers indirect services from northern Europe and the Mediterranean to Iran, done through transhipments via the United Arab Emirates, it said. MSC of Switzerland, the world's second biggest line, restarted port calls in Iran in late December, while United Arab Shipping Company said last week it had resumed business with Iran. Market leader Maersk is looking at resuming services. CMA CGM, privately controlled by the Saade family, is set to reinforce its global reach after agreeing in December to acquire Singapore's Neptune Orient Lines, a deal it says will help it overcome a shipping downturn. Prices for cargos have touched record lows this year amid global concerns on China's economic slowdown and an oversupply of cargo ships. Reporting by Gus Trompiz and Jonathan Saul Caroline B. Kennedy, U.S. ambassador to Japan, made her first official visit to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, Jan. 28, 2016. Kennedy visited the MCAS Iwakunis community to witness the ongoing transformation of the air station through the multitude of construction projects costing more than $1 billion a year, driven by the Defense Policy Review Initiative. The initiative strengthens interoperability and communication between the two countries by redefining roles, missions, and capabilities of alliance forces and outlining key realignment and transformation initiatives, including reducing the number of U.S. troops stationed in Okinawa. Certainly, visiting Japan has given me a real understanding of what we have invested here how strong and important our alliance is, said Kennedy. Kennedy first visited the air traffic control tower to observe extensive construction on the site. Kennedy then visited Marines with Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 152. While at the squadrons hangar, Kennedy viewed a KC-130J Super Hercules aircraft, gaining an understanding on the multiple capabilities of the aircraft in the Pacific theater. Its nice to see a government official come down take time out of her day to come speak with the Marines and tell us how important the mission that we are doing is for the United States of America, said Gunnery Sgt. Michael Forest, VMGR-152 squadron gunnery sergeant. She commended the Marines on their efforts in supporting and fostering better relations between Japan and the U.S. The U.S-Japan alliance is the cornerstone of the future, said Kennedy. I hope you all realize the choices you are making and how proud of you the embassy is to work with our colleagues in the military on a daily basis. Thank you all for your service. More Media Tech Stocks Investment Opportunities Available Right Now Whenever talking about dividends, there are sectors that operate a lot better than others. Investors from all around the world adore tech stocks. They manage to get a steady cash flow and there is always the possibility to get a very high payday. The market is filled with so many different opportunities. You can invest in many parts of the tech industry from the healthcare sector to a web and mobile developer. However, a lot of research is necessary to find the greatest investment options. In order to help investors, we should highlight some stock investment opportunities that will be great. The current dividend yield is 3.6%. Some investors will not consider the company because of misconceptions. The truth is that CSCO does have a lot of growth that is possible at the moment.Cisco moved way beyond what it used to be. Now it produces software and does offer professional services that did prove to be quite profitable. We are now faced with a clear growth, at a rate that is higher than what anyone expected. CSCO managed to get a lot of money. Ever since the year 2011 the company grew. At the moment we can say that this is dividend royalty.With a dividend yield of 6%, GRMN stands out as a very interesting investment opportunity for those interested in the tech sector. Garmin LTD. Is not properly perceived and often overlooked. However, smart investors started to realize that there is huge growth potential available right now.GRMN offers so much more than GPS units. So much revenue comes from specialized equipment and the aviation sector. This does include radar and sonar products. Besides this, we have a clear growth potential. Combine this with the fact that we are talking about one of the few tech companies that has zero debt and it is clear that you have a great investment opportunity.The dividend rate for CA Inc is 3.8% and just like with Garmin, this is a really rare tech stock. Dividend payment has been going on ever since the year 1991, which is quite impressive.Computer Associates is a very interesting software firm that currently focuses on creating specific software that runs mainframes, virtual machines, mobile machines, cloud computing and much more. Application software programs are also developed by CA Inc.CA has very good margins that strengthen the company. There is no need to create app to make money for the firm since it already gains great return on investments made. That is because the overhead is only formed of programmer salaries. Combine this with the fact that all products have a great reputation and you have a sure win.No matter what you may think about investing in specific companies, it is important that your research is as strong as possible. All the three tech stocks options we mentioned are profitable but we cannot guarantee for how long that is going to happen. Because of this, you want to conduct your own research before investing, every single time. By Boris Dzhingarov 2015 Copyright Boris Dzhingarov - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors. 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. Deep State: Inside Washington's Shadowy Power Elite - Video Our plutocracy, whether the hedge fund managers in Greenwich, Connecticut, or the Internet moguls in Palo Alto, now lives like the British did in colonial India: ruling the place but not of it. If one can afford private security, public safety is of no concern; to the person fortunate enough to own a Gulfstream jet, crumbling bridges cause less apprehension, and viable public transportation doesnt even compute. With private doctors on call and a chartered plane to get to the Mayo Clinic, why worry about Medicare? Mike Lofgren, The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government By Jesse http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com Welcome to Jesse's Cafe Americain - These are personal observations about the economy and the markets. In providing information, we hope this allows you to make your own decisions in an informed manner, even if it is from learning by our mistakes, which are many. 2016 Copyright Jesse's Cafe Americain - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors. 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. Glastonbury, Conn. - William H.W. Crawford, IV, Chief Executive Officer of United Financial Bancorp, Inc., and United Bank of Glastonbury, Conn., today announced that they have hired John J. Smith as Executive Vice President and Chief Information & Administrative Officer. In this executive role, Smith will lead the Information Technology (IT), Payment Operations and Project Management teams at United Bank. Smith comes to United with more than 30 years of experience in financial services technology and operations management. Smith spent the last 10 years with New York-based CIT Group in New Jersey, most recently holding the position of Chief Information Officer for CIT Bank Unit from 2010 to 2015 and Chief Information Officer of Consumer & Small Business Banking from 2005 to 2010. Prior to CIT Group, Smith was the Chief Information Officer for operations and technology services at NYCE Corporation and held similar IT roles earlier in his career at Summit Bank and UJB/Financial. In these positions, Smith has gained valuable experience in managing all aspects of information technology and operations units including back-office operations, application development, data center management/operations, network management and call centers. He's led IT organizations of up to 800 professionals and has implemented effective governance structures to ensure operations and technology plans, as well as services, are aligned with business unit strategies. Smith also played a key role in building and launching an Internet only direct bank. In addition, Smith brings to United Bank significant experience in merger and acquisition integration including developing required strategy, planning and roadmaps. "Technology plays a role in every area of a bank so hiring an IT and operations leader of John's caliber is a strategic imperative that will put us in an even stronger position to grow the Bank, serve our customers and win new business while running our front-office and back-office operations more efficiently and at a lower cost," said William H.W. Crawford, IV, CEO of United Bank and United Financial Bancorp, Inc. "We were fortunate to have the opportunity to choose from a strong pool of candidates for this position and I'm confident we hired the best in John Smith who is the right fit for our Bank and values the same vision of excellence we champion at United." In addition to his professional roles, Smith has also been relied upon to share his knowledge and provide industry insight as a Board member of Jack Henry and Associates' Mid-Tier Advisory Board, Chairman of a local IT user group in New Jersey which consists of IT leaders representing corporations in various industry sectors and a former Board member of The State of New Jersey Office of Information Technology. Smith started at United Bank on January 19, 2016 and will report directly to Crawford. Holyoke - PeoplesBank has announced the promotions and appointments of several key associates. Matthew J. Bannister has been appointed to Vice President, Corporate Responsibility. Mr. Bannister possesses more than thirty years of brand management and corporate social responsibility experience. A resident of Hadley, Mr. Bannister holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His prior experience includes advertising, public relations, and event marketing for top advertising agencies and major non-profit organizations. Paul E. Hillsburg has been promoted to Vice President PeoplesFinancial and Insurance Services. Mr. Hillsburg possesses more than three decades of financial, sales and business development experience. He first joined the bank in April 2008 and previously served as Assistant Vice President PeoplesFinancial and Insurance Services. A resident of Ludlow, Mr. Hillsburg holds an Associate Degree in Business Management from Springfield Technical Community College. He holds his Series 7 and Series 66 licenses. Kristen P. Hua has been promoted to Vice President Secondary Market. Ms. Hua possesses more than a decade of banking experience. She first joined the bank in May 2001 and previously served as Assistant Vice President Secondary Market. A resident of South Hadley, she holds a Master of Business Administration from the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Bachelor of Arts from Providence College. She also is a graduate of the New England School for Financial Studies. Ms. Hua is a member of the 2011 BusinessWest 40 Under Forty class and member of the 2005 Leadership Holyoke class. She serves on the boards of Girls Inc. of Holyoke and the Kiwanis Club of Holyoke. She is also a member of the Greater Springfield Habitat for Humanity. Craig W. Kaylor has been appointed to Vice President Compliance. Mr. Kaylor brings more than a decade of banking and financial experience to his new position. He will be responsible for overseeing and ensuring all compliance regulations and policies are met. A resident of Longmeadow, Mr. Kaylor holds a Juris Doctor Degree from the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University and a Bachelor of Arts from the University at Albany, SUNY. Mr. Kaylor teaches law classes as an adjunct professor at Western New England University and lectures at Boston University's School of Law. He is a member of the 2008 BusinessWest 40 Under Forty class and also serves as Chairman of the Audit Committee of the Hampden County Bar Association. Denise A. Lamory has been promoted to Vice President Commercial Loan Administration. Ms. Lamory possesses close to four decades of banking experience. She first joined the bank in August 1976 and previously served as Assistant Vice President Commercial Loan Administration. A resident of Holyoke, Ms. Lamory holds several business and financial related certificates from the Western Massachusetts Institute of Management Education, Inc. and Holyoke Community College. Trisha L. Leary has been promoted to Vice President Internal Control. Ms. Leary possesses more than a decade of financial experience. She first joined the bank in 2013 and previously served as Risk Oversight Officer. A resident of Westfield, Ms. Leary holds a Master of Science in Accounting and a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She serves as treasurer on the board of Girls, Inc. of Holyoke. Karen E. Sinopoli has been appointed to Vice President Controller. Ms. Sinopoli brings a decade of banking and audit experience to her new position. She will be responsible for maintaining and supervising the financial record of the bank in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A resident of Pittsfield, Ms. Sinopoli holds a Master of Science in Accounting from the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Pennsylvania State University. She is treasurer and serves on the board of the Gladys Allen Brigham Community Center. Donna J. Wiley has been promoted to Vice President Regional Manager. Ms. Wiley possesses close to four decades of banking experience. She first joined the bank in 1979 and previously served as Assistant Vice President Regional Manager. A resident of Granby, Ms. Wiley holds an Associate Degree in Business Administration from Holyoke Community College and graduated with honors from the Massachusetts Bankers Association School for Financial Studies. She serves as president of Friends of Granby Elderly Inc., is a member of the WestMass ElderCare Money Management Program advisory council and serves on the board of directors of the Chicopee Boys and Girls Club. She also helped develop the bank's financial literacy outreach efforts and coordinates delivery of these programs to schools throughout the Pioneer Valley. Brian J. Rheaume has been promoted to Assistant Vice President Information Technology. Mr. Rheaume possesses more than a decade of information technology experience. He first joined the bank in 2002 and previously served as Information Technology Officer Supervisor. A resident of Ware, Mr. Rheaume holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems from Westfield State University and is an A+ Certified Professional IT Technician. IMG_4450.JPG The empty storefront of 193 Main St. in Northampton, seen left, which housed a Subway sandwich shop until Wednesday. (Laura Newberry) NORTHAMPTON -- Workers could be seen lugging equipment out of the space at 193 Main Street Thursday morning. By noon, just a dull outline of the word "Subway" remained where the bright yellow sign once was. The owners of the store did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication, but Terrence Masterson, the city's economic development director, confirmed that Subway had closed. The sandwich franchise opened in the space a mere 15 months ago. Matt Baca, who has run the Subway in Florence for eight years, opened the Main Street shop in Oct. 2014. He sold it a month later. When asked if the Subway at 91 Main St. in Florence is doing well, Baca said "absolutely." Baca estimated the Northampton Subway would create at least 20 jobs at the time of its opening. The space was formerly occupied by Main Street Cleaners, which moved to 221 Main St. The news follows a rash of Main Street closings. The Hempest, known for its eco-friendly clothing and smoking paraphernalia, moved from its prime location on Main Street to a much smaller space at Maplewood Shops. It is still holding a liquidation sale at its old location. Western Village Ski & Sport is set to close after 37 years of business, and The Hinge restaurant and nightclub closed in November due to owner Aaron Kater's drug arrest. Subway had $11.9 billion in U.S. sales in 2014, a 3 percent decline from the previous year, according to According to research firm Technomic. The privately owned company has more than 26,000 stores across the country. MARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- As families of the lost Challenger astronauts gather with NASA to mark the space shuttle accident's 30th anniversary, there's a new voice to address the crowd. June Scobee Rodgers -- widow of Challenger commander Dick Scobee and longtime spokeswoman for the group -- is passing the torch to daughter Kathie Scobee Fulgham. Fulgham -- not Rodgers -- will be on the stage for Thursday morning's ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. And making a rare appearance in the audience will be schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe's son, Scott, with his own family. "It's going to be wonderful to watch the pages turn," Rodgers said earlier this week. The second generation "can now speak for our family and speak for the nation," she said, adding that she's looking forward to these grown astronauts' children "sharing their stories, their beliefs and their leadership." For the seven astronauts' loved ones, Jan. 28, 1986, remains fresh in their minds. Steven McAuliffe, a federal judge in Concord, New Hampshire, still declines interviews about his late wife Christa, who was poised to become the first schoolteacher in space. But he noted in a statement that although 30 years have passed, "Challenger will always be an event that occurred just recently. Our thoughts and memories of Christa will always be fresh and comforting." McAuliffe said he's pleased "Christa's goals have been largely accomplished in that she has inspired generations of classroom teachers and students." She would be proud, he noted, of the Challenger Learning Centers. McAuliffe is presiding over a trial this week in Concord, and so son Scott will represent the family, part of the next-generation shift. Scott and his sister are now in their 30s. The McAuliffes normally do not take part in these NASA memorials, so Scott's presence is especially noteworthy. Along with the other Challenger families, Rodgers established the Challenger Center for Space Science Education just three months after the shuttle disintegrated in the Florida sky. Unusually cold weather that morning left Challenger's booster rockets with stiff O-ring seals; a leak in the right booster doomed the ship. Today, there are more than 40 Challenger Learning Centers focusing on science, technology, engineering and math, mostly in the U.S. More are being built. "They're not just a field trip for kids. They're actually lessons learned," said Rodgers, an educator who lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. "That's why they've lasted." McAuliffe's backup, Barbara Morgan, a schoolteacher from Idaho, rocketed into orbit in 2007 aboard Endeavour as a fully trained astronaut. Morgan was invited to speak Thursday at Rodgers' request. Besides Dick Scobee and Christa McAuliffe, the Challenger dead include pilot Michael Smith, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka and Gregory Jarvis. Seven more shuttle astronauts died Feb. 1, 2003, aboard Columbia; that commander's widow, Evelyn Husband Thompson, will attend Thursday's ceremony. The event will honor the Columbia Seven as well, along with the three Apollo 1 astronauts killed during a launch pad test on Jan. 27, 1967. NASA also plans observances at Arlington National cemetery, Johnson Space Center in Houston and elsewhere. At Kennedy, the Scobee contingent will number 12, including June's son Richard, a major general in the Air Force, and a 16-year-old granddaughter. Dick Scobee was 46 years old when he died aboard Challenger barely a minute into the flight. Both his children are now in their 50s. "For so many people, 30 years, it's definitely history. It's in the history books," Rodgers said. For the family, "it's like it's just happened, which in a way keeps Dick Scobee young in our hearts, and the joy and excitement he had for flying." ___ Online: Challenger Center: http://www.challenger.org/ NASA: http://www.history.nasa.gov/sts51l.html Connecticut Tribes-Casino Kevin Brown, left, Chairman of the Mohegan Tribal Council and Rodney Butler, right, chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Council, host an historic signing ceremony, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2015, at the state Capitol in Hartford, Conn., formalizing their new casino venture north of the city. (Lauren Schneiderman/Hartford Courant via AP) Bradley International Airport is proposing an "interim" casino that could beat MGM Springfield to market as a permanent gaming facility is built on the Windsor Locks site, according to a report in the Hartford Courant. Bradley is one of five sites that have pitched themselves as a possible site for Conencticut's planned third casino, to be run jointly by the state's two current Indian casino operators. The tribes have not yet selected a location; an original Dec. 15 site selection target passed without event after MMCT, the tribes' casino company, announced they needed more time to make a decision. According to the Courant, Bradley has added a new wrinkle to its proposal. A temporary casino could be opened at the airport's Sheraton Hartford Hotel, with a possible opening date within six months, executive director of the Connecticut Airport Authority Kevin Dillon said. "We do believe it could be up and running relatively quickly," Dillon said, according to the Courant. That accelerated timeline would give the Connecticut casino a two-year jump on MGM Springfield, which is targeting an opening in late 2018. The proposed permanent casino could open at the now-defunct Murphy terminal or a new $225 million transportation center, according to the Courant. Andrew Doba, a spokesman for MMCT, said in a statement that the company is still working on choosing a site. "While we have not set a deadline for site selection, we are aggressively working through our internal process to assure that we meet our goal -- building a facility that preserves Connecticut jobs and revenue," Doba said. MMCT has received five proposals for a casino from four Connecticut municipalities. East Hartford, East Windsor, Hartford and Windsor Locks all responded to the RFP ahead of the company's Nov. 6 deadline. East Windsor has already identified its own potential site, less than 10 miles from the Massachusetts border. Mohegan Tribal Council Chairman Kevin Brown has described the project as in direct competition with MGM Springfield, which is scheduled to open in late 2018. "This process began to preserve thousands of jobs and millions in revenue which will leave (Connecticut), the loss of which MGM has repeatedly acknowledged is necessary to make their project in Springfield a success," Brown said. "As members of communities with deep ties to this state, we're simply not going to let that happen without a fight. With this phase complete, we can now begin to engage interested parties and save Connecticut jobs." Connecticut's potential third casino, which will still require a vote by Connecticut's legislature to authorize its construction, is targeting an opening date ahead of the MGM Springfield casino and has been described by both tribal proponents and state officials as a means of insulating Connecticut's gaming revenues from out-of-state competition. MGM Resorts International filed a legal challenge in August to Connecticut's new casino gaming law and is suing in federal court to have it declared discriminatory and unconstitutional. That court battle is still ongoing. Tunisia, mostly a haven of stability since its 2011 revolt against autocrat Zine Abidine Ben Ali, is increasingly being challenged by Islamist militants, who have hit army patrols and checkpoints as well as carrying out major attacks. (Photo: AFP) Tunis: Tunisian police have broken up a cell recruiting fighters for Islamic State in Libya and Syria, authorities said on Wednesday. Tunisia declared a state of emergency after a suicide bombing killed 12 presidential guards on a bus in the capital Tunis in November. That followed major gun attacks targeting foreign tourists at a Tunis museum and a beach hotel, both of which were claimed by Islamic State. "Our special forces counter-terrorism unit dismantled a cell which included nine extremists in Bizerte who were actively recruiting young people to send them into areas of trouble," the interior ministry said. It said those arrested had admitted recruiting for Islamic State in Libya and Syria. Tunisia, mostly a haven of stability since its 2011 revolt against autocrat Zine Abidine Ben Ali, is increasingly being challenged by Islamist militants, who have hit army patrols and checkpoints as well as carrying out major attacks. Several thousand Tunisians are fighting with Islamic State and other groups in Iraq and Syria. The gunmen in the Sousse and Bardo Museum attacks all trained at militant camps in Libya before returning to their home country. A sign at a local restaurant reassures customers that they are not on Flint water but on uncontaminated water pulled from Detroit. (Photo: AFP) Chicago: The downtrodden US city of Flint was poisoned in a misguided drive by penny-pinching officials to save money, a lawsuit filed on Wednesday claimed, demanding that corroded lead pipes that contaminate its tap water be immediately replaced. Officials are accused of ignoring months of health warnings about foul-smelling and discolored water, even as residents complained it was making them sick. "In a failed attempt to save a few bucks, state-appointed officials poisoned the drinking water of an important American city, causing permanent damage to an entire generation of its children," Michael Steinberg, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, said in announcing the lawsuit. "The people of Flint cannot trust the state of Michigan to fix this man-made disaster and that is why court oversight is critically needed." Governor Rick Snyder who faces calls to resign over his handling of the scandal appointed a team of outside experts Wednesday to help the state resolve Flint's water crisis and deal with the long-term health impacts. In an interview with CNN Wednesday he admitted the number of children harmed by lead in the water is likely much higher than tests have so far revealed. "There could be many more," the governor told CNN, "and we're assuming that." About 100 children have tested positive for elevated blood lead levels. But since those tests only show recent exposure, Snyder said officials are concerned that the problem is much more widespread. Lead exposure is harmful to everyone. But it can have devastating impacts on young children by irreversibly harming brain development. It has been shown to lower intelligence, stunt growth and lead to aggressive and anti-social behavior. Water treatment plants across the United States are required to closely monitor lead levels in tap water and use chemicals to reduce acidity and coat pipes to prevent corrosion. Snyder vowed at a news conference to help "address the damage that's been done" in the predominantly poor and black city of 100,000. But he stopped short of promising to replace the pipes, which began leaching lead after Flint switched to a cheaper but dangerously corrosive water supply. "It's a lot of work to take out pipes, to redo the infrastructure," Snyder told reporters. "The short-term solution is to hopefully recoat, and have it validated by third parties so we know the water is safely coming out." $1.5 Billion Fix Flint's mayor has estimated that the cost of fixing the damage done to the city's infrastructure by the corrosive water could reach $1.5 billion. The cash-strapped city was reportedly hoping to save $5 million over two years by drawing water from the Flint River beginning in April 2014 rather than continuing to buy it from nearby Detroit. The state's environment department approved the switch even though the city's treatment plant was not able to produce water that met state and federal standards. It cost $12 million to switch Flint back to the Detroit water system in October after a local pediatrician released a study showing that the number of children with elevated blood-lead levels had doubled since the city began using river water. Nation's Pipes Need Replacing Activists and environmentalists says the state now needs to spend whatever it takes to make sure the water is safe to drink. "For years the state told us we were crazy, that our water was safe, which wasn't true," said Melissa Mays of Water You Fighting For, a Flint-based organization which joined the ACLU and the Natural Resources Defense Council in filing the lawsuit. "For the sake of my kids and the people of Flint, we need a federal court to fix Flint's water problems because these city and state agencies failed us on their own." Replacing all the lead pipes in Flint would take years and cause major disruption for residents because roads would need to be shut down to dig them out of the ground, said Greg DiLoreto of the American Society for Civil Engineers. But while short-term fixes might be able to resolve Flint's lead problems for now, replacing those pipes is something that Flint and most other American cities has to start planning for, he said. A large proportion of the nation's water systems were built in the early 20th century and some pipes date back to the late 1800s. "No engineer designed any system to last 150 years," DiLoreto said in a telephone interview. "This is like your house. At some point you're going to have to put a new roof on it." Washington: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trumps feud with a top American news network has intensified just days ahead of the crucial Iowa caucus, as the controversial billionaire announced a rival event alongside a televised debate he boycotted. Trump on Wednesday night refused to reconsider his decision of not attending the face-off on Fox News even as he was being slammed by opponents for his relentless barrage against the networks anchor Megyn Kelly. The 69-year-old real-estate Moguls criticism of Kelly has continued in retaliation for the tough questioning she submitted him to in the first Republican debate last summer. Trump announced a rival event to benefit Veteran Organisations in Des Moines exactly at the same time as the debate begins, injecting a sense of chaos into the contest. In an interview with Fox News, Trump said he would move forward with his own event and would not attend the debate the last one before the Iowa Caucus on February 1, which would formally begin the already unconventional presidential race. Were going to raise a lot of money for the vets, Trump said at a rally in South Carolina. Trump also continued his criticism of Kelly, who he has accused of bias against him. I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly. I dont think shes good at what she does and I think shes highly overrated, he alleged. In turn, Fox has shot back accusing Trump of terrorising the network after he pulled out of the last televised debate four days before voting begins in presidential primary polls. The network has said it will go ahead with the debate as scheduled. In a testy interview, Fox News Bill OReilly told Trump: I submit to you that you need to change and get away from the personal. I dont like being taken advantage of, Trump said, referring to Foxs refusal to dump Kelly from its panel of moderators. Im not going to let our country be taken advantage of. Trumps gamble has likely paid off as he was again dominating the airwaves and making his rivals and the party squirm, all this while consolidating his lead among voters. NRI group says Trumps Americas best hope Hailing Donald Trump as United States best hope, a group of Indian-Americans has formed a group to campaign for the Republican and asserted the community would benefit the most from his policies. Indian-Americans for Trump 2016, registered as a political action committee is aimed at garnering support of NRIs, for Trump. On realising Trumps agenda is focused on reviving US economy, defeating terrorism and establishing peace through strength; many Indian-Americans believe he is the best hope for America and the right candidate to be the next president of the USA, the PAC said in a statement. Tokyo: Satellite imagery analysis suggests North Korea may be preparing a long-range ballistic missile launch, Japan's Kyodo News reported on Thursday, citing a Japanese government source. Imagery collected over the past several days suggested the launch from the western Dongchang-ri site could come in about a week, Kyodo said. While the report did not provide any details on the source of the analysis, Japan's key security ally the United States regularly monitors North Korea from space while Japan itself in 2003 began its own satellite monitoring of the country. South Korean defence ministry spokesperson Kim Min-Seok declined to confirm or deny the report, saying the ministry did not comment on intelligence matters. He added, however, that South Korea's military was monitoring for any signs of a long-range missile launch. The report came as the international community discusses further sanctions against Pyongyang for conducting its fourth nuclear test earlier this month. "The reclusive country's supposed action could be aimed at flouting the (UN security) council and any plans among its members to tighten sanctions over the latest nuclear detonation," Kyodo said in its report. Washington is pushing for a strong United Nations response, including enhanced sanctions, to respond to the North's latest atomic blast. But China, North Korea's chief diplomatic protector and economic benefactor, is reluctant, despite their ties becoming strained in recent years as Beijing's patience wears thin with its neighbour's ambitions for nuclear weapons. US Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Wednesday and said they had agreed to mount an "accelerated effort" to try to resolve their differences on a new resolution. But Kerry, who said nuclear-armed North Korea poses an "overt threat, a declared threat to the world", acknowledged that the two had not agreed on the "parameters of exactly what it would do or say". Pyongyang said the blast earlier this month was a miniaturised hydrogen bomb, though experts have largely dismissed the claim. The South Korean defence ministry's Kim added that officials were on guard for any changes in North Korea's previous behaviour. "In the past, North Korea always fired a long-range missile ahead of a nuclear test. But since it didn't this time, we are concerned that it could launch one" afterwards, he said. Kim also stressed that Pyongyang used to notify China and the US before carrying out nuclear tests, though this time did not. "We believe that North Korea could launch grave provocations by surprise without pre-warning from now on." The possible preparation of a missile launch also came after the North said it carried out a submarine-launched ballistic missile test in December. Pyongyang hailed that test as a great success and released a video that researchers at the California-based James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies concluded had been heavily doctored and edited to cover up a "catastrophic" failure. New legislation will hold federal agencies accountable, empower workers (U.S. Senate)Senator Jon Tester today unveiled a bipartisan bill that will cut millions of dollars in government waste, hold federal agencies more accountable, and protect employee rights. Testers bill, the Administrative Leave Act, will curtail federal agencies ability to abuse extended paid leave, known as administrative leave, to employees who are unable to go to work because of alleged misconduct. In 2014, the Departments of Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs spent over $40 million on employees placed on administrative leave for one month or longer. "Taxpayers shouldnt be footing the bill when federal employees are sent home for lengthy periods of time," said Tester, a senior member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "This bill reduces government waste and holds federal agencies accountable while protecting the rights of workers." Testers bill also strengthens worker protections by ensuring employee due process when agencies place them on paid leave. Currently, federal agencies do not need to justify why they are placing employees on administrative leave or outline the length of time for which they will be sent home. Testers Administrative Leave Act makes the following changes to administrative leave: Defines administrative leave from other forms of paid leave or excused absences Limits administrative leave to five consecutive days Creates weather and safety leave that allows agencies to use excused absence for an employee or group of employees who cannot safely make it to work Requires all federal agencies to record other forms of legislatively authorized excused absence separately from administrative leave Creates investigative and notice leave for extended excused absences due to personnel matters According to the Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2015/10/22/at-homeland-security-almost-100-employees-paid-to-stay-home-for-more-than-a-year/ , over 57,000 civilian employees of the Department of Homeland Security were put on administrative leave between Fiscal Years 2011-2013, and several hundred employees were kept on administrative leave for over one year. Testers bill is supported by the National Border Patrol Council, the Senior Executives Association, and the Federal Managers Association. "Currently, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection routinely places Border Patrol Agents on extended administrative leave without justification of length, forcing our agents to languish with no avenue of recourse," said Brandon Judd, President of the National Border Patrol Council. " NBPC supports codifying the definition of administrative leave in hopes that it will curb the overuse of extended administrative leave policies by federal agencies. We appreciate Senator Tester for his leadership protecting the rights of federal employees and look forward to continuing to work to find a solution." "Senator Tester has shown tremendous leadership in putting forth thoughtful, targeted legislation that will address the major problems identified with administrative leave usage and reporting, while preserving agency flexibility, due process and employee rights," said Tim Dirks, Interim President of the Senior Executives Association. "For too long, misuse of paid administrative leave has wasted taxpayer resources while unfairly holding public servants in a fruitless limbo status, denying them rights to challenge agency determinations. We applaud the Senators and urge Congress to quickly pass this good government legislation." "The Federal Managers Association (FMA) is grateful for the bipartisan efforts of Senator Tester for his call for common sense reforms as proposed in the Administration Leave Act. Their proposed legislation calls for uniformity of the use of administrative leave throughout the federal government," said Patricia Niehaus, National President of the Federal Managers Association. "FMA advocates for excellence in public service, and by providing the necessary tools to address poor performers and encourage efficiency and effectiveness, this bill creates a federal workforce that promotes productivity and accountability to the American public. FMA looks forward to continuing to work with Senator Tester and hopes that it will advance through the chamber without hesitation." Testers Administrative Leave Act is cosponsored by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and is available HERE https://www.scribd.com/doc/296873441/Tester-s-Administrative-Leave-Act . Gov. Scott Walkers effort to bridge rural broadband disparities falls well short of a solution for most subscribers outside of urban areas, according to Internet service providers and industry experts. The governor, in last weeks State of the State speech, touted a plan to triple funding for Wisconsins Broadband Expansion Grant Program, which started in 2014 with up to $500,000 annually in matching funds to allocate. In its first two years, the program has benefited a few thousand households served by 14 Wisconsin service providers, but despite the increase to $1.5 million annually, rural broadband advocates say the programs impact will be hardly noticeable. "The amount of money were talking about is insignificant to the amount of money needed to upgrade rural areas to real broadband," said Barry Orton, professor emeritus of telecommunications at UW-Madison. "So, the increase is only slightly better than nothing." JEFF GLAZE [email protected], 608-252-6138 Full Story: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/rural-broadband-advocates-state-s-efforts-insignificant/article_9392cb87-8db0-5be0-ad71-6fd7ca62aa6c.html ust about a year ago, the FCC voted to raise the base definition of broadband from 4 Mbps downstream, 1 Mbps upstream to 25 Mbps downstream, 3 Mbps upstream. This, of course, annoyed the nations mega providers, since the higher standard highlights the lack of competition and next-generation upgrades in countless markets. It especially annoyed the nations phone companies, given that the expensive, sub-6 Mbps DSL foisted upon millions of customers can no longer even technically be called broadband. Fast forward a year and the broadband providers favorite politicians in the House are still whining about the improved definition. In a letter sent to the FCC last week (pdf), the six senators complained that the FCC is on a mad power grab, using a crazy and arbitrary new definition to saddle broadband providers with all manner of onerous regulations. Besides, argued the six Senators, 25 Mbps is more than any American consumer could ever possibly need: Full Story: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160122/05203433402/senators-whine-about-fccs-25-mbps-broadband-standard-insist-nobody-needs-that-much-bandwidth.shtml *** Six Senators Including Sen. Steve Daines Want To Slow Down High-Speed Internet http://www.matr.net/article-69844.html The state of MONTANAS economy is strong. -Governor Steve Bullock Honorable Governor Steve Bullock, One year ago on this date, you delivered the 2015 State of the State Address to the Montana Legislature. Today, I am pleased to present you with the following report summarizing the state of economic development in Montana. It is my pleasure to report that the overall state of economic development in Montana continues to be strong. My staff in the Governors Office of Economic Development (GOED), working with departments throughout state government and our counterparts in the private sector have worked diligently to present an accurate picture of Montanas economy. The thoroughness and accuracy are, in large part, thanks to the help of others, and I am truly thankful for their assistance. This is an exciting time for the state of Montana. We are experiencing strong business and employment growth, increasing wages, and expanding industries. Unemployment levels are nearly a full percentage point below the national average at 4 percent, and more Montanans are at work all across the state than ever before. Over the past few years, Montana has been consistently ranked among the top 10 in the nation for entrepreneurship, business climate, tax fairness, government responsibility, and income growth. Indeed, our state ranks within the top ten in nearly every economic category. While our economy and wages are growing in the private sector, in the public sector we are cutting waste, challenging every expense, aligning with the needs of the private sector, and eliminating unnecessary regulations and red tape. With this news, it would be easy to kick up our feet and congratulate ourselves on a job well done. But we know thats not good enough in Montana. With this report, we see opportunities to build upon this as a foundation to grow Montanas economy even further. Respectfully, John Rogers Chief Business Development Officer Governors Office of Economic Development http://business.mt.gov/ Full Report: http://business.mt.gov/Portals/49/GOED_2015EcoDevReport_FNLScreen.pdf On December 10 last year, Salman was given a clean chit in the infamous hit-and-run case. New Delhi: Bollywood actor Salman Khan today moved the Supreme Court, saying he should be heard before any hearing on the Maharashtra Government's petition challenging his acquittal in the 2002 hit-and-run case. The Maharashtra Government had on January 22 filed a petition in the apex court against the Bombay High Court's judgement acquitting Salman of 'all charges', overturning the trial court's order sentencing him for five years. Read: Maharashtra govt to appeal in Supreme Court against Salman's acquittal Earlier, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had announced that his government would challenge the High Court's verdict on its merits. On December 10 last year, Salman was given a clean chit in the case with the court observing that the main witness was 'wholly unreliable' and that there were discrepancies in the case. The actor is accused of driving a car under the influence of alcohol and killing one and injuring four others in Bandra, Mumbai, in 2002. Mumbai: After being signed for the Salman Khan starrer 'Sultan', Anushka Sharma has joined the league of actresses, who have worked with the three prominent Khans of the industry. While Salman has been working on the movie for some time now, Anushka has been quick to join in. She is clicked here during a physical training session for 'Sultan'. YRF posted few pictures and wrote, "@AnushkaSharma and @BeingSalmanKhan with some fans during the @SultanTheMovie work-out. " Inside Pics: Salman Khan will be shooting for 'Sultan' here The two are playing wrestlers for the first time in their careers and from what we hear, the film is likely to show the two fight it out in the ring as well. A source told DC, A massive showdown between Salman and Anushkas characters in the wrestling ring is being planned. How it will be shot and what kind of special training Anushka will have to take to look convincing, are being worked upon. Authenticity is the key to Sultan. All the locations and wrestling bouts shown in the film will be real, and not doctored on the editing table. The film is directed by Ali Abbas Zafar and produced by Aditya Chopra under Yash Raj Films banner. The team will be traveling to the remotest corners of North India to shoot for the film. Dance dramas involving the art of eurythmy usually have major references to nature. (Representative Photo: Flickr) New Delhi: The Indian mythological tale of the birth of the North Star (Dhruv tara) will be retold in a German dance-drama through the unique medium of the performing art form of eurythmy on January 29 here. Organised by city-based Aarambh Waldorf School in collaboration with Zorba the Buddha, an eco-village, the show will see a group of Swiss eurythmists performing the unique art form. Pioneered by Austrian philosopher and social reformer Rudolf Steiner in the early 20th century, eurythmy is an expressive movement art that uses the human body for its expression. The form of movement also finds use in the fields of education and medicine where it is believed to enhance coordination and strengthen the ability to listen. "Eurythmy is an art of movement which can be described as visible speech and visible music. Besides, being a performing art, eurythmy is taught in Waldorf Schools for better balance, co-ordination and concentration. Therapeutic eurythmy as part of anthroposophic medicine is also used in healing," Aban Bana, President, Anthroposophical Society, India said. The production by Light Eurythmy Ensemble titled, "Bhakta Dhruva" will depict the story of how the North Star came about, while analysing the gradually evolving relationship between human beings and stars. Dance dramas involving the art of eurythmy usually have major references to nature. According to Steiner, its purpose is "to awaken and strengthen the expressive capacities of children through movement and stimulating the child to bring imagination, ideation and conceptualisation to the point where they can manifest these as vital, moving forms in physical space." The Swiss team of eurythmists will present the tale of "Bhakta Dhruva" in brand new costumes, enhanced and moulded by the artistic means of eurythmy, interspersed with music composed especially for this form of art. The central musical instrument used in such acts is piano, in the absence of which the performers usually use an e-piano. Other attractions of the evening will include a more serious dramatic act with musical compositions concluding with a humorous act titled, "Mr Spoon and Mrs Fork" which will include limericks that characterise the four temperaments of human nature. An Old Fort woman accused of helping two prison escapees was cleared of her charges in Superior Court recently. In 2014, Rebecca Lewis Allison, 43, of 815 Catawba River Road, Old Fort, was charged with resisting a public officer and felony harboring an escapee. Those charges were dropped this month due to insufficient evidence, according to court documents. Allison was accused of assisting Frankie Dakota Noles, 24, and Jacob Pilkington, 21, after they escaped from prison in Rowan County. Noles is from McDowell and Pilkington is from Rowan. After a week-long manhunt involving multiple agencies from across the state, they were caught on different days, Pilkington near a railroad bridge and Noles at a junkyard. Ronnie Bollinger, an investigator for fugitives and narcotics for the Department of Public Safety in North Carolina, charged Allison. Warrants stated she provided misleading information regarding the whereabouts of the escaped inmate Dakota Noles, and that she provided clothes and shoes in order to provide aid to the escapee. Assistant District Attorney Michelle McEntire said in an email to the McDowell News that the only evidence they had against Allison was Noles statement, which he later retracted. He has been in prison while her case has been pending. I asked the charging officer to talk to Noles again to make sure he would still testify for the State, said McEntire. His statement changed from his original interview, and he denied ever receiving help from Rebecca Allison. He stated that he and his fellow escapee went to her house when she was not there and he took shoes from the house. They were still there when Ms. Allison returned, but they did not stay, and he said she gave him a hug and they left. This does not amount to a criminal offense. McEntire said there was a discrepancy in Noless statement and what officers indicated Allison told them. In our report, she said she saw Pilkington but not Noles. She indicated that was a misunderstanding on her court date, and that she had told officers she had seen him, said McEntire. I sent a message to the officer that she many need to be re-interviewed because the rest of her statement matched what Noles stated. McEntire said it came to her attention that no charges ever came from the prison or county from which they escaped. She said initial fugitive warrants were issued by the Morrison Correctional in Richmond County, but were later dismissed. I suggested to the Department of Corrections officer that they should ask the District Attorney there to consider that because they escaped from Richmond County, said McEntire. Officer Bollinger indicated that the search for these two cost a huge amount of money, so I have no idea why the two fugitives would not be prosecuted. The McDowell News attempted to contact Sgt. Mia Pressley of Morrison Correctional in Richmond County to find out why these warrants were dropped. Her name was listed on the fugitive warrants, according to McEntire. A person at the prison said Pressley would be out of the office until Monday. An offender search on the N.C. Department of Public Safety website said Noles is being held at the Craggy Correctional Center in Asheville. There were two infractions listed for Noles for the escape on Nov. 16, 2014 and for disobeying orders on March 30, 2015. From the information listed he was charged with receiving a stolen vehicle on Nov. 20, 2014 and possession of a weapon on Nov. 22, 2014 in McDowell County from the escape incident. He was sentenced to six to 17 months in prison. He has a projected release date of April 5, 2016. Jacob Pilkington was released from prison on Oct. 14, 2015 and is on parole until July 10, 2016. He had no infractions listed or charges from the escape incident. Before their escape, they were both only serving short sentences for breaking and entering. The following cases were also heard in McDowell County Superior Court in January: Daniel B. Riddle, 42, of California Avenue, Marion, was found guilty of obtaining property by false pretense. He was given a six- to 17- month suspended sentence and 18 months supervised probation. He must not be on the property of victim. He must pay a court-appointed attorney $1,350. He was fined $200. He must pay court costs. Vanessa Taylor Teems, 53, of Mill Timber Creek Road, Newland, was found guilty of felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance, selling a schedule II controlled substance and possession with intent to sell a schedule II controlled substance. She was given a 14- to 26- month suspended sentence and 30 months supervised probation. She was sentenced to six months in jail. She was given credit for 49 days time served. She was fined $300. She must pay a court-appointed attorney $1,489. She must pay court costs. Take a blank political map of India and conduct an amateur survey at any average middle class haunt, asking people to name the states in the Northeast. Chances are high that only a miniscule number of people would be able to correctly identify them. Trying to go beyond and asking either names of chief ministers of these states or the names of the principal tribe or community will illicit blank, amused looks. You will be considered obtuse if you happen to ask a question on recent developments in any of the Northeast states, political or otherwise. To cut the long story short, most Indians from the mainland have scant knowledge and interest in the affairs of the seven sisters (eight now if one includes Sikkim about which too knowledge is scanty). But while ordinary people may be excused for their deficiency, those in professions where they are expected to be sufficiently equipped do not have the right to be ignorant. This is particularly true of political parties and leaders. The situation gets complicated if the deficit of political interest is about a sensitive border state. Arunachal Pradesh is crucial because of its vantage position and since it borders China which stakes claim on the states territories, contesting Indias territorial right. Recent developments there are worrisome to say the least and the problem is compounded because Chinas obvious interest in political turmoil in the state would enable them to build a case about the Indian governments insincerity to apply the same parameters that apply to other states. The story goes back to parliamentary elections in 2014 when state polls were held simultaneously in Arunachal Pradesh. The Congress swept to power by winning 42 out of the total of 60 Assembly seats and Nabam Tuki, chief minister since November 2011, was re-elected. The Bharatiya Janata Party came a distant second with 11 seats. Political stability, however, suffered the first blow in December 2014 when Mr Tuki sacked an important minister, Kalikho Pul. Following which two MLAs allegedly were forced to resign and in August 2015, four ministers were dismissed. One senior minister quit in October. Meanwhile, in June 2015, the BJP government changed the governor and the new appointee was J.P. Rajkhowa, a former chief secretary of Assam. The Congress leadership erred at this point by not taking note of developments and directing Mr Tuki to set his house in order. Congress dissidents gathered ground and sensing a sympathetic governor in saddle, pressed for a change. The Congress legislature party split vertically though in questionable circumstances. Mr Rajkhowa stepped in to reschedule the state Assembly session from January 4 to December 16. When Speaker Nabam Rebia, backed by Mr Tuki, resisted the House session being held in the Assembly complex, the dissidents were joined by 11 BJP members and two independents to hold the session in a make-shift Assembly on December 16 and 17, 2015, during which a no-confidence motion was adopted with deputy speaker T. Norbu Thongdok, who is also a rebel Congressman, in the chair. Thirty-three MLAs said yes to the no-confidence motion against chief minister Nabam Tuki. They also elected Mr Pul as Leader of the House, in addition to passing the impeachment motion against Mr Rebia. The governor played a clear part in precipitating the constitutional crisis, beginning with advancing the Assembly session. All eventual developments took place with the Raj Bhavan playing a direct role which, it now appears, is being justified by Mr Rajkhowa in his report to the Centre. He has said that Central rule was necessary to prevent cow slaughter and ensure Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang) terrorists not getting a toehold. The cat, however, was let out of the bag by a Bharatiya Janata Party leader earlier this week when he said there was no need to get incensed because traditionally the party in power at the Centre has also governed Arunachal Pradesh. The tumultuous events since December 2015 leading to the imposition of Presidents Rule have to be, therefore, seen in the context of the attempt of the BJP to cobble together a government that is politically aligned with it. The sordid episode, however, raises questions of political strategy and impropriety and the role of governor as the ruling partys political agent. Finally, because the matter is now before the Supreme Court, its verdict on the events will have great bearing on the conduct of the governor, Article 356 and the impartiality of the judiciary. Two vital questions will remain for the Supreme Court to examine first, if the reasons stated by Mr Rajkhowa merited Presidents Rule and, the apex court will have to give its opinion on whether the governor should have provided Mr Tuki with a chance to prove his majority. The developments in Arunachal Pradesh will rock Parliament as the Congress now gets more ammunition to bring proceedings in the Rajya Sabha to a grinding halt. The government will find it tough to secure parliamentary ratification for imposing Presidents Rule. But, in all probability, Congress rebels backed by BJP legislators will soon visit the Raj Bhavan to stake claim to form a government and provide necessary supporting documents. The governor will invite Mr Pul, who has already been elected leader of this group. He will be sworn-in as chief minister and be given ample time to demonstrate majority in the Assembly. This will be proved easily and it will be politics as usual thereafter, till the next episode! This is not the first time that the region has witnessed such political turmoil. And its not the first time that the faith of the people in the Centre to allow them the right to decide their political future is being eroded. For short-term political benefit, the BJP has heaped on itself another political crisis. But more than the BJP, the issue has more serious implications for our democratic republic. Chicken will be the best-positioned protein due to its low price position in times of pressure on consumer spending power but rises in production costs and the long-term impact of COVID-19 threaten to disrupt the sector, according to Rabobank. by Richard Whitman , Columnist, January 27, 2016 Late in 2014, Minneapolis-based Campbell Mithun, dropped the Campbell from its moniker and rebranded itself, simply, Mithun. Now, under the auspices of its parent company, McCann Worldwide, the Mithun name will be retired in favor of McCann Minneapolis. The name change is part of a Twin Cities consolidation that unfortunately, will involve layoffs and other restructurings. Both CEO Rob Buchner and Chief Creative Officer David Carter will leave the agency. The agency's Compass Point Media and General Mills account team will be swept under the McCann Minneapolis moniker. Of the restructuring and name change, a statement read: The rebranding formalizes the closer working relationship between McCann and Mithun that has evolved in connection with growth and integration of the shared General Mills business. We have enormous respect for the heritage and accomplishments of the Mithun agency. However, the opportunity to connect the Minneapolis operation more closely to McCann and our integrated disciplines is the best way to meet the needs of our clients in the region. advertisement advertisement In other words, that's a polite way of saying we want to slash costs and make sure we have complete control over what's going on in our Minneapolis outpost. Campbell Mithun has been around since 1933. McCann Minneapolis will now be overseen by McCann EVP Worldwide Account Director John Campbell, Compass Point Managing Director Melissa Schoenke and McCann Worldwide CFO Scott Savarese. Well, at least a name change isn't as bad as what's going on over at the other Campbell (Ewald) where an email about an agency "Ghetto Day" has resulted in an employee getting fired. by Thom Forbes @tforbes, January 28, 2016 The Federal Trade Commission charged the for-profit DeVry University with making deceptive claims about its graduates success in finding jobs in their fields and more lucrative ones at that in a suit filed in federal court in California yesterday. DeVry, which is based in Downers Grove, Ill., and has locations in 25 states across the country, says it will vigorously contest the action. The FTC is accusing the school of deceiving consumers about the likelihood of finding a job, with claims that 90% of DeVry graduates seeking employment land jobs within six months of graduation, reports Danielle Douglas-Gabriel in the Washington Post. advertisement advertisement To arrive at that number, the university counted numerous graduates as working in their field when they were not, according to the complaint. A 2012 graduate who majored in business administration was working as a server at a restaurant, while another with a degree in technical management was working as a rural mail carrier, Douglas-Gabriel writes. Not to mention the business administration graduate with a health care management specialization who was selling cars. We want people to be making informed choices based on accurate information, Christina Tusan, a staff attorney in the FTC's Los Angeles office tells the Los Angeles Times Chris Kirkham. That's our concern in these types of cases. FTC chairwoman Edith Ramirez said up to 50,000 or so students may have been affected by the alleged wrongdoing, the APs Merrit Kennedy reports for SFGate.com. The FTC is seeking a court order to stop DeVry from making its advertising claims, via TV, radio and elsewhere. Ramirez said the commission would seek monetary relief for those affected but that it was too early to say how much money that might involve. In response, DeVry Group believes that the FTCs complaint filed 40 years after DeVry University began publishing accurate graduate employment statistics is without a valid legal basis, it asserts in a statement that went out over BusinessWire. In addition, the FTCs complaint contains anecdotal examples that exaggerate the allegations but do not prove them. DeVry also states that it has fully cooperated with the FTC during a 24-month investigation and has provided extensive documentation disproving the FTCs claims and demonstrating the value of a DeVry University education. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education, which has been cracking down on some for-profit colleges for substandard teaching and predatory sales techniques, said on Wednesday it had ordered DeVry to only tout student employment prospects if they had evidence to support the assertions, reports Reuters Diane Bartz. In a letter to the school posted on the Education Department website, it said that as a condition of further U.S. federal student aid to DeVry students, the university had to be able to prove any assertions it made about students' post-graduation job prospects, Bartz writes. Indeed, the Wall Street Journals Josh Mitchell and Brent Kendall observe that the DeVry lawsuit is part of an effort by federal and state officials to root out what they characterize as overaggressive and deceptive recruiting tactics by for-profit colleges. Officials say those tactics helped fuel a surge in for-profit school enrollment in the past two decades particularly among poor and vulnerable Americans helping to drive up student debt. Lawmakers are having a say as well. Federal legislation was introduced last year by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., to stop for-profit universities from using federal aid funds for marketing and recruitment, Corilyn Shropshire writes for the Chicago Tribune. The FTC's charges of deception against DeVry University are the latest chapter in the shameful story of so many for-profit colleges, Durbin said in a statement Wednesday, Shropshire reports. It is time to clean up for-profit colleges and stand up for the students and taxpaying families who are the real victims of their pathetic practices. As for Wall Streets reaction to the news, needless to say, shares of DeVry had a rough session, writes Tyler Durden on Zerohedge.com. An accompanying chart looks like its tracing a swan dive off a cliff DeVry closed the day down 15.37%, according to Yahoo Finance. That DeVry graduate working as wait staff? Well, at least it was at a Cheesecake Factory, which scores preponderantly positive reviews on Glassdoor.com. And what better time than last year to be selling cars? The Washington Post, Thursday, January 28, 2016 11:42 AM Despite it being a downfall of their 2012 strategy, the conservative establishment is readdressing the issue of immigration in an attempt to foil Donald Trump. Principles PAC, with the goal of dethroning Trump, has released an ad that attacks the front-runner on immigration. The spot it part of a $1 million ad buy in Iowa. The narrator of the ad says: Trump cant answer tough questions, like why hed let millions of illegal immigrants stay in America, and even supports a pathway to citizenship. Read the whole story at The Washington Post New research suggests that taking antidepressants during pregnancy is unlikely to increase the risk of having babies with congenital heart defects, compared with not taking the drugs. It finds that other factors which are more prevalent among women who take antidepressants are more likely to be the reason behind a higher risk. Share on Pinterest The researchers say it is important to consider both the pros and cons before women stop taking antidepressants during pregnancy. The research, from University College London in the UK, is to be published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. Lead author Dr. Irene Petersen, whose research interests include prescribed medicine in pregnancy, says: Women often receive conflicting messages on whether they should continue taking antidepressants during pregnancy and many women may discontinue antidepressants in pregnancy because they fear adverse effects on their unborn child. However, she notes, health care professionals should counsel women on other risks contributing to congenital heart anomalies in children such as age, weight, diabetes, alcohol problems and illicit drug use. Dr. Petersen explains there is an ongoing debate about whether taking antidepressants in pregnancy can cause congenital heart anomalies in babies, but their research could find no evidence of this. Instead, their analysis which used data sampled between 1990 and 2011 from over 200,000 pairs of women and their children finds that having diabetes, a body mass index of more than 30 and a history of alcohol and drug use does pose a higher risk of having a baby with congenital heart defects. The team also found that these other factors were more likely to be found in women taking antidepressants. People who take the drug natalizumab for multiple sclerosis may have up to a 10 times greater risk of developing a risk biomarker for activity of a virus that can lead to an often fatal brain disease, according to a study published in the Neurology Neuroimmunology and Neuroinflammation, a medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) is a rare and often fatal disease characterized by damage to the white matter of the brain. It is caused by the John Cunningham virus (JCV), a common virus usually kept under control by the immune system. But people with weakened immune systems, or on immunosuppressive drugs, are more susceptible to JCV-related problems. Natalizumab prevents immune cells from getting into the brain. "An increase in the levels of anti-JCV antibodies could signify an increased risk of PML," said study senior author Heinz Wiendl, MD, of the University of Muenster in Germany and member of the American Academy of Neurology. The level of antibodies is a marker for exposure to JCV and therefore the risk for PML. In the study, researchers used a blood test to monitor levels of anti-JCV antibodies over a 15-month period in 525 people in Germany and over two years in 711 people in France. All had multiple sclerosis and were taking natalizumab. They found people converted from being anti-JCV negative to anti-JCV positive at the following annual rates: 10 percent in the German group and nearly 9 percent in the French group. Those rates are much higher than the rate of 1 percent per year for the general population and for people with multiple sclerosis not treated with natalizumab. In the German group, 43 of 339 people who were initially anti-JCV negative tested positive for the antibodies during the study. In the French group, 41 of 243 people who were anti-JCV negative tested positive for the antibodies during the study. In people who were anti-JCV positive already at the beginning of the study, their level of antibodies also rose over time. Treatment with natalizumab was associated with a 13-percent yearly rise in the level of anti-JCV antibodies in the blood. In the German group of 525 people, those considered medium risk of PML grew by seven people, representing 5 percent of the group at the beginning of 15 months, increasing to 6 percent. The high-risk group grew by 14 patients, initially representing 22 percent of the group, increasing to 25 percent. "Even though anti-JCV antibodies were present at a higher level, it does not necessarily mean that an individual will get PML," said Adil Javed, MD, PhD, of the University of Chicago in Illinois, who wrote a corresponding editorial and is a member of the American Academy of Neurology. "The risk of PML in JCV positive people being treated for multiple sclerosis with natalizumab without prior immunosuppressant therapy is one in 1,000 people. The risk of a multiple sclerosis attack in untreated patients is one in every two people." Wiendl said, "It is important that people with multiple sclerosis taking natalizumab speak with their doctor before making any changes to their treatment. Still, this study shows anti-JCV antibodies may serve as a useful biomarker. Natalizumab did appear to increase the levels of anti-JCV antibodies and this higher level may be associated with a higher risk of PML. The results of this study underscore the need for frequent monitoring of anti-JCV antibodies in people who are being treated with natalizumab for multiple sclerosis." Wiendl noted that the study does not prove that natalizumab causes the virus to replicate at higher rates, leading to higher anti-JCV antibody levels, but that it shows an association. The study was supported by the German Research Foundation, the PML Consortium, the Competence Network for Multiple Sclerosis, the French Ministry of Health, the French MS Society and the European Union. Solving a long-standing mystery in cell biology, a team has shown how a key "relief-valve" in cells keeps cells from taking in too much water and swelling excessively. The mechanism has been tentatively linked to stroke-induced brain damage, diabetes, immune deficiency and even cancer treatment resistance. A team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has solved a long-standing mystery in cell biology by showing essentially how a key "relief-valve" in cells does its job. The relief valve, known as VRAC (volume-regulated anion channel), normally keeps cells from taking in too much water and swelling excessively. But VRAC's importance to cellular health is just beginning to be understood - already it has been tentatively linked to stroke-induced brain damage, diabetes, immune deficiency and even cancer treatment resistance. In a study published in Cell, the scientists showed that VRAC is a complex structure with five different protein subunits - the precise mix of which determines its relief-valve properties. The team also determined that VRAC's relief-valve function is activated not by the physical swelling of a cell per se, but by a closely linked event: the low concentration of dissolved ions that results from a sudden flow of water into a cell. "Knowing how VRAC is assembled and how it works is important not only because it is a fundamental regulatory mechanism in cells, but also because it seems to have relevance for a variety of diseases and conditions," said principal investigator Ardem Patapoutian, a professor at TSRI and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator. Sorting Through the Molecular Soup Scientists discovered VRAC's existence decades ago, but only recently began to identify its components. In early 2014, Patapoutian's laboratory and a separate group in Germany discovered independently that one VRAC subunit is a protein called LRRC8A (SWELL1), which is necessary for VRAC to function properly. It was apparent at the time, however, that VRAC has other subunits. In the new study, Patapoutian and his team sought a more complete understanding of how VRAC is put together and how it senses volume changes. Knowing that LRRC8A is always present in VRAC, co-first author Zhaozhu Qiu, a postdoctoral fellow in the Patapoutian lab and at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF), created test cells that produce LRRC8A with a special protein tag attached. The tagged LRRC8A were used as a handle to pull the full VRAC complex out of the molecular soup contained in cells. Co-first author Ruhma Syeda, also a postdoctoral fellow in the Patapoutian lab, led the effort to put purified VRAC complexes into model cell membranes (lipid bilayers) to measure the conductance of charged ions. The results were startling. Although an ion channel typically has a sharply defined single channel conductance, measurements of VRAC suggested a broad range of conductances. Prior research had suggested that the VRAC structure can include other members of the LRRC8 family besides LRRC8A, namely LRRC8B, LRRC8C, LRRC8D and/or LRRC8E. Qiu and Stuart Cahalan, another postdoctoral fellow, therefore created a set of cell lines in which genes for one or more of the LRRC8 proteins were deleted. With this and other methods, the team established that VRAC is in fact a diverse family of ion channels, each of which has approximately six protein subunits. At least one subunit of any VRAC structure is LRRC8A, but the other subunits appear to be a variable mix of LRRC8B-E proteins. That variability of composition leads to different charge-flow properties when channel complexes were measured in the minimalistic bilayer system. Swetha Murthy, a postdoctoral fellow, and Adrienne Dubin, an assistant professor of neuroscience (and co-corresponding author), determined that charge-flow properties of single VRAC channels on intact swollen cells were also dictated by the subunit combination. "We speculate that different cell types need different forms of VRAC to cope with their different environments - that's an idea we're keen to test," said Qiu. "This finding also suggests that subtle variations in VRAC's composition can have profound effects on how it works in cells and potentially contributes to disease," said Patapoutian. How to Sense a Swelling Cell Perhaps the biggest unanswered question about VRAC has been: how does it sense the swelling of a cell? "People have scratched their heads over this for decades, because it's hard to imagine how a cell could directly measure an increase in its volume," Patapoutian said. One possibility has been that VRAC senses a volume increase indirectly, by detecting the stretching of the cell membrane, as some sensory ion channels do. However, examining VRAC complexes in the simplified environment of lipid bilayers, the team found that they were not activated by membrane stretching. They were, however, readily activated when the usual concentration of dissolved ions was reduced. That made sense. "Local decrease in the ionic strength is an inevitable result when the water rushes in and the cell swells," Syeda said. Further studies of VRAC will be aimed at determining its precise physical structure, how variations in that structure alter its ion-conducting properties, how VRAC varies in different cell types, and how VRAC variants or mutants contribute to disease. VRAC is thought to worsen stroke-related brain damage and heart-attack damage, for example, by allowing abnormal, harmful flows of signaling molecules in the low-oxygen condition following arterial blockage. VRAC may also be linked to immune system development: a 2003 study found that a mutation of LRRC8A, now known to be VRAC's chief subunit, prevents antibody-producing B cells from developing normally. A more recent study implicated VRAC in the clinical response to the cancer drugs cisplatin and carboplatin - the drug molecules use VRACs as portals into tumor cells. In addition to Patapoutian, Qiu, Syeda, Dubin, Murthy and Cahalan, co-authors of the study, "LRRC8 proteins form volume-regulated anion channels that sense ionic strength," were Maria N. Florendo of TSRI; Daniel E. Mason, Jayanti Mathur and Eric C. Peters of GNF in San Diego; and Mauricio Montal of the University of California, San Diego. Syeda began her research for this study while working in Montal's laboratory. Funding for the research came from the National Institutes of Health (NS083174, GM49711) and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. RNA sequencing could help predict future outbreaks. Advances in genetic sequencing are uncovering emerging diseases in wildlife that other diagnostic tests can't detect. In a study led by Duke University, researchers used a technique called whole-transcriptome sequencing to screen for blood-borne diseases in wild lemurs, distant primate cousins to humans. The animals were found to carry several strains or species of parasites similar to those that cause Lyme disease and other infections in humans. This is the first time these parasites have been reported in lemurs or in Madagascar, the only place on Earth where lemurs live in the wild outside of zoos and sanctuaries, the researchers report in the Jan. 27, 2016 issue of Biology Letters. The approach could pave the way for earlier, more accurate detection of future outbreaks of zoonotic diseases that move between animals and people. "We can detect pathogens we might not expect and be better prepared to deal with them," said co-author Anne Yoder, director of the Duke Lemur Center. In 2012, Duke Lemur Center veterinarian Cathy Williams and colleagues started performing physical exams on lemurs in the rainforests surrounding a mine site in eastern Madagascar to help monitor the impacts of such activities on lemur health. "Lemur populations are becoming increasingly small and fragmented because of human activities like mining, logging and clearing forests to make way for cattle grazing and rice paddies," Williams said. "If an infectious disease wipes out a lemur population it could be a huge blow to the species." Researchers took small amounts of blood and tested them for evidence of exposure to known viruses and pathogens, but nothing turned up. The problem is that standard diagnostic tests tend to target known pathogens, Williams said. You can check for antibodies to certain viruses, or look for specific snippets of genetic material in an animal's blood, "but you have to know what you're looking for." The end result is that new or exotic diseases often go undetected. And with hundreds of thousands of viral and bacterial species that lemurs and other mammals harbor still awaiting discovery, "we could be looking for anything," Williams said. To cast a wider net they tried a new approach. Lead author Peter Larsen, senior research scientist at Duke, analyzed blood samples from six lemurs in two species, the indri and the diademed sifaka, both of which are considered critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). With advances in high-throughput sequencing, the ability to read genetic code rapidly, Larsen was able to look at all the gene readouts, or RNA transcripts, that were present in each animal -- an alphabet soup containing billions of nucleotide bases. The team found more than just lemur RNA in the animals' blood. Using computer algorithms that compared the genetic material to sequences already catalogued in existing databases, they discovered several new types of parasites that had never been reported in lemurs. These included a new form of the protozoa responsible for babesiosis, a disease spread by bites from infected ticks, and a new kind of Borrelia closely related to the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. They also found the first known case in Madagascar of a bacterium called Candidatus Neoehrlichia, which can be deadly in humans. Further analyses revealed that the new types of Babesia and Borrelia they found didn't begin in lemurs, but were likely introduced to Madagascar in infected pets and livestock such as cattle and then spilled over to lemurs. The researchers don't yet know if the new parasites are actually dangerous to lemurs. But they caution that what is infecting lemurs could potentially infect people, too. Human health officials and veterinarians in Madagascar may want to consider screening their patients to see if any test positive for the same parasites, the researchers say. The majority of emerging infectious diseases that affect humans, including recent outbreaks of SARS, Ebola and bird flu, are zoonotic -- they can spread among wildlife, domestic animals and humans. "Next-generation sequencing will be an important tool to identify emerging pathogens, particularly vector-borne diseases," said Barbara Qurollo, a research assistant professor at the N.C. State College of Veterinary Medicine who was not affiliated with the study. "A clinician cannot treat an infection that he or she does not know exists," said veterinarian and infectious diseases researcher Edward Breitschwerdt, also of the N.C. State College of Veterinary Medicine. "The kindest form of therapy is an accurate diagnosis." New National Cancer Data Base study finds that most elderly breast cancer patients who could skip radiation still get it. Nearly two thirds of U.S. women age 70 or older with stage I breast cancer1 who undergo lumpectomy and are eligible to safely omit subsequent radiation therapy (RT) according to national cancer guidelines still receive this treatment, according to new study results. The researchers looked at more than 205,000 cases of breast cancer nationwide, and their study is published as an "article in press" on the Journal of the American College of Surgeons website in advance of print publication. After a lumpectomy, also called a breast-sparing or breast-conserving operation, radiation usually is given to the breast to reduce the chance of the cancer returning. However, treatment recommendations changed in 2004 for a select group of elderly breast cancer patients after research found that postoperative RT did not significantly prolong their survival over five years compared with women who received no RT.2 In the new study, the researchers compared post-lumpectomy RT utilization before and after 2004 and found that RT use decreased only 3 percent among women for whom the value of this treatment is questionable. This finding demonstrates a lack of compliance with or poor awareness of the recommended treatment for what probably is a large number of breast cancer patients, said lead author Quyen D. Chu, MD, MBA, FACS, professor of surgery at Louisiana State University (LSU) Health Sciences Center, Shreveport. "Why are we as a nation mostly not following a national guideline on breast cancer treatment?" Dr. Chu asked. "This guideline applies to a significant proportion of patients. About 30 percent of new diagnoses of invasive breast cancer3 are in women 70 and older." In 2004 researchers of a multicenter clinical trial, known as the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB) 9343 trial,2 advised that it is reasonable to omit RT in women with certain characteristics that put them at low risk of dying of cancer. Those characteristics were as follows: age 70 or older stage I breast cancer measuring 2 cm or less (roughly three-fourths of an inch or smaller) that has not spread to the lymph nodes on clinical examination estrogen-receptor-positive tumor status (the most common type of breast cancer) surgical removal of the tumor with lumpectomy and negative surgical margins, meaning no more cancer is observed at the edge of the removed tumor subsequent long-term anti-hormone therapy such as tamoxifen They based this recommendation on their study finding that no difference existed in the length of overall survival of these elderly lumpectomy patients between those treated with and without postoperative RT plus tamoxifen. Subsequently, organizations including the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and the American Cancer Society updated their stage I breast cancer treatment guidelines to include when to consider omitting RT.4 To find out whether clinical practice changed after the CALGB 9343 trial, Dr. Chu and his co-investigators evaluated RT use using the National Cancer Data Base (NCDB), a joint project of the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer (CoC) and the American Cancer Society. NCDB captures an estimated 70 percent of newly diagnosed cancer cases in the United States from approximately 1,500 cancer programs accredited by the CoC. From 2.8 million breast cancer cases diagnosed between 1998 and 2012 and listed in the database, the researchers identified 205,860 women at least 70 years old who underwent lumpectomy for treatment of hormone-receptor-positive stage I breast cancer. Approximately 50 percent of the women received their cancer diagnosis before publication of the CALGB criteria (1998 to 2004), and the other half, after publication (2005 to 2012). In the pre-CALGB group 31.2 percent of patients did not undergo RT versus 34.2 percent in the post-CALGB group, a decrease in RT use of 3 percent, the investigators reported. Patients ages 80 and older had the greatest decrease in RT use among the different age groups according to the article. However, Dr. Chu said after the CALGB 9343 trial, 30 percent of patients ages 85 years and older still received RT. Possible side effects of breast RT include breast swelling, pain, skin discoloration or firmness, and shrinkage in the size of the breast. The researchers reported a large variation in RT use depending on demographic, tumor, and other characteristics. Poorer access to cancer care, rather than better adherence to the guideline, may explain some differences observed in RT use, Dr. Chu said. For instance, significant predictors of lowest RT use included residence in the central southeastern states (Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama) or in a small rural population not near a metropolitan area, or an increased distance between the patient's home and the hospital that reported the cancer. However, insurance status did not influence RT use, he noted. Alternatively, Dr. Chu suggested that some women might have chosen to receive RT to reduce their worries about a recurrence. In the initial CALGB 9343 trial, women who did not receive RT had a 3 percent higher breast cancer recurrence rate over five years compared with those who did undergo RT.2 Another possible explanation given by Dr. Chu for the apparently low adoption of the guideline is the increasing popularity in the past decade of faster forms of RT, such as brachytherapy. A course of brachytherapy typically takes only five days versus up to six weeks with conventional external beam RT according to Dr. Chu. The newer technique involves implanting radioactive materials (seeds or in catheters) into the breast cavity. Several other predictors of not receiving RT surprised the researchers, Dr. Chu said. Patients were less likely to undergo RT if they did not adhere to long-term anti-hormone therapy and if they had "residual," or remaining, tumor after lumpectomy. Although Dr. Chu said they could only speculate on the possible reasons why these patients tended to not receive RT as experts recommend, further analysis of the study data showed a correlation between advanced age and residual tumor. "Surgeons should try to achieve negative lumpectomy margins for patients who are 85 and older because they are less likely to receive radiation treatment," Dr. Chu suggested. The CALGB 9343 trial results have been confirmed in a 10-year update of that trial and in other recent studies.5 Dr. Chu said he hopes the message of when to withhold this breast cancer treatment receives better awareness in the community. "Patients often ask a surgeon, do I need this operation? Maybe it's time to ask your doctor, do I need radiation treatment for my breast cancer?" Dr. Chu said. New research could help to explain why pregnancy becomes less likely as women age and why IVF so often fails. Scientists have shown for the first time that hormones produced inside the womb play a pivotal role in the early stages of pregnancy. It was previously thought this vital role was carried out solely by hormones made elsewhere in the body, which circulate to the womb through the bloodstream. But new research has found that specific hormones - known as androgens - help to prepare the womb lining to encourage a successful pregnancy. As fewer of these key hormones are produced as women age, this could partly explain why some older women find it difficult to conceive, researchers say. The University of Edinburgh team studied womb tissue donated by women who were already undergoing surgery for gynecological conditions. They found that androgens in the womb work with other hormones to help to make the womb lining ready to receive a fertilised egg. Every month, the structure of the womb lining - known as the endometrium - is reorganised to create an environment that can support and sustain pregnancy. However, without the right hormonal signals, the endometrium will not provide the conditions required for a fertilised egg to implant. By identifying the key hormones that control this process, the study could also help explain why IVF often fails when a fertilised egg is placed into the womb, the team says. The research is published in Scientific Reports. The study was funded by the Medical Research Council. Dr Douglas Gibson, of the Medical Research Council Centre for Inflammation Research at the University of Edinburgh, who led the study, said: "The research is at a very early stage but it has already improved our understanding of fertility. In the long-term we hope this will lead to more effective fertility therapies". More people than ever before are turning to wearable sensors to monitor their activity levels. However, despite its origin in simple step counting, the market for wearable sensors is expanding into the more complex arena of health monitoring. ... Please complete this form and we'll send you a personalised information that is requested You may use this for your own reference or forward it to your friends. Please use the information prudently. If you are not a medical doctor please remember to consult your healthcare provider as this information is not a substitute for professional advice. Advertisement The venue will host Rio's elaborate annual parades on February 7 and 8, 2016, and also the archery contest during the 2016 Olympics.Marcos Vinicius Ferreira, spokesman for Rio's health department, said, "The concern is very great in all of Rio because it's a city for mega-events. During the Carnival there'll be crowds of people from different parts of the world and Brazil, which will help the virus get in. The main thing is to get rid of mosquito breeding sites."A surge in microcephalic babies born to women infected with Zika during pregnancy in Latin America, notably in Brazil, has prompted the United States and other governments to warn pregnant women against traveling to affected countries.That is an alarming prospect for Brazil, already struck by a deep recession, as it prepares to welcome visitors to Rio for the Olympics.Roberto Medronho, an epidemiologist at Rio de Janeiro University, said, "It is very difficult to control the Aedes aegypti mosquito in Rio, where a third of the population lives in slums with numerous places for them to proliferate. The city suffers from disorderly town planning and ineffective control measures against disease."Brazil's health ministry said that it was mobilizing more than 200,000 troops to go house to house giving out leaflets and advice against Zika.Health Minister Marcelo Castro was quoted by the newspaper O Globo as saying that the government will also hand out repellent to at least 400,000 pregnant women on social welfare.The city hall said in a statement, "Inspections will be intensified for the Olympic Games in August 2016, even though that will be during a period when there are fewer mosquitoes due to the cooler weather."Medronho said, "Next week, however, during the Carnival, at the height of summer and with so many people moving around, there is an objective risk of contracting Zika."Castro said that health authorities had been fighting the mosquitoes for 30 years and right now seem to be losing the 'war' against them. Authorities in other countries by advising women to avoid getting pregnant for the time being because of the Zika threat."The British and French embassies have warned athletes and other visitors from their countries about the virus.The World Health Organization (WHO) said that Zika is expected to spread to all countries in the Americas except Canada and Chile, where there are no Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.One resident of Rio, Manuela Mehl, said that she was really nervous when she learned that Zika was thought to cause microcephaly, as she is 16 weeks pregnant with her second child. Mehl said, "I even stopped leaving the house." The risk is said to be highest early on the pregnancy like hers was at the time. She said, "But I tried to relax because there isn't much I can control. So I protect myself, I don't go to certain high-risk areas."She shows a collection of some 30 anti-mosquito products she has stocked up. She further added, "I have to carry this pregnancy to term as serenely as possible so that the baby stays calm and everything goes well."The WHO has noted a surge in cases of microcephaly in Brazil. It said there were 3,893 suspected cases there, compared to an average of about 160 a year.Medronho reckoned the Zika drama was comparable to the thalidomide affair, in which a generation of babies were born with missing or deformed limbs due to a drug prescribed to pregnant mothers. He said, "It is a tragedy for the families, most of all the poorest ones.There have been no confirmed cases of the virus spreading person to person. For most people infected, the flu-like symptoms clear up in about a week.But for the unborn babies whose mothers catch it, Zika can be devastating and even deadly.Of the cases detected in Brazil, at least 49 of the babies have died, according to the WHO.Medronho said, "Some babies do not survive and others have after-effects. Over the years other anomalies can occur such as deafness. This is surely just the tip of the iceberg."Source: AFP Today, January 27, 2016, International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei published on his official website a three-minute video clip titled "Are The Dark Ages Over?" In it, he expresses doubt about whether the Holocaust actually happened, rages about Europe's ban on public questioning of the validity of the Holocaust, and hints at a conspiracy on the part of Western Europe and the U.S. - which champion freedom of speech yet at the same time prevent open discussion of whether the Holocaust happened, and rages about Europe's ban on denying the Holocaust. Khamenei attacks what he calls the hypocrisy of the West that champion the value of freedom of speech yet prevent any discussion of whether the Holocaust actually happened. This silence about the Holocaust that is imposed by the West on their citizens, he hints, is a conspiracy by the Western countries and the Zionist regime, aimed at establishing falsely, justification for Israel's existence, as it expels the Palestinians. He then calls on the Muslim ummah, in a religious message, to come together to fight Israel and her Western patrons, because it is they who are perpetrating the real "Ignorance" - Jahiliyya - a reference to the era of ignorance that preceded the advent of Islam. The clip also features images of leading European Holocaust deniers such as Roger Garaudy, Robert Faurisson, and David Irving, and highlighted the alleged persecution of them by Western authorities. The "Iran Military" Facebook page, which is affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), posted the video and reported that it had been released on Khamenei's website. The following is the video and the transcript of Khamenei's statements in it. "Who assists the fake Zionist regime?... It is Western powers - headed by America - that are doing so. This is while they say in their slogans that they are opposed to terrorism and ISIS. They are lying. They say things which are not true. This is Ignorance... No one in European countries dares to speak about the Holocaust, while it is not clear whether the core of this matter is a reality or not. Even if it is a reality, it is not clear how it happened. Speaking about holocaust and expressing doubts about it is considered to be a great sin. If someone does this, they stop, arrest, imprison, and sue him. This is while they claim to be the supporters of freedom. This is the Ignorance that exists in today's world. We should be awake. "You dear brothers, dear people of Iran, Muslims of the great Islamic Ummah, and officials in different countries, should know that we can stand up against the Ignorance." After it emerged in mid-January 2016 that thousands of pragmatic camp candidates for the Majlis elections set for February 26, 2016 had been disqualified, the pragmatic camp's leaders, Expediency Council chairman Hashemi Rafsanjani and President Hassan Rohani, were publicly vocal in their criticism. They called on the regime, the Guardian Council whose task it is to approve candidates for elections, and, particularly, on ideological camp head Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, to allow candidates from different camps to run. They also urged the regime to accept the criticism and decisions of the people, in everyday matters and in elections for state institutions, or else risk harming the regime. Why should there even be elections, they asked, if only candidates from one camp could participate? In response, the editor of the Kayhan daily, Hossein Shariatmadari, who is an associate of Supreme Leader Khamenei and a prominent figure in the ideological camp, wrote an editorial for the paper attacking President Rohani. Commenting on January 26 on the mass disqualification of candidates, among them also reformists, who had been largely prevented from running for office in the past several elections and who have almost no political representation, reformist professor Sadegh Zibakalam said that it was the candidates who support Rohani's pragmatic government, and also those who had been active in Rohani's 2013 election campaign, who had been disqualified en masse. He proposed a strategy to get reformists into the Majlis: The supreme council of the reformist party should appeal to lesser known candidates who have been approved to run, asking them to represent the reformists and promising in return that the council will ask the public to vote for them. Even if two-thirds of these candidates ultimately join the pro-government pragmatics in the Majlis, he said, the remaining third will still represent the reformists. He also warned that if the reformists boycott the elections and do not turn out to vote, the hardliners will take control of the Majlis.[1] The same day, the Kayhan daily, which is affiliated with Khamenei, responded to both the reformists and the pragmatic camp in the matter of the disqualification of their candidates. It said that the candidates disqualified by the Guardian Council were those who had "collaborated with the enemy," who were opposed to Islam and in favor of Israel, who were acting to destroy the regime of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, or who had asked that the U.S. to level paralyzing sanctions against Iran, but that ordinary candidates had not been disqualified. It added that the reformists needed to define for themselves who they are and what their limits are, so that "traitors" and "the politically lawless" are not identified with them. This report will summarize the main points of the criticism by pragmatic camp leaders Rafsanjani and Rohani, and of Shariatmadari's editorial: Rafsanjani: Let The People Vote For Candidates From Diverse Camps With Diverse Views After expressing regret, on January 18, 2016, over the disqualification of some 60% of the moderate candidates for the Majlis elections,[2] Expediency Council Chairman Hashemi Rafsanjani stated, twice, in a January 20 speech that the people must be allowed to vote for candidates from diverse camps and with diverse views, and that there must be an open and safe public atmosphere with no ideological censorship: "Every stage of the crucial elections of February 2016 must be carried out legally and fairly, so that the people can elect the candidates they desire from a wide variety of dedicated [candidates] coming from the entire spectrum of personal tastes and ideological inclinations in the family of the revolution and the Islamic regime. Maybe in this way we will see elections that are greeted with maximal enthusiasm and participation by the public. "For the regime to maintain continuity, it is essential that it be responsive to the will of the people, and that it persuade it intellectually. Today, due to the proliferation of social networks and the good access to diverse news from around the world, the public becomes more informed and educated every day, and is always exchanging views with others. For this reason, pretexts, censorship of information and news, and distortion of reality do not solve anything. "The public must be allowed to express its opinion, to criticize, to judge, and to ask constructive questions in an atmosphere that is nonthreatening and proper. Failing to address the will of the people could result in long-term ills. This [is also] a contradiction of Islam. "The people should have an opportunity to freely elect the candidates it desires, [and to choose from] a variety of personal tastes and inclinations. According to God's dictate, no one besides the Imam Ali was worthy of ruling. But the Prophet Muhammad said to him: 'If the people desire, rule them, but if they do not desire it, transfer the [right to choose] to them.' "If the upcoming elections [set for February 26] for the Assembly of Experts and the Majlis are held in a legal manner, it will have positive impact, because, thanks to the political heroism of the Iranian nation in the June 2013 [presidential election], the people's votes led to the rise of a moderate government that assembled a professional technical team that sat at the [nuclear] negotiating table with the global superpowers and proved to the world Iran's legitimacy."[3] Rohani: Why Hold Elections If A Party Representing 10 Million People Cannot Run? President Hassan Rohani also called on the regime not to ignore the right of millions of Iranians to elect their representatives as they see fit, and not only in accordance with the criterion set forth by Supreme Leader Khamenei on January 9, 2016 - that is, religious observance. Speaking at a January 21, 2016 governors' conference, Rohani said: "With regard to domestic policy, the current government's greatest task is to hold legal elections for the Majlis and the Assembly of Experts on February 26. Everyone should make an effort to carry out Leader [Khamenei's] view concerning the entire nation's full and enthusiastic participation [in the voting]. "The Majlis is known as the house of the nation - not as a house that belongs solely to one party. The government does not side with particular parties or candidates. Because of the situation in the world, we must send the very best to the Majlis. Just as the leader [Khamenei] said [regarding worthy candidates], we must operate according to the law and not based merely on personal taste... "These days, we are examining whether the candidates are worthy. Of course, all candidates should be committed to the religion, the constitution, and the rule of the jurisprudent. But should their commitment be [limited to] these matters alone?! What about the environment, industry, development, the elimination of the economic recession, unemployment, and financial prosperity?! "When the Imam Ali wanted to choose a governor, did he look only at whether [a candidate] does his evening prayers, participates in public prayers, pays his tithes? Or did he also look at his capabilities, professionalism, management skills, and understanding of society? "The constitution grants Jews, Zoroastrians, Assyrians, and Armenians the right to representatives in the Majlis, even though they are a tiny segment of society. This is a very good thing. Should we now ignore [an entire] national party whose supporters number some 10 million?! Is this [an appropriate] interpretation and implementation of the constitution?! "If a certain party can be represented in the elections and another party cannot, then why are we even holding elections?!"[4] Shariatmadari: Rohani Should Sit On The Defendant's Bench And Give The People Answers In his January 23, 2016 editorial in Kayhan, editor Hossein Shariatmadari responded to statements by President Rohani and justified the decision of the Guardian Council, the body tasked with approving candidates for elections, to reject the pragmatic camp candidates. He wrote that because Rohani is not properly carrying out his job as president, and has proved incapable of solving the people's economic woes, he is passing the blame for this to the Majlis. Rohani's claim that the regime is ignoring millions of moderate voices who are not being politically represented is unfounded, he stated, and went on to say that Muslims are not a religious minority in Iran and therefore should not be guaranteed any particular party representation. Following are excerpts from his article: "'In global revolutions, and throughout history, executive branches [i.e. governments] have always interpreted the law in their own favor, thus suppressing revolutions. Therefore, the constitution of the Islamic Republic [of Iran] defines the [role of the] the Guardian Council as confronting dictatorship. In order to prevent a dictatorship, the constitution authorized the Guardian Council to interpret the law'... This is part of a [November 30,] 1980 speech by President Rohani. "Later on in that speech, Rohani talks about how to identify people and parties who are not following the line of the leader [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] and of the revolution, and says: 'The fundamental criteria are the words of the Imam and leader [Khomeini]. The people should read interviews and speeches and compare the positions of officials to those of the Imam and the leader [Khomeini], in order to see who follows the line of the revolution and who works against the opinion of the Imam - which is in effect the opinion of the [Iranian] nation.' "On Thursday morning, President Rohani attended a governors' conference in Iran, and talked about the coming Majlis elections. Considering his position as head of the executive branch, and being a religious and legal scholar, his statements were unexpected and bizarre... First, Rohani spoke of the election and said: 'Of course, whoever wants to be a Majlis member should be committed to the religion, the constitution, and the rule of the jurisprudent. But what about the environment, industry, development, the elimination of the economic recession, unemployment, and financial prosperity?!' "On this matter we must ask Rohani [who is head of the executive branch]: Since when are Majlis members responsible for resolving issues such as the environment, industry, development, unemployment, and economic recession? [When] were these issues removed from the list of the tasks [assigned by law] to the government?... How are Majlis members connected to the abovementioned problems? The environmental authority, the ministries of industry, mines, economic affairs, and finance, the ministries of labor and social affairs, and so on - all these are apparatuses that are subordinate to the government. So why couldn't you [i.e. Rohani, in your capacity as head of the government] solve the problems? Therefore, why is these bodies' inability to solve these problems, which unfortunately attests to the impotence of the [Rohani] government, being blamed on [Majlis] members?... "According to minutes of the Majlis meetings, the Majlis insisted on solving the aforementioned problems, but the government ignored this. What bill or other proposal submitted [by the government] to the Majlis to solve these problems has been rejected by the Majlis? ... "This is puzzling, because in the face of the despair - i.e. the weakness and impotence of the government in solving these problems - it is the president himself who should sit on the defendant's bench and give the people answers... Instead, it is he who is in the accuser's seat demanding answers. "Rohani said, 'It is the people that truly determines who is worthy [of candidacy]'... [But] true respect for the nation is manifested in solving its problems - the cost [of living], the economic recession, unemployment, the lack of respect for the Iranian passport [in the world], fighting discrimination, and so on - not in mere political respect. "These statements by the president are considered humiliation of the people... [because] it is the people who should determine who is a thief and who is faithful... "In part of his statements, the president was critical of the decision that some candidates were unworthy, and said: 'We must operate according to the law and not based merely on personal taste.' About this, it must be said that Rohani provides no examples to back up this claim... "Rohani estimates reformists and moderates in the country at around seven to 10 million; each of the minorities - Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians - have one Majlis member. Then why is a population of seven to 10 million being denied entry into the Majlis, [he asks]. On this, it must be said that Rohani has no reliable source for this statement. "Furthermore, we must ask Rohani whether he defines the population to which he referred [i.e. the seven to 10 million] as outside the Islamic faith [and therefore entitled to] Majlis representation like other religious minorities such as Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians?!"[5] Endnotes: A January 22, 2016 article in the pro-regime Russian website Pravda.ru[1] responds to the British public inquiry into the murder of former Russian spy Aleksandr Litvinenko, which named as the prime suspects former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoy and former Russian military officer Dmitry Kovtun, and stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin "probably approved" Litvinenko's assassination.[2] The article describes the inquiry as part of the west's "Russophobic Bullshit Machine" whose function is to malign Russia and its leaders by accusing them of crimes they did not commit. It suggests that the murder was in fact carried out by the U.S., and states that "the whole of western policy, based upon deals with terrorists and lies, has one objective: to contain Russia through subjugation, subversion and juvenile attempts at humiliation." The following are excerpts: [3] Aleksandr Litvinenko (image: Pravda.ru) "The wheels and cogs of the Russophobic Bullshit Machine are turning again, this time with spectacular insinuations that President Vladimir Putin is a murderer by proxyOC "The hype from the British media has reached hysteria point yet again - the media version of premenstrual tension mixed with postnatal depression-cum-the desire to find an international ogre (a nice big 'them') to justify the 'us' at home. More drum banging, more hype, more Russophobia and more plain, unadulterated and libelous bullshit, which one hopes will be followed with lawsuits to clear the name of Russia's President, [who] towers above the mudslinging guttersnipes manning the British mediaOC "Now the same newspaper [The Guardian] is doing exactly the same thing, insinuating that President Putin ordered the murder of Aleksandr Litvinenko, in publishing the findings of the latest inquiry which concludes that 'the former Russian spy' was 'probably murdered' 'on the personal orders of Vladimir Putin'. "In legal terms, this is utter, pure and unadulterated nonsense. Either he was murdered on the orders of President Putin or he was not, and this being the case, in the absence of any clear proof, in any civilized state of law, he was not, for the accused is innocent until proven guilty. Where is the evidence linking President Putin to this supposed murder with Polonium 210? In the absence of such, all those who have insinuated the Putin connection with Litvinenko should officially apologize and retract their statements, like Men. Which they won't because they aren't and can'tOC "An ex-Russian spy with a criminal record, alleged links to the Chechen mafia and close ties to a man wanted by Russian justice, Berezovsky, in whose home it is stated that Polonium-210 was curiously found, dies in a hospital after being poisoned in a hotel with a tunnel under it leading, it was said at the time, to the Embassy of who else but the good old US of A? Wow, what a surpriseOC "Conclusion: the background of those accusing President Putin, against whom there is not one single shred of evidence, no history of collaboration with terrorists, is dubious to say the least. Quite the contrary, Russia was against the imperialist adventure in Iraq, against the outright rape and robbery and destruction of Libya and sided with the legitimate government of Syria in an anti-terrorist operation which it is conducting with great success, having liquidated more terrorists in 2 months than the west did in 2 years. "And now the media circus has once again returned to Litvinenko, having got nowhere with Assad's supposed chemical weapons attack on his own troops which would have justified another imperialist venture for the western weapons and energy lobbies - thwarted by Russia - having got nowhere with the lies about President Putin being involved in the downing of civilian aircraft, when terrorists who grew up under the noses of the UK and US in Iraq shot down a Russian passenger airliner in Sinai - having got nowhere with the absurdity of the allegations that Crimea's rejoining Russia was illegal. "And what possible advantage would President Putin ever have had by ordering two goons (Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun) over to the UK to murder Litvinenko? With Polonium-210 of all things? Why are these goons still alive if Litvinenko died weeks after he is supposed to have consumed the isotope in tea, and a decade later the UK's two suspects are still alive and kicking? "Secondly, Litvinenko deserted to the UK in the year 2000. Why kill him in 2006, after he had had six years to spread his lies, justification for his joining the growing list of criminals harbored by London? By 2006 his sell-by date had been surpassed by several years. The notion arises it was not his past that killed him but more probably his future and what he was currently investigating. It was not Russians in Russia. "Or was the entire Litvinenko story concocted by those who have been concocting lie after barefaced lie for the last two decades, London and Washington, who always wanted Moscow out of the G8 and away from the center of policy-making (remember Russia hosted the G8 meeting in 2006, the year of Litvinenko's death)? And remember his death came one day before the opening of the Helsinki Summit, when the leaders of Russia and the European Union would negotiate new cooperation agreements. In the event, and due to a great extent because of the breaking news of Litvinenko's death, the Summit concentrated more on questions fired at Putin than the issues on the table. As has been the case since. Was the death of Anna Politkovskaya also an orchestration not by Putin but to tarnish the image of Putin, her timely death coinciding exactly with the birthday [of] Russia's President? Moral of the story: Putin would take no advantage from these deaths. "The whole of western policy, based upon deals with terrorists and lies, has one objective: to contain Russia through subjugation, subversion and juvenile attempts at humiliation. These speak volumes about the accusers, nothing more or less than libelous lying guttersnipes whose pathetic attempts at firing broadsides at the innocent place the accused on a crystal pedestal of superiority." Endnotes: [1] Pravda.Ru is a pro-government Russian news and opinion website. According to its former Director General, Vadim Gorshenin, it is the successor of Pravda, the official mouthpiece of the Soviet Union's Communist Party. It was founded by prominent members of Pravda's editorial staff who left it in 1999, and today it is privately owned by Pravda.ru Holding, of which Gorshenin is the head. Its current Director General, Inna Novikova, is Gorshenin's wife. The Pravda.Ru website publishes in four languages: Russian, English, Italian, Portuguese, and has more than 200,000 visitors daily. According Gorshenin, the English version is the second most popular English-language Russian website, after Russia Today (Pravda.ru, September 16, 2013). [2] Litvinenkoinquiry.org, January 21, 2016. [3] Pravdareport.com, January 22, 2016. The author, Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey, is described by Pravda.ru as a journalist and the chief editor of the Portuguese version of Pravda.ru. Introduction On January 29, 2016, some two years after the failure of the Geneva II conference, another round of indirect talks will take place in Geneva between the Assad regime and the Syrian opposition, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which outlined a roadmap to solve the Syrian crisis.[1] According to the resolution, the talks were set to begin in early January 2016, but were postponed twice due to disagreements between the parties regarding the makeup of the opposition delegation. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura stated that the agenda of the Geneva talks will address the new government, the new constitution, and elections, as outlined in UNSCR 2254, but stressed that the top items on the agenda will be a comprehensive ceasefire, eliminating the threat of ISIS, and ensuring humanitarian aid.[2] De Mistura tried to lower expectations and say that this is not Geneva III, but rather a round of talks that could lead to such a conference. He stated that he was aiming to have as much as the opposition represented as possible, including civil society organizations and women. He also said the intention was to start indirect talks on Friday, January 29, 2016, even if some participants aren't there yet "due to a delay in obtaining visas or such matters." According to him, talks will not be direct, but will be proximity talks facilitated by mediators and will last for six months in accordance with UNSCR 2254. The first round of talks will last two or three weeks, followed by a pause for deliberation and then a renewal of talks.[3] The invitations to the talks, issued by de Mistura to the delegations on January 27, 2016, placed emphasis on the Vienna Declarations of October 30, 2015 and November 14, 2015, as well as on UNSC 2254, while the Geneva Communique of 2012 seems to have been marginalized as a basis for resolving the crisis.[4] The invitations stressed that the negotiations will be "consultations on ways to resolve the crisis and formulating principles for a permanent settlement." They stated further that the UN Security Council had defined the desired result of the negotiations as "the establishment of a credible regime that includes everyone and is not predicated on a sectarian basis..."[5] Invitations were issued to the regime delegation and to the delegation of the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), a body that was formed at the December 9, 2015 opposition conference in Riyadh and has close ties with Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Invitations were also issued to opposition figures, unaffiliated with the NHC and are closer to the Syrian regime, chief among them Haytham Manna' and Qadri Jamil. The agenda for the talks, as announced by de Mistura at a January 25 press conference, reflects a complete rejection of the HNC's preconditions for the talks, which included ceasing the bombardment of civilians and lifting the siege from areas in Syria. The invitation of opposition elements unaffiliated with the HNC represents a capitulation to Russia's demands and a rejection of the HNC's demand to be the only opposition delegation at the talks. However, de Mistura rejected the demand of Russia and the Syrian regime to intervene in the makeup of the HNC delegation itself and veto military figures, chiefly Muhammad 'Aloush, a senior member of Jaysh Al-Islam, which Russia and the Syrian regime regard as a terror organization. In addition, Salih Muslim Muhammad, co-chairman of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, was not invited, probably due to pressure from Turkey. This document will review the positions of both the Syrian regime and the opposition on the eve of the Geneva talks. Participants of the Syrian opposition's December 9, 2015 conference in Riyadh (image: qasioun.net, December 10, 2015) Syrian Regime: Dialogue Conditional Upon Our Approval Of Opposition Delegation The Syrian regime comes to the talks with the upper hand, both militarily, due to its achievements on the ground and the active participation of the Russian air force in combating regime opponents, and politically, thanks to UNSCR 2253 regarding the struggle against terrorism and also UNSCR 2254, which reflects a softening of the international community's position vis-a-vis the Assad regime.[6] Additionally, the regime sees the UN's involvement in local ceasefires that were recently signed in several areas in Syria, and which were achieved according to the regime's own model, as constituting international acceptance of its methods to calm the situation on the ground.[7] The agenda outlined by de Mistura - namely achieving a comprehensive ceasefire, eliminating the threat of ISIS, and ensuring humanitarian aid to the populace - as well as the inclusion in the talks of opposition elements not associated with the HNC, all considerably benefit the Syrian regime. Empowered by its success in softening the international community's position, the regime did not wish to be blamed for obstructing the talks, and therefore was open to participating in them, while adhering to its positions and attempting to change the makeup of the opposition delegation - a goal it achieved to some extent with the inclusion in the talks of opposition figures, who are more moderate in their position towards it. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Mu'allem said after meeting in Damascus with Staffan de Mistura on January 8, 2016: "We have expressed willingness to participate in the Syrian-Syrian dialogue at the Geneva meetings... [but] it is vital that we know the names of the opposition delegation members..."[8] Al-Mu'allem also demanded to receive the list of terrorist organizations in Syria, which, according to the November 14, 2015 Vienna Declaration, is to be compiled by Jordan and approved by the UN.[9] An anonymous Syrian regime official also said that "the regime has the right to oppose any name or element on the [opposition delegation] list," and added that "Damascus will refuse to conduct dialogue with any terrorist organization or any group with clear ties to terrorist organizations as defined by the UN," but stressed that the definition of terrorism includes "anyone who bears arms against the state," alluding to all opposition fighters.[10] This statement effectively renders the list of terrorist organizations insignificant. According to media close to the Syrian regime, the regime delegation for this round of talks will be at a lower level of representation than the one that participated in Geneva II, which was headed by Foreign Minister Al-Mu'allem and included President Assad's political advisor Bouthaina Sha'aban. The current delegation will be headed by Bashar Al-Ja'afari, Syria's Permanent Representative to the UN, with Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Al-Miqdad in charge of the talks. This perhaps indicates the regime's estimate that these talks will mark no progress and that it is unprepared to show flexibility. However, it seems that Russia is pressuring the regime to send higher-level officials to the talks. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said: "The invitation [to the talks] issued by UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura was addressed to Walid Al-Mu'allem, since he is the Syrian foreign minister and the head of the [Syrian] government's delegation to the negotiations."[11] Another example of the regime's inflexibility and its estimate that these talks will be barren can be seen in articles in official and pro-regime Syrian media, which repeatedly state that the talks will only succeed if Syria's rivals, chiefly Saudi Arabia and Qatar, end their support for terrorism, otherwise it will be the reality on the ground that will determine the talks' results. For instance, 'Imad Salem, writing for the government daily Al-Ba'ath, expressed skepticism about the success of Geneva III, saying that, even if it is convened, "the war will not end as long as the international community does not push to dry out the sources of terrorism. [Failure to do so means] the situation on the ground will have the decisive say, and harbingers of this are already appearing... Ultimately the campaign is one of breaking bones, and the winner will determine the face of the world..."[12] Similar statements were made by Ahmad Dawa, a columnist for the government daily Al-Thawra: "Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and [other] terror-supporting countries that stand with them - such as Turkey, Israel and several European countries like France and Britain, and chiefly the U.S. - can only participate in finding a political solution for the Syria crisis if they end their support for terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq... Any political solution will be meaningless unless terrorism is completely eliminated. The return of security and stability, and the rule of the Syrian state throughout Syrian land, are necessary conditions for achieving and implementing any political solution agreed upon by Syrians... Thus far, and despite increasing talk of a political solution, the first and last word will be spoken on the ground..."[13] Maysoun Yousuf, a columnist for the pro-regime daily Al-Watan, wrote: "...The UN, in some form or another, accepted the Syrian rationale by adopting Resolution 2253 on combating terrorism and Resolution 2254 on the political process. Reality proves that [the situation on] the ground has a direct and substantial influence on political processes... We hope that the political process begins in earnest... since if it does begin, it will be a translation of achievements on the ground in Syria's favor. It seems that the opponents will be unable to accept this and will therefore try to thwart it any way they can until the final moment."[14] Russia Aiming To Divide The Opposition The regime's position, which has remained unchanged since the crisis began, has received Russia's full backing and support, at least publicly. Russia also contested the opposition delegation presented by the HNC, and called for expanding the opposition delegation to include figures close to Russia itself, who are known to hold opinions more accepting of the Assad regime, such as Qadri Jamil, who lives in Moscow, representatives of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party headed by Salih Muslim Muhammad, and Syrian Democratic Council chair Haytham Manna'. Many reports in the Arab press indicate that Russia is aiming to divide the opposition delegation to the Geneva talks so that it includes two coequal groups - one representing the HNC and the other representing pro-Russian opposition elements[15] - which would further cement the opposition's divide and weaken its position vis-a-vis the regime. Russia has been partially successful in this, since Jamil Qadri and Haytham Manna' have been invited to participate in the talks on an equal footing with the HNC delegation. However, as mentioned, Russia's demand to veto the participation of Muhammad 'Aloush, of Jaysh Al-Islam, was not met, nor was its demand to invite Salih Muslim Muhammad, co-chairman of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party. At a press conference with his Qatari counterpart in Moscow on January 17, 2016, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov even mentioned the possibility of holding Geneva-circumventing talks, when he expressed hope that talks between the Syrian regime and the opposition would begin this month in Damascus.[16] This call for talks in Damascus dovetails with the regime's call to conduct talks on Syrian soil. This demand is unlikely to be accepted by the political opposition represented by the HNC, and therefore it seems to hint at talks with a more accommodationist Syrian-based opposition. Syrian Opposition In Weak Position Due To U.S. Pressures The Syrian opposition comes to this round of talks more divided and in a weaker position than ever. Unlike Geneva II, where it was represented by a single delegation, this round will apparently be attended by two opposition delegations, of equal status but with completely different agendas and goals. Moreover, it appears that the U.S., which was to counterbalance Russia's support for the Syrian regime, is becoming ever more receptive to the Russian position on resolving the Syria crisis. This position places the mainstream Syrian opposition - which is supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, and is represented by the HNC, headed by Dr. Riad Hijab, and by the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces - in an inferior position. The mainstream opposition did express willingness to participate in the Geneva talks, but questioned the effectiveness of negotiating with a regime that they claim controls at most some 18% of Syrian territory. Officials in this stream also stressed that changing the reality on the ground will influence the political solution, and therefore called on Saudi Arabia to increase its military aid and provide it with quality weapons in order to change the power balance on the battlefield.[17] The HNC made its participation in the talks conditional upon the regime taking far-reaching confidence-building steps such as releasing prisoners, halting airstrikes against the local population, and lifting sieges. The HNC determined that the purpose of the talks was "to establish a new political regime with no place for Bashar Al-Assad and his gang."[18] Officials in this stream harshly criticized Russia, especially following the death of Jaysh Al-Islam commander Zahran 'Aloush, who they claim was killed in a Russian airstrike. National Coalition President Khaled Khoja claimed that "Russia wants to eliminate opposition leaders prior to the start of negotiations and replace the real opposition with a fake one."[19] This challenge to Russia was also embodied by the selection of Zahran 'Aloush's cousin Muhammad, an official in Jaysh Al-Islam, which Russia defines as a terrorist organization, as the opposition delegation's "senior negotiator." On the eve of the talks, the HNC was subjected to intense pressure by several parties. One source of pressure was, not surprisingly, the Syrian regime and Russia. They demanded to change the makeup of the opposition delegation and include figures from the Syria-based opposition, which is close to Russia and whose positions on the goals of the negotiations and the way to achieve these goals are completely different from the HNC's. Another source of pressure was these opposition figures themselves, such as Salih Muslim Muhammad of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party; Haytham Manna', co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Council, and Qadri Jamil, who resides in Russia. These figures demand to be included in the negotiations, as part of the opposition delegation or as a separate delegation, a demand that is backed by Russia. But the most significant source of pressure was actually the U.S., counter to expectations that it would support the Syrian opposition and counterbalance Russia's consistent backing of the Syrian regime. HNC senior officials claimed that, in a January 23, 2016 meeting with opposition representatives in Riyadh, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry expressed "a scary retreat in the U.S. position" when he pressured them to comply with Russian and Syrian regime dictates, and even threatened that if they did not, they would lose the support of their allies. According to these officials, Kerry also clarified that their preconditions for the talks - such as dispatching humanitarian aid and lifting the siege from Syrian cities - would be discussed in the talks themselves. He also told them that Assad had the right to run in the future Syrian elections, that de Mistura was entitled to intervene in the makeup of the opposition delegation, and that the talks would lead to the establishment of a national unity government. This contravenes the 2012 Geneva I Communique and effectively means leaving the Syrian regime in power.[20] The HNC was also pressured by UN Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura himself, who in effect rejected out of hand the HNC's preconditions for the negotiations, as well as its demands to be the sole representative of the opposition at the talks. Merely by issuing the invitations, de Mistura placed the HNC before an impossible choice, because coming to the talks will mean relinquishing its demands and starting the negotiations from a position of weakness, whereas boycotting the talks would mean giving up any chance of affecting their outcome - since, according to de Mistura, the talks will take place even if not all the invited parties arrive. Syrian Opposition In Bind Due To U.S. Dictates Despite the HNC's sharp criticism of the U.S.'s position, it is still unclear whether it will succumb to the U.S. dictates and agree to the participation in the talks of opposition elements who are not part of the delegation it formed. HNC officials continue to reiterate their preconditions - ceasing the bombardment of civilians and lifting local sieges - and have not yet announced whether they mean to attend the talks. If the HNC eventually accepts the U.S. dictates and attends the talks, and if the talks yield understandings, it is unclear to what extent the HNC will be able to impose these understandings on the forces fighting on the ground, most of whom are opposed to the survival of the Assad regime. *N. Mozes and Dr. M. Terdiman are research fellows at MEMRI. A district collector in Kerala thought up of an interesting way to solicit the help of the public for an environmental cause: make them an offer they can't refuse. On January 8, Kozhikode district collector N Prasanth posted a message on Facebook - he has 100,000 followers - asking the people of Koyilandy in Kozhikode to pitch in to clean the polluted Pisharikavu lake. In exchange, the collector offered to treat all volunteers to some delectable 'Kozhikode biryani', a famous Malabar delicacy. Duly enticed, Koyilandy's people turned up in force and cleaned the 57,000-square-metre lake on Tuesday, Republic Day. Prasanth, as he had promised, gratefully dished out heaps of Kozhikode biryani to the volunteers. Twitter Who paid for the biryani ? The collector used funds allocated for drought prevention to treat the volunteers who cleaned the lake. Since taking over as Kozhikode district collector last February, Prasanth has developed a huge fan following, especially on Facebook which is his preferred mode of communication. He makes announcements, solicits help and discusses various schemes on his Facebook page in a language that's accessible, earthy and humorous. He addresses people who write to him as 'bhai' and in return gets called 'bro' and 'rockstar'. Grabhouse (dot) com Prasanth is often credited with cleaning up the district and ensuring that funds reach the people they are allocated for. The Kerala government has, for a while now, been asking groups and residential associations to devise plans to clean water bodies near them. The government has even offered financial help for the clean-up. Perhaps all it takes is some Kozhikode biryani! (This article originally appeared in The Times of India) A locked metal safe found in a former mansion of druglord Pablo Escobar has provoked curiosity all over the world. The mansion at Miami beach is being demolished almost 20 years after it was seized by the US government. During the demolition, construction workers discovered the safe beneath the concrete and its estimated to be around 300 kilos. The safe was transferred to a bank vault which is now being heavily guarded. Twitter The Colombian druglord who was known as The Godfather had an estimated net worth of $30 billion and was famous for burying money underground. Many still believe that this is just one of the many safes that he hid during his heydays. The mansion is currently owned by Christian De Berdouare who owns the Chicken Kitchen fast food chain. He had bought the property in 2014 for an estimated sum of $9.65 million. Recently, the fast-food entrepreneur had decided to build a modern abode in place of the mansion and thats when the discovery was made. Twitter For those of you who want to know what exactly is in the safe, you will have to wait for some time as it will not be opened until a documentary on Escobars connection with the site is completed. The current owner of the safe is, however, very excited at the prospect of a fortune inside the safe. I think that it has gold or diamonds. This is real. Its still locked. Its very, very heavy. We cant believe it now Pablito [Escobar] is my best friend. We had left one of the walls when I started to knock it down, a piece of rubble hit the foundation, the floor sunk and I saw it. It was something gray. I grabbed it with the excavators claw, realized it was a safe and started to yell to tell them. Smack in between Indias Republic Day on January 26 and Martyrs Day on January 30, and January 28 is a forgotten date. However, it was on January 28 in 1933 that the word Pakistan first came into existence. In a draft declaration written by Choudhary Rehmat Ali, the word Pakistan was first put forward and presented at a Round Table Conference in 1933.The declaration had only Rehmat Alis signature and read as follows 3, Humberstone Road, Cambridge, England. 28 January 1933 Dear Sir or Madam, I am enclosing herewith an appeal on behalf of the thirty million Muslims of PAKISTAN, who live in the five Northern Units of IndiaPunjab, North-West Frontier (Afghan) Province, Kashmir, Sind, and Baluchistan. It embodies their demand for the recognition of their national status, as distinct from the other inhabitants of India, by the grant to Pakistan of a separate Federal Constitution on religious, social and historical grounds. I shall be pleased if you will kindly acquaint me with your valuable opinion on the proposed solution of the great Hindu-Muslim problem. I trust that, vitally interested as you are in a just and permanent solution of that complex problem, the objects outlined in the appeal wiIl meet with your fullest approval and active support. Yours truly, Rahmat Ali (Choudhary). (Founder, Pakistan National Movement) Wikimedia The declaration itself was part of a pamphlet that had a very provocative headline. It was called Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever? and shows how Pakistan got its name. Here is the pamphlets famous first paragraph. At this solemn hour in the history of India, when British and Indian statesmen are laying the foundations of a Federal Constitution for that land, we address this appeal to you, in the name of our common heritage, on behalf of our thirty million Muslim brethren who live in PAKSTANby which we mean the five Northern units of India, Viz: Punjab, North-West Frontier Province (Afghan Province), Kashmir, Sind and Baluchistan. Thus, Pakistan initially meant the first initials of the five northern states of undivided India P for Punjab, A for Afghan province of North West Frontier Province, K for Kashmir, S for Sindh and tan for Baluchistan. There was no I in the beginning of Pakistan when the movement for its creation first began. Wikimedia Who was Rehmat Ali then? Why has history forgotten him? Chaudhury Rehmat Ali was a Muslim nationalist from Punjab who pushed the concept and idea for Pakistan with great zeal from 1933 onwards. When Rehmat Ali first drafted the above letter, it took him more than a month to get three signatures in Britain in favour of the idea of a divided India. He then founded the Pakistan National Movement and, pretty soon, the concept began spreading among Indian and British leaders as well, leading up to the creation of Pakistan on August 14, 1947. Some people believe that the entire concept of Pakistan was the sole brainchild of Muhammed Ali Jinnah but the existence and perseverance of people like Rehmat Ali shows that there were more people who had joined the cause of a divided India than we seem to know. As for Rehmat Ali, he received a most unusual return gift from Pakistans leaders. When the country was formed, Rehmat Ali was unhappy with its small size. Even so, when he went to Pakistan, he was ordered by Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan to leave the country. Worse, all his belongings were confiscated and he had to return to England virtually penniless in October 1948. When he died on February 3, 1951, there was not a single family member to bury him. Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Thursday said eating habits depend on availability of food but some political parties are trying to turn beef eating into an issue. "Beef eating is there everywhere in the world. In China, they eat snakes and frogs too. Whatever they want to eat they will eat. Why there is a fuss about it I don't understand. Political parties are making it an issue and politicising beef eating. It is unfortunate. People will eat whatever is available to them. This is a non-issue," he said. "It is unfortunate that politics in this country is centering around this issue," Rao added, responding to a question about AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi's remark that if his party lost the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections, beef eating would be banned in the city. On the campaign by TDP leader and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu for Hyderabad civic polls, Rao said it was a "futile" exercise and he should concentrate on his own state. "Chandrababu Naidu was CM (of united AP) for nine years. Why all the problems (of Hyderabad) I mentioned now were not solved? Why power supply has not improved? He can do a lot of work in his state...campaigning in these elections is irrelevant to him. TDP was in power for 17 years. People do not believe if they say they would develop the city," he said. Rao expressed confidence that Hyderabad citizens will vote for TRS for the development works his government has undertaken. St. Josephs College students take part in an awareness drive for traffic safety and pollution control at Richmond Circle in Bengaluru on Wednesday (Photo: R. Samuel) Bengaluru: The state treasury got richer by at least Rs 50 lakh with the police swooping down on helmet-less pillion riders. Thanks to the new law, which makes helmets mandatory for pillion riders, the city traffic police have booked nearly half-a-lakh violators, in just six days after the law came into force. Despite other commitments like Republic Day duty, the city traffic police continued to crack their whip against the pillion riders not wearing helmet and booked as many as 10,000 cases on a daily basis. Though the rule was clamped on January 12, the police started levying fine on violators from January 21 and over 50,000 pillion riders were booked ever since. On January 21 alone the traffic police had booked 5,861 pillion riders for not using helmets. The numbers increased as police resorted to levying fines till late night. A total of 2,924 cases were booked in West division, while East division police fined 2,937 pillion riders for the new rule. While the West division topped the list by booking over 20,000 cases for helmet less riding, the east and north divisions reportedly booked around 15,000 cases each. Additional Commissioner of Police (traffic) M.A. Saleem said that the drive has been a success. More number of riders are now wearing helmet. We have seen a positive response. The special drive against helmet for pillion riders will continue until the rule is adhered to, he said. S. Girish, DCP (traffic) west told Deccan Chronicle, We have been booking the violators strictly. Majority of riders and pillion riders are donning protective gears. Interestingly, due to the sustained drive, even the lone riders are seen abiding the rules. Though, the city traffic police claim that they have booked thousands of cases against pillion riders for violation of rules, there are numerous instances of two-wheelers riders not wearing helmets in various parts of the city. Riders in the city are very much in line with the rule and are adhering to it. However, on the citys outskirts there are cases of pillion riders are still riding without safety gear, Saleem said. Were excited to announce that metalbulletin.com is now part of fastmarkets.com. A new look and an improved experience means you can still stay ahead of this fast-moving metals market with price data, news and market intelligence right here on Fastmarkets. Discover more than 2000 prices, news and analysis in primary and secondary metals markets. We cover base metals, industrial minerals, ores and alloys, steel, scrap and steel raw materials. If you already have a Fastmarkets account, youll still have uninterrupted access to your markets by logging in with your current details. Following the Greek-Israeli High Level Cooperation Council that took place yesterday in Jerusalem, Deputy Foreign Minister Dimitris Mardas visited Palestine and met in Ramallah with the Palestinian caretaker Minister for European Affairs, Amal Zatu. Mr. Mardas and Ms. Zatu discussed issues of cooperation in the sectors of construction, building materials and commerce. The Palestinian side expressed interest in Greek participation in the construction of one of the industrial zones. Ms. Zatu also asked Mr. Mardas for Greeces assistance, through the provision of know-how, with the development of the tourism market in Palestine, also expressing her satisfaction at Prime Minister Tsipras statements during the signing of the agreements with Israel. Mr. Mardas also met, at the Greek embassy in Tel Aviv, with 13 Israeli entrepreneurs, who expressed their interest in investing in Greece. There was an in-depth discussion of the prospects for bolstering commercial transactions between Greece and Israel. Israeli companies expressed interest in issues of training, trade, technology, energy and tourism. Mr. Mardas set out the prospects and opportunities offered by the Greek economy and responded to a number of questions posed by the entrepreneurs. Subsequently, Mr. Mardas met with the President of the Israeli Federation of Chambers of Commerce, with whom he discussed the prospects for strengthening bilateral trade relations. The CBI will now look into the complaints and report back to the Ministry. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: The CBI has been asked by the Defence Ministry to probe complaints against two serving Major Generals for allegedly having assets disproportionate to their known sources of income. The Ministry had in September red-flagged the promotion of certain officers following allegations of impropriety. "The Defence Ministry has forwarded to CBI complaints against these two officers and has sought a reply," defence sources said today, adding that the government will not tolerate corruption at any level. The CBI will now look into the complaints and report back to the Ministry. Giving a background to the case, sources said that a meeting of the Special Promotion Board of the Army was held last year to fill up the vacancy of three Lieutenant Generals for which about 33 officers were considered. A set of names cleared by the Board was sent to the Defence Ministry. However, following the meeting of the Board, a series of complaints against some officers surfaced, many of which were being circulated on the social media too. Taking cognizance of the matter, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar himself looked into the issue. It was found that one of the two officers, against whom the Ministry has roped in the agency, had faced a CBI inquiry few years back over allegations of corruption in a project undertaken by Border Roads Organisation, sources said. The CBI did not find enough evidence for criminal prosecution. "They suggested that this does not fall in the ambit of criminality, it falls in the ambit of disciplinary procedure guidelines", they added. "BRO is a mixed cadre organisation. The matter came to the Army. The Army said that the act pertained to civilian issues and hence action cannot be taken up by them. The matter got tossed from here to there as army disciplinary proceeding is different from that of the civilians," the sources said, adding the actual proceedings have not started. In the meantime, his promotion came up and he got the Discipline and Vigilance (DV) clearance since there was no formal proceedings against him. The Foreign Ministrys Secretary General for International Economic Relations, Giorgos Tsipras, met in Moscow today with the Russian Deputy Minister for Economic Development and Interregional Cooperation, Alexander Tsybulskiy. The talks focused on the strengthening of Greek-Russian interregional cooperation, a matter lent significant impetus by the 9th Meeting of the Greek-Russian Joint Interministerial Committee on Economic, Industrial, Scientific and Technological cooperation, which took place in Sochi, Russia, this past November, and within the framework of which it was decided to set up a relevant working group. During yesterdays meeting it was decided that the two sides will proceed directly to appointing the members of the working group, so that the first meeting can take place within the next two months. At the same time, there was reaffirmation of the great importance the two countries attach to the development of interregional cooperation, by the Russian proposal for upgrading of the level of the head of the working group to the level of Deputy Minister/Secretary General. The Greek side accepted this proposal. New Delhi: Former Arunachal Chief Minister Nabam Tuki on Thursday filed a fresh petition in the Supreme Court challenging imposition of President's Rule in the state. Earlier, the apex court issued notices to the Centre and the Governor of Arunachal Pradesh (J.P. Rajkhowa), seeking their responses to a Congress Party challenge of the Centre's decision to impose President's Rule in the state. Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Thursday said the 'responsible' ruling dispensation has performed its duty based on the ground realties and ground report in the state. "We shouldn't politicize this issue. Our priority is to ensure that there is a stable government in Arunachal which works for the development of the people. If some constitutional crisis has arisen then it is also the Centre's responsibility to fix the same," he said. Read: President's Rule in Arunachal: Supreme Court raps Centre A five-judge constitution bench headed by Justice J.S. Khehar has asked the centre for reasons for the cabinet's decision to impose president's rule. The governor has been asked to tell the court about when he made the recommendation for president's rule. The Supreme Court bench posted the matter for February 1, and asked the governor and the Union Home Ministry to file responses by Friday on the petitions filed by Congress leaders, including one by Rajesh Tacho, chief whip of the Congress Legislature Party in the state Assembly, which is now under suspended animation. The Cabinet on January 24 recommended President's Rule in the state which was approved by President Pranab Mukherjee the next day. Chennai: Amidst report that ISIS is offering US $ 10,000 to hackers who are ready to hack Indian government sites, intelligence sources here indicated that the terror outfit is not sending any money to India in large-scale to propagate its ideology, but is keen to recruit Indian techies for a monthly salary. They are not luring any Indian to Syria to be part of their fight for Global Islamic Caliphate. Whoever had gone to be part of IS fighters had gone on their own. But right now the outfit is keen on hiring Indian software professionals to work on projects aimed at increase their online presence as well as possible hacking, a source here said. ISIS is not in a hurry. Their target is to build the Islamic Caliphate by the year 2020, sources added. Indian agencies are however keeping a tab on online contents, which could be considered as ISIS propaganda material. Scores of such contents or links Indian blocked or removed by NIC teams on daily basis. ISIS is believed to be using social media network sites like Facebook and Twitter to propagate its radical ideology. Police sources are not denying the reports that pro-ISIS content in Hindi, Tamil and Gujarati have started popping up on internet with the help of educated Indian sympathisers of the terror outfit. Even the last weeks arrest of 13 people happened only because the security agencies were following the virtual footprints of those people, source added. They said that NIA had secured at least four more people as the continuation of last weeks operation and questioning them. Bishop William Bonner died in April at age 93. His two adult grandchildren say his family is being shut out of its inheritance and that officials with the Harlem, New York-based Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ are hiding money and property records, The Detroit News reported. "He warned people about it," said Lansing resident Grace Bonner, one of William Bonner's granddaughters. Grace Bonner has asked the Wayne County Probate Court to intervene in the matter. A hearing was scheduled for Wednesday. William Bonner's family is fighting for the right to sell his property, while church officials say any sales should benefit the church. Attorneys for William Bonner's estate, which is overseen by a church bishop, deny its value is what his family says it is. Attorney Anthony Adams said William Bonner's family "made allegations that the bishop was worth millions of dollars and had a personal jet." Adams said the family's complaints are "frivolous" and "turned out to be baseless." Attorney Les Braverman said the family isn't "supporting their pleadings with any factual statements." Survivors of William Bonner want the church to opens its books on his financial affairs and give them more details about his will detailing cash and property that they say they should inherit. Lawyers for his estate say the family should take questions to church leaders, which William Bonner's granddaughters say they've done without success. Grace Bonner said it's suspicious that her grandfather's will was changed 11 months before his death. "We've been trying to contest the will since he died," Grace Bonner said. "They have hidden a lot of things from us." The Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ expanded to numerous cities around the United States and the world under William Bonner's leadership, according to church leaders. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette and state police director Col. Kriste Kibbey Etue said they will move forward with testing, investigation and potential prosecution. The untested kits were found following a survey started last year by Schuette's office. "Experience shows that testing every kit helps law enforcement solve crimes and stop serial rapists," Schuette said in a statement. With state funding, Michigan and the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office tested more than 10,000 rape kits dating back decades that were found in Detroit in 2009. The new survey asked authorities in Michigan's other 82 counties for the number of untested kits more than a year old. The survey was a first step toward the state covering the cost to eliminate the backlog of untested sexual assault kits statewide. Last year's state budget included $1.7 million to process the old evidence in Michigan counties other than Wayne County. The cases are from before Oct. 1, 2014. According to Schuette's office, reasons the kits weren't tested could include that a suspect confessed, pleaded guilty or was already incarcerated. Still, Schuette and Etue said testing will help give local authorities more insight on the cases. With forensic analysis and case support from the state police, Etue said the aim is "to solve these crimes and bring justice to the survivors." "A blouse that came way past the rib cage was one of the most outlandish ones," he told The Associated Press. Such women's wear can distract from the legislative process, he said, explaining why a dress code was needed in his Ethics and Elections committee. Holmes dropped his guidelines on Tuesday, the day after his AP interview, after he was shamed on social media as a "sexist" and "cave man" for telling women how to dress. In a written apology, he said he "meant no offense" by suggesting that "for ladies, low cut necklines and mini-skirts are inappropriate." It's at least the fourth time that lawmakers have retreated from dress codes for female colleagues, lobbyists, interns and other citizens recently. After Missouri's House speaker resigned in a scandal last year he acknowledged exchanging sexual text messages with a female intern some of his colleagues suggested an intern dress code could help eliminate "distractions." Republican Todd Richardson quickly squelched that idea after taking over as speaker. Montana's House speaker, Austin Knudsen, also suffered backlash when he issued a dress code before the 2015 session urging women to be "sensitive to skirt lengths and necklines," while telling men simply to wear jackets, ties and dress pants. Knudsen, a Republican, later called it a "rookie mistake" and reversed course. "It wasn't a hill worth dying on at the beginning of the session," he said. One of the women who led that charge was Democratic Rep. Jenny Eck, of Helena. Women already have to be smarter and work harder to be considered equal, she said; a dress code suggests men have permission to evaluate women based on their bodies. "You can trust that women will get up in the morning and figure it out," she said. Female lawmakers aren't immune: In 2014, Republican Peggy Mast, the Kansas House's speaker pro-tem, drew First Amendment complaints after suggesting dress code changes for interns. She pulled back some interns can apparently wear perfume and cologne after all but their manual still asks women to avoid "halter tops, strapless tops, backless style, miniskirts and revealing necklines." There's no list of forbidden attire for men. "The notion that the men in the legislature are going to dictate how women dress feels (like) a bit of a throwback to a bygone era that I think we had thought we had left," said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Women are a slight majority of the U.S. population, but remain a minority in all 50 state legislatures, filling 1,808 legislative seats this year, 24.5 percent of the nationwide total, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. That's a historic high, but their ranks have remained relatively unchanged in the last five years. If their number more closely matched the nation's demographics, what they wear probably wouldn't be an issue, said New Jersey state Sen. Diane Allen, a Republican and former chairwoman of the National Foundation for Women Legislators. The backlash grew in Kansas last week after Democratic Sen. David Haley shared the rules with a female lobbyist who snapped a picture that spread on social media. Holmes initially defended his guidelines, saying they had been in effect for at least a year and no one complained. "We're really looking for you to be addressing the issue rather than trying to distract or bring eyes to yourself" while testifying, Holmes told The Topeka Capital-Journal, which labeled the guidelines "disrespectful" and "alarming" in a Sunday editorial. Democratic Sen. Laura Kelly, of Topeka, called them "condescending toward women" because men weren't told what to wear. Holmes was still holding his ground on Monday. "I just want to make sure that we have proper decorum," he said. "Males have such little choice about what they wear with suits and ties. But you know, I'm reasonable and I'm willing to make sure that no one feels like they're being singled out." Haley praised Holmes after he finally threw in the towel the next day, saying "he's a gracious leader to recognize parity in the process." Missouri Rep. Nick King, a Republican and Mormon from suburban Kansas City, said his thoughts "didn't get expressed very well" last summer when his email to colleagues suggested that "a good, modest, conservative dress code" for both male and female interns would help lawmakers stay focused by "removing one more distraction." But Missouri Rep. Stacey Newman finds disturbing similarities in all these controversies. "To have that emphasis put back on what women are wearing that it's 'distracting' or whatever is really diminishing our contributions," said Newman, a Democrat from suburban St. Louis. BAD AXE A local leader has joined 17 other plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit against the state in response to a bill Gov. Rick Snyder signed earlier this month, which opponents say imposes a gag order on local officials because it prohibits mentioning details of tax millages and ballot proposals to residents within 60 days of the vote. Tuscola County Commissioner Matthew Bierlein is a plaintiff in the suit filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan against defendants Secretary of State Ruth Johnson and the state of Michigan. The case was assigned to Judge John Corbett OMeara. Since the Legislature has not moved to fix this situation with a straightforward repeal, it became clear that litigation was necessary to protect the interests of the public, Bierlein, who also sits on the Michigan Association of Counties (MAC) board of directors, said in a statement. The Detroit-based Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone law firm is representing Bierlein and other plaintiffs, which mostly include school superintendents and officials from around the state as well as mayors and a city manager. Government and school officials in December urged Snyder to veto a bill Senate Majority Floor Leader Mike Kowall introduced in October. Senate Bill 571 dealt mostly with changes to campaign finance laws. But a series of amendments legislators attached to the bill caught the eyes and ire of government and school officials specifically, a section that prohibits a public body from using public funds or resources to air ballot details on radio, TV, telephone or mail within two months of the vote. Snyder signed the bill, which revised the Campaign Finance Act, with the section that irked many critics still included. The governor said he would work with the Legislature to clarify it. A week later, Sen. Dale Zorn introduced a bill that would axe the entire section. It was referred to the committee on government operations, where it currently sits. The complaint filed Tuesday in court says the section of the Campaign Finance Act setting the 60-day cutoff violates the First Amendment because it prohibits the free flow of objectively neutral, core political speech. (The section) is an unprecedented gag order on public bodies and public officials that prohibits them from communicating with and informing their constituents about ballot questions in an objectively neutral way during the two months before an election, the complaint states. Bierlein says Tuscola County residents on March 8 will be asked to vote on a 0.1-mill ballot proposal for MSU Extension, to be used to sustain 4-H youth development, agriculture and agribusiness, health and nutrition and other community education programs. Bierlein anticipated educating local residents about the ballot proposal in an objectively neutral manner, including to describe the history and nature of the program, the cost of the 0.1 mill, the intended use of the funds, and other related matters, by way of radio and television, which is often most effective in reaching the widest audience, the suit states. This law keeps voters from getting the information they need to make informed decisions, Bierlein said. On Wednesday, Huron County Commissioners briefly discussed the suit. Hopefully that will be repealed and taken care of, Commissioner Rich Swartzendruber said. Commissioner Clark Elftman said he called both of the countys lawmakers in Lansing, but his call was not returned. Huron commissioners sent a resolution to the governor and other state officials in December urging Snyder to veto the bill for similar reasons mentioned in the suit. They later sent a resolution in support of Zorns approach to axe the section of the bill that drew heavy opposition. As to whether Huron County officials anticipate joining the suit, Board Chair John Bodis said he didnt know of plans to do so. But that doesnt mean it wont show up next month, he said. Bodis said one concern he had was with freedom of speech. Now theyre going to start whittling away at the First Amendment, he said. I just find it really repulsive. Conservative groups that support the law have said informational campaigns are biased, and it was needed because public officials had learned how to promote their entitys cause with factual information, according to the Associated Press. Sen. Phil Pavlov, R-St. Clair, voted in favor of SB 571. I wouldnt categorize it as a gag order, Pavlov previously said. Its not designed to stop information from flowing to voters. We want informed voters. He said past abuses around the state allowed taxpayer money to fund advocacy efforts for local millages. Its not a widespread issue, but enough to blur the lines between advocating a Yes vote and objectively informing, according to Pavlov. Its going to clarify that taxpayer money cannot be used to advocate or make an appeal for higher taxes. We want to make sure the person is not pressed politically to raise taxes, he said. Also Tuesday, two new bills were introduced to amend the campaign-finance law, the Associated Press reports. They would let a public body share detailed, factual information including financial and tax info on any measure up for a public vote and require any TV or radio ad, mass mailing or robocall sent within 30 days of an election to first be approved by the entitys governing body. The requirements would not apply to tax renewals. I voted for the original bill, and firmly believe that taxpayer dollars shouldnt be used for campaigning, Sen. Ken Horn, R-Frankenmuth, told the Associated Press. But we went too far, and voters should be able to receive factual information on local ballot questions. ... Im confident these bills strike a necessary balance between informing voters and protecting taxpayer dollars. It has been over 10 years since Metro phase 1 work started and the cost overrun is already Rs 2,000 crore. It has been over 10 years since Metro phase 1 work started and the cost overrun is already Rs 2,000 crore. While the Delhi Metro has been able to fund its next phase, Namma Metro is still dependent on the state government even for its operational cost, which is not surprising considering the number of passengers who are using the Metro which currently runs only on short stretches. The construction of the metro (phase 1) has still not been completed even after eleven years, and the expenditure of a whopping Rs 2,000 crores, with no clarity on the total estimate after completion of the project. While the Delhi Metro with its operational surplus, can fund all its construction phases, the Namma Metro is still dependent on the state government, even for its operational costs. This is not surprising, considering the patronage in the small stretches that are commercial. As a matter of fact, the balance sheet containing the profit and loss account clearly shows that the metro has undergone a loss of Rs 263 crores for the financial year of 2014-15 and Rs 83.18 crores for the financial year of 2013-14. This will affect the government in the long run and citizens will ultimately have to bear the brunt by paying higher fares. Thats not all. Since 2013, a tax dispute of Rs 80 crore still remains unresolved. In case of an exchange rate variation, the financial burden will have to be borne by the BMRCL. The BMRCL have taken up the issue with the government, but the government remains mum. Read: Q & A with Vasanth Rao, General Manager (finance), BMRCL: Geology, not funds, the issue Sanjeev Dyamannavar, a transport activist and a member of Praja RAAG, an advocacy group, said, Subsequently the BMRCL will be asked to pay and the state government will have to pay the entire amount. This means the burden will be shifted back to the people of Bengaluru who will have to shell out more money as fares. Just like how BMTC is dependent on the state government to buy buses, BMRCL too will be a liability on the government. The only difference being this will be a slightly more expensive affair. At this point one has to keep in mind that BMTC has been able to maintain its labour force properly, but BMRCL is bound by strict safety laws, so operating costs will be higher. Again, the southern line from National College to Puttenahalli has been ready for three years. but there are many pieces of equipment that BMRCL has taken from BEML which are lying in Peenya depot. Some of them have surpassed their warranty, expiry date and insurance. How will the metro deal with this additional problem especially as it will inflate the final cost? A BMRCL official on the other hand says there is no issue with meeting the operational cost, but the debt services are bothering them. They add that they do have the time to repay them. To this Sanjeev says, Someone should read their balance sheet. There are loans outstanding, accumulated interests, operational losses, depreciation that include wear and tear of their equipment and maintenance costs. The metro has undergone a loss of Rs 263 crores for the financial year 2014-15 and Rs 83.18 crores for the financial year 2013-14. The operating loss is close to Rs 100 crores apart from a depreciation loss. The BMRCL did collect a huge sum of money initially, but they could not implement the project immediately, so they put that amount in a FD. Now, they are claiming the interest earned from the FD, putting it under the category of revenue from other sources. Whats the point, when the government has borrowed that amount at a higher rate of interest for the metro to start work? Until now, the metro has only opened in fragments there are just five small stretches opened for the public, namely Reach 1 (MG Road to Byappanahalli, 6.7km), Reach 3 (Sampige Road to Yeshwanthpur, 5.1km), Reach 3a (Yeshwanthpur to Peenya Industry, 4.8 km), Reach 3b (Peenya Industry to Nagasandra, 2.5 km) and Reach 2(Magadi Road to Mysore Road, 6.4km). Four major lines are yet to be completed and opened for the public. They are: Reach 4 (National College to Rashtreeya Vidyalaya Road), Reach 4a (Rashtreeya Vidyalaya Road to Puttenahalli), UG 1 (North-South underground line) and UG 2 (East-West underground line). Will there be cost overruns and funding problems in Phase 2 too? Now fear lurks in the minds of activists and citizens that Phase 2 will turn out to be the same, in which we will have cost overruns and struggle to gather funds. Interestingly, the DPR of Phase 2 started in 2010, the project was approved in 2014 and today we are in 2016. Since then the guidance value of land exchange and foreign exchange rates have gone tremendously high. The estimate was done when one dollar was the equivalent of Rs 50. But BMRCL have not bothered to come up with a revised estimate. It is clear that Phase 2 will not be completed within a cost of Rs 26,000 crore but might go up to Rs 35,000 crore. Although BMRCL says funds should not be an issue for Phase 2, there is no clarity. An MOU has been signed with the French agency; talks are on with a Japan agency. Sources say the Japan agency will be releasing funds only on the condition of completion of Phase 1. Again Pradeep Singh Kharola, MD of BMRCL says, We are looking at big borrowings domestically since the exchange rate is fluctuating frequently. We hope to raise Rs 1,000 crore from bonds alone. Currently, the land acquisition has been completed in the Mysuru extension line and acquisitions are on the verge of completion at Whitefield. For the Kannakapura and Electronic City lines, tenders will be called in a day or two. The chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee is slamming an American pharmaceutical company for "price gouging" by charging upwards of $40,000 for a nine-week course of Hepatitis C medicine for veterans -- about 45 times what it charges for the same treatment in Egypt and elsewhere. The medicine, called Sofosbuvir, has already prompted Congress to add an additional $2.7 billion to the Veterans Affairs Department's budget in order to "prevent the department from having to ration veterans' access to the drug," Rep. Jeff Miller, a Republican from Florida, said in an op-ed posted Wednesday on CNN.com. The target of Miller's wrath is Gilead Sciences of Foster City, California, which Miller said earned about $10 billion in the first year its treatment for chronic liver disease hit the market in 2012. "Gilead's tone-deaf pricing strategy also fails to take into account the fact that without the Department of Veterans Affairs, the drug at the center of this debate would not even exist," Miller wrote. "Sofosbuvir was invented by a team led by a VA doctor, who sold the company that developed the drug to Gilead in 2012." Gilead Sciences did not respond to Military.com's request for comment. He said more than 3.2 million Americans are affected by the disease, with at least 200,000 of them veterans. A CBS News report in December said most veterans in need of medicine treatment are Vietnam vets who contracted Hepatitis C while in country, where it was spread by battlefield blood transfusions and vaccinations. Miller will be following up his CNN broadside next week with a hearing on Capitol Hill, where he will hear from a VA senior research scientist who helped invented the drug. The hearing, "Lost Opportunities for Veterans: An Examination of VA's Technology Transfer Program," is scheduled for February 3rd. The VA receives no revenues from the sale of Sofosbuvir even though the VA's Technology Transfer Program is reportedly supposed to ensure the department receives credit and revenue for medical advancements developed using its personnel and resources. Among the witnesses invited to testify is Dr. Raymond F. Schinazi of the Atlanta, Georgia, VA Medical Center. In addition to his career at VA, he founded and operated several biotech companies over the years, including Pharmasset -- the one that developed Sofosbuvir -- which he sold in 2011 to Gilead for $11 billion. But a source with knowledge of the upcoming hearing said VA informed the committee that Schinazi is retiring, effective Feb. 1. Schinazi, who holds more than 90 U.S. patents, earned about $440 million from the sale of Pharmasset, according to a 2011 report in FierceBiotech, a trade publication for the biotech industry. Miller, in his op-ed, suggested that Gilead would offer "a twisted" defense of its "exploitation of our veteran community" by stating that it already provides the department a 50-percent discount on the drug. That's what brings the treatment price down to about $40,000, which Miller calls "a paltry price reduction [that] pales in comparison to the deal Gilead is giving hepatitis sufferers in other countries." He said, "The government shouldn't be in the business of telling private companies what to charge their customers. But by the same token, companies such as Gilead shouldn't price-gouge one group of consumers to subsidize its preferential treatment of another." According to a report on CBS News in December, most veterans in need of the Sofosbuvir treatment are Vietnam vets who contracted the disease in country, as it was spread by battlefield blood transfusions and vaccinations. -- Bryant Jordan can be reached at bryant.jordan@military.com. Follow him on Twitter at @bryantjordan. The commission formed to recommend changes to the Army's force structure is bucking the service's plan to move all AH-64 Apache attack helicopter units from National Guard into the active component. Instead, the National Commission on the Future of the Army is calling for four Apache units to remain in the Guard and for 20 Apache units to be maintained by the active force. "Compared with the ARI, the Commission's recommended plan offers advantages in wartime capacity, wartime surge, and peacetime operational tempo," the commissions states in its 200-page report released Thursday afternoon, referring to the acronym for the Aviation Restructuring Initiative. The Guard had put forward its own proposal to retain six Apache units. But six units with the Guard would reduce wartime capacity and increase costs, according to the report released by the commission, which was chaired by Carter Ham, a retired Army general who as head of Africa Command in 2011 led the U.S. military intervention in Libya. Proposal Stirred Controversy Under the Army's initial plan, the Guard would have lost its entire fleet of 192 Apaches, 30 OH-58D Kiowa Warrior scout helicopters and up to 104 UH-72 Lakota light-utility choppers, as part of a plan $12 billion over five years. That plan was later revised so they Guard wouldn't have to give up the Lakotas, which the active component agreed to purchase aircraft instead. In all, the Guard was set to lose 222 aircraft and get back half that amount in the form of UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopters. Ten states were to be directly affected by the complete initiative. Nine states were to lose Apache units, including Arizona, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Utah; while Tennessee was to lose a Kiowa unit. Lawmakers and Guard official criticized the plan. "You take the Apaches out of the Guard and all that experience of pilots is gone. And the maintainers are gone," John Goheen, a spokesman for the National Guard Association of the United States, said at the time. If the mission goes away there is no reason for any to remain, eliminating the "strategic depth" of experience and capability that the Guard represents for the Army, he said. Guard Welcomes Compromise The commission's recommendation reflects a compromise between what the Army and the Defense Department say is needed and Congress' wish to keep some Apaches with the states as Guard assets. Not surprisingly, the Guard association welcomed the commission's proposal. In a statement, Gus Hargett, the organization's president and a retired major general, said the commission took seriously the concerns of Guard officials and soldiers. "In its tone as well as in its recommendations, the commission sees the Army National Guard continuing as a full partner in our Army, including attack aviation," he said. "It also sees a need for greater integration among the components. We certainly agree in principle." But Hargett noted that the recommendations are not binding and the Guard, the Army and Congress will have to work together to make tough decisions. "This task will not be easy. And fiscal barriers and today's rapidly evolving world only complicate the effort," he said. "But we have an obligation to our nation to get this done and get it done right." Army Evaluating Recommendations Army public affairs chief Brig. Gen. Malcolm Frost said service leaders including Army Secretary John McHugh, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and Army National Guard Director Lt. Gen. Timothy Kadavy and Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Talley are assessing the report. "The Army's evaluation of the costs, benefits, and risks outlined is just now beginning," he said. Frost said the he expects the panel's recommendations to provide opportunities to strengthen the effectiveness of the force. With the Army forced to downsize at a time of expanding requirements, it has found itself vying with its sister services for resources. The result, the commission wrote, is "in some unhealthy competitive tension among the Army's components, especially between the Regular Army and the Army National Guard." This competition, and in particular the Pentagon's backing of the Army proposal to assume control of all Apache units, prompted Congress to establish the commission. Congress' move wasn't surprising. Lawmakers have a stake in the future of Guard units, which mean federal dollars and jobs to the states. Permanent Brigades Europe The commission also recommended for the Army to return to a practice of permanently stationing aviation and armored brigade combat teams in Europe. While rotating personnel and equipment onto the continent has its benefits, the practice is also carries operational risks, is costly and probably not justifiable under the current threat conditions, according to the panel. "The changing security environment in Europe, its value as a stationing location for potential contingencies in the Middle East, and the relatively lengthy timelines associated with deploying an [aviation and armored] Brigade Combat Team suggest the need to return to permanent stationing of this asset in the region," the report states. Noting the number of soldiers stationed in Europe has declined from almost 217,000 at the end of the Cold War to about 28,500 today, the commission argued that rotating units onto the continent puts unnecessary strain on the force. For example, it says the Army currently operates at a 1:2 deployment-to-dwell ratio and that requires three units to sustain a deployment of one unit. The Army National Guard and Army Reserve operate at a 1:5 ratio, so that six units sustain one unit's deployment. "Frequent rotations can create operational risks in the readiness and timeliness of key capabilities," the commission says. "It also can create additional expense by increasing the overall amount of equipment and personnel required to create sustained forward presence." Risks to Downsizing Citing a resurgent Russia in Europe, the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, and other threats, commission also argued against decreasing the overall size of the Army to 920,000 soldiers in coming years under spending caps known as sequestration. The service was budgeted to have 1,015,000 soldiers in fiscal 2016, which began Oct. 1, including 475,000 in the active component, 342,000 in the Army National Guard and 198,000 in the Army Reserve, according to Pentagon budget documents. "An Army that declines to 920,000 soldiers and faces limits on funding for readiness and modernization is not enough to do the job," the report states. -- Bryant Jordan can be reached at bryant.jordan@military.com. Follow him on Twitter at @bryantjordan. Related Video: Demand for the new tabs had indeed led to small shortages, but the problem was suddenly blown up into something much larger... GREAT LAKES Rear Adm. Stephen C. Evans, commander, Naval Service Training Command (NSTC), made his first visit to a naturalization ceremony at Recruit Training Command (RTC) to watch 18 Sailors become new naturalized American citizens, Jan. 20. "This day is a day I'm sure you won't forget," said Evans. "It's a day I won't forget and I thank you for allowing me to share it with you. You all come from different backgrounds and different heritages, but you raised your right hand to defend this country. Today this country has returned your commitment as you become new citizens." Approximately 37,000 recruits graduate from boot camp every year, but not every recruit is a U.S. citizen when they enter the service. Since 2010, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), in partnership with the U.S. Navy and Recruit Training Command (RTC), have expedited citizenship for more than 4,000 recruits during basic training. "We average between 300 to 500 recruits (and "A" school Sailors) every single year," said Lt. Christopher Jackson, RTC's naturalization officer. "I cannot be more proud to be an American to be able to assist so many people that join the U.S. Navy." Jackson said the U.S. Navy, as well as the other branches of the military, has had a citizenship program during times of war and conflict, going back to the Korean War. On July 3, 2002, President George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13269, which expedited naturalization for aliens and non-citizen nationals serving on an active-duty status in any of the armed forces for one day to become eligible for U.S. citizenship. "At the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom the naturalization process was being completed in the fleets," said Jackson. "In 2010, we realized we could also do it here at boot camp." Jackson said this alleviated time and man hours of fleet personnel and also allowed Sailors to become naturalized citizens giving them all the rights, privileges and duties of a birthright citizen earlier in their Navy careers. Seaman Recruit Andre Beckford, 30, from Ocho Rios, Jamaica, said coming to the United States in 2009 was a very big deal for him. "Coming in the Navy and getting to become a citizen I had to fight back tears," said Beckford. "I actually felt like I was part of something great today." For Fireman Jasmine Thapa, 19, from Pokhara, Nepal, the naturalization ceremony was a proud moment that took her six years to accomplish. "It was very exciting and my heart was beating fast," said Thapa. "I feel very proud to be called an American citizen. I always wanted to come to America and when I got here I looked for ways to serve the United States and found the Navy had the best things for me and now I'm a Sailor and an American." According to Paul Phillips, immigration services officer for USCIS, to further expedite the citizenship of recruits and Sailors at RTC, he travels from his Chicago field office to Great Lakes every week to process paper work, conduct interviews, do background checks and perform citizenship oath ceremonies. "We're here every week and we process applications expeditiously through our Nebraska center," he said. "The applicants are normally ready to naturalize Wednesday mornings after a final interview on Monday." For many of the recruits that usually means they are ready to naturalize the Wednesday morning their final week of boot camp. This is after several weeks of studying on top of accomplishing and successfully passing their boot camp training. They also have to pass the citizenship test and no recruit can be naturalized before passing their final training evolution Battle Stations, the culmination of eight weeks of training by recruits. Battle Stations is a grueling 12-hour test of a recruit's skills in several shipboard scenarios, including firefighting, combatting flooding and transporting casualties. The final test and evaluation is held on board the 210-foot-long Arleigh Burke-class destroyer replica, USS Trayer, the Navy's largest simulator. "I'm very proud of this program," said Jackson. "The USCIS field agents really do give the applicants priority to make sure they can get the process done in a reasonable manner." Jackson said one of the reasons for a delay is background checks may take longer than the eight weeks a recruit is at the Navy's only boot camp. "This is a huge benefit that the U.S. government bestows on its military service members," said Phillips. "It's not something that is easy to obtain. We've had folks that have tried for years and even decades to get United States citizenship. But these (military) folks have gone the extra mile and have pledged to defend something they're not even an intimate part of yet." Rear Adm. Evans observed the Sailors recite the Oath of Naturalization and say the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag that was set up in the training room of RTC's USS Yorktown Visitor's Center. He also handed each new citizen their Certificate of Naturalization. Afterward he told the new American citizens to remember where they all came from and remember what you now defend. "As you move forward and see this land of opportunity you'll also see opportunities in the Navy," said Evans. "I encourage you to reach for the stars and set your goals high." NSTC oversees 98 percent of initial officer and enlisted accessions training for the Navy, as well as the Navy's Citizenship Development program. NSTC also includes RTC, the Navy's only boot camp also at Naval Station Great Lakes, the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) program at more than 160 colleges and universities, Officer Training Command (OTC) Newport, Rhode Island, and Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (NJROTC) and Navy National Defense Cadet Corps (NDCC) citizenship development programs at more than 600 high schools worldwide. North Korea is preparing a long-range missile launch and it could happen as early as next week, according to a published report. Sky News, citing Japan's Kyodo news agency, reported that an unnamed Japanese government official claims there are signs North Korea is readying a missile launch. The official made the assumptions based on the latest satellite images of North Korea's Tongchang-ri missile test site. The official told Kyodo a launch could happen next week, but didn't elaborate more on the images seen at the test site. South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok declined to comment on the report, citing a government policy of not discussing intelligence matters, according to Reuters. However, Kim said North Korea had not issued any international warnings, as hit has done ahead of previous rocket launches. A South Korean government official told the Yonhap news agency that steady activity has been observed at the missile site, with rails set up to quickly move parts for rocket assembly and eventual launch. North Korea said Jan. 6 that it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. However, the U.S. and other countries have expressed doubt that North Korea has made strides in its nuclear weapons program. The North's last test of a long-range rocket was in 2012, when Pyongyang launched an object into orbit which experts believe is part of an effort to build an intercontinental ballistic missile. North Korea is also thought to be working to miniaturize a nuclear warhead to mount on a missile, according to Sky News. Earlier Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and agreed on the need for a fresh resolution on the North Korea situation, but both parties couldn't come to a solid agreement on what the new measures would be. According to Reuters, U.S. Navy Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, said he supported the conversion of an Aegis missile defense test site in Hawaii into a facility ready to bolster U.S. defense against a ballistic missile attack. Harris also supported putting a mobile missile defense system in place in South Korea, but warned that both the U.S. and South Korea must come to an agreement on that together. Less than two years after disabled Army veteran Barry Coates told a House committee, "I stand before you terminally ill," the South Carolina man is dead from the cancer that went undetected by VA doctors for nearly a year. Coates, only 46 when he died on Jan. 23, became the face of the Veterans Affairs Department wait-time scandal -- in which patients whose appointments were put off by a system unable to handle the volume of men and women needing its services. "It is likely too late for me," he told the House Veterans Affairs Committee during an April 9, 2014 hearing. "The gross negligence of my ongoing problems and crippling back log epidemic of the VA medical system has not only handed me a death sentence but ruined the quality of my life I have for the meantime." Coates was among disabled veterans interviewed as part of a CNN investigative report on delays to veterans care. In his case, a cancer that could easily have been detected with a rectal exam grew and spread over 11 months of delays and inadequate care at VA facilities in South Carolina. "Through no fault of his own, Barry Coates was dealt a tragic hand in life," Rep. Jeff Miller, a Republican from Florida and chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said Thursday morning. "Time and again he was let down by the very agency established to serve him," he said. "Yet after all he endured, he kept a positive attitude and remained focused on ensuring that other veterans would not have to suffer the same mistreatment he did." Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Republican from Georgia and chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, in a statement said he mourns for the loss of any veteran, "but especially for someone like Barry Coates, who suffered from the systemic and cultural failings of the [VA]." He added, "As a committee, we will continue working to right the wrongs at the VA that Barry Coates helped to uncover and restore the quality care at the VA that all veterans deserve and should receive." The wait-times scandal broke with reports of delays and secret patient appointment waiting lists at the VA Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. CNN reported in April 2014 that up to 40 veterans died awaiting care. The VA's subsequent investigation found that unofficial wait lists and delays to care were systemic across the department. The Inspector General's office also concluded that up to 35 people seeking care through the Phoenix facility died, but initially stated their deaths were not caused by delays. The IG later backpedaled and said delays likely contributed to the deaths of some veterans. Few VA hospital officials have been fired over the wait-times scandal. The former head of the Phoenix facility appealed her termination to the Merit System Protection Board. It was only because the board found she had accepted gifts from a would-be vendor that her firing was upheld. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers continue to criticize the VA for its failure to hold people accountable for the delays. But well before the CNN investigation, lawmakers had been told that VA officials were manipulating appointment data to conceal the fact they were not able to meet patient demand. The Government Accountability Office reported the problem to Congress in 2013. A year before, a former VA hospital official in New Hampshire told lawmakers that medical center executives across the country were swapping best practices for getting around VA wait-time standards. Executives had a financial incentive for meeting wait-times standards, Nicholas Tolentino said: earning bonuses. It was only after CNN reported in April 2014 that dozens of veterans died waiting for an appointment at the Phoenix hospital that lawmakers in Congress and leaders at the VA started to pay attention to the issue. A VA Inspector General report concluded that wait-time workarounds was a systemic problem, but stopped short of saying the delays killed patients. The IG instead said the delays contributed to veteran deaths. The scandal ultimately led to the resignation of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki. During his testimony, Coates said VA never told him he might have qualified for fee-based treatment in the private sector and never offered him any recourse for his treatment delays, The American Legion reported at the time. An emotional Rep. Jackie Walorski, a Republican from Indiana, apologized to Coates "on behalf" of the VA and its broken system time, according to the Legion. "This is an American disaster," she said, crying. "If I could change your circumstance, I would do it in a heartbeat." Miller said Coates is "proof that bureaucratic incompetence, indifference and corruption can result in tragic consequences." "His heartbreaking story should be required learning for every Veterans Health Administration employee," he said. "Barry and his family will remain in my thoughts and prayers." -- Bryant Jordan can be reached at bryant.jordan@military.com. Follow him on Twitter at @bryantjordan. In the Federal Government's latest move to crack down on what it sees as problems with private universities, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today announced that it has filed suit against the operators of DeVry University. In its suit the FTC alleged that DeVrys advertisements deceived consumers about the likelihood that students would find jobs in their fields of study, and would earn more than those graduating with bachelor's degrees from other colleges or universities. Lawsuit Disputes DeVry's Claims of Graduate's Employment and Higher Salaries In its complaint against DeVry, the FTC alleges that the claim that 90% of DeVry graduates actively seeking employment landed jobs in their field within six months of graduation was deceptive. The complaint also charges that another key claim made by DeVry, that its graduates had 15% higher incomes one year after graduation on average than the graduates of all other colleges or universities, was also deceptive. Millions of Americans look to higher education for training that will lead to meaningful employment and good pay, said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez. Educational institutions like DeVry owe prospective students the truth about their graduates success finding employment in their field of study and the income they can earn. The complaint alleges that DeVry counted numerous graduates as working in their field when they were not, including these examples from the 2012 graduating class: a graduate who majored in business administration with a specialization in health services management working as a server at a restaurant; multiple graduates with majors in technical management whose employment was listed as unpaid volunteer positions at medical centers; a graduate who majored in technical management with a human resources specialization working as a rural mail carrier and another who worked as a driver delivering rain gutters for a construction company; and a graduate who majored in business administration with a health care management specialization working as a car salesman. The complaint also alleges that DeVry used data received from a third-party survey and data received directly from graduates in reporting its claim of "15% higher income one year after graduation". The lawsuit cited publicly available data that showed DeVry graduates did not earn significantly more than graduates from other schools within a year of graduation. Department of Education Taking Action Against DeVry In a related action, the U.S. Department of Education is also taking action against DeVry for its marketing practices. The Department of Education is telling DeVry that it will be requiring the institution both to stop certain advertising regarding the post-graduation employment outcomes of its students and to take additional steps to ensure that DeVry can substantiate the truthfulness of its post-graduation employment outcomes including using an independent auditor to verify any representations DeVry makes regarding the post graduation employment outcomes of its students. Latest in Many Federal Actions Against For-Profit Universities This is the latest move by the Federal Government against for-profit Universities. In April of 2015, the Federal Government levied $30 million in fines against Corinthian Colleges of California which eventually led to the closing of all of its 28 campuses. In May of 2015 the Securities and Exchange Commission announced fraud charges against ITT and two of its top executives. In October 2015, the Department of Defense temporarily suspended Tuition Assistance payments to the University of Phoenix for 3 months, eventually lifting the suspension after it determined that either the conditions leading to the suspension were unwarranted or they had been cleared up. Thousands Using GI Bill At DeVry Not Affected DeVry University operates 55 locations across 18 states, as of 2014 it had a total enrollment of more than 42,000 students. According the the VA, more than 17,000 veterans are using the GI Bill at DeVry and its subsidiaries. As of yet, the VA has announced no actions against DeVry or its subsidiaries, and the Department of Defense continues to approve Tuition Assistance benefits for DeVry and its subsidiaries. India and Pakistan are yet to agree upon a "mutually convenient" date for Foreign Secretary-level talks (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: India and Pakistan have not been able to agree upon a "mutually convenient" date for Foreign Secretary-level talks so far even as New Delhi today asserted that Mumbai attack case trial was a "test" of Pakistan's sincerity in combating terrorism directed against the country. "As of now, we don't have a mutually convenient date," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said. He was asked about the status of Indo-Pak Foreign Secretaries-level talks and reported remarks of Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit during an interview here on the possibility of the parleys in the first week of February. On the progress of probe by Pakistan in Pathankot terror strike, he said the two governments were in "continuous communication" regarding the matter but refused to give any further details. He also added that while it was decided that the issues pertaining to terrorism would be handled by NSAs of the two countries but it was obvious that when the foreign secretaries will meet, the Pathankot attack would be raised by India. Read: Pak court refuses voice samples of suspects in 26/11 case Noting that it has seen media reports about the Pakistan High court dismissing government's petition seeking voice samples of 26/11 mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Swarup said but India has not received any word on this through official channels. "We see Mumbai terror attack trial in Islamabad as a test of Pakistan's sincerity in combating terrorism directed against India. The planning, training and financing of the Mumbai terrorist attack was done in Pakistan where 99 per cent of the evidence is. Read: 26/11 case: Witnesses fail to appear before Pak court "It is Pakistan's responsibility to unearth and present the requisite evidences in the ongoing trial so that the perpetrators are brought to justice," the Spokesperson said. Pakistani government had filed an application in the Islamabad High Court seeking voice samples of the suspects to compare it with the communication intercepted by Indian intelligence and then present it before the anti-terrorism court (ATC) as evidence in the Mumbai attack case but the petition was dismissed by the Court on Monday. India will raise with Pakistanthe issue of a balloon coming from that country which was shot down by an IAF fighter aircraft over Rajasthan, External Affairs Ministry said. "The Defence Ministry has written to the MEA and we will raise it (the issue) with Pakistan, the ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said here. On January 26, a US-made helium-filled balloon was shot down by a Sukhoi-30 fighter aircraft over Rajasthan with top government sources maintaining that it had come from Pakistan and could have been an attempt to gauge India's response time. The shiny 3 metres in diametre balloon, with "Happy Birthday" written on it, was flying at a height of about 25,000 feet in Jaisalmer district when it was picked up by the air force radars which were on high alert in view of Republic Day celebrations. New Delhi: Commandant Chandra Shekar Joshi, a Coast Guard Officer who intercepted a suspicious Pakistani boat which later blew up on December 31, 2014, was awarded the President's Tatrakshak Gallantry Medal by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Thursday. Commandant Abhay Ambetkar, who coordinated the air-to-surface operations that led to spotting the location of the boat, was also awarded the Tatrakshak Gallantry Medal. Joshi, who joined ICG in 1997, was commanding Indian Coast Guards Ship (ICGS) Rajratan and was deployed on the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) off the Gujarat coast. The ship was around 170 nautical miles from the spot where the suspicious boat was but proceeded with "maximum speed" to intercept it. However, the vessel exploded and caught fire before sinking along with four occupants. Parrikar had then said the "circumstantial evidence" indicated that the Pakistani boat had suspected terror links. "The current situation in and around the country continues to revolve around complexities and bring forward new challenges. Our security forces require to maintain 24X7 vigil along the land and maritime frontiers of the country. Ensuring maritime security of such a vast expanse, especially in maritime domains calls for seamless energy, coordination and pro-active approach from agencies," Parrikar said at the function. According to the citation with the award, "The boat was unlit and expressed hostile intent by trying to evade and taking advantage of the dark hours and weather. Despite repeated calls on VHF Channel 16, loud hailer and indication by search light, the crew of the suspected boat was defiant and refused to surrender. However, persistent efforts by the Officer and his team led to successful interception of the suspect boat." "The crew set the suspect boat on fire. Subsequently, the boat was engulfed in massive fire following an explosion. The boat finally sank at about 0633 hours on Jan 1 2015. Thereafter the ship assumed extensive search operations for locating survivors," the citation read. When asked by reporters whether it was a "terror" boat, Joshi said, "It was terror related, which is why it exploded." Parrikar also presented awards to 32 other officers for their gallantry or services. The controversial bill was sent to Pranab Mukherjee in September 2015 for his assent. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: A controversial anti-terror bill, passed by the Gujarat assembly but twice rejected by the previous UPA government, was returned by President Pranab Mukherjee seeking additional information. The Gujarat Control of Terrorism and Organised Crime (GCTOC) Bill, 2015, which has been hanging fire since Narendra Modi, as Gujarat Chief Minister first introduced it in 2003, was returned by the President to the Home Ministry as he sought more inputs related to certain provisions of the bill. "Home Ministry will provide the additional inputs to the President after obtaining the same from the Gujarat government," a Home Ministry official said. The Home Ministry has informed the President after his communication that it was withdrawing the bill and will submit a re-worked bill for his consent. The controversial bill was sent to the President in September 2015 for his assent. The bill provides for admissibility of evidence collected through interception of mobile calls of an accused or through confessions made before an investigating officer, in a court of law. In July last year, the Modi government at the Centre had sent back the bill to the state government asking it to clarify on certain issues raised by the Ministry of Information and Technology (IT). The IT Ministry had objected to the provision in the bill which allows authorisation of interception of telephone conversations and their admissibility as evidence before a court of law. The Gujarat government had strongly rebutted the objections raised by the IT Ministry. In its reply, the Gujarat government cited the subjects mentioned in the 'concurrent list' under which the Centre and the state share the responsibility of formulating criminal law and criminal procedure. The central government has given its consent to the provision of extensions of time limit for filing of charge sheet from 90 days to 180 days after consultation with other central ministries. The Gujarat Assembly in March 2015 had passed the stringent bill retaining controversial provisions that had twice earlier led to a previous similar bill being rejected by the President. The bill was first rejected by then President A P J Abdul Kalam in 2004, demanding that the clause relating to interception of communication be removed. It was again rejected when Pratibha Patil was the President. On both the occasions, the then UPA government recommended to the President for rejection of the bill, saying several provisions of the GCTOC were not in conformity of the Central law, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The Flint water crisis and Gov. Rick Snyder's role in it are coming into play in a Michigan congressional race. Gretchen Driskell, a Democratic candidate in the 7th District, is calling for U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, to hold Snyder accountable and require the governor to testify at a congressional hearing in Washington, D.C. Walberg is a member of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is scheduled to hold a hearing on the Flint water crisis next Wednesday, Feb. 3. Snyder hasn't been called to testify. "I am disgusted that Congressman Walberg is allowing Gov. Snyder to sit at home while his very own committee supposedly 'investigates' the government failures that led to the ongoing crisis in Flint," Driskell said in a statement Thursday. "Not only did the poisoning of children happen on Congressman Walberg's watch, but he is now refusing to hold responsible the very politicians directly involved." Dan Kotman, a spokesman for Walberg, said the committee chairman determines the schedule and witness list, but Walberg wants to see a thorough investigation to get answers for Flint residents and the state of Michigan. "Congressman Walberg's heart breaks for the people of Flint and his focus is on solutions to help them get access to clean and safe drinking water and the resources they need in the near and long term," he said. "Elected leaders in Lansing should be working together to solve this at the state level, and it's sad to watch Rep. Driskell desperately politicize a human tragedy for her own political gain." The name of the hearing scheduled for 9 a.m. Feb. 3 is "Examining Federal Administration of the Safe Drinking Water Act in Flint, Michigan." Kotman emphasized it's about federal administration. Driskell, the former mayor of Saline and current state representative from Washtenaw County, is running for Walberg's seat in Congress this year. "Right after graduating college, I drove a cab in the evenings to pay bills while starting out fresh in accounting," Driskell said in the statement she released Thursday. "I think the roads in Washington are clear by now; I would gladly drive Governor Snyder to the Capitol if he doesn't know the way." Ryan Stanton covers the city beat for The Ann Arbor News. Reach him at ryanstanton@mlive.com. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday extended till March 18, the anticipatory bail granted to social activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand in an embezzlement case related to riot victims of Gulberg society in Gujarat. A three-judge Bench of Justices Anil R. Dave, Ibrahim Kalifulla and V. Gopala Gowda extended the bail after hearing senior counsel Kapil Sibal and Ms. Kamini Jaiswal, appearing for the petitioners and senior counsel Mahesh Jethmalani for Gujarat and Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar for CBI. It was submitted that the petitioners had not furnished the documents sought from them in April last. Further the CBI said the Trust had received grants from Ford Foundation for which they have to provide utilization certificate to ensure that the amount was spent for the objective for which it was received. The petitioners had failed to give these certificates to the CBI, it was argued. While extending the anticipatory bail, the bench warned the petitioners that the anticipatory bail will be cancelled if they did not cooperate in the investigation as alleged by counsel for Gujarat and CBI. The Bench directed the petitioners to furnish the documents sought for the purpose of investigation in two weeks and posted the matter for final hearing on March 9. The Bench is also hearing appeals filed by the petitioners against certain observations made by the Bombay High Court in its judgment granting anticipatory bail to them in the `foreign contribution case and posted the matter for further hearing on January 21, 2016. The CBI had also filed an appeal against the impugned judgment granting them bail. Among the allegations levelled against them by the Gujarat government is a case of fraud related to a proposed plan to build a memorial for the victims of the Gulberg Society killings, as well as embezzlement of funds. After the Gujarat High Court declined anticipatory bail, the apex court granted anticipatory bail in February this year and this was extended from time to time. The CBI submitted that Sabrang Communications and Publishing Pvt. Ltd (SCPPL) run by Ms. Setalvad and Mr. Anand received funds to the tune of $ 2,90,000 from the U.S.-based Ford Foundation. This was in violation of the FCRA and also they had misused the funds received. Washtenaw County Judge J. Cedric Simpson will attempt to take down the attorneys prosecuting his ongoing judicial misconduct case. A scheduling order with the Judicial Tenure Commission shows Simpson, a 14th District Court judge, has until 4:30 p.m. Feb. 1 to file a motion to disqualify the examiner, the associate examiner and other attorneys involved in the complaint against him. Kenneth Mogill, Simpson's attorney, confirmed that they plan to file the motion. The examiner, Paul J. Fischer, will then have until Feb. 15 to respond to the motion ahead of a hearing, according on the order. Fischer declined to comment on the proceedings. The development comes as the result of a Michigan Supreme Court decision to send the case back to the Judicial Tenure Commission for review of evidence Simpson claimed wasn't provided to Judge Peter Houk during court proceedings in March 2015. Simpson is accused of interfering with an intern's drunken driving arrest in 2013. The nine-member commission and Houk previously found Simpson responsible of wrongdoings and recommended Simpson's removal from the bench. Following the decision, Simpson and his attorney filed a motion alleging that emails between Pittsfield Township public safety officials and Judge Kirk Tabbey, who was facing a separate complaint from the Judicial Tenure Commission, could have helped Simpson's case. Simpson's intern, then-26-year-old Crystal Vargas, was arrested for drunken driving about 4:30 a.m. Sept. 9, 2013 at Michigan Avenue and Platt Road in Pittsfield Township when Simpson arrived and spoke with the arresting officer, Robert Cole. Simpson also helped Vargas get her car out of impound the next day and made several calls to the attorney prosecuting the case. Emails Simpson's attorneys acquired from the Pittsfield Township police show that Cole's superiors felt the officer made a proper arrest and that they didn't seem to think Simpson's arrival interfered, as the JTC contends, according to Simpson's motion. "Sounds like Ofc. Cole handled everything by the numbers," Matt Harshberger, director of public safety, wrote to Sgt. Henry Fusik. Simpson was also accused of asking former Pittsfield Township attorney Victor Lillich to sit on the case, but his motion claimed Tabbey's involvement, not Simpson's, prolonged the prosecution. The motion said there was a "long-standing enmity between Judge Tabbey and (Simpson)" and that Tabbey attempted to "re-cast exculpatory evidence as evidence of misconduct by (Simpson)." The saga of Simpson's case will continue on Feb. 19 with a motion hearing held in the Washtenaw County Trial Court. Read the original motions, including the email exchanges, below: Judge Simpson Response to JTC ruling Judge Simpson Motion to Remand Darcie Moran covers cops and courts for MLive and The Ann Arbor News. Email her at dmoran@mlive.com or follow her on Twitter @darciegmoran. Charges of terrorism against a 25-year-old Three Rivers man are dismissed, but now he's serving 5 years of probation for stalking and malicious use of a telephone. Konrads Voits Konrads Voits, 25, was charged in Washtenaw County 15th District Court in April with making terrorist threats against the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Michigan State Police while under psychiatric care at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor. A family member reported Voits to the Michigan State Police after he allegedly made the comments in March. The court ordered him to undergo two competency exams in the summer and fall, and he was found competent. In October, the Washtenaw County district court added a felony charge of malicious use of telecommunications devices and several drug charges that include controlled substances and marijuana. At a motion from a prosecuting attorney in December, the terrorism and various drug charges were dismissed, and the court added a felony charge of stalking. Voits pleaded no contest to stalking, malicious use of a phone and possession of LSD, a controlled substance. The Washtenaw County district court sentenced him to 60 months of probation for the stalking charge, 24 months of probation for malicious use of telecommunications devices and 24 months for possession of a controlled substance. Steven Hiller, deputy chief assistant prosecutor, said Voits must comply with mental health treatment and cannot possess weapons during his probation. Lindsay Knake is a cops and courts reporter for The Ann Arbor News. Follow her on twitter or contact her at 989-372-2498 or lknake@mlive.com. BAY CITY, MI -- The second of two Wayne County men who ventured north to burglarize vehicles in Bay County has been sentenced to probation. Bay County District Judge Dawn A. Klida on Wednesday, Jan. 27, sentenced Ruben E. Guevara to six months probation, with credit for one day in jail already served. While on probation, Guevara is to submit to one random drug test per month and must attend a six- to eight-week drug education course. Guevara, 23, is also to pay $895 in court fines and costs. Guevara in December pleaded guilty to two counts of breaking and entering a vehicle less than $200 and one count of possession of marijuana, all misdemeanors. In exchange, the prosecution dismissed one count of larceny from a vehicle, a five-year felony. Guevara's 22-year-old codefendant, Ulises Alvarado Jr., accepted the same offer and on Jan. 20 was sentenced to eight months probation. During those eight months, Alvarado is to submit to two random drug and alcohol tests per month, attend at least 18 outpatient substance treatment sessions, and pay $1,015 in court fines and costs. The duo's charges stem from incidents that occurred early the morning of Wednesday, Nov. 4, when Bay County sheriff's deputies responded to the area of German and Knight roads in Portsmouth Township after a resident called 911 to report a suspicious vehicle. The vehicle in question, a black 2003 Saturn, had been parked with its engine running in front of a home, the caller told dispatchers, according to court records. Deputies found the Saturn parked on the north side of German Road, its engine running but with nobody inside, court records show. A short time later, Guevara and Alvarado walked to the scene on foot. The duo told police they were visiting an aunt in Hampton Township and were heading to Dearborn, but got lost and stopped to go to the bathroom, court records show. Deputies noticed footprints in wet grass and followed them to a driveway, where two GMC Yukons were parked, their doors ajar, court records show. The Yukons' owner told police a phone charger, a Zune, a purse, some money, credit cards, a driver's license, checkbook, and a work bag were missing, court records show. Deputies found some of the items in a patch of nearby weeds, court records show. Deputies also discovered another parked vehicle, a 2005 Jeep Liberty, had been gone through, with a DVD player, a purse and checkbook stolen, court records show. Interviewed by police, Guevara and Alvarado gave different first names for the aunt they claimed to be visiting, and they could not recall her surname or address, court records show. Police also found marijuana in their vehicle, court records show. Deputies arrested the two men. Bay City was awarded a $250,000 grant from the Michigan State Housing Development Authority's Blight Elimination Program to tear down 18 structures in the city. The Bay County Land Bank is going to apply for federal blight elimination funds next month. BAY CITY, MI -- The Bay County Land Bank, which went through a rebirth last year after Bay City decided it wanted to be an active partner in the venture, approved its first major activity in recent years this week by deciding to apply for federal blight elimination dollars. At a public meeting Wednesday, Jan. 27, members of the land bank passed a motion to apply for federal dollars through the "Hardest Hit Fund," an appropriation requested by U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township. The move gives Bay City, which applied for the funds separately, an additional opportunity to see federal dollars help knock down blighted properties in the city. If the land bank is awarded funds, it could use the money to demolish properties in Bay City, as well as in the townships and smaller cities in the county. This year, Bay City officials are spending a $250,000 Michigan State Housing and Development Authority grant to knock down as many as 18 properties. Bay City Manager Rick Finn said the city has identified the properties and is now in the environmental stage of the process, testing for asbestos. Requests for proposals are expected to go out in the coming weeks. The city currently has 11 properties with demolition specifications ready to send out to bid, said Debbie Kiesel, the city's grant coordinator. Once bids come back, the city will assess the balance of the grant funds. A number of the properties the city owns through tax foreclosure are among those set to be knocked down, including 610, 708 and 709 11th St.; 1300 Broadway; 401 High St.; 400 McEwan St.; and 308 37th St. Another property, 616 Grant St., is owned by Bay City entrepreneur Steven J. Ingersoll, who was convicted of tax fraud last year. Ingersoll has given permission to the city to have his building knocked down. Two commercial properties -- 243 and 245 Saginaw St., a former Firestone Complete Auto Care -- is also on the city's list for demolition. Wednesday's meeting also gave the members of the land bank some ideas on how the agency should work in the future. Ingham County Treasurer Eric Schertzing, who has run that county's land bank for more than a decade, gave a presentation and fielded questions on how Bay County's land bank should operate. Ingham County's Land Bank has helped turn a dilapidated gas station into a three-story apartment building with ground-level commercial space called Avenue Flats. It has flipped blighted houses that families and Michigan State University graduate students have purchased. And it hung onto a specific property in Williamston until it found the right buyer because the community wanted a bakery at the location. "A land bank authority can allow you to create your own positive stories," Schertzing said. "It's what you want it to be and what you make of it." Ingham County's land bank, Schertzing said, is setup more as a public developer, while Kent County's land bank, for instance, is more engaged with the private sector. A land bank could purchase and fix up properties and then use them as rentals to build revenue, or sell them on land contracts. Finn said one of the issues the city recently has had with its foreclosed properties is that when they go to auction, the private sector buys up the "decent" houses and the city is left with dilapidated properties with next to no value. Schertzing said a land bank has the opportunity to take two decent homes, for example, and "bundle it with the crap homes." "Take something with value with stuff that balances it out," he said. "It's a little crass, but it's the reverse of what the private market place has been doing to government for years." Finn said the county's land bank could go in a number of directions. "I think what the city wants is to identify good, solid neighborhoods and develop a strategic plan about the foreclosed properties in that neighborhood," he said. "That's where the land bank can be a very important tool for us." rape kit.jpg Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy and state officials announced on Sept. 2, 2015 that 10,087 untested rape kits discovered in a Detroit police storage warehouse in 2009 have now been tested. BAY COUNTY, MI -- A statewide search of untested sexual assault kits indicates Bay County law enforcement agencies have 48 kits awaiting analysis. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette and Michigan State Police Director Col. Kriste Kibbey Etue announced Thursday, Jan. 28, that they are moving forward with testing and potential investigation and prosecution of 1,819 untested sexual assault evidence kits found by an Attorney General's office survey of the 82 counties outside of Wayne County. According to their findings, there are seven untested kits with the Bay County Sheriff's Office and 41 with the Bay City Department of Public Safety. The city's number is ranked seventh-highest in the state, with the Flint Police Department having the most untested kits at 261. Bay City Public Safety Director Michael J. Cecchini said the 41 kits his agency has date from 1992 to 2011. Before 2011, the kits were sent to the Michigan State Police Crime Lab at investigators' discretion, Cecchini said. "That can be based on a lot of things," he said. "The victim doesn't want to press charges, there is a plea deal or it's a minor-on-minor thing where there is no culpable mental state." Bay County Undersheriff Troy Cunningham added another reason the kits might not have been sent for analysis was because there may have been more than enough other evidence to charge and convict a sexual assailant. "Since 2011, we have been submitting all of them," Cecchini continued. "What's going on now, since November 2015, my agency has been working with the state police to go back and look at these older cases and we're sending those in to be tested and that information will be collected by the state. They might able to be used to solve a crime in another jurisdiction." There wasn't a statewide requirement to send all such kits for testing until 2014, Cecchini said. The number of untested sexual assault kits in outstate Michigan was determined after Schuette's office began to survey the 82 counties outside of Detroit and Wayne County in September 2015. The outstate survey was initiated by Schuette to complement the efforts taking place in Wayne County, the state's largest county, following the discovery of thousands of untested sexual assault evidence kits in an abandoned Detroit crime laboratory. The survey In the September survey, Schuette called on county law enforcement officials to provide a count of certain previously untested kits in their possession so that state authorities could determine the most effective way to help local authorities process these cases, including testing that could help with unsolved crimes in other jurisdictions. The counts requested are those of sexual assault victims who were assaulted before Oct. 1, 2014, and were not previously tested for various reasons, which can include that the suspect confessed, pleaded guilty, or was already incarcerated. Schuette and Etue expect that a closer examination of the untested kits will give them more insight into the status of these cases and how they can best help local authorities. Tackling untested sexual assault kits involves three basic phases: testing; investigation of the incident; and prosecutions where possible. Schuette and Etue will work together to process the backlogged kits, using a combination of $1.7 million appropriated by the legislature and grants awarded to the Michigan State Police to ensure justice for victims of sexual assault. "Today, we take another step forward in getting rapists off the streets and ensuring justice for sexual-assault victims. I thank our prosecutors and law-enforcement agencies for working with us to test previously untested sexual assault kits," Schuette said. "Experience shows that testing every kit helps law enforcement solve crimes and stop serial rapists." "The Michigan State Police is committed to providing forensic analysis and analytical case support to ensure the best possible evidence is available to solve these crimes and bring justice to the survivors," said Etue. Statutes of limitations First- and third-degree criminal sexual conduct involve penetration, while second- and fourth-degree are limited to touching. In Michigan, first-degree criminal sexual conduct does not have a statute of limitations, though this did not take effect until April 22, 2002. With second-, third-, and fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct and assault with intent to commit sexual conduct, a person must be charged within 10 years of the offense or by the victim's 21st birthday, whichever comes later. There is a DNA exception to these statutes of limitations, stating "If evidence of the violation is obtained and that evidence contains DNA from an unidentified individual, an indictment against that individual for the violation may be found and filed at any time after the offense is committed; however after the individual is identified, the indictment may be found and filed within 10 years after the individual is identified or by the alleged victim's 21st birthday, whichever occurs later." Sexual Assault Kits in Michigan Schuette, the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, the Michigan State Police and the Detroit Police Department are investigating and prosecuting cases arising from the testing of sexual assault kits found in Wayne County in 2009. The Michigan State Police completed testing of the backlogged Detroit sexual assault kits in September of 2015. Michigan victims of sexual violence are encouraged to call the national sexual assault hotline toll-free, 1-800-656-HOPE. All calls are confidential, and will be answered by a local counseling center affiliated with the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). Assistance is also available online at www.rainn.org. BAY CITY, MI -- A 22-year-old Bay City woman accused of beating up her husband's pregnant girlfriend opted to accept a plea deal the day before her trial as set to begin. Rita J. Orlik on Wednesday, Jan. 27, appeared before Bay County District Judge Timothy J. Kelly and pleaded guilty to one count of assault and battery. The charge is a misdemeanor punishable by up to 93 days in jail and a $500 fine. The prosecution did not dismiss any other charges, but the court agreed not to impose jail time on the initial sentence. Orlik's legal woes stem from an incident that happened about 10 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 28, when a Bay County sheriff's deputy responded to an assault complaint at McLaren Bay Region hospital. There, a pregnant teenager told the deputy she had been at the Walmart at 3921 E. Wilder Road in Bangor Township when she was assaulted, said Undersheriff Troy Cunningham, reading from a police report. The teen said she had been in the store with her 25-year-old boyfriend, who is still legally married to Orlik, according to the police report. While there, the teen received a phone call from Orlik, asking where she was, Cunningham said. A short time later, while the 16-year-old and her boyfriend were near the electronics department, Orlik appeared and proceeded to punch and kick the younger girl, Cunningham said. The man got between the two to break up the fight. The teen went to the emergency room for treatment of minor injuries, Cunningham said. Walmart surveillance camera footage captured the reported assault. Deputies arrested Orlik the next day. She told them she was at the Walmart shopping and found out that day the teen was pregnant, Cunningham said. Kelly is to sentence Orlik at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 23. Dearborn Police Department.png Dearborn Police Department DEARBORN, MI -- A Dearborn police officer shot a fleeing 31-year-old Detroit woman, who almost hit an officer with her vehicle, near Dearborn Fairlane Mall about 4:10 p.m. Wednesday, State Police Lt. Mike Shaw says. This is the second fatal shooting involving a Dearborn police officer in a little over a month. Shaw says Dearborn police were called to Fairlane Mall because the woman was causing "a disturbance." Upon arrival, security guards told the officers she nearly hit two security guards with her vehicle, one on foot and another in a security vehicle. Police tried to stop the woman but she fled the mall parking lot and became stuck in traffic, according to Shaw. When Traffic cleared, two police vehicles closed in and tried to stop her, but she attempted to flee again, "almost striking one of the officers," which led to an officer shooting the suspect. Shaw didn't say how many times she'd been hit. An officer also suffered nonfatal injuries. Images of the the shooting scene captured by WJBK-TV Fox 2 News show the suspect's vehicle, a Chevrolet HHR, wedged between two Dearborn police vehicles. There is a large hole in the passenger's-side window and three holes through the passenger side of the windshield. Shaw would not tell MLive which side the vehicle the officer fired on the woman from. He said Dearborn police asked state police to conduct an independent investigation of the shooting. State forensics and Special Investigations Section personnel remained on scene as of 7:30 p.m. Dearborn police killed 35-year-old Kevin Matthews, a mentally-ill man, in December after it's alleged he struggled with and officer in the backyard of a Detroit residence. That killing led to multiple protests. Detroit Police Chief James Craig following that shooting told George Hunter of the Detroit News a woman witnessed the struggle, and that when backup arrived the officer's uniform was dirty, torn and his gun holster loosened. Many who attended a protest march following the shooting doubted that explanation. The officer followed Matthews at first in his vehicle and then on foot into a yard in Detroit. The Department issued a statement the day of the shooting stating Matthews was wanted on a minor warrant from another city and suspected of committing a larceny in Dearborn earlier the same day. Because authorities won't discuss the case, it's not clear if the officer who shot Matthews learned about those details before or after the fatal shooting. Though Dearborn police told MLive officers wear microphones and have dashboard cameras, they will not confirm if there is audio or video evidence in that case. SHELBY TOWNSHIP, MI -- They were either bold, or possibly they believed they were operating in compliance with the law. If they believed the latter; they were wrong, according to police. It's been seven years since Michigan residents voted to legalize medical marijuana, but the law is still muddled. A 2013 Michigan Supreme Court ruling deemed medical marijuana dispensaries illegal, but enforcement varies vastly from city to city. While nearly 150 dispensaries are operating in Detroit -- with the knowledge of politicians and police -- Shelby Township police say they're illegal, will be shut down and their owners prosecuted. Loveland Technologies dispensary report Unfortunately for the five men arrested by Shelby Township police last summer, they chose the wrong city to open shop in. Shelby Township police, with several agencies including the FBI Violent Crimes Task Force, raided Advance Medical Supply, a pot shop located at 23 Mile and Van Dyke in Shelby Township, last June. The men on Thursday were officially charged under state law with multiple counts of delivery of marijuana, possession with intent to deliver marijuana and conspiracy charges. The crimes are each punishable by up to four years in prison. Law enforcement seized nearly 12 pounds of marijuana; 100 jars shatter, a type of THC extract; 101 jars THC extract; and 993 "cannabis edible treats." Police wouldn't say if the men had certified medical marijuana or caretaker cards. Under forfeiture laws that allow police -- without convictions -- to seize personal property believed used in operation of illegal business activity or purchased with profits of illegal business, four cars and $11,000 in cash were seized. Police also seized two handguns, a shotgun and documents.d important "The business was emptied and the contents are subject to forfeiture," police said in their charging statement. Police issued a statement on the Department's Facebook page following the June raid attributed to Shelby Township Police Chief Robert Shelide. "We want to make it clear to every resident of (southeast) Michigan that running an illegal dispenser in Shelby Township will never be accepted,"the post said. "I can confidently say that the overwhelming majority of Shelby Township residents don't want this in our community, and we will eradicate it as quickly as it pops up." Advance Medical Supply, in addition to its marijuana-based products, sold accessories, including glass pipes, and water pipes known as "bongs" and had applied for a business permit. It's listed on numerous websites that catalog medical marijuana dispensaries, including Leafly, where there are ratings -- the dispensary received an average of 4.9 out of 5 stars from 37 reviewers -- menu listings and a digital pamphlet explaining the various forms of THC products. Weed Maps, a website that catalogs dispensaries and marijuana delivery services, lists dispensaries within Detroit, as well as others in Pontiac and Plymouth. Advance Medical Care was the only location listed in Shelby Township The state Legislature has before it bills that would define the legal status of dispensaries, as well as by products, such as edibles and wax, while some communities have instituted ordinances of their own to outlaw them. Shelby Township passed a moratorium in February banning dispensaries, pending the creation of state law or other guidelines. At the time, the police chief referred to marijuana as a "pollutant." The Michigan Medical Marijuana Act of 2008 not address alternate THC forms or dispensaries directly. Charges Thursday were: Danny Jamil, 36, Warren Ryan Masters, 31, Sterling Heights Andrew Zuhrab, 24, Shelby Township David Carbone, 25, Roseville David Pando, 23, Washington Township DETROIT, MI -- A 36-year-old man was sentenced Wednesday to six years in federal prison for money laundering in connection with a drug ring that dealt in large amounts of cocaine and marijuana. Federal prosecutors said Marcus Coates recruited people from California for use of their bank accounts, offering them a portion of proceeds from Michigan drug sales in exchange for allowing a series of deposits and withdrawals under their names to launder funds. Coates pleaded guilty to money laundering in October 2015, and was ordered in Detroit federal court on Wednesday to pay $1.9 million in restitution, according to court records and the U.S. attorney's office. He was the last to be sentenced in a group of a seven men charged in 2013 with running a drug operation in 2011 and 2012. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and police in Ferndale and Roseville used informants to lead them to the group. During a pair of October 2012 raids on two Pinehurst Street homes in Detroit, federal agents seized nine firearms, more than seven pounds of cocaine and nearly a pound of marijuana. And a drug-detecting dog helped police discover 15 pounds of marijuana in a single package delivered via FedEx to a Ferndale home in December 2012. Police found that the group was receiving packages of drugs from Ontario, Canada sent under stolen FedEx account information. Demetrius Dillard, Christopher Lee Bell, Samuel Leearl Bryant , Kevin Strolger Phillip Cooper, Kevin Backstrom all pleaded guilty to drug crimes and were sentenced to prison terms ranging from eight months to more than seven years, court records show. "Cutting off the flow of money is an important part of the strategy to disrupt illegal drug trafficking," said U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade after the Coates sentencing. "DEA and IRS are experts at tracking money that is generated from narcotics, and they will find individuals and organizations who are engaging in money laundering to conceal the proceeds of their criminal activity." DETROIT, MI -- U.S. Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Southfield) said Wednesday that a congressional hearing she requested on the Flint water crisis has been scheduled for Feb. 3, but that it won't include testimony from Gov. Rick Snyder. Lawrence said Snyder was at the top of a list of witnesses she wanted to question in the hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. But when she received notice Wednesday of the hearing being scheduled, it was clear that Snyder would not be called to testify, Lawrence said. "I am deeply disappointed at the Majority's lack of commitment to a thorough and meaningful hearing," said Lawrence, ranking member of the Subcommittee on the Interior, in a statement. "A sincere search for truth and justice requires a full review by the entire Committee of the decisions and policies of all those involved. The nearly 100,000 people of Flint who have been permanently impacted by this crisis, either directly or indirectly, demands that Congress set aside party politics if we are to ensure that this never again occurs in Flint or any city in America." It wasn't yet clear who will be called to testify at the Feb. 3 hearing. Lawrence said she asked to hear from Snyder, former Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Director Dan Wyant, Environmental Protection Agency Regional Director Susan Hedman, Hurley Medical Center doctor Mona Hanna-Atissha, Flint Mayor Karen Weaver and Virginia Tech Professor Mark Edwards. "The only way that we can hope to earn back the shattered trust of the American public is for our government leaders to put the needs and interests of the people we serve above all else," Lawrence said. The hearing is being called in response to the uproar over elevated lead levels discovered in the blood of children after a change in Flint's water system. The city, while under state-controlled emergency management, switched its water source to the Flint River in April 2014, while under control of a state-appointed emergency manager. Flint reconnected to Detroit's water system in October 2015 after doctors at Hurley Medical Center alerted the community to dangerous lead levels. Despite the switch back, the state is still advising Flint residents not to drink unfiltered tap water coating inside pipes may have been damaged by the highly corrosive water that flowed during the period in which the Flint River was the source. The National Guard and volunteer groups have been distributing water filters and bottled water to residents. The state and the White House have issued official emergency declarations over the Flint crisis. Federal investigators and the state attorney general are probing the circumstances and interactions that led to the crisis. This video grab shows Harshita attacking the traffic policeman for stopping her and her friend for driving on the wrong side on Tuesday. Hyderabad: The Keesara police arrested 19-year-old BTech student T. Harshita for attacking a traffic policeman on duty. The police booked a case against her for allegedly assaulting the cop on Tuesday. We have arrested her and send her to judicial custody for 14 days. We acted as per the complaint of the traffic home guard who was attacked, said inspector P. Guruva Reddy. The police charged Harshita under Section 353 (assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from discharging his duty) and for damaging public property. Cops said Harshita had damaged the camera of the cop. On Tuesday, the engineering student, who was driving her bike on the wrong side, attacked home guard P. Venkatesh Yadav when he clicked a photo of her bike to issue a fine challan. Harshitha, a BTech first year student at a private engineering college in Ghatkesar came to him and asked him to delete the pictures. When he refused, she caught hold of him by the collar, slapped him on the cheek and then smashed his camera to the ground, cops said. Harshitha was driving her bike along with her friend Saikishore from Dammaiguda to Nagaram. They were on the wrong side of the road. Girl slaps cop after riding on wrong side When they reached the Dammaiguda T junction on the outskirts of Nagaram village, home guard Venkatesh Yadav saw them and clicked pictures of their bike. Venkatesh is working at the Malkajgiri traffic police station. Harshitha and Saikishore saw this, came to him and picked up an argument with Venkatesh. During the argument she grabbed his collar and started slapping him on the cheek. She also snatched the camera from him and smashed it on the ground, the inspector said. The police is checking whether the girl had anger issues and why she got provoked suddenly. DETROIT, MI -- Two tax preparers who fabricated income reports to generate fraudulent refunds have pleaded guilty in federal court. Jawwaad Muhammad, 31, of Detroit, pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiring to defraud the U.S. and aiding the filing of a false tax return, according to the U.S. attorney's office. His co-defendant, Isa Ford, 35, of Detroit, pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the U.S. earlier this month. The pair ran Tax Advance and Lady Liberty tax preparation businesses in Detroit, fabricating clients' household help wages in 2009 and 2010 in order to claim larger Earned Income Credits, according to federal investigators. They recruited clients by promising them a portion of the fraudulent returns, which were deposited into bank accounts controlled by Muhammad and Ford, according to prosecutors. The fraudulent tax returns totaled more than $329,000. The maximum penalty for conspiring to defraud the U.S. is five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. Muhammad is scheduled to be sentenced June 3. Ford is scheduled to be sentenced April 29. "Most tax return preparers provide a valuable service to their clients," said IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent in Charge Jarod Koopman in a statement. "The IRS is focused on identifying and prosecuting those that choose to abuse their duty, such as Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Ford." Dearborn Police Department.png Dearborn Police Department DEARBORN, MI -- Dearborn police on Wednesday were involved in their second police-involved shooting death since Dec. 23. Janet Wilson, 31, of Detroit died of multiple gunshot wounds Wednesday after police say she attempted to crash her Chevrolet HHR into two security guards and Dearborn police officers when they tried to stop her. State police are conducting the homicide investigation, and Lt. Michael Shaw said there is audio and video evidence under review, although it won't be released publicly until the investigation is concluded. The Wayne County Medical Examiner completed the autopsy Thursday and identified the woman. Shaw said Dearborn police were called to Fairlane Town Center Mall because the woman was causing "a disturbance." Upon arrival, security guards told the officers she nearly hit two security guards with her vehicle, one on foot and another in a security vehicle. Police tried to stop the woman but she fled the mall parking lot and became stuck in traffic, according to Shaw. When traffic cleared, two police vehicles closed in and tried to stop her, but she attempted to flee again, "almost striking one of the officers," which led to an officer shooting the suspect. Shaw didn't say how many times she'd been hit. An officer also suffered nonfatal injuries and was hospitalized. BREAKING: Shooting reported in Dearborn near Fairlane Mall. pic.twitter.com/vcWG5qs5UA FOX 2 Detroit (@FOX2News) January 27, 2016 Images of the the shooting scene captured by WJBK-TV Fox 2 News show the suspect's vehicle, a Chevrolet HHR, wedged between two Dearborn police vehicles. There is a large hole in the passenger's-side window and three holes through the passenger side of the windshield. Shaw would not tell MLive which side the vehicle the officer fired on the woman from. He said Dearborn police asked state police to conduct an independent investigation of the shooting, which is now being headed by state police. Dearborn police killed 35-year-old Kevin Matthews, a mentally-ill man, in December after it's alleged he struggled with and officer in the backyard of a Detroit residence. That killing led to multiple protests. He too was shot multiple times. Detroit Police Chief James Craig following that shooting told George Hunter of the Detroit News a woman witnessed the struggle, and that when backup arrived the officer's uniform was dirty, torn and his gun holster loosened. Many who attended a protest march following the shooting doubted that explanation. The officer followed Matthews at first in his vehicle and then on foot into a yard in Detroit. The Department issued a statement the day of the shooting stating Matthews was wanted on a minor warrant from another city and suspected of committing a larceny in Dearborn earlier the same day. Because authorities won't discuss the case, it's not clear if the officer who shot Matthews learned about those details before or after the fatal shooting. Though Dearborn police told MLive officers wear microphones and have dashboard cameras, they will not confirm if there is audio or video evidence in that case. FLINT, MI - While Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder was holding his first meeting with the Flint Water Interagency Coordinating Committee, activists waited in hopes of meeting the governor to ask him to resign. Snyder greeted press for the first five minutes of the meeting at the University of Michigan-Flint Northbank Center Wednesday, Jan. 27. "This situation in Flint is a disaster," Snyder said. "This is something that is a terrible tragedy. People have been negatively impacted, potentially for their lives. How do we put solutions in place, how do we respond to this? I appreciate people's commitment. This is an opportunity for us to work together. We all have a common goal." Snyder signed an executive order Jan. 11 creating the committee to work on what he called "long-term solutions" for the Flint water crisis and ongoing public health concerns plaguing residents. The 17-member committee will be asked to "make recommendations regarding the health and welfare of people exposed to lead, study Flint's water infrastructure and determine potential upgrades, review Flint Water Task Force recommendations, and establish ways to improve communication between local and state government," Snyder said in an earlier announcement. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (AP Photo/Al Goldis) He tapped Hurley Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha who raised a red flag on elevated lead levels in Flint children and whose research showed Flint's lead-in-water problems and questioned water testing methods; Virginia Tech university Professor Marc Edwards, Flint Mayor Karen Weaver, The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Genesee County leaders for the committee. A group of activists from Illinois and Wisconsin waited for Snyder outside of the meeting door in hopes of asking him to resign. "I had to come here to see for myself what is happening to the people," said Clyde McLemore, Lake County chairperson for the Black Lives Movement in Illinois. "This is not a third-world country and African Americans are suffering. Snyder needs to resign." McLemore was visiting Flint with a group delivering water throughout the city. In three days, he said his group managed to get 800 cases of water donated to deliver to Flint but he is hoping there is a long-term solution. "What is the real solution here?," he asked. "We want to know how we really can help. We are bringing water to the city, but that is only a temporary Band Aid." McLemore and others from his group waited outside of the meeting door at the Northbank Center but did not get to speak with Snyder to address their concerns. Members of the Flint Water Interagency Coordinating Committee Members of the committee are Mayor Karen Weaver; Genesee County Board of Commissioners Chairman Jamie Curtis; Virginia Tech university Professor Marc Edwards; Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, director of the pediatric residency program at Hurley Medical Center; City Administrator Natasha Henderson; Jim Koski, former Saginaw county drain commissioner; Dr. Lawrence Reynolds, president and chief executive officer of the Mott Children's Health Center; Laura Sullivan, a professor of mechanical engineering at Kettering University; Genesee County Health Officer Mark Valacak; Harvey Hollins, director of the Michigan Office of Urban Initiatives; Col. Chris Kelenske, deputy state director of Emergency Management and Homeland Security Department with Michigan State Police; Keith Creagh, director of the Department of Environmental Quality, or his designee; Nick Lyon, director of the state Department of Health and Human Services, or his designee; Mike Zimmer, director of the state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, or his designee; state Treasurer Nick Khouri or his designee; and Brian Whiston, superintendent of public instruction, or his designee. One additional member will be named at a later date, a news release from the Governor's Office says, and members will serve three-year terms expiring Dec. 31, 2018. band king 810 The band King 810 has been a lightning rod for controversy in the Flint area. (Courtesy Photo) FLINT, MI -- A band with national recognition from Flint is working to raise money for a local organization to help children affected by the city's water crisis. King 810 posted the song "We Gotta Help Ourselves" on Tuesday, Jan. 26. The song highlight's Flint's struggle during the water crisis incorporating news reports along with frontman David Gunn's vocals. King 810 partnered with Savage Village Clothing to offer a t-shirt design to be sold with 100 percent of the proceeds will go directly to the Community Foundation of Greater Flint's Flint Child Health and Development Fund, according to a post on the band's Youtube channel. The band posted on their Facebook page Tuesday the details of their partnership with Savage Village Clothing to help support the fund. The post reads in part: "Most of you by now have heard what is going on around town. Since the inception of KING in 2007 our foundation has been our city and its people, good or bad. Since music is our voice that's how we've chosen to go about things. We wrote this song to empower. To strengthen rather than weaken. To offer solutions instead of problems. To breed hope rather than doubt." Money given to the Flint Child Health and Development Fund will be used to aid children with interventions that support positive health outcomes for children include: Crisis response. Optimal child health and development. Early childhood education. Educational and student support services. Continuous access to a pediatric medical home. Access to infant and child behavioral health services. Nutrition education. Healthy food access. Safe and healthy home environments. Integrated social services. Research. The Flint Child Health and Development Fund is a supplemental resource in the ongoing pursuit of state and federal funding. Grants will be advised by a committee of community members with representation from residents, Hurley Children's Hospital, Mott Children's Health Center, Greater Flint Health Coalition, United Way of Genesee County, and the Community Foundation of Greater Flint, according to the post. To buy a "We Gotta Help Ourselves" t-shirt click here. See King 810's video for "We Gotta Help Ourselves" below. Warning, there is explicit language. FLINT, MI -- A man convicted on 20 sex crimes involving children is headed to prison. Paul Edward Miller, 63, was sentenced to 25 to 45 years in prison by Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Judith Fullerton on Monday, Jan. 25. Miller was arrested in Kentucky and extradited to Flint in 2014 where he stood trial on 20 counts including: Four counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a person under 13. Seven counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a person under 13. Disseminating, exhibiting or displaying sexually explicit matter to minors Four counts of possession of child sexually abusive material Four counts of using a computer to commit a crime. Police said they began investigating after one of the victims told a family member about the abuse. During the investigation, police identified three more victims, according to a news release from the Flint Police Department. Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton commended the victims for testifying during the trial, which he said was a traumatic experience for them, especially since Miller acted as his own attorney and was allowed to cross examine the "young people" at trial. "It was a very heinous crime," he said, adding that crime victim advocates played an important role to help them get through testifying at trial. "It was a very, very traumatic experience for the victims. They were very brave in being able to come forward and testify the way they did and see this through," Leyton said. "As I often say, the victims are the true heroes in these cases." FLINT, MI - Henadi Savage shook her as she watched a segment on MSNBC from Rachel Maddow's town hall meeting at Holmes STEM Academy in Flint. "This just make me angry," she mouthed, as a waitress dropped off the check at a large table filled up by her family at Luigi's Restaurant on Davison Road where a crowd of around 100 people looked up at televisions around the room. Savage's daughter Hailey broke out in a rash all over her body, with her daughter chiming in "I had to take a baking soda bath." "She was just in a red rash and it was elevated on her skin when it had happened," said Savage, which lasted about three days. "That was due to the water... at least that's what her doctor said." They watched as the show taped an hour earlier at Holmes flashed on screens inside the restaurant, with smatterings of applause coming up from the crowd at times during portions of the broadcast. Maddow was joined on-air by a bevy of guests, including Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards; Flint Mayor Karen Weaver; state Rep. Sheldon Neely; Anna Johnson, principal at Holmes; Charles Williams, president of the National Action Network in Michigan; Sen. Debbie Stabenow; and Martin Kaufman, a professor at University of Michigan-Flint. It was estimated during the meeting there as many 25,000 lead service lines in the city, which Edwards said need to be re-coated to cut down on any leaching of lead into the system, along with an assurance the water is safe and look at replacing those lines which he said would need to be prioritized. Edwards was retained by the city Wednesday to monitor water testing efforts. Weaver said there is a long way to go in solving the water woes and rebuilding the trust with the people of Flint. "Our trust has been broken in the city of Flint," she said. One of the largest cheers of the night came after Maddow mentioned a push by NAACP to repeal the emergency manager law. "Democracy needs to be restored in Flint," said Weaver. "That is how we got here." Hanna-Attisha argued the city is in a state of emergency now, because if action is not taken in the immediate future there is no clue on the long-term ramifications of potential lead poison in children, adults and even pets in the community. The crowd gasped when told by Johnson said there was one nurse for the entire Flint school district, with Hanna-Attisha pointing out Michigan has the lowest nurse-student ratio of any state in the country. Brian McLean, watching along with his wife Sherry at Luigi's where Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich and U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee hosted a watch party, said government officials need to be held responsible for the issue in Flint. "It's got to come from somewhere, plus the fact they've known about it for some time and didn't do anything about it. What, are you going to stand in front of 10-plus families that passed away and said I forgot?," he said, in a reference to fatal cases of Legionnaire's Disease that occurred in Genesee County between June 2014 and October 2015. "Wouldn't work for me and you. We'd be in jail already." His family, including two children, two cats and three dogs goes through two to three cases of bottled water a day and struggled to find filters that affixed to the faucets at their south side home. With a water bill that Sherry said hits near $200 a month on average, McLean said "Then to come to find out you can't drink it, then come to find out there's diseases in it, what else is in it that we don't know? It seems like the only way we find out is when something comes down with something." Maddow ended her broadcast by telling those in the crowd the situation wasn't their fault, but it's a situation that will have consequences for generations into the future. "This is not some little thing that went wrong in a small to medium sized city that used to be a little bit bigger," she said. "This is a disaster. This is a man-made American disaster of national consequence, but we as your fellow Americans have to start thinking about the restoration of this town, the restoration of Flint." Having spent some time in town speaking with residents, including Flint resident and master plumber Harold Harrington who pulled a galvanized pipe out of the wall of his home to show Maddow, she said "Flint already is strong. You all know how strong you are." "You are not alone," Maddow reassured the crowd. "It took a while, but America is with you now Flint, Michigan." 164A3800A.JPG Members with Partners in the Community, a group based in Virginia distributes water to Flint residents on Thursday January 28, 2016 at Slidell Senior Residents Apartments in North Flint. (Conor Ralph ) FLINT, MI - W.I. James left Norfolk, Va. for his 830-mile trip to Flint on Wednesday morning with a boatload of water cases on his Kenworth W900 truck. Little did he know, his trip was sponsored through hip-hop star Terrence "Pusha T" Thornton. "I knew who was bringing water, but I didn't know who was actually shipping it," James said. "All I know is that it was donated." The G.O.O.D Music president helped get 2,000 cases of water to the city on two semi-trucks to assistant with Flint residents being affected by the water crisis. He connected with the Virginia-based Partners in the Community organization to personally deliver the waters on Thursday, starting at the Slidell Senior Residence Apartments on W. Carpenter Road. Pusha T initially didn't want the news to be leaked, according to Lakeesha Atkinson of Partners in the Community. "He's very humble," Atkinson said. "He doesn't do anything for recognition or for the spotlight." Atkinson started the mission through a Facebook post and local community leader Kimberly Wimbish, founder of KMK Productions, jumped on board. Pusha T sponsored one of the trucks and Dr. Melvin O. Marriner of Grove Baptist Church in Virginia paid for the second truck. Bishop Kim W. Brown of The Mount church in Virginia also assisted with travel and expenses. Portsmouth NCAACP donated to the cause as well. Within three days, the water was collected through the Hampton Roads area. "We didn't want to do a drop off location," said Atkinson. "We wanted to come out and give it to places in the community that may have had trouble with transportation that a lot of donations, per media, were not hitting." SWARTZ CREEK, MI - Investigators say they have caught a serial peeping Tom after an investigation from multiple police agencies. Swartz Creek-Mundy Township Deputy Police Chief Rick Clolinger said Thursday, Jan. 28, that a 23-year-old Gaines Township man was taken into custody after police began receiving multiple complaints of a person peering into windows around the Swartz Creek area. Clolinger said police first received a complaint Nov. 20 from the Winchester Village subdivision for a possible peeping Tom. Two additional complaints were later received for similar situations, according to Clolinger. Police, working with the Michigan Department of Corrections, were able to develop a potential suspect. Officers with Swartz Creek-Mundy Township police, the sheriff's Genesee Auto Theft Investigation Network and the Michigan State Police began monitoring the suspect, according to Clolinger. On Wednesday, Jan. 27, police were able to take the suspect into custody while allegedly committing a similar crime in Clayton Township. The suspect, whose identity has not yet been released by police, was arrested and being held for suspected surveillance of an unclothed person, unlawful entry and resisting and obstructing a police officer. Clolinger said the suspect has a prior criminal history, but declined to elaborate. FLINT, MI -- Oskar Blues Brewery, a Colorado-based company, held an event Thursday, Jan. 28 in downtown Flint featuring free chicken, root beer and canned water in Buckham Alley, alongside a tap takeover at the Torch Bar and Grill to raise money for the ongoing water crisis. Nolan Ward, bar manager at the Torch, originally pitched the idea of a tap takeover to John P. O'Sullivan Distributing, after hearing that the brewery would be sending 50,000 cans of water to the city. Oskar Blues responded with the idea to do something bigger. Chad Melis, the marketing director for the company, said the brewery wanted to do something a little more personal for the residents. Approximately 10 bars between Flint, Midland and Lake Orion will be donating one dollar per pint from all Oskar Blues Brewery beer sales to support ongoing health care needs for children in Flint. Flint resident Vanessa Terrell said while the chicken was good, she came to have a good time, dance to the music and "push back the water worries." "Enjoy yourself. Life goes on with or without clean water," she said. FLINT, MI - With Huntington Bancshares Inc. acquiring FirstMerit Corp. this week as part of a $3.4 billion deal, will the weather ball above Flint's skyline soon glow green? The multi-billion dollar stock-and-cash transaction between the entities comes less than four years after Citizens Republic Bancorp Inc. was sold to Akron, Ohio-based First Merit Corp. in a $912 million transaction. Huntington currently has 393 locations in Michigan, and FirstMerit currently has 137 locations in Michigan, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, with company officials having stated all FirstMerit employees would be offered jobs with Huntington. FirstMerit runs an operations complex in the city that includes a call center, which Brent Wilder, interim corporate relations for Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington, said they've made commitment to retain the facility and "to maintain a downtown employment base within Flint." So, after the dealings between the Ohio-based banking companies, what's to become of the 5,000-pound Flint landmark atop the building at 328 S. Saginaw St.? "The good news here is we're cognizant of the community interest in the weather ball and retaining it," said Wilder, but he wasn't sure yet of the fate of the weather ball that was first turned on Aug. 30, 1956. " For anyone not in the know, when the weather ball is red, higher temperatures ahead; when the weather ball is blue, lower temperatures are due; yellow light in weather ball means there is no change at all; when the colors come and go, it's going to rain or snow. The color descriptions above is the version modified by Jackie Bowles, of Grand Blanc, after they were put to music and made into a song. The weather ball itself received an update in 2013, when the CB for Citizens Bank was changed to FM signifying First Merit. Flint is not the only place in the state that's had a weather ball situated on top of a financial institute. The Michigan National Bank building in downtown Grand Rapids had a ball that alternated between red, blue and green, before it came down in 1987 after 20 years, according to a WZZM-TV report. The television station eventually tracked down the weather ball in 1999 at a scrapyard in Kalamazoo, updated it and placed it on a 100-foot pole on their property at Interstate 96 and U.S-131. While not quite wasn't sure what the new incarnation of the weather ball take, Wilder chuckled over the phone when recounting multiple discussions in the last few days about the iconic symbol in Flint. "I've probably talked more about it than any historical landmark in my life," he said. "We understand it's a really big deal in the community." Chennai: The Madras high court on Wednesday ordered second post-mortem on the body of one of three girl students of SVS Medical College of Yoga and Naturopathy Science and Research Institute in Villupuram, found dead in a well on January 22. Passing orders on a petition filed by M.K. Tamilarasan, father of one of the deceased girl Monisha, Justice R. Subbiah also acceded the request of the petitioner to conduct the postmortem in the presence of a doctor of his choice. The judge said, In view of the facts and circumstances, irrespective of the submissions made on either side, since the request for second post-mortem has been made by the father of the deceased girl as he had a suspicion over her death and also in view of the fact that the autopsy was conducted despite his objection and without his consent, I am of the opinion that the prayer now sought for by the petitioner can be considered and ordering such post-mortem, no prejudice would be caused to any one. Accordingly, re-postmortem is ordered to be conducted over the body of the petitioners daughter Monisha in any of the government hospitals in Chennai. Directing authorities to permit petitioners doctor, Dr P. Sampath Kumar, head of the department of forensic department and vice principal of Sri Ramachandra Medical College in Porur, to be present at the time of re-postmortem, the judge posted to Feb. 5, further hearing of the case. We were docs, patients during inspections Like Munnabhai MBBS and Vasoolraja MBBS movies, students of SVS Medical College of Yoga and Naturopathy were used as doctors and patients during inspections, reveals Vanishree, one of the former students of the college. I was forced to act as a nurse in one room and doctor in another room. Even the patients and hospital beds also were hired for inspection, she told reporters on Wednesday. Three girl students of SVS Medical College of Yoga and Naturopathy at Villupuram had committed suicide by jumping into a farm well over alleged harassment by the management demanding exorbitant fees. The deceased girls V. Priyanka, T. Monisha and E. Saranya were in second year BNYS (Bachelor of Naturopathy and Yogic Sciences). When we joined the college there was not even a building and proper classrooms, Kannadasan, one of the former students said. We were forced to work as construction labourers. The college also collected extra amount than the fixed fees, he said. The college in the name of practical marks threatened us and treated us like the bonded labourers. We gave complaints to the district administration, TN Dr MGR Medical University, Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-corruption, Fees Committee but nothing happened, he added. If the officials properly conducted inspection and took action against the college on former students complaints this incident wouldnt have taken place, Arul Murugan one of the classmates of the three deceased students said. Mani, also a second year student of BNYS (Bachelor of Naturopathy and Yogic Science) hoped to go abroad and earn as he comes from a poor family. First I tried for veterinary sciences but I couldnt get the admission as my marks were low. I selected this college only because the government had listed it for counselling, he said. The students have alleged that there were many injuries on the deceased students bodies. Their hands were tied. All of them didnt know swimming. Then why should they tie hands and jump into the well, they questioned. The students suspect it might be a case of murder as these three girls told the truth about the college during an enquiry with the Villupuram district collector. The girls were asked to come when the rest were on holiday. They suspect foul play. Action should also be taken against all government officials who were in connivance with the college authorities and didnt take any action, S. Jim Raj Milton from Peoples Right Protection Centre demanded. Shift us to another college: SVS students Protests continued at SVS college on Wednesday over the alleged suicide by three girl students of the college. Protesting students sought action against the culprits and also asked to be shifted to another institution. We dont have any facilities here, no classrooms, no staff, no hostel nothing. All our complaints went unheard. At least, after three girls lost their lives, authorities should listen to us, Aiswarya Rani, a homeopathy student of the college told DC. Whenever students raise complaints to authorities, they are threatened. We dont even have separate classrooms for homeopathy and naturopathy courses. But fees have to be paid correctly or else they wont allow us to attend class. If we ask for transfer certificates they often threaten us, she added. Students say classes always start late and labs and hostels are in bad condition. We have complained thousand times about the lack of facilities in the college to various officials, but they didnt take any action. We would not have lost three lives if they had taken action, said another student of the college. Students protest continued till late in the night. They said they will continue the protest till their demands are approved. The government should not wait for the death of another student to take action. We have to be shifted to another college without further donation or fee. Compensation should be paid to the families of the three girls, said Vel, first year student of SVS college. Students said they will extend their protests to Dr MGR University, to which the college is affiliated. Three students of SVS College committed suicide by jumping into a well near the institution blaming high fees and chairman of the college Vasuki Subramanian for their death. UPDATE: WYOMING, MI -- A 17-year-old was shot and killed while fleeing from a robbery attempt, moments after exiting a Rapid bus in Wyoming, police say. Wyoming police are looking for three young men believed to be involved in the 10:10 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 27 shooting. Police said the victim was among a group of young males who exited a Rapid bus at 44th Street and Division Avenue. He was with two others who started walking along 44th Street. Police said three other young males also were on the bus and got off at the same stop and began following the first three. Related : In the 200 block of 44th Street, the following group caught up with the first group and two people showed handguns and demanded property, police said. The would-be robbery victims began running. Police said the two with guns then fired multiple shots, hitting and killing the 17-year-old. The other two who fled were not injured. Police called in a tracking dog but could not locate the shooters. They believe the three young males fled north and may have boarded another Rapid bus at 28th Street and Division Avenue. Police released Rapid bus camera images of the males believed involved in the shooting and are seeking the public's help in identifying them. Anyone with information about the shooting or the identities can call police at 530-7300 or Silent Observer at 774-2345. E-mail John Tunison: jtunison@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/johntunison GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A state Attorney General's office survey shows Grand Rapids Police have nearly 200 untested rape kits, but authorities say they don't believe criminals are going free. The state Attorney General's office on Thursday, Jan. 28, released data for untested rape kits in counties across the state and announced plans to test those kits. In Kent County, the data shows Grand Rapids Police have 199 untested sexual assault kits, the Kent County Sheriff's Department has 62, Grandville and Kentwood police have seven each and Lowell police have one. Related: 1,819 more untested rape kits in Michigan, survey by AG Schuette finds Across the state, there are about 1,800 untested rape kits, according to the survey. Attorney General Bill Schuette's office initiated the survey in the aftermath of the discovery of 11,000 untested rape kits in 2009. Testing of those kits was finished in September 2015. Grand Rapids Police Sgt. Steve LaBrecque said he's confident the majority of the untested kits in Grand Rapids were never sent to the lab for specific reasons. Those reasons, he said, include confessions from suspects, false reports and dropped cases, he said. The kits in Grand Rapids go back about 15 years. Officials with Schuette's office acknowledge that police across the state likely had good reasons for not having kits tested. Still, they believe the $1.7 million expense of testing all of the previously untested kits -- a cost covered by grants and a Legislature appropriation -- can help solve crimes. "Experience shows that testing every kit helps law enforcement solve crimes and stop serial rapists," Schuette said. Search rape kits in your county or by agency E-mail John Tunison: jtunison@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/johntunison GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Grand Rapids Public Schools is encouraging families to attend its school choice expo and winter carnival Thursday, Jan. 28, at Gerald R. Ford Academic Center. The event, which is expected to draw 500 people, offers GRPS current and prospective student families the opportunity to learn about what school choices are available in the approximately 17,000-student district. Families can learn more about the new and expanded theme schools, as well as the district's career academies that focus on health care, construction, entrepreneurship and engineering. The academies are housed on the Innovation Central High School campus. Related: Work on Grand Rapids' newest high school to get underway Seats are limited and applications are required for these schools.The application deadline for the 2016-17 school year is Monday, Feb. 29. Applications will be available at the event. The theme schools offer the core curriculum through a unique lens, including environmental science, arts and music, global studies, leadership, Montessori, and International Baccalaureate. John Helmholdt, communications director, said the career academies are unique public-private partnerships that offer students a rigorous classroom education along with opportunities to connect with professional mentors, complete job shadowing and internships, and earn college and trade school credits or career certification to prepare them for in-demand, high paying careers. Principals from each theme school and academies will be at the event to share information about their school, showcase what makes them unique, and answer questions. Free dinner will be provided at the expo. There will also be children's activities, including face painting, balloon animals, bounce house, winter themed games and activities, and prizes. If you can't attend the expo, interested parents can pick up paper applications at any GRPS school or the district administration building, located at 1331 Franklin St SE, or apply online. Applications will be available in English and Spanish. The expo is from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Gerald R. Ford Academic Center is located at 851 Madison Ave. SE Monica Scott is the Grand Rapids K-12 education writer. Email her at mscott2@mlive.com and follow her on Twitter @MScottGR or Facebook Bengaluru: If all goes well, in five years' time, there will be at least two cities in Karnataka that do not look like the disaster that Bengaluru is. Davangere and Belagavi have been selected among 20 cities nation-wide to become 'Smart Cities' under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dream project in the first round. These 20 cities were picked from a list of 97 submitted by states during a competition last year. The states choices were judged on the basis of service levels, infrastructure and track record. The Union government introduced competition to pick the best cities. Though some states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh had nominated more than two cities, the Union government picked only those that passed the competition. Official sources said Davangere and Belagavi would get Rs 200 crores each in first year and Rs 100 crores each in subsequent years. The state government has to contribute its share of 50 per cent. While Davangere plans to raise Rs 976 crores through a PPP model, Belagavi is expected to mobilize Rs 1,006 crore with the help of the same model. Odisha capital Bhubaneshwar surprised by topping the selection process -- a process that in Union Urban Development minister Venkaiah Naidu's words was "as rigorous and demanding as the civil services examination". Other cities are Pune, Solapur, Jaipur, Surat, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Indore, Jabalpur, the New Delhi Municipal Council, Kochi, Vishakapatnam, Kakinada, Udaipur, Guwahati, Ludhiana and Coimbatore. Chennai is the lone Metro exception. The 'Smart Cities' project includes retrofitting and re-developing existing built-up areas and infrastructure in the selected cities as well as extending them with new area development. In the process, they will be imbued with pan-city smart-metering solutions for power and water, intelligent transport and traffic management, and municipal e-governance systems. Given the decidedly non-Metro bias in the cities selected, Indias big, bad Metros are in danger of looking retro when PM Modi is finished with his avowed re-making of India. Celebrations in Belagavi The announcement of Belagavi as one 'smart city' by the Union government set off celebrations across this border city on Thursday. Soon after the list was announced, celebrations began across the city as Corporators' came out of the corporation council meeting and burst crackers while congratulating each other. Leaders of all parties have welcomed the Union decision to select Belagavi as it is one of the fastest growing cities in Karnataka. A string of major infrastructure projects put on the backburner by the government for two decades in the city would see the light of day once work under the 'Smart City' project takes off. UPDATE: 17-year-old homicide victim is identified as Kelloggsville High School student WYOMING, MI -- Police have blocked Colrain Street SW near Division Avenue, with a heavy police presence, in an investigation related to Wednesday night's homicide of a 17-year-old. Police issued a statement Thursday, Jan. 28, indicating they were near a home off South Division Avenue, hoping to locate two persons of interest in the investigation. A 17-year-old who was walking with two others in the 200 block of 44th Street SW was shot and killed about 10:10 p.m. Wednesday, not long after he exited a Rapid bus. Police say three other young men had exited the bus after the first group, then tried to rob them. The first group refused, then ran. Two people in the trailing group then fired guns, killing the 17 year-old. At the Colrain location, police appear to be using a military-type Humvee. A bullhorn can be heard. Officers say they are focusing on one home along the street. Wyoming police Lt. Mark Easterly said police were alerted there may be two persons of interest inside a home on Colrain. Members of a police tactical team have been using the bullhorn, trying to get some response from inside the house. Easterly said they do not know if anyone is actually inside the house and they are waiting to get a search warrant to enter it. "This is a very methodical process," he said. Police say they have interviewed many people regarding the possible identities of the suspects. Police released surveillance images taken from the Rapid bus of possible suspects. E-mail John Tunison: jtunison@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/johntunison WYOMING, MI - Police have arrested all three people wanted for questioning in a teen's fatal shooting Wednesday night. Wyoming Police were in contact with the primary person of interest via Facebook and convinced him to surrender around 12:30 p.m. while he was in a house on Colrain Street SW near Division Avenue, police said. Authorities removed a 5-year-old child from the house about 30 minutes before the person of interest came out of the home. The circumstances of the other two arrests were not released by police. Police say that surveillance photos authorities released overnight led the public to identify the suspects. The victim's name has not been released, but the teen has been identified as a Kelloggsville High School student who had recently moved here from Pennsylvania. The 17-year-old was walking with two others in the 200 block of 44th Street SW when he was shot and killed about 10:10 p.m. Wednesday, not long after he exited a Rapid bus. Police say three other young men had exited the bus after the first group, then tried to rob them. The first group ran. Two people in the trailing group then fired guns, killing the 17 year-old, police said. Police earlier today blocked Colrain Street SW near Division Avenue, with a heavy police presence as they searched for those allegedly linked to the crime. Officers used a military-type Humvee and a bullhorn in the neighborhood. LANSING, MI -- 1,819 untested rape kits from October 2014 or earlier were identified through a survey of Michigan counties, the Michigan Attorney General's Office reports. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette announced the discovery of the untested kits after surveying 82 Michigan counties. The survey did not include Wayne County because of efforts already under way there. Testing, potential investigation and prosecution of the 1,819 untested kits is moving forward, Schuette and Michigan State Police Director Col. Kriste Kibbey Etue announced Thursday, Jan. 28. "Today, we take another step forward in getting rapists off the streets and ensuring justice for sexual-assault victims," Schuette said in a prepared statement. Here's a look at the highest totals on the list: Flint Police Dept. - 261 Battle Creek Police Dept. - 239 Grand Rapids Police - 199 Kalamazoo Dept. of Public Safety - 113 Jackson Police Dept. - 63 Kent Sheriff's Office - 62 Bay City Dept. of Public Safety - 41 Lansing Police Dept. (Ingham) - 40 Western Michigan University Police Dept. - 40 Search rape kits in your county or by agency "I thank our prosecutors and law-enforcement agencies for working with us to test previously untested sexual assault kits. Experience shows that testing every kit helps law enforcement solve crimes and stop serial rapists," he said. Schuette and Etue will work together to process the backlogged kits, using a combination of $1.7 million appropriated by the legislature and grants awarded to the Michigan State Police to ensure justice for victims of sexual assault. Tackling untested sexual assault kits involves three basic phases: testing, investigation of the incident, and prosecution when possible. "The Michigan State Police is committed to providing forensic analysis and analytical case support to ensure the best possible evidence is available to solve these crimes and bring justice to the survivors," Etue said. Survey for untested kits Schuette's office began to survey the 82 counties outside of Detroit and Wayne County in September 2015 to determine the number of untested kits. Schuette said he initiated the survey to complement efforts in Wayne County, Michigan's largest county, following the discovery of thousands of untested rape kits found in an abandoned Detroit crime laboratory there. Related: Bill Schuette rooting out Michigan's untested rape kits The September survey called on county law enforcement officials to provide a count of certain previously untested kits in their possession so that state authorities could determine the most effective way to help local authorities process these cases, including testing that could help with unsolved crimes in other jurisdictions, Schuette said. The survey requested cases of victims assaulted before Oct. 1, 2014, and were not previously tested for various reasons, such as a suspect confessed, pleaded guilty, or was already incarcerated, the AG's office said. Rape kits in Michigan Currently, Schuette, the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, the Michigan State Police and the Detroit Police Department are investigating and prosecuting cases arising from the testing of sexual assault kits found in Wayne County in 2009. The Michigan State Police completed testing of the backlogged Detroit sexual assault kits in September of 2015. In Flint, nearly 250 sexual assault kits, some dating back as early as 2003, were discovered unprocessed in Flint police's evidence room, Flint police Chief James Tolbert said in April 2015. Michigan State Police, Flint police, Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton and the YWCA are partnering to process the rape kits, prosecute offenders and help victims through the process, officials have said. Michigan victims of sexual violence are encouraged to call the national sexual assault hotline toll-free, 1-800-656-HOPE. All calls are confidential, and will be answered by a local counseling center affiliated with the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). Assistance is also available online at www.rainn.org. Flint Water Donations Jacima White and Stephen Darden load a U-Haul truck with water donations for the people of Flint on Monday, Jan. 25, 2016 in downtown Kalamazoo. An outpouring of water donations allowed the legislature to redirect some money originally intended for bottled water to other line items. (Chelsea Purgahn/Kalamazoo Gazette) LANSING, MI -- A $28 million state appropriation is on its way to Gov. Rick Snyder after the House Thursday put put its stamp of approval on a redirection of aid to more health assessments for children. The water crisis emerged after the city switched water sources in April 2014. Water untreated for corrosiveness went through the pipes and lead leached into the water, exposing an unknown number of children to a substance than can impair cognitive function. The Senate on Thursday approved the bill with changes, including shifting $1.75 million from bottled water purchases to the Department of Education for children's health assessments. The state needs less money for water purchases because of an influx of bottled water donations, according to information presented Wednesday by a representative of the State Emergency Operations Center, which is coordinating assistance on the crisis. The bill includes $28 million total and $22 million from the state general fund. That money includes: - $2.7 million to the Michigan Department of Education to provide additional school nurses, Early On monitoring for kids 0-3 and providing nutritional snacks to elementary school children. - $5.8 million to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for testing costs and a "potential payment to the city of Flint to aid with utility issues." - $15.5 million to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Resources for field operations, nutrition support and the purchase of bottled water and filters. A little less than two hours after the Senate approved the bill, the House followed suit, concurring unanimously in the Senate's changes. The bill now heads to Gov. Rick Snyder, who telegraphed his support for it this morning. Thank you to the Michigan Senate for taking action & for their unanimous support for the people of Flint. We will fix the crisis in Flint. Rick Snyder (@onetoughnerd) January 28, 2016 "Thanks to the swift action of the Legislature, this $28 million will provide the immediate resources needed in Flint," Snyder said in a press release issued shortly after House passage. "I want the residents of Flint to know this supplemental funding is just one part of the solution for healing the city. The immediate needs will be met, but so will the long-term needs of residents with regard to public health, infrastructure replacement and community support." Emily Lawler is a Capitol reporter on MLive's statewide Impact Team. You can reach her at elawler@mlive.com, subscribe to her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter: @emilyjanelawler. LANSING, MI - It's an awkward time of year for the outdoors enthusiast. Heading into the Jan. 29 weekend, an ice fisherman unwary of warm weather and soft surfaces may end up swimming with the fishes rather than catching them. In its weekly fishing report, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources writes that ice fishing is "pretty much statewide." While there are good places to fish, angler safety remains important. RELATED: Firefighter demonstrates how thin the ice is on Muskegon Lake RELATED: 4 things to remember before stepping on the ice to fish this winter Some of the precautions advised by the DNR: Wearing a flotation device, fishing with a friend, letting others know about your fishing plans, taking a cell phone and checking the ice thickness with a spud or ice chisel. Here is some of the DNR's advice, broken down by region: Southeast Lower Peninsula Lake St. Clair: Has more ice on the lake but there is still a lot of open water offshore so anglers need to be aware of wind conditions and the possibility of ice shifting and pressure cracks opening up. Anglers are out fishing the usual places off Fairhaven, Brandenburg, Cotton Road, South River Road, the Metro Park and the Spillway Access Site. Ice thickness is variable at these locations so anglers need to use extreme caution. Port Austin and Grindstone City: Each had a few ice shanties in the harbor that were close to shore. Saginaw Bay: Ice conditions did improve around the Bay but it is still "iffy" out there in spots. There are fish to catch without crossing the pressure cracks which is much safer. Palmer Road near Standish was very busy with a lot of anglers on the ice. They caught eight to 10 inch perch in two to three feet of water. Walleye were caught in the evening in eight to 10 feet. White's Beach had a few anglers targeting perch but the fish were small. Perch were caught at Pinconning and down off Newman Road. Walleye were found three-quarters of a mile off Erickson Road but anglers need to be aware of all the pressure cracks out there and use caution. There are active pressure cracks off Linwood as well. The occasional walleye was caught in eight feet off the Bay City State Recreation Area and from the shipping channel near Spoils Island. A few perch were caught near the range light off the river mouth. Perch fishing was spotty from Sebewaing to Bay Port. Some managed limit catches while others had none. Keep moving until you find an active school of fish. Walleye anglers were in the Slot and around North Island. Caseville was slow. Saginaw River: Still had patches of open water here and there and anglers are cautioned to stay well away from those areas. Anglers need to beware of thin and treacherous ice along the river especially with temperatures well above freezing by the weekend. Anglers were marking lots of fish however they did not want to bite. That was the rule from Saginaw to the mouth. Walleye were caught but not in large numbers. Most were jigging rapalas tipped with minnow heads. Hot colors were blue and silver, black and gold, purple or perch colors. Fishing activity started near Wickes Park and Ojibway Island. A number of anglers were at the Frist Street turning basin at the north end of Saginaw and strung out north and south of the Zilwaukee Bridge. Be very careful of the ice near any of the bridges. The ice was not good near the Boys & Girls Club in the south end of Bay City. Anglers were fishing downstream of the Independence Bridge near the U.S.S. Edson but catch rates were spotty. Southwest Lower Peninsula Anglers are ice fishing on the inland lakes however snow and slush may make travel on the ice a little more difficult. Be sure to use caution and watch for soft ice. Anglers are catching panfish, pike and walleye. Kalamazoo River: Steelhead anglers are taking fish below the Allegan Dam. Try spawn, plugs or a jig and wax worm. Grand River at Grand Rapids: Anglers are still out there and catching steelhead including a fair to good number of chrome colored fish. Lake Lansing: Had fair to good bluegill action but anglers are sorting out a lot of small ones. Crappie were also caught. Morrison Lake: Is producing fairly well. Anglers are taking bluegills, perch and some decent size crappie. Muskegon River: Continues to produce a good number of steelhead especially in the lower sections. Those floating spawn have done well but those fly fishing have also taken fish. Northwest Lower Peninsula Deep snow and slush continue to make travel more difficult on the inland lakes. Anglers should still use caution and be sure to check the ice when heading out. Rivers in this area of the state continue to produce a good number of steelhead. Traverse City: Any ice on the bays was questionable. Lake Cadillac: Catch rates were a little slower but should pick up. Anglers are taking panfish. Try a teardrop with a small minnow, wax worm or spike. Pike anglers are spearing or using tip-ups with large minnows. Lake Mitchell: Ice anglers fishing the coves were catching panfish over the weed beds in 10 to 12 feet. The Big Cove was producing more crappie while the smaller cove was good for bluegills. The occasional perch was also caught. Those using tip-ups are targeting pike and walleye. Those spear fishing have also taken a couple nice pike. Manistee River: Continues to provide some good steelhead fishing. Fish have been caught throughout the river. Anglers are getting bright colored fish as well as plenty of fresh ones. Those fishing below Tippy Dam have done well with spawn or jigs and wax worms. Northeast Lower Peninsula Fletchers Pond: Pike anglers using tip-ups are taking a good number of fish. Those seeking panfish have done well with minnows, wax worms and spikes. Higgins Lake: Anglers were starting to walk out on the south end where they were catching lake trout in 50 to 60 feet. Rainbow trout were caught in shallow waters three feet deep near the west shore boat ramp. Anglers need to use caution and check the ice ahead of them. Houghton Lake: Fishing has started to pick up with walleye caught along the drop-offs in deeper water. Look for the weed beds. Fish were caught at sunrise, mid-day and at sunset. Pike anglers are doing well as the fish are everywhere. Bluegills and crappie were caught off the DNR launch on the south end. There was a report of a quad that broke through the ice about 500 yards or more from the Middle Grounds. Anglers should use caution in this area. Tawas: Most ice fishing activity was still up in the "armpit" off Jerry's Marina. Perch were caught in 15 to 20 feet and walleye in 20 to 22 feet but success was spotty. A brown trout, a few lake trout and whitefish were caught on a spoon with a minnow. Those fishing inside the state harbor caught a few pike and perch. Au Gres River: Anglers were taking a few walleye. Upper Peninsula Lake Gogebic: Had deep slush on the ice which is not ideal for vehicles especially those with wheels. Please do not drive any truck into the Bergland boat launch. The snow pack is soft and too many have gotten stuck. Perch fishing was slow with only a few caught in 22 to 25 feet. Walleye fishing was fair during the day but much better after dark in eight to 12 feet in Bergland Bay. During the day, fish were caught in 15 to 18 feet. Try tip-ups with shiners and suckers or jigging rapalas and assorted spoons tipped with a small minnow. Flint water Detroit.jpg The difference in quality of water from the Flint River and Detroit was displayed at a news conference in September 2015 in Flint, Michigan. (Flint Journal file photo) All eyes are fixed on Flint as the crisis over lead in the city's drinking water supply has unfolded at an accelerating pace since 2014. But Flint is not the only municipal or private water supply in Michigan where the drinking water is testing at or above levels that researchers and public health officials consider to be the threshold for concerning exposure to a potent neurotoxin. Michigan Department of Environmental Quality records show that six private water supplies in Michigan and two municipalities -- not including Flint -- meet or exceed the federal limit on lead and copper in water tested at the customer tap. Another six private and 16 municipal systems across the state, ranging in size from 25 customers to more than 120,000, tested for levels that are below the U.S. federal limit, but above safety benchmarks used by the World Health Organization, the international public health arm of the United Nations, and the Virginia Tech university team that helped blow the whistle in Flint. Michigan cities with lead at or above the WHO benchmark include Kalamazoo, Muskegon Heights, Benton Harbor, Owosso, Ionia, Marysville and St. Louis. The statewide lead records underscore a widespread problem with American drinking water infrastructure that, in communities with homes and commercial buildings constructed prior to the mid-1980s, continues to supply vital tap water through private service line connections that leach lead into the liquid. Database of Michigan public water system lead levels "I think Flint is the tip of the iceberg," said Yanna Lambrinidou, an assistant science and technology studies professor at Virginia Tech. Lambrinidou, alongside civil engineering professor Marc Edwards, spent years researching the lead contamination that plagued Washington, D.C. between 2001 and 2004 -- a major poisoning that echoes in the Flint crisis more than a decade later. That iceberg? Millions of lead service pipes that join municipal mains to older homes in cities around the county, but primarily in the eastern U.S. and Midwest. RELATED: In Flint's wake, nationwide lead water testing methods questioned The lines are known hazards and many cities stopped using them decades ago. But, exactly how many are still in use is hard to say because, Lambrinidou said, there's never been a systematic effort to document the problem. A recent American Water Works Association survey estimated about 6.5 million. Lambrinidou suggested it could be more than 11 million nationwide. Water utilities were instructed to inventory the lead lines in the early 1990s, but typically those records, if kept, "are shoddy." As the hole is filled in in the background, an piece of an old lead water pipe sits next to a new copper pipe, Friday, Jan. 22, 2016 at a home on Greencroft in Lansing, Mich. Lansing's municipal utility says it's nearly eliminated lead water service lines since concerns in 2004 prompted it to launch a massive program to replace them with copper lines by 2017. The information, she said, is "needed desperately." In Kalamazoo -- the second largest groundwater drinking system in Michigan -- public works staff say that out of 46,000 total service lines, 8,122 lead ones are still used in the system, which serves the city and, like many larger municipal water systems, several surrounding suburban communities. The city treats the water with anti-corrosion chemicals -- a step missed in Flint when that city switched its water source. To control for corrosion, Kalamazoo adds sodium hexametaphosphate, which helps create an insoluble coating on the inside of pipes that cuts down on the amount of lead leaching into the water. Kalamazoo replaces lead service lines during street restoration projects, repairs to service line breaks and whenever targeted sampling indicates lead and/or copper in the city's water supply exceeds 15 parts-per-billion (ppb) -- the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulatory limit for lead in drinking water. It's worth nothing that 15 ppb is a regulatory measure and public health agencies and advocates consider that generous. The World Health Organization says that, while no level of lead is safe to drink, 10 ppb is guideline level for action. Virginia Tech researchers consider 5 ppb a "cause for concern." In 2014, Kalamazoo tested at 13 ppb. In 2013, the city of Caseville in Huron County also tested at 13 ppb, according to the most recent DEQ records. Not including Flint, the highest recent municipal water levels were in the Manistee County village of Bear Lake and in the Upper Peninsula's Crystal Falls Township. Both tested at 15 ppb; Crystal Falls in 2013 and Bear Lake in 2015. What do those results mean? Well, it's complicated. MORE: Full coverage of the Flint water crisis The results do not mean every person drinking water from those systems is swallowing lead at 15 ppb with each gulp. The benchmark is derived from sampling a pre-determined number of homes already known or suspected to have leaded water problems and calculating a statistical distribution of the lead content in the water systems based on those samples. Utilities and regulators call it the "90th Percentile" test -- meaning 90 percent of tested homes must test below 15 ppb before the EPA requires the utility to begin taking measures to fix the problem. The goal is to ensure no more than 10 percent of the population is drinking water with lead above the 15 ppb threshold. Even some water utility managers think that's a bit convoluted. "The only rule I've seen written this way is for lead and copper," said Bari Wrubel, water plant supervisor in Marysville, which tested at 12 ppb in 2014. Water plants have hard line benchmarks for turbidity, alkalinity, bacteria levels, fluoride, chlorine and other additives or contaminants. Those testing samples are generally taken by utility staff at the plant. But with lead and copper, the samples are collected at home by the customer, usually in the morning, using instructions and a sample collection bottle provided by the utility. The results depend greatly on the customer following the sampling directions properly. Virginia Tech researchers say there's a great potential for data distortion if the sample doesn't catch water that sat overnight in the service line. "You have to count on it being done correctly," said Wrubel, who said testing targets older homes and the results are not indicative of the whole system. In Marysville, the 12 ppb result was based on data from 30 homes. In Kalamazoo, the 13 ppb result was based on 59 sampled homes. Sue Foune, director of Kalamazoo's public services department, which includes the water system, said three homes tested at or above the 15 ppb action level. Those had lead service lines that were subsequently replaced. Three homes tested between 9 ppb and 4 ppb, and the remaining 53 homes tested less than 3 ppb, which, in utility parlance, is a "non-detect." Sue Foune, water plant manager in Kalamazoo, checks bacteria samples in this 2008 file photo. Of the 15 ppb samples, the first came from an outside hose. Another came from a basement utility sink that contained a lead solder. The third was from a vacant house. The homes were all "Tier 1," or locations with lead service lines. "We follow the EPA and state protocol," said Foune. "We believe we're fine." Bear Lake officials did not return a message seeking comment. The DEQ and EPA have not taken action there or in Crystal Falls Township because the limits do not exceed 15 ppb. Thomas Lesandrini, Crystal Falls Township supervisor, said the rural water system is lead sampling again in September after the 2013 test showed concerning levels of lead in some homes with lead in their plumbing. "We have a lot of older homes up here that seem to be the problem." As for the private water systems on the list, the highest contamination in the DEQ records is at Chateaux Du Lac Condominiums, a homeowners association in Fenton that tested at 79 ppb in December 2014; and the AuSable Valley Community nursing home in Fairview, which tested at 68 ppb in December 2015. The Fenton condos get water from a private well, say managers. "It seems high," said Mark Piper, president of Piper Management. "We do acknowledge the DEQ said there was a lead issue and we do have a corrosion control plan in place with them and we're implementing it as we speak." In Fairview, Wellspring Lutheran Services administrator Michael Stephenson acknowledged an "anomaly" in its senior care facility private well water, and, in an email, said the facility has "replaced some fixtures and equipment." Wellspring is working with consultants to develop long-range testing protocols, and has "informed its residents regarding what was found, what has been done to address it, and what will be done moving forward." Database of Michigan private water system lead levels Garret Ellison covers business, environment & the Great Lakes for MLive Media Group. Email him at gellison@mlive.com or follow on Twitter & Instagram Students from the department of life sciences (UoH) demand resumption of their classes as they refuse to participate in the bandh against Rohith Vemula sucide. Hyderabad: Tension prevailed at the University of Hyderabad department of life sciences when several students, who had taken a neutral stand on the ongoing controversy following the suicide of Rohith Vemula, organised a protest demanding that classes be resumed. JAC students tried to persuade them to stop their opposition and join their protest. Nearly 100 students gathered at the life sciences building demanding that the administration and classes start functioning. They waved placards stating students need books not guns, peace not politics, and open departments. MA dance student Shanmukha S. said there has been classes for 10 days now. This may not affect juniors, but final year students may face difficulties, he said. Life sciences student V. Bharadwaj said they would support Rohiths family, "but we want classes to be resumed. We need to observe our experiments from time to time. If we miss one day, we lose the entire experiment," said life sciences student Sandeep. V. Sunkanna, who was among the students suspended with Rohith, was among the JAC group that rushed to persuade the students to stop their opposition. "We too want the academic calendar should run as per schedule. But, we need justice," he said. This led to arguments between them. Cyberabad police commissioner C.V. Anand directed DCP Karthikeya and ACP M. Ramana Kumar to rush to the spot. Police managed to defuse the situation. Hyderabad: Interim vice-chancellor of University of Hyderabad Dr Vipin Srivastava, on Thursday said that an agreement had been reached between the university administration and the Joint Action Committee for Social Justice, the banner under which students have been protesting for the last 11 days after the suicide of Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula. Dr Srivastava said that the students had responded positively to the appeals made by him and agreed to let research activity continue. The administration has started functioning and normalcy will be achieved by Saturday when even classes will resume. Speaking to the media he said that this semester will have to be extended before conducting exams by April keeping water shortage crisis in mind. Asked about the allegations by students of casteism on the campus by faculty members, he said, I do not accept the allegations. We are all conscientious teachers and have been along. Asked then why all the suicides in UoH in the past have been by Dalit students and one by a tribal student, he said, It is a genuine and large issue which needs to be debated on the national level. Each case has been investigated into and they are on record. No strictures have ben passed against anyone. Asked about the demands by students and SC/ST teachers forum that he step down from his position because during his tenure as dean of the physics department in 2008 a dalit research scholar, Senthil Kumar had committed suicide, he said that after the unfortunate incident many committees and even the CID had probed and did not find him guilty. He said that neither was he teaching that batch nor did he have any student under him from that batch. He also said that he would urge the teachers who are on strike to get back to work. When asked why Rohith's parents were not informed about his suspension from hostel, Executive Council member and School of Chemistry dean, Prof. Durga Prasad, said that they are not minors. The KSRTC bus which fell into the Simsha river in Maddur, Mandya district; (right) Injured passengers being rescued from the wreckage Bengaluru: A Mysuru bound KSRTC bus, with 39 passengers on board, rammed into the guard railings of the bridge, after the driver lost control over the vehicle, and plunged into Shimsha River, around 40 feet below, killing one person and critically injuring around 16 passengers. The deceased has been identified as H.M. Ramakrishna, 47, a resident Hebberallu. According to the police, the KSRTC bus (registration number KA13-F1944), belonging to the Hassan depot, originated from Bengaluru and was heading towards Mysuru, en route to Shravanabelagola. The accident happened around 2.15 pm, when the bus had reached the Shimsha river bridge near Shivapura in Maddur taluk. Since there was only knee-deep water in the river there were no cases of drowning. However, since the bus had fallen from a height of over 40 feet passengers suffered grievous injuries. Around six of them sustained head injuries, while the condition of three of them was critical. The victims were rushed to the Maddur Taluk Government Hospital, around 7-8 km from the accident spot. Most of the patients were later shifted to Mandya Medical College Hospital and K.R. Hospital in Mysuru, and some of them were also referred to private hospitals in Ramanagara. The body of Ramakrishna was shifted to the hospital morgue and handed over to the family members after the post-mortem. A case of rash and negligent driving causing death has been registered at the Maddur town police station and further investigations are underway. The driver, Virupakshappa and conductor, Govinda reportedly escaped with minor injury. Passengers recount horror Driver was drinking water I was sitting right behind the driver when I saw him drink water from a bottle using one hand and he was using his elbow to steer the vehicle when the bus rammed into the side guard rail of the bridge and plunged into the river,Balamurugan, a passenger. No clue what was happening I was talking to my sister and sitting when we realized that the bus had hit something and after that we could see all the seats crushing together and water gushing into the bus, recounted Bhagyamma, 60, a resident of Pandavapura. She along with her sister had baorded the bus at Nayandahalli in the city. Traffic hit New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear in open court on February 2 the curative petition filed by gay activists and Naz Foundation seeking to cure the defects in the judgment upholding the validity of Section 377 IPC insofar as it recriminalises homosexuality between two consenting adults on the ground that there was no constitutional infirmity in this provision. A Bench headed by Chief Justice T.S. Thakur will hear the curative petition which is normally heard in the chambers of the senior judge. This gives fresh hope to gay activists fighting for rights. The apex court had upheld the colonial-era Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which penalizes same-sex intercourse with up to 10 years of imprisonment. After the verdict, the LGBT community has received support from several quarters. Political parties, including the Congress and CPM, included the matter of their rights in their national manifestos. The curative petition challenges both the December 11, 2013 judgment and the January 2014 order in the review petitions to cure the gross miscarriage of justice. It said, The effect of recriminalisation on account of the impugned judgment has caused immense prejudice to gay activists, who have been put at risk of prosecution under Section 377 IPC, on account of the association between homosexuality and penile-anal/penile-oral sexual acts. The petitioner drew the courts attention to the fact that under an amendment introduced in the IPC in 2013, Sec. 375 of the IPC in 2013 makes penile non-vaginal sexual acts, between man and woman, without consent an offence. By necessary implication, such sexual acts between man and woman, which are consensual, are no longer prohibited. 28.01.2016 LISTEN On Friday the 22nd of January 2016, a concert was held at the Silver Star Tower in Accra by Live 91.9 FM to officially launch the station after 9 months in existence. The concert was graced by stage performances from a host of Ghanas mainstream artistes including Sarkodie, Stonebwoy, M.anifest, Efya, E.L, Bisa Kdei and Pappy Kojo. The concert was generally described by observers as successful. However, few days after the event, a video footage of an unfortunate incident which occurred at the event has emerged. The content of the video footage The footage in question, which has been widely circulated on social media platforms in the last 24 hours shows an imitator mounting the stage to imitate how Stonebwoy walks whilst Stonebwoy was on stage performing. Stonebwoy reacted angrily to the imitators act by ordering the instrumentalists on stage to halt playing the instruments. Stonebwoy followed up by uttering the following ; 3y3 gyimie no 3y3. To wit, Enough of the fooling. Stonebwoy then threw the microphone into the crowd and left the stage. The imitators conduct was clearly absurd and absolutely uncalled for. The act was morally improper. Whatever may have been his motive for doing that, the motive was completely wrong. This is an artiste who has been able to defy odds over the years and managed to go through the mill despite his physical challenge to become one of the biggest things to ever happen to Ghanas music industry. The accolades he has amassed both domestically and internationally over the last 12 months alone substantiates this assertion. He is viewed as a model of inspiration to people with physical challenges or challenges in other forms to challenge conditions and aim higher. What informed this guy who has claimed to be a Stonebwoy fan to commit such an act just a little distance away from Stonebwoy? In my view, Stonebwoys reaction was appropriate and very understandable because as humans we can all be easily prone to such reactions especially when it dwells on such sensitivities. Aftermath of video circulation Following the circulation of the said video, apologies have been released into the public domain. Live FM, the media outlet which organized the aforementioned event has come out with a release to apologize to Stonebwoy and his team. In the statement, they condemned the fans act which they described as despicable. Earlier today, the fan also released an apology letter to Stonebwoy on behalf of all Bhimnatives. Stonebwoy is yet to officially respond to the apology letter but I believe Stonebwoy will accept it. Going Foward Going forward, event organizers have the ultimate responsibility to ensure that there are adequate security measures put in place to warrant a successful organization of events devoid of unfortunate incidents. Watching the said video, I spotted security personnel on the stage. As security personnel were employed for the event, I expected the organizers to barricade the crowd from the stage. The security personnel would have then been able to deal with anyone who scaled the barricade to mount or get closer to the stage. Its important to barricade the crowd from the stage at every event, irrespective of the size of the crowd or audience. It is also necessary for artistes to employ personal security personnel who will provide security for them at such gatherings. I know some artistes have security personnel. The others who dont have some yet should take a cue from them. Searching observers/crowd before concerts begin shouldnt also be overruled. It was a mimicking in Stonebwoys case. Who knows, it can be a physical assault or a more life threatening incident another time. Surely, this incident should be a wake-up call to take a critical look into security issues at events. Seth Mireku Jnr [email protected] Effort with Benita Danquah 28.01.2016 LISTEN Effort Danquah, who has been accused of shooting his wife in their residence in Tema, has been granted bail by a Tema Magistrate Court. Though his plea was not taken when he appeared before the court, presided over by His Worship Joseph Junior McClain, the accused was granted bail. But the prosecution prayed the court to remand him for further investigations into the matter. He was granted bail in the sum of GH20,000 with two sureties to reappear on February 28, 2016. According to the prosecution, led by ASP Stanley Dzakpasu, on August 28, 2015 while the victim, Mrs. Benita Danquah, 29, was fast asleep with her husband in their house, she was shot at the break of dawn in the chest. She was rushed to the Tema General Hospital but was referred to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra for further treatment. The shooting incident, police gathered, was an attempt to murder Mrs. Danquah, but she survived the attack that had left her paralysed and unable to pass urine or fecal matter naturally. Police investigations revealed that the victim was shot from close range in her chest and the bullet penetrated her body and came out from the back. Further investigations led to the retrieval of live ammunition lodged in the mattress the couple slept on with blood stains, believed to be human blood, found on the bed sheet and the mattress. Prosecution continued that the victim who was then 7 months pregnant gave birth prematurely. . Police have so far not detected any sign of external break-in into the couple's room. The victim's husband, Effort Danquah was arrested in the heat of the incident, cautioned and granted bail by the police. On Monday, Effort Danquah was rearrested as the prime suspect following some evidence gathered by the police on the matter. However, counsel for the accused person, James Enu denied the attempted murder charge preferred against his client, arguing that the suspect was not involved in the shooting of his wife. He further prayed for bail for his client since the charge of attempted murder is bailable. From Vincent Kubi, Tema The Gomoa Akyempim Omankrado. Nana Kwao Adofrakye V. The Odzekro Of Gomoa Potsin, Nana Twieku Adasoa IX, and chiefs together with some household-named Kumawood stars, shall be celebrating Gomoa Potsin Akwambo Festival from 22nd January - 9th February, 2016. This year's festival which is themed: Developing Our Township For Future Generation? is aimed at making the people of Gomoa Potsin know more about their history and brings most of the citizens together. The rich cultural heritage of Potsin Akwambo and its natives will be manifested during the festival. Speaking to Mr. George Piese Asante Addo who is a member of the planning committee and owner of an ultra modern office complex at Gomoa Potsin to be commissioning on the 29th January he told MustaphaInusah.Com that people should expect nothing but the best from this year?s Akwambo festival because Kwaku Manu, Maame Serwaa, Dabo, Tuart, Mmbusem, Apostle John Prah and many other Kumawood stars will grace the occasion with guest artist being EV AKWESI NYARKO According to him, come 30th January, there will be grand durbar of chiefs and people of the town, whiles 7th February (from 4am) will mark their usual trotting day. Sorry, we can't find the content you're looking for at this URL. The Hague (AFP) - A sea of orange hats flooded a blustery Dutch promenade outside a war crimes court Thursday as supporters of fallen Ivorian strongman Laurent Gbagbo loudly denounced a French plot to "kidnap" their hero. Hundreds from the widespread Ivory Coast diaspora bused in from Paris and Brussels, and even from as far away as Switzerland, in a determined bid to get their message across that the wrong man is on trial for the bloodshed that scarred the nation from 2010 to 2011. "This trial is a disgrace because our president was elected democratically before being expelled from power by arms, by the rebels of Ouattara," said one supporter, 58-year-old Colacicco. He was referring to President Alassane Ouattara who was declared the winner of the November 2010 elections, despite Gbagbo's refusal to acknowledge his defeat and step down. Decked out in the colours of the Ivorian flag, orange, green and white, hundreds of supporters enjoyed a rare sunny day outside the International Criminal Court nestled in the dunes by the sea in the Dutch city of The Hague. Inside the fortress-like building, a relaxed-looking Gbagbo, 70, and his ally, former militia leader Charles Ble Goude, 44, pleaded not guilty to four charges of crimes against humanity including murder, rape and persecution. Police estimated there were some 300 protesters, but organisers put the figure at closer to 1,000. The supporters contend that Gbagbo's arrest in April 2011 and subsequent transfer to the ICC was a plot by the French to get their hands on Ivory Coast's riches. The west African nation had been seen at the time as a bastion of democracy. But when Gbagbo refused to concede defeat, its economic capital Abidjan descended into chaos. It was the French government that "concocted the fall of president Gbagbo," said one protester from Paris who identified himself only as Eric. "Truth will trump the lies," said one of the organisers, Abel Naki, maintaining Gbagbo was "kidnapped and deported." "This reminds us of the years of slavery and colonisation," he said. Large screens were erected on a stage outside in a bid to allow the protestors to watch the proceedings amid singing, chanting and drum playing. - Heros and lions - Inside the public gallery were 50 supporters who were allowed access. They followed the proceedings intently, tutting and even occasionally booing as yet another allegation was levelled against their champion. When presiding judge Cuno Tarfusser closed for the day they remained glued to the glass windows separating the public gallery from the courtroom as Gbagbo was escorted away. They cheered and applauded their fallen leader, who waved back after earlier in the day having blown kisses -- clearly enjoying the attention after five years behind bars far from his African homeland. Gbagbo's supporters are bitterly angry that Ouattara's camp has not been investigated for an alleged string of abuses during the unrest. "My brother was killed by Ouattara's rebels," says Edwige, 20, from Paris. Ouattara "is the real criminal. He's the one who should be on trial." But chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in her opening statement there was "a vast body of evidence" against the accused, earning hisses and catcalls from the public gallery. Bensouda's statements "are dangerous," Naki told AFP. "It's full of lies and based on nothing else than elements provided by Ouattara." Protester Eric from Paris used an old tale to explain how in his view the victor always gets to write history. "When the story is told by the hunters, the lions are always in the wrong," he said. 27.01.2016 LISTEN Greece has seriously neglected its obligations to control the external borders of the passport-free Schengen zone, the European Commission has said. The assessment found failures to register, check and fingerprint migrants arriving in November. If the draft report is approved by Schengen members, Greece will be given three months to improve. Otherwise, the EU may recommend to other states to temporarily close their borders to Greece. The migrant crisis has put the Schengen passport-free travel zone at risk. More than 850,000 migrants and refugees arrived in Greece last year. A further 44,000 have reached the Greek islands since the start of 2016, mostly arriving on Lesbos, Samos and Chios from the Turkish mainland. Several EU states, including Austria and Hungary, have already introduced temporary border controls to reduce the number of arrivals. -bbc 28.01.2016 LISTEN Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) vice presidential candidate has appealed to Cocoa farmers and all involved in the Cocoa Sector to support Nana Akufo-Addo and NPP to win the November general elections, since it is the party that has demonstrated the willingness to transform the Cocoa sector of the economy. Addressing cocoa farmers at the various villages in the Amenfi West Constituency, during a two-day tour of the constituency, Dr. Bawumia recalled the strides the Cocoa Sector made under excellent leadership of President John Kufuor and how the sector was now struggling under the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC). If you look at this farm behind us, most of the Cocoa trees are dying. The Cocoa industry itself in Ghana is collapsing. If you look at the Cocoa Sector in the Ivory Coast and you look at Ghana, there is a clear difference in how the sector is going. Under President Kufuor, the NPP raised Cocoa production from 341,000 tonnes to about 700,000 tonnes by 2008. Thanks to the good work of the NPP, Cocoa Production hit the historic 1million mark in 2010/2011. This was due to policies like the Mass Spraying and Fertilizer Subsidy programmes as well as other policies. Now these have collapsed. The NDC introduced politics into the Mass Spraying policy. They forgot that Cocoa farms are like a network and so if one farm gets damaged, it would spread to other farms. It is, therefore, not smart to discriminate like the NDC has done, because it is the farmers who create wealth for this country and so by helping farmers, you are helping Ghana. Any government that, therefore, does politics with a sensitive issue like Cocoa, is only damaging Ghana. This is why the economy of Ghana is going down at the same time Cocoa is going down, he said. Dr. Bawumia explained to the farmers, Nana Akufo-Addo's vision for the Cocoa Sector, when elected, is to aggressively pursue policies that will ensure that an additional 500,000 metric tonnes is added to the current output in 10 years and that, the achievement of this vision will be hinged on supporting the hardworking Cocoa farmers to produce more and bring more trees under cultivation. Under the NPP, our view is that for Ghana to do well, cocoa must do well. It is because of this that we introduced the mass spraying programme and fertilizer subsidy program. Our policy is to immediately restore the Mass Cocoa Spraying and Fertilizer Subsidy programmes, as well as a policy to supply and bring new seedlings into cultivation, because without this, the Ivory Coast will leave us behind and we will soon fall below 500,000 tonnes. Our vision is to introduce policies that will see the addition of 500,000 tonnes to the output now. It is going to be an intensive exercise and we will support our Cocoa Farmers greatly to achieve this, because when Cocoa does well, Ghana does well, but the NDC has failed to realize this. If you go to the Ivory Coast, Cocoa production is going up, yet when you come to Ghana, it is falling. This means that, there is a problem in Ghana and that problem is the failed NDC policies in the cocoa sector, he added. Dr. Bawumia took the opportunity to visit various Cocoa farms in Berekum and other communities in the Amenfi West Constituency to find out about the extent of decline in the sector. He was accompanied on the tour by the Parliamentary Candidate for the area, Paul Dekyi and he visited over 20 communities; including Woman No Good, Bena, Oforikrom, Bena Nkwanta, Nyame Bekyere, Ohiampeanika, Wansema, Ntaaboo, Bisaaso, Mumuni, Pataase, Torompan, Nope, Mmoframfaadwen, Ayensukrom, Gravel Yard, Ahwiam and Prestea Nkwanta. The report said Modi government failed to address increasing attacks on free expression and against religious minorities in India. London: The Indian government "failed" to address increasing attacks on religious minorities and imposed restrictions on civil society groups critical of it, two leading global human rights groups said on Wednesday. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International also slammed the government for blocking foreign funding and targeting non-governmental organisations as well as activists. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government "failed to address increasing attacks on free expression and against religious minorities," HRW said in its World Report 2016. In the 659-page report, it said authorities blocked foreign funding and increased restrictions on civil society groups critical of the government or large development projects. "The Indian government's clampdown on dissent this year undermines the country's long and rich tradition of free expression," said Meenakshi Ganguly, HRW South Asia director. "Instead of denial and retaliation, the authorities should encourage tolerance and peaceful debate and prosecute those committing or inciting violence," she said in a statement. It said authorities used sedition, criminal defamation, and hate speech laws to harass and prosecute those expressing dissenting, unpopular, or minority views. The government often allowed a "heckler's veto" to interest groups claiming to be offended by books, movies, or artwork and pushed for censorship or otherwise harassed authors, the statement added. "In a worrying trend, anti-Muslim rhetoric by some leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stoked insecurities among religious minorities," it said, citing the killing of four Muslims by mobs over suspicion that they had killed or stolen cows for beef. The HRW said that the government blocked foreign funding for organisations such as Greenpeace India and targeted several others, including the Ford Foundation. It said authorities labeled activists such as Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand "anti-national" when they sought justice for victims of the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat. "Such tactics had a chilling effect on the work of other groups," the statement said. Amnesty International accused Modi government of "targeting" activists and protest groups for "political ends". The People's Watch's "bank accounts have been frozen repeatedly since 2012 with the result that some employees had to be dismissed and many programmes abandoned," Amnesty said. "The Delhi government in power at the time used the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act to justify this kind of harassment," it said in a release. "This same Act is being used for political ends by the current government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi," Amnesty added. John Jinapor 28.01.2016 LISTEN The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has begun an exercise which is likely to see it rake in the expected revenue to facilitate its operations. The companys undertaking is in agreement with those of other institutions within the power sector, which have formed a taskforce to ensure that their customers do not engage in fraudulent use of power. This, they would do, to make sure the meters read flawlessly. The ECG had recorded instances where some power consumers either undertook illegal connections or tampered with the meters to cause reductions in the amount expected to be paid to the countrys power distributor. While some of these identified persons were put before the courts and made to pay huge sums of money to the state, others were made to serve prison sentences as punishment for their dishonesty. A special court, which sits on Saturdays, has been assigned for such prosecutions. Yesterday, the taskforce took some companies within the North Industrial Area by surprise. The Deputy Minister for Power, John Abdulai Jinapor, led the group on the fact finding mission as they wanted to know if they were paying the right amount for the power they consumed. The tour took some staff of both the ECG and the Ministry of Power and journalists from selected media organisations to Latex Foam, Dannex Ghana Limited and Fan Milk. At the first point of call, Latex Foam, owners of the facility got offended at the unannounced visit, coupled with the fact that their premises was being captured by the cameras. They were full of rage, even when the minister had come in to explain the purpose of the stopover. Tempers were calmed after some 15 minutes, only for the keys to the metering system, which had been securely locked, to be far from reach. The lock had to be forced open, in order to permit entry. The technical team, led by the acting Manager of Technical Investigations, Ishmael Oku, found the integrity of the meter perfect, after they had subjected it to an audit procedure for close to 15 minutes. The story was no different at Dannex and Fan Milk, which also boasted of meters which had not been tampered with. At Fan Milk for instance, initially, there was some level of resistance on the part of the security, who claimed not to have been instructed by their employers to allow the team in. However, when the sector minister introduced himself, the group was allowed in, but this was not accompanied by keeping them waiting in the open compound of the company for the consent of the Human Resource Manager to be sought. There too, after the requisite checks had been done, the technical investigations manager and his team were convinced their system was intact. Briefing the media after the exercise, Mr. Jinapor said the major challenge facing his ministry was that of finance and that they were on that special unannounced assignment to block the leakages that accounted for their loss in revenue. We continue to witness energy theft in the power sector, resulting in loss of revenueall those in the sector have formed a taskforce and being the leader of the ministry, I decided to be part of the exercise to make people aware that we are serious, he said. Stressing that all monies owed by their consumers would certainly be collected, he said hotels, night clubs, ministries and their agencies would be the target. He added that all ministries would be made to pay for the power they consume, saying a section of the society should not be made to pay while others are not. In a related development, the GNA reports that, the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) has issued an order to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), to correct the metering and billing anomalies resulting from implementation of the 2015 Major Tariff Increase. A statement from the PURC signed by Dr. Simons Akorli, Director, Regulatory Economics and Research reiterated that the percentage increase across board for all categories of electricity consumers as announced by the Commission is 59.2 per cent. It said the Commission would publish for the benefit of electricity consumers and the public, the electricity tariffs as gazetted, effective December 14, 2015 and published in The Ghana Gazette of December 11, 2015 as well as the tariffs published in Ghana Gazette of July 8, 2015. The statement said the ECG had also been directed to develop and implement detailed Communication Plan for engaging the public on the impact of the December, 2015 tariffs and measures put in place to resolve implementation challenges arising from the tariffs. The PURC wishes to reassure all consumers that the Commission is monitoring all the feedback arising from the recent tariff increases and will not relent in ensuring that the ECG discharges its obligations to consumers, it added. By Pascal Kafu Abotsi ([email protected]) 28.01.2016 LISTEN The suspected terrorist, who was arrested at Gwollu in the Upper West Region, has turned out to be the bodyguard of former President of Burkina Faso, Blase Compaore. Zuure Braimah was arrested by the Sissala West Police Command, after residents of the area became suspicious of his movements. In an interview with The Chronicle yesterday, the Regional Director of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), Superintendent Fuseini Musah Awinba, said the identity of the suspect came to light during interrogation. Explaining the circumstances that surrounded the arrest, he said: yesterday in the evening around 5 pm the Police saw a certain man whom they suspected to be a criminal. He was just loitering in the Gwollu Township and they did not know his name, so they arrested him and he was interrogated and it was then that it was revealed he was an ex- body guard of the ex- President of Burkina Faso. Police sources disclosed that Braimah is alleged to have committed some crimes in his home country and had been on the wanted list of the security forces of Burkina Faso, the reason he dashed to the country. The police in Burkina Faso were also monitoring him, so when they found out that the Ghana Police have arrested him, they ( police in Burkina Faso) contacted us, but since we just arrested him we could not just hand him over to them, Superintendent Musah Awinba said. The CID Chief could not confirm if the suspect had some links with the terrorists who attacked a hotel in Burkina Faso a few days ago. In the absence of the real facts relating to the case, Superintendent Awinba said the most appropriate thing to do was to refer the case to the security agencies in Burkina Faso for further investigations. The Burkina Faso police will be able to know if he is linked or involved with the terror attack, since it happened there, he added. News recently made the rounds that Police in the Upper West region had picked up a man suspected to be a terrorist, who was believed to have fled Burkina Faso into Ghana, after the terror attack in Burkina Faso. The suspect was said to be an ex-serviceman, believed to be part of the terror group that attacked a hotel in the Burkina Faso capital, Ouagadougou, last week, killing 28 people. Meanwhile, last Sunday, ten soldiers from a disbanded elite unite loyal to Burkina Faso's ex-president were arrested over a raid on an armoury outside the country's capital, Ouagadougou. The pre-dawn raid on Friday at the weapons warehouse underscored the challenges facing new President Roch March Christian Kabore. From Musah Umar Farouq, Wa 28.01.2016 LISTEN The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Haruna Idrrisu, says pension legislation of the security agencies in Ghana are not in conformity with the National Pension Act 766. He said past credit and unification in the pension regulations of the Ghana Police Service, Ghana Armed Forces, Ghana Prisons Service and other security agencies do not synchronise with the national pension act. According to him, there is a clear lack of understanding, which he termed as conflict of the law, stressing that the security agencies exist under their own pension rules and regulations, while there is a National Pension Act 766. He asserted: We need a reconciliation of the legislation to ensure that there is a unification of the implementation of those pension results. The Employment and Labour Relations Minister, who was speaking at the opening ceremony of National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) Zonal Office at Asokwa in Kumasi, recently announced that Government had given policy approval for NPRA to be weaned from Government's subventions and be autonomous. He jokingly told NPRA that they are no longer going to be a spoilt toddler that is still asking for breast milk and urged NPRA to learn to find food on their own and be on their own. Touching on the second tier pensions saga, which ensued a protracted tussle between Trade Union Congress TUC and Government: he stated: the Government's motive was simple to guarantee pension income security for retiring workers, having had a fulfilling working life, the best Government can do is to assure workers of happy time in their retirement. Your income security will not be jeopardized on the merit of improper or inappropriate of investment, Mr. Haruna stressed. He underscored that President John Dramani's administration and government will at all times, hold through to guarantee pension income security for all Ghanaians. Asokwahene helps the Labour Minister to cut the tape to commission the office On the use of NPRA funds, he directed NPRA to issue new policy investment guidelines that will guide the use of pension resources as they open up the second year pension regime. He expressed satisfaction about NPRA's action of transferring all funds including outstanding once, which has been held in the temporary pension fund account of the Bank of Ghana, which he said has denied some better investment opportunities the money could have been utilized for. The labour minister said the NDC government was honoring a pledge which was made by President Mahama in the State of the Nation address that NPRA must show its presence in the Regional Capitals in particular, to strengthen pension regulations. According to him, interchanging NPRA for SNNIT is a clear lack of understanding which casts across many minds. SNNIT is subject to the regulatory mandate and control of the NPRA He commended the board and management of NPRA for showing presence outside of the Region. I can only look forward to the opening of the northern zone and that of the western Region in the first half or worst still the second part of the year 2016. He urged pensioners not to hesitate to report any act of omission, commission or any conduct relative to their pension to the NPRA. Touching on the appointments in state owned companies, the Tamale South MP warned that no Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in Government institutions should be in an acting position for more than six months or at worst one year. He stressed it is not an acceptable practice with well-known and established practices within the public services across Ghana. The Minister, therefore, said all Boards in state institutions must ensure that within six months, they revert to the appointing authority, who is the President of Ghana, with their recommendations either supporting or denying the appointment accordingly. It is the best way Ghanaians can see President John Dramani Mahama exercising his lawful mandate and authority as the appointing authority, within the meaning of Article 70 and 195 of the 1992 Republican constitution, he noted. According to him, he expects all boards, councils, commission, which has a dual role to support the President in this endeavour, not to keep them in the pitch and in the touchline for too long, in the role of acting Chief Executive or Managing Director. personnel of Ghana Police Service Dr. Nii Kpakpo Sowah, chairing the function, said the opening of Kumasi NPRA office after that of Greater Accra is quite significant. He assured the public, employers, workers to educate the masses more about the opportunities associated with NPRA, which he said can be done campaign intensification. He revealed that 2,056 scheme under the second tier scheme enrolment will be carried out in outreach programs, institutions, radio and television. Dr. Kpakpo told the function that, as at December 3, 2015, NPRA had transferred equivalent amount of GHc193, 000,000 from the popular pension account to the accounts of NPRA and that they will keep transferring the rest of the funds from the Bank of Ghana to NPRA. He urged NPRA workers to stay committed to their duty and thanked Otumfuo Osei Tutu II for helping NPRA get a zonal office From Richard Owusu-Akyaw, Kumasi Telecoms operators and banks in the country are in a tussle over how to pay interest to mobile money customers as per the requirement of the new Electronic Money Issuers (EMI) Guidelines. The tussle stems from the fact that the banks said they want to pay 100 per cent of the interests directly to the mobile money customers, but the telcos want the banks to pay the moneys to them so that they will pay out 80 per cent to customers and keep 20 per cent for their operations. Moreover, the telcos also want the banks to pay a handsome interest on the over GHC600 million, which has sat with them for years and they have used it for business over a long period of time, but some banks are said to be refusing to pay interest, while others are promising a meager one per cent interest. Section 10 (5 - 9) of the EMI guidelines directs banks to pay interest on moneys lodge with the from the four mobile money platforms, MTN Mobile Money, Airtel Money, Tigo Cash and Vodafone Cash. It clearly stated in subsection 5 that the e-money issuers (telcos) must pay a minimum of 80 per cent of the interest accruing from on the cash flow to the e-money holders (customers), and keep a maximum of 20 per cent for their operations. The guidelines also said interest accruing from the e-money float should be put in a special account and withdrawals should only be made by the telcos with proof to the banks of going to pay interests to customers. No part of the guidelines talked about banks paying 100 per cent of the interest directly to mobile money customers, which is what the banks are seeking to do, in defiance of the guidelines. Very soon, mobile money customers will start demanding their interests, but the telcos said they face a situation where they may not be able to pay because the Ghana Bankers Association (GBA) has instructed its members not to pay the interest to the telcos to forward to their customers. Telcos argument Unhappy telcos officials have been telling Adom News that for years, hundreds of millions of physical cash from the various telcos mobile money platforms have been with the partner banks and they do business with it and generate interest without paying any interest to the mobile money customers. Now the BoGs new EMI Guidelines require the banks to pay interest to the telcos to be forwarded to customers, and they are just proving difficult. Some of the banks are said to have come up with the excuse that they keep the funds from the mobile money platforms in current accounts, which do not bear interest. Meanwhile, the banks are said to have been investing these moneys in treasuring bills and other instruments, which attract over 25% interest in some cases. The telcos said the matter has been reported to the Central Bank but they also seem to be dragging their feet about the whole issue, and are rather suggesting to telcos to trade their service charges for the interest on e-money. But the telcos said they cannot stop making service charges because up to 70% of their service charges go to their merchants to motivate them to work - and that is how come just one of them (MTN), for instance, has over 30,000 merchants across the country, which is more than all bank branches in the country put together. They explained that the whole idea behind the new guidelines was to boost the drive towards a cashless/cash-lite society and one key way to achieve that is to spread merchants across the country to push the financial inclusion agenda. If we stop service charges it will be a de-motivator for the merchant business and counterproductive to the financial inclusion effort, the telcos insist. The telcos also noted that everywhere mobile money has succeeded, there are service charges and partner banks also pay interest on the cash flow from the mobile money platforms lodged with them. They are therefore surprised that the banks in Ghana are behaving the way they are, and they seem bent on making the mobile money system not work effectively. Bankers response CEO of GBA, Daniel K. Mensah has told Adom News that it is never true that banks do not want to pay interest, but it is rather the telcos who want to shortchange e-money holders (mobile money customers). He explained that the cash flow from the mobile money platforms are put in current accounts which do not earn interest in most banks, but all the banks have agreed to move that cash into interest-bearing accounts and pay 100 percent interest directly to the customers. "The guidelines also require the telcos to give us a list of e-money holders for us to pay 100 per cent of the interests to them but the telcos want the money to be paid to them so they will keep 20 per cent and pay only 80 per cent to the holders," he said. Mr. Mensah said the money is not for the telcos but for the customers, and the telcos make service charges on the use of those moneys so there is no legal justification for them to seek to take a portion of the customers' interest as well. On the issue of the level of interest, he said each bank has their own level of interest they pay on each interest-bearing account so it differs from bank to bank. "But the uniform thing here is that we have agreed to migrate the cash flow from current accounts to interest-bearing accounts and pay interests to customers directly and not to telcos who want to keep part of the money meant for customers," he said. "We have therefore as the telcos to give a list of the holders so that we can pay interest to them directly," he said. An Accra Circuit Court on Wednesday threw out a case the Chieftaincy Minister brought against three leaders of the African-American community in Akwamu in the Eastern Region. Dr. Henry Seidu Daannaa had instructed police to arrest the three leaders in October 2014 accusing them of keeping titles as chiefs and presenting themselves as such contrary to law. Lawyer for the accused persons, Samson Lardy Anyenini, moved the court to strike out the case for want of prosecution. He reiterated his initial position that the criminal charged pressed against his clients was a sham as his clients were only custodians of a symbolic stool created in the early nineties under the guidance of Odeneho Nana Oduro Numapau II, then President of the National House of Chiefs and Paramount Chief of the Esumeja Traditional Area. Samson Lardy Anyenini Mr. Anyenini urged the court to take note of the fact that both Complainant and Prosecution have for over a year failed to show up in court to lead any evidence in an offence that ought to have been tried summarily. The accused persons had earlier accused the minister of fronting for his friend, one Osofo Frempong who laid claim to the stool. A claim Dr. Daanaa denied. The Presiding Judge agreed with the lawyer and also expressed concern about the developments and proceeded to discharge Goloi Osakwe Akpan and his mother Majewa Akpan. A son of the original complainant in the case, Anokye Yaw Frempong in May 2015 confessed in open Court to having murdered other two women leaders of the Diasporan community in Akwamu including the third accused, Memlena Diop. Mr. Anyenini told myjoyonline.com he was worried that Dr. Daannaa had completely abandoned his promise to ensure a smooth succession plan after he seized the symbolic Fihankra Stool and Skin in April 2014 and handing them over to the National House of Chiefs with instructions for an immediate reconstitution of the Committee that created the entity in 1994. He blamed the situation for the gruesome murders in the community last year stressing it was critical not to forget that entity now being destroyed is the only actual vehicle to further the decades of preaching by the Diaspora movement to their ancestral home to assist in its holistic development. 28.01.2016 LISTEN I took my usual 30 kilometers walk to the dark skinned woman who sells my fav butter bread in the wooden shop near the Kasoa traffic light. She smiles anytime I get there as though she relished my presence or so. As I drew closer, I realized that activities around have been brought to a standstill. The place was fully armed with police and military men an unusual scenery. No one was moving except me or it looks that way. The cars from the four ends of the road have been stopped. The phone repairers, market sellers, and children selling pure water, rushed to the road in an expectant mood throwing furtive glances anywhere. I saw a lady tossed the question: who? on her lips as she chew her gum which look whitish than she first bought it. She bubbled it with the help of her tongue. It produced a ta sound and she giggled locking my eyes into hers. I monitored my steps as I drew closer to my favorite seller. She smiles. I saw her right hand reached for her left ear to adjust the headset she had on. I shoveled GHC5.00 out of my pocket to her and called out: 3 cedis butter bread. I want the soft one. She nodded as though responding to me, but I realized her response was a consequence of what she was listening over her phone. I was not excited with the bread she gave me, at least she saw that herself. It was not the kind she gives me. I felt anger begin to gather in my head for this woman who had no clue what was about to happen to her. I clashed my teeth as she hands the change to me. Thank you, she said. As I moved onto the road I saw motor riders sped toward where I stood heading for Accra. The riders were soon to be followed by seven as I took the count black V8 cars burying the presidents car in the middle with the Ghana flag and the flag of the presidency sitting on the front tips of the car. I saw the excitement on the faces of onlookers - beamed and tossed to others the way an infection spreads. The police men and women were not left in the excitement. They each froze their right hand midair saluting the Commander-In-Chief of the nation, while holding their legs together until the presidents car sped past them. A boy shouted: respect the old man. A man who was then seconds away from me took a step closer to me. Occupying a leadership position in Ghana is sweet, he said. I turned to his direction in acknowledgement of his unsolicited opinion. He smiled. I replied with a smile. He looked at me. He felt hes found a friend in me or something like that. This is our country, but the poor are left out in the prosperity of the nation, he continued. He went on to give me some solid analysis to stress his points. As he talked, my mind went back to the butter bread seller. The pile of bread she had arranged today looked enticing like the sunny thighs of a woman. Who wouldnt want a bite? In same fashion, building prosperity in this country must be socially engineered to benefit everyone the poor, socially disadvantaged persons, physically challenged persons, and the rich alike. We cannot turn to the poor anytime we need their mandate only to abandon them on the way. This is our country. We all deserve a bite. The cake, when shared with justice, care, humanness, love, patriotism and future-mindedness would be enough to satisfy the greed of all of us and not some of us. The whole is better and active than the sum of all of us. This country is our heritage, like the traditional butter bread, we all have to taste it. 28.01.2016 LISTEN My analysis is to outline the public perceptions of the two major candidates of the November 7,2016 elections and it will be up to the reader to decide to what extent the public perceptions will work for or against a particular candidate. Perceptions are underrated in our society but they do matter. In this article I will outline the positive and negative perceptions first of President John Dramani mahama, and thereafter look at opposition leader Nana Akuffo Addo. Perceptions about Mahama's Character: President Mahama has been projected as a humble person, who never dreamt of being president and is not power hungry. He once voluntary relinguished MP to another Ndc member on instruction or assurance as vice presidential candidate in 2008 election. It is also argued this is the reason that late President anointed him to take over from him,but per the Ghana's constitution,the Vice President resume the duties of the president in his up-sent either dead or alive. On the other hand, it is believed that president Mahama is such a weaker leader and can easily be manipulated therefore not fit to be a President. It is argued that president Mahama is not his own man and he is surrounded by uncouth characters who are corrupt and are all out to protect their interests. There is a belief that president Mahama loves women like the late Alhaji Aliu mahama. President mahama is said to be a drunkard and possibly an alcoholic. It is alleged that as a result of his drinking habit over a long period of time, he has a kidney problem!. That's people's mind. Most supporters of president Mahama gravitate towards him because he is said to be a team player who listens to other peoples views before making a decision and has no dictatorial tendencies. This argued is a mark of a great and successful leader and is a major departure from his former boss, late President Mills who was known to be a dictator and a Feroo. President Mahama, they say is prepared to learn and he does not have a know it all attitude like his predecessor nor his current opponent, Nana Akuffo Addo. There are those who feel president John Mahama's ascendancy to the Presidency is rather meteoric. He has not achieved anything of note in life. His resume is thin and there is nothing to write home about. He is basically a non achiever as argued!. There is a perceptions that president John Mahama represents the common man and this attribute endeared him well with the late president Atta Mills. He was an MP of Bole constituency which is made up poor people. He has lived in Bole among the poor and he easily relates to them. In addition, President Mahama grew up in a metropolitan area which was a boiling point of different tribes. There was no tribalism during its upbringing as all tribes lived in harmony. This background makes him a unifier and not prejudiced. He can easily and naturally relate to any Ghanaian regardless of the region they come from! The friends he has are from different tribal groupings. Perceptions about Nana Akuffo Addo's Character: Nana Addo was born in Accra in very humble rich surroundings with great lawyers and statesmen. It is a story of from riches to riches. Nana Addo is perceived as a womanizer and regular user of hard drugs. He is perceived as a highly successful lawyer although they are a lot of question marks to it and a serious business man who can replicate his success to the Presidency of the country. On the other hand , Nana Akuffo Addo is said to be arrogant, power hungry and stubborn whose success has gotten to his head and does not relate well the less successful people nor poor people. His critics point to his refusal to be held certain positions when he was offered the job as well as his refusal to be Listening to former president kufour when he appointed him as the Attorney General and minister for justice which led to certain decision taken by him,that brought the whole npp regime into dispute and as evidence of being power hungry and bigoted. There is general agreement that if the Presidency only involved hiring a person on basis of qualifications to fix the economy and candidates were given a job interview, Alhaji Dr. Mahamuru Bawumia and Nana Akuffo Addo beat other candidates hands down! Alas the requirements of Public office is much more complex than that. When John Kufour was President, The Npp was perceived as a National party and it was growing in leaps and bounds. The top leadership had a national character and if it had not been for his constitutional mandate and by the change of the winning formulae by Nana Akuffo Addo administration, Npp would have been in Government by now as they were a progressive party at that time. Ascendancy of Nana Addo from no where to lead the party which resulted in massive secret resignation or non involvement of some party bigwigs, the party and its leader Nana Addo has been perceived as a tribal Party. It is believed that tribalism is in Nana Akuffo Addo's DNA partly because of his upbringing or his closeness in the village,Akyem Abuakwa. It is a case of : He was born in the Village and the Village was born in him. Nana Akuffo Addo has not made enough efforts to distance himself from the tribal tag. The recent tribal statements by Some of his loyalist actions against Paul Afoko has just enhanced this tribal perception which was somehow waning a bit during the Npp implosion. The tribal monkey is back on Nana Addo's back. There is, however, a positive perception about Nana Addo being a strong leader and a no-nonsense person who is used to making hard decisions given his experience as a lawyer. The Presidency is all about making difficult decisions. The Country which is as sick as Ghana is in terms of lack of the rule of law and other ills needs a knowledgeable and strong leader who should make decisions which are in the best interests of the country and not for political expediency. Nana Akuffo Addo therefore fits the bill. Nana Akuffo Addo is said, by those who are close to him, to be dictatorial and not a team player with a know it all attitude. It argued that if one strongly disagrees with him, he harbours grudges for a long time and he can be very unforgiving. He does not reconcile easily to those who differ with him. He somehow does not understand that the definition of politics being disagreement and the need for compromise. It also felt by others that he is a divisive character not a team player or unifier . This perception was clearly demonstrated few years to the public by his boycotting of certain important national issues. He missed great opportunities of show casing himself as national leader and taking advantage of the optics of such occasions. There is also a perception that Nana Addo is member of the free Masons which Christians believe is a Satanist movement. He has not done enough to dispel this perception which can be damaging to some sections of voters. In addition, there is also a belief that he represents foreign interests and as a liquidator of some banks,mines and parastatals, he greatly benefited personally and this was the source of his riches. He is compared to the Russian Oligarchs who were mostly young clever Russians like Chelseas Ramanov and others who got rich when the USSR disintegrated by cleverly looting Government assets In many other jurisdictions where voters are enlightened, the personality of the candidate, and his track record can influence who eventually emerges as a winner. In Africa in general, and Ghana in particular, the impart of perceptions by voters on the candidate is unknown. The value judgements of our society is also different. In western countries for example, President Zuma of South Africa could not have been elected twice President because of his baggage of corruption and polygamism. In Africa ,there is a tendency to vote for the Party rather than the person but also we vote for a person we identify with. The winners are normally who the majority feel with promote their interests and who will satify the majoritys basic needs .Also, the weight assigned to the positive and negative perceptions by voters differ quite a lot because of the societal value judgement. The winner, in my view, will be the one whose values that the majority of the voting block will identify with!. Ibrahim Hardi,contact 0208235615,email; [email protected] The African Cassava Agronomy Initiative (ACAI) project kicks-off today with plans to improve the livelihoods and incomes of cassava farmers in Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, and DR Congo by researching, and tapping into and implementing best-bet agronomic practices. The project, which is led by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) with funding support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will specifically improve cassava yields, cassava root quality, cassava supply to the processing sector, and fertilizer sales, thereby engaging over 100,000 households in Nigeria and Tanzania, and facilitating the engagement of at least 30% women farmers. The value of benefits from this project in Nigeria and Tanzania is projected to be over 27 million USD. Furthermore, through engagement of households in Ghana, Uganda, and DR Congo and through extra interest generated in the products developed by the project, these figures are expected to increase for at least 150,000 households and a value created of at least 40 million USD within the 5-year time frame of the project, explained Dr Bernard Vanlauwe, IITA Director for Central Africa on Wednesday in Ibadan Nigeria. In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), cassava productivity has marginally increased to around 1011 tons per hectare, well below attainable yields of over 30 tons per hectare. With the need for intensifying cassava production in areas where population densities have reduced access to fallow land and with cassava roots becoming important raw material for the processing sector, this yield gap needs to be reduced. Nigerias Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Audu Ogbe, said the current yield of less than 15 tons per hectare makes Nigerian farmers uncompetitive in the cassava sector. This initiative should find a solution to the issue of low productivity, Ogbe who was represented by Mrs Comfort Awe said. The ACAI initiative is placed within the context of intensification of cassava-based systems with a focus on the development of cassava agronomy recommendations to improve the productivity and quality of cassava roots in Nigeria, Tanzania, Ghana, and Uganda, major cassava-producing countries in West and East Africa, and some spillover into East DR Congo. The project will be phased, starting in Nigeria and Tanzania in years 1 and 2 and will expand to the other countries from year 3 onwards. Dr Nteranya Sanginga, IITA Director General said agronomy would provide the key to unlocking the potential of cassava in Africa. If we want to increase the productivity of cassava, we must breed new varieties, improve the agronomy and value addition. I think we have done a lot in the area of breeding, what we need to do now is to capitalize on the agronomy, Dr Sanginga said. The ACAI project will harness African and international expertise, and follows a demand-driven approach whereby its interventions are responding to specific agronomy-related needs by partners already actively engaged in cassava dissemination and value chain activities in the target countries. The vision of success of ACAI is to deliver the necessary knowledge base and tools for accessing this knowledge to cassava scaling partners and ultimately farmers in the target countries while instituting the necessary capacity and skills for national system scientists to engage in transformative cassava agronomy. The ultimate goal is to improve the productivity per unit area, Dr Abdulai Jalloh, Project Coordinator for ACAI said. It is envisaged that through institutionalization of innovative approaches for problem-solving, the initiative will build the capacity of national partners to sustain the technology development pipeline, deliver continuous improvements in cassava agronomy technologies, as well as address new constraints. 28.01.2016 LISTEN I perfectly agree with Peter Suakas open letter to GNAT that teachers in Ghana need smarter souvenirs and not the usual diaries, key holders and radios, to facilitate their work in delivering lessons and shaping the future leaders of John Mahama's Ghana. The letter which was published on the 19th of January in this portal raises one of the important issues that is of worry to many teachers; especially young and ambitious teachers. I intend, in this piece, to continue from where Peter ended and raise a few issues as well. To start with, Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) should be ashamed of going to the market to purchase inferior products year on year as souvenirs for professionals at a time when student representative councils in tertiary institutions are buying quality products with scarcer resources. The diaries provided by GNAT is probably the most inferior compared to the ones provided by, NAGRAT, Concerned Teachers (a group no one knows what they are concerned about) and other professionals. If you write note like my brothers in Islam pray, your diary will soon "check out'' of its cover within months like a descaling-snake does. As for the radios, the least said about them the better, because such radios are best fit for children below primary six. They have no status, no swagtoyish and dont even last. Or can any GNAT executive present such diaries or radios as a gift to a friend of his/her class? Would such gifts be appreciated? Come on, get smart GNAT! GNAT has so many investments across the country which are products of teachers dues, but many teachers do not benefit from these investments. The appalling thing now is that they "force" teachers to enroll on Teachers Mutual Fund as if it is the panacea to teachers' financial problems. So those who have not subscribed to be part of the Mutual Fund have their salaries deducted from source because GNAT has access to salaries from Controller and Accountant Generals Department. As a result, yours truly and several other colleagues have fractions of their salaries deducted from source as monthly contributions to the Teachers Mutual Fund(TMF) without any document of agreement and to make things worse, attempts to petition TMF through email on their website proves futile. GNAT should find a smart way of addressing this issue by reimbursing the funds to those who are not interested in contributing to the Mutual Fund or present document to those who want to keep their membership with the fund manager since their local offices are not effective. ISSUES OF CONFIDENCE One important ingredient that is lacking in our education system is confidence. Our students dont have it because the teachers lack it. Not only do teachers lack confidence in themselves, they do not also have faith in the Ghana Education Service (GES) and GNAT. Many energetic teachers are leaving the teaching field today not because they are not patriotic but because of frustrations, contempt and intimidation from staff of GES and GNAT who themselves are insecure and lack proper human resource management skills. This has to change so young, intelligent and ambitious teachers (who are suitable role models for our kids) will remain committed to their first love and not go looking for greener pastures in other careers. GNAT has also failed to exude confidence as a major stakeholder in the education ecosystem. Now that sister associations are competing with GNAT for significance, the parent association of the Ghanaian teacher cannot s sit aloof with its hands between its thighs. Over the years, teachers remained silent as the duration for senior high school has been tossed around like the testicles of a naked man, and now that election is approaching the Free SHS policy is going to be the main education policy for almost all the political parties. GNAT executives should not wait for appointments by governments to education committees, or until journalists come haunting them with questions before they give individualistic opinion on education policies of governments and political parties. One way to do this is to join forces with NAGRAT and Concerned Teachers to issue a solid expert opinion on such policies. Posterity deserves an association of teachers which is proactive on policies concerning education because when results of students are poor it is the teacher that receives the lions share of blame. The curriculum of Universities and Colleges of Education should make room for such courses as leadership and personal development with treads of financial education to help build confidence in the role models of our children. The above, I believe, should not be too hard for the parent association of teachers to advocate. Frederick K. Kofi Tse [email protected] 28.01.2016 LISTEN Dear Ghanaian, Seven years ago we handed the NDC a book called Ghana. We retained a copy of the book. The idea was that we would read this book together and achieve national growth and development. Seven years on, it seems Deputy Ministers are reading the book backwards, Ministers have actually stopped reading the book, the Vice President never even knew such a book was handed over to them and the President is reading an entirely different book. The results are that the Government is moving in a direction which is both anti growth and anti development. When ordinary Ghanaians express concerns over the sorry state of affairs the President either joins in the chorus of lamentation or asserts his place in Animalis Regnum as a dead goat. The escapable truth is that this country, for every year the NDC has been in office, has fallen deeper and deeper into the abyss of irresponsible leadership. Instead of finding solutions to the problems that confront our nation, Ministers in their entitlement mentality sit idle on the radio, calling for alternatives from opposition parties and others who point out the obvious consequences of their irresponsible actions. Deputy Ministers have reduced their high offices to zoos from which the Government from time to time can pick and unleash rabid attack dogs unto Ghanaians who dare challenge the intellectual quality of the Government's policy prescriptions. Appointments are dished out in a manner that defines cronyism in super colourful terms. Not too long ago the Government announced an end to the energy crisis; such an announcement is of course welcomed. But the energy crisis was only a symptom of the greater evil we suffer, a crisis of leadership, a crisis of responsibility. There is no sense of responsibility in Government. Deputy Ministers think it is their Ministers who must fix the problems that confront the nation, Ministers think it is the President who must fix the problems, the President thinks it is Ministers and deputy Ministers and so when he feels like he does a musical chair removing square pegs from round holes and replacing them with even bigger square pegs!... The entire Government has been reduced to a laughable circus of reshuffles reminiscent in fashion and in substance to the childish game of musical chairs. The only person not involved in this comedy is the Vice President. Not because he is any more responsible of his work, but because he is entirely clueless as to the responsibility of his office. This collection of misfits running this nation cannot move this nation in the direction and pace of development needed to address the fundamental challenges we face and make us a prosperous nation. The NDC subscribes to a perverse ideology that has no place in a modern world. This is the Party that shall be seeking for your vote this year; the party that wasted an entire seven years of looting the resources of the nation. You have a duty to stop them. It is time to take action; to campaign for a change in the direction of Governance. To replace overpaid self-seeking incompetents with leaders who put the future of our nation at the heart and mind of their policies and not their pockets. The NPP has a record in office. It is a record of real positive change. It is a record the Government on international platforms is happy to praise as the product of good governance. That is the kind of governance Ghana needs now. Vote for a Government that would truly be accountable to you. Vote for the Government that was able to both balance the books and bring our nation real development. Vote for Nana Addo and the NPP. Vote for change! Kofi Opare Hagan. A visitor pictures the Venere Capitolina or Capitoline Venus on display at Rome's Capitoline Museum on January 26, 2016. The visiting Iranian president Hassan Rouhani has denied asking his Italian hosts to cover up the classical nude statues in the museum. (AFP Rome: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday he had not asked his Italian hosts to cover up classical nude statues in a Rome museum he visited with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. A smiling Rouhani told reporters he had no contact on the subject with Italian authorities. I know that the Italians are very hospitable, a people who seek to make their guests visits as pleasant as possible and I thank them for that, he added. Rouhani and Renzi made speeches in Romes Capitoline Museum on Tuesday, with a huge statue of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius on a horse featuring prominently in many of the photographs of the event. But nude statues, including a Venus dating from the second century BC, had all been covered up in temporary wooden cartons, removing the risk of them creeping into any of the shots or catching Rouhanis eye. Italian culture minister Dario Franceschini, who accompanied Rouhani on the museum trip, called the classical cover-up incomprehensible. He insisted that neither Renzi nor himself had been made aware of the decision in advance. The Italian media on Wednesday railed against an excess of zeal and placed the blame on the office in charge of protocol during visits by foreign dignitaries. Sources in Romes city hall, which manages the museum, assured the press that the municipality had played no role in the decision. The museum cover-up was not the only step taken in Italy to ensure the Iranian visit passed off smoothly. As Rouhani refuses to attend official meals at which any alcohol is available, wine was strictly off the menu at both lunch with President Sergio Mattarella and dinner with Renzi. According to media reports, France has baulked at making a similar placatory gesture, leaving diplomats preparing for Rouhanis visit to Paris from Wednesday with a major protocol headache. Italys anti-immigration Northern League denounced what it called submission to a culture which we dont share. 28.01.2016 LISTEN The dawn of the mobile or cell phone has brought more bonding among family members and friends. The small, handheld device has done wonders in the lives of mankind more than many other inventions. This communicative device has made man become his brothers keeper. This device has enabled man become a tamed animal living in a world of no escape from humanity. Those were the days when people left their families and could not reach out back to them from wherever because of lack of communication devices such as a mobile phone. Today, the mobile phone is used for many good and bad things. One of the good uses of the mobile phone is for business transactions in diverse ways. Mobile Money businesses come in many ways and have begun to transform the traditional ways of transacting businesses and transmitting money. People are now walking with their money digitally. Current Challenges of Mobile Money Business Great and convenient as mobile money transactions might be for both customers and merchants, several times pleasant business transactions have not been experienced due to many factors hindering the mobile money business. No Network, in Ghana this is a common practice experienced by customers, who do businesses through mobile money and they experience no network problems from the mobile money companies which provide the network services as well as the mobile money services. People have got their money locked up with these mobile money telecommunication companies even under circumstances that human lives are involved. People send money to family and friends to buy medications for sick people who are at emergency units only to be denied by the mobile money companies that there is no network and sometimes the no network could take a whole day. This is heartbreaking and horrendous. System Upgrade, this could result in the no network syndrome or could also bring its own problems of not making business transactions friendly for customers for a particular range of time. No Money, this also happens where the merchant or agent does not have enough money for withdrawal purposes by customers. Sometimes, the agents money also get locked up with the mother mobile money company because of the no network nonsense and sometimes, too their working capital is meager to take care of larger volumes of customers cash withdrawals. Withdrawal Limits, this is where the mobile money telecommunication company places a limit on how much could be withdrawn by customers within a day. This could be stressful and time-consuming for the customers as it could take sometimes a whole week or more to make withdrawals of all ones money locked up with the mobile money telecommunication without generating interest, yet they could use it to make more money at the customers expense. Some links have been established with some banks for withdrawals beyond certain limits but how many people transact businesses with those banks and how many branches do those banks have across Ghana? Charges on cash withdrawals, the charges on withdrawals sometimes do not make it cost effective to send money through mobile money. Some of the mobile money telecommunication companies even charge double the amount charged. For instance, I send money to someone using my mobile phone registered number; they would charge me and charge the one I sent the money to when he withdraws. This does not make transacting businesses through mobile money for cost-effective. One of the main mobile money companies is guilty of the double charges and it needs to change for the better else, it will have itself to blame as others charge once, only the withdrawal point. They do not charge once the money is still in the system exchanging numbers or hands. No interest on money with mobile money companies, even if ones money stays in ones wallet for three months, one will not get a pesewa on top as interest. The mobile money companies need to have a paradigm shit towards a win-win situation where the customer also benefits. There should be a minimum period for which if ones stays with them beyond that period it should start to accrue some interest to the customer. Money Laundering and Wrong Number Transactions, during the latter part of 2015, some measures were taken to check the activities of money laundering through mobile money business transactions because, it was noticed that people had begun laundering money through mobile money transactions and also people also either sent money to people wrongly or received money from people they did not know and that called for the measures that were introduced by Bank Ghana and the mobile money telecommunication companies to help check those activities. Illiterates Have Difficulties, until recently that the processes of withdrawing cash through mobile money were reviewed; it was a bit complex for many people and people with no education or with very low educational backgrounds had and still have problems using their secret codes to withdraw money. Many times, the agents help them key in the pass codes for them to make withdrawals and so the illiterates do not really have secret codes as their mm pins are no more secrets. If per chance, someone, who knows their codes, gets access to their mobile phone, that person could use their details to withdraw money and it will take some time before the person could be arrested as they are countless mobile money agents scattered around in Ghana to be able to be traced easily. Loss of Mobile Phone with Sim Card, if one loses ones mobile phone together with the sim card loaded with ones money; one could only get back the money after getting a new phone and new sim card replaced. So if one does not have money immediately to buy new phone and sim card or borrow someone elses phone to make the mobile money withdrawals, one cannot have ones money back. Unregistered Dealers/Agents, there are few dealers out there who use their personal mobile phone numbers that are not necessarily registered for mobile money businesses with the mobile money telecommunication companies to transact mobile money businesses. Most of those dealers do not have enough working capital to serve their customers and keep disappointing them. Most of these dealers are located in the remote parts of the country, where moving to a town or city to have an enterprise registered with the Registrar General Department to be used for mobile money business transactions could be a very difficult task. No regulation, currently in Ghana, there are no proper laws governing the operations of mobile money. The mobile money companies do want they want and their agents also do what they want. If a mobile money company winds up expectantly today, would we know how much money from Ghanaians would have been locked up with it and would it be in a position to refund the money to the customers and how convenient would it be? The issue of No Network where people have their money locked with the mobile money companies need to be stopped by the regulators. There should be punishments for mobile money companies that fail to honor their obligations with withdrawals with the excuse that there is no network, unless it is caused by an act of God. Future of Mobile Money: I believe mobile money businesses have come to stay and will the next multi-dollar business sector as huge sums of money is going to be transacted through mobile money. Very soon mobile money will be used for recognized online international business transactions and payment of all business transactions even with government departments. Since the future seems bright for the mobile money businesses, all the challenges above need to be addressed by the Ministry of Finance, Bank of Ghana, Mobile Money Telecommunication Companies and their agents and all other stakeholders. I can see a future of a well regulated mobile money industry taking over the businesses of banks that do not find rewarding options of retaining their clientele base and do not adapt to the modern systems of doing businesses. The mobile money companies should come out with fastest, easiest and most convenient ways of enabling customers to make deposits and withdrawals. Normal ATMs of banks or mobile money ATMs should be introduced and stationed or located at even the remotest parts of the country to help rural people to have easy access to make deposits and withdrawals. The writer is an Accountant and Financial Literacy Activist , 2016, Godwin-Xavier Ayeebo Email: [email protected] President John Mahama 28.01.2016 LISTEN Patience is needed by investors, farmers, expectant mothers and greatly needed by politicians. Patiently, Binduri too has been recognized by the affable President, John Mahama through its son. I wish to sincerely congratulate Hon. Dr. Robert Kuganab-Lem on his nomination as the Upper East Regional Deputy Minister. The people of Binduri should be proud of Dr. Robert Kuganab-Lem, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentary Candidate for the 2016 Elections for having been the first Parliamentary Candidate in the Binduri Constituency to have been nominated for a ministerial position under the Fourth Republican Constitution. This nomination and subsequent approval by Parliament put Binduri on the limelight as far as ministerial appointments are concerned and this clearly communicates that His Excellency, President John Dramani Mahama has not forgotten about the good people of Binduri Since 1992 the good people of Binduri have always voted massively for the NDC Presidential Candidates and Binduri is a constituency where NDC has won all the Presidential Elections since 1992. The time has therefore come for their loyalty to be recognized and rewarded. Dr. Kunganab-Lems appointment should be seen by the people of Binduri as recognition of their undying love for and loyalty to the great NDC. The good people of Binduri should therefore come out with one common voice to support Dr. Robert Kuganab-Lem as he begins a new journey and to come out strongly to rally around him and vote massively for him and President, John Dramani Mahama in the Parliamentary and Presidential Elections this year, 2016. It is highly expected that Hon. Dr. Kuganab-Lem when he assumes office after going through Parliamentary vetting and approval would use his good offices and his expertise to bring development to the Upper East Region so that Binduri could have its share. The Deputy Minister nominee knows the problems of Binduri very well and should do his best to help solve some of the persistent annual and seeming perennial problems that occur at Binduri. One of the main problems for the people of Binduri is lack of potable drinking water and it is high time this perennial problem was solved. Binduri District has about 124 communities and people have lived in Binduri for centuries yet Binduri has no District Hospital. Seeking for healthcare in Binduri is a nightmare and pregnant women and children are completely at the mighty mercies of God for healthcare providence. The performances of students in examinations at the BECE and WASSCE have been very bad consistently for so many years compared to performances in other districts in the country and this problem seems not to be tackled. The future of the children of Binduri does not look good as many do not pass these examinations with ease and their parents are also not economically prepared to help them resit for as many times as time and money would allow them till they pass to continue to higher levels. The standards of performances in BECE and WASSCE must improve in Binduri. The solutions to these problems are the collective responsibilities of every citizen of Binduri though the leaders must lead and spearhead and make headways for the masses to support them. Hon. Dr. Kuganab-Lem should therefore call on the Sitting Member of Parliament for Binduri, Hon. Ben Noah Azure, the chiefs, opinion and women leaders of Binduri for support to help develop Binduri, one of the most deprived districts in Ghana. Now, it is my wish that any grown up in Binduri would also see the kind gesture of President, John Dramani Mahama and in return give their maximum support to Dr. Kuganab-Lem to perform well at the regional level that could cascade down to Binduri. It is my heartfelt wish that during the period Dr.Kuganab-Lem would occupy the ministerial position; Upper East Region will see more developmental projects so Binduri could have its share. May the Good Lord take you through this new journey and grant you what it takes to deliver the goods excellently. , 2016 Godwin-Xavier Ayeebo (A son of Binduri) Email:[email protected] While the African Union is currently holding its 26th summit in Addis Ababa, FIDH urges heads of States and governments to adopt a strong resolution to overcome the multi-faced political deadlocksthat could lead to the outbreak of an open conflict in Burundi. This emergency plan for Burundi must include a binding roadmap establishing an effective and inclusive dialogue between all stakeholders as well as the deployment of an African mission to protect civilians. "The markers of impending widespread violence in Burundi are gathered: persistent political deadlock, increase of torture, enforced disappearances, ethnic and political crimes, proliferation of mass graves, cases of sexual violence as well as rebel movements operating inside and outside the country. The African Union must adopt a robust response to the crisis, based on the protection of civilians and the resumption of political dialogue, "said Sheila Muwanga, FIDH Vice President. In recent months, the international community has sought to take over the deep crisis in Burundi. In October 2015, United Nation Human Rights Council has decided to strengthen its presence on the ground and the African Union to investigate human rights violations in the country. On November 30, 2015, UN Secretary-General Mr. Ban Ki Moon has proposed to the UN Security Council three options to solve the crisis in Burundi: a peacekeeping mission under UN mandate, a special political mission or a support team responsible for promoting a political dialogue between the government and the opposition, advocating for the third option. Consequently, on January 22, 2016 a delegation of the Security Council went to Bujumbura. Since then, Burundian president Pierre Nkurunziza has reaffirmed his refusal to host an African mission of prevention and protection of civilians (MAPROBU) and no assurance of a resumption of an effective and inclusive dialogue with the opposition and the independent civil society could be obtained. In an extremely alarming report published on January 15, 2016, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mr. Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said that "All the alarm signals, including the increasing ethnic dimension of the crisis, are flashing red". The report adds that "new trends are emerging in Burundi, including cases of sexual violence by security forces and a sharp increase in enforced disappearances and torture cases. Yet, the international community has still not succeeded in eliminating the risk of the outbreak of an open conflict that could lead to the commission of mass atrocities. Meanwhile, more and more reports note the creation of rebel groups, some heavily armed, such as the Republican Forces of Burundi led by General Godefroid Niyombare and the RED-Tabara (resistance for the rule of law). Given these facts, the 26th Conference of Heads of State and governments of the African Union must adopt an emergency plan including a roadmap to end the crisis providing, under its aegis, the rapid, effective and inclusive recovery of the dialogue between the authorities, the opposition and the civil society. This roadmap must also provide for the deployment of the MAPROBU, under the mandate of the UN Security Council. The mission must include a civilian component with a clear mandate to protect civilians and to document human rights violations in order to bring perpetrators to justice. "This summit cannot be a missed opportunity to take concrete actions to solve the ongoing crisis in Burundi, which has already caused hundreds of civilian casualties. All eyes are on the African Union, which must demonstrate its ability to be a leading actor in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and crises in Burundi and elsewhere in Africa, " said Mabassa Fall, FIDH Representative to the African Union. In a position note published today (available in French only), FIDH reiterates its recommendations to the African Union which has chosen 2016 to be the African year of human rights, with particular focus on women's rights. It must therefore take its responsibility and strong decisions to curb the cycles of violence and to ensure the safety of civilians. The African Union must in particular be actively mobilized for the 30 upcoming elections - including 18 presidential elections - to be held in 21 African countries in 2016 and which are periods when the risk of violence is increasing. In Uganda, Djibouti and the Republic of Congo, political violences were documented by FIDH and its member organizations. The AU must also support the fight against impunity in countries involved in peace process, such as in Central African Republic and in South Sudan. It must commit to justice mechanisms which are conditions for reconciliation and restoration of the rule of law. Finally, the AU, which put a special focus on the rights of women for 2016, must support, by robust action, initiatives to protect and promote the rights of women in Africa. 28.01.2016 LISTEN Back in the late 1980s, early 90s, a conspiracy was hatched by the nuclear powers of the world to dump their nuclear waste on Africa. These were highly toxic by-products of the nuclear industry with half-lives of hundreds of thousands of years. Their originators had been overwhelmed by the waste and the voice of the anti-nuclear movement in Europe had become too shrill for their various countries. Under the programme, poverty-stricken Black African countries were to be persuaded to take shiploads of these dangerous waste materials for storage, in exchange for some annual pittance. Ghana was one of the countries that were seriously considering taking up the bait. A ship with a consignment of these dangerous materials had already set sail for Sierra Leone when some radical scientists in the West began a protest movement that was taken up by some scientists in Africa which eventually led to the demise of that plan. That was a racist insult to Black Africa because Egypt that receives five billion free green bucks every year from Uncle Sam, was not even approached in that toxic deal. And Egypt has more mountains, caves and desert lands than most African countries, for storing nuclear waste materials. The obvious inference was that Black African leaders are cheap, corrupt and can be more easily manipulated. Now the shipment of Guantanamo Bay detainees (or terrorist instructors?), to Ghana? Why on earth would the president of the Republic of Ghana, a country that is much older than the last three American presidents, while in office, take toxic goods that nobody wants in their backyard? What exactly was the inducement - grants in aid or investmentmuch of which would be stolen before they hit the shores of Ghana? Let me see, America would not take the duo because they find them too dangerous, neither would Britain, France nor Germany, nor would any of the European powers with much more sophisticated surveillance equipment and fire power, if it comes to it. Britain has its own jihadist schools and creches. France has obviously bitten more than it can chew, in terms of taking in refugees. It seems more like poetic justice. The knives their forebears swallowed during the war of independence are now flowing freely down there! So it must be a Black African country led by one of those gullible leaders! Post World War II Germany likes to take refugees on humanitarian grounds, but not tainted cargo. So to Africa they must go. Contradictions President Mahama says there were extensive consultations and background checks before the two were accepted. However, Ghanas Foreign Minister, Hannah Tetteh now says she was excluded from some of the discussions. That is what the Interior Minister is also saying. The Foreign Minister is the Presidents chief adviser on all foreign matters, while the Minister of Interior advises the president on internal security matters. According to the President, heads of the security services and the Ambassador in Washington DC travelled to Guantanamo on several occasions over a period of more than one year, to check on the backgrounds of the two terror suspects. If these two key ministers were excluded from these discussions, to whom were those officials reporting, the President? If so why was that arrangement put in place? Was it because there was some detail the President could not trust his own top advisers with? Was it about money or some spurious promises from Obama? The heads of the security services report to the Minister of Interior, while the Ambassador to Washington DC reports to the Foreign Minister. If there was something that was so sensitive that those individuals and organisations had to report directly to the President; is it any wonder that there is speculation that money could have changed hands in that dubious transaction? Why has the Sister Hanna Tetteh, in particular, not resigned her position? In his speech in Accra in 2013, President Obama referred to Africas need of strong institutions and not strong men. But that is exactly what he has encouraged in this case, the creation of a strong man in Ghana, a president who belittles his Parliament and other state institutions and uses the peoples money to buy them snake oil and a toxic mixture of potential suicide bombers and jihadist instructors! The title of this article has been borrowed from the title of a book I read a long time ago by the Nigerian author, Chiwezu. Clearly, this Guantanamo case is one of the instances of overt racism that is practised on African leaders, this time by one of its own. That should not be surprising because Barack Obama did not believe that he is Black until his white grandmother gave him a clear demonstration of it. Perhaps now that he has used the Black card to win himself two terms for the Oval Office, he is returning to his old Barry self? Otherwise why would he treat the president of one of Africas supposedly most enlightened countries this way? Shoddy work A recent Fox News programme demonstrated that at least Muhammad Bin Atef, and possibly both Guantanamo detainees dumped on poor Ghana, are very dangerous individuals, considering the fact Ghana as a country is cursed with a totally corrupt police service and porous national security system that cannot even deal with local armed robbers and does not trust its own ministers with sensitive matters! A leaked US classified document shows that the American authorities have known since 2007 that Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby is equally dangerous. In other words, President Mahama was briefed confidentially about the two detainees and still foolishly decided to dump them on Ghanaians because according to him Ghanaians have such short memories and would soon forget about it all or else was cheaply lied to by the American authorities. Either way, President Mahama and his advisers, whoever they are, have done a very shoddy job in accepting the two former detainees! Whatever it is, what business has Ghana in dabbling in Middle East terrorist matters? Does the president not have enough corruption and incompetently managed social and economic problems on his plate as it is? Clearly, in spite of all the phoney protestations, this president does not care about the people of Ghana and he must go! Resignation is not of the African political lexicon, but he is definitely one of those one-term African presidents that I have been campaigning for. For his record and his unwillingness to seek the countrys best interest, Mr Mahama does not deserve one day longer in the Executive House! I shall return with my beaded gourd, God willing. Naana Ekua Eyaaba has an overarching interest in the development of the African continent and Black issues in general. Having travelled extensively through Africa, the Black communities of the East Coast of the United States as well as London and Leeds (United Kingdom), she enjoys reading, and writes when she is irritated, and edits when she is calm. You can email her at [email protected] , or read her blog at https://naanaekuaeyaaba.wordpress.com/. Mr. Francis Kofi Ayeequaye, Chief Executive of Effutu Municipal Assembly has charged all Assembly and Unit Committee members to eschew partisan politics to ensure effective and efficient Development in the area. Hon. Kofi Ayeequaye said his administration would ensure transparency and accountability to culminate any negative perception of the assemblys activities particularly in the municipality. The Municipal Chief Executive stated these at a days forum and the launch of the first Social Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (SPEFA) in Winneba. He also tasked participants to take SPEFA project seriously since it is going to give voice to the voiceless and justified the need for accountability, saying about 60% of Ghanas budget is being funded by donor agencies, however these agencies do not feel the social impact of their contributions on citizenry. Mrs. Sarah Naa Dedei Agbey, the project manager of social Public Expenditure and Financial accountability (SPEFA) in her address stated that, the overall aim of the SPEFA is to improve citizens perception of urban management and increase their engagement with urban assemblies. According to her, these would enable participants to understand Ghanas social government system, share with friends and families the structure of the social Government system, understand the roles and responsibilities of officials, making up the structures among others. Mrs. Naa Dedei Agbey said, SPEFA is targeted at achieving consistent and high quality support for the developments and operationalization of civil society- led SPEFA processes in the MMDAS to build the knowledge and capacities of civil society organisation, community based organisations and communities in social government public financial management to equip and engage MMDAs and their sub-structures. Mr. Francis Owusu Ansah, Municipal Coordinating Director for Effutu as part of his Submission disclosed that despite the well renowned educational institutions in the municipality, the municipality in 2014 and 2015 recorded zero per cent (0%) in Basic Education Certificate Examination , and said committee has been set up to look into the event to avert the situation. The Forum was organized by the Osanko child Poverty Relief, an NGO in collaboration with the Effutu Municipal Assembly and was funded by the World Bank. Participants were drawn from various institution s in the Municipality. The intergenerational dialogue between youth and Heads of State and Government and key continental and global institutional Leaders is one of the ways envisaged as a platform for improving the contact between youth and key policy makers, in order to achieve understanding and solidarity between them. The 5th Intergenerational Dialogue assembled over 200 hundred youths, delegates, ministers and Heads of institutions today, 27th January 2016 at the African Union Commission (AUC) under the theme: Harnessing the Demographic Dividend in Africa towards the realization of Sustainable Development Goals and AU Agenda 2063. This is providing a platform for the voices of young people to be heard by decision-makers at the highest level Facilitating dialogue between the two generations will in the long run promote an attitude where challenges are seen as opportunities, instead of focusing on the negative consequences that might appear. Addressing the high level meeting H.E. Dr. Martial De-Paul Ikounga, Commissioner, Human Resources Science and Technology (HRST) of the AUC welcomed the African youths representing the five regions of Africa and also the Diaspora. He said the theme of the meeting: Harnessing the Demographic dividend in Africa towards the realization of Sustainable Development Goals and AU Agenda 2063 is pertinent because it is inline with the theme of the 2017 Summit. The commissioner underscored the fact that the development of Africa requires harnessing the full potential of its youths both girls and boys. The potential of our youth must be unleashed for the sustainable development of Africa. He highlighted. The youth were called upon to make the most of this opportunity not to be limited only in expressing themselves, but also to focus towards taking ownership of Agenda 2063 while ensuring that their voices and concerns are taken into account in the African policies, frameworks and charters put in place for youths development. Commissioner Ikounga reiterated the efforts done by the AU Commission to transform the Youth Volunteer into African Professionals. He called upon the African youths to be concrete and pragmatic in their decision-making processes. View yourself in the proper context: there are many youths out there that did not have the privilege of attaining this meeting with high dignitaries. You should therefore align your interests with those of the ordinary youths and make solid decisions that will transform the lives of all African Youths. He concluded. Speaking on behalf of the African youths, Ms. Francine Muyumba, President of The Pan African Union (PYU), appreciated H.E. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma and the Commission for all their flagship projects towards empowering the youths. The on-going dialogue with the African Leaders and youths is a rear opportunity. We represent more than 60% of the continent population, and therefore as majority we should be given higher priorities in all spheres, be it economic, education, health and peace and development highlighted Ms. Francine Muyumba. It is now 10 years since the adoption of the African Youth Charter in Banjul declarations; it is time to hold the governments accountable for the implementation of all the actions and policies. We must develop plans for action to achieve together with the AUC Agenda 2063, particularly aspiration 6 which stipulates an Africa whose development is people-driven, relying on the potential of Africa people, especially its women and youth, and caring for children. She called for to combined efforts to ensure the African Union has a seat within the United Nations Security Council; the world cannot discuss African problems, without African people. Ms. Francine underlined. African youths are victims of arm conflict and they contribute in peace building in the continent. We must end terrorism and extremist, illegal migration, poverty, unemployment, conflict because African is where food, peace, love and harmony exist. Change is now and together we can make it happen. She underscored. The two days meeting discussions will be guided under the following themes; Economic empowerment, Legislation and Employment opportunities. Health Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). Education: Skills development and innovation Governance: Peace and security. 28.01.2016 LISTEN Accra, Jan. 27, GNA - President Joko Widodo, President of the Republic of Indonesia, has opened the fourth International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) with a call for global action to expand access to contraception. He said there was the need to build a future that would ensure that 'all women and girls are empowered to choose whether and when they want to have children and space their births, so that mothers and their babies have better opportunities for better lives.' The four-day conference being held in Nusa Dua, Indonesia is being attended by thousands of government, health and development leaders worldwide. Co-hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the National Population and Family Planning Board of Indonesia (BKKBN), the conference is centered on the theme of 'Global Commitments, Local Actions.' Mr Joko Widodo said to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and sustain economic growth, investments in family planning are necessary and urged global leaders to take real action to bring about healthy mothers, healthy children and prosperous families. 'By so doing we will be making the Planet Earth a better place to live,' Jokowi added. He said the stigma and discrimination against women seeking family planning services must end, and that family planning education must become a priority in every country. 'The Government of Indonesia is working hard to revitalise our family planning programme, we know that the challenges facing Indonesian families in the future will only be greater, especially when it comes to population issues we also encourage local governments to raise awareness and make family planning a priority in every municipality and village across Indonesia,' The President said. Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director of UNFPA, said family planning was about women's rights and their capacity to make decisions about their health and well-being, contributing to the objectives of FP2020. 'It is a most significant investment to promote human capital development, combat poverty and harness a demographic dividends, thus contributing to equitable and sustainable economic development within the context of the Sustainable Development Goals," he said. Dr Chris Elias, President of Global Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said the family planning data and evidence pointed to concrete steps taken as a community to get back on track to meet the FP2020 goal, adding, 'Now we must ask ourselves what more we can do to align our efforts to ensure all women have the information and tools they need to time and space their pregnancies.' He said family planning will play a critical role in realising the SDGs, the new development agenda for the next 15 years, adopted in September at the United Nations General Assembly and help in reducing the global unmet need for family planning services. The 2016 ICFP will serve as a platform for global partners to revisit global commitments to family planning and accelerate progress towards the FP2020 goal. The ceremony presented the first-ever Global Humanitarian Awards for Women's and Children's Health to recognize individuals for their tremendous contributions and commitment to advancing maternal and child health and well-being, especially family planning, in communities around the world. This year's four honorees were: Prof Dato' Sri. Tahir, Chairman and Founder of the Tahir Foundation; Sir Christopher Hohn, Co-founder of the Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF); Mrs Fayeeza Naqvi, Chairman and Co-founder, and Mr Arif Masood Naqvi, Co-founder of the Aman Foundation. The ICFP serves as a strategic inflection point for the family planning community worldwide. It provides an opportunity for scientists, researchers, policymakers and advocates to disseminate knowledge, celebrate successes and identify steps towards reaching the goal of enabling an additional 120 million women to access voluntary, quality contraception by 2020. GNA The CPP presidential aspirants in a debate at TV Africa on Tuesday night 28.01.2016 LISTEN Presidential aspirants of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) have condemned the Mahama-led government for engaging the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with the aim of trying to revive the ailing economy. The three-year IMF bail-out is expected to come with stringent conditions such as job cuts in the public service in order to reduce the wage bill as well as a cap on the amount of loans Ghana can contract with the public debt now hovering around GH65billion (almost 60 per cent of GDP ratio). Speaking at the maiden edition of the debate organized for presidential aspirants of the CPP at the TV Africa studios in Accra on Tuesday, Samia Nkrumah, one of four of the presidential aspirants stated that by accepting the conditions imposed by the IMF, it was clear that the current government did not believe in the dignity of Ghanaians. Samia Nkrumah is in the race with Ivor Greenstreet, former General Secretary of the CPP; Bright Akwetey and Joseph Agyapong. One of them would be given the mandate to lead the party in the 2016 elections at the CPP presidential primaries on Saturday. It is very clear to all of us that the conditions imposed by the IMF are simply not working. The system has failed completely and it is very obvious that if you had a government that believed in the dignity of the people, there is no way you are going to accept these conditions, Samia said. She said government should be able to stand up to the stringent conditions attached to the lMF bail-out just like the CPP did in the 60's. I want to see the day when we are confident enough to be able to say no or to say enough is enough when certain proposals are brought to us. Give the CPP a second chance to run this country and you will see the difference. We are able to say no, not because we are stubborn or rigid but because we have our own economic plan that can cater for the needs of the people of Ghana. What we need is our economic independence. Fellow Ghanaians, this is what we have to do and this is what we have to do soon and with a sense of urgency before things get very difficult, she added. Ivor Greenstreet disclosed that due to the mismanagement of the economy and resources, government had no choice than to go to the IMF cup in hand as beggar to go and borrow to try and take us out of a situation that we ourselves have caused. . Joe Agyapong wondered why the current government kept running back to the IMF and agreeing on conditions that were clearly not helping our economy. We have come to know that taking money from the IMF is not helping this nation; it is rather destroying this nation by the day. A lot of people are unemployed because of this IMF conditions. We cannot keep doing this everyday, Mr Agyapong noted. However, Bright Akwetey called for the criminalization of galamsey and the creation of state-owned industries to help drive away the IMF. We need to stop exporting our raw materials like gold and our oil and add more value to it before we export. If we want to wean Ghana off the IMF prescription, we need to take control of our economy and be self-reliant. We need to control employment to generate taxes. If we do not localize control over our resources, we will live to regret it, Mr Akwetey said. Fight Against Corruption Mr Akwetey, who is aspiring for the third time (after 2008 and 2012) to lead the CPP as presidential candidate, said if CPP was given the nod, he would fight corruption with an iron fist with the help of the anti-corruption institutions in the country. I would also fight corruption with an iron fist. In fighting corruption, I would go back to the anti-corruption institutions. The previously called Serious Fraud Office, now EOCO has been emasculated by not being provided enough facilities, opportunities and the funding to carry out their work, he said. He argued that the creation of the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) and Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) among others were palliatives which do not solve the alarming unemployment rate. The event, which was moderated by Prof. Kwame Kakari, brought together a host of CPP faithful to support the aspirants. By Nii Ogbamey Tetteh [email protected] 28.01.2016 LISTEN Jon Benjamin, the British High Commissioner to Ghana, loves triggering controversies and dabbling in them pastimes incompatible with his status as a diplomat. Representing a serious country acclaimed for the quality of the finesse she employs in managing international relations, Jon is an apology of that attribute. He is known by his often scathing expressions devoid of the veneer diplomats use to cushion the effects of their thoughts. Having earned notoriety for making remarks dreaded by his predecessors from the Commonwealth and Foreign Service and diplomatic fraternity, he has generated ado over the bloated status of the country's voter register as occasioned by the DAILY GUIDE story on same a few days ago. He has succeeded in providing something from his arsenal of mischief by commission or omission to the hawks of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to prosecute their dirty agenda; and they have pounced on it with open hands. It is unfortunate that Jon is gradually crawling into the gutters of local politics and therefore opening himself up for the appropriate reprisal attacks. We wish we could treat him as we do his colleague diplomats or better still, we did to his predecessors: we are unable to do so because he has lost the diplomatic deference by his deeds. A few days ago, DAILY GUIDE was in the news because Jon had subtly cast scum over a story about the Commonwealth and Foreign Office's position on Ghana's voter register, reaction which was posted on the site of the Commission. . For the purpose of rehashing the subject, a group of concerned Ghanaians had sought the intervention of the British government on the subject through a correspondence. With the characteristic speed of a serious office, David Cameron's assign referred the subject to the Commonwealth and Foreign Office which revealing observation formed the basis of a story we put out justifiably as lead item on the front page. There certainly could not have been a better story to lead the paper than that. Jon's passion for offering unsolicited lessons on media ethics is amazing. Perhaps he would do well teaching this subject at the Ghana Institute of Journalism or even running seminars for media establishments. That would certainly be more productive than the project he has continued to be engaged in since assuming office as the British envoy to Ghana. It is important to note that Jon did not question the integrity of the correspondences to and from the No. 10 Downing Street and eventually the Commonwealth and Foreign Office. How sad! We wish to restrain ourselves from reacting in the manner a newspaper would when an undue effort is made at debasing its integrity. In our edition of yesterday, we stretched the subject further by re-presenting excerpts of the correspondences which Jon, for reasons best known to him, avoided referring to. A rejoinder from the British High Commission neither came to us nor would ever come on the subject, which we find intriguing. With humility, we state that we could not have concocted a story without basis and risk losing our pedigree of quality and veracity garnered over years of diligence. Ismaila Ali Horoya (right) with Koku Anyidoho at an NDC function 28.01.2016 LISTEN The Ayawaso East constituency organiser of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Ismaila Ali Horoya, has been arrested by British security agents in London for transporting cocaine into that country. His arrest has been confirmed by the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Joseph Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo, after weeks of speculations, with NDC members not ready to broach the topic. He travelled out of the country a fortnight ago through the Kotoka International Airport where Nayele Ametefe also passed through with her over 12 kilograms of cocaine. But having overstayed, tongues began wagging in Horoya's Nima neighbourhood among his close associates as to what could have been responsible for his delayed return. A confirmation of the arrest by the minister yesterday on an Adom FM radio programme corroborates a DAILY GUIDE exclusive report earlier about the arrest a fortnight ago, although the details regarding the suspect were withheld at the time for want of confirmation. The minister, who is a member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Defence and the Interior, and MP for the Kpone Katamanso constituency in the Greater Accra Region, was discussing the challenges of the Narcotics Control Board in the execution of its mandate when he dropped what for long remained under wraps, with residents keeping mute about the arrest in London. Typical of such stories in closely knit communities such as Nima, news about the arrest of popular Ali Horoya, who is well connected, was restricted to street side gossips by acquaintances and others who could not dare broach the subject openly. Some curious friends made visits to the family house to find out more but came back with no definite stuff about how it all happened, such details confined to only family members. When the days elapsed with no news about the arrest coming from official sources, and with the DAILY GUIDE report about it falling short of the details for obvious reasons, his acquaintances relied on snippets which came from sometimes incredible sources. . The confirmation, from no mean a person than the Greater Accra Regional Minister, put paid to a disturbing anxiety among party supporters and others outside it. I was trying to do my own investigations and it came out that he was arrested in his London home dealing in drugs with certain people, the minister told Adom FM yesterday. Ismaila Ali Horoya had eluded the checkpoints at the Kotoka International Airport with his cargo of the illegal stuff, but the British security trailed him to his abode and nabbed him. Son of a former Member of the Council of State, the politician vied for the position of constituency organiser in this sprawling suburb of Accra during the party's election last year. For those who have suspected the gentleman of being in the cocaine business for some time now, the apprehension has confirmed their suspicions. With this latest arrest, politicians especially with links to ruling parties, could lose the privileges associated with their possession of diplomatic passports. This paper is unable to determine which travel documents he wielded at the time of his arrest details which curious persons would want to know at this time. The arrest of a Ghanaian with the illicit stuff with political undertones happened in 2015 when Nayele Ametefe was grabbed at Heathrow with cocaine weighing some 12.5 kilograms. She too eluded arrest in Ghana. Political party representatives on the airwaves will definitely have something to maul over, with another cocaine subject making the headline. Eric Amoateng, a New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP, was arrested in the US where he did time in prison before his release last year. By A.R. Gomda Cognitive behavioural therapy, a type of talking therapy, is a way of helping people with depression change the way they think in order to improve how they feel and to change what they do. (Photo: AP) When depression does not respond to antidepressant medication, replacing it with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or adding CBT to treatment may be effective and last for several years, according to a trial in the U.K. Three to five years after having up to 18 CBT sessions, trial participants were less depressed than those who didnt get the added behavioral therapy, suggesting a long-term benefit that makes CBT cost-effective, the authors conclude. Antidepressants are often prescribed for people with depression but we know that many people do not respond fully to such treatment, said lead author Nicola J. Wiles of the Center for Academic Mental Health at the University of Bristol. We previously found that giving (cognitive behavioral therapy) in addition to usual care that included antidepressant medication was effective in reducing depressive symptoms and improving quality of life over a period of 12 months in patients whose depression had not responded to treatment with antidepressants, Wiles said by email. However, prior to this study, there was little evidence of effectiveness over the long-term. Wiles team followed up on a trial done in 73 general practices in the U.K. Between 2008 and 2010, 469 patients aged 18 to 75 years who had taken antidepressants for at least six weeks and still had substantial depressive symptoms were randomly assigned to either continue receiving usual care or to usual care with the addition of CBT. Those in the CBT group attended 12 to 18 sessions with a therapist over about four to five months. Three to five years later, the researchers followed up using general practitioner notes and questionnaires mailed to patients. The questionnaires were designed to gauge depression and also quality of life. Of the original group, 248 patients completed and returned the questionnaires. Compared to those who only got usual care, the average depressive symptom score was about 5 points lower, on a scale of 0 to 63, for those who had received the CBT, even though those sessions had ended an average of 40 months earlier. People who are depressed often think about themselves and the world in a different and more negative way compared with how they thought before their illness, Wiles said. Cognitive behavioural therapy, a type of talking therapy, is a way of helping people with depression change the way they think in order to improve how they feel and to change what they do. Patients learn skills to help them better manage their mood that they continue to use even after therapy sessions stop, she said. In the trial, cognitive behavioral therapy cost an average of 343 British Pounds, or $489, annually per patient, the authors note in The Lancet Psychiatry. In our long-term follow-up, we found that CBT as an adjunct to usual care represented very good value for money for the health service, Wiles said. There have been initiatives to increase access to such treatments in England and Australia, but they have focused on so-called low intensity interventions like computerized therapy packages and guided self-help, for which there is little evidence of long-term effectiveness, Wiles said. The high intensity therapy delivered as part of general practice care in the U.K. trial reduced the significant burden to patients and healthcare systems caused by depression that does not respond to antidepressants, she said. It is very clear but often forgotten that depression is a long-term disease and most of the evidence that we have about what works comes from very short term studies, said Dr. Rudolf Uher of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, who coauthored a commentary on the new results. This is the first demonstration that psychological treatment can be delivered efficiently in routine primary care, Uher told Reuters Health. High-quality psychological treatment is often only available with out-of-pocket payment, and isnt standardized or promoted the way that pharmaceutical treatment is, he said. This shows that what would be considered a luxurious treatment actually pays for itself, he said. But, he emphasized, even in this trial many patients were still at least somewhat depressed after treatment, and most were not cured. 28.01.2016 LISTEN The Electoral Commission (EC) has dismissed media reports that it has registered Hassan Ayariga's All People's Congress (APC) to operate as a political party. The Commission says it has not registered any new political party this year, discounting media reports about the purported registration. In a statement released yesterday, the EC said The Electoral Commission wishes to inform the general public that contrary to reports in the media, the Commission has not registered any political parties this year. The statement further indicated that people who apply for registration of their political parties have to meet certain requirements under the Political Parties Act 2000 (Act 574). Until these requirements have been met and a party has been issued with a final registration certificate, the party seeking registration cannot conduct its activities as a political party, the statement, signed by Christian Owusu-Parry, Acting Director, Public Affairs, indicated. The EC has reminded uncertified clients that they cannot canvas for votes until their proposed political parties have been issued with a final registration certificate per the Political Parties Act 2000 (Act 574). . Hassan Ayariga's APC may not be able to contest in the November 7 elections until he meets all requirements for a final certificate, implying that he cannot operate with a provisional certificate he was craving to pick by Friday. His new party the All People's Congress shares both logo and name with President Muhammadu Buhari's APC in Nigeria, which is a conglomeration of other political parties. Ayariga, presidential candidate of the People's National Convention (PNC) in 2012, was floored by veteran leader and founder of the party, Dr Edward Mahama, at its (party's) congress in Wa, the Upper West Region, in December last year. Apparently peeved by his defeat, he reportedly decided to dump the party and form his own. Ayariga is described as the 'Supreme Leader' of the yet-to-be-registered party. A DAILY GUIDE Report 28.01.2016 LISTEN Members of Parliament have strongly condemned the Ministry of Finance for refusing to release money as mandated by law to the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to carry out its functions of helping to improve educational infrastructure in the country. The MPs were commenting on the report of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament on the performance audit report of the Auditor-General on GETFund-funded projects in public tertiary institutions yesterday. The report itself indicted the Ministry of Finance for impudently breaching section 4 of the GETFund Act, 2000 which specifically requires the Finance Minister to pay two-and-half percent of VAT to the GETFund accounts within 30 days after its collection. So far, the Ministry of Finance has not abided by the law and the monthly disbursement of the funds has always been in arrears between two and nine months since 2005. The MPs said the situation is seriously affecting the capacity of the GETFund Secretariat to release money to fund ongoing projects in the countrys tertiary institutions, noting that many of these projects are at a standstill. The MPs therefore asked the Ministry of Finance to release funds timely to the GETFund as mandated by law to avoid any embarrassment. . The New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Sekondi, Papa Owusu-Ankomah, who was once a Minister of Education under the NPP government, said it is unfortunate that the mandate of the GETFund is gradually being changed to satisfy political ambitions of governments in power. According to him, funds for GETFund were to be solely used for educational infrastructure but the present government can direct that GETFund money be used to fund GYEEDA programmes or projects, which is also affecting the ability of the GETFund Secretariat to complete projects in the educational sector. The PAC report revealed that the inability of GETFund Secretariat to pay contractors on time was also causing financial loss to the state in the form of interest payments as affected institutions pay interests equivalent to the prevailing commercial rates for delayed payments. It gave specific examples that the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) had to pay an extra GH96,560 as interest on the original cost for the construction of an examination hall, while the Kumasi Polytechnic coughed up a whooping GH847,917 as interest for delayed payment for the construction of an academic complex in the polytechnic. According to the requirements, payment to contractors must be effected 28 days after contracts have been awarded but payment could delay between three months and six months and within that time, cost of inputs could rise, thereby affecting the total cost of the project. The MP for Atwima Mponua, Isaac Asiamah, suggested that officials who refuse to pay contractors on time must be surcharged to serve as a deterrent. By Thomas Fosu Jnr 28.01.2016 LISTEN New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Obuasi West, Kwaku Kwarteng, has raised an alarm over what he calls 'criminal' payments being authorised by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government in the telecom sector. According to the MP, the 'criminal' double payments are being made to two firms Subah Info Solutions and Afriwave Telecoms Ghana Ltd for monitoring incoming international telephone traffic of telecommunication firms. Same Work A letter addressed to the Minister of Communications and copied to the President, Minister for Finance, Attorney General, Director General, National Communications Authority (NCA), Subah Info Solutions Ltd and Afriwave Telecoms Ghana Ltd, claimed the two companies are doing the same work. Mr Kwaku Kwarteng also said the Minister of Communications, Dr. Edward Omane Boamah, is suspected to have personal interest in Afriwave and that the government's action was plundering the already scarce resources of the country. The minister has however, denied any personal interest in a statement issued last night and signed by Issah Yahaya, Chief Director of the communications ministry. The ministry also denied that no money had been paid to Afriwave. Act 786 Mr Kwarteng quoted Communications Service Tax (Amendment) Act of 2013 which states that The Minister (for Finance) in collaboration with the minister responsible for communications, shall ensure that a common platform is used for the purpose of monitoring revenues under this Act as well as revenues accruing from levies under the Electronic Communications (Amendment) Act 2009, (Act 786), as the basis for raising the alarm. He said for the avoidance of doubt, the levies under the Electronic Communications (Amendment) Act 2009 being referred to are the levies on incoming international telephone traffic. Subah's Contract In accordance with this law, government, of which you (Minister for Communications) are a cabinet member, has signed a contract with a private company, Subah Info Solutions, to monitor both the communications service tax and the levies on incoming international telephone traffic. Parliament has been informed that the contract ends in May 2016. On the basis of this contract, government, through the Ghana Revenue Authority, is paying money to Subah Info Solutions. NCA Directive The MP said, In spite of this, you have (through the National Communications Authority) directed network providers to allow another private company, Afriwave Telecom Ltd, access to their facilities for Afriwave to do the same monitoring that Subah Info Solutions is already doing. Right now, both Subah and Afriwave have their devices inserted into the billing nodes of network providers, with Afriwave claiming they have also been authorised to do the same revenue monitoring. It is obvious that the motive for this wasteful duplication is for Afriwave, a company in which you are suspected to have personal interest, to receive already scarce public funds. And this is coming at a time when national finances are in considerable distress. Deliberate Duplication The MP underscored,I wish to prompt you that this wasteful and deliberate duplication is criminal. Indeed, any officer of the ministry of communications or National Communications Authority or any government official whose action or inaction enables such duplication of payment is criminally causing financial loss to the state. He urged the NCA to withdraw the directive to network providers regarding Afriwave for your own sake and for the sake of the public purse. By William Yaw Owusu Seth Terkper unveiling the plague, supported by George Blankson (right) 28.01.2016 LISTEN Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has officially opened its Customs Technical Services Bureau at a colourful ceremony in Accra. The bureau handles the re-introduced Classification and Valuation function by the Customs using ICT interface with declarants. The Commissioner-General of GRA, George Blankson, who was speaking at the inauguration, said even though some challenges were encountered in the early stages of the project, they were surmounted through diligent monitoring. We intend to sustain the successes attained so far to improve revenue assessment and collection, he said. Mr Blankson said one of the key initiatives is the Pre Arrival Assessment Reporting System (PAARS), which is a dynamic internal control and sustainable risk management platform that provides effective import verification. He expressed appreciation to the clientele for the tolerance exhibited while the authority tackled the teething challenges that emerged at the onset of the customs' takeover of valuation classification and risk management functions from the DICs. The occasion coincided with the celebration of the annual International Customs Day on the theme: ''Digital Customs: Progressive Engagement. The Commissioner-General said the World Customs Organization (WCO) is dedicating the year 2016 to promoting the digitization of customs process by which WCO members will have the opportunity to further promote and showcase the use of ICT. He pledged to make the business of international trade buoyant by focusing on the use of enhanced technology and Information Communication Technology (ICT). . Minister for Finance, Seth Terkper, who represented President Mahama, said automation and transformation at Customs Division of the GRA would offer an interface in the revenue mobilization. He said the introduction of the Single Window is a clear and bold statement of intent by government to address some of the challenges of doing business in Ghana, which is of major concern to both government and the private sector. Our commitment is to simplify customs and other border procedures for the efficient clearance of goods for import and export. This will thereby speed up the movement of goods across borders, reduce trade transactions and improve predictability in delivery time, Mr Terpker said. Valentina Minta, CEO of West Blues Consult, in her remarks, said this years WCO theme for the International Customs Day 'Digital Customs- Progressive Engagement resonates well with Ghana Customs collaborative approach adopted for its 2016 reform activities. Whereas digitization brings about the benefits of transparency, cost and time reduction and predictability, among others, these cannot be achieved without true collaboration between government and government, business and business and government and business, she said. Ms Minta applauded government for taking the bold policy decisions to embark on the National Single Window journey in Ghana. [email protected] By Cephas Larbi Eric Asamoah 28.01.2016 LISTEN A 35-year-old labourer was yesterday sentenced to 25 years imprisonment with hard labour for robbery by an Accra circuit court. The convict, Eric Asamoah, was standing trial for robbing a woman of her Nokia XL mobile phone and one travelling bag, both valued at GH760. Eric, unsatisfied with his booty, also raped the three-month pregnant victim, a student of Accra Polytechnic. At the initial stages of the trial, the prosecution asserted that the convict robbed the victim on August 18 last year at Pokuase A.C.P, a suburb of Accra. Sentencing Sentencing Eric, the trial judge, Aboagye Tandoh, said the prosecution was able to prove its case against the accused beyond all reasonable doubts, indicating that the three prosecution witnesses corroborated the evidence of one another. With reference to the statements of Eric, the judge stated that he (Eric) had told the court that he bought the phone from a certain phone repairer. In the view of the judge, the identity of Eric was not an issue because the victim, without any difficulty, identified him as the person who robbed her. He said the complainant, who was scared of the knife Eric used to attack her, gave up everything she had to save her life. . Mr. Tandoh said the court had taken into consideration Eric's plea for mitigation but it ought to pronounce a deterring sentence. This, according to the judge, would send a strong signal that society does not tolerate robbery. He was emphatic that although the complainant was pregnant, there was no evidence to indicate that Eric was responsible for the pregnancy. Investigator Hailed The trial judge eulogized D/Cprl Castro K. Ntiamoah, the investigator of the case, for his exceptional and professional handling of the case. He noted that if he had his way, he would recommend the investigator for promotion, adding that he has the calling of an investigator par excellence. [email protected] By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson 28.01.2016 LISTEN Aspiring NPP Parliamentary Candidate of the Techiman North Constituency in the Brong Ahafo Region, Mr. Martin Oti Gyarko has donated a set of furniture to the Ghana Education Service(GES) at Tuobodom. The furniture which included executive table and chairs for the District Director of Education as well as other offices was presented on Friday January 22 at the forecourt of the GES. Presenting the items, Mr. Gyarko who is a teacher said education is dear to his heart and that the welfare of the teacher as well as their conditions of service will be his priority when voted into power. According to Gyarko who teaches in the Techiman North District anytime he visits the offices of the GES at Tuobodom, he donated the furniture to make the GES offices presentable. Receiving the items, the Techiman North District Director of Education, Johnson Ankomah thanked the candidate for solving one of their numerous problems. He said the Techiman North GES cannot boast of a single vehicle and they have not got enough motorbikes to embark on monitoring exercises not to talk of fuel for the few vehicles at their disposal. He said as a District Director, he commutes with taxi daily from his house to the office. He appealed to the Techiman North District Assembly to construct a new office for them since the place they are using currently is someone's house. He lamented that the house which is located in a remote area has no light. In a related issue, the NPP Parliamentary Candidate has constructed a footbridge over a deadly gutter for the people of New Domeabra near Tuobodom at the cost of GH50,000. Thanking the Parliamentary Candidate for the gesture, Nana Yaw Ntoa, the Abusahene of Tuobodom urged the voters of Tuobodom to vote massively for Mr. Gyarko because what he has done and continues to do for the people of Techiman North shows that if he gets the nod he will do greater things for them. FROM Eric Bawah Tuobodom 28.01.2016 LISTEN The Nuumo Nmashie Family of Teshie, a suburb of Accra, has petitioned the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Nii Osa Mills and the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Joseph Afotey-Agbo to intervene in a matter involving the issuance of multiple powers of attorney over its lands. The Nuumo Nmashie Family petitioned the Executive Secretary of the Lands Commission that it has not issue any power of attorney over its lands at Teshie to any group or individuals as reported by the media. The petition is in reaction to a news article published by state-owned newspaper, Daily Graphic, claiming that the power of attorney had been vested in one Samuel Larbi Darko by the Nuumo Nmashie Family. Members of the public, including any of us members of Nuumo Nmashie Family who may require a parcel of land within any of the over 70 towns and villages for any purpose should consult Mr. Darko, the publication said. But addressing the media in Accra yesterday on behalf of the Nuumo Nmashie Family, the Krobo Djaase Secretary said members of the family feel scandalized, humiliated and cheated by those behind the publication. . The Krobo Djaase Secretary, who addressed the media on behalf of the family, noted that the said publication claiming that Ing. Darko had been given attorney over the lands was misleading and should be disregarded by the general public. According to Isaac A. Botchway, It is worrying and disturbing that the whole of the Nuumo Nmashie Family lands which includes the whole of Teshie would be vested in Mr. Samuel Lari Darko, who is not an indigene. He argued that the attempt to have the lands vested in a single individual was a calculated plan to sell the whole of Teshie into slavery, noting that those behind the act lack the capacity to make that illegal publication on the family's behalf. He stated that we know they appreciate the full import of the announcement they were making, and therefore they should have been bold enough to state their capacity in the Nuumo Nmashie Family which empowers them to enter into such an agreement without consulting key members of the family. Ordinary family members cannot make such sweeping declarations on its behalf as representatives of the component sub-families, he added. By Melvin Tarlue Richard Nkansah Mensah presenting the items to Alex Segbefia 28.01.2016 LISTEN Pharmanova Company Limited and Ernest Chemists, both pharmaceutical companies in the country, have donated medical items to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in support of activities to contain the meningitis outbreak. The companies in separate donations presented antibiotics to the ministry for onward distribution to hospitals in the affected areas for treatment of patients. Managing Director of Pharmanova, Dhananjay Tripathi, presenting the items worth GH12,000 to the Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Victor Asare Bampoe, said as a local pharmaceutical company, it behooves them to support the ministry during times like the meningitis outbreak. He said, We see this as our social responsibility to the people we serve. Dr Bampoe, receiving the items, said the gesture is a clear example of how Ghanaians can pool resources together and help solve their own problems. I appeal to other pharmaceutical companies to follow suit and help the ministry control the spread of the disease and treat patients, he added. . Internal Business Development Manager of Ernest Chemist, Richard Nkansah Mensah, presenting GH30,000 worth of antibiotics to Health Minister Alex Segbefia said the donation was in response to activities going on to help control the outbreak of meningitis in the country. Mr Segbefia, receiving the donation, commended Ernest Chemist for showing their support to the ministry. He said on numerous occasions, Ernest Chemist has come to the aid of the ministry during times of national health challenges. This will help restock our stores and provided timely treatment to patients, he said. The first case of meningitis occurred in December 2015 in Brohani and Seikwa communities in the Tain District of the Brong Ahafo Region. So far, 36 deaths have been recorded, with 183 cases in four regions namely, Brong Ahafo, Northern, Ashanti and Volta regions. By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri The Criminal Investigations Department has taken over a probe into circumstances under which a Beninois smuggled 12 single barrel guns into the country. The Ghana Immigration Service intercepted the 12 single barrel guns manufactured in Benin at Aflao in the Volta region on Tuesday. The guns were being smuggled from Togo into the country through unapproved routes. Upon his arrest, the Beninois revealed that he was sending the guns to some hunters in neighbouring Cote dIvoire. In an interview with Joy News, Volta Regional Police Commander, DCOP Peter King Gyinae said the suspect has been transferred to the CID for further investigations. We have instruction from Accra that he should be brought so that they can do a few checks. There is the need to trace the source of these guns and the intended use for them. The Accra CID tops everything and they can do better than we can do, DCOP Gyinae said. Executive Secretary of the Small Arms Commission Jones Applerh has urged the security agencies to be on high alert as the country approaches the elections. This is not the first time such weapons and ammunitions have been intercepted in recent times. Last month Police in Kumasi intercepted what was described as the biggest arms haul in the region. Four people have since been arrested. The development has been a source of worry for many security experts, especially with Ghana's elections barely 10 months away. Trade and Industry Minister Ekwow Spio-Garbrah has described utility tariff increases as incredibly outrageous, noting it is an imprudent strategy in an election year. It is curious that many of these charges are coming in the first month of an election year.why have some of these institutions waited for an election year and all of a sudden we hear incredibly outrageous rates. Speaking with JOY NEWS on a working visit to the Volta Region, Dr. Spio-Garbrah indicated the far-reaching economic implications of the tariff increases cannot be over-emphasized. He recommended that the tariff should have been spread over the years instead of the sharp increases especially when government has a tough election to fight. Since the beginning of the year, consumers have been complaining about 59% increase in electricity and 67% increase for water. A 10% charge on electricity was added but left unannounced by PURC, leaving consumers even more bitter about the adjustments. Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah expressed displeasure about the increases and warned the utility tariff increases will kill local businesses. There is no point in killing the goose that is laying the golden egg. You might think you are doing a good job by just raising revenue but you are killing the whole economy, he pointed out. He questioned the rationale behind the increases and expressed disappointment that as a stakeholder, his ministry was not consulted. The Trade and Industry Minister Dr. Ekow Spio-Garbrah also charged the Association of Ghana Industries AGI and its allied agencies to seek from these agencies more comprehensive explanations This according to him is necessary to protect businesses. From the 1st of February, the price of a sachet of water is to go up from 20 to 30 pesewas whilst a bag of 30 sachets also moves from 3 to 5 cedis, Sachet Water Producers have announced. They say increases in electricity and water tariffs plus the recent fuel price increases have compelled them to increase the prices of their products. Listen to audio Since 2013, electricity tariffs have gone up by 182.75%. PURC in October 2013 announced a 78.9 per cent in electricity tariff only to slash it by 25% following government intervention. This meant consumers were asked to pay 59.18% In 2014, PURC reviewed utility tariff upwards twice. First in July, electricity tariffs went up by 6.1% while water tariffs were increased by 12 percent. Later in September 2014, the cost of electricity shot up by 6.54% while that of water has been increased by 4.54 %. In June 2015, the Public Utility and Regulatory Commission again announced a 51.73% increase in electricity and 15% increase for water. But before the year would end, the PURC on Monday December 7, 2015 announced a 59.2% and 67.2% hikes in electricity and water respectively ahead of the Christmas season. Story by Ghana|myjoyonline.com|[email protected] Egg-freezing is now being hailed as a type of insurance for women who want to start their families later in life. (Photo: Pixabay) Inset: Dr Nandita Palshetkar, an IVF specialist at Lilavati Hospital. The recent news about former beauty queen Diana Haydens baby being born out of her eggs frozen almost eight years ago has thrust egg-freezing technology into the limelight. Relatively lesser-known in India when compared to other reproductive technologies like surrogacy and sperm donation, egg-freezing is now being hailed as a type of insurance for women who want to start their families later in life. We spoke to Dr Nandita Palshetkar, an IVF specialist at Lilavati Hospital, to help us understand just how this new procedure can help realize womens dreams of having a baby of their own someday. She had also helped Diana Hayden freeze her eggs way back in 2007-2008 and saw through the birth of Hayden's healthy baby girl at the age of 42. An insurance against infertility Earlier, only cancer patients and premature menopausal women opted for egg-freezing, to enable them to have children sometime in the future, explains Dr. Palshetkar. But now more and more women with no serious health complications or infertility issues are choosing to have their eggs frozen in order to postpone motherhood to a later age. You could call it a kind of insurance policy, says Dr Palshetkar. How does it work? Egg-freezing involves injecting hormones that stimulate the ovaries of the woman to produce multiple eggs. These eggs are later extracted via an anesthetic procedure and are preserved for a pregnancy in the future. We extract about 8 to 10 eggs to be on the safer side, says Dr. Palshetkar. The eggs are then immediately frozen at -196 degree centigrade temperature which is a process known as vitrification. Citing Haydens example, she says the eggs can be safely frozen for as long as 5 to 10 years. But are there any side-effects? There can be instances when the woman might get affected by Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome a medical condition that causes the ovaries of some women to swell after taking hormone injections to stimulate egg growth. But Dr Palshetkar tells us that many clinics now have screening facilities for patients to eliminate such a possibility. Its not scary at all, she insists. She also talks about how a pregnancy, resulting from a frozen egg, is unlikely to have any complications both pre- and post-delivery. There are many other obstetric complications that could arise because of other factors like blood pressure or diabetes. But egg freezing does not have any correlation with pregnancy complications, she clarifies. Who should go for this? The quality of a womans eggs deteriorate as she ages, so anyone below the age of 35 serves as a good candidate for egg-freezing. Of course, people have their own reasons for doing it. Most female patients who need to undergo therapy for diseases like cancer, endometriosis and even arthritis get their eggs frozen, she says. This is because the drugs used for such intensive therapies often have an adverse effect on the fertility of patients, which makes egg freezing a logical choice. Surprisingly, she also cites male infertility as another reason why couples may decide on egg freezing. Fighting the biological clock However, there have been increasing instances of women, both single and in committed relationships, considering egg freezing as a type of family planning that could enable them make decisions regarding their bodies without interrupting their careers. Dr Palshetkar reveals that even male partners are seen to be completely supportive in such scenarios as many feel the need to be financially sound before thinking of extending their family. She believes that people should be free to use new medical advancements for their benefit. I am pro-egg freezing, she admits in a light-hearted tone. How much does it cost? Dr. Palshetkar estimates egg-freezing charges to range from Rs 30,000-50,000 per year. Post that, a single IVF cycle would require shelling out around Rs 1 to 2 lakhs. Although just like any other fertility treatment, egg-freezing comes with no fool-proof guarantee, theres a 50 per cent chance for a successful outcome with every single attempt, she declares. Pausing periods for good? Theres been steady rise in women popping pills to delay or in some cases even stop their periods. These low-estrogen birth control pills can allow women to experience fewer periods in a year. For many women, this marks a welcome change from the cramps, weakness and discomfort resulting from their menstrual cycles. However, there are concerns whether such methods are detrimental to a womans health or not. But Dr Palshetkar assures that the issue is not as serious as we are making it out to be. As long as you dont do it all the time, there should not be any problem. After all, they are just hormonal pills, she reasons. But I wouldnt really recommend it to someone as it is not really required, she adds as an afterthought. Four suspects linked to the robbery incident and murder of a police officer on the Atebubu-Ejura road last Friday, have been arrested by the Police in Ashanti Region. The police put out their names as Gariba Salifu, alias Kudi ,19; Sulemana Ibrahim, 33; Mumuni Yussif alias Romea, 22 and Emmanuel Yeboah alias Tupac, 20, reports Graphic Online's Kumasi reporter, Kwadwo Baffoe Donkor. Corporal Alexander Kyeremeh, 30, who was stationed at Bimbilla in the Northern Region met his untimely death last Friday afternoon when he was shot in the right rib by armed robbers suspected to be of Fulani descent. The incident occurred around 1pm on the section of the road between Ejura and Hiawonwu in the Ejura Sekyedumasi municipality. He was travelling from Yeji to Kumasi on board a bus when the incident occurred. According to the police the armed robbers had earlier intercepted one bus travelling from Atebubu to Kumasi and when his bus got on the scene, they were also stopped and ordered to surrender all the monies on them. The robbers were three with a fourth one hiding in the bush. When the deceased was getting down, he hid some of the money in his pants and was seen by the fourth robber who was hiding in the bush. The fourth robber, came out of his hiding place, opened the deceased's belt and took out the money from his trousers and shot him in the right rib making his intestines to gush out. File Photo 28.01.2016 LISTEN Introduction Ghanas educational system carries eleven years of basic education, including kindergaten, and three years of senior high education. There are technical and vocational institutes for skill development and apprenticeship. The ICT in Education Policy is to ensure that students have ICT literacy skills, provide guidelines for integrating ICT tools, provide means of standardising ICT resources, facilitate the training of students and teachers in ICT, determine the type and level of ICT needed by schools for teaching and administrative purposes, and to promote ICT as a learning tool in all schools and institutions. The Education Reforms launched in June 2007 called for the introduction of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in all second-cycle institutions through the introduction of ICT as a core and elective subject, and integration of ICT as a teaching tool for all subjects as well as for supporting educational management and functions. Introducing ICT into the educational process is an innovation which requires radical change in the way our schools operate. Technology creates an enabling platform for harnessing the potential of ICT in improving access to quality education, transforming teaching and learning, and enhancing students achievement. Effective use of information technology promotes wealth and growth. In fact, it is a reliable tool for redistributing income, alleviating poverty, and pricking global competitiveness. In its ICT for Accelerated Development Policy (ICT4AD, 2003), Ghana has an ambition to transform itself into a rich technology-driven economy within a reasonable spate of time. The fact still stands that the teacher is a powerful root stock on which any educational system grows. I also do appreciate that the product of any poorly equipped, motivated teacher in a system is stunted growth and poverty. Any policy initiative aimed at enhancing teacher performance is, therefore, key to the provision of quality service to the child. The Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Ghana Education Service (GES) have been working with some organisations, including UNESCO, to assist teachers to perform their duties well. The ICT for Education programme, Ghana e-Transform Teacher Professional Development programme and Senior High School Connectivity Project, as part of the Secondary Education Improvement Project (SEIP), provide teachers and heads of schools with enhanced pedagogy and professional competency in ICT for school and classroom practices. The e-Transform Project promotes access, equity and quality of learning with the core principles and thematic streams of Ghanas educational policies and objectives. The target of the model for teacher professional development is to reach out to about 200 schools, 14,000 teachers and 200 heads of schools nationwide. It seeks to raise the teachers confidence and ability to use sound technological devices and skills for better service delivery. Developing e-Transform teacher competency: what, why and how? The Ghana Pilot Initiative of the Senior High School Connectivity Project 20122013 has developed teacher ICT competencies from the UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers (ICT-CFT). The two levels of ICT competencies, where teachers have been worked through, are technology literacy (for general ICT application in professional practice) and knowledge deepening [for ICT infusion in Mathematics English and Integrated Science (ICT in MEIS) subject teaching and learning]. The e-Transform programme uses an Open Education Resources (OERs) which are free for use in all educational purposes, including the development of course modules and lesson plans. Technology Pedagogy and Content Knowledge (TPACK) which has three forms of knowledge that the teacher needs and they include; Technology Knowledge (TK), Pedagogical Knowledge (PK) and Content Knowledge (CK). The Module is organised in four units with each unit made up of TPACK component to assist teachers to experiment with TK, PK and CK combinations in their classroom practice. And these four units comprise exemplary ICT MEIS lessons (TCK), ICT for implementing pedagogical strategies (TPK), teacher computer practicals (TK) and templates for application of technology in MEIS lesson plans and classroom practice (TPACK). Brief overview of the Ghana Pilot Initiative The Ghana Connectivity Initiative did pilot workshops and training sections of professional development activities in one cycle of three days for about 2,000 teachers just recently. There were trials and validations of the various modules and tools in the prioritisation and contextualisation of the ICT policy. At the beginner level, participants acquired basic literacy and solution-focused learning in ICT as Applying levels I and II did focus on technology literacy in MEIS backed with the use of didactic teaching models. Infusing levels III and IV deepened the knowledge of participants in the teaching and learning of MEIS. In all this, the emphasis has been directed towards problem-based learning, acquisition of modern skills in school development and management of MEIS classrooms. GES, with the help of its ICT Unit and under the staunch coordination of Mr. Raymond Atta-Williams, has been doing great outreach programmes and projects to ensure that the needed impact is made at the grassroots. It is an on-going initiative and so I shall be back soon! E-mail: [email protected] The writer is an educationist and a public relations officer at the Headquarters of the Ghana Education Service. Dr Ekow Spio Gabrah 28.01.2016 LISTEN Trade minister Ekow Spio Gabrah has said the increment in utility tariffs is dangerous for the Mahama-led administration, especially in an election year. In his view, the increment should have been staggered instead of being introduced at a go in order to ease the financial stress on Ghanaians. Government has increased electricity and water tariffs to 59.2 per cent and 67.2 per cent respectively. Billing for the new tariffs took effect on December 14, last year. The Trades Union Congress has however compelled the government to accept a marginal decrease in the tariffs. But speaking to the media in the Volta region, the former communications minister said the move is dangerous for the government as election beckons. First month in an election year and you wonder if utility rates have to go up by 150 per cent. Why didn't it go up by 20 per cent two, three years ago, 30 per cent last year and maybe 40 per cent this year to more or less achieve the same objective? Why have some of these institutions waited till election year and all of a sudden you hear incredibly outrageous ratesall the way to ordinary water that human beings drink. Are they trying to raise revenue for a particular purpose? What is the objective, he fumed. Source: Starrfmonline 28.01.2016 LISTEN Before any government contract is awarded, it is expected to go through procurement processes including the selection of a suitable contractor to execute the project. But a highly confidential leaked government document available to Citi News shows that such was not the case in the bus branding deal. The document believed to be a report from the Attorney General after investigations into the deal, revealed that the branding executed by Smarttys was commenced and concluded long before the procurement process started, a conduct that violated the nation's procurement laws. The rebranding by Smarttys was commenced and concluded even before the procurement process began. This fact has been confirmed by both Smarttys and the Ministry of Transport. They attribute this lapse to the urgency attached to rebranding and spraying of the buses, the report noted. The report cited by Citi News further suggests that Ghana's presidency has been rather lenient in its handling of the bus branding scandal, since state officials both at the Transport and Finance Ministries broke a number of national laws in their supervision of the 3.6 million Ghana cedis contract. An analysis of the documents clearly shows that several public officers were involved in the procurement and payment process. . We therefore recommend that all officers who handled any aspect of these processes flouted the laid down legislation should investigated the Economic and Organised Crime Office [EOCO]. It also added that after review of the state's contract with Smarttys, the Attorney General found that the state should not have paid Smarttys more than 1.7 million Ghana cedis for the branding project. Having regard to the above findings we are of the view that Smarttys charged and was paid more than it should have for the service it provided. This situation would not have arisen if proper procurement processes had been observed and a value for money audit conducted. In our view, judging from the quotes received from the local automobile companies, government should not have paid more than GHc1,700,120.49 for rebranding and spraying of the buses (this sum includes VAT and NHIL), the report indicated. Background: Government's decision to spend GHc3.6 million of Ghana's oil revenue on branding some 116 Metro Mass Transit (MMT) buses has been widely criticized and described as reckless. The scandal compelled the Transport Minister, Dzifa Attivor to resign after a massive public outcry. The Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah subsequently ordered the Attorney General to investigate the matter after which Smarttys has been ordered to refund the excess payments made. Source: Citifmonline 28.01.2016 LISTEN I am careful not to pass judgment on the segment of society we have tagged illiterates, or uneducated Ghanaians. It isnt that I am being too careful, but that I am mindful not to willfully take it that persons who have not made it to the classroom are uneducated. What strikes me, profoundly, is the way we assume without logical bases the argument that such persons could not make any meaningful contribution to issues of national development especially anemic decisions of the government and stoic stance of President Mahama towards corruption of its ministers. I have, personally, found these persons to have a better way of appreciating issues than the so called intellectuals. On Monday, I sat in a white Sprinter bus heading for Accra quiet unusually this one looked different or it appeared different from the usual debates that engulf buses in the capital. I knew I had found sanity for the first time in Ghana where I am free from mind viruses such as corruption of government officials, or teeming unemployed youths in the country. I snaked my right hand into my bag to fetch The Mind of the Strategist a book written by Kenichi Ohmae to read. As we reached SCC near Weija, the driver tuned in his radio to a political discussion. A man was heard defending the governments decision to accommodate the two Gitmo ex-detainees in Ghana. He was often interrupted by another person, who was identified as a communication member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). As the presenter asked the government communication team member to end his presentation, a man who was sitting a row in front of me sighed. He later laughed loud as though cheering his favorite player play his passion out. I almost heard his throat screamed for help as his voice sounded dry or something like that. He turned to a woman beside her and murmured something in Twi to her. She smiled and looked aside. Sensing hes found a partner, the man ventilated his opinion on the Gitmo two in Twi questioning why government officials failed to conduct due-diligence on the matter as significant as this. This time, it was loud enough to arrest our attention. Even though weve not been to classroom before, yet we can tell a liar, he said in Twi with his eyes fixed on the woman. The woman led out a loud sigh the kind replete with unanswered questions. This government will kill us. Why is America not accommodating some of the detainees? she asked mixing the Twi and English in an uncomfortable manner. She tossed the word detainees as though she was scared of pronouncing the word. It was imperfect, however, those of us in the car got what she meant. Perhaps not expecting any response. The driver who was then watching the inside mirror erratically, let out a word or two to cheer them up. The conversation was educative as more people joined in. All along, my eyes were locked in on them. Saying nothing, but taking all in as though a baby being fed by the mother. As the bus got to First Light near Accra Academy, I got down and made way home. On my way, I began to reflect on some of the issues raised by the other passengers. They didnt sound political an unusual news to my ears. They spoke in a manner that sounded nothing, but patriotic. They had their patriotic barge on, and dispassionately delivered their points to my itching ears. What motivated our national leadership to acquiesce to the decision to accommodate ex-detainees of Guantanamo bay here in Ghana? Why didnt they conduct due diligence before agreeing? How come some top security officials of the country were not consulted before the decision was taken? Is this decision of our leaders in the best interest of our nation or their selfish interest? These and many other genuine questions beg asking. I was stunned to notice that these questions were tossed by persons we claimed to be uneducated and illiterate in our society. How come the loud and know-all intellectuals at the helm of affairs of the country didnt see this coming? And how come the so called communication experts in the ruling partys communication team did not predict the bad press a decision of this kind would generate for the president? Bad meals have been served us for many years, and its repetition in our political life is an indication of the lost power of the ordinary Ghanaian voter or something like that. Weve suffered as a people for the bad decisions of our national governments. Often, instead of soliciting our opinions, they end up selling to us what they feel and narrowly think. And when we talk back at them, they call us names lazy Ghanaians, ungrateful Ghanaians, forgetful Ghanaians, or weak thinking Ghanaians. Were almost always wrong when we speak up. As we march into November, 2016 for the Presidential and Parliamentary Election, are Ghanaians going to make yet another mistake to end up being labelled all sort of things? Or are we going to demonstrate, evidently and loud enough, that the voter aint no animal? We need to do more than our willingness to vote. We need to prepare to vote and this entails being critical with what these political parties tell us. The voter aint no animal in Ghana. Let us be guided by the needs of future generations in the choice we make for the nation. God be with us. U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Gayle Smith will lead the U.S. delegation to the 26th Annual African Union Summit. Joining the delegation will be Department of State Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Tom Malinowski, National Security Council Senior Director for Africa Cathy Byrne, USAID Assistant Administrator for Africa Linda Etim, U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan Don Booth, and Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region of Africa Tom Perriello. The AU Summit brings together senior government officials, representatives from regional economic communities, civil society organizations, the private sector, members of the diaspora, international media and invited dignitaries. Discussions will also focus on regional peace and security priorities, including the situation in Burundi, the need for implementation of the peace agreement in South Sudan, and developing innovative financing mechanisms in support of AU peacekeeping initiatives. Following the AU Summit, Administrator Smith will visit sites in Ethiopia where the U.S. government is working with local and international partners to respond to the drought and build resilience to extreme weather events like El Nino. 28.01.2016 LISTEN The Electoral Commission has reportedly ordered all political parties to set up offices in two thirds of the 275 constituencies in the country, as specified by law, before they would be allowed to contest the November 7 presidential and parliamentary elections. Indeed, in a statement issued yesterday, the EC writes: The Electoral Commission wishes to inform the general public that, contrary to reports in the media, the Commission has not registered any political party this year. The Commission further wishes to clarify that, persons who apply for registration of political parties have several requirements which must be met, under the Political Parties Act 2000 (Act 574). Until these requirements have been met and a party has been issued with a final registration certificate, the party seeking registration cannot conduct its activities as a political party. The Commission is accordingly advising and reminding applicants that it is against the provisions of Act 574 to canvass for votes, until the party has been issued with a final registration certificate. We trust that political actors and the general public will be guided accordingly. The founder and presidential candidate of the United People's Party (UPP), Mr. Akwasi Addae Odike is, however, not happy with the directive. Speaking on a radio station in Kumasi, Odike suggested to the EC to allow the less endowed political parties to operate in 'offices under trees.' I am only suggesting if the EC can accept offices under trees; I don't think there should be something wrong with that, because even a whole government is struggling to build classrooms across the country, so some kids are forced to learn under trees, he argued, adding We are doing everything possible to meet such demands, but in case we are not able to fulfill all, I think it would be fair for the EC to reconsider the issue. The UPP leader pointed out that though he believes the requirement is necessary, he however, thinks it would be unfair for the EC to disqualify any political party simply on the basis that it does not have offices in two-thirds of the 275 constituencies. The Chronicle is happy that the EC has at long last, decided to implement the law backing the operation of political parties in Ghana. The media and The Chronicle in particular have always expressed their view over the way political parties are springing up in Ghana and wondering by which method the EC has been using to register them. As the EC itself is now quoting, a political party should have offices in not less than two thirds of the 275 constituencies in Ghana. But apart from the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and to some lesser extent the Convention People's Party (CPP), Progressive People's Party (PPP) and People National Convention (PNC), the rest cannot boost of offices in even hundred constituencies in the country. Surprisingly, when it comes to elections, some of these political parties we describe as jokers are allowed to register and contest the elections. The EC must be careful not to allow the formation of political parties to become another avenue for money making in Ghana. The political party law must, therefore, be strictly applied to ward off pranksters and those seeking to use it to advance the interest of their businesses. For a political party to suggest that it should be allowed to operate under trees because government assisted basic schools are also functioning under trees, tells one of the caliber of people behind some of these so called political parties. The Chronicle insists that the EC must apply the law without fear or favour, to ensure the integrity of our democracy. Kumasi, Jan. 28, GNA - Selected farmers across the Ashanti Region have gathered in Kumasi for a two-day workshop to discuss ways of growing the poultry industry to enhance its contribution to the economy. Budgeting, general farm housing, sanitation and feed management took centre stage. The programme was organized with support from the Council for Technical, Vocational Education and Training (COVET) under its skills development fund. 'Biosecurity and farm management for increased productivity' was the theme and it comes amid reported disease attack on farms, low production and rising cost of feeds and inputs. Dr. Michael Boateng, COVET Projects Coordinator, called for timely removal of suspected disease-infected birds, maintenance of acceptable standards of hygiene and to ensure proper disposal of litter including dead birds. They should thoroughly clean and disinfect the farms before the start of any new production cycle. He said that was necessary to significantly reduce the emission of powerful stench, which tended to pollute the air. Mr. Victor Oppong-Adjei, National Chairman of the Poultry Farmers' Association, underlined the need to adopt best practices to avoid the spread of diseases. They should also keep proper books to enable them to qualify for credit to expand their businesses. Alhaji Issah Buckman, the Regional Chairman of the Association, hailed the government for efforts at helping to make the industry to operate optimally. GNA Accra, Jan 28, GNA - Government has taken note of the latest report of the Corruption Perception Index launched earlier yesterday. The report ranks Ghana 56th out of 168 countries with a score of 47. FULL TEXT BELOW We acknowledge the singling out of Ghana and Senegal for praise in the report on efforts made by the respective governments on one hand and social partners on the other to combat the menace. This report, arguably the most authoritative source of corruption surveys in the world, belies the spurious claims of certain media outlets a few months ago that Ghana had been ranked as the second most corrupt nation in Africa by Transparency International. We note that though this performance is one point lower than that of 2014, it can be viewed within the context of the general performance of all countries. Ghana ranks 7th in Africa which means that apart from six African countries we performed better than all other countries on the continent and 112 countries worldwide. Given that this is a perception survey, it stands to reason that the views expressed by respondents were based on perceptions about the subject in the year under review. It also stands to reason therefore that the intense media focus on the allegations of corruption in the Judiciary as well as the repetition of some obviously false allegations against government in 2015 contributed to the perception. We are also mindful of the 'paradox of exposure'- which creates a scenario where government's efforts to expose and punish acts of wrongdoing such as the National Service Case, generates discussions among the populace creating a misleading impression of pervasive corruption when the opposite is in fact the case. We nonetheless commit and rededicate ourselves to the implementation of the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP). We shall continue to strengthen the relevant state institutions and work with Civil Society to win the war against corruption. We commend all stakeholders who have genuinely contributed to this enviable feat as proclaimed by Transparency International. Signed: Edward K. Omane Boamah (Dr) (Communications Minister) GNA Accra, Jan 28, GNA - Concern Health a non-governmental organisation (NGO), on Thursday called on Ghana Health Service (GHS), to step up its collaboration with other partners to facilitate the engagement of people at the community level especially during immunisation campaigns. The organisation also urged the GHS to release funds on time to the various health NGOs and civil society organisation (CSO) to ensure efficiency in such campaigns. A statement issued by Mr Isaac Ampomah, Chief Executive Officer of Concern Health Education Project, said there is the need for collective public education on immunisation in all communities by accredited CSO. The statement issued in line with the recent outbreak of pneumococcal meningitis said the vaccines for children under five are one of the many supported by Global Alliance for Vaccines and immunisation (GAVI). However Ghana has graduated from some obvious donor support windows because it is no longer considered a lower income country. 'Many of the vaccines under the support of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and immunisation will be halted soon after Ghana completes its transition to a middle income status country by 2020 and beyond. Ghana is considered as among the graduating countries and are currently in transition of receiving vaccine supported funding,' the statement said. It asked: 'What are the plans and strategies that Government have put in place to ensure that Ghana is adequately prepared and ready when the exits of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation funding support is over ?' The NGO called on the Ministry of Health and the GHS to constantly provide surveillance of all diseases in the country. The statement said: 'The recent out-break of pneumococcal meningitis should prepare the country on the need to raise the health sector budget to the threshold of the Abuja declaration of 15 per cent and also raise the needed funding portfolio of all donor and development partners contributions towards health system and the health sector in Ghana.' CSO groups and institution of international character championing health in Ghana must begin to realize the need for how vulnerable Ghana could become in the face of an outbreak and must collaborate to ensure effective project impact, the statement added The recent outbreak of the pneumococcal meningitis is yet another disease believe to be of a new characteristics and strain to the health system. African has had its share of emerging diseases in recent past , the obvious is the Ebola Virus which countries within west Africa has to grapple with hence its eradication. Pneumococcal meningitis is a disease that is a life-threatening infectious disease that causes inflammation of the layers that surround the brain and spinal cord. These layers are called the meninges - they help to protect the brain from injury and infection. Pneumococcal meningitis is caused by a bacterium called the pneumococcus. Current statistics of its prevalence in Ghana is indicating 32 cases with seven death in the Brong - Ahafo Region of Ghana and recent emerging cases and deaths in the Ashanti Region. Consequently the World Health Organisation has stepped in to help Ghana curtail the spread of the deadly pneumococcal meningitis (the new strain.) GNA Accra, Jan. 28, GNA - Parliament on Wednesday took strong exception to delays in the implementation of projects under the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) and the lack of monitoring of such projects to ensure that the resources committed were judiciously used. Contributions from both sides of the House stressed the need for more effective mechanisms to monitor projects in order to forestall the misapplication and waste of public monies. The concerns were raised in reaction to the contents of the Report of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on the performance of the Audit Report of the Auditor-General on the GETFund funded infrastructural projects in the public tertiary institutions. The House noted that procrastination of the Ministry of Finance in the release of funds to such projects was the bane of timely delivery of infrastructural projects, much to the detriment of the smooth running of academic programmes in the nation's tertiary institutions. The deliberations on the report has come in over two years since the report was presented to the House in November 2013 in accordance with Article 187 (2) and (5) of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana. Pursuant to Order 165 (2) of the Standing orders of the Parliament of Ghana, the report was referred to the PAC for examination and report. Media reports on the 2010 Auditor-General's report bemoaned the unstandardized infrastructural designs of GETFund funded projects resulting in cost disparities, in addition to the GETFund being cited as not being party to the contract awarding processes in beneficiary tertiary institutions from which claims for payment despite the GETFund being held liable for contractual breaches. The Auditor-General's report noted also the poor management of spending by the GETFund attributed to the lack of project due diligence and the absence of monitoring and evaluation of projects and programmes. The Committee observed that from 2005 to 2013, monthly disbursement into the Fund was usually in arrears between two and nine months, a situation that contravened the GETFund Act. The report quoted the Administrator of the GETFund as saying that the sluggish disbursement into the Fund was the single most constraining factor confronting the GETFund in ensuring efficiency, cost effectiveness and timely delivery of projects. 'The Committee considers this perennial situation as unacceptable and therefore urges the Ministry of Finance to ensure that the accumulated arrears owed the GETFund is paid as early as practicable'. Other breaches, the Committee noted were the lack of the absence of legislative instruments which would indicate in details the specific functions and activities to be taken by the GETFund Secretariat in managing the Fund, lack of proper planning and budgeting for projects, price fluctuations in constructing materials, interest on delayed payments, constant variations in prices without consideration to original cost of projects, and mismanagement of project quality. The Committee's report stressed the contribution of qualitative infrastructure to the provision of quality education in the nation's development agenda and called on the Ministry of Finance to make timely releases into the Fund. At the end of the debate the Speaker, Mr Edward Doe Adjaho directed that a copy of the votes and proceedings for the day and the Committee's report be made available to the Ministry of Education. GNA Mankessim (C/R), Jan. 28, GNA - Mrs Dela Sowah, the Deputy Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, has expressed worry over the increasing rate of Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) cases in the country. Making reference to statistics from the Domestic Violence and Victims support Unit (DOVVSU), she said 'It's becoming too much. The number of people who go through it, especially the women and the girls, is becoming very alarming'. Speaking at the opening of a workshop on 'Ending Sexual and Gender Based Violence in Ghana' for selected media practitioners from the Western and Central Regions at Mankessim in the Central Region, she said the Ministry was resolute to seek an end to such violence. The statistics from the DOVVSU presented in the course of the workshop revealed that SGBV cases increased from 4,697 in 2010 to 7,572 in 2014 and out of a total of 34,887 cases recorded within the four year period, female victims were 30,333 while males were 4,554. Mrs Sowah expressed worry that out of the cases that were sent to court for prosecution, the convictions rate was low. 'These are all things that we'll need your help as media people to help us bring the issue to the fore so that people will become more aware of it, know what their rights and responsibilities are and then help us to end the sexual and gender based violence', she said. The two day dialogue, second in the series of its kind for media practitioners across the country, forms part of a broader initiative between the sector ministry and DANIDA Ghana, with funding from the Denmark Government, towards ending SGBV in the country. The initiative is to among others, enhance capacity of journalist and media practitioners to facilitate gender sensitive reporting and help in creating a behavioural change as well as stimulate discussions on SGBV on various media platforms. Later in an interview with the press, Mrs Sowah said many people were ignorant about SGBV, some felt it was a family affair, coupled with the fact that most perpetrators were family close members or friends, people hardly report such issues. 'But with your intervention and education, people will get to know that what they really go through is not a family affair but something that is criminal and must be made known to the right authorities,' she said. She urged media practitioners to encourage victims to report such cases for the law to take its course since many of them felt intimidated adding that the media should also stop downplaying reported cases which often created the impression that the victims were telling lies. Ms Hilary Gbedemah, Ghana's representative to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), United Nations, took participants through the topic: 'Understanding the content of sexual and gender based violence in Ghana'. The lawyer and human right activist explained that SGBV aside physical effect also had economic, psychological and emotional implications and stressed the need for the press to recognise their role in the campaign and play it effectively. Ms. Charity Binka, a Gender and Media Expert, Advocate and a lecturer, in a presentation on 'the role of the media in eliminating SGBV in Ghana', tasked media practitioners to avoid judgmental language and details of victims such as names and photos, when reporting on SGBV. Mrs Thywill Eyra Kpe, the Central Regional Director of the Department of Gender, commended media practitioners for their collaboration with the ministry and urged them to intensify awareness creation on SBGV. GNA Vodafone Ghana has moved to ensure that businesses can now focus on their core activities rather than worry about the hustles of securing an effective internet solution delivery. In a country where companies and, particularly, SME businesses are always looking for smarter ways to work, an integrated mobile service solutions are highly sought after. Most businesses need a constant provision of data with guaranteed speed levels to ensure efficiency and productivity in their areas of work. Being on the constant lookout for ways to ensure customers and companies receive unmatched experience, Vodafone has introduced a new package, Dedicated Internet Lite, to enable companies enjoy reliable internet service at all times. The package guarantees a speed range from 512kbps to 2Mbps of bandwidth during peak hours between 10am 4pm and can be delivered over various media such as copper, fibre or radio. There are no restrictions on monthly usage or additional charges for large files; whiles it also delivers access to unlimited downloads. Commenting, Angela Mensah-Poku, Head of Vodafone Business Solutions the enterprise arm of the telecom company said As a business operating in the current telecommunications landscape, we need to be constantly innovative. Our customers, especially the SMEs, represent the very essence of what we stand for and that to us is a big deal. The Dedicated Internet Lite product is certainly another creative way to ensure our customers are up to date with modern trends. It is our way of making sure they are a Ready Business. Vodafone Business Solutions (VBS) has been a consistent leader in the enterprise space in the telecommunications sector in terms of revenue, creativity and innovation. Over the years, it has received several awards including the Telecom Business of the Year at the 2015 Ghana Telecom Awards (GTA). convict Eric Ntiamoah 28.01.2016 LISTEN A 35 year old labourer has been jailed 25years by an Accra Circuit Court, presided over by Mr. Aboagye Tandoh, for robbing and raping a pregnant woman, at Pokuase near Accra. Eric Asamoah pleaded not guilty to charges leveled against him, although all the prosecution witnesses pointed to him as the perpetrator of the crime. The convict used a knife to threaten his victim, who is three months old pregnant, collected her bag, GH c700, a mobile phone and raped her in addition. The case had been pending before the circuit court for the past four months, until he was convicted yesterday after a full trial. To judge Aboagye Tandoh, the 25 years prison sentence would serve as a deterrent to others and send a strong signal to the society that such crimes would not be countenanced. The judge also commended the investigator, Detective Corporal Castro K. Ntiamoah with service no.(38889) , of the Tesano Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) for a good job done. Adding if he had the power he would have promoted him. Facts The complainant is a three months old pregnant woman and a student of Accra Polytechnic, who resides at Pokuase ACP, whilst the convict, Eric Asamoah, 35, is a labourer at White House and lives at Ofankor Barrier, near John Teye School. On August 8, 2015, at about 9:30pm, the complainant alighted at Pokuase bus stop after closing from school, with the convict standing on the other side of the road and closely monitoring complainant's movement. When the complainant turned onto a rough road, heading towards her home, the convict quickly pulled a knife and ordered her to stop. The complainant obliged, whilst the convict further instructed her to give him her bag, containing a Nokia XL mobile phone valued at GHc700 and other personal items. The convict collected the bag and forcibly had sexual intercourse with the complainant and after satisfying himself, he left the scene. Four days after the crime, the complainants husband called her phone to find out if they could trace it. The convict received the call and the complainant's husband feigned having been in possession of some money belonging to the convict and wanted to meet him and hand over the said money. They then arranged to meet at Ofankor. The following day, the convict met the husband of the complainant for the deal and he was arrested. The convict, during investigation insisted that, he bought the phone from one Richard, whom he could not lead the police to. The complainant, however, identified the convict as the one who robbed and raped her on the said day. Prosecution told the court that, the rape docket has been forwarded to the Attorney General's office for advice, whilst the robbery case was put before a court. By Maame Agyeiwaa Agyei ([email protected]) IMG_6304 28.01.2016 LISTEN After courting controversies over recent donations of GH5,000 to the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), the Ashanti Regional President of the Head Porters Association, Adiza Moshie Zongo, is once again in the news, after donating bales of used clothes to victims of the Dagomba Line fire disaster. Adiza, who was accused of leading the NPP propaganda, presented the items to her colleagues yesterday, with the help of a popular NPP Serial Caller, Kwame NPP. The items included over 10 bales of used clothing and foot wears, which were solicited from philanthropists and well-wishers across the region. The donation is expected to assuage the pain of victims of female head porters, locally known as Kayayei, who lost valuable belongings when fire swept through their premises a few weeks ago. The Chief Head Porter courted controversy weeks ago when she made a donation of GH5,000 in support of the NPP campaign drive in the name of the Head Porters Association, after some members denied ever making any such contribution. The ruling NDC has since been accused of being the brain behind efforts to discredit the credibility of the donation. But it appears Adiza Moshie Zongo, who also chairs the Zongo Pioneers Association, has proved her critics wrong, after managing to mobilise support for her members, some of whom are currently struggling to earn decent living, having lost everything to the fire. Presenting the items at Dagomba Line on Tuesday, Adiza urged her colleague head porters not to allow themselves to be deceived by functionaries of the NDC. According to her, left to the NDC alone, they prefer to see the Kayayei living in impoverished conditions so that they can continue to manipulate and lie to them. Adiza contended that despite years of unflinching loyalty to the NDC, the ruling party has not shown any commitment towards improving the lives of Kayayei in the country except manipulating them through vile propaganda. She, therefore, called on her colleagues to support her cause for change and ensure victory for the NPP, since it is the only party that can help improve their socio-economic conditions. From Issah Alhassan, Kumasi The Hague (AFP) - Former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo on Thursday denied charges of clinging to power "by all means" as his long-awaited trial opened five years after post-poll violence wracked his west African nation. Gbagbo became the first ex-head of state to stand in the dock at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, in a case which will test the tribunal's avowed aim to deliver justice to the victims of the world's worst crimes. Prosecutors accuse Gbagbo and his co-accused Charles Ble Goude of orchestrating a plan to ensure he stayed in power even before he was narrowly defeated by his bitter rival Alassane Ouattara in November 2010 elections. Both Gbagbo, 70, and Ble Goude, 44, pleaded not guilty to four charges of crimes against humanity including murder, rape, and persecution in five months of bloodshed in which some 3,000 people were killed. "Nothing would be allowed to defeat Mr Gbagbo, and if politics failed, violence was seen as politics by other means," chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told a three-judge bench. Prosecutors have gathered a "vast body of evidence against the two accused," Bensouda said, including hours of video footage as well as forensic and ballistic evidence. Bensouda painted a vivid picture of the turmoil that swept Abidjan -- once one of the most cosmopolitan of Africa's cities -- in the aftermath of the polls, including charges of gang-rapes of women seen to be Ouattara supporters. "The Ivory Coast descended into chaos and was the theatre of unspeakable violence," she said. In one incident, seven women were killed by pro-Gbagbo forces after a peaceful protest in the Abidjan suburb of Abobo in early March 2011. - 'Kisses to supporters' - Looking relaxed in a dark suit with a light blue shirt, the one-time west African strongman blew kisses at supporters in the packed public gallery after arriving in court. At the end of the first day, his supporters perched in a gallery gathered by the large windows overlooking the courtroom to cheer and applaud him. Gbagbo and Ble Goude denied charges they had implemented an "organisational policy to launch a widespread and systematic attack against civilians perceived to support Alassane Ouattara." Such crimes included murders, rapes, other inhumane acts and persecution, the court registrar said. "I plead not guilty your honour," Gbagbo told the court, while Ble Goude said "I do not recognise these charges and therefore I plead not guilty." If convicted the maximum penalty is usually up to 30 years in prison. "When justified by the extreme gravity of the crime" judges could impose a life sentence, the court's guiding statute says. Hundreds of Gbagbo supporters from the country's large diaspora held a rally outside the new ICC building on the seaside coast of The Hague. Draped in orange flags, they played drums and chanted slogans in support of the former president. One of the march's organisers, Abel Naki, told AFP that Gbagbo had been "kidnapped" and "deported" to the ICC. "It reminds us of the years of slavery and colonisation." Gbagbo supporters say Paris plotted to oust him and that the ICC has failed to investigate Ouattara's camp for alleged abuses. "My brother was killed by Ouattara's rebels, he's the real criminal. He's the one who should be on trial," said 20-year-old Edwige. Abidjan was turned into a war zone between 2010 to 2011 as clashes flared between the rival forces in a deadly power struggle. But the international community, including former colonial power France, backed Ouattara as the winner, and Gbagbo was eventually arrested by Ouattara's troops aided by UN and French forces, and extradited to the ICC in 2011. Rights groups highlight that crimes were committed by both sides, and that no charges have yet been brought against the Ouattara camp. He has just been elected to a second term as president. Bensouda has vowed she is "intensifying" her investigations into the events and that both sides are under the spotlight. 28.01.2016 LISTEN The Executive Director of Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Vitus Adaboo Azeem has charged the President John Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) government to put in more efforts to ensure that it tackles the issue of corruption in the country aggressively. Mr. Azeem described what the government has been doing over the years in its fight against corruption as selective and urged it to improve upon its efforts in dealing with the menace. He stated; Although the government of Ghana has also started pursuing the corruption in the country, this still remains selective and needs to be improved. Commending government for pursuing officials of the National Service Secretariat (NSS), National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), the Smartys and the GYEEDA, who were one way or the other involved in some alleged corrupt deals, Mr. Azeem pointed out that a lot more needs to be done. The AMERI case needs to be investigated, he continued, adding The African Automobile cars are left to rot at the Institute of Local Government Studies, even after the Judgment Debt Commission has concluded its work. Some of the people indicted by the Commission's report are still holding public positions, the GII Executive Director stressed. He lamented over the fact that public officers who won their parliamentary primaries on the ticket of the NDC are still holding onto their public positions, adding this shows that we have still not put in enough effort and commitment in tackling corruption. Mr. Azeem made the declaration in a press statement he released in Accra yesterday to announce the 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) of the Transparency International, a leading civil society organization fighting corruption worldwide. Ghana was ranked the 7th African country with high level of corruption in the 2015 Corruption Perception Index (CPI), scoring Ghana 47 out of clean score of 100, and ranked the country 56 out of 168 countries. Thus, Ghana slid back by one percentage point from the 48 points scored in 2014 but better than its performance in 2012 when it scored 45 and 2013 when it scored 46 points, the statement said. Ghana scored below six African countries namely; Botswana 63, Cape Verde 55, Seychelles 55, Rwanda 54, Mauritius and Namibia 53. According to the statement, the CPI 2015 made use of eight data sources out of the 12 data sources to compute the index for Ghana. The sources that assessed Ghana include; the World Bank (CPIA) 47, the African Development Bank (55), the Bertelsmith Foundation (45), the World Economic Forum (33), the World Justice Project (37), the Economic intelligence Unit (54), the PRS International Country Risk Guide (50) and the HIS Global Insight (52). The score made by Ghana, is said to be an average of the scores from the data sources of the institutions listed above. It, however, stated that Ghana's score and ranking show that the country has performed much better than several other African countries, including South Africa, Senegal and Tunisia. AMERI Deal Government of Ghana signed a contract with Africa & Middle East Resources Investment Group (AMERI Energy) for the supply of 10 gas turbines to help address the problems of dumsor a couple of months at a cost of US$510 million. Two investigative journalists from award-winning Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang (VG) published that the power generating gas turbines are estimated to cost $220 million on the international market. Then Power Minister, Dr Kwabena Donkor, in his rebuttal, created the impression that all Ghana needed to do was to pay AMERI Energy a total of $510 million for five years for 250megawatts emergency power as part of efforts to solve the protracted power crisis (aka dumsor) which is wreaking havoc on the economy. However, a careful reading of the contract showed that the $510 million is solely for renting the 10 new General Electric TM 2500 aero-derivative gas turbines and it means that Ghana is going to incur an additional cost of over $150 million in the deal. This generated a huge debate in the country leading to a number of institutions, adding their voice to the debate. The Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) told Ghanaians that AMERI will be smiling to the bank every year with the payment of $120 million, totaling $600 million for the five-year contract, with the Ghana government also picking the cost of fuelling. AMERI will be paid $850,000 per turbine per month. This will amount to $8.5 million for the 10 turbines, with cumulative annual payments of $102 million. In addition, an amount of $16.6 million will be paid as variable costs. This brings the total payment due to AMERI and its partners to almost $120 million, ACEP said in a statement. African Automobile Ltd African Automobile Ltd (AAL) since 2005 had been battling government over a purported breach of contract in the importation of some 87 galloper vehicles in court. The company among other things said it had lost its franchise for the importation of Mitsubishi vehicles into the country and was, therefore, claiming damages to the tune of $1.5 billion. Government accepted liability for the vehicles, which were said to be rotting at the premises of the Local Government Institute but was challenging the damages being demanded by AAL. By Richard Kofi Attenkah The Administration and Human Resources Management Directorate (AHRMD) of the African Union Commission (AUC) launched the African Union Leadership Academy project today, 28th January, 2016 at the AU in Addis Ababa Ethiopia under the theme: Driving the Africa We Want. The launch was attended by H.E. Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Chairperson of the Commission, H.E. Erastus Mwencha, Deputy Chairperson of the Commission, Dr. Ibrahim Mayaki, CEO of NEPAD Planning and Coordination Agency, Dr. Carlos Lopes, Executive Secretary of UN Economic Commission for Africa, AUC Commissioners, staff and invited guests. The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, H.E. Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma in her opening remarks expressed gratitude towards directors, partners and the entire AUC team who foresaw the success of the launch of the AU leadership academy project. Dr Dlamini Zuma further went on to stress the goal of the academy which is to provide a systematic way of training towards the implementation of Agenda 2063. This project lies at the heart of the priorities and flagship projects of Agenda 2063: The Africa we want said Dr. Dlamini Zuma. The AUC Chairperson emphasized the need for capacity building mechanisms such as the leadership academy, since Africa's greatest resource is her human resources. Dr Dlamini Zuma then went on to add that the African Union leadership academy will become a strategic node, and means to facilitate service delivery and result-oriented program implementation on the continent, as well as provide knowledge-based responses to any challenges. In her closing remarks, Dr. Dlamini Zuma noted that the launch of this new project will facilitate the development of professional skills of AU staff members for effective policy design and work place efficiency, that will create a high level pan African learning and development agency, driving capacity building solutions to challenges of managing the process of realisation of Agenda 2063 for the continent's people. Mr Amine Idriss Adoum, Director, Administration and Human Resources Management (AHRM) of the AUC', speaking at the launch, underlined the role of the African Union leadership Academy. Mr Idriss said that the academy will not only be instrumental in driving the Commission towards achievement of Agenda 2063, but will also ensure flexibility in the execution of complex duties within the Commission. Mr. Idriss illustrated that the leadership academy will deliver capacity building mechanisms, knowledge sharing as well as project management. In turn, this will encourage the spread of AU values. In his closing remarks Mr. Idriss highlighted the importance of the leadership academy, which will go a long way in providing systemic mechanisms for identifying young potential that will be trained to promote good values in Africa and around the world. The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has observed that many assembly members, both appointed and elected, were not performing their expected duties as they were either ignorant of their functions or do not understand them. The Central Regional Director of the NCCE, Nicolas Ofori Boateng who made the observation, said the situation had influenced voter turnout at district level elections over the past years, as the electorates had lost confidence or felt betrayed by the assembly members. Mr. Boateng who was speaking at a focus group discussion on the "Post 2015 District Level Elections", organized by the NCCE with support from the European Union, to refresh the minds of participants on the countrys decentralization concept, stressed that the issue was detrimental to the decentralization process of the country. The forum, which brought together chiefs, assembly and unit committee members and other opinion leaders, formed part of NCCEs lined up activities to enhance public awareness on the concept of the Local Governance System in the country. The NCCE Director express regret that most assembly members did not understand their roles and responsibilities as spelt out in the Constitution and questioned how they could contribute meaningfully towards the developmental aspirations of their communities. He said though it was the duty of assembly members to maintain close contact with the electoral areas, consult their people on projects and meet the electorates before and after each assembly meeting, majority of them had failed to do so. Mr. Boateng urged stakeholders in the local government system to avoid all forms of internal wrangling and work together to accelerate the development of communities and districts. He criticized the apathy shown by some Ghanaians towards communal labour and other activities of the Metro, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDA's) and urged them to support the assemblies to ensure that the purpose of the decentralization process was achieved. At a similar programme held at Abakah Nkwanta in the Hemang Lower Denkyira District, Mr. Boateng advised Ghanaians to desist from making unnecessary demands from assembly members since their work was voluntary. He also called on Ghanaians to elect patriotic people as assembly members and explained that committed assembly members would be in a better position to ensure effective planning and implementation of issues that would reflect the interest of the people. The fora also offered assembly and unit committee members the opportunity to discuss their functions and duties as well as their challenges with stakeholders present. They bemoaned unrealistic demands by some electorates, coupled with low revenue mobilization in their electoral areas as well as over dependency on the assembly common fund, which was impacting negatively on their work. Some of the participants advocated that assembly and unit committee members be resourced to enable them perform their duties effectively. Presidential hopeful on the ticket of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP), Ms Samia Christina Yaba Nkrumah, has sent an open letter to the party's national chairman, Dr Edmund Delle, accusing him of working against her candidature ahead of Saturday's presidential primaries. Members of the CPP will on Saturday converge on the Ghana International Trade Fair Centre, La in Accra to elect a presidential candidate for the 2016 election. Former party Chairperson, Ms Samia Nkrumah, is contesting against two-time former General Secretary, Mr Ivor Greenstreet, twice former flag bearer aspirant and lawyer, Mr Bright Oblitei Akwetey, and newcomer, Mr Joseph Agyapong, in the race. Ahead of that, Ms Nkrumah thinks the party's chairman has exposed himself as 'one of the rabid anti-Samia Bashers who are hell-bent to frustrate her efforts at the coming party congress.' Dr Delle in a publication of the Today Newspaper of January 21, 2016 was quoted as saying, 'the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) is not a sanctuary for the children of the late Dr. Kwame Nkrumah the Party's founder,' and subsequently expressed doubts as to whether Dr. Nkrumah left the party for his children. Responding to those assertions in an open letter to Dr Delle and dated January 27, Samia Nkrumah said Dr Delle's assertions have deepened the concerns of some committed members of the party who suspect he has bad intentions against Ms Nkrumah. 'that obnoxious assertion hides your true intentions of conspiring with other members of the party to adversely damage the chances of Samia Yaba Nkrumah one of Dr. Nkrumah's children in her bid to contest the party's flag bearership position in this year's (2016) general elections,' the letter said. Ms Nkrumah, the daughter of Ghana's First President Dr Kwame Nkrumah, has already indicated that her mission is to achieve her father's unaccomplished seven-year development vision for Ghana and adapt it to today's changing circumstances. She said Dr Delle's interview with the newspaper was an indication that, 'belies' his often 'touted claim that you have come as a leader, a unifier, a Pacifist, a Peace maker whose main objective is to unite the fragmented front of the Nkrumahist /CPP family.' 'May your tenure in office as the new leader and national chairman for the CPP be devoid of controversy and rancor,' she concluded. The letter was signed on her behalf by Comrade Kwame Wiafe, a Member of the Council of Elders of the CPP. Follow @enochfrimpong Writer's email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Below is a copy of the letter OPEN LETTER TO MY DEAR COMRADE DR.EDMUND DELLE NATIONAL CHAIRMAN AND LEADER OF THE CONVENTION PEOPLES PARTY Please permit me to comment on your recent interview which you granted to one Mr. K. Agyapong and which was published in TODAY's news paper (see page 8 of publication of 21st January,2016 volume 13 No.763 edition)in which you are quoted as asserting that the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) is not a sanctuary for the children of the late Dr. Kwame Nkrumah the Party's founder and that you doubted whether Dr. Nkrumah left the party for his children . That publication to my mind, has raised some serious doubts in the minds of sections of the general reading public and has also deepened the concerns of some committed members of our party who suspect that, that obnoxious assertion hides your true intentions of conspiring with other members of the party to adversely damage the chances of Samia Yaba Nkrumah one of Dr. Nkrumah's children in her bit to contest the party's flag bearership position in this year's (2016) general elections . For the purposes of greater clarity, therefore and the removal of any doubt's and ambiguities in the minds of those committed members of our party preparing to cast their votes at the next party congress, it is important that you issue a public statement to clarify the true position. In our society today, where local newspaper reporters are often accused of quoting interviewees 'out of context' ostensibly to sensationalize tit-bits of information they publish your article as it stands exposes you as one of the rabid anti-Samia Bashers who are hell-bent to frustrate her efforts at the coming party congress . The article also belies your often touted claim that you have come as a leader ,a unifier ,a Pacifist ,a Peace maker whose main objective is to unite the fragmented front of the Nkrumahist /CPP family. By virtue of your association with the CPP and its history, you know too well that nowhere in the late Osagyefo WILL did he WILL the party to his children. Besides the late Madam Fatia Nkrumah was your mother in law by virtue of your marriage to one of her Egyptian housemaids. You are therefore in an intimate position to offer a more accurate information about Osagyefo's will to his children. You should therefore be the last person to join in the vicious smear campaign of vilification aimed at assassinating the Character of Osagyefo's children. Even more discrediting and insulting to the name and image of Osagyefo's children and also to our party's relationship with them is the erroneous impression you have sought to create in the minds of the general public that Osagyefo's children have sought and found sanctuary in the party in the aftermath of their father's death. You and I do know that it is precisely the presence in the party of vicious character assassins that has kept Osagyefo's Three (3) Sons away from participating in the affairs of the party which their father founded. Dear Comrade I think you owe the Party and Osagyefo's children an unqualified apology by willfully allowing yourself and your standing in the party to be ignobly exploited by some vociferous anti Samia elements in our party. Our society is not like the USA where a Kennedy or a Bush can institute a political dynasty for their families or where a Mrs. Clinton can aspire to succeed her husband as President .Neither is our society like Canada where the son of the late Trudeau can succeed his father, nor like India where a daughter can succeeded her father as Prime Minister. The CPP the first mass political party to be formed in Africa, south of the SAHARA was never instituted like the British monarchy or the Ghanaian paramountcy or kinship where the line of succession has been pre-ordained by centuries of customary and traditional practices. If it where so, Samia could not have attained the lofty heights she occupies in our party today. Her position by birth in the line of succession in her father's dynasty, in a largely conservative and male dominated society like ours would have marked her down as inferior . To succeed in the top echelons of our party today, demands total commitment loyalty and the dedication to core party principles and objectives. Our party abhors the sinister activities of Janus-faced ,lip service men and women, opportunists and money grabbing elements who profess their loyalty to Nkrumahism but go behind the party to serve the mammon God of deceit ,treachery ,graft and political infidelity. It is in this context that meteoric rise of Samia to political prominence in contemporary Ghanaian politics should be assessed and judged . She's rosed to her present level not because she is merely Dr. Nkrumah's daughter. She should be assessed as a woman with great determination committed to hard work in order to succeed in this largely conservative chauvinistic society of Ghana. What is therefore so objectionable about her effort? You and I should therefore respect her right and liberties as a Ghanaian individual struggling to succeed where others have failed and not simply because she happens to be the late Osagyefo's daughter . My dear Comrade in your new role as leader of our party, your should at all times endeavor to remain an impartial arbiter in all intraparty disputes to avoid being boxed inadvertently into a new AFOKO corner .Please be always reminded that Samia's return to Ghana was partly orchestrated by a Cabal of political power brokers in our party who saw in her the opportunity to mold her into a money minting machine to manipulate and exploit in order to make wealth . They saw in her a new race horse with a popular name, a beauty queen with a charming personality and a potential chief mourner to preside over the funeral of a fallen national hero with a great potential to be exploited and manipulated . She was quick to see through this political chicanery and has refused to play their game accordingly . Today Samia has matured into a political figure in her own right . Her four years stint in parliament coupled by her two term experience as national leader and chairman of our party has adequately prepared her for the leadership position she is aspiring to reach . She must therefore be judged by her political achievements and not criticized because she is the daughter of the Late Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. One of Samia's greatest achievement for the CPP in the resolute and uncompromising battles she has wages in defence to our party unique political identity and independence from being submerged and subordinated to spurious ideologies of an opposite or parallel nature. It is an ongoing struggle in Samia won support from and the admiration of the majority of party faithful. She also made some formidable enemies for herself both from within our party and from outside it. As successor to her leadership the choice whether or not to continue from where she left off is entirely yours. Be assured however that your success or failure as the new leader will be measured by the progress you make in this all important ideological in the party. One more thing my dear comrade , the uncertain status of Mr. Onzy Nkrumah who claims to be one of Osagyefo's son's and also born to another woman of Egyptian nationality continues to give the party real cause for concern . In your capacity as party leader, it is your responsibility to help reveal the real identity of Onzy. Is he truly Osagyefo's son?is he a Ghanaian citizen under our existing nationality and immigration laws?. Cant you use your special relation as the former husband of an Egyptian citizen to provide information to establish the true identity of this Onzy man? Onzy's association with our party makes him a lose canon ball that can explode in our faces. His uncertain status in Ghana , constitutes a threat to national security . His nack for regularly appearing at our public party functions and seeking to ingratiate himself with party members who often feel unsure of how to relate to him gives real cause for concern . Even more embarrassing was his recent brazen attempt to contest the party flagbearership position hopefully to become Ghana's next president ,an attempt which constitutes an insult to our party's image and the nation . The fact that he also presented a dud cheque to pay for his nomination forms coupled by the presence in our party, by some unknown supporters who came to cheer him up ,some of whom are known convicted drug addicts would seem to suggest that Onzy has the potential to drift into the twilight world of criminals . Why was he also later encouraged to pay for his nomination forms in cash 24 hours after nominations had closed ? And why hasn't anybody in the party questioned Onzy's conduct in all these instances of malfeasance? By virtue of your special status, as the late madam Fatia Nkrumah's son in law ,please seek support from the national security and also from the Ghana foreign service to investigate Onzy, For as long as his true identity remains uncertain , Onzy should be declared a persona-non-grata and should also be restrained from attending public and private party meetings . May your tenure in office as the new leader and national chairman for the CPP be devoid of controversy and rancour . Follow @enochfrimpong Writer's email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The Police are looking for the Member of Parliament for Asante Akyem North, Mr Kwadwo Baah Agyemang and Mr Ernest Owusu Bempah. a member of the National Democratic Party (NDP) on allegations of inciting the people of Agogo to violence. This followed a clash between the Fulani herdsmen and Konkomba settlers in Agogo on Wednesday as a result of the call by the two to chase all cattle and herdsmen from the town, reports Graphic Online's Ashanti Regional reporter, Kwadwo Baffoe Donkor. The utterances of the two indigenes of Agogo, according to the police led to a confrontation between Fulani herdsmen and some farmers in Ejura. A total of five cows were killed and gunshots which were fired injured a Fulani man. A police and military team have since been deployed to the area to maintain law and order. At a press conference, Owusu Bempah asked the people to defend themselves against the Fulani. The police are therefore looking for them to arrest. Abuja (AFP) - Nigeria's former highest-ranking airforce officer is being questioned as part of an investigation into the alleged diversion of funds intended to fight Boko Haram, a source close to the probe said on Thursday. "Former chief of air staff Air Marshal Adesola Amosun has been with us since yesterday (Wednesday)," the official at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission told AFP on condition of anonymity. "He is being interrogated in connection with the arms deal scandal." A statement from President Muhammadu Buhari's office on January 15 said the EFCC probe into alleged weapons procurement fraud had been widened to include 17 former or serving high-ranking officers. They included the former chief of defence staff, Alex Badeh, whom Buhari replaced last year, it added. The probe would look at "the roles of the officers and the... companies and their directors in fundamental breaches associated with the procurements" by former national security advisor Sambo Dasuki and the air force, the statement read. Dasuki is facing a string of allegations over allegedly bogus arms deals to provide Nigeria's military with the weapons and equipment needed to fight the Islamist group in the country's northeast. The material either never materialised, was over-priced or deficient, according to a panel looking into the procurement. Prosecutors allege the money was channelled to the then-ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to fund Goodluck Jonathan's re-election campaign last year. Jonathan lost to Buhari, a no-nonsense anti-corruption campaigner and former military ruler, in the first democratic transition of power between political parties in Nigeria's history. Buhari has embarked on a wide-ranging crackdown on endemic graft since taking office last year, leading to a slew of arrests and charges, particularly against senior PDP members and supporters. Over 130 people at Ative Kofeyia in the Ketu North District of the Volta Region have been displaced after fire destroyed their thatch houses. Officials of the National Disaster Management Organisation,NADMO, say 34 thatch houses were razed down by the inferno. Joy News Kwame Asare reports that the fire started about 1pm Wednesday when some people set fire to a nearby bush in search of game. However, "the fire started to spread because of the wind towards the thatch houses and burnt everything, Asare said. According to the Deputy District NADMO Coordinator, Sylvanus Ati Kesseh said the fire burnt down some 15 electricity poles and 34 thatch houses. No property belonging to the residents was recovered, he indicated. He said the swift response of fire service personnel from the Akatsi and Dzodze Fire Posts prevented the fire from destroying some more houses. He added that a damage assessment has been done currently and a report has been sent to the regional office for assistance. Speaker of Parliament, Edward Doe Adjaho is angry at the Ghana Revenue Authority over what he says are attempts by the GRA to subvert a law passed by the House. Mr. Adjaho described as improper a directive by the Revenue Authority to banks to suspend the implementation of the one percent tax on interest earned on investment. Minority spokesman on Finance, Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei who raised the issue on the floor said the directive violates the constitution. "We passed the income tax amendment act and unfortunately some institution wrote suspending the implementation of the Act. These days people are talking about parliament that we are not serious. I think the least we ought to do is to let people know that when Parliament passes an Act it remains an Act until an appropriate thing is done," he protested on the floor. "Until we have passed another Amendment Act no one, not even the president can purport to suspend it," he said. Ruling on the matter the speaker said the finance minister has written to him to amend the Income Tax Amendment Act but explained that until the amendment is done, the tax will hold. "It is a legitimate point. Until it is amended that is the law as at now," the speaker said. He tasked the Deputy Majority leader to take up the matter and ensure that until the law is amended nobody suspends it. Accra, Jan. 28, GNA - Mr Alex Segbefia, Minister of Health, on Wednesday received various health equipment to help reduce maternal deaths in the country. The equipment forms part of a GH 23 million project sponsored by Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA). The equipment received by the sector minister included 2500 pieces of Umbilical Cord Clamp Umbicut, 400 Fetal Heart Detector and 140 pieces of Obstetrics Model Five Stages of Birth. The rest were 140 pieces of Pregnancy Series, 140 Ultrasound Basic Scanner with Video Printer and an Inland Transport. Mr Segbefia, addressing journalist in Accra, said the receipt of the equipment marked the beginning of items to be received under the Millennium Development Goal Accelerated Framework (MAF) designed by the Ministry of Health to reduce maternal and child deaths in the country. He said as at last September, Ghana's target for maternal mortality was 300, which was reduced from about 319, with the Ministry's being able to achieve 185. Mr Segbefia said following the Sustainable Development Goal, an agreement has been reached with the target for maternal mortality now set at 70 per 100,000 live births 'We agree that 70 is too many, but considering that we have about 319 at the moment, is a tall order', he said. Mr Segbefia said the equipment would be distributed to all the ten regions of the country. 'They are going to be distributed at various points wherever they are needed at whatever level, straight from CHPPS compound level right up to the teaching hospital. Where these items are needed we will put them there, we shall not waste time in distribution,' he said. Mr Segbefia thanked DANIDA and Denmark for their assistance in making the purchase of the equipment a success. In a related development, Ernest Chemist also donated 5000 vials of antibiotics valued at GH30,000.00 to the Ministry of Health. Mr Richmond Nkansah Mernsah, International Business Development Manager, Ernest Chemist, who presented the antibiotics to the Health Minister, said it was part of the company's efforts in responding to the outbreak of Meningitis in some parts of the country. Mr Segbefia, receiving the donation, said it was timely and was going to help check the spread of the outbreak. GNA 28.01.2016 LISTEN Anomabo (C/R), Jan. 28, GNA - The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has observed that many assembly members, both appointed and elected, were not performing their expected duties as they were either ignorant of their functions or do not understand them. Mr. Nicolas Ofori Boateng, the Central Regional Director of the NCCE who made the observation, said the situation had influenced voter turnout at district level elections over the past years, as the electorates had lost confidence or felt betrayed by the assembly members. Mr. Boateng who was speaking at a focus group discussion on the "Post 2015 District Level Elections", organized by the NCCE with support from the European Union, to refresh the minds of participants on the country's decentralization concept, stressed that the issue was detrimental to the decentralization process of the country. The forum, which brought together chiefs, assembly and unit committee members and other opinion leaders, formed part of NCCE's lined up activities to enhance public awareness on the concept of the Local Governance System in the country. The NCCE Director express regret that most assembly members did not understand their roles and responsibilities as spelt out in the Constitution and questioned how they could contribute meaningfully towards the developmental aspirations of their communities. He said though it was the duty of assembly members to maintain close contact with the electoral areas, consult their people on projects and meet the electorates before and after each assembly meeting, majority of them had failed to do so. Mr. Boateng urged stakeholders in the local government system to avoid all forms of internal wrangling and work together to accelerate the development of communities and districts. He criticized the apathy shown by some Ghanaians towards communal labour and other activities of the Metro, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDA's) and urged them to support the assemblies to ensure that the purpose of the decentralization process was achieved. At a similar programme held at Abakah Nkwanta in the Hemang Lower Denkyira District, Mr. Boateng advised Ghanaians to desist from making unnecessary demands from assembly members since their work was voluntary. He also called on Ghanaians to elect patriotic people as assembly members and explained that committed assembly members would be in a better position to ensure effective planning and implementation of issues that would reflect the interest of the people. The fora also offered assembly and unit committee members the opportunity to discuss their functions and duties as well as their challenges with stakeholders present. They bemoaned unrealistic demands by some electorates, coupled with low revenue mobilization in their electoral areas as well as over dependency on the assembly common fund, which was impacting negatively on their work. Some of the participants advocated that assembly and unit committee members be resourced to enable them perform their duties effectively. GNA Kumasi, Jan 28, GNA - The police have arrested and detained four men believed to be members of the robbery gang that attacked and robbed travelers on the Mampong-Ejura highway. They shot and killed a policeman, General Corporal Alexander Cheremeh during robbery. Their names were given as Gariba Salifu, alias 'Kudi', Ibrahim Sulemana, Yusif Mumuni, alias 'Romeo', and Emmanuel Yeboah, alias 'Tupac'. Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Kofi Boakye, the Ashanti Regional Commander, told a press briefing in Kumasi that they were picked based upon police intelligence. The incident happened on Friday, January 22. The robbers carrying guns and other deadly weapons, blocked the highway and succeeded in robbing travelers on two commercial mini-buses of their cash and other valuables. The deceased policeman, who was in uniform and traveling in one of the buses from Yeji to Kumasi, was shot dead. DCOP Boakye said Salifu had already been identified by the one of the robbery victims. He indicated that every effort would be made to arrest and bring to justice all those who carried out the robbery. GNA 28.01.2016 LISTEN Accra Jan. 28, GNA - Ms Esther A N Cobbah, Chief Executive Officer of Strategic Communications Africa Limited (Stratcomm Africa), has been recognized in the second annual list of Top Women in PR by PRnews, a US based communications organization. The Awards Luncheon was held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City on Tuesday, January 26, 2016. The PRnews, the Top Women in PR list, is comprised of 'the most influential women, driving the agenda for the industry and in their companies.' Judy Robinett, the author of 'How to Be a Power Connector: the 5+50+150 Rule', who was the keynote speaker at the event, said strategic networking was important to professional and personal success. Commenting on her award, Ms Cobbah said, 'Africa's prospects represent some of the great and exciting opportunities for the communication industry'. She said whether it is about positioning investors, promoting products and ideas, as well as technological innovations for accelerated development or establishing national harmony and international understanding, the communication profession has much to offer and 'we must rise to the challenge in the different countries of Africa. This is what I have been privileged to lead Stratcomm Africa to undertake in the past 21 years and over and I am grateful for the recognition and give God all the glory'. Among others honored were communications professionals from companies such as Time Warner Cable, Ford Asia Pacific, Air China Limited, Tourism New Zealand, PwC, Microsoft, T-Mobile, ESPN, Hill+ Knowlton, Porter Novelli, Bank of America, Burson-Marsteller and Hilton Worldwide. Strategic Communications Africa Ltd (Stratcomm Africa) is an international marketing communication, reputation management and research agency, dedicated to using communication as a means of enhancing performance in various contexts. Stratcomm Africa specialises in evolving and implementing systematic and comprehensive communication strategies for individuals and organizations - public and private - in both national and international settings. Stratcomm Africa began operating in May 1994 as an indigenous Ghanaian company and has expanded its presence on the African continent. The Chief Executive Officer, Esther Cobbah, has won various awards, including Best Entrepreneur in media communications, African Business Star Quality Awards for excellent Communications and Advertising Services medal, Outstanding Corporate Woman of the year 2013; CIMG Marketing Woman of the year 2012, as well as the PR Personality of the Year 2013. Under her leadership the company has also won numerous awards including the Christian Company of the year (2008), Association of Ghana Industries, Business Promotion and Consultancy Services Company of the Year (2012), PR Consultancy of the year 2013, and 2014 and has also been recognized within the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre 'Ghana Club 100' group of companies. GNA Accra, Jan. 28, GNA - Mrs Mona Quartey, Deputy Minister of Finance, has said the non-bank financial sector play a critical role in building a strong and viable financial sector for the development of the national economy. She said they remain a key source for the mobilization of the much needed short and long term funds for national development, by financing productive activities in the economy, adding that they also contribute immensely to addressing the unemployment problem and poverty reduction generally. Mrs Quartey was speaking at the launch of SIC Life Savings and Loans Company, the newest addition to the SIC family, on Thursday in Accra. She said SIC Financial Services had transitioned from a finance house to a Savings and Loans company after five years of its introduction. She said the financial sector has become highly competitive with the entry of new banks and it is important to ensure the stability of the banking system to meet the development needs of the underserved and 'unbanked' population. Mrs Quartey said a growing number of policymakers and governments have recognised the urgency of financial inclusion and have made the promotion of inclusive economic growth a priority. She said in Ghana access to formal financial services has increased by 41 percent since 2010 resulting in a decrease in financial exclusion. However, 25 percent of Ghanaians remain excluded from any form of financial service. She said government was committed to partner with the private sector to work towards socio-economic transformation and expand opportunities for all by continuing with the fiscal consolidation process with the view of creating an improved business environment as well as re-positioning the economy to proactively deliver support to the private sector. 'Private investment is a critical source of long term capital for spurring sustained economic growth and diversification while promoting innovation by supporting the micro, small and medium sized enterprises.' She commended the company for steadily increasing its foot prints in Ghana's financial sector and urged them to use the experience gained as a finance house to contribute to the stability of the financial sector as well as the economic development process. Dr Nashiru Issahaku, Second Deputy Governor, Bank of Ghana (BoG), said SIC Life Savings and Loans Company, is the first Savings and Loans Company to be launched in 2016. He said the industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the financial sector of the Ghanaian economy and with a clear indication of growing competition, SIC Life is expected to be more creative and innovative to survive the competition. He said banking business involves risk taking, whiles capital on the other hand provides the buffer for absorbing loses that would arise as a result of failed risks. He urged the company to continuously assess their risk profile especially when expanding and venturing into new activities in order to put in place the appropriate measures to mitigate associated risks. Dr Issahaku urged players in the industry to make the necessary effort to deepen financial intermediation through rapid introduction of innovative instruments and products to suit the needs of customers who are becoming increasingly knowledgeable and demanding. 'I will like to assure stakeholders in the industry that the BoG would continue to monitor events in the industry including the progress and performances through effective supervision. We shall correct, reprimand or sanction those who stray and in like manner support and encourage those who are doing well', he said. Mr Richard Appietu, Managing Director, SIC Life Savings and Loans, said the company is a wholly owned subsidiary of SIC Life Company Limited and was incorporated in 2010 as a finance house to provide credit facilities to the Sika Plan policy holders of its parent company. He said six months ago the company received approval and license from the Bank of Ghana to operate as a Savings and Loans company. He said the company is introducing a new set of financial solutions including customer asset and equipment finance, personal and business loans, fixed term investment, savings and current accounts, money transfer among others. Mr Appietu said the company aims to be a dynamic, leading edge and responsive company that high performing individuals would want to join and other companies seek to copy. He said it would also provide the under-banked the opportunity to save and have access to their money when they need it. He thanked shareholders for their trust, as well as management and the entire staff for the hard work, and stakeholders for contributing towards making the vision of the company a reality. GNA Accra, Jan. 28, GNA - The Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) will work closely with the banks to drive payment patronage on the gh-link hybrid Point of Sales (POS) machines. Mr Archie Hesse, the Chief Executive of GhIPSS, said efforts would be made to encourage the public to use their domestic cards to make payments. GhIPSS last year collaborated with the banks to increase awareness about express clearing of cheques and Automated Clearing House (ACH). The campaign resulted in a 94 percent increase in the volume of express cheque transactions and over 100 percent increase in ACH Direct Debit transactions in 2015 compared to 2014. Other GhIPSS initiatives also saw growth in patronage. Following these successes chalked last year, Mr Hesse said GhIPSS planned to extend the drive to gh-link hybrid POSes. He said it would take a lot of effort to get the critical mass of people to shop and pay with their cards, but was hopeful that together with the financial institutions, a lot could be achieved. Mr Hesse said besides the deployment of more hybrid POSes, there would be several other activities to encourage patronage. The GhIPSS Boss said financial institutions have increased their request for POSes which they give to their merchant customers. He commended the banks for their role in promoting electronic payments and urged them to create more products and promotions around such payment options to support the cash-lite agenda. Currently a number of major shopping outlets, restaurants, pharmacies and beauty parlours in Accra, Tema and other key outlets in the regional capitals also have the hybrid POSes. Although POS transactions remain low, it however experienced a 52 percent growth in transaction in 2015. GNA 28.01.2016 LISTEN Accra, Jan. 28, GNA - The Australian High Commission, has marked the Australia National Day with an Arts Exhibition at the Nubuke Foundation in Accra, which would end on February 16. Mr Timothy Millikan, Acting Australian High Commissioner, expressed delight to support 'Yiwarra Kuju', an Australian indigenous art exhibition, which means 'one road' in the Martu language. 'We have used 'one road' to bind the art, people and story of the Western Desert together, we use the Canning Stock Route as the meeting point, as the cross-cultural scaffolding on which to develop an understanding of Aboriginal Country, and the shared history that happened within it.'' Mr Millikan said the rationale behind the programme was to share a bit of Australian culture with Ghana. "We brought indigenous arts to Ghana and in doing so we also engaged Isaac Opoku, a Ghanaian visual artist to contribute to the exhibition with two pieces interpreting the stories and unique artistic qualities of indigenous Australian arts. He said there was also collaboration with school children of La-Bawaleshie Presby Junior High School A and B who also produced some artistic work. Mr Millikan said 'visitors, regardless of their levels of understanding of Australian history, Aboriginal art or Aboriginal culture, can expect to be enchanted and learn from the exhibition'. Mr Isaac Opoku in an interview with the GNA said he created a triptych called Akwantuo, meaning 'The Voyage' in English. He said the second piece Denkyem Asa, meaning 'Crocodile's Dance'', talks about change and transition. Mr Opoku said the piece communicates the idea that one had to necessarily adapt his thinking and his approach to create art in order to fully absorb and understand the meaning and aesthetics of Australian Aboriginal art. Mrs Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts in a message read on her behalf by Mr Edwin S. Owusu-Mensah, Director, Procurement, Protocol and Special Duties expressed happiness about the inauguration of the first ingenious art exhibition in Accra. She said Australia host the oldest civilisation with people inhabiting the largest Allan continent for over 60,000 years adding that the cultural size in Australia such as 'Uluru' and 'Lake Mungo National Park' are among the most visited sites which have contributed to a vibrant tourism industry for the continent Acknowledging the importance of our cultures and our shared histories, the Tourism Minister said 'I am impressed by the efforts by the Australian High Commission to involve Ghana in the celebration by engaging a Ghanaian Artist, Mr Isaac Opoku to contribute to the exhibition'', GNA Accra Jan. 28, GNA - The Supreme Court has given Alfred Agbesi Woyome, businessman seven days to file his statement of defence in a suit requesting the overturn of its decision that he refunds GHa1 million to the state. Alhaji Abdulai Yusif Fanash Muhammed has gone to the Supreme Court inviting it to overturn its decision that Woyome refund GH 51 million cedis to the state. At Thursday's sitting, the court noted that Woyome's lawyer had not file his statement of defence in the suit because his lead counsel is in disposed and had made available an excuse duty. Mr Martin A Amidu, a Lawyer, who represented himself at the court stated that Mr Woyome had not filed his statement of defence because he had none. According to Mr Amidu he had not file his statement of defence because of Alhaji Muhammed's suit was needless and he had not been able to demonstrate to the court whether his defence was good. Mr Amidu explained that he had not filed his defence because of tactical and technical reasons. Meanwhile Mrs Dorothy Afriyie Ansah a Senior State Attorney told the court that the Attorney General opposed to the application and if Woyome's counsel is indisposed, a colleague from his chambers could have filed on his behalf. The judge, Mr Justice Yaw Appau gave Mr Ken Anku who represented Woyome, seven days to file the statement of defence. The judge informed parties that the substantive writ which is to be heard on February 2 has now been slated on February 4. The anti-corruption crusader Martin Amidu filed a suit at the Supreme Court praying the Supreme Court to throw out a suit filed by one Abdulai Yusif Fanash Muhammed which is praying the same court to overturn its own earlier ruling concerning the businessman to return GH 51.2 million to the state. Mr Muhammed sued Mr Amidu, the Attorney General, and Mr Woyome for a declaration that 'the financial engineering claims by Alfred Agbesi Woyome arising out of the tender bid by Vamed Engineering GmbH/Waterville Holdings during the procurement process from June 2005 until its wrongful abrogation in August 2005 is not an international business transaction within the meaning of Article 181 of the Constitution, 1992,' for which reason parliamentary endorsement would have been necessary. Woyome was acquitted and discharged by a High Court on two counts of defrauding by false pretences and causing financial loss to the state. Mr Woyome was paid the GHa51 million after he sued the state over an alleged breach of a purported contract between him and the Government. Mr Woyome promised to refund the money by the end of 2015. GNA Berlin (AFP) - Germany's coalition partners agreed new measures Thursday to tighten asylum policies in an effort to stem an unprecedented influx of migrants, notably by making it easier to send back arrivals from North Africa and by delaying family reunifications. The measures are part of a package announced by Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, leader of the Social Democrats, after a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel of the Christian Democrats and Horst Seehofer of Bavaria's Christian Social Union. The tough new restrictions are intended to reduce the number of asylum seekers in Germany, which saw an influx of around 1.1 million migrants and refugees in 2015. Under the new rules, some migrants will be blocked from bringing their families to join them in Germany for two years, Gabriel said. The measure would apply to migrants who currently qualify for so-called "subsidiary protection", a status just below that of refugee which is granted to some rejected asylum seekers who still cannot be expelled because they risk torture or the death penalty in their own country. The move is expected to also affect some Syrians who had enjoyed an almost automatic right to asylum in Germany but for whom individual scrutiny of their applications was reintroduced on January 1. Germany will also add Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia to the list of "safe countries of origin", Gabriel said, meaning that their nationals would have little chance of winning asylum. The different measures "are there and can very quickly be presented to the cabinet," Gabriel added. Berlin hopes that the measure will curb the number of migrants from North Africa, who have arrived in increasing numbers in recent months. Germany has already classified Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo as safe, after tens of thousands of asylum seekers arrived from there. The arrivals have since dropped as a result of media campaigns in those countries to explain that the chances of obtaining a residency permit in Germany were minimal. Calls have multiplied in recent weeks to step up expulsions of migrants from North Africa after a rash of sex assaults in Cologne on New Year's Eve blamed by police partly on Algerians and Moroccans. The attacks had coincided with a sharp rise in asylum requests from those countries. Berlin is also pressing Algiers and Rabat to take back their nationals who have failed to win asylum, to free up resources to deal with bona fide refugees. you are here: business See limited participation in 700 Mhz spectrum auction: Fitch Nitin Soni, director, Asia-Pacific corporate ratings at Fitch-Ratings says while 700 MHz is a nice spectrum to have, it is not a must have, and hence participation in this round of auction may be limited MUMBAI: Investors have carried forward most of their short positions following the expiry of January derivative series suggesting that the market sentiments remain bearish for the near term. Derivatives experts said that institutional investors especially the foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have created huge short positions in Nifty futures during the last two trading session. I am not saying that the markets are going to see a steep fall. But looking at the derivatives positions, it seems that institutional investors are bearish on the markets at the moment, said Siddarth Bhamre, head of equity derivatives at Angel Broking. According to him, investors who were holding long (buy) positions had already squared-off their positions and exited the market. We didnt see much roll-over in the stock of HDFC Bank. The stock of HDFC Bank was the most stable stock in the Nifty and Bank Nifty basket and was also providing the much-needed support to the index. The lower roll-over positions in HDFC stock is not a positive sign for the market, added Mr Bhamre. Traders have carried forward their short position in the Bank Nifty futures contract, which indicates that the bank stocks are expected to remain under pressure in the coming days. We are not expecting a sharp bounce back in the market as bank stocks are having a higher weightage in the index, said Amit Gupta, head of derivatives at ICICI Securities. On Thursday, the equity markets ended the day with marginal losses. While the Sensex dropped 22.82 points or 0.09 per cent to close at 24,469.57, the broader 50-share Nifty closed at 7,424.65, losing 13.10 points or 0.18 per cent. NSE sees 6 per cent growth in retail investors: The NSE on Thursday said that the exchange has witnessed a six per cent increase in active participation from retail investors in 2015 with cities such as Rajkot and Bengaluru showing significant growth. According to the NSE, there were 46 lakh active clients in 2015 in the cash market segment and all of them traded at least once. Majority of this additional participation has come from the western region of the country. Besides conventional places, data associated with Bengaluru and Rajkot have shown significant growth, it said. business Shapoorji Pallonji enters affordable housing with 'Joyville' The company has joined hands with Standard Chartered Private Equity, International Finance Corporation (IFC) - an arm of the World Bank - and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for investing in the segment. Brent crude hit USD 35 per barrel on Thursday following after Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Saudi Arabia had proposed to cut oil production by up to 5 percent by each country in order to support weak oil prices. Novak also told reporters that there was a proposal of a meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC countries on the level of oil ministers and that Russia was ready for the meeting. Crude prices hit a three-week high earlier, bouncing well off a 12-year low set this month, supported by the possibility that major producers may cooperate to cut production. Brent crude was up USD 1.41 at USD 34.51 a barrel by 9:39 am ET, after hitting a session peak of USD 35.84. It was at its highest since early January and was about USD 8 higher than the 12-year low set this month, although still down around 9 percent this month. US crude was up USD 1.41 to USD 33.71 a barrel, down from an intraday peak of USD 34.82. It settled the previous session up 85 cents, a 2.7 percent gain. Russian officials have decided they should talk to Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries about output curbs to bolster oil prices, the head of Russia's pipeline monopoly said. Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries such as Nigeria and Venezuela have called for cuts to bolster the oil price, which has halved since last May. Until this week, however, there were few signs that the biggest producers were ready to make such a move. "The fact that the bigger oil producers are talking in these terms is limiting the downside," Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, said. Saudi Arabia's deputy minister for company affairs at the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources said on Thursday in Tokyo that OPEC estimates global oversupply to be around 2 million barrels per day (bpd). "It will take some time for the market to rebalance," said Aabed A. Al-Saadoun. "We feel that the market will begin to come into balance in 2016 and that demand for energy in all forms will continue to increase." The Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday that US crude inventories climbed by 8.4 million barrels last week, higher than analyst expectations for a rise of 3.3 million barrels. That brought crude inventories to the highest level since the EIA began tracking the data. However, investors overlooked this seemingly bearish data and focused on crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery hub, which fell by 771,000 barrels. "Cushing was a crisis zone because it was getting close to capacity, so there is some relief for the inventory overhang," said Dominic Haywood, analyst at Energy Aspects. business ICICI Bank Q3 highly disappointing; stock may dip: Experts According to market expert Prakash Diwan, the fact that ICICI Bank is virtually into every spectrum of lending, it gets impacted in the downturn much more severely than some of the other private sector banks which have niches which they have carved out. SGHs share price dropped 15.54% this morning on open. Nothing compared to previous drops but it has pushed shares towards their 52 week low of $0.55. Will Slater & Gordon pull out of their earnings rut? We all know what happened, theres no use tiptoeing around it. Last year Slater & Gordon [ASX:SGH] lost 87% of their share value. Most of which was lost due to a British court ruling about small damage claims. The court ruled the minimum claims limit was raised from 1,000 to 5,000. The market has given SGH time to strategically sort out the problem. And an answer still hasnt been announced. SGHs share price dropped 15.54% this morning on open. Nothing compared to previous drops but it has pushed shares towards their 52 week low of $0.55. Source: Google finance SGH Shareholders still left with no information Once the British courts decision was released, investors through it could affect SGHs earnings. Why? Because SGH is a legal firm that has a high percentage of customers making small claims. However days after the decision was released SGH announced that their British operations were sound. And a disruption to earnings is unlikely in the not too distant future. Yet, SGH were wrong. Weeks later SGH downgraded their earnings guidance. And it left shareholders in disbelief. Something that was thought of as so small ended up ruining their portfolio. SGH had previously stated that they would provide an update on its gross operating cash flow. SGH had an opportunity to calm the rumours surrounding their financial position for the first half of FY16. But it seems SGH has let down its shareholders again. All that was said was the company continues to work with its auditors and advisors. Earlier this month SGH announced help would be received by accounting advisory and insolvency firm, McGrath Nicol. The firm has been appointed as an advisor to the companys lenders and will assess the situation. Instead SGH will put off any statements about gross operating cash flow until 29 February. The company continues to work with its auditors and advisers to finalise its half year results including statutory grow operating cashflow, SGH stated to the ASX. Will Slater & Gordon pull out of their earnings rut? Investors dont seem to be confident in anything that SGH says. And I dont blame them. If I was lied to by a firm I trust, my confidence in them would be wavering too. The new CEO, Andrew Grech, need to not only sort out SGHs financial position. But their social responsibility as well. Blatantly lying to shareholders, or just confirming information that may not be true is completely uncalled for. Once SGHs share price dropped and the company told investors that earnings wouldnt be affected. You can bet there were a lot of investors jumping into what they thought was a cheap stock. Now reality has unfolded, a lot of investors have lost a lot of money. Its now a likelihood that SGH could have a negative cash flow of up to $40 million. This is staggeringly different to what the company repeatedly reaffirms to be, $250 million. Most analysts are claiming SGHs projected number will be difficult to obtain, if not impossible. Adding to SGHs pilling problems is the attention of ASIC (Australian Securities & Investments Commission). The Commission had questioned some of the financial reporting within the company. However this is the least of their troubles. First they must rebuild trust with investors. Harje Ronngard, Junior Analyst, Money Morning PS: Slater & Gordon is definitely cheap. But its share price may not be going anywhere but down. There are plenty of ASX stocks to choose from. And it can be hard to shift through all the individual stocks to determine which you should buy. According to Money Mornings Kris Sayce there are 5 must buy stocks in the ASX. Kris has close to 20 years experience in analysing stocks. His experience ranges from brokerage houses to leading wealth management firm. But Kris has found his home at Port Philip Publishing. Kris understands that investing your money isnt easy, especially in a declining market. In Kriss report he will show you the 5 best stocks on the ASX right now. There are sneaky ways to play the Australian property market. And retailers could be in for a revival. Kris has gone through the ASX himself to find you the best picks for 2016. To get for free copy today, click here. Aden: A suicide car bombing killed at least eight people at a checkpoint outside Yemen's presidential palace in the southern city of Aden on Thursday, security and medical officials said. The dead included soldiers and civilians and at least 12 others were wounded, a medical source said. Islamic State in a statement claimed responsibility for the attack outside the residence of Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. In a statement online, the militant group said the attack was carried out by a suicide car bomber it identified as Abu Hanifa al-Hollandi, suggesting the attacker was Dutch. The group said the attack had killed about 10 members of palace security and wounded about 20. It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the claim or the identity of the attacker. A security source said the attack appeared to target the convoy of a local businessman who was entering the presidential complex. Sources had initially said the convoy was carrying Aden's governor, Aidarus al-Zubaidi, but he later told AFP he was not in the area at the time of the attack. Witnesses said the blast had damaged at least six vehicles and a nearby mosque. January 28, 2016 My First Take On The Presidential Election Say what you will about Donald Trump but he knows how to market himself. Staging a feud with Fox News and abstaining from tonight's Republican candidate debate gives him more media coverage than taking part. He is already the front runner of the Republican candidates. More debating could only endanger that position. Staying away and making a fuzz about it gives him a bigger lead. That Trump knows marketing well gives me some doubt about his real positions. Who owns him? Who pays his campaign? Answers to these questions are likely more revealing than the fascist dog-whistle politics he publicly emphasizes. He seems to favor neither neoconservative nor liberal interventionist foreign policy. That would be welcome change. On the democratic side I do not see a chance for Clinton to win. I believe that the American people have had enough of the Clintons. If she would win the nomination she would lose in the presidential election as many voters would abstain. Her policy record is abysmal. Yes she has experience - of misjudgement and not learning from it. In interior policies she is clearly in the hands of Wall Street and the big banks. Her "liberal" image is all fake. In foreign policy she is "the vessel into which many interventionists are pouring their hopes": If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue, [top neocon Robert Kagan] added, its something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else. Sanders is hard to see as president. His domestic policies are somewhat comparable to middle-of-the-road European social-democrats. His foreign policy stand isn't clear. While not an interventionist he supports the colonists in Palestine. The people obviously favor him over Clinton but he will need big money for the big campaign should he get the nomination. To whom would he sell out? The Republican party is coming around in favor of Trump. The party big-wigs believe he has no real positions, that they can manipulate him. That is probably wrong. The Democratic party machine is clearly in favor of Clinton. Would it try to sabotage Sanders if he wins primary after primary? Could they throw in another plausible candidate? My gut instinct say it will be Sanders against Trump with a voter turnout advantage for Sanders. What is your take? Posted by b on January 28, 2016 at 17:57 UTC | Permalink Comments next page The pan-Arab news channel said on its website earlier in the morning that the three had been freed "a short while ago" after having been kidnapped by "unknown gunmen". (Photo: AFP) Doha: Al-Jazeera said on Thursday that a three-man news crew for the Qatar-based channel has been freed more than 10 days after being kidnapped in the flash point Yemeni city of Taez (also called Taiz). Reporter Hamdi al-Bokari, cameraman Abdulaziz al-Sabri and driver Munir al-Subaie went missing on January 18 while covering the conflict between rebels and Gulf-backed forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. The pan-Arab news channel said on its website earlier in the morning that the three had been freed "a short while ago" after having been kidnapped by "unknown gunmen". In a message posted on his Facebook page, Bokari said he had been held by the Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels, under fire since March from a Saudi-led coalition, of which Qatar is a member. "We heard them repeat 'Death to America'," a slogan the Houthis and Iranian protesters commonly chant, he wrote, adding that he would release more details about the kidnapping in the coming days. The city of Taez is held by loyalists of Yemen's internationally recognised government, but it has been besieged by the Iran-backed rebels for months. The Houthis overran Sanaa more than a year ago, forcing Hadi's government to flee the Yemeni capital. Hadi loyalists backed by a Saudi-led coalition have fought back and have been trying to retake Taez province and pave the way towards the rebel-held capital. A suspect is being sought after a local jewelry store was robbed of $28,500 worth of merchandise. Morganton Public Safety Officers responded to Gregory Jewelers, located at 110 N. Sterling St. in Morganton, after a man entered the business and stole several high-priced rings on Wednesday morning around 10 a.m. Nancy Gregory, of Gregory Jewelers, reported that a white male came into the shop and began looking at various rings on display. Employees were assisting the man, who looked at several rings on top of the sales counter. The man then grabbed the rings and ran out the door, she said. Investigator J. Beaver is in charge of the case and said MDPS is hoping the public can help in identifying the subject. Weve got surveillance video of him and we took still shots from those, he said. He has some very distinguishing characteristics. Were hoping somebody will recognize him. The suspect is described as being in his mid-20s, between 6 feet and 6 feet, 4 inches tall. He was wearing a camouflage toboggan, dark blue windbreaker pullover and blue jeans. He was last seen getting into a red, four-door passenger vehicle that turned onto Queen Street. Investigators were informed that the suspect had been in the business looking at rings a week prior to Wednesdays robbery. Anyone with information should contact Morganton Public Safety at 828-437-1911 or Burke County Crime Stoppers at 828-437-3333. Tips also can be made to Crime Stoppers by texting BURKETIPS and the information to 274637. Smartphone users can download the free TipSubmit app, and tips also can be made online at www.tipsoft.com. Beaver can be reached by calling 828-438-5393. IS affiliate the Sinai Province said its members used explosive devices to target the army west of El-Arish (Photo: AP) Cairo: An Egyptian affiliate of the jihadist Islamic State group claimed responsibility Thursday for an attack that killed a colonel and three soldiers in North Sinai, where it is spearheading a deadly insurgency. Wednesday's bombing in North Sinai's provincial capital of El-Arish targeted the troops' armoured vehicle when it was engaged in a search operation, security officials and emergency services said. Another 12 soldiers were wounded in the blast. In a statement posted on jihadist forums, IS affiliate the Sinai Province said its members used explosive devices to target the army west of El-Arish. Jihadists have regularly attacked security forces in the peninsula since the army toppled Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. They say their attacks are in retaliation for a government crackdown targeting Morsi supporters that has left hundreds dead and thousands imprisoned. The authorities say hundreds of policemen and soldiers have been killed in attacks, mainly in North Sinai, since 2013, although there have also been attacks in the Nile Delta and in Cairo. Egypt's branch of IS also said it planted a bomb that caused the crash of a Russian airliner in the Sinai in October, killing all 224 people on board. This year started as last year ended: with concerns about oil prices and the Chinese economy, and fears about a new global recession sending share prices downwards. As in any period of volatility there have been days when stock markets bounced back, but it is clear private investors need to brace themselves for a more difficult investment climate. Against this background it is not surprising that there have been fund closures and manager departures but also new launches with investment firms trying to find gaps in the market with potential for growth. Meanwhile the latest figures from the Investment Association showed a record year for some sectors of this market. More Neptune Closures Fund manager Neptune announced it is closing two further funds at the end of this month, as part of the restructuring programme it started last summer. The fund management group will close its Cautious Managed fund - worth almost 850,000 - and the smaller Defensive Managed fund, just shy of 164,000. As a result of this decision the manager Ian Sealey left the company at the end of December. Investors will be offered a free switch into another Neptune fund, or the opportunity to sell their holdings. The fund manager said this decision wasnt a result of poor performance - both are top quartile funds - but lower than expected demand meant it wasnt cost-effective to run these portfolios. Since it started the restructuring Neptune has now closed around a third of its funds. New Fund Launches With three months to go until the end of the tax year it is perhaps not surprising that there were a crop of fund launches this month. Whats more surprising though is the remit of some of these funds. These are almost all UCTIS funds, which by their definition are geared at more sophisticated investors. BlackRock has launched an ETF that tracks the Israeli stock market. This will track the largest 25 companies in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) This market is worth some $200 billion, but no company is allowed to form more than 10% of this index. Nomura has also launched a higher-risk UCTIS fund, although one that is geared to more active investment strategies. Its Global High Conviction fund will invest in just 17 to 25 worldwide companies, picked by head of equity investment Tom Wildgoose - wholl be backed by a team of 18 investment specialists. This Dublin-based fund will not have any sector, or region constraints. Woodford to Run New Fund Its been a busy start of the year for veteran fund manager Neil Woodford. He will be running a new fund, known as Omnis Income & Growth, which will invest in both listed and unlisted companies. However this wont be available directly to private investors. It can only be accessed by the 3,000 advisers that use the Openwork platform, and its investment proposition Omnis, which enables them to build multi-asset portfolios using funds from the likes of Schroders and Jupiter. In addition, Woodford Patient Capital - the investment trust he runs - announced it is looking at further fundraising. In an update the trusts board said that the 800 million which was raised during its IPO last year was now fully invested. It said it was looking at ways to raise further capital in the year ahead to take advantage of a substantial ongoing pipeline of investment opportunities. The initial fund-raising was increased from 500 million to 800 million to meet investor demand. Banks Get Back Into Financial Advice HSBC is the latest high-street bank to signal a move back into the advisory market. It will launch an investment advice arm later this year, aimed at more mass market customers, with less than 50,000 to invest. Santander made a similar announcement earlier this month, while it has been reported that Barclays is interesting in offering advice services to those with 50,000 plus to invest. This comes after all major banks pulled out of the financial advice market, following RDR. But with the regulator indicating that providers can offer limited or simplified advice it is thought that this may be a more viable option again, particularly with the use of technology and so-called robo-advisers and demand for this services from consumers, particularly in light of pension reforms. 2015 Winners & Losers It was a record year for tracker funds, according to figures published by the Investment Association. The amount of money invested in these passive funds hit an all time high of 108 billion, while money market funds saw record net retails sales of 591 million. European equity funds also saw strong sales, although UK Equity funds sales declined - from 5 billion in 2014 to just 1.9 billion last year. But despite this, the UK Equity Income sector retained its place as the best-selling sector in the market. In second place was the IA Targeted Absolute Return sector - which has no doubt profited from concerns about more volatile investment conditions. This was just the fifth most popular sector the year before. With oil dropping to less than $30 per barrel and the Canadian dollar reaching its lowest levels in 15 years, the beleaguered Canadian economy is struggling to achieve stability this year despite the continued dynamism in the countrys real estate markets. Housing prices will rise by nearly 10 per cent this year, TREB predicted. Surging demand in high-volume locales like the Greater Toronto Area will play a crucial part in this significant increase, the same projections noted. Analysts point at the continued downturn of Canadas energy sector as a main driver for real estate trends this year. Certain oil producing countries and companies have flooded the market with a surplus of supply, driving down the cost of crude. As a result it's been a downhill slide for the Canadian energy sector that plays a huge role in the national economy, the Rent Seeker Team wrote in their analysis piece published by The Huffington Post. When Canadians lose jobs, the real estate market suffers, the authors added. Complicating matters is the increasing presence of foreign capital, especially since a weak loonie fosters exchange rates that make domestic markets attractive to international investors. For those who own property, increased foreign investment has been welcomed as they have seen their own property value increase. However, for the majority of Canadians who rent, foreign investment means increased real estate prices that were already unaffordable, the analysts warned. All of these developments amid a backdrop of historically low mortgage rates, which are stimulating greater transaction volume. As long as borrowing money is cheap, real estate prices won't be. For those who are priced out of the housing market, while rents have also risen across the country, it is the only option for many, Rent Seeker said. Alberta and Saskatchewan have seen a flurry of activity from builders constructing new homes, but some observers said that this frenetic pace might be for naught. Recently, a significant volume of potential buyers are moving away from Calgary and Regina. This exodus has fuelled significant price drops in the real estate markets of Alberta and Saskatchewan, according to the latest figures. The real estate correction is already happening just not where most expected, Bank of Montreal economist Robert Kavcic told Global News. Look for continued home price declines [in those regions]. Benchmark values in the two provinces have fallen by single digits. In addition, the continuous global oil price crashes have compelled people to move to locales with better prospects such as Vancouver and Toronto, in turn ensuring constant pressure on these high-demand high-volume metropolitan markets. The two cities that have been the biggest concern for housing bears will continue to benefit from strengthening job prospects, improving population trends and mortgage rates that are lower than they otherwise would have been had oil prices not collapsed,Kavcic said. Recent StatsCan numbers show the number of Canadians now considered to be self-employed is pegged at 2.76 million, or nearly 16% of the countrys working population. This number is trending higher and there are several factors driving this new phenomenon.Anecdotally at least, it appears that Canadians are embracing entrepreneurship in greater numbers, says Pino Decina, executive vice president, residential mortgage lending, Home Trust Company. Put this down to the impact of the millennials perhaps, but there is no question that a growing cohort of younger workers are taking a different career path from that of previous generations, with many choosing instead to start their own small companies or operate as sole proprietorships.The most recent statistics indicate that the alternative market expanded by roughly 25% year-over-year, while the prime market grew at a much slower 4%.With BFS clients making up more than half the client list for many brokers, the potential impact self-employed borrowers can have on your bottom line cannot be ignored, says Decina. Nor can the potential for even more BFS business in the near future.In other cases, self-employment is being forced on more workers as companies look to shed costs by replacing full-time workers with contract workers or freelancers hired on an as-needed basis. The Bank of Canada Quarterly Report for the first three months of 2016 indicates that the hiring outlook for the year is now at its lowest level since 2009 when the previous recession forced companies to reduce their original hiring plans.With fewer companies expecting to hire this year, observes Decina, and with those that do intend to hire scaling back on their previous intentions, a growing number of Canadians may have little choice but to go into business for themselves. Xiaomi Mi 5, the next flagship from the Chinese tech giant, was delayed and supposed to launch end of last year. Come February end (24th to be specific), Xiaomi will be launching their next most powerful flagship smartphone and Mi 4 successor, the Mi 5. Global VP for Xiaomi Hugo Barra has confirmed the launch date on his social media posts and seems very excited for the device and its specifications. As for the earlier spill outs from the company, the Xiaomi Mi 5 will be hosting a few too many exciting featured, which includes the most (presently) powerful Snapdragon 820 chipset, USB Type-C port, sunlight display, a large battery and a few others. Rumors and teasers about the Xiaomi Mi 5 has been doing its rounds for more than a year and Xiaomi has always kept silent on the devices existence. When we asked Manu Jain, Head for Xiaomi India, we were returned with a simple, tongue-in-cheek answer What is the Mi 5. Well, now that the device has been in the making for a long time and finally tested and certified, the Chinese company is all set to show it off at the Mobile World Congress in February. At present, there is not much revealed on the specifications front, but rumors have it all. As per previous speculations, apart from the confirmed SD 820 chipset, the Xiaomi Mi 5 will boast of 4GB RAM, 64GB of storage, a 5.3-inch 2K display, fingerprint scanner and 16MP/6MP cameras. The Xiaomi Mi 5 will sport a Snapdragon 820 chipset for sure Judging by the specifications, and taking a tip from the price of the Mi 4 release, we estimate to see a price tag of approx Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000. We could be wrong about the pricing, but since Xiaomi has been keeping its prices at a jaw-dropping low level, the Mi 5 should be a steal. However, the D-day for the Mi 5 launch will tell us whether we should smile or.. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. Distressed Sales have usual November Blip There was a slight uptick in the market share of distressed home sales in November. Sales of lender-owned houses (REO) and short sales accounted for 11.9 percent of total home sales nationally, a 1.4 percent point gain over those sales in October. The share was, however, down 1.9 points from November 2014. In releasing the November numbers CoreLogic said the month-over-month increase was a factor of seasonality and was in line with blips in previous Novembers. Distressed home sales were still the lowest for any November since 2007. REO had an 8.7 percent portion of all sales with short sales making up the balance of the distressed share with 3.2 percent. The REO sales share was 1.5 percentage points below that in November 2014. The short sales share fell below 4 percent in mid-2014 and has remained in the 3-4 percent range since then. At the peak in January 2009, distressed sales held a 32.4 percent share of the home sales market with REO sales representing 27.9 percent. CoreLogic notes there will always be some level of distress in the housing market, and by comparison, the pre-crisis share of distressed sales was traditionally about 2 percent. If the current year-over-year decrease in the distressed sales share continues the company predicts it will reach that "normal" 2-percent mark in mid-2019. All but nine states recorded lower distressed sales shares in November 2015 compared with a year earlier. Maryland had the largest share of distressed sales of any state at 20.2 percent followed by Connecticut (19.1 percent), Florida (19 percent), Michigan (18.9 percent) and Illinois (17.8 percent). Nevada had a 5.4 percentage point drop in its distressed sales share from a year earlier, the largest decline of any state. California had the largest improvement of any state from its peak distressed sales share, falling 59.2 percentage points from its January 2009 peak of 67.4 percent. Only North Dakota and the District of Columbia are within one percentage point of their pre-crisis levels of distressed sales. There was little light among those in the 25 largest Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) with the largest distressed sales shares. Orlando area had the highest percentage at 21.2 followed by and Tampa-St. Petersburg, Baltimore, Chicago, and Miami-Miami Beach, all with shares slightly exceeding 20 percent. Las Vegas had the largest year-over-year drop in its distressed sales share, falling by 5.5 percentage points from 20.3 percent in November 2014 to 14.8 percent in November 2015. "Security can be improved while schools are still on. We should give a message of strength and unity and fight against the atmosphere of fear and terror," Nisar Ali Khan said. (Photo: AP) Islamabad: Pakistan's interior minister on Thursday criticised his PML-N party's government in Punjab province for shutting down schools over fears of terror attacks saying it only emboldened the militants. "Security can be improved while schools are still on. We should give a message of strength and unity and fight against the atmosphere of fear and terror," Nisar Ali Khan said. Punjab ordered closing of schools for the entire week citing extreme winter as the reason but media reports suggested that threat of militant attacks forced the government to take the decision. "The terrorists are desperate so they are attacking the softest targets. There are hundreds of thousands of schools in Pakistan. Securing each is a difficult job, but it must be done," Khan said. He said he has taken up the issue of closure of schools with the Punjab government. Khan said that he rejected a proposal to close schools in capital region of Islamabad. He said that if the trend of closing buildings continued then a day would come that "we close all our educational institutions, hospitals, streets, neighborhoods and hide ourselves in our houses" to the satisfaction of terrorists. The minister said that the Pakistan was winning the war against militants but it needs to face them in the area of psychological warfare. "I think at this point we are not winning the psychological war and we need to address the part," he said. The minister criticized his opponents for creating confusion in the country. "Whenever there is an attack, a storm begins. We behave exactly how our enemies want by creating an atmosphere of fear. People criticise the government saying no progress has been made," he said. The minister said that National Action Plan (NAP) adopted after the 2014 Peshawar school attack was being successfully implemented under the civilian government while army was carrying out Operation Zarb-e-Azb. "Networks of terrorism have been broken. The terrorists are on the run so they hit the softest targets," he said. Companies are creating specialized divisions and handpicking qualified people to lead their customer relationship business, understanding that the new battleground for client loyalty is being fought and won here. LenderLives Correspondent Lending division was designed to help our clients protect their customer relationships as they build their mortgage businesses, said David Vida, president of Mortgage Services at LenderLive. LenderLive, a domestic-based mortgage services provider, recently brought on board Jenny Klamfoth to fill the role as regional account executive for companys Correspondent Lending division, with the aim of working with current and prospective clients primarily community banks and credit unions in Washington, D.C., Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia that are participating in or considering the LenderLive correspondent program. Im confident that Jennys experience in both correspondent and wholesale lending will help us better serve our clients needs, said Vida. The program is designed to serve the needs of mid-tier and smaller originators that want to protect their customer relationships. Unlike many large bank programs, LenderLive offers an option to co-brand its servicing with its correspondents, offering quick client approval, fast turn times, competitive pricing and greater engagement during the sales process to keep clients aware of the status of their loans. Klamfoth has more than 15 years of experience in the mortgage industry, having recently been the account manager for Stonegate Mortgage, where she assisted in the development of its correspondent and emerging banking business channels. Crude prices rose on Tuesday, unmoved by the World Banks warning that the once-surging growth in developing nations is cooling faster than anticipated and will likely play a part in keeping energy prices low this year. The World Bank, a lender to developing nations, said it believes the worlds emerging economies will expand slower than recent historical averages, and that could have significant repercussions for the price of oil. Downside risks still dominate this fragile global environment, the World Bank said in a quarterly outlook on commodity prices. Many of the factors underpinning the slowdown in recent years including low commodity prices, weak global trade and slow productivity growth are expected to persist. The World Bank cut its annual forecast for 80 percent of the commodities it tracks, including oil, which it believes will average $37 a barrel in 2016 after an oil market rout that sent prices down as much as 28 percent this month. Its new oil price forecast is 27 percent lower than its previous projection in October. U.S. crude rose $1.11 to $31.45 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Global benchmark Brent rose $1.30 to $31.80 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe. Oil continues to trade at levels that are perilous for the nations shale drillers and the oil field service companies that support them and employ thousands in Houston. For the North American upstream, its bad. Theres no other way around it, Steve Richardson, an analyst at consultancy Evercore ISI, said during a conference call Tuesday with clients. The oil market has priced out much of North America and theres little visibility on how long that will last. In 2015, Texas lost at least 60,000 upstream oil and gas jobs, about 19 percent of the jobs at the oil producers and oil field service companies in the state, said Karr Ingham, a Texas petroleum economist, in his semiannual presentation of the Texas Petro Index. Based on that upstream-jobs figure, Ingham estimates that 250,000 or so Texas jobs have been lost across the oil industrys supply chain, which encompasses everything from parts manufacturing to restaurants. More are expected in 2016. If prices were to not recover quickly and not rise much higher than they are now for some period of time, then the outlook in terms of overall activity levels and employment, in particular, is fairly dire, Ingham said. Thats not an industry that needs as many jobs on the payroll as it has right now. But despite cutting deep into the states oil industry last year, Texas oil drillers probably broke the states 43-year-old record for crude oil production, the economist said. U.S. oil producer Hess Corp. on Tuesday became one of the first in 2016 to confirm analyst projections that oil company capital expenditures will head much lower this year amid projections of $30 crude. New York-based Hess said it is planning to cut its spending 40 percent to $2.4 billion, about 20 percent lower than an initial estimate it disclosed in October. The budget reduction is in line with projections by Evercore ISI and others that oil companies could cut 40 percent to 50 percent from their spending plans this year, as they struggle to generate cash from wells that have become unprofitable under $30 a barrel. Houston-based Noble Energy cut its quarterly dividend, becoming the latest energy company to pare back its regular cash payments to shareholders as part of an effort to ride out the oil bust. The U.S. driller lowered its quarterly payment 40 percent to 10 cents a share. It also cut its capital budget in half to $1.5 billion, though it said it can adjust its spending plan if prices rise significantly. That appears unlikely at the moment. The bottom is not yet in, Credit Suisse said in a client note Tuesday. Credit Suisse said if oil demand growth comes in lower and crude stockpiles keep rising, the domestic oil price could average $30 a barrel in the first quarter and $38 a barrel for the whole year. Thats 33 percent lower than its original assumption. The World Bank said slowing demand in developing nations, the imminent return of Iranian oil exports and more efficient U.S. shale drilling could prolong the downturn and keep an oil-price recovery small compared to past oil routs in 2008, 1998 and 1986. The Washington, D.C.-based lender expects developing nations this year will grow 4 percent, significantly below historical averages, and somewhat lower than the lenders previous 4.6 percent forecast. Fast-growing developing economies like China, India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa have bolstered price of oil and other commodities for more than a decade and a half but have recently declined. But of those India was the only one that didnt slow sharply in 2015. Low prices for oil and commodities are likely to be with us for some time, said John Baffes, senior economist at the World Bank. MOSCOW (AP) The head of Russian state oil pipeline monopoly Transneft says talks on output cuts are planned with Saudi Arabia and OPEC. Transneft head Nikolai Tokarev said that Saudi Arabia had taken the initiative and come out with a proposal to discuss the possibility of reducing volumes, in comments reported by Russian news agency RIA Novosti. Michel Euler PARIS (AP) A man with two handguns was detained Thursday along with his female partner at Disneyland Paris, Europe's most-visited tourist attraction, police said. No one was hurt in the incident and the park remained open after the arrests. They come as France remains on edge and under a state of emergency after Islamic extremist attacks around Paris in November that killed 130 people. A Harris County grand jurys decision Monday to clear Planned Parenthood on organ trafficking charges and instead indict its accusers gave the organization an emphatic victory sweetened by irony and vindication. To many in Texas and across the country, however, it is hard not to conclude that the people facing jail time already have won the war they launched last summer. Officials and experts on both sides acknowledged Tuesday the surprise indictments probably will not weaken and may even strengthen a nationwide wave of momentum against Planned Parenthood and fetal organ donation that has swelled in the months since California anti-abortion activists used heavily edited undercover videos filmed at a dozen clinics to accuse the organization of selling body parts of aborted fetuses. Even if activists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt are convicted on felony charges of faking government documents to pose as human tissue purchasers in an attempt to set up Planned Parenthood, the officials and experts said, it will happen in a nation already changed by their project. Consider: Fetal tissue, which for decades did not cross the minds of almost any Americans, now is a household term. Planned Parenthood already has announced it no longer will accept any reimbursement for the costs of donating fetal tissue for scientific research. Now, Texas lawmakers are studying legislation to ban fetal tissue donation altogether, despite the scientific breakthroughs it has helped spur in the past. Probes continue Meanwhile, Republican congressional leaders have renewed efforts to end all government funding for Planned Parenthood, even for vital services that have nothing to do with abortion. Texas officials have announced they plan to remove the organization from the state Medicaid program and already have kicked it out of an HIV prevention program. And investigations ordered by the states top three elected officials are moving forward. Its like that old saying : A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can put its shoes on, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political scientist, adding that research has shown that people who are told about something and later informed that it was incorrect still harbor much of their initial impression. It is just difficult to get anybody to reconsider a strong feeling. That appeared to be especially true of the state officials who ordered the investigations, as all of them responded to the indictments with statements announcing their own probes would continue. Nothing about todays announcement in Harris County impacts the states ongoing investigation, Gov. Greg Abbott said. The State of Texas will continue to protect life, and I will continue to support legislation prohibiting the sale or transfer of fetal tissue. In a Tuesday conference call, national Planned Parenthood officials said they hoped the indictments would slow the legislative momentum, but admitted they were not holding out hope. Sadly, many of these attacks werent ever about the charges made by (the videographers), said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of the organization. They served as a cover for people to push an ideological agenda. Indictment details Resignation to the likelihood of continued efforts took place even as more information surfaced about the allegations against Daleiden and Merritt. Charging documents made available Tuesday alleged that each used fake California drivers licenses with knowledge of its falsity ... and with the intent to defraud and harm another when they showed up at a Houston Planned Parenthood clinic last April. Daleiden, 27, is a known anti-abortion activist and probably had to use a fake name to avoid attention. His license identified him as Robert Sarkis, according to the charging documents, while Merritts license bore the name of Susan Tennenbaum. Tampering with a governmental record is a second-degree felony, which carries a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Daleiden also was charged with an additional misdemeanor under the same law that he accused Planned Parenthood of violating - the sale or purchase of fetal tissue. That charge stemmed from an email the activist sent last June offering to pay up to $1,600 per specimen of fetal tissue, according to Josh Schaffer, a Planned Parenthood lawyer briefed on the case, who said the organization did not respond to the offer. The indictment says only that Daleiden offered to buy human organs, namely, fetal tissue, for valuable consideration, a crime punishable by up to a year in jail. Daleiden and Merritt have denied violating any laws and compared themselves to investigative journalists. The efforts resulted in a 15-minute video released last August that showed a Houston Planned Parenthood executive casually discussing the methods and costs of preserving fetal tissue and leading a tour of the clinics lab area. Damage already done Outrage erupted almost immediately. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is from Houston, was one of the loudest voices, ordering a state Senate investigation and calling for Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson, a Republican, to conduct a criminal probe. That probe is what unexpectedly resulted in the indictments nearly six months later. Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton also launched inquires. The video resurfaced last October, when the Texas Health and Human Services Commission cited it as a reason to stop reimbursing Planned Parenthood for Medicaid services. The state alleged that workers at the clinic had improperly altered their abortion process to preserve fetal organs for donation and allowed private citizens into the lab wearing only gloves. The move to evict Planned Parenthood from the Medicaid program has not yet been finalized, and the organization already has filed a lawsuit to block it. The state moved faster with another move, saying in late December it would stop funding a Houston Planned Parenthood program that had conducted 140,000 HIV tests and distributed 300,000 condoms over the previous two decades. On Tuesday, the advocacy group Equality Texas called for the funding to be restored in light of the grand jurys decision. That seemed unlikely, however. In an interview, state Rep. Donna Howard lamented that months and months of a false narrative had brought devastation. The damage is already done, said Howard, D-Austin. Planned Parenthood was victimized by the videographers and victimized by the state, and by extension the state has also punished the people who relied on these services. Still, anti-abortion activists signaled a desire to go further. Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, said the indictments only proved that Texas laws on fetal tissue donation were not strong enough. People looked at those videos and were outraged by them and now cannot understand how it was not illegal, Pojman said, adding. This will add fuel to the fire. This week, Midland College President Steve Thomas and Baylor University President Ken Starr announced a partnership agreement that will help students transfer more easily between the two institutions. The Baylor Bound program will serve students from Midland College who, upon meeting the programs criteria, will transfer to Baylor to complete their bachelor degrees. By beginning their college careers at Midland College, students can take advantage of the Legacy Scholarship and other opportunities while receiving the personal attention and specialized assistance for which Midland College is renowned, Thomas said. After completing an associate degree, students have the opportunity to transfer to esteemed higher education institutions such as Baylor. This is another in the worthy programs Midland College offers students of Midland County and beyond. Whether partnering with Baylor, helping students achieve four-year degrees on its campus or partnering with Midland ISD to make Early College High School a reality, Midland College continues to prove its value to our community. When it comes to education in Midland, our ultimate goal should be to create a system that is right for Midland and its residents. Baylor Bound is another example of how Midland College is doing that. This week is National School Choice week, which, according to the website schoolchoiceweek.com, shines a spotlight on effective education options for every child. Politics has made school choice kind of a touchy issue. Some use it to show their displeasure at our public school system. They talk about school choice and vouchers, often without a solution how to improve education in general but to score political points. Some people, in the defense of public school systems, use it to signify an attack on their schools. They also try to divide the electorate, claiming school choice efforts dont fix public school systems and that solutions turn a communitys back on lower-performing schools, typically in disadvantaged neighborhoods. School choice in Midland is pretty simple. School choice allows people to decide what is best for their kids. Whether one is talking about the public school system, private schools, charter schools, alternative schools or others, Midlanders are blessed with more opportunities than probably any community our size in the state. We celebrate school choice, because for more than 50 years it has been part of Midland and has worked to create our communitys leaders. An education system that is right for Midland includes school choice, and Midland residents are right to embrace it. The Bharatiya Janata Party is a party which thrives on the hard labour of its leaders. Unlike its major political rivals, the party leadership has always risen from the ranks. The re-election of Amit Shah as party president endorses this tradition. Like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mr Shah too started his political journey as an ordinary party worker. During his first inning he gave enough indications that despite donning the mantle of party president he continued to be an ordinary worker at heart, keen to sweat it out for the party. In his endeavour to strengthen and expand the party, Mr Shah travelled nearly 300,000 km during his first tenure. This helped him establish direct contact with party officials, workers and supporters of partys ideology and programmes and give momentum to partys mega membership drive. This ambitious push helped the BJP increase its membership from mere 2.5 crore to over 11 crore, thus making it the worlds largest political party. During this drive, Mr Shah exhibited the quality of taking on challenges head on. Special attention was paid to AP, Assam, Kerala, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and West Bengal, where the BJP has been traditionally weak. What was most commendable about this membership drive was that it was done in a transparent manner addresses and phone numbers of new members were collated against their names. The membership campaign was driven by optimum use of information technology and fake members were weeded out. This has helped the party gain strength at the grassroots level. It is necessary to mention these points as Mr Shah has been targeted in the media for the partys defeat in the Assembly polls of Delhi and Bihar. However, for somebody like me who has been a party worker for more than a quarter of a century, the efforts to strengthen the party at the grassroots level far outweigh two electoral defeats. One should not forget that victories in Assembly elections under the stewardship of Mr Shah outnumber the defeats by a huge margin. Mr Shah has his task cut out for his second inning. He has rebuilt the party at the grass-roots level and the team is now ready to take on the electoral battles that lie ahead. He starts his second inning with deep knowledge about the party, its power struc-tures and the stren-gths and weaknesses of its workers. With this team he will take on far more domineer-ing opponents in the states of Assam, West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu in the next few months. Mr Shah has always delivered beyond expectations in adverse situations. The party campaign has already started to gain momentum. The mood in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, two politically significant states, is to punish the incapable governments. Team BJP under Mr Shahs leadership is all ready to capitalise on the loss of popularity of their political opponents. Its huge cadre is ready to carry far and wide the message of good governance. There is no way the partys fortunes can recede now; it will only rise higher and higher. Ashish Sood is Delhi, BJP general secretary Amit Shah has been re-elected as the national president of the worlds largest party, the Bharatiya Janata Party. Theres nothing surprising in it. It was known to every Indian that he is a trusted sepoy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and is going to be awarded for his loyalty. It sounds even more melodious that he has been elected unopposed. But to what extent Mr Shah was elected unopposed can be guaged by the absence of two pillars of the party: Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. Their absence was noticed not only by the media and the Opposition, but also became a topic of gossip among party officials. Many questioned the uncaring attitude of the Shah brigade. Senior party members who were kept away from the ceremonial function had also opposed Mr Shahs appointment as president for the first term. Of course, his initial tenure witnessed a clear and vast majority of the saffron party, but the brightness got clouded with time. In other words, the 2014 Lok Sabha big win was not a result of Mr Shahs organisational capability, but an outcome of the Modi wave across the country. The Centre, Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir got National Democratic Allianceled governments. After these successive wins, Mr Shahs political exper-tise was talked about a lot. Securing 73 out of 80 constituency seats in Uttar Pradesh catapulted him to the status of Chanakya for the media, but he was not questioned for the BJPs demolition in the capital. Media did not question his unconstitutional coalition with the Peoples Democratic Party. Another reason for the BJPs success at the Centre and states was the promises made by Mr Modi. But the government has refrained from fulfilling even a single promise made during the campaign. After failing on black money, controlling price hike, creating job opportunities and addressing farmers problems, the criticism of the Modi government has started. Public annoyance can be seen in Bihar where Mr Shah could not utilise his Chanakyagiri. The BJP could not even maintain its old stature and came down to 50s out of 243 seats. Thus, the scenario has changed and the honeymoon period for the BJP is now over. It is not less than a challenge for the ruling party to maintain cordial relations bet-ween the government and the organisation. Mr Shahs first term was not an ideal one. He was embroiled in controversy for his inflammatory speeches and not being available to party workers. This year is going to witness elections in West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry. Except in Assam, Mr Shahs party stands nowhere in the race. In 2017, elections are scheduled in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. In most of these states the party will be struggling. Overall, Mr Shah has to face elections in almost 18 states during his second term. The real test of Mr Shahs political proficiency is yet to start. K.C. Tyagi is national general secretary, Janata Dal (United) Kerry Washington has become a household name amongst adults who look forward to seeing her style and sense of fashion on the ABC Thursday night drama, Scandal. Now fans can look forward to her portraying another great woman, Anita Hill, in her upcoming film, Confirmation. Washington recently sat down for an interview to talk more about the film and her new line of nail polish in collaboration with OPI. The mother of one just can't get enough of taking on the affairs of Washington and playing roles of prominent, strong-willed women in major television and film projects according to reports. The Scandal star caters to the issues and concerns of citizens who need the help of Olivia Pope (Washington) in her Thursday night drama and this Summer, she will portray Anita Hill, a woman who was caught in a bit of a scandal herself during the early 90s according to WWD. Washington has taken on the role of executive producer for the film, Confirmation, an HBO special that focuses on the sexual harassment scandal between Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas and Hill that garnered national attention. According to the site, Washington became fascinated by the case from the very beginning. She explained how the 1991 case would often be be topic of discussion around her home during that time. "It was a huge topic of conversation at home, a very complicated issue," explained Washington during her interview. "I saw the documentary Anita about two years ago, and it made me think 'What else is there? What else is in that story?'" According to Washington, she discovered that there was so much more to the story when she began doing research for the film, and going back to people who were involved in the case, to speak directly to them. Washington is passionate about telling this story and believes that everyone needs to hear. While "peeling through the layers" of this case Washington discovered one thing to be true -- someone had to be telling the truth, it was just a matter of who that person was. "The question we often ask ourselves with the whole he said/she said - who was telling the truth," the Olivia Pope actress explained. "I had the feeling that more was going on, and the more research we did, the more complicated it got." Washinton will star as Hill while, actor Wendell Pierce, who starred in HBO's The Wire and Waiting to Exhale, will take on the role of Thomas according to the NY Post. While working on bringing the film to life, Washington has also found herself busy with her OPI collaboration and producing her new line of nail polish. The line consist of 15 shades, all priced at $10 each, according to WWD and each shade holds a special place in Washington's heart. So much so, she decided to name specific colors after specific people in her life. Her "Kerry Blossom" shade is named for her, and she also has special color to represent her Thursday night "fixer" alter-ego, Olivia Pope -- with the "'Liv' in the Gray,' described as an edgy dark gray. Washington also contributed a color to the line that has everything to do with the love of her life, her daughter Isabelle. According to the site, the I Think I love My Wife actress named a shade of caramel creme after her daughter and called it, "Inside the IsabelletWay." Washington credits her love for fashion as her inspiration to going forward with this project. "Nails are at that interesting point where fashion and beauty meet," explained Washington of her desire to launch a nail polish line. "If I enter that space, it's important for me to know the landscape and do it in a way that's authentic and right and true to who I am." Washington will also includes different shades of nudes that compliment all skin tones like the "light nude Pale to the Chief," "chocolate brown Speaker of the House" and "tawny copper Yank My Doodle." 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. In a newly-surfaced clip, Chvrches frontwoman Lauren Mayberry does a very shy and brief impression of Cher's blockbuster song "Believe," but it's adorable to say the least. The new clip. which was released by The Late Late Show With James Corden, was most likely recorded at the time of the band's appearance on the show in December when the Glasgow-based synth-pop outfit appeared to perform their song "Clearest Blue." In the clip, Mayberry's bandmates egg her on to do an impression of the song, which she had apparently sang at a recent karaoke outing. Somewhat begrudgingly, Mayberry starts off by quietly remembering the lyrics before doing the awkward impersonation that actually ends up sounding like Cher, if you would "believe." The short clip kind of makes you intrugued to find out what a full-band version of the song would sound like, so let's hope for the best. Chvrches released their second studio album Every Open Eye in September of last year, which leads with their hit single "Leave A Trace," however, its seventh track "Empty Threat" (for which the band recently released an official music video), is gaining some traction. The new album serves as a follow-up to their breakthrough 2013 record The Bones Of What You Believe. The trio will tour Australia and its surrounding areas early next month centered-around their multi-date headline slot at this year's Laneway Festival. The band will then return to the U.S. in early March and early April, with a few UK dates in between, to tour in support of their latest album, which has been praised as one of the best albums of 2015. You can check out all of the band's currently scheduled tour dates, as well as purchase the new album via their official website. 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. One man was killed and eight were arrested after armed militants clashed with authorities near a federal wildlife refuge in rural Oregon. The man who died, considered a leader of the antigovernment group that occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge three weeks ago, said he was willing to perish while fighting for his beliefs. LaVoy Finicum said: "I would rather die than be caged." Protestors remain at the site, defying the orders of law enforcement officials. According to the New York Times, the authorities say the remaining protestors had only themselves to blame for the recent events. "The armed occupiers have been given ample opportunities to leave," said Greg Bretzing, the FBI special agent who oversees Orgeon. "Instead, these individuals have chosen to threaten and intimidate the America they profess to love, and through their criminal actions to bring these consequences upon themselves. Let me be clear: It is the actions and choices of the armed occupiers that have led us to where we are today." The situation began three weeks ago when armed militants, led by the son of controversial rancher Cliven Bundy, stormed the refuge in protest of federal policies over private usage of grazing lands. "I'm disappointed that a traffic stop yesterday that was supposed to bring a peaceful resolution to this ended badly," Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward said. "It didn't have to happen." He added, "It's time for everybody in this illegal occupation to move on." Ammon Bundy, vocal leader of the protest and eventual siege, was arrested and held by authorities for his actions. Bundy called on protestors and activists who remained at the site to leave, saying the fight had ended. 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. President Barack Obama and presidential candidate Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders met for 45 minutes in the White House. After their meeting, Senator Sanders stated that he felt President Obama was "evenhanded" in regards to how he is dealing with the Democratic nomination race. This meeting, although scheduled long ago, comes just days ahead of the Iowa Caucus, for which Bernie Sanders's poll numbers have rapidly risen. President Obama and his administration have been careful not to endorse, or show any concrete signs of support, for any candidate in the 2016 presidential race. "What the president has tried to do, what Vice President [Joseph] Biden has tried to do, is to be as evenhanded as they could be," Mr. Sanders said at a news conference, held later outside the West Wing of the White House. The two discussed several issues in their time together, including the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Explaining the President's opinion about the unrest in the Middle East, Sanders said, "What he is trying to do is keep our young men and women in the military out of a perpetual war in the quagmire of the Middle East. What he has tried to do, what I will try to do, is put together a coalition of the major powers, with the Muslim people." Though the White House has made a concerted effort to stay out of the fight for the Democratic nominations, the meeting comes at a time that is pivotal in the race for the White House, and brings more attention to Sanders at time when visibility is vital for a presidential hopeful. While a few months ago almost everyone assumed Hillary Clinton had the nomination in the bag; now, many are beginning to see Sanders as a possible victor. According to White House Spokesman, Josh Earnest, Sander's competitive presence is positive for the system. "That debate is good for our democracy," he said. "It's also good for the party." 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Protesters and supporters alike have been bird-dogging most candidates on the presidential campaign trail to the Primaries with signs and other stunts. However, Ted Cruz alone has inspired one activist to troll the candidate's Iowa events with a sign declaring "Ted Cruz Likes Nickelback." After turning up at several Cruz campaign events with his now-famous sign in hand, the young man took his protest to a new level by dressing up as a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police outside a rally hosted by the Texas senator's super PAC this past weekend. While surrounded by Canadian flags with the candidate's face emblazoned on the Maple leaf the protester handed out copies of the candidate's birth certificate, apparently to make a point regarding the senator's citizenship status. The protester explained the impetus behind his protest sign to The Washington Post with three words: "They're both Canadian." He added: "I just don't want, really, a Canadian in office. It seems like he's got a lot of controversy behind him whether he's a U.S.-born citizen or not and I'm just out here making a statement." The troll's identity has remained anonymous and his affiliation (if any) is unclear, but his concerns regarding the fact that both Cruz and Nickelback have their roots in Calgary, Canada echo recent claims made by Donald Trump's campaign. The protester's repeated allegations regarding the senator's musical taste could have potentially catastrophic consequences for the candidate's campaign considering the band's history. As Consequence of Sound points out, the band's discography is so disliked that the band was once wanted by Australian police for "crimes against music" and was nearly banned from performing in London thanks to a crowdfunded campaign. When the Post asked the young activist to name his favorite Nickelback song is he responded "I don't like Nickelback." It remains unclear how the candidate really feels about the band. Chad Kroeger et al seem to have taken the protester's accusations in stride. Earlier this month the band shared a photo of the protester in action on their Facebook, declaring him the band's "employee of the month." NICKELBACK Employee of the Month. January 2016.#Election2016 #Nickelback4President Posted by Nickelback on Monday, January 11, 2016 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The husband of Terri Schiavo, a deceased woman whose prolonged life support via feeding tube caused a political uproar, says Jeb Bush's usage of footage of his wife in the candidate's ad is "disgusting. Michael Schiavo is criticizing an ad aired in South Carolina funded by "Right to Rise," a political action committee that supports Mr. Bush. The ad features footage of the deceased, with the various repeated assertions, including that Jeb Bush has "fought time and again for the right to life." "It is simply disgusting that Jeb Bush and his super Pac would exploit my wife's tragedy for his crude political gain," Schiavo said in a statement released by the Tampa Bay Tribune. "Shame on Jeb Bush." "Using his disgraceful intervention in our family's private trauma to advance his political career shows that he has learned nothing," he continued. "He's proud of the fact that he used the machinery of government to keep a person alive through extraordinary artificial means -- contrary to the orders of the court that were based on the courts determination, made over 6 years of litigation, that doing so would be against her wishes. What the campaign video shows is that if he ever got his hands on the power of government again, he would do the same thing again, maybe next time to your family." While in office, Jeb's brother, President George W. Bush fought to try to ensure health care workers would replace the feeding tube that was keeping the vegetative Terri Schiavo alive. Despite his prolonged efforts in 2005, the tube was eventually removed, largely due to overwhelming public support. Michael Schiavo, at the time, said his wife would not want to live in such a state. The criticism comes at a crucial moment for Bush, who hopes to perform well in the upcoming Iowa Republican Caucus and New Hampshire primary. 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Some may wonder how profoundly the lives of Iowans are changed in the months and weeks that lead up to the nation's first presidential nomination contest. As it turns out, this political process is difficut to tune out. The Iowa Caucuses, to be held on February 1st, have been particularly noteworthy in this election. As Ted Cruz and Donald Trump cause political upheaval in their party due to the candidates' distaste for the Republican establishment, the Democrats are faced with an increasingly popular Bernie Sanders who could be poised to win the Caucus. All of this refutes generally accepted political forecasts from months ago that predicted easy victories for both former Florida governor Jeb Bush and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The New York Times has interviewed various residents of Iowa to gauge their reactions to the political process that has engulfed their state as of late. According to an Iowa resident who chose to go by the name "Malcolm," "I want to caucus so I registered to vote online this morning. Twenty minutes later, someone from the Hillary campaign texts me about a political rally. I don't know how she got my number. I lie and say that I will be attending. I'm not actually going to attend. He continued, "If there's one thing I've learned in my 18 years, it's that it's not best to talk politics and personal rankings of Kanye albums with your friends. It's a recipe for disaster nine times out of 10. He texted back that he was Team Hillary. Crisis averted." It is clear that the democratic process beginning in Iowa has a large effect on the daily lives of its citizens, who are constantly considering nominees and possibly attending rallies. Many believe Iowa to be a microcosm of the American psyche, and thus a perfect starting ground to gauge the future success of certain candidates. 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Congratulations are in order for Tyra Banks and her boyfriend, Erik Asla, who welcomed a baby boy to the world, and name him York. The new mom announced her excitement to the world via Instagram, saying how her new bundle of joy has her fingers and big eyes. According to USA Today, Banks and Asla, the super model's Norwegian boyfriend, have been praying for the day that they could call themselves parents and thanks to a surrogate, that day has finally come. Banks shared an endearing message to her followers on Instagram, expressing her joy and gratitude to the woman who carried baby York as a surrogate, referring to her as an "angel of a woman." The best present we worked and prayed so hard for is finally here. He's got my fingers and big eyes and his daddy Erik's mouth and chin. As we thank the angel of a woman that carried our miracle baby boy for us, we pray for everyone who struggles to reach this joyous milestone. York Banks Asla, welcome to the world. A photo posted by Tyra Banks (@tyrabanks) on Jan 27, 2016 at 5:16pm PST Asla piggy-backed Banks' original Instagram post, adding his own words to it. He wrote: "Witnessing the dawn of life is quite possibly life's greatest gift." Banks expressed her difficulty in conceiving during her time on the talk show Fab Life, where she was Executive Producer and also a co-host. People reported on how Banks and former co-host Chrissy Teigan shared their fertility struggles during an episode of the talk show in which Banks revealed how she had decided to not have children while she was younger in an effort to focus solely on her career. But, as time moved forward, conceiving wasn't as easy as she thought it would be. "It's so funny when I was 23 years old, I used to tell myself, 'In three years, I'm going to have kids,'" the America's Next Top Model exec explained. "'Then I turned 24 [and said] in three years, I'm going to have kids.' Every single year I kept saying that. And then after a while it's like, 'Okay, now I want to.' And it's not so easy." 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Justices of Madras high court while hearing rape cases have been passing sensational comments. In June 2015, Justice D. Devadass, while hearing an appeal against conviction in a rape case filed by the accused, suggested that the victim who was around 15 years at the time of the offence should marry the rapist. The media had a field day inviting comments from feminists, experts and legal luminaries who condemned the judge for his comments. Though the comments that the child needs a father and it is difficult to raise a child as a single parent seemed atrocious then, retrospectively it appears they were based on ground reality and have proved the experts wrong. It seems that the judge had a better grasp of our judicial and social reality than the activists and feminist experts who had denounced him. One news report had dubbed the judges suggestion as rape under the promise of marriage. These are the types of cases which some legal experts and even feminists are demanding be taken out of the ambit of rape law as in most cases all that the victim wants is to marry the rapists. The Supreme Court has held that consent to sexual intercourse in cases where a man befriends a woman and lures her into a sexual relationship with the promise of marriage, only to dump her when she gets pregnant, is vitiated consent and amounts to rape. So how can the courts then sanction an arrangement where it presents a girl with no other choice but to marry the man who raped her? After the Madras high court ruling, when reporters and a few activists discovered her and descended upon her for her comments, she had stated, Does the judge know the humiliation and stigma I have gone through all these years since the incident? But, may I add, did the reporters and activists who interviewed her understand the trauma this young college student, who was raped by a friend who had spiked her drink before raping her and then threatened to circulate the video recording of the rape, had undergone? No, I dont think so. She was a mere case for the prosecutor, a sensational news story for the reporters, and a high point of rape case follow-up for activists. Nothing beyond. Despite the occasional media glare, it appears that this orphan teenager was alone throughout the ordeal which lasted seven long years. She questioned how she could trust the accused and his family members, what was the guarantee that he would not discard her and marry another woman. She asked that, instead, a part of the property of the rapist be given to her child. But she received no help either from the state or the activists to negotiate on her behalf, and out of sheer desperation she had to do it on her own, at great risk. At the initial stage, when she discovered that she was pregnant, there were negotiations for marriage with the accused and his family. But the accused asked her to undergo abortion so that they could both move ahead. When she refused, he and his friends threatened to smother the infant to death. Despite the threats she stood firm, supported by her brother and some close relatives. The DNA report proved that the accused was the father and four years after the incident, in 2012, the Mahila Court at Cuddalore convicted the rapist and ordered the accused to pay her `2 lakh as compensation, an amount which was never paid. After the comments by Justice Devadass in October 2015, the case came up before Justice A. Selvam who set aside the conviction and referred the matter for fresh trial on the ground that there was no clear proof that the victim was under 16 years at the time of the incident and that conviction based only on her oral evidence could not be sustained. It concluded that if the girl was above 16 years, it must be held that it was consensual sexual intercourse and not rape based on the fact that the accused was a known person and the girl had voluntarily gone out with him. Rather than putting her through the ordeal of a fresh trial, the high court, invoking its inherent powers, could have called for the documents and verified them, and weighed it against her oral evidence in court, and finally decided the matter. It declined to exercise this option. The order of compensation was also set aside. Unable to bear this humiliation and the financial hardships, when the matter came up for trial on December 29, 2015, the victim informed the Cuddalore Mahila Court that she had married the accused and they were now living together. It was indeed a setback, as the courts had left the victim with no financial security or protection against domestic violence in her married life, and rendered her far more vulnerable than when she was raped. There were no directions from the court that the Rs 2 lakh compensation be kept aside as a future security for the child nor an assurance that the man will not be vengeful and subject her to cruelty as retaliation for having filed the case against him. Three decades of anti-rape campaign of the 1980s, after the adverse ruling of the Supreme Court in the Mathura gangrape case (1972), it seems that for many victims marrying the rapist seems to be the only viable choice! Unless our system is geared towards transforming victims into survivors, victims will continue to suffer. Only when our criminal justice machinery places the victims needs at the centre, can justice be served in any real sense. It is not a matter of merely changing the nomenclature while keeping intact an oppressive system which constantly re-victimises her, causes her extreme trauma and brings her down several notches in the social ladder from where she was, prior to the abuse. She becomes a survivor only when she emerges stronger for having walked through this intimidating system, with someone extending a helping hand, and in the process transforms the system itself, rendering it more humane. She needs support to overcome her vulnerabilities, and attain her goals and aspirations, beyond the case in order to become a survivor. This is the motto of the Rahat programme of Majlis which seems so apt as we ponder the developments in the case of the young woman, now 22 years of age, with a six-year-old child whom she has had to bring up on her own while seeking justice from our courts. The Real Housewives Of Atlanta couple Kandi Burruss and Todd Tucker welcomed their baby boy to the world weeks ago, and now Burruss is tackling breastfeeding and she's doing it whenever, and wherever her baby gets hungry. She recently took to Instagram to share a photo that shows she breastfeeds while getting her hair washed! With shampoo in hair and all, the former Xscape member posed for a photo of her feeding her newborn that she shared on Instagram with the caption: "this #breastfeeding stuff is no joke.' [sic] Burruss also revealed in her caption that, although she was getting her hair done, she was not at a hair salon, but in the comfort of her own home, with the luxury of having her hair stylist coming to her and not having to travel out. Kandi and Todd were already parents prior to the birth of their new baby boy, with both having girls of their own, Riley and Kaela; but no boys until the arrival of baby Tucker. According to Reality Tea, the couple decided to name their son Ace Wells Tucker. Burruss provided an endearing explanation to E! News as to what inspired the baby's name. "We named our beautiful baby boy Ace because I wanted something unique," explained the Kandi Koated Nights host. "When he becomes school age, hopefully he won't have to worry about another person in the class having his name. More than that, Ace represents the number 1 and that of the high quality and our baby Ace is definitely that! His middle name Wells was Todd's mother's last name. Using her last name as his middle name was our way of honoring her memory." Todd Tucker spoke kind words about his mom, who passed away in 2014 after suffering from a stroke, according to Us Magazine, in an Instagram post of him carrying his newborn son. "Me and my little man," he wrote. "I wish my mom could be here to meet him. She would be so happy and proud of Kandi and I!!! God is good!!! All the time!!!" Since the birth of Ace, both Tucker and Burruss have shared several photos on Instagram, capturing moments with family and friends and expressing their joy and love for the arrival of their baby boy. @acewellstucker can eat!!! Dad and baby boy time!!! Being a dad is the ish!!! A photo posted by Todd Tucker (@todd167) on Jan 21, 2016 at 4:57pm PST 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. With all the talk surrounding the lack of diversity, the implicit and explicit boycott suggestions, and the hashtags that have developed like #oscarssowhite, all surrounding the fact that people of color have no presence in many categories at this year's Oscars, it's somewhat shocking to discover who's been named as announcers. The 88th Academy Awards have introduced Kevin Hart, Whoopi Goldberg, Pharrell Williams and others as presenters for this year's ceremony. Oscars producers David Hill and Reginald Hudlin officially announced the names of presenters scheduled to appear at this year's awards ceremony. The list of announcers includes comedians Hart and Goldberg, and music producer Williams. Music artist The Weekend has also been listed as a presenter and his song, "Earned It," has been nominated for an Academy Award in the Music (Original Song) category for its use in the film 50 Shades Of Grey. Puerto Rican actor Benicio de Toro will also present at the awards. According to EUR, Hill reportedly stated how each of the artists listed to present add "a wonderfully distinctive element to the Oscars stage." Additional presenters include comedian Tina Fey; Lady Gaga, Ryan Gosling, Charlize Theron and Jacob Tremblay. Chris Rock is set to host the awards ceremony, and has been receiving mixed reviews from fans and colleagues that differ on whether or not Rock should go forward with hosting. Some fans believe that he should proceed with his hosting gig and use the opportunity to confront the lack of diversity issue surrounding the academy. According to E! Online, Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs is expecting Rock to do just that. "Poking some fun at the industry" is how the site describes what Isaacs has in mind for Rock to do as a host. In a statement to the Hollywood Reporter, Isaacs explained exactly how she views Rock and his role for the show. "He is a brilliant, brilliant, observant comedian and performer, and he is a brilliant host," explained Isaacs of Rock's talent. "And yes, we want him to, obviously, because way before this, our selection of Chris was to bring some edge and some fun and some funny-intelligent funny-to the telecast. So we know he's going to do that." The Washington Post reported how A-Listers like Will Smith and Spike Lee continue to debate the issue with D-Listers like Stacey Dash, on what stance, if any, black people should be taking against the Oscars. In his Oscar promo, Rock gave viewers three reason why they should tune in. "Presenter cleavage" was his first reason. He also suggested that people tune in to recap who died this year in Hollywood and also pointed out the fact that he might curse. Another good reason is the fact that Goldberg and Hart are presenting. With these three, anything can be said during the show. Watch the Oscars on Feb. 28 at 7 p.m. on ABC. 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. We have independently selected these offers and products because we love them and we think you might like them at these prices. E! has affiliate relationships, so we may earn a commission if you buy something through our links. Items are Please enable JavaScript to experience the functionality of this website. - MWEB BENGALURU: The old guard of Congress did not really sweat it out to scuttle Chief Minister Siddaramaiahs buddy Byrathi Suresh's chances of securing the ticket for next months by-election to Hebbal Assembly constituency. They didnt have to. All they had to do was quote the provisions of the Anti-Defection Act to bigwigs in New Delhi, to drive home the point that technically he would not be eligible to enter the fray as the party candidate. On a day when senior leader Oscar Fernandes called on Mr Siddaramaiah to discuss strategies for Assembly bypolls as well as for zilla and taluk panchayat elections, sources in the ruling party said the veterans took advantage of an aspect overlooked by the Chief Minister's camp followers: A member of parliament or state legislature, elected as an independent, would be disqualified on joining any party after the election, according to the Anti-Defection Act. In Mr Suresh's case, he erred by not giving up membership of the Legislative Council to seek primary membership of the party and subsequently apply for the ticket. He was an associate member, not a primary member when he faced the screening committee. The fact that KPCC adopted a resolution that only members of the party should be given tickets came in handy to help them impress the high command not to field Mr Suresh as the candidate, sources added. Sources said these veterans also pointed out to leaders in Delhi that it would be inappropriate to give the ticket to a Kuruba when two neighbouring Assembly seats-K R Puram and Hosakote-were represented by candidates belonging to the same community. In fact, their number would have increased if party candidate Channa Keshava was elected from Malur constituency in 2013, sources said adding it would tempt voters of other communities to vote for other parties. JD(S) offers ticket but Byrathi rejects Thanks, but no, thanks! That was Mr Byrathi Sureshs response when he got an invitation from Janata Dal (Secular) with a ticket for Hebbal Assembly bypoll as the bait. The invitation came from none less a leader than Janata Dal (Secular) patriarch H.D. Deve Gowda even after announcing the candidature of Ismail Sharief for Hebbal constituency. Sources close to Mr Suresh told Deccan Chronicle that Mr Suresh reportedly got a call from Mr Deve Gowda on Wednesday morning saying that he would be given B-form if he agreed to contest the polls as Janata Dal (Secular) nominee. Mr Suresh, however, told Mr Gowda that he would not join Janata Dal (Secular) at this juncture. He also expressed his solidarity with Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah. Sources in the Janata Dal (Secular) party confirmed that Mr Suresh was invited to join the party and explained the reasons behind the move. Mr Gowda was upset with former Union minister C.K. Jaffer Sharief, who promised to contest the 2014 Lok sabha elections from Mysuru as Janata Dal (Secular) candidate and even collected the B form. He, however, went on pilgrimage much to Mr Gowdas chagrin. When Mr Suresh refused to contest, Mr Gowda issued the B form to Ismail Sharief who was selected by party MLA from Chamarajpet B.Z. Zameer Ahmed Khan. Later, Mr Gowda issued a statement that he would seriously work for the party candidates victory, sending a message to Mr Jaffer Sharief that he might not be in a mood help the Congress veteran whose grandson is contesting the by-poll on the Congress ticket. Megastar Chiranjeevi, who was planning the remake of Tamil film Kaththi as his 151st film, has found his movie landing itself in familiar trouble. A writer, N. Narasimha Rao has complained to the Telugu Writers Association that the Tamil films story was stolen from a script he had written. The same controversy had also come up in 2014, when the movie was released in Tamil. The Tamil version of the movie was directed by A.R. Murugadoss. A committee formed under the chairmanship of senior director Dasari Narayana Rao has found both the story similar to the one from Narasimha Raos script. They have asked the producers to give him compensation first before remaking the movie, a source says. Makers of the Tamil version didnt give any compensation to the writer and had gone ahead with the release. Now, when it was announced that Chiranjeevis next will be the remake of Kaththi, the writer raised the issue again. The film was a big hit in Tamil and the Telugu makers paid a hefty sum for the remake rights. V.V. Vinayak will direct the Telugu version. With the Telugu Film Directors Association already issuing a notice to its members for non-cooperation with this film if they didnt pay the compensation, the ball is in Chiranjeevis court. As the rivalry between Dasari Narayana Rao and Chiranjeevi is known to all, the topic has made a buzz in the industry. Anyone can go into politics, I ... Actor Allu Sirish, who co-hosted the just-concluded IIFA Utsavam in Hyderabad along with Regina Cassandra and Navdeep, is on high spirits. This the first time down South that a big film event was hosted by actors and not anchors. I had been to a few film events in Bollywood and have seen top actors hosting it. They crack jokes on everyone and most of them take it on a lighter note. Keeping that in mind, I too wanted to do the same for our Telugu film event, says Sirish. In our industry, anchoring by actors is greeted with negativity by many; I wanted to break it. So I took the initiative myself and decided to host it. When I approached the event organiser, he agreed happily, says Sirish, who suggested Navdeep and Regina as co-hosts. After the event, many Tollywood personalities including Chiranjeevi, Ravi Teja and Harish Shankar, sent messages to Sirish, appreciating the show. In fact, this helped to build my confidence. Talking in front of the camera and hosting something live is different. I rehearsed for a month with my script writers. I even told a few people that I would ask them some fun questions which they agreed to. Personal questions might not be taken well, so I stuck to fun question, he says. Till now, many didnt know that I mimicked actors voices; with this show, everyone came to know about it. I also think that this will help me in my acting career,says a hopeful Sirish. The actor is currently working for director Parasurams untitled project. So far, 80 per cent of the film has been completed and only songs are left to shoot. This is a complete family-based subject. I come from a big joint family, so I like the subject. Its also very close to my heart, says Sirish. He thinks that Telugu actors have developed a wonderful fashion sense recently. Now, our actors are at par with Bollywood actors. If you look at the recent events, every actor has dressed up well". Even my brother Allu Arjun was trying outfits for the event two days in advance. Yes, we are competing with every one when it comes to fashion, he says, adding that inspired by his brother, he too decided to dress well and hired a personal designer Indrakshi for his outfits. CA High-speed Rail Authority logo View Photos Sacramento, CA A legislative hearing regarding the status of Californias $68 billion high-speed rail project was derailed by one assembly members call for more time to discuss the issues. As previously reported, Wednesdays hearing gave California lawmakers a chance to seek answers to several questions lingering about the states proposed high-speed rail project including its cost and timetable. High-speed Rail Authority Board Chairman Dan Richard indicated that the next cost projection will be lower than the current $68 billion estimate, while admitting that he is less confident that the project will come in on time. Committee member and Assemblyman Jim Patterson (R-Fresno) blasted the hearing for being scheduled just an hour and a half before a mandatory assembly floor session, arguing, You cannot do a thorough inquiry into the largest public works project in the state with 90 minutes. He also criticized the time constraints noting that citizens whose lives and livelihoods are directly affected by the train were only given a minute to speak at the hearing. Originally, the 2014 business plan reported a 2028 completion date for the first 520-mile phase linking the San Francisco to Los Angeles. Regarding the 2016 business plan update, Richard declined to provide specifics, noting that it will be released in the next few weeks. Sacramento, CA Following intense conversation with state law, justice, and rehabilitation officials the governor revealed an amended prison reform ballot measure. The proposed legislation, the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016, which his office filed Wednesday with finalized amendments, authorizes parole consideration for nonviolent inmates who complete the full sentence for their primary offense. It also allows them to accrue credits for good behavior, education, and rehabilitative achievements. It additionally re-shifts from prosecutors to judges the responsibility for determining when to try age 14 and over juvenile offenders as adults. Among the law enforcement officials who spoke at the press conference, Los Angeles Chief Charlie Beck opined, Proper incentives and programs that make a difference in peoples behavior. He added that concerted rehabilitative efforts are an effective means to open up bed space for the people who need to be there. Other stakeholder supporters attending the teleconference who weighed in included Chief Probation Officers of California (CPOC) President and CPO for Amador County Mark Bonini; San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, also a former juvenile judge and district attorney; and California Catholic Conference of Bishops Deacon Clyde Davis, also Chaplin of the California Correctional Institution in Tehacapi. The Governor stated that the measure would serve a number of purposes, including to satisfy its federal mandate to reduce its number of inmates. This is in response to a three-judge order that is releasing nonviolent inmates, mostly second-strikers, through a parole process that has been operating for more than a year, he explained. Secondly, Brown said it would help restore the more positive features of the indeterminate sentence, namely the opportunity for a shorter overall term through good behavior incentives, including participation in rehabilitation programs, thereby improving prison safety and reducing recidivism. Referring to the current system of earning credits while in prison or jail a crazy quilt, Brown stated that the system for accruing credits would be rationalized. What we are looking for is [inmates] not just sitting aroundnot doing anything badbut rather, actually earning credits for what will be evaluated as having good behavior and education and rehabilitative achievement, he explained. He added, I stress the word achievement because it is something that must be demonstrated and it will require an act of will, practice and participation by the inmate and in its essence provide incentive both reward and punishment because those who misbehave can lose credits, even those they have obtained. Returning the responsibility to try juveniles as adults to judges, Brown said, will help ensure that the decisions made are well-balanced and thoughtful. Judges should judge prosecutors should prosecute, he opined. Governor Brown now plans to personally push the proposal with an eye on getting it onto the November ballot. Luanda has for years been a chaotic urban mess. It figures among the world's most expensive cities and the overwhelming majority of residents live in squalid shantytowns with no sanitation or electricity. (Photo: Google Maps) Luanda: For half an hour, the passenger boat sat stranded off the coast of Angola's seaside capital Luanda. Streams of rubbish clogged its engine as it attempted to enter the port of a city sinking under the weight of several months of uncollected trash that blocks traffic and exasperates residents. "Look at this traffic jam, it's because of the bins overflowing onto the road," said motorist Joao Mampuya, 52. "The rubbish is taking up one of the two lanes and it's been there so long." The sprawling city, home to 6.5 million people, has become an open-air dumping site. Luanda has for years been a chaotic urban mess. It figures among the world's most expensive cities and the overwhelming majority of residents live in squalid shantytowns with no sanitation or electricity. The company responsible for removing the trash says it has not been paid by the local authorities, as the country the second largest oil producer in Africa -- buckles under the collapse of the oil price. Renowned independent journalist Rafael Marques de Morais questioned the company's management. "Did the money disappear? Did they hire incompetent operators? Are the local governments not working? What about the central government?" he wrote in a local independent paper. Whatever the answer, the rubbish continues piling up all over the city, filling up sidewalks outside both luxurious mansions and the shacks of the slums. During the rainy season, the streets become flooded, forming stinking, black rivers that carry the decaying waste into stagnant ponds. The residents have grown used to throwing their trash in gutters and on sidewalks, drains and ditches, and sometimes setting the stinking mounds on fire. They vent their frustrations online, posting selfies in front of rubbish piles several metres high or on trash-covered railway tracks that have caused many trains to be delays. Health risks But since January 11, there's been a new man in charge after the appointment of General Higino Carneiro as governor with the specific mandate of cleaning up Luanda's streets. His arrival as a member of the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) comes a year before a presidential election, in which President Jose Eduardo dos Santos in power since 1979 is expected to retain office. During his first official visit to some Luanda suburbs last week, Carneiro announced the creation of an urban "command post" in charge of fighting the pollution problem. "We can't go on like this, or we will be forced to declare a health state of emergency," he said. The governor believes that without action, epidemics could run rampant in the city. Huge billboards promoting sanitation have been put up across town, warning against cholera. Since his appointment, "men in green (uniforms)" municipal employees, private workers and even volunteers have been working day and night tackling the rotting mounds. The task ahead of them is enormous. Residents are complaining of rats, cockroaches and flies proliferating around the heaps. "With the accumulation of the bins, I fear for my baby because the rats are pouring into my home," said one domestic worker. The situation seems to be slowly improving, but residents are holding back praise for a real, long-term results particularly in the neglected slums. As one resident said, "The trash comes back faster than its removed." Butte Fire Recovery Debris Removal View Photos San Andreas, CA California will receive $107-million from the federal government to recoup the costs of cleaning up last years Butte and Valley fires. The announcement was made by FEMA yesterday afternoon. The funding will reimburse the state agency CalRecycle for removing debris from private property. When it comes to the Butte Fire, Calaveras County officials report that 369 of the 817 properties in the debris removal program are now completed. In addition, erosion measures have been conducted on 137 properties. Weather permitting, crews will continue to work seven days a week to remove debris from impacted properties. It was announced earlier this week that the Butte Fire had $300-million in insured losses and the Valley Fire had $700-million. Dying Tree In Courthouse Park View Photos Sonora, CA While local officials now tackling the tree mortality emergency admit assistance for private landowners remains a huge issue some help is becoming available. The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) recently announced a funding initiative directed at helping private forestland owners remove drought-related damaged trees and debris to reduce the spread of invasive pests and wildfire threat. Residents of Tuolumne, Calaveras and Amador counties may apply for assistance through the NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives Program, as may those who own properties in Mariposa, Madera, Fresno, Tulare and Kern counties. While NRCS uses the term forestland in its funding announcement, Tuolumne County Deputy Administrator and OES Coordinator Tracie Riggs states that impacted properties do not necessarily have to be large or heavily forested and the number of impacted trees requiring removal can range from a few to many. Major Limitations For NRCS Monies The intent [of the initiative] is for forest health and resiliency, Riggs explains. However, she adds, there are significant limitations to what it will cover. What it wont do is pay for the removal of dead and dying trees that are considered commercial those over 14 inches dbh [diameter at breast height measurement]. Too, she states, as the funding is meant to relieve emergency tree mortality hazards and not for simple fire clearance abatement, it cannot be applied towards removing trees located within 200 feet of a structure. As for other potential relief in the wings for others who may not qualify for NRCSs new, limited funding assistance, Riggs notes, The [local] fire councilsour own fire unit and CAL FIRE have applied for SRA [State Responsibility Area] grants that does help with the removal of some treesI am not sure how much that will help private homeowners. Ruefully, she admits, We continue to do a gaps analysis along the six counties that have [emergency] proclamations in place for tree mortality and all six counties continue to identify to the state that private landowner assistance is the largest gap that we have, so we all continue to advocate on behalf of our residentsfor a funding source. An earlier idea from the county assessors office, to explore the possibility of providing impacted properties with tax breaks similar to those available during the recession did not pan out, Riggs reports, as it would require state legislation, an uncertain process likely to take years. Tuolumne Tree Removal Plan Rolls Out However, Tuolumne County officials continue to fight and finagle for as many resources that might be directed towards getting a harness around the predicament. We have been very assertive, persistent and consistent in our approach to the state, she comments. We have two members of our board [of supervisors] and myself who attend the State Tree Mortality Task Force that happens on a monthly basiswe are the only [county] in the State of California that is approved for the California Disaster Assistance Act funding and the only one that has an approved tree removal plan. As that plan moves forward, the county, this week, issued requests for proposals from arborists or registered foresters to be hired to assess and mark trees impacting county infrastructure for removal. A project manager will subsequently coordinate the locations, determine which ones are marketable and where to take those that are not. Riggs offers that the county is keeping a log of private property owners who have impacted trees. We can, within our own plan and with state funding go in and remove trees on private property within the way of county infrastructure with a right of entry permit, she points out. Landowners must waive rights of any revenues that may be generated by any wood removed however. When Possible, Have Trees Pay Their Way Off As more owners become aware of issues on their properties, Riggs suggests that they reach out to their local fire safe councils, which already do fire clearance, for information and assistance. As reported earlier here, whenever possible, as tree removal costs vary greatly and can easily run into thousands of dollars, foresters recommend the best strategy is to determine whether the wood has sufficient salvage value for the trees to pay their way off the property. The first step would be to find a registered professional forester, Riggs explains. They will know by looking at the health of those trees. Then get an LTO [licensed timber operator], who can let you know if the trees are marketablethey can usually give an estimate of what that [value] might be. As previously reported here, state paperwork requirements for tree removal projects by landowners have been significantly streamlined, both to lessen financial burden and help speed the process. Part of the countys tree removal plan calls for it to lease the land immediately adjacent to Pacific Ultrapower in Chinese Camp, which will be processing the wood, as will American Wood Fibers wood-shavings plant in Jamestown. Riggs shares, The goal is to make this available countywide, not just for [the trees] we remove, but everyone within the county, so at least there is a place to take wood that is not marketable. Landowners interesting in learning more about NRCS funding opportunities available may contact the Amador, Calaveras and Tuolumne counties service center at 209 223-6535. To contact the Tuolumne County/Highway 108 Fire Safe Council, click here; to reach the Calaveras Foothills Fire Safe Council, click here. Tiny plastic microbeads found in many hygiene products could be polluting Florida waterways, potentially harming fish and other wildlife. During Florida's annual rainy season, there are times when there is just too much water to handle. Last year, the City of Cocoa Beach spent 25 days discharging excess water into the Banana River. We only do it when we absolutely have to, said Jack Shelton, the Director of Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation Department. Everything from the city, Patrick Air Force Base and Port Canaveral go into this splitter box, Shelton said. All of the water and waste that runs down a drain winds up at Shelton's facility to be separated, filtered and clarified. This is the final process before it goes to be chlorinated and finally out to the reclaimed system, Shelton said, standing over one of the tanks. At the bottom of it is a layer of sand that filters out any leftovers. But I dont think its fine enough to filter out microbeads, Shelton said. Although the reclaimed water is not going into the drinking supply, it is reused for irrigation and could wind up in the Banana River next time there is a heavy rain storm. There is a concern, Shelton said. Theres really nothing that has been approved that will remove these microbeads. Theyre so fine and the size of a pin head. A federal bill passed in time for the new year put a ban on plastic microbeads found in hygiene products. President Barack Obama and Congress approved the bill to stop companies from adding the exfoliant, over concerns that microbeads could be harmful to the environment when it is filtered for reclaimed water. But the ban on plastic microbeads is not in full effect yet. Companies will have a year to stop manufacturing these products and come up with a substitute for the scrub to sell on the shelves. Alleviating the problem the companies need to stop putting it in, Shelton said. Bottom line. And there are alternatives: grinding up nutshells and some organic stuff they could put instead to replace the microbeads. According to the Congressional Budget Office, many companies have already committed to removing microbeads from their products in the near future. Tiny microbeads, as seen on this penny, are found in many hygiene products and could be polluting waterways, potentially harming fish and other wildlife. (AP) A non-governmental organization in support of the microbead ban, Beat the Microbead, developed a list of products that may contain microbeads. You can view the list below: AMARILLO - The annual ROW Conference for right-of-way management, conducted by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, is set for Feb. 23 at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center, 6500 W. Amarillo Blvd. in Amarillo. There is a $10 registration fee. The program will begin with registration at 8 a.m. and end at 5 p.m., with lunch on your own, said Rick Auckerman, AgriLife Extension agriculture and natural resources agent in Deaf Smith County. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Two Plainview women were arrested and cocaine recovered following an early-morning drug raid Wednesday. The Plainview Police Department SWAT team served the search warrant around 6:35 a.m. at 1211 W. 11th. Beatrice Leija Luna, 43, and Esmeralda Soto, also 43, were charged with manufacturing and delivery of a controlled substance in a drug-free zone. The residence, where both women live, was within 1000 feet of Highland Elementary School. Police seized more than 200 grams of cocaine, with an estimated street value of $5,000, Plainview Police Capt. Manuel Balderas said. Police seized the house, including all of its contents, and two vehicles. Luna and Soto were taken to the Hale County jail where they were held on $25,000 bonds. Officials at the jail reported that both had bonded out by Wednesday night. Childrens Protective Services was called to the residence and took custody of an 11-year-old boy, Balderas said. If convicted, Luna and Soto face from 5-99 years in prison. To comment: dzacher@hearstnp.com 806.296.1360 You're exactly correct. However, it would be best if NO ONE took them there ******* muzzies among whom are the Jihad arseholes. I say ****'em. ****'em all. After all, ALL of them, no matter what their degree of innocence is, they are ALL the followers of the PSYCHO MohahahahahaMAD who, according to their own Islamic Hadiths, PERSONALLY beheaded ~ 20 of his prisoners for rejecting his Islam. And, set himself up as the model for his TRUE muslims to follow !!! Let the muzzies take care of their own Jihad ******* problems instead of having the Europeans, or us, taking care of them. And, in line with the above, the NAZIS who followed the MONUMENTAL ARSEHOLE HITLER which caused us to stop GERMANY with a WAR because of their DAILY ATROCITIES all over the place....no matter the fact that not ALL the Germans were maniacal NAZIS. Well, it is absolutely the same with the ******* JIHADISTS who are causling the DAILY ISLAMIC ATROCITIES. So, just as we had to have a WAR with Germany to stop their DAILY ATROCITIES, we must stop the Muslims because no matter the innocent muzzies involved, the DAILY ISLAMIC TERRORISM must be eliminated. Though there are no drastic differences between the two drafts, Plainview ISD administrators still want to hear the opinion of the public as they look to finalize the Instructional Calendar for the 2016-2017 school year. Links to online calendar drafts can be found on the home page of plainviewisd.org. A link is also on the website to express draft preference. The calendar changes come as a result of Texas House Bill 2610, which strikes the language of requiring students to attend 180 days of instruction and replacing it with requirements that the district provide at least 75,600 minutes of instruction. Teachers, however, are still employed under a 10-month contract of 187 days of service. To reach the requirements, PISD has released the drafts that both total 76,560 minutes of instruction. STAAR testing schedules are set by the state and are not subject to change. Testing weeks will be held in October, December, March, May, June and July. School will begin on Aug. 22 on both calendar drafts and will conclude on May 25 with graduation being held on May 26. Teachers will work a half day on the last day of school if they have all school items in order. In the first draft, all teachers will return Aug. 10, which is marked as registration day and a teacher workday on both drafts. However, in the second draft, teachers will start Aug. 9 with a campus professional development day. New teacher orientation will be held Aug. 3-4 on both drafts. The next difference comes in December. In the first draft, Christmas break begins with a half-day early student release on Dec. 20 and a half-day student and staff release Dec. 21. The break will begin Dec. 22 and students will return Jan. 5. However, teachers and staff will return Jan. 4 for a Campus Planning Day. In the second draft, the half-day student release will begin Dec. 15 and the student/staff release will follow the next day. Christmas break will start Dec. 19 with students returning Jan. 3. However, a campus planning day will be slated for Jan. 2. After that, everything pretty much stays the same in both drafts. Student holidays will include Sept. 5 for Labor Day and Oct. 10 for Columbus Day. Thanksgiving break will be Nov. 21-25. Martin Luther King Day will be observed Jan. 16 and Presidents' Day Feb. 20. Spring Break will be March 13-17 and Memorial Day May 29. A parent-teacher conference/student holiday will be held Sept. 30. Bad weather days will be marked at April 14 and April 17. The instructional calendar is made with information provided by the Plainview ISD Educational Improvement Council, which includes parents, community members, teachers and administrators. PISD campus principals also provide information. The public may provide feedback to the district by telephone, email, or fax. All public input will be recorded, considered, and shared with the central office administrators and the Plainview ISD Board of Trustees. Electronic voting between calendar options will be available through noon Friday. On Feb. 18, the EIC recommendations and community comments will be presented to the Plainview ISD Board of Trustees. If approved by the Board, Plainview ISD will publish the school calendar on the district website no later than Feb. 22. Additional information on the calendar options can be made by contacting Patti Hutto at 293-6143 or patti.hutto@plainviewisd.org. For the second time this month, vandals have targeted Louis Flores Jr., a Republican candidate for Hale County sheriff. On Jan. 5, within hours of it being erected, someone destroyed a 4x8-foot campaign sign and wooden frame at 24th and Fresno. Now, Flores has reported to police that the front of his home at 1318 S. Broadway has been egged. We discovered it Monday afternoon, but think it probably happened on Sunday, Flores told the Herald Thursday. We dont go in and out the front door that much, other than to check the mail. We usually come in through the garage. Everything was normal Saturday when we got the mail. We didnt see it until Monday. Flores said nothing has happened like this before in the seven years he has lived in that house. We called the police, and they took a report for criminal mischief, Flores said. I dont have a damage estimate, and dont have any suspects. The police will have the house on close patrol for the next couple of weeks in case the vandals return. Chicken eggs were thrown at the front of the residence, with broken shells and dried yokes littering the front porch, front and side windows and brick walls. No vehicles were damaged, including his janitorial service van that was parked in the driveway. The damage was discovered by his fiancee, Sylvia Duquette, who answered the front door Monday afternoon when her mother came over for a visit. Im sure its campaign related, Flores surmised. But Im not letting it get me down. Instead I feel like this might even light a fire and spark more of a Lets get her done attitude. Weve really had a good response, and everyone Ive talked to are really supportive. Flores is challenging incumbent David Mull for the Republican nomination for Hale County sheriff in the March 1 primary. The winner will be the only candidate in the November general election since there are no Democratic or write-in candidates. Duquette posted pictures of the vandalism on Facebook, which draw a large number of supportive responses. Several related suffering similar experiences, including a local teacher who recalled having her mailbox destroyed, her house egged and obscenities painted on her garage door while serving as an educator in Oklahoma. FOCUS ON DEFENSE CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND OCEANIA Tax season is underway, and experts want you to be vigilant for tax-related identity theft and refund fraud. This happens when someone uses your Social Security number to file a tax return and then claim your refund. The Internal Revenue Service expects more than 70 percent of taxpayers will receive refunds, and the average refund last year was $2,797. Tax identity theft has been an ongoing issue. In January 2015, the IRS said it was aggressively combating this trend and had stopped 19 million suspicious returns while protecting more than $63 billion in fraudulent refunds between 2011 and October of 2014. Also in January 2015, the U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a report stating the IRS prevented an estimated $24.2 billion in fraudulent identity theft refunds in 2013, but it paid $5.8 billion later determined to be fraud. Because of the difficulties in knowing the amount of undetected fraud, the report said, the actual amount could differ from these point estimates. This week is Tax Identity Theft Awareness Week. And Sandra Martin, senior tax adviser at an H&R Block in northwest Houston, provided the following tips to protect your identity. -File early. If your legitimate tax return is filed first, then the bad guys don't have an opportunity to steal your refund. -Check your credit report annually with Experian, TransUnion or Equifax. The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires each of these companies to provide a free copy of your credit report once a year. Martin said this can provide valuable information, like if someone has opened credit cards in your name. -If your wallet or personal information was stolen, get a credit monitoring service. These monitor you credit report and alert you of changes or suspicious activity. Martin has also noticed an increase in taxpayers using the IRS Identity Protection PIN, a six-digit number assigned to eligible taxpayers to help prevent fraudulent tax returns. If a return is filed with an incorrect or missing PIN, then the IRS won't accept it. You're eligible for this PIN if you've been a victim of identity theft and the IRS has resolved your case, you filed tax returns as a resident of Florida, Georgia or Washington, D.C., or you received a letter from the IRS inviting you to get a PIN. More information on tax fraud and resources if you've been a victim can be found at the Federal Trade Commission as well as the IRS pages "10 things to know about identity theft and your taxes" and "Taxpayer guide to identity theft." My travel adventure blog speaks of places I have been, places I am going, and places I will visit someday. Although, as an avid scuba diver you might think I focus only on what lies beneath the water's surface, but I also enjoy the magic of a destination's people and its physical beauty above the water, too! Image source: Altria. Tobacco king Altria Group has held its place atop the domestic cigarette industry for decades, holding rival Reynolds American at bay and providing investors with consistent growth. Coming into Thursday's fourth-quarter financial report, Altria investors didn't expect anything out of the ordinary from the tobacco maker, and for the most part, what Altria said about its most recent performance was roughly in line with what investors had wanted to see. Despite falling short on the earnings front, Altria boosted its market share in a tough industry environment and has strong prospects for further growth in 2016. Let's take a closer look at how Altria did and what lies ahead for the industry leader. Cigarette demand hits the wall Altria's fourth-quarter results were just shy of investor expectations for both the top and bottom lines. Revenue net of excise taxes was up about 2.5% to $4.73 billion, but that was less than the $4.75 billion consensus forecast among investors. Similarly, net income gains of about 1% to $1.25 billion produced adjusted earnings of $0.67 per share, which fell a penny short of what analysts had expected to see from the tobacco giant. A closer look at Altria's segments gives some color on the quarter's results. The smokeable products business saw revenue net of excise taxes grow 2.6% and adjusted operating income rise 4.3%, reflecting Altria's continued pricing power in the industry. Altria said that domestic shipment volumes for cigarettes were down 2.6% during the quarter due largely to movements of inventory. But after adjusting for inventory and other factors, shipments rose 0.5%, outpacing the overall industry's flat performance. Marlboro shipments were down more than 3% to 26.1 billion cigarettes, but that was enough to boost its market share by two-tenths of a percentage point to 44%. Altria's smokeless products segment grew at a faster pace, with post-excise tax revenue climbing almost 6% to $453 million and resulting in an 8% rise in operating income. Shipment volumes soared 4%, with Copenhagen leading the way with an 8% rise. Copenhagen's market share jumped more than a full percentage point to climb above the 32% mark, although declines from Skoal and other products more than offset Copenhagen's strength and sent overall market share for the segment down slightly to 55%. Altria's wine segment also showed solid growth. Revenue rose more than 7%, and operating income climbed 4% on a nearly 6% increase in shipment volumes. CEO Marty Barrington praised Altria for finishing the year on a strong note. "In 2015, Altria delivered yet another year of excellent business results and outstanding shareholder returns," Barrington said, noting the $4.2 billion in dividends that the company paid and the stock's 23% total return. "Our core businesses generated impressive and consistent income growth during the year behind the strength of their premium brands," said the CEO, and he also pointed to the moves regarding SABMiller as having a positive impact on Altria's future prospects. What's ahead for Altria in 2016? Altria gave guidance for 2016, expecting earnings of $3 to $3.05 per share. That represents 7% to 9% gains from its adjusted earnings of $2.80 per share for the full 2015 year. Altria also said it would likely spent $140 million to $180 million on capital expenditures during 2016, affirming its commitment to smart investments in its business. What's especially impressive is that the Reynolds American merger with Lorillard hasn't seemed to have a big impact on Altria's market share. Some analysts believed that Reynolds American would make a splash in the industry following the merger, reinvigorating its lineup of cigarettes and using the Newport brand from Lorillard to spearhead new growth initiatives. At least for now, though, Reynolds American's efforts haven't put a dent in Altria's position in the industry, and that's good news for any shareholders who were worried about the competitive impact of the Reynolds-Lorillard combination. Traders reacted negatively to Altria's having missed their expectations slightly, sending the stock down almost 3% in the first hour of pre-market trade following the announcement. Yet in the long run, these results show Altria's ability to remain resilient in the face of a hostile environment for tobacco growers generally. The next billion-dollar iSecret The world's biggest tech company forgot to show you something at its recent event, but a few Wall Street analysts and the Fool didn't miss a beat: There's a small company that's powering their brand-new gadgets and the coming revolution in technology. And we think its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early in-the-know investors! To be one of them, just click here. The article Altria Group Keeps Growing as Marlboro, Copenhagen Gain Share originally appeared on Fool.com. Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Spencer Platt /Getty Images Comerica Banks Texas Economic Activity Index dropped in November as losses in exports, rig counts and hotel occupancy dragged down gains in employment, housing starts and sales tax revenue. The index decreased 0.6 percentage points to 94.1, which was still 21 points above the indexs cyclical low, reached in 2007. Express-News file photo Laurie Mayfield, the former president of DHanis State Bank, was sentenced today to two years in federal prison and ordered to pay $817,892 after pleading guilty to a single felony count of wire fraud.. Mayfield, 55, of Fredericksburg, admitted to overstating the banks quarterly financial statements that were used by San Antonio-based Vantage Bancorp Inc. officials in their decision to purchase the DHanis institution in 2014. For about the last decade novelas, or Spanish-language soap operas, have been looking to narco tales for story lines. But more recently there has been an uptick in the productions with several narconovelas as they are called gaining wide audiences. And the trend is Spanish-language television is so strong that its crossing over into English-language television. This year the USA Network will debut its own version of the acclaimed Kate del Castillo series La Reina del Sur. The new show, which translates to Queen of the South, will feature Alice Braga in the title role. The story line is about about a woman whose boyfriend is killed by narcos in Mexico. She heads to the U.S. to escape, only to end up in the drug trade herself. This is the second U.S.-made adaptation of the La Reina del Sur character. The Finest Hours an odd title, in that it evokes Winston Churchill and the London blitz concerns a lesser known historical incident that took place in 1952, a sea rescue by the Coast Guard. That might not sound all that spectacular, but in fact it was quite a rescue, accomplished against long odds, in the face of great hazards and lethal weather. Of course, the rescue was successful. We know that going in. Watching, we might not know for sure if all the participants will survive until the end of the movie, but we can be the vast majority of them have to, which means that the appeal of Finest Hours cant be its suspense, but its execution. What happens is important, but more important is how it happens and who it happens to. Along this line, The Finest Hours presents a Coast Guard culture and a Coast Guard world as it existed in Chatham, Massachusetts in the post-war years. Like a fishing culture, everyone knows people who make their livelihood on boats. Everyone has one eye on the weather, and everyone knows someone who was lost at sea. At the center of the story is the one indispensable man, Bernie Webber, a young coxswain and a by-the-book seaman. Hes an arresting character shy and diffident, and yet with a rare decisiveness and certainty in his own judgment. Over the course of the film, the audience cant help circling back to Bernie and pondering him, wondering if the thing that allowed him to be heroic was simplicity a sort of This is whats right, so this is what Im doing or moral profundity. Both possibilities are in play in Chris Pines performance. Pine is the films big surprise. To date, he has been cast as blithe, confident and superficial, or as the young Captain Kirk, who is at least two of those things. Here he digs into a character role, a regular guy with a thick Boston accent and a weird tendency to be nervous around his girlfriend and assertive in the face of mortal danger. With a small boat and crew, Webber has to go out on what could easily be a suicide mission. His goal is to find survivors of the Pendleton, an oil tanker that split in half. This brings us to the big nights second-most indispensable man, the Pendletons chief engineer, Sybert. The Finest Hours *** Quick take: An amazing rescue at sea See More Collapse Sybert finds himself in the following situation: His ship that is, half a ship is slowly sinking. But the storm makes it impossible to launch the lifeboats, and theres no way to make it back to land. What would you do? Casey Affleck plays Sybert as an odd, reflective guy, very internal, not a glad hander, not a natural leader of men, but rather as someone who just knows what to do. He radiates competence and intelligence, such that we believe that others would recognize these qualities and listen to him. Most of The Finest Hours takes place on the night of the wreck and the rescue, and the screenwriters (Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson) tell the story by following three centers of action. We see the men on the ship, the men on the rescue boat and the people on land, particularly Bernies fiancee, Miriam (Holliday Grainger), presented as a young woman as outgoing as Bernie is resonant. The cutting from one center of action to another feeds an atmosphere of mounting tension. In filming scenes of the rescue boat, director Craig Gillespie keeps the camera fairly tight on the men to show how theyre reacting to the elements, the cold, the wind and the wetness, as well as to the sheer terror of being there. But occasionally he pulls back to show the boat against the ocean, practically submerged at times, at other times just falling through space. Its an extraordinary sight, and if the actual night was anything like this, its remarkable that any of them were still breathing by sunrise. Running time: 117 minutes Breathe, San Antonio. Contrary to Facebook reports, The Malt House is not closing their doors permanently, at least. The pride of the West Side, located at 115 S. Zazamora St. and known for its no-frills comfort food, was rumored to be shutting down in two weeks for good. Crispy dog-lovers flooded social media with hundreds of shares of a post made by a woman named Irene Carrasco. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate There is a so-called tiny house for sale on the HAR website at the moment for just over $110,000. How tiny? Just 288 square feet, according to the real estate listing. The whole thing is set on a 5,757 square foot lot. The elevated home in the 10000 block of Teneha Drive in the Southeast Houston/Sunnyside area is located inside a heavily-wooded lot. The listing notes that the home was built in 2015. It comes with a 25-foot deck up top perfect for parties and there is an expansive area around the stilts under the home. There isnt much room for entertaining inside but thats probably not a selling point. RELATED: 44 of the most impressive tiny homes you've ever seen The interior features repurposed oak and pieces of another home. There is a queen-size bed that folds into the wall and turns into a couch. Its also energy efficient. It comes with burglar bars on all the doors and windows as well. It comes with one bedroom and one bathroom. RELATED: The tiny house trend and Houston The man who built the home is an architect. He designed the copper gutter system himself, along with the reinforced railings. This is the first tiny home hes built. Hed like to one day build a whole community of them in the Houston area. The home is just a 20 minute drive from downtown Houston and 15 minutes from the Texas Medical Center, making it reasonable for those working inside 610 Loop. Sims Bayou is just a short walk to the south, though thats probably not a selling point. Plans for San Antonios yearlong tricentennial extravaganza in 2018 are now kicking in to high gear! I think you all are ready for a celebration, Mayor Ivy Taylor told some 400 community leaders, arts patrons, business professional and others at an official kickoff at the Tobin Center. Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality. This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape. All the posts here were published in the electronic media main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts. A judge on Thursday granted bail to a college student allegedly caught with nearly a pound of marijuana at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston. U.S. Magistrate Judge John Primomo agreed with a request from Alan Brown to release Jaime Montanaro, 20, to his mother. Primomo set his bond at $50,000 unsecured, meaning Montanaro doesnt need to put up any money to be released from jail, where hes been held since his Jan. 15 arrest. A 46-year-old member of a citizen group that mounted armed patrols of the border in Cameron County was sentenced Wednesday to two years and six months for illegal possession of a firearm, federal prosecutors announced. U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen ordered John Frederick Foerster to federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release. Foerster is a convicted felon and pleaded guilty to possession of pistol in March, 2015. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A former teacher's aide at a North Texas junior high school has been charged with having sexual relations with a student. Graham police officers arrested Allison Amber Oliver, a 37-year-old instructional aide at Graham Junior High School, on Tuesday. Oliver was charged with having an improper relationship between an educator and student and sexual assault of a child. The former aide was released from Young County Jail on a $50,000 bond, according to jail records. RELATED: Ex-South Texas teacher who had sex with 17-year-old student sues him for filming encounter According to an arrest affidavit, Graham ISD Superintendent Sonny Cruse told the school's resource officer on Oct. 12 that a number of male students were circulating a nude photograph of an aide identified as Oliver. Two days later, Cruse told the officer that Graham High School Principal Joe Gordy had interviewed Oliver's alleged victim, who admitted to the principal and his mother that he and Oliver had sex on two occasions. The student, whose age is not listed in the affidavit, told police on Oct. 15 that Oliver was "being weird" around him while he spent time with her children during summer 2015, pulling the boy aside and kissing him while he played near her house. RELATED: Louisiana teacher, daughter of school board member, accused of sex with female student In May 2015, Oliver and the student had sex in the back seat of the aide's SUV, according to the affidavit. Oliver had told the student, who had asked to hang out with the aide's children, they were on their way to pick them up, the affidavit said. She instead parked the vehicle in a secluded location and had sex with the boy, he told police. The student told investigators that Oliver told him she liked and loved him in text messages, the affidavit reads. Police found at 11,939 phone calls and text messages between Oliver and the victim, according to the affidavit. RELATED: Neighbors defend Austin-area piano teacher accused of inappropriately touching 2 girls under 10 Oliver allegedly had sex with the student a second time in August at the same location. After that encounter, the student told Oliver that he no longer wanted to communicate or have sexual relations with her. Oliver replied that she wanted to run away with the student when he turned 18 years old, the student told police. RELATED: Police: Texas sex offender assaulted boy he met at LGBT group after game of 'truth or dare' Another student told police that Oliver admitted to having sexual relations with the alleged victim after the student confronted her on the mobile application Snapchat, which allows users to send videos and photos. The second student then pressed Oliver to send nude photos to him, to which she eventually agreed, according to the affidavit. She told the student not to tell anyone about the pictures or her relations with the alleged victim. Oliver later told the second student that she had sexual relations with the alleged victim because he is "so much more mature than the rest of his class," according to the affidavit. The aide also allegedly told the second student during a phone conversation with him and his friends that she "probably would" have sex with him. jfechter@mySA.com Twitter: @JFreports CORVALLIS The Corvallis man shot at Sharis Restaurant was lured out for a smoke break by his fiancee's foster mother while the foster mother's boyfriend waited in the parking lot with a .223-caliber rifle to kill him, according to documents recently unsealed in the case. Forest Grove residents Michael A. Deyette II, 43, and Brooklyn Shepard, 35, have been charged with murder in the shooting death of Jason Scott Williams. According to arrest and probable cause affidavits unsealed Tuesday and Wendesday, police believe Shepard arranged for Williams to be in a specific place (Sharis Restaurant) at a specific time so that Deyette could shoot him which resulted in his death. According to the affidavits in the case, Shepard and her husband, Wayne Hintergardt, invited Williams, Williams fiancee Chauri Strait-Cobray (also known as Cecei Strait), and the couples young daughters out to dinner in Corvallis and pulled into Shari's at around 7 p.m. on Jan. 15. Williams was reportedly shot just before 7:45 p.m. in the parking lot. Shepard told police during interviews following the shooting that she is not Straits biological mother, but considered herself to be her foster mom or adopted mom for the last 10 years, according to the report. Shepard also reported to police in interviews following the shooting that Hintergardt and Deyette live across the street from Shepard in Forest Grove. Shepard also reported that she and Hintergardt are married and in an open relationship. Ryan Joslin, chief assistant district attorney for Benton County, said Wednesday that Hintergardt is not in custody and there has been no arrest warrant issued for him. Joslin could not comment on whether Hintergardt is a suspect in the case. Based on information in the affidavits filed in the case, this is what police believe happened on the night of Jan. 15: Shepard and Hintergardt drove to Corvallis from Forest Grove and picked up Williams, Strait and the couples children at Community Outreach Inc. where the family had been staying. The group then headed to Sharis Restaurant at around 7 p.m. and parked their vehicle in the south side of the restaurant parking lot. While eating dinner at the restaurant, Shepard invited Williams outside for a smoke break underneath the covered bicycle rack on the east side of the restaurant. Shepard, Williams and Strait went outside while the couples young children stayed inside the restaurant with Hintergardt. During the smoke break, Shepard walked to the parked vehicle on the south side of the restaurant, got inside briefly and walked back to the couple when Williams was shot multiple times in the parking lot and Shepard was hit by a bullet fragment in her right leg just before 7:45 p.m. According to the affidavits, which included initial findings from an autopsy report performed by the Oregon State Medical Examiner, Williams was shot four times with high velocity bullets in his upper back, just below his chest and in his left and right arms. Shortly after the shooting, police searching the area located seven spent shell casings for a .223-caliber rifle on the pavement on the south side of the Sharis parking lot. Police also found a black SOG-brand backpack about 10 feet from the casings. After being granted a search warrant for the backpack, police reported finding a metal 30-round AR-15 style magazine with .223 ammunition and casings, a .38 special caliber Derringer handgun, and .38 special ammunition. Ten minutes after the 911 call reporting the shooting, a Benton County Sheriffs Office deputy reportedly questioned a man walking away from the shooting area down the alley east of the Coldwell Banker building at 1109 N.W. Ninth St. The man, who would later be identified by the deputy as Deyette, said he was in the area to get a taco when he came over after hearing a shot. The deputy reported that he patted down Deyette, took his identification information and searched him, finding no weapons. Police later received initial findings from an Oregon State Police Forensic Laboratory report that fingerprints discovered on the backpack at the scene were positively identified as belonging to Deyette. Shepard later told police that she believed Williams to be abusing Strait and/or the children, and possibly dealing drugs, and that Deyette had been following Williams earlier in the week in an attempt to take photographs of Williams doing something illegal. Shepard also told police in the interview that Deyette did not know Williams personally, but that she had told Deyette about her suspicions and that Deyette cared about Strait and the children. Deyette was arrested outside a house in Forest Grove at about 1:45 p.m. Monday, Jan. 18, on a Benton County warrant. He was taken into custody without incident with the help of the Washington County Tactical Negotiations Team and Forest Grove Police Department and was transported to the Benton County Jail, where he has remained since on $1 million bail. He has pleaded not guilty to murder, conspiracy to commit murder, first-degree assault, unlawful use of a weapon and second-degree criminal mischief. Shepard was arrested at around 6:45 p.m. Monday, Jan. 18, in Forest Grove on one count of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. She also is being held in the Benton County Jail on $1 million bail. After her husband died in 1988, Lina M. Porter began visiting area nursing homes, playing guitar, singing, and preaching the word of God in both English and Spanish. Calling the residents the little people even though she was the same age Porter encouraged her children to bring their children to the homes as well. She had several that she attended for more than 12 years, her daughter Katherine Porter Zapata said. She thought they didnt get to see little kids enough. Although she had been a Catholic her whole life, Porter began attending a nondenominational church after her son became a Pentecostal minister. It was at that time she began to evangelize. My brother recorded her sermons, Zapata said. Airing the recordings on cable TV stations, Porter and her son named the show, Share a Time in the Word. Porter also could be heard on radio station KEDA-AM in the 1990s. My momma had this thing about being able to preach, Zapata said. More Information Lina M. Porter Born: Sept. 23, 1925, San Antonio Died: Jan. 20, 2016, San Antonio Preceded by: Husband Frank V. Porter; parents Mercedes and Octaviano Martinez. Survived by: Sons Frank M. Porter and daughter-in-law Oralia, Pedro F. Porter II and daughter-in-law Maria De Lourdes, Jeffrey Porter and daughter-in-law Belinda L., Gary R. Porter and daughter-in-law Lisa Perez-Porter; daughters Mary Ann Mercado and son-in-law Seferino, and Katherine P. Zapata and son-in-law Ramiro; 16 grandchildren; 26 great- grandchildren; and three great-great-grandchildren. Services: Visitation from 1-9 p.m., celebration of life at 7 p.m., both Thursday at Porter Loring Mortuaries, 1101 McCullough; graveside service at 10 a.m. Friday at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, 1520 Harry Wurzbach Road. See More Collapse Porter died Jan. 20 at 90. Growing up close to what was then Navarro Elementary School on the near West Side, Porter met her future husband, whose family had moved in next door to hers, as a youngster. Marrying while her husband was in the Air Force, Porter continued to work at Fort Sam Houston as an administrative assistant, a job she obtained immediately after graduating from Lanier High School. Porter continued with her career, even as her brood grew to include six children. Mom always worked all her life, Zapata said. Even though busy, Porter was known for her pies, croissants and tortillas and could sew a dress after work and wear it the following day. Becoming the neighborhood house in which friends and neighbors gathered, Porter always gave them something good to think about, her daughter Mary Ann Mercado said. One of the familys favorite activities was spending time at their 24-acre ranch, which was near their South Side home. We had horses and cows peach trees and pecan trees, Zapata said. That was one of Moms favorite things, especially at Easter. Porter began traveling after her husband died, visiting India, Mexico and Illinois with her church. She was always very giving, with a beautiful smile on her face, Zapata said. She praised everybody. mheidbrink@express-news.net The Obama administration on Tuesday announced that it would no longer bar financing for U.S. exports to Cuba, signaling even more thaw in relations between the two countries. But more thaw is required. Since the president announced normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba in late 2014, changes major and minor have occurred. It is easier to travel to Cuba, you can spend money there without having to get a Treasury Department OK, and Cuba is no longer on our state sponsors of terrorism list. Count this latest change on financing as major. The administration announced that U.S. banks can now provide direct financing for the export of any product but for one notable exception agricultural goods. The broader economic embargo on Cuba still in effect does exempt agricultural commodities, medical equipment and pharmaceuticals. But there still exists, even with this change on private financing, a restriction on export financing for agricultural goods. For a country in the business of providing much of the worlds food, this makes no sense. Yes, with a change in 2000, agricultural commodities have been steadily exported to Cuba. But better credit terms in other countries means the European Union and Brazil have taken the top market shares. Why deny U.S. farmers export growth in a country in which we now have an embassy? A U.S. Department of Agriculture report last year said U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba have substantial room for growth. Consider: China is the largest international consumer of U.S. agricultural commodities, accounting for 20 percent of all U.S. farm exports. And Cuba is different, how? Heres how. There are Cuban-American communities and politicians notably Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida who are adamantly opposed to normalization. They represent the views of many of the Cubans who fled the country after the communist takeover in 1959. But this is a view far out of date, we suspect, with younger Cuban-Americans and certainly not in sync with the globalization of the worlds economies. We can compete in Cuba or not. Cruz and Rubio sons of Cuban immigrants, presidential aspirants and believers in the old school say not. And theres the theory that neither Fidel nor Raul Castro wants a lifting of the embargo as that removes the U.S. as the handy scapegoat for all of that island nations ills. Congress should lift the embargo altogether and then let the Castros explain to Cubans why they shouldnt benefit. And Texas delegation should lead the way in making this happen. Posted on 01/28/2016, 11:00 am, by mySteinbach In their continued commitment to keeping our borders safe and secure, Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers in southern Manitoba executed 172 seizure actions of various goods, including weapons, drugs, and child pornography last year. They also refused entry to those with criminal histories and those seeking entry to Canada for illegitimate reasons. Officers arrested ten people for suspicion for impaired driving and 23 others on outstanding warrants. The CBSA is pleased to share a few firearms seizure highlights from its southern Manitoba border crossings: On August 1, Emerson officers seized five undeclared guns and 62 prohibited large-capacity magazines from a 36-year-old Alaska man towing a trailer. The firearms included three handguns, one fully automatic and one semi-automatic rifle. The man was arrested, and later released on bail with a promise to appear. At the port of South Junction, a 57-year-old North Dakota man initially declared one firearm, but failed to declare a second firearm a prohibited .9mm semi-automatic pistol when seeking entry on August 4. The man paid a $1,000 penalty and returned to the U.S. On September 8, Winkler officers seized a prohibited handgun and over capacity magazine from a 23-year-old Minnesota man. CBSA officers found the handgun in a case in the vehicles centre console. The man paid a $1,500 penalty for failure to declare and returned to the U.S. On November 23, a 55-year-old U.S. man received a $12,000 fine for attempting to smuggle a firearm at the Sprague border crossing in September. Winnipeg Criminal Investigations pursued charges after Sprague CBSA officers located an undeclared semi-automatic .40 calibre pistol and over capacity magazine during a secondary examination of the mans vehicle. A Wisconsin man was sentenced to 18 months incarceration for unlawful possession and attempted smuggling of child pornography in December following a seizure at the port of Sprague in May. Sprague officers also uncovered a mobile methamphetamine laboratory in June containing 85 g of the drug. A 35 year-old Minnesota man was arrested and turned over to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In October, CBSA officers at Gretna port of entry were quick to intervene and assist a U.S. commercial driver who was experiencing medical issues. To ensure his safety, CBSA officers worked quickly with U.S. authorities so the man could receive medical care in his own country. The Corvallis man shot at Sharis Restaurant was lured out for a smoke break by his fiancee's foster mother while the foster mother's boyfriend waited in the parking lot with a .223-caliber rifle to kill him, according to documents from prosecutors recently unsealed in the case. Forest Grove residents Michael A. Deyette II, 43, and Brooklyn Shepard, 35, have pleaded not guilty to murder charges filed in the shooting death of Jason Scott Williams. According to arrest and probable cause affidavits unsealed this week, police believe Shepard arranged for Williams to be at the restaurant on Ninth Street at a specific time so that Deyette could shoot him. According to the affidavits in the case, Shepard and her husband, Wayne Hintergardt, invited Williams, Williams fiancee Chauri Strait-Cobray (also known as Cecei Strait), and the couples young daughters out to dinner in Corvallis and pulled into Shari's at around 7 p.m. on Jan. 15. Williams was reportedly shot just before 7:45 p.m. in the parking lot. Shepard told police during interviews following the shooting that she is not Straits biological mother, but considered herself to be her foster mom or adopted mom for the last 10 years, according to the report. Shepard also told police in interviews following the shooting that Hintergardt and Deyette live across the street from Shepard in Forest Grove. Shepard also reported that she and Hintergardt are married and in an open relationship. Ryan Joslin, chief assistant district attorney for Benton County, said Wednesday that Hintergardt is not in custody and that no arrest warrant has been issued for him. Joslin could not comment on whether Hintergardt is a suspect in the case. Based on information in the affidavits filed in the case, this is what police and prosecutors believe happened on the night of Jan. 15: Shepard and Hintergardt drove to Corvallis from Forest Grove and picked up Williams, Strait and the couples children at Community Outreach Inc., where the family had been staying. The group then headed to the restaurant at around 7 p.m. and parked their vehicle in the south side of the restaurant parking lot. While eating dinner at the restaurant, Shepard invited Williams outside for a smoke break near the covered bicycle rack on the east side of the restaurant. Shepard, Williams and Strait went outside while the couples young children stayed inside the restaurant with Hintergardt. During the smoke break, Shepard walked to the parked vehicle on the south side of the restaurant, got inside briefly and had walked back to where Williams and Strait were standing when Williams was shot multiple times and Shepard was hit by a bullet fragment in her right leg. According to the documents, which included initial findings from an autopsy report performed by the Oregon State Medical Examiner, Williams was shot four times with high velocity bullets in his upper back, just below his chest and in his left and right arms. Shortly after the shooting, police located seven spent shell casings for a .223-caliber rifle on the pavement on the south side of the Sharis parking lot. Police also found a black SOG-brand backpack about 10 feet from the casings. After obtaining a search warrant for the backpack, police reported finding a metal 30-round AR-15 style magazine with .223 ammunition and casings, a .38 special caliber Derringer handgun, and .38 special ammunition. Ten minutes after the 911 call reporting the shooting, a Benton County Sheriffs Office deputy reportedly questioned a man walking away from the shooting area down the alley east of the Coldwell Banker building at 1109 N.W. Ninth St. The man, who would later be identified by the deputy as Deyette, said he was in the area to get a taco when he came over after hearing a shot. The deputy reported that he took identification information from Deyette and searched him, finding no weapons. Police later received initial findings from an Oregon State Police Forensic Laboratory report that fingerprints discovered on the backpack at the scene belonged to Deyette. Shepard later told police that she believed Williams to be abusing Strait and/or the children, and possibly dealing drugs, and that Deyette had been following Williams earlier in the week in an attempt to take photographs of Williams doing something illegal. Shepard also told police that Deyette did not know Williams personally, but that she had told Deyette about her suspicions. Joslin said Wednesday that Williams had no convictions relating to any abuses cases, but information related to Shepard's allegations and criminal cases relating to Williams likely would be discussed during Shepard's bail review hearing, which has not yet been officially scheduled. Deyette was arrested outside a house in Forest Grove at about 1:45 p.m. Monday, Jan. 18, on a Benton County warrant. He was taken into custody without incident with the help of the Washington County Tactical Negotiations Team and Forest Grove Police Department and was transported to the Benton County Jail, where he has remained since on $1 million bail. He faces charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, first-degree assault, unlawful use of a weapon and second-degree criminal mischief. Shepard was arrested at around 6:45 p.m. Monday, Jan. 18, in Forest Grove on one count of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. She also is being held in the Benton County Jail on $1 million bail. By Lambert Strether of Corrente. TPP/TTIP/TiSA Watch out for the use of science-based arguments during the coming TAFTA/TTIP: I predict its a phrase well being hearing a lot of, soon [Open Dot Dot]. If an argument is really science-based, it wont use proprietary data. Analyst: Trans-Pacific Partnership unlikely to go ahead' [New Zealand Herald]. The TPPA cannot get through the US congress as it is, [Lori Wallach, visiting New Zealand] said. Under the certification system the agreement wont get voted on or go into effect until the US congress is satisfied. Malaysian House and Senate approve a motion to sign TPP [Channel News Asia]. 2016 Tonights Republican Debate Anecdotally, a potential Trump supporter in Iowa told The Washington Post that she thought skipping the debate fit well with Trumps brand [WaPo]. Everything that he does is so well thought out, Tara Wachendorf, 27, said while awaiting a Trump rally Tuesday in Iowa City. Hes good at creating controversy, and thats whats bringing him more voters. People like that.' Kayfabe, Im tellin ya. Except at some point, kayfabe may be broken for the crowd, with real blood in the stands, not fake blood in the ring. Trumps skipping the Republican debate because Megyn Kelly. Fox News Statement Taunting Trump Was 100 Percent Roger Ailes [New York Magazine]. The statement: We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president, Fox said. A nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings. While Trump could cost Fox News debate-night ratings, officials at the network said Rupert Murdoch, the executive co-chairman of Foxs parent company, 21st Century Fox, gave Ailes his support over the phone [Reuters]. Policy Finding a Cure for Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clintons Health Care Plans [Truth Digest]. Good summary from two doctors: On Sunday, just two hours before the final Democratic debate before the Iowa caucus, Sanders released a new plan. It made two excellent improvements on his previous legislative proposals. First, he writes that he would create a federally administered single-payer health care program. This is a major improvement over the complexity, cost and inconsistency of having 50 state administratorsit will save money and provide equal coverage for all. Second, he expanded the coverage of his plan so that all medically necessary services would be covered. Most of his announcement Sunday focused on how the plan would be paid for. His plan includes a 2.2 percent tax, which he calls a premium, on certain households. For example, Sanders website states that this would apply to a family of four with income over $28,800. There would also be a 6.2 percent payroll tax. Then it provides for a progressive income tax, beginning with those making over $250,000 annually. Capital gains and dividends would be taxed at the same rate as other income, tax deductions for the wealthy would be limited and the estate tax would be changed. While this plan gives his opponents a talking pointSanders would raise taxes on the middle classthe reality is that it would actually save people money because families would no longer be paying premiums. In addition, the payroll tax would lower costs for businesses. Ta Nehesi Coates Bernie Sanders Brain Fart Isnt Even About Reparations [Black Agenda Report]. [Bernie is] really no kind of socialist at all. Bernie know this, and has rarely if ever called himself one in recent years. But he allows, even encourages us to call him that this year because socialism is popular, even though Ta Nehesi Coates thinks it should not be. Money Campaigning in style: How Jeb Bush blew through his warchest [Reuters]. Money donated by both large and small donors kept the Bush camp traveling in style. There were stays at luxury hotels including the Wilshire in Beverly Hills, the Viceroy in Florida, the St. Regis in Dana Point, California, and the W in Stamford, Connecticut, the campaign finance filings show. Im so happy Bush and his gang of grifters took $250 [million] off some stupid squillionaires. Who are now whining about it. Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton arrived in Philadelphia Wednesday to meet with African American ministers and also to hold a fundraiser [NBC Philadelphia]. And also. The Voters Cruz, Trump and the Missing White Voters [Real Clear Politics]. The Trail Sanders will agree to more debates if Wasserman Schultz fixes the mess she made [The Hill]. The campaign is requesting one each in March, April and May. All three must not be scheduled on a Friday, Saturday or holiday, and all three must include Martin OMalley along with Sanders and Clinton. What the president has tried to do, what Vice President Biden has tried to do, is to be as evenhanded as they could be, [Sanders insisted after a White House meeting] [AP] And I know there was some discussion the other day about a Politico interview in which he was tipping the scale towards Secretary Clinton I dont believe that at all. [Sanders] emphasized that he owed Obama a political debt for coming to campaign for him in 2006, saying I have never forgotten that.' So, Clinton offers Obama a crude bribe (nomination to the Supreme Court) and Sanders praises Obamas neutrality. Whos the classier? On the Democratic candidate side, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California made clear to reporters at a party retreat in Baltimore that she was thrilled with the prospective new voters that Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is drawing to his presidential rallies [New York Times]. But Ms. Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, is not so enthusiastic about some of his proposals that could require raising taxes. Were not running on any platform of raising taxes, she said. Not even to save people money. Or their lives. Bernie Sanderss political revolution, explained [Vox]. The explanation: A Democratic Partywide move to the left on economic issues, focused on challenging the power of the wealthy and corporations (and, by extension, the power of the Republicans those interests tend to back) A new economics-focused electoral appeal aimed at nonvoters of all races and at white voters whove tended to support the GOP A continued mobilization and organization of many of those core supporters, so theyll keep fighting for change once President Sanders is in office Interesting. Not seeing it so far, however. But this: [Obama]s been criticized for failing to make use of his massive organizing operation once in office. Obama did not not NOT failing to make use OFA; he instantly dismantled it. Thats the second time Ive seen this history airbrushed this week. Sanders draws big crowds in Duluth and St. Paul [Minnesota Post]. More than 14,000 people came to St. Pauls RiverCentre a third of them in an overflow crowd for the Vermont senators evening speech, and earlier, about 6,000 people packed his afternoon rally at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center [Star Tribune]. With just a few days to go before the Monday caucuses, we believe Clinton is decently positioned to survive Iowa. Momentum and excitement appear to be more on Sanders side, but he may be over-reliant on a base of supporters that are not well distributed throughout the state and a bit less likely to turn out at the level he needs [Larry Sabato, Center for Politics]. If despite all this, Clinton still comes up short, lets not forget that Iowas Democratic activists are overwhelmingly white and somewhat more liberal than in many other states where Clinton will be favored due to strong minority backing. So a Clinton loss here is far from fatal. Six months after it began, the federal investigation into Hillary Clintons private email server shows no signs of slowing down [The Hill]. It does give pause to Democrats who are concerned that there may be another shoe to drop down the road, said Andrew Smith, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire. And then theres this: The former secretary of State did not appear to send most of the emails now marked classified. Instead, they were largely sent or forwarded to her by aides. If Im in Clintons campaign, Im more worried if am Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin or Jake Sullivan than if Im Hillary Clinton, [said Bradley Moss, a lawyer who specializes in national security and protection of classified information]. Mills, Abedin and Sullivan were all top aides of Clintons at the State Department. Abedin and Sullivan continue to hold high positions in Clintons presidential campaign. De Blasio will be joined [in Iowa] by his wife, Chirlane McCray, as they seek to help Clinton defeat U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont for the Democratic presidential nomination, according to de Blasios political team [Newsday]. David Peterson, a professor of political science at Iowa State University, said he didnt believe Mr. de Blasios visit would make much of a difference. He said Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, would be a bigger draw [Wall Street Journal, Weekend in Iowa Awaits Bill de Blasio]. Yes. Clinton can offer a bribe to Obama in the form of support for a Supreme Court nomination. But apparently, she cant (or wont) make an offer Warren can accept, and endorse her. Odd, that. Mayor Bill de Blasio wont be going to the Groundhog Day ceremony at the Staten Island Zoo this year [CBS New York]. Staten Island Chuck, which was really a female groundhog named Charlotte, famously slipped from de Blasios grasp during his first Groundhog Day ceremony as mayor. The animal died a few weeks later, apparently from internal injuries. So, Bill, if anybody Iowa offers you an animal to hold, dont do it! Paul Krugman Unironically Anoints Himself Arbiter of Seriousness: Only Clinton Supporters Eligible [Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept]. I used to think somebody had kidnapped Operative K and replaced him with an alien replicant, but sadly, I now think hes just becoming more himself. The Audacity of Hope: The Trump Version [Cook Political Report]. Five reasons Trump will lose. Given how wrong so many of us were about Trumps staying power in the first place, its understandable why so many are wary to write him off as either the nominee or a general election winner. However, lets not mistake his progress thus far as simply one of his own creation. Trumps success has also been built upon the failure on the non-Trump establishment to coalesce around their own standard bearer. Hes also faced almost no serious attacks by his opponents. Stats Watch Durable Goods Orders, December 2015: The factory sector ended 2015 with a giant thud. Durable goods orders fell 5.1 percent in December vs expectations for a 0.2 percent gain and a low-end estimate of minus 3.0 percent [Econoday]. And its not all aircraft, either: Orders for civilian aircraft lead the dismal list, down 29 percent in December. The other main subcomponent for transportation, motor vehicles, also fell, down 0.4 percent in a reminder that vehicle sales were slowing at year end. Capital goods industries show deep declines: machinery down 5.6 percent, computers down 8.7 percent, communications equipment down 21 percent, and fabricated metals down 0.5 percent. Some punchbowl that was, Janet. And: The headlines say the durable goods new orders decreased. The three month rolling average improved this month but remains in contraction. This is not a good report [Econintersect]. Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Index, January 2016: Kansas City manufacturing, along with that of Dallas, are suffering the worst of any regions in the nations factory contraction. Kansas City came in at minus 9 for the ninth contraction in 10 months [Econoday]. Jobless Claims, week of January 23, 2016: Jobless claims, having risen to 6-month highs and raising questions over the strength of the January labor market, fell back a sizable 16,000 in the January 23 week to a lower-than-expected 278,000 [Econoday]. But continuing claims, where data lag by a week, rose a steep 49,000 in the January 16 week to 2.268 million for the highest reading since August. Then again, it was a holiday week. But the rolling average marginally improves [Econintersect]. Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index, week of January 24, 2016: The consumer comfort index opened January below 44 and has inched its way, despite all the volatility and losses for the stock market, to 44.6 in the January 24 week [Econoday]. Pending Home Sales Index, December 2015: Sales of existing homes popped higher in December but a further gain for January is uncertain given only a 0.1 percent rise in pending home sales which follows a downward revised 1.1 percent decline in November [Econoday]. It usually takes one to two months for contract signings to close with greater delays possible given new mortgage documentation rules that were implemented in November. Shipping: Rail contraction continues [Econintersect]. Honey for the Bears, Froth Desk: Nest Thermostat Goes From Internet Of Things Darling To Cautionary Tale [Techdirt]. Youd think it would be hard to screw up a thermostat (and bad if you do, because who wants to freeze in a cold snap?) Well, Silicon Valley has done it! Honey for the Bears, Froth Desk: Could Theranos Go From Unicorn To Unicorpse? [Forbes]. The Fed: Strains are emerging in just about every corner of the global credit market. Credit-rating downgrades account for the biggest chunk of ratings actions since 2009; corporate leverage is at a 12-year high; and perhaps most worrisome, growing numbers of companies one third globally are failing to generate high enough returns on investments to cover their cost of funding [Bloomberg]. Pooled together into a single snapshot, the data points show how the seven-year-old global growth model based on cheap credit from central banks is running out of steam. Japans financial watchdog has started examining high-frequency trading, algorithms and dark pools, asking brokers for information about the practices [Japan Times]. Todays Fear & Greed Index: 20, Extreme Fear (previous close: 19) [CNN]. One week ago: 13 (Extreme Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Water Michael Burris, the market genius from The Big Short: Fresh, clean water cannot be taken for granted. And it is not water is political, and litigious [New York Magazine]. What became clear to me is that food is the way to invest in water. That is, grow food in water-rich areas and transport it for sale in water-poor areas. This is the method for redistributing water that is least contentious, and ultimately it can be profitable, which will ensure that this redistribution is sustainable. Hmm. Piping in Poison [The New Republic]. In fact, the health and behavioral effects of lead from the early to the mid-20th century, as suggested by recent extrapolations from our current knowledge, were likely enormous. Its estimated leaded pipe alone increased infant mortality by as much as 30 percent in some cities, and led to as much as a 25 percent rise in homicides. Just Yikes. A day after NBC News reported that none of the corroded lead pipes at the core of the Flint water crisis have been removed, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder admitted he has no immediate plans to replace them [NBC]. Instead, he said, the state is focusing on using phosphates in the water to coat the corroded pipes and keep the lead from leaching out. Police State Watch Death of Mentally Ill Inmate Locked in Hot Shower Until His Skin Fell Off Ruled Accidental [Alternet]. Black Injustice Tipping Point The Bronx Slave Market (1950) [Viewpoint Magazine]. From 2015, but worth a read. Gaia Intelligent design without a creator? Why evolution may be smarter than we thought [The Conversation]. I dont think invoking a supernatural creator can ever be a scientifically useful explanation. But what about intelligence that isnt supernatural? Our new results, based on computer modelling, link evolutionary processes to the principles of learning and intelligent problem solving without involving any higher powers. This suggests that, although evolution may have started off blind, with a couple of billion years of experience it has got smarter. Militia Watch A small group of holdouts continued the tense standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Thursday, one day after eight others abandoned the site as federal, state and local authorities tightened their grip on the armed occupation [USA Today]. Oregon militiamen fell right into the feds trap: Sorry, liberals, the government was right to wait before taking them out [Amanda Marcotte, Salon]. A little hippie-punching, as Susie Madrak calls it, along with liberal as a term of abuse (helpfully accompanied by worrywarts and hand-wringing). Fun stuff. Report: LaVoy Finicum, armed with a handgun, reached for his waistband just before he was shot [WaPo]. The official story emerges (the CNN version). Three more arrests at Oregon refuge as some holdouts leave voluntarily [Los Angeles Times]. Atmospheric; includes the non-official story. Guillotine Watch So Facebook squillionaire Chris Hughes whinges that TNR costs him over $20 million, and then buys a Manhattan town house for $23 million [Gawker]. A Harvard man. News of the Wired Unity, Plurality and/or Hybridity? Assessing the Global Pattern of Political Cultures [World Values Survey Books]. Wearable sweat sensor paves way for real-time analysis of body chemistry [Nature]. Flexible plastic sensor sends molecular test results to a smartphone. * * * Readers, feel free to contact me with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, and (c) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. And heres todays plant (Tia): Tia: Storm-blasted Russian Olive. Wow, thats gorgeous! * * * If you enjoy Water Cooler, please consider tipping and click the hat. Winter has come, I need to buy fuel, make a happy plumber happier, and keep my server up, too. Water Cooler could not exist without your support. Yves here. We featured an earlier post which pointed out that the results of modeling the cost/benefits of allowing migration depend, not surprisingly, on the assumptions made. This study is useful in that it is empirical, using Swedish data, when Sweden has good information and also generous social support programs. This analysis concludes the costs are low, based on the conventional view that deficits must be financed. One could just as well argue that managing immigration well gives political cover for deficit spending that is useful in a world with underemployment and a deflationary undertow. By Joakim Ruist, Research Fellow, University of Gothenburg. Originally published at VoxEU The current inflow of refugees into Europe has left policymakers in disagreement over how to react. A major concern is the perceived financial burden that can result from large intakes. This column discusses the fiscal impact of refugees on the Swedish economy. The current net redistribution from the non-refugee population to refugees (excluding arrivals in 2015) is estimated to be 1.35% of GDP. The economic burden of a generous refugee policy is therefore not particularly heavy, especially if the host country incorporates them as quickly as possible into the labour market. The inflow of refugees into Europe in 2015 was slightly above one million. The current inflow is unprecedented in history, and policymakers are in disagreement and disarray over how to react. The readiness of many countries to provide asylum is waning. In addition to concerns about security and preserving national identity, a major underlying reason is the perceived financial burden that would result from larger intakes. But how well-founded are these concerns? What, in reality, is the fiscal impact of these new arrivals? While there have been many studies of the economic impact of immigrants taken as a whole (see summary by Rowthorn 2008), these are not very informative about the impact of refugee immigration in particular. For obvious reasons, the labour market performance of economic immigrants who immigrated because of their economic opportunities is generally a lot better than that of refugees. And hence, refugees net contributions to public finances are not as positive as those of economic immigrants. This is clearly indicated, for example, by Ekberg (2009). Ekberg notes that the average immigrant in Sweden was a net contributor to public finances until approximately the middle of the 1980s, i.e. during a period where immigration for economic reasons dominated. However, he also notes that over the last 30 years, when refugees have made up larger shares of Swedish immigrant inflows, the net contribution of the average immigrant has been negative. Estimating the Fiscal Contribution of Refugees: New Research In a recent paper (Ruist 2015), I have therefore provided the first estimate of the fiscal redistribution specifically to refugee immigrants in any Western country. That country is Sweden, the European country with the largest number of refugees per capita as well as some of the best micro-level socioeconomic data in the world. If all 15 pre-2004 EU members had the same rates of refugee immigration per capita as Sweden from 2005-2014, the number of refugees received in these countries would have been 5.9 million instead of the actual 740,000. So, in answering what the fiscal impact would be in other countries if they would begin to receive their fair shares of the current inflows something few of them can be said to have done until now the Swedish experience will be the best existing indicator. My estimates of the redistribution to refugees through the Swedish public sector in 2007 are shown in Table 1. Column (1) shows a summary of Swedish public finances in that year, summing all revenues and costs over the entire population. Column (2) shows the corresponding revenues and costs that relate to the refugee population, and Column (3) is refugees share of the total values, i.e. the ratio between the two previous columns. Refugees make up 5.1% of the total population. Hence, a value larger than that in Column (3) means that refugees are over-represented on the revenue or cost item in question, and vice versa. Table 1. Redistribution to refugees through the public sector in 2007 It emerges, not surprising, that refugees were highly over-represented in certain types of public spending. Most strikingly, they accounted for 55% of social assistance spending, as opposed to their share in the total population of only 5.1%. Seventeen percent of refugees received social assistance as opposed to only 3.3% of the total population. On the other hand, refugees heavily concentrated in the 20-59 age bracket, were under-represented in public spending on larger budget items like pensions, health, and education. All told, it is estimated that refugees accounted for 5.6% of total public spending, a share not drastically out of line with their share of the population. However, they performed much worse than the rest of the population on the revenue side, where they contributed only an estimated 3.4% of total public revenue, essentially through direct and payroll taxes. The reason is clear: the employment rate among adult refugees was 20 percentage points lower than that among all adults. The reasons include poor language skills, lack of applicable training, lower female labour force participation rates, and so on. Putting the two sides of the fiscal equation together, in 2007 the net fiscal redistribution from the non-refugee population to the refugee population was almost exactly 1% of GDP. Four-fifths of the redistribution was due to lower public per capita revenues from refugees compared with the total population, and one-fifth to higher per capita public costs. If these figures are scaled up to 2015, current redistribution to refugees (excluding 2015 arrivals) is estimated to be 1.35% of GDP. If we want to use these estimates as indications of what substantially higher refugee intakes might imply for other European countries, we should note that the net per-capita costs in most other countries are likely to be somewhat smaller than in Sweden. This is first because Sweden has a very advanced labour market, with fewer simple jobs and a more compressed wage structure than any other European country. Hence, it is particularly difficult for a refugee immigrant without the required schooling and linguistic and cultural skills to find work and become a contributor to public finances in Sweden. Second, it is because the Swedish welfare system is comparatively generous towards people without any history of earning wage income in the country. Hence, an unemployed refugee immigrant receives more from the public sector in Sweden than they would in most other countries. Conclusions Two major conclusions emerge from this analysis. The economic burden of a generous refugee policy is not particularly heavy. European countries should not shirk their moral responsibility to provide safe haven for fear that refugees will break the bank. If other western European countries would have matched the Swedish per-capita intake of the past decade (not counting 2015), and Europe would have hosted an additional five million refugees today, the current crisis would have been far less serious. The lesson from my study is that this would have been far from economically impossible. The best way to reduce the modest fiscal burden of refugees is to incorporate them as fast as possible into the labour market so they can start contributing to the public exchequer. See original post for references A must-read article in the Atlantic describes yet another surveillance state advance that it was not hard to see coming: large-scale logging of time and location stamped license plate data, retained over years. The company behind it, ominously called Vigilant Solutions, sells the information both to private parties and to law enforcement organizations. From the story: The company has taken roughly 2.2 billion license-plate photos to date. Each month, it captures and permanently stores about 80 million additional geotagged images. They may well have photographed your license plate. As a result, your whereabouts at given moments in the past are permanently stored. To install a GPS tracking device on your car, your local police department must present a judge with a rationale that meets a Fourth Amendment test and obtain a warrant. But if it wants to query a database to see years of data on where your car was photographed at specific times, it doesnt need a warrantjust a willingness to send some of your tax dollars to Vigilant Solutions, which insists that license plate readers are unlike GPS devices, RFID, or other technologies that may be used to track. Its website states that LPR is not ubiquitous, and only captures point in time information. And the point in time information is on a vehicle, not an individual. But thanks to Vigilant, its competitors, and license-plate readers used by police departments themselves, the technology is becoming increasingly ubiquitous over time. The article stresses that this form of surveillance may not be kosher, in that the ability to put together a persons movements over time is not just a difference in degree, but a difference in kind, from the idea that you have no presumption of privacy (and therefore protection from being photographed) when you are in public. And Vigilant and their ilk also argue that they are not tracking individuals but vehicles, as if the two are not the same in a high percentage of cases. But the bigger issue, which the article does not address explicitly, is that even if this sort of snooping is not legal (or at a minimum, not usable as evidence), its well on its way to being so well established as to be difficult to stop. The Federal governments is supporting more license plate spying. Again from the story: During the past five years, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has distributed more than $50 million in federal grants to law-enforcement agenciesranging from sprawling Los Angeles to little Crisp County, Georgia, population 23,000for automated license-plate recognition systems, the Wall Street Journal reports. As one critic, California state Senator Joe Simitian, asked: Should a cop who thinks youre cute have access to your daily movements for the past 10 years without your knowledge or consent? I think the answer to that question should be no. Experts point out how the information can and almost certainly will be used to detect and punish behavior deemed transgressive: Vigilant Solutions is a subsidiary of a company called Digital Recognition Network. Its website declares: All roads lead to revenue with DRNs license plate recognition technology. Fortune 1000 financial institutions rely on DRN solutions to drive decisions about loan origination, servicing, and collections. Insurance providers turn DRNs solutions and data into insights to mitigate risk and investigate fraud. And, our vehicle location data transforms automotive recovery processes, substantially increasing portfolio returns. And its general counsel insists that everyone has a First Amendment right to take these photographs and disseminate this information. But as the ACLU points out: A 2011 report by the International Association of Chiefs of Police noted that individuals may become more cautious in the exercise of their protected rights of expression, protest, association, and political participation due to license plate readers. It continues: Recording driving habits could implicate First Amendment concerns. Specifically, LPR systems have the ability to record vehicles attendance at locations or events that, although lawful and public, may be considered private. For example, mobile LPR units could read and collect the license plate numbers of vehicles parked at addiction counseling meetings, doctors offices, health clinics, or even staging areas for political protests. Many powerful interests are aligned in wanting to know where the cars of individuals are parked. Unable to legally install tracking devices themselves, they pay for the next best alternativeand its gradually becoming a functional equivalent. More laws might be passed to stymie this trend if more Americans knew that private corporations and police agencies conspire to keep records of their whereabouts. And a contact who knows the private equity world pointed out (emphasis mine): Morgan Stanleys PE arm lists this company as an investment, which is a good example of how enmeshed PE has become in the security/intelligence state. The spooks, I am sure, love the secrecy of PE compared to public markets. And the love goes both ways, as it is my experience that PE people love the spooks because returns are able to be generated by influence peddling behind closed doors, and also because they just find them intellectually interesting. In other words, proprietary opposition research, which is often hard to distinguish from blackmail. Please circulate this article more widely. And consider environmentally-friendly transit options, like ride sharing and public transportation, as ways to help impede this effort. Update 7:20 AM: Resilc provided a Boing Boing story, Vehicle surveillance companys free deal turns Texas cops into bill-collectors, that describes other nefarious uses. Key sections: Vigilant Solutions is one of the countrys largest brokers of vehicle surveillance technology and theyve got a great deal for Texas police forces: install our license-readers and well alert you every time someone with an overdue fine drives through your town. You pull them over and offer them a trip to jail or immediate payment, using our credit-card machines, for which we charge a 25% fee which goes straight into our pockets. Its revenue neutral what could possibly go wrong? Nothing youll ever learn about, anyway: agencies that take the deal have to sign a contract with a non-disparagement clause that binds them never to discuss the companys failings. The company, meantime, gets to retain the towns license-plate data for as long as its commercially useful. Oh, and sometimes Vigilant makes mistakes and sends the police after people with no outstanding fines. Read the rest. Boing Boing questions the legality of the big cut Vigilant Solutions is taking. Sometimes there's good reason to look for the cloud in front of the silver lining. Like when the county touts economic news that sounds eerily familiar to the great economic news heard in advance of the last recession. A report last week listed the Naples-Marco Island area, which basically means all of coastal Collier County, among the best performing cities when it came to job formation. The subtitle of the report, put out by the economic think tank the Milken Institute, is "Where America's Jobs are Created and Sustained." Naples was ranked 15th in the nation, sandwiched between Fort Collins, Colo. and Denver. Even more impressive, the ranking was a full 45 spots higher than just a year ago, the biggest jump of any city in the top 20. The rapid rise was touted in a county news release on the rankings. "The area soared 45 spots from 60th in 2014." The intent of the Best Performing Cities ranking is to quantify the factors that lead to the sort of economic profile any community would want. "The Best-Performing Cities index was designed to measure objectively which U.S. metropolitan areas are promoting economic vitality based on job creation and retention, the quality of new jobs, and other criteria. The index shows where employment is stable and expanding, wages and salaries are increasing, and economies and businesses are thriving," the introduction to the report explains. Collier County's economic development team is quick to take credit for the improving economic climate here. "The implementation of the Business and Economic Development Business Plan, which was adopted by the Board of County Commissioners, and the resulting private-public partnerships with Opportunity Naples and the Southwest Florida Economic Development Alliance were instrumental to this explosive growth," the county's news release states. But a closer look at the numbers behind Collier County's rise in the economic rankings suggests the increases in employment and wages are mostly a result of renewed homebuilding and tourism. The fact that Collier County's economy had so bottomed out in the lean years at the start of this decade played a bigger role in the resurgence than did any government promotion or incentive. Jobs in construction, hotels, restaurants and bars are fine. They, along with agriculture, have sustained this area for decades. But they're not exactly the first thing one thinks of when the subjects of stable employment and increasing salaries come up. Excerpts from the narrative of the Naples ranking serve more as a caution against complacency than as a testament to success. # "Tourism is a key driver of the regional economy, and as consumer sentiment improves in the U.S. and in Europe, the number of visitors and their contributions to the local economy are increasing." # "Hotel construction and renovation projects in 2015 and 2016 are underway to serve this increased demand." # "Population growth is boosting the construction industry and fueling demand for leisure services." # "Demand for housing has increased, after having dipped during the recession, with four times as many single-family building permits issued in 2014 than in 2009." Even a part of the report noting gains in the high-tech field explains that it is still a minor part of the economy. "Recent high-tech GDP expansion has been 6 percent above the national average and 10 percent higher over the past five years. Since these large percentage changes are to a low base, the overall high-tech sector still remains relatively small." And there's this word of warning, all too familiar to those who remember 2009. "Employment in lower-wage leisure and tourism industry is highly volatile." In a report last year on its economic development plan, Collier County officials said their efforts led to six technology related expansions or relocations adding "announced job creation commitments" of 350 jobs. Even if all those "announced" jobs come to pass, 350 positions would barely move the needle on the employment meter. In the Milken report, Collier County ranks 144th in the number of high tech industries. Collier County has learned the hard way that construction and service sector jobs can disappear as fast as they are created when the overall economy falters. In the wake are foreclosures on a massive scale and community-altering human displacement. The recent volatility of the stock market should serve as a reminder how dependent and fragile the local economy can be. As Collier County looks for a new leader for its economic development department and the Greater Naples Area Chamber of Commerce searches for its next executive director, everyone should bear in mind that whatever rebound is going on right now is in line with the unsustainable model reliant on never-ending growth. It's easy to be satisfied when you find yourself on a list of the nation's top cities for job creation. But for Collier County to truly be a place that promotes economic vitality and where America's jobs are created and sustained, a different approach is needed. (Connect with Brent Batten at brent.batten@naplesnews.com, on Twitter@NDNBrent_Batten and at facebook.com/ndnbrentbatten) This photo provided by Disney-Pixar shows, Anger, in a scene from the new animated film, "Inside Out." The movie opens June 19, 2015. (AP Photo/Copyright Disney-Pixar) SHARE In this image released by Disney-Pixar, characters, from left, Anger, voiced by Lewis Black, Disgust, voiced by Mindy Kaling, Joy, voiced by Amy Poehler, Fear, voiced by Bill Hader, and Sadness, voiced by Phyllis Smith appear in a scene from "Inside Out," in theaters on June 19. (Disney-Pixar via AP) Kim McGregor, a past "Buzzard Lope Queen," performs the "Buzzard Lope" dance during the 26th Annual Goodland Mullet Festival at Stan's Idle Hour in Goodland Sunday Jan. 31, 2010. The festival highlight has long been the Buzzard Lope Queen Contest. Stan Gober, Stan's Idle Hour owner, penned a song called "The Buzzard Lope" and became famous by performing it in a feathered buzzard costume. The winner of the queen contest is the lady who dances the best buzzard lope. Erik Kellar/Staff 1. Friday: Movie in the Park An outdoor movie with hot dogs, drinks, popcorn, and neon necklaces for sale. Event is open to all and free of charge. All movies start 15 minutes after sunset at Mackle Park. Friday, Jan. 29 "Inside Out" (sunset time 6:08 p.m.) Friday, Feb. 26 "Big Hero 6" (sunset time 6:27 p.m.) Friday, March 11 "Minions" (sunset time 7:38 p.m.) Friday, April 29 "Cinderella" (sunset time 7:58 p.m.) Information: 239-642-0575 or cityofmarcoisland.com. 2. Coleman to host talk "Marco Island, Florida's Gulf Playground" author Michael Coleman will be speaking at the Marco Island Historical Museum, Rose History Auditorium, from 7 until 8 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 30. Coleman's book, a local best-seller, chronicles the transformation of Marco Island from an alligator-infested swamp to one of America's top travel destinations. His presentation, "Secrets Shared: The Epic Struggle to Build Marco Island," occurs exactly 51 years to the day modern Marco Island opened its doors to the world. A book signing follows. Admission is free. 3. This weekend: 32nd Annual Mullet Fest In Goodland, people set their calendars by the Mullet Festival at Stan's Idle Hour, always held the weekend before the Super Bowl. This three-day event has music, dancing, craziness and the crowning of the Buzzard Lope Queen. From 6 until 10 p.m., Friday, Jan. 29; noon until 6:30 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 30 and Sunday, Jan. 31 at Stan's Idle Hour, Goodland. Information: stansidlehour.net or 239-394-3041. Friday: 6-10 p.m., Ultimate Kick-Off Party with Shane Duncan Band Saturday: 1 until 6:30 p.m., Hot Damn Duo; 3 p.m., fish cleaning contest; 4 p.m., Princess Buzzard Lope Sunday: Noon until 6:30 p.m., Fakahatchee; 4 p.m., Buzzard Lope, best costume award, dance contest Marco Island Fire Fighters will be serving up hot dogs on Saturday and Sunday. Bugler Frank Berry, his wife, Esther and DAR member Susan Ediss show off the cornet and the bugle that Frank played for the DAR at its January meeting. Chris Curle/Special to the Eagle SHARE By Chris Curle Frank Berry usually plays Taps on his bugle at sunset on the beach in front of the TradeWinds Condominium, but he broke tradition to play for Marco Island's Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) at its Jan. 21 meeting at Hideaway Beach. Frank and his wife, Esther, were invited by DAR member Susan Ediss, who lives "next door" at the Emerald Beach Condominium. Berry told the members, "The bugle dates back to the 13th century. It's one of the simplest brass instruments, having no valves or other pitch-altering devices. All pitch control is done by with the player's mouth and lip muscles. Consequently, the bugle is limited to just four notes." The bugle is most often associated with the military. There are at least 20 bugle calls, but, if you're not a soldier, you might recognize only three or four: Reveille, Taps, Assembly and Mess call. The most popular song to showcase the bugle is Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, by the Andrews Sisters, recorded 1941, about a year before the U.S. entered the World War II. The Berrys are human Marco Island snowbirds from Ontario, Canada. So, this season, if you want to hear a soulful sunset rendition of Taps and Amazing Grace, take your evening beach walk by the TradeWinds. For a preview, you can watch a YouTube video from two years ago at youtube.com/watch? v=_dw8edbPyx4 or Google search "Frank Taps TradeWinds." Frank Berry has played Amazing Grace countless times. "We were teachers, missionaries in Swaziland (in southeast Africa) from 1969 to 1971, serving with Africa evangelical Fellowship." Also at the DAR January meeting, member Sara Snyder continued collecting donations for injured American military being treated at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, the largest military hospital outside of the continental United States. It serves military personnel stationed in Europe and their family members. It also is the nearest treatment center for wounded soldiers coming from Iraq and Afghanistan. Their immediate needs are toiletries, phone cards and flip flops. "The wounded soldiers need something besides those hospital socks," Snyder explained. "They need flip flops for the shower and for walking around the hospital. Most of the time, they arrive in only the uniform they were wearing when they were injured and their combat boots. They usually are taken right from whatever MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) unit stabilized them to Landstuhl and then to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, if further treatment is needed. "I used to go to Walter Reed Army Hospital when my husband and I were in the area and I would see all the soldiers and it was heartbreaking, but good in the sense in that they were being cared for and the doctors were trying to fix them." Sara and her husband, John, both are Army veterans. "I was in the National Guard for 10 years while my husband was a career soldier in the Army. We had several postings, including Texas, Missouri and then Kansas, where I joined the Individual Ready Reserves. It was hard when my kids were little. My husband used to watch the kids when I was off to drill. He called that 'baby boot camp.' " Snyder explained why the phone cards are a lifeline for wounded warriors. "The phone cards are important because it's so expensive to call the U.S. from overseas. The phone cards allow the patients to talk with their families when they might not have been able to afford that." If you have questions about donating to American military patients abroad, call Sally Snyder at 703-679-7075. The Marco Island Chapter of the DAR has 52 members and 18 associate members from other chapters. Monthly luncheon meetings are at 10:30 a.m. on the third Thursday of each month. Potential members and visitors from other chapters are welcome. Contact call Karen Lombardi at 239-394-0028. Evan Spahlinger in the hospital after an e-cigarette exploded in his face. (photo courtesy of NBC-2) SHARE By Jessica Lipscomb of the Naples Daily News A Collier County man who was badly burned in October when an e-cigarette exploded in his face has filed a lawsuit against both the manufacturer and the store where he purchased the e-cigarette. A Fort Lauderdale-based personal injury firm filed the complaint Tuesday in Miami-Dade County on behalf of Evan Spahlinger, 21. The lawsuit alleges the e-cigarette manufacturer, Vaping American Made Products, should have warned its consumers of the risk and designed the product in a way that prevented the device from overheating. It further claims Vaping Station, the East Naples shop where Spahlinger bought the e-cigarette in July, sold a dangerous product and failed to warn customers like Spahlinger of the risk associated with the device. According to the complaint, Spahlinger was struck in the face and chest by "shrapnel-like debris" after the e-cigarette, the $130 Rig Mod V2 model, caught fire and exploded at his home on Lalique Circle. The explosion caused Spahlinger "to inhale flames, smoke and scorching hot air." Spahlinger was taken to NCH Downtown Naples hospital, then transferred to a hospital in Miami to be treated at a burn unit. The lawsuit says he nearly suffocated from internal burns and was intubated and hooked up to a ventilator for several days. Much of the complaint focuses on the lack of regulation of e-cigarettes in the U.S. Spahlinger's lawsuit says e-cigarettes continue to be sold "in an untested and unsafe condition, and will continue to cause injuries unless and until those responsible are held accountable." "This industry presents lucrative business opportunities in an unregulated environment, and consumers are being hurt as a result," the complaint continues. According to his lawyers, Spahlinger's injuries will require extensive follow-up treatment that may cause him to miss work. Due to his injuries, he also cannot be fully exposed to the sun. The two defendants have not yet filed a response to the complaint. A store manager at Vaping Station declined to comment Wednesday and an attorney for the manufacturer, Vaping American Made Products, said he had not yet read the complaint. Catherine Darlson, an attorney with Kelley/Uustal, the law firm representing Spahlinger, said this is the first such lawsuit for their office but said the firm has been contacted this week by two other callers who suffered similar injuries from e-cigarette usage. Darlson said she expects more people will be injured as e-cigarettes become more popular because of the lack of regulation in the industry. In a similar case last fall, a jury awarded a California woman $1.9 million after she was burned by an e-cigarette in 2013. SHARE A North Fort Myers man was arrested after deputies say he assaulted a clerk at a North Naples Chevron. Bronson Eugene Layton, 25, faces misdemeanor charges of assault, battery, disorderly conduct and trespassing. The clerk at the Chevron at 8901 U.S. 41 N., across from Mercato, called the Collier County Sheriff's Office for help after a customer threatened him. Deputies pulled surveillance footage that showed Layton telling the clerk he would slit his throat and "kick his (expletive)." In the video, Layton is seen knocking over merchandise and punching the clerk in the face, according to an arrest report. At one point, the clerk pulled out a handgun to defend himself, but Layton continued to confront him, backing the clerk into a cooler. After Layton exited the store, the clerk said he followed him outside to get his license plate and was once again confronted. The surveillance footage shows the clerk pinning Layton to the ground for about three minutes, then letting him go. Layton then took his shirt off and threw it at the clerk and chased the clerk around the parking lot, according to an arrest report. The clerk said the incident lasted about 30 minutes, during which he told Layton to leave the store at least 20 times. The clerk estimated the store lost $2,500 worth in sales. Layton also was charged with violating his probation on a marijuana possession charge. As of Thursday, he remained in jail. By Melhor Leonor of the Naples Daily News In the search for land in Bonita Springs for a new high school, district officials now favor a location on Imperial Parkway, another property that has again sparked the ire of hundreds of nearby residents. Just two weeks ago, Superintendent Greg Adkins said the district was primed to acquire a property on the intersection of Bonita Beach Road and Bonita Grande Drive. But at a meeting Tuesday, district staff suggested a 76-acre parcel on Imperial Parkway would be more cost effective and would allow for quicker development. The property is located on Imperial Parkway at the point where it begins to run along Interstate 75. It's been a year since Lee County officials voted to build a high school within the limits of Bonita Springs, 12 months fraught with the challenge of few feasible properties and pushback from the community over several proposed sites. This time, the opposition comes from residents in the Hawthorne and Paloma communities. Their concerns are similar to those of residents near other proposed sites: A high school will disrupt quiet residential communities. "It is not that we are opposed to children having good schools, we just want you to know that we have selected our home particularly in Hawthorne because we wanted peace and quiet to live out our golden years," said Cecille Raichlen, a Hawthorne resident who joined over two dozen others at the school board meeting. Most of those opposing the proposed site wore red shirts and stickers that read, "NO school on Imperial Parkway." Sarah Spector, an attorney representing the Hawthorn Community Association, said that the community was populated mostly by retirees looking for quiet lives and willing to take legal action against the school district. "The association is prepared to take all action necessary to have the school removed from consideration there," Spector said. In a presentation that contrasted the two proposed sites, district staff said several metrics favor building on Imperial Parkway. For one, it would cost less to develop the site on Imperial Parkway when compared to the site at the intersection of Bonita Beach Road and Bonita Grande Drive. The district estimates the cost of development to be $7.1 million versus $14.2 million. Officials said that the cost of the property itself would be determined once the district entered into official negotiations. District officials also believe that if the high school is located on Imperial Parkway, a greater number of students would live closer to the school. Right now, 1,116 students between grades five and nine live within two miles of the property. That's compared to 595 students who live within two miles of the property on Bonita Beach Road and Bonita Grande Drive. In a draft presentation that was scrapped, the district also suggested that building on the Imperial Parkway would allow the district to open the planned high school building by August 2018. If the district built on the parcel at Bonita Beach Road and Bonita Grande Drive, the brick-and-mortar school would not be ready until January 2019. Adkins said that the Imperial Parkway site became available for purchase recently, resulting in the quick about-face on the district's preferred property. "At the last briefing, this site was not available," he said. "Today, looking at the data that we have available, that is our recommendation as the best site." Adkins said that the district would keep pursuing both properties, and would engage nearby communities in a dialogue to try to assuage concerns. He said he believed nearby communities could benefit from having a school nearby, and was quickly booed by many in the audience. "We have found that people in Bonita Springs are really excited about a high school, but every place we go to put a high school there is somebody who has an opposing view. We've experienced this with every site," Adkins said. Dania Maxwell/Staff In this file photo, Principal Tamie Stewart visits each classroom on the first day of school at Parkside Elementary on Monday, August 20, 2012 in Naples, Fla. Stewart was reassigned to the school from Lake Park Elementary. She hopes to raise the overall performance level of the school. "Our theme for the year is mission possible," Stewart said. SHARE By Melhor Leonor of the Naples Daily News When Tamie Stewart arrived at Parkside Elementary to lead as its principal in 2012, she found an F school where most students come from low-income, non-English speaking families, and a high teacher turnover rate -- 7 out of every 10 teachers that year were new to the school and the profession. State officials had been brought in to intervene. Parkside was a fragile school, Stewart said. But four years later, Parkside Elementary is projected to receive its second consecutive C from the state for its academic performance; and in the last two year, no teachers at the school have transferred out. The strides made by Parkside Elementary are in part pinned on Stewart, who was named a finalist for Floridas Principal of the Year award by the states Department of Education. Her colleagues praised her for working closely with her faculty to ensure they have the skills and training necessary to provide rigorous, challenging and well-planned lessons to their students, state officials wrote in announcing Stewarts recognition. From a professional development conference Friday, Stewart said that she particularly proud of the improvements in the overall atmosphere of the school -- a key to its improvement. We work and have worked really hard on building a positive school culture where teachers want to stay and work. Thats driven our ability to better serve our students, said Stewart, a 30-year educator. Before arriving at Parkside Elementary, Stewarts experience as a principal was limited to Lake Park Elementary, a school not facing many of the challenges that are a staple at Parkside. Parkside is also the first Title I school -- a school with a high percentage of low-income students -- where Stewart has served as an administrator. During her time at Parkside, Stewart said she has strived to bring experiences for her students that go beyond the remediation and intervention many of them need. That effort has translated into an afterschool program called STEM Academies that exposes students to entertaining, hand-on learning about science, technology, engineering and math. We said, lets start an after school program that isnt about intervention, but enrichment, she said. We have written the curriculum ourselves because we wanted to meet the needs of our students. We feel thats been one of our great success stories. The afterschool program, Stewart said, has boosted her students performance in science benchmarks and has fostered more parent involvement with events like STEM Night. Many of the teachers she works with volunteer their time to keep the program running. What is so gratifying about this recognition is that I think it does acknowledge everyone at Parkside Elementary, Stewart said. Floridas Principal of the Year will be named during a ceremony at the Commissioners Summit for Principals on Feb. 8. The winner will receive a cash prize of $5,000 and $1,000 for their school. Candidates for the awards are nominated by the superintendent of their respective school districts. Applications are being accepted for the Oregon Century Farm & Ranch Program. The application deadline is May 1. Families throughout Oregon who have continuously farmed portions of their family acreage for the past 100 or 150 years are invited to apply. The Oregon Century Farm & Ranch Program began in 1958 to honor farm and ranch families with century-long connections to the land. To qualify for a century or sesquicentennial award, interested families must follow a formal application process. Members of the Application Review Committee review each application against the qualifications, which include continuous family operation of the farm or ranch; a gross income from farm use of not less than $1,000 per year for at least three years out of five prior to application; and family members must live on or actively manage the farm or ranch activities. Application documentation may include photos, original deeds, personal stories, or other historic records. These records help support Oregons agricultural history by providing valuable information about settlement patterns and statistics on livestock and crop cycles. All documents are archived for public access. The Oregon Century Farm & Ranch application and program guidelines are available at http://www.oregonfb.org/centuryfarm, or by contacting Andrea Kuenzi at 503-400-7884 or cfr@oregonfb.org. Successful applicants receive a personalized certificate with acknowledgment by the governor and the director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture, and a durable metal roadside sign to identify the familys farm or ranch as having historic Century or Sesquicentennial status. Each family will be honored during a special ceremony and reception at the Oregon State Fair on Aug. 27. To date, 1,175 families have formally received the Century designation and 33 families have received the Sesquicentennial award. The Oregon Century Farm & Ranch Program is administered by the Oregon Farm Bureau Foundation for Education. For more information, contact Kuenzi at 503-400-7884 or cfr@oregonfb.org. Submitted photo Panther kitten SHARE By Eric Staats of the Naples Daily News An endangered Florida panther kitten rescued from a farm field in Lehigh Acres is being cared for behind the scenes at the Naples Zoo. Biologists' best guess, based on panther tracks, is that two mother panthers with kittens crossed paths. The 2- to 3-month-old male kitten somehow got separated from his family. Reuniting the orphaned kitten would be too risky, biologists decided, and they removed him from the wild last week. The kitten was found at the Sakata Seed America Research Station, which is located on 125 acres, including 50 acres of cypress trees and a reservoir, south of State Road 82 between Immokalee and Fort Myers. The kitten is the second to be helped by the zoo's new temporary care area, built to avoid having to send orphaned or injured panthers far away to be rehabilitated. The zoo's first patient was an orphaned female kitten, nicknamed Sassy, who was found last October emaciated near Collier-Seminole State Park. Her mother is believed to have been struck and killed by a vehicle. Now healthy, Sassy will soon move to the Palm Beach Zoo, zookeepers announced Thursday. As for the new male kitten, the Naples Zoo will care for him until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission can find him a permanent home. The two panther rescues are bright spots as Florida posted a record year for panther roadkill in Southwest Florida in 2015 with 30 panthers found struck and killed by vehicles. Overall, Florida documented 41 panther deaths in 2015. Scientists estimate the panther population is growing, with as many as 180 panthers in the wild, which has prompted debate about how the population should be managed. SHARE By Liz Freeman of the Naples Daily News NCH Healthcare System employees and doctors may be victims of a data breach and have been offered identity theft protection services, according to hospital officials. The hospital system learned last week that two computer servers containing employee and medical staff credentialing information may have been exposed to a breach at the Cerner Data Center in Kansas City, Missouri. "Patient and medical record information was not located in these databases or on these computer servers," NCH spokeswoman Debbie Curry said in a statement. "The two computer servers in question were isolated." NCH employees and medical staff received letters last week stating their personal information may have been exposed to an unauthorized access, Curry said. "Information about the identity theft protections services was included in the letter," she said. "Individuals who have called in the week since the letter was sent, with very few exceptions, have indicated they appreciate the information we've shared with them proactively and understand that there's no indication of unauthorized access or misuse of information. NCH remains unaware of any attempted misuse of the information." The hospital system has about 4,000 employees. It operates the NCH Baker Hospital and North Naples Hospital. Cerner is the largest health information technology in the United States. NCH first retained Cerner in 1996 for some computer support services and then entered into a contract in 2003 for the company to host about half of NCH's servers in Kansas City. In 2009, the hospital system began transitioning the rest of its servers to remote server locations with Cerner. Data breaches are becoming increasingly more common within the health care and insurance industry, along with consumer breaches, experts say. The largest health care data breach to date occurred at Anthem in 2015, affecting 79 million Americans. The crew for the Space Shuttle Challenger flight 51-L leaves their quarters for the launchpad, Jan. 27, 1986, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Front to back are Commander Francis Scobee, Mission Spl. Judith Resnik, Mission Spl. Ronald McNair, Payload Spl. Gregory Jarvis, Mission Spl. Ellison Onizuka, teacher Christa McAuliffe, and pilot Michael Smith. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) SHARE The Space Shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after lifting off from Kennedy Space Center, Fla., Tuesday, Jan. 28, 1986. All seven crew members died in the explosion, which was blamed on faulty o-rings in the shuttles booster rockets. The Challengers crew was honored with burials at Arlington National Cemetery. (AP Photo/Bruce Weaver) This is the official NASA photo of the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger mission 51L. All seven members of the crew were killed when the shuttle exploded during launch on Jan. 28, 1986. From front left, are: astronauts Michael J. Smith, Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, and Ronald E. McNair. Rear left are: Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, and Judith Resnik. (AP Photo) The family of Christa McAuliffe, a teacher who was America's first astronaut, realize the horror after the Space Shuttle orbiter Challenger blew apart after liftoff from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 1986. The sister of Christa, Betsy, left, and parents Grace and Ed Corrigan console each other after the explosion. (AP Photo/Jim Cole) Flowers, telegrams, photographs, and a model of the Challenger lie in a display case, Thursday, Jan. 30, 1986, at the Concord, New Hampshire High School in remembrance of Christa McAuliffe, a teacher at the school who was one of seven astronauts killed in the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. (AP Photo/Peter A. Southwick) Related Coverage Participate with us: Where were you when Space Shuttle Challenger exploded? By Melhor Leonor of the Naples Daily News On a cold morning thirty years ago, Joseph Astling joined his first grade class at Poinciana Elementary in Collier County to watch a shuttle launch. Before lining up outside the school, they'd spent the morning learning about space. A few miles away in Golden Gate Estates, Bob and Kim Ellis stepped out onto the front yard of their new home and looked northeast. The launch was airing live on their TV set, but they already had a direct view of the shuttle. All three share similar recollections: the shuttle rose slowly, trailed by a streak of white smoke, as it was supposed to. "And then it just kind of went in different directions," Ellis said. "A couple of my friends didn't know what it was," Astling said. "But some of us did. We saw the explosion." Astling recalled being ushered in by his distraught first grade teacher. They turned on the TV set inside their classroom to news of the accident: Space Shuttle Challenger had disintegrated just 73 seconds after leaving the ground, killing a crew of seven that included a teacher hoping to teach science lessons from space. New Hampshire educator Christa McAuliffe was part of push to get American children enamored with the possibility of space exploration, and hundreds of classrooms across the country were loud with chatter about the mission. Among them was the classroom of Lee County School Board member Jeanne Dozier, who taught social studies at an Alabama middle school. Dozier had just parked her car in front of the school when the radio delivered the news of the explosion. "I got out of my car real quick and looked up the sky. I saw some of the results," Dozier said. The news began to spread throughout the school. "We had to go and face our kids and talk to our kids about it. I walked in and said, 'I have something that I need to tell you.' I told them that they were living a moment in history that would change their lives," Dozier said, teary eyed. "It was really a difficult time. It's one of those things you'll never forget." Dozier, like Christa McAuliffe, was one of roughly 11,000 teachers who had applied to take a seat aboard Space Shuttle Challenger. "A lot of teachers decided to do it. God knows, what an opportunity to be able to go into outer space," she said. Dozier added that after the accident, many people were particularly touched by the death of teacher aboard. Among those most impacted were McAuliffe's students, including one who now teaches in Florida. McAuliffe took Tammy Hickey and fellow law class students to courtrooms and conducted mock trials in class. Hickey remembers how personable she was, and how she shared her enthusiasm and experiences when she was in the running to be the first teacher in space. Hickey, now a junior high physical education teacher in Bradenton, just knew McAuliffe would be picked from more than 11,000 applicants. "As a teacher now, I know that I want to show respect and show my students that I care," Hickey says. "I can say to emulate how she was, would be a service to these kids for sure." 6582295 A necropsy revealed that a Golden Gate Estates horse found dead on Christmas died after a panther attack, bringing the number of Collier County livestock lost to the big cats to five since July 1. The horse's owners originally told the Collier County Sheriff's Office they suspected someone had used an ax to kill their 10-year-old mare named Muneca. Collier County Domestic Animal Services completed an investigation into the death Monday afternoon, and a veterinarian found the horse's wounds were consistent with a panther attack. Panther tracks dotted the property. In November, the Gutierrez family reported their 6-month-old foal, Bambi, stolen on Thanksgiving. When interviewed on Christmas, Vanessa Gutierrez said her family feared another attack on New Year's Eve. They worried someone was harming their horses on holidays. Gutierrez said Tuesday she doesn't believe the horse was killed by a panther. 'If it was a panther, the panther would have done something to my other horse and my dogs, and they're perfectly fine,' she said. 'I'm pretty sure its somebody else.' The former racing horse was seven months pregnant when she died early Sunday morning. Gutierrez, 20, said her father found the horse when he went to feed it in the backyard of their Jung Boulevard East home. It is unclear whether the attack itself or resulting stress killed the horse, but Mark Lotz, a wildlife biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission who helped in the investigation, said the horse will still be included in depredation data for the county. 'It was clear a panther was in the area and the injuries were consistent with previous attacks we've seen on similar animals,' Lotz said, citing two panther attacks on donkeys in the area within the last few years. Lotz said panther attacks on large livestock are rare and that he does not anticipate an increase in the number of horses falling victim to the official state animal. Panthers were responsible for 29 live stock kills from July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011, FWC's fiscal year. The year before, 12 livestock were confirmed panther kills, Lotz said. This year, he said, has seen a low number of livestock depredation with five so far. Collier County Domestic Animals Services Director Amanda Townsend said her agency was not involved in the first investigation of the stolen horse at the Gutierrez's property and could not comment as to whether it may have also been a panther attack that claimed the animal. Lotz said there would have been evidence of a panther being involved in that instance. A spokeswoman from the Collier County Sheriff's Office, which handled the Thanksgiving case, did not know how or whether the case was resolved. On Sunday, Gutierrez said nothing had come of that investigation. Townsend urged livestock and pet owners to learn about how to protect their animals from panther attacks. Animals should not be free roaming or tethered at night, according to DAS. Lotz said the Gutierrez family had their horses left out in their pasture, a little more than two acres in size, when the mare was attacked Sunday. Vanessa Gutierrez said her family has taken measures to protect their other animals. 'We have more security in the house now, and we're keeping the stable closer to the house,' she said. 'We put our fence up more and we're probably going to get cameras too.' A brochure with more tips, called 'Living with Panthers,' is available for download at www.FloridaPantherNet.org. SHARE In a December 31, 2015 photo, Sharon and Jim Wilson, left, hold Noah, and Ellen Pavlik, founder and president of Joshuais House, holds Ben, in Lecanto, Fla. Joshuais House for Golden Retriever Rescue recently brought the two abandoned dogs to the United States from Turkey. Both male dogs are approximately 3 years old. The Wilsons serve as the Joshuais House vice president and treasurer. (Matthew Beck/Citrus County Chronicle via AP) By Kristine Gill of the Naples Daily News Florida rescue groups are helping to recover abandoned golden retrievers from the streets of Turkey and are bringing them back to the United States. Experts say golden retrievers used to be a status symbol in Turkey, but only puppies are considered valuable, meaning many dogs are put in the streets or left in the woods. Government officials would "bury them alive in mass graves, poison them or leave them to fend for themselves," said Ellen Pavlik, president of Joshua's House, a rescue group in Lecanto. It costs about $2,000 to rescue each dog, including airfare, overnight boarding and vet fees. Groups across the state, including Everglades Golden Retriever Rescue, and another in Atlanta, are also part of the effort. Adopt a Golden Atlanta Golden Rescue in Atlanta, which has brought national attention to the issue, saved more than 100 goldens last year and is looking to rescue 30 more a month this year. The Citrus County Chronicle reports most of the dogs that arrived last week went to rescue groups in South Florida. So far, none of the golden retrievers seem to be coming to Southwest Florida, though shelters and rescue groups here have heard about the efforts to help the dogs. Officials at Lee County Domestic Animal Services and Collier County Domestic Animal Services were not taking part in hosting the dogs and did not know of any local agencies that were. Humane Society Naples was not bringing any golden retrievers from Turkey either but did say goldens are a popular breed that are adopted quickly. Golden Retriever Rescue of Southwest Florida is not hosting any dogs from Turkey either, but they do rescue dogs internationally. Since last year, the group has saved and adopted out 14 golden retrievers from South Korea, where the animals are eaten by humans. The first from South Korea was flown in a year ago Monday. Two more dogs are scheduled to be flown in from South Korea next month for a total of 16. "Their temperament is amazing especially considering what they've been through," said Mark Dahlberg, a board member for the rescue group who oversees their international rescue efforts. "They are special in so many ways." Dahlberg said once the next two dogs are flown in they, too, will be adopted out in a matter of hours or days. The breed is a favorite in the U.S. but people also are taken by the idea that the dogs come from unique circumstances. "There are people beginning to view these dogs as something just a little special," he said. So far the rescue group has not looked at bringing dogs over from Turkey because they've been focusing on South Korea, Dahlberg said. An aerial view of the Collier Hogan well on Thursday, July 24, 2014. Scott McIntyre/Staff SHARE By Arek Sarkissian of the Naples Daily News TALLAHASSEE The House passed a bill Wednesday that establishes state regulations for fracking, and throws out bans against the oil and drilling process passed by cities and counties, including Estero and Bonita Springs. Democrats said the drilling process, which blasts an acidic solution deep into the ground to access oil and natural gas, would poison the state's water supply and lead to environmental disasters such as explosions. Republicans argued that a $1 million study proposed in the bill would allow the Legislature and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to create rules that will regulate the drilling process. They also argued the state currently has no fracking regulation. "I acknowledge that oil and natural gas production is an untidy process," said state Rep. Cary Pigman, R-Avon Park, who sponsored HB 191 with state Rep. Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero. "But so is mining, and agriculture industries we need." The House passed the bill with a vote of 73-45. It will be sent to the Senate, where an identical version requires one more committee vote before it heads for floor discussion. Part of the discussion on the House floor before Wednesday's vote focused on language that would toss out anti-fracking ordinances passed in at least four cities and counties. Another 64 local governments have passed resolutions opposing the process. State Rep. Katie Edwards, D-Plantation, said her vote against the bill reflected the position of her constituents. The Broward County Commission passed an anti-fracking ordinance Tuesday night. "Honestly, what's most important to me is when I go back home I can say that my votes are consistent with the view of the people I serve," Edwards said. "That's what they sent me up here to do." Rodrigues and Senate bill sponsor Garrett Richter, R-Naples, accepted changes to their bills that would allow cities and counties to enforce land use rules at fracking sites, such as when trucks access the site and when drillers can use lighting. However, those controls cannot prevent fracking. Leaders in Estero and Bonita Springs opposed the move to strip local say on fracking. A plan to provide statewide regulation was launched last year by Richter after DEP failed to stop the Texas-based Dan A. Hughes Co. from operating near homes in western Collier County. The company eventually stopped and it received a $25,000 fine. Richter's bill died last year with the abrupt end to session. This year's Senate version SB 318 now awaits a hearing in the Appropriations Committee. Contact Daily News reporter arek.sarkissian@naplesnews.com or 850-559-7620 2016 Naples City Council candidates (from left to right, top to bottom) Wynn Phillips, Reg Buxton, Michelle McLeod, Ellen Seigel, James Moon, Terry Hutchison. SHARE By Joseph Cranney of the Naples Daily News During Wednesday night's debate, the six candidates for three open seats on the Naples City Council agreed on at least one thing Naples is sustained by its unique charm and high quality of life. Where the candidates sometimes differed is how city leadership should maintain those characteristics. Before a near-full room at the council chambers, the candidates didn't always agree on controversial topics, like downtown development, the design of Baker Park and the management of the Naples Municipal Airport. But they were often in concurrence that the best policies encourage more citizen participation and foster a better relationship with the county government. They were unanimous that Naples should remain a tourist destination and that the rebuild of the city dock is a priority. They disagreed that the city should charge a special fee for beach stickers to county residents. When asked about the ongoing investigation into the Naples Fire-Rescue Department and Fire Chief Steve McInerny, some declined to comment. But the candidates were aligned in the thinking that the citizens want the best possible emergency services, whether those services should come solely from the city or through a consolidation with county districts. The candidates are: Reg Buxton, Terry Hutchison, Michelle McLeod, James Moon, Wynn Phillips and Ellen Seigel. Buxton, Moon and Phillips said they are opposed to commercial flights at the airport. McLeod suggested the city may need to rewrite its comprehensive plan. Seigel, who is running on a platform of "confidently managing growth," spoke favorably about recent downtown redevelopment projects. And Hutchison came out strongly against special beach sticker rates for county residents. He said, "We need to cooperate with the county, build a relationship, and frankly I'm surprised this is even a topic of conversation." Buxton and Seigel are sitting members of the Planning Advisory Board. Moon chairs the Code Enforcement Board and Phillips is a former member. Hutchison is a 7-Eleven franchise owner and McLeod chairs the Community Services Advisory Board. There was a lightning round late in the 75-minue debate when candidates were asked to give yes-or-no answers. Notably, they were asked if the position of mayor is a full-time job. All of the candidates answered yes. The question was a nod to an exchange during the mayoral forum on Monday night, when Mayor John Sorey and mayoral candidate Bill Barnett sparred over Sorey's job as executive director of the Sugden Theatre. The debate was run by the League of Women Voters of Collier County and other sponsors. Election Day is March 15. The three council candidates who receive the most votes will be elected. Before getting it, Terry Brennen had never heard of 'flesh-eating' Vibrio After cleaning up after Ian, Cape Coral resident Terry Brennen's scraped leg started feeling hot. Soon he couldn't walk. He's been hospitalized ever since SHARE Robert A. Strohaver, Naples Gun violence profile Several factors are often present among those who commit mass shootings. They are generally young white males. They are often loners and taking anti-depressants or other similar drugs. They are often fatherless or have a weak or distant father. They are generally cowards and target gun-free locations. Several other mass murderers have been Muslims following the perceived teachings of Muhammad. Some of these killings have been depicted by President Obama as involving workplace violence rather than religion. Despite the president's recent tearful lament, mass murders are a tiny percentage of America's tragic gun violence. Chicago alone records nearly 500 murders per year, according to FBI crime statistics. Do black lives matter? Gun homicides are primarily a racial problem and a Democrat problem. Young blacks are four times more likely to be killers or be killed than whites, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. They live primarily in large inner-cities governed for decades by Democrats. The data shows it's largely the work of males from age 16 to 34, often with criminal records, killing other similar males. It's about gangs, the failed war on drugs, and 70 percent of black children being born out-of-wedlock, often to welfare-dependent mothers, without fatherly guidance and support. If inner-city gun deaths were eliminated, American gun deaths per capita would be significantly reduced. Yet Democrats seem more fearful of the guns of legal owners than the illegal guns of criminals, which their numerous gun laws have failed to control. However, since 1991 Americans have acquired more than 170 million new firearms. During this same period, violent crimes have declined by a whopping 51 percent, according to FBI data. This inverse proportion is a seldom reported but factual denouncement of the president's anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment activities. SHARE Barbara O'Neill, Centerville, Maine, and Naples Irish history I attended the first of three lectures sponsored by the Naples St. Patrick Foundation. The first lecture was given by Matt Knight, M.A. in Celtic Languages and Literatures from Harvard University. The topic was the role played by newspapers and the popular press in Irish Nationalism in the revolutionary period (1916). I was impressed with the historical background, the presentation of the speaker, and the focus and effort of the Foundation to offer these lectures in remembrance of these events. This year is the 100th anniversary of The Easter Rising in 1916 and the lecture series pays tribute to this historical event in Irish history. Two more lectures are scheduled. On Feb. 13, Timothy Sutton of the University of Miami will address The Easter 1916 uprising. And, on March 18, Jennifer Dukes of the University of South Florida will discuss the life and times of St. Patrick including a discussion of Ireland in the Viking Age. The program is a beautiful cultural and historical addition to the tribute we annually pay to the legend of St. Patrick and the history of many of our ancestors in that beautiful land across the sea. Information can be found on The Foundation's website: naplesparade.com and tickets may be purchased online. All events are held at the Naples Woman's Club, 570 Park St., Naples. Parking is available. Minority students and English Language Learners out-graduated their white, English-only classmates last year in Lebanon. Now, say Superintendent Rob Hess and Principal Brad Shreve, the plan is to get at least 80 percent of all Lebanon High School seniors a diploma within four years, regardless of their background. Lebanon's four-year graduation rate has hovered in the mid-60 percent range for about a decade. Graduation rates for 2014-15, released to the public this morning by the Oregon Department of Education, show the high school still struggling: close to 66 percent of seniors graduated in four years, compared with about 68 percent the year before. The high school has long defended its graduation rate by pointing out the number of students deferring a diploma to attend a fifth-year college program. But even those students graduated at just 71 percent last year. The state report has "bright spots," however, Hess pointed out. Students who identify as Hispanic or Latino recorded a 72 percent graduation rate last year, and students who fall into the category of "underserved races/ethnicities" hit nearly 68 percent. Students who qualify as "ever English learners" meaning at any one time in their schooling, they needed help with English graduated last year at nearly 85 percent, the highest category the school recorded. It's not that any of those numbers are perfect, Hess said but at least there's not an even bigger gap to help close. About the English learners especially, he said: "We feel good about the services those kids are getting." The real sticking point is poverty. Aside from special education students, students classified as being economically disadvantaged are the least likely to graduate on time: the 2014-15 rate was just 55 percent. In contrast, 80 percent of students who aren't economically disadvantaged got a diploma in four years. Almost half of Lebanon High's enrollment is considered low-income. It isn't easy for a high school to tackle that kind of systemic, generational poverty but Hess and Shreve say they want to make sure they have set up systems to keep the playing field as level as possible. The two administrators say some of those systems are already in place and they believe they just need more time to work. Those include mandatory support classes in both math and Language Arts for students whose grades start to slip, personal student tracking through counselors and administrators assigned to each grade level, and increased emphasis schoolwide on the organizational and note-taking skills taught in the college prep elective known as AVID. Shreve said the high school is also working hard on attendance, with administrators meeting personally with families to work out solutions. The high school is also trying to increase student connection and interests, offering more sections of career and technical classes such as welding and health occupations. Districtwide, Hess said he's urging the Lebanon School Board to restructure the district's elementary and middle school grades so resources can be concentrated on specific ages. He wants to pull almost all the seventh- and eighth-graders into one junior high at Seven Oak, and is suggesting making some of the elementary schools into sister campuses so primary and secondary instructors can work more closely together. The board is still discussing the proposals. Hess also is counting heavily on AVID, and is promoting the use of its techniques through the whole district. I think four years of AVID and beyond, were going to see a jump in these grad rates," he said. "When you go schoolwide, it does change the culture and expectations. An 80 percent, four-year graduation rate is not where Lebanon wants to stop, but Hess said he feels it's an achievable goal in the next three to five years. "We'll just keep gaining from there," he said. SHARE Virginia Bailey, Naples Learn your heritage Living in Naples gives us many advantages. One of them, not mentioned often enough, is the Collier County Genealogical Society. It is open to all and meets at the Faith Lutheran Church on Goodlette-Frank Road. With so many folks visiting us at the age when you really should look into your family history, this organization has groups that meet at the Naples Regional Library at this time of year. They are shared interest groups, where you can learn a great deal about a German, Jewish, British, Canadian, etc. background; all are free. We are all such a mixture of backgrounds and it only takes a generation or two to have that begin to happen in this nation, you will find that 'Stick to your own kind" just doesn't work as becoming an American just seeps its way into every culture. Our January program featured tracing down an adoption. Folks with skills to help you trace such challenges are members of our group. The best way to learn how to become a part of this organization is to go to the website thegscc.org and familiarize yourself with what you might enjoy over this season. In my experience of 50 years of looking at my ancestry and other folks, it helps to stir interest in the younger generations to appreciate this nation and to learn how and when their ancestors arrived here and how they have contributed to this nation in so many ways. Do you know your heritage? If not, get busy SHARE Paul Holimon, Naples Students thriving Although it is common for some people to bemoan the woeful status of American public schools, those who are knowledgeable of the whole picture understand that the students in our public schools are far more advanced than any previous generation. This is nowhere better evident than here in Collier County. The University of Florida is ranked 10th in the nation for overall value by Forbes Magazine. Because the admissions process is highly selective (53 percent are denied), the average GPA is 4.3, the average SAT score is 1935, and the average ACT score is 29, according to a Palm Beach Post report. Despite the difficulty of admissions, 551 students from Collier enrolled at UF in fall 2014, according to State University System of Florida data. That's about 20 percent of the total number of graduating seniors in Collier County. Of course, there are hundreds of other public and private post-secondary institutions our students chose to attend, but the fact that 1 out of 5 of our students attend one of the most prestigious public universities in the country is something to celebrate. At a recent state conference, Florida Commissioner of Education Pam Stewart shared some additional cause for celebration. In the mid-1990s, Florida ranked 49th in the country on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading assessment. Now, Florida is seventh in the country. Even better, Florida's students who qualify for a free or reduced lunch program outperformed all other students in the country who are of similar socio-economic status. In Advanced Placement courses, Florida's high school students ranked third in the country on AP exams, and there are 900 percent more students taking AP exams in Florida today than in the mid-1990s. Great job, teachers! Thank you. SHARE Richard A. Ferreira, Bonita Springs Your insurers Do you really trust your insurance company to stand by you as a result of the last two storms? Your politicians do. The insurance industry is one of the biggest lobbies, writes much of its own legislation, gives its approval to any appointment of an insurance commissioner behind the scenes, and is in the business to make maximum profits, not take care of claims. They run the state of insurance in Florida. Making a complaint of unfair or delayed payment against the insurance industry is like a blind man trying to find his way out of a maze. The true test of my letter will be those who received damage to their homes these last two storms. They don't call them "adjusters" for nothing. Good luck. Many folks in New Jersey are still waiting. Above Board Chamber of Florida is pleased to present Negotiating How to Come Out on Top from 11:30 a.m. 1 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 8 at the Hilton Naples, 5111 Tamiami Trail N. in Naples and on Thursday, Feb. 11 at the City Pier 1300 Hendry Street, Fort Myers. Reservations are required at www.aboveboardchamber.com. Having the ability to negotiate is essential to the growth of your business. Join us and meet some top business leaders who have made an art of getting what they want while using negotiation as a sales and customer service strategy. The Naples meeting will be emceed by Lois Bolin of Success Fulfillment Inc. and will feature a panel including Scott Relf, founder of Infinite Growth Group; Todd Gates, founder and chairman of Gates Construction; and Theo Etzel, CEO of Conditioned Air. The Fort Myers meeting will be emceed by Keith Grossman, Esq. of Grossman Law and Conflict Management, and will feature a panel including Gary Tasman, CEO and principal broker at Cushman & Wakefield; Diana Willis, Owner at Jason Deli; and Gail Markham, founder and partner at Markham Norton Mosteller Wright & Company, P.A. The Naples and Fort Myers meetings will be sponsored by John Huttner of Hollinger Jobs. Annual sponsors for the Above Board Chamber of Florida are CONRIC PR & Marketing and Fuller Online Solutions. Naples lunch registration Registration on or before Thursday, Feb. 4 will be $25 for members, $30 for guests. After Feb. 4, registration will be $28 for members, $33 for guests. Fort Myers lunch registration Registration on or before Friday, Feb. 5 will be $25 for members, $30 for guests. After Feb. 5, registration will be $30 for members, $33 for guests. Non-members are encouraged to attend two meetings, then consider joining us to be part of the Above Board Chamber of Florida. To become a member of the Above Board Chamber, contact Jeanne Sweeney at 239-910-7426. The Above Board Chamber of Florida is dedicated to bringing people of all faiths together within the community, in the workplace and amongst one another. Their mission is to supply members with the tools that will allow them to take every aspect of their lives Above Board. For more information on the event or on how to become a member of the Above Board Chamber, contact Jeanne Sweeney at 239-910-7426 or visit www.aboveboardchamber.com. The Neapolitan Chapter of the Embroiderers Guild of America (EGA) is hosting its popular bi-annual exhibit Thursday to Saturday, February 18, 19 and 20 in the auditorium at Moorings Park, Naples. Doors open at noon Thursday. With just two requirements for a piece to qualify for the EGAs definition of needlework that it be hand made and that it be made using a threaded needle a variety of works will be on display. Canvas work, surface embroidery, stump work, smocking, and bead embroidery will all be represented. The collection this year also illustrates various techniques, including thread painting, drawn thread, gold work, Japanese embroidery, hardanger and the ever-favorite counted cross stitch. Along with the exhibited works, the visitor will be treated to demonstrations of some of the techniques shaping them. A tea cup auction will offer the opportunity to bring home a beautifully stitched gift. Numerous embroidered and embroidery-related items will be on sale at the boutique bar. The EGA is a national, not-for-profit organization dedicated to the study and preservation of the art of embroidery. The Neapolitan Chapter works towards this goal through classes and workshops which aim to broaden and improve its members needlework skills, from beginner to advanced. In addition, the Chapter has an outreach commitment to Collier Countys Habitat for Humanity, providing Habitat for Humanity samplers. At each Habitat dedication ceremony, the new homeowner is given a hand-stitched sampler. The number of samplers donated annually has grown from a handful some twenty-plus years ago to 125 in 2015. In addition, the Chapter makes periodic cash contributions to Habitat for Humanity. Moorings Park Auditorium is located at 120 Moorings Park Drive. Enter the gate at Goodlette-Frank Road just south of Pine Ridge Road, directly across from Granada Boulevard. The guard and signs will direct you to the Club House where the Auditorium is located. Exhibit hours are Thursday from noon to 4:00 pm and Friday and Saturday, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Entry donation is $5.00. Sanibel Captiva Community Bank contributed $2,500 to help Ronald McDonald House Charities of Southwest Florida provide stability and resources to children and families in need. Ronald McDonald House Charities is a pioneer in providing family-centered care, said bank President and CEO Craig Albert. We are proud to be a supporting partner in their efforts to improve the lives of Southwest Florida children and families. Ronald McDonald House Charities creates, finds and supports programs that directly improve the health and well-being of children. The Southwest Florida chapter provides a home-away-from-home at little to no cost for families with children receiving medical treatment at Golisano Childrens Hospital of Southwest Florida. Families can stay together, helping their children heal faster. Since 1996, more than 2,500 families have stayed at the Ronald McDonald House in Fort Myers. The chapters other core programs are the Ronald McDonald Care Mobile, grants that support childrens programs and scholarships for high school seniors. For more information, visit www.rmhcswfl.org. High school students have the chance to win a scholarship for an adventure of a lifetime this summer through a contest sponsored by National Geographic and DirecTV. National Geographic Student Expeditions is a unique travel program offering students the opportunity to get out into the field with NatGeo photographers, scientists and writers. Students from the United States and Latin America have the chance to win a full scholarship for a summer travel experience with an emphasis on learning and enrichment. Winners will get to choose from 39 exciting destinations around the world for their expedition. All trips are led by qualified trip leaders and a National Geographic expert. To qualify: - Successful applicants will be able to demonstrate excellence in academics, a passion to learn from travel experiences and positive role modeling in their community. - Each applicant must be fluent in English and enrolled in an accredited high school in the United States or Latin America. - Applications will be accepted through March 1. - Students can apply at natgeomundoexplorer.com Assuage Luxury Spa in Naples is hosting a special event February 19 for its new SculpSure laser that promises to dissolve fat in the abdomen, flanks and other body parts in just 25 minutes. Assuage Luxury Spa in Naples is the only medical spa in the region to receive the new technology. Were excited to offer this new technology and to have a special presentation by a representative of the manufacturer, Cynosure, here for the event, said Assuage Luxury Spa Owner Tehjan Prendiville. Dr. Stephen Prendiville, facial plastic surgeon and medical director of Assuage Luxury Spa, also will make a special presentation during the event as well as a live demonstration. The SculpSure event will be from 3 p.m.to 6 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 19, at the Naples spa at 1201 Piper Boulevard, Unit 1, at the corner of Immokalee and Airport Pulling Roads. Space is limited and reservations are required by calling 239-333-1450. Special pricing will be available for those who attend the demonstration. SculpSure is approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and is the worlds first non-invasive fat-melting device to treat stubborn fat in just 25 minutes. The versatile, hands-free device features a flexible applicator system using a 1060 nm laser to treat multiple areas of the body without downtime or surgery. SculpSure represents an entirely new approach to non-invasive fat removal, one that is safe and highly effective, and does so in significantly less time than other current treatments, said Dr. Stephen Prendiville. SculpSure has the added bonus of being less expensive than other current treatments that use cool technology. Clinical data from 100 patients treated with SculpSure in studies at two U.S. sites showed significant reduction in fat layer thickness six and 12 weeks after treatment, according to abstracts presented at the 2015 American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery Annual Conference. SculpSure is intended for individuals with a body mass index of 30 or less. Assuage Luxury Spa is one of only 10 sites in Florida and the only one in Southwest Florida to offer SculpSure. The new medical spa opened its doors in Naples in November and is the second location for Assuage, which also has a location in Fort Myers on Cypress Lake Drive. Assuage, which means to soothe or satisfy, was created by Tehjan Prendiville, a registered nurse and the wife of Dr. Prendiville. Tehjan Prendiville has worked in the field of mental health for 26 years and has traveled the world with a special interest in cultural healing. Assuage Spa was created to incorporate these age-old holistic approaches acquired on her travels. Our mission is to enhance and enrich overall health by taking a holistic approach to the entire individual, including mind, body and spirit, she said. Assuage brings a global fusion of hand-selected treatments from around the world to Southwest Florida. Ancient practices and exotic techniques are complimented by contemporary equipment and state-of-the-art technology, such as SculpSure. All services are accompanied by complimentary use of the spas steam showers and sauna. I have designed the Naples spa to set the stage for pleasure with a distinct Moroccan flair, similar to my Fort Myers spa. Guests will feel the difference the moment they enter Assuage, said Tehjan Prendiville. The interior design is truly a different and totally relaxing spa experience. For more information about Assuage Luxury Spa, call 239-333-1450 or visit www.assuagecenters.com . SHARE Emily Michael inspects her wine before tasting Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 at The Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, Naples. A few dozen came out to sample wines from Chateau Montelena Winery and Stag's Leap Wine Cellars. The event celebrated the 40th anniversary of "The Judgment of Paris Tasting." Lunch was served following the tasting. (Corey Perrine/Staff) Violet Grgich, center right, sips wine as do other patrons inspect and sip wine Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 at The Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, Naples. A few dozen came out to sample wines from Chateau Montelena Winery and Stag's Leap Wine Cellars. The event celebrated the 40th anniversary of "The Judgment of Paris Tasting." Lunch was served following the tasting. (Corey Perrine/Staff) Adneris Cruz, left, snuggles up with Bobbie Celler Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 at The Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, Naples. A few dozen came out to sample wines from Chateau Montelena Winery and Stag's Leap Wine Cellars. The event celebrated the 40th anniversary of "The Judgment of Paris Tasting." Lunch was served following the tasting. (Corey Perrine/Staff) Bottles of wine are chilled during lunch Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 at The Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, Naples. A few dozen came out to sample wines from Chateau Montelena Winery and Stag's Leap Wine Cellars. The event celebrated the 40th anniversary of "The Judgment of Paris Tasting." Lunch was served following the tasting. (Corey Perrine/Staff) Related Coverage Vintner dinner: A wonderland of wine Related Photos Photos: Wine Tasting at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, Naples By Julie Glenn What if there had never been a "Judgment of Paris?" That was the question posed at the beginning of a 40th anniversary commemorative event held at Naples' Ritz-Carlton on Thursday where the "Vintage Cellar" tasting and luncheon kicked off this year's edition of the Naples Winter Wine Festival. It's been 40 years since British wine merchant Steven Spurrier hosted a blind tasting of Californian and French wines in the courtyard of the Intercontinental Hotel in Paris. He assembled a who's who of French wine and food influencers to judge wines he'd hand selected from young California winemakers, among them Chateau Montelena and Stag's Leap Wine Cellars. A young Time magazine correspondent, George Taber, figured he'd stop by even though he was sure there was no story there. Everyone knew the French would win. But they were all wrong. California dominated. The four-paragraph story Time magazine published about the upset, titled "The Judgment of Paris," changed the global landscape of wine forever. This week, Spurrier and Taber reunited to mark the 40th anniversary of the upset with a group of Naples wine lovers who want to be part of history. They were joined by Bo Barrett of Chateau Montelena Winery and Ted Baseler of Stag's Leap Wine Cellars for a tasting featuring multiple vintages of each winery's 1976 winner; chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon respectively. Speaking before the wines were poured, Spurrier recalled how the event came together. "My colleague Patricia Gallagher and I initially wanted to just show the French what was happening in California, not necessarily do a blind tasting," Spurrier said. "But about a week before the tasting, it occurred to us to have a comparison so I contacted all the people on the judging panel to make sure they would agree to a blind tasting, they did, and that's how it came about." A British wine merchant in the heart of Paris, Spurrier joked that he didn't really intend for the French wines to be shown up by California. "What I was hoping was, perhaps to see two wines from California show up toward the top," he shared with the Naples crowd, "of course I didn't want to see the defeat of wine from where I work and live. Later, I was not much loved in Bordeaux and was even physically thrown out of a ch teau in Burgundy." The sweeping victory of California cabernet sauvignon was led by Stag's Leap Wine Cellars' 1973 vintage which took first place. Participants in this week's tasting had the opportunity to try the 1983, 1993, 1998, 2008, and 2012 vintages. There are very few bottles of the 1973 vintage left; two are at the Smithsonian and one will be auctioned off this weekend at the wine festival. Sandi Moran, a festival co-chair this year, said tasting the different vintages side by side tells a lot about a winery's story. "What's most interesting to me is how the winemaking style has evolved," she said. Chateau Montelena Winery's 1973 chardonnay won handily over its Burgundian competitors and for an example of how well their chardonnay's age, tasters were treated to the 1992, 1998, 2001, 2004 and 2008 vintages. Bo Barrett guided the tasting while joking about how much things have changed since that historic 1973 bottling. "There were only three of us working in the cellar at the time, I was 20, and of course back then I was making $3.15 an hour with no overtime, which there was plenty of with only three guys working," he said. "Things were so rudimentary, but we had the dream. We knew we could make something good." The Time journalist who accidentally stumbled into the wine story of the century, George Taber, later wrote a book about the historic Paris tasting, even though he said: "The original story was buried in the 'modern living" section and was only four paragraphs long." Twenty years later he set out to write a book aptly titled "the Judgement of Paris." One of his favorite memories of that tasting day was when a well-known French taster held a glass aloft and remarked, "Now we are back to France." "I was the only one holding a list of the wines in the order they were being tasted, I looked down to see what he was tasting, and it was a Californian," Taber said. "That's when I thought I had a story." It was a story that transformed the world of wine, not only for California winemakers, but for winemakers everywhere. In researching his book, he traveled to winemaking regions around the world where he heard stories about how that Paris tasting changed their outlook. "In Australia, everywhere really, they'd say to me, 'Hey, if California can do this, maybe we can make world class wines too.' So the impact of something like that was far greater than just California," Taber said. Larson on Wallace incident: 'It is what it is' Kyle Larson responds to his wreck with Bubba Wallace and Wallace's retaliation at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Luck, so the saying goes, is where preparation meets opportunity. If that's the case, for Clifton Booher and John Zimmerman of the Albany Fire Department, Jan. 20 was a lucky day, indeed. Zimmerman, a fire lieutenant and a Scio resident, has been with the department 20 years and has served with the 20-member water rescue team for just about all that time. Booher, of Salem, is a firefighter/paramedic and joined the water rescue team 12 years ago, three years after his hiring. On Jan. 20, both were able to combine preparation and opportunity to rescue a 46-year-old Hood River woman from drowning in the Willamette River. The woman was taken to Samaritan Albany General Hospital in stable condition following the rescue. More recent information on her condition was not immediately available. On Tuesday, the two firefighters talked about the factors that led to Griffiths' rescue. Booher and Zimmerman had been on a call at Albany City Hall when the department received a first-alarm all stations respond for a water rescue at Bryant Park. A woman had been seen in the Calapooia River and was being swept rapidly toward the Willamette. Station 11 is just a few blocks from the park, but City Hall is even closer. The two made it to Takena Landing, on the Benton County side of the river, even before crews got there with the 20-foot metal sled known as Boat 11. Response time was a key factor in the rescue. The woman's head could still be seen bobbing above the current, and she'd been in the water only three or four minutes before the call came in. On the other hand, the United States Geological Survey recorded the Willamette as flowing at 50,000 cubic feet per second that day, about twice as fast as its 25,000 cfs median, and the water was a brisk 44 degrees. The Mayo Clinic warns of the possibility of hypothermia anytime a body's core temperature drops below 95 degrees. Reaching the woman and getting her out safely involved efforts by the whole crew to get the boat in the water and keep the woman in sight, Booher and Zimmerman stressed. "If you can actually lay eyes on the person, that's a huge bonus," Zimmerman said. They said they were simply the two who were able to get to where she was the fastest. Booher operated the boat and helped Zimmerman pull her out, just 12 minutes after receiving the call. The two said they also had their training to thank. That includes a year's worth of classes and preparation to be on the water rescue team, and a minimum of once-a-month training with the boat: more, when they can slip in a few hours after their regular shifts. Both men say they grew up wanting to be firefighters, and both have always loved being in and around the water. Both jumped at the opportunity to join the water rescue team. "I found the right place and the right time, and it all worked out for me," Booher said. The most rewarding thing about the job, whether they're winching a submerged vehicle from the river at Bowman Park (one of Zimmerman's more memorable calls) or going on a standard medical call, is being "able to make a difference in someone's life," Zimmerman said. Dr. Sean O Domhnaill Dr. Sean O Domhnaill I began my career in Psychiatry in Jersey in 1997, sixteen years ago, in the year that the States of Jersey legalised abortion in accordance with the broad guidelines of the British Abortion Act of 1967. My very first assessment of an attempted suicide in Jersey General Hospital was in the context of a nineteen year-old girl who had taken a significant overdose in an attempt to end her life, because she had developed a major depressive disorder some six months after obtaining an abortion in Southampton in the UK. I remember, in particular, the rhetorical question she posed to me when I suggested that she could move beyond that awful place she now found herself in, where life held no further attraction for her and death seemed to offer a welcome relief from her suffering. She told me that she had been pressured by her parents and her boyfriend into having an abortion. As I attempted to assist her to gain some perspective on her mental state and the likelihood of recovery from a depressive illness brought on by her sense of loss, she asked me: Can you tell me that I havent killed my own baby? Can you tell me that I can undo what I have done? Can you tell me how to bring my baby back? I thought of her again recently as I listened to the evidence given by medical experts to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children on abortion and suicide. The Committee was holding hearings because the government is looking at legalising abortion on suicide grounds. The evidence given at the hearings confirmed what I know to be true from my own clinical experience - abortion does not treat suicidality and it can cause serious mental health problems for women. It was hugely significant that. at the hearings, all of the experts in maternal healthcare, including obstetricians and psychiatrists, agreed that abortion was not a treatment for suicidality. Senior figures such as Dr Sam Coulter Smith of the Rotunda Maternity Hospital confirmed that they had not come across any cases where abortion was the only solution for a pregnant woman expressing suicidality. And the head of St Patricks University Hospital - Irelands leading psychiatric hospital - said that there is no evidence either in literature or from the work of St Patricks University Hospital that indicates that termination of pregnancy is an effective treatment for any mental health disorder or difficulty. I would agree whole heartedly with Dr John Sheehan, Consultant Perinatal Psychiatrist at the Rotunda, who said that he and his colleagues had not seen one clinical situation in which termination of pregnancy has been the treatment for a suicidal woman. Dr Sheehan also pointed out that the notion of carrying out an emergency termination is completely obsolete in respect of a person who is extremely suicidal, and noted that it would not be wise in such a situation to make a decision that is permanent and irrevocable. I am aware too that a growing body of evidence shows negative mental health outcomes for women following abortion. Recently a 13-year epidemiological study was published in the European Journal of Public Health. It looked at data between 1987 and 2000 on all deaths among women of reproductive age in Finland. The research found that the suicide rate among women who had abortions was six times higher than that of women who had given birth, and double that of women who had miscarriages. The findings of the research carried out by Dr David Fergusson and others, and published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2008, were equally troubling. They found that women who had abortions were 30 per cent more likely to experience mental disorder. Interestingly, Revision Notes in Psychiatry (the most popular textbook among Irish and British psychiatric trainees) informs us that one in 10 women who aborted suffer severe and/or prolonged psychological sequelae, which is a devastating experience, as any mental health practitioner will tell you. Having treated many women who have indeed suffered severely following abortion, my experience is that this evidence should not be ignored by any policymakers or legislators. The government now needs to look at the evidence given by the medical experts which shows that abortion is not a treatment for suicidality. Their conclusion must be that it would be folly to use suicide as a reason to legislate for abortion in Ireland. Women, and their babies, deserve better than abortion - and the government needs to recognise that and act accordingly. Dr. Sean O Domhnaill is a Consultant Psychiatrist and an advisor to the Life Institute. Firstsource Group USA has agreed to buy the business process outsourcing subsidiary of ISGN Corp. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close in the next four months, according to a news release. Firstsource, a unit of the Indian firm RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, will acquire ISGN's outsourced mortgage origination and mortgage servicing business, its title and settlement services business, and its valuation business. ISGN, in Palm Bay, Fla., will retain its mortgage technology product portfolio, including LoanDynamix, a loan servicing system, and Tempo, a default management system. The Linn-Benton Community College Community Education program invites the public to celebrate Valentines Day in style with homemade chocolate treats and their own expressive words. Learn to write poems that express varying realities of love and romance in the three-week poetry class "Savory or Sweet," held from 6 to 7:50 p.m. Thursdays starting today at LBCC, 6500 Pacific Blvd. S.W. Cost is $29. Learn how to write letters that share your sincere thoughts and feelings on Valentine's Day or most any occasion in a one-day workshop, "A Letter to Your Loved One," from 9 to 11:50 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 2, at the Albany Senior Center. Cost is $29. The class "All Things Chocolate" provides hands-on skills working with chocolate to make a variety of desserts, garnishes and confections. This one-day class meets from noon to 4:50 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 6, at the LBCC Albany campus Calapooia Center kitchen. Cost is $59. For more information or to register, see the LBCC online schedule at www.linnbenton.edu, email albany@linnbenton.edu or call LBCC Community Education at 541-917-4840. March 15, 1967 Jan. 24, 2016 Our dear loved one Cori left this world suddenly and unexpectedly due to a pulmonary aneurism on Jan. 24, 2016, at the age of 48. Cori was born March 15, 1967, in Los Angeles to Jack and Judy Arnason. Her mother, Judy, passed away when Cori was an infant. Her father met Catherine Arnason soon thereafter, and together, they raised her, along with her siblings. Cori was raised in Utah and attended Carbon High School and later the College of Eastern Utah. She worked in the printing business for many years and most recently was enrolled at Linn-Benton Community College studying Graphic Design and Art. Cori will forever be known as a bright, energetic and vibrant woman who was always up for having fun and going on adventures. She was incredibly kind and generous with her time and affection and expertly made everyone she knew feel loved and appreciated. She especially cherished spending time with her family and loved her role as a grandma. She was exceptionally creative and good with words, often writing poems and speaking eloquently at special occasions. Bringing people together in the spirit of celebration and togetherness was certainly her specialty. She is already incredibly missed but her spirit will live on through those she touched with her light and love. Cori is survived by her spouse, Edward Jon Mercier; children Rikki Hoggatt, Randi Hoskins and BJ Hoggatt; granddaughters Kendra Hoskins and Brynnly Hoggatt; siblings Charles Wenig, Teri Arnason, William Bill Arnason and Steve Arnason; as well as her father, Jack Arnason. She was preceded in death by her mothers, Catherine Arnason and Judy Arnason. C.O.R.I Creator Of Real Inspiration A celebration of life potluck will be at 3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 30, 29699 Peoria Road, Shedd. Everyone is welcome. On 28 January 2016, Jens Stoltenberg released his second annual report as NATO Secretary General. The annual report provides an overview of how NATO promoted and supported peace and security in 2015. It includes details on how NATO is enhancing deterrence and defence, investing in security, transforming capabilities, building relationships, sharing expertise, advancing the role of women in peace and security, and adapting as an institution. Below you will find short descriptions of as well as direct links to the elements of the annual report. You can also download the full annual report. 2015 has shown how insecurity abroad directly affects our security at home. We saw this in the brutal terrorist attacks in our cities, in the refugee crisis, in Russia's continued actions in Ukraine and its recent military build-up in Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean. NATO's three core tasks collective defence, crisis management and cooperative security are all essential if we are to maintain peace and security in and around Europe. Read the Foreword in the Annual Report (PDF) TOP Safeguarding freedom and security has always been NATO's aim. As the security environment has evolved, NATO has adapted to ensure that it can deliver for the citizens it was created to defend. The security environment in 2015 was one of complex challenges and unpredictable threats to the safety of citizens in the Euro-Atlantic area and around the world. Read the Executive Summary in the Annual Report (PDF) TOP The greatest responsibility of the Alliance is to protect and defend NATO's territory and populations. Article 5 of NATO's founding charter, the Washington Treaty, sets out the Alliance's collective defence commitment, stating that an attack on one shall be considered an attack on all. Read the chapter "Deterrence and Defence" in the Annual Report (PDF) TOP NATO in 2015 demonstrated its commitment to its three core tasks in word and deed. As part of the most significant strengthening of collective defence in recent decades, NATO continued to implement the Readiness Action Plan, providing assurance to Allies and adapting to ensure that the Alliance is prepared for the future. NATO sustained operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo and further developed the capacities required to contribute effectively to preventing and managing crises and to supporting post-conflict stabilisation. NATO also worked closely with partners around the world on a range of issues, including to build defence capacities. Read the chapter "Investing in Security" in the Annual Report (PDF) TOP The transformation package agreed under the banner of NATO Forces 2020 at the Chicago Summit in 2012 outlines the goal for Alliance forces: a coherent set of deployable, interoperable and sustainable forces equipped, trained and exercised to be able to operate together and with partners in any environment. The enhanced NATO Defence Planning Process, Smart Defence and the Connected Forces Initiative are the principal ways and means NATO employs to deliver this goal. The adaptation measures in the Readiness Action Plan (RAP) will further shape the forces required. Read the chapter "Transforming Capabilities" in the Annual Report (PDF) TOP In 2015, NATO was engaged in operations and missions that contributed to all three of the Alliance's core tasks: collective defence, crisis management and cooperative security. NATO has often acted to uphold international peace and security. In 1995, the Alliance helped to end the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and implemented the peace agreement. In 1999, NATO helped to stop mass killings and expulsions in Kosovo, and NATO troops continue to serve in Kosovo today under a United Nations mandate. Since 2003, NATO's UN-mandated presence has helped to ensure that Afghanistan will never again become a safe haven for terrorists. In 2011, NATO enforced a UN mandate to protect the people of Libya. NATO ships are fighting piracy off the coast of Somalia and are conducting counter-terrorism patrols in the Mediterranean. On several occasions, NATO forces have also delivered relief supplies, including to the United States after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and to Pakistan after the October 2005 earthquake. Read the chapter "Operations and Missions" in the Annual Report (PDF) TOP Over the past two decades, NATO has developed a network of structured partnerships with countries from the Euro-Atlantic area and the Mediterranean and Gulf regions, as well as individual relationships with other partners across the globe. NATO pursues dialogue and practical cooperation with 41 partner countries and engages actively with other international actors and organisations on a wide range of political and security-related issues. Read the chapter "Partnerships" in the Annual Report (PDF) TOP NATO's role in arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation dates back to the height of the Cold War. In 1967, Allies agreed, as part of the Harmel Report on the Future Tasks of the Alliance, to seek the military capability to deter aggression as well as detente negotiations to settle the political disputes of the day, including talks on disarmament. This agreement led to Allied engagement on the process that would become the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE), talks that led to the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE), and negotiations on limiting and rolling back the nuclear arms race (including the bilateral SALT, START, and INF treaties). Read the chapter "Arms Control, Disarmament, Non-proliferation" in the Annual Report (PDF) TOP NATO and its partners are working together to promote the role of women in peace and security. This is part of their commitment to support the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 and related Resolutions. These Resolutions recognise the disproportionate impact that war and conflict has on women and children and highlight the historical exclusion of women from peace processes and stabilisation efforts. They call for the full and equal participation of women in conflict prevention, peacebuilding, and post-conflict reconstruction. They also call for the prevention of sexual violence and accountability to end impunity for incidents of sexual violence in conflict. Together, these resolutions frame the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. Read the chapter "Women, Peace and Security" in the Annual Report (PDF) TOP NATO is a political-military alliance of 28 countries. The Organization itself includes a number of structures that support the everyday work of the Alliance. Continuous efforts to improve the efficiency of these structures support the institutional aspect of the Alliance's long-term adaptation. These reforms are delivering better governance, increased effectiveness and greater efficiency. Read the chapter "Organisation" in the Annual Report (PDF) TOP Study's list of pesticides associated with increased diabetes risk among women Study stresses importance of more long-term research, making proactive food-buying choices Beyond diabetes: the impact of organophosphate insecticides on overall health (NaturalNews) It's no secret that certain factors such as mass body index (BMI), race and family history are among the main contributors associated with diabetes development. While such risk factors still play a role, a new study has found that there's likely another reason behind onset of the disease, one that specifically involves women.Researchers from North Carolina State University assessed data from a large population study that focused on the female spouses of agricultural workers in Iowa and North Carolina who had ever mixed or applied pesticides themselves. Ultimately, they discovered that an elevated diabetes risk existed among the wives of farmers and pesticide applicators. In particular, five classes of pesticides were linked to the heightened risk of diabetes for these women.The five classes of pesticides associated with heightened levels of diabetes are as follows:1. Dieldrin (organochlorine insecticide banned in US in 1985)2. Fonofos (organophosphate insecticide banned in US in 1999)3. Phorate (organophosphate insecticide still allowed to limited extent, pending EPA review)4. Parathion (organophosphate insecticide, phased out in early 2000s)5. 2,4,5-T/2,4,5-TP (chlorophenoxy herbicide both banned since 1985)The study, titled "Pesticide use and incident diabetes among wives of farmers in the Agricultural Health Study," was published in. Its objective was "To estimate associations between use of specific agricultural pesticides and incident diabetes in women," summarizing the findings as follows:The findings demonstrate the need to continue engaging in long-term studies. While these pesticides have been banned or phased out, the fact that health complications developed years later builds the case that health problems from these toxins are often cumulative. Health consequences may take years to impact people, as this study shows.Furthermore, this study also brings to light the term, obesogens. It explains that obesity -- a key player in the development of diabetes -- can be caused or made worse by exposure to pesticides and other environmental toxins.Finally, the study stresses the importance of buying organic. Doing so has far-reaching effects beyond one's own health, as choosing organic shows support for the health of a farmer, their family and people in surrounding agricultural communities.According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that up to 20,000 physician-diagnosed pesticide poisonings take place annually in the United States agricultural worker community.For example, Phorate is one of the organophosphate insecticides identified in this study (see list above). According to the CDC, it's linked to a long list of health hazards. It can impact the central nervous system, respiratory and cardiovascular system and lead to everything from wheezing and exhaustion to paralysis, low blood pressure and coma.Another organophosphate on this study's list, Fonofos, is also associated with a slew of health problems. The CDC notes that it can cause nausea, abdominal cramps, chest tightness, blurred vision and breathing complications, to name just a few symptoms.To address hazards related to harmful pesticides, the EPA has suggested changes to the Agricultural Worker Protection Standard (WPS) in an effort to better ensure the health of agricultural workers and those in the surrounding area. For example, no-entry buffer areas around farms treated with pesticides (to help protect from fumes and overspray) is one aspect that has been considered. Additionally, making information that pertains to the pesticide application, including the pesticide label and Safety Data Sheets, available to farm workers as well as their advocates, is also listed. Such application and labeling information would also be made known to medical personnel as well. Frankenstein, revisited Are you rushing to volunteer for this procedure? (NaturalNews) It sounds like something straight out of a science fiction movie, but an eccentric Italian surgeon is claiming that the world's first head transplant has taken place.As reported by the UK's, Dr. Sergio Canavero says that researchers in China have successfully carried out a head transplant on a monkey. Canavero, the paper said, caused somewhat of a storm of controversy last year, when he revealed his own intentions to transplant a human head, adding that it may be a cure for complete paralysis in the coming years."Now, after working with the team in China and other researchers in South Korea, he suggests his plan is a step closer, thanks to the experiments on monkeys, mice and human cadavers," said the paper.The surgeon claims that Xiaoping Ren of Harbin Medical University in China, was able to succeed in the transplant by connecting the blood supply between the head and new body, but and this is key not the spinal cord. Paralysis is caused when the spinal cord is injured or severed, causing permanent paralysis below the level of damage.Canavero claims that the procedure proved that if the head is chilled to -15 Celsius (5 degrees F) a monkey is able to survive the procedure without any brain damage.contacted researchers for comment about the claims, and were told, "The monkey fully survived the procedure without any neurological injury of whatever kind."But, without a functioning spinal cord, the monkey was paralyzed from the neck down. Researchers said it was only kept alive for 20 hours after the procedure , for undefined ethical reasons. It wasn't clear whether the animal was able to feel pain in any part of its body following the surgery.Xioaping added that he had done experiments on human cadavers to prepare for the surgery, and had also tested other ideas regarding how best to prevent injury to the brain.Thereported further:In a video conversation published exclusively by Russian news agency, Canavero said, "The monkey survived perfectly without injury for 24... for 20 hours before being euthanised, because of course we didn't want to keep the animal alive."He also claimed that the Chinese researchers had already performed their first human head transplant, but did not show the news site any photographic evidence of the procedure.A separate video shows a mouse sniffing the air and moving its legs, after having reportedly recovered from a spinal cord severing and re-fusing.That procedure, Canavero claimed, was done by Dr. C-Yoon Kim at Konkuk University School of Medicine in South Korea. He also claimed that the video of the procedure shows that it is possible to re-fuse a spinal cord if it is cut cleanly, and a chemical polyethylene glycol (PEG) is used to preserve cell membranes.But, as the video shows, the mouse cannot move normally.Though there are obviously medical ethics questions beyond perfecting the surgical techniques (if that is even possible now or in the future), Canavero is nevertheless seeking funding to perform a human head transplant, even before the research has been published. He said that he even plans to solicit funding from billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg In 2015, Canavaro made headlines after announcing plans to operate on Valery Spriridonov, 31, who has a genetic muscle-wasting disease."'I'm asking today Russian billionaires and also foreign billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, who is already sponsoring much of this life extension research, and this is certainly about extending life, to finance, to bankroll the first head transplant in Russia on Valery Spiridonov," Canavero said, as reported byAny volunteers? What the study says about drug shortages How could this happen? The U.S. medical infrastructure on the verge of collapse (NaturalNews) Emergency rooms play a crucial role in the proper functioning of health care in the United States. During any given year, 45% of American people visit the ER, but a recent study published by thejournal suggests that not all of them can receive help. According to the study, between 2001 and 2014, drug shortages in ERs throughout the U.S. increased by a staggering 400%.For some patients, this translated into prolonged duration of their diseases, permanent injury and even death. As the FDA struggles to resolve the issue, but unsurprisingly only makes matters worse, the actual cause of the spike in drug shortages remains neglected.As reported by the, the study in question put together data from the University of Utah Drug Information Service . The latter has been keeping track of drug shortages through a public website that receives reports on behalf of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. According to these reports , 1,800 drug shortages were submitted between 2001 and 2014, 34% of which took place in emergency rooms. It seems that, although the number of shortages was lower up to 2007, the following years witnessed a 435% increase.The study also wanted to determine whether these drug shortages were associated with lifesaving situations. As it turns out, a shocking 52.6% of shortages were of lifesaving drugs, while 10% referred to drugs with no substitute. Even when doctors were able to access replacement drugs, their lesser familiarity with the new drugs often led to mistakes and therefore to more casualties.In February 2014, a report was published by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) in order to determine what had gone wrong with the drug market. By interviewing FDA officials , as well as drug manufacturers and purchasers, GAO came up with four primary reasons for the spike in drug shortages. While discontinued production and regulatory processes were responsible for 6% and 3% of shortages , respectively, manufacturing problems accounted for 22% of shortages. Finally, a discrepancy between supply and demand resulted in a 12% shortage.As the report clearly shows, one of the most frequently cited immediate causes of drug shortages was that a manufacturer was forced to slow, postpone or altogether halt the production of a certain drug after a quality problem was identified by the FDA. While some manufacturers claim that the FDA investigators interpret the CGMPs differently and apply stricter sanctions, others believe that quality standards have also been raised during recent years. In any case, it seems that the more involved the FDA was, the more shortages were created.Still, anyone doing the math will inevitably come to the conclusion that the reasons provided by the GOA report cover less than half of the total drug shortages. That's because in over 57% of the investigated shortages, the reason remains "unknown."The truth is that the U.S. medical infrastructure is in a state of collapse . The underlying cause is, as usual, a financial one. The same GOA report showed that drug purchasers often tend to discredit the quality of a drug and choose to consider only the lowest price instead, primarily due to financial constraints. As a result, any manufacturer that strives to place their product above the minimum standards is met with an impossible market where they cannot sell for a reasonable price.Ultimately, this caused manufacturers to stop investing in their establishments. What happened next? The FDA identified quality problems with their production and they were forced to either halt the manufacturing of drugs for renovation, or quit the market altogether. Back in the ER room, this accounted for yet another drug shortage and possibly an injured patient.A vicious circle with no end in sight. We pay with life for our commodities The facts are harsher than the statistics It's a hierarchy that's hard to change (NaturalNews) How would you feel if you found out that your laptop, smartphone, iPod, iPhone and tens of other consumer electronics started out in a small African village, in a place where irresponsible corporate management allows children to mine poisonous heavy metals ? Believe it or not, all your rechargeable devices equipped with lithium-ion batteries need cobalt in order to be built. Brands from Apple to Microsoft, Samsung to Huawei, Sony, Vodafone, Dell, Lenovo, HP, LG and many more, are responsible for cases of child labor.Cobalt is a rare mineral, and almost half of the world's production comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). As we speak, at least 25% of the artisanal miner population in the DRC is made up of child laborers, roughly 40,000 underage souls. Some of these children are only 12 years old, so they rarely have the opportunity to go to school. Instead, they follow their parents to the mines in order to help provide for their families. Their contribution is valued at roughly $1-2 for one day's worth of work. recent report on the situation was compiled by Amnesty International earlier this month, and investigated the matter to the smallest of details. Cobalt ore is highly poisonous for our bodies. It can lead to hard metal lung disease and, ultimately, can be fatal. In these circumstances, any common-sense organization would at least provide its employees with some protective equipment, such as gloves or face masks. In the DRC, a place where child labor is an accepted reality, the official regulation code regarding safety equipment does not specify any protective measures.Reporters witnessed first-hand children aged 12, 14 and 15 coming to work in the mines after school, or skipping school altogether, due to education costs. None of them were given protective equipment. As a result of inhaling cobalt on a daily basis, as well as performing physically demanding work (i.e. carrying sacks of cobalt ore that weigh up to 110 pounds), each and every individual reported constant pain all over their body.A 14-year-old boy reported that he was even required to work 24-hour shifts. Like children, women were not given any alternative to these physically grueling tasks. Even though it is difficult to believe that industry magnates such as Apple would condone such conditions, their global supply chains are hardly under any sort of rigorous control.Although Apple is among the most valuable companies known to mankind, the company admits in a letter to Amnesty that, even though they have a zero tolerance policy regarding child labor , more help is needed to fully combat the issue. While Apple seems to put some effort into it and assume that their millions of products are the result of child labor, Microsoft blames the "complexity and resources required," for the problem.The friendly devices we use every day start out in a small African village, in the swollen, pained hands of a 12-year-old girl or boy. The ore they mine with their bare fingers is bought from them directly by a local ore company, who then smelts it and exports it to China. Here, it is sold and further processed by Chinese and South Korean manufacturers of battery components, who then sell their goods to every possible brand of consumer electronics.The fact is, cheap labor is an intrinsic part of every company's success. Without the tens of affordable pieces imported from worldwide manufacturers, the production costs would demand an incredible shelf price compared to other products. Ethanol, what a cute and fuzzing idea. It burns cleaner than gas, but at what price? Higher gas prices and food costs. The argument of saying it helps the environment is a scam. Lowering your mpg and raising food prices negates all of that. Oregon made loans of tens of millions to ethanol producers, only to have them go bankrupt a short time later. Most politicians and experts say its not helping, but we continue to spend a great deal of money to support ethanol. Why? I would say it is because the ethanol industry uses our money to support politicians who support them. The fix is in. Oregon energy deptartment has made so many bad loans and grants they are in jeopardy of going broke. Is the air we breath cleaner? I would doubt it. What is cleaner is my wallet. Combine ethanol and wind power and Oregon has blown hundred of millions. It seems the special interest groups have finally got them all bought off. Let us take our great state back. Vote the shysters out. They don't need more money, we need better management. Jack Cox Millersburg (Jan. 24) An individual's decision to forego vaccines is a smart one Individual rights trump forced vaccine policies (NaturalNews) "The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." These are the wise words of Ayn Rand, who at a young age witnessed the confiscation of her father's business by Russia's communist Bolshevik party. Rand was forced to flee with her family to Crimea, as their individual property rights were trampled upon by the collectivist vision of Russia's Vladimir Lenin.Honoring the rights of the individual is the foundation of a free, moral and prosperous society. Today we hear a lot about granting minority rights to specific groups of people. While this makes for a great political campaign, it is completely unnecessary when we understand the value of honoringproperty rights from the start.This means that a person owns their own body. Nobody else no government, no corporation, not even a democratic majority shall violate the individual's body. No entity shall harm, take from, or impede upon individual liberties . True law protects individual property rights, upholding the tenets of liberty.Many laws signed today work in the opposite manner, restricting individual liberties, violating a person's body. California's SB-277 mandates that individual families be violated through forced "medication" of their children. Under the draconian law, in order to attend public schools, children are sentenced to being forcibly vaccinated against the parents' will Children are not the property of pharmaceutical companies . They are not the property of the state. What goes into their bodies is the decision of their parents or guardians. Thus, restricting a family's movement and interaction in public because they will not submit to mandatory "medicine," is a direct violation of a person's individual property rights. All mandatory vaccine laws should rightfully be challenged and struck down, because they infringe on an individual's decision as to what goes into their body.While many still believe that vaccines are a great way to pre-expose themselves to viruses to increase immunity, there are some that see how this retraining of the immune system can actually suppress their body's long-term efficiency at fighting all viruses and harmful bacteria.Viruses and bacteria are all around us, interacting. We may never be able to accurately measure how many times our bodies have been exposed to viruses and bacteria and built up natural immunity to certain strains. Stimulating immune response to specific vaccine virus strains using aluminum adjuvant , causes inflammation in the body and ultimately brain damage.Every vaccine injection is a burden to the body because it contains aluminum and trace amounts of formaldehyde, which is cancer causing. They also contain antibiotics. Medical science is beginning to admit that antibiotics deplete the microbiome in the human intestines, wiping out beneficial bacteria species that protect the body long-term. And some flu shots still contain mercury , which is very dangerous.This entire retraining of the immune system, especially in developing bodies, can apparently cause allergies, autoimmune problems and toxic metal overload at a young age. The influx of aluminum compounds from 49 vaccine doses before a child reaches age 6, may be the reason many have a hard time learning and behaving, as they fall into the autism spectrum.What it all boils down to is this: If an individual determines they don't want to vaccinate, then they should be free to make that decision. The individual does not need permission from a hospital, a doctor or the state, to decide what they do not want to put into their body . The same principle applies to the family. Children are not the property of the state or a doctor. They belong to their parents.It doesn't matter if the state wanted to forcibly give all people a beneficial nutritional supplement (like vitamin D) to boost their immunity. If the individual objected, that is their choice, and their choice should always be respected, not infringed upon.It doesn't matter if just one person refused to submit to toxic mandatory vaccines. Their body is their own, and they should not be forcibly injected against their will.Thankfully, a grand awakening is beginning to occur. As hospital policies all across America try to force healthcare workers to submit to toxic injections, record numbers of nurses are rejecting the forceful policies. Over 22,000 nurses are risking losing their jobs as they refuse mandatory vaccines . Their courageous stand proves once and for all, that individual rights are the bedrock of a free, healthy, moral and prosperous society. Scientists demand transparency Clinical trial was the first on humans (NaturalNews) A Portugal-based drug maker is being accused of trying to conceal details about a clinical drug trial that went severely awry earlier this month, leaving one person brain-dead and four others seriously injured. The trial took place in Rennes, France, and was conducted by Biotrial, a third-party drug evaluation and pharmacology research firm with offices in London and Newark, New Jersey.The drug being tested was a painkiller manufactured by Bial, one of the largest and oldest pharma companies in Portugal that was founded nearly a century ago. Following the botched trial, the drug maker has been accused of taking a "secretive stance" and muddying the waters, making it difficult for outside researchers to understand what went wrong."The first reports on the Rennes tragedy were understandably confused. Adding to the shock of the tragedy, the secretive stance taken by the drug manufacturer made things even murkier," said Dr. Daniele Piomelli, Louise Turner Arnold Chair in Neurosciences and Professor of Anatomy & Neurobiology at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, told Outsourcing-Pharma.com."One person died and several were hurt. This is a tragedy and we cannot turn away from it," Dr. Piomelli added. "As a scientist active in the field, I feel an obligation to understand what went wrong. And to demand transparency from the drug manufacturer."Early reports claimed that the experimental painkiller may have contained or was derived from cannabis. But that theory was quickly debunked when researchers clarified that the drug was a long-action inhibitor of FAAH (Fatty Acid Amide Hydrolase). Reports that the painkiller was somehow related to marijuana originated from an unidentified source who claimed to be close to the case.The confusion may have stemmed from the fact that the drug being tested "targeted the body's pain-controlling endocannabinoid system, which is also responsible for the human response to cannabis," according to Ninety individuals received the experimental painkiller, while 30 others were given a placebo. Six of the volunteers aged 28 to 49 were taken to the hospital, including the brain-dead man, said French Health Minister Marisol Tourain, who called it "an accident of exceptional gravity."(3)All of the participants were healthy before the clinical trial. Medical workers told Sky News that three of those who were hospitalized may have a "handicap that could be irreversible."One of the men injured has neurological problems, according to doctors, who said they have no information on how to reverse the drug's effects.European agencies calling for transparency and safety urged the French government's drug agency that validated the trial protocol to release information about the procedure, but it refused and insisted on keeping the information secret while authorities investigate, reports the French daily newspaper However,was able to obtain a copy of the protocol and sent it to experts for review. They concluded that the procedures were in fact "complicated." The clinical trial was the first to be tested on humans. Early testing was done on mice, dogs and monkeys none of which showed any evidence of toxicity.A similar incident happened in Britain in 2006 when six formerly "healthy men were treated for organ failure only hours after being given an experimental drug targeting the immune system," the"That prompted a review of procedures and resulted in the U.K. regulatory agency imposing new testing standards, including recommendations to use the lowest possible dose and to test new drugs only in one person at a time."The six men in Britain now apparently have a higher risk of cancer and autoimmune diseases tied to their exposure to the experimental drug." Non-GMO market trend a very 'real concern' Nothing good comes from GM crops Numerous corporations taking steps to address health-conscious wave that's sweeping nation (NaturalNews) In a move that further reinforces the wave of health-consciousness that's sweeping the nation, a newly-acquired North Dakota grain terminal has its sights set on creating and maintaining a fully non-GMO facility.Captain Drake, LLC's million-bushel grain terminal, is addressing the growing demand for all things non-GMO, and as such, is dedicated to helping its clients enjoy their non-GMO commodities. The company also maintains that it's the only U.S. supplier of citric acid which is not derived from GM corn , but instead from sugar cane."By providing growers and end-users this key facility, Captain Drake will consolidate and streamline the sourcing of non-GMO grain in the Red River Valley," says Mark Anderson, president of Captain Drake. "We will be able to obtain the best non-GMO commodities from three regions: North Dakota, Minnesota, and Manitoba, Canada."Their website also highlights the public's surge in wanting access to healthier options, stating that they're poised to get on board with the non-GMO "market trend." Doing so will help their clients "navigate this new and real concern ..." when it comes to their businesses.Additionally, their site states the following:"This human manipulation of our food supply has not yet been proven safe and has been linked to many health concerns. Consumers are demanding to know what is in their food and it appears that food and beverage companies will soon have to answer with GMO or Non-GMO on their packaging. ..."We pride ourselves on partnering with companies who are environmentally and socially responsible through every phase of the growing and manufacturing process. Captain Drake is rapidly expanding our product offerings to meet the demand for NON GMO ingredients Indeed, the "human manipulation" of the food supply is a very real concern, and a reason Captain Drake's move should be applauded.For example, one only has to utter the word, "GMO" to have thoughts of Monsanto 's crop and health-harming ways enter people's minds. Time and again, their destructive glyphosate-using and altered seed-developing habits have been frowned upon by health-conscious folks who know better than to say that toxic chemicals are good for their bodies. Still, the agro-chemical giant maintains that grain and grass crops can be developed in ways that can withstand glyphosate spraying, while also bypassing environmental and health risks. We know better; the only win-win when it comes to GM crops is the me-myself-and-I attitude that prevails at such Monsanto-esque corporations.GM crops are bad, plain and simple.Even China once declared their refusal to accept GMO grain imports from the U.S., citing concerns over GMO strains not approved in their country.The rise in addressing the GMO issue is also evident in the actions being taken by several corporations. Almost in droves, they're tackling the problem, remaining steadfast in their desire to lead the non-GMO charge.McCormick spices, for example, announced that the majority of their spices will be GMO-free and organic by the end of 2016. And even Whole Foods , the subject of some eyebrow-raising actions in the past, has GMO-free efforts in the works. In fact, they've declared 2018 as the year that all of their products in the U.S. and Canada will carry proper GMO labeling.The list goes on.From Panera Bread and Subway, to Chipotle and numerous other places, the desire to remove unhealthy food ingredients and provide customers with healthier options is evident. Hopefully we'll see the health-conscious wave continue, so everywhere we turn from restaurants and stores, to grain terminals and other industries the public's good health is always kept front-and-center.(1) Non-GMOReport.com (2) CaptDrake.com (3) CaptDrake.com (4) TruthWiki.org (5) NaturalNews.com (6) NaturalNews.com (7) NaturalNews.com Spreading rapidly There may be as many as 1.4 million cases (NaturalNews) It's become the latest mega-virus to spread to countries around the world, and like the deadly Ebola virus that was just recently declared contained though the disease killed someone in Sierra Leone after the declaration was made its spread has stumped medical investigators.As reported by the, a few days ago the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed that a dozen cases of the Zika virus had been found in the United States, as the agency further expanded an advisory telling pregnant women to avoid traveling to countries that are experiencing additional outbreaks.What exactly is Zika? FromHealth section Initially the patients experienced fever, joint pain and eye inflammation, but eventually they also contracted a red bumpy rash; some complained of swollen hands and feet, while others threw up.Then, in 2013:Indeed, the CDC initially listed 14 countries as danger zones for Zika, but added eight more in recent days nations from the Caribbean, South America and Polynesia indicating it is spreading rapidly.The American agency is currently working with health officials in Brazil in search of a link between the virus which is spread by mosquitoes and a rare condition known as Guillain-Barre that often leads to paralysis.Brazil is ground zero for the Zika outbreak, health officials have said, but now they are investigating another twist in the puzzle: a link between the virus and a rare birth condition known as microcephaly . Brazil has experienced almost 3,900 cases of the "rare" disease since October; babies involved have suffered serious brain damage.In recent days, health officials in a number of countries have begun to warn women to consider delaying pregnancy , since they are so worried about containing the virus. Those countries include Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador and Jamaica, according toAt present, the known U.S. cases were probably caused by people who were traveling to the affected countries and were bitten by mosquitoes. Still, there is some thought that the U.S. may be experiencing its own free-standing outbreak.Brazil is spending scarce resources to battle the disease. So far, the country has spent about $300 million to battle it, sending troops door-to-door to destroy places where mosquitoes may breed."We never paid too much attention to this virus," Paulo Zanotto, a microbiology professor at the University of Sao Paulo and coordinator of 42 laboratories studying Zika, told. "I'm really worried because we have no idea of the amount of spread."Brazilian health officials believe that there are currently somewhere between 400,000 and 1.4 million Zika cases in the country of about 200 million.U.S. health officials have said that Zika may be responsible for a baby born with microcephaly in Hawaii recently, the first such case in the U.S. Officials believe that the mother may have caught the disease while living in Brazil last spring. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently expanded the endangered North Atlantic right whale's critical habitat by nearly 30,000 square nautical miles. This expansion - now more than six times the area originally designated - gives the animals more room to swim about safely. The agency announced the expansion will take place in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank (a large continental-shelf area that separates the Gulf of Maine from the Atlantic Ocean off New England), the main foraging area for the whales, and off the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, where mothers give birth to their calves. However, it will not include right whale migratory routes through the mid-Atlantic. The 40-ton baleen species was brought to the brink of extinction by commercial whaling in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the federal government listed the right whale as endangered in 1970. Recently, however, a slight recovery of the species has been seen, with approximately 500 right whales alive today - a substantial increase from only 300 reported in 1994. "We have made progress," David Gouveia, the marine mammal and sea turtle conservation coordinator for the Greater Atlantic Region of the NOAA Fisheries, said in a statement. "We are on a positive trajectory but there is still plenty of work to be done." Previous conservation efforts, including speed restrictions on large vessels entering port and use regulations of certain fishing gear have greatly aided in the species' comeback. Expanding the critical habitat should also help, Gouveia said. The designations are based on many years of aircraft and ship surveys of right whales and their habits, and while they do not create refuges or restrictions that affect fishing, they will make it more difficult for offshore projects such as energy exploration, seismic testing, and dredging to acquire the appropriate permits. "With two decades of new information and improved understanding since we first designated critical habitat for the species, we believe the expansion will further protect essential foraging and calving areas to further improve recovery of this animal," Eileen Sobeck, assistant NOAA administrator for NOAA Fisheries, said in the agency's release. Related Articles Right Whales: Saving the Iconic Endangered Species, a Q&A Rhino Poaching Declines Slightly In South Africa But Increases Overall Across Continent Minnesota Moose: Researchers Reveal What's Causing Population Declines Right Whale: Slower Migration to Florida For more great nature science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN). -Follow Samantha on Twitter @Sam_Ashley13 An Oakland Unified School District police car was severely damaged when a group of students at Fremont High School in East Oakland walked off campus Wednesday in protest of an incident involving a security guard and vice principal that led to bruise marks on a student, a district spokesman said. The walkout by more than 150 students was in reaction to a confrontation between a 16-year-old male student with a security guard at the school on Jan. 8. https://twitter.com/aidemarquez20/status/692410267829841920 Footage released last week shows the 16-year-old walking toward the main office exit when two school employees stop him. One of the employees, identified as the security guard, tries to the handcuff him what happens next is still under investigation since the confrontation was moved towards a hallway with no security cameras. Photos of the student with bruises on his body have surfaced, along with the surveillance video. Some students are demanding the resignation of those involved. District spokesman Isaac Kos-Read said the district staff respects the students free speech rights and that the success of the school is a top priority. An Oakland high school student says he was called to the principals office then roughed up by school security guards in an incident that was partially captured by surveillance cameras. In a separate incident, Fremont High student Jonathan Rodriguez on Friday filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court in Oakland, alleging that he suffered emotional distress and injuries when two security guards at the school assaulted him and put him in a chokehold two years ago. NBC Bay Area's Yoselinne Rodriguez and Bay City News contributed to this report. 50 Cent and Chris Brown are among the rap and R&B stars who are planning to host club events in the Bay Area during Super Bowl weekend, and you'll need deep pockets for the more flamboyant options. Miami's DJ Khaled, whose catchphrase is "We the best," will shatter local nightclub price records for his Super Bowl pre-party at the Grand in San Francisco on Feb. 4. Tickets start at $52.69 for general admission and soar to $20,609.95 for entry and a VIP table for 20 people on an elevated platform with a direct view of the DJ. Also on Feb. 4, New York rapper Fabolous will host a pre-party at Temple in San Francisco; admission is $50-150. One of the priciest options has already sold out for 50 Cent and Chris Brown's Super Bowl party from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. at San Francisco nightclub Origin on Feb. 6; it's too late to claim the elevated VIP table for $8,000, but you can still grab other VIP options ranging from $2,500 to $8,000 or just get a general admission ticket for $89. Brown and 50 are doing double duty since the two will appear with R&B star Ty Dolla $ign and producer DJ Mustard earlier in the night at 7 p.m. on Feb. 6 at the Fox Theater in Oakland; tickets are $49.50. Legendary old-school hip-hop party MC Doug E Fresh will work with Bay Area DJs Mind Motion and Apollo at Fattoria E Mare Restaurant & Lounge in Burlingame on Feb. 6. Tickets range from $32.64 to $2,069.95 for a 20-person VIP room. Nightclub 1015 in San Francisco will feature a pair of events on Feb. 7, a game-viewing party hosted by hit R&B producer Jermaine Dupri and an afterparty from Atlanta rapper T.I.; tickets to Dupri's event are $45-100, while admission to T.I.'s party that night is $60-150. The latter will have competition a few miles away from rapper Rick Ross and DJ/producer Lil Jon. Ross, who is from Miami, will host a Super Bowl afterparty event with music by Atlanta's DJ Drama on Feb. 7 at 10 p.m. at Roccapulco; the club is extending hours to stay open until 4 a.m. Tickets range from $53.74 for general admission to $8,249.95 for VIP entry and bottle service for a group of 12. Meanwhile Atlanta's Lil Jon plans to spin at Temple on Feb. 7 at 10 p.m.; tickets are $50-150. Illinois Democrats responded to Gov. Bruce Rauner's State of the State address Wednesday by voicing frustrations about the fallout from the state's budget impasse. Following the governor's address, Speaker of the House Michael Madigan passed out a memo accusing Rauner of planning the state's financial crisis. "As early as 2012, Bruce Rauner made it clear that imperiling critical services would help create leverage to his agenda," said the memo. The memo also included quotes attributed to Rauner. "The governor's speech did not make the point there is no budget," said Madigan at a press conference Monday. At a separate press conference Wednesday, Representative Ken Dunkin called out Madigan for being ineffective. "We've stopped doing our jobs," said Dunkin. "We should not hold citizens in Illinois hostage to Mike Madigan's shenanigans." Rauner's second State of the State offered a different tone from his speech a year ago and noted that Illinois "can't wait any longer." He also called for a "grand compromise" that will "cast partisanship and ideology aside." "If each of us commits to serious negotiation based on mutual respect for our co-equal branches of government, theres not a doubt in my mind we can come together to pass a balanced budget alongside reforms," Rauner said. "If we work together, Illinois can be both compassionate and competitive." While some Democratic legislators, like Senate President John Cullerton, commended the governor for his plans on education funding and pension reform, many still criticized his budget stance. "On a daily basis our safety net is unraveling, leaving disabled seniors and homeless veterans nowhere to go," Cullerton said in a statement. "We're not honoring our student aid commitments to college students. We're not providing any public support to our public universities and colleges. That's all because of the stance the governor has taken over the state's budget. He caused this. He can end it." State Senator Pat McGuire also stressed the state's need to pass a budget. "Illinois has been without a proper budget for nearly eight months," McGuire said in a statement. "It's time to get past the divisive rhetoric and political sloganeering." State Senator Daniel Biss showed joined in the concern for state services that have been most affected by the budget impasse. "Notably missing from the governor's speech was an acknowledgment that Illinois' network of human services and higher education are in crisis because of the budget impasse," Biss said in a statement. "This problem must be resolved quickly." State Senator Napoleon Harris also called for action. "This isn't the time to talk," said Harris in a statement. "Words don't feed seniors, keep college students in school or provide childcare for working families." State Senator Michael Hastings echoed these sentiments. "Our state is struggling without a budget, said Hastings in a statement. "Our social service and higher education are at the brink of collapse." Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth responded to Rauner's address during a speech at Chicago State University Monday. "Here at Chicago State, operations may shut down within a month," said Duckworth. "We can't punish kids like this." As of Wednesday, no budget has been approved and theres no sign lawmakers and the governor are making progress. With voters heading to the polls in mid-March, many predict the budget stalemate may linger even longer as lawmakers focus first on their own re-election. But Republican Minority Leader Sen. Christine Radogno said that's "not an excuse." "There's always an election around the corner in this state," she said. "That is not an excuse for not doing things." The State of Illinois House and Senate passed legislation Monday to fund over 128,000 Monetary Award Program grants that will enable low-income students to continue to finance their higher education. Critical funding will keep college students on the path toward completing their degrees, State Senator Donne Trotter, the bills co-sponsor, said in a statement. As a result of the states budget impasse, MAP grants have been in limbo, leaving some Illinois college students unable to return to school. Our teens have suffered enough during the budget impasse, State Senator Mattie Hunter said in a statement. Im proud we passed funding to help MAP grant recipients continue their schooling. The bill will provide $397.1 million for the MAP program with $260 million in funding for the operations of community colleges. An additional $49.8 million is allocated for career and technical education as well as GED programs. Nearly $14 million is also dedicated to supporting operations at City Colleges of Chicago. The bill passed the House and Senate and was sent to the governors desk for consideration. I hope the governor stands with us to make college affordable and keeps the doors open for our higher institutions of learning, Trotter said. The wife of disgraced Fox Lake Lt. Joseph Gliniewicz, who authorities say took his own life in a carefully staged suicide following years of criminal acts, has been indicted by a grand jury. Melodie Gliniewicz was indicted Wednesday on multiple counts of disbursing charitable funds without authority and for personal benefit and money laundering. Investigators said they found inconsistencies in financial documents surrounding the Fox Lake Police Explorer Post managed by Lt. Joe Gliniewicz, where it appeared non-business-related monies were withdrawn and money laundering took place. According to authorities, Gliniewiczs widow, Melodie Gliniewicz, was found to hold a fiduciary role as an adult advisor with the Fox Lake Police Explorer Post. The wife of disgraced Fox Lake Lt. Joseph Gliniewicz, who authorities say took his own life in a carefully staged suicide following years of criminal acts, has been indicted by a grand jury. NBC 5s Natalie Martinez reports. The investigation revealed money was withdrawn from the police explorer account over the course of several years, Undersheriff Ray Rose said in a statement. Detectives determined this money was used to finance a number of personal expenses and personal finances. Those personal expenses included a trip to Hawaii, payments to businesses such as Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Fox Lake Theatre, and over 400 restaurant charges, officials said. Following the indictment, a Lake County judge issued an arrest warrant for Melodie Gliniewicz, setting bond at $50,000. Authorities said Wednesday afternoon she was in the custody of the Lake County Sheriff's office. The wife of disgraced Fox Lake Lt. Joseph Gliniewicz, who authorities say took his own life in a carefully staged suicide following years of criminal acts, has been indicted by a grand jury. NBC 5s Natalie Martinez reports. Fox Lake, all of Lake County, and quite frankly the entire country have been through a mix of emotions throughout the Gliniewicz investigations, Sheriff Mark Curran said in a statement. It is my hope the community can continue healing and rebuilding. Melodie Gliniewicz's attorney said she has "suffered greatly over the past few months." "Considering Melodies cooperation with law enforcement, she is devastated by the decision to bring charges against her," a statement from Kelleher & Buckley, LLC read. "Melodie is a victim of her husbands secret actions and looks forward to her day in Court to show the world her innocence." Last year, authorities froze several of the Gliniewicz family's bank accounts as investigators worked to untangle the scandal that led Gliniewicz to take his own life in September. In an affidavit seeking the freeze on the familys accounts, prosecutors accused Joseph Gliniewicz of looting an Explorer Scout account of thousands of dollars, to pay for, among other things, a trip to Hawaii, hormone supplements, and fees on adult websites. And their motion carried strong suggestions, that Gliniewiczs wife was a party to the malfeasance. After a tumultuous first year in office, Gov. Bruce Rauner called for grand compromise in his second State of the State address Wednesday, but it seems compromise wasnt what some of his critics were after. Hours after the speech was over, Rauners Wikipedia page took a barrage of hard-hitting edits Wednesday evening, with the most complimentary of them maybe being that the governor graduated with a degree in economics and f------ up the whole state. The stinging edits, which have since been removed, can still be read on the bios revision history. They started by changing his name to Bruce Life-Ruiner Rauner. In the place for his successor, Please literally anyone, was added. Can we bring Blago back? We at least had a budget under Blago. I mean yes, it took two months but thats better than EIGHT. Rauner was given a death date in the hack to read crossing my fingers, with a place of death: Hell which basically means he will stay in Illinois at this point. His family wasnt off limits either. For spouse, Diana Rauner, who is apparently so special she gets a $100,000 chief of staff while the rest of the state gets LITERALLY NOTHING. His ex-wife was momentarily renamed Elizabeth Dodged That Bullet Rauner. Under Early Life and Education, the contributor replaced the information on Rauners father, Vincent Joseph Rauner, a lawyer and senior vice president for Motorola, to be Lucifer, the literal devil, not unlike his son. Biohackers weren't the only ones left unhappy after hearing Rauner's address. Illinois Democrats responded by voicing frustrations about the fallout from the state's budget impasse and ongoing financial crisis. "As early as 2012, Bruce Rauner made it clear that imperiling critical services would help create leverage to his agenda," Speaker of the House Michael Madigan said in a Wednesday memo. "The governor's speech did not make the point there is no budget." A West Chicago woman and former executive director of a Chicago cancer charity was ordered to pay restitution Wednesday for misspending thousands of dollars of the organizations money. DuPage County Judge Liam Brennan ordered Charlene McMann, 65, to pay restitution after she pleaded guilty Dec. 1 to personal use of charitable assets, a Class 2 felony, according to a statement from the Illinois Attorney Generals Office. From 2010-13, as executive director of the Chicago Blood Cancer Foundation, McMann made numerous transfers from the foundations bank accounts into her own account to spend for personal use, including casino trips, according to the statement. The foundation was created in 2010 with the mission of curing blood cancers through fundraising, education, research, promoting access to care and advocating for those affected, according to the statement. McMann was ordered to pay $44,085 to the Chicago-based Cancer Research Foundation, which shares a similar mission as the now-defunct Chicago Blood Cancer Foundation. She also received two years probation. The defendant betrayed the well-intentioned donors of this charity, choosing instead to take their donations for her own personal use, said Attorney General Lisa Madigan in the statement. Todays sentencing requires the defendant to reimburse the stolen money to a charity with the mission of curing cancer. Gov. Dannel Malloy proposed Connecticut become the first state to raise the age limit of a youthful offender in order to reform the state's criminal justice system What Im trying to do, because I can give you the statistics that show that this will make us safer is to prevent people from becoming permanent criminals because of basically how they are treated on minor offenses" said Malloy during a press conference at a church in Hartford. At the heart of the proposals is a plan to raise the age of a youthful offender in Connecticut from 17 to 20 by July 2019. Under the governor's proposal, the age would increase each year up to 2019. Connecticut would become the first state in the nation to take such a step. Malloy said there's data that backing the idea of a higher age limit. We know that the human mind has not reached its full point of maturation until age 25, the governor said. Malloy added that other areas of society and law accept that some behaviors and products should only be participated in by people of certain ages like the smoking age of 18 and the drinking age of 21. "Lets extend that to youthful offenders or young offenders with the hope that thats the springboard to avoiding a life of crime, Malloy said. The other significant part of the governor's announcement was to eliminate bail for misdemeanors. Judges would maintain discretion on a case-by-case basis but for such cases, bail would no longer exist under the governor's proposal. The motivation behind the idea is that bail, for many people in Connecticut, is a burdensome requirement that could cripple someone's home and professional lives. People make $20,000 bail with as little as $250 dollars and generally not more than $2,000, so in essence, well have 550 people in jail for a lack of 2,000," he said. In a statement, Drew Bloom with the Bail Association of Connecticut wrote: "The proposals announced today should be made part of the review process that the Governor recently requested the State Sentencing Commission to conduct. Bail reform will have broad ranging impact on many segments of society and comprehensive changes in this area should be carefully vetted so as to avoid serious unintended consequences." State Sen. Sara Gelser is optimistic that theres a future for the so-called fifth-year programs, in which many mid-valley school districts use Oregon State School Fund money to pay for students to attend a year of community college after graduation. Well know more about the future of fifth-year programs after this years short legislative session, which starts next week. Among the items for the Legislature to consider in its five-week run this year is a bill from Gelsers Education Committee that would allow the programs to continue in a reduced capacity. Gelser has said that the bill aims to put some financial and policy sideboards on the fifth-year programs. That idea of sideboards especially finding ways to control the costs of the programs likely is an essential part of any kind of legislative deal. The bill would require eligible students to enter the new Oregon Promise program, which established a fund to provide grants to recent Oregon high school graduates attending state community colleges. The idea is that the Oregon Promise program would help cover community college costs not paid for through federal grants. Its clear that legislators, particularly those in the Portland metro area, are much more amenable to the Oregon Promise program than they ever were to the fifth-year programs, which had the political disadvantage of being born in the mid-valley. And, to be fair, as Gelser puts it, there is a significant policy question surrounding the issue of whether its proper to use State School Fund money to pay for community college costs. (And, again to be fair, the fifth-year programs cannot be adopted statewide without a huge price tag.) But the fifth-year programs have a significant advantage over the Oregon Promise in terms of giving students a better chance of success after they graduate from high school: The Oregon Promise grants are available only to those students who had a high school grade point average of 2.5 or higher. That often means that low-income students or English language learners, who sometimes struggle in high school, might not be eligible. And that brings up one of the hidden benefits of the fifth-year programs, at least as theyve been developed by mid-valley districts: The secret sauce, so to speak, isnt so much the free tuition its the access to counseling services that helps these students navigate through college that can make all the difference, particularly to minority students and students who might be the first members of their families to attend college. It will be interesting to see how much of that manages to survive this years legislative review. Its clear that part of Gelsers long-term strategy is just to keep the fifth-year programs alive, even in a reduced state, until we get hard data for their effectiveness. But the struggles the programs have faced statewide say something about the difficulty of educational innovation in Oregon. Gov. Kate Brown recently talked about her plans to hire a state official whose job would be to spearhead educational innovation. It seems that the first bit of business facing that person, whenever she or he is hired, would be to encourage exactly this sort of innovation, instead of figuring out all the reasons why we have to settle for what we have now. A youth services officer with the state's Department of Children and Families is under arrest for allegedly impersonating a Hartford police officer. On Wednesday, Hartford police released the arrest photo of Luis Dacunha of Newington to NBC Connecticut. Dacunha was charged earlier this month, following an incident officers say at the Koji Restaurant in downtown Hartford. According to the arrest warrant, Dacunha appeared intoxicated and was bothering customers when he threatened to have the city shut down Koji in late November. Court papers said when the owners advised they were calling police, Dacunha replied, I am the police and flashed a gold badge. That badge, according to authorities was later identified by officers as a Department of Children and Families badge. A police report also obtained by the Troubleshooters states Dacunha admitted to the incident. According to a state database, listing employee titles and earnings, Dacunha made more than $95,000.00 in 2015 as a YSO for DCF. NBC Connecticut stopped by Dacunhas home, but nobody answered. His attorney, Peter Odlum of Bayer, Odlum and Hyde, told the Troublshooters he thinks the impersonation charge will be resolved. A statement released to the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters from a DCF spokesman read in part: The Department is investigating an employee for serious off duty misconduct in connection with an incident reported to us by the Hartford Police Department. The employee is currently on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation. While the incident under investigation is not connected to any children or any children that we serve, we expect that our employees will conduct themselves in a responsible manner at all times even when they are not at work. Ethan Couch, the Texas teenager who used an "affluenza" defense in a fatal drunken-driving crash, arrived at a Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Thursday morning following his deportation from Mexico earlier in the day, more than a month after he and his mother fled the U.S. as prosecutors investigated whether he had violated his probation. [[366864641,C]] Couch, who arrived at D/FW just before 11 a.m. aboard an AeroMexico Connection flight, could be seen walking through the airport escorted by law enforcement. Couch arrived at Lynn Ross Juvenile Detention Center in Fort Worth sometime before noon. Raw, compiled video of Ethan Couchs extradition from Mexico, his arrival at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and transport to a juvenile detention facility in Tarrant County. Couch was apprehended with his mother in the Mexican resort city of Puerto Vallarta on Dec. 28, after a call for delivery pizza tipped off authorities to their whereabouts. Authorities believe Couch and his mother fled Texas in her pickup truck after an online video appeared to show Ethan Couch at a party where people were drinking. Couch had been sentenced to 10 years' probation in juvenile court for the 2013 drunken-driving crash, and the terms prohibit him from drinking or leaving Tarrant County, Texas. Video released by Mexicos Instituto Nacional De Migracion shows affluenza teen Ethan Couch being put on a plane bound for Texas, Jan. 28, 2016. Ethan Couch, following extradition from Mexico, arrives at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. Ethan Couch, following extradition from Mexico, arrives at a juvenile detention center in Tarrant County, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. During the trial in that case, a defense witness argued that Couch had been coddled into a sense of irresponsibility by his wealthy parents, a condition the expert called "affluenza." The condition is not recognized as a medical diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association, and its use drew widespread derision. Couch initially fought deportation, but his attorneys recently dropped the fight. Uniformed Mexican immigration agents put Couch on a commercial flight from Mexico City to Texas on Thursday morning. Couch's mother, Tonya Couch, was quickly deported after she and her son were found in Mexico. She is charged with hindering the apprehension of a felon. She was released on bond in early January, after being fitted with an electronic ankle GPS monitor, to the home of another son. According to an arrest warrant, Tonya Couch is accused of telling her estranged husband, Fred Couch, that he would never see her or his son again before fleeing. A detention warrant was issued for Ethan Couch in December after he missed a meeting with his probation officer. Investigators said he appeared to have tried to disguise himself by dying his blond hair black and his beard brown when he and his mother were found in Mexico. Video released Thursday by the Mexican immigration institute showed Couch wearing a bluish camouflage-print hoodie, being escorted out of the detention center before dawn, and being escorted onto the plane by four agents. He had been in immigration custody for 28 days. Couch is seen with a full, light-brown beard on the institute's video, showing little emotion as he is placed aboard a pickup truck and driven out of the gated detention center. Couch's Mexican lawyer, Fernando Benitez, said Tuesday that Ethan Couch had formally ratified his decision to drop the appeal on Monday. Ethan Couch Put on Flight to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Thursday "I gave him several options, but he decided to go to Texas to face whatever charges he faces," Benitez said. Ethan Couch will be held in a juvenile detention center in Fort Worth, where a juvenile judge will hold a hearing to decide whether to continue to hold him there, book him in an adult jail or let him go, according to Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson. What Happens Next? On Thursday afternoon, Couch's attorneys released the following statement: As we previously indicated would happen, Ethan voluntarily returned to the United States today. As required by the Texas Family Code, the 323rd District Court will conduct a brief detention hearing tomorrow concerning Ethans status pending further proceedings in this case. We expect the Judge to order Ethan to remain in the Tarrant County Juvenile Detention Facility at this time. Now that Ethan is back in Tarrant County and will be personally present in court at the upcoming hearing on the States Motion to Transfer, we anticipate that the Court will lawfully transfer his probation to an appropriate Tarrant County District Court with adult criminal jurisdiction. Under the law, the transfer will become effective upon Ethans nineteenth birthday in April. We are optimistic that, going forward, Ethan will comply with all court-imposed terms and conditions and that he will successfully complete his term of probation. -- Scott Brown and Wm. Reagan Wynn Counsel for Ethan Couch A separate hearing is scheduled for Feb. 19 to determine whether Couch's case is transferred to the adult system. If it is transferred and Couch violates his probation again, he could face up to 10 years in prison for each person killed in the 2013 crash, a total of 40 years. Read more about what happens next in the Ethan Couch case, here. Arlington police are asking for the public's help to find the man who shot and killed a 26-year-old woman during an apparent road rage incident Wednesday night.[[366812391,C]] It happened just before 7:00 p.m. in the eastbound lanes of Interstate 30 between the Cooper Street and Center Street exits. Officials say Brittany Daniel and a friend were in her gray Honda Accord, driving from Fort Worth to Arlington, when they noticed a smaller, darker-colored, four-door passenger car driving aggressively behind them. "Unfortunately, the passenger didn't get a real good look at the car," said Lt. Chris Cook, spokesperson for the Arlington Police Department. "But she described them as driving pretty recklessly, zipping in and out of traffic." Cook says the car then pulled up alongside of them and a young man sitting in the rear passenger's seat rolled down his window. "He allegedly started yelling obscenities at the victim's car," said Cook. "[Daniel's] passenger told us there was some type of exchange between [Daniel] and this man while on the interstate. Then a few second later, she hears at least two gunshots." Arlington police say they need help finding a man who fatally shot a 26-year-old woman in an apparent road rage shooting Wednesday night. Cook says Daniel had been shot, but was able to pull the car off to the side of the road. That's when her friend called 911. Daniel was rushed to a nearby hospital, but died a short time later. "There was a lot of danger to the community, not just that vehicle," said Cook. "Those bullets could have gone anywhere. It was amazing that [Daniel] was able to get her car off the road so there wasn't a horrendous crash. This suspect is very dangerous. He needs to be off the street." Late Thursday afternoon, Oak Farms Dairy announced it was offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and successful grand jury indictment in this case. Police are urging anyone with information about the shooting to contact Det. Steve Griesbach at 817-459-5325 or Tarrant County Crime Stoppers at 817-469-TIPS (8477). NBC 5's Tim Ciesco contributed to this report. It was clear, even before it started, that Thursday night's Republican presidential debate would be dramatically different. GOP front-runner Donald Trump had voluntarily given up his regular place at center stage. He skipped the debate, preferring to mount a rally across town to punish Fox News Channel for "toying" with him. The billionaire businessman's absence was addressed early and then his Republican rivals quickly moved on, getting a far better opportunity to shine. Overall, the two-hour affair featured a sober tone focused more on substance than personality. There were exceptions, of course, as Ted Cruz defended his authenticity and Marco Rubio faced pointed questions on immigration. But just days before Iowa's leadoff caucuses, there were none of the breakout moments that have sometimes characterized the more colorful debates featuring Trump, battling Cruz for first place in the 2016 primary season's opening contest. Some takeaways from Thursday's Republican debate: __ ELEPHANT NOT IN THE ROOM Trump has repeatedly demonstrated his ability to dominate the stage. There is little doubt he helped his rivals by not showing up. He was mocked early and largely forgotten. Cruz set the tone with a sarcastic impression of his top rival: "I'm a maniac and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly," Cruz said. Then he thanked his fellow candidates for showing Iowa voters respect by showing up. "I kind of miss Donald Trump; he was a teddy bear to me," said former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a frequent target of Trump. Beyond a few playful jabs, the two-hour debate was a Trump-free zone, one of the few such events in the race so far. __ CRUZ THE FRONT-RUNNER Cruz fought to make sure he was positioned at center stage in Trump's absence. And he embraced the role of de facto front-runner at the outset, pointing out that he was being attacked by several rivals even before there were any pointed exchanges. Cruz later faced sharp questions on immigration, national security and, perhaps most importantly, whether he was trustworthy. Trust is the theme of the fiery conservative's campaign, and several candidates questioned his authenticity. "Ted, throughout this campaign, you've been willing to say or do anything in order to get votes," Rubio charged. Cruz fought back by accusing Rubio of bending to the will of donors on immigration. __ NO AMNESTY FOR RUBIO Rubio did not help himself among the conservatives who question his position on immigration. The issue is by far his greatest vulnerability as he tries to convince skeptical GOP activists that he doesn't support so-called amnesty. The debate moderators played a series of video clips highlighting Rubio's apparent shift on the issue, which put the first-term senator on the defensive at the outset of a key exchange. At best, Rubio may have clouded the issue of whether he had backed off his earlier calls for comprehensive legislation that includes a pathway to citizenship. But rival Jeb Bush seemed to get the best of him in an exchange in which Bush questioned Rubio's retreat on the issue. "You shouldn't cut and run," Bush charged. ___ BUSH CLOUDS LANE Bush repeatedly beat back questions about his long-term viability in the 2016 contest, insisting he has a path to the nomination and would ultimately defeat leading Democrat Hillary Clinton. "We're just starting. The first vote hasn't been counted. Why don't we let the process work?" Bush said. Overall, Bush had more success on the debate stage without having to contend with Trump. His strength and full-steam-ahead approach was a pointed reminder that the fight for the party's mainstream wing is far from over. Bush and Rubio are competing with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich to win over the GOP's centrist wing. Some party officials hoped Rubio would have emerged as the consensus choice by now. Bush defended rounds of anti-Rubio attack ads. "This is beanbag compared to what the Clinton hit machine is going to do to the Republican nominee," Bush said. ___ TRUMP'S COUNTERPROGRAMMING It was a risky move politically, but Donald Trump helped raise $6 million to benefit veterans at an event three miles away from the debate stage. Instead of going after his rivals on national television, Trump read out the names of wealthy friends who'd pledged major contributions to veterans' causes. When he announced he'd pledged $1 million himself, the crowd erupted into cheers. He explained to the Drake University crowd that he had little choice but to skip the debate. Trump admitted he didn't know if the decision would hurt him in the polls, but tried to cast it as a sign of strength. "You have to stick up for your rights. When you're treated badly, you have to stick up for your rights," he said. As for the debate, Trump predicted it would have far fewer viewers without him on the stage. That may be true, but Iowa voters will decide in four days whether Trump hurt his chances in the 2016 race simply to prove a point. A robber wearing a clown mask held up a San Bernardino, California, gas station at gunpoint Monday, and police say that business may not have been his first target of the night. About 10 p.m., surveillance cameras captured the man disguised as a clown robbing the Arco on Inland Center Driver with a semi-automatic handgun, according to the San Bernardino Police Department. The man then fled in a silver-colored Jeep police didn't say what he took from the store. Police say he's believed to be responsible for an attempted robbery earlier in the evening on E Street. Detectives are asking for the public's help in identifying the robber. He's described as 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighing 190 pounds. He was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, blue jeans and gray shoes. Anyone with information was asked to call detectives at 909-384-5665. LA County Sheriff Jim McDonnell and the Los Angeles Community College District announced a new safety plan Wednesday, which includes hiring seven additional sheriff's deputies to patrol campuses, in light of mass shootings like those at Santa Monica College and Umpqua College in Oregon. After a gunman killed four people and injured several others before police killed him at Santa Monica College in 2013, community college leaders took a hard look at campus safety. A team of experts came up with a plan to better protect students and teachers. LA officials are looking at the lessons learned from these shootings and developing a plan to try and prevent future school violence. "When it comes to mass violence it's not a matter of if, but when and where," McDonnell said. Another part of the plan is to bolster existing armed security officers. In a program that's the first of its kind, mental health professionals will be on campus to identify at-risk students. "We have to have resources to reach out to people in crisis and tell them, 'No, you don't need to pick up a gun and start shooting everybody in sight,'" Connie Rice, now a member of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Campus Safety, said. Another issue past shootings have highlighted for the committee are creating better communication channels between schools and local law enforcement. In the Santa Monica College shooting, gunman John Zawahri shot and killed his father and brother at their home before he traveled to the nearby campus. If college officials had been alerted, they might have been able to prepare for Zawahri's arrival. Students and teachers will be given access to active shooter training. Classrooms will be better secured with doors that lock from the inside, and technology experts will be brought in to identify internet threats. "It's one less weight on top of us knowing we're going to be a little safer here, and can focus more on school," Romel Lopez, an East LA College student, said. A $2 million emergency management center is set to be built to coordinate resources between all of the colleges and local officials. Gov. Jerry Brown's latest attempt to reduce the state prison population is a ballot initiative unveiled Wednesday that aims to free certain felons earlier and have fewer juveniles tried as adults. If California voters approve it in November, the measure would increase sentencing credits for inmates who complete rehabilitation programs, the Democratic governor said. The proposal would also allow nonviolent felons to seek parole after they have completed their base sentences and require judges instead of prosecutors to decide if juveniles should be tried in adult court. "This affects thousands of inmates and it is significant," Brown said on a conference call, backed by law enforcement officials and a representative of the Catholic church where Brown was once a seminarian. It would alter the framework he helped create when he was governor in the 1970s and 1980s, one that he said has become too "mechanical" with rigidly prescribed sentences and a "crazy quilt of many different credits" that help determine when inmates are released into society. The current system has produced unintended consequences, he said, including the removal of incentives for inmates to improve themselves. Some law enforcement officials were immediately skeptical, while reform advocates were jubilant, saying it would encourage prisoners to complete rehabilitation programs in hopes of obtaining earlier release. "Sheriffs are likely to have concerns," said California State Sheriffs' Association spokesman Cory Salzillo, though he said the group will study the proposal. Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck and San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis joined Brown on the conference call, along with representatives of the Chief Probation Officers of California. California currently keeps "the wrong people incarcerated for the wrong period of time," said Beck. "I think that this will effectively open up bed space for those who richly deserve to be there." Dumanis said the changes would encourage inmates to participate in rehabilitation programs that would make prisons and communities safer, where under current law "they get credit for breathing." Brown said the proposals build on federal court orders requiring California to reduce its prison population. "Some people will be alarmed and ask, 'Aren't we taking a risk by letting people out of prison before they've served all their time?' And that is a risk," said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor and former federal prosecutor. "But I think the governor is willing to make it because we can't put everyone in our prisons anymore." The governor, who is termed out of office in 2018, has $24 million in his campaign account that he can spend on political campaigns. He refused to say if he would use it for this campaign, citing the legal separation between government and politics. Brown's plan would allow nonviolent felons to seek parole after they have completed their base sentences, without enhancements for things such as gang involvement or firearms possession that can add years to a prison term. That is expected to make about 7,000 of the more than 127,000 inmates immediately eligible for parole hearings, according to those briefed on the governor's plan. Stanford Law professor Joan Petersilia said about 20,000 inmates are currently serving time for drug or property crimes and are the most likely candidates. "There's a lot of people who are labeled nbsp;as 'nonviolent' offenders, who in reality did something very detrimental to society, like selling a stolen weapon. So I think that, you know, I'll probably be having some conversations with the Governor in the near future to show him my concerns about this initiative," said Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Burbank. It also would require judges, instead of prosecutors, to decide if juveniles should be tried in adult court. Prosecutors currently decide each year to send about 600 juveniles to adult courts for trial. That gives them "an enormous amount of power" that should be reserved for impartial judges, said Lizzie Buchen, an advocate with the reform group Californians United for a Responsible Budget. But she was skeptical of giving increased discretion to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to award more sentencing credits. The department already has that authority and hasn't done enough with it, she said, while Brown's entire proposal should also be applied to violent and serious offenders. Brown said he considered including violent and serious felons, but "it became a nonstarter" in discussions with law enforcement officials. The initiative that Brown is proposing would further reduce the state's prison population, which is under a cap ordered by a panel of three federal judges with backing from the U.S. Supreme Court. The state is currently under the head count limit thanks in part to voter-approved ballot measures that reduced penalties for career criminals and those convicted of certain drug and property crimes. But that population is expected to grow again, and the state is making do now by sending inmates to out-of-state prisons and keeping them in rundown facilities within California. Lawmakers split on the proposal. "Weakening the criminal justice system will only increase the victimization of California citizens," state Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, who previously headed the state parole board, said in a statement. But Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, said Brown's proposal tracks a national movement to reduce mass incarceration and could free up funds for education, health care and other voter priorities. "We've had a mammoth prison system sucking up the money that could go to those things," she said. Three inmates who escaped from a Southern California jail are still missing, though authorities have made five arrests as part of the investigation, Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens said Wednesday afternoon. Jonathan Tieu, 20, Bac Duong, 43, and Hossein Nayeri, 37, were awaiting trials for unrelated violent crimes when they vanished Jan. 22 from a Santa Ana jail dormitory they shared with about 65 other men at the Orange County Men's Central Jail. Their disappearance wasn't discovered until about 15 hours later. "It's every sheriff's nightmare. You never want to have an escape from any jail. They do happen and you certainly don't want maximum security prisoners who are a danger to the public to get out of your jail. So it's not a good day," Hutchens said. Around 30 warrants had been served since the escape was discovered. Those warrants were served and homes and used to search electronic devices, such as computers and phones. Five arrests have been made as part of the investigation, Hutchens said, but she declined to give details. She said others are likely in coming days. The men are believed to have escaped shortly after a 5 a.m. physical body count, one of two that take place each day at the jail. The disappearance wasn't discovered until about 9 p.m., during the second daily headcount, which was to have started at 8 p.m. but was delayed by an altercation possibly staged to help delay discovery of the escape, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Department. "I am troubled by the amount of time it took us to discover that three inmates from our maximum security jail were unaccounted for such a long period of time. We have taken immediate steps to rectify that by changing our count procedures and tightening up in other areas," Hutchens said. Authorities were continuing to investigate whether other inmates had a hand in the escape, notably through the altercation that delayed the 8 p.m. body count. Hutchens said she believes others were involved in the escape. "Certainly believe there was outside help, looking at possibility of inside help," she said. "I believe they had outside help." The men cut through a steel grate, half-inch steel bars and plumbing tunnels early Friday before making their way to an unsecured part of the jail's roof and using makeshift ropes to rappel several floors to the ground. The tools used to cut through the bars have not been recovered, Hutchens said. Nayeri, of Newport Beach, was in custody on kidnapping and torture charges for the abduction of a marijuana clinic owner who Nayeri allegedly drove to the desert and burned with a blowtorch. The victim, his attackers thought he had stashed money in the desert, was also sexually mutilated, prosecutors said. Nayeri fled the United States to Iran. Authorities do not have extradition agreements with Iran, where Nayeri has family, so investigators used a ruse to get him to the Czech Republic, which is more cooperative with the U.S. for extraditing fugitives, according to Senior Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy. Nayeri was arrested in Prague while changing flights from Iran to Spain to visit family, Murphy said. Hutchens said Wednesday she believes Nayeri to be the mastermind behind the escape, given his backround. She called him "more sophisticated" that the other two missing inmates. Tieu, of Fountain Valley, faces murder and attempted murder charges in connection with a gang hit, prosecutors said, and Bac Duong, of Santa Ana, faces an attempted murder charge and was being held without bail on an immigration hold pending a possible federal deportation hearing. Duong was ordered deported from the United States in 1998, but remained in the country. His appeal was dismissed and Duong was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in 2003, but later released on an order of supervision. He complied with that order until August 2014, according to ICE, which lodged a detainer against him following his Orange County arrest and sought notification before his release. A central Florida corrections deputy accused of illegally recording his colleagues' phone conversations has been arrested and will likely lose his job. The Seminole County Sheriff's Office reported Wednesday that Michael Ryan has been charged with three counts of illegal interception of communication. Authorities say Ryan, a field training supervisor at the county jail, told a lieutenant that he had recorded phone conversations where he relieved two detention deputes of field training positions. He was immediately suspended, and an investigation found that he had installed an app on his work phone that recorded conversations with seven sheriff's office employees without their consent. Ryan was booked into jail and later released on $9,000 bail. The sheriff's office has given him a notice of termination. Jail records didn't list an attorney. The campaign for Ann Roe, who is running for Congress against Lyin' Bryan Steil has come out with the best one-liner of this cycle so far: I can't argue... 11 months ago Kim Richards is returning to reality TV. And this time, she's bringing her daughter Kimberly Jackson along. E! News has learned that the former "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star and her youngest child will be one of six mother-daughter pairs profiled on Lifetime's new reality series, "The Mother/Daughter Experiment: Celebrity Edition." The show will premiere March 1 at 10 p.m. on the network, when the six pairs will attempt to repair their broken relationships by airing all their dirty laundry. They'll be under the guidance of therapist Dr. Debbie Magids as they undergo therapy. Richards and Jackson will work on their bond alongside "The Hills" alum Heidi Pratt and her mother, Darlene Egelhoff, who were estranged for two years and are finally ready to address their problems. Egelhoff blames her daughter's fame-seeking ways and husband Spencer Pratt for the rift, while Pratt feels that her mother betrayed her in the media. Courtney Stodden, who married 51-year-old Doug Hutchison when she was 16, thinks her mom, Krista Stodden, used her for fame. They're reunited on the show after six months of separation, and Krista will spill a major secret about her relationship with Hutchison--she fell in love with him! The other three mother/daughter duos include "Bad Girls Club's" Natalie Nunn and her mom, Karen; Shar Jackson (yes, the former Mrs. Kevin Federline) and her daughter, Cassie; and "Hollywood Exes'" Jessica Canseco, who is trying to lay down the law after daughter Josie's recent DUI arrest. PHOTOS: Real Housewives of Beverly Hills OMG moments CLICK: Kim Richards Reveals Everything Is Good With Her Sobriety Oscar winner Cate Blanchett, whose role in the film Carol earned her a nomination in the best actress category again this year, will return to the New York stage this winter to make her Broadway debut in "The Present," Andrew Uptons adaptation of Anton Chekhovs first play Platonov. Joining Blanchett is fellow Aussie Richard Roxburgh, known for his role in the Australian TV series Rake. Roxburgh will also be making his Broadway debut in the production. No opening dates, theatre or additional casting has been announced yet. John Crowley will direct. The Present tells the story of a group of friends who gather at an old country house in the mid 1990s to celebrate the birthday of widow AnnaPetrovna (Blanchett). Tensions boil between AnnaPetrovna and Platonov (Roxburgh) with whom she shares, according to the release, 20 years of denial, regret and thwarted desire. The production transfers following a critically acclaimed, sold-out engagement in Sydney, Australia. It will be presented by the Sydney Theatre Company, of which Blanchett and Upton once served as co-Artistic Directors. Previously, Blanchett and Roxburugh appeared together in a Sydney Theater Companys production of Uncle Vanya at New York City Center, which was presented as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. Blanchett has also brought Sydney Theatre Companys productions of Hedda Gabler, A Streetcar Named Desire and The Maids to New York though never to Broadway. Naval tests with fancy jets were likely responsible for shaking homes up and down the New Jersey Coast multiple times Thursday afternoon leading to police begging people to stop calling 911 as they awaited word on what caused the tremors.[[366896251, C]] NBC10 Philadelphias own Ted Greenberg was one of the many people in Atlantic County and other New Jersey counties who felt something around 1:30 p.m. [[366879811, C]] There were fears of an earthquake and Hamilton Township Police reported that they received numerous calls about the shaking and asked people to only call 911 if they had an actual emergency. [[366879401, C]] Eventually, the National Weather Service in Mount Holly reported the incidents to be caused by a sonic boom. [[366885451, C]] Dr. Mitchell Gold at Columbia's Lamont Doherty Cooperative Seismographic Network told NBC New York that it didn't look seismic based on the seismographs and also leaned toward a sonic boom being the culprit for the shaking. A few minutes later, the U.S. Geological Survey centered the shaking near Trenton Road (U.S. Route 206) in Hammonton, Atlantic County -- not far from tiny Hammonton Municipal Airport -- at 1:24 p.m. and called it a "probable sonic boom" that caused shaking over a series of time. [[366888181, C]] Officials from the Navy said the sonic booms were caused by military fighter jets conducting tests around 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. An F-35C, which has a top speed of nearly 1,200 mph, and an F-18 from Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland were conducting supersonic testing off the coast Thursday afternoon, according to a Navy spokeswoman. Navy spokeswoman Connie Hempel said supersonic tests flights are done almost daily in the same area but that most sonic booms aren't felt on land. They are conducted offshore in an area called the Test Track, parallel to the coast of the Delmarva Peninsula which is occupied by Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. Certain atmospheric conditions can increase the chance of hearing the booms. Residents in Margate and Egg Harbor reported feeling the shaking -- as did people as far away as Leesburg in Cumberland County; Lakewood, Ocean County; and even Amityville on Long Island. [[366882531, C]] Different shakes kept being felt on and off, said people in various towns. Greenberg reported feeling more rattling around 2, 2:15 and 2:25 p.m. [[366881881, C]] The booms were heard as far away as Connecticut. Police in Barnegat Township, Ocean County blamed a crack in the Sheetrock of a home on Susan Drive on rattling. There weren't any other reports of damage and no reports of injuries. Toms River, Ocean County, police also asked that people not call 911 and said they had received various reports of "earthquake-type-feel" shaking around 2:20 p.m. "It almost sounded like an airplane was coming and then the whole house was shaking," said Angel Itri, who was house and babysitting along Pomona Road in Galloway, Atlantic County at the time. "We heard something like a boom or like a swishing sound and then the whole house, the windows were shaking." Itri and her friend felt that boom twice in about 10 minutes then another eight times after that. A geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey said there were nine total booms. Bruce Presgrave said recordings show they occurred over the span of 90 minutes. "A sonic boom is the thunder-like noise a person on the ground hears when an aircraft or other type of aerospace vehicle flies overhead faster than the speed of sound or supersonic," explains NASA. "Air reacts like a fluid to supersonic objects. As objects travel through the air, the air molecules are pushed aside with great force and this forms a shock wave much like a boat creates a bow wave. The bigger and heavier the aircraft, the more air it displaces." [[238427591, C]] There were no reports of planned military training Thursday and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst says they had nothing going on Thursday. And Dover Air Force Base in Delaware said it has no aircraft capable of producing a sonic boom and had no planes flying in the area Thursday. After a sonic boom in South Carolina Wednesday, College of Charleston Department of Geology associate professor Dr. Erin Beutel said sonic booms "are perceived by the people on the ground differently under different atmospheric conditions. "It can also take between 2-60 seconds after the plane passes through for the boom to be heard, and over the ocean, the pressure wave can travel further and be heard by more people than on land," said Beutel. Besides sonic booms and quakes, other things such as big trucks, military exercises and noisy machinery have also been known to cause shaking. The Department of Defense employs a hotline for noise disturbances for the Naval Air Station in Patuxent River. Questions can be referred to 866-819-9028. Did you feel the shaking? Please share your experience in the comment section. A federal panel that has recently criticized efforts to cut back on painkiller prescriptions is studded with members who have financial ties to drug companies. Nearly a third of members on the Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee have financial connections to makers of opioid drugs like OxyContin. The government advisory panel consists of federal scientists, outside academics and patient representatives. Of the 18 committee members at a recent meeting to discuss the government's handling of pain issues, at least five had drug-industry connections. One, a pain specialist from Duke University, has received thousands of dollars in payments from drugmakers, including OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma and Teva Pharmaceuticals, which sells generic painkillers. Another, a patient advocate, holds a nonprofit position created by a $1.5 million donation by Purdue. The revelation comes after the committee last month bashed a federal plan to recommend doctors scale back on prescribing painkillers for chronic pain. The guidelines by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are intended to curb deadly overdoses tied to powerful but highly-addictive opioid drugs, including Percocet and Vicodin. At the time, various committee members called the proposal "ridiculous," ''horrible," and "shortsighted." A week later, the CDC said it would seek more public input on its guidelines which were largely written behind closed doors. The apparent conflicts of interest on the panel underscore the pervasive reach of pharmaceutical-industry dollars, even among federal advisers who are supposed to be carefully vetted for such connections before serving. Financial payments from drugmakers have been shown to shape doctors' medical decisions and researchers' conclusions. Concerns about that influence led the federal government to begin posting drug-industry payments to doctors in 2014. Industry critics say the panelists should have disclosed their financial ties publicly at the meeting on Dec. 3, and in some cases, recused themselves from the discussion. Dr. Michael Carome of Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog group that is not connected to the panel, said the conflicts "reflect failings of the federal staff" who vetted the panelists. "It corrupted the process, or gives the perception of corrupting the process," he said. A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement that all current members of the panel "have met the criteria for membership, including disclosure requirements." The National Institutes of Health, where the panel convenes, said it cannot release the financial disclosure forms completed by the panelists, even under the Freedom of Information Act. "This is exactly the type of information that should be made available to the public," said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, co-founder of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, which advocates reducing painkiller use. The group is backed by Phoenix House, a network of rehabilitation clinics. One committee member who led the criticism of the CDC guidelines was Dr. Richard Payne of Duke University. At the Dec. 3 meeting, Payne questioned whether the experts who had helped draft the CDC guidelines may have been disproportionately biased against drug therapy. "Were there any conflicts of interest beyond just financial but conflicts of interests in terms of biases, intellectual conflicts that needed to be disclosed?" Payne asked. But Payne himself has financial links to multiple drug companies. Between 2013 and 2014 he received more than $8,660 in speaking fees, meals, travel accommodations and other payments from pain drugmakers, according to federal records. More than half of that amount came from Purdue Pharma, whose long-acting painkiller, OxyContin, had sales over $2.5 billion in 2014. Payne said in an interview with The Associated Press that as a professor, he does not regularly treat patients or prescribe medications. "I've disclosed the educational activities I've done and who paid for them," he said. Payne also holds a chair at the Center for Practical Bioethics, a Kansas City nonprofit with longstanding ties to Purdue, Teva, Endo Pharmaceuticals and other drugmakers. In total, the Center for Practical Bioethics says drug and device companies have contributed about 4 to 5 percent of its funding in the last four years, though the center does not publish specific donation amounts. The center also employs another panelist, Myra Christopher, who took the lead in outlining how the committee should respond to the CDC guidelines, saying "we have sufficient concerns about the work that's been done and the negative impact it will have on our charge and mission; we would ask them to delay their timeline." Christopher holds the center's Kathleen M. Foley Chair for Pain and Palliative Care, named for a prominent pain physician. The chair was created through a $1.5 million initial gift from Purdue Pharma in 2009. At that time Christopher was CEO of the center. Christopher, whose term on the panel expired at the end of 2015, according to the government, said in an interview she received "very comprehensive" vetting to serve on the panel. It's not clear financial ties like those between Christopher and Purdue would appear on government disclosure forms, which focus on individual's finances and payments, not employers. At least three other panelists at the December meeting also work for nonprofits that receive pharmaceutical-company funding: The U.S. Pain Foundation, the American Chronic Pain Association and the Chronic Pain Research Alliance. Purdue Pharma gives money to all three groups. For now, the CDC continues to review its prescribing guidelines. On Thursday, the agency will hear recommendations from a group of outside advisers on how to proceed. As for the federal pain panel, at the conclusion of last month's meeting, members agreed to send CDC a "formal critique," of the guidelines. That document is still being written, according to panelists. Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton arrived in Philadelphia Wednesday to meet with African American ministers and also to hold a fundraiser. Clinton first paid a visit to Mother Bethel A.M.E. church in Society Hill where she spoke with African American ministers from across the country, including Mother Bethels reverend Mark Kelly Tyler. Clinton discussed criminal justice reform, jobs, equal pay and womens health. Clinton also told the ministers, I want to be your partner, not just your president. Reverend Tyler told NBC10 Clinton has his support. Im not saying that Im voting for her just because shes a woman but Im certainly voting for her because shes qualified, shes capable, shes ready to lead and the fact that shes a woman is a plus, Reverend Tyler said. We need to diversify our country. After meeting with the ministers, Clinton attended a private fundraiser event at the Franklin Square Capital Partners building in South Philadelphia. Clinton is currently locked in a tight contest in Mondays Iowa caucuses with fellow Democratic presidential nominee Bernie Sanders. Both are hoping to be the nominee that democrats choose in six months at the Wells Fargo Center during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Tourism officials estimate a $300 million economic impact from the convention. Were expecting anywhere from 35,000 to 50,000 attendees, said Julie Coker-Graham of the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau (PHLCVB). Mayor Jim Kenney told NBC10 the city is already planning for the event with the Secret Service and the FBI. He also said however it would be a much smaller event than the Papal visit last year. Its not going to be a lockdown, Kenney said. As a matter of fact this is going to be an opportunity for our restaurants and our other night life and our other brew pubs and bars and restaurants to shine and make some money. Naval tests with fancy jets were likely responsible for shaking homes up and down the New Jersey Coast multiple times Thursday afternoon leading to police begging people to stop calling 911 as they awaited word on what caused the tremors.[[366896251, C]] NBC10 Philadelphias own Ted Greenberg was one of the many people in Atlantic County and other New Jersey counties who felt something around 1:30 p.m. [[366879811, C]] There were fears of an earthquake and Hamilton Township Police reported that they received numerous calls about the shaking and asked people to only call 911 if they had an actual emergency. [[366879401, C]] Eventually, the National Weather Service in Mount Holly reported the incidents to be caused by a sonic boom. [[366885451, C]] UPDATE: US military officials: F-35C Joint Strike Fighter jet created a number of sonic booms during flight tests off NJ coast Thursday. NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) January 28, 2016 Dr. Mitchell Gold at Columbia's Lamont Doherty Cooperative Seismographic Network told NBC New York that it didn't look seismic based on the seismographs and also leaned toward a sonic boom being the culprit for the shaking. A few minutes later, the U.S. Geological Survey centered the shaking near Trenton Road (U.S. Route 206) in Hammonton, Atlantic County -- not far from tiny Hammonton Municipal Airport -- at 1:24 p.m. and called it a "probable sonic boom" that caused shaking over a series of time. [[366888181, C]] Officials from the Navy said the sonic booms were caused by military fighter jets conducting tests around 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. An F-35C, which has a top speed of nearly 1,200 mph, and an F-18 from Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland were conducting supersonic testing off the coast Thursday afternoon, according to a Navy spokeswoman. Navy spokeswoman Connie Hempel said supersonic tests flights are done almost daily in the same area but that most sonic booms aren't felt on land. They are conducted offshore in an area called the Test Track, parallel to the coast of the Delmarva Peninsula which is occupied by Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. Certain atmospheric conditions can increase the chance of hearing the booms. Residents in Margate and Egg Harbor reported feeling the shaking -- as did people as far away as Leesburg in Cumberland County; Lakewood, Ocean County; and even Amityville on Long Island. [[366882531, C]] Different shakes kept being felt on and off, said people in various towns. Greenberg reported feeling more rattling around 2, 2:15 and 2:25 p.m. [[366881881, C]] The booms were heard as far away as Connecticut. Police in Barnegat Township, Ocean County blamed a crack in the Sheetrock of a home on Susan Drive on rattling. There weren't any other reports of damage and no reports of injuries. Toms River, Ocean County, police also asked that people not call 911 and said they had received various reports of "earthquake-type-feel" shaking around 2:20 p.m. "It almost sounded like an airplane was coming and then the whole house was shaking," said Angel Itri, who was house and babysitting along Pomona Road in Galloway, Atlantic County at the time. "We heard something like a boom or like a swishing sound and then the whole house, the windows were shaking." Itri and her friend felt that boom twice in about 10 minutes then another eight times after that. A geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey said there were nine total booms. Bruce Presgrave said recordings show they occurred over the span of 90 minutes. "A sonic boom is the thunder-like noise a person on the ground hears when an aircraft or other type of aerospace vehicle flies overhead faster than the speed of sound or supersonic," explains NASA. "Air reacts like a fluid to supersonic objects. As objects travel through the air, the air molecules are pushed aside with great force and this forms a shock wave much like a boat creates a bow wave. The bigger and heavier the aircraft, the more air it displaces." [[238427591, C]] There were no reports of planned military training Thursday and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst says they had nothing going on Thursday. And Dover Air Force Base in Delaware said it has no aircraft capable of producing a sonic boom and had no planes flying in the area Thursday. After a sonic boom in South Carolina Wednesday, College of Charleston Department of Geology associate professor Dr. Erin Beutel said sonic booms "are perceived by the people on the ground differently under different atmospheric conditions. "It can also take between 2-60 seconds after the plane passes through for the boom to be heard, and over the ocean, the pressure wave can travel further and be heard by more people than on land," said Beutel. Besides sonic booms and quakes, other things such as big trucks, military exercises and noisy machinery have also been known to cause shaking. The Department of Defense employs a hotline for noise disturbances for the Naval Air Station in Patuxent River. Questions can be referred to 866-819-9028. Did you feel the shaking? Please share your experience in the comment section. Rocky Mountain Movies & Denver Movie Review FOR MOVIE LOVERS WHO AREN'T EASILY SWEPT AWAY The FBI arrested three more people who occupied a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon, including the group's new leader, after the original ringleaders were detained on a highway the previous day, NBC News reported. Jason S. Patrick, 43, turned himself in at a checkpoint Wednesday evening and later, Duane Leo Ehmer, 45, of Irrigon, Oregon, and Dylan Wade Anderson, 34, of Provo, Utah, were arrested after leaving the compound, the FBI said. It was unclear how many people were still inside the wildlife building. The arrests came after Ryan and Ammon Bundy, two leaders of the group that occupied the refuge on Jan. 2, were among five people detained in a traffic stop on Highway 395 while they were on their way to a public meeting. Another of the de facto spokesmen, 54-year-old LaVoy Finicum, was shot and killed after exiting a vehicle and "brandishing a firearm," authorities said. Bundy asked the remaining occupiers on a federal wildlife in Oregon to "go home and hug your families," NBC News reported. After going missing early this morning, Delaware Sen. Chris Coons stolen SUV was located by police in Wilmington. Coons' wife was in for an unpleasant surprise when she left the family car warming up outside their Delaware home and returned to find it was gone. Police told NBC10 Philadelphia at around 5 p.m. that they located the missing SUV along with another missing vehicle near the intersection of 5th and Cleveland Streets in Wilmington. When police cut off the vehicles, police said six to eight people bailed out of the two vehicles and fled. The senator and his family are OK, Coons spokesman Sean Coit said. Coons had already left for the day when the theft took place.[[366901811, C]] Around 7 p.m. a statement from Senator Coons and his wife was posted to the Senator's official twitter account expressing gratitude to the Wilmington Police Department for recovering their stolen SUV and the other stolen vehicle. [[366936031, C]] The Delaware Democrat's family SUV was stolen from his Wilmington home. Wilmington police spokeswoman Sgt. Andrea Janvier said the black Ford Explorer with at least one Coons sticker on the back was stolen Thursday morning after it was left running with the keys in the ignition. Janvier said details were broadcast to all units shortly after the incident and then entered into a state system that alerts all jurisdictions in the area. The senator had a "sweet" sense of humor about the theft. [[366893211, C]] Police said it's legal in Delaware to warm your car on your own property but they advise against doing it. No arrests were made in the recovery of the Senator's SUV, and police said it sustained no apparent damage. A LEAP YEAR... is a pretty quirky happening, an every-four-years to-do that sends those who are into calendars in a considerable way into a happy tizzy. There are so many factoids surrounding the 29th day of February, from famous birthdays (Dinah Shore and Jimmy Dorsey both were born on the day) to all of the lucky traditions you're supposed to participate in, the kind of observances that take on more weight for a few scant hours before March begins. If you're feeling especially quirky and lucky come the day, best be on the lookout for those businesses honoring the rare occasion. L.E. Hotels is making the mirthful most out of the day, which is no surprise, as "Leap Year" and "L.E. Hotels" both start with the very same letters. It's almost a mystical coincidence, in fact, and since Feb. 29 is one of our most mystical days, best check out the "29"-themed specials and perks the Los Angeles-based company is offering at its properties. THOSE PERKS 'N QUIRKS... aren't the same across the board, so if you're hoping to bed down at Creekside Inn in Palo Alto or Hotel Los Gatos in Los Gatos or the Luxe Rodeo Drive Hotel in the thrumming heart of Beverly Hills, best take a peeksie to see just what a Leap Year stay will bring. (Yes, we said "peeksie," and we stand by it; this is the quirkiest of days, as has been determined.) The Empress Hotel in La Jolla's sweet deal is "(s)tay two nights and receive $29 off your first night" while The Bristol Hotel in San Diego is all about a savings of $20.16 on your first night with continental breakfast and wifi access as part of the deal. Leap Year, let it be said, is the important thing to keep in mind here, so if you already have your Feb. 29 plans booked solid, you can still do an L.E. Hotel getaway during 2016 and score one of those discounts (note some hotel deals are solely about Feb. 29 and some will last the year through). WANT TO EYE... the whole list, which includes international properties? Leap, with enthusiasm, into your leap year travel plans now. HAIL TO THE CHIEF: If a celebrated stay-over spot has seen a few decades, chances are that at least a few of its rooms bear either the name of a famous guest or have a story attached. That's true for many California and West Coast hotels, thanks in large part to the number of actors who called the hotels home during on-location shoots. But what of presidential guests and the Golden State? Well, we've had a few presidents call California home, of course, and candidates do travel through quite often. But finding presidential-themed rooms in a landmark isn't quite the common thing it is around our nation's capital and the East Coast at large. There is a prominent exception here, a hotel so major that it served as the location for a recent president's honeymoon getaway, not to mention that it also boasts a piece of lobby furniture related to an earlier Commander in Chief. We speak of the Mission Inn, that castle-like, turrets-and-passages destination known for its holiday lights, its European aesthetic, and its Alhambra Presidential Suite. It's the same suite where Ronald and Nancy Reagan honeymooned, and guests may book it for their own stay. Which they do, frequently, especially when Presidents Day is on the horizon. MONDAY, FEB. 15... is the date of the patriotic, history-filled holiday in 2016, and the Riverside hotel's Live Like a President package includes an overnight in the Alhambra Presidential Suite, a VIP tour of the rambling, trivia-filled hotel, and dinner at Duane's Prime Steaks & Seafood (plus a spa treatment at Kelly's Spa). You can also call upon the Presidential Lounge for a special presidential-themed cocktail (several are named after past White House denizens). What to discuss while you sip? How that's the very room where Richard and Pat Nixon exchanged their wedding vows back in 1940. Hotels may have had presidents on their guest roster before, but to claim a honeymoon, and wedding, within your walls, is a big deal. Be sure, during your Mission Inn sojourn, to visit the President Taft chair in the lobby, near the hotel bar. It's a handsome piece of furniture, and, like so much else at the hotel, full of lore and history, both. WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE PACKAGE? Call the Mission Inn at 951-784-0300. The Live Like a President package is available from Feb. 13 through 15, 2016. More than 60 people packed a courtroom Wednesday for a hearing that will determine whether there is enough evidence to order a former Los Angeles police officer to stand trial for the shooting death of a man after a fistfight in a Pomona bar last year. Henry Solis, 28, is accused of fleeing to Mexico after the March 13 killing of Salome Rodriguez Jr., 23. "It's important for us to be here so that they know he has family," Lidia Rodriguez, mother of the victim, said. "He has a mom and a dad to be at his side even if he is not here." Police said Solis and Rodriguez got into a fight in a bar, and the confrontation spilled into the street, ending in gunfire. Solis is charged with one count each of murder and assault with a firearm, along with an allegation that he personally discharged a handgun. The courtroom was filled to capacity at Wednesday's hearing and included the victim's parents. Witnesses included a nightclub worker who was a friend of Rodriguez. The medical examiner, Ogbonna Chinwah, who performed the autopsy on Rodriguez testified Wednesday. When asked by the defense if Rodriguez's body showed evidence that he had been in a fist fight, he said no. Two women, who were to remain unidentified per court request, testified that they had been with Rodriguez the night he was killed. They recalled watching him leave the nightclub with a friend, and did not know until several hours later that he had died. Rodriguez's parents, who called their son "Junior," said it was an incredibly hard day in court. "I don't know why but I don't hate this man if he killed Junior," Lidia, the victim's mother, said through tears. "That's why I ask Junior and God: 'Could I forgive this person in time?'" Solis was off-duty and a probationary officer in the LAPD's Devonshire Division in the San Fernando Valley at the time of the crime. He was fired by the department soon after becoming the subject of an extensive manhunt. His father, Victor, drove Solis out of state and later told federal authorities that he had simply dropped his son off at a Texas bus stop. The pair, however, were caught on surveillance video walking across the Mexico border. Solis was arrested May 26 by Mexican authorities in the border city of Juarez and deported to the United States. He had been staying with relatives in the Juarez area before his arrest, FBI officials said. Special Agent Scott Garriola said Solis was "moved from one house to another" to help him avoid capture. Victor Solis, 53, was convicted by a federal jury in El Paso of lying to the FBI about helping his son escape. He was sentenced to three years probation and a $1,000 fine. The trial was set to continue Thursday, and as many as 15 witnesses were expected to be called. Lolita Lopez contributed to this article. The federal government has joined the San Diego Police Department and the city of San Diego in arguing certain information about the use of stingray technology shouldnt be provided to the public. Although the United States is not a party to this case, it has a direct interest in the protection of the information withheld by the SDPD, Department of Justice Attorney Marcia Sowles said, according to a Statement of Interest filed by the DOJ on behalf of the federal government. At the center of the argument is the stingray, a technology which allows law enforcement agencies like the SDPD to create fake cell sites that mimic cellphone towers, allowing police to capture information transmitted over the cell system. The First Amendment Coalition of California is trying to compel the SDPD to provide more information about how the agency uses the stingray technology. The filing is the latest maneuver in the running legal battle. The SDPD has responded to California Open Records Act requests by the nonprofit with pages of redactions. Local court hearings have sided with the department on the disclosure issues. The case is currently being heard by San Diego County Superior Judge Judith Hayes. An invoice released to the coalition showed the city paid $365,000 for its stingray. In our society we dont allow our police to operate in total secrecy, the coalitions attorney, Kelly Aviles, told NBC 7. That has been the case with this stingray technology. For a long time it operated without the public even knowing it was used. On the other side of the argument is FBI Special Agent Bradley Morrison, a member of the agency's Tracking Technology Unit. In an affidavit accompanying the filing he said, cell site simulator technology provides valuable assistance in support of important public safety objectives. According to Morrison, the technology helps apprehend fugitives, provides information for complex drug investigations and can help lead to the rescue of kidnapped children. Its also an important tool in the Federal Government's efforts to protect and defend the United States against terrorism and other threats to our national security, he said. The filing from DOJ attorney Sowles also included reasons why the SDPDs information should be withheld, the primary one being because it is sensitive in nature. She said this includes the specifications and capabilities of the site simulator systems as well as the techniques and tradecraft employed in operating cell site simulator equipment. According to Sowles, the release of the information would allow criminals and terrorists to piece together information about cell site simulators' use and capabilities and thereby develop methods to evade them. Click here to read the Statement of Interest of the United States. Aviles said counter measures for the technology already exist, including a mobile app that alerts people when the simulator is being used and a cellphone case that blocks the simulators access. Criminals are no doubt aware of these options, Aviles said. Its innocent citizens who arent aware their information is being gathered," she said. To insure we have adequate safeguards for people who are innocent and not the subject of criminal investigations, we have to be able to have information about the technology in order to have an intelligent debate about the technology. Also included in the DOJ filing is a reference to a non-disclosure agreement with the FBI, signed by the SDPD. Without this agreement, Sowles said, the department could not buy the simulator equipment. Part of that agreement includes this section: The San Diego Police Department will, at the request of the FBI, seek dismissal of the case in lieu of using or providing, or allowing others to use or provide, any information concerning the Harris Corporation wireless collection equipment/technology, its associated software, operating manuals and any related documentation (beyond the evidentiary results obtained through the use of the equipment/technology), if using or providing such information would potentially or actually compromise the equipment/technology. This point supposes that the agency has some control or influence over the prosecutorial process. Where such is not the case, or is limited so as to be inconsequential, it is the FBI's expectation that the law enforcement agency identify the applicable prosecuting agency, or agencies, for inclusion in this agreement. California Senator Marty Block will not seek reelection leaving his 39th District seat open for fellow-Democrat Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins. Block announced his decision Thursday months after Atkins publicly announced she was running for his seat. The two Democrats disagreed over whether Block was stepping aside to let the speaker take his district before she terms out of the Assembly in late 2016. Atkins said Block told her long ago he wouldn't run for re-election after his first term. He claims he never promised that. Block told NBC 7 he decided not to run for the seat after three debates last week with Atkins. He said he believes he won all three debates but it became clear to him that he and Atkins share the same philosophies "If Toni wants to pick up the mantel now and run with it, she can," Block told NBC 7. Block said he still has 10 months left to his term. Hes served in elected office for 24 years including 10 in the legislature. An attorney, Block said he will be announcing his next steps in the near future. Chances are it will have something to do with higher education. Mickey Kasparian, President of the UFCW Local 135 described Block as an outstanding public servant. He has always put his constituents first. His decision today to unify the Democratic Party is another example of his strong leadership, Kasparian said. Francine Busby, Chair of the San Diego Democratic Party, did not yet return a request for comment. Before Block's announcement, she repeatedly lamented that two Democrats were wasting resources running against each other and creating inter-party infighting. State Senate races often fly under media radar, but one here in San Diego is now shaping up to be personal among Democrats. Its getting attention all the way to Sacramento. NBC 7s Gene Cubbison has the scoop on the early sizeup. Police surveillance of Ocean Beach will soon be implemented despite efforts by some residents to block the program. The plans architect, District 2 Councilmember Lori Zapf, was confronted for the first time Wednesday by those that oppose installation of the police cameras. The cameras will record activity on the boardwalk and beaches 24 hours a day from the OB Pier to Dog Beach. Those who oppose them say Zapf has turned a deaf ear to their concerns. Police surveillance cameras were not on the agenda at Wednesday night's OB Town Council meeting but because Zapf was attending, residents took the opportunity to share their concerns. Ocean Beach is the best beach community and we're doing just fine without cameras, opposition organizer Rick Callejon said. Callejon and other opponents want the plan put to a vote. They accused Zapf of ignoring opposition concerns and not attending an open form. Actually I don't remember that meeting, Zapf said. Let us know why this was fast tracked through without the planning board, one resident asked. Zapf assured residents that the surveillance project was no secret. Nothing was snuck in anywhere. It was very open. I was responding to the request to the community, Zapf said. The councilmember believes OB needs to be safer and credits the San Diego Police for the 24-hour monitoring idea. These cameras are a huge deterrent. There will be surveillance signs, Zapf said. Ocean Beach enjoys an unbridled and free-spirited reputation. Zapf said she was not persuaded by what was said at Wednesday night's town council. She refers to the opposition as the few and expects the cameras will go up in just three weeks. Some of San Diegos top professional chefs will serve as judges Thursday for the 12th Annual Teen Iron Chef Competition showcasing up-and-coming culinary talent. The cooking competition now in its 12th year will feature teams of high school students from San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) Culinary Arts and Management program going head-to-head as they prepare a top-notch, three-course meal that incorporates a secret ingredient, which will be announced at the challenge. That secret ingredient which is different each year must be folded into at least one of the teams three courses. In years past, organizers say some secret ingredients have been calamari, brie, balsamic vinegar, prosciutto, cantaloupe and tofu. According to organizers, the students dishes will be judged by a panel of reputable food experts, including Chef Bernard Guillas, executive chef of The Marine Room, Chef Deborah Scott, of the Cohn Restaurant Group and Larry Lewis, program director and senior executive chef of the San Diego Culinary Institute just to drop a few names. Organizers say the competition is supported by the San Diego County Chapter of the California Restaurant Association, and is based on the Food Network hit, Iron Chef America. Teams of students from Hoover, Garfield, Madison, Morse and Scripps Ranch high schools will compete. The battle will be held at the Jack in the Box Innovation Center on Spectrum Center Boulevard, with students arriving at 3:30 p.m. to set up. The secret ingredient will then be announced and, at 3:40 p.m. sharp, the one-hour timed competition begins, which includes all cutting, mixing and food preparation. According to organizers, teams are allowed to buy their ingredients, portion their protein and measure any dry or liquid ingredients the day before the big competition. However, they arent allowed to do any actual cooking, pre-baking or pre-mixing before the showdown. They can have their recipes or prep-lists at their cooking stations during the event. By 5 p.m., the students should be finished plating their masterpieces and will then present their dishes to the judges panel. At 6 p.m., the winning Teen Iron Chef team will be crowned and presented with the coveted giant fork trophy. According to the SDUSD, the culinary challenge was created by Zhee Zhee Aguirre, a College, Career & Technical Education (CCTE) teacher who wanted her students to experience competitive cooking. The insect believed to be linked to the fast-spreading, highly-publicized Zika virus has been detected in San Diego, health officials confirm, but there have not been any local cases of the disease reported. Dr. Wilma Wooten, of the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA), said the insect the Aedes aegypti mosquito has been seen, in small numbers, throughout San Diego County over the past 18 months. The mosquito species, which experts believe transfer the Zika virus, has also been detected in Los Angeles County. Dr. Wooten told NBC 7 on Thursday that the Department of Environmental Health is tracking the mosquito locally. So far, health officials have not found any of the mosquitos detected in San Diego County to be carrying the Zika virus. For now, San Diego County health officials are not testing for Zika. Unless someone contracts the disease locally, Dr. Wooten said officials dont plan on testing the Aedes aegypti mosquitos for the virus. Dr. Wooten said the mosquitos dont travel very far. She said only a small number of the insects have been spotted locally. Health officials said the mosquito species is not native to California. The countys website describes the insect as a dark-colored mosquito with white stripes on its legs and back. The mosquito is an aggressive biter both indoors and outdoors, especially during daytime hours. It prefers to lay eggs in small containers such as plant saucers, buckets and watering cans. Aedes aegypti eggs can survive without water for up to several months. Because of where the mosquitos like to lay eggs, Dr. Wooten said residents should take the time to remove any standing water they may have inside or outside. Its also smart to wear insect repellent, as a precaution, and be on alert for the insects. Currently, health experts believe the Aedes aegypti mosquito is found predominantly in Latin America and the Caribbean. The World Health Organization (WHO) has said the Zika virus is spreading explosively, and will hold an emergency meeting of independent experts Monday to decide if the outbreak should be declared an international health emergency. The disease has been linked to birth defects and neurological problems. Scientists say the Americas could see up to 4 million cases of Zika in the next year. For more information on Zika, visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website here. It's here: Zika has been reported in parts of the United States, as the World Health Organization predicted after outbreaks in the tropics. Even with the virus moving into the States, there are ways to ward off Zika. We've answered some questions about the nuts and bolts of the virus and suggest ways to avoid contact with one of these disease-carrying insects. What is the Zika virus? Zika is a viral infection transmitted by the bite of infected Aedes mosquitoes, which are found in the tropics and carry yellow fever. It can also be transmitted sexually. Common symptoms of the virus include fever, rash, conjunctivitis and joint pain. Other possible symptoms are headaches, muscle pain and weakness. Deaths associated with the disease are rare, and symptoms usually persist for a week. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), only 1 in 5 people infected become sick, leaving the rest asymptomatic. What are the Zika-affected areas, in case I need to postpone vacations? Since the outbreak in Brazil, other countries in the Caribbean and South America have reported infections. Below is a list of the places where the CDC says travelers should practice "enhanced precautions." That includes taking care not to be bitten by a mosquito, including wearing long-sleeved shirts and pants and using a repellent containing DEET, picaridin, oil of lemon eucalyptus or IR3535. Pregnant women should not travel to these areas, the CDC says. In addition, the Zika virus can be spread through sex, so travelers to these regions should not have unprotected sex after a visit -- even if the travelers do not show symptoms. Aruba American Samoa Barbados Bolivia Bonaire Brazil Cape Verde Colombia Costa Rica Cuba Curacao Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador French Guiana Guadeloupe Guatemala Guyana Haiti Honduras Jamaica Marshall Islands Martinique Mexico New Caledonia Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Puerto Rico Saint Martin Sint Maarten Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa Suriname Tonga Trinidad and Tobago U.S. Virgin Islands Venezuela What about the 2016 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio? The CDC has issued a travel warning for Brazil. The agency says pregnant women should not travel to the Games, and visitors should take enhanced precautions. Click here for the agency's recommendations. How does the virus spread? Zika is transmitted from an infected mosquito to a human. The virus can also be spread from an infected pregnant mother to the baby during pregnancy or by sex. The CDC encourages men to use condoms if they have visited an infected area. If the virus isn't severe, why should I worry? Since the virus can be transferred from pregnant mother to infant, it can cause some major damage. Zika has been linked to brain damage in infants in Brazil. Doctors in the region found traces of the virus in the amniotic fluid of newborns who have microcephaly, a condition associated with small, undeveloped brains. Pregnant women should avoid traveling to affected areas. What are some recommendations to avoid contracting the virus? The best way to avoid the virus is to not get bitten, so postponing visits to the Caribbean and South America is key. If you happen to be in a tropical climate, here are some ways to protect yourself: Wear long-sleeved clothing and stay indoors Use insect repellents when outside If you have a baby, cover the crib or stroller with mosquito netting Is there a vaccine? No, right now there is not a vaccine, but vaccine development is possible. A British biotech company, Oxitec, developed an approach to target the disease-carrying mosquitoes themselves. Scientists developed genetically modified mosquitoes to help prevent the recurrence of Zika. What should I do if I think I have Zika? If you traveled to one of the affected areas and present symptoms, you should consult a physician. Your doctor may run some blood tests to determine if you have the virus. Even without an available vaccine or medications, there are ways you can treat the symptoms. Resting and drinking fluids is crucial, especially if you experience headaches and fevers. You can also take over-the-counter medications like acetaminophen or paracetamol to alleviate joint and muscle discomfort. Avoid ingesting aspirin to reduce the risk of hemorrhage. One baby boy was so ready to make his big debut, he didn't bother waiting for his mother to reach a hospital, arriving instead on the side of a busy road in Alexandria, Virginia. Fort Washington, Maryland resident Kenya Sierra's newborn son, Joshua was born overnight Thursday as she, her mother and her two young daughters raced to a hospital. Sierra had planned to give birth at Inova Fairfax Hospital, but when she went into labor, the family hurried to Alexandria because they knew they didn't have much time. In the freezing cold about 2 a.m., Officer Michael Garcia noticed a car driving erratically on the 2800 block of Duke Street at 2 a.m. Thursday. When he pulled the car over, the family told him why they were in such a hurry. "My daughter said, 'Mom, Mom, the baby's coming! Mom, Mom, the baby's coming!' I said, 'Wait!'" Joshua's delighted grandmother Maria Sierra recalled Thursday afternoon. Minutes later, Sierra gave birth with Garcia's help. Baby Joshua was perfectly healthy but impatient, his mother said. "He wasn't waiting. He was ready to come out," she said. Garcia has worked for the police department for 3 1/2 years. Joshua's birth was his first delivery -- and we're betting he'll never forget it. Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Republican lawmakers have reached a deal that strengthens some gun control measures while reversing a policy that would have invalidated concealed handgun permits in Virginia held by residents of 25 other states. McAuliffe spokesman Brian Coy said the governor is willing to walk back a new reciprocity policy set to be implemented by Attorney General Mark Herring in exchange for concessions on other measures. The deal is set to be announced Friday at a news conference. GOP leaders have agreed to support a measure prohibiting people from carrying a firearm if they are subject to a permanent protective order for a domestic violence offense, according to House Speaker William J. Howell's office. The policy has long been sought by McAuliffe and Democrats. Republicans have repeatedly rejected such measures in the past. "Everyone gave something up," Howell spokesman Matthew Moran said. "Everyone got something." Republicans have also agreed to require state police to be present at gun shows to perform voluntary background checks. Coy, the governor's spokesman, called the proposed deal "balanced" and a milestone moment. "This deal is a major advancement for public safety in Virginia," said Coy. "That's the governor's priority." The proposal deal, which must still gain approval from the entire GOP-controlled General Assembly, marks a rare spot of compromise between McAuliffe and Republican leaders on a contentious social issue. The 2016 legislative session began with a war of words, as McAuliffe vowed to veto any gun rights legislation he found objectionable while Republicans promised to pass new laws aimed at buttressing gun rights. Feelings over gun issues were also inflamed during last year's legislative elections. Gun groups on both sides -- and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's gun control group, in particular -- spent heavily trying to influence a handful of key state Senate campaigns. "This is a historic thing," Coy said. Philip Van Cleave, president of the pro-gun rights Virginia Citizens Defense League, said he would withhold judgment on the deal until he learns more details, but stressed that nothing is set in stone yet. The General Assembly must sign off on the measures. "There's a lot that can go wrong between now and the ink drying," Van Cleave said. "It's a positive sign, but we need to see the deal." A spokesman for the attorney general did not immediately return calls seeking comment. Herring's move in December to revoke reciprocity agreements infuriated Republicans. Herring has said it was needed because the other states' concealed weapon laws don't meet Virginia's standards, Coy praised Herring's move, but declined to say directly whether it was part of a broader Democratic strategy to force Republicans to negotiate. "Without General Herring's actions, this deal would not have been possible," Coy said. An 84-year-old woman who went missing from her home in Prince George's County after record snowfall hit the region was found Tuesday in her backyard and later died, police say. Orinda Nelson died after a neighbor found her Tuesday in her own yard, on the 7200 block of Windsor Lane in Hyattsville, Maryland. She was pronounced dead at a hospital. An autopsy ruled Nelson's death to have been caused by dementia complicated by hypothermia. Nelson was reported missing about 8:30 p.m. Monday, after the blizzard hit the region. She had Alzheimer's disease and previously had wandered away from home more than a dozen times, her family told police. Prince George's County patrol officers searched Nelson's home, neighborhood and nearby businesses where she previously had been found, but she was not located. A bloodhound also was used in the search, police said. A neighbor told Nelson's body Tuesday and called police. The body of a man was found Monday morning in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and police are investigating whether he may have been homeless and caught outside during the snowstorm. In Virginia, three more people died following Blizzard 2016. Those deaths are being attributed to car accidents and shoveling. Police in Falls Church, Virginia, are searching for two men who restrained a convenience store employee before robbing the location. The robbery happened Wednesday night at the 7-Eleven on 110 N. West St. Police say the men restrained the employee and took money from the store. No weapons were used. No injuries were reported. Police say the suspects were wearing dark-colored clothing, gloves and concealed their faces with hoods. No surveillance footage was released. Authorities do not believe this robbery is connected to recent robberies of Prince Georges County, Maryland. If anyone has information, call the Falls Church Police at 703-248-5053 (TTY 711). Six family members were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide that followed an hours-long standoff with police in Chesapeake, Virginia. Officers were called to a home in the Deep Creek area of the city Wednesday afternoon to check on the welfare of a person, WAVY.com reports. When they went into the home, they found one person dead. The investigation into that person's death led them to a nearby home, where an armed person was barricaded inside. According to WAVY.com, police tried to negotiate with the suspect. But after several hours, they entered the home and found the armed suspect and four others dead. Police say all of the victims were related to the suspect, but did not release any identifying information. No additional information has been released. Piled-up snow is leading to major delays around the D.C. area as thousands of people hit the roads for the first time since a historic storm dumped 2 to 3 feet of snow on the region. Drivers have reported notably longer commutes as they travel on roads with reduced numbers of lanes. "Going on one hour trying to get from Rockville to Fairfax and still stuck in MD. It's not rush hour. It's noon," tweeted driver Joshua DeLung. During Wednesday morning's commute, delays were reported around the region. Massachusetts Avenue was jammed near Westbard Avenue, where traffic was getting through on just one lane because of the snow. In Northern Virginia, 236 East at Braddock Road had two right lanes still covered with snow. Buses were experiencing up to 45-minute delays system-wide Wednesday morning, and snow cleanup efforts led to the closing of Rock Creek Parkway on Wednesday through 3 p.m. Authorities are also warning drivers to beware of pedestrians. "Most sidewalks are covered in snow. Drivers, look out for pedestrians near bus stops," Fairfax County Police posted on Twitter. As if all that's not enough, potholes are starting to become a big problem again this season, as the region gets into a freeze/thaw cycle. On Williamsburg Boulevard in north Arlington, a portion of the road is actually coming apart. "Yeah, that caught me off guard," one driver said. "That's never fun. But I guess there's going to be a lot of that." Four accidents involving tractor trailers also snarled traffic during Wednesday morning's commute. A collision involving three tractor trailers shut down the Outer Loop of the Capital Beltway early Wednesday morning. The accident happened near Braddock Road in Virginia. While melting snow has left many area roads slick, police have not said what caused the crash. The lanes reopened just after 6:30 a.m. A tractor trailer crash also tied up traffic on the Outer Loop after the Dulles Toll Road. At 7 a.m., only one lane of traffic was getting by. In Maryland, a jackknifed tractor trailer closed the local lanes of I-270 southbound at Montrose Road. A 2-mile backup is being reported in the main lanes. HOV restrictions have been lifted since the local lanes are closed. A second jackknifed tractor trailer caused a 7-mile backup in the southbound lanes of I-270 at Old Hundred Road. The delays came as thousands of people return to work and school in Washington, D.C. Wednesday. Federal offices reopened on a three-hour delay, after offices opened late Friday and were closed Monday and Tuesday. D.C. public school students headed back to class Wednesday, but most other schools across the region remained closed Wednesday. Metrorail service has been fully restored -- even on the Silver Line. Trains running every 8 minutes starting at 5 a.m. Wednesday. Metro said extensive snow and ice removal over the previous 48 hours allowed them to open the final five stations on the Silver Line. But some residents still can't leave their neighborhoods because snow plows have yet to reach them. "[S]till no plow and now icy! Ridiculous. S 23rd & S Garfield Sts in Arlington," @KTMaloneDC tweeted Wednesday morning, sharing a photo of a snow-covered street. "#SnowStuck Germantown Md. Residents have had no relief on Waterford Hills boulevard," @BpsDai tweeted. On social media, Prince George's County shared an online snow removal request form, and Montgomery County said its crews are plowing and hauling snow "24/7, working hard to get to you as fast as they can." However, officials have asked residents to be patient. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Tuesday crews have "gotten down to asphalt on all major arteries" and were continuing to plow District neighborhoods nonstop. "Although there are still some areas we're working really hard on, we have also started to tackle the hardest-to-reach streets," she said. Bowser urged residents to shovel their sidewalks if they haven't already. She also reminded business owners that they're required by law to remove snow from their sidewalks, and they are beyond the deadline to do so. "We will begin to enforce the commercial sidewalk snow-clearing provisions of the law, so you must get out and remove snow from your sidewalks immediately," she told business owners. D.C.'s snow emergency will remain in effect though Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. Vehicles parked or abandoned on any snow emergency route, or considered to be road hazards, are being towed at the owner's expense. Cars parked in a traffic lane on any road, and are deemed a hazard or a barrier to snow removal, may also be towed. Violators face a $250 ticket, a $100 tow and a $25-per-day fee until they pick up their vehicles. "Don't park your car illegally, and that includes parking it kind of in the middle of the street next to the snow bank," Bowser said Tuesday. Cars should be parked no more than 12 inches from a curb, not a snow bank, or drivers risk a ticket. Garbage pickup in D.C. is suspended through Wednesday, Bowser said. "We hope to resume regular trash pickup on Thursday," she said. This storm will easily rank among the region's five worst, and the cleanup will likely to take days, Storm Team4 said. Temperatures across the area plummeted overnight, creating icy conditions on many of the region's roads Monday. Updates on Travel by Train, Bus and Taxi MARC trains are running Wednesday on a limited schedule, officials said Tuesday evening. The Penn Line that runs between D.C. and Baltimore will operate on an "S" weekday schedule. See the Maryland Transit Administration's website. VRE resumed normal service Wednesday, officials said Tuesday evening. See VRE's website. Amtrak restored regular service Wednesday between D.C. and New York, officials announced Tuesday afternoon. Click here for the latest Amtrak information. D.C. taxicabs are still charing a $15 snow emergency surcharge. The fee will expire Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., officials said. Historic Amounts of Snowfall In Frederick County, Maryland, some places saw an astonishing 38 inches of snow, the National Weather Service reported. Jones Springs, West Virginia, had 39 inches. But places closer to the metro area saw feet of snow as well: More than 36 inches of snow fell in north Potomac, Maryland. More than 29 inches fell in Centreville, Virginia. And more than 22 inches of snow fell at the National Zoo in Northwest D.C. For reference, the December 2009 and February 2010 snowstorms, popularly called "Snowpocalypse" and "Snowmageddon," clocked in at 16.4 inches and 17.8 inches, respectively. Help for Those Needing Shelter Be on the lookout for homeless people, who could get hypothermia during this cold spell. If you see someone in the D.C. area who needs shelter or warmer clothing, call the following numbers: The District: 202-399-7093 or 311 if calling within the city Arlington County: 703-228-1010 (24 hours) Fairfax County: 703-691-2131 (police non-emergency line) Montgomery County: 311 if calling within the county Prince George's County: 888-731-0999 [NATL] Blizzard Pushes Snow, Wind Through East Coast After a wild scene in Brookline, Massachusetts, ended Wednesday with three men shot and stabbed at two different locations and two men on the run, police located the stolen getaway car and arrested two of the three men being treated at the hospital. Antonio Brown Jr., 27, of Lincoln Way in Cambridge, and Khari A. Wilcox, 18, of Abbot St., in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, are charged with armed home invasion, armed assault in a dwelling, armed assault with intent to rob/murder and unlawful possession of a firearm. Both suspects were arrested at the hospital, where they were taken after Wednesday's incident. They are both in stable condition. One of them suffered stab wounds and the other stab and gunshot wounds. Wilcox was allowed to hide his face during the arraignment as prosecutors alleged he, Brown and at least one other man targeted a victim living on St. Paul Street, who officials say was shot multiple times in the leg. That victim remains hospitalized in stable condition. "We know that there are at least two other individuals that have something to do with this, that we are going to continue to pursue and talk to," said Brookline Police Chief Daniel O'Leary. In addition to that scene, there was a second crime scene at 75 Harvard St. Police searched Wednesday for a white Ford Focus that was rented out of New Jersey with New York plates. Brookline Police announced after 8 p.m. the vehicle had been found, unoccupied, in Boston. Three schools in the area were also placed into lockdown during the incident. O'Leary says tools and training used by the department since after the 2013 marathon bombings were put to use Wednesday. "One of our officers applied a tourniquet to the subject at 198 St. Paul Street and did a really good job to probably save his life," he said. A 25-year-old Providence, Rhode Island, man who deputy sheriffs subdued with a stun gun after he became violent when jurors convicted him in October will serve 20 years behind bars. The Providence Journal reports Douglas Huntley was sentenced to 30 years in prison, with 20 to serve, Wednesday in Providence Superior Court for plotting an armed break-in at an apartment in the city's Federal Hill neighborhood. Huntley was found guilty Oct. 30 of possessing a firearm while committing a crime of violence, conspiracy, breaking and entering and carrying an unlicensed pistol. After the verdict was read, an enraged Huntley began cursing and kicked over a table in the courtroom. He was forcibly removed after being shot with a stun gun. Huntley later apologized to the judge. New England has many breweries and beer bars, here are a few of our favorites: -City Steam Brewery: Hartford, Connecticut Not only does this brewery offer handcrafted beer and upscale cuisine, but they also have live comedy shows. Located inside a historic building with nine levels of seating available, you might want to stay a while at City Steam Brewery in Hartford, Connecticut. Order from a great selection of food items and cleverly named handcrafted beers. If you need some laughs to accompany those brews, stop in to the Brew-Ha-Ha, an in-house comedy club. Outdoors at Bushnell Park... -Coastal Brewing: Newport, Rhode Island You can come on a tour of the brewery or attend one of their weekend festivals. Coastal Extreme Brewing is the place to go for locally brewed beers in Newport. You can try their staple brew, Storm Beer, or indulge in their attempts to revive rum production with their own Thomas Tew Rum. Stop by for a tour, a tasting or just a good old cold beer. -Hill Farmstead Brewery: Greensboro, Vermont This brewery offers tons of beers on tap and hosts different food festivals throughout the year. We visited the craft brewer named Best Brewery in the World by Ratebeer in Greensboro Bend, Vermont -Schilling Beer Company: Littleton, New Hampshire This brewery offers great foods to pair with your beer such as wood-fire oven cooked pizza and cheese plates. The brewery opened in an old grist mill in 2014 and is attracting a major following. -Nocturnem Draft Haus: Bangor, Maine With 15 beers on tap and a list that changes each week this brewery is a great place to visit if you're in Bangor. -The Newes Pub: Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts This restaurant offers a variety of beers as well as American and British pub food. This Marthas Vineyard pub has a special challenge for those to dare to take it. In response to parents who have asked the judiciary committee of the Vermont Senate to help them access certain cannabis-based therapies for their children, committee chair Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington County, said language aimed at easing access to the supplements is now being drafted. The language would be added to marijuana legalization proposals already under consideration at the Statehouse, Sears said. "We're looking at all aspects," Sears said of legislation affecting cannabis and marijuana regulation in Vermont. "We're trying to do everything we can to provide for a well-regulated, but at the same time, compassionate medical marijuana program in Vermont." Shelly Waterman, a Burlington mother, said her nearly 14-year-old daughter Hannah appears to be benefiting from the use of a cannabis oil called Charlotte's Web. Hannah, who has Rett syndrome, a degenerative neurological disorder, and also a severe seizure disorder called Lennox-Gastaut, takes small doses of the supplement two times a day. The oil is thought to calm certain brain activity without the psychoactive effects of marijuana, Waterman explained. Hannah's mom said after the cannabis therapy, the teen is nearly 40 days seizure-free, after experiencing a long string of frightening seizures fairly commonly. "It's absolutely life-changing," Waterman said of Charlotte's Web, noting she was speaking only for her family's personal experience with the hemp oil, and that she consulted extensively with Hannahs physicians regarding its use. However, Waterman has to have Charlotte's Web shipped from Colorado, because she said it is not manufactured or sold in Vermont's licensed medical marijuana dispensaries. Waterman said she wishes Vermont lawmakers could give her family and others easier access to the oil in Vermont. "This is an important piece of the bigger picture," Waterman said of how therapeutic hemp oil considerations may fit into ongoing discussions at the Vermont Statehouse about recreational marijuana legalization. "Legalization will help Vermont grow an infrastructure in the medicinal community to be able to provide more therapeutic strains for people who have various ailments." The primary purpose of the marijuana legislation steps under consideration is to regulate the sale of small amounts of marijuana through licensed retailers and lounges to people at least 21-years-old. Gov. Peter Shumlin, D-Vermont, has said he would only sign such a measure into law if taxes imposed are low enough to reduce black market sales, if revenues are put toward expanding addiction prevention efforts, if enforcement is strengthened, and if edible forms of marijuana are not allowed at first. Sears said Wednesday that judiciary committee members penciled in a date for the proposed rules to take effect: January 1, 2018. Waiting until then would enable communities, law enforcement, and prevention groups to prepare for the changes, Sears said. As lawmakers debate the pros and cons of the marijuana legalization proposals, public health advocates are urging them to be mindful of potential side-effects. "I think the public health burden for the state of Vermont is going to increase, and the tax revenues eventually will be far less than the cost to the state," warned Bertha Madras, a Harvard Medical School neuroscientist. Madras cautioned lawmakers to consider impacts on adolescents' developing brains, and on the potential for marijuana experimentation to lead to overuse and mental health problems. Thursday, the Vermont Medical Society, the Vermont Academy of Family Physicians, the Vermont Psychiatric Association, the Vermont Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Academy of Pediatrics Vermont Chapter, and the American College of Physicians Vermont Chapter are scheduled to express their strong public health concerns to Vermont lawmakers. Those concerns include risks of vehicle crashes, impacts on academics, and the worsening of future mental health problems, according to a media release announcing the Thursday morning press conference. The Vermont Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote Friday morning on whether or not to advance marijuana legislation, Sears said. The Friends of Julian of Norwich present a free Quiet Half-Day with Robert Fruehwirth, author and former Priest Director of the Julian Centre, on Saturday November 12, 10.30am-2pm. The Friends of Julian of Norwich present a free Quiet Half-Day with Robert Fruehwirth, author and former Priest Director of the Julian Centre, on Saturday November 12, 10.30am-2pm. What it means for us to repent Nigel Fox believes that now is the time for a tide of repentance, and shares his thoughts about what that actually means for our society. Read more Christmas card shop opens in Norwich church Thousands of Christmas cards from around 30 local Norfolk charities have gone on sale today (October 19) at the Original Norwich Charity Christmas Card Shop inside St Peter Mancroft church in Norwich city centre. Read more Revelation Christian Resource Centre and Cafe Revelation in Norwich is a Christian resource centre, offering a bookshop, a meeting place and a welcoming refuge for refreshment open to visitors of any faith or none. Read more Farewell as Yarmouth church leader moves on Captain Marie Burr, the Salvation Army leader in Great Yarmouth, has paid tribute to everyone at the church and charity after she left her post at the end of last month to move to a new role. Read more Norwich Cathedral chorister in BBC final Norwich Cathedral chorister Alice Platten has her sights set on being crowned BBC Young Chorister of the Year after reaching the final stages of the prestigious nationwide competition. Read more Norwich to hear pastor, Policeman and tramp tale Essex Baptist Pastor Dave McDowell has been a Policeman, fed orphans in India and lived under a boat as a tramp. He will tell his remarkable story at the October dinner of Norwich FGB on Wednesday October 26. Read more Pioneer UK leader speaks at Sheringham church Ness Wilson, national leader of the Pioneer network of churches, was the main speaker at a day of teaching and worship held at Lighthouse Community Church in Sheringham on 12 October, to be followed up by Word and Worship sessions at October half term. Read more Norwich event to give tips on bouncing forwards St Stephens in Norwich will be hosting an evening in October with Patrick Regan OBE, as he explores themes from his book Bouncing Forwards. Read more Youth for Christ lights a fire in north Breckland North Breckland Youth for Christ will be putting on a mini residential camp this year to coincide with Bonfire Night. Read more Delia Smith interviewed at Norwich church Top TV cook and well-known writer Delia Smith spoke about her faith at SOUL Churchs weekly Chapel gathering on October 11. Read more Children's Christian holiday club in Briston A half term childrens holiday bible club is taking place in Briston next week, and there is no charge to take part in the fun. Read more Ashill church puts on music to touch the soul The Fountain of Life Church in Ashill is hosting an afternoon concert in early November with classical, jazz, opera, ballads and pop classics. Read more Fakenhams new rector is officially installed Rev Tracy Jessop has been officially installed as Rector for Fakenham during a service at Fakenham Parish Church on Tuesday September 27, fourteen months after their last reverend retired. Read more Norwich homeless charity holds information evening Homelessness charity St Martins is holding an information evening on Thursday 3rd November at The Forum in Norwich for anyone who would like to know more about the work of the charity and to potentially become a volunteer. Read more Sheringhams harvest flowers and Fairtrade boost Giving thanks for Harvest was the theme of the Harvest Flower Festival held at St Andrews Methodist Church, Sheringham at the beginning of October, which included a Traidcraft stall. Read more ENYP needs Project Coordinator and Youth Worker Norfolk Christian charity ENYP is seeking to appoint new workers who have a passion to support children, youth and community food provision. Read more Christmas resources at Revelation Norwich Christian Resource Centre is all stocked up for Christmas: Cards, wrap, bags, gifts, candles and advent calendars are all ready for you to browse and buy! Read more There will be bonding. There will be splicing. And there will be firestopping. Yes, its time to roll up your sleeves, de-fog your goggles, climb your ladder and get ready for the 9th annual BICSI Cabling Skills Challenge next week in Orlando, where the Installer of the Year will be crowned and awarded a $5K prize (not to mention a towering trophy). This will definitely beat the NFLs Pro Bowl as a competition fix during the seemingly endless lead-up to Super Bowl 50 on Feb. 7. MORE: Hottest Enterprise Networking & IT Startups of 2016 The Installer of the Year needs to be versatile, good with his or her hands, and smart to boot. NetworkWorld, BICSI The competition takes place on Feb. 1 and 2 right on the show floor at the annual BICSI Winter Conference & Exhibition for cabling design and installation professionals, who will attend sessions with titles such as Design and Deployment of Reliable Physical Infrastructure Networks for the Industrial Plant Floor and Designing Wi-Fi Networks for High Capacity. The installers and technicians who tangle at this event will be surrounded by attendees visiting expo floor booths promoting everything from the latest in Ethernet cable assemblies to wireless locks to what one exhibitor calls patch cable the way it should be. BICSI BICSI Cabling Skills Challenge competitors need to do it all (You can check out some of the action from 2015's event, starting at about the 1:28 mark of the video embedded at the bottom of this article.) This year, 15 competitors from as far away as Japan and Australia have signed on to test their skills at the Cabling Skills Challenge. Among them is Alberto Luna, a project manager at Total Network Consulting in the Atlanta area who says he has been in the business for 18 years, initially as a cabling technician and now on a path towards sales and business development. Hell seek to become the third back-to-back champ, possibly following in the footsteps of Lee Renfroe, who ruled in 2012 and 2013, and Jessie Spearman, who took top honors at the very first three events. Odds makers no doubt are aware of Lunas track record, which includes a previous win as Cabling Icon in a separate contest to find the worlds best low voltage installer or technician. While Luna wouldnt bite at my suggestion that he has become a bonafide celebrity in wiring circles since last years victory, he acknowledges that the honor is something he is proud of. It tops his LinkedIn profile and also adds zing to his email signature. Luna, who jumped into networking right out of high school in south Florida when he joined BellSouth, says it took him three tries in the Cabling Skills Challenge to take the title. He didn't place in any of the judged categories -- Installer 1, Installer 2, Technician -- during the first year in which he competed. The difference during Year 3: It takes some getting used to. It can be nerve-wrackingI calmed down, I was prepared. Luna describes the competition as very hands-on and fun. They dont make it easy, he says. They put in little things to trick you that when youre rushing through you might not catch. Plus, the written exam makes sure you really know what youre doing too, he says. The hardest part for Luna has been finishing a bunch of fiber terminations in the time given. Though the hardest part this around could simply be staying at the top of his game while having a target on his back as the defending champ. Twitter and Flickr, along with remote sensor data, can be used to identify flooded areas, a team of university researchers say. It's faster than using publicly available satellite images on their own. That imaging can sometimes take days to become available, the researchers say. It's also easier to identify the flooded streets. Algorithms are the key to making all the data work together, the scientists reckon. A computer can learn what is and what isn't water in a flood, for example. It does it by analyzing publicly posted images and thousands of public tweets and posts generated during incidents in urban flooding situations. Satellite analysis, the former method, becomes secondary. Tweets As an experiment, the team of scientists from Penn State, the University of Wisconsin, and other groups, analyzed 2013 flooding in Colorado and found 150,000 tweets from people affected. They then processed those tweets with an existing tool called CarbonScanner and found "clusters of posts," they say in their press release on Penn State's website. CarbonScanner analyzes tweet hashtags and matches their locations onto a map. Those clusters implied damage. Images The team then looked at over 22,000 images from around the area with another tool. This was one that they had developed themselves. It uses a "machine learning algorithm that automatically analyzes several thousand images," the website says. "It allowed them to quickly identify individual pixels in images that contained water," the report continues. Sources The raw imagery that they used was "obtained through satellites, Twitter, Flickr, the Civil Air Patrol, unmanned aerial vehicles and other sources," they say. The computer successfully figured out where there was water. Algorithm "We looked at a set of images and manually selected areas that we knew had water and areas that had no water" in writing the algorithm, says Elena Sava, one of the graduate students. "Then, we fed that information to the algorithm we had developed, and it allowed the computer to 'learn' what was and wasn't water," she added. Clues The names of rivers and streets in the tweets, along with remarks related to how the individual tweeter couldn't get home, and so on, were giveaways of flooding found in the social media data. That was combined with the patches of water discovered with the machine learning algorithm. The result was better than simple satellite data, the researchers think. Satellite didn't show floods But it's not just because it could be produced in a more timely manner. "If you look at satellite imagery, downtown Boulder showed very little flooding," said one of the professors quoted on the website. "However, by analyzing Flickr and Twitter data, we could find several cues that many areas were underwater," he says. The combination produced the results. Weather in 2013 produced 17 inches of rain over nine days in parts of Boulderalmost a year's worth, the press release says. Storm Jonas The Penn State et al studies may just be the beginning of the use of common Internet usesuch as their Twitter-captured datain future real-time analysis of disasters. Interestingly, during monster snow storm Jonas, while most traffic remained the same, communications app FaceTime traffic, throughout last Saturday, was double what it was on the previous non-storm weekend, according to Sandvine, an Internet traffic analyst. There's intelligence in that traffic spike alone. This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices. Click here to subscribe. If I brought up the term "mobility management" you'd probably think I was talking about BYOD and managing how workers can securely access applications and data via their smart phones. That's the aspect of mobility that IT usually has to deal with. But there's also an administrative aspect to mobility management that can be a real pain and a big expense for companies if it's not done well. I'm referring to the contract management aspect of company-provided mobile devices. Companies that pay for their employees' device contracts through expense reports are missing an opportunity to reduce administrative hassles and save quite a bit of money. You'd be hard pressed today to find a company that doesn't allow or even require employees to use some type of mobile device phone or tablet to conduct business. It might be to take calls, respond to email, or access productivity applications. Some companies tell employees to use their personally-owned devices and file expense reports for ongoing costs. Other companies tell employees they can choose the device but the the company will pay for it and own it. For this latter scenario, Asentinel provides the opportunity for real efficiencies through its mobility management service The Asentinel service organizes, manages and optimizes mobile device service contracts with cellular telecom companies like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and others. The company says its service helps customers get more value out of their contracts and save money while doing so. Asentinel focuses on the types of things that companies should be doing to manage these contracts, but which often are neglected or are handled by multiple departments or multiple people internally. It's quite common for companies to just pay the cellular bills that are put in front of them, rather than considering the myriad ways to cut costs and provide a better user experience to employees. Asentinel says it changes the equation from reacting to costs, to preventing cost and inefficiencies in support of mobile devices. Let me give you a few examples and use cases. I'll start with one I personally experienced when I traveled to The Netherlands for business. My cell phone contract is through AT&T. I wanted to be able to use my phone during my week-long stay there. I had to research the contract options with AT&T on my own. I found a service that would give me coverage in The Netherlands for a month. I didn't need a month's worth of coverage but a shorter period was not an option. I had to contact AT&T to arrange the service. (I tried to do it via their website but couldn't complete my order, necessitating a call to the customer service departmentalways a joy.) AT&T asked for my desired coverage days and arranged my international calling service for a full month around those days. The cost included a flat fee plus a per-call fee. If I hadn't prearranged this service, I might have been able to use my phone in The Netherlands anyway, but the roaming charges would have been outrageous. It would have been a big shock to my normal monthly bill. Now, extrapolate this for a good sized company that has a lot of traveling employees. How much time do they waste prearranging their service plans? How much do they spend on international plans that are used only on occasion? Or worse, how much does it cost when people don't make arrangements in advance and simply incur the incredibly expensive roaming charges? The Asentinel service can allow employees to go into a portal and simply enter their travel dates and destinations. Asentinel will figure out the best service option at the best price to meet the employees' needs. If a traveling employee doesn't want to or forgets to prearrange international service, Asentinel will pick up the fact that he's traveling based on billing and usage data extracted on a 24-hour cycle. Asentinel sees that the employee doesn't have the right plan and automatically makes adjustments so that the service can be backdated in the billing cycle. When the bill posts, the company is on the most economical plan for that person. The same principle applies domestically as well, especially for data plans. People can easily exceed their allotted data plan and drive costs up. Asentinel provides visibility into usage and notifications before problems occur. Asentinel also can arrange a sort of "family plan" for the entire organization to pool the available coverage. Each employee can be allocated, say, 5 GB of data per month out of the plan. If someone is maxing out his usage, an administrator can get an alert in order to make adjustments. Asentinel will look for ways to minimize the cost while preserving the user experience. It's not necessary for a company to use just one cellular service provider under an Asentinel service agreement. Asentinel is able to collect and aggregate all usage and cost information from however many mobile service providers a company uses and bring the information into a single pane of glass. What's more, all of this usage and cost data is up to date and not a month's billing cycle behind. Asentinel handles all servicing needs such as provisioning/de-provisioning devices from plans, upgrading devices, adjusting coverage in plans, and so on. Asentinel's service is integrated with Workday for HR functions (like setting up new employees when they onboard) and ServiceNow for trouble tickets. Now, about those cost savings I mentioned earlier. Asentinel says it provides a linear ROI, with cost savings ranging from 1X to 3X what a company pays Asentinel to manage the contracts. This doesn't take into account the improved user experience. Implementation involves a straightforward agreement. The customer provides Asentinel with the carrier logins and signs a letter of agreement that gives Asentinel the right to act on the company's behalf with the carrier(s). With this information, Asentinel can begin collecting the necessary cellular contract and usage information to begin the management process. This type of solution seems like a no-brainer. Give the headaches of managing your mobile device contracts over to someone else, and save money to boot. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani blamed the Israel lobby for American hostility towards Tehran, Reuters reported Wednesday. Friendlier relations between the Islamic Republic and the United States are possible, but the key to that is in Washingtons hands, not Tehrans, Rouhani said at a press conference in Rome. The Iranian leader, who is currently traveling in Europe, also denied that his country supports terrorist groups, saying, It is clear that Iran is a country opposed to terrorism and a country that fights terrorism. According to the U.S. State Department, Iran has provided funds, arms, and training to various terrorist groups throughout the Middle East, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Iraqi Shiite militias. Hamas and Hezbollah officials met with leaders from Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in July in a bid to further strengthen ties. Irans Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan affirmed in September that his country was committed to arming Hamas and Hezbollah. Later that month, it was reported that Iran boosted its funding of both terror groups in anticipation of the windfall Tehran would receive through sanctions relief. said that with the exception of Zionists and warmongers American hardliners and extremists, all parties supported the nuclear deal. The New York Times reported in November that anti-Americanism had increased in Iran since the announcement of the nuclear agreement. This hostility was marked by the arrests of an American citizen and a U.S. resident, and a surge in cyber-attacks against American officials. That same month, Khamenei ordered authorities to block the import of over 200 American products and accused the U.S. of using money and sexual attractions to subvert Iran. Iranian leadership continues to rail against the Big Satan without penalty or even opprobrium, Jonathan Greenblatt, the national director of the ADL, wrote in December. The seizure of two U.S. naval boats and their ten crew-members by Iran in the Persian Gulf earlier this month was described by Lee Smith, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, as the latest hostile act committed by Iran against America. http://donpolson.blogspot.com/ Bringing you the very best information, analysis and opinion from around the web. NOTE: For videos that don't start--go to article link to view. You probably remember how excited we were to see progressive icon Zephyr Teachout take on corrupt conservaDem Andrew Cuomo for governor of New York in 2014. She did remarkably well outside of Machine-controlled parts of New York. She won 30 counties, some with over 70% support. This week she announced that she's running for the open congressional seat-- Republican Chris Gibson isn't seeking reelection-- encompassing an area she swept when she ran against Cuomo. Of the 11 counties that make up NY-19, the only one she didn't win, Broome, has almost no voters in the congressional district. The biggest county in the district is Ulster, where she beat Cuomo 69.95% to 27.41%. (Yes, that's a landslide-- and in the county where NY-19 is won or lost.) Dutchess is the second biggest county and she beat him there 57.51%- 40.36%. Then comes Rensselaer where it was Zephyr 63.42%, Cuomo 33.02%. In Columbia County it was Zephyr 77.91% to 20.43 for Cuomo. And so on. This is a blue district that gave Obama and 53-45% win over McCain and a 52-46% win over Romney and the only thing that has kept it in Republican hands is obdurate DCCC incompetence. Have they welcomed Zephyr and the chance to win back a Republican-held seat? The DCCC would rather lose to a Republican than win with a progressive. That's what's evolved from the monstrosity made over by Rahm Emanuel, Chris Van Hollen and Steve Israel. A DCCC course admits they are actively trying to recruit a conservative to run against Zephyr now, just as they've done in districts all over the country. You can fight the DCCC and the Republican Party here Washington Post wondered aloud These are the people I want to be drinking beer with and playing cribbage with... In the primary, I probably spent more time in this district than any other. I worked with anti-fracking groups, and I learned a lot about ideas people had for renewable energy. I got very excited about ground source heat pumps, Ive got to tell you. Then I did a tour trying to get more teachers to run for office. Oh, and before that I did a book tour that was heavily on these towns. I kept driving around meeting people. Even this last month, when I was talking to people about getting in, I ran into so many friends... Im drawn to the populist tradition. That means taking on big companies, and it also means a basic respect for people and a focus on decentralized power. And there are some decisions that should be made at the state level... Im independent and Im not afraid to stand up to the political establishment. But I also was raised to be very polite and talk to everybody. Ive reached out to Democratic leaders across the state; Id leave it up to them to talk to you and say how they thought it went. I think its really possible to be independent and honest, and have great human friendships, while fighting for what you believe in." Yesterday, Dave Weigel, writing for thewondered aloud why she is running in NY-19 . She moved into the district last year. "I am a country person. I enjoyed my years in the city, but I was very excited to move up here.are the people I want to be drinking beer with and playing cribbage with... In the primary, I probably spent more time in this district than any other. I worked with anti-fracking groups, and I learned a lot about ideas people had for renewable energy. I got very excited about ground source heat pumps, Ive got to tell you. Then I did a tour trying to get more teachers to run for office. Oh, and before that I did a book tour that was heavily on these towns. I kept driving around meeting people. Even this last month, when I was talking to people about getting in, I ran into so many friends... Im drawn to the populist tradition. That means taking on big companies, and it also means a basic respect for people and a focus on decentralized power. And there are some decisions that should be made at the state level... Im independent and Im not afraid to stand up to the political establishment. But I also was raised to be very polite and talk to everybody. Ive reached out to Democratic leaders across the state; Id leave it up to them to talk to you and say how they thought it went. I think its really possible to be independent and honest, and have great human friendships, while fighting for what you believe in." Daily Star emphasized that The Oneontaemphasized that Teachout will focus on themes like the need to give people shut out of the political system a voice in their government and promoting greater reliance on renewable forms of energy. Teachout has already been crowned the consensus candidate of the majority of the 11 Democratic county chairs in the 19th District. One other Democrat, Will Yandik of Columbia County, has been struggling to gain support while Teachout appears to be igniting the passion of party activists. Two weeks ago, a throng of Teachout supporters packed ONeills Shire Pub in Delhi in an event that Tom Schimmerling, the Delaware County Democratic chairman, said brought to mind an exuberant rally for Robert F. Kennedy decades earlier. We had this huge spontaneous turnout for her on a snowy night when there was a travel advisory in effect, Schimmerling said. There was more electricity in that room than I have ever seen. People were pumped, and no one would have taken no for an answer on her running. Schimmerling predicted that Teachout will get the support of the countys Democratic committee on Feb. 24. In Cooperstown, Otsego County Democratic Chairman Richard Abbate said Teachout represents the Democrats best hope for taking the seat in November. Teachout said she will have to work hard to raise campaign funds, noting, Im not independently wealthy. Besides Blue America, the Working Families Party and the PCCC have endorsed her right out of the box. What's attractive about her candidacy is not just her reliability as a good vote on crucial matters-- although with all those crap DCCC New Dems and Blue Dogs, God knows we need reliable progressive voters-- but her leadership abilities and her commitment to the values and principles that make America unique in the world and that will keep America progressing. She is a thinker, an organizer, a leader... and the long-in-the-tooth geriatric congressional party desperately needs that. The congressional party elders are two decades older than their Republican counterparts and no longer nimble or effective. The House Democrats need new leaders like Zephyr, like Pramila Jayapal, Alex Law, Bao Nguyen, Tim Canova, Joseline Pena-Melnyk, Jamie Raskin... Champaign, IL (61820) Today Some clouds this morning will give way to generally sunny skies for the afternoon. High 64F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight A few clouds. Low 41F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Former Iowa politician, radio host and climate champion Ed Fallon at a Climate Mobilization protest of an Iowa Trump event (source). There is a Mobilization model caucus on January 29 (see below). The climate's winged chariot hurrying near." with apologies to "But at my back I always hearThe climate's winged chariot hurrying near."with apologies to Andrew Marvell The Zika virus foreshadows our dystopian climate future The mosquito-borne disease shows that pushing the limits of the planets ecology has become dangerous in novel ways Ive spent much of my life chronicling the ongoing tragedies stemming from global warming: the floods and droughts and storms, the failed harvests and forced migrations. But no single item on the list seems any more horrible than the emerging news from South America about the newly prominent Zika disease. Spread by mosquitoes whose range inexorably expands as the climate warms, Zika causes mild flu-like symptoms. But pregnant women bitten by the wrong mosquito are liable to give birth to babies with shrunken heads. Brazil last year recorded 4,000 cases of this microcephaly. As of today, authorities in Brazil, Colombia, Jamaica, El Salvador and Venezuela were urging women to avoid getting pregnant.... support the presidential candidate they believe is best-suited to stop the Bakken Pipeline and lead a full-employment, WWII-scale mobilization to rapidly retire all fossil fuel infrastructure, drive the U.S. economy to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, and restore a safe climate for humanity. MEDIA ADVISORY 11:30 a.m. CDT, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016 Contact: Ed Fallon at (515) 238-6404 or FallonForum@gmail.com Ezra Silk at (860) 916-8964 or Ezra@TheClimateMobilization.org Iowans to hold Climate Emergency Caucus to push presidential contenders toward WWII-scale climate mobilization Former Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and Keystone Killer Jane Kleeb to Speak DES MOINES Hundreds of Iowans will stage a model caucus Friday, Jan. 29 to support the presidential candidate they believe is best-suited to stop the Bakken Pipeline and lead a full-employment, WWII-scale mobilization to rapidly retire all fossil fuel infrastructure, drive the U.S. economy to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, and restore a safe climate for humanity. The caucus will take place from 7:00 8:30 p.m. in the auditorium of Central Campus at 1800 Grand Avenue in Des Moines. Speakers will include Tom Harkin, a U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1985 to 2015, and Jane Kleeb, the Nebraska activist who fired up the national effort to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline and was subsequently dubbed the Keystone Killer by Rolling Stone, will speak. The caucus will be hosted by Ed Fallon, the Iowa progressive talk-show host and former state lawmaker who hosted the 2011 Occupy Des Moines Peoples Caucus that aired on C-SPAN and received national media attention. With representatives from all of the Democratic campaigns scheduled to appear, the Climate Emergency Caucus is set to be the strongest intervention into presidential politics yet made by Americas nascent Climate Emergency Movement, which calls for WWII-scale emergency action to save civilization from catastrophic climate change and ecological decline. The model caucus has been organized by the national grassroots group The Climate Mobilization, in conjunction with a growing list of sponsors, including Citizens Climate Lobby Des Moines, Iowa 350.org, Iowa Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Sierra Clubs Iowa chapter. Following speeches from Fallon, Kleeb, and the leaders of The Climate Mobilization, model caucus-goers will suggest climate and pipeline planks for their respective political partys platforms and discuss the presidential candidates positions on the Bakken pipeline and climate change. Finally, they will break into preference groups to support the presidential candidate they believe can best lead America through the growing climate emergency. ... Fallon and the growing climate emergency movement expect the caucus will make clear to the presidential candidates and the American public that the time for carbon gradualism has expired and the need for emergency action to save civilization has arrived. This piece is about a new virus with no known cure, which originated in the heat and humidity of Central and South America, is spread by mosquitoes, and is moving north as the planet inexorably warms. But this is also about something much more important. The Zika virus is just one instance of which there are dozens and soon, of which there will be hundreds all posing sudden and deadly threats to the seven billion people living together on this planet. [UPDATE: The origin of the virus is thought to be either Africa, Asia or French Polynesia , from where it migrated elsewhere, including Central and South America . My thanks for the emailed correction.]Will the Zika virus takes us all down? Highly unlikely. But one of these days there will be a virus like this, a bacteria, a toxin, that could. We've already created a gene that makes bacteria resistant to the "last resort" antibiotic . We are destabilizing life on this planet at a ferocious and accelerating rate. The reason we're doing it is greed, of course, the greed of a small handful of women and men. But one of the major tools of that destabilization is rapidly and permanently changing climate.First, a taste of the Zika story. Then, a tool that can stop that tool (click to go there now ).Bill McKibben writes atMcKibben notes, "Eventually, of course, the disease will reach these shores at least 10 Americans have come back from overseas with the infection, and one microcephalic baby has already been born in Hawaii to a mother exposed in Brazil early in her pregnancy." We'll likely survive the invasion, since our resources are so great, but many of the poor will not, since most people with the infection have no symptoms. (Watch the video at the link for more.)The more I read and listen, and the more climate dithering I watch, the more I think "time's winged chariot" is almost upon us and we have our backs turned to it. If we knew that, in five or ten years, an asteroid visible to our telescopes today were due to crash into the earth, we'd (a) start mobilizing against it immediately, and (b) not listen to the whiners who ask, "But how are we going to pay for it?" Those whiners would be kicked to the curb, especially if they were well-known worshipers at the "Church of the Giant Asteroid".Yet here we are, with maybe five to ten years at most to start mobilizing against a world all of us will hate, and ... nothing.It's an emergency. The response to emergencies to mobilize. And we know how to do that you can do while you're waiting for others put two and two together. For example, on January 29 there is an Iowa "model caucus" hosted by one of the climate mobilization groups, groups thatput two and two together. The purpose of the model caucus is toCare to join them? Care to support them? If you're in Iowa already (caucusing for Bernie Sanders , the most climate-friendly candidate in the field, I hope), you can attend and hear former Senator Tom Harkin and Keystone hero Jane Kleeb speak, and party with others like you. The press release is below.If you're not in Iowa, or reading this after the event, you can still help. You've put two and two together. You know that the only way to act in an emergency is to marshal all resources and act with all speed to mobilize. You can help others to see that too. The only way mass mobilization happens is for enough people make a decision to make it happen. That starts with you and your encouragement to everyone you have contact with. Sometimes all it takes for a crowd to act, is for the first person to act. You can be that person in the small crowd you're part of, your group of friends and associates.About the Iowa event (my emphasis):More here yet convinced, no problem. You soon will be (and the rest of us hope that it's not too late when you are).But if you are convinced, act. Pledge to support mobilization , then support it. You may think you have just a little reach, but that's true of us all. We're only responsible for doing what we can do, but we are responsible for that.GP Labels: 2016 presidential race, Bernie Sanders, climate, climate change, Gaius Publius, Iowa "We are of opinion that instead of letting books grow moldy behind an iron grating, far from the vulgar gaze, it is better to let them wear out by being read." - Jules Verne Learn From Apps, co-founded by Rahul Gosain, M.D. and Rohit Gosain, M.D. continues to see success with their unique Question of the Day app for medical students that helps them prepare for their United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). The app delivers USMLE board style question every day and enables students to track their scores, monitor their performance in different fields of medicine, and access past questions for additional learning opportunities. USMLE Step 1 Question of the Day by Learn From Apps is designed to help students gain a competitive edge and provide them with learning material that is critical to perform well on their medical boards said Dr. Rohit Gosain. Available on the iTunes Store for iOS devices and at Google Play for Android enabled devices, USMLE Step 1 Question of the Day provides high yield information on a daily basis reinforcing the vast medical material that students are expected to learn in a short period of time. Time limitations and the extensive course burden that medical students have can make it difficult to efficiently manage classes and study times. Further, question banks can often be expensive, thereby placing them out of reach for many medical students and for those who try to cram at the last moment, it makes learning less efficient. Question of the Day provides an innovative solution that facilitates memorization, continual learning and greater retention every day. As stated by Rahul Gosain Our app helps medical students prepare for their boards, right from day one at a very nominal price. The USMLE Step 1 Question of the Day app was also recently featured on State of Tech highlighting innovative technology and helping users make an informed decision. The app can be accessed anytime from a variety of devices for learning on the go whenever its convenient. The company also welcomes students, residents, fellows, physicians, nurses and pharmacists who would like to contribute towards the global learning of medicine by writing, editing and reviewing questions. Learn From Apps also continues to work on apps like Internal Medicine Question of the Day for current or aspiring residents and is equally beneficial for clinicians who want to be updated on a variety of in-patient and out-patient topics. Question of the Day series is also available for USMLE Step 2, USMLE Step 3, and Family Medicine (ABFM) physicians along with nursing students for NCLEX preparation. Source: http://www.learnfromapps.com/ 'One Face Before Us, Another Before Media', Cong Lashes Out at Tharoor Over Irregularities Charge About Me Name: Dyneslines Location: NEW YORK, NY, United States I like to consider myself a citizen of Cosmopolis, ranging widely across the humanities. I have traveled to 45 countries, and speak five languages. Out of self-interest, I am concerned with current affairs in my own country. Writing is important to me: I have published seventeen books (including edited volumes). My beginning the blog coincided with my retirement. No longer muzzled, I felt, by the demands of being a salaried professor, I gave vent to my untrammeled opinions. Sometimes, perhaps, too much so--but it is my right, all the same. Here is an appropriate motto from La Fontaine: Est bien fou du cerveau qui pretend contenter tout le monde et son pere. ("The Miller, His Son, and the Donkey"). For my work in linguistics see the revised (electronic) version of Homolexis at www.williamapercy.com/homolexis/index.php?title=Main_Page; for the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, see: http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/BIB/EOH/index.htm. See also the electronic version of my 1987 book, Homosexuality: A Research Guide (/www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/BIB/ResGde/main.htm). View my complete profile The actress was also seen in 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2' in the role of Zafrina. By Megan Cassella, Susan Heavey and Dustin Volz WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday escalated a fight with Fox News, using the word "bimbo" in a derogatory tweet about anchorwoman Megyn Kelly after pulling out of a debate only days before the first nominating contest of the 2016 campaign. Trump on Tuesday withdrew from the televised encounter, scheduled for Thursday night in Des Moines, Iowa, in irritation at host Fox News for allowing Kelly to moderate after her questioning angered him in a debate last year. The real estate magnate, who is the Republican front-runner to win the nomination for the Nov. 8 presidential election, followed up with another round of insults on Wednesday. "I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct," he wrote on Twitter. "Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!" In a later interview on Fox News?s ?The O?Reilly Factor,? he told host Bill O'Reilly that she was "highly overrated." "I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly. I don?t think she?s very good at what she does," Trump said. Trump's Republican presidential rivals were quick to criticise the former reality TV star, with U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas blistering him in a series of tweets and accusing him of "trembling at being questioned by Kelly." At an event in West Des Moines, Iowa, Cruz openly mocked Trump, calling him a "fragile soul" and "gentle," and renewed his offer to debate Trump one-on-one Saturday evening. "It's not that he's afraid of me," Cruz said to the crowd. "He's afraid of you. He doesn't want to answer questions from the men and women of Iowa about how his record doesn't match what he's selling." Another Republican hopeful, U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, told Fox News that he welcomed Trump?s absence from the debate stage because it means "we don?t have to put up with a lot of empty blather and boastfulness and calling people names.? Trump's decision means the last televised debate before Monday's Iowa caucuses - which kick off the state-by-state nominating race to choose candidates for the presidential election - will not feature the man who has dominated the Republican race for months and leads many opinion polls. It was seen as a bold gamble. 'A RISKY MOVE' Trump has said that in lieu of his debate participation he will hold a fundraiser for veterans. It will be held at Drake University in Des Moines and begin at the same time Thursday as the Fox debate, according to an invitation his campaign circulated Wednesday evening. "It's a risky move; it's very high profile," said Craig Robinson, a former Iowa state party official. "But I'm not sure it will really change anyone's mind about Trump." Trump has been feuding with Fox News since the network hosted the first Republican debate in August, in which Kelly asked Trump about his treatment of women, prompting a stream of insults from the candidate and complaints he was not being treated fairly. He did not renew his attacks on Kelly during an evening rally in Gilbert, South Carolina, but told supporters to watch a rerun of the Fox interview, which he called a "tough interview," when they got home. Cruz, Trump's main rival in Iowa, used the hashtag #DuckingDonald to make fun of Trump for ducking out of the debate and tweeted a mocked-up picture of Trump's head on Donald Duck's body sitting on a pile of money. Cruz, a conservative and a debating champion in college, tweeted a link to "duckingdonald.com," which asked visitors to sign a petition in favour of Cruz and Trump having a side debate. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, another Republican presidential contender, described Trump?s decision at such a crucial time as ?a big mistake? that calls into question his ability to be president. ?Anytime you get a podium and a microphone and 15-20 million people watching in an election campaign, you should take it,? Christie told Boston Herald Radio. Another Republican candidate, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, said he wanted to focus on keeping the party united in order to beat Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, if she becomes the Democratic nominee. "These kinds of theatrics by Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are an entertaining sideshow, but they have nothing to do with defeating Hillary Clinton," Rubio said. Not every candidate was convinced Trump would follow through on his pledge to stay away. "He apparently is not going to come to the debate, although I?ve got a $20 bet he?ll show up,? former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said at a town hall meeting in response to a question. "Poor little Donald, being treated unfairly,? he said. Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said Trump was not afraid to debate his rivals or take reporters' questions. He added that Trump would be happy to debate Cruz if the contest, in which 12 Republicans are vying for their party's nomination, narrows. "If it comes down to a two-person race, Donald Trump would be happy to debate him," Lewandowski told ABC's "Good Morning America" programme. Fox News, in a statement on Tuesday, said it would not "give in to terrorisations toward any of our employees," but left the door open to Trump attending the debate. The event will be co-hosted by Alphabet Inc's Google. "At the end of the day, Mr. Trump is going to have the last laugh," Lewandowski told MSNBC. (Additional reporting by Steve Holland and James Oliphant in Iowa and Eric Beech and Dustin Volz in Washington; Writing by John Whitesides and Alistair Bell; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Leslie Adler and Lisa Shumaker) Two actors with Broadway connections will be in Lynchburg this weekend to work with local performers. Terrence Mann, who originated the Broadway roles of Javert in Les Miserables and Beast in Beauty and the Beast, and Charlotte dAmboise, who recently played Cassie in the Broadway revival of A Chorus Line, will hold a master class from 4 to 6 p.m. Sunday at T.C. Miller Elementary School for Innovation, followed by auditions for their musical theater summer intensive Monday afternoon at Seven Hills Dance Studio in Boonsboro. They were invited by Perry Payne Millner, executive director of the Virginia Theatre Association (VTA), which is headquartered in Lynchburg. Millner first worked with the couple during the VTA conference in Norfolk last fall. It is four days solid and 282 sessions of theater geek nirvana, said Millner, an E.C. Glass and Lynchburg College graduate, who nabbed rising Broadway star Lin Manuel Miranda (Hamilton, In the Heights) to headline the conference in 2014. After Mann and dAmboise were among the headliners of the 2015 conference, the couple approached Millner about facilitating auditions for their summer program, Triple Arts. She suggested they come to Lynchburg. VTA serves all of Virginia, but were in this community, Millner said. Ive been welcomed to this place and I would like to give resources [back] to Lynchburg. Triple Arts began in 2007 at Western Carolina University, where Mann teaches, and is now held every summer in both North Carolina and New York. Its basically a boot camp for musical theater performers, Mann said in a phone interview earlier this week, not long after returning to New York from Chicago, where hed been filming his role in the Netflix series Sense8. Youre going to school, basically, on all the disciplines from 10 oclock until about 6, then you rehearse at night. Its designed to expose aspiring performers to a professional, demanding environment; in two weeks, the Triple Arts website promises, these students will learn a Broadway shows amount of material. We say, This is what it feels like if youre going to be in the business, Mann said. The expectation is very high. We do anywhere from 13 to 16 different production numbers in a two-week rehearsal study period. Whats so rewarding for us is that you ask these young people to do this, and you put the bar way up there. We always say, Are we asking too much? [But] you put the bar there, and they just go for it. Mann said the North Carolina program skews older, usually for ages 15 to 22, while the New York program has enrolled students as young as 13. Its a mix of high schoolers, college students and even some professionals who want a really intense program thats just going to keep them on their game, he said. I always say what were trying to set up here is a work ethic, discipline, responsibility, taking care of each other, Mann added. Whether or not they go into show business, that kind of an experience is going to serve them in whatever they do. They can carry any part of that philosophy with them. On Sunday, dAmboise the daughter of legendary dancer Jacques d'Amboise and a Tony nominee for both the A Chorus Line revival and Jerome Robbins Broadway will start the master class with dance instruction for all skill levels. We really want to emphasize [that] this dance class is great for great dancers. It is great for good dancers, for people that can move well and its really great for people who cant move well, Mann said. The thing about Triple Arts is we want you to come and do what youre not good at. How many of us are really triple-[threats]? Its very positive and very encouraging. Mann, a three-time Tony nominee, then comes in to teach a master class on ensemble work how to be in a group of people and how to take care of one another and how to work with one another, he said. Most everybody has to start out in the ensemble or the chorus, and how do you get noticed out of that? He also gives critiques and encourages the students to critique each other. I impress upon them the fact that they need to watch and observe and have an opinion and critique [their] fellow performers as well, he said. When youre watching other people do it, it informs you so much about how youre doing it, how youre going to present yourself. Registration is still open for both the class and auditions (see box for more information). Having watched these two work with performers of all ages, from 14 to grown-ups, last fall at that conference, [Ill say] theyre in for a treat, Millner said. Its just magical what they do. Theyre really Broadway royalty. Its one of many offerings of VTA, which Millner jokingly calls the best little organization you have never heard of. VTA works to be the central resource for connecting, creating, cultivating and advocating for practitioners of theater in Virginia and is divided up into several divisions: community theater, professional theater, colleges and universities, secondary schools, technical theater and theater for youth. In Lynchburg, Millner said, members include the Academy Center of the Arts; Renaissance Theatre Company; Linkhorne Middle School; E.C. Glass, Heritage, Jefferson Forest and Amherst County high schools; Liberty University; and Lynchburg, Randolph and Sweet Briar colleges. She brought the organization here in 2014 after landing the executive director job (it previously operated out of James Madison University in Harrisonburg). Prior to that, shed been working as creative director of The Paramount Theater in Charlottesville after 20 years in New York performing, writing, producing and working in other areas of the arts world. Millner said she and Jim Ackley, VTAs board president, have started putting together a special advisory board that so far includes a few other Glass alums: Nashville and Friday Night Lights star Connie Britton, Beth Behrs from CBSs Two Broke Girls and Tony winner Faith Prince. Im just so happy to be here in Lynchburg, Millner said. Theres just so much theater. Its a real theater town and becoming more and more so, with more and more vibrancy. As most students in the area return to class today after as much as a week off, the region is calculating the cost of the historic snowstorm but some of those costs are harder to measure. While children celebrate the snow, for parents, a snow day at best is a logistical migraine. But for some families, the unexpected days off can mean deprivation of food, money, or both. More than 10,000 children in the greater Lynchburg area are food insecure, meaning they at least occasionally lack access to enough food, or have uncertain access to nutritionally adequate food, according to estimates from Feeding America, the nations largest hunger-relief program. This need has prompted schools to make efforts to significantly increase free meal offerings for children, but those programs are not in place for emergency days. The snow is also likely to mean deprivation of money when parents with unsalaried jobs face the choice of missing work, which can mean fear of being disciplined or fired; paying for childcare; or leaving children to fend for themselves. Theres lots of things that you can do with your kids if you have the money and the time to sit there with them, said Dani Hottle, the director of development and marketing for the Boys & Girls Club, one of the few options for child care during recent snow days. For working parents, and not just working parents but lower-income parents who are just getting to the next paycheck anyways what else is there? Thats the question, she said. The center stays open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. for children ages 6 to 18 on days when school is closed. The center offers free childcare for members, with an annual membership fee of $10. The YMCA offers child care on snow days for $25 per day, for both member and non-member children ages 6 to 12, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Parents are advised to complete paperwork ahead of time if they think they might need the service. The Jubilee Family Development Center, near low-income housing at James River Crossing Apartments, was open for a few hours each weekday during the recent storm, and some churches provided services as well. But for the most part, programs that serve children close with the schools, and for the same reason: safety. Back roads, shady areas and narrow neighborhood streets can remain icy well after the main thoroughfares are cleared. We try to make a concerted effort to make sure that the children are safe and we have to make sure our staff is safe, said Dorothy Holmes, director of the Lynchburg Community Action Group, about decisions made for Head Start, a preschool education program for low- to moderate-income families that closes when the public schools do. Most workplaces, however, dont deal with what schools do: the volume of people, proprietary bus transportation, or the charge of keeping children safe. And because schools are balancing student safety, loss of instruction and parental concerns, officials often wait to make the decision, leaving families scrambling. Facebook comment threads following the announcements on area schools pages this week exploded with both praise and criticism, whatever decision was made. This is tough enough on parents who have work-from-home flexibility, understanding bosses, or sick or vacation days they can take without a hit to their paycheck. For others, its nearly impossible. When you have snow days, and especially when youre working in a service industry job where you have to go in for our kids, a lot of them, their parents have to go in, said Mark Sheehan, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club, which served about 40 to 60 children each snow day. The club has the capacity for twice that amount, but budget constraints keep them from opening before 10 a.m., which he thinks is a factor, he said. Depending on reliable family or friends is the one constant among all income levels but its a thin safety net. And the challenge doesnt end when the children go back to school. Even if unsalaried parents were able to take time off or forced to, with hours cut in the worst of the storm theyll face a lower paycheck, and might have burned through more of their food budget than usual by this time of the month. Im sure its difficult, especially for food, said Sterling Wilder, the executive director for the Jubilee Center. In my house, my kids have been eating up a storm. I know it hits the budget for parents who didnt expect it. In 2013, the most recent year for which Feeding America provides data, 21.8 percent of the child population in the city of Lynchburg more than 3,000 children were food insecure, along with 16.3 percent of children in Amherst County, 20.9 percent in Appomattox County, 16.5 percent in Bedford County, 19.4 percent in Campbell County, and 15.7 percent in Nelson County. The rate of food insecurity among children is higher than in the population as a whole, ranging from just a few points higher in Lynchburg to almost double in Bedford, according to Feeding Americas data. Food isnt usually the first thing to go, although more expensive healthy options might be literally off the table. Instead, families choose between meals and bills, contributing to a never-ending cycle as late fees and interest stack up. Holmes, of Lyn-CAG, said the families Head Start works with are expected to be proactive, planning ahead whenever possible and working to take advantage of community assistance options, but acknowledged she didnt know to what degree the snow affected them. What do they do? she mused aloud. I want to send out a survey now to ask my parents, do they have hardships when we close? What do they do about food and different things? RICHMOND Business representatives for the Lynchburg region went to Richmond on Wednesday to push their pro-business legislative agenda for the session, striking the tone for two major priorities: regional collaboration and workforce development education and training. The Lynchburg Regional Business Alliance was just one of 33 Chambers of Commerce and about 275 people to storm the capitol for Chamber Day, an annual event that gathers the business community to hear government speakers and then disperses them on their respective legislators office. In just several hours, the LRBA which Wednesday included representatives from companies like Areva, Randolph College and Liberty University visited the offices of five delegates and two senators to drop off their legislative agenda. The legislators available to meet with the Lynchburg-area business organization all Republicans struck a tone sympathetic to workforce development programs but sensitive to producing a frugal state budget and equally representing Central Virginia against the urban heavyweights in the east and north of Virginia. Agreed on both by the governor and the representatives is the job environment is changing and work needed to be done. Before chambers members went to their assembly members offices, they heard from several government officials, including Gov. Terry McAuliffe. We got to plan for the future. We cant live in the past, McAuliffe said, adding in Northern Virginia there were 17,000 cybersecurity job openings. We need to change workforce development. To train them on the economic opportunities of the future, that was what the budget I sent to the General Assembly was all about. I need your help as you all go up there to lobby the General Assembly. Officially, the LRBA priorities support bills that revolve around workforce development education. In Wednesdays speech, McAuliffe said North Carolina spent $92 million per year on its community college training program whereas Virginia spent $5 million. Del. Ben Cline met with the LRBA and stressed the importance of making sure the Go Virginia initiative gave the Lynchburg region a fair chance to compete for grant money. A bill this year aims to establish a board to administer Virginia Growth and Opportunity funds through regional councils that submit applications for collaboration projects. Meanwhile, another incentivizes inter-jurisdictional collaboration by giving grant money to the municipalities that work together on job-creation projects. Both bills, which have versions in the Senate and the House, are part of Go Virginia. We just dont know yet how Lynchburg will fair with the new Go Virginia, said Del. Terry Austin, whose district partly covers Bedford County. The collaboration, the unity of the regions, is what its all about and really, thats what has to happen, he said. At the first of this year, Lynchburg Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Region 2000 Business and Economic Alliance merged. Last fall, the Blue Ridge Economic Coalition officially formed, representing at least eight counties and three cities in west and central Virginia. Sen. Steve Newman expressed hesitation on the Go Virginia initiative. I think theres strong support [in the House], but the question is how much money is afforded to it. Sen. Tom Garrett and Del. Matt Fariss were unable to meet with LRBA members Wednesday. Both public officials received an A rating on their voting record for the years 2012, 2013 and 2014 by the Virginia Chamber. We have a very pro-business delegation across the board, said Christine Kennedy, LRBA chief operating officer. But that could change every day. Throughout the session, Kennedy said, a back-and-forth exchange will take place by the LRBA between businesses and the legislators. We do follow up with officials after we take a formal position. Sometimes, we already know where they stand, Kennedy said. One of Kennedys priorities for the year is House Bill 66, introduced by Del. Kathy Byron. If it passes, the bill would start a grant program of up to $2,000 per individual provided through a sponsored institution and also demands workforce centers to list high-demand fields. The law would go into effect 2017. Instead of institutions absorbing money we now have students going to the institution of their choice, Byron said. Were in a time so much technology and change is going on. Washington, Jan 28 (EFE).- U.S. President Barack Obama has paid homage to the "heroes" who helped to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust, while warning of growing anti-Semitism in the world today. In a speech at the Israeli Embassy in Washington on Wednesday to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Obama called on people to "confront the reality that around the world anti-Semitism is on the rise. We cannot deny it." The U.S. president cited examples including the migration of Jews from Europe to Israel, and attacks on Jewish centers in Mumbai and Kansas. Obama also took the opportunity to honor the memory of four American and Polish nationals who helped to save Jewish lives during World War II. Among them was U.S. Army Sergeant Roddie Edmonds who was held by the Nazis with 1,000 other U.S. soldiers during the war. When a Nazi commander ordered that he instruct all Jews in the squad to identify themselves, Edmonds instead told all of his men to step forward and shout: "We are all Jews." Lois Gunden, a teacher from Indiana who saved Jewish children while working at a school in southern France during the war, and Walery and Maryla Zbijewski, Polish citizens who hid a Jewish girl in their Warsaw home, were also honored. Obama is the first sitting U.S. president to speak at the embassy. He was introduced at the event by Steven Spielberg, the Oscar-winning director of the Holocaust film 'Schindler's List'. Home News Sports Social Obituaries Events Letters Looking Back Health Jewels Stitch in Time Restorium busy with activities and events January 27, 2016 by Elsie Hollenbeck Life for the residents at the Community Restorium is active and busy. The fall and holiday season has been a time of celebration and recognition. The residents had a fun time making up bags of candy for trick or treaters and greeting the children at Halloween time. Birthdays are always recognized and celebrated. Three people, Gladys Burton, Dotty Larson, and Don Dozier enjoyed the birthday celebration for them. A special recognition of our veterans occurred on November 11 with a free spaghetti luncheon for all veterans and their spouses in Boundary County. This was special for the seven residents who are veterans and were honored for their service. Pictures were taken of all of them in their uniforms. With November being Thanksgiving month and residents being thankful for their care, a big Thanksgiving dinner of the traditional turkey and trimmings was prepared for sixty people including residents, their families and staff. The November birthdays were celebrated for H.C. Studer, Laveeda Linnemeyer, and Cleo Mae Hicks. In December the halls and dining room were beautifully decorated for the holiday season. The annual Christmas party included a delicious buffet for over a hundred people and a visit from Santa Claus who distributed candy canes and gifts provided by the Friends of the Restorium. On Christmas day a special lunch was made for residents and the families who came. To finish out the holiday season and welcome the New Year the Kootenai Klogger Square Dance Club, who have been helping with the celebration for many years, entertained by dancing in the dining room. Snacks trays of meat, cheese, veggies and fruit and drinks to toast the New Year completed the celebration. A December birthday celebration honored the birthdays of Lorraine Liverance, Florence Cavendar, Evelyn Albano and Maxine Holifield. Our Community Restorium is home to twenty eight residents, and it is everything a home should be. This warm, comfortable, clean facility with caring employees and private rooms is also a day care for those who cannot be left alone in the day while family members work. Daily activities of games, exercise and performances to entertain by volunteers from the community all help provide a healthy environment for those residents. Visitors are always welcome and volunteers who can entertain, play games, and visit are all appreciated by staff and residents. Questions or comments about this article? Click here to e-mail! Republic records $306.4M profit Total assets stood at $65.7 billion at December 31, 2015, which, when compared to the same period in 2014, reflectes an increase of 9.4 percent. RFHL Chairman, Ronald Harford, said excluding the contributions of the Suriname and Ghana operations, which were not subsidiaries in the comparative period, net interest income grew by $97 million or 13 percent, driven by an 11 percent increase in the loan portfolio. However, he added, this was off-set by increased operating expenses of $25 million, excluding Suriname and Ghana, and higher loan impairment expenses of $70 million across the group. Noting that the significant fall in commodity prices will adversely impact Trinidad and Tobagos economy, Harrford said, However, we expect improved performance in the tourism economies in which we operate and from our recent acquisitions in Ghana and Suriname. Given our strong balance sheet and talented staff, the Group is well positioned to withstand the challenges of the year ahead. Harford also extended well wishes to RFHLs President and Managing Director, David Dulal-Whiteway, who will retire next month (February) and happily welcomed Dulal- Whiteways successor, Nigel M Baptiste By Suleiman Al-Khalidi, John Davison and Stephanie Nebehay AMMAN/BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) - The Syrian opposition said it will not attend peace talks due to begin in Geneva on Friday, derailing the first attempt in two years to hold negotiations aimed at ending the five-year-long war. An opposition council convening in Riyadh said its delegation would "certainly" not be in Geneva on Friday, saying it had not received convincing answers to its demands for goodwill steps including an end to air strikes and blockades. The failure to get talks off the ground on time reflects the challenges facing peace-making as the conflict rages unabated on the ground. The Syrian government is clawing back territory from rebels with military help from Iran and Russia. It has said it is ready to attend the negotiations, which U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura plans to hold in an indirect format. Another opposition representative said the delegation might turn up if their demands were met in a day or two, but the chances of that appeared vanishingly slim. The turn of events is a bitter blow to De Mistura, whose office had issued a video message that he had sent to the Syrian people, in which he said the talks were expected to happen "in the next few days". A spokeswoman for his office, speaking before the opposition statement, said the talks would begin on Friday as scheduled. George Sabra, a member of the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), said: "For certain we will not head to Geneva and there will not be a delegation from the High Negotiations Committee tomorrow in Geneva." GUARANTEES Before agreeing to talks, the HNC had been seeking U.N. guarantees of steps including a halt to attacks on civilian areas, a release of detainees, and a lifting of blockades. The measures were mentioned in a Security Council resolution approved last month that endorsed the peace process for Syria. Sabra said a response from de Mistura was "unfortunately still ink on paper". "We are not certain that the opportunity is historic," he told Arabic news channel Arabiya al-Hadath. Riad Hijab, who heads the Syrian opposition council, told Arabiya TV members might be in the city of Geneva, but would not attend the talks. He demanded immediate steps to alleviate the plight of Syrians under siege and bombardment. Another HNC official said the opposition could attend if their demands were met "within two, three or four days." "Tomorrow will probably the start will be with those who attend but it has no value," Monzer Makhous told Al-Hadath. The talks were meant to start in Geneva on Monday but the United Nations has pushed them back to Friday to allow more time to resolve problems including a dispute over which groups should be invited to negotiate with the government. The exclusion of a powerful Kurdish faction that controls wide areas of northern Syria has triggered a boycott by some of the invitees. Turkey had opposed the PYD's participation on the ground it views it as a terrorist group. The United States, whose Secretary of State John Kerry is among those pushing for negotiations to start on Friday, urged the opposition to seize the "historic opportunity" and enter talks without preconditions to end the war, which has also displaced more than 11 million people. Diplomacy has so far had little impact on the conflict, which has spawned a refugee crisis in neighbouring states and Europe. De Mistura is the third international envoy for Syria. His two predecessors - Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi - both quit. "TERRORISTS IN A NEW MASK" Enormous challenge include tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are vying for influence across the region, and the underlying dispute over the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. With backing from Iranian fighters and Lebanon's Hezbollah on the ground, and Russian air raids, the government has recaptured areas in the west, northwest and south of Syria since Moscow intervened last September, reversing rebel gains. The HNC groups political and armed groups fighting Assad. It includes some of the main armed groups fighting in western Syria, including the Islamist Jaysh al-Islam, which is deemed a terrorist group by Russia, and Free Syrian Army factions that have received military support from states including the Saudi Arabia and the United States. Earlier this week the Syrian army took a strategic town in the southern province of Deraa, securing its supply routes from the capital to the south, days after retaking more territory in Latakia province. Damascus, Tehran and Moscow have objected to the inclusion of groups they consider terrorists in any peace talks. Deputy Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Thursday his country strongly opposed moves by Saudi Arabia to allow "terrorists in a new mask" to sit down for talks. Syria's opposition has said it has come under pressure from Kerry to attend the talks in order to negotiate over the very steps which it says must be implemented beforehand. (Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Mariam Karouny in Beirut, John Irish in Paris, Ali Abdelatti in Cairo,; Tom Miles in Geneva and Alexander Winning in Moscow; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Philippa Fletcher) TTMAs Ramdeen calls for Special allocation of foreign exchange Acknowledging that with sharply declining prices for oil and gas there is less foreign exchange to be distributed, the Chief Executive Officer of the TTMA Dr Ramesh Ramdeen said it was important that the country use wisely whatever foreign exchange it had. We need to ensure that if we want to engage in diversification and build a manufacturing sector we really and truly do not produce the raw materials to manufacture in Trinidad and if we could allocate a certain portion of foreign exchange for manufacturers to source their raw materials, when they produce those products they will be exported and generate twice as much as they need to buy the raw material. Dr Ramdeen said the TTMA was not merely asking for a facility that would be only drawing down on foreign exchange but one that would allow them to use foreign exchange to build foreign exchange for the country. He said the association had presented a position paper to the Minister of Trade and Industry and is seeking a meeting with the Minister of Finance to discuss their proposal. He said the manufacturing sector would be unable to produce if they cannot get raw materials. He said members of the association are losing credibility with their suppliers. And the reason for that is that our suppliers could no longer have confidence to give us the credit because they have extended it from 15 days, to 30 days, to 60 days because we just dont have the foreign exchange to pay our suppliers of raw materials. And if we cannot source the raw materials we cannot produce the finished product to sell back on the international market. And therein lies the challenge. Dr Ramdeen made the comment on the sidelines of an event, Cocktails with the President of the TTMA hosted recently at the Marriot Courtyard, Audrey Jeffers Highway, at which Trade and Industry Minister, Paula Gopee-Scoon was the feature speaker. Approached on the proposal, Gopee-Scoon said it was not an uncommon thought because the TTMA were thinking that manufacturers could be the revenue earners in this period of declining energy prices. She said manufacturing was one of the more immediate sources of revenue but that the availability of foreign exchange was an issue and continues to be a concern. She said that as a Government as the supply of foreign exchange becomes more of a concern, the Government will also have to start thinking of the priority of needs that must be met and give precedence to those areas. She added that there will be priorities that will have to be met and the manufacturing sector will have to be one of those. While she said she was not sure how the mechanism would work she said it was something that would have to be considered because many of the manufacturers had credit arrangements abroad and the Government would also be concerned that they are able to maintain those arrangements and would not want them to lose their credit arrangements. She said while the ministry was prepared to listen it was a consideration for the Minister of Finance. She added that while the Ministry of Trade and Industry was concerned about the survival and growth of the manufacturing sector, the final decision makers would be the Central Bank. She said she was certain there would be some collaboration with the Ministry of Finance as well. The event marked the launch of a new venture by the TTMA called TTMACareers, a registry seeking to match unemployed persons with vacancies in the manufacturing sector. Gopee-Scoon said that in 2015 the manufacturing sector employed about 53,600 people, about 8.3 percent of the labour force compared to 7.4 percent in 2014. However, she said that in order for the sector to operate at full capacity and innovate and compete at the global level, manufacturing needed to attract sufficiently skilled and competent workers but she observed that there are still labour shortages at all levels in the manufacturing sector. She said the sector accounts for six percent of the countrys Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the food and beverages sub-sector makes up the largest part of the sector in terms of value. However, she said that 72 percent of the vacancies are in this sector and most of these jobs require semiskilled and graduate/professional workers. And that is not all, she said there is also the problem of productivity and competitiveness. In other words, quantity is a problem, but quality is a problem too. Gopee-Scoon said the Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016 released by the World Economic Forum, listed poor work ethic in the national labour force as the biggest problem for doing business in this country. In fact, we are ranked 96th out of 144 countries in terms of labour market efficiency, she said, This is untenable. With millions being invested in our youth and increased challenges around us, it is critical that workers be allocated to their most effective use and provided with incentives to achieve maximum productivity. However, she said the current situation might require that unemployed persons switch sectors and adapt to new environments and this was where the TTMACareers registry would be useful in matching the unemployed to vacancies in the manufacturing sector. She praised the TTMA for creating the registry, saying that In the medium and long-term, programmes such as this will definitely have a significant and positive impact on sector and national productivity levels. She said high performance and productivity levels within the manufacturing sector are necessary to improve trade, facilitate investment and make the country globally competitive, adding that The role of the manufacturing sector is critical to the diversification and growth of the national economy; therefore, an advanced and fully exploited manufacturing industry is a priority of the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Gopee-Scoon said the private sector had been complaining for a long time about having to compete for workers with the Governments make work programmes but the Government intended to make sure that such programmes were streamlined, made effective, efficient and transparent, and that the country got value for money spent but at the same time the private sector did not suffer. She said that in order to meet the needs of the private sector, those seeking gainful and productive employment, and to minimise the negative effects of labour market inefficiencies, the Ministry of Trade and Industry will collaborate with the TTMA and other private sector organisations to continue to build a better educated and trained workforce; promote product and process innovation, as well as research and development; and improve global competitiveness for companies. She said workers needed to develop production skills; to set up, operate, monitor supply chain logistics; to control the manufacturing process; to ensure quality assurance; but employers also needed to assist employees in the continuous improvement of these skills to ensure that products and processes consistently meet the highest standards. A strong, competitive manufacturing industry is fundamental to a strong economy - now more than ever. Manufacturing contributes to higher export potential, better standards of living, and more jobs, she said. A 2016 wish list for our national and workplace society In the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith in 1776 testified to the importance of the annual labour of every nation. He claimed It is the fund which originally supplies the nation with all necessaries and conveniences of life, and this local fund from labour is used to purchase our local and imported products and services. This fundamental economic theory remains very relevant today and continues to position our workplace society as a critical economic factor, which is vital to our development and livelihood. It is this continued relevance that gives credence and support to the effective but compassionate management, care, and opportunities for the nations workforce, particularly in these challenging economic times. Indeed, there have been a number of worker lay-offs quietly taking place, especially in the energy based industries, our largest foreign exchange earners. These developments raise deeper concerns about a domino effect occurring in the other sectors as this trend is forecasted to continue throughout 2016. Joseph A Schumpeter, one of the most influential economists in the 20th Century said, The essence of the economy [lies] not in paper securities or even production equipment, but in the psychological relationships between people and in the mental state of the individual. I completely accept this point of view and have determined that it is applicable to both the micro and macro levels of any society. It is this spirit and feeling of wellbeing within the group that inevitably delivers the trust, enthusiasm, and confidence between and among group members, which ultimately props up the groups economic performance. The acceptance of this line of thinking may suggest that it is time for our decision makers to devise a broad strategy focused primarily on building national confidence as well as diversifying the economy. Obviously therefore my first wish for 2016 is for a greater sense of self-confidence within our society. One low hanging fruit would be for the Government to demonstrate more robustly their efforts in bringing corrupt public officials before the Courts for misdeeds in office. There are unfortunately too few instances in our history where allegations of corrupt practices were swiftly investigated, persons held accountable, and brought before the Courts. On this score I am a strong advocate of restorative justice along with penal sanctions. This on-going trend has certainly demoralised our citizens as they feel that there are two separate justice outcomes for the haves and the have nots. The promised passage of the Whistleblowing Legislation is also long overdue. I believe that these kinds of laws will help raise the level of national confidence. Morally minded and patriotic citizens will feel confident that they are legally protected and shielded from retaliatory victimization at the hands of selfserving public officials My second wish for the year would be for a more aggressive revamping and upgrading of our criminal justice system as well our criminal investigative capabilities. This is particularly applicable to our detection rates and the apprehension of those responsible for serious crimes, especially murder. Now, I am acutely aware of the challenges faced by our protective services. Criminals are all too aware that it is unlikely that they will be caught and incarcerated so they have become brazen and boldface. This perpetuates fear and uncertainty in the hearts and minds of citizens and is fatal to national confidence while at the same time negatively impacts on foreign investment opportunities and tourism. No past government has been able to sustain efforts aimed at diversifying our economy particularly during periods of healthy revenue inflows from the energy sector. Maybe now is the best time to redouble our national efforts in this regard. It was only quite recently that I became aware that both Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the two largest of the seven Emirates of the UAE discovered oil only in 1965. In Trinidad and Tobago, we were drilling, producing, and exporting oil some seventy years before. I was even more amazed to learn that downtown Dubai was just sand, camels, and tents in the 1960s. Today the infrastructure of those territories is beyond world class and their leading revenue earners are tourism, followed by financial services. If the Emirates can do all this in less than 50 years, it is more than possible that we can set a course for ourselves that goes well beyond the milestones articulated in Patrick Mannings Vision 20/20. This period is ripe to engage and empower our population. It will therefore be irresponsible if our leaders did not present the nation with a new and clear diversification plan before the first half of this year. This is my third wish for the year. For my fourth wish, I must go back to Adam Smith and the importance that he placed on labour. The result of a diversification plan would be the creation of new industries, and would require some sort of transformation within our existing workforce, owards becoming more knowledge-based and servicedriven. The fifth on my wish list as I have said previously would be to for the creation of an effective tripartite mechanism involving Employers, Government and the Trade Union. This is the best vehicle to facilitate the adoption of an official Labour Policy as well as modernise our Labour Legislation making sectors fit for purpose in a diversified economy. My sixth and final wish would be aimed at both our Human Resources professional managers as well as the Human Resource Management Association of Trinidad and Tobago (HRMATT). As a practitioner myself I strongly recommend that we look urgently to the future and anticipate the needs of a new economy. This may best be achieved by accepting our roles in shaping the future of this ever-changing profession against the background of a regional agenda. With the Rowley administrations plan to adopt the Caribbean Court of Justice as our final Court of Appeal it signals the possibility of this Governments recommitment to the wider CARICOM and CSME. It is the practitioners as a collective body who must drive the adoption of standardize HR practices across the region and push for the introduction of certification and accreditation mandates for entry and mobility within the profession. Having outlined my wish list for 2016, I look forward to many positive changes not only in government policy but also in the workplace society. Effective cash flow management for entrepreneurs If a business buys $1,000 worth of stock and sells it on credit for $1,500, profit is $500 but cash flow is negative as cash inflows would be nil. Many businesses may continue to trade in the short to medium term even if they are making a loss. This is possible if they can, for example, delay paying creditors and/or have enough money to pay variable costs. However, no business can survive long without enough cash to meet its immediate needs, for example, payment of bills. This is why effective cash flow management is necessary. Hereunder are five key points to assist with effective cash flow management. 1. Managing your payables A key strategy in cash flow management is to hold onto your cash as long as possible by managing your payables. This means that the business should take full advantage of creditor payment terms and even negotiate with suppliers for more liberal or extended payment terms, as well as, discounts. This would require maintaining an open, healthy relationship with the suppliers. 2. Improving your receivables Another key strategy in cash flow management is to retrieve cash as quickly as possible. There are several ways in which this can be done. One way is to offer discounts to customers who pay quickly. This will encourage customers to continue to pay promptly. Another technique is requesting customers to make a down payment or deposit payment at the time the order is taken. Thirdly, collection policies need to be aggressive and follow ups for payment need to be conducted consistently and immediately if payments are behind. 3. Preparing cash flow projections Cash flow is the life-blood of any business. As such, cash flow projections should be prepared for a year by estimating cash inflows and cash outflows for each month over the next twelve months. This is essential to ensure that the business has enough to survive. Preparing cash flow projections are considered just as important as preparing business plans for the following: It acts as an early warning system by identifying potential shortfalls in cash balances in advance. Makes sure that the business can afford to pay suppliers and employees. Suppliers who do not get paid will soon stop supplying the business; it is even worse if employees are not paid on time. It spots problems with customer payments. Preparing the cash flow forecast encourages the business to look at how quickly customers are paying their debts. When completing the cash flow statement, it is important to note seasonal fluctuations in sales and record them accordingly. 4. Avoid over-investing Especially for new/startup businesses, while using extra cash to purchase assets for the business can improve productivity and competitiveness, it can be very useful to retain backup funds to cover any unexpected costs that may arise, such as repairs for breakdowns of equipment. 5. Taking out short-term loans As a business owner, it is wise to plan for the rainy day. Financial institutions would be more willing to lend to a business that has a healthy cash flow position than to one that has a negative cash flow position. It is suggested that a business plans ahead and asks for money even before it is needed. The bank can arrange a line of credit for the business so that in the event that the business is strapped for cash or any unforeseen day-to-day expenses occur, this line of credit can be utilised. For more information, please contact CARIRIs Business Hatchery and Incubation Programme at 299-0209 ext. 2661 or email us at hatchery@ cedcariri.com Noise pollution and nature Once, on a TT Field Naturalists Club trip to Chacachacare, we observed the midday emergence of hawksbill turtle hatchlings from the sand at La Tinta Bay, soon after the speakers of a nearby beach party were turned on. Of course, this may have been a coincidence, but it was also quite possible that the vibrations from the speakers disturbed the hatchlings and forced their premature departure. Other unexpected impacts include evidence to suggest that noise pollution can indirectly affect plant communities. Researchers in New Mexico have found that western-scrub jays (a bird) disappeared from noisy areas and, because the birds are important in the dispersal of seeds from pinyon pine trees, their departure is likely to have longterm implications for pine tree distribution there, which would, in turn, impact other species that depend on these trees. While the Commissioner of Police recently spoke out on the matter (he indicated that officers who are errant in taking reports of noise pollution could be reported to the Police Complaints Division), what really needs to be done is for citizens to realise on their own accord that noise pollution is a serious threat, not just an unavoidable part of life in TT . If you are an offender, you need to turn it down. If you are a victim, you need to report it to the police. Its that simple. If we do, perhaps we can save our country from noise pollution and make it a bit easier for our wildlife and ourselves to live here. For more info: on our natural environment, you can contact the Trinidad and Tobago Field Naturalists Club at admin@ttfnc. org or visit our website at www.ttfnc.org and our Facebook or YouTube pages. The clubs next monthly meeting will be held on February 11, at St Marys College, Portof- Spain. Lecture: Human disturbance and tropical freshwater communities by Amy Deacon. Mac Farlane: Through the Years on show From today to February 16, the society will host the deigners very special retrospective exhibit entitled Brian Mac Farlane: Through the Years. At this show Mac Farlane displays and shares his history as a mas maker and iconic designer, and visitors will be able to purchase limited edition prints. On display will be some of his trophies, crowns, Carnival costumes, and other memorabilia from his winning presentations, said a media release from the ASTT . Mac Farlane entered the Carnival arena in the late 90s and is well-known for his Theatre Mas. He has won National band of the Year title many times, including the record for doing so seven times consecutively with India the Story of Boyee (2007), Earth Cries of despair, Wings of Hope (2008), Africa Her People, Her Glory, Her Tears (2009) Resurrection The Mas (2010), Humanity Circle of Life (2011), Sanification In Search Of (2012) and Joy the Finale (2013). Gallery hours for this show are Monday to Friday: 11 am to 6 pm and Saturday: 10 am to1 pm. For more info: 622-9827 or send an email to exhibitions@artsocietytt. org Soldiers patrol outside school This decision was made yesterday after a meeting held with Chief Education Officer, Harrilal Seecharan, principal and staff of Our Lady of Laventille RC Primary School, schools supervisors, Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) representatives and the district coordinator of safety officers. Education Minister Anthony Garcia mandated the meeting after visiting the school on Monday. During the visit, the minister heard safety various concerns, including the disruption of classes because of gun shots in the area. Because of security concerns due to gang warfare in the area, teachers took the decision last week Thursday to stay away from classes following weeks of gun shots ringing out in close proximity to the school. Further heightening their concerns were the murders of Denilson Smith, 17, and Mark Richards, 15, students of Success/Laventille High School, a stones throw away from the primary school. There were also reports that a security officer at the school saw armed gunmen on the compound on two successive days. Chief executive officer of the Catholic Education Board of Management, Sharon Mangroo, in highlighting the concerns raised by teachers, identified the need for a security perimeter fence and repairs to the sewer system as priority areas to be addressed in order for classes to resume. It was decided that there would an increase in the complement of Security officers, in addition to joint police and army patrols in the vicinity of the school. Support for staff and students would be provided by the Student Support Services Division (SSSD) of the Education Ministry and the Employees Assistance Programme as was necessary. Other concerns raised by teachers with respect to infrastructural works at the school were receiving attention by the ministry in collaboration with the Catholic Education Board. The SSSD, as well as school supervisors of Portof- Spain and environs, would be on hand to provide support upon resumption of classes. Following yesterdays meeting, a decision was made to resume classes on February 1. A request has been made to the Defence Force to assist with the erection of a perimeter fence. Aaron eyes 5th crown I just have to hope for the best. I could make history as number one, he said. Duncan won in 2010 at the tender age of six, completed a hat-trick with consecutive wins in 2011 and 2012. In 2013 Marq Pierre took the crown and in 2014 Ronaldo London was the winner; London will be performing at position nine in the finals next week. Duncan dethroned London in 2015, and was crowned monarch for the fourth time with his song Grammy Awards which paid homage to the art form of calypso. At last years competition Deslie Julien and Sharissa Camejo placed second and third respectively and both will be seeking to dethrone Duncan at the finals next week. On his possible fifth win Duncan said yesterday I just put my hope in the Almighty and wish for the best. He reported that his preparation was going great and he was waiting on the finals to let the judges be the judges. Duncans composition for the finals is The Nations Future, an anti-bullying song. He noted that the issue of anti-bullying has been a passion for him. On what fans can look forward to from his performance in the finals Duncan responded he will being coming with a bang. Im just coming out to do my best, see what I can do and hopefully come out with the win. With number one, he said. The Trinbago Unified Calypsonians Organisation Junior Calypso Monarch finals will be held on February 1 at the Queens Park Savannah. JR CALYPSO FINALISTS POSITIONS 1. Aaron Duncan - QRC; 2. Shervonne Rodney - Arima Central Sec; 3. Jeremiah Marlon James - Holy Cross College; 4. Desle Julien - St Marys College; 5. NJanela Duncan Regis - Eshes Learning Centre; 6. Jovanni Gibson - Tacarigua Pres; 7. Sharissa Camejo - Holy Name Convent; 8. Jerrisha Duncan Regis - Elders Classes; 9. Ronaldo London - Fyzabad Sec; 10. Tsahi Corbin - St Josephs Convent, PoS; 11. Duane Tazyah OConnor - St Marys College; 12. Caryn Mc Carthy - Arima Central Sec; 13. Stefan Camejo - Sacred Heart Boys RC; 14. Sheann Cunningham - Bishop Anstey High; 15. Kevan Calliste - St Benedicts College; and in position 16, Rae Ann Guerra from the University of the West Indies Lawyer vs lawyer - Elder tells Phelps, Sit down! At the start of yesterdays proceedings, Phelps argued that a letter addressed to the Commission Secretariat suggested the Secretary to the inquiry who normally acts as proxy for the commissioners sought to prompt an inquiry witness. He further said a witness statement disclosed to him, appeared to mimic with surgical precision the line of cross-examination of Elder, in relation to another witness. (Counsel to the inquiry and the Secretariat perform separate functions.) In reply, Elder said, What a responsible senior attorney would have done was to pen a letter or write an email to the Secretariat asking if, in fact, a request did emanate from the Secretariat, not to stand here and make allegations. I can say without contradiction that the Secretariat never requested any witness statement. Another thing Mr Phelps is suggesting is that...I had to depend on Mr (Frank) Arlands supplemental witness statement to do what he said was a surgical cross-examination. I am an experienced cross-examiner and had all those documents that were disclosed to Mr Phelps, to conduct that cross-examination. My questioning was not dependent or based on anything said in that statement. I would like Mr Phelps to stand here and go through each aspect of my questioning and I will show him where the foundation arose. If Mr Phelps does not have that capacity...I am sorry. The senior counsel continued, I hope Mr Phelps will do the honorable thing and apologise to everyone publicaly. Phelps then said, I would like you, as Chairman, to tidy these proceedings up and not permit submissions from a senior counsel that are personalised and directed towards me. That is no part of why His Excellency (Anthony Carmona) issued a commission...She should exhibit some restraint. Elder replied, I exhibited the greatest of restraint, though not deference, to Mr Phelps because Mr Phelps sought to suggest the Commission requested this statement and we had this statement in our possession and Mrs Elder was going through that statement and was able to prompt her cross-examination and at a very late moment we then forwarded that statement. That never transpired. Attorney for the HDC Larry Lalla said the request originated from the HDCs legal team. Inquiry chairman Mustapha said he saw no evidence to suggest otherwise. What Mr Arland wrote cannot be held or construed against the Secretariat, Mustapha said. We find there is no substance to the objection maintained or the submissions made by Mr Phelps. Phelps represents Geotech Associates, which has been accused of improper practices in relation to the Las Alturas project. He later said he accepted the document in question was requested not from the Secretariat but from the HDC. I appreciate that, he said. I accept that. During a subsequent break in the proceedings, tense scenes played out between Elder and Phelps in the courtroom. At one point, Elder was heard telling Phelps not to impugn her professional reputation. 51 queens, 48 kings in prelims It is something that is very encouraging because that says, notwithstanding the challenges, our people are still very much interested in ensuring that this great festival we talk about is successful, and continues to grow and develop, he said. This year, there will be no semi final competition, as 15 Kings and Queens who are successful in the preliminaries will go to the finals. Nancoo said this decision was made after they realised it did not make good financial sense to host the semi-finals. The infrastructural costs and to support the event when compared to the revenue generated there is a substantial mismatch, it just doesnt make good financial sense, he said. The finals will be held on February 2 in an effort not to clash with Soca Monarch, on Carnival Friday (February 5). The competition tonight starts at 7.30. The Hit That Killed Mobster Was Ordered by His Own Son (Newser) It's only a matter of time before a few apartment complexes along Esplanade Avenue in Pacifica, Calif., fall 100 feet into the sea. That is, if they're not demolished first. With storms pummeling a coastline that has been eroding dramatically since 2008, the city, located just south of San Francisco, declared a state of emergency last week and on Monday yellow-tagged 20 apartment units perched on an eroding cliff at 310 Esplanade Ave. as uninhabitable. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that multiple buildings, known to offer million-dollar views on a budget, will likely need to be demolished; the units at 320 and 330 were cleared out in 2010. Drone footage has captured the dramatic scene in recent days, and KRON4 has pulled together Google Earth footage over recent years to show how quickly the cliff is eroding. While most residents are moving their things, and some have stayed at a nearby Red Cross emergency shelter, a few are refusing to budge. "If it falls, it's not going to fall in 10 seconds," Michelle Mackay tells NBC News. "We'll have plenty of time to get out of the front door." But Pacifica Police Chief Dan Steidle notes that "a yellow tag is not a suggestion. It's an order." Bart Willoughby, an independent contractor hired to help with the erosion, sympathized with the residents: "Where else can you live along the coast for like $1,500 a month?" he asked. "This is like a poor man's Malibu." And the plot thickens: Steidle says the owner of the building, who would need to pick up the tab should the building have to be torn down, has filed for bankruptcy. (Check out how this family managed the fate of its cliff-side home.) (Newser) A "towfish" sonar vehicle searching for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 didn't find the missing plane, but it did find a 7,400-foot-tall underwater volcanowhen it crashed right into it on Sunday, NBC News reports. The towfish was being dragged by a search vessel and scanning the floor of the Indian Ocean when it hit the volcano. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, searchers plan to recover the million-dollar towfish, which is sitting under more than 8,500 feet of water, sometime in the future. The search vessel has a backup towfish but has to travel to Australia to replace the 2.8-mile cable it also lost in the accident, CNN reports. The trip will cause a 12-day delay in the search for the missing plane. Flight MH370 has been missing since March 2014, when it disappeared with 239 people onboard while traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, NBC reports. Searchers have covered about 70%more than 32,000 square milesof the search zone so far. If they haven't turned up any "credible new information" on the location of the missing plane by the time they complete the entire zone in mid-2016, they'll call the search off. In the meantime, the Joint Agency Coordination Center will be investigating to find out exactly how a giant underwater volcano (which the Australian Transport Safety Bureau has a 3D image of) snuck up on its towfish, according to the Morning Herald. (Read more MH370 stories.) (Newser) An American mega-yacht is being blamed for destroying 80% of the protected coral within a 13,000-square-foot area of a Cayman Islands marine reserve, the Cayman Compass reports. The 303-foot yacht named Tatoosh belongs to billionaire Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft and owner of the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers, reports the Washington Post. The damage was caused on or around Jan. 14 near a popular dive site, and the Cayman Islands Department of Environment is continuing to look into what happened. At the moment, it appears the coral was damaged by the Tatoosh dragging its anchor chain, notes the Compass. A spokesperson for Allen blames the incident on strong winds moving the yacht too close to the marine reserve, and GeekWire quotes a statement from VulcanAllen's companythat claims media accounts of the damage are "greatly exaggerated." The islands' Department of Environment is set to issue its report on the incident next week, according to the Post. If found responsible, Allenwho may or may not have been on the Tatoosh at the timecould face a major fine. Coral reefs are vitally important for everything from providing a habitat for marine life to protecting coastlines from storms. The Tatoosh, which features not one but two helipads, is one of the top 50 largest yachts in the world. But GeekWire points out it's actually the smaller of Allen's yachts. (On the bright side, Allen's yachting has resulted in a cool maritime find.) (Newser) A Texas father arrested for taking away his daughter's cell phone as a punishment will avoid jail but may suffer an even worse fate. In 2013, Ronald Jackson viewed a text he thought was "rude" on his 12-year-old daughter's iPhone 4, so he confiscated it, CBS DFW reports. "I was being a parent," Jackson says. "You tell them what they did wrong and you give them a punishment to show that they shouldnt be doing that." Unfortunately, Jackson's ex, who is married to a Grand Prairie Police Department officer, disagreed. He was initially handed a citation, but things escalated to the point where police showed up in April 2015 and hauled Jackson to jail. "I'm upset becausenumber onethe property belongs to me," the girl's mother, Michelle Steppe, tells WFAA. Jackson, who was charged with theft, refused to cave. "I didnt want the police department telling me how to parent my child," Jackson tells CBS. "I couldnt believe they would go to this extent for a cell phone." WFAA reports Jackson was facing six months in jail and a $2,000 fine, but on Tuesday, the judge ruled there wasn't enough evidence to keep the case open and ordered the jury to file a not-guilty verdict. But Jackson tells WFAA the trial completely ended his relationship with his now 15-year-old daughter, who took the stand to testify against him. Meanwhile, Jackson's attorney plans to file a complaint alleging the Grand Prairie PD violated Jackson's civil rights. CBS reports Jackson never did give his daughter her cell phone back. (This NFL star's headline-grabbing parenting move got mixed reviews.) (Newser) An "alcohol-related incident" Tuesday night left a Duke University student hospitalized in critical condition, prompting the school to clamp down on more than half the sorority chapters on the campus, USA Today College reports. The unnamed student, described only as a "new member," is expected to fully recover, according to a Wednesday afternoon statement from Larry Moneta, VP for student affairs. He said the university "has suspended all sorority activity due to concerns about activities that have taken place during the most recent rush and bid periods." The school has 18 sororities, and the ban applied to its 10 National Panhellenic Conference chapters. But that ban was eased following a Wednesday night meeting between sorority chapter presidents and school officials, reports the Chronicle, Duke's student newspaper. That means sororities can hold alcohol-free events, per the Chronicle, and social events will begin again on Monday. Events may include study breaks, sisterhood events, meetings, and service activities, Moneta said in a second statement. Duke's director of fraternity and sorority life and the president of the Pan-Hellenic Council sent an email asking students to "utilize this time to reflect and keep in mind the severity of this incident. We must maintain our sense of urgency to change the campus culture." In the later statement, Moneta writes that the sororities are "committed to focusing on lasting reforms" and will seek "actionable proposals for the immediate future." Any remaining sanctions on sorority activities are "expected to be lifted in the near future," he writes. (Read more Duke University stories.) (Newser) Anne Frank's stepsister is clearly not a fan of Donald Trump. If he becomes president, "it would be a complete disaster," says Eva Schloss, an Auschwitz survivor and childhood friend of Frank's. Her mother married Frank's father after the war. The reason Schloss' Trump criticism is making headlines, however, is this part: "He is acting like another Hitler by inciting racism." Writing at Newsweek in honor of Holocaust Memorial Day on Wednesday, Schloss, 86, argued that the plight of Syrian refugees is similar to that of Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. After arriving in Amsterdam in the 1930s, "I felt as if I wasn't wanted and that I was different to everybody. It is even harder for today's Syrian refugees," writes Schloss. "We haven't really learned anything." This isn't the first time someone has compared Trump to Hitler. "This is the kind of rhetoric that allowed Hitler to move forward," former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman told CNN last month, referencing Trump's call for a ban on Muslims entering the US. Writes Schloss: "I remember how upset the world was when the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961 and now everybody is building walls again to keep people out. It's absurd." She commends Germany for accepting 1 million refugees but says the UK, Canada, and the US need to do more. Frank's father tried to get visas to the US in 1940 but was denied, she adds. "Fewer people would have died in the Holocaust if the world had accepted more Jewish refugees." (Read more Syrian refugees stories.) (Newser) Cringe: Police in Amsterdam responding to what UPI terms "screams of agony" kicked in a home's door, only to find the resident alone and perfectly fine. Turns out the man was listening to opera, with headphones on, and had been trying to sing along, reports NL Times. In a Facebook post translated from the Dutch as "Nocturnal Nightingale!," police explain that early Tuesday evening a neighbor who heard "terrifying screams" phoned in a report of potential domestic violence. The man wasn't aware of police presence until the door had been pummeled. "In the end, the [police] colleagues, the tipster (worried neighbors) and the resident had a real laugh about the incident," per police. The case recalls one in the same vein from November, in which New South Wales Police in Australia were summoned to an apartment over domestic violence concerns; they found an "out-of-breath ... flushed" 32-year-old man who said he lived alone and was trying to kill a spider. When asked about the woman's screams that had reportedly been heard, he replied, "Yeah, sorry, that was me; I really, really hate spiders." (An even weirder opera story also made headlines.) (Newser) The widow of Joe Gliniewicz, the embezzling police lieutenant who staged his suicide to make it look like he was killed in the line of duty, has been indicted on charges that she participated in her husband's theft of money from a group dedicated to getting kids interested in careers in law enforcement. Melodie Gliniewicz, while maintaining her innocence, has turned herself into authorities in Lake County, Ill., CNN reports. She faces six felony counts, including money laundering and disbursing charitable funds for personal benefit. Following Joe Gliniewicz's suicide on Sept. 1, investigators uncovered evidence that he had been embezzling money from the Fox Lake Police Explorer Post for years to pay for a lifestyle that far exceeded his $96,000-a-year salary, ABC7 reports. Joe Gliniewicz led the group, and his wife held "a fiduciary role as an adult adviser." Authorities say the stolen money was used for everything from trips to Dunkin' Donuts to a trip to Hawaii. And in one text message recovered by police, Joe Gliniewicz tells his wife that he used the "exploder account" (his words) to pay for a $624.70 flight, CNN reports. Lawyers for Melodie Gliniewicz, 51, say she is a "victim" of his "secret actions and looks forward to her day in court to show the world her innocence." That might be an uphill battle, says an ABC legal analyst. Joe Gliniewicz had posted plenty of photos to social media showing him and his wife enjoying their lavish lifestyle, and "it's going to show that she should have had reason to believe that these funds were stolen." (Joe Gliniewicz wanted to put a hit on the village administrator he feared would uncover his embezzlement.) (Newser) Police have arrested five suspected gang members in connection with the escape of three prisoners last week from the Central Men's Jail in Santa Ana, Calif. The fugitives, however, remain at large. When announcing the arrests Wednesday, Sheriff Sandra Hutchens did not identify the men or say what charges they face, the Los Angeles Times reports. She did say, according to the Orange County Register, that more arrests were expected overnight and into Thursday, adding that there's a possibility guards or other jail employees may have provided "inside help" to the escapees. Since the Friday escape, deputies have served some 30 warrants, ABC7 reports. A $200,000 reward has been offered for information leading to the escapees. More from Hutchens' press conference: Those arrested in connection to the escape were affiliated with the same street gang as 20-year-old fugitive Jonathan Tieu, knew the escaped inmates, or were arrested on probation violations. Hutchens believes Hossein Nayeri, 37, was the "mastermind" of the escape. Authorities have not recovered the tools used, and Hutchens believes the escapees would have needed help getting their hands on them. ("It's not something we think could have occurred with a jail-made shank, if you will.") "It's every sheriff's nightmare," Hutchens said of the escape, which has sparked criticism over how inmates are housed at the nearly 50-year-old jail. Nayeri, Tieu, and Bac Duong, 43, were not noticed missing for some 16 hours. Hutchens says she has made changes to the way inmates are counted throughout the day, per the Register. She also defended the decision to house the escapees in a dormitory instead of individual cells , the Times reports. "We house based on behavior, and there were no issues while they were in our custody," she says. (Read more Orange County, California stories.) (Newser) Dozens of elderly Holocaust survivors lit candles at Auschwitz on Wednesday, exactly 71 years after the Soviet army liberated the death camp that has become the most powerful symbol of the human suffering inflicted by Nazi Germany during World War II. The commemoration at the former death camp in southern Poland, an area under Nazi occupation during the war, is part of the UN-designated International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marked by politicians, survivors, and others in ceremonies and events across the world. At Auschwitz some of the survivors wore sashes or scarves that recalled the striped pajama-style clothing that prisoners were forced to wear, reports the AP. They placed candles and wreaths at a wall where many prisoners were executed before gathering with the presidents of Poland and Croatia for official ceremonies. The Nazis killed more than 1 million people at Auschwitz, most of them Jews, but also Roma, non-Jewish Poles, and others. There were other official commemorations across Europe on Wednesdayfrom Estonia and Lithuania to Serbia and Albania. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama marked the day by honoring four peopletwo Americans and two Polesfor risking their lives to protect Jews during the Holocaust; more on those heroes here. (Read more Holocaust stories.) (Newser) Another eight protesters have left the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, including three now in FBI custody. On Wednesday, militia leader Ammon Bundyone of eight protesters arrested Tuesday after a deadly shootoutreleased a statement through his lawyer telling all protesters to stand down. "To those who remain at the refuge, I love you. Let us take this fight from here," it read. "Go home and hug your families. This fight is ours for now, in the courts." Bundy also asked that the federal government "allow the people at the refuge to go home without being prosecuted." However, police announced late Wednesday that three men voluntarily surrendered at a checkpoint outside the refuge and were arrested. Another five people were stopped but released, reports the Guardian, noting it isn't clear if any protesters remain. Bundy also paid tribute to Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, shot and killed by authorities on Tuesday, calling him "one of the greatest men and greatest patriots I have ever seen." Police now say Finicum failed to surrender during a traffic stop as the protesters headed to a community meeting. A source tells CNN that Finicum's vehicle sped off, then hit a snowbank. Finicum was asked to surrender and was shot as he reached toward his waistband, where he had a gun, the source says; the occupiers say Finicum was shot with his hands up. "Multiple agencies put a lot of work into this to put the best tactical plan that they could to arrest them peacefully," the Harney County sheriff tells the New York Times. "It didn't have to happen. We all make choices in life. Sometimes our choices go bad." A bail hearing for Bundy and other protesters is set for Friday. (Read more Oregon stories.) (Newser) Project Dawnmission complete at Mattel. The toy company more fully explained this secret initiative Thursday, and it involves an industry icon getting what the Washington Post calls "the makeover the world has been waiting for." Barbie dolls will now be available in four body shapes: the original model, plus tall, petite, and curvy versions, Time reports. Some other changes, including to hair and skin tones, had already been made last year, but what Mattel is calling the "evolution of Barbie" has taken a more assertive stance leading into the new year. In its intro to the 2016 Barbie Fashionistas dolls, Mattel writes on its Barbie site that "the line includes 4 body types, 7 skin tones, 22 eye colors, 24 hairstyles, and countless on-trend fashions and accessories," a selection that lets it "proudly offer girls more choices than ever," per a tweet Thursday. The tweaks have come about in response to increasing criticism over the years about the brand's homogenous beauty standards and unrealistic body proportions, Mashable notesturning Barbie into a "tiny-waisted, stiletto-wearing Glamazon that infuriated many women." Incremental changes to bring Barbie into the 21st century have been made over the past few years, but the company hopes this major push will propel it even further into modernity. The new dolls, which can be pre-ordered online at Barbie.com, will appear on store shelves sometime this year, Time notes. A Glamour blog notes the dolls "aren't perfect, but they're an excellent start. ... The big win here is that many more girls can now play with a doll that actually resembles them, rather than a vivid reminder of something they'll never be. And that's pretty powerful." (For the first time, a boy starred in a Barbie ad.) (Newser) An American Airlines flight bound for Los Angeles had to return to London on Wednesday after passengers and crew fell ill on board. One flight attendant "literally just fainted ... just fell forward, put her hand out and hit the floor," one of 188 passengers on board tells ABC News. "It was crazy." Another passenger tells the Daily Mirror there was "lots of commotion" as crew members asked if there were any doctors on board to treat the ill, which included at least two passengers and four crew members, some of whom said they felt light-headed. (The numbers are all over the map: The Independent, for instance, says seven members of the crew and "many passengers" initially fell ill.) The flight was near Iceland when the pilot made the decision to return to Heathrow Airport, making an emergency landing about five hours after takeoff. "There were police cars, ambulances, and firefighters who escorted us down the runway and then we were held for 45 minutes before docking," a passenger says, per the Telegraph. Crews searched the plane but found no hazardous substances. All unwell passengers and crew members were examined and released. Officials say the plane was being inspected by maintenance engineers. (Read more American Airlines stories.) (Newser) Police are searching for a man who killed a Texas woman in an apparent road-rage shooting in Arlington on Wednesday. Police say Brittany Daniel, 26, was shot while driving on Interstate 30 about 7pm, reports the Dallas Morning News. Daniel's father tells WFAA that his daughter was dropping off coworkers from her housekeeping job when a car began swerving around her. A passenger in Daniel's vehicle says a male passenger in a small car with tinted windows then opened fire. It isn't clear whether Daniel had any interaction with those in the other vehicle before she was shot, but her father says she would likely speak up in such a situation. Police describe the shooter as "a light-skinned black or Hispanic male with dark hair, possibly in his mid-20s," per WFAA. The incident marks the second road-rage-related death of a young Texas woman in the past month. On New Year's Eve, a 20-year-old University of North Texas student was shot and killed while driving in Denton. A 20-year-old US Marine has been arrested in that case. (Read more road rage stories.) (Newser) Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles will be soon be made in Florida. Pompano Beach recently gave Kalashnikov USA permission to assemble the guns in the city, CNNMoney reports. UPI reports that the company will build a factory there, and the Sun-Sentinel adds that the 40,000-square-foot facility will ultimately bring 54 jobs to the area. For decades, the Pennsylvania company was importing guns from Moscow made by the original manufacturer, Kalashnikov Concern, but in 2014, sanctions against Russia banned all imports of the rifles. So Kalashnikov USA made itself over as a manufacturer of the guns, and initially began assembling them in Pennsylvania. It is now moving the operation to Florida for unknown reasons. Kalashnikov USA's first lines of rifles and shotguns were unveiled last week at the annual SHOT Show in Las Vegas. The company's Alpha line of rifles features high-capacity magazines that can hold 30 rounds, but since such magazines are restricted in certain states, Kalashnikov USA plans to also make 10-round magazines. Interestingly, though CNNMoney calls Florida "a gun-friendly state with relatively loose gun laws," Kalashnikov USA doesn't actually have a license to sell guns in Pompano Beach; it will be selling the guns it makes there wholesale to retailers in other locations. "An iconic firearms platform, revered the world over, with a history of intrigue and controversy, now reborn as the new American Kalashnikov," the company says in a statement, per Fox News. (Read more Kalashnikov stories.) (Newser) Companies including Pepsi, Coca Cola, Walmart, and Nestle have donated bottled water to Flint, Michigan, to help residents deal with a staggering water crisis. So have celebrities like Mark Wahlberg, Cher, and Pearl Jam. Michael Moore says it's not enough. Bottled water "cannot reverse the irreversible brain damage that has been inflicted upon every single child in Flint," who will suffer from lowered IQs, neurological disorders, and behavioral problems, the Flint native writes on his website. "No check you write, no truckloads of Fiji Water or Poland Spring, will bring their innocence or their health back to normal." What the city needs instead is "a nonviolent army of people who are willing to stand up for this nation, and go to bat for the forgotten of Flint," Moore writes. In particular, he wants to see people petition for an investigation into Gov. Rick Snyder's conduct, alleging he "allowed the poisoning to continue once he knew something was wrong" and was "hell-bent on widening the income inequality gap and conducting various versions of voter and electoral suppression against people of color and the poor." Moore also wants Michigan to pay to fix the water problem, while the federal government takes control, installing a temporary water system in every home. Removing "the billion-dollars' worth of tax cuts the Snyder administration gave the wealthy" will help free up the necessary cash, he adds. The Flint water crisis is "a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions" and "a crime against humanity," Moore says. He wants it treated that way. His full column is here. (Read more Flint water crisis stories.) (Newser) The Chicago Police Department has a dashcam problem. DNAinfo Chicago looked at 1,800 police maintenance logs and found officers were preventing their dashcams from recording audio by stowing microphones in the glove compartment, removing batteries, and breaking antennas. And that's when the microphones were even present in the first place. The issue became very clear during the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald in 2014. According to DNAinfo, neither of the two dashcam videos recorded by squad cars at the scene included audio (three other squad cars didn't even record video). The car belonging to Officer Jason Van Dyke, who has been charged with murder in the case, had been in for months-long repairs twice in 2014, at least once for "intentional damage." One of the cars that didn't record video during McDonald's shooting hadn't had any problems in at least 124 instances that month until a "power issue" kept it from recording the shooting, DNAinfo reports. A repair request wasn't issued for weeks, and technicians found nothing wrong. Police launched an investigation after one of the soundless McDonald dashcam videos went viral and found 80% of videos had no sound. The department is blaming mistakes and "intentional destruction" by officers. DNAinfo found at least 90 instances of microphones missing from squad cars between Sept. 1, 2014 and July 16, 2015. Since police brass started handing out punishments to officers with nonfunctional dashcams last month, the number of videos uploaded at the end of each shift has increased 70%, a police spokesperson tells DNAinfo. Read the full story here. (Read more Laquan McDonald stories.) (Newser) Police who were called Wednesday afternoon to perform a welfare check at a home in Chesapeake, Va., found a dead bodyand before the night was over, five more people were dead, victims of an apparent murder-suicide. An investigation of the initial scene led to another nearby home, where police found an armed suspect "barricaded inside," USA Today reports. After several hours of negotiation, police went into the home to find five more bodies, including the suspect's; authorities believe the other four people were killed before cops arrived on the scene. All of the victims are members of the Dooley family, which 13News Now describes as "prominent in the community." The family belonged to Temple Baptist Church, and the patriarch, Todd Dooley, was a retired police officer in Chesapeake's Marine Dive Unit. Citing "a reliable source," WAVY reports that Dooley's son, Cameron, is believed to have killed everyone: Todd Dooley, Cameron's mother Lori Dooley, siblings Brooke and Landon Dooley, and grandmother Doris Dooley. Neighbors tell the Virginian-Pilot that Todd and Lori owned the first house police went to, and Doris and her late husband (a pastor who "helped Temple Baptist Church grow") owned the second house where the standoff took place, but that she was planning to sell it. They say Doris' grandson had moved in to take care of her, and that he would often return to his parents' home about a block away. It's not clear if that grandson is Cameron Dooley. (Read more Virginia stories.) (Newser) Officials have released a name in the case of the American nanny found dead in her Vienna, Austria, apartment on Tuesday night, but beyond that, much remains unclear. ABC News reports Lauren Mann, 25, died by suffocation, though it notes that Vienna police rep Thomas Keiblinger earlier referenced a preliminary autopsy that found no indications of strangulation. NBC News echoes the report of suffocation, but CBS News and the AP report the autopsy was inconclusive, and their reports don't mention suffocation. CBS cites officials who on Thursday confirmed Mann was not strangled, shot, or stabbed. The case is being treated as a homicide, and an official tells NBC News "third party involvement cannot be excluded"; police say there are no suspects at this time. Keiblinger says it'll take a week or two for the toxicology report to be completed, which has CBS saying her death "could be [a] mystery for weeks." ABC reports Mann failed to pick up one of her charges from school on Monday, but her half-dressed body wasn't found until 6pm the following day. The Colorado native was a graduate of the University of Colorado-Boulder's College of Music. (Read more nanny stories.) (Newser) Just days after he dropped his deportation appeal, "affluenza teen" Ethan Couch has been returned to the US from Mexico. Couch arrived in Texas on Thursday and was expected to be taken straight to a juvenile detention center, CBS Local reports. His next court hearing is scheduled for Feb. 19, at which point it will be decided whether his juvenile probation case will be transferred to adult court. Couch, now 18, was just 16 when he drove drunk and killed four people in a crash; he allegedly violated the 10 years of probation he was sentenced to by drinking alcohol in a video that surfaced in December, and then quickly fleeing the country with his mother. (Read more Ethan Couch stories.) The arrest of the leader of the Oregon-based armed militia occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge finally ended the siege that lasted for nearly a month. But the arrest of militia-backed protest leader Ammon Bundy was anything but peaceful. Bundy and four other accomplices were arrested after law enforcement personnel entrapped them at US Highway 395. The group was supposed to head to a planned community gathering sponsored by residents of John Day City where Bundy was invited as a guest speaker. As they were asked to pull over, two resisted police orders which resulted to the injury of Ryan Bundy (Ammon Bundy's brother) and the death of LaVoy Finicum in an ensuing gunfight. "It appears that America was fired upon by our government. One of liberty's finest patriots is fallen. He will not go silent into eternity," the Bundy Ranch Facebook page reads following the news on Finicum's death as quoted in a report by CNN. For four weeks since January 2, the militia took over the refuge in an apparent show of support to two ranchers jailed for setting ablaze a federal land. Ironically though, the ranchers whom the group claimed to support cautiously distanced themselves from the militia. There have been recurring events of local hostility towards what they perceive as undue interference by federal authorities. With protest ringleaders arrested, other militiamen start to flee to escape arrest although at least 10 people are still believed to be holed up in the refuge according to a news coverage by NPR. "The entire leadership is gone. I wouldn't blame any of them for leaving," remarked Brand Thornton, a Bundy supporter, when interviewed by The Associated Press as mentioned in an article which appeared on The Chicago Tribune. It's one of those rare diplomatic meet-and-greet moments between leaders of two theocratic states whose religions are diametrically opposed to each other for centuries. In an apparent show of warming relations between the West and the former pariah state, Vatican's Pope Francis and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani met in a private meeting to discuss a whole range of issues mainly on how to build long-lasting peace in the war-torn Middle East, combat terrorism, and arms trafficking following a breakthrough withering of icy West-Iran relations for decades. Official Vatican statement viewed the rare private discussion with the Iranian leader as 'cordial' with 'common spiritual values' arising from the said dialog. The unorthodox Argentine Pope is seen a helpful bridge of repairing a damaged West-Iran relations with his successful feat in brokering talks between Cuba and the US which has now a resulted to a normalized bilateral links between the two countries. "If we want peace in the Middle East, Iran and Iranian Islam have a vital role to play," Rev. Bernardo Cervellera of Rome-based Asia News told The Wall Street Journal as quoted in a report by The Washington Post. Leading a 120-strong delegation composed mainly of top Iranian business leaders and key ministers in his government, Rouhani met with Italy's political and business elites a day earlier as part of his official visit to Europe. The economic talks between Italy and Iran's visiting delegation is widely expected to produce a trade deal worth 17 billion euros ($18.4 billion) according to Haaretz. "Iran is the safest, the most stable country in the entire region. Now we have created the conditions for investment and for the transfer of know-how," said Rouhani in his business pitch to Italian business and government audience as stated in a news article by NPR. George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin are, once again, the target of some fresh rumors adding to a previous news that she is a wife from hell and is very controlling and jealous. This time, a source said that the human rights lawyer has outrageous diva demands. "Just look back on all those designer outfits, the tab for which must be astronomical. Not to mention all that frantic mugging for the cameras every time she appears in public. Let's throw the book at her for this one," Pop Dust said as mentioned in Parent Herald. The publication further commented on how Amal dressed and carries herself in the public eye together with her Hollywood A-list husband. "There she was, minding her own business, sort of, waltzing around in new designer outfits wherever there was a camera, when suddenly she seems to have stopped leaving the house." Previously, it was also rumored that the 37-year old lawyer spill out some nasty bits about her marriage with the actor while she was drunk and relaxing in London in time when Greece's case regarding the Elgin Marbles cooled down. A source said that while getting drunk and 'drowning with vodka cocktails and gulping down wine', Amal was mumbling and 'complaining that life with Clooney isn't as wonderful as outsiders think." Meanwhile, George Clooney addressed the perennial pregnancy rumors while he was attending the Good Money Gala in Amsterdam. "No. But I like that you started that rumor," the Tomorrowland actor replied in a joking manner as reported by Inquisitr. He continued saying how busy his wife with her work as attorney for Maldives former leader Mohamed Nasheed. "The president of the Maldives was let out of prison, because of a lot of the hard work that she was doing. She's had a very good week." As of this week, Alamuddin is dressed elegantly in red in her meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron as they discussed efforts in freeing the Maldives former President. However, Celebrity Laundry captured one angle among the photos showing that Amal Alamuddin 'hysterically' refused Nasheed's kiss, Celebrity Laundry reported. The kiss is said to supposedly be a sign of his gratitude for the lawyer's fervent effort in freeing him. The Greek coast guard has reported that at least 25 migrants, including 10 children, have died after their wooden boat capsized by the Greek Island of Samos, which is near the coast of Turkey. The coast guard stated that the bodies they recovered included five girls, five boys, five women and 10 men. The guard added that 10 people have been rescued. A search and rescue within the area is being conducted with the help of the European Union's Frontex border agency. Since it is unclear how many migrants were aboard the ship, the rescuers do not know how many people are missing. One survivor stated that there were 40 to 45 migrants in total. The nationalities of the migrants are currently unknown, but the majority of the migrants who have risked their lives to try to get to the Greek Islands have generally been from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. In response to the latest incident, Doctors Without Borders stressed the importance of opening a safe passageway for migrants traveling from Turkey to Greece that would prevent the death toll in the Aegean Sea from increasing. The aid group added that in 2016 so far, there have been at least 224 deaths in migrants who were trying to get to Europe. The Netherlands proposed a plan aimed at deterring migrants from attempting to reach the Greek Islands by sea. The proposal, which was introduced by Dutch Labor party leader, Diederik Samson, states that the EU will take in up to 250,000 migrants and refugees from Turkey per year. All migrants who arrive on the Greek Islands from Turkey, however, will be sent back. "The Aegean Sea has become a mass grave, 3,700 people died there last year," Samson said. The Labor leader stressed the importance of enforcing his plan by spring. Sweden is prepared to reject anywhere from 60,000 to 80,000 of the applications it has received from migrants who are seeking asylum, the Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said. Ygeman added that the deportation of these migrants via charter aircrafts would occur over the next few years. Ygeman explained to the newspaper, Dagens Industri that his estimations were based on the rates calculated in the previous year when Sweden only accepted 55 percent of the 58,700 cases that were processed. In this year alone, Sweden has already received about 163,000 applications - the highest per capita in Europe. Since the average rejection rate is 45 percent, about 60,000 to 80,000 migrants can expect to be deported. The number of migrants who are trying to get to Europe has increased drastically over the past year, causing countries that are typically very welcoming to enforce tighter border control laws. Denmark most recently passed a law that will allow authorities to seize valuables that have no sentimental value from migrants. These valuables act as form of payment, the officials stated. On top of the overwhelming numbers, there have recently been more reports regarding migrants who are committing crimes. In Germany, there have been a lot of reported sexual assault cases allegedly carried out by migrants. In Sweden, a teenage migrant was recently arrested for fatally stabbing a 22-year-old employee from the asylum center. Regardless of any new regulations, migrants have continued to risk their lives journeying to Europe. A boat carrying migrants capsized near a Greek island on Wednesday. At least 25 people, including 10 children, died. It might not be 40 below, but the 40 Below Ball will go on Fairbanks, AK (99707) Today Considerable cloudiness. Occasional rain showers this afternoon. High 37F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Cloudy with snow showers becoming a steady accumulating snow later on. Low 29F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 80%. Snow accumulating 1 to 3 inches. Hyderabad: SC and ST teachers of Hyderabad Central University will go on a hunger strike from today over the demand for the resignation of the vice chancellor and the in-charge VC in the wake of the suicide by Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula. Intensifying their protest, students held a demonstration outside the residence of interim VC Vipin Srivastava when he was in a meeting with non-teaching staff. The protesters then marched outside the campus and burnt an effigy of the vice-chancellor. Srivastava later visited the protest site to initiate a dialogue, but faced the ire of the students who raised slogans asking him to go back. He was forced to beat a retreat in a few minutes as someone banged his car when it was about to move. Students of most universities in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana boycotted classes in solidarity with the agitators as they sought justice for Rohith, who was found hanging in a hostel room on January 17. The SC and ST Teachers Forum said in a statement that its members would go on a hunger strike tomorrow to press for the resignation of VC Appa Rao and the interim VC in order to resume academic and administrative activities. Several members of the Forum have already given up their administrative responsibilities in solidarity with the agitating students. We have been criticised constantly that no one is making an effort. The truth is that police have been stopping me (from venturing out). It is stopping us, Prof Rao (the VC who has gone on leave) as well as me. Because they felt it may result in a law and order situation, said Srivastava. He, however, said that he later convinced police to let him go and talk to the protesting students. Srivastava said he could have stayed longer at the protest site but felt that would serve no purpose. I could have stayed for longer. But then I did not see any purpose because they were not willing to talk. I thought they wanted somebody to come and talk to them. So I went, but there was no possibility, the in-charge VC said. The selection of Srivastava as interim VC was opposed by the students and SC/ST staff forums as they claimed he headed the Executive Council sub-committee whose decisions were responsible for the death of Rohith and that he was one of the accused in the death of another Dalit student in 2008. Meanwhile, in a bid to blunt the attack it has faced over the raging issue, BJPs student outfit ABVP has announced a nationwide campaign to highlight its version of events on the campus leading to Vemulas suicide. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi : On Thursday, Bhartiya Janata Party Chief Amit Shah will begin his second term as party president following his election on Sunday. The BJP parliamentary board including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and all other members of the partys highest decision-making body are expected to welcome the BJP Chief. On Sunday, Modi was not present due to his officials engagements while Veterans LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi chose to give the exercise a miss after which Shah met both of them subsequently. But Shah is expected to face several hurdles on account of the formidable expectations he is supposed to match in his new term. Let us take a look at some of them: Upcoming elections in 2016: Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry will go to the polls in 2016 and Amit Shah as immense burden of winning them especially after back to back debacle in Bihar and Delhi. His return in 2019: Both Uttar Pradesh and Punjab will go to polls in 2017 and Amit Shah will have the herculean task of winning the 2016 polls to be called the leader again. Next year, the BJP president will also have to pull out all stops to win Uttarakhand and retain Goa two states where the Congress remains the partys main rival. Ambition plans and indiscipline: Over the next three years, Shah will have to ensure that his big plans see the light of day and have to deal with motormouths with an iron fist. The BJP had to face flak and also pay a heavy electoral price for controversial statements made by the likes of Yogi Adityanath and Sakshi Maharaj. Pleasing veterans: LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi openly revolted against Shah after the BJPs poor show in Bihar. So will he be able to please the veterans this time is a watachable task. Social-engineering: Under his leadership, BJP is trying to shed its image of a Baniya-Brahmin party and reach out to leaders from marginalised sections of the society by giving them tickets to the Lok Sabha as well as assembly elections. But not much results have been achieved. The controversy surrounding a Dalit students suicide in Hyderabad has further dealt a blow to the BJPs efforts at social expansion. Amit Shah has once again got 3 years to prove his calibre, but this time he will be allowed little time to rest on past laurels. Whats more, his current tenure will roll into 2019 the year India faces yet another general election for the Lok Sabha. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi : The first 20 cities to be developed as Smart Cities will be announced today, Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said today. There are 97 cities in the Smart City Challenge, and the names of the first 20 winners of the competition will be announced today, Naidu said. These cities will be developed to have basic infrastructure through assured water and power supply, sanitation and solid waste management, efficient urban mobility and public transport, IT connectivity, e-governance and citizen participation. Naidu was addressing about 100 senior officers of Army, Navy, Air Force and civil service, including 25 foreign officials, participating in a course on National Security and Strategic Studies at the National Defence College here. In the subsequent years, the government will announce 40 cities each to be developed as Smart Cities as per Prime Minister Narendra Modis plan to develop 100 Smart Cities in the country. Speaking on challenges and the way ahead for urban development, Naidu said perpetuation of inequities in urban areas has serious implications for national security and hence, the government is committed to ensuring inclusive development under new initiatives like Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), Smart City Mission, Swachh Bharat and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban). Naidu stressed on the need for inclusive urban development, noting that it was the need of the hour with Young India becoming more and more aspirational. He expressed concern regarding the exploitation of urban spaces by the well-to-do sections of the society at the cost of the poor and the marginalised and stressed on inclusivity while taking decisions related to urban governance. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Melbourne: World number one Serena Williams demolished Polish fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska today to surge into her 26th Grand Slam final and zero in on a seventh Australian Open title. The dominant top seed was untouchable in overpowering the Pole 6-0, 6-4 in just 64 minutes on Rod Laver Arena to set up a decider against German seventh seed Angelique Kerber or unseeded Briton Johanna Konta. Kerber and Konta play later Thursday, with whoever wins facing a huge obstacle to be crowned champion. Of her 25 previous major finals, Williams has won 21. Im really excited to be in another final, it kind of blows my mind right now, said Williams, 34. I feel I am playing the best I can, and I cant believe I am in the final. I started playing aggressive again in the second set and it worked out. The writing was on the wall for RadwanskaWilliams had never lost a semi-final at Melbourne Park on her way to six titles, and had beaten the Pole in each of their previous eight meetings stretching back to 2008. She crushed long-time rival Maria Sharapova in the quarter-finals and dished out the same treatment to Radwanska, halting her 13-match win streak in emphatic fashion. The victory puts her just one win away from matching Steffi Grafs Open-era Grand Slam record of 22 titles, with Margaret Courts all-time mark of 24 edging closer. In her 16th Australian Open, Williams, who said this week she had no plans to retire any time soon, got on the front foot immediately, and effortlessly. Within a minute of the match starting she had a break point as she hit clean winners and attacked the net. It was the worst possible opening for Radwanska, with Williams, the oldest world number one in WTA history, breaking and then using her huge power advantage to easily hold serve, racing 2-0 clear with a smash at the net. Radwanska, 26, was in serious trouble with Williams attacking her vulnerable second serve, and a double fault left her flailing 0-3 behind. Kolkata: Former Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde today met West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at the state secretariat Nabanna here. Describing the meeting as a courtesy call, Shinde told reporters, For a long time I keep in touch with Mamata, who is like my younger sister. To a question, the senior Congress leader, however, said that politics never came up as an agenda during the discussion. The discussion was confined at personal level only, he said. The meeting between the two lasted for over half an hour. Shinde said that he was in the city to attend the reception of the wedding of the son of the city-based businessman Sanjeev Goenka. I thought since I am in the city, I should meet the Chief Minister, he added. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Melbourne: India all-rounder Hardik Pandya has been reprimanded by the ICC for celebrating aggressively after taking a wicket during the first Twenty20 International against Australia in Adelaide. The incident happened in the 16th over of Australias innings when Pandya, after dismissing Chris Lynn, celebrated excessively in close proximity to the dismissed batsman, which could have provoked an aggressive reaction. Following the match, which India won by 37 runs, Pandya admitted the offence and accepted the sanction proposed by Jeff Crowe of the Elite Panel of ICC Match Referees. As such, there was no need for a formal hearing. The charge was levelled by on-field umpires Simon Fry and John Ward, third umpire Paul Wilson and fourth official Gerard Abood. Pandya was found to have breached Article 2.1.7 of the ICC Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel, which relates to Using language, actions or gestures which disparage or which could provoke an aggressive reaction from a batsman upon his/her dismissal during an International Match. For all first offences, Level 1 breaches carry a minimum penalty of an official reprimand and a maximum penalty of 50 per cent of a players match fee. Melbourne: Top seed Novak Djokovic saw off a thrilling fight-back by his great rival Roger Federer to reach his sixth Australian Open final and fifth consecutive Grand Slam title match on Thursday. The Serbian world number one downed third seed Federer 6-1 6-2 3-6 6-3 in two hours, 19 minutes and will face either Andy Murray or Milos Raonic in Sundays final. It was the 45th meeting between the two greats with Djokovic now edging ahead of Federer 23-22 in their head-to-head duels. The amazing Serb continued his recent domination over the 17-time Grand Slam champion and on Sunday, he will become the first man in the Open era to contest six Australian Open finals. I played an unbelievable first two sets but that is what is necessary against Roger as he has been playing at a very high level in this tournament, Djokovic said. I knew he was going to be aggressive and mix up the pace and try to come to the net, but I came out with the right intensity with great concentration and I executed everything perfect. But it was a battle in the end. It will also be Djokovics 19th Grand Slam final overall and he moves into equal-third place with Ivan Lendl on the all-time list of most appearances in major finals, which is headed by Federer. The 10-time Grand Slam champion was in sensational form in the opening two sets, carving up Federer in their 15th Grand Slam encounter with his fabulous groundstrokes for the loss of only three games in just 54 breathless minutes. He broke Federers first service to 15 and then held his serve to lead 3-0, winning 12 of the first 14 points. The Swiss third seed was broken again in the sixth game, netting a forehand with Djokovic in full cry. Djokovics 6-1 first set was his easiest opening-set win over Federer. He won 24 points to 11, with the rushed Swiss making 12 unforced errors. Federer was broken to love in the third game in a similar start to the second set, with the world number one able to do no wrong. He broke again in the fifth game and made it two sets to love with less than an hour gone. Four-time winner Federer probed for a way back in, with the Australian crowd urging him on, and he broke Djokovic for the first time in the sixth game of the third set. The Swiss was finally putting pressure on Djokovic and he claimed the third set on his third set point, to a thunderous roar on Rod Laver Arena. But both players had to cool their heels as play was delayed to enable the stadium roof to be closed ahead of expected rain, making for indoor playing conditions. Djokovic broke Federer for a fifth time in the match in a sensational eighth game of the fourth set, featuring a forehand return winner for the break, and he safely served out for the match in the following game. New Delhi: The CBI has been asked by the Defence Ministry to probe complaints against two serving Major Generals for allegedly having assets disproportionate to their known sources of income. The Ministry had in September red-flagged the promotion of certain officers following allegations of impropriety. The Defence Ministry has forwarded to CBI complaints against these two officers and has sought a reply, defence sources said today, adding that the government will not tolerate corruption at any level. The CBI will now look into the complaints and report back to the Ministry. Giving a background to the case, sources said that a meeting of the Special Promotion Board of the Army was held last year to fill up the vacancy of three Lieutenant Generals for which about 33 officers were considered. A set of names cleared by the Board was sent to the Defence Ministry. However, following the meeting of the Board, a series of complaints against some officers surfaced, many of which were being circulated on the social media too. Taking cognizance of the matter, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar himself looked into the issue. It was found that one of the two officers, against whom the Ministry has roped in the agency, had faced a CBI inquiry few years back over allegations of corruption in a project undertaken by Border Roads Organisation, sources said. The CBI did not find enough evidence for criminal prosecution. They suggested that this does not fall in the ambit of criminality, it falls in the ambit of disciplinary procedure guidelines, they added. BRO is a mixed cadre organisation. The matter came to the Army. The Army said that the act pertained to civilian issues and hence action cannot be taken up by them. The matter got tossed from here to there as army disciplinary proceeding is different from that of the civilians, the sources said, adding the actual proceedings have not started. In the meantime, his promotion came up and he got the Discipline and Vigilance (DV) clearance since there was no formal proceedings against him. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Bangui: Troubled Central African Republic said today it will hold a deferred presidential runoff alongside a new legislative vote on February 14. The presidential run-off, originally due to be held on Sunday but delayed due to organisational problems, will see two former premiersAnicet Georges Dologuele and Faustin Archange Touaderacompete for election. A presidential decree said a December 30 legislative election annulled due to irregularities will be held along with the runoff on February 14. The elections have been widely seen as turning a page on the worst sectarian violence in the traditionally unstable and dirt poor nation. Dologuele won 23.74 percent of the vote in the first round on December 30, trailed by Touadera, who picked up 19.05 percent. Dologuele, a 58-year-old former central banker, came to be known as Mr Clean after his attempts to bring transparency to murky public finances during his time as premier. Touadera, also 58, is a former maths professor who served as prime minister under disgraced ousted president Francois Bozize. He was considered an outsider among the 30 candidates running for the top job. The announcement comes after the countrys top court on Monday annulled last months first-round legislative vote over irregularities, but said the second round of the presidential poll could go ahead. There were more than 1,000 candidates in the legislative election. Nearly two million people were eligible to vote in the polls, seen as the way out of more than two years of sectarian bloodshed that has forced about one in 10 of the nations 4.9 million people to flee their homes. The violence set mainly Muslim rebels against vigilantes from the Christian majority, with civilians the main victims. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. London: The British government said today that good progress was being made on a vast project to construct the nations first nuclear power plant in decades. In October, French energy giant EDF signed a historic deal with China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) to build a new plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset, southwest England, with construction costs totalling USD 25.8 billion. British Prime Minister David Cameron had announced the gigantic nuclear project to coincide with Chinese President Xi Jinpings business-themed state visit to Britain in October. Good progress continues to be made so that Hinkley can provide clean, affordable and secure energy that hardworking families and businesses can rely on now and in the future, said a spokesperson for the governments Department of Energy and Climate Change. EDF agreed in October to construct two European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs), a third-generation nuclear reactor design, at the Hinkley Point C plant. However on Wednesday, the EDF board took no final investment decision on whether to go ahead with the plan, amid media speculation that the project could be delayed. Camerons spokesman said today that a further announcement on Hinkley Point was expected shortly and noted that discussions are still ongoing. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. I know that different people like different kinds of humor, but I think the signs of a good comedy are a mixture of jokes told by a good cast using a well-written script. Unfortunately Dirty Grandpa only had one of these. The movie stars Robert De Niro as Dick Kelly and Zac Efron as Dicks grandson, Jason. I have watched both these actors do fabulous work in other comedies, and they had decent chemistry in this film. However, not even the best actor in the world can pull off a comedy that just seems to be the same sex joke told over and over again. I know there were other people in the theater that were laughing during the film, but I guess the humor was just too crass and too repetitive for me. The movie starts at the funeral of Dicks wife. As part of his grieving process, he asks his grandson, Jason, to take him to Florida. From the beginning of the trip Jason is shocked to find his grandfather is tending to his grief by trying to get into the pants of almost any woman who will have him. The two end up traveling to Daytona Beach during spring break to chase after college girls. The main women who receive the attentions are Shadia and Lenore, played by Zoey Deutch and Aubrey Plaza, respectively. While party high jinks are happening all around Jason, he also is dealing with his high-maintenance and uppity fiance Meredith, played by Julianne Hough, at home. The filmmakers make sure the audience will detest her from the moment she is on screen so no one feels bad when Jason spends time with another woman. The plot of this film was extremely predictable but what really made it ridiculous and horrible for me were the supporting characters. There was a running gag of a Daytona Beach drug dealer, Pam, played by Jason Mantzoukas, and his ability to be a buddy of the only two law enforcement personnel in the city, Officer Finch and Officer Reiter, portrayed by Mo Collins and Henry Zebrowski, respectively. If this relationship wasnt portrayed so ridiculously it might have been funny, but instead the jokes fell flat. Maybe my sense of humor is more high brow than I thought, but this film couldnt end fast enough for me. I guess I shouldnt be surprised when the writers only other screenplay credit is for Bad Santa 2 and the director is known for I Give It a Year and Da Ali G Show on TV. Dirty Grandpa is rated R for crude sexual content throughout, graphic nudity, and for language and drug use. Rating for Dirty Grandpa: 1 popcorn out of 5 The Eyes of Freedom exhibit displays life-size portraits of the fallen Marines of Lima Company in 2005. Pairs of combat boots that belonged to each fallen Marine in the company are positioned under each ones respective portrait in TUC. Chinas carriers will turn South China Sea into a Chinese lake by 2030: Study (NationalSecurity.news Beijing will build enough aircraft carriers to transform the South China Sea into a virtual Chinese lake by the year 2030, a new security study is warning. As reported by the Washington Post, the study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies also noted that the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region was shifting away from the United States, and that President Obamas strategic rebalance to Asia has yet to be clearly defined or resourced sufficiently to deal with rising threats from China and North Korea. The study said that in order to maintain dominance the U.S. would need to sustain and even expand its military presence in the region, while simultaneously working to enhance allies military capabilities in Asia. CSIS undertook the study after Congress ordered the Pentagon to commission an independent analysis and assessment of U.S. strategy in the Asia-Pacific region, the Post noted. The paper added: It concluded that Obamas rebalance needed more attention and resources, especially as China has accelerated the pace of coercive activities and island-building in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, and North Korea has continued to develop its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities. Chinese and North Korean actions are routinely challenging the credibility of U.S. security commitments, and at the current rate of U.S. capability, the balance of military power in the region is shifting against the United States, the study said. The study noted further that China is expected to field several aircraft carriers in the South China Sea region by 2030, which will give Beijing a dominant capability over other nations in the area without actually having to be too aggressive. In December, as NationalSecurity.news reported, China announced it would be building its first domestically produced aircraft carrier, with more planned in the years ahead. China obtained its first carrier, the Liaoning, from the former Soviet Union, which had begun building the ship but ceased construction after the USSR collapsed in the early 1990s. For rival claimants in the South China Sea, this is a game changer, the study said. There will almost always be a Chinese CSG (carrier strike group) floating in contested waters, or within a half-days steaming time. The think tank, in its study, identified three primary U.S. goals for the region: Protecting American citizens and allies, promoting trade and economic opportunity, and promoting universal democratic norms. However, analysts expressed concern that the Obama rebalance may be insufficient to secure those interests. Further, the study warned that capping military spending at budget levels contained in the Budget Control Act would severely constrain implementation of the rebalance. Analysts called on Congress to forge a long-term bipartisan agreement to fund defense at the higher levels for which there is broad consensus. See also: The Washington Post Asia Pacific Rebalance 2025: Capabilities, Presence and Allies [PDF] NationalSecurity.news is part of the USA Features Media network of sites. For advertising opportunities, click here. Submit a correction >> Farmers try to sue over genetic pollution from GMOs as Monsantos discredit bureau attempts to deflect blame Nearly a year has passed since the worlds largest seed giant was forced to pay $2.4 million in restitution to farmers in seven states, following the discovery of Monsantos Roundup Ready wheat growing in Oregon. Because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had not approved GE wheat, the finding sent shock waves through the industry, inciting panic among consumers, as well as international buyers including Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. The three countries promptly suspended some of their wheat orders, while the European Union called for more rigorous testing of U.S. wheat exports. In the 1990s, Monsanto managed test trials of GM wheat in Montana, but terminated the project after the crop was rejected by the industry and consumers. Though GM wheat testing supposedly ended in 2003, it was found still growing more than a decade later. The experimental crop was found thriving in Montana near Monsantos research field just one year after it was found growing in Oregon. It was the Oregon discovery, however, that affected wheat farmers the most as the crop was discovered growing on commercial farmland. An eastern Oregon farmer noticed the GM wheat when he sprayed his field with Roundup and observed most of the vegetation dying off, except for clumps of green wheat stalk that kept growing, reported NPR, they apparently had sprouted from grain that was leftover in the field from last years crop.(1) The farmers suspicions were confirmed after he sent a sample of the wheat to Carol Mallory-Smith, a weed scientist at Oregon State University. Though skeptical about the prospect of it being GM wheat, namely since Monsantos test trials ended 12 years earlier, Smith agreed to test the sample. She was extremely surprised when the results came back positive. She notified the U.S. Department of Agriculture about her discovery, which subsequently launched an investigation. If rogue genes are present in Americas wheat harvest, some customers especially in Japan and Korea say they wont take it, NPR wrote in 2013. Though Monsanto admitted it had no idea how the GM wheat made onto Oregon farmland, it couldnt resist using the opportunity to bash GMO skeptics, blaming them for the mishap rather than taking responsibility for the displacement of its unapproved crop. The fact pattern indicates the strong possibility that someone intentionally introduced wheat seed containing the CP4 event into his field, sometime after that farmer initially planted it, said Monsantos chief technology officer, Robert Fraley. Pointing to a possible motive, there are folks who dont like biotechnology and would use this as an opportunity to create problems, said Fraley, speculating that anti-GMO activists may have stolen wheat from Monsanto before purposely planting it in Oregon. The suggestion was of course ridiculous and completely unsupported, having no facts to back it up. The debacle led to a string of lawsuits against Monsanto, eventually resulting in it paying $350,000 to farmers affected by the unapproved wheat. The seed giant agreed to donate $50,000 to agricultural schools at land grant colleges in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. A portion of the restitution will serve as reimbursements for plaintiffs legal fees, reports NBC News. A separate lawsuit brought against the biotech giant by Arkansas wheat growers remains unresolved.(2) No stranger to lawsuits, Monsanto has found itself embroiled in many over the years as it continues to pollute the planet with its destructive pesticides and GM crops, harming humans, animals and the environment. Attempting to escape its bad rap, last summer Monsanto toyed with the idea of changing its name during discussions about a possible merger with Swiss biotech rival Syngenta. Monsanto proposed creating a new company entirely, hoping to escape persecution for its crimes, reported wearechange.org.(3) Monsanto wants to escape its ugly history by ditching its name. This shows how desperate Monsanto is to escape criticism: of its products, which raise environmental and health concerns, as well as concerns about corporate control of agriculture and our food system, said Gary Ruskin, Co-Director of U.S. Right to Know. Thankfully, the merge never happened. To donate to a cause that could hold Monsanto accountable for its crimes against humanity, click here. Learn more about the effort in the video below. Marie-Monique Tribunal (English) from Monsanto Tribunal on Video. Sources: (1) NPR.org (2) NBCNews.com (3) WeAreChange.org (4) Bloomberg.com (5) NaturalNews.com Submit a correction >> Russia positions itself to supply the world with organic food Russia is poised to become the worlds largest supplier of organic foods, after taking a stand against genetically-engineered seeds last summer, saying that it has chosen a different path. The decision is based on healthy scepticism as Russia refuses to breeze over the fact that GMOs have not been proven safe for long-term consumption.(1) The country voiced concerns about the effect GMOs and their associated pesticides have on the environment, which often cause irreversible damage to Earths valuable resources. Russia has set itself apart from other nations through its rejection of modified foods, proving they are not in fact required for humans to survive as the biotech industry will have you believe. Not only can we ourselves eat it, but also taking into account our land and water which is particularly important resources Russia could become the worlds largest supplier of healthy, environmentally friendly, high-quality food that has long been missing in some western producers, said Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia actually values its resources Especially as the demand on the global market for such products is growing, he added. Putin is right. Organic food sales more than tripled between 2004 and 2014, growing from $11.6 billion in sales to nearly $36 billion, according to the Organic Trade Association. Globally, organic food and drink sales are expected to reach $104.5 billion, up from just $57.2 billion in 2010.(2) To put that into perspective, IBM earned $93 billion in sales last year, while Nestle raked in $92 billion.(3) The momentum behind consumer demand for cleaner, healthier food cannot be stopped. The word is out: GMOs do not always do what they were promised to, they harm the environment and we simply dont know the health consequences of eating them. Though theyve tried through vicious attacks and slander, the biotech industry has failed to reverse public opinion about GMOs. There is just far too much science substantiating the publics concern about modified food. Russias decision to ban them is one to be admired. Russia does not import GMOs like most of Europe currently does, nor does it grow them. Unlike the U.S., Russia has deep concerns about the safety of GMOs and has chosen to implement an extended moratorium on their use as it looks to other, safer technologies that dont come with the risk of birth defects, endocrine disruption and cancer, reported Natural News.(4) Russia vows to produce the cleanest food in the world Russias Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich told the audience at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg that the nation will not use these [GM] technologies to increase agricultural yields, continuing on Putins declaration to protect Russians from GMOs. He isnt afraid to hold those caught breaking the law accountable either. Food manufacturers implicated in the unclear labeling of food containing GMOs could face fines, according to an article appearing in the January 2016 edition of Common Ground magazine.(1) In January 2015 Putin signed the Russian Federation Code of Administrative Offences into law, including a new article establishing liability for the violation of mandatory requirements for the labeling of food products that contain GMOs. The bill which was submitted by the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Protection and Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor) imposes fines for vague or unclear labeling on food products containing genetically modified ingredients, reported Common Ground. As a result, Russian food products will be one of the cleanest in the world, said Dvorkovich. The countrys landmass is large enough to produce organic food safely and cleanly without the need for carcinogenic herbicides such as Roundup. Made by Monsanto, the worlds largest seed provider, Roundups primary ingredient is glyphosate, a chemical deemed probably carcinogenic by the World Health Organization last year. Around 2.6 billion pounds of this probably carcinogenic chemical has been sprayed on U.S. crops over the last two decades a human health and environmental hazard you wont stumble across in Russia. Sources: (1) CommonGround.ca (2) https://www.ota.com (3) Statista.com/ (4) NaturalNews.com Submit a correction >> Taiwan chipmaker maker sees record sales for 2015 as human-embedded microchips soar in popularity The worlds largest chip maker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. raked in record profits in 2015, highlighting a burgeoning industry thats changing the way humans interact with and connect to technology. The companys net profits totalled an upwards of $9 billion, up more than 16 percent from last year, along with 10.6 percent increase in revenue, according to phys.org. While the majority of the companys chips are used in telecommunications, including devices made by Apple, radio-frequency-identification (RFID) chips are also growing in popularity as tech savvy companies find innovative ways to implement their use in humans.(1) Last spring, a high-tech office complex in Sweden began offering microchips to consenting employees to insert beneath their skin. The technology allows workers to access building entrances with the wave of a hand, eliminating the need for key cards. The RFID embedded chips can also control office machines such as photo copiers and share contact info, reports the Daily News.(2) Human-embedded chips are the way of the future, techies say Experts predict human microchip implants will be used extensively in the future. We call it augmented humanity, said futurist Faith Popcorn. We foresee a future in which everyone will have an implanted chip that will benefit our personal lives as well. The RFID-embedded employee chips are similar to those used to in cats and dogs that help track lost pets. Relatively small in size, the devices are about the size of a grain of rice, says The Washington Times.(3) Interestingly, the Swedish complex has employed a professional tattoo artist to insert the chips using a thick needle. The chips inventor, Swedish entrepreneur and bio-hacking activist Hannes Sjoblad, says he believes that soon the microchips will be used everywhere, including for access to public transportation, purchasing groceries and tracking fitness routines. Youll be able to download Mandarin into your embedded chip before your business meeting in Shanghai, said Popcorn. Are microchips necessary to protect children? Others believe human-embedded microchips could offer advantages in terms of security. For example, Fox News suggests they could be used to help locate a missing child, or soldiers and journalists lost in war zones. The latter seems plausible; however, the concept of microchipping all children in the event of a potential kidnapping sounds a little too extreme, and not to mention, paranoid. Especially, since the risks could outweigh the benefits. Walking around with a human-embedded electronic device thats connected to the Internet leaves users vulnerable to prying eyes via hacking. For many, the idea of having an implant containing personal information inserted under the skin is not a welcome option, reported Natural News. Not only is there maybe something creepy about the whole idea to begin with, but the fact is that a lot of us feel our privacy and autonomy has been compromised enough already, without voluntarily becoming walking transmitters of our personal data. (4) Some predict that one day it wont be a matter of choice, or that the use of implants and other types of bio-enhancement and connectivity will become so commonplace as to be expected, if not required. The fear is that we will lose our freedom and privacy in the process. Man boards plane using only a microchip Last year, Sjoblad hoped to get a 100 volunteers signed up for human-embedded chips, a number he is convinced will grow rapidly, reaching 1,000 and eventually 10,000 users. A few weeks ago, tech innovator Andreas Sjostrom made headlines when he became the first person to fly commercially using only a microchip embedded in his hand. Sjostrom, Vice President and Global Head of Digital at Sogeti, used the Near Field Communication (NFC) chip to pass through Stockholm Arlanda airport, through security, at the lounge, and finally through the gate to the aircraft, according to his blog.(5) My NFC chip contains my Scandinavian Airlines EuroBonus member ID, and since the airport has NFC readers all the way from security to the gate, I can use the chip instead of ordinary boarding passes. Sources: (1) PHYS.org (2) NYDailynews.com (3) WashingtonTimes.com (4) Foxnews.com (5) NaturalNews.com (6) AndreasSjostrom.com Submit a correction >> U.S. intelligence examining malware thought to have caused Ukraine power blackout (Cyberwar.news) The U.S. intelligence community is examining bits of malware code that was believed to have been used in the first publicly acknowledged instance of hacking a power station. As reported by FierceGovernmentIT, the malware used in a cyber attack of a Ukrainian power station believed to have been conducted by Russian-based hackers, is part of a sophisticated malware campaign that has been ongoing since at least 2011. The Department of Homeland Security issued its first public statement from the Obama administration regarding U.S. involvement in the case. In an update to a cybersecurity alert, the departments Industrial Control Systems Emergency Response Team, or ICS-CERT, has confirmed that it has examined samples of malicious software known as BlackEnergy that was obtained from the networks of a western Ukraine power company. The code specifically targets industrial control systems and has been seen on Internet-connected human-machine interfaces in the U.S. ICS-CERT and US-CERT are working with the Ukrainian CERT and our international partners to analyze the malware and can confirm that a BlackEnergy 3 variant was present in the system, the alert notes. Though many cyber experts believe the malware was the IT system interface that disrupted the Ukrainian power grid Dec. 23, ICS-CERT and US-CERT officials said they cannot confirm a causal link between the power outage with the presence of the malware based on the forensic evidence they were given. However, several experts believe the malware, which was described as not particularly sophisticated, could have instead been used to hide and protect the hackers. Malware was likely used to prevent system operators from detecting the attack while a remote attacker opened breakers, disconnecting parts of the network, reported The Hill. Ukrainian government officials quickly blamed Russia for the attack, but as FierceGovernmentIT noted, other experts say that BlackEnergy is associated with the ethnic Russian hacking group Sandworm rather than the Russian government. Retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, former head of the CIA and National Security Agency, said the Ukraine incident meant there are darkening skies over critical U.S. infrastructure. In an interview with reporters after an event in Miami last week, Hayden said the threat of malware infections leading to physical damages is increasing. This is another data point on an arc that weve long predicted, Hayden told The Christian Science Monitor. See also: FierceGovernmentIT ICE-CERT Cyberwar.news is part of the USA Features Media network of sites. For advertising opportunities, click here. Submit a correction >> ELKO An hour-and-a-half of comments from over a dozen residents, most of whom favored lifting the ban on medical marijuana establishments in Elko, wasnt enough to sway the minds of the Elko City Council Tuesday. Councilmen voted 4-1 in favor of extending a two-year moratorium within the City on those business licenses until March 2018. And for some, it may have appeared their minds were already made up in fact, many audience members left just before the vote was taken. Mayor Chris Johnson had stated his support of the moratorium at a previous Council meeting, and before taking public comment Councilwoman Mandy Simons said that whether or not medical marijuana helped people was not the issue, but rather, that possession of cannabis was still illegal at the federal level. Councilman Reece Keener stated prior to the vote that he had been drafting his comments during the testimonies. I do not support medical marijuana dispensaries in Elko, Keener said. His reasoning was that they would help legitimize recreational marijuana and be detrimental to law enforcement. Councilman John Patrick Rice cast the dissenting vote, noting that 60 percent of Elko County residents voted to allow medical marijuana use in Nevada. He believed banning those businesses would deprive the City of an opportunity for revenue, and deny residents a needed service. There will be a great sucking sound of our money going somewhere else than our county if we dont take advantage of this, Rice said. We have a tremendous opportunity here to improve the quality of life for so many people in our community. Many residents who spoke wore stickers declaring themselves supporters of the Elko County Medical Marijuana Patients Association Inc. Ron Abbott, founder-president of the association, said cardholding patients are a minority and are being put in a position they dont want to be in. We are disappointed as medical marijuana patients, and we feel theyre not following their mission statement and vision, Abbott told the Free Press following the Councils decision. The Citys vision statement says the City is to provide excellent service to the public through dialogue. The voice of the people will be heard, and it will be heard on a big level, Abbott said, noting that his group has the backing of national organizations and this is a nationwide issue. Difficult access Mother Jackie Melton has been faced with the choice of spending hundreds of dollars to get the medical cannabis oil her daughter needs, or not getting the medication. Ashley Melton was diagnosed with autism, and habitually waves her arms and pulls her hair, her mother said. It is extremely difficult to get her in the car and go to Reno, Melton said. I dont need it to be that hard. The only company that ships the drug to Elko directly charges $300, she said. It costs $200 for a quarter-ounce of the drug that will last Ashley two weeks, with additional costs for gas and a motel room if they travel. Melton said medical marijuana helps her daughter, and without it, her habits become worse. Next week shell be screaming, she said. Melton added that her daughter could not smoke the drug, let alone sell it to anybody. Eva Owsian told councilmen that she has a prescription for painkillers, but opted not to use them because of the side effects. In the future, she anticipates using medical marijuana, which has fewer side effects, she said. It can actually replace a lot of the prescription drugs we have right now, Owsian said. Pam Mohr, who said she didnt have a personal dog in this fight, had a friend with stage four cancer who would not be able to drive to Sparks for the medication. A moral issue? The resolution City Council adopted Tuesday states a reason for the moratorium as giving the City time to study the potential effects of medical marijuana establishments on residents morals. Josh White, owner of Cannabis Consulting Group LLC, asked that Council remove the word moral from the resolution. City and county leaders that promote 24-hour prostitution, 24-hour gambling and 24-hour alcohol consumption, 365 days a year, do not have the moral compass to compare and (issue) judgment on medical necessities such as medical marijuana, White said. White stated he would be interested in setting a precedent by starting a medical marijuana establishment. Tiffanie Huffman, Abbotts executive assistant, told the Council that businesses of this kind must fill out a lengthy application, have all employees undergo an FBI background check, pay a $5,000 application fee and have $250,000 in assets. In a letter read at the Council meeting, Partners Allied for Community Excellence Executive Director Cathy McAdoo asked to extend the ban due to a pending initiative to legalize recreational marijuana. It doesnt make sense to change the status quo before running the results of the election, McAdoo said. White, however, said not to mix medical and recreational industries. These industries are separate and will be governed separate, he said. McAdoo also said theres been an increase in traffic fatalities in Washington and Colorado due to impaired drivers, and said medical marijuana establishments would put local law enforcement in conflict with federal law. Rice noted in my observation, the people of Elko County are very happy to object to federal law and the federal government. In this case, it appears that the federal government is looking to communities for guidance, he said. Police Chief Ben Reed said there have been murders and armed robberies in connection to establishments elsewhere in Nevada and Colorado. Huffman said there are over 2,000 medical marijuana cardholders in the rural Nevada counties. Most of these patients are between the ages of 55 and 64 years old. States that have legalized marijuana have seen a decrease in related deaths, she said. Medical cannabis is not the problem, its the solution, Huffman said. Tara White with Cannabis Consulting Group explained the application for medical marijuana cards. They have to go to a doctor, they have to have a diagnosis, the diagnosis has to go through the state, she said. Kent Aveson said the City has the potential to help a group of those in need right here in Elko, where pregnant women, veterans and senior citizens are already leaving town for care. Abbott said he would like to see a dialogue opened, and reminded Councilman that We are the people. We hold the power, we hold the voice. Rice believed the City could allow establishments safely and prudently in order to help the lives of many. Councilman Robert Schmidtlein, however, said Elko is not ready for medical marijuana establishments. At the end of the meeting, Rice said he hoped the Council would consider the issue again before two years is up. Theres a hardship, and they dont give a shit about it, Abbott told the Free Press. We want to go forth and do the right thing. Im tired of seeing the suffering and Im tired of seeing the pain. Abbott reminded people that its up to them to elect their representatives. In November, two councilmen positions will be up for election. The recreational marijuana initiative will also appear on the ballot, and aims to regulate the drug much like alcohol is regulated. City and county leaders that promote 24-hour prostitution, 24-hour gambling and 24-hour alcohol consumption, 365 days a year, do not have the moral compass to compare and (issue) judgment on medical necessities such as medical marijuana. Josh White, Cannabis Consulting Group LLC{/blockquote} There will be a great sucking sound of our money going somewhere else than our county if we dont take advantage of this. John Patrick Rice, Councilman In response to Jacqueline Smith and her opinion of Professor James Tracy (Sandy Hook hoaxer deserved firing, The News-times, Jan. 17), two words immediately spring to mind: Toughen up. Strong reaction? Yes. But trampling on the First Amendment is serious and requires a strong response. Smith claims that Professor Tracy doesnt have a First Amendment right to spew his nonsense. There is no need to go any further in her rambling, disjointed piece. Smith simply does not understand that it is precisely this kind of nonsense that the Founding Fathers intended to protect. Smith may not like, appreciate, or understand Professor Tracys thoughts and motives, but he has a right and some would argue a duty to critical thinking, and a right to publicly espouse those thoughts, however repugnant they may be to Smiths, and others, delicate sensitivities. The problem with Smiths thought pattern, as it pertains to the First Amendment, is that she believes that if the speech is hurtful or offensive to another then it simply is unacceptable and constitutionally unprotected. Thats not how the First Amendment works, as made clear by Smiths own ugly diatribe directed at Professor Tracy. More Information See for yourself Editorial Page Editor Jacqueline Smith made the distinction in her opinion column between free speech, which Professor Tracy has a right to exercise, and harassment. Read the column at newstimes.com (go to sections, news, opinion) or http://bit.ly/1PlTMRl See More Collapse Lets not forget that the Founding Fathers believed that open dialogue was so important that they made it the FIRST Amendment, not the sixth or seventh, etc. More importantly, that freedom of speech is unabridged and there is no caveat that the speech cannot hurt someones feelings. Smiths attack on Professor Tracys Constitutional rights, ultimately, is due to the professors questioning of the official version of events at Sandy Hook. While Smith claims her concern is that Professor Tracy crossed the First Amendment line by making a request of Lenny Pozner, in reality, anyone remotely familiar with this important case, is fully aware that Smiths version of events was less than unbiased. The bigger question, though, is why questioning the official version is so offensive to an alleged newsperson? Professor Tracy is far from the only person raising issues about Sandy Hook, as there literally are millions of websites dedicated to questioning the events at Sandy Hook and, one would think, many more millions who read them. Surely Smith is not suggesting that all of these people are not entitled to their views on the matter and must be silenced should they dare speak out publicly. What occurred at Sandy Hook has serious repercussions for not only the families of the victims and others associated with the tragedy, but everyone who is subjected to the legislative policy that has come from the incident. As Smith well knows, the Connecticut Legislature passed sweeping, costly mental health legislation a full year prior to the release of the investigation. In other words, the legislative action was taken without full knowledge of the facts. Nevertheless, the good folks of Connecticut must not only pay for, but live by, those emotional, not fact-based, decisions. By anyones standards, this cannot be called responsible or thoughtful legislating. Ablechild, a parent organization fighting for informed consent rights as they pertain to psychiatric diagnosing and psychiatric drugs, is intimately aware of the difficulties surrounding the gathering of information about Adam Lanzas mental health records. Despite Ablechild filing a FOIA to obtain Lanzas mental health, toxicology and autopsy records, the state refused to publicly release this information when Assistant State Attorney, Patrick Kwanashie, stated disclosure of Adam Lanzas records can cause a lot of people to stop taking their medications. These records may have provided some insight into Lanzas actions. But to this day, despite a lengthy and costly investigation, no information about Lanzas mental health for the five years leading up to the incident has been made publicly available. Frankly, there is no information publicly available that Lanza did, or did not, receive mental health services in the five years leading up to the incident. These facts did not stop poorly thought out legislative measures from being rammed down the throats of the citizens of Connecticut. This is just one example of the problems surrounding this incident. Anyone who read the investigation report knows there are many more. But, beyond all of this, the issue remains the right to publicly discuss any, and all, issues surrounding the official version of events at Sandy Hook regardless of whose feelings may be hurt. No, Editor Smith, you do not get to decide whose voice is worthy. You do not get to judge whose First Amendment rights are more important. You may not like the voices you hear, or how they are used. They may be distasteful and hurtful, but every American has a right to that voice. Its quite possible that Professor Tracy finds your opinion hurtful, and he may even think that you are writing it to purposefully harass him, but even he would have to agree that you are entitled to your damning words. Sheila Matthews is a co-founder of Ablechild. Carol Kaliff / Hearst Connecticut Media When Redding Police Chief Doug Fuchs watched a video of an officer fatally shooting someone during a traffic stop, he knew something had to be done. Watching that video mortified me because it didnt have to happen, Fuchs said of the Samuel DuBose and University of Cincinnati police officer incident in July. Education site, Niche, has released its 2016 rankings of the best private high schools in the country and four Connecticut schools landed in the top 100 nationally. The site gave each school a grade for academics and student culture and diversity. They also used data from "various government and public data sets, Niche's own proprietary data, and 123,218 opinion-based survey responses across a variety of topics from 16,688 current students, recent alumni, and parents." Click through to see the top 10 private high schools in Connecticut. Read more. SHOSHONE -- Two men sought in a kidnapping and execution-style shooting in the desert southwest of Shoshone were still at-large Wednesday. An arrest warrant was issued Tuesday for David Gonzalez Ceballos, 24, whos wanted for attempted murder and two kidnapping charges. Hes accused of shooting a Jerome man in the head early Saturday morning. The victim, Francisco Javier Bravo-Martinez, 29, survived the shooting and was in fair to serious condition in a hospital Tuesday, Lincoln County Sheriffs Sgt. Scott Denning said. The sheriffs office has another man in custody and is still trying to identify a Hispanic man accused of shooting Bravo-Martinez in the stomach and leg. As of Wednesday night, investigators still hadnt arrested Ceballos or identified the third man, Denning said. Ceballos is about 5 feet 10 inches, 170 pounds with brown eyes and black hair. Both he and the unidentified man are considered armed and dangerous. Erik Lopez, 23, of Wendell was arrested Sunday night and charged with two felony kidnapping counts and one felony count of intimidating a witness. A preliminary hearing is set for Feb. 5. Lopez and Ceballos are both charged with kidnapping a woman the day of the shooting, and prosecutors say Lopez threatened to kill her family if she told anyone what she knew about the shooting. Prosecutors say Ceballos, Lopez and the third man used false circumstances to lure Bravo-Martinez to Lincoln County, court documents said. Once there, the unidentified man shot Bravo-Martinez in the stomach and leg, which dropped him to the ground, and Ceballos shot him in the head from close range. Bravo-Martinez called 911 about 10 a.m. and was taken to a hospital. Anyone with information about Ceballos, the unidentified man or the shooting can anonymously call the Lincoln County Sheriffs Office at 208-886-2250 or SIRCOMM at 208-324-1911. VANCOUVER, Jan. 28, 2016 /CNW/ - Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation ("Nevada Sunrise" or the "Company") (TSXV: NEV) is pleased to announce that it has signed a letter agreement for an option to purchase water rights in the Clayton Valley of Nevada. The pre-existing water rights allow for 1,770 acre/feet of water use for mining and milling per year (the "Permit"). "The acquisition of water rights by Nevada Sunrise is an important step toward the potential development of any lithium brine discoveries on our Clayton Valley exploration properties," said Warren Stanyer, President and CEO of Nevada Sunrise. "We believe that any consumption of water in the Clayton Valley requires valid water rights to meet State regulations, especially in Nevada, the most highly-regulated state for water use in the U.S." In December 2015, Nevada Sunrise received a written appraisal from an independent appraiser certified in the State of Nevada, which valued the Permit at US$1.42 million. According to the appraisal report, the Clayton Valley basin is currently "over-appropriated", with Albemarle Corp.'s Silver Peak lithium mine being the largest consumer of water in the area. The report further states that any new application for water use in an over-appropriated basin would be carefully reviewed by the Nevada Division of Water Resources, and it is uncertain if any new applications would be granted. Nevada Sunrise believes that its acquisition of the existing Permit will be a key factor in future lithium exploration and development by the Company for brines in the Clayton Valley. In consideration for an option to purchase the Permit, the Company has agreed to pay the vendors a combination of cash, common shares and common share purchase warrants, on the following schedule shown below: Schedule of Payments Date of Payment Cash (USD) Common Share Payments Common Share Purchase Warrants $50,000 to be paid upon execution of a letter agreement a further $75,000 to be paid upon execution of a definitive agreement $125,000 200,000 on execution of a definitive agreement 750,000 @ CDN$0.50 750,000 @ CDN$0.70 750,000 @ CDN$1.00 Issuable on execution of a definitive agreement 1st Anniversary of the Agreement $150,000 250,000 n/a 2nd Anniversary of the Agreement $175,000 300,000 n/a 3rd Anniversary of the Agreement $200,000 350,000 n/a 4th Anniversary of the Agreement $300,000 400,000 n/a 5th Anniversary of the Agreement $350,000 500,000 n/a Total $1,300,000 2,000,000 2,250,000 Nevada Sunrise has paid to the vendor a non-refundable deposit of US$50,000 to obtain an exclusive 60-day due diligence period, during which the vendors will not entertain or negotiate offers for the Permit. During the due diligence period, Nevada Sunrise will have the right to conduct such due diligence in respect of the Permit with the State of Nevada as it deems necessary or advisable. At any time during the 60-day period, Nevada Sunrise can give notice to the vendor that it wishes to proceed to the execution of a definitive agreement (the "Agreement"), and will be obligated to pay the remaining $75,000 of the initial payment upon the earlier of execution of the Agreement and the date that is 60 days after the date of the letter agreement. Should Nevada Sunrise decide not proceed to an Agreement, the letter agreement will terminate with no further obligations to the vendor. In addition to the above, the parties agree that the Agreement will include the following terms: a. If within 10 years after the execution of the Agreement, Nevada Sunrise sells the Permit to a third party, the vendor will receive 50% of the proceeds of such sale, less the amounts already paid to the vendor in cash and common shares, with the common shares valued by way of a 20-day volume-weighted average price (the "VWAP"), with the VWAP to begin following the day the 4-month hold has expired for each tranche of common shares released. Upon a sale of the Permit in total to a third party, the Company's obligations under the Agreement will terminate. b. The payment of $75,000 cash and 200,000 common shares made upon execution of the Agreement will be refundable to Nevada Sunrise within the first year from the date of execution of the letter agreement should the Company's ability to use the Permit to its fullest extent be restricted by any regulation or statute. c. Nevada Sunrise will have the right to accelerate the timing of cash payments and common share payments to the vendor, at its discretion. All common shares issued by Nevada Sunrise are subject to a 4-month hold period according to the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange, and would bear a restrictive legend under Rule 904 of Regulation S of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933. The final Agreement is subject to the production of a definitive agreement in a form satisfactory to both parties, approval by the Board of Directors of Nevada Sunrise, and acceptance for filing of the transaction by the TSX Venture Exchange. Nevada Sunrise currently has three lithium exploration projects in the Clayton Valley, which hosts known lithium brine deposits, including the Silver Peak lithium mine. A drilling permit for the Neptune Project was obtained in December 2015 by Nevada Sunrise from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and the Company plans exploration drilling for lithium brines in February 2016. For further information on the Company's lithium properties, see the Nevada Sunrise website under "Projects-Nevada Lithium" at: http://www.nevadasunrise.ca/projects/nevadalithium/ About Nevada Sunrise Nevada Sunrise is a junior mineral exploration company with a strong technical team based in Vancouver, BC, Canada, that holds interests in nine exploration projects in the State of Nevada, USA. Nevada Sunrise began acquisitions of Nevada lithium properties in September 2015, which include options to earn 100% interests in the Neptune and Clayton Northeast projects, and a 100% interest in the Aquarius Project, all located in the Clayton Valley. The Company also holds options to earn 100% interests in the Jackson Wash and Atlantis projects, and has a 50% participating interest in the Gemini Project, each located in playas proximal to the Clayton Valley. Our three key gold assets include a 21% interest in a joint venture with Pilot Gold Inc. (TSX: PLG) at Kinsley Mountain near Wendover, a 100% interest in the Golden Arrow project near Tonopah, and a 100% interest in the Roulette gold property in the southeastern Carlin trend near Ely, with each of the properties subject to certain production royalties. FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS All statements in this release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation ("Nevada Sunrise") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws, including statements that address the potential acquisition of water rights, future mineral production, reserve potential, exploration drilling, the future price of lithium, potential quantity and/or grade of minerals, potential size of a mineralized zone, potential expansion of mineralization, the timing and results of future resource estimates, or other study, proposed exploration and development of our exploration properties and the estimation of mineral resources. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "plan", "continue", "estimate", "expect", "project", "predict", "potential", "targeting", "intends", "believe", "potential", and similar expressions, or describes a "goal", or variation of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "should", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievement of Nevada Sunrise to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information. Such factors include, among others, risks related to the the potential acquisition of water rights, the interpretation and actual results of historical exploration at Nevada Sunrise's exploration properties, reliance on technical information provided by third parties on any of our exploration properties, including access to historical information on exploration properties, current exploration and development activities; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; current economic conditions; future prices of commodities; possible variations in grade or recovery rates; failure of equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; the failure of contracted parties to perform; labor disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals, financing or in the completion of exploration, as well as those factors discussed in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis for the Year Ended September 30, 2015, which is available under Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Although Nevada Sunrise has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Nevada Sunrise disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and accordingly are subject to change after such date. Except as otherwise indicated by Nevada Sunrise, these statements do not reflect the potential impact of any non-recurring or other special items or of any dispositions, monetizations, mergers, acquisitions, other business combinations or other transactions that may be announced or that may occur after the date hereof. Forward-looking statements are provided for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans and allowing investors and others to get a better understanding of our operating environment. Nevada Sunrise does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that are included in this document, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of accuracy of this release. The Securities of Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to the account or benefit of any U.S. person. SOURCE Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation Image with caption: "Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation (CNW Group/Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20160128_C1871_PHOTO_EN_607992.jpg For further information: Warren Stanyer, President and Chief Executive Officer, Telephone: (604) 428-8028, Facsimile: (604) 484-7143, Email: [email protected] ELKO Presidential candidate Jeb Bush spoke with the Elko Daily Free Press on several Nevada issues before his Tuesday rally at the Northeastern Nevada Museum. Bush is the former governor of Florida and the third member of his family to visit Elko. His father, former President George H.W. Bush, came to Elko in 1996 for a Barrick Gold Corp. advisory board meeting. It wasnt a public visit, but he did tour a couple of mines while in town. In 2006, President George W. Bush flew into Elko Regional Airport to campaign for Nevada GOP candidates. Jeb Bush sat down for an interview with the Free Press and answered questions on public lands, veterans and health care. Public Lands There needs to be more deference given to states and more deference given to citizens, he said. This president has expanded the use of monuments to restrict access to public lands. It appears across the West particularly where federal ownership is high. Theres very little deference in terms of species management or land management in general. One of his solutions to making public land management more of a partnership is moving the Department of the Interior from Washington to the West. That is not just a symbol, he said. I think that would be a very positive step. He said he and his staff asked many people about the Interior. He said the Secretary is always from the West, but the people who make the decisions are based in Virginia, Maryland or Washington. Shifting the department would allow the employees to be more sensitized to the unique nature of the West. Its dramatically different from the East Coast. Federal Control to State Control Rep. Mark Amodei wrote a bill to transfer some federal lands in Nevada to the state. Bush said he was willing to look at pilot programs. The bigger issue is how do we create more respect and more of a partnership mentality, he said. This is the problem with Washington across the board, is this top down driven nature that theyre smarter. Theyre not. Theyre dumber when you look at the results. I think people care more about lands where they live. Theyre more respectful of the lands. Theyre good stewards of the environment. So shifting this is important. Health Care in Rurals He said as a society it is smart to make sure one adverse event doesnt change someones life forever. If you had a system that gave $3,100 tax credits to people that didnt have insurance through their company and you shift it back to Nevada, the exchanges, without the employer mandated, employee mandate and all the mandated benefits, you could create lower cost insurance where you could reimburse providers at a higher rate, where the focus would be on using this tax credit, people could actually purchase insurance that would be focused on catastrophic coverage. He also said telemedicine can help provide health care in areas in need of doctors. Veterans and Health Care We need stem to stern reform over the veterans administration, he said. I was with someone whos really focused on veterans issues and I asked him what we should do and he said we should create centers of excellence for the unique war-related diseases. He said the wounded receive excellent care, but people with long-term injuries, including post-traumatic stress disorder, need better care. As a society were not dealing with mental health challenges well, he said. There are big gaps. Immigration Bush has said immigration needs to focus more on skills rather than family ties. Our immigration system is not working, he said. The legal part of it is obsolete. The illegal part is just upsetting. He said employers need an e-verify system so they know when they hire someone they are here legally. We need to narrow the number of people coming by family petition and expand the number of people for economic purposes, he said. If you control the board and youre serious about it you could transform our legal system into an economic driver. Immigration can be a tool for sustained growth. Right now it isnt. To see the full interview go to the Elko Daily Free Press YouTube Channel. ELKO In time for the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, a sculpture of Will James on Smoky the Cowhorse is on display at the Northeastern Nevada Museum. Will James Society members Dave and Jane Secrist sponsored the exhibit. The bronze sculpture was created by Curtis Fort of New Mexico and is a limited edition No. 6 of 25 statues, said Will James Society Board Member Sharon De Carlo. The statue was installed Wednesday on the second floor of the museum and is on display through October. It will move to Texas and be on display from Oct. 8-10 for the Will James Society Gather in the Panhandle Historical Museum in Canyon. However, if someone buys the sculpture for a minimum of $3,500 it may leave the museum sooner. De Carlo said the horse in the statue is from Will James most famous book Smoky, the Cowhorse. Dave Secrist said he has a special place in his heart for the book, which his parents bought him at the age of 7 or 8. He remembered reading it for the first time while lying in front of his parents fireplace. I had a hard time not shedding a tear when Will James led me through some of the sadder parts of Smokys life, he said. Ever since then I have been a fan of Will James. To my mind, I dont think anybody has surpassed his ability to draw horses in any form of action, even up to this modern time. James book Smoky, the Cowhorse won the Newbery Medal in 1927. It is based on his association with a colt, a wild horse that came down out of the Virginia Range in Washoe Valley, Nevada, De Carlo said. He made friends with the colt and eventually ended up owning the colt. She said three movies were made about Smoky in the 1920s and 30s. De Carlo said this is the first statue of Will James on Smoky. The proceeds from the sale of the statue go to the Societys book gifting program. Will James wrote 34 books, said De Carlo. We put them in the schools. We send them overseas to the military and we just started putting them in senior citizens centers. Thats our mission, said Jane Secrist. She hopes people who are in Elko for the Gathering will stop by the museum to see not only the statue, but also the rest of the Will James exhibit, which includes first editions of his books. People who go to the exhibit also can meet Dave Secrist and buy his book Long Winding Trails: 4,434,174 Miles on the Back of a Horse, which is about 32 cowboys and cowgirls who rode 100,000 miles on horseback in Nevada. To find more information on the Will James Society, go to www.willjames.org. The Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) has arrested the immediate past Chief of Air Staff, Adesola Amosu. Operatives of the ... The Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) has arrested the immediate past Chief of Air Staff, Adesola Amosu. Operatives of the anti-graft agency arrested Amosu yesterday night at about 9pm and has kept him in their custody since then.The former Air Force chief is among the senior military officers President Buhari recently ordered the EFCC to investigate in the ongoing $2.1 billion arms deal scandal.A source in EFCC say Amosu is being investigated for reportedly authorizing the purchase of two helicopters without functional rotors in which he later compelled two air force officers to fly in one of the helicopters after the craft was equipped with a rotor that was taken from an unserviceable Russian-made helicopter gunship.The air force officers died in a crash near Yola, the capital of Adamawa State because the rotors fitted on their chopper was too heavy.The Nigeria Air Force personnel is also being investigated in a $2.1 billion arms deal scandal and another N29 billion procurement deals that took place between 2014 and 2015. A Lagos-based human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), has berated the immediate past Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, d... A Lagos-based human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), has berated the immediate past Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, describing her service to Nigeria as one based on lies, deceit and disregard for due process.The senior advocate said this in a three-page statement on Wednesday while reacting to Okonjo-Iwealas diatribe against him. Okonjo-Iweala had on Monday described Falana as an integrity-challenged charlatan who was being sponsored by corrupt elements.The former minister had also slammed Falana for attempting to implicate her in the $2.1bn arms scam and drag her before the International Criminal Court.However, Falana said it was hypocritical of Okonjo-Iweala to attempt to extricate herself from the corruption that characterised the last administration. He said her service record was that of scandals and scams.He noted that the N2.5tn fuel subsidy scam, the $2bn arms scam, the mismanaged $1bn Gen. Sani Abacha loot and many other episodes of financial impropriety came up under Okonjo-Iweala as finance minister. He, therefore, questioned the former ministers right to claim innocence.Falana said anytime Okonjo-Iweala was challenged with hard facts, she resorted to name-calling.He said, Her baseless attack is not unusual as she is always quick to deflect criticisms by accusing anyone seeking to hold her to account for her appalling records in government of ulterior political motives.When former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, alleged that about N30tn could not be accounted for under her watch, he was described as an embittered loser in the Nigerian political space.When Governor Adams Oshiomhole questioned the illegal withdrawal of $2bn from the Excess Crude Account, he was accused of having animus towards her because she had blocked Edo State from obtaining a loan.Therefore, instead of exchanging vulgar abuse with the former minister, I shall respond to the diversionary allegations which lacerated her response and the attempt to extricate herself from the mass looting of the commonwealth under her watch.The rights activist said every attempt by Okonjo-Iweala to explain her role in the arms scam had been illogical.Falana wondered how Okonjo-Iweala could have released the recovered Abacha loot to the embattled former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, when she knew that the Seventh Assembly had approved a loan of $1bn for former President Goodluck Jonathan to fight insurgency.He added, Whereas the former finance minister had insisted that only $500m was recovered from the Abacha loot, my petition detailed the recovery of $4bn. As she could not challenge my claim, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala now says that the $500m was the amount recovered while she was the minister of finance under former President Olusegun Obasanjo.In making that claim, she did not take cognisance of her recent statement that while she gave out $322m to Dasuki, the sum of $700m had been set aside for development. From her own account, over $1bn was recovered from the loot under the Jonathan regime when she was coordinating the economy.Dr. Okonjo-Iweala should have also provided further explanations as to why a substantial part of the Abacha loot was criminally diverted under her watch, especially in the light of her confessional statement that she transferred $322m from the Abacha loot to Dasuki to prosecute the war on terror.Falana alleged that the former minister also released 5.5m to Dasuki on a separate occasion and could thus not claim to be ignorant of the scam that took place under her nose.Dr. Okonjo-Iwealas excuse that the said $322m was released due to the urgency of the crisis in the North-East is untenable having regard to the fact that former President Jonathan had sought the approval of the National Assembly to take a loan of $1bn to equip the armed forces to fight insurgency. The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) has confirmed the return of the last Nigerian pilgrim, Hajiya Fatima Isa, who survived l... The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) has confirmed the return of the last Nigerian pilgrim, Hajiya Fatima Isa, who survived last years hajj stampede in Saudi Arabia.This is contained in a statement in Abuja by the commissions Head, Media and Publicity, Alhaji Uba Mana.The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalled that the stampede occurred during hajj rites in Mina last September.According to the statement, the pilgrim was admitted in East Jeddah Hospital.The pilgrim arrived at the Malam Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA) on January 22, on board a Med-View Airline Flight VL0202, accompanied by workers of the Nigerian Consulate in Jeddah.The statement said she was received by NAHCON officials and the leadership of the Sokoto State Pilgrims Welfare Agency (SSPWA).It added that the pilgrim, who was hale and hearty, was taken to Sokoto State.The statement said NAHCON hailed the Saudi Arabia authorities and Nigerias foreign missions in the country for taking care of the pilgrim throughout her stay in hospital.It said the commission also praised the Sokoto State government for its support. Ex-General Officer Commanding, GOC, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta, MEND, Government Ekpumupolo, alias Tompolo, made a... Ex-General Officer Commanding, GOC, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta, MEND, Government Ekpumupolo, alias Tompolo, made a volte face, Thursday, saying he would appear before the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, which issued a bench warrant for his arrest, January 14, but at the appropriate time.The bench warrant followed an application by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, which had filed different charges against Tompolo, including diversion of N34 billion belonging to the Nigerian Maritime and Safety Agency, NIMASA to personal use and laundering of N22.6 billion.Tompolo, who spoke through his Media Adviser and Consultant, Mr. Paul Bebenimibo also said he would never commence war against the Federal Government having accepted amnesty in 2009, reiterating that he was not party to the recent three-day bombing of crude oil and gas pipelines in Delta state.Tompolo has no reason to bomb pipelines because of EFCC case, he knows he is innocent. As he has stated in several occasions, he will appear in court at the appropriate time as his lawyers are working towards that, he said.Before now, Tompolo had said, The truth of the matter is that I do not know anything about the N34 billion naira EFCC is talking about, first, it was 13 billion issue, now it is 34 billion. I am not a signatory to any of the companies mentioned in the said 34 billion case. So I do not know where this one is coming from.Reacting to the allegation by another ex-militant leader, Africanus Ukparasia, aliast General Africa that he bombed pipelines, Tompolo said he alerted the public that some aggrieved All Progressives Congress, APC, members in Bayesla and Delta states want to destroy national assestsin the Niger Delta state and finger him because of the outcome of the Bayelsa governorship election.According to the statement, And true to his fears, these set of APC chieftains that joined the party immediately after the presidential election of 2015 were the first people to accuse him of bombing the pipelines to divert public attention.On speed boats for warTompolo said it is the biggest lie of the year, as the military is also aware of the boats and pick-up vans he purchased in 2011 for the surveillance of oil facilities as he was working hand in hand with the military then.Tompolo is a man of peace and he is poised for the development of the coastal Niger Delta region. He prays that this matter be amicably resolved so that everyone will know that he always put his people above his person gains.And true to his fears, these set of APC chieftains that joined the party immediately after the presidential election of 2015, were the first people to accuse him of bombing the pipelines to divert public attention.These new APC members who the former chairman of the party, Chief Bisi Akande, described as parasites, also threatened to cause problem in the Niger Delta region if the pipeline surveillance contract in Delta State already awarded to Messers Ocean Marine Solution is not re-awarded to them.This is a clear testimony of their involvement in the bombing of the pipelines. Since then, we all have seen their role in misleading the military and the general public.Now, it could be recalled that this same Africanus Ukparasia threatened Tompolo not to show interest in the elections, as he was a strong supporter of the APC candidate. He killed and maimed fellow Ijaw people because of a governorship election, and now he is the one accusing Tompolo of bombing pipelines. Former President Goodluck Jonathan says he cannot speak on the current $2.1bn arms scam now because the matter is in court. A former ... A former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki; the National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Olisa Metuh, and others are currently standing trial for their alleged role in the scam.Jonathan, however, said in due time, he would tell his own side of the story.The former President said this in a series of tweets on his official Twitter handle on Wednesday.He said, My voice will certainly be heard at the appropriate time regarding the alleged arms funds mismanagement. I would not want to interfere with the proceedings by the judicial system that my administration worked tirelessly to strengthen.When I was President, I tried to build institutions like the Judiciary and separation of power and the electoral bodies. I should not be the one undermining the process.My post-presidential focus is advancing democracy and good governance in Africa. If we do not spend billions to educate Africas youths today, we will spend it fighting insecurity tomorrow.Speaking separately on Security, Education and Development in Africa at the Geneva Press Club in Switzerland, on Wednesday, Jonathan lamented the high rate of illiteracy in the North.He said poor education was one of the factors promoting insecurity.The former President, however, praised President Muhammadu Buhari for giving education a top priority in the 2016 budget.Jonathan said, Of course, charity begins at home and for the future, what Nigeria needs is to focus on making education a priority. Thankfully, the administration that succeeded mine in its first budget appears to have seen wisdom in continuing the practice of giving education the highest allocation. This is commendable.I feel that what people in my position, statesmen and former leaders, ought to be doing is to help build consensus all over Africa, to ensure that certain issues should not be politicised.Education is one of those issues. If former African leaders can form themselves into an advisory group to gently impress on incumbent leaders the necessity of meeting the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation recommended allocation of 26 per cent of a nations annual budget on education, I am certain that Africa will make geometric progress in meeting her Millennium Development Goals and improving on every index of the Human Development Index.The former President said he fought terrorism to a large extent and ensured that many perpetrators were arrested, prosecuted and jailed.On the allegation that his government negotiated with fake Boko Haram members, Dr Jonathan said it was not true.People come up with all sorts of allegations. The truth of the matter was that we realised that the epicentre of the terrorists activities were in two states Borno and Yobe, we decided to set up a committee of influential people in those two states to interact with their people to see if they can help in tackling the problem.We did not negotiate with Boko Haram. The people we negotiated with were militants in the Niger Delta and it was successful.Even the current President said recently that if they see credible members of Boko Haram, they would be willing to discuss with them. If somebody said we negotiated with fake members of Boko Haram, the person is just playing politics, he said.Asked to comment on the statement that his former service chief who said the Army knew where the Chibok girls were being held and till the end of his administration, the girls were not rescued, the former President said when he heard the comment, he was surprised, adding he invited the service chief for a chat.He said he would someday make public what they discussed.On why he did not contest his defeat at the poll, Jonathan said: I did not contest my defeat because I did not get into politics because of what I will gain. An African President on hearing the margin of defeat, said Jonathan must be tired. I could not destroy what I helped to build.In his paper, he said one of the ways of tackling terrorism was through education.My policy was to fight insecurity in the immediate term using counter-insurgency strategies and for the long term, I fought it using education as a tool.As I always believed, if we do not spend billions educating our youths today, we will spend it fighting insecurity tomorrow. And you do not have to spend on education just because of insecurity. It is the prudent thing to do.It is no coincidence that the North east epicentre of terrorism in Nigeria is also the regio0n with the highest rate of illiteracy and the least developed part of Nigeria.In Nigeria, the Federal Government actually does not have a responsibility for primary and secondary education, but I could not in good conscience stomach a situation where 52.4 per cent of males in the Northeastern region of Nigeria have no formal Western education.The figure is even worse when you take into account the states most affected by the insurgency. 83.3 per cent of male population in Yobe state have no formal Western education. In Borno state it is 63.6 per cent.Bearing this in mind, is it a coincidence that the Boko Haram insurgency is strongest in these two states?So even though we did not have a responsibility for primary and secondary education going by the way the Nigerian federation works, I felt that where I had ability, I also had responsibility, even if the constitution said it was not my responsibility.Knowing that terrorism thrives under such conditions, my immediate goal was to increase the penetration of Western education in the region, while at the same time making sure that the people of the region did not see it as a threat to their age old practices of itinerant Islamic education, known as Almajiri.For the first time in Nigerias history, the Federal Government which I led, set out to build 400 Almajiri schools with specialized curricula that combined Western and Islamic education. 160 of them had been completed before I left office.I am also glad to state that when I emerged as President of Nigeria on May 6, 2010, there were nine states in the Northern part of the country that did not have universities. By the time I left office on May 29, 2015, there was no Nigerian state without at least one federal university.Now the dearth of access to formal education over the years created the ideal breeding ground for terror to thrive in parts of Nigeria but there are obviously other dimensions to the issue of insecurity in Nigeria and particularly terrorism.You may recall that the fall of the Gaddafi regime in August 2011 led to a situation where sophisticated weapons fell into the hands of a number of non-state actors, with attendant increase in terrorism and instability in North and West Africa.The administration I headed initiated partnership across West Africa to contain such instability in nations such as Mali, which I personally visited in furtherance of peace.With those countries contiguous to Nigeria, especially nations around the Lake Chad Basin, we formed a coalition for the purpose of having a common front against terrorists through the revived Multinational Joint Task Force, MNJTF.Those efforts continue till today and have in large part helped decimate the capacity of Boko Haram.Another aspect of the anti-terror war we waged in Nigeria that has not received enough attention is our effort to improve on our intelligence gathering capacity.Prior to my administration, Nigerias intelligence architecture was designed largely around regime protection, but through much sustained effort, we were able to build capacity such that our intelligence agencies were able to trace and apprehend the masterminds behind such notorious terror incidences as the Christmas Day bombing of St. Theresa Catholic Church at Madalla, Niger State.Other suspects were also traced and arrested, including those behind the Nyanya and Kuje bombings. Not only did we apprehend suspects, but we tried and convicted some of them, including the ring leader of the Madalla bombing cell, Kabir Sokoto, who is right now serving a prison sentence.But leadership is about the future. I am sure you have not come here to hear me talk about the way backward. You, like everyone else, want to hear about the way forward.I am no longer in office, and I no longer have executive powers on a national level. However, I am more convinced now than ever about the nexus between education and security.My foundation, The Goodluck Jonathan Foundation, was formed to further democracy, good governance and wealth generation in Africa.Of course, charity begins at home and for the future, what Nigeria needs is to focus on making education a priority.Thankfully, the administration that succeeded mine in its first budget, appears to have seen wisdom in continuing the practice of giving education the highest sectoral allocation. This is commendable.I feel that what people in my position, statesmen and former leaders, ought to be doing is to help build consensus all over Africa, to ensure that certain issues should not be politicized.Education is one of those issues. If former African leaders can form themselves into an advisory group to gently impress on incumbent leaders the necessity of meeting the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, recommended allocation of 26 per cent of a nations annual budget on education, I am certain that Africa will make geometric progress in meeting her Millennium Development Goals and improving on every index of the Human Development Index.Data has shown that as spending on education increases, health and well being increases and incidences of maternal and infant mortality reduce.In Nigeria for instance, average life expectancy had plateaued in the mid 40s for decades, but after 2011, when we began giving education the highest sectoral allocation, according to the United Nations, Nigeria enjoyed her highest increase in average life expectancy since records were kept.We moved from an average life expectancy of 47 years before 2011 to 54 years by 2015. I had earlier told you about the connection between education and insecurity.I believe that it is the job of former leaders and elder statesmen to convince executive and legislative branches across Africa to work together to achieve the UNESCO recommended percentage as a barest. The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, United Kingdom branch is demanding for fair trial and judgment based on facts, evidences and logic... The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, United Kingdom branch is demanding for fair trial and judgment based on facts, evidences and logic, in the case involving their leader and Director of Radio Biafra, Mr Nnamdi Kanu, saying that the case will make or mar Nigerias image in the international community, if mishandled.The group in a statement made available to newsmen in Nnewi, praised what it called Justice John Tsoho of the Federal High Court Abujas forthrightness in ensuring that justice, equity, and fairness were displayed in his ruling for the transfer of Mr. Kanu from the Department of State Services, DSS, cell to Kuje prison.In the statement signed by Mr Emma Nmezu and Dr Clifford Iroanya, Spokes persons for the IPOB in United Kingdom, the group said: Keeping Mr Kanu in prison will enable him have access to his doctors, lawyers, family members and other related parties.We, the IPOB are encouraged by the forthrightness of Honourable Justice John Tsoho in ensuring that justice, equity, and fairness were displayed in his ruling, regarding the transfer of Nnamdi Kanu from DSS dungeon to Kuje prison.We expect a similar display of forthrightness in the matter until it is concluded.We look forward to a fair trial and judgement based on facts, evidence and logic, for this case of Nnamdi Kanu versus Buharis DSS. We believe that indeed, a Daniel has come to judgement.'IPOB expressed disappointment that the All Progressives Congress, APC-led Federal government of Nigeria would connive with the DSS and flagrantly flout the order of a competent court of juridiction.The DSS supported by the Buharis government flouted, and disregarded court orders leading to Kanu staying in detention for 98 days, an action that is very reprehensible, for a government that claim to be fighting corruption they said. The crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party has taken a new dimension as governors in the party have asked the partys Acting Natio... The governors directed Secondus to hand over the leadership baton to the partys National Secretary, Prof. Wale Oladipo in line with provisions of the partys constitution.In a communique issued at the end of a meeting in Abuja on Wednesday, the governors chided a former presidential adviser, Ahmed Gulak for what they described as his unacceptable conduct.Gulak had on Wednesday invaded the party secretariat where he declared himself the national chairman of the PDP.The governors frowned at the refusal of Secondus to respect the judgment of an Abuja high court ordering him to vacate the office for a member from the Northeast zone to take the position.We take cognizance of the judgment by the court in Abuja which ordered the acting chairman to vacate office for any other person from the Northeast zone of Nigeria.Our party constitution has enough provisions for that and the necessary process has been put in motion, the communique said.Ondo State governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko read the communique on behalf of his colleagues.The governors flayed Gulaks invasion of the party secretariat where he declared himself national chairman without recourse to the appropriate organs of the party.The invasion of the party headquarters by Ahmed Ali Gulak who reportedly assumed the chairmanship of the Peoples Democratic Party is regrettable and condemnable, Mimiko said.According to the governors, the issue of the chairmanship of the party would soon be resolved to enable someone from the Northeast complete the tenure of the last national chairman, Adamu Muazu who resigned in May 2015.The appropriate organs of the party will meet soo President Muhammadu Buhari has promised to extend his administrations ongoing anti-corrution war to other departments and agencies of ... President Muhammadu Buhari has promised to extend his administrations ongoing anti-corrution war to other departments and agencies of government.He said the magnitude of the financial mismanagement that has been exposed in the Office of the National Security Adviser under the last administration would be a tip of the iceberg by the time similar exercise is carried out in other government agencies.Buhari, according to a news item monitored on the Nigerian Television Authority on Thursday, spoke in Nairobi during a meeting he had with members of the Nigerian Community in KenyaThe President is currently on a three-day official visit to Kenya.Prominent Nigerians, including ex-NSA, Sambo Dasuki; and the National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Olisa Metuh, are currently being prosecuted over cases relating to alleged mismanagement of monies meant for arms purchase.Buhari said although heart-rending, the revelations may not be compared to the corruption that would be exposed by the time his administration commence the probe of other agencies like the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Nigerian Customs Service.It (the arms deal) is heart-rending. But that is just once source. You know we have not got to NNPC yet not to talk of Customs, he said.The President promised that he would not relent in his effort to eradicate corruption in the country. Brazil midfielder Ramires has completed a switch from Chelsea to Chinese Super League club Jiangsu Suning on a permanent deal. The 28-... Brazil midfielder Ramires has completed a switch from Chelsea to Chinese Super League club Jiangsu Suning on a permanent deal.The 28-year old completed a a five-and-half-year season at Stamford Bridge, during which time he won every major domestic and European club honour that is to be won.The terms of the deal were not officially disclosed by Chelsea, although the fee has been widely reported to be in the region of 25million.Ramires first trophy with Chelsea came in the era of Roberto Di Matteo during the 2011-12 campaign, winning the FA Cup and Champions League.He was part of the team that won the Europa League the following season, and also won the League Cup and Premier League title in 2014-15 with Jose Mourinho.Ramires made 251 appearances for Chelsea and scored 34 goals. Editor: In a town that has 24/7 access to vices such as gambling, drinking, and prostitution, it's a good thing the City Council is here to protect the people of Elko from the silent killer: marijuana. Federal prohibition of marijuana is the first reason cited for supporting the ban. Someone should inform Colorado of the federal ban, although they probably couldn't hear you through all of the tax money they're counting. The official stance of the current administration is to not impede legalized, regulated, intrastate trade of marijuana. But regardless of the government's official stance, since when does Elko blindly comply with the feds? Shovel Brigade anyone? There was also the worry that recreational marijuana would become "legitimate." In case the council is unaware, the City of Elko already has an underground recreational marijuana trade. Wouldnt the legitimization of this trade only lead to good things? The city could put a tax on the sale, and the jail would become less overcrowded. Not to mention that instead of lying and cheating criminals running the system, a legitimate shop would ensure that transactions were fair and honest as they are with any other shop. Perhaps the dispensary would open downtown and join the Downtown Business Association, helping fund events such as the Snowflake Festival. Approving another two-year ban is like telling high blood pressure patients "Sorry, your medication is illegal in Elko, you'll have to drive to Reno or Las Vegas to fill the prescription every month." Nobody should have to travel that far just to receive medication. While marijuana use is rooted in Cheech and Chong-esque comedy, many people use it as a legitimate medication. When used medically, marijuana helps people manage conditions such as ADHD and seizure disorders. These people shouldn't have to choose between doing business on the streets or taking unnatural pills with countless side effects. The bottom line is, the market already exists. Elko had a chance to take advantage of that market, but the council chose to allow it to continue in the hands of criminals instead of honest hardworking taxpayers. Can you imagine how fast those taxes could have paid off the $10 million Idaho Street Project? Stephen Nameth Mountain Home, Idaho Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan Wednesday gave a press conference at the Geneva Press Club to a packed audience of diplomats, p... Press conference on Security, Education and Development in Africa Geneva Press Club Wednesday the 27th of January, 2016 Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan Wednesday gave a press conference at the Geneva Press Club to a packed audience of diplomats, policy makers and journalists where he gave details of his post presidential focus and touched on some of the roles his administration played in key areas of the Nigerian and West Africa polity, with particular emphasis on Security and Education. The national coordinator of the Oodua Peoples Congress, OPC, Otunba Gani Adams has explained why the congress gave former president, Dr. ... The national coordinator of the Oodua Peoples Congress, OPC, Otunba Gani Adams has explained why the congress gave former president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan its support in the run-off to the last presidential poll.Speaking in Ile Ife during the second World Congress of Oodua Peoples Union, OPU, Otunba Adams also added that the fact that OPC worked for the success of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidate during the election does not make the organisation a partisan one.According to him, the position of OPC at the time was based on principle and the conviction that Dr. Jonathan was sincere about implementing the report of Confab where position of Yoruba people regarding some sensitive national issues was properly marshalled by the delegates.His words: Let me say it clearly that we supported the immediate past President Goodluck Jonathan purely on principle of true federalism and towards the implementation of the outcome of 2014 National confab in Abuja, if he emerges as the president in 2015. Im really looking forward to attending the 32nd National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, partly because it always presents an opportunity to see old friends and to make new ones, and also because it will undoubtedly offer several opportunities to discuss the state of the world and particularly, the state of the West. I have been working on a public lands ranch for the last 35 years. When I first attended the Gathering in 1988 we were getting a lot of pressure at home from people who wanted all public land to be cattle free by 93. The early Gatherings gave people in the ranching community an opportunity to share our values and to discuss some of the challenges we faced in a setting that really fostered good communication between people who might not have been able to hear each other in more confrontational situations. One of the most important things Ive learned in the time Ive spent on the ranch were on is that management issues are often very complex, involving many variables. We run from 6200 down to 3400 and the lower pastures are completely different than the higher country. You cant make generalizations that hold true across this one ranch and you certainly cant extend what we learn here to neighboring ranches, much less to the West as a whole. We work with the U.S. Forest Service, the National Resource Conservation Service, the Arizona Game and Fish Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. We consider our permit to use 48,000 acres of public land to be a privilege, not a right, and we think it is a very good deal. We would never consider either failing to pay the modest bill we get for its use or refusing to work with people charged with preventing us from abusing our privilege. The projects Im most proud of here on the ranch all came about because we pooled our resources and experience with those of the agencies we work with to effect good changes on the ground. The Western Folklife Center community that will be attending this Gathering has members that hold political views across the political spectrum, as diverse and varied as the West we celebrate. I dont know much about the Malheur Wildlife Refuge or about the frustrations of the people who are occupying it right now, but I do know that no one speaks for all ranchers, and that any attempt to view the issues involved as a simple confrontation between the good guys and the bad guys might make for good copy but is unlikely to lead to any better understanding of or solutions to the problems at hand. For more than 20 years, the Western Folklife Center has been bringing ranchers together with federal and state government land managers as well as nonprofit conservation groups at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering to discuss land stewardship and share creative solutions that are working on private and public ranch lands across the West. I believe that these discussions have fostered positive collaborations that have helped ranch managers like myself to be good stewards of the lands we share with the American public. These discussions at the Gathering are positive and healthy because they take place in an atmosphere infused with good feelings created by a week of poetry, music, art and friendship. I am proud of my involvement with an organization that has helped ranchers communicate with the world about things we value. I think that any opportunity to communicate with people who have or will certainly come into contact with opposing views regarding public lands ranching is essential and worth supporting and I applaud the Western Folklife Center for the role it has played in that debate from the start. ELKO Ramon Zugazagas Lets Have Lunch cooking workshop at the 32nd Cowboy Poetry Gathering drew a group of locals, and those as far away as Canada, to celebrate food and a chef who, participants say, puts his very soul into the food he creates. We always take cooking classes every Cowboy Poetry, but we couldnt miss Ramons because when he had his restaurant we ate there two and three times a week, and we miss him so much, said Sharon Bachman. These classes have been so much fun, said Janell Barton. She described to the Free Press how they provide fun recipes and even experiences such as making raviolis from scratch with Luc Gerber of Lucianos and the fellowship of the Gathering. This workshop, at the Elko Basque Club, was for the creative and the nostalgic soul, especially those who ate at the former Basque restaurant, Biltoki. Zugazaga, a Basque chef, created an array of entrees and a special starter, the chefs take on cabbage soup. The Class At the end of the class, participants were able to enjoy a full-bodied red wine and homemade dressing, meatballs, beef tongue and chicken. Zugazaga created a fun and light-hearted environment. At one point, he asked participants, Everybody knows how to make meatballs, you want to do that? He then asked the class what goes into meatballs. There were guesses of breadcrumbs, peppers, onions and more. The chef started with the basics of salt, garlic powder and black pepper. This endeavor became a group effort, starting with a class member kneading 12 eggs into the meat and ending with a group of five or six rolling the meat into breadcrumbs. Its great just to learn different cooking, said Jay Caldwell. This is his third time at the Gathering. He participated at the 10th, 20th and now the 32nd. While some came for the cultural aspect, others came for the love of both Zugazaga and his food. Hes the hardest working man I know, said Al Bernarda, explaining how Zugazaga kept his restaurant open seven days a week starting at 4 or 5 a.m. to prepare for the day. His heart is in the cooking, said Patricia Hennessy-Nelsen, who attended the class because she had eaten at Biltoki and missed the restaurant. She also shared a memory of Zugazagas giving nature. One night she brought a 95-year-old artist, Burt Dinius, to eat at Zugazagas establishment. It was a freezing cold night and after dinner, even though it was near closing, Zugazaga helped her fix a wheelchair. There is love and joy with his cooking, she said. Eileen Worthington was another participant who loved his food and her husband enjoys Zugazagas salad dressing. With this class, she was able to enjoy his food and get the recipe for the dressing. She also discussed the camaraderie of the Gathering. You meet nice people who become old friends even though you only see each other once a year, Worthington said. The Chef Zugazaga, who retired after over 30 years, was asked by the Gathering to teach a class; he has done this a couple of times. He prepared the same food as he did in his restaurant. I enjoy both, food and people, he said, explaining what makes him want to teach these classes. I miss people, you know, the good people, said Zugazaga. I saw today the people, I mean local people and people all the way from Canada. Theyve been coming to my cooking class for 30 some years and, when I had a restaurant, they always were in my restaurant. Zugazaga said he enjoys doing things like this once in a while. I like cooking because I like challenging myself, doing new things, he said. If you own a restaurant, you enjoy the people, said Zugazaga. A suspect arrested in Operation Taula on Tuesday arrives at the courthouse. Monica Torres The Civil Guards anti-corruption operation in Valencia this week, which has so far produced 24 arrests, was one of the biggest sweeps that has been launched against public officials in recent years. Judicial authorities overseeing Operation Taula, which broke on Tuesday, have placed an additional five people under official investigation. The suspects, who all have ties to the Popular Party (PP), are under investigation for charging commissions in exchange for public contracts and may have been involved in illegal party financing, sources said. Officials targeted local governments in the provinces of Valencia, Alicante and Castellon as well as the Diputacion de Valencia the provincial authority. Sources said that former Valencia Mayor Rita Barbera and her former deputy economy chief, Gerardo Camps, are also under investigation. But as current lawmakers, they are both are protected by immunity, which can only be lifted by the Supreme Court if a Valencia judge outlines their motives as to why they should be prosecuted. Heres a list of the main suspects in Operation Taula: Rita Barbera Rita Barbera. Rita Barbera served as mayor of Valencia from 1991 to 2015. Since September, she has been a senator for the Valencia region. Barbera has not been arrested or placed under official investigation. In various surveillance recordings turned over by a former top official, Marcos Benavent, suspected co-conspirators refer to the lady boss as someone having knowledge of the alleged kickback schemes taking place. Authorities believe the conversations point to Barbera, who has denied taking part in any illegal activities. Hours after the arrests and searches were made, PP officials in Valencia assured the media that the former mayor was calm at home. Gerardo Camps Gerardo Camps Valencias former deputy regional premier Gerardo Camps is now a lawmaker in Congress who enjoys immunity from prosecution. Only the Supreme Court can strip him of this privilege if it decides he should face trial. Camps was also Valencias economic chief from 2003 to 2011, under the past PP administration of regional premier Francisco Camps. He has a close relationship with two suspects arrested Tuesday: former Valencia city councilor Maria Jose Alcon and Vicente Burgos, former director of Fundacio Jaume II El Just. The former deputy regional chief said he was served no papers in Operation Taula. PP colleagues who are corrupt are not true colleagues, he said following the arrests. Alfonso Rus Alfonso Rus. Alfonso Rus served as provincial chief from 2007 to 2015 and was mayor of Xativa from 1995 to 2015. He was also head of the PP in Valencia province from 2004 to 2015. Authorities consider Rus one of the masterminds of the alleged kickbacks scheme, and conducted extensive searches of his home and businesses throughout the day on Tuesday. Last May, he was suspended from the PP after recordings implicated him in acts of corruption a charge he has always denied. In one of the recordings, he can be heard counting the money given to him from a commission. Alfonso Novo Alfonso Novo. Alfonso Novo became Barberas accidental successor at City Hall after she failed to muster enough support to form a government following the regional and municipal elections of May 2015. Novo was the city planning chief before that and, up until Tuesday, president of the local PP chapter. After he became an official target in Operation Taula, Novo said he was innocent and had no plans to give up party membership. Valencia PP officials have said, however, that anyone arrested or placed under investigation will be removed from their posts and suspended from the party. Maximo Caturla Maximo Caturla. Maximo Caturla was deputy chief of the Valencia province, regional education secretary, and CEO of the public corporation Construcciones e Infraestructuras Educativas Sociedad Anonima (Ciegsa), which specializes in building school infrastructure. On Tuesday, the Civil Guard searched the headquarters of Ciegsa, which, according to the current government, ran up billions of euros in cost overruns last year. Caturla can also be heard in Benavents secret recordings, allegedly talking about illegal commissions. David Serra David Serra. David Serra served as regional education secretary, deputy in the regional parliament, and deputy secretary for the PPs organization committee in Valencia. Just like Gerardo Camps, Serra was part of Francisco Camps inner circle. Serra is currently facing charges for illegal financing of the PPs Valencia chapter in the massive Gurtel kickbacks-for-contracts case, which is expected to go to trial this year. Maria Jose Alcon Maria Jose Alcon. In one of the conversations secretly recorded by Benavent, the former Valencia councilor complains that, because of taxes a private contractor had to pay, her share of the kickback was low. There is only 2% 9,000. Thats only enough to buy a couple of gifts and organize four parties, admits Benavent in the recording. Alcon is married to Alfonso Grau, a former deputy mayor of Valencia who is a defendant in the ongoing Noos trial, which has also ensnared a member of the Spanish royal family, King Felipes sister Cristina. In the last elections, Barbera included her in one of the last positions on the partys slate, but Alcon renounced her candidacy when the recordings were made public. After testifying before a judge on Tuesday, she was released on 150,000 bail. Luis Salom Luis Salom. Luis Salom, a city advisor, is one of the most active Twitter users in the Valencia PP. He was a scourge of corruption suspects from other parties, and also lashed out against various left-wing politicians and journalists. Salom registered the names Guanyem Barcelona and Guanyem Valencia at the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, and later demanded money for a charity in exchange for giving up his rights to those same names, which were being sought by leftist political groups. English version by Martin Delfin. Former Spanish PM Felipe Gonzalez in his Madrid office. ULY MARTIN Its been 20 years since Felipe Gonzalez walked out of the Spanish prime ministers office, and 19 since he stopped heading the Socialist Party (PSOE). Yet his influence on the party and on society has only grown in all this time, especially now that the country is in the grip of a political crisis of unpredictable consequences and with no easy solutions. In an interview with EL PAIS, Gonzalez explains his point of view on the current situation, and offers a framework for finding a way out of the political impasse. The former head of government holds that the countrys two main forces, the Popular Party (PP) and the PSOE, should set aside concerns over their own future and put Spains interests first. Gonzalez says that acting prime minister Mariano Rajoys decision not to stand for office at the upcoming investiture session due to lack of congressional support, yet preventing another party leader from doing so, is irresponsible. For some time now, the system born out of the Transition and the 1978 Constitution has been showing signs of wear He also warns about the risks of an alliance between the Socialists and Podemos, a party that he says is trying to liquidate our democratic framework of coexistence, and while theyre at it, liquidate the Socialists as well. While he does not defend any specific party combination, he would rather see a progressive government with a reform program, although he sees this as a difficult option because there is no such majority in parliament right now. In any case, he believes that neither the PP nor the PSOE should prevent the other from forming a government if they themselves cannot. Question. Do you feel that the current crisis could be proof that Spains political system is in crisis? Answer. For some time now, the system born out of the Transition and the 1978 Constitution has been showing signs of wear. After more than three decades that can only be described as a historical success for Spain, the system needs reform and regeneration. But existing attitudes based on either doing nothing or on liquidating the entire system are giving us very little leeway for the kinds of reforms that are increasingly necessary. There is a very strong rejection of Rajoy, who is refusing to accept his responsibility as head of the PP and of government The financial crisis and its terrible economic and social consequences have fueled the feeling that change is required. Many citizens feel that certain rights that they feel entitled to, in health and education for instance, are now endangered. People have also suffered from unemployment, wage devaluation, job instability and the ensuing loss of dignity in work. And now that a fragile recovery is underway, citizens see that inequality is not being corrected. And the weariness is growing apace with the constant trickle of corruption cases. So we are effectively experiencing something like the end of a cycle, but without seeing a reform project that is essential to Spain. In the 1980s we knew where we were and what we wanted to be, but like at other times in our own history, it seems like weve gone off course and no longer know where we are headed or who we are. Spain is lacking a reform project. Q. So why did the PP win the most votes? A. The right-wing vote is more concentrated around the PP than the left-wing vote is around a single party. But the really relevant fact is that the PP has been unable to interpret the outcome for what it really is: a defeat. Not just because they lost nearly 60 deputies, but because they are being rejected by all other parties. There is a very strong rejection of Rajoy, who is refusing to accept his responsibility as head of the PP and of government. There is an equally strong rejection of Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias over his policy of liquidation. But neither one wants to see it that way. Q. What about the Socialists? Has the PSOE properly interpreted the election outcome? A. That erroneous reading also affects the Socialist Party, which was clearly defeated at the polls. Q. Is there a progressive majority in this parliament? A. I wish there were, because that would be my preferred option for Spain. But I dont think there is. That does not mean there is a conservative majority, either. Thus our current difficulties. Q. So who should try to form a government? A. The logical thing would be for the minority with the greatest representation to try, and that is the PP. But Rajoys decision not to bid for reinstatement yet refusing to step aside is so irresponsible that it is hard to put a name to it. What is he trying to do? See others crash and burn and then offer himself as the only solution? Is he thinking only of himself, without thinking of Spains interests? Felipe Gonzalez with Venezuelan opposition member Lilian Tintori in Caracas in June. M.G. (EFE) Q. Do you believe that a government where the only thing in common is being anti-PP is legitimate? A. I dont like anti governments, whatever they are against, although I have lived through them myself. Remember the Go Away, Mr Gonzalez campaign? Governments should be there to carry out policies, not to negate those of others. But its not a problem of legitimacy, as you say. Its obvious that the reforms Spain needs will require the support of the PP in many cases, because that is the reality of our parliament. At the same time, it seems logical to call on the PP to say what it is prepared to do out of conviction, and as such, it is logical to expect it to act accordingly, whether it is in government or in the opposition. Q. Are you in favor of a grand coalition between the PP, PSOE and Ciudadanos? A. Absolutely not. It looks to me like a proposal born out of failure, and it will not ensure the governability of Spain in the medium term. The failure stems from a strategy that some call the government of the Ibex, a PP-Ciudadanos alliance that creates a squeeze effect against the Socialist Party by supporting the rise of Podemos. Do you remember Rajoy on December 6 encouraging Iglesias? Youre doing well, Pablo, youre doing well, he said to him. But that failed, and they moved on to the slogan Let's save Private Sanchez, which was designed to sink the candidate by making [Socialist leader Pedro] Sanchez responsible for the stability that they were defending. To top it off, handing the opposition space to Podemos is a really stupid move, rather than just a mistake, which is generated by their lack of vision for Spain in the medium term. Look, if they dont carry out the reforms that we need, including democratic regeneration in the face of the rampant corruption that confronts us every day, we are helping feed those who want to liquidate the democratic framework that we currently enjoy. This is a moment more of short-term, opportunistic sidesteps, or of personal survival as in Rajoys case, than of long-term visions that would provide answers to the challenges facing Spain Q. What, then, would be the best government possible? A. Thats a lot to ask in an interview like this one, but I believe the time has come to consider our citizens and drop the kind of card-sharp strategies we saw last Friday. No one will be surprised to hear that at this stage in my life, I would rather see a government with a program for Spain that has been agreed upon, even if it is not the government that I am the most keen on personally. We can count the number of congressional seats in two ways: as those on the left and the right, or as those who have signed up to a reform project for Spain, an axis with no place for those who want to end that reality or put it at risk. If political parties were talking about government policies rather than parliamentary combinations that are incompatible with government stability, the answer would be less complicated. But this is not the current climate. We are seeing just another moment of short-term, opportunistic sidesteps, or else of personal survival as in Rajoy's case, rather than a moment of long-term vision that would provide answers to the challenges facing Spain. We need to mend the fractures to social cohesion caused by the policies enacted during the crisis Q. Any examples of those short-term sidesteps? A. One example: PP and Ciudadanos have 163 deputies. On the other hand, the PSOE, Podemos and United Left have 161 deputies. This last option would be a kind of tripartite. So the PP could try to form a government, either with Rajoy or another candidate, along with Ciudadanos. It could also be the PSOE, by talking and negotiating with Ciudadanos, and approaching the amalgam of Podemos while underscoring the essential elements required to talk about a government for Spain. In short, we have to understand the new reality that voters want: they are asking for dialogue and agreements. And there could be a repeat situation, except in worse conditions, if the political leaders dont assume the outcome of the vote and return the responsibility over to citizens in new elections. Q. And a PSOE government with Ciudadanos? Do you see that as a possibility? A. Reaching an agreement with Ciudadanos would mean having a basis for the reforms that we need. But if we are talking about a government of reform and progress, we need to have the number of deputies to support it. The PP needs to clarify whether its policies, which are still in the shadows, stem from conviction or from opportunism. Because there will be no important reforms if the PP vetoes everything. Q. What do you think a progressive project would be at the current time? A. We need to mend the fractures to social cohesion caused by the policies enacted during the crisis, and we need to do so with criteria based on sustainability, with a view on the moment in which Spain and the world find themselves. We have to return the dignity to peoples jobs, make them less precarious, improve salaries and link pay to productivity. We also need to reconfigure our system of universal healthcare; reach a cross-party pact on education in general and vocational training in particular; and offer real support, not just with words, for research and innovation in order to improve our ability to compete and to create decent jobs. I am worried about Spain being irrelevant in the engine room of the European Union, because the process is one of shared sovereignty, not of handing over sovereignty Q. Do you believe that the PSOE should negotiate with the PP? A. It is indisputable that there should be dialogue with the PP. Its quite another thing whether there will be a margin or not to agree on things that would facilitate the reforms I just listed. The style of the Rajoy administration has been one of decrees and impositions without any kind of dialogue, and that is what we need to try and get over. In a democracy you have to respect the mandate you have received from voters, and that includes unreserved dialogue. Q. How important is Europe in the search for a solution to the current crisis in Spain? A. I am a pro-European who is critical of the errors made by the European Union in the fight against the crisis. Im seriously concerned about the challenges the EU faces with regard to issues that cannot be avoided: refugees, the British referendum, security risks and more. But I am also very concerned that the subject of the European Union is missing from our own campaigns and from the current debates. I am worried about Spain being irrelevant in the engine room of the European Union, because the process is one of shared sovereignty, not of handing over sovereignty so that others can make decisions for us. English version by Susana Urra and Simon Hunter.